The Rag Blog

Iraqis Protest in Basra Over Security
By BUSHRA JUHI

BAGHDAD (AP) — Thousands of people took to the streets Saturday in Basra, protesting deteriorating security in the southern city where Iraqi forces assumed responsibility for safety last December.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said that Iraqi security forces had discovered a mass grave in Diyala province containing perhaps 100 bodies. Also Saturday, two separate bombings in the province northeast of Baghdad left six people dead.

In Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city and the urban center of an oil-rich region, Shiite groups have been wrestling for control.

Residents are becoming increasingly alarmed, saying that killings, kidnappings and other crimes have increased significantly since British forces turned over responsibility for Basra at the end of last year.

In February, two journalists working for CBS were kidnapped in the city. One was released but the other, a Briton, is still being held.

As many as 5,000 people demonstrated near the Basra police command headquarters Saturday, demanding that the police chief, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Khalaf, and the commander of joint military-police operation, Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji, resign.

Many carried banners, decrying the killing of women, workers, academics and scientists. Dozens of women were slain in Basra by religious extremists last year because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against “violating Islamic teachings.”

Saturday’s protesters, overwhelmingly men, came from several Shiite political movements, including the biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its militia wing, known as the Badr Brigade.

Khalaf said at a news conference later that “today’s demonstration was a natural right of the citizens and the political parties to express their opinions.”

He defended the performance of the police, saying they had freed 10 people who were kidnapped in the past 10 days and “detained 64 people accused of carrying out sabotage and terrorist operations all over Basra.”

Read it here.

Pharmaceuticals Found in Drinking Water
AP, Posted: 2008-03-09 15:40:51

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public “doesn’t know how to interpret the information” and might be unduly alarmed.

How do the drugs get into the water?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies — which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public — have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

“We recognize it is a growing concern and we’re taking it very seriously,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation’s 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:

–Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.

–Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

–Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

–A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco’s drinking water.

–The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

–Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

The federal government doesn’t require any testing and hasn’t set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven’t: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

Some providers screen only for one or two pharmaceuticals, leaving open the possibility that others are present.

Read all of it here.

sharon roos with basquiat graffiti / Stephanie Chernikowski / The Rag Blog

Sissy Farenthold, image from Texas Legacy Project.

Houston’s Farenthold wins ACLU honor
By MELISSA LUDWIG / San Antonio Express News / March 8, 2006

Trailblazers and hell raisers.

That may be the best way to describe Molly Ivins and Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, two women honored Saturday night at a gala toasting the 70th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas in downtown San Antonio.

Farenthold, 81, received the first Molly Ivins Lifetime Achievement Award, created to honor the spitfire Texas columnist who died last year.

“I am humbled because I know there are so many people who are worthy of it, and especially because it is in memory of Molly. To be associated, even in that way, is very moving to me,” Farenthold said.

Farenthold was the first woman to be a serious nominee for vice president at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Before that, she served with Barbara Jordan as one of two women in the Texas legislature, and was part of the so-called “Dirty 30,” a group of lawmakers who rebelled against corruption in the speaker’s office. She went on to serve as president of Wells College in Aurora, New York and as a human rights observer in Central America.

Farenthold lives in Houston, where she has chaired the board of the Rothko Chapel and lobbies for civil rights and other causes.

“She really is a historic figure, not just for the women’s movement and for ACLU causes,” said Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who presented the award. Radnofsky is the first woman to have won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas in 2006, though she ultimately lost the race.

Farenthold too lost her 1972 bid for vice president, but the fact that she was even nominated will put her in the history books, Radnofsky said.

“It was one of the times where everybody looked around and said, ‘This is huge barrier that has been broken,'” Radnofsky said.

The anniversary gala landed on International Women’s Day, which the ACLU staff considered a happy coincidence.

Earlier on Saturday, about 500 people, mostly women and children, gathered downtown and marched from Travis Park to Milam Park to mark the event. Many carried signs speaking out on issues of the day, including immigration, domestic violence, nuclear power, war and education.

Both the march and the gala paid tribute to Emma Tenayuca, who in 1938 rallied thousands of pecan shellers in San Antonio to protest a wage cut, a movement that led to the founding of the Texas Civil Liberties Union.

