The Rag Blog

“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.” – Vladimir Lenin, 1916
Imperialism, The Highest [Last] Stage of Capitalism

Most people in the U.S. have become anesthetized to hearing about the “national debt” for a number of reasons:

* Hearing about the National Debt repetitively over a lifetime, conditions us to believe that the debt has no direct effect on our purse. Repetition conditions the individual to accept the debt as irrelevent to daily life. Repetition numbs.

* Media impressions that national debt is a normal and necessary for all countries to do business

* Illusions of the US as an invinceable superpower.

* The media-spawned belief that there are no alternatives and persistent attacks remove socialism from the discussion.

* The belief that safeguards have been adopted against a repeat of the Great Depression of 1929 (e.g. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) created by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 to insure the first $100,000 of depositor’s money).

* The belief that the U.S. economy will always be resilient and invinceable based on one’s own, brief personal or family history.

* Feelings of helplessness, i.e. “there is nothing we can do about it anyway”.

* The paralysis of anxiety, rooted in unacknowledged fear causing intellectual, psychological and physical withdrawal from family, community, the true self and the body politic.

* The mind-numbing and values-corrupting influence of one of capitalism’s most powerful drugs: consumerism.

These influences continue for most USers until they experience the repossession of the automobile, losses of the home, health care (especially in a medical crisis), decent education, healthy diets, and/or the loss of a job with few if any alternatives for similar work. The culture of materialism, consumerism, immediate gratification spawned by the news, entertainment and advertising media makes it extremely difficult for most to imagine a total collapse of the “invulnerable” U.S. economy. But it’s coming just as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. The “when” is not known but immanency has always been in the genetics of capitalism.

The Great Depression of 1929-1933

Consider the process that led to the Great Depression, beginning 78 years ago:

“The Great Depression was not a sudden total collapse. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below of peak in September 1929. Together government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the prior year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the summer of 1930. Compare current conditions in the U.S. economy with those that occurred from October 29, 1929 to March, 1933:

“The Great Depression (also known in the U.K. as the Great Slump) was a dramatic, worldwide economic downturn beginning in some countries as early as 1928. The beginning of the Great Depression in the United States is associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday.

“In the spring of 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates, but people were reluctant to add new debt by borrowing. By May 1930, auto sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, but wages held steady in 1930, then began to drop in 1931. Conditions were worst in farming areas where commodity prices plunged, and in mining and logging areas where unemployment was high and there were few other jobs. The decline in the American economy was the motor that pulled down most other countries at first, then internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. By late in 1930, a steady decline set in which reached bottom by March 1933.” Wikipedia

One of the catalysts cited was a “… a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland”. What are or will be our “severe droughts” in these times? Another major natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina or “the Big One” from the San Andreas Fault on the US west coast? Will the belligerant war on Iraq bankrupt the US economy? Will it be the changes in world currencies and the ultimate plummet of the dollar? Or will it simply be the continuing undermining of the fabric of western society?

“The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.”

– George Soros, Financial
Speculator and Profiteer

Marginalizing the Prophets

We have received ample warnings in recent years, largely via the internet about the inevitability of economic collapse. Many view the “war on terror”, in particular the war on Iraq to be a lurch forward toward total collapse in the process because of the unprecedented burden on the economy. Those who issue these warnings are always marginalized by the corporate media with simple-minded epithets like, “prophets of doom” who “do not understand the complexities” of the economy.

The War on Universal Values

In recent years, those of us who have been around for awhile, have witnessed the media campaign to increase the velocity and frenzy of commercial advertising, the destruction of human values with the normalization of the vulgar and build up of consumer-credit buying power. For decades, Hollywood Film, New York City Sitcoms and Advertising have used sophisticated technology and programming to destroy: the societal fabric of extended family, gender roles, respect for parents, elders and “the other”, the work ethic, human sexuality, self-examination and basic honesty. These persistent attacks almost always target the youth, invading the home and supplanting parental leadership with media control leaving layered cynicism in their wake. This war on the youth is rooted in the philosophical underpinnings of Relativism. Generations have been trained to ridicule any belief that absolute truth can possibly be known and that notions of right and wrong are obscured as they are predicated on the individual’s perceptions, histories and external conditions.

The Cultural Conquest Breeds International Conflict

This war on social and family structure is the threat against which intact cultures in other lands attempt to protect themselves. For example, a few years ago, we visited Morrocco and drove our rented car through the small towns of this predominantly Muslim country. We were somewhat surprised to see hundreds of young Muslim men sitting in tea houses along the road in small towns watching naked women on US shows like “Bay Watch” while their families were at home. For many Muslim fathers and mothers, satellite television has penetrated their public places and ultimately their homes with the filth of Hollywood. It is viewed as a moral and ultimately, political invasion against which defending children, home and traditional ways becomes more and more difficult. On the other hand, the US/British employ their psychological defense of projection when they bill their invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as a campaign to save Muslims from themselves, to give them “democracy” and “liberty” and generally a better way of life. Then they attribute the angry reaction to, “They are jealous of our freedom and way of life”!

Self Responsibility and Individualism

Individualism is not new to the human species. The story from the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible tells us that after Cain killed his brother, Abel, God asked Cain about his brother’s whereabouts. Cain answered,”Am I my brother’s keeper?” suggesting that he bore no responsibility for his brother. A sense of responsibility for others has been stripped from the culture in most western society. When you find it, you can attribute it to residual influences of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who have survived the stripping. Individualism has become an effective weapon, destroying the unity of the working class – the enemy of capitalism.

The mental mantra in uncivilized western society is “If it didn’t happen to me, my family, in my town, in my country, it is of no concern to me.” When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, a massive earthquake struck Bam, Iran and the Great Tsunami killed a quarter million people in the Indian Ocean, most people in the west watched the news reports with fascination and salved themselves with a sentimental sympathy but beneath it all was, “That is there and I am here. I and my family are safe”, mouthing self-righteous clichés like “There but for the grace of God go I”. The poor around the world were the exception to this rule because tragedy has often knocked at their doors or the doors of others close to them.

Self-responsibility is lost to individualism in the guise of “competition” where greed is bred. As stated by Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in the Hollywood movie, Wall Street in 1987:

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”

Consumer Confidence, Darling of the System

We often hear the media cite indices of “consumer confidence”, generally referring to the confidence people have in the system. The rush on the banks to withdraw personal funds appears to be the ultimate threat to capitalism in times of economic crisis. As a result, the economic “experts” try to buoy up “consumer confidence” by reporting strength in the stock market, other portrayals of economic strength and by giving people the ability to buy on credit. These tactics work for a while despite the fact that most people generally make little to no connection between a stock market index and money for rent, clothing, food and healthcare. The alarm clocks of losses in health care, cars, homes, credit cards and inaffordability of a good education sound to wake us up. The poorest of the poor are hit first before it travels upward to erode the middle class, a cancer that is now in advanced stages.

President Bush had his news conference today and of course there is going to be a lot of questions and skepticism about when he knew the NIE findings and why in August 2007, when according to his own account he was told by Mike Mc Connell, director of National Intelligence, that there was new intelligence on Iran, he did not ask what that new intelligence was and waited until last week to hear about it.

But being an “Iran person,” my moment of utter disbelief came when I heard him say this in the news conference:

“People say, would you ever talk to Iran? For you veterans here, for those who have been following this administration for a while, you might remember that I have consistently said that we will be at the table with the EU-3 if Iran would verifiably suspend their program — and the offer still stands. What changed was the change of leadership in Iran. We had a diplomatic track going, and Ahmadinejad came along and took a different tone. And the Iranian people must understand that the tone and actions of their government are that which is isolating them. There’s a better way forward for Iran. There’s a better way forward for the Iranian people than one in which they find themselves isolated in the world. Their economy can be stronger. But their leadership is going to have to understand that defiance, and hiding programs and defying IAEA is not the way forward. And my hope is, is that the Iranian regime takes a look at their policies and changes their policies back to where we were prior to the election of Ahmadinejad, which was a hopeful period. They had suspended their program, they were at the table. The United States had made some very positive gestures to convince them that there was a better way forward. And hopefully we can get back to that day.”

This goes even beyond deception and reaches the level of unreal. The man must either think that no one is watching or he must have really convinced himself that prior to Ahmadinejad things were going all swell with Iran.

Just for the record, it is important to remember that the inclusion of Iran as a standing member of axis of evil came in May 2002 when the reformist Mohammad Khatami was president and after Iran and the United States had cooperated in Afghanistan.

It was also during the Khatami presidency, in 2003 and beyond, that the Bush Administration reportedly ignored Iran’s offer of a deal and continuously complained about the European track to negotiate with Iran. In fact, as late as spring and summer of 2005, until the last days of Khatami’s presidency, the Bush Administration refused to allow the Europeans to entertain any scenario that would permit Iran to contemplate engagement in any enrichment-related activity even in the future.

As I discuss here in 2005, it was this intransigence that ultimately led Iran to bring its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan out of suspension during the last days of the Khatami Administration.

I continue to believe that this intransigence was also very instrumental in pushing aside the more conciliatory foreign policy that was practiced during the Khatami era and opened the path for the hard-line argument that no concession will satisfy the United States. The United States only understands the language of power and not dialogue, it was and is continued to be said.

WASHINGTON, May 15 (IPS) – Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush’s nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

Fallon’s resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration’s Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon’s resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.

The plan to add a third carrier strike group in the Gulf had been a key element in a broader strategy discussed at high levels to intimidate Iran by a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.

Admiral Fallon’s resistance to a further buildup of naval striking power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and last January, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in regard to the U.S. conflict with Iran.

Explaining why he recommended Fallon, Gates said, “As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job.”

Bush administration officials had just leaked to CBS News and the New York Times in December that the USS John C. Stennis and its associated warships would be sent to the Gulf in January six weeks earlier than originally planned in order to overlap with the USS Eisenhower and to “send a message to Tehran”.

But that was not the end of the signaling to Iran by naval deployment planned by administration officials. The plan was for the USS Nimitz and its associated vessels, scheduled to sail into the Gulf in early April, to overlap with the other two carrier strike groups for a period of months, so that all three would be in the Gulf simultaneously.

Two well-informed sources say they heard about such a plan being pushed at high levels of the administration, and Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari reported Feb. 19 that the deployment of a third carrier group to the Gulf was “likely”.

That would have brought the U.S. naval presence up to the same level as during the U.S. air campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, when the Lincoln, Constellation and Kitty Hawk carrier groups were all present. Two other carrier groups helped coordinate bombing sorties from the Mediterranean.

The deployment of three carrier groups simultaneously was not part of a plan for an actual attack on Iran, but was meant to convince Iran that the Bush administration was preparing for possible war if Tehran continued its uranium enrichment programme.

At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defence Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran’s leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief Mar. 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.

“He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it,” says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon’s message from a Pentagon official who had read it.

Fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch”.

Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, “You know what choices I have. I’m a professional.” Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, “There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.”

Fallon’s opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon’s predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post’s Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending “pointed messages” to Iran.

CENTCOM commander Fallon’s refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on Apr. 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, “There is no plan to overlap them at all.”

The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.

Within two weeks, the administration’s stance had already begun to shift dramatically. On Jan. 12, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dismissed direct talks with Iran in the absence of Tehran’s suspension of its uranium enrichment programme as “extortion”. But by the end of February, Rice had gotten authorisation for high level diplomatic contacts with Iran in the context of a regional meeting on Iraq in Baghdad.

The explanation for the shift offered by administration officials to the New York Times was that the administration now felt that it “had leverage” on Iran. But that now appears to have been a cover for a retreat from the more aggressive strategy previously planned.

Throughout March and April, the Bush administration avoided aggressive language and the State Department openly sought diplomatic engagement with Iran, culminating in the agreement confirmed by U.S. officials last weekend that bilateral talks will begin with Iran on Iraq.

Despite Vice President Dick Cheney’s invocation of the military option from the deck of the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf last week, the strategy of escalating a threat of war to influence Iran has been put on the shelf, at least for now.

Pakistan police today arrested the leader of the feminist U.S. antiwar group Code Pink, who was in Lahore for a student peace rally, according to a spokeswoman for the group.

Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the group, was arrested by plainclothes police with guns drawn and taken to a police station in Lahore, spokeswoman Dana Balicki said.

Police also arrested Tighe Barry, a longtime Code Pink activist, who was participating with the student rally outside the Lahore Press Club.

The students were protesting the emergency rule imposed Nov. 3 by President Pervez Musharraf.

Police told Ms. Benjamin and Mr. Barry they had to leave the country because their visas had expired, Ms. Balicki said, adding that their visas were valid.

“The government agents grabbed Barry by the arm and tried to hold him. Benjamin got help from some journalists, who managed to escort the two activists inside the club,” Ms. Balicki said.

She said that when Ms. Benjamin and Mr. Barry left the club, the plainclothes police on three motorcycles followed the car through the city and then, with guns drawn, arrested the pair.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when the Pakistani government — a government that is trying to portray itself to the West as democratic — tries to harass and deport U.S. human rights activists,” Ms. Benjamin said at the press club before her arrest. “If they do this to us, who have the protection of being U.S. citizens, imagine what they do to their own citizens.”

