I report on how consciousness and community are transcending god and state, locally in Washington, DC, and globally, where ever I see progress - or backsliding, including on the feminist front! "Imagine there's no countries, and no religion, too." Most active 2007-17. See my public Facebook/CarolMoore1776 for daily posts.
The Israel Lobby has been in fine fettle this month, misrepresenting why a pro-Palestinian conference changed its venue, insisting on putting hypocritical and even racist posters up on Washington, DC metros, and trying to drive Professor of Political Theory Norman Finklestein from his job. . Even gossip that Senator Chuck Hagel (who dares to defend Palestinian rights from time to time) and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who admitted he didn't give a damn about Israel when he first ran for Mayor) might team up and run as third party candidates did not faze them. Not that anyone should think if elected the Military-Industrial-Media-Israel lobbies would allow any quasi-non-interventionist to have any kind of "humble foreign policy" -- you know like the one George W. promised us during his 2000 run for President. . The Al-Awda ("right of return") National conference felt it necessary to move from its original venue at the University of California, Riverside because organizers opposed allowing members of the Israeli Defense Force to attend events and film participants. Organizers rightly feared that such "evidence" of legal political activity could be used to falsely accuse, imprison or even kill Palestinian associates, friends and relatives in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. . Rabidly Zionist FrontPage and Dafka articles of course claim Palestinians really wanted to plan terrorist activities. However, having seen these IDF-t-shirt wearing types show up to intimidate Palestinians at an Israel divestment talk where Palestinians spoke, I certainly understand why Al-Awda opted for a private hotel where they could better protect their members from intimidation. See photo I took at that event, and a photo from commercial site selling such t-shirts. . The World Says No to Israeli Occupation! June 10-11 Mobilization in Washington, DC is putting up a few dozen of these posters inside the metro stations to educate the public. Portrayed is a Palestinian child having to negotiate a tank to get to school. StandWithUs.Com, a rabid pro-Zionist organization, put up its own advertisements painting Palestinian children as potential terrorists. Of course, the truth is that the Israelis teach their children the Palestinians are inferior and prepare them from an early age to accept compulsory military service where their duties are to keep Arabs safely imprisoned in defacto concentration camps. (Thus the charge the posters are racist.) So it's hardly surprising that some percentage of Palestinians are driven to take up arms to defend themselves from such aggression. Nor is it surprising they encourage their children to commit to the struggle. What's really sad is that the Israelis have created such conditions for Palestinians that even some of the most committed pacifists consider Palestine to be one of the few instances where the people have a right to engage in armed struggle! The responsibility lies first and foremost on Israel to stop its oppression and withdraw from all land illegally confiscated since 1948. . People sometimes ask me why I sympathize so much with the Palestinian cause. My top reasons are: that Israel is the only nation with a "Samson Option" of threatening to launch nuclear attacks on Arab, European and even Russian cities if Israel suffers too great of loses in trying to hold on to all the land it has stolen; that if the U.S.'s great ally nukes Russia, Russia will nuke America; that the Israel lobby viciously stifles American citizens' criticism of U.S. aid to Israel and involvement in Israeli wars; that the Iraq war and any Iran war are waged in part for the sake of Israel; that Israelis and supporters hypocritically claim the Nazi genocide against Jews ("The Holocaust") actually excuses ethnic cleansing, shutting millions into defacto concentration camps, long term incarceration of dissidents, and random killings of innocents. . However, I apply to Israel the same principles I apply to all political entities. They have a right to self-determination and to create their own state on their own private property, as long as they do not force their state on others. Of course, in 1948 the United Nations gave Israel control of a great deal of land they did not genuinely buy or settle and control of a bare minority of people who had no desire to be controlled by them. Israelis then took even more land and drove more than 700,000 people from their lands and homes. See various ideas for Israel-Palestine confederations -- some within a radical decentralist framework -- at Secession.Net. . Norman Finkelstein, Professor of Political Theory at DePaul University, is son of survivors of Nazi genocide. He has been exposing the truth about Israel's aggression on the Palestinians, the misuse of anti-Semitism to intimidate those who criticize Israel and its supporters, and those who exploit the Holocaust for political and financial gain. He is currently being attacked by Alan Dershowitz and other supporters of Israeli aggression during tenure proceedings at DePaul University. See the Solidarity page: sign the general Petition; sign the student petition. See more Carlos Latuffcreative commons cartoons like Finkelstein standing up to the IDF below.
