D. Grant Haynes

Twitter connection

2010-02-20T23:01:54-08:00

Obama 'owns' all comers at Republican meeting

2010-01-30T18:25:14-08:00

President Obama kicked Republican ass Friday afternoon in Baltimore--no doubt about it. He demonstrated a vast intellect and a capacity to integrate thousands of facts and concepts into cogent arguments. He remained Joe Cool throughout and took on all comers successfully at the GOP retreat.

I have my doubts still that obstructionist Republicans will see the light now and cooperate in the bipartisan fashion Obama envisions. I hope I am wrong and I will be the first to so admit, should the president win Republicans over to his health care and other vital programs.

D. Grant Haynes

Obama's State of the Union address

2010-01-27T23:43:00-08:00

I watched President Obama's State of the Union address tonight. He was, as always, a gifted orator and communicator.

But he remains naively optimistic that he can woo obstructionist Republicans into cooperation on his major programs by invoking a warm and fuzzy sense of kumbaya bipartisanship in the name of what is best of the American people. That will never occur.

Most of Obama's address was devoted to a new and excessive appeal to fiscal conservatism--one born, no doubt, of the recent election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Obama promised a three-year fiscal freeze in federal budgets beginning in 2011 (military spending exempted, of course), expanded tax credits for middle class parents with enough income to send children to college in the first place, and various job creation schemes with an emphasis always on the importance of the "private sector" in job creation.

He also assented to Republican talking point issues such as offshore drilling, new nuclear power plants, and that monumental oxymoron of our time, "clean coal technology".

Obama soft peddled the health care issue during his address, not mentioning it for the first 30 minutes of his 70-minute speech and then only in general terms. He made no demands of Republicans. He threatened no passage by reconciliation of health care in the face of continued Republican opposition. He only begged them to cooperate in passing some sort of health care reform because of the crying needs of the American people. That approach will not sway Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, or Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Those politicians are bent on destroying Obama and his legislative agenda, as DeMint indicated in a recent interview. I doubt they and their constituents were moved by Obama's silver tongued oratory tonight.

I heard nothing to cause me to believe life will become any less stressful for a man such as myself who has to live on $12,000 annually--one who has had no dental insurance for 20 years and is about to lose all of his teeth because Medicare pays for one set of dentures in a retiree's lifetime and for no other dental work--one who is expected to pay 20 percent of the cost of any medical procedure, however expensive, or be referred to a medical collection agency, even as he approaches three score and ten years.

No, Barrack Obama is definitely not a socialist or a champion of the down and outs of this nation. He cannot identify with poverty and lack. He is centrist Democratic politician who is crab crawling to the right as fast as possible because of apparent political trends in this nation of unthinking knee jerk reactive fools.

I want to live in a socialist society or a social democracy at the very least. I want to live where I can receive generous dental and medical care because I am a human being and deserving of it--not because I am financially able to augment my Medicare with private supplemental dental, ocular, and medical insurance.

I want socialism--not Barack Obama's watered down centrist version of corporatized capitalism, the best the Democratic Party of this nation dares to hope for or strive to achieve.

Should I ever vote here again, I will not be voting for a Democrat or a Republican. The similarities of the aims, goals, and platforms of these major American political parties far outweigh their largely cosmetic differences.

I am as disgusted as hell with the entire process and, as I often write, truly grateful I don't have too much longer to tarry here.

Perhaps Nostradamus and the Mayans were right about 2012. I hope so.

D. Grant Haynes

I would leave America tomorrow, if possible

2010-01-21T01:15:00-08:00

January 19, 2010

Never have I been more weary of America and Americans than I am tonight.

The special election outcome in Massachusetts underscored once more for me that nothing will ever improve here.

I'm probably too old and poor to leave this putrid nation of shallow Fox News following fools who, with or without health care coverage themselves, will vote the best of men and women out of office on the "socialized medicine" issue.

Most blue collar Americans--the kinds that put Scott Brown into office in Massachusetts--could not define "socialism" or "socialized medicine" if pressed. But these ignorant fools have been brainwashed for generations that they don't want either, even if they themselves and persons close to them are often dying for lack of medical care or are losing their homes because of non-payment of medical bills.

These stalwart champions of the "American way of life"--ignoramuses all--are as certain as their grandfathers were before them that they don't want "socialized medicine". They voted Martha Coakley down in Massachusetts today primarily because she represented the party of President Barack Obama, who is, in the eyes of the truck drivers, carpenters, plumbers and day laborers of Western Massachusetts, a Muslim, a socialist, and probably an alien not born in their "Amurka"--one bent on forcing "socialism" onto them.

I wish to be as far as possible from these ignorant people and their smutty little working class Bay State neighborhoods--as far as the globe is wide and its circumference great.

I would remove myself to New Zealand, if that were possible. A more plausible relocation target might be Canada--an alternative I am investigating at this time.

I do not wish to transition to another energy system from the United States of America. I do not wish my ashes dispersed here. I do not wish to have been a despised American as I disembark on the other shore. I detest everything about this nation.

D. Grant Haynes

Watch powerful statement against Iraq occupation

2010-01-10T03:51:00-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8&fmt=18

Indians more alarmed about global pollution than greedy, blind Americans

2010-01-03T22:15:00-08:00

(From the Times of India)

Climate change far worse than thought before

3 January 2010, 12:09pm IST

NEW DELHI: Global alarm over climate change and its effects has risen manifold after the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since then, many of the 2,500-odd IPCC scientists have found climate change is progressing faster than the worst-case scenario they had predicted... .

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/Climate-change-far-worse-than-thought-before/articleshow/5406955.cms

Even the Indians with their unimaginable population and poverty pressures will come to their senses about global pollution before greedy, self-centered, and wholly hedonistic Americans do.

Of course the global pollution crisis is worse than business-as-usual capitalists and their sycophantic bureaucratic followers in Congress will admit.

I, personally, have learned that there is nowhere left to run in North America to escape choking, killing air pollution. I've tried every quadrant.

We are all screwed now for following the siren songs of the business community that told us for the last 50 years that more and bigger was always better.

How many times was I told in my youth, "well, you can't stop progress and that building, (or strip mall or paper mill or coal plant or whatever) represents progress."? Far too many times.

And far too many times did I accept the lie of open-ended economic growth and industrial prosperity as a panacea when I should have, rather, sought to do something to save my planetary home while I was still young and while there was still time.

I should have possessed the cajones to become a radical activist who devoted his life, however short or long, to an attempt to stop the "progress" that I knew, even then, was poisoning the future home of my unborn children and grandchildren.

Such a course of action would have been more honorable, by far, than the teaching career I chose--one in which I whiled away my years seeking to please unimportant little pissant public school principals and superintendents.

D. Grant Haynes

Haynes' other bully pulpit

2010-01-02T23:00:00-08:00

http://dgranthaynes.blogspot.com/

Who and What I Am

2010-01-01T20:00:00-08:00

I am, in reality, a hyperspatial energy being whose forever home is the infinitude and grandeur of the multidimensional universe.

I temporarily inhabit--cast a shadow in--a dense physical shell in order that I may experience, learn and grow.

But I am not, ultimately, bounded by the so-called physical universe or by the apparent human condition.

These too shall pass, and I will retain my identity--remain consciously aware--whatever challenges may be mine at that point in my ongoing journey to the Light.

D. Grant Haynes

September 1997

Ain't nuthin' wrong with my air!

2009-12-07T18:23:00-08:00

(From The Christian Science Monitor)

Global warming: Why public concern declines

"On eve of the global warming summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, an informal global survey shows that public interest in the issue is waning. But many people are taking individual steps to curb global warming... ."

Public concern about global warming declines in the United States because the average American is an ignorant, selfish, stupid ass who is more interested in his 401K, an upcoming football game, or next Saturday's sex, than in the future of our beleaguered planet.

For more than a decade, I have desperately sought escape from growing clouds of man-made pollution that shroud every corner of North America. No locale is clean now. There is, literally, nowhere left to run.

Yet, the "average" man in the street is oblivious to the pollution he breathes, day and night. He "don't see nuthin" wrong with the air and is happy to think global warming issues represent a socialist plot to do something to him--take away his "freedom", I presume.

Where did he glean this gem of rare insight? Why, from Fox News' Glenn Beck, of course!

I believe the very urgent planetary pollution issue should be couched in a perspective Joe Sixpack can more readily grasp than is presently the case.

To have former vice president Al Gore and scholarly climate scientists cite glacial retreats on Mount Blanc and the Antarctic Continent, or increasing desertification in the Southern Kalahari, means nothing to Joe so long as his myopic little cocoon in Middle America hasn’t been directly jostled.

"Joe, you have developed premature cardiovascular disease because of the smoke from that coal-fired steam plant up the road that you have breathed all of your life. The prognosis is that you will die before you are 55 if the plant isn’t shut down immediately," might better get Joe’s attention.

One has to meet the Joe Sixpacks of the human species where they are, intellectually, if one wishes to communicate with them.

(See also ABC's "Climate Concern Waning in US" for further evidence of American selfishness and stupidity on the world stage.)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/09/2767037.htm

D. Grant Haynes

Our bucolic little world shattered

2009-10-27T21:12:07-08:00

(Published October 22, 2009, in local Eastern Washington newspaper.)

Dear Editor:

As a newcomer to Washington, I have been especially pleased to be close to the abundant wildlife of Lincoln County. We have regularly seen small herds of black-tail deer, large flocks of California Quail, and a myriad of other beautiful and harmless wild creatures near our dwelling place since arriving here in June.

Our hearts have been made happy and given solace through interaction with God’s wild creatures--an experience that is all too rare in 21st Century America.

But a pall descended on our world at dawn October 17 when the 2009 deer hunting season opened here.

Since, we have seen none of our timid animal friends with whom we had sought all summer and fall to establish rapport. There are no deer grazing behind our back fence now. And there are no deer in their usual haunts when we take our walks.

Nor have the flocks of exquisitely beautiful California Quail that had graced our lives each afternoon returned.I assume these creatures are either dead or in hiding because of the ghastly spectacles they witnessed over the weekend as hunters from throughout the state descended on Lincoln County to bag their limits in a barbaric ritual called "sport hunting".

The fall skies weep, as do we, that so many innocent expressions of love, beauty and goodness have been snuffed out by misguided men who find pleasure and sport in killing beings that have done them no harm.

