Friday, May 30, 2008

Olbermann Scott McClellan Speaks Out & Obama & McCain in Iraq ???

Its funny that McCain would be telling Obama to go to Iraq and see the situation for himself. Now does McCain mean like the time he walked theough a marketplace in Iraq with a hundred well armed soldiers a couple of armored Humvees and a couple of U.S. attack helicopters flying overhead. And McCain described it like being in a small town market oh yeah except for all the shooting and IEDs and rockets exploding . This scene is shown in Cusack's WAR,INC. closer to what it is really like.

----
Olbermann Scott McClellan Speaks Out
He comes clean and Bush and friends try to dismiss what he says-
they try to characterize him as being just pissed off or mentally unhinged
Olbermann points out the use of spin and talking points repeated again and again by different people who knew him.



-------------
Barack Obama says Democrats have caved into the Bush administration fearful of being seen as soft on terrorism and not loyal Americans not patriotic enough. What they should do is stand their ground. It is no wonder Democrats like Hillary have a real chip on their shoulder . Obama wants them to do what might be the impossible act as if they cared and that it was not just a political game .

Barack Obama On Iraq, Opposition from the start



Obama considers Iraq visit amid GOP criticism The Associated Press May 29/08

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama — increasingly under fire from John McCain as he appears poised to win the Democratic nomination — said he is considering a trip to Iraq but dismissed as a "political stunt" an invitation by the Republican candidate to make the visit together.

These attacks on Obama are attempts to treat his campaign and him as if he were not a legitimate candidate to undermine him.As David Bromowich argues:

At Huffingto Post David Bromowich Assassination Chatter and the End of Legitimacy
May 27, 2008


Legitimacy is the most elemental and elusive of political goods; a gift which only a society can give its leaders, and only the same society can take away.

To deprive a politician of legitimacy is long and serious work. A good deal of the process has always taken place behind the scenes before the evidence comes into view.

Thus, from 1994 onward, a language of generalized insult and contempt was used by Republicans about Bill Clinton in order to deprive him of the claim to be recognized as the legitimate holder of the office of president. Newt Gingrich and the Contract-with-America wing of the party were deliberate in the tactics they deployed. They coolly decided to use the word "sick" to characterize the Clintons and their policies. Instructions regarding which words of contempt to use and when to use them, went out in memorandums and were put into practice on pundit shows and talk radio. This story is told by David Brock, an insider who came to regret the part he played, in his memoir Blinded by the Right.

..We have seen a return this year to the politics of delegitimation by the extreme Republican right. Yet what has been most surprising is the complicity, and then the open participation in that process by the Clinton campaign. Race was always going to be an element in this year's election. But the comparison of the front runner Barack Obama to the marginal candidate Jesse Jackson on the pretext that both had won South Carolina was a shocker when people heard it come out of the mouth of Bill Clinton. Again, the talk, by Hillary Clinton and her operatives after Ohio, of "the commander in chief test" which (it was said) she and John McCain had "passed" but Obama mysteriously could not pass, was a second stroke of the same kind. There was no scientific or political content to the statement. Its significance was gestural. It was an effort to delegitimate Obama, and its truth could only be shown by its success or failure.

Hillary Clinton's recent careless-careful mention of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, in answer to a question about why she would stay in the Democratic race when all the numbers are against her, raised the tactics of delegitimation to a pitch as weird as anything the Clintons can have seen in the years 1997-98.


And so it goes ,
GORD.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Obama Skeptical of Bush's Iraq War Before Hillary While Condoleeza Rice Talks Down To Obama

Anyway here's a little video which shows that Obama was skeptical about Bush Regime's decision to go to war in Iraq.

Unlike Hillary Clinton Obama early on questioned the reasons and motives and the way in which the Bush/ Cheney administration sold the Iraq War to the American people. He appeares to have been skeptical early on. To many in the Media bought into the war and the propaganda to such a degree that they believed that anyone criticizing in any manner the Iraq War is to be considered disloyal and possibly a traitor.

Obama criticizes Iraq war on 1/18/05 at Rice conf. hearing
From Youtube user: jedreport
Date: January 18, 2005.

Why is that important? Because Clinton claims that after Obama became a U.S. Senator, she was initially more outspoken against the war than he was.

The truth is that in February, Clinton went to Iraq with John McCain, and declared that we were defeating the insurgency.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/ir...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7003226/

But in January, Obama was challenging the Bush Administration.




What is interesting is how Condoleeza Rice tries to treat Obama's concern and criticisms as not legitimate and as naive and she tries to dismiss this question as some sort of silly academic question of University students and their naive professors. Obama is asking a very specific question about Bush's administration decision after 9/11 to attack Saddam. The point is Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or an ally with terrorists groups .She repeats a lot of the phony intel that the Bush administration using propaganda sold the war to the American people.
Obama asks for the impossible that is an honest accounting of why Condi and Bush invaded and have occupied Iraq .

She keeps returning to the Bush/Cheney talking points . She therefore evades answering Obama's questions about Iraq and also about the Sudan and Saudi Arabia. He makes the point that though the people involved with the 9/11 attack were Saudi citizens including Osama Bin Laden yet the administration did not attack Saudi Arabia. What he is trying to get at is how the decision was made to attack Ira but not Saudi Arabia or not make a bigger deal about other countries like Sudan . Darfur, Korea etc.

Condoleeza Rice talks down to Obama as if he were a bit slow or a child to whom things must be explained in a careful and slow manner point by point . This is typical of the Neoconservatives who treat all outsiders as if they were uninformed or just haven't experienced enlightenment in the way they have . They believe they see the world as it really is and not based on prejudices or a simplified view of the world . It should be remembered that they like their mentor Leo Strauss have like Plato been able to distinguish between mere shadows on the cave wall and reality. As one sees in this encounter between Obama and Condi she can not help from showing her attitude towards Obama as she smiles and is on the verge of laughing outloud at him for being so naive and ill-informed . Her smirk as it were reveals that she believes she has some secret knowledge which Obama does not have. She believes that only she and those who are part of the Bush/ Cheney Neocon inner circle have. She sees herself as if she were looking down upon Obama and the rest humankind from a lofty height. This is central to understanding the attitude of the neocons to the rest of us . To put it simply they are enlightened and we are not .

And so it goes,
GORD.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Fox News Jokes About Killing Obama - Racism Rising in Election Campaign

Fox News Jokes about Killing Obama
Have Fox News and the Clinton Campaign shared some secret Intel
or just on the same nasty wavelength





Olbermann - Worse persons Lieberman & Trotta



Full segment of Liz Trotta & Assassination of Obama



and so it goes ,
GORD.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Rumsfeld: U.S. Needs Another Terrorist Attack & Support The Troops???

UPDATE 4:50 PM ...

The belief amongst the Neocons and the Republicans and the Religious Right and Bush and McCain is that Americans and Canadians and even Europeans have become too complacent and are losing their edge in fighting Global Terrorism . So what is needed is another big terrorist attack to wake everybody up. I'm sure most people think the world is a better place after 9/11 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Though the two events are really not connected. Well in the mind of the mad geniuses of propaganda ( Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol , Cheney, Rumsfeld , Colin Powell , Tennet, Condi )these events are made out to be related . These mad geniuses working overtime claimed that Saddam was somehow involved with 9/11 or Al Qaeda or with some other terrorist group or some bad or evil bit of mischief etc. And when the facts say otherwise just ignore the facts that is if you are true patriot. According to the Bush Regime and the True Believers only traitors would dare claim Saddam wasn't involved in 9/11 or financed Al Qaeda .

