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Video: Alternative
Views
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Censured Casualties
features rare footage
of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during
and after the Gulf War. The footage is from former Attorney
General Ramsey
Clark in his attempt to document the injustice
of United States military actions in the region.
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Video: Alternative
Views
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Another Unknown
War
features a film on the
struggle of the indigenous people of West Papua to remain
sovereign in the face of an Indonesian invasion backed
by world capital. Footage of Noam
Chomsky on Western involvments in the region and
the relation to East Timor.
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Doug's New Books & Related
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TV/Radio
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Monday, February 28, 2005
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Sunday, February 27, 2005
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A 'clumsy, knee-jerk approach': Top former CIA agent condemns Bush's terror war
Bush's failed Terror War
The Smirking Chimp
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Saturday, February 26, 2005
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The Fight Against Secularism
The move to regress back to a time when tradition, religion, and arbitrary law ruled society is upon us. Conservative senators stand in congress and argue that God has too long been denied prominance in U.S. History and society. The regression from any gains made through Enlightenment ideas continues as irrationality advances and reason retreats.
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Helen Thomas: '$9 billion goes missing in Iraq'
BILLIONS missing in Iraq, scams were part of the name of the game
The Smirking Chimp: "Helen Thomas: '$9 billion goes missing in Iraq'"
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Friday, February 25, 2005
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Christian right mum on Gannon Affair
the Christian right hypocrites are silent on Gannon Affair that just gets curiouser and curiouser....
Welcome to WorkingForChange
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Thursday, February 24, 2005
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The New York Times > > Empty Town: The Germans Bush Wasn't Able to See
the Germans really hate Bush; this is mild understatement: "But what of the eerie absence of the population of Mainz, and the cancellation of the town meeting? Mr. Voigt said that, aside from restrictions imposed for security reasons, the invisibility of ordinary Germans illustrated the skepticism felt by a majority of Germans toward Mr. Bush.
"It's simply a fact that the German government is moving in this direction," Mr. Voigt said, meaning toward warmer ties with the United States, "but that the German population is skeptical."
The New York Times > International > Europe > Empty Town: The Germans Bush Wasn't Able to See
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US economic crash?
Two nights ago I heard CBS News report that South Korea was no longer buying US bonds which finance the US debt; after tremendous pressure and who knows what threats, they backed down yesterday. IF, however, China, Japan, and South Korea stop buying US bonds to finance the Bush deficit, the US economy is toast. Here's an article from Australia sent by Greg Martin that indicates the Aussies are worried about a US Crash:
http://theaustralian.com.au report.
US deficits risk crash: TreasuryDavid Uren and Roy Eccleston25 February 2005
PETER Costello's closest adviser fears the US is heading for a devastating financial crash that could ravage Australia's economic growth.
As the Reserve Bank considers raising interest rates at its board meeting next Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry likened the flood of money pouring into the US to support its budget and current account deficits to the stockmarket's dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.
Were it suddenly to stop, there would be shockwaves felt throughout the world's economies.
The financial crash feared by Dr Henry would involve a sharp fall in the US dollar and a bond market sell-off, which would push up US and world interest rates.
This would hit US economic growth and, as a result, cut Chinese exports of manufactured products to the American market. In turn, this would threaten the boom in Australian mineral exports to China.
Fears that the world economy is in grave danger are growing in the major financial capitals.
The International Monetary Fund, which is responsible for stability of the world economy, also warned yesterday of a sudden collapse.
IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato said urgent combined international action was required to head off the dangers.
The main cause of concern is the fact the US is running a trade deficit of about $US600billion ($760billion) and a budget deficit of about $US430billion for 2005.
US imports are almost 50per cent greater than the country's exports, with the deficit being financed by international central banks and funds managers.
Despite signs that the deficit is getting bigger, money is pouring into the US from Asia and Europe at such a rate that the US has been able to keep its long-term interest rates steady at 4.2 per cent since the middle of last year.
Dr Henry said the flood of money was "worryingly reminiscent of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's warning in 1996 of irrational exuberance in US stocks".
He said that, as with the dotcom bubble in the 1990s, one could not tell how long it would keep going, but it would burst eventually.
Dr Henry's comments, made to a meeting of Asian treasurers in Sydney yesterday, reveal that Treasury is much more worried about the health of the world economy than is the Reserve Bank.
Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane said last week that he did not think the US current account deficit was a serious threat.
