SORRY, HATERS

by Malik Isasis





Remember when the Democratic Party was in the minority for over six years? Remember how the corporate media helped the neocons to portray the Democratic Party as obstructionists? Remember that? If not, dig.

Since the Democratic Party retook the majority in the Congress in the November 2006 mid-term elections, the partisan label of obstructionists, has not been used once to describe the Republican Party who’ve since the Democratic Party takeover, held their breaths, crossed their arms and stumped their feet like two year olds at every opportunity.

Recently, when the Senate Republicans twice blocked the Senate Democratic non-binding resolution against Bush’s Iraq escalation, the Associated Press subsequently reported:

A day after Republicans foiled a Democratic bid to repudiate Bush's deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq, Senate Democrats declined to embrace measures, being advanced in the House, that would attach conditions to additional funding for troops.

State-run news outlet, Fox News, reported:

The Senate's Democratic majority failed Monday to shut off debate on a non-binding resolution that "disagrees" with President Bush's troop surge in Iraq, throwing debate on the policy into limbo and depriving Democrats of a bipartisan rebuke of the White House.

The corporate media is in cahoots with the right-wing hate machine, to create mass delusion among the American population the neocons so enjoyed following September 11, 2001. Even with the loss of Republican Congressional power, the media continues to treat the Democratic Party as a nuisance for challenging Bush's detructive foreign policy, again, see here.

Headless beast and the Catch-22

In last year’s November election, the American people voted the Republicans out in record numbers, expressing a clear mandate on the Iraq Occupation, which was to get out. Interestingly enough, the head of the beast was severed, but its body is still charging—like a samurai with a sword.

The punditry class--the water-boys for the right wing hate machine are the most dangerous at disseminating misinformation. Chris Matthews whose fetish with Hillary and Bill Clinton, is exceptionally vulgar see here, here, here, try here, what about here, whoa, look at this one. Matthews consistently book right wing conservatives on both his shows to spin right wing talking points to marginalize the Democratic Party—here’s an example: Matthews will state that the Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq; Democrats go public with a plan, Matthews then uses right wing talking points to criticize the plan, dig. This Catch-22 is the prism in which the Democratic Party is viewed—so no matter what they do, either they don’t have a plan, or the plan is just partisan politics--a damned if you do, damn if you don't scenerio.

One of the vilest of the bunch is Joe Klein, a frequent guest on Matthews two shows. Klein, who writes for Time Magazine, is often described as moderate (the new conservative) or liberal but he’s more of a Fox News liberal. The kind of liberal who takes a cheap shot at the Democratic Party at every opportunity. He’s a political whore willing to say anything just to get some face time on television. He believes whatever you want him to believe, his lies become amorphous—kind of like a virus.

Here is Arianna Huffington taking Klein to the woodshed:

While offering his Time blog take on the Sunday show appearances of John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and John Edwards, Joe Klein once again made the claim that he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. Speaking of McCain he said: "I disagreed with him about going to war in 2003..."
But here is Klein on Meet the Press in February 2003: "This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it--it's--it-it probably is." When Tim Russert presses Klein on why he thinks Iraq is "the right war," Klein responds, "Because sooner or later, this guy has to be taken out. Saddam has -- Saddam Hussein has to be taken out... The message has to be sent because if it isn't sent now, if we don't do this now, it empowers every would-be Saddam out there and every would-be terrorist out there."

Does that sound like someone opposing the war?

Perception is reality

Some Democrats have come up with a creative strategy to blunt the Iraq Occupation by revoking the 2002 authorization, which gave Bush the authority to use force, citing that Saddam was successfully removed and eliminated, and the Iraqis have had elections. However, the Debbie Downers in the corporate media have shun the plan it seems without much consideration:

The one time Congress did withdraw war authorization, the results were unimpressive.

In June 1970 Congress repealed the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which had authorized the Vietnam war. The Senate seemed to speak emphatically. By an 81-10 vote, senators first added the Gulf of Tonkin repeal to another bill. Then, by a 57-5 vote several weeks later, the Senate passed a separate repeal resolution.

President Nixon signed the bill that included the Gulf of Tonkin repeal. He also kept the Vietnam war going, using what he called inherent presidential powers.

I do believe Nixon resigned before he got impeached for those ‘inherent presidential powers’ and I suppose the current state of Iraq is impressive, no?

The corporate media don’t challenge Bush, instead they speak around him as if he had nothing to do with sending troops to Iraq without proper intelligence, training, protective equipment, most importantly, a plan for the occupation of a sovereign country, yet it is the Democratic Party who receives the brunt of the criticism. By the time the next presidential election rolls around, the corporate press will have successfully linked the Democrats to the failures in Iraq, per right-wing guidance.

In the world of politics, perception is everything; the Bush Public Relations Administration has based its whole Administration on deceiving the public by pretending to be doing something, without really doing anything. The corporate media takes this nothing and turns into being tough on terror.

If it weren’t for Hurricane Katrina, most of the public would still have believed that this Administration was knowledgeable about how to respond to a crisis. The Katrina disaster was too big for the Bush Public Relations Administration to hide behind; the media had no choice but to expose the failure; I suppose there aren’t enough dead Iraqis in this occupation for the corporate press to declare it a miserable failure.

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High Noon in China's Far West

By Wieland Wagner
Spiegel
















China is sending more troops to the mostly Muslim province of Xinjiang in the far west of the country. Concerns are rising in Beijing of ethnic unrest in the border region. Its plans for economic development there may be in trouble.

