The wealth of material available on YouTube is just amazing, all of your favorite songs anytime you want. Have to post more of them. Here's Tom Waits, doing his classic Downtown Train.
permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 03:07 PM
American air war in Iraq becoming a reign of terror.
Chris Floyd has an excellent and hard-hitting column on the rapidly increasing air war the US is carrying out in Iraq, which is mostly being directed at civilian populations. The number of air strikes is up 4 times since the beginning of the year. Several cases have been reported in recent weeks about civilian casulties, including many young children, but there have been many, many more that haven't been reported. Check out the complete article over at Glenn Greenwald's Salon blog, or more articles over at Chris' own site, Empire Burlesque.
Monday, the Pentagon acknowledged a long-unspoken truth: that the bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in Iraq is an integral part of the vaunted "counterinsurgency" doctrine of Gen. David Petraeus. The number of airstrikes in the conquered land has risen fivefold since George W. Bush escalated the war in January, as USA Today reports:
"Coalition forces launched 1,140 airstrikes in the first nine months of this year compared with 229 in all of last year, according to military statistics ... In Iraq, the temporary increase of 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by President Bush in January has led to the increase in bombing missions. The U.S. command has moved forces off large bases and into neighborhoods and has launched several large offensives aimed at al-Qaeda ... 'You end up having that many more opportunities for close air support,' said Air Force Brig. Gen. Stephen Mueller, director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Doha, Qatar."
Leaving aside the undigested lump of pure propaganda spewed up by the reporter -- "al-Qaeda" has not been the sole or even the main target of the "offensives" launched into civilian areas -- the military stats reveal the growing centrality of airstrikes in Iraq. What's more, these figures do not include attacks by helicopter gunships, whose fearsome destructive power rivals that of any bomb or missile.
The results of this deliberate strategy have been entirely predictable and deeply horrific: Innocent civilians chewed to pieces by blast force and metal. Innocent civilians dispossessed of homes, cars, goods, all means of survival. Innocent civilians turned into bitter enemies of the United States, as they bury their young, their old, their most beloved ones.
The American air war against the Iraqis has been going on continuously, 24/7 since the war began back in 2003, over 4 years of constant bombardment. It's the most violent and least reported part of this war, and represents the worst of all the many war crimes being perpetuated there.
permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 02:51 PM
October 20, 2007
75 greatest Dylan shows.
On this recent tour The Dylan has passed the 2000th show mark of the Endless Tour, at least the part that began in 1987. Of course there were at least a thousand or two before that. Here via the expecting.rain community is a list of the fans' most highly rated shows. Most of these are available for download somewhere on the web, many at expectingrain. Also try bobboots.com for info on bootlegs.
The Final List: The Top 75 Dylan Concerts
November 4, 1961 – Carnegie Chapter Hall, New York, NY
July 2, 1962 – Finjan Club, Montreal, Quebec
October, 1962 – Gaslight Café, New York, NY
April 12, 1963 – Town Hall, New York, NY
October 26, 1963 – Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
May 7, 1965 – Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England
July 25, 1965 – Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI
September 3, 1965 – Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA
December 4, 1965 – Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley, CA
April 12, 1966 – Sydney Stadium, Sydney, Australia
May 16, 1966 – Gaumont Theatre, Sheffield, England
May 17, 1966 – Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England
January 20, 1968 – Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert, New York, NY
August 31, 1969 – Isle of Wight, England
February 14, 1974 (afternoon) – The Forum, Los Angeles, CA
October 31, 1975 – War Memorial Auditorium, Plymouth, MA
November 11, 1975 – Palace Theater, Waterbury, CT
November 21, 1975 (evening) – Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA
December 1, 1975 – Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario
December 8, 1975 – Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
May 3,1976 - The Warehouse New Orleans, Louisiana
May 16, 1976 – Tarrant County Convention Center Arena, Fort Worth, TX
May 23, 1976 – Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
July 6, 1978 – Pavillon de Paris, Paris, France
December 10, 1978 – Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, NC
November 16, 1979 – Fox Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA
April 20, 1980 – Massey Hall, Toronto, CA
November 15, 1980 – Fox Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA
June 29, 1981 – Earls Court, London, England
July 25, 1981 – Palace des Sports, Avignon, France
November 10, 1981 – Saenger Performing Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
November 12, 1981 – The Summit, Houston, TX
June 28, 1984 – Minestadio, Barcelona, Spain
February 24, 1986 – Entertainment Centre, Sydney, Australia
September 12, 1987 – Autodroma, Modena, Italy
June 10, 1988 – The Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA
June 30, 1988 – Jones Beach Music Theater, Wantaugh, PA
October 19, 1988 – Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
February 8, 1990 – Hammersmith Odeon, London, England
May 9, 1992 – State University, San Jose, CA
September 12, 1993 – Greet Woods Performing Arts Center, Mansfield, MA
November 16, 1993 (both) – The Supper Club, New York, NY
November 17, 1993 (both) – The Supper Club, New York, NY
August 14, 1994 – Woodstock ’94, West Saugerties, NY
October 8, 1994 – Orpheum Theater, Boston, MA
March 11, 1995 – Congress Hall, Prague, Czech Republic
March 30, 1995 – Brixton Academy, London, England
March 31, 1995 – Brixton Academy, London, England
June 17, 1996 – Tempodrome, Berlin, Germany
December 8, 1997 – Irving Plaza, New York, NY
December 19, 1997 – El Rey Theater, Los Angeles, CA
May 19, 1998 – San Jose Arena, San Jose, CA
June 9, 1998 – Globe Arena, Stockholm, Sweden
April 28, 1999 – Hala Tivoli, Ljubljana, Slovenia
June 14, 1999 – University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
November 14, 1999 – Centrum Arena, Worcester, MA
March 10, 2000 (late) – Sun Theatre, Anaheim, CA
March 15, 2000 – Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA
March 16, 2000 – Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA
September 24, 2000 – Guildhall, Portsmouth, England
September 25, 2000 – Guildhall, Portsmouth, England
October 1, 2000 – Halle Muensterland, Muenster, Germany
October 6, 2000 – Wembley Arena, London, England
October 5, 2001 – Spokane Arena, Spokane, WA
February 9, 2002 – Phillips Arena, Atlanta, GA
October 7, 2002 – Tehama County Fairgrounds, Red Bluff, CA
November 13, 2002 – Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
November 23, 2003 – Shepherds Bush Empire, London, England
November 24, 2003 – Hammersmith Apollo, London, England
November 25, 2003 – Brixton Academy, London, England
July 10, 2004 – Estadia Municipal Escribano Castilla, Motril, Spain
November 13, 2004 – Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
November 27, 2005 – The Point Theatre, Dublin, Ireland
November 12, 2006 – Agganis Arena, Boston, MA
November 20, 2006 – New York City Center, New York, NY
permalink, posted by mike on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 10:10 AM
July 21, 2007
The Militarization and Annexation of North America.
Stephen Lendman has written a comprehensive article on the coming summit meeting between the leaders of the US, Mexico and Canada, to ratify the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) between their countries. This will effectively create a North American state and eliminate the sovereignty of the separate countries. That may seem like an outrageous claim, but that's what they're working for. This is all being done with virtually any public input or even public knowledge. A long article, but very important stuff. Lendman has his own blog, but this links to the article at Information Clearing House, which I prefer since it has comments.
Besides the Bush administration's imperial aims and permanent war on the world, add the one at home below the radar. Its weapons include the WTO, NAFTA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FBI, CIA, NSA, NORTHCOM, militarized state and local police, National Guard forces, paramilitary mercenaries like Blackwater USA, and all other repressive instruments of state power and control. They target the people of three nations slowly becoming one headquartered in Washington. That's the apparent aim of those in power here wanting one continent, "indivisible" minus old-fashioned ideas like "liberty and justice for all" we used to believe in when, as kids, we recited our "Pledge of Allegiance." They now have a whole new meaning. They're just words drummed into young minds hoping they'll still believe them when they're old enough to know better.
There may be a greater scheme for the planet ahead, but this article only focuses on what we know about and how it's unfolding so far. It has a name, in fact, several, but they all aim for the same thing - one nation, indivisible, where three sovereign ones once stood, headquartered in Washington.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) or "Deep Integration" North American Union
SPP was formerly launched at a March 23, 2005 meeting in Waco, Texas attended by George Bush, Mexico's President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. It's a tri-national agreement hatched below the radar in Washington containing the recommendations of the Independent Task Force of North America. That's a group organized by the powerful US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), and Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. It advocates greater US, Canadian and Mexican economic, political, social, and security integration with secretive working groups formed to devise non-debatable agreements that, when completed, will be binding beyond the power of legislatures to change. It's also taking shape without public knowledge or consideration.
From what's already known, SPP unmasked isn't pretty. It's a corporate-led coup d'etat against the sovereignty of three nations enforced by a common hard line security strategy already in play separately in each country. It's a scheme to create a borderless North American Union under US control without barriers to trade and capital flows for corporate giants, mainly US ones. It's also to insure America gets free and unlimited access to Canadian and Mexican resources, mainly oil, and in the case of Canada water as well. It's to assure US energy security as a top priority while denying Canada and Mexico preferential access to their own resources henceforth earmarked for US markets.
