The most recent film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is shaping up to be one of the highest grossing summer blockbusters of 2005. This is the third re-incarnation of Roald Dahl’s controversial story over the past four decades. As such, it is instructive to examine its transformation in relation to issues of racism and colonialism.

In 1964 Roald Dahl published his original book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In it he describes the Oompa-Loompas as dark-skinned “pygmies” from the heart of Africa. These indigenous people are brought back to the Western world from the jungles by the European chocolatier, Willy Wonka, with the intention of making them slaves in his factory, being paid only in cacao beans.

Dahl’s portrait of the Oompa-Loompas includes the centuries-old Western notion of indigenous populations as exotic, simple and miserable. They are portrayed as unable to survive without the white Western world’s helping hand. Willy Wonka lulls his audience into quietly accepting this familiar and violent idea. In the process, Wonka becomes exalted as a white messiah to be revered and worshiped by the (literally) lesser brown people for having led them out of darkness and into enlightenment and happiness. Throughout history, this false sense of altruism has closely accompanied racism.

In 1971 Paramount Pictures released a feature film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder. The film’s creators felt it socially and culturally inappropriate to portray the Oompa-Loompas as originally described in Dahl’s book. Instead, the characters’ appearance was changed, making them little people with bright orange skin and green hair from the fictional “Loopmaland.” Their native land is never displayed on screen and is only mentioned in passing.

Two years later, in 1973, the book was re-issued with major revisions. Responding to criticisms of racism from the NAACP, children’s literature critic Eleanor Cameron and others, Dahl agreed to re-write portions of the book that mentioned the Oompa-Loompas. In the revised version, Dahl depicts them as small “hippy” people with long golden-brown hair and rosy-white skin. Their origin was also changed from Africa to the fictional Loompaland. These adjustments, while illustrating how culture has the ability to literally change art, are still problematic. It is not possible to negate the ideas of colonialism if the victims simply have light skin, come from a fictional place or are of a vague non-specific ethnicity.

Now, in 2005, Warner Brothers has released another version of the feature film, this time directed by Tim Burton and starring famed actor Johnny Depp. The new adaptation brings back the racism and colonialism that the 1971 film and the 1973 revised book attempted to downplay. In this most recent incarnation, we follow Willy Wonka, sporting the classic attire of the colonial explorer, complete with safari helmet, as he travels on screen to a distant tropical jungle called “Loompaland.” He is, we are told, in search of “exotic” flavors for a new line of sweets. While depicted as silly and adventurous, the right of the Western entrepreneur to take whatever “flavor” plant or animal he desires from developing countries is never questioned. It is just the kind of theft Western pharmaceuticals and agro-corporations have been engaged in throughout the developing world over the centuries.

Interestingly, the film does not mention whether Wonka claims intellectual property rights over the ”flavors” he finds there, as is the case with his modern contemporaries. However, one assumes that the entire race of Oompa-Loompas falls under the umbrella of a fully-owned copyright.

During this colonial montage, Wonka encounters a jungle village built in the trees that the Oompa-Loompas inhabit. This time, however, they are portrayed as a primitive, miniature, brown-colored, indigenous people of non-specific ethnic origin. They sport feather headdresses, tribal-style jewelry and grass skirts while dining on visibly “disgusting” green caterpillars and worshiping the rare cacao bean. They are depicted as simple, whimsical, and of course, miserable in their native home. Wonka “generously” rescues the Oompa-Loompas by offering them the opportunity to work and live in his Western factory. Later they are shown “happily” imprisoned inside Wonka’s factory, which they conveniently cannot leave because they will be subject to chilly weather and die. The Oompa-Loompas also “willingly” allow themselves to be experimented on, much like laboratory animals, by Wonka as he tests his new, and sometimes dangerous, candy concoctions. Clearly, Wonka has not taken the time to explain the ins-and-outs of unionizing or worker health compensation to his imprisoned work force.

The Oompa-Loompas have no spoken language of their own and must resort to mime and gesture to communicate. However, they have learned to sing in English while they dance for the entertainment of Wonka and his all-white and full-sized guests. This happens in the 1971 film version, although in the 2005 version, the songs are accompanied by the laughable sexual gyrations of Oompa-Loompas, encouraging the audience to laugh along at the supposed sexuality of the mini-male of color. This unfortunately follows a long and sad historical tradition of emasculating men of color for the enjoyment of white audiences.

