Patriot Act is the tool

U.S. President George W. Bush called on Congress to quickly renew the USA Patriot Act, saying that the law's expiration at the end of this month might lead to terrorist violence.
``The terrorist threats will not expire on that schedule,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address. ``In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without that vital law for a single moment.''
``By renewing the Patriot Act, we will ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence officers have the tools they need to protect our citizens,'' Bush said. ``The Patriot Act tore down the legal and bureaucratic wall that kept law enforcement and intelligence authorities from sharing vital information about terrorist threats.''

Using a sledge hammer when a small screwdriver is needed.

The real tool - Bush.

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Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran

Ariel Sharon may just be what the doctor ordered to boost W's polls.

ISRAEL’S armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed. The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations. Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern. The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran. A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.

An "action" by "Iranian agents" would be a nice start to the conflict. It would also give a nice boost to W's polls. What better way than instilling fear followed by a show of force after a terrorist act to appear "presidential."

Conspiracy nut? Paranoia on my part? Or is it just reality that this administration has lied before and used fear as a tool to bring about the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, the occupation of Iraq...?

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P is for Peace Garden

Amazon.com.

Not only a "North Dakota (Peace Garden State) alphabet" but a Connecticut-based blog.

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The Fence

Poster from www.Ishmael.org.

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Ishmael

Thom Hartmann recently reviewed Quinn's "Ishmael." Hartmann's own book "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight", touches on many of Quinn's ideas. Hartmann writes:

The story we're told about the human race is that our population was relatively stable for over a hundred thousand years, then slowly grew to around a quarter-billion about the time of Christ. A thousand years later, deep in the "dark ages," it hit around a half-billion. And, finally, in 1800, we hit our first one billion humans.
From there, our population exploded like cockroaches in a dirty New York apartment. Two billion by 1930. Three billion in 1960. Four billion in 1974. Five billion in 1987. Six billion around 2000. The human race has run amok on the planet, we're told, and nobody's sure why.
But there's a fundamental flaw in this story -- it's not the story of the human race. There are many cultures -- indeed, thousands -- around the world whose populations have been relatively stable for the past 50,000 years. (Most are now in decline, in fact, because of pressure from the rest of us.) The story of the population explosion isn't the story of the human race, it's the story of a single culture -- our "modern" culture of written language, agriculture, mechanism, and written law.
So what do those other cultures know that we've missed? How did they manage to live on the earth -- and included among "them" are all of our ancestors -- for over 100,000 years without nearly destroying the planet?
In "Ishmael," Quinn introduces the concept of two basic ways humans have historically organized ourselves -- what he calls "Takers" and "Leavers." Takers fundamentally believe that "the world is here for humans." Leavers understand that we're one species amongst millions who are part of the extraordinary and sacred web of life. We -- the culture that has grown to six billion -- are the Takers, and we began "taking" when we broke the first and most fundamental law of all life on earth...

For those who have not read "Ishmael" or Quinn's other works, you really are missing a great thought-provoking body of literature. Read it, think, process, discuss and change...

What if, instead of talking about "God," we were talking about everything being sacred, even the rocks being infused with the "fire of life"?

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The Night John Lennon Died

John Marchand writes

...John Lennon mattered. He was smart and he was funny and he was arrogant and he was a man who loved what he loved and who hated what he hated with utter clarity and no apology at all. He would have been an important voice in the Reagan eighties, and if he was with us today, at sixty-five years of age, it's hard to envision him quietly suffering the brutish voices that defend the use of torture in the name of humanity and who blithely dismiss the counting of war casualties who don't wear a particular uniform.
"Imagine all the people/Living life in peace"
On December 8, 2005, sadly, we still have to imagine that. But we can also remember the man who wrote the words, and who wrote "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Christmas/War is Over." We can remember, vividly, how it felt when he died, and how many of us wept.

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Jonathan Tasini For New York

Jonathan Tasini has announced his campaign for NY U.S. Senate. Jonathan offers:

My position is a responsible one: the troops must be brought home now. It is the best solution for our country and for Iraq. I reject the myths that have been promoted against proponents of withdrawal.
My opponent voted for the war and supports the idea that there is a "winning" strategy for the war.
My positions are consistent with what the majority of New Yorkers believe. My opponent is out-of-step with New Yorkers throughout the state.
The Iraq war has cost the lives of more than 2,100 American men and women, and many more thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children.

His opponent? Senator Clinton. This may stop her slide to the right of Genghis Khan. This may start other Dems thinking too.

Good luck Jonathan.

