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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 594
Location: Phoenix
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 Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:43 am Post subject: |
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this racist empire has to end somehow if stagflation is how so be it!
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 481
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:52 am Post subject: Prosperity, Upward Mobility, Integrity Revolution |
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Antisthenes, I am in total agreement about ending the racist empire. But I think you short-change the situation. America in the government we have just suffered through, is an elitist empire also. It is a massively divisive "Us versus them" mentality and it has to end, yes, without violence.
And remember who was mentioned in the last 7 years as not being "with us"? Canada. France. Mexico. Venezuela. Pakistan. Iran. Iraq. China. Columbia. North Korea. I could go on and on. OK, so recently the tables turned, and some of them "are now on our side". Is this racism, or elitism, or economic extortion, or what is it? It has to stop.
On the flip side, it is a sign of world health when other countries like New Guinea say..."If you can't help us, please get out of the way".
I see a better world of spreading economic prosperity...not "ending poverty" which is a Cinderella pipe dream, just spreading prosperity. The ugliest story I have heard in the last 30 daysis a HUGE Fortune 20 American Corporation that purchased all the aquifier water rights UNDER impoverished Chiapas, Mexico villages, and set up a plant to sell the bottled drinking water back to the peasantry. I am simplifying the story, but it sounded like all the water wells under the villages were shut and co-opted by the American bottling company, so they could sell the water back to the poor peasants who were living on top of the water resources!
In another country with a large insurgency population, the vast majority of peasantry do not enjoy any government benefits: no voting rights, no property ownership, no education, certainly no healthcare. And I have heard, but cannot confirm, American dollars support the government which evicts squatters by violence from their life sustaining fields. Hence, a quiet civil war we don't even read about.
America is way beyond racism, and dictatorship, and elitism, and corporate-tocracy...we need a revolution in integrity towards the world and ourselves, what our country was made of 232 years ago!
And is there one candidate for United States President who is mentioning any of this?
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 594
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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decentralized local autonomous communities using their own resources
see: Zapatistas
my mother is in Guinea now sharing her knowledge she is a master green builder raw food chef and gardener. She last brought cultures to make goat cheeses to the mountains of Thailand last year on a similar trip.
People willing to give up their privilege or go out of their way breaking patterns and finding ways for everybody to get their needs met, non violently, this is ideal
Thing is, this is a violent nation living in excess, a fake excess as far as the homes and cars etc. Iraq may just be the beginning of a greedy spoiled brat syndrome or the end of it?
Depending if the next election is hijacked we shall see, I think it will be since before the 1st racially stolen election in Florida. The new evidence from Ohio today is also vindicating of the ongoing theft my Mr.. Tragic Strategy/Moral Judger aka Bush grandson of Nazi.
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The most necessary/useful piece of learning is that which unlearns what is untrue: 'evil'
may be acquired, Happiness through virtue which is based on knowledge!/? |
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 594
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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Kucinich
end the occupation of Iraq, impeach the vice president, create single-payer not-for-profit universal health coverage, withdraw from corporate trade agreements like NAFTA, and slash the Pentagon budget in order to invest in diplomacy, foreign aid, education, jobs, and green energy. Only one presidential candidate supports this platform: Dennis
and have you seen his wife?
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The most necessary/useful piece of learning is that which unlearns what is untrue: 'evil'
may be acquired, Happiness through virtue which is based on knowledge!/? |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1696
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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Why are the best and brightest relegated to "also-ran" status ? Are the big-business media capable of directing the attention of the public in other directions ? Even Edwards's challenge-big-business stance has put him is third place -- so far.
SDR |
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 594
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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of course you have seen the move The Corporation right?
these lifeless institutions and those who sell out to them will always win and abuse the gains
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The most necessary/useful piece of learning is that which unlearns what is untrue: 'evil'
may be acquired, Happiness through virtue which is based on knowledge!/? |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 481
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:15 pm Post subject: We have already been hijacked. |
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Antithenes and SDR...wonderful comments. Lets continue the Green Revolution momentum.
But the United States Presidential election is already hijacked, I fear. The best and brightest won't win, or will be sabotaged, or crippled, or photos leaked, or whatever.
Corporations have won every election. We are in the hell-hole of Corporate dictatorship. The fact one "selected" person will win over another "selected" person, does it really matter? Our personal votes don't even choose the President, do they? We are the number one or number two arms dealer in the world, the number one oil consumer in the world, and so many other top indicators of arrogance and materialism. I would pray hard to think that anyone we elect can make a sea change in our policies.
Please prove me wrong!
