Shaking Things Up

I was impressed by the performance of former Senator Mike Gravel in the Democratic debates last week. He has guts, charisma and doesn't hesitate to call it as he sees it. Check out some sample cuts. He's no Kucinich but he might have what it takes to get America's attention and open up the dialogue.

Padilla Case the Very Definition of Tyranny

The strange case against Jose Padilla comes unwound. A life destroyed in the attempt at dictatorial precidents.

Kucinich Files Impeachment Bill

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has officially, filed a bill calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Reclaim Mother's Day

In a few weeks it will be Mother's day. Just a reminder what an appropriate gift a Mother's Day for Peace T-shirt would be. Mother's Day began as an anti-war event prior to being usurped as a saccarine flower-givning day. The original Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe in 1870 called for disarmament and railed against the raising of sons as war fodder. That proclamation is on the back of the shirt.

More Evidence of Theft

The evidence mounts of electoral theft in 2004 at the highest levels if not directly from the White House.

Hokie Journalism and Complicity

While the nonstop media circus continues of repeat the same loops and obsessive blather around the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech last week, the murderous barbarity in Iraq continues and escalates. The disturbed murderer in the Tech shootings is immune to prosecution because he is dead, and while soldiers who went on a killing spree in Haditha are granted immunity for political reasons the orchestrators of the murderous rampage that is the invasion and occupation of Iraq can and must be brought to justice. Some say comparing the two situations is wrong but it is really a matter of scale and accountability. Though one person's insanity lead to the Virginia Tech killings and is a tragedy that cannot be easily predicted or prevented, nor the perpetrator punished, the insanity of mass murder in Iraq perpetrated in a pre-meditated manner, could have been prevented had the corporate media not been complicit in promoting it and quashing objections and had Congress been less opportunistic and more responsible. This continues to be true. While Articles of Impeachment have been presented by Dennis Kucinich with much public support and endorsement, the corporate media ignores and belittles the possibility of bringing to justice the criminal neocon gang. Instead of the endless repetitive feasting like wolves on the tragedy of the Tech murders, a responsible media would be that focused on the criminality of the Bush Administration and its continuing crimes. Instead they choose complicity.

Real Leadership in Action

Hugo Chavez is once agains demonstrating real leadership. This time on the issue of the environment and the problem of biofeuls. He is leading for an energy summit on the Caribbean island of Margarita in which he hopes to begin consolodating latin America as a counterwight to the US and to connect them with a natural gas pipeline. They will also focus on the problems created by ethonol production. As a frind of mine pointed out, South America is the anvil of progress. Fidel Castro paved the way but Hugo Chavez may be the hammer on that anvil. Show your support for Chavez and help feed the Prole at the same time.

The Bursting Bubble

Many of us have known that the US economy was a house of cards built on delusion with its productive foundation severly eroded. As trade deficits have grown and production exported it has come to rely on the illusions of real estate and investment as a basis for growth. If it seems to you that things are getting more expensive, that is because the value of the dollar is in steady decline. With it too, our country and our standard of living. What they aren't telling us is that we are on the brink of economic collapse as the deficit booms and the housing bubble bursts. The coming depression will be an all but inescapable sandtrap created by shortsighted greed as the ruling class has, like a voracious addict, been unable to curb it's appetite in the transfer of wealth from us to them. The only choices we will have are, to live in the dystopia of hopeless poverty or to organize and rebuild our country on a cooperative basis from the bottom up. Most of those who presently oppose that, preferring to worship the idolitry of the free market will have changed their tune. The few remaing wealthy will be seen for who they are.

US Sponsors Terrorism

Yesterday Iran pointed out that it is the U.S. that is supporting terrorists in Pakistan. The Jundullah group,is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials. U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight. Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states. Jundullah has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan.
The leader, Regi, claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians.

Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context.

Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.

From Economic Apartheid to Freedom

Our shakey economy continues to rattle nerves and as the cost of living, gas prices and property assesments continue to rise at the same time salaries are stagnant, as they rise, so does our debt. The debt crisis and the upward flow of money is widening the class divide to levels not seen since early in the last century. The result is that working class complacency is fading. As economic apartheid becomes more and more an obvious reality, the crisis may finally awaken the sleeping dragon of class rebellion. Let gas go much above $3.00 a gallon with the subsequent rise in the cost of living or let there be a crisis in agriculture and food availabilitiy and change may occur quickly. Corporate leaders learned that the hard way during the great depression making concessions and creating unemployment compensation, SSI, and public works programs. How they forget why! The trumped up nationalism of unjustifiable wars will not sustain this rotten scam of a system indefinitely. It is up to those of us who are already politically active to build institutions to lead the inevitable struggle from crisis to sustainable working class democracy. Some already exist but we must all work together to build the future America in the shadow of the decaying present.

Winners & Losers

Without an understanding of the class nature of our society, many are led to strange conspiracy theories and mistaken analysis. It is vital to understand the class interests and dynamics at play to understand our place in this rotten system of corruption and to know what must be done.

Countering the Lies

A little clarity and perspective on the situation concerning the sailrs captured by Iran from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. This is an obvious provocation and those with clear vision like British MP George Galloway see right through it. I have heard much anger and hatred voiced toward Iran and Muslims in general by regular Americans with no knowlegde of our historic involvement and no real political perspective. It is up to us to counter this destructive reaction with reality and condensed history lessons.