The Lies We Love

One of the biggest things I have learned about my country, and what so many seem to shrug off by saying, "that's just the way it is," is that what matters most - above health and human wellness, above happiness, above morality and care for out neighbors -- is profit.

The fogginess surrounding my thoughts of a country that has not only held up the enlightened ideals forged over two hundred years ago by men of heart and soul, but carried them forward into ever new and promising visions of "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," is only growing more dark and dim.

What is the reason NASA has chosen not to release a study to the public about airline and air traffic safety (which shows twice as many bird-strikes and near mid-air collisions)? "A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said revealing the findings could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits." (Emphasis is mine).

In other words - people may demand something be done! In the meantime, they just might take the train. If something must be fixed, that's going to cost money. And if less people fly, that's less money the airlines (and corporations like Boeing) make. Our safety doesn't matter as much as profits, so NASA won't tell us the truth in order to protect bottom lines. Countries that put their citizens (the true holders of governmental power) first are great countries. At least it's something we used to be.




Remember, President Bush vetoed the S-chip bill that would have given health insurance to poor children. He said that $35 million was too much money to spend on something like this. Thankfully, today he came to his senses and asked Congress for $46 billion - with a B - for war. "To date, Congress has already provided more than $455 billion for the Iraq war, with stepped-up military operations running about $10 billion a month."

In saying why he vetoed S-chip, "Mr. Bush argue[d] that the expansion is too costly..."

Kudos to Rep. David Obey (D-OH), here.





We're all in really big trouble. Everything we use runs on oil: our cars; the machines that make our cars; the trucks and ships that get our cars and good to the stores; the machines that make the machines that make the ships and trucks; the combines and harvest our food, the plants that process our food - everything. Our entire life-support system is based on oil.




As if undermining out life support system wasn't enough; we're REALLY stabbing ourselves in the back with this: "...an alarming new study finds that warming signals are stronger, and happening sooner than expected, due to increased human emissions of carbon dioxide and an Earth less able to absorb them."





P.S. Glenn Beck is an idiot.

Perpetuating Dysfunction

While reading and ruminating on a story about the 20-year old deputy in Wisconsin who shot 6 people here, many thoughts and feelings were coursing through my body and mind.

The big question everyone always asks in these situations is: Why? Why did this happen; why did he choose this as his option for dealing with whatever set him off (being rebuffed by a girlfriend)? Here's what I've got:

Are we given enough options and education and training to make correct decisions about dealing with our tempers and anger? No one can argue that we get plenty of instruction - overkill it could be argued - in math and science and reading courses in school. And that's good as it prepares us for our careers. However, what prepares us for social, relationship, and child-rearing life? Our parents? LOL - c'mon.

While I'm positive there are wonderful parents out there, there are many dysfunctional and bad parents. Because who taught them? Their dysfunctional parents. And who taught those dysfunctional parents? Their parents, etc., etc.... Do you see the pattern here?

How many hours (days, months, years) of TV do we subject our kids to? And there's not much good on TV, so what are they watching? Jack Bauer slap, beat, punch, and torture people when he doesn't get his way. The majority of television shows and video games (24; CSI; Gladiator; Saw 1, 2, and 3; Halo 1, 2, and 3; Battlefield 1942; Battlefield 2; Day of Defeat; Brothers in Arms; Medal of Honor; Doom) are centered around mean, vindictive, barbarous, vengeful and painful behavior, if not outright killing. And I've only named a very few but very lucrative selection here. (Halo 2 made $125 million on its first day of release).

Children copy adults. We buy them shaving kits and easy-bake ovens so they can pretend to be like us. They push baby strollers with baby dolls and play house and play war. (Oh how cute - are kids are pretending to kill each other. . . shouldn't this trouble us?)

Since I have been alive the U.S. has sent troops into and killed people in Grenada, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Lebanon, Honduras, Bolivia, Afghanistan, and Iraq among others.

