Monthly Archive for March, 2005

It’s no surprise that this “independent” commission will deliver a report exonerating the White House and Pentagon from charges they applied political pressure on agencies to create intelligence that would persuade citisens of this country and elsewhere there was an urgent need to pre-emptively strike a defenceless, sovereign nation or that it suggests as a solution this same administration should now create “a new interagency center on proliferation, to assess efforts by other countries, terror groups and traffickers.”

Not as predictable was Walter Pincus, appearing this morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal, implying that this outrage has been sanctioned by the American people since they re-elected George Bush. Pincus and Dana Priest turned out some of the best reporting available on the scandalous depth of White House and Pentagon involvement as it was discovered. How would it have impugned his journalistic integrity to add that these same voters were assailed by a relentless continuum of denial and deliberate disinformation that saturated every aspect of the media throughout the campaign?

I don’t expect the Republicans to address this and I lost hope long ago the Democrats will do anything but enable their cover-ups and assist them in the promotion of the idea we should move on. If Ralph Nader is the apex of opposition to the creation of yet another propaganda mill through which North Korean and Iranian intelligence will be processed then I expect America will be moving on to more of the same.

There are no harmless political lies about a war. The more such lies citizens tolerate, the more wars they are likely to get. Every lie that is tolerated about one war becomes an engraved invitation to launch another war. Because Americans acquiesced to Bush’s blarney about his invasion of Afghanistan, Bush faced less resistance to invading Iraq. And every Bush lie about Iraq that is now tolerated by the American people increases the odds of Bush going to war against Iran if he were re-elected.

Will Bush be permitted to lie his way to four more years of power over Americans? It is almost inconceivable that the average American would trust a used car dealer who had engaged in the type of stunts that Bush has pulled to deceive us on both 9/11 and Iraq.

– James Bovard

Doug Ireland has an extensive run-down on “Terror in the Hands of Justice,” the interrogation tv-show running twice a day on the U.S.- financed network Al Iraqiya.

Crooks and Liars provides a clip which ran on French public television.

In the translation of it, the reporter states proof of guilt is never part of the programme.

And we removed Saddam because…

Matthew Yglesias titles his post about the demo in Bahrain “Freedom’s March Halted By Riot Police,” and calls it a golden opportunity for the administration that has brought us several pleasant surprises in its second term. What would those be?

Mahmood Al-Yousif, in anticipation of this protest, couldn’t remember a month in the last six years when there hadn’t been some kind of demonstration in Bahrain.

The situations in Lebanon and Bahrain can never be compared. In Lebanon the demonstrations were spontaneous where the whole society participated, regardless of sect or religion. In tomorrow’s demonstration I am sure we will see that the vast majority of demonstrators are in fact from the shi’a community, tainting the demonstration as a sectarian event rather than representative of the whole Bahraini society.

I would also have preferred it had Al-Wefaq exercised democratic principals and not sanctioned banners like the following in various places in Bahrain. The banner advertises the venue (Sitra), the time (1530) and the date (March 25th, 2005) which is fine, however the thing I don’t agree with is their statement that “it is your nationalistic duty to attend”, that to me is trying to force people to show up and not leaving it up to the individual to decide.

But thanks to Ygelsias I found The Arabist Network who in a different post linked to this event and called it “cheesy and opportunistic.” I’m a cynic and I must disagree. You can read more about Israeli pop star David Broza and Wisam Murad of the Palestinian Music Group, Sabreen, and listen to their song, “In My Heart,” here. Richard Silverstein believes it’s unlikely that a broadcast/performance sponsored by both Israelis and Palestinians has ever occurred before but welcomes correction if he’s wrong.

The song, and the sentiment behind its creation, are lovely.

UK’s General Election is striking some familiar chords. SchNEWS has called the scapegoating of immigrants for all of UK’s problems by Neo Labour and the Tories a “race-to-the-bottom.” lenin links to the website So Now Who Do We Vote For?, set-up by author John Harris, where Respect candidates are clear favourites in the visitors’ poll. He found the same results in other polls by way of Make My Vote Count, a coalition campaigning to reform the voting system. They think if the House of Commons reflected a broader proportion of people and their values it might foster a “more civil, rational, problem-solving political discourse.” Imagine!
294 signatures and counting. It’s new.

John Pilger’s address to the antiwar demo in Australia’s Sydney Hyde Park is up at Z-Net. He rails against Kevin Rudd for reducing the Labor Party to little more than a bad joke.

He calls Murdoch-style propaganda typical of repressive regimes and shares part of a song given to him while working undercover in one by the protest singer Marta Kubisova. It was written by the Plastic People of the Universe, a band that discovered Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground and psychedelic rock around the same time Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Warsaw Pact to crush the Prague Spring.

“Prague Spring resembled nothing less than San Francisco 1967. Hippies and drugs were everywhere, and rock music flourished in the clubs and the streets. It was a special time while it lasted, but the Kremlin felt Dubcek had gone too far.”

–Joseph Yanosik

Eventually banned by the Czech govt. they started performing – in remote locations – shows arranged by word-of-mouth. When police beat people with clubs at a March 1974 concert in Budovice the “Second Culture” festivals began. The second of those festivals, held in 1976, ended with homes searched, belongings tossed and confiscated, friends and fans detained without trial. After 6-months most were released but four of the musicians received jail sentences including Vratislav Brabenec who “went into Canadian exile in the early 1980s.” Paul Wilson was expelled.

A brief look at ‘protest’ music plus the underground scene in Czechoslovakia from 1968 – 1989

When playwright Vaclav Havel organised a campaign for their release the foundations for continuing dissident protest and the human rights charter, Charter 77, were laid.