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1696
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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And. . .there's always the prospect of an October Surprise, the last refuge of the Administration to get one of their own into the White House -- again. I'm sure we're all wondering when the other shoe will drop -- another attack on American soil. I just don't know if I believe that ANYONE could or would actually arrange such a travesty. . .now that Karl's gone.
Or is he ?
SDR
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"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 594
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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a quote from today from Dodd
| Quote: | | Christopher Dodd: “This administration has equated corporations’ bottom lines with our nation’s security. Follow that reasoning honestly to its end, and you come to the conclusion: The larger the corporation, the more lawless it can be. If we accept Mr. McConnell’s premises, we could conceive of a corporation so wealthy, so integral to our economy, that its riches place it outside the law altogether. And if the administration’s thinking even admits that possibility, we know instinctively how flawed it is.” |
when he stopped the advancement of the bill that would have legalized spying and the end to the civil rights and the constitution basically, not like it is already not tattered.
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The most necessary/useful piece of learning is that which unlearns what is untrue: 'evil'
may be acquired, Happiness through virtue which is based on knowledge!/? |
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1696
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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Dodd is a sleeper -- he might be a good choice. He spoke last night on PBS radio -- all hopped up. He hates what's being done to the country by the dogs in power now. . .
SDR |
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 594
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:25 am Post subject: Real heros?` |
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In what has been described as one one of the most remarkable stories of the entire Iraq war, a reporter from the Army Times has given perhaps the first inside account of how an army unit committed mutiny and refused to carry out orders in Iraq. The incident occurred in Adhamiya, a district in northeastern Baghdad, where soldiers in the second platoon, Charlie Company were stationed. The Second Platoon had lost many men since deploying to Iraq 11 months before.
After an IED attack killed five more members of Charlie 1-26, members of Second Platoon gathered for a meeting and determined they could no longer function professionally, several platoon members were afraid their anger could set loose a massacre. They decided to stage a revolt against their commanders that they viewed as a life-or-death act of defiance.
The story appears in a major four-part series called Blood Brothers published in the Army Times by the paper"s medical reporter, Kelly Kennedy. She was embedded with Charlie Company in Iraq in the spring and summer of this year.
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i have lots of respect for these men as i do for Sgt. Watada for not obeying illegal orders and winning in court to prove the war is illegal against international law and the constitution of the United States
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The most necessary/useful piece of learning is that which unlearns what is untrue: 'evil'
may be acquired, Happiness through virtue which is based on knowledge!/? |
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Ed Ziomek
Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 481
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 11:01 pm Post subject: True, true, and true COURAGE!!! |
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Antithenes...I totally agree. Let me add three more names to your list, and there are so many more...decent human beings who rebelled...
Captain Yee, Marla Ruzicka, Cindy Sheehan
Captain Yee
http://departments.juniata.edu/pacs/Annual%20Report%202005-06.pdf
In March, Capt. James Yee, former U.S. Army officer, spoke to a large audience of students, faculty and community members at Juniata College.
Capt. Yee, a West Point graduate and decorated veteran of the first Gulf War, recounted the experiences that led him to convert to Islam and eventually be assigned by the U.S. Army as a Muslim chaplain to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
After serving ten months at Guantanamo Bay and being officially recognized twice for outstanding performance, Chaplain Yee was suddenly arrested and imprisoned for almost three months. He was accused of sedition, espionage and aiding the alleged Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners. After months of investigation, the charges were dropped and his record was cleared without explanation. He sought and was granted an honorable discharge and was given an Army Commendation Medal for his “exceptionally meritorious service.”
Marla Ruzicka, killed in Iraq, April 18th, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marla_Ruzicka
"Marla Ruzicka (December 31, 1976 – April 16, 2005) was an activist-turned-aid worker. She believed that combatant governments had a legal and moral responsibility to compensate the families of civilians killed or injured in military conflicts. She and her Iraqi translator, Faiz Ali Salim, were killed by a suicide car bombing on Airport Road in Baghdad on April 16, 2005.
In 2003, Ruzicka founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), an organization that counted civilian casualties and assisted Iraqi victims of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Born in Lakeport, California, Ruzicka attended Long Island University's Friends World Program, and spent four years traveling throughout Costa Rica, Kenya, Cuba, Israel/Palestine, and Zimbabwe. After graduating in 1999, Ruzicka volunteered for the San Francisco-based organizations Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange."
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO504C.html
The Mysterious Death of Marla Ruzicka
"Marla Ruzicka had refuted the official statements regarding civilian deaths in Iraq. She revealed that 1,995 civilians died and 4,959 were injured in the first 50 days of the invasion
http://www.- abuse alert -/?p=m11278
According to official statements, the main cause of civilian deaths is the insurgency. Namely "terrorists" are said to be killing Iraqis who are supportive of US sponsored "democratization". The US military has, nonetheless, acknowledged in a routine fashion that Iraqi civilian casualties are also the result of unavoidable "collateral damage", or civilians being "caught in crossfire".
