Jun 26 2008
Was losing Major Elliot’s strategic location during the extermination of the Southern Cheyenne Arapaho at Washita by Lieutenant Colonel Custer acceptable by U.S. military standards? Captain Benteen thought not.
“Surely some search will be made for our missing comrades” mocked Benteen’s piece, before concluding, “No, they are forgotten.”
Custer picked the wrong man to threaten horsewhipping.
Jun 26 2008
Every month’s Iraq Moratorium action in Milwaukee seems to have a special moment. In May it was a thumbs-up from a passing Army recruiter. This month, it was when a woman stopped to tell a leafleter handing out information about the Moratorium that her son is in Iraq. So tearful and emotional she had difficulty speaking, she said he was on his second tour there as a National Guardsman. “Thank you for what you’re doing,” she said. “I just want him home.”
Cornwall, Connecticut held its first outdoor vigil and reported an “overwhelmingly positive response from people driving by, with at least one local resident, Suzanne, who hadn’t heard about the doings on the Green in advance pulling her car over and jumping aboard for the rest of the vigil.” Maybe it was the horn trio (two trombones and a sax) that got her attention. (Photo above.)
Once again, Washington, DC SDS and a mass of young activists hit the pavement in a “Funk the War 4” action. A major destination for the raucous street action with mobile musical backing was a military Recruiting Center.
You’ll find more reports, still coming in from around the country after Friday’s action, at the Moratorium website.
Does it all matter?
The NY Times asked Pete Seeger, who stands with his banjo, a sign and a small group of antiwar protesters every Saturday in the Hudson Valley:
Asked whether he thought that protesting by the side of the road would help end the war, he said: “I don’t think that big things are as effective as people think they are. The last time there was an antiwar demonstration in New York City I said, ‘Why not have a hundred little ones?’ ”
He said that working for peace was like adding sand to a basket on one side of a large scale, trying to tip it one way despite enormous weight on the opposite side.
“Some of us try to add more sand by teaspoons,” he explained. “It’s leaking out as fast as it goes in and they’re all laughing at us. But we’re still getting people with teaspoons. I get letters from people saying, ‘I’m still on the teaspoon brigade.’ “
Jun 25 2008
Worth a cool 15-20 milly and yet you’re still maxed on the plastic?
McCains report more than $100,000 in credit card debt
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his wife reported more than $100,000 of credit card liabilities, according to financial disclosure documents released Friday.
The presidential candidate and his wife Cindy reported piling up debt on a charge card between $10,000 and $15,000. His wife’s solo charge card has between $100,000 and $250,000 in debt to American Express.
McCain’s wife also has a second American Express charge card listed on the senator’s financial disclosure that was carrying $100,000 to $250,000 in debt.
Another charge card with American Express, this one for a “dependent child,” is carrying debt in the range of $15,000 and $50,000.
Jun 25 2008
We need the Civilian population Now to come to the Aid of this Countries Veterans and start a Hard Lobby, to their Representatives, in Support of it’s Veterans!
Especially for these Veterans of todays Conflicts, Support from the Country that was Overwelming, over 70%, in Favor of Invasion and Occupation and now Pays Little Heed to!
Jun 25 2008
I’ve been so busy getting on top of this teaching gig that I’ve been letting the blogging slide.
OTOH, while I cycled an insane 14 miles to work (and then back) the second half of last year when I was lucky enough to get called in … now I am cycling a perfectly sane 3 miles.
So just some random observations on a special midweek edition of Saturday Bike Blogging.
Jun 25 2008
Yet another tactic by the Bush adminstration to circumvent evidence that conflicts with the desired outcome. The New York Times reports the White House refused to open Pollutants E-Mail.
The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.
The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said…
Over the past five days, the officials said, the White House successfully put pressure on the E.P.A. to eliminate large sections of the original analysis that supported regulation, including a finding that tough regulation of motor vehicle emissions could produce $500 billion to $2 trillion in economic benefits over the next 32 years. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
Both documents, as prepared by the E.P.A., “showed that the Clean Air Act can work for certain sectors of the economy, to reduce greenhouse gases,” one of the senior E.P.A. officials said. “That’s not what the administration wants to show. They want to show that the Clean Air Act can’t work.“
Here’s today war update. The LA Times reports Afghanistan attacks up 40% in east.
Insurgent activity is increasing sharply in Afghanistan and has spread into once stable areas, with attacks up almost 40% in the eastern provinces alone, according to new American military data that have prompted alarm among senior Pentagon officials.
Rising attacks against Afghan and NATO troops in the east represent the latest in a series of troubling developments that have led to markedly higher U.S. casualties and have prompted the military’s top leadership to order a review of its strategy in Afghanistan, including how to make do with limited numbers of American troops.
This year, 50 U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan. “Last year’s troop buildup in Iraq and the overall strain on U.S. ground forces have made it almost impossible to increase force levels in Afghanistan.” The Pentegon now plans to redeploy about 1,000 U.S. soldiers now in Iraq to Afghanistan in October to serve as trainers.
For the first time publicly, Afghanistan has accused the Pakistani intelligence service of having a role in Karzai assassination plot, according to the NY Times. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was targeted in a Kabul parade in April. Afghan authorities claim to have “evidence of the direct involvement of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, in the assassination attempt.” The ISI orchestrated the takeover of Afghanistain by the Taliban in the early 1990s.
Meanwhile the deaths continue in Iraq. The NY Times reports Three U.S. soldiers were killed by bomb in Iraq. The soldiers and their interpreter were killed in Ninewa Province when a improvised roadside bomb detonated during the night. It was the “second large explosion to strike the Mosul region in a day and further evidence that Sunni Arab guerrillas remain very active in the northern city despite recent Iraqi military operations.” 25 American troops have been killed in June to date. There are approximately 150,000 U.S. service members deployed in Iraq.
Four at Four continues with the Supreme Court’s mixed decision on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Everglades land deal between U.S. Sugar and Florida.
Jun 25 2008
Every few days over the next several months I will be posting installments of a novel about life, death, war and politics in America since 9/11. Through the Darkest of Nights is a story of hope, reflection, determination, and redemption. It is a testament to the progressive values we all believe in, have always defended, and always will defend no matter how long this darkness lasts. But most of all, it is a search for identity and meaning in an empty world.
Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb, we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth. Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? ~Thomas Wolfe
All installments are available for reading here on Docudharma’s Series page, and also here on Docudharma’s Fiction Page, where refuge from politicians, blogging overload, and one BushCo outrage after another can always be found.
Jun 25 2008
I haven’t done one of these in a while, but it seemed like a good time to let people know what’s going on in the world of queer politics and activism. I’ll try to post these more regularly again, but my schedule’s still a little sporadic to fix a concrete posting time. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy, and if you have other news blurbs that I’ve missed, please feel free to add them below.
The liberal media is stoking the flames, with noted leftist rag The Wall Street Journal posting an unequivocally positive editorial, “Gay Marriage is Good for America”:
In 2008, denying gay Americans the opportunity to marry is not only inhumane, it is unsustainable. History has turned a corner: Gay couples – including gay parents – live openly and for the most part comfortably in mainstream life. This will not change, ever.
Violence against the transgender community rarely makes the evening news, but the case of Duanna Johnson is so extreme that people are starting to pay attention. While being booked for alleged prostitution in Memphis, a police officer called over to her:
Actually he was trying to get me to come over to where he was, and I responded by telling him that wasn’t my name – that my mother didn’t name me a ‘faggot’ or a ‘he-she,’ so he got upset and approached me. And that’s when it started,” Johnson said.
I can’t do justice to what happens next: you need to see the video for yourself. WMCtv provides the full security clip, so you can see that it’s not being taken out of context (the incident in question starts around the 1:30 mark.)
One police officer let go, another put into an office job, and a pending investigation with support from the FBI. But the Memphis police is being flooded with complaints that this was not an isolated incident. Do we laugh or cry at something like this?
“It made me sick,” [Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin] said Thursday. “I was infuriated. I notified the FBI because they needed to investigate to see if this person’s civil rights were violated.”
If this person’s civil rights were violated???
Jun 25 2008
Will The State protect the Fourth Amendment rights of The People, or the ‘rights’ of The Corporations?
If you are wondering why “our representatives” in Congress are positively eager to immunize the TelCorps, here is your answer. The Government needs The Corporations in order to spy on you. If they don’t immunize them, The Corporations are threatening not to spy on you for The Government.
If Congress immunizes The Corporations…and the government itself…for spying on Americans, and legalizes The State and The Corporations “teaming up” (conspiring) to do so in the future, we officially enter a new era.
An era that officially puts the interests of Corporations above the interests of The People. A new era Corporate Government. An era that raises up Corporate Entities to the level of the Government. The era of The Corporate State.
This is a collusion that gives these Corporations an essential role in our “national security.” A collusion that makes The Corporations and The Government into partners for the purpose of spying on The People, the citizens of the United States. A collusion that makes The Government dependent on The Corporations. A collusion that gives power over YOU, an America citizen, not to your duly elected Government, but to a privately owned entity that has no interest in your rights, no interest but power and profit, and no accountability. They will however, have the power to blackmail the Government at any time by refusing to cooperate. They will use this power to their advantage….to get more power over your Government. To get more power over you. Even if you take any dark suspicions out of the picture, if the Telcoms are partners with the Government, how do you think Telcom legislation will go in the future? How do you think Net Neutrality will turn out? What will The Government decide to do with the vast apparatus of ALL of our communications at their disposal, to “fight the terrorists?”
Jun 25 2008
(Once again Jeri Reed has forwarded me an important article, like the one she wrote here a few months ago. Once again she has pulled my coattail to something by Casey J. Porter, the Iraq Veteran Against the War member who has been vlogging from outside of Baghdad. This time it’s just words, but what powerful words!)
By Casey J. Porter
I feel pretty lousy as a human being today. I had to turn away this Iraqi man at our gate here at the outpost. At some point the army took over this factory in the industrial part of Baghdad and we’ve been here ever since. He was an older man, diabetic, with multiple folders of paper work to show. He didn’t speak any English and wished to talk to an interpreter. I was guarding the gate and was the one to call it in. So they send out the “Terp” as we call them. This older man was not looking for a handout. He was the former owner of a paint shop that is built right up the building we now occupy. He was asking for compensation for his workers because they are no longer able to work now that we are here.
Why can’t they work? Because they are terrified of us. Also, when we get rocket or mortar attacks, they don’t always land where the insurgents want them to. Sometimes they fall short or overshoot their target. So when we set up shop, the people that can afford to leave, do.
He wasn’t like the younger Iraqi Police Force guys. They get so much free stuff from you, the taxpayer, that it’s insane. Then they always ask us to give them stuff. They are like children with AK-47s. This man was not like that. He was looking out for his workers. The translator was telling me what he was saying when things got confusing. The Iraqi man was saying: “You are the United States, human rights for all, etc., etc.”
I’m not sure what else he said after that since it was clear that the Terp changed gears right after that. But that older gentleman wasn’t being hostile about what he was saying, and I was all ears. Within his paper work he had forms and documents that proved he was the owner and operator, among other aspects of his business I’m sure. With the exception of the language, it looked a lot like the paperwork my father had for his business.
I called it up to the commander and the reply was to tell him to fuck off. He couldn’t hear any of this because we keep the radio in the truck. I wasn’t going to do that to this man. We screwed him over, and he was just looking out for his people. I told the Terp to translate the following:
“I can not authorize any money to be given to you. I also can not promise that anyone will see you. All I can tell you is to keep coming back until someone takes care of your needs.”
He finally said that he would come back in about a week or so. Before he left I had the Terp translate one more thing before he left.
“I’m sorry for what we’ve done to your country.”
The man said “Thank You” in English to me. I hope that even though we had to talk through an interpreter that he understood that I felt for him, and was not blowing him off.
Either way I felt, and still feel, pretty rotten about the whole thing. I’m not supposed to be the bad guy.
Crossposted from Fire on the Mountain.
Jun 25 2008
Since 1995 the number of oceanic dead zones, masses of oxygen depleted water deadly to most marine life, has grown from 44 to 169. The International Whaling Commission reported that dead zones are killing the world’s coastlines, increasing by a third in the last two years.
Mississippi flood waters, fouled with run off of sewage and fertilizer, are forecast to cause a record dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico later this summer.
By IWC
Jun 25 2008
In April 2008, Attytood asked Senator Obama if he as President would hold former Bush administration officials accountable by seeking prosecution for crimes committed. Obama promised that he would review the information to determine whether an investigation was required; and, if officials knowingly violated existing laws, Obama indicated that he would pursue prosecution.
Based upon Obama’s standard, there should be an investigation and potential criminal prosecution of Bush and other officials for knowingly violating FISA. Bush has admitted publicly that he did not comply with FISA, which is a criminal offense.
However, the FISA bill pending before the Senate may take this putative prosecution off the table by providing immunity to Bush while codifying his unitary executive theory. In order for President Obama to keep his word that he would hold Bush officials accountable for clear, knowing criminal violations, Senator Obama needs to stop this FISA bill, or at least provide amendments which clearly eliminate any colorable argument of immunity for Bush.