April 4, 2010 archive

Gunn High School PWNS Westboro Baptist Hate with Love! Get your Inspiration and Hope right here

     I found this on the Coffee Party Facebook page and thought it would be great to share the power of love with all of you today.

   I hope you enjoy watching the power of Love overcoming the force of Hate, as embodied in the adult leaders and the young future leaders of America of the Gunn High School of California, who came out to support Love and Tolerance in defiance of the Hate promoted by the Westboro Baptist Church, a group that routinely protests the funerals of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as others, with signs that say “God Hates Fags” and “God loves dead soliders”.

   Look at the signs of Hope and Love. It is inspirational.

    Look at the pathetic dozen or so hate filled patrons of the Westboro Baptist Church, who, lead by Fred Phelps, preach a message of Hate and exclusion. Now compare that to the massive outpouring of Love, Acceptance and Tolerance that you can see among the hundreds and hundreds of students and faculty at Gunn High School of California. It is truly inspiring.

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More to hope for below the fold

Polluters Seek To Cut Off Legal Clinic Funding

Polluters and other defendants in numerous lawsuits brought by Law School Clinics in behalf of the victims of corporate and state government abuse have discovered their adversaries’ Achilles heals.  Reprising events in the early history of the Legal Services Corporation, the defendants are now actively moving in state legislatures to cut off funding to the law school clinic lawyers who represent their adversaries.  The result, they hope, will be continued immunity from legal inquiry and a continuation of business and pollution as usual.

Many years ago, during The Great Society, the federal government funded the Office of Economic Opportunity, (OEO) which provided many services, including civil legal services to poor people.  These legal services were obviously capable of transforming society in fundamental ways.  Poor people, for so long disenfranchised, found they had access to federal and state courts and free lawyers to pursue fundamental violations of their civil rights.  Instantly, poor people had allies in enforcing their legal rights.  In response, those who favored the status quo immediately sought not to remedy poor people’s complaints, but instead to cut them off from their lawyers, to forbid the lawyers from pursuing these important cases.

Open Blues

Photobucket

The Once “United States”

Keep wondering when a certain group gets their wish and that name ceases to exist!

I wasn’t going to post the below as a diary I used some of on a couple of my sites concerning the Veterans issues.

But there’s one report with video that speaks volumes especially if you expand your mind, related to another recent report, I mention that a couple of times below as well.

Most of the links are concerning Veterans, the news that doesn’t get reported much except in local reports and certainly not on one cable network that wraps itself in the flag and only uses these reports, if ever, for their own false representation of who they are.

Guam Capsizes

What is up with the viral videoset Guam Capsizes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Oh, and Happy Easter.  Will you be Googling to see if Best Buy is open to purchase another I-thing you don’t really need or filing this week’s unemployment claim.  We all need a reason to get up in the morning.  I’m running out of those.  More Easter Illuminati News.

Docudharma Times Sunday April 4




Sunday’s Headlines:

Officials fear ship breaking apart on Barrier Reef

North Korea’s personal shopper has tales to tell

USA

New adversary in U.S. drug war: Contract killers for Mexican cartels

Critics Say Firm Weakens Safety Net as It Fights Jobless Claims

Europe

A ringside seat to the Russian revolution

Pope Benedict to give Easter message amid abuse crisis

Middle East

Gunmen in military garb kill at least 24 in Sunni area south of Baghdad

Palestinian, 14, Emerges Unharmed

Asia

Tamils want an end to Sri Lanka discrimination after election

Wall of water could engulf Shangri-La

Africa

White supremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche is hacked to death after row with farmworkers

Robert Mugabe’s dirty diamonds

Latin America

In Haiti, Deep Skepticism About a U.N. Rescue Plan

3 explosions rock central Baghdad

Blasts’ cause, whether there are casualties not known

BAGHDAD – Three loud explosions hit central Baghdad in quick succession Sunday, breaking a period of relative calm in the Iraqi capital after elections last month.

The force of the blasts shook buildings and rattled windows in the center of the capital. At least two plumes of gray smoke rose above Baghdad, one near the center of the city and another in the western part of the capital.

One of the blasts struck near the Iranian Embassy, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Mousawi, a spokesman for the city’s operations command center, told The Associated Press.

Docudharma for the Right Winger. (Part I)

If you are a right winger, you may realize that we on Docudharma are not your typical liberals.  Or you may not have.

We are not typical in that most of us here choose to think for ourselves and do not follow the typical Democratic Line.  We believe, as some among you do, that the right to dissent from our government, even when it is in power, is sacred.

That may make us like you in that respect.  However, it does not make us like you.  You see, many of us may oppose our government for exactly the opposite reasons you do: it’s not that it does too much to solve problems destroying our society, it is that they do too little to correct the damage done since Ronald Reagan, George Bush I, and George Bush II.

Depending on our viewpoints, our solutions may be the same, though, and as long as we have common understanding, we may find common values.

Others on Docudharma may disagree, but I think one of the problems is in finding common understanding and common values.

So let me answer as best I can, speaking only on behalf, of course of myself, and not claiming to represent the entirety of the points of view of all Docudharmans.

What I would like to do is first talk about the ways we are unlike you and the ways we are like you.  For the disinterested, this has the advantage of driving the disinterested away right away.  Secondarily I want to divide you into groups, and the groups I am specifically talking to may have something or many things in common.  Others we or I may have nothing in common with.

Like you, there are some among our number who want to sit across from a table with you.  These are divided into, largely, two groups.  The first group is that of Survivalists:  If you count yourself a survivalist, these are people, who, generally, believe that civilization is doomed.  Perhaps unlike you, many of us believe that the downfall of civilization will be answered, not with individualist, Ayn Rand style perfection, but rather with a return to communitarian values_.  _I do not count myself among the group that wants to sit across a table with you, if you are a right wing survivalist.  And the reason is very clear:  Many of you are right wing survivalists because you are bigots.  And I have no truck with bigotry.  It may be that we share certain ideas and philosophies.  For example, you may believe, as I do, that the downfall of civilization is either inevitable or close to inevitable.

If you are the type of “right wing survivalist” I described above, the difference between you and I is that number one, I do not believe that people with more melanin than you are either responsible for the downfall of civilization or a threat to me personally if it does.  Secondarily, being a person with a prediliction for attraction to persons with the same sex to begin with, I also do not believe that it is those lousy homos who brought about the downfall of civilization either, rather that we are keeping it upright against the very best efforts of bigots to destroy it.  Finally, no, the Jews are not responsible, in my world view, for all your miseries and then some.  No, they don’t control the media.  No, they don’t somehow secretly control your lives.  

There is a second group of Docudharmans who would like to sit across the table from right wingers.  This group, more pollyanish than the first, believes that it is possible, in today’s society, to sit across the table with you, in a similar manner to the Coffee Party, and discuss where we might find “common values”.  Among these common values might be found, for example, things like what we get from the government in exchange for our taxpayer money, and so on.  I do not count myself among this group either.

To be very clear, I am not among the groups that wants to talk to you at all.  I style and believe myself, your enemy.  However, many on Docudharma have noted the many things we have in common, which is why I undertake this sacred duty.

Due to concerns of space, I will only cover two classes of “right winger” with whom we at DocuDharma might find common ground, in this installment.

Germany’s Merkel Apologizes for Afghan Deaths- Again

Germany’s Chancellor Merkel expressed regrets for 6 accidental friendly fire deaths of Afghan soldiers to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday March 3rd.   http://www.google.com/hostedne…

So does Nato Brigadier General Eric Tremblay


http://www.euronews.net/2010/0…

Issuing an apology, NATO Brigadier General Eric Tremblay said: “We regret this tragic loss of life. We will try and strive to improve our tactics, techniques and procedures.”

Germany, The Local

Earlier Friday April 2


http://www.thelocal.de/nationa…

Earlier Friday, three German soldiers were killed and eight were injured – four seriously – when the Taliban ambushed a patrol in the worst firefight the Bundeswehr has seen in its nearly eight years in the war-torn country.

According to Brigadier Frank Leidenberger, the commander of the international ISAF forces in northern Afghanistan, the patrol was attacked by about 100 Taliban insurgents as it removed mines planted in the road in the dangerous district of Chahar Dara, near the Bundeswehr’s Kunduz base.

Other reports said up to 200 Taliban fighters had been involved in the ambush and had used rocket-propelled grenades among other weapons.

The deaths of the German soldiers bring to 39 the total number of Germans killed since the beginning of the Afghanistan war in 2002. They have caused shock and dismay in Germany.

There are currently 4000 troops from Germany in Afghanistan, many in the northern, more peaceful area, with 850 more to be sent soon.

Canada, CBC

Later Friday April 2


http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/…

German soldiers in an armoured personnel carrier opened fire after coming across two civilian vehicles that refused to stop. Soon after, it was discovered the vehicles were carrying Afghan troops.

“Yesterday, after a military operation which took place in the Char Dara district of Kunduz province, Afghan national army troops were distributing food near the German troops when German troops opened fire,” said Afghan defence ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi.

“In this incident six Afghan soldiers were killed. The defence ministry have already condemned the incident,” he said.

America, Boston Globe

2 days later


http://www.boston.com/news/wor…

The friendly fire shooting Friday took place in northern Kunduz Province, where German forces were sharply criticized last September (2009) when they ordered an air strike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians.

Speaking during a visit to South Africa, German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg expressed sorrow over the friendly fire deaths and said German soldiers were doing everything possible to avoid such incidents.

The September 4th airstrike may have been called in by the Germans, but it was carried out by a United States warplane.

Chancellor Merkel expressed regret and took responsibility for that incident in December, and it resulted in a cabinet resignation.  http://af.reuters.com/article/…  

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Utopia 20: The Hospital

The commitment I seek is not to outworn  views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes  become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures.  Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue.

What we have in the United States is not so  much a health-care system as a disease-care system.

The more our feelings diverge, the more  deeply felt they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the  sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other  side.–Sen Ted Kennedy

4/3/10 The Day after Good Friday: Zubaydah

From the ACLU’s A Ponzi Scheme of Torture

Chapter 4, Part 3  3/20/2010

http://www.thetorturereport.or…

(this same link in a form which does not jump all over the page when the mouse attempts to scroll over it here:  http://www.thetorturereport.or…  )

Timeline Summary of Binyam Mohamed and Abu Zubaydah:

April 2002.  Binyam Mohamed arrested in Pakistan.  Interrogated by the British Secret Service MI6. Tortured in Moroccan secret prisons.

Sept 2004 Binyam Mohamed sent to Guantanamo, from Bagram, Afghanistan. Although declared an

“enemy combatant”  Nov 2004, Binyam Mohamed decides not to participate in the military Tribunal created by President Bush in Oct 2001.

2005  Binyam Mohamed charged with conspiring against the U.S., with “Usama Bin Laden (a/k/a Abu Abdullah), Saif al Adel, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri (a/k/a “the Doctor”), Mohammad Atef (a/k/a Abu Hafs al Masri), Abd al Hadi al Iraq, Zayn al Abidin Muammad Husayn (a/k/a Abu Zubayda hereinafter “Abu Zubayda”), Jose Padilla, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad” to commit acts of terrorism.

Zubaydah, the vanishing man-



(Binyam)Mohamed was formally recharged with conspiracy on May 28, 2008. The charge sheet is virtually identical to the one issued on November 4, 2005, except that Richard Reid’s name has been removed from paragraph (e) and every reference to Abu Zubaydah has been purged from the document. Where before “Binyam Mohammad then traveled to Birmel, Afghanistan and was introduced to Abu Zubayda” and “Abu Zubayda promised him training in Pakistan building remote control devices for explosives,” for example, now “Binyam Mohamed then traveled to Birmel Afghanistan, and trained on building remote control devices.” “After arriving in Lahore, Binyam Mohammad and Jose Padilla met with Abu Zubayda in private and discussed plans for attacks against the United States” and “Abu Zubayda stated he preferred Binyam Mohamed conduct an ‘overseas’ operation instead of going back to Afghanistan” became “After arriving in Lahore, Binyam Mohamed and Jose Padilla plotted attacks against the United States. After these discussions, Mohamed and Padilla agreed to be sent to the United States to conduct these operations rather than returning to Afghanistan.”23 [23]

Sept 22, 2008. Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld, US military Tribunal prosecutor, requests to resign his military commission, stating he had ethical qualms about continuing to prosecute Guantanamo detainees without evidence being made available for the defense.

Oct 20, 2008.  Pentagon dropped all charges against Binyam Mohamed and four other detainees whose original charge sheets had linked them to Abu Zubaydah.

Oct 21, 2008. The United Kingdom notifies the Foreign Office they are about to hand down notice on releasing CIA documents for Binyam Mohamed’s attorneys.

Oct 22, 2008.   The British courts rule.  A British – US diplomatic tug of war over who goes first, releasing what classified documents, trying to hide the torture evidence, results. This year, a few paragraphs were released, showing that the British govt. secret services did know of Binyam Mohamed’s incarceration.

Jan 22, 2009.  President Obama orders Guantanamo closed, bans torture, forms task force to review all cases.

Feb 23, 2010.  Binyam Mohamed finally freed and returned to the UK.


from Binyam Mohamed’s Statement the day he was released:

….For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.

I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured.

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