Moreover, the Oompa-Loompas all look exactly alike, as they are played by one actor using composite visual effects. This is a new invention by the current film’s creators. The visual effect is ironic, as it displays the problems at the very core of global labor issues: white populations perceive individuals of non-white populations as identical, lacking individual dignity. In this view, factory and sweatshop workers are ascribed no individual worth outside of the product they produce for consumers at low pay and in poor working conditions, unable to organize, form unions and improve conditions.

Many will no doubt respond to this critique disparagingly. They will say that the movie is just that, a movie. They will state that it has no social connection to or cultural implications about the present Western mindset. However, it is important to consider that Roald Dahl himself eventually made revisions of his story to meet the racial concerns that accompanied the changing social ethics in 1973. The fact that, in 2005, Tim Burton chose to revert to the original description of the Oompa-Loompas as primitive “pygmies” is troubling at best. Burton has said in interviews that one of the things that attracts him to Dahl’s work is the “politically incorrect” subject matter. Audiences all over the country seem to feel the same attraction.

In the context of the present political landscape, one cannot help but draw disturbing parallels between the fabled chocolate factory and US foreign policy in the Middle East. The notion that Wonka rescues the indigenous Oompa-Loompas from their “difficult lives” with his gift of industrialization seems to mirror the patronizing notion that the United States is presently rescuing the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq from their preserved savagery. It is disturbing that, this time around, no mainstream movie reviewers, civil rights organizations or social critics have pointed out these parallels or made these comparisons. Could it be that overt racism and colonialism have again become the norm in our society, passing almost without comment? Do we no longer even take the time to hide it under the surface?

For now, it seems, children will delight in recreating white master chocolatier and indigenous slave worker scenes as they play with colorful plastic Oompa-Loompa action figures from Wendy’s kids’ meals.

OIL PRICES READY TO SOAR AS STORM SHUTS U.S. GULF PRODUCTION

UPDATE: Crude hits $70/barrel

The Politics of Death by assassination just got a boost from preacher Pat Robertson.
He announced today that the US should assassinate the duly-elected president of Venezuela,
Hugo Chavez.

Speaking on his televangelical show which reportedly draws 3.4 million viewers,
Robertson counseled that Chavez deserved assassination
because Chavez had accused us of trying to topple and assassinate him.
(logic ONLY an Evangelical Christian could appreciate)
Robertson continued:
“We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator.”
Robertson said Chavez was “a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil” in our sphere of influence, and was “leading his country into Communism and Muslim extremism,”
He noted: ” we have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.”

Candor is Robertson’s single virtue here.
Assassination has usually been a covert operation, publically denied.
It has been a forbidden operation in the US for thirty years, requiring special Presidential permission. Many we’ve openly set out to assassinate, with presidents signing orders-
-Castro, Khadafi, bin Ladin-we’ve not killed.
We smoked Hussein out of his hole alive but didn’t kill him.
Though we murdered his sons and splayed them for the world to see,
we just handled Hussein, fingering his cavities and hair
and impounding his pistol to be given to President Bush as a war trophy.
But Robertson blithely uttered the assassination politics which have driven much US policy,
not just in the obvious parallel in Iraq,
but in the Americas-making us bitterly hated as supporters of dictators, torturers, police squads, and murderers.

Several Christian preachers abjured Robertson’s call as unChristian.
Chavez characterized it as terrorism.
Our State Department called the remarks “inappropriate.”
Many suddenly saw extremist Muslim fatwahs in a new light.
What exactly is the difference between Ayatollah Khomeni..
pronouncing an assassination penalty on Salmon Rushdie for insulting Islam..
and Reverend Pat Robertson pronouncing an assassination penalty on Hugo Chavez..
for criticizing the US?

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dismissed the call,
saying “Certainly it’s against the law. Our department doesn’t do that type of thing.”
(In this case he’s presumably not sending out for legal opinion that it’s all right for the commander-in-chief to assassinate at will in the war on terror-the tactic we took on international law, the Geneva conventions, torture and murder in the service of the war against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Robertson is a very dangerous crackpot
-inciting hate and parlaying powerfully the political-religious base that currently influences US policy.
But he seems to me a very useful crackpot too,
because he reveals the cracked, crass, illegal, presumption of much American policy.

Assassination takes its name from a secret medieval Sufi sect..
which killed its political enemies as a religious duty.
Assassination is still justified as a religious or nationalistic duty
and it is currently used openly, justified in Israel and in many countries as war against “terrorism”.
The move from violence to civil government is often embodied in leaders who abandon terrorist tactics
to take legitimized political power.
People often pointed to Rabin and Arafat as terrorists who became Prime Ministers.