Ms. Balicki reported that Khummeram Khosa, a lawyer in Lahore who was driving the car for Ms. Benjamin and Mr. Barry, said he expected the pair would be released soon because the police “don’t have the guts to hold them for long.”

Ms. Benjamin and Mr. Barry have been in Pakistan since Nov. 25 to support opponents of the emergency rule, including lawyers, judges and students.

Earlier, they conducted a 24-hour vigil outside the home of lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, who is under house arrest.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy was not available for immediate comment.

Protests against the war in Iraq by Code Pink members, often clad in pink shirts and pink tiarras, have become a fixture on Capitol Hill.

Code Pink activist are arrested regularly for disrupt congressional hearings on the war, targeting Democrats and Republicans with protests.

‘Drag your tongue across the sugar cube and hope you get a taste. It’s like smelling the food but you’re not allowed to touch the silverware. Fascism you can vote for, how sweet.’ ~’Omegg.’ Just a small entertaining taste of poetry with a twist, from the rock band ‘Stoned Sour.’ (a great rant when heard in its entirety)

12/03/07 “ICH” — – Dear citizens of a crumbling nation, have you even noticed our country is being demolished all around us? Haven’t you noticed the pillars shaking, the foundation cracking, and debris falling everywhere? I certainly hope so, because the Bush administration’s wrecking ball hasn’t quite finished swinging yet, so keep your equilibrium stable and your stand-post securely firm, because before it’s over, there may not be much of anything left standing, or worth saving, and I don’t want to lose you.

What a waste! It really hasn’t required much effort to see what the hell has been happening here. It’s been getting steadily worse every day, for a very long time. All that was ever needed to see it daily was a simple common-sense compass pointed in any direction. Had we not been asleep, we could have easily prevented the carnage in every sector. But since we gullibly continue to believe the lying corporate news media blowhards about how damn great everything is, and since we put our trust in leaders who repeatedly lie with every word they utter, we now find ourselves in a bloody OZ wonderland — a screwed-up place where everyone considers all Americans fair game at home and abroad. So hunker down, my tar-and-feathered friends, hunting season is in full swing, and we’re headed for the endangered species list. That’s right sleepyhead, we’re a perishable item confined within the construct of our own self-destructive borders.

And since so few of us now hold the key to what little flicker of hope remains, I ask you this – do you know what your post entails? Well, do you? Do you ‘serve a purpose,’ or just ‘purposely serve’? Our fate, our future (if there is one), depends on how we answer and what we do today. We need to get off our asses and get busy!

After years of having my sensory modem continually assaulted from every direction and, with the future not looking too bright these days, sometimes I find strength and courage by searching the past for helpful solutions on how to inspire myself and others. Knowing the heavy burden we all must bear, I can honestly say with no disillusionments, ‘I know what my post entails.’ My purpose is to assist others, when possible, to help them find their weary way in order to solidify a combined awareness to birth a unified force to extend peace and justice with real checks and balances for a more deserving journey in life.

True patriotism is an on-demand wildcard that needs to be played from time to time. We have a solemn constitutional responsibility as American citizens to serve, protect and safeguard this great nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. America is NOT a squatter’s patch for lazy, brain-dead do-nothing zombies to sit on their asses while everything falls apart around them. Aside from improving our daily life, our obligation includes removing any and all crazy tyrants residing at the White House, as well as those spineless rubber-stamping idiots that foul the very air they breathe in both Houses of Congress.

I am invoking an age old citizen call-to-action. Consider yourselves drafted modern-day minutemen, obligated to awaken the masses for battle to fight the true monster at bay, the enemy within. Welcome aboard brothers and sisters, let’s give the devil his due…

We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. Just remember the good ol` 60’s hippie days. An exciting LSD era when the youth of this nation popped its cork in front of Richard Nixon and God, and actually did something positive to change our wicked ways. A better day existed when groovey strands of long hair served as some sort of crazy miracle potion empowering the strength of men. The longer it grew, the more you became a freak-flag Samsonite. We belonged to a kind of ‘hip’ Lord of the Rings fellowship that saved the day — at least for a while — and everyone knew without question what their post entailed.

And all the other colorful mojos didn’t hurt the process either — bell-bottom pants, psychedelic shirts, Mexican serapes, Navajo headbands, luminous body paints, mini-skirts, love-beads, love making, wake-up bells, feathers forever in all shapes and colors and flowered friendliness that definitely changed the way the whole world thought about teenagers. A thrilling time when virtually everyone seemed to find their own voice. Gee, I sure miss the good ol’ days…

Many people have different ideas of how hippies came to be. It was a serious counterculture party-wave that swept America off its feet as the largest generation of young people were coming of age. Mostly from middle and upper class, they came from everywhere with a well-deserved sense of dignity and self-respect for what they believed in. They valued peace, love, and personal freedom in a way that reached far beyond the confines of establishment rules.

Ah, 1967 — the summer of love, a culture extravaganza overflowing with honorable people who felt the world should live as one in peace and harmony. It was a compassionate calling for all segments of our society to come together as one to resist and prevent the cycle of war, violence and modern day slavery . However, as history has proven time and again, nothing is ever earned or given without its fair share of blood, sweat and tears with a lot of hard sacrifice. And the sixties movement was no different in terms of ‘paying its dues.’

Berkeley University is only one example of some of the most violent student protests that happened during the Vietnam War. And the uproar was not limited to just ending the war. The middle finger was directly pointed towards University administrations as well, for a variety of legitimate reasons. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement resulted in many arrests in its struggle. In fact, it had the largest number of student arrests in United States history. Like an army of hungry vultures, 700 angry policemen wielding clubs and spraying mace descended on the University during a peaceful day of protest and instigated a full-blown riot, assaulting dissenters (and news anchors) whose only crime was simply exercising their constitutional right to peaceably dissent in a public forum. Many were beaten unconscious in this shameless display of unnecessary violence. Only one day of many to remember in our nation’s history.

Sometimes, I can still hear the echo of the words afterwards. Don Brice, President of The News Director Association, rightly accused the Oakland police of being the real culprits who started the riot on purpose. In response to Brice, actor/Governor Ronald Reagan said, ‘The work of the Oakland Police Department was in the finest tradition of California’s law enforcement agencies. The officers displayed exceptional ability and great professional skill. The taking of alleged grievances to the streets cannot and will not be tolerated.’ To this day, It’s still hard to imagine Reagan later became President.

The Vietnam War was protested throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. Protests, rallies and demonstrations occurred across the nation and covered many different social issues — civil rights, women’s rights, etc. All of this happened in the midst of the harsh reality that any day we could all be drafted into a war we venomously opposed. It was a time mixed with fear as well as culture and social change that shocked the world.

