Now, Back To The Anthrax Attacks

Here are Tom's Questions.

Anthrax Department
By Tom Engelhardt

Oh, the spectacle of it all -- and don't think I'm referring to those opening ceremonies in Beijing, where North Korean-style synchronization seemed to fuse with smiley-faced Walt Disney, or Michael Phelp's thrilling hunt for eight gold medals and Speedo's one million dollar "bonus," a modernized tribute to the ancient Greek tradition of amateurism in action. No, I'm thinking of the blitz of media coverage after Dr. Bruce Ivins, who worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, committed suicide by Tylenol on July 29th and the FBI promptly accused him of the anthrax attacks of September and October 2001.

You remember them: the powder that, innocuously enough, arrived by envelope -- giving going postal a new meaning -- accompanied by hair-raising letters ominously dated "09-11-01" that said, "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great." Five Americans would die from anthrax inhalation and 17 would be injured. The Hart Senate Office Building, along with various postal facilities, would be shut down for months of clean-up, while media companies that received the envelopes were thrown into chaos.

For a nation already terrified by the attacks of September 11, 2001, the thought that a brutal dictator with weapons of mass destruction (who might even have turned the anthrax over to the terrorists) was ready to do us greater harm undoubtedly helped pave the way for an invasion of Iraq. The President would even claim that Saddam Hussein had the ability to send unmanned aerial vehicles to spray biological or chemical weapons over the east coast of the United States (drones that, like Saddam's nuclear program, would turn out not to exist).

Today, it's hard even to recall just how terrifying those anthrax attacks were. According to a LexisNexis search, between Oct. 4 and Dec. 4, 2001, 389 stories appeared in the New York Times with "anthrax" in the headline. In that same period, 238 such stories appeared in the Washington Post. That's the news equivalent of an unending, high-pitched scream of horror -- and from those attacks would emerge an American world of hysteria involving orange alerts and duct tape, smallpox vaccinations, and finally a war, lest any of this stuff, or anything faintly like it, fall into the hands of terrorists.

And yet, by the end of 2001, it had become clear that, despite the accompanying letters, the anthrax in those envelopes was from a domestically produced strain. It was neither from the backlands of Afghanistan nor from Baghdad, but -- almost certainly -- from our own military bio-weapons labs. At that point, the anthrax killings essentially vanished… Poof!... while 9/11 only gained traction as the singular event of our times.

Those deaths-by-anthrax ceased to be part of the administration's developing Global War on Terror narrative, which was, of course, aimed at Islamist fanatics (and scads of countries that were said to provide them with "safe haven"), but certainly not military scientists here at home. No less quickly did those attacks drop from the front pages -- in fact, simply from the pages -- of the nation's newspapers and off TV screens.

Unlike with 9/11, there would be no ritualistic reminders of the anniversaries of those attacks in years to come. No victims, or survivors, or relatives of victims would step to podiums and ring bells, or read names, or offer encomiums. There would be no billion-dollar (or even million-dollar) memorial to the anthrax dead for the survivors to argue over. There would be little but silence, while the FBI fumbled its misbegotten way through an investigative process largely focused on one U.S. bio-weapons scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, who also worked at Fort Detrick and just happened to be the wrong man. (Bruce Ivins, eerily enough, would work closely with, and aid, the FBI's investigation for years until the spotlight of suspicion came to be directed at him.)

This essentially remained the state of the case until, as July ended, Ivins committed suicide. Then, what a field day! The details, the questions, the doubts, the disputed scientific evidence, the lists of kinds of drugs he was prescribed, the lurid quotes, the "rat's nest" of an anthrax-contaminated lab he worked in, the strange emails and letters! ("I wish I could control the thoughts in my mind… I get incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times, and there's nothing I can do until they go away, either by themselves or with drugs.") Case solved! Or not... The "mad scientist" from the Army's Fort Detrick bio-wars labs finally nabbed! Or not...

It was a dream of a story. And the mainstream media ran with it, knowledgeably, authoritatively, as if they had never let it go. Now, as the coverage fades and the story once again threatens to head for obscurity (despite doubts about Ivins's role in the attacks), I thought it might be worth mentioning a few questions that came to my mind as I read through recent coverage -- not on Ivins's guilt or innocence, but on matters that are so much a part of our American landscape that normally no one even thinks to ask about them.

Here are my top six questions about the case:

1. Why wasn't the Bush administration's War on Terror modus operandi applied to the anthrax case?

On August 10th, William J. Broad and Scott Shane reported on some of the human costs of the FBI anthrax investigation in a front-page New York Times piece headlined, "For Suspects, Anthrax Case Had Big Costs, Scores of the Innocent in a Wide F.B.I. Net." They did a fine job of establishing that those who serially came under suspicion had a tough time of it: "lost jobs, canceled visas, broken marriages, frayed friendships." According to the Times (and others), under the pressure of FBI surveillance, several had their careers wrecked; most were interviewed and re-interviewed numerous times in a "heavy-handed" manner, as well as polygraphed; some were tailed and trailed, their homes searched, and their workplaces ransacked.

Under the pressure of FBI "interest," anthrax specialist and "biodefense insider" Perry Mikesell evidently turned into an alcoholic and drank himself to death. Steven Hatfill, while his life was being turned inside out, had an agent trailing him in a car run over his foot, for which, Broad and Shane add, he, not the agent, was issued a ticket. And finally, of course, Dr. Ivins, growing ever more distressed and evidently ever less balanced, committed suicide on the day his lawyer was meeting with the FBI about a possible plea bargain that could have left him in jail for life, but would have taken the death penalty off the table.

Still, tough as life was for Mikesell, Hatfill, Ivins, and scores of others, here's an observation that you'll see nowhere else in a media that's had a two-week romp through the case: In search of a confession, none of the suspects of these last years, including Ivins, ever had a lighted cigarette inserted in his ear; none of them were hit, spit on, kicked, and paraded naked; none were beaten to death while imprisoned but uncharged with a crime; none were doused with cold water and left naked in a cell on a freezing night; none were given electric shocks, hooded, shackled in painful "stress positions," or sodomized; none were subjected to loud music, flashing lights, and denied sleep for days on end; none were smothered to death, or made to crawl naked across a jail floor in a dog collar, or menaced by guard dogs. None were ever waterboarded.

Whatever the pressure on Ivins or Hatfill, neither was kidnapped off a street near his house, stripped of his clothes, diapered, blindfolded, shackled, drugged, and "rendered" to the prisons of another country, possibly to be subjected to electric shocks or cut by scalpel by the torturers of a foreign regime. Even though each of the suspects in the anthrax murders was, at some point, believed to have been a terrorist who had committed a heinous crime with a weapon of mass destruction, none were ever declared "enemy combatants." None were ever imprisoned without charges, or much hope of trial or release, in off-shore, secret, CIA-run "black sites."

Why not?

2. Why wasn't the U.S. military sent in?

Part of the reigning paradigm of the Bush years was this: police work was not enough when the homeland was threatened. The tracking down of terrorists who had killed or might someday kill Americans was a matter of "war." Those who had attacked the American homeland and murdered U.S. citizens would, as our President put it, be "hunted down" by special ops forces and CIA agents who had been granted the right to assassinate and brought in "dead or alive."

Why then, when acts of murderous bio-terror had been committed on American soil, was the military not called in? Why were no CIA "death squads" -- the tellingly descriptive phrase used by Jane Mayer in her remarkable new book, The Dark Side -- dispatched to assassinate likely suspects? Why were no Predator unmanned drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, launched to cruise the skies of Maryland and take out Ivins or other suspects "precisely" and "surgically" in their homes (whatever the "collateral damage")? Why, in fact, weren't their homes simply obliterated in the manner regularly employed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere? (In fact, it seems to have taken the FBI two years after their first suspicions of Ivins simply to search his house and even longer finally to take away his high-level security clearance.)