That's how adults deal with problems. When talking doesn't "work" anymore, you go kill people. Who's to say, however wrong it was, that the 20-year old deputy, in his mind, didn't exhaust all "diplomatic" options and do what he saw on TV, on video games, and on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC? Shock and Awe, right? The Iraq war live and in color.

Over 600,000 dead civilians in Iraq. General Tommy Franks: "We don't do body counts." Collateral damage. Here, here, and do not go here unless you are ready for the true picture of war.

What we put into our society is exactly what we get out of it. Learn this, and we will grow up. When adults act as they expect their children to act, then peace will come and killing will become more infrequent; greed will not rule but vested interests arguing for the safety, security, and prosperity for ALL the Earth's people will be a priority.





Fox's drama "24" shows that torture works, and works well. We kill people to show that killing people is wrong. We violently attacked a country that did nothing to us, are preparing to bomb another country that has done nothing to us and our government doesn't talk with those it perceives as enemies. Yet we're amazed by a shooting?

When adults stop acting like children, our children will start acting like adults.

And so it goes...

I kept hoping that the world community would do something about Myanmar. Isn't this exactly what we're told, over and over again, that this is what the United States fights for? Isn't this why we have the United Nations and peacekeeping forces? Wasn't the fourth (or fifth or sixth) reason for invading Iraq to bring democracy to a people who really really wanted it?

I don't remember any Iraqi's holding demonstrations in the streets of Baghdad. I don't remember thousands of Imam's peacefully protesting Saddam's government. Yet this past week we've had a military junta killing journalists while having destroyed over 3,000 villages and forcefully relocating people. In addition, today it was reported that "thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle."

Why don't we see a Colin Powell up in front of the UN showing samples of satellite photo's like these? Here is a population literally dying for democracy - and the world's "leaders" only action is to say how bad it is. That's like a teacher standing on the playground watching a bully beat up someone while all they do is say how wrong the bully is acting.

In one of my recent blogs, I was wrong in saying that oil was a reason we weren't doing anything about Myanmar. It's because of oil that we aren't doing anything:

"Diplomats and analysts say Myanmar's resources, including natural gas and oil fields that foreign companies are vying to tap, make many nations reluctant to impose economic sanctions or other measures as punishment for the bloody assault on pro-democracy demonstrators."




MUST READ ARTICLES -------------------------------

1. More "progress" from the Iraqi government.

"Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is orchestrating a campaign of persecution against political rivals "even worse" than Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, his predecessor has claimed."



2. Money. Profits. Definitely more important than morals, values, or human life.

" For the time being, General Dynamics has the best of both worlds: strong demand for jet aircraft, and healthy sales of combat equipment even with a troop reduction in Iraq."



3. We used to be great once. What the hell happened?

""If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back," he said."



4. Whoops...sorry. We still are great at selling weapons. And number one at locking people up.

"The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world..."



5. I wish we would do something like this here.

"A landmark case upholding the citizen's right to non-polluted air could lead to local governments in Germany being held responsible for the health of their constituents and the cleanliness of their immediate environment."




6. Leaving out history here.


How come we write this: "Iran and the U.S cut off diplomatic relations in 1979 after Iranian militant students seized the U.S. Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days." ...which is true and accurate, but leave out the fact that we overthrew their democratically elected government in 1953 and that that's a big part of the reason leading up to hostage taking?

History the Media Neglects

The drums are getting louder...Bush, Cheney, and their war machine's fear-mongering about the imminent threat from Iran are all over the news. (Why wasn't Iran an imminent threat when Iraq was an imminent threat?).

All of a sudden, Iran is the new Iraq, they want nuclear weapons that Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and the U.S. have, and they're supposedly training Iraqi's - a people who are their religious enemies.

They are enriching uranium which can be used for two things: 1. nuclear power and/or 2. nuclear weapons. The funny thing is that Iran has signed the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which allow it to enrich uranium for nuclear power.

In any event, aside from the very astute Ron Paul, I have yet to hear any politician or major media news outlet bring up the history between Iran and the United States. My presumption is that when one does this, it becomes easy to see that we bear a lot of the fault for the Middle East in Crisis.

