SUNDANCE - Review of New Opera by Matthew J. Walton

Sundance - World Premiere of
An Original Opera by Matthew J. Walton

"Listen to me! Listen! I am the Indian voice.
Hear me crying out of the wind,
Hear me crying out of the silence.
I am the Indian voice. Listen to me!

I speak for our ancestors,
They cry out to you from the unstill grave.
I speak for the children yet unborn,
They cry out to you from the unspoken silence.

We are your own conscience calling to you.
We are you yourself
crying unheard within you

Put your ear to the earth
and hear my heart beating there.
Put your ear to the wind
and hear me speaking there.

We are the voice of the earth,
of the future,
of the mystery.

Hear us."

- Leonard Peltier

The story of the trial and incarceration of Leonard Peltier has many facets that make it surprisingly translatable to opera. Peltier's story is not widely known, especially to the youngest generation, because it occurred thirty years ago, with Peltier being literally hidden away in a prison cell for most of that time, making what must often seem, to him and his many supporters, like a futile symbolic sacrifice of his life as a political prisoner. Yet, never daunted, Peltier's supporters work tirelessly for his freedom. Staying close to the facts of the story surrounding the case, the opera shows that the lesson to be learned from the saga of Leonard Peltier is morally ambiguous, at best. The issue is one that runs deep and is rooted in Native American history. There can be no convenient resolution, no tying up of sub-plots, and no closure, because the story, in and of itself, has never ended. From the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, the opera reveals that, for Native Americans, there has not been an acceptable level of progress on the issues of social progress or social justice in a land that prides itself on justice and progress.

The triumph of Sundance, a new and distinctively American opera with music by Matthew J. Walton and libretto by Leonard Walton, is that the expertise in other areas of its composer, an honors graduate in Music Composition who also holds an MA in Political Science from Syracuse University, has created something relatively new, educational, incredibly moving, and emotionally powerful - all within a familiar and traditional format.


"Ghost Shirts of Wounded Knee, 1890"

Narrator Alex deMontigny, who is from the Lakota Sioux and Nez Perce Native American bloodlines, speaks as the forthright Peltier, using the words that Peltier, himself, has said over the years. The opera begins with an artistic interpretation and revelation of the sometimes shocking events at Wounded Knee in 1890 - well after the Civil War and the Battle of Little Bighorn (Custer's "Last Stand") - when the US cavalry was beginning to round up and disarm the remaining Native Americans. The Ghost Dance was an attempt of a group of North American Indian tribes to further separate themselves from the white man and the religious doctrines they were forcing upon the tribal peoples. Begun by a prophet named Wovoka, his vision embodied the belief that the white man would disappear from the Earth after a natural catastrophe and that the Indian dead would return bringing with them the old way of life that would then last forever. The first dance was held by Wovoka around 1889. Word spread quickly and the Ghost Dance was accepted by many tribes including the Sioux who added the element of a ghost shirt. Among those killed at Wounded Knee were women and children wearing their ghost shirts. The Ghost Dance continued to be danced in more southern tribes, but the end of the movement really came with the deaths at Wounded Knee in 1890.

Chief Sitting Bull had been killed while the calvary was attempting to round him up. Hearing of this, Chief Big Foot led his people south to seek protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on December 28 and brought them to the edge of the Wounded Knee to camp. The following morning, December 29, 1890, the soldiers entered the camp demanding the all Indian firearms be relinquished. A medicine man named Yellow Bird advocated resistance, claiming the Ghost Shirts would protect them. One of the soldiers tried to disarm a deaf Indian named Black Coyote. A scuffle ensued and the firearm discharged. The silence of the morning was broken and soon other guns echoed in the river bed. At first, the struggle was fought at close quarters, but when the Indians ran to take cover, the Hotchkiss artillery opened up on them, cutting down men, women, children alike, the sick Big Foot among them. When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot among them.


Wounded Knee 1890


Alcatraz:
"This has given me a goal in life...I will be able to look back and say that I did something worthwhile..."

In subsequent scenes, we see the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz island, California, by Native American activists. Leonard Peltier played no part, but this occupation inspired his own political consciousness. Early in the morning on November 20, 1969, seventy-nine American Indians, including students, married couples and six children, sailed to Alcatraz and began the 19-month occupation of the island. Despite the Coast Guard's attempted blockade, the group disembarked successfully. Shortly after arriving, they listed demands of the US Government, including the return of Alcatraz to the American Indians and sufficient funding to build, maintain and operate an Indian cultural complex and a university. Though the US government agreed to negotiate, they rejected all of the demands the occupiers had proposed. The occupation ended in 1971, with disillusionment after various tragedies and troubles on the island, along with the turn of public opinion against the occupiers. Despite public criticism, a spirit was reborn during those years. In the words of Adam Fortune Eagle:

"To view Alcatraz from its end is a mistake. It must always be known that, more than anything else, Alcatraz brought us together. And it brought the problems of Native Americans to national attention. It may seem strange to someone in the future to imagine that we could have been unified and inspired by a bleak and inhospitable old prison that was used to punish and ruin so many other lives."

see photos here


A Return to Wounded Knee

"Let us forgive the worst among us
because the worst is in ourselves,
the worst lives in each of us,
along with the best.

Let us forgive the worst
in each of us
and all of us
so that the best
in each of us
and all of us
may be free."

The audience is then led to back to the Pine Ridge reservation, 85 years after the Wounded Knee massacre - and how far had the Native Americans come? We see the reclaiming of Wounded Knee, and the confusion of the early morning in June, 1975. Sometime in the late morning, two FBI agents drove onto Indian land near Oglala, South Dakota, a small village on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Here a shoot-out occurred in whith both agents and an Indian man were killed. Although large numbers of FBI agents, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police, state trooopers, sheriff’s deputies and vigilantes surrounded the property within an hour of the first shots (no one has never been able to ascertain who shot first), the numerous Indians involved in the shoot-out escaped into the hills. Of the four men eventually indicted for the two killings, one was later released because the evidence was ‘weak’. Two others were acquitted in July 1976 when a jury concluded that, although they had fired at the agents, they had done so in self-defense. The fourth man was Peltier.

We see the grim and dubious process of the scapegoating of Peltier by the US Justice system. He has been incarcerated at Leavenworth Penitentiary for almost 30 years, despite alleged misconduct, including falsification of evidence, by various U.S. officials, which led to his conviction.

The opera is set to music composed and conducted by Walton and performed by an extremely talented six-piece chamber ensemble consisting of Linda Greene on flute, David Abrams on clarinet, Steven Heyman on piano, James Krehbiel on violin, Florent Renard-Payen on cello, and Phil de Chateauvieux on electronic keyboard. The music integrated very well with the performers, and the words of the libretto, which are words that were actually spoken or written at one point in history and raised to art by Leonard Walton, brought enunciation and clarity to the music's occasional instrumental complexity.

In Beethoven's one and only opera Fidelio, a prisoner (Florestan) is being held for life as a political prisoner by his mortal enemy, a wicked governor named Pizzaro, and to be sure Florestan is forgotten by the public, Pizzaro falsely announces Florestan's death - placing his prisoner in the lowest dungeon and planning to starve him to death. Walton's opera is worthy of Beethoven's story in the context that Leonard Peltier has been held indefinitely for a crime he swears he never committed, and his imprisoners (the US Government) have virtually silenced the mainstream media about Peltier's many active supporters and pleas for clemency; and have recently moved him from Leavenworth to the maximum-security US Prison at Terre Haute, Indiana, where Peltier was immediately placed in "the hole" (solitary confinement). Metaphorically speaking, Pelitier is a political prisoner who is being starved of his freedom while being declared "dead" by media silence.

