More Regime Change

Meaning an interventionist coup de etat for oil. This time in East Timor. Austrailian intervention turns ugly as the real agenda takes hold and it's no coincidence that Australia's Prime Minister John Howard was recently here meeting with Bush to discuss East Timor . . .

Food for Thought

I have often said the greatest danger to civilization is fundimentalism. I do not refer only to the religious variety but to fundimentalism itself. Though I think there is much to be learned from ideologies and I certainly have my own beliefs and loyalties in the struggle for a better world, I know that critical analysis and praxis are as vital as principles. This article, posted on Counterpunch is food for thought on the matter. Though I give us more credit for what we know and what we have learned from the past, the author, Robert Jensen makes many good points.

Distortions & Clarifications

In response to the new documentary by Al Gore, meteorologists and corporate pundits are flooding the press and airwaves (and lining their pockets) to scream that "Global warming is a hoax" despite all evidence to the contrary. Maybe the planet itself is in on this anti-industrial conspiracy!
Don't be fooled by the fools, real scientists agree on the evidence. A sane approach for those who doubt would be to consider that even if there were a 50% chance that the oil-backed wingnuts were right, would it be worth the risk of extinction? Wouldn't it be prudent, indeed the very definition of conservative to err on the side of life?

On another note, China joins most countries in the call for Hamas to "recognize Israel's right to exist." That seems on the surface like a reasonable and plainly realistc demand but what does it really mean? Does it mean that they must deny their own right to exist and recognize a devine right of Israel to all of their posessions? Does it justify Israeli Apartheid and Palestinian Bantustaization? Does anyone demand that Israel recognize a Palestinian state? Given Israel's seizure of Palestine and its history of ethnic cleansing, do they have a right to exist and if so, does that right exist beyond the 1948 borders?

Beyond Faith-based Politics

Though it is still a couple of years from the next presidental selection, there is already much speculation concerning possible candidates. While I would like to see some fighting progressives in the race like Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Gore Vidal, or Jim Hightower, it won't happen. Even a Feingold run is unlikely. While most of us hate the Republicans and everything they stand for we should not delude ourselves about the Democrats, after all, it too is infested with neocons. After the puppet show is over, the DLC decides who the dems will run and you can bet they will not be the candidates of the anti-war, pro-impeachment left.

Unless we demand and support a progressive candidate or employ the leverage of a progressive alternative, we might as well put our trust in the influence of extraterrestials. As a reality based citizen with no reason to trust the republocrat/neocon corporate oligarchy, I have little confidence that we can see any real progress in playing their good-cop/bad cop shell game. It's time to think and act out of that small box.

This Memorial Day is a good time to look inward and ask who we have become as a nation. We cannot undo the damage. It will take creativity and militant dedication to get this nation on a different track but what choice do we have? It's time to shed any illusions about this corrupt, vile greed based system and move forward, otherwise the fossil record will be a testiment to our failure.

Sanity Break

Morning news: earthquake in Java, street fighting in East Timor, the continuing nightmare in Iraq but sometimes you need a break from it. Somtimes you need Jazz --



Of all the things our nation has contributed to the world (dictatorships, deathsquads, wars, broken economies . . .) Jazz is the thing we can be most proud of. Real jazz, (as opposed to the so-called "smooth" mucial pop) is our greatest cultural achievement and a product of our oppressed African-American community. It is unfortunately more popular in other countries than is is at home. Jazz is where it's at. It is our classical music. It is my muse. It clears the head and nourishes the soul.

Taking On Inconvenient Truths

In their discussion of Al Gore's new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the wingnuts at Fox news have cut to the chase, with the accusation that addressing global warming, even in the inadequate ways Gore suggests, would endanger the economy and be "a real recipe for more socialist regulation."