Rumsfeld on the need for another terrorist attack on U.S.



That's Why They Hate Us
Noam Chomsky



And here's a couple of videos and articles on how Bush and the Neocons and the American people don't believe in supporting the troops.

Well actually to be fair the people of America or of most nations like the parades and John Wayne movies and all the GI JOE Machismo and all that crap but they don't want to give the troops a pay raise or pay out a lot of money for better training, better protective gear or better rifles or food or water or living quarters- besides if they want all that they should join Blackwater or some other Mercenary Organization of Private Contractors.

From Brass Check

How George Bush Supports Our Troops




Barack Obama/ Jim Webb vs John McCain -Veteran GI bill




George Bush and his loyal followers are uninterested in the physical and psychological well being of soldiers once they return from Iraq. And by the way for all his talk John McCain has also voted against bills that would give more help to Veterans.

And it seems the American people though they support the troops don't want to actually see photos or videos of the soldiers who have been killed in Iraq arriving stateside in boxes or body bags. The people don't want to hear about soldiers torturing POWS or raping Iraqi girls and women . They also don't want to hear about how women in the American forces or working for Private Contractors are sexually harassed or assaulted by their fellow male soldiers or contractors .

As the credo of our generation the Baby Boomers goes " we don't think about thing we don't want to think about " some take this as a positive trail rather than as a state of denial or as Monty Python put it " Always look on the bright side of life " which means to never feel much of anything except happy and positive. This is similar to those who have an uninformed attitude towards living in the moment or the now. This does not mean you vacate the premises when something painful happens. You know your dog dies or your parents die or a friend dies .

The narcissistic " baby boomers " think each death of someone close to them is meant as a lesson for them to learn from. Claiming God or Nature or Buddha or Karma Kills to teach you a lesson - and You say you're not self-centered . If you are human then such an experience is sad and painful and possibly overwhelming .To those who like George Bush who are dead inside it is just another awkward social event to get through. Most Boomers haven't felt much since 1970 or so. Since then they began focusing on how to get ahead and who they would have to screw one way or the other to get ahead and they haven't looked back since and so they've taught their children to give up on any silly ideals and do what they have to to be successful since nothing else counts in our materialistic , selfish narcissistic, nihilistic society. It was supposed to be Teach Your Children Well and to have a decent code to live by and not just screw you...



Veterans Attest to PTSD Neglect by VA

Wednesday 21 May 2008

by: Maya Schenwar and Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t

Recently released documents from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are further proof the VA has failed to adequately address the crisis in veterans' mental health care, according to a former VA employee turned veterans' advocate.

In March, Norma J. Perez, the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) coordinator at a VA facility in Temple, Texas, wrote an email (PDF) to her subordinates stating: "Given that we have more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of adjustment disorder, R/O [ruling out] PTSD ... we really don't ... have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD."

Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense (VCS), the veterans' rights organization which brought the lawsuit, said the Perez email exemplifies a larger trend. "The bottom line is that VA under the Bush administration has dropped the ball. The email sent by Perez proves our lawsuit was correct - VA is short staffed for mental health care and VA intentionally misdiagnoses veterans in order to save money. VA was illegally and unconscionably turning away suicidal veterans in need of emergency mental health care. We are asking the court to order VA to stop this outrageous practice," Sullivan said.

New VA documents obtained exclusively by VCS using the Freedom of Information Act indicate the VA is only paying disability benefits for PTSD to 33,247 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, although 67,717 have been diagnosed with PTSD. According to Sullivan, VCS is calling for an investigation into this apparent discrepancy.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in September 2007 stated that the VA's "lack of early identification techniques" led to "inconsistent diagnosis and treatment" of PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. According to the GAO, early diagnosis is essential in preventing PTSD's consequences - which could be deadly.

and
...Suspicions about the VA's motives for misdiagnoses flared up over a year ago, when a series of news reports revealed many of the 22,500 soldiers diagnosed with "personality disorder" since 2001 were actually suffering from PTSD. Taken in conjunction with a rising suicide rate among veterans, the reports sparked a flurry of investigations and Congressional hearings.

"My concern is that this country is regressing and again ignoring legitimate claims of PTSD in favor of the time and money saving diagnosis of personality disorder," said Congressman Bob Filner, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, at a July 27 hearing. "I want to know how the VA deals with veterans who have been labeled with a personality disorder. Does the burden fall on the veteran to prove that he or she doesn't have a personality disorder? Will such a diagnosis prevent the veteran from receiving health care once initial VA coverage ends? What extra barriers does this veteran face?"

Misdiagnosed vets are not only often deprived of proper treatment, Filner noted; they also miss out on condition-related benefits and subsidies. PTSD has attracted a lot of legislative attention over the past year, and new funding may soon become available for veterans with that diagnosis. Moreover, special programs geared toward PTSD are already in motion at many VA facilities, and vets without an official diagnosis are not eligible for those treatments.

For Iraq veteran Joe Wheeler, a delayed VA diagnosis meant two years of paying for his psychotropic medications out of pocket, at a time when his tenuous mental health made it tough to hold a job. Wheeler's doctors immediately diagnosed him with PTSD, but without an official VA acknowledgment of his condition, he was left without benefits.



For instance that great Patriot and true Humanitarian Bill O'Reilley claims that if a vet is homeless and has psychological problems or using drugs then the Department of Veterans Affairs or other agencies can not be responsible for such a person. You have to realize that Bill O and other Bush supporters don't believe in mumbo-jumbo liberal jive about post-traumatic whatever to them it is just a matter of being a coward or too lazy to work expecting a handout and people to cry big tears etc. The compassion of Neocons and the Bush true believers and the McCain fascists is just non-existent. As for Hillary don't get me going...so that it for now...

So in case you missed it ...to mark Memorial Day in the USA

Bill O'Reilley John Edwards & Olbermann on Homeless Vets
Bill o'Reilley thinks they don't exist and later amends his statement saying these guys are mentally ill and are abusing drugs and so to Hell with them-



And so it goes,
GORD.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Olbermann : Clinton's RFK Assassination Remark

Update 10: 54 AM
Olbermann : Clinton's RFK Assassination remark



It is difficult to understand what she's hopes to gain by making such statements. Or is she like George Bush unable to go through a day without saying something stupid or offensive.
Will her supporters finally accept that Hillary Clinton is possibly just a trifle insensitive or a bit thick. Or is it worse than that is she truly a cynical power hungry political animal. She invokes the Bobby Kennedy assassination without seeing it as a major mistake and not just a little faux pas made at a dinner party after a few too many drinks. But note Keith pulls out a whole laundry list of inappropriate statements made by Hillary Clinton while claiming that she is the real victim of a smear campaign because she is a white woman . Whereas in her view Obama gets all the breaks because he is a black man. And it is she who tries to cozy up to John McCain and the Republicans.


And if Obama doesn't pick her as his running mate as Vice President will she cry foul over that too and play the victim.

Is she hoping Obama's campaign will fall apart in some manner as in a new scandal or whatever.

If something were to happen to defeat Obama hopefully she will not be chosen to replace him. I would now be very suspicious of Hillary and her campaign managers who might be behind some new scandal . Hillary has put herself in this untenable situation. It is her own fault. She was the one who saw nothing wrong with white voters choosing her over Obama because they refuse to vote for a black man. She defended these racist individuals as if their point of view were somehow reasonable. As Olbermann points out when John Edwards was asked about people voting for him because he was white and male and that these people refused to vote for a black man or a woman he right away said he didn't want the votes of those who were that prejudiced. He'd rather lose than win because he got the bigot vote. Why couldn't Hillary say the same thing.