The singing talents of Amanda Newhouse Carnie (soprano), Jonathan Howell (tenor), Carol Ansell Spradling (mezzo), Eric Johnson (bass), Uma Maedke (mezzo-soprano), William Black (baritone), and the rest of the cast, along with the directing talent of Victoria Harder King, production of (teacher of voice) Neva Pilgrim, and set design by Jarrod Bray, all added to the effective drama. The form and words reach out to the audience and ask them to consider not only the place, Pine Ridge, and the time of night when the confusion of the Pine Ridge shootings took place; but also the place in history where Peltier was standing on that fateful night when it all culminated in the swirling violence of a political showdown. The ghosts of Wounded Knee 1890 were by his side that night, as was the spirit of the Native Americans who had hoped for a great cultural awakening and political acceptance at Alcatraz Island circa 1969, the same time that white American youth were rebelling and searching at Woodstock.

"Silence is the voice of complicity
But silence is impossible
Silence screams
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act.

Let who you are ring out and resonate
in every word and every deed.
Become who you are…

What you do is who you are
You are your own comeuppance
You become your own message
You are the message..."

The most important and effective message the opera sends out is that the Peltier case has clearly not received the quality of attention that it deserves and that the collective voice of the Native American is still waiting to be heard by a government which has been all too willing, throughout US history, to silence it.

The spirit of the Native Americans beg you - listen.


*NOTE: For those of you who missed the premiere, you can still experience Sundance on the web. It is archived and available for viewing anytime at www.xmievents.com. The webcast costs $5 and all of the profits will go to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

Iraq: Too Little Too Late

Iraq: Too Little Too Late
Soldiers Don't Think Iraqi Troops Will Be Well-Enough Trained In Time for Success

At a website for a magazine called World News, which is a Christian-based news website, there is an article which I found interesting by Chattanooga Free Press military correspondent Edward Lee Pitts.

No one denies that most soldiers currently fighting in Iraq today just want to get back home. Wouldn't any of us? It doesn't mean they don't want to do a good job, but they desire to come back home, with life and limbs intact.

If we are ever going to redeem the obvious mistakes that the Bush administration has made and if we are to expect to see any degree of success in the final outcome, a hell of a lot of things must change. I happen to think it may be far too late to win back the hearts and minds of most Iraqis, and it's obvious that not one soul in the Bush administration has never understood how to do it. You just don't go in, as a foreign power, and reduce someone's cities to rubble and stick around for years and expect them to love you for it simply because you rid them of one wicked dictator.

Freedom means something different than we have had in mind for these people. Occupation wasn't their idea of what post-Saddam freedom would look like. Democracy means a lot to them, but they want us to get the hell out of their country so they can build their own style of democracy.

We look like occupiers (whether or not we say we aren't) and we've made it easy for the propaganda machine on the other side to succeed. This isn't WWII. This is 2005. Communication is immediate. People don't sit around for weeks wondering how the battle turned out. Photos and stories are sent with a quick download and, with one click of a key, the world sees what it wants to see...hears what it wants to hear. I'm no Nostradamus, but I sure as hell could have told you that this was a misguided way to win hearts and minds - as a matter of fact, I did tell you on this very blog, time and time again.

In order for there to be an appearance of any form of "success" for the U.S. in Iraq, the Iraqi army and police must be the key in this wicked propaganda battle between the U.S.-led occupation forces and the insurgents for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Our failure to adequately and promptly train these Iraqis is in direct proportion to the loss of so many hearts and minds. I fear what we've done has been too little - too late.

While I believe Pitts' article is optimistic, it is cautiously optimistic. It isn't the full-blown "happy talk of pure fantasy" that we sometimes see coming from media.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

The success of an independent Iraq hinges on the ability of the country's new army, so the U.S.-led coalition forces have stepped up military training. Since April small military transition teams—each made up of about seven U.S. soldiers—have embedded themselves into Iraqi army units. Acting as coaches, these Americans are preparing the Iraqi soldiers to take control of their own destiny.

The preparation takes on new urgency as the Iraqi army is scheduled to be capable of conducting independent operations by the end of next month. Throughout July, area U.S. units are set to officially transfer military authority over certain sectors to the Iraqis, leaving the U.S. forces as backup.....

.....Many believe the Iraqis will need help long after most U.S. regiments currently stationed in Iraq return home later this year. "You can't get years of proper training in a few weeks," said Sgt. 1st Class Clay Rader, who is training a unit of 200 Iraqis; only 30, he says, have been soldiers for longer than two months.....

....many of the Iraqis failed to qualify on their weapons because of poor eyesight. Most Iraqis cannot afford eyeglasses to correct their vision...

.....[The soldiers] realize a fully trained Iraqi army offers the U.S. military its best chance of making its own future deployments smaller and smaller...

"My main driving force is to train them so I can get home," said Sgt. Barrett Vaughn, 24.

And I hope Barrett gets home...safely and soon. Whether or not the Iraqi soldiers can afford eyeglasses. We cannot afford to lose Barrett just because our government sent him to a war that he couldn't possibly have "won" in the span of time in which the American public would have been tolerant enough to accept all the unnecessary death and destruction.

The soldiers have not failed us. They wanted to do the best job they could have done. It's the Bush administration that has failed us all with their lies, their failures, and their subsequent cover-ups.

________________

Meanwhile, things are changing for the U.S. Army in Europe (many of whom have been fighting in Iraq.) In accordance with the Pentagon's transformation plans for the Army, it was announced last Thursday that the Army will reduce their 1st Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team in Vilseck, Germany to a small detachment to make room for a Stryker Brigade Combat Team that is set to arrive as early as 2006. Current 3rd Brigade troops will be assigned to other jobs throughout the Army. According to an article in Stars and Stripes, this announcement sets in stone a movement of forces openly talked about in Army circles but not confirmed until this week. A gentleman I've often blogged about, Col. Dana Pittard, became part of the string of these command and restationing changes. I wonder how effective this will be in disastrously insecure places such as Iraq. The Pentagon's top independent tester had long ago warned the Secretary of Defense that the vehicle should not be deployed in Iraq because it is vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades. Strykers are meant for ground campaigns and because of their vulnerability, are highly dependent upon accurate intelligence gathering (a system of satellites, UAVs, soldier reports, and other intelligence tools to provide a common and detailed picture of what's happening on the battlefield.)

Godspeed, Andy Stephenson

Godspeed, Andy Stephenson

"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."

-- Words inscribed on the gravestone
of Brandon Lee

...So begins a moving tribute to the life of one of Seattle's most passionate political activists, Andy Stephenson, written by William Rivers Pitt. Andy passed away last Thursday from complications due to pancreatic cancer.
There is also a tribute to Andy at Daily Kos.

Roberts, Moran and Gregory Blast McClellan Over Rove

QUESTION: "Scott, if I could point out: Contradictory to that statement, on September 29th of 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one to have said that if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then, on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation, when the president made his comments that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved, so why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you’ve suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, We’re not going to comment on an ongoing investigation?"


CBS' John Roberts, questioning White House Press Sec'y Scott McClellan today

Roberts, Moran and Gregory Blast McClellan Over Rove

Scott McClellan refuses to comment on Karl Rove, and he is being blasted right now by journalists in the White House press corps gallery. ABC's Terry Moran, NBC's David Gregory, and CBS' John Roberts have been especially forceful. David Gregory actually told McClellan he was looking "RIDICULOUS." McClellan refuses, flatly, to make any comment about the White House reaction to the news that Karl Rove leaked the fact that Joseph Wilson's wife was CIA to so many reporters. McClellan uses the limp-as-noodle excuse that they are "waiting for the ongoing investigation to be completed". David Gregory, with obvious emotion in his voice, asks McClellan how he believes this looks to the American people.
Excerpt from today's White House Press Conference:

Q: "....you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?"

McClellan: "I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that."

Even Fox News' Bush-bootlicker Carl Cameron pushed McClellan on the Karl Rove question.

David Corn asks if Bush is taking any action at all about the recent news about the Rove leak. After all, Bush is free to take whatever action he wants to take immediately (such as firing Rove) without need for the completion of an investigation. McClellan has (surprise) "no comment."

This looks so bad for the White House. McClellan's taken a good lambasting today and I have been shown that the Fourth Estate is waking up to the fact that they've been astoundingly ill-used by this White House.

McClellan is asked if the President agrees with the information about the U.S. drawing down U.S. troops by end of 2006 (found in the secret British memo) - McClellan says it's some kind of "contingency plan."

After McClellan ended the press conference and left the room, there was a lot of chatter and laughter passing between members of the press corps. It sounded like mockery to me.

TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE HERE.

The Plame Investigation is About the Cover-Up of the Leak

The Plame Investigation is About the Cover-Up of the Leak
It's more about the cover-up of the leak than the leak itself...
..and it seems to go far beyond Karl Rove.


Quote of the Day -
Kenneth Lerer on Karl Rove

"..imagine if some of the things you said to your psychiatrist, rabbi/priest all of a sudden were to become public. Shit. Now you understand Rove's problem. We will see a ton of word-parsing the rest of the summer by the White House press operation. But one thing is certain: Rove's got himself into a serious jam and sure wishes he never got involved with Joe Wilson in the first place. Seemingly little things like this destroy careers all the time." [Huffington Post]

Josh Marshall gets Second Place with this nugget:

So we've got Karl Rove's latest story, as recounted by his lawyer, Robert Luskin.

Rove did spill the beans about Plame in an effort to discredit Joe Wilson. Only he didn't mention the name 'Valerie Plame'. He only spilled the beans about 'Joe Wilson's wife'.

I'm no lawyer. But I'd hate to go into court with my case resting on that distinction.

And remember, the president has certainly known all of this from the beginning.

What Did Rove Know? And When?

Rove's defenders are trying to explain that the infamous e-mail, released with Rove's permission by the publishers of Time magazine, will prove that "the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false." (This is referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa.) [Source: July 18th Newsweek/Isikoff]

Rove has claimed, to the FBI, that he only found out Wilson's wife was CIA from reading Robert Novak's column, and called reporters only after that point. [Hunter at Daily Kos]

On the timing of the Novak column (thanks to Hunter/Daily Kos): "While Novak's column did not run until Monday, July 14, it could have been seen by people in the White House or the media as early as Friday, July 11, when the Creators Syndicate distributed it over the Associated Press wire." [Washington Post Nov. 26, 2004]


Fitzgerald's Investigation Seems to be Reaching as Far as to President Bush Himself

There is the question of Fitzgerald's subpeona of the Air Force One records from that time period. According to the new Cooper e-mail, which goes like this:

Matt Cooper tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy: "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA."

... Karl Rove was leaving on vacation, so we may reasonably conclude that he was not taking Air Force One anytime soon thereafter. If I am not mistaken, President Bush was using Air Force One for travel to Africa at that time.

Did the WHIG group go all the way up to the conspiratorial inclusion of President Bush himself?

Lawrence O'Donnell appeared on the Rhandi Rhodes show on July 7th (Sam Seder was the guest host-2nd half of show). O'Donnell says he believes Karl Rove was the leak and he has reason to believe that the seriousness of the suspected crime involved has caused judges to try to legally warrant the jailing of journalists for denying to comply with Patrick Fitzgerald's demand to reveal the confidential sources. A Circuit Court of Appeals Judge named David S. Tatel, who is part of a *three-judge panel, has written a legal opinion [from last February]. Tatel says that implicit in any legal shield for reporters that would apply in this case, in protecting their source, must be the careful and reasoned balance against the value of the kind of information they were trying to get. The privilege of confidentiality is based upon the gravity of the suspected crime. There was a 41-page opinion written on the case where there is information, from a substantial whited-out section, which must be so extreme that the judges felt that they had no choice but to jail Judy Miller. It could only be about a national security leak that gravely effects national security.

I quote Lawrence O'Donnell:

In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues’ order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges “in the light of reason and experience.” Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”

Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “[h]aving carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor’s] voluminous classified filings.”

* Note: Also involved on this three-judge panel is Judge David Sentelle. I am not confident in knowing that Sentelle is involved in writing this legal decision. If an Appeals Court overturns any convictions that might be obtained on this case, in due course, (as Judge Sentelle has a history of doing with Oliver North and John Poindexter), then the mainstream corporate media will claim that the White House has been vindicated and individuals who are traitors to America will continue running the United States.



John Hannah/INC/Dick Cheney Connections?

In February, 2004, I had blogged about a man named John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who were two Dick Cheney employees. Hannah and fellow Vice presidential aide Libby had written the infamous dossier meant to serve as the basis for then Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 6, 2003 presentation to the UN.

"We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer had said at the time about the Plame investigation. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. [Richard Sale, UPI, February 5, 2004]
**Per Kos/Feb 2004: "Hannah, by the way, is a "senior national security aide" for Cheney, and was, in fact, the administration's main point of contact with Chalabi's INC."**


Who Is Judy Miller Protecting??

Who is Judy Miller protecting? No one knows who - or why. There's a lot of speculation. Is she proecting HERSELF? Or Dick Cheney? From whom? Could it have been then-CIA director George Tenet, who was inflamed that one of his own CIA's cover was blown? Did George Tenet leak on the leakers (using Shelock Google's phrase)? Why did Tenet resign just before Bush retained Ken Lay's attorney James Sharp last summer?



Who Does Joseph Wilson Suspect?

Remember that Joseph Wilson, himself, has had suspicions. Libby was on the top of Wilson's list of suspects. Wilson thinks Karl Rove may have circulated information about himself and his wife Valerie "in administration and neoconservative circles" even if Rove was not himself the leaker. (Wilson has written about this).
Others on Wislon's suspect list were Elliott Abrams, a figure in the Reagan administration Iran-Contra affair and now a member of Bush's National Security Council...and the two lower-level officials in Cheney's office, (one of which I'd mentioned earlier in this post) - John Hannah or David Wurmser - who may have leaked Plame's identity at the behest of higher-ups "to keep their fingerprints off the crime." [source}


This probe seems to be more about who was implicit in the COVER-UP than who leaked the name.



How Are National Security, the Plame Leak, and Lies About Reason for Iraq War Tied In?

Here's an idea:

In 2001, a company named ARAMCO, which is the the largest oil group in the world, had signed a $140 million multi-year contract with Halliburton, then chaired by Dick Cheney, to develop a new oil field. Halliburton does a lot of business in Saudi Arabia. Current estimates of Halliburton contracts or joint ventures in the country run into the tens of billions of dollars. So do the fortunes of some shady figures from the Bush family's past.

ARAMCO constitutes 12% of the world's total oil production; a figure which has surely increased as Iraq's oil fields have burned and our misguided war has sunk it into irreversible decline for an unpredictable term. ARAMCO operates, manages, and maintains virtually all Saudi oil fields - 25% of all the oil on planet Earth.


A named defendant in a $1 trillion lawsuit filed by 9/11 victims' families against the Saudi government is Khalid bin Mahfouz, who is reported to be a brother-in-law to Osama Bin Laden. As recently as 1991, bin Mahfouz was on the Supreme Council of ARAMCO's board of directors. Mahfouz has historical ties to the Bush family dating back to the 1980s, when another bank connected to Mahfouz - the InterMaritime Bank - bailed out a cash-starved Harken Energy in 1987 with $25 million. (The Bushes played with the inside knowledge and made a lot of money on this pump-and-dump).

Are you feeling filthy, just knowing about this incestuous relationship of greed yet?

This is a time when Saudi Arabia is one of the three or four countries of highest interest to the US, and the non-official cover (NOC) operation which Valerie Plame had been involved was irreplaceable. The demise of her cover operation, Brewster Jennings, was guaranteed the moment Plame was outed. "NOCs" are generally regarded in the intelligence community as among the best and most valuable of all CIA operations officers and the CIA goes to great lengths to protect them in what are frequently very risky missions.

The Saudis are denying reprots that oil production has peaked, but they are being strongly refuted by an increasing amount of hard data. The truth remains unproven, but the mere possibility has set the world's financial markets on edge. The answer to the Saudi peak question will determine whether Saudi Arabia really can - or cannot - increase production quickly. If they can't, then the US economy is going to suffer bitterly, and it is certain that the Saudi monarchy will collapse into chaos.

Valerie Plame's cover company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was instrumental in getting the answers our country so desperately required. Brewster, Jennings & Associates were tied closely with ARAMCO, and someone in the White House decided it was more important to cover their own lies to the American people and betray America than it was to protect such a crucial national interest.

