The Best With the Least

Isn't it a basic truth in politics that those with the best things to say have the least money to say it with? Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska are clearly the front runners in content and appear to have the least amount of campaign funding to share their views.

After the Democratic presidential candidate debate in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Gravel made a comment that spoke to a basic fault line in political funding. Meeting the press directly after the debate, Gravel said he regretted that debate moderator Brian Williams had not asked about hedge funds.

“Every one of those people except Kucinich is taking hedge fund money. Hedge fund money is the manipulation of the economy overseas and nobody knows anything about it…. If the world economy tanks, it’s going to be because of the hedge funds.”

The deeply perverting impact of political fund raising is highlighted in Gravel's remarks.

DEBATE RUMINATIONS:

The presidential debate was revealing in many ways. First of all it revealed the bias towards the so-called "front runners" who have the giant campaign war chests. The format was definitely targeted to the candidates with not all candidates being asked the same questions. Therefore certain "presidential" questions, like "What would you do if two American cities were attacked by terrorists on the same day?", were only asked of Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, as if they were the only ones capable of answering that question.

Still, even with the biased questioning process, the candidates did reveal themselves.

Our hero Dennis Kucinich ably presented the reality check of the debate. Though former Senator Gravel was energetic and refreshingly feisty and mostly there with the right points, none of the other candidates, even Gravel, would dare to support Kucinich's call for the impeachment of Vice-President Cheney. This showed that only Kucinich is in touch with the American people and the other candidates are still without the moral courage to do the right thing. By refusing to indicate that Cheney should be held accountable Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Gravel, and Richardson all show their contempt for holding elected official responsible for lying to the American public to start an illegal war.

Clinton was asked if she agreed with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comment that the war is lost, and typical of Clinton, she dodged the question and didn't say whether she agreed or not, whether the war is lost or not. Gravel had the courage to say clearly and correctly, "This war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis."

Clinton said, again, that if she knew then what she knows now she would have voted differently, and Kucinich said that is no excuse because all the information was available then to everyone, and that is why he voted against the war. He said,

"If you made the wrong choice, we're here auditioning to be President of the United States, people have to see who had the judgement and the wisdom not to go to war in the first place. ... This isn't American Idol here, we're choosing a President and we have to look at the audition that occurred in 2003... and my colleagues here made the wrong decision."

This is the point that makes the most sense in deciding my choice. Edwards is to be congratulated for saying he is sorry for his mistaken vote, but Clinton won't even say her vote was a mistake. Only Kucinich can say he has consistently voted against the war and funding it and had ability to correctly analyze the situation and vote accordingly.

Gravel, of course hasn't been in the Senate in the last 10 years or so, and he should get full credit for pointing to Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Biden for saying that nukes are on the table against Iran. Gravel said that was an immoral position.

Edwards says he does live a "privileged and blessed lifestyle" but we should remember his humble roots because he remembers them. This highlights a problem with Edwards' in that he equates his privilege with being blessed. Being privileged does not mean one is blessed. To see wealth and privilege as signs of being blessed is a core problem with most religious belief systems.

Kucinich said he wants to remove war as an instrument of policy. This is the fundamental problem that the "front runners" won't address as a systemic problem arising from the military-industrial complex because they are beholding to that war-money-making machine.

The "debate" mostly was not an actual debate in the sense of addressing each other's positions except for a few brief exciting moments such as when Gravel pointed to the candidates who immorally threaten the use of nuclear weapons against Iran by using codes phrases like "no option is off the table". But still, there is a lot information provided in the forum provided by MSNBC. No one can be a responisible voter without doing the homework of comparing the candidates.

Kucinich alluded to the biggest problem in elections, which is that too many voters approach them like a vote for American Idol and actually pick a candidate based on how he or she dresses or how attractive the person is, or they vote for the one they think has "the best chance of winning." If people really voted for the candidate that they thought expressed the greatest convergence with their own views, then I think Kucinich would have a real chance.

A Low for Charlie Rose

On April 26, 2007, Charlie Rose interviewed General David Petraeus. I have seen some pretty bad interviews by Charlie Rose, but the interview with General Petraeus was the worst in recent memory. The fawning obsequiousness that Rose showed to this Washington-Pentagon mouthpiece who would say anything to get his paycheck was an example of the worst kind of Washington inside the beltway back slapping that passes for journalism. That Rose would not ask a single challenging question nor would he do anything but accept the pablum being offered was so sad to see.

This interview ranks with Dan Rather saying that he would march to any directions the President gave him at the beginning of the war. This is a perfect example of the belly-up cowardice of the major media passed on the presidential propaganda leading up to the war on Iraq without so much as a whisper of doubt. Rose shows he has not learned a single lesson from the four years of war on Iraq.

Charlie Rose clearly was setting up the General with puff questions and made it obvious that Rose accepts 100% the baloney that the Bush administration is saying through their mouthpiece General Petraeus. Charlie Rose should read on the air the short excerpts from the 1933 speech of Major General Smedley D. Butler who wrote a longer version in pamphlet form "War is a Racket". That would do more to inform the American People than ten hours of General Petraeus.

In contrast to Rose's providing a platform for the president's propaganda, the recent program of Bill Moyers Journal titled "Buying the War" on the cheer leading by the media leading up to the war is the story of the journalists like Charlie Rose who aide and abet the lying criminal activity of this villainous president.

