Belle of Writes

Shortest Poem

2012-02-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

Me, We

Muhammed Ali, Harvard graduation ceremony, 1967

Israel, MEK, and state sponsor of terror groups

2012-02-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

By Glenn Greenwald

One of the most under-reported political stories of the last year is the devoted advocacy of numerous prominent American political figures on behalf of an Iranian group long formally designated as a Terrorist organization under U.S. law. A large bipartisan cast has received substantial fees from that group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and has then become their passionate defenders. The group of MEK shills includes former top Bush officials and other Republicans (Michael Mukasey, Fran Townsend, Andy Card, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani) as well as prominent Democrats (Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark). As The Christian Science Monitor reported last August, those individuals “have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.” (read more)

Glenn Greenwald will be in Boise tomorrow for the 2012 ACLU Idaho annual Bill of Rights celebration. Go see him.

Woo-hoo! Sanctions are working!

2012-02-08T14:05:00.001-08:00

More evidence that international sanctions (which by the way apparently still allow some corporations like U.S. agribusiness giant Cargill to "very carefully" do business with Iran) have a crippling impact on Iran. Our plan to starve 74 million people is working! Hooray! Rah, rah, rah, shish-koom-bah!

Still eating?
slap, slap

Feel the pain yet?
kick, kick

Still have some life?
punch, punch

Still breathing?
stomp, stomp

No War on Iran

2012-02-06T15:20:00.001-08:00

No War
No Sanctions
No Intervention
No Assassinations

More sanctions on Iran

2012-02-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

Obama orders new sanctions on Iran "to further pinch the country's financial system and to encourage Israel to give sanctions more time before any military action against Iran's nuclear program."

More time for what? To break Iran like we broke Iraq, knowing they had no WMDs? To have a million children die under sanctions just as they did in Iraq? Who are we kidding? Even if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons -- which it has not (Panetta has said this very clearly)-- we have Iran encircled and the entire Persian Gulf is swimming in American arms and special forces. We have 5113 nuclear warheads and Israel has more than 200 nuclear warheads pointed at Iran, enough to wipe Iran off the map a thousand times over.

Sanctions are war in slow motion.

Just who is running American foreign policy? The U.S. is doing everything against its own interest in the Middle East. We never learn. Sad, sad, sad.

iRack

2012-02-06T13:53:00.000-08:00

-- iRack -- MadTV

The Saint

2012-02-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

When I give food to the poor, they call me saint. And when I ask why they have no food, they call me a Communist.

Brazillian bishop Helder Camara

To sell a war

2012-02-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

Marketing war just like toothpaste and soft drinks.

Part 1
Part 2

Deja vu

2012-02-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

The lies that lead us to war

Part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

Dusk

2012-02-03T20:16:00.000-08:00

Wandering in dusk,
Sometimes
You get lost in the dusk --
And sometimes not.

Beating your fists
Against the wall,
You break your bones
Against the wall --
But sometimes not.

Walls have been known
To fall,
Dusks turn to dawn,
And chains gone!

Langston Hughes

Absent Peace

2012-02-02T17:56:00.000-08:00

There is no visible opposition in the U.S. to war on Iran. There is "bipartisan" support for economic sanctions and continued hostilities-- not even giving lip-service to diplomacy. There are open calls for attacks, covert and overt, assassinations, destabilizing, breaking and crippling the country -- the harsher the better . The media is on board, no questions asked. And much as in the months before Iraq war, propaganda gets regurgitated until it becomes "fact." And people? Not many seem to care.

At least people showed up to protest the war on Iraq in 2003. In retrospect, I think the "peace movement" and opposition to Iraq war was really an anti-Bush movement. Peace seems to be a matter of party politics in this country: Bush was bad, his wars were bad. Obama is good, his wars are good.

Attacking Iran

2012-02-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes Israel may attack Iran this Spring. The Obama administration "appears to favor staying out of the conflict unless Iran hits U.S. assets, which would trigger a strong U.S. response." This is disingenuous. He green-lighted the attack the day he gifted Israel with bunker-busters.

'Syria resolution: proxy war against Iran'

2012-02-02T17:39:00.000-08:00

From RT: The UN Security Council has agreed it wants to avoid military intervention in Syria - but differences remain over the way ahead. The U.S. - as well as its European and Arab allies - want President Assad out of power. For its part, Russia says the UN shouldn't be used as a platform for excessive interference in Syrian affairs. Neil Clark, a journalist and contributor to the Guardian, believes that Russia's stance on Syria has much more international support than one may assume.

Civilian deaths

2012-02-01T06:25:00.000-08:00

Obama defends U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. He said drones had "not caused a huge number of civilian casualties."

"Not a huge number."

In 2005, former President Bush said "30,000 Iraqis, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis."

"30,000, more or less." "Not a huge number." What's a couple of hundred, five hundred, eight hundred, including a couple of hundred kids? Not a huge number, more or less.

Stoking a "humanitarian" civil war

2012-02-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

Here is Hillary Clinton stirring a big pot of humanitarian war stew in Syria.

Bobby McFerrin -- Expectations

2012-01-30T09:19:00.000-08:00

Bobby McFerrin uses the pentatonic scale and an audience's expectations to demonstrate neural programming at the World Science Festival 2009. (via War in Context)

The Penetrator

2012-01-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

WSJ reports: "Pentagon war planners have concluded that their largest conventional bomb isn't yet capable of destroying Iran's most heavily fortified underground facilities, and are stepping up efforts to make it more powerful, according to U.S. official briefed on this plan."

The Pentagon is asking for more money to enhance the ability of the 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb, known as Massive Ordnance Penetrator, "to penetrate deeper into rock, concrete and steel before exploding, the official said."

Deeper, bigger, harder, faster...

I'm convinced the world is run by men who seek to compensate for a severe case of sexual dysfunction. People are starving and all they want to do is invest in massive phallic objects capable of penetrating deeper, harder, faster, more explosive...

Go take some viagra. It's a little less destructive.

2012-01-27T19:06:00.000-08:00

"The U.S. is rushing to convert an aging Navy vessel into a 'mothership' from which to launch commando raids into the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.

Documents released by the Pentagon show that the military is urgently refitting the USS Ponce, a 1960s transport ship, so that it can accommodate the speed boats and Blackhawk helicopters favoured by America's special forces."

I guess we must not have enough arms and special forces concentrated in the region. We need more. We've even got dolphins fighting our wars.

To Know

2012-01-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

The legacy of war.

In Afghanistan: After years of decline, polio cases in Afghanistan triple in a year.

In Iraq: A country contaminated, catastrophic levels of birth defects and abnormalities in Fallujah.

In Libya: Crown jewel of NATO's humanitarian war -- torture in newly liberated democratic Libya.

Here & There

2012-01-25T12:42:00.000-08:00

Here, each spring brings an explosion of colors, red tulips, yellow daffodils, purple hyacinths. There, each spring brings an explosion, just red.

dread springs.

The Rest of the Poem

2012-01-24T06:50:00.001-08:00

Water falling on leaves means one thing.
Leaves falling on water another.
Between gaining life fully

and giving it away fully
stands a full death-mark.

The rest of the poem
is written not with words --
Drawing the whole of existence, like a full stop,
it is complete at any point.

Kunwar Narain, translated from Hindi by Lucy Rosenstein

Things haven't changed

2012-01-23T14:00:00.000-08:00

I came across these today. Things haven't really changed over the course of all these years. It's variation on a theme but the underlying current is the same: oil and geography -- and of course those hot-headed "orientals" who "become highly volatile" over such trivial things as when their national wealth is stolen.

May 17, 1951 -- UK can't lose Iran's oil, doesn't want to risk war

"The coalition of anti-communist nations is like a fire-brigade which must be on call day and night to put out a blaze any place in the world.

The five-alarm fire , of course, is in Korea, but bonfires can and do break out elsewhere. There is a good-sized blaze going right now in Iran. In some ways it is more dangerous than Korea. Most of the big nations would get along all right if there were no Korea; there isn't anything in the Korean soil that any body needs desperately. But the accidents of the geological formation of the earth have placed oil in Iran, and that makes it a big prize in the cold war.

There is enough oil there to make Iran worth fighting for, and the British are walking carefully on eggs. The Iranian government voted to expropriate the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, thereby cutting off a big source of Britain's petroleum. The simple answer seems to be for the British to send troops and force the Iranians to give back the oil company. But no issue is simple in Iran. It is an Oriental nation where people live intensely and become highly volatile over issues such as religion, nationalism and imperialism." (my emphasis)

June 2, 1951 -- Anglo-American Feeling -- The Iran Crisis

September 20, 1951 -- Showdown Appears Near in Iranian Oil Crisis

December 9, 1979 -- Allies being consulted -- U.S. ponders Iran embargo

May 18, 1980 -- Europeans Consider Iran Sanctions

October 11, 1987 -- The world; Iran embargo: The main import is political

May 02, 1995 -- The Iran Embargo

Ode to the apple

2012-01-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

You are always
fresh, like nothing
and nobody.
You have always
just fallen
from Paradise:
dawn's
rosy cheek
full
and perfect!
....

I want
total abundance,
your family
multiplied.
I want
a city
a republic,
a Mississippi River
of apples,
and I want to see
gathered on its banks
the world's
entire
population
united and reunited
in the simplest act we know:
I want us to bite into an apple.

Pablo Neruda, from Ode to Common Things

On revolt and independence

2012-01-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

McClatchy reports that after a year of Arab revolt, Islamists are the biggest winners. "The United States and other Western powers — along with Arab liberals and religious minorities — are watching with alarm as conservative Muslim politicians have filled the power vacuums left by the rebellions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya."

It's not the religious conservatism of these governments that concerns us -- we have no problem with Saudi Arabia's extreme theocracy. It is independence that alarms us. I suspect if these new governments fall in line and bow to corporate and global banking demands, they'll be called "moderates." If not, they'll be rogue regimes, no matter if secular or religious.

Do we prefer working with fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle East over secular independent groups? perhaps. It seems that way despite what we may say publicly. Our history is filled with support for various fundamentalist groups with which we share a common political goal. And let's not forget that so far we have eliminated three secular (albeit dictatorial) governments --in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, (and working on undoing another one in Syria).

The people of these countries are the saddest losers in these geo-political games.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/19/136381/after-a-year-of-arab-upheaval.html#storylink=cpy

Iran says scientist's killer may have used U.N. info

2012-01-20T14:39:00.000-08:00

Iran charged on Thursday that the killer of Iranian scientist may have used information obtained from the United Nations. Ahmadi-Roshan (the Iranian scientist killed on January 11) had recently met with IAEA inspectors.

Iranians see this is a possibility because there is a history of espionage and abuse of information via U.N. -- in relation to Iraq. Here's refreshing our memory a bit on the CIA espionage in Iraq under the cover of United Nations weapons inspections -- U.N. leadership was reportedly kept in the dark about the CIA operation in Iraq.

Sarkozy: War on Iran would trigger war

2012-01-20T14:20:00.000-08:00

Sarkozy tells an audience of diplomats in Paris that military intervention in Iran would trigger "war and chaos."

Then he pleads with Russia and China to help "guarantee peace in the world" by ganging up on Iran, along with the rest of the world, with an oil embargo -- effectively declaring war on Iran.

Brilliant, eh?

Romain Rolland on War

2012-01-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.

Romain Rolland

It's barfing!

2012-01-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

The word for snow in Farsi is "barf." Boise skies have been barfing all day -- about six inches so far.

It's beautiful!

Defend our freedom to share

2012-01-18T12:20:00.001-08:00

Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea)

What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto -- a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

The Dream Today

2012-01-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

From Bill Moyers Journal originally aired on April 2, 2010:

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. What would he think of our country today and where would he focus his fight against inequality and injustice?

MLK on Compassion and Nonviolence

2012-01-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

Martin Luther King, Jr. from Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

Lying Wars

2012-01-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

The war in Iraq grew out of the need to correct an error made by geography when she put the West's oil under the East's sand. But no war is honest enough to confess:
"I kill to steal."

"The devil's shit," as oil is called by its victims, has caused many wars and will certainly cause many more.

In Sudan, for instance, a huge number of people lost their lives between the final years of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first, in an oil war that disguised itself as an ethnic and religious conflict. Derricks and drills, pipes and pipelines sprouted as if by magic in villages turned to ashes and in fields of ruined crops. In the Darfur region, where the butchery continues, the people, all Muslims, began to hate each other when they discovered there might be oil under their feet.

The killing in the hills of Rwanda also claimed to be an ethnic and religious war, even though killers and killed were all Catholics. Hatred, a colonial legacy, stemmed from the time when Belgium decreed that those who raised cattle were Tutsis and those who grew crops were Hutus, and that the Tutsi minority ought to dominate the Hutu majority.

In recent years, another multitude lost their lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the service of foreign companies fighting over coltan. That rare mineral is an essential ingredient in cell phones, computers, microchips, and batteries, all of which are staples of the mass media. The media, however, forgot to mention coltan in their scant coverage of the war.

Eduardo Galeano, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, Translated by Mark Fried. P. 353

Lest we forget

2012-01-15T17:26:00.001-08:00

The oil might be flowing freely but there is still an internal war in Libya and people die -- not that NATO cares anymore.

On U.S. warning to Israel

2012-01-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

Wall Street Journal reports: "U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning to safeguard U.S. facilities in the region in case of a conflict."

Who are we kidding? If the Obama administration truly did not want Israel to attack Iran he would not have sneaked bunker busters to the Israelis in September. These are the same bunker busters that even Bush refused to give to Israel because "there were deep concerns that if the United States supplied bunker-busting bombs to Israel, it might be viewed as having tacitly endorsed an attack on Iran."

If he did not want an attack on Iran he would not have armed Saudis to the teeth and saturated the entire Persian Gulf with guns pointed at Iran.

Then a day after the assassination of an Iranian scientist, he might have expressed condolences to Iran to ease the tension rather than run to talk to Netanyahu to discuss "recent Iran-related developments, including the international community's efforts to hold Iran accountable for its failures to meet its international obligations."

No, there are no grownups around-- no one to stop this insanity. Diplomacy is a forgotten art.

Time for a New Church Committee

2012-01-13T20:37:00.000-08:00

"I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

"We do not torture." President Bush

This Covert War on Iran

2012-01-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

BySaeed Kamali Dehghani

This covert war on Iran is illegal and dangerous.

These days, more than ever, news from Iran is surrounded in mystery. Whether it's the assassination of nuclear scientists, explosions at military bases, the spread of a computer worm or even the downing (or crash) of a US spy drone, it is difficult to establish with certainty what is really happening.

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a key figure at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran, died in the latest incident, on Wednesday morning.

According to initial reports, two attackers on a motorcycle attached magnetic bombs to Roshan's car, killing him and injuring others. (read more)

Troops in Persian Gulf

2012-01-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

The Pentagon has quietly shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East after the top American commander in the region warned that he needed additional forces to deal with Iran and other potential threats, U.S. officials said.

...The Pentagon has stationed nearly 15,000 troops in Kuwait, adding to a small contingent already there. The new units include two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit - a substantial increase in combat power after nearly a decade in which Kuwait chiefly served as a staging area for supplies and personnel heading to Iraq.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/12/135742/us-moves-to-strengthen-forces.html#storylink=cpy

Iranian Scientist Killed

2012-01-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

Another Iranian scientist killed in Tehran today.

And the man said, "All covert, all deniable."

A Mistaken Case for Syrian Regime Change

2012-01-10T06:32:00.002-08:00

By Aisling Byrne

"War with Iran is already here," wrote a leading Israeli commentator recently, describing “the combination of covert warfare and international pressure” being applied to Iran.

Although not mentioned, the “strategic prize” of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. “Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself,” Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, “nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.” [1]

By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the “end of the [President Bashar al-]Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet - a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.” ... (continue reading)

Neither Victims nor Executioners

2012-01-10T06:32:00.001-08:00

One must understand what fear means: what it implies and what it rejects. It implies and rejects the same fact: a world where murder is legitimate, and where human life is considered trifling... All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that we can distinguish those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being. Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly marked.

Albert Camus, Neither Victims nor Executioners

Origin of Writing

2012-01-08T18:04:00.000-08:00

When Iraq was not yet Iraq, it was the birthplace of the first written words.

The words look like bird tracks. Masterful hands drew them in clay with sharpened canes.

Fire annihilates and rescues, kills and gives life, as do the gods, as do we. Fire hardened the clay and preserved the words. Thanks to fire, the clay tablets still tell what they told thousands of years ago in that land of two rivers.

In our days, George W. Bush, perhaps believing that writing was invented in Texas, launched with joyful impunity a war to exterminate Iraq. There were thousands upon thousands of victims, and not all of them flesh and blood. A great deal of memory was murdered too.

Living history in the form of numerous clay tablets were stolen or destroyed by bombs.

one of the tablets said:

We are dust and nothing
All that we do is no more than wind.

Eduardo Galeano, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, p. 9

Moments of Compassion

2012-01-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.

Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States. p. 11

Thousands of US Troops deploying to Israel

2012-01-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

Without much media attention, thousands of American troops are being deployed to Israel, and Iranian officials believe that this is the latest and most blatant warning that the US will soon be attacking Tehran.

Our National Dialogue Continues

2012-01-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

The Iranians are coming...the Iranians are coming...
Oh, no...not again...no more wars, please.
Nuclear weapons...only months away...threat to the world... dangerous...
But that's what you said about Iraq; that was a lie.
We must move on from the past... look ahead to the future. Besides, that was only a mistake; we never lie.
But we have domestic priorities... reviving our economy...Great Recession...
Aaaah... fear...Iran... Qom... Natanz...Bushehr...
...saving our schools...children...families...
Aaah...check under your bed...there might be an Iranian hiding under your bed...fear...fear...
We need peace...economic recovery...
fuel rods...wargames...Strait of Hormoz...
What about diplomacy?
F-15s... F-35s...drones...bunker busters...
Are you all insane? Are you listening?
Take out their scientist...covert operations...we need to teach them democracy and human rights...faster, faster, please.
Do people matter?

****************
Hope...change...four more years...
Are you kidding me?

Are we 'sleepwalking into a war with Iran?'

2012-01-04T15:59:00.000-08:00

Reading through the headlines and commentaries on Iran, you'd think that those "evil" Iranians just woke up one morning and said, "Bwahahaha, let's close the Strait of Hormuz and threaten American Navy ships and make life generally miserable for the rest of the world."

We're choking the Iranians economically; we've parked our nuclear submarines in their neighborhood waters; we fly our surveillance drones in their airspace, but this continues to be reported as if we are being attacked.

Let's put this in context:

Iran has been under international sanctions for 30 years. Most recently, the latest round of sanctions aims to completely cut Iran off from international economic life. This is gradual killing of people.

For at least two decades, Western powers have accused Iran of being perpetually within months of developing nuclear weapons. They have not developed nuclear weapons according to latest intelligence reports.

Iran has been under continuous military threat and encircled by US military forces.

We have invaded two of Iran's neighbors -- Iraq and Afghanistan. Another neighbor (Pakistan) is in an undeclared war.

We have armed Iran's entire neighborhood with billions of dollars worth of the latest military equipment. We have given Israel and UAE bunker busters.

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have increased covert actions in Iran and have funded opposition groups to destabilize Iran.

So are we 'sleepwalking into a war?'

I met someone at an "occupy" rally who said of politically disconnected people," You can't wake up someone who pretends to be asleep." No, we're not sleepwalking into a war with Iran; we are at war with Iran. And pretending to be asleep.

A page from history

2012-01-01T20:54:00.000-08:00

May 22, 1951

London - The British Cabinet met today to decide how tough to get with Iran, powder keg of the Middle East.

Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee and his ministers discussed Britain's next step to protect its billion-dollar stake in Iran's oil wells, nationalized by the Iranian government over British protests.

Iran was expected to reject British demands for a negotiated settlement of the dispute.

The Iranian government last night handed U.S. Ambassador Henry Grady in Tehran a statement accusing the state department of interfering in Iran's internal affairs by supporting Britain's request for negotiations.

Passage of the nationalization law by the Iranian parliament left the government no alternative but to carry it out, the statement said.

Informed quarters said the British cabinet might decide to impose economic sanctions on Iran in an attempt to persuade the Iranian government to change its mind.

These would include continued withholding of oil royalties from Iran and perhaps withdrawal of Anglo-American Oil Company's big tanker fleet from Iranian ports.

Others felt that the government might have to resort to force - send troops to southern Iran to protect the British government-owned Anglo-Iranian Company's installations.

Pessimistic sources said this could lead only to another Korea - and World War III. Russia's 1921 treaty with Iran gives the Soviets the right to move into the country if a third nation - such as Britain - enters first.

Obama sign new Iran sanctions into law

2012-01-01T20:41:00.000-08:00

"US President Barack Obama Saturday signed into law tough new sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and financial sector, in a move that could intensify a brewing [Persian] Gulf showdown."

We know where this is heading.

I will never, ever, forgive myself for voting for Obama.

Origin of the Days

2012-01-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

When Iraq was Sumeria, time had weeks, weeks had days, and days had names.

The priests drew the first celestial maps and baptized the heavenly bodies, the constellations, and the days.

We have inherited those names, passed on from tongue to tongue, from Sumerian to Babylonian, from Babylonian to Greek, from Greek to Latin, and so on.

They named the seven stars that move across the sky for their gods. And thousands of years later we invoke those same gods for the seven days that move across time. With slight variations, the days of the week still answer to their original names: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturday, Sunday, Monday...

Eduadro Galeano, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, translated by Mark Fried, P. 10

On Arming Everyone

2011-12-30T10:07:00.000-08:00

The Obama administration has finalized the sale of $30 billion of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia to "help counter Iran."

Under the agreement, the U.S. will send Saudi Arabia 84 new fighter jets and upgrades for 70 more. Production of the aircraft, which will be manufactured by Boeing Co., will support 50,000 jobs and have a $3.5 billion annual economic impact in the U.S., the White House said.

The one and only thriving and "productive" industry in the U.S. -- the military -- is the most destructive to the rest of the world. Its success depends on continuation of wars.

First rule of peacemaking is disarmament. If you want to put out a fire, you don't toss more twigs on it.

U.S. Warns Iran

2011-12-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

Tensions mount between U.S. and Iran as Fifth Fleet warns that any attempt to block Strait of Hormuz will elicit naval response.

From Barack

2011-12-27T05:42:00.002-08:00

Mike Luckovich

Upside Down

2011-12-27T05:42:00.001-08:00

The worst violators of nature and human rights never go to jail. They hold the keys. In the world as it is, the looking glass world, the countries that guard the peace also make and sell the most weapons. The most prestigious banks launder the most drug money and harbor the most stolen cash. The most successful industries are the most poisonous for the planet.

Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking Glass World. Page 7

Seven Lessons from History

2011-12-26T12:17:00.000-08:00

By Seumas Milne -- The 'Arab Spring' and the West: seven lessons from history. (Read and do watch the historical film clips.)

The recurrent themes of imperial efforts to control the Middle East:

1. The West never gives up its drive to control the Middle East, whatever the setbacks
2. Imperial powers can usually be relied on to delude themselves about what Arabs actually think
3. The Big Powers are old hands at prettifying client regimes to keep the oil flowing
4. People in the Middle East don't forget their history - even when the US and Europe does
5. The West has always presented Arabs who insist on running their own affairs as fanatics
6. Foreign military intervention in the Middle East brings death, destruction and divide and rule
7. Western sponsorship of Palestine's colonisation is a permanent block on normal relations with the Arab world

Howard Zinn on Patriotism

2011-12-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would requires us to disobey our government when it violates those principles.

Howard Zinn

Is This a Joke?

2011-12-22T20:57:00.000-08:00

Connecting 9/11 and Iran? -- as in connecting 9/11 and Iraq? Do they really think we're that stupid?

Happy Winter Solstice

2011-12-21T14:51:00.000-08:00

Pear, Persimmon, and Pomegranate
Morris Graves

The Overthrow of Mosaddegh

2011-12-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

From the Guardian -- The overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran, 1953 -British Pathe video

Footage showing the prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, being overthrown in a violent, British backed coup in 1953. The royal shah is installed as head of state despite Mosaddegh, who had previously nationalised Iran's oil fields, enjoying widespread support

A Smell is a Memory

2011-12-19T18:35:00.000-08:00

Cities are smells. Acre is the smell of iodine and spice. Haifa is the smell of pine and wrinkled sheets. Moscow is the smell of vodka on ice. Cairo is the smell of mango and ginger. Beirut is the smell of sun, sea, smoke, and lemons. Paris is the smell of fresh bread, cheese, and derivation of enchantment. Damascus is the smell of jasmine and dried fruit. Tunis is the smell of night musk and salt. Rabat is the smell of henna, incense, and honey. A city that cannot be known by its smell is unreliable. Exiles have a shared smell: the smell of longing for something else; a smell that remembers another smell. A panting, nostalgic smell that guides you, like a worn tourist map, to the smell of the original place. A smell is a memory and a setting sun. Sunset, here, is beauty rebuking the stranger.

Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence, translated by Sinan Antoon
p. 82

Looking Glass World

2011-12-18T08:18:00.001-08:00

Every crash on the stock exchange is a catastrophe for small investor who swallowed the line and bet their savings on the financial lottery. And it's a catastrophe for the poorest barrios of the global village, whose residents suffer the consequences without ever knowing what caused them: in a single blow each "market correction" empties their plates and wipes out their jobs. But rarely do crises on the stock exchange fatally wound the suffering millionaires who, day after day, backs bent over their computers, fingertips calloused from the keyboards, redistribute the world's wealth by moving money, setting interest rates, and deciding the value of labor, commodities, and currencies.

Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking Glass World. P. 156

Peace Vigil

2011-12-16T20:13:00.000-08:00

Peace Vigil and Circle of Promise

Friday, December 23, 5:30 - 6:15 p.m.
Occupy Boise at 5th and Jefferson
Old Ada County Courthouse

We will remember all who have suffered injustice and violence in 2011, and we will renew our promise to work for peace and justice in 2012.
Please join us at this family event featuring fellowship, music & warm drinks

Sponsored by Idaho Peace Coalition and Occupy Boise

Iran and the Ferrari

2011-12-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day on the drone and Iran from national security analyst Richard Aboulafia: "From a secrecy standpoint, it's like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture."

A colonialist and an incredibly ignorant comment about Iran, a country whose population is highly educated and cultured. According to NewScientist, Iran is "top of the world in science growth." This, in spite of more than 30 years on international sanctions.

It is very likely that Iranians did indeed take over that "Ferrari" as it was spying in their sky.

Don't underestimate Iran.

Sanctions

2011-12-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

Sanctions are war in slow motion -- a gradual mass murder of human beings done discreetly, so as to not trouble the conscience of those observing.

Diplomacy, Not War with Iran

2011-12-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA) today wrote to fellow Members of Congress urging them to oppose counterproductive legislation that would make it illegal to conduct diplomacy with the state of Iran in certain cases.

Full text here.

On Tuesday, the House is expected to consider H.R.1905, the Iran Threat Reduction Act. Proponents of the bill claim it is a last ditch effort to prevent military confrontation with Iran. However H.R. 1905 takes away the most effective tool to prevent war: diplomacy.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen has warned:

Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union. We are not talking to Iran, so we don’t understand each other. If something happens, it’s virtually assured that we won’t get it right — that there will be miscalculation which would be extremely dangerous in that part of the world.

Lili Hozak Animation

2011-12-11T20:09:00.000-08:00

Lili hozak in animation. It's beautiful.

An Iranian Nursery Rhyme

2011-12-11T19:42:00.001-08:00

A finger rhyme/tickle rhyme for children

In Farsi:

Lili lili hozak
gonjeeshkeh oomad aab bokhoreh, oftad to hozak
in parid o daresh kard
in maachi be saresh kard
in naazi be paresh kard
in oomad o goft, "bedeh bebinam"
haminkeh oomad bebineh
gonjeeshkeh parid roo chineh.

Translation:

Lili lili little pool
(with index finger go round and round in the palm of hand)
sparrow came to get a drink of water,
fell into the pool (fold pinky into the palm)
this, (fold ring finger) jumped in and pulled it out
this, (fold middle finger) kissed its head
this, (fold index finger) stroked its feathers
this, (hold thumb) came and said, "Let me see!"
just as he came to take a look
sparrow flew over the wall
(tickle child gently)

There are many variation of the rhyme -- some use joojeh (chick) instead of sparrow.
Farsi is a gender-neutral language. The same pronoun is used for he/she/it.

On Iran and Drones

2011-12-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

From Race for Iran on Iran, American drones and the interlinked crises of U.S. hegemony and global governance:

...As power diffuses from the United States and its Western partners to rising states like China and India and emerging regional players like Brazil, South Africa, and Turkey (and, yes, Iran as well), Washington is challenged to shift from exercising international influence by coercion and diktat to pursuing its interests and goals through more traditional sorts of diplomacy that require actual accommodation of other parties’ interests. American political and policy elites have, so far, proven themselves almost wholly unwilling to meet this challenge. In this context, America’s ongoing contest with the Islamic Republic acts as a kind of political catalyst, bringing the intertwined crises of American hegemony and global governance closer and closer to a major inflection point—a point at which a critical mass of non-Western states says, in effect, that they have had enough, and begins taking serious economic and political steps to rein in the United States.

Maps & Stars

2011-12-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

"Each star marks a US military base, but just so we're all clear: Iran is threatening us; we're not threatening them."

From Democratic Underground

Press for War

2011-12-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

Washington Post's editorial board is itching for war on Iran.

War on Iran Has Already Begun

2011-12-08T20:31:00.000-08:00

Escalation of the covert US-Israeli campaign against Tehran risks a global storm. Opposition has to get more serious.

Muppets of the World Unite!

2011-12-07T05:56:00.000-08:00

FOX Business unmasks the Muppets' liberal agenda: brainwashing kids against capitalism!

I suppose one can unmask, in the same realm, Santa's story as brainwashing kids into accepting extreme capitalism. After all, isn't Santa offshoring toy manufacturing to North Pole, keeping elves at near-slave conditions, exploiting them and trampling all labor rights? But wait! Then again, Santa is distributing toys to kids for free... What if Santa is a closet-socialist? Aaaah! B..r..a..i..n...wash....

A Single Chair

2011-12-06T07:09:00.001-08:00

War is as vast as the shadowy jungle.
A single chair
is
the first sign
of peace.

Pablo Neruda, from Ode to the chair

What do you call it?

2011-12-05T17:54:00.000-08:00

What do you call it when you get rid of your enemy's scientists to stop their technological advances and then all of a sudden your most sophisticated piece of technology falls from the sky and lands on your enemy's lap?

Is this what is called "Karma"?

No more wars, people. Peace only. No other way.

Be There

2011-12-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

Occupy Boise rally at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, Monday, December 5th.
Gather at 2:30 to make signs. March begins at 4:30.

Orwell and the Psychology of War Economy

2011-12-04T09:09:00.000-08:00

War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and the setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of the masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself.

George Orwell, 1984

Gramsci on Crisis

2011-12-04T09:08:00.001-08:00

Crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in the interregnum a variety of morbid symptoms appear.

Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebook

This Morning

2011-12-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

News
a cup of tea
and a cup of tears

New "Thank You" Fee

2011-12-02T20:13:00.000-08:00

By Andy Borowitz

Banks Raise Fees on Same People Who Bailed Out Their Asses

Introduce New "Thank You" Fee on Debit Cards

New York - The largest banks in the U.S.made history today by hiking fees on the same people who bailed out their asses three years ago.

“We would not exist today without the generosity of the American taxpayers,” said CEO Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, which received billions of dollars of Federal bailout money. “And we want to thank them by assessing a special monthly ‘thank you’ fee on all of our debit cards.”

Becoming emotional, Mr. Moynihan added, “We think of the taxpayers every time we vacation on our yachts or visit our third homes, and we want them to think of us every time they try to spend $20 on groceries.”

Mr. Moynihan said that even after paying the new $5 monthly fee, “American taxpayers should still have enough money left over to let them eat cake.”

On Iran

2011-11-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

A good read on Iran by Ambassador M K Bhadrakuma in Asia times.

First, Tehran estimates that a US-British-Israeli axis is in any case gearing up for a confrontation. The strategic ambiguity - "all options are on the table" - no longer exists really, after the hardline policy speech by US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon at the Brookings Institution in Washington last week.

Evidently, Donilon spoke up for President Barack Obama, fully mindful of the criticality of an already supercharged Middle East situation:

We have enhanced our significant and enduring US force presence in the region. In addition, we have worked to develop a network of air and missile defenses, shared early warning, improved maritime security, closer counterterrorism cooperation, expanded the programs to build partner capacity, and increased efforts to harden and protect our partners' critical infrastructure.

The steps demonstrate unmistakably to Tehran that any attempt to dominate the region will be futile. And they show the United States is prepared for any contingency ... President Obama has said as recently as last week, we are not taking any options off the table in pursuit of our basic objectives.

Second, Tehran estimates that this confrontation may take place within Obama's first term as president - because it may well ensure the success of his bid for a second term. The manner in which the Obama administration jacked up the tensions with Iran almost in parallel with the commencement of his re-election bid hasn't escaped Tehran's attention. Third, emanating out of the above, Tehran has little choice left but to take to the high ground, as it is no longer a matter of Iran being flexible on the nuclear issue or not, of Iran being conciliatory toward Israel or not, or of Iran being "moderate" on the Palestine problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict or not.

Satire-- Goldman Sachs Announces Presidential Run

2011-11-29T06:35:00.000-08:00

By K.M. Breay

The conglomerate becomes the second corporate person to enter the 2012 race.

Goldman Sachs, the global investment bank and financial services firm, announced Friday morning that it is running for president of the United States.

... A source familiar with the campaign’s thinking, who spoke on condition of strict anonymity, said the conglomerate will forgo donations altogether and instead finance the campaign with a portion of the $10 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout money the investment bank received in 2009. “The bailout funds will be converted into a new security they are calling ‘election default insurance arbitrage fixed income credit put straddles,’” said the source. “Goldman has already hedged those bets with mortgage-backed junk bond option default debit commodity exchange traded funds, which were sold to pension funds and small investors over the last several months.” The source said that Goldman has already made $25 billion with these investments.

Several public advocacy groups are already a considering a constitutional challenge to Goldman’s candidacy, arguing that the financial behomoth has — for all practical purposes — already been president for the last eight years and is therefore constitutionally barred from a third term.

My Letter

2011-11-27T15:14:00.001-08:00

to the Editor in today's Idaho Statesman:

In a recent GOP presidential debate, Republican contender Newt Gingrich outlined his strategy on dealing with Iran: "maximum covert...take out their scientists...all covert, all deniable."

Covert action in Iran is not new. This has been our flawed policy towards Iran on and off since the early 1950s.

Most recently both President Bush and President Obama have pledged money in support of covert operations inside Iran.

But covert operations are covert only in relations to American people, Iranians connect the dots each time there's an explosion and a scientist is killed.

Iranians were fully aware that the CIA was behind the 1953 toppling of Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddegh on behalf of British Petroleum, a fact unknown to most Americans until years later.

This was all covert, all deniable, but only for Americans.

Consequences from the 1953 CIA intervention in Iran reverberate to this day.

Covert Operations keep us in the dark from the truth of our own conduct overseas.

Sen. Frank Church described covert action as nothing more than "a semantic disguise for murder, coercion, blackmail, bribery, the spreading of lies, whatever is deemed useful to bending other countries to our will."

AZAM HOULE, Boise

Regime Changes in Europe

2011-11-21T20:12:00.000-08:00

Wonder who's behind all the recent regime changes in Europe from one set of bank servants who had outlived their usefulness to another?

According to Marc Roche, Le Monde's London correspondent, Goldman Sachs has developed a network of influential figures across Europe which includes:

Mario Draghi, the new Head of European Central Bank and former vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs Europe.

Mario Monti, the new Prime Minister of Italy and former adviser to Goldman Sachs

Lucas Papandemos, the new Prime Minister of Greece and head of Greek Central Bank. Greek Central Bank was complicit with Goldman Sachs in concealing the true extent of the Greek debt.

Short on Memory

2011-11-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

According to Washington Post, "A U.S. official with access to classified information confirmed there were 'serious concerns' that Iran had supplied the Libyan government of Moammar Gadhafi with hundreds of special artillery shells for chemical weapons."

Funny how these "U.S. officials" with access to "classified information" always appear out of nowhere to build a case against this country or that just at the right time. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Pakistan are still burning and they're cooking new wars.

More from the same report, "Pentagon and CIA analysts have asserted that Iran fired chemical artillery shells at Iraq troops in 1988..." A bit of history -- Iran did not use chemical weapons. After the attack on Halabja, the US Defense Intelligence Agency initially blamed Iran for the attack, but the gas attack was an Iraqi assault against Iranian forces.

A bit more history on our support for Saddam's chemical and biological weapons to put this in context.

According to a 1994 Senate report, private American suppliers, licensed by the Department of Commerce, exported a witch's brew of biological and chemical materials to Iraq from 1985-1989. Among the biological materials, which often produce slow agonizing death, were Bacillus Anthracis, cause of Anthrax....The exports continued to at least November 28, 1989, despite evidence that Iraq was engaging in chemical and biological warfare against Iranians and Kurds since as early as 1984.

One would expect American journalists to treat building up to new wars with a bit more skepticism after the Iraq fiasco. But, alas, memory is short.

In defiance of all that is bad around us

2011-11-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Howard Zinn

UK military steps up plans for Iran attack

2011-11-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

From the Guardian:

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

...planners expect any campaign to be predominantly waged from the air, with some naval involvement, using missiles, such as Tomahawks...

Have we not spilled enough blood for IMF & World Bank, for oil, for Israel, for land and empire?

Wall Street

2011-11-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

Wall Street, which some say was named for a wall built to keep black slaves from escaping, is today the center of the great global electronic gambling den, and all of humanity is enslaved by the decisions made there. The virtual economy moves capital, trashes prices, plucks fools, ruins countries, and churns out millionaires and mendicants in the time it takes to say, "Amen."

Eduardo Galeano

On Real Change

2011-10-31T20:49:00.000-07:00

What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but "who is sitting in" - and who is marching outside the White House pushing for change.

Howard Zinn

Think Iraq War is Over?

2011-10-31T09:15:00.000-07:00

Think again:

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

...In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States in considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

...the administration is also seeking to expand military tie with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council --Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. ... the administration and the military are trying to foster a new "security architecture" that would integrate air and naval patrols and missile defense.

Looks like preparation for a new war not ending one.

Truth is a bundle of vicious lies

2011-10-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

We who are old know what truth is --
Truth is a bundle of vicious lies
tied together and sterilized --
a warmakers' bait for unwise youth
to kill off each other
for the sake of
truth.

Langston Hughes

Euro Bailout

2011-10-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

Euro bailout - an animated explanation.

Our Dreams

2011-10-28T06:26:00.000-07:00

We, too, cry when we fall to the earth's rim
yet we don't preserve our voices in old jars.
We don't hang a mountain goat's horns on the wall
and we don't make of our dust a kingdom.
Our dreams do not gaze upon other people's grapevines.
They don't break the rule.

Mahmoud Darwish

I Came Here to Sing

2011-10-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

I came here to sing
so that you'd sing with me.

Pablo Neruda

Dead Foreign Scientists a 'Wonderful Thing'

2011-10-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to supporters in Greenville, South Carolina

Leave Me

2011-10-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

I too love jeans and jazz and Treasure Island
and John Silver's parrot and the balconies of New Orleans.
I love Mark Twain and the Mississippi steamboats
and Abraham Lincoln's dogs.
I love the fields of wheat and corn
and the smell of Virginia tobacco.
But I am not an American.
Is that enough for the Phantom pilot to turn me back to the Stone Age?
I need neither oil, nor America herself, neither the elephant
nor the donkey.
Leave me, pilot, leave my house roofed with palm fronds
and this wooden bridge.

Saadi Youssef

Absurd

2011-10-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

First they lie and take the country to war. Then they break Iraq into smithereens. Then they put in place in Iraq the most pro-Iranian government. Then they complain about the Iranian influence in Iraq.

B of A's Move

2011-10-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

Bank of American has moved an undisclosed amount of derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to its biggest commercial banking subsidiary. This is shifting the risk from an investment bank to a retail bank with an FDIC insured deposit base.

The Fed is in favor of this transfer. FDIC is objecting to it.

Looks like the taxpayers will be bailing out the big guys' gambling spree again.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

2011-10-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

"I came, I saw, I conquered."
Julius Caesar

"We came, we saw, he died."
Hillary Clinton

The Cause of War

2011-10-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

The failure to dissect the cause of war leaves us open for the next installment.

Chris Hedges

Thinking People

2011-10-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.

Albert Camus

Qaddafi Killed

2011-10-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

Qaddafi is reportedly killed. He will be buried according to "Islamic traditions" -- as determined by the CIA -- in the ocean.

Shortage of Fear

2011-10-19T21:42:00.001-07:00

Civilians fear the military, the military fears a shortage of weapons, weapons fear a shortage of wars.

Eduardo Galeano