Following Our Fine Police State Example

Alternately entitled, "Zimbabwe Goes Bat-Shit Insane". Read this, and tell me if it reminds you of anything......

Zimbabwe eyes plan to spy on citizens
By Terry Leonard, Associated Press Writer

Johannesburg, South Africa - Times are hard and getting harder in Zimbabwe, where people too proud to cry about hunger, joblessness and misrule could soon find it too dangerous to joke about them.

Parliament plans to debate proposals next month to empower the secret police to eavesdrop on mail, e-mail and phones without any court approval.

The government denies any sinister intent, saying it is putting its anti-terrorism legislation in line with international practice. But Zimbabwe is not on the front lines of the war on terror, and government agents could use the proposed powers to monitor the communications of the political opposition, journalists and human rights activists who are critical of President Robert Mugabe.

Secret police and intelligence agents could violate attorney-client privilege, track financial transactions and negotiations, and eavesdrop on anyone's private life. Anytime a Zimbabwean visits a Web site, makes a deal or tells a joke, Big Brother could be listening or watching.

Internet and cell phone service providers would, at their own expense, have to provide the government with equipment to sort and intercept communications.

The aim "is to monitor and block communications for political reasons and to use information they get to persecute opponents," said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, a group critical of repressive laws and actions of Mugabe's government.

Telephoned from neighboring South Africa, he said: "It is part and parcel of the process of controlling dissent and stifling democratic debate."

South Africa has quietly adopted a similar law, with the important difference that a court must approve any interception. In Zimbabwe, that authority would rest solely with Mugabe's minister of transport and communications.

A package of other security and media laws has done away with freedom of press and speech. People cannot protest against the government or hold political gatherings without prior police approval. Clergymen have been arrested for holding unauthorized prayer vigils.

To a government which has arrested people for insulting the president, joking about him is no laughing matter. It's a felony. It is also illegal to say or write something that can "falsely" bring the government into disrepute.

"Jokes about Mugabe are a crime," Jim Holland, the chief executive of Mango, a Zimbabwean Internet service provider, said in a telephone interview. "But people send these jokes all the time on cell phones or e-mails."

Holland believes the proposed law will have a chilling effect on such humor but that the real dangers lie in the government's ability to target legitimate opponents and monitor sensitive business and financial communications.

"It is troubling in a country like this with its record on corruption that the government could monitor financial transactions or even internal communications ahead of a company making a tender offer," Holland said.

He said in early discussions of the bill a man who would be involved in any government monitoring effort told a gathering there was no cause for concern because the proposed law was only a threat "to criminals and human rights activists."

There is a chance that opponents will manage to block the bill, arguing that it is unworkable and could further undermine the faltering economy. The opponents also draw some hope from the fact that Mugabe is not personally pushing the bill. But all agree the chance is slim.

That leaves the courts, but lawyers here note the government has packed them with friendly judges, and simply ignored rulings it dislikes.

And this dictatorship is different from the Bush Administration, HOW.......?

Oh wait! I can still make jokes about Bush. For now.....

I'm so relieved to live in a "democracy".

A Chokehold On Energy

Long ago, I read a fantastic book, called Zen in the Martial Arts by Joe Hyams which says, "Don't cut your opponent's line, lengthen your own line."

Well that, frankly, is the answer to our quandry here.

This problem of energy production COULD be solved right here at home. Without so much as one soldier ever having to set foot on one patch of sand in the Middle East, or anywhere else.

But to do this, we'd have to do something we've never tried before -- we'd have to put the American people, and THEIR interests first, ahead of corporations, or wingnutted ideology, or the power elites/parasites that currently run things.

"Evil, not geology, has a chokehold on energy," is a quote from Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse, which I am currently reading (and encourage EVERYONE to buy - it's the closest thing to real, informative news you can USE to make informed decisions, that you'll have seen in the past 20 years at LEAST) . In it, he is referring to the myth of "peak oil" - the notion that oil supply will evaporate very soon. This has been the root of many a person's theory as to why we invaded Iraq, but as Palast points out, it's utter crap.

In 1956, a man named M. King Hubbert wrote a research paper that advanced the "peak oil" theory. Basically, he said that by 2006, we'd run out of oil entirely. Why is this bullshit (besides the fact that everything still runs on oil)? Well, Hubbert "theorized" that the Middle East could produce no more than 375 billion barrels of oil. Problem is, CURRENT proven (known and measured) oil reserves remaining today total 734 billion barrels. And processed oil reserves that are ready to be used, total 1.189 TRILLION barrels, and that excludes the two biggest untapped oil fields.

