New Broom asks for new leadership in Minneapolis

"A new broom sweeps clean"

New Broom was formed in September 2008 in response to the RNC. Police
state tactics by cops and sheriffs, aided and abetted by Mpls & StPaul
mayors and city councils. Mayors and councils already selling out the
cities and citizens to developers/predators.

New Broom is: Dems, libertarians, Greens, Ron Paul Republicans,
anarchists, Independents, independents, Open Progressives. New Broom
contains several serious policy/ordinance/procedure wonks deep in city
meetings, documents line by line, casting light in dark corners.

New Broom for now concentrates on Mpls, because the mayor and whole city
council are up this November 2009.

New Broom grades the 13 members of the Mpls City Council:

grade ward/incumbent
F 1/Ostrow
C- 2/Gordon
D- 3/Hofstede
F 4/Johnson
F 5/Samuels worst of all
F 6/Lilligren second worst
F 7/Goodman
C- 8/Glidden
C- 9/Schiff
D+ 10/Remington
D- 11/Benson
D- 12/Colvin-Roy
D+ 13/Hodges

Average: D-/D. Mean: D-.
We deserve better. Lots better. B or better.
The lower the grade, the bigger the broom should be.
Ostrow-1, Remington-10 & Benson-11 won't run again.
Gordon's earlier C dropped to C- for endorsing RT (RNC/stadium) Rybak.

New Broom will in the future report on, and in many cases grade,
opposition candidates as they reveal themselves.

Wall Street Socialists

by Amy Goodman

The financial crisis gripping the U.S. has the largest banks and insurance companies begging for massive government bailouts. The banking, investment, finance and insurance industries, long the foes of taxation, now need money from working-class taxpayers to stay alive. Taxpayers should be in the driver's seat now. Instead, decisions that will cost people for decades are being made behind closed doors, by the wealthy, by the regulators and by those they have failed to regulate.

Tuesday, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department agreed to a massive, $85-billion bailout of AIG, the insurance giant. This follows the abrupt bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the 158-year-old investment bank; the distressed sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America; the bailout of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the collapse of retail bank IndyMac; and the federally guaranteed buyout of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase. AIG was deemed "too big to fail," with 103,000 employees and more than $1 trillion in assets. According to regulators, an unruly collapse could cause global financial turmoil. U.S. taxpayers now own close to 80 percent of AIG, so the orderly sale of AIG will allow the taxpayers to recoup their money, the theory goes.

It's not so easy.

The financial crisis will most likely deepen. More banks and giant financial institutions could collapse. Millions of people bought houses with shady subprime mortgages and have already lost or will soon lose their homes. The financiers packaged these mortgages into complex "mortgage-backed securities" and other derivative investment schemes. Investors went hog-wild, buying these derivatives with more and more borrowed money.

Nomi Prins used to run the European analytics group at Bear Stearns and also worked at Lehman Brothers. "AIG was acting not simply as an insurance company," she told me. "It was acting as a speculative investment bank/hedge fund, as was Bear Stearns, as was Lehman Brothers, as is what will become Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. So you have a situation where it's [the U.S. government] ... taking on the risk of items it cannot even begin to understand."

She went on: "It's about taking on too much leverage and borrowing to take on the risk and borrowing again and borrowing again, 25 to 30 times the amount of capital. ... They had to basically back the borrowing that they were doing. ... There was no transparency to the Fed, to the SEC, to the Treasury, to anyone who would have even bothered to look as to how much of a catastrophe was being created, so that when anything fell, whether it was the subprime mortgage or whether it was a credit complex security, it was all below a pile of immense interlocked, incestuous borrowing, and that's what is bringing down the entire banking system."

As these high-rolling gamblers are losing all their banks' money, it comes to the taxpayer to bail them out. A better use of the money, says Michael Hudson, professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and an economic adviser to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, would be to "save these 4 million homeowners from defaulting and being kicked out of their houses. Now they're going to be kicked out of the houses. The houses will be vacant. The cities are going to [lose] property taxes, they're going to have to cut back local expenditures, local infrastructure. The economy is being sacrificed to pay the gamblers."

Prins elaborated: "You're nationalizing the worst portion of the banking system. ... You're taking on risk you won't be able to understand. So it's even more dangerous." I asked Prins, in light of all this nationalization, to comment on the prospect of nationalizing health care into a single-payer system. She responded, "You could actually put some money into something that pre-empts a problem happening and helps people get health care."

