Greetings, once again, to all subscribers!
… So I was reading through an article in Time magazine and I came across some interesting passages that I thought I might share with all of you.
The article primarily concerns President (the title that the media insists upon attaching to his name) George Bush’s preparations for a massive military attack upon the nation of Iraq. Missing from those preparations, it is duly noted, is a persuasive case put before the American people:
“Bush has stumbled in explaining his strategy to his countrymen … Bush has been halting, ineffective and less than candid. He has particularly left doubts about why the wealthiest allies are contributing so little to this crusade, about his sudden rush to use force … and about what sort of peaceful settlement, if any, the U.S. would accept with Iraq. At times, Bush has likened Saddam Hussein to Hitler and claimed Iraq is on the brink of obtaining nuclear weapons.”
According to Time, Bush’s lack of candor is due at least in part to the fact that he is “obsessed with secrecy as always.” Nevertheless, the author of the article boldly claims that Bush’s performance as a war-time president goes “beyond competence to sheer mastery.” Key members of his administration, notably Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, are referred to with reverence.
One Bush confidant, Brent Scowcroft, is said to be unconvinced of the wisdom of waging war on Iraq: “Scowcroft warned [that] a war fought … to cripple Iraq could splinter the coalition that Bush had so masterfully assembled. It could trigger violent resentment by the Arab masses against the U.S. and the Arab regimes allied with it. And it could create a power vacuum that Syria and Iran might rush to fill.”
Pretty standard stuff, right? “Nothing too revelatory there,” you’re thinking. “All of that is pretty much old news, Dave.”
And you’re quite right. It is old news. Nearly thirteen years old, to be precise. The issue of Time magazine that contained that article, you see, is from January of 1990. And the missive was honoring President George H.W. Bush as Time’s Man of the Year.
(http://www.time.com/time/special/moy/1990.html)
In other words, dear readers, we already fell for this entire line of bullshit once before. And now we’re being asked to do it again. And the really sad part is that the guy that was chosen to play the lead in this poorly-scripted sequel is a piss-poor imitation of the original — who himself was, it will be recalled, a pretty wretched excuse for a world leader.
The Time article notes that the first George Bush, who had earlier in his career revealed himself to be a reactionary right-winger – praising Barry Goldwater, for example, and denouncing both the Civil Rights Act and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1964 – later claimed that he wanted “conservatism to be sensitive and dynamic.”
“Sensitive and dynamic”? Say … I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we call it ‘Compassionate Conservatism’? And I’ve got another idea! Why don’t we all sing a few bars of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”?
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
they decide and the shotgun sings the song …
Which reminds me … does anyone remember when ‘popular’ music at least maintained the illusion of being a voice of conscience in these United States? When a self-important blowhard who long ago became a parody of himself wasn’t playing grab-ass with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill on an extended photo-op across Africa? When rock stars weren’t tripping over themselves to line up behind the ‘War on Terrorism,’ signing up to play countless ‘tribute’ concerts and penning morally bankrupt remembrances of September 11? When the phenomenally untalented Gene Simmons of KISS fame wasn’t spouting off about summarily executing ‘terrorist’ suspects?
Whoops … sorry … I seem to have gone off on a wild tangent there. I’ll try not to do that again — at least not until I get a couple more pages into this newsletter.
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
‘Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war …
So let’s get back to the Time Man of the Year story, in which it was claimed that: “By moving decisively to blunt Iraq’s aggression, Bush begins to shape a brave new world order.”
They said it, not me. Actually, Aldous Huxley penned the ‘brave new world’ part, and Adolf Hitler had a certain fondness for talking about a ‘new order.’ Time just sort of merged them together. All I did was add the italics.
I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie …
Brent Scowcroft, according to Time, saw in the “gulf crisis” a crucial question being posed: “Can the U.S. use force–even go to war–for carefully defined national interests, or do we have to have a moral crusade or a galvanizing event like Pearl Harbor?”
Of course, Scowcroft doesn’t need to pose that question today. Those wiser than us have apparently already answered it. In case you missed it, that answer was delivered to the American people last September 11. Or at least the first part of the answer.