The War IS Lost

Harry Reid, US Senate majority leader, is right: the War in Iraq is lost.

"This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week."

He's late in coming to the realization, but in this case, better late than never. Also the War in Afghanistan is lost. And based on its flawed conception from the beginning, Bush's whole phony "War on Terrorism" was lost from day one.

Bush's inchoate wars on the world are so bizarre that they can only be grasped under the category of truth is stranger than fiction.

Today's example of the lost war in Iraq is the BBC story Bombs hit Baghdad police station

Two car bombs have exploded at a police station in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding about 82 others, police say.
The attack took place in the southern, mainly Shia neighbourhood of Bayaa.

The first bomber sped through a checkpoint before exploding his car in front of the station, the other detonated his car at the checkpoint.

So much for Bush's "surge" strategy which is all public relations and no reality check. Yet Bush has the continuing unmitigated insanity to state in the face of the facts that his surge is "meeting expectations". Whose, expectations? It must be the private expectations of his perverted fantasy world, because it is not the expectations he has voiced to the American people that are being met.

There is no basis to believe that the surge strategy of adding 30,000 troops to a lost war is going to turn it into victory. The surge of bombings is winning.

An average of 80-90 Americans die each month. And US personnel have just had their tours extended by another three months.

But, as it has always been since the 2003 invasion, it is the Iraqis who suffer most.

No-one knows the exact figures, but at the end of another week of unspeakable, random carnage, hundreds more Iraqi families are grieving.

There is just no way that a US "surge" of any amount of troops, even 300,000, can "win" this war. Why? Because even if 500,000 troops are inserted into the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it will never defeat the spirit of the people of Iraq for self determination. The most that can ever be accomplished by Bush's war of occupation is to turn Iraq into a prison nation under lock down.

In fact this is exactly the US strategy, as it is building the first prison wall around the Sunni enclave of Adhamiya:

US troops in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, are building a wall around the Sunni district of Adhamiya, which is surrounded by Shia communities.
The 5km (three-mile) concrete wall is part of a strategy to "break the cycle of sectarian violence", a US military spokesman said.

At least two more walls are on the drawing board demonstrating only that the twisted imaginations of the Bush administration know no bounds.

Why the surge won't work is clearly evidenced in the occupation scenario. The police who must have the support of a sufficient number of Iraqis to be credible simple cannot establish the requisite level of credibility while they are tied to the hip of an invading and occupying army. As the story about bombs hitting the police station clearly describes:

Police stations are often targeted by insurgents who say officers are betraying the country by working alongside government and US-led forces.

The only way to take away the rationale for attacking the police is to remove the US forces from the equation.

This is not occupied Japan with an Emperor who can maintain continuity and cohesion for the people during the rebuilding process. This is not Germany, divided and occupied by four conquering armies and totally devastated and shocked by its own attack on the rest of the world with a population feeling the guilt of its hubris and defeat.

Iraqis did not attack the world. They didn't attack anyone. They have not one iota of a national sense of defeat caused by their own military adventurism that would provide the mitigating factor to accept the humiliation from the presence of an occupying army. There is no point at this stage in discussing what the US might have done to make a transition possible. The US didn't protect the government structure or the public infrastructure and, instead, allowed wide spread looting of every public facility except the Oil Ministry, including hospitals and museums. Under that scenario after May 2003 the US has had no subsequent ability to appear credible by continuing the occupation.

Today, the only realistic and moral plan is to withdraw immediately and leave the Iraqis to be allowed to settle their own affairs. The war against Hussein was won quickly, but on the other hand, by a complete lack of planning and foresight, the war of occupation against the Iraqi people was lost quickly. This war is still lost. Now we owe the Iraqis reparation funds. We do not owe them an occupying army that only prevents reconstruction and reconciliation.

ADDENDUM 4/27/07
Last night I watched "Afghanistan: The Other War" from Frontline/World, and this story clearly demonstrates why the war in Afghanistan is as lost as the war in Iraq. The program is centered about a NATO unit attempting to make friends with a local village. Everything that could go wrong goes wrong. It is a completely updated demonstration of the old army slang SNAFU ("situation normal, all f**ked up").

A Canadian NATO unit comes to the Afghan village Elbak and makes wants to "win the hearts and minds" of the people. They promise to fix 12 generators used for pumping water. Well they couldn't find or buy the parts, such as spark plugs, anywhere and only end up fixing two. Then they set up a medical treatment day and announce it in the area only to have to close the clinic early with people standing in line wating for their children to see the doctors because, as they announce, they have run out of medications.

Then a US Special Forces unit comes into the area without consulting with the NATO unit and pick up a villager as a suspected Taliban. The villages vouch for the man to the Canadian NATO unit that is there to "make friends" and ask them to get the man released, but the NATO sergeant says she has no authority with the US unit. This of course highlights the complete absurdity of having two separate commands in the same area and demonstrates the fundamental inability of the war makers to understand how to "win" a war of occupation against indigenous resistance fighters. Failing any reasonable ability to "win" they have already lost.