Robertson reminds us that the urge to kill a political opponent flourishes and justifies itself.
The remedy is not religious refinement
(as in trying to get Christians and Muslims to follow peaceful ideals of their religions).
It is in abandoning the tactic that permits or authorizes politics by death.

We and the world need to embrace a civil legal ethic which forswears killing.
Politicians and preachers and people of all places need to bridle their lust to take people out,
to be Dirty Harry, or God.

By Greg Szymanski

Sherman Skolnick, a long time Chicago ‘judge buster’ with a 40 year history of investigating judicial criminality, today confirmed his sources claim U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is in Chicago looking for a way to “prevent a national catastrophe” by mediating the dilemma caused by the recent grand jury indictments against President Bush and other high-level officials.

Skolnick claims a ‘true bill’ has been voted by the grand jury, indicting Bush and others for perjury and obstruction of justice, as well as naming U.S. Supreme Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist as un-indicted co-conspirators.

Skolnick adds the indictments have been suppressed from the public due to the sensitivity of issues involved, similar to way indictments against Richard Nixon were suppressed during Watergate.

Speaking from his Chicago home, Skolnick said Justice Stevens is in town for a speech but also arrived to try and work out a deal in the country’s best interests, considering the gravity and sensitivity of a sitting President being indicted.

“Stevens is in town to try an arbitrate a solution,” said Skolnick, who has known him since the early 1960’s when Stevens served as special counsel to an investigating commission into one the biggest judicial bribery scandals in U.S. history based in large part on Skolnick’s investigative work.

In the 60s bribery scandal, Skolnick provided crucial testimony substantiating bribery charges against the Illinois Supreme Court, catapulting Skolnick to national prominence as a judicial watchdog and Stevens eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to Skolnick’s sources, Bush has been given two distinct choices in the wake of the impending release of the indictments suppressed from public view, either to resign or stop the grand jury process, his sources telling him that Bush said ‘if he takes the fall for this, he’ll cause a financial disaster in the process.”

Skolnick also said Newsweek went to press Saturday at 6pm with a story to hit news stands Monday regarding the zealous Chicago Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation that started in 2003. Fitzgerald’s probe began by looking into the Valerie Plame-CIA leak, but spilled over into more damaging issues involving Bush and others, including the 2000 Presidential elections, the war and Iraq and even the administration’s handling of 9/11.

Recently on his website www.skolnicksreport.com and www.cloakanddagger.de he posted an article titled “Bush and Co. Face Prosecution,” where he gave a detailed look at the recent grand jury proceedings going on in Chicago and indictments handed down against Bush.

“One or more of the grand juries have concluded their probe and have voted True Bills, Federal Criminal indictments, against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, “Scooter” Libby, Condoleeza Rice, and Theodore B. Olson; and several media people not previously mentioned in the monopoly press as implicated,” wrote Skolnick.

“Shown also as un-indicted co-conspirators are two Judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, who are among the “Gang of Five” also in Bush versus Gore. Because of the horrendous consequences involved, the indictments are suppressed and there may be an extended delay until they appear on the Chicago Federal Court open records.

Also, last week investigative reporter Tom Flocco reported that Fitzgerald’s grand jury voted out “true bills” or federal criminal indictments against President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former CIA Director George Tenet, Presidential Senior Advisor Karl Rove, Presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff I. “Scooter” Libby, imprisoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Vice-Presidential Senior Advisor Mary Matalin.

However, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago, through its media spokesman, Randall Sanborn, refused comment on any aspect of the grand jury proceedings, but high-level and credible legal observers claim suppression of grand jury indictments is not unusual, especially when dealing with matters concerning the national interest such as the Nixon indictments during Watergate and now Bush.

Although Flocco is taking considerable heat for running the story and today retracted a follow-up story adding more details about Bush’s alleged response to hearing about the indictments, Skolnick is standing by the facts behind his own version of the indictments, saying he was unaware of Flocco’s situation.

“I expected to be a called a liar on this one for sometime after my story appeared, but the truth will come out,” said Skolnick after his original story on Friday appeared.

Independent of the grand jury investigation, Skolnick has privately been investigating for the last five years the illegal nature of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2000 certification of Bush as President .

In his most recent article, he wrote:

“For several years we have been researching and investigating bribery and other malign influences used to procure from a Five-Judge majority of the U.S. Supreme Court the arbitrary and corrupt ruling, December, 2000, installing by way of the case of Bush versus Gore, a fictitious president into the Oval Office.

“A tiny portion of our investigation of the High Court corruption, without mentioning us at all by name, became the subject of a lengthy story in Vanity Fair Magazine, October, 2004 issue. Following this was a forty minute segment about this on the Terri Gross Show on National Public Radio.

