The Great Cave-In - The Torture “Compromise”:

How soon after they were shown the implements of torture did McCain, Warner, and Graham cave? What did it take? Was John McCain forced to watch a Rove-created video dated for spring 2008 accusing him of wanting to hand job confessions out of al-Qaeda suicide bomber wannabes? Was John Warner given a demonstration of the strap-ons and dildos that’d be used on his eighty-year old ass? Did they just show Lindsey Graham a laptop with a live satellite feed of the outside of his beloved sister’s home, surrounded by snipers?

For certainly, if we even begin to think that these three Republican senators were being honest players when they voiced opposition to the President’s proposal seeking to find “clarity” in the Geneva Conventions that would allow torture, as well as to allow detainees to be tried on secret evidence, then we have to believe that they were threatened in order to cave so utterly, so completely, so disgustingly, so despairingly.

The fact that anyone thought for two seconds that we were watching honorable men confront the evil wrought by a president from their own party is a pathetic statement on just how debased politics has become in this country. If there can be actual celebratory jubilation over the brief stand taken by the Gutless Trio, then no one’s been paying attention. For if John McCain actually gave a rat’s ass about torture, then he would not have voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales or Samuel Alito. If Lindsey Graham gave a happy monkey fuck about the rights of detainees, then he wouldn’t have authored an amendment limiting their rights of appeal. And Warner, despite his reputation as a moderate in some of his statements, almost always goes along with the herd, so, you know, fuck him, too. A real, genuine confrontation with the White House would have been to open hearings on the treatment of detainees, with subpoenas and possibly arrests. This was just legalistic wrangling over language.

And as for Democrats? Did they not realize that when they face the Republican party now that they are facing the Blob? And if part of the Blob is blown away or cut off from the rest of the Blob, that doesn’t mean the Blob part is dead. No, no, see, once you turn your back, that blobby segment is just gonna find a way to ooze back to the main Blob and just fuckin’ devour you with its acidic blobularity. The thing is that some of us out here in the audience are screamin’ at the Democrats, “Turn around; it’s not dead.” Too late, just too late. (Was gonna go with the Terminator here, but the Blob is from the 1950s, which the Republicans wish it still was.) Democrats got handed their asses again by once more putting faith in the alleged independence of John McCain, hiding behind his gimpy skirts, thinking that he was gonna take one for the team. One imagines that after the “negotiations” were done and the “compromise” was reached, Bush called McCain up and said, “You’ve covered your ass now.”

In the final analysis, the compromise says that Bush gets to decide what is a “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions, a government prosecutor gets to say what evidence a detainee and/or his attorney can see at trial, and the lights get turned back on at some godforsaken CIA dungeon in a remote area of Uzbekistan. Thank Christ we can finally get back to the goodly work of arresting people without charge, sending them to Syria, and looking away while they’re kept in a coffin-sized space and beaten with metal cable.

But, really, and, c’mon, this was all a pretty dance for the cameras and the folks back home because of the inevitable signing statement that’ll accompany the bill.

As for the nation at large and how much it actually cares? Well, let’s end on an historical note. Here’s William B. Shepard speaking in 1816 about Americans’ reaction to the mistreatment and massacre of American prisoners at the Dartmoor Prison in England during the War of 1812: “If reflections like these cannot rouse our indignation; if imagination cannot supply the want of feeling, whence shall we procure a drug that will stir the latent power of affection? Have Americans sunk into that torpidity congenial to slaves? Or had ingratitude barred the door to their hearts?”

Shepard, who opposed slavery and the policies of Andrew Jackson, turns it back to thoughts of the imprisoned towards the end of his speech, given at the University of North Carolina. Shepard says, “How, then, can we blame those unfortunate prisoners, robbed of light and air, doomed to hold converse dungeon damps, and tell unto the stones their misfortunes, administered unto by men who live like mushrooms but from corruption, for catching at the brittle reed to save them from destruction? If we do, we know not the sufferings of our captive brethren.– Consider that the idea of wife, of children, and of home, was smothered beneath the chains and manacles of captivity; that hope, arrayed in all its visionary colors, as it rises to give a glimpse of future bliss, is quenched in a moment; that they were thrown into a gloomy, disconsolate cell, where no sound drew them from the misery of thought, but the groans of affliction and the passing watchman’s cry of ‘all is well.’”

