Israeli Commandos Slaughter 19 Aid Activists – This is another wakeup call for a complicit international community

Counter Currents, 5-31-10, 3:55 PM:

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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew

Israel Attacks Freedom Flotilla: 19 Killed
By Aljazeera
http://www.countercurrents.org/aljazeera310510.htm
Israeli commandos have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships off the coast of the Gaza Strip, killing up to 19 people on board. Dozens of others were injured when troops raided the convoy of six ships, dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, early on Monday

World Outcry Over Israeli Flotilla Attack
By Ma’an News Agency
http://www.countercurrents.org/maan310510.htm
International outcry is pouring over Israeli flotilla attack

End Israeli Impunity Now
By Cynthia McKinney
http://www.countercurrents.org/mckinney310510.htm
Cynthia McKinney Mourns the Dead of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza: People of the U.S. and the world must end Israeli impunity now!

The Gaza Flotilla – Your Move, Mr. President
By Alan Hart
http://www.countercurrents.org/hart310510.htm
As I write from America, with the drama and implications of Israel’s murderous attack on the Gaza Flotilla still being played out, I find myself wondering if President Obama will have the balls to say to Israel, “Enough is enough”

“Those Responsible Must Be Held Criminally Accountable”
By Richard Falk (UN Rapporteur for Palestine)
http://www.countercurrents.org/falk310510.htm
This incident should serve as a wakeup call for a complicit international community

Israel: Massacre At Sea
By Dr. Chandra Muzaffar
http://www.countercurrents.org/muzaffar310510.htm
The cold-blooded massacre of 20 unarmed peace activists by commandos from the Israeli army in the eastern Mediterranean in the early hours of 31st May 2010 has once again revealed to the world what this rogue regime is all about. It is evil incarnate

Brave Israeli Commandos Slaughter Aid Activists at Sea
By Stephen Lendman
http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman310510.htm
Even America’s major media can’t duck a crime this grave – attacking and slaughtering up to 20 Gaza Freedom Flotilla activists and injuring dozens more

“Criminal Pirate” Israel Makes A Fool Of The OECD Only Days After It Clasped The Viper To Its Bosom
By Stuart Littlewood
http://www.countercurrents.org/littlewood310510.htm
This morning I’m hearing reports of 20 or more dead and dozens injured after Israeli forces attacked the Free Gaza flotilla in international waters and gunned down unarmed crew and passengers. This is no surprise. Israel had been threatening for weeks to use violence, as is its style, to intercept the peaceful mission

Welcome To BBC Israel
By William Bowles
http://www.countercurrents.org/bowles310510.htm
The BBC has outdone itself this time with an outrageous piece of blatant Israeli propaganda

Attack On Freedom Flotilla Was Beyond The Pale
By Gul Jammas Hussain
http://www.countercurrents.org/hussain310510.htm
The blood of the men and women who sacrificed their lives on Monday for the cause of Palestine will not have been spilt in vain and will usher in a new era of hope for the oppressed people of Palestine

Counter Currents – http://www.countercurrents.org/

Is the Pentagon Finally Overmatched?

Tomgram: Christopher Hellman, Is the Pentagon Finally Overmatched?

Posted: 30 May 2010 11:21 AM PDT

by Tom Engelhardt

When it comes to the Pentagon and the U.S. military, wherever you look, there’s money being handed out.  Wildly and in staggering amounts.  Early this month, for instance, the U.S. Army announced that it had awarded KBR, the private contractor which was once part of Halliburton, a contract worth up to $568 million through 2011 “for military support service in Iraq.”

This is the same KBR that has regularly been accused of improprieties of all sorts.  As it happened, the Army made its announcement, noted Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News, “only hours after the Justice Department said it will pursue a lawsuit accusing the Houston-based company of taking kickbacks from two subcontractors on Iraq-related work.”  Even though the company has been the object of numerous investigations and law suits, and is the Blackwater (now Xe) of construction firms, as well as a prime victor in the Bush administration’s military privatization sweepstakes, this was a no-bid contract.  Given the Pentagon’s spending track record, none of this should surprise you.

Or consider Mission Essential Personnel, a firm that, unlike KBR or Halliburton, you’ve undoubtedly never heard of.  No wonder: only three years ago, it was a tiny military contractor taking in $6 million a year.  Recently, however, it garnered a one-year $679 million contract to “field a small city’s worth of translators to help out American forces in Afghanistan.”  (And again — surprise, surprise! — a no-bid contract.)  “Not bad,” writes the invaluable Noah Shachtman at his Danger Room website, “for a company that’s been accused of everything from abandoning wounded employees to sending out-of-shape interpreters to the front lines.”

Or here’s another Shachtman find: defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton managed to corner a bevy of contracts worth $400 million in recent

Read more…

BP and Administration Lies, Deceit, and Coverup in the Gulf

by Stephen Lendman

From the start, Obama administration and BP officials lied and deceived the public about the Gulf spill’s severity, BP CEO Tony Hayward saying (on May 18) its environmental effect will be “very modest,” when, in fact, it’s already catastrophic, spreading, causing long-term or permanent ecological destruction over a vast area, will likely persist for months, and, according to some experts perhaps years if nothing tried to stop it works.

Initially, BP reported a 1,000 barrels per day leak, then 5,000 after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) estimate, while independent analysis of company supplied video and satellite imagery suggest somewhere between 50 – 100,000 barrels, the consensus settling on 70,000 or an Exxon Valdez equivalent every 3.5 days – by far, America’s greatest ever environmental disaster, worsening daily.

On May 19, McClatchy Newspapers Marisa Taylor and Renee Schoof headlined, “BP Withholds Oil Spill Facts – and Government Lets It,” saying:

It “hasn’t publicly divulged the results of tests on the extent of workers’ exposure to evaporating oil or from the burning of crude….even though researchers say that data is crucial in determining whether the conditions are safe.”

Further, BP isn’t monitoring conditions or releasing videos, and the Obama administration isn’t pressing it despite experts, like University of Miami’s fisheries biologist Peter Ortner saying “We have been screaming from day one for” it.

Meanwhile, University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science’s satellite imagery analysis reported on May 18 that the spill covers 7,500 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey. Other accounts say 10,000 square miles or a Maryland equivalent. Either way, it’s huge.

Read more…

Obama Trying To Make Rape Look Like Seduction

by Peter Chamberlin

Thanks to Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice, the complex plan for world domination, which has been produced over several generations by the earth’s most advanced minds, teeters over the chasm of total defeat.  Obama’s mission is to keep us out of the chasm, while ramming through the central elements of the plan.

