May 1, 2011 by mike.

I was wrong about the rightness of military action in Libya.  Military action simply can’t remain defensive. Gaddafi’s son and three grandchildren were killed by a Nato strike.  We are killing children.  I get that Gaddafi has to be persuaded to release his powerful hold on Libya’s politics.  The military approach only knows one way.  Common Dreams has coverage.

When the only tool you own is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Well, there were children in this house that was targeted and struck by Nato bombs.  I am reminded again that the pacifists are right.   The May issue of Harpers has an interesting article by Nicholson Baker about pacifism and World War II (the good war example) and it is pretty persuasive.

Meanwhile - the mainstream media is turning on the radical right.  Bob Schieffer called Trump a racist.  Hm..   was that a hard call?

Common Dreams ran this cartoon that I think captures the situation.

NPR has spent the past decade trying to move to the right to appease the right winger ascendance, but you know, first they came for the blacks, and I said nothing because I wasn’t black, then they came for the gays, and I said nothing because I wasn’t gay, but now that the right-wingers are on the verge of cutting all funding to NPR and PBS, the systems have found their voice again.  Boy, it’s a little late.  You tossed folks like Bill Moyers off your network.  Voices of dissent, voices of reason and compassion.  No room for them.  Like the Libyan attack story, some folks at the top of organizations simply can’t understand the complexity and nuance of the mission, they are simply bureaucrats who understanding programming, but can’t keep the values front and center.

So, the right-wingers have moved on from Barack’s birth certificate to his grades.  Barack is no revolutionary.  He is no socialist.  He’s just a black guy in the white house.  Some folks can’t stand the thought. I grew up in the segregated South.  I have not forgotten what racism looks like.

McCain was born in Panama.  Was that a problem when he ran for President?

George Romney, Mitt’s father, was born in Mexico. Was that a problem when he ran for President?

So, what is different about Barack Hussein Obama?  Yes, that does not sound like an American name.  The muslim-sounding middle name probably raises some racist thoughts, but I think it’s mainly skin color.  We would like to think that we live in post-racial America.  I don’t think that such a place exists.

Posted in Defies Categories, News, Politics, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

April 20, 2011 by mike.

I got word through the Olympia grapevine that Bix, Father William Bichsel, is being moved to Tennessee now to face prosecution for one of his earlier peace actions. Bix is one of the Plowshares defendants who are being jailed for their peace action against the nuclear weapons stored at Bangor.

here’s a short message from Bix:

“I know I’m getting weaker – it takes all my strength and breath to make my bunk. I have to sit down a few times in the process. It takes all I have now to do one or two slow shuffles around the common area.

I don’t feel panicked or upset about my condition. I know I can keel over at any time; but I feel very much at peace with this condition and understand and accept it – thankfully – as part of my journey.”

Strange world.  Bix is in jail and Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush are out and about.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the Mubarak clan is reported to be under arrest and investigation for corruption.  I can’t figure out why/how the Mubaraks were unable to see that this was going to happen.  They fled Egypt and hid in Sharm Al Sheikh.  Not too smart.  Come on, you stashed money abroad, you have real estate in London, take it on the lam.   I lost my wager from a few months back about when Hosni would fly out of Egypt, but I was not the big loser, Hosni was.  Hosni is 82, about the same age as Bix.  One is a hero, the other is a fool.  You can sort it out.

In Gaza, Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni was killed by extremists this past week. It’s another case of fools punishing the wrong person, in the wrong way.   It’s a case of a person paying the ultimate price for staying and engaging in the struggle for human rights, for peace and justice, even when they knew that mayhem and death were around the next corner.  But in contrast to the foolishness of Hosni fleeing to the resort town of Sharm al Sheikh, Vittorio chose the selfless path of staying in Gaza to work with the Gazan people.  To share their suffering and their struggle for the right to live free from oppression.

I am working on video editing.  It’s taking a lot of my spare waking hours, so my blogging is down a bit.  Fight the good fight with love and courage.  Lay down your arms.

Posted in Friends and Heroes, News, Politics, Connect the Dots, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

March 1, 2011 by mike.