Is it any wonder George Tenet would have been pissed off at the Plame leak? And why he may have resigned - knowing that, in order to truly serve his country's best security interests, it would be best for him to step away from his delicate position? Perhaps that Medal of Freedom was richly deserved, after all?

Michael C. Ruppert and Wayne Madsen, from whom I retrieved much of this information, have stated:

The CIA Director's job by definition, whether others like it or not, is to be able to go to his President and advise him of the real scientific data on foreign resources (especially oil); to warn him of pending instability in a country closely linked to the US economy; and to tell him what to plan for and what to promise politically in his foreign policy. In light of her position in the CIA's relationship with Saudi Aramco, the outing of Valerie Plame made much of this impossible. In short, the Bush leak threatened National Security.

Former White House Counsel and Watergate figure John Dean, writing for the prestigious legal website findlaw.com on June 4th made some very ominous observations that appear to have gone unnoticed by most.

This action by Bush is a rather stunning and extraordinary development. The President of the United States is potentially hiring a private criminal defense lawyer. Unsurprisingly, the White House is doing all it can to bury the story, providing precious little detail or context for the President's actions.

Re: The Cover up:
Last Note of Interest -
Meet The Martins

I was reading a great letter by humorist Bill Shein that included this statement:

"All successful democracies need freedom of speech, with a vibrant free press that informs the public, ensures transparency and prevents authoritarian backsliding." (Ongoing efforts to restrict Freedom of Information Act disclosures; pending imprisonment of journalists who investigated the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity; FCC policies that aid media consolidation; the Patriot Act's infringement on civil liberties, and the most secretive, nontransparent administration in American history. )

It made me think about Catherine J. Martin, who was then Dick Cheney's press secretary (and has since been named White House deputy communications director for policy and planning) - who is part of the Fitzgerald investigation on the outing of Valerie Plame because of some questionable cell phone calls. Catherine J. Martin's husband, Kevin Martin, just so happens to be the fellow who took Michael Powell's place at the FCC when Powell stepped down. Kevin Martin worked for Ken Starr during the witch hunt against Clinton, and when the Florida fix was in danger of falling apart in 2000, "Martin left for Miami so quickly he didn't pack a bag. Working round the clock, he could be seen on TV peering over ballot counters." Yikes.

Different Religions Week-July 15-22

Different Religions Week July 15-22

Different Religions Week 2005 is July 15-22.

Nathan Black is a student at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and he is the founder of "Different Religions Week", which is a week during which people are encouraged to attend services of faiths different from their own. Black started the movement in 2003 to help curb people’s widespread ignorance of other faiths, which often leads to intolerance and which sometimes ultimately results in — or is used to justify — violence (consider, for example, 9/11 or the Bosnian conflict).

There is more information about the how and why of the movement is available at http://www.differentreligionsweek.org.

There is no one “event” around which Different Religions Week is based; rather, people are simply encouraged to find and attend an unfamiliar religious service at their convenience during the week. (Atheist and agnostic meetings count too.) The movement’s Web site has links under “World Religions” to directories where you can get started finding a service.

Please consider spreading the word by posting a comment on or announcement of Different Religions Week 2005 on your own blog..or you can take action some other way:

- Write a letter about Different Religions Week to your local newspaper.

- Write a letter about Different Religions Week to your government leaders.

Most importantly, participate, tell your friends and family about your experiences, and encourage them to try a different religious service themselves.

Tar Heel Tavern #20

Tar Heel Tavern #20
Drink up, me hearties! Th' sails o' th' Tar Heel Tavern #20 be appearin' on th' horizon at Scrutiny Hooligans. Avast, ye lads an' lasses, an' read th' fine collection o' Carolina-spun gentleman (and gentlewoman) o' fortune tales. Arrrr!

Help Skippy Score A Million

Help Skippy Score A Million
It would be nice of you to give Skippy the Bush Kangaroo your attention today.
He's getting close to achieving a million blog hits.

Brit Leak: US Plans to Draw Down Iraq Troops

Brit Leak: US Plans to Draw Down Iraq Troops

According to Juan Cole, Reuters has picked up on a report that first appeared in The Guardian on July 6, that the British are planning to draw down from 8,000 to 9,000 troops* in Iraq now to 2,000 to 3,000 by spring-summer of 2006. But it has gotten hold of a leaked memo from the British Ministry of Defense that reveals that the US plans to draw down its forces from 138,000 to 66,000 by July of 2006, as well. The Pentagon is expecting to be able to turn security duties in 14 of the 18 provinces over to the Iraqi government by then. [Story also at BBC News]

* This would indicate that the British ambassador to Baghdad is lying.

Note: Juan Cole says he remains unconvinced that the new Iraqi army will actually be able to take up the slack.

Cole also points to BBC correspondent Jon Leyne, who talks about what an upside-down place American-occupied Iraq is, and how poor Bush administration decision-making helped make it that way.

The Pirates vs. the Terrorists

The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman's methods; it remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.

- Mark Twain

The Pirates vs. The Terrorists

pirate (p?'r?t)
n.

1. One who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without commission from a sovereign nation.
2. A ship used for this purpose.
3. One who preys on others; a plunderer.

* and what happens when the sovereign nation becomes the pirate?

The pirate known as Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, paving the way for an era of European colonialism in the Muslim world during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The pirates of France went on to colonize Algeria while the pirates of Britain ruled Egypt.The slow death of colonialism in the Muslim world culminated in the founding of many nation-states in the Middle East. Every sheik that was propped up, by outside political intervention, as King in their respective Middle Eastern nation-state was a pirate in royal disguise.

On June 21, 2001, a federal grand jury in the United States indicted 13 Saudi Arabian nationals and one Lebanese national in connection with the truck bombing that killed 19 members of the American military services and wounded nearly 400 others in an apartment building in Saudi Arabia in 1996. The building was being used as a barracks for U.S. military service personnel. The bombing allegedly was pursuant to an organized terrorist agenda designed to drive Americans out of the Persian Gulf region.

The pirates of the Saudi Arabian government had asserted that the pirates of the United States had had no right to prosecute persons involved in an incident that occurred in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian Defense Minister was quoted, at the time, as saying that any legal steps in the case would have fallen "within the jurisdiction of Saudi Arabia." The Interior Minister had been quoted as saying, "No other entity has the right to try or investigate any crimes occurring on Saudi lands."

Even though the pirates of the United States could not assert jurisdiction under either the territorial or the nationality principle back in July, 2001, it would have some arguments for concurrent jurisdiction. First, the U.S. could have argued that the bombing was an act of terrorism of a type so universally condemned that any nation-state may have prohibited it and may have prosecuted its perpetrators if they could have been brought into its custody. In early 2001, this "universal" basis of jurisdiction was already generally recognized for such acts as piracy, slave trade, genocide, attacks on civil aircraft and war crimes, but it has not been quite as widely accepted for acts of terrorism.

September 11, 2001 would forever change the option for the pirates of Saudi Arabia to hide their cruel form of government (and their murderous criminals) from the greater public eye. Out of the 19 hijackers who rammed planes into the World Trade Center towers, 15 were Saudi nationals. Saudi Arabian pirate-royalty could no longer deny they had a major problem with their own unwashed peasantry.

On a sad note, President Clinton had gone to the U.S. Senate and stressed the importance of the U.S. ratification of the U.N. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1997. As of July 2001, 59 nation-states had signed and 24 of them had ratified; the United States had signed but had still not ratified. Saudi Arabia had not ratified, either. What was the hold-up? Did both nations feel they were "above" the rule of law? (Note: The U.S. finally ratified on June 26, 2002).





So, what did America's own little King George and his pirate administration say after 9/11?

They told us that the war on terror was a "fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom." This included Jordan, who is a pirate-monarchy propped up by security forces that have committed "extrajudicial killings." It included the Saudi royal-pirate family who "prohibit the establishment of political parties" and enforce "a rigorously conservative form of Islam" through "religious police." It included the pirates of Egypt, whose security forces arbitrarily arrest and torture people in the name of "combating terrorism."