"I suspect the rest of the world will continue to finance the US current account deficit," he said. But if it did not, all that would happen would be a fall in the US dollar, which would not have serious consequences.
The Reserve Bank expects world economic growth to slow only slightly from last year, when it recorded the fastest growth in almost 30 years.
The different views about the economic risks may be aired at the Reserve Bank meeting on Tuesday. Dr Henry sits on the Reserve Bank board.
The bank does think there are risks of financial collapse in the US, but believes it would be caused by the complexity of new financial products.
The IMF also thinks economic growth will remain firm over the year ahead, but Mr de Rato says there are "serious threats and challenges ahead".
Mr de Rato warned that it was highly unlikely that the US would continue to have access to "easy credit", based on its present economic policies.
Mr de Rato said the fall in the value of the dollar should act as a "timely wake-up" to policy makers around the world to tackle the imbalances in the world economy.
Mr de Rato said these included not only the US's deficits, but also resistance to economic reforms in Europe and Japan, as well as China's fixed exchange rate.
Dr Henry said the problems went beyond the American deficits, which he said were mirrored by excessive surpluses in Asia.
He said Asian countries were not allowing their domestic economies to grow fast enough, and were relying too much on exports. This put them at risk in any world economic downturn.
The boom in investment in American financial markets could be brought to a halt by a number of developments, Dr Henry said.
A slowdown in American growth could lead international private investors to pull out of the country.
Foreign central banks, which have been buying long-term American government bonds, are already facing big losses as a result of the fall in the value of the greenback.
"What if they change their mind?" Dr Henry asked.
He said it was imperative that the Americans take action to reduce their budget deficit, while they should allow the value of the US dollar to fall further.
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
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BuzzFlash > Interview > Mark Crispin Miller
here's a good analysis of Gannongate by Mark Crispin Miller. The buzz in the West Hollywood gay community is that Gannon was a superstud hooker who serviced the closeted gays in the Bush administration, self-loathing gays in the tradition of Roy Cohen and J. Edgar Hoover
BuzzFlash > Interview > Mark Crispin Miller
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Salon.com News | Gannongate: It's worse than you think
More on Gannongate: West Hollywood gays and talk radio are buzzing that Gannon was part of a homosexual cabal in the Bush administration of closeted gays of the self-loathing Roy Cohen/J. Edgar Hoover sort and that Gannon was their superstud, though so far this story has not penetrated the mainstream; meanwhile, here's a good update by Eric Boehlert:
"When the press first raised questions about why Jim Guckert had been awarded access to the White House press room for two years running while he worked for Talon News, critics charged that Talon, with its amateurish standards and close working ties to Republican activists, did not qualify as a legitimate news organization. It turns out the truth is even stranger: Guckert was waved into the White House while working for an even more blatantly partisan organization, GOPUSA.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan originally told reporters that Guckert was properly allowed into press briefings because he worked for an outlet that "published regularly." But that's when the questions were about Talon. More recently McClellan offered up a new rationale. Asked by Editor and Publisher magazine how the decision was made to allow a GOPUSA correspondent in, McClellan said, "The staff assistant went to verify that the news organization existed." (Emphasis added.)
That, apparently, was the lone criterion the press office used when Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon) approached it in February 2003 seeking a pass for White House briefings. Not yet working for Republican-friendly Talon News, which came into existence in April 2003, Guckert, using an alias and with no journalism experience whatsoever, was writing on a voluntary basis for a Web site dedicated to promoting Republican issues. To determine whether Guckert would gain entrance to the press room, normally reserved for professional journalists working for legitimate, recognized and independent news organizations, the press office simply logged on to the Internet and confirmed that GOPUSA "existed," and then quickly approved Guckert's access. In a White House obsessed, at least publicly, with security and where journalists cannot even move between the White House and the nearby Old Executive Building without a personal escort, Guckert's lenient treatment was likely unprecedented.
Yet, if there's one other person who did manage to receive the same type of kid-glove treatment from the White House press office, it was Guckert's boss at GOPUSA and later at Talon News, Bobby Eberle. A Texas-based Republican activist and a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2000, Eberle founded Talon News after he became concerned that the name GOPUSA might appear to have a "built-in bias." With no journalism background, he too was able to secure a White House press pass, in early 2003, on the strength of representing GOPUSA, dedicated to "spreading the conservative message throughout America."
