Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement

"When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers."

Well who didn't see that coming. I'd like to know if there's any law at all that he does feel obligated to obey. Don't bother answering that, we already know.

I can't believe how easily we're giving way to dictatorship. A lot can happen between now and the next Presidential election, and one of those things could be a convenient terrorist attack here at home. Convenient because it would cause everyone who's afraid of their own shadow to cower under their beds again and insist that their Fearless Leader protect them at all costs from the bad guys, just like they did after 9/11. If the timing is right, and it happens close enough to the election, it could prompt Bush to force a suspension of the election, because of a state of national emergency. He could insist that the emegency is so severe that the elections must be postponed indefinately, thereby officially making himself dictator.

Think that far-fetched? Well what do you think would happen if a WMD gets set off somewhere in the U.S. sometime in late summer or early fall of 2008? (actually, any time between then and inauguration day would be good) Martial Law could be initiated, not just in the area of the incident, but for the whole nation because it could be argued that it could be the begining of a series of such attacks, and extrordinary measures must be taken. Do you really think that anybody in government would be interested in taking time out to campaign?? Do you think we'd let them? It would be hard to crawl out from under the bed to get out and vote, when we'd be told that wasting time with an election would be too distracting for the government and that the process would help "the terrorists".

Yeah I know, I've gone quite a ways from Bush chosing to ignore certain legal obligations of the Patriot Act, all the way to the suspension of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and assuming permanent dictitorial powers. But with a President who's already above the law, and the prospect of another terrorist attack, that's just the sort of combination that leads to dictatorships, and since there are still unanswered questions about events on 9/11, I will not be surprised if something horrific takes place before the next Presidential election.

Stay Tuned For The Same Old Republican Lies

Coming soon to a media market near you:

"The GOP (Grand Old Prevaricators), who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, have been test-marketing another TV ad campaign."

"The fabrication this time: the war in Iraq. The target: any Democratic candidate who speaks out against the U.S. mission during the mid-term elections. The venue for the test is Minnesota."

"Two ads have run so far. Both have caused a furor."

They go on to describe the ads, and it looks like the Republicans are going to continue to promote the same lies that have been continuously refuted from the time they began telling them. They're still claiming the war in Iraq is about fighting the Al-Qaeda terrorists.

How many times does this have to be proven to be the deliberate lie that it is? You would think by now that it would be easy to exploit the Republican and administration lie about the non-existant connection between Iraq and "the terrorists", as being made be people who obviously have no intention of ever speaking the truth to the American people, about anything. It should be easy to show that even in the face of facts to the contrary, they continue to take us for fools, filling their speech with fanciful tales that only die-hard fanatics could possibly conceive as being anything close to reality.

If this is to be the tactic of the upcoming elections, it must be continuously and relentlessly countered with the truth. We cannot allow the media to continue to play along by repeating these lies unchallenged. We must write, email, and call our local media as well as national, to insist they stop accepting the proven lies as fact, and not challenging them at all. They must be made aware that we know what the truth is, and insist that our media give it as much if not more exposure than they're giving to the lies. To carry it further, we should seek out the sponsors of all the media outlets who promote the lies, and warn them that their bottom lines could suffer if they continue sponsoring news shows that are purposely deceiving the public by repeating previously exposed lies.

The liars depend on the media to get their message out, and the media must also be used by those promoting the truth. We should not wait until the campaigns are in full swing, we must start now.

The Pentagon's TALON Program

"In May 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz initiated a new program designed to assemble and share "non-validated domestic threat information among intelligence, counterintelligence, law enforcement, security, and force protection entities."

"Grown out of the Air Force neighborhood watch program Eagle Eyes, the new reporting scheme was named TALON, Threat and Local Observation Notice. While the program is designed to record potential terrorist pre-attack activity, media reports over the past few months show that the Pentagon has been monitoring anti-war and anti-military activity, potentially overstepping the bounds of legitimate homeland security efforts. CIFA, the Counterintelligence Field Activity, oversees TALON, as part of its mission to "deliver actionable information to Defense Department decision-makers."

This is from the PBS series NOW, that aired this week. The main focus was on how this program is being used to monitor political activists, and anyone else who merely gets "tattled" on by a nosey neighbor. The program is supposed to be collecting potentially useful information that could lead to terrorist activity, but while watching the episode, I had a flashback to when the Communist East German government fell, and the public finally gained access to the State Security (STASI) headquarters and revealed tons and tons of highly detailed, yet mostly irrelevent information on virtually every single East German citizen. They had more information on their own people, than the Soviets had on theirs. Now, we'll put them all to shame with all the domestic spies we now have in every government agency from local through federal, civilian and military, all collecting information on all of us, that will have absolutely nothing to do with subversive or terrorist activity.

