Marine Sergeant - Honour and the US Military Occupy Wall Street

How I wish this big bad motherfucker had employed some other word than the one he has no right to use in the slightest; honour. Because... well I don't have to explain it do I? I will leave that to Bill Hicks in the third clip.

Other than that, I'm with him all the way.

Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas, of Roosevelt, NY, exercises his first amendment right to tell the NYPD to stop beating unarmed people who are exercising their first amendment rights:

Yes, you do just that Lord.

While I go and piss blood.

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Women's Reproductive Rights: America The Next Nicaragua

Generally speaking, men shouldn't be within a hundred feet of issues surrounding women's reproductive rights. Politicians shouldn't be within a thousand yards, and US politicians shouldn't be within a thousand miles of them. Because there is a no more disingenuous festering bowl of pus on this earth than the American politician.

One only has to remember the case of Terri Schiavo to have that confirmed. For those not familiar with that appalling spectacle; Terri Schiavo was a cabbage, a carcass kept functioning by purely artificial means. A carcass that is until she became cause celebre and political tool for every cheap huckster in congress. Congress in actual fact being recalled to make cheap politics over the affair. George Bush cut short his holiday to fly back to Washington to get involved, that should tell you enough, fuck me! he didn't manage to do that when Louisiana was drowning.

And the bottom line to all this, when they finally autopsied the woman? She had an atrophied brain the size of a walnut, she had been clinically dead for years. Government involvement in the Terri Schiavo case

Watch these three short clips and then tell me that men should debate women's issues. Nor for that matter, batshit crazy evangelical, concerned vaginas for America




Frist Diagnosing Terry Schiavo on Senate Floor

George W. Bush Discusses Terri Schiavo: Today millions of Americans are saddened by the death of Terri Schiavo. Laura and I extend our condolences to Terri Schiavo's families. I appreciate the example of grace and dignity they have displayed at a difficult time. I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life. The most solemn duty of the American President is to protect the American people.

George W Bush on the value of life!

Michele Bachmann refers to Terri Schiavo as a "healthy" woman. The audience clearly disagrees.

Do I need to highlight the involvement of Satan's spawn in all this, the Holy Order of misogynist arse bandits, boy buggerers extraordinaire? No, one only has to read the Nicaragua post to lay the blame at the right door.

Congress Contemplates Brutal Anti-Abortion Law
By Rick Ungar
Oct. 12, 2011

In what would be a major and potentially deadly change in American healthcare policy, The House of Representatives will take up H.R. 358 —The Protect Life Act—this week. The bill would permit federally funded hospitals to refuse abortion services even to women who would likely die without the procedure.

As the law currently stands, hospitals are required by EMTALA to provide emergency care to anyone who walks through their doors. If a hospital is unable or unwilling to perform a necessary procedure, it is obligated to stabilize the patient and then transfer the individual to a facility that can perform the procedure and agrees to do so. As a result of the EMTALA requirements, the 600 plus Catholic hospitals in the nation who are unwilling to perform abortions on religious grounds, even in life-threatening circumstances to the mother, are obligated to transfer that patient in need of such a procedure to a hospital that agrees to perform the required operation.

If The Protect Life Act were to pass, this would no longer be the case. Hospitals that do not care to perform abortions, for whatever reason and even when the procedure is required to save the life of the mother, would be legally permitted to simply do nothing.

While one might anticipate that hospitals refusing to perform abortions would transfer a patient in life-threatening circumstances to a facility willing to perform the abortion, I wouldn't be so sure.

In 2009, a Phoenix-based Catholic bishop excommunicated Sister Margaret McBride, an administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital, for authorizing an abortion in the case of a woman who was suffering from pulmonary hypertension and was likely to die without the procedure. In stating his reasons for this extreme act, the Archdiocese issued a statement saying, in part:

An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother's life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.

The direct killing of an unborn child is always immoral, no matter the circumstances, and it cannot be permitted in any institution that claims to be authentically Catholic.

Given this line of thought, should The Protect Life Act become the law, it seems unlikely that such a Catholic institution would voluntarily send a patient over to another facility knowing that an abortion was going to take place.

And the bill doesn't stop at allowing hospitals to let mothers face death. It would also deny federal funding to a health care plan that offers to pay for abortion services even in life-threatening circumstances.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice-president for communications at Planned Parenthood, summed it up quite nicely:

This is just a demolition derby for women's health care. To first say, 'We won't even treat you if you show up needing a life-saving abortion,' and then to eliminate health insurance that might have saved your family from bankruptcy is a real one-two gut punch to women in these tough economic times.

So, how is it that the sponsors and backers of this bill happen to be the same people who constantly rail against government intruding in our lives yet would now empower medical facilities to allow a woman to die if their respective religious beliefs do not match up?

Demolition derby, indeed. motherjones

Related: Of Abortion, and Women as the Ultimate Source of Evil by Arthur Silber

- - -

A re-up from October 2007

"Here there is a lot of religiosity but only a little Christianity." : Nicaragua

Why I hate Religion, chapter Six Hundred and Sixty Six.


Last November it became a crime for a woman to have an abortion in Nicaragua, even if her life was in mortal danger. So far it has resulted in the death of at least 82 women. Rory Carroll reports on the fight to have the law changed

González was not stupid and did not want to die. She knew her chance of surviving the butchery was small. But being a practical woman, she recognised it was her only chance, and took it. The story of why it was her only chance is an unfolding drama of religion, politics and power that has made Nicaragua a crucible in the global battle over abortion rights. This central American country has become the third country in the world, after Chile and El Salvador, to criminalise all abortions. It is a blanket ban. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or life- or health-threatening pregnancies.



Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the ban but added that women should not suffer or die as a result. "In this regard, it is essential to increase the assistance of the state and of society itself to women who have serious problems during pregnancy."more

And with those words washed his hands of all moral obligation to women.

it is essential to increase the assistance of the state and of society itself to women who have serious problems during pregnancy."

It's Nicaragua you disingenuous fuckdog, the second poorest country in Latin America.

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American Cancer Society: The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure

The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.

This is not the first time that I have quoted these very words, employing them now on two previous occasions, and latterly quite recently. The bit that is relevant I reproduce here.

That's the trouble with (self righteous) principles, they do tend to get in the way of purpose.

I have just done a little search of the web, looking for the story of Mandy Rice-Davies in order to use it analogously with how I perceive this statement from Greenpeace. I was then, having found a reference, going to write a few words on charities and my relationship with them. Funny then, that the Google search threw up these few lines on the very subject, not so funny though, that I can't even remember writing them, but write them I did, back in 2005, albeit under a different handle.

And the hooker? yes, she still haunts me on occasion.

~

"The sick do not ask if the hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known sin"


MARKED FOR LIFE.

During the mid sixties two, enthusiastic amateur prostitutes, Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler, gained, in the quintessential English way, great notoriety. The latter was instrumental in bringing the government down.

Whereas a cabinet minister sleeping with a prostitute was hardly new, a cabinet minister sleeping with the same prostitute that was also sleeping with a KGB officer did cause a slight ripple in the then government of Harold McMillan.

Mandy Rice was a beautiful society girl who got her kicks out of hooking. The detail escapes me after so many years, but there was at the time, some terrible famine in the world.

Mandy held a hunt ball, the proceeds to go to Oxfam, the largest famine relief charity in the UK. Now I don't think you have to be in possession of a crystal ball to see where this story is headed. Sure enough Oxfam were too righteous to accept the money.

From that day to this, not one copper penny have I donated to organised charities, (the lifeboat service apart and latterly SSCS)

This attitude being further hardened over the years, when a fellow wises up to the constitutional set-up of some of these so called charities. Ten cents on the dollar, or two bob in the pound so to speak, being considered the best return the object of the charity might possibly hope to receive. The rest of the revenue going to the executive, enabling them to live high on the hog off the donations people had made in good faith. To wit.

All my giving since, has been to the man and woman on the street. I have given directly to those in need.

Whilst I am writing of money and prostitutes, I want to try and get rid of a ghost:

Amsterdam, six am. I am approached by a hooker, a poor wretch of a woman offering her services. Said offer was always going to be doomed to failure, she being possessed of both eyes and both legs, and me being totally off my face.

But there was a fear and hopelessness in those eyes. It was obvious she dare not go home without turning a trick. I could well have afforded to have given her the money and sent her home, I didn't. It haunts me still.

- - -

Is Atheist Money Too Controversial for the American Cancer Society?

The American Cancer Society may have turned down a potential half-million dollar donation because it came from a non-theistic organization.
October 10, 2011

I'll say this clearly, right up front: The American Cancer Society did not explicitly reject a massive donation offer from a non-theistic organization on the basis of it being a non-theistic organization.

That was not the stated reason given for rejecting a matching offer of $250,000 from the Foundation Beyond Belief and the Todd Stiefel Foundation to sponsor a national team in the upcoming Relay for Life. (An offer that, as a matching offer, was likely to bring in a total of half a million dollars for the American Cancer Society.) Nobody at the ACS has ever said, in words, "We don't want our organization to be associated with atheists. It's too controversial. We don't want atheist money." And when asked if this was the case, they have denied it.

It's just difficult to reach any other conclusion. In the place of clear explanations, there has been an ongoing series of evasions, imprecisions, conflicting answers, moved goalposts, apathy, and even hostility.

Here's the deal. A few months ago, Todd Stiefel -- philanthropist and founder of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation, which provides financial support to atheist and other nonprofit and charitable organizations -- approached the American Cancer Society with an offer. He wanted local atheist groups around the world to participate in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life program, as a national team, under the banner of the humanist charitable organization Foundation Beyond Belief. In order to make this happen, he made a generous offer: a $250,000 matching offer from the Todd Stiefel Foundation, which, as a matching offer, was likely to bring in a half million dollars to the American Cancer Society.

And he was stonewalled.

The offer was initially approved, and the Foundation Beyond Belief even brought on an intern to manage the program. But then the American Cancer Society stopped responding. Repeated emails and phone calls from Stiefel were not returned for over a month. And the eventual responses from the ACS ranged from apathetic at best to hostile at worst. As Stiefel told AlterNet:

Reuel Johnson of ACS was completely disinterested in the matching gift. He made no effort to try to gain the money and attempted to ignore that the offer was even made. When I brought it up to him, he referred to it as merely "fine" and then started complaining about how it was a hassle to ACS to have to try to track the challenge. Of course, it should not have to be a hassle; they have an automated system to track team and individual performance. I don't know why he acted like this, but something clearly was amiss.

After many go-arounds, Stiefel was finally told no. He was told that the Relay for Life program was focusing on corporate sponsors for the National Team program, and was no longer including nonprofits in the program. Despite the massive size of the offer from the Stiefel Foundation -- and despite the fact that several nonprofits are currently participating in the program, including Girl Scouts of the USA, Phi Theta Kappa and DeMolay International -- the ACS insisted that nonprofit participation in this program wasn't cost-effective, and would no longer be welcome.

Every attempt to find an alternative form of participation for the Foundation Beyond Belief was stymied. Stiefel offered to participate as a corporate team, since the FBB is a 501(c)(3) corporation. This offer was rejected. Stiefel asked if they could simply be put on the drop-down list of national team partners (which, again, does include several nonprofits). This offer was rejected. Stiefel even offered to have the FBB participate as a National Youth Partner -- they have a network of hundreds of non-theist youth groups who were eager to participate. This offer was rejected, in an especially contradictory series of statements, first telling Stiefel that the youth program was being accelerated, then saying it was being de-emphasized.

he American Cancer Society was certainly happy to accept a $250,000 donation from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation and/or the Foundation Beyond Belief. They made that very clear. They just weren't willing to let them have any sort of national participation in the Relay for Life. They could participate at the local level only. (You can read more detailed background on this story, including comments from both Stiefel and the American Cancer Society, at the Friendly Atheist blog, here, here, and here.)

Now, in case you're wondering if this is standard behavior, find someone who works as a development director for a nonprofit. Ask her what her response would be to a $250,000 matching offer from a philanthropic foundation. And ask if her organization would be drooling, celebrating wildly, and bending over backward to make it happen -- or if they would be evading, delaying, dodging, deflecting, changing their stories, treating the potential benefactor with irritation and dismissal, and finding an endless series of excuses for not accepting the offer?

And now ask: Why did it unfold this way with the American Cancer Society and the Foundation Beyond Belief?

Is it because the Foundation Beyond Belief are atheists?

For those who might be thinking this is just paranoia, a bit of context: Anti-atheist bigotry is an unfortunate reality. And even among people and organizations who aren't personally bigoted, atheists are still frequently seen as bringing unwanted controversy. Atheists put up billboards saying simply, "You can be good without God" -- and people freak out. Atheists march in a Christmas parade -- and people freak out. Atheist veterans march in a Memorial Day parade -- and get booed to their faces. Atheist students in public high schools try to organize groups -- and get routinely stonewalled by their school administrations. Atheists try to take out ads on buses -- and the bus company changes their policy and stops accepting any ads from religious organizations, just so they don't have to run ads from atheists. Atheists get threatened, hounded from their communities, disowned by their parents, denied custody of their children, when they come out as atheists. Atheists customarily get treated as if association with them is a potentially controversial embarrassment at best, a dangerous toxin at worst.

So it's not unreasonable to think that an individual might be personally disinclined to have any dealings with atheists... or that an organization might want to avoid any public association with atheists, for fear of blowback. In fact, just a year and a half ago, the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union rejected a donation from atheist organizations... not because they personally had anything against atheists, but because, "the majority of Mississippians tremble in terror at the word 'atheist.'" (A decision that, to their credit, they later rescinded.) If the freaking ACLU is reluctant to be associated with atheist money because it's too controversial, it's not unreasonable to think the American Cancer Society might be as well.

But is that really the case? What, exactly, does the American Cancer Society have to say about all this?

Not a lot. When AlterNet contacted the American Cancer Society to comment on this story, Reuel Johnson, the primary person Stiefel had been dealing with over this matter, declined to be interviewed. Instead, the ACS gave this response:

Over the past several months the American Cancer Society has engaged in discussions with Todd Stiefel and the Foundation Beyond Belief regarding a very generous donation offer. We have repeatedly tried to come to an agreement regarding the offer but have been unable to do so. The public debate that has ensued, we believe, undermines the shared passion both organizations have for our mission of saving lives from cancer. Go to page three.

Ref. A woman of No Importance

Update 09-03-15 It never quite struck me before, just what the darling Oscar expected of his players. Learn your lines!

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Julian Assange: America The New Reich - Department of Justice The New Gestapo - Britains Awake!

A follow up to my recent post: John Pilger on The 'Getting' of Assange The Guardian and The US Justice System. A post where I stressed, ''That the United States of America should never be allowed to get into its rancid clutches, the person of Julian Assange.''

You can read this story however you wish, the nuts and bolts of what came to pass, or as Amy Goodman intended, as an expose of what passes for justice in the Land of the Free.

A similar, if not worse fate, awaits Julian Assange should we in Britain, or those in Europe, cave in to the demands of the Great Satan. (Paul Craig Roberts) And Garry whatshisname for that matter?

The Great Satan, Iranian depiction. Which, however true, is a bit rich coming from that quarter.

Iran: The Cruellest Nation The Never Ending Evil

The Cruelest Race

Two Standards of Detention
By Amy Goodman
December 3, 2009

Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion zealot charged with killing Dr. George Tiller, has been busy. He called the Associated Press from the Sedgwick County Jail in Kansas, saying, “I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.” Charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault, he is expected to be arraigned July 28. AP recently reported that Roeder has been proclaiming from his jail cell that the killing of abortion providers is justified. According to the report, the Rev. Donald Spitz of the Virginia-based Army of God sent Roeder seven pamphlets defending “defensive action,” or killing of abortion clinic workers.

Spitz’s militant Army of God Web site calls Roeder an “American hero,” proclaiming, “George Tiller would normally murder between 10 and 30 children … each day … when he was stopped by Scott Roeder.”

The site, with biblical quotes suggesting killing is justified, hosts writings by Paul Hill, who killed Dr. John Britton and his security escort in Pensacola, Fla., and by Eric Rudolph, who bombed a Birmingham, Ala., women’s health clinic, killing its part-time security guard.

On Spitz’s Web site, Rudolph continues to write about abortion: “I believe that deadly force is indeed justified in an attempt to stop it.”



Juxtapose Roeder’s advocacy from jail with the conditions of Fahad Hashmi.

Hashmi is a U.S. citizen who grew up in Queens, N.Y., and went to Brooklyn College. He went to graduate school in Britain and was arrested there in 2006 for allegedly allowing an acquaintance to stay with him for two weeks. That acquaintance, Junaid Babar, allegedly kept at Hashmi’s apartment a bag containing ponchos and socks, which Babar later delivered to an al-Qaida operative. Babar was arrested and agreed to cooperate with the authorities in exchange for leniency.

While the evidence against Hashmi is secret, it probably stems from the claims of the informant Babar.

Fahad Hashmi was extradited to New York, where he has been held in pretrial detention for more than two years. His brother Faisal described the conditions: “He is kept in solitary confinement for two straight years, 23- to 24-hours lockdown. … Within his own cell, he’s restricted in the movements he’s allowed to do. He’s not allowed to talk out loud within his own cell. … He is being videotaped and monitored at all times. He can be punished … denied family visits, if they say his certain movements are martial arts … that they deem as incorrect. He has Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) … against him.”



Hashmi cannot contact the media, and even his lawyers have to be extremely cautious when discussing his case, for fear of imprisonment themselves. His attorney Sean Maher told me: “This issue of the SAMs … of keeping people in solitary confinement when they’re presumed innocent, is before the European Court of Human Rights. They are deciding whether they will prevent any European country from extraditing anyone to the United States if there is a possibility that they will be placed under SAMs … because they see it as a violation … to hold someone in solitary confinement with sensory deprivation, months before trial.”

Similarly, animal rights and environmental activists, prosecuted as “eco-terrorists,” have been shipped to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ new “communication management units” (CMUs). Andrew Stepanian was recently released and described for me the CMU as “a prison within the actual prison. … The unit doesn’t have normal telephone communication to your family … normal visits are denied … you have to make an appointment to make one phone call a week, and that needs to be done with the oversight of … a live monitor.”



Stepanian observed that up to 70 percent of CMU prisoners are Muslim—hence CMU’s nickname, “Little Guantanamo.” As with Hashmi, it seems that the U.S. government seeks to strip terrorism suspects of legal due process and access to the media—whether in Guantanamo or in the secretive new CMUs. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Bureau of Prisons over the CMUs.

Nonviolent activists like Stepanian, and Muslims like Hashmi, secretly and dubiously charged, are held in draconian conditions, while Roeder trumpets from jail the extreme anti-abortion movement’s decades-long campaign of intimidation, vandalism, arson and murder.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” recently released in paperback. The Muslim Observer

h/t Maren

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Ivan Hightower: America is still dead

Well he's not really called Ivan Hightower, but this article falls into my Ivan/China taking the high moral ground category, articles of which I have to say, are becoming ever more common. (Search this blog: high moral ground)

No, as you can see by the header, the author is one, David R. Hoffman. I shall look to him at the bottom of the page, but for the present, if you find yourself on the same hymn-sheet as both Hoffman and myself, you might like to sing along. My emphasis.

America is still dead
David R. Hoffman
03.10.2011

"Greetings:

If you are reading this, the President of the United States has declared you to be a terrorist or enemy combatant. As a result, you will be detained without charge or trial, tortured, and/or extrajudicially executed. You are not entitled to any legal due process, you have no civil rights, and there is absolutely no need for the United States government to prove any of the allegations it has made against you, even if you are a citizen of the United States.

Sincerely, Barack Obama"

Throughout much of its history, America had a Bill of Rights that protected the fundamental freedoms of its citizens, as well as a "check-and-balance" system that ensured no government institution, branch or individual would ever obtain unbridled power.

But all that ended with the recent extrajudicial execution of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. And while most politicians and pundits are opportunistically applauding al-Awlaki's death, a few perceptive Americans are growing increasingly concerned about the unprecedented powers the executive branch of government is assuming.
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Under those powers, American citizens can now be illegally detained, even within America's own borders, as was illustrated in the case of Abdullah al-Kidd, who, despite never being charged with a crime, was held for more than two weeks in high security cells and repeatedly strip-searched and shackled. In addition, American citizens like Bradley Manning and Jose Padilla were tortured in American military prisons, and now American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was deliberately marked for death.

Tragically, but not surprisingly, America's federal judicial system, the branch of government best positioned to halt these abuses, has done everything in its power to ensure that government-sanctioned kidnappers, torturers and murderers evade any semblance of justice.

The United States supreme court, for example, recently proclaimed that al-Kidd could not sue former attorney-general John Ashcroft, the official primarily responsible for al-Kidd's detention and abuse, because Ashcroft was legally "immunized" against such lawsuits; a federal judge in South Carolina dismissed the case filed by torture victim Padilla against former government official Donald Rumsfeld on the grounds that granting Padilla a trial would create "an international spectacle"; and when al-Awlaki's father attempted to have his son's name removed from the American government's "kill list," a federal judge decreed that Anwar al-Awlaki had to argue for this removal himself-a ruling that creates a ludicrous and perverse Catch-22 for persons on this list, because seeking legal redress in America to prevent their extrajudicial executions would also heighten their chances of being extrajudicially executed before they ever reached the courthouse.

The "Nobel Peace Prize Winning" Obama and his cronies have also done everything in their power to promote illegal detentions, torture and the extrajudicial executions of American citizens. Attorney General Eric Holder, a self-professed paradigm of "integrity" who demonstrates far too little of it, refused to prosecute corrupt CIA officials who, in defiance of a court order, destroyed videotapes that depicted the torture of detainees. And, in a revelation exposed by Wikileaks, it was discovered that Obama strong-armed foreign governments to prevent them from filing torture and/or war crimes charges against Bush and/or his minions.
(I think I can stop here, for it's all pretty obvious, especially for those that can carry a tune, it's just a case of finding a suitable hymn for the occasion, but that in itself, might be no easy task.)

But, in at least one respect, Obama may be even worse than Bush, because he is-according to a recent article by Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press-the first United States president in history to intentionally target an American citizen for extrajudicial execution.

George W. Bush once said that terrorists hate America because of its freedoms. But it was Bush and his minions, not the terrorists, who did the most to undermine human rights, democracy and freedom in America. Yet as Obama continues to morph into George W. Bush (as Steven Thomma of McClatchy Newspapers so accurately observed) there has scarcely been a whimper of protest.

What are the reasons behind this deafening silence as America's most basic rights and freedoms are being eroded by the very people sworn to protect them? Why, in a nation that professes to fear the intrusiveness and overreaching of "big" government, aren't the streets overrun with protesters enraged about the unchecked and unconstitutional powers the president of the United States has usurped? Why isn't there commensurate outrage directed against the corrupt legal system, led by amoral men like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy, who are not only enabling governmental abuses of power, but incessantly dismantling democracy and fundamental freedoms as well? Why are Americans so comfortable with the fact that torturers, war criminals, and murderers can not only evade justice, but also live freely among them?

One possible reason is that freedom to most Americans simply means the ability to conspicuously consume. Almost all the recent protests over health care reform and government spending are really about one thing: The desire to pay less in taxes, because paying less tax means having more disposable income to purchase that bigger house, fancier car, and whatever new trinkets modern technology offers. And as long as one is watching that big screen television, playing with that IPad, or "tweeting" that celebrity, it's easy to remain oblivious to the fact that your countrymen are being tortured and killed by their own government, your freedoms are being decimated, and your politicians are being bought and paid for by billionaires and corporate dollars.

A second reason for this silence was discussed in a Pravda.Ru article entitled Welcome to the Village (October 25, 2010). This article's title was inspired by the prophetic 1960s television drama The Prisoner, which starred the late Patrick McGoohan.

McGoohan's character (known only as "Number Six") is a disgruntled government employee who angrily resigns from his position, only to be kidnapped and transported to "The Village"-a bucolic yet sinister place where residents are constantly spied upon by a omnipresent overseer, known only as "Number Two."

My article explained how many of the fictional surveillance techniques used in "The Village" have now become reality as computers, satellites, ubiquitous cameras, facial recognition technologies and tracking chips have the capability to subject almost anyone in the world to continuous surveillance.

I was somewhat surprised to discover that, unlike many of my other articles, Welcome to the Village did not provoke much reader feedback or discussion. And while I realize that the article's title might not have accurately conveyed its content, I could not help but wonder if people, particularly in America, have become so paralyzed by the fear of terrorism that they are willing to surrender their privacy and individuality to "big brother" regimentation and conformity.

Which leads to the third reason: Americans incessantly praise "freedom" and "democracy" with their words (and are repeatedly conned into sending their youth off to die in purported defense of these principles), yet they just as incessantly embrace and promote fascism with their deeds.

Fascism, as I discussed in several Pravda.Ru articles written during the nightmarish years of the Bush dictatorship, has always been more seductive than freedom, because it demands less effort. Freedom requires people to think for themselves, and to gather facts and information necessary to formulate reasoned judgments or opinions. Freedom also means making difficult, sometimes life-altering decisions, with no guarantee those decisions will reap any positive results.

Fascism, on the other hand, favors emotion over reason, appeals to the basest instincts in human nature, and creates omnipotent demagogues who tell the masses what to think and how to think. Freed from the burden of making decisions for themselves, people can then pretend they are blameless for, and powerless to prevent, atrocities and injustices committed by those in power.

Make no mistake about it. I have no sympathy for terrorists or terrorism, and I agree that many of the statements al-Awlaki made were reprehensible, even in a world where Nobel Peace Prize winners sow death and destruction. But regardless of how wicked an individual might be, when a government chooses to extrajudicially execute its own citizens it creates a dark and dangerous precedent that can easily be expanded by those who gain power in the future. Given the kidnappings, illegal detentions, tortures and murders that have already been committed in the name of the so-called "war on terror," it is frighteningly clear that the American government may be traversing a path of no return.

Arrogant, militarily powerful, and lacking a viable foe to curb its contempt for international law, the United States government now feels "superior" to every other country in the world, and, as a result, has become a lawless, rogue nation operating under the clandestine philosophy that "might makes right" while openly (and hypocritically) cloaking itself in the garments of "freedom," "justice" and "human rights."

So America is dead, and within its cadaver lurks a country little different than the third-world dictatorships it claims to abhor-a country controlled by a plethora of sadistic, amoral, venal and ruthless reprobates who relentlessly manipulate the fear of terrorism to promote their own agendas and propagate their own brand of terror throughout the world.

Maybe one day Americans will awaken to this reality.

But by then it will probably be too late. Pravda.Ru

David R. Hoffman
Legal Editor of Pravda.Ru

I didn't have to look far from something on Hoffman, this from Winter Patriot, who looks like he might himself warrant a bit of looking at.

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Missionaries of Hate: American Evangelicals Spread Gay Hate in Uganda: Extension

This should have been an update to: Missionaries of Hate: American Evangelicals Spread Gay Hate in Uganda: Updated but the thing just grew and grew, so now it's a post. But it ain't all bitterness and hate, it gets progressively lighter as you move on down the page.

Further gay hate reading at the link, includes the first video below.

Arizona "Pro-Family" Group Linked to Campaigning for Gay Discrimination within the UN; Uganda "Kill the Gays" Pastor

h/t Maren.



From the clip:

''If you want to join in the fight against extremism, call, People for the American Way.''

Americans, what are they like? Americans don't do irony, but I do.

''It is no slogan that America remains the most resolutely religious country on God's great earth, and it is no slogan that America will always occupy a special place in God's heart.'' George HW Bush.

Yes of course, he his after all very much like yourselves, a petty, vengeful, jealous, genocidal maniac.

God wilfully directs or commands the wholesale slaughter of thousands of men, women, children and animals, for no other reason than that "his" people should have their land. The Village Atheist

And who better to carry out God's work than you lot? You are after all ''His'' people.

Here's a video below, showing America carrying out God's work. He really must have had a special place in his heart for America on that day. And one or two others. What was the butchers bill for that little genocidal jolly, three, or was it four million?

God bless America.




Featured at: Least We Forget: Fuck America Nothing further to see.




Featured at: USAF: A Most Ungodly Organisation A Perfect foil for the clip above. I think I've got that arse about, what harm.




Comment and plenty more clips of hired killers getting their freak on for Jesus at: US Army: Bible Bashing For Jesus




Featured at: "I was ashamed to be an American today" One clip on the Fred & Wilma Museum, and one on a schoolboard's persecution of a sixteen year old atheist schoolgirl.




Featured at: These People Are Insane More clips.




Featured at: These People Are Insane More clips.




Pat Robertson's true colours come shining through, and it ain't purple. But just as importantly see how he is being coached (supposedly off air) and the talk of better screening for the telephone calls he is to receive. And all this on that nice Mister Larry King's Show. Shurely Shome Mishtake?




Gay Marriage: End of the world for some Christians. Catch the second fellow, he has a vote!






He does come in for some stick, does poor old Mr Winky.




Bill Maher on the homophobic Jerry Falwell.







Maher on Mormons.




Might I remind you that there is a man, two in fact, that aspire to become the next President of the United States of America, who believe this shit.

Featured at: Utah Tops The Wanking League More, ''everything you wanted to know about batshit crazy religions'' including the best ''Scientology explained'' clip that I have come across. Strap in, five point harness and airbag essential, check your brain at the door.




Spitting Image, Bush 41




Well he would be wouldn't he, he is after all an American.




Religion ala Eddie Izzard.




Rowan Atkinson Amazing Jesus


Further comment and clips.

"..after the slaying of Tiller the Killer" Loads o' crazies.

It's a Funny Old World SC "Foetus for Jesus" monument. Strap in.

United States Air Force AKA The Ministry Of Truth Interesting story on USAF censorship. We trust you to bomb shit out of people with multi-million dollar war planes, but we don't trust you enough to let you read blogs. Nasty old bloggers!

Admiral Mike Mullen Talks Shite Includes a Bill Hicks clip.

Who Would Jesus Kill? Ex Marine Colonel Totally Mad Strap in!

"we should not condone immoral (Gay) acts" Said top General, taking time out from genocide in Iraq.

Warmongering vs. the Sanctity of Life Hypocrisy at its best.

A Horror Story: Depleted Uranium Text only, you really wouldn't want to see a video of that.

Although there are stills showing the effects of DU (and bucket loads of hypocrisy) featured in the two posts below.

The United States of America The Greatest Nation of Hypocrites on Earth (Graphic)

Onward Christian Soldiers (Graphic)

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Oi! You Lot, Yes You Twitter. How ''Offensive'' is Killing an Innocent Man, Black or Otherwise

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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American Pot Calling Iran Kettle Black: US Hikers

Which given America's infinite capacity for hypocrisy, comes as no great surprise.

It's BSF here (before sparrow fart) so I haven't as yet watched the Democracy Now clip, but given my Jose Padilla post of two days ago, I thought this a very apt article.

Update:

Having watched the clip, quite lengthy, some twenty odd minutes, it becomes essential viewing, to truly appreciate that America doesn't have a moral leg to stand on. And Iran? Moral and Iran don't belong in the same sentence.



Bloggers. If you want to increase the size of Democracy Now's default player, change the 300 part of this code to whatever you require. You are watching this at 640.

embed_show_v2/300/2011/

What media coverage omits about U.S. hikers released by Iran
By Glen Greenwald
Sep 26, 2011

Two American hikers imprisoned for more than two years by Iran on extremely dubious espionage charges and in highly oppressive conditions, Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer, were released last week and spoke yesterday in Manhattan about their ordeal. Most establishment media accounts in the U.S. have predictably exploited the emotions of the drama as a means of bolstering the U.S.-is-Good/Iran-is-Evil narrative which they reflexively spout. But far more revealing is what these media accounts exclude, beginning with the important, insightful and brave remarks from the released prisoners themselves (their full press conference was broadcast this morning on Democracy Now).

Fattal began by recounting the horrible conditions of the prison in which they were held, including being kept virtually all day in a tiny cell alone and hearing other prisoners being beaten; he explained that, of everything that was done to them, "solitary confinement was the worst experience of all of our lives." Bauer then noted that they were imprisoned due solely to what he called the "32 years of mutual hostility between America and Iran," and said: "the irony is that [we] oppose U.S. policies towards Iran which perpetuate this hostility." After complaining that the two court sessions they attended were "total shams" and that "we'd been held in almost total isolation - stripped of our rights and freedoms," he explained:

In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay; they'd remind us of CIA prisons in other parts of the world; and conditions that Iranians and others experience in prisons in the U.S.

We do not believe that such human rights violation on the part of our government justify what has been done to us: not for a moment. However, we do believe that these actions on the part of the U.S. provide an excuse for other governments - including the government of Iran - to act in kind.

[Indeed, as harrowing and unjust as their imprisonment was, Bauer and Fattal on some level are fortunate not to have ended up in the grips of the American War on Terror detention system, where detainees remain for many more years without even the pretense of due process -- still -- to say nothing of the torture regime to which hundreds (at least) were subjected.]

Fattal then expressed "great thanks to world leaders and individuals" who worked for their release, including Hugo Chavez, the governments of Turkey and Brazil, Sean Penn, Noam Chomsky, Mohammad Ali, Cindy Sheehan, Desmond Tutu, as well as Muslims from around the world and "elements within the Iranian government," as well as U.S. officials.

Unsurprisingly, one searches in vain for the inclusion of these facts and remarks in American media accounts of their release and subsequent press conference. Instead, typical is this ABC News story, which featured tearful and celebratory reactions from their family, detailed descriptions of their conditions and the pain and fear their family endured, and melodramatic narratives about how their "long, grueling imprisonment is over" after "781 days in Iran's most notorious prison." This ABC News article on their press conference features many sentences about Iran's oppressiveness -- "Hikers Return to the U.S.: 'We Were Held Hostage'"; "we heard the screams of other prisoners being beaten" -- with hardly any mention of the criticisms Fattal and Bauer voiced regarding U.S. policy that provided the excuse for their mistreatment and similar treatment which the U.S. doles out both in War on Terror prisons around the world and even domestic prisons at home.

Their story deserves the attention it is getting, and Iran deserves the criticism. But the first duty of the American "watchdog media" should be highlighting the abuses of the U.S. Government, not those of other, already-hated regimes on the other side of the world. Instead, the abuses at home are routinely suppressed while those in the Hated Nations are endlessly touted. There have been thousands of people released after being held for years and years in U.S. detention despite having done nothing wrong. Many were tortured, and many were kept imprisoned despite U.S. government knowledge of their innocence. Have you ever seen anything close to this level of media attention being devoted to their plight, to hearing how America's lawless detention of them for years -- often on a strange island, thousands of miles away from everything they know -- and its systematic denial of any legal redress, devastated their families and destroyed their lives?

This is a repeat of what happened with the obsessive American media frenzy surrounding the arrest and imprisonment by Iran of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, convicted in a sham proceeding of espionage, sentenced to eight years in prison, but then ordered released by an Iranian appeals court after four months. Saberi's case became a true cause célèbre among American journalists, with large numbers of them flamboyantly denouncing Iran and demanding her release. But when their own government imprisoned numerous journalists for many years without any charges of any kind -- Al Jazeera's Sami al-Haj in Guantanamo, Associated Press' Bilal Hussein for more than two years in Iraq, Reuters' photographer Ibrahim Jassan even after an Iraqi court exonerated him, and literally dozens of other journalists without charge -- it was very difficult to find any mention of their cases in American media outlets.