Excerpts from the main story (1) in this month's edition of Adbusters tells the tale simply:

1953: After an economic blockade and the presence of British warships in the Persian Gulf failed to break Mohammed Mossadegh's will, the British government persuaded the incoming Eisenhower administration to send in the CIA. (Mossadegh was a liberal democrat who believed fervently in national independence - Time magazine's Man of the Year - and was democratically elected as Prime Minister in 1952). A CIA operative named Kermit Roosevelt helped bring about this cautionary note in an official CIA report: "Possibilities of blowback against the United States should always be in the back of the minds of all CIA officers involved in this type of operation."


1954: Anglo-Iranian (Oil) changes its name to British Petroleum and regains its assets, but must share its monopoly with American oil companies. Mohammed Reza Shah is restored to the throne with help from the American-trained SAVAK secret police who torture and disappear even the most timid of dissidents. (Mossadegh had nationalized Iran's oil industry in 1951).


1971: The Shah throws himself a $100-million party at Persepolis to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire...the party must be held behind barbed wire, guarded by men with machine guns as protests erupt at Tehran University.


1979: After enduring a long reign of terror, a broad-based popular revolution overthrows the Shah. Five million Iranians crowd the streets of Tehran to welcome the revolution's symbolic leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on his return from exile in Paris.


November 1979: Fueled by the belief that the U.S. is about to launch another coup after allowing the Shah to take refuge there, militant students seize the American embassy in Tehran, holding 52 hostages for 444 days. Ayatollah Khomeini, who was not involved in the hostage-taking, nevertheless lends his support and uses the distraction to consolidate power. Students piece together hundreds of pages of secret documents outlining the extent of former American control of Iran and its plans to destabilize the new regime.


1980: President Jimmy Carter orders a hostage rescue operation that goes terribly wrong. With Carter's popularity plummeting, Ronald Reagan wins a landslide victory in the presidential election. The hostages are released six minutes after Reagan is sworn in, contributing to allegations that his emissaries secretly negotiated to extend the hostage-taking until after the elections.


1983: Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran in 1980 with the quiet encouragement of the U.S., has begun to use poison gas on Iranians on an almost daily basis. According to the Washington Post, "The administration of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague."


1983: Donald Rumsfeld visits Saddam Hussein in Baghdad as special envoy of Ronald Reagan to discuss common interests and Iraqi oil shipments. Rumsfeld was previously involved (along with Dick Cheney) in promoting the development of Iran's nuclear program under the Shah.


2005: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, is elected president of Iran. Within days of his election, the country announces it is proceeding with uranium enrichment.


2007: As Iraq descends into chaos with 700,000 Iraqis dead, the U.S. administration issues a troop "surge" in hope of regaining control, and makes the unusual argument that Tehran is arming anti-US insurgents - most of whom are Sunni and traditional enemies of the Shia Iranians. In January the U.S. raids an Iranian consulate in Kurdish Iraq, capturing low-level Iranian diplomatic staff; Iraqi troops working for the U.S. later capture an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad. Soon after, Iran captures 12 British sailors on an intelligence mission in disputed waters. The sailors are released a day after the Iranian diplomat, who claims to have been tortured by the CIA, is returned to Iran.


2007: U.S. fleet carriers gather in the Persian Gulf; Mohammad ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announces that a military attack on Iran would be "an act of madness," and stresses that nonproliferation efforts are undermined as long as the "big boys" - such as the U.S. and Israel - are permitted to have nuclear weapons. The U.S. president authorizes the CIA to engage in covert operations to destabilize the Iranian regime.

In the media coverage, comparisons to the 1953 CIA regime change in Iran are nowhere to be found.





1. Campbell, Deborah Iran vs. The United States of Amnesia; Adbusters #73, Volume 15 Number 5; 2007.

Oh the Humanity

It does not matter if you are Asian; Japanese, Chinese, or from Hong Kong. It does not care if you are American; North or South, Peruvian, or an Eskimo. There is no difference between a German, an American, a Russian, or an African. Every single one of us is human.