The thread of that protest led to the eventual imprisonment of Havel and others; extensive persecution of dissidents escalated in the early 80s under the infamous Asanace campaign which used state-sanctioned violence and intimidation to force opponents of the regime to flee the country. But, despite the crack-down, continuity within the underground movement prevailed right up until the eve of the Velvet Revolution, and indeed, beyond, when the tables turned: Havel went from playwright and human rights activist to president. And, eventually, he brought the Plastics with him to perform at Prague Castle. Things had come full circle.

Pilger’s artefact:

They are afraid of the old for their memory,
They are afraid of the young for their innocence
They are afraid of the graves of their victims in faraway places
They are afraid of history. They are afraid of freedom.
They are afraid of truth. They are afraid of democracy.
So why the hell are we afraid of them? …for they are afraid of us.

Why Did Bush Win?

Kerry�s terrible campaign was only part of the equation. Even more crucial to understanding what happened at the polls on November 2nd is the complete capitulation of the anti-war movement to the idea that we have to get behind the so-called �lesser evil� in the name of beating Bush at all costs.

There was not a single national anti-war demo for over a year prior to the election, despite the April uprising of Fallujah and al-Sadr and despite the Abu Ghraib torture scandal which could have cost Rumsfeld his job. Instead of organizing anti-war marches, the main anti-war organization in this country, United for Peace and Justice, sent busloads of activists to swing-states like Pennsylvania to campaign for Kerry despite the fact that he said that war spending should be increased �by whatever number of billions it takes to win.�

They won. And they‘re not scared.

Now take that cigarette out of your mouth and tune your guitar.

Christopher Cook reports that U.S. designs for Iraq’s agricultural sector go beyond wresting food contracts from nations like Australia that traded with Iraq during the sanction years and Order 81 of the 100 legal orders left behind by Paul Bremer is just one spoke of the squeaky wheel in motion.

Exposed by Focus on the Global South and GRAIN in an October 2004 report, the “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety” makes it illegal for Iraqi farmers to reuse seeds of protected varieties like those peddled by Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow Chemical, and while it doesn’t force Iraqi farmers to use GMO seeds, the law applies to new varieties of non-GMO seeds that have been patented as well.

GRAIN emphasises that “for generations, small farmers in Iraq operated in an essentially unregulated, informal seed supply system. Farm-saved seed and the free innovation with and exchange of planting materials among farming communities has long been the basis of agricultural practice. This is now history.”

Is this the future?

By dramatically expanding legal definitions of what can be patented under the TRIPs Agreement, the WTO has endangered food sovereignty and security in poor countries. In most developing countries, the majority of the population lives on the land and feeds itself by replanting saved seeds. Yet over 150 cases have already been documented of research institutions or businesses applying for patents on naturally-occurring plants, some of which have been widely farmed for generations. After the WTO TRIPs Agreement becomes fully binding for developing countries in 2006, governments that fail to enforce patents on seeds�by pulling up crops or by forcing subsistence farmers who can not afford to do so to pay royalties�will face trade sanctions.

Cook writes it’s part of “the overall neoliberal strategy to open up and deregulate Iraq�s markets,” which includes:

And he finds USAID’s $100m agricultural reconstruction budget going towards pushing for the privatisation of “state-run enterprises like the Mesopotamia Seed Co.,” “deploying U.S. companies such as Case New Holland(2)* to rehabilitate Iraq�s dilapidated farm machinery,” and “helping the new government phase out farm subsidies.”

Yet in America, “payments from farm subsidies will top $24 billion, according to USDA estimates, up from $14.5 billion in 2004,” and are one reason prime farm land has doubled in value in some places since 2000. Tax breaks are another.

Most are taking advantage of a sweet tax deal known as a 1031 exchange, which gives a lucrative benefit to agricultural landowners in fast-growing metro areas.

Generally, a big gain from the sale of property must be recognized for tax purposes. But under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, farmers can roll their proceeds into another farm while deferring taxes on the profits.

Although it’s not a new law, the impact is growing as suburban farmers unload their holdings at top dollar for residential real estate development, then shop for rural land elsewhere.

No help for the rentor being squeezed off the land, though.

Only Saxby Chambliss riding to the rescue of subsidies despite the USDA’s prediction that the “2005 farm income of $64.4 billion,” is the “second highest on record, exceeded only by last year’s $73.6 billion.”:

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) has said that Congress should take more from food stamps, school lunches and other programs for the poor instead of large farm operations. “I want this to be as painless to every farmer in America as we can make it,” he told the Associated Press.

* my links

“What�s the difference between these two cases, that Congress and the President act on one, but not the other?”

Great question. I have another (not a great one, but a question).

Terri�s hands are curled up around little soft cylinders that help her not to injure herself. I understand that these contractures are likely very painful, although there was a time when Terri was receiving simple motion therapy when her hands and arms relaxed and were no longer as constricted. When the therapy was discontinued by order of her guardian and the court, the contractures returned. These contractures would apparently be avoidable if Terri were given the simple range of motion therapy she previously received. It is very sad to observe firsthand these conditions that make her life more difficult, but that would be correctable with little effort.

Yes, it is very sad, that her parents didn’t perform the therapy once it was discontinued. ROM can be done by anyone in less than 15 minutes. Her parents visit every day?

I’m not saying a decision like this, absent a Living Will or other document signed by the person in question, should be made based upon the number of times a family visits. But it does say a lot about the depth of their concern as Terrance’s item does about America’s.