12.13.2003
Betrayal In the Ranks
Thousands of women have been sexually assaulted in the United States military. Thousands more have been abused by their military husbands or boyfriends. And then they are victimized again.
This time, the women are betrayed by the military itself.
Explore this comprehensive multimedia investigation by Amy Herdy and Miles Moffeit of the Denver Post.
12/13/2003
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At age 22 Strom Thurmond fathered a bi-racial child with his families 16 year old maid . He seems to have treated her pretty decently overall, even providing financial support throughout his publicly unacknowledged daughters life.
One complex segregationist.
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12/13/2003
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Right-Wing Christian terrorist Clayton Waagner is a case you may not have heard about, "anthrax" and all. The link is from Salon.com, you'll have to click on the " free day pass" to see the full article, it is easy and painless, just takes a moment.
12/13/2003
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Senator Robert Byrd, a voice for the people.
12/13/2003
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OK, I called Mr Dean, "Bush Lite". Republican Lite. Comfortable Centrist. Best chance at winning because he falls in the spectrum of "more of the same". Less bad. What I mean is Dennis Kucinich is truly progressive, in a Wellstone sort of way. Would any conscious, Liberal citizen pick Howard Dean over Paul Wellstone if Mr Wellstone was alive and in the running? "Anybody but Bush", yeah, I know, but shouldn't we raise the bar? Look at Clinton/Gore. Take a moment to review their accomplishments for the man in the street. Can't we do better? America needs a non "same as it ever was" alternative to popular governance. My sense is that we are selling our future short. Settling. We could elect a real Populist. This is primary time, it is still not too late. Do the research, see past the rhetoric.
America and the world need Mr Bush and company out of the White House. But we should look to the future is what I am trying to say.
At the televised "debate" Kucinich had the substance...
12/13/2003
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A new blog worthy of note: GraphicTruth, this story about Mr Bush falling out with conservatives is what first caught my eye.
12/13/2003
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Read a bit more about where Democracy in the states is heading under the present administration. Without truth it is merely a word, fancy windowdressing.
Will you tell your grandkids what you were doing as Democracy was sold off.
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12/13/2003
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Have you been to Big Left Outside? Read this post and this one too. Turn off your tv and gather the wife and kiddies around, talk to your friends. Seriously. THINK.
A brother in blogging, Philosophical Scrivener, can reinforce this. (The specific post I point to.)
Think!
12/13/2003
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My right wing salt-of the-earth neighbor said " That Kucinski, he's for real" after seeing the Democratic debate televised. It's Kucinich. Check out Mousemusings. Dean is Bushlite.
Sorry, my Liberal compadres, but you know it is true. Read , discern, act. It is for the good of our children...
Light might make you squint, but it is good.
Hello, sunshine...
12/13/2003
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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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12.11.2003
Bush's Religious Language.
Pastor and theologian Juan Stam wrote an insightful article,"Bush's Religious Language" that has appeared in The Nation magazine. To read the article it is adapted from in the original Spanish go to Signos de Vida
It is remarkable how closely Bush's discourse coincides with that of the false prophets of the Old Testament. While the true prophets proclaimed the sovereignty of Yahweh, the God of justice and love who judges nations and persons, the false prophets served Baal, who could be manipulated by the powerful.
12/11/2003
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Bill Janklow, as you probably have heard, has been convicted of felony second-degree manslaughter for the vehicular homicide death of volunteer fireman/rancher Randy Scott; even with much evidence withheld that would shed light on the level of responsibility he has demonstrated in the last 10 or 15 years on the roads of South Dakota. Instances such as Janklow's going through on off-ramp stop sign at 100 miles-per-hour.
Will he, like anyone of us with a like record, actually serve time? He is looking at 10 years behind bars as well as a 10,000 dollar fine for the felony crime in itself. Mr Janklow will lose his right to own a firearm for 15 years as well as his ability to practice law under South Dakota laws.
The judge's discretion on the four convictions ranges from no time behind bars and no fines up to a total of 10 years in prison, 14 months in jail and $11,400 in fines. The judge also could require restitution, community service, or set other special conditions.
Judge Rodney Steele is not moving the cases sentencing date up from January 20, 2004 so as to get a full presentencing background on Janklow, if the Judge is not under political pressure, in all decency and fairness the convicted man should do time, seeing how shameful the Congressman's past is.
You can write to Judge Rodney Steele here if you'd like to weigh in, share some facts with the man:
Judge Rodney Steele
Moody County Courthouse
P.O. Box 247
Flandreau, SD 57028-0247
Judge Steele has discretion in sentencing this case. Janklow, a man who has advocated "boot camps" for youngsters cites how the Marine Corps supposedly "turned him around" after his first conviction for sexual assault at age 16 seems all gung ho about punishing crime other than his own. In South Dakota a juvenile truant or runaway can become incarcerated.
confirmed by children, staff, and videotapes, is that kids in the boot camps who were considered discipline problems were shackled by their wrists and ankles to beds or concrete floors -- a restraint called "four-pointing" -- sometimes for 24 hours a day. Male guards often took part in cutting off the clothes of girls who were four-pointed, ostensibly to prevent suicide. Male guards also patrolled the showers, a particularly traumatizing practice for the 75 percent of Plankinton girls who reported to counselors that they had been sexually abused as children. Some kids were pepper-sprayed naked in their cells and denied medication. Children considered violent were kept in total isolation, more than 23 hours a day in small cells, for as long as two weeks.
Please read the above link and see another facet of Bill Janklow's character.
Human Rights Watch discusses Janklow's Juvenile Boot Camps.
If prison camps are good enough for children a State Prison should suit Mr Janklow. And appeal to his sense of retributive justice. 10 years is not long enough for punishment advocate Bill Janklow. A fine and community service are not justice, ask yourself if an "Joe Average" would tend to be treated the same with such a long history behind him.
12/11/2003
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12.10.2003
Justice in the Janklow case. I'll follow up tomarrow...
12/10/2003
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12.08.2003
Justice?, Where?
A piece about Tibet. We watch Israel do to the Palestinans what our nation did to the indigenous folks here in North America. We watch the Chinese do the same to the people of Tibet.
In this day and age, why?
12/08/2003
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12.07.2003
Please give this fine new blog a read. Bark Bark Woof Woof on Judge Roy Moore.
12/07/2003
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Read about A.M Rosenthal, the NY Daily News' lead propagandist for U.S pre-emptive wars. disclaimer: Yup, I think the guy is a JERK.
12/07/2003
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Read a bit about the history of what our leaders call Al Qaeda. Could independant terrorist groups be lumped together as a convenient focus for our fear... and hate?
12/07/2003
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Separation of Church and State are essential parts of being an American.
The religious right stood American history on its head Tuesday when, in unusually heated oral argument before the Supreme Court, its representatives endorsed taxpayer financing of religious training for clergy of all faiths.
U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson spoke for the Bush administration as a "friend of the court" in a case sponsored by the Rev. Pat Robertson's fiercely antisecular American Center for Law and Justice.
12/07/2003
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