RE: McCain: Where's the Beef?

[Jake Berry's response to "The Search for Policy in McCain's Appeal" by Jack Random. Reprinted Below.]

Essay after essay you keep nailing it! The neo-cons are completely transparent in their quest for permanent rule. If they can slip McCain in and he can last for a few years, maybe a full term or more then electing the vapid beauty queen will be easy. The are working for an additional 12-16 years in control of the executive and therefore judicial branches. If they can manage that and keep the people divided among themselves enough to keep the legislative in check or completely submissive they will be able to complete their agenda: the dismantling of the government in favor of a figurehead government that enacts the will of the ruling class. Welcome to the new dark ages.

Regardless of Obama's politics, he is not McCain. This means he is not the chosen vehicle of the powers that be. The skinny kid with the funny name is all that stands between the U.S. and the ascent of a new type of American fascism. There has been a tendency toward this kind of oligarchy since the beginning (the anti-sedition laws under Adams and Wilson, for example). We are perilously close to the end of daylight. The only thing that would awaken the populace in large enough numbers should this election go to McCain would be a great depression.

Only a few thousand people in two or three states will likely make that decision for us. How can anyone remain undecided at this point? It makes you wonder whether or not the majority really wants representative government. Perhaps they prefer a strong central authority accompanied by HDTV and all the amusements they can consume.

I hope that this is cynicism. I fear that it is realism.

Jake Berry (jakebridget@bellsouth.net)



JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.



THE SEARCH FOR POLICY IN McCAIN’S APPEAL:
NOT A PENNY’S WORTH OF DIFFERENCE

By Jack Random


Stand up for the wealthy and the ruling elite!

Stand up and fight for lower corporate tax rates!

Stand up for the policies that have placed the nation at the precipice of disaster!

Stand up and fight for oil and coal!

Stand up for labor exploitation!

Stand and fight for the right to work at lower wages!

Stand up for nuclear waste!

Stand up for privatization of Medicare and Social Security!

Stand up and fight to put my finger on the trigger of nuclear extinction!

Listening to John McCain at the Republican National Convention, you would have thought he was opposing eight years of catastrophic Democratic rule. His call to arms should be answered in kind:

Where is the beef?

John McCain says he is his own man. He says he marches to his own beat. He says he stands up to corporate interests. He says he is a different kind of Republican.

He says a lot of things that the Bush-Rove-McCain team believes will win him votes but if we look at his policies, there’s not a dime, not a nickel, not a thin copper penny’s worth of difference between John McCain and George W. Bush.

Those who have been searching McCain’s slogans for real policy reform have consistently come up empty. After his much ballyhooed speech, the search goes on.

TAX POLICY: RENEW BUSH CUTS, CUT CORPORATE TAX RATE.

McCain’s advocacy of making the most inequitable tax reform in history permanent – the Bush tax cuts that have contributed so much to our current economic crisis – is at once hypocritical (he opposed them as recently as three years ago) and an obvious pander to the corporate elite. His proposal to cut the corporate tax rate by ten percent seems reasonable enough until you look under the hood.

As McCain so often pontificates, America has the second highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. What he does not say is that our internationally based corporations rarely if ever pay them.

“You may have heard: U.S. corporations face one of the highest income tax rates in the world…so that what comes through is the assertion that corporations pay too much in taxes. This is simply untrue if your basis for comparison is the developed world. The truth is that while the 35% corporate income tax rate is high indeed, the creativity and global reach of U.S. corporations make them among the most lightly levied. Between 2000 and 2005, U.S. corporate taxes amounted to 2.2% of the GDP. The average for the 30 mostly rich member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was 3.4%.”

(Igor Greenwald, “The Invisible Hand: High Corporate Tax Rate Is Misleading.” Smart Money, January 25, 2008.)

So the reform in McCain’s tax cut policy is nothing more than a slight of hand – the same old Bush-Rove tactic of “Let’s not and say we did.” Corporations are not clamoring for lower tax rates because they don’t pay them. Still, it’s nice for them to know McCain cares.

ENERGY POLICY: OIL DRILLING, NUKES, COAL.

As an afterthought to McCain’s energy policies, he promises to increase spending on solar and wind power. This is one of the Bush-Rove favored tactics. It is the nature of a growing nation combined with the inflationary trend of currency that if we do nothing at all spending will grow. This is why Bush can claim to have spent more money on [fill in the blank] than any president in history.

The truth is: Like Bush, McCain will give tax incentives for renewable energy research to oil companies who will spend a large chunk of it on television commercials.

The cry of “Drill Now!” at the RNC is nothing more than a propaganda campaign. Unless we have found a way to economically steal Canadian and Russian oil reserves from the North Slope of Alaska (we have not) there is not an expert in the world who will claim that drilling will have any significant impact on energy dependence or the cost of gas.

The idea of safe nuclear energy is a myth that has tragically been embraced by both major parties and they ought to know better. Watch the unfolding events in France as they struggle with dying rivers, toxic land and poisoned drinking water. The million-year problem of nuclear waste will not go away. How long will it be acceptable to bury our poisons in other people’s back yards before we accept that nuclear energy is not the answer?

The same holds for the myth of “clean” coal. To the extent that sequestration is possible, it would be so expensive that hamsters generating power on a spinning wheel would be more viable.

The Bush-McCain-Rove people know these realities but they do not care. When push comes to shove, they will scrap the adjective and give us all the dirty coal our lungs can suffer.

Pollution? Climate change? Let’s not and say we did.

EDUCATION REFORM: CHOICE = PRIVATIZATION.

Of all the lies the Bush-Rove-McCain team promotes, this may be the most insidious. Under the draconian measures of No Child Left Behind, public schools are beginning to resemble assembly lines. Test scores are up but inspiration, creativity and adaptability are lost.

It is a losing game. The idea is and always has been to transfer public funds to private schools where the righteous can teach young minds the virtues of Republican values. Why is it no one ever asks why private schools are not subjected to the same rigorous testing standards as the public schools? Private schools bolster their results the same way Bush did in Texas: By removing students who hurt the bottom line.

As for the idea that education is the answer to our economic troubles, that is a down and dirty lie. Tell us what jobs we can prepare for that will not be subject to the exportation of labor under the mandates of global free trade?

TRADE POLICY: FREE TRADE.

Recently, Dell Computers announced they were closing down their manufacturing centers, laying off thousands of workers, with the intent of contracting out their manufacturing operation. Translation: They will export those jobs to other countries where workers have little or no rights and are paid slave wages. The stock went up on a down day.

That is free trade in a nutshell: It ought to be called a corporate free ride. The global economy has been used to institutionalize labor exploitation in underdeveloped nations. The cost is born by workers in developed nations in the form of lower wages, loss of labor standards and cutting unions out of the process.

Where does John McCain stand on trade and labor rights? Somewhere to the right of J.P. Morgan. He has never voted against a Free Trade agreement.

“I'm the biggest free marketer and free trader that you will ever see.” (Republican Presidential Debate, December 12, 2007.)

McCain has vehemently embraced “right to work” laws that are nothing but a scheme to outlaw union organization in the workplace. Even in the hard times we are now facing, he voted against raising minimum wage and against extending unemployment benefits.

HEALTH CARE: PRIVATIZATION.

When you peel back the rhetoric and strip away the phony compassion, the Bush-McCain-Rove policies always come down to privatization. If they had their way, they would privatize Social Security, education and Medicare. McCain supported Bush’s failed initiative to begin a privatization plan for Social Security. He voted to cut Medicare funding and opposed reauthorization and funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

His proposal for health care reform would reclassify health care premiums as taxable income. Is that really the kind of reform America wants? Reminiscent of the gas tax holiday, he would hand out tokens in the form of tax breaks while giving a free hand to private insurance companies.

Anyone who believes that the party of rugged individualism, the party that is fundamentally opposed to social services, the party that still believes the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a communist conspiracy, will reform Medicare to the benefit of the people is delusional.

If it were in their power, they would scrap all domestic programs and let the chips fall.

BALANCING THE BUDGET: EARMARKS.

Another of the tricks exploited by the McCain-Bush-Rove machine is that they will speak of small matters in a manner that makes them seem important. McCain has claimed that he could save $100 billion overnight by eliminating the add-on expenditures known as “earmarks.” When pressed, the McCain campaign had to admit they invented the figure.

(Michael Dobbs, The Fact Checker: “McCain’s Fantasy War on Earmarks,” Washington Post, 5/23/08).

If McCain is serious about eliminating this congressional tradition – one that is often used in legislative negotiations – then he is dreaming. If not, he is posturing.

When you examine McCain’s reputation as a Maverick, it is 90% fluff. He postures a lot but when it comes down to action, he generally goes along for the ride.

The most moving part of McCain’s convention speech was the telling of his experience as a Prisoner of War in Vietnam. It was moving to hear a proud man admit that the enemy pushed him until he broke. It is sadder still when you realize that the party he represents in this race for the White House has done the same: They pushed him until he broke. No longer will he speak out for compromise on immigration policy or tolerance for gays and lesbians. No longer will he oppose a tax cut policy favoring the elite at a time of war. No longer will he stand strong against torture and for the Geneva Conventions. The new John McCain knows his limitations and plays his part.

What McCain sacrificed to become his party’s nominee for president was whatever remained of his integrity and individuality.

The Maverick, if he ever truly existed, is long dead. What remains is the typical Bush-Rove politician.

Why mess with a winning formula?

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE DAILY SCARE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.

SARAH PALIN: Church Lady Meets Fargo

Let’s be honest: The Republicans would have cheered a lip synch performance by Milli Vanilli on the third night of the National Convention, a crowning of the unknown Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as the vice presidential nominee. Anything short of a tumble into the orchestra pit was destined to be hailed a triumph.

