I did the early voting thing. If you don’t know who you would like to vote for at least vote against people who supported the Iraq War, or for the green party, or at least vote against that douche bag Bush by voting against Republicans.
Society
03
Nov 02
Guerrilla warfare or terrorism?
Russia Helicopter Downed in Chechnya, Nine Dead: It may be inconsistent for a pacifist to express this sentiment, but I can’t help but to root for the Chechens. They’ve been fighting the Russian absolutists in one guise or another for several hundred years. I admire their doggedness and determination.
03
Nov 02
War is politics by other means
And people around the world are getting sick of it. It is time to shrug off the parasites that attempt to propel us into war. These Russian kids have the right idea. Maybe it’s time to stop paying taxes that go towards murder.
Russian youth dodge conscript military:
While America fights a war on terror with overwhelming public approval, families here are scrambling to avoid sending their boys to Russia’s own war against an Islamist foe in Chechnya. And this czarist-era capital of Russia has become a hotbed of antiwar activism. So strong is the resistance to the draft in this city, the army is forcibly conscripting boys by dragging them from high school classes in handcuffs and arresting them on the streets, to be sent off to the army, lawyers and war resistance groups say.
Draft dodging is fueled reports of desertions and mistreatment of soldiers, and by widespread anger at government’s seeming indifference to the depravations that ordinary Russians face.
“Nobody I know is willing to go to the military,” said Artur Getrimas, an 18-year-old who has hired a lawyer in an attempt to get a deferral. “I don’t think my country deserves to be loved and respected because it doesn’t provide a good life for its people. Corruption is everywhere, and those people who have no money or connections are stuck on the lowest level, and everyone kicks them around.”
Remember, this kind of crap could and does happen here. When I was a senior in high school military recruiters would call and try to give me the hard sell because they needed warm bodies. There are bills in Congress which would require public schools to provide the personal information of graduating seniors to military recruiters for the purpose of seducing young people to join the mercenary army of the United States. There was also a bill which would have required all 18 year olds to serve the United States for a two-year stint.
30
Oct 02
Oil agenda hurting the Bush war plans
And so the White House is trying to say something to the effect of, ‘We don’t want the oil. Honest.’ Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice..how does that go, George?
White House: U.S. Doesn’t Plan to Control Iraq’s Oil:
“The only interest the United States has in the region is furthering the cause of peace and stability … not his country’s ability to generate oil,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.
Iraq has oil reserves of 112 billion barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
When asked if the United States would take over Iraq’s oil fields if the U.S. attacked Iraq, Fleischer responded: “No. The purpose of any plan the United States has is to make certain that Saddam Hussein complies with all U.N. resolutions.” …
When asked, Fleischer refused to say whether the U.S. military might administer Iraq’s oil fields.
“I think that it’s impossible for anybody to speculate about anything and everything that could possibly happen under any military scenario. And I wouldn’t even try to start guessing what the military may or may not do,” he said.
And then there’s this, despite the White House’s outright lies and deceptions. US sets meeting on exploiting Iraqi oil after Hussein:
(10/30/2002 – OGI: Washington) The US State Department has pushed back its planned meeting with Iraqi opposition leaders on exploiting Iraq’s oil and gas reserves after a US military offensive removes Saddam Hussein from power to early December. According to a source at the State Department, all the desired participants are not yet available.
The Bush administration wants to have a working group of 12 to 20 people focused on Iraqi oil and gas to be able to recommend to an interim government ways of restoring the petroleum sector following a military attack in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible US military occupation government – further fueling the view that controlling Iraqi oil is at the heart of the Bush campaign to replace Hussein with a more compliant regime.
As the current chestnut goes, regime change starts at home. Down with the Bush military junta.
28
Oct 02
Just a reminder
That plane crashes are often not coincidental accidents. Found at whatreallyhappened.com:
CRASH OF PLANE CARRYING 12 WATERGATE PEOPLE SUSPICIOUS
[From *The Spotlight*, Feb. 14, 1994]
What really happened during the infamous “Watergate plane crash”
at Chicago’s airport on December 8, 1972?
United Airlines flight 553 out of Washington, D.C. exploded while
landing in Chicago. Aboard were 12 people who were connected in
some way to the burgeoning Watergate scandal. Among the victims
was Dorothy Hunt, wife of former CIA man (and Watergate burglar)
E. Howard Hunt.
Evidence indicated the plane was sabotaged, but independent
investigator Sherman Skolnick made headlines when he charged
thatthe sabotage had been covered up by the government.
Skolnick discussed his findings when he was the guest on the
December 23 broadcast of *The Spotlight*’s nightly radio call-in
talk forum, Radio Free America, with host Tom Valentine.
At the time of the crash, Valentine was a journalist working in
Chicago and became acquainted with Skolnick during the furor over
the loss of flight 553.
