Showing posts with label aggressive war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aggressive war. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

'Conspiracies of Rich Men' to Rob You, Enslave You, and Wage Aggressive Wars at Your Expense!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It is still fashionable in the American media to deride 'conspiracies' with a blanket if illogical and uninformed smear. Conspiracies are, in fact, how things get done in either crime or commerce. Lately, there is little difference. When just one percent of the U.S. population owns more than the rest of us combined, we are expected to believe that this is the result of merit and 'free enterprise'. But if we should cite the evidence that argues persuasively that this outcome is the result of a conspiracy of right wing politicians and the venal elites who bankroll them we are reviled and/or ridiculed. In fact, 'free enterprise' does not exist in an oligopoly and 'oligopoly' is a polite word for what has happened to and in America. We should expect a pack of lies from those caught with a hand in the cookie jar! We should expect cover stories and propaganda from those caught in the act of looting the United States. We should expect 'excuses' and rationalization from the cadre which cooked up the cover story --'supply side economics'.

Conspiracies are how things get done. If legal, they are called 'corporations'. If not, they are criminal conspiracies and there is a huge body of case law that proves how utterly stupid is the meme: "conspiracies don't exist!" Tell it to the judge!

Very little is accomplished by one person working alone, be it the mythical 'lone gun man' in Dealy Plaza' or Dick Cheney wishing to gain control of the oil fields of Iraq. The Dick, as you may recall, required a conspiracy, his 'Energy Task Force' which met to divvy up the spoils of aggressive war before it would occur, before they would have the convenient pretext to justify it: 911!

Like Hitler with Thyssen, Krupp, I.G. Farben et al, the Dick met with his co-conspirators, his 'Energy Task Force', just prior to 911. They met to carve up the oil fields of Iraq amongst them just as Hitler had coveted the coal in Poland.

We are expected to believe the official cover story that the subsequent 911 attacks were merely coincidental when, in fact, they provided the essential pretext to attack and invade Iraq. We are expected to fall into line and goosestep. We are expected to just shut up and allow the corporate media to brainwash us. We are expected to believe coincidence theories upon faith and faith alone; to ask for evidence or proof is 'unpatriotic'. Not all of us fell for this crock! It was only the gullible, the stupid, the right wing!

Conspiracies need not be illegal though most of them probably are; else --why keep them secret? Why the campaign to convince you that they do not exist? If a conspiracy is legal, it's called a corporation. For awhile, Enron found that 'corporate person-hood' was the perfect cover. Like the Twin Towers later, Enron crashed and burned as a result of its own conspiratorial schemes to include putting the screws to California.

Conspiracy theorists on the high court have provided rich theorists and criminals yet another layer of cover: corporate person-hood! The robed conspiracy theorists have have said that corporations are people! But if should you call those five idiots who, in fact, conspired to subvert the U.S. Constitution, by the term 'conspirators', you will be denounced as a nut job! That the insane will call us 'nuts' is proof that we live in absurd, Kafkaesque times.

A recent decision of the Supreme Court has said that 'corporations' are people! Now any rag tag collection of crooks, ne'erdowells and/or robber barons can send money to the Secretary State in Delaware and receive in return a nice binder with impressive documents along with a genuine Delaware corporate seal! Thereafter, you --too --will be a real person, a 'corporation'! The Delaware Secretary of State has made it so! Now, I ask you, who is nuts? At one time, this cost about $5o to $100 and there were/are numerous 'registered agents' who handle all the paper work for you. All you have to do is send them real money, as real as money can be these days.

The biggest conspiracy theorists since WWII have been the demagogues of the right wing who raised the specter of a World Wide Communist Conspiracy. We were told that there were evil conspiracies of drug dealers and drug cartels which they used to justify crack downs on civil liberties and justify domestic surveillance. We were told about evil schemes to poison our drinking water for the greater glory of communism --a world wide conspiracy. Or so we were told. Later, the same folk would tell us that conspiracies do not exist. No one should believe them.

The government often cites the specter of 'organized crime' in order to rally voters to a 'right wing' cause like 'law and order', a big issue in the 1960s. What is organized crime if not a conspiracy? In order to believe in the specter of 'organized crime', we must believe that 'conspiracies exist'. Either they exist or they do not! Either organized crime is real or it is not! Which is it? I despair that the idiots who run our government will ever make up their mind.

Organized crime was a favorite 'boogie man' back in the 30s, 40s and 50s. After all, Al Capone was selling booze and screwing whores. But what are 'crime syndicates' if not conspiracies? Again --the government will have it both ways if it can get away with it. Having spent several decades scaring the pants off the population by raising the specter of a 'conspiracy' --organized crime --the government now expects us to believe that conspiracies do not exist. When is the government telling the truth? When is it lying? It is reasonable to question everything said by the government about anything at any time! It is clear that the government will tell you anything that is expedient!

The government itself is, as St Thomas More said of the court of King Henry VIII, a 'conspiracy of rich men". These 'rich men', this mere one percent of the total population, will exploit whatever 'threat' is convenient to keep the people uninformed, enslaved and/or pacified. The perceived 'threats' are many and, over the years, the 'threats' have included hippies, black people, rock n' roll, crime syndicates, etc. But, most recently, the 'conspiracy of rich men' we call the government has hit the bonanza: terrorism.

In order to fully exploit this new buggaboo, the government demonized the religion of Islam. It raised the specter of racism, in this case, the 'brown skin' of many who live in the Middle East. These liars and criminals had to resort to every trick in the book. But, to be honest, they were not very good at it and only the very, very stupid fell for it.

The right wing establishment are themselves conspiracy theorists when it is useful but not otherwise. 911 is a case in point. The official theory of 19 Arab Hijackers is a conspiracy theory favored by the Bush administration though there is absolutely no admissible evidence to support it. It is 'Orwellian' that anyone proposing any 'other' conspiracy theory is labeled a 'conspiracy theorist' and reviled or called other names.

The government will turn a blind-eye to the fact that it is, itself, a conspiracy and not always a legal one. It was Ronald Reagan who sold arms to Iran illegally and committed treason in the process. He did not do this on his own. Reagan conspired with the CIA, Bush Sr et al to sell arms to Iran --called at the time an 'avowed enemy of the United States! The CIA used the proceeds of those sales to bankroll --illegally --the Nicaraguan Contras. The CIA, itself, must be considered to be nothing more nor less than an institutionalized conspiracy. There is a word for a conspiracy of this type: traitors guilty of high treason:
The Iran/contra investigation will not end the kind of abuse of power that it addressed any more than the Watergate investigation did. The criminality in both affairs did not arise primarily out of ordinary venality or greed, although some of those charged were driven by both. Instead, the crimes committed in Iran/contra were motivated by the desire of persons in high office to pursue controversial policies and goals even when the pursuit of those policies and goals was inhibited or restricted by executive orders, statutes or the constitutional system of checks and balances.

The tone in Iran/contra was set by President Reagan. He directed that the contras be supported, despite a ban on contra aid imposed on him by Congress. And he was willing to trade arms to Iran for the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East, even if doing so was contrary to the nation's stated policy and possibly in violation of the law.

The lesson of Iran/contra is that if our system of government is to function properly, the branches of government must deal with one another honestly and cooperatively. When disputes arise between the Executive and Legislative branches, as they surely will, the laws that emerge from such disputes must be obeyed. When a President, even with good motive and intent, chooses to skirt the laws or to circumvent them, it is incumbent upon his subordinates to resist, not join in. Their oath and fealty are to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to the man temporarily occupying the Oval Office. Congress has the duty and the power under our system of checks and balances to ensure that the President and his Cabinet officers are faithful to their oaths.

--Lawrence Walsh, Special Prosecutor, Concluding Observations, FINAL REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS
No one ever called the Senior Bush a 'conspiracy theorist' though he was, in fact, a conspirator! But worse, he was a 'traitor' and so was Ronald Reagan.
"I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth."

- Sir Thomas More (1478 - 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia
Let's put the myths to rest forever. Conspiracies exist! OK? Last time I checked the Cornell University Law Library and FINDLAW, I found hundreds if not thousands of court decisions, having to do with conspiracies large and small, of one sort or another. If conspiracies do not exist, I would urge that someone, anyone please send a memo to that effect to the Supreme Court. Tell them to stop handing down decisions having to do with 'conspiracies'. Inform them that conspiracies do not exist! Do that! Then get back with me!

In his 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', William Shirer described a 'conspiracy of rich men'! A record of this conspiracy of Hitler survives. It includes corporate/business supporters, his financiers, his minions. Like Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' with respect to Iraq, Hitler's gang was a conspiracy to invade the nations of Europe, steal their resources and divide up the booty.
Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)

The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.

Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality . . . All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen . . . We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament). "Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years."

All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)

----William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Nazification of Germany: 1933–34
We are fortunate that no one 'informed' Shirer that conspiracies did not exist before he bothered unearthing the mountain of Nazi documents that proved --beyond any reasonable doubt --the Nazi conspiracy, specifically, the meeting that proved and described in considerable detail the Nazi conspiracy to wage war and genocide for the benefit of global corporations that participated. Some of those corporations were American. There is no evidence that these corporations ever stopped being 'Nazis'. It is interesting to note that one of Hitler's early and generous sponsors was Henry Ford, the American car maker. A portrait of Ford hung in Hitler's fancy New Reich Chancellery. A traitor, perhaps he should have been hanged in the Chancellery!

This meeting of 'industrialists' took place just as surely as did meeting of Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' in which the oil fields of the the Middle East, Iraq in particular, were 'divvied' up among the conspirators. The results were published in a 'National Energy Policy' report in May 2001 [PDF], several months before 911 would give them the pretext to make the report come true.

Another example is Heinrich Heydrich's infamous conspiracy --his meeting at Wannsee, attended by Nazi bureaucrats, and corporate kiss ups. Over a civilized lunch, this 'conspiracy of rich men' planned the extermination of the Jews of Europe.
... within a few months after the meeting, the first gas chambers were installed in some of the extermination camps in Poland. These six camps, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka were in operation in Poland.

Responsibility for the entire project was placed in the hands of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, and head of the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS.

The Wannsee Conference did not mark the beginning of the "Final Solution." The mobile killing squads were already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. Rather, the Wannsee Conference was the place where the "final solution" was formally revealed to non-Nazi leaders who would help arrange for Jews to be transported from all over German-occupied Europe to SS-operated "extermination" camps in Poland. Not one of the men present at Wannsee objected to the announced policy. Never before had a modern state committed itself to the murder of an entire people.

--The Wannsee Conference, Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
Very little is accomplished by one person working alone unless you happen to be Michelangelo. Conspiracies exist! Our own Supreme Court has said so. This is ironic as the high court itself has deteriorated, devolved; they are, themselves, of late, a conspiracy of right wing ideological extremists in service to just one percent of the population, the ruling one percent which, in fact, owns more than the rest of us combined. SCOTUS is owned!

Another tool of the ruling elite is the CIA, an acronym forever linked by time and space to the name George Bush Sr. Like Dan Quayle, Bush Sr was expert at saying nothing while moving his lips. The opposite of ventriloquism. In his presence, one was in danger of death by boredom! Nevertheless, he was a Bonesman, the son of a traitor, a CIA 'operative'. Having known Bush SR, I would testify that that is, indeed, the Senior Bush photographed hanging around the TSBD just prior to the assassination of JFK. Bush Sr was and probably still is a very dangerous man! As Caesar said of Cassius, Bush Sr had 'a lean and hungry look'! Cassius, as you may recall, participated in the murder of Caesar.
A body of leads has been assembled which suggests that George Bush may have been associated with the CIA at some time before the autumn of 1963. According to Joseph McBride of The Nation, “a source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities.” 1

By the time of the Kennedy assassination, we have an official FBI document which refers to “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency,” and despite official disclaimers there is every reason to think that this is indeed the man in the White House today. The mystery of George Bush as a possible covert operator hinges on four points, each one of which represents one of the great political and espionage scandals of postwar American history. These four cardinal points are:
  • The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, launched on April 16-17, 1961, prepared with the assistance of the CIA’s “Miami Station” (also known under the code name JM/WAVE). After the failure of the amphibious landings of Brigade 2506, Miami station, under the leadership of Theodore Shackley, became the focus for Operation Mongoose, a series of covert operations directed against Castro, Cuba, and possibly other targets.

  • The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the cover-up of those responsible for this crime.

  • The Watergate scandal, beginning with an April, 1971 visit to Miami, Florida by E. Howard Hunt on the tenth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion to recruit operatives for the White House Special Investigations Unit (the “Plumbers” and later Watergate burglars) from among Cuban-American Bay of Pigs veterans.

  • The Iran-contra affair, which became a public scandal during October-November 1986, several of whose central figures, such as Felix Rodriguez, were also veterans of the Bay of Pigs.
George Bush’s role in both Watergate and the October surprise/Iran-contra complex will be treated in detail at later points in this book. Right now it is important to see that thirty years of covert operations, in many respects, form a single continuous whole. This is especially true in regard to the dramatis personae. Georgie Anne Geyer points to the obvious in a recent book: “…an entire new Cuban cadre now emerged from the Bay of Pigs.

The names Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez, Felix Rodriguez and Eugenio Martinez would, in the next quarter century, pop up, often decisively, over and over again in the most dangerous American foreign policy crises. There were Cubans flying missions for the CIA in the Congo and even for the Portuguese in Africa; Cubans were the burglars of Watergate; Cubans played key roles in Nicaragua, in Irangate, in the American move into the Persian Gulf.” 2 Felix Rodriguez tells us that he was infiltrated into Cuba with the other members of the “Grey Team” in conjunction with the Bay of Pigs landings; this is the same man we will find directing the contra supply effort in central American during the 1980’s, working under the direct supervision of Don Gregg and George Bush. 3 Theodore Shackley, the JM/WAVE station chief, will later show up in Bush’s 1979-80 presidential campaign.

--Webster Tarpley, , George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Chapter 8b – The Bay of Pigs and The Kennedy Assassination
The assassination of JFK is clearly a textbook example of the The Modus Operandi of the CIA. In this source insider Ralph McGehee, chronicles the work he performed for the CIA from 1952 through 1977.

Another book --Deadly Deceits --is sub-titled: My 25 years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1983). In this source is compiled a computer data base of CIA activities. Persons interested may write to him at: 422 Arkansas Ave., Herndon, VA 22070. (See http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_SOP.html .)
“...it is essential to provide background on the scope and nature of its worldwide operations. Between 1961 and 1975 the Agency conducted 900 major or sensitive operations, and thousands of lesser covert actions. The majority of its operations were propaganda, election or paramilitary. Countries of major concern, such as Indonesia in the early 1960s, were usually subjected to the CIA's most concerted attention. Critics of the CIA have aptly described the mainstays of such attention: "discrediting political groups... by forged documents that may be attributed to them. . . ." faking "communist weapon shipments,'' capturing communist documents and then inserting forgeries prepared by the Agency's Technical Services Division.

--Ralph McGehee
Americans may be less informed about the CIA than residents of almost every other country. Americans are routinely lied to and deliberately kept in the dark by a 'mainstream' media that often seems complicit. For example, the MSM dare not tell the truth about the CIA and often seems to be in cahoots with them. As the CIA was known to have infiltrated student groups in the sixties the suspicion that they have, likewise, infiltrated the media is not only reasonable but conservative. It is the rare media outlet that will risk alienating its advertising base. See: Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass.

It is only coincidence, we are told, that the now dead Kennedys had been a threat to the CIA and it is only a coincidence that they are dead because of it. It is only coincidence --we are told --that activist Steve Kangas had zeroed in on conservative crimes and failures just as Richard Mellon Scaife was bankrolling a jihad against Clinton. It was only coincidence that Bush Sr was photographed hanging around the front entrance to the Texas School Book depository just minutes prior to the murder of JFK. It was only coincidence that tramps looking like E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis et al were arrested for just hanging around the rail road tracks that run north and south just behind the grassy knoll. It was just coincidence that Martin Luther King Jr seemed to have prophesied his own death with his 'I Have a Dream' speech.

"The thing I am concerned about, and so is [Deputy Attorney General Nicholas] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." --FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, speaking on the telephone to Johnson aide Walter Jenkins two hours after Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, HSCA Report, vol. III, pp. 471-73. (The Warren Commission -charged with determining the truth in the JFK assassination --relied upon Hoover's FBI as its primary investigative arm.)

"We have not been told the truth about Oswald."

--Senator Richard Russell, former Warren Commission member, conversation with researcher Harold Weisberg in 1970, Whitewash IV
We have not been told the truth about the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. But we know who the liars are and we know what it is they are lying about. We also know a great deal about why they lied as well as who is protected by the lies and why. It has also been my experience that only the guilty are sufficiently motivated to lie about a crime. Those who cover up a crime do so because they are guilty. By contrast, the innocent are motivated to tell the truth or to get at the truth. Their lives often depend upon it. The innocent must insist that truth be told if they are to remain free. It was Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"

The answer to that question might well have solved the JFK murder case! Had the train behind the grassy known not been a threat, the FBI would not have removed every trace of it in photos. I know that the FBI did so because I held in my hand the evidence that proved that they did so --slides taken in Dealy Plaza, doctored while in FBI possession. The slides were taken by Phil Willis, kept by the FBI for years, but when they were returned to Rosemary Willis (his daughter) they had been altered. The FBI is responsible.

Cover-ups, of course, are intended to protect the guilty. Something about the train --where earlier well-dressed tramps had been arrested --is germane to the plot to murder JFK. Tampering with evidence is always intended to protect the guilty. By removing the evidence, the FBI was not merely obstructing justice, it was protecting the identity/identities of murderers and traitors! Why would the FBI protect an assassin's get-away? It is reasonable to conclude that the FBI was and remains a part of the plot. See more at: Exposing Lies About the FED, the CIA, the Murder of JFK

The death of Lee Harvey Oswald relieved the government of having to get a conviction. Had Oswald gone to trial, he would have walked. The government 'case' against him would never have convinced a jury.

The magic bullet said to have created all of JFKs wounds was pristine; clearly, it had never been fired, had never struck anything. It was found on the wrong gurney at Parkland Hospital and could not have been placed at the scene of the crime. Oswald had to die because a competent judge would have thrown out the 'magic bullet'. Oswald would have walked and in 'walking' would have been a threat to the liar of the CIA, George Bush Sr who was photographed hanging around the front entrance of the TSBD just minutes before the shooting would start.

Nevertheless, we are expected to believe that a single bullet fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano was responsible for numerous wounds --a fatal one to JFK and serious wounds to Texas Governor John Connally. None of this would have gotten by a competent defense. The plotters concluded that it was better to destroy the evidence and kill all the witnesses.
“Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who on pretence of managing the public only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that that they have so ill acquired, and then that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they pleasure. And if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws. Yet these wicked men after they have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that among themselves with which all the rest might have been well supplied, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed among the Utopians; for the use as well as the desire of money being extinguished, much anxiety and great occasions of mischief is cut off with it. And who does not see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders, treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are indeed rather punished than restrained by the severities of law, would all fall off, if money were not any more valued by the world? Men’s fears, solicitudes, cares, labours, and watchings, would all perish in the same moment with the value of money; even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems most necessary, would fall.”

--St. Thomas More, Utopia
If the Military-Industrial Complex is not a 'conspiracy of rich men', then what is? If the Supreme Court has not deteriorated into a conspiracy of right wing ideologues, then why are not the dictionaries re-written and the thousands of pages of case law burned or dumped offshore? The 'conspiracy rich men' has been careless. Nevertheless, we are expected to buy the lies and die for them. No thanks!
Note: The Existentialist Cowboy is currently bombarded by spam from a lunatic name caller of the right wing ilk! Therefore, comments are moderated. Intelligent comments are, as always, welcome! Ad hominem attacks, spam and psychotic drivel is not! Eventually, the offending party will be committed to an asylum and we adults can once again engage in intelligent, articulate dialogue. Thanks for understanding.


Saturday, May 16, 2009

How War Caused the Crash

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

US government crimes against the people of the US amount to organized high treason! Millions are now out of work amid declining prospects. US troops still occupy Iraq, a war of aggression that the US has not begun to pay for. Unfortunately, neither people nor media have made the connection. Even worse, the US has yet to either win or pay for any war waged since World War II. Since World War II, Republican regimes have run up the highest debts and deficits in US history. What John Maynard Keynes stated the US has proven: war transfers wealth upward! Wealth flowing upward equals economic depression.

Democrats have meanwhile become GOP-lite. Nevertheless, it was GOP regimes that compounded the problem by cutting taxes but only for the rich. That means that it is only a tiny elite of some one percent of the population that benefited or shared the booty! You got stuck with the bill.

The GOP cut taxes first for the upper quintile and, later under Bush Jr, it was only the upper one percent who benefited. This is how the rich elites have literally forced the people of the US to finance and wage wars of naked aggression from which only the rich and privileged benefit. Examples include Korea, Viet Nam, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Iraq I and now Iraq II. None were won! None were ever paid for!

GOP regimes compounded the problem by cutting taxes first for the upper quintile and, later under Bush Jr, it was only the upper one percent who benefited. The rich elites wage wars of naked aggression from which only they benefit. It is the poorer classes who pick up the tab.

Debt was simply rolled over --but so were you! The rich were given a tax cut and everyone else got the bill and the accruing interest! As Gen. Smedley Butler put it: "War is a racket!" You were rolled over, screwed and ridiculed by the leaders of the 'right wing'! You are not expected to be smart enough to understand when you have been fucked over!

I've written about how various extra-governmental and irresponsible, non-elected entities orchestrate and conduct the ongoing auction of the US government. I've written about how the US government is clearly more responsible and responsive to foreign nations than it is to American citizens, a situation that may be high treason by any recognized definition. If you have not yet gotten 'it' -- just one percent of the nation's population benefit from the whoring out of America. Like Hitler's 'Third Reich', the whole thing has been a scam.

In times past, traitors were hanged or beheaded. Today they are allowed to barricade themselves behind several multiple rings of secured walls in exclusive 'neighborhoods' and bank their booty offshore untaxed. One might conclude that these elites are fortified and actually prepared for revolution.

Millions are now out of work amid declining prospects. US troops still occupy Iraq, a war of aggression that the US has not begun to pay for. Unfortunately, neither the people or the media have made the connection. In fact, the US has probably yet to pay for any war waged since World War II. It is not coincidental that neither has the US actually won a war since WWII. It's not about winning. It's about getting rich and richer.

