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Vol. 10 No. 4…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January
26,
2007
Intuit’s Vibe
Deception
By John Burl Smith
A fiery voice
thundered as an angry God spoke,
Wake up my son!
Edifying thoughts
are being delivered on the wings of fate.
Desperados wearing faces of angels speak
with tongues that
beguile the faithful.
Besieged by fear and guilt,
the intellect builds
its prison.
Not an innocent child crying in the night,
but a thief
stealthily hiding in the mind.
A well-protected bushwhacker lies in wait
to steal
tomorrow’s joy by killing today’s promise.
Whose face does this gnome wear but my own,
disguising deception with good intentions,
turning golden dreams
into ash gray nightmares!
Taught by circumstances the purity of the spirit,
underlying greed paints
life’s actual reflection.
Given a saint’s zeal for righteousness,
the desperate nature
of men impales them on a crucifix of deception.
Although wise beyond his years,
self-indulgence deludes heavenly schemes
consumed by
pride’s self-adulation.
In the end undone by self-betrayal,
man’s prison of
desire is a dark den of lust and envy.
Convinced of the good in what he does,
he does not see evil
in his choices.
Championing honorable causes is the claim
to justify the means
employed and victims uncounted.
Drawn to these depths, not by an invisible hand,
but by slavish
devotion, demons command the man.
Maybe not as profound for the world as for me,
a prisoner in a mental dungeon,
a captive of greed, muses,
will humans learn the
lessons of the mustard seed?
Stand Up!
Angered by Bush’s Iraq war
and his escalation plans, protestors will flood the streets of Washington, DC
on January 27, in a massive national peace march organized by United for Peace
and Justice (UFPJ). Marchers will
call on Congress to end Bush’s war and bring the troops home.
Moveon.org, the National
Organization for Women (NOW) and other antiwar groups in cities and towns
across the nation are mobilizing.
The AFSCME’s largest NY district council and New York’s
United Federation of Teachers, the largest teachers union in the country, are
sending busloads of their members to Washington. Car caravans and peace trains are
heading to Washington. Buses and
vans are coming from more than 30 states and 111 cities.
On Saturday, January 27, marchers
in the nation’s capitol will call for an end to Bush’s endless
warfare and demand that Congress stand up and do the people’s
business. Among those slated to address
the pre-march rally are Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who last year led
an antiwar march of thousands, the largest protest in Salt Lake City history,
Reverend Jesse Jackson, Jr., Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Rep. Maxine Waters
(D-CA) and many others, including current and former members of the military.
On Monday, January 29th, UFPJ is
sponsoring Grassroots Lobby Day – hundreds will press the case for
withdrawal from Iraq directly with their congressional representatives and
senators. The weekend’s
activities will include a Saturday morning interfaith peace service and
organizing workshops on Sunday.
For more information on the rally, march and grassroots lobby day, visit www.unitedforpeace.org.
King George III
(1738-1820)
Born June 4, 1738 in London, the eldest son of
Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, George III
became heir to the throne of Great Britain on the death of his grandfather,
George II (1760). King George III's father died in 1751 and never served as
king.
Not very intelligent, George did
not read until age eleven. Only twelve when his father died, his mother's
friend, the Earl of Bute, became an important adviser. Bute persuaded George to
end his relationship with Sarah Lennox, a descendent of Charles II, and
arranged his marriage to Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz,
Germany on September 8, 1761. Of partial German ancestry also, George was
devoted to his German princess for whom he purchased the Queen's House, the
future Buckingham Palace. The couple had 15 children.
On September 22, 1761, George III became the King of England. A year later, he
arranged for Bute to become prime minister, upsetting many MPs who considered
Bute incompetent. While Bute only stayed in office for a year, he remained an
important influence on George's political opinions.
While other events marked George III's reign, including the abolition of the
slave trade (1807), he is remembered best for losing the American colonies and
going mad. Deeply in debt from administering its vast territory, the costs of a
series of wars with France and Spain, and loans given to the East India
Company, the empire needed money. George III thought he could extract it from
the colonies.
When the colonists objected to "taxation without representation,"
George flew into a rage. To punish the upstarts for their disobedience and
insolence, George pushed through legislation that taxed many more commodities,
including tea, which resulted in the Boston Tea Party and the ensuing
revolutionary war. After the successful colonial revolt, other colonies
rebelled, embroiling the empire in one conflict or another for years.
Ironically, George's strong defense of what he saw as the national interest
made him popular in some quarters. Others criticized the conflict as an
"unjust war" and urged the government to bring it to an end. George's
critics pointed to official lies and deceptions and efforts by the monarchy to
influence and manipulate members of Parliament.
Determined to recover the royal prerogative lost by his predecessors, George
III used bribery, coercion and patronage to quell critics. When the House of
Commons passed the India Bill, the king warned members of the House of Lords
that he would regard any one who voted for the bill an enemy. Unwilling to
upset the king, the Lords rejected the measure. Men of mediocre talent and
servile minds were hand-picked by him to serve as Cabinet members, acting as
little more than yes-men. Some critics accused him of trying to reassert royal
authority in an unconstitutional fashion.
George III inherited the throne and the royal hereditary disease porphyria,
which is caused by the insufficient production of hemoglobin. The disease's
symptoms include photosensitivity, abdominal pain, wine-colored urine,
paralysis, psychiatric symptoms, ending in epileptic convulsions, coma and
death. George III's first attack occurred in 1765. He became progressively
insane, spending his time in isolation, often kept in straight jackets behind
bars in his private chambers at Windsor Castle.
Debilitated in the final years of his reign, his son George, the Prince Regent,
assumed personal rule in 1811. George III died blind, deaf and mad at Windsor
Castle on January 29, 1820, after a reign of almost 60 years. (Sources: www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page111.asp,
www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon55.html,
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRgeorgeIII.htm
and www.americanrevolution.com/KingGeorge3rd.htm)
Disgruntled wants to know: Unless something drastic happens, the US war
in Iraq is slated for escalation beyond the introduction of more US troops.
From all the sound and fury, the conflict could widen to include Iran and
Syria. According to inside the Beltway chatter, it is just a matter of time
before neo-cons/Israeli lobby convince Bush to attack Iran ostensibly over its
nuclear ambitions. It is time for the US public to engage in a debate about the
use of its military. Why should US citizens finance wars of imperialism that
benefit a few multinational corporations that do not particularly operate in
the best interest of US citizens?
Disgruntled says: King
George III was a fool. Though it was widely known that George III was not very
intelligent, still simply due entirely to an accident of birth, the Hanoverian
monarch was allowed to rule the mighty British empire. The Earl of Bute
whispered in his ear and George listened to his Bute. His reign, replete with
lies, deception and corruption, a failure of vast proportions, brought about
the colonial empire's demise. Parallels between the current US president, who
may carry Hanover genes, and George III are striking. But George W. Bush is not
a king. The US is a republic on the brink; Congress can use impeachment and
removal from office, to save the country and world from dangerous madmen drunk
on power.
Disgruntled feels: Flip-flop! Mainstream
media are not paying much attention to the Bush flip-flop on warrantless
wiretapping and purge of prosecutors. The Internet is abuzz with the
implications of these deceptive developments. And, there seems to be a
consensus among netters that the flip-flop should not close the door on the
investigation and prosecution of official wrongdoing. Laws have been broken;
there is no executive privilege that allows the president to flip-flop and get
away with breaking the law, that is, if we are all held to the same standards.
By John Burl Smith
Caught in the throes of war during WWII,
Germany's greed consumed it. An agonizing struggle that split France between
liberty and authoritarianism, the French underground became an insurgency.
Parisians rose up against Adolf Hitler's Nazis and turned Paris into a
battlefield. Fighting raged the length and breath of the city, and during the
paroxysm thousands of Frenchmen died. Parisian insurgents erected barrages and
fought house-to-house, then street-to-street against the occupiers that claimed
to be liberators on invading their country.
Frenchmen who rushed to support the Nazi invasion
formed a government Frenchmen called Vichy. Lock-step with Hitler in the glory
days, they robbed France to feed the German war machine. Enduring harsh
occupation, the French branded the Vichy "collaborators" and gave
them no quarter. Vichy officials became targets of bombs and snipers.
The Nazis considered the underground insurgents
saboteurs and terrorists. The Nazis took reprisals against the French people
for the actions of the insurgency. Rather than turn against the underground,
the French praised its fighters as heroes, true patriots for defending and
rescuing their nation from the grip of totalitarianism.
Wars are far easier to start than to win.
Extricating themselves, conquerors and liberators alike learn from such
misadventures that people do not willingly accept from outsiders, what they
endure willingly under a local "Attila." This fact has been lost on
the United States (US) time and again. Trapped in Iraq, the same "throes
of war" as in Viet Nam, the US learned nothing from the French. Given
France to control after WWII ended, the French sank millions of dollars and
thousands of lives into Indo-China (Viet Nam) and Algeria, chasing dreams of
empire.
Following a decade dominating Afghanistan, the
Soviet Union found itself locked in the "throes of war." Once a
mighty superpower that rivaled the US for world hegemony, propping up a puppet
regime, their hopes of empire broke an iron grip on millions of lives.
Observers watched the economic wealth of Russia disappear down the bottomless
pit of occupation. No one understood why the Russians would not simply leave
Afghanistan, rather than sacrifice their nation on the altar of greed.
Civil wars are internal fires that burn
themselves out, if external fuel suppliers don't energize a wider
conflagration. Whether the US in Iraq, the Nazis in France, Italy in Libya and
Ethiopia, France and the US in Viet Nam, Israel in Palestine, the US in Iran or
the Soviets in Afghanistan, people will only suffer occupation so long. A
superpower bogged down in quagmires, like civil wars, hemorrhage to death.
George Bush, a Texas oil wildcatter, is sinking the entire US treasury in a dry
hole drilling for "democracy" in Iraq.
Convinced no effort to get control of world oil
resources is a bad deal, Bush, the wildcatter or mad-hatter, just finds another
bankroll and keeps drilling. (For the first time in its history, the US is
fighting a war on credit.) As in the oil business, stockholders pay the bills
whenever they come due. Problem is, US taxpayers are the stockholders and they
are calling in Bush's markers. The US public has seem enough dry holes
"spreading democracy" to last several lifetimes. It is a pipe-dream,
and doing it again with people steeped in tribalism makes no sense.
Overwhelmingly, US citizens want the pipeline shut off.
When the French fought the Nazis and kicked them
out of France, the world heralded their stand as heroic. Today, the Iraqi
people are fighting invaders and occupiers -- the same kind of people the
French fought -- but Iraqi insurgents are called "terrorists" even
though they are fighting to take their country from a puppet government.
Clash of the Elites
By John Walsh
A titanic power struggle is being waged within
the policy elite or power elite, or more simply the U.S. ruling class. The
clash is taking place over the war on Iraq, U.S. policy toward Israel -- and
ultimately over the best way to run the U.S. empire.
The war on Iraq is shaping up as such a disaster
for the empire that it can no longer be tolerated by our rulers in its present
form. The struggle is as plain as the nose on your face; nevertheless it draws
little comment. One reason is that we are taught to view matters political
through the prism of Democrat versus Republican, whereas this struggle among
our rulers cuts across party lines.
On the "Left," few so much as allude to
this internecine war, much less use it to good effect. This is apparently due
to a very rigid, very dogmatic view of how empires function, indeed how they
"must" function, and due to a fear of being labeled anti-semitic and
thus running afoul of the Israeli Lobby. In many cases this silence reflects an
actual sympathy among "liberals" for neocon foreign policy, either
out of a latter day do-gooder version of the White Man's Burden, or an
attachment to Israel.
This struggle is in no way hidden and definitely not a secret conspiracy. It is out in the open, as it must be, since it is in great part a battle for the hearts and minds of the American public. This fact makes the absence of commentary about it all the more chilling. The fight among our rulers sets the neocons against other very important elements in the establishment: the senior officer corps, represented by Jack Murtha and Colin Powell; the old money like Ned Lamont; the oil men, like James Baker (With Baker against the war, how then can oil be the only reason for the war?); those who want to see the American imperium run effectively, like Lee Hamilton and Robert Gates of the Iraq Study Group; many in the CIA, both active duty and retired; policy makers like Zbigniew Brzezinski who has long opposed the war which he has ascribed to the influence of certain "ethnic" groups; and even former presidents Gerald Ford who kept his mouth shut and Jimmy Carter who has not and whose frustration with Israel and the neocons is all too clear in his book "Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid."
Influential voices tied to the ruling circles
include some writers for the militantly anti-war publication of the Old Right,
The American Conservative.
On the other side are the neocons, based in the
Washington "Think" Tanks, in the civilian leadership of the pre-Gates
Pentagon, in Dick Cheney's office, in large parts of both parties in Congress,
and in the editorial and op-ed pages of the print media. Most of the House and
much of the Senate is still under the control of the neocons thanks to the
fund-raising exertions and threats from AIPAC and its minions. Hence, the most
powerful political allies of the neocons are the leading Democrats, who indulge
in the most intense and shallow anti-Bush rhetoric but are reliable allies in
the neocon crusades in the Middle East. (Source: Read the entire essay at www.counterpunch.org/walsh01052007.html.
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.)
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Telephone Calls
Email kitcurtin@earthlink.net
There is no "war" between Israel and Palestine. Only terrorism,
"targeted assassinations," illegal imprisonment, apartheid,
impoverishment, disenfranchisement, land theft, withholding of government
funds, destruction of infrastructure, starvation, destruction of farmlands,
robbing of livelihoods, etc. All financed by US taxpayers by way of AIPAC and
Israeli-first neo-con foreign policy.
Email www.americanprogress.org Bush
announces nomination of next ambassador to Afghanistan...George W. Bush plans
to nominate the current U.S. ambassador to Colombia to become ambassador in
Afghanistan. If confirmed, William Wood would leave a job as ambassador to a
country where drugs are a major worry for another in which narcotics are
considered a top problem. Colombia is the world's largest cocaine producer and
is believed to be the source of 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the
United States. Opium production in Afghanistan last year rose 49 percent,
enough to make about 670 tons of heroin. That is more than 90 percent of the
world's supply and more than the world's addicts consume in a year.
Email www.uruknet.info George W. Bush: A Symptom
of Disease...By Charles Sullivan...Our imperial leader, an impish little man
with clear sociopathic symptoms, is incapable of empathy for the struggles of
the common people, as those born into wealth and privilege often are. The man with
his finger on the nuclear detonator is mentally ill, a fact that should terrify
every world citizen.
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