THE FINAL SOLUTION

by Lenore Norrgard

I don't often buy a daily paper, but yesterday I was in the mood. Until I saw the headline screaming in huge letters from the front page: SADDAM EXECUTED. It may as well have read, HALLELUJAH, WE GOT 'IM! WE WON!!! Sweet revenge.

I felt sick to my stomach, and I didn't buy the paper. I'm no fan of Saddam, and that is first and foremost because of his casual, callous and massive taking of innocent life. But killing him in retaliation solves nothing. Any celebration of death, of killing, ought to raise red flags for all of us. The grisly, gleeful execution of Hussein only uses the most base of human impulses--revenge--to hide the fascism of our current regime.

As stated so adroitly by Robert Scheer, "The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States’ role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush’s father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime."

I'll leave it to Scheer and others to track the criminal machinations of the fascist Neo-con cabal. What I want to address is the question of killing as a final solution--to anything.

In the one hundred years since Mohandas Gandhi founded Satyagraha, the movement of nonviolent rebellion in service of justice, we have seen the power of this approach to bring colonial regimes and other oppressors to their knees. "A wily lawyer who understood the nature of power and how to use it, Gandhi was no pacifist. He was a fighter whose aim was to transform his opponents, not merely defeat them."

When we undertake the political, psychological and spiritual discipline of Satyagraha to transform our opponents, we transform ourselves as well. "A Satyagrahi does not seek to end or destroy the relationship with the antagonist, but instead seeks to transform or 'purify' it to a higher level." This is our task as human beings at this moment in history: to turn away from our programming to avenge and revenge, and bring about a transformation that liberates everyone, including our opposition.

Readers of this blog probably agree that the Bush regime's war on Iraq and neighboring countries is not about terrorism, but rather fans fears of terrorism to cover a war of agression for access to oil; grasps to maintain control of the global economy; and continues an arc of the US government and those who control it enriching themselves at the expense of dark-skinned people at 'home' and abroad.

There are many ways we can respond to this war supposedly being fought on behalf of US citizens and innocents everywhere: Outrage. Organizing. Writing. Resisting. Praying. Demonstrating. Whatever ways we choose, it is critical that we integrate the principles of Satyagraha, and take a stand against violence as a solution. Violence, whether by the state or the individual, always begets more violence:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A hundred years is not a long time to change a longstanding human impulse to violence born out of a will to gain power and private property at the expense of others. It is clear, however, that only rooting out this impulse and strengthening the native impulses of humility, kindness and generosity will save ourselves and our planet. Just as hate begets hate, so love begets love, justice begets justice, gentleness and sharing beget gentleness and sharing.

We have a choice. We have many choices, every day. In the choices we make consciously and intentionally, and with conscience, lie our power. We constantly must ask ourselves, What world am I creating? What forces do I feed?

This is not just a personal journey, it also is a social, a collective one. We must take responsibility for all choices that we make, and support one another in making better ones. A just and sustainable world based in love is within our reach.

Cultivating the courage to practice Satyagraha, and thus transform our opponents, and in the process transform ourselves, is the final solution of our times.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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AN ADDENDUM: DEATH BECOMES US
by Malik Isasis


Earlier this week I wrote about the research paper titled, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” The paper written by Professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University laid out evidence as to why Israel is a strategic liability to the United States.

Mearsheimer’s and Walt’s stated in one of their theses:

“A final reason to question Israel's strategic value is that it does not act like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore U.S. requests and renege on promises made to top U.S. leaders (including past pledges to halt settlement construction and to refrain from "targeted assassinations" of Palestinian leaders). Moreover, Israel has provided sensitive U.S. military technology to potential U.S. rivals like China, in what the U.S. State Department inspector general called "a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorized transfers."

According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, Israel also "conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any ally”(34).

On December 27, 2006, The New York Times reported,

“In a rare public rebuke to Israel, the Bush administration said Wednesday that an Israeli plan to construct a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank for the first time in 10 years could violate the terms of an American-backed peace proposal.”

For more go to the New York Times article.

Please read the research paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" for yourselves, here.

Read the article just out on December 20, 2006, "Has Israel Learned Anything?"




GUILLOTINE NATION


"Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you.”

Saddam Hussein is expected to be swinging from the gallows in 24-36 hours. Corporate news outlets report that the execution will be taped and photographed and possibly, have bits of the execution aired to the Iraqi people.

The Bush Public Relations Administration will somehow conflate Saddam’s death with justice, and progress toward the ‘War on Terror’ and possibly say, “The World is a much better place, now that Saddam is dead.” I’m just guessing this is what will be said.

This execution will prove to be more fertilizer for the warring factions in Iraq who are ripping each other apart, filling the streets of Baghdad with blood and body parts.

Saddam was doomed the moment he appeared before the Kangaroo Court. He had too much dirt on Ronald Regan and Bush 41 and the neocons. When he dies, so does the secrets of his dealings with Ronald Reagan and Bush 41.

Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch stated on December 26, 2006, “Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings. That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq’s national security advisor underlines the political interference that marred Saddam Hussein’s trial.”

Human Right Watch stated, “The Iraqi government should not implement the death sentence against Saddam Hussein, which was imposed after a deeply flawed trial for crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said today. The Appeals Chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal, which was first reported by Iraq’s national security adviser to have upheld the sentence, should have conducted a thorough legal review of the verdict and then announced its findings.”

