This is not the America that anyone over the age of 30 grew up with. The Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about in 1961 http://civilianism.com/forum/index.php?page=19 is already running this country. The democratic rule of the people that has been the lynchpin of our nation is controlled no longer by the people, but by business interests that control our elective officials through campaign funding and lobbyist connections. The American voter has been disenfranchised by a media that has usurped the discourse of normal campaigning by ignoring certain candidates and not allowing them on debates. The system is rigged people. The question is what are we going to do about it?

I was reading Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo, by Murat Kurnaz, when I came across a passage about Kurnaz being subjected to gruesome electric shock torture at the hands of America's brave volunteer warriors. After passing out and being tossed back in his cell to sleep it off, Kurnaz was soon awakened by harrowing screams.

He saw two valiant American soldiers hitting a man who was lying on the ground-his head wrapped in a blanket. Five more patriotic heroes eventually joined in on the beating, hitting the man's head with the butts of their rifles and kicking him with their heavy boots. "Then," says Kurnaz, "they walked away, leaving him lying there."

Thanks go out to Linda Milazzo for posting these.

http://www.youtube.com/v/hbmXekebQ5M

http://www.youtube.com/v/gL2O5s2dGak

The videos linked to above are of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, effectively admitting on Larry King's program that she is chummy with a mass murderer and dictator. That is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, dissing the mother of a soldier killed in her friend's war of choice, because she has "a day job."

And what job is that, exactly? Aiding and abetting tyrants -- war criminals -- as they continue to torture, wage illegal war, spy on us, and collapse our economy. And that's not even half of the list of crimes committed by the shrub-gargoyle regime.

Now that the Pope is gone the Bush criminal regime can resume its planning for attacking "Iran." A little time out for faking spirituality, and then back to plotting the deaths of thousands, maybe millions.

The Pope's visit reminded me of an idea I had in the runup to the invasion of "Iraq" in 2003. I thought that if Pope John Paul went to Baghdad, the Bush regime would be shamed into stopping the invasion. So I sent the following email:

Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 17:42:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Me
Subject: Stopping the insane war on Iraq
To: accreditamenti@pressva.va

His Holiness John Paul II
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City State
Europe

Your Holiness:

I write to you today out of a sense of great urgency. As you know the United States of America is on the verge of launching what may be one of the most cataclysmic wars in history, using weapons of mass destruction upon the Iraqi people, fifty percent of whom are less than 15 years of age.

Conservative estimates are that such a war will result in the death of 500,000 Iraqis. It seems clear that, at this time, you are the only person on Earth who can stop this war. Indeed, your physical presence in Baghdad will prevent the impending slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human beings, and force the international community of nations to identify and implement a truly peaceful resolution to this unprecedented, preemptive aggression.

I implore you to travel to Baghdad and to remain there until a peaceful solution to this crisis has been implemented. The lives of the people of the people of Iraq rest in your hands - as does the fate of the world.

It is worth mentioning that the Bush crime family would have no qualms over bombing even you, but they at least have the sense that the consequences of doing so would topple their house of cards. These are extremely evil people. George Bush is a military deserter, an alcohol and drug addict, a corporate criminal, and an election thief. He very likely had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks, if not planning assistance. The Anthrax attacks of 2001 were also very likely committed with his knowledge and assistance.

With hope,

John Hamilton
Madison, WI
USA
_______________________________________________

Obviously, my idea went nowhere. Literally. It came back "undeliverable." As it turned out, Dr. Helen Caldicott came up with the same idea, and promoted it much more effectively, with exactly the same results. Pope John Paul probably found out about the campaign, but didn't go to Baghdad. He was near death at the time.

Maybe this pope can be convinced to go to Tehran or Isfahan. My suggestion is that he stay there until the Bush criminal regime is out of office. I think Pope Benedict is more likely than Pope Paul to go along with such a plan. He has a legacy to build, and a past to cleanse. He may have an alibi for being a member of Hitler Youth as a youth, but it is still a mark on his reputation. It doesn't help that he speaks English with the clichéd accent of countless World War II satires and action movies.

