1.16.2004
The site will be dark for a couple days. See you Sunday.
1/16/2004
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1.15.2004
Remembering MLK
Martin Luther King's birthday. Just a man, but a man who strove to realise the vision and promise of Jesus in and for our world. Martin is a hero to me, a complex being doing what he could to educate and lead his fellows to truly live what Christ is recorded as saying in accepted Christian Scripture. You don't need me to google up links, but I offer this one from the MLK Papers Project at Stanford.
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear annihilation... I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow... I still belive that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed."
--Martin Luther King, Jr., Address in Acceptance of Nobel Peace Prize - 10 December 1964
I have some of his speeches on LP, some of the most moving and life affirming words I have ever heard. Pointing out the history and context of current events in light of the actions of a supposedly Christian people he served us up with an unsparing glimpse of our everyday hypocrisy.
Just a man, trying to walk his truth in the world, striving to share the reality of the Christian faith, to lead people to embody the religion they claimed out loud yet deny with their actions he was killed.
In quiet moments I read his words, listen to his speeches and remember that I can do better, be better and my faith in life is reaffirmed, my consciousness of it's process is enlivened and my place in it is highlighted with hope.
His last sermon, which he didn't live to deliver was entitled "Why America May Go to Hell".
George W Bush in my eyes is the anti-Martin Luther King.
1/15/2004
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Is Paul O'Neill backpedaling on the information he gave that Mr Bush and company were planning the Iraq invasion from the get-go of the Bush administrations residency in the White House?
On ABC news an unidentified source corraborates the truth of O'Niell's view.
Information Clearing House makes it really easy to see that much of the Bush cabinet, folks like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush's brother Jeb and his Chief of Staff Lewis Libby were commited to attacking Iraq well before the Supreme Court Justices selected Mr Bush for the Presidency.
Back in 1996 Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were involved in the paper for The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000 entitled "A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" advocating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a pressing Israeli problem.
The article "Dick Cheney's Song of America" by David Armstrong points out Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell's involvement, Cheney's advocacy is seen going back to 1990. Wolfowitz turns up here too.
A quote from Mr Bush reported in Time Magazine, March 2002 :
“Fuck Saddam,” Bush said. “We’re taking him out.”
Pretty incriminating, don't you think...
1/15/2004
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1.14.2004
Richard Perle, Deadly NeoCon
You may have heard Richard Perle on "Fresh Air" with Terrie Gross. Take a moment to read about the man at TomPaine.com
Remember when he said Iraq would be "a cakewalk"? Our soldiers are still dying there. A very dangerous, very influential man we see connected ti 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
1/14/2004
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1.13.2004
The Media vs Howard Dean
We saw the press beat up on Al Gore last election cycle. From what I see of mainstream media Howard Dean is suffering at the same hands. That last link is from Salon, if you are not a member you'll need to get a free day pass to view it. No matter which candidate you favor to unseat the current team in residence that utilizes the "Big Lie" technique of governance you owe it to yourself to read "The Media vs Howard Dean"
1/13/2004
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File Under: Huh?
Where you aware that Bill Clinton told Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, Prime minister of Portugal last October that he believed Iraq possessed WMD's?"When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime," he said in an interview with Portuguese cable news channel SIC Noticias.
The CIA thought a bit differently...
1/13/2004
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How is it that Mr Bush keeps his poll figures high, at least 50 percent?
The "S" factor.
Think about it...
1/13/2004
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1.12.2004
Debt: Micro and Macro
"We the People" are living beyond our means- US consumer debt is at an all time high, to the tune of 2.004 trillion dollars. Consumer debt hit the 1 trillion dollar mark for the first time in US history ten years ago in December of 1994. Add in the nations mortgages and the figure is a wapping 9 trillion dollars Americans owe their creditors.
Personal bankruptcies are at a historic high (.PDF link) as well, with 1,625,813 filed in Fiscal year 2003, reflecting an increase of 98 percent since 1994.
The incidence of business bankruptcy is down, falling 7.4 percent. Non-business bankruptcies account for 97.8 of all filed in Federal Courts.
Could these facts have anything to do with the rosy view the media was putting out over the holidays, the hoopla about consumer spending showing the growing health of the economy? What we didn't know was that during the month of December, a mere 1000 jobs were created. Nationwide. A drop in the bucket considering the number of unemployed in the US. But with it being the holidays and all, the serfs were still spending. The media urged us on.
Remember how many jobs Mr Bush said the tax cuts targeted to America's richest citizens would create?
The President has proposed $726 billion in tax relief to create 510,000 new jobs this year and a total of 1.4 million new jobs by the end of next year.
The next year refered to above is 2004.
Let Job Watch fill you in with the facts and illustrative graphs (bookmark this site). Bottom line, in this period, at a baseline of 3% growth, without the tax cut ,the nation should see the creation of 4.1 million jobs- add in the jobs the tax cut was to create and your looking at 5.5 million jobs created under the present administration.
Where are they?
An article in the Toronto Star touches on the global risk the present administration's policies present to the US and global economies as spelled out in the International Monetary Fund paper "U.S. Fiscal Policies and Priorities for Long-Run Sustainability" I'd urge you to explore the IMF link, lengthy as it is, holding in mind that the IMF is corporate capitol leaning. Also holding in mind that this is the organization that impose "Structural Adjustment Programs" on debtor nations to allow them to get in the black again. As the Whirled Bank Group puts it:
Balancing national budgets can be done by raising taxes, which the IMF frowns upon, or by cutting government spending, which it definitely recommends. As a result, SAPs often result in deep cuts in programmes like education, health and social care, and the removal of subsidies designed to control the price of basics such as food and milk. So SAPs hurt the poor most, because they depend heavily on these services and subsidies.
Sounds a lot like the current regimes view of where they intend to see US Government going under their watch. Are we watching them turn the US into a third world nation?
Thom Harman describes this trend as a return to Feudalism.
"the old contest of feudalism and democracy renews itself here on a new battlefield."
--Ralph Waldow Emerson
The New Feudalism, Part 1 by Doug Kraft is an eye opening piece on the history of this trend in America.
1/12/2004
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1.11.2004
Some Informative Links
I apologize for the lack of full posting lately.
Check out this "phlog" a sort of blog that features pictures.
Stop by Hobson's Choice and read a favorite blog of mine. Did you know Dick Cheney is under criminal investigation?
I also offer a favorite piece I saw there on the economist Sebastio Salgado.
To analyze all you see and hear nowadays knowing about J.A Hobson is crucial. Check the link offered out.
1/11/2004
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