Love's Strange Ways

One of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite songwriters, Chris Rea.
I hope you dig it.


sj

When passion shines her blinding light on you
You know my friend there's nothing that you can really do
Just follow on behind her veil of deepest purple haze
Down, to love's strange ways

Drowning in a laughter as you go
Intoxicating laughter that spins you high and low
Dangerous times are these, but oh so wonderfully new
Laugh along you fool, can't you they're laughing at you
Lost in the haze
Of love's strange ways

Ain't it funny how it turns
When it's all over, nothing's learned
Just a passion and a fool
And a memory that burns
And that's what you get
When you play with love's strange ways

LIBERTY IS THE BEST SECURITY

Same Game, New Name

Past is prologue, Pal.
Ask anybody with an IQ bigger than their shoe size.

If you can't quite get your mind around America's war on Iraq and Afghanistan -- and now Pakistan -- try reading up on the Indian wars of the 19th Century.
I believe you'll discover that both the propaganda and the slaughter seem hauntingly familiar.

The Middle East is just the natural extension of the Wild West, see?

America wanted the Indians' lands and it took them, killing any "red devils" (translate that as "terrorists") who got in the way, whether man, woman or child.

Now America wants that oil, Baby.
And woe be to anyone who gets in the way, man woman or child.

At Wounded Knee, the 7th Cavalry attacked and killed 150 Lakotas, mostly women and children.
And 20 of these murdering sob's received the Medal of Honor for doing it.

Same old, same old.


sj

A REAL American Hero

New York Times, December 28, 2010

No-No Boy

By Lawrence Downes

Courage takes many forms. Frank Emi, who died in California on Dec. 1, age 94, had the steadfast kind, well suited for lonely struggles and ostracism.

He was a young Japanese-American man sent to an internment camp in Wyoming after Pearl Harbor. He could have gotten out by signing a loyalty oath and enlisting in the Army, proving his patriotism the way so many other Japanese-Americans did — honorably, irrefutably, with their blood, limbs and lives.

Mr. Emi marched in exactly the opposite direction. After receiving draft notices in the camp, he and six other young men created the Fair Play Committee. In March 1944, they signed a declaration challenging the internment policy and their conscription as shameful affronts to the Constitution and American ideals.

“We, the members of the FPC, are not afraid to go to war,” they wrote. “We are not afraid to risk our lives for our country. We would gladly sacrifice our lives to protect and uphold the principles and ideals of our country as set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, for on its inviolability depends the freedom, liberty, justice, and protection of all people, including Japanese-Americans and all other minority groups.

“But have we been given such freedom, such liberty, such justice, such protection? NO!!”

Mr. Emi and the six other original signers all refused to serve. More than 300 people in 10 camps joined them. All were prosecuted. Other Japanese-Americans mocked them as the “no-no boys.” The Japanese American Citizens League denounced them as seditious. But Mr. Emi, who spent 18 months in a federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., was right to speak out.

After the war, Mr. Emi worked as a postal clerk and for the State of California. In the 1980s, he joined the fight for redress for Japanese-Americans who were deprived of their property and freedom.

Congress apologized in 1988. It took several more years for the Japanese American Citizens League to withdraw its slander against the resisters. It apologized in 2000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/19emi.html?_r=2

Thanks to Mike for sending this along.

Time for a New Year's REVOLUTION

2011: "Dissent is what rescues Democracy"

By

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Global Research, December 27, 2010

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.

--Lewis H. Lapham

The year 2011 will bring Americans a larger and more intrusive police state, more unemployment and home foreclosures, no economic recovery, more disregard by the US government of US law, international law, the Constitution, and truth, more suspicion and distrust from allies, more hostility from the rest of the world, and new heights of media sycophancy….

