Saturday, March 27, 2004
THE REVOLUTION DAMNED WELL WILL BE TELEVISED
"I have often heard reformers say that the working class does not revolt because it is not yet wretched and starving enough, and that the sooner economic conditions get worse the sooner they will revolt. This is another wrong conception of men and conditions.
Take the coal miners, the most ill paid and il treated wage workers in existence. To try to describe the conditions of the miners of Western Pennsylvania is to attempt the impossible. In many places grown men, with families, have not been able to earn more than $1.50 a week. They are herded together in miserable, filthy hovels, 12 or 15 people occupying one room; for how else can they pay the rent? Yet these men do not revolt, and never will. They have not the strength. They are like animals--dumb, stupid, indifferent, ready to lick the hand that lashes them.
But when I reached the districts where they earned $5 and $6 a week (a fortune (?) as they work), I found them carrying themselves with some pride and self respect, and open to ideas. It is therefore an unpardonable mistake to sit with folded hands awaiting the development of things to such a state that it will be too late to act.
Men with empty stomachs do not fight for freedom. They fight for bread, and as soon as they get the crust, gnawing on it they forget their good intentions to fight for more. I have not spent 18 weeks in missionary work without learning that it is useless to appeal to the overfed, but still less use to appeal to the underfed.
To be successful we must reach that class whose brains have not yet been destroyed by starvation."
Emma Goldman, "A Short Account of My Late Tour," Solidarity, 15 July 1898 (found in Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, edited by Candace Falk, Barry Pateman and Jessica Moran)Saturday, March 27, 2004
TURNING UP THE HEAT UNDER CONDOSLEEZZA RICE
Wooohooo. Condi just can't keep her lies straight anymore. Maybe, just maybe, she should, I dunno, try the truth for a change... it's so much easier than trying to remember what all you lied about, to whom, where, when, and how...
The Center for American Progress has compiled an excellent list of Condi Rice's contradicted claims. Here are some excerpts:
* RICE CLAIM: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 5/16/02
* FACT: On August 6, 2001, the President personally "received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane." In July 2001, the Administration was also told that terrorists had explored using airplanes as missiles. [Source: NBC, 9/10/02; LA Times, 9/27/01]
* RICE CLAIM: In May 2002, Rice held a press conference to defend the Administration from new revelations that the President had been explicitly warned about an al Qaeda threat to airlines in August 2001. She "suggested that Bush had requested the briefing because of his keen concern about elevated terrorist threat levels that summer." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
* FACT: According to the CIA, the briefing "was not requested by President Bush." As commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed, "the CIA informed the panel that the author of the briefing does not recall such a request from Bush and that the idea to compile the briefing came from within the CIA." [Source: Washington Post, 3/25/04]
* RICE CLAIM: "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high…we were at battle stations." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: "Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's 'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism 'the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.'" Meanwhile, the Bush Administration decided to terminate "a highly classified program to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04; Newsweek, 3/21/04]
* RICE CLAIM: "The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: President Bush and Vice President Cheney's counterterrorism task force, which was created in May, never convened one single meeting. The President himself admitted that "I didn't feel the sense of urgency" about terrorism before 9/11. [Source: Washington Post, 1/20/02; Bob Woodward's "Bush at War"]
* RICE CLAIM: "Our [pre-9/11 NSPD] plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets -- taking the fight to the enemy where he lived." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
* FACT: 9/11 Commissioner Gorelick: "There is nothing in the NSPD that came out that we could find that had an invasion plan, a military plan." Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: "Right." Gorelick: "Is it true, as Dr. Rice said, 'Our plan called for military options to attack Al Qaida and Taliban leadership'?" Armitage: "No, I think that was amended after the horror of 9/11." [Source: 9/11 Commission testimony, 3/24/04]
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
IF YOU'RE GONNA LIE, AT LEAST GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT
Ex-Bush-counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke just released a new book that describes the Bush administration's "war on terror" as totally inept. The White House immediately moved to discredit Clarke. But, it can't get seem to get its story straight on exactly why Clarke's damning account of their policies is wrong:
Condoleezza Rice: "This was in fact Dick Clarke's area of responsibility. We were in office eight months. Dick Clarke had been here a good deal longer."
Dick Cheney: "[Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff."
Ok gang - which was it? Was 9/11 Clarke's fault, or was he not in the loop? C'mon now, if you're gonna, as Granny used to say, try to pull a slick toad out of a tight hole, at least have a meeting and nail the actual lie down first.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS
If we keep breeding like demented rabbits, maybe a major cataclysm is not a bad thing. It would certainly reduce the population down to sustainable levels..
World Population Glance
World population estimates and projections by region in millions. Oceania includes Australia, New Zealand and Pacific islands such as Guam and Fiji:
| Region | 1950 | 2002 | 2050 |
| World | 2,555 | 6,228 | 9,070 |
| Africa | 227 | 839 | 1,780 |
| Middle East | 44 | 179 | 390 |
| Asia | 1,368 | 3,518 | 4,830 |
| Latin America / Caribbean | 166 | 539 | 780 |
| Europe | 572 | 803 | 770 |
| North America | 166 | 320 | 460 |
| Oceania | 12 | 32 | 40 |
(Source: U.S. Census Bureau)
Monday, March 22, 2004
WHEN THE RATS START GRUMBLING, IT'S TIME TO PACK YOUR BAGS...
Some of the smarter Reagan people have been bashing Bush, errr, critizing our glorious leader's infallible plan for world domination.
