Bill Blum's Anti - Empire Report

Photo courtesy: "The Blade"

The Anti-Empire Report:

Some things you need to know before the world ends

Originally published - June 13, 2005

by

William Blum

Gee, how can we ever find out why they don't like us?

The Pentagon awarded three contracts this past week, worth up to $300 million, to companies it hopes will inject more creativity into US psychological operations efforts to improve foreign public opinion about the United States, particularly their opinion of the American military.

"We would like to be able to use cutting-edge types of media," said Col. James A. Treadwell, director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element.

Dan Kuehl, a specialist in information warfare at the National Defense University, added: "There are a billion-plus Muslims that are undecided. How do we move them over to being more supportive of us? If we can do that, we can make progress and improve security."{1}

And so it goes. And so it has gone since September 11, 2001. The world's only superpower has felt misunderstood, although co-existing with this feeling at times, and expressed more than once by Bush administration officials, has been oderint dum metuant, a favorite phrase of Roman emperor Caligula, also used by Cicero -- "let them hate so long as they fear".

"How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America?" asked George W. (aka jerkus maximus) a month after 9-11. "I'll tell you how I respond: I'm amazed. I'm amazed that there's such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us. I am -- like most Americans, I just can't believe it because I know how good we are."{2}

Psychological operations, information warfare, cutting-edge media ... surely there's a high-tech solution.

But what if it's not a misunderstanding? What if the problem is that people in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world understand the Pentagon and US foreign policy only too well?

In short, what if they don't know how good we are?

What if they -- in their foreign ignorance and al-Jazeera brainwashing -- have come to the bizarre conclusion that saturation bombing, invasion, occupation, destruction of homes, torture, depleted uranium, killing a hundred thousand, and daily humiliation of men, women and children do not indicate good intentions?

Last week, as well, Zalmay Khalilzad, nominated to be US ambassador to Iraq, appeared before the Senate. "The degree of support for our policies, opinion polls indicate, is not very high," he said.

It has partly "to do with the perception that what we are about in Iraq is occupation, what we're about is to gain control of Iraqi resources. I think what we need to do is a better job of explaining our goals, the goal of an Iraq that's self-reliant, an Iraq that's successful. We want Iraq for the Iraqis, an Iraq that works for the Iraqi people. It's the insurgents who don't care about the Iraqi people."{3}

Yes, it is remarkable indeed how misinformed some people can be.

The Cold War is dead. Long live the cold war.

In last month's report, during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, I commented about three enduring tales which the West exploited to win Cold War points against the Soviet Union: the Soviets signing a pact with Nazi Germany in 1939; their occupation of the three Baltic nations in 1940; and their occupation of the rest of Eastern Europe after the war.

My purpose was to show that there were ways of looking at these events radically different from the ways Americans are taught to look at them.

This greatly upset a number of my readers; not because what I wrote was historically incorrect, but because to them it seemed to excuse the crimes of the Soviet Union. The idea that the Russians could have legitimate reasons, self defense for one, for doing some of what they did is too painful to acknowledge for committed anti-communists. To them, any attempt to correct a myth concerning the Soviet Union is tantamount to ignoring -- if not approving -- Stalin's crimes and the sufferings of the people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Progressives of my generation became anti-anti-communists because the powers-that-be in the United States, for decades and decades, used the sins -- real and (often) fabricated -- of the Soviet Union as a justification for US foreign policy. Thus, the horrors carried out by the US in Korea were justified because "we're fighting communism". Thus, the horrors carried out by the US in Vietnam were justified because "we're fighting communism". Ditto the horrors of Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, etc., etc., etc. (Now, of course, "we're fighting terrorism", but it's for the exact same imperialist reasons.)

It's no wonder that people with a social conscience, who suffered over the horrors of US foreign policy, it's no wonder that so many became anti-anti-communists. And still are. I've written a concise history of American anti-communism, which can be read online.{4}

Another myth I should have added in last month's report: The Yalta agreement of 1945, in planning for "the establishment of order in Europe", affirmed "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live." We've been told ever since that it was the evil commies that caused this noble agreement to fall apart.

But, in fact, it was the United States and the United Kingdom who cynically violated this affirmation before Stalin did. In Greece. Before the war in Europe even ended! By grossly interfering in the civil war, taking the side of those who had supported the Nazis in the war (sic), thus enabling them to defeat those who had fought against the Nazis. The latter, you see, had amongst its number some who could be called (choke, gasp) "communists".(5)

Anti-communism still holds a death grip on the American psyche. Witness the screams of pain -- from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the media -- over Amnesty International's recent characterization of US torture sites as "the gulag of our times". Could anything be more infuriating and humiliating to an inveterate cold warrior than for the United States to be compared to Stalin's Russia?

Yet another patriotic myth (sorry to burst so many bubbles)

August 6 and 9 will mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. We can expect the usual speeches and editorials telling us how the use of the bombs obviated the need for a land invasion of Japan, thus saving a huge number of US servicemen's lives.

"Omission," wrote George Orwell, "is the most powerful form of lie." The principal omissions from the a-bomb story is that Japan's military capability had been hopelessly destroyed and the Japanese government had been frantically sending peace feelers to the United States for a long time before those fateful days of August; peace feelers which Washington completely ignored because they wanted to use the atomic bombs. The full story can be read online.{6}

But to American government and media leaders, it doesn't matter much if the official a-bomb story is only a legend. It's a higher truth.

Why does NATO exist?

NATO is preparing an "ambitious" expansion into southern Afghanistan next year, announced its Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, on June 1. Eventually, the alliance will take charge of foreign security in "the whole of the country", he said.{7}

NATO has been taking ambitious steps for years -- bombing Yugoslavia; patrolling the Balkans like a Governor-General; training Iraqi security forces; putting itself into the war on terrorism; providing security for the 2004 Olympics in Greece; expanding its membership, which now stands at 26 nations plus 20 others brought into the NATO fold under the reassuring name of Partnership for Peace; and much more. Time out.

Where does NATO get all this authority?

What body of citizens has ever voted for them to do any of this?

Why does NATO routinely ignore the UN Security Council?

Why, indeed, does NATO even exist?

We were told during the Cold War that NATO was needed to protect Western Europe from a Soviet invasion. As some may have noticed, the Soviet Union no longer exists, (It's been suggested, plausibly, that NATO was created originally to suppress the left in Italy if the Communist Party came to power through an election.)

We were also told that NATO was there to counter the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact folded its tent in 1991, calling upon NATO to do the same.

If NATO hadn't begun to intervene outside of Europe it would have highlighted its uselessness and lack of mission. "Out of area or out of business" it was said.

If NATO had never existed, what argument could be given today in favor of creating such an institution? Other than being a very useful handmaiden of US foreign policy.

Reforming the Indonesian military, for 40 years

On May 25, President Bush stated that it makes sense for the United States to maintain close military ties with Indonesia, despite the objections of human rights activists who say such coordination should be withheld until Indonesia does more to address human rights abuses by its military.

"We want young officers from Indonesia coming to the United States," said Bush. "We want there to be exchanges between our military corps -- that will help lead to better understandings." Bush made his remarks after meeting with the Indonesian president, who, Bush added, "told me he's in the process of reforming the military, and I believe him."{8} (In May 2002, Indonesian Defense Minister Matori met with US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Matori said his government had begun to "reform the military". Rumsfeld believed him enough to call for "military-to-military relations" to be "re-established".){9}

Indonesian officials saying they're going to reform the military is like officials in Nevada saying they're going to crack down on gambling. For 40 years the Indonesian military has engaged in mass murder and other atrocities, in Jakarta, East Timor, Aceh, Papua, and elsewhere, taking the lives of well over a million people, including several Americans in recent years. For 40 years relations between the US and Indonesian militaries have been one of the very closest of such contacts in the third world for the United States, despite the occasional objections and prohibitions from Congress.

For 40 years, American officials have been saying that they have to continue training and arming Indonesia's military because the contact with the American military will have some kind of ennobling effect. For 40 years it has had no such effect at all.

As Senator Tom Harkin (D.-Iowa) observed in 1999: "I have seen no evidence in my 24 years in Congress of one instance where because of American military involvement with another military that the Americans have stopped that foreign army from carrying out atrocities against their own people. No evidence, none."{10}

Yet the pretense continues, for what else can an American official say? Something like this? -- "We don't care how brutal the Indonesian military is because they got rid of Sukarno and his irritating nationalism for us, and for 40 years they've been killing people we call communists, killing people we call terrorists, and protecting our oil, natural gas, mining, and other corporate interests against Indonesian protestors. Now if that's not freedom and democracy, I don't know what is."

"Liberals: conservatives -- How meaningful the distinction?

Kenneth Tomlinson, the dogmatically conservative chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, has been trying to remove what he sees as a liberal stain on the airwaves and replace it with what he calls "objectivity and balance".

This endeavor has been heating up of late, resulting in all the old discussions about liberal vs. conservative. As I've mentioned before in this report, these discussions are usually less than satisfying or enlightening due to a very common misunderstanding in the mainstream media and among the public -- the idea that conservatives (far to the right on the political spectrum) and liberals (ever so slightly to the left of center) are ideological polar opposites.

This is particularly not the case with the current, omnipresent breed of neo-conservatives. Thus, a radio or TV program with one of these conservatives and a liberal maintains that it is "balanced", when in fact a more appropriate balance to a conservative is a left-wing radical, progressive or socialist. Liberals, at least those of the genus Americanum, are often closer to conservatives, especially on foreign policy, than they are to these groupings on the far left. In this light, the never-ending debate about whether the media has a conservative or a liberal bias takes on much less significance.

Tomlinson, it should be noted, was appointed to the corporation board by President Clinton. He was chosen as chairman by President Bush in September 2003.

The other Watergate mystery

The Watergate mystery has been solved, we've been told again and again in the wake of the exposure of Deep Throat. But I'm confused. Doesn't the much more important mystery still remain?

Why was the office of the Democratic National Committee burglarized in the first place? Did I somehow miss that piece of news?

I've read a number of theories about the break-in over the years, but as far as I know nothing has been substantiated or settled upon as the official, correct explanation. I'd appreciate it if anyone could enlighten me.

NOTES

{1} Washington Post, June 11, 2005, p.D1

{2} Boston Globe, October 12, 2001, p.28

{3} Federal News Service, June 7, 2005, Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee)

{4) http://members.aol.com/bblum6/intro2004.htm; also see William Blum, "Freeing the World to Death", chapter 12 ("Before there were terrorists there were communists and the wonderful world of anti-communism")

(5) See Blum, "Killing Hope", chapter 3, Greece

{6} http://members.aol.com/essays6/abomb.htm

{7} Washington Post, June 2, 2005

{8} Washington Post, May 26, 2005, p.10

{9} Associated Press, May 14, 2002

{10} New York Times, September 20, 1999, p.6

William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir

Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

< http://www.killinghope.org/ >

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

FEAR BUSH - BUCK FUSH 

WHAT TO SAY TO KANSAS BUSHITES ABOUT GETTING OUT OF IRAQ

http://stangoff.com/index.php?p=134

HOW DO WE RESPOND TO THE STATEMENT…

The United States should not have invaded Iraq, but now that we are there, aren’t we responsible to clean it up and ensure that there is no bloodbath when we leave?

Much of the answer to this question begins with a critical look at the premises hidden inside the question.

Premise 1: The “United States” invaded Iraq.
Premise 2: “We” are the United States who did it.
Premise 3: The invasion was a “mistake.”
Premise 4: “We” are better suited to “clean up” Iraq than the Iraqis by themselves.
Premise 5: The violence in Iraq is a reflection of divisions existing inside Iraq.
Premise 6: Iraqis cannot be trusted to guide the reconstruction of Iraq without US supervision about HOW to do reconstruction.

Reply to Premise 1:

“The ‘United States’ invaded Iraq.”

The decision to invade Iraq was not made by any democratic process in the United States. It was made by the executive branch without consulting Congress for a declaration of war, as mandated by the Constitution.

Many millions of Americans opposed the war and still oppose it.

Reply to Premise 2:

“’We’ are the United States who did it.”

The United States did not conduct the invasion, the United States military did, under orders from the Bush government.

The larger “we” has never seen anything but snapshot of this war, and has no real experience of it. The use of the term WE serves to purposes: it masks those who are responsible and transfers responsibility to the whole American people; and it implants in our thinking a sense of “us & them”,” the US being a privileged category.

Reply to Premise 3:

“The invasion was a ‘mistake.’”

This premise ties into the preceding ones, by suggesting WE conducted this invasion out of some sense of righteousness, that was merely misguided. The President was mistaken, or even exercised bad judgment, and we share in this “mistake.” But the invasion was not a mistake or an accident. It was carefully conceived by a group of people in the executive branch, as we now know from the Downing Street memo and a host of other sources, and the reasons for the war were not miscalculations, but carefully calculated deceptions. It was based on those deceptions that large sections of the US were convinced of the need to invade Iraq.

A deception is not a mistake! A deception is something someone does on purpose.

If the reasons given for the war are lies, then we have to ask what are the reasons for the invasion and occupation. There is an overwhelming body of evidence available to show the real reasons for the war, much of it written over the past decade by the architects of the war itself, to show what the real reasons were and are.

Their purpose is to reconfigure the US military from its former Cold War disposition to retain US global power in the future. Their method is to establish permanent US military installations in this critically strategic region to (1) ensure American access to continued flows of cheap oil for American corporations, and (2) to use control over the region as strategic leverage against global competitors, like China, Western Europe, and India.

Reply to Premise 4:

“’We’ are better suited to ‘clean up’ Iraq than the Iraqis by themselves.”

If the reasons for being in Iraq are to control the region with a permanent military presence, and this agenda is determined not by a collective “we,” but by the corporate-controlled American government, why do we believe that the vandal is the person most suited to get the contract to rebuild the house? And by what magical process of transformation will the leopard, the US government in this case, change its spots?

Governments, especially imperial governments, do not make decisions based on morality. They base their decisions on the question of getting and keeping power. The decision to invade Iraq was made with the goal being conquest. The goals later stated by the occupation, like stability and democracy, are no more honest than the weapons of mass destruction. It is still a deception. The goal is still US power and permanent military bases there.

So “clean-up” is not on the agenda, unless clean-up includes American military and financial power there.

More importantly, perhaps, what is the additional premise hidden in this premise? That the Iraqis are somehow less-than, somehow inferior, to us, and thereby incapable of self-governance. In the period of the British empire, there was a similar argument that was more open with its racism; it called this the “white man’s burden to bear civilization to the darker races.” And it was, of course, civilization that included British political, financial, and military oversight.

The same argument by Americans now, for Iraq, fails to remember that Iraqis were civilized for thousands of years before the British or the Americans.

Reply to Premise 5:

“The violence in Iraq is a reflection of divisions existing inside Iraq.”

On of the impressions that the Bush administration has fostered throughout this aggression has been the idea of sharp division between Iraqis. The American corporate press has dutifully echoed this simplistic notion, which supports the related idea that these “violent, irrational Arabs,” if left to themselves, will immolate themselves in an orgy of blood and iron.

Yet when one looks at the various faces of violence in Iraq, the most prominent an d lethal source of violence is the American military itself – which has killed more than 100,000 Iraqis just since the March 2003 invasion.

One segment of the resistance, so-called foreign fighters (that comprises less than 15 percent by reputable estimates) are drawn to Iraq precisely because the Americans are there.

The attacks on Shia leaders in the South and on Kurdish leaders in the North are not “sectarian,” “religious,” or “ethnic.” Statements from various groups within the nationalist resistance – both secular and Islamist – have specifically stated that their attacks are directed at those who are collaborating with the Americans, because of that collaboration… NOT based on ethnic or religious rivalry. In fact, the rates of intermarriage between these groups has always been very substantial, and Shias, Sunnis, Islamists, and secular nationalists have expressed the desire from the very beginning to find a framework for political cooperation and co-existence.

The Anglo-American military presence is the cause of most of this violence. If the occupation ends, no one will be targeted for collaboration, because there will be no one to collaborate with. And it must be restated with emphasis that the American presence is not there to ensure what is best for Iraqis, but to ensure what is seen as best for the American corporate-controlled government.

Reply to Premise 6:

“Iraqis cannot be trusted to guide the reconstruction of Iraq without US supervision about HOW to do reconstruction.”

First of all, who says the Iraqis will decide to remain a unified Iraq? Those boundaries were drawn by British imperialists. Iraqis may decide to become a regional federation, an ethnic federation, or to split into autonomous regions and nations.

That process may involve some fighting, but it cannot be fighting on the scale we have seen with the Americans, if it happens at all.

History sometimes leaves people little choice. The question of slavery in the United States was resolved, after all, by what was at the time the bloodiest war in human history. Nothing of this scale will happen in Iraq, and whatever happens, the history of Iraqis must be left in the hands of Iraqis – not a foreign imperial power.

The main question preoccupying the Bush administration is not “reconstruction” at any rate, but how to ensure that Iraqis don’t have public control over their own oil wealth, and how to prevent – what is already happening despite US attempts to control Iraqi politics – Iraqi and Iranian cooperation in the region.

The notion that the Iraqis CAN not or SHOULD not be left to their own initiative to determine their future is another display of “white man’s burden.”

THE SOLUTION IS TO END THE OCCUPATION AND BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW.

 

 

After the "AfterDowningStreet" campaign - Watch, encourage C-span coverage of Conyer's June 16 forum.

Grassroots Mobilization Works

C – Span

&

 Us the Proggy Flogging Bloggers

 

“I say ‘subversive’ not only because C-SPAN is apt to take interesting books seriously but also because of its live coverage of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the only look we are ever allowed at the mouthpieces of our masters up close and, at times, most reflective of a government more and more remote from us, unaccountable and repressive. To watch the righteous old prophet Byrd of West Virginia, the sunny hypocrisy of Biden of Delaware—as I write these hallowed names, I summon up their faces, hear their voices, and I am covered with C-SPAN goose bumps.

At any rate, wondrous C-SPAN has another string to its bow. While some executive was nodding, C-SPAN started showing us Britain’s House of Commons during Question Time. This is the only glimpse that most Americans will ever get of how democracy is supposed to work.

These party leaders are pitted against one another in often savage debate on subjects of war and peace, health and education. Then some 600 Members of Parliament are allowed to ask questions of their great chieftains. Years ago the incomparable Dwight Macdonald wrote that any letter to the London Times (the Brits are inveterate letter writers on substantive issues) is better written than any editorial in the New York Times.”

GORE VIDAL, “Something Rotten in Ohio”

writing in The Nation, June 9, 2005

 

And GORE VIDAL who I consider one of the greatest living critical writers in America today, despite his advanced age; will make any libertarian, conservative, liberal or radical progressive person think critically about our country, and he has it dead on target.

 

Most Americans addicted to consumerism; plastic money, oil and refined sugar products – cannot think critically for themselves without a media saturated bombardment leading all to moronic behavior.

 

Why not instead of stupid constitutional amendments mandating “God Hates Fags” a “President’s Question Time” on C – Span every week in a full attendance of the House of Representatives.

 

Why not get the lazy assed, lobbyist soaked and wealthy elected officials to do their jobs in front of us?

 

I have watched much to the chagrin of my family the “Prime Minister’s Question Time” segment on C - span for several years and in slack jaw envy wondered how so many Americans could not wish a similar honest spectacle every week on any president, Republican or Democrat.

 

It is nationally televised in Britain, with mandatory attendance, micro phoned to hear the whole House of Commons and available to any Brit wanting to watch it every week.  It is not always perfect, I understand the questions are screened for answers in advance – at least it is open and transparent.

 

They boo, hiss and yell dissent.  Go to: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page306.asp for a UK listing of the program on the internet.

 

C – Span has done it again – making Americans take a big “Heads Up” about the reality – based journalism that is overlooked by the large corporate centered media machines.  The now famous “Downing Street Memo” is snowballing through the internet and slamming into the beltway.

 

First the June 4^th segment with Steve Cobble and Robert Aylward on a morning segment of Washington Journal complete with shrieking hysterical Bush callers, then the following day Ralph Nader making the case for impeachment while wading through more hostile callers.

 

Go to: http://tinyurl.com/3um6u  to get the listing of “most watched segments” mentioned above.  Also check out Ralph Nader’s June 5^th, 2005 segment on the same program.

 

The debate is like Nader said in commenting on one foaming caller, “people getting on television and try to convince us that the moon is made of blue cheese.”  These Bush supporters are nuts.

 

Go to the Washington Journal section of C – Span’s website and take the time to watch these segments.

 

However much people deny it is the beginning of a “Resolution of Inquiry” leading to impeachment hearings against the Bush administration the information is convincing many to start just that process.  The After Downing Street website (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org) was so swamped with hits that it shut down for two days. 

 

Progressive bloggers are rolling against the mainstream media – by not only giving an outlet for independent investigative reporting that is not financed, but by the disclosure of criminality in political office – and “quickening the pace” toward stopping this disastrous war.

 

Anyone with half a brain can now know about the “Downing Street Memo” which first broke in the London based Times newspaper May 2, 2005.  When it first appeared in print, PM Tony Blair’s campaign was in full swing and quickly denounced it as a campaign spoiler and nothing more.

 

The spoiler remarks from Blair’s campaign staff did not prevent his re – election.  Yet, that was before MP George Galloway’s stunning statement before the Republican dominated committee in Washington.

 

Yet the disclosure hasn’t went away by a long shot and in fact it has mushroomed into a major media break – check out the “recent program” listing at the C – Span home site for their morning segments of Washington Journal.  Washington Journal aired 45 minutes of Steve Cobble and Robert Aylward last Friday, June 10, 2005 and witness the viewers calling in screaming “seditious Left” at them. 

 

Grassroots Bush supporters who call in programs like Washington Journal are shrieking mad.  One can only imagine what is being said within the White House as the outcry is being embraced by many “I like Ike” conservatives and libertarians across the country.

 

Readers of the Fightin’ Cock’s email news circuit received my special Memorial Day message linking them to sign the letter from 88 members of Congress and John Conyers. 

 

He is pledging to deliver which was signed by over 100,000 in less than two days and now with the addition of Move On (dot) org’s mobilization will soon reach over 500,000 by June 16^th, 2005 when Conyers plans to “hand deliver” it to the White House.

 

Check out these programs listed and encourage C – Span to cover Conyers forum.

 

The latest is at the “overwhelmed” site: http://johnconyers.com/ .

 

 

 

 

"DEMOCRACY THROWN INTO A BLACK HOLE"

A DARK DAY THAT THREW
“DEMOCRACY INTO A BLACK HOLE.”

“THE CHAIR NOW RECOGNIZES HIMSELF,”
… AND SHUTS DOWN THE HEARING!!!

MULTIMEDIA REPORTS ON
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R – WIS)
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
SHUTTING DOWN FRIDAY’S HEARING.


THE RAW STORY COVERS

THE OUTRAGE AT THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
YESTERDAY!
http://tinyurl.com/aarc9


AUDIO BACKGROUND EXCLUSIVE REPORT FROM

PROJECT FOR THE OLD AMERICAN CENTURY
{COURTESY RANDI RHODES & AIR AMERICA!}

PART ONE (14 MINUTES)
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/rndi_cspan6-10-05.mp3

PART TWO (3 MINUTES)
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/rndi_cspan2Jun10-01.mp3

AVAILABLE VIDEO CLIPS OF THE RESPONSES
TO THE OUTRAGE OVER THE PATRIOT ACT AT THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
THIS LAST FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2005. ACTUAL C-SPAN2 CLIPS AS MICS ARE TURNED OFF!
http://www.dembloggers.com/story/2005/6/10/54149/5115

Please remain calm ...

The Flyer’s

New

“Deep Throat”

I have forwarded this extremely important message from a law enforcement officer in North Jefferson County, Kansas, USA. Ironic since in our area of the woods, little if any law enforcement is needed and most southern Jefferson countians consider us a lawless breed of vigilantes up here. In short, we are about as close to an anarchist utopia as can be gotten in Bush Amerika. Please remain calm and seated … the show is about to begin.

“I just wanted to let you know that the new Homeland Security Bill has passed. Things will be different now and Internet surfing will be tracked by what the FBI calls a 'non-intrusive method.'"

The FBI says you will not notice anything different.

For a demonstration, click on the link below.

Homeland Security

Penury! Debtor's Prison? Meeting adjourned!

Image courtesy the outstanding Black Commentator web site!

http://www.BlackCommentator.com

Lessons For Progressives

From Passage

Of The

Debt-Slavery

Bankruptcy Bill

By

Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.

Christmas came early this year for credit-card corporations, courtesy of Capitol Hill. After an eight-year multimillion dollar lobbying effort by financial-industry giants, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed their heinous "Debt Slavery" Bankruptcy Bill (S. 256/H.R. 685) last week by a lopsided 302-126 vote.

Members of the House briefly debated this important matter before they voted.

However, the speeches on both sides tended to be surprisingly simplistic, given the complexity of the bankruptcy bill, largely because the Republican majority leadership chose to display their contempt for democratic processes by:

• disallowing votes on the 35 amendments the Democrats had proposed;
• ordering the House Rules Committee to allocate only one hour -- far too little time -- for substantive debate on this complicated 500-page bill; and
• ordering the House moderator to rudely interrupt every Democratic speaker when they lined up one-by-one to register their objections to the bill in brief biting statements.
  

When the shallow-but-acrimonious debate ended, 229 Republicans (98.7%) and 73 Democrats (36.1%) supported the bill by voting "yes," whereas no Republicans(0%) and 125 Democrats (62%) opposed the bill by voting "no." Additionally, three Republicans (1.3%) and four Democrats (1.9%) abstained. [1]

The Senate passed the same bill in March by an equally lopsided vote of 74-25, with Senator Hillary Clinton abstaining. And Mr. Bush signed it on April 20th, so it will become this nation's federal bankruptcy law six months from enactment. [2]

What's It All About, Progressives?

Progressives are understandably discouraged because our nationwide grassroots lobbying effort against this bill was, for the most part, ignored by Capitol Hill. Indeed, this latest in a long series of legislative defeats has caused the American progressive coalition to ask itself why Republicans are so united, and Democrats so disunited.

The likeliest answer is that Congressional Republicans lack freedom of conscience. They slavishly adhere to the instructions of their party's neocon leaders because they fear political retribution from both the White House and their Religious-Right extremist base if they vote their conscience. [3]

Of course, another distinct possibility is that the Republican majority simply does not care about the socioeconomic interests of the beleaguered middle and the downtrodden lower classes.

Contrastingly, Congressional Democrats lack accountability. They feel free to vote howsoever they please because they know they WON'T be held accountable by their party's rightward-drifting "centrist" leaders or their Democratic base. Hence, neither party promotes representative democracy; instead, they both promote a bribe-ocracy that is dominated by moneyed special interests -- like the financial industry.

Democrats.com President Bob Fertik said: "We must ask: Where was [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi before today? Why did [House] Minority Whip Steny Hoyer support this outrageous bill? Why did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even try to take credit for this Republican bill? And why did 'New Democrats' Ellen Tauscher, Ron Kind, Artur Davis, and Joe Crowley push this bill on their colleagues? What party do they imagine they belong to? Who do they think elected them to Congress?" [4]

These questions are worth considering! If our Congressional Minority Leaders and "New Democrats" are Democrats In Name Only ("DINOs"), why do their seemingly-clueless Democratic constituents continue to re-elect them? [5]

Progressive Democrats of America Executive Director Tim Carpenter wants more political accountability: "We will remember who voted against the Democratic base. Those 73 House Democrats and 18 Senate Democrats have a year in which to try to make up for this. It's hard to see how they'll be able to do it, but we'll be watching and remembering, and we'll be ready to promote challengers in 2006."

And NOW President Kim Gandy said of the Republicans: "Once again George W.Bush and his Congressional enablers have rewarded their corporate allies at the expense of low- and middle-income working people, single mothers, minorities, veterans and the elderly. This bill further shreds the safety net for even the most financially troubled people. It is a reckless move for Congress to squeeze families in economic and health crises while providing loopholes for corporate executives to skirt their debts. These payouts to big business must stop immediately." [6]

Two Overarching Conclusions: Morally Bankrupt And Deeply Divided.

First, the lopsided House and Senate votes favoring this bill -- 302-126 and 74-25, respectively -- were tantamount to a Congressional declaration of MORAL BANKRUPTCY. Why? Sadly, "money talks and social justice walks" inside the Capitol Hill bribe-ocracy.

Our Congresspersons knew full well that they were allowing the financial industry's predatory lending practices to continue unabated, and yet sharply limiting individual access to debt-liquidating personal bankruptcies. That might be the correct formula for winning political support from the financial industry, but it's certainly not the politics of social justice!

They knew that the foreseeable social consequences of this bankruptcy bill over time will be that millions of financially desperate Americans will either commit suicide because they cannot see any way out of debt slavery, or be forced into the homeless underground, or commence a life of crime. These socially-destructive consequences are the real legacy of supposedly "compassionate" conservatives' bankruptcy bill. [7]

Second, their votes on the bankruptcy bill provide a microcosmic view of what Congress has become concerning domestic issues -- A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST
ITSELF:

• The 70% majority is a Corporatist Greed Uniparty, consisting of Slavish Drone Republicans and Spineless Collaborator Democrats, who support Social Darwinist Dubya's top-down class warfare on behalf of the few filthy-rich "have-mores."
• The 30% minority is a Socioeconomic Solidarity Party, consisting of Progressive Democrats and Independents, who defend the besieged interests of the many just-barely-hanging-on "haves" and downtrodden "have-nots." [8]
  

The Bottom Line: Political Accountability Is A Moral Value.

The philosopher Santayana correctly warned that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." If Democrats really want their party's behavior to advance the interests of everyday Americans rather than the elite corporate bribe-ocrats, we must hold our Representatives and Senators personally accountable for every vote they cast in favor of this terrible bankruptcy bill. [9]

And that requires us to collectively remember the bitter taste of this defeat long enough to REMOVE those Spineless Collaborator Democrats and Slavish Drone Republicans from office in 2006. Folks, we should REPLACE them with principled populist progressives -- not silver-spoon "centrist" plutocrats -- who will respond to our nationwide grassroots lobbying efforts. [10]

In short, remember the Debt-Slavery Bankruptcy Bill!

ENDNOTES

[1] A. Every U.S. Representative's 4-14-05 vote on the bankruptcy bill is tallied here, with the Democrats listed in italics: http://tinyurl.com/8dbhv
B. Every U.S. Senator's 3-10-05 vote on the bankruptcy bill is listed here: http://tinyurl.com/adxxp


[2] Read these excellent articles and essays to learn more about the regressive social impact of the credit-card industry's unconscionably one-sided bankruptcy bill:

A. Rob Hotakainan's 4-15-05 CD/MST article, "Erasing Debts In Bankruptcy To Get Harder" [Reports on debate in the House on the "Debt Slavery" Bankruptcy Bill, and lists by name the 73 turncoat Democrats who joined the greed-driven Republicans in voting for this bill.]: http://tinyurl.com/9jook
B. Marcy Gordon's 4-15-05 CHB article, "Congress Passes Stricter Bankruptcy Law" [A crucial deadline looms a half-year away for thousands of anxious Americans weighed down by credit card and other debt following Congressional passage of a measure that makes it significantly tougher to erase indebtedness in personal bankruptcy.]: http://tinyurl.com/a9blt
C. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 4-12-05 TPV essay, "Last Chance To Defeat Debt Slavery: House Will Vote On Unjust Bankruptcy Bill This Thursday" [U.S.Representatives and Senators who voted for the Republicans' regressive bankruptcy bill unwisely ignored the huge avalanche of opposing phone calls and e-mails that were generated by our nationwide grassroots lobbying effort.]: http://tinyurl.com/4a8av
D. Debra Saunders' 4-10-05 SFC essay, "Bankruptcy Bill Or Welfare For Usurers?" [This Republican columnist was not fooled by her party's so-called bankruptcy "reform" bill, and offered sound reasons for opposing it.]: http://tinyurl.com/brdn6
E. David Sirota's 4-5-05 TP article, "So You Support Usury, Senator?" [The House is getting ready to debate the Republican's phony bankruptcy "reform" bill, but Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has introduced another House bill, entitled the "Loan Shark Prevention Act," which is designed to limit usurious interest rates and prevent other unconscionable abuses by commercial banks and credit-card companies.]: http://tinyurl.com/74ddb
F. Marilyn Gardner's 4-4-05 CSM article, "Bankruptcy Reform Hits Women Hard" [Reports that the credit industry-authored bankruptcy bill will have a disproportionately negative impact on American women, which means it also will harm children.]: http://tinyurl.com/dp8x2
G. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 4-1-05 OJ essay, "Defeat Bush's Social-Darwinist Agenda Now: Regressive Bankruptcy Bill Will Hit Poorest Hardest" [Social-Darwinist Dubya's "Debt-Slavery" Bankruptcy Bill is the poison-tipped spear he'll use to finish off the financially wounded during his vicious top-down class warfare against the middle and lower classes.]: http://tinyurl.com/d6z56
H. Michael Negron's 3-31-05 TP exposé, "Talking Points Memo: The $2 Million Dollar Flip-Flop" [Shows us how the sleazy credit industry's "campaign donations" bought off 18 US Senators so they would vote against an amendment to the phony bankruptcy "reform" bill, which would have limited interest rates to 30 PERCENT.]: http://tinyurl.com/9ra5t
I. David Swanson's 3-31-05 CD/BC essay, "Debt Slavery: What The Bankruptcy Bill Could Do To You" [A thorough explanation of the Republicans' terribly unjust bankruptcy bill, its politics, and the reasons to vote AGAINST the "Debt Slavery Act of 2005."]: http://tinyurl.com/8ghsb
J. Peter Gosselin's 3-29-05 CD/LAT article, "Judges Say Overhaul Would Weaken Bankruptcy System" [Bankruptcy judges can best evaluate the social impact of this bankruptcy bill, and they say its provisions will NOT reform, but rather DESTROY, personal bankruptcy law.]: http://tinyurl.com/3k5ed
K. The Nation's 3-25-05 CD/TN editorial, "Democrats: MIA":
http://tinyurl.com/9kxf4
L. Alan Maass' 3-19-05 CP essay, "Making Bankruptcy A Life Sentence: Washington's Bipartisan Gift To The Bankers": http://www.counterpunch.org/maass03192005.html
M. Robert Scheer's 3-15-05 CD/LAT essay, "The Bankruptcy Bill: A Tutorial In Greed": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0315-27.htm
N. Cynthia Tucker's 3-13-05 CD/AJC essay, "Bush Cheats Those He Owes":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-25.htm
O. David Broder's 3-13-05 CD/ST essay, "A Bankrupt Senate Vote":
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-30.htm
P. Matthew Rothschild's 3-13-05 CD/TP essay, "Democrats Cave On Bankruptcy Bill": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0313-31.htm
Q. Steven Weiss' 3-14-05 CE article, "Money Talks" [Contributions from credit and finance corporations correlate with Senators' votes on the bankruptcy bill.]: http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=159
R. Abid Aslam's 3-12-05 CD/OW article, "Bankruptcy Bill Said To Hit Poorest Americans Hardest": http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0312-03.htm
S. RedState's confessional 3-11-05 TP essay, "An Embarrassed Republican" [A red-state Republican blogger laments his party's harsh bankruptcy bill by stating, among other things, that "This is on us, folks, and it's going to hurt a lot of people."]: http://tinyurl.com/cjg5s
T. Arianna Huffington's 3-10-05 CD/AO essay, "The Senate Opens Fire on U.S. Consumers": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0310-22.htm
U. Paul Krugman's 3-9-05 TO essay "The Debt-Peonage Society":
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030905G.shtml
V. Evan Augustine Peterson III's 3-9-05 TPV essay, "On Attempting To Justify The Unjustifiable With Scripture: Debt Slavery" [The Republicans' harsh bankruptcy "reform" bill is neither scripturally wise nor rationally defensible as a matter of public policy, and yet Republicans claim that their draconian revisions to the bankruptcy code somehow are morally "righteous." This claim proves false when considered from either a scriptural or an ethical perspective. Also see Sean Gonzales' related essay in endnote [3] below.]:
http://tinyurl.com/4auhq
W. Kathleen Day and Caroline Mayer's 3-6-05 WP article, "Credit Card Penalties, Fees Bury Debtors: Senate Nears Action On Bankruptcy Curbs" [Reports that credit-card companies regularly engage in predatory lending practices, such as bait-and-switch tactics that result in usurious 30% to 40% interest rates and astronomical $50.00 late fees. However, the phony bankruptcy "reform" bill does absolutely NOTHING to stop these, or other, outrageous predatory practices!]: http://tinyurl.com/cqptk
X. Washington Monthly's informative 3-5-05 "Political Animal" column, "The Bankruptcy Bill" [An informative briefing about the bill and its impact.]: http://tinyurl.com/62kgv
Y. Molly Ivins' 3-3-05 CD/WFC essay, "Bad To Worse: Republicans Vote Down Military Exemption To Bankruptcy Bill, Add Loopholes For Rich": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0303-29.htm
Z. Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren's 2-12-05 CD/MH essay, "Sick And Broke" [Cites recent studies which prove that the bankruptcy system isn't being abused. The vast majority of bankruptcy filers have suffered a job loss, an illness, or a costly divorce.]:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0212-10.htm