This is not how the White House press office has traditionally worked. "When I was there we didn't let political operatives in. It was completely contrary to what the press room should be used for," says Joe Lockhart, who served as White House press secretary to President Clinton during his second term. Asked what would have happened if a reporter from a clearly partisan operation, say "Democrats Today," had requested a White House press pass, Lockhart said that if the chief of the Democratic National Committee were attending an event at the White House, then perhaps the Democrats Today reporter might be allowed in for that one day. "But to be admitted as a reporter and sit in a chair and act like a reporter" for months on end the way Guckert did? "No," said Lockhart, "that's not within the realm of what [is] proper."
Guckert and Eberle remain at the center of the scandal. When liberal bloggers revealed that Guckert, who posed reliably friendly questions to administration officials, had recently offered his services online as a gay male escort, the questions for the White House only became more uncomfortable.
Guckert first came to national attention when he asked President Bush a question at his Jan. 26 press conference. Guckert's query, in which he ridiculed Democratic leaders for having "divorced themselves from reality," was what initially raised the ire of liberals. It was not how an openly Republican partisan got inside the White House press room, because partisans have been there for years. Lockhart recalls having been confronted with a similar question of White House access regarding veteran Baltimore, Md., radio host Lester Kinsolving, who for decades has pitched eccentric, long-winded and usually conservative-leaning questions inside the briefing room. (Kinsolving is currently recuperating from triple-bypass surgery.) Lockhart thought it was inequitable that Kinsolving was virtually the only local radio show host with daily access. "The issue got kicked up to my level. I thought it was fundamentally unfair, and it was clear that he was an annoyance to everyone in the room. And frankly we should have shut him down. But I knew if we kicked him out it would be a big story with the right-wing press, and I didn't need that."
Unlike Guckert, though, Kinsolving has an authentic background in journalism, having worked for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Indianapolis Star. Talon's defenders suggest that it too is a legitimate news outlet. But providing some insight into how it operates, Eberle told the New York Times last week that he rarely monitored Guckert's White House work. "Jeff did his thing. I did my thing," Eberle said. In other words, it appears that Guckert, who often cut and pasted White House press releases and posted them on Talon as "news," did not even have an editor. As Media Matters for America noted, Talon "apparently consists of little more than Eberle, Gannon, and a few volunteers."
Just how blatantly the White House press office looked the other way in regard to Guckert and his dubious status as a legitimate reporter comes into stark relief when examining his attempt to secure a similar press pass to cover Capitol Hill. Guckert submitted his application in December 2003 to the Standing Committee of Correspondents, a press group in charge of handing out credentials. In April 2004, the committee denied Guckert's request. Writing to Guckert, committee chairman Jim Drinkard outlined three clear deficiencies in Guckert's application:
1) "Committee guidelines require that on-line publications 'must charge a market rate fee for subscription or access, or carry paid advertising at current market rates.' You have not demonstrated to the committee's satisfaction that Talon News has any paid subscribers, that paid client newspapers publish Talon News stories, or that it is supported by advertising."
2) "The application for accreditation to the press galleries states that 'members of the press shall not engage in lobbying or paid advertising, publicity, promotion, work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the Federal Government.' Talon News has not demonstrated to the satisfaction of the committee that there is a separation from GOPUSA."
3) "Gallery rules and the application state that the principal income of correspondents must be obtained from news correspondence intended for publication in newspapers or news services. The committee feels that paying a single reporter a 'stipend' does not meet the intent of the rule."
The White House, in contrast, said that as long as Talon News or GOPUSA "existed," Guckert was free to attend its press briefings. Yet, in the past, a reporter seeking a permanent White House press pass has had to first secure credentials to cover Capitol Hill. Without those, the White House would not submit the application for a background check. But even though Guckert failed to secure Capitol Hill credentials, the White House waved him into press briefings for nearly two years using what's called a day pass. Those passes are designed for temporary use by out-of-town reporters who need access to the White House, not for indefinite use by reporters who flunk the Capitol Hill test.
To obtain a day pass during the Clinton administration, a reporter "had to make the case as to why that day was unique and why [he] had to cover the White House from inside the gates instead of outside," Lockhart says.