One can be certain that the British thought the prisoners were deserving of their treatment. One can be certain that they used horrible methods to extract information. One can be certain they thought they were justified.

hey..fux.. dont flame ME..the Rude Pundit wrote this.

(pulling electric cattle prod out of mans’ mouth)

CITX: hey John!..whats MY name?

(stammering/gagging)

McCain: c…c..ci..

BLAZAAAAAP!

McCain: aaaaaaaaaaggggghhhh!

CITX: I CANT HEAR YOU!

McCain: c…ci..citizen x

CITX: and what do YOU call me?

McCain: b..b…bi..

BLAAAAZP!

McCain: uuuuungh…BIG POPPA!

CITX: thats a good boy

By LIAQUAT ALI KHAN

On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, President
George Walker Bush delivered an illegal speech and may have committed
an international crime, that is, the crime of direct and public
incitement to commit genocide of a religious group. Determined
to rally disbelieving Americans behind a failed Iraqi war, the
President drifted into calling for open-ended violence against
Muslims. Says the President: "The war against this enemy
is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological
struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation."
The President identifies "this enemy" as Muslim extremists.
The 9/11speech is one among many through which the President
has engaged, and continues to do so, in direct and public incitements
to commit violence and other crimes against Muslims as a religious
group.

The 1948
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
defines genocide, among other things, as the act of killing
members of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the target group. But
the Convention goes further and lists other criminal acts related
to genocide. It prohibits and punishes conspiracy to commit genocide
as well as "direct and public incitement to commit genocide."
Article 4 of the Convention provides that the persons committing
any of the listed genocide crimes shall be punished "whether
they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials
or private individuals."

The US has ratified the Genocide
Convention. In 1987, the US Congress furnished the implementing
legislation to enforce the Convention (the Proxmire Act). The
crime of inciting genocide is not only an international crime
but a federal crime as well.

Elements
of the Crime

The incitement crime under
the Genocide Convention consists of three distinct elements.
First, the target of incitement is a group listed in the Convention.
Second, the incitement to commit genocide is direct and public.
Third, the perpetrator has the requisite intent. When a perpetrator
satisfies these three elements, the crime of genocide-incitement
is complete and committed.

Note that the incitement to
commit genocide is a verbal crime, although non-verbal methods
of incitement are equally criminal. Genocide-incitement is primarily
a crime of the tongue. It is criminal speech. The Convention
does not require that verbal incitement produce actual genocide,
just as conspiracy to commit a crime is actionable even though
it may yield no crime. Furthermore, the incitement committed
with words is not protected under the First Amendment of the
US Constitution, treaties, or customary international law of
freedom of speech.

Let us critically examine whether
the President’s 9/11 speech satisfies the three elements of the
crime of incitement as defined in the Genocide Convention.

The Group

The Genocide Convention applies
when the perpetrator defines the target in terms of a national,
ethnical, racial, or religious group. The Convention does not
require that incitement be against the group as a whole. Even
if the incitement to commit genocide is aimed at part of the
group, the Convention crime has been committed.

In his 9/11 speech, the President
defines the enemy as Muslims who believe in a "perverted
vision of Islam." This perverted religious group is one
that, according to the President, aspires "to build a radical
Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men
are beaten for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a
safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized
nations." The President ’s target is not confined to al
Qaeda or actual terrorists who attacked or might be planning
attacks on the US. Nor does the President define the target in
terms of criminals who happen to be Muslims. Fearlessly as if
the law would never reach him, which might sadly be true, the
President paints the religious group with a broad stroke, describing
the group as religiously perverted and evil, a religious group
that must be confronted, defeated, and killed.