You see, the problem with leading a nation that is conditioned to have no historical memory is that you have to keep reminding people of why it is imperative that Americans sacrifice any and all democratic rights whilst we launch a series of unprovoked wars to safeguard democracy.
(http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20020902/1037860.asp)
We, the American people, can’t really be expected to remember September 11 for any length of time any more than we can be expected to remember the last time someone named George Bush led us into a vaguely defined attack upon Iraq. That is one of the reasons why there is little doubt that there will be yet more “galvanizing events.”
In the first assault upon Iraq, according to Time, the old George Bush “called on Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to pump more oil to make up for the 4 million bbl. daily shortfall …” The new George Bush has already called upon Saudi Arabia to do likewise this time around. Venezuela, however, might not be so accommodating.
That reminds me … wasn’t there a coup or something there recently? Something that had U.S. fingerprints all over it, if I remember correctly. You don’t suppose that that could have had anything to do with securing oil access as part of a comprehensive plan to prepare for a long-planned attack upon Iraq, do you? Nah … of course not.
Here’s something about the build-up to Bomb Saddam, Version 1.0 that most of you probably don’t remember:
“Bush and his top advisers decided to make clear to Saddam that he could withdraw from Kuwait and still save both his skin and his face. He could tell his people that the invasion had got the attention of Kuwait and forced it to negotiate Iraq’s demands for access to ports and control of the Rumaila oil field, which runs under both Iraq and Kuwait. Once a decent interval had passed after Iraq’s withdrawal, the U.S. would not object if Kuwait made concessions to Iraq. Also, the U.S. would press for progress on the Palestinian issue, and Saddam could claim whatever credit he liked.”
I, for one, had forgotten that Poppy Bush was such an accommodating guy. Most of us don’t remember the Bush administration bending over backwards to find a diplomatic solution during the massive troop build-up for a very simple reason: it never happened. Despite Time’s claims, Bush I never gave a passing thought to anything other than a massive military assault, and in fact sabotaged any and all efforts to reach a diplomatic solution.
(http://globalresearch.ca/articles/BOY209A.html)
That was, after all, the gameplan: dangle the bait, and then seize upon the taking of that bait as the pretext for an already planned and rehearsed military attack. As Time acknowledged: “Only eight days before Saddam’s army rumbled into Kuwait, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie had told him, on instructions from the State Department, that Iraq’s ‘border differences’ with the tiny sheikdom were of no concern to the U.S.”
Well … I’m several pages into this missive with no discussion yet of what the ‘War on Terrorism’ is really about, so I suppose you have figured out by now that I have once again put off the writing of the third part of the epic trilogy. I’ve decided to use the excuse that I am saving it for next week, in commemoration of the one year anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
And yes, I am aware that the weeks separating these newsletters have been getting pretty long. Where I grew up though, a “week” was a period of time ranging from three to sixteen days. You people who have totally bought into society’s rigid definition of time intervals really bug me. You need to lighten up.
What I really wanted to talk about this week is fear. The question is: what is the one thing that individual Americans fear the most?
If you are like most people, and you happen to be a parent, the answer is that your greatest fear is that some terrible evil will befall one of your children.
The instinct to protect one’s offspring is a strong one indeed. It can be seen on display throughout much of the animal kingdom. Every parent knows that sick feeling in the pit of the stomach that comes whenever one suspects, even momentarily, that something may have happened to one of your kids.
It is a primal, and nearly universal, fear. And it is one that America’s ‘free press’ has been playing upon for some time now. In the post-9/11 world presented to us by the media, there are dangers lurking everywhere for our kids.
They certainly are not safe with the church, where there are pedophiles around every corner just waiting to ravage the bodies and the minds of our children.
They aren’t safe in daycare either. CBS News carried a special report a few weeks ago which claimed that some 7,000 convicted felons are employed at daycare facilities across the state of California — all of them, presumably, just waiting to prey upon our children.
Our kids are not even safe in our own homes and yards. Witness the Smart, van Dam, Runnion, and countless other abduction cases which have been given saturation media coverage in recent months. The message? Your kids can be snatched out of their own beds, from right under your nose, at any time.