Pope Benedict also has made public statements critical of the Islamic faith, enraging Muslims worldwide. What better way to show his brotherhood than stopping the Bush criminal regime in its tracks, standing up to its murderous scheme?

This effort is doable. The first phase is talking about it, building interest and momentum. While the momentum builds, correspondence with the "Vatican" can also be initiated.

One thing I would suggest is to get the right email address.
___________________________________________________

Here's a song of yore, still worth a listen.

Here's another.

I received an email today from Robert Greenwald of Brave new films, asking me to sign a petition calling for the resignation of Condoleeza Rice. The reason for this campaign is because of her involvement in the Bush criminal regime's torture program.

This campaign of course begs the following question: Why start with Condoleeza Rice? What about Bush and Cheney? Isn't Rice a relatively minor player in the torture "policy?"

I "signed" the petition anyway, and included the following note of elaboration:

Condi must go

What nobody is asking is why the Bush criminal regime has been instituting an infrastructure of torture. I believe there are three reasons. One is that this regime is a criminal organization, and that torture is but a further example of its criminality. The second reason is to create a distraction - to deflect attention from its negligence or worse in allowing the attacks of September 11, 2001. The third reason is that the ultimate target for the practice of torture is the American people. If the country can be warmed to the idea, softened up for interrogation, so to speak, then the transition from foreign to domestic is eased greatly. Since the Congress won't impeach them, the Bush gang operates with impunity. The one thing we can do is keep both the Bush crime family (BCF) and the Congress under unrelenting pressure.
_________________________________________

That's pretty much my entire view of the Bush regime's torture practice. As Salon points out, the news media are not exactly jumping on this story, though alternative outlets like Democracy Now are keeping the issue alive. The American Civil Liberties Union offers a bit of insight here.

I think it is safe to say that most "Americans" would rather not have an institutional practice of torture as national policy. Unfortunately, most people are sheep, not willing to move beyond a narrow range of concerns about work, family, entertainment, shopping, and church. Ending torture as a national disgrace will not come about as a result of an uprising of "the people."

It will have to come from the established order, the power structure, the elite. The problem is that it is the power structure that allows the torture. It can't be as simple as the Bush criminal regime being a "cowboy" operation, a discontinuity from the corporate/wealth/government infrastructure of power and ethical standards.

The Bush regime has support among other elements of the power elite. The Congress effectively approves of torture, doing nothing to stop it. The corporate news media treat it as a curiosity. On TV it supplies a few soundbites, and not much more.

The "U.S." Supreme Court supports torture also, as evidenced by its refusal to hear the case of Khaled el-Masri, a "German" citizen who was kidnapped by the "CIA" in Macedonia in 2003, taken to Afghanistan, where he was tortured for five months in a secret prison. He was set free because his kidnapping was a case of mistaken identity. Of course, it could be argued that being a "member" of the "CIA" is a case of mistaken identity, but that's another story.

So it may be that a torture infrastructure has been on the way for a long time. I am certain that the main target of the program is the "American" people, not foreigners. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are the first efforts to establish the program, get the kinks worked out, develop a skill set, and gain some acceptance among the public. As the torture of José Padilla has revealed, the Bush regime has no qualms about torturing "Americans."

The Padilla case also established the "legality" of torture, indefinite detention, and being held incommunicado, all violations of the "U.S." Constitution. The "U.S." Supreme Court denied Padilla's attempt to gain a Habeas Corpus hearing on technical grounds, effectively rendering the Constitution meaningless.

Maybe we should just prepare for the inevitable. In case you would like to see what the future has in store, Salon has compiled a comprehensive collection of pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in "Iraq." Mother Jones has compiled an assortment of information on the Bush criminal regime's sadistic practices, Torture hits home. The question we will soon be asking is who'll be the next in line?
_______________________________________________

A song to sing when pondering the great question.

Here's a video of Khaled el-Masri.