The meltdown is a bipartisan affair

Presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama each have received millions of dollars from these very companies that are collapsing and are receiving the corporate welfare. President Clinton and his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin (now an Obama economic adviser), presided over the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed after the 1929 start of the Great Depression to curb speculation that caused that calamity. The repeal was pushed through by former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, one of McCain's former top advisers. Politicians are too dependent on Wall Street to do anything. The people who vote for them, and whose taxes are being handed over to these failed financiers, need to show their outrage and demand that their leaders truly put "country first" and bring about "change."

Denis Moynihan contributed to this column.

© 2008 Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!" a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America.

Published on Thursday, September 18, 2008 by TruthDig.com

Why We Were Falsely Arrested

by Amy Goodman

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, "Democracy Now!" producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.

The Democratic and Republican national conventions have become very expensive and protracted acts of political theater, essentially four-day-long advertisements for the major presidential candidates. Outside the fences, they have become major gatherings for grass-roots movements - for people to come, amidst the banners, bunting, flags and confetti, to express the rights enumerated in the Constitution's First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Behind all the patriotic hyperbole that accompanies the conventions, and the thousands of journalists and media workers who arrive to cover the staged events, there are serious violations of the basic right of freedom of the press. Here on the streets of St. Paul, the press is free to report on the official proceedings of the RNC, but not to report on the police violence and mass arrests directed at those who have come to petition their government, to protest.

It was Labor Day, and there was an anti-war march, with a huge turnout, with local families, students, veterans and people from around the country gathered to oppose the war. The protesters greatly outnumbered the Republican delegates.

There was a positive, festive feeling, coupled with a growing anxiety about the course that Hurricane Gustav was taking, and whether New Orleans would be devastated anew. Later in the day, there was a splinter march. The police-clad in full body armor, with helmets, face shields, batons and canisters of pepper spray-charged. They forced marchers, onlookers and working journalists into a nearby parking lot, then surrounded the people and began handcuffing them.

Nicole was videotaping. Her tape of her own violent arrest is chilling. Police in riot gear charged her, yelling, "Get down on your face." You hear her voice, clearly and repeatedly announcing "Press! Press! Where are we supposed to go?" She was trapped between parked cars. The camera drops to the pavement amidst Nicole's screams of pain. Her face was smashed into the pavement, and she was bleeding from the nose, with the heavy officer with a boot or knee on her back. Another officer was pulling on her leg. Sharif was thrown up against the wall and kicked in the chest, and he was bleeding from his arm.

I was at the Xcel Center on the convention floor, interviewing delegates. I had just made it to the Minnesota delegation when I got a call on my cell phone with news that Sharif and Nicole were being bloody arrested, in every sense. Filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and I raced on foot to the scene. Out of breath, we arrived at the parking lot. I went up to the line of riot police and asked to speak to a commanding officer, saying that they had arrested accredited journalists.

Within seconds, they grabbed me, pulled me behind the police line and forcibly twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me, the rigid plastic cuffs digging into my wrists. I saw Sharif, his arm bloody, his credentials hanging from his neck. I repeated we were accredited journalists, whereupon a Secret Service agent came over and ripped my convention credential from my neck. I was taken to the St. Paul police garage where cages were set up for protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a peace officer. Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail, facing riot charges.

The attack on and arrest of me and the "Democracy Now!" producers was not an isolated event. A video group called I-Witness Video was raided two days earlier. Another video documentary group, the Glass Bead Collective, was detained, with its computers and video cameras confiscated. On Wednesday, I-Witness Video was again raided, forced out of its office location. When I asked St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington how reporters are to operate in this atmosphere, he suggested, "By embedding reporters in our mobile field force."

On Monday night, hours after we were arrested, after much public outcry, Nicole, Sharif and I were released. That was our Labor Day. It's all in a day's work.

© 2008 Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America.

Green Party candidate seeks state representative seat in Lakeville

Colin Lee, a software engineer from Lakeville, formally announced and filed for candidacy to challenge Republican incumbent Mary Liz Holberg in State House District 36A.

Lee, who has lived in the Twin Cities for over 26 years, decided to run because he said he perceived that the citizens of Lakeville were ready for a change from politicians who work only for corporations, lobbyists, and PACs and who listen to citizens only during the months before November.

He said he believes that many recent tragedies, such as the home mortgage crisis, could have been avoided with foresight and open ears to hear troubled constituents.

“The most serious problems in our society seem to fall through the cracks because it proves less difficult for lawmakers to ignore those who cannot make large donations,” he said.

He said he wants to restore grassroots voices to the process.

“In recent years, wages stagnated, businesses fled to China with our tax incentives, health care became the leading cause of bankruptcy, every family of four owes over $100,000 in national debt, and Minnesota’s poor now pay the largest chunk of income on state taxes. All most politicians do about it is debate how much of our children’s money to give away for wealthy interests. They are mostly unaccountable and unavailable when constituents call.”

He said he is a believer in balanced budgets and restrained spending.

Colin said he believes that he can win both conservative and progressive voters by fighting for the principles that two parties claim to believe in, but fail to uphold.

“For far too long, neither major party has shown their roots of fiscal conservatism nor progressive populism. But I will. Together, we will bridge this gap. We will create a sustainable future. We will raise the colors of freedom, bringing back liberties and prosperity that our grandchildren’s grandchildren will one day enjoy.”

Born a dual citizen of South Africa, he said his birth nation rose up non-violently against a repressive, racist government and eventually defeated them.

He said he believes that a similar populist movement is beginning in order to reclaim politics in America for those citizens who currently have no say. Colin has a campaign Web site at http://colin-lee.com.

source: http://www.thisweek-online.com/2008/February/26lee2.26.08.html

Address by Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson

Salt Lake City, Utah --

Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”

“While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss.”

“You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.”

“You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before countenanced in our nation’s history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder.”

“We are here to tell you: We won’t take it any more!”

“You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation’s treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

“Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false ‘patriotism,’ our world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever before.

It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people, yet you wear your so-called religion on your sleeves, asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense – when what you have done flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling – and disgraceful. What part of “Thou shalt not kill” do you not understand? What part of the “Golden rule” do you not understand? What part of “be honest,” “be responsible,” and “be accountable” don’t you understand? What part of “Blessed are the peacekeepers” do you not understand?

Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, ‘We won’t take it any more!’ ”

“As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable, and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other men and women who are competent, true to our nation’s values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places – for the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the good of our world.”

In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.

It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.

In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress’s sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment.

We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country – and the world. They were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people – 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks – a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility.

As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths -- we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream media: “You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic, unprecedented proportions.”

“But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say ‘We won’t take it any more.’”

If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be principled, courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not the leaders – the leadership has to come from us. If we don’t insist, if we don’t persist, then we are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy – and our responsibilities as moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration – and to candidates running for office – and to the world – that we support the status quo.

Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what’s right and never letting down can we say we are doing our part.

Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.

It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later.

How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses.

Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness?

We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don’t cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.

Let’s awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: “We won’t take it any more!”

I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say “No more” and mean it?

I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes us one step closer to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in our name.

If we expect our nation’s elected officials to take us seriously, let us send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted – that, regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided, principled leadership.

The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years, but let us pledge that we won’t let it go on one more day – that we will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral degradation, and the disintegration of our nation’s reputation in the world.

Let us be unified in drawing the line – in declaring that we do have a moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting our troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave so much, that we bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamental principles of human rights.

In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of our shared values as Americans – and as moral human beings – we declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.

[ KAC: While Mayor Anderson is not currently within the Green Party, he reflects our values better than the majority of those in the largest Two Parties. He would impeach Bush if Pelosi and Reid would allow it. ]

The Cure for Terrorism by Ed Felien

There is no cure for terrorism, just like there’s no cure for cancer.

By the time cancer has started, those cells are gone. They won’t come back. You can cut them out, blast them out with chemotherapy, burn them out with radiation, but cells that have become cancerous cannot once again become healthy cells.

There is no cure for terrorism, just like there’s no cure for cancer.

By the time cancer has started, those cells are gone. They won’t come back. You can cut them out, blast them out with chemotherapy, burn them out with radiation, but cells that have become cancerous cannot once again become healthy cells.

The only real cure for cancer is to treat the causes of cancer. Cancer is caused by the body’s reaction to something in the air, something in the food, something in the water. The body takes in a substance that is harmful. It damages the DNA and reproduces and attacks a vital organ. In the case of cigarette smoke it’s the lungs. With drinking water it’s generally the kidneys or liver. With pesticides in food it could start with the stomach. The body takes in air, water and food every day and makes new cells out of the raw material it is fed. If the raw materials are contaminated, then the body may develop cancer as a reaction to that contamination.

Does this analogy hold true for terrorism?

From the point of view of U.S. foreign policy there are just a few terrorist cells operating independently, and the Bush administration believes these terrorist cells can be cut out, or blasted out, or burned out. They are treating terrorists the same way doctors have traditionally treated cancer. But these operations are clearly not working. We’re creating more terrorists with each new military action.

It might be useful to think for a moment how we are seen by the Arab world. The Iraqis do not want us in Iraq. The Afghanis prefer the Taliban to the U.S. sponsored regime of Hamid Karzai. The Palestinians believe we do not treat them fairly. They believe we always support the Israelis. In Lebanon we have been able to do what we could not do in Iraq: we have united the Sunni and Shiite factions, but they are united in opposition to the U.S.-supported Christian Falangist (fascist) government. Syria and Jordan have large anti-American constituencies. We’ve been able to buy the silent acquiescence of Egypt ever since the Camp David agreement when Sadat sold out his allegiance to the Arab cause. The treaty was poorly understood by the American public, but everyone in the Middle East knew what had happened. That’s why no one over there was surprised when Sadat was assassinated by religious fanatics or, when Mubarak continued taking (what many Egyptians consider) bribe money or, when Mubarak had to engineer crooked elections to stay in power. Most Egyptians know it is the U.S. that is pulling the strings of their puppet government. The people of Iran are still angry with the U.S. for overthrowing the democratically elected government of Mossedegh after World War II and installing the Shah’s brutal dictatorship. The Saudis are our best friends in the area because we have made them rich by buying their oil, and we protect their feudal monarchy with the largest military base in the region. But there have been some protests in even this tightly controlled society, and religious militants have assassinated some American personnel. Some of the bases have had to be moved to neighboring Kuwait, which has always been unashamed of being a U.S. puppet.

So, what is the picture that emerges from this mosaic?

It would be reasonable to conclude that most people in the Middle East consider the U.S. a military terrorist state that supports dictatorships, steals natural resources and abuses their cultural and religious traditions.

The shelling of Fallujah will no doubt be remembered by Middle Eastern scholars in the same way we remember the bombing of civilian populations in Lidice and Guernica by the Nazis or the firebombing of Dresden or the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were horrible crimes against unarmed civilians. The Iraqis must certainly see the occupation of their country as a terrorist campaign. The midnight raids, the roadblocks, the cruel acts of murder, rape and torture must seem the actions of a terrorist state.

They must see us as the cancer that is trying to destroy them.

What do the Arab terrorists want? They want the same things that most people in the Middle East want. They want the U.S. to withdraw its bases from Saudi Arabia. To have military bases around the holy sites of Mecca and Medina is like having Muslim warriors standing guard around the Vatican and Lourdes. That military presence would, no doubt, be offensive to Catholics. In the same way, our actions are offensive to Muslims.
They want an end to the U.S. corruption of governments in the Middle East. Almost every country in the region has been overthrown by the CIA (Lebanon, Iran and Iraq—Saddam Hussein was encouraged by the CIA to murder the President and take power), or bribed or intimidated by the U.S.

And they want a just settlement of the Israel/Palestine problem. Israel must return to the 1967 borders and recognize the nation of Palestine. As long as Israel occupies Arab land, violates their territorial integrity and entombs them in a walled ghetto, then the Palestinians will continue suicide bombings inside Israel, and the rest of the Arab states will support the Palestinian resistance.

Historical comparisons of the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis are not flattering and probably not useful. But certainly the taking of the land and racial hatred of the Palestinians by the Ashkenazi Jews reminds one of the settling of the West in America, and the high wall and checkpoints around Gaza cannot help but remind one of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The situation is much more complex than that, however. Sephardic Jews lived in Palestine for over 1,200 years without much trouble. These were the Jews that had lived in the Middle East and North Africa for thousands of years. When the European, or Ashkenazi, Jews moved to Israel in the 20th century, they brought with them Western notions of property and Western cultural prejudices. They bought land from Arabs who had no idea they were giving up the land forever. They created a European-style nation state with strong links to Europe and the U.S.

They also quickly adopted U.S. military tactics and weaponry. Today, they have probably the strongest military in the Middle East—the most disciplined and the best equipped. Their recent incursions into Lebanon and Gaza, though, show the limitations of advanced weaponry. Ostensibly, the reason for the invasions was to rescue captured Israeli soldiers. Hundreds of deaths later a spent invasion force had to retreat on both fronts. The Israelis were forced to terminate the invasions without achieving their primary objectives. Before ending the hostilities, however, they dropped anti-personnel bombs on civilian populations in Lebanon. This action shocked a world that thought it could no longer be shocked by the brutalities and horrors of violence in the Middle East. Certainly, state-sponsored terrorism, dropping bombs from 10,000 feet or firing artillery shells from 20 miles away that are designed to maim and kill unarmed men, women and children is as terrifying and as cruel as a misguided religious zealot blowing himself up in the middle of a crowd. But, once a state institutes terrorism as an instrument of policy, it indicts the entire nation as accomplices, whereas, the actions of individual terrorists, though they might be the policy of a group or religious sect, cannot be used to indict a people or a nation.

One head of an Israeli Defense Force rocket unit admitted his group fired over 1.2 million anti-personnel bombs and white phosphorous shells into Lebanon: “What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.” (Information Clearing House) The U.N. estimates Israel fired over 4 million cluster bombs into Lebanon. Many of them did not explode. These duds now act as landmines. They will explode randomly or when some small child picks them up. In a feeble attempt to match the Israeli terror campaign, Hezbollah fired 131 cluster bombs into Israel.

Most retaliation by the Palestinians or Hezbollah is done by suicide bombers who strap explosives to their body, walk into a group of Israelis and blow themselves up. We don’t get a clear picture of what these suicide bombers think. They generally make a statement or give a video interview before they undertake their mission, but the Western press does not present this side of the story. An exception to this rule happened last week when a 64-year-old grandmother blew herself up and wounded two Israeli soldiers. According to Sarah El Deeb’s account in the Associated Press: “At the compound where her extended family lives near the Jebaliya refugee camp, her oldest daughter, Fatheya, explained the bomber’s motives: ‘They [Israelis] destroyed her house, they killed her grandson—my son. Another grandson is in a wheelchair with an amputated leg,’ she said.”

So, why did this 64-year-old grandmother become a terrorist suicide bomber? Was she talked into it by religious fanatics? Or, was she sick to death from a cancerous diet of Israeli state terrorism, depressed at the loss of her grandchildren and frustrated to the point of desperate action? Once Israel destroyed her home, killed her one grandson and maimed the other, they had created a terrorist.

But, she was not a very good terrorist. The picture of her shows her holding the rifle with the fragile care you would hold a flower. There is a sad look of vulnerability in her eyes. When she went out on her mission she telegraphed her intent to an Israeli patrol and they threw a stun grenade at her. She detonated way too early and only wounded two soldiers. In the end, she didn’t have the determination to grab the rifle like she was going to use it. She didn’t look into the camera with fanatical ferocity. She was probably more motivated by love than by hatred, and, in her last moments, she probably saw the young Israelis as not that different from her own grandchildren.

Israel depends on the U.S. for its existence. It receives $4 billion a year in military and economic assistance from the U.S. In return it is a loyal client state and a safe instrument of U.S. policy in the region. But this is a doomed relationship. There is ultimately no hope for the future of Israel as a minor partner in U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. The only hope for Israel is to make peace with her neighbors and recognize that her interests lie in a strong Middle East independent of U.S. influence.
Of course, the continuation of the current policies for the U.S. in the Middle East are doomed as well. Most people in the world are not fooled by U.S. propaganda. They know the wars, the violence, the bribes, the CIA plots, all of that is for one reason: to get control of the oil. It’s only a matter of time before the U.S. public figures it out as well.

George W. Bush is a perfect President for that moment of discovery by an awakened public. His great grandfather was chair of the War Industries Board during World War I. He made valuable contacts with other war profiteers like Dupont and Remington. His grandfather made huge profits re-arming Germany before World War II and managing Silesian mines using concentration camp labor. He purchased Dresser Company and managed it. His father, George H. W. Bush, helped engineer the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, headed up the CIA, made great friends with the Saudi royal family, became Vice President, helped organize the Contra war against the government of Nicaragua, became President, and merged Dresser with Halliburton when his old pal Dick Cheney was CEO.

George W. Bush is not only President of the United States and Commander In Chief of the Armed Services, but, more importantly, as head of the Bush family, he is responsible for insuring the profitability of Halliburton, the family business. He’s had the good fortune during the Iraq war to be able to award multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to Halliburton to provide support staff to the military and to give Halliburton exclusive rights to oil exploration and development.

Mussolini, the founder of fascism, defined fascism as the perfect union of corporate power and government. Three other elements are also generally present in a perfect fascist regime: permanent war, the use of terror as an instrument of state policy and the suppression of civil liberties. George W. Bush has managed to score 100 percent on all counts and has exceeded Mussolini’s wildest aspirations.

The Iraq Study Group has just made 79 recommendations to President Bush. They acknowledge that the war is a failure and that “staying the course” is not an option. So, what do they recommend? They recommend staying the course for another year or so, until the Iraqis are ready to take over. The presentation by the group just after the midterm elections has to be seen for what it is: a cheap public relations stunt to make it seem Bush is listening to the American people’s cry for peace. He will no doubt say this is a good report. We’re going to study it carefully. And we’re going to do those things we can.

One recommendation that Bush would certainly like to follow would be the privatization of Iraqi oil, opening the ownership up to foreign investors. It is no accident that James Baker, the head of the group, is a lawyer from a firm that represents Halliburton.

So, a new comic opera will begin in a few weeks. Congress and the American people will be demanding that George W. Bush adopt the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. Bush will stall and finally agree to work on achieving some of those objectives, and he will push for Halliburton to take over the Iraqi oil fields, and he will justify this naked theft by saying he is following the wishes of the American people.

And, will any of the corporate conglomerate press call him on this deception?

Last week, in a fit of anger, upset that the American press had ignored the murder of dozens of strikers in Oaxaca, I called the local corporate monopoly press “lapdogs of fascism.” I apologize. I was wrong. I was too mild. With their obsession with trivia and sensationalism, and with their refusal to talk about the connection between Halliburton and Bush, they are not just lapdogs of fascism, they are scum-sucking lapdogs of fascism. ||

Dennis Kucinich -- a can’t lose campaign

Progressives now have a candidate for president in 2008 in Dennis Kucinich.

The corporate media made him their enemy during his 2004 run, when they either ignored him or attacked him. But despite opposition by the powers that be, progressives can only win by his running.

The corporate media have made their choice clear, as in this Associated Press statement on the day Kucinich announced, “New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is considered the party's front-runner, closely followed by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.” Considered by whom?

Ahh, there’s the rub. Considered by the transnational corporations and their Democratic Leadership Council filter on behalf of transnational investors who don’t give a damn about this country or its people, other than what they can steal from both. Hillary and Obama are going to be buried in cash and favorable media coverage as the backup plan, in case the transnational investors can’t cram another Republican down the throats of the electorate.

The corporate media have convinced the American public that candidates such as Kucinich are “out of the mainstream,” which is an outright lie. Their own polling shows the views of Kucinich are indeed mainstream. He wants universal health care, as do the majority of citizens. He wants to cut defense spending, as do the majority. He wants to clean up the environment, as do the overwhelming majority. He wants to bring the troops home from Iraq, as do the majority. You couldn’t be much more mainstream than Dennis Kucinich.

But the mass media have little to do with the mainstream. They represent their owners, board members and advertisers. These are connected to those making billions from war, billions from pollution, and billions from the cruel “health care” system whose primary function is to produce profit, not care.

The corporate media see Kucinich as their enemy and will savage him if he should get decent polling numbers, otherwise they can be expected to try to destroy him with silence, not covering anything he does from fear that he might become a blip on the electoral radar if a profile is raised.

Howard Dean showed that in the Internet age, it is possible to get financing without kneeling before the Big Boys and kissing Big Boy butt. It scared the establishment so much they echoed “the Dean scream” for days throughout corporate media in belittling him in an attempt to destroy his credibility. They won as Dean sizzled to toast from their flames.

It wasn’t that they disagreed with Dean on much outside of the war. It was more the fact that he hadn’t taken their money and they weren’t sure they completely owned his soul. How could such a man be trusted to hold the White House for them?

Now we have a wonderful choice with Kucinich. Old leftists like me, knocked down and knocked out so many times I’m sure there are those who think we must be punch drunk to keep trying for an outbreak of democracy, are urging people to get behind Kucinich in a Can’t Lose Campaign.