What gets me, is that all the spying programs are justified by saying that if they had been in place prior to 9/11, 9/11 most likely would not have succeeded. People keep buying that nonsense even after we knew the government already had information that could've stopped it, but they weren't sharing with other agencies. The CIA wasn't talking to the FBI about terrorist they knew to be in the country. 9/11 didn't happen because there wasn't enough domestic spying, it happened because of inter-agency rivalry and jealousy, and all branches of the government, along with all major news outlets, along with any of the general public who paid attention at the time, know full well that the fault did not lay in the lack of domestic spying, so that justification is pure bullshit.

This TALON program, just like what appears to me to be about 90% of all other anti-terror measures, seems less to do with catching radical Middle Eastern Islamic terrorists, than setting up the apparatus to tightly monitor, control, and manipulate 300 million suckers who live in a delusional world believing they live in a now mythical "free" country.

The End Of Civilization

"I had a mild epiphany the other day: it’s not President Bush who’s living in a fantasy world, it’s most of his critics who are. I’m no apologist for Bush – I neither like nor dislike him. He’s no more significant to me than a fly buzzing around outside my window. So permit me to explain my reasoning."

"People look at Bush’s invasion of Iraq and see a miserable failure. But a failure to do what? Democratize Iraq? Eliminate Iraq’s WMD arsenal? Reduce global terrorism? If those were, in fact, the reasons for invading Iraq, then the invasion would have to be classified as a failure. But what if the real reason was to secure Iraq’s oil supplies, perhaps not for immediate use, and perhaps not even for use by the United States? Then the invasion of Iraq would have to be judged a success, a “mission accomplished,” so to speak."

"Or take Bush’s seemingly irresponsible handling of the domestic economy. How can any sane person fail to understand that cutting revenue while increasing spending will produce deficits, and that those deficits cannot increase in perpetuity? Sooner or later that accumulated debt has got to have consequences. Bush appears to be acting as if there were no tomorrow. But what if there really were no tomorrow, financially speaking? In that case, the reckless economic policies of today would not only be irrelevant, but might actually be shrewd. I mean, if one knows that he is not going to have to pay back his debts tomorrow, then why not borrow money like crazy today? In fact, if civilization is coming to an end, then why not use all that borrowed money to stock up on guns and vital resources, such as oil?"

This is a long and interesting piece that accurately, in my opinion, details the problems we're going to encounter when oil gets scarce. We don't really know for certain when the time will come, but it's inevitable that long before oil runs out completely, there's going to be hell on earth for most of the people on the planet.

Much of what this guys says, I've brought up in the past, such as believing that our wars, contrary to the way they appear, are preceeding exactly as our leaders originally intended. The belief that the government and the media are in collusion to keep the masses distracted by stupid nonsense, while so much important information is getting little exposure. Much of what he thinks may come to pass as a result of the lack of oil, I also believe.

I really think everyone should read this because time's running out and the river of oil will eventually dry up taking most of us with it. It doesn't matter whether the real trouble will break out in 10, or 50 years, the point is, that the course of human events are about to be dramatically altered by a lack of everything that depends on oil, and everyone needs to begin to prepare. This is no longer about "if", it's about "when", and "when" gets closer each day. People need to start thinking about how to survive without the use of any petroleum based products, including food and energy. Waiting for government or industry to lead the way, to educate, and prepare you, just isn't going to happen, you're on you own, whether you like it or not.

Depleted Uranium For Dummies

"Everything you need to know about depleted uranium. Every day our troops remain in Iraq increases the chances that they will come home sick, produce children with birth defects, and die prematurely."

"Under the direction of Secretary of Defense Cheney, the 1991 Gulf War began with a "shock and awe" bombing campaign that destroyed large biological laboratories, chemical plants, and nuclear enrichment facilities, most of them around Baghdad. Many sites were illegally supplied by the Reagan-Bush administration, in which both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld served, so the United States government knew their locations."

"Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons damage the bodies of soldiers in distinct ways. The first employs deadly bacteria and viruses to cause known illnesses. The second uses poisonous, or toxic, substances to attack the body's chemistry. Nuclear weapons, such as depleted uranium (D.U.), were unimaginable before World War II. They attack the body with invisible radioactive energy that, as you will soon read, produces a wider variety of symptoms that develop over a longer period of time. Radioactive heavy metal particles embedded in the body are both radioactive and toxic."

"Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons can potentially "blow back." Once they are released, they can kill and maim civilians as well as enemy soldiers. Hence all three have been banned by international treaties which the United States signed."

That last sentence means that every time we knowingly target and destroy those types of facilities, we are, as far as I'm concerned, committing a war crime. Every time we drop a depleted uranium bomb, we're also committing a war crime. I've brought up those depeted uranium weapons before, noting how little we ever hear about them in the media. I said before that we were subjecting our own troops to exposure from those nuclear weapons, and make no mistake, that's what they are, nuclear weapons.

Do you remember back during the Reagan administration, when there was a big debate about the proposed production of a new type of nuclear weapon called a "neutron bomb"? These weapons were supposed to be nuclear bombs, without the mess. They were to be used for the sole purpose of destroying living organisms (humans), while leaving structures intact. Well, the whole world reeled at the thought of such a weapon, because by it being less desructing to property, it was thought to be much more likely to be used. A bomb that wipes out people, but leaves their cities intact (the same result as chemical and bio weapons), was unthinkable to the general public, and helped gain more momentum for the growing anti-nuclear movement that was popular during the Reagan years. Well these DU weapons we've been using extensively since the first Gulf War, are nothing less than small versions of the neutron bomb.

The use of these weapons will cause health problems for people in the region as well as our own troops, for many decades to come. This is the reality of how our government "supports the troops". Those hypocritical bastards demean anyone who speaks ill of the war, saying it demoralizes the troops, and that everyone should "support the troops" by not questioning the government, and thinking happy thoughts. Meanwhile, the bastards are exposing those same troops that they pretend to be so concerned about, to nuclear radiation and other toxic substances. That, in addition to their other acts of supporting our troops that includes keeping them undermanned, underprotected, mismanaged, and let's not forget, forcing them to become torturers and murderers, are all to secure energy sources before the wells run dry.

I won't carry on any longer on this because the article itself is rather long and informative. But the worst part of the whole article, is that its' topic is non-existent in the mainstream media. Those lap dogs share the guilt for all the deaths and suffering caused by our use of these weapons, because they remain so silent on this.

Causes of Poverty - Global Issues

"Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Have they been lazy, made poor decisions, and been solely responsible for their plight? What about their government? Have they pursued policies that actually harm successful development? Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But often less discussed are deeper and more global causes of poverty."

"Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization, are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people."

"In the face of such enormous external influence, the governments of poor nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle."

In this section of the Global Issues website, you can come to a better understanding of why you can't just assume that the poverty stricken, be they individuals or nations, are entirely responsible for their lot in life. We all should already know that those with the money hold all the power, and when those without it, are in need, they're at the mercy of the powerful who exact a high price for their illusion of "help".

The "have" countries, who are usually responsible for creating poor countries, through past colonial empires and wars of conquest, pretend to extend a helping hand to poorer nations, but are in reality, imposing conditions on the "help" that will ensure the impossibility of the poor countries ever getting out of debt. Those countries are forced into economic and political servitude that keeps them weak and vulnerable to external exploitation and manipulation. It is to the advantage of the rich and powerful that a sizable underclass is perpetually maintained. When people and nations are empowered and self reliant, they're very hard to take advantage of.

This site goes much deeper into detail than my little ramblings, and will be a good education for the uninformed.

Video - The Road To Guantánamo

"The Road To Guantánamo opens with archive footage of George W Bush, flanked by a stern-faced Tony Blair, declaring his certain knowledge that all the detainees held in Guantánamo are "bad people". Everything that follows is designed to turn these words inside out, as three young British Muslims tell the story of how they came to be in US custody at Guantánamo for over two years, and discuss the Kafkaesque horrors that awaited them there, until finally they were released without charge or apology."

Here's another embedded video report from Britain. The page says that "this video will only be online until March 25th", so don't put off watching this. Better still, they've provided a download link to the 65mb RealVideo file you can save and share. I'm not sure whether they mean it simply won't be available as a stream after that date, but still accessible for download, or it won't be available at all. Either way, grab it if you're interested.

[UPDATE: March 24 '06]

Video availibility has been extended one more day till March 26th.

Video - The Aftermath Of A Massacre

"Have American troops been killing unarmed civilians in Iraq?"

This is an embedded video news report from the BBC, on the recent allegations of more U.S. atrocities in Iraq. The relevant part of the broadcast lasts only about 15 minutes, then continues on with other news, so if you're only interested in the Iraq segment, you can stop the video at that point.

The true purpose of torture

'Obviously, intelligence agents have an incentive to hide the use of unlawful methods," says Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "On the other hand, when they use rendition and torture as a threat, it's undeniable that they benefit, in some sense, from the fact that people know that intelligence agents are willing to act unlawfully. They benefit from the fact that people understand the threat and believe it to be credible."

"And the threats have been received. In an affidavit filed with an ACLU court challenge to section 215 of the Patriot Act, Nazih Hassan, president of the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor in Michigan, describes this new climate. Membership and attendance are down, donations are way down, board members have resigned - Hassan says his members avoid doing anything that could get their names on lists. One member testified anonymously that he has "stopped speaking out on political and social issues" because he doesn't want to draw attention to himself."

"This is torture's true purpose: to terrorise - not only the people in Guantánamo's cages and Syria's isolation cells but also, and more importantly, the broader community that hears about these abuses. Torture is a machine designed to break the will to resist - the individual prisoner's will and the collective will."

This isn't a new article, in fact it's almost a year old. I'm throwing it out there simply because the word "torture" has died down in the media and the Congress. It's been a little while since those last photos and videos were released, so I guess I'm just kicking up a little dust, just as a reminder that all the torturing and abuse is still going on, and countless people are still being "renditioned".

This article simply states the obvious. The "obvious" being that absolutely everyone in U.S. should already know through our own history, that torture, as a means of getting the truth (or at least a confession) from a suspect, just doesn't work. We've outlawed it here precisly because it was proven to be almost completely unreliable. The article doesn't really make a point of that fact, but rather steps over it, to get to the point that tortures' real purpose is to terrorize and intimidate the general population.

If you've listened to the justifications for it's use, by our leaders, you may have heard a few examples that claimed the information derived from torture actually prevented a few terrorist acts. I suppose if you torture thousands, you'd inevitably trip over something usefull, but the people who've made those claims, are themselves, habitual liars. As far as we know, no useful information has been gathered to prevent anything. There's no way to know for sure, because all the people saying it, have lied to us before, many times.

But still, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they indeed have arm-twisted a few usefull tidbits from the countless thousands who've been rounded up in sweeps, or kidnapped and shipped to someone elses' dungeon. Does of few, literally a few, successes justify torturing thousands and thousands of people whose guilt was never established in the first place?

We hear those faux "patriots" (average citizens and Bush apologists) foaming at the mouth with fiendish delight, at the thought of punishing those terrorists for what they did to us on 9/11. The trouble is that we've already exacted retribution for 9/11. We lost three thousand people that day, and since then, we in turn, have killed many thousands more, at the rising cost of well over two thousand of our service personel. We've maimed and tortured many more thousands. At what point will our blood-thurst be satisfied? Our leaders have their own agenda, but I'm asking about the average person who blindly believes in the excuses given for torturing thousands of innocent people, along with all the not-so-innocent, who are too low-level to know anything useful. When will you finally say "enough is enough'. Why waste time on little people? Because they help spread the fear, the true purpose of torture.

This article is a reminder that in this modern world, we should know better than to accept anyones' arguement that torture is necessary for finding out information. It's sole purpose is intimidating everyone who knows about it. It also makes hypocrites out of any of us who condone it, just because it's us who's doing it this time.

I'd like to point out to anyone who thinks we're justified in indiscriminate torture and abuse. It may be directed at someone else today, but because you allow it to continue, it will be directed at someone else tomorrow, then someone else the day after, and so on, until they finally get to you. By then, it will be so overtly institutionalized that no one will say a word as you're being dragged away, never to be heard from again. Not a prediction, nor a threat, just a historically inevitable reality, if this course doesn't change. It's all up to you; SPEAK UP....or...be silent....

Senators Monitoring FCC on New Media Ownership Rules

As the Federal Communications Commission gears up to rewrite the media ownership rules, a bipartisan group of Senators - key members of the Senate Commerce Committee - on March 16 sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin asking for a comprehensive and public process.

"These Senators are sending a strong signal to the FCC that they will be watching the agency as it tries, once again, to craft new media ownership rules," said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree. "Their bipartisan letter demonstrates that the Senate continues to be concerned about the impact of media consolidation on our democracy. If only a few companies own all our media outlets, it will be difficult for average Americans to access the diverse viewpoints and information that we need to govern ourselves."