“Risking their future career, some of the law clerks of the Dissenting four judges in Bush versus Gore reportedly stole private secret records of the “Infamous Five” showing the malign influence worked on the Judges in installing Bush. Instead of investigating the five High Court Judicial criminals, Homeland Security and the FBI have been threatening and inflicting harm on the dissenting four High Court Judges and their brave law clerks.”

citx say..time for a dirty nuke to “reconsolidate power”..get Ollie North on the phone.

Republicans Paying Legal Bills of Bush Campaign Official Accused of Voter Suppression

By JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON Aug 11, 2005 — Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

James Tobin, the president’s 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.

A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire’s newest senator.

At the time, Tobin was the RNC’s New England regional director, before moving to President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.

A top New Hampshire Party official and a GOP consultant already have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Tobin’s indictment accuses him of specifically calling the GOP consultant to get a telephone firm to help in the scheme.

“The object of the conspiracy was to deprive inhabitants of New Hampshire and more particularly qualified voters … of their federally secured right to vote,” states the latest indictment issued by a federal grand jury on May 18.

Since charges were first filed in December, the RNC has spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin, who has pleaded innocent, a team of lawyers from the high-powered Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly. The firm’s other clients include Bill and Hillary Clinton and former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros.

The GOP’s filings with the FEC list the payments to Williams & Connolly without specifying they were for Tobin’s defense. Political parties have wide latitude on how they spend their money, including on lawyers.

Republican Party officials said they don’t ordinarily discuss specifics of their legal work, but confirmed to The Associated Press they had agreed to underwrite Tobin’s defense because he was a longtime supporter and that he assured them he had committed no crimes.

“Jim is a longtime friend who has served as both an employee and an independent contractor for the RNC,” a spokeswoman for the RNC, Tracey Schmitt, said Wednesday. “This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing.”
The Republican Party has repeatedly and pointedly disavowed any tactics aimed at keeping citizens from voting since allegations of voter suppression surfaced during the Florida recount in 2000 that tipped the presidential race to Bush.

Earlier this week, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director, reiterated a “zero-tolerance policy” for any GOP official caught trying to block legitimate votes.

“The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position,” Mehlman wrote Monday to a group that studied voter suppression tactics.

Dennis Black and Dane Butswinkas, two Williams & Connolly lawyers for Tobin, did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment. Brian Tucker, a New Hampshire lawyer on the team, declined comment.

Tobin’s lawyers have attacked the prosecution, suggesting evidence was improperly introduced to the grand jury, that their client originally had been promised he wouldn’t be indicted and that he was improperly charged under one of the statutes.

Tobin stepped down from his Bush-Cheney post a couple of weeks before the November 2004 election after Democrats suggested he was involved in the phone bank scheme. He was charged a month after the election.

Paul Twomey, a volunteer lawyer for New Hampshire Democrats who are pursuing a separate lawsuit involving the phone scheme, said he was surprised the RNC was willing to pay Tobin’s legal bills and that it suggested more people may be involved.

“It originally appeared to us that there were just certain rogue elements of the Republican Party who were willing to do anything to win control of the U.S. Senate, including depriving Americans of their ability to vote,” Twomey said.

“But now that the RNC actually is bankrolling Mr. Tobin’s defense, coupled with the fact that it has refused some discovery in the civil case, really raises the questions of who are they protecting, how high does this go and who was in on this,” Twomey said.
Federal prosecutors have secured testimony from the two convicted conspirators in the scheme directly implicating Tobin.

Charles McGee, the New Hampshire GOP official who pleaded guilty, told prosecutors he informed Tobin of the plan and asked for Tobin’s help in finding a vendor who could make the calls that would flood the phone banks.

Allen Raymond, a former colleague of Tobin who operated a Virginia-based telephone services firm, told prosecutors Tobin called him in October 2002, explained the telephone plan and asked Raymond’s company to help McGee implement it.

Raymond’s lawyer told the court that Tobin made the request for help in his official capacity as the top RNC official for New England and his client believed the RNC had sanctioned the activity.

On the Net:

The indictment in this is available HERE

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman’s recent letter on voter suppression is available HERE

Mayor of Baghdad Is Deposed;
Insurgents Kill 4 U.S. Troops - New York Times

republished here because in ten minutes you will need a $ub$cription to view the above link…

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 10 - Armed men entered Baghdad’s municipal building during a blinding dust storm on Monday, deposed the city’s mayor and installed a member of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite militia.