The President targets the religious
group for its ideology and not for its criminality against the
US. That some members of this amorphous religious group may
have committed crimes against the US furnishes no legal excuse
to liquidate the entire group. When the innocent and the guilty
are lumped together as a single entity, the offense of designing
a target group is complete. Perpetrators of genocide (Hitler)
frequently detest the group, in whole or in part, and not merely
individuals. They make no distinction between the innocent and
the guilty. The net they throw to encircle the group is vast,
fluid, and indiscriminating.

Direct and
Public Incitement

No one would dispute that the
President’s 9/11 speech was a public event, a speech directly
delivered to national and international audiences, carried live
by major networks with global reach. The speech was also directly
and publicly delivered to the US troops fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and stationed elsewhere in the world. The speech
also addresses the US allies that are fighting terrorism. Thus,
the NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Coalition troops in Iraq,
the Israeli Defense Forces in occupied territories, all these
troops were the actual or potential audiences of the well-advertised
9/11speech that the President delivered with high emotional voltage.
I discuss below that the speech carried genocide incitement.
Here it must be noted that the speech that delivered the message
was not hidden and private. It was direct and public. The speech
was delivered to millions of people across the world, including
criminals, gangs, and soldiers, who harbor hatred against Muslims.
In his speeches, the President has repeatedly and spitefully
labeled Muslim extremists as an evil religious group that must
be physically eliminated.

The incitement to genocide
is a verbal attempt to exhort, persuade, encourage, and provoke
the audience and troops to killing members of the target group.
Part of the incitement is to dehumanize the target group, showing
through words that the target group is subhuman, a threat, dangerous,
and worthless. The President paints the target religious group
as "dangerous enemies," one that is "driven by
a perverted vision of Islam," that espouses "hateful
ideology," that "will not leave us alone," that
"will follow us," and one that will use "the weapons
of mass destruction." These descriptions of the target group
cause fear, anger, and arousal, urging the audience and troops
to do something, including killings. Since the group is defined
in a broad manner, the incitement to kill provides no specifics.
It cultivates combat and preemption through any means necessary,
including physical elimination of the group.

Furthermore, the President
constantly uses the language of war to crush the target religious
group. To defeat the group’s Islamic ideology, the President
is proposing no cultural dialogue, seminars, or other peaceful
means. The President is speaking of military action and a permanent
war. Examine the following statements delivered in the 9/11speech,
making it crystal clear that the purpose of incitement is none
else but killings, embodied in the metaphor and reality of war:
"America will stay in the fight." "We are in a
war that will set the course for this new century." It "will
not be over until we or the extremists emerge victorious."
As if the incitement to physical elimination of the religious
group were still unclear, the President specifically addresses
the audience and troops and calls them to action. The "decisive"
battle of the 21st century, says the President, is the "calling
of our generation."

Requisite
Intent

Genocide crimes, including
the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide,
are intentional crimes. These are not crimes of omission or negligence.
The Genocide Convention demands that intent of the perpetrator
be shown in commission of the listed crimes. The incitement crime
does not occur if a person’s speech comes across as genocidal
against a defined group, but the speaker has no intent to produce
mass murder. Without intent, the provocation may still be regarded
as odious and morally reprehensible. But it does not constitute
the crime of genocide-incitement.

However, intent is not a purely
subjective state of mind that only the perpetrator knows. Intent
is derived from the context in which the incitement is relayed
to the audience and troops.

No one would dispute that the
President intends war when he says war. War means killing. He
is not using the word war only in the ideological sense. The
President fuses military and ideological wars to constitute an
organic unit. One war supports the other. Throughout his 9/11speech,
the President refers to intentional killings of the religious
group. "We put al Qaeda on the run, and killed or captured
most of those who planned the 9/11 attacks." The President
continues to defend the illegal and intentional invasion of Iraq,
which has killed hundreds of innocent Muslims. Speaking of exterminating
the perverted religious group, the President adds: "America
has confronted evil before, and we have defeated it — sometimes
at the cost of thousands of good men in a single battle."