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the Revolt of the Generals

Alexander Cockburn writes:

A CounterPuncher with nearly 40 years experience working in and around the Pentagon told me this week that "The Four Star Generals picked Murtha to make this speech because he has maximum credibility." It's true. Even in the US Senate there's no one with quite Murtha's standing to deliver the message, except maybe for Byrd, but the venerable senator from West Virginia was a vehement opponent of the war from the outset , whereas Murtha voted for it and only recently has turned around.
So the Four-Star Generals briefed Murtha and gave him the state-of-the-art data which made his speech so deadly, stinging the White House into panic-stricken and foolish denunciations of Murtha as a clone of Michael Moore.
It cannot have taken vice president Cheney, a former US Defense Secretary, more than a moment to scan Murtha's speech and realize the import of Murtha's speech as an announcement that the generals have had enough.

When we are at war and the generals say "enough"...shouldn't the Commander-in-Chief listen?

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25 years ago this Thursday...

John, the world misses you...

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A Conversation with the "Chimpanzee Lady":

Jane Goodall was interviewed on Democracy Now. She was there to promote her new book "Harvest For Hope."

In her book, Goodall examines the danger of corporate ownership of water and the patening of seeds, the hazards of genetically modified foods and the existence of inhumane animal factories.

In the interview she touches on many items such as Genetically Modified foods, the Slow Food Movement and agribusiness. I especially love her closing comments:

JANE GOODALL: It seems that — I don't understand this, but it seems that peace has become a political word. For me, that's not so. Peace means being able to live in harmony with each other. And I was made a U.N. Messenger of Peace, and Kofi Annan did that because of Roots & Shoots, because I could honestly say, ‘Kofi, wherever I go, I'm spreading seeds of global peace.’ We have our own Roots & Shoots Peace Day, and because when you're made a messenger of peace, a little dove is pinned to you — for some reason I'm not wearing mine today, but here it is on your mug — then one of the Roots & Shoots groups in New York created this giant pea-stuffed puppet out of old sheets, recycled sheets, and a bit of chicken wire, and when I was wondering how I could help promote the U.N. Day of Peace, I thought, ‘Yes, we'll fly these around the world.’
So this — we had our Peace Day on the 24th of September. I think we flew doves in about 50 countries. In Los Angeles, they flew 30 in a wonderful parade. I was on the Snake River flying two doves on two canoes and, you know, my vision is that the day will come when as the sun goes around the world these giant wings will spread out, and you'll be able to look down from the satellite and see them, and surely because the young people are building into these doves their own commitment to living in peace with themselves and their family, their environment, then some of these dreams will drift off in the wind and settle on areas still torn apart by conflict.
AMY GOODMAN: So who is warning you against using the word “peace”?
JANE GOODALL: It's just that some N.G.O.s are being warned that there are certain things which they shouldn't be using, certain words that will bring them into disrepute. And peace — it can't be true, can it? That cannot be a political — peace is something we all aspire to. Peace is something every child dreams about. You ask children around the world what are their dreams, and one of the things they'll say is “Peace.” I don't believe there's a single living person who really wants to be involved in a war if there was any way out.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jane Goodall, as we wrap up, your plans for the future, and how they're informed by what you've done, living very remotely, first, well, in your twenties with animals, with the chimpanzees. Do you have hope for the future as you look at the powers that are arrayed against the principles that you care about?
JANE GOODALL: That's the question I'm asked most often: Can I really have hope when I see animal species becoming extinct, when I see forests giving place to deserts, when I see the suffering, the poverty, and so much of the developing world and the sickness, the hunger, when I see the ethnic violence everywhere and the tremendous social injustice? Do I really have hope for peace?
And I wouldn't write books about peace if I didn't have hope, and maybe my hope for peace is — and my hope for the future and my hope that we'll get out of this mess, this monstrous mess that we find ourselves in, maybe they're simplistic. Maybe they're idealistic. But they work for me. The human brain and, you know, if you actually check around to see what people have invented that will allow us to live in more harmony with nature, I mean, there are many, many scientists who say if we would just do these things and stop talking about them, we have the way to get out of so much of the mess we've made. So that's one reason for hope and that more people are thinking about the way they live and realizing that what we do each day does, in fact, have an impact on the world.
Second reason for hope: the resilience of nature, the places we destroy which can be given a second chance. The animal species on the very brink of extinction, and in some cases down to just two individuals, but they can, too, be given a second chance, if we care enough.

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General Odom Calls for Immediate Exit from Iraq

And another voice rises:

The US general who used to head the National Security Agency says the only way to stabilize the Middle East is to leave Iraq.
Retired three star Lt. Gen. William Odom, writing for NiemanWatchdog.org, wrote that while President George W. Bush wants to bring democracy and stability to the Middle East, the only way to achieve that goal is for the US armed forces to get out of Iraq now.
Odom, one of the most respected US military analysts and a prominent figure at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington, wrote, "We have seen most of our allies stand aside and engage in Schadenfreude over our painful bog-down in Iraq. Winston Churchill's glib observation, 'the only thing worse that having allies is having none,' was once again vindicated.
"There is no chance that our allies will join us in Iraq," he wrote. "... Iraq is the worst place to fight a battle for regional stability. Whose interests were best served by the US invasion of Iraq in the first place? It turns out that Iran and al-Qaida benefited the most, and that continues to be true every day US forces remain there."