Dixon Haynes

Dedicated to the hunters of North America

2009-10-17T18:01:00-08:00

"A little later in a quieter bend of the shore, I see ahead of me a bleeding, bedraggled blot on the edge of the white surf. As I approach, it starts warily to its feet. We look at each other. It is a wild duck, with a shattered wing. It does not run ahead of me like the longer-limbed gull. Before I can cut off its retreat, it waddles painfully from its brief refuge into the water.

The sea continues to fall heavily. The duck dives awkwardly, but with long knowledge and instinctive skill, under the fall of the first two inshore waves. I see its head working seaward. A long green roller, far taller--taller than my head, rises and crashes forward.

The black head of the water-logged duck disappears. This is the way wild things die, without question, without knowledge of mercy in the universe, knowing only themselves and their own pathway to the end. I wonder, walking further up the beach, if the man who shot that bird will die as well."

Loren Eiseley

The Night Country

Surveying the road ahead

2009-10-10T05:14:00-08:00

From William Buhlman's "Adventures Beyond the Body"...

Journal Entry, January 3, 1987...

"I feel the vibrations and lift out. I'm standing in my bedroom and, looking around, I see that the surroundings are similar but not exact. The woodwork and walls are different from those of my physical home. I move to the door and step through it. Instantly, I'm in a new environment. A woman that I somehow seem to know approaches me. She is tall, with long brown hair and sparkling eyes. She steps close to me and smiles, "I've missed you." Spontaneously I respond, "Me too." She kisses me warmly and takes my hands. Suddenly, we're in another environment.

A magnificent parklike setting comes into focus. We stand together at the edge of a crystal blue-green pond. Everything around me--the trees, the grass, the pond--are vibrantly alive. As I look at the woman, an intense feeling of love swells inside me. She stares at me and holds both my hands. "You travel so much. I need you here." I hold her close. "I'm here now." Her face and body seem to shine like ten thousand points of light. We kiss and a surge of energy floods into my mind. Our bodies and minds come together in an intense explosion of pure energy and joy. Our thoughts merge and touch one another in a thousand subtle ways. I feel immersed in her mind and she and I become as one. The ecstasy is beyond words. For the first time, I feel complete and whole....

As we evolve, we will begin to chart the unseen universe much as astronomers are now charting the visible universe. The exploration of the interior of the universe is a massive endeavor reaching far beyond our current intellectual concepts of time, space and energy. The exploration of the unseen dimension is a task that all of us will eventually confront, for it is our birthright and our destiny to explore beyond our primitive biological vehicles and experience the magnificence of our true home within the multidimensional universe.

Every physical problem is a new opportunity to grow; each hardship helps us to develop our inner qualities of courage, love and compassion; each new challenge is a new opportunity to learn. In a sense, each of us uses matter as a tool of transformation.

Our biological bodies are temporary vehicles for expression and experience in this dense realm of matter. The very act of assuming physical form and being human is an integral element of our development. Each of us is currently experiencing the most effective system of growth ever devised: evolution by direct personal experience, by the very act of being.

It doesn't matter what we believe or don't believe; each of us will shed our temporary biological vehicle and continue to evolve. We are all active participants in a magnificent evolutionary system that extends far beyond the narrow limits of our physical vision. Birth and death themselves are essential elements of our progress--the entrance and exit of consciousness upon the molecular playing field of evolution...

The continuum of consciousness extends inwardly to the very heart of the universe; unending levels and frequencies of non-physical life and realities exist just beyond the dense limits of our sight. Each of us has much to look forward too: incredible worlds of beauty and light patiently waiting for us to explore... ."

Walking away from the rat race

2009-08-05T06:12:00-08:00

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common -- this is my symphony."

William Ellery Channing

A tribute to what might have been--and may yet be

2009-07-27T19:36:00-08:00

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967

(Listen to a Russian language rendition of The Internationale at link below.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv7msEVebLM&feature=response_watch

Fidel no longer alone: From left, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Evo Morales of Bolivia are all advocates of varying degrees of the Latin American socialist reform for which Ernesto 'Che' Guevara gave his life.

The Internationale

Arise ye starvelings from your slumbers

Arise ye prisoners of want

For reason in revolt now thunders

And at last ends the age of cant.

Away with all your superstitions

Servile masses arise, arise

We'll change forthwith the old tradition

And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.

So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction

On tyrants only we'll make war

The soldiers too will take strike action

They'll break ranks and fight no more

And if those cannibals keep trying

To sacrifice us to their pride

They soon shall hear the bullets flying

We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers

No faith have we in prince or peer

Our own right hand the chains must shiver

Chains of hatred, greed and fear

E'er the thieves will out with their booty

Each at the forge must do their duty

And we'll strike while the iron is hot.

(Hugo Chavez of Venezuela delivered a remarkable and moving speech at the World Climate Change Conference in Denmark on December 16, 2009. But that speech was largely ignored by the U.S. media, despite repeated standing ovations among delegates at the conference. Following is the complete text of Chavez' remarks. -- DGH)

Copenhagen, Kingdom of Denmark

December 16, 2009

President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez:

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, Excellencies, friends, I promise that I will not talk more than most have spoken this afternoon. Allow me an initial comment which I would have liked to make as part of the previous point which was expressed by the delegations of Brazil, China, India, and Bolivia. We were there asking to speak but it was not possible. Bolivia's representative said, my salute of course to Comrade President Evo Morales, who is there, President of the Republic of Bolivia.

She said among other things the following, I noted it here, she said the text presented is not democratic, it is not inclusive.

I had hardly arrived and we were just sitting down when we heard the president of the previous session, the minister, saying that a document came about, but nobody knows, I've asked for the document, but we still don’t have it, I think nobody knows of that top secret document.

Now certainly, as the Bolivian comrade said, that is not democratic, it is not inclusive. Now, ladies and gentlemen, isn’t that just the reality of the world? Are we in a democratic world? Is the global system inclusive? Can we hope for something democratic, inclusive from the current global system?

What we are experiencing on this planet is an imperial dictatorship, and from here we continue denouncing it. Down with imperial dictatorship! And long live the people and democracy and equality on this planet!

And what we see here is a reflection of this: Exclusion.

There is a group of countries that consider themselves superior to us in the South, to us in the Third World, to us, the underdeveloped countries, or as a great friend Eduardo Galeano says, we, the crushed countries, as if a train ran over us in history.

In light of this, it’s no surprise that there is no democracy in the world and here we are again faced with powerful evidence of global imperial dictatorship. Then two youths got up here, fortunately the enforcement officials were decent, some push around, and they collaborated right? There are many people outside, you know? Of course, they do not fit in this room, they are too many people. I've read in the news that there were some arrests, some intense protests, there in the streets of Copenhagen, and I salute all those people out there, most of them youth.

Of course young people are concerned, I think rightly much more than we are, for the future of the world. We have -- most of us here - the sun on our backs, and they have to face the sun and are very worried.

One could say, Mr. President, that a spectre is haunting Copenhagen, to paraphrase Karl Marx, the great Karl Marx, a spectre is haunting the streets of Copenhagen, and I think that spectre walks silently through this room, walking around among us, through the halls, out below, it rises, this spectre is a terrible spectre almost nobody wants to mention it: Capitalism is the spectre, almost nobody wants to mention it.

It’s capitalism, the people roar, out there, hear them.

I have been reading some of the slogans painted on the streets, and I think those slogans of these youngsters, some of which I heard when I was young, and of the young woman there, two of which I noted. You can hear among others, two powerful slogans. One: Don’t change the climate, change the system.

And I take it onboard for us. Let’s not change the climate, let’s change the system! And consequently we will begin to save the planet. Capitalism is a destructive development model that is putting an end to life; it threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.

And another slogan calls for reflection. It is very in tune with the banking crisis that swept the world and still affects it, and of how the rich northern countries gave aid to bankers and the big banks. The U.S. alone gave, well, I lost the figure, but it is astronomical, to save the banks. They say in the streets the following: If the climate were a bank it would have been saved already.

And I think that's true. If the climate were one of the biggest capitalist banks, the rich governments would have saved it.

I think Obama has not arrived. He received the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day that he sent 30 thousand soldiers to kill more innocents in Afghanistan, and now he comes to stand here with the Nobel Peace Prize, the president of the United States.

But the United States has the machinery to make money, to make dollars, and has saved, well, they believe they have saved the banks and the capitalist system.

Well, this is a side comment that I wanted to make previously. We were raising our hand to accompany Brazil, India, Bolivia, China, in their interesting position that Venezuela and the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance firmly share. But hey, they didn’t let us speak, so do not count these minutes please, Mr. President.

Look, over there I met, I had the pleasure of meeting this French author Hervé Kempf. Recommending this book, I recommend it, it is available in Spanish – there is Hervé - its also in French, and surely in English, How the Rich are Destroying the Planet. Hervé Kempf: How the Rich are Destroying the Planet. This is what Christ said: it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. This is what our lord Christ said.

The rich are destroying the planet. Do they think the can go to another when they destroy this one? Do they have plans to go to another planet? So far there is none on the horizon of the galaxy.

This book has just reached me, Ignacio Ramonet gave it to me, and he is also around somewhere in this room. Finishing the prologue or the preamble this phrase is very important, Kempf says the following, I’ll read it:

“We can not reduce global material consumption if we don’t make the powerful go down several levels, and if we don’t combat inequality. It is necessary that to the ecological principle that is so useful at the time of becoming conscious, ‘think globally and act locally,’ we add the principle that the situation imposes: ‘Consume less and share better.’”

I think it is good advice that this French author Hervé Kempf gives us.

Well then, Mr. President, climate change is undoubtedly the most devastating environmental problem of this century. Floods, droughts, severe storms, hurricanes, melting ice caps, rise in mean sea levels, ocean acidification and heat waves, all of that sharpens the impact of global crisis besetting us.

Current human activity exceeds the threshold of sustainability, endangering life on the planet, but also in this we are profoundly unequal.

I want to recall: the 500 million richest people, 500 million, this is seven percent, seven percent, seven percent of the world’s population. This seven percent is responsible, these 500 million richest people are responsible for 50 percent of emissions, while the poorest 50 percent accounts for only seven percent of emissions.

So it strikes me as a bit strange to put the United States and China at the same level. The United States has just, well; it will soon reach 300 million people. China has nearly five times the U.S. population. The United Status consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil a day, China only reaches 5-6 million barrels a day, you can’t ask the same of the United States and China.

There are issues to discuss, hopefully we the heads of states and governments can sit down and discuss the truth, the truth about these issues.

So, Mr. President, 60 percent of the planet’s ecosystems are damaged, 20 percent of the earth's crust is degraded, we have been impassive witnesses to deforestation, land conversion, desertification, deterioration of fresh water systems, overexploitation of marine resources, pollution and loss of biodiversity.

The overuse of the land exceeds by 30 percent the capacity to regenerate it. The planet is losing what the technicians call the ability to regulate itself; the planet is losing this. Every day more waste than can be processed is released. The survival of our species hammers in the consciousness of humanity. Despite the urgency, it has taken two years of negotiations for a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, and we attend this event without any real and meaningful agreement.

And indeed, on the text that comes from out of the blue, as some have called it, Venezuela says, and the ALBA countries, the Bolivarian Alliance say that we will not accept, since then we’ve said it, any other texts that do not come from working groups under the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention. They are the legitimate texts that we have been discussing so intensely over the years.

And in these last few hours, I believe you have not slept, plus you have not eaten, you have not slept. It does not seem logical to me to come out now with a document from scratch, as you say.

The scientifically substantiated objective of reducing the emission of polluting gases and achieving an agreement on long-term cooperation clearly, today at this time, has apparently failed, for now.

What is the reason? We have no doubt.

The reason is the irresponsible attitude and lack of political will from the most powerful nations on the planet. No one should feel offended, I recall the great José Gervasio Artigas when he said: “With the truth, I neither offend nor fear.” But it is actually an irresponsible attitude of positions, of reversals, of exclusions, of elitist management of a problem that belongs to everyone and that we can only solve together.

The political conservatism and selfishness of the largest consumers, of the richest countries shows high insensitivity and lack of solidarity with the poor, the hungry, and the most vulnerable to disease, to natural disasters. Mr. President, a new and single agreement is essential, applicable to absolutely unequal parties, according to the magnitude of their contributions and economic, financial and technological capabilities and based on unconditional respect for the principles contained in the Convention.

Developed countries should set binding, clear and concrete commitments for the substantial reduction of their emissions and assume obligations of financial and technological assistance to poor countries to cope with the destructive dangers of climate change. In this respect, the uniqueness of island states and least developed countries should be fully recognized.

Mr. President, climate change is not the only problem facing humanity today. Other scourges and injustices beset us, the gap between rich and poor countries has continued to grow, despite all the millennium goals, the Monterrey financing summit, at all these summits as the President of Senegal said here, revealing a great truth, there are promises and unfulfilled promises and the world continues its destructive march.

The total income of the 500 richest individuals in the world is greater than the income of the 416 million poorest people. The 2.8 billion people living in poverty on less than $2 per day, representing 40 per percent of the global population, receive only 5 percent of world income.

Today each year about 9.2 million children die before reaching their fifth year and 99.9 percent of these deaths occur in poorer countries.

Infant mortality is 47 deaths per thousand live births, but is only 5 per thousand in rich countries. Life expectancy on the planet is 67 years, in rich countries it is 79, while in some poor nations is only 40 years.

Additionally, there are 1.1 billion people without access to drinking water, 2.6 billion without sanitation services, over 800 million illiterate and 1.02 billion hungry people, that’s the global scenario.

Now the cause, what is the cause?

Let’s talk about the cause, let’s not evade responsibilities, and let’s not evade the depth of this problem. The cause, undoubtedly, I return to the theme of this whole disastrous panorama, is the destructive metabolic system of capital and its embodied model: Capitalism.

Here’s a quote that I want to read briefly, from that great liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, as we know a Brazilian, our American. Leonardo Boff says on this subject as follows:

“What is the cause? Ah, the cause is the dream of seeking happiness through material accumulation and of endless progress, using for this science and technology with which they can exploit without limits all the resources of the earth.”

And he cites here Charles Darwin and his “natural selection”, the survival of the fittest, but we know that the strongest survive over the ashes of the weakest.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, we must always remember, said that between the strong and the weak, freedom is oppressed. That’s why the Empire speaks of freedom; it’s the freedom to oppress, to invade, to kill, to annihilate, and to exploit. That is their freedom, and Rousseau adds this saving phrase: “Only the law liberates.”

There are countries that are hoping that no document comes out of here precisely because they do not want a law, do not want a standard, because the absence of these norms allows them to play at their exploitative freedom, their crushing freedom.

We must make an effort and pressure here and in the streets, so that a commitment comes out of here, a document that commits the most powerful countries on earth.

Well, Mr. President, Leonardo Boff asks... Have you met Boff? I do not know whether Leonardo might come, I met him recently in Paraguay, we’ve always read him.

Can a finite earth support an infinite project? The thesis of capitalism, infinite development, is a destructive pattern, let’s face it.

Then Boff asks us, what might we expect from Copenhagen? At least this simple confession: We can not continue like this. And a simple proposition: Let’s change course. Let's do it, but without cynicism, without lies, without double agendas, no documents out of the blue, with the truth out in the open.

How long, we ask from Venezuela, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, how long are we going to allow such injustices and inequalities? How long are we going to tolerate the current international economic order and prevailing market mechanisms? How long are we going to allow huge epidemics like HIV/AIDS to ravage entire populations? How long are we going to allow the hungry to not eat or to be able to feed their own children? How long are we going to allow millions of children to die from curable diseases? How long will we allow armed conflicts to massacre millions of innocent human beings in order for the powerful to seize the resources of other peoples?

Cease the aggressions and the wars! We the peoples of the world ask of the empires, to those who try to continue dominating the world and exploiting us.

No more imperial military bases or military coups! Let’s build a more just and equitable economic and social order, let’s eradicate poverty, let’s immediately stop the high emission levels, let’s stop environmental degradation and avoid the great catastrophe of climate change, let’s integrate ourselves into the noble goal of everyone being more free and united.

Mr. President, almost two centuries ago, a universal Venezuelan, a liberator of nations and precursor of consciences left to posterity a full-willed maxim: “If nature opposes us, let’s fight against it and make it obey us.” That was Simón Bolívar, the Liberator.

From Bolivarian Venezuela, where a day like today some ten years ago, ten years exactly, we experienced the biggest climate tragedy in our history (the Vargas tragedy it is called), from this Venezuela whose revolution tries to win justice for all people, we say it is only possible through the path of socialism!

Socialism, the other spectre Karl Marx spoke about, which walks here too, rather it is like a counter-spectre. Socialism, this is the direction, this is the path to save the planet, I don’t have the least doubt. Capitalism is the road to hell, to the destruction of the world. We say this from Venezuela, which because of socialism faces threats from the U.S. Empire.

From the countries that comprise ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance, we call, and I want to, with respect, but from my soul, call in the name of many on this planet, we say to governments and peoples of the Earth, to paraphrase Simón Bolívar, the Liberator: If the destructive nature of capitalism opposes us, let’s fight against it and make it obey us, let’s not wait idly by for the death of humanity.

History calls on us to unite and to fight.

If capitalism resists, we are obliged to take up a battle against capitalism and open the way for the salvation of the human species. It’s up to us, raising the banners of Christ, Mohammed, equality, love, justice, humanity, the true and most profound humanism. If we don’t do it, the most wonderful creation of the universe, the human being, will disappear, it will disappear.

This planet is billions of years old, and this planet existed for billions of years without us, the human species, i.e. it doesn’t need us to exist. Now, without the Earth we will not exist, and we are destroying Pachamama as Evo says, as our indigenous brothers from South America say.

Finally, Mr. President, and to finish, let’s listen to Fidel Castro when he said: “One species is in danger of extinction: Humanity.”

Let’s listen to Rosa Luxemburg when she said: “Socialism or barbarism.”

Let us listen to Christ the Redeemer when he said: “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, we are capable of not making this Earth the tomb of humanity. Let us make this earth a heaven, a heaven of life, of peace, peace and brotherhood for all humanity, for the human species.

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much and enjoy your meal."

(See video of parts of Chavez speech.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp90gNCDaNw

Another GOP hypocrite exposed

2009-06-18T01:34:00-08:00

"He has no credibility left." -- Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), quoted by the Las Vegas Sun in 1998, urging Bill Clinton to resign after he admitted an extramarital affair.

You made my day, Senator Ensign

One more Republican hypocrite has been exposed for talking one way and living another way.

And John Ensign is not merely another conservative protestant Republican hypocrite.

Ensign is a born-again member of the Pentecostal International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, no less--the only member of the U.S. Senate who is affiliated with a Charismatic gathering of latter day Holy Rollers.

And there is more.

John Ensign has been prominent in the "Promise Keepers" evangelical group.

Promise Keepers set themselves apart with special vows, several of which are germane to Ensign's present dilemma.

A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical and sexual purity.

A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and Biblical values.

(See Wikipedia entry below for other "Promise Keeper" vows.)

Looks like Beelzebub got into John for a spell there!

D. Grant Haynes
__________________________________________________________

Analysis: Ensign affair one more woe for GOP

By LIZ SIDOTI - June 17, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - It's just about the last thing the beleaguered Republican Party needed: a Christian conservative with national aspirations admitting to an extramarital affair with an ex-staffer.

Add Nevada Sen. John Ensign's infidelity admission to an ever-growing list of woes for the out-of-power GOP.

One senator's predicament hardly condemns an entire party. But the episode is an unwelcome distraction as the Republicans, their ranks shrinking, seek a turnaround after disastrous losses in consecutive national elections.

Since President Barack Obama took office, Republicans have struggled to counter his popularity and the Democrats' command of Congress.

The GOP's new national chairman, Michael Steele, got off to a rocky start. Moderate Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter defected to the Democrats. And Democrat Al Franken is favored to eventually be declared the winner of the disputed Minnesota Senate race over incumbent GOP Sen. Norm Coleman.

Now this.

"Last year I had an affair. I violated the vows of my marriage. It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life," Ensign said Tuesday at a hastily arranged news conference in Sin City itself, Las Vegas.

He didn't name the woman, but Cindy Hampton came forward later to say through an attorney that she regretted Ensign's decision to "air this very personal matter." Federal records showed that she was on his political payroll and received a promotion and a pay raise around the time he said the affair began in late 2007.

There also was a report of a previous affair, in 2002, an indication that the drip, drip of dalliance details may only just be beginning.

On Wednesday, as fellow senators remained mum, Ensign resigned his leadership post. The skilled communicator and proven fundraiser was the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, the No. 4 Senate Republican.

Until his admission, Ensign was trying to raise his national profile. Popular in Nevada though virtually unknown elsewhere, he recently flirted with a 2012 presidential run, visiting the early voting state of Iowa and refusing to tamp down speculation of a bid.