In his 9/11 speech, the President
uses the word "war" eleven (11) times, the word "fight
or fighting" six (6) times, the word "battle"
two (2 times). Speaking of American soldiers, the President
adds: "Our nation is blessed to have young Americans like
these — and we will need them." Need them for what? Obviously,
for war and battle and fighting. The talk of killing is not
accidental or even negligent. It is deliberate, cold-blooded,
and even malicious. There exists evidence beyond reasonable doubt
that the President intends to wipe out what he describes as the
perverted religious group.

Conclusion

Examined in the light of the
President’s direct and public incitements through his speeches,
particularly the 9/11 speech, the atrocities committed by US
troops, the Coalition forces, and the IDF acquire a new context.
Episodes of repeated torture, Abu Gharib excesses, shootings
at wedding parties in US occupied Muslim lands, frequent murders
of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq—murders for which
American soldiers are facing court martial and death penalty—
the IDF’s cruel and criminal destruction of Lebanon, all are
related to the President’s direct and public incitements in which
he repeatedly dehumanizes and criminalizes Muslims, not as individuals
but as a religious group, inviting lawless action against the
group. The responsibility of the President as the commander-in-chief
of the US forces might well be abstract and technical. In light
of his incitements, this responsibility has become direct and
tangible. The President has intentionally engaged in repeated
direct and public provocations, persuasions, and exhortations
to commit murderous violence against a religious group.

Ali Khan is a professor of law at Washburn
University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas. Send comments to
ali.khan@washburn.edu.

By Hugo Chavez
courtesy of COUNTERPUNCH

speech to the UN General Assembly

Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.

Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, ‘Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.’” [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] “It’s an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what’s happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.

The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time,” [flips through the pages, which are numerous] “I will just leave it as a recommendation.

It reads easily, it is a very good book, I’m sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.

The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

“And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here.” [crosses himself] “And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: “The Devil’s Recipe.”

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

The world parent’s statement — cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that’s their democratic model. It’s the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that’s imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.

What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I’m quoting, “Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom.”

Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother — he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there’s an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.

The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It’s not that we are extremists. It’s that the world is waking up. It’s waking up all over. And people are standing up.

I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.

Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.

The president then — and this he said himself, he said: “I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace.”

That’s true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They’ll say yes.

But the government doesn’t want peace. The government of the United States doesn’t want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.

It wants peace. But what’s happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What’s happening? What’s happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela — new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?

He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?

This is crossfire? He’s thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.

This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, “We’re suffering because we see homes destroyed.’

The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples — to the peoples of the world. He came to say — I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.

And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?

And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, “Yankee imperialist, go home.” I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.

And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed — fully, fully confirmed.

I don’t think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let’s accept — let’s be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It’s worthless.

Oh, yes, it’s good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel’s yesterday, or President Mullah’s . Yes, it’s good for that.

And there are a lot of speeches, and we’ve heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.

But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.

Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.

The first is expansion, and Mullah talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That’s step one.

Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.

Point three, the immediate suppression — and that is something everyone’s calling for — of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.

Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.

Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we’ve always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.

Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.

Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.

Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.

This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar’s home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.

Let’s see. Well, there’s been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.

The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.

And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there’s no need to announce things.

But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.

Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.

And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.

I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela’s thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.

Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said “helplessly optimistic,” because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.

As Silvio Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?

What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.

We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.

Venezuela joins that struggle, and that’s why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.

President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.

And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.

And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.

And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.

And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.

And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.

Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I’m here today.

But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.

We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.

And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don’t worry, I’m not going to read it.

But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter — more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.

And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.

And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.

Unfortunately they thought, “Oh, Fidel was going to die.” But they’re going to be disappointed because he didn’t. And he’s not only alive, he’s back in his green fatigues, and he’s now presiding the nonaligned.

