Finally, someone has the guts to take on the Bush Regime for its use of torture at the concentration camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and prisons in Iraq. Up until now, President George Bush has shrugged off such criticism. But how much longer can he?
''If the U.S. government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved in the torture scandal,'' said the head of Amnesty's U.S. section, William Schulz, who added that violations of the torture convention, which has been ratified by the United States and some 138 other countries, can be prosecuted in any jurisdiction.
And US officials my have to deal with arrests if they show up in the wrong country.
''If those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them,'' he added. ''The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as (former Chilean dictator) Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998.''
Pinochet was arrested and an attempt was made to prosecute him in Spain for the murder of Spanish citizens.
Amnesty has already targeted some US officials by name, in particular, Vice President Dick Cheney's general counsel, David Addington; Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes; and top officials in the Justice Department's Office of General Counsel, one of whom, Jay Bybee, has since been confirmed as a federal appeals court judge.
''A wall of secrecy is protecting those who masterminded and developed the U.S. torture policy,'' Schulz said. ''Unless those who drew the blueprint for torture, approved it, and ordered it implemented are held accountable, the United States' once-proud reputation as an exemplar of human rights will remain in tatters."
Amnesty is not alone in its concerns. Last summer, the 400,000-lawyer American Bar Association joined Amnesty, Human rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in making similar those demands.
Excerpts from:
Give Rumsfeld the Pinochet Treatment, Says US Amnesty Chief
by Jim Lobe May 26, 2005 Inter Press Service.
And: Barry's Blogs
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Friday, May 27, 2005
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Laura Bush: Condescending savior
The poor women of the Middle East have waited thousands of years for a savior to come from North America to save them from their suffocating culture. That savior is Laura Bush, wife of the great conqueror President George “Frat-boy” Bush. Mrs. Bush made the remarks in Jordan (a good safe distance from our troops at war in Iraq and Afghanistan) according to The Wichita Eagle, May 22, 2005. She said the governments of the Middle East should have more women in prominence in government and business.
Those poor dumb Middle East people needed us to come and tell them how to run their affairs, according to our leaders in Washington. How ironic it is that rights for women are being eroded right here at home, such as reproductive rights, both abortion and birth control, by Christian fundamentalists who are allied with the Bush regime.
There are people in Afghanistan who have already decided that women deserve full equality and they don’t want us to “save them from themselves.” They have united several Maoist parties into the Communist Party (Maoist) of Afghanistan, According to A World to Win, 2005, no. 31. They have an organized army and they have every intention of driving the U.S. out of their country. A similar organization is organizing in Iran, the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). All of these groups are studying the success of the Maoist insurgency in Nepal. They reject the phony democracy imposed by our empire. If they could come here and see U.S. democracy in action, it would only strengthen their resolve not to end up with this mess of corruption and narrow-mindedness we now have to endure.
Those poor dumb Middle East people needed us to come and tell them how to run their affairs, according to our leaders in Washington. How ironic it is that rights for women are being eroded right here at home, such as reproductive rights, both abortion and birth control, by Christian fundamentalists who are allied with the Bush regime.
There are people in Afghanistan who have already decided that women deserve full equality and they don’t want us to “save them from themselves.” They have united several Maoist parties into the Communist Party (Maoist) of Afghanistan, According to A World to Win, 2005, no. 31. They have an organized army and they have every intention of driving the U.S. out of their country. A similar organization is organizing in Iran, the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). All of these groups are studying the success of the Maoist insurgency in Nepal. They reject the phony democracy imposed by our empire. If they could come here and see U.S. democracy in action, it would only strengthen their resolve not to end up with this mess of corruption and narrow-mindedness we now have to endure.
High Across The Prairie
Steve Otto's latest novel takes an honest look at 1970's Kansas.
Memoirs Of A Drugged-up, Sex-crazed Yippie ---Tales from the 70's Counterculture Drugs: Sex. Politics and Rock and Roll, By Steve Otto
Authorhouse Press/2005
Reviewed by Tim Pouncey
Kansas in the late 1970's was so different from today; the Sunflower State might as well have been located in Holland. Remember what it was like to share drugs with close friends and complete strangers? Remember when casual sex was so casual you didn't even know your partners name? Remember when the political climate of Kansas came down squarely on the side of tolerance? Remember when your personal philosophy of life was defined by rock lyrics and not a mission statement? You don't?
Well, Steve Otto does.In his latest semi-fictional novel, Memoirs Of A Drugged-Up, Sex Crazed Yippie (Authorhouse Press/2005), Otto excavates 1970's counterculture like an archeologist loving dusting off a Mastodon tusk. In a brisk 349 pages, Otto gives us a lucid look at a Kansas few people remember --- or can't remember due to a plentiful supply of "controlled substances" that were constantly and cheaply available. Characters romp through Wichita, Lawrence and even Sedalia Missouri when a cheap thrill was worth what you paid for it and pleasure was just the flipside of danger.