The calls are reaching fever pitches. When will they listen?

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Bomb Kills 10 Marines, Wounds 11 in Iraq

Ten dead. The senseless war keeps rolling along.

A roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 others on a foot patrol near Fallujah, the U.S. military announced Friday. It was the deadliest attack against American troops in four months.
The ambush occurred Thursday against Marines from Regimental Combat Team 8, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The Marine unit has suffered some of the highest casualties of the Iraq war.
The unit's latest losses were among 14 new deaths in Iraq announced by the military Friday. With at least 793 American lives lost since January, 2005 appears on track to become the deadliest year for the troops since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. There were 846 deaths in 2004, and 485 the previous year.

So what did our regime say about the deaths? "We're saddened."

Press Secretary Scott McClellan says a loss like this represents a "tough day" for the U-S cause -- the kind that President Bush has warned about.
But the spokesman says the soldiers sacrificed "for an important cause," and America will be forever grateful.

Too many tough days and for what? Are there positive prospects on the near horizon? And positive for who? Zogby International's poll paints a picture that the majority of U.S. citizens accept and realize.

Most Arabs continue to believe the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has harmed prospects for both stability and democratic development in the region, as well as the welfare of Iraqis themselves, according to survey's designer, Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"Iraq has become the new prism of pain through which Arabs are looking at the U.S. and the world," he said, noting that 80 percent of respondents said they based their views on U.S. "policies," rather than U.S. or Western "values" or way of life.

So when will W realize it? Not until he stops listening to those voices in his head. Not until he stops listening to neo-cons who want to build the next "Holy Empire." Not until he stops listening to the money-men looking for the "next big market."

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We're on the road to nowhere....

From Pat Oliphant. A true assessment. 

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Fuel Pact Defended at Local Signing

Venezuela is trying to spread their Chavez-inspired "ism" to our shores. Damn Them!!

Local legislators and Venezuelan officials yesterday vigorously defended an agreement that will bring discounted heating oil to more than 40,000 low-income Massachusetts residents courtesy of a Latin American leader engaged in an acerbic public campaign against President Bush and US foreign policy.
The deal, signed yesterday in a Quincy couple's front yard, will provide more than 12 million gallons of heating oil from Venezuela, with each qualifying household eligible to buy up to 200 gallons, enough to last several weeks, at a 40 percent discount. The Quincy couple, Linda and Paul Kelly, were the first beneficiaries of the arrangement.
The agreement has come under fire because President Hugo Chávez, whose nation is the fourth-largest supplier of US oil, has used harsh language to criticize Bush policies on free trade, poverty, and the war in Iraq. But representatives from his government yesterday said politics played no role in the gesture, which was negotiated recently in a face-to-face meeting between Chávez and Representative William D. Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat.

How dare they try to save our citizens. The nerve. No wonder Robertson wanted Chavez's head. No wonder right-nut talking heads hate this man. Trying to infiltrate Quincy, Mass.

His obejective? It's clear - bleacher seats at Fenway. That bastard.

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Plan: We Win

NY Times editorial via Common Dreams.

We've seen it before: an embattled president so swathed in his inner circle that he completely loses touch with the public and wanders around among small knots of people who agree with him. There was Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's, Richard Nixon in the 1970's, and George H. W. Bush in the 1990's. Now it's his son's turn.
It has been obvious for months that Americans don't believe the war is going just fine, and they needed to hear that President Bush gets that. They wanted to see that he had learned from his mistakes and adjusted his course, and that he had a measurable and realistic plan for making Iraq safe enough to withdraw United States troops. Americans didn't need to be convinced of Mr. Bush's commitment to his idealized version of the war. They needed to be reassured that he recognized the reality of the war.
Instead, Mr. Bush traveled 32 miles from the White House to the Naval Academy and spoke to yet another of the well-behaved, uniformed audiences that have screened him from the rest of America lately. If you do not happen to be a midshipman, you'd have to have been watching cable news at midmorning on a weekday to catch him.
The address was accompanied by a voluminous handout entitled "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," which the White House grandly calls the newly declassified version of the plan that has been driving the war. If there was something secret about that plan, we can't figure out what it was. The document, and Mr. Bush's speech, were almost entirely a rehash of the same tired argument that everything's going just fine. Mr. Bush also offered the usual false choice between sticking to his policy and beating a hasty and cowardly retreat.

So what did we expect from W? Profound statements? Apologies for all the lies? Rational plans? Reality?

A president who seems less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon needs to get out more.

Get out. Talk to the majority of citizens who say "Out Now!" Talk to the families who lost loved ones. Talk to the folks left out of this economy because of all the funds going to support the war machine. Talk to someone else other than Condi, Rummy and Uncle Dick. Talk to someone else other than that inner voice who is calling itself "god."

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