On Abortion, It's the Bible of Ambiguity - New York Times
November 13, 2005
Ideas & Trends
On Abortion, It's the Bible of Ambiguity
By MICHAEL LUO
FLIP to the back of any of the fancy, leather-bound Bibles that are so common in evangelical churches these days, and chances are there is an index. Called a concordance, it offers a list of specific words mentioned in the Bible and where they are referenced in the text.
There a reader can find, for example, how many times Jesus talked about the poor (at least a dozen), or what the Apostle Paul wrote about grace (a lot). But those who turn to their concordance for guidance about abortion will not find the word at all.
"I can't take you to text that says, 'Don't commit abortion,' " said Michael J. Gorman, a professor of New Testament and early church history and dean of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University, located in Baltimore. "It just doesn't exist."
Does that mean the Bible has nothing to offer on the issue? Mr. Gorman, who calls himself an evangelical, cites the early church's opposition to abortion and broader themes that suffuse the Scriptures, rather than specific verses: "There's an impetus in the Bible toward the protection of the innocent, protection for the weak, respect for life, respect for God's creation."
For evangelicals, who are defined in large part by their reliance on the Bible, the question of how the Scriptures should be interpreted is crucial. Catholics depend more heavily on the church's moral teachings, which are often drawn not from the Bible but what they call, "natural law," the innate sense of morality that they believe is written on people's hearts and can be divined by human reason.
But evangelicals - or at least the members of the vocal religious right who have dominated the issue over the last two decades or so - use the words of the Bible to make their case. And in many ways, what the Bible actually says, and according to whom, is where the battle over abortion begins.
One anti-abortion group, Michigan Christians for Life, for instance, sells bumper stickers emblazoned with "Deuteronomy 30:19."
The verse reads: "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him."
But some evangelical scholars say the passage has nothing to do with abortion. Instead, it is an exhortation to Israelites, who fled Egypt and are wandering in the desert, to obey God's word, the way to true life, said John Goldingay, a professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, outside of Los Angeles.
"It's saying to Israel, choosing life means choosing the way of life, choosing to obey God's word, which has been revealed over the last 30 chapters," Mr. Goldingay said.
Like many professors at evangelical seminaries today, Mr. Goldingay teaches his students to pay attention to the genre of the biblical passage they are studying before interpreting specific verses. Some passages in the Bible are written as poetry, full of metaphoric language and imagery, and were never meant to be taken literally, he said. Others, especially in the Old Testament, are written as history and detail God's relationship with his chosen people, the Israelites, and need to be read as such.
"We're always trying to work out legal implications from them, as if they were a legal kind of text, like interpreting a constitutional document," Mr. Goldingay said. "The problem is that wasn't what they were designed to do."
But other evangelical scholars, at seminaries that read the Bible more literally, disagree. "Just because it's not primarily about abortion doesn't mean we shouldn't draw anything from it," said Craig V. Mitchell, assistant professor of Christian ethics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Tex.
He pointed to a passage in the Book of Psalms, often cited by anti-abortion groups. The verses, from Psalm 139, read: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
To many evangelicals who oppose abortion, the verses speak directly to when life begins - at the moment of conception.
"I'd summarize Psalm 139 as suggesting that in the womb, from the very first point of conception, it's God at work," said Scott B. Rae, a professor of Christian ethics at Talbot School of Theology and Biola University, an evangelical school outside of Los Angeles.
But, again, other evangelical Bible scholars differ. In this case, the writer of Psalms, which is essentially a collection of songs, is using poetic imagery to celebrate God's special relationship with his chosen people, the Israelites, and his promise to be with them for a thousand generations, said Willem A. VanGemeren, a professor of Old Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, an evangelical seminary outside of Chicago.
"The issue is not so much of when the moment of conception is, or the beginning of life, but rather they cannot see life apart from their relationship with the Lord," Mr. VanGemeren said.
For their part, some abortion rights supporters frequently turn to a passage in Exodus 21 that sets out guidelines for the Israelites on how to resolve a dispute in which a pregnant woman intervenes between two men fighting and is struck: "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."
Abortion rights activists argue that the passage shows the fetus is assigned a lower value than the woman, because if a premature birth occurs, they say, the baby dies. Then, the punishment is only a fine, compared to "life for life, eye for eye" if the woman is killed.
"You can't make everything of that passage," said Paul D. Simmons, an ethics professor at University of Louisville, who once taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "What you can establish is there's a clear distinction between a fetus and a woman."
But Mr. VanGemeren, of Trinity, said that conclusion is shaky, arguing the passage remains shrouded in ambiguity.
"We don't quite understand what exactly happens to that child," he said.
According to Mr. VanGemeren and many other evangelical Bible scholars, no single passage in the Bible clearly supports the anti-abortion stance, but they argue that the broad narrative of the Bible, with its themes of creation, God's blessing on life and humanity bearing the image of God, speak against abortion.
"Of course, nothing addresses abortion directly," Mr. VanGemeren said, "but the biblical inference as accepted over the centuries is a witness that cannot be ignored."
Interpreting the Bible, as difficult as it is, becomes only more so, when theologians are asked how abortion should be legislated, if it should be legislated at all.
Some scholars spoke in absolutes, others cited exceptions. Still others waxed eloquent about the need to turn society away from its individualistic ethos and the need to pay equal attention to other biblical priorities.
In the end, as it turns out, it is a complicated business, bringing a complicated Bible into a complicated world.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Civil liberties in danger, says ex-intel official
North Jersey Media Group providing local news, sports & classifieds for Northern New Jersey!
Civil liberties in danger, says ex-intel official Sunday, November 13, 2005 By RICHARD COWENSTAFF WRITER
MAPLEWOOD - The man who leaked thousands of pages of top secret documents to the media in 1971 to expose the U.S. government's handling of the Vietnam War warned Saturday that another terrorist attack could permanently damage civil liberties.
Daniel Ellsberg, the former U.S. intelligence official responsible for leaking the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times and 18 other newspapers, told an audience of about 400 that the Bush administration most likely would respond to any terror attack on U.S. soil by severely restricting freedom of the press and the individual's right to speak out.
"In a time of fear, I believe that the majority of the American people will cling to authority," Ellsberg told the gathering at Columbia High School for New Jersey Peace Action's annual luncheon.
"And if there is another terror attack," Ellsberg added sarcastically, "I believe the president will get what he wants. And what he wants is a new Patriot Act, one that will make the current Patriot Act look like the Bill of Rights."
The Patriot Act, originally passed by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is up for renewal.
To combat terrorism, it gave law enforcement leeway into probing the private lives of Americans - allowing for easier wiretaps, incarceration without charges, monitoring of computer use and even checking on books borrowed from libraries. Some members of Congress expressed alarm recently that the FBI had initiated 30,000 investigations of private e-mail accounts last year.
Now the Patriot Act is up for renewal, and the Bush administration is seeking even tougher measures. Ellsberg, 74, said he worries that with the Iraq war at a stalemate, a terrorist attack on American soil was "not just possible, but highly likely." Were that to happen, Ellsberg predicted that Bush would respond by escalating the war on terror - possibly to include military action against Syria or Iran - while pushing for harsher restrictions against dissent at home.
Ellsberg said that as part of Patriot Act revisions, Bush most likely would push for an Official Secrets Act - one that would make it a crime for whistle-blowers to reveal government secrets to the public. And he added, such a ban probably would apply to journalists as well.
Ellsberg worked as an analyst for the RAND Corp. in the 1960s, which conducted a huge study of U.S. policy in Vietnam. That study, which was top secret and eventually numbered 7,000 pages, is the story of what went wrong in Vietnam. Once leaked to The Times, the document became known as the Pentagon Papers, and it told of the official lies by the Johnson and Nixon administrations that the war in Vietnam was winnable.
The Nixon administration tried to prevent publication of the Pentagon Papers, but the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the public's right to know. Ellsberg eventually stood trial for leaking official secrets, but the government eventually dropped the case.
Ellsberg said Saturday that he had grave doubts he would enjoy the same freedom today.
"I don't think the current Supreme Court would see it that way," he told the audience. He added that should an Official Secrets Act be adopted, "leaks would be a thing of the past."
