[Actualizado] jaja, esto de leer a toda prisa... Me comenta Hugo que su bloc es Agitar DESPUES de usar. Vaya gazapo. Sorry.

...Well, you know, Sen. McCain, in the last debate and today, again, suggested that I don't understand. It's true. There are some things I don't understand.

I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us.

That was Sen. McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment.

When Sen. McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy, we'd be greeted as liberators...

Sen Obama doesn't "understand."  It must be very complicated then.  So, let's try to recall:

1. On September 11, 2001, Arab-Muslim terrorists of Al Qaeda, housed primarily in Taliban Afghanistan, attempt to destroy parts of Washington and lower Manhattan.
2. In the immediate aftermath of those attacks, the bases from which those attacks had been hatched and supported in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are destroyed by the U.S., Britain and Afghan allies. That "government" there that had provided those bases with cover is also eliminated. Large numbers of Al Qaeda are killed and survivors scatter --- some flee the region; some apparently cross the mountains into Pakistan for refuge. (Pakistan being a sovereign state, U.S. and allied forces cannot invade in pursuit.)
3. As part of the wider anti-terror strategy, dealing with Iraq --- which had long been ruled by a renegade Saddam Hussein Ba'athist regime with a history of assisting regional Arab-Muslim terrorists (particularly Palestinians), and believed to have access to nuclear and chemical weapon technology capable of falling eventually into the hands of Al Qaeda or similar terrorists --- is then deemed more urgent than ever before.
4. It is believed also that finally dismantling the Hussein regime --- one of the most repressive on the planet --- and assisting Iraqis who wish to see the creation of a reasonable, democratic state, could eventually diminish the regional breeding ground for terror, terror that had ended up directed four-square against Americans at home on 9/11.
5. The Hussein regime is destroyed by mostly U.S. and British forces between March-May 2003 (while supporters of that regime are hardly friendly to the effort, most Iraqis applaud the regime's overthrow), and a new majority-ruled, democratic Iraqi state slowly begins to arise. Over the next five years, the process proves bloodier than had been expected initially, but it is hoped that, in the longer term, a democratic Iraq will become a normal player in international relations, a friend and anti-terror ally.

Whether Sen Obama agreed with that Iraq-invasion premise or not (and as we know, lots of people did not and do not) is not the issue. Two things are. 1) If the Senator had missed all that, one might ask where he's been? 2) If he didn't understand that, he's even less "well-educated" than we had all thought.

Hace casi tres años murió victima de un cáncer Kike Turmix, cantante de los Pleasure Fuckers y figura esencial del barrio de Malasaña de Madrid.

Como promotor, Turmix fue el responsable de que en España conociéramos el rock escandinavo, trayendo a los Hellacopters o Backyard Babies, entre otros buenos grupos. Acérrimo de los Stooges, Sonics, 13th Floor Elevators, Seeds y MC5… El paladar musical de Turmix era de gran gourmet (para la música y, a juzgar por su característica "cinturita de Obispo", para todo lo demás).

Turmix nos descubrió desde garitos como La Vaca Austera, Tupper Ware o La Vía Láctea a los Cynics o a los Dictators, en un escenario musical tan casposo como era la España de los 80 dividida en mods, punks, rockers y heavies.

Todavía recuerdo un fancine de La Vía, del que era responsable, mentando a la madre que parió a la gente que prefirió ir a un concierto de Simple Minds, que registró llenazo, y que coincidió con otro de los Nomads.

Sus adorados Nomads

Y otro de los Cynics como pequeño homenaje

Mr. President, it is getting harder to understand and follow up on your hidden agendas. What’s next, the total annihilation of humanity? Except of course for you and all those billionaires, who miraculously will not be affected by the greatest financial depression since 1929. We feel you will all be partying like if it was 1929, as perhaps this is how you make your fortune, whilst the rest of us, fools, will foot the gargantuan bill.

Mr. President, what is the truth now? Was 9/11 planned? Is this financial terror also artificially created by you? Is it true that by your doing, democracy is now dead? I bet you still have plans to attack Iran despite the anticipated disastrous consequences.

You give the impression to be pushing for the Third World War in order to profit through all those war contracts, and in the long term, reap more profits out of oil contracts by beating Russia to it. You seem to be willing to sacrifice America and the world, in the pursuit of your own self interests and greed.

Mr. President, do you really care if the price of oil goes ballistic, if the whole U.S. economy goes bust and if America goes bankrupt? I believe we can confirm that you helped a great deal in eradicating the middle-class in America, and did nothing if not worsen the fate of those 37 million Americans living in utter poverty. Must be nearly 100 millions now, soon to be all 300 millions.

It is true that in your country, not only no one can afford health care, but also, no one can afford any kind of justice through the legal system. In Eastern Europe, even in many places in the Third World, people have free access to health care and justice.

You may soon be responsible for turning your country, the United States of America, into something worse than a Third World country. What a great President you are. Tell us, tell us your legacy, for all of us, for history. Tell us how brilliantly you succeeded in working for your own interests, the ones of your family, closest advisers and corporate partners. I hope one day, if you do not tell us the truth, we will at least find out. Maybe we already found out and somehow it is not reaching anyone.

Mr. President, is it true that electoral ballots are rigged, that those voting machines are easy to manipulate, and elections have been stolen twice? It does seem that McCain’s victory is now assured no matter how people will vote. I have heard that you might declare a state of emergency before the next elections, and even declare martial law and cancel the elections in order to stay in power.

I cannot believe, whilst the rest of the world is completely clued up about you, that half of America would still wish to vote for the Republicans. It must be true that somehow you even found a way to control not only all the main electoral opinion polls, but all the mass media as well.

Is it possible that nothing we read or watch on TV, is the truth any longer? It appears that most key journalists are all now on the payroll of your corporate friends financing your campaigns, and they are the only ones reporting to the masses. Are we so deluded that we think the nation thinks a certain way, vote a certain way, when this is all but a lie?

John McCain, the Republicans, cannot possibly be still popular. Too much has gone through, too much has been said, too much evidence against such corruption at every single level of this society has become known and is now transparent.

Nothing we do makes any sense anymore. Trying to figure out your big plan for a fascist state is not easy, because we have to see through all the lies, read between all the lines, and there is no real resistance against you. We cannot be heard, we cannot get through. We have the facts, we have proof, we write and publish books about it, and yet, somehow, you are still winning, only your own distorted truth reaches us all.

If I was not fighting you, Mr. President, I would be so depressed from the fact that the people have become so powerless to stop you, I would commit suicide. As it stands, I’m still hoping I can make a difference, alone, against such power, the power of corruption, the power of lies, when it comes from the authorities against such a small voice, the voice of millions of people.

Your citizens you are paid to represent, whilst you did everything else but represent them in the last decade. What a traitor you are to your own nation, what traitors are Republicans to their own country! And don’t kid yourself, it is now common knowledge all over the world.

And the world knows that Democrats are not to be trusted either, they supported you and your hidden agendas all the way. Your supremacy is absolute, and will be ongoing. So much so, we have all lost faith in democracy, in politics, in our institutions. We can no longer trust anyone. Complete chaos you leave behind, and a national debt which can never be repaid, sinking the rest of the world with it as everything is now so interlinked together.

It was well done! People say you are brainless, others that you are a psychopath, it is because they ignore your true hidden agendas. At the very least I will acknowledge your brilliance, what a clever man you are! Never would have I dreamt someone would have the guts to go through with such grand plans, and this time it might actually succeed beyond your expectations. True, it is the third time, if not the fourth, your family has tried this sort of worldwide takeover. Let’s study this further.