At the Nuremberg trials following WWII, the US stood for a principle that no nation had the right to wage aggressive war against another. The US, it is said, prosecuted from 'the top down'. The criminals were the architects of genocide, the brass who gave the order, the architects of atrocities and mass murder. Today, we repudiate those principles if we declare ourselves above them. You cannot have it both ways. If it is the US position that international laws apply only to Nazis or Muslims, then the laws apply to no one. The US position is idiocy on its face and a recipe for international anarchy and lawlessness. There are no exceptions for the U.S.

The term victor's justice is associated with Herman Goring! Now --we have become Goring or, at least, the best evidence that he was correct. We have become the hypocrites he said were were. Our so-called 'government' has done this by lying to the world, to us and to itself. Lying to the American people, however, betrays the social contract between government and the sovereign people! If the US government is prosecutable under the principles we established at Nuremberg, then we have become the Nazis. If we fail to prosecute Bush and complicit members of the US government, then we will have become Nazis. We will have have lost World War II. We will have met the enemy and --to our everlasting shame --embraced him.

The ruling one percent got rich with unjust tax cuts affecting only their 'class'; it did so by defrauding congress, funding and/or buying right wing politicians, supporting the use of illegal 'weapons that melt the skin off children' or poisoning them in the womb. The US became a Nazi nation by targeting civilians, journalists, and hospitals. The government did it with your money. The government believed it their right to shake you down! The ruling elite pays no taxes. Paying taxes, supporting US atrocities with money --that's YOUR job!

US crimes that you have supported because the elites have left to you the burden of paying taxes include murder, assassinations, propaganda, violations of the Hatch Act and the Voting Rights Act, warrantless spying, unlawful detentions, the imprisonment of children, obstruction of justice, torture, misprision of felony, exposure of classified information, treason, unconstitutional use of the military domestically. That's an incomplete list.

That the use of torture was debated at all is a travesty. That question was settled with the Nuremberg Principles and trials, various Federal Laws and numerous court cases affirming US treaty commitments. Most prominently, US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 specifies the death penalty for the very crimes Bush ordered. Why has Bush not been indicted and/or bound over for trial? Why is this federal law never mentioned on TV or the so-called 'mainstream media'?
I've written about how various extra-governmental and irresponsible, non-elected entities orchestrate and conduct an ongoing auction, a 'pimping' of the US government and sovereignty. I've written about how the US government is clearly more responsible and responsive to foreign nations than it is to American citizens, bordering if not outright high treason. Moreover, just one percent of the nation's population benefit from the whoring out of America. In times past, such traitors were hanged or beheaded.

Liberals, the media, the 'left wing' are demonized in a transparent smokescreen while those who are enriched by the industries of mass murder, war and war crimes get away with it. The 'real killers' are the MIC [prominently: Halliburton, KBR et al], K-Street, political whores in Congress, Bush Jr, the Bush crime family and anyone else who has made a crooked buck lying about US intentions and actions in Iraq.

Our current problems are often compared to the situation just prior to the crash of 1929. At that time, John Maynard Keynes blamed conservative economic policies for Britain’s economic problems. High un-employment, specifically, inspired two great works: A Treatise on Money [1930] and the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money [1936]. Keynes favored a unified monetary policy and scandalized 'Classicists' with the proposition that a national budget is not merely an accounting of government revenues and expenditures but an instrument by which a national economic policy may be effected. Classicists and laissez faire ideologists were horrified.

Keynes became famous at the end of World War I when he strongly opposed what he considered to be outrageously excessive reparations that the allies had proposed be assessed Germany.
Now ordinary experience tells us, beyond doubt, that a situation where labour stipulates (within limits) for a money-wage rather than a real wage, so far from being mere possibility, is the normal case. Whilst workers will usually resist a reduction of money-wages, it is not their practice to withdraw their labour whenever there is a rise in the price of wage-goods. It is sometimes said that it would be illogical for labour to resist a reduction of money-wages but not to resist a reduction of real wages. For reasons given below (section III), this might not be so illogical as it appears at first; and, as we shall see later, fortunately so. But, whether logical or illogical, experience shows that this is how labour in fact behaves.
--John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chapter 2, The Postulates of the Classical Economics
Clearly, Keynes understood the mechanism by which wealth is transferred to the elite and privileged classes. Keynes understood the 'insanity' of building an economy upon war profits. Keynes understood that 'war booty' trickles up --not down. Keynes understood and stated that war profits make the wealthy, wealthier increasing income and wealth disparities. Such economies, leveraged by debt, are increasingly fragile and subject to 'bust'. The US has arrived at that point and is vulnerable to financial crisis.
In practice, postwar policy usually consisted of measures to promote saving and investment. The first was wholly inconsistent with Keynes, based instead on the neoclassical loanable funds view that saving “finances” investment; the second was based on a multiplier view, that, while somewhat consistent with Keynes’s explication of the determination of the equilibrium level of output, relied on overly simplistic views of entrepreneurial expectation formation while ignoring important stability questions.

...
Second, attempting to maintain full employment by stimulating private investment would shift the distribution of income toward owners of capital, worsening inequality and thereby lowering the society’s propensity to consume—one of the problems addressed by Keynes in Chapter 24 of the General Theory. One of the main areas addressed by Post-Keynesians has been distribution theory and implications of heterogeneous saving rates on distribution. Further, work based on Kalecki’s profit equation shows how higher investment rates generate higher profit rates, and shifts the distribution of income toward entrepreneurs and away from workers. There are also two kinds of sectoral issues raised. A high investment strategy will tend to favor capital intensive industries, shifting the distribution of income toward higher-paid and unionized workers. The sectoral balances approach implicitly adopted by Minsky (1963) in his earliest work, and developed in detail by Wynne Godley, carries the Kalecki analysis further by examining the implications for financial balances implied by spending growth.
--L. Randall Wray, The Levy Economics Institute and University of Missouri–Kansas City,The Continuing Legacy of John Maynard Keynes
Unfortunately, the US media is not only ideologically biased, it is essentially ignorant of the principles of economics. There are no intelligent discussions of 'economics'' in the mainstreatm media. The role of the FED, for example, is never adequately described. The workings of the FED might as well be written in ancient Celtic script, illuminated and hidden away in a monolithic stone circle amid tales of knights and the long, lost secret formulae of wizards, warlocks and witches. The ruling elites --it would appear --have committed the perfect crime, a crime in which the victim does not understand what and how was done and by whom!

