Formula 1 Supports Torture

I don't know if many in the US have noticed, but the premier world-wide auto-racing series has just rescheduled its race in Bahrain for later this year.  It was rather inconveinently scheduled for last March.  But, now that the princes of Bahrain have tortured and beaten and murdered their population into some sort of quiet, F1 has now quickly proclaimed the rescheduling of the race.

Anyone who's ever been around motor racing knows that a race can't take place without a lot of hard work from people who work at the track.  There is both long preparation by the employees of the track before the first race hauler and fan RV arrives at that track, as well as usually a big volunteer effort to staff the track for the race weekend.

The following is an account from the Independent (UK) of how the track workers in Bahrain have been treated. This is what F1 supports.  The beating and torture of the people who work hard to put on a race in order to please some billionaire oil-prince.  Formula One has said quite clearly that only billionaire oil princes count.

'At around 7pm he was told to strip naked and was again beaten severely'

This is the account of one Shia member of staff at the Bahrain International Circuit, which hosts the Grand Prix, who was arrested in April. Still suffering from injuries inflicted by his interrogators, he has now left the country. He wishes to remain anonymous and is referred to as AB throughout:

"AB's ordeal began when three cars full of security forces arrived at the BIC offices on the morning of 7 April. They went floor by floor searching for people whose names were on their list. When they arrived at the floor of AB's office, they called out his name. They immediately took him away, beating him as they went along the corridor. At least 23 other BIC staff were arrested that day, he says.

The motor race employees were blindfolded and handcuffed using electric cable and were taken to Riffa West police station. Once there, they were led to a room where the group were all beaten with sticks and cables for hours. They were accused of having celebrated the fact that the Formula One had been cancelled earlier in the year. AB denies this, saying that as an employee of BIC, he depends for his livelihood on the events held at BIC, particularly the Formula One.

AB was taken to an interrogation room. He was interrogated about the number of times he went to Pearl Roundabout, the centre of pro-democracy protests. He said he had been there twice, but the officer forced him to say that he had been there 20 times. At one point an officer put AB's head between his legs and flipped his body over, and he lost consciousness. Beatings continued.

The verbal abuse he experienced was full of anti-Shia sectarian hatred. The officers called him "son of muta'a" – a temporary marriage permitted in Shia Islam – and "son of a bitch". At around 7pm he was told to strip naked and was again beaten severely. The cable around his hands became extremely tight because of severe swelling.

The police station was over-flowing with at least 20 people sleeping on the floor in one cell with barely enough space to lie down. They were not given blankets and the air-conditioning was kept very low so it was too cold to sleep.

This treatment lasted for three days until they were transferred to Dry Dock prison, beatings continuing all the while. At Dry Dock the situation was much better and there was no more torture. AB was given sun cream and told to sit in the sun so that injuries from his torture wounds could heal.

He was freed after 20 days and told to sign papers banning him from talking to the media.

Today his hands tremble and he suffers from numbness in his arms as well as anxiety attacks and paranoia.

BTW, F1 is planning a return to the US at a new track in Texas in June, 2012. Seems like any who support democracy and who oppose torture and murder should start planning a protest to let them know that we do not want these people in the USA.

(Update: 06-05-11)
Max Mosley is the former head of the FIA, which is the official body that sanctions F1 races as being legit.  This is what he has to say about F1 going back to Bahrain this year.

"Why is this different to running an event in any number of countries where people are oppressed, kept in poverty, held without trial and mistreated (or worse) in prison?

"Surely the line has to be drawn when a sporting event is not mere entertainment in a less-than-perfect country, but is being used by an oppressive regime to camouflage its actions.

"If a sport accepts this role, it becomes a tool of government. If Formula One allows itself to be used in this way in Bahrain, it will share the regime's guilt as surely as if it went out and helped brutalise unarmed protesters."

He continued: "Having carried out these horrific acts, the Bahrain government wants to clean up its image. That's where the grand prix comes in.

"By running the race they hope to show the world the troubles were just a small, temporary difficulty and everything is now back to normal.

"By agreeing to race there, Formula One becomes complicit in what has happened. It becomes one of the Bahrain government's instruments of repression.

"The decision to hold the race is a mistake which will not be forgotten and, if not reversed, will eventually cost Formula One dear."

And that's from a son of wartime British fascist leader who likes to dress up in Nazi uniforms and play S&M games.  Even he sees that this is a horrible mistake.

As an example of what America's image has become in the civilized world, discussions on F1 forums about whether races should be held in country's with less than perfect human rights records invariably mention the United States in the same breath as Bahrain, China, and Singapore as human rights abusers which also host (or will soon be hosting in 2012) F1 Grand Prix.

Our Hearts Would Break

War Against War: A Meditation on Bradley Manning’s Mind by Scott Tucker via Truthdig.com

If we contemplated these fields of dead soldiers without illusions, our hearts would break and we might go mad; if we recognized at long last the greed and presumption of the ruling class, then we might hear and know the real burden of these words, which the poet Wilfrid Owen wrote before dying as a soldier and an officer in World War I:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est,
Pro patria mori.

[Editor’s note: The Latin phrase translates roughly as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”]

One example of war, real-time, and shorn of all illusions.  Its rumored that we can see this video because of the actions of Mr. Bradley Manning.


Rally, June 4th, in Leavenworth, KS in support of Mr. Manning.

Back to Scott Tucker's article, I don't know who Susie Day is, but I think I'd like her. :)

Concluding that Manning “was probably not fit for overseas duty” is breathtaking! Yes, this oracular wisdom comes from “progressive” venues such as “Frontline” and The Guardian, and was then paraphrased on Truthdig. As Susie Day, a lesbian writer who is no friend of empire, wrote to me, “The whole fakakta-osity of this b’cast wasn’t only showing Manning as infantilized and unstable; look at the ‘friends’ they got to talk about him—and his father’s the one who belongs in prison; he obviously has such contempt for a kid who, surrounded by such dolts, did well to survive.” Manning has indeed done more practical good in the fight against war and empire than the great majority of “pragmatic” bleeding hearts will ever do by voting as instructed by MSNBC, The Nation and deadbeat Democrats in Washington.

There's so much in that one paragraph. Begin with the small town idiocy of sending a troubled kid into the Army during wartime because "he needed structure." My own personal bias would be that Mr. Manning might have had a much happier life if a hippie bus on its way to a Phish show had wandered into his town and if he'd gotten on that bus and gone far, far away. But then again, because of the path he was pushed along, Mr. Manning did indeed strike the most substantial blow against war and empire of my generation. Or at least that's what the military is telling us. But, since no good deed goes unpunished in this world, because of that he's been psychologically tortured and is now held in a cell in Leavenworth.

Underneath this all lie the concepts of Democracy and Freedom. Those concepts in who's name we bomb Libya, Iraq, and on some days it seems like half the world. Democracy is a guarantee of Freedom. Democracy is the concept that power resides with the people, and thus the people have the power to guarantee their freedom. Democracy requires information. If government officials hide the truth about our wars behind a veil of secrecy, then they are usurping power from the people. When officials decide what the people know and don't know, they become the rulers and make the citizenry ignorant and powerless.

If Mr. Bradley Manning did what he is accused of doing, then he struck a blow for Freedom and Democracy. He enabled our Democracy to have a chance at functioning by letting the people know at least a few of the secrets, and in doing so letting the people have a chance to make democratic decisions about the policies of our nation that they otherwise could not make if the secrets had stayed secret. My own vision of a free and democratic America would be one where Mr. Manning would be receiving our highest awards and medals for his courageous acts in the defense of freedom. Instead, he's locked away in prison.

Scott Tucker's closing words are too good, too true, and too powerful to ignore.

War against war does not mean we volunteer to be shot down by offering the government the provocation of taking up weapons. Violence is an abyss, and we do not show courage by jumping into an open grave. Resistance, however, can take a thousand forms that do not depend on brute force. The war against war must therefore be grounded in ethics, and guided by daily enlightenment. War against war means this government can no longer depend—smugly and brutally—on the uncontested consent of the governed.

A class-conscious struggle against the corporate state is also a struggle against war and empire. If this government makes the free election of real democrats and of socialists impossible, then we, the people, have the right and duty to elect ourselves as public citizens; and to begin creating a new republic founded upon peace, social wealth, ethical obligation, ecological sanity, and the solidarity of labor across all borders. Every workplace is potentially a free council of workers; every street and neighborhood is potentially a public space of freedom.

In Europe, many thousands of working people have already taken to the streets against the austerity programs imposed by parties of the earnest right and the bogus left. What we may call the political warm spring in Europe may yet become a hot summer. In Greece, workers and students waged a general strike, and in Spain they still occupy public squares—recently braving an assault by riot police swinging shields and truncheons against citizens who peacefully linked arms in a mass sit-down protest in Barcelona. We, too, have a history of urban general strikes in this country, and of class-conscious struggles against war and corporate rule. This government depends on our obedience, but our lives depend on open rebellion. Start small and start now.

Remember, the 'anti-war movement' has already won the hearts and minds of America. Depending on the wording of the poll question and the particular war about which its being asked, somewhere between 55% to 70% of Americans want these wars to end as soon as reasonably possible. The problem in America is that our democracy apparently is failing to function, as these beliefs are not reflected in our government. What America needs is not an anti-war movement, but a democracy movement. Are there any cool colors left unclaimed?

Racing Gods?

I seem to be the rare lefty who likes auto racing. My background is engineering, and to me, a major automobile race is a fascinating contest of engineering between large teams. The teams have engineering projects due with a hard and fast deadline. The date and time of the race is set, and the teams have to be ready. A different world from software where being months late on a project seemed to be considered normal.

Thus, I enjoy spending the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend watching the big auto races.

Now, one of the things I do is that I usually root against all the military sponsored cars. NASCAR is the worst, as there are usually multiple cars sponsored by wings of the military. And in IndyCar, there's been a National Guard sponsored car for the last few years.

At Indy this year, the National Guard car was leading the race on the last lap. A rookie who seems to be a very good driver named J.R. Hildebrand looked like he was going to win the Indy 500 on his first try. A rather remarkable feat. But, then in the last corner of the last lap, he made a rookie mistake. And it was one that sent his car crashing into the wall. He was so close to the finish when he hit the wall that he still finished second as his car slid across the finish line.


I feel bad for the kid. But, unless this makes him a head case, he looks good enough that he'll get another chance to win. But, I do have to admit that I had a smile on my face as I realized the National Guard car wasn't going to win.

Then, that night, the NASCAR boys were racing their 600 mile race at Charlotte. And again, in the last lap, the car sponsored by the National Guard was leading the race. And again, in the final corner, the car ran out of fuel and lost the lead. This time Dale Earnhardt Jr was the driver. He was in the lead because he'd gambled on having fuel left when the more prudent drivers had stopped to top up.

But, still, I couldn't help but notice that in both races, a car with National Guard logos on it seemed to be about to win the race, but then suddenly had a problem at the last turn on the track and failed to win.

Could it be that there's a God in heaven looking down? Could it be that this God can see how many young men and women might be lured into joining the military if this car won the race? Can this God see how many are going to die and never come back home? Can this God see how many are going to be maimed and wounded? Can this God see how many will come back psychologically scarred because of what they have to do?

Once was interesting. But to watch two cars sponsored by the National Guard both have sudden problems in the last corner of the last lap of the race does make one wonder if God looked down from heaven and decided that the lives of many young people might just be better off if these cars didn't win these races.

Over the next few weeks, if you see pictures of the winning car of the Indianapolis 500 and the Charlotte 600, what you won't be seeing is a recruiting ad for the National Guard.

Do They Still Believe We Care What They Think?

Who cares in the Middle East what Obama says? by Robert Fisk in The Independent

While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual – the Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed. Obama waffled on about change in the Middle East – and about America's new role in the region. It was pathetic. "What is this 'role' thing?" an Egyptian friend asked me at the weekend. "Do they still believe we care about what they think?"

And it is true. Obama's failure to support the Arab revolutions until they were all but over lost the US most of its surviving credit in the region. Obama was silent on the overthrow of Ben Ali, only joined in the chorus of contempt for Mubarak two days before his flight, condemned the Syrian regime – which has killed more of its people than any other dynasty in this Arab "spring", save for the frightful Gaddafi – but makes it clear that he would be happy to see Assad survive, waves his puny fist at puny Bahrain's cruelty and remains absolutely, stunningly silent over Saudi Arabia. And he goes on his knees before Israel. Is it any wonder, then, that Arabs are turning their backs on America, not out of fury or anger, nor with threats or violence, but with contempt? It is the Arabs and their fellow Muslims of the Middle East who are themselves now making the decisions.

Gee, I wonder how long it will take the geniuses in Washington to figure out that no one in the Middle East is even listening to them any more. Given the US track record in places like Vietnam and Iraq, probably a long, bloody decade or more. These guys ain't so quick, and they tend to kill lots of people with their mistakes and misconceptions.

Happy Memorial Day

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/warprayer.html

The War Prayer

by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

---

===================================
Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his publisher, and was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts.

 It was first published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine's anthology, Europe and Elsewhere.The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed.

See Jim Zwick's page "Mark Twain on the Philippines" for more of Twain's writings on the subject.
Transcribed by Steven Orso (snorso@facstaff.wisc.edu)

You've Been Robbed

Think politics doesn't matter? That you can just ignore politics and go do something else?

Do you wish you could buy a Congress to do this for you? Can you tell we've shifted from a 'one-person-one-vote' system to a 'one-dollar-one-vote system?

Impeach Obama

The Libyan Itty-Bitty, Kind of, Sort of, Quasi War by Doug Bandow at NationalInterest.org

Many presidents have been lawyers. Barack Obama is one of the few to have been a constitutional law professor. But he is no less ready to violate the Constitution.

President Obama took the country into war against Libya without a declaration of war. He continues to bombard Libya contrary to the War Powers Resolution. He has compounded one of America’s stupidest wars by making it indisputably illegal.

Let's make it real simple. "Regime Change" = "War".

If one King decides another King shouldn't be on his throne, and sends his army to go kick him off his throne, then that's a war.

If the two King's can sit and settle a dispute between them, then maybe that isn't a war. Maybe that was just a 'border dispute' that can be resolved by the Kings. But when the King of one country says the only solution is for the King of the other country to be gone, and that there can't be peace short of that, then that's a war. Sending your armies to achieve "regime change" is a "war".

President Obama speaking at a press conference in Britain...

"I believe that we have built enough momentum that, as long as we sustain the course we are on, he (Gaddafi) will step down. Ultimately this is going to be a slow, steady process in which we are able to wear down the regime forces."

Mr Cameron added that there was no future for the country - which has seen two months of intense fighting between pro and anti-government forces - with Col Gaddafi in power, and he should step down.

"The president and I agree we should be turning up the heat in Libya," he said, adding that "all options" for intensifying the pressure on the regime were being considered. -- BBC News

The United States is at war with Libya. The war is illegal. There is no Declaration of War, even though Congress would certainly give one if President Obama asked Prime Minister Netanyahu to ask Congress to do so. The War Powers Act allows the President to engage in military action for the long period of 60 days, but then requires the President to either have withdrawn from the fighting or to have obtained Congressional approval for the action. Neither has happened.

The President of the United States has violated the law and the constitution, and done so in a way the founding fathers would have considered quite serious.

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
— James Madison (Letters and Other Writings of James Madison)

This is why James Madison, as one of the primary authors of the US Constitution, was so careful to put the power of a Declaration of War clearly in the hands of the US Congress. This is not a small technicality that's being violated. This is one of the fundamental guarantees of freedom and liberty in this land being thrown away. The President is not to have the power to launch wars by himself. It takes a vote of the people's representatives in Congress. That's not a technicality, that's liberty. As the protesters chant, that is what democracy looks like. Well, in a real democracy it would take a referendum approved by the people to go to war. But, at the very least, that's what a republic should look like.

The President of the United States has begun an illegal war. Mr. Madison provided a remedy for that as well.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Since Mr. Madison regarded war as the most dreaded threat to the public liberties that his generation has just fought and died to win, it does seem rather likely that he would regard a President launching an illegal war without the approval of Congress as an impeachable offense.

Does Israel have nuclear weapons?

by Sam Husseini and Washington Stakeout

Here's the thing. Everyone knows Israel has nuclear weapons. They openly threaten the "Samson Option" to destroy enemies or the whole world if they are threatened. One of their less-successful prime ministers even said it openly.

"Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons as America, France, Israel, Russia?" --Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

And, here's the real kicker, under US law, the US would have to suspend aid to Israel were it found that Israel has a 'roque' nuclear weapons program. That's the non-proliferation policy of the United States.

Thus leading to this rather funny video of watching many high ranking Americans go to great lengths not to be caught on video acknowledging that Israel has nuclear weapons.

US Senate debates Mubarak Law

Senate debates president’s power during cyber-attack

In Egypt, as the protest started to erupt and spread, the first thing President Mubarak did was to shut off internet communications.

That must have made Washington jealous. Now we are seeing a debate over how much new power our President should have to do his own Mubarak.

You know you are hearing BS when Sen. Lieberman is saying we need a sweeping new law because the one the administration is using old and archaic and dates back to WWII. Sen. Lieberman was of course the Senator who originally was pushing for an open Mubarak Kill Switch on the US internet, until public outcry made him backpedal. Now it sounds like they are trying to do something similar, but more subtly, by giving the President power to respond to a 'cyber-attack'. With this spin of 'we need to replace an outdated law' as cover and smoke.

Personally, I could deal with the power grid going down for a day. Or, at least I'm willing to risk it in order to have some semblance of civil liberties. So, I go sit on the porch and listen to the birds for a day instead of playing on the computer. Big deal. In fact, I did that last summer. It wasn't from a 'cyber-attack'. Instead, the local power company decided to accidently blow up a transformer station and I was out of power for a day. Went for a walk instead. I survived, and it wasn't a big deal.

I'd rather risk living without electricity for a day than risk giving the President the authority to do his own Mubarak on the American people.

John Kerry's War

When speaking to people on the left, John Kerry likes to remind people of his opposition to the Vietnam war. He likes to remind people of his "winter soldier" days when he was an activist against wars.

When you hear a politician talking about what they did 40 years ago, beware. The reason they are talking about what happened 40 years ago is because they don't want you to know what they are doing today.

John Kerry, the winter soldier, has turned into one of Washington's old men who tells younger men to go die for their useless wars. When the US violates its own laws and its own Constitution to go fight yet another war in Libya, its John Kerry who's up in Washington DC making sure one more person dies for his wars. And then another. And then another.

Who will be the last man to die for John Kerry's wars? And will they be as pissed about the idea as John Kerry was back in the days when he wasn't an evil old man ordering younger men to die?

When you hear some Democrat telling you they were a decent, caring human 40 years ago, you should be asking what's happened to them since? You should be asking why are you trying to BS me with stories from 40 years ago?

Who's in Charge Here?

Netanyahu's real message to Congress: There will be no peace talks from Christian Science Monitor

I saw some of Netanyahu's speech to the joint session of Congress.  There was one thing that was obvious.

When the President speaks to Congress, only half the Congress stands and applauds.
When the Prime Minister of Israel speaks to Congress, the entire Congress stands and applauds.

If it seems our government pays more attention to the interests of Israel than the interests of Americans, then its our own damn fault.  We've made two mistakes.  The first was that we let our elections be driven and controlled by money.  We've allowed money such access to our democratic processes that it now seems to dominate all else.  The second mistake is that we've gone to the polls and consistently voted for candidates that take money from Israel's backers and who openly say that they strongly support the interests of Israel.

We elected these fools.

We get a chance to change this every two years.  Here's two things to look for. Look for candidates that strongly support campaign finance reform, and especially public financing of elections.  And, don't vote for candidates that take money from pro-Israel PACs and who openly support Israel. Hint, the people applauding Netanyahu fail both tests.

This speech was a call for war.  It said peace can only be had on Israel's terms.  Israel does not recognize the right of an independent Palestinian state to exist.  Israel does not recognize the right of Palestinians to defend themselves.  Israel has long laid down these markers as pre-conditions to any peace talks.  Israel has always insisted that their state be recognized and that their need to defend themselves be recognized.  Surely its obvious that if they won't do the same, there can not be peace.

Did He Really Say That? The Obama Edition.

Obama vows pressure on Iran's nuclear plans

"So we will continue to work to prevent these actions, and we will stand up to groups like Hezbollah, who exercise political assassination and seek to impose their will through rockets and car bombs," said Obama.

This from the same man who just sat and watched his own death squads assasinate Osama Bin Laden. And, who also used his own 'rockets' to try to assasinate Qhaddafi, but missed and killed his son instead.

And of course, remember that there have been mysterious car bombs going off in Iran for the last few years while US Special Forces work inside the country and Congress funds 'regime change' there.

I hope Tehran TV has their own equivalent of Jon Stewart, because surely the only response to this is laughter.

Of course, this wasn't the only portion of this speech that made an easy target for satire.

Obama also pointed to Iranian "hypocrisy" in "claiming to support the rights of protesters while treating its own people with brutality."

Meanwhile, the US 'friends' in the region are brutally suppressing any protests in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Israel shot and killed 16 Nakba protesters, and wounded hundreds, to the open cheers and approval of the Obama White House.

And of course, Obama's FBI and federal grand juries are busy going after people in the US who dare to protest against Obama's wars.

If Obama was Pinochio, the Secret Service would be having to cut away doors and walls in every room so the man's giant nose could fit.

Are you really going to vote for him again?

Strauss-Kahn Screws Africa

Strauss-Kahn Screws Africa by Greg Palast

The Times article quotes an IMF crony of Strauss-Kahn saying DSK gets his way by "persuasion" not "bullying." Tell that to the Greeks.

It was DSK who, last year, personally insisted on brutal terms for the so-called bail-out of Greece. "Strong conditionality" is the IMF term. Strauss-Kahn demanded not just a devastating cut in pensions and a deliberate increase in unemployment to 14%, but also the sell-off of 4,000 of 6,000 state-owned services. The DSK IMF plan allowed the financiers who set the financial fires of Greece to pick up the nation's assets at a fire-sale price.

I still tend to tell people that Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" is the best book to read to understand the world today. In that book, she describes the deliberate targetting of 'state' or 'public' assets. These are things that have value, and have been built up by the people of an area over time. And these have been targetted by financiers who want to make easy money for at least 40 years now.

The scam that Ms. Klein traces all the way back to at least Pinochet's Chile in the early 1970's goes like this. There is some sort of crisis. At first, these were from outside causes, but once the financiers realized the usefulness of a crisis as cover for their robberies, they also appear to have become good at causing the crisis. As a solution to the 'crisis', its presented to the people that they must sell off the assets they own in their public or state companies. And that this has to occur quickly and at prices far below what they are worth.

All around the world, people have been systematically robbed in this fashion. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a prime example, as the oligarchs we see today in Russia got rich by being able to acquire state assets at bargain prices. The book is a wonderful reference as it lays out the history of these robberies and thus gives new vision by letting one see them in a pattern instead of as unique instances.

So, DSK was a partner of some of these latest crimes as head of the IMF. That's not a surprise, because that's basically the job description these days of being the head of the IMF. They are there to facilitate these robberies. They are the gun that's held to the head of the victim. The victim is forced to agree because they need money to deal with the crisis they are facing, and the IMF is how the world has decided to disperse that money. And for decades now, the only way countries get the money is to submit by being robbed by being forced to sell off their assets at very cheap prices.

At best, DSK might have been a robber with a bit of a conscience as he was talking about 'reforming' the IMF away from such practices. Of course, that hadn't moved past the talk stage yet, so its impossible to tell if having a so-called socialist as head of the IMF and making sweet speaches about 'reform' wasn't just a part of the con to keep the robberies continuing during this target-rich time for the bankers.

Here in the US, the IMF isn't used so much as the gun held to our heads. Instead, its more likely the 'markets' in general. Remember how the Wall Street bailouts of Bush in 08 and Obama in 09 were sold? The markets will collapse and we'll all be destitute and destroyed if the bankers don't get money today. And how it was a major crisis if the money was delayed even from Tuesday to Thursday? If you remember that, then you remember how the US people had close to a trillion dollars taken from them to go support the banks in their hour of need because of the crisis that was caused by their speculations and manipulations of the markets to begin with.

And of course, they aren't done stealing. They've got their eyes on all the retirement money in Social Security, and through both Democratic and Republican politicians they are determined to get their hands on it.

Did NATO Massacre Libyan Religious Leaders?

Did NATO Massacre Libyan Religious Leaders? by Thomas C. Mountain via Counterpunch

According to the charges made by Moussa Ibrahim, on Friday, May 13, over 150 of Libya’s most senior Imams gathered in Brega to hold a peace conference on how to end the fighting in Libya. Brega was chosen for the site because it is the closest government held town to the rebel-held stronghold of Benghazi and the Imams planned to send a delegation to Benghazi with a peace proposal following the conference.

Early during the evening of Friday, May 13, NATO forces bombed the conference site, killing at least ten and hospitalizing over 40 Imams. Libyan television showed the site, which was clearly demolished. Moussa Ibrahim described it as the oil industry’s temporary residential complex or guest quarters and later provided the Google Earth coordinates for viewers to confirm the location.

Statements were made by two Imams who had driven through the night from the Brega site to Tripoli for the press conference to condemn the NATO bombing of their brethren.

Is NATO so desperate for war to remove Ghaddafi that they deliberately bombed a peace conference of the nation's religious leaders? NATO claims that this 'guest housing' at a Libyan oil facility was really a 'command and control center'.

Does this photo (from Google Earth) look like 'guest housing for the oil industry', or mysterious 'bunker'?  Hint, housing is usually above the ground, while a 'bunker' is usually beneath the ground.

Sky News, aka Rupert Murdoch's equivalent to Fox News in Britain, has a very strange article where their correspondent, who admits he stays in his hotel room in Tripoli and never leaves, says he's exchanged emails with a Dutch engineer who claims to have build a bunker at this site.  The story uses a image from Google earth of this site, but it has two 'pins' shown in the map.  The misleading impression is that the image shows the bunker, which is the question I leave to the reader in this image above.

What the image on Sky News really indicates is just that the location supposedly given by this mysterious 'Dutch engineer' happens to be close to the location given by the Libya government as the site of this atrocity.  Of course, anyone can 'give' coordinates, so the fact that the two pins in the Sky News image are close together is meaningless BS spun from Rupert Murdoch's lair.

BTW, I'm giving you a much larger image than Sky News, which made their image so small that its hard to see much besides the two 'pins' that they themselves create.  The coordinates come from another image from the Sky News story which purports to show the exact note given to them by the Libyan government with the coordinates for the site where the religious leaders were bombed by NATO.  If anyone has another source for these coordinates, I'd appreciate a comment with a lead, as I hate using a Rupert Murdoch source unconfirmed.

The question is, does this look like a bunker to you?  Or, does it look like the sort of meeting room/housing type of facility at which 150 religious leaders might gather had to hold a meeting?  I think this looks like the sort of meeting room/guest housing facility that its claimed to be, and I don't see anything in these images to support the strange Fox/Sky report of a mysterious engineer claiming to have built a bunker here.

The Libyan government claimed the bombed building was also near a mosque and a clinic.  I can't verify a clinic from these satelite photos, but the golden dome of a mosque a block away is obvious in this rotated view from Google Earth.  And the mosque appears to be in a central area surrounded by housing, so I can easily believe that in a planned community built for oil workers, a clinic would also be in the same central area.

Someone in Google Earth has posted an image of the mosque.

The overall area in Google Earth appears just as its described by the Libyans. It appears to be an oil facility, with refineries and storage tanks and an area marked as a Pipe and Valve facility.  This area appears to be housing for workers.  Why on earth would anyone build a bunker there is left a mystery from Google Earth?  

There is a separate area of buildings and parked vehicles as a part of the oil complex that might be a guess for where the HQ buildings for the complex might be located.  I'm not quite sure why Exxon would have spent the money on a bunker in the 1980's, but one might guess that the bunker might be located near the HQ building complex.  Its hard to imagine Exxon making the bunker convenient for the Imams at the local mosque, while making their executives run half a mile from the HQ to get there.

I've more to say about this Sky News story, but I put this in the comments as this piece is already long on the front page.

Did He Really Say That?

Every once in awhile you have to just stop and shake your head and ask, "did he really just say that?"

Rick Santorum: John McCain 'doesn't understand' enhanced interrogation

“And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative.”

For whoever's been under a rock for the last 30 years, John McCain was held captive by the North Vietnameese and tortured for years. I'm just guessing here, but I kinda think John McCain has a bit of an idea as to how 'enhancement interrogation' works.

The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic

The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic by Chris Hedges.

Maybe in another lifetime I'll be able to write and speak with the power and eloquence of Dr. Cornel West. Between the voices of Mr. Hedges and Dr. West, this article is an excellent read.

“But it became very clear when I looked at the neoliberal economic team. The first announcement of Summers and Geithner I went ballistic. I said, ‘Oh, my God, I have really been misled at a very deep level.’ And the same is true for Dennis Ross and the other neo-imperial elites. I said, ‘I have been thoroughly misled, all this populist language is just a facade. I was under the impression that he might bring in the voices of brother Joseph Stiglitz and brother Paul Krugman. I figured, OK, given the structure of constraints of the capitalist democratic procedure that’s probably the best he could do. But at least he would have some voices concerned about working people, dealing with issues of jobs and downsizing and banks, some semblance of democratic accountability for Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats who are just running amuck. I was completely wrong. -- Dr. Cornel West”

The entire article is fascinating, including insight into how Obama handles personal relations. Or, at least personal relations with people on the left. Obama seems to love to talk with bankers and Republicans.

One fascinating exchange is this ....

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, has, West said, phoned him to complain about his critiques of Obama. Jarrett was especially perturbed, West says, when he said in an interview last year that he saw a lot of Malcolm X and Ella Baker in Michelle Obama. Jarrett told him his comments were not complimentary to the first lady.

BTW, this appears to be a repeating story. The Obama White House staff trying to intimidate critics from the left into silence.

Now, maybe most people don't know that Ella Baker was a heroine to the civil rights movement in the sixties. She helped organize and start the North Carolina lunch counter sit ins. She's legendary and loved and remembered amongst the civil right community, or at least she was when I still lived in Atlanta. Now we find out that Ms. Obama is offended when Dr. West tries to compliment her by saying he sees some of Ella Baker in Ms. Obama.

“I said in the world that I live in, in that which authorizes my reality, Ella Baker is a towering figure,” he says, munching Fritos and sipping apple juice at his desk. “If I say there is a lot of Ella Baker in Michelle Obama, that’s a compliment. She can take it any way she wants. I can tell her I’m sorry it offended you, but I’m going to speak the truth. She is a Harvard Law graduate, a Princeton graduate, and she deals with child obesity and military families. Why doesn’t she visit a prison? Why not spend some time in the hood? That is where she is, but she can’t do it.

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.

“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says. “He’s got two homes. He has got his family and whatever challenges go on there, and this other home. Larry Summers blows his mind because he’s so smart. He’s got Establishment connections. He’s embracing me. It is this smartness, this truncated brilliance, that titillates and stimulates brother Barack and makes him feel at home. That is very sad for me.

“This was maybe America’s last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment,” West laments. “We are squeezing out all of the democratic juices we have. The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other. They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe. I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.

Although I love Dr. West's words, I'm really sick of this 'he lacks backbone' nonsense. This is Dr. West still failing to come to grips with what he actually clearly stated in the first paragraph I quoted. Dr. West needs to take to heart his own words where he understands that he was "misled on a very deep level". Its not a case of Obama not being the progressive Dr. West wanted him to be because he lacks backbone. Instead, Obama was lying and mis-leading when he announced progressive ideals, and the rich, savvy white guys he looks up to have controlled him for a very long time. Dr. West, you were indeed misled. But, please take that to heart and drop this nonsense that Obama lacks backbone.

By the way, don't blame me, I voted for McKinney. I wish Dr. West had spotted the Wall Street millions in Obama's accounts and understood the implications of those millions as to the type of president that Obama would become. I wish Dr. West had instead made 65 appearances for Cynthia McKinney's campaign for President. I don't know if that changes the election results. But, getting a chance to hear Dr. West and Cynthia McKinney speak back to back at a rally would have been a lot of fun!

“Our last hope is to generate a democratic awakening among our fellow citizens. This means raising our voices, very loud and strong, bearing witness, individually and collectively. -- Dr. Cornel West

“The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence…” - Ella Jo Baker

Still More Catastrophe

Reports: 20 ‘Nakba’ Protesters Killed as Israeli Troops Attack from Antiwar.com

Israeli soldiers shot and killed at least 20 Palestinian protesters today, and wounded several hundred others, during Nakba rallies around the region. Nakba commemorates the expulsion of Palestinians from Israeli territory during the founding of the Israeli state, and is officially illegal to commemorate inside Israel.

Of the 20 killed, 10 protesters were slain inside southern Lebanon when Israeli troops opened fire on demonstrators they decided had drawn too near a border fence. The other 10 were killed along the Syrian border, as Palestinians rallied to the border with the Occupied Golan Heights.

In addition to the killings along the northern border, Israeli forces shelled protests in the Gaza Strip, wounded scores of Palestinians there. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that he believes the protests are “just the beginning” of a series of rallies against the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights.

Note that these are in addition to the reports from ISM that I'd highlighted earlier. The ISM reports are on Israeli attacks inside the West Bank. The death of one 17 year old and the 20 people who were injured, some very seriously, were all from West Bank protests. The 20 additional deaths in this story are from Israel opening fire on unarmed protesters who are protesting near Israel's borders.

And, that's yet another catastrophe to anyone who isn't a cold-blooded killer who cheers on murder and destruction.

UPDATE (5-16-11)
Franklin Lamb provides a first person account from the Lebanon protest that hasn't been censored by the Israeli government. This is outstanding and I highly recommend following the link to read the full piece.

However as the world soon learned, 10 Palestinians were killed by Israeli snipers and more than 120 wounded, some critically. None of the demonstrators had weapons. Those murdered were all civilians from the camps and were shot in cold blood as they nonviolently as placed Palestinian flags at the fence and gave the peace and victory sign.

White House: Israel Right Over Border Killings from antiwar.com.

White House spokesman Jay Carney praised Israel for its “restraint” and said that the Netanyahu government had every right to kill those people “to prevent unauthorized crossing at its borders.”

After the killings of the unarmed protesters, the Israeli foreign ministry issued instructions to its staff to try to blame the killings on Syria.

That message appears to have reached the White House as well, as Carney was quick to blame the Assad government for “inciting” the protests, and said that “such behavior is unacceptable.”

From the first-person account from Mr. Lamb, the 'unacceptable' behavior for Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from their land is for them to go peacefully and unarmed up to the fence and place a Palestinian flag there. Or to give 'peace and victory' signs. Israel and Obama's White House both state that these are death penalty offenses. Obviously unacceptable behavior, at least to the sort of White House that shows a President rapturously following the progress of his death squads on the monitor. I wonder if Obama asked Netanyahu to send him a live feed of these killings so Obama could microwave some popcorn and put his feet up and enjoy this show?

Israel killing at least 21 people who try to mark the Nakba, ie, the 'Catastrophe' of the Palestinian people losing their land to the Israelis, doesn't seem to deter Obama from going over to pay homage to AIPAC.
Obama expected at pro-Israel gathering

President Obama is expected to address the giant pro-Israel group AIPAC's annual policy conference next Sunday

Did you expect change?

UPDATE (5-18-11)
The ISM now lists the total of the casualties of this latest catastrophe as 16 dead and 400 wounded.

Dubya is Indeed Gone

Dubya is gone.  Dubya has completely retired from the public stage with no plans for any sort of comeback.  That was clearly announced this week.  What, you didn't hear that?  Sure you did, I think everyone heard it.

What you heard was the story about how Obama called Dubya to gloat that he was the one who got Bin Laden.  And, what you heard was that when Obama called, Dubya was eating a soufle.

That tells you Dubya is retired from the public stage, and has no interest in maintaining his fake campaign image any longer.  Dubya was eating a French dish like a 'soufle' when Obama called?

If Dubya wasn't retired, then we'd have been told that Dubya was eating Bar-Bee-Que and washing it down with a Budweiser when Obama called.

From the left, it was always easy to see how fake the 'good-ole-boy' image that Dubya projected really was.  Dubya was the son of a millionaire who became President. Dubya was an Ivy Leaguer.  But, this doesn't help Dubya get elected, so there was the fake Dubya image that was created.  Dubya down on the ranch, eating Bar-Bee-Que.  Dubya as the guy you'd like to drink a beer with.  Hmm, which type of beer goes with soufle?

What most on the left don't seem to be able to understand is that the Obama 'rock-star progressive' image of the last campaign was just as much as a fake as the image of an Ivy Leaguer like Dubya down on the ranch always was. Its the same fakery, on both sides.  The idea is to create an image that voters will like.  Truth has nothing to do with it.

Obama is as much a 'progressive' as Dubya is a 'cowboy' down on the ranch.  Cowboys don't eat soufle. Progressives don't assassinate.

Obama's Indonesian Death Squads

Last July, Obama restored aid to a notorious Indonesian unit called Kopassus. The aid had been cut off at the time of East Timor because of the pile of evidence that this unit was involved in torture, killings and other atrocities. So, of course, Obama had to restore aid to this unit under the guise of 'fighting terrorism'.

Instead, what this unit does is to attack the people of Indonesia. Especially in the West Papua region where people are struggling for Independence.

Journalist Allain Nairn has released leaked documents detailing the crimes and atrocities of this US backed terror unit.

Kopassus is the most notorious unit of Indonesia's armed forces, TNI, which along with POLRI, the national police, have killed civilians by the hundreds of thousands.

Yep, that sounds like America's kind of people. US 'Intelligence' had of course maintained ties to Kopassus during the cutoff of aid to the killers. After all, we can't abandon our kind of people when they are faced with people demanding freedom.

When the US restored Kopassus aid last July the rationale was fighting terrorism, but the documents show that Kopassus in fact systematically targets civilians.

A detailed 25-page secret report by a Kopassus task force in Kotaraja, Papua defines Kopassus' number-one "enemy" as unarmed civilians. It calls them the "separatist political movement" "GSP/P, " lists what they say are the top 15 leaders and discusses the "enemy order of battle."

All of those listed are civilians, starting with the head of the Baptist Synod of Papua. The others include evangelical ministers, activists, traditional leaders, legislators, students and intellectuals as well as local establishment figures and the head of the Papua Muslim Youth organization.

The secret Kopassus study says that in their 400,000 - person area of operations the civilians they target as being political are "much more dangerous than" any armed opposition since the armed groups "hardly do anything" but the civilians -- with popular support -- have "reached the outside world" with their "obsession" with "merdeka" (independence/ freedom) and persist in "propagating the issue of severe human rights violations in Papua," ie. "murders and abductions that are done by the security forces."

Yep, that's official US policy from the land of the free. We finance the killers of human beings whose only crime is that they want "merdeka" or "independence/freedom".

But hey, Indonesia has oil. Guess which side the US is on? Is it going to be on the side of the people who have oil? Or, is the US on the side of the people who are doing radical things like holding press conferences where they talk about independence or freedom? When that starts to occur in a country that has oil, one can expect to see Washington's bullets flying again. Doesn't matter if its Indonesia or Bahrain.

Given that the Kopassus report states as settled fact that security forces do "murder, abduction," those who they define as being the enemy can be presumed to be in some danger.

In its' discussion of "State of the enemy" Kopassus identifies the enemy with two kinds of actions: "the holding of press conferences" where they "always criticize the government and the work being done by the security forces" and the holding of private meetings where they engage in the same kind of prohibited speech. (LAPORAN TRIWULAN p. 9)

And yes Virginia, you are paying for this. Obama's administration re-started aid to this Kopassus group last year. The man does love his killers.

Honduras is Open for Business / Plunder

Honduras Is Open For Plunder

Click on this link for a must-read account of an SOA Watch delegation to Hondurus.

Change did arrive that June 28th. Only not in the anticipated form but in one that was all too familiar - at the barrel of a gun and on the orders of School of the Americas graduates. President Manuel Zelaya was picked up from the presidential palace in his pajamas and deposited on the runway of San Jose, Costa Rica. What followed was familiar script:a swell of resistance brutally repressed, media voices of truth silenced, and an "election" conveniently held to whitewash a coup (never mind that there were few electors and no observers). End of the story, according to the State Department, time to move on.

To what? To business as usual, albeit at a cost of some 80 deaths. As our delegation arrived in Honduras, so did 350 businesses from around the world, including some of the globe´s biggest billionaires. A conference convened by "President" Lobo called "Honduras is Open for Business" was taking place at the same time.

and ...

This dynamic duo of government leaders and business moguls is using murder and repression to try to hold a growing resistance movement at bay with fear. All this, however, would not be possible without a third player: the U.S. government. Funds from our government´s coffers continue to train many of their military and police and provide them with helicopters, tanks, guns, tear gas and more. This point was made graphicially at a meeting that our delegation held with families of victims since the coup. Mery Agurcia, a human rights activist with COFADEH, held up a tear gas canister, "made in the USA", collected at the same site of where teacher Ilse Velasquez died after a a similar one hit struck her violently in the head.