Those dreams now seem dead... .
__________________________________________________________

(From Wikipedia)

Ensign is a member of the Pentecostal International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and is the only Pentecostal in the Senate. He attends a Foursquare church in northwest Las Vegas.

According to The New York Times, during college at Colorado State, he became a born-again Christian and he and his wife, Darlene, were active in the Promise Keepers, an evangelical group.

He and his wife have three children.

The core beliefs of the Promise Keepers, outlined in the Seven Promises, consist of the following:

A Promise Keeper is committed to honoring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer and obedience to God's Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

A Promise Keeper is committed to pursuing vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises.

A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor and by actively giving his time and resources.

A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of Biblical unity.

A Promise Keeper is committed to influencing his world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).

Palin right for once

2009-06-14T00:56:00-08:00

While I am a Democrat who supported and supports Barack Obama, I agree with Governor Sarah Palin in the matter of David Letterman's recent highly inappropriate monologue jokes about her daughters--either of them.

I never cared much for Letterman's humor at best, but he went over the top in making casual guffaw jokes about Palin's child being "knocked up".

This is not a "Democrat v. Republican" issue. It is a matter of good taste and decency v. poor taste and indecency.

There is a line that should not be crossed and Letterman crossed it.

D. Grant Haynes

How do you repay a man for 7 1/2 years of hell at Gitmo?

2009-06-09T00:39:00-08:00

Held Seven Years, Former Aid Worker Tells ABC News He Was Tortured

By JAKE TAPPER, KAREN TRAVERS, and STEPHANIE Z. SMITH

For 71/2 years, Lakhdar Boumediene was known simply by a number: "10005."

These were the digits assigned to him when he arrived at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, swept up in a post-Sept. 11 dragnet and accused of plotting to blow up the U.S. and British Embassies in Sarajevo.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Boumediene said the interrogators at Gitmo never once asked him about this alleged plot, which he denied playing any part it.

"I'm a normal man," said Boumediene, who at the time of his arrest worked for the Red Crescent, providing help to orphans and others in need. "I'm not a terrorist."

The 43-year-old Algerian is now back with his wife and two daughters, a free man in France after a Republican judge found the evidence against Boumediene lacking. He is best known from the landmark Supreme Court case last year, Boumediene v. Bush, which said detainees have the right to challenge their detention in court.

That decision was a stunning rebuke of the Bush administration's policies on terror suspects. It set up a ruling by District Court Judge Richard Leon, a former counsel to Republicans in Congress appointed to the bench by Bush, that there was no credible evidence to keep Boumediene detained.

After what Boumediene described as a 71/2 year nightmare, he is now a free man. Boumediene: "I don't think. I'm sure" about torture.

In 2001, Boumediene, his wife and two young daughters lived in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He worked for the Red Crescent Society, having done stints for the organization in Pakistan and Albania.

He was arrested by Bosnian police in October 2001 and charged with conspiring to blow up the U.S. and British Embassies. He called the charges false and ludicrous.

"They search my car, my office, nothing. Cell phone, nothing. Nothing. Nothing," he said.

The charges were dropped, and the Bosnian courts ordered him and five others freed. But under pressure from the Bush administration, the Bosnian government handed him over to the U.S. military.

On January 17, 2002, Boumediene's hands and feet were placed in shackles, and he was put on a military plane en route to Guantanamo Bay. It was a time of high anxiety, and the Bush administration was taking no chances.

Two weeks later, in his State of the Union address, President Bush touted the arrests in Bosnia to show early progress in the war on terror.

"Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy," Bush said in his address. To this day, officials of the Bush administration have provided no credible evidence to back up that accusation.

Boumediene said the interrogations began within one week of his arrival at the facility in Cuba. But he thought that his cooperation, and trust in the United States, would serve him well and quicken his release.

"I thought America, the big country, they have CIA, FBI. Maybe one week, two weeks, they know I am innocent. I can go back to my home, to my home," he said.

But instead, Boumediene said he endured harsh treatment for more than seven years. He said he was kept awake for 16 days straight, and physically abused repeatedly.

Asked if he thought he was tortured, Boumediene was unequivocal.

"I don't think. I'm sure," he said.

Boumediene described being pulled up from under his arms while sitting in a chair with his legs shackled, stretching him. He said that he was forced to run with the camp's guards and if he could not keep up, he was dragged, bloody and bruised.

He described what he called the "games" the guards would play after he began a hunger strike, putting his food IV up his nose and poking the hypodermic needle in the wrong part of his arm.

"You think that's not torture? What's this? What can you call this? Torture or what?" he said, indicating the scars he bears from tight shackles. "I'm an animal? I'm not a human?"

Vice President Dick Cheney has been adamant in his defense of the Guantanamo detention center and the treatment of those held there.

Last week Cheney said, "The facility down there is a fine facility. These people are very well treated."

Oddly, Boumediene said no one at Gitmo ever asked him about the alleged plot to blow up the embassies in Sarajevo. They wanted to know what he knew about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, he recounted, which was nothing.

Boumediene said it was in his interest to lie to the interrogators, who would reward the detainees if they admitted guilt.

"If I tell my interrogator, I am from Al Qaeda, I saw Osama bin Laden, he was my boss, I help him, they will tell me, 'Oh you are a good man,'" he said. "But if I refuse ? I tell them I'm innocent, never was I terrorist, never never, they tell me. 'You are, you are not cooperating, I have to punch you.'"

After nearly four years locked up, Boumediene went on a hunger strike to protest his treatment.

He said he had believed that the United States honored religious diversity but believed guards at Guantanamo took actions to disrespect his religious beliefs. "They shaved my beard, because they don't respect me, because the guards they don't let me sleep. They don't let me read my Koran, they don't let me pray normal like people like Muslim outside the Guantanamo," he said.

Boumediene broke his hunger strike just twice over 21/2 years -- first, when he learned of Barack Obama's election win and next when Judge Leon ordered his release.

Despite the harsh treatment and uncertainty over his fate, Boumediene said he did not want to die because he had something to live for back home.

"Every day, I think about my wife and my daughters," he said.

Boumediene's personal effects were taken from him at Guantanamo, including his wedding ring. He now has a stack of letters, that his wife wrote to him that never arrived, a "return to sender" stamp on the envelope.

"Over there you lose all the hopes, you lose all hope," he said. "Any good news, they don't want you to be happy."

It took more than six years before Boumediene started to receive good news.

Boumediene v. Bush

Last summer, in a landmark war-time decision, the Supreme Court ruled that terror suspects held at Guantanamo have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in federal court.

The decision was a harsh rebuke to the Bush administration's system for detaining and eventually trying terror suspects.

In a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said allowing federal judges, rather than military officials, to release terror suspects could have disastrous consequences.

"The game of bait-and-switch that today's opinion plays upon the nation's commander in chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," he wrote.

Boumediene saw the 5-4 decision as his first victory against President Bush. His second came last November when Judge Leon ruled that the evidence against Boumediene was weak -- a "thin reed," he called it -- and ordered his release from Guantanamo.

The Bush administration never charged him with conspiring to blow up the embassies. Rather they said Boumediene and others had been planning to travel to Afghanistan to fight the United States. To mark the occasion, Boumediene made himself a T-shirt that, like a soccer scoreboard, reads, "Boumediene: 2, Bush: 0."

Last month, in a tearful ceremony at an airport outside Paris, Boumediene was reunited with his family. His daughters, who were toddlers when he was detained, are 13 and 9 years old.

"I cried, just cried. Because I don't know my daughters," he said. "The younger, when I moved from Bosnia to Gitmo, she had 18 months, only 18 months. Now 9 years. Now she's big. Between 18 months, baby and 9 years, she walking, she's talking, she play, she's joking. It's a big difference."

Because of his hunger strike, Boumediene was not in good health when he arrived in France. He was treated at a military hospital and could not eat regular food at first.

After he was released from the hospital, he went with his wife and daughters to enjoy a first meal as a family in seven and a half years. On the menu? Pizza.

_________________________________________

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzeyM20GAGI

(Do you Bush apologists possess the cojones to watch ABC's interview with Lakhdar Boumediene, an innocent Algerian who gave more than seven years of his life to the "mistake" you people made in supporting George W. Bush for almost a decade? Watch the video at the URL above and think about how you would feel if Boumediene was your father, brother, husband, or son. -- DGH)

How 'bout these apples, kick ass patriots!

2009-06-02T23:00:00-08:00

Hummer to be sold to Chinese firm

June 2, 2009

BBC News

General Motors is to sell its Hummer brand to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery for an undisclosed amount.

It is part of GM's plan to reinvent itself by concentrating on fewer brands following Monday's bankruptcy filing.

GM says it hopes the deal will save about 3,000 jobs in the US. Hummer will remain based in the US.
Tengzhong specialises in making equipment for the road, construction and energy industries.

It is based in China's Sichuan province.

Hummers were originally built as military off-road vehicles by a company called AM General.

GM bought the Hummer brand in 1999. Its sales have suffered as the gas-guzzling performance and military image have become less popular... .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8080349.stm

_______________________________________

This lends new meaning to the concept of poetic justice!

I absolutely love it!

Hummers--symbols of all that was wrong in America during the Bush years--symbols of aggressive kick-ass U.S. capitalism that thought it could run roughshod over Iraq and as much of the rest of the planet as it wished--will be made by "Commies"!

Will all the bad boys I used to see cruising Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s Walton Boulevard in Bentonville, Arkansas, with their American flags flapping and the National Rifle Association and Pisces symbols appropriately displayed buy a new model Hummer made by "Godless Communists" in China?

D. Grant Haynes

Let's force apologists for America to view rape photos

2009-05-28T23:39:00-08:00

__________________________________________________________________

Within the confines of good taste and a respect for concealing the faces and identities of Iraqi victims of American rapists, the photos referenced in the article reproduced below should be published and shown to the world.

I learned recently while seeking to participate in a forum of nominally intelligent people in my Georgia hometown that Middle America remains in denial about Bush administration excesses and abuses.

Persons I would have thought knew better complained that I was too "negative" in referring to those abuses and in calling for prosecution of Bush, Cheney, and their lieutenants on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A challenged member of the group averred that torture, when done correctly, is not a bad thing at all--that if a single American life could be saved by subjecting men to waterboarding and worse tortures, such was justified.

A fresh-faced precocious kid on the forum protested that whatever mistakes Bush and Cheney may have made, they had had the best interests of his nation in mind at the time. And his most emotional response to me was to post a MIDI music file of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America"! Bless his little heart. He thinks a rousing rendition of "God Bless America" will heal any "boo-boo" and make the "bad" go away for his nation!

