Candidate Obama ran against the Iraq War, at least in the Democratic primaries. He eventually settled on a promise to bring home most of our troops in the first 16 months of his presidency. He already is breaking that promise by trying to drag the war on indefinitely.

Some would say that the facts have changed. One fact has. The US economy has collapsed, and the war on the Iraqi people is one of the most important causes of our economic meltdown. We simply cannot afford to divert hundreds of billions of dollars more towards devastating another country and slaughtering its people. The economic collapse provides a vitally important reason for ending the occupation ASAP.

There never was any legitimate to get us into the war, and there is no legitimate reason for us to stay there. Propagandists for corporate interests profiting from these crimes against humanity routinely lie and say we are "helping" the Iraqi people. You don't help people by killing, raping, and torturing them. You don't kill them by inflicting a constant barrage of damage to their infrastructure and keeping them from rebuilding their country.

The only people in Iraq that are being helped by the war are Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda's recruiting and training efforts are helped enormously by this war. Ironically, Al Qaeda didn't have a significant presence in the parts of Iraq controlled by Saddam Hussein before the occupation started. Supporting the Iraq War is the practical equivalent of building a monument to the 911 hijackers.

There are no logistical reasons why our troops couldn't have all been withdrawn from Iraq by now. Such claims are slurs against our military, accusing them of the most grotesque incompetence.

There are lots of bullshit excuses for the war, but the reasons are simple. Big Oil, arms merchants, and mercenary corporations are making shitloads of money off the war and stand to make a lot more.

This war shows us that "Power, Corruption, and Lies" isn't just a New Order album title.

 

"Pro life" is a lie.

The same organizations that oppose abortion oppose life saving condom distribution and AIDS education programs. They oppose birth control which would prevent hundreds of millions of deaths due to starvation, malnutrition, and disease.

The "pro life" liars are also terrorists.

(LA Times 5/31/09)

The late-term abortion provider was shot at church in Wichita, Kan. A suspect was arrested three hours later about 170 miles away, police say. Tiller, 67, had been a victim of violence in the past.

Dr. George Tiller, one of the few American physicians who performed late-term abortions, was shot to death in the lobby of his church today in Wichita, Kan., according to his attorneys.

This is nothing new. Anti abortion terrorists are a sadly common feature in our country. And, what they do is hardly the acts of isolated individuals.

Misogynist and racist opponents of abortion are perfectly aware of the fact that fetuses and embryos are not human beings. No sane person with an IQ over 40 genuinely believes that abortion involves taking human lives.

Of course, the bulk of the anti choice extremists are lying. They know they can't win if they admit that they want women reduced to the legal status of incubators. They know they can't win if they admit that they are trying to force white women to have more white babies.

They also know that there are some really stupid and crazy people who oppose abortion. The anti choice leaders and most of their flock are deliberately lying in hopes that some of the lunatic fringe will snap and engage in acts of terrorism.

The anti choice movement got exactly what they were aiming for today.

Dr. George Tiller was a great American and a true patriot. The anti American religious extremists who are responsible for his death pose a real threat to freedom and democracy in our country. They hate America and American values at least as much as the 911 hijackers did.

 

In a previous posting, I criticized the Notre Dame protesters for protesting against abortion instead of child raping priests. Instead of trying to reduce women to the legal status of incubators, they had a moral obligation to lead a major campaign for serious action in the Catholic Church against child raping priests and the clergy who protect them.

It turned out that my commentary was prescient. Three days after my post, a report in Ireland detailed massive physical abuse and rape of children in Catholic schools in that country. From Reuters 5/20/09 (Hat Tip Ten Percent):

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Priests beat and raped children during decades of abuse in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland, an official report said on Wednesday, but it stopped short of naming the perpetrators.

Orphanages and industrial schools in 20th century Ireland were places of fear, neglect and endemic sexual abuse, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse said in a harrowing five-volume report that took nine years to compile.

The Commission, chaired by a High Court judge, blasted successive generations of priests, nuns and Christian Brothers -- a Catholic religious order -- for beating, starving and, in some cases raping, children in Ireland's now defunct network of industrial and reformatory schools from the 1930s onwards.

An interesting aspect of the Notre Dame misogynython was that it was organized mostly by Catholic priests. It's pretty obvious now that the Catholic church leadership knew the report was coming and decided to stage a media circus to keep American eyes off of the international problem of sexual and physical abuse of children by Catholic priests.

It worked. The Irish report got far less media coverage here than it deserved, being one of the most important international news stories of May 2009.

 

Despite President Obama's decision to follow the Bush regime policy of covering up the photos of torture, the photos are leaking out anyway. One of the most common forms of torture practiced at Abu Ghraib is rape, and here are two links to blog postings which show the photos.

1) At Largely

2)Ten Percent

Air America also is reporting that Abu Ghraib photos depict rape.

Bush's rape rooms in Iraq are infamous in the Arab and Muslim nations. Obama is trying to keep we the people of the United States of America from facing what was done in our country's name. It's all about domestic politics and our nation's grotesque acceptance of a genocidal war of aggression against the people of Iraq.

In the end, Americans are going to find out about all of what has been done.

I don't know if you have seen the ads for the so-called "Conservatives for Patients Rights" (CFPR),but the group is such an obvious astroturf organization for the HMO's and health insurers it isn't even funny. One of the rights patients obviously don't have, according to the CFPR propagandists, is healthcare.

NBC has generated considerable controversy by deciding to run 30 minutes of CFPR propaganda dressed up as a documentary. They are actually going to run an infomercial that outsleazes the ones on the most pathetic of cable networks. Even worse, they are running this nonsense after Meet the Press, in an attempt to give the HMO/insurance company phony gravitas.

Democracy for America has been promoting an open letter aimed at stopping NBC from intentionally deceiving its viewers this way. Here's the text of the letter.

This Sunday, following Meet the Press, a 30-minute “infomercial” attacking a public healthcare option is set to air on NBC. The ad is created by disgraced former hospital CEO Rick Scott and his group "Conservatives for Patients' Rights."

Rick Scott has a track record of deceit.

Scott's previous ads contained blatantly false statements and misleading excerpts of interviews with healthcare professionals. If Scott's 30-minute "documentary" contains falsehoods, NBC could be liable for an FCC violation and serious fines. Furthermore, Meet the Press needs to know that their credibility is being used by Rick Scott, and will be tarnished by the association to these swiftboat style attacks.

Lawyers from the Service Employee International Union have sent a letter to NBC demanding they don’t run the ad. It is up to us to back them up with the voices of thousands of viewers demanding action.

I've seen some of CFPR's ads. They made Karl Rove's propaganda look subtle by comparison. If you are tired of rightist bias on corporate media, here's an excellent opportunity to do something about it.

Sign the Letter!

I would also recommend contacting Meet the Press and reminding them that airing this infomercial would do irreparable damage to the reputation of that program.

If you take seriously the propaganda from the corporate media, you would think that everyone being held and tortured at Guantanamo is a dangerous terrorist. Of course, you would have thought that Iraq had WMDs before the second US/Iraq War. You also probably believed that there were terrorist links between Iraq's Arab nationalist Ba'ath Party and their mortal enemies, Al Qaeda.

When analyzing the subject of the people held without charge or trial at the gulag, it is important to look at how and why they were detained in the first place.

1) The Turn in Your Enemies for Fun and Profit Plan in Afghanistan

Most of the people picked up in Afghanistan were turned in for rewards. In any country, a policy of giving large sums of money to people in return for fingering people as "terrorists" would give dubious results. In a country which has been so heavily fractured by wars and so divided along lines of ethnicity, politics, religion, and extended family, the results would be expected to be pretty much random. However, it's a bit worse than that. The only group in Afghan society which usually observes ethnic and religious solidarity is the most numerous ethnic group, the Pashtuns. Guess which group is the base for the Taliban.

In other words, the process for picking up "terrorists" in Afghanistan was slightly less accurate than random chance. So much for the idea that most of these people rotting in the gulag are "terrorists."

2) The Post 911 Sweeps Here in the US

George W. Bush and John Ashcroft are militant, Christian fundamentalists who also are white supremacists. The sweeps after the 911 attacks of Muslim men of Middle East origin were based on racial and religious profiling. This should surprise no one given the view of Ashcroft, Bush, and so many American rightists that all Muslims of Middle Eastern origin are to be assumed to be terrorists. Again, we have a random process for selecting inmates for the gulag.

3) The Case of the Uyghurs

From Democracy Now! 2/19/09

A federal appeals court has blocked the release of seventeen Uyghur prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The group was previously ordered to be resettled with other Uyghur families in the United States. But a three-judge panel ruled District Judge Ricardo Urbina had erred in ordering their release into the US. The US government has admitted the men have been unlawfully detained but won’t send them back to China where they face persecution. Emi MacLean of the Center for Constitutional Rights said, “The new administration must act quickly to remedy the failings of the old. If President Obama is committed to closing Guantánamo, he must allow these stranded Uyghurs into the United States.”

Both the Obama Administration and the Bush regime have admitted that these people are completely innocent. However, our creditors in China have insisted that these people not be released to any custody but theirs (so China can detain and torture them rather than the US). So, they languish in the gulag.

We need to open our eyes and pay attention to what actually is being done in our name in the Guantanamo gulag. Buying into the propaganda only makes a morally reprehensible situation seem impossible to resolve.

 

Here's the Mormon Church press release:

Church Response to California Supreme Court Decision on Proposition 8

SALT LAKE CITY 26 May 2009 Today’s decision by the California Supreme Court is welcome. The issue the court decided was whether California citizens validly exercised their right to amend their own constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The court has overwhelmingly affirmed their action.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recognizes the deeply held feelings on both sides, but strongly affirms its belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. The bedrock institution of marriage between a man and a woman has profound implications for our society. These implications range from what our children are taught in schools to individual and collective freedom of religious expression and practice.

Accordingly, the Church stands firmly for what it believes is right for the health and well-being of society as a whole. In doing so, it once again affirms that all of us are children of God, and all deserve to be treated with respect. The Church believes that serious discussion of these issues is not helped when extreme elements on both sides of the debate demonize the other.

The demonization argument by the Mormon hate church is ironic, given they and their members spent millions to fund a campaign on Proposition 8 which deliberately demonized lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people. Equally bizarre is that a racist, sexist, and heterosexist hate group like the Mormon Church would claim that they believe that everyone deserves "to be treated with respect." Talk about practicing the polar opposite of what they preach.

A big take home lesson of all of this is that religion has absolutely no legitimate role to play in politics. The Mormon Church has deliberately violated its tax exempt status and should have it revoked.

Instead of speculating or making assumptions, why not try listening to trangender people? For instance, Erica Rose tells us what it is like for people who are not trans to assume they know what it is like for her to be transsexual. (Hat Tip Some Notes on Living)



You may also want to check out Erica Rose's YouTube Channel. Of course, listening to one transgender person is hardly listening to transgender people in general, but it's a start.

Some Notes on Living and ENDA Blog are good places to keep listening to transgender people, even when it might make you uncomfortable.

 

Last week there was a transparently phony "terror plot" here in NYC. Even the corporate media are starting to acknowledge that the whole thing was the invention of FBI agents sent in to infiltrate some harmless people.

This wasn't enough to frighten people into going along with keeping the Gitmo gulag open and the torture photos censored. It didn't cause everyone to shut up about calling for Bush regime officials involved in torture and the Iraq War to be prosecuted. So, step two has taken place. The intelligence services have placed in IED outside a NYC Starbucks. A report from the corporate media (NY Times 5/25/09) dutifully ignores the obvious origins of this bombing as one might expect.

If this doesn't shut people up, will the people behind all of this start killing people? How far will they take this?

One of the few decent things that President Obama has done since getting in the White House has been to support funding to close the illegal gulag in Guantanamo. (It's illegal because the only thing our treaty with Cuba allows us to do there is refuel ships and because of human rights violations there that violate international law.) So, what do the vast majority of so-called Democrats in Congress do?

They join with Republicans to block this funding.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not been alone in his disturbing desire to keep Gitmo open. However, he has pursued this with a missionary zeal, a Mormon missionary zeal, to be more specific. Reid's actions are in concert with the fanatical racism of Mormonism.

Mormons certainly have no monopoly on racism, but Mormonism is the only major church in this country to explicitly endorse white supremacy in its teachings. Mormons believe that non white people are being punished for their ancestors refusing to fight with Jesus against Lucifer before humans lived on this planet. Yes, this is crazy, but so much of religion is crazy that it shouldn't surprise you.

Ex-Mormons and other critics of that hateful cult accurately point out that Mormonism is based on plagiarized science fiction. What often gets left out is when Joseph Smith plagiarized the Book of Mormon, the late 1820s and early 1830s.

If you think that racism is bad now, the white supremacy of that era would make your hair stand on end. People of African origins were considered completely subhuman and all non white people were openly claimed to be inferior, without hesitation or apology. A major motive for this disgusting ideology was to justify slavery and trade arrangements that impoverished non-white people.

Under these circumstances, it should be no surprise that Mormon ideology is like a KKK sci fi fantasy. Equally unsurprising is that discussion of this is taboo, given the pro religion bias in our society and the corporate media. However, if you want to understand Mormonism, you have to acknowledge that it is as racist, sexist, and heterosexist as the Ku Klux Klan.

When you know that Harry Reid subscribes to this hateful ideological system, it should surprise no one that he is obsessed with continuing a gulag whose prisoners primarily suffer there based on racial profiling. One would also expect that Reid would work behind the scenes to sabotage lgbt civil rights legislation, which he has. It would be typical for a Mormon to oppose the inalienable right of women to have abortions, based on misogynistic gender role expectations. Reid does just that too.

If you wonder why Reid has been so rabid in his opposition to doing what any decent, moral human being would do on the Gitmo gulag, just look at his religious beliefs. Comprehension requires breaking the taboo of looking at religion to explain political behavior.

When anyone speaks out against a hateful and bigoted church, the conditioned reaction among so many of our society is to claim that it is bigoted or intolerant to do so. This is based on a rhetorical ploy invented by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and picked up by Christian Right hate groups in the 80s. (The Mormons adopted it during the controversy over Prop. 8.) The claim is:

It is "intolerant" to speak out against intolerance.

Given the similar values between the Mormon Church and the Klan, it isn't exactly shocking that they use the same rhetorical ploys to defend themselves.

The privileged status of religion is so great in our society that it is considered hateful to hold churches to the same standards that any other organizations or institutions. This religious privilege harms real debate. Any privileged status for religion is inherently discriminatory against atheists as well.

Prop. 8 is hardly the only reason why people should boycott Utah and boycott Mormon businesses. There are lots of reasons for this and why the Sundance Festival should be moved out of Utah. The Mormon cult is one of the worst outgrowths of the prejudices of 19th Century America. Mormonism is a cancer on our society.

 

Image: beachblogger42

During the distorted and dishonest campaign by Dick Cheney to continue torture and indefinite detentions going, one element of it really sticks out. The corporate media are actually taking what Cheney says seriously.

Never mind that Dick Cheney got himself put in charge of the Bush regime's terrorism task force and made sure it didn't meet until October 2001. Never mind that Cheney sent our Air Force on highly distracting exercises at the same time when the Bush regime had numerous credible warnings from a variety of countries that Al Qaeda was going to stage terrorist attacks using commercial airplanes.

These facts alone should completely discredit Cheney on the subject of terrorism. There are more.

1) Cheney led a campaign of fraud and fear in order to get us into an illegal war of aggression and genocide against the Iraqi people.

2) Cheney was deeply involved in other criminal activities including, torture, illegal domestic surveillance, and detentions of innocent people without charge, much less trial.

3) Cheney had lied about the alleged effectiveness of torture on numerous occasions in the past, despite the fact that every credible source in law enforcement and anti terrorism work has made it clear that torture does not produce accurate information.

4) Cheney held secret meetings with energy company contributors on energy policy. While we don't know all the details of the meetings, we do know that an important aspect involved details on how Big Oil would carve up Iraq's oil after the War had been launched.

5) Cheney was an active member of the Project for a New American Century, which had expressed hopes that a major attack, comparable to Pearl Harbor, would be launched on the US so they could push their agenda.

A defender of the corporate media might say that Cheney is a former Vice President, so his views have to be taken seriously. Even that is factually incorrect. Dick Cheney never was legally or constitutionally this country's Vice President. He was illegally occupying the office due to two stolen elections.

There really is no excuse for the corporate media's pandering to Dick Cheney. It is a truly brazen example of the propagandistic and unreliable nature of what we are bombarded with on a regular basis.