George W Bush Came To Saskatoon

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Saturday, October 24, 2009

George W Bush Came To Saskatoon

Just a few weeks ago, my brother bought me two tickets to an event billed as a "conversation with George W Bush" at a downtown auditorium. It was once called the "Centennial Auditorium" - because it was erected in 1967, Canada's 100th birthday. Recently some corporation bought the "rights" to the name - it's now called TCU Place. I was to learn that Bush was to give a speech and then give a half hour Q and A session, just not with audience members. Instead he was to be interviewed by Brett Wilson, a successful entrepreneur and investor from North Battleford, Saskatchewan. I read an article in the local paper that the toughest question Wilson was going to ask was about there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I figured everything else was going to be softball city and that's how it turned out.

Everyone who knows me thinks it was a great gag gift. They know how I feel about this corporate sock puppet. The one caveat my brother gave me was that I had to stay until the end - and not get arrested. Even so, I was still hoping to do something provocative towards the end, but as you will see no such chance arose.

If you're a little curious why a former U.S. leader would deign to make an appearance in a small, foreign city so far off the beaten map, I have to give you some background. Having a former President visit Saskatoon would have seemed absurd as little as 10 years ago - but we are entering very interesting times. Saskatchewan is one of the few places in the world to have weathered the recession well. In fact people have recently been moving here in large numbers - especially from neighboring Alberta. The cost of living is not as high as it became in Alberta - but it will soon be just as bad as where they came from. Many out of province investors have bought up a lot of property and jacked up the prices. Inflation has firmly taken hold and only the upper middle classes and the elite are prospering in this new economy. The cost of buying houses have exploded in the last 5 years and renting a house or apartment has become onerous for the working poor and the disadvantaged. We have a growing homeless problem and a youth gang culture expanding along with the crime rate. Boom times are here! In fact, the city of Saskatoon's metropolitan area has just hit a population rate of 250,000 people. This March CNN featured Saskatchewan as a jobs "hot spot", promoting us as an economic light in the darkness. Now you know why our once laid back little burg is becoming so attractive to some very rapacious individuals.

Sponsored by Bedford Biofuels and the Chamber of Commerce, you can easily understand the agenda behind bringing in a former president of the United States, especially when that someone is one of the most prominent advocates of "Drill Baby Drill". We have vast un-tapped oil and natural gas reserves, uranium mines that supply more than half of the world's nuclear processing needs, well-established potash mines and a huge agricultural expanse to develop genetically modified foods on. Earlier in the year former Pres. Bill Clinton made an appearance in Saskatoon and the provincial capitol of Regina.

I missed that one - I was too busy with personal things (planning a wedding and getting married) to get together with people to protest his visit. In my opinion, Clinton bears nearly as much blame for the current financial crisis the whole world seems to be reeling from as Bush does. It was while Clinton was President that the Glass -Steagal Act was repealed ushering in the shady investment practices Wall street reveled in until the bottom fell out. Mr. Clinton himself has stated that he was to blame for the failure to reform health care during his term and there is no question that popular progressive social causes were put on the back burner. And it seems to me quite evident that his foreign policy was run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. For more on that, you should read a famous 2001 essay entitled "Osamagate" by Michel Chossoduvsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and a driving force behind the Centre for Research on Globalisation. Hey, once you go down the rabbit hole...

Digressions aside, another reason for Bush's visit is that Saskatchewan has recently turned to the Right - electing a conservative government called the "Saskatchewan Party" - yes, that's correct, the party is named for the province. You see, the "Conservative Party" was in charge during the 80's and tried to push an aggressive privatization agenda that eventually made them so unpopular that their Party became extinct. Left with a financial crisis - the people turned back to the New Democratic Party. The provincial successor to the populist Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, they held power for a decade and a half - and brought the province back from a deficit to a surplus, all the while maintaining a democratic social agenda that recognized the importance of unions and affordable public health care for a strong middle class.

