Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Scandals are non-stories for 'America's Mayor'

Does Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani have some dirt on the press corps? How else to explain the free pass journalists have repeatedly granted him on stories that would threaten to sink less-favored candidates, particularly of the Democratic variety?

If Ronald Reagan was the “Teflon president” to whom no bad news would stick, then Giuliani would seem to be the Teflon candidate.

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Ray Krone. Photograph: Lisa Carpenter

Guardian Weekly

Ray Krone interviewed by Anna Bruce-Lockhart

In 1992 Ray Krone, a former sergeant in the US Air Force, was sentenced to death row for the murder of Kimberly Ancona, a bar manager found stabbed to death in a restaurant near his home in Arizona. He was freed 10 years later after being allowed to run DNA tests on the victim's clothes. Krone was the 100th prisoner in the US to be found innocent and freed from death row. Now a campaigner against the death penalty, he describes the long fight to clear his name.

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Special to PalestineChronicle.com

The underlying deep and widespread hostility of the high-ranking military officials has nothing to do with Zion-Con charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ and everything to do with the destruction, demoralization and discredit of the US military.

Why must Jewish organizations be and be seen as the loudest drum-beaters of all? Why can we not bring ourselves to say that military intervention is not on the table at all? Why not stash it under the table, out of sight and mount instead a diplomatic assault? - Leonard Fein (Forward November 7, 2007)

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Um Khalil

Receive what cheer you may: The night is long that never finds the day. ~~Macbeth~~

No longer is it so easy for Zionists to vilify Palestinians and fool those in the west that the obstacle to peace sixty years ago was the Palestinians' refusal to accept partition. Who wouldn't? Who in his or her right mind would hand over a land to recent immigrants who owned at the most seven percent of it? Walid Khalidi writes about partition below. Thankfully, today, his solid writing on the topic may be disseminated electronically and the Zionist spin handily countered.

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James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology whose credentials and achievements are long and impressive. He's a noted academic figure on the left and a well-respected Latin American expert. He's also a prolific author of hundreds of articles and 64 books including his latest one titled "Multinationals on Trial: Foreign Investment Matters," co-authored with Henry Veltmeyer, and subject of this review.

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As has been consistently reported by the real American news media, the Internet, a vast majority of Americans want the war in Iraq ended, and also want Cheney, the real head of the Executive Branch, along with his puppet, George W. Bush, impeached. It is the belief of this writer that no president in American history is not only more disliked, but is actually more hated by the majority of Americans. The lies that got US into a war of invasion and mass murder of innocent, unarmed people perpetrated under the guise of “bringing them freedom and democracy” is the cruelest of absurdities, and totally un-American.

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A view of the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem, December 2006. (Magnus
Johansson/MaanImages)

The Electronic Intifada

With the Golden Dome and the ancient walls of the Old City as backdrop, the cascade of Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan is undergoing a dramatic transition.

At first it is hard to spot the Israeli flags draped over scattered homes on the hill, but it is soon easily apparent that right-wing Jewish settlers and politically motivated archaeologists are rushing to claim this fragment of the Holy City as the ancient City of David, complete with a visitors center and busloads of young Israeli recruits and tourists, and plaques thanking generous donors for their support.

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The Palestinian Information Center

Comment by Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

The peoples of the world are being subjected to a fresh dose of lies, this time coming from Annapolis, Maryland, in the United States.

George Bush, the Fuehrer of the White House, who has destroyed two nation-states and killed a million human beings, and then had the chutzpa to claim that the Almighty told him to do so, displayed some of his characteristically morbid magic this week.

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Emily Jacir

Um Khalil

Lovely to look at, delightful to . . . think again. Palestinian artist, Emily Jacir, is a threat to Israel's existence as a Jewish state.

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Photo - Agriprocessors VIDEO

“Again, if PETA is putting something out, I will always have my doubts - they see things one way and one way only. Theirs. In many ways the activists in this country are terrorists of a kind…” [Excerpt from an email written by a heavily indoctrinated and reactionary US American]

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Zionist recruitment poster "Salvation
and Vengeance!"

Zionism, the Bund and Jewish Identity Politics

Those amongst us who support the Palestinian people, those amongst us who are devastated by the growing scale of Israeli atrocities, those who want to bring justice to Palestine and this includes bringing Palestinians back to their land, will have to make up their minds sooner or later. From now on, everything we do or say about the Jewish state is seen by one Jew or another as anti-Semitism. We have to make up our minds and decide once and for all, is it world Jewry which we are trying to appease, or is it the Palestinians we are fighting for?

I myself made up my mind. For me it is Palestine and the Palestinian people. If this makes me into an anti-Semite in the eyes of some confused Diaspora Jews (left, right and centre), I will have to learn to live with it. At the end of the day, I cannot make everyone happy.

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America is a land of extraordinary contradictions.

Everything about America is done to the max—super sized—including ourselves. Americans are fond of excess, fond of glitz and glitter, the bright beads and trinkets of capitalism; the symbols of conspicuous consumption. Millions of us live in McMansions, drive fast cars and hulking tanks and work at high stress glamorous jobs that provide enormous financial reward but leave us spiritually empty.

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Electronic Intifada

While politicians press their suits, the siege on Gaza continues: A relative of Fatah activist Ahid al-Biyari cries during his funeral in the town of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, 15 November 2007. Al-Biyari and two other activists from the Fatah movement were killed and three other Palestinians were wounded after an Israeli air strike on Beit Hanoun, medical sources said. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Even in the worst of times, there's one thing we're never short of in our troubled part of the world: another conference, meeting, declaration, summit, agreement. Something to save the day, to "steer" us back to whatever predetermined path it is we are or were meant to be on. And to help us navigate that path.

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Among the top priorities of the current and next Congressional sessions should be new laws to regulate corporate pricing policies. In particular, our nation needs strict new federal laws against price-gouging and predatory pricing.

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The world is being steered into an apocalyptic climax that defies reason, by largely unknown powers, for unknowable reasons. All of us are among the unfortunate losers in the ultimate earth lottery, with ringside seats to the end of the world, from which there is no escape. There is a secretive cabal of criminal minds, who are doing everything in their (practically limitless) power to violently forge a utopian world order upon the earth. In this unfolding power play they intend to pre-enact Judgment Day, to convince the people that time is up, making them easier to manipulate, using their own religious beliefs against them. What the Bible gave us as a prophetic warning, these guys are treating as if it was their script for the worst horror movie of all time.

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Znet

Making occupation and calling it peace. Killing fewer and calling it progress. Rotating troops and calling it a withdrawal. Setting up new death squads and calling them allies. Lowering standards and calling it opening new opportunities.

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What do an organic farmer from Spain, a union worker activist from Brazil and a human rights scholar living in London have in common? They are all individuals who affect substantive change in their communities and they are also individuals who are overlooked by the corporate media.

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Crimes & Corruption Of The New World Order News

I woke from a dream last night with a sudden start, the world had turned inside out … the sun did not shine, the moon did not come out … darkness enveloped the earth, and all that had been was no more. How frightening a world without light; to look upon a face and see only night: no eyes to share the moment’s reflection, no curl of the lip to hint at deception, no frown to crease the brow to warn of hidden intent, no rise of the blood to mock the shame, nothing but sounds of words to reveal the truth, issuing forth in the recesses of a labyrinthine darkness. I listened to hear what this inside out world might revere, to know what it touted as fact in a world so black. But when I woke with such a start, all went blank, except the wondering.

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Dependence on Foreign Oil

In 2005 the United States consumed roughly 21 million barrels of oil daily compared to the global daily consumption of about 84 million barrels. Contrast these numbers with the 2002 daily statistics of 19 and 75 million barrels respectively. From 2002 to 2005 the United States oil production dropped from 8.1 to 5.1 million barrels per day, a production decrease of roughly 3 million barrels per day! Although we have approximately 20 billion barrels left under our feet this oil is of a lesser grade and much harder to pump thus driving the cost per barrel higher. Where does the rest of this oil come from and what will happen when that supply is no longer available.

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November 27 at Annapolis kicks off the latest Israeli-Palestinian Middle East peace process round that may be an historic first. It's the first time in memory the legitimate government of one side is excluded, and that alone dooms it. Like previous rounds, it's more pretense than peace, and as Jonathan Steele puts it in his November 16 Guardian column "The Palestinian path to peace does not go via Annapolis....so what do....Palestinians do next....In their decades-long bid for justice, they have tried everything:" armed struggle to compromise, but nothing works and the reason is simple. Their sincerity isn't matched by Israel, the West, other Arab states and the US most of all with all the muscle in its hands to push or constrain Israelis to be serious and fair. That's the problem. How can one side negotiate in good faith without a willing partner.

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"We don't want a ceasefire yet", Rice told the United Nations
Security Council in late July 2006 as Israel bombed families in a
basement shelter at Qana, killing 28 civilians including 16 children

It was one of those bleak, wet and cold London mornings back on January 18, 1990 when this observer exited the Marks and Spencer's store on Oxford Street, having purchased a Scottish Shetland wool cardigan for protection against the damp chill. As he walked to the Underground he noticed that some of the London street corner tabloids were running full page photos of his former boss, the Mayor of Washington DC.

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Finally, there are Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, who murder children
on their way to school in Gaza and call the murder self-defense...

Dear Sir: The Annapolis conference is another monumental exercise in futility, mendacity and failure. Just take a fleeting look at participants and attendees.

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An Israeli settlement in the West Bank. -On Palestinian land
outside Bethlehem. Illegal under international law. Stephen's
Public Gallery + Israeli Settlements

Online Journal

When you witness it, you are left in disbelief; how can it be happening? But it is occurring daily; what seems to be purposeful hindrances to West Bank residents that reduce Palestinians, who have meager demands and normal needs, to total despair and deprivation.

I had already observed a power point presentation on Fragmentation of the West Bank, one of many presentations that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) displays for those interested in conditions in the Palestinian West Bank.

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Time and time again European countries face a fundamental choice of their socio-political systems: either an alternation between periods of Capitalism and periods of “Socialism” as has happened in many countries. OR, a permanent state of a mixture of the two systems in a kind of “social market economy” as in Scandinavia.

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© Benjamin Heine

BenjaminHeine.blogspot.com

Innovative Choreographer of Modern Ballet

Maurice Bejart, for four decades an extraordinarily innovative and influential choreographer and company leader in Europe who often received critical scorn in the English-speaking world, has died. He was 80.

Hospitalized last week with heart and kidney trouble, Bejart died at Lausanne's University Hospital in Switzerland. In response to Bejart's death, French Culture Minister Christine Albanel called him "one of the greatest choreographers of our time."

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President Bush joins marines in prayer at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on
April 3, 2003. Accordiing to a Pew Charitable Trusts poll that month,
87 percent of white American evangelicals supported the president's
decision to invade Iraq. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Boston.com

If God's on our side, He'll stop the next war -- Bob Dylan

What it means to be a Christian after George W. Bush [Ed.]

EARLY ONE SUNDAY morning in the spring of 2003, in the quiet hours before services would begin at the evangelical church where I worship in Charlottesville, Virginia, I opened files compiled by my research assistant and read the statements drafted by Christians around the world in opposition to the American invasion of Iraq.

