Everything is politics but politics is not everything. Those of us who are fortunate to live on the left coast, particularly in the greater San Francisco area, enjoy the opportunity to engage in a rich cultural life as well as enlightened politics.
In its sixth season, San Francisco Jazz has featured such icons and luminaries as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Michael Brecker, McCoy Tyner, Dianne Reeves and Etta James. The torch has been carried forward by Portuguese Fado singer, Mariza, whose performance is as much a seduction as an entertainment, by Brazilian Maria Rita, who summons the memory of Etta Fitzgerald, and this Saturday last at the Palace of Fine Arts by Madeleine Peyroux, a Brooklyn kid by way of Paris who channels the voice and spirit of the immortal Lady Day and, in sacred moments, captures her very soul.
The San Francisco Jazz Collective has featured the masterful renditions of Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis and Bobby Hutcherson among others, with this year's work dedicated to the incomparable John Coltrane, whose son Ravi played a magnificent set as warmup to the Marsalis Quartet.
Theatres are offering challenging materials (see The Intersection for the Arts) and theatres beyond the bay have rediscovered Beckett, Stoppard and Miller. Even cinema has suddenly come alive for the audience that wants more than candy (Kingdom of Heaven, The Interpreter, Crash).
For baseball fans, Pac Bell (I refuse to rename it) remains the greatest ball park in America east of Fenway. This weekend the Giants unveiled a statue of the Dominican-born legend, Juan Maricial, and for the first time in Major League history, sported uniforms with a Spanish team logo: Viva Gigantes!
Politics aside, life is good on the left coast.
Jazz.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Monday, May 16, 2005
HOLLYWOOD, POLITICS & RELIGION
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
REFLECTIONS ON THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
By Jack Random
The role of religion in the 2004 presidential election is well chronicled. Much has been written regarding the exploitation of religious issues by the Karl Rove machine, less so about the role of Hollywood in the convergence of politics and religion.
The right wing of the Republican Party (is there a another wing?) was so incensed by Michael Moore’s straightforward political documentary Fahrenheit 911, they condemned him on the floor of the national convention. The media played ball by challenging the objectivity of Moore’s work and largely dismissing it as leftist propaganda.
By contrast, the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ evolved around its historical accuracy and its inflammatory treatment of the Jews. The greater truth that it was made to order for the Republican political strategy was never broached by media analysts or political pundits.
There is in fact a potent argument that The Passion is largely if not wholly responsible for the reelection of the president and the White House is therefore beholden to Gibson’s Opus Dei, an extremist Catholic sect dedicated to 12th century morality, self-flagellation, and the fulfillment of the Biblical end of days.
It is a shame that Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was not released concurrent with The Passion of Christ. It might have brought the real issue to the fore and set the stage for a meaningful exchange of ideas. The central issue is not the depth of devotion as measured by one’s empathy for the suffering of Jesus; rather, it pits the gospel of the crusaders against the enlightened testament of Christ himself. It is the preaching of those who wish to deliver their interpretation of the word of God to all, at any cost, by all means, including the sword, against those who preach tolerance, forbearance and peace.
Opus Dei and its appointed Hollywood Holy Warrior are the embodiment of the new crusade. Like their adversaries at another extreme, they believe in Holy War. They believe that the war in Iraq is a battle for ancient Mesopotamia. They believe that the conflict in the Middle East is centered over the Temple Mound. They believe that strategic nuclear weapons may be employed to the greater good and for the Glory of God.
There is a particularly poignant moment in the Kingdom of Heaven. It occurs at the Port of Messina where the crusaders await boarding for the last leg of their journey to Jerusalem. Virtually unnoticed and pointedly unobstructed, a crier repeats the slogan “Killing a Muslim is not a sin” as the followers of Mohammed pray to a dying sun on the rocky shore below.
The Kingdom of Heaven is about true history. Its purpose is to set the record straight. In contrast to the popular historical novel, The DaVinci Code, it depicts the Knights Templar as vicious, bloodthirsty killers fomenting hatred and war. It is the story of the Islamic Holy Warrior Saladin’s reconquest of the city of Jerusalem in 1187. It portrays a divide within the occupying forces, one favoring moderation, tolerance and coexistence and the other obsessed with a vision of eternal war. It observes that when the crusaders conquered Jerusalem they killed every man, woman and Muslim child for the Glory of God. It bears witness that when Saladin took Jerusalem back, he granted all its inhabitants safe passage out of the region.
The underlying question inevitably arises in the mind of the observer: On which side of the crusades would Jesus walk? Indeed, if Jesus were alive today, would he be an advocate for tolerance and diplomacy or a crusader for war?
Sometime in the coming months, we will be treated to the Hollywood version of The DaVinci Code. Like The Last Temptation of Christ, the book has already brought to the public mind the question of the role of Mary Magdalene among the apostles of Christ. It is an intriguing question with profound implications and ones that would alter the Christian universe. (As the flat earth society will attest, it is a universe that has undergone revision before and surely will again.)
Another question that is rarely if ever asked is this: Where is the Gospel of Christ?
I offer it now as a proper subject for inquisitive minds with a penchant for the spiritual. If you believe, as I do, that Jesus was among the most enlightened and educated beings on the planet, it is inconceivable that Christ was illiterate. If we conclude that he possessed the facility of writing, how can any reasonable person believe that the man who integrated eastern and western thought and earned a sacred place in three of the world’s great religions, could not find the time or did not appreciate the importance of setting his words in written form? How is it that he chose not to write the gospel upon which all others would be based and against which all would be measured?
Allow me to suggest an alternative hypothesis: Either the written works of Christ exist as a closely guarded secret or they were destroyed by men with an ulterior motive. If they existed, his true followers would have taken every measure to protect them. If they were destroyed, it was a determined act with a deliberate purpose.
If the words of Christ exist, it is time for them to be revealed. If they were destroyed, it is time for the truth.
In any case, the universe of religious belief must always yield to acquired knowledge.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES.
REFLECTIONS ON THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
By Jack Random
The role of religion in the 2004 presidential election is well chronicled. Much has been written regarding the exploitation of religious issues by the Karl Rove machine, less so about the role of Hollywood in the convergence of politics and religion.
The right wing of the Republican Party (is there a another wing?) was so incensed by Michael Moore’s straightforward political documentary Fahrenheit 911, they condemned him on the floor of the national convention. The media played ball by challenging the objectivity of Moore’s work and largely dismissing it as leftist propaganda.
By contrast, the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ evolved around its historical accuracy and its inflammatory treatment of the Jews. The greater truth that it was made to order for the Republican political strategy was never broached by media analysts or political pundits.
There is in fact a potent argument that The Passion is largely if not wholly responsible for the reelection of the president and the White House is therefore beholden to Gibson’s Opus Dei, an extremist Catholic sect dedicated to 12th century morality, self-flagellation, and the fulfillment of the Biblical end of days.
It is a shame that Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was not released concurrent with The Passion of Christ. It might have brought the real issue to the fore and set the stage for a meaningful exchange of ideas. The central issue is not the depth of devotion as measured by one’s empathy for the suffering of Jesus; rather, it pits the gospel of the crusaders against the enlightened testament of Christ himself. It is the preaching of those who wish to deliver their interpretation of the word of God to all, at any cost, by all means, including the sword, against those who preach tolerance, forbearance and peace.
Opus Dei and its appointed Hollywood Holy Warrior are the embodiment of the new crusade. Like their adversaries at another extreme, they believe in Holy War. They believe that the war in Iraq is a battle for ancient Mesopotamia. They believe that the conflict in the Middle East is centered over the Temple Mound. They believe that strategic nuclear weapons may be employed to the greater good and for the Glory of God.
There is a particularly poignant moment in the Kingdom of Heaven. It occurs at the Port of Messina where the crusaders await boarding for the last leg of their journey to Jerusalem. Virtually unnoticed and pointedly unobstructed, a crier repeats the slogan “Killing a Muslim is not a sin” as the followers of Mohammed pray to a dying sun on the rocky shore below.
The Kingdom of Heaven is about true history. Its purpose is to set the record straight. In contrast to the popular historical novel, The DaVinci Code, it depicts the Knights Templar as vicious, bloodthirsty killers fomenting hatred and war. It is the story of the Islamic Holy Warrior Saladin’s reconquest of the city of Jerusalem in 1187. It portrays a divide within the occupying forces, one favoring moderation, tolerance and coexistence and the other obsessed with a vision of eternal war. It observes that when the crusaders conquered Jerusalem they killed every man, woman and Muslim child for the Glory of God. It bears witness that when Saladin took Jerusalem back, he granted all its inhabitants safe passage out of the region.
The underlying question inevitably arises in the mind of the observer: On which side of the crusades would Jesus walk? Indeed, if Jesus were alive today, would he be an advocate for tolerance and diplomacy or a crusader for war?
Sometime in the coming months, we will be treated to the Hollywood version of The DaVinci Code. Like The Last Temptation of Christ, the book has already brought to the public mind the question of the role of Mary Magdalene among the apostles of Christ. It is an intriguing question with profound implications and ones that would alter the Christian universe. (As the flat earth society will attest, it is a universe that has undergone revision before and surely will again.)
Another question that is rarely if ever asked is this: Where is the Gospel of Christ?
I offer it now as a proper subject for inquisitive minds with a penchant for the spiritual. If you believe, as I do, that Jesus was among the most enlightened and educated beings on the planet, it is inconceivable that Christ was illiterate. If we conclude that he possessed the facility of writing, how can any reasonable person believe that the man who integrated eastern and western thought and earned a sacred place in three of the world’s great religions, could not find the time or did not appreciate the importance of setting his words in written form? How is it that he chose not to write the gospel upon which all others would be based and against which all would be measured?
Allow me to suggest an alternative hypothesis: Either the written works of Christ exist as a closely guarded secret or they were destroyed by men with an ulterior motive. If they existed, his true followers would have taken every measure to protect them. If they were destroyed, it was a determined act with a deliberate purpose.
If the words of Christ exist, it is time for them to be revealed. If they were destroyed, it is time for the truth.