Arthur Miller has been working for decades now in the Puget Sound area to build public support and pressure to release Leonard Peltier.  He has been a steady organizer behind the annual northwest regional march event to rally support for Leonard’s release.  The march is tentatively set for May 14th, 2011.

Why can’t we get Dick Cheney in jail and Leonard Peltier out of jail?
Why would Clinton and now Obama fail to give a presidential pardon as a humanitarian gesture and recognition that this man does not pose a danger to any of us and has spent too many years in jail?

Get in touch with Arthur if you want to be involved.

Posted in Politics, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

February 28, 2011 by mike.

Does Rumsfeld have lizard dna? I don’t know, but I sure get a kick out of listening to Louis CK ask the question.  Louis says that the lizards can only answer honestly to that question or avoid answering the question.  Something lizardy about their inability to directly lie about their lizard origins.

I guess the lizard dna question is going to be one of the known unknowns. Buy the Rumsfeld book for more background.

Posted in Politics, Humor, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

February 12, 2011 by mike.

Hosni has apparently gone on vacation to the famous Egyptian seaside resort Sharm el-Sheikh.   That’s still Egypt.  I am waiting to see if the protests follow him to Sharm el-Sheikh.  If he stays there, it suggests to me that we will be seeing an attempt at a modified, slow, loosening of oppression, torture in Egypt.  That is probably what the Egyptian military and CIA frontmen like Suleiman have in mind.  Lipstick on the pig.  The immediate power is in the hands of the people who have been in the streets to force Mubarak out, and the Egyptian military has seemed supportive of reform so far.  I think it is safe to assume there are entrenched interests in Egypt who are determined that reform go only so far.  Very interesting time.  Dangerous?  Yes, I suppose so, but all times are dangerous really.

Obama quoted MLK this week with the line:  “There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom.”

That’s it.  People want to be free.

The turmoil, the uprisings continue across the mideast today.  There are people in the streets of Algeria and Yemen who are crying out for freedom.  I am really wondering how all of this plays out with Saudi Arabia.  US foreign policy folks are taking the short-sighted and self-defeating analysis of all of this through the lens of what it means for our oil supply.  There’s the problem.  It’s not “our” oil supply.  It’s the fuel of the last century.  It’s not the future.  Let’s move on and let the people of the middle east seek freedom.  Let’s look for other energy sources that do not require that we partner with dictators to oppress large populations to secure “our” oil supply.

Here is an interesting piece of feminist thought from Saudi Arabia.  Check it out.

Posted in Politics, News, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

February 7, 2011 by mike.

Thought I would post something before I continue the work week.  I was in the office for a few hours this weekend trying to keep up.

A few things jumped out of the news.

George W. Bush was scheduled to travel to Switzerland and read from a teleprompter for an undisclosed sum of money, but the trip was canceled.  The WA Post has coverage.  The trip is off because protests were being organized and more importantly, several human rights groups were planning to use the occasion to inflict the rule of law on W by persuading the Swiss to respond appropriately and open an investigation of the man who admits he ordered that prisoners be waterboarded.   W better hunker down in Crawford and keep his travel plans quiet if he wants to avoid a Pinochet moment.

Here is another story that jumped out at me.

Hosni Mubarak’s holdings might be worth about 70 billion dollars.  It’s like Where’s Waldo.  How many of those bucks in holding originated from US military support to Egypt?   The man has done alright for himself, hasn’t he?  Maybe it’s time to move on in the manner of the Shah instead of the manner of Saddam?

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January 28, 2011 by mike.

News this morning said that the internet and almost ISPs in Egypt were down.  There is a lot of speculation that this may just backfire.  Maybe these days if you shut down the internet in a country in turmoil more people take to the street instead of fewer people.

News this afternoon is that President Mubarak has asked his cabinet to resign.

It would be nice to think that authoritarian regimes are no longer able to crack down as the Chinese did at Tiananman Square a few decades ago.

The unrest in the Middle East is spreading.  Tunisia is attempting to sort out the future without a Pro-Western military strong man.  People are in the streets in Yemen.

This is amazing stuff.  It’s not easy for citizens to challenge their own police and military forces.  Do you think the Saudi princes are watching this story?

