Presumption of Innocence??

Its difficult to find a supporter of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich these days. When the lynch mentality is afoot, it is almost impossible to separate the guilty from the innocent - if anyone was interested.

I think it's important to note that Blagojevich was arrested and charged by a Federal prosecutor working for the lame-duck Bush administration - the same administration that lied about weapons of mass destruction, violated constitutional protections against telephone taps without warrant, shipped prisoners to secret prisons in foreign countries where international laws against torture were ignored. I don't think it is a co-incidence that two governors targeted, Blagojevich and Bill Richardson were prominent democratic supporters of Barack Obama.

I was amazed by the extreme language used by the federal prosecutor in his description of the wiretap conversation selections he published out of context. His comments were chosen for political impact and they had the desired effect of mobilizing a media lynch mob against Blagojevich and discrediting any defence he might make against his impeachment.

Below are two articles which provide some policy reasons as to why the Bush administration might have politically targeted the Illinois governor

Blagojevich pioneers health care for children

Governors Write Their Own Prescriptions for Healthcare Crisis

By Ronald Brownstein ( Los Angeles Times )
November 21, 2005 in print edition A-10

Last week, one day apart, two governors took dramatic steps that could crystallize a healthcare debate developing in the states – even as Washington mostly averts its eyes from the problems of declining access and rising costs.

On Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed legislation making Illinois the first state to guarantee all children access to health insurance.

The next day, Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina asked the federal government for permission to shift responsibility for providing health coverage for the state’s poorest citizens primarily to private insurance companies.

These divergent initiatives signal an escalating competition to develop models for coping with the slow-motion crisis in healthcare.

Several Democratic-leaning states are rallying around plans to ensure universal coverage for children as a first step toward expanding access for adults.

Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, says that in his next budget he’ll propose to ensure universal coverage in his state for all children 5 or younger. Anthony Wright, executive director of the liberal group Health Access California, says activists are planning a state ballot initiative next November that would fund universal coverage for children through a cigarette tax increase of $1.50 a pack.

Blagojevich says he is hoping his action will encourage more states to fund universal coverage for children; nationwide, about one in nine children are uninsured. “If we can do it in Illinois, other states can do it,” he says. “The idea that we are going to wait around for Washington or the Bush administration to do this is not a good use of time.”

Conversely, the hot idea in Republican states is giving private health insurance companies the principal authority for operating Medicaid, the joint state-federal healthcare program for the poor. Sanford was actually the second GOP governor to propose such a shift; Florida’s Jeb Bush has already won approval from Washington for a test he’ll begin next year, assuming the Legislature gives its final blessing in December.

Last week, approving a proposal from Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), House Republicans nudged other states to follow; the House authorized a five-year, 10-state test of Health Opportunity Accounts, which would allow low-income families to buy healthcare directly from doctors or insurers as an alternative to Medicaid.

Compared with the GOP initiatives, Blagojevich’s plan builds more on the existing public systems. Since his election in 2002, Blagojevich has steadily expanded access to the Children’s Health Insurance Program – a state-federal partnership, known as CHIPs, that provides insurance to the children of working-poor families. (Children in the poorest families receive coverage through Medicaid.) Those expansions, with an improving economy, have reduced the number of uninsured children in Illinois by about half, to about 250,000 this year.

The law Blagojevich signed last week covers those remaining children by allowing all uninsured families to purchase subsidized insurance for their children through the state’s CHIPs. Insurance would cost $40 per child per month for middle-income families, about one-fifth as much as private insurance; the state’s cost would rise to $100 million annually within five years. Eventually, Blagojevich wants to add adults.

While Blagojevich would increase the state’s role in guaranteeing care, Bush and Sanford want to shift authority to the private sector. Medicaid now guarantees all eligible low-income families access to a specific set of services, such as doctor visits or X-rays. Both Bush and Sanford would instead provide a fixed sum for Medicaid recipients to purchase private health insurance.

Some guarantees would remain (for instance, children covered under Medicaid would receive the same services they do now), but the insurance companies would be granted unprecedented freedom to determine the scope of the services recipients obtain.

In essence, both Bush and Sanford would move Medicaid away from a program that ensures recipients defined benefits in healthcare toward one that guarantees them only a defined contribution from the state to their care. In that way, these initiatives advance a broader Republican goal – and crystallize the difference between this proposal and Democratic initiatives such as Blagojevich’s.

The public and private economic safety net constructed from the New Deal through the Great Society relied mostly on defined benefits – a set monthly pension or Social Security check, or a menu of services covered by Medicare. Most private employers have already departed from that vision by replacing pensions with a defined contribution to 401(k) retirement plans.

In the name of increasing choice, expanding ownership and saving taxpayer dollars, many Republicans also want to shift from a defined-benefit to a defined-contribution approach in the key public safety net programs: Social Security (by reducing guaranteed benefits and increasing reliance on individual investment accounts), Medicaid (through ideas such as the Florida and South Carolina proposals) and Medicare (where Congress has authorized the test of a voucher-like system similar to those Medicaid plans).

Democrats believe all of these ideas transfer too much financial risk to individuals. Instead, they want to bolster public programs that share risk collectively to provide individuals with guaranteed benefits – like Social Security or the CHIPs plan Blagojevich is using to cover all Illinois kids.

Democrats this year won an early round of this debate when they blocked President Bush’s plan to restructure Social Security. But the competing healthcare proposals from Illinois and South Carolina show that this argument is far from settled. Long after both governors are gone, it’s likely that America will still be wrestling over whether its social safety net should look more like the vision Blagojevich or Sanford offered last week.

*

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ website at latimes.com/brownstein.

Maybe Blagojevich's Claims should be examined impartially?

Extreme Pro-Abortion Governor Blagojevich Ousted, Banned Forever from IL Public Office

By Kathleen Gilbert

SPRINGFIELD, January 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Rod Blagojevich, a longtime opponent of the pro-life movement and now anathema to the Illinois political establishment, was tossed from the governorship and barred from holding public office in the state by two 59-0 state Senate votes yesterday.

Thus ended the political drama of the 52-year-old former governor, who continued to insist on his innocence in the face of damning evidence that he attempted to sell Barack Obama's senate seat

Former Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn was sworn in as the new governor moments after Blagojevich was ousted.

Upon hearing the Senate's verdict, Blagojevich told reporters, "I predicted it. The fix was in from the very beginning."

Few, however, sympathized with the disgraced former governor. "He failed the test of character. He is beneath the dignity of the state of Illinois. He is no longer worthy to be our governor," said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from suburban Chicago.

Blagojevich, one of the most staunchly pro-abortion politicians in the U.S., earned a reputation while in office as an enemy of pro-life health providers' rights of conscience. In April 2005, Governor Blagojevich issued an executive order forcing all Illinois pharmacies to dispense the morning-after pill, saying that the “right of conscience does not apply to pharmacists.”

When several pieces of legislation erupted in the state legislature the following year to counteract the executive order, the governor responded that "if any of those bills reach my desk, they are dead on arrival." A U.S. court reined in the radical order two years later, affirming that the government could not force pro-life pharmacists to abandon their profession.

Also in 2006, he boasted of his "100 percent pro-choice" record, comparing himself favorably to the "advances and assaults" of the Bush administration's pro-life policies.

Months before the recent scandal broke, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and other pro-abortion groups heaped praise on Blagojevich for voicing his opposition to Bush regulations protecting the right of doctors to conscientiously object to performing or referring for abortions. Ironically, Planned Parenthood lauded the governor for "not playing politics" with women's health.

News of Blagojevich's political scheming broke in early December when wiretapped conversations, acquired as part of an ongoing federal investigation into the governor and his associates, were made public. The conversations, some involving Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, revealed an apparent scheme to sell Mr. Obama's recently vacated Senate seat in addition to several other "pay to play" deals.

"I've got this thing and it's (expletive) golden, and I'm just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I'm not gonna do it," Blagojevich was quoted as saying in one wiretapped conversation.

Mocking Blagojevich's words, Chicago Democrat Sen. James Meeks said during Senate proceedings: "We have this thing called impeachment and it's bleeping golden, and we've used it the right way."

"Israeli government terrorists, war criminals & fools"

Statement by Jewish, Zionist MP, Gerald Kaufman comparing Israeli government to Nazis and criticizing Israeli murder of Palestinians

Norwegian Atheists Living the Good Life

Cartoon about Norway from Russells Teapot

Dennis Kucinich - Eliot Engel interviews on Gaza

Al Jazeera's Shihab Rattansi speaks to two congressman with very different views on the Gaza crisis.

Congresman Dennis Kucinich accusing Israel of violating the US Arms Control Export Act by using American Arms to attack Palestinians in Gaza

Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize Lecture

Harold Pinter - Nobel Lecture

Art, Truth & Politics

(Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture was pre-recorded, and
shown on video December 7, 2005, in Börssalen at
the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.)
(first section deleted. To read the whole lecture go to the Nobel Prize site by clicking on the lecture title above)

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of
this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available
to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of
that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in
ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their
own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon
which we feed.

As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of
Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of
mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about
appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We
were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared
responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were
assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq
threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was
not true.

The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the
United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody
it.

But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent
past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the
Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period
to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will
allow here.

Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern
Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread
atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has
been fully documented and verified.

But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only
been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged,
let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and
that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now.
Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet
Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it
had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's
favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low
intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people
die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It
means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a
malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been
subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and your own friends, the
military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before
the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in
US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it
here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both
then and now.

I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.

The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to
the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member
of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important
member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US
body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador
himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north
of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural
centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the
parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the
cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the
most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US
government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.'

Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and
highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He
listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let
me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.' There was a
frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.

Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.

Finally somebody said: 'But in this case "innocent people" were the victims
of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If
Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will
take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of
supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign
state?'

Seitz was imperturbable. 'I don't agree that the facts as presented support
your assertions,' he said.

As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I
did not reply.

I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following
statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.'

The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for
over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this
regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.

The Sandinistas weren't perfect. They possessed their fair share of
arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory
elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to
establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was
abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought
back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two
thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced
illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was
established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a
third. Polio was eradicated.

The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist
subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being
set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and
economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care
and education and achieve social unity and national self respect,
neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things.
There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El
Salvador.

I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President
Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. This was
taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as
accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads
under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was
no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever
murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government,
two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were
actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had
brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and
it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive
military dictatorships.

Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered
at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of
the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely
brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is
estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed
because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved.
That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they
dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease,
degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.

The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took
some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution
and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They
were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into
the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned
with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed.

But this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was
conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it
never happened.

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing
military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I
refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the
Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the
United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never
be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did
they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign
policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to
American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it
wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the
United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very
few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America.
It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while
masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty,
highly successful act of hypnosis.

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on
the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is
also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable
commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on
television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say
to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the
American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in
the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep
thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous
cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the
cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical
faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40
million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women
imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no
longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards
on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn
about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it
regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb
tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.

What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do
these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days -
conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our
shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at
Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three
years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained
forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of
the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by
what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being
committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free
world'. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the
media say about them? They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six.
They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never
return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including
British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No
sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your
throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign
Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said
about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to
criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act.
You're either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism,
demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The
invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon
lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act
intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle
East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having
failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of
military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and
thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts
of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call
it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a
mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I
would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned
before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been
clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice.
Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds
himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But
Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for
prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It
is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well
away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American
bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no
moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded
as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy
Franks.

Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of
British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. 'A
grateful child,' said the caption. A few days later there was a story and
photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms.
His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. 'When
do I get my arms back?' he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair
wasn't holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child,
nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and
tie when you're making a sincere speech on television.

The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their
graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm's way. The
mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead
and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.

Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I'm Explaining a Few
Things':

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!*

Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda's poem I am in no way
comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I quote Neruda because
nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral
description of the bombing of civilians.

I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about
putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared
policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is not my term, it
is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control of land, sea, air and
space and all attendant resources.

The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the
world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course.
We don't quite know how they got there but they are there all right.

The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads.
Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes
warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker
busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own
nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin
Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that
this infantile insanity - the possession and threatened use of nuclear
weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must
remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing
and shows no sign of relaxing it.

Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are
demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but
as things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet. But the
anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United
States is unlikely to diminish.

I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I
would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short
address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair
carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes
employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's man.

'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is
bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He
was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We
believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the
democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a
compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate
lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am
not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority.
You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'

A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have
to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it
is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed.
You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection -
unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own
protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.

I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall now quote a
poem of my own called 'Death'.

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body

When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate.
But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a
never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the
mirror - for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at
us.

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching,
unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the
real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which
devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no
hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man.



* Extract from "I'm Explaining a Few Things" translated by Nathaniel Tarn,
from Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems, published by Jonathan Cape, London 1970.
Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

congratulations dennis kucinich!!!

KUCINICH CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT UNITED NATIONS INQUIRY ON GAZA
Israeli government attacks civilians in violation of international law




Washington, Dec 29, 2008 -

U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich today released the following statement as Israeli attacks on Gaza have gone into a third day with a pending ground invasion of Gaza by Israel:

“Today I sent a letter to Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urging the United Nations to establish an independent inquiry of Israel's war against Gaza. The attacks on civilians represent collective punishment, which is a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm). The perpetrators of attacks against Israel must also be brought to justice, but Israel cannot create a war against an entire people in order to attempt to bring to justice the few who are responsible. The Israeli leaders know better. The world community, which has been very supportive of Israel's right to security and its right to survive, also has a right to expect Israel to conduct itself in adherence to the very laws which support the survival of Israel and every other nation,” Kucinich said.

“Israel is leveling Gaza to strike at Hamas, just as they pulverized south Lebanon to strike at Hezbollah. Yet in both cases civilian populations were attacked, countless innocents killed or injured, infrastructure targeted and destroyed, and civil law enforcement negated. All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law. Israel is not exempt from international law and must be held accountable. It is time for the UN to not just call for a cease-fire, but for an inquiry as to Israel's actions.”

According to published news reports, since the commencement of aerial strikes, over 300 Palestinians have been killed and approximately 1,400 have been wounded. The dead include 20 children under the age of 16--nearly half of them killed while on a school bus, according to the United Nations--and 9 women. The attack aggravated a humanitarian crisis wrought by the Israeli-imposed blockade of food, fuel, and medical supplies. With a population of 1.5 million people, the Gaza Strip is among the most densely populated territories in the world.

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Obama's slence cowardice in the face of genocide

Did we miss something? Bill Richardson just withdrew from Obama's cabinet on the shaky pretense that his confirmation might be delayed in the senate because of some business issue between the state of new mexico and its suppliers.

At the same time Israel is murdering hundreds of civilians in Gaza using the most advanced military equipment ever employed in the sad history of human warfare against Gaza's essentially unarmed residents- you can't call them citizens because they have no real state.

As Israel's minister said this morning a negotiated cease fire is not possible at this time because Israel is a sovreign state and hamas is not. The only option she put forward is for hamas to stop the rockets that have killed possibly 5 people - fewer people than died of drug overdoses, car accidents and a million other causes that don't have a military solution. In the absence on this action and with US support, Israel will continue its revenge murders of the Palestinian residents of Gaza.

What is George Bush's position on the Israeli action. What is the position of the president almost universally reviled as the worst american president in history? Is Israeli action consistent with his professed 'culture of life' In fact, his position on this matter is probably based on the book of revelation. He is actively supporting Israel's anihilation of Palestinians along with the extremist christian faction that he supports in the United States.

Obama's silence on this issue is inexcusable. he is complicit in the murder of innocents that is now taking place in Gaza. The excuse that america has only one president may apply on economic matters but in cases of mass murder it doesn't wash. In the case of Gaza, Obama is endorsing Israel and George Bush. I have sufficient respect for Bill Richardson to believe that he has withdrawn from Obama's cabinet not for the reason's stated but because of Obama's cowardice in the face of Israeli genocide