So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.

With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I’m now closing my file. I’m taking the book with me. And, don’t forget, I’m recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.

We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.

And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We’ve proposed Venezuela.

You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.

May God bless us all. Good day to you.

this simple action

taken by women
could change ANYTHING
ANYWHERE
almost overnight..
AMAZING!!!!

to bad the violent men that rule OUR country
are PEDOPHILE FAGGOTS

citx say…howsabout the Strike of the Puckered Anus?….doesnt sound so good huh.
prob just makin Cheney drool hearin THAT!

Persistently ticking off the precious seconds in humanity’s “Countdown to Extinction”, the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists has advanced to seven minutes of midnight. Yet despite nuclear terror unleashed on Japan, an arms race of monumental proportions, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and widespread nuclear proliferation, somehow humanity has managed avoid nuclear apocalypse for 60 years. Perhaps the virtual certainty of “mutually assured destruction” will freeze the hands of the Doomsday Clock and continue humankind’s stay of execution.

As if the possibility of nuclear devastation was not enough of a concern, Donald Rumsfeld recently informed us that those who oppose the Iraqi Occupation and the abrogation of Constitutional law lack courage and are confused morally and intellectually. “Terrorism” is an existential threat to the “civilized world” and the Bush administration is justified in all of its “counter-terrorism” measures, according to Rumsfeld. Remember, if nuclear war does not annihilate us, the “terrorists” will.

As you ponder the threat of “terrorism”, do not forget to consider that the many invasions mounted by the United States military and the IDF have killed millions more innocent civilians than the asymmetrical warfare waged by over-matched victims of imperial oppression.

Killing civilians is a war crime, whether the murderer dons a uniform and flies a multi-billion dollar plane to make a “precision strike” or wears civilian clothes and creates crude road-side bombs to blow up passers-by. (And ordering such murders is a war crime too, Mr. Rumsfeld).

And on the subject of courage, Rumsfeld has sent over 2600 US soldiers to their deaths yet has not spent a minute engaged in combat.

Who did the Secretary of Defense say lacked courage and was morally and intellectually confused?

Soul searching often yields resolutions to dilemmas posed by “moral and intellectual confusion”. Perhaps his transaction with Mephistopheles rendered Monsieur Rumsfeld immune to such dilemmas.

Self-Inflicted Pain

Nuclear devastation rendering the world virtually uninhabitable, unfathomably cruel war crimes annihilating innocent human beings, and the impending coastal inundation, droughts, violent weather, and ecological disasters of Climate Change are harrowing potentialities and realities with which we humans cope on a daily basis.

The sad irony is that the common denominator amongst these dire threats to the perpetuation of life on Earth is that we created them.

Unfortunately, the species blessed with frontal lobes and opposable thumbs is threatening extinction of life on Earth in still another way. While less immediate, the consequences of humankind tenaciously clinging to the prevailing socioeconomic order will be as disastrous as nuclear war, the escalation of the murder of civilian populations or Climate Change. Quite simply, humanity’s present course down a blind alley will inevitably lead us to a dead end, literally.

Dream the American Dream

And while not the sole culprit, the United States bears much of the responsibility for this additional threat to the perpetuation of the human species. This nation shamelessly spawned, practices, champions, and proliferates many of the socioeconomic dynamics responsible for the incredible strain we humans are putting upon the Earth as we tax this planet far beyond its capacity.

Seemingly destined to become the “asylum for mankind” Thomas Paine foresaw, the United States freed itself from a tyrant, created a constitutional republic, absorbed waves of immigrants, abolished the heinous institution of chattel slavery, ceded rights to working people, recognized the right of women to vote, instituted numerous social service programs, and made notable progress in extending civil rights to minorities. In spite of the genocide of Turtle Island’s indigenous people, the brutal treatment of its Black population, and various other significant transgressions, the United States made remarkable moral progress over the course of its relatively brief existence.