Mao Tse Tung defies the icy wind blowing from the Pamir Mountains across the city of Kashgar. Beijing is worlds away from this spot on the historic Silk Road, not far from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Which is perhaps why the Chairman Mao needs such a tall base for his statue, perched 24 meters (79 feet) above the "Square of the People." But Mao is strikingly alone -- the square is practically devoid of people.

It is time for prayer. A few blocks away, locals are streaming into the Id-Kah Mosque, the largest Muslim house of worship in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, home to the Uighur minority in northwestern China.

The faithful wear their fur turbans pulled down over their faces. It's bitterly cold, but it is also to disguise their identities. Many are afraid of being recognized.

Muslims are the majority in Kashgar, giving this ancient city bordering the Tarim Basin the air of an Arabian oasis. Uighurs, Kyrgyz and Tajiks bring their dates, nuts and pomegranates to the market on donkey carts. Instead of Peking Duck, the air smells of roast lamb and flatbread.

Veil of suspicion

But a veil of suspicion hangs over the region. Unlike in other parts of Central Asia, the muezzin in Kashgar is not permitted to use a loudspeaker to call the faithful to prayer from the minaret. His voice sounds muffled as it emerges from the interior of the mosque. Civil servants are essentially barred from taking part in Muslim prayers, evidence of fears among China's atheist leadership that Islam could develop into the core of an independence movement.

In January Chinese police attacked a base used by fighters of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in western Xinjiang. The organization supposedly has ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. It was the bloodiest battle between Chinese government forces and Uighur resistance fighters in a decade. A Chinese police officer was killed, and Beijing has since celebrated the man as a martyr of the revolution. The police shot and killed 18 of the alleged terrorists and arrested 17 suspects.

Since then military transport aircraft and helicopters have been making regular landings at the Kashgar airport, as China builds up its forces in its mountainous border regions. Neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan are seen as the principal hideouts for the region's Islamists.

Since the battle at the ETIM camp, anyone in Kashgar who is unable to show identification is considered a suspect. The police search vehicles on arterial roads and security forces, uniformed or in civilian clothing, lurk in the city. "We stay home at night," says Mohammed, a 26-year-old Uighur who operates a clothing stand near the "Street of the Liberation." The police keep a watchful eye on Kashgar's crowds, even at events as seemingly harmless as the opening of a new supermarket across the street from the mosque.

Massacre in the mountains

In some ways the heightened surveillance runs counter to the Chinese government's aims in the region, where it welcomes every new business, factory or apartment building -- any building to displace the city's traditional earthen structures. Beijing is spending billions of Yuan to develop a modern-day Silk Road in this border region, complete with new pipelines, railroad lines and roads. China plans to use the new infrastructure to bring oil and natural gas from Central Asia to the Chinese heartland and export its electronics and textiles in the other direction.

Beijing's strategists are pinning their hopes on new wealth to pacify the troubled Xinjiang region. But the recent massacre in the mountains could scare away investors, as China wages its own war on Islamist terrorists.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has long believed that his country is already a "victim of terrorism." He is referring primarily, though, to forces fighting for regional independence, or at least for greater autonomy from the central government far to the east.

The government has charged Uighur dissident Rebiya Kadeer with "violent terrorist activities." Two years ago Beijing forced the prominent local businesswoman to emigrate to the United States and imposed prison sentences on her sons in Xinjiang for alleged tax evasion. In quoting an angry Internet user who called Kadeer a "separatist monster," the official China Daily expressed one of Beijing's greatest fears: that the dissident, who was elected president of the World Uighur Congress last year, could be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The "war on terror" doubles as a convenient fig leaf for the Chinese leadership. In 2001 Beijing used its concerns over alleged terrorist activities as the impetus to establish the Shanghai Organization for Cooperation, which also counts Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members. The dangers of terrorism were also used to justify joint military exercises with the Russians in 2005. Three years earlier China gained US support for its campaign to have the United Nations classify the Islam independence movement ETIM as a terrorist organization. But little in fact is known about ETIM's goals, and Beijing has yet to produce clear evidence of the organization's alleged ties to al-Qaida.

"Robbing us of our livelihood"

Despite its successes, the Chinese leadership remains seriously concerned, fearing a reprise of the bloody unrest of recent decades in Xinjiang. According to official figures, the resistance movement's activities cost 162 lives and caused 400 injuries between 1990 and 2001. Out of an apparent fear of attacks, China imposed restrictions on passengers carrying liquids onto airplanes as far back as 2003 -- well before similar rules were enacted in Europe and the United States. With a view toward the 2008 Olympic Games, security has already been tightened in and around the capital.

China's strategy of using the blessings of capitalism as one of its tools in fighting terrorism tends to have the opposite effect among Uighurs. More and more ethnic Chinese are immigrating into Xinjiang; their share of the population has grown to at least 40 percent since 1949.

The change in the region's ethnic makeup has widened the gap between rich and poor, and social decline tends to affect Uighurs like textile vendor Mohammed first. "The Chinese are the ones running businesses here today," he says angrily. "They are robbing us of our livelihood."

In addition, with Xinjiang having evolved into a virtual military base, even the most peaceful of Uighurs are deterred from staging demonstrations. Tens of thousands of Chinese troops, for example, are stationed in Shule, a garrison town near Kashgar.

