Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2004 10:02 - Category: Unfiled ;
Pickets plan to walk 2 weeks
1,400 union workers strike against 4 major S.F. hotels
Hotel workers in LA and DC are expected to join the strike soon. The SF workers struck because owners were about to lock them out.
Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2004 09:52 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2004 09:51 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have one thing in common when it comes to foreign policy: Neither wants to draw attention to how much they actually agree.
The above quote is from - those wild-eyed radicals at the ANSWER Coalition? Well no, it’s from the LA Times. What groups like ANSWER have been saying for months has now filtered into the mainstream. There is little difference between Bush and Kerry on foreign policy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just how miniscule are their differences?
“America must always be the world’s paramount military power. But we can magnify our power through alliances,” Kerry said in a foreign policy speech in May. “We simply can’t go it alone — or rely on a coalition of the few.”
Kerry wants allies to help the US, and to use persuasion along with force to convince. But Kerry is lock-step with Bush in saying the US must be the unchallenged military power. One reason the Roman Empire fell was because their relentless foreign wars bankrupted them, a lesson that never occurs to Kerry or Bush. Plus, Kerry sees these alliances as ways to boost US military power, and certainly not as partnerships of equals.
Both Bush and Kerry reserve the right to attack an enemy preemptively and unilaterally — as has every president.
“Democrats, Republicans and U.S. Hegemony in the Middle East”, an article by Richard Becker, details how US policy towards the Middle East has been consistent for 60 years, regardless of which party is in office. The US wants controls of the region and will do whatever is needed, including invasion, to get it.
Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a history professor at Harvard, argues that the United States is an empire that fails to understand its imperialist motives, and therefore intervenes in places like Iraq, thinking that military prowess is all that’s needed.
Lordy, the LA Times is even using the word “imperialist” in referring to US policy! And implies the war in Iraq is doomed.
There are some differences, says the article.
In Kerry’s view, the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians fuels Muslim anger at the United States and raises the danger of new attacks. As a result, Kerry says that if he won the election, he would immediately name a high-level Middle East envoy to reinvigorate efforts to settle the conflict.
Oh golly, THAT’S never been tried before, has it? Maybe if the US stopped propping up Israel with billions of dollars in aid each year, then peace might be achieved. Just a thought!
With both Iran and North Korea, Leffler said, the administration so far has considered military confrontation with nascent nuclear powers too dangerous.
Damn, the US sure wouldn’t want to invade a country that could fight back hard, eh?
Because the candidates’ overall foreign policy goals are so similar, they spend far more campaign time trading slogans than arguing policy.
“That’s typical in the United States,” Marshall said. “In foreign policy, you have great national interests at stake, and they aren’t subject to extreme partisan interpretations.”
The “great national interests at stake” are, of course, control of the Middle East by the US by any means necessary. Kerry wants the iron fist in the velvet glove while Bush favors the iron fist in the iron glove.
This is also why Kerry will probably lose the election. There’s little difference between the two on foreign issues. Plus, Kerry isn’t focusing on the few real differences between Bush and him on domestic social issues for fear of alienating swing voters, the usual brain-dead Democratic “strategy” that caused them to lose the House and Senate.
As for foreign policy, Bush and Kerry, multi-millionaire members of the ruling class, agree the US must remain the unchallenged military power and can invade anytime, anyplace it wants - which will only destabilize the world even more.
Bob Morris @ Sep 30th 2004 09:46 - Category: Unfiled ;
Russia appears set to approve the Kyoto climate change treaty, which could lead to its adoption worldwide.
Until now, Moscow has wavered over the document, which can only go into force with Russian ratification.
If Russia ratifies Kyoto, that will leave the US as a rogue nation refusing to abide by Kyoto.
Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2004 09:31 - Category: Unfiled ;
At an ANSWER LA meeting last night on Immigration Rights, Ban Al-Wardi (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee-LA/OC) detailed the Orwellian moves the FBI is making into the Arab/Muslim communities.
The FBI, she explained, is pretending to be a “member of the community”, holding meetings with the Arab and Muslim leaders explaining how the PATRIOT Act is their friend. Yessiree, the FBI tells them, with the PATRIOT Act, we protect you! Then they lovingly detail all the noxious parts of it. Are there, you ask, any Arab or Muslim FBI agents present at the meeting? Don’t be silly. Ban said at the meetings she was at there was one token Latina and the rest were Aryan/Anglo crew-cutted males. (Crew-cuts in 2004 in LA? I hope they aren’t trying to go undercover.)
After heaping praise on the PATRIOT Act, the FBI then attacks pamphlets that Arab groups have distributed. As an example,, one pamphlet said “If an FBI agent wants to question you, you have the right to have a lawyer present.” Well, this got the FBI’s panties in a twist. No no no they said, this is wrong. We need to get information fast, so if someone wants to have a lawyer present, this might slow us. So even if what you are saying is true, don’t say it. We can move faster without all that bothersome lawyer stuff - so this helps us help you! Aw, how thoughtful of them.
But wait, there’s more. Do you fear your mosque might be attacked, they asked. Then give us blueprints to the buildings, including home residences of staff, locations of alarms, and the unlock codes. Are they requesting the same information from synagogues, much less from churches? What do you think?
Ban did skip the 6 hour mock training sessions where you pretend to be an FBI agent breaking into immigrant homes. This is so you can feel their pain (The FBI’s pain, not the immigrant’s pain.) Sometimes we accidentally shoot someone and this makes us feel bad, the FBI said. No, I am not making this up.
Of course, while FBI holds these Happy Face meetings, their attacks on immigrants, especially against Arab and Muslims, continue unabated.
Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2004 01:13 - Category: Unfiled ;
The ANSWER Coalition has called for antiwar protests in DC, SF, and LA on Inauguration Day, regardless of who is elected. While Bush and Kerry have differences on some domestic issues, they have none on Iraq. Both favor the war. Both will continue the war. Both will re-institute the draft.
On the first day that the next president takes the oath of office - January 20, 2005 - there will be thousands of people all along the inaugural route in Washington DC demanding “End the occupation of Iraq - Bring the troops home now.” Whether it is Bush or Kerry riding in the limousine, they and the world will hear this message loud and clear from the people of the U.S
ANSWER already has the permit for the DC march and rally. Permits are in the works for San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The L.A. march and rally will be on Thursday Jan 20 6 pm, at the Westwood Federal Building. This will be on the lawn, not just the sidewalk, and will include a march through Westwood.
Bob Morris @ Sep 29th 2004 00:57 - Category: Unfiled ;
Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. So here’s a story.
I went to the supermarket the other day. I was only in there for about 5 minutes. When I came out there was a city cop writing out a parking ticket.
I went up to him and said, “come on, buddy, how about giving a senior a break?” He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I called him a worthless municipal employee. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for worn tires.
I called him a blue suited imbecile. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first, then he started writing a third ticket.
This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I abused him the more tickets he wrote. I didn’t care. My car was parked around the corner and this one had a “Bush-Cheney” bumper sticker on it. I try to have a little fun each day now that I’m retired. It’s important at our age.
Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2004 08:43 - Category: Unfiled ;
Nigerian rebels vow “all-out war” starting Friday
The Nigerian rebel group fighting government troops in the oil-rich Niger Delta said it would launch “all-out war on the Nigerian state” Friday and advised oil companies to shut down production by then.
The above was buried deep in the LA Times this morning, while their major story on soaring oil prices didn’t mention this threat at all, how odd.
Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2004 08:42 - Category: Unfiled ;
Insurgents are killing and kidnapping government officials, police and Iraqi national guard members in an apparent campaign to destabilize this city, the capital of Sunni Muslim-dominated Al Anbar province west of Baghdad.
The apparent aim is to make Ramadi into an ungovernable area like neighboring Fallouja, where insurgents have free rein. Ramadi and Fallouja represent 70% of Al Anbar’s population, according to U.S. estimates.
“Ungovernable?” A better phrase would be, “out of US control”
And who are the insurgents?
Insurgents are mostly Iraqis, U.S. Military says
Gee, Didn’t Dubya and the Iraqi puppet government tell us the insurgents were outside agitators who had snuck across the border? The US military now says that just ain’t so.
“They say these guys are flowing across [the border] and fomenting all this violence. We don’t think so,” said a senior military official in Baghdad. “What’s the main threat? It’s internal.”