And here's an article from Media With Conscience on Hillary's remarks :
MWC NEWS
Hillary Invokes Assassination/ Editorial/Marjorie Cohn May 24, 2008 Media With Conscience


For weeks, pundits have speculated about why Hillary Clinton insists on remaining in the primary race when Barack Obama has all but clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. On Friday, Clinton answered that question. It appears she's waiting in the wings for something dreadful to befall Obama.

When asked by the editorial board of South Dakota's Sioux Falls Argus-Ledger why she is still running, Clinton replied, "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."

It's astounding that a presidential candidate could verbalize such a thing when the collective American psyche still aches from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Many of us remember where we were when these heroes were shot. The pain we felt is palpable. We still suffer from their absence.

Clinton, evidently surprised at the ferocity of the reaction to her statement, made a half-baked non-apology a few hours later. She expressed regret that anything she said could have offended the Kennedy family. But she uttered not a word of repentance for her suggestion that Barack Obama's death could inure to her benefit.

The response to Clinton's invocation of the "A" word was swift and strong. The New York Times called it an "inexcusable outburst." Keith Olbermann characterized it as "crass and low and unfeeling and brutal." Noting that "the politics of this nation is steeped in blood," he admonished Clinton: "You cannot and must not invoke that imagery, anywhere, at any time."

Clinton's remarks offer a look into her character. In Olbermann's words, they "open a door wide into the soul of somebody who seeks the highest office in this country and through that door shows something not merely troubling but frightening."

Before Friday, a groundswell of support for an Obama-Clinton ticket appeared to be building. But as New York state Sen. Bill Perkins, an Obama supporter, said when he heard Clinton's comments, "My jaw just dropped -- I think she just basically shattered her hopes of being named as vice president. To use the example of an assassination," Perkins added, "I think, leads one to believe that she may be talking about something unfortunate happening to Barack Obama. Couple that with the other remarks she made recently about winning the white vote and her husband's statements and I'd say something is seriously amiss."

How, after Clinton's ominous remarks, could Obama ever turn his back on her if she became his vice-president?

Anyone who "might be sticking around on the off-chance the other guy might get shot has no business being the president of the United States," Olbermann declared. As Newsweek's Howard Fineman noted, Clinton's is "a campaign that probably needs to be put out of its misery real soon."

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, an uncommitted superdelegate, commented that Clinton's remarks were "beyond the pale." Indeed, the remaining uncommitted superdelegates should stop the bleeding now and allow us to move on with the election.


and here's more on racism in America and how Hillary benefits by these prejudices on race & religion - are these bits of disinformation put out by the McCain or Hillary campaigns - or is it just FOX news and other networks and those on Hate Radio or Hate TV with O' Reilly or Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh:

Primary in Texas and Racism
from The Real News Network



West Virginia and Racism fro The Real News Network
Hillary's base in some states are racist & white Supremacists and she sees nothing wrong about that- she wants to win at any cost -



and so it goes ,
GORD.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Bush The Most Dangerous Blunderer of Them all

Anyway so here's Bush and Cheney with the aid of Hillary Clinton and John McCain and the Media and a citizenry which is not interested in anything outside their own little cocoon who can't remember what happened more than a week ago preparing for a war on Iran.

So what's a few hundred thousand dead Iranians in the scheme of things. When what matters is public relations for the Bush Regime and more money for private contractors to provide food and water for the troops . Besides there is a lot of money to be made by mercenaries such as Blackwater to protect clueless diplomats and bureaucrats and squadrons of accountants and lawyers who are promised a juicy piece of the pie.

But we need to be reminded how inept Bush and his cronies actually are. They managed to make every mistake possible when it came to their unnecessary invasion and occupation of Iraq. But they also proved that they could even botch a domestic natural disaster. Most Americans and a large portion of people around the world by watching CNN and other TV networks were more in the know about what was taking place in New Orleans than were President Bush and his friends.

And when they did get involved they were more worried about law and order considerations than with rescue operations and getting food and water and medical supplies to those in need . Well actually what at that moment they saw was another opportunity to further test their ideas on privatization of Wars and natural disasters. So they saw opportunities for enriching various private corporations such as Cheney's Halliburton and KBR and mercenaries such as Blackwater. They wished to take capitalism to its next level.

President George Bush after hurricane Katrina September 2005

Tonight so many victims of the hurricane and the flood are far from home and friends and familiar things. You need to know that our whole nation cares about you, and in the journey ahead you're not alone. To all who carry a burden of loss, I extend the deepest sympathy of our country. To every person who has served and sacrificed in this emergency, I offer the gratitude of our country. And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.

The work of rescue is largely finished; the work of recovery is moving forward. In nearly all of Mississippi, electric power has been restored. Trade is starting to return to the Port of New Orleans, and agricultural shipments are moving down the Mississippi River. All major gasoline pipelines are now in operation, preventing the supply disruptions that many feared. The breaks in the levees have been closed, the pumps are running, and the water here in New Orleans is receding by the hour. Environmental officials are on the ground, taking water samples, identifying and dealing with hazardous debris, and working to get drinking water and waste water treatment systems operating again. And some very sad duties are being carried out by professionals who gather the dead, treat them with respect, and prepare them for their rest.

In the task of recovery and rebuilding, some of the hardest work is still ahead, and it will require the creative skill and generosity of a united country.


and ends with :

I know that when you sit on the steps of a porch where a home once stood, or sleep on a cot in a crowded shelter, it is hard to imagine a bright future. But that future will come. The streets of Biloxi and Gulfport will again be filled with lovely homes and the sound of children playing. The churches of Alabama will have their broken steeples mended and their congregations whole. And here in New Orleans, the street cars will once again rumble down St. Charles, and the passionate soul of a great city will return.
And yet it is almost three years later and much of the reconstruction has not taken place. Thousands are either homeless or placed in inadequate temporary homes such as the FEMA trailers far from their pre-Katrina homes, parishes and neighborhoods.


From President Bush Discusses Hurricane Relief in Address to the Nation/Jackson Square/New Orleans, Louisiana September 15, 2005 On Hurricane Katrina

As Thomas Oliphant argues in his book Utter Incompetents ( 2007 ) in his chaper on Hurricane Katrina:
The Bush administration is unusual in many, many respects, but nowhere more so than in its trademark combination of arrogance and ineptitude. The truth is that no one had learned anything of consequence from Hurricane Andrew, no one in authority had followed any of the clear signals of approaching catastrophe in the form of Katrina, and the response to the storm's aftermath had all the trappings of post-invasion Iraq. It was not one huge screw-up: that might have made it easier to fix.

Instead,this was a whole series of screw ups beginning well before and continuing well after the hurricane hit. It marked the reappearance of the familiar deadly Bush sins of ineptitude, inattentiveness,hubris, croynism, public relations spin, ideological rigidity, old-fashioned stubborness, and know-it-all-ism at a highest profile moment when the country is looking for results. Looked at from a distance, the Bush administration's response to Katrina resembles panic as much as a monumental failure.
( p. 159 )

It was the disastrous response to the hurricane that drove Bush's approval numbers into the 30s for the first time. It was Katrina that first introduced concepts like embarrassment and shame to the discussion of his tenure, symbolized perhaps by the offers of people and money that came from other countries in the midst of the administration's paralysis. And it was in the aftermath of Katrina that the adjective " incompetent " began to be used on a large scale in analyses of Bush's ineffectual governance. Before Katrina. Bush was in serious trouble: after Katrina, his administration in tatters.(p. 160 )

Similarly, the assertion that the Gulf Coast disaster, epitomized by the flooding of New Orleans and parishes(counties ) to the south and east , was something no one could have forseen is contradicted by the wealth of information that once again a great many people had indeed forseen it. The 9/11 formulation worked politically for a while; in the case of Hurricane Katrina it failed from the beginning and was soon abandoned as a politically viable excuse. p. 167

New Orleans The Bush Legacy
from The Real News



Bush There is a flow of progress
( Thousand in Gulf Coast area in 2008 still waiting !!! )
In September 2005 US President George W. Bush visited New Orleans meeting rescue workers and victims of Hurricane Katrina. He then spoke to reporters reassuring people that there was "a flow of progress".