In continuing violence, the United States military announced today that four American soldiers were killed on Tuesday
and six others were wounded when insurgents attacked a patrol near Baiji in northern Iraq.

Two Iraqi policemen and four civilians were killed in a suicide car bombing today in western Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.

The deposed mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, who was not in his offices at the time, recounted the events in a telephone interview on Tuesday
and called the move a municipal coup d’etat. He added that he had gone into hiding for fear of his life.

“This is the new Iraq,” said Mr. Tamimi, a secular engineer with no party affiliation. “They use force to achieve their goal.
“The group that ousted him insisted that it had the authority to assume control of Iraq’s capital city and that Mr. Tamimi was in no danger.
The man the group installed, Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization,
the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.

The militia has been credited with keeping the peace in heavily Shiite areas in southern Iraq but also accused of abuses
like forcing women to wear the veils demanded by conservative Shiite religious law.
“If we wanted to do something bad to him, we would have done that,” said Mazen A. Makkia, the elected city council chief
who led the ouster on Monday and who had been in a lengthy and unresolved legal feud with Mr. Tamimi.
“We really want to establish the state of law for every citizen, and we did not threaten anyone,” Mr. Makkia said.

“This is not a coup.”

Mr. Makkia confirmed that he had entered the building with armed men but said that they were bodyguards
for him and several other council members who accompanied him.
Witnesses estimated that the number of armed men ranged from 50 to 120.
Mr. Makkia is a member of a Shiite political party that swept to victory during the across-the-board Shiite successes during January’s elections.
Mr. Tamimi, the deposed mayor, was appointed by the central government and held ministerial rank.

He was originally put in place by L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator in the country until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004.

Baghdad is the only city in Iraq that is its own province,
and the city council had previously appointed Mr. Tahaan as governor of Baghdad province, with some responsibilities parallel to Mr. Tamimi’s.
But the mayor’s office was clearly the more powerful office,
a fact that proved to be a painful thorn in the side of Mr. Makkia, who believed that the council, which he controls, should hold sway in Baghdad.
Mr. Makkia provided a phone number for Mr. Tahaan, but the phone did not appear to be turned on.

A spokesman for the American Embassy in Baghdad said that he was aware of the developments but that he had no immediate comment.

When asked whether the Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a politician with another Shiite Islamic party, Dawa,
was concerned about developments at the municipality, a spokesman, Laith Kubba, said, “My guess is, yes, he is.

“Mr. Kubba said he had not yet had a chance to talk with the prime minister about the issue.
But gave clear indications that the prime minister would not stand in the way of the move.

Weeks ago, Mr. Tamimi had offered to resign or retire, saying that the budget he had been given was not adequate.
For a city of six million people, the central government had given him a budget of $85 million; he had requested $1 billion.

As of Tuesday, the prime minister still had not formally accepted the offer, Mr. Kubba said.
But he said the offer could be used to find a way to formally remove Mr. Tamimi.
“It’s more or less a fait accompli that he’s not going back to office,” Mr. Kubba said.
He added that Mr. Tahaan would be considered an interim mayor until the prime minister settled on someone to take the post permanently.
Leaders of the country’s major political parties, meanwhile, resumed a summit meeting to break the deadlock over Iraq’s new constitution,
which was delayed by the same sandstorm on Monday.

The deadline for the constitution is in five days
and the parties have so far failed to resolve several crucial issues
like the role of Islam in the government, the future of the ethnically mixed and oil-rich city of Kirkuk
and the scope of self-rule for regions outside Iraqi Kurdistan.

After the meeting, the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said discussion focused mainly on the issue of autonomy and the distribution of oil revenues.
He expressed confidence that the group would complete the constitution on time, but added,
“As the English people would say, the devil is in the details.”

The four American soldiers killed in northern Iraq on Tuesday were under the command of the 42nd Infantry Division of New York,
the military said today. Six others were wounded in the attack.

The three Iraqi policemen were members of a group on patrol in the western Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya, an Interior Ministry official said.
A fourth officer was wounded.

Insurgents also fired a mortar round into Antar Square in the Adamiya neighborhood, killing a traffic policeman and wounding seven other people, the ministry official said.

In other violence on Tuesday, an American soldier was killed and two were wounded when a car bomb exploded as a patrol passed through a crowded square in central Baghdad, the military said. An official at the Interior Ministry said at least three civilians were killed and 54 wounded in the same blast. Mortars landed near a mosque in southern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding four, the official said.

At least nine security officials were killed in four separate shooting incidents around Baghdad on Tuesday. An American marine was killed by small-arms fire on Monday in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the military said, and a soldier assigned to the marines was killed by small-arms fire near Habbaniya, also west of the capital.

In Washington, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that Iran had become a conduit for weapons smuggled into Iraq and used by insurgents, and he criticized Tehran for not doing more to prevent the smuggling.

(citx say..maybe they are STILL bitter in Tehran because WE supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons for use against Iran?)

“Weapons clearly, unambiguously from Iran have been found in Iraq,” he said at a Pentagon briefing.
He added: “It’s a big border. It’s notably unhelpful for the Iranians to allow weapons of those types to cross the border.”

Defense officials have said recently that components and fully manufactured bombs from Iran began appearing about two months ago and that a large shipment was captured last month in northeast Iraq after coming across the border.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s comments were the first confirmation by a senior American official that such smuggling was occurring. Mr. Rumsfeld said it was not clear who in Iran was responsible for the shipments, which some specialists have said could be the work of smugglers or splinter insurgent groups, rather than the government of Iran.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said at the briefing that Iraqi and American forces have made arrests in Haditha, where 20 marines were killed in two ambushes last week, after tips from Iraqis in the area. “The public came forward and said these are the folks,” General Myers said.

Mr. Tamimi, the ousted mayor, said he believed that Shiite political parties had forced the takeover in Baghdad in order to position themselves for the elections once a constitution is agreed upon.

For his part, he said, he had lost the sense of enthusiasm that had brought him back to Iraq after nearly a decade in exile.

“When I left in 1995, every day, it is years for me,” Mr. Tamimi said. “But now when I leave I don’t think I will be sorry. I leave because I cannot live in such conditions.”

The Pigs thought they were clever…

In the crop department, Monsanto is well on their way to dictating what consumers will eat, what farmers will grow, and how much Monsanto will get paid for seeds.In some cases those seeds are designed not to reproduce sowable offspring. In others, a flock of lawyers stand ready to swoop down on farmers who illegally, or even unknowingly, end up with Monsanto’s private property growing in their fields.

One way or another, Monsanto wants to make sure no food is grown that they don’t own—and the record shows they don’t care if it’s safe for the environment or not. Monsanto has aggressively set out to bulldoze environmental concerns about its genetically engineered (GE) seeds at every regulatory level.
So why stop in the field? Not content to own the pesticide and the herbicide and the crop, they’ve made a move on the barnyard by filing two patents which would make the corporate giant the sole owner of that famous Monsanto invention: the pig.

The Monsanto Pig (Patent pending)
The patent applications were published in February 2005 at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. A Greenpeace researcher who monitors patent applications, Christoph Then, uncovered the fact that Monsanto is seeking patents not only on methods of breeding, but on actual breeding herds of pigs as well as the offspring that result.
“If these patents are granted, Monsanto can legally prevent breeders and farmers from breeding pigs whose characteristics are described in the patent claims, or force them to pay royalties,” says Then. “It’s a first step toward the same kind of corporate control of an animal line that Monsanto is aggressively pursuing with various grain and vegetable lines.”
There are more than 160 countries and territories mentioned where the patent is sought including Europe, the Russian Federation, Asia (India, China, Philippines) America (USA, Brazil, Mexico), Australia and New Zealand. WIPO itself can only receive applications, not grant patents. The applications are forwarded to regional patent offices.
The patents are based on simple procedures, but are incredibly broad in their claims.