Regrettably, as the United States was marching toward fulfilling its rich promise, the enemies of social justice and human rights were licking their wounds and plotting the restoration of power to the de facto aristocracy. Men like Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush’s have presided over a perverse and tragic turn of events as powerful corporate entities and a relative handful of wealthy individuals have hijacked most of the social, economic, and political institutions of the United States. The lunatics are indeed running the asylum. And the betterment of humanity is not even on their radar screen.

Utilizing the public education system and the corporate media, CEO’s, major shareholders of massive corporations, obscenely wealthy individuals, and political heavy hitters in the United States and Israel work tirelessly to keep the “other” 99% of the population spending, consuming, and manifesting the American Way.

Subjecting the rest of the world’s citizens to its perverse mélange of predatory capitalism, militarism, self-absorption, narcissism, hubris, avarice, and acute paranoia, the corporatocracy of the United States of America uses its unprecedented military and economic power to ram the American Way down their collective throats.

Cultural genocide and the establishment of ruthless oligarchies be damned! “Free markets”, a win at all costs mentality, obsessive hedonism, perpetual war, and the relentless pursuit of profit at the expense of human beings are the United States’ gifts to the world.

Contrary to the tripe peddled by revisionist historians and the corporate media, the world’s “benevolent” superpower has not been spreading an enlightened and democratic socioeconomic system around the globe.

Reality Intrudes….How Rude!

In his essay entitled Greed, Julian Edney provides a thought-provoking analysis of the impact the American Way has had on the populace in its country of origin.

Consider this excerpt:

Modern analysts Cook and Frank show free market competition has become so stark that we are becoming a winner-takes-all society (17). In a giant economy, aggressive acquisition, greed, where so widespread and popular as to be celebrated, has resulted in colossal differences, so that, as much as we are accustomed to reproaching the Europeans for their inequalities, we are now caught in a lie. We have become more unequal. The United States is the wealthiest nation. But its 20.3 percent child poverty rate ranks worse than all European nations (18).

Historians Will and Ariel Durant (19) estimated in their survey that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest in America has become greater than at any time since Imperial plutocratic Rome.

And sample some of Henry Giroux’s insight from his article The Politics of Disposability (which recently appeared in The Toronto Star):

The bodies that repeatedly appeared all over New Orleans days and weeks after it was struck by Hurricane Katrina also revealed the emergence of a new kind of politics, one in which entire populations are now considered disposable, an unnecessary burden on state coffers, and consigned to fend for themselves. The deeply existential and material questions regarding who is going to die and who is going to live in this society are now centrally determined by race and class. Katrina lays bare what many people in the United States do not want to see: large numbers of poor black and brown people struggling to make ends meet, benefiting very little from a social system that makes it difficult to obtain health insurance, child care, social assistance, cars, savings, and minimum-wage jobs, if lucky, and instead offers to black and brown youth bad schools, poor public services, and no future, except a possible stint in the penitentiary. As Janet Pelz in the Sept. 19, 2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer rightly insisted, “These are the people the Republicans have been teaching us to disdain, if not hate, since President Reagan decried the moral laxness of the welfare mom.”

Despite the United States presenting the American Way as an offer the rest of the world can’t refuse, increasing numbers of nations and groups are successfully resisting. Since opposition threatens their relentlessly acquisitive agenda, the US power elite demonize leaders like Hugo Chavez and nations like Iran. In reality, those who reject the dictates of the American Empire are worthy of respect for refusing to bend over for an unlubricated fist-fuck.

Anyone up for a little game of human extinction?

Aside from the obvious moral depravity and numerous social injustices associated with our greed-driven socioeconomic paradigm, there is a particularly grave pragmatic consequence from which no human being can escape. The American Way is a path to extinction, particularly as the citizens of populous nations like China and India race to satiate themselves in the orgy conspicuous consumption. The Earth cannot sustain 6.5 billion people living the “American Way”.