So the mystery remains: How did Guckert, with absolutely no journalism background and working for a phony news organization, manage to adopt the day-pass system as his own while sidestepping a thorough background check that might have detected his sordid past? That's the central question the White House refuses to address. And like its initial explanation that Guckert received his press pass the same way other journalists do, the notion first put out by White House officials that they knew little or nothing about GOPUSA/Talon News, its correspondent Guckert or its founder Eberle has also melted away. Instead, we now know, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer personally spoke with Eberle about GOPUSA, so concerned was Fleischer that it was not an independent organization. (Eberle convinced Fleischer that it was.) Additionally, Guckert attended the invitation-only White House press Christmas parties in 2003 and 2004, and last holiday season, in a personal posting on GOPUSA, Eberle thanked Karl Rove for his "assistance, guidance, and friendship."
Salon.com News | Gannongate: It's worse than you think
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005
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Monday, February 21, 2005
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Robert Parry: 'Bush's 'Elmer Gantry' politics'
Doug Wead's Bush Tapes reveal that Bush long understood the need to use Christian code words; was utterly ruthless and relentless in his pursuit of the presidency; and is nasty and vicious. Bob Parry notes how Bush True Believers are like Hitler's Brownshirts: "After winning the White House in 2000, Bush consolidated his hold over the Christian fundamentalists by presenting himself as one of the most overtly religious presidents in modern times. Though Bush rarely went to church, he peppered his speeches with phrases that had special meaning for Evangelicals.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush said "the Almighty" inspired his decisions and referred to the war against Islamic terrorism as a "crusade" and a "calling" that pitted good against evil. Many conservative Christians came to see Bush as the de facto leader of their movement, replacing Evangelical leaders, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
The notion of Bush as God's messenger came to pervade the thinking of many Christian fundamentalists. Some viewed Bush's unusual rise to the presidency - despite getting fewer votes than Gore in Florida and across the United States - as divine intervention. [For more on the results of Election 2000, see Consortiumnews.com's "So Bush Did Steal the White House."]
Even mainstream media and political figures began bowing to this quasi-religious idea that God wanted George W. Bush to be president.
On Dec. 23, 2001, for instance, NBC's Tim Russert joined New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and First Lady Laura Bush in ruminating about whether divine intervention put Bush in the White House to handle the Sept. 11 crisis.
Russert asked Mrs. Bush if "in an extraordinary way, this is why he was elected." Mrs. Bush objected to Russert's suggestion that "God picks the president, which he doesn't."
Giuliani thought otherwise. "I do think, Mrs. Bush, that there was some divine guidance in the president being elected. I do," the mayor said. McCarrick also saw some larger purpose, saying: "I think I don't thoroughly agree with the First Lady. I think that the president really, he was where he was when we needed him."
While Mrs. Bush and other more moderate Christians found the notion of God picking presidents somewhere between silly and offensive, Bush's White House image-makers have done nothing to discourage this growing belief among right-wing Christians. For some, Bush's invasion of Iraq even became an omen of the coming Rapture, in which Christians go to Heaven and a vengeful Jesus returns to rule the non-believers on Earth.
Craig Paul Roberts, a former Reagan administration official and an associate editor on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, began to encounter these strange beliefs when he criticized the Iraq War.
"America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic," Roberts wrote in an essay about the fury he finds among Bush's true believers. "Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals 'end times' and that they are about to be wafted up to Heaven."
Roberts wrote that his Iraq War criticism made him an object of "much hate" often expressed in "violently worded, ignorant and irrational e-mails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush."
Roberts even compared these pro-Bush extremists to the Brownshirts, the thugs who helped Adolf Hitler bully his way to power in Germany and who "were ignorant, violent, delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction."
"Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field," Roberts wrote. "Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy."
Roberts added, "Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush."
Though comparisons to Hitler's Brownshirts may strike some readers as excessive, there can be little doubt that George W. Bush used Doug Wead's advice in ways that George H.W. Bush resisted.
What is less clear is exactly where George W. Bush's political expediency ends and his real political-religious views begin. In other words, is Bush someone who is simply making political hay out of his genuine religious feelings - or is he a political Elmer Gantry who cynically exploits religious "code words" to rally support and to shield himself from criticism?
Beyond the issue of Bush's sincerity, there may be even a bigger question: whether Bush's success in wrapping himself in a cloak of Christian mythology signals the "end times" for the United States as a democratic Republic based on rational discourse."
The Smirking Chimp: "Robert Parry: 'Bush's 'Elmer Gantry' politics'"
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Iran readies military, fearing a U.S. attack
Bush neocons plan to invade Iran could unleash hell. Excerpt:
"Despite the state of its equipment, Iran could create myriad troubles for the United States and the world.