When the Levee Breaks
Bush Cheney Condi show little concern




Jack Cafferty "Embarrasing" Bush Katrina photo-op



Katrina: CNN Jack Cafferty - Hurricane Katrina Outrage



Katrina Timeline
Condi shops and sees Broadway show Spamalot
While Bush does photo-ops and makes speeches




Blackwater in New Orleans
Making $ 250, 000 per day
Donates a total of $150,000 for Hurricane relief




see Time.com How Did This Happen?
Sunday, Sep. 04, 2005 By AMANDA RIPLEY


Hindsight is 20/20. but once in a rare while, foresight is too. For years, researchers have described exactly what would happen if a megahurricane hit New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf region. They predicted that the city levees would not hold. Their elaborate computer models showed that tens of thousands would be left behind.

They described rooftop rescues, 80% of New Orleans underwater and "toxic gumbo" purling through the streets. If experts had prophesied a terrorist attack with that kind of accuracy, they would be under suspicion for treason.

How, then, did we get here? How did the richest country on earth end up watching children cry for food in putrid encampments on the evening news? How did reporters reach crowds of the desperate in places where police, troops and emergency responders had not yet been—three days after the storm?

Deconstructing Katrina will take years. But it is already clear that the blame can be well distributed, from the White House to emergency-management officials at federal, state and local levels, all the way down to the cops who abandoned their posts in New Orleans. "The system broke," says Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Research Lab at the University of South Carolina. "A system that cannot airlift water and food to a community that's desperate for it is a system that is broken."
---------------------------
and so it goes,
GORD.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Douglas Feith Lies about Saddam's Nonexistent WMDS & Next Stop Iran

UPDATE: 6:32 pm.
Disturbing Revelations and Facts about The Bush Regime

see for instance Thomas Oliphant's book Utter Incompetents: Ego and Ideology In The Age Of Bush published 2007.

Even now there are those like Douglas Feith who continue to defend the Bush Regimes disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. Feith claims that Saddam had moth-balled the WMDS but could have them available within a few weeks for deployment which is actually utter nonsense.

HANS BLIX interviewed by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!
Douglas Feith Continues Bush Regime Propaganda lies and disinformation on Saddam & WMDs
May 21, 2008



Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix on the US Rush to War in Iraq, the Threat of an Attack on Iran, and the Need for a Global Nuclear Ban to Avoid Further Catastrophe

The Bush administration's claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq formed the key justification for the war to Congress, the American people and the international community. As the former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix was at the center of the storm. From March 2000 to June 2003, Blix oversaw the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission's 700 inspections at 500 sites in the run-up to the invasion. Blix is currently the chair of the Swedish government's Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. His latest book, just published, is Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters.

DOUGLAS FEITH:" And so, while it was a terrible mistake for the administration to rely on the erroneous intelligence about WMD, and, I mean, it was catastrophic to our credibility, first of all, it was an honest error and not a lie. But even if you corrected for that error, what we found in Iraq was a serious WMD threat, even though Saddam had chosen to not maintain the stockpiles. He had put himself in a position where he could have regenerated those stockpiles, as I said, in three to five weeks. "

HANS BLIX: Well, I think there was no way that Saddam Hussein in Iraq could have reconstituted his nuclear program within years after 2003. David Kay went in, and he came out and said, “Well, there are no weapons, but there are [inaudible] programs.” And then he went out, and in went his successor, and he came out after a year and says there are no programs, but there were intentions. In fact, Iraq was prostrate after so many years of sanctions, and it would have taken them many years to recover and to contemplate any nuclear weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: What did you understand at the time? What were you saying at the time?

HANS BLIX: Well, at the time, we were saying that we had carried out a great many inspections and that we did not find any weapons of mass destruction, and we also voiced some criticism of the some cases that the US Secretary of State Colin Powell had demonstrated in the Security Council. My colleague, Mr. ElBaradei, who was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had revealed that the alleged contract between Iraq and the state of Niger in Africa for the import of uranium oxide was a forgery and that the—also the tubes of aluminum, which had been alleged to be for making of centrifuges to enrich uranium, they most likely were not for that purpose.

So while the evidence that had been advanced from the US side and the UK side had been very weakened, we had carried out some 700 inspections without finding any evidence at all, and we had actually been to something like three dozen sites, which were given to us by intelligence, and had been able to tell them that, no, there was nothing in them, so that all allegations had been weakened very much, but not to the point of saying that there is nothing, because to prove that there is nothing is really impossible.

In an open letter by Ray McGovern the writer makes the point that all commissioned officers of the U.S. military take an oath to protect, defend and uphold the constitution of the United States . The oath is not taken in order to protect the president of the United States. What the author suggests is that when a president tries to over-ride or act contrary to the constitution and the interests of the American people then it is the sworn duty of military officers to stand up to that president and to speak out against that president.

Attack Iran:Trash the Constitution

By Ray McGovern

Dear Admiral Fallon,

20/05/08 "ICH" -- - I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I drafted this letter in the hope it will be brought to your attention.

First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. At the same time, you have let it be known that you do not intend to speak, on or off the record, about Iran.

But our oath has no expiration date. While you are acutely aware of the dangers of attacking Iran, you seem to be allowing an inbred reluctance to challenge the commander in chief to trump that oath, and to prevent you from letting the American people know of the catastrophe about to befall us if, as seems likely, our country attacks Iran.

Two years ago I lectured at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I found it highly disturbing that, when asked about the oath they took upon entering the academy, several of the "Mids" thought it was to the commander in chief.

This brought to my mind the photos of German generals and admirals (as well as top church leaders and jurists) swearing personal oaths to Hitler. Not our tradition, and yet…

I was aghast that only the third Mid I called on got it right – that the oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president.

Attack Iran and Trash the Constitution

No doubt you are very clear that an attack on Iran would be a flagrant violation of our Constitution, which stipulates that treaties ratified by the Senate become the supreme law of the land; that the United Nations Charter – which the Senate ratified on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2 – expressly forbids attacks on other countries unless they pose an imminent danger; that there is no provision allowing some other kind of "preemptive" or "preventive" attack against a nation that poses no imminent danger; and that Iran poses no such danger to the United States or its allies.


And he concludes the letter pleading for sanity and that Admiral Fallon take a more unambiguous stand against the Bush Regimes desire for war against Iran for ideological reasons and as a form of distraction and to end the Bush Regime with a literal bang :

President Bush is way out in front on this issue, and this comes through with particular clarity when he ad-libs answers to questions.

On Oct. 17, 2007, long after he had been briefed on the key intelligence finding that Iran had stopped the nuclear weapons-related part of its nuclear development program, the president spoke as though, well, "mesmerized." He said:

"But this – we got a leader in Iran who has announced he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems you ought to be interested in preventing them from have [sic] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously."

Some contend that Bush does not really believe his rhetoric. I rather think he does, for the Israelis seem to have his good ear, with the tin one aimed at U.S. intelligence he has repeatedly disparaged.