The experience was profoundly moving and shaming: From Pentecostals in Brazil to the Christian Councils of Ghana, from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East to the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, from Pope John Paul II to the The Waldensian Reformed Church of Italy and the Christian Conference of Asia, the voices of our brothers and sisters in the global ecumenical church spoke in unison.

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“The evil...in man...is of gigantic proportions.” - Carl G. Jung

Baltimore, MD - On Saturday, Nov. 24, 2007, my wife and I went to the new movie theatre in town. It’s called, the “Landmark,” and it is located in the Inner Harbor area, just south of one of my favorite neighborhoods, “Little Italy.” The film we chose to see was “No Country for Old Men,” produced and directed by the talented Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan. It is based on the best selling novel, penned in 2005, by Cormac McCarthy. The movie is full of blood, violence, mayhem and a very nasty villain, Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem. He is so menacing, that he would give Jack the Ripper the chills. But is the film more than a good thriller? Alex Baldwin, the actor, said of the flick: “It’s a metaphor for Iraq and the post-9/11 world.” (1) I think he’s right!

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Meltwater on the surface of the sea ice Navy Board, Bylot Island,
Nunavut, Canada Summer 2007 (Photo Louise Murray)

Index Research

Research Paper No.1.

PREFACE: The End of the Road?

“We can transform a necessity into virtue. We can pursue new and improved ways to produce, consume and discard. We can promote environmentally friendly industries that spur development and job creation even as they reduce emissions. We can usher in a new era of global partnership, one that helps lift all boats on the rising tide of climate-friendly development.” ~~UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon~~

A personal homage: Riding across the Great Divide when I was 7 and spitting on both sides, as was custom; the smell of pine trees by Montana’s Two Medicine River; seals, porpoises, jellyfish, sea urchins; the sound of the wind and ocean in a force 12 gale; blue dragonflies by a river with my son; moisture coming up through the grass in early morning; butterflies resting on my cheek both by the ocean and again by a river near a war zone; green northern lights above our ship’s deck blanketed by deep snow; swimming in natural mineral water; 'wine-dark' seas; full moons and spring tides; standing under a waterfall – these are some moments of joy resting forever in my memories. I have always lived beside or very near water: water informs my life.

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21-day-old Ahmad Abu Nada with his mother in the intensive care
unit of the Gaza Children's Hospital. (Rami Almeghari)

IMEMC

"We had been waiting for an urgent referral to an outside hospital for the past six days, until he died today," said Dr. Ismail Yassin Monday, in response to the death of one more patient at the Gaza Children's Hospital. Tamer al-Yazji, a 12-year-old chicken pox patient, died on Monday on his hospital bed after his referral to an Israeli hospital had been delayed.

Dr. Yassin explained that Tamer's condition had gotten worse over the past few weeks, showing symptoms of blood problems in his brain, so the ill-equipped hospital requested his urgent referral for an MRI scan and follow-up, which meant accessing medical care facilities in Israel or Egypt.

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TPMmuckraker

So it begins. After years of obfuscation and denial on the length of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq, the White House and the Maliki government have released a joint declaration of "principles" for "friendship and cooperation." Apparently President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the declaration during a morning teleconference.

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It's been a rough month in Pakistan. On November 3, General Pervez Musharraf suspended the constitution and declared a state of emergency, and then all hell broke loose.

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Global Research

Loose nukes and a cluster of dead airmen raise troubling questions

The unauthorized Aug. 29/30 cross-country flight of a B-52H Stratofortress armed with six nuclear-tipped AGM-29 Advanced Cruise missiles, which saw these 150-kiloton warheads go missing for 36 hours, has all the elements of two Hollywood movies. One would be a thriller about the theft from an armed weapons bunker of six nukes for some dark and murky purpose. The lead might be played by Matt Damon. The other movie would be a slapstick comedy about a bunch of bozos who couldn’t tell the difference between a nuclear weapon and a pile of dummy warheads. The lead might be played by Adam Sandler, backed by the cast of "Police Academy III."

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I recently sent a copy of John Pilger's article "Lest We Forget" that can be read at the website http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18726.htm and Anwaar Hussain's article "I am Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds" at the website http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7389.htm to Monica Benderman the wife of Sgt. Kevin Benderman, a ten-year Army veteran who served a combat tour in Iraq and a year in prison for his public protest of war and the destruction it causes to civilians and to American military personnel.

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Palestine Chronicle

Prior to 2006, this sort of sectarianism didn’t exist amongst the Palestinian community, only beginning under the auspices of Dahlan in Gaza.

The situation in Palestine continues to deteriorate, both on a political scale and humanitarian scale. The international blockade of Gaza and the continued illegal collective punishment of its residents by Israel has resulted in soaring food prices (eg. a bag of flour has risen from 80 shekels to over 200 shekels ie. A $23 to A $57). In addition, many foodstuffs, medicines and other goods, such as building material are no longer available. According to the United Nations Office for Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories there are zero stocks available for 91 drugs. Hospitals are reporting zero stock availability of pediatric drugs and anti-biotics, as well as a shortage in chronic disease drugs, cancer treatment drugs, a range of kidney dialysis drugs and IV glucose solution. In addition, there are also shortages of kidney dialysis machine equipment.

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Palestine Times

Israel’s decision to limit fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip in retaliation for unlawful rocket attacks by armed groups amounts to collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza, in violation of international law, and will worsen the humanitarian crisis there, Human Rights Watch said.

“Israel may respond to rocket attacks by armed groups to protect its population, but only in lawful ways,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. “Because Israel remains an occupying power, in light of its continuing restrictions on Gaza, Israel must not take measures that harm the civilian population – yet that is precisely what cutting fuel or electricity for even short periods will do.”

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Will Annapolis end with more than handshakes and photo ops? Is a viable Palestinian state even possible?

Will the fruit of Annapolis reap justice which is the way to security and peace in the Holy Land or will we see what American Israeli peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, Jeff Halper, Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions predicts?

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At Al Rahma shelter for homeless women and children, clockwise from
left: Fatima, Sahar and Daif © Christoph Bangert/Polaris, for New York
Times

Electronic Iraq

Nine-year-old Faleh Muhammad was abandoned by his family in April 2006. He was left to fend for himself in the streets of Baghdad, and later he was diagnosed with leukemia.

"I miss my mother. in the last days before they left me, she was very sad. One day I woke up in the morning to find my father and mother had disappeared," Faleh said.

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Palestine Times

The silent but real slow-motion genocide against the Gaza Strip’s estimated 1.5 million inhabitants is being stepped up as the Israeli occupation army continues to blockade the east Mediterranean coastal territory for the sixteenth successive month.

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AlterNet

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's flirtation with those who deny the reality of the Nazi genocide has rightly been met with disgust. But another holocaust denial is taking place with little notice: the holocaust in Iraq. The average American believes that 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US invasion in March 2003. The most commonly cited figure in the media is 70,000. But the actual number of people who have been killed is most likely more than one million. This is five times more than the estimates of killings in Darfur and even more than the genocide in Rwanda 13 years ago.

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Empire Burlesque

More news rolls in about the "successful tactics" being employed by the U.S. commandant in Iraq, General David Gaius Julius Petraeus. As we have noted here before, much of the relative drop in the death rate in the still-fertile killing fields of Iraq can be attributed to one of Petraeus' bold "counterinsurgency" innovations: surrendering whole swathes of territory to your enemy – and paying them handsomely for the privilege – in exchange for their promise not to kill your own troops for awhile.

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© Salon.com

Information Clearing House

Take a Look at Professor Roubini's Crystal Ball

Reality has finally caught up to the stock market. The American consumer is underwater, the banks are buried in dept, and the housing market is in terminal distress. The Dow is now below its 200-Day Moving Average -- the first big "sell" signal. Anything below 12,500 could trigger program-trading and crash the market. The increased volatility suggests that we are watching a "real time" meltdown.

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Palestinian women Hamas supporters protest in Gaza City against U.S.-hosted
conference in Annapolis Photo Fay Adwan PalestineFreeVoice

Palestine Free Voice

The leaders of five of the largest Palestinian political organizations participating in a conference organized by Hamas on Friday unanimously agreed to that the Annapolis conference is a set up, aimed to target and liquidate the Palestinian resistance. Furthermore the participants in the Gaza conference stated that the Annapolis conference is, “one of the platforms intended for liquidating the Palestinian righteous cause”. The Annapolis conference will further distance the Palestinian liberation to be imposed a foreign agenda, on the Palestinian people.

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The Palestinian Information Center

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM. --The Hebrew Haaretz newspaper has unveiled in its late edition on Monday a "serious" PA-Israeli document that aims at liquidating the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees to their homeland in the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands.

According to the paper, an Israeli group close to Israeli premier Ehud Olmert along with a Palestinian team associated with PA chief Mahmoud Abbas had negotiated the possibility of replacing the RoR with some economic projects that could cost 90 billion dollars.

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‘Every unit of brigade size has its My Lai hidden someplace.’

Communism was created and is controlled by the gluttonous Power Elite. Russia, because it was a treasure trove of untapped oil resources, needed a revolution (a political coup). The Czar and his family were murdered; it was planned and financed by the Schiffs, the Warburgs and the Rothschilds who directed the activities of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. [1] The Power Elite have, through their machinations, secretly sponsors a majority of the world’s tyrants. The autocrats Hitler and Mussolini were financed during the 1920-1930s by international bankers, including the regional banks that comprise the Federal Reserve System, the criminal cabal in partnership with the U.S. government.

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Seattle PI

Lawmakers need to stand up for the Constitution and support impeachment

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. -- Article II, Section 4

On Nov. 6, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney on the floor of the House of Representatives. For one shining moment the will of the majority of Americans and the promise of this nation's founders were truly represented.

The detailed charges were solemnly read from the House podium and televised on C-Span. House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer made a motion to table the bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lobbied hard for votes to table. In a stunning turnaround, House Republicans changed strategy and voted decisively to prevent tabling the impeachment resolution.

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Welch, Kucinich

If you are suffering under the illusion that Peter Welch is somehow protecting the rights of those that he met with recently please note that he voted for the following quoted Bill HR 1955 which is the most egregious elimination of the rights exercised by those that met with him to urge his support for impeachment and his support for the withdrawal of the United States forces occupying Iraq.

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This is Iran, the next country israel wants the US to destroy.

Al Bawaba

“Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.” (Charles Sumner).

In each war there are always winners and losers. The winners are those who make money and gather more power to themselves while all the others are the losers. It doesn’t matter if one has been on this side or that side; chances are that in the end the majority end up losing far more than they thought they will gain. Ask any parent that has lost a child in a war if he or she can in any way be compensated for that loss and you’ll have the answer.

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On Sunday, 11th November 2007, at about four o'clock in the morning, the pharmacist Salim Madani is in Sufa, the only border post to the Gaza Strip that the government of Israel opens every now and then. They have been waiting for 14 day for a truck loaded with medicines for distribution in the Strip, still stuck on the Israeli side. They have been waiting for permission from the Israeli government so that they may move the load onto another truck so the medicines can move into Khan Yunis on the Palestinian side.