The good news is: Sarah Palin can read a script. She was better than any of the speakers preceding her (primary losers) and vastly superior to John McCain’s preferred candidate in turncoat Senator Joe Lieberman. Unlike the miserable bore Lieberman played for Al Gore in the year 2000, Palin took to the traditional role of attack dog like a gator takes to swamps. She delivers every demeaning, misleading and outright venomous attack with a smile to her admiring family, as they cradle their mystifyingly quiet babies.

The bad news is: She opened herself up to attacks in kind. She throws punches like Sonny Listen but we still don’t know how she takes one. They called her Sarah Barracuda in high school but this ain’t no pick up game with the girls. This is the big leagues.

While we’re being honest, let’s all acknowledge that she’s not all that. We’ve seen Obama and Sarah Palin is no Obama. She did all right for a feisty first address but her vocal quality invites comparisons somewhere between the Church Lady of the old Saturday Night Live and a character from the Coen brothers’ Fargo. Do they really talk like that in Alaska? She has a peculiar facial expression in which she scrunches her nose as if the subject of her discourse is so foul she cannot bear the stench.

Comedians will have a great time as long as she lasts on the national stage. (Bring back Tina Fey!)

Moreover, the biographical sketch we were provided by Republican operatives has already begun to unravel. She collected tons of pork barrel dollars for a community of seven thousand people. How does that wash? She supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it. She has shown a vindictive streak that plays out in her politics. She invokes God in political discourse. She is intolerant of those who do not conform to her notion of God’s plan.

It is becoming clear that the Republican Party tabbed her as an up and comer early on. They sent an operative to take over the local politics of a little Alaskan town. The big money came down the pike and everyone was happy. The operatives shaped her, worked her and helped her formulate policies. They told her to oppose the Bridge to Nowhere. They told her to take a stand against earmarks – even though she made it her business to collect them as mayor and as governor.

I doubt anyone thought she was being trained for this year’s presidential election but here she stands, ready or not. Like a sandlot phenom, she came out hitting. Now we’ll find out if she can hit a curve ball.

Jazz.

Mansel: The Deadliest Convention

McCain makes his way through the bowels of the Straight Talk Express and dodges silk stockings dripping on his suit and buckets of ammo from assault rifles being kicked around on the floor by staffers. It's a new day on the campaign trail with target practice at protesters and an interview with Rush Limbaugh all by 7:00 am.

CNN has forgotten all about the death and destruction of the hurricane and focused solely on the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's teenage daughter. If she was from the south there could be the comparisons to Britney Spears but in Alaska it's a different story.

As global warming takes center stage alongside teen pregnancy each bitter slice of ice that falls down into the frigid waters off the coast of Alaska it's like John McCain has fallen into the Deadliest Convention of his life.


- Chris Mansel

Mansel: McCain in Utah

Circling the Democratic Convention center in Denver, Colorado in an unmarked Chevy van is John McCain. With no other people with him, his short little arms making wide turns at intersections, spitting out the window and listening to an audiobook of Mein Kampf read by Tom Selleck, he thinks of ways to combat the enthusiasm that Obama has brought to his campaign. Suddenly the van blows a tire and McCain is on foot. A young man picks him up but the young man does not recognize the older man in the BYOB baseball hat.

McCain ends up at a dormitory in Utah reading the Koran with a mixed up youth who has been hoarding AAA batteries for a bomb to blow all the hair off his snoring roommate. Whenever McCain tries to get up to leave, the young man waves a G.I. Joe at McCain and quotes from the Koran in a low voice.

A quick call to Lieberman could end it all but who will his running mate be?


- Chris Mansel

Mansel: McCain's Secret Obit

From the unreleased obituary,

Here lies John McCain, former babysitter to Joe Lieberman, who became senile after losing the vice-presidency in 2008. Lieberman who in a death pact blackmailed McCain into dressing as Richard Nixon and waltzing into the room and announcing like William F. Buckley that each day had begun at least a dozen times. McCain also has to read Mein Kampf to Lieberman while crouched over a portrait of Prescott Bush.

- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: McCain Top Ten

The John McCain Top 10

1. It is said that McCain has begun refusing meat in order to sharpen his teeth.
2. John McCain never sodomized a rubber chicken dinner he didn't like.
3. When it comes to medication on the campaign trail John McCain sets his sights on pharmaceutical cocaine and human growth hormone.
4. John McCain is banned from Howard Johnson for urinating polling results onto linen napkins.
5. In Chicago recently John McCain appeared in a publicity photo dressed as a cheerleader with a gland condition.
6. John McCain believes a bungled execution is a good execution.
7. McCain thought a guillotine was a new hybrid.
8. Once during a game of billiards John McCain was heard to shout, "Chalk it, like they do in Saigon!"
9. When asked if he would pardon any African-Americans when in office McCain replied why has Obama committed a crime?
10. Lynne Cheney's new book is called, Laura: The Prostrate Years.


- Chris Mansel

Jake's Word re: The Devil Down in Georgia

[Response to Jack Random's "The Devil Down in Georgia" (below).]

Absolutely. This is the best possible circumstance for the neocons. The war against terrorism is difficult to perpetuate endlessly because the public grows tired of fighting a vague, invisible, uncertain enemy. But the majority of the U.S. public remembers the Cold War very well and that makes it easier to sell. It involves certainties. Russia, drunk with new wealth and a new epoch of Czars, has recovered from its experiment with liberal democracy and reasserts itself as a superpower once again. The neocons must be ecstatic. This is the global politics they trained in and understand so well. It is the philosophical heart of the Project for a New American Century. Both the leadership in Moscow and Washington are well aware the game is back on and they settle in for the deep freeze behind mountains of wealth.

Indeed, what could Saakashvili have been thinking? I find it hard to believe he could be so ignorant of history, of the crimes of the Bush administration or the eagerness of Russia to reassert itself. Perhaps he is deeply invested in the military-industrial complex. Perhaps he is willing to sacrifice the safety of his own citizens in order to be part of the new front line - an egomaniacal delusion in which he is a heroic political soldier for democracy.

As usual, the bottom line is the bottom line and the price is paid in human blood. Human sacrifice by any other name is still barbarous and the 21st century barbarians could not be more obvious.


JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.


THE DEVIL DOWN IN GEORGIA:
Resurrecting the Cold War

By Jack Random


“In the 21st century nations do not invade other nations.”

Senator John McCain, August 13, 2008


It is inconceivable that a major candidate for president of the United States of America should be unaware that the government he wishes to lead began the 21st century with a foreign policy of aggressive war and military domination christened by the invasions of two sovereign nations.

When that candidate is a long-standing political front man for the Neoconservative brain trust that authored the policy (Project for a New American Century), it strains the last fibers of credulity. For a man who considers himself a foreign policy expert, Senator John McCain has taken his place alongside our brash lame duck president as an embarrassment to the nation.

Is he demented? Does he consider our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq incursions, diplomatic overtures or simply humanitarian assistance?

As Vladimir Putin might say: If Iraq is an incursion then Russia’s actions in neighboring Georgia are little more than a firm handshake.

Not to be outdone, our president took a respite between vacations to issue a warning reminiscent of a former era but it played more like a bullied child: If you don’t stop now, I’m not going to be your friend any more!

One of the more fascinating aspects of the American response has been substituting references to Georgia with Iraq and Russia with America. Consider transcriptions of these gems from the mouth of our clueless leader:

“[Iraq’s] sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. [Washington] must live up to its commitment to withdraw its invading forces from all [Iraqi] territory.”

This one does not require transcription:

“Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.”

Are John McCain and little George reading from the same script?

What is most puzzling in this conflict is the behavior of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili who triggered the Russian response by taking military action in South Ossetia. The reaction was as predictable as the salivation of Pavlov’s dogs but Saakashvili seems perplexed that America and her allies have not rushed to his government’s defense.

Is the man insane? Did he really think that America, with its forces bogged down in two major occupations, was eager to start another war with Russia on the Russian border?

If he is not a madman then someone made promises they had no intention of honoring.

If Saakashvili has not yet awakened to the fact that he and his nation are sacrificial pawns in this game of international chess, he soon will. His mentor-ally in the United States wasted no time pushing through a missile defense agreement with Poland – a move that every objective observer knows is not directed at Iran or “rogue states” but at Moscow.

Not content with the damage they have already done to America’s standing in the world, the neoconservative horror factory still in charge of our foreign policy (along with their profiteering allies in the military industrial complex) have used the waning days of the Bush White House to put in place the necessary elements for a return to the Cold War – a war that was never cold and cost millions of innocent lives culminating in Vietnam.

Are we safer now, Mr. President?

Pay no attention to the ravings of John McCain. He is not president and his ignorance in critical matters of foreign policy is so profound it numbs the mind. We are not going to war on the Russian border. We will not severe the primary source of Europe’s energy supply. We will not risk a military confrontation between nuclear powers to bolster the government of Mikheil Saakashvili.

We are not completely insane.

We will however return to the insanity of an arms race – nuclear and otherwise – pitting us against the Russians with the Chinese content for now to sit this one out.

If the policies of intimidation and confrontation continue, there will be wars with nations such as Georgia and Ukraine serving as our proxies.

There will be blood and there will be blood money for corporate mercenaries and arms dealers.

The devil has come to Georgia but he is not Vladimir Putin. Russia is only acting as we would act if a major foreign power came to our border – as we would have if the Soviets had not backed down when they attempted to plant missiles in Cuba circa 1962.