Bush’s heavy-handed policies have been described in the Russian press as “rape,” compared to Obama’s policies of “seduction” (SEE:  Turkey will show us how to play gambit with the West? Part 2).  Obama must persuade the people of central and south Asia to open wide and accept the American intrusion into their lives, despite the enormous anti-American resistance that has been created by previous Bush intrusions.  It would be only fitting if, in the end, America’s self-inflicted wounds proved to be fatal.

Obama’s foreign policy is clearly a reversal of Bush policies, backing-up, while staying in the same tracks and laying down a heavy cover fire.  Those tracks lead deep into central Asia.  While it now looks to us like nothing has really changed in the Western military campaign in Afghanistan, it will soon become apparent that there is a new military focus—central Asia.

Obama’s reversal undercuts basic Republican neoconservative ideology, as originally spelled-out in the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) document—“deterring any potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”    Elevating Turkey to a regional power is a new twist, due to its strategic location, but even more, because of the role that it has played in the plans up until now.

Turkey’s role in Bush’s attempted rape of the Caucasus and in southern Russia has previously been described by FBI whistleblower Sybil Edmonds.  Turkey’s moderate Islamists of

Read more…

Frauds and Fiascos: How the Christian Right is Defeating Itself in the “Culture War” It Started

SOURCE: Atlantic Free Press

by Mel Seesholtz Ph.D.

America’s Christian Right and their ultra-conservative political brethren teamed up to concoct what they called the “culture war”: the mantra to describe the fight against civil and social equality for gay and lesbian Americans, the Genesis-based creationist crusade against science and knowledge, and the cherry-picked “biblical” battle against what’s deemed encroaching socialism. To be sure, there were other campaign issues, but these were three of the main fronts in the “war.”

The campaign against civil and social equality for gays enjoyed considerable success during the early part of the George W. Bush administration. But since then, the Christian Right and its political allies have suffered major, ultra-embarrassing defeats. Courts continue to rule that religion-based discrimination against gays is unconstitutional, and more than a few holier-than-thou anti-gay crusaders have been exposed as… gay. Click here for a list of the Top Ten.

The last one on that list is the most recent: Baptist minister and long-time advocate of “ex-gay therapies,” Dr. George Alan Rekers, who recently got caught with a male prostitute. If you’re unfamiliar with the details of the case, I suggest Frank Rich’s succinct summary in his New York Times OpEd of May 14, 2010 titled “A Heaven-Sent Rent Boy”:

Rekers is in a class by himself even in the era of Larry Craig and Ted Haggard. A Baptist minister and clinical psychologist with a bent for “curing” homosexuality, the married, 61-year-old Rekers was caught by Miami New Times last month in the company of a 20-year-old male escort at Miami International Airport. The couple was returning from a 10-day trip to London and Madrid. New Times, which published its exposé in early May, got an explanation from Rekers: “I had surgery, and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.”

Alas, a photo showed Rekers, rather than his companion, handling the baggage cart. The paper also reported that Rekers had recruited the young man from Rentboy.com, a Web site whose graphic sexual content requires visitors to vouch for their age. Rentboy.com – really, who could make this stuff up?

It must be noted that Dr. Rekers hired Jo-vanni Roman (aka “Geo”/“Lucien”) from the RentBoy.com website, so he must have seen the escort’s sexually explicit posting. It must also be noted that none of the Christian Right websites that support “ex-gay therapy” – such as Focus on the Family and the American Family Association – have run any serious articles about Dr. Rekers’ RentBoy scandal. The Family Research Council was cofounded by Rekers and James Dobson. Yet as Mr. Rich noted in his NYT OpEd:

When the Miami scandal broke, the council’s current president, Tony Perkins, quickly tried to distance himself, claiming that he had to review “historical records” to verify who Rekers was and that his organization had “no contact” with him or “knowledge of his activities” for over a decade.

Mr. Perkins didn’t know who George Alan Rekers was? That’s almost as good as Rekers claiming he hired the RentBoy escort to help him with his luggage. As Mr. Rich pointed out,

That historical record is hardly as obscure as Perkins maintained. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC found that only weeks before Rekers’s excellent European adventure, his name appeared on the masthead of an official-looking letter sent to some 14,000 school superintendents nationwide informing them that homosexuality is a choice that can be stamped out by therapy. The letter was from the “American College of Pediatricians” – a misnomer for what is actually a political organization peddling homophobic junk-science. Rekers was also on the board of another notorious peddler of gay “cures” – the National Association for Research and Therapy on Homosexuality, or Narth – until he resigned last week. Such groups have done nothing to stop homosexuality but plenty to help promote punitive “treatment” and suicidal depression among untold numbers of gay youths.

On another front in the “culture war” there’s Bible-based “creation science”: the ultimate oxymoron. Putting those two words together is offensive to anyone who does legitimate scientific research. Nevertheless, there are those who continue to maintain that Genesis is literal history and “scientific” fact:

Dr. John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, performed the study and has just released a new book titled The Fossil Record: Unearthing Nature’s History of Life.

“We began to look at the fossils with biblical glasses on, from a biblical perspective, and of course the Bible talks about the creation of all kinds, after their kind,” he explains. “In Genesis chapter one, each basic category of plant or animal was created separately. They did not descend from some other type of animal, as evolution requires; they were created as that. Dogs have always been dogs. Dogs did not come from a bear. …”

“With biblical glasses on”? The Bible was cobbled together from eclectic texts written between 1,500 BCE and 150 CE by men who thought the earth was flat, that sea monsters were real, and that epilepsy was caused by demonic possession. They had no knowledge of DNA and thought the fetus was contained within the male sperm. They believed women were inherently inferior to men and had no idea North and South America, Australia, or Antarctica existed. “Biblical glasses,” when it comes to science, biology, geology, geography, and natural history, have lenses of lead.

But Dr. Morris is correct about one thing: “Dogs did not come from a bear.” Science tells us otherwise:

The earliest ancestors of dogs originally evolved about 200 million years ago from reptiles. Prehistoric remains of dogs are few and far between but the dental pattern of modern day dogs is similar to that found in fossilized creodonts – primitive fish-eating mammals which lived about 50 million years ago, but this genetic line failed to survive and there are no direct descendants today. At the same time another group of animals the miacids also had dog-like cutting teeth – they were small forest-dwelling creatures (not unlike polecats) and these evolved into the carnivores of today – including some dogs.

By about 1 million years ago (the Pleistocene period – half a million years ago) there were a variety of larger dogs and the family Canidae (wolves, coyotes, jackals and foxes) was formed. It is generally agreed that the common ancestor to domesticated dogs was a form of wolf found on the plains of India.