Here's a commentary about the José Padilla case.

Here's an example of how domestic spying is coming to a neighborhood near you.

Here's a little light reading about what actually happens under a torture regime.

Privacy International, one of the most highly regarded privacy advocacy organizations in the world, recently issued a report card ranking the extent to which countries protected the privacy of their citizens and visitors. The United States, Britain, Russia and China were rated “endemic surveillance societies,” the worst a country could get.

Being lumped in with Russia and China when it comes to rights and freedoms is shocking. Yet, it hardly made the news.

The UK is into video-surveillance on every street and corner, and even invented ones that can instruct delinquents to pick up their litter. And fingerprinting domestic flyers, biometric national ID cards, etc. It's easy to see why it made the list.

If you're a devoted C-Span viewer like me, you've witnessed a blurrying parade of people named Kagan stomp across your screens the past few years. They show up at endless forums sponsored by neocon front groups like the American Enterprise Institute. Their Wall Street Journal op-eds are read on the Washington Journal morning call-in show. And at this point, network founder Brian Lamb has hosted the entire brood on his Sunday night Q&A interview show.

And since I started learning about them, I have to confess to the guilty pleasure of never missing an appearance. I see the name Kagan on the schedule, and I set aside the time. I like horror movies, and I like the Kagans. Besides, how can you not be fascinated by a Jewish family whose theme song seems to be Onward, Christian Soldiers?

The practice of carrying two passports from two different nations is something that I really can’t wrap my mind around. While I’m sure that it could be convenient to have two different passports in the event you may want to visit a nation that has bad relations with the US, or in case one of your passports is seized or lost, having two different citizenships in two different nations could be a problem. This would be a problem especially if you happened to work for one of the governments of which you hold dual citizenship.

Let’s presume that you work for the United States government, and let’s go a step further and presume that you hold a top-secret security clearance. This could pose a significant risk if you held citizenship in a country that had a significant interest in something that the US was doing or someone or something that the US was investigating. Where would your loyalties lie? If we take this a step even further and imagine that the US was going to deliberately withhold information from your “other” country or even worse, somehow double-cross that country, what would you do? Where would your loyalty to the United States end and the loyalty to that other country begin?

Wisconsin had an election Tuesday, mainly for a seat on the state Supreme Court. It was the dirtiest race for public office in state history, with the incumbent, Louis Butler losing to self-proclaimed "conservative" Michael Gableman. The winner was supported by "Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce," a lobbying organization, which mounted an advertsing campaign against Butler that generated hysteria about Butler's supposed "softness on crime" and his "African-American" background. You can read about it here.

This race was significantly dirtier than the previous Supreme Court race, in which the winner was disciplined for passing judgement on cases in which she had a financial interest. She also is a professed "conservative." In Wisconsin that means a free ride for corporations to commit crimes in furtherance of their profits. The "law and order" part is just fuel for those who wish to see more "African-Americans" in jail.

In other news, a major airline has been flying defective planes with the cooperation of the Federal Aviation Administration.

A Federal judge is allowing an investigation against Countrywide Financial Corporation, which has been accused of bankruptcy fraud in 293 cases.

Last month National Public Radio aired a segment about how part of the housing credit crisis was caused by the rampancy of real estate appraisal fraud.

Last week the public radio program "This American Life" described some of the methods the Bush criminal regime uses in the realm of border security and immigration, revealing the pettiness and extremes this gang goes to on a routine basis.

A story in Salon described how the Federal government trumped up a case against an ordinary citizen, using witness blackmail and fake evidence to get a conviction in a "terrorism" prosecution.

Democracy Now interviewd the author of a book titled Bush's Law, where he describes the Bush criminal regime has its own method of creating and interpreting law to enable its lawlessness.

Democracy Now also interviewed Greg Mitchell, author of So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits, and the President Failed on Iraq. In a nutshell, they failed because they were and are corrupt - criminals.

Topping it all off, the Pentagon this week declassified the infamous torture memo, the Bush criminal regime's justification for its "harsh interrogations."

Any of these stories could be picked out as a hologram, a part that reveals the whole, but for me it was the real estate appraisal fraud story that told it all. As the story showed, the fraud is widespread and systemic. The entire real estate industry is corrupt.

Which raises this question: Are we a corrupt people? Are we, the "American" public, hopelessly flawed, prone to criminality, willing to break any law when it is to our advantage? Do we rationalize kidnapping, torture, false imprisonment, whimsical invasions, corruption of our justice system, spying on fellow citizens, crony capitalism, and any other forms of government criminality, all in obeisance to the "authority" of our "rulers?"

I wouldn't go quite that far, but I think it is safe to say that we are effectively a criminal civilization. In other words, though we aren't a majority criminal society, our institutions of government, business, religion, and information media are controlled by a criminal system of ethics and practice. It is not universal, but it is effectively criminal.

The people of Wisconsin are not criminals for electing a dishonest judge to the Supreme Court, but they are close. Vulnerability to propaganda is no excuse for weak citizenship. Stupidity may be, and the combination of a failing school system with a mindless cultural milieu is certainly making for a dim-witted populace.

All to the delight of our corporate and power elites. A dumb citizenry makes their criminality much easier.

The main long-term problem for a comprehensively corrupt system is that eventually it fails. Airlines that fly dangerous planes generally have passengers from the wealthier classes of society - lower middle, middle, upper middle, and upper class. When their planes crash, members of all these demographic groups die.

The same goes for the pharmaceutical companies. When their medicines kill, they kill across the endowed sectors of society.

Tainted food that results from a lack of FDA inspections kills the rich as well as the poor.

The financial and real estate industries, through their bribes, er, campaign contributions to mainly "Republicans," may be committing fraud against the "American" people as a whole, but these perpetrators are "Americans" themselves. They are consumers of the same products as everyone else, though perhaps at a more luxurious or "high-end" level. Government officials ride commercial airlines. When the planes crash, they end up as dead as everyone else. There is no escape.

Thanks to the corruption of our culture, manifest in our institutional practices, we are a nation turned on itself. It is a problem worldwide, to be sure - priests are molesting children elsewhere - but nothing approaches the scale of mutual assured destruction (MAD) that exists in the "United States of America."

Into this maelstrom has stepped Barack Obama, candidate for president. He doesn't advocate anything drastic, just a sense of morality and truth.

He has ignited a wildfire, yuk, yuk. At a time when we are being faced with our national criminality on a daily basis, he presents us with a demeanor of calm, decency, and warmth, mixed with strength and determination. He is being called the "black" candidate, when he is not "black" at all. He is being called "Un-American," as if there is such as beingness as "American" that can be codified and enforced.

Win or lose, the candidacy of Barack Obama is making this a fun year. Our national cognitive dissonance is being stirred up, heated up, fanned, basted, marinated, and sautéed. The higher sensibilities of people as well as their lower sensibilities are being awakened and fueled, challenged and aroused. We are having a mirror held to our faces, and the reflection is not so pretty. For many of us it is a motivator for good.

As per usual, I am optimistic. By election day this cognitive dissonance should reach a crescendo. I suspect that willingness to change will prevail. Barack Obama will be our next president. The Bush gang will be sent to Nuremberg. Always look on the bright side of life.
_______________________________________________

Need some cheering up? Watch and listen to this.

This is a must listen.

Interpress Service reports the reality that the surge isn't working in its article titled "Despite Huge Media Campaign, Facts Show Massive Failure in Iraq."

The choice of title is important is separating the content from mass produced, perception-managed gunk from the MSM. The writers at Interpress are 1) honest and 2) not beholden to editorial oversight like that seen in all branches of mainstream media. Dahr Jamail, co-author of the Interpress article alongside Ali al-Fadhily, was the only unembedded American reporter in the entirety of Iraq for an extended period which included the rape of Fallujah circa 2004.