Another more fundamental and completely misunderstood element of the war is that the NATO unit came to the village with the goal of working with the village so the people there would "be on our side" in the war. Words fail to describe the compete idiocy of the premise. From Alexander the Great to Ghengis Khan to NATO, thousands of years of history tell the tale of a people who have watched invading armies pass through. These people are smart enough to be "on the side" of the current invading army, whether they are NATO, US Special Forces, or the Taliban. The moronic notion that fixing some generators and giving a day of medical care (even if they were successful, which they weren't) will cause a people "choose a side" is so completely beyond any historical reality check that one wonders how these people waging war were able to travel the thousands of miles to get there in the first place.

Then to top it all off, after several weeks of setting up a temporary fort outside the village, the NATO unit is told to withdraw and go elsewhere completely taking down Camp Martello as if it was never there. The narrator laments the fact that this is now going to leave the village wide open and defenseless to Taliban retaliation for having cooperated with the invading army. One of the military people says what a shame it is that the villages "brought this on themselves" completely transferring the responsibility for their impending doom to the villagers who had no say in the NATO forces coming in the first place and no say in their departure.

The war in Afghanistan is as lost as the war in Iraq because the war makers are completely clueless about what it is that they are doing there and have no workable or reasonable plan for their presence.

Letter to Senator Barak Obama on Israel

Israel is the issue.
March 10, 2007

Dear Senator Obama,

I'm am very concerned about the reports of your recent speech before AIPAC of Chicago. According to the Jewish Daily Forward, you stated,

“We should all be concerned about the agreement negotiated among Palestinians in Mecca last month. The reports of this agreement suggest that Hamas, Fatah and independent ministers would sit in a government together, under a Hamas prime minister, without any recognition of Israel, without a renunciation of violence, and with only an ambiguous promise to ‘respect’ previous agreements…. We must tell the Palestinians this is not good enough.”

Contrary to your statement, there is nothing wrong with the agreement reached in Mecca. The Palestinian people must be given the recognition and sovereignty equal to the people of Israel. If Israel won't allow the Palestinians to be allowed to elect their own government then Israel does not have a right to exist!

There is no basis to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as long as it continues its illegitimate apartheid occupation of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza.

I understand the very difficult situation you are in having to deal with American Jewish organizations regarding Israel, however, if you choose to placate them as your method of dealing with them then I have no interest in voting for you. I will only vote for a candidate who will stand up to the Israel lobby with the truth and facts as they exist.

Did you tell AIPAC that the occupation of the West Bank is illegal? That it is apartheid? That peace in Israel and Palestine will come when Israel acknowledges the right of the Palestinian people to exist as a state?

You see, neither the USA nor Israel have the right to tell the Palestinian people who they can elect to govern them, otherwise the democracy you offer them is just a sham, AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT TO BE A SHAM when Hamas is treated with such prejudice!

You were clear enough to oppose the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the invasion and occupation of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza should be opposed for many of the same reasons, including that the occupation violates international law.

Israel is a state with the unique history of being created by United Nations approval. Every day that Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and Gaza in violation of UN resolutions, to militarily control the territories, to surround them and prevent travel and business to freely pass their boundaries, to terrorize their citizens, then Israel is indeed forfeiting its right to exist under it UN birthright.

Gregory Wonderwheel

Bush's Magical Ignorance

Words really fail to portray the depth of ignorance in President George Bush's plans for Iraq. Bush says there is “no magic formula for success in Iraq,” yet he continues to use magical thinking in his deluded plan to escalate the occupation of Iraq. Bush has ordered the troops to escalate their involvement in the already ongoing Iraq civil war. While the USA may be able to establish itself as the strongest militia in Bagdad, that strategy can only work as long as troops remain. Even if the neighborhoods are pacified by USA occupation, as soon as the occupying troops leave the civil war will resume. Thus Bush’s plan is not a magic formula for victory but a mundane formula for continued occupation and proxy dictatorship.

Buddhism analyzes three core poisons of human thinking: greed, hatred, and ignorance. Of these, ignorance is the primary source.

Greed is unchecked attraction toward things. Hatred is unchecked aversion toward things. Basic ignorance is a fundamental misunderstanding of what things are that leads to our unchecked attractions and aversions. Attractions and aversions are natural in the moment to moment mental processes, but ignorance makes it possible for us to believe that greed can actually be satisfied greater acquisition and hatred can actually be quenched by greater revulsion.

For example, when we are hungry and taste something agreeable, we are naturally attracted to it and want a second bite. If the serving dish is full, we may eat until we are satisfied and stop, or we may be carried away by our ignorance and continue eating past the time of satiation and gorge until we are sick. Or we may create a life style in order to guarantee the unlimited supply of that good tasting stuff and let no one else stand in our way.

Such is the path of greed in Iraq, where insatiable desires based on the ignorant delusions of grandeur and power lead Bush into believing that just 20,000 more troops can make the difference between victory and failure in Iraq.

There are several kinds of greed, hatred, and delusion at work here.

One kind of greed is the simple to understand greed for war profits. The privatization of the war from the very beginning is an example of this. The number of USA “civilian” contractors and the outrageous profits they have been given attest to the fact that money is a major motivating force for our engagement. The weapons makers too are raking it in. An economy that relies on production of unnecessary goods also relies on the destruction of those goods so new goods will be bought to replace them, and there is no better production-destruction system for profits than war weapons and materials.

Another kind of greed at work is the global political game playing over the production of oil and gas resources. This is at work throughout the world causing havoc.

