Eric Dolphy

Eric Dolphy 1928 - 1964 was amazing. His solos still sound like they are on the cutting edge of jazz.

What The Huh?

Approximately 92% of American troops fatalities in Iraq occur because of involvement by the Iraqi Sunnis. Yet in America we hear over and over about the Iraqi Shiites and their connection to Iran which is a predominantly Shiite country. Approximately 8% of American troop deaths are the result of Shiite involvement.

Of course the neo-cons and Bush, the neo-con president, want war with Iran. This has been a long standing neo-con goal, explicitly stated in the Project for a New American Century's salient PNAC document.

Why then do we not hear about the Sunni's and their connection to Saudi Arabia?

Does it have to do with oil and the Bush-Saudi connections perhaps?

Why do we support the Saudis when they provides resource to Al Qaeda?

Curiously by aligning itself with the Saudis, Bush has made the US take the side of the people that support Al Qaeda.

Further reading:

THE REDIRECTION Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism? by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

and from Democracy Now a summation of the Hersh article - U.S. & Saudis Covertly Pump Money To Sunni Groups Hersh reports this comes as the Bush administration and Saudi Arabia are pumping money for covert operations in many areas of the Middle East – including Lebanon, Syria and Iran – in an effort to strengthen Saudi-supported Sunni Islam groups and weaken Iranian-backed Shiites. Some of the covert money has been given to jihadist groups in Lebanon with ties to Al Qaeda.

Poverty and American Culture

This particular bit of grim news provides information on the state of poverty in the United States. Poverty is on the rise and both its range and depth are simultaneously expanding and deepening. Poverty is more entrenched.

How can this be when the military budget has risen to over $500 billion?

In US, record numbers are plunged into poverty: report

excerpt: ""Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found.""

That just about sums it up - Corporate profits have dwarfed wages.

When I consider George Bush, I tend to think of him less so as president and much more so as corporate bottom line facilitator.

It has taken me a long time to understand why the Conservative Republican agenda is so much about maximizing corporate profit to the exclusion of any social agenda.

There is a large culture surrounding these notions of corporate profit that provides the reasons, the whys, the validations, the disciplines, to carry on in the face of, or perhaps in spite of, or to the deliberate neglect of growing social needs and concerns for the less empowered.

It also goes to the so called "values" including religion and family life. Remember in some circles George Bush is virtually worshipped as a demigod. Recall the film Jesus Camp where worshipping images of GW occurs.

There are many books written on this topic, from both sides, conservative and liberal. Conservatives have utilized the information in "creative" ways that create a sense of correctness to their vision.

See: Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag' by Bill Berkowitz

Frank Luntz being the king of Republican talking point strategy.

Corporate welfare from the Conservative Republican agenda is a good thing. It is not considered hypocritical to condemn social welfare and at the same time approve of corporate welfare.

There was a time when the graduates of Harvard were ranked not according to their academic achievement and brilliance but were ranked according to thier social standing and wealth. For me, this perfectly explains why an individual like George W Bush can actually become president. Certainly its not about his diplomatic brilliance and or any sense or whiff of selfless compassion to benefit all the people of the USA, or even any memorable statesmanship.

According to the Conservative Republican if you are wealthy then you have fulfilled your spiritual, familial, social, and political reason to be. In this culture, corporate welfare is something that has been earned, it is something that you have a right to. In this Republican Conservative culture if you are poor, basically you have failed spiritually, socially, and politically, and you have not earned the right to welfare.

With the dominant trend of the country being Conservative Republican, and if you don't agree with this then simply list the presidents over the past 60 years, poverty has found an ally. In the Conservative Republican culture it is not the responsibility of the government to assist socially, you are supposed to do it all by yourself.

to be continued ...

Iraq Occupation Casualties

If you examine the information on the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, you will see that the latest period of the Iraq occupation is the deadliest yet.

The number of troops killed in action is over 4 per day. There is a corresponding rise in deaths with the escalation of the occupation.

A recent Houston Chronicle article reveals that, "nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt."

excerpt: "Employees of defense contractors such as Halliburton, Blackwater and Wackenhut cook meals, do laundry, repair infrastructure, translate documents, analyze intelligence, guard prisoners, protect military convoys, deliver water in the heavily fortified Green Zone and stand sentry at buildings — often highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops."

What is not clear, are the number of troops and "employees of defense contractors" that are sustaining horrific brain and other injuries that in another era would certainly have meant death. With battle field emergency measures and body armor improved they are not dying on the battlefield and are surviving. They must endure extreme loss of human function.

Also it is not clear how many troops and "employees of defense contractors" are dying after they are evacuated from the battlefield having sustained serious injury - people that are airlifted out of Iraq to hospitals in Europe and the USA and then eventually pass away or commit suicide.

It would appear that the numbers of people who are actually killed as a result of the occupation is not truly known. The numbers are distributed over several categories, a few of which are rarely even considered or known generally. One could assume that this is deliberately done in order to play down the death toll. We know that the American people do not actually see the coffins as they come off the military transport planes, but they also do not see the real number of those killed either.

Fundamental Advice

Periodically I need a break from the great neo-conservative abyss. Its among us, and it reeks.

The simple answer is that the country is headed not only in the wrong direction, but in the wrong direction and with constant acceleration.

So to help counterbalance the ongoing atrocity of unskilled belligerence, here are the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, with advice on how to appreciate the delicate fragile thing which we call our lives.

Fundamental advice from the book "no death, no fear" -

"..... Suppose two astronauts go to the moon. When they arrive, they have an accident and find out that they have only enough oxygen for two days. There is no hope of someone coming from Earth in time to rescue them. They have only two days to live. If you asked them at that moment, "What is your deepest wish?" they would answer, "To be back home walking on the beautiful planet Earth." That would be enough for them; they would not want anything else. They would not want to be the head of a large corporation, a big celebrity or president of the United States. They would not want anything except to be back on Earth - to be walking on Earth, enjoying every step, listening to the sounds of nature and holding the hand of their beloved while contemplating the moon."
"We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from the moon. We are on Earth now, and we need to enjoy walking on this precious beautiful planet. The Zen master Lin Chi said, "The miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on the Earth." I cherish that teaching. I enjoy just walking, even in busy places like airports and railway stations. In walking like that, with each step caressing our Mother Earth, we can inspire other people to do the same. We can enjoy every minute of our lives."

Armed

This is one curious article.

Cheney criticizes China's arms buildup

excerpt: "Last month's anti-satellite test, China's continued fast-paced military buildup are less constructive and are not consistent with China's stated goal of a peaceful rise," he (Cheney) said.

Peace! Cheney! Its oil and water.

Read this to mean, American military dominance is hindered by your futile military expenditure. Don't waste our time.

China is 95% surrounded by American military interests, from Europe right around the southern Asian rim (with the single exception of Iran) to Japan and Korea.

Cheney feels that the American military is practically limping from neglect and underfunding. This is carefully stated in the PNAC document.

The American military budget is now larger than the rest of the entire world's military budgets combined, including China's.

The only way in which the culture of America ever changes, is to begin reducing the monstrously bloated military budget, the freed moneys then used for responsible social needs from education to infrastructure to research to health care. In this way, the collective money of the American people purchases something that is used for creative purposes as opposed to destructive purposes.

Creative enterprises generate more and more possibilities.

It is disturbing to hear wonder candidate Obama talk about a need to increase the military budget if he were elected. The idea being to increase it in his first year then less so in subsequent years. When I heard this, my only thought was, ok who got to this guy.

Melting

Bringing infinite attention to global warming is imperative.

This article comes from the Guardian UK:

Climate change: scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps David Adam, environment correspondent Monday February 19, 2007 Guardian

Can you imagine the impact of the ice sheets melting? Its hard to comprehend.

excerpt 1:"New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a UN expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss "may no longer be avoided" because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Such melting would raise sea levels by four to six metres, the scientists say. It would cause "major changes in coastline and inundation of low-lying areas" and require "costly and challenging" efforts to move millions of people and infrastructure from vulnerable areas."

excerpts 2:"According to a report by Christian Aid, only 16 of Britain's top 100 listed companies are meeting the government's most elementary reporting guidelines on greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, almost 200m tonnes of damaging CO2 is estimated to be missing from the annual reports of FTSE 100 companies."

Ionosphere

Know what your tax dollars are funding.

I recently learned about this Department of Defense related research facility in Alaska.

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

The project is researching the ionosphere.

Photos

"This ionized medium can distort, reflect and absorb radio signals, and thus can affect numerous civilian and military communications, navigation, surveillance and remote sensing systems in many varied ways. For example, the performance of a satellite-to-ground communication link is affected by the ionosphere through which the signals pass. AM broadcast programs, which in the daytime can be heard only within a few tens of miles from the station, at night sometimes can be heard hundreds of miles away, due to the change from poor daytime to good nighttime reflection from the ionosphere."

They want to know how to master the passing of signals through the ionosphere so as to expand their communication and surveillance capabilities and powers.

Insulted?

Here's is some excellent advice from a Tibetan Buddhist master on how to work with the anger that arises from insults and harsh words.

'When someone insults us, we usually dwell on it, asking ourselves, "Why did he say that to me?" and on and on. It's as if someone shoots an arrow at us, but it falls short. Focusing on the problem is like picking up the arrow and repeatedly stabbing ourselves with it saying, "He hurt me so much. I can't believe he did that."

"Instead, we can use the method of contemplation to think things through differently, to change our habit of reacting with anger. Imagine that someone insults you. Say to yourself, "This person makes me angry. But what is anger? It is one of the poisons of the mind that creates negative karma, leading to intense suffering."

"Meeting anger with anger is like following a lunatic who jumps off a cliff. Do I have to do likewise? While it's crazy for him to act the way he does, it's even crazier for me to do the same." by Chagdud Tulku

Presidential Gene Pool

American troops are in the middle of a civil war in Iraq. The Sunnis which represent an Islamic minority in Iraq are supported by countries to Iraq's west particularly Saudi Arabia. Psst, don't tell anybody but Saudi Arabia is America's great friend and ally to the Bush family. This is a highly guarded media secret. The Sunnis are the main source of the insurgency which kills most American troops.

The Shiites represent the majority Islamic group in Iraq and are supported by Iran which is to the east of Iraq. The Shiites account for a small amount of the insurgency that kills American troops.

Why then does George Bush keep pointing the finger at Iran as the source of the problems in Iraq?

This leads me to conclude that the next presidential election will be about many things of course, but there is one fundamental quality that Americans seem to feel profoundly comfortable with in terms of choosing a president.

The preferred candidate must be able to belligerently frothily lie with an uncanny unflinching reflex similar to that of a frog tossing its tongue at a mosquito. AND, he or she must do this with a down home folksy candor and demeanor that evokes the contented American cowboy, common man, or preacher.

This is no easy task.

Its takes a highly refined upbringing to do this, a billionaire's endowment with an Aunt Jemima nursemaid for the proletarian touch and a sense of majestic pomposity and entitlement reserved for the cream of the cultured, the elite's elite. Only this person can lie with the respectability that can soundly sleep in the face of 100,000 dead in tribute to corporate domination.

Its a hard thing to do for at least 4 years, and if he or she can do it well enough, then 8. Apparently there is a crash course that the requirement lacking can take to remedy any deficiencies.

Consider that the chosen candidate really only has one major agenda. This is to transfer as much of the common wealth of the American people - be it taxes, property, sons and daughters, intellectual wealth, all of the resources - transfer as much of this as possible over to the military/industrial/prison/media/war complex that America is.

Everybody else, that is the 95% of us or so, can get on with our duty to reproduce, mildly educate ourselves, chose between evolution or intelligent design, and attempt to hold on to reasonable sobriety for perhaps 55 to 80 years depending on grandma's gene pool.

Spank Rock

Warning: Do NOT watch this clip if easily offended by less than virtuous language and images. However, if you like the funk, this clip is the best.



On the other hand: Worst Commercial Ever

10 by 15

This is a very curious short clip of the wreckage sight of flight 93. The clip comes from Fox and NBC News. I must say, it certainly makes one ask a simple question. Where is the airplane debris? Certainly not in a hole in the ground that is 10 feet by 15 feet wide. That dimension is the size of my workroom. I'm looking around and I don't think its going to fit.

The Iran War Subtext

There is much speculation about a Bush plan to invade Iran.

There are three carrier groups now in play, and they are not in the Gulf to support the occupation of Iraq. They are there for Iran.

The reasons to invade Iran appear to be a confluence of themes.

First there are the neo-conservatives. With the PNAC document of September 2000, the neo-cons called for war with Iran. Bush is the neo-con president and still is driven by the policies of this group. The neo-cons like war, they want to maximize the military budget. Military might is the neo-con form of diplomacy. This is one reason why someone like Kissinger, certainly not a hero of mine by any stretch, is distrusted by the neo-cons. After all detente involves negotiation.

The neo-cons provide the ideology, and the reasons the general public needs to hear in order to support going to war in Iran. In the run up to the Iraq War it was the neo-cons who also supplied the intelligence in the form of the Office of Special Plans. All you need is a good public relations firm like Rendon to iron out the wrinkles and put a happy sound bite face on it, then pass it on to the corporate controlled media and voila, the ideology looks pretty good. It hardly matters if the information being told is accurate and factual.

With a little less than 2 years to go in his presidency, Bush appears ever willing to seize the neo-con day. A war with Iran will be long and harder than the Iraq occupation. Look and see how difficult it is for the US to leave Iraq. A non-binding resolution is a start but its not the same as actually stopping the recent US escalation.

The second major appeal of War in Iran has to do with providing for the interests of the corporate elite. This is an area where Bush excels, clearly Bush is the superlative president in terms of bringing wealth to corporations.

If you look at how America has been reshaped post 9-11, you find fundamental clues into how the Iran war will continue with this process of transformation. It is corporations who stand to benefit from this reshaping.

The key lies in the way the State has gathered more and more power and control over the population. Simultaneously the rights of individuals keeps eroding.

Some of the key legislations which demonstrate this are the Military Commissions Act with its key point of removing habeus corpus for the enemy combatant. By the way, if you are thinking that you could not be construed to be a military combatant, think again.

In addition there is the Patriot Act which allows for the intrusion and violation of individual privacy on all levels. The State wants to know your DNA, your reading material, they want to enter your home anytime without any need for a warrant. But these federally legislated acts are only two of many that remove the rights of the individual and expand the role of the state.

Also there is the shifting of more and more wealth out of the hands of the ordinary citizen and into the hands of private corporations. Some of those corporations are Blackwater, which provides privatization of the military, and Haliburton which has taken over many aspects of the military. But the list of relevant corporations is longer and greater. Think energy, weapons production, private militias, surveillance and security.

Also the makeup of the Supreme Court has been radically altered with the addition of Alito and Roberts, both Federalists, who support the rights of the State over the rights of the individual and support the rise of the unitary presidency, the uber presidency.

Think of how environmental law has been weakened, in order to allow corporations to freely pollute. Who gains, that would be corporations, and who loses, that would be the people.

Think of how the energy corporations have gained in record amounts while the need for renewable green energy sources could not possibly be greater and more intrinsic to the survival of human beings on planet Earth. Want to know who one of the neo-cons biggest financial contributors is? Its Exxon Mobil.

The links between corporations and the highest reaches of government have never been greater. The increase in the power of the State means an increase in the power and control of the corporations as they provide more and more of the States' services and hardware. Incidentally, a primary aspect of fascism is the melding of the corporations with the State and forming one seemless entity.

The War in Iran will be the stated cause of more of all these things. They seem to need a pretext to enact the draconian measures. What could be better than an Iranian terrorist on the American homeland? Another act of terrorism either real or invented, will see a major clamp down in individual rights, further intrusions into privacy, further surveillance of the populations, controls over money, and all of this will be handled by private corporations. Dissent will not be permitted. It was almost wiped out with the Iraq War.

This is a guarantee. War with Iran will put the final nail in the coffin of democracy. Get your passport ready because whatever little remains of the America we once knew, will be gone for good.

One thing to remember, this ugly scenario is what a small group of elite powerful people want, this is desirable to them. Don't let this happen.

Love

A belated entry for Valentines Day

Poetry by Wendell Berry

From the poetry collection "Entries"

Even in Darkness

Even in darkness, love
shows the circumference
of the world, lightning
quivering on horizons
in the summer night.

Painting by e.e. cummings

Buh Buh But

Many changes have occurred in the US since 9-11.

The United States invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban for supporting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Sounds familiar except:

From the BBC, Taleban 'warned US of huge attack'.

So here's the problem, the Taleban were the "bad" guys because they supported al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Yet, according to this article a Taleban aide Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil "...was sent to warn American diplomats and the United Nations that Osama bin Laden was due to launch a huge attack on American soil."