Posted in News, Politics, Connect the Dots, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

January 21, 2011 by mike.

And maybe we should all be a little worried when a US citizen is put in solitary confinement for more than 7 months and not brought to trial.

Is solitary confinement set up to protect a prisoner from injury or to break the prisoner down through sensory and personal interaction deprivation?   Is solitary confinement torture?

I will tell you this, most of us will not retain our mental balance if we are put in solitary confinement for an extended period of time.

This is probably something that Julian Assange is worried about with the possibility of being extradited to US custody and disappearing into solitary confinement in a supermax facility.

Fire Dog Lake has pretty extensive coverage of the Manning story and you can sign the petition and get involved by jumping here.

TGIF.  Lots of us getting a couple of days off from the grind.  Don’t spend your free time in solitary.

Posted in News, Politics, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

January 18, 2011 by mike.

Important case. Lots of history to suggest that the Supremes should slap some limits on state secrets given the fact that the government has abused the privilege, even in the precedent case from 1953.

Doesn’t seem too likely given the makeup of the current court.

From the WSJ piece:

 High Court to Consider State Secrets Doctrine

For the first time in nearly 60 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider the limits of “state secrets,” a legal doctrine the government often cites to quash lawsuits it says could expose information vital to national security.

But Tuesday’s case involves aerospace giants Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp., which contend the government violated their constitutional rights by invoking the state secrets privilege to trump their claims in a long-running contract dispute.

The doctrine is well known for blocking former detainees from suing over abuses allegedly suffered in America’s response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Today’s state secrets privilege traces to 1953, when the Supreme Court ruled that the government could withhold an accident report from widows whose husbands died in the crash of a B-29 bomber that was testing secret electronic equipment.

“If the court is ultimately satisfied that military secrets are at stake,” the plaintiff’s need for evidence must yield to national-security interests, Chief Justice Fred Vinson wrote in the case of U.S. v. Reynolds. The crash report, later declassified, said negligence caused the crash and did not contain electronics secrets.

The Reynolds case is a landmark case in the expansion of presidential/government power.
I will quote IF Stone: “Governments lie.”

I think that covers it.

clipped from online.wsj.com High Court to Consider State Secrets Doctrine For the first time in nearly 60 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider the limits of “state secrets,” a legal doctrine the government often cites to quash lawsuits it says could expose information vital to national security. But Tuesday’s case involves aerospace giants Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp., which contend the government violated their constitutional rights by invoking the state secrets privilege to trump their claims in a long-running contract dispute. The doctrine is well known for blocking former detainees from suing over abuses allegedly suffered in America’s response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Today’s state secrets privilege traces to 1953, when the Supreme Court ruled that the government could withhold an accident report from widows whose husbands died in the crash of a B-29 bomber that was testing secret electronic equipment.

Posted in News, Politics, Connect the Dots, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

December 11, 2010 by mike.

A little of this and that for the weekend.

clipped from www.opednews.com   Heroic GOP War Critic — Traitor or Patriot? Since Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is that rarest of Republicans — a war critic who’s both rational and prescient describing our careening, imperial foreign policy, let us openly address his probing questions (italics) Friday on the House floor.   In defending Wikileaks disclosures, Paul proclaims what should never be forgotten (but is, every day): Just as with the Vietnam War, the Iraq War was based on lies. We were never threatened by weapons of mass destruction, nor al Qaeda in Iraq, though the attack on Iraq was based on this false information. Any information which challenges the official propaganda for the war in the Middle East is unwelcome by the administration and the supporters of these unnecessary wars. Number 1: Do the America People deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen? Read the whole piece by Robert S. Becker here   Meanwhile, Ron Paul also has a piece at OpEdNews Assange has given us a gift.   I am going out on a limb and asserting that Paul is not speaking for the republican party on the war and Wikileaks. Also, here’s a kicker also from OpEdNews.com:  Mastercard and Visa are joining Paypal and not transferring funds to Wikileaks.  But if you want to move some money to the Ku Klux Klan, Mastercard and Visa are willing to be of service. Read that one here. Hard to know where to start deconstructing this mess.

Posted in News, Politics, Connect the Dots, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »