'V' is for Vendetta or How the Banksters Heisted America

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The movie of 2006, based upon the original 'graphic novel' stars Hugo Weaving as 'V', John Hurt as Adam Sutler -- the Big Brother-like dictator/tyrant seen on giant telescreens. It also stars Natalie Portman. It is a future Britain following a nuclear holocaust but, in fact, it is any nation seized by fear, embracing upon the pre-text of terrorism an all-powerful government in response. This movie exposes 'terrorism' as a racket!

The 'fascist' party called "Norsefire" resembles the Nazi party by its extermination of opponents in concentration camps and the American GOP for its embrace of torture, violations of human rights, blatant demagoguery and lies.

Sutler rules the country as a police state just as Bush aspired to rule America. Naturally, he is opposed. The opposition are called 'terrorists', though it clear that the tyrant's misrule is both the initial cause and the aggravation. It is hard to imagine any guerrilla movement, any opposition, any 'terrorist' having any success at all against a just and/or competent government or ruler. A dictator by his/her tyranny inspires and justifies his opposition and every effort to unseat or overthrow him.

In "V", the police state is opposed by an 'anarchist revolutionary' who dresses up like Guy Fawkes. History buffs will recall Guy Fawkes for his opposition to the English government of James I whose reign followed that of Elizabeth I, who was, despite her good press, a tyrant.

A reference to a prison closely resembling Guantanamo for its flagrant abuses is but one of many analogies and lessons that must be drawn, that must be applied to the the real world created by George W. Bush and the NEOCON junta which seized power in the United States at the end of a contested election and a violent, seditious assault upon vote re-counters who most certainly would have awarded the election to Al Gore had they not been violently attacked by partisans transported to Florida and paid by the Bush campaign.

Other references to a world now fixated by the specter of 'terrorism' are easy to recognize throughout the film. For this reason, 'V' remains controversial.

"In the not too distant future, Britain is filled with torture cells, unfair punishments, prejudice against minorities."

That excerpt from a review reads like a description of America under Bush and in his wake. Bush ordered that suspected 'terrorists' be denied the protections of 'Habeas Corpus' if one is but 'deemed' to be a 'terrorist'. It was, of course, the very purpose of Habeas Corpus to prevent such arbitrary 'deeming'. To prevent those who might wrongly 'deem' others is precisely the point!

It is, therefore, clear that the Bush administration was less interested in effective, real and reasonable measures against real and/or demonstrable terrorists than it was interested in subverting Constitutional guarantees for partisan, political, venal motives or reasons.

Part of the Bush legacy is that a GOP dominated Supreme Court has 'created' corporations 'people'. And the government need only 'deem' you a terrorist to justify torturing you without benefit of Habeas Corpus. It is a recipe for tyranny and corruption. Prisons in Texas, for example, are owned and operated by huge corporations. As a result, crime has increased as the incompetent and/or criminal regimes of Bush Jr and, later, Rick Perry subverted public education in Texas. They succeeded; Texas now ranks dead last in high school graduations. The GOP, therefore, is not only the cause of increased crime by its neglect of education, its corporate sponsors benefit from it. It's a corporate/GOP circle jerk.

The 'future' is now.

INSIDE JOB: How the Banksters HEISTED America's Wealth!

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.

Syndicated 'Cowboy' Articles

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Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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The Age of the 'Unperson'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Thanks to the increasingly absurd, bought-and-paid for Supreme Court, corporations are now people but real people can be declared Orwellian 'un-persons' with but a stroke of a pen. This is an unconstitutional power given POTUS by SCROTUS but has no basis in law.

Everything you were told in school with respect to the Bill of Rights, habeas corpus, the rule of law, the right to trial, the right to be confronted by your accusers --all of that is by the boards, 'repealed', rendered moot, defunct with yet another idiotic, stupid and dead wrong decision by the most subversive, traitorous 'Supreme Court' in history.

Moreover, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that government officials are immune from lawsuits because --at the time --it was unclear whether the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo was illegal. Let me help them out on this one: every 'prisoner' held in Guantanamo is held in violation of every treaty and international principle to which the U.S. is obliged. I believe that applies as well to Abu Ghraib. Clearly --every action of the U.S. in Iraq is illegal stemming from the illegal invasion, a violation of every international principle and/or treaty to which the U.S. is bound. Any death following as a result of any action taken by the U.S. in or to Iraq violated U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 is a capital crime! Bush himself is in violation of that provision. Others, farther down the food chain, can always plead: 'but ve ver only folloving orters!'

This affront to the rule of law must not stand! It is more repugnant than the so-called 'Intolerable Acts' which motivated the colonial separation from England. Can we have that revolution now?