But to dismiss this book as just another nostalgic stoner reminiscing about the last days of the counter-culture would be a major mistake. Although there is a certain "back-in-the-day" wistfulness about the time before political correctness was a mantra, Otto tempers his dreamy history lesson with brutal honesty.The narrator of the story --- a composite of just about every old druggie you ever met --- may graphically describe the bliss of mainlining MDA, he also reminds us that brief moment of pleasure most often occurred in a squalid apartment at broken kitchen table next to sink full of dirty dishes.Like all good storytellers, Otto takes the reader places they've never been before. Like William Burroughs and Charles Bukowsky, Otto sometimes takes you to places you've never really wanted to visit. Yet, Otto makes it worth the trip by including generous portions of political discourse, Cyrenaic philosophy, post-adolescent lust and near-suicidal thrill seeking to keep the narrative moving along like a junkie careening through a police roadblock.Otto's work is always provocative and this book will undoubtedly draw the wrath of both solid conservatives and neo-feminists. Otto's characters never mask their contempt for the right-wing agenda and Otto's narrator never hides his obsession with female anatomy. However, criticizing Memoirs because it baits conservatives and objectifies women is missing the point. Filtering 1970's Kansas counterculture through the sensibilities of a naive middle-class, catholic school educated, twenty-something is no easy trick but Otto mostly pulls it off. He has a good ear for times-past and tries --- often successfully --- to make his prose read like it would have been written by someone experiencing these situations 30 years ago. Trying to be simultaneously innovative, entertaining and honest is a juggling act on a unicycle, but Otto is generally at his best when everything's up-in-the-air and he's peddling frantically. When the narrator's budding Marxist politics and his discussions with Iranian nationalists clash with his dawning awareness that Kansas politics has taken a sharp turn to the right, Otto makes it work.Is Otto's look into the rear-view mirror a true reflection on the 70's, or do the objects simply appear bigger than they were? Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Memoirs resonates with characters buckling under the weight of the America Dream with redemption harder to find than next snort of Cocaine.
"This reveiw can also be seen in F5."
Memoirs Of A Drugged-up, Sex-crazed Yippie ---Tales from the 70's Counterculture Drugs: Sex. Politics and Rock and Roll, By Steve Otto
Authorhouse Press/2005
Reviewed by Tim Pouncey
Kansas in the late 1970's was so different from today; the Sunflower State might as well have been located in Holland. Remember what it was like to share drugs with close friends and complete strangers? Remember when casual sex was so casual you didn't even know your partners name? Remember when the political climate of Kansas came down squarely on the side of tolerance? Remember when your personal philosophy of life was defined by rock lyrics and not a mission statement? You don't?
Well, Steve Otto does.In his latest semi-fictional novel, Memoirs Of A Drugged-Up, Sex Crazed Yippie (Authorhouse Press/2005), Otto excavates 1970's counterculture like an archeologist loving dusting off a Mastodon tusk. In a brisk 349 pages, Otto gives us a lucid look at a Kansas few people remember --- or can't remember due to a plentiful supply of "controlled substances" that were constantly and cheaply available. Characters romp through Wichita, Lawrence and even Sedalia Missouri when a cheap thrill was worth what you paid for it and pleasure was just the flipside of danger.
But to dismiss this book as just another nostalgic stoner reminiscing about the last days of the counter-culture would be a major mistake. Although there is a certain "back-in-the-day" wistfulness about the time before political correctness was a mantra, Otto tempers his dreamy history lesson with brutal honesty.The narrator of the story --- a composite of just about every old druggie you ever met --- may graphically describe the bliss of mainlining MDA, he also reminds us that brief moment of pleasure most often occurred in a squalid apartment at broken kitchen table next to sink full of dirty dishes.Like all good storytellers, Otto takes the reader places they've never been before. Like William Burroughs and Charles Bukowsky, Otto sometimes takes you to places you've never really wanted to visit. Yet, Otto makes it worth the trip by including generous portions of political discourse, Cyrenaic philosophy, post-adolescent lust and near-suicidal thrill seeking to keep the narrative moving along like a junkie careening through a police roadblock.Otto's work is always provocative and this book will undoubtedly draw the wrath of both solid conservatives and neo-feminists. Otto's characters never mask their contempt for the right-wing agenda and Otto's narrator never hides his obsession with female anatomy. However, criticizing Memoirs because it baits conservatives and objectifies women is missing the point. Filtering 1970's Kansas counterculture through the sensibilities of a naive middle-class, catholic school educated, twenty-something is no easy trick but Otto mostly pulls it off. He has a good ear for times-past and tries --- often successfully --- to make his prose read like it would have been written by someone experiencing these situations 30 years ago. Trying to be simultaneously innovative, entertaining and honest is a juggling act on a unicycle, but Otto is generally at his best when everything's up-in-the-air and he's peddling frantically. When the narrator's budding Marxist politics and his discussions with Iranian nationalists clash with his dawning awareness that Kansas politics has taken a sharp turn to the right, Otto makes it work.Is Otto's look into the rear-view mirror a true reflection on the 70's, or do the objects simply appear bigger than they were? Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Memoirs resonates with characters buckling under the weight of the America Dream with redemption harder to find than next snort of Cocaine.