If not already obvious, 2010 has made clear that the US government does not care a whit for the opinions of citizens. The TSA is unequivocal that it will reach no accommodation with Americans other than the violations of their persons that it imposes by its unaccountable power. As for public opposition to war, the Associated Press reported on December 16 that “Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. can’t let public opinion sway its commitment to Afghanistan.” Gates stated bluntly what has been known for some time: the idea is passe that government in a democracy serves the will of the people. If this quaint notion is still found in civics books, it will soon be edited out…

With truth the declared enemy of the fantasy world in which the government, media, and public reside, the nation has turned on whistleblowers. Bradley Manning, who allegedly provided the media with the video made by US troops of their wanton, fun-filled slaughter of newsmen and civilians, has been abused in solitary confinement for six months. Murdering civilians is a war crime, and as General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the National Press Club on February 17, 2006, “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral” and to make such orders known. If Manning is the source of the leak, he has been wrongfully imprisoned for meeting his military responsibility. The media have yet to make the point that the person who reported the crime, not the persons who committed it, is the one who has been imprisoned, and without a trial…

READ IT AT:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22524

BIG BROTHER IS A MOTHER-

2011: A Brave New Dystopia

by

Chris Hedges

…The noose is tightening. The era of amusement is being replaced by the era of repression. Tens of millions of citizens have had their e-mails and phone records turned over to the government. We are the most monitored and spied-on citizenry in human history. Many of us have our daily routine caught on dozens of security cameras. Our proclivities and habits are recorded on the Internet. Our profiles are electronically generated. Our bodies are patted down at airports and filmed by scanners. And public service announcements, car inspection stickers, and public transportation posters constantly urge us to report suspicious activity. The enemy is everywhere.

Those who do not comply with the dictates of the war on terror, a war which, as Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally silenced. The draconian security measures used to cripple protests at the G-20 gatherings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly disproportionate for the level of street activity. But they sent a clear message—DO NOT TRY THIS. The FBI’s targeting of antiwar and Palestinian activists, which in late September saw agents raid homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of what is to come for all who dare defy the state’s official Newspeak.

The agents—our Thought Police—seized phones, computers, documents and other personal belongings. Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have since been served on 26 people. The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting “providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.” Terror, even for those who have nothing to do with terror, becomes the blunt instrument used by Big Brother to protect us from ourselves.

“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?” Orwell wrote. “It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.”

Published on Monday, December 27, 2010 by TruthDig.com

READ IT ALL: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/27-1

Patches Horsing Around

Talkin' Horses

There’s an old folk tale that on Christmas eve, from the stroke of midnight until the cock crows on Christmas morning, horses – and other animals, too – are gifted with the ability to talk to humans.

That’s a silly myth.

Animals talk to us ALL the time.

We just don’t listen.

sj

DEFINITELY UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Obama’s Liberty Problem:

Why Indefinite Detention by Executive Order Should Scare the Hell Out of People

by

Bill Quigley and Vince Warren

The right to liberty is one of the foundation rights of a free people. The idea that any US President can bypass Congress and bypass the Courts by issuing an Executive Order setting up a new legal system for indefinite detention of people should rightfully scare the hell out of the American people.

Advisors in the Obama administration have floated the idea of creating a special new legal system to indefinitely detain people by Executive Order. Why? To do something with the people wrongfully imprisoned in Guantanamo. Why not follow the law and try them? The government knows it will not be able to win prosecutions against them because they were tortured by the US.

Published on Thursday, December 23, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/23-5

Congratulations, Mrs. Smith; It's a Terrorist.

YOU MAY BE A TERRORIST AND NOT KNOW IT!