Read the Human Rights Watch report here.
Read documents that link Saddam to Reagan and Bush 41.

















PRICK OF THE YEAR: 2006

Prick, /prik/ noun, a man regarded as stupid, unpleasant, or contemptible.

I just started this blogging thing two months ago, however, if I’d been doing this for the past six years, George W. Bush would have received this award for the sixth straight year.

Death seems to follow this man, like new chicks fresh out of their eggshells. When he was Governor of Texas he executed more prisoners than any other Governor in US History.

Death has followed him into the White House.

The deaths in Iraq averages nearly a hundred a day; nearly 3 soldiers die a day in Iraq. Over the summer, he refused to stop Israel’s bombing of civilians in Beirut, where the death toll for Lebanon totaled 1,000 civilians, and for Israel 120 military deaths and 39 civilians deaths.

George W. Bush has divided the nation deeply. The divide has tribalized us into Blue vs. Red. This ultimately has made the country weaker and vulnerable. He has created an environment where ideology drives policy and faith outweighs science and facts.

He has isolated us from allies and refuses to talk with people who disagree with his worldview. He builds his relationships on loyalty rather qualifications e.g. Hurricane Katrina Disaster, Iraq Occupation, Deficit etc…

Bush has created a Constitutional crisis because of his fragile ego, won’t allowing him to work with others; instead he ignores the judicial and legislative co-equal branches of government.

Bush has legalized torture. He has made it legal to detain foreign and American citizens indefinitely without knowing the charges.

He has legalized wire-tapping without legal authority from the courts, and without the knowledge of member of the congress.

Bush has used signing statements to ignore laws passed by the congress.

Bush couldn’t have done all of this without the help of the Republicans and the Democrats in the congress, so they receive the runners-up for Prick of the Year.

Congratulations Mr. Bush.

You are the Prick of the Year.

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WHO’S WASHING THE MONEY?
by Malik Isasis


L. Paul Bremer, the first Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, and an awardee of the Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush, lost 9 billion dollars on his watch.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer wrote in The American Conservative on October 24, 2005, “The American-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority could well prove to be the most corrupt administration in history, almost certainly surpassing the widespread fraud of the much-maligned UN Oil for Food Program. At least $20 billion that belonged to the Iraqi people has been wasted, together with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Exactly how many billions of additional dollars were squandered, stolen, given away, or simply lost will never be known because the deliberate decision by the CPA not to meter oil exports means that no one will ever know how much revenue was generated during 2003 and 2004.”

On Christmas Day, December 25, 2006, the AP reported, “The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being awarded without little competition.”

$11 billion in tax-dollars lost in 3 years in governmental no-bid contracts in New Orleans and Baghdad reconstruction. The loss is not stagnant, Bush is financing the Iraq Occupation and the conflict in Afghanistan through supplemental funding, and the money doesn’t count toward the country’s deficit, which is why it is supplemental and in the past, used sparingly.

The reconstruction efforts in New Orleans and Baghdad have gone to hell and the common denominator are private contractors like Halliburton receiving sweetheart, no-bid contracts. There is so much money to be made in Iraq that the number of contractors has swelled to a 100,000 according to military census. Those numbers aren’t surprising since Bush and Rumsfeld wanted to privatized the military.

It is difficult to wrap the mind around the absurd amounts of money that is not being tracked. Iraqi officials are being paid in cash, which means money is carried around in shrink-wrapped bricks by the millions.
L. Paul Bremer, the Medal of Freedom winner, revised Iraq legal codes and added 97 ‘legal orders.’ According to CorpWatch, here are a few that survived Medal of Freedom recipient L. Paul Bremer's tenure:

Order #39: Privatize the country's 200 state-owned enterprises, permit 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses, allow for complete repatriation of profits without tax. No requirements for reinvestment, hiring local labor, or provisioning public services. Labor rights non-existent.

Order #40: Foreign banks can enter the Iraqi market and take a 50 percent interest in formerly state-owned banks.

Order #49: Drop the corporate tax rate from 40 percent to a flat 15 percent. The income tax is capped at 15 percent.

Order #12: Suspension of "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq, and all other trade restrictions that may apply to such goods." Result: A tidal wave of cheap imports wipes out locally made goods.

Order #17: Security firms get full immunity from Iraq's laws.

Liberation of the Iraqi people, my ass--this is good ‘ol fashion raping and pillaging is what that is.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the shores of the Gulf Coast August 2005, the same government cronies who had received no-bid contracts in Iraq, were awarded no-bid contracts to rebuild New Orleans and parts of Mississippi; and with them, they brought along their accounting practices, well honed in Iraq.

President Bush with the support of the Republican controlled Congress gave cover to contractors in the Gulf Coast rebuild by suspending the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 which, “sets a minimum pay scale for workers on federal contracts by requiring contractors to pay the prevailing or average pay in the region. Suspension of the act will allow contractors to pay lower wages.” Bush and the Congress also suspended environmental laws to expedite the rebuild effort.

Good ‘ol fashion raping and pillaging is what that is.

The money laundering is going on right before our eyes—the government is redistributing wealth to multi-billion dollar conglomerates. A state welfare program for millionaires and billionaires. I can only make an educated guess that if you were to follow the money paid out to political campaigns by lobbyist it would explain why the 109th Republican control congress refused oversight of governmental expenditures.

