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LEARNING NOTHING FROM HISTORY

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 18 March 2006
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Governments USA Peter Fredson

Learning from History

By Peter Fredson

March 18, 2006

Having learned nothing from history, Bush is determined to repeat the worst of it. He loves to stay a course, especially if the first time it was a failure. Bush will try again and again. That may be laudable for character, but it also reflects stupidity, sheer ignorance and a fondness for fantasy over reality.

It reflects the bubble of isolation in which Bush lives, surrounded by sycophants who are determined to put a positive spin on incompetence, death and drowning. It demonstrates incomprehension of reality. It seems like the Brown Shirts of Berlin have been “reborn” in our own country.

In this bubble Bush gets on with a comfortable life, with minions eager to do his bidding, in which he can strut, swagger, smirk and smile all day without any care or responsibility. The famous Buck never seems to make its way to his desk.

Neither drought nor flood touches him, compassion never raises any ugly demands upon him, his agents sweep a sidewalk so his dainty feet never touch dirt. Any protestors that get beaten will get beaten far from cameras and held far from lawyers. The media are complicit in their repetition of managed and phony news by Karl Rove tricksters.

Photographers abound to catch his every scripted action in handing out a sandwich to starving people, consoling some child whose mother his troops have killed, giving drowning victims a Kleenex, or making a speech in front of some sacred building with spotlights illuminating his pulpit and a cheering highly-selected crowd waving flags or crosses.

When Bush moves on, the cameras too move on and focus on scripted events in which Hollywood presentation is everything. The public gets all that show of Bush smirking, nodding, blinking, and smiling for just a few measly millions of dollars of public money every day. A bargain for True Believers.

He travels with an entourage said to be of about 1,000 persons. He is surrounded by secret agents, troops, police, riot squads, marine guards, and has entire army camps alerted wherever he travels so that another thousand soldiers can come to his courageous aid when he faces public criticism.

In addition, wherever he travels all army, navy and air facilities nearby will be on high alert. Submarines, destroyers, battleships, drone planes, gunships, helicopters, stealth bombers will be stationed nearby to protect our courageous war-monger.

Whatever happens to the populace, you may be sure that the administration figures will be safe, dry, sound and in some bunker. George, Dick, Karl, Donald, Condi and all cabinet and under-secretaries will be secure, cozy, untouched by any outside event.

Bush (or his advisors) show an amazing ability to subvert honest people. He took Colin Powell, a fine figure I would have considered could make a good president, and made him a lying obsequious sycophant for the neocons.

He took Condi Rice, a good academic, and made a lying sycophant neocon out of her. He burned them irrevocably like a good slave-master for any legacy of their own, and they will go down in history as part of a gang of lying warmongers.

Bush purposely selected the worst imaginable cronies for his attorneys, and they responded as full-fledged liars for the neocons. How anyone can think of a Bolton as our Ambassador is a vile mystery.

How anyone could not know that Ashcroft was a religious fascist is even worse. Now they tell Bush he can torture, abuse, arrest, detain, disobey any legislation because through lies he is a War President.

I don’t know what War they are referring to, or where it is located, or if it was ever declared, or if it is world-wide with Bush at war with the entire world.

Bush thinks he is above the law, superior to the Constitution, and that he is able to abuse, torture, or assassinate anyone at will or send shiny missiles screaming into any country his imperial will designates as evil.

What is stunning is that the entire Republican Congress adulates Bush and every form of destructive legislation to our country that no one would have imagined could befall our beloved Democracy.

They act in concert as deaf, dumb and blind to disdain for our Constitution, to the destruction of the Wall of Separation between Church and State, in favor of faith-based nonsense by which Bush as turned the Oval Office into an adjunct of the Christian televangelist corporate enterprise to which all must pay slavish obeisance.

They must be held to account in the next elections, as being complicit in the imperial plans of the Bush neocons, and as being unable or unwilling to restrain the wildest excesses of Bush and his nicely-groomed thugs.

Hitler did not act alone. The Holocaust did not come unaided. Millions of people have died because they did not speak up against tyranny. Osama bin Laden evidently had grievances against the Bush family and friends, which were ignored or dismissed contemptuously.

The huge majority of Iraqi people are not thugs, murderers, insurgents but hard-working reflective religious people. To kill thousands of them with reprehensible Shock and Awe because a loony-toon Bush was commissioned by his Old Testament God to fight EVIL is fantasy at its worst.

Any American who applauds Bush for spying on his own people, who arrests people without warrants, who hold anyone indefinite in vile detention without legal representation, who claims the right to torture and abuse anyone he thinks might object to his tyranny, who is an intolerable if incompetent meddler, cannot be a guardian of Democracy.

How can liberty be a gun barrel pointed at the head of an Iraqi woman who is going to market? How can sovereignty be even mentioned with 160,000 troops and mercenaries and advisors skulking with heavy weapons in every street of a nation that had done absolutely nothing to bring the Bush evil wrath upon them?

Has no Congress person noticed that Bush is building four huge military bases in Iraq. Do they know that we have spent billions of dollars but intend to abandon all the bases because we are kind-hearted Bushites?

Do they believe Bush and the protests of Condi and Donald that these are not permanent bases?

Do they believe we are building a billion dollar embassy, wrested from Iraq by force of arms in a Green Zone owned by neocons, for peaceful purposes. If so, they are the most gullible people on earth, or the most stupid, or champion liars themselves. Mischief is afoot, and running wild.

The major question is: are we in Iraq because George, and Dick, and Donald, and Colin, and Karl and little Condi lied their heads off, and are now rewarded with fine titles, jobs, security and respect?

Do lies trump truth? Do Christians love the Bush lies? Which Senators uphold lies?

At what point did Americans decide that they wanted their President to lie, to misinform, to twist all intelligence reports, to slander, to deceive, and to keep as a state secret his lust for power?

Do Americans really want a petulant, irritable, egomaniacal, incompetent, greedy and murderous President to exemplify the best that American can produce?

Will nobody say Enough?

Forum posts

  • http://abc.go.com/site/contactus.html WRITE ABC TV ABOUT "BOSTON LEGAL" Needless to say, the warhawks and Bushistas are trying to flood ABC with negative messages about the James Spader monologue on Boston Legal. They are out to make sure the speech never appears in reruns.
    If you agreed with the speech, if you applaud the stand for the Constitution expressed in the show, if you want to encourage mainstream media to finally exercise their role as watchdog on government abuse, even if it is in a drama, then YOU NEED TO WRITE IN AND SUPPORT THE SHOW.

    Boston Legal is under attack for the courage they showed in last week’s episode. Left unchallenged, the manufactured email flood will at best silence the show, at worst drive it off of the air. If Boston Legal is "punished" for speaking out, what other shows will dare follow?

    Now is the time to prove James Spader’s character wrong; that We The People DO care about what is going on, and we are capable of acting in our own best interests.

    Send a message.

    Do it now.

    I’ll wait.

    • http://www.legitgov.com/ Pentagon hired contractor to advise on collecting information on churches, mosques, other U.S. sites 17 Mar 2006 A Pentagon intelligence agency that kept files on American anti-war activists hired one of the contractors who bribed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., to help it collect data on houses of worship, schools, power plants and other locations in the United States.

      Carlyle Group explores acquisition of port operations 10 Mar 2006 Private equity firm [Bush bin Laden terrorism facilitator] The Carlyle Group established a team to acquire public-purpose facilities such as ports a day after a United Arab Emirates company said it would transfer newly acquired operations at American ports to a U.S. organization. D.C.-based Carlyle Group announced an eight-person team would invest in public-purpose infrastructure projects such as ports, transportation and water facilities, airports, bridges and stadiums.

      Bird flu plan ’may spread virus’ —British measures to deal with an outbreak have been attacked as likely to promote wider infection 18 Mar 2006 Farmers will be free to move birds out of areas hit by avian flu, with permission from a vet, under British plans to deal with an outbreak of the disease.

      British airports handled 73 CIA flights 18 Mar 2006 Aircraft suspected of being used by the CIA for "extraordinary rendition" - the practice of sending detainees to camps, including Guantánamo Bay, where they were at risk of being tortured - passed through British airports on 73 occasions since 2001, the government disclosed yesterday.

      Ahern seeks more US transparency on Shannon CIA flights 18 Mar 2006 (Ire.) The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said that he would prefer if the US were more transparent on the nature of their military flights through Shannon.

      Pentagon opens probe on Halliburton water contract: senator 17 Mar 2006 The Defense Department inspector general has opened a probe into allegations that US troops were provided contaminated water under a contract with Halliburton, a US lawmaker said.

      Ex-Halliburton worker: Troops’ water was unsafe 17 Mar 2006 The Pentagon’s official watchdog will investigate allegations by Halliburton Co. water experts that their company endangered U.S. troops in Iraq by failing to provide safe water. The most serious allegation came from the company’s water-treatment manager in the war zone whose internal report said troops and civilians in Iraq were left vulnerable to "mass sickness or death." A former Halliburton water expert who found contamination at the Ramadi base a year ago said he was told by superiors not to advise the military or senior company officials of his discovery.

      Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion —Estimates vary, but all agree price is far higher than initially expected 17 Mar 2006 The tab for the Iraq war [Halliburton] grows by at least $200 million each and every day... Even if the U.S. exits Iraq within another three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will likely by more than $400 billion, and one estimate puts the total economic impact at up to $2 trillion.

      House approves $67 bln for wars 16 Mar 2006 The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday easily approved $67 billion that President [sic] George W. Bush sought for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the wars’ costs so far to nearly $400 billion; $19 billion for the Gulf Coast, bringing that to about $90 billion, and $4.1 billion in emergency foreign aid [to other Reichwing dictatorships]. Conservative Republicans tried to strip the hurricane funds...

      1,000 more sailors expected to join ground forces in Iraq 17 Mar 2006 U.S. to pull planes, copters from Iceland base Three years after Baghdad fell, the Navy is poised to dramatically increase the number of sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan, filling gaps in Army and Marine Corps units.

      Two US soldiers killed and one wounded in Iraq 18 Mar 2006 Two U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were killed and another wounded in an attack northwest of Tikrit on March 16, the U.S. military said in a statement on Saturday.

      Oops! Iraq operation fails to find insurgents 18 Mar 2006 US and Iraqi forces have spent a second day hunting for ’insurgents’ in villages and fields north of the capital Baghdad.

      ’Crash’ director to lead Hollywood anti-Iraq war protest 17 Mar 2006 Paul Haggis, the Canadian director of "Crash", this year’s Oscar winner for best picture, will lead a protest in Hollywood this weekend against the war in Iraq, now three years old, organizers said.

      5 Ambushed, Killed in Eastern Afghanistan 18 Mar 2006 Suspected Taliban rebels shot and killed an influential former governor and four others Saturday in an ambush in eastern Afghanistan, police said.

      Pentagon to weigh in on US rocket-launch merger 16 Mar 2006 Pentagon officials will present long-awaited recommendations on Friday on a proposed merger of the struggling government-rocket launch arms of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the two biggest U.S. defense contractors, a top Pentagon official said Thursday.

      Deranged, Disconnected, and Dangerous By William Rivers Pitt 17 Mar 2006 "The man [George W. Bush] is deranged, disconnected, dangerous. It appears, finally, that a significant portion of the country now sees this clearly. Only 33% of Americans, according to the latest Pew poll, approve of Mr. Bush and the job he is doing."

      Tougher law urged after man jailed for terror links 18 Mar 2006 A judge yesterday called for tougher sentences for terrorism offences as he jailed a man said to be a "quartermaster" for jihadists allegedly linked to al-Qaida.

      Lawyers: Coaching Was to Aid 9/11 Airlines 17 Mar 2006 Lawyers for two airlines being sued by 9/11 victims prompted a federal attorney to coach witnesses in the Zacarias Moussaoui death penalty trial so the government’s case against the al-Qaida conspirator would not undercut their defense, victims’ lawyers allege.

      U.S. Lawyer in Terrorism Trial Suggests She Didn’t Act Alone 17 Mar 2006 Government lawyer Carla J. Martin suggested Thursday that she did not act alone in allegedly tampering with government witnesses in the sentencing trial of terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

      Judge turns down tampering probe in 9/11 civil case 17 Mar 2006 A federal judge overseeing civil lawsuits related to the Sept. 11 attacks refused Friday to investigate whether those cases may have been tainted by a government attorney whose actions have come under scrutiny in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.

      Ginsburg Faults GOP Critics, Cites a Threat From ’Fringe’ 17 Mar 2006 Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg assailed the court’s congressional critics in a recent speech overseas, saying their efforts "fuel" an "irrational fringe" that threatened her life and that of a colleague, former justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

      Terror lab still unbuilt four years after funding —Called priority, completion may be ’08 18 Mar 2006 (PA) Almost four years after the project was launched, the Allegheny County Health Department is still waiting for its sophisticated lab with bioterror testing capability to be built.

      Blair’s party declares big loans in UK sleaze row 17 Mar 2006 A sleaze row threatening British Prime Minister Tony Blair gained momentum on Friday when his Labour party said it had received 14 million pounds ($25 million) in previously undeclared loans from individuals.

      How to Steal an Election 16 Mar 2006 It’s easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That’s because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America’s voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President [sic] Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count.

      Senate panel to OK ANWR drilling bill by mid-May 17 Mar 2006 The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will approve legislation by mid-May to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, according to the panel’s chairman.

      Relaxed Emission Rules Are lllegal, Court Says 18 Mar 2006 A federal appeals court blocked the Bush regime’s four-year effort to loosen emission rules for aging coal-fired power plants, unanimously ruling yesterday that the changes violated the Clean Air Act and that only Congress could authorize such revisions.

      S. Dakota abortion ban may affect tourism —Boycotts of Mount Rushmore, state’s No. 1 attraction, threatened 17 Mar 2006 The superintendent of Mount Rushmore was surprised at first when people from all over the country started calling up to express their opinion about South Dakota’s ban on nearly all abortions.

      LAPD Chief Won’t Give Details on Consultants 17 Mar 2006 Over the last two years, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton has used more than $1 million in grants to hire longtime friends and former business associates as LAPD consultants, and now refuses to tell the City Council exactly what work was performed.

    • http://www.911blogger.com/2006/03/s... http://georgewashington.blogspot.com for sending in this:

      http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/3/prweb357922.htm

      Experts conclude Vice President possessed foreknowledge and suggest Moussaoui trial a "distraction".

      Duluth, MN (PRWEB) March 13, 2006 — A society of experts and scholars contends that the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui — for willfully concealing advance knowledge of the events of 9/11 — has the status of a Soviet-style "show trial" and functions as a diversion from the real culprits. The nonpartisan group, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, asserts that the evidence implicating Vice President Dick Cheney of that very offense is more obvious and compelling. If they are even remotely correct, then the alleged terrorists appear to have been cast in the role of "patsies."

      The experts base their conclusion on testimony presented to the 9/11 Commission by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta on May 23, 2003, which was omitted from its final report, and on related events at the Pentagon. Members of the society will present their findings during a press conference to be held at 1 PM on Tuesday at the United States Courthouse in Alexandria, VA, the location of a trial to determine whether Moussaoui, who is called "the 20th hijacker", should serve a life term or receive the death sentence.

      "Mineta’s testimony is devastating," observed James H. Fetzer, Ph.D., McKnight Professor at the University of Minnesota. Fetzer is the founder and co-chair of the scholars’ society, which recently joined with Judicial Watch in calling for release of documents, films and videos, and physical evidence withheld from the public by the administration. "It pulls the plug on the Commission’s contention there was no advance warning that the Pentagon was going to be hit."

      According to Secretary Mineta’s testimony, which is in the public domain, when he (Mineta) arrived at an underground bunker at the White House (known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center), the Vice President was in charge. "During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon", he stated, "there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, ’The plane is 50 miles out.’ ’The plane is 30 miles out.’

      "And when it got down to, ’The plane is 10 miles out,’" Mineta continued, "the young man also said to the Vice President, ’Do the orders still stand?’ And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, ’Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?’" One way to construe these remarks could be that the orders were to shoot down the plane.

      The scholars suggest that that is an implausible interpretation. The Pentagon, they observe, may be the most heavily defended building in the world. If the orders had been to "shoot it down," then no doubt it would have been shot down. Moreover, there would have been no apparent reason for the young man to have expressed concern over whether or not "the orders still stand." Shooting it down, under the circumstances, would have been the thing to do.
      ...
      Philip J. Berg, Esq., Former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania and a past candidate for Governor, Lt. Governor, and U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, who is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, added, "Those who made it happen were obviously in the position to know that it was going to happen and therefore could have sounded a warning alarm. The case against Cheney is more powerful than the case against Moussaoui. No one is more culpable than the perpetrators. If Moussaoui deserves the death penalty, what does our Vice President deserve?"
      ...
      Documentary support for the conclusions reported here may be found at the Scholars for 9/11 Truth web site at www.st911.org.

    • I’m glad that someone has learned something from the history of tyrants, and war, and sycophant "representatives." The media doesn’t seem to know that preemption, murder, spying, detention, warrantless arrests, etc. were all tried by fascist dictators and that they are now rotting from the gallows. Bush seems to think he is immune in his bubble of glory, surrounded by admiring True Believers, secret agents, troops and billions of dollars worth of war equipment. It is hard to believe that such an insignificant person could think so highly of himself that he would spit on the Constitution and declare himself above any man-made law. I wonder how many Bush Christians really believe Bush is in any way chosen by his God above anyone else in the world? Do they really think he is spiritual, holy, honest, clean, compassionate, loving and Christ-like???

    • Every so often I have the cause to be involved in some slight way with "born-again" Christians. And, with very, very few exceptions, I am amazed at how un-Christian their basic nature is. They are often haughty, nasty, egotistical, vindictive, greedy and selfish. These are not Christian qualities. It seems that their "Christianity" is simply another prop to justify their intrinsic sense of superiority and their rotten behavior. These are the people who support Bush and his happy band of thugs. These are the people who beam with gladness when Daisy Cutters are dropped on living beings. Because they are the "enemy." Didn’t Jesus explain very clearly how enemies are to be treated? What part of "love thy enemy" don’t they understand? There are real Christians out there. The ones who support Bush and his policies are not Christians. I don’t know what to call them, but Christians is one term that does not apply.