Maria Berriozabal, a former San Antonio city councilwoman who is part of the San Antonio Free Speech Coalition, said it was a triumph the march even took place.

Two weeks ago, Berriozabal’s coalition won a court injunction against the city, which wanted to charge organizers for traffic control and cleanup costs. The coalition argued that the steep fees were an impediment to free speech rights. A trial is scheduled for October.

“The city acted wrongly in asking people to pay to demonstrate as we are today, so that’s one great victory we’re celebrating,” Berriozabal said. “Another one is simply women throughout the ages, courageous women who each in their own time who have stood up for themselves, for their families and for their communities especially Emma Tenayuca.”

Terri Burke, director of ACLU of Texas, said San Antonio was the perfect setting for the gala.

Source.

International Working Women’s Day

Another year! The condition of women has not advanced, but the illusionist want women to see it that way. Specifically in the field of politics. A woman running for president, and not just any woman but a bourgeois woman. Women must stay true to their class, class background, and to maintain their class stand. Don’t be fooled. Here in Colombia there was a massive demo in Bogota against “the war” – women made up the largest part of the 200,000. I watched from my hotel room 29 stories up. In every war women bear most of the suffering, losing their children, the greatest of tragedies Keep in mind the sisters and mothers of Iraq, and Afghanistan, who feel the daily sting of the imperialist boot heel. Choose your rock today and bide your time, the time is near when you will find your chance to deploy it in the name of all the sisters of our class.

And yes, one more for me. 68 in a row.

Make this a happy day, a day of communion with and among the sisters of the world.

Richard Lee from Colombia / for The Rag Blog

The Cindy Sheehan Doctrine
by Cindy Sheehan / March 6th, 2008

One early morning, exactly five weeks after Casey was killed, I was awakened by a disturbing dream. Casey’s father, Patrick and I had traveled to Santa Barbara for Mother’s Day that year to visit the Arlington West exhibit sponsored by the Santa Barbara chapter of Veteran’s for Peace. This was when we still believed that that our marriage was not going to be a casualty of the illegal and immoral travesty of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

After the initial shock of having a cherished part of me violently torn away, the story that the Army told us about Casey’s death did not ring true. When a former-Lieutenant of Casey’s called a few days after his death to express his condolences, Patrick asked him the question that had been on all of our minds: “Casey was a mechanic, what was he doing in combat?” The Lt. replied: “Didn’t you know, Casey volunteered.” That story about Casey “volunteering” never sat right with me. It did not resonate with Casey’s Chaplain heart, his reluctance to go to Iraq in the first place, and his vow before he left that he would not “kill anyone” because he could not. Then to put the icing on the cake baked with lies, when the Lt. and one of Casey’s Sergeants came to his funeral, they told us what a great mechanic Casey was.

This lie was the one that I found so hard to swallow. Casey joined the Army to be a Chaplain’s Assistant and when he reported to boot camp in September of 2000, he was told that specialty was “full” and he would have to be a “cook or a humvee mechanic.” Casey picked the specialty that was the least abhorrent to him, but he didn’t like it. When the Lt. and Sgt. told me that he was a “great mechanic,” I said: “Really, he didn’t even know how to change his own oil.” This was just a small matter, but if the two soldiers would lie about a simple thing like Casey’s job to try and do damage control, then they would lie about how he died, too.

Like I said, Casey had been dead for exactly five weeks on that early Mother’s Day morning in 2004, and I hadn’t dreamed about him yet. In the first dream, I was at an outdoor amphitheater looking at the stage and I heard a booming voice over the loudspeakers say: “Specialist Casey Sheehan.” I looked up, surprised and overjoyed that he was alive. Casey walked out on stage with a can of Diet 7-up in one hand and an M-16 in the other. He was wearing briefs and nothing else. He nonchalantly put his rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I collapsed on the ground screaming: “The Army made Casey kill himself.” I awakened from the dream and instantly there was an earthquake in Santa Barbara that shook our hotel room.

Of course, the dream fueled my suspicions that the story the Army told us was not true. Since Casey’s death, we have heard so many stories.