The Democrats stated that they would establish strong oversight upon their return to control of Congress. Lobbying firms and their conglomerate pimps being as amoral as they are, will try and seduce the Democrats.

The Bush Administration has created an environment where war profiteering is no longer looked upon as immoral; in fact, it is rewarded with corporate tax breaks.
Bush’s public relations Administration called this “The Ownership Society” where those few at the top, own more than half the country’s wealth.

Bush’s contempt for government and for the American people is always on display as he bankrupts the Federal Government so that social welfare programs are starved out of existence. In Conservative circles, this is referred to as “Starving the Beast”.

Oh yeah, as for the defense contractor, Custer-Battles, represented by the men seen with the bricks of blood money in the accompanying photo, was charged with 37 counts of fraud in a $9 million dollar contract to help distribute new currency in Iraq. They were fined $10 million dollars in March of 2006. They were the first civil case brought against a military contractor.



Sources and Background:

Cohen, Richard, “Presidential Medal of Failure.” Washington Post, December 16, 2004.
CNN.com, “Audit: U.S. Lost Track of 9 Billion in Iraq Funds” January 30, 2005.
Gilraldi, Phillip, “Money for Nothing,” The American Conservative October 24, 2005.
AP, “Katrina Fraud Could Cost $2 Billion” December 25, 2006.
Andrews, L. Edmund, “Emergency Spending as a Way of Life” New York Times. October 2, 2005.
Halliburton Watch
Ridgeway, James, “Iraq: Bremer’s CPA Lost Track of $9 billion in Oil Revenues Meant for Rebuilding” The Village Voice. March 2005.
Edsall B., Thomas, >“Bush Suspends Pay Act in Areas Hit by Strom.” Washington Post. September 9, 2005.
Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America,
Bush Administration Shelves Safety in Katrina Response, October, 2005; Vol. 2, Num. 5
Benfrank.com

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BUSH FINALLY REVEALS PLAN FOR VICTORY!
by Malik Isasis


• President Bush says insurgents and terrorists "can't intimidate America"
• Bush waiting to hear from advisers before proposing military expansion
• Iraq must "stand up, step up and lead" for victory to be achieved, Bush says
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates meets with U.S. generals in Iraq


WASHINGTON, DC - Bush delivered his final address of 2006. Bush admitted that 2006 was a tough year in Iraq but that there must be further sacrifices if we are to win.

"I'm not predicting any particular theater, but I am predicting that it's going to take a while for the ideology of liberty to finally triumph over the ideology of hate," he said.

Bush's plan doesn't stray far from his strategy over the past three years. Look for Bush's 2007 Iraq Plans to expand on this partially revealed strategy. If Democrats, Republicans and the press do nothing, Bush's plans will continue to stay on its current course. For more audio on Bush's December 20, 2006 press conference, click here.

Although Bush is expected to release his Iraq strategy in January 2007. He partially revealed a large section of his strategy.

Please read below:












































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THE COLOSIUM OF SAVAGES
by Malik Isasis



A scuffle between some members of the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets basketball franchises broke out into a free-for-all, brawl during a game. The brawl has escalated a National reflection on violence in sports; right-wing radio talk show host and Bush’s political sherpa, Rush Limbaugh, with other sports and political pundits are diving through the window of opportunity to talk about race, by talking around race. In typical word-coding, pundits and political operatives have baptized the word: thug, which has been fed into the media echo chamber for mainstream news consumption. The Thugs, corporate media hypothesized, is overrunning the NBA.

I don't know. The way that the word thug is inflected in the media’s tenor leads me to believe that there is something else deeper going on.

Sports writer, Craig Muder wrote, “The brawl that marred the Knicks-Nuggets game on Saturday night is just a symptom of a bigger problem. There are no real rules now, just thugs who have turned the league into something which few fans can relate. These guys believe they can get away with anything — and the league lets them.”

“Few fans” can relate to violence?

Seriously?

Fox News reported: “It was the NBA's scariest scene since the brawl between Pacers players and Pistons fans two years ago. The league is still recovering from that episode, and Stern made it clear the players must learn to control themselves.”

A 2005 research study done by The Sport Journal, states that over 80 percent of the players in the NBA are African American (Broyles and Keen).

My favorite hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks, made international news two years ago when one of its premiere players, Todd Bertuzzi, intentionally drove his opponent’s head into the ice. Fox News reported:

“Bertuzzi issued an emotional apology Wednesday, saying: "These comments are for Steve: I had no intention of hurting you. I feel awful for what transpired." He added: "I'm not a mean-spirited person. The incident marks the second time in a little over four years that police have looked into an on-ice hit at an NHL game in the city.”

In my word search, the only major publication to mention thug was Slate. The word thug was framed with a picture of Bertuzzi with a caption that asks, “Bertuzzi: thug?” Hmm. He slams a guy head into the ice; leaving him unconscious in a pool of blood, with a broken neck...sure was nice of them to have asked, and so politely too.
Hockey, which is almost all white Canadians, Europeans, and Americans, is a violent game and design to be so. There is almost a fight in every game. There hasn’t been a major incident in two years in the NBA, yet the mustering of 10 big black men in fisticuffs is enough for the punditry to discuss violence as if players are getting their necks broken or their teeth knocked out.