What we find here yet again is that government-serving American establish media outlets relish the opportunity to report negatively on enemies and other adversaries of the U.S. government (that is the same mindset that accounts for the predicable, trite condescension by the New York Times toward the Wall Street protests, the same way they constantly downplayed Iraq War protests). But to exactly the same extent that they love depicting America's Enemies as Bad, they hate reporting facts that make the U.S. Government look the same.

That's why Fattal and Bauer receive so much attention while victims of America's ongoing lawless detention scheme are ignored. It's why media stars bravely denounce the conditions of Iran's "notorious prison" while ignoring America's own inhumane prison regime on both foreign and U.S. soil. It's why imprisonment via sham trials in Iran stir such outrage while due-process-free imprisonment (and assassinations) by the U.S. stir so little. And it's why so many Americans know Roxana Saberi but so few know Sami al-Haj.

An actual watchdog press is, first and foremost, eager to expose the corruption and wrongdoing of their own government. By contrast, a propaganda establishment press is eager to suppress that, and there is no better way of doing so than by obsessing on the sins of nations on the other side of the world while ignoring the ones at home. If only establishment media outlets displayed a fraction of the bravery and integrity of Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, who had a good excuse to focus exclusively on Iran's sins but -- a mere few days after being released from a horrible, unjust ordeal -- chose instead to present the full picture. Salon

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Not Only is Rick Santorum a Homophobic Twat, He's One Very Sick Puppy Indeed

I thought I had done for the day, but I have just read something that has given me an awful lot of trouble. So if you don't mind, I'm going to go down the ''a trouble shared is a trouble halved'' road.

We have recently had a post Rick Santorum is a Twat, but this little.... I can't call it a gem, in fact I don't really know what to call it. But it comes in the second article after all the homophobia.

Forgive me do, I pray.

Santorum Says He "Didn't Hear" Audience Members Boo Gay Soldier, But Condemns Them; Perry and Romney Don't

It was one of the more jarring moments in Thursday night’s debate. Stephen Hill, a U.S. Army soldier serving in Iraq, asked whether he, as a gay American, would be able to continue serving if one of these Republican candidates won. Some in the audience booed, and Rick Santorum slammed the Obama administration for giving gay and lesbian troops “a special privilege,” which would end under a Santorum presidency.

The former senator did not, however, have anything to say during the debate about the ugly audience reaction. Yesterday, in a Fox News interview, Santorum was willing to do the right thing.

“I condemn the people who booed that gay soldier. That soldier is serving our country. I thank him for his service to our country. I’m sure he’s doing an excellent job. I hope he’s safe and I hope he returns safely and does his mission well.

“I have to admit, I seriously did not hear those boos. Had I heard them, I certainly would have commented on them, but, as you know, when you’re in that sort of environment, you’re sort of focused on the question and formulating your answer. I just didn’t hear those couple of boos that were out there, but certainly had I, I would have said, ‘Don’t do that. This man is serving our country and we are to thank him for his service.’”

That’s a perfectly good answer. It may not be entirely truthful — other candidates said they heard the boos — and it doesn’t make up for Santorum’s awful substantive response to the question, but I’m glad he’s at least willing to condemn those booing a serviceman who’s putting his life on the line for the United States. It is, quite literally, the least he should do.

But what about the rest of the Republican field? Yesterday, Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson, to their credit, also denounced those who booed Hill, albeit a day late. Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, however, refused requests for comment.

I don’t expect much from guys like Romney and Perry, and neither are likely to ever get a Profile in Courage award nomination any time soon, but if leading presidential candidates aren’t willing to stand up for an Army soldier serving honorably in Iraq, who will they stand up for?

By Steve Benen | Sourced from Washington Monthly

- - -

What Rick Santorum Means by 'Keeping Sex to Yourself'

You know what Rick Santorum said last night regarding the fate of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in a Santorum administration:

That policy would be reinstituted. And as far as people who are in -- in -- I would not throw them out, because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration, but we would move forward in -- in conformity with what was happening in the past, which was, sex is not an issue. It is -- it should not be an issue. Leave it alone, keep it -- keep it to yourself, whether you're a heterosexual or a homosexual.

Atrios noted the hypocrisy. ("If only the big gay gayeee gayee gays would stop talking about all the hot sexy sexytime all the damn sexytime everything would be ok. Oh, and have you met my wife and 4 children?") But let me just remind you of how Rick Santorum and his wife keep this personal stuff to themselves:

Father First, Senator Second

In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

"That's my little guy," Santorum says, pointing to the photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father's hand. The senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance in which he talks softly.

He and Karen brought Gabriel's body home so their children could "absorb and understand that they had a brother," Santorum says. "We wanted them to see that he was real," not an abstraction, he says. Not a "fetus," either, as Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described -- "a 20-week-old fetus" -- on a hospital form. They changed the form to read "20-week-old baby."

Karen Santorum, a former nurse, wrote letters to her son during and after her pregnancy. She compiled them into a book, "Letters to Gabriel," a collection of prayers, Bible passages and a chronicle of the prenatal complications that led to Gabriel's premature delivery....

That was in The Washington Post in 2005. That's how Santorum keeps this sort of thing to himself -- by welcoming a Post reporter into his office and showing him a picture of the now-dead fetus he and his wife heterosexually created. And talking about the book his wife wrote on the same subject.

By Steve M. | Sourced from No More Mister Nice Blog

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