The only reason for their concern is because 3 million people raised hell about it the last time. Hopefully lots will be watching this time too, and can make a real difference. If it were up to me, no company would be allowed to own more than one media outlet per market. Period.

GM Contamination Register

"This GM contamination register is the first of its kind in the world. Although GM crops were grown on over 80 million hectares in 2004, there is no global monitoring system. Because of this failure of national and international agencies, GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace International have launched this joint initiative to record all incidents of contamination arising from the intentional or accidental release of genetically modified (GM) organisms (which are also known as genetically engineered (GE) organisms). It also includes illegal plantings of GM crops and the negative agricultural side-effects that have been reported."

"Only those incidents which have been publically documented are recorded here. There may be others that are, as yet, undetected."

"This site is intended to be a resource for individuals, public interest groups and governments. The register can be searched to see where, when and how contamination has taken place. It includes information about, and links to, sources and the GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace web sites as well as other useful sites."

Here's a place to bookmark and keep track of what's happening to our food source, that you're not supposed to know. What drew my attention to this site was a report it published, that I saw mentioned on another site. The report can be found on this page, with a more complete description (and map) than the bit I've quoted below:

Contamination register report.PDF

"GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace have prepared a report of all the incidents which have been included on the register up to the end of 2005. There were 113 incidents included in the register to the end of 2005: 88 cases of contamination, 17 illegal releases and eight reports of negative agricultural side-effects. For 2005, this includes seven cases of contamination, eight illegal releases and three cases of negative agricultural side-effects. A total of 39 countries on five continents are known to have been affected by an incident of GM contamination, illegal planting or adverse agricultural side-effect since 1996. This is almost twice the number of countries that grow GM crops."

Here's one of the conclusions they've drawn from the information in the report;

"Potentially dangerous genes could be introduced into the food chain and the environment as a result of the poor controls and lack of information because of claims to commercial confidentiality."

What? Don't think "potentially" and "could be" are anything to worry about? Well how about this;

"The economic costs of contamination and other incidents have been, and are likely to continue to be, high in the future. Health, environmental and social costs are potentially immense."

Yeah, it's affecting your wallet. There are a few other conclusions and recommendations at the end of the report, but like so many other issues today, it'll probably take more than a few watchdog groups, it'll take the people who are affected; "us", to make more noise. To rattle cages. To bug the living shit out of our leaders till they force corporations to stop screwing us over, just so they can add more zeros to their precious bottom lines. Yeah, I know, wishful thinking.

I have my own distrust of GM, but it doesn't involve contamination, accidental or intentional. I'll save that for another time.

I'm trying to be patient......but

...for over two weeks now I've been experiencing extreme slowness, outages, errors, inability to post, and it's starting to drive me up the #&*!%!$ wall. You wouldn't believe how long it took to send that last post, and I'm dreading sending this one, but I need to let you guys know I'm trying.

Just 'cause I'm pissed at 'em, I'll propose that the trouble I and other blogspot bloggers have been having recently, may have something to do with the fact that Google owns this place. The same Google that's been so helpful to the Chinese government in censoring content to it's people. With Google at the helm, and our own government here "engaging" those they consider "determined detractors", I just feel it's one hell of a coincidence that after having been "engaged" myself, which took place not long after I taunted the NSA following one of their quiet visits, that now I'm having way too much trouble posting, which btw, isn't a problem for all blogspoters.

It's all probably just coincidence and completely innocent.....but, but....what if it isn't.............[cue dramatic theme music]

LOL, well, if it isn't, I know a few tricks. One way of another, my piece will speak.

Basic Statistics for United States Imperialism

Contents:

1—list of interventions for “regime change”

2—list of air warfare campaigns

3—list of client states

4—list of states held by debt-leverage imperialism

5—list of foreign base hosts

6—list of murder toll

7—list of unsavory rightists supported

8—list of perverted international bodies

9—list of interventions for opposing liberation

10—list of interventions pre-1941

11—list of covert operations

12—list of front organizations

13—list of low intensity conflicts

14—list of proxy wars

15—list of foreign policy doctrines

16—list of propaganda campaigns

If you've ever wanted a quick reference list of U.S. dirty deeds, here it is. "Basic" is indeed a perfect word for it, still, it's looks to be very thorough, covering events all the way back to 1776. I'd consider it a good starting point for further research. Unfortunately a number of their reference links at the bottom of the page are dead, but the live ones are still worth trudging through all the carcasses to get to.