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March 30, 2005
Free speech dead.
Anarchist website under attack by the FBI
One of my favorite websites is under attack. The FBI has served flag.blackened.net administrator with a court order to turn over the IP addresses of certain (maybe all?) vistors of the site. It hosts a number of worthy subdomains and is prolly not involved in anything itself. However, the "chilling effect" as the lawyers like to put it is there for us all to see, and be scared by, they hope.
In a forum posting the admin who was contacted by the FBI posts his paranoid and fearful decision making process as he wonders if he should risk his liberty, home, wife and child to stand on principle or give in to the threats and hand over the IP addresses. A real Hobbesian choice. I wish him well.
The post reads in part:
"I have been ordered to submit
IP info on two separate incidents having to do with subdomains
hosted on flag. Both of these are in regard to claimed or
threatened responsibility for acts of propaganda by the deed.
Both incidents involve topics which are completely out of line
for consideration here at flag and really I can only view them in
two ways. Either people are simply ignorant about the murderous
history of the FBI, or, as is my belief in one case, they are
trying to make flag vulnerable to government intrusion.
At this point let me say, in all honesty and conviction, that if I
end up dead by strange means - suicide, overdose, drunk driving
accident (I never, ever, ever drink and drive),
"accidental" gunshot to the back of the head while
sleeping ala Fred Hampton, car jacking,
or anything else reasonably suspicious, contact the FBI in Chico,
California for more details."
We all knew that these days were coming. And so they are here.
I have lurked and posted to their forum off and on for a few years. They are more collectivist and communal than I am really comfortable with and many of them (no, most all), do not especially care for my views of religion, self-denfense, and free enterprise economics. However, that all said and stipulated, I still agree with them on far more issues than all the statists and their appologists and dupes.
"But, the real point is that I feel
like a coward and traitor to my comrades, even in the face of
what is essentially a coerced decision. I'm the last one who will
criticize or disagree with any of you who want to deride me. I'm
also aware that this will probably cause quite a few of you to
lose faith in me, flag, and it's subdomains. This can't be
avoided and it's something I weighed into my decision. I post
this mainly to inform you all and give you opportunity to make
your own decisions as to whether I've handled this correctly and
whether you wish to use flag or it's subdomains in the future. If
you don't trust me, I understand, believe me.
It is by far the most agonizing decision I've been faced with in
relation to my anarchist opinions.
This is why we do not discuss certain things as if they are a
legitimate part of anarchism. Resist the extra y-chromosome
influenced urge to sound more hardcore than the guy next to you.
Nobody is impressed and the powers that be are sitting on the
edges of their seats waiting for an excuse to shut down flag. Freedom
of speech does not exist, don't try to test it. They will come
bust down your door - for real - point a gun to your head and
pull the trigger if you refuse to comply."
I know they will brother, I know. Save yourself even if the site
has go down.
Posted by Ali Massoud at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
The last word (or not) on Churchill.
Ward, that is, not Winston. This entry on Catallarchy got me thinking about it again.
Since his essay came out, or rather, since anybody has paid attention to it, Churchill has been blasted, demonized, threatened with death, and, worst of all, they wanted to take his tenure. Finally, sick of the whole mess I would guess, Churchill resigned his position. Let's put it in perspective, shall we? Churchill, speaking of the government functionaries installed in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, called them "litte Eichmanns," probably one of the more unfortunate (if apt) choices of epithet in academic history. But how apt was it? Well, Eichmann was supposedly shown at his trial to have no deep rooted feelings of animosity towards Jews (I could not find the relevant passage, but you're welcome to look for it). He, by trucking them across Europe to places like Dachau and Auschwitz, was just doing his bureaucratic best for the State. Assuming Eichmann really didn't hate Jews, and was, in fact, a functionary "just doing his job," then the comparison is appropriate. The US and UN did, indeed, impose sanctions on Iraq which contributed directly to the deaths of thousands of people, and no direct action against any of those people was ever taken by their murderers, most of whom were "just following orders." By this reasoning, however, every soldier, civil servant, and taxpayer in Germany should have been hanged like Eichmann was, in other words, anyone who had contributed to the maintenance of the Reich. And, by extension, all of the good little work units who support the atrocities currently being perpetrated by this government should share the same fate. A little extreme, one might say? Not to an Iraqi widow or orphan. Not to an Afghani farmer who's just had his poppy field and with it his year's income burnt to the ground yet again.
Now, before the hate comments start, do I advocate hanging, shooting, or otherwise disposing of American taxpayers? No. I advocate tax avoidance. The State, through its Department of Homeland Plundering, claims a $300 billion tax gap. Looking at the appropriate document ("Internal Revenue Collections, Costs, etc., Fiscal Years 1971-2004"), in 2004 the Plunder Dept. took in well over $2 trillion, yet managed to rack up over $300 billion in debt. Odd, isn't it, that the supposed "tax shortfall" and the amount of debt the government racked up by reckless overspending are almost identical? Almost like they're trying to blame "tax cheats" who aren't paying "their fair share" to the US welfare-warfare machine for the costly, blood-soaked blunders the Congress is making by rubber-stamping idiotic, unrealistic budgets and wars.
What has all this to do with Churchill? As I said, assuming that Eichmann had no hatred of the Jews whom he, merely by drawing up timetables, undeniably helped to kill, Churchill is dead on the mark with the comparison to him of State employees as abettors of murder. They are, as surely as Eichmann abetted genocide by efficiently getting Jews on trains. However, shouldn't the soldiers who herded them on to the trains have been hanged? The engineer? The commanadant's cleaning lady? Anyone who helped in any way, actively or passively? There is a gray area here, I think. After all, Hitler's valet only got ten years (albeit in the tender hands of the KGB), and he held an SS rank identical to Eichmann's.
The real question is, how far down the chain does responsibility stop? Does it ever? From presidents to legislators to judges to soldiers to cops to civil servants to taxpayers, who is the most guilty for atrocities committed in the name of the people? I lack the answer, but they all help. If you don't want to be a "little Eichmann," don't file a 1040 next month. I realize that's not a viable option for most of you, but it has to start somewhere, and that somewhere for most folks is tax evasion.
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 06:30 PM | Comments (2)
March 29, 2005
An Anti-Capitalism Anarcho-Capitalist
I am an Anti-Capitalist! Yes, it is true. Perhaps you thought that libertarians or anarcho-capitalists (!) must be pro capitalism. This is not true; I am very much opposed to capitalism. Just like all other anarchists I sincerely do not appreciate certain capitalist structures – economical or social. Capitalism is oppressive and exploitative.
On the other hand, I consider capitalism the liberator and spontaneous structure of true anarchy. It is simply a matter of which definition I choose to use. This is the problem of dogmas being expressed using certain terms: one has to see the concept behind the term not to get confused. In other words, a term may not mean the same thing for different people: being an anarchist I am opposed to capitalism in the Marxist sense, but as a libertarian I am very much pro capitalism – in the Austrian sense.
The global anti-capitalist movement includes thousands if not millions of people being sick and tired of capitalist exploitation. Many of these people are simply dorks and dumb-asses following a “cool” trend or a leader. But many of them are rather intelligent beings protesting a real plague of modern times. The former are opposed to anything involving money, since they believe money, the market, companies and profit being parts of a global conspiracy calling for the exploitation of all non-bourgeoisies (i.e. workers). I despise these people, and would not have anything to do with them.
The other group consists of people wishing to end the unfair elements of the economy, what they call capitalism (i.e., what you and I would call state capitalism). This includes state regulation of markets, subsidies of companies and certain industries, laws restricting contracts of trade and employment, etc. For a socialist it is most unfair that the state through such measures makes the market for work and workers unfair: salaries are forcefully held down and there is no real freedom of employment.
Even though industrialists and “capitalists” are taxed, many corporations manage to avoid the better part of such taxes, while they through donations and lobbying can buy monopolies and other advantages to competitors, tax-payer financed infrastructure etc from power-hungry politicians. This is the greater part of the unfairness and exploitation Marx identified as “capitalism.” In this sense, I am most certainly an anti-capitalist.
Capitalism in the Austrian sense, i.e. the definition regularly used by libertarians like you and me, includes nothing of this sort. Here, capitalism is simply the voluntary agreement between free individuals to exchange products or services; and to hold the unrestricted right to what we produce: our property. Anarchists and “libertarian socialists” are usually not opposed to this. This is simply freedom, anarchy! Unless one insists on uses the term capitalism. They have a hard time seeing through our definition of capitalism (they’re using the term in its original meaning) just as we can never see socialism (in the individualist anarchist sense) for what it really is: a focus in discussions and debates on the working population and the rights of the common man against the state. Tell me, what is wrong with such socialism?
So I am a capitalism-loving anti-capitalism anarchist. There is nothing strange about it; I simply choose to use the term in both definitions.
Posted by Per Bylund at 08:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 26, 2005
Appealing to the Patriotism of Parents
The recent STR post on 3/24 -
Army Expects Recruiting to Slump Further
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-23-army-recruiting_x.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno
"The Army expects to miss its recruiting goals this month and next and is working on a revised sales pitch appealing to the patriotism of parents, Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey said Wednesday."
Wow, talk about deja vu! That reminds me of a song -
All together now -
"Come on mothers throughout the land
pack your boys off to Viet Nam
come on fathers don't hesitate
send your sons off before it's too late
and you can be the first ones on your block
to have your boy come home in a box
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die."
Posted by Al Hambidge at 04:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 24, 2005
More Terri Schiavo Columns
Here are two thoughtful conservative/libertarian takes on the Terri Schiavo case, both worth reading in full.
1. Thomas Fleming's "Never Say Die"
2. Jacob Hornberger's "Hard Cases Make Bad Law"
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
Does George W. Bush Support the Troops?
"Support Our Troops" (or, in some cases, "Pray for Our Troops") stickers adorn every other car in the country these days. Many, if not most, of those proudly announcing their support for not just the troops but the war effort are also proud supporters of the man in charge of the war, George W. Bush. Bush clearly supports the troops. See this L.A. Times article, for instance, in which we learn that
Bush administration lawyers urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit against Iraq brought by U.S. pilots and soldiers who were captured and tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, saying the president believed it could hurt the rebuilding effort in Iraq.
See, the money isn't Saddam Hussein's anymore. Now it's George Bush's--and our great wartime president ain't about to give up a single dime of it to people who fought in his father's assault on Iraq.
(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:37 AM | Comments (1)
March 22, 2005
Educating Private Rita
Thanks to our, er, friends at FreeRepublic.com, who absolutely hated this column and called the author every name in the book (primarily variations on "liberal" and "commie"), I have a good piece of writing to share with you.
Cook College senior Steve Meck writes:
Ever since the phrase "Support our Troops" was coined, it took on the twisted meaning of supporting the troops as blindly as they follow orders. For some reason, cheering for these disillusioned troops as they destroy other countries and in turn endanger America is the politically correct thing to do. If the troops were educated about the damage they are causing, perhaps the men and women who are willing to risk life and limb for the people of this country could actually put their efforts toward defending the American people.
The first thing that the troops need to learn is that their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are not "defending our freedoms" or "deterring terrorism." The truth, by the government's own research, is that the wars are making the United States less safe by turning Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorists. The CIA report, "Mapping our Future," details how the war in Afghanistan, and Iraq especially, is creating and emboldening new terrorists and, thus, making America less safe. . . .
It is ironic that the average American soldier would have so much animosity for the average Afghan or Iraqi fighter since they both share so much in common - both believe they are fighting for justice and against tyranny. The American soldier believes he is fighting terrorism as he spreads it and the Afghan or Iraqi combatants fight to avenge U.S. terrorism but are simply causing more. Both have been led to believe, by their higher powers, to fight for what seems to be a just cause, but both are just causing more injustice.
But whether the murder of civilians is done under the guise of American freedom or under Islamic jihad, it is still, by definition, terrorism. Until U.S. soldiers realize the lies they are being fed, they will only continue to add to the cycle of terrorism.
It's a very good column, made all the better by how much the Freepers despise it.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:36 AM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
Appearances by Humberto Fontova
He's the author of the new book Fidel, Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant.
Tuesday, March 22: Fox & Friends, 7:30-8:00 AM Eastern Time
March 22: The O'Reilly Factor, 7:00 PM Eastern Time - "O'Reilly is trying to get together the very celebrities I bash mercilessly in the book--Chevy Chase, Oliver Stone, Ted Turner, Seven Spielberg, Charlie Rangel, Jesse Jackson, Diane Sawyer, Dan Rather, Ed Asner, etc.--to confront me on the show!"
March 23 - Kudlow & Kramer, CNBC, 5-6 PM Eastern Time
April 14 - The Dennis Miller Show
Posted by Rob at 09:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Smears Catalogued
We've had phony intelligence that Iraq was overflowing with WMDs; that Saddam Hussein tried to procure uranium from Niger; and that Joe Wilson got the job of investigating the Niger claim at the behest of his wife.
Now the government has cooked up "intelligence" that William Arkin, a journalist and activist who has reported on much skullduggery of the U.S. government vis a vis Iraq, was a spy for Saddam Hussein. The documents are clear forgeries, and the Pentagon admits as much.
The Defense Department's response to Arkin's demand for an investigation?
"DiRita said an investigation is 'not likely. It is probably not possible to determine the source of such a matter, and I am unaware of any involvement in it by someone inside the department that would warrant a further look.'"
Being an empire means never having to say you're sorry.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
The Most Dangerous Drug
If Adolf Hitler had had television to assist him in his efforts to ban the use of tobacco, I wonder how similar his campaign would have been to the televised congressional circus now being conducted against steroids. In the same frenzied self-righteousness with which Congress supports military wars against the lives of innocents, and domestic wars against domestic liberties, hearings into the dangerous nature and use of steroids are nudging Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, and even Martha Stewart from television’s center stage.
So begins another fine Butler Shaffer smash-the-state column at LewRockwell.com.
Shaffer effortlessly elides from the steroid hearings into the drug of statism, which poisons our country and its youth far more than a few baseball players on juice. For example,
This is child abuse of the worst kind! In deadening the minds of children with patriotic opiates, the schools have helped to produce a society of anesthetized adults incapable of discriminating between "truth" and "lies," or even of appreciating the importance of such distinctions in formulating government policies. Most of us have become what the state trained us to become: people who look upon "honesty" and "deception" as nothing more than alternative strategies; people who are willing to accept the fundamental political doctrine that a lie is as good as the truth, if people will only believe it!
As always, a Shaffer column is worth reading in full.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)
A Look at Bush's "Private" Parts (of Social Security)
All right, so maybe George Dubya Bush's Social Security reform ain't perfect; but at least it's a step in the right direction. Or is it?
Not according to Casey Research (via the Mises blog). (Scroll down to "The Great Social Security Debate, Part II.")
Regular WWNK readers will know where we come down on this. True privatization sounds like a laudable aim to us. But is that really what the White House is offering? As with all politicians and their promises, the devil is in the fine print. When we examine that, we find that the reality isn’t quite so straightforward. For example, under the Administration’s proposal, the individual wouldn’t control his or her account; the government would keep and administer the money, deciding how to allocate resources and when to distribute profits. Now, due to the financial ignorance of so many, one could argue that there should be some bar against high-risk investments (the Chilean system does), but this setup forces us to rely on the government to administer our personal monies in our best interest. Talk about risk.
Worse still, the Bush plan specifies that upon retirement, workers would be returned only the amount that exceeded inflation-adjusted gains over 3 percent. The SSA hopefully projects a return of 4.6% above inflation; the Congressional Budget Office, less sanguine, thinks a 3.3% return is more realistic. Either way, the government gets to hang onto the first several percentage points of your profit; brokerage fees included. . . .
This sounds like just another confiscatory government scheme to us. Or as Peter Orszag—head of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ bipartisan Retirement Security Project—puts it, what this amounts to is a loan from the government, to be paid back upon retirement at an inflation-adjusted 3% interest rate. Even conservative Stephen Moore, author of the book Bullish on Bush, admits that this plan undermines the notion of an “ownership society.” However, the question is why the government should have the right to take back any profits from a “private” account at all.
Then there are issues of how to finance the existing Ponzi scheme while diverting money from it, whether to index future benefits to inflation or wages, etc. In short, don't buy the notion that the Bush plan actually increases freedom or provides a way out of Social Security. Would we expect anything less from the man who has grown government faster than any president since LBJ?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
Yes, Virginia, There is a Nanny Clause
Virginia House Nanny Algie T. Howell, Jr. introduced a bill to ban "indecent displays of underwear." Dubbed the "droopy drawers bill", the measure actually passed the House, but died in Senate committee. So the small-government Republicans rode in to save the Commonwealth from a blatant statist attempt to dictate the dressing of its children, right? Well...no. House Repubs voted for the bill in order to punish Democrats for abusing Howell, a fellow Democrat.
"'The bill was not necessary,' admitted Delegate Scott Lingamfelter (R-District 31), who joined 59 of his House colleagues in voting for the bill. 'But (the sponsor) was just treated so badly by his own side, a lot of us (Republicans) voted for it' to send a message to 'the Democrats, and to everybody, that you don't treat people like garbage.'"
Some of Howell's fellows attacked the bill as racist, and apparently browbeat the poor statist so badly, Republicans actually felt sorry for him. The good people of Virginia can rest assured their governance is dictated not only by a sincere concern for their well-being, but by spite as well.
Some GOP'ers, reflexively, agreed with the premise of the bill. Delegate Clifford Athey, Jr. opined,
"'Increasingly, as our society coarsens, you're seeing the government have to step in and regulate things that were left before in the domain of the parents and churches.'"
Gotta love them small government Republicans.
From the Fauquier Times Democrat
Posted by Matthew Bryan at 03:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 17, 2005
Things we really didn't need to know...
... at least not badly enough for taxpayers to fund it. I will let this article speak for itself (pun intended). I have no comment, only because I'm speechless.
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2005
Indians, Keep Your Gold!
Banks in India are eager to get their hands on privately-hoarded gold so they can add it to their reserves and expand credit on it.
"Initially, the metal itself would be retained by the bank, as the seller of a paper gold certificate, and the buyer could at any time trade in the paper to receive the current market value of the quantity of gold originally bought - not just the amount of money originally spent," writes Anand Giridharadas in the international Herald Tribune.
The key phrase is "at any time." Banks practicing fractional reserve lending are incapable of keeping that promise. When they get in trouble they'll get the government to allow them to suspend gold redemption while staying in business. Eventually, banks will whine for a more "elastic" currency and government will let them issue fiat money.
And the fiat money will exist to serve the big banks and government growth.
And poor people who once hoarded gold won't even have gold to fall back on.
Posted by George F. Smith at 05:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
First They Came for the "Enemy Combatants"
We're all familiar with the federal government's criminal treatment of Jose Padilla: declaring a U.S. citizen an enemy combatant and keeping him locked up in a military prison without charging him with a crime or otherwise according him his constitutional rights.
You may not be familiar, however, with the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. (I know I wasn't familiar with it.) Here's how Jacob Hornberger describes it in his latest column:
Al-Marri’s case, as I mentioned earlier, involves a much rawer exercise of military power. Al-Marri was actually indicted for terrorism-related offenses in federal district court, first in New York, and then later in Illinois. Motions were being heard in his case and the attorneys were preparing for trial, which is the normal procedure in federal criminal cases.
All of a sudden, federal prosecutors requested the presiding judge in the case to dismiss the indictment against al-Marri. The judge granted the request, but “with prejudice,” which means that under the Sixth Amendment bar against double jeopardy, U.S. officials can now never bring those particular criminal charges against al-Marri again. Once the order of dismissal was entered in the Illinois criminal case, U.S. officials secured an official “enemy combatant” designation from President Bush and immediately transferred al-Marri to the same military brig in South Carolina where they are still holding Padilla.
In other words, the government feared it wouldn't obtain a conviction in a fair trial, so it simply took al-Marri out of the criminal justice system and threw him in a military prison, where he can (the feds hope) be held indefinitely.
Hornberger continues:
Make no mistake about it: The governmental power exercised in the Padilla and al-Marri cases will be a back door to military control of our nation.
He is, of course, correct. Unfortunately, most people will figure that Padilla and al-Marri are terrorists and had it coming to them and that we can trust our government (at least as long as it's run by each person's preferred political party) not to do this stuff to innocent citizens.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 03:22 PM | Comments (2)
March 10, 2005
Want to know where the US is headed?
You can look into the crystal ball at CCTV (Chinese Central Television). Even the sports anchor is a former(?) government official, for crying out loud.
I have been watching this for a couple of nights after discovering it while insomniac-channel-surfing, and I have to tell you, I can't see any difference between China's state-run media and our own supposedly "free" press. The same propaganda stories, using the same language, shilled by different talking heads. Did you know that China is adopting a more prudent fiscal policy (or, as one charming young lady correspondent kept pronouncing it, "physical" policy) after the more proactive policies of the past seven years? Well, after hearing the exact same story on three programs in a row, twice by Chinese talking heads and once by a BBC-contaminated westerner, without even a single deviation from the script, I sure as hell do (as an aside, a breakdown of China's fiscal year budget was offered: in a country with four times the population of the US, the budget was about $37 billion--compare that with the US). Oh, and there has been a great outcry from the Chinese people to draft anti-secession laws regarding Formosa. At least, that's the first reason the politicians at the National People's Congress cite when they are interviewed in support of the inevitable cross-strait invasion, which, if the Taiwanese show any gumption and don't cave, will be kicking off sometime this summer. Now, I ask you, if, say, Puerto Rico wanted to secede (which it does), just how high would your rat's-ass factor be (the rat's ass factor is measured in inverse proportion to how much one cares about a given phenomena--the higher the rat's-ass factor, the less one cares)? I'd wager pretty high. So would mine be. And I'll wager further that most Chinese outside the NPC feel the same about Taiwan.
So what's the point? Watch CCTV or read its website and tell me how different this is from our "fourth estate." I doubt you'll see much, if any.
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 04:17 PM | Comments (1)
Saddam's Capture: The Made-for-TV Version
A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.
Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army. . . .
"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.
Is he telling the truth? It's quite possible, given what we know of the fabricated Jessica Lynch capture story and "rescue" video.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:19 AM | Comments (4)
Instruction Manuals Accused of Sex Discrimination
The prime minister of Norway clearly has too much time on his hands. He has just announced that Sweden-based IKEA is guilty of "sex discrimination" because its instruction manuals show only men putting furniture together. Furthermore, he says IKEA should change its manuals to remedy this.
Besides the fact that the prime minister is sticking his nose where it doesn't belong (which they wouldn't dare say), IKEA points out that its products are sold in Muslim countries, where pictures of women assembling furniture might be frowned upon.
This explanation failed to impress the P.M., who said, "This isn't good enough. It's important to promote attitudes for sexual equality, not least in Muslim nations."
IKEA's response should be: "Hey, Mr. Prime Minster! This is IKEA, not Burger King. You can't have it Norway."
Posted by Mike Tennant at 08:32 AM | Comments (4)
March 09, 2005
Tell the Truth, Get Sent to a Shrink
Yahoo! news reports:
An army sergeant was given a psychiatric examination and sent out of Iraq after he reported that members of his counter-intelligence team in Samarra were abusing prisoners, according to army investigation documents. . . .
The sergeant said that soon after being assigned to a four-member counter-intelligence team in Samarra in mid April, 2003 he noticed that his team members' use of force was escalating.
"I noticed more physical contact, striking, hair pulling, being forced in forced air positions," he said, adding that on four occasions he had to intervene medically to revive prisoners.
He said he also observed "staged executions" in which a two other sergeants used M-16 rifles or 9mm pistols.
On one occasion he found team members putting their full weight on a detainees sternum above the heart, he said. . . .
The sergeant said he asked to be relieved from the position, and upon returning to his battalion's base at Balad, Iraq asked his company commander to investigate the abuses he witnessed.
Instead, the company commander accused him of lying, and threatened to have him examined by a psychiatrist if he did not withdraw the request in 30 seconds, he said.
When he refused withdraw the request, the company commander confiscated his weapon, withdrew his security clearance, placed him under 24 hour surveillance, and had him examined by the psychiatrist, the sergeant told investigators.
Hmm . . . Tell the truth about government misdeeds, and they accuse you of lying and send you to a shrink before shipping you out of the country. Thank goodness we're the good guys in this fight, or I might think that our government was fighting against freedom, like, oh, Communists or Nazis.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:31 PM | Comments (1)
GOP Jettisons Its Last Supposed Prinicple
We all know that the GOP is useless (or worse) when it comes to controlling spending, regulating, or empire building. However, we can still count on them for tax cuts--right?
Wrong.
According to the Washington Post:
President Bush and Republican lawmakers are being forced to temper their anti-tax ambitions, as the party that consolidated power in Washington by promising to shrink government grapples with the high cost of its efforts to expand the Defense Department and the nation's two largest entitlement programs.
The president's only new tax initiative for the second term -- a broad restructuring of the tax code -- will be crafted in a way that results in a simpler system, not lower taxes, White House aides said.
At the same time, Bush's call for Congress to make permanent all the tax cuts enacted in his first term faces increasingly strong resistance among some Republicans concerned about rising deficits. . . .
And, for the first time in years, Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and other Senate Republicans are advocating increasing taxes -- as a way to pay for a restructuring of Social Security. Bush has not ruled out backing the effort.
OK, well, maybe those fellas in Washington are going wobbly on tax cuts, but not the fine Republicans in state government. Oh, wait . . .
Indiana Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R), Bush's budget director in the first term, recently drew the wrath of conservatives by proposing a 29 percent increase in the state income tax rate on the richest residents. Republican governors in Colorado and Alabama have championed tax boosts as well.
(Thanks to the LewRockwell.com blog for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:20 PM | Comments (1)
Gun Nuts at 30,000 Feet?
The wonderful James Bovard (whom conservatives loved when he was beating up on Clinton but hate now that he's beating up on Bush) has an article at LewRockwell.com on the subject of armed pilots, the TSA's air marshals, and the Bush administration's continued attempts to make the skies as unsafe as possible. It's definitely worth reading in full.
Bovard concludes:
In 2002 Bush bragged that the law creating the TSA “greatly enhanced the protections for America’s passengers and goods.” Rather than making Americans safe from terrorists, the TSA has made them prey to federal agents. There is no reason to expect the agency to turn over a new leaf. And there is no reason to expect a small army of undercover federal agents flying on planes to make Americans safe.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:12 PM | Comments (1)
March 08, 2005
Conservatives for the Minimum Wage
The good news is that the U.S. Senate failed to raise the minimum wage at all.
The bad news is that supposedly conservative Republicans, led by (according to the linked article) "outspoken conservative" Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, wanted to raise the minimum wage by $1.10 rather than the the $2.10 the Democrats wanted.
Furthermore, Santorum, who is reviled by Democrats as an arch-conservative and is considered a possible contender for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, says that he has "not had any ideological problem with the minimum wage" and that, in fact, he voted for the 1996 increase.
With conservatives like this, who needs liberals?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2005
Learning is Fundamental
And the kids are learning how to liberate themselves from the government schools (for brief respites, anyway). This evening's news reported yet another mercury spill at a DC middle school (oops - I dropped a thermometer. Wow, look at the circus I caused). This is becoming an almost daily occurrence in our area.
Posted by Robert Jackson at 11:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
We're Freaking Doomed!
The Mogambo Guru hammers central banking, fiat money, and government generally in a style all his own. In his latest weekly offering, he writes:
And then they say things like, "And we'll even put it in the Constitution that money shall only be of silver and gold, so that the damn government CAN'T do that fiat money crap, because the government can't print silver and gold," and then I will tell them that it was in the Constitution the whole time, and then they will say, "It was?" and I will say, "Yes!" and then they will ask, in that charming little way that melts the heart of The Mogambo (HOTM), "Then how come we were destroyed by a fiat currency?" and will I say, "Because FDR did it and the Supreme Court said it was okay with them, as long as he kept the size of the Supreme Court at nine, instead of following through on his threat of increasing the size of the court and packing it with his buddies, who WILL say it is okay, and the Supreme Court, in an act of gutless cowardice, acquiesced. And then everyone in the media and the Congress and the schools all went along to get along with the scam, and the electorate, which is, in the aggregate, so stupid that they cannot comprehend a Constitutional imperative even when it is written out in black and white, sits in their own stinking slobber and watches and whines as the predictable, and thus the inevitable, happens, which is, if you care to get up and go over to the window and look out, economic ruination.
Posted by George F. Smith at 06:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
These guys chose the right symbol: a reptile.
This column by Linda Shrock Taylor perfectly illustrates the injustice inherent in compulsory liability laws. They, like every other sweetheart deal a law or regulation gives to a corporate interest, ultimately winds up gouging those it was meant to protect. I would much rather risk being hit by an uninsured driver (after all, it is my responsibility to look out for myself on the public roadways and insure against loss, not anyone else's, even if the accident is their fault) than support the corrupt insurance companies who are more than willing to extort money from me on any pretext whatever, as Ms. Taylor so ably illustrates with the interrogation she had to undergo about things which had nothing whatever to do with the matter at hand, namely, insuring her cars and teenage son. GEICO, and companies like them, benefit from these clearly special-interest-driven laws which infringe on the rights of individuals to move freely on the roads they have already been extorted from to build.
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2005
Army short of recruiting goal
It seems some of the potential cannon fodder is starting to get a clue. Good for them.
"Don't be a fool, Stay in School!" Hell, stay anywhere, go anywhere, except the military.
Thanks to
RationalReview for the link.
Posted by Al Hambidge at 12:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 05, 2005
The War on Terror ramps up further!
In Lexington, KY, WLEX Channel 18 is reporting that an 18-year-old high school kid named William Poole (George Rogers Clark High School in Clark County) is facing a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge -- for writing a short story for his English class about ZOMBIES.
The kid was turned in to the cops by his GRANDPARENTS when they found the story in his journal.
Detective Steven Caudill says, "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky."
"It's a fake story," says William. "I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, [and] the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran [sic] by zombies."
The kid's being held at the Clark County Detention Center.
Watch out, Stephen King!!
Posted by Wally Conger at 04:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 04, 2005
U.S. Forces Fire On Recently Released Hostage
Today Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was released after a month of being held hostage in Iraq. Shortly thereafter, the liberating army of the United States fired upon her car, killing an Italian secret service agent and "lightly wounding" her.
How about that? You're safer in the hands of the "insurgents" than driving around the "liberated" countryside while the Americans are there.
Oh, well. Another day, another piece of "collateral damage."
Posted by Mike Tennant at 03:09 PM | Comments (1)
What's Wrong With Child Labor?
Should children be allowed to work in sawmills?
What if they’re Amish?
Under federal law, anyone under 18 is forbidden to work in a sawmill. Well, almost anyone. Last year, Congress declared it permissible for a 14-year-old to work in a sawmill if a statute or court ruling exempts him from having to attend school past the eighth grade. That’s code for “if he’s Amish,” and in case you don’t get the message, the statute specifies that such a person must be supervised by “an adult member of the same religious sect or division.”
So if an Amish parent wants to raise his children to an Amish lifestyle and send them to work in a sawmill when they finish eighth grade, he can do it. But if a child is not Amish, he is forbidden to work in almost any job until he is 14, in most jobs until he is 16, and in a considerable number of jobs until he is 18. Why? Because to “protect children,” Congress and the Department of Labor have decided they know just which village it takes to raise a child: Washington, D.C. But the truth is that Washington’s labor laws now hurt children more than they protect them.
Stossel goes on to expound upon the subject and points out that children and their parents know better whether kids should be working or not than the government does. (By the way, did you know that Washington says child labor is okay if you're a wreath maker? Who knew that wreath makers had such a powerful lobbying organization?)
(Thanks to WorldNetDaily for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
In Iraq, Freedom = Martial Law
In case you foolishly thought that the Iraqis were free now that they'd held elections:
Iraq's interim government said on Thursday it was extending emergency powers equivalent to martial law for a further 30 days to crack down on insurgents.
The state of emergency, first imposed in November ahead of a major U.S. assault on the rebel stronghold of Falluja west of Baghdad, would stay in effect into March 31, said a government statement.
Emergency powers allow the government to impose curfews, close borders and airports and detain suspects without following normal legal procedures. The emergency applies to all regions of Iraq except the Kurdish north, which has been relatively stable.
What happens if they just keep extending martial law? Does Allawi get to stay in power indefinitely? Do they ever have to have another election or even seat the people who won the first one? I guess it's okay, though, since it's being done "to crack down on insurgents."
(Thanks to Antiwar.com for this link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
Putin or Bush--or Both?
Millions embrace him as the Dear Leader, an austere man with a steel spine summoned by destiny to defend the Homeland. Millions of others consider him an incipient tyrant, a figurehead representing a corrupt system. Many initially regarded his ascent to power as illegitimate, the result of appointment rather than election. But those misgivings were subdued after the deadly terrorist attacks that struck the nation the following September.
Some of the Leader’s bolder domestic critics, carefully scrutinizing the evidence, accused the government of having prior knowledge of the terrorist plot. In any case, the Leader and his advisers certainly capitalized on the event. The power of the presidency was radically expanded, the security agencies were unleashed, police agencies were brought more fully under the central government’s control, and extra-judicial interrogation tactics – including torture – quietly received official sanction.
Just as alarmingly, the president himself became the centerpiece of a cult of personality. Despite a questionable personal background, the president’s supporters are firmly convinced that he is a sincere Christian devoted to defending the faith. Frequently seen in the company of military personnel, the president has been cast as a crusading warrior. One particularly memorable photo-op depicted the president at the controls of a military jet.
Is this a brief sketch of Russian President Vladimir Putin, or of U.S. President George W. Bush?
Yes.
Ouch! Grigg lays into both "Dear Leaders" throughout this excellent piece. Read it all.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
With all due respect Mr. Commissioner, please go f**k yourself...
I vow this: I will write and post on the Internet any dam thing I want about whatever topic or subject I like.
“In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could
risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a
campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press
release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished
by fines.”
http://politechbot.com/pipermail/politech/2005-March/001087.html
First, I am not a statist so I make no claims on or appeal to the state or it’s laws and rules. However, using the state’s and statists’ paradigm let me say this: I am a veteran of the Gulf War, a taxpayer since 1986 (involuntarily so..but still), and a born in the USA American. Therefore, I will write any dam thing I have to say about any topic whatsoever. If anyone thinks I’ve committed slander or defamation against him or her they can sue me in a court of law. However, be advised. In every trial court in America, truth is an absolute defense.
I say: "Let justice be done though the heavens fall”
Posted by Ali Massoud at 10:16 AM | Comments (2)
March 03, 2005
End This War one Town Meeting at a Time.
From The Nation.com: Vermont Votes No to War-03/02/2005
“Congress may not be prepared to hold an honest debate on when and how the United States should exit the Iraq imbroglio, but the town meetings of rural Vermont are not so constrained. Declaring that "The War in Iraq is a Local Issue," citizens in communities across the state voted of Tuesday for resolutions urging President Bush and Congress to take steps to withdraw American troops from Iraq and calling on their state legislature to investigate the use and abuse of the Vermont National Guard in the conflict.” link here
Which is very good to know, and a very good start. Every town in America by now has at least a few young men or women that have come home blind, burned, limbless, or damaged in one way or another. A few have come home in boxes. The casualties as of this day are 1500 DOW/KIA/MIA and a staggering 36,000 serious injuries.
“How the hell can that be Ali? You're an ex-infantry guy?” I get asked this a lot. Well, like this: The $123 dollar RPG-7 or IED can easily kill an Abrams M-1 tank, BFV, helicopters, or planes as they take off or land. An IED can kill a whole platoon if you plan it right. All the gold-plated, high tech space gizmos with the computer relays and stealth technology from the Merchants of Death Incorporated doesn't work so well in a back alley in Sadr City. However, a $23 AKM rifle, RPK-LMG, stick grenades, or sniper rifles work just fine. They know the neighborhood too.
As more and more young Americans start to come home damaged physically and spiritually, or dead, the tide is gonna start to turn against this slaughter. Vermont's opposition efforts I hope is just the start of a whole series of “consciousness raising” events that will galvanize the sheep into opposing WarLords like Bush and Rumsfeld. I hope so any way.
Apparently there are going to be big anti-war events all over America on March 17th. It’s time to silence the guns and bombs folks.
Posted by Ali Massoud at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)
If it wasn't for those pesky kids...
How could any child ever turn his back on the motherland? Apparently, about fifty percent of Russia's youth either want to or are thinking about it. Even more have the sheer gall to oppose their fearless leader (we know he's fearless because of all those years he spent in the KGB, right?). So what's the solution? An opposition group to oppose the opposition groups, of course! Nothing like a combination Hitler Jung/Sturm Abteilung to straighten out those wrongheaded whippersnappers.
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 06:58 PM | Comments (1)
March 02, 2005
Failure Is the Health of the State
Butler Shaffer has another great state-busting column, titled "Failure Is the Health of the State," at LewRockwell.com today. Here's a sample:
Most of us continue to sanction such statist systems because we lack the inner courage to confront our own thinking. We continue reinvesting our souls and the lives of our children in systems that define who we are to ourselves. When those systems fail, we reenergize our commitments to them, for to acknowledge the failure of the state is to admit to the inadequacy of our personal identity. If the state is a failure, we are a failure.
This is how the failure of systems with which we identify ourselves works to the benefit – rather than the demise – of such agencies. For the same reason that the police system prospers by its ineffectiveness in protecting citizens from crime, the state benefits from its foreign policy/national defense shortcomings. In each instance, most men and women are prepared to grant the state more authority and material resources in a vain effort to shore up their faith in the system.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:47 AM | Comments (1)
March 01, 2005
mini-review of Humberto Fontova's new book
From Publishers Weekly
New Orleans journalist Fontova has covered diving, hunting and fishing for specialty magazines like Bowhunter, Scuba Times and Sierra and penned a book about divers who spear fish from oil rigs (Helldivers' Rodeo) two years ago. Now the hellbent author and his equally hellbent pals are back, intent on stirring up more nonstop macho action. This time they hope to nail a wild pig during a Louisiana bayou "hunting-fishing-boozing trip." The pig chase doesn't begin until page 173, but no matter. The fun is getting there. Amid their "orgy of blood-lust, booze, and lechery; a three-day indulgence of our primal passions in primitive splendor," readers get fascinating factoids of Louisiana lore, ecology, geology, history, politics and wildlife, plus literary, cinematic and pop culture references. Navigating the French Quarter and the Mississippi Delta's shallow marshes and squishy mudflats, Fontova and company encounter gators and girls gone wild, "plumb, freakin' crazy" hog hunters, migrating waterfowl, mosquitoes and snakes. Fun comes as the gang razzes a greenhorn businessman along for the hunt: "I explained to him that we cut more business deals in hunting and fishing camps than on any golf course, but probably just as many in titty bars." Memoir adds to the madhouse mix, with Fontova's flashbacks erupting in an onslaught of anecdotes. Fontova's voice is powerful and compelling, and the hog hunt finale is worth the wait. The end result reads like Deliverance as written by Hunter Thompson.
Posted by Rob at 07:09 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
But They're Better Off Without Saddam
The State Department on Monday detailed an array of human rights abuses last year by the Iraqi government, including torture, rape and illegal detentions by police officers and functionaries of the interim administration that took power in June.
In the Bush administration's bluntest description of human rights transgressions by the American-supported government, the report said the Iraqis "generally respected human rights, but serious problems remained" as the government and American-led foreign forces fought a violent insurgency. It cited "reports of arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, impunity, poor prison conditions - particularly in pretrial detention facilities - and arbitrary arrest and detention." . . .
These included reports that police officers in Basra were involved in killing 10 Baath Party members; that the police in Baghdad arrested, interrogated and killed 12 kidnappers of three police officers on Oct. 16, 2004, and that corruption was a problem at every level of government.
The document cited without comment a report by Human Rights Watch, an independent advocacy group, that "torture and ill treatment of detainees by police was commonplace," allegedly including "beatings with cables and hosepipes, electric shocks to their earlobes and genitals, food and water deprivation."
In one case, the report said, enough evidence had been gathered "to prosecute police officers in Baghdad who were systematically raping and torturing female detainees." Two of them received prison sentences, while four were demoted and reassigned. . . .
There were also reports of police officers making false arrests to extort money from the families of detainees, and of an Iraqi ministry having members of a political party arrested in order to occupy their offices. "Reportedly," the document said, "coerced confessions and interrogation continued to be the favored method of investigation by police."
This, of course, is the government installed and kept in power by the U.S. government. Remember, though, that they hate us for our freedom.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:56 AM | Comments (1)
When It's OK to Sell Nuclear Materials to a Dictator
Westinghouse Electric was to present a bid to China on Monday for building four large nuclear reactors, backed by a pledge of nearly $5 billion in financial assistance from the U.S. government that Washington hopes will give the company an edge over competitors from France, Germany and other countries. . . .
The deal, approved on a preliminary basis by the Export-Import Bank on Feb. 18, is almost three times larger than anything the bank has offered before. And while it would stimulate employment in the United States, the price would amount to about $1 million per job, raising objections from some critics.
Oh, I get it. If France or Russia supplies nuclear parts or materials to Iran, they're bad guys who probably ought to be nuked along with the Iranians. On the other hand, if the U.S. supplies nuclear reactors to China, which is run by communist dictators, it's good because it provides jobs for Americans. Clearly, some evil dictators are more equal than others.
Read the whole story here. Link courtesy Antiwar.com.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:51 AM | Comments (1)
Your Tax Dollars at Work
As we know, all "defense" spending is good because it protects us from evil invaders and terrorists, and anyone who opposes even a penny of it is an anti-American, defeatist liberal.
For example, who could oppose this?
A Defense Department report says the Air Force wasted $1 million on unreliable hand-held chemical agent detectors that could have put at risk any airmen who depended on the equipment, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Air Force officials may have violated federal laws and military rules when they bought 100 commercial versions of the detectors and supplied them to commanders in the Middle East while knowing that the manufacturer's tests showed the devices did not work well in hot areas or under battle conditions, the Deseret Morning News reported.
(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)
Strict Constructionist Judge Smacks Down Bush Administration
A federal judge in Spartanburg has ordered that an American citizen held as an enemy combatant in a Navy brig in Charleston should be released.
U.S. District Judge Henry F. Floyd ruled Monday that the president of the United States does not have the authority to order Jose Padilla to be held.
"If the law in its current state is found by the president to be insufficient to protect this country from terrorist plots, such as the one alleged here, then the president should prevail upon Congress to remedy the problem," he wrote.
At least there's still one federal judge who can read the Constitution. Of course, as the article points out, the government is going to appeal the decision. No doubt they'll keep appealing until they find a judge who isn't a "strict constructionist"--the very criterion Bush says he will use when appointing judges.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)