Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Finger pointing? Really?

The finger pointing never ends. At the Indypendent, Alex Kane wants to whine that the MSM focused on the Tea Party and not on those protesting the wars. Alex needs you to be as stupid as he thinks you are to pull off that little soap box. The Indypendent is the freebie, print version of NYC Indymedia which is the same piece of crap that refused, REFUSED, to acknowledge the protests in real time. The same piece of crap that on Saturday morning had nothing, NOTHING, on the NYC protest taking place later that day. And Alex Kane wants to point to others?

Someone needs to wake up to reality. You have no control over what anyone else does but you are damn well responsible for what you yourself do. Translation, NYC Indymedia didn't do s**t and there's no high horse for them to mount on this subject.

On top of that, Alex can't even write about it today. Instead, he provides a linked sentence that takes you to these sites' coverage:

Chicago IMC || Twin Cities IMC || DC IMC || Portland IMC || Rogue Valley IMC || Philadelphia IMC || Bay Area IMC || Houston IMC || Los Angeles IMC || Boston IMC coverage in DC

Notice nothing on NYC IMC -- even now. Nothing. He wants to whine about "corporate media"? Then he needs to the damn work first. That goes for Danny Schechter as well who preened for Al Jazeera this weekend with a false claim that independent media is doing so much on Iraq while corporate media is failing. Golly, Dans, you're in what city? Oh, yeah, NYC. And you did what to get the word out on the protest in NCY? Oh, yes, that's right, not a damn thing.

I'm sick of the Vast Useless. There are people who will make excuses for them but they need to be failed, they need to be failed publicly. They've proven themselves to be not up to the task repeatedly. The always useless Indypendent wants to rush out a quickie of six sentence, SIX SENTENCES, on nationwide protests and pretend like they did something. Then or now, they didn't do a damn thing. You hold them accountable or you accept this nonsense.

You can lie to yourself and join them in booing and hissing at the "corporate media" but the reality is that Beggar Media, Panhandle Media, didn't do a damn thing and instead of hissing at corporate media, you should be demanding accountability from the beggars of Panhandle Media who survive not because their work earns money but because they beg for donations over and over. Part street vagrant, part con artist, they get away with a lot and they do that because people allow them to.

It's time to demand that indepdent media put away their dream books on groovy Barry Obama and start doing their damn job or that they go under. Presently, their demise would be no loss at all. They offer nothing.

The Washington Post? I saw a story about the protests before, BEFORE, they took place, I saw coverage of the protests. Not six little sentences stringing together someone else's work. Again, Alex Kane and NYC IMC have no high horse to mount and you're the fool if you let them get away with it.

Following Sunday's vote in the House, a number of outlets began making comparisons of Barack to LBJ. The day before, Daniel Ellsberg was already making the comparison, as Jonathan Nack (OpEd News) reports:

"I think there is no prospect that we will achieve anything of any benefit to anyone in Afghanistan, or to us, by our efforts in Afghanistan," Ellsberg told the audience.
"Obama said " he will be withdrawing troops 15 months from now, 18 months from now. Gates [Secretary of Defense] has said maybe 24 months from now, and maybe it won't be too fast... The implicit promise is that that's a ceiling, that we'll be drawing down from that," said Ellsberg. "I don't think there's any chance of that," he declared.
Based on his evaluation of the insurgency, Ellsberg predicted that, "there will be more troops in Afghanistan in two years, and still more in four years."
Regarding Iraq, Ellsberg said that, "it's taken for granted in everything I read that Obama is going to carry out his promise to get all American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011 - all combat troops earlier than that, maybe this year. I don't think there's any chance of that."
Ellsberg accused President Obama of intending to maintain U.S. Military bases in Iraq for much longer, "not just as long as he's alive, not just as long as he's in office as long as his children are alive!" Ellsberg said he expects there will still be 30,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq by the end of Pres. Obama's second term.
"I'm saying that Obama is lying in the same way, and to the same degree, as my former President Lyndon Johnson did," accused Ellsberg.

That was the talk he had with trade unionist prior to the peace rally (he noted that talk in his opening remarks at the peace rally). Nack's reporting on that. And I reported on the rally. I was able to do that because I was there.

Where was Alex Kane who wants to whine about "corporate" coverage of the peace rallies? He's got nothing to offer. And did he also miss the NYC event on Sunday? Sunday, we were in DC marching for immigrant rights. Alex Kane apparently had a weekend of sloth -- missing both the NYC rally Saturday as well as IVAW's Truth Commission at Riverside Church on Sunday and Monday. It must be nice to do nothing and then lecture others. Thanks, Alex.