Mr. President, perhaps you would like to tell us the truth about your grandfather helping Hitler rise to power, by financing his campaign, and thereafter his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act. And that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish your family fortune and set up its political dynasty:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

Maybe you should tell us about your great-grandfather who was also involved in the armament business during the First World War, and somehow worked towards making it happen in order to profit from it:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0208-05.htm

And we would welcome a few words about your actual family involvement in the 70s in the Savings and Loan Scandal which cost American tax payers over $1.4 trillion dollars. Are today’s events just a repeat of this corporate theft on a grand scale, interests that you and your family represent? Most of you are all sitting on these boards of directors, of these large corporations who profit from all these irrational decisions we have made recently. We have a hard time keeping track of who’s who in your family, and who’s doing what exactly. We all know though that it represents gross conflict of interests, and yet you get away with it:

http://rationalrevolution.net/war/bush_family_and_the_s.htm

Well, now you know why I do not trust you, why I am sure you are lying through your teeth, and I demand we change the name of that airport in Texas which is in your name, as now this is a shameful name all over the world.

It is a safer bet that the brother, son, grandson or great grandson is doing exactly the same thing his family has always been doing, and the signs are there that you are, as corrupt as all of them, fomenting world wars and global control of the world. Repeating history, the same schemes to steal as much money as possible from anyone and everyone, insuring your family will always remain somehow in power, in charge of the world, creating chaos. There is no doubt John McCain will simply continue this legacy.

I wonder how long it will be before your brother becomes the American President, and hence, of the world. So powerful you have made the United States, that it dictates worldwide, without the need for diplomacy. Just listen to the voice of those cannons, of those nuclear warheads, they are heading our way.

But for how long, you have brought about the destruction of your country, as greed and power were far more important to your family, than the health and wealth of your own countrymen. How so unpatriotic of you, to turn the multiple millionaires into billionaires, whilst the rest of the country starves to death and has only one solution left, civil war. Something you are in fact encouraging, as it serves your purpose, and you are ready for it. Hoping the financial meltdown might suffice to provoke such a state of affair.

Mr. President, explain yourself on those concentration camps in the U.S. awaiting just this sort of thing, a civil war. Capable of holding thousands of people, equipped with millions of plastic coffins in preparation for the bloodshed of the century:

http://www.libertyforlife.com/jail-police/us_concentration_camps.htm

http://www.libertyforlife.com/jail-police/us-concentration_camp-locations.htm

I stopped reading newspapers years ago, because I could not stand reading all those lies coming out of political life, whether I was in Canada, in the United Kingdom, in France or in the United States. As it happens, I have lived in all those countries, and everywhere you had to dig deep indeed to find the real truth behind any headline. And how such other matters of heightened surveillance and destruction of freedom and privacy are taken so lightly. Describing in detail the police state and Big Brother state we live in, as if it was a matter of normalcy.

And the rest of the people unaware of it, with statistics telling them that this is what they want and always wanted. Of course, none of us ever wanted any kind of freedom in this life. Your statistics are so blatantly lying, it is ridiculous. No one can ever trust anything coming out of any government, certainly not any kind of statistic or opinion poll, not at this time anyway.

I was tired of lies, of ignorance, of the collaboration everyone seemed eager to give any authority in their pursuit to our unhappiness. It does drain you, if you have a brain to see through all that. You might then wish you were brainless and could go on living in absolute ignorance. Somehow you can’t, as it hits you on the head on every street corner. So in our life, so in our face, all this is. Still, most people are asleep. Or are they? Or is it just the impression the mass media is giving, pretending to?

America is not stupid, America is awake! I feel it might suddenly wake up with no warning, and it will overpower any contingency plan Mr. President might have thought would be sufficient to contain any such revolution.

You cannot contain 300 million people when they demand the head of their President. And it is about time something happen to stop you, Mr. President. It doesn’t matter how many days you have left in office, because from you, we can expect anything at any time, and don’t we know it!

The impeachment procedures might be going nowhere, they still went far enough to prove one thing: you are guilty and you deserve to be impeached. If not sued for crimes against humanity, but that will come in its own time.

No such right to lie will ever be granted to any of us, and we certainly pay a high price for the smallest lie we tell. Our politicians, our Mr. President, must obey the same rules, they must not lie at any time, and must pay dearly if they do. It does so happen that we can prove that most politicians lie most of the time.

If the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain went on the news tonight to tell us the real truth behind recent events, we would most likely be declaring the Third World War instantly, and most probably suffer a few civil wars as well in the process.

In any circumstance, never expect the truth, or at least all the truth, and you will be better off not to become obsessed by it. Be happy, somehow, with all these lies you are being fed on a daily basis by everyone you will ever encounter. And most importantly, never lie yourself, as you can no longer get away with it. But how could you achieve such a feat. Then, be ready for the consequences.

After all, it is only human nature to lie all the time. Isn’t this right, Mr. President?

***

This article is an excerpt of the book “Destructivism, The Path to Self-Destruction”:

http://www.themarginal.com/destructivism.htm

Roland Michel Tremblay is an author with six books published in France. He is a French-Canadian born in 1972 who has been living in London UK for 15 years. He can be contacted at this e-mail address: rm@themarginal.com

see

Tremblay-Roland Michel

Naomi Wolf: Give Me Liberty - A coup has taken place! (must-see video)

CNN: Army combat unit to deploy within U.S.

Welcome to the final stages of the coup… by Larisa Alexandrovna

Detention Camps

older blog posts: Detention Centers/Concentration Camps in the US

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather’s Dream By David Swanson

The Whitehouse Coup - The Dark Heart Of Fascism In The United States (must-listen audio link)

Fascism

Police State

Martial Law

This will be my last post on the election until November 5th... The day after the election. I know I have said that before. But no more. Even then it will only be a "Yeah!" or a "Damn...". And nothing more. This isn't for me. And it isn't good for me. No more... Go vote. Make your choice. Be brave. Don't be afraid. Be the America you want to be. See you on the other side.

Taking a deep breath... Editing the original post... Trying to calm down... Ready... Okay... Let's go...

I know politics is a dirty game. That you will lie about your opponent. That you will be nasty. That you will be rude and crude. That's all just part of being a politician. And it is even worse during election time. I might be relatively new here but I am starting to get that. But there is a line you don't cross. Especially not here in the US. The terrorist rule. And look. I tried to go quiet for a few days. Lay low on politics. A least stay off negative politics. Be positive. Say nice things instead of on constant attack. But no more. Enough is enough. John McCain and Sarah Palin asked for this. So they will get it.

McCain... You are an unethical, fearmongering, unpatriotic, unAmerican weasel without any honor and who doesn't care about his country or the safety of its people.

Sarah... You are the pig and not the lipstick.

Saying that Obama is "palling around with terrorists" is not only a lie, but unAmerican, unpatriotic and just damn reckless with the safety of this country and the people who live here.

Let's just get to the story. The NY Times reported on this more than a year ago. Obama met an American guy who was (allegedly) behind bombings here in the US when Obama was 8. Yes. That's not a typo. Obama was 8. They were not friends, but lived in the same town. Obama even bumped into him last year in the streets of their town. Not only did the NY Times report in that article that there is no "connection" between the two, but the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The National Review all debunked any story that they have a "relationship". Oh, the guy is now a Professor of Education. They did "work together" on a community project in 1995. But so did hundreds of other people. They did not plan it together. They did not do a joint project. They were not partners. They just worked together within a much larger group on a community project. No phone calls or emails exchanged. No personal meetings. No handshakes and hugs. There is no connection. So you would think that would be it... Right?