But, frankly, which would be worse: that Bush believes Iran to be an existential threat to Israel and thus requires U.S. military action? Or that it's just rhetoric to "justify" U.S. action to "take care of" Iran for Israel?

What you can do, Admiral Fallon, is speak authoritatively about what is likely to happen – to U.S. forces in Iraq, for example – if Bush orders your successors to begin bombing and missile attacks on Iran.

And you could readily update Scowcroft's remarks, by drawing on what you observed of the Keystone Cops efforts of White House ideologues, like Iran-Contra convict Elliot Abrams, to overturn by force the ascendancy of Hamas in 2006-07 and Hezbollah more recently. (Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of misleading Congress, but was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Dec. 24, 1992.)

It is easy to understand why no professional military officer would wish to be in the position of taking orders originating from the likes of Abrams.

If you weigh in as your (non-expiring) oath to protect and defend the Constitution dictates, you might conceivably prompt other sober heads to speak out.

And, in the end, if profound ignorance and ideology – supported by the corporate press and by both political parties intimidated by the Israel lobby – lead to an attack on Iran, and the Iranians enter southern Iraq and take thousands of our troops hostage, you will be able to look in the mirror and say at least you tried.

You will not have to live with the remorse of not knowing what might have been, had you been able to shake your reluctance to speak out.

There is a large Tar Baby out there – Iran. You may remember that as Brer Rabbit got more and more stuck, Brer Fox, he lay low.

A "Fox" Fallon, still pledged to defend the Constitution of the United States, cannot lie low – not now.

Lead.

Respectfully,

Ray McGovern; Steering Group; Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

If Bush and Cheney are preparing for an unnecessary war against Iran are there other ways of preventing such an action. Surely there must be a legal means by which the other branches of the U.S. government with the peoples approval could be taken to stop such a war. Would it be possible for the military itself to refuse to go to war against Iran because it is not in America's interest and would be detrimental to America's future. If necessary would it have to take the form of a military coup to resist going to war and therefore oust the Bush Regime and put in place a temporary government.

Though military coups are usually done in favor of an elite or small minority and are therefore anti-democratic are there circumstances under which they could be justified as being in the people's best interest. In this case a military coup would prevent the United States from taking part in an illegal and unnecessary war which would leave United States less secure rather than more secure. Anyway I am just thinking out loud but the idea is intriguing though rather risky to implement. The people in such a scenario would have to be reassured that this would not lead to a suspension of democracy and basic civil-rights in America and that it would be temporary at most lasting til the November election. Desperate times as they say may require desperate measures or at least some creative thinking and possibly creative and unorthodox strategies.

There is little hope of such an action or even groups of military personnel or other groups taking a stand against the Bush Regime and its flunkies such as John McCain or Hilary Clinton or the American Media . Unfortunately most Americans are too caught up in their own selfish and self-serving ethic of Greed and power and success at any cost to ever really care about such notions as truth , integrity, compassion and justice . They are all too willing to invoke patriotism and God when it suits their purposes . For instance they defend Dick Cheney and Halliburton as being blessed by God and that it is God's will that their profits should by 300% or more . Meanwhile it is God's will that those American soldiers killed in Iraq have died and will continue to die to protect the Holy personages of the Godly such as George Bush and Dick Cheney. It is also they claim God's will that these corporations and private contractors such as Halliburton , Kellog Brown and Root and Blackwater should prosper in the War on Terrorism or in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Flip-Flopping McCain; Bill Moyers And Henry Waxman On Corruption in The Bush Regime

And for the coming war with Iran here's a cheerful little song of the future promised to all of us by the American Empire no matter who's the president-

We will all go together by Tom Lehrer




And as for John McCain
"McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare "

May 18, 2008

The Real John McCain


There's no question John McCain is getting a free ride from the mainstream press. But with the power of YouTube and the blogosphere, we can provide an accurate portrayal of the so-called Maverick. We can put the brakes on his free ride!

Since we first released The Real McCain a year ago, our REAL McCain series has garnered close to 2 million views, with over 13,000 comments and tens of thousands more in petition signatures! Clearly, John McCain's record is something the public wants to discuss, and yet the corporate media is doing NOTHING to present the truth. We feel obliged to continue countering the mainstream media's love of McCain. And so we thought it was high time for a sequel: The Real McCain 2.



But what's the real difference between fire bombing a city such as Fallujah which the Americans did and are quite proud of and dropping a small atomic bomb on a city - They attacked Fallujah to avenge the deaths of four private contractors working for Blackwater- but those individuals went into Fallujah without the proper equipment ; without the required number of personnel; they were not even sure where they were and were unaware of how volatile the situation was-
This incident was a screwup and yet in order to bury these mistakes the Bush Regime decided to bury as many of the civilians of Fallujah as possible and utterly destroy the city. This is the scorched earth policy pursued by the Americans in Iraq as it had been the policy in Vietnam. Such a policy or the use of such tactics are counter productive if one is trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi People . The policy as such was a total failure in Vietnam. Though the historical revisionists claim America lost in Vietnam because of the liberal media and those Americans who protested against the war.

Meanwhile Bush , Cheney, McCain , Condoleeza Rice and Hilary Clinton want to expand the war into Iran and Syria .

Bill Moyers and
Henry Waxman One of the few Honest and Honorable men left in America.

Bill Moyers examines U.S. State Department use of independent contractors, including issues of cost, accountability and lack of oversight, using video from hearings and interviews, including Henry Waxman. Government is not holding itself to the standards citizens should expect.



These people and their supporters lie and cheat without any accountability and without conscience. And this is the Brave New World they have created by appealing to the worse impulses of humanity rather than the best.

The Bush administration defends these contractors (Blackwater , Halliburton etc. ) as if they themselves were employees of these contractors . Cheney has done everything he possibly could as Vice President to enrich Halliburton which he had been the CEO for. So whether the Bush Regime is seen as having a positive or negative impact on America doesn't matter as long as Halliburton and Cheney and others managed to make a profit for themselves. As Cheney has shown over and over again he has little or no sympathy for American soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq. What mattered to him and Rumsfeld and other neocons was to be allowed to experiment with their idea of privatizing the war as much as possible and trying to prove that that only a small military force was needed to remove Saddam from power. In the end though Cheney, Rumsfeld , Karl Rove etc. were wrong in their assumptions. As for Bush he is more like their puppet to be used and abused and abandoned once he is no longer in power. Though their supporters believe they are in fact Heaven sent. Profits in the end mean more to these contractors and to Condoleeza Rice, Don Rumsfeld , and Dick Cheney than does the well being of their employees , the troops in the field or the Iraqi People or even the American people. This is the New World order they are imposing on the American people and the rest of the world. And they get pissed off when anyone refuses to buy into their ideology of Greed. It is beyond their comprehension why anyone would criticize them for doing whatever they had to in order increase profits for these contractors and the oil companies and further enrich the wealthiest Americans. And still many Americans buy into this phony form of free enterprise and natural laws of the market place.

and here's Condi lying through her teeth. But of course she could probably present the committee with a hundred page thesis arguing and proving that lying is all a matter of perception and who really knows what is meant by the term lying . As in Known Knowns and unknown knowns Known Knowns and other nonsense ..



More from Waxman on corruption
We should deny Bush any more money

Monday, May 19, 2008

Holy Warriors and Bill Moyers On the End Of Democracy

First a little song before we begin :

Tom Lehrer So Long Mom A song for WWIII





So anyway once again we are reminded how the U.S. military has become a vehicle for delivering a Christian Evangelical Fundamentalist Reconstructionist's message to the people of the world in order to win converts and prepare for a World Wide Theocracy and/or The Rapture and Armageddon and the thousand year Reich of Christian Theocrats and/or the Rule of The Messiah etc.