Unfortunately, the belt tightening measures and the perceived anti-corporate stance of the NDP started to wear on disgruntled voters. This was exploited very successfully by a very influential corporate media wing (one company, RAWLCO communications, owns damn near all the private radio stations in the province and the neo-con affiliated Asper media group own the two biggest newspapers - the Saskatoon Star Phoenix and the Regina Leader Post). And while the publicly funded Canadian Broadcast Company is mandated to be "even-handed" in their political coverage (although the CBC entertainment wing is often refreshingly subversive), RAWLCO doesn't have to be - we have a News Talk Radio station, simulcast in Saskatoon and Regina, which at times would make Rush Limbaugh proud. John Gormley (named as the emcee for the Bush event) fills Rush's role up here in Saskatchewan -maintaining a constant rhetorical war against the Left. It's a fine balancing act - what with Saskatchewan being the home of the late, great Tommy Douglas. Named the Greatest Canadian in a national vote, Douglas was a former Premier of Saskatchewan, the father of Canadian Medicare and the national leader of the New Democratic Party. First established in Saskatchewan, Medicare (publically funded, single-payer, universal health care for all) was so obviously the right thing to do that eventually the federal government was forced to adopt it. In Canada we have health care for all, whether you are rich or poor. No one loses their home to bankruptcy because of medical bills. Memories fade over time though, and even up here in Canada there is a strong cultural bent towards dumbed-down entertainment and media-bite politics.

Back to the Sask Party - 10 years later, the survivors got together and decided to form a new party. Somehow they got a judge to allow them to change their name to the "Saskatchewan Party". It boggles the mind. Imagine if you will, that the Republican Party decides to turf their name - because the brand is so unpopular. They get together and decide to form a new Party called the "American Party". You see how screwy that is. People's psychology will conflate the two and perhaps lead them to think that "you can't vote against the American Party - that would be like voting against America!”

The Sask Party's leader and the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, did a fine job of keeping the far right wing of his party muzzled enough to get elected in 2007. But already the worm is turning. The first thing they did after gaining office was to unveil plans to create an agency known as "Enterprise Saskatchewan". It appears that their plan entails gutting the current Department of Economic Development and to “appoint individuals” to "advise" the government on matters dealing with legislative, regulatory and budgetary practices. According to citizen journalist Buckdog, "In other words, the overall role of the government and the legislature would be moved to an unelected body...”.

However fancily they dress up their new agency, its ominous intent seems clear. The plan is to move Saskatchewan away from our socialist roots and towards a neo-con style "Enron economy". The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour has warned that the Sask party's plan to end the Industry and Resources department's economic development role and move government employees under the new Enterprise Saskatchewan entity was "privatization" that would be opposed by labour.

The Sask Party is now really stirring up controversy with a recently proposed and thinly disguised anti-union measure called Bill 80 - the Construction Industry Labour Relations Amendment Act.

Trade unions and many others like me are opposed to this proposal, perceiving the privatization agenda behind it. I'm a non-union truck driver but respect and understand the value of unions. My father was a union man, and went on strike a few times. I also know the history behind the labour movement here in Saskatchewan - more than a few people died for the right to organize. Of course, there is already a backlash and a petition against it. Not so surprisingly, those who are for it are neo-cons and religious control freaks.

Most recently, Premier Brad Wall raised eyebrows in his annual "speech from the throne" when he said that he wants limit the amount of needles given out in the needle exchange program. This in spite of his government's own report recognizing the value of the program, noting that it helps to saves lives, curbs the spread of infectious diseases and saves the health care budget millions of dollars. Brad Wall has hid his social conservative tendencies well, but they are now starting to come to the fore.

At the time of the election two years ago the NDP warned the province in election ads that the Sask Party was a "wolf in sheep's clothing". At the time they were slammed by the neo-con media for fear-mongering. Now, it looks like they were just stating facts.

So now, gentle reader, the stage has been set.

When I first received the tickets, I asked my friend Beata to come with me. Beata is a fine actress, holistic healer and fitness instructor who also goes by another persona - Tinfoil Hat Lady. However, she has recently been going through a personal crisis and wasn't up for it. She told me she couldn't bear to sit and watch Bush weave his lies and be surrounded by a bevy of Bush lickers.

So at a meet up before the protest, I asked a fellow truth seeker named Alan to join me. He accepted without a thought - and we began to make plans for what we could do on the inside to perhaps make our presence known and make Bush uncomfortable. As it turned out, our Canadian politeness and my weak bladder combined to thwart us.

Around 11 AM on Wednesday, October 21st Alan and I got into my car and first stopped off at the Farmer's Market. Most of the protestors were gathering there to march downtown a few blocks away. The main organizers like the Saskatoon Peace Coalition had cleared everything with the City and were to receive a police escort, and I sure envied them. In retrospect, I think I'd have rather have been marching along in solidarity with them than what I was shortly to endure inside the Auditorium.

Then we headed off to TCU Place. We parked a few blocks away in a restaurant parking lot and walked over. We beat most of the protesters there but we did manage to video a guy dressed up in a black smock with a Guy Fawkes mask - he was channeling the "V for Vendetta" character. Then as we crossed the street, we saw our buddy Mitch, an avid 9-11 truth activist and founding member of the We Are Change chapter here in Saskatoon. Mitch was boldly bull horning 9-11 truth, ala Alex Jones, only feet away from the long queue of people waiting to get in to see Bush. Alan and I exchanged Hellos with Mitch, told him he was doing a great job and then went to stand in line to get in.

While we were standing in line, and it was about a half hour wait, the main body of protesters started walking towards TCU Place down Pacific Avenue, which had been cordoned off by police. This was the limit of the "official safe zone" for the protestors. I know, it sounds a lot like "free speech zones" in America. Mitch was outside the safe zone but across the side street, and the police left him and his group alone from what we could see. There were quite a few protesters and a lot of signs, though I'm guessing that the turn out would have been much higher if Bush was still President. But his war criminal status was a good enough reason for about 200 or 300 committed activists and ordinary citizens to show up. I don't know how much bigger the protest got after we went inside, but it was reported later that there was no trouble. There were no "anarchist provocateurs" to enable any kind of police crack down, although I read that a couple of protesting grannies were told to move from the front of TCU Place - this made a bit of news. The grannies believed that they had the right to be there and were quite upset.

An couple of interesting moments came when I was interviewed by the local Global TV News station and the local CBC. I drew their interest with my salutes of solidarity to the protesters; they wanted the point of view of an anti-Bush person who was actually going to see him. My interview with the Global news team was filmed by Alan with my digital camera, but it didn't make the cut, and if you watch the You Tube video you'll notice why. Mitch was drowning me out in the background. But that's alright; I don't think it would have made it anyway. Global is the local neo-con TV station - and I talked about the ominous coincidence of Bush visiting Saskatoon at the same time as the Sask Party was cranking up their pro-corporate, anti-union agenda. I don't know if CBC showed my interview with them, I didn't get a chance to watch their newscast that night - and I forgot to give the camera to Alan before they approached me - but it was far less provocative then what I said to Global.

We finally got in the door and had to snake through a long line that would eventually go through three electronic screening gates. At one point we were told we would have to give up my camera, as they had a no-recording equipment policy. But too many people had brought them, so we were told we could keep them but not use them. They'd be watching us. Security was tight, and we had to strip off our belts and empty our pockets into baskets before we went through the gate. It was exactly as if we were boarding an airplane. Later I heard that Bush's visit was going to cost the taxpayers of Saskatoon approximately $100,000.

Finally, at about 12:00 we got to our seats. We were both dismayed - we had seats in the thirteenth row back from the stage, both of them smack dab in the middle of that aisle, with about 25 seats on either side of us. In other words, we had no quick escape route. As a matter of fact, both Alan and I had to get up while we were waiting for Bush's appearance to go visit the men's room. The seats at TCU Place are very closed in without a lot of room - it was very difficult to sneak down the aisle by 25 people. You can imagine the scene, "Scuse me, sorry, scuse, sorry, just gotta sneak by, sorry..."

Anyway, at about 12:45, a full 45 minutes late, Gormley took the stage and talked in glowing terms of Bush's Presidency. Then he introduced the President of Bedford Biofuels who went on to also lavish praise on Bush and it was he who introduced the former President.