People whose country is invaded will fight like banshees to defend it, something that should come as absolutely no surprise at all to anyone.
Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2004 08:39 - Category: Unfiled ;
His attorney is Bruce Cutler, who is so fearsome and relentless in court that prosecution lawyers, reeling from his attacks, have calling it being “Bruceified.”
Cutler got Mafia boss John Gotti off several serious charges. The government only managed a conviction against Gotti after forcing the removal of Cutler as Gotti’s lawyer.
Spector’s trial will be a knock-down drag-out, no-mercy affair.
Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2004 00:27 - Category: Unfiled ;
From my friends at the excellent Crooks and Liars, comes the new Politnix single, “Shut Up!” You got it, it’s about Bill O’Reilly, and features lots of samples of him screaming “shut up.” When the Politnix aren’t blogging, they are pro musicians, and this is a great, catchy song. Randi Rhodes has already played it on Air America. Listen to it now!
Bob Morris @ Sep 28th 2004 00:25 - Category: Unfiled ;
Jimmy Carter predicts serious Florida vote problems
Voting arrangements in Florida do not meet “basic international requirements” and could undermine the US election, former US President Jimmy Carter says.
He said a repeat of the irregularities of the much-disputed 2000 election - which gave President George W Bush the narrowest of wins - “seems likely”.
Mr Carter, a veteran observer of polls worldwide, also accused Florida’s top election official of “bias”.
Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2004 08:17 - Category: Unfiled ;
‘One of the <Bush Administration> told me: “When we went in there, I thought we would build American-style democracy. Hell, I’d be happy with Romanian-style democracy now.”‘
– Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), on the administration scaling back its goals for democracy in Iraq.
Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2004 07:13 - Category: Unfiled ;
Crisis in the San Francisco Green Party
The DemoGreens, David Cobb supporters aided by Medea Benjamin, have taken over the apparatus of the SF Green party, just like they have at the national Green Party level. The resulting ruptures have been nasty and destructive to the party, something that may be the unspoken objective of at least some of the DemoGreens.
The Green Party national convention:
The SF delegation and Medea Benjamin—who was not elected by the chapter but received a delegate’s credential—joined this national group of apparatchiks. They cast their votes for Cobb in open defiance of the 75% of Green voters in California who chose Camejo, who ran in the primaries (and received 33,000 votes) standing as a proxy for Nader. With the exception of Global Exchange’s Medea Benjamin who had made it very clear for months that she was hostile to Nader’s campaign, raising the issue of “Anybody but Bush” early and repeatedly, most other SF delegates hid their allegiance to Cobb or covered it with Green rhetoric.
“Global Exchange is a corporation disguised as a non-profit”—explained Frontlines editor Carlos Petroni—”Medea is now in the midst of big businesses, like her projected $100 million ‘Green’ Mall in Downtown San Francisco, her ‘Pink’ apparel line of shoes and her imports of Third World crafts for sale at high prices in the US.
She probably figured out that in order to succeed economically, her operations need lots of legislative support from Democrats and I think that’s what she meant when at the Green Party California Convention—when asked why she would support Kerry when the Democrats never listen to Greens—she answered that a number of them in Congress do and that ‘we’—meaning her—needed them”
The DemoGreen objective is to drive out the radicals and make the Green Party a tame, slightly progressive, business-friendly adjunct to the Democratic Party. Yes, you can mouth your slogans about how things must change - but substantive criticism of the system, well golly, that might upset “business interests.” Hugging trees is fine. Questioning why the economic system encourages polluters to pay fines as a cost of doing business rather than forcing them to clean up is not ok. “Anyone but Bush” is a permissible slogan. “End the imperialist war” is not. Will this “Protest Lite” approach so favored by the sincere (but misguided) DemoGreens and Medea change much of anything? I doubt it.
Other local activists contend that the local Democrats—confronted with the almost-win of the Mayoral race last year by Green Gonzalez—are doing their best to buy off the more bureaucratic elements of the local Green Party. The Democratic mouthpiece Bay Guardian and local Democratic Party powerhouse Carole Migden and a number of other members of the Democratic County Central Committee spent thousands of dollars in the last Green primary promoting Cobb and a slate of Demogreens for the County Council.