Marla Ruzicka had discovered, through careful investigation, that the US military authorities were involved in a cover-up. There was a policy of compiling precise statistics on civilian casualties. These figures, however, were classified and were not intended to be made public."
And let's not forget Cindy Sheehan...
Cindy Sheehan and Women "Designers of History"
August 2005
http://www.designcommunity.com/forums/topic-6062.html
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Antisthenes
Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 594
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 8:51 am Post subject: |
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Pat Tillman
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SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1696
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:16 am Post subject: |
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January 16, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East
By MAUREEN DOWD
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia
As a Saudi soldier with a gold sword high-stepped in front of him, President Bush walked slowly beside King Abdullah through the shivery gray mist enveloping the kingdom, following the red carpet leading from Air Force One to the airport terminal.
When the two stepped onto the escalator, the president tenderly reached for the king’s hand, in case the older man needed help. He certainly does need help, but not the kind he is prepared to accept.
It took Mr. Bush almost his entire presidency to embrace diplomacy, but now that he’s in the thick of it, or perhaps the thin of it — given his speed-dating approach to statesmanship — he is kissing and holding hands with kings, princes, emirs, sheiks and presidents all over the Arab world and is trying to persuade them that he is not in a monogamous relationship with the Jews.
His message boiled down to: Iran bad, Israel good, Iraq doing better.
Blessed is the peacemaker who comes bearing a $30 billion package of military aid for Israel and a $20 billion package of Humvees and guided bombs for the Arabs.
Like the slick Hollywood guy in “Annie Hall” who has a notion that he wants to turn into a concept and then develop into an idea, W. has resumed his mantra of having a vision that turns into freedom that could develop into global democracy.
W.’s peace train quickly gave way to the warpath, however, with Mr. Bush devoting a good chunk of time to the unfinished war in Iraq and the possibility of a war with Iran.
In meetings with leaders, he privately pooh-poohed the National Intelligence Estimate asserting that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. On Fox News, he openly broke with intelligence analysts, telling Greta Van Susteren about Iran: “I believe they want a weapon, and I believe that they’re trying to gain the know-how as to how to make a weapon under the guise of a civilian nuclear program.”
Less than a week after the president arrived in the Middle East, three violent eruptions — an Israeli raid killing at least 18 Palestinians, 13 of whom were militants; an American Embassy car bombing in Beirut; and a luxury hotel suicide-bombing in Kabul — underscored how Sisyphean a task he has set for himself.
“This is one of the results of the Bush visit,” said Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, as he went to a Gaza hospital to see the body of his son, a militant killed in the battle. “He encouraged the Israelis to kill our people.”
Arab TV offered an uncomfortable juxtaposition: Al Arabiya running the wretched saga of Gaza children suffering from a lack of food and medicine during the Israeli blockade, blending into the wretched excess scenes of W. being festooned with rapper-level bling from royal hosts flush with gazillions from gouging us on oil.
W.’s 11th-hour bid to save his legacy from being a shattered Iraq — even as the Iraqi defense minister admitted that American troops would be needed to help with internal security until at least 2012 and border defense until at least 2018 — recalled MTV’s “Cribs.”
At a dinner last night in the king’s tentlike retreat, where the 8-foot flat-screen TV in the middle of the room flashed Arab news, the president and his advisers Elliott Abrams and Josh Bolten went native, lounging in floor-length, fur-lined robes, as if they were Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif.
In Abu Dhabi, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan gave the president — dubbed “the Wolf of the Desert” by a Kuwaiti poet — a gigantic necklace made of gold, diamonds, rubies and emeralds, so gaudy and cumbersome that even the Secret Service agent carrying it seemed nonplussed. Here in Saudi Arabia, the king draped W. with an emerald-and-ruby necklace that could have come from Ali Baba’s cave.
Time’s Massimo Calabresi described the Kuwaiti emir’s residence where W. dined Friday as “crass class”: “Loud paintings of harems and the ruling Sabah clan hang near Louis XVI enameled clocks and candlesticks in the long hallways.”
In Abu Dhabi, the president made a less-than-rousing speech about democracy while staying in the less-than-democratic Emirates Palace hotel’s basketball-court-size Ruler’s Suite — an honor reserved for royalty and W. and denied to Elton John, who is coming later this month to play the Palace.