Hey, wait a minute. Now that I think about it...wasn’t Saddam Hussein called a thug? Soon-to-be Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez an “everyday” thug. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is often referred to by neocons and conservatives as “Thug-In-Chief.”

This word, “thug” which simply means, “a violent person” appears to only have special residence with brown and black people. This exclusivity underscores the foundation of White Supremacy, which is culturally systemic in American media and politics. White supremacy as define by Sharon Martinas is :

“a historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege.”

Black and brown people are seen as naturally aggressive and violent.

We are savages who need to be tamed, ironically, by violence. This perception of savagery can be seen in how the United States deals with countries such as Venezuela, Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

Sean Bell was shot 50 times by the NYPD. His death occurred because of the thug perception of black men.

He was black.

He was male…therefore, a savage.

Words like thug used exclusively to describe people of color has violent consequences for blacks and browns because the State wills the power to kill. The violence that has been perpetrated by the Bush Administration, the torture, and the rape is not called thuggish; rather it is called National Security. In the world of White Supremacy, government thuggary is not a contradiction.

Sources:

Media Matters, “Limbaugh on the NBA…”.
Muder, Craig, wrote >“No Real Basketball Allowed.” The Observer-Dispatch. December 19, 2006.
Fox News, “NBA supends 7 players…” December 18, 2006.
Bolyes, Phillip and Keen, Bradley, Consumer Discrimination in the NBA Trading-Card Market, The Sport Journal, Volume 8, Number 1, Winter 2005.
Fox News, “NHL Suspends Bertuzzi for Breaking Player’s Neck.” March 11, 2004.
Effron, Sonni and Rotella, Sabastian. Saddam Profile. The Los Angeles Times. 2006.
ABC News, “Pelosi Calls Chavez a ‘Thug’”. September 21, 2006.

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IT’S THE OCCUPATION STUPID
by Malik Isasis


The influential and ground-breaking psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung once said, “If you have an assimilating match with a tiger, you know who will assimilate whom.” This analogy is fitting for US policy because Democratic and Republican politicians feel that if they just kill more Iraqis, things will turn around politically for the Occupation. There is no military solution for the Occupation, only a political one. Unfortunately, our politicians lack imagination, instead they form bi-partisan study groups so that they bide themselves time for the media to come up with another distraction.

ABC News reported that Harry Reid, Democrat and Senate Majority Leader recently stated, "If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that." The Democratic Party will take power after the New Year and the leadership is already starting to parrot Bush’s wanting to send in thousands of more troops. Even with power, the Democratic Party is acting like an abused spouse, going out of their way to curry favor, in the name of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is not the absence of courage.

The political leadership and the media are so dysfunctional, that they haven’t a clue nor the courage to rise up against the Occupation and a President whose only goal is to try and shine this turd of an Occupation; but no matter how much you shine a turd, it’s still shit.

The American people have awoken from their slumber on this Occupation, but the politicians continue to justify, the unjustifiable: more death, more destruction by suggesting that an increase in other people’s children will salvage the Iraq Occupation.

If you were to open the fridge and take a drink of milk—and immediately spit it out because it has soured, would you then put it back in the fridge and return the next day and again drink from the same carton?

Right now, right here I declare the Bush Administration, the Congress and the corporate media, clinically insane. Why else would they keep doing the same thing, and expecting different results? Isn’t that what Benjamin Franklin said?

The go-along to get-along media and Democratic Party or the Stepford Wives, had let the Bush Administration propagandize a military invasion without question, is again, allowing the Bush Administration to discuss sending more troops into the meat grinder, and for what?

Pride?

In the words of Marcellus Wallace from the feature film, Pulp Fiction:

“That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.”

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THIS WEEK IN REVIEW



President Bush stated that he would not be rushed into a difficult decision on a strategy for Iraq. After meeting with consultants from the Department of Defense, Bush stated that there were some “interesting ideas” and other ideas that would lead to “defeat.” Bush, usually vague on details, did not buck the trend. “Stay-the-course” has morphed into a “New Way Forward” same ol’shit, different day. If he had been more thoughtful about the invasion and subsequent occupation of a sovereign nation, maybe he would have avoided it, like his father.

John McCain went to Iraq, saw the death and destruction and is now advocating for more death and destruction by asking to send up to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to stabilize the unbridled carnage. John McCain who is vying for a presidential bid, has sold his soul to El Diablo and the neocons by becoming George Bush, light. In the past six years McCain has moved from moderate conservative, to a self-righteous rightwinger. McCain’s political
hackery usually goes unnoticed because of the sycophants in the media, who despite McCain’s voting record, refer to him as a Maverick (see more sycophantic ramblings on McCain).

A friend of mine who was born and raised in Turkey most of her life asked me one day:

“Why is everything about losing and winning with Americans?”

“I dunno.” I said.

It is a false choice, losing or winning. Politicians with the help of the media have managed to frame the Iraq Occupation as a win or lose knowing that there is a culture in the United States of hating to lose. Why can’t there be a win-win? Why does there have to be a loser? Bush, McCain, Republicans and Democrats have become so myopic in a path to victory that they overlook the humanity of people. It is what kept us in Vietnam.