Bush's basic ignorance continues to be shown in his sanctimonious version of magical thinking, when he says he is engaged in "the decisive ideological struggle of our time. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life." This is ignorance at its most basic level of defining one's own postion as "good" and defining anyone who opposes oneself as "evil extremists." This type of ignorant magical thinking is at the root of Bush's complete failure in foreign relations.

A mixture of greed, hatred, and delusion can be found in Bush’s basic fear of failure. He really wants to “win” in Iraq and fears “failure.” He is greedy to win where his father only fought to a stalemate. He has a false Christian's hatred of Islam and sees himself as engaged in a righteous crusade. He has the ignorance of not understanding the human nature of a people under foreign occupation. He can't imagine the type of insurgency that would occur in Texas if foreign troops were occupying Dallas.

Of course he is so deluded that he doesn’t already see that the result of over 600,000 deaths of Iraqis is already failure. But he also imagines that instituting “democracy” in Iraq will be a victory. This is particularly ironic when his own war is not based on democratic principles. He had been in control of the propaganda machine at the beginning of his war with his lies and so manufactured consent for the invasion. However, as the truths have come out, as US troops continue to kill and to die, and as the Iraqis continue to kill each other, the propaganda machine has broken down and the public has clearly made its will known through the democratic process.

However, Bush will have nothing to do with democracy here in the USA. Ignoring both the Congressionally appointed think tank known as the Iraq Study Group and the November election results, Bush continues to press on in the name only of democracy. Iraq is not Japan or Germany, in which the occupying troops were faced with a cohesive society that was able to be given control of their country using their preexisting social structures for a relatively stable transition to self rule. Germany had its democratic electoral history that had been derailed by Hitler and so the democracy train there could be put back on the tracks easily. Japan kept is Emperor as a major source of social stability and with his blessing the society was able to move further in the direction of popular democracy.

But in Iraq, the complete failure of prewar planning for post war Iraq has been amply and tragically demonstrated. Bush toppled a dictator, but he did also toppled a society. From disbanding the Iraq military to allowing the looting of museums and hospitals and the complete destruction of infrastructure, Bush created his own failure.

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was not a stable society. The USA had supported Hussein’s dictatorship, and in fact years earlier had supported the overthrow of Iraq’s fledgling democracy. Saddam Hussein ruled over a fractured society that kept conflict at bay by his iron hand of totalitarian control.

The fatal flaw in Bush’s plan from the beginning is that instituting another government by foreign occupied control is by definition not a democracy. Until the Iraqis institute their own government they will never have democracy. And they will never be able to institute their own government, with or without a civil war, until the USA occupation has left. While Iraq is occupied by foreign troops and the government is dependent on those foreign troops for its existence, that government by definition is a dictatorship. So the USA had created the illusion of democracy, yet simultaneously has actually created a dictatorship.

20,000 Troops Under the Sea of Ignorance

Now, Bush’s “new way forward” is just another propaganda sales pitch for the a “new and improved” detergent. A next installment of a prime time war movie that should have been cancelled several seasons ago. Whether Bush sends in 20,000 or 200,000, there will never be enough troops to win this kind of war of insurgency by citizens. There are only a few possible outcomes and all of them lead to failure of the USA occupation. The insurgents might continue to fight and make casualties so costly that the USA will have to leave. Or the insurgents will realize the short term odds are against them so they will simply bury their weapons until the occupying troops leave and then once again begin the civil war. Or the Iraqi government will develop into a reliable dictatorship under US tutelage. None of these real options include the delusional hopes of President Bush that our troops can create democracy.

What Bush’s plan actually plans to do is have the USA escalate its involvement in the ongoing civil war. However, by doing so, Bush guarantees that the side we support now, will lose as soon as our troops leave. Thus, to continue to prop up the side we support now we will have to have an ongoing continued occupation. That is no plan at all. It is only magical thinking and more lies from Bush.

The real trial we need to further democracy.

Once again U.S. President George W. Bush demonstrates his fascist disregard for human life and democracy. Bush has praised the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as "an important milestone," but the question is: on the road to where? Bush claims the execution is a milestone on the road to building an Iraqi democracy, but in fact it is only building an Iraqi fascism in the image of the USA's brand of fascism. Every true democracy in the world has abolished the death penalty because their people recognize it is an essentially barbaric act that has absolutely no utility other than debasing their humanity in the name of revenge.

The USA is in the camp with such great "democracies" as communist China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Iran as the most prolific executioners in the world. Luca Signorelli's Fresco of the Apocalypse at the Orvieto Cathedral of the San Brizio Chapel in Orvieto, Italy, depicts mass executions as a sign of the time of the Anti-Christ. Perhaps that is something for the evangelical Christians who support Bush and the mass executions of the USA to meditate upon.

Bush said: "It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial.” Excuse me, but no, Hussein did not receive a fair trial. For example, his defense was limited by severe restrictions, and his sentence was announced before the verdict.

Bush’s claim that the execution "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the War on Terror." demonstrates that he has no clue what being a democracy actually means. The execution of Saddam Hussein has absolutely no connection to the phony “war on terror” and Bush’s repeated lies attempting to connect them only show his fascist disregard for the truth in his zeal to issue propaganda. There is not one statement by Bush about the purpose of the US occupation that rings true, and most of all that Iraq or Hussein had anything to do with the attacks of terrorism on the U.S. In fact the only attack on the US that Hussein threatened was to change the currency of exchange for oil from US dollars to EU euros.