Now I’m not saying that all of this isn’t true. The Catholic Church, to be sure, is littered with pedophiles. But the truth is that that has been the case for decades, likely for centuries. The media though never much gave a damn until recently.
Not long ago, I received an interesting e-mail from a reader on that very subject. The reader – who wishes to remain anonymous, and so will be randomly assigned the pseudonym “John Paul” – thinks that he sees a connection between the recent focus on pedophilia in the Catholic Church and the Bush administration’s push for school ‘vouchers.’
According to John Paul, “The Catholic church is in a prime position to completely dominate the American educational system at the grade- and high school level, and so there appears to be an effort on the part of various vested interests with ties to at least the current administration to ‘unlevel’ the playing field so to speak by making all Catholic priests and other related clergy out to be a bunch of child molesters and freaks.
“Which to be fair isn’t really that much of a stretch, but again the timing of the announcements of grievous indiscretions by men of the cloth is too convenient to be anything but propaganda aimed at putting the Church behind the eight-ball when the auction of our children’s minds gets underway sometime in the next 6 months to 2 years or whatever the timeline is to get the vouchers in the hands of parents and to sound the death knell on anything even resembling fair access to education in this country.”
John Paul’s comments on the church scandals can be read in their entirety at: https://centerforaninformedamerica.com/newsletter-15a/. I’m not sure that I agree entirely with his analysis, but I pass it along nonetheless for readers to evaluate for themselves.
Personally, I see the sudden focus on pedophilia in the Catholic Church as part of a larger effort to terrorize the American people by exploiting the primal fear of some sort of harm befalling our offspring (though there could well be parallel goals being pursued, including the one set forth by John Paul).
A key component of this particular ‘politics of fear’ script has been an inexplicable and quite intense focus by the media on child abduction cases. In several states across the country, so-called ‘Amber Alerts’ have, virtually overnight, become something of a daily occurrence.
Kids are being snatched at an unprecedented rate, or so one would be lead to believe based on the prevalence of press reports of child abductions. In truth though, ‘experts’ claim that child abduction rates have not increased. What has increased is the attention paid to such cases by the media.
The problem is that it is impossible to verify whether child abduction rates have indeed increased, since nobody has ever bothered to keep track of such statistics. As the L.A. Times acknowledged on July 18, 2002, child abduction is a crime that “historically has not been included in the federal government’s Uniform Crime Report. Local agencies have only sporadically kept data.”
The government can, of course, tell you how many cars have been stolen in any given year. They can tell you how many rapes and murders have been reported. But they can’t tell you how many children were abducted. They can’t tell you because they don’t care enough to keep track, and they never have.
The harsh truth is that the U.S. government, and its media propagandists, don’t give a shit about the nation’s, or the world’s, children — as Newsletter #13 graphically illustrated.
No other nation on this planet murders its children as frequently, nor as cavalierly, as does America. The U.S. stands virtually alone in the world in its medieval practice of executing Americans for crimes committed as minors. Every country on earth has ratified the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child except the U.S. and the unrecognized government of Somalia.
No country on earth has used its media so effectively to demonize its youth as has the U.S., thereby steamrollering public support for an erosion of the criminal ‘justice’ system that has seen the boundaries between adult and juvenile criminal justice – once considered a defining feature of a ‘civilized’ society – all but disappear.
In other words, America has shown, in a variety of ways, its complete lack of regard for the welfare of the most innocent and vulnerable members of society. The question then is: why this sudden interest in the plight of abducted children? Why the Amber Alerts? Why the blanket media coverage? Why the high-profile trial of alleged child abductor/killer David Westerfield?
The answer is that publicizing such cases scares the hell out of people, and this administration firmly believes in – more so than past administrations, or more overtly so – the politics of fear. Essentially, the Bush regime functions as a protection racket, frightening the flock and then offering them protection — at a steep price.
The specific goal of the current campaign to exploit the fear of child abductions is not yet clear, though at least one possible outcome of the media feeding frenzy seems possible: the introduction of mandatory DNA registration of every child and newborn in the country. We’ll all feel safer then.