[3] Sean Gonsalves' 4-19-05 CD/CCT essay, "The Moral Bankruptcy Of Fundamentalism" [The fundamentalist Religious Right studiously ignores numerous biblical passages on social justice because they violate its idolatrous faith in unregulated laissez-faire capitalism.]:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0419-23.htm

[4] DebtSlavery.org and PDA's 4-14-05 joint press release "Progressive Leaders Say Bankruptcy Bill Battle Is Just The Beginning" [It's the third click-on link underneath the photo.]:http://tinyurl.com/99ov7

[5] This question is addressed regarding the Congressional Black Caucus in Glen Ford and Peter Gamble's 4-22-05 CD/BC essay, "Black Caucus Losing Cohesion: It's Time to Draw Some Bright Lines": http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0422-20.htm

[6] National Organization for Women's 4-14-05 DebtSlavery.org press release, "Bankruptcy Bill Awards Huge Payoff To Credit Card Companies" [It's the sixth click-on link underneath the photo.]: http://elandslide.org/elandslide/index.cfm?campaign=debt

[7] Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren's outstanding 2005 academic paper, "The Growing Threat to Middle Class Families" (download it at this URL): http://tinyurl.com/ck5oj

[8] Laura Donnelly's 4-21-05 TP article, "Stuck in The Middle" [Anyone who thinks the Congressional Republicans represent the socioeconomic interests of the middle class should think again! Despite more lenient grading standards than in past years, a Drum Major Institute Report found that more than 90 percent of the Republicans consistently voted against the interests of middle-class families in 2004.]: http://tinyurl.com/9hylw

[9] See those votes at endnote [1] above. Former U.S. Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards (D-NC) admitted recently that he was WRONG when he voted for an earlier version of the bankruptcy bill. He acknowledged that this bill will, indeed, have socially destructive consequences. Read Senator Edwards' 4-14-05 TPM essay, "I Was Wrong" [scroll down and you'll find it under "Guest Blogger: John Edwards"]: http://tinyurl.com/5z36v

[10] Thom Hartmann's must-read 4-18-05 CD essay, "How Rich Is Too Rich For Democracy?" [Insightfully answers this question: "At what point does great wealth in a few hands actually harm democracy, threatening to turn a democratic republic into an oligarchy?"]: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0418-21.htm

About The Author:
Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.,
is the Executive Director of the
American Center for International Law ("ACIL").
ACIL steadfastly opposed the "Debt Slavery" Bankruptcy Bill because it would undermine Chapter 7 provisions that wisely allow desperate individuals to receive a fresh start -- which concretizes one important economic right within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

© 2005 EAPIII

MOLLY IVINS GOES FOR BUSH's BRAIN!

THE CURMUDGEONLY WOMAN WRITER FROM TEXAS

IS AT IT AGAIN!

MORE CORRECT THAN HE KNOWS ABOUT THE COMING SLAVE REVOLTS?

"His focus on results led to this doozie on slavery: 'It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left there to go to America, because their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom helped change America.'" - MOLLY IVIN citing our fearless leader's profound words.

The "Anonymous" Super Patriots are crawling out of the mud!

They call it "stealth."

An earlier post from last week on Anwaar Hussain's

The Fountainhead - "linked" in column at left.

From the comments section at The Fountainhead (unedited):

Anonymous said...

THe reason that people were obsessed about the Schiavo case is ... wrap your little rag-head pea brain around this ...THE UNDERLYING DEEP, PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES.

You see, wee boy, EVERYONE IS AGAINST TSUNAMIS. We are all sad it happened and many thousands died. Once the tragedy is mentioned, there is nothing left to discuss, because I reiterate, we all agree that tsunamis are a bad, bad thing.

On the other hand, Schiavo's case brought up deep, dividing issues such as ... what is life ... what is the meaning of an individual life ... what makes us conscious ... what makes a life valuable.... who is to judge the worth of a human life?

ANd this is just scratching the surface.This case focused the considerable brainpower of western critical thinkers on important issues that many believe will change our country, and perhaps destroy it.

These types of hard issues are important because they inevitably change the very direction of something that you know nothing about .... civilization. Western Civilization is built on concepts that you low IQ rag-heads cannot apprehend currently and in fact can never understand. Still, you manage to insinuate yourself into the fringes and enjoy the many benefits. But that's another story.

Boo freaking hoo.

If you cannot discern when the worlds greatest civilization is changing course, with potentially horrible consequences, if you cannot withstand intense deductive and inductive reasoning, if parsing logically deep concepts disturbs you, LEAVE.

Go back home and strap some C4 and shrapnel on yourself and make a difference the only way you moon god worshipping assholes apparently know how.

KABOOM. Behold ... another 72 virgins and a slurpee to go ... Allahahahahahahahahahaha !

