Well, I just got back from 'The Vigil', never having been to one before, at least not this kind of vigil. This was a vigil in Westlake Center to mark the passing of the 1,000th soldier killed in Iraq (officially). Of course, those in the know are aware the 1,000th soldier killed was awhile back.


I went out there with my camera to document how many people were out to mark this important event, and my rough head count made it out to about 150'ish. Well, a few americans is better than none. Perhaps when the numbers run into the millions. I've heard that 30,000 Iraqis have now died in the 'liberation' of their country, thanks to our 'smart bombs' that make a nice, neat little crater with minimal 'collateral damage'. Personally I think that is a deliberate underestimate. Funny, if I knew one of those things was being dropped on the house next door I wouldn't stand across the street to watch. How about you? I didn't think so.
I took some photos from the balcony overlooking Westlake Center precisly at eight, and at that point the crowd was under 100. After I went down to the plaza to check everyone out, it seemed that the majority of people gathered were in their late 30's and 40's, very few young or counterculture people out there. After looking around and wishing there were more people there, I became one of them myself and asked for a candle to light and hold with the others. There were a noticable assortment of new agey types though, including one woman who went around the circle of 150'ish, waving a bundle of sage, brushing a large black feather across the face of everyone and saying something about crazy horse or chief joseph or. . . . Who knows, it all went up with the sage. As she went from person to person her sage bundle went out, and each person had to try to re-light it with the candle they were holding for the vigil. Then she came to me and I gave it a really good dose of flame and got that thing really burning. And in the excitement of having a fully functioning smoky bundle o' sage. . . she forgot to give me her contrived native american blessing. Oh well.
There was an Iraqi flag waving close by, something that I had mixed feelings about. It's still the Baathist flag, not a truly independent Iraqi flag. At least they had the current one that says 'God Is Great' in Arabic, instead of the 1992 flag that was held over Saddam's statues head in the faked 'liberation of downtown Baghdad'. You remember that one, don't you? The one that seemed like a crowd had spontaneously come out to tear down the statue of Saddam, yet the only flag they could come up with was one that hadn't been in use since 1992? The one that if you pulled the camera back from the crowd you could see that it was very small, gathered around the american military vehicles very closely? All young men about the same age, no elderly, no women, in spite of Iraq being a very secular country?
After about 45 minutes everyone made a circle and quietly dispersed. I hope that each and every one of you not only remembers the soldiers that have died in this war, but especially the innocent civilians as well. And the children. Never forget the children.

The neocons and the Israeli lobby
have been engaging in acts against this country for a very long time now. Hopefully the developing scandal that stretches back decades will give officials in our government the spine to finally confront these wrongs and throw out the traitors and imprison the spies. As for me, I feel it's too late. I have no hope in decent, honest government anymore.

So, in yesterday's post I was contemplating how in spite of the violence of modern warfare, the body counts coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan seem unusually low. There's a reason for that:We're Being Lied To!

Part of what the story discusses is how the Marines don't really tell much of anything, and the Army trys to tell as little as possible. One of the points touched on is that our government has not told anyone about how many soldiers have died after they have left the battlefield from wounds sustained in action. It is true that body armor protects the head and torso, but with IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) it is very conceivable that those soldiers who have their torsos and heads protected still have vulnerable arms and legs and lower abdomens still very vulnerable. There is also little press about the injuries sustained from concussion when explosives go off in close proximity to troops. From what little press I've seen, the most common injuries are those to the brain from concussion, which has left soldiers with severe brain injuries resulting in headaches, depression leading to suicide, impaired mental functioning, etc. But the bottom line is, whether a soldier is killed in action or loses their life while waiting in a hospital or recovers with missing limbs or cognitive impairment, their life is very much over. And no one can tell me that this administration, with it's aggresive cutting away of veteran's benefits is going to be willing to help these people or their families once they come home.

More about the number 1 story from project censored: The Growing Wealth Inequality Gap.



UN economists blame "free-trade" practices and the neo-liberal policies of international lending institutions like the IMF and WTO, and the industrialized countries that lead them, for much of the damage caused to Third World countries over the past 20 years. Many of these policies are now being implemented in the U.S., allowing for an acceleration of wealth consolidation. And even the IMF has issued a report warning the U.S. about the consequences for its appetite for excess and overspending.

Here's something from Democrats.com
re poll manipulation
. What? Did you think Bush has really somehow regained his lead in the polls honestly? A snowball has a better chance in hell than the truth does for him and his bunch. Oh, and check out more over at Salon.com
re previous run-ins this guy has had re his deliberatly misleading poll numbers.