The real "problem" (for oil men at least) before the war was not that oil was running out and they had to conquer control of new oil fields, the "problem" was that there was TOO MUCH oil, and prices were LOW.

When Hubbert wrote his little report -- for Shell Oil, for whom he worked as a consultant -- things were even worse. For them at least. To quote Palast again, "Oil was cheaper than dirt -- $2.77 a BARREL, that is, a nickel a gallon -- and sinking."

The only thing that might save an industry drowning in it's own product? The notion of scarcity. Basically, the oil industry had to change not the REALITY of it's product, but merely the American people's PERCEPTION of it.

So first, they introduced the false notion that there was a dwindling supply, and then introduced three essential concepts to drive business:

1) Prices should be raised "for the public's good" to conserve a precious rare resource
2) Find an alternative to fossil fuels
3) Protect access to oil, by force if necessary.

Now why would someone in the oil industry propose alternative fuels? Wrong question. The real question is, WHICH alternative fuel was Shell Oil suggesting? the title of Hubbert's paper wasn't "Peak Oil" it was "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels". You see, Shell was about to send out a press release about it's new sideline business -- URENCO, a uranium enrichment consortium. (The "advantage" of nuclear power is that it's big, and not everybody can engage in it, thereby limiting the players to the few and the powerful. The "problem" with solar and wind power is that ANYBODY can engage in it - large, authoritarian industry or the corporate whores that run such enterprises, are quite simply unnecessary in a clean, renewable energy future.)

So why did we invade Iraq?

Big Oil's interest in the invasion was to nationalize the Iraqi oil, and suppress oil production to keep prices high.

The Neocons wanted to crush OPEC and Saudi Arabia's leadership (two things I support) by raising Iraq's oil production, thereby lowering prices, and crushing the Saudi Arabian economy. But as usual for Neocons, their method was entirely incompetant and created more problems than it solved.

Ready for the irony?

The Neocon goals of crushing OPEC and Saudi Arabia could have been done from right here at home, if they'd had either the intelligence or political will to carry it out.

Which brings us back to "Don't cut your opponent's line, lengthen your own line."

Rather than going halfway around the Earth to kill poor people and steal control of their oil fields, all we had to do was the following:

1. Forget about nationalizing Iraqi oil production. Nationalize OUR oil production. Strip it from corporate control entirely.
   
2. Radically lower our prices to 1956 levels - $3 a barrel for use by OUR industry here at home, while charging the still very low price of $15 a barrel for the world market, thereby gutting/undercutting the price of oil worldwide, and forcing the nation's in the Middle East to find healthier ways of growing their economies. Perhaps they could try creating energy from that giant glowing ball in the sky that's making things so unbearably hot in that part of the world. Just a thought.
3. Since our industry will be able to ship things throughout the country at much lower prices, they will increase their profits and be able to invest in more research for their businesses, thereby improving their position in the marketplace worldwide by increasing the chances for advancement. Tax incentives should be targeted SPECIFICALLY for R&D for that reason.
4. Beyond that, their increased production will also yield increased tax revenue, because the other thing we'll do is eliminate all other tax loopholes for corporations save for three -- R&D as I already mentioned, higher education offered for their employees would yield a tax rebate, and environmental compliance or improvement would also yield a tax credit.
5. All other increased tax revenues would be earmarked for National Universal Healthcare for ALL Americans, low-cost housing construction, solar and wind power infrastructure, biomass and solar-powered electric fuel stations nationwide to power our cars.
6. Begin altering the nature of the national power grid, so that individuals can produce power (via wind or solar) and sell back any excess to fulfill the national power needs.
7. Mandate an Apollo Program for the auto industry begin swapping out gas vehicles for bio powered, electrically powered, or solar powered cars, to be completed within the next decade. Begin the overall process of distancing ourselves from the oil/crack pipe that is also killing the sustainable environment of this planet.
8. Sieze all Saudi Arabian assets (7% of our total assets are currently owned by them) within the United States, cutting off their influence over American national policy entirely.
9. Eliminate Secret Service protection for the Saudi Embassy. No special priviledges. No other embassy gets that additional protection, neither should the Saudis. And bug every ounce of their building, tap every phone, and trail every Saudi official while in the U.S.. Generally, don't let them BREATHE without us knowing about it. Stop bugging the American people, and start or increase bugging of the Saudis, all of the "stans" Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, and Sudan, Oman, Kuwait, Dubai, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Iraq. Not to mention China and North Korea. And as long as that former KGB prick "Puti Put" is in charge of Russia, don't trust them as far as you can throw them.
10. Tax all current and former CEO's of big oil at a 90% rate. Nobody needs half a billion dollars for their retirement. Let them "survive" on a mere million dollars each - MAX - for the rest of their lives.
11. Put that tax revenue into Social Security, and LOCK that box once and for all. And ENFORCE the law which says that any government official dipping in to said public trust, should go directly to jail. No exceptions.
12. Abolish the Federal Reserve, and begin having the U.S. Treasury print interest-free United States Scrip as the national currency to begin paying down the debt.

