Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
ARMY DUMPED MILLIONS OF POUNDS OF NERVE GAS, CHEMICALS AND RADIO ACTIVE WASTE INTO OCEAN
OCTOBER 2005
JOHN BULL, MORNING CALL, ALLENTOWN PA - The Army now admits in reports never before released that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas agent into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.
A Daily Press investigation also found: These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off the coasts of at least 11 states: six on the East Coast, including New Jersey and Maryland, two on the Gulf Coast, and in California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence. The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army has examined only a few of its 26 dump zones, and none in 30 years. The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from World War II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed. More dump sites probably exist. The Army hasn't reviewed records from the World War I era, when ocean dumping of chemical weapons was common.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5dumpoct30,0,986529.story
A TRADITION OF LIES AND DECEIT
By: Ed Henry
What’s new? The United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, appears to have always been the sponsor of evil. Was there ever a time when we were the good guys?
The Army now admits that since the First World War we’ve secretly dumped at least 62 million pounds of nerve and mustard gases into the sea off our own coastlines, along with 400,000 chemical filled bombs, land mines, rockets, and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste from World War II and forward. These illegal caches of old weapons are now showing up in places like New Jersey and the military doesn’t even know where all of these rusting containers were dumped. The oceans were considered large enough to absorb it all. (Save the whales)
Today, we’ve attacked and occupied a country where its leader was typified as an evildoer because, under our guidance and support, he used illegal biological weapons against our common enemies and his own people. And we are carrying out this invasion and occupation by using napalm, cluster bombs, white phosphorous and depleted uranium; all weapons that are classified as illegal under the Geneva Convention or the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons because they indiscriminately kill civilian men, women, and children as well as combatants.
Depleted uranium has, by itself, a half life of millions of years and even poisons our own troops. We’ve used it to defeat and displace the leader of a pipsqueak nation who poisoned his own people – a leader who after more than a decade of embargo, UN inspections, and oil-for-food programs, didn’t have a chance of doing us the slightest damage.
And let’s not forget that we still don’t know the origin of the anthrax that was mailed to members of Congress and the media, although the government assures us that they’ve checked all of their own supplies and found nothing missing. Also, that it was Bill Clinton who refused to sign the ban on land mines because they are a necessary component of our military protection.
How far back do you want to go?
Remember the Maine? Sinking this U.S. battleship in Havana Harbor became the justification for delivering the final blow to the failing Spanish Empire under Teddy Roosevelt’s famous charge up San Juan Hill, a victory that got us Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Hawaii and the Phillippines, all in a matter of months. A hundred years later, it’s been conclusively proven that the Maine blew up from a boiler explosion, not a mine floated against her hull. It was an inside job or malfunction.
Of course, we gave back Cuba and the Phillippines as long as we could leave dictators favorable to our intentions and policies in charge. Heaven forbid the people should rise up and overthrow these tyrants. Sound familiar?
How about World War II? After our allies and Russia had been begging us for two years to help, we entered the war only after violating thousands of years of naval tradition that had existed from the days of the Phoenicians by putting an entire fleet in one harbor. Then we embarked on a mission to beat Germany in the development of “the bomb” because we knew Germany had Werner Heisenberg, the leading nuclear physicist of the time and the founder of quantum physics, so it was important to beat them to it. Only after defeating Germany in March of 1945 and once communications between scientists were reestablished did we find that Germany had no plans to develop the bomb. Heisenberg had taken the moral high ground and told Hitler it “couldn’t be done.” Then he accepted the chair of the physics department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Munich, deep in the eastern or Russian zone of occupied Germany. Within two years, Russia had the bomb. Gee.
Did anyone call George Washington a “terrorist” or “insurgent” when he rowed his ragtag and uniformless army of revolutionists across the icy Delaware in the dead of night to wipe out the enemy camp at Trenton on Christmas morning as they slept in their beds?
Today, one of the justifications for annihilating people in Iraq is that they don’t wear dog tags, uniforms, or form battle lines like the “redcoats” and the only way to put fear into their hearts and get them to tell us their secrets is to torture them. And it’s all OK because they aren’t real soldiers. Conventions and treaties don’t apply to them. They don’t play fair.
As if on cue, Ahmed Chalabi has returned to Washington as a representative of the newly installed Iraqi government we're so enthused about. And during his visit, another torture chamber has been discovered in the heart of the "safe zone" of Baghdad. This time, the tools of torture and death are being administered by the new Iraqi forces we're so proud of and hope will eventually take over security in their country.
All’s fair in love and war is no longer our slogan – unless it’s being applied to us and the use of illegal weapons.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
Mail this article to a friend(s) in two clicks!
Army Dumped WMD Offshore in US
Tue, 1 Nov 2005 09:08:59 -0800Summary:
While the Army may not have known better at the time, it is obligated to at least assess the danger the dump sites pose today, said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, who has specialized in chemical weapons issues.
After World War II, the Army secretly dumped its overseas chemical weapons stockpiles off the shores of more than a dozen other countries. One scientist calls them a “disaster looming.”
__
By John Bull
Republished from The Morning Call
http://gnn.tv/headlines/5825/Army_Dumped_WMD_Offshore_in_US
Millions of pounds of unused weapons of mass destruction were dumped in oceans before Congress banned the practice in 1972. The threat is still out there, and may be growing.
A clam dredging operation off the coast of Atlantic City, N.J., in 2004 pulled up an old artillery shell.
The long-submerged, World War I-era explosive was filled with a black, tar-like substance.
Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were brought in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured, one hospitalized with large, pus-filled blisters on his arm and hand.
The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.
What was long-feared by the few military officials in the know had come to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago had finally ended up on shore in the United States.
While it has long been known that some chemical weapons went into the ocean, records obtained by the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., show that the previously classified weapons-dumping program was far more extensive than has ever been suspected.
The Army now admits in reports never before released that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas agent into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.
A Daily Press investigation also found:
These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off the coasts of at least 11 states: six on the East Coast, including New Jersey and Maryland, two on the Gulf Coast, and in California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.
The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army has examined only a few of its 26 dump zones, and none in 30 years.
The Army can’t say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from World War II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed.
More dump sites probably exist. The Army hasn’t reviewed records from the World War I era, when ocean dumping of chemical weapons was common.
”We do not claim to know where they all are,” said William Brankowitz, a deputy project manager in the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency and a leading authority on the Army’s chemical weapons dumping. “We don’t want to be cavalier at all and say this stuff was exposed to water and is OK. It can last for a very, very long time.”
A drop of nerve agent can kill within a minute. When released in the ocean it lasts up to six weeks, killing every organism it touches before breaking down into its nonlethal chemical components.
Mustard gas can be fatal. When exposed to seawater it forms a concentrated, encrusted gel that lasts for at least five years, rolling around on the ocean floor, killing or contaminating sea life.
Sea-dumped chemical weapons may be slowly leaking from decades of saltwater corrosion, resulting in a time-delayed release of deadly chemicals over the next 100 years and an unforeseeable environmental impact. Steel corrodes at different rates depending on the water depth, ocean temperature and thickness of the shells.
That was the conclusion of Norwegian scientists who in 2002 examined chemical weapons dumped off Norway’s coast after World War II by the U.S. and British military.
Overseas, more than 200 fishermen over the years have been burned by mustard gas pulled on deck. A fisherman in Hawaii was burned in 1976 when he brought up an Army-dumped mortar round full of mustard gas.
Although it seems unlikely the weapons will begin to wash up on shore, last year’s discovery that a mustard gas-filled artillery shell was dumped off the coast of New Jersey was ominous for several reasons.
It was the first ocean-dumped chemical weapon to make its way to shore in the United States.
It was pulled up with clams in relatively shallow water only 20 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. The Army had no idea chemical weapons were dumped in the area.
Most alarming: It was found intact in a residential driveway in Delaware.
It had survived being dredged up and put through a crusher to create cheap clamshell driveway fill sold throughout the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware and Maryland.
Decades of Dumping
The United States never used chemical weapons in war but amassed a huge stockpile to be unleashed if enemy forces used them first. Their existence was a known, ultimately successful, deterrent.
The Army’s secret ocean-dumping program spanned at least three decades, from 1944 to 1970.
The dumped weapons were deemed to be unneeded surplus. They were hazardous to transport, expensive to store, too dangerous to bury and difficult to destroy.
In the early 1970s, the Army publicly admitted it had dumped some chemical weapons off the U.S. coast. Congress banned the practice in 1972. Three years later, the United States signed an international treaty prohibiting ocean disposal of chemical weapons.
Only now have Army reports come to light that show how much was dumped, what kind of chemical weapons they were, when they were thrown overboard, and rough nautical coordinates of where some are located.
The reports contain bits and pieces of information on the Army’s long-running ocean dumping program. The reports were released to the Daily Press, which cross-indexed them to obtain the most comprehensive, detailed picture yet compiled of what was dumped, where and when.
To put the information in context, the newspaper also examined nautical charts, National Archive records and scientific studies and interviewed many experts on unexploded ordnance and chemical warfare, both in the country and overseas.
The Army’s Brankowitz created the seminal report on ocean dumping. He examined classified Army records and in 1987 wrote a lengthy report on chemical weapons movements over the decades. It included the revelation that more than a dozen shipments ended in the ocean. The report was not widely disseminated.
His follow-up report in 1989 revealed, through review of other previously classified documents, the rough nautical coordinates of some dump sites and the existence of more dump zones. In 2001, a computer database was created to include additional dump zones the Army discovered and more details of some of the dumping operations.
The database summary and the 1989 report had never before been released publicly.
”I know I didn’t find everything,” said Brankowitz, who has worked for more than 30 years on chemical weapons issues for the Army. “I’m very much convinced there are records at the National Archives that have been misfiled. Short of a major research effort that would cost a lot of money, we’ve done the best we can.”
The reports reveal that the Army created at least 26 chemical weapons dump sites off the coastlines of at least 11 states, but knows the rough nautical coordinates of only half the sites.
At least 64 million pounds of liquid mustard gas and nerve agent in one-ton steel canisters were dumped into the sea, along with at least 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, grenades, land mines and rockets as well as radioactive waste, according to the reports.
The Army’s documents are incomplete or vague. Years of records are missing or were destroyed to clear office space at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, a longtime chemical weapon research and testing base.
And the Army has not reviewed its records of chemical weapons dumping before World War II, when it was common to just throw the weapons into the ocean in relatively shallow water, Brankowitz said.
As a result, more dump sites probably exist, he conceded.
Possible Environmental Disaster
The environmental impact of chemical weapons dump sites is unknown, but potentially disastrous.
The ocean depth varies widely off the East Coast, as a rule gradually deepening to 600 feet before hitting the outer continental shelf, which drops off into very deep water. The shelf’s location can be as close as 60 miles or as far as 200 miles from shore.
”The perception at the time was the ocean is vast, it would absorb it,” said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Kentucky, a grass-roots citizen group. “Certainly, it is insane in retrospect they would do it.”
”It would be inevitable, I assume, all of this will be released into the ocean at some point or another,” said Williams, who has fought Army plans to incinerate some of the 44 million pounds of chemical weapons the country now has stockpiled. “I don’t think anyone knows for sure the true danger. It’s just a matter of opinion. You can say, ‘It’s going to kill everyone,’ or you can say, ‘It’s not a problem.’ The truth is somewhere in between.”
Based on the information available, the Army presumes most of the weapons are in very deep water and are unlikely to jeopardize divers or commercial fishing operations that dredge the ocean bottom.
John Chatterton doesn’t believe that.
”I don’t think it all is where they say it is,” said Chatterton, a 25-year veteran diver who searches for undiscovered shipwrecks as host of the History Channel’s “Deep Sea Detectives.” “I’ve found a lot of stuff where it’s not supposed to be. Absolutely, positively, it is not a guarantee it is there [in deep water].”
Chemical weapons were dumped long before electronic navigation systems were invented. Their nautical locations are based on the word of ship captains, who surely wanted to ditch their cargo quickly and, Chatterton suspects, probably cut corners.
”The guys who were doing this were scared of this stuff. They were well-motivated to get rid of this stuff as fast as they could,” Chatterton said. “So they could take it all the way out there or else they could say, ‘This is good enough,’ and be back in port in three hours. I know what they did. It’s mariner nature.”
State officials in the dark
One of the first of the now-identified dump zones created at the end of World War II was also one of the largest.
The Army dubbed it Disposal Site Baker.
The Army has only the vaguest idea where it is on the ocean floor somewhere off Charleston, S.C., according to the most specific of surviving records.
”I have never had any information to suggest this was done,” said Charles Farmer, a marine biologist who has worked for South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources for almost 40 years. “I would say this is not well-known to us at all. This is something that is new, at least to me. It’s incredible some of the things we’ve managed to do.”
The first documented dump off that state took place in March 1946 when four railroad cars full of mustard gas bombs and mines were tossed over the side of the USS Diamond Head, an ammunition ship.
Several months later, an estimated 23 barges full of German-produced nerve gas bombs and U.S.-made Lewisite bombs were dumped in the same location. Lewisite is a blister agent chemically akin to mustard agent. A single barge carried up to 350 tons.
”If we don’t have any idea of depths of water or location, hell, they could be anywhere,” Farmer said. “As we have more and more activity and more and more development off the coast, I hope this was buried in 6,000 feet of water or a lot of this stuff is going to come back to haunt us.”
There is one indication those weapons were dumped in relatively shallow water: Army records show that many of those 23 slow-moving barges were unloaded in one-day, out-and-back operations.
The records leave no doubt that other chemical weapons were dumped close to shore:
In 1944, at least 16,000 mustard-filled 100-pound bombs were unloaded off the coast of Hawaii in deep water only five miles from shore.
Several mustard gas bombs fell into the Mississippi River near Braithwaite, La., in 1945 and have never been found.
A reported 124 leaking German mustard gas bombs were tossed in the Gulf of Mexico off Horn Island in Mississippi in 1946 from a barge that returned to port a few hours later. The island is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, a popular vacation and fishing destination.
A 1947 dump site in the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska, is only 12 miles from a harbor.
Dump Sites Moved North
By the 1950s, the Army shifted much of its chemical dump operations north to the Virginia-Maryland border and into deeper water.
In 1957 the Army dumped 48 tons of Lewisite off the coast of Virginia Beach in 12,600 feet of water.
Three more dump zones were created more than 100 miles off the coastline between Chincoteague, Va., and Assateague, Md., tourist spots known for their unsullied beaches and populations of wild horses.
Dumped there in roughly 2,000 feet of water were at least 77,000 mustard-filled mortar shells, 5,000 white phosphorous munitions, 1,500 one-ton canisters of Lewisite and 800 55-gallon barrels of military radioactive waste.
It could not be determined what kind of radioactive waste was dumped. But there is one indication it could be highly dangerous nuclear waste with a half-life of thousands of years.
National Archive records of the Army’s secretive chemical weapons escort unit, reviewed by the Daily Press, show numerous shipments in the 1950s between a laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., other Army bases with chemical weapons slated for sea disposal, and the Yuma Testing Station in Arizona.
Oak Ridge was where thermonuclear weapons were being developed at the time. Yuma was a military test ground for weapons in development. Records show a shipment on March 7, 1953, was of 35,000 pounds of unidentified “classified materials.” The Army apparently stopped dumping radioactive waste in the late 1960s, the records show, when chemical weapons disposal operations again headed north in the Atlantic.
Dumping off Jersey Coast
Two ships full of the most potent of all nerve gases, known as VX, were scuttled in 6,000 feet of water many miles off Atlantic City as part of Operation CHASE.
CHASE was Pentagon shorthand for Cut Holes And Sink ‘Em.
The nerve gas was in rockets that were encased in concrete before the ships were scuttled.
The Army desperately wanted to get rid of these particular weapons. They also contained jet fuel to propel the rockets. The fuel had a tendency to “auto-ignite,” or spontaneously explode.
The ships – the SS Corporal Eric G. Gibson and SS Mormactern – remain a potential danger. Although the rockets were encased in concrete, scientists don’t know how quickly concrete breaks down from water pressure at such depths.
A third ship that was scuttled nearby is no longer a hazard: It blew up on its way to the ocean floor on Aug. 7, 1968.
That ship, the SS Richardson, was filled with conventional, high-explosive weapons and 3,500 one-ton containers of mustard agent mixed with water. It was on its way to the bottom in 7,800 feet of water when a chain-reaction explosion went off, presumably caused by water pressure on one of the weapons that set off the rest.
”This is really quite disturbing,” said U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., who has been fighting Army plans to dump chemically neutralized nerve gas in the Delaware River. “I did not know of any of this. It’s a very serious problem that state officials haven’t been told.”
Not on Any Maps
Boaters, divers, fishermen and commercial seafood trawlers have no way to steer clear of the dump sites.
That’s because the Army has put only one of its 26 known chemical weapons dumps on nautical charts, according to records kept by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The federal agency in charge of undersea cable-laying operations, as well as gas and oil ventures, has only a vague idea of where chemical weapons were thrown into the ocean, said spokesman Gary Strasburg.
That agency, Minerals Management Service, knows only what the Army has revealed to the agency: that chemical weapons were dumped at sea and that some are somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico and at a location somewhere off the coast of South Carolina, agency records show.
The impact of dumping operations has never been studied. Few scientists knew it was done, so studies of the decline in sea life over the years has never focused on the possibility of leaking chemical weapons.
Commercial fishing operations, as well as scallop and clam trawlers, have been forced to go farther and farther from shore over the last 25 years because sea life has thinned for unknown reasons. Some scallopers now dredge in up to 400 feet of water, which is more than 100 miles from the shore in some East Coast locations.
The bottom-dwelling cod population in the Northern Atlantic has been decimated.
Another Cause of Deaths?
Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins mysteriously washed up on Virginia and New Jersey shores in 1987. They died with massive, never-explained skin blisters that resembled mustard gas burns on humans.
Federal marine scientists ultimately attributed the unprecedented number of dolphin deaths to a combination of morbillivirus related to distemper in dogs and potent vibrio bacteria from industrial pollutants.
That combination has killed other marine mammals over the years. But none of them has ever been found with their skin partially peeling off.
One marine mammal specialist who suspects leaking chemical weapons killed the dolphins met with Army officials and was told dumping had been done but was assured the weapons were unloaded in water too deep to harm the coastal-living creatures.
”You’d see the photos and you’d say, ‘Man, this animal was burned by something,”’ said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, N.J. He said “it is a very good possibility” leaking chemical weapons killed the dolphins.
”It’d be nice to see the Army go down there and investigate, but nobody wants to open that book, it seems,” Schoelkopf said. “You’d think they’d want to go look at those sites and say once and for all this isn’t a problem. The amazing thing is they are not being monitored.”
The Army also wondered if its chemical weapons were responsible for the dolphin deaths and was preparing to investigate some dump zones. The project was scrapped when the deaths were attributed to the virus and bacteria, said the Army’s Brankowitz.
Little or No Monitoring
Over the decades, the Army has conducted environmental tests on only four of its dump sites, and none since 1975.
Some of the last tests the Army conducted were on the nerve gas-filled ships off the coast of New Jersey, and they found no evidence the weapons had leaked, Brankowitz said.
He said that leads the Army to presume the pressure on the weapons as they sank to the bottom crushed the shells and squirted their deadly contents onto the seabed, where they long ago broke down into their non-lethal chemical components.
That may be wishful thinking, according to some scientists.
Shells filled with chemical weapons are more likely to slowly leak over time than to be crushed while sinking, said Peter Brewer, a marine scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.
Regardless, he said, he considers the dangers of leaking chemical weapons in deep-water sites to be low.
He noted that the only Army chemical weapons dump site on nautical charts – the wreck of the SS William Ralston, which was scuttled 117 miles off the coast of San Francisco in the 1950s – has not been found to be leaking, although he said scientists have monitored it only “from a distance.”
Not far from that wreck, scientists have determined that drums of radioactive waste dumped by industry in the 1950s have so corroded they now are paper-thin with holes in some of them, said Richard Charter, a California environmentalist with Environmental Defense.
He said he fears recent congressional approval of offshore gas and oil exploration off the East and West coasts permitted through last year’s lifting of a 22-year-old moratorium could release the chemical agents from their containers.
”It certainly is within the realm of possibility,” he said. “This is an invasive activity.”
Seismic exploration is conducted by setting off massive air guns on the ocean surface and measuring the blasts when they bounce off the ocean floor. Such exploration, and drilling operations, have been conducted for decades in the Gulf of Mexico without releasing chemical warfare agents dumped by the Army in that body of water.
Leaking Shells
Overseas, scientists who monitor chemical weapons dump sites off the coasts of other countries have identified an unmistakable problem in the Skagerrak Straits, a narrow but deep body of water that separates Norway and Denmark.
In 2002, Norwegian scientists sent a deep-diving, remote-operated vehicle to investigate four ships full of captured German chemical weapons. The U.S. and British military scuttled them after World War II in roughly 2,000 feet of water.
The Norwegians discovered the sunken ships remain intact. Some of the shells had leaked. Others were slowly corroding. That revealed a problem that could last hundreds of years, the scientists concluded.
Soil sediment showed high levels of arsenic, a component of some of the chemical weapons. Arsenic is bioaccumulative. This means bottom-feeding shellfish are likely to be contaminated and pass arsenic up the food chain to accumulate in humans who eat them, the scientists discovered.
Also worrisome: Nets from fishing trawlers were found tangled on some of the weapons-filled wrecks.
”It might be possible to get chemical ammunition in the nets, which could then be brought up to the surface and poison fishermen,” the scientists wrote in a report on the expedition. “It is also a possibility that fishing equipment could damage the wrecks and expose the chemical ammunition to the water, increasing the release of the agents to the environment.”
While the Army may not have known better at the time, it is obligated to at least assess the danger the dump sites pose today, said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, who has specialized in chemical weapons issues.
”If no one does a study looking for three-legged fish, how do they know it’s not a problem?” he asked. “My guess is the risks are remote in most cases, but I think you have to at least evaluate the risk. They have to take continuing responsibility.
”They need to see if there is an impact on the food chain. If there is, you have to warn people. If so, they have to do something with them.”
MONDAY: After World War II, the Army secretly dumped its overseas chemical weapons stockpiles off the shores of more than a dozen other countries. One scientist calls them a “disaster looming.”
————
John Bull is a reporter for the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
The truth is finally becoming known, fortunately for the US, and the non-Murdoch mainstream media is no longer intimidated by the mudslinging propaganda which had previously silenced questioning, debate, and dissent.
Time for Cheney to resign
By Joshua Huck
The Daily Texan
Vice President Dick Cheney should resign, and the sooner the better.
Our president is currently gallivanting around Asia, avoiding his considerable woes stateside. As Bush packed his bags last week, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley reassured our nation that Bush wasn't expecting any "specific deliverables" from this tour, so don't get your hopes up. Sigh.
With the saddle in the Oval Office empty for the time being, Vice President Dick Cheney is the most powerful elected official actually on U.S. soil. As such, I would like to take the opportunity to focus on his record as a pandering liar and a corporate tool as grounds for the aforementioned imperative. I don't have enough room to do his injustices justice, so here's a brief synopsis.
Last week, executives from major oil companies lied to a congressional panel investigating whether or not record profits received by their companies were the result of price gouging.
One by one, each executive denied involvement by their respective companies in Cheney's infamous "Energy Task Force" in 2001. The Washington Post, however, ran a story on Wednesday focusing on a White House document that very clearly showed that representatives from these same companies did, in fact, meet with Cheney aides. So what reason would they have to lie? It's because they don't want to be associated with Cheney, who assembled an energy bill that ignored the needs of consumers and was rigidly biased towards energy industries like coal and oil, whose executives and lobbyists sought and were sought out to influence and guide our nation's energy policy directly into their coffers.
There's a reason that in Casper, Wyoming (Cheney's home state), the regional center for the coal and oil industries is named "The Dick Cheney Federal Building." Go figure.
Cheney is also a died-in-the-wool prevaricator. Over the course of his tenure in office he has proved himself to be a dependable geyser of misinformation, revisionism and bald-faced lies. From the hubris of his pre-Iraq lies "[Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons" to his more recent lies (denying on a cable news show that he was Lewis Libby's source for outed CIA agent Valerie Plame's name) our Vice President just can't seem to prevent himself from telling tales. Cheney even lies about his previous lies, so as to not get caught lying, as is the case with his statements regarding Mohamed Atta on June 20, 2004. In that instance, Cheney directly contradicted a video document of himself on a previous news show, saying the exact things he had just denied he had ever said.
Did I mention we're at war now because of some of these fibs?
Perhaps Cheney's most unforgivable offense is his support for torture. Currently, the vice president is waging a war within the walls of the Capitol to make it so that the CIA retains the ability to torture. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., bless his little moderate socks, is trying to pass an amendment that would prohibit all such acts, yet Cheney persists in his quest to protect their use.
As I've said before, this is an issue which concerns the moral soul of this country, and Dick Cheney is neither worthy nor competent enough to be made the arbiter of that morality.
Cheney's office is currently under investigation in the Valerie Plame leak. His former company, Halliburton, is under investigation for wasting billion in taxpayer funded no-bid contracts. His presence in the White House made this infernal war in Iraq a gruesome reality, and what's more, he adamantly refuses to admit error in any of his decisions. The stunning lack of accountability in this administration is nowhere more stark than when it concerns Dick Cheney.
Men were escorted to the guillotine for far less.
In this time of great dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, there are fundamental changes that need to be made in order to regain some modicum of respect for the executive branch. I propose the possibility of Cheney's resignation as a sure-fire way to send a message to this country and the world that Bush is sweeping out the cobwebs and charting a new course.
In the event that Cheney won't leave voluntarily, he should be summarily terminated. He is a pure, white-hot liability; a manifestation of everything that is wrong with this administration and the Republican Party. Whether it be his wanton disregard for the good of the common American or his capacity to disseminate falsehoods to millions, he abuses the gravity of his office and has been doing so for quite some time now.
It's time to do this country a big favor and retire Dick.
No need for a Robertson fatwa calling for Papal assassination. Knowing that JPII has gone south of the border, is good enough for them. Now I ask, who would you rather spend eternity with Mother Teresa and the sages, or Robertson and Falwell? Salvation is a choice we all must make. Choose wisely.....
edit: It is frustration. There is no greater evil than the evil that was perpetrated against Bruscia, and the thousands of kids who meet the same awful fate as Brusca. Again, thousands of kids go missing annually. That speaks volumes about our protection of children, and response to those who harm them.
Honestly, when heinous crimes are committed against society's most vulnerable, and the evidence is overwhelming, I do support capital punishment. Given the volume of crime committed in this country, I support capital punishment in very, very limited instances, like Bruscia. Bruscia's abduction was caught on video tape. Her blood was found in his car. It's hard to get around that kind of evidence.
Fox is spinning a pull-out from Iraq as a possible stock market catastrophe. They are shameless whores, shills for the far right agenda. Where is the 1st Amendment?
"democrats have the brass to do the right thing."
I don't think they have the guts now either, but public opinion is really starting to support truth and doing the right thing. The D's might come around. The problem in DC is that the R's do have strong leadership, albiet poor, un-American leadership, but leadership just the same. The D's are spineless and easily intimidated by R spin/public manipulation/propaganda. Maybe that'll change. If not, we have to change government, and elect people who will do the right thing for the US.
"Yes, if for no other reason than it is bad law, poorly reasoned and applied."
How so?
Would you like to see Roe overturned?
Justifying or Just-a-lying?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mick_you_051120__3cb_3ejustifying_or_jus.htm
Top Bush Administration officials realize that if Democrats regain control of Congress; real investigations would start, with hearings and evidence, and witnesses—testifying under oath. That would mean certain impeachment; and if there is any justice in the world: indefinite imprisonment in a cage at Camp X-Ray with no “due process of law”—just the way they like it.
Fitzgerald announces new grand jury
Court filing says probe 'is ongoing'
Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Washington -- The special counsel in the CIA leak case said Friday that he will use a new grand jury in his continuing investigation, a development that seems certain to extend the political cloud hanging over the Bush administration and could draw new players into the investigation.
The counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, told a federal judge in a court filing that he will begin additional proceedings before a grand jury different from the one that brought an indictment last month against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
The 18-month term of the previous grand jury expired last month. In his previous statements, Fitzgerald had left the door open to using a new grand jury in the case.
The counsel also made clear in the new court filing that "the investigation is ongoing," after saying last month that "the substantial bulk of the work in this investigation is concluded."
Fitzgerald would not comment after the hearing on his decision to go before a new grand jury, but legal analysts and law enforcement officials said the development suggests that he might be considering calling new witnesses to look at fresh evidence.
The case generated even greater scrutiny and speculation this week after the disclosure by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post that a confidential source told him in June 2003 that the wife of former diplomat Joseph Wilson, who became a vocal critic of the Bush administration's Iraqi intelligence, worked at the CIA.
Woodward said he gave sworn testimony to Fitzgerald on Monday after his source went to the counsel, for reasons still unexplained, to disclose their 2-year-old conversation.
Legal experts said it was possible that Fitzgerald might want to take Woodward and his source before a grand jury to explore the episode, which alters the time line of events that the prosecutor laid out last month against Libby.
The identity of Woodward's source remains a mystery. More than a dozen top Bush administration officials, including the president and vice president, have directly or indirectly denied telling Woodward of Wilson's wife's role at the
CIA.
But a handful of officials have declined to comment, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling in Asia with President Bush. Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, has not replied to messages.
The use of a new grand jury, perhaps to explore the Woodward issue, does not necessarily indicate that Fitzgerald plans to bring additional charges against anyone. But current and former prosecutors noted that the process was time-consuming -- the new grand jury will probably have to be read at length from the transcript from the last grand jury on any relevant issues -- and that the prosecutor would be unlikely to take such a step lightly.
"If he's taking the affirmative step of going before a new grand jury, he clearly has more evidence he wants to present," said Nicholas Gess, a senior Justice Department official in the Clinton administration. "That's not just a fishing expedition."
The prospect of a prolonged investigation seems likely to focus increased attention on Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser who has acknowledged having conversation with reporters about Wilson.
The White House declined comment on the issue Friday, as did Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, who has said he believes his client will ultimately be exonerated.
Page A - 5
"faith worse than death"
Correction: Fate worse than death
"that there is no provision in the US Constitution that gives women the right to that kind of privacy."
What about men?
That is the far right's latest spin against Roe. While the Constitution may or may not provide a specific right to privacy, US law provides for doctor/patient confidentiality. That, my friend, is prudent law and provides a right to privacy.
If you think abortion started with Roe, you're kidding yourself. Prior to 1973, physicians performed D&C's in hospitals to terminate pregnancy for women who had the ability to pay. D&C is the same procedure used for spontaneous abortion and certain menstral irregularities. Wealthier women had access to safe, sterile abortion. Poor women got coat hangers, infection, and death.
"When you give the state the power to kill it soon begins to kill its enemies."
Maybe... Maybe we don't need to give the state the power to kill because prison has it's own way of doling out justice, and child molesters don't do well. Often that's a faith worse than death for those who are guilty of crimes against children.
What about for people who abduct, sexually assault, and murder children? It is pure barbaric exploitation of innocents and weaker. It is evil, and thousands of children go missing every year. I am no proponent of capital punishment, but for these folks, it is deserved. As for proof, the abduction of 11 year old little Brucia was recorded on a car wash video tape. Video surveilance is becoming much more common, and is being used in court.
Thanks for the link. I will read it tomorrow.
Nite.
I am for the most severe punishment when crimes involve the sexual assault/torture and murder of a child, an elderly person or one who is disabled. Enough, there are thousands of missing children in this country. Zero tolerance, and for those crimes, punishment must suit the crime.
I'll go one step farther. I'd support torture but not for the guys at Gitmo. Rather for slime like the one convicted today of the brutal rape and murder of 11 year old Carlie Bruscia. He deserves torture, then execution.
I have a similar situation with my sophomore. He forgets an assignment, does not do well on a test, doesn't clean his room, and there's always a reason. It's never his fault. But that's kids. Most outgrow it and gain the maturity to accept personal responsibility. Perhaps Bush is the exception. Arrested development, or something? Some adults can never admit fault or accept personal responsibility. It's a character defect, and Bush has an incredible spin machine supporting it.
Unfortunately, Bush, who is clearly no sophomore, seems to have real difficulty accepting responsibility, or admitting mistakes. But the bottom line on Iraq is that BUSH was commander, BUSH took us to war, and BUSH is ultimately responsible. The buck stops with BUSH. Period. How they can argue otherwise, I have no idea but they continue to do so.
Mlsoft, the dems were spineless. Post 9/11, they didn't have any guts. Government failed, but that doesn't change the fact that the Iraq war was a "mistake" at best, and now we have a huge mess on our hands.
Some mycobacterium have not met the postulates probably because it's a small intracellular bacteria. Mycobacterium is so small and acts similar to a virus, so they used to think it was a virus.
"Uncultivable bacteria in the history of microbiology are not new. Mycobacterium leprae and Treponema pallidum, two of the oldest pathogens of man are still uncultivable in artificial media. In recent years Bartonella henselae, the causative agent of bacillary angiomatosis[2] and cat-scratch disease, and Tropheryma whippelii the causative agent of Whipple's disease[3] have emerged as newer uncultivable pathogens."
http://www.ijmm.org/article.asp?issn=0255-0857;year=2002;volume=20;issue=4;spage=174;epage=177;aulas....
"Compellingly, Koch's postulates have been fulfilled for MAP and CD, even though they still have not been met for M. leprae and leprosy."
http://www.paratuberculosis.org/proc7/abst6_p6.htm
If memory serves, I believe there is only one germ for which Koch's postulates are not fulfilled. Unfortunately, I don't remember which germ, and for what specific reason it did not fulfill the postulate. Why is accepting Koch's postulates as scientific fact so problematic?
THE GHOST OF LEO STRAUSS
MANY HIDDEN AGENDAS
By: Al Cronkrite
In 2003, I wrote the following "At the root of this effective manipulation of power is the teaching of a man named Leo Strauss (1899-1973). Leo Strauss was a brilliant German Jew who after studying in Europe on a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation became a highly paid professor at the University of Chicago. According to Robert Locke who studied under Professor Strauss, he was an atheist and the purveyor of an esoteric philosophy, which was critical of liberalism but supported Machiavellian deception and a ruling elite."
"Robert Locke lists among Strauss's students or those influenced by his students: Justice Clarence Thomas; Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; former Assistant Secretary of State Alan Keyes; former Secretary of Education William Bennett; Weekly Standard editor and former Quayle Chief of Staff William Kristol; Allan Bloom, former New York Post editorials editor John Podhoretz; and former National Endowment for the Humanities Deputy Chairman John T. Agresto."
"Not included in the list is Abram Shulsky who along with Paul Wolfowitz received a Doctorate in 1972 under Strauss's tutelage."
"His influence is pervasive and attractive to the group that forms the "Cabal" on a number of issues. He believed in the need for advisors and that those who have the ear of the King are more important than the King. He had a theory that ancient philosophers concealed hidden meanings in their works, which could only be understood by the intellectual few. He believed that governments must be deceptive because the people cannot comprehend the "truth" of value relativism. This premise may have resulted in the cult-like group of followers that can be found in large numbers around the Bush Administration and are surely accountable for the flagrant mendacity that has accompanied the Iraqi conquest."
Contributors to Lew Rockwell's internet page have added richly to the Strauss saga reducing and defining his intentions with agile eyes and minds. It is my delight since I am both old and a slow reader pressed to consume all of the original documents.
Recently Myles Kantor contributed a Lew Rockwell essay that provided a definition of the Strauss phenomenon. He wrote that exoteric (public) messages contain esoteric (hidden) meanings. He gave this example "In a modern context, a journalist in East Germany or Iran today might exoterically denounce certain Western music and movies with the esoteric intention of making their countrymen aware of and interested in this art."
From this pragmatic description of esoteric meaning one might extrapolate that the titillating flood of pornography and immoral entertainment that is regularly piped into our social order through the press, the media, and motion pictures is a hidden attempt to debase moral standards, create social chaos and foment revolution through the attraction of sex. Multiculturalism might be viewed in the same manner.
In another Rockwell article Tom DiLorenzo quotes from an Anne Norton book, these "tiny, round-shouldered men," the vast majority of whom have never served in the military, are almost insanely enthusiastic about war. They tell us that war - any war - will restore our "moral seriousness," "clear away the fog of unthinking relativism," enable us to see evil, restore virtue, heroism, valor, and a sense of sacrifice, allow us to die for our comrades, country and faith, avoid the "hazards of civilization," make us more thoughtful, force us to "consider our loyalties," make men "decisive," and "places greatness within the reach of ordinary men." She continues "Proof that this is all a bundle of propaganda aimed at duping the public into supporting imperialism is the fact that all of these glorious benefits are foregone by the Straussians themselves, who rarely, if ever, volunteer for military service. They also are quite conscientious about making sure that their children avoid the military like the plague."
The announced purpose of American declarations of war, including the one in Iraq, invariably involves the protection of our "freedom" while the real purpose is the consolidation of power in the hands of an elite cadre who would rather have you or your sons die than themselves or their sons.
Even the freedom robbing legislation following 9/11 ostensibly designed to protect American citizens might have a clandestine purpose of initiating social controls that would allay any resistance to the imposition of world government.
In ancient Rome, the daily human slaughters in the Coliseum entertained the bloodthirsty populace but also diverted their attention while their rulers went about the business of empire.
According to David Gordon "Strauss believed that the great political philosophers faced a dilemma. They often held views at odds with prevailing orthodoxy; should they propagate their dissent openly, they faced persecution. In any case, their doctrines were meant for an elite group of disciples, not for an unlearned public unfit to judge them."
As countless public treaties and international agreements move America into esoteric world government the media only covers the event, keeping the real nature of the procedure hidden.
A Constitutionally proscribed government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people should have no need to distort reality, spin the facts or keep secrets. Government secrets not specifically involving national defense are tyrannical.
At the end of an article entitled Why Nazism was Socialism and Why Socialism is Totalitarian on "Mises Economic Blog" Professor George Reisman wrote:
"In the United States at the present time, we do not have socialism in any form. And we do not have a dictatorship, let alone a totalitarian dictatorship."
"We also do not yet have Fascism, though we are moving towards it. Among the essential elements that are still lacking are one-party rule and censorship. We still have freedom of speech and press and free elections, though both have been undermined and their continued existence cannot be guaranteed."
In an exoteric sense Professor Reisman is correct. However, in practice his analysis is dangerously false.
United States has an exoteric two party political system yet esoterically the election of either party makes little difference in our national direction; the nation continues to be raped and robbed regardless of which party is in power. Also, though speech and the press are not under exoteric government control there are esoteric restrictions that preclude the discussion of many important subjects and freeze out third party political candidates. This allows a covert manipulation of the election process that is tantamount to a single party system. Professor Reisman's analysis of the exoteric conduct of our government results in an inaccurate picture of what is actually happening.
Its controllability fuels the quest to impose "Democracy" on the world.
If Myles Kantor's example of Strauss's promotion of hidden meaning is accurate, it appears Strauss has merely defined a procedure used by tyrannical governments for centuries.
The debate on the need for an elite ruling class is rooted in humanism. When government is a result of the musings of men, reason dictates that those whose thoughts are used should be the most brilliant.
However, when government is based on God's Laws that are being passed on from father to son, they are known throughout the realm and there ceases to be a need for an elite class of rulers. Everyone including the soldiers and magistrates is individually subject to the same immutable and universal Laws.
It appears Strauss was just another smart heretic whose haughty opinions will continue to divide and confuse those involved with humanistic governments.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
Mail this article to a friend(s) in two clicks!
How nice. So we replace one despotic regime (that we previously propped) with another equally despotic, brutal regime, and all in the name of democracy. How positive Rovean.
THE AMERICAN RESISTANCE
THE TIME HAS ARRIVED
By: Ted Lang
The time has arrived – a designation must be assigned to the increasing number of Americans who are fed up and terrified by the unbelievable and staggering criminal acts perpetrated both domestically and internationally by the Bush gang. Bush and his GOP are targeting and immediately attacking any and all inspirations of accurate journalistic reporting of administration wrongdoing, proving all the more how despotic American government has become.
Only days ago, the Washington Post broke the story of secret prisons abroad, and what was the reaction on Capitol Hill? Republican Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, was angered not by the illegal activity and the disgrace it brings upon America, but offered instead: "My concern is with leaks of information that jeopardize your safety and security – period. That is a legitimate concern." If this isn’t a clear case of a simpleton shooting the messenger, I don’t know what is!
The volatility and unpredictable dangers of our totally out-of-control and dangerous government should be more than obvious. The more the American people learn about the mass murder of innocent civilians by internationally-banned weapons of destruction and death, and also of the secret prisons and their torture chambers authorized by these criminals, the more desperate they, the criminals, will become and the greater the harm they will inflict upon our nation and the world. In this regard, the real media, the Internet or alternative media [AM], are both a blessing and a potential expeditor of more disastrous Bush crimes against humanity.
In addition to being a hindrance to the Bushevik regime in terms of slowing down the planned bombings of Syria and Iraq to further the annexation of the entire Middle East into the American Empire, time is beginning to run out for Bush and his cabal of international war criminals. The Internet keeps exposing their planned and intended crimes beforehand. How many people educated by the AM are there? But the AM is out there alone, and without any modicum of support from the corporate establishment mainstream media [MSM]. In spite of the Post’s "insensitivity" in reporting the truth about illegal American government activities, the "national security" excuse is once again being invoked by government traitors anytime a MSM editor makes the mistake of accurately reporting an item of news that brings criticism of the emperor’s acts of genocide, torture and napalm and white phosphorus secret mass murders.
It is for these reasons that BOTH the MSM and the AM, the Internet, will fail to provide any more serious obstacles to Bush’s plans for world conquest. The only chance America and the world have left is the American Resistance. Bush must be impeached, but that will only happen if Democrats persevere in the 2006 Mid-Term elections. That’s too far away time-wise to be of any help right now. The only solution ensuring the safety of humanity against Bush is for Patrick J. Fitzgerald to initiate massive indictments immediately!
The possible indictments of war criminals Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld over the next two weeks will be of immense help in stopping the Bush war machine. Should this happen, of secondary importance will be the classification and codification of Bush regime atrocities setting him up for the post 2006 Mid-Term election impeachment proceedings. This is where the American Resistance will play an important role.
So who and what comprise the "American Resistance?" Clearly, they are not American voters – American voters are, for the most part, uninformed as to precisely what’s going on behind the closed doors of their secret government. Voting never occurs at a time when it can be employed to make a difference. Naturally, the key contributory factor to the ignorance of Americans as to what is really going on has been the news blackouts by the MSM. These blackouts are largely consensual on the part of the "Big Eight" Zionist media magnates who thrill to the massive advantage Bush’s insanity provides for Israel. Additionally, as coined by former Alabama Governor, George Wallace, "There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats."
Adding to the inefficacy of the ballot box when needed to affect change is the growing evidence that elections are now being fixed by the political parties. There is nothing new about vote manipulation – Cook County dirty tricks involving voters’ ballots and votes by dead people, as well as "hanging chads" in Florida, have demonstrated the truth of this observation. But now we have electronic balloting, which has no auditable paper trail. Voting is demonstrably futile; that is, unless it is overwhelmingly a landslide and intended to remove incumbents to facilitate the impeachment of a much-hated criminal president that has lied and has killed and maimed so many.
And once in public office, what of their oath to that office, and accountability to the people, once campaigning politicians assume public office upon their electoral victories? What about their responsibilities to their constituents? Government accountability is yet another American pipe dream – elected politicians remain so, continuing as politicians serving themselves and their party via cash spoils from lobbyists and large corporate interest groups. America’s leading industry nowadays is war and the manufacture and deployment of its killing machines.
America has, for all purposes and intents, no First Amendment media, no voter impact, no control over self-serving politicians and their parties, and lacks also any alternative approach for throttling dangerous American out-of-control government.
The American Resistance is that small but growing group of informed Americans who oppose domestic police state tyranny as well as the international acts of mass murder and torture now being exported internationally by the United States and its war-making industry. And leading the American Resistance, are those TRUE American Patriots who have risked, and who are willing to risk, everything to help set the American people free. The Bush regime has wordsmithed and put into place all the legislation required to legitimize the brutal military enforcement of total subservience to the American political State.
The American Resistance gains prominence through the words and actions of Cindy Sheehan; she had earned the right to complain. The American Resistance gains strength by the TRUE patriotism displayed by LT COL Karen Kwiatkowski, BG Generals Janis Karpinsky and Rick Baccus, FBI Agents Kenneth Williams and Coleen Rowley, FBI linguist Sibel Edmonds, former Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill and Paul Craig Roberts, Richard Clark, and many others that can be added to this list. What distinguishes these leaders as creators of the American Resistance?
Actually, for the most part, these are ordinary, everyday 9-to-5 people. In spite of their employment with the FBI, Agents Williams, Rowley and translator Edmonds had lackluster jobs until thrust into the limelight by the criminal machinations of the Bush war machine. What distinguishes them most, however, is that they are newsmakers and therefore virtually immune to media manipulation. Consider the total blackout of Cindy Sheehan’s Washington DC peace demonstration. The MSM had counted on the blackout as being the death knell for the resistance to the Bush regime; but just the opposite happened! Look at Bush’s declining poll numbers! And this in spite of the monumental total blackout and MSM spike effort! This is what is causing hesitation as concerns the planned military strikes on Syria and Iran. How much clout does the AM have?
The leaders of the American Resistance realize this simple approach: once the American people know what the Bush war criminals did, it won’t be long for a thundering and screeching cacophony of public outrage to launch the beginnings of Bush’s total downfall and impeachment.
The key is in informing the public. The majority of Americans don’t know about the Downing Street Memo, all the important aspects of the Plame-CIA leak, the AIPAC spy scandal, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty covered up by the Johnson administration, the Pentagon Papers, or even the unnecessary wars engaged in by our military to include the Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq. The only reason these wars have been singled out is because extensive evidence has been recently uncovered justifying this observation. Even the American Revolution can be shown to have been unnecessary.
America will never be informed by the MSM. The MSM is the tool being deployed to shape both public opinion as well as public ignorance. It is the leaders of the American Resistance, and the many denizens of the objective alternative media, that will bring knowledge and understanding to the people. Cindy Sheehan is an example. She created news even the mighty MSM couldn’t spike and hide. And more news-making leaders are emerging. And slowly, ever so slowly, elements of the mainstream media are beginning to understand the life-and-death struggle that free America is now engaged in with the real axis of evil: the political State, its compliant and totally dominated press, and the virtual absence of public awareness.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
Mail this article to a friend(s) in two clicks!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ted Lang is a freelance writer and political analyst. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
Ted Lang can be reached at: tlang1@optonline.net
Published in the November 18, 2005 issue of Ether Zone.
Copyright © 1997 - 2005 Ether Zone.
"forced rape of thousands of palestinian girls"
If they're raped, I think their family has to kill them. It's important to eliminate unchaste females and others who have brought shame to the family.
Then the Nazi Holocaust was the greatest hoax of all times, the mother of all urban legends, and Dachau was a factory that honored fair labor practice, provided jobs and other good stuff, right? Makes sense!
I know Osama is a damn good guy in the mideast too. Regarding the Jordan bombings, a poll of Jordanian people indicated overwhelming support for jihadist action against Westerners, Americans and Israelis, but condemnation of the 3 hotel bombings that killed Muslims. In the Arab psyche, all men (women and children) are definately not created equal.
"secular humanism....every one of us has his own truth and mine is no better or more valid than yours."
The problem with your logic is that this is the US and we are entitled to our own religious belief, and to define that belief. Religion is a very personal issue, and in many ways it is in the eyes of the beholder. If secular humanists choose to call themselves a religion, then it is a religion. Who are we to impose a litmus test or argue otherwise? On the contrary, in the US we must uphold the rights of others to believe whatever the heck they want to believe.
Is this a great country or what?
Seriously, I'm wondering who are these secular humanists, phantom people, out to rob our tradition and corrupt our small children, or whatever? I live in a very so-called "liberal" part of the country and I don't believe I've ever seen a "secular humanist." Do they hide? Are they a double secret society, or an enigma?
Not surprising. There's also billions in missing and unaccounted for money. Just gone. Any way you look at it, Iraq a great big con job but there will never be appropriate investigations.
Mlsoft, Again, it would seem that your interpretation of what constitutes "religion" is too narrowly defined. There are large, well established, organized religious movements, "Bible believing" movements, that place the highest value on the "well informed," well intentioned conscience when faced with moral decision making. And these organized religious movements have used study and evaluation of Scripture to arrive at conclusions regarding the value of human conscience. Thus the term "let your conscience be your guide" is derived. We may not agree with another's interpretation, but we must respect it, especially in the US.
Holocaust denial is a very real mindset. Maybe it's me but the mindset seems to be becoming a lot more prevalent as is the resurgence of Euro anti-semitism.
On what "logic" do they base their Holocaust denial theories, or is it just a bunch of nuts walking around making outlandish claims and revising history? What is the basis for their belief/claims that the Nazi Holocaust didn't happen?
Strange stuff. Maybe WW1 didn't really happen either? Did Katrina really happen?
Your points are all true, but what is the solution? Throwing money at failing school has not produced results, and more educated parents in other school districts have enough to do with their own children. Without a solid homelife, these kids are doomed from day one. I know of two situations where "faith based" schools have opened and accepted severely at risk pre-teens and teens without cost to the parents. The results have been outstanding, but these schools are few and far between, and religious organizations capable of providing such education cannot bare the cost of educating all children. Governement involvement in the "faith-based" sytem exposes that system to abuse and inefficiency. So what is the solution. Children from failed education systems wind up costing the public sector forever, but how do we break what seems like a viscous cycle?
For what it's worth, my youngest is in public elementary school. It's a great school. The other two are in Catholic high school, and a private prep school. Both appropriate for the individual child, but I must admit the quality of the public elementary school is absolutely on par with the quality of the other 2 schools. Personally, I'm not big on public high schools. Kids of high school age have a lot to lose to bad choices, and I prefer more structure and discipline than I've seen public high schools provide, but that's a matter of personal choice, and the ability to afford choice.
"A bunch of small school districts deciding on their own curriculum according to their own personal/political beliefs with little if any accountability."
Accountability? You are obviously not familiar with the public school system. US public schools are run by elected board members who are accountable to the community they serve. They are required to hold regular open forums. In order for the system to work, parental involvement is key. Parents must hold board members accountable. Failing schools don't happen over night. It's a process, but when local public schools fail, the community is ultimately responsible.
Thanks, S. Here's the link to the article you were responding to.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Whitney1115.htm
I'm not sure about TN, but NOLA was definately about the gays. San Fransisco is long overdue as is SOHO, without a doubt. Didn't they blame the WTC on gays and women? If not for the gays, the sun would always shine! Primative cultures blamed weather and stuff they didn't understand on the wrath of gods, and so do US religious nuts. As I'm sure you've heard, Dover, PA is in deep shit. They didn't vote for god's candidates in the local school board election. Now they must pay. Just ask Robertson.
These kooks, and all the perverse religious rhetoric is the best argument for separation of church and state. Did you know that Robertson has taken to issuing fatwas against political leaders that he doesn't like. Mullahs aren't the only ones who do fatwas.
They don't have to teach the Bible in public school, but the can and should require some morals curriculum. Let them require some form of service learning. Let them require public school children to give something of themselves to the elderly or less fortunate, and WRITE about it. That's a curriculum addition that we can all agree on across denominational lines, and it is a lesson that could profoundly benefit our society.
Nite.
Bob Jones has his own university, so he must have some credibility even if only with some poor, misguided folks.
"You might think the removal was for the good"
I didn't say that. Cultural expression enriches our society. I did say that religious indoctrination of children is absolutely not the role of government. We need less government, not more, and we certainly don't want or need government in the most private aspects of our lives. Religious ed is a private family matter, not a public school matter.