The oldest authenticated skeletons (note these are true skeletons – not fossils) of dogs have been found in Denmark and are estimated to be 8000 BC. Skeletons of dogs have been found in Jarmo (Iraq) dating from 6750 BC, and in the ruins of Jericho from 6500 BC. The first evidence of dogs in Egypt date from 3500 BC.

Existing “Wild dogs” – the African hunting dog, South American bush dog and Indian dhole are not close relatives of the domesticated dog – only sharing a common ancestry some 20 million years ago in the Oligocene period. Foxes and wolves on the other hand have a common ancestor 7.5 million years ago in the Miocene period. [italics added]

As can be seen, science also tells us unequivocally that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, wasn’t created in “six days,” and that its multiple life forms – including human beings – didn’t just suddenly appear in “Eden,” as Genesis and Young Earth Creationists claim.

It difficult to understand why someone would insist that Genesis is literal history when all scientific, historical and empirical evidence clearly says otherwise. Perhaps it’s just an expression of how selectively weak their faith really is. When asked by Bill Maher in the quasi-documentary Religulous why he insisted the earth is 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs coexisted with humans, Ken Ham, the founder of Answers in Genesis and the man responsible for the $27,000,000, 70,000 square-foot Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, responded, “If you’re saying this part [of the Bible] over here that says God made land animals and man on the same day is not true, then, ultimately, why should I believe this bit over here?”

So apparently Mr. Ham and those who share his beliefs also believe it’s legitimate to sell one’s daughter into slavery and stone to death those who work or do business on the Sabbath, which is very odd since the Creation Museum is open for business from noon to 6 pm on Sundays. So much for the “faith” and  “logic” in Mr. Ham’s statement.

On the third front there’s “unbiblical socialism”: that’s what Rev. Mark Creech called universal healthcare:

Perspectives: Universal health care – Unbiblical socialism

[By] Rev. Mark Creech – Guest Columnist OneNewsNow.com, March 21, 2007

The prospect of government-funded universal health care is another example of America’s departure from its strong Judeo-Christian roots and its love affair with socialism. Economic systems that perpetuate or construct dependence or reward sloth strike at the very heart of what it means to be human. …

Rev. Creech is the executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, Inc. He believes universal healthcare would “perpetuate or construct dependence or reward sloth … while those who are indolent prosper.”

Aside from the fact that Rev. Creech is comfortable with – and encourages – the needless suffering of men, women and children in the name of his perverted version of Christianity, and aside from the fact that Jesus spoke of helping the needy and the poor, not stomping on them when they’re down, Creech’s remarks are blatantly insulting to millions of hard-working Americans.

Many of those Americans are called the “working poor.” They often work two jobs while simultaneously raising a family, but since their employers keep them on “part-time” status, they don’t qualify for healthcare benefits. How dare Creech call these parents slothful and indolent?

There’s another group of incredibly hard-working citizens that Creech deems slothful, indolent and unworthy of basic healthcare coverage. They’re America’s future leaders: today’s college students.

This is one of many, many similar messages I – and professors nationwide – receive from students every semester: “I’ve been very sick this semester and I can’t go to the doctor because I don’t have health insurance. It’s too expensive. … I have two jobs and I’ve been pushing myself to the limit just to make it by financially. …”

Does Rev. Creech believe this student and the thousands like her are slothful? Indolent? And just for the record, this student’s cumulative grade point average is near 3.5 on a 4.0 scale.

More recently, the American Family Association’s resident anti-gay bombast and biblical literalist, Bryan Fischer, came to the conclusion that

Jesus was a capitalist

Date: 5/17/2010

Despite the best efforts of liberal evangelicals like Jim Wallis to turn Jesus into a flaming socialist, his own words tell a different story. In fact, the stories that Jesus told could have only come from a capitalist’s capitalist. …

In the parable of the talents, Jesus refers to a man who called his servants together and “entrusted to them his property.” Hold it right there! It was his own property! He owned the means of production – it did not belong to the community at large! The capital used in economic exchange was in private hands! And what he does with his wealth is clearly nobody’s business but his own. … [link added]

In a truly dazzling display of cherry-picking and retrofitting the tribal, feudalistic societies of the Bible with modern socio-political and economic theories, Mr. Fischer perverted the idea of “to each according to his ability” to imply that in contemporary patriarchal capitalistic societies everyone has the same ability and that the playing field is absolutely level. In so doing he echoed Rev. Creech’s notion that assisting the poor and disadvantaged would “perpetuate or construct dependence or reward sloth … while those who are indolent prosper.” You have to wonder about the morals of those who advocate letting some people suffer needlessly.

Mr. Fischer’s agenda-driven cherry-picking of the Bible (he concludes his diatribe with, “Bottom line: Jesus … had capitalism in his DNA”) is blatantly obvious when one considers Matthew 19:20-23, the story of “The Rich Young Ruler” who was, presumably, one of Fischer’s “capitalistic landowners”:

The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (KJV)

On at least three fronts, America’s Christian Right is losing its “culture war”: the mantra to describe the fight against civil and social equality for gay and lesbian Americans, the Genesis-based creationist crusade against science and knowledge, and the cherry-picked “biblical” battle against what’s deemed encroaching socialism. Those fronts and some of the reasons the Christian Right is defeating itself were covered in Part 1. Now, to elaborate further…

The anti-gay hypocrisy of the movement’s leaders is constantly being exposed and, as Frank Rich pointed out in relation George Alan Rekers in his May 14, 2010 New York Times OpEd titled “A Heaven-Sent Rent Boy”:

The crusade he [Rekers] represents is, thankfully, on its last legs. American attitudes about homosexuality continue to change very fast. In the past month, as square a cultural venue as Archie comic books has announced the addition of a gay character, the country singer Chely Wright has come out as a lesbian, and Laura Bush has told Larry King that she endorses the “same” rights for all committed couples and believes same-sex marriage “will come.” All of this news has been greeted by most Americans with shrugs, as it should be.

Moreover, several former proponents of “ex-gay” programs have come forward to debunk the “therapies.”

Exodus Cofounder Disses “Ex-Gay” Programs

By Kenneth Harvey

Posted on Advocate.com May 13, 2010

Michael Bussee, one of the founders of the “ex-gay” group Exodus International, discussed his experiences with the group in an interview with the Box Turtle Bulletin blog.

Bussee left Exodus in 1979 and has since been a vocal critic of the group and similar “ex-gay” programs.

“Never once has an ex-gay program I attended ever done any sort of follow-up,” Bussee said. “I can’t buy a soy latte these days without having to fill out a survey about my coffee experience. Yet folks can spend tens of thousands of dollars on reparative therapy and nothing – no aftercare, no reflections…”

Bussee said that many years after leaving Exodus, he met others who abandoned the program.