SAUDI ARABIA THREATENS TO INTERVINE…

If US pulls out. Nawaf Obaid, Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies wrote in the Washington Post:

“To turn a blind eye to the massacre of Iraqi Sunnis would be to abandon the principles upon which the kingdom was founded. It would undermine Saudi Arabia's credibility in the Sunni world and would be a capitulation to Iran's militarist actions in the region" (read Reuters account).

Saudi Arabia’s possible intervention will provide more cover for the Bush Administration to do more of the same.

Another mass kidnapping by phony (or real) police took place in an open-air market near the Green Zone, under the nose of the Iraqi authroity and American troops. No one knows why or the motivations behind the kidnappings which continues to exacerbate a mass exodus of the middle and professional classes to neighboring Jordan.

This Iraq mess just may be America's touch stone in its fall from grace and as a world power.

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BLACK MAN RUNNING
by Malik Isasis



Barack Obama, US Senator from Illinois has been getting the rock star treatment from the press when he decided that he would consider running for President. The first African-American man to have a serious run at becoming the first “Black President.” Hillary Clinton who hasn’t announced her candidacy, could become the “first woman” as president. These two firsts has the media salivating.

The Middle East is engulfed in flames, a genocide consumes Darfur, an Iraqi refugee crisis drowns Jordan and the death of an American city goes on, unnoticed. However, all the media can do is manufacture drama between Hillary and Barack. The new Democratic Congress won’t be sworn in until January 4, 2007, and yet the Presidential Race of 2008, is getting more coverage than the said crises in the world.

Unbelievable.

I think Barack is nuanced and understands that the media is not his friend. He knows that the media is setting him up for a glorious fall. Howard Dean can testify to this truth. Dean, who knows what it’s like to be a media-darling, was a front-runner in the 2004 Presidential Race, but it was when he lost a primary race in Iowa to John Kerry and tried to rally his supporters by cheering, “Yaaah!” that the media took him out like a professional hit job. It was if everything was already aligned. Dean in his campaign, did threaten to break up large media conglomerates, is there a connection?

The media is not your friend Barack.

They are trying to make you precious, make you hire a grip of overbearing political consultants who will neuter your political passion (remember John Kerry?)…you’re going to become too safe to speak your mind, too safe to offend anyone, too safe to speak truth-to-power, just like your possible running mate, Hillary Clinton.

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41:43
by Malik Isasis



In the Oscar-winning film, Crying Game, Forrest Whittaker’s character a British Army Officer, Jody tells Stephen Rhea’s character, a thug, named Fergus of the parable The Frog and Scorpion for which there are hundreds of variations.

The scorpion needs a ride across the riverbank and asks for a ride on the frog's back.

"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you won't try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.

"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"

"What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"

"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!"

"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog.

"Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help?!"

The frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his sting.

A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we both shall die! Why did you do that?"

The scorpion shrugged.

"I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature."

The frog and the scorpion both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

The Iraq Study Group has made its recommendations for the Occupation of Iraq, public. ISG has made 79 recommendations, some rather, commonsensical ideas that should have been considered before the invasion and others, are just out right imperialistic: like privatizing Iraq's oil.

The ISG has inspired the obtuse media to ask, “Will Bush listen?” and the Democrats to say, “I hope he listens,” when 6 years of evidence has proven, otherwise.

George Bush is incapable of listening. I explained this lack of capacity in my column Lesson From Brother John for George Bush. In the column I stated:

“George Bush is willfully ignorant and blissfully unimaginative, and only bows to power and influence. To understand Bush is to understand his privilege; born with a silver spoon and failed upwardly, all of his life. George W. Bush has never had to take responsibility for the chaos he has left in his polluted wake. In order to have compassion, one must have empathy. This blind spot in Bush’s scripted life allows him to have contempt for those who disagree with him.

Bush doesn’t understand losing; privilege has protected him from this painful, albeit necessary life experience. He’s like that child in the grocery aisle throwing a temper tantrum because his parents never says no. His father President George Herbert Walker Bush has done his son and ultimately our country a disservice by not allowing his child to fail. As George W. Bush’s presidency is headed toward the record books as one of the worst presidencies, ever, his father has once again come to his aid by providing him cabinet members from his Administration, again saving his son from the lessons of life. Too bad it is us who have to suffer for the father-son co-dependency.”

Former President George H.W. Bush affectionately called 41 by current President Bush, broke down and sobbed last week while paying tribute to his son Jeb Bush. I found his vulnerability, moving. Former President Bush like most parents, see their offspring for who they want them to be, rather than for who they are, it’s blinding. Over caring is just as bad as under caring. It’s painful to see Bush 41 defend Bush 43; he twists himself into a pretzel trying to justify his son’s style of governance. 41’s defense is purely emotional and is not grounded in reality. A CNN report: An Unfinished War: A Decade Since Desert Storm reported that Bush 41 during Desert Storm was able to muster a 34-country coalition, which included Arab countries such as Syria and The United Arab Emirates. American troop level was 500,000 with coalition totaling 160,00 troops. At the high-end, the war cost 71 billions dollars, with 54 billion coming from donor countries around the world. Everything that Bush 43 had done with his invasion, was in complete contradiction with Bush 41’s philosophy. It’s sad to see Bush 41 defend a policy he knows has cost hundred of thousands of lives, will possibly costs millions more in the future, if the current civil war escalates.