Fighting, though, isn't the only reason the soldiers are there. Many have also been sent to the region to develop their own farms and factories. According to one soldier, whenever they encounter unrest the troops simply change into the uniforms of the armed People's Police.

As if that weren't enough, the Chinese government also controls the clocks in Xinjiang. Although the capital is almost 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) away, Xinjiang runs on Beijing time.

Despite the official mandate, clocks at the mosque in Kashgar are set, in quiet protest, to the real local time, which is two hours earlier than Beijing time -- exactly the way nature would have it in Xinjiang.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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Court: Detainees Can't Challenge Cases

by Hope Yen
The Associated Press























Washington - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that foreign-born prisoners seized as potential terrorists and held in Guantanamo Bay may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a key victory for President Bush's anti-terrorism plan.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding the prisoners - a decision that will strip court access for hundreds of detainees with cases currently pending.

"The arguments are creative but not cogent. To accept them would be to defy the will of Congress," wrote Judge A. Raymond Randolph in the 25-page opinion, which was joined by Judge David B. Sentelle. Both are Republican appointees to the federal bench.

Barring federal court access was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system run by the Defense Department to prosecute terrorism suspects.

At the White House, deputy press secretary Dana Perino called the decision "a significant win" for the administration and said the Military Commissions Act provides "sufficient and fair access to courts for these detainees."

Attorneys for the detainees immediately said they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration's original plan for trying detainees before military commissions.

"We're disappointed," said Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The bottom line is that according to two of the federal judges, the president can do whatever he wants without any legal limitations as long as he does it offshore."

A spokesman for the Justice Department praised the decision.

"The decision reaffirms the validity of the framework that Congress established in the MCA permitting Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention" through military hearings coordinated by the Defense Department, said spokesman Erik Ablin.

Under the commissions act, the government may indefinitely detain foreigners who have been designed as "enemy combatants" and authorizes the CIA to use aggressive but undefined interrogation tactics.

Most criticized by Democrats and civil libertarians was a provision that stripped U.S. courts of the authority to hear arguments from detainees who said they were being held illegally. The law instead authorizes three-officer military panels to review whether there is sufficient evidence to justify the detention.

Attorneys argued that the detainees aren't covered by that provision and the military panels don't meet minimum standards of detainees' due process rights. But in Tuesday's ruling, the D.C. Circuit panel said the new law did apply.

A spokeswoman for Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he was accelerating efforts to pass a revision to the law that would restore detainees' legal rights, noting that some 12 million lawful permanent residents currently in the U.S. could also be stripped of rights.

The new provision, introduced by Leahy and then-Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., narrowly failed last year on a 48-51 vote.

"The Military Commissions Act is a dangerous and misguided law that undercuts our freedoms and assaults our Constitution by removing vital checks and balances designed to prevent government overreaching and lawlessness," Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement.

U.S. citizens and foreigners being held inside the country normally have the right to contest their detention before a judge. The Justice Department said foreign enemy combatants are not protected by the Constitution.

Judge Judith W. Rogers dissented, saying the cases should proceed. She argued that the military hearings - known as Combatant Status Review Tribunals, or CSRTs - deprive detainees of critical due process rights by putting the legal burden on detainees to prove they do not pose a terrorist threat.

"District courts are well able to adjust these proceedings in light of the government's significant interests in guarding national security," wrote Rogers, a Clinton appointee. "More significant still, continued detention may be justified by a CSRT on the basis of evidence resulting from torture."

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said he is concerned about whether military hearings offer detainees the legal protections and will launch a congressional review.

"The last thing that we would want is to convict an individual for terrorism and then have that conviction overturned because of fatal flaws in the Military Commissions law passed in the previous Congress," he said.

Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the ruling sends the wrong message about justice to U.S. citizens and the international community.

"It's a terrible ruling that contradicts centuries of Anglo-American history and allows the indefinite detention of innocent people without charge or judicial review," he said.

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FAKE NEWS, DOES FAKE NEWS

by Malik Isasis






















SATIRE (sat'ir') noun
1. the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2. a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
3. a literary genre comprising such compositions.

Sunday, February 18, 2007 was Fox News’ debut of its satire show “The 1/2 Hour News Show.” The 1/2 Hour Show is a take off on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” but with a twist, a conservative twist.

The show is Executive-produced by Joel Surnow, the creator of the successful show "24". Surnow only produced two pilot episodes, and if successful, will produce more.

Co-creator Ned Rice stated, "This is a show for people who watch other comedy shows and say, 'Yeah, OK, but why aren't you doing jokes about Nancy Pelosi? Why aren't you doing jokes about Ted Kennedy? Why aren't you doing jokes about all the global warming meetings that are being canceled by snowstorms?' "

Mr. Rice’s logic is interesting to say the least; the Republican Party held a trifecta of power for six years in all three branches of the government. In the past six years there has been September 11, 2001, a war in Afghanistan, invasion and Occupation of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, nuclear proliferation, and a subsequent civil war due to the illegal invasion of Iraq. Those are a lot of events that would bring attention to the party in charge.

The sheer ineptitude of governance by the Republican Party invited satirizing due to the Peter Principle, which theorizes that a person will be promoted to the highest level of his/or her competence and eventually advance to a level of incompetence. The modern Republican Party implodes every other generation under its own ineptitude and rises like the Phoenix, only to repeat the same mistakes.

Mr. Rice tends to forget that Bill Clinton was the butt of many-a-jokes during his tenure as president—on Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, and late night comedian shows.

