Author: liberalelite

The So-Called, “War On Terror” (SCWOT) is a hoax.

BushCo needs a catchy slogan to bedazzle the American public into more stupefied taxpaying for corporate welfare on behalf of weapons makers and defense contractors.

In addition, national mind control can proceed under the guise of, “Information Warfare” by the Pentagon and the intelligence services.

Obviously when, according to Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe,

President Bush prepared the nation yesterday for a “long struggle” against enemy forces in Iraq and around the world and said more US troops would be needed to confront the global terrorist threat,

he needs to be able to explain how the “long struggle” and “additional troops” will “confront” the “threat.”  The reporters aren’t asking the obvious question, which is, “How does more translate into better?”

The Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts clearly show that our leaders are not confronting the “threats” appropriately, but are squandering taxpayers’ money in a misguided blitzkrieg of runaway spending.

The more we spend and the more people we kill, the less “safe” we get and the more dangerous the “terrorists” become.

Obviously, another response to terrorism and sectarian violence is needed than terrorism and military intervention.  If we want peace instead of terrorism and war, we should be constructive instead of terrorizing and threatening.

Terrorism is a crime, not a causus belli.  What is also a crime is deceiving the American people about this distinction in order to keep them in fear and abjection, selling their grandchildren into economic slavery.

On the home front, BushCo’s shrinking approval ratings are reflected in new expressions of public outrage and proactive popular resistance on a weekly basis.

Yes, the assault on the environment continues, but the people are fighting back.  A particularly destructive mission by BushCo to delete decades of progress identifying and effectively limiting the dispersal of toxic substances and pollutants is being fought by PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

The bad news is that what PEER is specifically fighting at the moment appears to be a losing battle to preserve the public interest in the war against giant corporate polluters.

In a Pearl Harbor Day press release, we find that EPA officials are purging their website of documents, destroying documents and research data, and limiting the ability of their own scientists and researchers–and the public, too–from getting access to information that has been accumulated in libraries to serve the public interest.
 

For Immediate Release: December 7, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

EPA SCRUBBING LIBRARY WEBSITE TO MAKE REPORTS UNAVAILABLE — Agency Sells $40,000 Worth of Furniture and Equipment for $350

Washington, DC — In defiance of Congressional requests to immediately halt closures of library collections, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is purging records from its library websites, making them unavailable to both agency scientists and outside researchers, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of its shuttered libraries, including the hurried auctioning off of expensive bookcases, cabinets, microfiche readers and other equipment for less than a penny on the dollar.

In a letter dated November 30, 2006, four incoming House Democratic committee chairs demanded that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson assure them “that the destruction or disposition of all library holdings immediately ceased upon the Agency’s receipt of this letter and that all records of library holdings and dispersed materials are being maintained.” On the very next day, December 1st, EPA de-linked thousands of documents from the website for the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA’s Washington D.C. Headquarters.

Last month without notice to its scientists or the public, EPA abruptly closed the OPPTS Library, the agency’s only specialized research repository on health effects and properties of toxic chemicals and pesticides. The web purge follows reports that library staffers were ordered to destroy its holdings by throwing collections into recycling bins.

“EPA’s leadership appears to have gone feral, defying all appeals to reason or consultation,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Congress has yet to review, let alone approve, the library closures. “The new Congress convening in January will finally have a chance to decide whether EPA will continue to pillage its library network.”

Meanwhile, in what appears to be an effort to limit Congressional options, EPA is taking steps to prevent the re-opening of the several libraries that it has already completely shuttered. In its Chicago office, which formerly hosted one of the largest regional libraries, EPA ordered that all furniture and furnishings (down to the staplers and pencil sharpeners) be sold immediately. Despite an acquisition cost of $40,000 for the furniture and equipment, a woman bought the entire lot for $350. The buyer also estimates that she will re-sell the merchandise for $80,000.

“One big irony is that EPA claimed the reason it needed to close libraries was to save money but in the process they are spending and wasting money like drunken sailors,” Ruch added, noting EPA refuses to say how much it plans to spend digitizing the mountains of documents that it has removed from library shelves. “While the Pentagon had its $600 toilet seat and $434 hammer, EPA has its 29 cent book case and file cabinets for a nickel.”

