CrimQuips
CrimQuips 12/23/02 Monday, December 23, 2002
Commentary by Barry Crimmins
www.barrycrimmins.com
Last week's roundup of Middle Eastern men on the West Coast is one of Bush's "faith-based initiatives." The several hundred men subscribe to the wrong faith so W's people took the initiative to violate their human rights by imprisoning them without due process.
"A lot of people in Washington have been trying to nail me for a long time.When you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that, '' caterwauled Trent Lott to the Washington Post. And so that persecuted minority: white, Christian, reactionary, bigoted Senate Majority Leaders from Mississippi once again feels the cruel lash of prejudice. Now we have a man replacing Lout with an equally dismal voting record, who has the added stigma of having adopted stray cats from animal shelters so he could kill and/or experiment upon them. Best of all, he is being touted as some sort of moderate savior.
Leave it to the Republicans to find a savior who shares hobbies with Jeffrey Dahmer. (A prior history of tormenting defenseless animals is common among serial killers.)
As my buddy Martin Miller says, "Oh great, here comes a slightly more photogenic version of Dr. Mengele."
Mengele(left) and Frist(right) do have a bit of a separated at birth thing going.... If W's smart (OK,OK-- if Laura's smart) he won't let Frist/Mengele anywhere near his twin daughters.
Frist's "to do" list: Knife Lott. Torture cats. Lobby for health care denial industry. L'affaire Lout proves that nobody can catch a whiff of blood in the water more quickly than a Republican surgeon.
Nobody cut Lout with more precision or more deeply than his self-described friend, the scalpel-wielding Dr. Bill Frist.
According to the media, Frist is the anti-Lout. But then according to the media Bush is wildly popular with a vast majority of Americans and you only count every tenth person when estimating the size of peace rallies.
Frist's enormous family fortune comes from HCA/Columbia health care hospital chain, an outfit that specializes in privatizing public hospitals, busting unions and debunking tax payers with fraudulent medicare bills. So when they call this guy a golden boy, the emphasis is on "golden."
Clinging to hopes to somehow assist the failed corporate coup in Venezulea, the New York Times offered this headline: A Top General Still Stands Behind Chavez. The key word is "still." This is meant to imply that General Raul Baduel is a last desperate holdout. The last truly desperate holdouts in this overblown Revolt of the Limo Passengers include a small group of unethical media organizations. And the NYT is still right at the top of that list.
Even though it's been forced to embrace the idea of August Venezuelan elections, which Chavez will surely win in a walk, the Times desperately wants him overthrown now so it it can revise the record from last spring when it had to apologize for its egregiously inaccurate reporting on the failed April coup. That it continues to have Juan 'el Descredito'Forero cover Venezuela despite the fact that Forero got nailed for fabricating the lie about Chavez resigning last spring, sends the Times true colors up the flagpole.
To the naked eye the "...General Still Stands Behind Chavez" headline implies that most of the rest of the military now opposes Chavez, which is another absolute falsehood. The very lead of Juan Forero's Times story contradicts the headline when it says a couple of military officers have called General Baduel to attempt to influence him to withdraw his support for Chavez. Since there are thousands of officers in the Venezuelan military, a few alleged phone calls from School of the Americas grads hardly rate a salute as a trend. Later in the story Forero writes: "To this point, the military experts said, there is little sign of unrest in the ranks. "The government can feel secure," said Antonio Berarducci, who teaches military strategy to majors and lieutenant colonels at the air force's war school. "As long as Chávez is president of the republic, the armed forces are going to support him." "
Forero writes "To this point" as if the matter is in doubt. But Berarduci unequivocally stated the military supports Chavez "As long as Chávez is president of the republic." This is why the New York Times is the USA's paper of record. All you have to do is read it and you have a record of duplicitous, biased and unethical corporate journalism. For reliable news & analysis on Venezuela read NarcoNews
Hey, right-wingers, how do you like your "conservative" court-appointed president's plan to monitor the Internet by mandating "security" cooperation between the government and Internet Service providers? It works for China, why not George W. Bush?
This initiative is being soft-peddled as just a preliminary move. It's a preliminary move toward an electronic police state. A dictatorship of a thousand years starts with a single goosestep.