“I’m happy to report that most of them had actually gotten much better,” Bussee said. “They had left too and gone through a period of struggle and then finally accepted themselves as gay or lesbian and were doing fine.”

Video and a transcript of the interview can be found here.

And this article from Salon.com:

Failed Ex-Gays Speak Out. Rekers and Smid can learn something

Sometimes it’s a good thing to be a failure, particularly when one tries to destroy their personality and sexuality (or assist others in destroying theirs.) The vast majority of people who have attempted to “de-gay” themselves through reparative therapy, straight camps and ex-gay ministries ultimately come out gay. Sadly many of these come out psychologically disheveled and need therapy to recover from the therapy. …

The Rekers scandal is also proving problematic legally, in relation to his previous (paid) court testimony, the Florida attorney general who authorized paying him and who is now running for governor of that state:

Scandal Stirs Legal Questions in Anti-Gay Cases

By John Schwartz

May 18, 2010

For years, George A. Rekers has held himself out as an expert witness in court on homosexuality, arguing in cases concerning same-sex marriage and gay adoption that gay men and lesbians lead parlous lives and raise troubled children.

Now Dr. Rekers himself is under fire, raising new legal questions about his courtroom role. …

… legal experts say the scandal may affect more than Dr. Rekers’s reputation. They say it places obligations on those who have relied on Dr. Rekers to inform the court in at least one continuing case to modify or withdraw their arguments.

“Each lawyer must tell the court if he comes to know that one of his witnesses has given ‘false’ testimony,” said Stephen Gillers, an expert in legal ethics at New York University. That could come into play if the expert is discredited, he added. …

Dr. Rekers’ involvement, for example, has been critical in a suit challenging a Florida law banning adoption by gay parents. His testimony was a major part of Attorney General Bill McCollum’s defense of the statute, for which the state paid Dr. Rekers $120,000. …

In the November 2008 decision declaring the Florida gay adoption law unconstitutional, Judge Cindy Lederman of Miami-Dade Circuit Court wrote that Dr. Rekers was “motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science,” and not “credible.” Mr. McCollum, a Republican who is running for governor, has appealed that decision. In papers filed well before the scandal broke, he denounced the court’s “wholesale disregard” of testimony by Dr. Rekers and another expert, calling the decision “arbitrary,” stressing Dr. Rekers’ qualifications and stating that “the trial court entirely discredited him based on his religion.”

To Professor Gillers, Mr. McCollum is now obligated both as a lawyer and as a public official to alert the appellate court. “It is not enough for the attorney general simply to refrain from relying on the testimony in his brief and argument,” he said. “He has an affirmative duty to speak up.”

Things are no better for Christian Right zealots on the other fronts of its “culture war.”

The claim that Genesis is literal history and scientific fact is falling on more and more deaf ears and has, quite frankly, become a joke. The need for some kind of universal healthcare has been recognized and progress toward that goal is being made despite those who misuse the Bible to promote needless suffering and pain.

But leaders of the Christian Right will never give up. They have too much at stake. They’ve become the CEOs of a profitable industry that claims to be doing “God’s work,” but what they’re really doing is making a mockery of the concept of “God” and perverting “religion” into a destructive socio-political agenda.

As for their GOP sycophants, hypocrisy is the hallmark of their “traditional values” political ruse:

Antigay Congressman Resigns After Affair

By Julie Bolcer

Advocate.com May 18, 2010

Congressman Mark Souder of Indiana, who displayed a staunch antigay voting record, resigned Tuesday morning after he acknowledged an extramarital affair with a female aide. …

The Republican representative’s positions against gay rights had earned him a zero rating from the Human Rights Campaign. …

The conservative congressman’s platform included the support of “traditional marriage,” which he defined as the union of one man and one woman.

“I believe that Congress must fight to uphold the traditional values that undergird the strength of our nation,” Souder said in a quote printed on his official website. “The family plays a fundamental role in our society. Studies consistently demonstrate that it is best for a child to have a mother and father, and I am committed to preserving traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman.”

Obviously, Rep. Souder was not “committed to preserving” his own “traditional marriage,” but he was hell bent on denying others the right to equality and to a legally recognized committed relationship and family:

HRC spokesman Michael Cole said Souder’s record has been consistent since entering Congress in 1995, as he voted against equal employment protections, hate crimes laws, increases in HIV/AIDS funding, and same-sex couple recognition.

“Rep. Souder proves once again that it’s not LGBT people who are the threat to ‘family values.’”

And how did a representative of the Christian Right respond to one of their own being exposed? With pathetic excuses and diversionary tactics, of course:

Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, … comments that the atmosphere in Washington, DC, does not encourage accountability.

“Washington is a very difficult town, and there is…this idea that if you have your family living here that you’re disconnected with your district,” says Nance. “I wholeheartedly disagree with that thought.” It is “unnatural,” she believes, for members of Congress to be separated from their families.

“I think it is important for them to live with their wives and with their children [and] to have accountability of their spouses,” she continues. “And it’s a recipe for disaster to have members of Congress living together like bachelors while their wives and families are back home in the district.” [italics added]

“Accountability”? Fact: Souder was yet another “traditional values” fraud who played the anti-gay card for his own political gain. His resulting fiasco was inevitable.

But let’s hope leaders of the Christian Right keep up their “good work.” The more frauds uncovered, the more embarrassing fiascos exposed, the more preposterous claims made, the more people will see the “culture war” for what it is: a perverting of Christianity into a malignant attack on civil equality, science and knowledge, and basic human decency.

Priest Gets Caught Shop Lifting & Life Styles Of The Closeted S&M Rectory

(NOTE: This is NOT an attack on S&M or any other sexual “fetish” (hate that word). As long as children and animals are not involved, what two consenting adults do, or what a group of them do together is not my business nor yours..I just love exposing Hypocrisy)

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Priest accused of shoplifting had odd things in his basement

It took 30 minutes of persistent questioning before a reluctant Linda Burkitt would finally say what she saw in the rectory at St. Andrew Catholic Church.

Until several months ago, the nine-room rectory was the home of the Rev. Steven Poole, 42, who was charged with felony shoplifting in January at a Wal-Mart in West City, in southern Illinois, after police said he tried to steal a $3.22 container of butter and a $60 sofa cover after he switched the bar code tag on a $144.88 foam mattress to read $30.88. Poole was charged with felony stealing in 2000 when he walked out of a trendy Ladue, Mo., antiques shop with a 5-foot-long 19th century English tavern sign valued at $900.

“Shackles,” said the 72-year-old Burkitt, who’s been involved in Catholic Church matters in her hometown all her life.

“Shackles, hanging from the ceiling, and a tombstone with somebody’s name on it. … But that wasn’t the real problem,” she said, shaking her head.