In any case, the universe of religious belief must always yield to acquired knowledge.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES.
Monday, May 09, 2005
RALLY FOR LEONARD PELTIER
Contact: Coordinator, Lakota Student Alliance > lakotastudentalliance@yahoo.com (605) 441-9453 (ph)
The 6th Annual Oglala Commemoration Event set to begin on June 26, 2005 at the Jumping Bull Property south of Oglala South Dakota marks the 30th anniversary of the Incident at Oglala. The event is free to the public, and begins at Noon (MST).
"It's a time for healing and prayers to remember those warriors who lost their freedom and their lives during the Reign of Terror on Pine Ridge. Hopefully the healing emphasis will prevent another bloody civil war from happening again on the sacred land of the Lakota Nation," said Event coordinator Robert Quiver Jr. Quiver, a student at Oglala Lakota College, is co-founder of the Lakota Student Alliance, a grassroots group on Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota Student Alliance and Oglala Commemoration Committee jointly sponsor the event to honor and remember the lives lost during the 1970s civil conflict on the reservation and to also raise awareness toward the unjust imprisonment of AIM member Leonard Peltier, currently jailed in Leavenworth Kansas. Peltier's imprisonment resulted from a shooting Incident between AIM members and Federal Agents at the Jumping Bull property which was precipitated by numerous unjust deaths of AIM supporters during a tumultuous 1970s Civil War on Pine Ridge Reservation known as the "Reign of Terror."
"Leonard Peltier needs to be set free," said Commemoration Committee member Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala. Rosalyn remembers the year the FBI ransacked and shot at her elder mothers home following the deaths of two FBI agents. It's those kind of days that Rosalyn does not wish upon the future generations of Lakota people who will be living on the reservation.
Annually, normal activities scheduled for this event include a traditional Lakota ceremonial prayer service near the gravesites of AIM members Jun Little and Joe Stuntz (Little Family cemetary). A memorial walk for justice follows from the gravesites to the Jumping Bull Property. This is followed by a special memorial and giveaway for deceased relatives, coordinated by the Jumping Bull Family. Finally, a concert for youth awareness is held, concluding this special day. Speakers for the 2004 event include important figures that played a vital role in the justice movement for Peltier's freedom. They include: Vernon Bellecourt, principle spokesperson for American Indian Movement; Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala; Harvey Arden, an Author and Advocate for Peltier's release; Members of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee; Members of Leonard Peltier's Legal Team, and International Guests as well. Special Entertainment Performances from: Lakota Hoopdancer Clem Holy Eagle, Nammy Award Winner Wayquay, Oglala Hiphop artists Native Era, Muscogee Hiphop artist Julian B., Spyderzback, Pop Rocker Darren Geffre and more to be announced. Oglala Commemoration Committee members Wayquay (2000 Native American Music Award Winner), and Andy Mader will co-emcee this year's event. We invite the public to this free event. For more information on this event you can visit the website at http://www.oglalacommemoration.com
Lakota Student Alliance (LaStAlli) PO Box 225 Kyle, SD 57752 > http://www.geocities.com/lakotastudentalliance/index.html
The 6th Annual Oglala Commemoration Event set to begin on June 26, 2005 at the Jumping Bull Property south of Oglala South Dakota marks the 30th anniversary of the Incident at Oglala. The event is free to the public, and begins at Noon (MST).
"It's a time for healing and prayers to remember those warriors who lost their freedom and their lives during the Reign of Terror on Pine Ridge. Hopefully the healing emphasis will prevent another bloody civil war from happening again on the sacred land of the Lakota Nation," said Event coordinator Robert Quiver Jr. Quiver, a student at Oglala Lakota College, is co-founder of the Lakota Student Alliance, a grassroots group on Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota Student Alliance and Oglala Commemoration Committee jointly sponsor the event to honor and remember the lives lost during the 1970s civil conflict on the reservation and to also raise awareness toward the unjust imprisonment of AIM member Leonard Peltier, currently jailed in Leavenworth Kansas. Peltier's imprisonment resulted from a shooting Incident between AIM members and Federal Agents at the Jumping Bull property which was precipitated by numerous unjust deaths of AIM supporters during a tumultuous 1970s Civil War on Pine Ridge Reservation known as the "Reign of Terror."
"Leonard Peltier needs to be set free," said Commemoration Committee member Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala. Rosalyn remembers the year the FBI ransacked and shot at her elder mothers home following the deaths of two FBI agents. It's those kind of days that Rosalyn does not wish upon the future generations of Lakota people who will be living on the reservation.
Annually, normal activities scheduled for this event include a traditional Lakota ceremonial prayer service near the gravesites of AIM members Jun Little and Joe Stuntz (Little Family cemetary). A memorial walk for justice follows from the gravesites to the Jumping Bull Property. This is followed by a special memorial and giveaway for deceased relatives, coordinated by the Jumping Bull Family. Finally, a concert for youth awareness is held, concluding this special day. Speakers for the 2004 event include important figures that played a vital role in the justice movement for Peltier's freedom. They include: Vernon Bellecourt, principle spokesperson for American Indian Movement; Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala; Harvey Arden, an Author and Advocate for Peltier's release; Members of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee; Members of Leonard Peltier's Legal Team, and International Guests as well. Special Entertainment Performances from: Lakota Hoopdancer Clem Holy Eagle, Nammy Award Winner Wayquay, Oglala Hiphop artists Native Era, Muscogee Hiphop artist Julian B., Spyderzback, Pop Rocker Darren Geffre and more to be announced. Oglala Commemoration Committee members Wayquay (2000 Native American Music Award Winner), and Andy Mader will co-emcee this year's event. We invite the public to this free event. For more information on this event you can visit the website at http://www.oglalacommemoration.com
Lakota Student Alliance (LaStAlli) PO Box 225 Kyle, SD 57752
Saturday, May 07, 2005
FREE LEONARD PELTIER!
A message from The Dreamkeeper...
A SINGLE AFTERNOON
There shall soon be a day when
We, the People of America,
will stand up together as One
on a Single Afternoon
--yes, a Single Afternoon--
and shake these criminals from our national life
as a dog shakes off its fleas.
We will show then compassion as human beings--as they never did to us--
but the leash of power will never be put back in their bloodied hands again.
Yes, in a Single Afternoon.
It CAN be DONE!!
We CAN do it!
Rise shoulder-to-shoulder
and heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul
and physically occupy the corridors of power
in every town, every city, every state, every corporation.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon.
Leave the comfort of your home and join the People
in the peaceful retrieval of our own Power
and in the re-establishment of the Constitution of the United States.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon it can be done.
By ALL & EACH of us.
AMERICA WILL BE AMERICA AGAIN!!
-Harvey Arden
Mitakuye Oyasin--We are ALL related
~FREE LEONARD PELTIER~ (And we WILL!!)
A SINGLE AFTERNOON
There shall soon be a day when
We, the People of America,
will stand up together as One
on a Single Afternoon
--yes, a Single Afternoon--
and shake these criminals from our national life
as a dog shakes off its fleas.
We will show then compassion as human beings--as they never did to us--
but the leash of power will never be put back in their bloodied hands again.
Yes, in a Single Afternoon.
It CAN be DONE!!
We CAN do it!
Rise shoulder-to-shoulder
and heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul
and physically occupy the corridors of power
in every town, every city, every state, every corporation.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon.
Leave the comfort of your home and join the People
in the peaceful retrieval of our own Power
and in the re-establishment of the Constitution of the United States.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon it can be done.
By ALL & EACH of us.
AMERICA WILL BE AMERICA AGAIN!!
-Harvey Arden
Mitakuye Oyasin--We are ALL related
~FREE LEONARD PELTIER~ (And we WILL!!)
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
WAR & DEBT: WHO HOLDS THE CHIPS?
By Jack Random
“Even if the United States can lower its troop commitment to 40,000 by 2010, the war could still end up costing up to $646 billion by 2015. If insurgency, corruption and incompetence continue to plague the occupation as they have for the last two years, the number could surge to a trillion dollars or more.”
- Robert Scheer, “In Love with Conquest,” 4/27/05.
Regarding the dire prediction that the war and occupation could cost a trillion dollars, we must remember that this is only monopoly money. America is trillions in debt already and we have no intention of paying any of it.
The man in the White House gives the world a wink and a nod like a good old boy down in Laredo who sells confidence for the price of a favor. Unfortunately, the man in the White House is a second-string hustler in a game of Titans. He misreads the satisfied smile behind Asian eyes as they hold the markers for the mounting debt. They have us exactly where they want us: Throwing away borrowed cash in a Texas poker house, as if it really was monopoly money, while they patiently collect the chips.
We have the guns and the girls while they buy out the company store. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe they’ll let us hang around as security guards when the chips are called in. If not, we’re out in the cold.
The American holiday is over. The American empire was just a Texas nightmare, another bungled business deal by the second son of a grifter in over his head.
Meantime, the president’s soul mate, Vlady Putin, has decided to put his chips down on the other side of the table. Syria, you may recall, was our first choice in expanding the war but that prospect has now suffered a triple blow. First, the CIA announces that not only did Iraq not possess weapons of mass destruction, it did not hand them over to Syria either. Second, to the dismay of White House warlords, Syrian troops withdraw from Lebanon as promised. Finally, the steely-eyed Putin decides to sell Syria anti-aircraft defense systems.
So much for the spring invasion.
Tony Blair is back peddling as fast as he can. Facing a steady decline in support, the electorate is demanding that he withdraw British troops by the end of the year when the United Nations mandate ends. Silvio Berlusconi has already pledged withdrawal and may actually keep his promise now that the Americans have thumbed their noses at Italy’s request for justice in the shooting death of their most esteemed intelligence agent.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez boldly chides the boy king of the north and his ineffectual agents at every opportunity. New Europe’s Viktor Yushchenko decides to keep his electoral promise to withdraw Ukrainian troops despite the entreaties of the president, himself, and North Korea’s little dictator delivers his latest response to a Texas bluff: Stuff it in your ear.