It's also to create a fortress-North American security zone encompassing the whole continent under US control in the name of "national (and continental) security" with US borders effectively extended to the far reaches of the continent. The scheme, in short, is NAFTA on steroids combined with Pox Americana homeland security enforcement. It's the worst of all possible worlds headed for an unmasked police state, and it's the Bush administration's notion of "deep integration" or the "Big Idea" meaning we're boss, what we say goes, no outliers will be tolerated, public interest is off the table, and the people of three nations be damned.
It's also the next step in what GHW Bush had in mind when he delivered his "Toward a New World Order" speech to a joint session of Congress on another September 11 in 1990. At the onset of the "crisis in the Persian Gulf," he said "We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment (offering) a rare opportunity to move toward....a new world order" free from "the threat of terror....and more secure...." He spoke of a "new world....struggling to be born....quite different from the one we've known." He masked his intentions in language of peace and the pursuit of justice while preparing for war on Iraq and the region that's gone on for over 16 years with no end in sight. A new Bush administration is bringing that "New World Order" to the North American continent.
It goes without saying that liberals such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore and others have supported this every inch of the way, and continue to do so. It's "free trade," you see. Naturally, Hillary, Obama, Edwards or the other Democratic candidates won't ever mention it. It expands corporate power and reduces that of ordinary citizens, and that's all they care about.
permalink, posted by mike on Saturday, July 21, 2007 at 12:14 PM
July 19, 2007
Stop trying to 'Save' Africa.
Interesting article in the Washington Post recently by a young African who's kind of tired of well-meaning people trying to 'save' Africa. Says they don't really need it, and that these efforts perpetuate the stereotype of a poor, uncivilized Africa that is unable to do anything for itself, which is simply not true.
There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.
Why do the media frequently refer to African countries as having been "granted independence from their colonial masters," as opposed to having fought and shed blood for their freedom? Why do Angelina Jolie and Bono receive overwhelming attention for their work in Africa while Nwankwo Kanu or Dikembe Mutombo, Africans both, are hardly ever mentioned? How is it that a former mid-level U.S. diplomat receives more attention for his cowboy antics in Sudan than do the numerous African Union countries that have sent food and troops and spent countless hours trying to negotiate a settlement among all parties in that crisis?
[...] Last month the Group of Eight industrialized nations and a host of celebrities met in Germany to discuss, among other things, how to save Africa. Before the next such summit, I hope people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved. Africa wants the world to acknowledge that through fair partnerships with other members of the global community, we ourselves are capable of unprecedented growth.
permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 05:21 PM
Watching America.
Watching America is a really great site that translates articles about the US written in other countries. I find it to be incredibly useful. They're having a fund-raiser right now and could use some help. In any case, go check out the site to see what kinds of things people around the world are saying about Americans these days. It ain't pretty.
permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 04:30 PM
US Marines ordered to beat Iraqis
LA Times article. A US Marine testified that Marines were directly ordered to beat Iraqis, and were criticized by higher-ups for not being violent enough.
A Marine corporal, testifying Saturday at the murder trial of a buddy, said that Marines in his unit began routinely beating Iraqis after being ordered by officers to "crank up the violence level."
Cpl. Saul H. Lopezromo said Marines in his platoon, including the defendant, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, were angry when officers criticized them as not being as tough as other Marine platoons.
[...] "We were told to crank up the violence level," said Lopezromo, who testified for the defense. He indicated that during daily patrols the Marines became much rougher with Iraqis. Asked by a juror to explain, he said, "We beat people, sir."
I don't think that people really grasp the extent to which American soldiers are deliberately trained and programmed to be especially violent and cruel.
Lopezromo said a procedure called "dead-checking" was routine. If Marines entered a house where a man was wounded, instead of checking to see whether he needed medical aid, they shot him to make sure he was dead, he testified.
"If somebody is worth shooting once, they're worth shooting twice," he said.
Marines are taught "dead-checking" in boot camp, the School of Infantry at Camp Pendleton, and the pre-deployment training at Twentynine Palms called Mojave Viper, he said.
permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 04:23 PM
Itraqi insurgents form coalition, ready to negotiate
The Guardian reports that the major Sunni insurgent groups finding the occupation in Iraq have formed a coalition and are ready to negotiate an American withdrawal. An interesting story that doesn't seem to be being picked up by the American media, or even most of the blogs. I guess they just don't want to think of the Iraqis as people ready to negotiate. It's a very major development though.
Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.
In their first interview with the western media since the US-British invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups - responsible for thousands of attacks against US and Iraqi armed forces and police - made clear that they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq, and denounced al-Qaida for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians.