The president’s grandiose room included a ballroom, in case Mr. Bush wanted to practice the tribal sword dancing he has been rather sheepishly doing with some of his hosts, something between Zorba and Zorro. The $3 billion, seven-star, 84,114-square-foot pink marble hotel — said to be the most expensive ever built — would make Trump blush. It glistens with 64,000 square feet of 22-carat gold leaf, 1,000 chandeliers, 20,000 roses changed every day, 200 fountains, a dome higher than St. Peter’s, an archway larger than the Arc de Triomphe, a beach with white sand shipped in from Algeria and a private heliport. The rooms, scattered with rose petals, range from $1,598 to $12,251.
Puddle jumping through Arabia, the president saw his share of falcons in little leather hoods — presumably not a Gitmo reference — and Arabian stallions, including one retired stud from Texas — presumably not a W. reference. But there was a distinct dearth of wives and dissidents.
It does not bode well for the president’s ability to push the Israelis and Palestinians that he has done so little to push Musharraf on catching Osama, despite our $10 billion endowment, or the Saudis on women’s rights and human rights, even with the $20 billion arms package.
At a press conference last night, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, was asked what the president and king had discussed about human rights.
“About what?” the prince repeated flatly.
“Human rights,” Condi prompted.
“Human rights?” the stately prince pondered, before shimmying out of the question.
Though W. has made the issue of the progress of women in the Middle East a central part of “the freedom agenda” — he had a roundtable over the weekend with Kuwaiti women on democracy and development — he doesn’t seem bothered that 17 years after his father protected the Saudis when Saddam invaded Kuwait, Saudi women still can’t drive or publicly display hair or skin and still get beheaded and lashed because of archaic laws. Neither does the female secretary of state of the United States.
“It’s not allowed for ladies to use the gym,” the Marriott desk clerk told me, an American woman in an American franchise traveling with an American president.
W. was strangely upbeat throughout the trip — “Dates put you in a good mood, right?” he joked to reporters yesterday, specifying that he meant the fruit — even though back home the Republican candidates were running from him and clinging to Reagan.
The Saudi big shots I talked to were intrigued that W. is now more in the sway of Condi than Bombs Away Cheney. They admire his intention about making peace, even though they’re skeptical that he has the time or competence to do it; and they’re sure that the Israelis need more of a shove than a nudge.
They are also dubious about his attempts to demonize and isolate Iran.
“We don’t need America to dictate our enemies to us, especially when it’s our neighbor,” said an insider at the Saudi royal court. The Saudis invited the Iranian president, I’m-a-Dinner-Jacket, to their hajj pilgrimage last month.
Saudis and Palestinians grumbled that they find it hard to listen to the president’s high-flown paeans to democracy when he only acknowledges his brand of democracy. When Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood won elections, W. sought to undermine them. The results of the elections were certainly troubling, but is democratization supposed to be about outcomes?
They also think W.’s plan cancels itself out. The Israelis don’t have to stop settlements if rockets are coming in from Gaza, and Abbas, the Palestinian president, can’t stop rockets from going out of an area he does not control.
The president who described himself at Galilee as “a pilgrim” makes peace sound as easy as three faiths sharing, when history has shown that the hardest thing on earth is three faiths sharing.
Asked by ABC’s Terry Moran what he was thinking when he stood on the site where Jesus performed miracles at the Sea of Galilee, W. replied: “I reflected on the story in the New Testament about the calm and the rough seas, because it was on those very seas that the Lord was in the boat with the disciples, and they were worried about the waves and the wind, and the sea calmed. That’s what I reflected on: the calm you can find in putting your faith in a higher power.”
Clearly, the man believes in miracles.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
_________________
"I'm the commander . . . see, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GWB |
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Richard Haut
millennium club
Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1128
Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:45 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | something between Zorba and Zorro |
hidden away in Dubya's 'speed-dating' diplomacy he did tell the Israelis that they would have to stop settlement building, to withdraw to recognized borders, and pay compensation to Palestinians.
in addition, the terms of the Saudi Peace Plan of just a few years ago were what Israel said that it wanted. The Saudis remember it, even if the Western media chooses to forget.
but it was Olmert who inadvertently told the truth: he said that if the talks fail, then Israel is finished. Since there are those like Netanyahu and the gang who are determined to avoid peace at any price, Olmert may be right.
Pravda offered the notion of a false-flag "assassination attempt" on Bush as the way to start a war with Iran, but reckoned that starting WWIII might be a bit heavy for Dubya. (Did the American media report Putin's statement that an attack on Iran would be viewed as an attack on Russia ?). However if the terrorists of the Mossad and Shin Bet give it a try, I wonder what will happen ?
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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