It is as if the whole world is laughing and we are the only ones who do not get the joke.
We are the joke and we deserve it – at least to the extent that we elected him.
Jazz.
“Even if the United States can lower its troop commitment to 40,000 by 2010, the war could still end up costing up to $646 billion by 2015. If insurgency, corruption and incompetence continue to plague the occupation as they have for the last two years, the number could surge to a trillion dollars or more.”
- Robert Scheer, “In Love with Conquest,” 4/27/05.
Regarding the dire prediction that the war and occupation could cost a trillion dollars, we must remember that this is only monopoly money. America is trillions in debt already and we have no intention of paying any of it.
The man in the White House gives the world a wink and a nod like a good old boy down in Laredo who sells confidence for the price of a favor. Unfortunately, the man in the White House is a second-string hustler in a game of Titans. He misreads the satisfied smile behind Asian eyes as they hold the markers for the mounting debt. They have us exactly where they want us: Throwing away borrowed cash in a Texas poker house, as if it really was monopoly money, while they patiently collect the chips.
We have the guns and the girls while they buy out the company store. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe they’ll let us hang around as security guards when the chips are called in. If not, we’re out in the cold.
The American holiday is over. The American empire was just a Texas nightmare, another bungled business deal by the second son of a grifter in over his head.
Meantime, the president’s soul mate, Vlady Putin, has decided to put his chips down on the other side of the table. Syria, you may recall, was our first choice in expanding the war but that prospect has now suffered a triple blow. First, the CIA announces that not only did Iraq not possess weapons of mass destruction, it did not hand them over to Syria either. Second, to the dismay of White House warlords, Syrian troops withdraw from Lebanon as promised. Finally, the steely-eyed Putin decides to sell Syria anti-aircraft defense systems.
So much for the spring invasion.
Tony Blair is back peddling as fast as he can. Facing a steady decline in support, the electorate is demanding that he withdraw British troops by the end of the year when the United Nations mandate ends. Silvio Berlusconi has already pledged withdrawal and may actually keep his promise now that the Americans have thumbed their noses at Italy’s request for justice in the shooting death of their most esteemed intelligence agent.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez boldly chides the boy king of the north and his ineffectual agents at every opportunity. New Europe’s Viktor Yushchenko decides to keep his electoral promise to withdraw Ukrainian troops despite the entreaties of the president, himself, and North Korea’s little dictator delivers his latest response to a Texas bluff: Stuff it in your ear.
It is as if the whole world is laughing and we are the only ones who do not get the joke.
We are the joke and we deserve it – at least to the extent that we elected him.
Jazz.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
The Iraqi Book of Living and Dying
by Chris Mansel
O son of noble family
Burnt Iraqi children
Separated bone from skin
The American process of democracy moves slowly
As you move through the bardo
Hold close to your soul
As it may soon depart leaving your skin to endure
The acts of degenerates
And commissioned officers
O son of noble family
If you are re-born and are recruited by your children
To join the assault of the free world
Heed the teachings of the Buddha
And not the passions of your heart
O son of noble family
There is love for you on the soil of the United States
If you look for it
(See The Mansel Report: chrismansel.blogspot.com)
O son of noble family
Burnt Iraqi children
Separated bone from skin
The American process of democracy moves slowly
As you move through the bardo
Hold close to your soul
As it may soon depart leaving your skin to endure
The acts of degenerates
And commissioned officers
O son of noble family
If you are re-born and are recruited by your children
To join the assault of the free world
Heed the teachings of the Buddha
And not the passions of your heart
O son of noble family
There is love for you on the soil of the United States
If you look for it
(See The Mansel Report: chrismansel.blogspot.com)
Sunday, April 10, 2005
DEFRAUDING AMERICA: STRANGER THAN FICTION
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
When the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq failed to account for nine billion dollars in occupation expenditures, it was a little surprising how flippantly the White House discarded the matter. Like Kenny Boy Lay of Enron fame, the administrative warlords could not be bothered with details of accountability.
While the Bush administration does not consider nine billion dollars trivial when it comes to slashing social services, revelations regarding black budgets and “unsupported accounting entries” within various departments of government make it apparent that the individuals profiting from this accounting scheme consider nine billion little more than chump change.
The revelations begin with an estimated $40 billion in “black box” expenditures for intelligence (estimated by the Intelligence Resource Program). Given the most recent published budget of 26.7 billion in 1998, the estimate seems conservative in the post 911 environment. The current numbers are protected from public knowledge or congressional review with a rationale that the mere hint of an official sum would alert the world to our intentions – as if the world is not already alerted.
Forty billion dollars is roughly $150 for every man, woman and child in America yet, to the unknown overlords of secret wealth, it is the acorn of a mighty oak. Add to the total another 59.6 billion in unaccounted expenditures revealed in a partial audit of the Housing and Urban Development budget for the year 1999. Why the audit was left incomplete and uninvestigated by our fearless congressional leaders is left to the imagination.
Sixty billion dollars is a drop of water in an ocean of wealth and unworthy of investigation by a congress that finds more than enough time to stage public hearings on the burning issue of steroids in major league baseball (not to mention a 24-hour debate on the fate of an unfortunate woman in Florida).
A running total of one hundred billion dollars siphoned from public funds and shielded from public purview, is like a parking ticket to the apostles of holy capital.
Consider the official report of David Steensma, Acting Assistant Inspector General for auditing the Defense Department: $1.1 trillion (a trillion American = 1 followed by 12 zeroes) in “unsupported entries” for the fiscal year 2000.
Now we are talking real money, the kind of money that can topple governments, tip the balance of power, trigger recessions/depressions, and cripple a global economy, but even that is not the pinnacle of this mystifying story.
Catherine Austin Fitts, Assistant Secretary of Housing (HUD) under the first Bush administration, has estimated that four trillion dollars has been siphoned from government coffers by black budget operators whose identities are protected and whose operations will never be subject to government or public review.
As the Ayatollah Sistani might ask: What kind of a democracy is this?
According to Fitts (www.solari.com), whose academic, governmental and business credentials are impressive, this process of semi-official siphoning of taxpayer money began in the 1940’s when our government first granted secrecy to intelligence operations. It was secured under Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s when private corporations were contracted for government accounting. It was cemented in the aftermath of 911 by legislation erecting an impenetrable shroud around intelligence and their notorious secret operations.
Her observations and analysis lead to the inevitable conclusion that our economy is a house of cards, that it is largely founded on securities fraud and the relentless exploitation of the world’s resources, including our own.
One cannot help but wonder what will happen when the exploited nations of the world no longer believe in the false promise of a shared prosperity that does not exist – a theme soon to be promulgated by neoconservative icon Paul Wolfowitz at the head of the World Bank. One cannot help but wonder what will happen when it all comes crashing down.
America is like the addict whose addiction has advanced beyond redemption. We know it has gone too far. We know it has gone on too long yet we are powerless to alter the course.
Catherine Austin Fitts’ solution to the problem involves lifting the veil of secrecy and reversing the centralization of wealth. Economy should be controlled and accounted for at the local level. Her central point of advocacy is that we should vote with our money.
While I certainly agree, it is not enough. The magnitude of the problems we face as a nation can only begin to be addressed with a complete turnover of government personnel. As fictional character, Tony Soprano, might say: They’re all on the take. We cannot hope to avert disaster if we continue to rely on politicians whose best virtue is pandering to the issues of the day while the real problems of the nation go unattended.
The solution is to vote not only with our money but also with our brains when it comes to Election Day. Vote independent and third party. Vote Libertarian and Green. Vote against the corrupted machine (two parties controlled by the same interests). Refuse to believe it is beyond hope. Take the Independence Day Pledge: I will not vote for Democrats or Republicans. I will not contribute to their causes or candidates. I will vote my conscience every time.
In the year 2000, I published a work of fiction postulating the existence of a nefarious organization whose wealth and power was derived from securities fraud. Behind a veil of official secrecy, the organization was omnipotent and omnipresent, inviting small and independent businesses to either join or face extinction. Through extortion, fraud and bribery, they prospered at the expense of the poor and middle class.
When it all comes tumbling down and the truth is exposed for all to see, naked reality may be darker and stranger than fiction.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HE WRITES FOR BUZZLE.COM.
By Jack Random
When the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq failed to account for nine billion dollars in occupation expenditures, it was a little surprising how flippantly the White House discarded the matter. Like Kenny Boy Lay of Enron fame, the administrative warlords could not be bothered with details of accountability.
While the Bush administration does not consider nine billion dollars trivial when it comes to slashing social services, revelations regarding black budgets and “unsupported accounting entries” within various departments of government make it apparent that the individuals profiting from this accounting scheme consider nine billion little more than chump change.
The revelations begin with an estimated $40 billion in “black box” expenditures for intelligence (estimated by the Intelligence Resource Program). Given the most recent published budget of 26.7 billion in 1998, the estimate seems conservative in the post 911 environment. The current numbers are protected from public knowledge or congressional review with a rationale that the mere hint of an official sum would alert the world to our intentions – as if the world is not already alerted.
Forty billion dollars is roughly $150 for every man, woman and child in America yet, to the unknown overlords of secret wealth, it is the acorn of a mighty oak. Add to the total another 59.6 billion in unaccounted expenditures revealed in a partial audit of the Housing and Urban Development budget for the year 1999. Why the audit was left incomplete and uninvestigated by our fearless congressional leaders is left to the imagination.
Sixty billion dollars is a drop of water in an ocean of wealth and unworthy of investigation by a congress that finds more than enough time to stage public hearings on the burning issue of steroids in major league baseball (not to mention a 24-hour debate on the fate of an unfortunate woman in Florida).
A running total of one hundred billion dollars siphoned from public funds and shielded from public purview, is like a parking ticket to the apostles of holy capital.
Consider the official report of David Steensma, Acting Assistant Inspector General for auditing the Defense Department: $1.1 trillion (a trillion American = 1 followed by 12 zeroes) in “unsupported entries” for the fiscal year 2000.