I've been meaning to mention my favorite webpage, visited daily, Antiwar.Com, and Ron Paul's great job making the rest of the Republicans look like fools for supporting the U.S. (imperialist) interventionist policy. Today Justin Raimondo on Antiwar.Com's blog is so great I'll just reproduce it in whole here. If there's one blog you visit everyday besides this one, make it Antiwar.Com's blog. . Ron Paul vs. Rudy “The Thug” Giuliani Tuesday, May 15th in News by Justin Raimondo . In response to Ron Paul’s reasonable and informed contention that our interventionist foreign policy created the “blowback” that gave rise to Al Qaeda, and 9/11, Rudy Giuliani burbled “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that!” . Of course he hasn’t heard it: he’s so busy pandering to the worst instincts of red-state fascists Republicans, calling for a national ID card, and drooling at the thought of torture that he has no time for a reality-based assessment of American foreign policy. That bullying would-be Mafia don, who looks and acts like someone out of “The Sopranos,” demanded that Ron Paul “withdraw his remarks and tell us he didn’t mean it.” Paul’s answer, . “I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists and we ignore it at our risk. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.”
In effect: screw you, Rudy! . As even the dumbos over at FreeRepublic.com acknowledge, Rep. Paul is factually correct. Bin Laden’s fatwa gave his reasons for the attack, and the savaging of Iraq — pre-invasion — is front-and -center..
In a November 29, 2007 blog entry I speculated about the "conspiracy theory" behind CBS television drama series Jericho. In this show more than a dozen mysterious nuclear explosions take out major American cities - including Washington D.C. where I live - but since the attack is well short of full blown nuclear war it is assumed of terrorist nature. (It's not explained why the U.S. doesn't strike back at nuclear powers like Russia and China, as it surely would just to show "who's still the man.") . After watching the episode where food aid pallets dropped from Chinese transport planes, including leaflets from "our Chinese friends," I speculated that it would be an anti-corporate conspiracy theory: American elites, totally in hock to China, decide to "sell America" to the Chinese for their own benefit. They do so by working with military elites with their own selfish agenda who explode a dozen or so bombs. . Well, a few weeks back a character working under-cover for a U.S. spy agency revealed the truth to another character: the anarchists, right-wing militias and radical fundamentalist Christians got together and did it! . Pardon me while I guffaw! . Sure some Cheney or Wolfowitz or Richard Perle character might pull the strings and rope in a half dozen representatives of each of the three groups, but it's still pretty far fetched. Much as I enveigle against black bloc street violence, gun nuts itching to fight the federal government and radical fundamentalist Christians who want to start an apocalypse to "hurry up god," I wouldn't demonize them by making them the the villains in a drama where they allegedly work together. Of course, neither do I deny that the Fundamentalist Apocalyptic in the White House currently may be waiting for god to direct him to push the button and bring it on! . What's less far-fetched is one major way the U.S. government has been catching "terrorists" the last few years - finding angry people, sending in personable and effective government provocateurs, and ENTRAPPING them into committing some minor crime, which is the pretext for a major prosecution for criminal conspiracy. And, of course, the government reaps the benefits. See articles about accusations of entrapment in the Toledo Terrorists, the Sears Tower and Liberty City incidents, and now the alleged planned Fort Dix terror attacks. . In the Jericho story, the government was supposed to foil the attacks, but the conspirators moved up the deadline so only one nuke was saved. (Buried now in the informant's garage in the middle of Kansas.) . Shades of the 1993 World Trade Center attack? When the government gets a real informant in a group self-motivated to commit a terrorist attack, it has been known to screw up. Most notoriously in 1993. . According to an October 28, 1993 front page New York Times article the FBI knew well in advance of the plans due to the activities of undercover informant Emad Salem. "Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast." . Of course, what may be scariest of all, is that I could find no information on the Internet about what I'm quite sure happened next. (Though at my leisure I'll look at my saved articles to confirm it.) The FBI and Salem quarreled over money. He quit, but later went back to work. As I'm sure I remember it: Just in time to drive the truck into the World Trade Center, hurry out, get an eardrum broken by the blast, go to the hospital -- and bill the government later for his care. . Did I dream this or did this bit of trivia about government irresponsibility go down the memory hole? If anyone reads this and bugs me about it, I'll pull out the articles. I couldn't find the trial transcripts of the convicted co-conspirators online. Hmm, wonder if they are now classified government security information??