While we’re on the subject of child abductions, it should be noted that the initial cases that got the media off-and-running on this campaign of fear, and which have remained in the spotlight, have had rather unusual resolutions.
Just days ago, the man promoted by the media as the prime suspect in the Smart case managed to die while in custody. All indications are that the case will now, for all intents and purposes, be considered ‘closed.’ The problem though is that the ‘suspect’ was never charged in connection with the crime, and no evidence has ever been presented linking him to the unsolved disappearance (though one shouldn’t be surprised if some evidence were to suddenly appear now that the ‘suspect’ is dead).
In the Danielle van Dam case, Westerfield has been convicted of killing the girl and dumping her body in a remote location. The problem is that there were glaring inconsistencies in the state’s case that were overlooked by the jury, perhaps in their zeal to see to it that somebody paid for what was a rather heinous crime.
Testimony was offered, for instance, that Danielle’s body was dumped after Westerfield had been placed under around-the-clock surveillance, indicating that if he did indeed commit this crime, he didn’t do it alone. More troubling was the forensics evidence presented that indicated that the dead girl’s fingerprints were found at Westerfield’s residence.
The problem with that is that the same forensics experts also testified that Westerfield had so thoroughly cleaned the place that not a single fingerprint of the suspect could be found anywhere in the residence.
Imagine, if you will, cleaning your home so thoroughly that not a single fingerprint of yours, of any age, could be found anywhere. Not one. Now imagine that in doing so, you somehow managed to miss a few fingerprints that someone else had left in a single visit to the home. Nothing unusual about that scenario.
But enough about that. I do have, as usual, an assortment of links to articles of note that have been brought to my attention since the last newsletter went out.
Let’s begin with this posting from TomPaine.com that reveals a rather sinister connection between a band of tortuous pedophiles masquerading as men of God, and everybody’s favorite accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.
(http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5968)
Next, let’s have a look at this September 1 editorial by the oft-quoted Zbigniew Brzezinski, in which Brzezinski claims, or perhaps I should say, admits, that: “Analogies are not the same as identity, but with that in mind one might consider the parallels between what the United States faces today in regard to Middle Eastern terrorism and the crises that America confronted domestically in the 1960’s and 70’s.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/01/opinion/01BRZE.html?ex=1031990050&ei=1&en=183f2e26cf33afc7)
Indeed. The ‘crisis’ that America confronted, or rather that the ruling elite confronted, was the rise of dissent from across a wide swath of the country. What Brzezinski seems to be acknowledging here is that the ‘enemy,’ now as in the ’60s, is not foreign terrorists, but domestic dissidents.
Brzezinski lists what he claims are some of the groups that posed a violent threat to these United States in the ’60s and ’70s. Included are: the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army. An interesting grouping, to say the least: an overtly racist and violent terrorist organization with roots in U.S. intelligence agencies extending all the way back to the group’s inception in the 1860s; a group that began as a non-violent, community-based program to better the living conditions in black neighborhoods, and only became militant as a necessary reaction to Cointelpro-type operations aimed at destroying the organization through actions that included the assassinations of leaders such as Fred Hampton; and an entirely fictitious terrorist entity that resulted directly from an operation run out of Vacaville Medical Facility by CIA veteran and former Phoenix Program operative Colton Westbrook.
Speaking of the Phoenix Program, here is Douglas Valentine weighing in on the appointment of Phoenix alumnus Bruce Lawlor to a senior position within the Office of Homeland Security. (http://www.rense.com/general28/dsdu.htm) And speaking of Cointelpro, here Kurt Nimmo reminds us what that was all about, and sheds some light on what is in store for us with “Son of Cointelpro.”
(http://www.counterpunch.com/nimmo0819.html)
Well … I never did get a chance to see those infamous ‘gassed dog’ videos shown on CNN. Reader “Ed” did though, and he sent along a short list of questions that were raised by his viewing of the video:
1. How many dogs are tortured and killed by US military vivisectionists in an average year?
(Visit http://www.peta.org/mc/facts/fsae9.html)
2. How come more attention is being given to three dogs than to any of the US bombings of Afghan civilians?
3. How come Nic Robertson, the CNN reporter, was able to drive hundreds of miles across hostile terrain to pick up his videos but cannot get out to report events such as those described by Robert Fisk?