Now we are talking real money, the kind of money that can topple governments, tip the balance of power, trigger recessions/depressions, and cripple a global economy, but even that is not the pinnacle of this mystifying story.
Catherine Austin Fitts, Assistant Secretary of Housing (HUD) under the first Bush administration, has estimated that four trillion dollars has been siphoned from government coffers by black budget operators whose identities are protected and whose operations will never be subject to government or public review.
As the Ayatollah Sistani might ask: What kind of a democracy is this?
According to Fitts (www.solari.com), whose academic, governmental and business credentials are impressive, this process of semi-official siphoning of taxpayer money began in the 1940’s when our government first granted secrecy to intelligence operations. It was secured under Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s when private corporations were contracted for government accounting. It was cemented in the aftermath of 911 by legislation erecting an impenetrable shroud around intelligence and their notorious secret operations.
Her observations and analysis lead to the inevitable conclusion that our economy is a house of cards, that it is largely founded on securities fraud and the relentless exploitation of the world’s resources, including our own.
One cannot help but wonder what will happen when the exploited nations of the world no longer believe in the false promise of a shared prosperity that does not exist – a theme soon to be promulgated by neoconservative icon Paul Wolfowitz at the head of the World Bank. One cannot help but wonder what will happen when it all comes crashing down.
America is like the addict whose addiction has advanced beyond redemption. We know it has gone too far. We know it has gone on too long yet we are powerless to alter the course.
Catherine Austin Fitts’ solution to the problem involves lifting the veil of secrecy and reversing the centralization of wealth. Economy should be controlled and accounted for at the local level. Her central point of advocacy is that we should vote with our money.
While I certainly agree, it is not enough. The magnitude of the problems we face as a nation can only begin to be addressed with a complete turnover of government personnel. As fictional character, Tony Soprano, might say: They’re all on the take. We cannot hope to avert disaster if we continue to rely on politicians whose best virtue is pandering to the issues of the day while the real problems of the nation go unattended.
The solution is to vote not only with our money but also with our brains when it comes to Election Day. Vote independent and third party. Vote Libertarian and Green. Vote against the corrupted machine (two parties controlled by the same interests). Refuse to believe it is beyond hope. Take the Independence Day Pledge: I will not vote for Democrats or Republicans. I will not contribute to their causes or candidates. I will vote my conscience every time.
In the year 2000, I published a work of fiction postulating the existence of a nefarious organization whose wealth and power was derived from securities fraud. Behind a veil of official secrecy, the organization was omnipotent and omnipresent, inviting small and independent businesses to either join or face extinction. Through extortion, fraud and bribery, they prospered at the expense of the poor and middle class.
When it all comes tumbling down and the truth is exposed for all to see, naked reality may be darker and stranger than fiction.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HE WRITES FOR BUZZLE.COM.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
I Don't Know by Van Eaton
things my father said to me, been putting me through the test
always walk a straight line son, I've been trying to do my best
sometimes i can't take it in, lord knows this world's gone wrong
i've been trying hard to let it all slide, and keep on keeping on.
now work it don’t come easy and oil has gone sky high
i would throw in the towel tomorrow, but i can't even afford to die
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
some folks follow fashion, and some folks they're just slow
the preacher man done played his hand, now we face a long hard road
what is right and what is wrong, the line used to be so clear
don't talk about the sign of the times, the end is always near
i see it all around me, how can so many be so blind
they're easily led when things get tough, and fear keeps them in line
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
Van 04-08-05
always walk a straight line son, I've been trying to do my best
sometimes i can't take it in, lord knows this world's gone wrong
i've been trying hard to let it all slide, and keep on keeping on.
now work it don’t come easy and oil has gone sky high
i would throw in the towel tomorrow, but i can't even afford to die
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
some folks follow fashion, and some folks they're just slow
the preacher man done played his hand, now we face a long hard road
what is right and what is wrong, the line used to be so clear
don't talk about the sign of the times, the end is always near
i see it all around me, how can so many be so blind
they're easily led when things get tough, and fear keeps them in line
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
Van 04-08-05
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Mission Accomplished by James Wisniewski
(the day the Pope died)
It thunders and rains outside as I contemplate a dream
of my family attending my brother's funeral
(he was still alive in the dream).
The nearness of nature's retrieval taking
my good friend and next door neighbor.
Sixty seven, and we had joked around
the morning that he hit the ground, eyes closed,
never to open again.
Now his grandchildren peer over the balcony
waiting for the flute guy to come joke with them.
Lessons to be learned....
In his last days he told his wife,
"I've finally got my shed organized the way I want it"......
Mission accomplished.
-- James Wisniewski / aka, wZ
It thunders and rains outside as I contemplate a dream
of my family attending my brother's funeral
(he was still alive in the dream).
The nearness of nature's retrieval taking
my good friend and next door neighbor.
Sixty seven, and we had joked around
the morning that he hit the ground, eyes closed,
never to open again.
Now his grandchildren peer over the balcony
waiting for the flute guy to come joke with them.
Lessons to be learned....
In his last days he told his wife,
"I've finally got my shed organized the way I want it"......
Mission accomplished.
-- James Wisniewski / aka, wZ
Saturday, April 02, 2005
SACRED FLIGHT
It is the season of death and dying, death and dying,
death and dying…
The sun breaks through clouds of gloom
reminding us that we live on in grief and mourning,
through tears of sorrow, we live on in tribute and
in servitude to those who walked before,
whose gentle words and genteel manner
will comfort us no more.
What is sacred but that we most fear?
Nature is sacred as she wreaks havoc unmoved
by cries for mercy, immutable & Holy
God by any name, Almighty forces brought to bear
the more so by the myth of prayer
(and I believe in prayer)
Love, perhaps the greatest fear, trading places
in light and dark, lightning strikes and fills
the heart with horror…
Towers in the mind’s eye, symbols of the Great Terror
(the Phoenix) from dust to sacred art…
Life and its eternal foil
shuffling off this mortal coil
journeys to the endless night &
humankind’s most sacred fright
Goodnight, sweet Prince, &
flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.
-- Random 4/2/05.
death and dying…
The sun breaks through clouds of gloom
reminding us that we live on in grief and mourning,
through tears of sorrow, we live on in tribute and
in servitude to those who walked before,
whose gentle words and genteel manner
will comfort us no more.
What is sacred but that we most fear?
Nature is sacred as she wreaks havoc unmoved
by cries for mercy, immutable & Holy
God by any name, Almighty forces brought to bear
the more so by the myth of prayer
(and I believe in prayer)
Love, perhaps the greatest fear, trading places
in light and dark, lightning strikes and fills
the heart with horror…
Towers in the mind’s eye, symbols of the Great Terror
(the Phoenix) from dust to sacred art…
Life and its eternal foil
shuffling off this mortal coil
journeys to the endless night &
humankind’s most sacred fright
Goodnight, sweet Prince, &
flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.
-- Random 4/2/05.
From There Outward by Jake Berry
(for Philip Lamantia and Robert Creeley, liberated)
There was a time
many years ago,
when I was a young child,
I did not write poetry.
In those days
my imagination lived me –
it overtook my body
and shaped it to every delightful and
mysterious purpose it could create.
I was imagination’s living form.
I had no mind, no self
I was motionless
until imagination stirred
some portion to song
(and every word was singing)
or dance
(and every movement was a dance).
Then I felt compelled
to make words.
So I wrote a poem,
then another and another
and people laughed
or made pleasant remarks.
And the girls were pleased
when I wrote for them –
those were kisses worth the poems.
But I recognized that
words failed imagination.
They were so carefully
reigned by books and teachers.
I had become imagination’s loss.
So I destroyed myself
and freed the constricted words.
I liberated them to
imagination’s tongue
and they once again
took their natural form
like a tree, or a sun, or a boy.
And people were confused.
they were afraid and turned away.
and I became serious,
a solid man.
I had to destroy myself
again and again
to liberate the words.
and speech was singing
and movement was dancing.
And today,
I hear the great poet’s death
and I think how lucky he is
to be nothing but
free imagination again,
to become pure poetry,
without a world of fools
that make us work
for what we already are.
Jake Berry 3.30.05
There was a time
many years ago,
when I was a young child,
I did not write poetry.
In those days
my imagination lived me –
it overtook my body
and shaped it to every delightful and
mysterious purpose it could create.
I was imagination’s living form.
I had no mind, no self
I was motionless
until imagination stirred
some portion to song
(and every word was singing)
or dance
(and every movement was a dance).
Then I felt compelled
to make words.
So I wrote a poem,
then another and another
and people laughed
or made pleasant remarks.
And the girls were pleased
when I wrote for them –
those were kisses worth the poems.
But I recognized that
words failed imagination.
They were so carefully
reigned by books and teachers.
I had become imagination’s loss.
So I destroyed myself
and freed the constricted words.
I liberated them to
imagination’s tongue
and they once again
took their natural form
like a tree, or a sun, or a boy.
And people were confused.
they were afraid and turned away.
and I became serious,
a solid man.
I had to destroy myself
again and again
to liberate the words.
and speech was singing
and movement was dancing.
And today,
I hear the great poet’s death
and I think how lucky he is
to be nothing but
free imagination again,
to become pure poetry,
without a world of fools
that make us work
for what we already are.
Jake Berry 3.30.05
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Passing by Chris Mansel
An epic of transition is death. The body is a vessel of incarceration. There are horrors in the skies that descend to us a web of illness we are drawn to even as we attempt escape. The disease on the ground, the emaciation of the air, draws us inside and therefore closes and seals the process of death. Somewhere between the skies and the earth, somewhere in the bardo do we appear as we really are, clear thoughts amidst a solution of matter both gray and dark. Death always reminds us of where we are going and then we start to think of where we have been. Georges Bataille wrote, "There is no better way to know death than to link it with some licentious image." Either way you look at it death is a continuing process that if captured in a display of DNA would be a round strand that circles endlessly in a poetic path, tragic and ethereal.
- Chris Mansel
- Chris Mansel
A Portion of the Soul Carries the Heart
By Chris Mansel
America, above purpose, defines itself as the last toll on the road to democracy. It creates its own vision of an idea and betrays it as often as it recites it. Defying international law and reconsidering its reasons it invades and assumes the population's wealth. Natural resources, the acquiring of by force, are not listed in the constitution or in any of its amendments. Democracy wastes itself on the definition of morality and indecision. Defending its agenda on the basis of the rights of the wealthy democracy completely undermines the rights of the poor to earn a living and concentrates itself upon the furthering of its principles of the class warfare it defends so abundantly through a two party system that only falls in the path of the law when it forgets itself and rushes ahead without the payment of graft and favors. William Julius Mickle wrote, "The less criminal spirits animate bees, singing birds, and other innocent creatures; while those of deeper guilt become wolves or tigers." These wolves don't disguise themselves and they eat their prey in front of the young to remind those looking that if you have none they will still take what you don't have. The antidote to patience is not resolve, but action. Words define only what the memory will allow. Choice is the omnipresent wage that drives the open minded and cannot be assumed by anyone through force or by law. The ability to vote, to write in a vote, clarifies what the two party system might describe as an un-American activity. To not employ the television media for news is to off load the spin for the truth.
America, above purpose, defines itself as the last toll on the road to democracy. It creates its own vision of an idea and betrays it as often as it recites it. Defying international law and reconsidering its reasons it invades and assumes the population's wealth. Natural resources, the acquiring of by force, are not listed in the constitution or in any of its amendments. Democracy wastes itself on the definition of morality and indecision. Defending its agenda on the basis of the rights of the wealthy democracy completely undermines the rights of the poor to earn a living and concentrates itself upon the furthering of its principles of the class warfare it defends so abundantly through a two party system that only falls in the path of the law when it forgets itself and rushes ahead without the payment of graft and favors. William Julius Mickle wrote, "The less criminal spirits animate bees, singing birds, and other innocent creatures; while those of deeper guilt become wolves or tigers." These wolves don't disguise themselves and they eat their prey in front of the young to remind those looking that if you have none they will still take what you don't have. The antidote to patience is not resolve, but action. Words define only what the memory will allow. Choice is the omnipresent wage that drives the open minded and cannot be assumed by anyone through force or by law. The ability to vote, to write in a vote, clarifies what the two party system might describe as an un-American activity. To not employ the television media for news is to off load the spin for the truth.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Wait! Pull Back! By Tom Stephens
Environmental Justice and the Practice of
Sacred Law and Traditional Wisdom by Indigenous Peoples
March 24, 2005
Earlier this month, on March 5, I had the pleasure of appearing on a panel at the Law Union of Ontario’s annual conference in Toronto. Another speaker was Kate Kempton of the Toronto law firm Olthuis Kleer Townshend. Kate’s discussion of what she has learned representing indigenous peoples regarding rebuilding sovereignty and self-determination holds profound lessons regarding environmental justice, which I will try to briefly summarize here.
Different World Views
The applicable world-view of “environmental law” in 21st century post-industrial society is linear, hierarchical, and based on dominance. This dominance permits and provokes subjugation of nature and peoples who hold nature as sacred and internal, and provokes creation and recognition of rights in individual and especially corporate property, in the form of precisely defined and carved-out parcels. These property rights, in turn, are valuable for purposes of commodification and exploitation of resources, primarily for their narrowly defined economic benefits. Environmental regulations and law are “linear,” in the sense that they assume a direct progression, from proposals and initiatives about resource exploitation and protection, to the outcomes of regulatory and legal proceedings. Interests, all themselves defined within boxes, are weighed and ostensibly “balanced” against each other, not with each other as a model of sharing would create. That ostensibly rational, linear, ahistorical and economistic model does not accurately describe the fundamental issues and values at stake in today’s world-reshaping and -defining conflicts over resources, sovereignty and environmental health and justice.
One characteristic of the dominant, linear world-view that distorts our perceptions and our decisions regarding our relationship to nature involves putting the environment in a box, separated from issues of cultural and economic survival. Under this view, “more” is “better,” including more exploitation of the environment by dominant economic and cultural forces. The false ideological and psychological “box,” separating the environmental from the socio-economic and from self-identity, blinds us to the permanent and irreversibly damaging consequences that more exploitation of a rapidly diminishing resource base threaten for us all. In our time, the “line” that symbolizes this world-view depicts us, through the transnational corporate forces of dominance and hierarchy, patriarchy and white supremacy, driving ourselves to the end of the line (lines end in “dead ends”), and off the edge of the cliff of social, ecological, economic and civilizational survival.
The contrasting indigenous world-view, symbolized by the circle, in which our environment, humans and our culture are embedded within and intrinsically sharing with each other, is the basis of indigenous sacred and traditional law and wisdom and, at its best, also of environmental justice. Kate Kempton has an indigenous client/associate who describes her practice, in his language of Cree, as “ses-qua”, or “Wait! Pull back!” That is what we must do to meet the fundamental environmental justice challenges of the 21st century, by recognizing and consistently acting upon the interrelationship between our environment and our cultural and economic survival. Such practices and philosophies encountered our natural resources in their spectacular fullness millennia ago, they established ways of living on sacred ground in peace and justice, and they continue to safeguard a remnant that remains subject to their jurisdiction today. When will we ever learn?
Change or Die
Trying to protect the essential environmental interests and fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples, and other people of color and low-income people, within the dominant, hierarchical and linear framework of what we know as “environmental law,” is like trying to fit a big round ball into a small square box. It is bound to fail. And because of the huge global issues at stake in today’s world regarding environmental health and human survival, if we continue to pursue this failed strategy, we will eventually fail ecologically, socially, economically, and as a matter of human survival. No amount of scientific regulation or careful legal or administrative weighing of data will change this stark reality.
Unlike the line, the circle never ends (it has no end points), yielding a very different and much more authentic version of cherished human “freedom.” This is potentially the basis of a different, more holistic, sustainable, fair, and potentially successful environmental law. Only within a sacred (and truly democratic) circle is it possible to see how things weighed in dollar amounts do not always outweigh things that are beloved, irreplaceable, unique, invaluable, and necessary for survival; to effectively assert rights, power, and control over vital interests, without falling into the trap of dominance and subjugation that denies them to others; to implement sustainability on individual, local, state/provincial and national/ international levels. On all these levels, dominance systematically threatens human and ecological survival today. Therefore we have to implement alternatives to dominance. Both to preserve material survival of the environment, and to establish justice among humans, we urgently have to implement alternatives. To continue with unfettered exploitation, with the illusion of the separate environmental “box” and the potential for infinite “growth,” is a death sentence for both humans and our cultures.
We urgently have to remember the sacred wisdom of our childhood, that (in Kate Kempton’s words) what we “need” is not the same thing as what we “want.” And what we think we want, in the world of lines, is not what we really need – for identity, survival, and happiness. We need to say “wait,” to “pull back,” and “we need to take this whole assembly of lines apart” in order to provide both a human future for our children and a natural future for our world. The long-overdue recognition that environmental justice must become an integral part of the public policy of democratic governments around the world, and that environmental racism and disproportionate exposure to environmental contamination and risk must be opposed and eliminated, is just one necessary step on this sacred road.
Tom Stephens, lebensbaum4@earthlink.net, would like to express his appreciation to Kate Kempton, KKempton@OKTLaw.com, for her review and editorial assistance with this essay.
Sacred Law and Traditional Wisdom by Indigenous Peoples
March 24, 2005
Earlier this month, on March 5, I had the pleasure of appearing on a panel at the Law Union of Ontario’s annual conference in Toronto. Another speaker was Kate Kempton of the Toronto law firm Olthuis Kleer Townshend. Kate’s discussion of what she has learned representing indigenous peoples regarding rebuilding sovereignty and self-determination holds profound lessons regarding environmental justice, which I will try to briefly summarize here.
Different World Views
The applicable world-view of “environmental law” in 21st century post-industrial society is linear, hierarchical, and based on dominance. This dominance permits and provokes subjugation of nature and peoples who hold nature as sacred and internal, and provokes creation and recognition of rights in individual and especially corporate property, in the form of precisely defined and carved-out parcels. These property rights, in turn, are valuable for purposes of commodification and exploitation of resources, primarily for their narrowly defined economic benefits. Environmental regulations and law are “linear,” in the sense that they assume a direct progression, from proposals and initiatives about resource exploitation and protection, to the outcomes of regulatory and legal proceedings. Interests, all themselves defined within boxes, are weighed and ostensibly “balanced” against each other, not with each other as a model of sharing would create. That ostensibly rational, linear, ahistorical and economistic model does not accurately describe the fundamental issues and values at stake in today’s world-reshaping and -defining conflicts over resources, sovereignty and environmental health and justice.
One characteristic of the dominant, linear world-view that distorts our perceptions and our decisions regarding our relationship to nature involves putting the environment in a box, separated from issues of cultural and economic survival. Under this view, “more” is “better,” including more exploitation of the environment by dominant economic and cultural forces. The false ideological and psychological “box,” separating the environmental from the socio-economic and from self-identity, blinds us to the permanent and irreversibly damaging consequences that more exploitation of a rapidly diminishing resource base threaten for us all. In our time, the “line” that symbolizes this world-view depicts us, through the transnational corporate forces of dominance and hierarchy, patriarchy and white supremacy, driving ourselves to the end of the line (lines end in “dead ends”), and off the edge of the cliff of social, ecological, economic and civilizational survival.
The contrasting indigenous world-view, symbolized by the circle, in which our environment, humans and our culture are embedded within and intrinsically sharing with each other, is the basis of indigenous sacred and traditional law and wisdom and, at its best, also of environmental justice. Kate Kempton has an indigenous client/associate who describes her practice, in his language of Cree, as “ses-qua”, or “Wait! Pull back!” That is what we must do to meet the fundamental environmental justice challenges of the 21st century, by recognizing and consistently acting upon the interrelationship between our environment and our cultural and economic survival. Such practices and philosophies encountered our natural resources in their spectacular fullness millennia ago, they established ways of living on sacred ground in peace and justice, and they continue to safeguard a remnant that remains subject to their jurisdiction today. When will we ever learn?
Change or Die
Trying to protect the essential environmental interests and fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples, and other people of color and low-income people, within the dominant, hierarchical and linear framework of what we know as “environmental law,” is like trying to fit a big round ball into a small square box. It is bound to fail. And because of the huge global issues at stake in today’s world regarding environmental health and human survival, if we continue to pursue this failed strategy, we will eventually fail ecologically, socially, economically, and as a matter of human survival. No amount of scientific regulation or careful legal or administrative weighing of data will change this stark reality.
Unlike the line, the circle never ends (it has no end points), yielding a very different and much more authentic version of cherished human “freedom.” This is potentially the basis of a different, more holistic, sustainable, fair, and potentially successful environmental law. Only within a sacred (and truly democratic) circle is it possible to see how things weighed in dollar amounts do not always outweigh things that are beloved, irreplaceable, unique, invaluable, and necessary for survival; to effectively assert rights, power, and control over vital interests, without falling into the trap of dominance and subjugation that denies them to others; to implement sustainability on individual, local, state/provincial and national/ international levels. On all these levels, dominance systematically threatens human and ecological survival today. Therefore we have to implement alternatives to dominance. Both to preserve material survival of the environment, and to establish justice among humans, we urgently have to implement alternatives. To continue with unfettered exploitation, with the illusion of the separate environmental “box” and the potential for infinite “growth,” is a death sentence for both humans and our cultures.
We urgently have to remember the sacred wisdom of our childhood, that (in Kate Kempton’s words) what we “need” is not the same thing as what we “want.” And what we think we want, in the world of lines, is not what we really need – for identity, survival, and happiness. We need to say “wait,” to “pull back,” and “we need to take this whole assembly of lines apart” in order to provide both a human future for our children and a natural future for our world. The long-overdue recognition that environmental justice must become an integral part of the public policy of democratic governments around the world, and that environmental racism and disproportionate exposure to environmental contamination and risk must be opposed and eliminated, is just one necessary step on this sacred road.
Tom Stephens, lebensbaum4@earthlink.net, would like to express his appreciation to Kate Kempton, KKempton@OKTLaw.com, for her review and editorial assistance with this essay.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
SUMMER SOLDIERS AGAINST THE WAR
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
WHY THE EQUIVOCATORS ARE WRONG
By Jack Random
[Summary: In these trying times, the ranks of the antiwar movement are missing some of their most prominent members. The equivocators, whose passion for the cause has seemingly waned, are in some ways more damaging than rightwing ideologues.]
Something was missing from the antiwar rally at City Plaza in San Francisco. Two years after the war began, nearly two months after an election in Iraq made the purple finger a symbol of freedom, the proud statue of Simon Bolivar looked out over a sea of protesters and no one of notoriety looked back.
Where was the Hollywood contingent? Where were the high-profile champions of the Green Party? Where were the members of Congress? Perhaps some attended rallies in other parts of the country but they were not here. Having been at every major rally since before the war, I can attest that the absence of star power was a first. Perhaps it is unfair to charge the famous of abandoning the cause for lack of a mass audience but it is a thought that must have crossed more than a few of our minds.
Those of us who marched and gathered to declare our renewed resolve should be proud that we have stood the challenge. Those who accuse us now of obstinacy, of refusing to accept the glory of war simply because it is sponsored by a president we despise, are the same individuals who gave up the cause at Shock and Awe. They include comedian-turned-pundit Bill Maher, Senators Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein and John Kerry. They are the ultimate equivocators (who never tire of criticizing the equivocations of others) such as MS/NBC’s Chris Matthews and fellow soft-baller Tim Russert. They include virtually everyone who has been allowed to wear the hat of an antiwar spokesperson before the mainstream media cameras, with the notable exceptions of Amy Goodman and Katrina vanden Heuvel.
In the winter of 1776, when the independence of this nation was very much in doubt, citizen Tom Paine etched his most famous words by campfire on the head of a drum: These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Perhaps we should perceive the evolution of events as positive. When the authorities were afraid of us, they branded us traitors and threatened to slap us in jail or ship us off to foreign lands that have no sense of humanitarian restraint. Now, they only accuse us of obstinacy and poor manners.
We are so filled with hatred for George W. Bush that we cannot admit that anything he says or does is right and honorable. Strangely, it is a familiar appeal and one that has been sounded to justify the actions of the last several administrations. It is a particularly vexing accusation because it appeals to the public without having to rely on reason. They have invented their own opposition and when events do not play out as the pseudo opposition predicted, they claim victory over themselves.
No one in the antiwar movement declared that either Arabs or Muslims were incapable of achieving democracy. No one in the antiwar movement said that an election could not be held under conditions of Marshall Law. No one in the antiwar movement has opposed democracy anywhere in the world – not in the Ukraine, not in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq or Ohio.
We are accused of working backwards from our disdain for the president to a blanket distrust of his policies. I accuse the accusers of working backwards from their need to placate the president, along with the corporate masters who sign their paychecks. Are we allowed to consider the president’s history? Are we allowed to consider the Bush Doctrine of foreign policy? Are we permitted to acknowledge the Bush administration’s betrayal of democracy in Haiti, Venezuela, Pakistan or the Philippines? I accuse our detractors of closing their eyes to those truths that do not fit the mold of their appeasement.
The equivocators point to France as an example of appropriate reticence and reserve. Indeed, I point to the Gold Coast and Port-au-Prince and demand that the French take Jacques Chirac down for his betrayals.
The equivocators point to NATO as a model of dispassionate cooperation. I point to Italy, Spain, Poland and Ukraine. Everywhere democracy springs up, support for the war declines. There are few in the Ukraine that are thanking George Bush for democracy and fewer in Washington thanking Viktor Yushchenko for making good his promise to withdraw from Iraq. In Lebanon, given the history of western involvement, there is as much or more concern about America’s role in internal affairs as that of Syria. It is no secret that intelligence operations have resumed in Lebanon and it is not beyond contemplating that the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was a CIA operation designed to destabilize Lebanon and damage relations with Syria.
Will the equivocators concede that there is, at this juncture, no democracy in Iraq? Will they admit that without sovereignty elections are little more than a show? Will they admit that the administration has shown little interest in Latin American or African democracy? Will they admit that America’s attraction to Middle Eastern “democracy” is grounded in the thick, black fluid that rests beneath Arabic feet? Will they concede that thus far we have accomplished nothing more than media events and press releases designed to create an illusion of democracy while the people remain powerless? Will they admit that we have sacrificed fifteen hundred American soldiers, $200 billion, and roughly 125,000 Iraqis [1] for a photo op to justify an ongoing theft? If Iraq is a democracy, then who controls the oil? This is the question that divides the fools from the liars, the equivocators from the lords of avarice.
When we have sacrificed another thousand or two soldiers, another 50,000 Arab lives, when the draft is reinstated, when we establish permanent bases for permanent war on the Arabian peninsula, when we defy the expressed will of the people to withdraw our forces, when we refuse to nullify the contracts of an occupier, then it will be our turn to order crow for your suppers.
Will you be so kind as to swallow? You are worse than the warlords who believe in this crusade for the obvious reason: the Iraqis have what we covet. You are worse because you allow them to get away with it on the pretense of virtue. You are worse because you know better – or would if you allowed yourself to pursue the truth beyond comfortable conclusions. You are worse because you have abandoned the cause without cause. You ride the waves of popular opinion without honor or shame and expect to be welcomed at every table.
You are the sunshine patriots and summer soldiers who possess no convictions, who harbor no loyalties, and in the end you will have earned neither the love nor the thanks of man, woman or nation.
Jazz.
1) Extrapolated from the only objective estimate of Iraqi casualties to date, that of the British medical journal Lancet.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). SEE ALSO WWW.BUZZLE.COM.
WHY THE EQUIVOCATORS ARE WRONG
By Jack Random
[Summary: In these trying times, the ranks of the antiwar movement are missing some of their most prominent members. The equivocators, whose passion for the cause has seemingly waned, are in some ways more damaging than rightwing ideologues.]
Something was missing from the antiwar rally at City Plaza in San Francisco. Two years after the war began, nearly two months after an election in Iraq made the purple finger a symbol of freedom, the proud statue of Simon Bolivar looked out over a sea of protesters and no one of notoriety looked back.
Where was the Hollywood contingent? Where were the high-profile champions of the Green Party? Where were the members of Congress? Perhaps some attended rallies in other parts of the country but they were not here. Having been at every major rally since before the war, I can attest that the absence of star power was a first. Perhaps it is unfair to charge the famous of abandoning the cause for lack of a mass audience but it is a thought that must have crossed more than a few of our minds.
Those of us who marched and gathered to declare our renewed resolve should be proud that we have stood the challenge. Those who accuse us now of obstinacy, of refusing to accept the glory of war simply because it is sponsored by a president we despise, are the same individuals who gave up the cause at Shock and Awe. They include comedian-turned-pundit Bill Maher, Senators Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein and John Kerry. They are the ultimate equivocators (who never tire of criticizing the equivocations of others) such as MS/NBC’s Chris Matthews and fellow soft-baller Tim Russert. They include virtually everyone who has been allowed to wear the hat of an antiwar spokesperson before the mainstream media cameras, with the notable exceptions of Amy Goodman and Katrina vanden Heuvel.
In the winter of 1776, when the independence of this nation was very much in doubt, citizen Tom Paine etched his most famous words by campfire on the head of a drum: These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Perhaps we should perceive the evolution of events as positive. When the authorities were afraid of us, they branded us traitors and threatened to slap us in jail or ship us off to foreign lands that have no sense of humanitarian restraint. Now, they only accuse us of obstinacy and poor manners.
We are so filled with hatred for George W. Bush that we cannot admit that anything he says or does is right and honorable. Strangely, it is a familiar appeal and one that has been sounded to justify the actions of the last several administrations. It is a particularly vexing accusation because it appeals to the public without having to rely on reason. They have invented their own opposition and when events do not play out as the pseudo opposition predicted, they claim victory over themselves.