If there is any trial that is absolutely necessary in order to secure a democracy for the United States of America it is the impeachment and trial of President Bush himself. Until Bush is impeached and tried we cannot say that the USA is today a true democracy. We are reminded by the recent death of President Gerald Ford how the conservatives feel that law and order apply to anyone but themselves. Bush's imperial sense of invulnerablilty to criticism can be seen as directly stemming from Ford's unpardonable pardon of President Nixon.

Dennis Kucinich, the man who should be president, asks about accountibility:

Who will be held accountable for sending 3,000 US troops to their deaths in Iraq, for a war based on lies?
Who will be held accountable for the deaths of over 655,000 innocent Iraqi civilians during the course of this illegal war?
Where is the two trillion dollars that this war is going to cost coming from?
When will Congress be held accountable for having voted to go to war?
When will Congress be held accountable for continuing to fund a war, and for abandoning our troops to a conflict that cannot be won militarily?

Sean Penn in his recent comments on receiving The 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award also asks, "And, where is the accountability on behalf of the American dead and wounded, their families, their friends, and the people of the United States who have seen their country become a world pariah?"

Where the president has violated the Constitution and International Law and lied to the people in order to prosecute an invasion that violates every principle of Nuremberg and by ordering the invasion has ordered the killing of thirty (30) to two hundred (200) times more innocent Iraqi civilians than the number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks and resulting in more Iraqis being killed than Saddam Hussein ever ordered killed, and still the congress refuses to consider impeachment, one can only say that democracy is missing in action.

Sean Penn said it most colorfully in his acceptance speech, "So...look, if we attempt to impeach for lying about a blowjob, yet accept these almost certain abuses without challenge, we become a cum-stain on the flag we wave." Bush's pronouncment and glorification of death on the the execution of Saddam Hussein are yet another such stain on the red, white, and blue dress of democracy.

Reference links:
BBC News: Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq
human rights death penalty
Ten Reasons Congress Must Investigate Bush Administration Crimes
In These Times:In Praise of Impeachment
Dennis Kucinich's statement on Saddam Hussein - Accountability
Sean Penn's Acceptance Speech of the Christopher Reeve Award

Freedom to Choose a Good Book Is the American Way of Civilization

American fascists are making Keith Ellison a household name. Who, you might wonder? Keith Ellison is the newly elected congressman from Minnesota's Fifth District and is the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress. Much to the consternation of American fascists, Congressman elect Ellison has announced that he will not take his oath of office by placing his hand on the Bible, and instead chooses to be sworn in using the Koran.

I recently learned that a national campaign has begun to oppose the use of the Koran in the swearing-in ceremonies for representatives, senators, and even the President and Vice president. The American fascists are sending emails and letters to legislators asking for a law to prevent the use of any other book than the Bible for taking the oath of office.

Why? Because to use any other book would “undermine American civilization” according to columnist Dennis Prager. The so-called “good Christians” of the American Family Association have endorsed and embraced Prager’s fascist views and assert that because Prager is a Jew that it is not just a Christian issue. Of course they don’t acknowledge that the first half of the Christian Bible is the Jewish Bible, and therefore for a Jew to advocate the exclusive use of the Christian Bible is actually advocating the exclusive use of the Jewish-Christian Bible. Of course for Prager to place his hand on the Bible to take an oath, if he were an observing Jew, he would have to accomplish the mental gymnastics of having his hand only reach down to the first part of the book and stop before including the New Testament.

Prager’s un-American ranting is really something to wonder at. First he says, Ellison “should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.” This silliness is really fascinating from someone who is supposed to be engaging in rational discourse. If one believes that placing one’s hand on the Koran is a threat to American civilization, then clearly the holder of that belief is extremely hostile to the Koran. To argue otherwise is just absurd sophism.

Then Prager says, by way of example, “What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.” Dennis Prager’s education is woefully lacking as he evidently never learned in school that America doesn’t have a “holiest” book, because the USA believes in the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. This doctrine by the way is enshrined in our US Constitution’s First Amendment, as well as evidenced by the fact that God is not mentioned anywhere in the US Constitution. What a great document it is!.

But the real irony is that the fascists like Prager overlook the very core of the symbology of the oath taking ceremony as it relates to American civilization, that is the very purpose of putting a hand on a book. The person is not swearing allegiance to the book, nor to a religion or a culture, he or she is swearing allegiance to the US Constitution. The ceremony is one in which the person is stating an oath of allegiance, based exactly on their own personal religious and spiritual faith, that they will uphold and protect the US Constitution. We accept this oath precisely because it is based on the person’s sincerity and personal integrity as evidenced by their hand on the book that they themselves uphold to be the highest expression of their spiritual and moral life. That's not to hard to understand is it?

Contrary to how Prager and similar totalitarian thinkers see damage “to the fabric of American civilization” if Ellison is allowed to choose his own book, it is squarely this choice that is the fabric of American civilization. The book chosen is intensely personal and individual by design! Other wise the oath of office would be meaningless. If would be as meaningless to a Muslim to make the oath with his hand on the Bible as it would for a Jew to make the oath with her hand on the Koran. Or for either to make the oath with their hands on the phonebook.