What is it about President George W. Bush that brings out the co-dependency nature in people? He has the same affect on the U.S. media, who protects him from scrutiny by pacifying his vacuous curiosity, an inability to articulate policy, emotion or his ideas…and the fact that he’s in way over his head. The country has suffered a great deal in the world for this co-dependency of Bush.

“Will Bush listen to the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations?” The media naively asks.

If you understand Bush 43, you’ll understand he’s like Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip and cartoon, who always seems to be able to talk Charlie Brown into kicking the football while she holds it; Even after years of knowing that Lucy will yank the football just as he tries to kick, Charlie Brown would still go for it, ending up on his backside, yet once again, because like in the past, Lucy has yanked the ball.

George Bush is Lucy.

He’s incapable of listening.

Why?

Because it’s in his nature.


Sources:

United States Institute of Peace, Iraq Study Group Report
Associated Press. Farrington, Brandon, “Former President Begins to Sob While Paying Tribute to Son.”
Peanuts
CNN, An Unfinished War: A Decade Since Desert Storm. 2001
There are hundreds of variations on the parable, The Frog and the Scorpion. For more on parables go here.
The George W. Bush Funnies Collection.

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FOR REAL?
by Malik Isasis



Keith Ellison, Democratic Congressman-elect from Minnesota has become the first Muslim ever elected to the United States. And yet Republican operatives are trying to undermine, and marginalize Ellis as a Congressman even before he takes office. Ellison is trusted and was elected by the folks in Minnesota, but under the guise of being politically incorrect, Glenn Beck felt it his duty to question Ellison’s loyalty. (watch the video at Media Matters).

BECK: I will tell you, may I — may we have five minutes here where we’re just politically incorrect and I play the cards face up on the table?
ELLISON: Go there.
BECK: OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. I’ve been to mosques. I really don’t believe that Islam is a religion of evil. I — you know, I think it’s being hijacked, quite frankly.
With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, ‘Let’s cut and run.’ And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’
And I know you’re not. I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.
ELLISON: Well, let me tell you, the people of the Fifth Congressional District know that I have a deep love and affection for my country. There’s no one who is more patriotic than I am. And so, you know, I don’t need to — need to prove my patriotic stripes.

Just recently, Ellison stated that he wanted to take his Oath on the Qur’an, rather than the Bible. Conservative Culture Warrior, Dennis Prager, stated the “act undermines American civilization.”

The Cultural Warriors of American Values use of hyperbole is yet another device in which they cut up red meat into the stew of xenophobia and feed it to their rightwing base. Think Progress exposed Prager’s Swiss Cheese logic by simply doing a little research and finding that “the swearing-in ceremony for the House of Representatives never includes a religious book.”

The character assassination of Ellison has not yet caught any traction within the mainstream media. Look for Republican operatives to continue to try and legitimize this into a major story.



CHEST NUTS ROASTING

As hundreds of people a day are found dead in Iraq, Fox News has found the air time for an oldie but goodie.

Fox News has once again pulled out, and dusted off the Old Chestnut, “War on Christmas” . It has become a tradition over at Fox. It starts just after Thanksgiving, the turkey and stuffing in Cultural Warrior Bill O’Reilly’s gut hasn't even digested before he gets on his white horse and parade around like an ass. Cultural Warrior O’Reilly looks just over the blood soaked tales of Iraq, Congressional, and Executive corruption, genocide in Darfur, and an AIDS epidemic to bring us department stores that do not say, “Merry Christmas,” rather, they criminally say, “Happy Holidays.” Where is the moral value in that?





PEACE BE WITH YOU

One of our most beloved Ambassadors to the UN, The Mustachio’d One, John Bolton has resigned after his bid for another term was left to expire by the outgoing 109th Congress. John Bolton is one of the worst diplomats ever appointed by the US. Bolton, who is short-tempered and contemptuous toward the Organization he was appointed (wink-wink) to up hold was just...how do you say...ineffective? Like Bush, he didn't like to talk to people who disagreed with his world view. In an article in The Economist, a Senior Western Diplomat was quoted as saying:

“If Bolton left tomorrow, progress would be possible on almost every front where it is now stalled.”

It’s amazing that people who hate the government like Bush, and people who hate talking to others because their views differ, are diplomats, would be doing the very thing in which they hold contempt. I guess if you look at the government as a money-laundering operation, then maybe it ain’t so bad.

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OVER HER DEAD BODY
by Malik Isasis


As President Bush stands in the corner rocking back and forth like Rain Man on the issue of the American Occupation in Iraq, the media has begun a hyper-vigilant and whole-sale attack on the Democratic Party who will not assume power until January, 2007. And there is a particular fetish with Speaker of the House-elect Nancy Pelosi in the media. The attacks on Pelosi are fast, furious and personal.

The shit-throwers, otherwise known as neocons and their conservative cabal, vomit bile into their echo chamber, which often finds its way into the corporate media being spun as news. On October 18, 2006, Media Matters for America warned the media of a concerted effort by Republicans and their political operatives who were attempting to “undermine House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi with vicious attacks, baseless claims, unfounded stereotypes and deliberate misinformation that have gone largely unchallenged by the media.” Media Matters’ press release ”The Anatomy of a Smear Campaign” which reconstructed a carefully choreographed attack on Nancy Pelosi, was completely ignored and the Republicans’ ad homonym attacks went unchallenged by the corporate media, as a matter of fact, the media used the Republicans’ talking points to sustain baseless claims by the Republicans and their political operatives.