According to Valentine, “It was the flight 553 affair that really
convinced me this government was corrupt. I was a meat head and
believed in our government. I knew the medical establishment
was corrupt, but this really convinced me the government was
corrupt.”
Skolnick, who has been a regular guest on Radio Free America, and
who is an adviser to Liberty Lobby’s Populist Action Committee,
has a recorded five-minute commentary (changed several times a
week) that people may call 24 hours a day at regular long-
distance rates. The number is (312) 731-1100. Skolnick’s recorded
message brings periodic updates on matters the investigator and
his research team are working on.
An edited transcript of Valentine’s interview with Skolnick
follows.
VALENTINE: The Watergate plane crash is the first investigation
you and I worked on together.
SKOLNICK: This subject is one of the great forbidden subjects of
this country. You are not supposed to talk publicly about
airplanes that have been sabotaged. If sabotage is ever brought
up, it’s always in some foreign country where a bomb blows up the
airplane.
VALENTINE: Then the loss of the United Airlines flight 553 was
not just fog or pilot error or something like that.
SKOLNICK: In the history of aviation there have been a number of
situations where there was actual sabotage — not necessarily a
bomb — and that sabotage put the plane down and killed people
for political reasons.
I started writing a book about airplane sabotage right after the
plane crash. I called it “The Watergate Plane Crash.” The reason
why was because on this one plane were 12 people connected with
the Watergate affair.
The disaster happened exactly one month after Richard Nixon had
been re-elected. The Watergate affair had started, but it was not
widely known at the time.
Former CIA man (and Watergate burglar) E. Howard Hunt, part of
the so-called White House Plumbers, was under arrest. It later
came out that Hunt was threatening to blow the lid off the White
House if Nixon didn’t take care of him. Hunt wanted $2 million.
What Hunt reportedly had was information tending to show that
Nixon, who was in Dallas at the time John F. Kennedy was
murdered, was complicit in the assassination. Hunt’s wife Dorothy
was carrying around “hush” money to various witnesses in an
effort to silence them about the Watergate affair.
She was on flight 553, and this time she was traveling under her
own name. She was so concerned about the baggage (which contained
$2 million worth of cashier’s checks and money orders, which some
astute people could have traced back to the Nixon White House)
that she bought an extra first class seat for her baggage (and
the valuables therein).
The press later said there was only $10,000 in her possession,
but that was false. We know about this because of records of the
National Transportation Safety Board which had the manifest of
the airplane.
26
Oct 02
University of Texas Student Government Opposes Iraq War
Daily Texan: SG adopts resolution opposing war
- “This makes the statement that the student body of the nation’s largest university and in Bush’s hometown feels that an unprovoked war is wrong,” said SG two-year at-large Representative Jordan Buckley, author of the resolution and a key mediator in the evening’s debate.
The anti-war resolution, thought by most representatives to stand little chance of passing, condemns Saddam Hussein but opposes any pre-emptive attack against Iraq.
The bitter debate fought not only the resolution, but the assembly’s right to vote on a resolution at all.
“For those of you who feel it is inappropriate to debate foreign policy within the Student Government institution, please realize that it is more inappropriate that people die at the hands of the United States,” said Amber Novak, a journalism graduate student.
26
Oct 02
People around the globe opposing the war before it starts
The protest coincided with anti-war demonstrations from Augusta, Maine, to San Francisco and abroad from Rome and Berlin to Tokyo to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Mexico City. In Washington and many of the other demonstrations, protesters added complaints about U.S. policy toward the Palestinians.
26
Oct 02
Jiddu Krishnamurti on War
“War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life, is it not? War is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities. Therefore, you and I are responsible for war and what can we do to stop it?
Obviously the ever-impending war cannot be stopped by you and me, because it is already in movement; it is already taking place, though at present chiefly on the psychological level. As it is already in movement, it cannot be stopped – the issues are too many, too great, and are already committed.
But you and I, seeing that the house is on fire, can understand the causes of that fire, can go away from it and build in a new place with different materials that are not combustible, that will not produce other wars. That is all that we can do. You and I can see what creates wars, and if we are interested in stopping wars, then we can begin to transform ourselves, who are the causes of war.”
The First and Last Freedom, p.182
“An American lady came to see me a couple of years ago, during the war. She said she had lost her son in Italy and the she had another aged sixteen whom she wanted to save; so we talked the thing over. I suggested to her that to save her son she had to cease to be an American; she had to cease to be greedy, cease piling up wealth, seeking power, domination, and be morally simple – not merely simple in clothes, in outward things, but simple in her thoughts and feelings, in her relationships. She said, ‘That is too much. You are asking far too much. I cannot do it, because circumstances are too powerful for me to alter.’ Therefore she was responsible for the destruction of her son.”
The First and Last Freedom, p.182
“If you loved your children with your heart, not with your shoddy little minds, do you think there would be a war tomorrow?”
Unknown source