As Robert Fisk said about this week's terror attack on London,

"we go on pretending that Britain's [and the U.S.] enemies want to destroy "what we hold dear" (which encourages racism)..what we are confronting here is a specific, direct, centralised attack on London as a result of a "war on terror" which Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara has locked us into. Just before the US presidential elections, Bin Laden asked: "Why do we not attack Sweden?"

I suppose Sweden hasn't resorted to sovereign piracy just yet. Perhaps Tony Blair has decided that his nation should join the pirates, after years of Britain trying to shake the plundering image. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as they say.

So..what did the pirates of the Bush administration do after 9/11?

They continued to thumb their noses at the UN and invaded Iraq, naturally. (?)
(Clue: pirates plunder)

Pirates don't "do" the U.N. and the terrorists are whoever the pirates decide who the terrorists will be on any given day.

This war is between the "Pirates" and the "Terrorists." We're caught in the middle. In piracy and in terror, our brother's poverty, human rights, truth, honesty, and international law are not recognized. There's a third faction out here - which are the majority of everyday people from all around this world - who are concerned about the truth, the rule of law and human rights. We don't seem to count anymore - and if we get too loud, who knows? We might wake up to find that we, good and decent people, have been labeled as terrorists ourselves one of these days, if some on the radical right wing have their way.

I don't want to be a pirate. Do you?
That's not what being a patriot in a nation of free individuals is all about.
I am not a cheerleader for the neocon pirates of Halliburton.
At the same time, I'd like the "terrorists" to f**k off and leave my civilization alone.


We're Not Afraid!

The U.S. you see today bears strikingly little resemblance to the dream plotted out by the Founding Fathers. Enjoy the 21st century. The bridge that once led to it has burned behind you, along with all the hopes and dreams that lined the other side.

If there's one thing I'll never lose faith in, however, it's my faith in the innate goodness of my fellow man. No pirate can steal our hope. No terrorist can kill love.

Headlines

Headlines



A Creation of Corey Anderson, as seen today at The American Street


At Basement Cross, see the video of PINK FLOYD performing "Wish You Were Here" at Live8.


The day after:
- The Common Ills has some great commentary
- Oliver Willis notices that the right-wing the self-proclaimed "liberal" Jeff Jarvis has been trying to hide has become exposed with the latest bombings.
- Fox News has shown how incredibly unprofessional they are with this latest terror attack.



This is possibly the worst Elvis Presley mask I've ever seen.

Mayor Livingstone Has a Key to Winning

WeAreNotAfraid.com

Mayor Livingstone Has
a Key to Winning

London's mayor Ken Livingstone gave a statement about the London bomb attacks today, and it made me realize where our American leadership has gone wrong. America remains bitterly divided and most people in the world outside our borders hate George W. Bush for what he's done in and to Iraq. (C'mon, right-wingers, don't shoot the messenger. You know it's true.)

What does that say about his leadership skills? I'm not saying his job has been easy, but the fact that he has lied to his own people and conspired in secrecy, along with Tony Blair, to make a political case for dropping bombs over an innocent population in the chase for ghostly al Qaeda figures is a fact that lies heavy in our hearts.

Iraq was the biggest mistake George W. Bush ever could have made. How can we move away from this? Without supreme humility on his part, I'm afraid we never will - not until he's out of office. He has shown us, time and time again when we've looked upon him with hope, that he has no humility. He is determined, with extreme pride, to pursue the wrong course. It could be "the character flaw that destroyed America as we once knew it."

If only we'd had a Ken Livingstone to bring us together in the days that followed 9/11. If only we'd come together...regardless of the worst leader in the history of America. If only someone had paid attention to the millions upon millions of people around the world on February 15, 2003 who were in the streets screaming "No War In Iraq!"...pleading with our leaders not to do it!

Mayor Livingstone said:

"This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. *see below

It was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion or whatever.

That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith, it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners...

....people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

* One note: I disagree with Mayor Livingstone on one significant point. Although the aim was not true, this was a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It's a point we should not forget. It's precisely why terrorism will never win, no matter how many of us regular Joes get blown up while working at our dismal cubicles...while dreaming of going home to our little patch of garden and the ones we love at our perfectly average (or sub-par) home-sweet-home.

You can attack innocent people who enjoy liberty, and you can do it because you believe their governments are acting in a way you see as threatening and corrupt...but it will never get you anywhere. I'd rather have death than to live in fear and in the chains of an oppressive culture, which is why I get so angry at George W. Bush and his administration when they use fear and lies to manipulate my own allegedly "free" and "democratic" society...lying us into unnecessary and barely-planned wars that take the innocent lives of a hundred-thousand or more.

...you're a soldier, baby. Be brave. Call upon your government to be transparent and truthful in times when your life is the one on the line.
Call for more freedom in the face of terror!

If we cannot come up with a better form of counter-terrorism, I'm sure we will see a lot more successful attempts to recruit more misguided murderers who prey upon the unsuspecting who are only trying to make it home from their shit job on the city bus. If the people of the free world cannot be led to trust and to unite in some hopeful way, I'm sure terror will continue it's popular wave. It's a sick fucking world. We need minds far greater - and hearts more earnest and bent closer toward honest communication - than the ones we have in leadership today.

The goal of the terrorist is messianic. They wish and act to replace the existing social order with a new one. Fuck them. We need to be messianic individuals for true freedom -- people who will not allow fear to cause our societies to become repressed by our OWN governments or by any terrorists.

This is a time for great minds; great hearts; truth; a genuine uniting for a common cause. Who will emerge as a true leader? There are no Batmen in Gotham City. No one can save you from terror - except the person in your mirror. You're a soldier, baby. Be brave. Call upon your government to be transparent and truthful in times when your life is the one on the line. Call for more freedom in the face of terror!

Currently Top Story at Findory.com

Outrage, Anyone?

Outrage, Anyone?

There was another terror attack yesterday - a twin bomb attack that no one seemed to mention.

London 7/7-British Bloggers Speak

Tavistock Square

"So …
It’s our turn now."

- Stef at London blog Famous for 15 Megapixels

London 7/7: British Bloggers Speak

My thoughts are with the people of London, especially those who have lost loved ones. Those who who choose the murder of innocent people to prove a political point are never right. Everyone with the fire of love for their fellow man in their hearts is a Brit today. There were days I recall...days when those who employed terror would have been put on trial and imprisoned for life. Today, we can rely upon our leaders to use the emotion stemming from such events in order to affect blood revenge and war in lands where other innocent people dwell. It makes less and less sense as the days pass and more innocent people die.

I pray for the madness to end and for my society..my civilization to return, mightily, to the rule of law. We should have never answered the invitation to pre-emptive war from these monsters. Law has been our strength and our shield; our international healing force and common thread.

Terrorism is not new to London...and not solely caused, in history, by Islamic extremists.

A statement has been made on the London bombings by George Galloway on behalf of "Respect" - (UK's Unity Coalition).

Alex Harrowell from the Yorkshire Ranter has updates on life in London today. He mentions something rather disturbing to me, which is that he was told this morning, by the British Transport Police, that the explosions had been due to a "power surge" and that the subway was closed. Had he known there had been terrorist attacks, he never would have gotten on the alternative to the "tube" - which was the bus.

Alex said:

"....evacuating the Tube and transferring passengers to buses seems to have played into the terrorists' hands. I wouldn't have got on a bus for thousands had I known. It's also been suggested that the first sign of trouble might have been a power surge, but surely the explosions can't have been that ambiguous. Either they were lying to us or this was a weak spot in the emergency response, which seems to have been outstanding."

The UK blog, Walls Come Tumbling Down, also comments on the misinformation given by the British Transport Police. He adds that this attack was no surprise - it was just a matter of time.:

If a power surge is responsible for the tube meltdown, someone needs their arse reamed. How can you design a grid system that would allow a power surge to cause explosions in multiple places? Ridiculous.Given the reports that a number of bombs have gone off on London buses I would venture to say that the tube explosions are not power related. Update: this looks pretty bad. It appears that the cell phone network has been switched off to avoid any detonations using the cell infrastructure....Sad to say but it was only a question of time.

