“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
- Orson Welles (from The Third Man)
(http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-30/tallying-right-wing-terror-vs-jihad)
". . . Andrew Joseph Stack, who you may remember piloted a small plane into an IRS building in Austin. Stack left a manifesto behind, and it doesn't exactly read like an anarcho-capitalist treatise. Oh, he's mad at the government, all right, but he's mad about ... the 1986 revision to Section 1706 of the tax code, which governs the treatment of technical contractors. Here are some other things Andrew Stack was angry about:
The bailouts of GM and Wall Street
Drug companies and health insurers (Obamacare was then stalled in Congress)
The Catholic Church and the "monsters of organized religion"
The Pennsylvania steel bankruptcies that gutted steelworker pensions
Now-defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (because of Section 1706)
The California base closings of the early 1990s
The 1980s S&L crisis
Government aid to airlines after 9/11
His accountant
George W. Bush
Its closing lines are "The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed." . . ."
The label doesn't help much when it comes to terrorism.
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(http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/donald-trump-says-he-would-bring-back-waterboarding-terrorists-interrogation-n467831)
". . . Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Sunday he would bring back waterboarding as a strategy in interrogations of suspected terrorists. "I would bring it back, yes. I would bring it back. I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they'd do to us," Trump told "This Week" on ABC. . . ."
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. . . and political activist. . . true to his convictions. . . NO ONE's "owned" politician . . .
(from http://thinkprogress.org/home/2013/12/06/3030781/nelson-mandela-believed-people-wont-talk/)
1. Mandela blasted the Iraq War and American imperialism. Mandela called Bush “a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly,” and accused him of “wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust” by going to war in Iraq. “All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil,” he said. Mandela even speculated that then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan was being undermined in the process because he was black. “They never did that when secretary-generals were white,” he said. He saw the Iraq War as a greater problem of American imperialism around the world. “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care,” he said.
2. Mandela called freedom from poverty a “fundamental human right.” Mandela considered poverty one of the greatest evils in the world, and spoke out against inequality everywhere. “Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times — times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation — that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils,” he said. He considered ending poverty a basic human duty: “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life,” he said. “While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.”
3. Mandela criticized the “War on Terror” and the labeling of individuals as terrorists without due process. On the U.S. terrorist watch list until 2008 himself, Mandela was an outspoken critic of President George W. Bush’s war on terror. He warned against rushing to label terrorists without due process. While forcefully calling for Osama bin Laden to be brought to justice, Mandela remarked, “The labeling of Osama bin Laden as the terrorist responsible for those acts before he had been tried and convicted could also be seen as undermining some of the basic tenets of the rule of law.”
4. Mandela called out racism in America. On a trip to New York City in 1990, Mandela made a point of visiting Harlem and praising African Americans’ struggles against “the injustices of racist discrimination and economic equality.” He reminded a larger crowd at Yankee Stadium that racism was not exclusively a South African phenomenon. “As we enter the last decade of the 20th century, it is intolerable, unacceptable, that the cancer of racism is still eating away at the fabric of societies in different parts of our planet,” he said. “All of us, black and white, should spare no effort in our struggle against all forms and manifestations of racism, wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.”
5. Mandela embraced some of America’s biggest political enemies. Mandela incited shock and anger in many American communities for refusing to denounce Cuban dictator Fidel Castro or Libyan Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who had lent their support to Mandela against South African apartheid. “One of the mistakes the Western world makes is to think that their enemies should be our enemies,” he explained to an American TV audience. “We have our own struggle.” He added that those leaders “are placing resources at our disposal to win the struggle.” He also called the controversial Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat “a comrade in arms.”
6. Mandela was a die-hard supporter of labor unions. Mandela visited the Detroit auto workers union when touring the U.S., immediately claiming kinship with them. “Sisters and brothers, friends and comrades, the man who is speaking is not a stranger here,” he said. “The man who is speaking is a member of the UAW. I am your flesh and blood.”
Some common sense to begin restoring America to its former position of respect and admiration:
No more drone strikes. They don't stop, but help to make terrorists.
Save money and help the cause by closing the drone airbases.
Free Guantanamo prisoners which have already been cleared for release. Holding them is an affront to humanity and hypocrisy with regard to our values.
Apologize and compensate the families of innocent people hurt or killed by drones or other military action.
Withdraw all US
troops from Afghanistan.
Talk. The Taliban and more rational elements of Al Qaeda have indicated they are open to negotiations. History shows a large percentage of terrorists groups have been dissolved by joining the political process.
End support of dictatorships and repressive leaders.
Business selling weapons might be good for US weapons makers but not for the rest of us.
Support non-violent democracy movements. Chaos and instability only help terrorists.
Stop disregarding international law and national sovereignty in killing terrorism suspects.
Use foreign aid to support education, healthcare and
elimination of poverty.
(Source: Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones, Infowars.com May 1, 2011)
Obama said he ordered the strike that allegedly killed Osama. The remainder of his speech followed the standard war on terror propaganda script. A small team of Americans killed bin Laden in a firefight at a compound in Pakistan, the president said in a dramatic late-night statement at the White House, the Associated Press reported following Obama’s address. Obama said the military took custody of his body. It remains to be seen if the government will attempt to provide evidence that the remains are indeed those of Osama bin Laden. Turns out that the U.S. 'respectfully' buried the terrorist mastermind at sea.
WHY? An explanation has never been forthcoming . . . at least not a logical explanation.
This farcical performance took place just as the Democrats kicked off their leader’s presidential reelection bid against a number of Republicans contenders were critical of not only his perceived handling of the economy, but also his management of the manufactured (mainly by their own party) war on terror.
(from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/21/us/bin-laden-burial)
". . . The burial at sea of Osama bin Laden after he was killed by Navy SEALs last year followed traditional Islamic procedures, according to newly released military e-mails, but less than a dozen "leadership" members aboard the Navy carrier where the service took place were informed of the burial. "Any sailors watch the burial?" a Navy commander asked the public affairs officer on the USS Carl Vinson in a May 3, 2011, e-mail. The Carl Vinson was the carrier where the SEALs took bin Laden's body by helicopter after he was killed during the May 2, 2011, raid at his compound in Pakistan. "Only a small group of the leadership was informed -- less than a dozen," the public affairs officer replied. Another e-mail stated, "Burial No Sailors Watched.". . . "
(from http://nation.foxnews.com/osama-bin-laden/2013/02/12/wikileaks-bin-ladens-body-not-buried-sea)
". . . The body of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not buried at sea, according to leaked emails of intelligence firm Stratfor, as revealed by WikiLeaks.
Stratfor’s vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, believes the body was “bound for Dover, [Delaware] on [a] CIA plane” and then “onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda [Maryland],” an email says. The official version is that the body of Al-Qaeda’s top man, who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, was buried at an undisclosed location at sea in a proper Muslim ceremony. . . "
Nostalgia brings back “compassionate conservatism”. What a crock that was.
GWB's presidential library in Dallas, Texas is now open. Legacy? The controversies of the Bush administration from Iraq, the “global war on terror,” the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis come to mind. So do crimes against humanity.
Some legacy. And even his supporters think that he won’t win the kind of historical vindication THEY once thought inevitable. Vindication??!! Damned fools!
His presidency was based on deceit. Or maybe it evolved into Meantime he and his buddies reaped tremendous financial gain on war accessories and oil.
Supporters describe the new library as a "blunt and forthright assessment of the Bush presidency". Visitors will experience a "frank discussion of what was done and why it was done. . . it doesn’t shy away from controversy. The museum takes on the biggest issues for which the president was criticized.”
Objective assessment? I don't really care. I won't be visiting.
I, among many others, have had, directly and indirectly, enough of the GWB fallout. My only hope is that one day, he AND his accomplices are brought to justice.
(thanks to Michael O'Brien, Political Reporter, NBC News)
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