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© Lawrence Sinclair

Global Research

Sub-Prime Mortgage Debt is but the Tip of the Iceberg

Part 1: Deutsche Bank’s painful lesson

Even experienced banker friends tell me that they think the worst of the US banking troubles are over and that things are slowly getting back to normal. What is lacking in their rosy optimism is the realization of the scale of the ongoing deterioration in credit markets globally, centered in the American asset-backed securities market, and especially in the market for CDO’s—Collateralized Debt Obligations and CMO’s—Collateralized Mortgage Obligations. By now every serious reader has heard the term “It’s a crisis in Sub-Prime US home mortgage debt.” What almost no one I know understands is that the Sub-Prime problem is but the tip of a colossal iceberg that is in a slow meltdown. I offer one recent example to illustrate my point that the “Financial Tsunami” is only beginning.

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Gluttony and greed kill more than the sword. —Italian proverb

Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving. -Charles Lamb, 1821

Another propaganda-driven greed-fest has nearly passed in the land of the corporatized and the home of the subservient. Obedient little wage slaves and consumers that most of us are (to varying degrees of course), we have once again dutifully greased the wheels of the monstrous capitalist machine and made our proper sacrifices at the altar of Mammon.

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I am convinced that absolutely nothing will awaken Americans except
starvation, but by the time they have arrived at that horrifying
circumstance, it will be far too late.

A few moments ago I posted on my site the MSNBC version of "The Coming Consumer Crunch" which forecasts severe and painful belt-tightening for American families in 2008. Then when I checked my inbox, a Truthout bulletin listing Kelpie Wilson's latest article "Give Thanks For Oil" appeared. One paragraph leapt out at me:

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...especially after George Bush's election, Chavez has been a US target...

The Bush administration tried and failed three prior times to oust Hugo Chavez since its first aborted two-day coup attempt in April, 2002. Through FOIA requests, lawyer, activist and author Eva Golinger uncovered top secret CIA documents of US involvement that included an intricate financing scheme involving the quasi-governmental agency, National Endowment of Democracy (NED), and US Agency for International Development (USAID). The documents also showed the White House, State Department and National Security Agency had full knowledge of the scheme, had to have approved it, and there's little doubt of CIA involvement as it's always part of this kind of dirty business. What's worrying now is what went on then may be happening again in what looks like a prelude to a fourth made-in-Washington attempt to oust the Venezuelan leader that must be monitored closely as events develop.

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November 16 saw the limited release of Brian DePalma's new film, Redacted. Right-wing gasbag Bill O'Reilly has been attacking this film, and calling for a boycott, so I knew I had to see it. Fortunately it's showing in Philly, so I planned my weekend around a matinee screening.

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Information Clearing House

Deep in the bowels of a Washington DC Think Tank, a recent college graduate—selected for her unquestioning and eager embrace of their cynical ideology—labors under the watchful eye of a well-connected political strategist, creating “talking points” for the evening news. The large corporations that so generously fund the Think Tank will pleased with this latest fiction, the strategist muses as he inserts her virulent words into his email and clicks “send”. He is confident that corporate contributions will flow as long as the propaganda flows

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© Image 'Copyleft' by Carlos Latuff

Desert Peace

There is no other explanation as to what has been happening to us over the past few decades.... war after war leading to other wars... never to peace. How is it that the people, the citizens of the world are allowing this to go on?

The wars spoken of have taken on a new face, at one time it was army Vs. army... today it is army vs civilians.... in some cases, army Vs. innocent children. Yet, despite protests and demonstrations... these crimes continue...

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On Fort Avenue near Hull Street lies this old house in Locust Point
that now serves as a lodge outpost. [ © Baltimore Ghosts]

The Locust Point of my early youth bustled with maritime commerce and social activities. During the years of World War II, (1941-45), when the Point had twenty-four taverns, it was commonplace to find tough dockworkers, gung-ho sailors and soldiers, drunken brawls, merchant seamen, floating dice games, some loose women, a fast buck and festive block parties. It was also a time of air raid drills, blackouts, ration stamps, crowded church services, unfounded fears of foreign spies, buying coal by the bundle, church-sponsored "May Processions," "National Boh" beer on draft, shoe shine boys, patriotic parades, newspaper hawkers, cops walking their beats and electric street cars.

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The people of Somalia are enduring yet another round of suffering as Ethiopian forces wreck havoc in the capital, Mogadishu. Apparently in response to an attack on one of its units, and the dragging of a soldier’s mutilated body through the city’s streets, an Ethiopian mortar reportedly exploded in Mogadishu’s Bakara market on November 9, killing eight civilians. A number of Somalis were also found dead the following day, some believed to have been rounded up by Ethiopian forces the night before.

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Arabic Media Internet Network

Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states clearly that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” It does not, however, say “with the exception of Palestinians.” But we, 11 million Palestinians, know very well that we are the exception to that rule. Whether we are “Israeli Arabs,” “Arabs of the occupied territories”, or Diasporic Arabs, we cannot have the same rights as those of “all human beings.” Others have the right to life, work, security, health, movement, democracy, education, electricity, water, medicine, food, love, marriage…etc. We don’t.

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The phrase honest politician has become an oxymoron. We should not be impressed by the prospect of having the first woman, first black or first Latino president. What would be far more radical would be to have the first honest president, if not ever, certainly in a very long time.

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In pictures: Attack on the USS Liberty

On June 8, 1967, Gary Brummett was a twenty year old Third Class Petty Officer assigned to the Boiler Room aboard the USS LIBERTY, a Navy intelligence/spy ship that was brutally attacked while sailing in international waters. Israeli air and naval forces aided and abetted by the LBJ Administration cold bloodedly ended the lives of 34 Americans, wounded 174 and irrevocably and traumatically altered the lives of all the men aboard the USS LIBERTY.

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Henry Kissinger, Robert F. Ellsworth, Patrick E. Haggerty (chair.
Texas Instruments Co.) President Richard Nixon, Glenn T. Seaborg,
Lee A. DuBridge at the White House January 28, 1969.

London Review of Books

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek
Henry Kissinger and the American Century by Jeremi Suri

Henry Kissinger’s realpolitik, with its moral relativism and easy acceptance of American limits, is often contrasted with the neocon evangelism that took off after the attacks of 9/11. Kissinger had long served as a foil for the New Right. The secretary of state ‘sounds like Churchill’ but ‘acts like Chamberlain’, Norman Podhoretz wrote in 1976. And even before conservatives came to condemn Kissinger for his dealings with China and Moscow, they distrusted his associates, particularly Nelson Rockefeller.

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London Review of Books

"Tree of Smoke" by Denis Johnson

In 1943, chemists at Harvard came up with a cheap and simple way to thicken petrol into a gel. Not only was it easier to use in flame-throwers in this non-drip form, but it would conveniently stick to things – wood, metal, flesh – as it burned. The thickener was originally made with coprecipitated aluminium salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids, which is how it came to be known as napalm. The first napalm incendiary bombs were dropped on a fuel depot near St Lô during the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. The stuff was later used by the United States against the Japanese, by the Greek government against the Communists in 1946-49, as well as by UN forces in Korea and French troops in Indochina during the 1950s. But it was the Americans in Vietnam who made napalm famous.

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AlterNet

Thanksgiving Day should be turned into a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of America's indigenous peoples.

After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States.

I expected criticism from right-wing and centrist people, given their common commitment to this country's distorted self-image that supports the triumphalist/supremacist notions about the United States so common in conventional politics, and I got plenty of such critique. But I was surprised by the resistance from liberals, including a considerable number of my friends.

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Online Journal

Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak
Edited by Marc Falkoff
University of Iowa Press

This slender volume brings together 22 poems by 17 detainees, the collective voice of some 775 men held in the US detention at Guantanamo, Cuba. According to Department of Defense data, less than half are accused of committing any hostile act against the US or its allies. The very circumstances of the initial detainment of hundreds of these men are questionable, more like a national disgrace.

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Israel simply wants to obtain from the Palestinian leadership
a recognition that it has a legal and moral right to carry out
ethnic cleansing of its Christian and Muslim citizens...

Seeking to perpetuate institutionalized racism and systematic discrimination against its non-Jewish citizens, the apartheid Israeli state has been incessantly trying to blackmail the weak and vulnerable Palestinian Authority (PA) into recognizing the Zionist state as “an exclusively Jewish state.”

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The Palestinian Information Center

Comment by Khalid Amayreh in Occupied E. Jerusalem

“The mountain went into labor, then it gave birth to a rat,” so says the famous Arab proverb. This adage is likely to caricature the outcome of the upcoming American-sponsored “peace conference,” slated to take place on 27 November, in Annapolis, Maryland.

Forecasting the failure of the Annapolis meeting is more than speculation. It is a realistic assessment of an event that is not intended to be successful, even if the declared desire suggests otherwise. Indeed, apart from the pleasantries which are meant to create positive atmospherics, Israel and the PA have failed to reach any modicum of agreement on the core issues that define the Palestinian problem.

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U.S. foreign policy consistently thwarted any independence movements in Southeast Asia by claiming that it endangered our “national security.” Meanwhile they backed governments and armies that engaged in profitable drug trafficking. In addition to U.S. interference in Viet Nam as early as 1945, top brass at the Pentagon suggested that soldiers and bombers be sent to western Laos in 1959. Secret military plans stated that the U.S. government was prepared to use nuclear weapons for these military operations. Perhaps this is the reason the U.S. refused to sign the Declaration on the Prohibition of the Use of Thermo-Nuclear Weapons in 1961.[1]

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Nuns pray over the bodies of four American sisters killed by the military in
El Salvador in 1980 (AP Photo)

The Fanonite / New York Times

Presumably encouraged by the wonderful results from Iraq, where death squads reign by night even as rotting corpses terrorize streets by day, the United States is now considering grafting the Salvador Option — Us proxies as death squads to target opponents, a la Central America, and, more recently, Iraq — to Pakistan. I hope the leadership in Pakistan is not stupid enough to play along. This could spiral out of control sooner than anyone can imagine, and literally mean the end of Pakistan.

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When power steps in to target and taser dissenters and crush violence
it intensifies resistance. (Photo)

What if in the shaky super power in decline, the United States of America, tottering on the brink of disaster, just what if the next turn of events was a popular mutiny against the gradual, little-charted American Counter-Revolution that has been going on for decades?

In these times in which America’s leaders threaten the planet with Armageddon, the future of man seems precarious. The violence marking American civilization—the terrorism of the state directed against its own people, its citizenry armed to the teeth and taser-armed police out of control and the government promising nuclear wars to come—threatens the rest of the world.

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Electronic Iraq

The Direct Aid Initiative is a project of Electronic Iraq intended to support Iraqis displaced as the result of the ongoing Iraqi crises through providing funds for crucial medical expenses.

Muna's house in Kut, a village southeast of Baghdad, was struck by a US missile in early April of 2003, during the US invasion. The explosion killed Muna's parents, as well as her four brothers. It also killed her infant daughter, whose name was "Iraq".

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Media With Conscience

"...Now the US military directorate charged with developing non-lethal weapons, which has invested more than a decade developing the Active Denial System (ADS), has launched a concerted effort to convince both the public and its own bosses at the defence department of the device's merits. "With brand new technology like this, perception is everything," said Col Kirk Hymes, a former Marine artillery officer who heads the directorate. He added that tests were almost complete and the first ADS, also known as the Silent Guardian, could be deployed early next year if the Pentagon allows. The decision is so sensitive that it is expected to be made personally by the defence secretary, Robert Gates, who sent senior representatives to the demonstrations..." (The Telegraph co. uk, November 19, 2007)

Just when it seems that things cannot get any worse, we learn that U.S. military commanders in Iraq are seeking permission to use a new weapon system. This will be the ultimate torture weapon. Its purpose is to cause excruciating pain, but leave no evidence of wounds on the victim. Imagine this weapon at AbuGhraib or Guantanamo. Imagine this weapon at your local precinct. The Department of Defense has named this weapon system "Active Denial".

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Mein Little Kind Lenni’le by Hans Christian Underdog

Sound file HERE. It's hilarious and funny like hell! (But a little bit sad, too.)

A short theatrical piece in which Freethepeeps, Indymedia UK administrator pulverizes Lenni’le Brenner, a Jewish Secular Fundamentalist. Mamma Brenner speaks from heaven. The clever old woman, a voice of Jewish wisdom, tries relentlessly to save her little progressive Kind, but as it seems, the infantile elder is determined to bring it all on himself.

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Suburbia is also a spiritual wasteland, a place where the wonder of nature is desecrated ubiquitously with corporate logos and all the artifacts of late technological society.

There is a common misconception among environmentalists and peak-oilers (I count myself among both) that cars created the suburbs. The car suburb, however, became what it is with regard to cars only incidentally. The real motive for the suburbs was plain garden-variety white supremacy. Cars simply became necessary to facilitate the spatial segregation that simultaneously confined African America largely to decaying urban spaces and built the ‘burbs as white enclaves. It's not that simple any more, of course. All things change all the time - as we'll see momentarily - but it was white fear and loathing of the Dark Other that set the whole process in motion.

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If the United States goes ahead with the bombing campaign against Iran that Vice President Dick Cheney has been strenuously promoting, there is no doubt that he will have the blood of millions of people on his hands, surpassing even the crimes of Hitler. What should be equally clear is that if "preventive war" is launched, Speaker of the House Nancy "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi (D-Calif.), will go down in history as Cheney's partner in genocide, for her role in keeping the Vice President in office, in the face of overwhelming evidence of impeachable crimes, and a groundswell of popular demand for his ouster.

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On a Friday afternoon in Levittown, Long Island my fourth grade best friend, Kat and I took our time getting home on November 22, 1963.

It was eerily quiet and calm in the streets and not until Phil passed us by on his bicycle and yelled, "Kennedy has been shot!"

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Consortium News

The Bush administration is turning Iraq into a test tube for modern techniques of repression, from sophisticated biometrics that track populations to devastating weapons systems that combine night-vision optics from drone aircraft, heat resonance imaging and deadly firepower from the sky to kill suspected insurgents.

These high-tech capabilities, when mixed with loose rules of engagement that allow U.S. troops to kill Iraqis at the slightest sign of hostility, have contributed to what U.S. generals and a growing number of American journalists are hailing as an improving security situation. Or, as President George W. Bush reportedly told Australia’s deputy prime minister in September, “We’re kicking ass.”

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Media Lens

Introduction

The writer Simon Louvish once told the story of a group of Soviets touring the United States before the age of glasnost. After reading the newspapers and watching TV, they were amazed to find that, on the big issues, all the opinions were the same. "In our country," they said, "to get that result we have a dictatorship, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. So what's your secret? How do you do it?" (Quoted, John Pilger, Tell Me No Lies, Random House, 2004, p.9)

It's a good question, one being asked by Nikolai Lanine who served with the Soviet Army during its 1979-1989 occupation of Afghanistan, but who now lives and works as a peace activist in Canada. Lanine has spent several years trawling through Soviet-era newspaper archives comparing the
propaganda of that time with modern Western media performance.

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With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman's "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" passed the House 404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain.

Not since the "Patriot Act" of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

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Puppet President Jalal Talabani

New Iraq’s Puppet President Jalal Talabani and Nobel Peace Prize, Israel’s President and war criminal Shimon Peres have a lot in common. "The best way to solve the internal problems of Iraq is through federalism. For that to take place, it would be best for Iraq to be partitioned in the three independent federal regions”, Peres said in an interview with the Turkish language CNN Turk television news network. Talabani described Peres’ statements as "realistic" and said that Peres was "welcome in Iraqi Kurdistan". [See also Question 6 in Iraq is still the issue - Part 2: Amerika’s New Iraq - The Quiz]

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The Center for Public Integrity

The Top 100 Private Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

KBR, Inc., the global engineering and construction giant, won more than $16 billion in U.S. government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004 to 2006—far more than any other company, according to a new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. In fact, the total dollar value of contracts that went to KBR—which used to be known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root and until April 2007 was a subsidiary of Halliburton—was nearly nine times greater than those awarded to DynCorp International, a private security firm that is No. 2 on the Center's list of the top 100 recipients of Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction funds.

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Graham Bush Carter and Clinton

Religious leaders can’t resist it. They simply love temporal power. Since the pharaohs built their pyramids to commemorate their divinity religious leaders’ attraction to earthly power has seemed irresistible. To be God or his direct representative among men and to exercise temporal power has attracted fatally religious leaders forever. Here I have several contemporaries in mind: Reverend Billy Graham who shared in the war administrations of several American presidents, his Catholic counterpart Monsignor Christian von Wernich, one of the exterminators of dissidents in Argentina’s last brutal military dictatorship, and the popes of Rome.

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The Voice of Palestine

MP Jamal Al-Khudari has held the Israeli occupation authority responsible for the death of a 9-year-old Palestinian child in the Gaza Strip on Monday after it refused to allow his treatment abroad despite his deteriorating health condition.

The MP renewed warning that hundreds of other patients suffering various disease were on the verge of death due to the tightened siege on the Strip. Khudari appealed to the world to immediately step in and allow the departure of those patients, questioning the idle stand of the world vis-à-vis such tragic conditions.

Amir Saher Al-Yazji, 9, died on Monday morning after suffering meningitis and the Gaza hospitals could not find the necessary medication for his condition.

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Photo: This child was born in Iraq in the years since the Gulf War, when over three hundred tons of highly toxic depleted uranium were fired in weapons at Iraq. While there is no direct evidence (or research for that matter) linking depleted uranium exposure with such birth defects, doctors in Iraq report a tenfold increase in certain kinds of birth defects (including webbed or fused fingers and toes, missing eyes and vital organs, and severe brain damage) since the end of the war--and many US Gulf War Veterans have parented children with similar birth defects. Picture courtesy of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's Campaign against Depleted Uranium.

Current Concerns

Depleted Uranium Dust – Public Health Disaster For The People Of Iraq and Afghanistan

In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y.,which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing morethan 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars.

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One hopes that at some point the American people will come to the realization that most elected officials these days do not serve the public interest, but their own economic self interests and those of their financial backers. The few who would serve the public interest are filtered out by the insurmountable fortress of capital that is the bulwark of electoral politics, especially at the federal level. Genuine public servants have roughly the same chance of winning a seat in Congress or the Whitehouse, as one has of winning the lottery.

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This holiday, like all others, is also replete with myths,
and young minds are filled with them.

In the US, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November to give thanks for the year's blessings and bounty. At least that's how it began. It's not, however, the current practice. Most people defile the day's spirit in how they spend it over a full four day holiday weekend - with overindulgent eating, parades, "can't miss" football from Thursday through Sunday, and, key for merchants, the "official" start of the Christmas holiday shopping season. It begins Thanksgiving Friday, is now an orgy of holiday consumerism, continues through Christmas eve, ebbs for a day, then builds again for a final celebratory new year's welcome with more overindulgent eating, drinking, partying, and binge-shopping for nonessentials.

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“Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.” –Winston Smith from George Orwell’s 1984

If you needed more evidence that most of our “esteemed” members of Congress are members of a criminal class of ruling elites, who regard the likes of us in the poor and working classes with the disdain most people reserve for cockroaches, look no further than H.R. 1955.

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Dear Sir: Greeting

You must be aware of the nightmare now unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is simply dying a slow and painful death at the hands of the children and grandchildren of the Holocaust. This is not an overstatement or exaggerated description of a people long tormented by a sinister occupying power that is hell- bent on decimating them, using the basest and most inhumane of means, such as preventing food and other basic needs from reaching them.

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On the third anniversary of the death of the legendary Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat, Palestinian supporters of the secular Fatah movement
throw stones at Islamist Hamas policemen

Provocations and misunderstandings abound, but Israel as a state for Jews only remains the heart of the problem.

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WikiLeaks

On Wednesday November 7th of this year, the primary operations manual for running of the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay was published by the government transparency group Wikileaks. After a press release from the group, Wired magazine and the Miami Herald published stories on the following Wednesday -- a day which which also saw the Pentagon demanding, without success, for the document to be censored. Reuters picked up on the leak Thursday, the New York Times and the Guardian on Friday. The following week saw reportage snowballing into over 160 press articles listed on the Google news index alone.

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© Crystal Fox Gallery

Baltimore, MD - They met in one of this city’s swankiest hotels. It’s a Marriott, located on the waterfront, just east of Harborplace, where the per diem rates begin at $260. I just can’t imagine Jesus and the Apostles hanging out at a place like that discussing their soul-awakening agenda. But, there they were--the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, all 220, in their expensive silk suits--holding their annual confab. I think they like the digs, since they were there last year, too. In a way, it is an appropriate site, since they are so much a part of the Establishment. A few of them enjoyed a $55 bottle of wine at a nearby eatery. In closing their proceedings, on Nov. 14, 2007, the clerics issued a few statements. However, there wasn’t one word of criticism that they directed specifically at the evil that is the Bush-Cheney Gang! (1)

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Is Annapolis meant to stop this? What will American
Jews do to stop the criminal Zionist land grab?

Xymphora

I’ve been writing too much about American Jews these days, forgetting my own reasoning that the Middle East problem is essentially a power game. Israel would be occupying southern Lebanon by now, building settlements and stealing water, had they not had their asses kicked by Hezbollah. Thinking about that vile Cohen essay, I can only come to the conclusion that American Jews, for whatever reason, have decided to make themselves irrelevant to any sane discussion of the Middle East. There is only one possible peace agreement, the one proposed by the Saudis, and unless and until we get to that agreement, there will be no peace. That agreement can’t be obtained as long as Israeli politicians or American Jews have even the slightest say in the matter. You wouldn't ask mentally retarded people to do research in physics, and you shouldn’t ask morally retarded people to come up with a peace agreement. Engaging them in any way is wasting time, which is exactly what they want.

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...he is the last Founder standing...

"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We need to go far -- quickly." ~~ Al Gore

No entity in this once-proud nation is more corrupt than its shallow, hubris-infested media. Any pricks of conscience the media may have felt for covering up the treasonous seizure of the 2000 election were swept away in the swirl of terror following the attack on 9-11.