In spite of its pleas of poverty, EPA is spending millions on a public relations campaign to improve the image of its research program, as well as a $2.7 million program (more than its estimated savings from library closures ) to digitize all employee personnel files, in a program called “eOPF.”

“No one believes that EPA is closing libraries and crating up irreplaceable collections for fiscal reasons,” Ruch concluded. “Instead, the real agenda appears to be controlling access by its own specialists and outside researchers to key technical information.”

This jaw-dropping piece of journalism is concluded by a list of hypertext links:

• Look at the materials removed from the OOPTS Library website
• Note the December 1, 2006 date at the bottom of the notice of file unavailability for OPTTS collections
• Read the November 30, 2006 letter from Democratic House leaders requesting a moratorium on further library closures
• Revisit the order to “recycle” the OPPTS collection
• Trace EPA’s campaign to shut down its libraries

Impeachment

Howard Zinn weighed in with an inspiring reflection on history and the fall of evil administrations.  

We can’t expect George Bush to scurry off in a helicopter. But we can hold him accountable for catapulting the nation into two wars, for the death and dismemberment of tens of thousands of human beings in this country, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and for his violations of the U.S. Constitution and international law. Surely these acts meet the constitutional requirement of “high crimes and misdemeanors” for impeachment….

A country with military power can destroy but it cannot build. Its citizens become uneasy because their fundamental day-to-day needs are sacrificed for military glory while their young are neglected and sent to war. The uneasiness grows and grows and the citizenry gathers in resistance in larger and larger numbers, which become too many to control; one day the top-heavy empire collapses. Change in public consciousness starts with low-level discontent, at first vague, with no connection being made between the discontent and the policies of the government. And then the dots begin to connect, indignation increases, and people begin to speak out, organize, and act.

Tomorrow is the impeachment meet-up here in New York City.  One hundred twenty-five people have signed up to attend.  We are organizing a petition and grass roots effort to gather one million signatures to urge Congress to investigate and impeach BushCo.

Of course, impeachment won’t solve the problems in Washington, the environment, Iraq, Palestine, or the New York City public schools.  But working together, the American people can begin to tackle these issues again for the common good.  Ousting BushCo might just ignite our collective engines, too.

Timing his partisanship to fuel the flames of dissonance and fear in the Senate deliberations on the Military detainee measure, George W. Bush, President of the Republican people, has not only surrendered to al-Qaeda.  He has vacated his position as President of the United States of America.

In an unprecedentedly one-sided sales pitch for his party, the President of the United States has abandoned the majority of his constituents as “cut and run” cowards.

Five years after 9/11, the worst attack on the American homeland in history, Democrats offer nothing but criticism, obstruction and endless second-guessing,” he said, branding them “the party of cut-and-run.”

Will the Democrats form an opposition party now?  We’re supposed to have some representation in our government, aren’t we?  If Bush isn’t up for the job, maybe we can get Mike Malloy.  I hear he’s out of work.  Although he may be crazy, too, at least he believes in the Constitution.
The guy who currently holds the office of President is losing his marbles.  He

downplayed the US intelligence community’s findings that the unpopular conflict in Iraq is serving as a de-facto recruiting sergeant for Islamist extremists, saying they would find other excuses to hate the United States.

In his speech, the guy they call, “Mr. President,” made additional vague assertions about the Democrats and the so-called, “War On Terror.”

“History tells us that logic is false. We didn’t create terrorism by fighting terrorism. Iraq is not the reason why the terrorists are at war against us,” he said.

The information on the upcoming elections is looking worse and worse for the minority party.

In a press release on Thursday, BushCo, among other frightening threats, announced its intention to nominate Caroline C. Hunter to be Commissioner of the Elections Assistance Commission.  It’s bad enough that she’s a BushCo nominee, and has been serving in the White House until now as BushCo’s Deputy Director for the Office of Public Liaison.  In other words she’s a PR person.  Worse, among her other impressive former titles, including Deputy Counsel for the Republican National Committee, she holds no credentials or experiences qualifying her for her new appointment.