Now, lest anyone should get the idea that I am making no distinctions between the GOP and the Democratic party, let me hasten to add that I OPPOSE the two party system. I rarely agree with any party. But that's not the point! The point is that unless you have millions, perhaps billions to spend buying representation on K-Street, the U.S. government DOES NOT give a crap about you. That is the case whether you have been brainwashed by the right wing OR if you simply vote Democratic and hope for the best!

The effective choice that is given us by virtue of this 'system' is absurd when only one percent presume to rule. Nevertheless, given the limitations of this inherently crooked system, Democrats are the lesser of two evils one of which is IRREDEEMABLY evil. Let's take a look at the history before it gets re-written:
  • Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.
  • When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year; best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.
  • Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush.
  • The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.
  • The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" were Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush being worst with Reagan in the middle.
  • Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector--some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?
  • Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, tripled the national debt and left huge deficits to his successor.
  • By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.
  • Put another way: Any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II.
Along the way, Reagan made up a whopper --his story about a Cadillac driving welfare gran'ma. It became his administration's rationalization for cutting back social programs. Then there was the attack and invasion of tiny Grenada. Does anyone remember how Grenada became an imminent threat to U.S. security such that a war of aggression against it was necessitated or justified under international law?

One of the most harmful myths coughed up by the cult of Reagan is the myth of Reykjavik about which it is believed that Ronald Reagan put total nuclear disarmament on the table. In fact, it was Mikhail Gorbachev who raised the stakes. It was Reagan who folded, blinked and turned down what might have been our last chance to rid the world of nukes. If the world should wink out in a nuclear winter, you will have Ronald Reagan and the GOP to blame.
If, that is, the ensuing “Great Society,” to borrow a term from JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, were laid low by a nuclear attack on an American city (or seven, if al Qaeda had its way).
This is the territory into which Gorbachev launched his most daring raids. First, in 1985, he announced that the Soviet Union would no longer deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs) in Eastern Europe. Later that year, he proposed that both his country and the US slice their nuclear arsenals in half.
The next year, at the memorable Reykjavik summit, Gorbachev got Ronald Reagan to agree in principle to his plan for removal of all INFs from Europe, as well as to draw them down worldwide. Caught up in Gorbachev’s enthusiasm, Reagan expressed a willingness to join Russia in eliminating all nuclear weapons in 10 years.
In the end, though, Reagan clung to his blankie, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). Gorbachev feared SDI would lead to nukes in space, not to mention leave the Soviet defense establishment with the impression he’d been played. Their dreams of saving the world came crashing back down to earth.
--It’s not a new JFK we need in Obama, but the next Gorbachev
Reagan was a typical Republican, that is, he said many things and did the opposite. That's because every Republican has two stories to tell: one they tell to their base via "code words" like "family values"; the other, they tell to the world. This second category often consists of lies and pure BS. In this case, Reagan had talked the talked --world peace, nuclear disarmament, etc. When Gorbachev raised the stakes --total nuclear disarmament --Reagan blinked and Atlas Shrugged. Suddenly, Reagan recalled his base, the clique, the Military/Industrial complex, the moneyed class that "brung 'em"! He blinked!

Here is what Reagan himself said about the threat of nuclear war.
The Russians sometimes kept submarines off our East Coast with nuclear missiles that could turn the White House into a pile of radioactive rubble within six or eight minutes. Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radarscope and decide whether to unleash Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that? There were some people in the Pentagon who thought in terms of fighting and winning a nuclear war. To me it was simple common sense: A nuclear war couldn't be won by either side. It must never be fought. Advocates of the MAD policy believed it had served a purpose: The balance of terror it created had prevented nuclear war for decades. But as far as I was concerned, the MAD policy was madness.
--Ronald Reagan, The Official Site
So, if that's how Ronald Reagan really felt about nuclear madness, why did he blow what is perhaps our last chance at peace? The answer is simple. Reagan was not his own man. Iran/Contra almost gave the game away. Ronald Reagan, playing stupid and senile, beat a high treason rap. The source of this treason against the people of the US lay in GOP efforts to get the US government to fund the "Contras" in Nicaragua despite a US prohibition on such military assistance. In a convoluted scheme that involved what seemed like most of the Reagan administration, arms were sold to Iran --then on the State Department's list of enemy states. Then, in violation of US law, the proceeds were funneled to the 'Contra' rebels in Nicaragua. Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh concluded that the sale of arms to Iran violated the Arms Export Control Act, the Boland Amendment ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua, and the entire procedure had been "fully reviewed and developed" at the very highest levels of the Reagan Administration. Walsh clearly believed Reagan himself complicit in this treasonous scheme.
The underlying facts of Iran/Contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President's willful activities.
--Concluding Observations, Investigations and Prosecutions, Lawrence E. Walsh, Independent Counsel, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters
Clearly --Walsh believed Reagan guilty. How did he escape indictment? The fix was in, of course, but who was behind it? Nevertheless, thirteen high level officials in the Reagan administration either pleaded guilty or were indicted, including Caspar Weinberger, Oliver North, and John Poindexter. Duane Claridge and Weinberger were pardoned! Ronald Reagan got off with a scolding paragraph at the end of Walsh's lengthy, detailed report, in which it is clear that Walsh thought Reagan, himself, personally involved with what many considered a treasonous act --that of arming an avowed "enemy" of the US. Now, Bush is credibly reported to have promised Israel that it will join an Israel nuclear attack on Iran, a nation that had been armed by the United States during yet another GOP administration. Does it get any more crooked than this?

In addition to the panoply of lies and crap, Reagan, as Albert Speer said of Adolph Hitler, rallied the bigoted, the extremist, the fascist with his seemingly endless fussilade of utterly meaningless platitudes, slogans, and high sounding catch phrases.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Sign The War Crimes Petition Already!

Don't expect me to or even ask me to tell you why you should sign the petition.

You already know why you should sign the petition. You don't need me or anyone else to tell you why you should sign the petition.

Petition BadgeClick the Badge to read and sign the Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
Get BadgeClick "Get Badge" to get the html code and post the badge on your blog or website so other people can find and sign the petition too.

There is no more debate on these matters. The only people who want to continue debating these matters are war criminals who want to be let off the hook and supporters of letting war criminals off the hook.

Obama's Duty To Prosecute Bush For War Crimes, Patriot Daily, December 29, 2008
Signing the petition drafted by budhydharma and Docudharma is not in defiance of our President-Elect Obama, but rather a sign of support for the difficult times that he and Holder will face when performing their clear constitutional duties.

As President, Obama will have the constitutional duty to faithfully execute our laws.

The constitutional oath of office will require President Obama to faithfully execute the office of President and preserve, protect and defend our Constitution. Our constitution also requires that our presidents "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The principle of the rule of law is partially based on this Faithfully Execute clause which requires our President to comply with laws, our Constitution and treaties because our Constitution established a government of laws, not of men and women.

The Geneva Convention is one of the laws which must be faithfully executed.

Our constitution mandates that treaties are one of the laws that the President must faithfully execute. Moreover, treaties are recognized as one of our supreme laws of the land alongside our Constitution and federal laws. For over 200 years, the federal courts have reaffirmed that our President is bound by the laws of war, which include conventions. In fact, both Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006)addressed issues of whether the US government was violating the terms of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Yet, some will whine that it is partisan to not exempt Bush from 200 years of precedent that governed presidents from both parties.

The Geneva Convention imposes a duty to prosecute former presidents who committed war crimes.
You already have your own reasons why you should sign the petition.

All the reasons that built up, piled one on top of the other for that past eight years as these criminals hijacked the country, dismantled the constitution and the rule of law, made their criminal friends fabulously wealthy, were directly responsible for the deaths of more than a million Iraqis in an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation, destroyed the global economy, wrecked America's reputation around the world, and called you a traitor when you cried foul and set up schemes to spy on you and intimidate you into silence.

And tortured people in your name. Tortured people. In your name. Tortured people with the blackest, most heinous and most evil torture methods known to humanity. Tortured people with methods that America has pressed war criminal charges against other countries citizens for using. Tortured people with the most sadistic and evil methods the Spanish Inquisition and more recently the Khmer Rouge made a regular habit of using as an oppression tool. Tortured people with methods that have been universally condemned and outlawed by virtually every country and society on earth.

You already know. You already know all of your own reasons why you should sign the petition.

Enhanced Interrogation Methods? No, The Word Is "Torture", Bob Higgins, October 4, 2007
I am sick to death of all the pussyfooting around the subject that has occupied the media for the duration of this premeditated, illegal war of terror that we the people of the United States have allowed to be waged against the people of Iraq, in our name, for the last several years.

No matter how much lipstick and rouge we smear on the face of this war no matter how we attempt to dress up the evil and bestial acts that have been performed in its unholy name, it still has the hideous countenance of an evil swine from hell.

It is an illegal war, begun and conducted under false pretenses, by a group of criminal liars and thieves in the United States Government, abetted by a cowardly congress who abrogated their constitutional duties in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and furthered by a complaisant press that ignored their obligation to remain independent from government, from their sponsors and report the facts.

The members of the completely rogue executive department acted in their own self interest in a quest for personal power and wealth, in concert with the usual domestic and international corporate pirates who, in the depths of their insatiable greed, continually amplify human conflict to their own ends and bring poverty, war, suffering and death down upon the world.

There is no such animal as extraordinary rendition, nor do I know of the existence of any beasts called enhanced interrogation methods.

The first is kidnapping, it is illegal, a felony and the second word is torture, its meaning is clear:

NOUN:
1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.

Torture is illegal in this country, a felonious act, it is illegal in the world at large, according to several conventions that we are legally bound by. Anyone committing torture, causing it to be committed, directing its commission, or training others in its techniques is guilty, guilty of war crimes, of crimes against humanity and crimes against "Nature's God.
Tens of thousands of people have signed the Petition for a Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes so far since we launched it on December 18, 2008, and Bob Fertiks "question" to Obama and the transition team at change.gov under "Additional Issues" is now is the lead question it its category.
"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor [...] to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"
Why aren't there 13 million signatures on the petition instead of just 13 thousand? Mainstream media is avoiding this issue like it's leprosy. I would hope left blogs wouldn't.

We need to force this issue into the media. We need to beat this issue into the heads of leaders, both current and incoming, in Washington.
U.S. Code: CHAPTER 113C--TORTURE
Summary of International and U.S. Law Prohibiting Torture and Other Ill-treatment of Persons in Custody
International and U.S. law prohibits torture and other ill-treatment of any person in custody in all circumstances. The prohibition applies to the United States during times of peace, armed conflict, or a state of emergency. Any person, whether a U.S. national or a non-citizen, is protected. It is irrelevant whether the detainee is determined to be a prisoner-of-war, a protected person, or a so-called "security detainee" or "unlawful combatant." And the prohibition is in effect within the territory of the United States or any place anywhere U.S. authorities have control over a person. In short, the prohibition against torture and ill-treatment is absolute.
...
A federal anti-torture statute (18 U.S.C. § 2340A), enacted in 1994, provides for the prosecution of a U.S. national or anyone present in the United States who, while outside the U.S., commits or attempts to commit torture.

Torture is defined as an "act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control." A person found guilty under the act can be incarcerated for up to 20 years or receive the death penalty if the torture results in the victim's death.
After January 20, 2009 there will be a new Attorney General of the United States, and Eric Holder Jr. will most likely be confirmed as that new Attorney general.

Mr. Holder has said that:
"Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the 'War on Terror' have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe," Holder told a packed room at the ACS 2008 Convention on Friday evening. "For the sake of our safety and security, and because it is the right thing to do, the next president must move immediately to reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights."
Eric Holder, Jr.
If Mr. Holder, when he becomes Attorney General, is to live up to his own statements and retain the personal and professional integrity he has displayed in his law career thus far, and not by acts of omission become an accessory along with Mr. Mukasey and Ms. Pelosi to the crimes of Bush, Cheney and others in the Bush administration, he will have no choice but to accept the demands of the thousands of US citizens who have signed the Docudharma/Democrats.com Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Bush administration war crimes.
Petition Badge
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If he will not, Mr. Holder runs the risk of throwing away a lifetime of work in a so far illustrious career and all of his personal and professional integrity and becoming a fugitive with Mr. Mukasey and an accessory to these crimes along with and no better than the perpetrators and other conspirators.

Given his professional record, I have every confidence that Mr. Holder, as soon to be Attorney General of the United States, realizes that he can make no other choice than to do the right thing.

Mr. Holder knows. As Attorney General he will wear the badge as the highest ranking officer of justice in the United States.

He will have his own integrity on the line.

Mr. Holder knows that like any other accused criminals, Bush and Cheney deserve fair trials.

And Mr. Holder knows that failing to give them those fair trials would be convicting himself.

There must be war crimes investigations, prosecutions and trials. And sentencing.

It is the only way to "move forward".

Or else...
There was a fever over the land, a fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all there was fear, fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that can you understand what Hitler meant to us, because he said to us:
"Lift your heads. Be proud to be German. There are devils among us, communists, liberals, Jews, gypsies. Once these devils will be destroyed your misery will be destroyed."
It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb.

What about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded -- sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows! We will go forward. FORWARD is the great password.

And history tells how well we succeeded, Your Honor. We succeeded beyond out wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world. We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies. Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The world said, "Go ahead. Take it. Take it! Take Sudetenland! Take the Rhineland! Re-militarize it! Take all of Austria! Take it!"

And then, one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual begun in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What was going to be a "passing phase" had become the way of life.
Decision of the Court:
The trial conducted before this Tribunal began over eight months ago. The record of evidence is more than ten thousand pages long, and final arguments of counsel have been concluded.

Simple murders and atrocities do not constitute the gravamen of the charges in this indictment. Rather, the charge is that of conscious participation in a nationwide, government organized system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations. The Tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against these defendants.
The Power of One

by Nightprowlkitty, Docudharma, December 26, 2008

Crossposted at Docudharma, Daily Kos, My Left Wing, Open Left, The Sanctuary, and OOIBC
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.


Petition Badge
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Give Bush and Cheney a fair trial -- something they have not bothered with since they stole office.

It's funny how the powers that be in the media and government are running around with their big fat excuses as to why we can't hold these criminals accountable for their crimes. It all boils down to "It's too hard!!!"

It's too hard. It would affect too many people. It would interfere with the crucial work of restoring our economy. Blah blah blah. Not one of these folks say, however, that no crime has been committed, no law has been broken. No one says that.

I find that stunning. We all know, at least those of us who have been paying attention, that Bush and his crew of crooks have broken the law over and over again.

And Cheney says "What you gonna do about it?" And Cheney says "oh, the Dems knew about this and approved it, hell they wanted us to be even tougher than we were!"

And we should believe Cheney ... why?

I don't want speculation any more. I want the truth, the facts, what really happened. Only a special prosecutor can get that information, someone who is inured to the politics of Washington D.C. by being given the independent power to investigate.

What I like about this petition is that it shows the power of the individual citizen. This is not a grassroots effort decided by committee. A couple of folks got together and came up with the text and others jumped in to work further on it and spread it around.

The power of the individual citizen.

I am extremely annoyed at the argument that we citizens are somehow childlike creatures who don't know all the real problems of our country and so we shouldn't cry and whine about our "pet issues" when the government knows so much more about what is important and should be made a priority.

Bleh.

We ARE the government. The only people who will take back power as citizens, are citizens! That's us.

To me, Obama's election is a signal that we can now start taking back that individual power, our individual rights. It's not for Obama or any elected representative to tell me what I should make a priority. I get to decide that for myself. They'll do their jobs, and I'll do mine.

The measure of our success with this petititon will be the resistance from the powers that be, the Dems, the Repubs, Obama, the media. The more we read about how this is not a good idea, getting a special prosecutor, the more we'll know we have them on the run.

Many of us have sent this petition to friends and family, whether they be politically agreeable to us or not. One by one people will sign. This isn't "organized" grassroots and it's netroots only insofar as the structure.

To me, this is about the power of each indviidual citizen, not resting happy with the decisions of our elected representatives but standing up for what we feel is right and making our voices heard.

We need to know the truth about the crimes committed in our names. We need to have every American citizen aware of what has been done so there can be no denials or excuses.

At this time, the only line between tyranny and freedom is an informed citizenry. By signing this petition and working to make it known we will not accept anything less than full accountability for torture being done in our name, we are exercising our power, not the power one step removed of the three branches of government.

We have power collectively and we also have power individually. I think the citizenry of this country are going to be tested enormously as we have to let our representatives know we are not asking for favors on our "pet causes" but taking our government back, of, by and for the people.

by Edger at Docudharma, Saturday, January 03, 2009, Also at Daily Kos

If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.

Read the entire article at: Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus

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