Nick Barlow is a Brit with a strong message. He starts with the words of a famous American:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

- Martin Luther King

In other words, if you’re using what’s happened in London as an excuse to start waving your ‘people who should be dealt with’ list, and demanding for the bombs to start falling, the walls to start building and the jails to start filling up with anyone you don’t like the look of then Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Curiously, as the Brit blog Chicken Yoghurt comments, the lion's share of angry, race-centered posts in response to the terror attacks seem to be coming from the U.S.

At the British blog called Bloggerheads, there is concern that what they call a "wrong-headed approach" to fighting terror will be compounded by the government's expolitation of these attacks.

"This tragedy will only be compounded by Blair's government using it to further strangle the public. If Charles Clarke dares to speak the words 'ID Cards' today, I will be enraged.....Dear God, look at the human cost of this wrong-headed approach to terrorism - where we exploit it instead of fight it."

Europhobia has an incredible timeline which is being updated quite often.

Tim Worstall also has some excellent coverage and links.

Other British Bloggers' Statements:

My Way of Thinking:

Blair must resign. The strategy of pre-emption has been a failure? Who feels safer now? I have just watched Blair on television trying to claim while he was helping people in the G8 people had the temerity to do this. My wife is safe as are my friends, but I am beyond anger. The Labour party must accept responsibility for the series of policy failures, namely Iraq, that led us to this.

Gridlock - Stockwell Station Closed After London Blasts
photo by OnionBagBlogger

See London PhotoBloggers for photos.

The UK's Militant Moderate, who was inspired to name his post, Streets of London, by the Ralph McTell song (one of my own favorites):

There has never been any hesitation within Britain that international terrorism must be opposed; indeed, the conversion of America to opposing terrorism, after years of equivocation in their relationship with the IRA, was welcome. What is vital now is that a programme of aggressive support for human rights overseas continues. This will mean challenging state sponsors of terrorism, and also the corrupt pro-Western regimes such as Saudi Arabia, where the majority of 9/11 bombers came from. I have no doubt that such a resolve will hold, even if there is healthy debate on the best ways of achieving the fundamental aims of that policy.

The English Guy (residing in U.S.) is supportive of Tony Blair:

This has only strengthened the resolve to fight terrorism. Saying Blair should resign, or that we have failed somehow is like saying, "well we should just quit right now", after Hitler bombed london once...Living in the US, but being a Brit, I am worried for my family and friends (who thankfully are all ok), but I feel that the direction of the war on terrorism is right. You cannot protect everything all the time, it is inevitable that sometimes, someone gets through....In another way though, this will perhaps demonstrate the validity of the surveillance state when they start to backtrack to find these culprits, where they live, who they associate with, and so on.

With tongue placed firmly in cheek, Norfolk's own Johnny B hands us his top three conspiracy theories:

--conspiracy theories that I have just made up:

3. US wanted to move G8 agenda from poverty and climate change to security and terrorism.

2. Support was waning for ID cards.

1. French really really wanted Olympics.

A group called The Secret Organisation of al-Qaida in Europe today claims responsibility for blasts. [Guardian]

Excerpt:

The statement, which also threatened attacks against Italy and Denmark, said: "Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.."
..The authenticity of the message could not be immediately confirmed, but al-Qaida in Europe also claimed responsibility for the last major terror attack in Europe: a string of bombs that hit commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, in March 2004 that killed 191 people.

I feel that it's important to note blogger Evan Kohlmann's doubts about the authenticity of this claim. [CounterTerrorismBlog]

Fistful of Euros has a thought about why the attacks may have taken place when they did. If there's any truth to it, it might indicate that European Bin Laden followers chose their targets and dates independent of instruction from top-down. This would mean terrorism is widening and spinning even further out of control.

"...until reading Juan Cole woke me up to the possible connection. The trial started on Tuesday. Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has appeared in court at the start of his trial on terrorism charges. The 47-year-old, who denies any involvement in terrorism, has been held at Belmarsh prison since May 2004.'

Former CIA Bin Laden analyst Michael Scheuer told NPR that "chickens were coming home to roost" for US and UK politicians who had obscured the nature of the al-Qaeda struggle by maintaining that the organization attacks the West because "they hate our values." Scheuer believes that al-Qaeda is an insurgent ideology focused on destroying the United States and its allies, because its members believe that the US is trying to destroy them. They want to drive Western nations, especially the US, out of the Middle East. He said that yesterday's threats toward Denmark and Italy by The Secret Organisation of al-Qaida in Europe are consistent with patterns of al Qeada activity. Many Americans do not understand that Britain is a former Empire, and that they have a long history of imperialism in the minds of Muslims. [NPR]



Unconfirmed reliable sources reported that Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred. The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion, a Liverpool Street train station, where he was to address and economic summit. [Israel National News]



The G8 leaders meeting in Gleneagles put back all announcements until Friday after the London bombings. [BBC News]

Prime Minister Tony Blair's statement in full about the series of explosions in London on Thursday morning. [BBC News]

MP Condemns Terrorist Outrage in London Today:

"We should avoid rumour and speculation and not rush to conclusions. This was a brutal and repulsive act, aimed not at the state or the powerful but aimed against ordinary Londoners going about their normal business and innocent visitors to our city. It has killed and injured people of all races and colour, of all religions and none. We do not know the perpetrators or their motives although there has been some speculation. No injustice or grievance could justify an act as terrible as this. Those of us who have close ties with the Arab community in London and those of us who represent Muslim communities know that they share in our revulsion and condemnation of attacks against innocent civilians" [epolitix.com]

Gia sends a message about the resiliency of Londoners:

"We are not terrorised.

We are just annoyed.

The Germans tried to terrorise Londoners for 40 nights. Londoners just camped out in the Tube singing songs.

The IRA tried to terrorise the British for decades. The British just used the destruction of buildings as unplanned town planning and revamped their bombed cities.

Now these amateurs think they can scare us by messing up the transport system? Bah. We're just pissed off that we can't meet our friend for coffee in the West End.

Piss off, terrorists. Go pick on someone who gives a shit.... You'll get the reaction you want from Americans. Try them again.*

* not really, obviously."

Chris at Cynical-C may work in Harvard Square, but like me, his heart and mind is with the Londoners today. Don't miss his coverage of the 7/7 bombings. One highlight is a letter to the terrorists, which he found at the London News Review.


Ruddy Gore is not a Brit; he lives in Rhode Island. However, I wanted to add one of his comments:

"I fully expect to see skinheaded responses demanding that we take out the Muslim menace at the root plastered all over the Internet. And elsewhere. So let's innoculate ourselves now....
...I hope for cooler heads to prevail. How depressing would it be to see the British people rise up and demand a North Atlantic Guantanamo Bay? Please don't let them become a nation of 2003 Dennis Millers."

Today I heard a market analyst say that, because of the small number of cities under attack (one); the number of people killed in London (small compared to 9/11), and the fact that no markets actually have to close, the market may be affected temporarily, but will spring directly back.


Sky News:
Bomb Bus 'Ripped In Two' By Terror Blast
Hospitals Battle To Help '1,000' Victims
Police Chief Issues Travel Advice
Tales Of Horror From Tube Explosions
Shocked Blair Returns To London
London Mayor Defiant After Atrocities
G8 Leaders Unite Against Attacks
Terror Attacks: The Reaction In Britain
Home Secretary's Statement To MPs
Your Experiences On Bus And Tube Blasts
Central London Blasts Timeline
World Reacts With Horror To London Attack
'Twisted Terrorists' Want Credit: Expert
Shares Crash As Blasts Hit The City
Emergency Hotlines For Worried Relatives
Your Appeals For Information

Sundance - World Premiere of An Original Opera by Matthew J. Walton

Sundance - World Premiere of An Original Opera by Matthew J. Walton
World premier of original opera by Matthew J. Walton about events leading up to the trial and incarceration of Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier

____________

Thursday, July 7, 8:00 PM & Friday July 8, 8:00 PM
Cazenovia College Theater, Lincklaen Street, Cazenovia
Tickets: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors; free for those 18 and under (available at the door)
For tickets to the opera,
phone 315-655-STAR

____________

Cazenovia College Theater in Cazenovia, NY, will be the site of the world premiere of "Sundance", an original opera with music composed by Matthew J. Walton and a libretto by Leonard Walton, directed by Victoria Harder King, set design by Jarrod Bray, and costumes by Robin Miller.