Once U.S. weapons labs were identified as the sources of the anthrax, why were no special ops teams sent in to occupy the facilities, shut them down, and fly those found there, shackled and blindfolded, to Guantanamo or other more secret sites?

Why, when the administration went to great lengths to squeeze off funding for terrorists elsewhere, was funding for those labs significantly increased?

Why, when those swept up or simply kidnapped by the Bush administration and then discovered to be innocent, were -- after secret imprisonment, abuse, and torture -- regularly released without apology or reimbursement (if released at all), did the U.S. government pay Hatfill $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit he filed in response to his ordeal?

Why when, according to the Vice President's "one percent doctrine," no response was too extreme if even a minuscule chance of a catastrophic attack against the U.S. "homeland" existed, were no extreme acts taken with a WMD killer (or killers) on the loose, possibly in Maryland's suburbs?

3. Once the anthrax threat was identified as coming from U.S. military labs, why did the administration, the FBI, and the media assume that only a single individual was responsible?

Read as much of the coverage of the anthrax killings as you want and you'll discover that the FBI has long taken for blanket fact that a single "mad scientist" was the culprit -- and, no less important, that that theory has been accepted as bedrock fact by the media as well. No alternative possibilities have been seriously considered for years.

For instance, it is known that a set of the anthrax letters was sent from a mailbox in Princeton, New Jersey, some hours from Ivins's home and the Fort Detrick lab in Frederick, Maryland. The question the FBI puzzled over -- and the media took up vigorously -- was whether, on the day in question, Ivins had time to make it to Princeton and back, given what's known of his schedule. The FBI suggests that he did; critics suggest otherwise. No one, however, seems to consider the possibility that the lone terrorist of the anthrax killings might have had one or more accomplices, which would have made the "problem" of mailing those letters into a piece of cake.

Is it that Americans, as opposed to foreigners bent on terrorism, are assumed to be unstoppable individualists, loners canny enough to carry out plots by themselves? Does no one recall that the last great act of American terrorism in the United States, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, was a crime committed by at least two American "loners"? (The earliest reports in that case, too, blamed Arab terrorists -- plural.)

There seem to have been no serious al-Qaeda "sleeper cells" in this country, but how do we know that there isn't a "sleeper cell" of American bio-killers lurking somewhere in the U.S. military lab community?

4. What of those military labs? Why does their history continue to play little or no part in the story of the anthrax attacks?

In reading through reams of coverage of Ivins's suicide and the FBI case against him, I found only a single reference to the work his lab at Fort Detrick had been dedicated to throughout most of the Cold War era. Here is that sentence from the Washington Post: "As home to the Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, the facility ran a top-secret program producing offensive biological weapons from 1943 until 1969." And yet, if you don't grasp this fact, the real significance of the anthrax case remains in the shadows.

As with the continuing story of nuclear dangers on our planet, the terrors of our age are almost invariably portrayed as emerging from bands of fanatics, or lands like Iran said to be ruled by the same, in the backlands of our planet (some of which also just happen to be in the energy heartlands of the same planet). And yet, if we are terrified enough of loose or proliferating weapons of mass destruction to threaten or start wars over them, it's important to understand that, from 1945 on, these dangers -- and they are grim dangers -- emerged from the heartland of the military-industrial machines of the two Cold War superpowers, the U.S. and the USSR.

Put another way, the most conceptually frightening attacks of 2001 came directly from the Cold War urge to develop offensive biological weapons. Until 1969, the Army's biological-warfare laboratories at Fort Detrick were focused, in part, on that task. Plain and simple. After President Richard Nixon shut down the offensive bio-war program in 1969, the Army's scientists switched to work on "defenses" against the same. As with defenses against nuclear attack, however, such work, by its nature, is often hard to separate from offensive work on such weaponry. In other words, looked at a certain way, one focus of the Fort Detrick lab, which fell under suspicion in the anthrax attacks by the winter of 2001, has long been putting bio-war on the global menu. In that, it was evidently successful in the end.

There is irony here, of course. In the post-Cold War era, our worries focused almost solely on the deteriorating, sometimes ill-guarded Russian Cold War labs and storehouses for biological, chemical, and nuclear war. It was long feared that, from them, such nightmares would drop into our world. But in this we were, it seems, wrong. The labs with the holes were ours and -- what's more terrifying -- the possibilities for leakage and misuse are still expanding exponentially.

5. Were the anthrax attacks the less important ones of 2001?

If you compare the two sets of 2001 attacks in terms of death and destruction, 9/11 obviously leaves the anthrax attacks in the dust. Thought about a certain way, however, the attacks of 9/11, while bold, murderous, televisually spectacular, and apocalyptic looking, were conceptually old hat. It was the anthrax attacks that pointed the way to a new and frightening future.

After all, the World Trade Center had already been attacked, and one of its towers nearly toppled, by a rental-van bomb driven into an underground garage by Islamists back in 1993. The planes in the 2001 assaults were, as Mike Davis has written, simply car bombs with wings, and car bombs have a painfully long history. Even though in their targeting -- the symbolic mega-buildings of an imperial power whose citizens previously preferred to believe themselves invulnerable -- the 9/11 hijackers offered a new psychological reality to Americans, their most striking and unsettling feature was perhaps themselves. Those 19 men had pledged to commit suicide not for their country, as had thousands of Japanese kamikaze pilots at the end of World War II, or even for a potential country like hundreds of Tamil suicide bombers in Sri Lanka, but for a religious fantasy (behind which lay non-religious grievances). On the other hand, the 9/11 attacks were but a larger, more ambitious version of, for instance, the suicide-by-boat attack on the U.S.S. Cole in a Yemeni port in 2000.

On the other hand, the anthrax mailings represented something new. (The Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult had attempted to make and use bio-weapons, including anthrax, back in 1990s, but failed.) If the al-Qaeda strike on 9/11 had only simulated a weapon-of-mass-destruction attack, with the anthrax killer, no imagination was necessary. An actual weapon of mass destruction -- highly refined anthrax -- had been used successfully, then used again, and the killer(s) remained at large, not in the Afghan backlands but somewhere in our midst, with no evidence that the supply of anthrax had been used up.

And yet, even as the Bush administration, the two presidential candidates, all of Washington, and the media remain focused on terrorism in the Afghan-Pakistani border regions, few give serious thought -- except when it comes to individual culpability -- to the terror that emerged from the depths of the military-industrial complex, from our own Cold War weapons labs. To that, no aspect of the Global War on Terror seems to apply.

6. Who is winning the Global War on Terror?

The answer, obviously, is the terrorists. Just last week, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, made this crystal clear when it came to al-Qaeda. He testified before Congress that the organization "is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States." In fact, it's been clear enough for quite a while that the Bush administration's Global War on Terror has mainly succeeded in creating ever more terrorists in ever more places. And yet, arguably, the anthrax killer or killers have, to date, gained far more than al-Qaeda. Looked at a certain way, whatever the role of Bruce Ivins, the anthrax killings proved to be a full-scale triumph of terrorism.

One theory has long been that whoever committed the anthrax outrages was intent on drawing attention (and probably funding) to further research and development of U.S. bio-war "defenses." If so, then, what a remarkable success! In the years since the attacks occurred, funding has flooded into such labs, whose numbers have grown strikingly. On September 11, 2001, reports the Washington Post, "there were only five ‘biosafety level 4' labs -- places equipped to study highly lethal agents such as Ebola that have no human vaccine or treatment -- a Government Accountability Office report stated last fall. Fifteen are in operation or under construction now, according to the report. There are hundreds more biosafety level 3 labs, which handle agents such as Bacillus anthracis, which does have a human vaccine."

The few hundred people at work in the U.S. bio-defense program before 9/11 have swelled to perhaps 14,000 scientists who have "clearances to work with ‘select biological agents' such as Bacillus anthracis -- many of them civilians working at private universities" where, according to experts, "security regulations are remarkably lax." And don't forget the Army's own billion-dollar plan to "build a larger laboratory complex as part of a proposed interagency biodefense campus at Fort Detrick." We're talking about the place where, as Ivins's crew was evidently nicknamed, "Team Anthrax" worked and whose labs are reputedly "renowned for losing anthrax." In these same years, according to the New York Times, "almost $50 billion in federal money has been spent to build new laboratories, develop vaccines and stockpile drugs." Some of this money was pulled out of basic public health funds which once ensured that large numbers of people wouldn't die of treatable diseases like tuberculosis and redirected into work on the Ebola virus, anthrax, and other exotic pathogens.

In these years, not to put too fine a point on it, the Bush administration has exponentially expanded our bio-war labs, increasing significantly the likelihood that a new "mad scientist" will have far more opportunity and far more deadly material available to work with. It has, in other words, increased the likelihood not just that terror will come to "the homeland," but that it will come from the homeland. Thanks to this administration, the terrorists won this round and future terrorists can reap the fruits of that victory.

Bruce Ivins, whatever you did, or whatever was done to you, R.I.P. Your lab is in good hands. And the likelihood is that, almost seven years after the first anthrax envelope arrived, the world is more of a terror machine than ever.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the American Age of Denial. The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), a collection of some of the best pieces from his site, has just been published. Focusing on what the mainstream media hasn't covered, it is an alternative history of the mad Bush years.

[Note on readings: Oddly enough, back in December 2002, as this site was going public, the very first TomDispatch guest writer, public health expert David Rosner, took up the issue of smallpox hysteria, pointing out that the disease was saved from total eradication on the planet by a U.S./USSR agreement "to make sure that the virus that causes smallpox would remain in storage awaiting a new opportunity to terrorize the world. For decades, both countries stored it, distributed it to various research labs and otherwise ensured that this public health victory would be turned into a potential human tragedy." He added: "Fear of smallpox has played nicely into the overall strategy of the Bush administration to militarize public health." It's a piece worth revisiting, as perhaps is "It Should Have Been Unforgettable," a post I wrote back in 2005 when the anthrax case had long fallen off the American radar screen.

More recently, Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com has done superb work on the anthrax story. In 2007, he wrote a striking column, "The unresolved story of ABC News' false Saddam-anthrax reports," on some crucially bad reporting by Brian Ross and ABC, and he followed up after Ivins's suicide with a piece, ("Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation,") that has more unsettling questions about the anthrax case than any other 16 pieces I've seen. It's a must read. Jay Rosen, at his always interesting PressThink blog, took up Greenwald's challenge to Brian Ross and ABC on its reporting and pressed the point home in two recent posts, here and here.

Finally, Elisa D. Harris, a senior research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, had a fine, thoughtful op-ed last week in the New York Times, "The Killers in the Lab" ("Our efforts to fight biological weapons are making us less safe"), which laid out in an impressive way the expansion of U.S. bio-weapons research since 2001.]

Copyright 2008 Tom Engelhardt

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

	Published on Thursday, March 23, 2000 in the San Jose Mercury News The Military & CNN by Alexander Cockburn A handful of military personnel from the 4th Psychological Operations Group (i.e. PSYOPs) based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina have until recently been working in CNN's headquarters in Atlanta. An enterprising Dutch journalist named Abe De Vries came up with this important story in mid-February, and he remains properly astounded that no mainstream news medium in the United States has evinced any interest in the story. I came across translations of De Vries' stories on the matter, after they had appeared in late February in Trouw, the foremost quality newspaper in Holland. De Vries later told me he'd originally come upon the story via an article in the French Intelligence newsletter (available on a pay-per-story basis on the Internet) Feb. 17, which described a military symposium in Arlington, Va., held at the beginning of that same month, discussing use of the press in military operations. Col. Christopher St. John, commander of the U.S. Army's 4th PSYOPs Group, was quoted by a French Intelligence correspondent, present at the symposium, as (in the correspondent's words) having ``called for greater cooperation between the armed forces and media giants. He (St. John) pointed out that some Army PSYOPs personnel had worked for CNN for several weeks, and helped in the production of some news stories for the network.'' Reading this in Belgrade, where he's Trouw's correspondent, De Vries saw a good story, picked up the phone, and finally reached Maj. Thomas Collins of the U.S. Army Information Service, who duly confirmed the presence of these Army PSYOPs experts at CNN. ``PSYOPs personnel, soldiers and officers,'' De Vries quoted Collins as telling him, ``have been working in CNN's headquarters in Atlanta through our program `Training with Industry.' They worked as regular employees of CNN. Conceivably, they would have worked on stories during the Kosovo war. They helped in the production of news.'' I reported this interesting disclosure in my newsletter, CounterPunch, and made it the topic of my regular weekly broadcast to ``AM Live,'' a program of the South Africa Broadcasting Company in Johannesburg. Among the audience of this broadcast was CNN's bureau in South Africa, which lost no time in relaying news of it to CNN headquarters in Atlanta, and I duly received an angry phone call from Eason Jordan, who identified himself as CNN's president of news gathering and international networks. Jordan was full of indignation that I had somehow compromised the reputation of CNN. But in the course of our conversation, it turned out that, yes, CNN had hosted a total of five interns from U.S. Army PSYOPs, two in television, two in radio, and one in satellite operations. Jordan said the program had begun on June 7 (just before the end of the war against Serbia), and only recently terminated, I would guess at about the time CNN's higher management read Abe De Vries' stories. Naturally enough, Eason Jordan and other executives at CNN now describe the Army PSYOPs intern tours at CNN as having been insignificant. Maybe so. Col. St. John, the commanding officer of the PSYOPs group, certainly thought them of sufficient significance to mention at that high-level Pentagon pow-wow in Arlington about propaganda and psychological warfare. Maybe CNN was the target of a PSYOPs penetration and is still too naive to figure out what was going on. It's hard not to laugh when CNN execs like Eason Jordan start spouting, as he did to me, high-toned stuff about CNN's principles of objectivity and refusal to relay government propaganda. During the war on Serbia, as with other recent conflicts involving the United States, CNN's screen was filled with an interminable procession of U.S. officers. On April 27 of last year, Amy Goodman of the Pacifica Radio network put the following question to Frank Sesno, who is CNN's senior vice president for political coverage. GOODMAN: ``If you support the practice of putting ex-military men -- generals -- on the payroll to share their opinion during a time of war, would you also support putting peace activists on the payroll to give a different opinion during a time of war? SESNO: ``We bring the generals in because of their expertise in a particular area. We call them analysts. We don't bring them in as advocates. In fact, we actually talk to them about that -- they're not there as advocates.'' Exactly a week before Sesno said this, CNN had featured as one of its military analysts, Lt. Gen. Dan Benton, U.S. Army Retired. BENTON: ``I don't know what our countrymen that are questioning why we're involved in this conflict are thinking about. As I listened to this press conference this morning, with reports of rapes, villages being burned, and this particularly incredible report of blood banks, of blood being harvested from young boys for the use of Yugoslav forces, I just got madder and madder. The United States has a responsibility as the only superpower in the world, and when we learn about these things, somebody has got to stand up and say, `That's enough, stop it, we aren't going to put up with this.''' Please note what CNN's supposedly non-advocatory analyst Benton was ranting about: a particularly preposterous NATO propaganda item about 700 Albanian boys being used as human blood banks for Serb fighters. Let's give the last word to the enterprising Abe De Vries. ``Of course, CNN says these PSYOPs personnel didn't decide anything, write news reports, etc. What else can they say? Maybe it's true, maybe not. The point is that these kind of close ties with the Army are, in my view, completely unacceptable for any serious news organization. Maybe even more astonishing is the complete silence about the story from the big media. To my knowledge, my story was not mentioned by leading American or British newspapers, nor by Reuters or AP.'' Alexander Cockburn is a syndicated columnist. CounterPunch, co-edited by Cockburn, is located on the web at www.counterpunch.org. © 2000 Mercury Center