Here is how one US official quoted in the article responded to the warning: "We were hearing a lot of that kind of stuff..."

I realize there are many problems with tacitly believing all that we hear from the media and from the government, but this is a mind stretch, it puts a little kink in the chain of continuity of policy or perhaps a better term is American mythology.

Honey Bee

The world is clearly in a state of noticeable environmental change.

Perhaps some could argue that the political changes somehow correspond to environmental changes as well.

I ran across an article at Raw Story about how honeys bees were dwindling and dying out in a perplexing way.

This is something I was completely unaware of, and a bit surprized to read about.

I decided to look a little further and came across Mid-Atlantic Apiculture.

Apiculture - noun, technical term for beekeeping.

There is indeed a term for what is happening to the honey bees - Honey bee colony collapse disorder.

""During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States," says Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. "Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses."

This might sound trivial to the pessimist but this is actually a rather big deal.

Bees are responsible not only for honey but for pollination. There are many many food crops that are dependent on bees for pollination.

Without the pollination, we have a problem.

Check it out.

War Story

With the now old news that a third aircraft carrier group is heading towards the Middle East, the upcoming war with Iran appears to be a foregone conclusion.

If you recall the beginning of shock and awe, Bush was lifting troops into Kuwait and sounding like war was not an absolute.

The aircraft carriers are in place. If you think Iraq is bad, this next one will go off the chart.

Reading through Mark Kurlansky's book 'Nonviolence', there is a section devoted to World War II.

In 1940 the Germans bombed Coventry, England "from seven in the evening until past six the following morning. Six hundred residents (killed) and a fourteenth century cathedral were destroyed."

A few years later, British pilots were told to retaliate on German cities. They were ordered to bomb the center of the cities and to inflict death on the civilian population.

Long story, short - The people in England who lived in the affected bombed areas tended to not support the retaliatory strikes on Germany. The people that lived in areas of England that were not affected by bombing, tended to favor the retaliatory bombings. The retaliatory bombings did occur and in total about 300,000 German civilians were killed and 800,000 wounded in World War II.

This is very similar to how the people of New York City overwhelming voted against Bush and his regressive post 9-11 policies, but the red state people smelled blood and wanted it.

Kurlansky points out: "War is always more popular with those who don't experience it."

Hummer

I originally saw this clip on Crooks and Liars.

The clip shows US troops in a Humvee driving through Baghdad.

They are in a rush, their anxiety is something you can feel. They can't really dilly dally as this would expose them to attack, so this presumably is why they rush and speed through the city.

They approach car after car, and force them to move aside by ramming the back bumper. If you have ever experienced this as a driver, you know that this is something that you don't want to have happen. One can easily imagine the people inside of the rammed car being frightened by this, wondering if they will get shot and realizing that they are in great danger.

There is also the sense of entitlement that surrounds the situation. The troops feel they are entitled to ignore the common civility of the road rules, of course they are fearing for their lives simultaneously.

It is that particular mix, superior entitlement and fearing for your life, that is somehow at the root of the whole ugly mess.

You get this also in the sadists in charge, not only the ones visible at Abu Ghraib, but also the ones behind the scenes, the higher ups and the highest ups.

They control and have a sense of superior entitlement and take complete advantage without any civil interaction, but they ultimately are terribly afraid at the core.

At the end of the clip a pedestrian walks across the street, the soldiers see him and exclaim words to the effect, "he's acting like he doesn't have a fucking care in the world." The words speak volumes.

They tell of the projection of fear, and the projection of paranoia. The soldiers project their emotional confusion onto the pedestrian. Why should a simple pedestrian have the level of anxiety and fear that the soldiers have.

In all its a very troubling clip.

As the so called "intelligence" in the run up to war is revealed as nothing more that a house of lies and exaggerations, the public is becoming more and more aware of what was evident at the start of shock and awe to the careful observer.

The Office of Special Plans, run out of the Pentagon by Douglas Feith, was the Office of Special Fairy Tales. The problem is these particular fairy tales are deadly and as poisonous as anything imaginable.

All of the problems still trace back to the neo-conservatives with Bush as the complicit power to activate the deadly plan.

So convinced are these people in the righteous need and unmitigated perfection of their ideology that nothing was going to stand in the way of their plans.

Finally, I have one last thought. As Bremmer was being questioned about the loss of $12 billion dollars in cash (!!!) in Iraq, I recalled the Savings and Loan scandal of the 80s.

Here a group of unscrupulous individuals found loopholes in the federally insured banking rules and regulations that allowed them to bilk the US taxpayer out of billions and billions of dollars and walk away from it without so much as a wrist slap.

Who was at the center of this? The Bush family.

Concessions

I very much like to read articles written by Robert Fisk.

He is the Independent's reporter on the Middle East. The Independent is a British newspaper.

Robert Fisk lives in the Middle East, and genuinely reflects his liking and admiration for the people that live in that region in his writing.

Generally his articles are a cut above in that they reveal details and subtleties that are either not known or glossed over in other report.

This article is particularly good in getting at some of the details of the Iraq occupation.

Robert Fisk: Iraqi insurgents offer peace in return for US concessions

The US of course would never concede a thing.

excerpt: "It is not difficult to see why the Americans would object to those terms. They will not want to talk to men they have been describing as "terrorists" for the past four years. And if they were ever to concede that the "resistance" represented "the will of the Iraqi people" then their support for the elected Iraqi government would have been worthless."

Americans are mostly left out in the dark about offers of negotiation. They have been there coming in from Iraq right before the shock and awe began, as well as from Iran, which offered to concede practically everything the US now wants from them.

Impeach Cheney!

One of the very best summation articles which goes through the incredibly ugly steps of lying, deceptions, and abuses of power by Cheney and the Bush administration in the run up to the Iraq shock and awe and the period following. The article includes information on how all of these abuses were amplified by the right wing media and in particular "The Weekly Standard" an ultra right wing/neo-conservative publication owned by Murdoch and edited by William Kristol.

I must say Cheney is one evil two-faced sob. With complete knowledge of the truth, he then deliberately lies to get people behind a war, a war. It is unconscionable. Impeachment really is not adequate. These people need to be punished with imprisonment and more.

The Libby trial: contortions of power by Sidney Blumenthal

Also:

Cheney Surprised by Libby's Account

In the article Cheney says, "you learned about it from me?" This is Cheney responding to Libby's assertion, that he learned about the identity of Valerie Plame from Cheney. It reminds me of Judas at the Last Supper saying, "was it me Lord?"

What we have is a personality that is unconscionable to the most egregious degree, pure outright evil if ever a thing was manifest, right in the highest echelon of the government and power.

Finally:

The Pentagon Plans for Failure

excerpt: "...Pentagon, policy planners are conducting secret meetings to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario in Iraq about a year from today if and when President Bush's escalation of more than 20,000 troops fails........ None of those who are taking part in these exercises ....... believes that the so-called surge will succeed..... everyone thinks it will not only fail to achieve its aims but also accelerate instability by providing a glaring example of U.S. incapacity and incompetence."

There you have it. Planning for the upcoming failure, the surge will fail, and the surge will accelerate the failure! These are the words of the Pentagon.

Bohemian

Tracing the paths of the power elite is a tricky thing to do.

They have many stops and many hideaways. The secrecy is pretty good too.

I recently found out about the "Bohemian Grove."

This article comes from FAIR fairness and accuracy in reporting

It surrounds the story of a journalist who gained access to the grounds way back in 1991.

Inside Bohemian Grove

excerpts:

"Bohemian Grove, a secluded campground in California's Sonoma County, is the site of an annual two-week gathering of a highly select, all-male club, whose members have included every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge." (yes, GW Bush and family are members)

"...the club privately boasts that the Manhattan Project was conceived on its grounds."

Another article/website by Kerry Richardson apparently someone who keenly follows the Grove.

The information is sketchy.

http://sonic.net/~kerry/bohemian/

Finally we get into the arcane - Bohemian Grove

The stories include all sorts of unusual rituals, all male "activities", and a truly curious situation. And here I expect my power elite people to be living obscenely large on the Riviera in platinum yachts.

Scooter Proxy

It occurs to me that the Scooter Libby trial is actually a proxy war.

The two powers pulling the strings behind the scenes of this war are Bush and company, the other is the People of the United States.

One side sees a thread of redemption, a delaying tactic, obfuscation, spin, a long enough gap of time to allow oneself to slink away unscathed, and more secrecy.

The other side sees and smells blood. This side also sees what's behind the big Wizard of Oz smoke screen that hides the unparalleled secrecy of Bush and company. Oh, and this side also gets - justice.

Am I supposed to believe that all of Bush's or Cheney's honchos would have lied or exposed the name of a CIA secret operative all on their very own.

Am I supposed to believe that this was some kind of criteria to work in that shark tank.

Hey, you got the job, but just remember if it ever turns out that you might have to expose the identity of a secret CIA agent than you know what to do, wink wink.

Now how nuts is that.

Cutting to the chase: Bush and Cheney gave the directive to out the agent.

Hopefully the proxy war dissipates and the real war takes place. That's the new war I want to see started.

Soft?

There are certain cliches that are heard so often, that we become immune to their real meaning. They are mindlessly repeated, along with being presumed to be understood.

A favorite is "soft on defense."

Generally anyone that even slightly or minutely, somehow manages to indirectly question the hugely over-bloated military budget in the US is "soft on defense."

Bush, however, could never ever be accused of being "soft on defense,"

Bush budget pinches domestic spending

The headline reveals a lot.

Bush sees entitlements as something to obliterate, and the Pentagon budget as something to enhance dramatically, and in the case of his new budget, increase by a record amount, $50 billion specifically. Ultimately the idea appears to be to direct the entire budget to the military.

For the ultra pro war Bush along with his uber-imperialistic neo-con supporters, this is par for the course: all part of Bush's "No Military Related Aspect of the Massive Military-Industrial-Prison-Economic Fortress Empire Left Behind" program.

Who can blame him. The enemy is possibly as many as 10,000 Al Qaeda or as Bush calls them "folks." With a Pentagon budget in the range of $600 billion dollars, that factors out to about $60,000,000. for each one of those "folks." Makes sense to me, because isn't this what I'm supposed to believe.

Perhaps when the budget factors out to $1,000,000,000 per each "folk" then somebody gets caught.

We are continuing to witness the dissolution of America. We saw with Katrina that the priority of the government is not involved with the support of the American people.

We see how Bush has replaced actual skilled professionals with those that strictly support his policies and we see what those policies are.

This is the further tightening of the noose on society and the loosening of the tiny ribbon on empire.

Eisenhower

The year is 1961. Eisenhower is giving his farewell address. He warns about the "military industrial complex."

In trying to locate the actual size of the military budget in 1961, I found the following quote.

"The Kennedy administration placed particular emphasis on improving ability to counter Communist "wars of national liberation," in which the enemy avoided head-on military confrontation and resorted to political subversion and guerrilla tactics. As McNamara (The Secretary of Defense under Kennedy.) said in his 1962 annual report, "The military tactics are those of the sniper, the ambush, and the raid. The political tactics are terror, extortion, and assassination." In practical terms, this meant training and equipping U.S. military personnel, as well as such allies as South Vietnam, for counterinsurgency operations."

Source

Interesting and scary in its prescience.

Turns out the military budget in 1961 was approximately $40 billion. Now it exceeds $500 billion and everything that Eisenhower warned us about has come to fruition.

Neo-con Sponsor

This article was passed on to me. It contains very significant information. It comes from the Guardian. Curious how the British press seems to be more on top of American news than the American main stream media.

The title is repulsive in its own way.

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Certainly a massive energy corporation that recently posted record profits, that is actively using bribery to suppress reports on global warming is one thing. Also we are aware of the connections between the present administration and the oil and energy corporations.

But the real critical information comes from this line:

"The AEI (The American Enterprise Institute) has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees."

Recall that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a neo-con think tank, a very active one at that, also providing reasoning for the recent "surge." The AEI is one of the places where former Project for a New American Century neo-cons took refuge after seemingly abandoning PNAC. Many were polyamorous think tankers participating in several neo-con think tanks simultaneously.

Also recall that PNAC and the neo-cons provided Bush with the corner stone of his administration's foreign policy.

So the links become even more clear. Energy corporations like ExxonMobil provide funding for the neo-cons' think tank and the neo-cons provide the foreign policy for the Bush administration.

When the Iraq shock and awe commenced, critics of the war were silenced when the suggestion that the war was for oil. The links are all too clear.

There is an old guard that revolves around power, corporations, armaments, war, and a complicit media that mollifies and predigests all propaganda for a complacent trusting public.