MORE

Death of Activists: Yet Another Blow to Israel’s International Image (Unless You Are The USA Of Course)

Death of Activists: Yet Another Blow to Israel’s International Image (Unless You Are The USA Of Course)

Israel: At least 10 activists on Gaza aid flotilla killed, dozens hurt in clashes

Israeli commandos on Monday stormed six ships carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists on an aid mission to the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens after encountering unexpected resistance as the forces boarded the vessels.

The operation in international waters off the Gaza coast was a nightmare scenario for Israel that looked certain to further damage its international standing, strain already tense relations with Turkey — the unofficial sponsor of the mission — and draw unwanted attention to Gaza’s plight.

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“It’s disgusting that they have come on board and attacked civilians. We are civilians,” said Greta Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Free Gaza movement, which organized the flotilla. She spoke from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus and said she had lost contact with the flotilla.

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President of Malawi frees and pardons gay couple sentenced to 14 years hard labour

SOURCE: Support decriminalisation of Homosexuality at UN!

The president of Malawi, Bingu Wa Mutharika has pardoned the gay couple sentenced to 14 years hard labour for conducting an illegal wedding in the country. The move was announced during a visit to the country by the secretary general of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.

Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were sentenced to 14 years hard labour earlier this month for gross indecency and unnatural acts. At one point it was feared they could be sentenced to death.

Mr Mutharika told reporters “These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws.
“However, as the head of state I hereby pardon them and therefore ask for their immediate release with no conditions.”
Mr Ban hailed the decision as “courageous” adding: “this outdated penal code should be reformed wherever it may exist.”
Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “Steven and Tiwonge should never have been arrested, let along jailed for five months, convicted and sentence to 14 years hard labour. They love another and have harmed no one.

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Who Needs Terrorism? The Most Powerful Country In The World Excepts Defeat From Oil Spill!

(NOTE: Just heard BP OIL LEAK, British, not AP American, will most likely be spewing out into the ocean until the end of Summer)

=-=-=

New evidence of criminal negligence in run-up to rig explosion

Failure of BP’s “top kill” means oil will continue to flow for months

By Joe Kishore
31 May 2010

Forty days after the explosion at the BP-leased offshore drilling rig, oil continues to flow unabated from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. After weeks of downplaying and covering up the extent of the disaster, government officials are now acknowledging that it is already the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the United States … with no end in sight.

Over the weekend, BP reported its latest attempt to stop the flow—the so-called “top kill” method—had failed. It announced plans for a new tactic, involving cutting off the leaking pipe and attempting to cap the oil. The proposal is unlikely to succeed, and could result in a significant increase in the rate of the flow after the pipe is cut. Even if it works, it will only contain a portion of the oil gusher.

“The failure of the top kill magnifies the disaster by an order of magnitude,” Rick Steiner, an oil spill expert and marine conservationist, told the World Socialist Web Site. “The blowout will continue unquestionably over the next two months.”

BP is currently drilling separate wells designed to intersect with the existing well and plug the leak. These wells will not be ready until at least August, BP officials said on Sunday.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated that the flow is between 500,000 and 1 million gallons per day. At the higher range—which is still far smaller than the rate estimated by independent scientists—an additional 90 million gallons of oil will have been released by the end of August. In comparison, the Exxon Valdez released 11 million gallons.

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Another day of mourning for the Palestinians. Medics in Gaza said six people were killed and 12 others were injured on Saturday

Diaries from Gaza: Sleepless Nights

by Menna Hassan on May 30th, 2010

It is almost impossible to have a peaceful night in Gaza Strip. The heavy sounds of the Israeli airforce flying sorties in Gaza last night not only disturbed people’s sleep but also destroyed part of Gaza’s dysfunctional International Airport. It was targeted for the second consecutive night. No casualties were reported.

Another day of mourning for the Palestinians. Medics in Gaza said six people were killed and 12 others were injured on Saturday when a gas cylinder exploded inside a southern Gaza tunnel. A large number of people were working when the explosion took place. Tunnel work has become the main source of income for many Palestinians as Israeli siege has made the life harsh with unemployment and poverty rate reaching new heights.

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Is the U.S. Government Planning War to Quell the Tide of Economic Unrest?

By Gary D. Barnett

May 30, 2010 “Lew Rockwell” –  In my opinion and in a word: Yes!

Headlines:

• “READY FOR WAR,” “U.S. Military told to get ready in Korea Standoff, Obama orders commanders to prepare ‘to deter future aggression.’” By Drudge and MSNBC
• “U.S. Begins Massive Military Build Up Around Iran, Sending Up To 4 New Carrier Groups In Region” by Tyler Durden
• “Clinton: Korea Must Face ‘Consequences’ For Sunken Warship”
• Homeland Security, Northeast Intelligence Network: “The Syrian Missile Crisis: Threat of War Very Real”
• “The Expanding U.S. War in Pakistan” by Jeremy Scahill
• “Yemen, Latest War Front?” by CBS News

These are but a very few of the recent headlines about more U.S. war, but the Iranian and Korean situations are the most dangerous, and the threats against Iran I think the most real.

United States wars are virtually all wars of aggression, so it is quite evident that U.S. wars are “fought” for reasons other than self-defense. That means there are ulterior motives involved that are not related to moral behavior, but instead to nefarious intent. This is a disturbing revelation, and one little understood by the American masses. It is one however, that if more understood, could literally blow the lid off the notion that the purposeful buildup of the military–industrial complex is for the defense of this nation! This thought scares the life out of those in power who need to keep the populace scared to death at all times in order to propagate their crimes.

Our economy, as is the case for much of the rest of the world’s economies, is currently imploding. Since all major economies in the world are based on valueless, un-backed, and worthless money, this situation should have been evident to the mainstream long ago. Of course the failing economy is just one piece of the puzzle, but it is most definitely the most important piece. With a so-called vibrant economy over the past decade or so, even though it was based on lies and deceit, and was a complete sham, the general population was easy to control during these so-called “prosperous” times. With the real economy now being exposed for the fraud that it is, and the real risks becoming more evident, the once complacent citizen is now becoming angry. Because of this, the evil U.S. federal government must find a new method of fooling the masses into believing in “their” government and country. War is the obvious answer, as war solidifies the putrid and false nationalistic worship of the peasants more than any other ploy.
United States wars are virtually all wars of aggression, so it is quite evident that U.S. wars are “fought” for reasons other than self-defense.

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Obama’s Letter to Lula Exposes White House Forked Tongue On Iran

By Steve Hynd

May 28, 2010 “NewsHoggers” –May 27, 2010 — Via Robert Naiman, it appears that President Lula of Brazil has decided to shine some light on the Obama administration’s machinations on Iran. He has finally released the full text of Obama’s 20th April letter to Brazil about the proposed TTR fuel swap deal and the entire thing appears today in Brazilian Foreign Policy.

The letter also specifically mentions the compromise of using Turkey as the location for Iran’s fuel to be held “in escrow”.

I would urges Brazil to impress upon Iran the opportunity presented by this offer to “escrow” its uranium in Turkey while the nuclear fuel is being produced.

This letter’s authenticity is not disputed by the White House. It exposes the Obama administration’s forked-tongue response to the Brazil and Turkey brokered swap. The White House is now in full spin mode, but the spin has already been undercut by the release of the letter’s full text. Of late, Hilary Clinton has been the main vehicle for the White House’s double-talk, which is now entirely aimed at closing down opportunities to find a negotiated settlement to the Iran nuclear issue no matter what the new National Security Strategy might say. But Obama must also bear the burden of blame, his is the desk where the buck stops.

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The Gulf disaster is only unusual for being so near the US. Elsewhere, Big Oil rarely cleans up its mess

Published on Friday, May 28, 2010 by the Guardian/UKThe Real Cost of Cheap Oil

by John Vidal

Big Oil is holding its breath. BP’s shares are in steep decline after the debacle in the Gulf of Mexico. Barack Obama, the American people and the global environmental community are outraged, and now the company stands to lose the rights to drill for oil in the Arctic and other ecologically sensitive places.

The gulf disaster may cost it a few billion dollars, but so what? When annual profits for a company often run to tens of billions, the cost of laying 5,000 miles of booms, or spraying millions of gallons of dispersants and settling 100,000 court cases is not much more than missing a few months’ production. It’s awkward, but it can easily be passed on.

The oil industry’s image is seriously damaged, but it can pay handsomely to greenwash itself, just as it managed after Exxon Valdez, Brent Spar and the Ken Saro-Wiwa public relations disasters. In a few years’ time, this episode will probably be forgotten – just another blip in the fortunes of the industry that fuels the world. But the oil companies are nervous now because the spotlight has been turned on their cavalier attitude to pollution and on the sheer incompetence of an industry that is used to calling the shots.

Big Oil’s real horror was not the spillage, which was common enough, but because it happened so close to the US. Millions of barrels of oil are spilled, jettisoned or wasted every year without much attention being paid.

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Memorial Day: Celebrating Militarism and the Weapons of War

By Camillo “Mac” Bica

May 30, 2010 ” Information Clearing House ” — Since the beginning of the twentieth century some 650,000 Americans have died fighting this Country’s many wars. Regardless of political affiliation and ideology, every American ought reverence such selfless sacrifice and understand and share the grief that this tragic loss of life entails. Though those of us who have known war hear the cries of the dying forever in our mind and suffer the pain and loss each day of our lives and need no holiday to remind us, Memorial Day is the occasion this nation sets aside to remember, to grieve, and to honor those who chose or were compelled to sacrifice their lives in behalf of a cause they believed just.

Air shows, “exciting” demonstrations of the high tech, billion dollar, implements of war haave become an increasingly popular way to “celebrate” Memorial Day in many parts of the Country. The Southern Wisconsin Air fest, and Missouri’s Salute to Veterans 2010 are just two examples. Attracting thousands, in some cases tens of thousands, these extravaganzas have become prime locations for military recruitment. The Army’s “Strength in Action Tour” regularly exploits such events “entertaining,” “informing”, and ultimately motivating young people to enlist. With its enormous budget, Army recruiters set up what is, for all intents and purposes, a mobile military circus and amusement arcade. Passersby, some as young as ten years old, need only provide their contact information into the Army database to receive an array of Army recruitment material and souvenirs – personalized dog tags, tee shirts, hats, footballs, etc. Once registered, students are encouraged to become “Army Strong,” that is, participate in interactive physical fitness events such as climbing the “U.S. Army Rock Wall” (“strength of body,” “rock strong”), “perform virtual music” on a stage in front of their peers (“strength to lead”), operate small remote control robotic devices known as Packbots through an obstacle course (“strength of technology”), “pilot” an Apache helicopter flight simulator (“strength to soar”), or “participate in a fully immersive, adrenaline-pumping, highly realistic (Humvee) experience” in which they conduct a “virtual mission,” engage “insurgents,” and kill them (“strength of team”).

Sadly, Americans need to be reminded that Memorial Day is not about sales at the mall, barbecues, and picnics. Neither is it a time to celebrate militarism, the machinery of war, or entice young people, through highly manipulative and deceptive practices, into enlisting in the military. While such spectacles may be exhilarating to some and perhaps suitable for other occasions (perhaps Armed Forces Day or the Fourth of July), they are totally inappropriate and irreverent during the only time of the year set aside for remembering and grieving those who made the ultimate sacrifice, Memorial Day weekend.

Most importantly, it is not about exploiting patriotism and the sacrifices of our young Servicemen and Women for purposes of commercial marketing and corporate profit. The following is an excerpt from the Bethpage Federal Credit Unions 2009 New York Air Show Website, perhaps the mother of all such “celebrations” of the implements of death and destruction.

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U.S. Military Sacrificed In War And Occupation Of Iraq: 4,718

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 4,718

More info: List of U.S. Fatalities as of May 28, 2010: http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

Source: Information Clearing House

Fake ACORN Pimp Pleads Guilty….

…..the New Yorker Adds its Voice to the Anti-ACORN Story

by John Atlas

What’s the difference between James O’Keefe, who made national headlines with his ACORN undercover video, and ACORN? O’Keefe is a criminal and ACORN is not. Yesterday O’Keefe pleaded guilty to charges of entering federal property under false pretenses when he attempted to embarrass Senator Mary Landrieu because of her support for the health care legislation. O’Keefe, along with three co-defendants, said their goal was to show that the Senator’s office phones were working, yet people opposed to health care reform could not get through to register their opinions. He was sentenced to three years probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $1,500 fine.

Despite numerous official investigations and innuendos by the extremists, like Republicans Rep. Darrell Issa (CA), the Ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, ACORN has never been convicted of a crime. Issa released a report in 2009 falsely accusing ACORN of hiding “behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy … to manipulate the American electorate.”

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Here Is How American’s Government Spends Their Money:

Discretionary Budget, FY2010

The following chart shows the breakdown of the proposed federal discretionary budget for fiscal year 2010 by function area.

The discretionary budget refers to the part of the federal budget proposed by the President, and debated and decided by Congress each year. The part of the budget constitutes more than one-third of total federal spending. The remainder of the federal budget is called ‘mandatory spending.’ Fiscal Year 2009 will run from October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009.