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Why McCain May Well Win ; The Lying Liars, Again

Because 48% of Americans are just knee-jerk stupid., and if McCain can get it within three or four % points, Rove can steal yet another election? Or is there another reason?

By Robert Parry
August 6, 2008

It might seem unlikely that the United States would elect John McCain to succeed George W. Bush when that would ensure continuation of many unpopular Bush policies: an ill-defined war with the Muslim world, right-wing consolidation of the U.S. Supreme Court, a drill-oriented energy strategy, tax cuts creating massive federal deficits, etc., etc.

But there are reasons – beyond understandable concerns about Barack Obama’s limited experience – that make a McCain victory possible, indeed maybe probable.

Here is one of the big ones: The U.S. news media is as bad as ever, arguably worse.

On Monday, Obama gave a detail-rich speech on how he would address the energy crisis, which is a major point of concern among Americans. From ideas for energy innovation to retrofitting the U.S. auto industry to conservation steps to limited new offshore drilling, Obama did what he is often accused of not doing, fleshing out his soaring rhetoric.

McCain responded with a harsh critique of Obama’s calls for more conservation, claiming that Obama wants to solve the energy crisis by having people inflate their tires. McCain’s campaign even passed out a tire gauge marked as Obama’s energy plan.

For his part, McCain made clear he wanted to drill for more oil wherever it could be found and to build many more nuclear power plants.

These competing plans offered a chance for the evening news to address an issue of substance that is high on the voters’ agenda. Instead, NBC News anchor Brian Williams devoted 30 seconds to the dueling energy speeches, without any details and with the witty opening line that Obama was “refining” his energy plan.

So, instead of dealing with a serious issue in a serious way, NBC News ignored the substance and went for a clever slight against Obama, hitting his political maneuvering in his softened opposition to more offshore drilling.

Williams’s quip fit with one of the press corps’ favorite campaign narratives, Obama’s flip-flopping. But the coverage ignored far more important elements of the story, such as the feasibility of Obama’s vow that “we must end the age of oil in our time” or the wisdom of McCain’s emphasis on drilling – and nuking – the nation out of its energy mess.

And, as for flip-flops, McCain’s dramatic repositioning of himself as an anti-environmentalist – after years of being one of the green movement’s favorite Republicans – represents a far more significant change than Obama’s modest waffling on offshore oil.

The Sierra Club, one of the nation’s premier environmental organizations, has repudiated McCain and now is running ads attacking his energy plan. But McCain’s flip-flops – even complete reversals – remain an underplayed part of the campaign story. They just don't fit the narrative of maverick John McCain on the "Straight Talk Express."

Loving the ‘Surge’

The major U.S. news media has been equally superficial in dealing with the Iraq War and the “war on terror.” It is now a fully enshrined conventional wisdom that George W. Bush’s troop “surge” was a huge success and vindicates McCain’s early support for it.

On Obama’s overseas trip, it became de rigueur for each interviewer to pound him for the first 10 or 15 minutes with demands that he accept the accepted wisdom about the “surge” and admit that he was wrong and McCain was right.

Obama’s attempts to offer a more subtle explanation of what had occurred in Iraq – that key reasons for the declining violence actually predated the “surge” – were treated with bafflement by the interviewers, who simply reframed their questions and came back at him in a show of toughness against Obama’s supposed evasions.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric started this pattern, but others fell smartly in line, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press.” Indeed, many of the same media stars who had cheered the nation to war in 2003 (such as Brokaw) were now hectoring Obama, who had spoken out against the invasion in real time.

Conversely, McCain is never challenged about his misjudgment in advocating a rapid pivot from Afghanistan to Iraq in late 2001 and early 2002, before Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda were captured and before Afghanistan had stabilized.

That premature pivot now stands as one of the biggest military blunders in U.S. history, leaving American troops bogged down in two open-ended wars and allowing the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks to regroup and to plot in safe havens inside Pakistan.

However, American voters who rely on the major news media for their information would have no idea about McCain’s central role in this fiasco. All they hear about is how McCain was right about the “surge” and how Obama won’t admit he was wrong.

Britney/Paris

When American news consumers aren’t hearing misinformation, they’re almost surely hearing trivia. The TV news shows couldn’t resist endlessly repeating McCain’s attack ad that compared Obama and his enthusiastic reception in Berlin to misbehaving celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Though the juxtaposition was clearly meant to demean – and reminded some political observers of the “call me” ads of a sexy white woman whispering to black Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford – McCain’s campaign insisted it was all in good fun.

While some pundits did take note of McCain’s detour onto the low road, others picked up McCain’s campaign theme that Obama is a “presumptuous” elitist who looks down on others.

That powerful attack line, which touches on the grievances of working-class whites who feel that some blacks have gotten unfair advantages from affirmative action, is at the heart of modern American racism. Since the Nixon era, Republicans have played this Southern Strategy with great success, telling whites that they’re the real victims.

This Obama-elitist theme reached its apex (or nadir, if you prefer) when the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank distorted a reported quote from Obama to a closed Democratic caucus and used it to prove Obama was a “presumptuous nominee.” [Washington Post, July 30, 2008]

Jonathan Capehart, Milbank’s colleague from the Washington Post’s neoconservative editorial page, then took the point a step further on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show, citing Milbank’s misleading quote to establish that Obama is an “uppity” black man.

Yet, the true meaning of the Obama quote appears to have been almost the opposite of how Milbank used it.

Painting Obama as a megalomaniac, Milbank wrote: “Inside [the caucus], according to a witness, [Obama] told the House members, ‘This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,’ adding: ‘I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.’"

However, other people who attended the caucus complained that Milbank had yanked the words out of context to support his “presumptuous” thesis, not to reflect what Obama actually said.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, said Obama’s comment was “in response to what one of the [House] members prefaced the question by,” a reference to the crowd of 200,000 that turned out to hear Obama speak in Berlin.

According to Clyburn, Obama “said, ‘I wish I could take credit for that, but I can't. Because it's not about me. It's about America. It's about the people of Germany and the people of Europe looking for a new hope, new relationships, as we go forward in the world.’ So, he expressly said that it's not about me.”

A House Democratic aide sent an e-mail to Fox News saying, “Lots of people are reading the quote about Obama being a symbol and getting it wrong. His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him.

“The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: ‘It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol …’”

So, it appears that Obama’s attempt to show humility was transformed into its opposite, establishing that, as Capehart put it, Obama is an “uppity” black man. [Capehart himself is black.]