Then bar the following companies from EVER working with the government (or making campaign contributions) ever again, and tax the living shit out of them:

Halliburton
Bearingpoint
Hess Energy Trading
Choicepoint
KBR
Aegis Energy
Enventure
L3 Communications
SyColeman
Goldman Sachs
United Defense and the entire Carlyle Group
Entergy Corporation
Bechtel
Blackwater


Lock the following individuals up for a minimum of 10 years, and bar them from getting within 1,000 yards of government for the remainder of their lives. If you have to change the Constitution to accomplish this, DO SO. These people are a threat to national security:

James A. Baker III - Saudi Arabia's lawyer against the 9/11 families, Bush's lawyer in the 2000 election theft, Reagan's Chief of Staff, invited Saddam to invade Kuwait and told him we'd look the other way.
Any member of the Bush Family in perpetuity.
Any member of the Cheney Family in perpetuity.
Any member of the Federal Reserve or their Families in perpetuity.
Karl Rove - 21st Century Goebbels.
Robert McKee - Conoco-Phillips Petroleum and Chairman of Enventure.
Ari Cohen - Heritage Foundation "thinker".
Paul Bremer III - Neocon Thief and Kissinger lackey.
Phillip Carroll - CEO of Shell Oil and Fluor Corporation.
Robert Oakley - Advisor to Bush Transition Team, who thought Clinton was "too focused" on Osama Bin Laden.
Kim Holmes - Chief of the Heritage Foundation Propaganda Ministry.
Ed Morse - Democratic fundraiser and Executive Advisor to Hess Energy Trading. Conflict of interest much?
Richard Perle - Neocon jerk.
Paul Wolfowitz - Neocon jerk and current head of the WorldBank.
Richard Armitage - Co-founder of PNAC and member of the Board of Directors of ChoicePoint.
Vin Weber - Co-founder of PNAC.
Ken Langone - Billionaire and insider trading schmuck, and member of the Board of ChoicePoint.
Bernie Marcus - Founder of Home Despot, and member of the Board of ChoicePoint.
Derek Smith - Founder of ChoicePoint.
John Negroponte - Director of National "Intelligence" and nun killer.
Gordon England - Former Exec VP of both General Dynamics and a Lockheed unit.
Michael Chertoff - Too incompetant to blow his own nose.
Richard Grasso - Chief of the NY Stock Exchange and bribe-taker.
Donald Hertzmark - "Advisor" to Indonesian state oil.
Garfield Miller - Aegis Energy.
Harold Rhode - Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon.
Grover Norquist - Wants to drown American Democracy in a bathtub, Satan's lobbyist.
John Bolten - "Ambassador" to a United Nations he wants to see destroyed. Too aggro for polite company.
Elliott Abrams - Iran-Contra felon.
John Poindexter - Iran-Contra felon.
Michael Ledeen - Bush "Security" Advisor and Desktop Napoleon.
Donald Rumsfeld - In charge of the Misery Plantation known as the Pentagon.
Colin Powell - Just for his presentation to the U.N., not to mention his role in the cover-up of My Lai.
Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens - For opposing Internet Freedom, along with every other damn daft move he's made.
Joe Lieberman - No explanation necessary.
Justice John Roberts - Hates America.
Justice Clarence Thomas - Hates America.
Justice Antonin Scalia - Hates America.
Justice Samuel Alito - Hates America.
Bill Frist - Corrupt.
Tom Delay - Corrupt.
Saxby Chambliss - Corrupt.
Newt Gingrich - Corrupt.
Rick Santorum - Corrupt and wierdly obsessed with bestiality.
James "Jabba the Hut" Sensenbrenner - Corrupt.
Tom Feeney - Corrupt, rigged the voting machine's programming.
Katherine Harris - Corrupt and stupid.
Sam Brownback - Corrupt.
Pat Roberts - Corrupt.
John Cornyn - Corrupt.
James Inhofe - Corrupt.
Richard Shelby - Corrupt.
Tom Coburn - Corrupt.
Jeff Session - Corrupt.
Roy Blunt - Corrupt.
Chuck Hagel - Corrupt, owns a voting machine company responsible for counting his own election.
Norm Coleman - Corrupt.
David Dreier - Corrupt.
Dana Rohrbacher - Corrupt.
Jeff Flake - Corrupt.
Mitch McConnell - Corrupt.
Jim Bunning - Corrupt.
Kurt Weldon - Corrupt.
Craig Thomas - Corrupt.
Michael Enzi - Corrupt.
Conrad Burns - Corrupt.
Trent Lott - Corrupt.
John Boozman - Corrupt.
Dan Burton - Corrupt.
John Hostettler - Corrupt.
George Voinovich - Corrupt.
Mike DeWine - Corrupt.
Jean Schmidt - Corrupt, also known as "the Schmidthead".
Bob Ney - Corrupt.
Mack McLarty - CEO of Kissinger McLarty Associates.
All Enron Executives - Nuff said.
Philip Verleger - National Petroleum Council.
Kenneth Blackwell - Corrupt Secretary of state in Ohio, rigged 2004 election.
Mindy Tucker Fletcher - Spokewoman for Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, protector of Brett Doster.
Brett Doster - Created caging lists to prevent black voters from casting ballots in Florida.
"Doug" - Of Jacksonville Florida, drives black Ford Explorer license plate #I17-WBL, whom in 2004 BBC cameras captured taking telephoto shots of each black voter as they voted at the early-voting station, every day, all day. Illegal under civil rights laws.
Dave Kuno - Chief Deputy Clerk Chaves, Texas. "Cleansed" voter rolls there - cleansed them of Hispanic citizens who vote for Democrats, that is.
Rebecca Vigil-Giron - Secretary of State for New Mexico, turned down $114,000 raised by voters for a recount of ballots and erased the voting machines, eliminating the evidence. (What we do know is disturbing enough. Precinct 512 - 166 votes cast, 206 votes COUNTED for Bush; Precinct 558 - 178 absentee votes cast, 319 votes COUNTED for Bush. Democratic Precinct 14 - 114 ballots out of 207 supposedly contained no mark for President; Democratic Precinct 46 - half the ballots supposedly showed no vote for President.)
Dick Carlberg - Refused to properly count ballots in Duval County, Florida.


Kill these fuckers dead already:

Osama Bin Laden - 9/11 weenie
Mullah Omar - 9/11 weenie
Prince Khalid al-Turki - Original Funder & Strategist for the Taliban, and former Chief of Saudi Arabia's Intelligence Agency
Dr. A. Q. Khan - Father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, and seller of said blueprints and materials to Libya and North Korea.

We should get away from the oil crack pipe not because of it's limited supply, perceived or otherwise, but because our STRATEGIC PATIENCE with the Middle East has long ago run out, and because oil is killing our people not just on the battlefield, but killing the entire planet's biosphere.

Israel Sets Itself on Fire

Despite the repeated blithering on the evening news by our non-reporters, what started this was NOT that Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel. Rather, it began with two simultaneous events, the failure of Israelis to complete an agreed-upon prisoner release, and that Israel shelled a Palestinian family having a previously nice vacation day at the beach. That was when both Hamas and Hezbollah fired up again. Then when two Israeli soldiers "wandered" across the border into Lebanese territory like chum bait for the sharks, it was on.

The hardliners in Israel were pushing for a reaction, and Hezbollah was stupid enough to bite.

But according to our media, the Israelis are weak, helpless victims in all this. Firstly, one subtle fact should be remembered. The Israelis have nukes. We know, we gave them to the Israelis, just like we're sending them rush shipments of "precision" 500 lb. bunker-buster bombs via Fedex right now. The Israelis could turn all those big scary Muslim countries from sand to glass in a 3000 degree instant. That makes them not quite as tiny and helpless as some would seem to imply.

We're also all aware that Israelis face the daily, obscene prospect of getting blown up for riding a bus or going to coffee in the morning, but they ALSO bulldoze Palestinian homes, and bulldoze American peace volunteers in between them and the homes they wish to bulldoze, rape and beat Palestinian women and dump their bodies on the other side of that stupid wall, and subject Palestinian civilians to blockades.

And now Israelis have weakened the Lebanese government which was just getting on it's feet after the PREVIOUS round of Israeli destruction, have destroyed vital infrastructure for the entire country including bridges, airports, power generators, and water treatment plants, killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians (who have nothing to do with Hezbollah except perhaps that they accept medical care and other social services from them), and made HALF A MILLION other Lebanese civilians homeless with "precision" bombing like this:

All supposedly to "rescue" two SOLDIERS captured by Hezbollah, not the Lebanese.

Not a couple of kidnapped civilians, but two soldiers who presumably understood the risk involved in wearing the uniform and it's potential consequences.

This monumental destruction is not a way to make friends, or even serve your OWN cause.

You don't reduce the violence by hurting a bunch of people who have NOTHING to do with your problem. All you do then, is make more enemies, and consequently more violence.

Before Israel can receive my sympathy, before the Palestinians can receive my sympathy, and certainly before Hamas or Hezbollah can receive ANY sympathy, they have to first take responsibilty for EACH of their roles in perpetuating the cycle of violence.

There's enough sin to go around on ALL sides here.

I simply ask, is THIS really what Israelis want their children to be doing?

Someone has to have the COURAGE to say no to it, even if it costs them their own lives. Someone has to have the Gandhian courage to say, "There are many causes for which I am prepared to die, but none for which I am prepared to kill. If you kill me, then you have my dead body. NOT my obedience."

THIS is how you resist oppression. And that is how the Indians brought the mighty British Empire to it's knees - with a pinch of salt.

Not that our own American media is reporting this in any sort of responsible way. As usual, if you want to find out about anything but the Israeli perspective, you must read the European and other foreign press.

All topics reported out of Israel itself, are subject to review by Israel's chief military censor, who has - in her own words - "extraordinary power.'' She can silence a broadcaster, block information and put journalists in jail. "I can, for example, publish an order that no material can be published. I can close a newspaper or shut down a station. I can do almost anything,'' Col. Sima Vaknin said.

This is the Israeli "democracy" we're defending?

The Associated Press, being corporate weenies, has agreed, like other organizations, to abide by the rules of the censor, which is a condition for receiving permission to operate as a media organization in Israel.

According to the AP, "Reporters are expected to censor themselves and not report any of the forbidden material. When in doubt, they can submit a story to the censor who will hand it back, possibly with deletions. The AP will note in a story if any deletions have been made. If a reporter violates the rules, he or she suffers the consequences."

And this one-sided press bias is mimicked in our "diplomacy" too. These are the nations rationally calling for a cease-fire, and the ones who've refused to call for one:

Against Cease-fire? United States, Britain, Israel.
For Cease-fire? Everyone else.

Everyone else seems to recognize that you can't talk and shoot at the same time.

But Secretary of State Condi Rice didn't even want to begin TALKING about a cease-fire, because in her words, she "didn't know what she'd be doing it for." Said Rice:

"I don't want to go all the way over there to get a cease fire I know won't last, only to have to come back six, or nine months, or several years later."

Well, that's... your... JOB! To go back, again and again, repeatedly if necessary, and WORK to construct the peace! You know, "hard work!" If you'd rather be out shopping for Ferragamos like you were during Hurricane Katrina, may I suggest you get the Hell out of the way, and let someone in there who CAN handle it?

And for Neocons like her, Dick and George, what is all this REALLY about?

Why on earth were even the hardliners in Israel pushing for this foolishness to happen? Well they were "inspired" by our own batch of wingnuts.

The Neocon's old Project for a New American Century having now been revealed to a horrified public, and executed disasterously in Iraq, have stealthily renamed their "think tank" and called it the "Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies". Their new wargasm report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," is the main substantive idea to emerge from a discussion in which nitwits like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser have participated since that last disaster, PNAC.

From the report:

"Israel has a large problem. Labor Zionism, which for 70 years has dominated the Zionist movement, has generated a stalled and shackled economy. Efforts to salvage Israel’s socialist institutions.... undermine the legitimacy of the nation and lead Israel into strategic paralysis. Israel can become self-reliant only by.... cutting taxes, relegislating a free-processing zone, and selling-off public lands and enterprises."

That's hysterically funny. The Neocons are apparently not satisfied with nuking physical peace in the region, they now want Israel to throw it's economy and it's workers on the pyre too, with their attrocious (truly non)-free market economic foolishness too. "Let's sell off those kibbutzim and get some ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND corporate farming goin' up in here!"

Oh yeah. They're the "friend of Israel"....... Seriously, that would be a real knee-slapper if it wasn't so damn transparently TRAGIC.

"Strategic paralysis" = fat and happy workers who have no desire for war. Why, those people would probably just want to llive, and raise their families! Make 'em nice and desperate, and they'll surely be willing to kill something. This has no more to do with "Israel becoming self-reliant", than invading Iraq had to do with "spreading democracy."

This is all about putting this guy in power:

"Benjamin Netanyahu’s government comes in with a new set of ideas."

And if you think Sharon was an evil piece of work, you ain't seen nothin' yet.... Netanyahu is the Israeli version of this jerk: