If Bush Wins In 2004

From Seeing The Forest

Here’s what’s in store for us, and the world, if Bush wins. The Hawks tell Bush how to win war on terror: Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, France.

France? Yes. Read this: “we will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe“

The draft will be the least of our worries. This crowd is not just wingnuts, they are wingNUTS, and they’re in charge now!

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The hyperdimensional gong

Richard Grossman is an acupuncturist in Santa Monica CA, who has, for some time now, been exploring the transformational and healing properties of music and sound. What he does is really quite extraordinary. Using indigenous instruments and the like, he performs once a month in the back of a store in Topanga, creating amazing shamanistic soundscapes. This isn’t New Age; it’s something way more intense and powerful than that. Think Steve Roach. These are the realms Richard is exploring.

He has this gong. Hand-crafted in Germany I believe. But, it’s more than a gong. Oh yes, he starts out doing a traditional gong sound. Then he strokes the surface of the gong and higher pitched vibrato sounds emerge and begin melding, merging, and playing off against the deep low gongs. It becomes louder, more intense; suddenly there’s many more higher voices and lower tones, while the power and force of the sound continues building.

It just puts me Someplace Else. I find it transformational, and afterwards, am more centered, with new ideas and paths to follow.

These soundscapes go on for an hour or so, starting slowly with indigenous instruments, before moving into the gong, and Richard seems as amazed as anyone by the sounds that emerge from it. When it’s over, you find yourself staring at the gong thinking maybe Portals really do exist.

(His website has info on joining his mailing list)

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Government decides nearly dead cows might not be good eating

New regulations will prohibit the use of so-called “downer” cows for food. Downer animals, including the one U.S. cow that tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, can no longer move on their own.

How daring pro-active of them! <sigh…>

Yet they still persist in the double-speak.

“Sound science continues to be our guide,” Veneman said, adding that the food supply was safe even before she announced tougher regulations.

Um, if the food is safe, why are tougher regulations needed? Veneman speak with forked tongue.

PS Just weeks ago, the Bush Administration successfully blocked the precise same regulations.

The Agriculture Department’s announcement yesterday of a ban on the sale of meat from ailing “downer” cattle marked a policy turnabout for the Bush administration, coming only a few weeks after the department and allies in the powerful meat lobby blocked an identical measure in Congress.

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Putin makes his moves

Kremlin reloading after shot at Yukos

Vladimir Putin appears to be planning to take control of Russian oil, and also to make private companies completely subordinate to the state.

“Putin’s aim is to restore the state,” said Dmitry Rogozin, a Putin envoy and co-leader of the populist-nationalist Rodina bloc, which rode an anti-oligarch platform into the State Duma earlier this month.

“The state was very weak under [former President Boris] Yeltsin. It was filled with oligarchs that dictated their will to a puppet leader, which also left Russia weak in the global arena. Now a trend has been set in motion that is making Russia more of an equal player.”

Washington is not pleased.

“A creeping coup against the forces of democracy and market capitalism in Russia is threatening the foundation of the U.S.-Russia relationship and raising the specter of a new era of cold peace between Washington and Moscow,” <Sen. John> McCain told the Senate last month. “The United States cannot enjoy a normal relationship, much less a partnership, with a country that increasingly appears to have more in common with its Soviet and tsarist predecessors than with the modern state Vladimir Putin claims to aspire to build.”

McCain also called for an investment blockade of Russia and for the continued enforcement of discriminatory trading restrictions imposed on Russia under the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which the U.S. has been promising to lift for years.

Russia’s response? Even harsher rhetoric.

Why all the blustering from McCain?

“If Yukos is not sold for cheap to the United States, and the state in the meantime is able to take control of Russia’s biggest company to form a syndicate of major oil companies, it will increase the resources of the Russian state and increase its influence on the world arena,” said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst.

The plot thickens further. Many Russian oligarchs have, for years, and sometimes decades, cultivated close ties with US policy makers. Ties that now put them on a collision course with Putin.

Chubais, the architect of the rigged loans-for-shares scheme by which many of the state’s most valuable assets were sold for a song, was a key ally of the Clinton administration. Chubais studied under former Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Larry Summers at Harvard in the late 1980s

Khodorkovsky has spent years pursuing what is essentially a personal, pro-American foreign policy, cultivating contacts with the most influential politicians, diplomats, bankers and public relations specialists in Washington — actions the siloviki, a group of hawks in the Kremlin made up of former KGB men, consider reprehensible.

The ex-KGB fox, Putin, has acted, and acted boldly. This story will only get bigger.