Speaking in Damascus, the spokesmen for the three groups - the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Ansar al-Sunna and Iraqi Hamas - said they planned to hold a congress to launch a united front within the next few weeks and appealed to Arab governments, other governments and the UN to help them establish a permanent political presence outside Iraq.
Abu Ahmad, spokesman for Iraqi Hamas said: "Peaceful resistance will not end the occupation. The US made clear that it intended to stay for many decades. Now it is a common view in the resistance that they will start to withdraw within a year. "
The move represents a dramatic change of strategy for the mainstream Iraqi insurgency, whose leadership has remained shadowy and has largely restricted communication with the outside world to brief statements on the internet and to the Arabic media.
These people are very definitely not fans of Al Qaeda in any way. I don't think it would take very long at all for them to control the violent extremists, once the US is gone.
Abd al-Rahman al-Zubeidy, political spokesman of Ansar al-Sunna, a salafist (purist Islamic) group with a particularly violent reputation in Iraq, said his organisation had split over relations with al-Qaida, whose members were mostly Iraqi, but its leaders largely foreigners.
"Resistance isn't just about killing Americans without any aims or goals. Our people have come to hate al-Qaida, which gives the impression to the outside world that the resistance in Iraq are terrorists. We are against indiscriminate killing, fighting should be concentrated only on the enemy," he said.
He added: "A great gap has opened up between Sunni and Shia under the occupation and al-Qaida has contributed to that."
permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 04:11 PM
July 15, 2007
Reports from Iraq veterans.
Haven't blogged for awhile, but wanted to link to these articles on American abuses in Iraq. One here, one here, and one here. A joint investigation by Nation interviewed 50 Iraq vets at length on their experiences, and report on the horrendous things they saw and did. They report that American violence towards civilians is widespread, and worsening. Lots of examples of specific incidents. A pattern of violence clearly sanctioned and encouraged by the majority of soldiers (openly so), and at the highest levels. The stories are just sickening, like it's Abu Ghraib everywhere, all the time. The US has basically just declared open season on Iraqis.
Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.
[...] With extraordinary honesty, these veterans - medics, MPs, artillerymen, snipers, officers and others - revealed disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops: innocents terrorized during midnight raids, civilian cars fired on when they got too close to supply convoys and troops opening up on vehicles that zip past poorly marked checkpoints, only to discover that they’d shot a 3-year-old or an elderly man. The campaign against a mostly invisible enemy, many veterans said, has given rise to a culture of fear and even hatred among U.S. forces, many of whom, losing ground and beleaguered, have, in effect, declared war on all Iraqis.
The interviewed vets, who served in 2003, 2004 and 2005, emphasized that indiscriminate killing of civilians was carried out by a minority within their ranks. But most also agreed that such killings rarely spark investigations and almost never incur punishment.
[...] Soldiers and Marines who carried out hundreds of such raids said they rarely turned up anything of consequence - a small piece of wire or a detonating cord might be considered a major find. The troops also told me that many members of their units viewed Iraqis as little better than animals. “Hajji,” an Arabic term for those who’ve made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, has become the slur of choice for U.S. troops. The troops regularly denigrate “hajji food” and “hajji homes” and throw around terms like “camel jockey.” Two veterans reported seeing the corpses of dead Iraqis grotesquely abused by American troops.
The antipathy toward Iraqis was confirmed in a survey released in May by the Pentagon. Just 47% of soldiers and 38% of Marines agreed that civilians should be treated with dignity and respect. Only 55% of soldiers and 40% of Marines said they would report a unit member who had killed or injured “an innocent noncombatant.”
This is just one article on an extensive group of reports, carried out I believe by the Nation. It's all absolutely horrible, but must reading.
permalink, posted by mike on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 10:43 PM
May 11, 2007
Ray Charles, In The Evening
Straight ahead blues and jazz from 1963.
permalink, posted by mike on Friday, May 11, 2007 at 12:08 PM
Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino rock out.
Came across this outrageous clip of three musical legends all playing piano together. And serious, rock'n'roll piano too. My goodness. Apparently from a Fats Domino DVD. Ronnie Wood, Paul Schaeffer and his band too.
permalink, posted by mike on Friday, May 11, 2007 at 11:26 AM
February 20, 2007
The US has at least 737 foreign bases, probably more.
Over at AlterNet there's a lengthy selection from Chalmers Johnson's new book "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic", which outlines in detail the extent of the U.S.'s enormous overseas military. Not only does it provide updated details on the bases that we know about, it discusses the "hidden" ones as well, the ones that the US and other governments like to keep under cover. There are quite a few of those, but no one ever talks about them.
The total of America's military bases in other people's countries in 2005, according to official sources, was 737. Reflecting massive deployments to Iraq and the pursuit of President Bush's strategy of preemptive war, the trend line for numbers of overseas bases continues to go up.