Some of the key guys in Daddy Bush's cabinet -- Brent Scowcroft, Jim Baker -- spoke out against the war long before it even took place. Paul O'Neill's book was the first sign obvious sign and now Richard A. Clarke (the former White House counter terrorism specialist) says Bush is doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism." (on 60 Minutes). Sen. John McCain (R-Az) has been a long-time critic of the Bush administration but now you hear Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Ne) also critcizing Bush's fixation on Iraq (See ABC's This Week).
David Kay, the entire nation of Spain, I even remember Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf saying on Faux News that he was a registered Independent and would wait for the general election to see what each candidate offers. He even critcized Rumsfeld's "hands on" approach in the Iraq War.
Reagan Communications Director David Gergen had this to say about Dubya:
---
It is...with a heavy heart that one watches the unfolding drama of the Bush administration. Its embrace of short-termism first became apparent early on when it canceled--without warning to allies--America's signature to the Kyoto treaty on global warming. The administration promised that it would come up with an alternative; it never has. Instead, it has allowed America to continue blithely on as the world's major polluter and has kicked the problem of global warming down the road to who knows when. And we wonder why other nations are so angry with us.
...Pump priming. The biggest shock, however, is the administration's cavalier approach to our financial health, capped by last week's passage of the Medicare bill. On balance, the bill is an important advance for seniors. But it is grossly irresponsible for the administration--even as it claims political victory--to secure passage without raising a single dime to pay for the costs. The country is now saddled with at least $400 billion in extra spending over the next decade--and probably a whole lot more.
...Nearly every sober voice in the country is warning that his insistence upon continued pump priming puts the economy at serious, long-term risk. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has been emphatic about his concerns. An economist from Goldman Sachs said the federal budget is "out of control." The Congressional Budget Office, headed by a former economist from the Bush White House, warns that federal deficits over the next 10 years will reach $1.4 trillion. Already, tax revenues have fallen to the lowest levels in more than 40 years while spending has risen to almost unprecedented levels.
The bipartisan Concord Coalition is even gloomier. It foresees annual deficits of more than $400 billion over the next 10 years, increasing the national debt by some $4.4 trillion--and that's before we help fund the retirement of baby boomers. The president, sadly, says he doesn't read the newspapers, but isn't someone telling him these things?
One worries that the disease of short-termism may even be creeping into foreign policy. At the very time we should be sending a message to terrorists that they can never break our will in Iraq, the administration keeps saying it plans to start withdrawing American forces by next summer. Are we to believe that it's entirely coincidental that the drawdown will come just before fall elections? Is it possible that we will leave without finishing the job?
http://www.davidgergen.com/index.php?page=...e=home&item=254
http://www.davidgergen.com/
Ex-Advisor Says Bush Eyed Bombing of Iraq on 9/11
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former White House anti-terrorism advisor says the Bush administration considered bombing Iraq in retaliation after Sept. 11, 2001 even though it was clear al Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Richard Clarke, who headed a cybersecurity board that gleaned intelligence from the Internet, told CBS "60 Minutes" in an interview to be aired on Sunday he was surprised administration officials turned immediately toward Iraq instead of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden
"They were talking about Iraq on 9/11. They were talking about it on 9/12," Clarke says.
Clarke said he was briefing President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld among other top officials in the aftermath of the devastating attacks.
"Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq. ... We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq."'
Clarke, an advisor to four presidents, left his position in February 2003 after the White House transferred functions of the cybersecurity board to Homeland Security.
Clarke's comments are the latest to raise the question of the Bush administration's focus on overthrowing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, fired in a shake-up of Bush's economic team in December 2002, told "60 Minutes" in an interview aired in January he never saw any evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction -- Bush's main justification for going to war.
O'Neill also charged that Bush entered office intent on invading Iraq and ousting its leader, Saddam Hussein.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection" between Iraq and al Qaeda, Clarke tells "60 Minutes."
"But the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying, 'We've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection,"' says Clarke.Sunday, March 21, 2004
SETTING THE STAGE FOR WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
Looks like the roadies are busy setting up the backdrops and props for the big pre-election BushCo show. They'll be pulling WMDs and Osama out of their hat like sleek corn-fed rabbits, in an effort to loudly distract everyone's attention from the HUGE pile of neocon elephant shit sitting on the coffee table.
Like we said, normally we don't take anything coming out of Islamabad and Tehran very seriously, but I tell you what, those sand jockeys are serving up the scoopfuls these days... what the hell is this world coming to, when you have to go to the propaganda arms of repressive third-world regimes in order to get a modicum of truth? Oh yeh, it's "hell in a handbasket", I forgot...
U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=3/13/2004&Cat=4&Num=011
TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.
A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.
He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings in Karbala and the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution.
The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.
He mentioned the fact that the United States had facilitated Iraq’s WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq and said that some of the weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons, although international inspectors had announced Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime had destroyed all its WMD.
The source went on to say that the rest of the weapons were probably transferred in vans to an unknown location somewhere in the vicinity of Basra overnight.
“Most of these weapons are of Eastern European origin and some parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The U.S. obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over the past two decades,” he said.
This action comes as certain U.S. and Western officials have been pointing out the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq and the issue of Saddam’s trial begins to take center stage.
In addition, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has emphasized that the U.S. and British intelligence agencies issued false reports on Iraq leading to the U.S. attack.
Meanwhile, the suspicious death of weapons inspector David Kelly is also an unresolved issue in Britain.
------Occupation Forces Official Claims to Have No Information About Transfer of WMD to Iraq -------
A security official for the coalition forces in Iraq said that he has not received any information about the unloading of weapons of mass destruction in ports in southern Iraq.
Shane Wolf told the Mehr News Agency that the occupation forces have received no reports on such events, but said he hoped that the coalition forces would find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction one day.
Coalition forces and inspectors have so far been unable to find any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretext that Iraq possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.