U.S. military deaths in Iraq campaign pass 1,000

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a few storys about a month ago in a few of the major papers about combat casualties hitting the 1,000 combat dead mark? At this point, I feel like we're in a situation that not only requires 'eternal vigilance' like the founding fathers stated in order to keep one's democracy, but also 'eternal news records keeping' to keep track of all the storys that have been put out, retracted, then denied that they were ever published in the first place.

Dumbing Down America. The dumber they are, the easier they are to control and manipulate. For years the american educational system has been derided for becoming increasingly mediocre and inept at producing fully equipped graduates. Here's the reason.
'The true purpose of schooling, according to Gatto, is to produce an easily manageable workforce to serve employers in a mass-production economy. Actual education is a secondary and even counterproductive result since educated people tend to be more difficult to control.'
He has won the New York City Teacher of the Year award three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year award once during the final year of his career. In other words, this is someone who knows exactly what they're talking about.

Some things to think about today: Kleptocracy: rule by theft. Plutocracy: government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
So where does 'democracy' or 'democratic republic' figure in any of this? What, it doesn't? Very good, you're catching on. Now, refer to the story about Richard Pearle, one of Lord Blacks good buddies
here.
Makes you feel like democracy is working really well for all of us, huh?

Check Out This One


Censored!
The 10 big stories the national news media ignore.

1. Wealth inequality in 21st century threatens economy and democracy

As the mainstream news media recite the official line about the nation's supposed economic recovery, a key point has been missing: wealth inequality in the United States has almost doubled over the past 30 years.

2. Ashcroft versus human rights law that holds corporations accountable

For decades the United States has trained right-wing insurgents and torturers, toppled democratically elected governments, and propped up brutal dictatorships abroad – all in the interest of corporate profits. But rarely are the agents of repression ever held accountable for the tens of thousands of deaths and the brutal cycles of poverty, subjugation, environmental destruction, and violence they leave in their wake. Indeed, many foreign tyrants go on to enjoy plush retirement right here in the United States.

3. Bush administration manipulates science and censors scientists

Tampering with data that threatens corporate profits is much more widespread under Bush than we've been led to believe. And the Environmental Protection Agency has emerged as one of the administration's primary targets.

One of the first White House moves – on the day Bush was inaugurated – was to fire engineer Tony Oppegard, the leader of a federal team investigating a 300-million-gallon slurry spill at a coal-mining site in Kentucky. "Black lava-like toxic sludge containing 60 poisonous chemicals choked and sterilized up to 100 miles of rivers and creeks," environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in the Nation. The EPA dubbed it "the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States."

4. High uranium levels found in troops and civilians

Last year Project Censored included the United States' and Great Britain's continued use of depleted-uranium weapons – despite ample evidence of their acute health effects – among its top 10 underreported stories. Almost 10,000 U.S. troops died within 10 years of serving in the first Gulf War, researchers had found. And more than a third of those still alive had filed Gulf War Syndrome-related claims.

In study after study, research pointed to the use of depleted uranium in U.S. and British weaponry as the culprit. But authorities concentrated their efforts into obfuscating the problem – downplaying its reach, discrediting scientists and ailing military personnel, and erecting a smoke screen around the root causes of the "syndrome."

5. Wholesale giveaway of our natural resources

Adam Werbach, executive director of the Common Assets Defense Fund and former Sierra Club president, reviewed the Bush administration's environmental policy record and came to a disturbing conclusion: the record is not only bad – it's "akin to an affirmative action program for corporate polluters," he wrote in In These Times.

Cheney's infamous, secretive, industry-laden energy task force produced what can be boiled down to two main recommendations, "lower the environmental bar and pay corporations to jump over it," Werbach wrote.

For example, Congress has promised $3 billion in tax cuts to mining corporations to help them access natural gas embedded in underground coal deposits in Georgia's Powder River Basin. The Bureau of Land Management has calculated that miners will waste a full 700 million gallons of publicly owned water a year in the process – thereby sucking the region's underground aquifers dry and decimating local farms and wildlife.

6. Sale of electoral politics

The Help America Vote Act required that states submit their blueprints for switching over to electronic voting systems by Jan. 1, 2004, and implement those plans in time for the 2006 elections. Some regions are already using the machines. But those who've bothered to look into the new systems are sending up serious warning flares. Critics say that if Americans don't want a repeat of the 2000 Florida election fiasco – on a much grander scale – the administration's plans must be halted in their tracks.

A switch to electronic voting might seem innocent enough at first – until you look at who's implementing it, and how. Indeed, the transfer represents the privatization of the voting process in the hands of a select few fervent GOP supporters who've insisted on keeping their operating systems and codes a trade secret – meaning they enjoy absolute control over the entire voting process, including ballot counting and oversight. There's no paper trail.

