Scott Ritter on the Current Crisis
Repudiation, Not Impeachment – Former UN/Iraq WMD inspector Scott Ritter on the unitary executive and responsible citizenship.
In my opinion, the complete repudiation of the presidency of George W. Bush is the only recourse we have collectively as a people to not only seek redress for the wrongs committed by the Bush administration, but also to purge society of this cancer that threatens to consume and destroy us as a whole, and which would continue to manifest itself in our system of governance even after any impeachment proceedings.
Rudy, not a plesant prospect
The Significance of Rudy Giuliani by Keith Preston”
One shudders to imagine a synthesis of European-style leftism and American-style fascism, but that’s where we are headed. And the viability of Mr. Giuliani’s presidential campaign is among the most evident symptoms of this malady.
How the Empire grows
It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but times change.
How the Pentagon Got Its Shape @ washingtonpost.com
President Franklin D. Roose-velt, alarmed by Nazi gains, had declared a national emergency on May 27 [1941]. The War Department in Washington was growing at an explosive rate, its 24,000 workers spread in 17 buildings, including apartment buildings, private homes and several rented garages. Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, needed a quick solution and turned to Somervell to construct temporary buildings for the headquarters. At a congressional hearing July 17, Rep. Clifton A. Woodrum, a powerful Virginia congressman, signaled interest in finding an “overall solution” to the War Department’s problem. Somervell took that as a signal for a permanent fix, and the Pentagon, as it would become known, was launched that evening.
Summary week of 5/20/07
Congress Must Do Its Duty – Ron Paul
- Many of my colleagues, faced with the reality that the war in Iraq is not going well, line up to place all the blame on the president. The president “mismanaged” the war, they say. “It’s all the president’s fault,” they claim. In reality, much of the blame should rest with Congress, which shirked its constitutional duty to declare war and instead told the president to decide for himself whether or not to go to war.
Principled Paul - Bill Steigerwald @ Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- Sullivan contends, rightly, that Paul has been the best thing about the GOP’s otherwise ideologically predictable TV debates so far — mainly because Paul is the only one on stage who truly believes in individual liberty and actually believes everything he says.
Nader Redux: Should Dems Fear Mike Gravel? – James Ridgeway
- “What we need to do is to create a constitutional confrontation between the Congress and the president,” he says. “Most people have forgotten the Congress is more powerful than the president.” Never mind impeachment, Gravel says: “That’s a red herring right now. It would take over a year to screw around with it.”
Why Ron Paul’s Answer Terrifies Them – Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation
What’s going on here? Why the enormous, almost panicky, overreaction to what is a rather simple point about U.S. foreign policy? Why the attempts to suppress, distort, and misrepresent? What are they so scared of?
The answer is very simple: The Republican establishment knows that if the American people conclude that Ron Paul is right, the jig is up with respect to the big-government, pro-empire, interventionist foreign policy that Republicans (and many Democrats) have supported for many years.
In the Name of Patriotism (Who are the Patriots?) – Ron Paul
The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to resist with force the oppressive power of King George. I accept the definition of patriotism as that effort to resist oppressive state power. The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility, and out of self interest — for himself, his family, and the future of his country — to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state.
Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment.
Peaceful non-violent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit as successful as those involving military confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. achieved great political successes by practicing non-violence, yet they themselves suffered physically at the hands of the state.
But whether the resistance against government tyrants is non-violent or physically violent, the effort to overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism.
Blowback? Controversial? WTF?
According to James P. Pinkerton @ Newsday.com
Honestly, I didn’t think that the concept of “blowback” was at all controversial. It seems you must be genuinely obtuse to omit the idea that if you harm someone they will want to harm you in return. Most particularly if you harm them repeatedly over a long period of time. Especially if these someones originate in a culture that regards “honor” as its highest secular value. This surprises anyone?
I simply thought that the neo-cons and their partners in empire didn’t care about the blowback or the reasons behind it. And I still think the witting ones don’t care.
But to hear actual major party candidates maintain with straight faces and much vigor that there was no element of blowback in 9/11 simply boggles the mind. Staggeringly the one most likely to win the Presidency (apparently) is the ignorant buffoon who has never even heard of such an idea.
Wow!
The School of Salamanca
Early proponents of popular sovereignty and anti-imperialism in jesuit Spain.
The conquest of America
In this period, in which colonialism began, Spain was the only European nation in which a group of intellectuals questioned the legitimacy of conquest rather than simply trying to justify it by traditional means.
Francisco de Vitoria began his analysis of conquest by rejecting “illegitimate titles”. He was the first to dare to question whether the bulls of Alexander VI known collectively as the Bulls of Donation were a valid title of dominion over the newly discovered territories. In this matter he did not accept the universal primacy of the emperor, the authority of the Pope (because the Pope, according to him, lacked temporal power), nor the claim of voluntary submission or conversion of the Native Americans. One could not consider them sinners or lacking in intelligence: they were free people by nature, with legitimate property rights. When the Spanish arrived in America they brought no legitimate title to occupy those lands and become their master.
Seen @ WikiPedia.
Rep Dennis Kucinich on the War
Democratic Leadership Failing U.S. Citizenry on War – Rep. Dennis Kucinich on Democracy Now
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I want to make sure I’m being clear about this. I’m saying that it’s not necessary to have a bill, that the process depends on legislation to keep the war going. But there’s money in the pipeline right now to bring the troops home. We simply should tell the President we’re not going to fund the war, period. We don’t need legislation to do that. And the idea that somehow we need to fund the war to help the troops, again, it’s an absurd thought, and we need to start to reorient ourselves to getting out of Iraq. This administration isn’t going to do that, and frankly, the Democratic Congress is failing the American people at this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Kucinich, you spoke for about an hour on the floor of the House about the proposed Iraq oil law. Can you talk about this?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Yes. It’s really not too well known on Capitol Hill, but the benchmarks that the administration has been insisting upon, and now the benchmarks are in the Warner amendment that will be included in this legislative process that will keep us in Iraq, include a provision that insists that the Iraqi government pass a hydrocarbon act. The benchmark says it’s about equitable sharing of revenues. That’s three lines, vaguely worded lines, in a thirty-three-page document that’s all about the restructuring of the Iraq oil industry to permit multinational oil corporations to take over 80% of Iraq’s oil. I mean, this is a criminal action that is going on here, and we ought to be standing up against it and challenging it. We have no right to take Iraq’s oil or to facilitate the acquisition of Iraq’s oil on behalf of multinational corporations.
A View from A.I.M.
Why Are They Lying About Ron Paul?
By Cliff Kincaid | May 18, 2007
“Some would say that Ron Paul’s foreign policy views, in this day and age, are somewhat naïve. But Giuliani’s assault, assisted by Fox News, which co-sponsored the debate, goes so far over the line that an honest media watchdog has to say something.”
Seen @ Accuracy In Media
A Good Rant
A Sham Democracy and It’s Pocket Media Kingmakers
“The one inescapable fact that the pocket media can never be allowed to come to light is that the entire political system has been corrupted beyond redemption by money, transnational corporations, financial cartels and those whose bottom lines depend on the death of those deemed lesser human beings than Americans so as to better slaughter them and plunder the resources of their countries in the process. God forbid if the ugly realities of life where to ever intrude upon the hive/colony mentality of the masses of easily manageable ants here in the Homeland.”
Seen @ Station Charon
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