None on the forum that would identify themselves wished to hear more about or discuss further the shame Bush brought to our nation and the horrors he visited on the world from 2000 through 2008.

They apparently wish it all swept under the rug and forgotten as an embarrassing skeleton in the closet of the American psyche.

They are ready to move on and forget, as best they can, the Bush years.

I realized during this encounter that Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are preaching to the choir each night--that Middle America's opinions are not shaped by my heroes and heroines, but by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. I realized that we who watch Olbermann and Maddow each night represent, sadly, a thoughtful minority in this nation of shallow hedonistic American Idol junkies.

They STILL don't get it and they STILL don't want to deal with it.

Healing will not occur in America and our reputation in the family of man will not be restored until the crimes committed in our collective name during the Bush years--all of them--are exposed, discussed, accepted and digested, while the perpetrators of those horrendous crimes are tried and punished, as prescribed by the law.

Americans need to see every damned one of those rape photos. They need to know what their sons and husbands in uniform from this alleged "Christian" nation did to helpless Iraqis at the height of the darkness that was George W. Bush's criminal administration.

Americans need to be forced to the realization torture and abuse of Iraqis did not represent the work of a "few bad apples", but that it was endemic in the American military at the time--that a green light for unimaginable abuses was given by the Bush White House. It's all documented now, but simpletons that watch Fox News won't hear much about it.

Yes, I say publish the rape photos. Let's see the rapists' faces, the tattoos on their asses, and their names. These animals that are walking among us even now need to be caged.

D. Grant Haynes

__________________________________________________

Abu Ghraib Abuse Photos 'Show Rape'

Thursday 28 May 2009

By Duncan Gardham and Paul Cruickshank

The Telegraph UK

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President's attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published...

In April, Mr Obama's administration said the photographs would be released and it would be "pointless to appeal" against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.

Earlier this month, he said: "The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: "I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been "identified, and appropriate actions" taken.

Maj Gen Taguba's internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses."

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: "I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid's ***.... and the female soldier was taking pictures."

The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman's "stick" all of which were apparently photographed

Is there no fathoming depth of depravity of Bush's kick ass warriors?

When you think you have plumbed the depths of the cesspool that was George W. Bush's Iraq policy, something even more revolting bubbles to the surface.

No, CG forum apologists, we don't need to sweep this one under the rug and talk about vegetable gardening and music videos.

http://www.truthout.org/052909R

How come Arabs are always bungling and stupid in Hollywood depictions?

2009-05-20T14:59:00-08:00

Back in December 2008 at a time when many Americans were justifiably filled with self-congratulatory effulgence over the election of their first African-American president, the Israeli armed forces were quietly and efficiently murdering Palestinians in one of their periodic ethnic cleansing forays into the occupied territories of Palestine.

Israel’s splendid little Gaza War, as it has since been called, began December 27, 2008 and ended less than a month later on January 18, 2009.

During that time, approximately 1,400 Palestinian men, women, and children died, while there were 13 reported Israeli deaths. (This represents the usual kill ratio “Western” nations with high tech killing machinery denied all Arabs have come to expect and swagger about when they invade Arab lands.)

Israel was in and out of the Gaza Strip while Americans and their news media were focused on New Year’s celebrations and the upcoming inauguration of President Obama.

George W. Bush was the lamest lame duck of the century and Barack Obama was not yet president. No one was minding the store here and Israel took advantage of the situation, never expecting so much as a wrist slap from their blindly supportive allies in Washington.

Anyway, and to arrive at what some may think a tortured point, I wrote the following statement January 25 decrying, as I have most of my adult life, abuse of Palestinians by Israelis.

_________________________________

25 January 2009

Forgiving Israel until 70 times 7

Get ready for some PR work from the Jewish lobby

_________________________________

Israel Has Fewer Friends Than Ever, Even In America

By Rod Nordland – NEWSWEEK

Jan. 24, 2009

Israel has never been more isolated. Its best friend, the United States, had vetoed 41 Security Council resolutions condemning Israel in the past three decades, but was about to vote for the Jan. 8 resolution denouncing the attack on Gaza when President Bush intervened, at the behest of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Still, in the face of unprecedented global criticism, the U.S. didn't dare veto, but merely abstained... .
__________________________________

But give World Jewry a few months and they will neutralize the negative publicity their latest ethnic cleansing foray into Palestine has engendered.

Why, they will come up with another heart rending "undiscovered" sob story from the European Holocaust.

Or Sacha Baron Cohen of “Borat” fame will make another film mocking a non-Jewish ethnic group that sets naïve Americans rolling in the floor with laughter.

Or Jewishness will be glorified in another popular television sitcom, film or comedy routine that gets rave reviews in New York and Hollywood.

We Americans will soon forget about the grim-faced, grimy, angry, and ever so "non-Western" Palestinian men, women, and children that were murdered by Jews as 2009 began.

The Arabs are mere statistics, while Jews are our doctors and dentists and attorneys and beloved entertainers.

We'll forget and forgive again and reward Israel with another generation of high tech killing machinery for their next genocidal mission in the land they stole from Palestinians in 1948.

It's gone on for 60 years now, folks. How much longer can Americans be wholly blind to what is fair and just?

D. Grant Haynes

__________________________________

That was my January statement in the matter.

What I did not know at the time was that Adam Sandler had already done Sacha Baron Cohen one better with a lewd, filthy, slapstick, Islamaphobic, Palestinian-baiting absurdity of a film titled, “You Don’t Mess With Zohan”.

A friend and I attempted to watch “You Don’t Mess With Zohan” last weekend.

I was boiling as soon as I realized the plot involved a super macho Israeli commando, Zohan, (played by Sandler) who spoke matter of factly of killing Palestinians, and who continued to kick their asses at every turn in the slapstick comedic action unfolding.

The Arabs were all depicted as simpletons and buffoons whom Zohan could master at any time with the flick of his wrist--or foot—or ass--or anything.

The Israeli Jew was superhuman, while the Palestinian Arabs were subhuman.

When a bungling Arab was not the butt of the uproarious laughter the film was expected to elicit, Adam Sandler’s anatomical butt was presented on camera, with viewers expected to find that spectacle equally as amusing as a pathetic ass-kicked Arab.

About a third of the way through the film, my friend and I looked at one another and, with few words, decided enough was enough. We turned the obnoxious movie off, having paid $3 to view a DVD not worth 3 cents to either of us.

America’s wholly subjective and entirely one-sided approach to the Arab-Israeli question has been shaped largely by Jews like Adam Sandler and Sacha Baron Cohen who dominate the entertainment industry of this nation.

No Arab or other non-Jewish Middle Easterner is ever given an even break by Hollywood. Syrians, Palestinians, Iraqis, and even Iranians are typically depicted as cruel, devious, cowardly, dirty, backstabbing, unworthy of trust, and very different from us.

On the other hand, Jews are always depicted as charming, intelligent, upright, brave, dashing, strong, and, most importantly, vital contributors to Judeo-Christian culture and Western Civilization.

This lopsided dichotomy in our perception of Jews v. other Middle Eastern groups is a direct result of more than half a century of conscious propaganda efforts directed, again, primarily from Hollywood, but also from the American news media and a plethora of other institutions heavily influenced by American Jews.

The situation is morally reprehensible and should be highly repugnant to any thinking person.

A more balanced treatment is in order.

Know that I am fully aware many readers of this statement will write me off as an “anti-Semite”. This is a knee-jerk reaction on your part engendered by generations of cultural conditioning.

The epithet of “anti-Semite” is always thrown at any American who calls into question his nation’s unflinching support of Israel in all things.

I am not an anti-Semite.

I am not a white supremacist.

I am not a Klan member.

I am not a skinhead or neo-Nazi.

I am not ignorant or unthinking.

I am, rather, a thinking American who strongly believes the Palestinian Arabs have been dealt a rotten hand since Israel appropriated their ancestral lands beginning in 1948 with the help and ongoing support of my nation.

While I seek no confrontation, I am not reluctant to express my honest convictions in this matter, political correctness be damned.

D. Grant Haynes

If you tremble indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

Timid tinkering with US health care not solution

2009-05-13T14:07:00-08:00

A high priority of the Obama administration is an overhaul of the health care system in the United States.

In this writer's opinion, timid approaches that can be most easily sold to Congress--approaches that reflect an attempt to placate the American Medical Association by fine tuning the present system--will amount to no meaningful improvement.

The American health care system needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up.

The problem with U.S. health care is that it is predicated and built primarily on a foundation of privatized for-profit capitalistic greed rather than on a Hippocratic oath to serve mankind.

Private physicians, physicians' groups, hospitals, medical labs, radiologists, medical insurance companies, and pharmaceutical firms all skim off their share of profits for the pleasure and edification of stockholders before an ailing man's typically astronomical bill is tallied. That, in a word, is why the bill is typically so astronomical.

This greedy, profit-maximizing approach to alleviation of human suffering is morally reprehensible.

The solution to U.S. health care problems is to dismantle entirely the present unworkable, top heavy, profit intensive absurdity of a private health care system-one that lends itself to medical malpractice suits because so much is being done shoddily in the quest for money-and adopt a universal health care program similar to that of every Western nation on earth except the United States.

Let the doctors and specialists now amassing millions in the private medical system become well-paid civil servants of the people in a nationalized system in which their careers and compensations are performance based.

Yes, Americans would probably have to pay for an equitable health care system with higher taxes. But many Americans are now paying hundreds or thousands monthly for co-pays, supplemental coverages, catastrophic coverages, prescribed drugs not on lists provided by medical insurance companies of approved drugs, and in a hundred other small and invidious schemes that line the pockets of various middle men in the medical and pharmaceutical industries of our hodgepodge system. Eliminate those unfair burdens on the American family and most would be happy to apply some of the savings to a fair and equitable universal system in which the only criteria for admission and treatment is need.

The receptionist's first question would then be, "what's your medical or dental problem today?", rather than, "do you have an insurance card and could I make a copy of it?".

National health insurance programs assure the health of the public in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and virtually every European nation from Great Britain, to Germany, to Liechtenstein. And life expectancy is greater in these nations and 38 others than in the United States, according to the CIA World Factbook. Our nation ranks an unenviable 45th on the list.

Even South Africa, a very poor nation by Western standards and only decades removed from apartheid and bantustans, is attempting to provide universal health care for its masses.