A human being.

We're trying to be better. But war does not discriminate hate it prescribes it for us all. Like ripples caused by throwing a pebble into a pond, those waves at the epicenter are largest. Those at the center of this war are having their souls drenched in gasoline and set on fire. Our fellow humans are in hell and here is what hell does to people.





What kind of humanity lets this happen? If any country came into ours and caused this, in no way, shape, or form would it be seen as liberation, democracy, or freedom. Maybe that's not really why our government, and those who agreed with this disgusting pre-meditated homicide, invaded. Do drunk-with-power, arrogant, selfish "leaders" care about anything besides their stock price?

From my August 8th post:

I can't help but think of the scene from Fahrenheit 9/11 where Blaine Ober, the president of a company that makes armored vehicles, said, "Unfortunately, at least for the near term, we think it's going to be a good situation. Er, a dangerous situation. Good for business, bad for the people."

It's Not Over Till It's Friday

Or that's just when the fun begins. ;)



And I'm proud to be an Earthling. This is sweet.



Kudos for Krugman!



And I'm ashamed, angry, and scared to be an American. How many more steps closer do we have to get to a fully-actualized police state before people turn off their iPods and pay attention??!! This, too.



I'd like an extra-helping of Dictatorship to go along with my police state, please. Oh, and do you have any Constitutions I can wipe my $$$ with?



Mind you, this a 25% increase. Who needs money for Walter-Reed or bridges or schools or roads. This is definitely worth it.



I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional and abusive "family." ....I can only begin to imagine what a childhood in Iraq would be like. This is what we've created. We've really liberated them haven't we? Sad, sad, sad...

Give me Saddam or give me raids on my house, fear of car & mosque bombings, hardly any water & electricity, sheer terror from midnight commando raids on my city, bombs, missiles, guns, grenades, blood, blown apart bodies? Sad to say, but I'd say give me Saddam.




Maybe one day our "leaders" will recognize that societal conditions created this. Can you imagine what kind of crazed, f-ed up people we're creating in Iraq right now? And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons....


I need a vacation. One of these days. And $4 million. Anyone wanna help me out?

And We Keep Rollin' On...

First - regarding my post from yesterday and the stranglehold our two-party system has on representation - Kucinich agrees here.


Second - we're in 42nd place for life expectancy - but number one here.


I'm all for the spread of democracy, freedom, and total justice to other nations. It matters not whether that nation has oil or strategic advantages for our empire's bases. But when "more than 40 politicians, activists and party workers have been killed so far," you'd think our democracy-spreading, war is peace Administration would care about something like this. But you'd be wrong. Oil and strategic advantages for the empire's bases do not exist here. And neither does democracy.



This is a religious war just as much as it is a war for American hegemony. President Bush has called it a crusade, a senior Army officer says that we are at war against Satan here, and this is just another way it is fought. One of many reasons why we need a free and independent press.




What would government controlled news look like? Would they tell us all sides of the story and allow us, lowly citizens that we are, to decide what's right and wrong for our country? Read this and then go read 1984. And then DO something!



Did Rome have this problem before they fell? I think so... And didn't they have this problem, too?

So, the Bush Administration may now be putting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the largest branch of Iran's military, on the foreign terrorist list. That's here. But what about what happens in Georgia? Shouldn't we put this (more here) on the foreign terrorist list, too?

Those in the Middle East do not hate our freedoms. They hate this.



Stranger things have come to light in our newly forming police state.



Ok, so...I'm on this train and I see that the bridge we're about to cross is gone - it's collapsed because there wasn't any money put towards its upkeep. The train is moving really fast and I'm trying to get people to help me stop it from flying full-speed into the canyon below. Only problem is, hardly anyone is listening and some are even threatening to throw me off the train...if only I were so lucky. The collapsing bridge is here.



China's tallest building catches fire and burns for longer than 75 minutes and doesn't collapse! Both WTC towers burned for less than an hour and completely destroyed themselves! Maybe they used different steel than we did, or maybe....