12.12.2003
Fish In a Barrel
While perusing American Samizdat for a relevant news fix I came across an article that illumines the character of Dick Cheney, and illustrates that of his neocon cronies:
Cheney arrived at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe on Monday to do some hunting at the Rolling Rock Club and Game Preserve -- a private club with farm-raised pheasants; but some say it was no hunt -- it was a slaughter.
"Your average hunter may shoot more than three pheasants a day; Vice President Cheney shot more than 70 -- and an untold number of mallards... We're appalled that so many animals were killed for target practice essentially."-- Wayne Pacelle, V.P.- Humane Society of the US
Five-hundred pheasants were released in front of Cheney and his men; and the ten-man hunting party killed 417 of the birds. Vice President Cheney alone shot over 70 pheasants
Shooting 70 farm raised pheasant in the space of a morning. That is obscene. How obscene? Did you ever hear of shooting pheasant from a blind?
Club employee Scott Wakefield described the hunt for Action News.
"We release pheasants off a hill, and they shoot them," Wakefield said. "They all stay in their blinds up ahead of us. The other guys like me, we have our dogs and we run them. We stand below (the hunters), and every bird they shoot, our dogs retrieve them."
Mr Cheney, it seems a little trap shooting would be more in order, it is still sporting with little walking required unlike this; and anyway the bluerock clays don't bleed and die, they don't end up wounded our maimed. There is no meaningless death involved. The one characteristic that binds this administration, well, other than love of money and powerlust, is death. An apparent absence of the sacred when it comes to the consideration of life in our world.
To his credit the article states the birds were plucked and vacuum packed for his "afternoon flight home". Does the game farm have a gutting and plucking machine? I'm guessing not, a low wage worker did the work of getting the pheasant fit to eat. Just like the men who run the pheasants for the Cheney group's killing pleasure. Hunters walk the field, are surprised when the bird rises up, sometimes from seemingly underfoot. Hunters clean thier game. Killers on the other hand don't need to take responsibility for what they have done, they remain disconnected from the realities of their actions. Mr Cheney stayed out of Viet Nam yet has no compunction about sending youngsters to die for no real, no discernable reason but greed in Iraq. Halliburton is raking in an ever growing "pretty penny". Whether in the "canned" pheasant shoot or concerning Iraq I'm sure he feels at a distance from the reality, that he thinks he has no blood on his hands.
In the interest of fairness I offer this link that speaks of Senator Tom Harken, who is a Democrat, and other Democrats shooting pheasant at an Iowa farm. The linked page has a guilded age feel to it, an insiders view to the elite, beautiful people of political high society, yup, I find it bile inducing. But hey, that's just me.
I'm looking forward to pheasant in about a week. The hunter is a man I respect (now there's a short list), covering ground and enjoying the outdoors, doing what he loves he got his. There were not just released from a farm, a sort of confused exotic chicken.
And it will taste good...
Did you know Halliburton is involved in asbestos claims. A bit more death, eh, Mr Cheney. Another canned hunt I guess, worker need jobs.
Pheasants, peasants, there seems to be no difference for rich corporate CEOs.
The US Military is supporting Saddam's repressive laws against workers unions.
In 1987, the regime of Saddam Hussein reclassified most Iraqi workers--those who labored in the huge state enterprises that are the heart of the country's economy--as civil servants. As such, they were prohibited from forming unions and bargaining.
The occupation, however, didn't lift this decree. It is still in force, as privatization looms like a sword of Damocles over those workers and the factories on which they depend for survival. And while keeping in place the ban on unions, the occupation authorities have kept wages low and unemployment high.
Here's how union-busting is done in Iraq.
On Dec. 6, according to a union spokesperson interviewed by phone, a convoy of 10 Humvees and personnel carriers descended on the old headquarters building of the Transport and Communications Workers union, in Baghdad's central bus station, which has been used since June as the office of the Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). Twenty soldiers jumped out, stormed into the building, put handcuffs on eight members of the Federation's executive board, and took them into detention.
The article goes on to say: While unions are being suppressed, international conferences in Washington and London take place every week, at which Iraqi assets are put on sale to private buyers. At one recent conference, ExxonMobil, Delta Airlines and the American Hospital Group all expressed interest in various Iraqi enterprises.
Workers fear new foreign owners will cut labor costs through layoffs. Resistance at the work site has been made illegal by laws banning unions and by the arrest of their leaders.
The link above gleaned at Buzzflash.
Halliburton overcharging 61 million dollars for Gasoline for our troops? In time of war does that make the CEO a traitor? And the 67 million overcharge Halliburton bills the US with for dining halls, oops that's a billing error, right?
Making money from the US taxpayer is like shooting fish in a barrel, or pheasants from a blind
"War is hell, but it has turned into financial heaven for Halliburton," said Senator Lautenberg. "This sweetheart, no-bid contract given to Halliburton spikes up by hundreds of millions of dollars each week. Its outrageous."
Further into this article:
According to government data, Halliburton's no-bid contract has risen to $1.4 billion, from $1.25 billion just one week ago. In September alone, the no-bid contract doubled in size from $700 million to $1.4 billion.
12/12/2003
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