About six months after Casey died, one of his “buddies” came to visit. He said that Casey volunteered for the mission, and he said: “Sheehan you don’t have to go.” Casey said: “Where my Sgt. goes, I go.” Then this Sgt. claimed that Casey died in his arms. A year later, the medic who held Casey’s brains in his head said he was alive when he got to the medic station; the doctor who tried to keep him alive confirmed that story independently from the medic.

I spoke to two un-embedded journalists who told me that Casey’s unit, the First Cavalry, was on a “search and destroy” mission and after Casey was killed in the ambush, they went driving through Sadr City slaughtering anything that moved and strafing apartment buildings in the Shi’a slum that was built for three million people but contained ten million. Martha Raddatz, ABC correspondent, wrote a book that repeated the blatant US military lie that the Mahdi Army was using women and children as “human shields” forcing the US to kill civilians. First of all, “human shields” are not a very good barrier (unless the First Cav was using sling shots and pebbles). Second, insurgencies need popular support and do not benefit from killing innocent civilians, and third, the Iraqi people love their women and children as much as we do.

The “Casey volunteered” story was repeated in Martha Raddatz’s book and she got the info from the soldiers that were in the unarmed and open truck bed that Casey was in when he was killed — regurgitating the official US military lies. Recently this email was sent to my campaign office from a soldier who was near Casey when this event occurred:

I’m very sorry what happened to casey. I knew him I was in his unit and lived across the hall. There has been something I have been wanting to get off my chest though. Why am I hearing he volunteered for the mission. He was a humvee mechanic and he honestly sucked at it. He was a great guy but a horrible mechanic. The truth is that when the 1st sgt who was scared to go out himself asked for volunteers all the nco’s literally ran to the potapottys. Sheehans chief told sheehan to get on the lmtv. Sheehan said ” no, I’m a mechanic” well I remember watching ssg (XXXX) say” get your motherfucken ass on the god damn truck” and he literrally grabbed casey by his collar and dragged him onto the lmtv. Don’t believe me you better ask somebody. That’s also what I told Martha Raddatz but I guess for some reason she didn’t think she should write it that way. Well I’m sorry but if you were told different it was a lie. This is the truth I swear on my son. God Bless and good luck, [NOTE: This email has not been altered by me: CS].

Martha Raddatz confirmed that she was told this, but did not follow up because this soldier was “not on Casey’s truck.” This account of Casey’s last minutes of life upsets me so much, but this account makes more sense to me then the other accounts. The Army had him for almost four years, but I had him for 24 years.

Iraq Vets Against the War is holding a “Winter Soldier” event soon, and they will recount stories of how they participated in war crimes or witnessed war crimes, which is not in dispute because the entire invasion and occupation is a war crime. These young people came home alive and many of them will have to deal with their demons forever as my Vietnam veteran friends still do, but we families of soldiers who were killed will also be haunted by things we know and things we will never know or never know for sure. The stories of military neglect, abuse (sexual, physical, mental, emotional) or lies are almost as many as there are troops: living or dead.

Casey joined the US Army to be a Chaplain’s Assistant, was made a mechanic, then died five days after deployment as a very reluctant infantry soldier who had never been trained in urban guerrilla warfare. Do I want to sue someone for the wrongful death of my son caused by the criminal behavior of his Commander in Chief and for the cowardice and blood-lust exhibited by Casey’s superiors in the First Cavalry? Of course I do, not to bring Casey back (obviously) but to prevent future heartache and frustration. We families cannot sue because of the “Ferris Doctrine” which prohibits soldiers or family members from suing the government if a soldier is harmed or killed while in service… even for “gross negligence.”

If we cannot sue the military or government, I want to propose a “Casey Sheehan Doctrine” that will read something like this:

Whereas, citizens of the United States have basic and profound legal rights protected by this country’s Constitution, irrespective of enacted laws or executive orders, past, present, and future, that violate, weaken, or render nil the very core of those rights, and

Whereas, US citizens serving in the US military, and by virtue of military unilateral enlistment contracts, are by default denied these basic legal rights afforded others of the citizenry, and

Whereas, wars of aggression, imperialist in nature, unprovoked in substance, and profitable by design have been deemed illegal globally, and immoral universally; and that the purveyors of such atrocious events are to be held in contempt of humanity for their crimes of war, and