This election is killing me. I have never felt quite the same way about any presidential election. There have been times when I was lukewarm toward many of the Democratic hopefuls, but that doesn’t begin to describe how I feel today. Lukewarm would be a definite improvement over the way I feel, in fact I would welcome lukewarm. It would be akin to the way a hunter would welcome a roaring fire after he came in from the artic, after falling through the ice and trudging miles through a blizzard in wet, icy garb. That picture describes the way I feel about the prospects of voting for the choices that have been offered.

The United States has become, without a doubt, the most presumptive nation on the face of the Earth. We are in the business of presuming that this country has a legitimate right to interfere with the governments of any country that does not live up to our expectations. We presume that we have a right to actively seek “regime change” toward nations that oppose our foreign or economic policies. We presume that we, above all other nations, have a right to build and control the largest nuclear arsenal on the face of the planet, while we actively seek sanctions against those that may hint about nuclear ambitions. The U.S. presumes that our concerns are justified, and under the microscope of public opinion, accepted by the majority of people that believe in “moral integrity”.

Bluestockings presents:

Mickey Z.
(http://www.mickeyz.net)

Saturday, May 3
7 - 9 pm

"Myth America: War, elections, and our way of life"

Come join the author of The Seven Deadly Spins, 50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know, and the forthcoming novel, CPR for Dummies, to discuss the anti-war movement, the 2008 election, the state of activism in America, and MUCH more.

FREE

---

Bluestockings
172 Allen Street
(between Stanton and Rivington)
212.777.6028
http://www.bluestockings.com

Directions
By train: We are 1 block south of the F train's 2nd Avenue stop and just 5 blocks from the JMZ-line's Essex / Delancey Street stop.

The upcoming presidential election and the economy are pretty poor excuses for our inability to focus on Iraq. Especially since we've not only passed the 4,000 mark of American dead, but 25 were killed in a recent two-week span.

It's frightening how comfortable we've learned to live with the war since the "surge" supposedly turned things around. The continuing carnage among those who were supposed to enjoy some of the fruits of our liberation isn't even on our radar screens.

Excuse me if I offend anyone in this article, but I would like to know what happened to the Democratic Party? I always thought of Democrats as those that supported Unions, workers, the middle-class, civil liberties and silly things like that. One thing I was also taught to do was to follow the money when it comes to whom really is supporting who in things such as criminal enterprises and of course, politics. I have been around for a while now, and I believe that I’m just as aware of what’s happening in my own country as anyone else. In fact, I believe that I’m really more aware of what’s happening than most. I am a voracious reader and I have a lot of time on my hands and I actually try to dig behind the rhetoric I hear. What I have found amazes me.

Obama is the enigma because no one knows how race will impact the race. With a multi-racial family, McCain may be less tolerant of the race card, which Clinton is accused of using versus Obama. A long primary could well doom both candidates if enough is done to smear one other.

On Tuesday, Obama gave a speech on race relations to beat back criticism of comments his former preacher made that had been running in an "endless loop" in the media. Without defending his preacher's comments, Obama's speech made race an issue, not in the sense it can act as a divisive force but rather how overcoming differences in race can unite America.

Some will be okay: They will live with the secrets. They can dissociate from what happened in combat because it was part of the job, what they signed up for. They will keep secrets out of duty – the silence is part of a code and they honour that code above all else.

For others, the secrets are like a poison, slowly releasing toxins of shame and remorse. Who can they tell? They talk to each other – other veterans who have seen what they’ve seen, done what they’ve done, and who can relate to the burden of carrying these secrets for the rest of their lives.

Starting Thursday, Mar. 13, and continuing for four days in Washington, DC, there is a Winter Soldier gathering – 37 years after the first which dealt with Vietnam. Organised by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are testifying about their experiences. They are presenting photographs and videos recorded with mobile phones and digital cameras, to back up their allegations of brutality, torture and murder. IVAW has more than 700 members in 49 states, Washington, DC, Canada, and on military bases overseas.

The entire proceeding is being webcast live at http://ivaw.org/ws_live.html.