No. The devil down in Georgia wears the familiar mask of the Neocon. The names behind the mask are Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, Abrams, Kristol, Khalilzad, Bush, Cheney and McCain.

They have bankrupted the nation, morally and economically, but they have profited perversely from the effort. They have never lost hold of the dream that is the world’s nightmare.

They will not stop pushing until we reach the endgame of world domination or mass annihilation or both.

Rest assured, if we allow the Project for a New American Century to move forward, the world will awaken, all but a few of our allies will peel away, and America will stand and fall alone.

Jazz.

[See “John McCain and the Project for a New American Century” by Joseph A. Palermo, The Huffington Post, June 18, 2008.]

Jake's Word: The Case for Impeachment

[In response to "The Case for Impeachment" by Jack Random. Posted 8/15/08 by Newsdaily Canada and Buzzle.com.]

Beautifully, persuasively stated as always. If we only had representatives in government who possessed such talents, and such conviction.

Instead the show business of news goes on. The Edwards affair totally irrelevant yet there it is with more coverage than the war in Georgia, or yet another glaring crime by this ridiculous administration. Does nothing inspire the wrath of the American people anymore? Or are those crumbling towers so fixed in our memory as an inspiration for hatred of the "other" that nothing else makes an impression?

This afternoon I saw John McCain addressing the issue of the war in Georgia. I'm sure you saw it as well. His position was completely predictable of course, but one statement stunned me. He actually said these words, "In the 21st century one nation cannot invade another." The level of doublethink required to make such a statement requires a degree of denial that beggars the term. It made all the more obvious that McCain will continue and possibly intensify the policies of the most criminal administration in U.S. history.

On the other hand, Obama can make that very same statement and not contradict himself. He has opposed the Iraq war all along.

There is also the issue that Iraq has a $70 billion surplus while the U.S. sinks in debt in no small part due to that war. If the Iraqi people and government want the U.S. to leave, if they are financially prospering, what rationale would possibly serve as an excuse to stay?

I do not know what kind of president Barak Obama would be, but one thing is clear, he would not be the same president as John McCain and a continuation of the ongoing criminal enterprise in the nation's highest office. If the citizens of the U.S. cannot see this by now then they are truly living in a state of delusion from which they are unlikely to awake until the U.S. is no more.

Jake Berry

Newsdaily Canada: http://Newsdaily.ca.

Buzzle.com: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-case-for-impeachment-the-crimes-of-george-bush.html

Mind of Mansel: Overhead

french lanterns swinging, whaling songs
echoing down whiskey bottles too long
betrayal blowed from waves to the skies
the ship disappeared from one's own eyes
set your oars overhead this labyrinth's closed
hell is is coming as the great beast blows


ecstasy came as a hovering cloud of dust
spraying out like a filth over most of us
duck and cover or you'll parch and rust
you must keep up with our bloody lust
hold your hands overhead this wars cold
hell is just the tip of the horned beast coat


the Bastille was covered in ice so they said
the veteran wrote in blood from his head
crawled like a worm to the mailing bin
was arrested for mailing his thoughts in
hold your hands overhead this plea is out
where it ends is left in some grave doubt

Chorus:

Overhead, overhead
faith will linger but its not dead


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: McCain's Long Campaign

The Next Best Thing To Being Him

A new documentary is set to hit store shelves in a few days which features a haggard John McCain alongside a thousand mourners in India weeping then popping out a cell phone and saying into the camera, "Bipartisan or not, it's been a long campaign. That's why I depend on Verizon Wireless." The camera cuts to a surging skyline of pouring rain in the distance and off camera you can hear McCain shout, "Mud in my damn shoes, get me out of here!"

- Chris Mansel

Ode to Jesse Helms

"...between the legs hung the entrails; the vitals appeared, with the foul sack that makes excrement of what is swallowed."

Dante: Inferno, Canto XXVIII


Ah, but those words come to mind when reading of the death of Jesse Helms. Bring them forth, the limousines covered in the filth of the day. Riding on the rims, on the side of the highway, escorted by the Hell's Angels, the far right. The Minute Men down from the valley of good shooting, the natural lifers, the recent win for the NRA, let 'em gather and celebrate the death of one of their own.

- Chris Mansel

AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL: SOLAR ENERGY

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called for an incentive program in which the government pays half the cost of installing solar panels on homes (10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2008). While useful and a dramatic improvement on the status quo, the proposal still requires the homeowner to make a significant investment at a time when money is tight. An alternative proposal would be to have the government provide solar panels on houses and other structures free of charge by renting the roof space in exchange for energy savings. There is no reason the program cannot be extended to other spaces (such as parking lots) public or private.

Taxpayers would provide the funding and reap the benefits of lower energy costs as well as cleaner air. The government would assume the responsibility of maintenance and improvements as technological advances allow. With the price of oil at an all time high and showing no signs of abating, the substantial initial costs would soon be transformed into a perpetual dividend.

There is no reason such a proposal need wait for the federal government. It can readily be implemented at the state or local level funded by selling bonds with a compelling return. The social benefits and economic return on such an investment is compelling indeed. In fact it is the only kind of investment that makes sense in these trying times.


Jazz.

THE AGE OF RECKONING

We are living in an age where the consequences of past mistakes and excesses are coming to account. We have squandered our resources and attempted to hand the debt to future generations but the bill is due now and we can only pay by suffering foreclosure, homelessness, foregoing medical care, on and on. We have filled our atmosphere with the toxic wastes of the industrial age and now we suffer an endless chain of "natural" catastrophes from drought and fires to hurricanes and tornadoes, on and on. We have globalized the economy without globalizing labor and now we watch the decline of the working class both here and abroad. The decline of the working class is the decline of the consumer which will inevitably drag down the corporate beast responsible for the disaster. We have gone to war for oil and accelerated a rise in the price of gas, the price of food, the price of everything that requires fuel to produce and deliver goods to market. On and on.

We have lived under the delusion that our debts could be passed on but the Age of Reckoning is here. We cannot escape it. We must pay and future generations will pay as well.

Fear and Loathing on McCain's Pierrepoint Express

This campaign is one for the books if that book was soaked in the blood of a child whose first word was gut and last was duck. John McCain is playing catch and release with the truth so bad that the fish are just swimming by the boat, a trail of excrement clogging up the Straight Talk Express exhaust. Every redneck in the country, and some in San Juan it seems are sending in letters to McCain and including racial slurs which McCain greedily answers and some he even includes in press releases.

McCain is searching, through Google and Ancestry.com to find the descendants of Pierrepoint, the famed British hangman because he plans to open an Abu Ghraib in Puerto Rico after he gets elected. He's consulted with Donald Rumsfeld who still holds court in a Denny's in Pennsylvania off the main interstate. The cells will have four foot deep holes at the center to coil the chains which will be iced. Uniforms of the day will be blood mesh and there will be no windows.

McCain is not trying to quell any of the rumors and even trying to add to them as the wire reports come in. It is said he has begun calling reporters at home not unlike Lyndon Johnson used to call editors to try and get everyone to back his message. Just recently he called in Rev. Dobson to commit some of his underage followers to hold signs outside a rally supporting McCain but not in Denver. It's too soon for that.

- Chris Mansel

Mansel: Fundraising A Centimeter At A Time

Coveted by the undead a John McCain fundraising letter it is said can cure the most unruly sores in the after-life. Just rubbing it onto lesions garnered after a life of cruel acts against animals and mutual fund embezzlement will get you a lesion down from 6 cm to 5 cm almost immediately as reported recently in the Washington Times.

The Reverend Sun Yung Moon has begun a direct mailing program to all of his known aliases to receive as many as he can, stockpiling if you will for the afterlife, so he can anticipate those centimeters now. Worry will get you every time.

- Chris Mansel

Mansel: Divine Comedy on an Iowa Night

"Keep in thy memory what thou hast heard against thyself," the Sage bade me "but now give heed to what is here."

- Dante, The Divine Comedy: Inferno


Iowa

The skies darkened over Iowa as Air Force One departed. Residents turned to the ghostly mounds of garbage that used to be family heirlooms that were now artifacts of a time gone by. Wading through water the television news crews returned to the safety of Motels in the dry areas surrounding the damaged region and to their respective markets and remarked about the drop in the polls of Senator McCain. A man who has finally been allowed to return to the street where he has lived his whole life puts a gun to his head but stops as a large plane flies overhead. It's nightfall in Iowa again.

- Chris Mansel

Obama's Choice for VP

Hillary Clinton will not be Barack Obama's choice as a running mate.

By my accounting, a wide open field will come down to Jim Webb of Virginia, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Barbara Boxer of California or Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

All would be principled choices as each candidate opposed the Iraq War from its inception. Boxer and Feingold would suggest a traditional contemporary strategy of vying for the usual swing states -- most critically Florida. The selection of Richardson would make Hispanic voters key -- especially in the western states of New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and McCain's own Arizona. Jim Webb would be the most intriguing choice for it would hold the potential of breaking the Republican stranglehold on the south.

If you support Obama, contribute to Libertarian Bill Barr.

Jazz.

Mansel: McCain and Fox Security

A close look in a shaving kit of John McCain's these days just might surprise you. Someone on his staff was trying to sell some grainy snapshots of a bag that could be described as a shaving kit in a press club dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas recently but I wasn't buying.

I asked this individual loudly, "What the hell man, hemlock! We all know he drank the blood and not the kool aid, what does he need hemlock for? To chew on like cocoa leaves after a meal?" He shuffled around and turned his back to me and approached the ghost of Sam Donaldson. A Fox news analyst who overheard my statement started kicking me in the shins but I slapped him on the cheek and he collapsed crying, wailing into his cell phone to Fox security. Which after a half hour turned out to be someone who looked alot like William Bennett in a local University sweatshirt who actually, no lie, asked me where the culprit was.

