Mood:  loud

Terror and the Empire

By   Jean Ziegler

[This article originally published in: Ossietzsky 2003 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,

http://www.sopos.org/autsaetze/3d078e5a987f0/1.phtml

The following is reposted on The Zebra 3 Report from here ___________________

            The collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991 and the disappearance of the bipolarity of the international community of states awakened realistic hopes everywhere in the civilized world.  For the first time since 1945, a real chance existed for re-ordering the world according to the principles of the UN Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights.

            The American empire decided differently.  Instead of contributing to a system of collective security, the US refused to dismantle the gigantic military machine built during the Cold War.  Against the principle of peaceful conflict resolution, the US chose the way of imperial dictation.  Against arbitration and multilateral diplomacy, it opted for the autistic, unilateral world power policy.  Instead of a normative economy and distribution of essential goods – above all for the third world – through multilateral conventions, it established the globalized world market totally ruled by American financial capital.

            The American capital oligarchy which largely dominates the Bush administration functions according to a code called the “Washington Consensus”.  Its four holy rules are¨total liberalization of capital-, goods, services- and patent-streams, privatization of the public sector, deregulation and flexibility of all relations, especially labor relations.

            This “consensus” is enforced worldwide by the mercenary organizations of international finance capital which is mostly American finance capital: the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

            Thomas Friedman, former assistant of Secretary Madeleine Albright, writes: “So globalization functions, the United States may not hesitate acting as the invincible world superpower.  The invisible hand of the market cannot function without the visible fist.  McDonalds cannot prosper without McDonnell-Douglas, manufacturer of the F15 fighter jet.  The visible fist assures the victory all over the world of technology products from Silicon Valley.  This fist is the armed forces, the air force and the marine corps of the United States.”

            On October 28, 2001, George W. Bush declared amid the congressional debate on the new “Trade Promotion Authority Act”): “The terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.  We will defeat them by liberalizing world trade more forcefully.”  Before the World Trade conference in Doha, November 2001, his foreign trade commissioner Robert Zoelinik said: “The deregulated capital streams are not only very efficient economically.  These streams also promote the ethical values of freedom throughout the world.”

            Globalization is daily terror.  Every seven seconds a child under 10 dies of starvation.  Every four minutes a person loses eyesight on account of Vitamin A deficiency.  Over 100,000 persons die every day of hunger or its immediate consequences.  828 million men, women and children were permanently and gravely malnourished last year.  The FAO calculates: World agriculture could feed twelve billion people today without problem.  Every person could have 2700 calories of food every day.  The earth’s present population amounts to 6.2 billion.

            There is no fatalism here, only imperial destruction and arrogance.  Whoever starves to death today is murdered.  Whoever has money eats and lives.  Whoever has no money dies of starvation, becomes an invalid and/or dies.

*

            Over 2000 years ago Marcus Aurelius wrote: Imperium superat regnum.  The empire subjugates all other powers.  The oligarchy of American finance capital takes this lesson to heart most exquisitely.

            The American president rejected the agreement on prohibiting the manufacture and sale of anti-personnel mines.  The US rejects the Kyoto protocol on reducing air poisoning by CO2 emissions and the treaty to ban intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.  The US refuses to sign the protocol against biological weapons.  The US opposes the OECD-convention on combating criminal offshore markets.  The US rejects the Inrternational Criminal Court (convention of Rome 1998).  Every kind of military disarmament is horror to the US.  The empire spent 42 percent of the world’s military spending in 2002.

*

            Nothing and noone can explain – let alone justify – the dreadful attack on the New York civilian population on September 11, 2001.  Over 3000 persons from 62 nations were killed within three hours.  However even the worst crime may not annul the principles of a civilized community like the American community.

            The terror bombardments of the American air force on Afghan cities and villages from October to December 2001, the humanly degrading treatment of war prisoners and the refusal to respect the Geneva convention in Afghanistan are trademarks of imperial humanly contemptuous arrogance.

            Bush and his accolites from Texas autonomously define who is a terrorist and who is not a terrorist – beyond all principles of international law.

            James H. Hatfield’s painstakingly researched book shows the direct influence of Texan oil billionaires on the Bush family.  The worldwide war against terror has to do with the profit maximization of investments in the international oil business, especially in the Middle East and central Asia.