Its security forces include a number of intelligence agencies with extensive overseas experience and assets, experts say. Iran's highly classified Quds forces, which answer directly to Iran's spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are believed to have operations in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Turkey, the Persian Gulf region, Central Asia, North Africa, Europe and North America, according to a December 2004 report prepared by CSIS.
Within minutes of any attack, Iran's air and sea forces could threaten oil shipments in the Persian Gulf as well as the Gulf of Oman. Iran controls the northern coast of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which oil tankers must navigate, and could sink ships, mine sea routes or bomb oil platforms, according to the CSIS report.
Iran could activate Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, whom it supports, to launch attacks on Israel. It could have operatives attack U.S. interests in Azerbaijan, Central Asia or Turkey.
"Iran can escalate the war," said Hadian. "It's not going to be all that hard to target U.S. forces in these countries."
But most analysts agree that Iran's biggest trump card would be to unleash havoc in neighboring Iraq, where Shiites who spent years in Iran as exiles are assuming control of the government.
Although the Bush administration charges that Tehran already has been interfering in Iraq, many Iranians brush off the low-level infiltration as minor compared to the damage it could cause by allowing Iraqi militiamen to take heavy weapons into Iran, by backing the most extreme Islamist groups instead of the moderates it now supports, or by dispatching operatives across the long, porous border between the two countries.
Any Iranian retaliation "would surely start with attempts to mobilize Shia partisans in Iraq to try to turn the Iraqi south into an extension of the insurgency in the Sunni triangle," Gary Sick, professor of Middle East studies at Columbia University and former National Security Council adviser to then President Jimmy Carter, told a congressional panel last week.
Iraqi officials, wary of their country becoming a battleground for the conflicting ambitions of Tehran and Washington, concede the damage Iran could do in their country, which now hosts 150,000 U.S. troops.
"If Iran wanted, it could make Iraq a hell for the United States," Hamid al-Bayati, Iraq's deputy foreign minister, said recently"
The Smirking Chimp
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Sunday, February 20, 2005
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Pot and God
Tapes of a conversation with G.W. Bush reveal his smokey past and evangelical political aims
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War and Peace
As Bush heads to Europe in hopes of reconciliation, war wages on in Iraq.
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
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Imposing Democracy
More pain and death for the people of Iraq as Bush's imposed democracy stays its course
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Friday, February 18, 2005
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New Intellegence Czar
Bush's new intellegence czar John Negroponte, current ambassador to Iraq, has a less than admirable record.
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Assualt on Free Speech
The Right Wing attack on Ward Churchill displays the increasingly shrinking room for dissent in this countries institutions of thought.
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
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Mapping Empire
Here is a good article describing the inadequacy of mainstream media in providing the full picture of the Bush regime's move for global dominance.
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Bringing the World Together
Bush's militarism is bringing the middle east together. Syria and Iran are now making an alliance to stand up against the world's mono-power. Divide at home and unite the world against the U.S. This is the Bush regime's global strategy of anti-cosmopolitanism.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
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Celebrating the Triumph Democracy
Something not talked about as the celebration of democracy rages within the Bush regime.
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Our Way or the Highway
The rest of the world moves on with more rational ideas as the U.S. and Bush remain in the stone age. The failure of the U.S. to commit to a far from demanding environmental treaty only reflects the arrogance of an irresponsible, rougue state.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
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Theocracy, Bush, and the Environment
The logic of destruction does not end with imperial endeavors in the middle east and elsewhere, but radiates disaster to all forms of life. See Bill Moyers excellent commentary on the ideology of rapture that underlies the brazen and ill-thought religious perspective that informs the Right on environmental policy. The advance of irrationality continues with the Bush administration at the helm; this is just another disturbing example of democracy in crisis...
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Theocracy, Bush, and the Environment
The logic of destruction does not end with imperial endeavors in the middle east and elsewhere, but radiates disaster to all forms of life. See Bill Moyers excellent commentary on the ideology of rapture that underlies the brazen and ill-thought religious perspective that informs the Right on environmental policy. The advance of irrationality continues with the Bush administration at the helm; this is just another disturbing example of democracy in crisis...
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Monday, February 14, 2005
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The New York Times > Books > A Princeton Philosopher's Unprintable Essay Title
Is Bush a bullshitter or liar? A NYT art | |