How can we measure the sustainability of life on Earth? One means at our disposal is to examine ecological footprints. Each nation has an ecological footprint which (according to Wikipedia) is the amount of land and water area a person or a human population would need to provide the resources required to sustainably support itself and to absorb its wastes, given prevailing technology.

To gain perspective on how unsustainable the American Way truly is, consider that the average US citizen exerts 52 times the ecological pressure as the average Somali. At 9.57 hectares per capita, the United States has the world’s largest ecological footprint. (Bangladesh’s .5 represents the other end of the spectrum). If every nation had the same global footprint as the United States, we would need 5 Earths to support global consumption!

As we rapidly deplete non-renewable resources (like oil) and use renewable resources more quickly than nature can replenish them, we are in a state of ecological overshoot. Deforestation, diminishing supplies of groundwater, and the depletion of fish populations are but three examples of disappearing renewable resources.

Wildlife extinction is another deeply disturbing aspect of ecological overshoot. World-renowned for his expertise on humanity’s impact on the environment, University of Minnesota professor David Tillman compared the rate of the emergence of new species with the current rate of extinction:

“That’s sort of a 1 million to 4 million year process, and yet we are causing species to be lost at rates of 100 to 1000 times faster,”

Blinded by hubris, narcissism, and technology, many people perceive themselves to be separate from nature and the people existing “outside” of their insular worlds. The reality is that we are each inextricably linked with the rest of the Earth’s inhabitants (be they human, animal, or plant) in a complex web of life.

Albert Einstein challenged us to break the shackles of the illusion of separateness and embrace interdependence:

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.”

Hopeful Signs on the Horizon

While it is likely to be some time before moral and humane movements supplant the ignoble Duopoly that is bought and paid for by corporate and Israeli interests, they do exist and are gaining momentum. (1)Populists and Proutists represent two such movements. A rising tide of democratic socialism in South America demonstrates that nations in the “developing world” are freeing themselves from the yoke of the American Empire, but Goliath will not fall quickly or easily.

As people of conscience search for ways to create viable alternatives to the brutal inhumanity of corporatism, many are finding that grassroots efforts offer an effective means of chipping away at the deeply entrenched status quo. Partners Dr. Timothy Wilkin and William Brandon Shanley are shining examples of two US Americans who work tirelessly to counteract the deleterious effects of predatory capitalism.

Tim Wilken is a physician and scientist who has devoted himself to the betterment of humankind. His stated goal is to strive for a world free of hate and violence. In the spirit of Buckminster Fuller, Wilken seeks to employ his strengths and efforts to bring about a more humane and sustainable world.

Towards that end, he has done pioneering work in the field of synergy which Dr. Wilken defines in this way:

We believe that we must learn to work together. This means we must become synergic humans. Synergy means working together—operating together as in Co-Operation— laboring together as in Co-Laboration—acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be accomplished by individuals working separately. We are committed to a world where I win, you win, others win and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win.

Dr. Wilken maintains a Website devoted to synergy at http://www.synearth.net/ in an effort to teach humanity:

How to work co-Operatively with each other. How to nurture the earth and the children of the earth. How to be a part of tomorrow’s solutions rather than part of the today’s problems.

Collaborating with Wilken in his quest to better the lot of humanity is William Shanley. Shanley brings a wealth of experience to the partnership. He has worked extensively in the media industry, including stints as a writer for CNN and as an independent producer of documentaries. He interviewed Presidents Reagan and Carter in preparation for his documentary called The Made for TV Elections with Martin Sheen and worked for President Carter. He also edited and contributed to Lewis Carroll’s Lost Quantum Diaries.

Together Wilken and Shanley recently launched an entity called Give-Get Nation at www.givegetnation.net On the Give Get Nation Website, one can connect with others virtually anywhere in the world to give, receive, or exchange goods and services at no monetary cost. Demonstrating that people can act on their values, seek fulfillment of their needs and behave altruistically without the impediment of spiritually toxic influences like money, banks, or stock exchanges, Give-Get Nation provides a refreshing alternative to the “orthodox” economic marketplace.