We are now at yet another defining moment in our nation’s history — moments such as the Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, TET offensive, the fall of both the Berlin Wall and of Saigon, Watts Riots, Berkley Free Speech Movement, Women’s Liberation Movement, Black Panthers, presidential assassinations, Civil Rights killings, Apollo Space Missions, Mickey Mantle, Woodstock, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Zippo lighters, Zig Zag rolling papers, Black Light Posters, High Times magazine, Cheech and Chong, Hippies, fashion lords, culture shocks, art — you name it, you got it! The ‘be here now’ generation filled America’s ocean to its absolute brim…and rocked the planet. In fact, if you look real close, you can still see the Watermark left on the Crest from an everlasting journey. Whew…WHAT A FREAKIN RIDE!

Okay, my wise old gray haired friends, I know it’s a little hard to recapture that same nostalgic spark with just a quant 60’s butterfly kiss, but the next time you go to shave your head (the new style these days), you may want to throw on John Lennon’s old album ‘Imagine’ for inspiration. It’s better then doing nothing while waiting for a cup of porridge with ankle irons strapped on at a FEMA camp.

Please tell me the hopes of yesterday have not all gone up in smoke. Take notice old flowered ones, the times are a’changing, and for the worse. Our nation needs us, and our reputation at home and around the globe is as dry as dry can get. So either get with the program and find your patriotic post, or punch me in the dead-spot until I die. Because I refuse to sit idly by and do nothing while waiting to get rounded up as an ‘enemy combatant’ by jack-booted Blackwater mercenaries and have a microchip shoved up my ass. So…Lose the kick-stand and Reeve-up the motors, It’s time to mount up and ride…

12/03/07 “ICH” — – The form of government we have is anything but the democratic republic it purports to be. The more access to wealth a person has the more responsive to his or her needs the government is. Justice and equality cannot follow where access is denied or restricted. Far from a government of the people, for the people and by the people, we now have a government that is the exclusive domain of the rich and powerful and has the same level of exclusivity as an expensive country club or resort. The poor and disenfranchised are barred from entry and are thus marginalized.

Capital government is the equivalent of a bank’s automatic teller machine. Corporate lobbyists put their money into it and the machine prints out the legislation they paid for. It is a system in which the creator of the machines is no longer their master. We have become, as Thoreau said, “the tools of our tools.”

The people should not, and must not lend their material support to a government that so obviously works in the private corporate interest at the expense of the public well being. To do so is an exercise in self-deception and futility.

Material wealth is only rarely attracted to virtue. Voluntary poverty and simplicity is the usual domain of virtue, as history attests. Conversely, immense wealth is attracted to vice, to the mean-spirited, the selfish, the very aggressive and the morally depraved. The best people throughout history did not possess great material wealth. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, “Humanity was their business.”

What could be more incompatible than virtue and wealth, than business and morality? What could be more opposed to beauty, to truth, justice; to art and poetry, to life—than big business and capitalism? It is telling that our cultural icons are people like Donald Trump, Bill Gates, George Steinbrenner and other business tycoons, not virtuous men like Frederick Douglas and Henry David Thoreau or women like Mary Harris—the fiercely tenacious Mother Jones.

Corporate governance and plutocracy are manifestations of capitalism that invariably appeal to the worst in human nature. Expansive economic self interest is resulting in an ever expanding private domain and a shrinking public commons. The concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands is not in the public interest; nor is the wholesale exploitation of labor and ecosystems. A system in which means always justify the ends—a values neutral system of production and waste is contrary to the needs of the people, as well as the health of the planet.

The Holy Grail of mature capitalism is the belief that markets should be the final arbiter of all things, the greatest purity that can be attained by unleashing the ravenous dogs of greed upon the world. Free market capitalism does not account for anything that cannot be commodified and traded; and so it assigns them no weight. Hence morality, honesty, virtue, self-sacrifice and public service have no worth and no place in capitalism’s economic formulations because they impose restraints that limit growth. They are as ethereal as the ruddy glow of the morning sky and as unmarketable as the mist rising from a brook.

Any belief system that is not regulated by healthy societal values and the laws of nature is destined to degenerate into a monstrosity. In reality, ecological restraints always exist but they are ignored until catastrophe results and force them upon the public conscience—as in the case of global warming.

Capitalism, with its dependence on ever expanding markets and continuous growth behaves like a planetary malignancy that if left untreated, eventually consumes the host and results in mortality. It persists by virtue of its providing obscene wealth to a few through the exploitation of the many. In this country it is the few who own the political system, not the many. Capitalism would be quickly abolished in a truly democratic society as surely as darkness retreats before the light and ignorance yields to knowledge and understanding.

By participating in capitalism we have created a culture that over emphasizes competition and conquest; a culture that defines greed and lust as the highest expressions of success and as the most desirable symbols of status. It is a culture that feeds at the public trough and gorges itself on imperial wars; a system that pays favors to the legal fiction of corporations while rejecting social justice, the needs of the people and planetary health.

Thus we witness coal companies blowing majestic Appalachian Mountain tops to smithereens: destroying world class biodiversity, polluting streams and rivers and poisoning the air in quest of profits while disregarding the social and environmental damage they cause. The cost is always passed on to the public but the profits remain private. Without massive public welfare, what some might call socialism—capitalism could not exist. Capitalism is always on the public dole.

It is beyond bizarre that corporations enjoy the legal status of persons but without the social responsibility required of real citizenship and personhood. Corporations often serve as masks to hide the faces of criminals operating behind the scenes, just as the white hoods of Klansmen conceal the cowardly faces of those who burn crosses on black people’s lawns in the night. Any force that operates out of public view is liable to criminal intent, especially government.

Corporations routinely commit crimes against earth and humanity but are rarely held accountable. When was the last time that a corporation had its corporate charter revoked for malfeasance? When has a corporation ever been executed for murder?

Under capitalism, competitive advantage is sought at any cost and it is used as a weapon against the competition and the people. The status of the individual is thus elevated above the collective good. The purpose of competition is to rise above others and to lord power over them, rather than for everyone to rise together and share the bounty equally through cooperation. Ideologies that foster equality and fair play are dismissed as unattainable Utopian fantasy or socialist propaganda. We are told there is no alternative to capitalism, so we cease to look for them and make little effort to create something better.

In purely market driven economies—virtue, character and social justice have no use unless they can generate wealth for their owners. Imagine the life of Christ valued only by the income his carpentry brought to his employer; his teachings dismissed as worthless because they did not produce money in great enough abundance.

What remains of the Jewish carpenter’s essence exists outside of the socio-economic paradigm of today’s capitalism and in clear opposition to it. Betrayed by the religious institutions of our time, the prophets of religion have given way to the profits of religion, as documented by Upton Sinclair and others.

With the corporatization of the church, the teachings of Christ were discarded and cast to the four winds in order to give religious authority to capitalism, greed and exploitation. Rather than producing men of virtue like Jesus, who called for restraint and shared wealth, it has yielded a morally depraved leadership as exemplified by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson; men who have risen to prominence to fleece their obedient flock, rather than to enlighten and save them from the ravages of unregulated greed.

Rather than imposing the moral restraints of Jesus upon an unjust society, Pat Roberson and his kind champion the cause of aggressive exploitation, effectively turning the teachings of Christ upside down and using them to justify everything that Jesus Christ railed against and died for. How ironic that the Christian church so often turns out an army of anti-Christs rather than Christians in the image of the man they so eagerly idolize but continuously dishonor.

And so it goes. Virtue, arguably the greatest of human traits, has no presence in the market place and it is slowly sinking into the oblivion of euphemisms and the boiling cauldron of corrupted language from which nothing emerges intact.

Due in part to our unquestioned acceptance of capitalism, we are a people who pay homage to concepts such as democracy, equality, social and environmental justice and freedom, even as we continually undermine them in nearly everything we do. Thus we bear a history of genocide, chattel slavery, racism, sexism, ethnic cleansing, imperial wars and occupation and manifest destiny that have flourished despite the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Henry Thoreau astutely observed: “There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.” Thoreau hit the nail squarely on the head, as he so often did. We Americans are patrons of virtue rather than virtuous people. It costs nothing to be a patron of virtue; but it requires character and effort to be a virtuous person. Apparently, we have yet to learn the distinction.

We know that Thoreau was a virtuous man rather than a patron of virtue, as demonstrated by certain events in his life. Like Christ, he found himself in formal opposition to the cultural orthodoxy; he lived apart from society—outside of the social and political mainstream, an oddity to his neighbors and often persecuted by them. Thoreau refused allegiance to money and wealth, understanding that the most important things in life could not be bought and sold. For him, property and possessions were burdens, not assets.

Thus Thoreau wisely refused to waste any more time than absolutely necessary in earning a modest living. He did not rent himself to factories and bosses or to any of the respectable professions; he worked sporadically and only when necessary—usually on his own terms. He was a man of principle who refused to pay taxes that he knew supported an unprovoked war on Mexico; a war that sought to expand the territory of slavery; and he went to jail for his beliefs. Thoreau was also a fierce abolitionist who, against the law, put many a run-away slave on board the Underground Railroad to Canada and to freedom.

Like all virtuous people, Thoreau lived by a higher law. He did what was right, not what was legal or considered respectable or expedient. Unlike today’s political leadership and contemporary Christians, he was guided by incorruptible conscience that could not be bribed.

Thoreau’s freedom from menial work also provided independence from possessions and debt. Thoreau was a minimalist. His freedom to explore Concord and vicinity gave birth to several literary masterpieces, including Walden and Civil Disobedience—works that sold poorly in his time and provided but little income; but are known worldwide today. World renowned moralists such as India’s Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King were strongly influenced by Thoreau.

If Thoreau’s life could be summed up in three words they would be, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” To simplify and reduce one’s wants is a paradigm in stark contrast to the ravenous consumption required by capitalism. It was a way of living that eschewed money and markets; a way of being that afforded opportunity for intellectual pursuits and life long learning. Above all, it was a spiritually enriching way of life that was in harmony with the planet; it was gentle, sustainable, and fulfilling.

In contrast to Thoreau, most of us unthinkingly support a system that is fundamentally unjust, unsustainable and superfluous. It is a system that has no room for virtue and character because these characteristics cannot be commodified and marketed; and they impose market restraints. Yet, these are the very traits that can save us from ourselves and make a better world possible. How ironic that the traits of character that are most valuable to our survival as a species are the ones appreciated the least by capitalism.

Markets unregulated by morality and governments unbounded by justice serve no useful purpose to anyone in the long run, even those who champion them. Planetary destruction is not in anyone’s interest. Sustainability is. Sustainability, unlike its economic counterpart—capitalism, requires virtuous people rather than mere patrons of virtue. Virtue requires people who not only understand what is going on but who have the courage to do something about it—a consciousness that knows the distinction between patronage to virtue and actual virtue.

Our current form of government is a spectacular failure because it is an arm of business and capitalism rather than an institution of democracy with powerful ethical moorings derived from the grass roots—a decentralized, non-hierarchal power that radiates equally from the people like the spokes of a wheel from a central hub. As such, it often attracts the worst kind of people rather than the principled and just. The interest of big business is now and always has been at odds with just causes and the public welfare. Corporate interests and the people’s interests must never be confused.

The influx of U.S. troops brought a relative lull in violence — but the failing state remains in political chaos and is headed for collapse.

Dec. 4, 2007 | Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia gave some needed perspective on the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq. Webb, a Vietnam veteran and former secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, recently returned from a visit to Iraq. He said that it was inaccurate to attribute the recent reduction in violence entirely to Bush’s troop escalation. Moreover, Webb said that any security improvements in Iraq would only help if accompanied by political progress. He criticized the administration for “the failure for the last five years to match the quality of our military performance with robust regional diplomacy.”

Webb was correct to point out that the only truly good news to come from Iraq would be good news regarding the political landscape. And there, Iraq is still beset with problems. In recent days, parts of northern Iraq have been invaded by Turkey, an ally of the United States. In Baghdad, Sunni members of parliament staged a walkout to defend their leader, whose bodyguards were implicated in fashioning car bombs. Proposed legislation reducing sanctions against Sunni Arabs who once belonged to the Baath Party nearly produced a riot in parliament. Meanwhile, Britain and Australia, among Bush’s few remaining allies with combat troops in Iraq, are planning to depart in 2008, raising questions about security in the key southern port city of Basra, the major route for the country’s lucrative oil exports.

What the recent publicity about the “success” of the troop surge has ignored is this: The Bush administration has downplayed the collapsing political situation in Iraq by directing the public’s attention to fluctuating numbers of civilians killed. While there have been some relative gains in security recently, even there the picture remains dubious. The Iraqi ministry of health, long known for cooking the books, says that a few hundred Iraqis were killed in political violence in November. However, independent observers such as Iraq Body Count cite a much higher number — some 1,100 civilians killed in Iraq in November. They reported that bombings and assassinations accounted for 63 persons on Saturday, the first day of December, alone.

Indeed, the “good news” of a lull in violence is relative at best. In fact, Iraq’s overall death rate makes it among the worst civil conflicts in the world. Even if one accepted the official Iraqi government statistics, the average number of Iraqi deaths directly attributable to political violence in the past three full months has been around 700 per month. That pace, if maintained, would work out to about 8,400 deaths a year. (I am citing the kind of war statistics produced by passive information gathering such as in newspapers. Using a more comprehensive public health study such as the one that appeared in the Lancet last year, which takes into account deaths from criminal violence and insecurity generally, would result in much higher numbers.) In all of Northern Ireland’s troubles over 30 years, only about 3,000 persons are thought to have been killed. In Kashmir since 1989, some 40,000 to 90,000 persons have been killed in communal and guerrilla violence; if we take the higher number, that’s roughly 419 killed per month. Perhaps only Somalia and Sudan witness killings on that scale, and no one would say that “good news” is coming out of either of those places.

The current “good news” campaign from the Bush administration regarding the troop surge is only the latest in a long history of whitewashing the war since the 2003 invasion. First, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that there was massive looting following the fall of Baghdad. Then he denied that there was a rising guerrilla war. Then, after the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani maneuvered an unwilling Bush administration into holding relatively free elections, the victory of Shiite fundamentalists close to Iran was obscured by the “purple thumb” good news campaign. That is, the administration focused on the democratic process and relative success of the voting, diverting attention from the bad news that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq had taken over.

Later, it was good news when the Iraqi parliament produced a theocratic constitution with all the weaknesses of the U.S. Articles of Confederation, even though all three Sunni-majority provinces rejected it in the subsequent referendum. What was in the constitution was not important, only that it existed. The Bush administration has heralded any number of such “milestones” reached, but not whether they led to worthwhile results.

Obscured by these “milestones” is that the orgy of violence in Iraq has displaced 2 million persons abroad and another 2 million internally, and left tens of thousands dead. But now the “good news” is that the guerrillas appear not to have been able to keep up the pace of violence characteristic of 2006 and early 2007, even if the pace they maintain today is horrific.

It’s long been a right-wing canard that the federal Endangered Species Act is, if you’ll pardon the term, a political animal. Wacko environmentalists, the theory goes, just want to steal land out from under honest, hard-working Americans, and they use the existence of, say, the piebald socialist toad (Namus madeupicus) to accomplish their nefarious purpose.

Well, everything is political — just not always in the way you might expect.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed a handful of rulings that denied endangered-species protection after an investigation found that a former Bush administration official, Julie McDonald, pressured scientists to change their conclusions for political reasons.

McDonald, who served as the deputy assistant secretary overseeing the agency, resigned in May. Without naming McDonald, the investigation found that the decisions had been “inappropriately influenced … revising the seven identified decisions is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards.”

The reversal could affect protected status of several species, including the white-tailed prairie dog, Canada lynx and Preble’s meadow jumping mouse, found in Boulder County.

But there are three times as many cases in which “we have evidence of (political) interference,” said Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Tuesday’s ruling, while welcome, “does not begin to plumb the depths of what’s wrong” at the Fish and Wildlife Service when it comes to protecting endangered species, Grifo said.

McDonald shamefully illustrates the baldly political Bush administration approach to science. Trained as a civil engineer, she had no expertise in biology or species protection. And when the science pointed to conclusions not to her bosses’ liking, she simply put the screws to those working under her to “fix” the findings. She told them to lie, in other words.

The episode recalls any number of similar efforts by the administration to subordinate science to politics, as when federal scientists were prohibited from talking about the effects of climate change on declining polar bear numbers, and when former White House official Philip Cooney (previously an oil-industry lobbyist) single-handedly redacted and altered scientific conclusions in a key report on climate change.

Whatever one thinks about the validity of the (sorry, overwhelming) conclusions of climate scientists or the efficacy of the Endangered Species Act, surely we can agree that untrained political hacks should not be the arbiters of “truth” in science.

One of the most disturbing developments in the past seven years has been the growing currency of the notion that science is just another political philosophy, based on the opinions of scheming scientists (though what, exactly, they’re scheming for is never made clear).

For some time now, the commentariat — columnists, critics, bloggers — has bashed the American public as “celebrity-starved,” gobbling every sighting and, better yet, smashup of a person “famous for being famous.”

And, with the smashups accelerating — just this year we have had shock jock Don Imus, former stripper Anna Nicole Smith, socialite Paris Hilton — the bashing accelerates. Increasingly, we also are cited — in both mainstream and “new” media — as “porn-loving,” “potty-mouthed,” “stupid,” “shopaholic,” possessed of the attention span of a flea and, as to political (in)activity, history-averse and criminally apathetic.

Enough. Before this contemptuous “conventional wisdom” congeals into “fact,” let’s get clear: Some of our number in this democracy may be gaga over celebrity, though I have yet to meet one of these creatures. But — crucial to the survival of the Republic — some of us are most emphatically not.

Call us the conscientious public. (And, if the following seems self-serving, it’s meant both as defense against further defamation and antidote to declining readership, by turning a gimlet-eyed view of the broad public into respect for the worthy citizen, Democrat and Republican, within it.)

Instead of celebrity, our eye is on infinitely more important things: the unjust war that America forced on Iraq; the unnecessary death of Americans and Iraqis; our departure from the rule of law, with torture and secret prisons now standard. In short, America’s moral fall.

We mark also our fellow citizens still digging out from Hurricane Katrina two years later; the growing inequity between the superrich and superpoor; and, we mark this administration’s unconscientiousness to that suffering.

And when we can, we act — to maddeningly little result. By the millions, we protested, full-throat, the launching of the Iraq war, but President Bush wasn’t listening; we’ve continued protesting, but Bush stays the course. When Abu Ghraib hit in April 2004, we let loose an enormous outcry but, unforgivably, torture never surfaced in the ongoing presidential campaign, nor did a champion emerge to forward our cause.

And that enormous outcry to Imus’ slurring African-American women as, um, whores? Again, that came from us, though in defending the women, we got dirtied ourselves (it’s distasteful even to write the word “whore”) — a consequence of fighting pigs in mud. And, while we care about things like honor, dignity and good name, to call women whores and claim it’s just a free-speech issue, as Imus did, is to be so uncaring of the injury inflicted as to be psychopathic. (Fittingly, one of the women slurred is now suing Imus for defamation.) And what came of our protest? More celeb-a-thons followed.

Pigs, mud, whores, strippers: Contrasted with the prayerful hope that, in response to 9/11, our best would come forth, what sorry ruin. Instead, the worst in the American character is reflected back at us: the warrior bombast, the vulgarity, a cash-register ethic, Melville’s confidence man as national type. That this cruel farce stretches into Year Six portends, in our eyes, tragedy. We should be well past the post-shock need for distraction, a role celebrity fills. But the warmup act won’t leave the stage.

“Only a good thing can be abused,” goes a French proverb. We conscientious see a great and good thing — the idea of America — being abused, wrecked, and it breaks our hearts, also our health: Burning shame — made more acute in light of the high achievement of the World War II generation — on top of protesting, petitioning, mentoring, and starting new organizations and Web sites, even running for office, takes a toll.

The strain of it all is causing some conscientious to consider leaving the United States; as one soon-to-be expatriate told me, “I can’t bear to watch this great country destroy itself.” But, most of us are sticking — we have to, we’re conscientious — and, sticking, we are emboldened to ask: Why is all our various action, over which we’re knocking ourselves out, not to mention our heartbreak and strained checkbooks (we are overdonating to our watchdog organizations), weighted so much less than mere passive consumer choice (for, say, more pix of Anna Nicole Smith)?

And, consider the despair of the conscientious veteran. The New York Times recently wrote of a vet, home from Iraq, who now advocates for brain-damaged comrades: “And day after day [he] has to grind his teeth at how swiftly, how vapidly the occasional news of troubled veterans is bumped aside by a deluge of bulletins about Paris Hilton or some other this-just-in frippery. ‘It’s staggering, sickening,’ he says. ‘There are days I scream at the television — lives are being taken, families left in heartbreak.’ ” No doubt this vet wonders, “What was I fighting for?”

What infuriates is that this egregious situation is rigged … and the commentariat has to know that. To bump news of troubled vets in favor of “frippery” reflects the monetized “celebrity sells” bias of the media’s corporate owners. Instead of bashing the conscientious public for something we never wanted, pundits should bash their bosses for pushing meretricious product (and their hack colleagues for reporting it and their editors for assigning it). Also, they might ponder their corporate owners’ motives in accelerating the inanity as the ruin deepens. But that’s a profile in media courage we seldom see.

Where the conscientious public does get respect is in the editorial. There we are appealed to, in moral voice, about the important things — i.e., America’s moral fall.

Yet, elsewhere in the same venue, even in prestige ones, the moral line is chucked and we read of “kinky chic”; the pornographer as entrepreneur; critics’ thumbs up to the latest sleaze (e.g., the TV series “Californication”) — and see ourselves again “dissed,” as “prudes” and “righteous” and (new epithet) “pearl clutchers” if we object. This is the worst hypocrisy — moral hypocrisy — yet it goes uncommented upon. Analyze that, please.

But, apart from respect, getting squared on terminology is crucial, because perception is reality. And the commentariat, dealing in ideas, helps shape perception, also capacity: To brand a people with their worst traits is to cripple their capacity to recover their path, govern themselves, solve complex problems.

When global warming was declared fact by the world’s scientific community some months ago, three of the six TV screens at my gym featured endless loops of Anna Nicole Smith — not confidence-building, considering the gathering storm(s) coming at us.

In a word: The conscientious public cares about the commonweal, while the celebrity-starved does not.

Happily, the conscientious public is making its point, or rather history is making it for us: A big and growing majority of Americans now opposes the Iraq war. And, finally, torture is being addressed: The recent attorney general confirmation hearings focused on waterboarding, the presidential candidates are being forced to take a stand, and a month ago a group of World War II interrogators broke silence to condemn this administration’s use of torture.

More than celebrity-gazing, it’s these two matters — when and why we wage war; how we treat people in our custody — that define who we are as a people and what we are fighting for. Will we have that defining moment — or more drivel? The next celeb-a-thon, featuring a couple from the UK named Beckham, is already under way, and O.J. Simpson has made yet another comeback.

Six years after 9/11, patterns are being set — bad ones. Let’s stop the suicide now. At its simplest, the remedy is a matter of lighting: Just as the commentariat has ignored the conscientious public, it could ignore the next celeb-a-thon — simply kill the lights, for what’s celebrity without its lights, its stage?

At the same time, this spitball into the commentariat’s cubicle is to demand: Hey, over here, pay attention to us, the conscientious. For we are fighting for the nation’s conscience and the commonweal. It’s also to remind: Print is forever and history takes names.

Carla Seaquist, a playwright based in Gig Harbor, is author of “Who Cares?: The Washington-Sarajevo Talks,” among other works. Her Web address is www.carlaseaquist.com.

12/01/07 “Times Record” — — The percentage of Americans favoring impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney is approaching the percentage who favored impeachment of President Nixon in 1973-74.

Public opinion has reached this high level even before Congress has started any impeachment investigation of the Bush-Cheney administration. The public is way ahead of Congress, suggesting that it is time for the U.S. House of Representatives to move forward with the impeachment process.

In October 1973, a Gallup Poll results showed only 28 percent favored Nixon’s impeachment and removal from office. That was after a summer of well-publicized Senate Watergate Committee hearings.

Just nine months later, the day before Nixon resigned, nearly two-thirds of Americans believed there was enough evidence for an impeachment trial, and 55 percent thought Nixon should be removed from office.

That is how drastically opinion shifted once Congress acted and revealed the full extent of Nixon’s abuses of power.

Now, without any impeachment investigation by Congress, we already see the public’s desire for impeachment action approaching the level that led to Nixon’s departure from office.

Now, 55 percent of Americans believe that “President Bush has abused his powers as president, which rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the Constitution,” and 34 percent believe he should be removed from office.

For Vice President Cheney, 52 percent believe he committed impeachable offenses, and 43 percent believe he should be removed.

Perhaps most telling is that 64 percent of Americans believe that President Bush has abused his powers, and 70 percent believe that Cheney has done so. Polling was conducted by American Research Group Inc., on Nov. 9-12.

Maine people feel much the same way. According to a recent poll by Critical Insights Inc., 40 percent of Maine adults say they favor “the U.S. House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney,” and 38 percent against President Bush.

Not surprisingly, Maine Republicans and Democrats differ substantially on this matter. Among Maine Democrats, 58 percent favor impeachment proceedings against Cheney, and 54 percent against Bush.

One in six Maine Republicans favors impeachment proceedings against Cheney, and one in eight against Bush.

Maine independents are about evenly split on the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney.

By any historic gauge, the nation clearly believes that we have a major problem with our president and vice president, although the Democrats in control of Congress have refused to even start an impeachment investigation. They are dismissing the sizable portion of citizens calling for Congress to act as the Constitution directed to keep presidential power under control.

The Constitution gives Tom Allen, Mike Michaud and Congress the tool of impeachment to address the problem that a majority of Americans now recognize. This impeachment tool is designed to keep our rulers’ power in check — to prevent drifting into a situation of absolute power by an individual or a small controlling group.

Impeachment is the tool being demanded by 43 percent of Americans who not only recognize the problem, but even call for the drastic action of removing Cheney from office.

House Democratic leadership is acting in a timid and irresponsibly political fashion. Likely, they want to keep the Republican executives in power and all Republican politicians “on the ropes” until the 2008 elections. Or perhaps they misguidedly believe that there are more important activities for Congress than heeding this historically strong demand to address these obvious abuses.

Whatever the motivation, Democratic congressional leaders continue to shirk their oaths of office by allowing the executive branch to ignore laws and plan expanded warfare without congressional authorization.

Public opinion and Constitutional responsibility are commanding congressional Democrats Tom Allen and Mike Michaud as strongly as in Nixon’s day.

Will they recognize the strength of public sentiment and the dire condition of our nation and take the required corrective action of impeachment investigation? Or will they choose to ignore the call and allow present and future presidents to control the people and their representatives — an authoritarian power that the Constitution directed Congress to prohibit?

12/01/07 “Prensa Latina ” — — Venezuela, whose people are heirs to Bolivar’s ideas which transcend his era, is today facing a world tyranny a thousand times more powerful than that of Spain’s colonial strength added to that of the recently born United States which, through Monroe, proclaimed their right to the natural wealth of the continent and to the sweat of its people.

Marti denounced the brutal system and called it a monster, in whose entrails he had lived. His internationalist spirit shone as never before when, in a letter left unfinished due to his death in combat, he publicly revealed the objective of his restless struggle: “…I am now every day risking my life for my country, and for my duty -since I understand it and have the courage to do it- to timely prevent, with the independence of Cuba, that the United States expand over the Antilles and that they fall, with this additional force, over our lands in America…”

It was not in vain that he stated in plain verse: “With the poor of this earth, my fate I wish to cast”. Later, he proclaimed categorically: “Humanity is homeland”. The Apostle of our independence wrote one day: “Let Venezuela call on me to serve her: I am her son”.

The most sophisticated media developed by technology, employed to kill human beings and to subjugate or exterminate peoples; the massive sowing of conditioned reflexes of the mind; consumerism and all available resources; these are being used today against the Venezuelans, with the intent of ripping the ideas of Bolivar and Marti to shreds.

The empire has created conditions conducive to violence and internecine conflicts. On Chavez’s recent visit last November 21, I seriously discussed with him the risks of assassination as he is constantly out in the open in convertible vehicles. I said this because of my experience as a combatant trained in the use of an automatic weapon and a telescopic sight. Likewise, after the triumph, I became the target of assassination plots directly or indirectly ordered by almost every United States administration since 1959.

The irresponsible government of the empire does not stop for a minute to think that the assassination of Venezuela’s leader or a civil war in that country would blow up the globalized world economy, due to its huge reserves of hydrocarbons. Such circumstances are without precedent in the history of mankind.

Cuba developed close ties with the Bolivarian government of Venezuela during the hardest days resulting from the demise of the USSR and the tightening of the United States economic blockade. The exchange of goods and services grew from practically zero level to more than 7 billion dollars annually, with great economic and social benefits for both our peoples. Today that is where we receive the fundamental supplies of fuel needed for our country’s consumption, something that would be very difficult to obtain from other sources due to the shortage of light crude oil, the insufficient refining capacity, the United States’ power and the wars its has unleashed to seize the world oil and gas reserves.

Add to the high energy prices, the prices of foods destined by imperial policy to be transformed into fuel for the gas-guzzling cars of the United States and other industrial nations.

A victory of the Yes vote on December 2 would not be enough. The weeks and months following that date may very well prove to be extremely tough for many countries, Cuba for one; although before that the empire’s adventures could lead the planet into an atomic war, as their own leaders have confessed.

Our compatriots can rest assured that I have had time to think and to meditate at length on these problems.

I was visited by the FBI at my residence on Thursday, November 29th. I am an Asian-American Muslim Man. I am an anti-war activist who believes that United States military has no business in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. I do not hide my political perspectives from anyone. Despite this, I refuse to be intimidated into silence.

The two FBI agents claimed to be investigating a “complaint” from the University of Washington’s campus students that I might have said “things” which could suggest that I advocate violence against the U.S. This was in reference to my opposition to the Islamo-Fascist Awareness week that the College Republicans hosted in mid-October. During this week the CR showed a video which described all Palestinians as terrorists and posited a theory that Palestinian men are prone to violence because they are sexually repressed. (Ironic coming from the CR) Michael Medved also spoke during this week. I was part of a demonstration with a body of Muslims students and people of color who were barred from entering the event. The event organizers cited full capacity as the main reason. Why is my opposition to this event being criminalized?

The FBI agents wanted to see a flyer that I was passing out. I told them NO. I asked them, “Is this Stalin’s Russia or McCarthy’s America?” They have no business collecting literature from me or anyone else in the Untied States. Anyway, the flyers can be found all over campus because I have nothing to hide from my neighbors.

This is not one isolated incident. Muslims and Arabs are being attacked, harassed, and intimidated by the FBI across the country. The FBI claims that anyone who opposes US imperialism is a terrorist. Some Muslims leaders have come out in public and said “good Muslims” should cooperate with the FBI to help them control the “bad Muslims”. Meanwhile, the FBI has sent spies to our mosques and broken into our houses in the middle of the night to kidnap our brothers and sisters and send them to Guantanamo without evidence of any crime. Who is causing the terror here? Most of the time it goes unnoticed and in the shadows Arab and Muslim families are destroyed. Let me make it clear–the FBI is a racist and anti-democratic organization. Granted, the two FBI agents who visited my house were very nice to me and even shook my hand. That should not cover up the crimes of the institution they work for.

Meanwhile the College Republicans, who claim to be defenders of democracy and free speech are inviting racists like Medved onto campus. The CR advocates perspectives that lead to the deaths of Arabs and Muslims and people of color and you don’t see the FBI visiting them. I am not advocating state repression against the College Republicans; I simply wish to point out the racist double standard here.

I can ask how did the FBI get my house address? My address is not listed anywhere. Did the University administration give it to them? This would not be far-fetched considering that University administrations across the country have made it clear that they will stand with the FBI before they stand in solidarity with Arabs, Muslims, and students of color. Just look at their endorsement of the Patriot Act and the SEVIS registrations of international students. Given this climate, the burden should be on the UW administration to prove that they are not collaborating with such McCarthyist surveillance of campus activists like myself. How can they claim to be the patrons of free speech and dialogue if they facilitate such intimidation?

Only democratic and anti-racist students can curb the power of racist University bureaucracies and the FBI. Student organizing is part of a rich tradition of American history that has made the U.S. a more democratic and anti-racist country than it would be otherwise. However, across the country, University administrators and the FBI are working hand-in-hand to shut down and intimidate all who oppose U.S. Empire and domestic racism.

UW and the city of Seattle claim to be liberal and progressive places where racism cannot be found. This is a myth. Home grown white-supremacy stalks this campus. Every time we see the College Republicans, the FBI, and the Administration it is a reminder that people of color and Muslims and Arabs are not safe yet. However we are not silent victims. We do not know our own strength and no one dares to tell us. It is up to us to rediscover our democratic and anti-racist traditions. It is up to us to take back our university. Fear is not an option.