Yesterday, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's office issued the following:

Contact: Debbie Whipple 517-335-6397


Half-Staff Flag March 22, 2010

LANSING - Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today ordered United States flags throughout the state of Michigan and on Michigan waters lowered for one day Tuesday, March 23, 2010, in honor of Army Staff Sergeant Richard J. Jordan of Harrison Township who died in Mosul, Iraq, while on active duty supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Flags should be returned to full-staff Wednesday, March 24.

Staff Sgt. Jordan, age 29, died March 16 of injuries sustained during a vehicle roll-over. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss, Texas.

Staff Sgt. Jordan's family has requested that flags be lowered on Tuesday, March 23, the day of his memorial service at the Light Guard Armory in Detroit. Funeral services will be held Saturday, March 27, in Ohio where Staff Sgt. Jordan will be buried near his maternal grandfather.

Under Section 7 of Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code, 4 USC 7, Governor Granholm, in December 2003, issued a proclamation requiring United States flags lowered to half-staff throughout the state of Michigan and on Michigan waters to honor Michigan servicemen and servicewomen killed in the line of duty. Procedures for flag lowering were detailed by Governor Granholm in Executive Order 2006-10 and included in federal law under the Army Specialist Joseph P. Micks Federal Flag Code Amendment Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-41).

When flown at half-staff or half-mast, the United States flag should be hoisted first to the peak for an instant and then lowered to the half-staff or half-mast position. The flag should again be raised to the peak before it is lowered for the day.

When a member of the armed services from Michigan is killed in action, the governor will issue a press release with information about the individual(s) and the day that has been designated for flags to be lowered in his or her honor. The information will also be posted on Governor Granholm's Website at www.michigan.gov/govin the section titled "Spotlight."

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The Detroit News adds, "His family requested flags be flown at half staff on Tuesday, the day of his memorial service at the Light Guard Armory in Detroit. Funeral services will be held Saturday in Ohio where Jordan will be buried near his maternal grandfather." Today's memorial begins at six p.m. Saturday's funeral begins at eleven a.m. (with visitation starting one hour earlier).

Meanwhile Gregg Zoroya (USA Today) reports on a new military policy:

Family members of combat troops declared brain-dead will have an opportunity for a final reunion with their loved ones before life support is removed, according to new guidelines provided to battlefield doctors.
The guidelines are aimed at helping doctors determine what to do when a combat casualty suffers brain death, a decision physicians were left to figure out before on a case-by-case basis.

The following community sites updated last night:



We'll close with this from Ludwig Watzal's "The Crimes of Empire" (Between The Lines):

Successive governments of the United States of America like to designate other countries, whose leaders they do not like, „rogue states“. Noam Chomsky showed in „Rogue States“ that this designation does not apply to countries such as Iraq but to the United States itself. According to him, the American superpower fulfills all the characteritics of such an entity. The U. S. and its „junior partner“, the United Kingdom, made Iraq a cartoon of an „outlaw nation“ that threatens the entire world, and Saddam Hussein the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. If that would have been true, they should have turned to the U. N. Security Council. Instead they started an act of aggression against Iraq, thereby showing contempt for international law and the U. N. Charter, which would have provided a legal base to handle this crisis peacefully. Chomsky mentions that Libya, Cuba, and North Korea were also designated as „rogue states“, and the ´boy emperor from Crawford, Texas` named Iran, Iraq and North Korea the „axis of evil“. U. S. President Ronald Reagan had already termed the Soviet Union an „evil emprie“. Having red Carl Boggs book, one can doubt whether the right countries were stigmatized „rogue states” because „The Crime of Empire“ is the criminal history of U. S. behavior in international relations.
The central thesis of Carl Boggs`book may be summerized in the following statement: „The U. S. stands today as the most fearsome outlaw nation in the world, its leaders having contributed to a steady descent into global lawlessness“. The author explores the rise of the U. S. from its fundation in 1776 as it rose against old European colonialism to the status of an empire, which dominates the world. Boggs follows an interesting approach. Over a period of more than 200 years the development of U. S. policy is described as a history of „military criminality and outlawry“. Boggs links global and domestic (political, economic and cultural) elements of a power structure that is addicted to militarism and war. The present U. S. neo-colonialist policies of aggression cannot be understood apart from this historical legacy. According to the author, the legacy of U. S. outlawry has its origins in the earliest days of the Republic beginning with the extermination of the Native American.



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thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends
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