According to various government sources the following is a list of behaviors, actions or interests that are “suspicious” and just might indicate terrorist activity:

- Making numerous references to the U.S. Constitution

- Defending the U.S. Constitution

- Claiming driving is a right, not a privilege

- Refusing to identify yourself to an authority figure

- Attempting to monitor the actions of police

- Being bald

- Being a “nice guy”

- Displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties

- Supporting Congressman Ron Paul

- Opposing the implementation of a North American Union

- Owning gold bullion

- Displaying historical U.S. flags

- Opposing abortion

- Being interested in animal rights

- Being a “lone individual”

- Wearing Levi jeans

- Communicating predominantly by cell phone, email or text message

- Looking “normal” in appearance

- Renting a car

- Staying in a hotel or apartment

- Renting a storage facility

- Using cash to make large purchases

- Using pre-paid cellphones or hand-held radios

- Owning large amounts of medicines, alcohol, or baby formula

- Gaining support for a cause by holding meetings, public rallies, or demonstrations

- Gaining support for a cause by using websites, posters, leaflets, or underground press publications

- Possessing a photo-copy of your drivers license, passport, social security card or birth certificate

- Possessing or purchasing GPS technology

- Walking, biking or driving near “potential targets”

- Taking photographs of “potential targets,” including bridges, power plants or government buildings

- Being a property-rights activist

- Trying to influence government or social policy

- Undermining confidence in the government

- Using a sketch pad, camera, map, binoculars or scuba equipment

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY -- AND IT'S YOU!

sj

The Approaching Storm

Berlin, 1934: Awaiting the Storm

by

Fred Reed

Flags. These are always a bad sign. Hardly a politician appears on television who doesn’t stand in front of an American flag, sometimes three American flags. A venomous nationalism now poisons the air, and grows. We are off and rolling.

The trappings of fascism spread. General David Petraeus, commander of the Eastern Front, poses with the President in the White House in combat fatigues. The country is now the Homeland, reminiscent of the Nazi Fatherland and the Soviet Motherland. We hear of American Exceptionalism, the ritual self-idolizaton beloved of pathological nationalism. Blood and Soil. The American Dream. Ubermenschen. All we need is a short Austrian.

We may get one. The times ripen for a man on a horse. (Or perhaps a woman: Twitler of Alaska looms.) An ignorant populaton, unread, unfamiliar with the outside world, focuses its anxieties on troubling dark things lurking abroad, the brown hordes from the south, the rising Chinese, inexplicable Moslems who want to kill all Christians. Sooner rather than later such a mob finds solace in an angry unity. From an unhappy lower middle-class spring Brown Shirts. Wait.

Things come together: Falling standards of living across a country in irremediable decline, diminishing expectations, growing anger in search of focus, a sense of a birthright being stolen as preeminence drifts across the Pacific. Here is fertile soil for some strange crop not yet clearly seen.

It will play out against a backdrop of totalitarian watchfulness all too imaginable. A digital world lends itself to tyranny, making it, I think, inescapable. For practical purposes, the capacity to store data is infinite, to network it across the world, to track, to scan, to watch. This is not the place for a disquisition on the technology of surveillance. Just note that the machinery exists for a totalitarian watchfulness beyond Stalin’s wettest dreams. The government wants this, pushes for it daily, and gets it. You can’t spend a dollar, take a flight, or send an email without a federal federal office watching. It is getting worse and cannot be stopped. Surveillance is too easy.

We will be told, are being told, that to be safe we must submit, that enemies within and without are upon us, that terrorists spawn plots everywhere. Where communists once hid in every closet and the House Unamerican Activities Committee, HUAC, hunted them, now we have Islamo-terrorists hunted by Homeland Security.

What matter civil rights when the Moslem is at our throats? The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and the vigilance ends liberty.

Hysteria darkly flowers. Homeland Security now wants to train us in how to react to a nuclear attack, a la 1950. Scare’m, keep’em scared, tell them you are protecting them, and they will kiss your boots. An Australian publishes embarrasing cable traffic from American embassies, and politicians call for him to be killed by the CIA. The agency is revered as a sort of clandestine Batman and Robin, defending America secretly where evil swirls in the coming night. Kill, kill. On subways we are told to watch each other, to report curious behavior to the authorities. Nothing can stop this.

READ THE REST:

http://www.fredoneverything.net/ComingStorm.shtml

DEJA VU

It was not long after the disingenuously-named "Patriot Act" passed.