RH

Albino bugs, snakes and other fearful political critters.

Dear ‘Anonymous,’ (RH)
I learned a long time ago while running a few country weekly newspapers in Kansas that the occasional ‘Anonymous’ letter to the editor has several socially redemptive characteristics. The confusing series of hidebound remarks posted above on Hussain’s blog by ‘Anonymous’ reminds me of the intellectual pitfalls and plateaus encountered when an editor allows another lesser writer to poison his pages.

It is a dangerous, but sometime fortuitous editorial technique. As one old timer, who died recently, once told me “variety and risk is the spice of life.”

I can boil this down to one sentence, and you don’t have to read any further after these words. ‘Anonymous’ you have fell into our trap, you inarticulate bum of an American, and now you must suffer reading the delightful consequences we are dishing out to the whole world about your crazy nut case brand of America.

‘Anonymous’ should move to Kansas

While I am guilty more than ‘Anonymous’ of subjective rants (see my essay “To conservative readers and Kansas legislators” elsewhere on this site) at least the subjective vitriol was my own and signed as such. According to others, aside from some small grammatical errors, the essay was an honestly American critique about the equally honestly hoodwinked and foolhardy body of Podunks inhabiting my native Kansas, U.S.A.

Alas, ‘Anonymous’ (let us for form profile ‘Anonymous’ as the average angry white American male) ranks below the political food pyramid, even beneath my fellow Kansas Podunks, below in rank of even the notorious Christian Troglodytes in what Kurt Nimmo aptly described as those of the “Deliverance States.”

‘Anonymous’ by my ciphering ranks lower than a snake’s belly sunning on a Kansas slab of limestone. He represents, by content and style, one of the squiggly albino insects that live quite well, under the rock that the “pro – life” snake is sunning on.

‘Anonymous’ actually is far lower than the well – meaning grandmother quietly rolling and kissing her rosaries at the local abortion clinic. I know firsthand because after a three-year murderous run at publishing said country weeklies took on the job of guarding several doctors and clinics in Kansas where the abortion procedure was available with other personal sexual hygiene issues.

I created intelligence dossiers on individuals engaging in illegal activities for consultation with law enforcement agencies in various levels of jurisdictions. I assisted in the apprehension and conviction of over a half dozen individuals who were involved in violations of federal and state laws – many of which would now qualify under the moribund and unnecessary Patriot Act – as domestic terrorists, or illegal combatants, make your label.

‘Anonymous’ fits that violent bill of particulars, as a tough talking red, white and blue domestic terrorist.

Men like ‘Anonymous’ have haunted the self-styled “pro – life” Christian anti – abortion movement for years and most who were violent were not apprehended. Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols were stridently “pro – life” for white women, much like Hitler was for Aryan women. Racialists advocate summary executions for ‘their’ women who deviate from proscribed sexual norms, and as their ideological crisis ensues, advocate the systematic ‘extermination’ through forced labor exploitation and eugenic ‘birth control’ of the non – Aryan people.

Hitler signed in the early periods of his regime several execution warrants for Aryan women who had abortions, while later he industrialized the systematic exploitation and extermination of millions of dissidents of all political and religious stripes. Yet, Hitler remained a Christian (catholic) until he blew his brains out in the Berlin bunker.

‘Anonymous’ not only didn’t think long enough to work on punctuation and basic grammar (which admittedly all writers, including myself suffer from) but surely did a profound disservice to his own American religious cause. It is from no fault of his own; tens of millions indoctrinated in this murderous duality within the American Empire go about their daily lives, and never think about social issues unless told to do so. One may safely assume that without the Terry Schiavo and Pope funeral incidents flooding American corporate media the wiggling maggot representing the American ‘Anonymous’ on Anwaar’s site would have shriveled and dried to a nice piece of protein for secular consumption.

‘Anonymous’ lost … again to an Arab.

‘Anonymous’ reacting and writing as much as another typical inarticulate lush from the Rush “lint-brain” Limbaugh hate radio circuit was stumbling along and pounding his fists in fascist outrage at losing … yes, dear readers, losing to an Arab.

Overlooked by many a ‘Anonymous’ American writers and even those with “the considerable brainpower of western critical thinkers” [which ‘Anonymous’ does not rank with] are the historic mathematical and architectural treasures of the Arabic and Persian people. Algorithmic logic and geometry did not come from “Judeo – Christian” American constitutionalists as much as they would bastardize scientific thought “debunking” evolutionary scientific reasoning in today’s class rooms.

Unlike Christianity, Islamic religious laws have a pronounced elaborate scriptural service to the poor and the education of their children. While Christianity offers a few footnotes from their one communist prophet, Jesus Christ, about the sins of avarice and slavery; Islam offers many anecdotal scriptures against greed and slavery, including the mistreatments of women and the penalties for engaging in such.

I as an American know this, unfortunately ‘Anonymous’ represents the most despicable of Know – Nothing Idiots from Boob Tube Land.

And one thing I have learned about the snake logic of these American writers supporting a reactionary and antiquated moribund ideology – they are cowards.

Maybe this is a redemptive characteristic overlooked by many of us Americans who monitor the extreme form of religious fascism practiced by the American “pro – life” movement that ‘Anonymous’ creeps around with his dishonest use of the phrase “UNDERLYING DEEP PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES”. He is, through the courteous allowance of Anwaar Hussain, using the cloak of anonymity and thereby honestly revealing his innermost homicidally racialist and nationalist sentiments.

He is a typical not – so – quiet American.

Old country doctors used a device called a poultice to draw out the infectious pus or poison to the surface in a crude but honest attempt to cure. The poultice was usually composed of some odd concoction of ingredients; various plants or even raw pieces of various livestock animals wandering around the barnyard.

A country poultrice absorbing poison, or a looking glass to see ourselves in?

Maybe, my dear friend Anwaar, has allowed us to look at ourselves through a different looking glass. A looking glass that will make this summer and the possible American bombing of Iran a time to resist and fight back against these maggots and albino bugs destroying our country.
Our editor and publisher, Anwaar Hussain, has given Americans a mirror to reflect upon as we redefine and remake, revolt and recast the mold that America will be for our children and our children’s children.

Michael Caddell