In Asia, Japan has free universal health care, and China and India, with their incomprehensible (to an American) problems of poverty, overcrowding, and squalor, are committed to the morality of the concept that a man, woman, or child is entitled to basic health care-not because he or she has a Blue Cross card, but because he or she, as a citizen of the nation, has an unalienable right to be free from sickness, debilitation, and pain.

Not so here, but one can hope that will soon change.

The United States, the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation on earth, ranks 45th in life expectancy, partly because privatized health care is unavailable to millions.

We should adopt a single payer nationalized system and seek to eliminate the immoral disparity between medical services available to the poor on the one hand, and those available to the prosperous or wealthy on the other.

Label the single payer universal health care system that must come "socialized medicine", if you wish.

Socialized medicine--a pejorative term only among brainwashed Americans---would be a good thing.

Lying endemic within U.S. military

2009-05-10T14:28:00-08:00

Concern over burns on Afghans caught in battle

By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writers Jason Straziuso And Rahim Faiez,

Associated Press Writers– May 10, 2009

KABUL – Afghanistan's leading human rights organization said Sunday it was investigating the possibility that white phosphorus was used in a U.S.-Taliban battle that killed scores of Afghans. The U.S. military rejected speculation it had used the weapon but left open the possibility Taliban militants did.

White phosphorus can be employed legitimately in battle, but rights groups say its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitutes a war crime.

Afghan doctors are concerned over what they are calling "unusual" burns on Afghans wounded in last Monday's battle in Farah province, which President Hamid Karzai has said may have killed 125 to 130 civilians… .

______________________________________

Americans lied through their pearly white orthodontically modified teeth about the use of white phosphorous bombs on civilian populations in Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004. There is no reason to believe they aren’t lying now about the use of this ordnance on civilians in Afghanistan in 2009.

Lying is an established policy of the American government. I would believe a Taliban spokesman before an American military officer any time, as would most others in the world.

As in Iraq, Americans are so ruthlessly abusing their military superiority in Afghanistan that initially friendly and sympathetic Afghanis like Afghan President Hamid Kazai are turning against the American presence there.

Arrogant Americans are hated throughout the world and for understandable reasons.

Watch a few clips off this site and tell me how proud you are of your country.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/fallujah/#video

D. Grant Haynes

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses...

2009-05-05T21:56:00-08:00

Muslim Demographics an Islamaphobic rant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK1pnCldKZI&feature=related

The You Tube video titled, “Muslim Demographics” now making the rounds in the United States, can be seen at the above URL.

What follows represents my opinion in the matter.

D. Grant Haynes

________________________________________________________________

This is as vile a piece of Islamaphobic hate mongering as I have ever seen. It was, in all likelihood, put together by either a conservative Protestant Christian organization or by Zionists—often the same people. The maker of this video is no "friend of (a) muslim".

Every ethnic group ever coming into America to be assimilated was looked upon as a "threat" by the ones already here and established. Ask the Native Americans who were here at least 10,000 years before Bible punching Christians and Jews waded ashore.

The Italians who came in the 19th Century were called "wops" and were distrusted initially. Now, their grandchildren are part of the mainstream. We all appreciated Sinatra.

The so-called "Shanty Irish"--almost all Catholic and poor--came in waves after the 19^th Century potato famine in their land. They were initially distrusted and called “Paddies” by those already here. The Irish assimilated quickly and gave us John Fitzgerald Kennedy in a couple of American generations.

What the producer of this despicable presentation ignores in his or her hate mongering is that the next generation of Muslims in Great Britain, Canada, or the United States will have gained enough education and westernization to aspire to give their children the best opportunities. They will wisely elect to have two or three offspring rather than eight or ten, as grandchildren of 19^th Century Irish immigrants are now doing, the Pope be damned.

The American experience changes people. Succeeding generations dispense with Old World ways of thinking and living. They become Americans and, while preserving the best of their own cultures, hopefully, dispense with the darkest and most unworkable baggage brought along. This will occur with Muslim immigrants too.

America is a melting pot and her strength grows out of her diversity. I cannot accept the proposition that white Anglo-Saxon Protestants are God's anointed and that we should man barricades to keep out Muslims and Hispanics.

I have no desire to adopt Islam any more than Judaism or Billy Graham's Christianity, but no Muslim has ever done me harm. Nor has any Hispanic.

On the other hand, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney--both blue-eyed Protestants from families that have been here many generations--damned nearly destroyed my nation between 2000 and 2008.

And now a man of color, Barack Hussein Obama, is beginning to lead us out of the darkness of the Bush Era.

Oh, God, tell me I am hallucinating!

2009-05-04T14:13:00-08:00

Nipple Saga Continues

Ms. Jackson will be an elderly woman with the nipple in question hanging in her lap when still another generation of esteemed Supreme Court justices wrestle with this weighty and pendulous matter.

Please see what I wrote at the time of the nipple incident:

http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=35966

D. Grant Haynes

Justices Tell Appeals Court to Revisit Super Bowl Incident

By DAVID STOUT

May 4, 2009

WASHINGTON - What may be the most controversial fraction of a second in television history, the momentary baring of the singer Janet Jackson's breast during the halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl, will be debated once again in federal court.

The Supreme Court on Monday set aside a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, that had overturned a $550,000 fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission on CBS for the "wardrobe malfunction," as the fateful moment has been described.

The high court said the Third Circuit should give "further consideration" to its conclusion last July 21 that the F.C.C. was wrong to fine the network. A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit said the F.C.C. had not given broadcasters enough advance notice that it was tightening its policies involving fleeting displays of nudity, and that CBS should not have been held responsible for the actions of Ms. Jackson and her performing partner, Justin Timberlake... .

The lyrics sung by Mr. Timberlake were arguably not as vulgar, although he seemed to have been overly inspired by them. "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song," he uttered, just before the big moment.

The exposure of Ms. Jackson's breast lasted nine-sixteenths of one second, the Third Circuit noted. That is barely enough time for the speediest wide receiver to cover five yards on a dry field, but plenty of time to generate litigation that has lasted half a decade, with accompanying lawyers' fees.

"We are confident that in reviewing the case the Third Circuit will again recognize that the Super Bowl incident, while inappropriate and regrettable, was not and could not have been anticipated by CBS," the network said. "This remains an important issue for the entire broadcasting industry because it recognizes that there are rare instances, particularly during live programming, when despite best efforts it may not be possible to block unfortunate fleeting material."

And if the Third Circuit should once again rule in favor of CBS, the case could make its way back to the Supreme Court, assuming that the F.C.C. refuses to give up the fight... .

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

2009-05-01T00:49:00-08:00

Arrogant indifference to animal suffering has a price tag

Human beings have brought swine influenza, avian influenza, and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, otherwise known as "mad cow disease", upon themselves by their cruel and callous mistreatment of animals.

Agribusiness' farming factories in which animals spend their lives in crowded cages, pens, enclosures, and pigsties, knowing only their own excrements on their way to slaughter, are a blight on the collective soul of humanity. We all have a frightful karmic debt to pay, at best.

Those specifically involved in or supporting such vile and miscreant abuses of our brothers in the animal kingdom through either occupational choices or eating habits should not complain at the inconvenience and pain diseases spawned in the spiritual darkness of the factory farm and the slaughter house killing line visit upon them.

D. Grant Haynes

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(From The Huffington Post, May 1, 2009)

Our Hunger for Cheap Meat Has Created Swine Flu

By Johann Hari, Columnist, London Independent

April 30, 2009

A swelling number of scientists believe swine flu has not happened by accident. No: they argue this global pandemic - and all the deaths we are about to see - is the direct result of our demand for cheap meat. So is the way we produce our food really making us sick as a pig?

At first glance, this seems wrong. All through history, viruses have mutated, and sometimes they have taken nasty forms that scythe through the human population. This is an inescapable reality we just have to live with, like earthquakes and tsunamis. But the scientific evidence increasingly suggests that we have unwittingly invented an artificial way to accelerate the evolution of these deadly viruses - and pump them out across the world. They are called factory farms. They manufacture low-cost flesh, with a side dish of viruses to go.

To understand how this happens, you have to compare two farms. My grandparents had a pig farm in the Swiss mountains, with around twenty swine at any one time. What happened there if, in the bowels of one of their pigs, a virus mutated and took on a deadlier form? At every stage, the virus would meet stiff resistance from the pigs' immune systems. They were living in fresh air, on the diet they evolved with, and without stress - so they had a robust ability to fight back. If the virus did take hold, it would travel only as far as the sick hog could walk. So if the virus would then have around twenty other pigs to spread and mutate in - before it would hit the end of its own evolutionary path, and die off.

If it was a really lucky, plucky virus, it might make it to market - where it would come up against more healthy pigs living in small herds. It has little opportunity to fan out across a large population of pigs or evolve a strain that could be transmitted to humans.

Now compare this to what happens when a virus evolves in a modern factory farm. In most swine farms today, six thousand pigs are crammed snout-to-snout in tiny cages where they can barely move, and are fed for life on an artificial pulp, while living on top of cesspools of their own stale faeces.

Instead of having just twenty pigs to experiment and evolve in, the virus now has a pool of thousands, constantly infecting and reinfecting each other. The virus can combine and recombine again and again. The ammonium from the waste they live above burns the pigs' respiratory tracts, making it easier yet for viruses to enter them. Better still, the pigs' immune systems are in free-fall. They are stressed, depressed, and permanently in panic, making them far easier to infect. There is no fresh air or sunlight to bolster their natural powers of resistance. They live in air thick with viral loads, and they are exposed every time they breathe in.

As Dr. Michael Greger, director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States, explains: "Put all this together, and you have a perfect storm environment for these super-strains. If you wanted to create global pandemics, you'd build as many of these factory farms as possible. That's why the development of swine flu isn't a surprise to those of us in public health community. Back in 2003, the American Public Health Association - the oldest and largest in world - called for a moratorium of factory farming because they saw something like this would happen. It may take something as serious as a pandemic to make us realize the real cost of factory farming."

Many of the detailed studies of factory farms that have been emerging in the past few years reinforce this argument. Dr Ellen Silbergeld is Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. She tells me her detailed on-the-ground studies led her to conclude there is "very much" a link from factory farms to the new, more powerful forms of flu we are experiencing. "Instead of a virus only having one spin of the roulette wheel, it has thousands and thousands of spins, for no extra cost. It drives the evolution of new diseases."

Until yesterday, we could only speculate about the origins of the current H1N1 virus killing human beings - but now we know more. The Center for Computational Biology at Columbia University has studied the virus and found that it is not a new emergence of a triple human-swine-bird flu virus. It is a slight variant on a virus we have seen before. We can see its family tree - and its daddy was a virus that evolved in the artificial breeding ground of a vast factory farm in North Carolina.

Did this strain evolve, too, in the same circumstances? Already, the evidence is suggestive, although far from conclusive. We know that the city where this swine flu first emerged - Perote, Mexico - contains a massive industrial pig farm, and houses 950,000 pigs. Dr Silbergeld adds: "Factory farms are not biosecure at all. People are going in and out all the time. If you stand a few miles down-wind from a factory farm, you can pick up the pathogens easily. And, like in the US, the manure from these farms isn't disposed of according to any regulations, even though we know viruses can remain alive in it for more than a month. They can just sit in cesspools. The viruses can be transmitted from there by flies."

It's no coincidence that we have seen a sudden surge of new viruses in the past decade at precisely the moment when factory farming has intensified so dramatically. For example, between 1994 and 2001, the number of American pigs that live and die in vast industrial farms in the US spiked from 10 percent to 72 percent. Swine flu had been stable since 1918 - and then suddenly, in this period, went super-charged.

How much harm will we do to ourselves in the name of cheap meat? We know that bird flu developed in the world's vast poultry farms. And we know that pumping animal feed full of antibiotics in factory farms has given us a new strain of MRSA. It's a simple, horrible process. The only way to keep animals alive in such dirty conditions is to pump their feed full of antibiotics. But this has triggered an arms race with bacteria, which start evolving to beat the antibiotics - and emerge as in the end as pumped-up, super-charged viruses invulnerable to our medical weapons. This system gave birth to a new kind of MRSA that now makes up 20 percent of all human infections with the virus. Sir Liam Donaldson, the British government's Chief Scientist, warns: "Every inappropriate use in animals or agriculture [of antibiotics] is potentially a death warrant for a future patient."

Of course, agribusinesses is desperate to deny all this is happening: their bottom line depends on keeping this model on its shaky trotters. But once you factor in the cost of all these diseases and pandemics, cheap meat suddenly looks like an illusion.

We always knew that factory farms were a scar on humanity's conscience - but now we know they are a scar on our health. If we carry on like this, bird flu and swine flu will be just the beginning of a century of viral outbreaks. As we witness a global pandemic washing across the world, we need to shut down these virus factories - before they shut down even more human lives.

The Neocon Aberration--the book

2009-04-27T23:00:00-08:00

My intention here is to share selected chapters of my 2007 book, The Neocon Aberration. New material will be posted periodically.

I should note that the text offered here is taken from a Word document and doesn't resemble, typographically, presentation in the book.

Also, since I continued to read, proof, and read again for several months in the process of publication, there is a possibility some typo survives in this manuscript that was caught later in the production process.

D. Grant Haynes

The National Rifle Association (NRA) sells everything from its political agenda to its merchandise with a simple equation: more guns equal more freedom. The NRA steadfastly maintains that the 30,000 gun-related deaths and 300,000 assaults with firearms in the United States every year are a small price to pay to guarantee freedom.

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

________________

Chapter 5

Gun Control

Since the April 16, 2007 massacre of 32 students at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and the appearance of an editorial statement of mine about that terrible event, I have been dumbfounded by the complete lack of any enthusiasm for the statement in which I call for stricter gun control, as I have for a decade.

A nominally progressive web site that generally publishes anything I submit frankly turned my anti-gun editorial down with the editor’s clear statement that she did not think more gun control was the answer.

And responses to my anti-gun position on give-and-take progressive forums have ranged from luke warm to outright hostile.

Clearly, a surprisingly large percentage of Americans of every political stripe want to see more handguns and assault rifles in this frenetic society which has seen three more shooting incidents in the 30 days between Blacksburg and this writing in May 2007.

Despite the present mayhem of gun-toting idiots who can kill their boss after a bad job performance rating--or their landlord if evicted from an apartment--or their girlfriend if she wants to break it off--many of my liberal and progressive friends assert in all sincerity that had every student in the Virginia Tech classes that were victimized by killer Cho Seung-Hui had a handgun, the carnage would have been less.

Seriously, readers from more sane cultures, this is the present mind set of the majority of Americans and their preferred solution to the growing problem of gun violence in America.

From my perspective, such a scenario--one in which every allegedly sane individual is armed with a death-dealing concealed weapon--would be a recipe for mayhem throughout America.

Do these proponents of more guns wish to return to the days of the lawless frontier when the “fastest gun” prevailed? Perhaps Cho Seung-Hui had been practicing a Black Bart-like “fast draw”. If so, he might have killed every student that reached for their own personal Glock, shooting it out of their hand O.K. Corral style. Or perhaps Cho Seung-Hui could have been dropped at some point by a brave student that had also been practicing his gun fighting style. We cannot know. But how many would have been struck by ricocheting bullets in this scene of sheer madness?

One thing I do know--or strongly believe, at least. Speculation about a return to an armed state in which every student in a college classroom--every worker in a crowded office--carries a loaded pistol is insanity. Hollywood and video game makers have conditioned a generation of Americans to think that excessive blood-spattering violence is the better way to resolve all problems. This is sad and it is also frightening.

I do not think more guns are the answer to gun violence in America. I think less guns are the answer, as I have indicated in the following statements about school shootings--statements that span a decade of violent deaths at educational institutions in this, the most violence prone of Western nations. -- D.G.H.

_____________________

Don't blame the children

April 3, 1998

Services had not been set for the five victims of the recent senseless violence at a Jonesboro, Arkansas, middle school when the tattered and, under the circumstances of the moment seemingly obscene, litany of the far right about gun control was heard once more in our land.

"Guns don't kill--people kill", these stalwart, self-appointed defenders of America were telling us even as we began to try to understand how and why two pre-adolescent children, ages 11 and 13, could or would set an ambush and murder with high-powered deer rifles four of their fellow classmates and a young teacher. It had happened at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro on March 24.

And then there were the inelegant locals--a mayor, a sheriff, and assorted others--all thrust into a limelight they never anticipated and were ill-equipped to handle well. Their biggest concern--the overriding question being discussed by these "law and order" folks--revolved around how long the two allegedly murderous middle school suspects could be kept locked away from decent people.

What troubled the local commentators most was an Arkansas law that would see the boys released from juvenile detention at age 18, even if convicted in juvenile court. Many wished there was a way to try them as adults so they could be incarcerated for life--or perhaps sentenced to death.

No one was talking about the complicity of the adults and institutions in the world of these children that have been responsible for forging them into the insensitive and violence-prone little animals they and thousands like them have become in America lately.

The adult world fashioned these children into what they are and punishment for their heinous crime should be directed at the real perpetrators--not at the small boys.

Perpetrators like the grandfather from whose home three deadly hunting rifles and seven handguns were allegedly taken in preparation for the killing spree.

Perpetrators like the hawkers of violence as a simple and readily available solution to every problem in this society--from the makers of movies whose only theme is mindless mayhem and conscienceless carnage, to the video game manufacturers who have constructed a virtual reality world for impressionable young minds--an electronic battlefield where death is as quick and clean and painless as clicking the mouse. SOCK! BANG! POW!--the opponent is electronically vanquished and there is no consequence.

Perpetrators like lobbyists for the National Rifle Association whose inordinate influence in Washington prevents politically sensitive lawmakers from passing meaningful legislation to restrict the sale and ownership of death-dealing weapons of all kinds--the only common sense solution to the national tragedy of a firearm-related death rate among American children that is 12 times higher than that of any other industrialized nation on earth.

And finally, there are the legions of well-meaning but unenlightened American men who glorify killing as sport, teaching their sons that the right of passage into manhood includes "getting their first buck". They too are far from blameless in the dilemma we now face.

Rather than heap scorn and heightened punishment scenarios on the two fresh-faced school boys who pulled the triggers in Arkansas, the real culprits--the individuals and institutions that enshrine guns and violence and the bloodthirsty customs and outgrown rituals surrounding them as "sport"--should be manacled.

And the avaricious purveyors of the excessive entertainment industry violence that desensitizes impressionable children about the sanctity of life should be led away with them.

These long-overdue changes would be a just and fitting memorial to the five innocent people who gave their lives in a hail of hunting rifle fire on that Arkansas school ground March 24.

______________________

America's love affair with guns, violence must end

April 21, 1999

First there were the two students that were killed and the nine that were wounded by a fellow student at a Pearl, Mississippi, high school in October 1997.

Then only two months later--in December 1997--three were killed and five were wounded at a Paducah, Kentucky, high school.

And we all remember the horror of the Jonesboro, Arkansas, shootings three months after Paducah when, in March 1998, two children, ages 11 and 13, opened fire from the woods, killing four students and a teacher and wounding 10 others before they were stopped.

A month later--in April 1998--a 14-year-old boy in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, shot and killed a science teacher at a school dance.

And less than a month after the Pennsylvania shooting--in May 1998--America was rocked twice in three terrible days when news came of similar killings by teenagers at Fayetteville, Tennessee, and Springfield, Oregon, high schools. The toll in those May 19 and May 21 killing sprees was five dead and 20 wounded.

The insanity of free-wheeling murder by gun-toting students with real or imagined beefs against the system or individuals at American schools did not end in 1998, unfortunately.

The nation and the world are, even now, reeling in shock and disbelief in the aftermath of the recent massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

In that April 20 shooting rampage 13 people died and 22 others were injured or maimed by two disaffected students who later turned their portable arsenal that included assault rifles, sawed-off shotguns and handguns on themselves.

The talking heads on television and elsewhere are busy discussing all that is wrong in American society that could cause kids with one of the highest standards of living in the world to be so unhappy that they elect to take their own and others' lives rather than stick around and grow up.

They cite erosion of the traditional family unit and a loss of a sense of identity--of ties to family, church and home--as sources of the rage the kids are expressing with their assault rifles.

And the print media wags, many of whom are fence-straddlers plagued by a paucity of spine in the face of the conservative business interests in their communities, are busy writing hand-wringing statements attacking equally "safe" targets.

They wax eloquent about a need to return to "old fashioned values." They cite the culpability of the electronic media for glorifying excessive violence in movies and video games merely to sell more tickets and tapes and 30-second prime time advertising spots.

Much of what all of these Monday morning quarterbacks offer is probably true, but none of it addresses the most patently obvious message in the series of tragic shootings at American schools during the last 18 months.

By and large, the commentators tiptoe past the obvious with limited comment, lest the traditional power structure in their little domains and in this WASPish society in general become offended.

There are far too many guns in America.

Guns of all sizes, shapes, calibers and intended purposes are too readily available and play too important a role in the work, play, thinking, attitudes and personal lives of too many Americans of all ages.

Had the disenchanted youths who have done all the killing on school campuses recently not had access to handguns, deer rifles, sawed-off shotguns and even military assault rifles in their homes and communities, they could not have murdered others as they did. And many innocent people would be alive today who aren't.

America's love affair with guns and violence as a way to solve problems--with the frontier mystique that is a holdover from a past that no longer exists--must end.

The National Rifle Association's unhealthy influence in Congress and in conservative circles of business and industry must come to an end too. The NRA is an anachronism at the close of the 20th Century and, like their current spokesman, Charlton Heston, the organization should retire from the scene.

There will never be a cessation of the killings at America's schools--or a turnaround in a death-by-gunshot incidence rate in the United States that is greater than that of any other civilized nation--until the American home with a cabinet full of hunting rifles, shotguns and handguns becomes the exception rather than the rule.

No amount of baloney about our "constitutional right to keep and bear arms" should be allowed to eclipse or thwart what all Americans of common sense and good conscience must know in their hearts in the wake of the Columbine High massacre.

Some of the guns have to go.

________________

It's time to confront the gun lobby

April 18, 2007

Americans are busily soul searching one more time after another mass killing at an educational institution.

This time the setting was a university rather than a secondary school.

But the ghastly spectacle that unfolded at Virginia Polytechnic University in Blacksburg, Virginia, on April 16 when a disaffected student--Cho Seung-Hui, 23--systematically executed 32 innocent students and faculty members was fully as terrible as other such recent massacres in America--only worse.

More were killed at Virginia Tech than at Columbine High School in Colorado eight years ago. And the killer's cold-blooded and methodical resolve, as well as an inexplicable lack of appropriate and timely responses from police officers on the scene, will put the Virginia Tech massacre in a class apart always.

Media pundits, politicians, university administrators, psychologists, clergymen and others talk endlessly now about what lessons might be learned from Virginia Tech.

The university should have had a better evacuation or lock down protocol in place.

University and other police officers should have been more diligent in protecting students from Cho Seung-Hui's rage after his first shooting spree in which he killed two individuals more than two hours before he reappeared on campus to kill 30 more students.

The mental health community should have done a better job of intervention when Cho Seung-Hui had, over several years' time, displayed symptoms of mental illness.

There is ample blame to go around in this botched and bungled phantasmagoric mess that, seemingly, could not have been handled in a worse way than it was handled.

But in all of the hand-wringing 24-hour non-stop media reportage and speculation about Blacksburg, few professionals and fewer politicians with their fingers to the wind and their campaign coffers chock full of National Rifle Association dollars in some cases, have been willing to state the obvious.

Cho Seung-Hui could not have murdered 32 people so efficiently in Blacksburg, Virginia, on April 16 without access to two pistols and endless rounds of ammunition for them.

Cho was a brooding youth. One of his teachers had identified him as deeply troubled because of the excessively violent nature of his fictionalized scenarios. She had even referred him for counseling.

He had had encounters with the university police over allegations of stalking others.

He had been described as a potential menace to himself and others by a mental health professional.

Should not these facts alone have been a red flag sufficient to dictate a more than perfunctory look at him when he sought to acquire death-dealing hand guns?

That should have been the case and would have been in a more sensible culture.

Had minimally effective gun control laws been in place in Virginia when Cho sought to purchase his pistols and cartridges, he would have been denied a permit and 32 dead Virginia Tech students and faculty members would be alive today.

For all practical purposes, anyone in this nation can obtain a firearm, regardless of his or her emotional stability, maturity, or legitimate need for the weapon.

This is wrong and is cause for people in more sane societies to fear for their very lives when contemplating a trip to America. This writer knows whereof he speaks because he lived in Great Britain for a time and was asked often about the danger of being gunned down in America.

What must they all think today?

More stringent gun control is the only answer to the madness of disaffected youths and others who, repeatedly, have walked into schools and work places and murdered innocent people.

But cowardly Democrats who should be at the forefront of gun control legislation are already distancing themselves from calls for tougher gun laws in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy.

Congressional Democrats fear the wrath of the National Rifle Association and that organization's clout with a certain segment of American voters too much to do what they know is both right and desperately needed.

Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) squelched serious talk of more rigid gun controls following the Virginia Tech shootings. The Associated Press reported Reid's lackluster and cowardly response to questions of stricter gun control as blood was being mopped at Virginia Tech.

"After the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cautioned Tuesday against a 'rush to judgment' on stricter gun control....

"I think we ought to be thinking about the families and the victims and not speculate about future legislative battles that might lie ahead," said Reid... ."

And you should also be thinking about the families and the victims of the next such massacre, Senator Reid.

A ban on the sale of assault rifles in the United States--one that was in place from 1994 until 2004 when a Republican Congress permitted it to expire--should be reinstated as soon as possible.

And hand gun acquisition requirements should also be made more restrictive as soon as possible.

The American with a legitimate need for a personal hand gun--certainly and especially a license to carry such a weapon on his person--should become a rare exception rather than the rule.

The Cho Seung-Hui's of this nation should never be permitted to purchase a handgun or an assault rifle. Background checks prior to the sale of a pistol should be infinitely more thorough--modeled, perhaps after the British system.

The only viable solution to the epidemic of mass killings at American educational institutions and work places is to drastically reduce the number of guns in the hands of Americans.

This can be done and should be done.

And to those who would at this point trot out the tired old bromide, "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns", one can only observe that we must start somewhere and at some point in time.

The process may take decades, but if assault rifle acquisitions are stanched altogether and hand guns are made infinitely more difficult to obtain, there will be ever fewer of each in circulation over time.

That would represent a move in the right direction and would be a fitting memorial to those who gave their lives at Virginia Tech because Virginia's gun laws had permitted a psychologically impaired youth to acquire the instruments to murder 32 people on a morning that will live in infamy throughout American history.

How many more Virginia Techs must occur before our elected representatives muster the courage to confront the gun lobby and do what must be done ?

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Maddow: Torture directed from White House

2009-04-23T00:15:00-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908#30356488

Listen to the first segment of the Rachel Maddow Show of April 22, 2009, titled, "High crimes?" and tell me Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld should live out their lives in posh surroundings as wealthy and respected elder statesmen.

Rather, each of these men should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity and, if convicted, imprisoned for the remainder of their natural lives.

They are each responsible for too much aggressive evil visited on too many human beings in the unwitting names of all Americans for this case to be swept under the rug or dismissed by President Obama or anyone else.

Justice must be served in this matter for America to regain her moral position in the human family.

D. Grant Haynes

Let's waterboard the waterboarders

2009-04-20T13:50:00-08:00

Memo: Two al Qaeda leaders waterboarded 266 times

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- CIA interrogators used waterboarding at least 266 times on two top al Qaeda suspects, according to a Bush-era Justice Department memo released by the Obama administration..

The controversial technique that simulates drowning -- and which President Obama calls torture -- was used at least 83 times in August 2002 on suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, according to the memo.

Interrogators also waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003. Mohammed is believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

Obama released the memo Thursday, saying that "exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release."

The memo, dated May 30, 2005, was from then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury to John Rizzo, who was acting general counsel for the CIA.

It paints a different picture from the one described by former CIA officer John Kiriakou. In a December 2007 interview with CNN, Kiriakou said Zubaydah had been waterboarded for "about 30 seconds..." and agreed to cooperate with interrogators the following day.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Michael Hayden, who directed the CIA from 2006 to 2009, was asked about the number of times Mohammed was waterboarded.

Hayden denounced the release of the memos and did not comment on the number, saying it was his understanding that the frequency of waterboarding was among the operational details that had not been declassified... .

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I'd like to personally supervise George W. Bush's waterboarding for 266 times.

No, I'll take that back.

I'll go easy on George.

We could do him only 133 times and Dick Cheney the other 133 times.

They have besmirched the reputation of my nation by lying, cheating, waging unjustified wars, murdering millions, and visiting unspeakable cruelties on human beings in my name as an American.

They should be tried before a war crimes commission and each sentenced to life in prison without parole.

D. Grant Haynes

More Bush torture memos released

2009-04-17T00:44:00-08:00

Justice Department Releases Bush Administration Torture Memos

Bradbury And Bybee Memos Are Released In Response To Long-Running ACLU Lawsuits

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- April 16, 2009

CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK - In response to litigation filed by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Justice Department today released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture.

The memos, produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), provided the legal framework for the CIA's use of waterboarding and other illegal interrogation methods that violate domestic and international law.

The ACLU has called for the Justice Department to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate torture under the Bush administration... .

The memos are available as PDF files.

http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf

http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_05102005_bradbury46pg.pdf

http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_05102005_bradbury_20pg.pdf

http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/aclu/olc_05302005_bradbury.pdf

Let John Demajnjuk alone

2009-04-14T22:50:00-08:00

US agents seize suspected Nazi guard

Reuters - April 14, 2009

By Kim Palmer CLEVELAND (Reuters) - A US appeals court halted the deportation of accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk on Tuesday and he was freed from custody just hours after immigration agents carried him out of his Ohio home to send him to Germany for trial.

"He went through a lot of pain today in the transportation," John Demjanjuk Jr. said of his 89-year-old father.

"But he's nevertheless relieved to be home rather than on a plane to Germany, and we're very grateful that the federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals sees the merit in our appeal to have this reviewed and this inhumane action put to a stop."... .

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For the love of God, leave 89-year-old John Demajnjuk alone.

Whatever he did as a youth in the last days of Hitler's Nazi Germany more than 60 years ago, Demajnjuk has been a good American citizen for half a century. He held a job, paid taxes, and reared a family in the United States. He has found absolution for his youthful transgressions in a Nazi world he did not fashion.

Who but a damned vindictive Zionist would want to see this old, old man taken back to a Germany he doesn't even know on a stretcher to be tried for alleged involvement in a Nazi death machine that involved millions of Germans?

We've all known former Nazis who came to America after World War II and contributed much to our nation. In most cases, they had not, in their youth, had any option but to be part of Hitler's war machine. They were conscripted.

John Demajnjuk and his family should not be tortured further with these ongoing threats and reprieves about sending him to Germany for trial.

Enough is enough.

D. Grant Haynes