I've spent a lot of time changing the look today. I'll have news tomorrow before noon, maybe midnight. I'll make the update extra good.

"ISTANBUL, June 29 -- President Bush criticized unnamed U.S. allies in the Middle East for compromising with extremists and suppressing dissent and called on the Islamic world to move toward democracy as a way to safeguard the United States and reduce violence in the Middle East.


Speaking in front of a waterfront mosque, Bush said that leaders throughout the Middle East, "including some friends of the United States, must recognize the direction of the events of the day. Any nation that compromises with violent extremists only emboldens them and invites future violence.

"Suppressing dissent only increases radicalism. The long-term stability of any government depends on being open to change and responsive to citizens."

Bush did not specify which U.S. allies he was referring to, but an aide and outside experts said that Saudi Arabia was among them..." Washington Post

This sounds so like the Bush Administration. Well, any presidential administration from the last half of the 20th century, too. I detect a noticeable pattern. Start war with some foreign country, preferably full of non-white people in war-torn lands that contain an essential resource (bonus points if the country has a dictatorship and lies on an oil reserve). Then, we fuck all our ties with our allies, maybe experience some economic problems, hopefully profit from the plundering and smooth over any rough edges with US media (avoiding nation building or reconstruction) before the election, then repeat.

Right now, if the pattern holds true, the current administration would likely need some kind of distraction from all the post-war chaos that really doesn't go over too well with the media. So, they have to give them something tough to swallow or easy to choke on to keep them quiet concerning things like nation-building and democracy. So, he distracts them by pointing out faults in allies and praising countries that cooperate, like Turkey. However, I find irony in something in the article:

Bush called a democratic transformation of the Middle East "one of the great and difficult tasks of history."

"Nations in the region will have greater stability because governments will have greater legitimacy," he said. "And nations like Turkey and America will be safer, because a hopeful Middle East will no longer produce ideologies and movements that seek to kill our citizens."

If I remember correctly, Turkey was only an ally in the war and occupation because their government supported it even when an overwhelming majority of the people were opposed to it. So - let's try really hard to make some sense of this one here- he praises Turkey's support in the war and its democracy even though the support in the war was done very anti-democratically. I can't even come up with an abstract metaphor to help rationalize it. It's like enjoying a diet beverage with your cheeseburger and french fries because it's healthier than regular soda, only the diet soda is laced with chemicals that will make you sick and die sooner. Or something perhaps even more insane than that. Hell, the more I think about it, the less I understand it. That's how crazy it is.

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Atrocities continue in Sudan.

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The corporate bastards in NYC know peoplez gonna fuck some shit up at the RNC. Theyaz preppin.

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The Economist has an interesting article about the economic crisis in Zimbabwe. Their leader, who "wants to drive away his middle class and keep a frightened and starving peasantry in his thrall," is a total kook. He is also an African Hitler if I ever saw one.


sean says, "hes like im gonna give ya the claw!"

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The Army still defends its plans for the involuntary call to service that would "mobilize involuntarily 5,600 retired or discharged soldiers" from a pool of 111,000 people. It's like the draft for people that already got screwed by serving in the military.

Let Freedom Reign

I'm sure just about everyone heard about Iraq being granted it's "sovereignty" two days ahead of what was previously scheduled, but I don't think the major media have held this under much scrutiny. Just what does sovereignty mean?

The handover is allegedly a "key path to democracy in Iraq," but the reign of the democracy only extends as far as the shackles of the occupier will allow it. Perhaps liberators intended to give Iraq more than democracy like the benefit of "the imposition of emergency laws, including curfews," and the privelige of "160,000 U.S.-led foreign troops" of which the new democracy will have no control over, probably for security reasons.

Damn, security must be nice for the Iraqis. I mean, they get the privelige of democracy and the security of being "barred from making long-term policy decisions" and the "interim government will not be able to amend the interim constitution." There is a law that " restricts certain candidates from running for office" for an even more secure democrracy. Also, the prime minister of the interim government is unsure of when it will be safe for the new election to be held, and that their elections may be "postponed until February or March," even though the United Nations said there was to be an election no later than January 31.

These privelidges are not only for the Iraqis, though. Western contractors were given " immunity from Iraqi law while performing their jobs in Iraq"

As Bush put it after Condoleeza Rice informed him of the handover, "Let freedom reign."

According to AP:

This is a historical day ... a day that all Iraqis have been looking forward to," said Iraqi President Ghazi Al-Yawer. "This is a day we are going to take our country back into the international forum.

However:

There was little initial public reaction to the near-secret transfer ceremony, which was broadcast on Iraqi and Arabic satellite television stations. There was no celebratory gunfire — which rattles through Baghdad when Iraq's national soccer team defeats foreign clubs. - AP

Indeed, Mr. President. Let freedom reign.

Good news about the Prison Industrial Complex?

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said Wednesday that society should re-examine how it spends money and makes choices about who goes to prison, how long they stay and what happens when they get out.

He accepted the first copy of a report from the American Bar Association, which found that many get-tough approaches to crime don't work and some, such as mandatory minimum sentences for small-time drug offenders, are unfair and should be abolished.

Laws requiring mandatory minimum prison terms leave little room to consider differences among crimes and criminals, an ABA commission studying problems in the criminal justice system found. More people are behind bars for longer terms, but it is unclear whether the country is safer as a result, the ABA said." -- AP thru Infoshop.

Finally someone with some authority has realized that prisons aren't really an answer to most crime, and that the costs- which have gone up 400% between 1982 and 1999- aren't really worth it as we may not be safer. Kennedy said, "Society ought to ask itself how it's allocating its resources," and that "The phrase 'tough on crime' should not be a substitute for moral reflection," as the study found that the exponential incrase in spending on mass incarceration has had no notable positive impact on society, although there are notable negative socio-economic implications. The ABA's study found that the probability of someone being prisoned in their lifetime tripled from 1974 to 2001 and also made note of the inherent unfairness toward blacks and latinos. Hopefully this will go through and alleviate some of the pains of the (lack of) justic system in America. No more prisons.
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"WASHINGTON )— Secretary of State Colin Powell says Arab militias attacking and destroying villages in the Sudan is a "catastrophe." The State Department calls it "ethnic cleansing."

The Sudanese government has been turning a blind eye — or in some cases, even supporting the militias — while making it very difficult to get humanitarian aid to its suffering people.

Crops, cattle and irrigation systems have been destroyed and more than 1 million Africans there have become refugees. The Agency for International Development (search) says 350,000 people could die of disease and starvation over the next several months.

Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a congressional delegation led by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., are headed to the Sudanese capital next week to try to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis.

Powell is the highest-ranking U.S. official to go there since the late 1970s. He said he wants to take a particular look at the Darfur (search) region in western Sudan, where hundreds of villages have been attacked by the militias. He also plans to tell Sudanese leaders to "let the aid flow freely." - Fox News.

Hopefully they do something right this time. At Amnesty you can help take action by "urging the Chad government to protect Sudanese refugees."
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"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew much more slowly than previously thought in the first quarter and inflation was higher, a government report showed on Friday."
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Apparently a nice dog prevented a killing spree in Toronto.
It looks like people just need a little love in their lives sometimes.

Edit: Damn, I need to stop writing these so late at night. I accidentally called the prison industrial complex the military industrial complex. How'd that slip through?

Wow. It seems like Bush is ahead in a certain poll conducted by Fox News. Granted, it was only 900 selected registered voters, but it is still frightening nonetheless. I suppose I could say that it's frightening that Kerry also has a big following. If I was old enough, I'd surely vote for the lesser of the two "weevils," but this is an opinion poll; I'm disappointed that Dennis Kucinich wasn't on there. I mean, come on. This is surely an example of the media fixing the election. ;)

Hmmm... here's what William Blum has to say about a similar poll:
"Bush-Kerry

Washington Post-ABC News poll, April 15-18:
Bush 48%, Kerry 43%, Nader 6%
45% rate "the war in Iraq" or "the US campaign against terrorism" as the single most important issue in their vote.
Once again, as Harry Truman said, "If you give the voters a choice between a Republican and a Republican, they will choose the Republican every time."
Unless Kerry offers an alternative to Bush's Iraq policy, he may be doomed. The only real alternative is to withdraw from Iraq, like Spain is doing. But if Kerry suddenly called for that his credibility would plummet.
Posted by William Blum at 12:13 PM."

I pretty much agree with what he says. I'd like to make note of the Fox News article, though. Of those polled, 75% of the Bush supporters supported him "strongly," while 53% of Kerry's backers support him strongly, 45% "only somewhat." I'd say that this is a pretty sure sign of a weakness on the democrats' side. I mean, the number of people backing their party is probably as strong as ever, but it seems like a lot of the Democratic supporters only support Kerry as a means to get Bush out of power, not as an ideal leader. I think it's a sign of the political process falling apart.

Clearly, people are feeling less loyal to the metaphorical abstractions -the jackass and the elephant- that allegedly embody certain political ideals. I sense that this means people are becoming more interested in the actual politcal processes as opposed to the ideologies and the people that represent them. This means an actual methodological approach to politics in this country and hopefully the collapse of partisan politics as we know it. Maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion, but history does tend to repeat itself(especially when it comes to the executive office), and elections like the ones we've been having have at typically led to at least a minor reform in parties, the creation of new parties, deaths of parties, and an overhaul of party politics. There are the Democrats, New Democrats, Republicans, New Repubilicans, Greens, Independents, Neo-liberal conservative Republican Fascists, Banana Republicans, Franco-furters, clandestine white supremicist Republicans and Democrats, wannabe Progressive Democrats, Republicans - that - pretend - to - care - about - the - democratic - process - in - things - like - campaign - finance - reform - but - really - just - want - to - hide - their - corruption (informally referred to as the John McCains), etc. (Please don't think that all of those are real.)

Anyways, people can argue about whether or not we live in a one-party or two-party system all they want, but I'm gonna settle this once and for all: To most of the politicians, it's all one big party (think record producers living it up with artists' money), and theyaz just doin' it fo' tha luv of tha $$$.

editor's note: some of the above may or may not be satire. just know this: the truth hurts.
and save the harsh criticism for another day. it's my birthday.

Politically motivated crimes seem to have politically motivated sentences....

I've been thinking about the unfariness of the criminal justice system in this country lately. Namely, with the politically motivated crimes receiving much harsher sentences. Granted, it seems reasonable to punish a man for burning other people's property, but giving him a sentence that is almost 3 times as long as rape or attempted murder for a property crime in which he was careful not to harm anyone is definitely unreasonable. Jim Luers' story is old news (still a pressing issue; he's been in prison for 4 years and has 18 to go), but it's still happening with activists all over, like the artist being accused of bioterrorism for an anti-war project and a slew of others.

Also, I just stumbled upon this frightening shit on Infoshop:

" Jeanne Lenzer

New York

A sweeping mental health initiative will be unveiled by President George W Bush in July. The plan promises to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," according to a March 2004 progress report entitled New Freedom Initiative (www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/toc-2004.html). While some praise the plan's goals, others say it protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.

Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 to conduct a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system." The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003. Bush instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan based on those recommendations.

The president's commission found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children. According to the commission, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and emotional disorders." Schools, wrote the commission, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.
....
Dr Darrel Regier, director of research at the American Psychiatric Association (APA), lauded the president's initiative and the Texas project model saying, "What's nice about TMAP is that this is a logical plan based on efficacy data from clinical trials."

He said the association has called for increased funding for implementation of the overall plan.

But the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, sparked off controversy when Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and perks from drug companies with a stake in the medication algorithm (15 May, p1153). He was sacked this week for speaking to the BMJ and the New York Times.

The Texas project started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. The project was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grant—and by several drug companies."

I don't like this. I can smell through the bullshit public interest rhetoric. This project reeks of lost liberties and government spying, not too mention pork barelling. I think this calls for a big WTF?!?!!!!111one

Happy Anti-Fascist struggle day! :)

Yeah, that's right. Today is a holiday in Croatia honoring the struggle against fascism. Also, 179 years ago today, the British Parliament abolished feudalism and the seigneurial system. That's a pretty cool thing to celebrate. Who knows? Maybe someday we'll abolish neoliberalism and corporations? [!hope]*


In other news, the job market is still going to crap:

"The U.S. labour market -- while finally experiencing increases in job creation -- has also seen a dramatic drop in employment quality, with low-paying jobs elbowing aside higher-paying ones, CIBC World Markets said yesterday.

The brokerage's employment quality index -- which measures the overall tone of the market by looking at things such as compensation, job stability and the mix of full-time and part-time employment -- fell by eight points between 2001 and 2004, a decline CIBC called dramatic.

The slide occurred largely because of the "swapping of high-paying for low-paying jobs" with gains coming from traditionally lower-paying sectors like hospitality and education, while better-paying jobs in areas such as transportation, manufacturing and natural resources disappeared, CIBC said.

The brokerage also found that the average wage in sectors that gained jobs over the past three years was 30 per cent lower than the average wage in industries that lost jobs.
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"The message is clear," CIBC World Markets economist Benjamin Tal said. "The vast majority of jobs that evaporated during the 'job-loss' recovery were high-quality jobs.""

Those are definitely surefire signs of the distribution of wealth being less equitable. There is a decline in decent paying jobs which is of course accompanied by the increase in low-paying jobs while the CEOs seem to be getting raises. Wait? Is that even news? It's been happening for a while now. Also, my friend showed me this cool graph the other day that basically shows how, even though the minimum wage has gone up recently, the value in actual dollars has been in steady decline or stagnation since 1978 due to inflation, and has in fact only increased by one penny since 1955.

P.S. Tomorrow marks the 13th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis in North America. That game pwns!

*mad homage to sean, by the way

"Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned."-H.H.

Sorry about the lack of updates for the past couple days. My internet was down Saturday night and all of Sunday as well as part of today.

As usual, there's a lot of horrible shit going down and the war seems to be getting worse, but I'd rather be hopeful right now. Here's something to think about:

"We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are "news"; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and , therefore, largely ignored." -H.H. The 14th Dalai Lama

You said what now?

"ASTANA, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Russia warned the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that Iraq's Saddam Hussein planned to hit targets on U.S. soil, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Putin's remarks looked certain to help President Bush, but officials at the State Department expressed surprise, saying they knew of no such information from Russia.

Putin said Russian intelligence had been told on several occasions that Saddam's special forces were preparing to attack U.S. targets inside and outside the United States." - Reuters

Interesting revelation. I mean, Russia is a pretty respectable ally. I'm sure that our president - as intelligent as he is - would have most certainly informed at least the higher-ups that deal with national security of this information. And once that word got out, there would have been some kind of national emergency dealing with Iraq being an imminent threat. But apparently it's not very hard to prove me wrong. (from the same article by Raushan Nurshayeva)

""This information was passed on to our American colleagues," he said. He added, however, that Russian intelligence had no proof that Saddam's agents had been involved in any particular attack.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters he did not know anything about the information that Putin said Russia passed on. No such information was communicated from Russia through the State Department, he said.

"Everybody's scratching their heads," said one State Department official, who asked not to be named.

But the Kremlin leader's comments seemed certain to bolster Bush, whose campaign for re-election in November is under pressure from the Iraq crisis.

Bush has been on the defensive at home for insisting -- against the findings of an independent commission -- that Saddam had links with al Qaeda, the militant group behind the 2001 airline attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people and prompted the U.S. war on terrorism.

Putin's remarks were all the more unusual since Russia had diplomatic relations with Saddam's Iraq and sided with France and Germany in opposing the invasion."

Well, isn't that just something special. I mean, soon after that, Iraq was alleged to possess stockpiles of WMDs and was labeled (although denied later) an imminent threat to the United States. Many people were skeptical of such claims. Wouldn't it make sense to pass on this information to a skeptical public for some assurance that the administration has its shit together?

Call me a skeptic, un-American terrorist, but I suspect that this is just another sign that the prez is desperate because his war and presidency is falling apart. It's a pretty clever scheme and damn, that election is getting pretty close.

"Responding to the latest challenge to his policy in Iraq, Bush asserted that there were "numerous contacts" between Saddam and al Qaeda operatives that justified the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaida is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," the Republican president told reporters after meeting with his Cabinet." -Reuters

All this despite the reports by the 9-11 commission and most reasonable critiques of US foreign policy post 9/11.

I'm not sure what to do, but blaming people isn't going to stop suicide bombers from killing innocent people.

"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombers killed 41 people in two strikes on Iraq's fledgling security forces Thursday, stepping up a bloody drive to sabotage plans for U.S.-led occupation to give way to Iraqi rule on June 30."

And of course there's the 9/11 commission that determined that our air defense systems weren't prepared for the hi-jackings. I'm not sure how to take it. It seems to me that no matter how advanced our systems are -even if we had some fucking Death Star in orbit of above the continent- it wouldn't actually prevent people from attacking our country in the first place.

Okay, I need to pay attention to the spellchecker. It changed "Qaeda" to "Quaida." That's pretty stupid. I can understand not recongnizing the former, but why would it recommend the latter?

Secret arrests?

Okay, I knew things were bad when the 2002 Justice Department memo to the CIA leaked and showed how the administration found ways around the Geneva Conventions to justify the use of torture on detainees and I didn't think things could have gotten worse, but apparently the State knows no limit to the obstruction of justice, as the Pentagon confirmed that Secretary of Defense Ronald Rumsfeld "ordered the secret detainment of an Iraqi prisoner, a condition in violation of the Geneva Convention." (Wikipedia)

Scary indeed. First the torture, then the secret arrests. The only thing left to do is start making people disappear.

Well, the NBA Finals are over and Detroit won. People are shocked, "How did they beat the Lakers so easily?" Solidarity, motherfuckers. Solidarity.

Welcome.

This is my blog where I'm going to talk about a lot of random things. My mind is a mob let loose when it comes to writing things, so it's hard for me to stay committed to writing in a certain style or with a limited range of content. Anyways, forget the introductions, I'll show you by example.

Right now the blog is called "Tierra Y Libertad" because I like it. It was the motto of Emiliano Zapata (it means Land and Liberty), a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution and an influence to a lot of indigenous civil rights movements in Mexico. For years he campaigned for the rights of the Indians of Morelos gain their land back from the hacendados who had stolen their land attacked their people(one group of hacendados burned down an entire village). However, the government hesitated to help the indigenous cause and the people could no longer stand the oppression of the hacendados, so Zapata led an armed force to take the land back for the Indians. It is a brutal history, but I feel the need to honor the courage of Zapata and the Indians who struggled persistently to defend their rights.

However, with that, we should remind ourselves the importance of non-violence in our struggles. Mad homage to passive resistence and civil disobedience (but to the Black Bloc, "un-arresting" is pretty damn cool).

"Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth."
The Dhammapada