The 1/2 Hour Show & The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

The 1/2 Hour show opened with a skit by rightwing talk show host Rush Limbaugh playing President of the Untied States, and his rightwing cohort Ann Coulter playing Vice President. The sketch was painful.

Comedy is for professionals, kids.

Rush and Ann looked uncomfortable as they recited their lines with awkward pauses and timing.

The rest of the show was taped before a live audience broken up by two fake commercials about the ACLU (American Civil Liberty Union). The audience appeared most of the time to laugh out of politeness—like laughing politely at the old drunk uncle's inappropriate jokes at the family gathering.

While Jon Stewart is able to connect with his audience through self-deprication and wit, The 1/2 Hour Show's two anchors read fake news—er, talking points. The fake anchors delivered their jokes as if reading a teleprompter.

Comedy works when the writers and the performers are sincere in what they are doing. The 1/2 Hour News Show writers and performers were insincere, like their writers and performers in the news division. They take themselves way too seriously. The show lampooned Ed Begley, Jr., and the neocons favs--Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Global Warming.

Satire works when there is irony; The 1/2 Hour Show’s sketches just came off as nasty—kind of like Fox News’ everyday programming. The Daily Show works because the writers use actual events—clips from the news and contrasting it with, um—facts.

Presto!

Satire.

Irony.

The irony in all of this is that Fox News already has hit satire and fake news shows such as “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity & Colmes,” “Your World w/ Neil Cavuto”, “Fox and Friends”,”Special Report w/ Brit Hume,” and “Fox News Sunday” with the exception of the laughing part, they have the fake news and irony thing, down pat.

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THE LIKUDNIKS & THE WARRIOR PRINCESS

by Malik Isasis





At an AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) dinner earlier this month, Senator Hillary Clinton in attempt to man-up, tried to blunt future criticism by the AIPAC lobby by calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel's greatest threats, she also said "no option can be taken off the table.”

Senator Clinton also stated, "U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons," the Democrat told a crowd of Israel supporters. "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."

Sounding like Bush’s fraternal twin, she marched onward with all the neocons’ talking points.

"To deny the Holocaust places Iran's leadership in company with the most despicable bigots and historical revisionists," Clinton said, criticizing what she called the Iranian administration's "pro-terrorist, anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric."

Instead of embracing the qualities of her femininity, Senator Clinton runs away from it, choosing instead to embrace stereotypical knuckle-dragging, chest-beating masculinity. She is constantly trying to show that she too, is tough. She too, can start a war. She too can be manly.

Instead of being herself, she has modeled herself after her husband Bill Clinton—
triangulating her base, her political enemies, her critics and those who love her at every opportunity. It’s a good way not to take responsibility for her actions or her words.

Clinton’s presidential campaign will support going to war with Iran if it will curry favor with her critics and win her popularity. She wants to be seen as a warrior and as a mother. Those two things aren't compatible. Being one or the other is a life style choice. Being the President of the United States is not about being a warrior, it is about diplomacy; it requires that one is flexible, an active listener and have the ability to work with those with whom there is very little trust; it’s about having respect for the rules of law and protecting the Constitution with dignity and respect.

Bush of course has molested the job title by constantly referring to himself as Commander-in-Chief and going on murdering-sprees and declaring it national security. If this is the mantle Clinton wants to inherit, her campaign is right on target.

The propaganda of war

The Likudniks and the Christian conservatives have completely subjugated both the Democratic and Republican parties through the powerful lobbying group AIPAC. Israel’s foreign policy has become the United States’ foreign policy priority, even if it is against the interests of the United States as so eloquently stated in the paper, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.”

Israel is, in fact, a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states. To begin with, "terrorism" is a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups; it is not a single unified adversary. The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel (e.g., Hamas or Hezbollah) do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or "the West"; it is largely a response to Israel's prolonged campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Israeli neocons are the engine behind the Iran campaign. It is the Israeli government who stands to benefit from a war that is completely unnecessary for the United States.

It is presumptuous for the United States to threaten a sovereign nation with war for wanting to build nuclear weapons for what it perceives as protection for its citizenry. The very idea that American politicians in public, spout out degrading epithets against heads of states is racially motivated, and bigoted. The basic assumption about the Iranian leadership is that they are savages and can’t be trusted with nuclear weapons. The real deal is that if Iran wanted to start a war with Israel, it would have done so. Iran has not been to war since the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran War.

Since the rise of the Military Industrial Complex at the end of World War II, the United States has been in a state of perpetual war--starting with Korea 1950-53, Indonesia, 1950-53, Guatemala 1950-53, Congo 1964, Cuba 1959-61 Vietnam 1961-73, Peru 1965, Laos 1964-73, Cambodia 1969-70, Lebanon 1982-83, Grenada 1983, El Salvador 1980, Libya 1986, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Iraq 1990-current. That’s 57 years and counting of non-stop warring.

Senator Clinton

In Senator Clinton’s dinner speech, she went out of way to stress that Iran is one of Israel’s greatest threats.

How so?

Are we just suppose to take the word of politicians who’ve been compromised by the most powerful lobbying group in the country? Where is the proof that Iran is so dangerous?

Senator Clinton has sold her soul to the lobbying group, AIPAC, to produce a veneer of credibility as a warrior princess and protectorate of Israel; apparently, support from the American public is not enough.



