On this tackiest of holidays (Patriot Day? Seriously? This was thought up by adults?), we remember the fallen. Those who died in New York, those who died in Washington.
Why stop there? I honor those who die in Iraq, Afghanistan. But why, even, stop there? Remember those who die in south america, Southeast, west, and central asia. Remember those in africa who have met their end, and remember those who have starved to death in an economically raped post-soviet Russia.
What, besides being human, do all these people have in common? Victims, all, of aggressive United States imperialism.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the already impoverished former empire was looted by western business interests, transferring wealth to wall street and a few russian oligarchs who assisted in the financial rape of their own country.
All of southern Asia, from Indonesia to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, has been bombed either monetarily or physically in the name of "Freedom" (freedom here being a poor euphemism for corporate empire - capitalism on steroids).
And back home, on this day 8 years ago, thousands of people died. According to either of the 2 most rational conspiracy theories (and of course, every theory about the events of that day is some form of conspiracy theory), the root of the cause leading to the attacks is the American corporate empire.
Theory one: The most rational form of the official theory. 19 Islamic extremists took control of 4 airliners and turned them into missiles. Their commander was a former CIA asset, recruited for our proxy war against the USSR in Afghanistan. He had become more disgusted with US foreign policy, the way we waged continual war, both physical and economic, against his Islamic part of the world, and decided to wage a guerrilla war against us. This is the "Blowback" theory.
Theory two: It was a false flag operation conducted by the Bush white house, using various deep-cover elements of the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA. It was conducted in order for us to wage war against any nation we wish, to secure resources for our country, or, more specifically, Corporate interests within our country. This is the false-flag theory, and there are many deviations on this central theme, from the crackpot ("The Twin Towers collapsed because of focused high energy weapons! Lasers!" "There WERE no planes hitting the towers - it was a holographic image!" "It was shape-shifting inter-dimensional LIZARDS that ordered the operation!"), to the rational (Dr Steven Jones, in a peer reviewed study, published his findings of active thermitic material in 4 WTC dust samples. Former FBI Translator Sybil Edmunds states that the US still had a working relationship with Osama Bin Laden until September 10th. Many of the members of the 9/11 commission now doubt the voracity of their own report).
So 9/11 happened. Decide what you will about how it happened. And what is the reaction? To continue doing what our country had been doing already for decades. Only faster. Identify a country with resources desired. Try to bribe the country's leadership into selling out the resource at the expense of the population. If that fails, overthrow the leadership or wage war on the country. Demonize them. Make it seem as if they are our enemies.
Win the support of the public by pumping them full of, in the words of Hunter S Thompson, fear and loathing. Obfuscate reality. What we say goes. Love your country, right or wrong. Hate our enemy, though they were our allies but a few years ago. In short, this:
It is only a slight exaggeration of the propaganda thrown in our faces every day. Especially on today.
Our nation, after 9/11, became even more filled with lies, with logical fallacies, with smoke and mirrors. All who oppose world corporate monopoly are enemies of civilization. Terrorists. Barbarians at the gate. A vicious, well-organized enemy from without and within. Freedom-haters. Get behind the empire or get trampled by it.
The distractions abound. And 9/11, be it a genuine attack or, as evidence seems to suggest, a contrived event, is a distraction. In the name of 9/11 and defending us from evil terrorists, we have lost Habeas corpus. The first amendment is only a shadow of it's former self (protesters at the RNC get charged with conspiracy to riot. "Free speech zones." Independent journalists get arrested for covering things from a different perspective) The fourth amendment is so tattered and ignored as to be completely meaningless. Every phone in America may be tapped without warrant. Internal checkpoints, run by the border patrol (under the direction of the DHS), can be set up anywhere within 100 miles of the border. And believe me - having passed through them, they are certainly not set up to stop Mexicans from getting into the country.
I would like to hope that these violations of liberty are getting better under Obama. But the truth is, they're not. Obama voted for the revised FISA bill - so now you can't even sue a telecom company if you have been spied on with their assistance. He has done nothing to repeal the patriot act - after all, he voted for the third edition of it. He closes down guantanomo, but rather than ending torture, he merely outsources it to countries like Egypt, via CIA extraordinary rendition.