A week after Milbank pulled the Obama quote inside out, the Washington Post had yet to run a correction or a clarification. The august Post apparently judges that Obama’s supporters don’t have the clout to punish a news organization for getting a quote wrong, even if it continues to reverberate through the media echo chamber to millions of Americans.

Putting Obama at Risk

Yet possibly even more offensive than the quote, Milbank’s column shoved everything, including the Secret Service security arrangements for Obama, through the lens of proving that the candidate is arrogant.

When Washington police and the Secret Service blocked off roads for Obama’s motorcade, that was not simply prudence in the face of extraordinary security concerns for Obama’s life; it was proof that Obama already sees himself as a head of state.

“He traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual President's. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities.”

Milbank groused, too, about the tight security that the police put around Obama’s movements on Capitol Hill.

“Capitol Police cleared the halls -- just as they do for the actual President. The Secret Service hustled him in through a side door -- just as they do for the actual President,” Milbank wrote.

While Milbank portrayed these security steps as further evidence of Obama’s hubris, there is no reason to believe that Obama had any say in the decisions of his security detail to protect the candidate.

Milbank and the Post were behaving as if they were oblivious to the physical danger that surrounds the first African-American to have a serious chance to be elected President of the United States. It was almost as if they were baiting him to order the Secret Service to pull back or face the accusation that he is, as Capehart put it, “uppity.”

This pattern of how the major media treats Obama also is not new. Although the McCain campaign and the right-wing media insist that Obama gets easy treatment from the press corps, that amounts to more “working the refs” than a legitimate complaint.

Just because Obama gets more coverage than McCain – the centerpiece of the Republican complaint – doesn’t mean that the press favors Obama, anymore than the fact that Bill Clinton got lots of coverage in 1998 over the Monica Lewinsky scandal meant that the press was favoring him.

Indeed, there have been repeated examples of media double standards working against Obama.

For instance, during the primaries, the major media obsessed for weeks over controversies that would have blown over for other candidates in days. The stupid remarks by Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, were endless fodder for news programs, while offensive comments from pro-McCain pastors were just tiny blips and soon disappeared.

Similarly, Obama’s lack of a flag-lapel pin became a theme that was used to challenge his patriotism, although neither John McCain nor Hillary Clinton wore a pin. Neither, by the way, did ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson as they moderated the April 16 debate in Philadelphia where Obama was grilled over his lack of a flag-lapel pin.

(The flag-lapel “issue” was first given national prominence by New York Times columnist William Kristol and was given more impetus by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer. To put the issue to rest, Obama finally began wearing a flag pin, though McCain still doesn’t wear one regularly.)

Economic Determinism

Every presidential election year, it seems, some economist publishes an article that declares that economic data – good or bad – will decide whether the White House will be won by the in-power party or the out-of-power party. For instance, the booming economy of 2000 supposedly assured Al Gore a resounding victory.

In Campaign 2008, this thinking holds that Americans – faced with severe economic troubles – will throw the Republicans out of the White House and elect a Democrat.

However, this economic determinism may no longer hold sway in a nation that is as inundated with media as the United States is. The ability to float false “themes” against one candidate or another and have the major media constantly repeat the propaganda is an extraordinarily powerful force in deciding American elections.

As we describe in our book Neck Deep, millions of Americans went to the polls in November 2000 believing a number of false claims that had been circulated about Vice President Gore (including the bogus notion that he had been part of a plan to sell nuclear secrets to China, when those secrets actually had been compromised during the Reagan years.)

Given the persistent superficiality – and cowardice – of the major U.S. news media, there’s even the larger question of whether a meaningful democracy can survive when the public is so thoroughly misinformed.

Although there are some Internet sites that challenge the major media’s errors, the imbalance remains tilted heavily toward the ideological Right. Especially when prestige newspapers like the Washington Post contribute to the distribution of false or misleading information – as with Milbank’s quote about Obama – the pro-Republican media eagerly amplifies it and most Americans never hear the other side.

Right-wing Internet sites also have proven to be very adept at inserting completely false claims about Obama that stick with many Americans, such as the oft-repeated lie that Obama is a Muslim or that he trained at a radical Islamic madrassah.

To assume that people will somehow see through such distortions has proven to be naïve in the past. More likely, many millions of Americans will head to the polls in November having internalized a hodgepodge of negative themes about Obama. Indeed, a significant number who have absorbed the uglier accusations will have come to hate him.

So, even if a McCain victory guarantees that the United States would solidify the policies of a deeply disliked President, many Americans may set aside what may be good for the country – or even good for their own pocketbooks – and vote against Obama, more based on perceptions than reality.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Corporations Are Not Poeple and Should Have No Inalienable Rights

We could not agree more. As long as we allow corporations to claim person-hood, with all of the inalienable rights guaranteed by the constitution, if we have one left, we will fall further and further into a fascist, authoritarian state.

Hitler and Mussolini, the father of fascism who said that corporatism and fascism were, basically, the same thing, did not happen over night. Authoritarianism never does. It sneaks upon a people, in the night, in the shadows, the smoke of chaos covering it's tracks and making it seem righteous. Nothing could be less true than righteous authoritarian fascism. Because in such a nightmare, the politicians we are allowed to vote on are not ours. (of course, we are not including every politician in that declaration. Some spend their careers looking out for the ordinary American. They are rare these days.) Most politicians belong to the lobbyist on K Street in D.C. or lesser lobbying streets.

The corporate officers of quite a few American corporations have been allowed to literally right policy....in the shadows, of course. These people are not elected nor are they accountable to anyone but their boards and, to some extent, their shareholders.

In the late 90s, there was a horrifying study done which found that, for the most part, the people who were very successful in the corporate world were either had narcissistic personality disorder or were sociopathic or functional psychotics. These are the people of which the Republican party says," let them regulate themselves' or "just leave it alone, the market will correct everything and is our savior, most unholy"

How many times are we going to have to see what happens when financial institutions are left to their own devices. It's always a freakin' disaster. Remember Neil Bush and Silverado? Neil just walked away and the tax payer picked up the bill.

Now we have this housing foreclosure, credit crisis mess, all caused by lending institutions; greedy, sociopathic institutions, the shot-callers of which do not give a damn about anything but their bottom line, their bonuses for firing people and doing away with pensions after people have retired, believing that they would have enough to live on in their golden years and would not have to struggle or rely on their children, who have children of their own and are barely making ends meet, themselves. Why did we not allow Ted Bundy to self-regulate? Frankly I don't see the difference, given that it is a cardinal sin to be poor in America, no matter the reason. It is cause for great shame. Ones quality of life changes, when pensions dry up.

I over-heard an elderly man ask another man, in Ojai, California, last year, "I've got to sit down now and figure out how many years I can live, even the simple life I live, before I find myself on the streets of LA or San Francisco." He had told his friend that his pension from Delta Airlines was no more. He had been a pilot, but couldn't fly anymore, as he had developed vision problems after retiring. It was one of the saddest conversations I have ever over-heard.

His only son, a Navy pilot in Vietnam, had been killed. His wife of 30 years, committed suicide shortly thereafter. (Soldiers are not the only casualties of war.) This he told me after his friend left and I asked if I could join him, and confessed to overhearing his conversation. I told him, "I know how hard it is to talk to even family and friends about money, but Americans are going to have to start doing that more often." Americans do need to talk to each other more about hard topics and not just assume that the corporate news media is telling us the truth about the economy, because they are not.

Now we have the handy, dandy 401K. I ask those of you who have a 401k, how much control do you really have over how your money is invested? Is it your money, or is it slave money, which the brokers and fund managers can play with or move about as their buddies need a better cash flow? Is your money invested in your best interest in the long run or the needs of big business in the short run.

Enslaving people is illegal in the U.S. So are things like child labor and paying people less than the minimum wage, because they are illegally in the U.S. Cruel business practices are made easier for corporations who move their manufacturing off shore, as well as their business address, so they can avoid taxes. The results are a little like share-cropping, which should be illegal, if it isn't, especially in the form in which it was practiced after the Civil War (what an oxymoron that is, eh?). Communal farming is one thing. Share cropping is something quite different. It is barely a step up from slavery, but was predictable in the defeated South, which was still mostly agrarian, with large plantations (like big agribusiness of today) which had to be worked. Sharecropping was the answer for a long time after the war....an oppressive answer to the problems of the plantation owners' need for help farming large pieces of land.


But it is not illegal to enslave ones money.


It has, for some time, been amazing to me how little people realize that the people who are calling the shots in America are unelected, greedy, gluttonous, deceptive people (and I'm not talking about the illegitimate Bush regime). I'm talking about the corporate officers and boards of corporations and their flunkies on K Street.

If a revolution becomes inevitable, they are the ones the people should go after. Forget the politicians.

Remember:

The corporate sociopaths, functional psychotics and economic hit men.

The Neoconservatives: The Nazis of modern day America

The Theocons: Those who would make every attempt to codify their twisted belief systems in America.

As my beloved cousin said just this evening, "I don't care if you want to worship that tree out there," as he pointed to a huge Live Oak near where he is staying while he visits, "just don't tell me I have to worship it as well." Well said.

C.S. Lewis said it well when he said, "when fascism comes to America, it will come wearing the flag and carrying a cross.

Monday, June 02, 2008

The 'Conspiracy of Rich Men' That Threatens the Peace, the World and the Environment

America is ruled and held hostage by what Sir Thomas More would have called 'conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth'.

This fascist domination of American life and debate is made possible only because people have bought a pernicious notion: 'corporate personhood', which makes possible and winks at More's 'conspiracy of rich men'. Because mere legal abstractions are accorded rights that should belong only to real, living, flesh and blood people, corporations are given license to lie about misdeeds, incompetence and corporate criminality. More would have described this ruling cabal a 'conspiracy of rich men!

Let's take these ruinous, disastrous effects in turn but, first, this point: the theft of America's wealth was accomplished by corporate influence upon a civilian structure that left alone is relatively benign. The problem is not so much government itself but 'K Street', a major thoroughfare in Washington where the numerous think tanks, lobbyists and advocacy groups maintain offices! 'People' themselves cannot be heard through the din they throw up. Until 'K-street' and the 'legal personhood' of corporations is smashed, the actual offices of government are beyond the reach of the people they were intended to serve. K-street will be served ---but not you! If Mr. Smith could see Washington today!! The world that might be changed drastically if 'green energy' were made a high priority. But because 'green energy' threatens the corporate establishment, it will take nothing less than revolution to create a world supplied and powered by it. 'Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion' (OTEC) has been around for years, at least since the middle 70s. It is a source of virtually unlimited, green energy. Over a period of at least 30 years nothing has been done to develop and implement it. I can only conclude that that is the case because big corporations --More's 'conspiracy of rich men' --have not yet figured out a way to enrich themselves with it. Until they do, it is a threat to them.

Ocean waves are already being used as a source of renewable energy, but could differences in water temperatures in the sea be our next source of green power? A decade old idea to generate renewable electricity for the globe with offshore, floating ‘Energy Islands’ could soon become a reality. The concept - creating artificial islands to collect wind, wave and solar power in the tropics - is based on the work of Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval, a 19th-century French physicist, who envisioned the idea of using the sea as a giant solar-energy collector.Inspired by Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval, architect and engineer Dominic Michaelis, his son Alex Michaelin (also an architect), and Trevor Cooper-Chadwick are developing a new technique called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) that takes advantage of differences in temperature between the ocean surface sea (up to 29°C in the tropics) and water a kilometer down (which is typically 5°C). Here’s how it works: warmer surface water is used to heat liquid ammonia, converting it into vapor, which expands to drive a turbine — which in turn produces electricity. The ammonia is then cooled using cold water from the ocean depths, returning it into a liquid state so the process can start all over again.Their goal is to build a network of “energy islands”: floating hexagonal-shaped platforms of reinforced concrete and corrosion-resistant metals that would generate electricity via wind, wave, and solar in addition to having an OTEC plant. It’s estimated that each island complex could produce about 250MW, and that 50,000 “energy islands” could meet the world’s energy requirements (as well as provide two tons of fresh water per person per day for the entire world population — desalinated water is one byproduct of the OTEC process). OTEC plants work best when there’s a temperature difference of 20°C between water at the surface and the water below, making tropical and sub-tropical seas the best candidates for energy islands.--Artificial Energy Islands Could Power The World

As a fledgling network correspondent, I reported on a model of OTEC scaled down, floating and generating electricity in the swimming pool of the legendary Shamrock Hotel in Houston, TX. It is not hard to imagine entire communities built around combinations of OTEC, Solar, and even land versions of OTEC in which sub-surface water is used in place of ocean water. The best part of it is this: OTEC is green OTEC apparently never got off the ground because corporations could never figure out how to make it profitable for them. Over the course of some thirty years, the technical 'kinks' have been worked out. There is no reason other than fear and greed that prevents OTEC from saving the world.
The very concept is a threat to corporations. Typically, corporations have it the wrong way 'round. If corporations can't find a way to make a profit from OTEC, then the problem is not with OTEC but with the concept of 'corporation'. If 'corporate person-hood' is the last hang up to green energy, then the time has come to throw off the corporate yoke and free humankind. 'Corporate person-hood' gives corporations all the rights of individuals but none of the responsibilities. When an 'individual' commits a heinous crime, he or she is simply charged, tried, and punished for the crime. Corporations, by contrast, go to court and pay a measly fine which is written off. The corporation walks!

The word 'corporation' puts them above laws that apply to people. Check out the history of Union Carbide with regard to the Bhopal disaster. Recall the slap on the wrist given Exxon for the Valdez disaster. Those are just the most memorable and most highly publicized disasters for which corporations are rarely held to account. If OTEC and other green methods by which mankind can live in peace on this planet require the absolute abolition of corporations, then let's get on with it! Corporations have gotten us to the point of extinction. Perhaps the time has come to consider the forced extinction of corporations. It's an idea whose time has come. The era of the 'corporation' should be brought to an end.


OTEC was not covered widely by the corporate media, when, in fact, it should have been a big lead story. Again --it's time to turn the conventional wisdom on its head. If corporate media will not cover or report the truth, then it's time for the people to take back the media! It's time to break up and re-distribute the corporate 'ownership' of media.


The public ownership of the airwaves had been a well-established legal principle, upheld by law and court decisions until it was all overturned during the administration of Ronald Reagan. It was in the Reagan years that the laws were re-written to make possible the big media monopolies, the concentration of ownership by Clear Channel et al. It was under Ronald Reagan that the Fairness Doctrine made possible the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. It was under Ronald Reagan than a pernicious 'right wing revolution' --what St. Thomas More would have called a 'conspiracy of rich men' --stole the people's airwaves and made possible Bush's dictatorship. It's time to wage the revolution. A line in Shakespeare's Henry VI reads: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!" In this case, we spare the lawyers if they will but help us take back the media! The first thing we do is take back the media. A good second step involves smashing the 'media' lobby on K street. We need to get over the idea that corporations have a right to lobby the government!


Corporations are not people and, as far as I am concerned, have no rights whatsoever.

Someone, show me a principle of science or law which credibly equates living tissue with legal abstractions and cubicles!Thanks to Ronald Reagan and the GOP, one is hard pressed to find in any US market, a locally owned radio station or TV outlet. Before Reagan, it was not unusual to find locally owned radio and TV stations in small to major markets across the nation. Now ---it seems --all are owned by some five to seven major conglomerates. If we, the people, should declare it so, corporations themselves might just be written out of existence. And good riddance! Real people have 'rights'. Legal abstractions do not. The idea that an artificial, legal construct --a 'conspiracy of rich men' --has inherent or inalienable rights is pure bullshit. It's absurd on its face. How did this idiotic idea become so ingrained?


CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE!

We --a revolution of the people --shall make the laws under the common law and ancient principles that declare people not only have rights but are, in fact, sovereign! Should we the people so decree, Fox and the handful of huge corporations that presume to tell us what to do and what to believe, have neither right nor privileges, then Fox and the handful of huge corporations will be either shut down or taken over!


Begin by organizing and insisting upon an FCC with teeth! Insist upon restoring the Fairness Doctrine! Insist upon limitations to corporate ownership of media or prohibiting corporation ownership outright! Remember --'legal abstractions' have NO rights and certainly not those of 'real people'. Insist upon ownership rules that break up the media monopolies. Measures like this existed before Ronald Reagan began an assault upon the rights for the benefit of abstractions, before the GOP conspired with More's 'conspiracy of rich men'. More generally, the people have paid for Reagan/GOP fascism with the truth itself. Therefore, wage revolution against corporate 'person-hood'. In the absence of corporate influence, government will simply have no choice but to respond to real people or just disband. Certainly, as the fall of Rome proves, ineffective, top-heavy bureaucracies whose only purpose is the waging of wars of self-perpetuation and aggression, are simply not needed.



As useless wastes of human resources, the US government of treasonous militarists and fascist bureaucrats whose only jobs are self-justification, should be dismantled, re-invented, and re-assembled! Precise language --to be added to the Constitution --will make fascist government of and by corporations impossible; corporations themselves will be made impossible and constitutionally illegal. A good beginning would be to focus the attention of some national organizations on the bogus idea of 'corporate personhood'. If large organizations like Moveon.org et al would zero in on the source of our national malaise, much good would come of it. Instead of playing 'whack-a-mole' with every cockamamie right wing idea that comes up, more could be accomplished by going for the jugular --the corporations themselves. Corporations --as legal abstractions --should, by right, have no influence on government. Corporations will resist green energy because there are no profits in it. But the corporate argument is circular and assumes the correctness of the 'profit motive'. Who says corporations deserve or need a profit? Only corporations!


In America, the concept of 'profit' itself is simply 'assumed' to be correct as are the numerous economic shibboleths that make up right-wing orthodoxy. It is time to re-examine the gestalt of assumptions, myths, and articles of propaganda that make up 'right wing' economics. It's time to reassess 'profit' or perhaps abandon the concept entirely. No corporation will produce 'green energy' just as no big corporation can be trusted to tell you the truth on the evening news. The problem is not 'green energy' itself but rather the pro-corporate prejudice that prevents its development, indeed, any rational critique of 'right wing economics'. Not surprisingly, the corporations have it the wrong way around again. Green energy is NOT the problem; it is rather the solution. It's corporations that resist or block the development of 'green energy' that are the problem. As I learned in broadcasting --if you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. In America, the corporations ARE the problem. The very concept of 'corporation' is institutionalized mental constipation, a block against reason and inquiry.

...when I consider and weigh in my mind all these commonwealths, which nowadays anywhere do flourish, so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.

But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!

--Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Socialist Senator Sanders; An American Hero

Senator Bernie Sanders Stands Up For the Middle Class and Takes on Corporate Mainstream Media

Monday, April 21, 2008 5:34 PM
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

Year after year, the Bush people come forward and say how great the economy is, and that's full of crap. Since Bush has been President, median family income has gone down. For working families, it's gone down hundreds of dollars. Five million more people have slipped into poverty. Eight million people have lost their health insurance. Three million Americans have lost their pensions. And we have lost millions of good-paying jobs.

-- Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

No One Gives A Damn What You Think About Our New Police State

Especially the highly complicit media.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant

If one could graph the degree to which Bush has arrogated unto himself the powers of a dictator, the so-called 'unitary executive', the upward curve of such a graph is the mirror image of his 'popularity' --at its greatest in the minutes and hours following 911.

Bush's plunging popularity has had no effect on his ruthless power grab. Public opinion is irrelevant. Bush himself said: "This would be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship!" And so it has been for Bush. Any other President committing the same crimes, telling the same lies would have already been impeached, removed, and indicted. Public opinion means nothing to a man who was also heard to say: "Who cares what you think?" Clearly, Bush doesn't care and proves it daily.

Most recently, Bush's approval rating has fallen to 28 percent. Some comments about that chosen at random on a the Drudge Report:

The first President in US history who is a complete Dipshit. And 28% of Americans according to this poll still support him. Right !Then 28% of America is dumber than a bag of hair.TigerbalmAre you shittin' me man? There has never ever, been anyone who was more destructive to the spirit and the letter of the law of the constitution. Never, not even in other countries (except for hitler and stalin and we all know how that turned out). And to tell the truth I don't believe it's because he is a megalomaniac or evil or something like that. I believe he is a lethal combination of low intelligence coupled with a strong need to feather his and his friends nests with dollars. to be honest I would prefer the megalomaniac, at least you would know where he is coming from.

The level of frustration is palpable. In the weeks following 911, Bush would not have found it necessary to shut down 'free speech' immediately or completely. A repugnant brigade of incipient 'brownshirts' were doing that for him. The "Dixie Chicks" were victims of it! The SUV-driving, flag waving, gas guzzling idiots in Houston were 'self-appointed' enforcers of the cult of Bush. Certainly, a militant, belligerent mentality would choose a time of national tragedy and mourning to display to the world the behavior of 'brownshirts'. If the Bush administration maintained even a pretense of accountability —Bush would have already been impeached, resigned, or investigated. Instead, Bush has consolidated his power on several fronts and he has done so in the face of vehement, widespread opposition and revulsion. He has done so despite the fact that most people think he's a liar and a fraud.Bush holds several trump cards, not the least of which is how he dictates the agenda through the mainstream media. Big media means big corporations. They will pay lip service to equal time even when equal times means balancing truth with more lies. Big corporations spend billions to outshout the independent voice. The assault on "net neutrality" is just one example, but, perhaps, the most pernicious and catastrophic in the longer term. A successful attack on "net neutrality" will most probably bring to an end the existence of blogs like "The Existentialist Cowboy" or, at the very least, it will marginalize them.Media no longer plays the role of the 'Fourth Estate'; it no longer plays the traditional role of watchdog. Media no longer keeps 'them' honest. Some outlets, most notably the Fox network, are no more than the 'propaganda ministry' for the administration. More insidious are PBS, CBS, NBC and ABC where the reporting and analysis simply misses the point. Election and campaign reporting, never good, has never been worse. Intelligent reporting and issues analysis are replaced with punditry and other shallow instances of 'who is ahead' and why.

When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances..For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with. ...--In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC

The Pew Research Center for People and the Press reports that the public shares my sense of disaffection and outrage. Seventy-seven percent against 17 percent want more coverage of issues and less punditry. Fifty-seven percent want real debates. Only 42 percent want more news about which candidate is leading in the polls du jour while fifty five percent want more news about candidates that are not deemed by big media to be "front-runners". Among other findings from the PEJ-Shorenstein study:

• Just five candidates have been the focus of more than half of all the coverage. Hillary Clinton received the most (17% of stories), though she can thank the overwhelming and largely negative attention of conservative talk radio hosts for much of the edge in total volume. Barack Obama was next (14%), with Republicans Giuliani, McCain, and Romney measurably behind (9% and 7% and 5% respectively). As for the rest of the pack, Elizabeth Edwards, a candidate spouse, received more attention than 10 of them, and nearly as much as her husband.

• Democrats generally got more coverage than Republicans, (49% of stories vs. 31%.) One reason was that major Democratic candidates began announcing their candidacies a month earlier than key Republicans, but that alone does not fully explain the discrepancy.

• Overall, Democrats also have received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35% vs. 26%). For both parties, a plurality of stories, 39%, were neutral or balanced.

• Most of that difference in tone, however, can be attributed to the friendly coverage of Obama (47% positive) and the critical coverage of McCain (just 12% positive.) When those two candidates are removed from the field, the tone of coverage for the two parties is virtually identical.
  

• There were also distinct coverage differences in different media. Newspapers were more positive than other media about Democrats and more citizen-oriented in framing stories. Talk radio was more negative about almost every candidate than any other outlet. Network television was more focused than other media on the personal backgrounds of candidates. For all sectors, however, strategy and horse race were front and center.

Media fixation with every aspect of politics but issues is evidence of insidious media cynicism, an entrenched belief that Americans will not read or understand a story unless it has star quality and celebrity in it. Media fixation with every aspect of politics but issues is also evidence of media that is either out of touch or under the control of the corporate establishment. In the end, public opinion will have literally missed the point and will not matter.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Hillary Has Lost, Now Lets Move On

Hillary lost, by the way, through her own miscalculations and loss of touch with an historic movement in the United States of America, more strong and smart than the one in the 60s, but definitely the logical out growth of it. I'm not at all sure that she understood that one either.

Political reporters Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen of The Politico have finally said with prodigious, black-and-white clarity what so many others in the mainstream press have been fudging and dancing around: "One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning."

Thank you.

That wasn't so hard, was it?

In all immodesty, however, I said much the same on Iowa's morning after, although for more ecumenical reasons (which we'll get back to shortly) than those delineated yesterday by Vandehei and Allen.

For them, now, as it has been for the realistically grounded for some time, it is all about -- yep -- the math. You can cut, slice, rearrange and bounce the pledged-delegate and popular-vote numbers any which way you want, but they always come back to one inalterable conclusion: Barack Obama wins.

Ah, but there are those superdelegates, you say, who are beholden to nothing and nobody but their own consciences and political futures. One never knows which way those winds may be blowing down the road, so there's still a chance. To which, with butcher knives in hand, Vandehei and Allen had this to say:

"The only way she wins [with] Democratic superdelegates [is if they're] ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency." Then, the two journalists' death blow to such fantastical musings: "People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet."

Ah, the destruction of the Democratic Party! Is that what the Clinton's are trying to do, or does Hillary really have the ambitious ego from hell which seems so common among the DLCers, as many on the Right have suggested and I haven't wanted to believe, though many of my independent political warrior pals have believed it all along.

Oh well, it matters not. If she is really shameless enough to go to the super-delegates and ask them to over-turn the will of the people, she is no better than the Bushies. If they do as she asks, all hell is gonna break loose in the Dembulb Party and if there are Rethugs out there cheering, don't. There is nothing for you to cheer about! Your party has already imploded, thanks be to the NeoCons and the Bushites. Glory Hallelujah, Amen!

In effect, Vandehei and Allen continue, the mainstream press and broadcast media have been playing mind games with the electorate -- and especially Hillary's supporters. "Journalists have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is," and mostly, almost exclusively, because journalists love a good horse race and didn't want to see this one at the finish line.

Which, by the way, I think sucks! Aren't Americans getting sick and tired of mind games, whether they are being played on us by politicians or the MSM and Cabal News, not to mention every corporation advertising on the TeeVee. We, the people, should come up with some form of dire punishment for anyone who messes with our heads for any reason.

Virtual and honestly reported fait accomplis don't sell newspapers or ramp up ratings. Can you hear it? Tune in again tomorrow, folks, when we'll remind you, again, that it's seven long months to the next major showdown.

Oh, hell no it isn't. Teflon John has already started campaigning, while the news media gives Clinton supporters false hopes and Barack is stuck having to explain his grade school diary and other such nutty things.

Click. This far out, covering Betty Crocker Bake-offs would hold more news-consumer appeal.

Hey, how about the very well-educated, well spoken man with a mind like a steel trap and the oratory skills of John, Martin, and Bobby all rolled into one v. Senator McCrackers, who cannot seem to stop repeating the same lie/mistake over and over again, even after he's reminded by his good buddy, Holy Joe Lieberman, that Iran is supporting extremists, not al Qaida, in Iraq. I assume he means Shia extremists, but who knows? (Does anyone know the difference between an extremist and al Qaida terrorist? Just wondering, if when the bombs goes off, do the victims care very much?)

So what, if there are only a little over 6 months until the general election. Doesn't that give us time to work on the congressional elections? If Obama wins the White House he is gonna be in a world of hurt without a decent congress he can rely on to push needed legislation through.

So those journalistic partners with the Clinton campaign perpetuated "the myth," as the Politico titled its story, of Hillary's fighting viability. Oh, the drama of it all.

But to get back to what I promised, the real and determining drama of the Obama-Clinton race came decisively on the evening of January 3. The following morning I opened a column with, "Barack Obama can start taking drape measurements at the White House," for "it's hard to see how, and by whom, he can be stopped now." I closed it with this: "You may pre-order your Obama Inaugural Ball tickets today."

I wasn't riding some personal wave of Obamamania when I wrote that. In fact, in a moment of mistaken objectivity I had largely written off Obama's chances in an earlier piece. It was, merely, that Iowa delivered a crushing confirmation of what most voters were screaming for -- "change."

Abrupt, incontrovertible, unmistakable change. That hung in the air, voters would not be denied, and it didn't take many tea leaves to read the immediate electoral future. That was the new objectivity, only this time there was proof.

And that was the wave on which Hillary tumbled -- early, decisively and irreversibly. She and her staff of old-politics, 45-percent-coalition advisers immeasurably misread the national mood.

Maybe she was taking advice from Bill, who had been up at the Bush compound in Maine, sailing with Poppy Bush.

After seven years of vastly experienced presidential lying, conniving, weaseling, obfuscating, twisting, manipulating and swindling, the last thing most voters wanted was more Washington experience. But what did Hillary give them? Thirty-five bloody years of it. Reams of it. Mountains of it. Endless lectures and tutorials about it.

For a candidate known for her slyly calculating nature, it was one of the most colossal miscalculations in American political history. And that, I'm sure, is how future political historians will write her political obituary of 2008, just after noting another colossal and preceding miscalculation -- her 2002 Iraq war vote.

So again, thank you, Messrs. Vandehei and Allen, for finally writing what other journalists already knew but shied away from saying with such piercing clarity at point-blank range. Once the striking reality of it dawns on Hillary's base, perhaps a new day of progressive unity will dawn as well. Or at least begin dawning.

It's about time. Because this race was over as of January 4. It just took a while for journalists to get around to reporting it.

Please respond to the commentary by leaving comments below and sharing them with the BuzzFlash community. For personal questions or comments you can contact P.M. at fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.