Saw "Into the Wild" last night with an 85 year old friend. We loved it. She cried at the end, a definite hankie cry. She said the fellow reminded her of her grandson. Sooooo idealistic.
It was a spellbinding film, about Chris McCandless, the college grad who became a globe trekker upon graduating college, first giving his savings away to Oxfam and then burning his cash in the desert.
I have alot to say about this flick......it brought up alot of emotions (and judgments, let's be honest) in me, so a full review will be forthcoming. But for now, unlike "Alexander Supertramp", the moniker McCandless gives himself, I've got to get to work.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Naomis Rock
Of all of the political/cultural books out there currently, my vote as must-reads goes to the two Naomis: Klein and Wolf.
Naomi Klein for "The Shock Doctrine" (video embedded in this blog earlier in the month) and Naomi Wolf for "The End of America". (video embedded in this blog yesterday). Not to be missed by the serious student or serious citizen.
We have been going through rapid change in our country ever since 9/11. The Patriot Act is absurdly named; designed to make us feel safer as a democracy but it has of course limited our freedoms as citizens and should be named "the Brown Shirt Act" or "the Civil Liberties Restriction Act". Under the most recent legislation handed to Bush on a silver platter is the ability to name any citizen of the US "enemy combatant" for any reason which the government sees fit, AND without the onus to have to provide said citizen with a reason, a charge; no communicaton is required. Just name someone as an EC and arrest them, hold them in solitary for three years before needing to come up with a charge. Oh and btw, family and friends do not need to be notified. You just sort of "disappear".
I believe we are under that old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."
Naomi Klein for "The Shock Doctrine" (video embedded in this blog earlier in the month) and Naomi Wolf for "The End of America". (video embedded in this blog yesterday). Not to be missed by the serious student or serious citizen.
We have been going through rapid change in our country ever since 9/11. The Patriot Act is absurdly named; designed to make us feel safer as a democracy but it has of course limited our freedoms as citizens and should be named "the Brown Shirt Act" or "the Civil Liberties Restriction Act". Under the most recent legislation handed to Bush on a silver platter is the ability to name any citizen of the US "enemy combatant" for any reason which the government sees fit, AND without the onus to have to provide said citizen with a reason, a charge; no communicaton is required. Just name someone as an EC and arrest them, hold them in solitary for three years before needing to come up with a charge. Oh and btw, family and friends do not need to be notified. You just sort of "disappear".
I believe we are under that old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Al Gore Wins Peace Prize Re-Dux
FromThe Poughkeepsie Journal:
From losing the presidency to hanging chads in Florida in 2000 to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore has shown that tenacity and conviction can pay off.
Sure, some will question whether he should have received such an honor for his work to raise awareness about global warming. The Nobel committee has, indeed, greatly expanded the interpretation of what can constitute the peace prize.
And it's hard not to look at Gore's achievement through a political lens, whether that be through his own comeback, what it may mean to the 2008 presidential race and what it says about the Bush administration.
Those provocative topics shouldn't detract from the main point being made by scientists worldwide: A recent study by scientists from more than 100 countries says, with more than 90 percent certainty, global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. They cite increases in weather fluctuations. They say hotter temperatures and rising sea levels will occur regardless of what people do at this point, but they believe people can mitigate the impact, if better policies are put in place now. This is no small matter for the U.S., which generates about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Bush administration has opted to rely on voluntary controls by industry. Meanwhile, an international treaty designed to reduce global warming has gone into effect without U.S. participation.
In Washington, global warming seemingly pits Democrats against Republicans, but state leaders, at least, know better. Former Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, led the effort for a regional agreement among states, and his successor, Democrat Eliot Spitzer, has deemed global warming the most important environmental issue facing this generation. As such, New York has joined with more than a half-dozen states to start the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will mandate cuts in certain emissions from power plants.
Still, a federal solution is imperative. At a minimum, he can continue to prod the crowded field of Republican and Democratic candidates to spell out their plans to confront global warming.
Left for dead politically in 2000, Gore has made the classic American comeback. He brings with it talk of a profoundly serious issue facing the country and world. That is something to admire, his detractors notwithstanding.
©The Record 2007
From losing the presidency to hanging chads in Florida in 2000 to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore has shown that tenacity and conviction can pay off.
Sure, some will question whether he should have received such an honor for his work to raise awareness about global warming. The Nobel committee has, indeed, greatly expanded the interpretation of what can constitute the peace prize.
And it's hard not to look at Gore's achievement through a political lens, whether that be through his own comeback, what it may mean to the 2008 presidential race and what it says about the Bush administration.
Those provocative topics shouldn't detract from the main point being made by scientists worldwide: A recent study by scientists from more than 100 countries says, with more than 90 percent certainty, global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. They cite increases in weather fluctuations. They say hotter temperatures and rising sea levels will occur regardless of what people do at this point, but they believe people can mitigate the impact, if better policies are put in place now. This is no small matter for the U.S., which generates about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Bush administration has opted to rely on voluntary controls by industry. Meanwhile, an international treaty designed to reduce global warming has gone into effect without U.S. participation.
In Washington, global warming seemingly pits Democrats against Republicans, but state leaders, at least, know better. Former Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, led the effort for a regional agreement among states, and his successor, Democrat Eliot Spitzer, has deemed global warming the most important environmental issue facing this generation. As such, New York has joined with more than a half-dozen states to start the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will mandate cuts in certain emissions from power plants.
Still, a federal solution is imperative. At a minimum, he can continue to prod the crowded field of Republican and Democratic candidates to spell out their plans to confront global warming.
Left for dead politically in 2000, Gore has made the classic American comeback. He brings with it talk of a profoundly serious issue facing the country and world. That is something to admire, his detractors notwithstanding.
©The Record 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Where is Nancy Pelosi??
I've been thinking lately, what a disappointment Nancy Pelosi has been as Speaker of the House. The Democrat majority she manages was basically brought in on the "end the war" sentiment of voters last year, and then she was ushered in as the best Spokesperson to get the job done. It should have been a cake-walk at that point. Over 60% of the public wanting to end the Iraq war, Jack Murtha, both a veteran of Congress AND a military veteran leading the charge in Congress to bring the troops home and the first thing Ms. Pelosi does is to declare that impeachment is "off the table".
Well hot diggity for George Bush! He is going to skate on all the crimes and misdemeanors in which he has been implicated so far AND he gets a pass on future misdeeds. That is the last thing the man-who-would-be-king needs; he was already emboldened plenty by his insular lifestyle, the echo chamber in which he lives and his fundamental stupidity. Any criticially thinking man might be embarrassed by now, a bit chagrined after the idiotic decisions and horrific failures he's concocted, but not George. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the MAJORITY of Congress (MAJORITY people!) has told him he can continue to be unaccountable.
Well, impeachment is off the table, but what about ending the war? One would expect that the next move is to stop all funding for George's epic folly; to supply ONLY enough money to aid the troops in safely exiting Iraq as soon as humanly possible. All the Democratic rhetoric was certainly along the lines of "not one more American soldier should die in this war."
But, the Democrats continued to fund the war. They gave Bush what he asked for. So it appears that George W. Bush, with an approval rating below 40% is a more effective leader than Nancy Pelosi. He certainly beats her in the chutzpah department. She wouldn't even need chutzpah, she had a mandate from the American people to get us out of Iraq. All she would need is to do what she and the other Democrats were hired to do. Where IS she? She is NOWHERE of importance. Oh sure, the S chip.....but the Dems aren't going to get that passed. Pelosi is a huge disappointment IMO. Huge. I say that even though she is a hometown girl. I've watched her for years, being a San Francisco native myself. I used to think she had spunk and grit and the gravitas to get the job done down to the last detail. But oh how easily she has folded; out- led by a nincompoop.
Because of my recent ruminations about Pelosi and the rest of the Congressional hand-wringing jellyfish, I was glad to see that Arianna Huffington over at HuffPo had a column about basically the same issue, although she doesn't mention impeachment. I don't know how much good her editorial is going to do, but I suspect it will touch a far wider audience than MINE would anyday. Here's the text:
Taking a page from America's retailers, President Bush is getting a jump on the coming battle over Iraq war funding. On Monday, he added an additional $45.9 billion in supplemental war funding to the $150.5 billion he'd already requested, and then turned up the heat on Congress to sign off on the $196.4 billion before heading home for the holidays. Only 60 more browbeating days until Christmas!
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And you have to give Bush credit. Despite record-low approval ratings, he's unabashedly playing -- and winning -- the PR game on the war. By incrementally adding to his funding request, he made his ongoing plundering of our treasury to pursue his disastrous Iraq policy seem relatively modest. The headlines all focused on the $46 billion he's just added to the tab -- not the $196 billion he's really after.
And while his language about "supporting the troops," and "providing our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done" is well past its sell-by date, the Democrats have yet to reframe the funding debate. So Bush replays his patriotic greatest hits while the blood of our soldiers continues to flow -- in the process making our country not more, but less, safe.
The president was feeling so cocky he even pulled out the "s" word -- "succeed" -- that had been in cold storage for a while. "Our men and women on the front lines should not be caught in the middle of partisan disagreements in Washington, D.C.," he said. "[Congress] ought to make sure our troops have what it takes to succeed." Whatever that means in Iraq these days.
The Democrats meanwhile remain divided and confounded on how to stand up to the president on Iraq. House invertebrates like Steny Hoyer, who foolishly think ducking for cover is a winning '08 strategy, are urging a cautious approach, suggesting that any hardball stop-the-war efforts will leave red state Dems vulnerable to attacks for undermining the troops.
Senate leaders, including Carl Levin, are also treading lightly. Levin's latest gambit: put Bush on the installment plan, giving him only part of the money and forcing him to come asking for more in June, after the next Congressionally mandated report from Gen. Petraeus (September redux?). Levin's plan would also aim for a complete withdrawal from Iraq within nine months -- but this would only be a goal, not a date certain requirement.
Hey, why accomplish today what you can put off until tomorrow -- or June?
And some Democrats just seem resigned to the notion that their options are limited. As Henry Waxman told Politico: "If you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes." It's what David Sirota calls the "Innocent Bystander Fable" -- the idea that since Democrats don't have the 60 votes needed to end Senate debate or the 66 votes needed to override a Bush veto, the war in Iraq is out of their hands.
But the truth is, Democrats have all the votes they need to stop the war -- if they are willing to use the power given them by the Constitution to block the supplemental funding bill unless it includes a deadline for bringing the troops home. As Norm Ornstein told me: "Whatever the White House sends to the House is constitutionally merely a suggestion." The prerogative to bring a funding bill to the floor rests entirely with the majority -- which, in case Democrats have forgotten, is theirs. As for the Senate, Democrats there would only have to find 41 votes to block the supplemental funding bill.
I'm sorry for this refresher in Congressional Power 101, but Democratic leaders seem to need it. The White House cannot force Congress to spend money. Period. The end. The imperial presidency has not gone that far. At least not yet. So Democrats, who have the public behind them, need to be unequivocal that they are simply not going to continue to fund the war unless and until the president agrees to change course and set a date certain for ending it.
They need to make it clear that they are not pulling the plug on the troops -- indeed, they will be authorizing bridge funding for armored vehicles and veterans' health benefits, among other essential expenses, when they take up the annual defense appropriations bill in December. And they can make it clear that they will give the president and the Pentagon all the money they need to safely and responsibly bring the troops home.
It's a battle of wills. A test of leadership. And a contest to frame the debate in the public's mind.
The president took a preemptive shot across the bow on Monday, playing the funding-equals-troop-support card, and placing the ball squarely in Congress' court. Democrats can't afford to sit back on their heels and wait until next year to take on the president (or worse yet, have a replay of the 2007 supplemental funding fight and cave to the president's phony "before the holidays" demands).
They need to begin reframing the funding fight now -- hammering home the message that it's the president's obstinacy that is jeopardizing the well-being of our troops and the safety of our country.
This is not the time for caution and playing it safe. This is the time to force the president's hand.
Well hot diggity for George Bush! He is going to skate on all the crimes and misdemeanors in which he has been implicated so far AND he gets a pass on future misdeeds. That is the last thing the man-who-would-be-king needs; he was already emboldened plenty by his insular lifestyle, the echo chamber in which he lives and his fundamental stupidity. Any criticially thinking man might be embarrassed by now, a bit chagrined after the idiotic decisions and horrific failures he's concocted, but not George. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the MAJORITY of Congress (MAJORITY people!) has told him he can continue to be unaccountable.
Well, impeachment is off the table, but what about ending the war? One would expect that the next move is to stop all funding for George's epic folly; to supply ONLY enough money to aid the troops in safely exiting Iraq as soon as humanly possible. All the Democratic rhetoric was certainly along the lines of "not one more American soldier should die in this war."
But, the Democrats continued to fund the war. They gave Bush what he asked for. So it appears that George W. Bush, with an approval rating below 40% is a more effective leader than Nancy Pelosi. He certainly beats her in the chutzpah department. She wouldn't even need chutzpah, she had a mandate from the American people to get us out of Iraq. All she would need is to do what she and the other Democrats were hired to do. Where IS she? She is NOWHERE of importance. Oh sure, the S chip.....but the Dems aren't going to get that passed. Pelosi is a huge disappointment IMO. Huge. I say that even though she is a hometown girl. I've watched her for years, being a San Francisco native myself. I used to think she had spunk and grit and the gravitas to get the job done down to the last detail. But oh how easily she has folded; out- led by a nincompoop.
Because of my recent ruminations about Pelosi and the rest of the Congressional hand-wringing jellyfish, I was glad to see that Arianna Huffington over at HuffPo had a column about basically the same issue, although she doesn't mention impeachment. I don't know how much good her editorial is going to do, but I suspect it will touch a far wider audience than MINE would anyday. Here's the text:
Taking a page from America's retailers, President Bush is getting a jump on the coming battle over Iraq war funding. On Monday, he added an additional $45.9 billion in supplemental war funding to the $150.5 billion he'd already requested, and then turned up the heat on Congress to sign off on the $196.4 billion before heading home for the holidays. Only 60 more browbeating days until Christmas!
Comment
And you have to give Bush credit. Despite record-low approval ratings, he's unabashedly playing -- and winning -- the PR game on the war. By incrementally adding to his funding request, he made his ongoing plundering of our treasury to pursue his disastrous Iraq policy seem relatively modest. The headlines all focused on the $46 billion he's just added to the tab -- not the $196 billion he's really after.
And while his language about "supporting the troops," and "providing our troops with the help and support they need to get the job done" is well past its sell-by date, the Democrats have yet to reframe the funding debate. So Bush replays his patriotic greatest hits while the blood of our soldiers continues to flow -- in the process making our country not more, but less, safe.
The president was feeling so cocky he even pulled out the "s" word -- "succeed" -- that had been in cold storage for a while. "Our men and women on the front lines should not be caught in the middle of partisan disagreements in Washington, D.C.," he said. "[Congress] ought to make sure our troops have what it takes to succeed." Whatever that means in Iraq these days.
The Democrats meanwhile remain divided and confounded on how to stand up to the president on Iraq. House invertebrates like Steny Hoyer, who foolishly think ducking for cover is a winning '08 strategy, are urging a cautious approach, suggesting that any hardball stop-the-war efforts will leave red state Dems vulnerable to attacks for undermining the troops.
Senate leaders, including Carl Levin, are also treading lightly. Levin's latest gambit: put Bush on the installment plan, giving him only part of the money and forcing him to come asking for more in June, after the next Congressionally mandated report from Gen. Petraeus (September redux?). Levin's plan would also aim for a complete withdrawal from Iraq within nine months -- but this would only be a goal, not a date certain requirement.
Hey, why accomplish today what you can put off until tomorrow -- or June?
And some Democrats just seem resigned to the notion that their options are limited. As Henry Waxman told Politico: "If you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes." It's what David Sirota calls the "Innocent Bystander Fable" -- the idea that since Democrats don't have the 60 votes needed to end Senate debate or the 66 votes needed to override a Bush veto, the war in Iraq is out of their hands.
But the truth is, Democrats have all the votes they need to stop the war -- if they are willing to use the power given them by the Constitution to block the supplemental funding bill unless it includes a deadline for bringing the troops home. As Norm Ornstein told me: "Whatever the White House sends to the House is constitutionally merely a suggestion." The prerogative to bring a funding bill to the floor rests entirely with the majority -- which, in case Democrats have forgotten, is theirs. As for the Senate, Democrats there would only have to find 41 votes to block the supplemental funding bill.
I'm sorry for this refresher in Congressional Power 101, but Democratic leaders seem to need it. The White House cannot force Congress to spend money. Period. The end. The imperial presidency has not gone that far. At least not yet. So Democrats, who have the public behind them, need to be unequivocal that they are simply not going to continue to fund the war unless and until the president agrees to change course and set a date certain for ending it.
They need to make it clear that they are not pulling the plug on the troops -- indeed, they will be authorizing bridge funding for armored vehicles and veterans' health benefits, among other essential expenses, when they take up the annual defense appropriations bill in December. And they can make it clear that they will give the president and the Pentagon all the money they need to safely and responsibly bring the troops home.
It's a battle of wills. A test of leadership. And a contest to frame the debate in the public's mind.
The president took a preemptive shot across the bow on Monday, playing the funding-equals-troop-support card, and placing the ball squarely in Congress' court. Democrats can't afford to sit back on their heels and wait until next year to take on the president (or worse yet, have a replay of the 2007 supplemental funding fight and cave to the president's phony "before the holidays" demands).
They need to begin reframing the funding fight now -- hammering home the message that it's the president's obstinacy that is jeopardizing the well-being of our troops and the safety of our country.
This is not the time for caution and playing it safe. This is the time to force the president's hand.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Rude Pundit sums it up nicely...
Now I admit to reading the Rude Pundit; albeit his over the top crass/vulgar style makes me cringe sometimes. He's generally right on politically and has an eye for what's a hot topic. In today's column he discusses the Republican candidate's debate. I watched excerpts on PBS News Hour last evening and I have to say, his analysis is spot on. I've excerpted the clean parts of Rude Pundit's column for today. His entire column is not for the timid. Here he goes:
the debate was dominated by a simple question asked of simple men: "Which of you hates more people?" Or, as the Fox "news" correspondents asking the questions put it, "Who's more conservative?"
A good chunk of the debate consisted of one candidate after another declaring they hate illegal immigrants more, they loves 'em some fetuses more, they hate gays more than the others. And when it came to the gays, oh, snap, how they went after each other like old drag queens at a Liza Minnelli yard sale. Romney made the stunning admission that he read the Constitution of the state he was governor of and found it lacking in pro-gay marriage statements: "My state's constitution was written by John Adams. It isn't there. I've looked." Adams's penchant for wigs and frills is beside the point.
Giuliani, whose experience consists of being a U.S. Attorney, a mayor, and a master exploiter of the fears and pain of others for enormous profit, took every opportunity to say he had more experience with shit than the others. On gay marriage, he twisted it this way: "I did 210 weddings when I was mayor of New York City. So I have experience doing this. They were all men and women...I hope." And much laughter ensued with the crowd of craven, frothing conservatives. The logical follow-up would have been to ask if Giuliani would have performed any ceremonies for gay couples if gay marriage had been legal in New York when he was mayor. But maybe the answer to that is too obvious.
About halfway through the debate, the fine Fox-ers got around to asking the candidates what they might actually do as President. On health care, the answers boiled down to: "Give insurance companies everything they want." On education: "Give private schools everything they want." On taxes: "Give rich people everything they want." On foreign policy: "Give the neocons everything they want."
the debate was dominated by a simple question asked of simple men: "Which of you hates more people?" Or, as the Fox "news" correspondents asking the questions put it, "Who's more conservative?"
A good chunk of the debate consisted of one candidate after another declaring they hate illegal immigrants more, they loves 'em some fetuses more, they hate gays more than the others. And when it came to the gays, oh, snap, how they went after each other like old drag queens at a Liza Minnelli yard sale. Romney made the stunning admission that he read the Constitution of the state he was governor of and found it lacking in pro-gay marriage statements: "My state's constitution was written by John Adams. It isn't there. I've looked." Adams's penchant for wigs and frills is beside the point.
Giuliani, whose experience consists of being a U.S. Attorney, a mayor, and a master exploiter of the fears and pain of others for enormous profit, took every opportunity to say he had more experience with shit than the others. On gay marriage, he twisted it this way: "I did 210 weddings when I was mayor of New York City. So I have experience doing this. They were all men and women...I hope." And much laughter ensued with the crowd of craven, frothing conservatives. The logical follow-up would have been to ask if Giuliani would have performed any ceremonies for gay couples if gay marriage had been legal in New York when he was mayor. But maybe the answer to that is too obvious.
About halfway through the debate, the fine Fox-ers got around to asking the candidates what they might actually do as President. On health care, the answers boiled down to: "Give insurance companies everything they want." On education: "Give private schools everything they want." On taxes: "Give rich people everything they want." On foreign policy: "Give the neocons everything they want."
A small dose of Sanity....
Christy Hardin Smith over at Firedoglake has taken on one of my favorite political subjects; that being that Iranian President Ahmadinejad is NOT about to take over the world and we do NOT need to attack Iran. The facts do not correspond to the rightwing rhetoric in the least. We are on the brink of another Middle Eastern war and while the neocons charge that Iran wants to give the world a makeover in Islamo garb; the TRUTH is the other way around. Hey Cheney, project MUCH? The truth is that the neocons want to do a world makeover in a capitalist "democratic" style (read Corporate rule). Yet they blame Ahmadinejad for wanting to stave this off, calling him "Hitler" etc. Too kooky. And scary. Here's the latest bit of sanity from Firedoglake this a.m.:
The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism.” For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.
Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?…
The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism.” For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.
Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?…
Monday, October 22, 2007
Red Sox win the Pennant!
I watched the game last night, sitting on the edge of my seat while the score was 3-2; I was really pulling for the Sox. What a night for the rookie! It ended up being 11-2 and that was a massacre, but the Sox really played better ball, despite hitting into double plays numerous times of late. Finally last night it was payback time, with Sizemore hitting into a double play which was CRITICAL for the Sox at that moment. God, baseball is such a sublime game. It bears repeating how very "Zen" it is. I just love it.
Woke up this morning to headlines about the Turks and the Kurds.....can it get any worse in the Middle East? Iraqi leaders have promised to "do something" about the Kurdish terrorists, but they can't even control what is going on in Baghdad, so that "doing something" is a pipe dream and shouldn't be counted on by anyone.
The world is in worse shape than I can ever remember, in my lifetime. How surreal that all of that can be going on half a world away and yet, what many many people were focused on last night was the Indians and Sox battling it out for the Amercian League championship. While the world burns, does it feel strange to celebrate something as relatively trivial as a baseball game? In a way yes, but in a way, to me, the love of baseball is the love of peace, the love of human past times not so bloody, not so threatening. Something still left of benign achievements in human life. I still do want to celebrate that.
Woke up this morning to headlines about the Turks and the Kurds.....can it get any worse in the Middle East? Iraqi leaders have promised to "do something" about the Kurdish terrorists, but they can't even control what is going on in Baghdad, so that "doing something" is a pipe dream and shouldn't be counted on by anyone.
The world is in worse shape than I can ever remember, in my lifetime. How surreal that all of that can be going on half a world away and yet, what many many people were focused on last night was the Indians and Sox battling it out for the Amercian League championship. While the world burns, does it feel strange to celebrate something as relatively trivial as a baseball game? In a way yes, but in a way, to me, the love of baseball is the love of peace, the love of human past times not so bloody, not so threatening. Something still left of benign achievements in human life. I still do want to celebrate that.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Secret - BUSTED!
I have long since realized that the much touted "Secret" is bogus. The DVD was interesting, but it is so simplistic and the thinking "magical" that it was easy for me to disregard it. Of course, I have had the advantage of exposure to the Buddha and brilliant expositions such as The Heart Sutra. Exposure to "I Am That" by Sri Nisargadatta and exposure to non-dualism period. How many around the world, eagerly buying up copies of "The Secret" have been innoculated against such pie in the sky?
Anywho, a friend of mine, David, sent this email today regarding HIS take on the "Secret" :
e Secret Busted--- Flaws of the Secret.
Hi Folks!
I guess most of you have read or at least heard about "The Secret".
I think it was at that time that I was being drawn to Non duality and
was reading books like "I am That" .
That's why I could feel a slight confusion and there was a sort of
disconnect somewhere.
Here, "The Secret" tells you that you are the creator of everything
around you and it is our thoughts and our vibrations that we send out
to the universe that determine our lives.
"The secret" would have us believe that we are the most important
beings in the universe and everything else is there to fulfill our
wishes.
I guess it was our greed and wishful thinking which led us to believe
whatever "The Secret" tries to teach us.
Now, we come to Non duality where we are told that "you" are an
illusion. The ego doesn't exist. There is only beingness. In his
book " I am That", Nisargadatta Maharaj reveal that we are just the
witness of whatever happens.
Feelings arise, Thoughts arise --- You are just the witness of these.
All you do is watch the show.
In the words of the Buddha " Events happen, deeds are done.But there
is no individual doer of these deeds."
So, it becomes clear enough that we can either believe one of these.
Either there is no doer OR there is a doer who can think thoughts and
send vibrations out to the universe.
So, there is a choice for me -- I can believe Rhonda Byrne(Author of
The Secret) OR I could believe the Buddha.
I dont know about you but I would rather vote for The Buddha.
Even If you dont know about the buddha or Rhonda. What does your
experience say.
How many circumstances have you been able to control?
Well, I dont think that I can do justice to this topic in one blog
post but I will be adding more about this later.
So I end it here now with a quote from Ramesh Balsekar ---
"You have not controlled your birth, you are not going to control
your death. And you are not in control of anything in between"
posted by Faraz Ahmed @ 11:26 PM
Anywho, a friend of mine, David, sent this email today regarding HIS take on the "Secret" :
e Secret Busted--- Flaws of the Secret.
Hi Folks!
I guess most of you have read or at least heard about "The Secret".
I think it was at that time that I was being drawn to Non duality and
was reading books like "I am That" .
That's why I could feel a slight confusion and there was a sort of
disconnect somewhere.
Here, "The Secret" tells you that you are the creator of everything
around you and it is our thoughts and our vibrations that we send out
to the universe that determine our lives.
"The secret" would have us believe that we are the most important
beings in the universe and everything else is there to fulfill our
wishes.
I guess it was our greed and wishful thinking which led us to believe
whatever "The Secret" tries to teach us.
Now, we come to Non duality where we are told that "you" are an
illusion. The ego doesn't exist. There is only beingness. In his
book " I am That", Nisargadatta Maharaj reveal that we are just the
witness of whatever happens.
Feelings arise, Thoughts arise --- You are just the witness of these.
All you do is watch the show.
In the words of the Buddha " Events happen, deeds are done.But there
is no individual doer of these deeds."
So, it becomes clear enough that we can either believe one of these.
Either there is no doer OR there is a doer who can think thoughts and
send vibrations out to the universe.
So, there is a choice for me -- I can believe Rhonda Byrne(Author of
The Secret) OR I could believe the Buddha.
I dont know about you but I would rather vote for The Buddha.
Even If you dont know about the buddha or Rhonda. What does your
experience say.
How many circumstances have you been able to control?
Well, I dont think that I can do justice to this topic in one blog
post but I will be adding more about this later.
So I end it here now with a quote from Ramesh Balsekar ---
"You have not controlled your birth, you are not going to control
your death. And you are not in control of anything in between"
posted by Faraz Ahmed @ 11:26 PM
Friday, October 12, 2007
Al Gore Wins Peace Prize
I had a feeling, as no doubt did many, that Al Gore was going to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He shares it with the UN Governmental Panel. That's okay.......that's great in fact.
I wish this meant he would enter the Democratic Primary and really have an edge due to his international clout and respect. I don't believe, even as much as I hope, that he WILL enter the Primary. I think if he did, he'd kick butt........BUT I think Al feels he's paid his dues and sees the political machinery as hopelessly corrupt. Let's not forget, he WAS elected President and our world would be looking a WHOLE lot different if it weren't for the decision of the (stacked) SCOTUS.
Congrats Al! Whatcha gonna do now?
I wish this meant he would enter the Democratic Primary and really have an edge due to his international clout and respect. I don't believe, even as much as I hope, that he WILL enter the Primary. I think if he did, he'd kick butt........BUT I think Al feels he's paid his dues and sees the political machinery as hopelessly corrupt. Let's not forget, he WAS elected President and our world would be looking a WHOLE lot different if it weren't for the decision of the (stacked) SCOTUS.
Congrats Al! Whatcha gonna do now?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
This ties in with Shock Doctrine: The terrifying fifties....the Cold War insanity
From AP: I trust that no editorial comment is necessary. I file this under Batshit Insanity:
WASHINGTON - In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.
Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of; just last year an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium-210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.
The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details. The censorship reflects concern that the potential for using radioactive poisons as a weapon is more than a historic footnote; it is believed to be sought by present-day terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets.
The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the United States. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project and another memo that month indicated it was under way. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP.
The broader effort on offensive uses of radiological warfare apparently died by about 1954, at least in part because of the Defense Department's conviction that nuclear weapons were a better bet.
Whether the work migrated to another agency such as the CIA is unclear. The project was given final approval in November 1948 and began the following month, just one year after the CIA's creation in 1947.
It was a turbulent time on the international scene. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and two months later Mao Zedong's communists triumphed in China's civil war.
As U.S. scientists developed the atomic bomb during World War II, it was recognized that radioactive agents used or created in the manufacturing process had lethal potential. The government's first public report on the bomb project, published in 1945, noted that radioactive fission products from a uranium-fueled reactor could be extracted and used "like a particularly vicious form of poison gas."
Among the documents released to the AP _ an Army memo dated Dec. 16, 1948, and labeled secret _ described a crash program to develop a variety of military uses for radioactive materials. Work on a "subversive weapon for attack of individuals or small groups" was listed as a secondary priority, to be confined to feasibility studies and experiments.
The top priorities listed were:
_ 1 _ Weapons to contaminate "populated or otherwise critical areas for long periods of time."
_ 2 _ Munitions combining high explosives with radioactive material "to accomplish physical damage and radioactive contamination simultaneously."
_ 3 _ Air and-or surface weapons that would spread contamination across an area to be evacuated, thereby rendering it unusable by enemy forces.
The stated goal was to produce a prototype for the No. 1 and No. 2 priority weapons by Dec. 31, 1950.
The 4th ranked priority was "munitions for attack on individuals" using radioactive agents for which there is "no means of therapy."
"This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders," it said.
Assassination of foreign figures by agents of the U.S. government was not explicitly outlawed until President Gerald R. Ford signed an executive order in 1976 in response to revelations that the CIA had plotted in the 1960s to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro, including by poisoning.
The Dec. 16, 1948, memo said a lethal attack against individuals using radiological material should be done in a way that makes it impossible to trace the U.S. government's involvement, a concept known as "plausible deniability" that is central to U.S. covert actions.
"The source of the munition, the fact that an attack has been made, and the kind of attack should not be determinable, if possible," it said. "The munition should be inconspicuous and readily transportable."
Radioactive agents were thought to be ideal for this use, the document said, because of their high toxicity and the fact that the targeted individuals could not smell, taste or otherwise sense the attack.
"It should be possible, for example, to develop a very small munition which could function unnoticeably and which would set up an invisible, yet highly lethal concentration in a room, with the effects noticeable only well after the time of attack," it said.
"The time for lethal effects could, it is believed, be controlled within limits by the amount of radioactive agent dispersed. The toxicities are such that should relatively high concentrations be required for early lethal effects, on a weight basis, even such concentrations may be found practicable."
Tom Bielefeld, a Harvard physicist who has studied radiological weapons issues, said that while he had never heard of this project, its technical aims sounded feasible.
Bielefeld noted that polonium, the radioactive agent used to kill Litvinenko in November 2006, has just the kind of features that would be suitable for the lethal mission described in the Dec. 16 memo.
Barton Bernstein, a Stanford history professor who has done extensive research on the U.S. military's radiological warfare efforts, said he did not believe this aspect had previously come to light.
"This is one of those items that surprises us but should not shock us, because in the Cold War all kinds of ways of killing people, in all kinds of manners _ inhumane, barbaric and even worse _ were periodically contemplated at high levels in the American government in what was seen as a just war against a hated and hateful enemy," Bernstein said.
The project was run by the Army Chemical Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, and supervised by a now-defunct agency called the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. The project's first chief was Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the Army's head of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs. The radiological project was approved by Groves' successor, Maj. Gen. Kenneth D. Nichols.
The released documents were in files of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project held by the National Archives.
Among the officials copied in on the Dec. 16 memo were Herbert Scoville, Jr., then the technical director of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and later the CIA's deputy director for research, and Samuel T. Cohen, a physicist with RAND Corp. who had worked on the Manhattan Project.
The initial go-ahead for the Army to pursue its radiological weapons project was given in May 1948, a point in U.S. history, following the successful use of two atomic bombs against Japan to end World War II, when the military was eager to explore the implications of atomic science for the future of warfare.
In a July 1948 memo outlining the program's intent, before specifics had received final approval, a key focus was on long-lasting contamination of large land areas where residents would be told that unless the areas were abandoned they probably would die from radiation within one to 10 years.
"It is thought that this is a new concept of warfare, with results that cannot be predicted," it said.
WASHINGTON - In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.
Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of; just last year an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium-210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.
No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.
The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details. The censorship reflects concern that the potential for using radioactive poisons as a weapon is more than a historic footnote; it is believed to be sought by present-day terrorists bent on attacking U.S. targets.
The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the United States. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project and another memo that month indicated it was under way. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP.
The broader effort on offensive uses of radiological warfare apparently died by about 1954, at least in part because of the Defense Department's conviction that nuclear weapons were a better bet.
Whether the work migrated to another agency such as the CIA is unclear. The project was given final approval in November 1948 and began the following month, just one year after the CIA's creation in 1947.
It was a turbulent time on the international scene. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, and two months later Mao Zedong's communists triumphed in China's civil war.
As U.S. scientists developed the atomic bomb during World War II, it was recognized that radioactive agents used or created in the manufacturing process had lethal potential. The government's first public report on the bomb project, published in 1945, noted that radioactive fission products from a uranium-fueled reactor could be extracted and used "like a particularly vicious form of poison gas."
Among the documents released to the AP _ an Army memo dated Dec. 16, 1948, and labeled secret _ described a crash program to develop a variety of military uses for radioactive materials. Work on a "subversive weapon for attack of individuals or small groups" was listed as a secondary priority, to be confined to feasibility studies and experiments.
The top priorities listed were:
_ 1 _ Weapons to contaminate "populated or otherwise critical areas for long periods of time."
_ 2 _ Munitions combining high explosives with radioactive material "to accomplish physical damage and radioactive contamination simultaneously."
_ 3 _ Air and-or surface weapons that would spread contamination across an area to be evacuated, thereby rendering it unusable by enemy forces.
The stated goal was to produce a prototype for the No. 1 and No. 2 priority weapons by Dec. 31, 1950.
The 4th ranked priority was "munitions for attack on individuals" using radioactive agents for which there is "no means of therapy."
"This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders," it said.
Assassination of foreign figures by agents of the U.S. government was not explicitly outlawed until President Gerald R. Ford signed an executive order in 1976 in response to revelations that the CIA had plotted in the 1960s to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro, including by poisoning.
The Dec. 16, 1948, memo said a lethal attack against individuals using radiological material should be done in a way that makes it impossible to trace the U.S. government's involvement, a concept known as "plausible deniability" that is central to U.S. covert actions.
"The source of the munition, the fact that an attack has been made, and the kind of attack should not be determinable, if possible," it said. "The munition should be inconspicuous and readily transportable."
Radioactive agents were thought to be ideal for this use, the document said, because of their high toxicity and the fact that the targeted individuals could not smell, taste or otherwise sense the attack.
"It should be possible, for example, to develop a very small munition which could function unnoticeably and which would set up an invisible, yet highly lethal concentration in a room, with the effects noticeable only well after the time of attack," it said.
"The time for lethal effects could, it is believed, be controlled within limits by the amount of radioactive agent dispersed. The toxicities are such that should relatively high concentrations be required for early lethal effects, on a weight basis, even such concentrations may be found practicable."
Tom Bielefeld, a Harvard physicist who has studied radiological weapons issues, said that while he had never heard of this project, its technical aims sounded feasible.
Bielefeld noted that polonium, the radioactive agent used to kill Litvinenko in November 2006, has just the kind of features that would be suitable for the lethal mission described in the Dec. 16 memo.
Barton Bernstein, a Stanford history professor who has done extensive research on the U.S. military's radiological warfare efforts, said he did not believe this aspect had previously come to light.
"This is one of those items that surprises us but should not shock us, because in the Cold War all kinds of ways of killing people, in all kinds of manners _ inhumane, barbaric and even worse _ were periodically contemplated at high levels in the American government in what was seen as a just war against a hated and hateful enemy," Bernstein said.
The project was run by the Army Chemical Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, and supervised by a now-defunct agency called the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. The project's first chief was Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the Army's head of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs. The radiological project was approved by Groves' successor, Maj. Gen. Kenneth D. Nichols.
The released documents were in files of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project held by the National Archives.
Among the officials copied in on the Dec. 16 memo were Herbert Scoville, Jr., then the technical director of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and later the CIA's deputy director for research, and Samuel T. Cohen, a physicist with RAND Corp. who had worked on the Manhattan Project.
The initial go-ahead for the Army to pursue its radiological weapons project was given in May 1948, a point in U.S. history, following the successful use of two atomic bombs against Japan to end World War II, when the military was eager to explore the implications of atomic science for the future of warfare.
In a July 1948 memo outlining the program's intent, before specifics had received final approval, a key focus was on long-lasting contamination of large land areas where residents would be told that unless the areas were abandoned they probably would die from radiation within one to 10 years.
"It is thought that this is a new concept of warfare, with results that cannot be predicted," it said.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Forgetting Gandhi on National Non-Violence Day
From my inbox this morning:
Forgetting Gandhi on International Non-Violence Day
By Pablo Ouziel
October 2nd will mark the birth anniversary of human rights activist
Mahatma Gandhi and for the first time, the United Nations is
officially proclaiming this day to be the International Day of
Non-violence. Hopefully, on this day we can all spare a little of our
time to reflect on how little we have all understood Mahatma Gandhi's
message, after all everyday we seem to plunge into a worse state of
affairs and drift away farther from Gandhi's respectable message; "I
object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is
only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
I wonder what it means to have an International Non-violence day. Does
it mean that American soldiers, UN 'peacekeepers', NATO Forces, the
Israeli military and Blackwater USA will put down their weapons for
the day and reflect on the horrors that they are committing in the
vague name of an international war on 'terror'? Does it mean that they
will all continue killing as a few peaceful marchers around the world
proclaim in total sanity, that the insanity that prevails is making it
hard for peace-loving humans to coexist with this madness? Or does it
mean that the United Nations will clamp down on the killings
perpetrated by the permanent members of its own security council?
Whatever happens on that day we can all rest assured that the day will
pass and things will continue heading into the same almost unavoidable
tragic ending, one which the respectable professor Noam Chomsky
describes in the following way: "The immediate fear is that by
accident or design, Washington's war planners or their Israeli
surrogate might decide to escalate their Cold War II into a hot one –
in this case a real hot war."
Gandhi once said "an error does not become truth by reason of
multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody
sees it." However, since that now famous speech in 2001 when President
Bush declared: "You're either with us or against us in the fight
against terror," our lives have changed so much in so little time,
that one wonders whether Gandhi's statement makes any difference to
the lives of ordinary innocent people.
With so many dead since Bush's statement and so many more suffering,
with our way of live being put upside down by secretive prisons,
humiliating airport security checks, increased racism towards our
Muslim brothers, students being tasered for asking inappropriate
questions, and the president of a country being insulted by a
university president in the name of freedom of speech, one wonders how
long we will have to put up with this reality until the people of the
world regain their rights and react against this vile oppression.
We are living in fearful times void of any reason, if one listens to
the words of world leaders and reflects on their actions, one will see
the incoherence which prevails. The ones promoting global democracy
are embracing imperialism and the ones asking for reason to flourish
are being labelled as enemies. Evo Morales the first indigenous
president of Bolivia, who was linked to Osama Bin Laden by the
American ambassador in that country, last week speaking with Amy
Goodman of Democracy Now! said: "I think that in this new millennium,
we fundamentally should be oriented towards saving lives and not
ending lives."
Yet President Bush continues to raise the flag of peace and stability
as American defense company stocks continue to rise and people
continue to die. According to CNNMoney.com on September 26th, "The
AMEX Defense Index, which tracks 14 major defense company stocks, rose
14.25 to a high of 1,686.72 in afternoon trading. Since last year, the
index has risen roughly 47 percent, outperforming the broader S&P 500
index, which has climbed nearly 15 percent over the same period."
While Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, another 'great enemy' of
the American people during a UN address at the General Assembly in
2006, recommends to the assembly, the presidents of the world and in
particular the American people to read Hegemony of Survival by Noam
Chomsky, we learned this week by the hand of an editorial in The Los
Angeles Times that "the biggest beneficiary (of the business of war)
has been Blackwater USA, a private security firm with powerful
political and personnel ties to an administration that has awarded it
more than $1 billion in contracts since 2002."
So while this real life scenario remains a despicable reality and some
blame Bush, while others blame corporations, I am inclined to blame
the common people who through a combination of indifference, fear and
lack of reason, are allowing their government representatives and a
few corporations to accumulate wealth and power, while destroying the
planet in which we all live. We must understand that the power is in
the hands of the majority as long as we are all willing to accept that
responsibility and turn it into action.
If we use International Non-violence Day to reflect on Gandhi's
teachings and his struggle for freedom, we might learn from his own
words that, "as human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being
able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in
being able to remake ourselves." If this reasoning can somehow ingrain
itself into our thought process, those Wall Street and industry
executives who are trying to assure investors that there will be
little disturbance in military spending over the next several years,
regardless of who succeeds President Bush in the White House, will be
proved wrong. If however the people of the world have forgotten what
Gandhi really stood for, there is nothing that can be done.
Authors Bio: "The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity." Leo
Tolstoy -Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer based in
Spain. His work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet,
Palestine Chronicle, Thomas Paine¹s Corner and Atlantic Free Press.
Forgetting Gandhi on International Non-Violence Day
By Pablo Ouziel
October 2nd will mark the birth anniversary of human rights activist
Mahatma Gandhi and for the first time, the United Nations is
officially proclaiming this day to be the International Day of
Non-violence. Hopefully, on this day we can all spare a little of our
time to reflect on how little we have all understood Mahatma Gandhi's
message, after all everyday we seem to plunge into a worse state of
affairs and drift away farther from Gandhi's respectable message; "I
object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is
only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
I wonder what it means to have an International Non-violence day. Does
it mean that American soldiers, UN 'peacekeepers', NATO Forces, the
Israeli military and Blackwater USA will put down their weapons for
the day and reflect on the horrors that they are committing in the
vague name of an international war on 'terror'? Does it mean that they
will all continue killing as a few peaceful marchers around the world
proclaim in total sanity, that the insanity that prevails is making it
hard for peace-loving humans to coexist with this madness? Or does it
mean that the United Nations will clamp down on the killings
perpetrated by the permanent members of its own security council?
Whatever happens on that day we can all rest assured that the day will
pass and things will continue heading into the same almost unavoidable
tragic ending, one which the respectable professor Noam Chomsky
describes in the following way: "The immediate fear is that by
accident or design, Washington's war planners or their Israeli
surrogate might decide to escalate their Cold War II into a hot one –
in this case a real hot war."
Gandhi once said "an error does not become truth by reason of
multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody
sees it." However, since that now famous speech in 2001 when President
Bush declared: "You're either with us or against us in the fight
against terror," our lives have changed so much in so little time,
that one wonders whether Gandhi's statement makes any difference to
the lives of ordinary innocent people.
With so many dead since Bush's statement and so many more suffering,
with our way of live being put upside down by secretive prisons,
humiliating airport security checks, increased racism towards our
Muslim brothers, students being tasered for asking inappropriate
questions, and the president of a country being insulted by a
university president in the name of freedom of speech, one wonders how
long we will have to put up with this reality until the people of the
world regain their rights and react against this vile oppression.
We are living in fearful times void of any reason, if one listens to
the words of world leaders and reflects on their actions, one will see
the incoherence which prevails. The ones promoting global democracy
are embracing imperialism and the ones asking for reason to flourish
are being labelled as enemies. Evo Morales the first indigenous
president of Bolivia, who was linked to Osama Bin Laden by the
American ambassador in that country, last week speaking with Amy
Goodman of Democracy Now! said: "I think that in this new millennium,
we fundamentally should be oriented towards saving lives and not
ending lives."
Yet President Bush continues to raise the flag of peace and stability
as American defense company stocks continue to rise and people
continue to die. According to CNNMoney.com on September 26th, "The
AMEX Defense Index, which tracks 14 major defense company stocks, rose
14.25 to a high of 1,686.72 in afternoon trading. Since last year, the
index has risen roughly 47 percent, outperforming the broader S&P 500
index, which has climbed nearly 15 percent over the same period."
While Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, another 'great enemy' of
the American people during a UN address at the General Assembly in
2006, recommends to the assembly, the presidents of the world and in
particular the American people to read Hegemony of Survival by Noam
Chomsky, we learned this week by the hand of an editorial in The Los
Angeles Times that "the biggest beneficiary (of the business of war)
has been Blackwater USA, a private security firm with powerful
political and personnel ties to an administration that has awarded it
more than $1 billion in contracts since 2002."
So while this real life scenario remains a despicable reality and some
blame Bush, while others blame corporations, I am inclined to blame
the common people who through a combination of indifference, fear and
lack of reason, are allowing their government representatives and a
few corporations to accumulate wealth and power, while destroying the
planet in which we all live. We must understand that the power is in
the hands of the majority as long as we are all willing to accept that
responsibility and turn it into action.
If we use International Non-violence Day to reflect on Gandhi's
teachings and his struggle for freedom, we might learn from his own
words that, "as human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being
able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in
being able to remake ourselves." If this reasoning can somehow ingrain
itself into our thought process, those Wall Street and industry
executives who are trying to assure investors that there will be
little disturbance in military spending over the next several years,
regardless of who succeeds President Bush in the White House, will be
proved wrong. If however the people of the world have forgotten what
Gandhi really stood for, there is nothing that can be done.
Authors Bio: "The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity." Leo
Tolstoy -Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer based in
Spain. His work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet,
Palestine Chronicle, Thomas Paine¹s Corner and Atlantic Free Press.
How Can I Be Safe? Rumi and Adyashanti Answer...
"Where, where can I be safe?
Only in giving up all wanting and trying"
~Rumi
Human beings have a drive for security and safety, which is often
what fuels the spiritual search. This very drive for security and
safety is what causes so much misery and confusion. Freedom is a
state of complete and absolute insecurity and not knowing. So, in
seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the
Freedom you want. There is no security in Freedom, at least not in
the sense that we normally think of it. This is, of course, why it is
so free; there's nothing there to grab hold of.
The Unknown is more vast, more open, more peaceful, and more freeing
than you ever imagined it would be. If you don't experience it that
way, it means you're not resting there; you're still trying to know.
That will cause you to suffer because you're choosing security over
Freedom.
When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your
experience becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown
deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just
intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what
you are. A few minutes ago, you knew who you were—you had a history
and a personality—but from this place of not knowing, you question
all of that. Liberated people live in the Unknown and understand that
the only reason they know what they are is because they rest in the
Unknown moment by moment without defining who they are with the mind.
You can imagine how easy it is to get caught in the concept of the
Unknown and seek that instead of the Truth. If you seek the concept
you'll never be Free, but if you stop looking to myths and concepts
and become more interested in the Unknown than in what you know, the
door will be flung open. Until then, it will remain closed.
~Adyashanti
Only in giving up all wanting and trying"
~Rumi
Human beings have a drive for security and safety, which is often
what fuels the spiritual search. This very drive for security and
safety is what causes so much misery and confusion. Freedom is a
state of complete and absolute insecurity and not knowing. So, in
seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the
Freedom you want. There is no security in Freedom, at least not in
the sense that we normally think of it. This is, of course, why it is
so free; there's nothing there to grab hold of.
The Unknown is more vast, more open, more peaceful, and more freeing
than you ever imagined it would be. If you don't experience it that
way, it means you're not resting there; you're still trying to know.
That will cause you to suffer because you're choosing security over
Freedom.
When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your
experience becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown
deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just
intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what
you are. A few minutes ago, you knew who you were—you had a history
and a personality—but from this place of not knowing, you question
all of that. Liberated people live in the Unknown and understand that
the only reason they know what they are is because they rest in the
Unknown moment by moment without defining who they are with the mind.
You can imagine how easy it is to get caught in the concept of the
Unknown and seek that instead of the Truth. If you seek the concept
you'll never be Free, but if you stop looking to myths and concepts
and become more interested in the Unknown than in what you know, the
door will be flung open. Until then, it will remain closed.
~Adyashanti
Friday, October 5, 2007
John Cusack Interviews Naomi Klein on her new Book "Schock Doctrine"
I promised I would post this interview; I was hoping to imbed on this blog, but best I was able to do is link. Copy and paste in your browser. It is well worth your time, guaranteed.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1184834084/bctid1209589880
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1184834084/bctid1209589880
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Sri Nisargadatta on War
As I bemoan the situation in Burma to my dear friend Bob, he listens patiently and then reminds me of this, and I thought to pass it along here:
: The war is on. What is your attitude to it?
M: In some place or other, in some form or other,
the war is always on. When was there a time when
there was no war? Some say it is the will of God.
Some say it is God's play. It is another way of
saying that wars are inevitable and nobody is responsible.
Q: But what is your own attitude?
M: Why impose attitudes on me? I have no attitudes
to call my own.
Q: Surely somebody is responsible for this horrible
and senseless carnage. Why do people kill each other
so readily?
M: Search for the culprit within. The ideas of 'me'
and 'mine' are at the root of all conflict.
Be free of them and you will be out of conflict.
Q: What of it that I am out of conflict? It will not
affect the war. If I am the cause of war, I am ready
to be destroyed. Yet it stands to reason that the
disappearance of a thousand like me will not stop the wars.
They did not start with my birth and they will not end
with my death. I am not responsible, so who is?
M: Strife and struggle are a part of existence.
Why don't you inquire who is responsible for existence?
Q: Why do you say that existence and conflict are
inseparable? Can there be no existence without strife?
I need not fight others to be myself.
M: You fight others all the time for your survival as
a separate body-mind, a particular name and form.
To live you must destroy. From the moment you were
conceived you started a war with your environment -
a merciless war of mutual extermination,
until death sets you free.
Q: My question remains unanswered. You are merely
describing what I know - life and its sorrows.
But who is responsible you do not say. When I press you,
you throw the blame on God, or karma, or my own greed
and fear - which merely invites further questions.
Give me the final answer.
M: The final answer is this: nothing is.
All is a momentary appearance in the field of universal
consciousness; continuity as a name, and form as a mental
formation only, easy to dispel.
Q: I am asking about the immediate, the transitory,
the appearance. Here is a picture of a child killed
by soldiers. It is a fact - staring at you.
You cannot deny it. Now, who is responsible
for the death of the child?
M: Nobody and everybody.
The world is what it contains and each thing affects
all others. We all kill the child and we all die with it.
Every event has innumerable causes and produces
numberless effects. It is useless to keep accounts,
nothing is traceable.
Q: Your people speak of karma and retribution.
M: It is merely a gross approximation: in reality
we are all creators and creatures of each other,
causing and bearing each other's burden.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, "I Am That"
: The war is on. What is your attitude to it?
M: In some place or other, in some form or other,
the war is always on. When was there a time when
there was no war? Some say it is the will of God.
Some say it is God's play. It is another way of
saying that wars are inevitable and nobody is responsible.
Q: But what is your own attitude?
M: Why impose attitudes on me? I have no attitudes
to call my own.
Q: Surely somebody is responsible for this horrible
and senseless carnage. Why do people kill each other
so readily?
M: Search for the culprit within. The ideas of 'me'
and 'mine' are at the root of all conflict.
Be free of them and you will be out of conflict.
Q: What of it that I am out of conflict? It will not
affect the war. If I am the cause of war, I am ready
to be destroyed. Yet it stands to reason that the
disappearance of a thousand like me will not stop the wars.
They did not start with my birth and they will not end
with my death. I am not responsible, so who is?
M: Strife and struggle are a part of existence.
Why don't you inquire who is responsible for existence?
Q: Why do you say that existence and conflict are
inseparable? Can there be no existence without strife?
I need not fight others to be myself.
M: You fight others all the time for your survival as
a separate body-mind, a particular name and form.
To live you must destroy. From the moment you were
conceived you started a war with your environment -
a merciless war of mutual extermination,
until death sets you free.
Q: My question remains unanswered. You are merely
describing what I know - life and its sorrows.
But who is responsible you do not say. When I press you,
you throw the blame on God, or karma, or my own greed
and fear - which merely invites further questions.
Give me the final answer.
M: The final answer is this: nothing is.
All is a momentary appearance in the field of universal
consciousness; continuity as a name, and form as a mental
formation only, easy to dispel.
Q: I am asking about the immediate, the transitory,
the appearance. Here is a picture of a child killed
by soldiers. It is a fact - staring at you.
You cannot deny it. Now, who is responsible
for the death of the child?
M: Nobody and everybody.
The world is what it contains and each thing affects
all others. We all kill the child and we all die with it.
Every event has innumerable causes and produces
numberless effects. It is useless to keep accounts,
nothing is traceable.
Q: Your people speak of karma and retribution.
M: It is merely a gross approximation: in reality
we are all creators and creatures of each other,
causing and bearing each other's burden.
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, "I Am That"
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
1,000 Monks still captured in GITMO style warehouse in Burma, but hey, so what...Britney's kids go to K Fed!
I continue to be upset about what is going on in Burma and I look around and see I am the lone ranger here in my life, at least. My husband is upset and knows the whole story front to back, but my kids know more about Britney Spears' life than they do about Burma. Ditto my friends. If you don't know the whole story, it's hard to be outraged. These days it takes a real commitment to educate oneself on issues beyond the borders of our lives, let alone our country.
Over at HuffPo this a.m. Harry Shearer wrote a column regarding the lack of news coverage of Burma. I had this to say as a comment:
Last night I viewed PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer as I do daily.
One of the lead stories was about the situation in Burma and as always, the story was in-depth with a short history lesson and a summary of the current situation. Additionally there was an analysis of why China came out and made a statement this week, which included words on hope for development of democracy in Burma.
If the American News media cannot get fresh breaking news stories and photos out of Burma, they could certainly report on the history of Burma to educate the American public which is sorely lacking in information about any countries other than the US. This could be for starters. I do believe that if Americans knew the history and cast of players in many countries around the world, we could make much better choices and decisions about our political leaders, about our consumer choices, even perhaps our lifestyles. We live in information isolation, regardless of the pretty stories we tell ourselves about the Internet, TV etc. We are woefully ignorant of other cultures and how their governments operate. Moreover, we're woefully ignorant of how our government cooperates in propping up fascist and thug regimes around the globe and why. Look no further than corporate interests. Natch. Corporate news media are not going to report on stories which conflict with their own interests or contradict the party line of the latest propaganda coming out of "headquarters". Let's not be naive.
Independent, non-corporate news media outlets always get the news out. FSRN (Free Speech Radio News) a source which was born out of Pacifica Radio during a conflict between Pacifica and station personnel, has been submitting news reports from around the world for several years now. Non-corporate, grass-roots news.
Over at HuffPo this a.m. Harry Shearer wrote a column regarding the lack of news coverage of Burma. I had this to say as a comment:
Last night I viewed PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer as I do daily.
One of the lead stories was about the situation in Burma and as always, the story was in-depth with a short history lesson and a summary of the current situation. Additionally there was an analysis of why China came out and made a statement this week, which included words on hope for development of democracy in Burma.
If the American News media cannot get fresh breaking news stories and photos out of Burma, they could certainly report on the history of Burma to educate the American public which is sorely lacking in information about any countries other than the US. This could be for starters. I do believe that if Americans knew the history and cast of players in many countries around the world, we could make much better choices and decisions about our political leaders, about our consumer choices, even perhaps our lifestyles. We live in information isolation, regardless of the pretty stories we tell ourselves about the Internet, TV etc. We are woefully ignorant of other cultures and how their governments operate. Moreover, we're woefully ignorant of how our government cooperates in propping up fascist and thug regimes around the globe and why. Look no further than corporate interests. Natch. Corporate news media are not going to report on stories which conflict with their own interests or contradict the party line of the latest propaganda coming out of "headquarters". Let's not be naive.
Independent, non-corporate news media outlets always get the news out. FSRN (Free Speech Radio News) a source which was born out of Pacifica Radio during a conflict between Pacifica and station personnel, has been submitting news reports from around the world for several years now. Non-corporate, grass-roots news.
Monday, October 1, 2007
As Internet is Turned Off in Burma, a Burmese blogger in London, keeps the Info coming...
I want to give this fellow some wider exposure. Here is the URL for his blog and I am SORRY that it is not hyper-linked, I have to talk to Blogger about how to accomplish hypertext within posts. Copy and paste this in your Browser:]
http://www.ko-htike.blogspot.com/
http://www.ko-htike.blogspot.com/
More John Cusack conversation with Naomi Klein
I am following the progress of "The Shock Doctrine", Naomi Klein's book and recommend everyone learn about it.
Over at Huffington Post John Cusack has posted a video interview he did with her and this today, is a follow-up conversation which basically continued after the cameras stopped rolling. I re-print it here in it's entirety:
]
I hope you've checked out the video of my conversation with Naomi Klein. If you haven't, click here.
But after the camera crew stopped rolling, Naomi and I kept talking. Here's a transcript of part of that conversation...
Cusack: One of my favorite quotes is from Arthur Miller, who said: "An era can be considered over when its basic illusions have been exhausted." And with The Shock Doctrine, you are basically trying to shatter and obliterate the illusion of the supply side, fundamentalist free market -- this official narrative wherein we not only are supposed to worship free markets that really aren't free, we must actually kill to feed these markets.
What the book rightly asks is: shouldn't we make a moral choice that you either make defense policy or you profit from it? I think that kind of transparency would be very important to have in the public sphere... Those people who go on CNN and are treated as impartial statesmen when, in reality, the book -- which is triple footnoted and sourced -- suggests otherwise. Like George Shultz or Richard Perle.
Klein: Right. If we look at who the real intellectual engines of this war are, we'd see a web of people who are not simply the statesmen they appear to me but card-carrying members of the disaster capitalism complex -- shareholders, board-members and directors of companies that profit directly and enormously from war and other disasters --
Cusack: Who would these people be..?
Klein: Well, for instance, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was a propaganda arm of the Bush administration, publicly making the case for the invasion of Iraq. And it was founded by Bruce Jackson, a vice president of Lockheed Martin who had been out of his job for just three months. Jackson stacked the committee with old colleagues from Lockheed -- Charles Kupperman, Lockheed Martin's vice president for space and strategic missiles was on it, and so was Douglas Graham, Lockheed's director of defense systems. And even though the committee was formed at the explicit request of the White House to make the case for war in the public mind, no one had to step down from Lockheed or sell his shares. Which was certainly good for committee members, since Lockheed's share price jumped 145 percent thanks to the war they helped engineer -- from $41 in March 2003 to $102 in February 2007. The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was chaired by George Shultz, who wrote op-eds and went on TV beating the drums, and was presented just as this respected statesman. But Shultz hasn't been in office for decades. And in the meantime, he'd been working for Bechtel -- at the time he was calling for the invasion, he was still on its board, and since Bechtel is a privately held company, we don't know anything about his holdings. We do know that Bechtel was one of the biggest winners of the reconstruction game in Iraq, landing $2.3-billion in contracts.
Cusack: How about James Baker and the $1 billion that the Carlyle Group used him to try to get from the government of Kuwait, which you wrote about in The Nation?
Klein: Right. I talk about the incredible power of the "formers." One of the distinguishing features of the Bush administration has been its reliance on outside advisers and freelance envoys to perform key functions: James Baker, Paul Bremer, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Richard Perle, Bruce Jackson, and so on. So you have Congress playing a rubber-stamp role during the pivotal decision-making years, and Supreme Court rulings treated as little more than gentle suggestions, while these mostly volunteer advisers have wielded enormous influence, especially when it comes to Iraq. Their power stems from the fact that they used to perform key roles in government -- they are former secretaries of state, former ambassadors and former undersecretaries of defense. All have been out of government for years and, in the meantime, have set up lucrative careers in the disaster capitalism complex. And because they are freelance government contractors, they aren't subject to the same conflict-of-interest rules as elected or appointed politicians. The effect has been to eliminate the so-called revolving door between government and industry and allow the disaster industries to simply set up shop inside the government, using the reputations of these supposedly illustrious ex-politicians as cover.
As you say, in the press, they maintain their credibility as statesmen -- their current, far more relevant work in the corporate world is almost never mentioned. You brought up Baker. He was Bush's debt envoy to Iraq while he was still a partner in the Carlyle Group, which is a major arms trader whose fortunes have exploded since the war. He was also still a partner at Baker Botts, which represents some of the largest oil companies in the world, as well as Halliburton. Kissinger is another classic example of the power of the formers because he's primarily been a businessman, not a statesman, now for some 25 years. He met with Bush and Cheney regularly making Iraq policy -- according to Bob Woodward, more than any other advisor. But who was he representing in those meetings? Kissinger has repeatedly put his business interests ahead of the public interest, most dramatically when he resigned as chair of the 9/11 Commission rather than disclose his list of corporate clients at Kissinger Associates.
Another example is Richard Perle. Richard Perle headed the Defense Policy Board. Just two months after 9/11 he launched a venture capital firm called Trireme Partners that exists to invest in the homeland security and defense sectors. One of his first investors was Boeing -- it sunk $20 million in Trireme. Meanwhile, Perle is using the Defense Policy Board to make the case for war. And of course Boeing was another one of the huge winners from the invasion of Iraq.
So I asked the question, "Why is it that we refer to Richard Perle merely as an ideologue -- rather than, say, as an arms dealer with an impressive vocabulary?"
Cusack: The question becomes one of intellectual honesty and basic morality. I wanted to talk about the players or the heirs of the Friedman legacy who are in the public sector today... The Grover Norquists and Bill Kristols of the world come to mind ...You also talk about the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute as pursuing the goal of the elimination of the public sphere and the total liberation of corporations.
Klein: I refer to the people in those places think tanks -- as people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks, because a huge amount of the funding for these think tanks is coming directly from the weapons and homeland security industry. They are funded by some of the wealthiest families and the wealthiest corporations in this country so the question of intellectual honesty really has to come up. They exist in a strange intellectual gray zone where they get money in order to think. And besides, I'm not sure thinking really belongs in tanks.
Cusack: So you're saying that the Shultzes and the Perles and the Kissingers and the Jim Bakers of the world are embedded in the homeland security/privatized war economy?
Klein: More than embedded. I mean, they are it.
Cusack: I was trying to --
[laughter ]
Klein: Why are you trying to be polite?
Cusack: I don't know. That's part of the problem, too: being polite with this immorality and not having the courage to call something what it is...The refusal of the Congress to challenge Bush in a meaningful way is proof of the Democratic complicity in the new economy. To name only right wing people is to ignore the central thesis of intellectual honesty as the first step in a long corrective march... So we'll have to talk about what Democrats are in on this and game and name them too... we'll have to get into that later.
Over at Huffington Post John Cusack has posted a video interview he did with her and this today, is a follow-up conversation which basically continued after the cameras stopped rolling. I re-print it here in it's entirety:
]
I hope you've checked out the video of my conversation with Naomi Klein. If you haven't, click here.
But after the camera crew stopped rolling, Naomi and I kept talking. Here's a transcript of part of that conversation...
Cusack: One of my favorite quotes is from Arthur Miller, who said: "An era can be considered over when its basic illusions have been exhausted." And with The Shock Doctrine, you are basically trying to shatter and obliterate the illusion of the supply side, fundamentalist free market -- this official narrative wherein we not only are supposed to worship free markets that really aren't free, we must actually kill to feed these markets.
What the book rightly asks is: shouldn't we make a moral choice that you either make defense policy or you profit from it? I think that kind of transparency would be very important to have in the public sphere... Those people who go on CNN and are treated as impartial statesmen when, in reality, the book -- which is triple footnoted and sourced -- suggests otherwise. Like George Shultz or Richard Perle.
Klein: Right. If we look at who the real intellectual engines of this war are, we'd see a web of people who are not simply the statesmen they appear to me but card-carrying members of the disaster capitalism complex -- shareholders, board-members and directors of companies that profit directly and enormously from war and other disasters --
Cusack: Who would these people be..?
Klein: Well, for instance, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was a propaganda arm of the Bush administration, publicly making the case for the invasion of Iraq. And it was founded by Bruce Jackson, a vice president of Lockheed Martin who had been out of his job for just three months. Jackson stacked the committee with old colleagues from Lockheed -- Charles Kupperman, Lockheed Martin's vice president for space and strategic missiles was on it, and so was Douglas Graham, Lockheed's director of defense systems. And even though the committee was formed at the explicit request of the White House to make the case for war in the public mind, no one had to step down from Lockheed or sell his shares. Which was certainly good for committee members, since Lockheed's share price jumped 145 percent thanks to the war they helped engineer -- from $41 in March 2003 to $102 in February 2007. The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was chaired by George Shultz, who wrote op-eds and went on TV beating the drums, and was presented just as this respected statesman. But Shultz hasn't been in office for decades. And in the meantime, he'd been working for Bechtel -- at the time he was calling for the invasion, he was still on its board, and since Bechtel is a privately held company, we don't know anything about his holdings. We do know that Bechtel was one of the biggest winners of the reconstruction game in Iraq, landing $2.3-billion in contracts.
Cusack: How about James Baker and the $1 billion that the Carlyle Group used him to try to get from the government of Kuwait, which you wrote about in The Nation?
Klein: Right. I talk about the incredible power of the "formers." One of the distinguishing features of the Bush administration has been its reliance on outside advisers and freelance envoys to perform key functions: James Baker, Paul Bremer, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Richard Perle, Bruce Jackson, and so on. So you have Congress playing a rubber-stamp role during the pivotal decision-making years, and Supreme Court rulings treated as little more than gentle suggestions, while these mostly volunteer advisers have wielded enormous influence, especially when it comes to Iraq. Their power stems from the fact that they used to perform key roles in government -- they are former secretaries of state, former ambassadors and former undersecretaries of defense. All have been out of government for years and, in the meantime, have set up lucrative careers in the disaster capitalism complex. And because they are freelance government contractors, they aren't subject to the same conflict-of-interest rules as elected or appointed politicians. The effect has been to eliminate the so-called revolving door between government and industry and allow the disaster industries to simply set up shop inside the government, using the reputations of these supposedly illustrious ex-politicians as cover.
As you say, in the press, they maintain their credibility as statesmen -- their current, far more relevant work in the corporate world is almost never mentioned. You brought up Baker. He was Bush's debt envoy to Iraq while he was still a partner in the Carlyle Group, which is a major arms trader whose fortunes have exploded since the war. He was also still a partner at Baker Botts, which represents some of the largest oil companies in the world, as well as Halliburton. Kissinger is another classic example of the power of the formers because he's primarily been a businessman, not a statesman, now for some 25 years. He met with Bush and Cheney regularly making Iraq policy -- according to Bob Woodward, more than any other advisor. But who was he representing in those meetings? Kissinger has repeatedly put his business interests ahead of the public interest, most dramatically when he resigned as chair of the 9/11 Commission rather than disclose his list of corporate clients at Kissinger Associates.
Another example is Richard Perle. Richard Perle headed the Defense Policy Board. Just two months after 9/11 he launched a venture capital firm called Trireme Partners that exists to invest in the homeland security and defense sectors. One of his first investors was Boeing -- it sunk $20 million in Trireme. Meanwhile, Perle is using the Defense Policy Board to make the case for war. And of course Boeing was another one of the huge winners from the invasion of Iraq.
So I asked the question, "Why is it that we refer to Richard Perle merely as an ideologue -- rather than, say, as an arms dealer with an impressive vocabulary?"
Cusack: The question becomes one of intellectual honesty and basic morality. I wanted to talk about the players or the heirs of the Friedman legacy who are in the public sector today... The Grover Norquists and Bill Kristols of the world come to mind ...You also talk about the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute as pursuing the goal of the elimination of the public sphere and the total liberation of corporations.
Klein: I refer to the people in those places think tanks -- as people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks, because a huge amount of the funding for these think tanks is coming directly from the weapons and homeland security industry. They are funded by some of the wealthiest families and the wealthiest corporations in this country so the question of intellectual honesty really has to come up. They exist in a strange intellectual gray zone where they get money in order to think. And besides, I'm not sure thinking really belongs in tanks.
Cusack: So you're saying that the Shultzes and the Perles and the Kissingers and the Jim Bakers of the world are embedded in the homeland security/privatized war economy?
Klein: More than embedded. I mean, they are it.
Cusack: I was trying to --
[laughter ]
Klein: Why are you trying to be polite?
Cusack: I don't know. That's part of the problem, too: being polite with this immorality and not having the courage to call something what it is...The refusal of the Congress to challenge Bush in a meaningful way is proof of the Democratic complicity in the new economy. To name only right wing people is to ignore the central thesis of intellectual honesty as the first step in a long corrective march... So we'll have to talk about what Democrats are in on this and game and name them too... we'll have to get into that later.
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