The sad truth is that though we have a new face in the White House, an eloquent speaker, a highly intelligent man, there has been precious little policy shift. A focus on health care (which, in the words of Dennis Kucinech, is really insurance care), moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, and changing the venue where torture takes place is not change. Not really a shift at all. The same people are still in charge of our country.
Remember those who have fallen at the hands of those who think themselves our masters. Who would destroy us for profit, as they have done with countless other peoples.
Remember, and inform. One day this planet will be ours, by which I mean it will truly be controlled by all people. How we get there I don't know. But the first step is to remember. To inform. To see past the smoke and mirrors put forth by the mainstream media, the Federal Government, and all other entities controlled by powerful corporate interests.
It is my solemn wish that on this day, just one more person will wake up and see that though we are still free, there are those that wish to enslave us for the sake of profit.
If I can be a part of waking up a few people to the truth of corporate imperialism, I know I have made the world a better place.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
What is a Terrorist?
No, really. What is a terrorist?
Think about it. What is it?
The image brought to mind, for most Americans, is an Arabic man who hates the US or US interests and attacks US Nationals to fight against those interests and powers. A frightening visage of Osama Bin Laden comes to mind.
But let's look at this term logically, shall we? The root of the word is, of course, terror. Terror-ism. "The suffix -ism denotes a distinctive system of beliefs, myth, doctrine or theory that guides a social movement, institution, class or group" - thank you wikipedia.
So, a terrorist is someone who believes that the best way to accomplish their aims is through the use of fear and intimidation, to fill one's enemy with terror.
Thoughts of the Bush Administration come to mind, coupled with thoughts of the new Obama administration. Both use/used well-positioned fear and terror to accomplish political aims. Obama's campaign was largely successful because it was effective at comparing John McCain's positions to George W Bush's disastrous policies, thus inducing in the public a sense of terror that the last 8 years would be extended. It was subtle fearmongering.
Our elected leaders are, and have been for several years now, terrorists. The enemy they terrorize is us. Rather than promising us fantastic dreams and goals (visions of going to the moon with JFK come to mind), they give us dire consequences if we do not do what they say. They exploit the power of the nightmare, rather than the power of the dream.
Ok, I've gone off on a tangent here. But terrorist is a loaded, complex word. There's a lot of places you can go with it.
Another possible definition of terrorist is: a criminal who causes/uses terror. By that definition, what kind of criminal isn't a terrorist? Any violent crime has a feeling of terror associated with it. Bank robbery? Terrorism. Rape? Terrorism. Murder? Terrorism. Forcing an adult to listen to the Jonas Brothers? Definitely terrorism.
A terrorist is a politician who insinuates that horrible things will happen if his opponent is elected. A terrorist is a man who walks into a bank with a gun. A terrorist is a man who straps a bomb to his chest and boards a bus. A terrorist is someone who bombs a third world country that did not, actually, attack his country first. A terrorist is a soldier who performs a midnight raid in a civilian house within the country he is stationed in. A terrorist is a mercenary who opens fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians. A terrorist is someone with no weapons, just a frightening/unorthodox idea. A terrorist is someone who supports a third party candidate (Missouri declared that supporters of Ron Paul and Bob Barr were domestic extremists just a few months back). A terrorist is a schoolyard bully.
A terrorist is you, and a terrorist is me.
Terror is one of the most base emotions a human being can feel. Fear.
We're fighting the war on terror in completely the wrong way - we're bombing countries. This can never solve the problem of terror (of course, stopping terrorism has never been the aim of the war on terror anyway). Terror will be stopped when we stop fearing death. When we open ourselves to the possibilities of the universe. When we realize that all people, Christian, Muslim, Rich, Poor, are essentially the same. Same essential needs and desires. When we realize that the Earth has always been, simultaneously, a frightening and a nurturing place.
The true war on terror is a war to be fought internally, within each of our minds and souls. It cannot be won on the battlefield. Because we are all terrorists, just as we are all loving human beings.
Think about it. What is it?
The image brought to mind, for most Americans, is an Arabic man who hates the US or US interests and attacks US Nationals to fight against those interests and powers. A frightening visage of Osama Bin Laden comes to mind.