As Russia ramped up oil output following the August 1998 crisis to a level where this year it briefly surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world’s top producer, the fear in Riyadh was that Russia was doing so at the behest of America, according to a source close to OPEC. That all changed, however, when Khodorkovsky’s partner, Platon Lebedev was arrested in July. The arrest of a Yukos billionaire signaled a sea change in the Kremlin’s relationship with big oil — that the government was intent on reining in its independent giants.

“They didn’t see the distance between the companies and the government,” said the source, who was in Riyadh when Lebedev was arrested. “But the arrest made it clearer.”

Kind of like three-dimensional chess, isn’t it?

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The fish that threatened national security

College student Lara Hayhurst was not prepared to let officials treat her little pet like Osama ‘fin’ Laden

You guessed it. Cretins at airport security wouldn’t allow a college student to bring her pet gold fish onto the plane. 

I wasn’t prepared, however, for the TSA to stop me right at the entrance, proclaiming that no small pets, including fish, were permitted through security. I had, however, just received the blessing of the ticket agents at US Airways.

The TSA supervisor was called over, and he berated me profusely. He exclaimed that in no way, under no circumstances, was a small fish allowed to pass through security, regardless of what the ticket agents said.

Give this asshole any real power, and he’d be a full-tilt Nazi, yes he would.

However, the story has a happy ending. She smuggled the fish onto the plane, after pretending to flush it down the toilet, then bursting into tears to make security feel guilty.

As I write this I sit with a cat in my lap and my fish, which I have aptly renamed X-ray, swimming contentedly in his glass-beaded bowl. And even though my actions may send Tom Ridge reeling and upset the karma of the Department of Homeland Security, I really don’t care.

Honestly, they have bigger fish to fry.

But wait. It gets even crazier! Check the next story.

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Warning, this is NOT satire. Repeat, this is NOT satire
 
FBI urges police to watch for people carrying almanacs

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

Yes, that’s right. Almanacs. ”Drop that Old Farmer’s Almanac“, you terrorist disguised as a granny, you… 

Richard Forno of InfoWarrior rightfully rants:

This news item borders on the obscenely stupid. I received the below FBI alert in the mail earlier today.  Granted, Homeland Security has been a joke since the phrase was invented on September 12, 2001 — but this goes beyond a joke and past ‘pathetic’ into the downright embarassing stage.

Finally, I think it’s hysterical that the FBI has the audacity to deem this “Law Enforcement Sensitive” and request it not be transmitted in public forums, websites, or to the media.  Of course not - if that happened, people might begin to wonder what kind of incompetence our tax dollars are paying for.

Hey, let’s have a contest to figure out what else the FBI, in their brain-dead wisdom, should “monitor” or ban!

Cell phones: Terrorists could use them to talk to each other, as well as to send text messages and email. BE CAREFUL! That fifteen year old you see text messaging her friends could in reality be an Al Quada agent.

Cars: Can’t have people being able to visit other people, especially not without John Ashcroft knowing about. Lets ban cars or put tracking devices on them, except for those owned by god-fearing right-wing fundamentalists of course.

Parkas: Well, liberals will whimper that parkas are needed in cold weather, but it’s achingly clear these bulky puffy garments could conceal any number of weapons or bombs. Ban them all.

It occurs to me that our government has gotten so paranoid about terrorism, with all these wacky alerts, that maybe the Other Side(s) have successfully launched massive Psy-Ops campaigns against us. As in, let’s make them think we’re doing all sorts of stuff and drive them nuts trying to figure out what it is. Which, of course, could be cover for a real attack.

Or maybe the better answer is, our government is staffed by dolts. Maybe they never heard about the boy who cried wolf.

PS Hmmm, this calls for performance art, like peace vigils where in addition to the signs and banners, everyone is holding almanacs. Or feisty marches - people holding their almanacs high, chanting “give me almanacs or give me death”.

Addendum: DJ Mitchell writes

On the list of subversive documents, I’d guess the Farmer’s Almanac ranks right up there with the Bill of Rights and the Bible.

Word is the Pentagon is massing troops for a major assault on that hotbed of terrorism where the Almanac is published: Peterborough, NH.

You can bet Al Queda is consulting the Almanac to learn how caterpillars predict the severity of the winter.  Weather is, after all, of great strategic importance.

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Good point…

From Scripting News

Betsy Devine: “On December 13, President George W. Bush signed a big chunk of Patriot II into law — but the ‘major media’ were focused on Saddam’s spider hole.”

They comment:

Betsy, something to think about — did any of the Democratic Presidential candidates alert us?

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Howard Dean: Beware!

Edwards receives the endorsement of Hootie & the Blowfish.

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Grocery strike actions continue in Los Angeles!

Joint community support action for grocery strikers

Come to the Vons warehouse in El Monte on Tuesday morning

Tuesday Dec 30, 6 AM
Vons Distribution Center
4300 Shirley Ave
El Monte, Ca.

Map

ANSWER LA is joining with LASSO and other community organizations in a grocery strikers support action at a Vons distribution center this Tuesday, December 30th at 6 AM. Yes, that’s 6 AM! (Many trucks load up at 6 AM, hence the early time)

Some activists plan to participate in an attempt to block the trucks, knowing that there may be arrests. The National Lawyers Guild will be on hand to give people an orientation. Others will simply stay in the picket line and not participate in civil disobedience. Those who don’t want to be arrested are still very much needed to show support for the strike.

Directions: From the 10, exit Baldwin North. Take Baldwin North to Gidley St, turn right. Go one block, you’re there.

ANSWER LA: 213 487-2368

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Why don’t US newspapers run Op-Eds like this?

From The Guardian, who state the unsurprising; that the Iraq invasion is a) about imperial power, not democracy, and b) is going rather badly. Obvious enough, yet this view is mostly absent from US mainstream media who generally cheerlead the war when not running in-depth, hard-hitting articles on how much money shoppers are spending at post-Xmas sales.

The second half of the last century was the era of successful anti-colonial struggles, culminating in the Vietnamese liberation movement. People do not like being occupied from afar by countries of different cultures and races, though the new American imperial hubris - like many before - convinced the Bush administration and our own prime minister that the coalition troops would be greeted like a liberating army, that the people of Iraq yearned for our values and our way of life.

Iraq has already demonstrated that American public opinion does not have the stomach for a prolonged occupation, that the Bush administration cannot afford the body bags, and that therefore their Iraqi appointees will have to assume, sooner rather than later, many of the frontline responsibilities. The occupation of Iraq has taught the US, not to mention the world, that overweening military power is not invincible, but on the contrary, is as vulnerable as ever when it tries to occupy another people’s country. Such was, and remains, the lesson of anti-colonial struggle.

As with all imperial endeavours, there has been much moralising about democracy, human rights and justice. It was ever so, but no more so than now. Yet these values have, as in the past, been the first casualties of imperial ambition. There are countless stories of the way in which American troops shoot first and ask questions later. The Americans don’t even bother to count the number of Iraqi dead.

When Bush and Blair insist that the Iraqis should determine Saddam’s fate, by Iraqis they mean their own quisling Iraqi regime. The Guantanamo camp is an affront to human rights worldwide. Civil rights have been rolled back in the US in the name of the fight against terror. And, of course, there are no weapons of mass destruction: truth is the first casualty of war - and imperial ambition.

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USDA sticks head firmly in the sand.

Meat from a Holstein sick with mad cow disease has now reached retail markets in eight states and one territory, but still poses no health risk, Agriculture Department officials said Sunday.

Um, if the meat is safe, why are they recalling it in eight states (so far)?

Dr. Ron DeHaven, chief veterinarian for USDA, said on Sunday that science has shown certain meat cuts are fairly safe from infection. Among those are whole cuts without bones, such as beef steaks, roast, liver, and ground beef from labeled cuts like chuck or round.

“Fairly safe”? Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is 100% fatal, and USDA says everything is ducky because the meat is “fairly safe” to eat? Is USDA protecting the consumer or simply being a mouthpiece for the cattle industry?

DeHaven said this suggests the trade restrictions “are not well-founded in science.”

Ah, I get it. If possibly infected meat is “fairly safe” then the heck with those silly trade restrictions; other countries ought simply do the right thing and import the meat anyway!

Hmm, I recall the US banned import of Brit beef while they had the Mad Cow infections. But I guess the rules are different for us.

PS Deep Audit opines:

They’ve got a cow evidencing “Mad Cow” disease… it can’t stand, move, or eat.  And what do they do?  Butcher it, send the spinal cord etcetera for testing and the meat to market.

Ought to call it “Mad Human” disease.

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Punks for Howard Dean!

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How to NOT win the public to your side

Michael Jackson: ‘Not wrong to sleep with children’

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Saddam didn’t have had anything to do with this

Four bombings kill 13 in Iraq, injure more than 100

“It was a coordinated, massive attack planned for a big scale and intended to do much harm”

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Taliban take over National Park Service

In a series of recent decisions, the National Park Service has approved the display of religious symbols and Bible verses, as well as the sale of creationist books giving a non-evolutionary explanation for the Grand Canyon and other natural wonders within national parks.

Also, under pressure from conservative groups, the Park Service has agreed to edit the videotape that has been shown at the Lincoln Memorial since 1995 to remove any image of gay and abortion rights demonstrations that occurred at the memorial.

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Bushies chastise their Brit poodle

Tony Blair was at the centre of an embarrassing row last night after the most senior US official in Baghdad bluntly rejected the Prime Minister’s assertion that secret weapons laboratories had been discovered in Iraq.

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The toothpaste museum!

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People actually get paid to say this stuff!

Terrorism analysts: They “fear” an “organized effort to kill Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf”

Um, with two assassination attempts in eleven days, I’d say it’s not a “fear” but a “reality”, wouldn’t you?

The U.S. government is “considering” increased screening of cattle after mad cow diseased cattle was discovered.

“Considering”? Well that’s just great. Mad cow, when it hits humans, is 100% fatal. And they’re “considering” doing something about it? Hey, don’t rush things, better check with Dubya’s cattle rancher buddies first. Wouldn’t want some  little ole thing like Mad Cow interfering with the God-Given Right to Make a Profit.

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Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs? Welcome to America, Australian journalist.

An Australian journalist came to the States to interview Olivia Newton-John. She was held incommunicado, handcuffed, not given food or water, then sent back home. Why? Oh, there were official mumblings about she didn’t have the proper visa, but in reality the problem  was an out of control security apparatus with no checks and balances, staffed by officious little pricks.

When Smethurst returned to Melbourne, camera crews were waiting — all major Australian media outlets reported her ordeal. The story was treated as an example of bureaucratic arrogance run amok, because many parts of the world are still outraged by what happens at American airports to foreigners — and to many Americans.

Way to go Dept of Homeland (In)Security! One of the few allies we haven’t completely alienated as yet is Australia, however it appears you are trying hard to do just that.

Smethurst says U.S. ambassador Tom Schaeffer privately apologized to her for her treatment, but will not do so in public.

Hey, Tom, that’s showing some kind of guts, huh!

Not that it matters much — the only U.S. press coverage of Smethurst’s ordeal was found in an Atlanta Constitution squib culled from the Australian Associated Press.

What a big surprise…

In John Ashcroft’s America, you are a criminal and may be held with no explanation until/if they release you. Laws? HA!

Let’s make 2004 the year Ashcroft and his band of loonies get thrown out of office along with George Bush.

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Yet more proof why satire is becoming impossible to do

Florida opens the world’s first “faith-based” prison

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Why am I not surprised?

France says no proof of hijack plot found

French investigators questioned seven men pointed out by U.S. intelligence but found no evidence they planned to use a Los Angeles-bound jet to launch terror attacks against the United States, French authorities said Thursday.

Hey Christmas is a slow news time, just the time to scare the populace silly with quite possibly made up or wildly exaggerated stories about terrorists planning to attack the US.

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The 2004 election. Battle lines are being drawn.

John Perry Barlow, “a retired Wyoming cattle rancher, a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and co-founder of the EFF”, is a seriously respected denizen of cyberspace. His new blog has a piece on William Safire’s attack on Howard Dean in the NY Times.

Besides, the television vs. Internet, Industrial vs. Virtual, corporate vs. individual nature of this election, is a subject that demands more thorough discussion than I have time for this morning.

The most grimly entertaining part of his screed comes at its end. Safire proposes a scenario in which Dean will falter, and, after the Democratic party has been recaptured by the Republicrats, he will leave the party in a sulk, creating conditions for a Bush landslide. Safire worries that a huge Bush mandate, as opposed to his mere reelection, might be bad for the country.

Right.

We can’t afford to lose this one, folks. If we do, we’ll have to set our watches back 60 years. If they even let us have watches in the camps, that is.

Eric Alterman, leftie journalist and blogger, details how the DC establishment detests Dean, a candidate they understand little and fear more.

Washington goes to war (with Howard Dean)

Saddam Hussein may be out of his spider hole, but Washington’s real enemy is still at large. His name: “Howard Dean”–and nobody in America poses a bigger threat to the city’s sense of its own importance

Today, the nation remains no less divided than four years ago, with about 20 percent of the vote up for grabs. The punditocracy has chosen its side. Perhaps it’s time the rest of us choose ours.

2004 will not be a time to watch from the sidelines. The stakes are too high for that. Get involved.

As a great man once said:

Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights.

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up
don’t give up the fight!

Bob Marley

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Oh that…

Rumsfeld backed Saddam even after chemical attacks

Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld’s personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America’s support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.

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The Grinch that stole the dead spots map

Mobile phone carriers know dead spots, but won’t tell us

The answer, it turns out, leads to one of the mobile phone industry’s darkest and dirtiest secrets: All the major carriers have highly detailed maps showing exactly where their phones will and won’t work. Maps they absolutely refuse to share with you and me.

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