The Bay Guardian, for the first time in history made endorsements in the Green race, supporting pro-Democrat David Cobb and attacking Peter Camejo.
Peter Camejo is a local hero in San Francisco, so the Guardian’s endorsement of the bland pro-Democrat Cobb becomes even more illustrative. Defuse and neutralize the Green Party, drive out the radicals, then replace them with pro-business, compliant DemoGreens who won’t propose radical change or ask embarrassing questions.
One wonders, do the ousted Green Party forces have the will and organizational ability to take back the party?
Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2004 07:10 - Category: Unfiled ;
Many of President Bush’s assertions about progress in Iraq — from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections – are in dispute, according to internal Pentagon documents, lawmakers and key congressional aides on Sunday.
“We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.” – President George W. Bush, address to U.N. General Assembly, Sep. 21, 2004
Bob Morris @ Sep 27th 2004 07:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
‘Bunker busters’ seen as targeting Iran
Israel is to receive 5,000 new bombs from the U.S., including 500 of the huge “bunker busters” the Pentagon has used in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the authoritative Israeli daily, Haaretz. The transfer is to take place right after the U.S. elections in November.
Bob Morris @ Sep 26th 2004 09:25 - Category: Unfiled ;
Al Qaeda seen as wider threat
The network has evolved into a looser, ideological movement that may no longer report to Bin Laden. Critics say the White House focus is misdirected.
This from a Sunday LA Times front page story, no less. It details how al Qaeda has morphed and split, ameoba-like, into dozens of new groups that may have little or no contact with al Qaeda itself. As I’ve mentioned here before, the US military is a hierarchical organization, while al Qaeda is networked. As has been eloquently explained in The Rand Corp. book, Networks and Netwars (availble free in PDF form), hierarchies have a difficult time understanding how networks operate, and mistakenly assume they can confront them as being hierarchies.
Which is precisely what the US is doing now in the fight against al Qaeda. Get bin Laden. Kill the top leaders. Then we will win. Well, no. Networks don’t have heads that can be chopped off - no matter how much the Pentagon otherwise.
Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda was a loosely organized network, but core leaders exercised considerable control over its operations. Since the loss of its base in Afghanistan and many of those leaders, the organization has dispersed its operatives and reemerged as a lethal ideological movement.
The Madrid train station bombing provides an instructive example.
Top suspects in the Madrid bombings have long-standing ties to Al Qaeda cells in Spain, Morocco and elsewhere. Still, six months after the bombings, investigators have no evidence that the planners received instructions or money from outside for the attacks that killed 191 people.
The methods used in Casablanca and Madrid illustrate what a senior European counter-terrorism official described as “the most frightening” scenario: local groups without previous experience, acting with minimal supervision from an interchangeable cast of Al Qaeda veterans.
By now we have no evidence, not even credible intelligence, that the Madrid group was steered, financed, organized from the outside. So that might be the biggest success of Bin Laden.’ A senior European counter-terrorism official.
So, the Madrid bombers were operating on their own. The attacks by the US against al Qaeda merely caused them to create new organizations that are even more impervious to the US. Meanwhile, the US strategy of killing or capturing top al Qaeda members, while certainly high publcity, does little to stop attacks.
U.S. and foreign intelligence officials said the Bush administration’s focus on the “body count” of Al Qaeda leaders and its determination to stop the next attack meant comparatively few resources were devoted to understanding the threat.
Of course, al Qaeda could not grow without new recruits. And why are so many willing to join?
Moroccans and officials of other Islamic countries agree that anger over U.S. policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict provides much of the motivation for the attacks.
“If the Palestinian issue were settled, if Iraq were stable, 70% of the threats would disappear,” said Bouzoubaa, the justice minister.
Bob Morris @ Sep 25th 2004 11:03 - Category: Unfiled ;
A strike by hotel workers in LA, SF, and DC will probably start early next week. The crucial demand by workers is for a two year contract which would expire in 2006. This would insure the contracts for all hotel workers nationwide would then expire on the same date, a major advantage in dealing with the multi-nationals who run the hotel chains.
Unite Here, the union, is smart and savvy, and has been lining up community support nationwide. ANSWER LA, for example, will “adopt” one hotel one day a week and bring people to the picket lines. On the first two days of the strike, the union asks everyone to join the picket lines. Expect several actions nationwide early on, with mass civil disobedience and arrests.
Among other demands, the union wants work schedules, which have been drastically increased due to staffing cutbacks, reduced to something manageable. They also want the hotels to hire more African-Americans. Y’see, a while back, the hotel chains began hiring primarily immigrant women of color, in hopes they would be more malleable. Were they ever wrong! One union organizer, an Anglo, says “these are the strongest women I’ve ever met.”
Now these same immigrant women want the chains to hire more African-Americans. That’s what is known as “solidarity!”
Bob Morris @ Sep 25th 2004 10:44 - Category: Unfiled ;
Slavery abounds in U.S., rights group says
Modern-day slavery is alive and well in the United States, say the authors of a report on forced labor that was released Thursday.
According to the report, “Hidden Slaves: Forced Labor in the United States” — which was conducted by researchers at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley and Free the Slaves, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C. — at any given time, at least 10,000 people are forced to work against their will through threats or violence.
PoliZeros has learned of cases where mentally ill homeless people in the US were recruited on the streets for “jobs”, transported to farms, then held in bondage and forced to work without pay.
Bob Morris @ Sep 25th 2004 07:34 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ Sep 25th 2004 07:32 - Category: Unfiled ;
BadArchitecture.com
An investigation of the not-so-subtle in Beijing architecture.”
Welcome to Beijing: a world of random chaos, a fitting and fascinating laboratory for contemporary architecture.
While our exercise is playful, it ultimately aims to observe this particular place, which produces a contemporary architecture that impulsively pulsates with so much bombast, flamboyance and bravado.
Much of it is non-Western architecture certainly, freed from the strictures of the Bauhaus school which decreed that office buildings have no ornamentation and be glass boxes. See Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House for more on this.
Beijing ain’t the West. Good!
Bob Morris @ Sep 24th 2004 12:21 - Category: Unfiled ;
Hurricanes, Florida, and God
A few days ago I posted a link to a Florida map which purported to show that the recent hurricanes hit Republican areas only. It has created quite a hubbub, elsewhere as well as here, with eight comments posted so far, quite a lot for PoliZeros. Apparently, some clueless conservatives actually think I took the map seriously.
So, in hopes of tossing more gasoline on the fire, I post this from reader David Robison (who you can email here)
I assume you’re the same Bob Morris who put together the great map of Florida counties, 2000 election voting and the hurricanes of this year. I love it!
While I think the map is great, I am NOT the Bob Morris who created it, although I think we’d like each other if we met. Great names think alike.
A few weeks ago, before Ivan, I put together an animation.
A most prescient animation indeed! (Boldface added.)
Feel free to pass the link on. Cheers and good luck to all of us in November.
Reader Hugh Lowe notes:
I wanted to confirm for you that it is for sure a message from God. Heed the Scriptures:
Job 27:21. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth: and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.
Job 27:22. For [God] shall cast upon him, and not spare: he would fain flee out of his hand.
Job 27:23. [Men] shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.
Well, I guess that settles it!
PS As one who has been through hurricanes, I wouldn’t wish them on anyone, not even Jeb Bush.
However since Bob Woodward reported that Dubya believes Jesus told him to invade Iraq, it’s only fair that lefties can believe God is smiting Florida for its sins in the 2000 election. Well, those lefties who still believe in God and sin, that is…
Bob Morris @ Sep 24th 2004 09:08 - Category: Unfiled ;
Hurricane Jeanne
She’s heading directly for the east coast of Florida
Bob Morris @ Sep 24th 2004 08:58 - Category: Unfiled ;
It’s getting drafty in here
Panel calls U.S. troop size insufficient for demands
Hey here’s a thought, if the US stops invading countries, then they won’t need more troops, right?
Bob Morris @ Sep 24th 2004 08:49 - Category: Unfiled ;
Cat Stevens to take legal action
The singer once known as Cat Stevens said Friday that U.S. authorities have not made clear why they suspect him of ties to terrorism and said he would never have believed such a thing could happen in America, a country he loves.
Who will be next to be targetted unjustly by this out of control national security apparatus?
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