For those who might criticize my commentary on the specifics of the End-Times scenario as it affects Israel I wish to remind them that there are differences of opinion on these matters amongst Evangelical theologians and also amongst Jewish theologians who believe these details can be discerned from the Bible.

Yes there are differences of opinion amongst the Evangelical Fundamentalists about the Time-Line leading to the Second Coming of Jesus / The Messiah - i.e. is there a thousand year period of peace under the rule of the Earthly Church or is it a thousand years of rule under the Messiah before the Rapture or after the Rapture and then as they say it begins to get complicated. Some argue that the Israelites must return to Israel/ Judea to begin the countdown. Others claim the Israelites / the Jewish people must not only return to the Kingdom of Judea but they must rebuild the Temple of Solomon and David and also must perform ritual sacrifices in the Temple including the sacrifice of the Unblemished Red Heifer- there are within these groups arguments about what is necessary and what is not. Some argue that Israel must encompass the territories that it did before the Diaspora or the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD (CE )- For some Evangelicals it is enough that the State of Israel exists and that it need not encompass the original territories and borders of Ancient Israel.

Holy Warriors in the US armed forces
Real News & Fundamentalist Evangelical Reconstructionists
The Great Commission - Convert or Die
Praying for Armageddon

the U.S. military is operating guided by " the Book of Revelation
and the Book of Revelation does not end with everybody happy "



and from AlterNet
Moyers: 'Democracy in America Is a Series of Narrow Escapes, and We May Be Running Out of Luck' By Bill Moyers, Doubleday. May 17, 2008.

Democracy in America is a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck. The reigning presumption about the American experience, as the historian Lawrence Goodwyn has written, is grounded in the idea of progress, the conviction that the present is "better" than the past and the future will bring even more improvement. For all of its shortcomings, we keep telling ourselves, "The system works."

Now all bets are off. We have fallen under the spell of money, faction, and fear, and the great American experience in creating a different future together has been subjugated to individual cunning in the pursuit of wealth and power -and to the claims of empire, with its ravenous demands and stuporous distractions. A sense of political impotence pervades the country -- a mass resignation defined by Goodwyn as "believing the dogma of 'democracy' on a superficial public level but not believing it privately." We hold elections, knowing they are unlikely to bring the corporate state under popular control. There is considerable vigor at local levels, but it has not been translated into new vistas of social possibility or the political will to address our most intractable challenges. Hope no longer seems the operative dynamic of America, and without hope we lose the talent and drive to cooperate in the shaping of our destiny.

...Edward R. Murrow told his generation of journalists: "No one can eliminate prejudices -- just recognize them." Here is my bias: extremes of wealth and poverty cannot be reconciled with a genuinely democratic politics. When the state becomes the guardian of power and privilege to the neglect of justice for the people as a whole, it mocks the very concept of government as proclaimed in the preamble to our Constitution; mocks Lincoln's sacred belief in "government of the people, by the people, and for the people"; mocks the democratic notion of government as "a voluntary union for the common good" embodied in the great wave of reform that produced the Progressive Era and the two Roosevelts. In contrast, the philosophy popularized in the last quarter century that "freedom" simply means freedom to choose among competing brands of consumer goods, that taxes are an unfair theft from the pockets of the successful to reward the incompetent, and that the market will meet all human needs while government itself becomes the enabler of privilege -- the philosophy of an earlier social Darwinism and laissez-faire capitalism dressed in new togs -- is as subversive as Benedict Arnold's betrayal of the Revolution he had once served. Again, Mary Lease: "The great evils which are cursing American society and undermining the foundations of the republic flow not from the legitimate operation of the great human government which our fathers gave us, but they come from tramping its plain provisions underfoot."


And so it goes ,
GORD.



Sunday, May 18, 2008

Keith Olbermann " Bush Shut The Hell Up ! "

Updated 5:42 PM /May 18, 2008

Anyway let's begin with a little music by Leonard Cohen:

Everybody Knows-Leonard Cohen
see article by Sheila Samples below-



So is there anyone who doesn't know what Bush and Cheney and their fiends have been up to as they make millions off of another unnecessary war - the War Profiteers who are seen by the rich elite and their groupies as the real heroes of our time- that is how to enrich yourself while screwing everybody else- This is what makes these people superior to the rest of us; they realize there is no right or wrong no God to judge us - there is only money and power and as an old friend of mine used to say Money gets you power and power gets you women so why bother talking about hollow ideas such as truth and justice !!!

In case you missed it here is Keith Olberman's latest Special Commentary on George Bush Cheney and the gang for the harm they have done to America and to other countries. Olbermann is passionate and outraged about the subject at times he becomes angry.

Olbermann Countdown Special Commentary May 14, 2008
This Advise Mr Bush Shut the Hell Up



Olbermann Countdown Part 2
This advise Shut the Hell Up




And check out this article at Information Clearing House:
Everybody Knows.By Sheila Samples

...I don't want to go off on an Aristotelian rant here, but thanks to Cheney and those around him obsessed with world government, this nation appears to be running on empty where morality, or ethos, is concerned. Values such as compassion, sympathy, prudence, virtue, decency, ethics -- cannot thrive in a nation controlled by war criminals who force its citizens into submission through fear, violence and propaganda. How can a society be "just" when natural laws have fallen by the wayside and nobody is held accountable for crimes against God and humanity?

We are under the control of the criminally insane. Cheney has turned the greatest democratic republic ever conceived into a world corporation and anointed himself its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He has supplanted two centuries of protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with executive orders and secret laws. In their lust for power and riches, Cheney and Bush have managed in just seven grueling, sadistic, morally corrupt years to destroy entire nations, including their own. And they accomplished this in the only way possible. Because we permitted it. Because we lost our moral compass.

So we stand here in the blood-sodden mess of two lost wars. Millions -- millions -- have been displaced, destroyed, dishonored in Cheney's quest for oil. Tens of thousands of our own citizens are injured, maimed -- 4,077 dead -- an entire generation of Americans lost in a depleted uranium wasteland. "So?" Cheney says, "They were all volunteers." He admitted that losing sons or daughters could "be a burden" on families, but reminded us sternly that "the biggest burden" is on the President, who has to send even more to their deaths.

We're at the crossroads. We can no longer remain neutral nor mill around in confused acceptance of the genocidal madness into which we have been swept. Thomas Jefferson said, "When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
and so it goes,
GORD

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Bush uses Fear Compares Obama to Nazis Appeasers

First a clip from WAR INC. The Dancing Amputees




Olbermann Accuses BUSH OF PLAYING HITLER CARD Against Obama



In Israel Bush Compares Obama To Hitler Appeasers



In Israel, Bush Lays Down Some Serious Fear-Mongering/ by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress May 15, 2008.

George Bush breaks tradition and criticizes Obama while on foreign soil.

THINK PROGRESS
In Speech Before Israeli Parliament, Bush Compares Democrats To Nazi-Appeasers, May 15, 2008


While delivering an address before the Israeli parliament commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel, President Bush said that Sen. Barack Obama and Democrats favor a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. CNN reports that Bush was comparing Obama to “other U.S. leaders back in the run-up to World War II who appeased the Nazis.”

