Murderers get off; Whistle blowers go to jail
Private Bradley Manning is a hero. So much so that the US
Defence Department has jailed him, and is getting ready to try him
because he leaked some video footage containing scenes of blatant
murder committed by US forces in Iraq. You can read more about
this and see the video HERE.
You can support Bradley Manning HERE
When writing about Wikileaks in the New Yorker a few
weeks back,Raffi Khatchadourian, the
author of the article alleges that there is some legal ambiguity about
the actions of the soldiers.
[Julian Paul] Assange [of Wikileaks]saw these events in sharply delineated moral terms, yet the footage did not offer easy legal judgments. In the month before the video was shot, members of the battalion on the ground, from the Sixteenth Infantry Regiment, had suffered more than a hundred and fifty attacks and roadside bombings, nineteen injuries, and four deaths; early that morning, the unit had been attacked by small-arms fire. The soldiers in the Apache were matter-of-fact about killing and spoke callously about their victims, but the first attack could be judged as a tragic misunderstanding. The attack on the van was questionable—the use of force seemed neither thoughtful nor measured—but soldiers are permitted to shoot combatants, even when they are assisting the wounded, and one could argue that the Apache’s crew, in the heat of the moment, reasonably judged the men in the van to be assisting the enemy. Phase three may have been unlawful, perhaps negligent homicide or worse. Firing missiles into a building, in daytime, to kill six people who do not appear to be of strategic importance is an excessive use of force. This attack was conducted with scant deliberation, and it is unclear why the Army did not investigate it.(Read more of the article)Note that it is just assumed that the war is legal, and that the foreign forces which invaded Iraq have a framework for committing acts of murder and destruction because, well, they're there. Curiously, when one's home is invaded in the United States, any force used to defend it is justified. As well, were there an invasion of the US, all means of repelling the invaders would be justified, and the defenders would not be called "insurgents". The off-hand acceptance of the invasion, and the justification that, because there have been roadside bombings committed against foreign troops these troops are somehow justified in gunning down civilians makes you wonder what kind of moral planet Raffi Khatchadourian hails from. And then to go on about legal ambiguities...
This is the danger of War Talk. You start talking in the terms and with the assumptions of the war makers. Soon, you can justify the war, tacitly, even if you oppose it. You do this when you ask for a planned, timed withdrawal rather than an immediate, unconditional withdrawal, or when you get into quibbling discussions about troop levels, or when you use the (illegal, and in any case, immoral) war to frame actions that would be crimes if committed during peace time. War Talk is the obscene gibberish that keeps these things going. To his credit, Mr. Khatchadourian does go on to talk about the coverage by the mainstream media, and their inability and lack of desire to talk about the Wikileaks video intelligently. From them, there is even more gibberish....but then, you know that's what you'd get from them. Of course, Mr. Khatchadourian is less critical of the uncritical media.
G8 G20
It's instructive to consider the G 20 and G 8 meetings held recently
in Toronto, but also the ones held elsewhere.
Isn't it interesting that there are protests and not throngs of
adoring constituents that show up to great the "leaders"? This
is largely because there aren't any adoring masses clamouring for a
view of these figureheads for all that is bad about capitalism (come
to think of it, most every thing is bad about capitalism....).
Mostly, they are greeted, from outside their fortresses, by those that
have legitimate grievances.
I have also come to realise that the greatest instigation to
violent confrontation is the fences, walls, and massive police
presence. The Toronto Police Service seems to be up to
the, at least North American, standard set by the Chicago Police in
1968 for being goons and bullies. I wonder why police forces
attract (or maybe recruit) such a disproportionate number of bullies,
goons, and racists.
I challenge the rulers of the world to encounter the people who
elect to (or tolerate there being in) office and listen to their
grievances without fences or walls between them.
One last thought: Could be that the fences were there to produce
a zoo-like effect, and we were meant all along to come and look at --
but not to feed -- the animals.
New CD
I have released a new CD, Can This CD Stop War? On it, I play
various flutes and a recorder in music that is, for the most part,
meditative and contemplative. My hope is that people hearing it will
be more adamantly for peace and opposed to war. This is especially for
those who live in countries which are participating in the American
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other places.
War is all part of the blatant corporate crime wave loose on the
world. Empowered and enabled by politicians bought and paid for
by corporations, politicians who passed laws allowing the "economic
crisis" (or bailout for bankers), and unquestioningly allowing
invasions and the death and destruction they've wrought. As well,
they've given us the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which will perhaps
prove to be the most destructive event ever. Corporate banditry leads
to war. Ending the unnatural, inhumane system of corporate capitalism
is likely the only way to bring peace, and a world in which no one
gets fabulously wealthy at the expense of millions of others.