(http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=324155)
All good questions. And then there is the question of whether or not the videos are even legitimate. Fintan Dunne, writing for the Center for Research on Globalisation, doesn’t think so.
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/DUN208A.html)
Here’s an interesting bit of news: it seems that our old friends Dick Cheney and Donald “Rummy” Rumsfeld were two key players involved in covering up the rather notorious murder of the CIA’s Frank Olson (and yes, it was a murder and not, despite what many mistakenly believe, an LSD-assisted suicide).
(http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/nation/3822588.htm
http://www.gordonthomas.ie/162.html)
While we’re on the subject of Dick Cheney, here’s a posting from the Daily Enron that claims that Big Dick was ruthless as a CEO at Halliburton. Imagine that. (http://www.thedailyenron.com/documents/20020820094250-29013.asp) And here’s another posting from the Enron that focuses on “The Global Criminal Enterprise: Bush’s Consuming Resources Policy.”
(http://www.thedailyenron.com/documents/20020826091020-50162.asp)
The latest news on Iraq is that the U.S. is considering implementing a policy of “coercive inspections.” It’s unclear though why it is necessary to go to all that trouble to inspect baby milk factories and bombed-out former nuclear facilities.
(http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20020820_86.html
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020902/wl_nm/iraq_site_dc_1
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/04/1031037092697.html)
Oh yeah, I remember now … it actually has nothing to do with searching for weapons that don’t exist; instead, it has a lot to do with establishing a paper-thin veneer of legitimacy to drape over what will be an unequivocally illegal and unprovoked act of aggression. That will be in addition to, of course, the blatantly illegal and immoral biological warfare that has been waged against the country for over a decade.
(http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0821-08.htm)
Speaking of U.S.-sponsored acts of mass murder, the ‘Western’ media finally got around to providing some coverage of the mass murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of captured Taliban fighters — though of course the coverage was intended to fully exonerate all U.S. personnel of complicity.
(http://www.msnbc.com/news/795153.asp)
As published photos reveal, there is abundant evidence of the commission of heinous war crimes lying buried in the Afghan desert. (http://www.phrusa.org/research/afghanistan/report_graves_photos.html) Nevertheless, the U.S. hasn’t made the slightest effort to investigate the crimes committed:
“Throughout its campaign to immunize U.S. military peacekeepers from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, the Bush administration has defended its commitment to identify and prosecute perpetrators of mass murder and other war criminals … And yet in Afghanistan, where the United States has had the greatest power to ensure investigation of possible mass atrocities and see that the guilty are brought to justice, until now they have done nothing.”
(http://www.iht.com/articles/68356.htm)
And U.S. officials will, not surprisingly, continue to do nothing. The L.A. Times reported on August 28 that “there is no chance soon of a thorough, impartial investigation into the alleged murder last fall of Taliban soldiers … Afghanistan must become far more orderly and stable before the alleged perpetrators can be pursued without endangering the lives of witnesses who remain in the area, said U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.”
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan28aug28.story)
In truth, there is no chance ever of a “thorough, impartial investigation” — which would without question find the finger of blame pointing squarely at U.S. officials and military personnel. That much is obvious even in the heavily whitewashed American media accounts. As the WSWS noted:
“The Newsweek report establishes prima facie evidence of war crimes. It acknowledges the presence of US military personnel on the scene at various stages of the atrocities. Finally, statements by Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials demonstrate that the killing of Taliban prisoners was a matter of US policy. Taken together, these facts are sufficient to warrant, and in fact urgently require, a full and independent war crimes investigation in which officials not only of the Northern Alliance, but also of the US military and the Bush administration are prosecuted.”