Note that this chart includes the war-related spending requested by the administration as supplemental to the regular budget proposal.

Source: http://www.nationalpriorities.org/node/724

Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan $1,000,042,858,296

NationalPriorities.org:

To date, $1.05 trillion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The national, state, and local numbers we provide are based on the total approved amounts through the end of Fiscal Year 2010.

These appropriations do not include funds to support the “surge” of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan announced by the Obama administration on December 1, 2009.  Conservative estimates suggest the surge will cost approximately $30 billion and we anticipate supplemental appropriations for this later in the year.  When additional FY2010 war-related amounts are approved, we will adjust the counter so that it reaches the new total at the end of FY2010.

If you should compare the amount displayed on the numbers in our information sheets with the Cost of War counter, please note that the information sheets include all war spending approved to date, the same number that the counter will reach at the end of the 2010 fiscal year.

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‘Killing’ Ourselves to Death

by Heller Levinson

In 1985, Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves To Death was published.  His thesis, in brief, is that television and the media culture have replaced thoughtfulness with entertainment.  We are being converted from a critically minded inquisitive population enjoying informed discourse to a nation of passive retards.

Yesterday, May 26, 2010, the Yahoo! news headline was “BP plans a ‘Top Kill.’”  Prior to going to my home page I had been reading Henry Miller’s The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (first published in 1945).  Passages such as this:

“This world which is in the making fills me with dread.  I have seen it germinate; I can read it like a blue-print.  It is not a world I want to live in.  It is a world suited for monomaniacs [BP, my insert] obsessed with the idea of progress — but a false progress, a progress which stinks.  It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful.”

I go from a passage like the above to the headline.  “Kill?” “Top Kill?”  Is BP hunting terrorists now, I wonder.  Battered with too many Jason Bourne movies, living in the surround sound of Jack Bauer on television’s “24 Hours,” I am titillated to explore what is the nature of this “Top Kill.”  I click on the link.  No, it’s not Osama Bin Laden.  It’s an oil leak.  BP’s very own oil leak.  The weapon of choice is mud.  “The company will shoot high-pressure mud into the well, hoping the pressure of mud coming in will eventually overcome the pressure of oil shooting out.”

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How The USA Is Just Like The Bullies I knew In Highschool:

U.S. Defence Spending Far Outpaces Rest of the World

By Amanda Bransford

“…the U.S outspends Russia, the next highest spender, by more than 800 percent.

In 2008, the most recent year for which figures are available, the U.S. expenditure was 696.3 billion dollars, followed by Russia’s 86 billion and China’s 83.5 billion.

The U.S. defence budget is 15 times that of Japan, 47 times that of Israel, and nearly 73 times that of Iran.

Not only does U.S. spending dwarf that of other nations, but it has also grown in recent years.”

MORE: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25574.htm

“Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.”

Source: Information Clearing House

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.”

Adolph Hitler, My New World Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933

Stopping Orwell’s Nightmare

Published on Thursday, May 27, 2010 by CommonDreams.orgby Robert C. Koehler

The God of War doesn’t dine on raw shank bone or bellow orders quite like he used to. When he talks to Congress, say, it goes more like this:

“And, oh, while you’re up, I’m going to be needing, uh (cough, cough) . . . $159 billion this go-around, you know, for the troops. Thanks.”

It works.

With the war on terror in its ninth year and disappearing from even the pretense of national debate, let alone outrage and protest, and with the President of Hope prosecuting it so quietly most of us no longer notice, we could be at an eerie national transition point, beyond which war is no longer controversial or a big deal but just the way things are: “normal,” like background noise. And the enormous transfusions of cash it requires – well, nice people don’t talk about it.

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Sacrificing Women to the Budget Gods

Published on Thursday, May 27, 2010 by Grit TVby Laura Flanders

As states scramble to stay afloat — how are they balancing their budgets? On the backs of working women of course. The new big trend is to cut subsidies for child care. And with child care — poof — a critical lifeline to working moms is disappearing. The same states that cut welfare entitlements in the 90s, forcing moms out to work, are now cutting the subsidized child care that was promised in return for workfare.

While the Obama government has provided some aid to states to keep subsidies up, it is not nearly enough, and some states are just calling it quits. In California, Governor Schwarzennegger, whose respect for women is well known, recently proposed to eliminate the entire state welfare and child care program entirely, affecting 1.4 million people two thirds children.

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TX Education: Who Needs History When You Have Christian Fundamentaslism; failure to pass anti-lynching legislation, lynching on City Hall lawn attended by 15,000 spectators, some of whom cut off body parts of the black victim for souvenirs…

Published on Friday, May 28, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

For Texas Ed Board: Ignorance is Bliss

by Linn Washington Jr.

Let’s give credit where credit is due.

The Texas Board of Education, in a press release announcing its revision of the public school history curriculum, states that those revisions include explaining “instances of institutional racism in American society.”

So are critics reacting unfairly in charging that Texas board with embedding bigotry within its emphasis on presenting America as a Christian and conservative nation?

Well, let’s point out that this mention of “institutional racism” comes right after that same press release highlights how Texas school students will now study the ideas of Confederate States’ President Jefferson Davis alongside those of Abraham Lincoln and will examine misconceptions about church-state separation in the US Constitution.

Now, given the rigid-right dictates driving the Texas Board’s revisions, it’s unlikely students will really receive accurate instruction about the contours of institutional racism in the Lone Star state or other locales around America.

It is unlikely students will receive Education Board sanctioned instruction about the May 1916 lynching on the Waco, TX City Hall lawn that was attended by 15,000 spectators, some of whom cut off body parts of the black victim for souvenirs.

Texas does have the dubious distinction of having had the third highest number of lynching deaths in the U.S. between the mid-1880s to the 1950s, ranking behind Georgia and Mississippi.

Another unlikely classroom lesson for Texas students: the institutionally racist refusal of Texas’ two U.S. Senators (both Republicans like the Ed Board’s majority) to support the U.S. Senate’s June 2005 apology for that body’s despicable, decades-long failure to pass anti-lynching legislation.

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Trusting the Scorpion: BP, the Legacy of Republican Hypocrisy and Democratic Cowardice

Published on Thursday, May 27, 2010 by CommonDreams.orgby John Atcheson

The progressives are up in arms over the oil spill.  Like a scene from Frankenstein, the good citizens are storming the hydrocarbon castle with torches ablaze, and pitchforks held high.

Some demand stricter regulations, some a wiser energy policy, but they’re all focused on tarring BP with this heinous crime against nature.  Especially now that Obama is starting to get some blame.  An inordinate amount of energy is being spent on how we can use this event to “message,” with the emphasis here on assigning the blame to BP.