In his speech, Bush said, “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

CNN’s Ed Henry reported that, while “President Bush never uttered the words Barack Obama,” his White House sources tell him it was clearly intended to be a partisan shot:

White House aides are acknowledging that this was a reference to the fact that Sen. Obama and other Democrats have publicly said that it would be ok for the U.S. President to meet with leaders like the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

President Bush may want to take up his head-in-the-sand views with his own Defense Secretary. Just yesterday, Robert Gates said the U.S. needs to “sit down and talk with” Iran:

“We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage…and then sit down and talk with them,” Gates said. “If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us.”

Bush’s cross-continental partisan assault upends the traditional notion that U.S. politics should stop “at the water’s edge.” Reacting to Bush’s comments, Obama issued this statement: “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel.”

Note : His grandfather continued to do busines with Hitler after America was at War with Germany - so much for those who live in ' Glass Houses '

Friday, May 16, 2008

Pimping John Cusack's WAR INC. A MUST SEE ! Hillary Duff - Satire ON Bush & Iraq War & Interview of John Cusack on CBC

UPDATE 4: 45 pm
Update June 6, 3pm.
Note: original film clips I made of the film WAR,INC. for this post were removed from YouTube
and so are no longer available.

American's in general support Halliburton & KBR and Blackwater & other Private Contractors more than they do the troops.
Profits trump Soldier's safety & health everytime that's the American way-
Welcome to McWar -
Support The Troops - Just a Bumper Sticker - Jingoistic Phony Patriotism-
Soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder still getting Shafted by Bush & the Bean Counters-

So anyway John Cusack's film War Inc. is a great satire on the Bush Regime & the Privatization of War. It is a must see . It is a strange admixture of funny bits combined with over the top surreal scenes of Tanks with billboards on their side advertising Coca-cola to the Emerald City known as the Green Zone in Iraq where all the important people hide out from the reality of the madness and on going slaughter and destruction in the rest of the country. John Cusack plays a special undercover hit man working for the US government and private enterprise.
see: War Inc at IMDB

John Cusack- on CBC's The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos
John Cusack on his passion for politics, War Inc. and working with friends in Bulgaria.
Category: Entertainment





Trailer




Hilary Duff Arrives in Emerald City



Hilary Duff :Yonica BabyYeah- I Want to Blow You Up





For instance check out article by Jeremy Scahill at Huffington Post John Cusack's War: The Actor Battles to Un-embed Hollywood With His New Film, War, Inc. May 16, 2008

John Cusack began working on his new film War, Inc., which premieres in LA and New York May 23, about a year into the US occupation of Iraq. From the moment US tanks rolled into Baghdad, Cusack was a voracious consumer of news about the war. He took it deadly seriously, regularly calling independent journalists and asking them questions as he sought as much independent information as he could. Watching the insanity of the erection of the Green Zone and the advent of the era of McWar, complete with tens of thousands of "private contractors," Cusack set out to use the medium of film to unveil the madness. He wanted to do on the big screen what independent reporters like Naomi Klein, Nir Rosen and Dahr Jamail did in print. Over these years of war and occupation, Cusack has become one of the most insightful commentators on a far too seldom discussed aspect of the occupation: the corporate dominance of the US war machine.

War, Inc. is a radically different kind of movie. In fact, it really defies genre. It is sort of like this generation's Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and The Wizard of Oz mixed together with the un-embedded reporting of Naomi Klein, spiced up with a dash of South Park. It is a powerful, visionary response to the cheerleading culture of the corporate media and a pliant Hollywood afraid of its own shadow.

On the surface, War, Inc. appears to be a spoof of the corporatization of the occupation of Iraq. Cusack plays a hit man, named Hauser, deployed to Turaqistan with the mission of killing a Middle Eastern oil baron (named Omar Sharif). Hauser's employer is a secretive for-profit military corporation run by the former US vice president, played by Dan Aykroyd. We first meet Aykroyd's character as he sits, pants down, on a toilet seat during a closed-circuit satellite videoconference call to give Hauser his mission. Hauser arrives in the Turaqi capital and heads for the "Emerald City" (read: the Green Zone), where his cover is director of a trade show for the military corporation, Tamerlane, which is basically running the Turaqi occupation. Hauser soon falls for a progressive journalist, played by Marisa Tomei, who is in Turaqistan to investigate Tamerlane, and what follows is an insane ride through Cusack's interpretation of the radical corporatization of war.

Singer Hilary Duff gives a surprisingly fun performance as a pop star, Yonica Babyyeah, who performs a song in the war zone with the lyrics, "You say you want to invade me, baby/Enslave me, baby." As Duff delivers the song, she caresses a phallic gas nozzle decorated with diamonds while singing, "I want to blow you....up." Obviously Cusack and his co-writers, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser (REDS/Bulworth), sought to tap into the extreme nature of the corporatized war and take it to another level, but anyone who thinks the premise behind War Inc. is "over-the-top" has not been paying attention to real life.

Cusack, Leyner and Pikser are not predicting the future, they are forcefully -- and with dark humor and wit -- branding the present for what it is: the Wal-Mart-ization of life (and death) represented in the new US model for waging war. With 630 corporations like Blackwater and Halliburton on the US government payroll in Iraq getting 40% of the more than $2 billion Washington spends every week on the occupation, Cusack's "futuristic" film is not far from the way things really are. A powerful, for-profit war corporation, run by the former US vice president "owning" the war zone; tanks with NASCAR-like sponsor logos speeding around the streets firing at will; "implanted journalists" watching the war in IMAX theaters in the heavily-fortified "Emerald City" to get "full spectrum sensory reality" while eating popcorn; a secretive "viceroy" running the show from behind a digital curtain are all part of Cusack's battlefield in the fictitious Turaqistan. But how far are they from the realities of the radically privatized corporate war machine Washington has unleashed on the world?

--------------------------------
Too bad that many people will probably not see this film because it might make them think about important issues rather than what their next big consumer purchases are going to be . Even those supporters of the Iraqi War are not interested in the entanglement of private enterprise and the military and government and how this has helped to make the Iraqi Project a failure in political terms and a disaster in American foreign relations. But the Neocons and their wealthy friends are after all may talk about patriotism and such but they are really in for the money.

for more on this read the expose Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War by Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman pub. 2007 which details how privatization has become a nightmare for American Troops and the people of Iraq. This book shows how the profit motive and the goals of the Military and the ostensive goals of the administration i.e. winning hearts and minds are at odds with one another. Further the corporations contracting out have little interest in making sure the troops get all the supplies and such that they need i.e. healthy food and safe water . Corporations are more about cutting corners to save money or inflating bills and costs to increase profits. Yes when it comes to WAR Profit can easily become a dirty word. But War Profiteers these days are seen as heroes and great examples of business savvy even if it leads to unnecessary illnesses and deaths among the troops and civilians. As long as KBR- Kellog Brown and Root as a subsidiary of Halliburton is making progfits for its CEO's like Dick Cheney then all is good .

UPDATE: 6:29 May 16.

More on Support Your Troops as long as it doesn't cost a lot of money !!!
Is Haliburton & KBR more worthy of Americans support than are the troops ???

VA Ordered Not to Diagnose PTSD by Mike Connery, AlterNet May 15, 2008.The VA is ordering its staff not to diagnose veterans with PTSD, short-changing our soldiers and making worse an already under-treated condition.