There are only two rational positions to have on this question. Either the person being sworn in must get to choose the book that represents to them their most personal and important evidence of their own integrity and sincerity, or the book should be the document to which they are pledging allegiance, that is the US Constitution.

If the fascists want to avoid having the Koran being used in the oath of office, then the only American alternative is to remove all religious books from the ceremony and have the hand placed on the US Constitution itself. This of course would change the central meaning of the act itself. Instead of being the indicator of the source of one’s spiritual and moral values, as the book now represents, the hand on the book would simply indicate the object to which the oath is being given. That is workable, but the consequence means that there would be no observable ritual and ceremony showing the personally meaningful traditional source of the moral integrity of the oath taker.

If a person puts his or her hand on a Bible, Koran, Buddhist Sutra, or whatever book that gives them their roots of moral strength, then I feel that is a welcome indication of the character of the person who is taking the oath. Prager’s Chicken Little “the sky is falling in on American civilization” warning, of course, only presents his own hubris even as he projects his hubris onto Ellison. For Prager to worry that some elected Nazi might use Mein Kampf, or that an elected Scientologist might use the book Dianetics,is really a baseless worry. If those are the books a newly elected Congressperson would choose, then those books are the evidence of their sincerity. I would much rather have a congressman openly show us that he considers Mein Kampf to be his greatest moral inspiration than to have him secretly embrace it while publically putting his hand on the bible.

Mr. Prager, this is America – with its separation of church and state– if you don’t like to have Muslims in office, then don’t vote for them, but you don’t get to dictate your religions views onto others and prevent them from using the book that means most to their moral character.

Mr. Ellison, thank you for putting your hand on the Koran. You make America a better place to live by showing that a Muslim can get elected and make an oath to support the US Constitution.

Now, when do we get to have a Buddhist or an atheist elected to Congress?

Reality Testing Fails at PBS

Here's a BBC bit about President Bush's recent comments at the Nato summit in Riga:

He rejected the use of "civil war" as a term to describe the fighting in Iraq, preferring to say: "The battles in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of a struggle between moderation and extremism that is unfolding across the broader Middle East."

One wonders why the fierce opposition to the term "civil war"? The Bush administration is doing everything it can to prevent the term "civil war" being given credibility. However, like it's "war on terror" in Iraq even in this war of propaganda the Bush administration is losing. The Los Angeles Times over a month ago began officially using the term civil war for the Iraq situation and this week NBC announced that it too would begin using the term civil war officially.

Last night on PBS's The News Hour with Jim Lehrer there were four "journalists" talking about whether it is a "civil war" in Iraq. Though the foreign editor from the LA Times, Marjorie Miller, described her paper's adoption of the term and the Bush propagandist from Yale DONALD KAGAN, Professor of History, said "I don't see how it helps" to call it a "civil war", none of the four journalists, including the New Hour's reporter JEFFREY BROWN, ever bothered to even state the definition of "civil war." This clearly demonstrates the complete lack of reality testing that is evident today in the national media.

Well for those who like their reality tested by the facts, here is the definition from Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:

civil war
One entry found for civil war.
Main Entry: civil war
Function: noun
: a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country

So DONALD KAGAN, a professor of history at Yale University, says,

"It has been very significantly Sunni against Shia, perhaps in a more cloaked form. The majority of the government is, after all, Shiite, as the majority of the country is. The Sunnis have been insurgents because they refuse to accept the fact that their minority will no longer be allowed to lord it over the majority. The first job has always been to convince the Sunnis, however we do it, that they must accept the new realities.

And then he has the audacity to say this is not a civil war. Obviously, KAGAN'S "new reality" doesn't include using language accurately to state the self-evident truths. Whether or not his simplistic description of the fighting as being between Shia and Sunni is accurate, it clearly and unambiguously meets the plain definition of civil war. Yet this professor says it does no good to call it a civil war. How could this be? How could it do no good to use the English language properly?

The answer of course is that like all propagandists, Professor KAGAN, doesn't want the language used plainly when it can be bent to his own ends, which he very clearly stated were the continuation of the Bush agenda in Iraq. KAGEN understands that if people see the fighting in Iraq for what it is as a civil war underneath an occupation, that the reason for the occupation evaporates unless we choose sides. And as we discovered in Vietnam, if we choose the wrong side we lose anyway.

As much as this segment exposed the muddleheaded propaganda of the Yale professor, I can't help but think that the whole piece by JEFFREY BROWN would have made much more sense and benefitted the public discourse to a far greater extent if he had only begun with the simple definition of civil war and measured the words of his interviewees against that conventional reality.

If we return to Pres. Bush’s quote at the top of this piece, we see that Bush does the classic bait and switch by claiming the war in Iraq is not a civil war because it is “part of a struggle between moderation and extremism that is unfolding across the broader Middle East.” Of course whether or not there are similarities in any other country between the sides fighting in Iraq is irrelevant to answering the question of whether the fighting in Iraq is “a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country.” The vast majority of deaths in Iraq are Iraqis killed by other Iraqis. That US troops are there killing Iraqis and being killed by Iraqis is only another layer of fighting which makes the occupation a political cover for the civil war.

President Bush’s continuing denial of the civil war in Iraq is like a veterinarian who can’t tell the difference between a horse and a crocodile. He can’t have much to say about how to be of help if he can’t even diagnose the species of the animal he’s dealing with. No one should believe that Bush is that stupid as to believe the propaganda is issues. The underlying problem with our democracy is that the national news media like PBS totally fails to measure the government’s propaganda against something as simple as a dictionary definition.