Below is a cartoon by the well known Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff dramatizing the Israel Lobby's interference in U.S. foreign police. Israel and its U.S. lobby, including its leading force the American Israel Political Affairs Committee [AIPAC], have been lobby for war against Iran since before the Iraq war. . See StopIranWarYahooGroupProfessor Gary Leuppwrote in Counterpunch in February in an article entitled "An American Strike on Iran is Essential for Our Existence"- AIPAC Demands "Action" on Iran: ...the American Israel Political Action Committee is the main political force urging---indeed, demanding---U.S. action. Now, as Israeli calls for a U.S. attack on Iran become more shrill by the day, AIPAC recognizes that the American people profoundly distrust Vice President Cheney and the nest of neocon liars he has sheltered...We are perhaps arriving at a critical point in the history of the powerful Lobby, including its capacity to intimidate honest, critically reasoning people who do not embrace its fears, prejudices and preoccupations. . Yet in April, AIPAC bullied the house and senate into removing from Iraq funding bills any requirements President Bush receive congressional funding for war against Iran. described in an April 23, 2007 David Corn article Trying to Stay Out of Iran in The Nation: In a recent speech AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr said that legislation restricting Bush's options would be "a sign of weakness." Asked if he can point to a political fight lost by AIPAC recently, Representative Larson replied, "Not to my recollection." The cartoon can be used on web pages or in publications with the following copyright info. This work is "Creative Commons" Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. For more information and other examples of Latuff's cartoons see: http://latuff2.deviantart.com/
The sign in the photo reads: "Our babies are not your cannon fodder." Needless to say, the woman holding it was a popular subject of photographers at the 2006 Mother's Day peace protest in Lafayette Park. . The Bush administration wishes this woman and all of us activists would keep our mouths shut about war and violence. At some point they may have to declare martial law to shut us up, lock us out, reject, marginalize and discredit us - especially should they bomb Iran. But we will, of course, fight back, speaking our truth, nonviolently. . See photos and videos of DC Activists asserting their truth and refusing to shut up. . "Satyagraha" means “truth force”-- asserting what is true no matter how much the powers that be, in the larger world or in our smaller social or political circles, forbid it and even rage against it, saying KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. Satyagraha means it's better to speak your truth, even clumbsily or angrily, than be silent. It is different from duragraha which is protest with insufficient attempt to reach a deeper level of truth or touch the conscience of the opponent! . FIGHTING PATRIARCHY . Thinking more about my my new email address, fightpatriarchy@carolmoore.net. Some people think my former one - "endviolence" - means "keep quiet" and "never criticize." So I adopted something more appropriate to Gandhian principles - don't be afraid to fight! . What is war and militarism but organized violence that allows those with a patriarchal mindset to conquer and hold reluctant territories and achieve economic and political dominance? . Mother's Day in the U.S. actually was started by Julia Ward Howe who organized a Mother's Day march for peace and disarmament in Boston after the Civil War. Increasingly feminists are using the day to remind women to fight the patriarchal institutions of war and militarism. . One facet of patriarchal militarism is the renewal in the U.S. of mostly male street violence (aka "black bloc diversity of tactics") that developed after the "battle of Seattle" of 1999. The strategy admitted by some at the time was: at big nonviolent protests provoke police through property destruction and throwing things at police so that they will riot against nonviolent activists, thus "radicalizing liberals." That innocents, especially women with small children, were most likely to be hurt by such violence was a concern mocked by these "street fighters." While activists have mellowed since the September 11 attack, the street fighting ideology still infects small segments of progressive movements. . Worse, its existence makes it easy for police provocateurs posing as activists to provoke police to violence. Some claim this is just what happened during the May 1, 2007 MacArthur Park Los Angeles police riot against immigrants. See my blog entry below. . Because I was upset about the way so many nonviolent activists were bullied into keeping quiet about their opposition to street violence, a couple years back I wrote an e-book called THE RETURN OF STREET FIGHTING MAN. I'll be turning into a publishing-on-demand book and a video soon. . PROTECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN . I certainly believe women must be encouraged to speak up when it comes to protecting the welfare and lives of women and children, in street protests and in interpersonal affairs. We must speak up even if that means some popular or powerful men must be embarrassed. You can't build true solidarity by silencing those who speak out to protect women and children. . I continue to promote a nonviolent, anti-militarist radical decentralist and secessionist revolution. See my article on the interconnection of nonviolence and radical political decentralism. Or my site WhatWouldGandhiDo.Net. . And my article Woman v. the Nation State about how women and children especially would benefit from such a society. At the end of the article is a letter from then-MS. Magazine editor Robin Morgan stating that many feminists agreed with me! . See my site Secession.Net. It would be great if women led such a decentralist revolution, making sure it was a nonviolent one. We don't need another civil war, but between the right wing militias, left wing street fighters and military and police, we might get one! . It's probably not yet time to start a radical decentralist feminist secessionist network, but maybe some day!