This is a disgrace. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and VoteVets.org have discovered that the VA is instructing its staff to avoid diagnosing soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD:



Both CREW and VoteVets have issued spot-on statements on the matter:

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said today:
It is outrageous that the VA is calling on its employees to deliberately misdiagnose returning veterans in an effort to cut costs. Those who have risked their lives serving our country deserve far better. First and foremost, they have a right to expect that they receive diagnoses and treatment based on their symptoms and not on the VA’s budget. The VA should immediately reverse this and any other similar directives.
Jon Soltz, an Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org, added:
This is an issue I take personally. I know of many people who received a diagnosis of ‘Adjustment Disorder,’ who strongly felt they had PTSD, many of whom confirmed that suspicion with an independent diagnosis. Many veterans believe that the government just doesn’t want to pay out the disability that comes along with a PTSD diagnosis, and this revelation will not allay their concerns. It is crucial that we quickly get to the bottom of this, and ensure that misdiagnosing veterans is not part of some cost-cutting policy.
and from Washington Post May 16:

:

A psychologist who helps lead the post-traumatic stress disorder program at a medical facility for veterans in Texas told staff members to refrain from diagnosing PTSD because so many veterans were seeking government disability payments for the condition.

"Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out," Norma Perez wrote in a March 20 e-mail to mental-health specialists and social workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Olin E. Teague Veterans' Center in Temple, Tex. Instead, she recommended that they "consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder."

VA staff members "really don't . . . have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD," Perez wrote.

Adjustment disorder is a less severe reaction to stress than PTSD and has a shorter duration, usually no longer than six months, said Anthony T. Ng, a psychiatrist and member of Mental Health America, a nonprofit professional association.
------------


and so it goes,
GORD.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Edwards endorses Barack Obama: " Dream Team " ? & George Bush's Sacrifice For The Nation

UPDATE:12:23 PM May 15

John Edwards Endorses Obama
More on Lies Leading to War
George Bush's Sacrifice
ABU ELMO & The Chicken Hawk Dance

George Bush's Sacrifice
see Michael Moore. Com



If he really cared he would attend more funerals of those killed in combat. If he cared he would make a public statement condemning the Depaartmen of Veterans' Affairs for their cover-up and ineptness dealing with returning American soldiers who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If he cared he'd spend a few weeks in Iraq and not just in the Emerald City / The Green Zone . But if he cared he would not have started the war in the first place.

It was supposed to be a cakewalk, not a chicken-hawk dance.



So anyway here's the good news Senator John Edwards has officially endorsed Barack Obama as the Democratic Presidential candidate. Now the possibility arises for Obama to have Sen. John Edwards as his running mate in the Presidential election or giving Edward one of the more important positions in Obama's administration such as Attorney General or Secretary of State. This would be a better outcome than that of having Obama tied to Hillary Clinton .

Hillary and Obama are too far apart on issues to be able to work effectively . Though of course there is the old adage which argues that in order to neutralize possible enemies " keep your friends close but keep your enemies even closer ". And the Clinton machine could become a real thorn in Obama's side as the Clintons plan their strategy for the next election or if they decide to exact a bit of revenge by throwing a wrench into the Obama administration. I am still skeptical about Hillary's ties to the status quo and is much closer to McCain than Obama or Edwards on some major issues i.e. war with Iran continuing with the disastrous war & occupation of Iraq .
Of course Hillary is a political animal so she may decide to make a deal in order to maintain her support in case she runs again in 2012. I do wonder though Hillary's sincerity more than I would about the sincerity of Obama or Edwards.

so here's some views on Obama , Edwards and Hillary from Keith Olbermann And Chris Matthews-

Keith Olbermann on Edward's Endorsement of Obama



Chris Matthews





Edwards to Endorse Obama
By Jim Rutenberg and Julie Bosman/ The New York Times/ Wednesday 14 May 2008


Grand Rapids, Michigan - Senator John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who bowed out of the presidential race in January, is expected to endorse Senator Barack Obama at a rally being held here tonight.

Officials announced the news shortly after Mr. Obama landed here late this afternoon. The campaign has timed the announcement to coincide with the start of the major evening newscasts, which would have otherwise focused on Senator Hillary Clinton's landslide victory in West Virginia, which raised new questions about Mr. Obama's strength with white working class voters.

Mr. Obama's campaign is hoping it will be taken as the start of a partywide coalescence around Mr. Obama as the Democratic nominee.

The endorsement ended months of speculation over Mr. Edwards's preference in the Democratic nominating contest, during which he mostly stayed silent and close to home in Chapel Hill with his wife, Elizabeth.

But in recent days, Mr. Edwards had made his choice all but obvious, giving a series of television interviews hinting that he was close to endorsing Mr. Obama, who last week he called "clearly the nominee at this point."

And it was little surprise to close observers of Mr. Edwards on the campaign trail in the past year, when he regularly attacked so-called establishment politicians like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and teamed with Mr. Obama against her in debates.

His campaign sounded similar themes to Mr. Obama's - both candidates positioned themselves as change agents who would clean house in Washington.

Throughout his second bid for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Edwards clashed repeatedly with Mrs. Clinton, criticizing her for accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists, a practice that he fiercely opposed.

And much of his campaign pitch centered on the notion that Washington politicians have become corrupted by the influence of lobbyists for drug companies, oil companies and other corporate interests.

"You can't just trade corporate Republicans for corporate Democrats," he told audiences frequently, an attack aimed at Mrs. Clinton.

And now back to Bush and Company:

Film and Website Leading to War more on the lies of the Bush Propaganda Machine
check out the Film and website : How did the U.S. government lead its people to war?

A Mechanism for War

Manufacturing a Problem

A Threat to America and the Peace of the World

Senior Bush officials characterized Saddam Hussein’s military ambitions as intending to “do in” the U.S. and to “wipe out our way of life.” Using alarming language and hyperbole, they portrayed Iraq as a grave threat to world peace.



---
Specifically, the Bush administration claimed that:

• Iraq was actively trying to develop nuclear weapons.
• Hussein would not hesitate to use Iraqi caches of biological and chemical weapons against the U.S.
• Hussein had collaborative ties to al-class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Qaeda, with whom he could share weapons of mass destruction.

Bush said, “The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons, and diseases, and gases, and atomic weapons.”

In truth, Iraq, with its severely diminished military and no WMD, was not a threat to the U.S. or the world. Moreover, Iraq had no collaborative relationship with al-s="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Qaeda.

>Video: NUCLEAR WEAPONS



In these videos we see examples about what is referred to as the Neocon " Echo Chamber " . By repeating certain talking points again and again by different members of the Bush Regime in the media made it seem as if there was a great deal of convincing evidence . Then by having various Neoconservative pundits appear in on TV or Radio and in print repeating the same talking points as if they were acting on their own and basing their information upon sources outside the Neocon/ Bush/ Cheney Bush /Cheney they managed to manipulate the media into believing there was a consensus in the Intelligence Community in United States and even outside the United States.

Grave and Growing



In the end those in power or those who will replace those in power are too entangled in the corrupt system which exist to ever really desire to investigate in a sincere and thorough manner the crimes committed by those who went before them . When a new administration takes power it inherits a whole bureaucracy of professionals and specialists who collaborated with the previously corrupt administration. So the question becomes how much of a change can a new President bring about when hundreds if not thousands of those government collaborators are still in their own key positions where they can interfere with any changes which a new president may wish to bring about.During the two terms of the Bush regime he and his cronies appointed like-minded neocon and Religious Right true believers in positions in every major departments of the US government.

But unfortunately it seems given past history no matter how criminal an American politician and his or her cronies are they will not be put in prison or if imprisoned be kept there for life. For those who are pardoned or released from prison can always do lecture tours and sell a few million books . This is just part of the Gentlemen's and Ladies' agreement. Sometimes someone might be removed from office but otherwise there are no real lasting consequences for those who are at the highest levels of power in our countries.


and so it goes,
GORD.