            The ambiguity of the empire is also sinister to me.  Bush claims for himself human civilization, its morality and its defense.  At the same time he puts up with the horrific war crimes of the Sharon government in Palestine, particularly the massacre of hundreds of women, men and children in the refugee camp of Dschenin, in Ramallah and Nablus in April 2002.  He gave Vladmir Putin a generous debt relief after Putin massacred the civilian population of Tchetchnya.  He sends weapons and credits in the billions to the Turkish torturing henchmen.

            The submissive lackey-mentality displayed by so many compatriots from the Socialist internationale toward the soul-destroying world ruler aspirants in Washington saddens me as a European and social democrat.  Gerhard Schroder and Tony Blair are not the only ones.

*

            On the afternoon of November 9, 2001, I presented my report on the right to food before the UN General Assembly in New York.  In the morning I was invited by the editorial board of the New York Times for an exchange of ideas at the newspaper headquarters, 229 West 43^rd St.  I spoke and answered questions.  At the end of the conversation, I asked: “How should a European understand the current strategy oif the Bush administration in central Asia?”  Roger Normand from the Center for Social and Economic Rights who also sat at the round table replied: “It’s oil and the military.”  All those present nodded in agreement.

*

            I hardly know a more fascinating, diverse and creative people than the Americans.  In Greenwich Village and at Columbia University, I learned more about people and the world during four years than during any other time of my life.  American hospitality and warmheartedness are unforgettable to me.

            The American grassroots democratic opposition against racial laws in the early sixties and the opposition against the murdeerous war in Vietnam in the early seventies are great turning points in the history of civilization.  American students, unionists, priests, writers, journalists and simple citizens wrote glowing pages in the book of history.  Michael Harrington, the friend of Willy Brandt, is unforgettable to me.

            Hatfield and his marvelous book belong in the long line of this resistandcfe exemplary for all people of the world.  He paid for this resistance with his life.  We owe him admiration, gratitude and solidarity.

http://www.mbtranslations.com/articles.php?filenum=335

Posted by Joe Anybody at 1:15 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 15 April 2008 1:20 PM PDT

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Mood:  cool

Corporations versus the People

I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
- Thomas Jefferson

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
- Abraham Lincoln

Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.
- Woodrow Wilson

The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves called into being.
- Theodore Roosevelt

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
- Dwight Eisenhower

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves - and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.
- Thomas Jefferson

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

*********************************************************

Civics Quiz

Which of the following candidates for President of the United States best reflects values expressed above?

a) John McCain
b) Hillary Clinton
c) Barack Obama
d) Ralph Nader

The answer?

d) Ralph Nader

As the Democrats bicker over the meaning of bitterness, Ralph Nader is traveling to all 50 states to challenge head-on the abusive, corrupting, corrosive corporate power that is undermining our democracy.

In this momentous election year, the Nader/Gonzalez campaign has launched an historic challenge to the corporate two-party duopoly.

The first phase is well under way - getting Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot in states across the country.

Today, Ralph travels to the Land of Lincoln - Illinois.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 9:57 AM PDT

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Mood:  sad

Outrage Committed in

Oaxaca, Yet Again

Posted by Joe Anybody at 11:23 AM PDT

Updated: Thursday, 10 April 2008 11:26 AM PDT

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Mood:  irritated

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/07/france.olympicgames2008/print

Olympic torch

relay cut

short amid Paris

protests

The Olympic flame relay in Paris ended in farce today when police cut the event short after protests forced officials to repeatedly extinguish the torch.

It was a second day of severe embarrassment for Beijing following similar skirmishes in London yesterday as activists demonstrated against China's recent violent crackdown in Tibet.

The Paris stage of the relay ran into trouble immediately after leaving the Eiffel Tower at lunchtime, even though hundreds of riot police and security officials flanked the torch bearers.

With only 200 metres of the planned 17-mile journey to the Charlety stadium on the edge of the city completed, the scale of the demonstrations meant officials had to extinguish the torch and seek shelter on board a bus.

The torch was relit and handed back to the French athletes carrying it through the streets, but it soon had to be extinguished again.

After this had happened for a fourth time, and with the procession hopelessly behind schedule, police decided not to go ahead with its second section.

Instead, the torch was again loaded onto a bus and driven to the stadium, arriving at around 5.30pm local time (1630 BST).

By the time the relay was abandoned, a planned ceremony to greet the torch outside the French capital's city hall had already been cancelled as members of the Green party hung a giant Tibetan flag from the building.

