American Samizdat Guernica
Saturday, February 16, 2002
uh oh...

Dear George,...
Love, Ken
also from the Smoking Gun
Birthday Wishes to Kenny, from Georgy
that link cadged from
Kate Cohen
( oh yah, Fred mentioned 'em too... )
something interesting from May '01 here
y una cosa mas:
yah, babee
posted by j p at 4:13 PM
re democrats.com on NYT scrubbed story:
this Me Fi thread on this story brought to my
attention via fine blogging colleague S.J. Green (plep) from across the pond;
and, as usual, some sturm & drang being cast about there (& why's
it so difficult for some to avoid getting a bit nasty in their discourse).
We fucked up boyz & gurlz, going way back we fucked up, and seem
to be continuing that course of action, all wrapped up in God & Country,
(you'll pardon me, but we did use that excuse to exterminate the native
population of this country didn't we?) and a whole bunch of people seem
to have nicely avoided doing the j-o-b that they were hired and paid to
perform, not that we could have entirely avoided one kind of nasty surprise
or another, but man, that disaster was years in the making, & we fucked up,
plainly and simply. Now the essential question is, what will we do about it.
(I mean, besides guns, bombs, a police state and more war-propaganda than
you can shake any number of sticks at...)
posted by j p at 11:37 AM
Can the US be defeated?
"Those who have argued that America's war on terror would fail to defeat terrorism have, it turns out, been barking up the wrong tree. Ever since President Bush announced his $45bn increase in military spending and gave notice to Iraq, Iran and North Korea that they had "better get their house in order" or face what he called the "justice of this nation", it has become ever clearer that the US is not now primarily engaged in a war against terrorism at all.



Instead, this is a war against regimes the US dislikes: a war for heightened US global hegemony and the "full spectrum dominance" the Pentagon has been working to entrench since the end of the cold war. While US forces have apparently still failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, there is barely even a pretence that any of these three states was in some way connected with the attacks on the World Trade Centre. What they do have in common, of course, is that they have all long opposed American power in their regions (for 10, 23 and 52 years respectively) and might one day acquire the kind of weapons the US prefers to reserve for its friends and clients." Guardian UK [thanks, David]

posted by eliot gelwan at 10:20 AM
Powell comes under heavy fire for condom comments
America's Sec. of State faces one of the greatest challenges presented to his office, and the conservative wing of the Republican party is angry... because Powell says sexually active people should use condoms.
posted by A.Q. Jensen at 3:44 AM
Documents provided by The Smoking Gun prove that Ken Lay (Enron president) and G.W. Bush have had a long-standing relationship, despite the Bush claims to the contrary. G.W. Bush & Ken Lay
posted by Fred lapides at 3:24 AM
Friday, February 15, 2002
Fascinating, depressing first-person account of the Miss Cleo telephone psychic scam
posted by Evan Daze at 8:54 AM
Several good articles at the New York Review of Books:
-- Ronald Dworkin, The Threat to Patriotism
-- Areyh Neier, The Military Tribunals on Trial
-- Felix Rohatyn, The Betrayal of Capitalism
posted by Evan Daze at 8:21 AM
Remembering the Family Farm: 150 Years of American Prints. "...examines the material culture of the American farm as documented by prints of farm implements, barns, silos, and other outbuildings."
posted by Andrew Abb at 8:18 AM
I sat on this one for a while now. It is so friggin far out--a god-like attempt to extend how we will fight in the future. Though this plan is not yet in place or operable, the writer, nonetheless, prepared this report at a reputable place and, if it was not a possibility, he would have been tossed out. Who'll stop the rain? We will if it suits our needs
posted by Fred lapides at 3:59 AM
On 9-9-01 - just two days before Osama Bin Laden's attack on the US - the NY Times published a lengthy and chilling article about Osama Bin Laden by reporter John Burns. Some time after 9-11, the Times SCRUBBED this article, replacing it with a completely different article that Burns wrote on 9-12. Both articles discuss a 2-hour videotape by Bin Laden that intelligence agencies first saw in June 2001, but ignored until September. Why was the 9-9 article scrubbed? Read it yourself - we've UNSCRUBBED it. We believe it demonstrates the GROSS NEGLIGENCE of the CIA, NSA, Justice Department, and the White House in the events leading to 9-11. These agencies had MANY warnings, but the people at the top IGNORED them, at a cost of over 3,000 lives and billions of dollars. ALL OF THESE SCREWUPS REMAIN IN THEIR JOBS!!! We demand a Blue Ribbon Commission on 9-11 and a thorough housecleaning - not a Congressional Coverup!
[more]
posted by Fred lapides at 3:49 AM
Thursday, February 14, 2002
Over 1 Million Died in R'wandan Genocide
Bearing out reports at the time that large numbers of machetes were imported into the country from China in early 1994, the report says that one-third of the victims were hacked to death with the agricultural implement. Others were beaten to death, thrown into pit latrines, drowned, raped, burned or starved. A tiny minority of victims were shot, usually by soldiers whom they paid to kill them and members of their families quickly.
posted by A.Q. Jensen at 1:43 PM
Hemp? Not if you want to get high, anyway. But if hemp isn't a drug, why is the DEA treating it like heroin This Bud's Not For You
posted by Fred lapides at 4:54 AM
The Betrayal of Capitalism via The New York Review of Books
posted by Fred lapides at 4:14 AM
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
this kind of thing could be interesting...
"Why We're Suing John Ashcroft"
link cadged off of first blush
next, from the fishwrap today:

The grown-ups were stymied, so 16-year-old Berkeley High School junior Nick Rizzo got out his calculator and carefully crafted a plan to solve the city's protracted tug-of-war over where to draw the boundaries for City Council districts.

"I said, 'Wow!' " recalled council member Kriss Worthington. "That's a pretty gargantuan task. Many people have tried and failed."

Nick, whose favorite reading ranges from the congressional newspaper Roll Call to the Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol, wrote in his proposal:

"The Ancient Greeks believed a person's primary duty was civic participation," he wrote, "and I couldn't agree with them more. . . . I would be privileged to believe that even though I can't vote, because of me, the thousands of Berkeley citizens who can will have a fair representation."

[More of the story]
posted by j p at 6:44 PM
'Aggressive pacifists' put their faith on the firing line
Funded by individual and church donations, CPT maintains projects in Hebron, the Chiapas region of Mexico, and northern Colombia, as well as with several native American groups in Canada and the US. A handful of CPT staffers support the work of 20 Corps members, such as Kern, Shantz, and Ms. Montgomery, and about 100 volunteers, who spend up to several months a year working with CPT.

CPT has been in Hebron since 1995 at the invitation of Hebron's Palestinian mayor, although it lacks any official status with the Israelis. Generally a half-dozen people constitute the team, but it can be a few more or less.
posted by A.Q. Jensen at 2:03 PM
shameless self-promotion alert:
I'm on KPFK tonight at 5:45pm PST talking about child slavery in the chocolate industry. You can listen live online. Just in time to wreck your Valentine's Day.
posted by brooke biggs at 1:50 PM
The Great Game
The idea of American-Israeli cooperation against Iran is not new for Sharon. On the contrary, in 1981, when he was just appointed Minister of Defense, he offered the Pentagon a daring plan: in the event of Khomeini's demise, the Israeli army would immediately occupy Iran, in order to forestall the Soviet Union. The IDF would turn the country over to the slow-moving Americans, once they arrived. For this purpose, the Pentagon would stockpile in advance the most sophisticated arms in Israel, under American control, to be used in this operation.
posted by A.Q. Jensen at 1:22 PM
We hate it when people have more than us.
Study shows that people will risk thier own security to "punish" those who are percieved to have more than us- especially if they have an "unfair" gain. Subjects could "take away" others wealth but only if they would give up some of their own money..and most did.
posted by Kirsten Anderson at 12:51 PM
Enron Flew Under the Radar
Robert Scheer
nation
Since the election of Ronald Reagan, the apostles of an unregulated market, lavishly financed by business lobbyists, have demolished barriers to corporate greed and corruption that for most of a century had served this country well.

The Enron debacle is just the most damning in a long list of evidence that the zealots of deregulation did this country, and its free-enterprise system, a terrible disservice. The financial markets are now roiled and may be permanently damaged by profound suspicion of corporate practices on the part of investors, who now realize they have good reason to fear the worst.

The deregulation ideology of modern conservatism, endorsed mightily by our current President, who cited Enron as a model, holds that big business can best police itself and that government regulation is a costly intrusion.
The Nation has collected several pieces about the scandal here: The Bush Administration and Enron
posted by Mark Woods at 12:17 PM
Posted by Miss Anderson for the venerable Dr. Menlo:

"Hello Harbingers! Quickly now: You are all my heroes. I have been completely bowed over by the response to the Samizdat so far but the list on the left, I hope, is far from complete--please take it upon yourselves to recommend others you think would like to participate, or you are welcome to recommend yourself (drmenlo@well.com). As my browser seems to be broke (but email working fine, and ftp, too), I may be limited to the background for a short stretch, but I am sure you will all be beautiful while I'm gone. In response to Al Jensen's post a while back: an email list for the harbingers is in the works--shall we talk openly here? I dunno . . . maybe . . . harbingers? (Also, all are welcome to come up with alternate templates.) To JP: I definitely have some ideas about the subject you brought up, but some of them I will only elaborate on via email . . . Here's a question I would be interested in seeing the harbingers answer: If, as Unknown News and others have pointed out, the CIA plays an influential role in the doings of the Corporate Media--what if the CIA has caught on to blogs? What blogs, in your estimation, are most likely to be run by spooks? Also, I would love to do a Samizdat episode of "Women We Love"--my list is long! So, I know I'm forgetting something (oh yea--at least 2 people I invited didn't receive their original invite so there is a list of these people, too, and I don't know if they didn't get it or just didn't accept it) but the email list is coming soon (Mr. Planet!)--until then, thank you all again for participating and also a benificent nod to all you wonderful viewers out there as well for coming around--this blog, and this domain, will only continue to get better and launch your savvy rocket-jets in ways you can't even imagine . . . Until then--your obdurant servant, Dr. M.

(p.s. if anyone can email me a public ftp addy for a Mac explorer 5.0 [or anything better browser-wise for an old Mac and old OS] I would be forever grateful--drmenlo@well.com)"

posted by Kirsten Anderson at 10:38 AM
Big Brother is watching you read
Increasingly, the government is demanding that bookstores reveal what books their customers have purchased. Bookstore owners and privacy advocates say that's scarier than a Stephen King novel
[more]
posted by Fred lapides at 4:18 AM
Tuesday, February 12, 2002
Sassy 12 year old girl has been holding bake sales and car washes to buy bullet proof vests for police dogs. Though recently told she can't raise funds for law enforcement agencies- she is appealing and trying to change the law so people can donate money as long as they have no financial gain in the transaction...a vested interest so to say (d'oh!)....she says: "People are going to have a hard time saying no to kids and dogs." Right on, chica.
posted by Kirsten Anderson at 5:15 PM
Gang Life in East LA. Photographs and text by Joseph Rodriguez. "...I see Los Angeles as a post-modern Wild West where everyone has a gun and they use it. It is an uncontrolled and slightly scary place, a land of dreams and beauty, playing by its own rules. My aim in photographing gang life in Los Angeles has been to get to the core of violence in America, not just the physical violence against one another, but the quiet violence of letting families fall apart, the violence of segregation and isolation."
posted by Andrew Abb at 7:52 AM
Afghans are still dying as air strikes go on. But no one is counting
guardian
"Somehow in the middle of America's hi-tech, $1bn a month bombing blizzard, the simple matter of keeping a tally of civilian casualties has been overlooked. ...
There is little doubt the war in Afghanistan has been a triumph of American might. But out of sight and out of mind, day after day, in dribs and drabs, a lot of ordinary people are dying in a war that sees the most advanced fighting machine ever assembled doing its killing in one of the most backward societies on earth.
The results: just two Americans killed by hostile fire to set against thousands of dead Afghan non-combatants. Is this civilian death toll warranted?"
posted by Mark Woods at 6:15 AM
Feb. 8, 2002 | PARIS -- In a new book, "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth," two French intelligence analysts allege the Clinton and Bush administrations put diplomacy before law enforcement in dealing with the al-Qaida threat before Sept. 11, in order to maintain smooth relations with Saudi Arabia and to avoid disrupting the oil market. The book, which has become a bestseller in France but has received little press attention here, also alleges that the Bush administration was bargaining with the Taliban, over a Central Asian oil pipeline and Osama bin Laden, just five weeks before the September attacks. The authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, see a link between the negotiations and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy task force, with its conclusions that Central Asian oil was going to become critical to the U.S. economy. Brisard and Dasquie also claim former FBI deputy director John O'Neill (who died in the attack on the World Trade Center, where he was the chief of security) resigned in July to protest the policy of giving U.S. oil interests a higher priority than bringing al-Qaida leaders to justice. Brisard claims O'Neill told him that "the main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia." The book's authors interviewed
posted by Fred lapides at 2:29 AM
Monday, February 11, 2002
somebody help us, please...
first, this inquiry from Slate:
"Did Bush help Iran's Hard-Lliners?"
definitely maybe,
from the NYT:
Millions of Iranians March in Protest
posted by j p at 4:31 PM
To understand Enron better, we should know more about American history. Then we will see that Enron Is Merely the Latest Chapter In the History of American Scams
posted by Fred lapides at 3:47 AM
Sunday, February 10, 2002
American Democracy: R.I.P
The Emergence of the Fascist American Theocratic State
By John Stanton and Wayne Madsen
cryptome

Historians will record that between November 2000 and February 2002, democracy—as envisioned by the creators of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution—effectively came to an end. As democracy died, the Fascist American Theocratic State ["The State"] was born. This new fascist era was designed and implemented primarily by Republican organizations and individuals who funded, supported and ultimately inserted George Bush II in office. Equally complicit in this atrocity was the Democratic Party, itself having become corrupt and beholden to its own interests. But the greatest tragedy in this horrific turn of events was that the public and media embraced fascism’s coming. It should be noted that the Green Party’s valiant efforts were too little, too late.... (more)
posted by Mark Woods at 7:41 PM
They Still Draw Pictures: Drawings made by Spanish children during the Spanish Civil War, circa 1938. "...over 600 drawings made during the Spanish Civil War by Spanish school children, both in Spain and in refugee centers in France, rendered in pencil, crayon, ink, and watercolor."
posted by Andrew Abb at 9:43 AM
BEIRUT, LEBANON - A heated diplomatic campaign waged by the United States and Israel against Iran and its Lebanese protégé, Hizbullah, could have an unintended and potentially destabilizing backlash, as is noted in the huge arms buildup
posted by Fred lapides at 3:42 AM

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