- Chris Mansel

(christophermansel@hotmail.com)

Mansel: Stoned in Colorado

Stoned in Colorado part 1

Today while rummaging through a few press releases from the FBI I ran into Jann Wenner cooing next to an FBI agent about a trip to the White House should Obama win. Now why he would choose a story like this to do such a thing is anybody's guess. He did come out several years ago and the agents do work out but this is not a story about that, hell, there was enough incest in the camp.

Stoned in Colorado part 2

Sentenced in Utah, Warren Jeffs: that must have sent shockwaves through the straight press. You must get a good hotel room there if you know the Demi's or the Bruce's like Jann Wenner. Yes I guess starting US Weekly was a good idea. You can imagine that Rolling Stone might even do a cover and get over their pop image and get back to the days of the serious journalism if they want an invite to the White House. Lord knows Jann has been crawling up the pants leg of several…

I made a visit to Kinko's yesterday to have some random photos enlarged to see if Jann's lips were in fact infected and found an exchange of money taking place. The local magistrate was ordering a spy camera to place in the lapel of his tie so maybe there will be a sting operation or a sex tape. Imagine that, sex tape rocks Utah!

Chris Mansel

(Editor Note: Jann S. Wenner (born January 7, 1946, in New York City) is the co-founder and publisher of the pop music biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.)

Obama on Trade: In His Own Words

Indiana May 3, 2008:

I happen to believe in free trade. But we do the cause of trade no favors when we pass agreements that are filled with perks for every special interest under the sun and absolutely no protections for American workers. There’s absolutely no reason we should be giving tax breaks to corporations who ship jobs overseas. When I’m President, I will eliminate those tax breaks and give them to companies who create good jobs right here in America. We can also create jobs if we finally get serious about rebuilding our crumbling and decaying national infrastructure.

Ohio Debate 2/26/08:

As President of the United States I intend to make certain that every trade agreement that we sign has the labor standards, environmental standards and the safety standards that are going to protect not just workers but also consumers.

[Note: Many of us must decide who we can trust on the issues that matter most. One of those issues is trade. As citizens it is our responsibility to hold candidates accountable for their promises.]

Colorado: Midnight Message from the Mind of Mansel

Colorado

Jack this is the one. We have got to get out to Colorado. Planned mutilations are the words circulating through the press core. Clitoridectomies and the tattooing of infants and that's just the F.B.I. I heard from that stringer from the Milwaukee Journal, you remember the guy who is always pulling on his fingers? The guy who flipped out on a Delta flight and started screaming about Santorum eating chili beans on Air Force One while being strawed to a pulpit in Wisconsin by a Iowa super delegate? Yea, him. He said he personally witnessed three F.B.I. crime scene photographers personally trample one another while trying to get to the scene then exposing themselves while urinating and under cutting the press core to Larry Flynt of all people. It stinks Jack.

As you well know the only reason the F.B.I. doesn't take curtain calls is because you don't want to see what they are doing behind the curtain. But anyway, the Washington Post of all trade rags is willing to pay us all expenses to get down there and get the story -- not for their archives but for the front page. They've lost in the campaign but haven't we all. There's a rumor floating around here in Alabama that the whole thing was planned as a Jim Jones like retreat for the Washington Times like fun crowd but I rather doubt it. I mean after all Bangkok hasn't lost its appeal to the Congressional junket to these sick bastards yet.

- Chris Mansel

Colorado Under The Knife's Head

They know nothing of Hoodoo in Colorado and this is their downfall. Just like in Idaho but that's another lysergic tale of of fistfulls of valium and phone calls to Missouri on stolen cards, Verizon fraud and a recreation vehicle that may still be burning outside a McDonalds just out off the interstate rest area.

Imagine Jack, a sacred egg and compressed hand and sexually predatory priests joining forces with the FBI brewing plastic oils and selling them at Cracker Barrels across america next to the VHS tapes of Hee Haw and the blue glass pitchers. A conjuring crossroads has venerated into the Blackhawk helicopter region of the U.S. From now on its enonymus americanus (burning bush) and that corpse from Wisconsin and heads for burials below the fold. Not since the Crescent City was galvinised and the ehads hung from street lamps, the informants carved in the work camps have the police chewed the left arm of libation in such a manner. I tell you Jack incest in the name of religion takes on a whole new name in begot's begot.

Chris Mansel

Random Jack: Is it Just Me?

Is it just me or was the spin around the last debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton a decisive loss for George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson – the operative and the statue?

Is it just me or when Hillary kept looking at the rafters, did you think she was looking for snipers?

We have heard a lot about the Reverend Wright and the alleged elitism of Obama (Hillary Rodham Clinton playing the elitism card!) but very little about Hillary’s gaffes. The sniper fire story was flat out theater of the absurd but if you were in Ireland when Hillary claimed a substantive role in bringing the peace, you would know that gaffe was far more egregious.

It was not an associate who made these outrageous claims. It was Hillary. If Obama had made them, the race would be over.

Is it just me or does Bill Clinton’s southern drawl (is Arkansas really a southern state?) sound more and more like a used car salesman?

I lived in Nashville for five years. They don’t drawl like Bill Clinton.

I am disappointed in both Democrats for waffling on Fair Trade but Hillary’s waffling on the Iraq-Iran war is downright scary.

Is it just me or would Hillary Clinton have chosen John McCain as her running mate?

Jazz.

Mind of Mansel: American Prosthesis

American Prosthesis
By Chris Mansel

Part 1

Hospital tile and a sense of responsibility, that's what hit me when I first walked into a Veteran's hospital. I had been in triage situations in combat and hospital ships, Army hospitals in Germany, but this was different. This is the place where politicians come to be photographed and soldiers to be ignored. Any time day or night you can walk down the hallways and see blood trickling onto the floor or hear a voice crying out for help. After a while you start to wonder if all of the missing limbs aren't gathered somewhere in a room in the hospital, perhaps on another floor waiting to be reissued to another body.

It's not like the recruiting letters say, it's not like the news footage will show you. There are some who do want to return to battle but only to return to their buddies who they have fought beside for what seemed like an eternity, and there are some who want to go back and kill something, anyone. Their minds are twisted from fatigue and now their bodies deformed by gunfire or an explosion sit and drool staring at the television screen. They are never photographed with a visiting dignitary, that traffic is led away from the more troublesome rooms.

On my first visit there I saw a young Army private fall out of his room into the hallway screaming as his prosthetic limb gave way. He hit the floor hard and he swung his crutch at anyone who tried to help him up. He was crying uncontrollably. He started to shake and couldn’t stop his anger until another patient, a young black man with the lower half of his arm missing got down on the floor and took hold of him and held him as best he could until he calmed down. For a few minutes they were both cussing and yelling. The sounds they made went through the walls and out into the open, through the pressure built in the interstate by the hospital and into the neighborhoods they grew up in that would never except them back in the shape their mangled bodies were in now.

Napoleon Bonaparte said, "Go Sir, and don't forget that the world was made in six days. You can ask me for anything you like, except time." Strange words from a ruthless dictator but most of the patients in Veteran's Hospitals are here suffering from the words of ruthless dictators in one way or another. One day while touring the hospital and interviewing soldiers I came upon a young man who had lost his right arm and both legs. His demeanor was about what you'd expect. He greeted me with, "What in the hell are you and what in the hell do you want?"

I told him how sorry I was that he was in the condition he was in and I only wanted to ask him some questions. He snapped back, "Any goddamn answers you could want got blown off with my legs, man!" I backed out of the room quietly and started back down the hallway and heard him shouting back at me, "Hey, you giving up that easy, you just ain’t got it man, just ain't got it!" I stuck my head back in his doorway and he threw a glass of water at me just missing my head.

"Incoming!" He laughed loudly.

I said, "So I guess you want to talk, huh?"

His eyes cut through me as I entered the room; the rage in his voice was troubling. But it could be understood. He looked at my clothes and back up to my eyes and said, “Ever been there?”

I answered back, “Yea, four weeks ago as a matter of fact.”

“Four weeks ago…” He let the words fill the room before he spoke again. Embedded?

“No, we were doing freelance work.”

He lowered his brow, “We? You had someone else with you? Couldn’t handle it on you own?”

“Not exactly, my partner was there with me. He’s in town right now just not with me right now.”

“What he didn’t want to come in here and look at us?”

“What do you think?” I asked him this with a look to let him know the answer. We seemed to have wandered off the subject but I figured I would just let him talk. He was quiet for a few minutes and when he finally spoke again it wasn’t about my partner.

“You get hit, or Blackwater tuck you in at night like a good little mama’s bitch?”

I told him the story of Jack Random and myself and the family we helped to escape the private security forces, about the major and the redneck Army guy. He didn’t seem surprised.

He smiled and smiled a sad smile, “You think that was anything special?”

He reached down and lifted his blanket and scratched at his hip so nonchalantly that I don’t think he even realized he was doing it. The scar he revealed was hideous. I could tell he hadn’t been too long in recovery. I had seen wounds in his state before and I could tell that he had still to see several stages of draining of the wound which meant a few more times in surgery which meant more mental strain on his already fragile ego.

“Questions, like what questions? How I got my legs blown off, my arm, what? Tell me?” He asked impatiently.

I replied that I was curious about his experiences with his fellow soldiers and Iraqi civilians. I explained that I didn’t write for any major publication and I didn’t have an agenda.