In one application (WO 2005/015989

to be precise) Monsanto is describing very general methods of crossbreeding and selection, using artificial insemination and other breeding methods which are already in use. The main “invention” is nothing more than a particular combination of these elements designed to speed up the breeding cycle for selected traits, in order to make the animals more commercially profitable. (Monsanto chirps gleefully about lower fat content and higher nutritional value. But we’ve looked and we couldn’t find any “Philanthropic altruism” line item in their annual reports, despite the fact that it’s an omnipresent factor in their advertising.)
According to Then, “I couldn’t belive this. I’ve been reviewing patents for 10 years and I had to read this three times. Monsanto isn’t just seeking a patent for the method, they are seeking a patent on the actual pigs which are bred from this method. It’s an astoundingly broad and dangerous claim.”
Good breeding always shows
Take patent applicationWO 2005/017204. This refers to pigs in which a certain gene sequence related to faster growth is detected. This is a variation on a natural occurring sequence—Monsanto didn’t invent it.
It was first identified in mice and humans. Monsanto wants to use the detection of this gene sequence to screen pig populations, in order to find which animals are likely to produce more pork per pound of feed. (And that will be Monsanto Brand genetically engineered feed grown from Monsanto Brand genetically engineered seed raised in fields sprayed with Monsanto Brand Roundup Ready herbicide and doused with Monsanto Brand pesticides, of course).
But again, Monsanto wants to own not just the selection and breeding method, not just the information about the genetic indicators, but, if you pardon the expression, the whole hog.
Claim 16 asks for a patent on: “A pig offspring produced by a method …”
Claim 17 asks for a patent on: “A pig herd having an increased frequency of a specific …gene…”
Claim 23 asks for a patent on: “A pig population produced by the method…”
Claim 30 asks for a patent on: “A swine herd produced by a method…”
This means the pigs, their offspring, and the use of the genetic information for breeding will be entirely owned by Monsanto, Inc. and any replication or infringement of their patent by man or beast will mean royalties or jail for the offending swine.
Not pig fodder
When it comes to profits, pigs are big. Monsanto notes that “The economic impact of the industry in rural America is immense. Annual farm sales typically exceed US$ 11 billion, while the retail value of pork sold to consumers reaches US$ 38 billion each year.”
At almost every level of food production, Monsanto is seeking a monopoly position. The company once earned its money almost exclusively through agrochemicals. But in the last ten years they’ve spent about US$ 10 billion buying up seed producers and companies in other sectors of the agricultural business. Their last big acquisition was Seminis, the biggest producer of vegetable seeds in the world.
Monsanto holds extremely broad patents on seeds, most, but not all of them, related to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Monsanto has also claimed patent rights on such non-Monsanto inventions as traditionally bred wheat from India and soy plants from China. Many of these patents apply not only to the use of seeds but all uses of the plants and harvest that result.

WHATS NEXT?

Orwellian: “The Earth is flat, pigs were invented by Monsanto, and GMOs are safe.”
The big picture is chilling to anyone who mistrusts Monsanto’s record disinterest for environmental safety.
And if you’re not worried, you should be: central control of food supply has been a standard ingredient for social and political control throughout history. By creating a monopoly position, Monsanto can force dangerous experiments like the release of GMOs into the environment on an unwilling public. They can ensure that GMOs will be sold and consumed wherever they say they will.
By claiming global monopoly patent rights throughout the entire food chain, Monsanto seeks to make farmers and food producers, and ultimately consumers, entirely dependent and reliant on one single corporate entity for a basic human need. It’s the same dependence that Russian peasants had on the Soviet Government following the Russian revolution. The same dependence that French peasants had on Feudal kings during the middle ages. But control of a significant proportion of the global food supply by a single corporation would be unprecedented in human history.
It’s time to ensure that doesn’t happen.
It’s time for a global ban of patents on seeds and farm animals.
It’s time to tell Monsanto we’ve had enough of this hogwash.

Let Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant (no relation to the actor who plays a sleazy corporate executive in Bridget Jones’ Diary) and the board of Monsanto know you don’t want them patenting your food.

When you donate to Greenpeace, you keep researchers like Christoph at work as they keep an eye on corporations like Monsanto.

by Norman Solomon
republished from MediaMonitors.net

“The latest U.S. media uproar about Iran’s nuclear program is part of a dream starting to come true for neo-cons in Washington who fantasize about “regime change” in Tehran. More realistically, for the nearer term, the Bush administration is setting the agenda for a U.S. air attack on Iran.”

On Tuesday, big alarm bells went off in the national media echo chamber, and major U.S. news outlets showed that they knew the drill.
Iran’s nuclear activities were pernicious, most of all, because people in high places in Washington said so.
It didn’t seem to matter much that just that morning the Washington Post reported:
“A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon,
roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis. The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House.”

By evening — hours after the Iranian government said it would no longer suspend activities related to enriching uranium — American news outlets were making grave pronouncements, amplifying the statements from French, British and German officials closing ranks with the Bush administration.
On television in the United States, a narrow range of talking heads detoured around the USA’s profuse nuclear hypocrisies.
Yes, officials in Washington and their allies conceded, an Iranian restart of uranium enrichment activities would not violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But, as a Washington Post article put it Wednesday, the Iranian nuclear program was “built in secret over 18 years” and
“the clandestine nature of the effort created deep suspicions in Washington and elsewhere about Iran’s intentions.”
In sharp contrast, no “suspicions” are needed about the nuclear activities of two of Iran’s bitterest enemies, Israel and Pakistan.
Both have produced atomic weapons.
Unlike Iran, those two U.S. allies have refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty
and do not submit to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
For good measure, last month the U.S. government announced plans to engage in cooperation on atomic energy projects with the Indian government, which has nuclear bombs and has not signed the NPT.
So, the nuclear moralists in Washington have no problem with Israeli, Pakistani and Indian nuclear weapons, developed and stockpiled with contemptuous disregard for the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But the White House and talking heads of U.S. television are insisting that Iran has no right to do what the treaty allows it and other signers to do — develop nuclear power, ostensibly to generate electricity.
The latest U.S. media uproar about Iran’s nuclear program is part of a dream starting to come true for neo-cons in Washington who fantasize about “regime change” in Tehran.
More realistically, for the nearer term, the Bush administration is setting the agenda for a U.S. air attack on Iran.
“This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous,” President Bush told a news conference in late February.
He added in the same breath: “and having said that, all options are on the table.” Assembled journalists laughed.