Warren Stewart at VoteTrust USA points out that

Title 2, Section 203 of HAVA clearly requires that “Each member of the Commission shall have experience with or expertise in election administration or the study of elections.”

The Senate asked to rubber stamp another BushCo illegality in violation of the Commission members’ HAVA requirements?  I wonder whether anybody at the nomination hearing will notice.

Some people outside of the Senate have noticed, though.  This chilling letter was unearthed by Dan Tokaji.  It reveals that Hunter did the dirty work for BushCo in 2003 by threatening tv stations with FCC trouble if they ran the DNC advertisement showing il Duce lying in the State of the Union Address–something about Saddam seeking uranium from Africa.  Tokaji makes some other interesting observations about Hunter and her predecessor, Paul deGregorio, too.  

[T]there’s reason to be concerned that this is someone who’s being appointed not for her qualifications, but rather to look out for the political interests of the party to which she belongs.

Contrast Hunter with the outgoing Chairman in terms of experience, qualifications and reputation.  As Tokaji shows,

What’s troubling about this announcement, at first blush, is that it’s not clear that Ms. Hunter possesses the qualifications for the job. All of the prior EAC commissioners, Democrats and Republicans alike, have been people with substantial relevant experience.

Stewart echoes Takaji’s reservations.  

Given the current crisis in the administration of our nation’s elections and the complex and critical issues that the EAC will face in the coming years, it is deeply troubling that the White house has chosen a nominee with no experience with election administration or the study of elecions.

As Dan Balz and Zachary Goldfarb pointedly open in their article in today’s Washington Post,

An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat — this time on a national scale — of last week’s Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.

Unfortunately, the WaPo piece doesn’t zero in on magnitude or the partisan nature of the disenfranchisement problem, except in a couple of tiny paragraphs buried near the end (paragraphs 28 & 29)

Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over voter registration rolls. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal advocacy group, recently showed that properly registered voters in Florida, New Jersey and Kentucky were being removed from voter databases through electronic purges.

“Voter suppression doesn’t happen with intimidation on Election Day, but rather through silent and sometimes secret government actions in the weeks leading up to an election,” said Michael Waldman, the center’s executive director.

We’ve got a problem.  Above all the spin and mud-slinging of a hard fought, albeit corporate-funded election, the system has to provide for nonpartisan oversight that safeguards the whole process from contamination by the partisanship and corruption so rampant throughout corporate America, our military and Congress.  The Hunter appointment, above all else, fails in this most important regard, too, a fatal flaw in a time when the fairness–or even the occurrence–of elections is so questionable.  Democracy isn’t safeguarded by having elections.  Even Stalin and Castro had elections.

Democracy means having fair, accurate and transparent elections.  Are our chances of that going up with the Hunter appointment?  Her appointment, rather, is intended to counter the fulfillment of those requirements.

As Takaji says, <blockuote>The worry is that the EAC will become an agency in which the commissioners view their roles as protecting the interests of their parties, rather than promoting a better functioning election system as HAVA originally promised. That would likely lead to stalemates along party lines, which would effectively paralyze the EAC and destroy its ability to serve as an effective instrument for election reform.

([ed]Also posted at After Downing Street and MyDD)

Oxymoron:  A combination of contradictory or incongruous words. (Webster)

Jonathan Tasini is a long overlooked, hardworking and truly progressive Democratic candidate who’s been willing to duke it out in the trenches because of his principles, even in a forlorn hope like the challenge to Senate incumbent Hillary Clinton.

I do not believe Israel is a terrorist state. I do believe that Israel has committed acts that violate international standards and the Geneva conventions. –Jonathan Tasini

(more below)
On Tuesday, Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, sharply criticized Jonathan Tasini’s comments about Israel.

“It’s outrageous, offensive and beyond the pale,” Wolfson said.