He faced away from me and all the color went away from his face and said, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you man, I’m dead, just dead.” Tears began streaming down his face in a continuous flow to a point where they would not stop. He took a gun that I didn’t see and put it in his mouth and looked around the room and I thought he was going to pull the trigger. I jumped up from my chair and he fell out of the bed and I screamed: I just couldn’t help it. His face twisted with rage. I jumped back against the wall as several orderlies came to the door quickly and he took the gun out of his mouth and yelled for them to shut the fucking door.

His eyes were directly at me now and he put the gun back in his mouth and I must have gone pale because the orderlies at the small glass window in the door disappeared for a moment and came back with an older man who I guessed was a doctor I hadn’t seen before. He held up a piece of paper that had written on it a short message, “Do you have any medical conditions?”

For a moment I forgot about my safety and concerned myself with that short note. Here across from me sat a young man who had lost both his legs and one of his arms in the service of his country who now had a gun in his mouth and all they were worried about were getting sued by a journalist.

Saliva began to pour out of his mouth and the tears stopped. I felt so sorry for him but I was afraid to say anything. I had been in situations similar to this before and I had learned from experience to allow the individual to calm themselves down in their own time.

Outside the door I could hear the rustling and panic in the hallway. I could sense the sirens, the news vans, and every cliché you’ve ever seen. This was after all a Veteran’s Hospital in Washington D. C., the nation’s capital. The home of whoredom and the constant leaking ship of news that forever set sail on the putrid waters of suffering that wouldn’t for a second pass an opportunity to cover a story like this. I wondered to myself if the young man had thought past putting the gun in his mouth, if he had organized in his mind what he wanted to say or if he was so traumatized he could even see past the door of the room in his mind or with his eyes.

For a moment I looked over at him and he took the gun out of his mouth. He started to say something and raised the gun back up to his lips and squeezed the trigger a little, my eyes were so focused on his finger I could hardly breathe. But then he took the gun away from his mouth and rested it against the side of his head and said one word, “Gunship.”

There was a loud banging on the door and a voice from the other side said, “Marine you have a hostage in there, you’re a hostile force! Relinquish that weapon!” The Marine screamed out, “Perkins get the fuck away from here before I shoot you instead, asshole.”

As I watched this terrified young man, and he was young, barely over the age of twenty, I thought that grace be beguiled then it is a dishonor to the living and to the dead. The room quieted down again, almost instantly. There was an eerie silence and in the hallway as well. I wondered what kind of circus was going on outside this small room but mainly I was focused on the young man across from me, I wasn’t as much worried about my life as I was this young man getting the help he needed, surely a healthy young man wouldn’t be holding a gun to his head or in his mouth.

He spoke sooner than I thought he would, and as he began to speak there were knocks at the door which he ignored. I honestly don’t know if he heard them or not.

“If you line up three marine snipers and tell them to aim at the kneecaps of three Iraqi’s standing in the middle of twelve other Iraqi’s by the fourth shot you can be sure that only one weapon if that will be aimed at the spot where shots are coming from. There’s more danger there defending these fuckers from themselves than there is checking out for your buddy beside you.”

He looked at the floor and followed an imaginary spot across the wall up to the door to the small glass window and put the gun back in his mouth. He did this slowly and I knew then he wasn’t serious about shooting himself, I had seen this kind of hysteria before in a standoff with a police officer in Georgia. Maybe he would feel more comfortable having someone to speak through, especially in this situation. After all this was Washington and they didn’t take to having their Military Industrial Establishment being bad mouthed in print. I could vouch for that personally.

One thing that started to occur to me was the fact that this had to be exploding across the screen of CNN by now taking the attention away from the Presidential campaign and Jack had to be somewhere outside trying to get in. I had no idea if my name had been released or if he knew I was involved but he did know I was coming here today. It wasn’t too long ago we had escaped a shootout in Iraq but this was different, Jack would be running towards the weapon in question.

My Man in Canada: Chris Cook

O! Canada '08: Reviewing the Unrecognizable Nation
Written by Chris Cook
Friday, 07 March 2008

The Century has not so far been kind to those Canadians pining reminiscent for the days the country was a liberal democracy; relatively responsible actors on the world stage, the brokers of peace, guarantors of civility and fair governance in a dangerous, chaotic world.

To be fair to the successors of Brian Mulroney, the prime minister who hitched the nation's wagon to America's seemingly forever rising star through the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), destiny dealt them a crummy hand, but both the Jean Chretien and Paul Martin administrations went beyond the investment oriented FTA (later to morph, with the inclusion of Mexico, into the tripartite NAFTA agreement) "committing" Canada to both America's foreign policy objectives, and the military methods it employs to achieve them.

While more extreme than his predecessors, Stephen Harper's administration has merely accelerated the process begun by Mulroney, and furthered by the Liberal party, a process that has most dramatically manifested in the deaths of at least seventy-eight Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, and the killing and maiming and imprisoning of uncounted numbers of Afghanis.

Harper recently proposed legislation in Parliament to extend the country's entanglement in Afghanistan in the form of a promises made to NATO to continue past the already extended exit schedule of February 2009 through to the end of 2011. He did this with the complicity of the federal Liberals, whose support his minority government had to have.

The fact the majority of Canadians opposed Canada's involvement in what was ostensibly America's revenge for the 9/11 attacks, (based on the untried assumption Osama bin Laden planned and orchestrated the storied operation from his cave hideout in Afghanistan) before the launch of 'Operation Enduring Freedom' carried no freight with Jean Chretien's administration, just as majority opposition to the country's continued involvement means nothing to the current Harper regime. Canadians will continue to follow U.S. diktats in Afghanistan, and both Canadians and Afghanis will continue to pay the price for Ottawa's acquiescence.

The surrender of sovereign foreign policy is not limited to Afghanistan: Canada under Harper was first to express support for Israel's embargo against the rightfully elected Hamas government in Palestine, and uttered nary a word of protest against Israel's brutal and illegal bombing campaign over Lebanon in 2006. This support came even as one of the last Canadian peacekeepers attached to the United Nations was deliberately murdered, (with three colleagues) by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) while at his U.N. observation post in southern Lebanon.

Harper too had nothing to say about a Canadian family of seven murdered by a missile as they attempted to flee the Lebanon blitzkrieg in their car. On that occassion, Harper's team thought it more pertinent to question why the Lebanese-Canadians were visiting what was about to become a warzone, rather than demanding the IDF cease its killing spree, at least until the thousands of Canadians known to be in harm's way had a chance to evacuate.

If the official Canadian silence on Israel's serial war crimes in Palestine, crimes that translate as a measured, systematic genocide, were not dutiful enough for America and her racist client/colony in the Middle East, Stephen Harper's Conservatives too take pride of place, being among America's first and most eager accomplices in its self-proclaimed War on Terror, an essentially open-ended declaration of war on any and all standing between America and her perceived "vital interest."

The Canada/U.S. cooperation under arms is an arrangement about to get cosier in Afghanistan, where Canada's demand for a thousand more soldiers is being answered in part by France, which is expected to send as many as 700 more soldiers to relieve American forces operating in the east, enabling then a redeployment of those American soldiers to enjoin the battle at the heart of the resistance to the foreign occupation in southern Afghanistan, beside Canadian Forces.

Harper has proven the perfect pupil for neo-con Washington so far, but a breaking story, predictably dubbed in the press 'NAFTA-gate,' highlights his first failure in his masters' eyes.

In the hours before the much vaunted Clinton-Obama primaries in Ohio and Texas earlier this week, a whisp of scandal wafted south of the forty-ninth. Apparently, the war of words between the candidates, each claiming to audiences in delegate-rich, rust-belt Ohio to hating the NAFTA agreement, largely blamed for the demise of the state's manufacturing sector and loss with it of union jobs, more than the other is nothing but a con.

Agents for both camps had tipped nervous Canadian officials, telling them the NAFTA rhetoric was just that, reassuring the deal was in safe hands.

Curiously, it was the second revelation of Democrat duplicity, that of 'front-runner' Obama, that hit the airwaves. Now, Harper is being pilloried in the U.S. media, dragging down with him the reputation of the Prime Minister's office, and as Toronto Star columnist, Chantal Hebert pointed out on tonight's C.B.C. television broadcast of 'The National,' the administration's loose lips could also sink Canada's foreign services.

Hebert wonders if the Obama-embarrassing revelations would raise doubts in the minds of others who might otherwise confide in Canada, trusting their information would not lead the next evening news, either by political design, or through incompetence. This she argues could make their efforts extremely difficult and disadvantage the country.

It would be ironic if Stephen Harper, accomplished Canadian boot-lick, found himself on the wrong side of history; caught wrong-footed as the new political reality of an Obama presidency dawns.

But perhaps Hillary would smile upon her unwitting servant, who already granted one great service in a tight race needing winning. A second President Clinton would also continue Canada's newly understood role at America's side, as enacted by Harper, extending "The Mission" in Afghanistan still further, and assimilating the rest of the country's military, law enforcement, and political infrastructure.

It will doubtless make for an awkward moment for Stephen Harper, should President Barak Obama come to call. That is assuming Harper has a year left in his rule.

The Chuck Cadman affair is not going away. In that lurid case Harper emissaries offer death bed conversion to the terminally ill independent MP Cadman in exchange for a vote in the House that could bring down the erstwhile Liberals of Paul Martin.

The operatives are said to have offered an insurance policy arrangement allegedly worth up to a million dollars for Cadman's widow, (herself now the official candidate for Harper's conservatives in her late husband's riding).

Though a recording of Stephen Harper admitting he knew beforehand of the plan to make the offer to Cadman, an offer the Liberals insist is a bribe has aired nationwide, Harper does not admit to either authoring, or authorizing the plan. He does however admit to knowing about, and doing nothing to stop their plan - an illegal plan, if the Liberals are proved correct.

That makes Mr. Harper guilty of conspiracy to bribe a public official. Considering the seriousness of the charge, and the dogged grip with which the opposition has taken up the allegation, (Liberal heavy, former hockey star, Ken Dryden going so far as repeating his charge against Harper for the cameras word for word outside House of Commons' slander protections) the Cadman affair could well bring on the election Harper has been spoiling for.

Should Harper and his Republican-like Tories survive the year, or be replaced by the equally servile Liberal party, Canada in 2009 will resemble nothing more than it does today; a rump-nation, pulled along by a shortening leash; made to devote its blood and treasure in the service of a tyrannical master; made to savage the rights and freedoms at home it purportedly fights wars to instill abroad.

This is not the Canada I remember.

This is not the Canada any Canadian can remember.

[Note: Chris Cook is an editor-writer for Pacific Free Press of Canada.]

POSTSCRIPT: GENDER VS. RACE

Before we leave the subject of race versus gender in presidential politics, consider this: On the world stage, there have been numerous women elected and appointed heads of state, including the current presidents or prime ministers of Ireland, Germany, Finland, the Philippines, Switzerland, Chile, Liberia, India and Argentina.

To my knowledge, there is not and has never been an elected or appointed head of state of African descent in any non-African nation.

Gloria Steinem may consider gender the greater obstacle but world history would suggest otherwise.

Like universal non-profit health care, electing a woman president of the United States of America would secure a place in the growing community of enlightened nations but electing an African American would be entirely new ground.

Electing a woman would be catching up to the rest of the democratic world. By electing an African American, the rest of the world would have to catch up to us.

Jazz.

Jake's Word: Election Analysis

In 2008 our votes in the primaries will be more important than in the general election.

The level of complicity, intentional or not, between the current Bush war policy and the insurgency is disturbing. Perhaps the various factions have decided to restrain themselves in order to wait out the change of government in the U.S. or may return to frequent attacks next year in order to try to shape the US election. They may also be using the time to work out new coalitions against the current Iraqi government and then attempt a political coup rather than a violent one. We aren't likely to get solid information from any of the major news sources. Journalism in Iraq seems to be whatever is delivered by runners to journalists bunkered in relatively safe hotels. It seems quite certain though that nothing has been resolved.

The Republicans want to diminish Iraq as a campaign issue. If the economy doesn't slide into recession that might be enough to get a Republican candidate elected since Clinton only represents Republican lite. Absent a raging war or a recession Gulianni or Romney may appear to be a better choice to a thin majority. Either way, the American people lose. Its just a matter of which flavor of defeat you prefer.

Perhaps a strong tug to the left by voting for Kucinich in the primaries would remind Clinton that she will need those voters to win and to govern. That seems to be the best we can do at the moment.

Jake Berry

THE PURPLE COW

RANDOM JACK. DISSEMINATE FREELY.


SLINGS & ARROWS OF DIRTY POLITICS

By Jack Random


Given the critical problems of the world – problems that may be more critical to the future of human civilization on earth than any in history – what does the American electorate need to know?

Do Mormons believe that Satan was the brother of Jesus?

Was Barack Obama a drug dealer for the Ayatollahs at a school for Islamic fundamentalists?

I apologize for raising the questions and ask the readers to erase them from their minds.

[Do not imagine a purple cow.]

Even if one supports Hillary Clinton on the issues (I do not), one should refuse to sanction one of the most hypocritical mudslinging campaigns in memory. Not even Trick Dick Nixon accused his opponents of mudslinging for having the audacity to question his integrity on the war (“Nixon has Secret Plan to End War”) shortly before launching his own campaign of dirty tricks.

[Let me make this perfectly clear: I am not accusing my opponent of being a drug dealer.]

As for Mike Huckabee: What a sly dog he has turned out to be. As a self-proclaimed Christian leader, he would never suggest that Mormonism is a blasphemous cult.

[Do not think of a purple cow.]

I have no horse in the Republican race but, if not for the specter of war and the Neocons hiding behind the curtains, nothing would frighten me more than the possibility of a Romney or Huckabee presidency.

As an individual who believes that spiritual matters are a private affair and the separation of church and state is a fundamental tenet of democracy, there is no place for the likes of me in Huckabee’s or Romney’s America.

It is one thing to have candidates of both major parties pandering to the religious right; it is another to have candidates who consider themselves preordained to break down the walls of Jericho.

If American education, with its obsessive testing and faith-based values programs, has failed to inform Americans of the absolute necessity of maintaining the separation of church and state, then we are in deeper trouble than even the most cynical among us have imagined.

The last thing we need is a Christian leader, ordained by the Almighty, commanding a worldwide imperialist crusade.

Mind of Mansel: Backstage at the Book of Revelation

Spill blood on the Old Testament and it will come to life and illustrate the room. Throw it off the roof of any building in Washington D. C. and the separation of church and state will scream all the way down, the ghost of Jerry Falwell, his bloated corpse screeching and setting off car alarms all the way to Maryland parking lots.

Moses came to life in a classic ink drawing in the Supreme Court decision room the last time they tried to overturn Roe V Wade. Moses kept spitting out about his love for animals two at a time at such a high decibel that they gave up and set the right to lifers loose in the offices of junior congressman with the scent of blood wavering out of locked grins.

Airport runways are to modern politics what bathroom floors were to the ancient Romans. Exiting an airplane in the arms of staffers but knowing that that young boy or girl or lady of the evening is waiting in the limo or hotel room makes it easy to smile for the cameras when you are dangerously close in the polls. The angelic touch of the latest Cause, the latest bumper sticker colored ribbon or button, lapel pin celeb backed luncheon will press any flesh for any non-contribution giving voting or non-voting public if the little known Political rider is honored. They first came to the mind of the public through demands of rock stars or greedy performers but it’s not known that politicians have been demanding their sordid desires for years.

The most legendary rider of any politician was that of Mayor Daley of Chicago. He demanded that every time he traveled for an appearance after the violence of the convention that there be in his room four shabbily dressed young people stripped naked and chained in the shower of his hotel room and two angry Black Panthers to beat them senseless while dressed as F.B.I. informants. Also he wanted the entire room to be perfumed with the sickening smell of Mace. Daley who had built up a love for the smell could only execute his darker sexual desires while witnessing violence.

- Chris Mansel

MESSAGE FROM LEONARD PELTIER

(From Harvey Arden)

NO DOUBT, MY NAME will soon be among the list of our Indian dead. At least I will have good company--for no finer, kinder, braver, wiser, worthier men and women have ever walked this Earth than those who have already died for being Indian.

Our dead keep coming at us, a long, long line of dead, ever-growing and never-ending. To list all their names would be impossible, for the great, great majority of us have died unknown, unacknowledged. Yes, even our dead have been stolen from us, uprooted from our memory just as the bones of our honored ancestors have been dishonored by being dug up from their graves and shipped to museums to be boxed and catalogued and hidden away in file-drawers, denied that final request and right of every human being: a decent burial in Mother Earth and proper ceremonies of remembrance to light the way to the Afterworld.

Yes, the roll call of our Indian dead needs to be cried out, to be shouted from every hilltop in order to shatter the terrible silence that tries to erase the fact that we ever existed.

I would like to see a redstone wall like the blackstone wall of the Vietnam War Memorial. Yes, right there on the Mall in Washington, D.C. And on that redstone wall--pigmented with the living blood of our people (and I would happily be the first to donate that blood)--would be the names of all the Indians who ever died for being Indian. It would be hundreds of times longer than the Vietnam Memorial, which commemorates the deaths of fewer than 60,000 brave lost souls. The number of our brave lost souls reaches into the many millions, and every one of them remains unquiet until this day.

Yes, the voices of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, of Buddy Lamont and Frank Clearwater, of Joe Stuntz and Dallas Thundershield, of Wesley Bad Heart Bull and Raymond Yellow Thunder, of Bobby Garcia and Anna Mae Aquash... those and so, so many others. Their stilled voices cry out at us and demand to be heard.

*
It's strange.

Here I am,
locked in my own shadow for nearly a quarter of a century,
and yet I can reach my hand through stone and steel and razor-wire
and touch the heart of the world. Yes, even your heart, my enemy, my
friend.

Mitakuye Oyasin, my Lakota brethren say.
We are all related. We are One.

*
Sometimes.

Sometimes in the shadowed night
I become spirit.
The walls, the bars, the gratings dissolve into light
and I unloose my soul
and fly through the inner darkness of my being.

I become transparent,
a bright shadow,
a bird of dreams singing from the tree of life.

http://www.amazon.com/Prison-Writings-Life-Sun-Dance/dp/0312263805/ref=sr_1_
2/002-2151140-2027237?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183932409&sr=1-2

http://www.leonardpeltier.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM5iNVIWuX0
http://cdbaby.com/harveyarden

DRIVING MS HILLARY: Expanding the War on Terror

By Jack Random


The problem with Senator Hillary Clinton is not that she is a woman. I would love to support a woman for president – preferably a qualified black woman like Congresswoman Barbara Lee – but as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher instructs us, gender is not the decisive factor in selecting a national leader.

The problem with Senator Clinton is not that she is liberal. If Senator Clinton is liberal, then Rush Limbaugh is moderate. To the extent that Ms Clinton was an active participant in her husband’s administration, she was instrumental in evicting the left from mainstream politics. Like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did for the Labor Party in Britain, the Clintons redefined the Democratic Party by embracing corporate deregulation, cutting social services (welfare to workfare reform) and promoting international trade agreements that cut the heart out of organized labor.

The problem with Hillary Clinton is certainly not that she is willing to take a stand in opposition to the Neocon philosophy of aggressive and imperial warfare. She is not decidedly antiwar, anti-globalization, pro labor, pro environment or pro civil liberties.

The problem with Senator Clinton is that she is the penultimate triangulator. Triangulation is the art of taking a position on any given issue that is calculated to offend the least and appease the most potential voters.

When a politician vacillates on core issues, such as war, environmental policy, civil liberties or torture, it leaves the distinct impression that there are no core principles or moral values guiding the decision making process.

Like Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain, Hillary Clinton reflects the fundamental belief that if you can satisfy most of the people most of the time, you can figure out how to win an election. For lack of a better term, it is the politics of pandering. Applied to a modern age where communication technology disallows direct contradiction, the trick is to remain sufficiently vague and uncommitted so that seeming contradictions can be explained away.

It is interesting that Hillary Rodham was a young Republican before she became a Democrat. While the story of her conversion may be an interesting anecdote, one wonders if the underlying truth is one of opportunism. When did the political ambition of Hillary take root? Did she become a Democrat because she perceived a greater probability of advancement?

The media may have questions regarding the Senator’s White House archives and her position on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants but it is her positions on the war and the policies of war that continue to haunt everyone who has stood in opposition to war since before “Shock and Awe.”

Senator Clinton was for the war before she was against it. She wants us to believe that she never changed her mind, that she was always against the war, that she only wanted to support diplomacy, that she only wanted to support our troops, and the idea of “hedging her bet” never occurred to her but we have this clinging doubt.

We grow tired reminding the electorate that the Bush Doctrine of aggressive and “pre-emptive” war was already in place at the time of her vote to authorize military action. We grow tired reminding people that the UN inspectors were on the ground and their reports consistently ran contrary to the false accusations of the White House.

Every legislator who voted to authorize the use of force was voting to empower a militant commander with his finger on the trigger. All the excuses about false intelligence are shallow; the truth is clear: the nation was stricken with war fever and few of our leaders had the strength to oppose it.

Four and a half years later, the nation no longer has war fever yet Senator Clinton did it again. Her vote encouraging the White House to classify the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a “terrorist organization” was made to order for the Bush warlords. The classification was unprecedented as Bush made it so without delay.

If Senator Clinton was dazed and confused about the meaning of this action, she might have listened to her colleague, Senator Jim Webb, as he forewarned it was all the authorization the president would need.

A dance with the devil or a deal at the crossroads, Hillary Clinton knew well the implications of her vote. She signed on the dotted line a comrade in the war on terror. When fate gave her a second chance, she signed again.

My objection to the “sense of the Senate” resolution goes well beyond the suspicion that the president will use it as authorization for war. It is factually incorrect and eminently misleading.

The allegations hold that the Revolutionary Guard is providing aid and assistance to Shiite Militias in Iraq, arms and supplies to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and material support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

It may not be enshrined in international law but no nation should be empowered to accuse another of terrorist activities when it is engaged in similar activities on a grander scale.

It would be shocking indeed if Iran was not engaged in occupied Iraq and occupied Afghanistan. The inclusion of Iran in the “axis of evil” was a virtual declaration of war. As a designated enemy state, would we expect Iran to stand idly by while we occupied their neighbors?

The Shiite militias may be an enemy of the occupation but they are not the enemies of the Iraqi government or the people they are charged with protecting. Moreover, the Iranians were our strongest ally against both Al Qaeda and the Taliban before we declared them enemies.

Fundamentally, it is far more within Iran’s rights to oppose a foreign occupier in a neighboring nation than it is within our rights to invade and occupy a nation on the other side of the planet.

As for Hezbollah and Hamas, we have long anticipated that the war on terror would be used as a pretext for going after the enemies of Israel. When Hezbollah fought back the bombardment of southern Lebanon, even adversaries had to concede the necessity of maintaining a counterforce to Israeli aggression. As Hezbollah is to Lebanon, so Hamas is to Palestine.

The designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is an unwarranted and dangerous expansion of the war on terror.

The international community, if it possessed the courage, could find far more convincing grounds to classify Blackwater USA, the special operations unit of the CIA and, indeed, the respective branches of the United States military terrorist organizations.

Before we take such actions we should be forewarned: American power is in decline. There may come a time when international institutions of justice are no longer intimidated by America’s might.

Should that time come, we could easily see the spectacle of our leaders on trial as terrorists and war criminals.

Senator Clinton would protest: We only wanted strong diplomacy.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.

Capricorn One Comes To Pakistan

With the current chaos in Pakistan the world is in an uproar and rightly so. Aid is considered to be cut off in official press releases while you can imagine phone tag being played and jokes being made:

Bush Administration official: “Oh yea, aid is being cut off, we’ll rip off real quick so it’ll only hurt for a minute and then give you another one. (laughs) Hey, by the way, next time you bomb Bhutto, try putting it inside the damn bus will ya?”

CNN ran a slightly offensive infomercial this evening with the same revolving 15 second bit of footage playing over and over with talking heads going on and on… What it all boils down to is the Bush administration, like that of Nixon in the 1960’s, will support and aid any acts of dirty pool or assassination, period. Take that to the bank, Karl Rove or not.

Official press corps were present to capture the arrests and beatings of protesters, well-dressed protesters, and in a country where the phone lines were reportedly down, Internet reports are still getting out along with video and still photography. All that is missing is is an official Fox News banner flying over the crowd and war torn, grizzled Fox security in their khaki vests keeping the truth victimized for us across the border.


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: 3 4 1

Branch In The Ice Glass Cube

Apprehended and controlled? Never in Washington and certainly not in the guise of a political party. Arrested only happens back in your home state. The only way you are arrested in the district is when you go against, for any other lack of reference, the establishment. The establishment for our point of reference here is not any political party, it’s the machine.

Recounting in black and white works in the movies, but in the quick motion world of soundbites of CNN and the Internet the worst thing you can do is hire an image consultant, approach a reporter who is image conscious, or whose track record you are unaware of. Take a look at the Larry Craig situation.


The Wood Inside The Frame

The diesel was rotten and the stench coming out the back was soft core for the Washington D.C. crowd hanging out around Dupont Circle. Inside the trailer of the truck are computer screens and printers spitting out the eavesdropping information on every politician in the district. The information sits on shelves in Delaware malls while prices are worked out and it’s no short order work. Once a case goes to trial the information can be fed to the grand jury or not based on the level of cash flowing into Delaware.

The inside story has it that the National Review has a twenty-thousand square foot former jewelry store set aside for its own bad seeds that they have been paying on for years, but mind you the shelves go all the way to the ceiling and are a tremendous fire hazard.

Highway markers on the way to Delaware if translated into the trickle down economics of Ronald Reagan will give you a guide to the precise aisle and box to each transgression. For instance, a particular mile marker taken with the name of a local town, the letters taken together and re-arranged under the right frame of mind, not counting the use of acronyms and terminal drug use will give you the answers you need.


Documentary In A Campaign Year

There’s a church on the border
Between the proximity
Of rape and what we voted for
Where hooded holy men
And killers sleep standing up in freezing
Water they swallowed yesterday
Released out at sea, extradition
Rendition, and revolution under a flag
Freedom of speech in a body bag

- Chris Mansel

[christophermansel@hotmail.com]

Buckets of Blood: Politics (the Old Fashion Way)

(The Mind of Mansel)

Two fisted anal implants on a Washington D.C. scale, adjusting the level of discourse by kicking the glass out of a USA Today machine and cutting the multi-colored graphs out of the paper and inserting them violently into the mouths of Washington staffers and watching as they swerve very fast down the marble steps of the House of Representatives as CNN cameramen film it for their own private home porn.

Buying heroin for cameramen in Washington will get you footage that will bend your hair back into your ear canal. My partner Jack Random and I hadn't been to Washington in a while but it was on this trip that we found that one bit of footage that would almost start a revolution in the United States of America, almost.

Stakeout a coffee house in Washington D.C. and you'll catch some go-getters, some lackeys, some wannabe's and some insiders who just may have the answers to those questions you have the theory to but have learned that if they talk they will indeed be killed or ruined on a medical level.

Footage, any footage of any politician committing any violent sex act in leather, fish guts or wrapped in moldy copies of the Washington Post will get you unlimited means of cash. We got a message from the doorman of a famous Washington Hotel bartender that a video of Karen Hughes, the spinster and Death’s head brick chunking mistress of the more right of the right wing of the Republican Party was on tape, dispensing entire cans of mixed fruit at young Mexican boys while Minutemen in the background on the Arizona border watched in awe and sat naked loading and unloading foreign manufactured weapons just like so many scenes in the A Team series that was so popular in the 1980’s. We had to get the tape and we set out with a suitcase full of drugs, banned toys from China to grease the more conservative lobbyists, and hard drives full of leaked CIA papers on the four major networks coverage of the current presidential campaign.

- Chris Mansel

[christophermansel@hotmail.com]

NOTES ON A FREE PRESS

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.

A FEDERAL SHIELD LAW

By Jack Random

There was something missing from the New York Times editorial “Defending Press Freedom” (10/22/07) and little wonder. The Times went to bat for a federal shield law now under consideration in congress to “protect reporters from being forced to reveal confidential sources in federal court.”

Missing was any reference to the high profile cases that brought this issue to the public’s attention, none of which involved an insider attempting to reveal government wrong-doing or criminal activity.