citx say..”im with dave chappelle..this shit aint funny!”

By Andrew S. Fischer
Republished from LewRockwell.com

“every bank, every brokerage house, every financial institution in the U.S. is required by the Patriot Act to appoint an AML Officer”

Having been recently appointed Anti-Money Laundering Officer at my investment firm,
I now have the official, government-sanctioned power to scrutinize our clients’ account activity
and report almost anything I deem “suspicious activity” to the federal government.
Be worried, friends – be very worried – since every bank, every brokerage house,
every financial institution in the U.S. is required by the Patriot Act to appoint an AML Officer,
enact procedures to combat money-laundering, and file Suspicious Activity Reports on U.S. citizens.
You can view the 4-page SAR-SF form here.
The Act’s definition of a financial institution is disturbingly broad.
It includes dealers in precious metals, stones, or jewels; pawnbrokers; loan or finance companies; insurance companies;
travel agencies; telegraph companies; sellers of vehicles, including automobiles, airplanes, and boats.
Essentially, it means your financial transactions are subject to investigation if you purchase an engagement ring,
insure your home, take a vacation or buy a car.
According to the statute, if I simply should have become aware of suspicious activity and fail to report it, I may have broken the law.
So, if I have a head cold one day and miss a $5,000 wire transfer on a client’s brokerage statement
– which is clearly suspicious activity since this client is a 90-year-old widow living on fixed-income investments,
who has never made a wire transfer in ten years – I could be in trouble.
(Don’t laugh – this applies not just to the AML Officer, but to every employee in a financial organization in a position to view client transactions.
So, if you make an unusually large deposit at the bank one day, your teller must report this potential “suspicious activity” to higher ups or face possible sanctions.)

As AML Officer, I am required to report a client’s activity as suspicious if it merely fails to make business sense or appears to be without economic purpose. So, if a client transfers $10,000 into his investment account and breathlessly says “Buy gold stocks!” an hour after Alan Greenspan and Fox News proclaim “Scientists Prove All Gold on Earth is Iron Pyrite,” I have to turn him in.
If a client is a young school teacher and deposits, say, five $2,000 checks over a period of ten days, she must be questioned about it.
Since this might be perfectly normal for a middle-aged, high-income surgeon, however, I wouldn’t have to question her at all
– thus lower-income clients will necessarily suffer more intrusions into their privacy than those who earn more.
By the way, as AML Officer I’m safe-harbored against violations of privacy laws I may be forced to commit while adhering to the regulations of the Patriot Act.
It gets worse.
As I’ve noted, clients are to be questioned – and then reported to the feds on Form SAR-SF if I don’t like their answers
– if their transactions indicate suspicious activity.
But it does not end there – I’m also required to be on the lookout for potential tax evasion
(as well as check fraud, embezzlement, theft, identity theft or mail fraud).
So, if a client deposits $1,000 which he states he won by betting $1,000 on the Super Bowl,
and wants to buy his daughter a Treasury bond with that money, I’m obligated by federal law to rat him out.
Of course, all of this is just the tip of the Patriot Act iceberg; see, e.g.,Outside View: Patriot Act Problems.

I find this situation repulsive in the extreme.
It is Orwell’s 1984, slightly delayed.
It will result in a paranoia explosion reminiscent of Nazi-era Germany.
What if the Super Bowl bettor in the above example later hears from another person that I will probably file an SAR-SF about his $1,000 deposit?
Will he then, out of fear, report it on his tax return – the government’s secondary desired end?
Or will he just phone me and say he made “that betting thing” up?
Then what do I do? Will he contact me and beg or threaten me to keep silent?
Then what do I do? What if the bettor is my own father? Then what do I do!?
I’m already an unpaid tax collector for the federal government, since I prepare my firm’s payroll,
and now, without my consent, I’m also its unpaid law enforcement agent and informant. I can only wonder, fearfully, what comes next.

citx say..”time to my money in my mattre$$”