(http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/news-s04.shtml)
I wouldn’t advise holding your breath waiting for that to happen. The ‘investigation’ will be stalled indefinitely — or at least until all of the evidence has been destroyed and all of the witnesses silenced. The L.A. Times has already weighed in with what will likely become the official version of the barbarity, when on August 31 it ran a story claiming that only 200 captured Taliban died, most from injuries sustained in battle.
(http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-dostum31aug31.story)
Let’s see now, what else do I have for you? Too damn many links, as it turns out. They just keep piling up. I have to say that keeping tabs on the lies told and the crimes committed by various members of this illegitimate administration isn’t an easy job. I thought that with Bush on vacation at his fake ranch for the entire month of August, I might get a little bit of a break myself — but no such luck. I’m beginning to think that George may be a largely irrelevant member of the administration that he is supposed to be leading. Who would have guessed that?
I’m also beginning to realize that the longer I take to get one of these newsletters out, the longer the list of links grows that need to be referenced herein. It’s sort of a Catch-22: the longer I write, the more I still have left to write about. But enough with the whining. It’s a dirty job, yes, but somebody has to do it.
On the technology front, U.S. fighter jets are scheduled to be outfitted with lasers that may blind civilians. And NASA has a nifty plan to read the minds of ‘terrorists’ at airports.
(http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992585
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020817-704732.htmhttp://www.washtimes.com/national/20020817-704732.htm)
The World Socialist Web Site continues to provide some of the internet’s very best coverage of various issues of interest. And I would say that even if they hadn’t been the first website (other than my own) to post one of my political diatribes, back in March of 2000.
(http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/cali-m29.shtml)
Recent offerings on the site include an exposé of the Bush regime’s threats against dockworkers who are threatening to strike. If you read through this particular posting, you will find that it refers to a member of Bush’s Homeland Security team named John McGowan. For the record, this guy is not a relative of mine and he should be ashamed of himself for sullying such a fine name.
(http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/ilwu-a30.shtml)
Other interesting postings on the site include: this look at how Colombia is stepping up preparations for civil war (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/colo-a31.shtml); an examination of how the reactionary policies of ‘America’s Mayor,’ Rudy Giuliani, hindered rescue operations on September 11 (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/wtc-a23.shtml); a look at how new ‘security laws’ in France are threatening to convert the country into a police state (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jul2002/fran-j23.shtml); and a missive detailing the spread of West Nile Virus (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/nile-a23.shtml).
On the very same day that the West Nile story was posted, the Los Angeles Times and other mainstream media outlets also ran stories on the rapid spread of the virus. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nile23aug23.story).
Could this be the beginning of a biological warfare project?
Perhaps, but probably not, given that West Nile doesn’t seem to be the most effective toxin that could be utilized as a biowarfare agent. The spread of the disease could be though yet another effort to whip up fear among the American people, this time to justify implementation of a mandatory vaccination program, the plans for which have already been drafted.
As for France’s descent into a police state, this was, regular readers will recall, forecast in a little piece I entitled “Lee Harvey Oswald Goes to Nanterre” (http://davesweb.cnchost.com/nan1.html). Interestingly enough, the WSWS piece reveals that the “first crackdown intervention” by the GIR (Regional Intervention Groupings — described as “centers regrouping police and gendarmerie for ‘focused’ operations) occurred in Nanterre.
Another of my favorite websites, What’s Left in Suburbia, has also posted a number of noteworthy articles. Among these are: “The Under-Appreciated Merits and Necessity of the F-Word,” which references a certain newsletter editor (http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/fword.html); “What Kalesh Can Tell You About Washington’s Foreign Policy,” an uncompromising look at human rights in Saudi Arabia, and the blatant hypocrisy of America’s warm embrace of the oil kingdom (http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/kalesh.html); and “The Politics of Survival,” which discusses exactly how it is that our fearless leaders decide who the good guys and bad guys are (http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/survival.html).
In other news, a few weeks ago I received, via e-mail, a rather lengthy timeline of events surrounding the September 11 attacks. Compiled by a pseudonymous writer calling himself Paul Thompson, the timeline was entitled “The Complete 9-11 Timeline.”