7. Conservative organization drives judicial appointments

Ever since the Reagan administration, the neoconservatives have pursued an aggressive campaign to stack the federal courts with right-wing judges. Their main vehicle: the Federalist Society of Law and Public Policy, an organization founded in 1982 by a small group of radically conservative law students at the University of Chicago.

The effort has been a resounding success. With the help of Republicans in Congress, 85 extra federal judgeships were created under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; 9 were created under Clinton. Now 7 out of 12 circuit courts are antiabortion. Seven of the 9 Supreme Court justices are Republican appointees – and it's been 11 years since a post has opened up, meaning another right-winger or two could be appointed sometime soon. During Bush Sr.'s tenure, one White House insider boasted that no one who wasn't a Federalist ever received a judicial appointment from the president.

8. Secrets of Cheney's energy task force come to light

As the Bush administration continues to protect the iron wall of secrecy it's erected around Cheney's energy task force, at least two documents confirm long-standing suspicions that the administration's foreign policy is being driven by the dictates of the energy industry.

When Bush took office in January 2001, he said tackling the country's energy crisis would be a top priority. The United States faced nationwide oil and natural gas shortages, and a series of electrical blackouts were rolling across California. The president established the National Energy Policy Development Group and appointed former Halliburton CEO Cheney as its head.

9. Widow brings RICO case against U.S. government for 9/11

As the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, completed its first year, Ellen Mariani and her attorney held a press conference on the steps of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to announce her own startling conclusions. Mariani, wife of Louis Neil Mariani, who died when terrorists flew United Airlines Flight 175 into the World Trade Center's south tower, had come to believe top American officials – including Bush, Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and others – had foreknowledge of the attacks, purposefully failed to prevent them, and had since taken pains to cover up the truth.

10. New nuke plants: taxpayers support, industry profits

If you thought nuclear energy was dead, think again: the Bush administration's energy bill – yet another product of Cheney's industry-stacked energy task force – provides taxpayer cash for companies that build new nukes.

A secretly crafted provision of the bill, released late on a Saturday night in November, offers energy companies as much as $7.5 billion in tax credits to build six nuclear reactors. This is in addition to almost $4 billion set aside for other nuclear energy programs.

"Nuclear power already has had 50 years of subsidy totaling over $140 billion," Nuclear Information and Resource Service's Cindy Folkers reported.

US recovery 'not helping workers'


Many working families still feel no benefit from the US economic recovery, the Economic Policy Institute says.

While business is improving, average wages have fallen, job satisfaction has declined and the rich-poor gap widened, says a report by the US think tank.

And in terms of recouping jobs since the start of the recession, the US is in a worse position "than any business cycle since the 1930s", it added.
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-- No Shit. I have run into so many people over the past few months that say that not only are jobs out there crap, but they are so bad that even with this poor economy and no prospect of collecting unemployment benefits that I and my legion of fellow employed/unemployed co-workers would rather depend on our meals from a food bank than work under the conditions we have to work under. No F**king Shit. That is how bad it really and truly is. I would rather face poverty and losing a roof over my head than work for you. And so would many, many others out there across this country and across the world. The gift of a job that corporations and businesses offer is so repulsive we would rather die than take it.

The Curse of Dick Cheney


The ever-canny Ronald Reagan was the only Republican president since Eisenhower who managed to serve two full terms. He is also the only one not to have appointed Dick Cheney to office.

This pattern of misplaced confidence in Cheney, followed by disastrous results, runs throughout his life -- from his days as a dropout at Yale to the geopolitical chaos he has helped create in Baghdad. Once you get to know his history, the cycle becomes clear: First, Cheney impresses someone rich or powerful, who causes unearned wealth and power to be conferred on him. Then, when things go wrong, he blames others and moves on to a new situation even more advantageous to himself.
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Read on to get the whole poop and nothing but the poop on the most disasterous federal official ever to inhabit an office. If an average worker screwed up as badly as Cheney has throughout his career, we would be unable to work as anything but janitors.

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What there are more incompetent, arrogant theiving neo-cons? Why yes, there's *millions* of 'em. Check out this article here
about Richard Pearle.


Mr. Perle's position, both in the corporate world and in policy circles, has been shaken.

In the Hollinger case, regulators are preparing to seek an order barring him and Lord Black from serving on boards of public companies, and the Justice Department has opened an inquiry to examine whether any criminal laws were violated.

The report suggests in one passage that Lord Black ultimately agreed to permit Hollinger to make a $2.5 million investment in Trireme to get Mr. Perle to resign as head of Hollinger Digital, telling three top Hollinger executives by e-mail messages that he was "well aware of Richard's shortcomings" and another that he was "well aware of what a trimmer and a sharper Richard is at times."