The Cast includes Gina Manziello, Amanda Carnie, Carol Ansell Spradling, Uma Maedke, Jonathan Howells, James Shults, Michael Erickson, William Black, Eric Johnson, David Neal and narrator Alex deMontigny (sundancer from the Lakota/Nez Pierce tribes).

Chamber Ensemble conducted by the composer.

SEE POST AT AMERICAN STREET

___________________


On July 8, there will be a LIVE BROADCAST available at www.xmievents.com
It will be pay-per-view. The live opera webcast will cost only $5, and proceeds will go to the defense fund for Leonard Peltier.

Visit the website early, it's very easy to use. You will create a username and password in the New User Signup. When you hit "Signup", you'll be prompted for payment. Payments from PayPal accounts take 3-4 days to authenticate, so to avoid waiting, it's recommended that you use a credit card.

You must have a Windows Media Player. It can be downloaded HERE.



___________________


You may enjoy a 6:00 PM dinner before the opera at Lincklaen House (cocktails at 5:30) - $20 per person (limit of 60 each evening). Reservations only. July 3 deadline: 315-251-1151 or 315-446-5733. (Choices: Pan Seared Salmon, Chicken & Vegetable Ragout, NY Strip Steak; dinner includes signature popovers, salad & dessert. Drinks & gratuities not included. Vegetarian dinner available on request.)

W Fall Down Go Boom

W Fall Down Go Boom
Remember all those other times he wiped out?
It happened again.
The man just can't stay on a bike.

WHIG - Did They Coordinate to Out Plame?

WHIG - Did They Coordinate to Out Plame?

Wayne Madsen is confirming a suspicion I had voiced during the time of the Jeff Gannon exposé this past February.

"There are also growing suspicions that Rove coordinated the exposure of Plame and her network through an entity called the White House Iraq Group -- an entity created to manage the propaganda for the war.....
.....The entire White House Iraq Group is considered suspect in knowing beforehand about the leak and participating in the subsequent conspiracy to cover it up -- both in conversations between Air Force One en route to Africa and Washington, DC and in group strategy meetings to deal with the subpoena of documents and testimony before the Grand Jury. Although the focus is now on Rove, many insiders also believe Scooter Libby phoned reporters to divulge Plame's identity.."

And let's not forget THIS.

Karl Rove is a Traitor

Karl Rove is a Traitor (imho)
No matter how he paints his self-portrait of his part in the Plame "outing"

As more information gets out here, thought is crystallizing among the public that one of the people Judy Miller is protecting, by not talking, is Karl Rove. All signs point to him as a traitor.

Oh, sure - he has probably testified that he didn't "knowingly" expose Valerie Plame's CIA identity, but the public knows that Rove is vindictive and extremely passionate about winning for the GOP. The more we learn, the more we understand that Karl Rove "knowingly" or unknowingly, chose to betray his country for the sake of a political grudge when he opened his fat mouth and spilled his impulsive and traitorous guts to so many journalists. He bragged to Chris Matthews, as an affirmation of a leak, that Plame was "fair game". That, alone, makes him a traitor in many eyes.

He went far, far too far this time. He needs to resign and face all legal consequence. His failure to do so will stain the Bush administration forever (as if they need more stains upon them). There was a time in our history when traitors were hung.

How can a nation impeach one President over a sexual incident and allow a traitor to the nation to remain working for the current Executive? How does this make any sense?

President Bush recently siad this about Alberto Gonzales - and it has to make you wonder....

"I don't like it when a friend gets criticized. I'm loyal to my friends. All of a sudden this fellow, who is a good public servant and a really fine person, is under fire. And so, do I like it? No, I don't like it, at all."

Will President Bush choose his loyalty to his good friend Karl Rove over loyalty to his country?


Read this statement from Ronald Reagan in 1982:

"...the enactment of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act is clear evidence of the value this nation places on its intelligence agencies and their personnel. It's a vote of confidence in you by the American people through their elected representatives. It's also a tribute to the strength of our democracy.

The Congress has carefully drafted this bill so that it focuses only on those who would transgress the bounds of decency; not those who would exercise their legitimate right of dissent. This carefully drawn act recognizes that the revelation of the names of secret agents adds nothing to legitimate public debate over intelligence policy. It is also a signal to the world that while we in this democratic nation remain tolerant and flexible, we also retain our good sense and our resolve to protect our own security and that of the brave men and women who serve us in difficult and dangerous intelligence assignments."

- President Ronald Reagan, Remarks on Signing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982

Karl Rove transgressed the bounds of decency. He thought nothing of stripping Valerie Plame's protected identity (and in doing so, the national security) away for a political grudge. Karl Rove is a traitor.

PSOTD - We saw you on "Inside the Blogs"

PSOTD - We saw you on "Inside the Blogs"

Jackie and Abbi used this post as a feature on today's segment of CNN's "Inside the Blogs". Congrats, Wayne.

Judy Goes to Jail

Judy Goes to Jail
Judy serves the public interest by going behind bars to protect source

As much of a gullible soul I believe Judy Miller was on the infamous unprofessional WMD story, I am irate about the fact that she's going to jail for protecting her trusting confidential source and I respect her for not using the White House's scummy information for the purpose of revealing Valerie Plame's secret activity in the press, as the douchebag-waterboy for the Bush administration, Bob Novak, did.

Is this America or a Soviet state? Who came and stole the 1st Amendment while we were sleeping?

Larisa Alexandrovna [Raw Story] gets a statement from Joseph Wilson, husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame:

"The sentencing of Judith Miller to jail for refusing to disclose her sourcesis the direct result of the culture of unaccountability that infects theBush White House from top to bottom. President Bush’s refusal to enforce his own call for full cooperation with the Special Counsel has brought us to this point. Clearly, the conspiracy to cover up the web of lies that underpinned the invasion of Iraq is more important to the White House than coming clean on a serious breach of national security. Thus has Ms Miller joined my wife, Valerie, and her twenty years of service to this nation as collateral damage in the smear campaign launched when I had the temerity to challenge the President on his assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa. The real victims of this cover-up, which may have turned criminal, are the Congress, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Americans and Iraqis who have paid the ultimate price for Bush’s folly."

Related: Amy Goodman spoke to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff for a Democracy Now segment.

Lex Alexander is a journalist with the Greensboro News-Record. Given his experience and knowledge of the business, voices such as his especially matter:

"I've seen speculation elsewhere that Rove may have "laundered" his tip to Novak and/or Cooper through her. If so -- and, obviously, I have no way of knowing -- he'd need her testimony to make a perjury case against Rove ... and I think that ethically, she ought to give it.

And please God, let this case be a lesson to reporters on why you should never, EVER grant anonymity to a source without a clear understanding that speaking in an attempt to undermine rather than serve the public interest nullifies the agreement."

Quote of the Day - Bernard Weiner

Quote of the Day - Bernard Weiner

"Strange how the Republicans, captured by the far right wing of the party, morphed into what they used to detest -- big-government coercers, reckless military adventurerers abroad, intrusive collectors of all sorts of private data about its citizens, moral relativists -- and the Democrats have become the old-fashioned conservators of what is best about America. Difficult to fathom. If anybody has any solid explanations that explain this shift, I'd love to hear them."

- From Political Pot Pourri: Rove, The Supremes & A Silent Scream [CrisisPapers.org]

Progressive Alliance - A Proposal

Progressive Alliance - A Proposal

Here is a reprise from February of 2005, an article written by Ernest Partridge for CrisisPapers.org recommending a new progressive alliance whuch will "slay the dragon at the gate: the regressive, oligarchic, theocratic regime that now “owns” our media and our government."

That alliance begins with an explicit statement of common and binding principles:

1. Allegiance to our founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

2. The assurance of open, fair and verifiable elections.

3. Freedom of expression, with open access of diverse views to an independent media, free of government control and corporate conglomeration.

4. An affirmation of obedience to the rule of law, including international treaties. Bringing to justice those in public office who have violated the law.

5. A restoration, “with all deliberate speed,” of a balanced budget, and with it the securing of the integrity of our national currency, the dollar, in international trade.

Whistleblower Rowley To Run for Congress

Whistleblower Rowley To Run for Congress

Colleen Rowley has made a formal announcement that she will run for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd district in 2006. Rowley, as you may recall. was one of Time Magazine's 'Persons of the Year' in 2002, having blown the whistle on her former employer, the FBI, after the 9/11 attack.

Rowley, along with the likes of Daniel Ellsberg, John Dean, Sibel Edmonds, Karen Kwiatkowski and other “whistleblowers” have bravely demanded, in public, that patriots within and outside of the US government who are in possession of crucial information, should come forward and expose the corruption and wrongdoing of the Bush Administration.

Gung-ho Governor Pataki's Son Opts for Sunshine Patriot Deferment

"At the Republican National Convention last year, Gov. Pataki praised President George W. Bush for having the courage to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. And just as Bush did in his speech Tuesday night, the governor strove mightily to link Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."

Gung-ho Governor Pataki's Son Opts for Sunshine Patriot Deferment

At Newsday, Sheryl McCarthy would like to know why NY State governor George Pataki, who was so gung-ho about the Iraq War, is not counseling his son, a U.S. Marine, to go and support his country in a time of need? Why, instead, is Teddy Pataki opting for a student deferment?



Beware Sunshine Patriots.




Currently Top Story at Findory.com

George Galloway Blisters U.S. on Iraq

George Galloway Blisters U.S. on Iraq

I came across this statement from British Parliamentarian George Galloway and found it well worthy of mention, even though I'm probably coming in late. It is a message that I believe all American Progressives should read and consider:

"..Americans are reaching out a hand in these e-mails, looking for us to understand how miserable it must be, to be a progressive person, living in a country like the U.S. today, which is governed by such a motley crew!

And, I’m going to make it one of my missions, to spread the word of the existence of this mass of people, These 10’s of millions of people that are out there in the U. S., who feel the same way as we do.

And, we have to link up! I think you have to find unity amongst yourselves. There’s no doubt that there is no single movement in the U.S. in the way that there is in Britain, for example, around the STOP THE WAR COALITION which managed to bring under it’s umbrella, more or less, every anti-war, anti-globalization strand of opinion!

And, thus we had the 2,000,000 people march on the 15th of February, two years ago!

You’ve had huge demonstrations. But, you often find 2 organizations organizing demonstrations, sometimes more than that! Now, it must be possible, for a great people, an accomplished people, a "can-do people" like the people of the United States of America, to put aside differences and to come together as ONE movement, even where people reserve the right to ‘paddle their own canoes’, to have their own agendas, to go off from time-to-time, to push their own campaigns.

That’s all fine. But, there must be ONE umbrella! There must be ONE rubric under which it’s possible, to mobilize the millions of people who, I’m now convinced, exist in the U.S. and, who are real allies to the rest of the world. After all, we are trying to change a situation, in which your country and mine, have become the two most hated countries in the world!"

Do you recall Galloway's speech in 2003?

Look at the tears in Galloway's eyes in this video at the Oil For Food Senate Intelligence Committee Investigation in May, 2005. All he predicted and warned us about has come to pass.

Galloway to senator [Norm Coleman]: 'Show me the money'

"I wasn't here to melt the hearts of the two members the committee that turned up for the hearing. I was speaking beyond these walls to the watching television audience at home. And I came not as the accused, but as the accuser.

So I don't suppose I did much beyond embarrassing the Sen. Coleman with the absurd thinness of what he had to put on the table. But I hope that I reached a broader public, with my broader case, against the war, against the sanctions, and against the mother of all smoke screens, which is what this Senate committee on investigations is engaged in."

*Tip of the hat to Americasedition.org

G8 Summit: Bush vs. Blair

G8 Summit: Bush vs. Blair

"I really don't view our relationship as one of quid pro quo," George W. Bush told Britain's ITV1 television in an interview about the G8 Summit, the agenda of "climate change," and the obvious talk about the U.S. "owing" Tony Blair, seeing that Britain so willingly joined the Iraq War effort.

"If this looks like Kyoto, the answer is 'no'. The Kyoto treaty would have wrecked our economy," said Bush.

Tony Blair's diplomatic reputation is on the line, and will be measured by how much Blair can get Bush to support bold initiatives on Africa and climate change. On the issue of climate change, diplomats say the Kyoto Protocol (intended to curb greenhouse gas emissions) will not even rate a mention in the summit’s final communiqué because Bush rejects the treaty as 'fundamentally flawed'.

John Hulsman, who examines trans-Atlantic relations for the Heritage Foundation, has a good quote about the overall expectations for this summit, regarding Bush and Blair:

"Bush will give in some on the money and Blair will give in some on the accountability."

...and the public will not rest easy, regardless of any Bush/Blair compromise.

Public protests against free trade, globalization and the Iraq war have already geared up and will soon be in full swing.


Source: William Douglas/Knight Ridder

Front-Page NYT Plame Story Misses Key Fact

Front-Page NYT Plame Story
Misses Key Fact

I enjoyed reading Scott Shane's NYT front-page news article about Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. My only problem with the article is that it leads people to believe that Robert Novak was in a vaccuum when he (and any newspaper that carried his syndicated column) carelessly "outed" Plame in print. Bob Novak was fed information by someone in government - someone from the Executive, no less. Why did Scott Shane never mention this not-so-insignificant fact somewhere in the article? It is solely material to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which Mr. Shane found worthy of a mention in his article. I saw a good line at the Common Ills, which said:

"..the issue of crime goes to the government, not (sorry to disappoint) to Robert Novak. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act does not cover Novak (unless he's something more than a bad journalist)."

Unless mainstream journalism is factual and all-inclusive, the public will not get a clear understanding of what this case is about.

Bush is Still Misleading the Public About Iraq

Bush is Still Misleading the Public About Iraq

ParaPundit believes that President Bush's deceitful 4th of July speech for 2005 was an insult to the revolutionaries who founded the United States of America.

In that speech, Bush said:

"At this hour, our men and women in uniform are defending America against the threats of the 21st century. The war we are fighting came to our shores on September the 11th, 2001."

Defending America in Iraq? I wonder who the President thinks he's still fooling?

This past week, the PBS News Hour has been interviewing three soldiers and one Marine about their experiences in Iraq. On the News Hour last night, I heard Former Army Staff Sgt. Gregg Bumgardner say that he is disturbed whenever it is said that the soldiers are "defending America" because, before the war, Iraq was surely not the haven for terrorists that it has become today. In other words, Iraq was not the same threat as that posed by the 9/11 terrorists - and we created this new haven for terror by bringing the war to Iraq's homeland. Remember - this is coming from a soldier returning from Iraq, not from some armchair warrior. When the transcript becomes available, I will post a link to the comment so you may read the words verbatim.

At BOP - A Simple Plan for Democrats

At BOP - A Simple Plan for Democrats
Stirling Newberry has a simple and straightforward plan for Democrats to take back the House in 2006.

Elizabeth Edwards to Write Autobiography

Elizabeth's Writing Her Life
One of my favorite women in public life, Elizabeth Edwards [WaPo], is in the process of writing an autobiography, and I can't wait to read it.

Greensboro (aka Blogsboro) in the New York Times

Greensboro (aka Blogsboro)
in the New York Times

It's great to see Lex Alexander's transition efforts to convert the News-Record website into a virtual town square, along with Roch Smith's Greensboro101 recognized and discussed together in the New York Times.

As Billy Jones has said, with upcoming events such as ConvergeSouth on the near horizon, Greensboro (aka "Blogsboro") will no doubt remain the center of the Blogosphere for a long time to come.