George came out to the podium to amidst loud applause. I didn't clap; instead I sat with my arms folded most of the time, only clapping when appropriate. Like when he talked about "supporting the troops". We support them all right, we want them home and off the killing fields of the New World Order's opium dispensary. Alan actually booed loudly and gave a thumbs down sign with his arms up in the air. Some neo-con dickhead hit him from behind and demanded he put his arms down - Alan turned to him and said, "Free speech, dude." But you could tell we were sitting in the middle of a bunch of bully-type personalities. There were Secret Service officers at every exit and people in the audience who would have loved to see a couple of "lefties" get roughed up. It was more than a little stifling.

Bush gave a tight 15 minute or so speech about his Presidency, his family, the challenges he faced, the tough decisions he made etcetera ad nauseum. He talked in glowing terms about Canada's friendship with the U.S. and the job our "great Canadian military" is doing in Afghanistan, bearing a disproportionate duty in the process. He never mentioned Canada's refusal to back the American invasion of Iraq and he reminded us all how much the U.S. depends on Canada's resources and trade. He also tried to justify his use of waterboarding by saying that waterboarding 3 Al Qaeda guys had stopped future attacks because of the info they got. That was just one of many times I wanted to stand up and scream back counterpoints to destroy his arguments; after all, we all know that torture is good for only one thing - false confessions.

However, I remembered my brother's request and was starting to see that it would almost be pointless. I could have given my camera to Alan, and done something like that, but I'm positive that not only would I have been removed from the auditorium if I had - my camera would have likely been confiscated. At that point Alan and I decided to ride it out, whispering to each other once in a while how bogus this speech was, and wait for the Q and A session.

The speech ended and his acolytes gave him a thunderous standing ovation. I stood up only to see what was going on, but Alan did the principled thing and remained sitting. Out came Brett Wilson and they took seats on the other side of the stage, each with a microphone in their hand, and the Q and A began. Wilson started him out with the WMD question. Bush was ready, of course. He said the same thing he always does, falling back on the OTHER reasons why it was good to "take out Saddam."

The rest of the questions were about how leadership values, the energy sector and his family.
Wilson gave away his bias as he talked to Bush about the future of the energy industry when he referred to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as a "left wing lunatic". Never mind that Chavez has been honestly elected twice by his countrymen, whereas the person he was interviewing had been the benefactor of election fraud in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.

At one point Bush came up with an anecdote about how Karl Rove, aka Turd Blossom, came "bopping in" late to his first meeting after he had been selected by the Supreme Court as President. He supposedly told Rove that it doesn't matter who you are, I want you to be on time. He turned to the audience and said that a good chief executive officer was always on time and demanded timeliness of others. This after being 45 minutes late for this appearance, the irony completely lost on him.

After a time, my bladder rebelled and I had to go to the washroom. I picked my way down the aisle and went to do my business. As I was just about to re-enter I heard Bush talking about his family and then said his farewells and thanks to a standing ovation. Then the people were let out. So I missed the end - but I doubt that would have been an effective time to shout out anything - one would have been drowned out by the Bush acolytes' cheering.

Looking back now, perhaps I should have protested directly to Bush while he was still doing his little speech - especially when he was justifying his torture program. Sure, I would have been thrown out and it might never have been recorded (all the TV stations were not allowed to bring their camera crews in), but Bush would have been thrown off - just a bit. Of course, attempting to tell the truth to a bunch of brainwashed fundies and neo-con wannabes would have been a pointless exercise. I take solace from the fact that every one of the attendees, while waiting in the queue outside, saw and heard everything from the protesters. Mitch was especially effective with his infowar onslaught. The truth about 9-11, the Bilderbegers, the trilateral commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the role of PNAC and the current President Obama's mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski was bull horned loud enough for anyone on the street to hear.

I'm sure Dubya was aware of the protest outside. When Gormley first introduced him, he recited a quote from Churchill about how you can judge an effective leader by the "enmity he sparks in his opponents". Bush even joked about it after he got to the podium. He told the audience, after thanking Gormley for his kind words, that Churchill was right. It was one of the many times he drew laughter. He mixed in a lot of self deprecating humour throughout his appearance, playing off his "dumb guy" persona, and the crowd loved it. But we all know that Bush isn't stupid - it's a character ploy. You have to have some depth of intelligence to be able to lie, deceive and mislead as well as he does.