But not to fearmongering, unethical, unAmerican, unpatriotic, lying McCain and Palin. McCain the so-called war hero who is willing to sell his soul and country to become President. And Palin who is willing to lie through her teeth and spew hatred and lies to the American people to become McCain's partner in crime. His accomplice.

Sound harsh? Let's think about this.

America was attacked by terrorists in 2001. And live under a constant threat of being attacked. Being a terrorist in America has a serious connotation. So you know that it is almost hate speech. It stirs people up. It drives fear into Americans. Remember... America is still at war with terrorists. So, Mister McCain, you are willing to use these words to become President? You are willing to tie your opponent to terrorism through your lies? You are willing to make people hate your opponent because you painted him as associating with a terrorist? You are willing to use the fear of terrorism to lie to your own people about a man who has said nothing but disdain for this guy? You are willing to play with terrorism just to get into office?

You are willing to do anything to become President right? You are willing to sell your country lies and bullsh*t because of your own ego and greed? You are willing to play with the fear of people just so you can run the country? You are willing to sell your own American people down the line just for this? Are you willing to give up the American ideals of honor and truth to be in charge? You are willing to talk just the way terrorists talk just to get your way?

Tell me... What else are you prepared to do? Are you willing to go into another senseless war to stay President? Are you willing to torture more people just so you can stay in power? Are you prepared to clamp down on more American rights just so you can target anyone you want? Are you willing to sink this country just to stay in charge? Are you going to start calling every American who so slightly apposes you a terrorist just to be the main man? Are you going to start treating Americans as terrorists next?

Are you this greedy?

Are you this unethical?

Do you love your country this little?

Do you hate Americans this much?

Do you despise those Americans who disagree with you so much?

Are you so unAmerican?

Are you this unpatriotic?

Have you no honor?

Mister McCain... You are betraying you country by lying to them. By willing to sell them out just to be in charge. Your hatred for Obama and greed to become President has seriously clouded your judgement. To such an extend that you are willing to now play with your own American countrymen. That is unpatriotic at the very least. And unAmerican.

You know who you remind me of? A real terrorist who are willing to put the lives of his followers on the line to get his own selfish way. Your words give comfort to the real enemies of the United States because they know you are willing to do what they are willing to do. Anything. Don't become that person McCain. Now. Go back to the cave you came from and start thinking of this great country and how you can serve it best and not your own greedy and unpatriotic ways that could put their rights in even more danger.

I never liked your policies much. But I know that is the foundation of democracy - not agreeing. Right now I am starting to despise the man and everything you stand for. You greedy bastard. You have no honor. You have no decency. You unAmerican unpatriotic pig. And no matter how much lipstick you wear. You can't hide your true self for ever. We can see who you are. Unpatriotic and UnAmerican.

What you said is not American. What you said is not patriotic. What you said is not in the interest of America. What you said is a lie sold to all Americans. What you said is about your own greed. What you said is fearmongering. What is said was unethical. What you said is without honor. What you said is the type of thing the enemies of this great country and real terrorists will say.

You are a pig McCain. And Palin, you are a pig for repeating it.

____________________

Note: This will be my last political post for a while. This type of politics is beneath me. Sorry. It just is. If this is what it takes to become President of the United States... Then... I don't know. If you think that this is acceptable... Let me know and I will pull this piece off my blog. But maybe this shouldn't be acceptable. You tell me.

Times Online
October 2, 2008

Britain’s Ambassador to Afghanistan has stoked opposition to the allied operation there by reportedly saying that the campaign against the Taleban insurgents would fail and that the best hope was to install an acceptable dictator in Kabul.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, a Foreign Office heavyweight with a reputation for blunt speaking, delivered his bleak assessment of the seven-year Nato campaign in Afghanistan in a briefing with a French diplomat, according to French leaks. However sources in Whitehall said the account was a parody of the British Ambassador’s remarks.

François Fitou, the deputy French Ambassador to Kabul, told President Sarkozy’s office and the Foreign Ministry in a coded cable that Sir Sherard believed that “the current situation is bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the Government has lost all trust”.

[...]

British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo - Times Online.

h/t: CLG

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UPDATE:

Revelation 22:13 (KJV)
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

It is a reference to God.

YouTuber Homonoid writes this video was shot at the Urban Community Leadership Academy, 1524 Paseo Blvd., 18th & Vine District, Kansas City, Missouri:
 

By now, it is probably old news about the children. The first time I saw it..it felt wierd..seemed strange, something was not right..To say it made me uncomfortable is not enough. My thoughts were immediately taken back to the past..to the past of Hitler, and every other country that had dictator worship.  Please view these videos children in Nazi Germany, North Korea, Russia, and if the links are taken down there is a link at the bottom that should have them. Have we come to this? Perhaps you will say as many did I am sure in Nazi Germany that some of us are paranoid. Go ahead..be a sheep.

 I will not be silent.

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlcIwvHZUl4]  

Now go as fast as you can to  NoQuarterusa   and see their excellent take on this in link below:

 Obama Jugend singt für Änderung

The following comment accompanied the YouTube links:

Please notice the person leading the children….This is what is done in Communist Countries to children….In Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. If this doesn’t make you vote for McCain/Palin Then good luck….

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlcIwvHZUl4

The lyrics below were taken from Obama’s official campaign website:

WE’RE GONNA CHANGE THE WORLD
Music and lyrics by Lily Campbell

We’re gonna spread happiness
We’re gonna spread freedom
Obama’s gonna change it
Obama’s gonna lead ‘em

We’re gonna change it
And rearrange it
We’re gonna change the world.

SING FOR CHANGE
Music and lyrics by Kathy Sawada

Now’s the moment, lift each voice to sing
Sing with all your heart!
For our children, for our families,
Nations all joined as one.
Sing for joy and sing abundant peace,
Courage, justice, hope!
Sing together, hold each precious hand,
Lifting each other up;
Sing for vision, sing for unity,
Lifting our hearts to Sing!

YES WE CAN
Music and lyrics by Kathy Sawada

Yes we can
Lift each other up
In peace, in love, in hope
Change! Change!

YouTube Links come … and … go

 “Our Hitler is our Lord”:

North Korea worship

an audio only version courtesy of Glenn Beck,  as “O’ Hail the Messiah Lord Obama” by AmericaAgainstObama.

Lenin worship

InsightAnalytical-GRL says this is Obama’s Very Own Cultural Revolution.

Update:

If the link to this YouTube video goes down, here’s the link to No-Libs.com, which has the embedded non-YouTube link.

“Foreign agents—what US lobbyists do for dictators”—all it takes is the right amount of money and a little help from the skilled lobbying firms in Washington, DC. That’s according to an article in this month’s edition of Harper’s Magazine by Washington Editor, Ken Silverstein. In February, Silverstein visited Washington’s top lobbying firms posing as a representative of a fictitious investment firm with a financial stake in Turkmenistan. He claimed that he was eager to bolster the image of a regime widely described as one of the most authoritarian in the world. Silverstein’s expose is titled “Their Men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.'s Lobbyists for Hire.”

It focuses on two prominent firms, APCO and Cassidy & Associates, that fell for Silverstein’s bait and were soon vying for a lucrative contract to remake Turkmenistan’s tarnished image. For $600,000 to $1.2 million dollars a year, they promised unparalleled access to Washington’s decision makers and improved media coverage.

Ken Silverstein
Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine. He also publishes a blog on political corruption in Washington, DC called Washington Babylon.
Juan Gonzalez:
"Foreign agents—what US lobbyists do for dictators," all it takes is the right amount of money and a little help from the skilled lobbying firms in Washington, D.C. That’s according to an article in this month’s edition of Harper’s Magazine by Washington editor, Ken Silverstein. In February, Silverstein visited Washington’s top lobbying firms posing as a representative of a fictitious investment firm with a financial stake in Turkmenistan. He claimed that he was eager to bolster the image of a regime widely described as one of the most authoritarian in the world.

Silverstein’s expose is titled “Their men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.’s Lobbyists for Hire.” It focuses on two prominent firms, APCO and Cassidy & Associates, that fell for Silverstein’s bait and were soon vying for a lucrative contract to remake Turkmenistan’s tarnished image. For $600,000 to $1.2 million dollars a year, they promised unparalleled access to Washington’s decision makers and improved media coverage.

Amy Goodman:
Ken Silverstein joins us now from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Ken.

Ken Silverstein:
Thank you.

Amy Goodman:
So describe how you did it, your M.O.

Ken Silverstein:
Well, it was actually a very flimsy cover story, and I think the firms, if they hadn’t been blinded by their own greed, would have seen through it. I mean, I put together—I had business cards made. I bought a London cell phone, so I could make and receive phone calls allegedly in London while I was in Washington, D.C. We at Harper’s put together a website, really just a web page. It was a cover page with the name of my fake company, the Maldon Group, and an address in Cavendish Square in London. And that was pretty much it. We had an email account, as well—and, you know, for me, Kenneth Case, the Maldon Group consultant.

And then we started contacting the lobbying firms and saying that we, you know, needed a strategic communication plan that could convey the exciting winds of change emanating from Turkmenistan now that the new president, the newly elected president, had taken power. Now, the newly elected president is the former dentist to the great Turkmenbashi, who died last December, the longtime dictator of Turkmenistan. And, you know, he had taken office in February, shortly before I called, or he won election shortly before I had called, in a vote in which he ran against five other candidates, all from the ruling party, because any dissent in Turkmenistan is considered treason and you go to jail for it. And he won, I think, 90% of the vote or something like that. So, you know, it was a very flimsy cover story, and we started approaching the firms to see what they’d do for us.

Juan Gonzalez:
Ken, I was stunned by the lack of even rudimentary investigation by these firms of your company before they met with you. I think one of them—was it APCO?—actually, you mentioned in your article, said, “Oh, by the way, we don’t have much information on your firm, on your website,” or they were looking for your website, but yet you managed to calm them?

Ken Silverstein:
Well, they said to me that, you know, “Yeah, can you tell us a little bit more about the Maldon Group? We just can’t find anything out about you,” which, of course, was understandable, since the firm didn’t exist. And I said, “No, actually, I can’t really tell you anything more about me or the firm. Discretion is the very hallmark of our operation. It’s our lifeblood. You know, it’s a sensitive business. We just don’t want any attention, and I’m just not really prepared to tell you much more at all.”

I said that we were involved in the natural gas sector in Turkmenistan, which incidentally is—you know, if you do a Google search, you’ll discover very quickly that that’s completely corrupt and that billions have been exported offshore by intermediary firms just like the Maldon Group. I mean, I modeled the Maldon Group on real-life firms that have been exporting money offshore for the Turkmen authorities. And I said, “No, you know, I just can’t tell you anything more about us.” And APCO actually said, “No problem. We’d be perfectly happy to sign a confidentiality agreement.” I hadn’t even thought of that. I hadn’t thought of asking for one. They volunteered. And after they did that, I demanded the same of Cassidy & Associates, and they said, “No problem. We’re perfectly happy to do that.” So, no, absolutely —

Amy Goodman:
Ken, we weren’t able to get APCO on the broadcast, but they did respond to your Harper’s article with a statement on their website. It reads, in part, “Regarding Mr. Silverstein’s ethics, he lied about who he was, presented phony business cards, a false website, a concocted story about nonexistent clients. In return, we were open and transparent in our discussions with him. We afforded him the courtesy of an initial meeting. He never revealed his true identity, nor did he call us to comment at all before publishing his story. We have been doing business for nearly twenty-five years. We are proud of our record and how we deal with our clients and potential clients. We do it with respect and honesty.”

Ken Silverstein:
Oh, they do. They’re perfectly open and transparent. They were open and transparent with me about how willing they were to work for a Stalinist dictatorship. I mean, if they’re proud of that, I think that’s just wonderful.

In terms of their record, I would note that in the mid-’90s they represented the Sani Abacha dictatorship in Nigeria as it was preparing the execution of nine pro-democracy activists. It’s worked for two other corrupt Caspian regimes: Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. It also in the past has set up a fake front group for Philip Morris, the tobacco company. They set up a front group called Contributions Watch, which was allegedly an independent campaign finance watchdog group, but in reality was set up specifically to tar the trial lawyers, which are the great enemies of the tobacco industry. So, you know, yeah, that’s a record to be proud of, I guess.

In terms of my ethics, I will match my ethics up against their ethics any day of the week. I feel that the undercover tactics should be used sparingly, but in this case it was justified. I feel there was an important public interest issue here, which is that the law that regulates foreign lobbyists simply is not up to the task. I mean, this law is not able to really rein in the ability of lobbyists to manipulate public and political opinion. And we wanted to make that point. It wasn’t just to, you know, poke fun at lobbyists or to show that lobbyists don’t have strong ethics and that they’re willing to work for anybody who throws them money, because in a sense, of course, that’s not news. We wanted to show not only that they were willing to work for these regimes, but exactly how they would work for these regimes and how they can operate under the radar screen. So, you know, as I said, I’m happy to match my ethics against theirs any day of the week.

Juan Gonzalez:
Ken, can you talk to us a little bit about what they offered to do for you once they believed that you were representing this repressive government?

Ken Silverstein:
Well, you know, they said there was a wide variety of things they could do. Both of the firms talked about how it would be very, very easy for them to open doors on Capitol Hill and in the administration for visiting Turkmen officials. They would get them a hearing here in Washington to talk about, you know, what was happening, the new exciting changes in Turkmenistan. They told me that they would, since they—you know, they can’t really talk about democracy in Turkmenistan, since there isn’t any, and they don’t want to talk about human rights, because the situation there is so ghastly. They talked about hooks that they could use to sell the government, like energy security. That’s a good hook, APCO told me, because, you know, we’ll talk about how important it is for the United States to have sources of energy imports and, you know, diversifying away from the Middle East towards the Caspian region. So they could use that hook to sell the regime.

They told me that they could manipulate the media, although I’m paraphrasing here, but it was very clear that that’s what they intended to do. They said that they would set up bogus events around Washington that would allegedly be independent, but in fact we would pay—if I paid them $25,000, they would set up an event with the imprimatur of a respected third party, so it would look independent, but we would have complete control over the agenda. And then we would invite members of Congress or Hill staffers and journalists and hope that they would pick up on this event and treat it respectfully as, you know, an event—and by the way, we wouldn’t call it something like Turkmenistan Day, because it would be too obvious that that was paid advertising for the regime. So we’d give it a name like “Energy Security Day” or “Caspian Pipeline,” something so it wouldn’t look too obvious. They also said that they can plant Op-Eds in the newspapers no problem. APCO told me they have someone on staff that does nothing but—all day, the nine-to-five job for this person is to write and find signatories for and plant Op-Eds in the newspaper. So, you know, it was a fairly far —

Amy Goodman:
Ken, you talk very specifically, saying one of the options presented was to pay Roll Call, you know, the Hill newspaper, and The Economist to host a Turkmenistan event. And then you talk about the possible hosts, the think tanks: the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, where the event could be held.

Ken Silverstein:
It was clear that the firms had contacts with think tanks. I mean, you know, they had contacted think tank officials in preparation for the meetings, and APCO again told me, you know, that it would be very easy to find think tank figures and academics that they could utilize in their campaign to sell the government of Turkmenistan.

Yes, and in terms of Roll Call and The Economist, they do sponsor events around town, and if you pay them, they will set up an event. And so, you have in the background, you’ll have the Roll Call banner behind the podium, so it looks like—again, APCO said it’s the imprimatur of a respected third party, but we’ll have total control over the agenda. So, yeah, I mean, they were quite open about their ability to sort of create news items and manipulate the media and that there were journalists that they could reach out to and try to spin the regime.

Juan Gonzalez:
And you were quite specific in your article about the individuals that you met with, the teams that initially met with you. In APCO, I think, it was a former US ambassador or a former senior aide to Senator Bob Dole and a former CIA employee.

Ken Silverstein:
Yeah, they had very, very high-level people at both of the firms. We had Jennifer Millerwise Dyck at APCO, who used to be a spokeswoman for Dick Cheney and for the CIA, Elizabeth Jones, the former ambassador to Kazakhstan. Over at Cassidy, I met with Greg Hartley. He was the leader of the team. He was, until recently, a top aide to Roy Blunt, the Missouri congressman who, until the Republicans lost control of Congress, was the House Majority Whip.

In a proposal that Cassidy sent to me after I met with them—both of the firms, you know, badgered me with emails asking, “Gee, are you going to hire us?” and “We want to tell you more about what we can do.” APCO offered to come—they had Barry Schumacher, the leader APCO team, said he was coming to London, and he wanted to have a follow-up meeting. Cassidy sent me a twelve-page proposal saying that, you know, “We really want the contract.” And in that proposal, Hartley said that there was no one in Washington who had better contacts to the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill than he did. They all bragged about their access across the board with the administration, with Congress, with think tanks, with academics. They could open doors all over town.

Amy Goodman:
Interesting that the second firm, Cassidy & Associates, was founded by Gerald Cassidy, a former staffer for George McGovern.

Ken Silverstein:
Yeah, I mean, it started off as a liberal Democratic firm. But Hartley told me that—I said to him, “Well, gee, do you have help on both sides? I mean, do you have advocates on both sides of the aisle?” And he said, “Oh, yeah. We mirror the power structure. You know, you have to have champions on both sides for your causes.” So Cassidy, you know, was founded over a quarter century ago. At the time, Democrats controlled Congress. Democrats were the more powerful party. But as the Republicans took over Congress, Cassidy shifted along with Congress, so that they could, again, mirror the power structure, in the words of Hartley. So, yes, I mean, it’s a firm that is very opportunistic. It’s seen that it’s now more useful to have Republicans on staff. I suspect if the Democrats keep Congress it may swing back toward the Democratic side.

Juan Gonzalez:
And among the boasts that the Cassidy team gave to you was that they were instrumental in changing US policy toward Vietnam?

Ken Silverstein:
Yes. They said that—both the firms talked about their past achievements for some of their clients. And in terms of Vietnam, they said that they had put together, you know, a third party coalition, a business coalition, and that business coalition that they had constructed led for the lifting of the trade embargo on Vietnam. And they actually boasted to me that they had accomplished this over the opposition of the families of MIAs and POWs. “They had been opposed, but we were able to put together a coalition that won the day.”

You know, both the firms had plenty of past achievements that they boasted about. Another one that I thought was sort of amusing from Cassidy & Associates, they told me that they represented President Obiang—or Dictator Obiang, I should be more clear here—from Equatorial Guinea, who has been in power since 1978 after he executed his uncle, and he has held several sham elections ever since. You know, he’s been in power with his 99% of the vote. And they told me that they had gotten him off Parade magazine’s list of the ten worst dictators in the world. This was one of their big accomplishments. I went home after my meeting with Cassidy and did a Google search and found that Obiang was all the way down to number eleven. So now he’s the eleventh worst dictator, according to Parade magazine. So this didn’t seem like a really remarkable achievement.

Amy Goodman:
Ken Silverstein, you also write about the companies that you didn’t get represented by or offers of representation. For example, you talk about Patton Boggs and Cameroon.

Ken Silverstein:
Well, that was a—I mean, I talked about Patton Boggs as just being another lobbying firm around town. I didn’t approach Patton Boggs. I did approach several other firms. But Patton Boggs had in the past done some work for the government of Cameroon, where they sent a team of former members of Congress over to Cameroon, allegedly independent observers, to be there for a presidential election in which the longstanding ruler of Cameroon won 80% of the vote. So Patton Boggs—and its team incidentally was led by a former member of Congress, as well—goes over there, sets up the agenda for a group of members of Congress, former members, who go over and issue sort of uplifting statements about the election being democratic and a step forward, all the usual sort of boilerplate language that they could use to sell this sham election as legitimate. And I was able to discover that, in fact, the whole thing had been set up by Patton Boggs, and it was paid—you know, the expenses of the delegation were paid for by the government of Cameroon.

Amy Goodman:
And very quickly, the reporters who went on the all-expenses-paid trip to Kazakhstan, care of Carmen Group? We have forty seconds.

Ken Silverstein:
That was another firm—well, that, you know, R. Emmett Tyrrell—you know, boy, this was such a [inaudible] in the story.

Amy Goodman:
Georgie Anne Geyer, the syndicated columnist, Providence Journal editor Philip Terzian, Scott Hogenson of the Conservative News Service?

Ken Silverstein:
Thank you. I confess that it’s been a while since I reported that part of the story. And they went over to Kazakhstan, paid for by a lobbying firm, and they all came back and wrote about Kazakhstan. Two of them wrote extremely favorable pieces. Tyrrell was just glowing in his praise for Kazakhstan. And he didn’t, of course, reveal that his trip had been paid for by lobbyists. Two of them were a little bit more measured, but still, when you’re dealing with a regime like Kazakhstan, a sort of balanced piece is actually good news. So I think Carmen Group got good money for its investment with these four journalists.

Amy Goodman:
Ken Silverstein, we’ll have to leave it there, Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine. His piece is the cover story, “Foreign Agents: What US Lobbyists Do for Dictators, An Undercover Report”: “Their Men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.’s Lobbyists for Hire.”

Ref: Global issues

The following is from Democracy Now! looking at how US lobbysists will do work for dictatorships. This is particularly relevant during this war on terror because the Bush Administration makes a strong verbal stance against supporting dictatorships and non-democratic regimes. You can see the original article at

Honestly, though. Isn't this something they do in dictator states? Was this really done at some neighbor's house? Come on…there has to be at least 3 cameras going. And where were the doves or the rainbow at the end. Kind of incomplete, don't you think?

Update:  I had to update the video clip, as the original was pulled by its poster.  Apparently the Obama campaign is regretting its approval of the vid.

My jaw is on the floor. Is this REALLY what Democrats want? Is this how you want to win? Don't you realize that you have to compete in the arena of ideas? If your ideas are better than the competitions ideas, then you win. Isn't that good enough?

Apparently not.

If you had any decency at all you'd feel ashamed.

He's more dangerous than you know. Don't let him destroy our country.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”

Well there is more. I'm told that the DOJ will be looking into (most likely referring to the FBI) this as a possible civil rights violation as well as violation of free speech. Specifically St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, could face individual jeopardy for misuse of office.

Actually Governor Blunt himself could order his State Attorney to open an investigation.

Remember it was the democrats that accused President Bush of politicizing the Justice Department and this is far beyond that. Most likely the announcement of the DOJ will come this week.

Dr. David Suzuki spoke on Canada AM Thrusday morning September 11th, to promote his new book on the enviroment. He was asked about the Green party leader, Elizabeth May, and her participating in the leader's debate. To paraphrase Mr. Suzuki he stated that GREEN values should be integral in all political parties, and because it is not, we need the Green Party. With the Green Party included in the debates the environment will definitely be an issue during the leaders's debate.

The First Peoples National Party (FPNP), Canada's newest offical and federal party is also excluded from the debate. The FPNP ran 5 candidates in the last election with more votes collectly then most of the other small parties. When these small official federal parties are labled "Fringe" parties by the media and excluded from the debate where is the democracy?

Canada's First Peoples are the only ethnic group governed separately then the rest of the Canadians and under the responsibility of the federal government. Therefore, the First Peoples are Canada's unifying element. The Bloc Quebecois on the other hand are a non-federalist political party with a goal to separate from Canada. They will be included in this debate.

Canada's First Peoples are not part of the political system and is the reason why the First Peoples National Party (FPNP) was formed. Any country that excludes its indigenous peoples from its political system is a colonial society.

Inspired and formed by Canada's First Peoples the FPNP is the only party that can be truly called a National Federal Party yet we are left out of this national debate. The First Peoples values of inclusion is the reason why Canada exists today. It is this value of inclusion that guides the FPNP and our policies.

Just as Mr. Suzuki suggested of the Green Party, the FPNP has the MORAL RIGHT to be included in the national leader's debate. Only then would the centuries old injustices be addressed and healing for all Canadians can begin.

The First Peoples National Party is putting people first, giving voice to all people. No other federal party can say that. Until those voices are heard by all Canadians we don't live in a democracy.

Will Morin
Eastern Director FPNP
Offical FPNP Candidate, Sudbury, Ontario
1-705-561-8004, toll free: 1-877-248-4133
email: willpower@ontera.net
www.fpnpoc.ca

read more | digg story

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Beep. Jake looked up at his screen. There was a large blip on the radar screen, and no identification was given for it. Jake called his supervisor upstairs on the telecom, informing him of the radio anamoly. Two minutes later two other blips moved out at angles to the base of the screen and approached the unidentified flying object at high speed, and then there was nothing. The next day, the local media was abuzz with stories of a foreign businesswoman's plane that was accidentally shot down by American jets in a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding is not what the businesswoman's fellow countrymen thought, and within a year, the United States was no longer a sovereign nation, its people the subjects of a dictator whose bloodlust far exceeded his humanity.

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story by Nathan Guannan Zhang. please comment. remember what the disclaimer says when posting comments!

Don't bitch about Bush - you got Zuma

I am extremely proud of being African and South African. What we have managed to do over the last 15 odd years have been unbelievable. From the most despicable Apartheid regime to a stable democracy and sound economic growth. From the bottom of the world pecking order, to the leading global voice on justice. A leading light in a world at war. We have shown the world how everyone can live in peace and harmony - and celebrate differences instead of letting it divide us. The region I come from has shown the world how Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Jew can all live together, celebrate our differences and enrich our lives in this melting pot we call home - instead of trying to wipe each other out.

Yes, like all other countries we have challenges. Crime, poverty and HIV/Aids being the biggest. At the heart is poverty - or at least the lack of shared wealth. Too much is still in the hands of a small group of umlungu's. We have the systems in place to start addressing this - affirmative action will help, but we have lots more to do to address wealth distribution. But as a start affirmative action policies have been integrated into our procurement system in innovative ways, as well as in the workplace. At the same time the government has brought electricity, running water and housing to millions of people. And so much more that still needs to be done. We are very much a work in progress. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Change doesn't happen overnight.

We have won the Rugby World Cup - twice! Unfortunately, we continue to suck big time in soccer, but will show the world how to party in 2010.

We have shown how democracy can be a powerful way to bring real benefits to all people in South Africa. Since 1994 we have experienced mostly all the good and great things of having a democracy.

And then there was Zuma.

Zuma has just been elected as the leader of the ANC - the political party I have always supported and voted for in South Africa. He is now in a perfect position to become the next President of South Africa. The 'Comrades' at the ANC Congress last month celebrated his win as proof that democracy works and that anyone can be elected as a leader in a free and fair election.

But lets be clear about something. Zuma is an idiot. I have met him a few times and he is not the sharpest tool in the shed. He has the charisma of a damp dishcloth. And the morals of a rat. He didn't deny sleeping with the young girl that was not only HIV positive, but also a family friend. Whether there was consent or not is irrelevant. You would expect more from someone who is supposed to be a leader we look up to - who should be a shining light for us to follow. And the fact that he took a shower afterwards to 'ensure' he doesn't 'catch' HIV speaks to his intellect. And I am not even going to go into the corruption charges. How the hell can the ANC Women's League justify supporting this guy during the election? And when I was a unionist in South Africa we all saw Zuma speak at the COSATU Congress - how could you even think for a minute he would be a leader for the workers or the people?

I know that people don't like Mbeki, but you don't drink cyanide just because you don't like Coke. Pick something else that won't kill you. Okay, cyanide will kill you quicker than Zuma, but the outcome will be the same - Zuma will drag everything that Madiba and all our great leaders have worked and fought for through the mud. We will be the laughing stock of the world. Mbeki is a statesman respected across the world for not bending to popular demand, but sticking to what is just and right. Well, most of the time - he is fallible (read his HIV/Aids policies). Hey, I don't even like him that much. But Mbeki is a giant compared to Zuma.

What really gets to me is the fact that these same 'Comrades' will be the ones bitching and moaning about Bush and other world leaders , but especially Bush. As they used to say at union meeting - 'Comrade, you are out of order'. You lost your right to criticize the democratically elected leaders from other countries when you elected Zuma as your leader. Bush might be an idiot with policies we don't like or agree with, but he was democratically elected (twice) by his people. Okay, he IS an idiot - just like Zuma. So, stop your bitching about Bush or Brown - or even Mugabe - you got Zuma. YOU just moved us from standing on the moral highground to crawling in the mud. YOU voted him in. YOU are responsible. YOU will be the laughing stock of the world. YOU just lost your right to bitch.

Africa, despite being rich in natural resources, is the least developed continent in the world . . .

Africa is believed to be the place where modern humans originated from. The continent was home to the ancient Egyptian civilisation along the banks of the Nile as well as prosperous kingdoms and city-states later on. The decline of these African states coincided with the rise of the Arab empire. Africa has suffered ever since.

Africa was exploited and its people were sold as slaves by the local chieftains, first to the Arabs and later to the European powers, led by Portugal, who transported them across the Atlantic to the New World. After slavery was abolished in the Americas, the mad scramble for Africa's natural resources led to the colonisation of almost the entire continent by the European powers - France, Britain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy. They required raw materials for their industries as well as markets for their finished products. The continent became a colony of Europe and boundaries were decided by the foreigners. The disastrous effects of political colonisation can be felt to this day. Many of Africa's civil wars can be traced to the redrawing of boundaries by the colonisers.

After the Second World War, African countries gradually became independent. The initial hope that Africa would get out of the mess with political independence was short lived as the continent was affected by civil wars, droughts, famines and disease.

Africa became dependent on external borrowings and foreign aid. The economic colonisation of Africa began. Organisations like the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank that were controlled solely by the developed countries led by the United States imposed economic measures as conditions for the delivery of loans and aid. These measures are nothing but plans of the multinational corporations headquartered in the developed countries to exploit the natural resources of Africa. The exploitation of Africa's mineral wealth by foreign corporations has completely ravaged Africa. Aided by corrupt dictators and inefficient leaders who stash away their ill-gotten wealth in secret foreign (especially Swiss) bank acounts, the people of Africa are being robbed of their natural resources. In 1970, one in ten of the world's poor lived in Africa. That figure has now risen to 50%.

60% of Africans work in the agricultural sector with a majority of them being subsistence farmers. Globalisation has pushed Africa to the brink of disaster. The loathsome policies of the WTO have increased the misery in Africa. While the African countries have opened up their markets as well as mining and petroleum sectors to foreign corporations, the U.S., the E.U. and Japan protect their farmers with massive agricultural subsidies and high import tariffs. This keeps the price of farm produce artificially low in the developed countries making African exports uncompetitive. Thus, African farmers are forced to grow cash crops for export instead of food crops. Combined with the vagaries of the climate as well as desertification of vast tracts of land bordering the Sahara desert, starvation and severe malnutrition are common in Africa, especially countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa.

While farmers in a country like India are also at the receiving end of the vile policies of organisations like the IMF that are stridently supported by their shameless stooges within the country (read this post about farmers' suicides), India's service sector and to a lesser extent, the manufacturing sector have managed to take globalisation in their stride and have even managed to emerge stronger. As a result, India's growing economic clout has enabled it to successfully oppose moves by the developed countries to suggest outrageously unfair trade practices at the WTO in the name of "free trade". India must not sacrifice the lives and livelihoods of millions of its farmers as well as its food security for the sake of a few tuxedoed thugs who belong to predatory multinational corporations!

What about the Dragon? China has taken full advantage of globalisation and has virtually become "the factory of the world". Cheap Chinese products have wiped out the few manufacturing industries in the African countries. China has also begun to take part in the economic exploitation of Africa. The Dragon wants to import raw materials from Africa, turn them into cheap manufactured goods and dump them back on the African countries. The low quality Chinese goods are suspected throughout the world and the poor standards in China have even led to the deaths of infants due to contaminated dairy products.

Promises of aid are not going to develop Africa. Certainly not! Africans should not trust the rich countries (as well as countries like China and India) as the vile policies of organisations like the IMF, World Bank and WTO will drive Africa to complete destitution. Even if Africa gets some paltry aid, the strings attached to it are meant to favour the economic terrorists who seek to exploit Africa's natural resources with the help of Africa's corrupt dictators.

(To be continued)

Yes, he's back. President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He will be addressing the UN tomorow (tues. Sept. 23) in New York City.
The president of Iran is not our friend. If he is allowed to actually DO what he WANTS to do, we're ALL doomed. I don't know how much more strongly I can put that. He is the modern day Hitler, and perhaps worse. He wouldn't stop with the Jews. If you are in any way an observant Christian he would decapitate you in an instant and claim to be doing the will of God. He has vowed to "wipe Israel off the map".
Should this enemy of decent humanity be allowed to leave U.S. soil? According to John Bolton, the U.N. has a sixty year old deal with America to always allow heads of state free passage to and from the U.N. meetings. Should decent humanity make an exception? Should we arrest him, water board him for a while and bury him under the new Yankee Stadium? It would be a fitting end to a western society-hating tyrant, don't you agree?

Jag, liksom många andra, glädjs oerhört mycket över att USA ("The Greatest Democracy on Earth" - okej) äntligen har en svart presidentkandidat.

Jag är inte en fantastiskt politiskt kunnig person, åtmindstånde inte vad gäller så stora skalor som vem som bli bäst som president. Men jag är, som kanske du med (?), trött (milt uttryckt) på den sittande presidenten. Jag är också trött på äldre vita män i kostym och grått hår, på republikaner, på ALLT (kanske med vissa undantag) som skett i USA främst vad gäller utrikespolitik in the name of George W Bush.

Ingen tvekan om att det behövs nytt blod i vita huset! Det kan nog de allra flesta skriva under på. Men vad vore bäst? McCain eller Obama? Jag kan inte svara på det, men jag kan ge er en hint om vad jag känner (läs denna text så är det inte svårt att klura ut).

Föreställ er bara vilken oerhörd skillnad det skulle ha globalt att ha en demokratisk svart man som "ledare för den fria världen"! :) Det skulle kunna binda ihop världen en liten aning, och få människor över hela världen att aningens lättare kunna identifiera sig med USA:s president.

Det första raderna om Obama på hans webbsida:

"Barack Obama was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. They didn't have much money, but they taught him values from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. He took out loans to put himself through school."

Och de första raderna om McCain på hans webbsida:

"John McCain has a remarkable record of leadership ande experience that embodies his unwavring lifetime commitment to service, First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona in 1982, John has led the fight for reforming Washington, eliminating wasteful government spending, and strengthening our nation's armed forces."

Onekligen vill ju McCain mer presentera sig som "professionell", och Obama som "folklig". Jag tror att många av väljarna i USA vill ha en president som de kan relatera till.

På Demokraternas hemsida kan vi läsa om hur McCain röstat *ja* eller *nej* i samma utstreckning som Bush:

"John McCain has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, including 95 percent in 2007 and 100 percent this year. He really is just more of the same. We released this video to show, visually, what that looks like."

En underhållande liten film från Demokraterna. :D

Och texten: "American Families Cant Afford More of the Same Old Politics" tror jag talar till många amerikaners hjärtan.

På Republikanernas hemsida listas hur McCain resonerar jämfört med Obama:

Angående utrikespolitk:

John McCain would strengthen our alliances, keep America safe, and enhance American prosperity by expanding trade.

Obama says he would meet unconditionally with the world’s worst dictators, from Ahmadinejad to Castro to Kim Jong Il.

McCain: "strengthen our alliances, keep America safe" bla bla bla.... har du hört den förut? Politiskt dravel utan förklaring.

Obama: "meet unconditionally with the worlds worst dictatiors"... tycker jag låter bra, för det kan bygga broar och bättre diskussioner mellan länders olika ledare. Det sänder inte signaler som "vi är för goda/bra för att möta med er!.

Nåväl.. jag vet att jag inte är en expert på USA's politik, men jag vet också att jag är en typisk "medborgare", och många amerikaner känner som jag: "Vote for Change!"

1. Kim Jong-il, "Dear Leader" of North Korea since 1994. The son of the communist state's "Great Leader", Kim Jong-il has super-expensive tastes, with 17 palaces, and collections of hundreds of cars and about 20,000 video tapes. On one state visit to Russia, he reportedly had live lobsters airlifted daily to his armoured private train. He is believed to spend around $650,000 a year on Hennessy VSOP cognac and maintains an entourage of young lovelies known as the "Pleasure Brigade".

2. Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines, 1965 - 1986. The Second World War freedom-fighter turned kleptocrat secreted billions of dollars in overseas accounts. His wife Imelda, however, was the big spender, leaving 888 handbags and 1060 pairs of shoes in the Malacanang presidential palace when the family fled mob justice after Marcos was deposed. Her pricier purchases included the $51 million Crown Building and $61 million Herald Centre in New York and art by Michelangelo and Botticelli

3. Nicolae Ceausescu, President of Romania, 1967 - 1989. The "Geniul din Carpati", or Genius of the Carpathians, was congratulated (by telegram) by Salvador Dali on his excesses, which included his use of a kingly sceptre. Despite an official salary of just $3,000, he found the cash for 15 palaces, a superb car collection, yachts, fine art and bespoke suits. Tens of thousands of homes were demolished to make space for his 1,100-room, 480-chandelier Palace of the Parliament in the capital, Bucharest

And how is your family, Mr Ceausescu?

4. Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan, 1990 - 2006. The President for Life and "Turkmenbashi", or Father of all Turkmen, was at the centre of an awesome cult of personality. Vanity projects included a £6 million revolving gold-plated statue of himself in the country's capital, Ashgabat. He shifted around £3 billion to overseas accounts, renamed the month of January (after himself), banned beards and ordered that his musings be displayed alongside the Koran in mosques

5. Idi Amin, President of Uganda, 1971 - 1979. The self styled "Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea", "Emperor of Uganda" and "King of Scotland" awarded himself the VC, or Victorious Cross, and CBE, or Conqueror of the British Empire. He also spent millions on a super-lavish lifestyle - maintaining a reported 30 mistresses as well as five wives and fathering at least 43 children. A typically mad-capped project was the creation of a personal bodyguard of bagpipe-playing 6ft 4in Scotsmen.

6. Joseph Stalin, Leader of the Soviet Union, 1922 - 1953. The "Gardener of Human Happiness" and "Brilliant Genius of Humanity" was celebrated in his lifetime by thousands of stylised statues and monuments erected across the Soviet Union - many of which were moved or destroyed in later "de-Stalinisation" drives. He also had a taste for palaces, booze and cigars and preferred to travel by armour-plated private train with a Tsarist court-style entourage

7. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Persia, 1941 - 1979. The "King of Kings" and "Sun of the Aryans" spent a reported $100 million on celebrations for the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy in 1971, serving breast of peacock on Limoges china to dignitaries in a 160-acre tent city at Persepolis - close to poor villages. His superb collection of sports cars can be seen at the National Car Museum of Iran, alongside custom models by Mercedes-Benz and Porsche for his son, the Crown Prince

8. Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, 1979 - 2003. The Baathist leader with a fondness for gold-plated bathroom fittings, and Kalashnikovs, rebuilt Babylon on kitsch rather than authentic lines, stamping each brick of the "reconstruction" with his own name in the manner of Nubachadnezzar, the ancient Babylonian king and conqueror of Jerusalem. His playboy eldest son Uday, meanwhile, kept a private zoo with lions and cheetahs at his Baghdad residence and owned a collection of 1,200 luxury cars

9. Mobutu Sese Soku, President of Zaire, 1965 - 1997. Siphoning his country's wealth into Swiss bank accounts was a speciality of the "All-Powerful Warrior", whose personal fortune was estimated at $5 billion in 1984 - then equivalent to country's national debt. Mobutu's extravagances included palaces and pink champagne, yachts and shopping trips to Paris by chartered Concorde. His second wife Bobi Ladawa rivalled Imelda Marcos as a compulsive spender - with a reported 1,000-dress wardrobe

10. Suharto, President of Indonesia, 1967 - 1998. The former bank clerk embezzled more money than any other leader in history, according to Transparency International. In 1999, Time Asia put his family's wealth at $15 billion. Playboy son "Tommy" was the biggest-profile spender - lavishing money on cars and clothes and buying a majority stake in Lamborghini before a conviction for murder in 2002. His daughter "Tutut", meanwhile, spent $100,000 on chartering one shopping flight to the US.

Reference :

http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2008/09/the-10-most-dec.html

The Nobel Prize winners include U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and vice president Al Gore. They could surely get the public's attention if they had something to say on the subject. Who am I to write this plan if this august group has not managed to do it?

And perhaps they have, and I just don't know about it. Well, that's not quite right. I know about the government's Seoul Plan of Action, and the Warsaw Declaration. They don't make for very good reading in my opinion.

I proceeded to write a plan in spite of this uncertainty. It is 22 pages long, including a glossary and some other back matter. The plan assumes a timeline of 50 years. The first 25 would be devoted to booting dictators out of their jobs, and the next 25 to creating a world in which everyone has something useful to do. That should keep their mind off plundering and pillaging.

My plan is pretty decent, in my opinion, but what I find more interesting than the plan itself is my discovery of the forces that impede peace making. I thought I would share what I learned in this area. One of the most helpful resources I found was a book from the University of Arizona library. My friend Robert Mitchell, a U of A librarian, found it for me. Actually, he is a librarian with distinction since he is the Associate Dean of Libraries. The book is Institutionalizing Peace, The Conception of the United States Institute for Peace and Its Role in American Political Thought, by Rhoda Miller. Ms. Miller chronicles the long history of efforts to create organizations, mostly government sponsored, to promote peace. It is quite obvious that they have not been successful.

Another extraordinary book from my same friend is The Hundred Percent Challenge, Building a National Institute of Peace. It is a collection of fascinating pieces edited by Charles Duryea Smith. The book identifies obstacles such as groups who think seeking peace at a national level is an advertisement of our vulnerability. The variety of objections to peace are legion, and they reveal the degree to which people's thinking is shallow, twisted, and paranoid.

The first obstacles to peace—apart from the various objections on principle—are the world's dictators. Dictators are violent people by nature. A non-violent dictator would be cast out of power quickly enough. So the first task is to unseat the 40-plus dictators who operate around the world using non-violent means. The methods for doing that are provided to us in a book titled Breaking the Real Axis of Evil, How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025. The author is Mark Palmer. He provides a list of 198 non-violent methods of unseating dictators. The standard book on dictators, by the way, is Tyrants, The World's 20 Worst Living Dictators, by David Wallechinksy.

The reason to get rid of dictators is that they are the people who pick the fights. Ordinary citizens want to go about their lives and leave others well enough alone.

Ousting the dictators probably isn't the hardest part of creating peace. The hard part is getting democratic governments to align around the task. They have lots of individual agendas that are counter to peace making. This is thoroughly documented in Ms. Miller's book. In addition, the United States government has a troubled record of supporting dictators one day and trying to assassinate them the next. The people in charge have a truly screwed up set of priorities and values. These people must be replaced with public servants who have a moral compass and a deep sense of honor.

Government is not well served by academia, either. Scholars want to conduct study after study and spin new theories about the causes of war. The universities are simply not much help.

Citizens, as a group, are handicapped by a peculiar law passed in 1799 called the Logan Act. It was designed to restrain an American named Dr. George Logan, of Pennsylvania, from talking directly to the French government about relations with the United States. Although the Logan Act is rarely enforced, it serves as a deterrent to citizens dealing directly with foreign governments "or their agents." So the government's inability to promote peace cannot be supplanted by the public's willingness to do so. The bottom line is that the laws have to be changed to empower non-governmental organizations to conduct effective peace making activities.

What about the thousands of organizations (Paul Hawken estimates there are at least 2 million organizations world wide devoted to some kind of public service) that are already at work doing good around the world? While generalizations are always flawed, I will say that the community of peace making organizations is ineffective for the following reasons:

• they do not focus on the major root cause of war—dictators (in part because they are not allowed to)
• they do not effectively coordinate their efforts
• much of their worthy and noble efforts are devoted to easing the pain of war rather than making peace for the long term future

The barrier to peace is not a lack of knowing how to create it, since even I have a plan for it. The barriers come in the form of fragmentation of purpose among the very institutions that should be trusted to make peace.

We have to shine light on the government, point out the inconsistencies, and put people in office who will pursue peace instead of warmongering and pursuing profits.

I learned a lot doing this project, and I hope this article was informative for you. I welcome your comments.

He should practice what he preaches in his own country first!