Mr. Thompson put a considerable amount of time into collecting and categorizing the hundreds of entries on the list, which makes for a fantastic resource for anyone interested in doing further research into what really happened on that fateful day. I had originally agreed to post the timeline for Mr. Thompson, who doesn’t have a website of his own.
The problem was that the sheer volume of material, which includes the 100+ page timeline and more than 800 supporting text and graphics files, far exceeded the capacity of my site. I therefore had to, rather reluctantly, pass on posting the files. Luckily though, Thompson found someone with the resources to post the complete timeline and all of the original articles referenced therein. It can be found at: http://cooperativeresearch.org/completetimeline/.
Speaking of the September 11 attacks, it seems that a sizable majority of the families of the victims aren’t interested in accepting the government’s hush money. Buried deep in the bowels of a recent edition of the L.A. Times was an article that revealed that just nine families have thus far accepted checks from the so-called victim’s compensation fund, which requires that recipients “give up their right to sue the airlines and other entities.”
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-payout23aug23.story)
In contrast, “nearly 1,500 people and businesses filed notices of claim with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey by the July 10 deadline preserving their right to sue.” Apparently, the Bush mob’s cynical plan to buy off the victims’ families isn’t working out so well.
Not much further to go now … provided that I can wrap this up tonight before any new links come my way. For those who still like to think of the recently jeered Colin Powell as some sort of voice of sanity in the Bush administration, this posting reminds us that Powell has some serious skeletons in his closet.
(http://www.antiwar.com/orig/wokusch4.html)
The L.A. Times revisited the Donovan Jackson videotaped beating case, to reveal that the media has opted not to focus attention on an even more disturbing videotape: Downey police gunning down an unarmed 26-year-old man in a barrage of handgun and machinegun fire that peppered a residential neighborhood.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-downey28aug28005046.story)
I wonder why we never see that on TV.
Rounding out the links this week, we have: this look at further connections between Bush and the family of that Osama fellow (http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0208/S00148.htm); a report that the state of Florida will settle a lawsuit brought by the NAACP over the disenfranchisement of black voters, though I would say that it is more than just the NAACP that the state of Florida needs to settle up with (http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.29A.fl.face.2K.htm); Bush critic and comet discoverer Alan Hale, who I understand was not the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island, charging the local media with censorship (http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=8888); a look at a controversial police database of “future criminals” (http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.28G.de.min.rprt.htm); and a provocative piece from the Guardian that complains of the media being unquestioning mouthpieces for “anonymous ‘intelligence officials'” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,784623,00.html).
Finally nearing the end, we have this fascinating analysis of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Very few researchers have questioned the extraordinary fact that though no high-rise building in history had ever suffered from a complete collapse, three of them did it in a single morning on September 11, and one of them wasn’t even struck by an airplane. This posting boldly goes where few have dared to tread.
(http://nerdcities.com/guardian/WTC/wtc-demolition.htm)
Last but not least, this newsletter would not be complete without a look at the brutal police response to protests of a Bush visit to Portland. It wasn’t, by the way, just in Portland that Bush’s visits were greeted with protests. As this posting reveals, one of the largest demonstrations ever in Stockton, California was “invisible to Bush.” And, apparently, to much of the media.
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.26E.stockton.htm)
As for the more well-publicized Portland protests, here is a sampling of the media coverage: the L.A. Times version of events (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-protest23aug23.story); the WSWS’s take on what occurred (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/bush-a24.shtml); the APFN’s observations (http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=32278); a first-person account by a father whose children were deliberately pepper-sprayed (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/lett-a29.shtml); a videotape of the violent response by police (http://www.sf.indymedia.org/uploads/bushpdx.ram); and, finally, this piece by Truthout’s William Rivers Pitt that proclaims that “We Are Not The Enemy!” (http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.25A.wrp.portland.htm).
Guess again, Mr. Pitt. That is exactly what you are. And perhaps nowhere has that fact been better stated than in this posting by Diane Harvey, who this week walks away with the coveted “Posting of the Week” award for being even more of a smart ass than a certain writer that I know.
(http://www.rense.com/general28/turn.htm)
And that, my friends, is all for this ‘week,’ if you catch my drift …