He drew parallels between the Valerie Plame affair and the beginning of the Vietnam War. Plame was outed as a CIA agent after her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, said the Bush administration lied about the reason for the invasion of Iraq. Wilson disputed the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons.
Ellsberg pointed out that the government said the Johnson administration also lied about the second Gulf of Tonkin incident on Aug. 2, 1964. At the time, President Lyndon Johnson claimed that a U.S. destroyer had been attacked by a North Vietnamese patrol boat in the Gulf of Tonkin, but Ellsberg said the incident never happened.
Ellsberg said that like Vietnam, America was in for a long war in Iraq, one that could possibly spread around the Middle East. "There are other wars ahead, and a long way to go," he said.
Members of the audience gave Ellsberg a standing ovation at the end of his hourlong presentation. As he hurried out the door to catch a train, attendees were left to contemplate what to do after the applause died down.
"I felt terrified by what he said," said Zella Geltman of West Orange. "What can we do to save ourselves?"
Eleanor Mason of Morris Plains said the best thing to do is keep speaking out. "We are patriotic Americans, and we don't want war," she said. "We need to keep saying this until the government is forced to listen to us."
Ellsberg is scheduled to speak at 3:30 p.m. Monday at Ramapo College in Mahwah and at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at Wiliam Paterson University in Wayne.
E-mail: cowen@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2005 North Jersey Media Group Inc.Copyright Infringement Notice User
Civil liberties in danger, says ex-intel official Sunday, November 13, 2005 By RICHARD COWENSTAFF WRITER
MAPLEWOOD - The man who leaked thousands of pages of top secret documents to the media in 1971 to expose the U.S. government's handling of the Vietnam War warned Saturday that another terrorist attack could permanently damage civil liberties.
Daniel Ellsberg, the former U.S. intelligence official responsible for leaking the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times and 18 other newspapers, told an audience of about 400 that the Bush administration most likely would respond to any terror attack on U.S. soil by severely restricting freedom of the press and the individual's right to speak out.
"In a time of fear, I believe that the majority of the American people will cling to authority," Ellsberg told the gathering at Columbia High School for New Jersey Peace Action's annual luncheon.
"And if there is another terror attack," Ellsberg added sarcastically, "I believe the president will get what he wants. And what he wants is a new Patriot Act, one that will make the current Patriot Act look like the Bill of Rights."
The Patriot Act, originally passed by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is up for renewal.
To combat terrorism, it gave law enforcement leeway into probing the private lives of Americans - allowing for easier wiretaps, incarceration without charges, monitoring of computer use and even checking on books borrowed from libraries. Some members of Congress expressed alarm recently that the FBI had initiated 30,000 investigations of private e-mail accounts last year.
Now the Patriot Act is up for renewal, and the Bush administration is seeking even tougher measures. Ellsberg, 74, said he worries that with the Iraq war at a stalemate, a terrorist attack on American soil was "not just possible, but highly likely." Were that to happen, Ellsberg predicted that Bush would respond by escalating the war on terror - possibly to include military action against Syria or Iran - while pushing for harsher restrictions against dissent at home.
Ellsberg said that as part of Patriot Act revisions, Bush most likely would push for an Official Secrets Act - one that would make it a crime for whistle-blowers to reveal government secrets to the public. And he added, such a ban probably would apply to journalists as well.
Ellsberg worked as an analyst for the RAND Corp. in the 1960s, which conducted a huge study of U.S. policy in Vietnam. That study, which was top secret and eventually numbered 7,000 pages, is the story of what went wrong in Vietnam. Once leaked to The Times, the document became known as the Pentagon Papers, and it told of the official lies by the Johnson and Nixon administrations that the war in Vietnam was winnable.
The Nixon administration tried to prevent publication of the Pentagon Papers, but the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the public's right to know. Ellsberg eventually stood trial for leaking official secrets, but the government eventually dropped the case.
Ellsberg said Saturday that he had grave doubts he would enjoy the same freedom today.
"I don't think the current Supreme Court would see it that way," he told the audience. He added that should an Official Secrets Act be adopted, "leaks would be a thing of the past."
He drew parallels between the Valerie Plame affair and the beginning of the Vietnam War. Plame was outed as a CIA agent after her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, said the Bush administration lied about the reason for the invasion of Iraq. Wilson disputed the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons.
Ellsberg pointed out that the government said the Johnson administration also lied about the second Gulf of Tonkin incident on Aug. 2, 1964. At the time, President Lyndon Johnson claimed that a U.S. destroyer had been attacked by a North Vietnamese patrol boat in the Gulf of Tonkin, but Ellsberg said the incident never happened.
Ellsberg said that like Vietnam, America was in for a long war in Iraq, one that could possibly spread around the Middle East. "There are other wars ahead, and a long way to go," he said.
Members of the audience gave Ellsberg a standing ovation at the end of his hourlong presentation. As he hurried out the door to catch a train, attendees were left to contemplate what to do after the applause died down.
"I felt terrified by what he said," said Zella Geltman of West Orange. "What can we do to save ourselves?"
Eleanor Mason of Morris Plains said the best thing to do is keep speaking out. "We are patriotic Americans, and we don't want war," she said. "We need to keep saying this until the government is forced to listen to us."
Ellsberg is scheduled to speak at 3:30 p.m. Monday at Ramapo College in Mahwah and at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at Wiliam Paterson University in Wayne.
E-mail: cowen@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2005 North Jersey Media Group Inc.Copyright Infringement Notice User
Joe's Dartblog: A "Tortured" Debate
Joe's Dartblog: A �Tortured� Debate
Blogger Thoughts: Joe's blog post gives no clue how fubar the WSJ editorial is:
A 'Tortured' Debate
A ban on aggressive interrogation would amount to unilateral disarmament in the war on terror.
Saturday, November 12, 2005 12:01 a.m.
If Osama bin Laden is alive and looking for signs of flagging U.S. will to fight the war on terror, he need look no further than our national debate about interrogating his compatriots and others who would do us harm.
Post-9/11, after all, it is hardly far-fetched to imagine a scenario in which our ability to extract information from a terrorist is the only thing that might prevent a bioterror attack or even the nuclear annihilation of an American city. And we know for a fact that information wrung from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others has helped prevent further attacks on U.S. soil.
Yet according to many Bush Administration critics, the aggressive and stressful questioning techniques used successfully against the likes of KSM put the U.S. on a slippery slope to widespread "torture" and the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. John McCain (R., Arizona) has pushed an amendment through the Senate that would effectively bar all stressful interrogation techniques. The danger for American security is that this would telegraph to every terrorist in the world that he has absolutely nothing to fear from silence should he fall into U.S. hands.
The McCain Amendment is driven by the so-called torture narrative: the proposition that CIA techniques for questioning high-level al Qaeda detainees somehow "migrated" to Iraq and caused the Abu Ghraib abuses. But the irony is that Congress is proposing this remedial overreaction at the very moment the evidence has become overwhelming that the torture narrative is false.
Former Defense Secretary Jim Schlesinger headed one of more than a dozen major inquiries into detainee abuse, and he explained last year that the Abu Ghraib abuses were simply sadistic behavior by poorly trained reservists on the "night shift." The victims weren't even intelligence targets. If that evidence wasn't conclusive enough, we now have the verdicts of the nine courts-martial that punished the Abu Ghraib offenders, none of which found evidence to support the proposition that the abuses had anything to do with interrogations.
We aren't saying that there haven't been abuses--probably hundreds of them--of detainees in the war on terror. But there have also been more than 70,000 detainees. In other words, the rate of prisoner abuse compares favorably with the U.S. civilian detention system, and it is better than the rate in earlier conflicts such as Vietnam and even World War II. Alleged abuses have been routinely investigated, and punished when warranted in courts-martial that have revealed a military willing and able to police its own.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has done a perfectly awful job of defending its policy with such facts. And its reaction to the McCain Amendment has been to propose an unsatisfactory compromise whereby the CIA would be exempted from prohibitions on aggressive interrogation while many Defense Department methods would be barred. But U.S. tactics should be morally defensible based on who the detainee is, not which department is doing the interrogating.
In Iraq at this very moment the military is dealing with a hardened al Qaeda wing headed by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, whose un-uniformed fighters are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections against aggressive interrogation. Neither the McCain Amendment nor the Administration's reaction to it send a message of resolve to win that intelligence war.
Two persistent sources of confusion in this debate have been misreadings of the Geneva Conventions and sloppy (or willfully distorted) use of the word "torture." The Geneva Conventions are very strict about which detainees qualify for the protections of "prisoner of war" status: They must, for example, have fought in uniform and shown some respect for the laws of war, such as avoiding attacks on civilians.
What's more, any form of manipulation, including positive reinforcements such as better rations, are forbidden when it comes to interrogating legitimate POWs. Recognizing guerrillas and terrorists as POWs would be a form of unilateral disarmament, and, worse, would legitimize their behavior. The U.S. was respecting, not skirting, international law when it refused to classify them as such.
As for "torture," it is simply perverse to conflate the amputations and electrocutions Saddam once inflicted at Abu Ghraib with the lesser abuses committed by rogue American soldiers there, much less with any authorized U.S. interrogation techniques. No one has yet come up with any evidence that anyone in the U.S. military or government has officially sanctioned anything close to "torture." The "stress positions" that have been allowed (such as wearing a hood, exposure to heat and cold, and the rarely authorized "waterboarding," which induces a feeling of suffocation) are all psychological techniques designed to break a detainee.
Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and Richard Durbin have gotten a lot of media mileage posturing over alleged "torture." But they should be asked unequivocally whether they'd rule out techniques such as "waterboarding" if there was good reason to believe it might prevent a mass-casualty attack.
That such "torture" demagoguery can be successfully challenged was demonstrated earlier this year, when Amnesty International was forced to back down from its odious comparison of U.S. detention facilities to the Soviet gulag. We wish the Administration directly challenged its Congressional critics. The American people are wise enough to understand that we can't win the war on terror without good intelligence, and that there won't be good intelligence without aggressive interrogations.
Blogger Thoughts: Joe's blog post gives no clue how fubar the WSJ editorial is:
A 'Tortured' Debate
A ban on aggressive interrogation would amount to unilateral disarmament in the war on terror.
Saturday, November 12, 2005 12:01 a.m.
If Osama bin Laden is alive and looking for signs of flagging U.S. will to fight the war on terror, he need look no further than our national debate about interrogating his compatriots and others who would do us harm.
Post-9/11, after all, it is hardly far-fetched to imagine a scenario in which our ability to extract information from a terrorist is the only thing that might prevent a bioterror attack or even the nuclear annihilation of an American city. And we know for a fact that information wrung from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others has helped prevent further attacks on U.S. soil.
Yet according to many Bush Administration critics, the aggressive and stressful questioning techniques used successfully against the likes of KSM put the U.S. on a slippery slope to widespread "torture" and the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. John McCain (R., Arizona) has pushed an amendment through the Senate that would effectively bar all stressful interrogation techniques. The danger for American security is that this would telegraph to every terrorist in the world that he has absolutely nothing to fear from silence should he fall into U.S. hands.
The McCain Amendment is driven by the so-called torture narrative: the proposition that CIA techniques for questioning high-level al Qaeda detainees somehow "migrated" to Iraq and caused the Abu Ghraib abuses. But the irony is that Congress is proposing this remedial overreaction at the very moment the evidence has become overwhelming that the torture narrative is false.
Former Defense Secretary Jim Schlesinger headed one of more than a dozen major inquiries into detainee abuse, and he explained last year that the Abu Ghraib abuses were simply sadistic behavior by poorly trained reservists on the "night shift." The victims weren't even intelligence targets. If that evidence wasn't conclusive enough, we now have the verdicts of the nine courts-martial that punished the Abu Ghraib offenders, none of which found evidence to support the proposition that the abuses had anything to do with interrogations.
We aren't saying that there haven't been abuses--probably hundreds of them--of detainees in the war on terror. But there have also been more than 70,000 detainees. In other words, the rate of prisoner abuse compares favorably with the U.S. civilian detention system, and it is better than the rate in earlier conflicts such as Vietnam and even World War II. Alleged abuses have been routinely investigated, and punished when warranted in courts-martial that have revealed a military willing and able to police its own.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has done a perfectly awful job of defending its policy with such facts. And its reaction to the McCain Amendment has been to propose an unsatisfactory compromise whereby the CIA would be exempted from prohibitions on aggressive interrogation while many Defense Department methods would be barred. But U.S. tactics should be morally defensible based on who the detainee is, not which department is doing the interrogating.
In Iraq at this very moment the military is dealing with a hardened al Qaeda wing headed by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, whose un-uniformed fighters are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections against aggressive interrogation. Neither the McCain Amendment nor the Administration's reaction to it send a message of resolve to win that intelligence war.
Two persistent sources of confusion in this debate have been misreadings of the Geneva Conventions and sloppy (or willfully distorted) use of the word "torture." The Geneva Conventions are very strict about which detainees qualify for the protections of "prisoner of war" status: They must, for example, have fought in uniform and shown some respect for the laws of war, such as avoiding attacks on civilians.
What's more, any form of manipulation, including positive reinforcements such as better rations, are forbidden when it comes to interrogating legitimate POWs. Recognizing guerrillas and terrorists as POWs would be a form of unilateral disarmament, and, worse, would legitimize their behavior. The U.S. was respecting, not skirting, international law when it refused to classify them as such.
As for "torture," it is simply perverse to conflate the amputations and electrocutions Saddam once inflicted at Abu Ghraib with the lesser abuses committed by rogue American soldiers there, much less with any authorized U.S. interrogation techniques. No one has yet come up with any evidence that anyone in the U.S. military or government has officially sanctioned anything close to "torture." The "stress positions" that have been allowed (such as wearing a hood, exposure to heat and cold, and the rarely authorized "waterboarding," which induces a feeling of suffocation) are all psychological techniques designed to break a detainee.
Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and Richard Durbin have gotten a lot of media mileage posturing over alleged "torture." But they should be asked unequivocally whether they'd rule out techniques such as "waterboarding" if there was good reason to believe it might prevent a mass-casualty attack.
That such "torture" demagoguery can be successfully challenged was demonstrated earlier this year, when Amnesty International was forced to back down from its odious comparison of U.S. detention facilities to the Soviet gulag. We wish the Administration directly challenged its Congressional critics. The American people are wise enough to understand that we can't win the war on terror without good intelligence, and that there won't be good intelligence without aggressive interrogations.
The Corrupt Leadership Class
The Corrupt Leadership Class
Blogger Thoughts: Good Editorial from LeBoutillier. Now if we can just get him on board with 9/11 Truth.
Blogger Thoughts: Good Editorial from LeBoutillier. Now if we can just get him on board with 9/11 Truth.
John McCain: Wrong to Attack Bush
John McCain: Wrong to Attack Bush
Blogger Thoughts: Which is it: Is McCain a know nothing or just evil?
Blogger Thoughts: Which is it: Is McCain a know nothing or just evil?
Bloomberg: N.Y. judicial process a 'farce'
Bloomberg: N.Y. judicial process a 'farce'
Bloomberg: N.Y. judicial process a 'farce'
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg took on the state's judicial nominating system Sunday, calling it a "farce" in which politics and "shady back-room deals" put unqualified jurists on the bench.
The mayor, fresh off a re-election victory, called for the creation of independent commissions to approve judicial candidates before their names appear on the ballot.
"We must change the farce of 'electing' judges, which bears more of a resemblance to voting in the Soviet Union than in the United States of America," Bloomberg wrote in an opinion article published in Sunday's New York Daily News.
Bloomberg called for new state legislation to create independent commissions that would be required to establish whether judicial candidates are qualified. The political parties shouldn't nominate anyone not approved by those commissions, the mayor wrote.
While most of New York City's judges are competent, Bloomberg wrote, "some judges have been selected because they paid off a local political leader or agreed to hire a particular law clerk."
He referred to several scandals involving Brooklyn judges, and said nine candidates on the most recent ballot were deemed unqualified by most major bar associations. A judicial corruption probe in Brooklyn also is looking into alleged buying of judgeships.
Judicial reform bills are pending in the state Legislature. One would require state Supreme Court candidates to go through a primary election. Another would require candidates to go through party-sponsored screening panels.
Bloomberg: N.Y. judicial process a 'farce'
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg took on the state's judicial nominating system Sunday, calling it a "farce" in which politics and "shady back-room deals" put unqualified jurists on the bench.
The mayor, fresh off a re-election victory, called for the creation of independent commissions to approve judicial candidates before their names appear on the ballot.
"We must change the farce of 'electing' judges, which bears more of a resemblance to voting in the Soviet Union than in the United States of America," Bloomberg wrote in an opinion article published in Sunday's New York Daily News.
Bloomberg called for new state legislation to create independent commissions that would be required to establish whether judicial candidates are qualified. The political parties shouldn't nominate anyone not approved by those commissions, the mayor wrote.
While most of New York City's judges are competent, Bloomberg wrote, "some judges have been selected because they paid off a local political leader or agreed to hire a particular law clerk."
He referred to several scandals involving Brooklyn judges, and said nine candidates on the most recent ballot were deemed unqualified by most major bar associations. A judicial corruption probe in Brooklyn also is looking into alleged buying of judgeships.
Judicial reform bills are pending in the state Legislature. One would require state Supreme Court candidates to go through a primary election. Another would require candidates to go through party-sponsored screening panels.
cont "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax or Truth?
e107 powered website: Forums / Public forums / "Able Danger" vs. Curt Weldon- Propaganda Hoax or Truth?
Real Reason for Able Danger-"leaks": scripting 9/11 ties with China? In today's NY Post we're finally getting some clues, what other reasons than to reinforce the official plotline of 9/11, the story of Able Danger might have: scripting somehow 9/11 ties with China, to build up a psyOP for the big endgame between Russia, China and US. Able Danger was a setup and trojan against China from the beginning, distracting from other already confirmed 9/11 patsie-surveillance teams, which had nothing to do with the military operation of 9/11 anyway. http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/52673.htm August 27, 2005 "...The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said. The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said... ...the program also spat out scores of names of other former government officials with legitimate ties to China, as well as prominent American businessmen... ...A Pentagon official said last night that, while the canned contractors worked for Able Danger, the China project was separate from the counter-terrorism assignment. The Able Danger work was transferred to another Department of Defense contractor — and the program quietly expired later that year when it was completed, the official said. The China chart was put together by James Smith, who confirmed yesterday that his contract with the military was canceled and he was fired from his company because the military brass became concerned about the focus on U.S. citizens..." NOTE: Since 9/11, Bill Gertz ("The China Threat") , defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times, tries to tie 9/11 with China and also insisted to claim before the invasion of Iraq, that China may still be helping Iraq upgrade its air defenses. Gertz has been a guest lecturer at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va.; the Central Intelligence Agency; the National Defense University at Fort McNair, Washington, DC; and the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. Gertz was also supported by Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, former CIA deputy chief in South Korea, by refering to the book "Unrestricted Warfare” by Senior Cols. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, who apparently wrote in 1999 that an attack by bin Laden on the World Trade Center would be just the type of "unrestricted warfare” that could bring down America. [www.newsmaxstore.com] 1999 was also the same year, when an allegeged accidentally attack on the Chinese Embassy was the official excuse to postpone an assassination attempt on Bin Laden on hold, which should have taken place 2 weeks later. The team was organised by "anonymous" Michael Scheurer, as revealed last year by Vanity Fair: http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=859 ".....the missiles were on place, and everything seemed like a go.... But earlier that month, outdated intelligence had caused the United States to mistakenly bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. It appears that Tenet's assessment that the intelligence had only a 50/50 chance of being accurate helped kill the operation... The US, Russia or China wants to win the endgame of WW3/4, to rule the world. That's also the reason, why all these nations cover up the truth about 9/11 and use the bogus war on terrorism as a cover, to build up for the final phase. This week, a wargame by China and Russia revealed, that the timetable against US is set. End of war game, China lays out spread for Russia Saturday, August 27, 2005 ‘...Through the exercises, the two armed forces... improved their capabilities to meet new challenges and threats and to fight international terrorism, extremism and separatism,’’ Xinhua quoted Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan as saying..."
Real Reason for Able Danger-"leaks": scripting 9/11 ties with China? In today's NY Post we're finally getting some clues, what other reasons than to reinforce the official plotline of 9/11, the story of Able Danger might have: scripting somehow 9/11 ties with China, to build up a psyOP for the big endgame between Russia, China and US. Able Danger was a setup and trojan against China from the beginning, distracting from other already confirmed 9/11 patsie-surveillance teams, which had nothing to do with the military operation of 9/11 anyway. http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/52673.htm August 27, 2005 "...The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said. The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said... ...the program also spat out scores of names of other former government officials with legitimate ties to China, as well as prominent American businessmen... ...A Pentagon official said last night that, while the canned contractors worked for Able Danger, the China project was separate from the counter-terrorism assignment. The Able Danger work was transferred to another Department of Defense contractor — and the program quietly expired later that year when it was completed, the official said. The China chart was put together by James Smith, who confirmed yesterday that his contract with the military was canceled and he was fired from his company because the military brass became concerned about the focus on U.S. citizens..." NOTE: Since 9/11, Bill Gertz ("The China Threat") , defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times, tries to tie 9/11 with China and also insisted to claim before the invasion of Iraq, that China may still be helping Iraq upgrade its air defenses. Gertz has been a guest lecturer at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va.; the Central Intelligence Agency; the National Defense University at Fort McNair, Washington, DC; and the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. Gertz was also supported by Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, former CIA deputy chief in South Korea, by refering to the book "Unrestricted Warfare” by Senior Cols. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, who apparently wrote in 1999 that an attack by bin Laden on the World Trade Center would be just the type of "unrestricted warfare” that could bring down America. [www.newsmaxstore.com] 1999 was also the same year, when an allegeged accidentally attack on the Chinese Embassy was the official excuse to postpone an assassination attempt on Bin Laden on hold, which should have taken place 2 weeks later. The team was organised by "anonymous" Michael Scheurer, as revealed last year by Vanity Fair: http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=859 ".....the missiles were on place, and everything seemed like a go.... But earlier that month, outdated intelligence had caused the United States to mistakenly bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. It appears that Tenet's assessment that the intelligence had only a 50/50 chance of being accurate helped kill the operation... The US, Russia or China wants to win the endgame of WW3/4, to rule the world. That's also the reason, why all these nations cover up the truth about 9/11 and use the bogus war on terrorism as a cover, to build up for the final phase. This week, a wargame by China and Russia revealed, that the timetable against US is set. End of war game, China lays out spread for Russia Saturday, August 27, 2005 ‘...Through the exercises, the two armed forces... improved their capabilities to meet new challenges and threats and to fight international terrorism, extremism and separatism,’’ Xinhua quoted Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan as saying..."
Heart-Rending Discoveries as Digging Continues in Lower Manhattan
Heart-Rending Discoveries as Digging Continues in Lower Manhattan
Link to more about Author of this article:
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/comings_
and_goings/the_strange_case_of_susan_sachs_28047.asp
More here: (extremely unreliable)
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/hands.htm
Craig Marquis
http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2001/wallstreetjournal101501.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-clearskies_x.htm
http://www.wtclivinghistory.org/plagiarism.htm
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/pdf
/20050908-Tilly.pdf
this above is especially strange
Is the woman even a flight attendant?
http://archives.californiaaviation.org/airport/msg22577.html
Looks like Craig was played for the fool to me. Don't think he is aware of his disinfo status.
This smells
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/
9-11_commission/040127-arpey.htm
Blog from Salon about Gail Sheehy's Article
http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2005/09/10.html
And this deep conpiracy stuff seems to explain the deception
http://www.team8plus.org/forum_viewtopic.php?6.10
Link to more about Author of this article:
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/comings_
and_goings/the_strange_case_of_susan_sachs_28047.asp
More here: (extremely unreliable)
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/hands.htm
Craig Marquis
http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2001/wallstreetjournal101501.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-clearskies_x.htm
http://www.wtclivinghistory.org/plagiarism.htm
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/pdf
/20050908-Tilly.pdf
this above is especially strange
Is the woman even a flight attendant?
http://archives.californiaaviation.org/airport/msg22577.html
Looks like Craig was played for the fool to me. Don't think he is aware of his disinfo status.
This smells
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/
9-11_commission/040127-arpey.htm
Blog from Salon about Gail Sheehy's Article
http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2005/09/10.html
And this deep conpiracy stuff seems to explain the deception
http://www.team8plus.org/forum_viewtopic.php?6.10
Dahlan blames Israel for deteriorating situation in Gaza
Xinhua - English
GAZA, Nov. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan blamed Israel on Sunday for the deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.
"Situations at Karny industrial crossing are worse than the period before the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip," Dahlan said at a joint press conference following a Gaza tour with Quartet Committee Special Envoy James Wolfensohn.
Dahlan said Israel continued its closure at Gaza crossings in an attempt to strangle economy in the coastal strip.
Wolfensohn and Dahlan visited former Israeli Nitzarim settlements in the southern Gaza City, Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border and Karny industrial crossing in western Gaza.
Wolfensohn expressed hope that both sides will reach anagreement on Gaza crossings through negotiations to ease the suffering of the Palestinians especially those living in the Gaza Strip.
As to this, Wolfensohn said he would also present his suggestions to Israel and the United States in a bid to help end the Palestinian suffering.
Dahlan called for achieving peace in the Palestinian territories and working on getting the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip out of the big jail especially after shutting down the borders, crossings, seaport and airport.
Dahlan also hoped that the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region scheduled Sunday evening would bring solutions to unresolved issues between Israel and the Palestinians. Enditem
GAZA, Nov. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan blamed Israel on Sunday for the deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.
"Situations at Karny industrial crossing are worse than the period before the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip," Dahlan said at a joint press conference following a Gaza tour with Quartet Committee Special Envoy James Wolfensohn.
Dahlan said Israel continued its closure at Gaza crossings in an attempt to strangle economy in the coastal strip.
Wolfensohn and Dahlan visited former Israeli Nitzarim settlements in the southern Gaza City, Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border and Karny industrial crossing in western Gaza.
Wolfensohn expressed hope that both sides will reach anagreement on Gaza crossings through negotiations to ease the suffering of the Palestinians especially those living in the Gaza Strip.
As to this, Wolfensohn said he would also present his suggestions to Israel and the United States in a bid to help end the Palestinian suffering.
Dahlan called for achieving peace in the Palestinian territories and working on getting the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip out of the big jail especially after shutting down the borders, crossings, seaport and airport.
Dahlan also hoped that the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region scheduled Sunday evening would bring solutions to unresolved issues between Israel and the Palestinians. Enditem
November 12, 2005 -- The story of the theft by Jerry Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority and its Washington masters of $30 million in cash from Saddam Hussein's chief money mover -- and how the U.S. beat to death the banker to hide the secrets of past transactions between the Bush crime family and Saddam. Developing . . .
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Outside the Gates: On Conspiracy Part 3
Outside the Gates: On Conspiracy Part 3
On Conspiracy Part 3
Over twenty years ago Martin Jacques - editor of Marxism Today at the time - accused me of 'gross anti-intellectualism' at a London District Committee. He was presenting a paper on the future of MT which had been circulated beforehand. I challenged the basic concept of the magazine being, in his words, 'hegemonic' and got slapped down. Now I'm accused of 'intellectual elitism' from another leftist. Blimey, how confusing.The reason for it this time, besides me being a nasty person?I Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, a card carrying member of the neocons has been indicted for perjury - lying - along with other charges. The chief of staff to Cheney had been caught out trying to dissemble under oath to a grand jury and the FBI investigating the outing of a CIA agent, Plame. A lot of play is being made about a possible conspiracy amongst a cabal that includes the neocons usual suspects - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle et al. I am not convinced.The neocons policy has been public knowledge since at least the late '90s via policy-papers written for the Project for a New American Century and other rabidly right wing 'think tanks' and magazines. PNAC itself was established in 1997, quite late compared to others.On 25.02.03 - a month before the war - Information Clearing House carried an article by William Rivers Pitt which clearly shows the centrality of imperialism to the thinking of PNAC. In Sept 2000 PNAC published a White Paper titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century'. This document is the 'essence' of the neocons militarist ideology. Stories about its publication were published in the European press at the time if I remember correctly.The architects of this policy achieved positions of power in the Bush administration following the stolen 2000 election. One was even on the ticket and elected Vice President. It may seem strange that an elected official should put into practise policies with which he is publicly associated, but not unknown."Once policy is decided organisation is all." A quote associated with both Lenin and Stalin. My preference is Lenin as it is the foundation of 'democratic centralism', the organising basis for the Communist Party and the Trotskyite grouplets which followed.Whats Lenin and Trotsky to do with war on Iraq?The neocons contain in their ranks many ex-Trots and those claiming to have been influenced by his disciples. Leading neocons like Irving Kristol and Seymour Martin Lipset are ex-Trots. Others follow the politics of Shachtman, an American Trot whose final ideological home was the Social Democrats USA which supported the war in Vietnam. Perle and Wolfowitz were young acolytes of Shachtman, in fact Wolfowitz was a speaker at Social Democrats USA conferences during the '70s.On 15th January 2004 Mother Jones (via ICH) carried an article about the establishment of The Office of Special Plans at the Department of Defence by Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest headlined 'The Lie Factory'. Even before Bush's formal inaugeration Wolfowitz was pulling the team together that evolved into the OSP. It was from here the lies whipping up fear and support for the invasion of Iraq were concocted.All of this information has been in the public arena for quite some time before, or 10 months into, the paramount crime committed when the Anglo-American coalition invaded and occupied Iraq. It is inconceivable that this part of the process leading upto the war can be described as a 'conspiracy' it having been so open.Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the Special Counsel has not pursued the path of conspiracy at this point for a reason. That reason, I think, is to do with the forged 'yellow-cake' documents eminating from Rome via the Niger embassy/consulate there. If that criminal act of forgery can be found to have originated from the OSP then you may have a case of conspiracy by establishing the existance of a secret parallel organisation outwith the state apparatus. A parallel organisation whose reach could include the state apparatus in Italy, Britain, Niger and the USA. But why use conspiracy when treason will do.Probably the first thing I ever learnt when joining the army aged 15 was that 'ignorance is no excuse'. It is a concept that applies to every adult in every situation. Both the American and British publics could have used their own volition to acquire the above knowledge. Being ignorant of what is being done by your government when the information is in the public domain does not make it's decisions and actions conspiritorial.Not being a conspiracy phobe, but recognising its use by the state's courts as a means to quash opposition with the admission of hearsay as evidence (see previous post), I have always been wary of labelling anything a conspiracy.During a period of activity in the Trades Union movement I used to attend CP meetings of members from the same union. A caucus or a conspiracy? Harold Wilson when he was Labour Prime Minister thought this form of organising was 'a conspiracy of tightly knit men'. I don't. I think it's a legitimate caucus. A place where people with a semblance of a common political attitude can discuss and plan how to further the interests of their union members as well as spread the CP's ideas and influence in the union. This was common knowledge amongst non-CP trades union activists. The Trots, the right and the 'broad left' all held, and I assume still hold caucus meetings and which are not outwith the majority of British Trades Union rules.Two scientists meeting and discussing their latest research could even be considered a conspiracy if some peoples definitions were applied, but that would be ridiculous. Though not to a paranoid state that places bans on people meeting in two's or more.A couple of years ago I completed what I hoped was going to be a novel. It didn't work as a novel - to autobiographical as some friends who read the completed manuscript thought as well as some parts of the story being 'horribly and vividly evoked'. Being over biographical was confirmed with a pile of rejection letters from publishers. My Mum thought it 'full of resentment' because of the critique of my father. I was considering some of the advice that suggested I try and publish a few short stories or travel journalism pieces that can be found in the manuscript.The reason for writing it was to try and gain an understanding of what was happening to me following the diagnosis of MS and, at the same time, a campaign by the state to deliberately initiate a massive relapse (see previous post). A campaign that I thought had ended. But obviously not now the blog is up and being read.It seems that 'Empathy is not a colour' or extracts from it - probably taken out of context - have now appeared on a list server. I did send out some CDs with it on and was told it was copied to a hard drive for safety. It could have come from there or the time I spilt tea over my lap top, frying it. A shop sent it off to get fixed and refused to tell me who they had sent it to after I discovered some emails missing on its return, one a reply from Ron Jacobs. Also old correspondence files to my bank had been opened. The shop did say somewhere in Derbyshire. But who knows. I emailed the relevent chapter to my daughter at least a year ago. She's assured me that it wasn't forwarded anywhere.The manuscript contains a lot of my history - the good, the bad and the downright disgraceful. If I could apologise to all those I've hurt, damaged or slighted in some way I'd be in an elite of one. There is a period in my childhood that I did apologise for twenty years ago. It is something for which I've carried a deep remorse since it happened. The acceptance of my apology has since been recinded.This year in Britain it is the 400th anniversary of the Gun Powder Plot, a celebrated 'conspiracy' in British history. A group of affluent catholics were supposed to have conspired to blow up King James 1 and all members of Parliament. All it produced was an anti-Catholic pogrom and because of that it is also believed the 'conspiracy' was a set-up by the King's advisors. Whatever. The usefullness of conspiracies is that they are open to infinite interpretations. The Gun Powder Plot is the classic bourgoise conspiracy and case in point. The Aristocracy/Establishment in Britain are fond of their conspiracies, it's the way they think the world goes round.Now I'm to believe that in an attempt at feminisation of the left, conspiring is a legitimate organising principle in the movement. Nonsense. The practise of conspiring is fundamentally elitist in that it is conducted in secret, is exclusive - 'we will do it for you'. Whoever 'you' is. Conspiritorial organising has a clear correlation with the urban terrorist groups that plagued Europe through the '70s. They are open to infiltration and manipulation (see previous post). The 'false flag' suicide bombings attributed to Al Qa'ida in Iraq show how 'conspiracy theory' is being exploited to divide and rule in Iraq and couch the illegal occupation for the control of oil as a 'war against terrorism' to the rest of the world.'False flag' operations are not restricted to Iraq. They are also being conducted in Britain and the USA through 'left' organisations and the blogosphere. 'Full spectrum domination' includes the internet. It would be foolish to think otherwise.'Heroic' figures can attract the young, politically inexperienced and easily influenced who are starting to see the contradictions of capitalism become more pronounced and who are seeking answers. But they are still affected by the propaganda from Hollywood, TV, schools and press that emphasis the violent individual hero and not mass non-violent participation in civil disobedience as the motor for change. Ex-military hero's claiming to have changed sides will have 'added value' for the starry-eyed idealist.There is a certain attractiveness to conspiritorial politics for some young people with a romantic view of revolutionary politics. That they are in the know, have new and special knowledge while the rest of us are to ignorant and cannot be included in the discussions and decisions taken on our behalf.No. It is not secret cabals that change the world but the mass participation of those who grasp and turn an idea into a material force. Progressive movements develop and grow with honesty and openness from those who claim to lead them. Not with hidden agendas or ulterior motives (two of the reasons Communist Parties around the world fell). People change their ideas and practise when involved in struggle together with others and their history and actions criticised in the open, collectively. Everything else benefits the bourgoise state.Those who know me, who I have worked with on campaigns, in the Trades Union movement, community politics or the CP will know the affect the womens movement had on my thinking and practise during the '70s and '80s. It changed who I was. Not enough I know, but it changed me all the same.I now am also to understand that the 'no hands operation' that has been conducted against me over the past few years is a feminist conspiracy. That the deliberate relapsing of my MS and 'psychological torture' is accepted practise within the womens movement. Ludicrous. No, this is the State conducting an operation against somebody they don't like posting critical articles against the war in the blogosphere and using a spurious claim to feminism as cover. The blogosphere is after all an arena of struggle which Imperialist forces are trying to control and deny access to.A couple of days before the article I'm responding to appeared on the internet and the day after I posted a piece partly about my erstwhile friend Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, an American male turned up in the cafe I visit for my breakfast of tea, nicotine and the daily paper. It wouldn't have been unusual but for the glare I received from a flat, stoney face and the intimidatory body language - exactly the same as someone who attempted to 'befriended' me over a six month period last year. I also noticed the same behaviour from various others through June to Aug 2004 when I was still living in London. I can only assume they must have trained together and/or America and Britain have exchanged information on psychological torture techniques, which is more than likely. My political history leaves me open to this I suppose but it must be costing them a fortune.Everything I have been trying to do with this blog since starting it has been to re-iterate the need for extra-parliamentary, non-violent, mass political activity to remove those responsible for the instigation of the war - the paramount crime - from power. To find the widest unity possible amongst the poor, the oppressed and the disenfranchised to achieve this. It's why I promote the Declaration from the World Tribunal on Iraq as the top link on this blog. The principles and guidlines for action the WTI have put forward for the international anti-war movement is the only game in town for civil society in America and Britain.So what do I do now? The following 15 posts are the manuscript. Some of it is excruciatingly difficult for me to re-read but somebody might get something from it. It could do with a bloody good edit and if there are any out there get in touch. Unless of course you think it totally destroys your political credibility being associated with it.You didn't think I'd leave it there did you?
On Conspiracy Part 3
Over twenty years ago Martin Jacques - editor of Marxism Today at the time - accused me of 'gross anti-intellectualism' at a London District Committee. He was presenting a paper on the future of MT which had been circulated beforehand. I challenged the basic concept of the magazine being, in his words, 'hegemonic' and got slapped down. Now I'm accused of 'intellectual elitism' from another leftist. Blimey, how confusing.The reason for it this time, besides me being a nasty person?I Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, a card carrying member of the neocons has been indicted for perjury - lying - along with other charges. The chief of staff to Cheney had been caught out trying to dissemble under oath to a grand jury and the FBI investigating the outing of a CIA agent, Plame. A lot of play is being made about a possible conspiracy amongst a cabal that includes the neocons usual suspects - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle et al. I am not convinced.The neocons policy has been public knowledge since at least the late '90s via policy-papers written for the Project for a New American Century and other rabidly right wing 'think tanks' and magazines. PNAC itself was established in 1997, quite late compared to others.On 25.02.03 - a month before the war - Information Clearing House carried an article by William Rivers Pitt which clearly shows the centrality of imperialism to the thinking of PNAC. In Sept 2000 PNAC published a White Paper titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century'. This document is the 'essence' of the neocons militarist ideology. Stories about its publication were published in the European press at the time if I remember correctly.The architects of this policy achieved positions of power in the Bush administration following the stolen 2000 election. One was even on the ticket and elected Vice President. It may seem strange that an elected official should put into practise policies with which he is publicly associated, but not unknown."Once policy is decided organisation is all." A quote associated with both Lenin and Stalin. My preference is Lenin as it is the foundation of 'democratic centralism', the organising basis for the Communist Party and the Trotskyite grouplets which followed.Whats Lenin and Trotsky to do with war on Iraq?The neocons contain in their ranks many ex-Trots and those claiming to have been influenced by his disciples. Leading neocons like Irving Kristol and Seymour Martin Lipset are ex-Trots. Others follow the politics of Shachtman, an American Trot whose final ideological home was the Social Democrats USA which supported the war in Vietnam. Perle and Wolfowitz were young acolytes of Shachtman, in fact Wolfowitz was a speaker at Social Democrats USA conferences during the '70s.On 15th January 2004 Mother Jones (via ICH) carried an article about the establishment of The Office of Special Plans at the Department of Defence by Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest headlined 'The Lie Factory'. Even before Bush's formal inaugeration Wolfowitz was pulling the team together that evolved into the OSP. It was from here the lies whipping up fear and support for the invasion of Iraq were concocted.All of this information has been in the public arena for quite some time before, or 10 months into, the paramount crime committed when the Anglo-American coalition invaded and occupied Iraq. It is inconceivable that this part of the process leading upto the war can be described as a 'conspiracy' it having been so open.Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the Special Counsel has not pursued the path of conspiracy at this point for a reason. That reason, I think, is to do with the forged 'yellow-cake' documents eminating from Rome via the Niger embassy/consulate there. If that criminal act of forgery can be found to have originated from the OSP then you may have a case of conspiracy by establishing the existance of a secret parallel organisation outwith the state apparatus. A parallel organisation whose reach could include the state apparatus in Italy, Britain, Niger and the USA. But why use conspiracy when treason will do.Probably the first thing I ever learnt when joining the army aged 15 was that 'ignorance is no excuse'. It is a concept that applies to every adult in every situation. Both the American and British publics could have used their own volition to acquire the above knowledge. Being ignorant of what is being done by your government when the information is in the public domain does not make it's decisions and actions conspiritorial.Not being a conspiracy phobe, but recognising its use by the state's courts as a means to quash opposition with the admission of hearsay as evidence (see previous post), I have always been wary of labelling anything a conspiracy.During a period of activity in the Trades Union movement I used to attend CP meetings of members from the same union. A caucus or a conspiracy? Harold Wilson when he was Labour Prime Minister thought this form of organising was 'a conspiracy of tightly knit men'. I don't. I think it's a legitimate caucus. A place where people with a semblance of a common political attitude can discuss and plan how to further the interests of their union members as well as spread the CP's ideas and influence in the union. This was common knowledge amongst non-CP trades union activists. The Trots, the right and the 'broad left' all held, and I assume still hold caucus meetings and which are not outwith the majority of British Trades Union rules.Two scientists meeting and discussing their latest research could even be considered a conspiracy if some peoples definitions were applied, but that would be ridiculous. Though not to a paranoid state that places bans on people meeting in two's or more.A couple of years ago I completed what I hoped was going to be a novel. It didn't work as a novel - to autobiographical as some friends who read the completed manuscript thought as well as some parts of the story being 'horribly and vividly evoked'. Being over biographical was confirmed with a pile of rejection letters from publishers. My Mum thought it 'full of resentment' because of the critique of my father. I was considering some of the advice that suggested I try and publish a few short stories or travel journalism pieces that can be found in the manuscript.The reason for writing it was to try and gain an understanding of what was happening to me following the diagnosis of MS and, at the same time, a campaign by the state to deliberately initiate a massive relapse (see previous post). A campaign that I thought had ended. But obviously not now the blog is up and being read.It seems that 'Empathy is not a colour' or extracts from it - probably taken out of context - have now appeared on a list server. I did send out some CDs with it on and was told it was copied to a hard drive for safety. It could have come from there or the time I spilt tea over my lap top, frying it. A shop sent it off to get fixed and refused to tell me who they had sent it to after I discovered some emails missing on its return, one a reply from Ron Jacobs. Also old correspondence files to my bank had been opened. The shop did say somewhere in Derbyshire. But who knows. I emailed the relevent chapter to my daughter at least a year ago. She's assured me that it wasn't forwarded anywhere.The manuscript contains a lot of my history - the good, the bad and the downright disgraceful. If I could apologise to all those I've hurt, damaged or slighted in some way I'd be in an elite of one. There is a period in my childhood that I did apologise for twenty years ago. It is something for which I've carried a deep remorse since it happened. The acceptance of my apology has since been recinded.This year in Britain it is the 400th anniversary of the Gun Powder Plot, a celebrated 'conspiracy' in British history. A group of affluent catholics were supposed to have conspired to blow up King James 1 and all members of Parliament. All it produced was an anti-Catholic pogrom and because of that it is also believed the 'conspiracy' was a set-up by the King's advisors. Whatever. The usefullness of conspiracies is that they are open to infinite interpretations. The Gun Powder Plot is the classic bourgoise conspiracy and case in point. The Aristocracy/Establishment in Britain are fond of their conspiracies, it's the way they think the world goes round.Now I'm to believe that in an attempt at feminisation of the left, conspiring is a legitimate organising principle in the movement. Nonsense. The practise of conspiring is fundamentally elitist in that it is conducted in secret, is exclusive - 'we will do it for you'. Whoever 'you' is. Conspiritorial organising has a clear correlation with the urban terrorist groups that plagued Europe through the '70s. They are open to infiltration and manipulation (see previous post). The 'false flag' suicide bombings attributed to Al Qa'ida in Iraq show how 'conspiracy theory' is being exploited to divide and rule in Iraq and couch the illegal occupation for the control of oil as a 'war against terrorism' to the rest of the world.'False flag' operations are not restricted to Iraq. They are also being conducted in Britain and the USA through 'left' organisations and the blogosphere. 'Full spectrum domination' includes the internet. It would be foolish to think otherwise.'Heroic' figures can attract the young, politically inexperienced and easily influenced who are starting to see the contradictions of capitalism become more pronounced and who are seeking answers. But they are still affected by the propaganda from Hollywood, TV, schools and press that emphasis the violent individual hero and not mass non-violent participation in civil disobedience as the motor for change. Ex-military hero's claiming to have changed sides will have 'added value' for the starry-eyed idealist.There is a certain attractiveness to conspiritorial politics for some young people with a romantic view of revolutionary politics. That they are in the know, have new and special knowledge while the rest of us are to ignorant and cannot be included in the discussions and decisions taken on our behalf.No. It is not secret cabals that change the world but the mass participation of those who grasp and turn an idea into a material force. Progressive movements develop and grow with honesty and openness from those who claim to lead them. Not with hidden agendas or ulterior motives (two of the reasons Communist Parties around the world fell). People change their ideas and practise when involved in struggle together with others and their history and actions criticised in the open, collectively. Everything else benefits the bourgoise state.Those who know me, who I have worked with on campaigns, in the Trades Union movement, community politics or the CP will know the affect the womens movement had on my thinking and practise during the '70s and '80s. It changed who I was. Not enough I know, but it changed me all the same.I now am also to understand that the 'no hands operation' that has been conducted against me over the past few years is a feminist conspiracy. That the deliberate relapsing of my MS and 'psychological torture' is accepted practise within the womens movement. Ludicrous. No, this is the State conducting an operation against somebody they don't like posting critical articles against the war in the blogosphere and using a spurious claim to feminism as cover. The blogosphere is after all an arena of struggle which Imperialist forces are trying to control and deny access to.A couple of days before the article I'm responding to appeared on the internet and the day after I posted a piece partly about my erstwhile friend Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, an American male turned up in the cafe I visit for my breakfast of tea, nicotine and the daily paper. It wouldn't have been unusual but for the glare I received from a flat, stoney face and the intimidatory body language - exactly the same as someone who attempted to 'befriended' me over a six month period last year. I also noticed the same behaviour from various others through June to Aug 2004 when I was still living in London. I can only assume they must have trained together and/or America and Britain have exchanged information on psychological torture techniques, which is more than likely. My political history leaves me open to this I suppose but it must be costing them a fortune.Everything I have been trying to do with this blog since starting it has been to re-iterate the need for extra-parliamentary, non-violent, mass political activity to remove those responsible for the instigation of the war - the paramount crime - from power. To find the widest unity possible amongst the poor, the oppressed and the disenfranchised to achieve this. It's why I promote the Declaration from the World Tribunal on Iraq as the top link on this blog. The principles and guidlines for action the WTI have put forward for the international anti-war movement is the only game in town for civil society in America and Britain.So what do I do now? The following 15 posts are the manuscript. Some of it is excruciatingly difficult for me to re-read but somebody might get something from it. It could do with a bloody good edit and if there are any out there get in touch. Unless of course you think it totally destroys your political credibility being associated with it.You didn't think I'd leave it there did you?
Peak Oil Scam - McGowan in Chat
Peak Oil Scam - McGowan in Chat
Sunday, November 13, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com
Once more I find myself returning to the subject of ‘peak oil’ as it seems that a good deal of the ‘left’, alongside all the usual suspects are peddling this Peak Oil nonsense. It seems the output of ‘peak oil’ articles is actually outstripping the output of oil. We have to ask the question why? Intimately connected to the issue of ‘peak oil’ but well camouflaged, is the issue of ‘over-population’, for make no mistake, ‘peak oil’ is a replay by another name of the ‘over-population’ BS made so fashionable in the 1960s. For once more (and this is it what makes me really angry), people who should know better are again dumping on the poor of the planet, for as with the ‘over-population’ disinformation campaign, at the root of the ‘peak oil’ propaganda offensive is the fight for the control over resources for the rich minority of the planet’s population. Note that the ‘peak oil’ issue is always set in the context of countries like China and India, for nowhere do I see these harbingers of doom advocating changing their OWN consumption patterns, it’s always someone else who has to change theirs eg, 1.6 billion Chinese, but never these comfortable pundits. So screw Michael Ruppert and the host of other alleged progressives who badly need to get a reality check![1] Whenever the subject of ‘peak oil’ comes up it’s invariably in the context of rising Chinese and Indian demand for the stuff, in other words, they’re competing with ‘us’ for the stuff and by what right do these people who are “darker than blue” have to take ‘our’ oil. This is why the ‘over-population debate’ goes hand-in-hand with the peak oil rubbish, they are, in fact, two sides of the same (devalued) dollar bill. Firstly, so that there’s no misunderstanding here, I am by no means advocating the unrestrained and wasteful use of oil or indeed any other energy source or primary product, but the fundamental issue here is not ‘running out of oil’ but the fact that it’s the advanced capitalist countries who have to alter their economies, whether we’re running out of oil or not. The Earth is after all bountiful but obviously not a bottomless pit of resources. As with food production, it’s not the amounts but the distribution that’s the crucial issue here. In addition, it has to be said that the entire history of the development of technology shows that we continually achieve the same or better results with less; less materials, less energy, less labour and so forth. It should come as no surprise then that the ‘peak oil’ disinformation campaign comes along at just the ‘right time’ for the imperium, hovering as it is on the edge of economic meltdown. If one looks back to the run-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the subject of oil inevitably came up but the Western media poured scorn on the idea, branding it as coming from the ‘conspiracy nuts’ and one should note that of late, the subject of oil in the context of Iraq is almost never mentioned. As far as the media are concerned it’s a non-issue. Instead, the focus is suddenly on ‘peak oil’ and according to the Guardian’s John Vidal, you can “kiss your lifestyle goodbye”[2]. Vidal’s article goes into the subject at length, if not to the depth at which oil is found, quoting the arch-doomsayer of them all, Colin Campbell "About 944bn barrels of oil has so far been extracted, some 764bn remains extractable in known fields, or reserves, and a further 142bn of reserves are classed as ‘yet-to-find’, meaning what oil is expected to be discovered. If this is so, then the overall oil peak arrives next year" Wow, as soon as that! How convenient that it should be next year but closer reading of the piece reveals that it’s not as simple as that, as it depends not only on how ‘reserves’ are measured but who you talk to [T]he Campbell analysis is way off the much more optimistic official figures. The US Geological Survey (USGS) states that reserves in 2000 (its latest figures) of recoverable oil were about three trillion barrels and that peak production will not come for about 30 years. The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that oil will peak between “2013 and 2037" and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran, four countries with much of the world’s known reserves, report little if any depletion of reserves." The doomsayers have been predicting ‘peak oil’ since the 1980s just as in the 1960s we saw a comparable bunch of doomsayers talking about ‘over-population’ and indeed, it seems that ‘over-population’ is once again in the gun-sights of the same bunch of Malthusian hangovers. And it’s no accident that ‘over-population’ and ‘peak oil’ go together in a case of oily feathers flocking together (to mix and ruin a couple of metaphors)[3]. And once again, without getting into a debate about the origins of oil and its relationship to exactly how much oil there actually is, the amount of oil is connected not to the total amount whatever the number is, but whether it’s economically viable for capitalism to extract it[4]. - Anomaly News Chat 05-13-05 http://www.anomalynews.com/phorum/read.php?f=9&i=229&t=229staff reports - Free-Market News Network
Sunday, November 13, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com
Once more I find myself returning to the subject of ‘peak oil’ as it seems that a good deal of the ‘left’, alongside all the usual suspects are peddling this Peak Oil nonsense. It seems the output of ‘peak oil’ articles is actually outstripping the output of oil. We have to ask the question why? Intimately connected to the issue of ‘peak oil’ but well camouflaged, is the issue of ‘over-population’, for make no mistake, ‘peak oil’ is a replay by another name of the ‘over-population’ BS made so fashionable in the 1960s. For once more (and this is it what makes me really angry), people who should know better are again dumping on the poor of the planet, for as with the ‘over-population’ disinformation campaign, at the root of the ‘peak oil’ propaganda offensive is the fight for the control over resources for the rich minority of the planet’s population. Note that the ‘peak oil’ issue is always set in the context of countries like China and India, for nowhere do I see these harbingers of doom advocating changing their OWN consumption patterns, it’s always someone else who has to change theirs eg, 1.6 billion Chinese, but never these comfortable pundits. So screw Michael Ruppert and the host of other alleged progressives who badly need to get a reality check![1] Whenever the subject of ‘peak oil’ comes up it’s invariably in the context of rising Chinese and Indian demand for the stuff, in other words, they’re competing with ‘us’ for the stuff and by what right do these people who are “darker than blue” have to take ‘our’ oil. This is why the ‘over-population debate’ goes hand-in-hand with the peak oil rubbish, they are, in fact, two sides of the same (devalued) dollar bill. Firstly, so that there’s no misunderstanding here, I am by no means advocating the unrestrained and wasteful use of oil or indeed any other energy source or primary product, but the fundamental issue here is not ‘running out of oil’ but the fact that it’s the advanced capitalist countries who have to alter their economies, whether we’re running out of oil or not. The Earth is after all bountiful but obviously not a bottomless pit of resources. As with food production, it’s not the amounts but the distribution that’s the crucial issue here. In addition, it has to be said that the entire history of the development of technology shows that we continually achieve the same or better results with less; less materials, less energy, less labour and so forth. It should come as no surprise then that the ‘peak oil’ disinformation campaign comes along at just the ‘right time’ for the imperium, hovering as it is on the edge of economic meltdown. If one looks back to the run-up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the subject of oil inevitably came up but the Western media poured scorn on the idea, branding it as coming from the ‘conspiracy nuts’ and one should note that of late, the subject of oil in the context of Iraq is almost never mentioned. As far as the media are concerned it’s a non-issue. Instead, the focus is suddenly on ‘peak oil’ and according to the Guardian’s John Vidal, you can “kiss your lifestyle goodbye”[2]. Vidal’s article goes into the subject at length, if not to the depth at which oil is found, quoting the arch-doomsayer of them all, Colin Campbell "About 944bn barrels of oil has so far been extracted, some 764bn remains extractable in known fields, or reserves, and a further 142bn of reserves are classed as ‘yet-to-find’, meaning what oil is expected to be discovered. If this is so, then the overall oil peak arrives next year" Wow, as soon as that! How convenient that it should be next year but closer reading of the piece reveals that it’s not as simple as that, as it depends not only on how ‘reserves’ are measured but who you talk to [T]he Campbell analysis is way off the much more optimistic official figures. The US Geological Survey (USGS) states that reserves in 2000 (its latest figures) of recoverable oil were about three trillion barrels and that peak production will not come for about 30 years. The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that oil will peak between “2013 and 2037" and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran, four countries with much of the world’s known reserves, report little if any depletion of reserves." The doomsayers have been predicting ‘peak oil’ since the 1980s just as in the 1960s we saw a comparable bunch of doomsayers talking about ‘over-population’ and indeed, it seems that ‘over-population’ is once again in the gun-sights of the same bunch of Malthusian hangovers. And it’s no accident that ‘over-population’ and ‘peak oil’ go together in a case of oily feathers flocking together (to mix and ruin a couple of metaphors)[3]. And once again, without getting into a debate about the origins of oil and its relationship to exactly how much oil there actually is, the amount of oil is connected not to the total amount whatever the number is, but whether it’s economically viable for capitalism to extract it[4]. - Anomaly News Chat 05-13-05 http://www.anomalynews.com/phorum/read.php?f=9&i=229&t=229staff reports - Free-Market News Network
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