The old guard likes the way things are. They have worked the Bush administration hard to provide all manner of cover and sustenance.

There are two more parts that are needed to keep the old guard happy. The first is an enemy. The second is a complicit judicial system that will rewrite the laws to accommodate the need to strengthen and solidify even further, the old guard's control.

to be continued.....

Sordid Orange Alert

With smelly Russian orange snow the newest environmental outrage, the news is organically making itself.

New reports on climate change indicate that climate change aka global warming is man made, nailing the coffin on the bitter nay sayers, and oil stupor induced elitists masquerading as the humanist and world savior.

The Libby trial is producing testimony that points the finger at the Vice-President. Shocker eh? This from a White House that has been accurately described as producing a Watergate moment every day.

We all realize that cruel and inhuman punishment is unacceptable, so when I write that each family member of a soldier killed or injured in Iraq should be given a turn at flogging Cheney, I mean it in a metaphorical sense and certainly not literally. Not at all. Just because Cheney was completely willing to tell Americans that Saddam had nuclear weapons in order to help legitimize shock and awe, and that he was completely aware that this was a lie, hey only metaphorically flog him.

From a more peaceful source: Quoting again from Mark Kurlansky's Nonviolence, we come to a section on World War II. Its 1937 and Neville Chamberlain is the British prime minister, Chamberlain's foreign secretary is Lord Halifax. Here Halifax writes in his diary on Hitler:

"Although there was much in the Nazi system that profoundly offended British opinion, I was not blind to what he (Hitler) had done for Germany, and to the achievement from his point of view of keeping Communism out of his country."

Kurlansky writes: "Hitler had accomplished this (keeping Communism out of his country) by murdering or placing in concentration camps every leftist he could find."

Later on after the war, during the "reconstruction" of Germany, many Nazi higher ups were placed back into power in Germany by the West aka USA because of their methods for dealing with Communism. They might be holocaust causing Nazi goons but as long as they hated commies, then they're ok with us.

Eric Dolphy

Eric Dolphy 1928 - 1964 was amazing. His solos still sound like they are on the cutting edge of jazz.

Gotta Fight

Apparently George Bush hasn't found a fight yet, that he doesn't like.

I've known people like this. People that actually see a potential fight developing and rather than diffuse the situation, or even demonstrate some high minded sensitivity by walking away, they accelerate into the fight. Throw fuel on the sparks, get that thing roaring, they like to fight. Its a need issue.

Perhaps its their own unique way of reducing stress. Maybe. Mostly though its their sense of righteousness, they truly are correct and without a doubt or any sense of self-reflection. This is what makes the pig headed fighter. They fight because they are righteous and correct, no doubt about it. I never liked the word righteous.

The rest of us unfortunately have to live with these guys. Perhaps we need to be grateful for them, because the pig headed fighter is adept at bringing out the very worst part of us. That's an interesting thing to get revealed, its juicy, ripe.

Bush is demonstrating all the foibles and hitches presented before the Iraq "shock and awe." He hasn't decided to go into Iran, even though a second air craft carrier group is being positioned in the gulf. Just like when the US was building up troops in Kuwait - no no, Bush had not decided to go into Iraq. It was still open for negotiation. Isn't Bush the decider?

OK simply said, bullshite.

As the irrepressible and sorely missed Molly Ivins would say, its time to get out there and make a stink, bang pots, write congress, do something, anything.

The Logic of a Wider Mideast War By Robert Parry

Iran Clock Is Ticking by Robert Parry

This is like Hitler's Suicide Order from the Bunker by Dave Lindorff

Hmm, Familiar?

William McKinley was the 25th president. He was elected to two terms of office, and as we know, he was assassinated in his second term. In all, his presidency ran from 1896 to 1901. McKinley was a Republican.

During McKinley's fist term, the US warred with Spain. As a result of this 100 day war, Spanish colonial "properties", the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico became US "properties."

Reading through Mark Kurlansky's book 'Nonviolence', I came across this quote by McKinley. Here McKinley is trying to figure out what to make of this war and the newly annexed American territory.

"When next I realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides, Democrats as well as Republicans, but got little help. I thought first that we should take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands, perhaps also. I walked the floor until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way - I don't know how, but it came ... that there was nothing for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could for them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died."