They are right and have hit on one of the ultimate truths. Only by moving from a market system of competitive greed that requires environmental destruction to feed ever increasing profits can we address the environmental realities that system has created. While socialism is no guarantee that we will do that, it is a necessary requirement. In essence, by voicing their greatest fears, thay have admitted that the system they shill for will destroy itself, civilization, and possibly our species and that socialism is the only alternative.

While the corporate media desperately compares a sensible Gore to Goebbles, they continue to push the Goebbles line of total war, total loyalty, demonization of "liberal media" and unrealistic opportunism in the face of defeat. The latest Inconvenenient Truth is that Iran is more than willing to talk to us about their nuclear program. This throws a wrench in the Cheny/Bush total war agenda. At present they continue to demonize Iran and portray them as obstinately trying to develop nuclear weapons -- a charge they deny but the world knows the truth and the pressure is on for a negotiated settlement of the issue. Other Inconvenient Truths are leaking out that give lie to everything this administration says. I'd compare this administration's situation to the Titanic but, thanks to Colbert, we know it's more like the Hindenberg.

Civilized World Condems US Gulags

In news unlikely to make most US headlines, the U.N States the the US should close it's Guantanamo center and international torture facilities. This administration has ringed the globe with gulags engaging in the most brutal methods of torture and in smome cases murder and it is a stain our nation will carry for many years.

While they are at it, as a nation with the largest percent of our own population in prison, we need international observers and intervention in our domestic prison system.

Total Information Awareness

As we become more aware of the full extent of the data mining and domestic spying program of the Cheney/Bush cabal, it appears that it is far more extensive than the Total Information Awareness program that was defeated in congress.

As the former AT&T Technician, and patriot Mark Klien, who stumbled on the machevellian scheme writes:

"In 2003 AT&T built "secret rooms" hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company's popular WorldNet service and the entire internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the internet and analyze exactly what people are doing. Documents showing the hardwire installation in San Francisco suggest that there are similar locations being installed in numerous other cities."


Yesterday I heard an interview with one of the people (can't remember who) that will be questioning General Hayden at his nomination hearing for head of the CIA. He was already defending this program and parroting the White House line that they weren't really listening to our calls and that this was a necessary and legal part of the so-called War on Terror but that's pure bullshit. It is terrorism. Our government, even under less Orwellian regimes, has a long history of spying on and infiltration of citizens in order to supress legitimate dissent. Why would any sane person think, given the evidence at hand, that they would do otherwise. As previously stated in this blog, they see active citizens as a fifth column in their battle for global dictatorship.

You can expect that Congress will OK the nomination of Haden, therby showing tacit approval of this totalitarian program with a show of limited windbaggery in protest but it is not OK and we need to do everything in our power to defeat it.

It's Getting Darker

The poet Adrienne Rich once wrote that "everything you write will be used against you." It is also true that everying you read and say will be used against you. Even as the neocon regime moves to suppress any resistance to their massive wiretapping of the American public, they are also preparing for a domestic coup not unlike Hitler's seizure of complete power over Germany. This analogy is far from extreme as this regime is already building of concentration camps and labor camps around the country. We must be even more active in our efforts to unseat this treasonous regime while we still can. Editorials and demonstrations, while important, are not enough. We need to surround the Whitehouse for as long as it takes demanding their arrests for treason and we need to shut the country down before they lock it down.

We may not have much time.

Identifying the Enemy

In spite of overtures to open dialogue by Iran, the Neocons are committed to a policy of aggression that is already underway. Before the demonizing escalates we should remember the words of Engels uttered in the break-up of the 2nd International leading up to WW I that the primary enemy of working people in any nation is not the workers of other countries but its own ruling class. This is especially true in our corporate paradise and if you don't yet know it, they do, which is why they listen in on our phone calls and collect as much information on us as they can. There is no segment as class conscious as the corporate ruling class and while they have their differences in approach, what they agree on is total control over us. They already try to run our lives via the workplace but that isn't enough.

Bush's pick of Gen. Hayden, former NSA chief who along with Negroponte has been involved in training and supporting terrorism and deathsquad activity globally as well as suppression of domestic dissent for decades marks a dangerous escalation of the National Security State putting everything in place for a brutal dictatorship. The Neocon agenda of War without end is not just aimed at other countries but is a domestic agenda as well and to them, we are as much an enemy as al-qaeda.

We as a class have no choice but to resist

We've Got Mail!

While we now able to see the letter from Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the excerpts released in the U.S. so far show that he is confronting Bush with uncomfortable, if obvious truths that the chimp doesn't want to hear. According to the New York Times:

" . . . Again let us assume that these events are true," he wrote about the Holocaust. "Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state?"

"A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison," the letter says.

Mr. Ahmadinejad also calls the 9/11 attacks a "horrendous incident" in which the killing of innocent people was "deplorable."

But he asks: "Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?"

An excert published in the Times of London asks:

"The people will scrutinise our presidencies. Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment? Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them? Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the spectre of intimidation and threats?"

These are legitimate questions and observations. The letter is also said to condemn the lies around and invasion of Iraq. The reaction of the Cheney/Bush admininstration thus far is to discount the letter out of hand as a "diversionary tactic," (something the Bushies know all too well), ignoring it as they have done with everything that doesn't fit their agenda but hopefully the contents will be released for public view and add to the resistance to the intended aggression against Iran as well as to the discrediting of the neocon junta.

Bush Declares WW III

That's right, the occupation of Iraq and the War against a Tactic is now a World War. Is that the neocon junta against the rest of the world? As a delusional sociopath puppet of a psychopatic neocon cabal, Bush would like nothing better than a world engulfed in war. That's why he would like to drop a nuclear weapon on Iran. His hopes for maintaining power and creating a Pax Americana (Reich) to last a thousand years however, are failing before they start as his administration takes on water and the rats abandon ship. While their plans for Iran are opposed by China and Russia ,making aggression more difficult, their history and the absence of a real opposition party in the US, keep the situation very serious. If our own country can't reign in an out of control leadership than the civilized world needs to take action to do so.

Mother's Day for Peace

Mother's Day will soon be upon us and it should be remembered that it wasn't started by Hallmark to sell cards. It was started by angry mothers as a protest holiday against the murdering of their sons in wars. It was Mother's Day for Peace and the original proclamation by Julia Ward Howe can be read here. It can also be read on the back of this Shirt which would make a timely gift!

Progress & Regress

It's always good to see some truth uttered in public, especially where it hurts the ruling class and their lackeys the most. Here's a good commentary on the recent skewering of the neocon's and their media lapdogs by Colbert on C-span.

Reality based (and abased) comedy aside, it seems as we move deeper into barbarism the call from bourgoise pundits like Shelby Steele (who as a Black American should know better) is for even more brutal barbarity. As we wade backwards from civilization to barbarism it gives one hope that South America is moving forward. Even as Bolivia, Venezuela and other nations south of our border advance toward independence from the dictat of the North, Hispanics that come here to escape the results of our plundering of their countries are bringing with them, the progressive class consciousness that has been all but buried in our corporate paradise. That is what the corporate oligarchy is really afraid of.

May Day Greetings

While our idiot in chief has declared this "law Day",in the Streets around the globe working people know what day it is and are demanding something better. From across Asia to the streets of the U.S. where immigrant labor is returning our worker's holiday to it's original home and meaning the message is clear. We who make the world demand better conditions, respect, and recognition of our power.

The people we work for are consuming the earth and the future. They pit us against each other in a race to destitution. Thet try to assert control over every aspect of our lives. Their puppet governments are a scam and their borders are nooses on our throats. Enough! Let the united voice and power of our class be heard and felt. A better world is possible without the oppressive cynical and exploitive social parasitism of capitalist global tyranny. Workers of the World Unite. We have noting to lose but our chains and a world to win!