That sound bite may satisfy a lot of American supporters of Israel, but as Tasini points out, progressive and anti-war groups in Israel–such as B’Tselem–are critical of any party in a conflict that violates International Humanitarian Law, even Israel:

Over the past week,  Israel has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians in its attacks against targets in Lebanon . There is a concern that at least some of them were disproportionate attacks, which constitute war crimes. In addition, Israel has launched deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructure throughout Lebanon , such as bridges, the Beirut international airport , the electricity supply and fuel reservoirs.  There is a concern that such attacks are intended to put pressure on the Lebanese Government and not to obtain a specific military advantage. If this is the case, these attacks constitute collective punishment and a grave violation of IHL. Moreover, even if these targets constitute legitimate military objects, or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes,  Israel must respect the principle of proportionality and refrain from attacks that would cause excessive harm to civilians.

It’s time that our so-called Democratic leadership return to reason and equanimity in exercising judgment–particularly in matters of international diplomacy.

With Hillary Clinton, we’re getting more of the same blanket condemnation of non-Israelis and unconditional support for Israel that we’ve gotten from our own neocons whenever we try to talk about Iraq.  We’re seeing the same fear and smear tactic used to stifle meaningful debate in 2004 when John Kerry tried to criticize President Bush’s so-called, “War On Terror”.  Unfortunately, “Support the Troops” is not a foreign policy.

Similarly, Malcolm Hoenlein of the conference of presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations called Mr. Tasini’s comments “stunning” and said, “His ignorance is appalling.”

That sounds like the tactic of changing the subject to attacking the messenger.  The point Tasini makes is that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) applies equally to all parties, and it hurts Israel’s stature in the international community when supporters lack the courage to equally uphold the same standards to all parties.

Tasini went on to say,

I, too, have stated clearly, from the outset, that Hezbollah’s actions violate international law. But, to ignore Israel’s actions is abhorrent, weak and cowardly.

Aren’t we emulating the terrorists we condemn when we kill innocent civilians in reprisal for terrorist attacks?  It’s a question that has been conspicuously absent from our foreign policy debate since 911.

Where are these blind military policies taking us–and the rest of the world?  Isn’t it time we had an open, reasonable debate?

Support Jonathan Tasini.  He can handle the truth.

Why is this group’s advertisement posted on this website?

“Hands Off The Internet” is a corporate funded anti-regulation, anti-net neurtrality astroturf group.

Hands off the Internet
Post Office Box 3840
Arlington, VA 22203-0840
(800) 619-5268
info@handsoff.org

Can you believe these people?  They’re posing as civil rights advocates but they’re lying.  They’re really anti-civil rights, anti-equal protection, anti-equal access, and anti-net neutrality.

They want big telecoms to control everything, a la deregulation.

I wandered into the Performing Arts Library yesterday evening.  It just happened to be the one weeknight the Library is still open after 6:00 PM.

I found a number of FDR recordings on the electronic catalogue, and after asking around for about ten minutes, I found myself checking my coat on the third floor.  Then I passed through the glass door into a long, brightly lighted room of computer desks and microfilm file cabinets.

The room was very very clean.  I thought I was in some corporate research or creative department.  To think that the City of New York had little public library annexes of this quality!

And it is free!

To make a long story short, I listened to FDR’s first 2 inaugural addresses.

Ironically, what FDR said in those speeches conveys the mind and spirit that give rise to the very facilities where I was listening to his words:  public facilities of the highest quality, provided by the people for the common good.

A couple of phrases really struck me.  In the First Inaugural he said there was a need to keep private, autocratic powers in proper subordination to the people’s government.

David Sirota couldn’t have said it better himself!

Then, in the Second Inaugural, FDR mentions that three things we learned we have to do to have stability and economic justice are:

1.  Strict government supervision of credit, investment and banking,
2.  No speculation with Other People’s Money, and
3.  Adequate, sound currency.

This economic stability and justice would give rise to “new building materials of social justice.”

So I sat and listened in that quiet, clean, well-lighted public facility, and wondered how it could be that I had never heard those words before.  Is it possible that others have been trying to prevent me from hearing them?

What kind of world will our current leaders’ words work to fashion for posterity?

Perhaps they aren’t truly blind to the wisdom of FDR, but simply vanquished by jealousy for his righteousness and stature.

cross-posted on liberal elite and dembloggers

As the braindead, stupefied, terrified televiewers wash into another calendar year, our frightened leader is “on the march.”

He is battling to renew the “Patriot” Act, which has been extended for one month from December 31st to allow more time for debate on the controversial provisions that are set to expire.

In Bush Fights Resistance To Patriot Act, an anonymous AP journalist informs us of Bush’s comments yesterday when he “press[ed] his case to a supportive audience at the Pentagon:  

“The enemy has not gone away. They’re still there,” said Bush. “And I expect Congress to understand that we’re still at war, and they got to [sic] give us the tools necessary to win this war.”

Oh, my!  What a fighter!  Fuck you, Mr. President.
Sorry.  We are not “at war” with terror.  The WTO and the weapons companies may be, but otherwise, that whole concept is incoherent.  If people don’t like us, maybe we ought try bombing them a little less. Besides, with a little better leadership we wouldn’t need to squander so much money in an admittedly futile effort to coordinate the bloated intelligence services and law enforcement that are struggling so hard to get the “whatever-you-want-to-call-it, but-it-isn’t-a-war” job done.

In another pitiful and scandalous attempt to exploit the fear and helplessness of our behavior-conditioned citizenry, Bushco presents:

Later, outside the West Wing, prosecutors cited several cases in which the Patriot Act had played a crucial role, from staging an undercover sting on California weapons dealers attempting to sell Stinger missiles to securing convictions of major terrorist financiers in New York.

“We use it each and every day to protect our country against terrorists and criminals,” said Ken Wainstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

 Fortunately, stepping somewhat into the void left by the untimely killing of Senator Paul Wellstone,

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Bush should spend more time negotiating about the Patriot Act with Democrats and others on Capitol Hill and less on “staged meetings with hand-picked participants” at the White House.

It’s clear that Bush is as terrorized as anybody–afraid of negotiating with the Democrats and others who want an open and honest debate.  How could this man ever lead our country in a real war?  He needs laws like the Patriot Act and secret police services like Homeland Security to hide his own quaking and trembling ass from Americans who might disagree with him a little bit.  He obviously isn’t up to confronting, much less hammering out a settlement with, the Iraqis or the Iraqi resistance.

Get back to your fucking ranch, you coward, and take your whole fascist cabal of lying thugs with you!

In case anyone is really wondering why Bushco is so intent on getting the Patriot Act renewed, as well as carrying on with these secret detentions, the right to torture, the freedom to deny habeus corpus to captives, and the employment security of making themselves rich at the expense of the rest of the world, ecetera, notice what Amy Butler and David Fulghum have to say in an article in today’s Aerospace Daily and Defense Report, entitled, Pentagon Dissent Discouraged on Spending, Force Structure

The administration’s underlying budget approach now, critics contend, is to put off any growth in military spending until beyond the 2008 presidential race. “There will be no real movement [on acquisition] until after the next election,” says a veteran airlift specialist. “That will mean mitigation in combat capability.”

They’re telling everybody to get with the program or shut up, too.  In other words, it’s Bushco business as usual:  no debate, no reasoning, no examination of dissenting opinions or alternative priorities.  If we’re wrong, we’re wrong.  Fuck it.  Let the whole world go down the tubes.  We’ll still get our money.

Hey, that’s democracy for you, right, George?  However, according to Fulghum and Butler,

Defense industry officials and uniformed officers are expressing concern about the lack of informed debate.

Is this what we’re here for?  To allow this mismanagement and bullying destruction of our economy and our society?  Having a bigger defense budget than everybody else in the world combined is bad enough, but to have it pumped by a secretive, mediocre fascist dictator is more than I have to put up with, isn’t it?

Let’s oust Bushco now, slash defense, close down Homeland Security, and try to develop a little bit of sustainability in our communities, our food and energy supplies, our transportation system, and our relations with allies.  Let’s try and provide some health care and education to the underprivileged.

Give me liberty; or give me death.  The war on terrorism IS terrorism.