Interestingly enough, the thirty-eight large and medium-sized American facilities spread around the globe in 2005 -- mostly air and naval bases for our bombers and fleets -- almost exactly equals Britain's thirty-six naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 AD required thirty-seven major bases to police its realm from Britannia to Egypt, from Hispania to Armenia. Perhaps the optimum number of major citadels and fortresses for an imperialist aspiring to dominate the world is somewhere between thirty-five and forty.
Using data from fiscal year 2005, the Pentagon bureaucrats calculated that its overseas bases were worth at least $127 billion -- surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross domestic products of most countries -- and an estimated $658.1 billion for all of them, foreign and domestic (a base's "worth" is based on a Department of Defense estimate of what it would cost to replace it). During fiscal 2005, the military high command deployed to our overseas bases some 196,975 uniformed personnel as well as an equal number of dependents and Department of Defense civilian officials, and employed an additional 81,425 locally hired foreigners.
The worldwide total of U.S. military personnel in 2005, including those based domestically, was 1,840,062 supported by an additional 473,306 Defense Department civil service employees and 203,328 local hires. Its overseas bases, according to the Pentagon, contained 32,327 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings, which it owns, and 16,527 more that it leased. The size of these holdings was recorded in the inventory as covering 687,347 acres overseas and 29,819,492 acres worldwide, making the Pentagon easily one of the world's largest landlords.
These numbers, although staggeringly big, do not begin to cover all the actual bases we occupy globally. The 2005 Base Structure Report fails, for instance, to mention any garrisons in Kosovo (or Serbia, of which Kosovo is still officially a province) -- even though it is the site of the huge Camp Bondsteel built in 1999 and maintained ever since by the KBR corporation (formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root), a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation of Houston.
The report similarly omits bases in Afghanistan, Iraq (106 garrisons as of May 2005), Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan, even though the U.S. military has established colossal base structures in the Persian Gulf and Central Asian areas since 9/11. By way of excuse, a note in the preface says that "facilities provided by other nations at foreign locations" are not included, although this is not strictly true. The report does include twenty sites in Turkey, all owned by the Turkish government and used jointly with the Americans. The Pentagon continues to omit from its accounts most of the $5 billion worth of military and espionage installations in Britain, which have long been conveniently disguised as Royal Air Force bases. If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases overseas, but no one -- possibly not even the Pentagon -- knows the exact number for sure.
In some cases, foreign countries themselves have tried to keep their U.S. bases secret, fearing embarrassment if their collusion with American imperialism were revealed. In other instances, the Pentagon seems to want to play down the building of facilities aimed at dominating energy sources, or, in a related situation, retaining a network of bases that would keep Iraq under our hegemony regardless of the wishes of any future Iraqi government. The U.S. government tries not to divulge any information about the bases we use to eavesdrop on global communications, or our nuclear deployments, which, as William Arkin, an authority on the subject, writes, "[have] violated its treaty obligations. The U.S. was lying to many of its closest allies, even in NATO, about its nuclear designs. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, hundreds of bases, and dozens of ships and submarines existed in a special secret world of their own with no rational military or even 'deterrence' justification."
This is just a selection, it's a long article, well worth reading if you really want to know where all of those American tax dollars are going. On top of the money, think about just how much oil and other fuels all of this takes.
permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Putin's speech at kremlin.ru, and some other Russia links.
The complete text of Putin's recent remarkable speech in Munich is up at the Kremlin's site, kremlin.ru, including all of the answers to the many questions he was asked after the speech. I posted on it before, and I still think it was quite an extraordinary and important speech. The discussion after it is noteworthy as well.
First time I ever stumbled on the Kremlin's site, very interesting. More like a presidential site, but that's about the same as the White House site in the US. Here or there, it's always about the politicians, and the cult of personality. There's a lot of material there though, and quite a bit of it in English.
Add: nice article on Putin and Russia in the Guardian, suggesting that the Europeans and Americans may regret their continuous bullying of Russia.
When Putin sought to join Nato in the 1990s he was rebuffed. Then Nato broke its post-cold-war promise and advanced its frontier through the Baltics and Poland to the Black Sea. It is now planning missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic and is flirting with Ukraine and Georgia. Against whom is this directed, asks Putin.
The west grovels before Opec, but when Putin proposes a gas Opec it cries foul. America seizes Iraq's oil, but when Putin nationalises Russia's oil that, too, is a foul. Meanwhile, every crook, every murdered Russian, every army scandal is blazoned across the western press. True, Russia is still a klepto-oligarchy that steps back as often as forward, but what of America's pet Asian democracies, Afghanistan and Iraq?