No one in the antiwar movement declared that either Arabs or Muslims were incapable of achieving democracy. No one in the antiwar movement said that an election could not be held under conditions of Marshall Law. No one in the antiwar movement has opposed democracy anywhere in the world – not in the Ukraine, not in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq or Ohio.
We are accused of working backwards from our disdain for the president to a blanket distrust of his policies. I accuse the accusers of working backwards from their need to placate the president, along with the corporate masters who sign their paychecks. Are we allowed to consider the president’s history? Are we allowed to consider the Bush Doctrine of foreign policy? Are we permitted to acknowledge the Bush administration’s betrayal of democracy in Haiti, Venezuela, Pakistan or the Philippines? I accuse our detractors of closing their eyes to those truths that do not fit the mold of their appeasement.
The equivocators point to France as an example of appropriate reticence and reserve. Indeed, I point to the Gold Coast and Port-au-Prince and demand that the French take Jacques Chirac down for his betrayals.
The equivocators point to NATO as a model of dispassionate cooperation. I point to Italy, Spain, Poland and Ukraine. Everywhere democracy springs up, support for the war declines. There are few in the Ukraine that are thanking George Bush for democracy and fewer in Washington thanking Viktor Yushchenko for making good his promise to withdraw from Iraq. In Lebanon, given the history of western involvement, there is as much or more concern about America’s role in internal affairs as that of Syria. It is no secret that intelligence operations have resumed in Lebanon and it is not beyond contemplating that the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was a CIA operation designed to destabilize Lebanon and damage relations with Syria.
Will the equivocators concede that there is, at this juncture, no democracy in Iraq? Will they admit that without sovereignty elections are little more than a show? Will they admit that the administration has shown little interest in Latin American or African democracy? Will they admit that America’s attraction to Middle Eastern “democracy” is grounded in the thick, black fluid that rests beneath Arabic feet? Will they concede that thus far we have accomplished nothing more than media events and press releases designed to create an illusion of democracy while the people remain powerless? Will they admit that we have sacrificed fifteen hundred American soldiers, $200 billion, and roughly 125,000 Iraqis [1] for a photo op to justify an ongoing theft? If Iraq is a democracy, then who controls the oil? This is the question that divides the fools from the liars, the equivocators from the lords of avarice.
When we have sacrificed another thousand or two soldiers, another 50,000 Arab lives, when the draft is reinstated, when we establish permanent bases for permanent war on the Arabian peninsula, when we defy the expressed will of the people to withdraw our forces, when we refuse to nullify the contracts of an occupier, then it will be our turn to order crow for your suppers.
Will you be so kind as to swallow? You are worse than the warlords who believe in this crusade for the obvious reason: the Iraqis have what we covet. You are worse because you allow them to get away with it on the pretense of virtue. You are worse because you know better – or would if you allowed yourself to pursue the truth beyond comfortable conclusions. You are worse because you have abandoned the cause without cause. You ride the waves of popular opinion without honor or shame and expect to be welcomed at every table.
You are the sunshine patriots and summer soldiers who possess no convictions, who harbor no loyalties, and in the end you will have earned neither the love nor the thanks of man, woman or nation.
Jazz.
1) Extrapolated from the only objective estimate of Iraqi casualties to date, that of the British medical journal Lancet.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). SEE ALSO WWW.BUZZLE.COM.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
CONGRESS AT THE PLATE
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
GRANDSTANDING POLITICIANS & BASEBALL
By Jack Random
The grandstand is filling up long before the first pitch. The smell of fresh cut grass and hope springs eternal. The game comes back to Washington and Washington, hungry for a winning ticket in a season of despair, comes back to the game. Leading off is Tom Davis (R-VA), Chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, backed up by Henry “Smoke and Mirrors” Waxman (D-CA) with the heavy-hitting Senator from Arizona waiting in the wings.
Baseball starts early this year with a circle of politicians eager to score a little face time at the expense of the grand old game. Some of these grandstanders have ambitions that would make Caesar blush. One in particular seems to have one eye trained to the camera light at all times and rarely misses an opportunity to take center stage.
The biggest hotdogs in baseball are bratwurst and polish sausage. The biggest hotdog in Washington is without peer: Perpetual candidate John McCain.
Here is an issue with the potential to transcend ideology. Left-right, Republican or Democrat, any politician who believes, in a time of war and record deficits, in a time of bizarre climate and runaway energy prices, at a time of neglect for America’s workers, at a time of crumbling economic infrastructures, at a time of crushing trade deficits and a declining dollar, at a time of rapidly changing international alliances, it is in fact a good time to turn our attention to the problem of baseball records and asterisks, they deserve our united scorn and a pledge of eternal opposition.
As Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) said, “Maybe I’ve missed something, but is this the most important issue in the United States today? It doesn’t warrant a committee hearing, no less the issuing of subpoenas.”
Lest anyone take seriously this drivel about protecting our children from the scourge of steroids, the problem of steroid abuse in baseball is solved. With the new testing program and a well-publicized Witch Hunt, there was next to no one on steroids in 2004 and there will be fewer still in 2005. Minor league abuse was eliminated several seasons ago and every high school athlete knows: Steroid usage is the surest way to be banished from the road to professional baseball. Even the hint of steroid use will end a young prospect’s career.
Our children are not at risk. What our elected leaders might concern themselves with is a culture that believes that all our problems (including a sagging slugging percentage) have a pharmaceutical solution. That, however, would require taking on an industry that provides substantial funding to political campaigns on both sides of the aisle.
There are few things worse in the world of sport than pretending to be a champion when you are only a chump. Pretending to be a hero when, in fact, you are nothing but a grandstander reaching for glory where none is to be found and willing to harm those who have done no harm is far worse than any crime of an accused ball player.
Thus far, no one has been able to find a solution to the problem of a politician’s unquenchable thirst for publicity. My recommendation: Give them each a gun and send them down to the border they like to talk so much about. Let them each take a cameraman and an embedded reporter so they feel useful and appreciated. Let there be no bullets in the gun. Let there be no film in the camera and no tape in the recorder. The longer we can keep them there the better off we will all be.
Leave the game alone.
Jazz.
SEE ALSO: IN DEFENSE OF BARRY BONDS (WWW.DISSIDENTVOICE.COM).
GRANDSTANDING POLITICIANS & BASEBALL
By Jack Random
The grandstand is filling up long before the first pitch. The smell of fresh cut grass and hope springs eternal. The game comes back to Washington and Washington, hungry for a winning ticket in a season of despair, comes back to the game. Leading off is Tom Davis (R-VA), Chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, backed up by Henry “Smoke and Mirrors” Waxman (D-CA) with the heavy-hitting Senator from Arizona waiting in the wings.
Baseball starts early this year with a circle of politicians eager to score a little face time at the expense of the grand old game. Some of these grandstanders have ambitions that would make Caesar blush. One in particular seems to have one eye trained to the camera light at all times and rarely misses an opportunity to take center stage.
The biggest hotdogs in baseball are bratwurst and polish sausage. The biggest hotdog in Washington is without peer: Perpetual candidate John McCain.
Here is an issue with the potential to transcend ideology. Left-right, Republican or Democrat, any politician who believes, in a time of war and record deficits, in a time of bizarre climate and runaway energy prices, at a time of neglect for America’s workers, at a time of crumbling economic infrastructures, at a time of crushing trade deficits and a declining dollar, at a time of rapidly changing international alliances, it is in fact a good time to turn our attention to the problem of baseball records and asterisks, they deserve our united scorn and a pledge of eternal opposition.
As Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) said, “Maybe I’ve missed something, but is this the most important issue in the United States today? It doesn’t warrant a committee hearing, no less the issuing of subpoenas.”
Lest anyone take seriously this drivel about protecting our children from the scourge of steroids, the problem of steroid abuse in baseball is solved. With the new testing program and a well-publicized Witch Hunt, there was next to no one on steroids in 2004 and there will be fewer still in 2005. Minor league abuse was eliminated several seasons ago and every high school athlete knows: Steroid usage is the surest way to be banished from the road to professional baseball. Even the hint of steroid use will end a young prospect’s career.
Our children are not at risk. What our elected leaders might concern themselves with is a culture that believes that all our problems (including a sagging slugging percentage) have a pharmaceutical solution. That, however, would require taking on an industry that provides substantial funding to political campaigns on both sides of the aisle.
There are few things worse in the world of sport than pretending to be a champion when you are only a chump. Pretending to be a hero when, in fact, you are nothing but a grandstander reaching for glory where none is to be found and willing to harm those who have done no harm is far worse than any crime of an accused ball player.
Thus far, no one has been able to find a solution to the problem of a politician’s unquenchable thirst for publicity. My recommendation: Give them each a gun and send them down to the border they like to talk so much about. Let them each take a cameraman and an embedded reporter so they feel useful and appreciated. Let there be no bullets in the gun. Let there be no film in the camera and no tape in the recorder. The longer we can keep them there the better off we will all be.
Leave the game alone.
Jazz.
SEE ALSO: IN DEFENSE OF BARRY BONDS (WWW.DISSIDENTVOICE.COM).
Monday, March 14, 2005
NYC ANTIWAR RESOLUTION
WHEREAS: March 19 is the second anniversary of the beginning of the war against Iraq, and
WHEREAS: Peace loving people in New York City and throughout the region will gather in Central Park, as people in cities across the country and the world will be marking that date with protest;
WHEREAS: President Bush is asking Congress to approve $82 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on top of the $200 billion that has already been taken from the lives of working and poor people to pay for the last two years of war;
WHEREAS: President Bush's 2006 proposed budget constitutes the most violent assault in 25 years on the programs that New York City as well as other cities and communities across the country depend on;
WHEREAS: These proposed cuts in desperately needed aid for education, healthcare, housing, veterans, as well as for the homeless and hungry; and whereas the continuation of the war and occupation in Iraq that these proposed cuts will in part pay for will cause grave harm to the people of New York City;
The New York City Council calls on President George Bush and on Congress to:
WITHDRAW ALL U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ NOW and NOT CUT THE PROGRAMS THAT CITIES AND COMMUNITIES DEPEND ON.
WHEREAS: Peace loving people in New York City and throughout the region will gather in Central Park, as people in cities across the country and the world will be marking that date with protest;
WHEREAS: President Bush is asking Congress to approve $82 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on top of the $200 billion that has already been taken from the lives of working and poor people to pay for the last two years of war;
WHEREAS: President Bush's 2006 proposed budget constitutes the most violent assault in 25 years on the programs that New York City as well as other cities and communities across the country depend on;
WHEREAS: These proposed cuts in desperately needed aid for education, healthcare, housing, veterans, as well as for the homeless and hungry; and whereas the continuation of the war and occupation in Iraq that these proposed cuts will in part pay for will cause grave harm to the people of New York City;
The New York City Council calls on President George Bush and on Congress to:
WITHDRAW ALL U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ NOW and NOT CUT THE PROGRAMS THAT CITIES AND COMMUNITIES DEPEND ON.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Robber Barons Revisited
By John Griffin
[Submitted by Anna Pages]
Although I'm a military veteran and patriotic to a degree, the Bush Administration has proven to be thugs, robbing the American Middle Class of everything they've worked for by looking the other way while jobs are exported to such places as Mexico, India, China, and South Korea by the millions while basic customer services have been for the most part turned over to elevator musicians and recorded voices. John Quarterman, Bonnie Cole, Sherry Love & I saw it coming, Republican money machine in disguise as a Christian coalition running roughshod over anyone & anything in their path to controlling wealth and international power. Now the good ole boy middle of the road folks who once had "schoolgirl crushes" on the Bush Administration are finally catching on that there's trouble in paradise and beyond. I'm not sure when a new American Revolution begins, but as a "health caring" deficit-laden nation, we're up to our ass in alligators, nearly bankrupt, and environmentally cattywhompas. All legislation to improve the status quo has been bought by priveleged investors betting on hedge fund appropriations.
Perhaps the next generation will be miracle workers.
(Either that or temporary workers in trailer parks.)
I'm just hoping Jesus will hurry on back and
straighten out this big mess of a world we're in.
Still counting money in Alphaville while it lasts.
- - - John G.
Corporate Road Warrior
When in doubt just take a look
at very real and valid statistics:
costofwar.com
[Submitted by Anna Pages]
Although I'm a military veteran and patriotic to a degree, the Bush Administration has proven to be thugs, robbing the American Middle Class of everything they've worked for by looking the other way while jobs are exported to such places as Mexico, India, China, and South Korea by the millions while basic customer services have been for the most part turned over to elevator musicians and recorded voices. John Quarterman, Bonnie Cole, Sherry Love & I saw it coming, Republican money machine in disguise as a Christian coalition running roughshod over anyone & anything in their path to controlling wealth and international power. Now the good ole boy middle of the road folks who once had "schoolgirl crushes" on the Bush Administration are finally catching on that there's trouble in paradise and beyond. I'm not sure when a new American Revolution begins, but as a "health caring" deficit-laden nation, we're up to our ass in alligators, nearly bankrupt, and environmentally cattywhompas. All legislation to improve the status quo has been bought by priveleged investors betting on hedge fund appropriations.
Perhaps the next generation will be miracle workers.
(Either that or temporary workers in trailer parks.)
I'm just hoping Jesus will hurry on back and
straighten out this big mess of a world we're in.
Still counting money in Alphaville while it lasts.
- - - John G.
Corporate Road Warrior
When in doubt just take a look
at very real and valid statistics:
costofwar.com
Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction
United Press International
A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.
Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.
"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.
"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said.
He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor.
Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting."
"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.
Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon.
[Submitted by Chris Mansel.]
A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.
Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.
"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.
"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said.
He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor.
Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting."
"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.
Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon.
[Submitted by Chris Mansel.]
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Obiter Dictum (Ward Churchill)
By Chris Mansel
[Editor's Note: Ward Churchill & The Threshold of Influence is posted on the Albion Monitor. See http://www.albionmonitor.com.]
Of Ward Churchill Jack Random writes, "I would dearly love to say that Ward Churchill is not important, that it is the principle of free speech, the essence of a democratic society, and the foundation of academic excellence, that is at stake here, but I simply do not believe it. Ward Churchill is important. His is a singular and distinct voice in American society and, if it is lost, we are all impoverished. His crime is not that he misspoke or that he spoke out of turn, too loudly and too proudly, but that he dared to say what many thought. Moreover, the sentence he committed to paper on September 12, 2001, would never have garnered any significant attention had not the writer crossed a threshold of influence." How right he is. When a man or woman in this country is afraid to stand up and say what he or she feels, state their opinion then all is lost. Democracy will cease to exist, another form of government will evolve, and many in the opposition will die. If you think that sounds just a bit absurd then read the history of Guatemala, Serbia, Poland, just to name a few.
Ward Churchill may have chosen too strong a representation in using the word, Eichmann, but in all sincerity, he was right to a degree. Many of those who work in the technology and money markets are contributing to acts of terrorism whether they know it or not. They do compete to find brand new ways of inciting terror and launder money. If a bank is discovered to be washing money for a drug cartel they don’t arrest everyone who works for the bank, they arrest the higher ups in the company and hold them accountable. Can you imagine the man who mops and buffs the floor being in on the crime with the president and board of the bank? No, you cannot but you might easily make the case that a few mid-level positions in the bank were either asked or told to look the other way. It is doubtful that their names will appear in the indictments. Are they just as guilty? Yes.
The events of September 11 were horrific and stirred a nation into two separate directions. The first was anger and an insistence to attack those who would attack us but the second was much more disturbing. Few elected officials called for caution and in this tense restraint of panic sweeping changes were made under the nose of those that serve in Washington by bills such as the Patriot Act. To use the events of the worst attack ever on this country to push your agenda is just as bad or worse than the attacks. Politicians for years have rushed to have their photos taken at the scene of a fire, at the slaughter of innocent civilians and the events of September 11. It’s despicable and it reeks of a total uncaring and self-preservation that says everything about the sincerity and dignity of that official. Most of the contents in the Patriot Act sought new restrictions over domestic surveillance. Let the shoplifter keep their prize and punish the employee for letting him get away.
In an essay entitled, True History, Jack Random writes, "The greatness of our country and the greatest hope is that there are those who have broken free from the bindings of our indoctrination and declared themselves free. These individuals have discovered the greater truth that where one falsehood lies it is often accompanied by many others. They have uncovered the lies of manifest destiny and equal opportunity. They uncovered the lies of blind justice and the moral imperative to war. They have uncovered the lies of American sovereignty, American democracy, American superiority, and they have discovered the underlying truth: We are a nation born of great ideals yet we have failed to live up to them." Failure to live up to those ideals can be the conclusion of a great noble idea. To protect the people of the United States should not come at the price of liberty and freedom. If it does then we’re facing the wrong end of the barrel of the gun.
- Chris Mansel
SEE http://themanselreport.blogspot.com/
[Editor's Note: Ward Churchill & The Threshold of Influence is posted on the Albion Monitor. See http://www.albionmonitor.com.]
Of Ward Churchill Jack Random writes, "I would dearly love to say that Ward Churchill is not important, that it is the principle of free speech, the essence of a democratic society, and the foundation of academic excellence, that is at stake here, but I simply do not believe it. Ward Churchill is important. His is a singular and distinct voice in American society and, if it is lost, we are all impoverished. His crime is not that he misspoke or that he spoke out of turn, too loudly and too proudly, but that he dared to say what many thought. Moreover, the sentence he committed to paper on September 12, 2001, would never have garnered any significant attention had not the writer crossed a threshold of influence." How right he is. When a man or woman in this country is afraid to stand up and say what he or she feels, state their opinion then all is lost. Democracy will cease to exist, another form of government will evolve, and many in the opposition will die. If you think that sounds just a bit absurd then read the history of Guatemala, Serbia, Poland, just to name a few.
Ward Churchill may have chosen too strong a representation in using the word, Eichmann, but in all sincerity, he was right to a degree. Many of those who work in the technology and money markets are contributing to acts of terrorism whether they know it or not. They do compete to find brand new ways of inciting terror and launder money. If a bank is discovered to be washing money for a drug cartel they don’t arrest everyone who works for the bank, they arrest the higher ups in the company and hold them accountable. Can you imagine the man who mops and buffs the floor being in on the crime with the president and board of the bank? No, you cannot but you might easily make the case that a few mid-level positions in the bank were either asked or told to look the other way. It is doubtful that their names will appear in the indictments. Are they just as guilty? Yes.
The events of September 11 were horrific and stirred a nation into two separate directions. The first was anger and an insistence to attack those who would attack us but the second was much more disturbing. Few elected officials called for caution and in this tense restraint of panic sweeping changes were made under the nose of those that serve in Washington by bills such as the Patriot Act. To use the events of the worst attack ever on this country to push your agenda is just as bad or worse than the attacks. Politicians for years have rushed to have their photos taken at the scene of a fire, at the slaughter of innocent civilians and the events of September 11. It’s despicable and it reeks of a total uncaring and self-preservation that says everything about the sincerity and dignity of that official. Most of the contents in the Patriot Act sought new restrictions over domestic surveillance. Let the shoplifter keep their prize and punish the employee for letting him get away.
In an essay entitled, True History, Jack Random writes, "The greatness of our country and the greatest hope is that there are those who have broken free from the bindings of our indoctrination and declared themselves free. These individuals have discovered the greater truth that where one falsehood lies it is often accompanied by many others. They have uncovered the lies of manifest destiny and equal opportunity. They uncovered the lies of blind justice and the moral imperative to war. They have uncovered the lies of American sovereignty, American democracy, American superiority, and they have discovered the underlying truth: We are a nation born of great ideals yet we have failed to live up to them." Failure to live up to those ideals can be the conclusion of a great noble idea. To protect the people of the United States should not come at the price of liberty and freedom. If it does then we’re facing the wrong end of the barrel of the gun.
- Chris Mansel
SEE http://themanselreport.blogspot.com/
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