I needed some stamps and the guy at Mail and More grabbed some for me that featured Old Glory waving in the breeze.

"Got anything else?" I asked.

"What would you like?"

“Anything but goddam flags,” I told him.

He looked at me quizzically.

I'll tell you just what I told him.

There’s an inverse relationship between flags and freedom.

The more flags you see, the less freedom you have.

Remember those Nazi rallies in Nuremburg?

Flags everywhere.

EVERYWHERE.

Flags flying from every vertical object around.

Flags hanging from windows and ledges.

Flags in the hands of infants, waving them no less enthusiastically – or any more consciously – than the zombie-like adults beside them.

Whenever you start seeing a lot of flags, things are going to get bad.

Real bad.

Flags instead of brains.

Flags instead of morality.

Flags instead of questions.

Flags instead of compassion.

Flags instead of truth.

Flags instead of justice.

Flags instead of freedom.

Flags, flags flags.

I hate flags.

Burn them all.

sj

You Tell "em, Sister!

Rookies

I might have to drink one one of their beers sometime, just to toast this commercial.
If you've ever spent any time around horses, you'll find this totally believable.
:)

sj

Thanks to Dr. M for sending!

Connecting the Dots

JFK, 9-11, and the REAL America:

Tying It All Together

by

Jon Phalen

Hijackers?

What makes you think you actually KNOW what happened on those planes? All four were obliterated, along with everyone on board, remember? No crime scene, no direct evidence, no recognizable remains, no witnesses whatsoever -- it's a blank canvas. How convenient for any party intent on launching a new era of global imperialism, and willing to spin this tragedy into a viable excuse. Indeed, all of the attack's consequences are far better explained by this agenda than by Bin Laden's purported death wish. Those presuming to examine this matter, i.e. ALL OF US, need to recognize that such trickery is a timeless specialty of governments.

And yet from that very day we have allowed the government-media complex to focus all attention on one rather thin explanation: Crazy Arabs did it! George W. Bush and his cabinet have made it known to us, in the most arrogant terms, that they will brook no discussion of other possibilities -- an edict most Americans, in their desperation to believe in this man, seem to have embraced. The Bush Administration even withholds its "proof" of Al Qa'eda's guilt; clearly, it considers mere citizens too unimportant to require full explanations, and once again, we're just rolling over and taking it.

The phrases 'spiritually broken' and 'morally adrift' come to mind...

READ THE REST AT: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PHA311A.html

NYC Indymedia.org, 22 November 2003

www.globalresearch.ca 24 November 2003

You won't like it.

Read it anyway.

sj

I LOVE This Kid

Long Time, No Sea

I remember her.
The subtle rising and falling of her chest as she slept.
Her raging fury when aroused.
Our time together was brief, but passionate,
And so long ago.
But now and then
I seem to catch her scent
And I spin around expecting her to be there.
But she isn't.


sj

NEWSFLASH: CONGRESSMAN TELLS TRUTH! HELL REPORTEDLY FROZEN OVER!

The Law of Nature

Photographer Michel Denis-Huot captured these amazing pictures on safari in Kenya 's Masai Mara in October last year.

"These three brothers (cheetahs) have been living together since they left their mother at about 18 months old,' he said. 'On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play together. 'At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away. But one youngster was not quick enough and the brothers caught it easily'."






In the real, natural world you only kill to eat.
And you never take more than you need.
You never kill if you don't absolutely have to.
We could learn a thing or two from those cheetahs.

Thanks to Mouse for sending this along.

sj

Thank you, Dr. Willoughby-Blake

SHARON L. WILLOUGHBY-BLAKE, DVM, DC

December 1, 1946 - November 10, 2010

Dr. Willoughby-Blake, wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend, was the pioneer and founder of modern day animal chiropractic and the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association.

When Sharon Willoughby-Blake, DVM, DC embarked on her animal chiropractic crusade more than two decades ago, she was living life and meeting its challenges consistent with the quality of her spirit. She invested herself in the future of animal chiropractic financially and emotionally. She realized that if one couldn't find the circumstances they wanted, to make them. She had the wisdom to realize that "today impacts forever" and the courage to share her vision of animal chiropractic.

In Dr. Willoughby-Blake's own words written over a decade ago:

"We share a vision that animal chiropractic deserves a place in the animal health care system. We will bear the burdens of the pioneer so that the path will be clearer and straighter for those that follow. We make a commitment to study, to research, to teach and to write so that we will inspire future animal chiropractic professionals. We know that the foundations that we create will influence animal chiropractic care for generations of animals and humans to come. We understand that our time here is but brief, yet the ultimate truth in chiropractic is universal, enduring and significant."

Her family said, "All of the animals are lining up in Heaven: Dr. Sharon is in."

There’s no higher praise than that.

-sj

Prophetic

Instant Terrorist: Just add FBI....

It may very well be that the FBI successfully and within legal limits arrested a dangerous criminal intent on carrying out a serious Terrorist plot that would have killed many innocent people, in which case they deserve praise. Court-approved surveillance and use of undercover agents to infiltrate terrorist plots are legitimate tactics when used in accordance with the law.

But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI -- as they've done many times in the past -- found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a "Terrorist plot" which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own concoction.

Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts -- and an uncritical media amplifies -- its "success" to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government's vast surveillance powers -- current and future new ones -- are necessary.

-- Glenn Greenwald

Read it all at:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/28/fbi/index.html

The Fix Is In With All the Fixin's

In 1637, the official Thanksgiving holiday we know today came into existence. (Some people argue it formally came into existence during the Civil War, in 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed it, which also was the same year he had 38 Sioux hung on Christmas Eve.)

William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not "a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children."

In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape.

The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children." It was signed into law that,

"This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots."

Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration.
The truth is the "Thanksgiving dinner" was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre.

-Laura Elliff

Prima Facie

Teach Your Children Well

Published on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

What the TSA Patdown Searches Are Really About

by Robert Freeman

You can hardly watch a TV news show, listen to a radio broadcast, pick up a newspaper, or read the Internet without hearing about the aggressive Transportation Security Agency patdown searches at airports.

The TSA and all relevant officials tell us that they’re really for our own protection. But are they? In truth, the searches have virtually nothing to do with increased airport security.

Several years ago, my four year-old daughter was pulled aside in one such screening because she happened to be the Nth person in the line to go through security. Though she was traveling with me, her mother, and sister, she was subjected to 40 minutes of terrifying interrogations and inspections of all her personal effects, though not a bodily patdown.

The startling part of it was the mindlessness of it all. The guards were simply being good Nazis. Today, it is no longer mindless. It is part of a sustained campaign to condition the American public to being humiliated by government officials in the name of national security.

Physical humiliation of the subject is the first act that an interrogator performs on a victim. You can see this in the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The prisoners were made to perform all manner of humiliating acts: wear women’s underwear on their heads; masturbate in front of female guards; pile onto one another naked; submit to rape by their guards; etc.

The humiliation destroys a prisoner’s dignity. It is from his innate sense of dignity that a person finds the indignation, and therefore the capacity, to resist abuse. It is our dignity that the TSA and the government must strip from us if they wish to reduce our capacity to resist their aggressive encroachments on our civil liberties. And it’s working.

It’s amazing how many people say that the searches are worth it—something upwards of 75% if the news reports can be believed. They have already internalized the submission to authority that makes an authoritarian state so effective. And they create the public pressure for others to submit as well.

These are the same people who tell questioners that they don’t mind if the government secretly reads their email because they have nothing to hide. The suggestion is that those who do protest wholesale invasions of privacy, even for such quaint reasons of guarantees against such invasion rooted in the U.S. Constitution, must have something to hide.

This is what makes an effective authoritarian state self-policing, as was Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Resistance to abuse is a prima facia sign of guilt.

It is not an accident that the matter is saturating the media to the point of exhaustion. The message is very straightforward and all reinforcing: you need to be afraid; we’re doing this for your own good; and don’t resist for resistance is futile.

Not a day goes by any more that some incident, somewhere, by somebody is portrayed as a threat to U.S. national security and, therefore, a reason why civil liberties must be reduced even more.

The ultimate absurdity of this was seen in the summer of 2009 in the discussion about escalating the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The National Security Agency reported that there were “at most 100” Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.

So, on the basis of this existential threat, the U.S. sent in another 100,000 soldiers and civilian support personnel. That’s 1,000 soldiers at a million dollars a year apiece for each cave dweller posing mortal threats to the U.S. way of life 11 time zones and a 6,000 mile ocean away.

The absurdity has become palpable. The government doesn’t even try to hide that it reads our email and listens to our phone calls, that it has suspended habeas corpus, the longest standing protection of a people against the abuses of a rogue government. It no longer denies that the president claims the right to murder Americans for any pretext, without due process of law, so long as he deems that person a threat to national security.

The truth is that the government is not fighting wars against terrorists any more. It is creating, provoking, escalating wars and then using the resistance as the pretext to create a police state capable of conducting a war against its own people.

Of course, it will be so much easier if it can convince the people to surrender their rights willingly, voluntarily, to submit as the cattle that must be their ultimate, inescapable fate. Public, inescapable, physical humiliation is just one of the ways to condition people to that subservience.

It’s working.

Robert Freeman writes on economics, history and education. His earlier pieces, "The Five Circles of Economic Hell," and “The U.S. is Facing a Weimar Moment,” were also published on CommonDreams. He can reached at robertfreeman10@yahoo.com.

Queen and Consort

Tonight the air is crisp and clean and the sky is clear.
The full moon, Queen of the Night, is joined only by the brightest stars, peers of the realm.
And a grey horse, now white as a luminescent pearl, is no longer merely horse, but Horse.
No longer flesh, blood and bone.
But spirit.
Ethereal.
Mythical.
Mystical.
Eternal.
I look at him and think
If I could take a picture of my soul
Might it not look
Just like this?

sj

Word.

Welcome to the New Nazi Germany

America looks more and more like those old black-and-white WWII movies on late-night TV.
The Nazis were the ultimate bad guys.
Stop you in the street on any whim and demand your "papers."
Frisk you (especially if you're an attractive female).
Kick your door down and drag you out in the middle of the night.
No warrants, no lawyers, no rights at all.
Lock you up.
Torture you.
Make you disappear.

We used to watch that in the movies and growl at them, "Those no-good bastards!"

Well, here we are.
Now we're nazi Germany.

The TSA procedures have ONLY ONE PURPOSE: to train you to obey whatever they tell you without question, to make you believe that's how it SHOULD be, and MUST be.
That's the purpose of ALL militarized "law enforcement."
"Serve and protect" is obsolete.

And these new brownshirts will go on doing this -- and worse -- until we start making it more dangerous for them, than they make it for us.

Fight back.

While you still can.


sj

Hmmmmm......

Too obvious?

Call the Devil by his Proper Name

Dr. Lawrence Britt examined fascist regimes such as those of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain) and Suharto (Indonesia). He found that they all had the following characteristics in common.

You may find them disturbingly familiar of late:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Think for Yourself? Maybe YOU’RE a “threat…”

What do these three men have in common?
Having somebody like you killed, on just their ipse dixit.

America’s Devolution Into Dictatorship

Murdering US citizens is a “political question” not subject to judicial review...

by Paul Craig Roberts

This same Justice (sic) Department, which routinely frames and railroads the innocent, argued in Federal Court on November 8 that the US government, if approved by the president, could murder anyone it wishes, citizens or noncitizens, at will. All that is required is that the government declare, without evidence, charges, trial, jury conviction or any of the due process required by the US Constitution, that the government suspects the murdered person or persons to be a “threat.”

Read it all at:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21867

He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.

-- Aquinas

Succinctly put

Just Be Honest for a Change....

Dragons and Windmills

Hear me now

Oh thou bleak and unbearable world,

Thou art base and debauched as can be;

And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled

Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee!

I am I, Don Quixote,

The Lord of La Mancha,

My destiny calls and I go,

And the wild winds of fortune

Will carry me onward,

Oh whithersoever they blow.

Whithersoever they blow,

Onward to glory I go!

Hear me, heathens and wizards

And serpents of sin!

All your dastardly doings are past,

For a holy endeavor is now to begin

And virtue shall triumph at last!

I am I, Don Quixote,

The Lord of la Mancha,

My destiny calls and I go,

And the wild winds of fortune

Will carry me onward,

Oh whithersoever they blow!

Withersoever they blow,

Onward to glory I go!

"Man of La Mancha"

Darion/Leigh

If You Liked Bush, You'll LOVE Obama

(You guys want to get a room....?)

Obama Administration

Claims Unchecked Authority

to

Kill Americans

Outside Combat Zones

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. Government lawyers made that claim in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charging that the administration's asserted targeted killing authority violates the Constitution and international law. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard arguments from both sides today.

"Not only does the administration claim to have sweeping power to target and kill U.S. citizens anywhere in the world, but it makes the extraordinary claim that the court has no role in reviewing that power or the legal standards that apply," said CCR Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who presented arguments in the case. "The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the government's claim to an unchecked system of global detention, and the district court should similarly reject the administration's claim here to an unchecked system of global targeted killing."

The ACLU and CCR were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that, outside the context of armed conflict, the government can carry out the targeted killing of an American citizen only as a last resort to address an imminent threat to life or physical safety. The lawsuit also asks the court to order the government to disclose the legal standard it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.

"If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, who presented arguments in the case. "It's the government's responsibility to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, but the courts have a crucial role to play in ensuring that counterterrorism policies are consistent with the Constitution."

The government filed a brief in the case in September, claiming that the executive's targeted killing authority is a "political question" that should not be subject to judicial review. The government also asserted the "state secrets" privilege, contending that the case should be dismissed to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information.

The lawsuit was filed against CIA Director Leon Panetta, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Barrack Obama in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Attorneys on the case are Jaffer, Ben Wizner, Jonathan Manes and Jennifer Turner of the ACLU; Kebriaei, Maria LaHood and Bill Quigley of CCR; and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the Nation's Capital. Co-counsel in Yemen is Mohammed Allawo of the Allawo Law Firm and the National Organization for Defending Human Rights (HOOD).

American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional RightsStatement

Published on Monday, November 8, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

For more information on the case, including fact sheets and legal papers, visit: www.aclu.org/targetedkillings and www.ccrjustice.org/targetedkillings

Bush Gives Us All the Finger -- AGAIN

"Damn Right": Bush Boasts about Waterboarding

by Ray McGovern

Former President George W. Bush continues to be beyond shame. Those favored with an advance copy of his memoir, Decision Points, say it paints a picture of a totally unapologetic Bush bragging, for example, about authorizing the CIA to waterboard 9/11 “mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

According to newspaper accounts of the memoir, Bush says he was asked by the CIA for permission to subject KSM to the technique that creates the sensation of imminent drowning. His response was: "Damn right."

For such a frank admission of high-level criminality, we can say, with ample justification, Shame on Bush. But that shame also sticks like Saran wrap to the rest of us – and especially to the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM), which has soft-pedaled the significance of Bush’s confession, and to his make-nice successor, Barack Obama, who has refused to demand any accountability.

Published on Monday, November 8, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Read the rest at:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/08-3

Next of Kin

The wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
I was born the next of kin
The next of kin
To the wayward wind.

"The Wayward Wind," Lebowsky/Newman

Full Speed Ahead, Mr. Sulu

I just love this.


sj