But let's look at this term logically, shall we? The root of the word is, of course, terror. Terror-ism. "The suffix -ism denotes a distinctive system of beliefs, myth, doctrine or theory that guides a social movement, institution, class or group" - thank you wikipedia.
So, a terrorist is someone who believes that the best way to accomplish their aims is through the use of fear and intimidation, to fill one's enemy with terror.
Thoughts of the Bush Administration come to mind, coupled with thoughts of the new Obama administration. Both use/used well-positioned fear and terror to accomplish political aims. Obama's campaign was largely successful because it was effective at comparing John McCain's positions to George W Bush's disastrous policies, thus inducing in the public a sense of terror that the last 8 years would be extended. It was subtle fearmongering.
Our elected leaders are, and have been for several years now, terrorists. The enemy they terrorize is us. Rather than promising us fantastic dreams and goals (visions of going to the moon with JFK come to mind), they give us dire consequences if we do not do what they say. They exploit the power of the nightmare, rather than the power of the dream.
Ok, I've gone off on a tangent here. But terrorist is a loaded, complex word. There's a lot of places you can go with it.
Another possible definition of terrorist is: a criminal who causes/uses terror. By that definition, what kind of criminal isn't a terrorist? Any violent crime has a feeling of terror associated with it. Bank robbery? Terrorism. Rape? Terrorism. Murder? Terrorism. Forcing an adult to listen to the Jonas Brothers? Definitely terrorism.
A terrorist is a politician who insinuates that horrible things will happen if his opponent is elected. A terrorist is a man who walks into a bank with a gun. A terrorist is a man who straps a bomb to his chest and boards a bus. A terrorist is someone who bombs a third world country that did not, actually, attack his country first. A terrorist is a soldier who performs a midnight raid in a civilian house within the country he is stationed in. A terrorist is a mercenary who opens fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians. A terrorist is someone with no weapons, just a frightening/unorthodox idea. A terrorist is someone who supports a third party candidate (Missouri declared that supporters of Ron Paul and Bob Barr were domestic extremists just a few months back). A terrorist is a schoolyard bully.
A terrorist is you, and a terrorist is me.
Terror is one of the most base emotions a human being can feel. Fear.
We're fighting the war on terror in completely the wrong way - we're bombing countries. This can never solve the problem of terror (of course, stopping terrorism has never been the aim of the war on terror anyway). Terror will be stopped when we stop fearing death. When we open ourselves to the possibilities of the universe. When we realize that all people, Christian, Muslim, Rich, Poor, are essentially the same. Same essential needs and desires. When we realize that the Earth has always been, simultaneously, a frightening and a nurturing place.
The true war on terror is a war to be fought internally, within each of our minds and souls. It cannot be won on the battlefield. Because we are all terrorists, just as we are all loving human beings.
Friday, January 9, 2009
A spoonful of sugar helps the bullshit go down
So, Craigslist is now charging $5 per post to people offering services in the adult gigs list.
Nevermind that erotic services are part of the greatness of Craigslist - many women across the country rely on supplemental income from masturbating in front of a camera, and many men across the country rely on dirty videos and photographs for their source of nookie.
Nevermind that a Supreme Court ruling on Miller v. California defined pornography in such a way that most advertising contains pornographic content, as outlined below:(http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/851.html#12)
1. Would the average person, applying contemporary community standards find that the material:
I'm not saying we should crack down on sex in advertising, per se. I think marketing as a whole needs to be revamped, but that's for another article. What angers me about this situation is the double standard. Big corporations can get away with lascivious content in their advertising, but individuals who want to make a private video or have sexual photographs taken of them for fun, and to earn a bit of extra cash, have to pay money to post their services, disclosing their credit card information, with no refund if their post is flagged.
This just seems ridiculous to me.
Nevermind that erotic services are part of the greatness of Craigslist - many women across the country rely on supplemental income from masturbating in front of a camera, and many men across the country rely on dirty videos and photographs for their source of nookie.
Nevermind that a Supreme Court ruling on Miller v. California defined pornography in such a way that most advertising contains pornographic content, as outlined below:(http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/851.html#12)
1. Would the average person, applying contemporary community standards find that the material:
- when taken as a whole,
- appeals to a prurient interest in sex (i.e., an erotic, lascivious, degrading, unhealthy, morbid interest)?
2. Would the average person find the material depicts or describes:
- sexual conduct (i.e., ultimate sex acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, lewd exhibition of the genitals, excretory functions, sadism, and masochism)
- in a patently offensive way?
AND
3. Would a reasonable person find the material:
- as a whole,
- lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value?
I'm not saying we should crack down on sex in advertising, per se. I think marketing as a whole needs to be revamped, but that's for another article. What angers me about this situation is the double standard. Big corporations can get away with lascivious content in their advertising, but individuals who want to make a private video or have sexual photographs taken of them for fun, and to earn a bit of extra cash, have to pay money to post their services, disclosing their credit card information, with no refund if their post is flagged.
This just seems ridiculous to me.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Bush Era: A Retrospective. Pt 1 - 2000-2004
It's coming to an end. I know that most of you are excited. It's almost palpable, like an entire nation (or at least 70% of it) waiting to breathe that big sigh of relief. Regardless of your feelings on Obama (my own are mixed), the excitement about this is incredible. I have friends that plan on burning photographs of Bush (including one who's lived under the Rule of a Bush throughout a lot of her lifetime - she's from texas). Big parties planned for late January...
And, in honor of this momentous occasion, a look back at the Bush administration! I promise to do my best to make this entertaining... and keep in mind that this is hardly comprehensive. I'm just trying to stick to the most outrageous and major events of the bush era.
Remember the 2000 GOP primaries? Ah, the salad days (kinda sad that I look back on the late 90's and pre-9/11 2000's as a good time, but by comparison...), our nation finally had a balanced budget, we felt completely secure in our military and financial dominance, and the Republican candidate who seemed the sanest was John McCain (oh, how times change!). Along comes W, boasting a record of bipartisanship in Texas and... not much else. Tax cuts! We'll all get big tax cuts (assuming we make over $250,000!), whee!
So, Bush edges out McCain by pandering to the Religious Right (which McCain, still at the time in possession of some principles, did not do), and running robocalls about his main rival which suggested that McCain had fathered an Illegitimate African-American baby (Karl Rove really is a sadistic bastard, huh?).
On to the big campaign! How to beat Gore? Well, distortion always helps - Gore championed and helped pass a bill that transformed the military computer system ARPAnet into the civilian version, the internet, and claimed his small part in the creation of this communications tool. So... "GORE SAYS HE INVENTED THE INTERNET! Oh, that big fat liar!"
Or at least, something along those lines.
Other ways to beat Gore: be a better debater, and criticize his foreign policy. Bush, in his defense, did a pretty decent job in the debates. He would have kicked his own ass only 4 years later, but let's not get ahead of ourselves... anyway, here's an entertaining video of the George Bush we forgot existed.
But you know what? That was not enough, as we now know. Theft is the surefire way to win an election. This is done by purging voters you are sure will not vote for your candidate. Typically you can tell them by the color of their skin, but that is not the only way to tell if someone is a dirty liberal....
in any case: "If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a "scrub list" of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties." http://www.gregpalast.com/floridas-flawed-voter-cleansing-program-saloncoms-politics-story-of-the-year/more-937
Voters were purged en mass in Florida. Because of how our electoral system works, it is not necessary to steal the elections in every state (as there are 50 separate elections when we vote for the President)- just sway it in a few influential swing states. The Bush team did this brilliantly in 2000 with Florida.
Inauguration day, 2001:
The next months were fairly uneventful. Senator James Jeffords switched from Republican to Independent, sighting the "intolerant, rightward thrust" of the GOP in recent years, giving the Democrats a one-seat majority over the Republicans.
Summer, 2001: The FAA recieves 52 seperate warnings of Al-Queda planning to hijack airlines. This is in addition to warnings that the Bush administration recieved from Russia, France, England, Israeli Mossad, and at least 6 other international intelligence agencies.
September 11th, 2001...
...you know the rest.
Within 2 hours of the buildings collapsing, Military and ex-military officials are pointing the finger of blame at Osama Bin Ladin on mainstream news outlets.
Here, I've got to step aside and say: Since when do we know the culprit of a murder within 2 hours of the murder? A simple murder investigation takes much longer, let along the murder of 3,000 people.
As for the rest of 9/11, I'll leave it to section 2 of Zeitgeist.
October, 2001: While Congress is in a panic over the Anthrax scare, the Bush administration pushes through a bill to 'help us combat terrorism.' In a display of what I would call fake patriotism (not to mention childishness), it's called the USA PATRIOT ACT. It restricts many of our constitutional rights and civil liberties (1st amendment - restricted. 4th, 5th amendments - also restricted), and the passage of the bill was almost unanimous (only Senator Russell Feingold was with the terrorists that day, saying that he would like to have time to READ something before voting on it).
The Department of Homeland Security. Another layer of beaurocracy, we are told, will prevent further terrorist acts. Government Agencies such as FEMA now report to the DHS.
The assault on Afghanistan begins. NBC news reported in May 2002 that a formal National Security Presidential Directive submitted two days before September 11, 2001 had outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, including outlines to persuade Afghanistan's Taliban government to turn al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden over to the United States, with provisions to use military force if it refused. (Source: Wikipedia. Yeah, I was lazy on this one)
Interesting Side note on afghanistan - before the Soviet-Afghan war, it produced none of the world's heroin supply. By the late 80's, after the CIA/ISI trained Mujahadeen had victory, they produced 40%. By 1999, 80%. Then the taliban rose to power, and they were vicious and brutal, a regular medival army, but they destroyed 94% of the poppy fields in Afghanistan. After the US invasion, Afghanistan is once again producing over 80% of the world's opium supply. Interestingly, planting season for opium poppies is November - when we succeeded in "liberating" the nation... Opium production levels vastly increased after the US invasion http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2361453.stm Opium production is one of the easiest ways to make money in that country http://opioids.com/afghanistan/opium-economy.html
Guantanamo Bay: starting shortly after the invasion of afghanistan "enemy combatants" are housed in a prison of the Naval base at guantanamo bay, cuba. Enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding take place starting in 2002. Bush claims that Geneva convention regulations on the treatment of prisoners do not apply to enemy combatants.
January, 2002: Bush Signs No Child Left Behind into law. More accurately titled "No Child's Behind Left." Bush Blocks public inquiry into the attacks of 9/11. Reason? We don't want the terrorists to know how we gather information.
Also in January - The John Yoo Torture memo! John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General (now a Professor at UC Berkeley, which refuses to fire him despite public outcry) writes a memo which says the 4th amendment does not apply to the war on terror. He also states that the President can authorize any action at all as commander-in-chief in wartime.
March, 2002 - NSA Warrantless Wiretapping program begins
September, 2002: Iraq: the new Vietnam. Condoleeza Rice says we don't want the smoking gun of evidence in regards to Iraqi WMDs to come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Faulty intelligence in regards to what Iraq is doing: Colin Powell claims that metal cyllanders are clear evidence that saddam is building WMDs.
November, 2002: Bush finally allows an investigation into 9/11, though hardly an independent one. Initial budget: $3 million. Original proposed head of 9/11 Investigation: Henry Kissinger (you know, that guy that helped overthrow the democratically elected President of Chili on September 11, 1973). Kissinger resigns after it is discovered that his firm, Kissinger and Associates, represents members of the Bin Ladin family. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/kissinger.resigns/
2003: "Nigerian Yellowcake." "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is trying to reconstitute Nuclear Weapons." UN Inspectors beg for more time to search. Denied. Bombing begins in March - "Shock and Awe"
March 2003-Present: Construction Companies such as Halliburton reap massive profits off of "No-Bid" contracts, with "Cost-Plus" incentives - meaning that for whatever they buy, the government will pay the entire bill plus give them a percentage of the cost. Now THAT'S a deal! But they only did high quality projects, right?
....hmmm.... maybe not.
May - "Mission Accomplished." End of Major Combat Operations!
July - Insurgency. Mission Un-Accomplished? Bush seems unruffled: "Bring em on." Joseph Wilson blows whistle on WMD claims. His wife, Valarie Plame, is outed as an undercover CIA officer. Controversy ensues - "Scooter" to take the fall for it, but that comes later. I think this is the last I'll mention of it, however.
August to the new year - Insurgency rages on. Apparently, people don't like occupying armies, no matter how bad their former leaders were. Who knew?
April, 2004: Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse comes to light
People see these photos and start to wonder about Guantanomo bay a little bit more.
October, 2004 - Debates with Presidential Contender John Kerry. Kerry supporters say he whoops Bush. Bush supporters say otherwise. Kerry manages to somehow be more dull and robotic than Al Gore was in 2000.
November, 2004 - Ohio is 'Floridated.' Voter purging, caging lists, a lack of voting machines in heavily liberal districts, extremely hackable voting machines, etc. 4 to 8 Hour lines to vote. Bush declares victory...
To Be Continued in Pt II: Drive the country like you stole it (2004-2008)
And, in honor of this momentous occasion, a look back at the Bush administration! I promise to do my best to make this entertaining... and keep in mind that this is hardly comprehensive. I'm just trying to stick to the most outrageous and major events of the bush era.
Remember the 2000 GOP primaries? Ah, the salad days (kinda sad that I look back on the late 90's and pre-9/11 2000's as a good time, but by comparison...), our nation finally had a balanced budget, we felt completely secure in our military and financial dominance, and the Republican candidate who seemed the sanest was John McCain (oh, how times change!). Along comes W, boasting a record of bipartisanship in Texas and... not much else. Tax cuts! We'll all get big tax cuts (assuming we make over $250,000!), whee!
So, Bush edges out McCain by pandering to the Religious Right (which McCain, still at the time in possession of some principles, did not do), and running robocalls about his main rival which suggested that McCain had fathered an Illegitimate African-American baby (Karl Rove really is a sadistic bastard, huh?).
On to the big campaign! How to beat Gore? Well, distortion always helps - Gore championed and helped pass a bill that transformed the military computer system ARPAnet into the civilian version, the internet, and claimed his small part in the creation of this communications tool. So... "GORE SAYS HE INVENTED THE INTERNET! Oh, that big fat liar!"
Or at least, something along those lines.
Other ways to beat Gore: be a better debater, and criticize his foreign policy. Bush, in his defense, did a pretty decent job in the debates. He would have kicked his own ass only 4 years later, but let's not get ahead of ourselves... anyway, here's an entertaining video of the George Bush we forgot existed.
But you know what? That was not enough, as we now know. Theft is the surefire way to win an election. This is done by purging voters you are sure will not vote for your candidate. Typically you can tell them by the color of their skin, but that is not the only way to tell if someone is a dirty liberal....
in any case: "If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a "scrub list" of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties." http://www.gregpalast.com/floridas-flawed-voter-cleansing-program-saloncoms-politics-story-of-the-year/more-937
Voters were purged en mass in Florida. Because of how our electoral system works, it is not necessary to steal the elections in every state (as there are 50 separate elections when we vote for the President)- just sway it in a few influential swing states. The Bush team did this brilliantly in 2000 with Florida.
Inauguration day, 2001:
The next months were fairly uneventful. Senator James Jeffords switched from Republican to Independent, sighting the "intolerant, rightward thrust" of the GOP in recent years, giving the Democrats a one-seat majority over the Republicans.
Summer, 2001: The FAA recieves 52 seperate warnings of Al-Queda planning to hijack airlines. This is in addition to warnings that the Bush administration recieved from Russia, France, England, Israeli Mossad, and at least 6 other international intelligence agencies.
September 11th, 2001...
...you know the rest.
Within 2 hours of the buildings collapsing, Military and ex-military officials are pointing the finger of blame at Osama Bin Ladin on mainstream news outlets.
Here, I've got to step aside and say: Since when do we know the culprit of a murder within 2 hours of the murder? A simple murder investigation takes much longer, let along the murder of 3,000 people.
As for the rest of 9/11, I'll leave it to section 2 of Zeitgeist.
October, 2001: While Congress is in a panic over the Anthrax scare, the Bush administration pushes through a bill to 'help us combat terrorism.' In a display of what I would call fake patriotism (not to mention childishness), it's called the USA PATRIOT ACT. It restricts many of our constitutional rights and civil liberties (1st amendment - restricted. 4th, 5th amendments - also restricted), and the passage of the bill was almost unanimous (only Senator Russell Feingold was with the terrorists that day, saying that he would like to have time to READ something before voting on it).
The Department of Homeland Security. Another layer of beaurocracy, we are told, will prevent further terrorist acts. Government Agencies such as FEMA now report to the DHS.
The assault on Afghanistan begins. NBC news reported in May 2002 that a formal National Security Presidential Directive submitted two days before September 11, 2001 had outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, including outlines to persuade Afghanistan's Taliban government to turn al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden over to the United States, with provisions to use military force if it refused. (Source: Wikipedia. Yeah, I was lazy on this one)
Interesting Side note on afghanistan - before the Soviet-Afghan war, it produced none of the world's heroin supply. By the late 80's, after the CIA/ISI trained Mujahadeen had victory, they produced 40%. By 1999, 80%. Then the taliban rose to power, and they were vicious and brutal, a regular medival army, but they destroyed 94% of the poppy fields in Afghanistan. After the US invasion, Afghanistan is once again producing over 80% of the world's opium supply. Interestingly, planting season for opium poppies is November - when we succeeded in "liberating" the nation... Opium production levels vastly increased after the US invasion http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2361453.stm Opium production is one of the easiest ways to make money in that country http://opioids.com/afghanistan/opium-economy.html
Guantanamo Bay: starting shortly after the invasion of afghanistan "enemy combatants" are housed in a prison of the Naval base at guantanamo bay, cuba. Enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding take place starting in 2002. Bush claims that Geneva convention regulations on the treatment of prisoners do not apply to enemy combatants.
January, 2002: Bush Signs No Child Left Behind into law. More accurately titled "No Child's Behind Left." Bush Blocks public inquiry into the attacks of 9/11. Reason? We don't want the terrorists to know how we gather information.
Also in January - The John Yoo Torture memo! John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General (now a Professor at UC Berkeley, which refuses to fire him despite public outcry) writes a memo which says the 4th amendment does not apply to the war on terror. He also states that the President can authorize any action at all as commander-in-chief in wartime.
March, 2002 - NSA Warrantless Wiretapping program begins
September, 2002: Iraq: the new Vietnam. Condoleeza Rice says we don't want the smoking gun of evidence in regards to Iraqi WMDs to come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Faulty intelligence in regards to what Iraq is doing: Colin Powell claims that metal cyllanders are clear evidence that saddam is building WMDs.
November, 2002: Bush finally allows an investigation into 9/11, though hardly an independent one. Initial budget: $3 million. Original proposed head of 9/11 Investigation: Henry Kissinger (you know, that guy that helped overthrow the democratically elected President of Chili on September 11, 1973). Kissinger resigns after it is discovered that his firm, Kissinger and Associates, represents members of the Bin Ladin family. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/kissinger.resigns/
2003: "Nigerian Yellowcake." "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is trying to reconstitute Nuclear Weapons." UN Inspectors beg for more time to search. Denied. Bombing begins in March - "Shock and Awe"
March 2003-Present: Construction Companies such as Halliburton reap massive profits off of "No-Bid" contracts, with "Cost-Plus" incentives - meaning that for whatever they buy, the government will pay the entire bill plus give them a percentage of the cost. Now THAT'S a deal! But they only did high quality projects, right?
....hmmm.... maybe not.
May - "Mission Accomplished." End of Major Combat Operations!
July - Insurgency. Mission Un-Accomplished? Bush seems unruffled: "Bring em on." Joseph Wilson blows whistle on WMD claims. His wife, Valarie Plame, is outed as an undercover CIA officer. Controversy ensues - "Scooter" to take the fall for it, but that comes later. I think this is the last I'll mention of it, however.
August to the new year - Insurgency rages on. Apparently, people don't like occupying armies, no matter how bad their former leaders were. Who knew?
April, 2004: Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse comes to light
People see these photos and start to wonder about Guantanomo bay a little bit more.
October, 2004 - Debates with Presidential Contender John Kerry. Kerry supporters say he whoops Bush. Bush supporters say otherwise. Kerry manages to somehow be more dull and robotic than Al Gore was in 2000.
November, 2004 - Ohio is 'Floridated.' Voter purging, caging lists, a lack of voting machines in heavily liberal districts, extremely hackable voting machines, etc. 4 to 8 Hour lines to vote. Bush declares victory...
To Be Continued in Pt II: Drive the country like you stole it (2004-2008)
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