In his Munich speech Putin asked why America constantly goes on about its "unipolar world". Does Washington really seek a second cold war? Russia is withdrawing from Georgia and Moldova. Why is Nato advancing bases in Bulgaria and Romania? The west is handling Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran with the arrogance and ineptitude of 19th-century imperialists. Is it surprising Russia is seeking allies where it can, in China, India, Iran and the Gulf?
At an Anglo-Russian conference in Moscow last weekend I was bemused by the talk of a return to "east-west" confrontation. Diplomats have a habit of listing complaints like marriage counsellors inviting couples to catalogue what most irritates them about each other. The list seems endless, but it surely points to a proper talk rather than a divorce. Don't they really need each other after all?
Having visited Russia three times since the demise of the Soviet Union, I remain impressed by its progress. Debate and comment are open. Russia is not squandering its energy wealth but setting $100bn aside in an infrastructure fund. The links between Russia and western business are worth $30bn in inward investment. Cultural and educational contacts are strengthening. Moscow and St Petersburg are booming world cities, their skylines thick with cranes.
If you want more, the Asia Times has some good recent articles on Russia. One by M. K. Bhadrakumar
entitled
Russia straddles Sunni-Shi'ite divide, discusses how Russia has been having more success with its diplomacy in the Middle East than the US has had using force. Another one by Nicolai Petro entitled Russia as friend, not foe, is a very good article which details the many ways Russia has made progress since the end of the Cold War, and why the Euro-Americans can't seem to stop insisting that it's the same old Russia. And there's one by Spengler, who is a bit dogmatic and right-wing for my taste, entitled Russia's hudna with the Muslim world, which discusses relations, both now and historically, between Russia and the Islamic world.
Petro's article is particularly good. He gives numerous examples of how what is reported about Russia by the Euro-American press is not matched by the reality inside Russia itself. In a number of areas: democracy, the media, Chechnya, the economy and so on. Sometimes what he reports is quite surprising.
One could go on and on, but these examples should suffice to provide a sense of the hurdles that even the most thoughtful and well-informed media consumers face when trying to understand the changes that have taken place in Russia since Putin took office. I will not even mention Russia's economic miracle - eight straight years of economic growth that have led to a fivefold increase in GDP, except to highlight one telling point. It astonishes people to learn that return on foreign investment in Russia is an order of magnitude higher than in China, and that foreign companies that invested in Russia have outperformed those that invested in China every year since 2001.
The fact that China is widely regarded as a more attractive investment opportunity than Russia despite yielding much lower profits, having more corruption and far less political freedom, and facing enormous future political uncertainties testifies amply to the role that media-fed cultural preconceptions play in relations with Russia.
One good thing about the Asia Times is that they publish relatively long and detailed articles, more than the quick soundbites you get from the western media, and ones that offer up some informed and educated historical perspective, something sadly lacking in the Euro-American media.
permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 03:39 PM
Serious Eats.
Found this great new food site, Serious Eats. Lots of different things, articles, links to noteworthy food-related posts on the webs, and a Serious Eaters forum with recipes, advice and such. The newest frontier in recipes is videos demonstrating how to do it, and they have lots of them here. Very nice site, well done. Found this nice video all about choosing cheeses, thought I'd note it for future reference, I can never remember these things. Interesting details on the differences between goat, sheep and cow cheeses.
TIPS FROM STEVEN JENKINS
Stop at four cheeses: "To serve more than three or four cheeses at a time is an insult to all the other ones that you've chosen."
Offer variety: "Make sure that all three or four cheeses you've chosen are as different from each other as possible ... in terms of intensity of flavor, the style of flavor, the texture, and the animal." Get a goat, a cow, and a sheep, Jenkins says. "Get something that's gushy, that you could just poke at and not even use a knife with, and then I want you to go increasingly more firm texture."
Ugly is beautiful: "Opt for cheeses that are funky-looking, that are rustic-looking, that are primitive-looking—cheeses you never see in a supermarket because they're rough or pebbly or gnarly or moldy. That's going to be a cheese that's worthy of you."
Looks like they're doing an ongoing series of videos about barbecuing. Have to keep that in mind too. This site is kinda fun. Like the Food Channel, except you can pick what you want to watch.
permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 03:17 PM
Randy Newman - A few words in defense of our country.
Found this great new video by Randy Newman. Some pointed political comments by someone with a style all his own.
This made me think of another old Randy Newman song, "Let's Drop the Big One." Found it on YouTube where someone had made an anti-American video of it. Don't miss the snippet at the end.
permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 11:58 AM
February 19, 2007
Murder, Inc.