Corporate reporters Norah O’Donnell and Contessa Brewer in particular have gone out of their way to attack Pelosi in an effort to curry favor with right wing political operatives so to deflect accusations of a liberal bias. In a Media Matters’ transcript and video:

Brewer questioned whether the "Democrats might revisit the issue" of electing Pelosi speaker, because "there are two months left before she takes over that position, officially," and, "certainly, there is a difference between picking the leader of your minority party and picking the leader of your majority party." Later, Brewer suggested that Pelosi had "accidentally" attained the speaker position, asking Democratic strategist Mark Walsh: "When you have a position that comes upon you accidentally, does it change the way people view you in that leadership position, especially because you're a woman in line for the presidency?" (Media Matters, 2006).

Just before the elections on November 3, 2006 on MSNBC News Live, corporate reporter Norah O’Donnell lapped up right wing bile and reported—scratch that, insinuated with a snide tenor:

O'DONNELL: What about Nancy Pelosi? We were just showing pictures. She would be the speaker -- likely be the speaker of the House if Democrats win control. Where's she been the last week? (watch the video).

Right-wing talk-show radio host Melanie Morgan went so far as to say, "We've got a bull's-eye painted on her big, wide laughing eyes" (listen here at Media Matters).

It is understandable why men in the media and political establishment feel threatened and attack Nancy Pelosi, she’s a woman and is third in line for the Presidency if something were to happen to Bush and Cheney. There are numerous examples of the piling on, but none deeper and more cutting than the women analysts, punditry and corporate reporters.

What is the root of this collusion?

Let’s start by examining External Oppression, which is defined aptly by a Women’s Advocacy group as “the unjust exercise of authority and power by one group over another. It includes imposing one group's belief system, values and life ways over another group.” The Women’s Advocacy group defines Internal Oppression, as “the oppressor doesn't have to exert any more pressure, because we now do it to ourselves and each other” (Women’s Rural Advocate Programs).

Examples of women’s internalized oppression are female genital mutilation, which involves the removal of the clitoris, this procedure is mostly performed by women (Althaus 1997); female infanticide is “the intentional killing of baby girls due to the preference for male babies and from the low value associated with the birth of females"(Jones, 2000). With advent of ultrasounds in rural places in China and India, female fetuses are being aborted. It is women who are committing infanticide; honor killings, is the concept in which females are “vessels” of the family reputation (Mayell, 2002). Although men commit the actual murder of their sisters, wives or mothers, it is in many cases, quietly supported by women. Admittedly, the examples are somewhat extreme, however, I think they illustrate the normalization of oppression.

If France elects Ségolène Royal next April 22, 2007, France would join Finland with Tarja Kaarina Halonen, Germany withAngela Merkel, Chile with Michelle Bachelet, and Liberia with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as women as Heads of State. The Republican Party and the conservative cabal will do what it takes to make sure another woman--mainly Hillary Clinton, doesn't join their ranks.

In the next two years, the media and the Republicans will try to destroy Nancy Pelosi, politically, hoping that the smear campaign will affect any chances that Hillary Clinton might have as Madame President. Unlike, Clinton, I hope that Pelosi stay free of the political consultants that drives decision-making. Pelosi has shown strength even in the face of a political defeat, if she stays true to self, and not appease the right wing and sycophantic press, she will maintain her integrity and overcome the internal oppression that burdens women.

All the early indicators is that she will stand toe-to-toe, mano a mano with the Republican Party, while at the same time being a role-model to young girls.

You go girl.


Sources:
Media Matters, “Pelosi labeled "Wicked Witch of the West" by Kondracke, "shrew" by Orin-Eilbeck.”
A Project of the Center for Media and Democracy, “Echo Chamber.”
Media Matters, “ Right's Choreographed Attack on Leader Pelosi in Full Swing”.
Media Matters, “Gender stereotypes and discussions of Armani suits dominate media's coverage of Speaker-elect Pelosi”.
Althaus, A. Frances. Female Circumcision: Rite of Passage Or Violation of Rights? International Family Planning Perspectives, Volume 23, Number 3, September 1997.
About.com, “Presidential Succession: Who becomes president, when...”
Gendercide Watch, Case Study: Female Infanticide. Jones, Adam. 2006.
Mayell, Hillary, “Thousands of Women Killed for Family "Honor"” National Geographic News February 2002.

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CITY OF GHOSTS
by Malik Isasis


I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana until about the age of 17 years old, but often found myself in New Orleans as a child when my mother would frantically wake my little brother and me in the middle of the night. Her eyes were swollen, her lips busted. My stepfather had beaten the shit out of her again in a violent rage. Like many times before, she planned her escape when he fell asleep. We hopped the Greyhound to New Orleans, where my aunt lived. Willa-Mae was her name.

New Orleans is partitioned into 17 Wards, or voting districts. Willa-Mae lived in the most infamous one: the 9th Ward, in a dilapidated shotgun house with her husband and their three children. A shotgun house is an extremely narrow house without hallways. One can see the backdoor from the front. My aunt took my mother in, every time, regardless of the emotional and financial strain on her own family. Before Aunt Willa-Mae, a man named Buddy lived in the house. I remember Buddy; he had snow-white curly hair and deep chocolate skin, a beautiful man. Buddy had an incredible addiction to heroin and was killed when a couple of men used an empty syringe and shot air into his vein when he didn’t pay a debt owed.