Today is my 59th birthday. Read my photo-filled biography. See me kicking up a storm at left. . My present to myself was changing my antiwar organizing email from "endviolence" to "fightpatriarchy." . The simple truth is there is so much patriarchal behavior to fight even within the antiwar, libertarian and other movements that I sometimes lose my temper and use strong language. Then I am accused of using "violent" words. . Criticize a male too strongly for throwing a rock at a cop or boasting about cheating on their girlfriends with their boyfriends, and YOU may be called the violent one. Remember what kind of female dog too many men STILL call a woman who makes her points too strongly. Well, at least I won't have people mocking my email address any more as being "hypocritical." . For the solution to the patriarchal war machine, and even to patriarchy within progressive and libertarian movements, see my article Woman vs. the Nation State. . Yes, it is difficult being a taurus with an aries moon and four planets in leo. That was the alignment of planets shaping my bodily force field as I popped out of the womb at 11:36 a.m. almost 60 years ago. That astrological combination influences someone to have a temperament where once they get mad, they stay mad for a long time -- and dramatize that anger to the whole world, sometimes in the most shocking terms. . For those who reject astrology but embrace the Meyers-Briggs personality type test, I am an ENTJ - sometimes called "the commandant." . Described as: Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas. . As so many of us ENTJ women know, many men just hate that in a woman. I just wish I knew how to get PAID for it! . Someone tested libertarian women and found out a large percentage are ENTJs. You have to be to put up with libertarian men - left, right and non-denominational! . I envy people who have lots of more placid signs - or Meyers-Briggs combinations. I just have to learn to meditate regularly to calm down more - before I give myself a heart attack. . Breathe deep and repeat, "I have these emotions, but I am NOT these emotions. I am a center of pure consciousness." . For my birthday I want you to buy lots of stuffat RadicalButtons.Com and CafePress.Com/RadicalStuff. I still owe someone $40 for my arrest last week!
During the year or so I was writing my e-book THE RETURN OF STREET FIGHTING MAN I usually taped footage of "black bloc" scuffles with police worldwide for study and documentation. (Photo of youth about to throw something at police from televised footage of April 16, 2000 IMF/World Bank protests.) Today a lot of that stuff is on Youtube.Com. . I was watching some CNN footage of the May 1, 2007 Los Angeles Police attack on immigration protesters with a critical eye. I saw this footage only once, but it was quite clear SOMEONE was throwing objects at the police line. . The very rough Youtube footage footage below shows the same incident as CNN, but it is not clear if anything is thrown.
This certainly does NOT excuse the police rampage, but it probably means someone was trying to provoke the police. I saw some people in black and some with masks, but were the organized protesters trying to provoke cops to beat protesters to radicalize them, a standard street fighter trick? Or were organized police provocateurs trying to make activists look bad and excuse a police riot to scare off future protesters? See two articles (1, 2) mentioning provocateurs. See Los Angeles Indymedia.Org reports, photos and video of this police riot as well. . My position in the 1999-2001 era was that most of those trying to provoke cops as part of the black bloc were macho activists, and a few thrill seekers. Not cops. Today, it's very difficult to say. Even our local antiwar group was infiltrated by a police officer before a major rally. We found out because he accidentally left a business number on an activists cell phone! . The best footage of the police rampage ironically is on Los Angeles local neocon channel FOX NEWS. It shows their reporter being shoved around. Also good footage on UNIVISON -- now owned by arch Israeli-American Zionist Chaim Saban. . Need I say that it's all machismo versus machismo, men trying to prove their manhood through violence? Being persistent I will keep saying it over and over again until the humans admit it and are willing to do something about it.
Talk about ABC Television's morning talk show The View jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire! Rosie O'Donnell has been letting it rip against the U.S. war on Iraq, and a lot of other things. Just one video proves how free she feels to speculate about whether governments have "faked incidents or incited incidents" to go to war, mentioning the possibility such an incident could excuse war against Iran. She questions why World Trade Center 7 really collapsed on the show and on her web page but she denies she believes the U.S. government colluded in the September 11 attacks.
. In this clip Rosie also calls for impeachment of George Bush and even attacks her own network ABC as a propaganda machine. Gosh, could that be why she's not returning when her contract runs out? . However, all that may be nothing compared to what Roseanne might have in store for them! What if Roseanne opines on Israel as she did recently on her web page RoseanneWorld.Com? She'd really blow the top off our controlled media. . In a January 3, 2007 blog entry entitled "On being a jew and not supporting israel..." she starts with this paragraph and keeps on going. See the link for the rest . I think the zionists made a huge mistake when they factioned the left in germany. They ended up trading jewish lives for land, instead of standing together with the socialist factions that opposed hitler. Zionism was the last nail in the casket of European jewry. The arab's protection is the only reason any holy site remains in israel. The jews line up to stone women who try to access those sites. I saw it with my own eyes. The arabs do not invade other countries. The israelis do. I am sick of israel and I am sick of zionists. They are propped up by evangelical christians who cannot wait for the arabs to kill them so that their genocidal war god whom they misname jesus can come back.
Well, they say if you want a dirty job done -- like telling the truth -- you gotta hire a loud mouthed woman!
About 75 of us made it happen on the National Mall in D.C. as part of a national day of actions. See my music video, photos and Impeach07.Org. . Bush must be getting nervous! America's largest antiwar coalition, United for Peace and Justice, wrote a pro-impeachment statement because so many member groups demanded it. And Kucinich's articles of impeachment against Cheney (for starters!) mentions threats to bomb Iran as a reason for impeachment. See my April report on Kucinich's press conference and link to my video. The Washington Post had to take notice.
I do want to comment on this briefly. Our American culture, especially politics, the media and video games, is filled with violence as the solution to problems, with violence as the means to proving manhood, with military force as the way to "promote democracy" -- i.e., to make sure our "democracy" can have all the resources of other nations the United States needs. In the Middle East that also means making sure we use brutal force, and even nuclear weapons, to make sure our ally Israel can steal all the land, water and oil it needs. In Congress, it means cops with semi (or fully?) automatic weapons making sure those Code Pinkers don't get too effective. . And if China and Russia don't cave to our demands, the United States' military is almost at the point it can First Strike Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons while assuring minimal American loses. (Maybe only a 40 or 50 U.S. cities?) . This means the United States would totally control the planet! See "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" By Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006. Geez, in an atmosphere like that is it any wonder a psychologically disturbed young man would grab a gun and start shooting at random? . I wholeheartedly agree with most of the analysis from the International Action Center (founded by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark) on Why the Virginia Tech Shootings Happened. Of course I do not blame all "capitalism," but patriarchal state capitalism, i.e., state control of markets to ensure the most dominant males can control society. Excerpts below: . What distinguishes this country from the rest of the world? It is neither the most affluent nor the poorest. It is neither the most secular nor the most religious. It is not the most culturally homogeneous nor is it the most diverse. . But in one area, it stands virtually alone. It has the biggest arsenal of high-tech weaponry in the world, way surpassing every other country. It has military bases spread all over; most countries have no troops outside their borders.It is conducting two hot wars at the moment, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has sent hundreds of thousands of troops abroad over the last few years. . Every day, the public here is supposed to identify with soldiers who burst into homes in Baghdad, round up the people and take them away for “interrogation”—which everyone knows now can mean torture and indefinite detainment.It also sends heavily armed “special ops” on secret missions to countless other countries, like the ones who just facilitated the invasion and bombing of Somalia, or the ones who have been trying to stir up opposition in Iran. This is documented in the news media. . The immense brutality of these colonial wars, as well as earlier ones, is praised from the White House on down as the best, the ONLY way to achieve what the political leaders and their influential, rich backers decide is necessary to protect their world empire. Do lots of people get killed? “Stuff happens,” said former war secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “Collateral damage,” says the Pentagon. . At home, the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Over 2 million people are locked up in the prison system each year, most of them people of color. When commercial armed security guards are also taken into consideration, the U.S. has millions of employees who use guns and other coercive paraphernalia in their jobs.... . Violence is a big money maker in the mass culture. Television, films, pulp novels, Internet sites, video games—all dwell on “sociopaths” while glorifying the state’s use of violence, often supplemented by a lone vigilante. By the time children reach their teens, they have already seen thousands of murders and killings on television. . And these days even more suspense is added in countless programs that involve stalking and terror against women—and increasingly children.As the Duke rape case and so many “escort service” ads show, women of color are particularly subject to exploitation and have little recourse to any justice. And as the murders along the border show, immigrants of color are fair game for racist killers.... . Many liberal commentators are taking this occasion to renew the demand for tougher gun laws. Yes, assault weapons are horrible, but so are bunker buster bombs, helicopters that fire thousands of rounds a minute, and the ultimate—nuclear weapons. Disarming the people is not the answer, especially when the government is armed to the teeth and uses brutality and coercion daily. . The best antidote to these tragedies is to build a movement for profound social change, a movement directed at solving the great problems depressing so much of humanity today, whether they be wars or global climate change or the loneliness of the dog-eat-dog society.
A local activist media collective called WHYNOTNEWS.ORG put out a video of the April 26th Senate protest described in the entry below that includes a shot at the very end of me being led away by police and fully quoting the Declaration of Independence. Plus fuller shots of some of the scenes I shot more briefly in my Getting Rowdy at Congress video, plus lots of other good shots.
After 40 odd years of repeated misdemeanors and the occasional felony, mostly related to victimless crimes and protesting, I finally got caught and arrested! . What was I doing? Trying to recite out (very) loud my favorite "patriotic" phrase from the Declaration of Independence: "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish government!" . Of course, I chose to do it at the end of a noisy antiwar protest in the atrium of the Senate Hart office building just as police had assembled their full force of officers and were doing a sweep for the most flagrant rowdies. And I chose that minute to become one of them. They hauled 14 of us off, 10 women and 4 men. They only kept us 4 hours and didn't even send us to the filthy D.C. jail. They'll have to be meaner next time. . Happily, I caught it on video, with two officers rushing over to grab me. See the video! More photos here. . Hmmm, I wonder if my first mug shot will ever end up on the Celebrity Mugshot page! . The fools. Don't they know I have an addictive personality? . Now that I've lost my virginity, it will be just like 38 years ago when I went hog (or boy) wild. Next thing you know I'll be chaining myself to AIPAC's door! . The New York crowd brought down two black, three story high banners reading YOUR SILENCE YOUR LEGACY and the inscription below. The crowd started yelling IMPEACH! IMPEACH! . In case you haven't heard, after much kicking and screaming, the peace movement is coming together behind impeaching Bush/Cheney. Even United for Peace and Justice has issued a statement supporting it.Tomorrow we spell out IMPEACH at the Washington Monument. WHAT FUN! See IMPEACH07.ORG.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich has started the ball rolling with articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. However, as my my fun video shows, Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, activist Tina Richards and the Code Pink Chorus were shooting for the whole enchilada - Bush and Cheney. . More information at IMPEACH07.ORG including about April 28th Impeachment events. . Love the red IMPEACH NOW sign? It's being recycled from the Impeach Clinton movement which I supported heartily, in large part because of his cover up of the Waco massacre. . See my Impeach Clinton protest photos here and here! . I sell IMPEACH BUSH CHENEY, NO MORE EXCUSES t-shirts, etc. at my CafePress.com/RadicalStuffpage. And I sell the IMPEACH THE BASTARD button to cover all the bases at myRadicalButtons.Com Impeach Bush page. Hmmm, probably should offer the t-shirt, too! More photos here. Photographer seated, behind camera, asked a truly frightening and even shocking question: "Even if 100% of American people wanted impeachment, how could you ever convince congress?" Is the media so convinced that democracy is dead in this country that they could ask such a question? David Swanson who answered with all the reasons Congress would have to listen, also was amazed by the question when I talked to him about it later. . And people wonder why I preach radically decentralized, direct, supermajority democracy -- and the strategy of SECESSION.
Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin died today. And I immediately ran to Wikipedia and added three stories to his biography about his threats to nuke America -- the first brought on by an oversight, the second by U.S. attacks on Serbia, the third by President Bill Clinton's criticisms of his war on Chechnya. The point, of course, not to attack Yeltsin or Russia as to remind us that our fates rest in the hands of imperfect and even unstable leaders. Personally, I consider President George Bush to be far more unstable than Yeltsin - after all, he's just waiting for Jesus to tell him to start Armageddon! . I'll just quote my three Wikipedia entries below: . 1. On January 25, 1995 Russian early warning radar detected a rocket identified as possibly launched by an American trident missile. After notification, Boris Yeltsin immediately opened "nuclear briefcases" used to authorize the launch of nuclear missiles. Some claim he came within minutes of ordering a full scale nuclear attack on the United States, until the rocket was confirmed to be heading away from Russian airspace. It later was learned that the launch was an American and Norwegian scientific rocket and that Russian radar commanders had never received the widely dispersed advance notice of its launch. . See the video!
2. During the 1999 Kosovo war, Yeltsin strongly opposed the NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia, and warned of possible Russian intervention if NATO deployed ground troops to Kosovo. In televised comments he stated: "I told NATO, the Americans, the Germans: Don't push us toward military action. Otherwise there will be a European war for sure and possibly world war.
3. During November and December of 1999 Yeltsin and President Clinton escalated sparring over Russia’s occupation of Chechnya. Speaking before a November meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton pointed his finger at Yeltsin and demanded he halt bombing attacks that had resulted in many civilian casualties. Yeltsin immediately left the conference. In December while visiting China to seek support on Chechnya, Yeltsin replied to Clinton’s criticism of a Russian ultimatum to citizens of Grozney. He bluntly pronounced: "Yesterday, Clinton permitted himself to put pressure on Russia. It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that." Clinton dismissed Yeltsin’s comments stating: "I didn't think he'd forgotten that America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo." It fell to Vladimir Putin to down play Yeltsin’s comments and present reassurances about U.S. and Russian relations.