Also, after reviewing the "We Are Change vs George W Bush" video, I think I noticed something. If you watch near the end when Mitch and his pals are lined up at the underground parkade exit; as the Bush motorcade leaves, I swear that he's in the backseat of the second car, giving the We Are Change group the finger as the car goes by. Could be my imagination...maybe not.

The next day in the Star Phoenix, "Ex-president defends Iraq war", was on Page A1 and A2. Les MacPherson, a neo-con protégé who was installed as a columnist when Conrad Black first took over the newspaper back in the late 80's, wrote a fawning tribute to Bush on page A3. But the coverage of the protest was a small story tucked inside on A8. The coverage was very biased on our local Global TV station as well.

So that's the report on Bush's visit to my hometown. The way in which this war criminal can freely travel around my country, with the support of many business people and politicians, is appalling. Our continuing support for the debacle in Afghanistan has turned this country away from her peacekeeping role, a role we used to be very proud of. The implications are ominous for our future as an independent, sovereign country. The Globalists have plans for us. The people of Canada must wake up from their stupor and smell the poppies.

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them".
-Albert Einstein

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Logically Tortured

So U.S. President Barack Obama has released torture memos that prove the previous Bush Administration used the Justice Department to provide cover for their torture program. This, of course, is not news. Concerned insiders leaked this revelation years ago. The news is President Obama's insistence that those low level employees who did the torturing won't be prosecuted for "just following orders". (One wonders if he'll pardon those unfortunate saps who took the fall for the torture scandal at Abu Ghrahib Prison in Baghdad.) So much for the principles established at the Nuremberg trials in Germany after WW 2. I guess it's not an international war crime when certain Americans do it.

Obama deserves some credit for rightly leaving it up to Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate and bring charges against those in power who crafted the torture program, although I'm not holding my breath that Holder will feel brave enough to actually do it.

Listen to what constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said to MSNBC's David Shuster on Tues, April 21st "In the last week or so, we've seen an effort to define a potential investigation in terms of the lawyers who wrote these memos. ... A war crime investigation does not look at the people who drove the trains -- they look at the people who told the trains to roll."

"George Bush and Vice President Cheney, the CIA director, the attorney general ... implemented, in full knowledge that it was a war crime, the torture program," Turley emphasized. "The effort to define it in terms of lawyers is something of a Beltway shift. That is, it's setting us up for failure."

According to Turley, Attorney General Eric Holder "needs to appoint a special prosecutor and not limit it as to who committed the alleged war crimes."

To emphasize this point I commend to you an article by Margaret Talev of McClatchy Newspapers, who writes that recently released documents indicate that "the small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques were operating not on their own but with direction from top administration officials, including then-Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. "

Now you know why Cheney is so cranky - I sincerely hope his heart holds out. Cough.

It was also very refreshing to hear Turley also correctly blast the idea of a "9-11 style commission" being set up to investigate the torture program.

"God help us if the only thing we get out of this is a commission modeled on 9/11," Turley commented. "That was a commission that was really made for Washington -- a commission composed of political appointees of both parties that ran interference for those parties -- a commission that insisted at the beginning it would not impose blame on individuals. So it's the ideal Washington commission -- a commission that would investigate without any repercussions."

Well, Mr. Turley, get ready to ask God for assistance. As the recent uproar from ex-VP Dick Cheney and his media minions proves, the Corporate Establishment is desperate to keep the "Jack Bauer, Torture Works Myth" alive. They do not want a fully informed public deducing exactly WHY they needed this torture program; namely, that false confessions were elicited to legitimize the lies of 9-11 and give the Bush neo-cons the green light to fulfill their PNAC dream. It seems apparent that those who are responsible for committing, aiding and abetting these war crimes infest the political and media elite - and will work day and night to keep covering up the truth.

The sick belief that torture works when used on "Islamic Radicals" is an epidemic. Even the so-called "Liberal Media" work hard at it. For instance, all this week on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report", they keep hammering away at the guilt of so-called "9-11 masterminds" Abu Zabayda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Jon Stewart actually complained about the "moral conundrum" that him and his staff were in, because torture is both morally repugnant and "effective".

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has been very good in covering the torture issue. However, he also seems not to understand that the official story about 9-11 falls apart if all the evidence has been gleaned through these "enhanced interrogation techniques".

From what I can make out, Olbermann seems to be advancing this theory : the reason why the Bushies needed to torture false confessions out of detainees was to establish a link between 9-11 and Saddam Hussein. Ostensibly, I suppose, to give them more P.R. ammunition in their push for the invasion of Iraq.

Sadly, Mr. Olbermann has yet to point out that if it wasn't for 9-11 - PNAC's longed for "new Pearl Harbour"; the invasion of Afghanistan would never have been condoned by the American people. Maybe Keith Olbermann is so sure of the official story because he's seen Colin Powell's famous "white paper". I'm sure you remember that Powell, Bush's first enabling Secretary of State (who later waved fake Anthrax around to insinuate that Iraq was behind that obvious inside job), had promised to hand over to the U.N. and the International Criminal Court documentation proving that Osama bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" were behind 9-11. He never did.

Oh well, sacred cows are best left to superstition.

Just as an aside, it is interesting to note that the FBI has no hard evidence that bin Laden was behind 9-11. More astonishingly, a Dutch legal TV show called "The Devil's Advocate" has even exonerated the former "Johnny-Come-Lately" Mujahadeen. I find it hilarious that this has made former New York Mayor (and 9-11 co-conspirator after the fact) Rudy Guiliani upset. Go get booed at Yankee Stadium again, you putz. Lie through your teeth on camera once more. Try and cash in on some more tragedy while the 9-11 first responders wither and die because you allowed them to breathe in the toxic air around ground zero. Why don't you sell off some more evidence before any forensics can be done, that's what a great prosecutor does, isn't it?

I digress.

One can understand why it's so important to the Corporate elite that the tortured confessions from Zubayda and KSM be propped up as gospel truth. Thus, you will notice that whenever these two Emmanuel Goldstein's are mentioned in the Media, a menacing picture of them is always shown super-imposed behind the newsperson - with the designation "terrorist" printed across or below the face, glaring out at the public to give them their moment of hate and fear...to psychologically deaden the viewer to the humanity of this "savage".

Yet, if one simply reads this article: Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots, by Washington Post staff writers Peter Finn and Joby Warrick ; you will find this about Zubayda...

President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

Don't you hate it when facts wreck a good racist, war-mongering myth?

Wait! What about the scary, evil-looking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession that he was the mastermind behind 9-11?

Well, as Ben Macintyre of the London Times-online writes in his excellent article, "24 is fiction. So is the idea that torture works"

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times in one month, and “confessed” to murdering the journalist Daniel Pearl, which he did not. There could hardly be more compelling evidence that such techniques are neither swift, nor efficient, nor reliable.

So if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession about Pearl's murder was false, why should we believe his confession about 9/11?

Unfortunately, there is a logic behind the use of torture. It is a disturbing kind of logic - one can call it Machiavellian, Orwellian or Kafkaesque. Simply put, it is logical for the Powers That Be to use torture when they NEED false confessions. History has proven that it is the one sure result you will get from the deplorable practice.

When you need a scapegoat, that scapegoat is logically tortured.

Live long and prosper.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Profitable Friends, Profitable Foes

by RB Ham
March 31/09


I draw your attention to the following story and a lengthy diatribe below. I'm really getting pissed off. Not even quality ganj, or jazz music or a healthy dose of qualudes washed down with Jameson's can calm the beating heat of indignation in my soul. The Four Horsemen are un-tethering their beasts and tightening their saddle winches. The planning stage for the big ride is in the last phase.

Here's a heart warming news story, from the London Guardian...

'Worse than the Taliban' - new law rolls back rights for Afghan women
Jon Boone in KabulThe Guardian

Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in
Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalizes rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission.

The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by
human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.
The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.

A briefing document prepared by the
United Nations Development Fund for Women also warns that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only.
Senator Humaira Namati, a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, said the law was "worse than during the Taliban". "Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam," she said.

the whole sordid story

Exactly what humanitarian, idealistic, virtuous cause are Canadian and American soldiers killing and dying for? Afghan heroin production is now at an all-time high. There is also no way of getting around the fact that many members of the American puppet Karzai government are opium producers themselves, protected by our troops.

Well, those murderers and torturers at Black Ops Central need funding, don't they?
It would be funny, if it wasn't so sickeningly evil and demented.