We recall that the Times’ own Judith Miller was sent to jail for not revealing her contacts in the White House who coincidentally revealed the identity of a CIA operative. Judy Miller was not protecting a truth-teller in the government; she was protecting deceivers in the White House who disseminated misinformation through her office at the Times.

It worked like this: A confidential White House source (someone in Dick Cheney’s office) would deliver privileged inside “information” regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. That “information” would find its way onto the front pages of the “paper of record” and the White House would in turn cite the Times in support of its position. In other words, Judy Miller used the reputation of the Times as a fence for White House propaganda.

Of course, Ms Miller did not to jail for that betrayal of the public trust. She went to jail for refusing to reveal whom in the White House leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. In that sordid affair, Ms Miller and colleagues were not protecting a whistleblower but the person or persons that committed the crime. (Contrary to certain analysts who claim that a crime was not committed because it was not prosecuted, the failure to prosecute was only an admission that the prosecutor could not determine who committed the crime first.)

Another case where reporters faced prosecution for refusing to reveal sources was the BALCO steroids case in which two enterprising reporters received a mountain of confidential transcripts from a Grand Jury insider sworn to secrecy. They used this information to write a hot-topic book that gained a lot of media attention and damaged the reputation of baseball player Barry Bonds. It also compromised the integrity of the Grand Jury process.

With a government prone to secrecy and eager to defy any law that does not conform to its distorted notion of national security, there is in fact a compelling need for legislative protection of whistleblowers who wish to avoid the repercussions of doing the right thing. The example of former Ambassador Joe Wilson (Valerie’s husband) clearly demonstrates the consequences of truth telling (the fictitious Iraq-Niger uranium connection) when the truth conflicts with the government’s agenda.

The problem is: We have no such examples in today’s mainstream press. None of these cases illustrates a need for a federal shield law. If anything, they accomplish the opposite.

These were not heroes of the fourth estate serving the interests of the nation. They were, at best, serving their own interests and, at worst, serving the nefarious interests of the government.

The fact is: We need a federal shield law to protect the legitimate pursuit of journalism and the use of anonymous sources to that end.

Unfortunately, the cases before us fail the test.

The question becomes: How do we protect the legitimate uses of anonymous sources without providing cover for illegitimate or abusive uses?

It seems to me the more compelling need is for media reform to insure that the press fulfills its responsibility to the public first. If the media were truly independent and not subservient to corporate interests, its reporters would be worthy of protection.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, PACIFIC FREE PRESS, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH AND DISSIDENT VOICE.

Fools Parade: Following the Neocon Dream

THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.

By Jack Random


The nation is lost in a world of illusions, dreams and fantasies that have no founding on the solid ground of earth.

The war drags on at a debilitating cost in wasted money and blood yet there is a growing consensus that our future in Iraq will depend largely on our progress “on the ground.”

With empathy for all those who are so easily guided by mainstream chords, it is the wrong premise and can only lead to the wrong policies.

Morality cannot be mediated by “success.”

What can we say about a nation so egomaniacal, so blinded by its ambition, that it refuses to acknowledge the immoral nature of our actions? Would fascism have been fashionable if the Axis had prevailed? Would the genocidal destruction of Vietnam be considered virtuous if we had killed everything that walked or crawled to make the world safe from the communist threat? Were the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden acts of moral impunity because the winning side committed them?

In Iraq, we have committed a series of war crimes, beginning with the cardinal crime of aggressive war. We are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of lives lost and indirectly for millions. Our motives were clear from the first glimmer in the eyes of our oil industry president: greed, ego and lust for power.

In the name of democracy, under the banners of peace, justice and security, we have committed crimes against humanity that the world will not forget as long as civilization survives.

We have established a client state under martial law, compelled the population to elect a puppet government, exploited religious and cultural divisions, drafted a constitution that privatizes state functions and exploits Iraqi oil, and threatened to leave them to their own demise if they do not honor our dictates.

If the Iraqis believed us, if they felt they could trust us even for a moment, if any notion of cooperation or beneficent intent survived Abu Ghraib, Haditha and Fallujah, they would tell us to leave in a New York minute. They would tell us forthrightly we were never welcome in their land. They would inform us that we have destroyed their nation, killed their women and children, and every second we remain on their soil is another second of Iraqi shame.

They would tell us they do not believe anything we say. They do not believe we have any intention of leaving as long as there is oil beneath their sands. They see the monolithic fortresses we have built all along the oil pipelines and they believe what they see.

They believe the pain and sorrow buried in their hearts will not abate until the occupiers are evicted from their land. They believe their dead can never rest until the invaders are gone. They believe we will kill anyone who does not cooperate in operation Steal the Oil. They believe what they see.

They watch American media and they see a parade of fools signing on to the Neocon dream. Not one viable candidate for the presidency can envision a future without the spoils of the Iraqi occupation. They took Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn warning literally: You break it, you own it.

They watch the occupation’s new commander and learn that there is progress “on the ground.”

Where are these signs of progress? The month of September was one of the bloodiest on record. Assassination of Iraqi leaders is becoming a common occurrence. Neighborhoods in Baghdad are being walled off and ethnically cleansed. Turkey is invading from the north. American leaders are threatening to broaden the war zone to Iran and Syria. Syria is blocking its borders to Iraqi refugees.

Progress is relative concept. The Bush administration is making progress convincing the party of opposition that the occupation must go on indefinitely.

Progress is nullifying the 2006 election and its mandate to end the war. The president asks for another $50 billion and the fools in congress, apparently intimidated by the most ineffectual president in history, demur and accede.

Presidential candidates Obama, Clinton and Edwards step to the microphone and decline to promise complete withdrawal by the end of their first term.

There is no cry of protest from the general populace as war stories fade from the front pages of local newspapers. The dead are mostly Iraqi and the media are mostly indifferent.

The building of the most heavily fortified embassy in the history of the world goes on even as the rebuilding of the levees in New Orleans is neglected.

We are all Neocons now for we have joined the parade of fools marching as to war.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON COUNTLESS CITES ON THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, PACIFIC FREE PRESS, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH AND DISSIDENT VOICE.

On The Armenian Genocide

The US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs is a strange place indeed, an island within an island, so isolated from the surrounding world it deemed it appropriate to condemn an Armenian genocide nearly a century old while it finances the ongoing genocide in Iraq.

The genocide inflicted on the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire is very comparable to what is happening on the ground in Iraq except the victim population in Iraq is multicultural and multi-sectarian: Sunni, Shiite and Christian. (Thus far, the Kurds have largely been spared but that could easily change with the entry of Turkey into the war equation.)

Best estimates are over a million Iraqi dead, mass evictions by neighborhood, town and region, and several million refugees in neighboring nations. Our actions may not meet the technical definition of genocide but the evidence of crimes against humanity on a genocidal scale is impressive.

If Congress wishes to condemn the Ottoman Empire at this late date, they ought to clear the genocidal palate by condemning our own genocide committed against the indigenous peoples of North America.

On the occasion of American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt’s elevation to the Overworld, it would be fitting to finally say aloud what all informed citizenry know and accept: This nation has committed genocide. How can we condemn another people from another land if we fail to admit that our own historical basement conceals a buried child – an estimated 90% of the indigenous population?

While we’re clearing the air, let us acknowledge in a meaningful way the debt we owe African American citizens for a legacy of slavery.

Our representatives in Congress are no different than their counterparts in Turkey. They are frightened near to death that their nation will be held to account for its historical crimes – crimes that include stealing billions from tribal funds held by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The mere whisper of the word “reparations” sends shock waves through the marble halls of deliberation.

This is the real reason we can never admit national guilt: accountability.

If we were held to account, we would be bankrupt overnight. Moreover, we would be bound never to commit crimes against humanity again.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to acknowledge historical truth, an act that should be considered honorable, yet it dishonored that truth with the stain of hypocrisy.

On the matter of genocide, the American government is a glass house and should not be throwing stones.

RANDOM JACK. DISSEMINATE FREELY.

Mind of Mansel: Candidate

That one unadulterated singular voice this country needs in political office is not out there and it is certainly not running for presidential office. It takes more than speaking truth to power. It takes more than standing up for what you believe in. Who among us believes there is one politician who thinks beyond the passing of the resolution or law about the body count that will later ensue a month down the road, a year? Who in office speaks of change and follows it, pursues it? A sound bite does not a well thought out conversation make.

We need a President who believes in peace for the Palestinian people and who believes that the Israelis do engage in acts of terror. We need a President who believes in peace for the people of Tibet and a return of His Holiness the Dali lama to his homeland instead of his stay in exile. We need a President who will finally pardon Leonard Peltier. I don't see anyone on the campaign trail offering anything close to this.

- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: Blackwater

There are hammers in the wheel well this evening and as the road passing by underneath at a high rate of speed the swinging goes on. You don't have to be on the road to the airport in Baghdad to know that the situation is out of control. These days the gangs of america run through the daylit streets of another country heavily armed and funded by the occupying force shooting indiscriminately.

My short story J. R. and I in Iraq (posted on this blog as well as chrismansel.blogspot.com) tells the story of two correspondents gettng caught in the middle of a wave of gunfire on unarmed civilians by a private armed security force who might as well be named Blackwater. I wrote this story in December of 2006 and currently there is strong debate over just such an event having taken place. Who will handle the out of control gunmen of Blackwater? Who will stop the U.S. government that obviously has no problem with their tactics? The My Lai massacre didn't stop the Vietnam War, and neither will the secret bombing of Iran/Cambodia.

- Chris Mansel (The Mansel Report)


"...all the rockers on the roads and all the boots in the streets."

- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake


"Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere."

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden