Fake Bin Laden Video

No copy of the video had appeared on Islamic Web sites as of yesterday, as has been the norm for past al-Qaeda videos. A spokesman for SITE declined to comment on how it obtained the most recent video. - Winter Patriot

Maybe he did get a nose job and dye his hair, moustache and beard. Or maybe it is all a fake. It is strange that a right wing group, SITE, got this video before anyone else.

They are only cited on National Review Online, or Fox News, and one of the partners has been hand picked by Bush to man lots of posts on Homeland Security and other Bush organizations.

Hat tip to Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque.

The Columbus Dispatch and Dr. Goebbels

It is the end of the week and I'm a little tired/lazy. So for the second time today, my post consists of a letter I already wrote to someone else.

An attack on Iran is imminent. Bush gave a speech worthy of Hitler wherein he claimed that Iran will cause a "nuclear holocaust" in the Middle East. Never mind the fact that Iran doesn't have the bomb and won't have the capability of producing one for at least five years. Of course, the only country in that region with a nuclear capability is Israel. If there is a nuclear holocaust they and their American partner in crime will be to blame.

The Columbus Dispatch recently published a cartoon showing Iranians as cockroaches. Paging Dr. Goebbels. Note the response to another reader. Here is my response to the call for genocide. (Hat tip to CAIR.)

I was stunned to see your newspaper compare human beings to vermin. Dr. Goebbels did that. Do you want to be in the same company? Your response to a concerned reader is as disgraceful as the cartoon.

"But since the drain cover depicted in the cartoon is clearly labeled with "Iran" and "extremism" it is clear that the cartoon refers only to those elements of the Iranian regime who support extremism. In other words, it doesn’t come close to labeling all Iranians as cockroaches."

When I exterminate roaches I don't discriminate. My goal is to take them all out. Clearly you think that Iranian human beings deserve the same treatment, whether "extremist" or not.

For shame.

Please write to the Columbus Dispatch and cc CAIR. The incitement to murder must not go unanswered.

Walt, Mearsheimer and Amazon

Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer are professors at Harvard and the University of Chicago respectively. Last year they wrote a ground breaking essay, "The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." It was well past time that someone took on that elephant in the living room.

In my opinion, Walt and Mearsheimer are a little too kind. They don't go far enough in dissecting the harm done by the Israeli government and its American minions. I believe that Israel and its lobby are grave threats to the American people. They have made us complicit in the commission of many human rights abuses, from the killing of Lebanese citizens, to the use of children as human shields in the occupied territories. Israel has successfully placed a bulls eye on all of our backs. If bin Laden hates us, it isn't because of our "way of life." It is because of Israel.

Walt and Mearsheimer were called anti-Semites and everything else except children of God. Their credentials didn't shield them completely from criticism but it is difficult for any honest person to dismiss them out of hand. Of course, honesty and U.S. relations with Israel are oxymorons.

The two have written a book that was published just this week. Yesterday I checked out Amazon.com with every intention of buying it. I was floored when I saw that Amazon is recommending it ("Buy Both and Save") alongside The Dealiest Lies by Abraham Foxman. Deadliest Lies was written for the sole purpose of debunking Walt and Mearsheimer. I wanted to complain to Amazon, but that is nearly impossible because they don't tell you how to contact them. I wrote Walt and Mearsheimer instead. Here is my letter.

Gentlemen,

I order books and CDs from Amazon. I do so in part because Amazon always informs me about books with subject matter similar to the one I am ordering, books I may not know about.

Yesterday I went to the Amazon site to order your new book. To my dismay, I was also offered an opportunity to order The Deadliest Lies, Abraham Foxman’s new book. Neither I nor anyone else interested in your book wants to read Foxman’s. There are numerous books for people with similar interests that could have been linked to yours.

Once again you two have been proven correct. There is an Israeli lobby and it doesn’t allow dissent. Even a powerful corporation like Amazon is terrified of selling your book along with others that address the same issue. They feel compelled to link your book with one written for the sole purpose of debunking it. I’m sure this is a first for Amazon. They have insulted you and your readers.

I don’t know if this situation has come to your attention, but I hope you can persuade Amazon to de-link you from Foxman. Amazon purposefully makes it difficult for customers to reach them. I thought you might have access where I do not.

Thank you for writing your book. You have done the world a great service by doing so. I will buy it, but not from Amazon.

Barnes and Noble will get my money this time around.

Impeach Bush

Salon.com has a great article which proves what many people already surmised. Bush knew that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

It isn't really news, nor does it let Hillary Clinton and John Kerry off the hook. If I figured out that Bush and Cheney were lying, they did too. They made a political calculation that being pro-war would get them campaign cash and a presidential nomination. The pro-Israel check bundlers would have looked askance at an anti-war position.

Poor stupid Kerry. He was hoisted on his own pitard and then didn't know how to get down. As I said many times in 2004, he needed only to be doubly cynical to get into the White House. He just should have said that he depended on the president and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Silly me, thinking that the Democrats have any political sense.

Well that is all in the past. The biggest question is this, what does Bush have to do to get impeached? There is already plenty of evidence but the Democrats have declared impeachment "off the table. They are accessories to all of Bush's crimes. Nothing will come of this information and an attack on Iran will begin World War III. Maybe the fundies are right after all. We are living in the end times.

Dennis Kucinich Disappears

August 30th is International Day of the Disappeared. It is a day to remember those who have fallen victim to the worst human rights abuse of all. Thousands of people around the world have had their lives snuffed out by political violence. They haven't been imprisoned and they haven't died on a battle field. They are simply gone and are almost always gone forever.

In America we have political disappearances. Just ask Dennis Kucinich. The Democratic Congressman and presidential candidate is alive and well, but you wouldn't know that he is alive or that he is running for president if you depend on the corporate media for information. I dissect it all in this week's edition of Black Agenda Report.

Vacation Ends

I took a couple of trips in August and came home relaxed and refreshed. Of course I also returned to reading the news, and so my light hearted feeling came to end along with my vacation.

The Bush administration is about to start World War III by attacking Iran and no one with the power to stop him is willing to lift a finger. The president raves about a "nuclear holocaust" caused by Iran, when it is Iran's sworn enemy, Israel, that is the only nuclear power in the Middle East.

The House and Senate pass anti-Iran resolutions, letting us know that they will be silent when the bombs begin to fall. Press reports indicate that 1,200 bombing sites have already been chosen, which means that thousands of Iranian human beings will die.

While we watch and wait for the destruction to begin, we should at least listen to those brilliant, prescient voices that explain so much to us. One of my new favorite bloggers is Arthur Silber. Silber has been trying to warn us both about the Bush decision to start another war, about Democratic party complicity and the liberal naivete/stupidity that will make more killing inevitable.

Thanks to Arthur Silber, I now know about Chris Floyd, who explains it all so well.

It is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement, one of the greatest political feats ever. Despite Bush's standing as one of the most despised presidents in American history, despite a Congress in control of the opposition party, despite a solid majority opposed to his policies and his war, despite an Administration riddled with scandal and crime, despite the glaring rot in the nation's infrastructure and the callous abandonment of one of the nation's major cities to natural disaster and crony greed -- despite all of this, and much more that would have brought down or mortally wounded any government in a democratic country, the Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

It does't make me happy to say it, but Floyd has hit the nail squarely on the head. As we slide towards destruction, we should at least know why this has happened. I will be making more recommendations in the days to come.

Vacation Time

No more posting until the end of the month. Of course, if Bush started a new war I would shake myself from my self-imposed stupor and put fingers to the key board.

Hot Ghetto Mess and White Celebrities

"The black kid was driving." - Lindsay Lohan

Ah yes, the black kid is always the guilty one. Lindsay Lohan's club hopping friend is lucky to be living at this particular moment in history. There was a time when a convenient lie told by a white woman resulted in the death of a black man.

Lohan is a druggie but she is better than Phil Spector. He is a killer. In my Black Agenda Report column I ask why the murdering Spector gets less press attention and vitriol than accused dog fighter Michael Vick. The question is rhetorical because the answer is obvious.

Bush Dictatorship

“Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right.” - Rep. Pete DeFazio

I recently wrote about Bush's new National Continuity Policy in my Black Agenda Report column. The new policy essentially lets the president use any event, incident, epidemic or natural disaster as an excuse for taking over all three branches of government.

The national corporate media paid no attention to this new policy and the Democratic presidential candidates did not utter a peep. Thankfully some members of Congress were concerned, but it doesn't help much if they are denied access to classified documents.

Pete DeFazio is a member of the House Homeland Security committee and he has the security clearance that goes along with that membership. No matter. The White House denied him access to the materials.

Yes, we conspiracy theorists are right. In fact we shouldn't call ourselves theorists anymore. Bush has given us too much ammunition and it is past time for impeachment. Too bad for us. The Democratic party is determined to do just the opposite of what we want.

Nazis Attack Iran

That is the title of my column in the current issue of Black Agenda Report. By a vote of 97 - 0 the U.S. Senate has joined the House in calling for the extermination of the Iranian people.

Of course no one ever says those words, but make no mistake about it. Mass murder of the Iranian people is the number one agenda item of the United States and Israeli governments. Americans are about to be turned into war criminals because of the power of the Israeli lobby and the blood thirstiness of the neo-cons.

The silence surrounding the impending holocaust is shameful. Most liberal bloggers won't touch the issue and the media is silent. Arthur Silber puts it beautifully.

The conclusion is stark and infinitely bleak: an attack on Iran would wipe every other issue and concern out of existence for the foreseeable future, probably for years to come if not much longer. Forget debates about global warming; nuclear clouds might be spreading across the globe. Never mind reforming our health care system; millions of people around the world, and possibly here at home, will be worried about survival of the most primitive kind. Nothing else will matter in the least.

The deck has been stacked, the lies are big enough and told often enough to be believed. The U.S. is about to bring about armageddon. Please speak out before it happens.

Photos: Marie DeBanville, Bruno Garcin-Gasser

Marianne Pearl is Black

The American media machine cannot digest Black life, and can only package its semblance of real life in white-face. Apparently, white people cannot stare "Others" in the face, and must tell stories that have their own made-up existence featured. - Black Agenda Report

How hard is it to understand? The woman in the photo and her mother are obviously people of African ancestry, yet Hollywood is having none of it. Marianne Pearl has been white washed, with her full permission. I for one don't care that she doesn't have the confidence or the consciousness to speak up for African people. She doesn't have the right to tell the rest of us that yet another removal from the pages of history is in any way permissible.

It is truly shameful that so many white people cannot bear to see a picture that doesn't have themselves at the center. Even the left succumb to the assumption that only whiteness is normative. David Corn dismisses the casting complaint out of hand.

The recent blog-driven fuss kicked up by the movie A Mighty Heart -- whether casting pale-skinned Angelina Jolie as darker-skinned Afro-Cuban-Dutch Mariane Pearl, the wife of murdered journalist Danny Pearl, was an act of racist dimensions -- seems irrelevant when you consider an important piece of evidence: the movie itself.

The casting outrage is irrelevant? It certainly isn't to the people who are told to keep quiet when their very likeness is erased. In this case Pearl's nationality is the excuse for putting Angelina Jolie in blackface. Sorry, race is the issue, not being Cuban and Dutch and born in France. Pearl should not be portrayed by a white person for the simple reason that she is not white. How hard is that to understand?

Happy Juneteenth

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."
Major General Gordon Granger, June 19, 1865, Galveston, TX

If you benefitted from the free labor of enslaved people, and you found out they were free, would you say something or would you keep them in chains? Well, slave owners in Texas and other states said nothing. Surprising? Hell no!

In June of 1865, 4 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and 2 months after the confederacy was defeated, enslaved Texans found out they were no longer enslaved. It is a date well worth celebrating.

Happy Juneteenth!

Mitt Romney and the Jerusalem Post

First the good news. The Jerusalem Post won't do anymore political ads for Rudy. The bad news is that Giuliani isn't alone. Mitt Romney got the same treatment from the right wing Israeli paper. Read here and scroll down to the comments section.

In their respective fund raising screeds Giuliani took Democrats to task for being insufficiently easy on terrorists. Romney said we don't need the U.N.

The silence continues. There have been no mentions of this ought to be scandal in the press and there has been silence from Democrats. Is there an Israeli lobby? They certainly think so. My guess is that they are right.

Jerusalem Post Raises Money For Rudy Giuliani

You read that correctly. The right wing Jerusalem Post is sending out a fund raising email on behalf of Giuliani.

Hmmm. A foreign newspaper raises money on behalf of an American presidential candidate? Where is the outrage? Of course, none will be expressed. The Norman Finkelstein lesson has been learned. The tenure denial was akin to cutting off his head and sticking it on a pole.

Why is this email a big deal? Well, for starters, foreigners are not supposed to make contributions to American political campaigns. The fund raising letter doesn't bother to raise that point. Also, corporations are not supposed to make contributions to American political campaigns, even in kind donations like sending an email. The Democrats won't complain because they all feed from the same AIPAC trough. You will be able to hear a pin drop.

On the other hand, what does the Jerusalem post have to fear? Israeli "art students" end up at the FBI and DEA, Israeli "movers" celebrate as they take photographs of the burning twin towers and Congress said and did nothing.

So I take it all back. The Jerusalem Post should do whatever the hell it wants. They can get away with anything.

Sorry. I forgot myself.

Norman Finkelstein Denied Tenure

The fix was in long ago but still I hoped. I meditated good positive vibrations and sent them in the direction of Chicago. It didn't matter. Alan Dershowitz put critics of Israel and its lobby on notice. You will never work in any town again.

Norman Finkelstein is, for now, an assistant professor in the political science department at DePaul University. He is the author of one of my favorite books, The Holocaust Industry. As anyone can tell from the title, his insistence on honest scholarship made many enemies. Dershowitz was just the most persistent. He threatened to label DePaul anti-Semitic. He threatened to label all Catholics anti-Semitic. He won.

Academic freedom was the big loser. Actually, if the ADL and Dershowitz are happy, then the entire nation loses.

DePaul president Dennis Holtschneider ought to be ashamed of himself. It would be interesting to know how many faculty are personally denied tenure by the president after the members of their department gave the green light. I will go out on a limb and say the Finkelstein case is unique in that regard.

God bless Finkelstein. If you want to send your regards email him at normangf at hotmail.com.

Update

Finkelstein was interviewed on Chicago Public Radio today. Listen up.

Congressional Black Caucus and Fox News

I was happy to sign a letter to Democratic presidential candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) who chose not to participate in a Fox News sponsored debate. It is a long, sad story, but some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are in favor of holding a presidential debate with Fox. Incredible, isn't it?

Color of Change has admirably led the charge on this issue. Here is the letter.

Dear Candidate,

Your decision last month not to attend the debate sponsored by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus institute demonstrated truly principled leadership.

Now, a group of CBC members, led by Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), is asking you to reverse that decision. But the truth about Fox and its partnership with the CBC institute has not changed. A Fox-CBCI partnership will use the brand of the CBC—perhaps the most prominent and powerful Black political institution in America—to lend legitimacy to a propaganda network that regularly denigrates black people, black culture and black institutions. This partnership is bad for Black America, and it is a huge mistake.

Since before the debate partnership was announced publicly, Black bloggers, community newspapers, columnists, and radio hosts have expressed outrage that such a partnership would even be considered. Over 16,000 members of ColorOfChange.org reached out to individual CBC members and the CBC institute in hopes that they would be responsive and accountable to the community they purport to represent. But the leadership of the CBC institute has continued to willfully ignore the voices of Black Americans, and amazingly, also dismissed voices of dissent from within the CBC itself (nearly a quarter of CBC members have expressed opposition to the debate, either publicly or privately). Now, more than ever, it’s obvious that the CBC’s leadership is painfully out of step with Black America.

It has been suggested that by skipping this debate, you are missing a valuable opportunity to speak on issues of concern to Black Americans. However, the CBC institute debate broadcast by CNN as well as Tavis Smiley’s debates on PBS provide similar opportunities to address these issues without sending the message that you are willing to validate a network that is consistently hostile to Black Americans and Black political interests.

You did the right thing by rejecting Fox. We applaud your leadership and will continue to support your decision.

Brandon Quante White, The SuperSpade
Garlin Dorell Gilchrist II, The SuperSpade
Jill Tubman, Jack and Jill Politics
Wayne Bennett, Field Negro
Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report
Leutisha Stills, Sr. Correspondent & Chief Researcher, CBCMonitor
dnA, Too Sense
Pam Spaulding, Pam's House Blend
Chris Rabb, Afro-Netizen.com
Rikyrah, Mirror on America
Earl Dunovant, Prometheus 6
Margaret Kimberley, Freedom Rider
James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org

We are still looking for signers, particularly bloggers. If you are interested, please email Gabriel at gabriel AT colorofchange DOT org.

Jerry Falwell and the Savage Christians

"Christians perpetrated the crusades, the inquisition, the slave trade and imperial adventures too numerous to mention. It may be comforting to pat ourselves on the back and consign those behaviors to past centuries. We are living in the 21st century after all. Who would use the name of the Christian God to justify mass killing? A majority of modern day American Christians, that's who."

Who made this brilliant statement? Yours truly in this week's Black Agenda Report. The words are harsh, but I can back it all up. Let me know what you think.

Christian Terror Plot

"Christian Terrorist Arrested at Falwell Funeral"

That should have been the headlines in today's newspapers. Mark D. Uhl is a Liberty University student. I'm guessing that means he is a Christian. He was also arrested with homemade bombs in his possession. He says he wanted to keep protesters from disrupting the funeral. It isn't clear who he thought was going to disrupt or how they would do it, but making bombs is an indication of violent intentions and a very sick mind.

The right wing are going nuts because of a poll that showed 8% of American Muslims approving of suicide bombing in some cases. So, a majority of Muslims are opposed to terrorism. They certainly aren't like Christians. A majority of them are in favor of torture and a majority of them are in favor of deliberately targeting civilians in warfare.

Thank God for Muslims. Hopefully they will keep those crazy Christians in check.

Bush Plans Dictatorship

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
George W. Bush

Bush uttered those very unfunny words on December 18, 2000. On that day the president-elect went to capitol hill to meet with Congressional leaders and emerged from the meeting flipping them and the American people this rhetorical bird.

The president is making good on those words and there hasn't been a peep out of Congress or the press. In a document released on May 9, 2007 entitled "National Continuity Policy," Bush makes good on his sick fantasy. In case of “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function” Bush will control the entire U.S. government, not just the federal branch.

It isn't really surprising. Bush decides who is an enemy combatant, a person without legal rights, and who should be spied upon.

If ever there was a moment for conspiracy theories, this is it. Will there be a phony terror attack, or a declaration of war against Iran? We don't know what the trigger will be but it is time to be afraid.

Actually it is time for impeachment. Bush's unpopularity makes him particularly dangerous. So does the acquiescence of the media and the silence of the Democrats. State legislatures have the right to begin the impeachment process but they have been smacked down by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

We are screwed. The phrase may be inelegant, but it says it all. Maybe we will all end up in Guantanamo. Who knows? The National Continuity Policy contains "classified continuity annexes." WTF!? As I said, we are screwed.

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the tip.

Obama and Affirmative Action

". . . if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it, that affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society."
Barack Obama

Was I right or what? In this week's Black Agenda Report I asked if black Americans ought to want a black president. If the would be president in question is Barack Obama, the answer is a definite no.

In his over rated speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, Obama declared that "there is no black America." What nonsense. Identity politics haven't disappeared for anyone else in the country. It would be ludicrous for black people to think that anything about their situation has changed because St. Barack says so.

Unfortunately, black politicians only get support from white voters when they deemphasize their blackness. That inevitable means not standing up for other black people or for their interests.

George Stephanopoulos doesn't really care about the handful of black kids from double Ivy League households. He wants to get rid of affirmative action and he asked about Obama's kids as a convenient excuse. It just wouldn't do to 'fess up that George wants white guys to stay on top withouthaving to deal with pesky newcomers demanding a slice of the pie.

That is not surprising, but a black politicians have to give the answer that most whites want to hear. Bad news for us, for Obama and any other black presidential candidate.