The supposed "President of Change" Barack Obama wants MORE troops for Afghanistan? Don't worry, though. Most will be private contractors. Not like we've had trouble with them before...
Unsurprisingly, the NATO Chief - Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer ( what a handle that is!) - wants more troops from all members of the "coalition of the arm-twisted".

Death and destruction on an even wider scale will be guaranteed. They know exactly what they are doing.

Who's next, Africa? What do you think?

I'll interject here and state that I think my favourite Star Wars' character Yoda would say, "Again fooled, we are."

As most of my friends and family know, I've always been a committed Progressive/Libertarian/Social Justice kind of guy. My politics are a little eclectic, but for years I really fell for the divisive left/right paradigm..Accordingly, I've always supported the NDP here in Canada, admired the Liberal Pierre Trudeau because he stood up to Nixon, hated the Conservative Mulroney with a deep passion, etcetera. etcetera....

So, of course, when it came to looking south, I really believed that Carter -then Clinton - were on the side that I believed in. But both were ultimately compromised and used as foils to make the Left look weak and licentious. The Wobblies. The pink-tutu Dems, as Bartcop would say.

Ultimately, the whole political landscape is a well run Hegelian Psy-Op. Obama and other Democrats diss establishment Right Wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, apparently the newly appointed head of the Republican Party (forget about politicians who are anti-war, use common sense and act on their constitutional duty like Republican Ron Paul, Democrat Dennis Kucinich or Independent Bernie Sanders - the media avoids covering them with a fervour that borders on the obsessive, unless they are heaping scorn and ridicule on them. Especially Kucinich and Paul...); thus immediately giving him attention and the credibility of a popular re-actionist. Limbaugh plays his appointed role and makes the outrageous statement that, for the good of the country, he wants Obama's policies to fail. Then the "party loyalists" from each side play their part in the distraction with a back and forth mud-slinging campaign. In translation to intelligent species that may be listening in from the ether it probably sounds like this: blah, blah, blah...yadda, yadda, yadda....oink, freakin', oink....

The corporate media, meanwhile, breathlessly covers this meaningless charade back and forth and sideways. The appointed party "representatives" face off in well-choreographed verbal rhetorical exchanges and repeat talking points until they become mantras. Afterwards, like professional wrestlers, the Republicans and Democrats and their media "friendlies" go off to private parties to drink, dine and whore together; patting each other on the backs and slipping favours into each other's pockets.

Distractions to the left of me, distractions to the right. Here we are. Stuck in the middle of this Political Zoo.

Then, of course, there is the wonderful news about our economic crisis.
How about the Goldman Sachs infested White House rejecting any respite for the hard hit auto sector in North America? Automakers whom received a measly incentive-laden 25 billion (compared to the no-strings attached trillions that AIG and the big banks like J.P. Morgan and Bank of America received), are treated like beggars and top executives pressured to resign.

Yet the banksters don't have to tell Congress a thing about where the money went. It took the courageous Dennis Kucinich, in open congress, to rip into the interim assistant treasury secretary. After much exasperation, Mr. Kucinich made one of the most ominous statements I've ever heard when he remarked, "I don't think anybody questions that you're working hard, Mr. Kashkari, our question, is who you're working for."

Oh, by they way, it's no surprise that Goldman Sachs has profited quite handsomely, compared to say Lehman Brothers, directly because who has been running the show at the PRIVATE federal reserve and at the treasury during both Bush and, now, Obama's administration. Just go to opensecrets.org and you can follow the money yourself, all the way to the top if you want.

If you find yourself, like I do, looking for a way to express your outrage, it's always a good time to recall three memorable H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) quotes:

Firstly, remember that it's normal. You are not alone in feeling outrage and indignation:
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

Secondly, it's a moral issue:
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

And most notably, given the currently engineered financial destruction of the middle class, Mencken noted that...
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

This quote pertains to the rather disturbing impression that President Obama, who seems to be an agent for Wall Street and the international banker cartel, is turning out to be just another Bill Clinton - smooth, slick, charismatic and totally compromised. He has very friendly relations with the top banker elite. Why, Mr. Obama is even willing to go to court to defend the corporate rights of the Bank of America!

You may remember that it was under Clinton's watch that Phil Gramm and the Free Marketeers helped eliminate the Glass-Steagall Act; which was the beginning of this derivatives scam. Another thing to consider when you listen to Obama's dire warnings about climate change and the need for a carbon tax – is that he's poised to profit from it. I think a lot of ordinary folk are starting to see through his act.

The Obama Deception, indeed.

I firmly have grown to despise being considered as a "subject of the Queen" (Canada maintains the Queen of England as our Head of State - although this role is supposed to be merely "ceremonial"). More and more, I am starting to evolve into a Canadian Republican, meaning that I firmly believe that we should break all governing ties to England. Be truly sovereign, as it were.
So, to me, it seems more than embarrassing that a President of the United States is currently on his way to my Grandpa's mother country, England, to kneel before the Queen. Oh, by the way, AIG distributed 8.5 billion dollars to Barclay's Bank in England. Has tribute been paid?

Perhaps the renowned economic historian Webster G.Tarpley is right about the consolidation of the OLD World Order...not the New World Order. Tarpley asserts that economic power may be shifting from America back to England and Europe.

Don't worry my fellow North Americans, we can now look forward to serving in other capacities if there becomes a dearth of jobs. After all, when the economy dives - recruitment for the army goes up. Crime also spikes when the economy is in stress - thus, there will be a need for more police officers. And today the blurring of the lines between the police and the military is becoming very troubling.

We've all been had, and something tells me that they're not through with us yet.

Until next time, this is RB Ham signing off.

Pleasant....dreams?

Who’s The Boss?

By RB Ham
March 27, 2009

We have been here before.

An old, unpopular and tainted regime is swept away. A new regime charges onto the scene with the rhetoric of hope, change and reform making bold promises of a fresh start.

A young, dynamic leader explodes onto the scene- with a veritable army of fanatically obsessed followers, so personally and psychologically invested in their iconic leader that they lose all rational perspective - willing to throw any semblance of logical thought out the window in exchange for the impossible chance that all that is wrong will be set right.

We have been here before.

The new regime and its fresh-faced new leader suddenly run into a series of unexpected crises and obstruction from the opposition. Promises made are reneged on, with the rationalization that you can’t change Rome in one day. Policies seemingly so different from the previously hated regime are slowly morphed into mirror images of the old ones.
Excuses are made and accepted. Blame is deflected, and the buck never stops anywhere.
The new boss ends up being very much the same as the old boss.

If we have been here before, and we know how this will all unfold, why not finally learn from our history? Wouldn’t that be something?

It used to be that the virtual monopoly the elite had on information could help carry off the illusion. Events in history were more easily covered up for longer times. Myths, legends and downright lies told to schoolchildren would become the accepted truth far more easily.

This is where we have not been before. The internet has made it possible for more people to discover the real agenda of the True Bosses working behind the scenes. If most people in the 1930’s thought that the Great Depression was just an unavoidable, unseen calamity – that is how most people today can see that our newest version of a Great Depression is a purposefully contrived grab for power, wealth and control by an international cartel of elitist bankers and their ideologically sick economic hit men.

More than ever before ordinary people are realizing that wars are engineered and vast profits made because of them. They are losing their life’s savings, houses and hope for a better future while sociopathic war profiteers are lying to them so as to use their children to prosecute further wars for perpetual profit.

We have a chance to finally have enough “awakened” people to truly put a stop to this charade.

How about actually standing up and making your voice heard? How about we refuse to fall for the same old contrived methods of dividing us and distracting us? What if we turned off the mainstream media, actually did some reading and research about the realities of our current predicament and how we got here?

It’s all possible. In this age, at this time, the people can finally put an end to the carousel of control that the power brokers and self-proclaimed “money masters” have over us.

The truth is out there and it is so easily accessible and downloadable. So easily spread far and wide.

Ironically, it could very well be that this “False Hope Paradigm” agenda of control will boomerang.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we won’t be fooled again.

http://www.infowars.com/

http://antiwar.com/

http://www.lewrockwell.com/

http://www.911blogger.com/

http://whatreallyhappened.com/

http://www.youtube.com/tinfoilhatlady

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