"This reveiw can also be seen in F5."
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
When Bush reared up his ugly head, Newsweek turned tail and fled
They chickened out! They chickened out!
Newsweek (May 23, 2005) has demonstrated the modern strategy of our present day news media. When under fire from the Whitehouse and the whistle blower buckles under fear of our “spoiled-privileged-frat-boy” president, roll back and deny! Deny! Deny! In the article “The Editor's Desk” That’s just what they did.
The evidence that someone flushed a Koran down the toilet has not been disproved, their source simply bailed on them. He may have felt it was his patriotic duty to lie to defend his country after all the demonstrations appeared.
The real problem is that the report came straight out of a concentration camp, in Guantanamo Bay, which has been conducting suspicious and secretive activities there. The only things we know for sure are the pictures shown from that base. All pictures are taken through razor wire, with prisoners wearing orange jump suites and they seem unable to work for themselves. We can only guess what treatment is like there and we already have some ideas from those who have been there.
People all over the world should already be outraged that Hitler’s solution to the Jewish question has been adopted by President George “Frat-Boy” Bush for the “final solution” of anti-West Moslems. Many of us are outraged, both inside and outside the US. It is only a matter of time before Bush and his people join Hitler, Mussolini, and their conspirators in getting their just reward.
Newsweek (May 23, 2005) has demonstrated the modern strategy of our present day news media. When under fire from the Whitehouse and the whistle blower buckles under fear of our “spoiled-privileged-frat-boy” president, roll back and deny! Deny! Deny! In the article “The Editor's Desk” That’s just what they did.
The evidence that someone flushed a Koran down the toilet has not been disproved, their source simply bailed on them. He may have felt it was his patriotic duty to lie to defend his country after all the demonstrations appeared.
The real problem is that the report came straight out of a concentration camp, in Guantanamo Bay, which has been conducting suspicious and secretive activities there. The only things we know for sure are the pictures shown from that base. All pictures are taken through razor wire, with prisoners wearing orange jump suites and they seem unable to work for themselves. We can only guess what treatment is like there and we already have some ideas from those who have been there.
People all over the world should already be outraged that Hitler’s solution to the Jewish question has been adopted by President George “Frat-Boy” Bush for the “final solution” of anti-West Moslems. Many of us are outraged, both inside and outside the US. It is only a matter of time before Bush and his people join Hitler, Mussolini, and their conspirators in getting their just reward.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
If Bush is so popular in Georgia, why doesn’t he just stay there?
President George “Valium-head” Bush visited one of Europe’s “newest democracies” (That is how The Wichita Eagle described it, May 10, 2005) and was met by cheers as he talked of spreading “freedom and democracy.”
As the article points out, he is not so popular in the rest of Western Europe, where people might actually know what words such as “freedom” and “Democracy” actually mean. To “Frat-boy” George, it means a country dominated by a single political party and a single religious agenda. It means caving into the petty desires of the religious right, allowing one political party to dominate all three branches of government, making sure the major TV networks realize that any rough treatment of the president means no access to the president.
Other aspects of US democracy is a total attack on our academic institutions to push out the country’s last few influential leftists, and a two party system that excludes all other points of view and leaves us with a faltering opposition party of has-beens whose best strategy is to imitate their opponents as much as possible.
If the Georgians didn’t like a one-party state, they wouldn’t like it here. If they wanted true religious freedom, they wouldn’t like it here, where faith based initiatives put secularly run government agencies out of business.
Then there’s the war. One day we are told by our news media that Afghanistan is just about pacified and under control. Then we’re told that a major battle took place in Afghanistan’s cave areas and two Americans were killed. (Eagle, May 10) We are told the Iraqis are turning against the insurgents and that rebels are mostly hired criminals one day, then told they are putting up serious resistance another. (Same Eagle addition, May 10)
Hearing Bush talk about “democracy” is like hearing Adolf Hitler talk of compassionate treatment of the Jews. For him to talk of “freedom” is like hearing Paris Hilton discussing Albert Einstein’s Theories of relativity.
What a wonderful fictional world we live in, where many people believe the universe came from a magician’s show and a brain-dead ex-frat-boy can pretend to lead the world’s only superpower.
As the article points out, he is not so popular in the rest of Western Europe, where people might actually know what words such as “freedom” and “Democracy” actually mean. To “Frat-boy” George, it means a country dominated by a single political party and a single religious agenda. It means caving into the petty desires of the religious right, allowing one political party to dominate all three branches of government, making sure the major TV networks realize that any rough treatment of the president means no access to the president.
Other aspects of US democracy is a total attack on our academic institutions to push out the country’s last few influential leftists, and a two party system that excludes all other points of view and leaves us with a faltering opposition party of has-beens whose best strategy is to imitate their opponents as much as possible.
If the Georgians didn’t like a one-party state, they wouldn’t like it here. If they wanted true religious freedom, they wouldn’t like it here, where faith based initiatives put secularly run government agencies out of business.
Then there’s the war. One day we are told by our news media that Afghanistan is just about pacified and under control. Then we’re told that a major battle took place in Afghanistan’s cave areas and two Americans were killed. (Eagle, May 10) We are told the Iraqis are turning against the insurgents and that rebels are mostly hired criminals one day, then told they are putting up serious resistance another. (Same Eagle addition, May 10)
Hearing Bush talk about “democracy” is like hearing Adolf Hitler talk of compassionate treatment of the Jews. For him to talk of “freedom” is like hearing Paris Hilton discussing Albert Einstein’s Theories of relativity.
What a wonderful fictional world we live in, where many people believe the universe came from a magician’s show and a brain-dead ex-frat-boy can pretend to lead the world’s only superpower.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
They just can’t leave pot alone
In a throw back to the days of Nixon, the US has refocused on harassing people who use marijuana. By now most US adults know that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and yet most of the drug arrests are for that drug. According The Wichita Eagle, May 4, 2005, reported a rise in drug arrests from 1.1 million in 1990 to 1.5 million presently.
This should not be too surprising. Since the Reagan years and the Republican revolution, marijuana, along with any cultural tradition that grew out of the 1960s and 1970s liberalism is under attack. Marijuana may take away a person’s loyalties to the government. That’s especially true if a person uses the drug and realizes how much our government lies about it. Such enforcement is sure to please the Christian fundamentalists who would rather rope us into their church, rather than let us smoke pot. They are sure to bring up the bogus “gateway drug” argument.
“Take away pot and you take away all other drugs,” they argue. The problem is, it doesn’t work. Some crack addicts have never used marijuana. The high that comes from narcotics and cocaine are completely different from that of pot. It’s like arguing that drinking orange juice will lead to alcoholism, since many people mix vodka with orange juice. The argument just doesn’t make sense.
Arresting pot smokers is a terrible waste of resources anyway. The main purpose of pot prohibition seems to be to force clients into state ordered rehab. There’s money to be made and it’s another opportunity for Christian fundamentalists to use the system to rope in new members.
Remember: a brain on Christian fundamentalist religion or the influence of the present day Republican imperialists is no better than a brain saturated with drugs. All three impede the cognitive ability to use the brain.
We should also know better than to trust a man who spent the Vietnam War stateside, getting drunk at frat parties, smoking pot and snorting coke, yet portrayed himself as a patriot over a man who actually went to Vietnam and had something to say about it. See: Bush sucks weed.
Party on dudes! Our Pres. Sure did.
This should not be too surprising. Since the Reagan years and the Republican revolution, marijuana, along with any cultural tradition that grew out of the 1960s and 1970s liberalism is under attack. Marijuana may take away a person’s loyalties to the government. That’s especially true if a person uses the drug and realizes how much our government lies about it. Such enforcement is sure to please the Christian fundamentalists who would rather rope us into their church, rather than let us smoke pot. They are sure to bring up the bogus “gateway drug” argument.
“Take away pot and you take away all other drugs,” they argue. The problem is, it doesn’t work. Some crack addicts have never used marijuana. The high that comes from narcotics and cocaine are completely different from that of pot. It’s like arguing that drinking orange juice will lead to alcoholism, since many people mix vodka with orange juice. The argument just doesn’t make sense.
Arresting pot smokers is a terrible waste of resources anyway. The main purpose of pot prohibition seems to be to force clients into state ordered rehab. There’s money to be made and it’s another opportunity for Christian fundamentalists to use the system to rope in new members.
Remember: a brain on Christian fundamentalist religion or the influence of the present day Republican imperialists is no better than a brain saturated with drugs. All three impede the cognitive ability to use the brain.
We should also know better than to trust a man who spent the Vietnam War stateside, getting drunk at frat parties, smoking pot and snorting coke, yet portrayed himself as a patriot over a man who actually went to Vietnam and had something to say about it. See: Bush sucks weed.
Party on dudes! Our Pres. Sure did.
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