One million say “U.S. Out - Now!”.

Unfortunately, or fortunately (I’m not sure which), that’s one million Iraqis. And talk about burying the lead! The New York Times covers the fact that supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr collected one million signatures in just three weeks (!) on a petition demanding that foreign troops leave the country in a single paragraph, and not just a single paragraph, but in the 14th paragraph (!) in an article whose headline, “Bomb Kills 2 Private Guards for British Consulate in Iraq”, describes something completely ordinary and completely buries the extraordinary (and significant) event hidden in the 14th paragraph.

And, in case there’s any doubt, this is not some ambiguous petition that even American Congressional Democrats could sign. It reads: “I hereby declare my rejection of the forces of occupation and demand their withdrawal.” Straight and to the point.

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I mean, what IS going on over there?

The British government has quietly instituted a shoot-to-kill policy. Thankfully many are fighting back.

It emerged yesterday that the Met’s guidelines for confronting bombers allow armed police, in some cases, to fire a ‘critical headshot’ without even challenging the individual to stop, if it is feared an explosion is imminent. Until now, it has been assumed that suspects would be given a chance to surrender.

And now this.Black teenager killed in axe attack in U.K.

A murdered teenager was left with an axe embedded in his skull after a “racist, vicious and unprovoked” attack by a gang in a park near his home.

But then, when governments act like thugs, it doesn’t exactly discourage their citizenry from acting the same.

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I just bought a box of Political Affairs magazines from the late 40’s-early 50’s at a library sale. This was the official magazine of the Communist Party USA.

This issue makes it obvious that the peace movement didn’t start in the 60’s!  And publishing this during McCarthyism took serious courage.

I have it up on eBay now. It has “reports from the 15th National Convention of the Communist Party USA held in Dec. 1950. Large, expanded issue. William Foster, Gus Hall, Henry Winston, John Gates, Robert Thompson, Claudia Jones, others.”

“Omigod”, you say, “Communists?” Well, if it wasn’t for communists and socialists organizing in the labor unions in the 30’s, we might still not have the 40 hour work week, health insurance, and safety regulations. You think the capitalists just freely granted those benefits to the workers?

Organizing is in the DNA of socialists, something the rest of the world accepts with little furor. Indeed, socialists are in the parliaments of most European countries. It’s only in the US that (some) people shriek when the word “communism” is mentioned.

But then, as a Communist friend who lives in the US says, “It’s amazing how much you can get accomplished when no one knows you’re here.”

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State says Diebold failures in massive mock election could translate to problems at polls.

Other states will probably follow California’s lead. Good.

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Pope Benedict XVI was yesterday immersed in the first big diplomatic crisis of his papacy after the Vatican issued an unusually blunt statement criticising Israel for its response to Palestinian attacks.

In a 1,300-word communique, the Vatican said: “It has not always been possible to follow every attack against Israel with a public declaration of condemnation.”

It said one reason for this was that “the attacks on Israel were sometimes followed by immediate Israeli reactions not always compatible with the norms of international law … It would thus be impossible to condemn the [terrorist operations] and pass over the [Israeli retaliation] in silence.”

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Motorists who drive solo in fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles will gain access to carpool lanes in California under a massive transportation bill approved by Congress on Friday that includes billions of dollars for projects statewide.

Well, maybe it’s just half a Wahoo, as sometimes the car pool lanes in L.A. are as clogged as the regular lanes…

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Unlike the debacles at the Boy Scout Jamboree, these scouts did absolutely everything right. They pitched a tarp in the middle of a field during a lightning storm, ran to get a ranger when the unthinkable happened and lightning struck two of them, and gave prompt first aid. Sometimes you do everything right in the wildnerness and people die anyway. Sadly, this was one of those times.

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Via ProRev

FAIR - New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has urged the U.S. government to create blacklists of condemned political speech–not only by those who advocate violence, but also by those who believe that U.S. government actions may encourage violent reprisals. The latter group, which Friedman called “just one notch less despicable than the terrorists,” includes a majority of Americans, according to recent polls.

That’s right. Friedman is saying most U.S. citizens are just one notch less despicable than terrorists because they don’t support the war and because they believe if you attack someone, they will no doubt attack you back.

“After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us why imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq explains why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow “understandable” is outrageous.”

Note how the words are twisted. ”Understandable” becomes synonymous with “condonable.” Again, if you invade a country with your justification being lies, then of course they will fight back.

The chasm between the ruling class and the U.S. public becomes ever wider. The ruling class wants more wars and more invasions. The public does not. Let’s send a clear message on Sept. 24. Antiwar rallies will be taking place in D.C. L.A. S.F., and dozens of other cities. Be there. 

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The Dr. Strangelove’s in D.C., not satisfied with just two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan),  are planning yet another.

In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran. The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States.

Note they don’t say Iran has to be involved in such an attack, rather that such an attack would be a convenient pretext for invasion. Just like the Iraq invasion was.

The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.

Emphasis added.

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Adam Curry recently played Cruisebox’s “On A Podcast” on his Daily Source Code podcast. It’s a great, rocking, humorous song that also neatly demonstrates what the podcasting revolution is about. Do it yourself. Bypass the traditional media gatekeepers. Get the music out there and let anyone listen to it.

This is podsafe music, meaning you can play it on a podcast without fear of record company buttheads screaming for royalty money. The Podshow Podsafe Music Network features hundreds of songs that can be safely podcasted. (It does not mean the lyrics are sanitized, just that’s they are legal to play.)

Back to Cruisebox, here’s some of the lyrics

Do you remember, way back last summer
When mainstream radio was such a fuckin’ bummer
No indie music…nothin’ too funny
Clear Channel motherfuckers did it for the money

But somebody heard the call
Now, you can have it all

I heard it on a podcast…rockin’ fuckin’ radio
You want it, you got it…just download it and pod it
On a podcast…no one’s gonna stop ya
Tell the FCC to stick it…kick it…
The revolution’s on

Cruisebox website

MP3, explicit lyrics

MP3, squeaky clean lyrics

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Iraq Affecting Mental Health of Troops. 

Thirty percent of U.S. troops surveyed have developed stress-related mental health problems three to four months after coming home from the Iraq war, the Army’s surgeon general said Thursday.

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About 300 fall ill from heat at Boy Scout Jamboree.

It was in the upper 90’s, high humidity, so they marched hundreds of Boy Scouts onto an unshaded field and waited for Dubya to arrive.

Hundreds had to be treated for dehydration and heat-related illness. None of it had to happen.

I was at the US Festival, a big rock concert in ‘82, twenty feet from the outdoor stage. It was over 100 degrees and we were seriously jammed in close together. During the breaks, staff came out with fire hoses and just hosed us down. Wow, great. After five minutes. Umm, we’re soaking. After ten minutes, hey please stop. No, they nodded, we will hose you down until the next act starts. We don’t want casualties.

Thus, a bunch of rock and rollers apparently understood far better than the Boy Scouts what to do with large numbers of people in big fields when it’s very hot. Oh, a few keeled over from the heat at the US Festival, but nowhere near 300. And about 100,000 people were there.

And then there were the Boy Scout “leaders” who erected a tent with metal poles near a power line and killed themselves.

The illnesses came as many were still reeling from the deaths of four Boy Scout leaders from Alaska. Some Scouts had been watching as the metal pole at the center of a large, white dining tent touched power lines. Screams rang out as the tent caught fire and the men burned.

I believe Cub Scouts 101 teaches you not to do stupid stuff like this.

I’m stupefied by these pointless, tragic deaths and by 300 scouts needing medical attention because their elders were too clueless to take action.

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Via ProRev

MARK HONIGSBAUM, GUARDIAN - Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot dead in the head, was not wearing a heavy jacket that might have concealed a bomb, and did not jump the ticket barrier when challenged by armed plainclothes police, his cousin said yesterday. Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with the Metropolitan police, Vivien Figueiredo, 22, said that the first reports of how her 27-year-old cousin had come to be killed in mistake for a suicide bomber on Friday at Stockwell tube station were wrong.

“He used a travel card,” she said. “He had no bulky jacket, he was wearing a jeans jacket. But even if he was wearing a bulky jacket that wouldn’t be an excuse to kill him.” . . .

How could she have known he didn’t jump the ticket barrier unless maybe she saw the videos during her meeting with the police? 

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Three men have died after working in the recent intense heat of the Central Valley, sparking a demand for more safeguards.

One worker died after being made to work in 105 degree heat at double speed.

But two weeks ago, in the 105-degree sun of a brutal July, he could not keep up with the tractor that was dictating his pace in a bell pepper field near this Kern County town.

Co-workers said that for more than two hours, the tractor doubled its speed in a dash to finish the last pick of one field so the grower could begin a fresh field the next morning.

An apt metaphor for the out-of-control predatory capitalism so prevalent in this country; Workers die while owners profit.

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Microsoft uber blogger Robert Scoble today announced that he had decided to worship Satan in place of Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

Scoble said that his decision had followed a number of disturbing trends from Microsoft and Bill Gates, which had led him to believe that Microsoft had started to decline as the lead force of evil on the planet, and that worshiping Bill Gates just didn’t cut it as being evil enough for him any more.

I nominate RIAA as the New Satan.

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The Irish Republican Army said Thursday that it was giving up its armed struggle for a united Ireland and agreeing to turn solely to political methods.

Slugger O’Toole, a blog covering politics in Northern Ireland, is a bit skeptical.

IRA statement out…

The IRA statement is now out, giving volunteers an order to dump arms - which we expected a number of years ago. The rest is the usual IRA-style statement - you could have written it yourself, it’s so predictable. As we’re watching the breaking news on Sky, there’s a collective shrug in this office. Frankly, no-one really cares what the republican movement says any more, because no-one believes it - it’s what it does that counts from here on in.

Timing is everything

Given the sudden flury of activity, and the hype discussion around the statement issued today, it would be remiss of me not to note the discussions currently taking place on new anti-terrorism laws.

New, much tougher anti-terrorism laws, are scheduled to take effect soon.

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The top US commander in Iraq has predicted that the US-led coalition could start withdrawing troops early next year IF political progress remained on track and the insurgency did not escalate.

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Blowback: The unintended, negative consequences of one’s actions. The phrase came from WWI when poison gas launched by one side blew back upon them when the wind shifted. 

The document proposes an explicitly Islamic state with a strong Shiite Muslim identity and less progressive laws for women than existed under Saddam Hussein. It also would give sweeping powers and potentially considerable oil revenue to newly created federal regions to use as they see fit. Those provisions, critics say, could deepen the country’s ethnic and sectarian divides.

In other Iraq news

Calif. troops accused of extortion, abuse in Iraq.

Iraqi PM calls for speedy withdrawal of US troops.

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An elaborate re-creation of the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Devin Brown, staged on a vacant lot in Granada Hills by the LAPD with help from Hollywood experts, casts doubts on a central justification for the shooting: that the officer was standing in the path of the teenager’s oncoming car when he opened fire.

A few weeks back, Suzie Marie Peña, 19 months old, was shot and killed by LAPD as she was being held by her father during a shoot-out. Seems like there could have been any number of ways to end the confrontation without killing a baby. The list of LAPD shootings just goes on and on; trigger happy cops, Black and Brown victims. The pattern is unmistakable - and ugly.

An Op-Ed in the L.A. Times attacks the ANSWER Coalition (of which I am a member) for daring to say  that police can be racist and murderous.

The ANSWER Coalition - a collection of anti-war, anti-capitalist activists - argues that the officers who shot Suzie Peña must stand trial for “murder.” They characterize the tragedy as an act “of racist brutality against the people of Los Angeles.” Is it any wonder that the LAPD has struggled to keep morale up among its officers? Did any of the activists bashing the LAPD know or acknowledge that in more than 38 years and 4,000 incidents involving the LAPD’s SWAT team, Suzie is the first hostage lost to police gunfire?

I’m not sure I would use 4000 incidents in 38 years (almost one incident every three days) as proof that LAPD is not trigger happy. Quite the contrary, it would seem to indicate that’s precisely what they are. And one innocent dead hostage is one too many.

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Something has gone seriously wrong in the garden!

“It lives, Dr Frankenstein, it LIVES…”

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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) called Monday for a cease-fire among warring factions of the Democratic Party, arguing that a united front is needed to reverse the party’s recent electoral defeats and halt the advance of conservative Republican ideology.

The differences between Dems are real, important, and can not be resolved by agreeing to disagree. What she is really calling for is for dissidents to shut up and toe the mini-Me Republican line of the DLC, which while it helped elect Bill Clinton in ‘92, has presided over a disastrous decline in the Democratic Party ever since.

She offered an idealized vision of America in 2020 after other, presumably Democratic, policies had been put in place.

That America included a more protected homeland, a better-equipped and trained military, and diplomatic reengagement abroad as well as refocused attention on domestic problems such as health care, the budget deficit and strains on families.

This anemic platform is merely a continuation of what the Dems are doing now. Mimicing the Republicans on security and war, supporting the Iraq war and other imperialist invasions, while saying the U.S. needs to do something about the budget deficit (without calling for an end to the Iraq War) offers little substantive difference from the Republicans as well as being delusionary. The endless wars of the U.S., supported by Congressional Democrats as well as Republicans are the primary reason for the budget deficit and lack of spending at home.

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China’s first step in revaluing its currency means it and the rest of Asia will need to buy fewer dollars and fewer Treasurys. That’s negative for the dollar and the U.S. housing market.

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Two of America’s largest unions, representing 2.5 million workers, broke away from the AFL-CIO Monday in an effort to change the philosophical direction of the labor movement.

The Teamsters, the SEIU and five other unions have formed a coalition called Change to Win, with a mission to dramatically emphasize organizing over supporting like-minded politicians, which has been the pattern of the AFL-CIO, with poor to mixed results in recent elections.

UNITE HERE and UFCW may follow. The Teamsters and SEIU will, among other things, focus on organizing non-union firms like Wal-Mart. In other words, they will be far more militant than the asleep at the wheel AFL-CIO.

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A Brazilian man mistakenly killed last week by London anti-terrorist police was shot eight times, Britain’s Independent Police Complaints Commission said Monday.

Asked if his family was taking legal action, de Menezes’ cousin Alex Alves Pereira said the police had to pay for the mistake.

“They have to pay for that in many ways, because if they do not, they are going to kill many people, they are going to kill thousands of people,” Pereira told BBC television.

“They just kill the first person they see, that’s what they did.”

“They killed him because they had to show off. If they were so afraid of a bomb why did they let him get on the bus?

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Innocent civilians, including people who are considered vital to building democracy, are increasingly being killed by U.S. troops.

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