To the top and left are photos of aborted, late term deformed fetuses and of babies born alive in Iraq, deformed allegedly because of the effects of the effects of the millions of pounds of depleted uranium ("d.u."). The waste of nuclear bombs was used as armor plating against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War and even more so in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. . Can you tell which babies are which? . Many people who scream and yell because a few thousand late term abortions are performed using an unpleasant procedure called Intrauterine Cranial Decompression (aka "partial birth abortion") never complain about all the deformed babies who result because American and Israeli militarists use any means necessary to rule the Middle East and exploit is resources for their own good. Depleted Uranium is a GOOD thing if it "saves Americans' lives." . However, consider this, all you "pro-lifers" who support the Supreme Court's recent ban on "partial birth abortion." If you knew your Iraq veteran spouces' d.u. irradiated sperm or ovaries had produced this sort of monstrosity, would you let the grossly deformed fetus be born live? When you discovered only in the fourth or fifth month of gestation the grossness of the deformies, would you abort it? And would you use whatever medical procedure was safest for the woman's health? . I am sure that hundreds and even thousands of husbands and wives will face this choice. And if we use nuclear bombs against Iran and that nuclear radiation spreads worldwide, tens of thousands of Americans might face that choice. . See more medical facts about abortion. The statistics on how many of these Intrauterine Cranial Decompression ("partial birth") abortions are performed yearly are contested. Sure there may be some greedy or lazy or incompentent doctors who use this procedure unnecessarily. However, this is no excuse for banning a medical procedure that protects a woman's life. . The National Organization for Women's response reads in part: "The law is so vaguely written that it may ban the most common abortion procedure used after 12 weeks of pregnancy, and there is no exception to allow its use if the woman's health is in serious danger. The joint ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood is a major step in the campaign to outlaw all abortions, first by chipping away at and then by fully overturning Roe v. Wade." . Why are there so many late term abortions? To quote a wikipedia article: "In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute collected questionnaires from 1,900 women who were at abortion clinics procuring abortions. Of the 1,900, 420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks. These 420 women were asked to choose among a menu of reasons why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. Two percent (2%) said "a fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy". 71% responded "did not recognize that she was pregnant or misjudged gestation", 48% said "found it hard to make arrangements", and 33% said "was afraid to tell her partner or parents". . In one word: PATRIARCHY. Poor education about signs of pregnancy - or denial of pregnancy because of fear. Fear that boyfriends or husbands will abuse or abandon them; fear of being punished or even kicked out of the home by parents. And even those who have no fear often lack health insurance or ready funds to pay for an abortion, especially if it involves travel and overnight stays because abortion facilities have been driven out of their area. . Why do so many patriarchs want to outlaw abortion? After all this means that some men will be forced to marry some pregnant women -- or at least support the children they father? . The answer, in screaming bold capitals, is simply: CONTROL OF WOMEN'S BODIES MEANS CONTROL OF WOMEN'S LIVES. It's simply the psychopathology of control. (Read comments on Howard K. Stern's means of controlling Anna Nicole Smith, even if it destroyed her body, in two posts below.) . Want to get rid of late term abortion? Take on PATRIARCHY. . See my article on getting rid of the leading institution of patriarchal control - the nation state. WOMAN VS. THE NATION STATE. In it I write: . Patriarchy and patriotism — both from the same root word, pater (father) — are simply two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Patriarchy is the ideology that males should rule. Patriotism is the worship of male-dominated states. Males have created — and still create — political culture worldwide, so it’s no surprise that male values, needs and ambitions dominate. . Male-dominated culture — patriarchy — discourages individual men and women from expressing the mix of assertion and cooperation, independence and compassion that is natural to individual men and women. Our culture indoctrinates men — often savagely —into dominance and aggression, and bullies women into dependence and passivity. . What would seem to be the primary value of human culture, the one for which all must be sacrificed? I believe it is the need for males to prove manhood – personally, politically and militarily. This value will soon destroy the world if women and sensible, non-dominating men, do not create a new culture that values the nonviolent self-actualization of all peoples.