I hope you'll listen to the previews of the tracks. They are
available through the link above, or directly from CDBaby.com If you like it, I hope you'll buy
the CD, the some of the tracks, or the digital version of the CD.
Insurance Care Wins, Health Care Loses
In spite of what the various groups which have been formed to coral
and cow progressives into the Democratic Party may be saying today,
the passage of Obama's "health care" program is nothing to
celebrate. It isn't our health that's being cared for:
it's the health of the insurance industry. The insurance
companies are well taken care of now. We're forced to do
business with them, whether we like it or not, no matter what shoddy
products they have to sell. This is a wealth transfer and a bailout to
what should be a dead industry. Obama's bait and switch has
succeeded. He promised health care for all, and gave us corporate care
for the insurance companies.
Once and for all: Obama is not a
progressive. Neither are MoveOn.org, True Majority, or the
rest progressive organizations. To add the final touch, Obama
was able to gear up MoveOn.org, the Daily Kos, etc. came down
hard on the last progressive left in Congress, Dennis Kucinich,
forcing him to support this corporate giveaway with threats of running
someone else, someone more corporation-friendly, no doubt, in the
primaries against him. Supporting the Democratic Party is, just
as supporting the Republican Party and their Tea-bagger flunkies is,
supporting Wall Street, supporting the rule of money in Congress, and
the perpetuation of failed social policies and endless wars.
Dennis Kucinich should join the Green Party as soon as
tomorrow. The Democrats are not going to stop here.
They'll want him out of Congress whether he folded to them now or
not. As for the "progressive" organizations like MoveOn.org,
they are nothing but fronts for corporate power, eternal war, and
increasing disparity in wealth, and the rest of the Democratic Party's
platform. The Republicans and the Democrats are nothing more
than part of a show, a sham performance to make us think there are
actually political differences of any note in our body politic.
Obama is nothing more nor less than the latest war-mongering corporado
to occupy the White House.
Prostitutes in High Places
Who is the
highest-priced
prostitute in America today? At the moment, Barack Obama, but only
because it's his turn to occupy the whore house at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. Lesser whores, some five hundred plus of them, can be found
at the other end of that same street at the Capitol.
These big-time
courtesans
don't sell sex. It might be better for all of us if they did. They
sell our trust in them; they sell their power to make laws and
policy; they sell the country right out from under us. The procurers
on K street – they're known as lobbyists, though they're pimps,
pure and simple – set up liaisons between corporations and the
whores in the various houses who then put legislation together to
raise corporations above the law, and make it easier for them to make
money. The latest trick is to force people to give money to directly
to corporations. That's what “mandated health care” is all
about. Forcing us, not to give over money to the government in the
form of taxes, but money directly to corporations, for the purposes
of fattening executive salaries and shareholder profits. In the past,
this was mostly done by Congress, through legislation which would
transfer public funds to corporations. This is what the bank bailout
is. Laws are also made to make it harder for the people to get the
money back.
Now, these whores will
doubtless tell you that they're motivated to seek public office by a
profound sense of public service. In the past, I thought that they
were at least motivated by a desire to keep a cushy job. Now, I know
better. It is really to get on the high-priced Washington Stroll,
first as a whore, and later as a pimp – I mean, lobbyist. If
Democrats – or even Republicans – were really concerned with
keeping their seats, they'd pass a Medicare-for-all health care bill.
They'd be assured of being re-elected for at least a generation by a
grateful nation. In no country which has such a system is there any
widespread, grass-roots movement to get rid of it. If there is any
at all, it is from a right-wing fringe or some disgruntled doctors.
Politicians in those countries wouldn't voice a desire to do away
with universal medicare for a second, unless they were tired of their
jobs. Even a right-wing nut like Bush-loving Stephen Harper, Prime
Minister of a minority government in Canada, would not openly try to
do away with Medicare, even though it appears to be the most
cherished of his demented dreams. Yes, friends, our politicians are,
for the most part, only seeking public office to get in the way of
the K-Street Pimps and their money.
When these whores come
looking for your vote, tell them to forget it. Vote for a candidate
from a party other than the Democrats or Republicans. If you can't,
either because their isn't one to your liking on the ballot, or
because your local Democrats and Republicans have passed laws making
it impossible for other candidates to get on the ballot, go to the
polling place on election day, and take your ballot, and return it
without making a choice. You'll do this in different ways depending
on the way your ballot is set up. After that, get involved with ways
of effecting change in other spheres of public life. Remember,
democracy is much more than an election or rigged referendum. In
short, we've got to stop playing along in this game where we can only
lose.
The U. S. Supreme Court has made political prostitution legal. You might write the justices and ask that, when laws against prostitution come before them in the future, that they look as favourably upon sex-trade workers as they have on politicians and corporations.