Background and history on AIPAC:

AIPAC's Overt and Covert Ops
AIPAC's Hold

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A DARK, WARM MOIST PLACE

by Malik Isasis


Last week was a wet dream for the 24-hour news networks. A distraught astronaut drove across the country to kill a romantic rival; and reality star and tabloid fodder, Anna Nicole Smith, collapsed and died. Both stories are tragedies in their own right; however, the corporate media can’t help but to over indulge themselves and treat both stories as breaking news. It’s if they have no control—like an alcoholic bellying up to the bar for a drink; every news program becomes wall-to-wall coverage with pundits, consultants, and psychologists.

It is incredibly cheap to produce wall-to-wall coverage of tabloid stories with stock footage, round table discussions, and placing a newsreader on location, repeating the same facts over, and over and over again.

While the corporate media shake the shiny keys of distraction, Democrats began hearings on the disappearance of 12 billion dollars during the early phases of the Iraq Occupation, and reconstruction. The hearings received very little corporate press. This too could have been covered very cheaply but the corporate media made a choice, and that choice was to focus all of its resources covering two stories that were tragic but had absolutely no national impact.

The virus.

Corporate news organizations such as CNN and MSNBC have been so well assimilated by the right-wing hate machine, that it is second nature for them to continue to legitimatize someone like indicted former House Majority House Leader Tom Delay, who was recently on Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room to spread fear of an inevitable Clinton presidency.

Why would CNN give the disgraced congressman a platform to spew his pollution onto the airwaves?

Republicans and their neocon cabal have begun a whisper campaign on Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, concerning a request for a bigger commuter plane. The political hit job was designed to make Pelosi look petty and power hungry.

Republicans are taking issue with the size of the plane Pelosi would need to fly in to reach her hometown of San Francisco without refueling. There are three Air Force airplanes that have the fuel capacity to make the trip nonstop, with the largest being a C-32 plane, a military version of the Boeing 757-200.

Corporate media has fostered this false sense of Republican outrage by reporting it as legitimate news, leaving Speaker Pelosi to explain the web of deception and distortion. In this ABC transcript, Speaker Pelosi had to explain the asinine charges:

Pelosi: Well first of all, let me say that all of this springs from the Sergeant at Arms office, which is in charge of security for Members of Congress and the Speaker of the House. For matters of security, the Sergeant at Arms has said that he wanted the practice to continue, that what was applied to Mr. Hastert, the Speaker of the House since 9/11, to have transportation to and from home to be provided.
I have never asked for any larger plane. I have said that I am happy to ride commercial if the plane they have doesn't go coast to coast. I'm happy to ride commercial coast to coast that way. We've never asked for a larger plane - this is a myth that [the Republicans] are talking about on the floor. They have nothing to say to the American people about the war, the economy, global warming, and the rest. So they have this game they're playing.

In an attempt to tap into American bigotry, the right wing hate machine has tried to smear Senator Barack Obama with associating him with Islamic radicalism because he attended a secular madrassa in Indonesia as a child. Even though the madrassa was found to be secular and was not radical, Obama had to defend himself. Take a look at this clip from Media Matters, where Obama and Clinton are attacked simultaneously.

Former Senator John Edwards has faced similar smears when right wing political whores Michelle Malkin, and William Donahue accused Edwards’ bloggers of anti-Catholicism. Edwards was quick to put the story to bed by sticking by the bloggers.

The right wing strategy is death by a thousand paper cuts. It’s effective (R.I.P John Kerry). They have a big bucket of shit and fling it against the wall and whatever sticks, they make hay out of it by force-feeding the corporate media; the corporate media then regurgitates this shit as ‘controversial’ or truth, thereby forcing usually a Democrat, off message to defend him/herself.

The corporate media is a wittingly host for the right wing virus, helping to spread political petulance. The corporate media often gives facts, lies, and spin equal weight, which gives the right wing hate machine the cover they need to keep on assassinating the character of the opposition.

As George W. Bush and his flying monkeys move in to start another conflict--this time with Iran, the corporate media will continue to keep its collective head, up it’s collective ass…and we’ll all pay the price.


More background:

More info on John Edwards’ so-called Bloggers ‘Controversy’.
Barack Obama smear tactics.

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THE LESSONS OF 'BIG BROTHER'

By Thomas Hüetlin
Spiegel International


The racist epithets flung at Indian actress Shilpa Shetty shocked the nation. And in the end, she emerged as the winner, both in 'Big Brother' and in real life. The show, though, also had a clear loser: Great Britain.

Chairs, tables, walls, everything is blue -- except the purple neon light shining from the ceiling. Otherwise, the pub "The Sea Rock" in the north of London looks like a big aquarium. And for the patrons -- mostly those with an Indian background -- it is the perfect escape from frigid England to the warmth of Bollywood, that Indian dream factory where the clothes sparkle but the romances remain pure and kisses are forbidden.

But at 8 p.m. sharp on this day, Bollywood disappears from the gigantic flat screens. It's time for "Big Brother." "Shilpa, let's go," calls 26-year-old Nish Bhadressa into the half empty bar. Next to him sits Ravi Vaid, his family also comes from India and he too is 26 years old; they are both drinking beer. And they both want to see whether Shilpa Shetty, an Indian actress whose name just a few weeks ago was only known to a few Bollywood fanatics inside Europe, will leave the show tonight as the winner.
The results should tell the two men something about the reality of Great Britain -- tonight "Big Brother" will be something like a societal barometer. The show plays with Orwell's vision of fear, this angst of a controlling authority that makes a nation transparent against its will. In reality, though, the opposite is true. The show -- successfully running for over seven years in a total of 41 countries -- has reversed this principal. The individual becomes transparent, and the audience sees up close how a country really looks beneath the surface.