My great-great-great-great grandfather was Colonel James Barrett, the head of the militia at Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. The battles at Lexington and Concord that day were the start of America’s War of Independence. As it happens – and I have confirmed through Daughters of the American Revolution records -- two other great-great-great grandfathers fought at Concord and at Lexington that day as well. . While part of me wants to crow about my "revolutionary blood," the pacifist in me remembers that these battles actually undercut a very successful non-cooperation movement against trade or other relations with Britain. They gave the British an excuse to raise an army to crush the rebels through murder most foul. . And more than 100 people, American and British, died on April 19, 1775 itself. Evidently they were all combatants, so does that mean it was not murder? And let's not forget the tens of thousands of indigenous Native American Indian people who had died from outright murder in the almost 300 earlier years of colonization, not to mention the millions who died of starvation and disease. . But fast forwarding to modern times, April 19 is also the anniversary of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) 1993 assault with CS gas and massive military tanks on the Branch Davidian church and home outside of Waco, Texas. The attack resulted in 76 deaths, mostly of women, children and the elderly. See my book THE DAVIDIAN MASSACRE, a systematic analysis of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and FBI crimes against the Davidians. . BATF had come in shooting first, from the ground and from helicopters, murdering six Davidians. They had to keep the rest of the Davidian witnesses to their crimes in there long enough to have an excuse to destroy all evidence of illegal gun fire in order to protect agents from prosecution. And so FBI finally managed to destroy the evidence -- and so many inconvenient witnesses -- 51 days later. . A disgruntled Gulf War Veteran who had witnessed American tanks bulldozing and burying living Iraqis went insane upon seeing that obviously intentional mass murder on television just two years later. Two years after that that veteran, Timothy McVeigh, blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, murdering 163 people. . On April 20, 1999, as Bill Clinton mercilessly bombed and murdered civilians in Serbia, two loners at Columbine High School murdered 12 students and a teacher. They did so on the birthday of the third greatest mass murder of the 20th Century, Adolph Hitler. (China's Mao Tse-Tsung and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin coming in first and second.) Fox News provides a whole list of school shootings in America over the last 10 years! And now an obviously psychotic Cho Seung-Hui has killed another 32. . And not to let Howard K. Stern off the hook (see entry below), remember FBI killed the Davidians to get rid of witnesses. New reports state Anna Nicole Smith blamed her son Daniel's death on Howard giving him methadone, his very first "hit." And Howard definitely had reasons to want to keep Daniel sedated. After all, the card of the private detective Daniel allegedly was considering hiring to spy on Howard was found on his dead body. Howard must have feared what the grieving, and presumably relatively non-drugged Anna might say, once on the stand at Daniel's inquest. Howard Stern is suing Anna's mother and her attorney for libel and slander for alleging Stern's involvement in both Daniel and Anna's deaths. I have a feeling THAT case will be dropped the second the inquest is completed. Either way, the mother may not be as crazy and evil as Howard would like everyone to think. . Well, enough pondering the acts of obsessed madmen -- not that the news media will let us do anything else! Fear keeps people tuning in to make sure someone is protecting them - from evils real, imagined and fabricated! . Of course, as long as the media keep pushing out of the limelight George Bush's attempts to demonize Iran by focusing on private crimes and massacres, we might be tempted to feel safe from war. But then who was the happiest man in the world that 9-11 came along? (Besides Dick Cheney and Ariel Sharon, of course.) Remember Gary Condit? And the constant news stories about the then representative's affair with the missing young Chandra Levy? The speculation that he murdered her to keep her quiet? Those stories immediately disappeared and slipped down the post-9/11 memory hole. . So despite the hopes of so many, Americans and Iranians, a U.S. military strike on Iran may be near. The U.S. can't keep those three aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf forever. And Israel's leader Ehud Olmert has made it clear that if Bush doesn't attack, Israel will. And then Bush will be forced to come in, at a time perhaps less convenient and more costly to the U.S. . Nuclear weapons, if not the first day weapon of choice, will be used to crush Iran should it retaliate against an attack - especially if it uses missiles against gulf oil targets, U.S. troops and the Green Zone in Iraq, or Israel. Millions of Iranians could be dead in hours; tens of millions in weeks. And, if the Russians freak out at nuclear weapons exploding just hundreds of miles from their borders, half of humanity could be dead before the summer solstice. (See some scary nuclear war videos here.) . Last night I was shocked when a news broadcast of the Virginia Tech madman's video rant about mass murder suddenly was interrupted by a Geico add chirping: "So easy, even a cave man can do it!" . Was universal consciousness trying to send us a not very subtle message: EVOLVE BEYOND VIOLENCE OR DIE! Transcend god and state. Get into consciousness and community.
The Al-Awda ("right of return") National conference felt it necessary to move from its original venue at the University of California, Riverside because organizers opposed allowing members of the Israeli Defense Force to attend events and film participants. Organizers rightly feared that such "evidence" of legal political activity could be used to falsely accuse, imprison or even kill Palestinian associates, friends and relatives in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