On another note of failed reality testing by PBS last night was the great presence of ex-President Jimmy Carter being interviewed about his new book "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid". Here JUDY WOODRUFF, NewsHour Special Correspondent, was in the full glory of inside the beltway bias. There is a funny thing the journalists do when they interview someone like President Carter who presents a politically unorthodox view not countenanced by the opinion makers in the media. They take an adversarial position and call that being "objective." You don't see this approach when they interview people who are the purveyors of political orthodoxy with whom the publishers and editors agree.

Well, I'm happy to report that Pres. Carter gracefully put Ms. WOODRUFF in her reportorial place. Here's the exchange in which Pres. Carter politely outed WOODRUFF's bias.

JUDY WOODRUFF: President Carter, people would listen to what you're saying here, and they would read your book, and they would say, "He's putting the onus here on the Israelis." And many would return that by saying, "But wait a minute. It's the Palestinians who continue to fire rockets into Israeli land. It's the Palestinians who have kidnaped Israeli soldiers. It's the Palestinians that continue to perpetuate terrorist acts against the Israelis."

JIMMY CARTER: Sure, that's what you say, and that's the general consensus in the United States. The fact is that, when the Palestinians dug under the Israeli wall from Gaza and captured the Israeli soldier, one soldier, at that time, Israel was holding 9,200 Palestinians prisoner, including 300 children, almost 300, 293 children, some of them 12 years old, and holding almost 100 women prisoner.

And immediately, the Palestinians who took that soldier said, "We want to swap this soldier for some of our women and children." And the Israelis rejected that proposal and refused to swap at all with the Palestinians in the West Bank. That was the key to the issue.

So it's right that the Palestinians took a soldier, which they should release. But for Israel to keep 9,000 Palestinians and not release any of them is something that you don't mention in the question, and it's generally not even known in this country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we want to give you the opportunity to give that side of the story...

JIMMY CARTER: That's why I wrote the book.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... as well, and that's why we're here talking to you about it.

JIMMY CARTER: I know.

WOODRUFF"S bias was again exposed in her final comments of the segment when she exited with these words:

JUDY WOODRUFF: President Jimmy Carter, with some passionately held views. We thank you very much for being with us on the NewsHour. We appreciate it.

Everyone who knows anything about reportage knows that the words "passionately held views" are code for "emotional and irrational beliefs." So, there she was getting a strong dose of reality testing from Pres. Carter, and her response was to dismiss him by saying in effect, "Well, that was nice, too bad you are irrational."

So much for the ability of PBS reporters to provide reality testing for the public. For now, we the public must gather our reality between the lines, using our own good sense to defend against the beltway propaganda presented by the government with the willing cooperation of the national media..

The Iraq Game Show is All About the Money

Whether you call it "oil profits" or "weapon's profits" or "campaign contributions", the fatal Game Show that is Iraq is all about the money.

Bruce K. Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and has written an opinion piece about the mounting debt of the Iraq avdenture. The full essay is below. This phony war on terror is costing as much as the Vietnam War and Bush is going to Congress soon to ask for more moola.

Gagnon correctly draws our attention to current events. "In our recent national election, the people voted for a change in policy in Iraq. The message seems to have reached Washington and their answer to the public appears to be 'OK, we will change our policy. We will dramatically increase the amount of money we are spending on the war and we will send even more troops.' Not quite what the 62 percent of Americans who oppose the war had in mind." No, not by a long shot.

What's it all about? As Gagnon points out, "Our nation's No. 1 industrial export product today is weapons. In 2006 the U.S. exported more than $21 billion in weapons —— up from $10.6 billion the previous year."

One has to ask why spend all this money on weapons and war when it goes without saying that the crippling debt would be better spent on infrastructure, as Gagnon suggests "building trains, solar panels or windmills."

Howard Zinn stated it bluntly in his speech
on The Uses of History and the War on Terrorism
in Madison, Wisconsin, rcently aired on Democracy Now! He said,

And if you know some history, you would understand something which is even more basic, perhaps, than the question of lying about this war or lying about this invasion, lying about this intervention, something more basic, if you knew some history: you would understand a sort of fundamental fact about society, and including our society, that the interests of the government and the interests of the people are not the same.

The interests of the Bush administration, as with the Clinton administration before it, are not the people's interests in security, family, food on the table, and a warm place to sleep. The interests of the government are only the interests of the giant corporations that pay the way for the elections. And of course the interests of those giant corporations are only to make themselves rich.

This is no where better exposed than in the fake war on terror. The money being squandered in order to kill so many people rather than to do good in the world is not even good financial sense from the point of view of social investment. It would have a greater impact and return in social growth and development if invested in education, building infrastructure, and putting people to work. However, the capital intensive investment of the weapons industry does make sense when it is seen that the point is to funnel profits into the pockets of certain corporations and the people who own and control those corporations.

The other fact exposing the fake war on terror is teh death ration of combatants to civilians. In World War I the ratio was approximately 80% combat casulties and 20% civilian deaths. In World War II it was about 50-50. Since Vietnam, the ratio is now about 20% combat deaths and 80% civilian deaths including about 30% children. For the weapons profits going into the pockets of corporation chieftans, we are killing as many children as combatants, and add on top of that the men and women civilians.

Zinn also reminded us of the Nazi Goring's quote about how these phony wars are able to get the support of the people whose interests the war is directly against.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war? But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country.” -Herman Goring, from the book Nuremberg Diary.

It is really very simple, there is no hope for the direction of human society until the majority of the people wake up and demand that their "leaders" be honest and kind. By lying to us and accepting those lies, we the people continue to allow the government interests to be different than our shared interests, and for the so-called "national interests" in war profits to be anything but the real national interests.

After being elected in a tidal change, the Democrats have not shown any cohesive understanding of what they were elected for. Many Democrats are even echoing Bush's call for more troops in Iraq in total disregard of the election results. Only a small minority of Democrats are daring to say that the troops must be removed without delay.

You can count on your fingers the number of Democrats who are willing to say openly that the War on Terror is a phony and a fake, and none of them are being given any space in the national media. Why? Because their camaigns are funded by the corporation culture also, and they are afraid to do anyting but lick the hand that feeds them.

Democracy is a wonderful system compared to monarchy or dictatorship. But democracy is subject to fascist currents and today we in the USA have a fascist democracy in which the democracy of the people has been usurped by the giant corporations. This is done through the great money machine that ties industry and corporations to the military and uses the national media as the propaganda machine to fool and lull the voters into going along with the politician's personal interests rather than with the people's interests.

Viewed over centuries, political progress is incremental and is in the right direction. But if the setbacks are to be mitigated and the progess to be steady, the people must vote against the interests of the politicians in government and even vote against their individual interests on occasion, to vote for the shared national interests defined as progress for the greater betterment of the human condition.

Alan Gregory Wonderwheel


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Times Record
Of Mid-coast Maine: Brunswick and Bath

OPINION

Funding Iraq war, killing our country

11/21/2006 By Bruce Gagnon

The Bush administration is preparing to submit a request to Congress for up to $160 billion to fund the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal year 2007. This will be on top of $70 billion that Congress has already approved for 2007.

Since 2001, Congress has approved $502 billion for the war on "terror," roughly two-thirds for Iraq. The cost of the entire Vietnam War, in today's dollars, was $536 billion.

The UK's Guardian recently reported that Bush told senior advisers that the U.S. must make "a last big push" to win in Iraq and might increase U.S. military forces by as many as 20,000 soldiers.
In our recent national election, the people voted for a change in policy in Iraq. The message seems to have reached Washington and their answer to the public appears to be "OK, we will change our policy. We will dramatically increase the amount of money we are spending on the war and we will send even more troops."

Not quite what the 62 percent of Americans who oppose the war had in mind.

The net result of this new policy will likely be more violence in Iraq, more hostility toward U.S. troops, more casualties on all sides and a deepening quagmire.

Another important result will be that the Democrats, who so far have been most willing to support all Bush's funding requests for the occupation of Iraq, get locked in to the "new policy."

Bush has long said that in his remaining time in office he will not bring the troops home. Thus the only way to end the costly and outrageous Iraq fiasco is to cut the funding for the occupation. This is ultimately how the Congress had to end the war in Vietnam.

Soldiers are now coming home from Iraq and not getting adequate treatment from the Veterans Administration because of lack of funding. Cutbacks in social programs are now becoming the norm in the U.S. as we spend 50 percent of every tax dollar on the Pentagon budget.

Our nation's No. 1 industrial export product today is weapons. In 2006 the U.S. exported more than $21 billion in weapons —— up from $10.6 billion the previous year.

Studies have long shown that military spending is capital intensive. In other words, each million dollars spent on military production creates far fewer jobs than if the money were invested in any other kind of job creation effort, including building trains, solar panels or windmills.

America is now hemorrhaging jobs and our debt is more than $8.6 trillion and growing by $2 billion a day. We'd better wake up quick and tell the Democrats that they must stop funding this war. It's killing our country.

Bruce K. Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
On the Net: www.space4peace.org

Bush's New Bipartisanship is a Joke

Bush still doesn’t know the meaning of “bipartianship.”

In his first post-election speech President George W. Bush made a joke. It fell flat, as flat as John Kerry’s botched joke a week earlier. Here’s Bush’s joke:

“And in my first act of bipartisanship outreach, I shared with her [Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi] the names of some Republican interior decorators who can help her pick out the new drapes in her new offices.” The loudest chuckle in the room was Bush’s own.

The problem here goes much deeper than a flat joke. What Bush’s lame joke demonstrates is that he really doesn’t know the meaning of bipartisanship. By characterizing his vision of bipartisanship as Speaker-to-be Pelosi using Republican interior decorators, Bush shows his approach for bipartisanship has not changed one bit. In his world, bipartisanship still means that Democrats adopt what Republicans design.

This will be an interesting two years watching Bush’s world view collapse as his spoiled child mentality will face the reality of having to talk to the people of the other party, something he has refused to do in the last six years.

For example, when Bush was asked in this first news conference if he heard the call of the voters to bring the troops home, he said he hadn't heard that. He said he still wants the trrops "to come home with victory" and he's committed to keeping the troops in Iraq until victory. So bipartisanship in review of the Iraq situation is a non-starter. He still believes that "what the American people want" is victory in Iraq ss he defines it.