Whereas, the only justifiable use of force is for protective purposes, for life, liberty, and property, the last of which may be construed to mean one’s country in a broader sense, and

Whereas, any member of the US military has the legal and moral responsibility to refuse any order that is illegal or immoral in nature, especially one that may constitute a crime against humanity, and

Whereas, the US invasion/occupation of the country of Iraq, known as the Iraq War, soon into its sixth year of prosecution, has been shown to have been caused directly on the basis of lies, deceit, manipulation and duplicity on the part of the Executive branch of the government of the United States, and the acquiescence of the US Congress, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, that all members of the US military war machine–soldiers, marines, airmen and women, and sailors–and those adjunct to them, are called upon to follow their conscience in all matters relating to their military service; and such persons should refuse any orders that might contradict matters of conscience, morality, or law, and further

BE IT RESOLVED, that those in uniform, and families, friends, advocates, and others, of those who serve their country will seek redress for any wrongdoing, abuse, mistreatment, injury, or death upon their person; and this justice should be pursued by any means available, legal and otherwise, up to and including acts of civil disobedience.

Resolved this day of March 5, 2008

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush’s war of terror on 04/04/04. Sheehan is a congressional candidate running against Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. You can visit her campaign website at CindyforCongress.org.

Source

Black Prison Gulag and the Police State
by Glen Ford / March 6th, 2008

The United States has passed an historic and symbolic watershed in its unrelenting, two generations-long quest to incarcerate as many Blacks as humanly possible. As of January 1, more than one of every 100 adults is behind bars, about half of them Black. That’s not counting Afro-Latinos and other Hispanics. The U.S. is the unchallenged leader in mass incarceration, with the largest Gulag on the planet, based on raw numbers of inmates – 2,319,258 in federal and state prisons and local jails – and per capita incarceration: 750 inmates for every 100,000 people. Russia, which led the world back in Soviet times, is number two, with 628 inmates per 100,000. The Black and brown U.S. prisoner population, alone, roughly equals that of China’s – a nation with four times the population of the U.S.

Russia’s imprisonment practices grew out of the Tsarist Siberian and later, Stalinist model. America’s model is directly derived from slavery – the virtual imprisonment of an entire people. From the post-Emancipation “Black Codes” through the 1960s, Blacks have always been locked up in vastly disproportionate numbers. Still, white inmates were in the majority until at least 1964. Then, beginning in the early 70s, the prison population exploded, multiplying seven times. By 1996, African Americans comprised 53 percent of all persons admitted to state and federal prisons. One out of nine Black males between the ages of 20 and 34 now resides behind bars, compared to just one of every 30 whites.

The debate over U.S. prison growth and wildly disparate Black incarceration – to the extent there is a debate – usually centers on draconian and racially-engineered drug sentences. That’s descriptive of one modality of prison growth, addressing the “how” of the problem, but doesn’t address the “why” of it, the political intentions of massive imprisonment of African Americans.

Countless studies have shown beyond statistical doubt that the U.S. “justice” system is stacked against African Americans at every stage of the process: hyper-surveillance of Black neighborhoods, leading to disproportionate arrests, a nationwide pattern of prosecutorial fervor to charge Blacks with more serious crimes than white defendants, harsher sentences once convicted, and far fewer opportunities for Blacks to avoid hard time through “diversion” programs that are skewed to allowing far more whites to escape long term stints in prison. Once again, these factors explain how Blacks have become majorities in prison, even in states and localities with relatively small Black populations, but do not address why Black mass incarceration began to accelerate at breakneck speed in the early 70s, and continues no matter whether crime is up or down.

“Mass Black incarceration,” I wrote in February, 2007,” is America’s answer to the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties and early Seventies.” Just as the “Black Codes” were the white South’s response to Emancipation, and as massive incarceration of Black “loiterers” to prison plantations and chain gangs followed the crushing of Reconstruction, whites got revenge against the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties by throwing as many as possible African Americans in prison. This “nigger-caging” response was near-uniform across the country – North, South, East and West. It is the Mother of All White Backlashes – no, the Grandmother, showing no signs of diminishing in racist fury after more than 30 years.

“Reform” measures are surely needed, such as elimination of mandatory sentencing, broader application of prison “diversion” programs, abolition of racist crack cocaine super-sentences, a requirement that “racial impact” studies be instituted at all prisons and jails, repeal of state laws depriving convicted felons of the right to vote, and many other proposals. However, if mass Black incarceration, the “engine” of prison growth, is not understood as an ongoing, institutionalized crime whose purpose is wholly racial, the discussion will be limited to reformers who attempt to tinker around the edges of the historical catastrophe and Black clergy who think they can preach successive Black generations out of going to prison.

Read all of it here.

Campaign Blues
By Jim Kunstler

While it’s gratifying to watch Hillary Clinton melt back into her senate seat — in the process foiling the ascent of Emperor Bill the 1st — one can’t help but feel that the contest for president is taking place in a different “world-line” (shall we say) than the melt-down of the US financial sector, and with it, the US economy.

Whoever wins on November 5 will wake up to preside over a different America than the schematic one he was debating about during the primaries and the election. The long campaign will beat a path straight into the long emergency. The new president will inherit a wrecked banking system, an economy in freefall, a wobbling world oil market, and an American public extremely ticked off by its startling, sudden impoverishment. (This is apart from whatever melodramas spool out on the geopolitical scene.)

The president-elect will quickly realize that the number one problem is not that Americans can’t afford health care — it’s that they can’t afford anything, because their income is evaporating in terms of both lost jobs and a dollar that is racing toward worthlessness. They’ll be hard put to pay for food and gasoline, nevermind Grandma’s emphysema treatments. They will be walking away from home ownership — or yanked kicking and screaming by default-and-repo — and any government scheme devised to abridge their mortgage contracts will only undermine basic contract law that has made mortgage lending a credible thing in the first place. And that too, of course, would redound straight to a real estate sector already in price free-fall, with no one willing or able to think about buying a house.

As Obama and McCain go at it through the next eight months, they will likely focus on our situation in Iraq. (Calling it a “war” now is imprecise.) As merely one commentator among thousands, I’m not satisfied that either one of the contenders has defined his position on this coherently. Obama is disposed to get the US military out of there as quickly as possible. He’s right that the sheer awful cost of the adventure is one big factor in wrecking US finances while it erodes our standing in the world. But with our Iraq garrison shut down, he’d better be prepared for a further breakdown in Middle East stability and the oil markets that depend on it — meaning, the basis of American life for four generations, dependable oil imports, will sharply end. That would accelerate the disorderly abandonment of our massive misinvestment in suburban living, and also ramp up the anger and resentment of the public grieving over its lost entitlements.

McCain’s contrasting hundred-year plan does not take into account the severe impoverishment and exhaustion of the military itself, not to mention the overall purpose of the adventure — to keep suburban life and all its accessories running in the homeland — which is an exercise in futility under any terms. McCain would have to confront the terrible paradoxes of the war, namely that thousands of legs have been blown off for the sake of WalMart, which company will be hemorrhaging customers anyway, as incomes wilt, at the same time that WalMart’s own operating system — the “warehouse on wheels” — surrenders to the reality of five or six dollar-a-gallon diesel fuel. In any case, the implosion of the US economy during the next eight months will overshadow whatever we decide to do in Iraq, and that cratering will be laid directly at the feet of the Republican party. If the party survives that, which I doubt, it would a long time before anybody trusted it again.

Whoever wakes up as the next president on November 5 will have to preside over the comprehensive reorganization of American life. The big question is whether he can persuade the public to let go of its sunk costs, and all the sheer stuff that represents, and move ahead in a unified way that doesn’t end up tearing the nation apart. The danger is that the public will want to mount a kind of last stand effort to defend a way of life that has no future under any circumstances, and they will ask the president to lead that last stand.

To avoid that deadly outcome, the new president will have to be equipped with a realistic vision of what this society can actually do to survive the discontinuities that circumstances present. This will require him to confront the prevailing delusion that the US can become “energy independent” in the sense that we can run WalMart on something other than oil from foreign lands. The new president would have to carefully restate American expectations and goals — for instance, not to keep all the cars running at all costs, but to get us living in places where driving is not mandatory. I’m concerned that the American people will hate the new president if he tells them the truth: that an old way of life is over and a new one has to begin now. We’re about to find out how much “change” the public can really stand.

Source

TO: Whomever is no longer concerned

FROM: Scott, president, founder, and only member of THE UNASSOCIATED ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PAUPERS QUASI-REVOLUTIONARY QUITTERS CLUB

I (your name goes here), having CONCLUDED, based on the undeniable reality that all American problems invariably become exponentially clusterfucked and are always forcefully contagious, and that the American dream is a tiresome, unrewarding bad trip, not worth the efforts or the casualties. Understanding that participation is complicity, resistance is futile. Having consumed all the mind-numbing propaganda that I can bare. Being duly aware that, I, by having neglected to contribute to the coffers of the winning campaigns can expect no favors and no mercy. Having zero interest in the present electoral outcomes, even for their circus-like entertainment value.

We understand that descent into total class war and social chaos is inevitable, unstoppable, and evolutionarily necessary. We fully expect to eventually be enslaved, incarcerated, tortured, shot in the cross-fire, blown-up by CIA terrorists, euthanised, or simply left behind when Jesus, or Sun Myung Moon, finally comes.

With no fond memories or illusions of any real loss whatsoever. With all patriotic tendencies as thoroughly deceased as the countless Iraqi victims of the spreading of “freedom and democracy”. With the foundations of my trust for authority as wobbly as WTC Building 7. With all community affectations rendered ineffective and foreclosed. With not even a hint of a faith-based initiative. With no demand for a raise in wages. No care for a tax break. With no pleas for food stamp allotment increases or cost of living adjustments. Having no part to play in the stimulus program. With no expectations of receiving medical assistance from any of the greedy, incompetent, indifferent, upper-class medical professionals in this sanctimonious society of hustlers and pickle vendors. With no hopes of a secure, comfortable, contented, or full life. With no care for how my body is disposed of when I am relieved of the need for it. Not giving a shit who inherits my earthly belongings, if any shall somehow remain in my possession at the time of my demise or abduction.

Having no desire to profit from such an aggressively militant, murderous, deceptive, oligarchical, purified, religiously confused, environmentally rapacious culture. With no inclination to consume slave made wares, to eat toxic or genetically modified corporate American food or to interact socially with a generally lost and misguided society of hopelessly hypnotized consumer slaves or their xenophobic sycophantic superiors — preferring to be alone unto myself.

Knowing full well that I may be trampled in the cardboard box that I may be living in when the banks finally fail, the grocery trucks run out of gas, the plug gets pulled from the hologram, the shit hits the fan,and the urban masses stampedes towards the countryside in search of the farmers’ chickens or things to steal to trade for a rat-meat sandwich or a new tattoo, do hereby OPT OUT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, goodbye and good riddance.

Source

Iraqis of Mosul speak of suffering

Five years of war have taken their toll on the Iraqi city of Mosul, where people live in fear, many without jobs, electricity or a reliable supply of water.

Engineer Ashwak al-Jaaf lost her husband and the eldest of her six children when unknown assailants killed them following the invasion, writing over their bodies that the pair had been members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime.

“I fled to Syria for two years,” said Mrs Jaaf, aged 50.

“When I returned I found that everything had been stolen, even my car. Life is very bad now, dangerous and there are no basic services. This is what happens if you leave a country without a strong leader.”

In certain parts of Mosul, whole roads are lined with mounds of rubble, the remains of a building destroyed by an American hellfire missile or a car bomb.

Sewage runs in the street and the graffiti on walls advertises house after house up for sale.

Mrs Jaaf said that she too would leave again if she had the resources.

“Before the war, life was perfect. My husband was a manager at the Ministry of Oil and we felt very well protected. I am unable to believe that the situation can ever be restored,” she said, blaming the US military for instigating the chaos.

“They destroyed our country and caused many people to be killed because they wanted to oust Saddam and take Iraq’s oil,” she said.

American commanders are working alongside the Iraqi army and the police to stop extremist groups, such as al-Qaeda, from operating in Mosul. Militants, opposed to the US military and US-backed Iraqi Government, have conducted a campaign of killing and intimidation in the city since 2004.

But some local people fear both sides of the fight in equal measure.

Read all of it here.