This season's "Big Brother" finale offers a prime example -- the two men in the "Sea Rock" are about to learn whether they truly live in a country full of racists. Whether British television viewers find it entertaining when a foreigner with brown skin is verbally abused before the eyes of millions of television viewers.

The incident in question has probably become the scene most often replayed in the history of British television. And it hits directly at the heart of the country's identity.

It is now well over two weeks ago that the inhabitants of the container roasted a chicken. Some thought the chicken had been undercooked; a fight erupted. Three women -- white and with little education -- ganged up on the smarter one from India.

"Indians are thin because they don't cook food properly," baited Jo O'Meara, an unsuccessful pop singer. Danielle Lloyd, a former "Miss Britain" who was stripped of her crown after it was discovered that she had slept with one of the judges, one-upped her. She accused Shilpa of not being able to speak English properly and said: "She wants to be white. She's a dog." Lloyd then suggested that Shilpa should "fuck off home."

It wasn't over. Enter Jade Goody. Already oversized, she swelled even further as she dug into the petite actress, calling her a poppadom and saying that Shilpa "makes her skin crawl," among other -- worse -- insults. Shilpa Shetty overheard the incensed tirade with wide eyes. Then she said, "If this is the modern Britain, then it is terrifying" -- and left the container kitchen.
On the following morning, a great many embarrassed faces could be seen on the island. The coalition of outraged viewers ranged from the very bottom to the top. From below, England's most dissolute tabloid The Sun demanded: "Throw out this face of hate" referring to Goody. From above, Gordon Brown, the possible successor to Prime Minster Tony Blair, demanded that the British television audience ought to vote for "tolerance."

These were the official reactions, and the politically correct ones. What is not known is whether these reactions correspond to the views of the nation -- to those of the "Big Brother" viewers.

"The strange thing about this is that some English apparently no longer recognize those values that they once brought to the people in India," Bhadressa said at "Sea Rock." "Above all," Bhadressa's friend Vaid, added "the certainty that one has to work hard in life in order to be successful." Vaid unzipped his jacket; underneath, he was wearing an English national football team shirt.

Neither of the men trust Great Britain. Not the newspapers, not the politicians. They are waiting for the results, for the truth. On "Big Brother" the nation can vote anonymously by telephone, no one has to justify what he believes, thinks, or says.

The pub is now completely packed; the cooks push their way out of the kitchen. Then the result fades in. Visible on the screen is the winner, Shilpa, the Indian. She cries a little, humbly folds her hands together in front of her chest, expresses her thanks and charitably says that Jade Goody is not a racist.


The two men finish their beers and head home. Great Britain voted correctly, Shilpa Shetty is the winner. But one doesn't know what this actually means: does it mean that a nation is ashamed of itself or does it mean that a clash of cultures does not in fact exist. Or does it simply mean that those belonging to the one culture simply called more often than those belonging to the other culture.

Shilpa Shetty, 31 years old, had not been in such great demand in Bollywood of late, and it's hard to say what would have become of her. Now, though, she's got a future -- offers from advertising agents, cosmetic companies and filmmakers have poured in. Now she even has a manager -- Max Clifford, who manages O.J. Simpson. She will become rich in Great Britain. That much is certain.

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ADVENTURE CAPITALISTS

by Malik Isasis

















George W. Bush has ignored all but one of the Iraq Study Group’s Recommendations: Recommendation 63:

The United States should encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international
community and by international energy companies.
• The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a
commercial enterprise, in order to enhance efficiency, transparency, and accountability.
• To combat corruption, the U.S. government should urge the Iraqi government to post all oil
contracts, volumes, and prices on the Web so that Iraqis and outside observers can track
exports and export revenues.
• The United States should support the World Bank’s efforts to ensure that best practices are
used in contracting. This support involves providing Iraqi officials with contracting templates
and training them in contracting, auditing, and reviewing audits.
• The United States should provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Oil for enhancing
maintenance, improving the payments process, managing cash flows, contracting and
auditing, and updating professional training programs for management and technical
personnel.

The Independent reported on January 7, 2007”Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.”

Bush’s new budget proposal.

Just when I think George W. Bush cannot surprise me anymore with his incompetent shenanigans, he pulls something out of his retched ass, like his 2.9 trillion—that’s “T” as in Tony, trillion dollar budget proposal.
The budgetary priorities highlight Bush’s psychopathic tendencies, which over the past six years, have come in full possession of his mental and emotional faculties.

Here is a quick breakdown of the Bush Public Relations Administration’s priority: $245 billion dollars for the Iraq Occupation and the Afghanistan conflict; $500 billion for the Department of Defense; “The spending plan would cut funding for some government health care and education programs in the United States.”

”Bush’s budget would give people with incomes of more than $1 million an average tax cut of $162,000 a year by 2012, while those in the middle fifth of the income scale would get a mere $840 a year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Here’s another way of looking at the lopsided distribution of tax benefits: The top 1 percent would enjoy 31 percent of the tax cuts, the bottom 40 percent just 4 percent, the center points out.
That’s redistribution of income, from bottom to top.”