One of my first nights at the house, my cousins told me that Buddy haunted the house. At 8 years old, it didn’t take much to excite my imagination. That night, sho’nuff, I heard footsteps, all night, pacing back and forth on the wooden floors.

Along with a real or imagined ghost, were roaches. Aunt Willa-Mae’s house was plagued with roaches. If you opened the cabinets, a roach would fall into your glass or food. We use to sleep with cotton balls in our ears for fear that they would crawl in and nest in our brains. Truth be told, I hated staying with Aunt Willa-Mae and I hated New Orleans. Notorious for its oppressive poverty, and cruel violence, the 9th Ward during the 80s, was likened to the 80s war-torn Beirut. As a matter of fact, we did call it Little Beirut after the crack-cocaine epidemic in the mid-to-late 80s, possessed it like the devil and suffocated its residents with unimaginable misery and suffering. The 9th Ward had long ago stopped meaning its original definition as an administrative district of the City, but had fully come to represent another definition: a section of a prison.

Young adults and boys had a distorted view of manhood, a hyper vigilance and a self-hatred that was explosive. If any aspect of their emasculated manhood was called into questioned, there was a real possibility of finding death. Admittedly, I was a coward and stayed inside with the roaches; my little brother on the other hand, was not. He often got into fights—losing most of them (bless his heart). He would come home weeping. Our mother would yell at me for not defending him. Why would I volunteer for a beat down? That didn’t make much sense.
I pleaded, still she threatened to “whoop my ass” if I didn’t protect my brother.

I was relieved when we moved back to Baton Rouge. Some months later, the abuse cycle would repeat, and we would find ourselves in New Orleans, again.

After a while my mother had evolved out of the abusive cycle, abandoning the gypsy way of life and giving us time to settle and become rooted.

In 1990 I was 17 years old. By then, Baton Rouge had caught up with New Orleans in its violence. I had witnessed a great deal of violence and had lost three friends who’d succumb to gun shot violence; there were cousins, uncles, and aunts who’d traded in their dreams for the temporary refuge that heroin and crack-cocaine provided. I managed to graduate high school and join the military.

My mother was killed in a car accident in 1992, and several months later, my stepfather died of a heart attack. My stepfather and I had a complicated relationship; as a young adult he tried hard to build a relationship with me, often rewriting history as I remembered it. I wasn’t interested in a relationship with him. The memories of his hostility toward us were too strong to forget and too painful to forgive. However, I was deeply heart broken when hearing of his sudden death of a major thrombosis. It meant that we could never be friends; all those opportunities were buried with him. If my mother was able to forgive him, I should too.

It would be ten years before I would return to New Orleans, a city I both loved and loathed, equally. In 2002 I spent a month in New Orleans and with much distance between us, I was able to love it much more than I hated it. I had loved it still, in spite of it being stuck in a perpetual loop of oppression, poverty and unbelievable violence.

As Katrina visited the shores of the Gulf Coast, I sat in my Seattle apartment and watched Katrina impregnate Lake Ponchitrain, resulting in a birth of destruction never seen in American history. After seeing the destruction, it was time for me to return home, and I did.

The faces.

They were all like mine, thousands of them, all destitute by an American caste system. They were my brothers. My sisters. My family. Like a bed-ridden, infirmed old man who hasn’t been turned in months, America was about to see the bed soars of its legacy. Hurricane Katrina pulled back the sheets and rolled America onto its side for the world to see its open wounds, and the world stood aghast. The media contorted itself in all directions to avoid the most obvious fact: race. The media referred to them as refugees, devaluing the victims of the disaster, their citizenship. Not only was racial and economic stratification revealed, but also the frightening incompetence of the President and his Administration, an incompetence that was a bitter pill for Americans to swallow.

A year and some months have pasts, since President Bush stated during a photo op:

"We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.” – President Bush

Bush did not ask the corporations that will rebuild New Orleans to pay livable wages; instead he suspended a 74 year-old law The Davis-Bacon Act that requires companies using Federal funds to pay livable wages in the area; Affirmative Action, Environmental laws were also suspended in the Gulf region so that private corporations can come in and rape the citizenry.

A great American city has died and Bush and his Administration and the Congress has pissed on the grave of New Orleans by allocating billions, only to be laundered and squandered by corporations like Halliburton. The same team that brought you the Iraq War and Iraq Occupation, now is responsible for saving an American city—both if you haven’t notice, has gone to hell in a hand basket.

The President’s shallow and insincere production exposed his method for those willing to pay attention: it’s not what you do; it’s what you say. When he left, so did the supplies and convoy…so did the corporate media.



Source:
CorpWatch, “US: Katrina Work Goes to Officials who led Iraq Effort” Entous, Adam. October 2005.
Edsall B., Thomas. “Bush Suspends Pay Act in Areas Hit by Storm” Washington Post, September 2005.
More on The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931.
Janofsky, Micahel. “Bill Would Let E.P.A Relax Rules for Cleanup” New York Times. September 2005.
National Organization for Women. “The Origins of Affirmative Action” Sykes, Marquita. August 1998.

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