Registration costs nothing but a few moments of one’s time. Participating in Give-Get Nation affords people the opportunity to attempt to give or get goods or services according to their capacities, desires, or needs, at no profit or cost.

Wilken and Shanley stated that Give-Get Nation:

“organizes the world’s unlimited surplus product, labor, intelligence and spiritual capital and makes it available to everybody for free. Think of us as the National Human Values Trust.”

Give-Get Nation is in its infancy, but it is brimming with promise. Its selfless approach to exchanging goods and services offers a spiritually fulfilling alternative to the rat race that rapacious capitalism’s wage slaves perpetually run. As membership increases and transactions begin to mount, growing numbers of people will rise to Einstein’s challenge by widening their circles of compassion. And perhaps most importantly, the exchange of surplus goods will help push the Earth toward sustainability. (Give-Get Nation is indeed anathema to predacious capitalists).

Readers often email me asking what they can do in the face of the seemingly omnipotent forces of greed and malevolence which orchestrate many aspects of our lives. Opportunity is now pounding your door off its hinges. Become an active member of Give-Get Nation. It is free, legal and subversive to corporate domination. (What more could you ask for?)

Besides, Give-Get Nation represents a significant shift in values and priorities. Remember that the human species has already caused the premature extinction of many of Earth’s inhabitants. If we humans do not collectively change our values, WE HUMANS could be the next species to disappear.

US networks offered UK drama on Bush assassination
By Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent of The Times

(p)resident Bush is assassinated on British Satellite TV

It was the shot that echoed around the world - President Bush is assassinated by a fanatical sniper in the bowels of a Chicago hotel.

At least that is how Channel 4 would like us to remember the key event of October 2007 in a “shockingly real” film which is already causing outrage among Americans.

Death of a President uses digital trickery, archive footage and actors to imagine the murder of President Bush and the descent into national paranoia which follows.

The feature-length drama will be screened on More4, Channel 4’s digital sister channel next month after receiving a big-screen premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

Channel 4 hopes to sell the film to US broadcasters but Americans in London declared the film tasteless and feared it could encourage extremists in their home country.

The film is set next autumn, when “US foreign and domestic policies have polarised the country’s electorate”. Arriving in Chicago to make a speech to business leaders, the President is confronted by a large anti-war demonstration.

Unperturbed, the President goes ahead with his visit. But as he leaves he is gunned down by a sniper. While a nation mourns, the “state apparatus” turns its attention to the hunt for his killer. A Syrian-born man is identified but the truth may lie closer to home.

The assassination scene explicitly recalls the attempt on President Reagan’s life in 1981. John Hinckley fired six shots at close range as the President left the Washington Hilton hotel.

Americans were appalled at the Bush film. Michelle Bowman, 35, a US consultant working at the Bowman Group in London, said: “Most American will find a film depicting the assassination of a sitting American President in very poor taste. I cannot imagine that any American broadcaster would show this film.”

The film is directed by Gabriel Range, who made the acclaimed BBC drama The Day Britain Stopped, which imagined a chain of events which could paralyse the UK’s transport infrastructure.

Mr Range told The Times: “We studied hours and hours of footage of Bush. The scenes are created by a mixture of special effects, stock footage and digitally compositing our actors onto the archive of Bush.”

Mr Range secured permits to film the murder scene on location in a Chicago hotel.

He denied charges of sensationalism. “The film is based on meticulous research and interviews with FBI agents and people on the other side of the war on terror,” he said.

“It is a serious and sensitive film. There is no way it would encourage anyone to assassinate Bush and usher in Cheney’s America.”

Peter Dale, head of More4, said the film combined a “gripping detective story” with a “thought-provoking critique” of contemporary US society.
He said: “It’s a pointed political examination of what the war on terror did to the American body politic. I’m sure that there will be people who will be upset by it but when you watch it you realise what a sophisticated piece of work it is.”

citx say…..daaaamn.. i miss Monty Python