Already liberal friends are braying at me that Kucinich doesn’t have a chance. Corporate media echo this suggestion every four years in keeping the sheep in the fold. Stray from the corporate-backed candidates and the world may come to an end. The lesser of evils is the way to go, my man, vote evil -- let me assure you that evil is the way to go.

But Kucinich is not endangering the sacred “two-party system,” staying within the lesser-of-evil shuffle, so at least we don’t have to listen to the whimpering, “If you vote for a Green, the Republicans will win” (so vote for an evil Democrat, who will then stick bamboo shoots under your fingernails, but only nine fingers, unlike his greater evil opponent, who will go for all 10).

I believe Kucinich can actually win the primary if only two things happen. First, he has to raise big bucks on the Internet as Dean did. And second, a massive campaign of education must take place, much like what I do daily at Liberty Underground, informing liberals and leftists of the news beyond the corporate crap which passes for news in the Land of the Free, often framing it within the historical context ignored by the corporate media.

An informed voter must learn early about what will come from the corporate media to savage Kucinich: that he will be accused of being out of the mainstream, a lunatic, a man who will bring down the republic, cause economic doom and despair.

And they will have to learn about the lies told by the corporate media about his opponents. That, for example, Barack Obama is a “peace candidate” who wants out of the war in Iraq. The magnificent black writer Glen Ford pretty much popped that balloon with his recent article.

Obama is for leaving when the Iraqis are trained to be more obedient, like the Bush plan, but we don’t call Bush a man of peace for some reason (could be those hundreds of thousands of innocent dead who kind of stink up that kind of propaganda, or corporate media would go for it). The Bush/Obama plan ends when we have a replacement for Saddam in power, responding to “fetch boy, now roll over, now turn on the oil spigot -- good boy, here’s a biscuit.”

The Kucinich plan is to cut off funding for the war, except for enough to finance bringing our troops home. Now, as a combat vet, that’s what I call supporting the troops!

“Peace candidate” Obama has stated he would bomb Iran or even Pakistan under the right conditions. "Indeed,” he said, “given the depletion of our forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher budget in the intermediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment." Citizens are not getting defense cuts from Obama.

Senator Hillary Clinton of the leadership of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the DLC, we are told by corporate media columnists, wants socialized medicine! Wouldn’t that be wonderful, except again, the corporate media are lying. The then First Lady’s program was to roll up managed care insurance companies into giant Wal-Marts of medical care for efficiency. The efficiency might not have resulted in any additional medical care, but it certainly would have created increased profit for the big insurance companies. Which is why, when she announced it in New York, representatives of the big medical insurance companies gave her a standing ovation.

Dennis Kucinich is pushing for an actual single-payer system like Canada’s, in which even the poorest workers have a shot at getting their broken arm set without having to wonder if they’ll lose their lodging in the deal.

The corporate media are hyping Obama insanely because he drew crowds of hundreds in New Hampshire. Shouldn’t a Democrat draw hundreds of Democrats in local city meetings, let alone meetings hyped nationally by all the major TV networks? You would think he had accomplished another Woodstock phenomenon from the coverage he got for this.

Although Obama is not a member of the Democratic Leadership Council like Hillary, Lee Sustar recently wrote, “In fact, Obama's book explicitly endorses Bill Clinton's "Third Way" - -the attempt to shed the Democrats' supposed leftist excesses and borrow pro-business policies from the Republicans.”

The corporate media know Obama, like Hillary, will sell out the American people on behalf of the owners, who keep these two as their backup plan. Sure, they want a Republican if they can get one. Republicans have shown themselves to be better lackeys, more savage and cruel. But Hillary and Obama heel well on command, and have proven their service by backing the transnational investors who run the planet and finance the political campaigns, often through their “American” corporations.

Dennis Kucinich cannot lose, and every progressive should put their weight behind him now. At the very least, a message will get out that Obama, Hillary and the Republicans will most of the time be on the opposite side of, a message citizens should be allowed to hear. The only way progressives lose is by not backing this dark horse, thusly allowing a field of butt-kissing sycophants to run unchallenged.

Jack Balkwill does Liberty Underground of Virginia (LUV) and authored "An Attack on the National Security State" about Plowshares activists. He can be reached at libertyuv@hotmail.com.

Barack Hussein Obama's speech against the Iraq War - October 2002

"I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

I Don't Oppose All Wars

I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.

I don't oppose all wars.

After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

Opposed to Dumb, Rash Wars

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

On Saddam Hussein

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

You Want a Fight, President Bush?

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."