"Whatever it takes, whatever it costs...." – President Bush
The Military-Industrial Complex.

Right-wing ideologues Bush and the neocon cabal have syphoned hundreds of billions of dollars of tax payers’ money on no-bid military contracts. The Center for Public Integrity has followed the cronyism, and corruption of privatizing the military since the inception of the invasion and subsequent Occupation of Iraq.

WASHINGTON, March 28, 2003 — Of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board, the government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, at least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors…

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2004 — Private defense contractors have been given the authority to help prepare the president's national defense budget—another job the Department of Defense has outsourced…

WASHINGTON, September 29, 2004 — The war in Iraq, with its urgent agenda of getting the job done and getting it done quickly, relied to an unprecedented degree not only on the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are expected to fight America's wars, but on a second American army: tens of thousands of civilian contractors hired on for the duration. This new, and often dangerous, role for civilians on the battlefield has raised a host of new questions about the role of private contractors in the nation's defense…

WASHINGTON, September 29, 2004 — With scores of revolving door connections, more than $1 million in campaign contributions and clients that receive most of their contracts from the Pentagon without competition, only one defense lobbying firm can claim to give its clients "an inside track to business opportunities with the federal government."

In 2002 the top ten conglomerate military pimps were:

Lockheed Martin Corporation $17 billion
Boeing Company $16.6 billion
Northrop Grumman Corporation $8.7 billion
Raytheon Company $7 billion
General Dynamics Corporation $7 billion
United Technologies Corporation $3.6 billion
Science Applications International Corporation $2.1 billion
TRW Incorporated $2 billion
Health Net, Inc. $1.7 billion
L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. $1.7 billion

Former President Dwight Eisenhower, foreseen the rise of arm dealers who would only profit, if there was an atmosphere of fear, insecurity and perpetual war and to that end, he said in 1961, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Since the rise of the Military Industrial Complex at the end of World War II, the United States has been in a state of perpetual war--starting with Korea 1950-53, Indonesia, 1950-53, Guatemala 1950-53, Congo 1964, Cuba 1959-61 Vietnam 1961-73, Peru 1965, Laos 1964-73, Cambodia 1969-70, Lebanon 1982-83, Grenada 1983, El Salvador 1980, Libya 1986, Nicaragua, Bosnia, Iraq 1990-current. That’s 57 years and counting of non-stop warring.

It is a public relations coup for the Military Industrial Complex lobbyists to make war heroic, mythical and patriotic. The political culture has come to see peace, and diplomacy as a sign of weakness.

What incentives are there for American arms dealers to stop lobbying for bloody conflicts when the Department of Defense Budget could balloon to $645 billion dollars?








More background information:
Fortson, Danny, Murray-Watson, and Webb, Tim. “Future of Iraq: The spoils of war”The Independent. January 7, 2007
Rothschild, Matthew. “Bush’s Budget Priorities: Fund War, Provide Tax Breaks for the Rich, Deprive the Poor.” The Progressive. February 6, 2007
Voice of America.“US Senate Begins Scrutiny of Bush's Budget Proposal.” February 6, 2007
Center for Public Integrity: Fraud and Corruption investigative reports.
Ciarrocca, Michelle Hartung William. The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex_Corporate Think Tanks and the Doctrine of Aggressive Militarism. Multiational Monitor. Jan/Feb 2003 - VOLUME 24 - NUMBERS 1 & 2.
No Beliefs: A Poltical Satire Site

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WHERE WOMEN ALONE CHOOSE WHOM TO WED




by RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
The Associated Press

ORANGO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau -- He was 14 when the girl entered his grass-covered hut and placed a plate of steaming fish in front of him.

Like all men on this African isle, Carvadju Jose Nananghe knew exactly what it meant. Refusing was not an option. His heart pounding, he lifted the aromatic dish, prepared with an ancient recipe, to his lips, agreeing in one bite to marry the girl.

"I had no feelings for her," said Nananghe, now 65. "Then when I ate this meal, it was like lightning. I wanted only her."

In this archipelago of 50 islands off the western rim of Africa, it's women, not men, who choose. They make their proposals public by offering their grooms-to-be a dish of distinctively prepared fish, marinated in red palm oil. Once they have asked, men are powerless to say no.

To have refused, explained Nananghe, remembering the day half a century ago, would have dishonored his family -- and in any case, why would he want to choose his own wife?

"Love comes first into the heart of the woman," he explained. "Once it's in the woman, only then can it jump into the man."

But the treacherous tides and narrow channels that long kept outsiders from these remote islands are no longer holding back the modern world. The young men of Orango, 40 miles off the West African country of Guinea-Bissau, are finding jobs carrying luggage for tourist hotels on the archipelago's more developed islands. Others collect palm oil from the island's abundant trees and sell it on the mainland.

They return with a new form of courtship, one their elders find deeply unsettling.

"Now the world is upside-down," complained Cesar Okrane, 90. "Men are running after women, instead of waiting for them to come to them."

For a man to go so far as to openly propose marriage is dangerous, say traditionalists on this island of 2,000 people.

"The choice of a woman is much more stable," explains Okrane. "Rarely were there divorces before. Now, with men choosing, divorce has become common."

Records are not readily available, but islanders agree that there are significantly more divorces now than in the years when men patiently awaited a proposal on a plate.

They waited some more, as their brides-to-be then set out for the eggshell-white beaches encircling the island, looking for the raw materials with which to build their house.