It would be nice to get stricter regulations; certainly a wiser energy policy would be good.  But focusing on blaming BP is missing the point.  Of course they cut corners; of course they’re sleazy.  It’s what they do.

But they can do it only because we let them.  The whole thing is reminiscent of the fable about the scorpion and the frog.  If you’ve forgotten, it goes like this:

A scorpion asks a frog to carry him across a river. The frog, afraid of being stung, refuses at first, but when the scorpion points out that if it were to sting the frog,  the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well, he relents. Yet when they reach the middle of the river, the scorpion stings him. As they are sinking,  the frog asks why, and the scorpion explains, “I’m a scorpion; it’s what we do.”

The hydrocarbon castle we would storm is but one building in a vast city as dark as Mordor.

That’s why focusing on blaming BP, even in hopes of getting a saner energy policy, is such a waste – it’s like worrying about a case of the sniffles (albeit a very bad case) when you’ve got end stage cancer.  Was Exxon – the mot profitable company in history last year — not blamed for the “Exxon-Valdez?” Did it change anything?

Here’s the grim reality: the oil spill is merely a symptom of a much deeper problem, one that is our fault, because for the last 30 years we’ve been trusting the scorpion.

The fact is, Reagan had it backwards. Government, it turns out, is often the solution and unconstrained private industry the problem.  Many of us knew this, but few have had the courage to stand up to Reagan’s dangerous, but popular, fantasy, then or now.

Indeed, when the history of the last three decades is written, it will be a story of epic hypocrisy on the part of Republicans, enabled by abject cowardice on the part of Democrats, with consequences that created a legacy far more tragic and irreversible than even this horrendous oil spill.

There may have been a few conservative ideologues who actually believed the small government, magic market mantras spouted by the likes of Reagan, Grover Norquist (I simply want to rduce [government] to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub) William Kristol and assorted industry-funded think tanks, but they were few and far between.

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The American Century Is So Over

Published on Saturday, May 29, 2010 by TomDispatch.com

Obama’s Rudderless Foreign Policy Underscores America’s Waning Power

by Dilip Hiro

Irrespective of their politics, flawed leaders share a common trait. They generally remain remarkably oblivious to the harm they do to the nation they lead. George W. Bush is a salient recent example, as is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When it comes to foreign policy, we are now witnessing a similar phenomenon at the Obama White House.

Here is the Obama pattern: Choose a foreign leader to pressure.  Threaten him with dire consequences if he does not bend to Washington’s will. When he refuses to submit and instead responds vigorously, back off quickly and overcompensate for failure by switching into a placatory mode.

In his first year-plus in office, Barack Obama has provided us with enough examples to summarize his leadership style. The American president fails to objectively evaluate the strength of the cards that a targeted leader holds and his resolve to play them.

Obama’s propensity to retreat at the first sign of resistance shows that he lacks both guts and the strong convictions that are essential elements distinguishing statesmen from politicians. By pursuing a rudderless course in his foreign policy, by flip-flopping in his approach to other leaders, he is also inadvertently furnishing hard evidence to those who argue that American power is on the decline — and that the downward slide of the globe’s former “sole superpower” is irreversible.

Those who have refused to buckle under Obama’s initial threats and hardball tactics (and so the impact of American power) include not just the presidents of China, a first-tier mega-nation, and Brazil, a rising major power, but also the leaders of Israel, a regional power heavily dependent on Washington for its sustenance, and Afghanistan, a client state — not to mention the military junta of Honduras, a minor entity, which stood up to the Obama administration as if it were the Politburo of former Soviet Union.

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Israel Rejects Call To Join Anti-Nuclear Treaty

SOURCE:  Liberty Underground News

Following up on our story yesterday morning about the nations of the world pushing to bring Israel into the fold of those doing something to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Israel announced later in the day yesterday that it will not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Israel will continue to make as many nuclear weapons as it wants and will not cooperate with the 189 nations that have signed the treaty, probably pushing its enemies into making nukes of their own.

It is hard to imagine that the country which began with so much goodwill after the holocaust could fall so low in opinion polls around the world, seemingly without a care about its belligerence and human rights violations.

For example, al Jazeera has a report this morning which begins “An international children’s rights charity has said it has evidence that Palestinian children held in Israeli custody have been subjected to sexual abuse in an effort to extract confessions from them.”

REMINDER: BP fines, political contributions, and death count…NOT A NEW ISSUE

BP – www.bp.com

Political Contributions:

To Democrats $94,122
To Republicans $156,877

Foreign owned

Paid $21.3 million in fines, the largest fine ever levied by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), after 15 workers dies and 170 were injured in a 2005 Texas refinery fire linked to more than 300 safety violations.

A 2004 incident at the same refinery killed two, injured one, and resulted in a $102,500 fine.

Paid $81 million in 2005 to settle a lawsuit over Los Angeles refinery emissions violations, which forced local schools to close three times to protect students from harmful emissions.

Paid $414 million in 2003 for alleged violations at the same facility.

Fined $1.42 million – a state record – in early 2005 for safety violations at an Alaskan oilfield.

Source: (excerpt from)The Blue Pages (first edition)
ISBN: 0-9760621-1-9

Second Edition: http://p3books.com/thebluepages/

“At least I have a pile of rubble to go home to.”

SOURCE:  Liberty Underground News

If aliens ever visit us, it’ll be like when Columbus first came to America, it didn’t turn out very well for Native Americans

Stephen Hawking, John Mack and Worlds Beyond

By Bill Hare
05/29/2010 07:50:51 PM EST

When discussion began flowing freely concerning a point the eminent Dr. Stephen Hawking raised in a Discovery Channel documentary presentation I was anything but surprised by the statement that drew such scrutiny.Years ago in Southern California I worked on a writing project with an astronomer and college professor.  When I posed the question to him about the existence of other civilizations in the universe his answer dovetailed with what Hawking with his astronomy background related the other day in his Discovery Channel interview.

The issue involved calculating the number of possibilities in the universe for sustaining life.  A London Times article of April 25 revealed, “Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.”

That conclusion having been reached, Hawking moved onto the topic of whether Planet Earth spokespersons should seek to interact with entities from worlds beyond.  The watchword from Hawking was trepidation.

To quote further from the London Times article, Hawking concluded that trying to make contact with alien races was a “little too risky.”  He added, “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for Native Americans.”

The Hawking conclusion is reminiscent of a masterwork from one of Britain’s most eminent authors, H.G. Wells, and his penning of “War of the Worlds.”

Such a graphic science fiction work was latent with such enormous special effects possibilities that it was no surprise when Hollywood produced a film version of Wells’ epic that achieved box office success.

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