As everyone knows by now, SCROTUS recently declared corporations --mere words on paper --to be 'real people' having rights that are NOW denied to you who are living, breathing real people. This is intolerable and absurd. The Supreme Court should be dismissed! One wonders now what additional bullshit must the government try to pull before it is declared illegitimate by a 'people's tribunal' and eventually replaced a real government representing REAL people not 'legal abstractions' and the ambitions of the Military/Industrial complex?

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal Monday to review a lower court’s dismissal of a case brought by four British former Guantanamo prisoners against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the detainees’ lawyers charged Tuesday that the country’s highest court evidently believes that "torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use."

[....]

Channeling their predecessors in the George W. Bush administration, Obama Justice Department lawyers argued in this case that there is no constitutional right not to be tortured or otherwise abused in a U.S. prison abroad.

The Obama administration had asked the court not to hear the case. By agreeing, the court let stand an earlier opinion by the D.C. Circuit Court, which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act -- a statute that applies by its terms to all "persons" -- did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law.

The lower court also dismissed the detainees’ claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants."

--US: Guantanamo Prisoners Not ‘Persons’, Anti-War Dot Com

In Orwellian terms, an 'unperson is a person who has been vaporized perhaps not literally by the state but nevertheless robbed of his/her natural rights and records of his/her ever having existed. This erasure of personhood itself consists of removing all references to the person in existing books, the destruction of photographs, in fact, any documentary proof of existence at any time, i.e, no trace or evidence is to be found in the historical record.

Even close friends or relatives are 'expected' to forget that an 'un-person' ever existed. The very mention of the unperson's name becomes a 'thought crime'. The concept is not so far-fetched. Consider the Stalinist practice of erasing from photographs the images of convicted 'enemies' of the state. That individuals --real persons --may be subject to this treatment by the 'state' --itself a mere abstraction --is double-plus absurd and more so when corporations are given rights that, by right, belong only to real, living, breathing, biological human beings. Revolution now!

1984 might not have been late in arriving as is often thought. It's implementation may have been complicated but only temporarily delayed by the arrival of the internet. Certainly, the Reagan administration was poised to concentrate, consolidate the conventional and broadcast media into very few and controllable hands. Much of that has occurred. Fox, nothing more than a shrill propaganda organ, is a prime example. Fox arrived on time. The rest of the right wing coup cannot be far behind.

But for the internet and independent blogs, it is this Reagan legacy of concentrated, biased right wing media that you would depend upon for information. That should scare you! If it does not, you're reading the wrong article. Meanwhile, we should not be surprised that the 'conventional' media has yet to grasp the many harms done the world by Reagan, Bush and Bush. The conventional media still speaks another language! Newspeak?

In George Orwell's 1984, life is lived in a state of perpetual war. The U.S. has been at war in one form or another since the beginning of World War II. In 1984 an oligarchical society is defined by its having voided the rights of citizens. It accomplishes this with pervasive government surveillance, mind control, and a 'ministry of truth'. This has been accomplished in the U.S. with the repeal of the Communications Act of 1934 which had established the recently defunct notion that the 'air waves' are owned collectively by the people! That is no longer the law of the land and consolidation of broadcast and print media into very few hands is the result. The internet, we suspect, will eventually be brought under the control of Big Bro. Enjoy it while you can!

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Mr. Obama, Bring Down the War Criminals!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Among several sticky tar babies Bush left Obama the worst are: Guantanamo, torture, capital war crimes! The clock is ticking for Obama. The time for 'good faith' is running out! Unless Obama moves to close Guantanamo now and end the practice of torture while bringing war crimes charges against Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al., he risks being so charged himself!

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people's lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can't control, what Orwell called "thoughtcrime" -contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

Locking up people who haven't done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to "preventive detention" is an outrage.

--Ted Rall, Resign Now

One hundred days have come and gone! There is still no strongly worded condemnation of the practice of torture! There is still no support for the bringing of war crimes charges against Bushco! The 'closing of Guantanamo' is merely confused --not resolved!

As the New York Times noted: "... the unresolved eight year nightmare will continue raining down drip by drip, disrupting Obama's high ambitions". If torture had not been wrong, illegal, immoral, then why did Bush spend so much of his time denying it, lying about it, conning the American people and the world?

Bush lied about US policies of torture and other war crimes because Bush knew it was wrong and deliberately set about to 'fool' the people! He failed because he was and remains a lousy liar, a cretin, an ignorant ass wipe who did not win the White House fairly. His morally bankrupt party stole the White House in what Republicans themselves boasted was a coup d'tat! Bush and his party are likewise 'credited' with Reaganesque and outrageous deficits which coupled with astronomical transfers of wealth upward to the elite have brought the nation to the very edge of financial collapse! We expected more and we deserve more from the Democrats! We held them to a higher standard! Will Obama prove us wrong to have done so?

Obama reversed himself with a declaration that no more photos of torture will be released! Is this not an admission that there are --indeed --more photos that SHOULD be released? Is this not an admission that the practices of torture, some of which should have resulted in capital crimes charges against Bush himself, are still underway? If Bush's orders resulting in death make Bush culpable for the death penalty, then where is the clause that absolves Obama of the same crime?

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

--US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441

This federal law is still on the books! It is still ignored by the office of President of the United States, the office that is empowered by the US Constitution with the authority to enforce and uphold the laws of the United States. Does this basic concept no longer mean anything to the people and, most importantly, to those who are sworn to uphold the law? I want ...no! I demand to know when the laws of the United States came to mean absolutely nothing.

I find it significant that both public immorality and disregard for the 'rule of law' have increased with the rise of the religious right, radical fundamentalism and 'religiosity' in general. I find significant that support for war crimes, state sponsored murder, death squads, torture and other Nazi-like atrocities was extremely strong among the religious right, devotees of Pat Robertson and similar ilk. As I have stated, the 'religious right' is not just wrong but dead wrong and immoral. Pat Robertson, it may be recalled, advocated 'death squads' and the murders of foreign leaders with whom he disagreed! This is just evil --pure and simple!

Ever since he was released from Guantanamo in February after six years of due-process-less detention and brutal torture, Binyam Mohamed has been attempting to obtain justice for what was done to him. But his torturers have been continuously protected, and Mohamed's quest for a day in court repeatedly thwarted, by one individual: Barack Obama. Today, there is new and graphic evidence of just how far the Obama administration is going to prevent evidence of the Bush administration's torture program from becoming public.

In February, Obama's DOJ demanded dismissal of Mohamed's lawsuit against the company which helped "render" him to be tortured on the ground that national security would be harmed if the lawsuit continued. Then, after a British High Court ruled that there was credible evidence that Mohamed was subjected to brutal torture and was entitled to obtain evidence in the possession of the British government which detailed the CIA's treatment of Mohamed, and after a formal police inquiry began into allegations that British agents collaborated in his torture, the British government cited threats from the U.S. government that it would no longer engage in intelligence-sharing with Britain -- i.e., it would no longer pass on information about terrorist threats aimed at British citizens -- if the British court disclosed the facts of Mohamed's torture.

--Glenn Greenwald, Obama administration threatens Britain to keep torture evidence concealed

I demand that those government officials in both administrations be arrested, charged and tried for the capital crimes that are specifically and unambiguously the subject of the above cited federal law --US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441!

If the laws do not apply to elected officials, then they do not apply to us!
Government may not have it one way! Those governments that presume to be above the law are, in fact, outlaw governments. They are illegitimate.
Despite the Obama order that no more photos be released, there are still more photos to be seen! Certainly --the photos are evidence that US Codes were and continue to be violated with impunity. Orders that the photos be suppressed are obstructions of justice and are, in themselves, prosecutable! I will support the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate this order! Clearly, however, any move to impeach Obama is transparently hypocritical if the same charges are not brought against the gang of heinous war criminals who dared call themselves the 'Bush administration'!

The photos will be released --eventually! And the order to suppress them will look foolish if not criminal! Some of them have already been leaked. I am not interested in rationalizations that we hoped had bit the dust along with the failed Bush administration, primarily the cop out that Al Qaeda will be angered! Fuck Al Qaeda! I doubt that they are half as angered as am I! Secondly, I doubt that Al Qaeda exists as anything other than the CIA 'shill' organization that they were in their inception, the CIA 'shill' organization that they most certainly continue to be.

Obama refuses to hold responsible and accountable the very people who authorized and utilized a heinous and un-American program of torture, perhaps murder! It is imperative that the US prove to the world that it take these issues seriously! The entire world takes them seriously and will forever dismiss the US, a waning 'superpower' in any case if it should not! The US has no moral choice but to:

• expose and 'own up' to heinous practices of torture and state-sponsored murder!
• bring specific charges against individuals who have issued specific orders in specific cases;
• bring charges against the architects of these policies in both the Bush and the Obama administrations!

The country, the world is sick to death of talk, spin and propaganda! The world demands action! The world demands an immediate end to this bullshit!


Mr. Obama, TEAR DOWN THESE ILLEGAL PRISONS!

MR. OBAMA, BRING TORTURERS AND MURDERERS TO TRIAL!

MR. OBAMA, STOP THE WAR CRIMES, STOP THE MURDERS, STOP THE TORTURE! NOW!

A list of broken promises continues to grow! These crimes are but a continuation of Bush administration policies.

Mr. Obama --you were NOT elected to be Bush-lite!

You were elected to UNDO Bush's many failures!

You were elected to RIGHT the many wrongs that had been done by Bush!

You were elected to UPHOLD the rule of law!

You put your hand on a black book and swore to protect and defend the Constitution! That act meant nothing to Bush. We had hoped it meant more to you!

Mr. Obama, the commission of war crimes abroad is NOT authorized to any branch of the US government by the US Constitution! Either you will uphold the Constitution or you will not! If you will not, it is the moral responsibility of the US citizenry to remove you and replace you with someone who will.

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Release 'Detainees''; Charge and Imprison Bush for Capital Crimes

The Bush administration is trying once again to rewrite history and the law, specifically 'the official evidence against Guantanamo Bay detainees'. Typically the legal eagles in the Bush regime have it backward. Bushco should not be given a second chance to fabricate a case when it had none to begin with. Detainees have already been in detention for years in violation of US Codes and our international treaties. Bush has had years to make a case and has failed to do so. To make 'detainees' --illegally detained to begin with --wait still longer for justice is, in itself, another crime to be charged to George W. Bush.

A capital crimes case against Bush is better than the 'case' Bush has against the 'detainees'. This is a regime that commits war crimes and tries to make them legal after the fact --a recipe for dictatorship and tyranny.

A Federal judge will review the so-called evidence against detainees in the wake of the recent high court decision. Typically, Bushies want more time to fabricate another 'case'. What was wrong with the case they had was this: they didn't have one!

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration wants to rewrite the official evidence against Guantanamo Bay detainees, allowing it to shore up its cases before they come under scrutiny by civilian judges for the first time.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

The decision follows last week's Supreme Court ruling, which held that detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian court, not just before secret military panels. At a closed-door meeting with judges and defense attorneys this week, government lawyers said they needed time to add new evidence and make other changes to evidentiary documents known as "factual returns."

Attorneys for the detainees criticized the idea, saying the government is basically asking for a last-minute do-over.

"It's sort of an admission that the original returns were defective," said attorney David Remes, who represents many detainees and attended Wednesday's meeting. "It's also an admission that the government thinks it needs to beef up the evidence."

-- APNewsBreak: US asks to rewrite detainee evidence

Rather than giving the Bush administration a second chance to 'beef up the evidence', Bush should be preparing a defense against charges his criminal regime held the detainees for years in violation of numerous international prohibitions, laws, as well as US criminal codes. The Bush administration should be beefing up its defense against charges that it committed capital crimes.

That assumes, of course, that Bush has a defense.

To give Bushies a 'redo' now is absurd. The Detainees have already been held for years in violation of every civilized principle, common law, US Codes, the principles of Nuremberg and Geneva. Bush should not be given a 'redo'. He should be given an indictment!

There is an open and shut case against Bush for his having authorized the commission of capital crimes. He even boasted about it in his State of the Union Address of 2003.

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way -- they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies. (Applause.)

--Bush, State of the Union, 2003

Bush either has a case against the 'detainees' or he does not. If his criminal gang had had cases, it would have made them long ago. Some seven years or so is more than enough time when, in fact, Bushco should have had 'probable cause' --at the time --to imprison 'detainees' at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other US hell holes through the Eastern European gulag. Bush then should have been given a reasonable amount of time in which to make cases or drop them. It is past time to 'put up or shut up! It is time, rather, to be filing capital crimes and other criminal charges against Bush.

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U.S. Torture Policies Inspire Renewed International Outrage

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

As the New York Times reveals that Abu Ghraib torture continued after the initial revelations, a Russian federation has demanded that the United Nations order the closure of the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo.

In a paper called "In Defense of Humanity", the 46 deputies representing of the Russian Federation Communist Party have denounced what they've termed "Guantanomo's shame" and have demanded that the U.S. detention center in Cuba be closed. 400 intellectuals from 30 countries signed a formal document calling for the closure.

The signatories include Guennadi Ziuganov, president of the Russian Federation Communist Party, Nobel Prizewinner Zhores Alfiorov, Deputy President of the Law Camera Valentin Kupsov, President of the parliamentary group of friendship with Cuba Vitali Sebastianov, Cosmonaut Svietlana Savitskaya and General Director of the Russian paper "Sovietskaya" Rossia Valentin Chiquin. They have unanimously accused the Bush administration and U.S. Euroopean allies of working to prevent the Human Rights Commission in Geneva from formally condemning violations of human rights by the United States at Guantanamo.

The paper has charged the governments of the European Union with refusing to admit evidence of torture and other human rights violations by the United States.

According to the Latin American news agency, Presna Latina, the 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights is set to convene in Geneva on March 20th. By that time, it is expected that world media will have broadcast new video footage of the U.S. military torturing Iraqi prisoners.

Following closely on the heels of the Russian action, the New York Times reports that torture continued both before and after the closure of Abu Ghraib.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

Signatories to "In Defense of Humanity" have meanwhile called on "world intellectuals, social organizations and anyone of good will" to demand that the United Nations order the closure of the U.S. base in Cuba.

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Original 'Toon by Dante Lee. Use with permission only

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