Women built all the grass-covered huts here, dragging driftwood back to use as poles, cutting blond grass to weave into roofs and shaping the pink mud into bricks. Only when the house was built, a process that takes at least four months, could the couple move in and their marriage be considered official.

There are matrilineal cultures elsewhere in the world, including in other parts of Africa, as well as in China and in Thailand, says French anthropologist Christine Henry. But the unquestioned authority given to women in matters of the heart on Orango island is unique. "I don't know of it happening anywhere else," says Henry, who has written a book on the customs of the archipelago.

That things are changing is evident in the island's newest house: It was concrete, and erected by paid laborers, not local women.

Although priestesses still control the island's relationship with the spirit world, their clout is waning, as missionaries establish churches here.

"When I get married it will be in a church, wearing a white dress and a veil," says Marisa de Pina, 19, striking a pose outside her family's hut while wearing tight capri pants and sequined sandals.

She says the Protestant church she attends has taught her that it is men, not women, who should make the first move, and so she plans to wait for a man to approach her. To make her point, the teenager pops into her hut and returns holding a worn copy of the New Testament, its pages stuffed with notes, letters and business cards.

Her decision has caused strife inside the mud walls of her family's house.

Like her niece, Edelia Noro wears store-bought clothes instead of the grass skirts still favored by some older women. She, too, attends church. But she says she doesn't see why these trappings of modern life should alter the system of courtship.

Although the island's unique customs may be fading, there are still pockets of resistance. Often, it's women who lure men back into the fold of ancient ways.

Now 23, Laurindo Carvalho first spotted the girl when he was 13. He worked in a hotel, wore jeans, owned a cellphone and thought of himself as a modern man, so he thought he could turn tradition on its head and ask the girl to marry. With the wave of a hand, she rejected him. Six years passed and one day, when both were 19, he heard a knock at his door. Outside, his love stood holding out a plate of freshly caught fish, a coy smile on her face.

Carvalho still wears sandblasted jeans and flip-flops bearing the Adidas logo, but he now sees himself as embedded in the village's matriarchal fiber.

"I learned the hard way that here, a man never approaches a woman," he says.

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SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN

by Malik Isasis
















What does it mean when white folks say that black folks are articulate? It means that those white folks’ expectations of black folks are not high.

Delaware Senator and presidential candidate Joseph Biden stuck his foot in his mouth on January 31, 2007 when he said of Barack Obama:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Senator Biden's comment was offensive and just inaccurate. The late African-American congress woman, Shirley Chisom was clean and articulate; Activist Reverend Jessie Jackson was clean and articulate; Activist Reverend Al Sharpton was clean and articulate, Activist Alan Keyes was clean and articulate, former congress woman Carol Moseley-Braun was clean and articulate--by the way, I’ve never seen the word ‘articualte’ and 'clean' used for white politicians before.

In Senator Biden’s world, he clearly meant his statement as a compliment, which leads me to logically conclude that Senator Biden believes that black people are intellectually inferior to whites. Mr. Biden’s white supremacist upbringing allows him to justify the belief that black and brown people are lazy and dumb. Mr. Biden isn’t alone. White supremacy is the default setting in American culture. It is the founding philosophy of the United States.

What is white supremacy?

White supremacy is an 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 systems of wealth power and privilege.

The most common mistake people make when talking about racism, white supremacy is to think of it as a problem of personal prejudices and individual acts of discrimination. They do not see that it is a system of interlocking reinforcing institutions—political, economical, social, cultural, legal and military, educational--all our institutions. As a system, racism affects every aspect of life in a country.

These institutional tools are used wittingly or unwittingly to oppress both black and brown, which statistics bear out in healthcare, incarceration and infant mortality rates. The media’s disconnect and seemingly hostility toward people of color--say Mexicans or Muslims, is a result of white supremacy, which is also described as a normalization of oppression, that is to say, dominant culture’s assertion that the oppressed are in their social strata because of their natural ability. Kendall Clark articulates this well:

“If you can convince everyone, but especially members of the oppressed group itself, that the way things are is natural or inevitable or unavoidable, people will be less likely to challenge the way things are.”

Any charges of institutional racism or white supremacy are strongly denied by the media establishment.

Racism is the emotional and intellectual default position of this country. It’s the inheritance from the founding fathers and has been passed down from generation to generation like a family heirloom.

An insightful article on Borat by Adam Doster, illustrates this default position.

It’s interesting to see, usually white pundits and news analysts discussing race in the absence of people of color, rather than emphasizing the underlying causes, they, the pundits and analysts tend to focus on the symptom—simply put: they come in like hazmat teams and cordon off the racist act and individualize it to the offender, and then marginalize the systemic, institutional racism that is epidemic within American society.

White supremacy is used to justify violence and marginalization; it gives the false sense of knowing a culture and breeds contempt. Racism no matter how cute and fluffly it comes packaged, dehumanizes. When you dehumanized a people, it is quite easy to destroy them. White supremacy is at the root of American foreign and domestic policy, which explains both Baghdad and New Orleans.

Referring to a U.S. Senator who graduated from Columbia and Harvard University as 'articulate' distracts and minimizes conversation. It's condescending and not far removed from its ancestor, "You're a credit to the race."

What is the difference?

Barack Obama was right in correcting Joe Biden's misreprensentation of past African-American presidential hopefuls. They were all very clean and very articulate.

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