Monitor this, you fascist scum. People of every political stripe understand the danger of W's proposal and will hate him for it. If a Dem wants to beat Bush in his bid for reappointment, he or she must come out against this latest Big Brother move in immediate and unequivocal terms. W's Internet monitoring plan should be routed before it gets anywhere near congressional consideration. Get the electronic grassroots on it now. It's a loser issue for Bush and it really invigorates a base of widespread and well-connected opposition.
If Bush pushes for this fascist boondoggle without congressional approval, then it's up to the legislature to specifically prohibit this madness.
What Bush's plan should be called is the: NarcoNews/BartCop/SmirkingChimp/MakeThemAccountable/Buzzflash/DailyBrew Censorship Initiative because it proves they feel the sting of net activism in the White House. (And please forgive me if you run one of the hundreds of other wonderful anti-W websites that I haven't space to mention)
Republicans would do better to appear in a photo-op at a Mississippi plantation with Trent Lout than to be caught anywhere near support of this blueprint for an electronic police state. This 'net monitoring plan is typical Republican post-election arrogance. Since getting the 21% mandate (that's the percentage of American voters who went Republican in November) Bush decided he could actually get away with putting Henry Kissinger in charge of a terrorism investigation. Trent Lout was emboldened to the point where he removed his hood and spoke freely. Now the court-appointed administration feels it can tell American Internet users that they have no right to privacy. Apparently Republicans have become so enamored with preemptive strikes that they have taken to targeting themselves with sneak attacks.
Thanks to the Department of Homeland Security's authorization bill's restrictions on organized labor, Bush should be able to run his 'net monitoring operation very cheaply -- out of Wal-Mart headquarters in Beijing.
If you believe the stories coming out of Venezuela you must love the confused nonsense about weapons inspections in Iraq.
******
News Note
Everyone who believes an attack of Iraq is now unavoidable needs to familiarize themselves with what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said about the inspection process.From the beginning, it hasn't been about weapons, it's been about "regime change." The system had been working until the US began to use U.N. weapons inspectors to attempt to locate Saddam Hussein so that he could be assassinated through military action. This is what the Iraqis didn't want to cooperate with (they tried not to cooperate with inspectors otherwise, as well, but were repeatedly foiled, according to Ritter). This is not some naive whitewashing of Hussein's military intentions, it is to say that he had been neutered but that wasn't enough for the USA. And so even though the inspectors had done their jobs and tracked down and destroyed 95% of Hussein's capabilities, that was never important to the US. It wanted him out and it wanted Western interests back into control of those oil fields. Had the weapons inspectors completed the process, the sanctions would have been dropped and Saddam would have survived. That is what the US couldn't handle. And that is why thousands of innocents will soon be carpet-bombed and thousands of American soldiers will be placed in harm's way. The Traprock Peace Center site is an excellent place to begin learning about Ritter.
******
No Joke
I suffered near fatal overexposure to slime during the review of information that was necessary for my retrospective on 2002 that will appear in Dec 27 issue of theBoston Phoenix. And so my supply of patience had been severely depleted before I learned about the hundreds of Middle Eastern men who were duped into captivity by the racist court-appointed Bush Administration. Some have said as many as 700 apparently innocent people have been detained, ostensibly for being from the wrong ethnic/religious group. Many more are expected to be rounded up in the coming weeks. Sometimes I wonder if, when criticizing Bush, I lean on Nazi comparisons too heavily. When I read stories like this I realize that sadly, it's never excessive to call the current illegitimate executive branch of the U.S. government "fascists." The immigrant/detainees came in good faith and had their human rights violated for making the mistake of trusting the None-Too-Great White Father in Washington. Bush and his cronies are heartless liars despite their self-proclaimed Christianity. They have no qualms about committing such a heinous crime during the very week they celebrate the birth of another Middle Easterner. These vile people are a pox upon humanity. If there is such a thing as a just god, George W. Bush and his cronies will literally have hell to pay. The bill can't come soon enough. And that's no joke.
This marks the annual
CrimQuips subscription drive. The only difference between this and NPR or PBS is that subscriptions for Barry's mailing list are free. So if you like what you have been reading, please pass this along to several friends and suggest they consider subscribing. Everyone gets the same premium-- another year of witty editorial response to the madness that is engulfing our world to sign up:
CrimQuips List.
2002 Barry Crimmins
www.barrycrimmins.com
Last week's roundup of Middle Eastern men on the West Coast is one of Bush's "faith-based initiatives." The several hundred men subscribe to the wrong faith so W's people took the initiative to violate their human rights by imprisoning them without due process.
"A lot of people in Washington have been trying to nail me for a long time.When you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that, '' caterwauled Trent Lott to the Washington Post. And so that persecuted minority: white, Christian, reactionary, bigoted Senate Majority Leaders from Mississippi once again feels the cruel lash of prejudice. Now we have a man replacing Lout with an equally dismal voting record, who has the added stigma of having adopted stray cats from animal shelters so he could kill and/or experiment upon them. Best of all, he is being touted as some sort of moderate savior.
Leave it to the Republicans to find a savior who shares hobbies with Jeffrey Dahmer. (A prior history of tormenting defenseless animals is common among serial killers.)
As my buddy Martin Miller says, "Oh great, here comes a slightly more photogenic version of Dr. Mengele."
Mengele(left) and Frist(right) do have a bit of a separated at birth thing going.... If W's smart (OK,OK-- if Laura's smart) he won't let Frist/Mengele anywhere near his twin daughters.
Frist's "to do" list: Knife Lott. Torture cats. Lobby for health care denial industry. L'affaire Lout proves that nobody can catch a whiff of blood in the water more quickly than a Republican surgeon.
Nobody cut Lout with more precision or more deeply than his self-described friend, the scalpel-wielding Dr. Bill Frist.
According to the media, Frist is the anti-Lout. But then according to the media Bush is wildly popular with a vast majority of Americans and you only count every tenth person when estimating the size of peace rallies.
Frist's enormous family fortune comes from HCA/Columbia health care hospital chain, an outfit that specializes in privatizing public hospitals, busting unions and debunking tax payers with fraudulent medicare bills. So when they call this guy a golden boy, the emphasis is on "golden."
Clinging to hopes to somehow assist the failed corporate coup in Venezulea, the New York Times offered this headline: A Top General Still Stands Behind Chavez. The key word is "still." This is meant to imply that General Raul Baduel is a last desperate holdout. The last truly desperate holdouts in this overblown Revolt of the Limo Passengers include a small group of unethical media organizations. And the NYT is still right at the top of that list.
Even though it's been forced to embrace the idea of August Venezuelan elections, which Chavez will surely win in a walk, the Times desperately wants him overthrown now so it it can revise the record from last spring when it had to apologize for its egregiously inaccurate reporting on the failed April coup. That it continues to have Juan 'el Descredito'Forero cover Venezuela despite the fact that Forero got nailed for fabricating the lie about Chavez resigning last spring, sends the Times true colors up the flagpole.
To the naked eye the "...General Still Stands Behind Chavez" headline implies that most of the rest of the military now opposes Chavez, which is another absolute falsehood. The very lead of Juan Forero's Times story contradicts the headline when it says a couple of military officers have called General Baduel to attempt to influence him to withdraw his support for Chavez. Since there are thousands of officers in the Venezuelan military, a few alleged phone calls from School of the Americas grads hardly rate a salute as a trend. Later in the story Forero writes: "To this point, the military experts said, there is little sign of unrest in the ranks. "The government can feel secure," said Antonio Berarducci, who teaches military strategy to majors and lieutenant colonels at the air force's war school. "As long as Chávez is president of the republic, the armed forces are going to support him." "
Forero writes "To this point" as if the matter is in doubt. But Berarduci unequivocally stated the military supports Chavez "As long as Chávez is president of the republic." This is why the New York Times is the USA's paper of record. All you have to do is read it and you have a record of duplicitous, biased and unethical corporate journalism. For reliable news & analysis on Venezuela read NarcoNews
Hey, right-wingers, how do you like your "conservative" court-appointed president's plan to monitor the Internet by mandating "security" cooperation between the government and Internet Service providers? It works for China, why not George W. Bush?
This initiative is being soft-peddled as just a preliminary move. It's a preliminary move toward an electronic police state. A dictatorship of a thousand years starts with a single goosestep.
Monitor this, you fascist scum. People of every political stripe understand the danger of W's proposal and will hate him for it. If a Dem wants to beat Bush in his bid for reappointment, he or she must come out against this latest Big Brother move in immediate and unequivocal terms. W's Internet monitoring plan should be routed before it gets anywhere near congressional consideration. Get the electronic grassroots on it now. It's a loser issue for Bush and it really invigorates a base of widespread and well-connected opposition.
If Bush pushes for this fascist boondoggle without congressional approval, then it's up to the legislature to specifically prohibit this madness.
What Bush's plan should be called is the: NarcoNews/BartCop/SmirkingChimp/MakeThemAccountable/Buzzflash/DailyBrew Censorship Initiative because it proves they feel the sting of net activism in the White House. (And please forgive me if you run one of the hundreds of other wonderful anti-W websites that I haven't space to mention)
Republicans would do better to appear in a photo-op at a Mississippi plantation with Trent Lout than to be caught anywhere near support of this blueprint for an electronic police state. This 'net monitoring plan is typical Republican post-election arrogance. Since getting the 21% mandate (that's the percentage of American voters who went Republican in November) Bush decided he could actually get away with putting Henry Kissinger in charge of a terrorism investigation. Trent Lout was emboldened to the point where he removed his hood and spoke freely. Now the court-appointed administration feels it can tell American Internet users that they have no right to privacy. Apparently Republicans have become so enamored with preemptive strikes that they have taken to targeting themselves with sneak attacks.
Thanks to the Department of Homeland Security's authorization bill's restrictions on organized labor, Bush should be able to run his 'net monitoring operation very cheaply -- out of Wal-Mart headquarters in Beijing.
If you believe the stories coming out of Venezuela you must love the confused nonsense about weapons inspections in Iraq.
******
News Note
Everyone who believes an attack of Iraq is now unavoidable needs to familiarize themselves with what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said about the inspection process.From the beginning, it hasn't been about weapons, it's been about "regime change." The system had been working until the US began to use U.N. weapons inspectors to attempt to locate Saddam Hussein so that he could be assassinated through military action. This is what the Iraqis didn't want to cooperate with (they tried not to cooperate with inspectors otherwise, as well, but were repeatedly foiled, according to Ritter). This is not some naive whitewashing of Hussein's military intentions, it is to say that he had been neutered but that wasn't enough for the USA. And so even though the inspectors had done their jobs and tracked down and destroyed 95% of Hussein's capabilities, that was never important to the US. It wanted him out and it wanted Western interests back into control of those oil fields. Had the weapons inspectors completed the process, the sanctions would have been dropped and Saddam would have survived. That is what the US couldn't handle. And that is why thousands of innocents will soon be carpet-bombed and thousands of American soldiers will be placed in harm's way. The Traprock Peace Center site is an excellent place to begin learning about Ritter.
******
No Joke
I suffered near fatal overexposure to slime during the review of information that was necessary for my retrospective on 2002 that will appear in Dec 27 issue of theBoston Phoenix. And so my supply of patience had been severely depleted before I learned about the hundreds of Middle Eastern men who were duped into captivity by the racist court-appointed Bush Administration. Some have said as many as 700 apparently innocent people have been detained, ostensibly for being from the wrong ethnic/religious group. Many more are expected to be rounded up in the coming weeks. Sometimes I wonder if, when criticizing Bush, I lean on Nazi comparisons too heavily. When I read stories like this I realize that sadly, it's never excessive to call the current illegitimate executive branch of the U.S. government "fascists." The immigrant/detainees came in good faith and had their human rights violated for making the mistake of trusting the None-Too-Great White Father in Washington. Bush and his cronies are heartless liars despite their self-proclaimed Christianity. They have no qualms about committing such a heinous crime during the very week they celebrate the birth of another Middle Easterner. These vile people are a pox upon humanity. If there is such a thing as a just god, George W. Bush and his cronies will literally have hell to pay. The bill can't come soon enough. And that's no joke.
This marks the annual
CrimQuips subscription drive. The only difference between this and NPR or PBS is that subscriptions for Barry's mailing list are free. So if you like what you have been reading, please pass this along to several friends and suggest they consider subscribing. Everyone gets the same premium-- another year of witty editorial response to the madness that is engulfing our world to sign up:
CrimQuips List.
2002 Barry Crimmins