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"I am against any form of gatekeeping or book burning."

Many people reading Mary Rizzo’s The Gatekeepers lose another one [9th November http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/11/08/p20912 must have wondered what the article was about. Someone had tried to censor Gilad Atzmon, for some unknown reason, and this had been rebuffed by the Indymedia Collective. Perhaps an explanation is in order.

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Throughout his entire career, Bush has demonstrated a propensity for making things worse, from his failed business interests to his failures in government. His natural talent for taking things and really messing them up made it seem like just another mistake, when he altered the war on terrorism into a war to protect Israel. The spin-masters and the corporate media wove the deceptions and White House lies into the seamless tapestry of myths which fed the popular war hysteria.

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The Fall 2007 Clueless at the Top Award goes to U.S. presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani for his statements that the United States has the “best health care system in the world” and that a man is twice as likely to die of prostrate cancer in England than in the United States.

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© Ben Heine

Arab News

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been shuttling between various Arab capitals and Israel in an attempt to bring about a consensus on how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute at the Middle East peace conference scheduled for this month. The question is: Is the US administration sincere in bringing about a just and comprehensive settlement in the Middle East?

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Ramzy Baroud, veteran Palestinian-American journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle, recently completed a speaking tour of the United States' East Coast to promote his second book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, 2006). The Second Palestinian Intifada is a far-reaching account of key events of the past five years that transformed the political landscape not only of Palestine and Israel, but of the entire Middle East. With a critical eye, Baroud takes the most controversial issues head-on: the alarming escalation in suicide bombings, the construction of the Separation Wall, the devastating hunger and unemployment in the Occupied Territories, the brutality of the Israeli army, the political surprise of the Palestinian elections. On November 12, 2007, Baroud was interviewed by June Rugh, a freelance writer, in Seattle, Washington.

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earthmeanders.blogspot.com

Environmental groups embracing certified logging of primary and old-growth forests threaten climate, biodiversity, ecosystems, sustainability and humanity -- stop giving them money

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Social solidarity is contradicted by the class structure of society. The idea of solidarity is annihilated by the existence of war. It is inconceivable that a war government can lay claim to principles of social solidarity.

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Global Research

Introduction

Venezuela's democratically elected Present Chavez faces the most serious threat since the April 11, 2002 military coup.

Violent street demonstrations by privileged middle and upper middle class university students have led to major street battles in and around the center of Caracas. More seriously, the former Minister of Defense, General Raul Isaias Baduel, who resigned in July, has made explicit calls for a military coup in a November 5th press conference which he convoked exclusively for the right and far-right mass media and political parties, while striking a posture as an 'individual' dissident.

The entire international and local private mass media has played up Baduel's speeches, press conferences along with fabricated accounts of the oppositionist student rampages, presenting them as peaceful protests for democratic rights against the government referendum scheduled for December 2, 2007.

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Strange events are taking place in the U.S.

By August 2007, a lot of very smart people were reading the tea leaves, convinced that the upper echelons of the U.S. government had their own hidden reasons for forecasting an event even more heinous than the attacks of September 11, 2001.

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff had been hinting that another 9/11 could be coming.

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Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is once again running for president. But you wouldn't know it from the mainstream media, which have been spending all their time focusing on Clinton, Obama, and sometimes Edwards.

It seems like the only time we hear about Dennis Kucinich is when the talking heads make fun of him. They ridicule Kucinich's short physical stature and his elfin appearance, and they make creepy comments about Kucinich's gorgeous young wife.

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The Wall Street Journal gave the top half of its opinion page Wednesday to a long essay by Peter Berkowitz, titled “The Insanity of Bush Hatred.” If anything, it deserves a gold medal for political propaganda -- make that political lies.

What caught my attention immediately was the frequent use of the word “progressive” to describe the people Berkowitz was attacking. It was used 10 times. In other words, progressives were attacked for hating Bush. There is a major lie of omission.

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Image 'Copyleft' by © Carlos Latuff

Desert Peace

A DesertPeace Editorial

Since the occupation of the Palestinian Territories started forty years ago, Israel and its foreign allies have been saying that the biggest threat to their security is the FACT that one day Palestine will liberate itself from their prison and establish an independent state.

For those forty years Israel has made it increasingly difficult for the above to become a reality by building settlements on this stolen territory and slowly but surely pushing the Palestinians into oblivion..... while at the same time claiming that the Palestinians 'want to drive Israelis to the sea'.....

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At no point, since the end of World War II, have so many regions of the world been swept up in chaos, asymmetric warfare, and economic disintegration, as at the present moment. Coming at a time when the global financial system has also already collapsed, this combination of seemingly isolated, ``regional'' conflicts and destabilizations represents nothing less than a growing threat of a global, asymmetric World War III.

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A combination photo shows Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez addressing the
closing session of the XVII Ibero-American Summit (right photo) and Spain's Prime
Minister Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero (L) and King Juan Carlos protesting over
Chavez's speech (left photo) in Santiago Nov. 10, 2007. [Agencies, China Daily]

Global Research

On August the 1st 1969, Time magazine quoted Generalissimo Francisco Franco saying; "Conscious of my responsibility before God and history and taking into account the qualities to be found in the person of Prince Juan Carlos of Borbón, who has been perfectly trained to take up the high mission to which he might be called, I have decided to propose him to the nation as my successor." With this statement began the formal relationship between Spain's present king and the country's fascist dictator.

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The Dawn

Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted his staff to “keep elevating the threat” of terrorism to make the American people rally behind the Bush administration in the Iraq war. In a series of internal memos to his staff, written between 2002 and 2006 and published in various US newspapers on Thursday, Mr Rumsfeld appears desperate to reshape public opinion of the Iraq war.

“Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. Make the American people realise they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists,” Mr Rumsfeld urges his staff in a memo written in April 2006. People will “rally” to sacrifice. “They are looking for leadership. Sacrifice — Victory,” he writes. “Link Iraq to Iran” and develop “bumper sticker statements” to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war, he argues. “Iran is the concern of the American people, and if we fail in Iraq, it will advantage Iran.” Such efforts, however, did not make the Iraq war popular.

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Abuses at the outset included beatings,
painful binding, swearing, humiliation
and denial of basic needs.

B'Tselem is the conservative Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories with a well-deserved reputation for accuracy. A group of prominent academics, attorneys, journalists and Knesset members founded the organization in 1989 to "document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public, and help create a human rights culture in Israel" to convince government officials to respect human rights and comply with international law.

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These children are subjected to physical and psychological
torture and interrogated without family or lawyers.

"It would be better to drown these prisoners, in the Dead Sea if possible, since that's the lowest point in the world."-Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman

Since the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000, over 4,000 Palestinian children have been arrested. [1]

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Riyadh Mansour

There have been troubling signals of late concerning the head of our mission to the United Nations, Mr. Riyadh Mansour, which raises questions and question marks about his competence, professionalism and even patriotism.

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Turkish-Kurd rebels hiding in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Discreetly but progressively and confidently the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is expanding south and southeast almost uncontested -- after the collapse of the former USSR-led Warsaw Pact -- outside the mandate designated by its statute into the Arab Middle East as well as into the Caspian Sea regions.

However, the U.S. obsession with the Iranian threat and with finding an exit strategy from the Iraqi quagmire made Washington less attentive to Turkey’s legitimate vital national interests, thus insensitively antagonizing the alliance’s southern strong arm and alerting it into the defensive, not against enemies, but against its own allies.

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PHOTO. Jazeera file EPA

Index Research

1. Preface: Shadows in Afghanistan

The US war in Afghanistan was in deep shadows in the autumn of 2007. NATO, controlled by the US, was having difficulty: countries would join but refuse to fight; few countries paid their dues. The people of Canada and the Netherlands, and Germany are not happy about participating in this US war. Warnings have been given by generals from various countries. Governments don't listen; too much money is being made from their wars. NATO responded by looking for more countries to join the melee, playing war games and by wanting to oursource the air force and helicopters. The US ally, Musharraf in Pakistan, to whom the US have paid millions, gives an example of what martial law is all about. Bush tells him to take his uniform off and proposed $845m more.

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Monte Cristo War on Terror (Game)

Japan Times / WHTT

My French aunt died the other day. She was lovely woman. But sadly she was also a terrorist. Born British, she had married a member of the French World War II Resistance forces fighting the Nazi occupation of their country. He had been betrayed by another Resistance fighter under Nazi torture, himself tortured and then killed. She had survived the next three years in a German slave-labor camp.

At the war's end, she was brought back to France as a heroine. But the fact remains that she and others in the Resistance had used violent, undercover force against the established authorities. By today's standards that is "terrorism." And that is what the Nazis thought too.

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PalestineChronicle / WHTT

The blame game surrounding Gaza's current political and social crisis is too unilateral and simplistic. In the public sphere responsibility for the instability of Gaza and the general Palestinian political malaise is placed either on Fatah's corruption in leadership or on Hamas' violent tendencies while seizing control of the Gaza Strip and during its consequent rule. Such a stance is feeding into the dichotomous derision of the rival Palestinian parties' rhetoric. Both Hamas and Fatah must bare responsibility for their action and inaction. Meanwhile, unless the International Community pressures Israel to put an end to human rights abuses carried out against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank the milieu for any compromise between Hamas and Fatah remains unattainable.

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Much has been written about America’s war in Viet Nam, another small, distant, non-threatening, resource-rich third world country. Despite devised government justifications, war is always about power and resources. Contrived circumstances provoke popular support; history is super sanitized in government-school text books. America’s Middle East quagmire is not about terminating terrorism and the Viet Nam war was not about checking communism. Tactics, successful elsewhere, are currently perpetrated against the hapless citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq. Tomorrow, it will be the citizens of Iran. For additional background on Viet Nam, please read the previous parts of this series. The following events transpired:

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The planned projects across the Himalayas.

A balance sheet of energy projects, ecosystems and livelihoods

Abstract

Energy starved India is increasingly depending upon the estimated 207,149 MW hydro-electric potential of Himalayan Rivers from J&K to Arunachal Pradesh. In Himachal Pradesh alone about 415 projects (Over 300 small and 115 medium and large) are planned, under execution or operational. To expedite capacity addition, Environment Protection Rules have been diluted or shelved affecting the livelihoods of estimated 128,000 households.

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As for the U.S. Constitution, President Bush said: “It’s only a Goddamned piece
of paper!” He and Cheney, his partner-in-crime, have put it through a shredder...

“There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties.” - George C. Wallace

Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, suspended his country’s Constitution on Nov. 3, 2007, and began arresting opponents of his dictatorial rule. President George W. Bush doesn’t have to resort to that kind of strong arm tactic. This isn’t because he has any second thoughts about doing so. It’s because there isn’t ANY opposition, in the realm of institutional politics, to the Bush-Cheney Gang! The Democratic and Republican parties are both controlled by the same Wire Pullers. Consider this: It is the complicit Democratic leadership, which has given the White House a blank check on the Iraq War, declined to impeach Bush and V.P. Dick Cheney, permitted the out-sourcing of much of our industrial base and created $9 trillion-plus in debt. All of which threatens the stability of the dollar and presages a devastating recession. (1)

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Altercom

El pasado sábado 10 de noviembre, en la Sesión Plenaria de la XVII Cumbre Iberoamericana, asistimos a una bronca sin precedentes entre el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez, el español José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, el nicaragüense Daniel Ortega y el rey de España Juan Carlos I. “¿Por qué no te callas?”, le espetó el rey español al presidente venezolano, que había calificado de “fascista” a José María Aznar por su apoyo al golpe de Estado en Venezuela en abril de 2002.

Borbón, visiblemente alterado, abandonó el acto de clausura de la Cumbre Iberoamericana que se ha celebrado en Santiago de Chile para no escuchar las críticas que el presidente nicaragüense, Daniel Ortega, dirigió a la multinacional española Unión Fenosa. Por su parte, Rodríguez Zapatero reclamó a Chávez «respeto» para Aznar, destacando que «fue elegido por los españoles».

Repasemos el comportamiento de cada uno de los protagonistas.

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Peace Palestine

What's it all about, Indy?

Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out, Indy?
Are we meant to take more than we give?
Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Indy,
Then I guess it's wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Indy,
What will you lend on an old golden rule?

Yup, I suppose some thought I would be able to finally post about events in Palestine. I even thought I would finish my study on racism issues in Italy and how it all relates to maintaining an established order of things so that power remains in the hands of the few and everyone feels insecure. I even had some other things on the back burner, Palestinian poetry and an analytical piece. Nope, it seems that those who would censor and determine the agenda for all "solidarity campaigning" have been working fulltime. As they say, the Devil never sleeps. That means that those who are committed to Palestinians, but are being vilified by this motley crew either have to allow their names to be slurred and their ideas to be buried, or they are in some way compelled to react. So, react we must.

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With an endless, futile and costly Iraq war, a stinking economy and most Americans seeing the country on the wrong track, the greatest national group delusion is that electing Democrats in 2008 is what the country needs.

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We are living in extraordinarily dangerous times, when evil, rather than justice, prevails. The schoolyard is terrorized by thugs and punks with names like Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Robertson, Clinton, Rockefeller, Rice, Rumsfeld, Perle, Kristol and Giuliani—pedigreed people all.

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In pictures: Attack on the USS Liberty

The Torpedo that Hit the USS LIBERTY: Made in the USA?

On October 2, 2007, John Crewdson, Chicago Tribune Senior correspondent reported that, "Bryce Lockwood, Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister, is shouting into the phone.

"I'm angry! I'm seething with anger! Forty years, and I'm seething with anger!"[1]

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Momento en es que el Rey de España calla a Chávez
durante la Cumbre Iberoamericana. Foto: EFE

Tlaxcala

Arrogancia en la clausura de la Cumbre Iberoamericana. El "rey" de España manda a callar a sus ex colonias americanas

Con una actuación sin precedentes, el llamado "soberano" de España, Juan Carlos de Borbón, visiblemente enojado por las críticas de Nicaragua, Argentina y Venezuela a sectores de ese país, intentó imponer su supuesta autoridad en la Cumbre Iberoamericana realizada en Chile, al irrespetar al mandatario venezolano mandándolo a callar, como recordando las épocas de sumisión de las colonias españolas en América, luego que éste respondía con hechos históricos la actuación del ex jefe de gobierno español en el golpe de estado del 2002.

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Olmert and Rice

After months of talks, and ahead of Annapolis, not a single key issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been agreed upon...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's latest visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories was rich in rhetoric but woefully short on substance. Rice, who arrived in Jerusalem Sunday, is engaged in final preparations for the upcoming peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, due to be held in the last week of November.

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During the course of an October 17, 2007 press conference, President Bush Jr. terrorized the entire world with the threat of World War III if he could not work his illegal will upon Iran. Then Russian President Vladimir Putin responded in kind by likewise terrorizing the entire world with the prospect of yet another Cuban Missile Crisis if he did not get his way on the provocative anti-ballistic missile (A.B.M.) systems that the Bush Jr. administration plans to locate in Poland and the Czech Republic.

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© thefreespeechzone.net

After Downing Street

Address by Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson on October 27, 2007

Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”

“While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss.”

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The Palestinian Information Center

Shortly before he was elected as successor to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in January 2005, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, aka known as Abu Mazen, pledged to preserve the human and national rights of the Palestinian people. However, nearly three years later, it is manifestly clear that Abbas has utterly failed to honor his pledges.

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She did an additional computer check and exclaimed,
"you sneaky girl! You were denied entry in Jordan- you
sneaky little girl!"

I met Krista for the first time in 2006 and crossed paths with her again this July during my fifth trip to Israel Palestine.

Krista is a beautiful twenty-something soft spoken young woman and a selfless dedicated committed long term volunteer with Sabeel [Arabic for THE WAY] Liberation Theology Center founded in Jerusalem and united with a global community of friends of SABEEL; ecumenical Christians seeking justice and peace in the Holy Land.

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More than 1.2 millions Iraqi killed, more than 5 million Iraqi refugees,
cholera, death squads, depleted uranium, ethnic cleansing and a
country completely annihilated.

That desert of corpses drowning under an ocean of blood, also known as the New Iraq, must have an aphrodisiac effect capable of stimulating the most hidden passions. Already with the lynching of the last president of Iraq almost a year ago, that raunchy desire surfaced from the darkest side of humankind in the form of a sinister caw in the air.

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In spite of the indignity, the US Zionist lobby continues to go after anyone who holds a differing view to its ideology.

The last time I spoke publicly in the United States before my current tour was nearly four years ago. During that time I travelled the world, passing my message to people in nearly 20 countries. Wherever I went, my calls for justice for the Palestinian people and for global alternatives to racism and war were well received. However, my latest talks in the US have made me realise that the witch-hunt on intellectuals that escalated rapidly since 11 September 2001 is nowhere near over.

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© coxandforkum.com

We Hold These Truths

The campaign to bomb Iran is centered on the Bush Administration's stated desire to do so, supported by the establishment media, the Israeli Lobby, and the voting power of the Christian Right.

The call for attack is at a crescendo. It will be an unimaginable holocaust upon people who have done nothing significantly to injure us, nor do they threaten the USA. Public opinion polls are playing a major part in bending Americans to accept, if not endorse, an attack on Iran.

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Rudy Giuliani in drag

The Ugly Truth

The truth is, as much as I knew it was for his own good, I hated seeing the look on his face…It was a mixture of many emotions on his part, and none of them positive–shock, confusion, sadness, bewilderment, worry, a little bit of anger, but not too much…

He was trying to make some kind of sense of it all, the fact that the ‘Reverend’ Pat Robertson–one of his heroes–had just recently given his personal endorsement to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, something that was obviously a kick in the gut to him personally.

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“Le Déluge” by Gustave Doré

UNObserver

“God seems to have left the receiver off the hook - and time is running out.” ~~Arthur Koestler, "Astride the Two Cultures”

Iraq is now threatened with a flood of biblical proportions. The Mosul dam, thirty miles north of Iraq's ancient third city is likely to burst, due to the mismanagement and potential fraud relating to the $27 million “donated” by the United States for its repair, according to a Report by Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, released on Tuesday, 30th October.

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France24.com

The wave of recent films set against the backdrop of war in Iraq and post-9/11 security has failed to win over film-goers keen to escape grim news headlines when they go to the movies, analysts say.

In a break with past convention, when films based on real conflicts were made only years after the last shots were fired, several politically-charged films have gone on release while America remains embroiled in Iraq.

Almost without exception, however, the crop of movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from unimpressed critics as well.

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After years of marked absence, the Bush administration has finally decided to upgrade its involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The announcement of a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland has raised red flags for anyone who has learned from past experience how unbalanced and insincere peace efforts actually can lead to further violence. And it requires little cynicism to ponder how genuine these current efforts are.

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Consortium News

Robert Parry’s Note: The Washington Post and some other publications are predictably panning Robert Redford's "Lions for Lambs" because it poses tough moral questions about the neoconservative agenda. In this guest review, historian Lisa Pease finds the movie compelling for those same reasons:

“Lions for Lambs,” directed by Robert Redford and starring Redford, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep, opens this weekend. It is one of the few “must see” films of the year..

Through crackling dialog, splendid performances, and emotional sequences, the film seeks to elevate the national discussion not only on the war in Iraq, but on the Americans at home who have chosen neither to participate nor to protest. The film’s Web site asks a question one must answer before one can enter: what do you stand for? The film itself asks a bigger question: What are you willing to do for what you believe?

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CarolynBaker.net

I recently had the opportunity to view a lecture by Michael Parenti whom I consider a foremost expert on imperialism. Parenti began his lecture with the use of the word "stochasticism" which essentially means random, non-deterministic, based on conjecture or guess. A simpler way of summarizing it is, "stuff happens." It is, in fact, the polar opposite of "conspiratorial." In the lecture Parenti went on to criticize those who refuse to admit that the United States is imperialistic and who explain its imperial adventures around the world as something that "just happened." Generally, those in academia who rationalize U.S. imperialism are astute, incisive thinkers on other issues, so one is perplexed by the obtuseness they demonstrate around the topic of imperialism.

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© Ben Heine

A DesertPeace Editorial

There was a game I played as a toddler; I would close my eyes and imagine that the person I was with disappeared. I have seen youngsters playing this 'game' right up to the present time. The 'game' does not have a name... it's just played....

The unfortunate thing is that far too many times it is played by nations rather than by children. Point in case is Israel; a country that has closed its eyes to the existence of Palestine for decades. As in the case of the children's game, this does not really make the other party cease to exist.... it's still there.

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TruthDig

“I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...” —Oath of Office

“We will not lie, steal, or cheat...” —Air Force Academy honor code

“Military professionals must remember that religious choice is a matter of individual conscience. Professionals, and especially commanders, must not take it upon themselves to change or coercively influence the religious views of subordinates.” —Religious Toleration (Air Force Code of Ethics, 1997)

Forty-two years ago, at the age of 18, I took the oath of office on my first day as an Air Force Academy cadet. The mission of the academy was not only to train future leaders for the Air Force but for America as well, because, in the end, most academy graduates do not serve full military careers. The honor code became an integral part of everyday life. These are the values that I, and most graduates of the 1960s and early ’70s, took with us from our four years at the academy.

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Empire Burlesque

At his Harper's blog, Scott Horton demonstrates how the architects of George W. Bush's filthy torture regimen are now holding positions that allow them to protect themselves and their masters from the legal consequences of their actions.

Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Crouch, a former military prosecutor, was due to testify to a Congressional subcommittee about the Administration's attempt to suppress evidence of torture in "Military Commission" trials of alleged terrorists. But at the last minute, he was blocked from testifying by the Pentagon's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, on specious grounds that Horton blows out of the water. And who is William J. Haynes II?

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Wikileaks

"The use of chemical weapons by US forces was explicitly banned by President Gerald Ford in 1975 after CS gas had been repeatedly used in Vietnam to smoke out enemy soldiers and then kill them as they ran away. Britain would be in a particularly sensitive position if the US used the weapons as it drafted the convention and is still seen internationally as its most important guardian. The [UK] Foreign Office [Minister of State, Mike O'Brien] said: "All state parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention have undertaken not to use any toxic chemical or its precursor, including riot-control agents. This applies in any armed conflict." [1] — US Prepares to Use Toxic Gases in Iraq, The Independent (London), March 2, 2003"

The United States has been caught with at least 2,386 chemical weapons deployed in Iraq. The items appear in a spectacular 2,000 page leak of nearly one million items of US military equipment deployed in Iraq given to the government transparency group Wikileaks. The items are labeled under the military's own NATO supply classification Chemical weapons and equipment.

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Wikileaks

This spectacular 2,000 page US military leak consists of the names, group structure and equipment registers of all units in Iraq with US army equipment . It exposes secretive document exploitation centers, detainee operations, elements of the State Department, Air Force, Navy and Marines units, the Iraqi police and coalition forces from Poland, Denmark, Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Armenia, Kazakhstan and El Salvador. The material represents nearly the entire order of battle for US forces in Iraq and is the first public revelation of many of the military units described. Among other matters it shows that the United States has violated the Chemical Weapons Convention. A Wikileaks exclusive investigative report by JULIAN ASSANGE (ja@iq.org) & staff.

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The Islamic Republic of Pakistan was established in August,1947 when its majority Muslim population separated from British-controlled India and became a sovereign state. Since then, the country has been plagued by wars, political instability, and a series of military coups as it continues stumbling unsuccessfully toward democracy.

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London Review of Books

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges

Only a year ago, American evangelical Christians seemed more powerful than they had ever been. They had helped to re-elect George W. Bush in 2004, in spite of a rickety economy and the disastrous invasion of Iraq. They had waged a successful campaign in Washington to restrict access to late-term abortion. They had launched a series of ballot initiatives intended to prevent states or judges legalising gay marriage. And they had encouraged the Bush administration to appoint sympathetic justices to the Supreme Court. (In 2005, they secured their long-standing goal of a conservative majority on the court.) As the mid-term elections approached, worried liberals were warning that an American theocracy was just around the corner.

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Peace Palestine

Some who read this might ask themselves what it's all about. Why should a board that is focused on issues of Palestine and opposition to militarism, interventionism and occupation publish frequently about "internal issues" relating to publishing and activism? I believe the response is very simple.

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“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” - Oscar Wilde

The menace posed to society by distorted paranoid patriotism manifests itself in mysterious ways. One of the most insidious characteristics of the super-patriot is the support he lends to the sect of Power. In our times he melds intimately with Power, and is its vanguard. He joins in with its secret societies circulating invisibly in the community, and secretly influencing ordinary people who don’t suspect that the sects of Power and its enlisted agents are forever observing them and stalking them and evaluating them in order to determine if they measure up to the requirements of acceptable patriotism. But for Power the super-patriot is no more than a pawn.

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Dear Congress-woman Pelosi:

I am a journalist and book author. I have written not only many articles about this criminal administration and not only a book, but several law review articles (see below and see my website to view them www.jvbline.org). I am astonished to hear the rumor that you have threatened to remove Rep. Conyers from his chairmanship if he proceeds with impeachment hearings!

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Global Research

Evidence that Links GM Foods to Allergic Responses Mounts

Genetically modified (GM) foods are inherently unsafe, and current safety assessments are not competent to protect us from or even identify most dangers. Overwhelming evidence to support this conclusion is now compiled in the book Genetic Roulette: The documented health risks of genetically engineered foods, which presents an abundance of adverse findings and theoretical risks associated with GM foods.1

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Anti-sanctions demonstration by Gaza children who are
most affected by US-Israeli siege

The Palestinian Information Center

Just as the Nazis sought to concoct “reasons” to justify their criminality, the Zionist state of Israel and its fanatical supporters are doing the same thing to justify the slow-motion genocide the Jewish state is carrying out against the Gaza Strip’s 1.4 million inhabitants.

Israeli spokespersons and apologists, especially in North America, where Zionist Jews control the bulk of the mass media, routinely claim that Israel has no moral or legal obligation to feed and cater for the blockaded Gazans. This is, of course, a blatantly misleading argument, because Israel is still “the occupying power” in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli army is still in tight control of Gaza’s skies, territorial waters and all border crossings.

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But in Miami the other night, multitudes of misled and misinformed Christian's celebrated
military occupation, violence, power and control and ignored the gospel Jesus preached:
"It is the peacemakers who shall be called the children of God." –Matthew 5:9

[Miami, Fl. November 6, 2007] The James L. Knight Center was packed to the rafters with John Hagee's tribe of Christian Zionists and south Florida's right wing Jewish community. Zion's Fire Banners, dancers, singers and a band whipped the crowd into a frenzy of spinning, jumping, clapping, twirling and moved the rotund Hagee to link arms with men in skull caps and dance the Hora-not to Hava Nagila, but to repeated choruses of:

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The Ugly Truth

"Shove it up your pipe. I don’t wanna hear anymore about Islam…Take your religion and shove it up your behind…I’m sick of you…What kind of religion is this?…What kind of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback document in their hand, the Koran, a book of hate?…They need deportation, and without due process…They need to be forcibly converted to Christianity…It’s the only thing that can probably turn them into human beings.”

CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE, ladies and gents, the shrieking and howling taking place this very moment if the victims of this tirade had been Jews instead of Muslims, or if the author of this tirade–rather than being a hardcore Zionist Jew–had been a Christian or Muslim scholar of some sort or even–heaven forbid–a big-time media type?

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Harper's Magazine

On Friday, Nov. 2, ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson carried a story with a series of stunning accusations. Jan Crawford Greenburg provided a report that cleared up a long-standing mystery: why did Daniel Levin, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel who authored the second in the Justice Department’s series of highly controversial “torture memoranda,” suddenly depart his post? The story that unfolded was grotesque, almost impossible to believe. I have been a critic of the Bush Justice Department for some time, but this story even I was reluctant to believe. So I waited, expecting that the Justice Department would denounce ABC’s report as some sort of hoax or falsehood. In the intervening four days, however, the Justice Department has maintained a steady silence on the story which can be explained only one way: the story is true.

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Peace Palestine

NOT THAT MANY years ago, at the hub of the Kosher Palestinian solidarity cyber ghetto lived a Marxist emperor named Moisha’le, who thought so much of new clothes for the progressive cosmopolitan chosen people that he spent all his time in trying to obtain them; his only ambition was to make his very people look as important and righteous as he mistakenly believed himself to be. But in fact, he did not truly care for his two and a half obedient Gefilte soldiers, and the Palestinian reality did not bother him either. For instance, he believed that as far as the Palestinian struggle is concerned, fighting anti-Semitism was a major priority. For him, starvation in Gaza or the emerging involvement of Zionists in the American imperial wars were something that one should not even bother to mention in any significant way. For every event and occasion emperor Moisha’le had a ready-made proletarian thought to offer. And as one would say of a king “He is in his cabinet,” so one could say of him, “Moisha’le was well imbued is in his red light kosher haven philosophy.”

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In the early 60s, though you heard about ‘nuclear deterrence,’ ‘mutual assured destruction (MAD),’ ‘first strike capability,’ ‘counterforce,’ ‘second strike capability,’ ‘fail-deadly’ and ‘missile gap,’ there was still optimism in the air. For one thing, the Commanders-in-Chief could still be portrayed as decent guys. For another, most of the Zionist and Nazi Scientists had become US citizens. And Israel had not yet declared its intention to rule the world by proxy. And then, of course, there was Dr Strangelove!

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On November 13, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial turns 25. According to the Memorial Fund President Jan Scruggs, the black wall has "helped people separate the warrior from the war, and it has helped a nation to heal."

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Last month, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told assembled world leaders at the United Nations that the time had come to take action against Iran. "None disagrees," she said, "that Iran denies the Holocaust and speaks openly of its desire to wipe a member state - mine - off the map. And none disagrees that, in violation of Security Council resolutions, it is actively pursuing the means to achieve this end. Too many see the danger but walk idly by - hoping that someone else will take care of it. ... It is time for the United Nations, and the states of the world, to live up to their promise of never again. To say enough is enough, to act now and to defend their basic values."[1]

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International Clearing House

Zion-power and War: From Iraq to Iran

From a Scratch to Gangrene: The Transition from Zionism to Zion-Fascism

The ‘mainstream’ Zionist conservatives early on demonstrated their authoritarian politics through their whole-hearted and un-problematical support for Israel’s brutal campaigns driving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and lands. Subsequently, the Zion-Cons fully and un-questioningly endorsed the killing and jailing of thousands of Palestinian civilians protesting the Israeli military occupation and conversion of the occupied West Bank and Gaza into ‘open air’ concentration camps, with over 500 military outposts and roads blocks.

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International Clearing House

Zion-power and War: From Iraq to Iran

Explanations for the US attack on Iraq range from military-political pretexts to accounts focusing on geopolitical and economic interests. - The original official explanation was the now discredited claim that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical, biological and other weapons of mass destructions (WMD), which threatened the US, Israel and the Middle East. Subsequent to the US military occupation, when no WMD were discovered, Washington justified the invasion and occupation by citing the removal of a dictator and the establishment of a prosperous democracy in the Arab world. The imposition of a colonial puppet regime, propped up by an imperial occupation force of over 200,000 troops and irregular death squads, which have killed close to a million Iraqi civilians, forced over 4 million into exile and impoverished over 95% of the population, puts the lie to that line of argument. The latest line of justification revolves around the notion that the US occupation is necessary to ‘prevent a civil war’.

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Ban Ki-moon

Two more little children have been slaughtered by the Amerikan war-machine in Afghanistan. Maj. Chris Belcher, Combined Joint Task Forces-82 spokesman, farted:

"While resisting multiple requests to surrender, the militant barricaded himself in a room. Unbeknownst to Afghan forces, his family was barricaded in the room with him. It is regrettable when innocent lives are put at risk by militant forces. Our sincerest condolences go out to the families of the deceased and wounded."

=> Read more!

Illustration: blogeko

We Hold These Truths

Eight years of Biofuels (ethanol) policy and legislation has cemented in place the first world wide food cabal, which promises a humanitarian disaster, a famine more serious than those caused by any tsunami, earthquake or drought. This crisis is not in the dim future, it is here.

Congress has, in a series of acts passed in this millennium, handed the perfect monopoly to what appears to be few giant agribusiness companies that already have enormous economic power, but which may be a much broader cabal.

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© Carlos Latuff

Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, has opened up much of the American public to serious discussion of Israel's realities. He's no experton Zionist history, but the Anti-Defamation League and other pro-Israel propagandists must now work 25 hours a day, 366 days a year, trying to discredit equating Israel and apartheid South Africa.

Curiously, Carter only mentions South African apartheid 3 times. He relates how, on his 1973 visit to Israel,"General Rabin described the close relationship that Israel had with South Africa in the diamond trade (he had returned from there a day or two early to greet us) but commented that the South African system of apartheid could not long survive."

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It seems inexplicable that so many of the American people can be so dazed and confused, while moral degenerates ransack our nation, piss and defecate upon the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and brazenly loot the public domain, making a mockery of the rule of law and societal norms; whatever they may be.

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Photo electronicintifada.net

On September 20, Haaretz reported: "The security cabinet voted unanimously yesterday to increase sanctions against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip (and declare) the region a 'hostile entity.' " A further statement read: "We will reduce the amount of megawattage we provide to the Strip, and Hamas will have to decide whether to provide electricity to hospitals or weapons lathes." Israeli officials also decided to punish Gazans by restricting:

-- fuel as well as electricity from Israel to Gaza;

-- the passage of goods and people through border crossings that are already severely restricted; and

-- visits to prisoners even further than how limited they are already.

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Salon

Orwell's Big Brother never showed up. Instead of centralized Iraq war propaganda, we have an America in which the public and the press jointly impose their own controls.

At first glance, the war in Iraq would seem to represent the realization of George Orwell's darkest fears. In "Politics and the English Language," he expressed alarm over how political speech and language, degraded by euphemism, vagueness, and cliché, was used to defend the indefensible, to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. Three years later, in "1984," Orwell offered an even grimmer vision, one in which an all-powerful Party, working through an all-seeing Ministry of Truth, manipulates and intimidates the public by pelting it with an endless series of distorted and fabricated messages.

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Can you think of anyone better than George W. Bush with whom to entrust the dictatorial powers hinted at in NSPD-51? Or perhaps you are unwilling to trust anyone with such powers, even Bush. That is not an option in NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE 51 (NSPD-51), signed by Bush and released without comment by the White House on May 9, 2007.

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In pictures: Attack on the USS Liberty

In 1967, Lt. Commander David Ed Lewis was the officer in charge of 195 men out of the total crew of 294 on the USS LIBERTY. After we spoke for over an hour on the phone on November 3, 2007, 76 year old spry Dave was off to pull out his frozen garden harvested berries and begin making elderberry jelly.

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"It's a match made in heaven. Or in hell."

George W. Bush is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that he no longer has an automatic rubber-stamp Congress at his beck and call. And, while the Republican minority in Congress has still been winning some unfortunate battles, and the Democrats haven't done enough to fight back, it's not quite as easy for Bush as it was before this past January.

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This past week I attended another screening of "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire"[1]. My intention was not to see the documentary yet again-perhaps for the fifteenth time, but to support the film makers, my friends Sally Erickson and Tim Bennett, who were completing the last leg of their West Coast screening tour in my state. However, I did watch most of the film again, and this time, my experience was different. No doubt that had something to do with the walk Tim and I took during part of the film, bouncing around the narrow, vintage streets of Silver City, New Mexico and filling our lungs with the chilly night air. Maybe it was Tim's comment that when people ask "What can I do?" they don't really want the truth but rather ten easy steps that will require no sacrifice, no pain, and certainly no change of lifestyle.

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From gunandgame.com

Global Research

Big Brother: House passes the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act"

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.

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“[W]e got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from haveing the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon…” — president Bush in a White House press conference, September 5, 2006

‘Iran’, ‘Israel’, ‘Destroy’, “Nuclear Weapon’, ‘WWIII’, ‘Knowledge’, ‘Prevention’ — Bush

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We Hold These Truths

Vigil at John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church, October 28, 2007

The Project Strait Gate early team of six men and women lined up on an elevated boulevard dividing traffic on Stone Oak Parkway San Antonio, TX, in front of Cornerstone Church at 8:00 AM Sunday, thirty minutes before the start of services. The parking lot was already filling with the thousands that would come. In 15 minutes the street was busy both ways and a uniformed off-duty policeman was directing traffic past us into the church.

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"The Israeli planes marked out the Star of David so we
wouldn't know who was attacking us…"

It was the events of THAT DAY we call 9/11 that woke this pampered physician's wife up to the fact on the ground that people in the world hated the U.S. so much, that they would target and murder innocent Americans.

I did not react with fear, but curiosity. I did not want to shop as President Bush encouraged us all to do if we wanted to help. I wanted my questions answered and the MSM was not asking them and Congress was not demanding them.

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Palestinian workers demonstrate in Gaza against the increased cost of
living

Al-Ahram Weekly

It was an emotional scene. Relief was apparent on the faces of Mohamed Al-Masri and his wife Rania as they followed the nurse transferring their firstborn, 12-year-old Ahmed, from the operating room in Dar Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The medical team had finally been able to perform surgery in Ahmed's ear to recover his hearing after Israel had temporarily barred the import of nitrous oxide, which is used as anaesthesia and is necessary for surgery to be performed. Israel had given permission to import this vital gas to Gaza Strip hospitals only the day prior to Ahmed's operation last week.

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'John Adams wrote, 'Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.' We stand at a defining moment for America. If we do not act now, we risk the freedoms that sweat, blood, sacrifice, and loyalty to inalienable rights have earned us over the past two-hundred thirty-one years.' ~Naomi Wolf Author of ‘The end of America: letter of warning to a young patriot.’ (A citizen’s call to action)

Dear die-hard Patriot,

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The ongoing socio-economic and political ills that mar potential progress in Middle Eastern countries can largely be attributed to the ill-defined foreign policy of the United States. Utterly desperate situations have arisen whereby US clients rule with an iron fist, making prospects for a meaningful democracy sit at an all-time low.

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It is clear that the US media moguls would have us believe that the catastrophic invasion and occupation of Iraq was a sincere effort to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East, gone awry. But we must remember that everything associated with capitalism is about marketing: making the people believe that things and events are the opposite of what they really are, and creating artificial wants that neither benefit the individual nor society, while simultaneously embellishing corporate profits.

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"There are roads one does not follow.
There are armies one does not strike.
There are cities one does not attack.
There are grounds one does not contest.
There are commands of the sovereign one does not accept." - Sun Tzu (c. 544 BC – 496 BC), "The Art of War""

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The latest October Reuters/Zogby Index shows record low approval ratings for George Bush and Congress - 24% for the president that looks almost giddy compared to the bottom-scraping 11% level for the nation's lawmakers. It's more evidence that the criminal class in Washington is bipartisan and hoping November, 2008 will change things is pure fantasy.

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There is something terribly wrong with this country, if a majority of the people will choose to follow the very same lies that were used to start the last unnecessary war, to start a new world war centered on Iran, even though that same majority wants the first war ended. The same liars who sold us the same song and dance have now convinced 52% of the people that the future might be so incredibly dangerous that we have to start a nuclear war now to avoid it. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1379

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Online Journal

The True Story of the Bilderberg Group
By Daniel Estulin
TrineDay
340 pages

"In 1984, the most powerful men in the world met for the first time under the auspices of the Dutch royal crown and the Rockefeller family at the luxurious Hotel Bilderberg in the small Dutch town of Oosterbeck. For an entire weekend, they debated the future of the world. When it was over, they decided to meet once every year to exchange ideas and analyze international affairs. They named themselves the Bilderberg Group. Since then, they have gathered yearly in a luxurious hotel somewhere in the world to try to decide the future of humanity. Among the select members of this club are Bill Clinton, Paul Wolfowitz, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Tony Blair and many other heads of government, businessmen, politicians, bankers and journalists from all over the world," writes journalist Daniel Estulin in the opening paragraph of the introduction to his must-read book, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group.

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MOTHERLY AFFECTION: While children in the northern Gaza Strip
watchthe funeral of Mohamed Hamad, a young militant killed in
clashes with Israeli troops on Monday, their house exhibits a scene
made all the more poignant by the seige of Gaza

Palestinian factions plan an alternative to the Annapolis conference and it will convene in Damascus.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has been making frantic efforts to block the "national conference" that the Hamas-led opposition plans to convene in Damascus to highlight their rejection of the upcoming US- sponsored conference in Annapolis, Maryland, scheduled for November or early December. The conference in the Syrian capital was due to take place on 7 November but has been postponed, reportedly in order to coincide with the Annapolis conference.

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© Uncle Sammy Says!

We! (The People) / My Town

For instance, the other night, I dreamed that a friend of mine at the local community access channel had set up to do an interview with Dick Cheney. But when we got there, we looked at the chair where Cheney was supposed to be sitting, and he wasn’t there. Instead, there was just one of those goofy white helmets the Imperial storm troopers wore in the Star Wars movies. In the background a voiceover was going, “Yes, this is a dream. But it will make perfect sense, so remember it.”

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© GraniteGrok

We! (The People) / My Town

As self-professed champion of the Constitution, presidential candidate Ron Paul has missed a monumental opportunity to educate Americans about the criminal behavior of Congress in violating their oath of office. Even more important, he has not taken advantage of his 15 minutes of fame to promote the nation’s first-time use of what the Founders gave us in the Constitution in case the public lost confidence in the federal government - the Article V convention option.

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© Surviving The Memories

We! (The People) / My Town

Domestic violence has been with us throughout history in virtually every culture, with a few exceptions among non-dominant first nation peoples scattered across the globe. It poisons the world in ways that surpass all other sources of damage except for war, and what is war if not the ultimate domestic violence of the family of humanity against itself?

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Fast forward to Election Day 2008: Network anchors, cable pundits, and state and local election officials are going nuts as evening hours pass and voter turnout is hardly approaching 20 percent nearly everywhere. “What’s going on?” everyone is asking incredulously. TV and computer screens all over the planet show Americans in streets celebrating and shouting things like “We’ve had enough political corruption. We’re not going to take anymore!”

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Iraq Body Count, a “divisive” issue

The list of Iraq Body Count’s supporters is getting longer by the day. Just three examples may help you to get the picture:

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© Horizon. -This Iranian man is a gardener working for Cultural Heritage Organi-
zation in Neyshabur, the city which had been the mega city of the world in ancient
times, the city with warm, kind and lovely people.

Global Research

Imperial Playground: The Story of Iran in Recent History PART 4b

Not only are the Anglo-Americans fully on board and preparing for a possible attack on Iran, but even the Franco-German Entente seems to be steadily leaning that direction. French President Nicholas Sarkozy made headlines recently when he “called Iran’s nuclear ambition the world’s most dangerous problem,” and further, “raised the possibility that the country could be bombed if it persisted in building an atomic weapon,” as reported by the Sunday Times.

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© Horizon

Global Research

Imperial Playground: The Story of Iran in Recent History PART 4a

There has been much talk in recent months of a return to the Cold War, as increasingly there is growing disparities and tensing relations between the West, namely the Anglo-Americans, and the Russian Federation, the former Soviet Union, as well as China. ‘Is the Cold War Back?’ as the headline of a Reuters article asked, stating, “Russia has revived its Soviet-era practice of continuous long-range bomber patrols, sending 14 aircraft on such missions in the latest in a series of moves apparently designed to show off Russia’s new-found assertiveness,” and that “Russia’s military is now receiving a major injection of cash to modernise ageing equipment — including new planes — after years of under-funding and neglect since the Soviet Union ceased to exist.”1

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Dahr Jamal, Kevin Zeese

An Interview with independent journalist Dahr Jamail “The bogus idea that if the U.S. leaves things will worsen is both inher