People are finally starting to confront the and discuss the extent of American evil. Justin Raimondo has written an excellent essay, Murder, Inc., expressing the view that America's so-called wars are nothing more than an excuse for psychopaths and sociopaths to run amuck. I'm quoting the whole thing, because it's important and to include the many links to video clips and other evidence he's collected.
He's so right though, especially in stating that American soldiers aren't "heroes" by any stretch of the imagination, but ruthless, cruel, sadistic killers and predators. Americans never accept any responsibility for anything they do. Left, right or middle they always look for someone else to blame, and the so-called soldiers are the worst of the lot.
Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington was recently
sentenced to a mere eight years in jail for the wanton, planned murder of an
Iraqi man, in return for his testimony against the other monsters who participated
in the crime. He told the judge, at his sentencing, that he felt regret "but
that he and other Marines were frustrated by their ill-defined mission in Iraq
and the inability to tell friend from foe. 'As callous as it sounds,' he said,
every Iraqi was considered 'guilty until proven otherwise.'"
How typically American: he isn't to blame for his actions – certainly not!
– it's his "ill-defined mission." But what if carnage – for its own
sake, as an end in itself – is the mission? Forget the highfalutin' rhetoric
about "democracy," the "war on terrorism," the "weapons
of mass destruction" that somehow turned into a desert mirage. The ugly
reality is that Iraq has become an arena for American sadists
to act out their perverted
fantasies, a vast Charenton
where the de Sades in charge of American foreign policy have unleashed an army
of torturers
and murderous thugs on the Iraqi people. The American media doesn't
want to show the real face of U.S. "liberators," but they are
being outflanked by the new technology that makes the self-appointed "gatekeepers"
of journalism increasingly irrelevant.
The Americans seem particularly enthralled with shooting the wounded: here
is some young savage, living proof that devolution is not just a concept, expounding
on how "awesome" wanton murder is. He is the New American Man, invincibly
ignorant,
raised on rap music and violent video games,
grinning boyishly at the prospect of a future of endless slaughter. He rides
around the country, randomly
firing on civilians, as if he were at one of those shoot-the-duck booths
at the county fair.
Support our troops? Hell no. Anyone who "supports the troops" is
an accomplice to their
deeds. The evidence shows clearly that these are not innocent babes in the
woods: they are wolves,
predators, killers,
deeply, profoundly implicated in what will go down in history as a horrific
war of aggression.
The clear fact of the matter is that America's conquest of Iraq is the policy
of criminals – except that even most criminals act rationally, in the sense
that there's some profit in their activities, some benefit, real or imagined,
to be gained. But this war is not an ordinary crime: it is a wanton orgy of
murder that is all the more horrendous due to its utter senselessness. This
is nihilism in action.
I doubt that a congressional resolution is going to address the main cause
of this war and its continuation: the psychological sickness that is eating
away at the American character. It is a mix of hubris, bloodlust, and sheer
depravity, and it is being acted out against the backdrop of international politics.
The post-9/11 world we are living in has become a projection of our own demons,
which have now been unleashed on a horrified world.
Who will stop the madness? Not the politicians. Not Congress, or the media,
nor even the men of God – all of whom are complicit, to one degree or another,
with the crimes of the American government. Our intellectual, moral, and political
leaders have abandoned all standards, all sense of decency, and therefore have
no problem rationalizing the monstrous.
There will be no easy end to this war because it is merely a symptom of our
own inner rot. We've come a long way from the American of Jefferson's time to
the neo-barbarians of the Late Imperial era – and it's been downhill
all the way.
This isn't a political problem – it's a cultural affliction. The world's most
powerful nation is infected with the psychopathology of a serial murderer –
one who kills not out of grim necessity, but for the sheer
joy of it.
We live in a society sickened by its own poisons. Conservatives have known
this for some time. Liberals are learning it. The culture of permissiveness,
of moral relativism and heedless hedonism, is yielding some decidedly unexpected
consequences in the foreign policy realm. After all, we're the most powerful
nation on earth – why shouldn't we push others around? Even as we play
the role of international do-gooders, the obvious enjoyment our centurions take
in humiliating "Ali
Baba" – their name for any Iraqi – illustrates what is really driving
this war, and all the wars to come: what the conservative philosopher Claes
Ryn calls "the
will to dominate."
America is, today, the fountainhead of evil in the world. No one is killing
people faster, and with more cruelty and indifference, than the warlords of
Washington. The temptation is to turn away in disgust and resign oneself to
the degeneration of Jefferson's benevolent legacy into a maelstrom of malevolence
worthy of Caligula.
Yet the triumph of domination as the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy
is not inevitable, or irreversible. Its overthrow, however, requires a moral
reawakening. By this, I don't mean a return to religion, although – unlike all
too many libertarians – I wouldn't rule it out entirely. This moral revolution,
in any case, will be born in an instinctive revulsion against what is depicted
in the video links above, married to an unwillingness to let such evil continue
for a moment longer.
Sooner or later, the American people must be made to understand that the choice
is between noninterventionism and barbarism. Americans are naïve: they
believe in the myth of automatic progress, the illusion of history as an ever
ascending stairway to higher levels of civilization, but the truth is far grimmer.
Empires rise – and fall. Dark ages follow. The kind of degeneracy we are now
seeing acted out in Iraq promises a fall that will plumb new depths of darkness.
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Ameicans need to wake up to the monster they've created and destroy it, or the world will do it for them. What goes around comes around, and what's coming to the US in the next few years will not be pretty.
To put it in blunter terms: American soldiers aren't "defending" you; they're "endangering" you.
permalink, posted by mike on Monday, February 19, 2007 at 12:30 PM
February 15, 2007
Constant rape in America's prisons.
The problem of rape in America's massive gulag of prisons, detention centers and concentration camps continues to worse. It's not just at Baghram or Abu Ghraib or outside the country. The worst of it is inside the US itself. The whole world ignores it since everyone knows the USA is a great place and they don't do that kind of stuff there.
Well they do, and it's getting worse. Human Rights Watch has released an important and horrifying report on the wide and rampant amount of rape and other abuses in America's massive domestic prison complex. It's just unbelievable that the situation is so bad, and even more unbelievable that it's gone on for so long and no one even mentions it or does anything about it. People just don't realize how huge the US prison population is now, or what living hell the prisons are.
When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men and two white men at a time. I've had knifes at my head and throat. I had fought and been beat so hard that I didn't ever think I'd see straight again. One time when I refused to enter a cell, I was brutally attacked by staff and taken to segragation though I had only wanted to prevent the same and worse by not locking up with my cell mate. There is no supervision after lockdown. I was given a conduct report. I explained to the hearing officer what the issue was. He told me that off the record, He suggests I find a man I would/could willingly have sex with to prevent these things from happening. I've requested protective custody only to be denied. It is not available here. He also said there was no where to run to, and it would be best for me to accept things . . . . I probably have AIDS now. I have great difficulty raising food to my mouth from shaking after nightmares or thinking to hard on all this . . . . I've laid down without physical fight to be sodomized. To prevent so much damage in struggles, ripping and tearing. Though in not fighting, it caused my heart and spirit to be raped as well. Something I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for. ...
My name is Rodney Hulin and I work at a retirement home here in Beaumont, Texas. I am here today because of my son. He would be here himself if he could . . . . But he can't because he died in [an adult prison]. . . . [At age seventeen], my son was raped and sodomized by an inmate. The doctor found two tears in his rectum and ordered an HIV test, since up to a third of the 2,200 inmates there were HIV positive. Fearing for his safety, he requested to be placed in protective custody, but his request was denied because, as the warden put it, "Rodney's abuses didn't meet the 'emergency grievance criteria.'" For the next several months, my son was repeatedly beaten by the older inmates, forced to perform oral sex, robbed, and beaten again. Each time, his requests for protection were denied by the warden. The abuses, meanwhile, continued. On the night of January 26, 1996--seventy-five days after my son entered Clemens--Rodney attempted suicide by hanging himself in his cell. He could no longer stand to live in continual terror. It was too much for him to handle. He laid in a coma for the next four months until he died.
There are thousands, tens of thousands of accounts like this. It's not just a few people at a few prisons, but nearly everyone at nearly all prisons, in all 50 states. And the wardens, guards and other government officials are involved, and are makiing money off of it as well.
Another problem, nearly as heinous, is the growing extent of slave prison labor by American corporations, which has grown enormously under the Clinton and Bush administrations. Some say slave labor prisons may be one of the largest employers in the country now. That may be exaggerated, no one knows the real extent of it, just that it's incredibly profitable and a booming growth industry. But no one wants to talk about this, it's easier to spread this nonsense about how jobs have moved to Mexico and China and other places.
There are laws to prevent this of course, but the unspeakably vile lawyers who have taken over the government and the legal system (both liberals and conservatives, there's no difference) couldn't care less about the law or human rights. They're interested in making money off the cheap slave labor, and keeping people of color in line. The only organization really working to deal with this problem is Stop Prisoner Rape, which could use your help.
The horrific violence Americans are inflicting in Iraq and other places around the world, is just a reflection of and stems from the violence inside America itself. Until we deal with the core problems, there's no chance of dealing with the warmongering and other stuff, which are just symptoms. Our prison system is nothing more than an organization designed to breed vicious violent people. People, prisoners AND guards, come out there as less than human, and incapable of decency.
permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 11:49 AM
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