agitprop version 2.0

The Axis of Evil -- Is Iran Next?

Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter claimed last week that he has access to confidential information that states the U.S. will bomb Iran this summer. On his fence-mending tour throughout Europe, Bush said that the U.S. has no plans to attack Iran and then commented "having said that, all options are on the table". What a case of double-speak! Bush's diplomatic tour is really all political B.S. -- the politicians publicly say that they are committed to diplomacy and peace, then they share war plans in the back room.

I heard Scott Ritter interviewed on my local Pacifica station KPFK. He was also featured on the documentary Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War. His predictions about Iraq have mostly come true--he said there were no WMD and he also nailed the way Bush & Co. duped the American public into supporting the war. So Scott does have some cred and one should take note of his words about Iran. Journalist Seymour Hersh (who uncovered the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam 1969) has also written about the U.S. military's secret war plans for Iran. So we may be in for yet another war this summer. With Syria now allied with Iran, we may be facing two separate adversaries. You would think that summertime would be too hot to start another war in the Middle East. Well the plans are only for bombing, not invasion.

What is Fascism?

A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.

Well let's break that down.

Dictatorship of the Extreme Right: We currently have a one-party state in the United States. The Republicans control both Houses of Congress, the Presidency, and hold the majority in the Supreme Court. George W. Bush and his neo-con death cult cabal are the most extreme right-wing of the Republican party. Bush is not necessarily a dictator. Although he was NOT elected his first-term, he did win his second term.

The Merging of State and Business Leadership: There are extremely close interlocking ties between the Bush administration and their corporate cronies. Most top officials have held high positions in the corporate world. In return their corporations directly benefit from the pro-corporate agenda of the Bush Administration (defense industries, oil, timber, pharmaceuticals, etc.). Basically you have a bunch of CEO's running the country.

Belligerent Nationalism: A sense of uber-patriotism has spread across the United States fueled by Bush's black and white view of the world (you’re either with us or with the terrorists). This jingoistic ideology, mixed with the fear of red-orange terror alerts, helped garner public support for the Iraq War.

None of this is new. The military-industrial complex has been around since the beginning of the Cold War. Government has had corporate connections before. Americans have always been patriotic and dosed with feelings of pride and exceptionalism. However, the current administration has been able to harness all of these powers to achieve their greedy selfish ends of global empire. Now you're saying, wait, we aren't heading toward fascism. Well at least not the Hitler or Mussolini kind. Maybe we could call these imperial fascist ambitions "compassionate colonialism". Bush stands for freedom, democracy and a culture of life. Killing thousands in war is just fine and dandy as long as we are spreading democracy. Let's pave the world with democracy and starve the homeland, it doesn't matter how many we kill in the process.

Little Eichmanns

Blowback—not the white stuff blowing into the back of your nose—but a political term, has become quite pertinent these days. Professor Ward Churchill wrote regarding the 9/11 victims in his work “Some People Push Back/On the Justice of Roosting Chickens”:

They were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly… If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

Now I understand his point. The terrorists hit the WTC and the Pentagon because those are the centers and symbols of American economic and military power. The Islamic Jihadis committed these attacks due to their hatred for America and everything it stands for—mainly the United States’ reckless and self-serving foreign policy which supports evil dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, starts wars when it wants to for oil profits and allows the starvation deaths of children, etc. American actions in the Middle East have led to such a violent response by the terrorists. Perfect example of blowback: CIA funds and trains Bin Laden in 1980’s in Soviet-Afghan war, then Bin Laden turns on U.S. in 1990’s and architects the 9/11 attacks. Did they expect that one? Well you can’t expect to be the big bully all the time without having your subjects strike back occasionally. That’s just common sense, something our stupid government lacks.

Now back to Churchill. Comparing some little stockbroker who worked in the WTC to Adolf Eichmann is quite a stretch to say the least. Eichmann oversaw the systematic extermination of Jews during the Naxi holocaust helping to direct Jews to concentration camps to meet the “Final Solution”. While Eichmann never personally committed the murders, he oversaw the bureaucratic network that resulted in millions of deaths. The stockbroker is no Eichmann. Neither is the guy who writes his check. Churchill seems to have gone off the deep end into some sort of lunacy. His argument was good for the most part until he denigrated the innocent lives lost on 9/11 by calling them Eichmanns. Yes he has the right to say this (freedom of speech) but his logic is pretty cruel (freedom to put your foot in your mouth?). Well to say the least this provided perfect fodder for right-wing pundits (O’Reilly and Hannity) to scream about. The media dug these writings up three years after they were written. Churchill faced blowback first-hand—he lost his position as chair of the Ethnic Studies department. Now the Colorado governor is forcing him to resign altogether from the University of Colorado. Maybe he’ll learn to be more careful next time he writes something like that again.

Reagan's Dream Come True

The U.S. military has been testing their fledgling anti-missile shield near Hawaii and has encountered some success. A missile fired from a U.S. Navy ship off Kauai, Hawaii, intercepted and destroyed a mock warhead on Thursday, the fifth success in six such test of the fledgling U.S. anti-missile shield's sea-based leg, the Pentagon announced. Back in the 1980's, the missile defense shield was Reagan's Cold War wet-dream--a network that could shoot incoming missiles out of the sky thus protecting the homeland from attack. Dubya resurrected this dead cow along with a million other defense projects kicking off a new phase of the military-industrial complex. The Pentagon plans to spend roughly $10 billion a year over the next five years on all aspects of missile defense. Canada declared that they would not support America's missile shield efforts fearing it would be too costly and may prompt another arms race.

The Ron Job: Reagan in a rather compromising position

The dummy target was tracked from the cruiser Lake Erie using the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Weapon System developed by Lockheed Martin Corp. The initial "layered" shield is designed to thwart missiles that could be fired from North Korea, possibly tipped with nuclear, chemical or germ warheads. Look out Kim Jong-Il, we can stop your missiles! And if one does manage to slip through, it will only hit the blue states (sorry West Coast).

John "Death Squad" Negroponte

Bush's pick for the new post of Intelligence Czar is John "Death Squad" Negroponte. That's right folks! The current U.S. ambassador to Iraq and career diplomat will become the first Intelligence Czar. This guy has great connections and will do great in the Bush junta. As U.S. ambassador to Honduras and its military-run government from 1981 to 1985, Negroponte was suspected of a key role in carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. (Remember Iran Contra!) The Reagan administration's support of the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels in Nicaragua and its sale of missiles to Iran in connection with the U.S. hostages held there turned into the Iran-Contra scandal.

Honduras, itself, was accused of human rights abuses while Negroponte held the ambassador's post. Honduras was used as a CIA training ground for the contras who terrorized Nicaragua and funneled drug money. Negroponte was questioned by the Senate on whether he had acquiesced to human rights abuses by a Honduran death squad funded and partly trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. Negroponte testified that he did not believe the abuses were part of a deliberate Honduran government policy. "To this day," he said, "I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras."

Negroponte, Latin America remembers him fondly... http://www.afrocubaweb.com/negroponte.htm

The Liberal Media

What liberal media? Media in this country is controlled by a few wealthy corporations. The CEOs and board of directors of these corporations run a tight business--the news media industry is solely about gaining ratings and earning moolah. U.S. media is simply propaganda to justify the current social order. There are mild forms (CNN, CBS, New York Times) that don't ask the real questions or cover fluff issues. Or it can be right-wing propaganda (Fox News, Most of Talk-Radio). This deliberate deception spewing from "fair and balanced" anchormen forms the ideological justification of our reality. It's now learned that the Bush Administration has paid "independent" commentators to sell Bush's policies and programs. Fake journalists (Jeff Gannon) are given White House press cards to ask softball questions and publish administration talking points on their websites. Oh well, can we expect anything less from this junta? For more see this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/05/184.html

Fuzzy Math

Bush claims his new federal budget will cut the deficit in half within five years. So how does he plan to do this? With Fuzzy Math of course. They left out the soaring costs of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Social Security privatization scheme. They want to keep the tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans but take a meat axe to education, health care and the environment.

* Environment. Cuts the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget by 5.6 percent from $8.02 billion to $7.57 billion, culminating in an almost 10 percent cut over two years. Most cuts come in efforts to maintain and improve the nation's clean water infrastructure. (Think...Clear Skies and Healthy Forests?)

* Veterans. More than doubles the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using the Veterans health care system. (But Bush supports the troops!)

* Health Care. Cuts Medicaid funding by $45 billion over 10 years and eliminates 28 health programs, totaling $1.36 billion. These programs range from rural hospital grants (cuts $39.5 million) to emergency medical services for children (cuts $20 million).

* Job Training. Cuts federal spending on job training by a half-billion dollars. Federal job training programs, including dislocated-worker training, will be cut by $200 million. Federal aid to states for job training, including funding to train veterans, will be cut by $300 million. (What about campaign promises to create jobs?)

* Amtrak. Eliminates all funding for Amtrak, calling bankruptcy proceedings as the solution for our nation's rail system.

* Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP). Cuts LIHEAP by over 8 percent, from $2.2 billion to $2 billion. (Aah just let the poor freeze, they don't need heating oil).

* Parks. Cuts the National Park Service by 3 percent from $2.31 billion to $2.24 billion. (More trash in the parks, who cares right?)

http://www.thebots.net/FuzzyMath.htm

State of the Union

On Wednesday President Bush said that the state of the union is strong and confident. Yes, the State is strong. The State has a lot of power under the helm of President Bush. And yes, it is confident, because Bush is confident of his own power and his "mandate" to lead. Our top military leaders are strong and confident too as evidenced by this recent item from General "Mad Dog" Mattis:

Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. I like brawling," he said in remarks widely quoted by US media. "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

This is from the man who led the assault on Falluja in Fall 2004. War has become a sporting event in 2005. Maybe even a shoot-em-up video game. So much for spreading freedom, we are spreading death and destruction. Let's be honest though. Armies have never stood for liberation and good will. Throughout history armies have been massed in order to conquer and destroy other civilizations. The whole liberation/spreading freedom thing is just ideological cover for the real purpose of war. Just like Alexander the Great "liberated" Babylon from the Persian King Darius II, Bush has "liberated" Iraq from Saddam Hussein. It's just hard to accept that 1,500 U.S. soldier deaths and 50,000+ Iraqi deaths justifies the liberation.

P.S. : I now understand the new GOP strategy. By cutting education funds they will continue to make the populace less educated. The Dumbing of America would only have one effect: as people grow dumb and dumber, they are more likely to vote Republican. Now that's Strategery.