Despite the huge security presence, at least two activists got within little more than an arm's length of the torch before being stopped.

One protester threw water at it, but failed to extinguish the flame and was carried away.

Police grappled many other demonstrators to the ground, using tear gas to disperse those blocking the relay's route. They said 28 people were arrested.

While the turbulent scenes were a blow for the Beijing organisers, the Olympic flame remained alight at all times in an enclosed lantern used to preserve it on planes and overnight during the 85,000-mile journey from Olympia, in Greece, to China.

Wang Hui, the media head for the Beijing Olympics organising committee, today condemned what she called a "few separatists" involved in the protests, insisting the relay would continue as planned.

"The smooth progress of the torch relay cannot be stopped and will definitely be a big success," she added.

The flame was more heavily guarded than it had been in London. It was barely visible inside a 200-metre cordon shielding it from protests as it left the Eiffel Tower, flanked by riot officers and other police on inline skates.

Along the route, some cheered and waved Chinese flags but many others chanted pro-Tibet slogans.

Around 500 protesters congregated at Trocadero Square, which faces the Eiffel Tower.

One torch bearer, the double French judo gold medallist, David Douillet, told RTL radio he regretted the choice of China to host the games "because it isn't up to snuff on freedom of expression, on total liberty, and of course, on Olympic values".

Demonstrations are also expected in San Francisco and New Delhi, India on the torch relay's 21-stop, six-continent tour before it arrives in mainland China on May 4.

The flame's progress through London yesterday was slow, violent and occasionally farcical as protesters repeatedly attempted to disrupt the relay.

China faced already a distinctly chilly official reception in France.
When asked whether he hoped there would be a major protest in Paris, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said he wanted "people to be informed" about Tibet.

Following reports at the weekend that the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was still considering a boycott of the opening ceremony, Kouchner said "all options" remained open.

China had hoped the flame relay – the longest in Olympic history - would mark the start of a triumphant coming-out party for the world's most populous nation, marking its emergence as a major economic and political world power.

However, existing concerns over its human rights record were exacerbated following major anti-Beijing protests in Tibet, in which exiled Tibetan leaders claim up to 150 people were killed.

MORE NEWS

UPDATED

4-7-08

3:30pm PST

******

---

Paris protests

force cancellation

of torch relay

Security officials

call off final section

after huge pro-Tibet

demonstrations 4-7-08

PARIS - Paris’ Olympic torch relay descended into chaos Monday 4/7/08, with protesters scaling the Eiffel Tower, grabbing for the flame and forcing security officials to repeatedly snuff out the torch and transport it by bus past demonstrators yelling “Free Tibet!”

The relentless anti-Chinese demonstrations ignited across the capital with unexpected power and ingenuity, foiling 3,000 police officers deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and even inline skates.

Chinese organizers finally gave up on the relay, canceling the last third of what China had hoped would be a joyous jog by torch-bearing VIPs past some of Paris’ most famous landmarks.

Thousands of protesters slowed the relay to a stop-start crawl, with impassioned displays of anger over China’s human rights record, its grip on Tibet and support for Sudan despite years of bloodshed in Darfur.

Five times, the Chinese officials in dark glasses and tracksuits who guard the torch extinguished it and retreated to the safety of a bus — the last time emerging only after the vehicle drove within 15 feet of the final stop, a track and field stadium. A torchbearer then ran the final steps inside.

Outside, a few French activists supporting Tibet had a fist-fight with pro-Chinese demonstrators. The French activists spat on them and shouted, “Fascists!”

In San Francisco, where the torch is due to arrive Wednesday, three protesters wearing harnesses and helmets climbed up the Golden Gate Bridge and tied the Tibetan flag and two banners to its cables. The banners read “One World One Dream. Free Tibet” and “Free Tibet.”

The 17.4-mile route in Paris started at the Eiffel Tower, headed down the Champs-Elysées toward City Hall, then crossed the Seine before ending at the Charlety track and field stadium.

Throughout the day, protesters booed trucks emblazoned with the names of Olympic corporate sponsors, chained themselves to railings and hurled water at the flame. Some unfurled banners depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs from the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame cathedral. Others waved signs reading “the flame of shame.”

The Interior Ministry said police made 18 arrests.

Officers sprayed tear gas to break up a sit-in by about 300 pro-Tibet demonstrators who blocked the route. Police tackled protesters who ran at the torch; at least two activists got within arm’s length before they were grabbed by police. Near the Louvre, police blocked a protester who approached the flame with a fire extinguisher.

One detained demonstrator, handcuffed in a police bus, wrote “liber” on her right palm and “te” on the other — spelling the French word for “freedom” — and held them up to the window.

With protesters slowing down the relay, a planned stop at Paris City Hall was canceled. Earlier, French officials hung a banner declaring support for human rights on the building’s facade.

A spokesman for the French Olympic Committee, Denis Masseglia, estimated that a third of the 80 athletes and other VIPs who had been slated to carry the torch did not get to do so.

On a bus carrying French athletes, one man in a track suit shed a tear as protesters pelted the vehicle with eggs, bottles and soda cans.

The chaos started at the Eiffel Tower moments after the relay began. Green Party activist Sylvain Garel lunged for the first torchbearer, former hurdler Stephane Diagana, shouting “Freedom for the Chinese,” before security officials pulled him back.

“It is inadmissible that the games are taking place in the world’s biggest prison,” Garel said later.

Outside parliament, as the torch passed, 35 lawmakers protested, shouting “Freedom for Tibet.”

“The flame shouldn’t have come to Paris,” said Carmen de Santiago, who had “free” painted on one cheek and “Tibet” on the other.

Pro-Chinese activists carrying national flags held counter-demonstrations.

“The Olympic Games are about sports. It’s not fair to turn them into politics,” said Gao Yi, a Chinese doctoral student in computer science.

France’s former sports minister, Jean-Francois Lamour, stressed that though the torch was extinguished along the route, the Olympic flame itself still burned in a lantern where it is kept overnight and on airplane flights. A Chinese official said that flame was used to re-light the torch each time it was brought aboard the bus.

Pro-Tibet advocate Christophe Cunniet said he and other activists were detained after they waved Tibetan flags, threw flyers and tried to block the route. Cunniet said police kicked him, cutting his forehead. “I’m still dazed,” he said.

At least one athlete, former Olympic champion Marie-Jose Perec, was supportive of the demonstrators. “I think it is very, very good that people have mobilized like that,” she told French television.

But other athletes and sports officials were bitterly dismayed.

“A symbol like that, carried by young people who want to deliver a message of peace, should be allowed to pass,” said the head of the French Olympic Committee, Henri Serandour. “These games are a sounding board for all those who want to speak about China and Tibet. But at the same time, there are many wars on the planet that no one is talking about.”

 

International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies agreed. “We respect that right for people to demonstrate peacefully, but equally there is a right for the torch to pass peacefully and the runners to enjoy taking part in the relay,” she said.

Police had hoped to prevent the chaos that marred the relay in London a day earlier. There, police had repeatedly scuffled with activists and 37 people were arrested.

Beijing organizers criticized the London protests as a “disgusting” form of sabotage by Tibetan separatists.

“The act of defiance from this small group of people is not popular,” said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. “It will definitely be criticized by people who love peace and adore the Olympic spirit. Their attempt is doomed to failure.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has left open the possibility of boycotting the Olympic opening ceremony depending on how the situation evolves in Tibet. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday that was still the case.

Activists have been protesting along the torch route since the flame embarked on its 85,000-mile journey from Ancient Olympia in Greece to the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics.

The round-the-world trip is the longest in Olympic history, and is meant to highlight China’s rising economic and political power. Activists have seized on it as a platform for their causes.

The relay also is expected to face demonstrations in New Delhi and possibly elsewhere on its 21-stop, six-continent tour before arriving in mainland China May 4.

 http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/23978408/

Solidarity For Tibet

 

Posted by Joe Anybody at 2:58 PM PDT

Updated: Monday, 7 April 2008 3:43 PM PDT

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Mood:  lucky

Richard Gage spoke in Portland at the venue 'Barbaties Pan' on the subject of 911 Truth on 3-9-08
He is an architect and an expert on building structures who sees that the official story is not accurate nor truthful.

This event was even longer than the three hours that I recorded
He had a great slide show/power-point presentation but due to where I was set up to film from, my view of the screen behind him is not the greatest.

Richard provides a Q-n-A after the presentation (in part 3) and every single questing was addressed.

The point I remember so vividly is (*in my words) how Mr Gage pointed out the hypothesis for planes causing the collapse do not make "factual" sense and so if the fact cant support "the claim" the person that is investigating should use another hypothesis and see if the fact will support that view or that hypothesis. For when one starts to critically consider "all the facts" and consider all the hypothesis to come to their best conclusion it will then be based on a variety of considerations not just "one viewpoint" <that cant even be factually backed up> you will have an investigation that is conducted throughly, honestly, based on facts, and has covered "all" the possible angles.

The 911 commission did not even consider looking for explosions/bombs as a reason why the 3 buildings fell.

There is a website for Mr Gage it is the same as what I used for the titles in these three films
http://www.ae911truth.org

-------------

Google Videos <55-min each> Three Part Documentary

(1) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7150127769734809381

(2) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-716237618164647933

(3) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5359836692921829670

------------

The homepage link below is my Joe Anybody's 911 Truth Page with lots of links and information I have compiled.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 2:41 PM PDT

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Mood:  special

The Mercury Newspaper

Apr 3 – Apr 9, 2008 issue

 

 

Big Brother's

Little Brother

Cop Cites Videographer for

Recording Investigation

BY MATT DAVIS

A FREELANCE videographer plans to challenge the Portland Police Bureau in court after a cop confiscated his camera and cited him, in apparent retaliation for videotaping the cop as he searched a suspect in the street.

Mike Tabor, 47, has been videotaping police activities for the last two years with his Sony Handycam, as a citizen journalist working under the name "Joe Anybody." He posts footage of their activities (especially at demonstrations) on his website, Joe-Anybody.com. Tabor started videotaping Officer Dane Reister last Tuesday, March 25, at SW 10th and Main, after he saw Reister hurrying to catch up with two men in the street, one of whom was Hispanic, the other white.

"I just thought it was weird because I wasn't sure why he was stopping the men," says Tabor. "So I decided to start filming."

Officer Reister and his partner, Officer Nick Ragona, searched both men and found nothing on them, so they let them go. Early in the encounter, as seen on Tabor's tape, Reister told Ragona, "We're being filmed," and Ragona responded, "I see that." Following the encounter, Reister approached Tabor and asked him his name, and whether he had been recording audio.

"I'm recording video and audio, yes," Tabor responds on the tape.

"Give me the camera," Reister says on the tape. He then wrote Tabor a property receipt for it.

"I told Ragona I was shocked they would take a camera from a journalist," says Tabor. "I told him I thought this was serious, and asked who I should talk to."

Ragona told Tabor to follow them to Central Precinct on SW 2nd, where after 20 minutes, Reister emerged from the back room with his camera and a citation under ORS.165.540, for "obtaining contents of communication (unlawful)."

"He told me the men were drug dealers," says Tabor, adding that he told the officer he was concerned about drug dealers too. "I asked him how I could have filmed the encounter where he would have been comfortable, and he told me I'd been standing too close and made him uncomfortable."

Attorney Benjamin Haile responds to the cop's logic: "The reasonable thing to do if someone is standing too close is to ask them to move back," says Haile, who has decided to defend Tabor against the citation, and if necessary, pursue the matter through federal court on constitutional grounds. "It is not appropriate, without warning, to single out the videographer from other observers and take his camera and give him a ticket."

Haile says it's very important that people have the right to monitor the police and that video is a powerful tool with which to do that. He thinks the law is either being misapplied or it's unconstitutional, according to the First Amendment right to free press and freedom of expression, and also, Article 1, Section 8 of the Oregon Bill of Rights. Haile thinks there is a strong chance a judge will agree, and dismiss the case.

"If a person observes the police doing something they want to tell other people about and they're prohibited from making video, then their ability to credibly communicate what they saw is stolen from them," he says. "It is very literally stolen from them when the police seize their camera."

Reister declined comment in person, but Central Precinct Commander Mike Reese returned the Mercury's call.

"It was an unusual situation: an officer dealing with a person he knew was a drug dealer from previous experience, believing they were engaged in a deal," says Reese, referring to the suspect Reister was searching. "These are dangerous situations for us, and unpredictable.

"To have someone stand behind the officer while he is involved in a narcotics investigation is a problem," Reese continues. "I think he took an action based on the law, and the constitutionality of these things is for the courts to decide."

Tabor says he will continue to videotape officers in the course of their duty.

"A lot of people say, you're just asking for trouble," he says. "But I'm just concerned about peace and justice, being a good journalist, and about police accountability. That's all."

Posted by Joe Anybody at 11:27 AM PDT

Updated: Friday, 4 April 2008 11:30 AM PDT

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Mood:  chatty

[Sunday, March 23, 2008, Forest City, PA ]

This is reprinted from an email I recieved from greg palast

GOD DAMN AMERICA – ESPECIALLY PENNSYLVANIA
By Greg Palast


The kids were snoozing so I drove along the back roads skirting the Lackawanna River on a dawn hunt for black coffee and a newspaper.

I think even Norman Rockwell would have found this place too sticky sweet, too postcard:  the weathered barns, the fallow fields perfectly snow-frosted; red, white and blue flags already up on the clapboard farmhouses and the white-washed church in the valley already full for Easter prayers.

At a gas station, I scored the paper and coffee, spilled some on the front page – the closest thing I’ve got to a religious ritual – then parked in front of a row of insanely pretty salt-box houses shining like mad teeth on the river bank.   
One was missing a pick-up in the driveway; its screen door was left half-open, and there was a letter taped to the window.  The Sheriff’s Notice of eviction.  Another foreclosure.

God damn America.

I know that’s what Obama’s spiritual guide would say.  

But why?  It seems likes He’s already done a pretty good job of damning these United States.  

And He seems to have really taken it out on this corner of Pennsylvania.  

The gargantuan Bethlehem steel works have dwindled to a few robot-operated mills controlled from Mumbai, India. The only remainders of nearby Carbondale’s mining industry are in display cases at the ageing Coal Inn.  But you could still get out by selling your home to ski tourists from New York – until this year when mortgage markets turned cancerous. 

That leaves Forest City’s one industry, lumbering – which we can kiss goodbye since a recent ruling by the NAFTA board which allows the import of cheap Canadian wood.

Some local kid has made the paper having been thrown, helmet first, into the volcano called Iraq.  The Scranton Times-Tribune, two pages after the photo of a priest blessing a bowl of who knows what, noted that three soldiers killed in yesterday’s bombing are, “pushing the death toll in the five-year conflict to nearly 4,000” – which is true if you don’t count Iraqi dead.  But Someone must be counting them.  (From way up in heaven, I wonder if we look like a nation of Christians – or an empire of Romans.)

Phil Ochs, before he killed himself, wrote,

“This is a land full of power and glory,
        Beauty that words cannot recall.
    But her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom.
        Her glory shall rest on us all.”

Whatever.     It’s a difficult place to be an atheist, in this America, surfeited as it is on every vista with signs of His overwhelming grace and His exasperated wrath.  It’s as if the Lord Himself is just as confused and frustrated and disappointed as the rest of us by blessings so abused.

There’s one consolation.  He has apparently granted Pennsylvanians the privilege, come April 22, of choosing which Democrat will lose in November.  

Which may not mean much to Sandy Ryder on whom the spirit of Easter has landed like a ton of bricks.  Sandy, says the flyer tacked up at the Bingham diner, was, “Recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.”  She’s a,  “Single mother of two – Tony and Brandon – and Grandmother of one – Jason.”

And there they were in a photocopied portrait, the earnest elder son and little Jason to her right, the young slacker (Tony?  Brandon?) slouched to her left.   The town’s hawking a benefit for Sandy, $10 at the door, “including Food and Beverage” and a “Chinese auction.”

(I’ll bet Al Qaeda could pick up some recruits here – if Osama would offer health insurance.)

Whatever. This is, after all, Holy Week, which marks the anniversary of the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the day the giant oil corporation soaked 1,200 miles of Alaska’s coast with crude sludge. March 24 marks 19 years since the grounding and 19 years since Exxon’s promise to compensate the ruined fishermen. You should watch the 19-year-old video-tape of Exxon’s man in Alaska. I especially like the part where he tells the fishermen, “You have had some good luck – and you don’t realize it."

I know some of the fishermen on the TV footage, like the Anderson family, Eyak Natives. I can tell you, the Eyak don’t feel so lucky, still waiting for the Supreme Court to act on Exxon’s latest stall on payment. They’ve seen plenty of Sheriff’s Notices these past 19 years.

So Happy Easter.

George Bush tells us he’s, “feeling just fine.”  And we should be glad for him, I suppose.   

Bush ends his most belligerent speeches by saying, “God bless America.”  

So, why hasn’t He?

Maybe you can tell us, Mr. President:  Why hasn’t He?

Posted by Joe Anybody at 6:40 PM PDT

Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2008 4:31 PM PDT

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