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Introduction

  

The Mad Prophet is C Bryan Lavigne: writer, artist, musician and dedicated Anarcho-Syndicalist. He has written articles for YellowTimes.org and Open Source Politics, which can also be found in various other publications. PODgallery is currently offering a small selection of his work for sale as prints (and will be showing--and selling--his new series just as soon as he gets it in the fucking mail.)

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Friday, December 19, 2003

 
I've Got An Idea.

I call it Carpet Bombing. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see it in action. It's really just google bombing on a bigger scale. I've made a text file (right click and save as) so that no one will have to type all those fucking hyperlinks -- just ad the paragraph tags and whatever other formatting you like.

I'm now taking suggestions for additions in the comments to this post.

Let's see if this catches on.

AFTERTHOUGHT - E-mail me if you use the file so's I can drop you a line when I update it. That way we can all be on the same page.




 
British Whistleblower Charged.

Old news, but I hadn't heard about it.

Via American Leftist we learn that the woman who blew the whistle on the US's plan to bug the phones and intercept the E-mails of UN Security Council delegates was charged over a month ago.
Katharine Gun, 29, of Cheltenham, was charged by Metropolitan police special branch officers under section 1 (1) of the act. The section states that any serving or former member of the security and intelligence agencies is guilty of an offence if they disclose "any information" about their work without official authority.

In a statement last night, Ms Gun said: "Any disclosures that may have been made were justified because they exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the US government which attempted to subvert our own security services. Secondly, they could have helped prevent widescale death and casualties amongst ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces in the course of an illegal war."

She said no money was involved in any disclosure. "I have only ever followed my conscience," she said.

Ms Gun, a GCHQ translator, was arrested in March - more than eight months ago -- at a time when it was reported that America's national security agency, the US equivalent of GCHQ, was conducting a "dirty tricks" operation.

The operation was directed against UN security council members as part of Washington's battle to win votes in favour of a war against Iraq, the Observer newspaper reported. The story, the paper said yesterday, "exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the US government".

Link.

Fucked up. Aren't there protections for whistleblowers in Britain?




 
Is Nothing Sacred?

O'Reilly even lies about his book sales. Kee-Riced! What a fucking ass-nugget.




 
11,000 Med-Evacs from Iraq.

UPI reports that there have been close to 11,000 medical evactuations from Iraq according to Pentagon data, including 2,273 troops wounded in hostile action and 8,581 for non-hostile causes -- a far cry from the official 364 non-hostile wounded reported on the Pentagon's website.

I wonder how many of the evacs are because troops have gotten sick from the dirty, rotting food served by Haliburton and depleted uranium currently contaminating Iraq.




 
Freeping The AFA.

When Skippy pointed out this poll two days ago, I didn't think much of it. After I voted the results were skewed 130 thousand to about 40 thousand against legalizing gay marriage. See, the American Family Association -- a Christian hate group -- is [supposedly] going to send the results to Congress, so naturally they only made it available to their own members (via their website.)

And then the Left found it.

When I checked on it via Morons.org just now, the votes in favor of equal rights have taken the lead. That's nearly a hundred thousand votes in two days! Damn, when we get ahold of something we fucking run with it. I give it another day before they pull the poll from the site and never mention it again. We'll have to keep an eye on these fuckers in case they try something sneakier.

Morons also has the skinny on the AFA's attempts to doctor the poll.





Thursday, December 18, 2003

 
Surprise! Jeb Bush Is A Stupid Asshole.

Jenny at Little Red Cookbook has the scoop on Florida's new Christian Prison experiment. Spoiler: it's unconstitutional.




 
More On Electronic Voting.

Robert of Mentalspace made me laugh with this one:
Frankly the US authorities should take a leaf out of Australia's book. We have been using a very sophisticated piece of election technology for many, many years: the humble pencil. It is easy to use. It rarely malfunctions, and when it does it's simple to fix and cheap to replace. It might take time to count the ballots, but at least people can be sure their vote has not been lost or tampered with.

Read the rest.




 
Fuck Michael Savage!

Talk Radio Network, Inc. has dropped its lawsuit against Take Back The Media, Savage Stupidity and Michael Savage Sucks.




 
The Quran Written In Saddam's Blood.

I'll let Deb explain this:
There exists in Iraq today, hidden, guarded and a source of deep controversy, a large, beautifully illuminated Koran written in the blood of Saddam Hussein. How did such a repellent thing come to be? It was because Saddam made a wager with his God: that if his regime survived the first Iraqi war, he would write the entire Koran in his own blood. And it did and he did. Not surprisingly, it is a terrible sin to write the word of Allah in blood (which is always impure by Islamic law.) But, on the other hand, it is forbidden to harm, let alone destroy, a Koran. And so the ultimate fate of what one cleric calls "Saddam's black magic" remains uncertain.

This strikes me as terribly, utterly, incredibly -- fucking -- hilarious.

It's kinda like the way I feel about books written by people like Ann Coulter -- they're worthless crap not fit for use as landfill, but yet, to me it is a great sin to destroy books on purpose.

Quite a dilemma. Of course, an Ann Coulter book you can leave in a box in the attack neglected until the roof springs a leak and takes care of the problem for you.




 
Electronic Voting.

Nurse Ratched has the facts.




 
9-11 Was Preventable.

This has been making it's way through the blogosphere. The chairman of the independent commission investigating 9-11 has come out publicly to say that 9-11 was preventable.

I got just one thing to say about this: Well, DUH!

Excerpt:
"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."

Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.

--snip--

To find out who failed and why, the commission has navigated a political landmine, threatening a subpoena to gain access to the president's top-secret daily briefs. Those documents may shed light on one of the most controversial assertions of the Bush administration -- that there was never any thought given to the idea that terrorists might fly an airplane into a building.

--snip--

"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission.

This must chap Shrub's ass something awful. Poor guy. Probably thought a fellow GOPer would go easy on him.





Wednesday, December 17, 2003

 
Rumsfeld And His 'Old Friend' Saddam.

Infoshop:
At last in United States military captivity, ousted former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein will soon mark an important 20th anniversary, the kind of anniversary that brings with it an appreciation of the ironies of life, and politics.

His captor, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, might also recall long-forgotten memories - or memories best forgotten - of what he was doing exactly 20 years ago.

If so, he will remember that he was in Baghdad, as a special envoy from then-president Ronald Reagan, assuring his host that, to quote the secret National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) that served as his talking points: the US would regard "any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West".

So began the effective resumption of close relations between Baghdad and Washington that had been cut off by Iraq during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Within a year, Washington would fully normalize ties with Saddam, and even suggest that the dictator had become a full-fledged "Arab moderate", ready to make peace with Israel.

Of course, the reason for this rapprochement - nay, avid courtship - was the bad turn that the war between Iraq and Iran had taken for Baghdad. A victory by Tehran, which seemed imminent, would pose a major threat to US interests in the Gulf, such as access to the region's oil.

Read the rest.




 
Jordan Explains The EPA's "Credit System."

Jordan of Confined Space:
So, imagine that the building next door to you is being torn down and you learn that it's spewing cancer-causing asbestos dust into the air around your home. You quickly call the Environmental Protection Agency expecting to see the building owners hauled off to jail. But the nice people at EPA say "Sorry, the owner of the building next door has bought some asbestos credits from the buildign owner across town who is doing an especially good job cleaning up his asbestos. Deal with it."

Read the rest of his post.

And speaking of Asbestos: The GOP controlled Ohio Legislature is rolling back compensation eligibility for people hurt by asbestos. Dickheads.




 
Reprint.

Apologies to The Mighty Reason Man, but I have to reprint this entire post:
Fantasies

I wish I were a college Republican so I could buy everyone I know a copy of Orrin Hatch's Christmas Eve, and then scream censorship when all my friends called me a loser and stopped hanging out with me.

Jonah Goldberg: "Republicans are cool, dammit!"

Our heroes are Jack, Bobby, and Bill. Yours is Ronald Reagan. Kiss my ass, dork.

Hahahahaha. I'm rolling here, man.




 
Convicted Felons Are Gonna Be Counting Your Ballot.

From the AP via Factivism:
Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a subsidiary of Diebold Inc., one of the country's largest voting equipment vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted fraudulent stock transactions, and a programmer jailed for falsifying computer records.

The programmer, Jeffrey Dean, wrote and maintained proprietary code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of Global Election Systems Inc. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002.

A programmer who went to jail for "falsifying computer records" is working on the computers that manage vote counting in our meager Democratic institutions. And the machines don't produce any paper trail. Yes, good idea. Thank you.




 
Unions, Osama, Dean, Gephardt, and Contracts -- All In One Post!

Via Nathan Newman we learn that the Machinists Union, who's funds paid for the Dean-Osama commercial (and let me tell ya -- that kinda shit is what happens when you let conservatives into the damn party,) are asking for their money back. The Laborers Union has expressed dismay over the ads, but has taken no action against the group responsible for them. The Machinists have also called for the ad to be pulled and the names of the organization's financial backers to be released.

Gephardt has claimed complete ignorance of the Dean-Osama ad, the organization responsible -- Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values -- and it's financiers. Two of the organizations top officials have close ties to Gephardt though, so I find it hard to believe that the stupid fuck doesn't know anything about them or the ad.

I hate Democrats.

Newman also has a good post detailing the GOPs attempt to nullify a contract between UPS -- a big GOP contributor -- and its employees. The contract was hard won in 1997, but I guess the Repugs don't care about a contract made in good faith unless it hurts workers and fills the pockets of thier contributors (the rich.)

Just another day in the war against working people.

Write Your Elected Officials About This.





Tuesday, December 16, 2003

 
Well, At Least The Iraqi Torture Chambers Are Gone, Right?

From Amnesty International, via Karmalised:
A new Amnesty International report charges that in 2002, the Bush Administration violated the spirit of its own export policy and approved the sale of equipment implicated in torture to Yemen, Jordan, Morocco and Thailand, despite the countries' documented use of such weapons to punish, mistreat and inflict torture on prisoners. The US is also alleged to have handed suspects in the 'war on terror' to the same countries.

The total value of US exports of electro-shock weapons was $14.7 million in 2002 and exports of restraints totaled $4.4 million in the same period. The Commerce and State Departments approved these sales, permitting 45 countries to purchase electro-shock technology, including 19 that had been cited for the use of such weapons to inflict torture since 1990.

Makes all that talk about the Ba'ath party thugs seem a bit... Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? You know the one, when you say one thing and then do another.

There's always these little facts that put everything into perspective.




 
Terrorists Operating In America.

Orcinus has more on the Texas Cyanide Bomb Plot.

No Arabs here, mind you, just a bunch of White Supremacist fixing to kill lots of people, which is probably why you're not hearing about it on CNN.

Scary thought for today: There could be more of these bombs out there, and each one is capable of killing thousands of people.




 
Just Say "No!" To Sweatshops.

And do it with your fucking wallet.

There's a nice article in the NY Times about the new anti-sweatshop business ventures. Foremost among these, of course, is No Sweat Apparel (go and buy something why don't ya. And if you've got a website -- like a blog -- you should join the affiliate program. I really wish more bloggers would get in on this fight.)

Check out this quote from No Sweat co-founder Adam Neiman:
"In my opinion, one good boss is no more a solution to the problem of wage slavery than one good plantation owner was a solution to human slavery."

Hellz yeah! You'd think the guy was an Anarchist with a line like that.




 
Send A Lump Of Coal To Wal-Mart.

Cause they've been bad, bad children this year.

You can do it right here.




 
Idiots And Equality.

I think Tim of Freespace called me an idiot. I can't tell for sure that he was talking about me -- he wasn't very specific, but judging from the post I think he was responding to my post on the minimum wage (which linked to his post on the subject.) Tim seems to have an abundance of tact.

Anyway, the whole post is basically this quote:
"There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality that incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." -- Democracy in America

Which I thought was interesting. Stupid -- but interesting. The idea that you can have freedom without equality is as ridiculous as the idea that you can have equality without freedom. These two things go hand in hand.

If people are discriminated against, they aren't free -- they are slaves in a system that elevates one person over another, giving one individual more rights and freedoms than another. If other people are given an unfair advantage, they're not free either -- they're pampered, slaves to the system that elevated them above the rest.

(And "equality in slavery" is probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. If you are a slave, then someone is your master and is therefore elevated above you in the system. There is an inherent inequality between you.)

I think we can all agree that racial inequality is a bad thing (and if you don't then you can get the fuck outta here, I don't want you within ten clicks of my site.) I think we can all agree that legal inequality is also a bad thing (again, if you don't, fuck off.) These things still exist though (for instance: a majority of drug offenders are white, but a majority of drug offenders in prison are black.) Why?

....

I'm waiting for your answer.

Oh, nevermind, I'll just say it: Legal, social and racial inequalities exist because their is still economic inequality. As long as our capitalist system elevates certain groups in the system above others, there will always be these systematic injustices perpetrated against those on the bottom (the majority.) Let me put it another way: economic power shields one from social injustice.

That is not exactly a radical statement. Rich kids get lighter sentences in court. Rich kids get the best schools. Rich people have the most expensive lawyers and the most well-paid-for defenses in court. Rich people have more pull with public officials (they probably play golf with them on the weekends.)

Economic power also facilitates social injustice. The Bush Administration -- all the proof I need.

No matter how you feel about the money these people "earned," the fact that it is the very cause behind much (if not most) of the inequality and injustice in our society is undeniable.

Libertarians, Conservtives and many Liberals think that this systematic abuse of the majority of the population is just hunky-doory. I don't understand it. There are two kinds of authority, State and Economic, why are these people so intent on fighting the one (except maybe the conservatives,) but not the other. Why is it not okay for the State to take away my rights, while it is perfectly fine when an employer does it? (And one cannot protect you from the other.)

How can you accept a system that leaves 17,000 children homeless in New York alone? Equality, like freedom, is a basic human right. All that talk about "hard work" and "rewards" is complete bullshit without freedom and equality.

And yeah, I want to bring the powerful down. I want to bring them down because they did not get their power fairly. I want to bring them down because no man, whether he be a government agent or a corporate boss, has the right to hold power over other men.

Hard work can lead a strong, intelligent man to be a Dictator, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable for him to hold power over the rest of the population.

"Tyranny is tyranny, let it come from whom it may." - Emma Goldman




 
A Model Corporate Citizen.

McWane Inc. -- Killing and maiming workers for profit.




 
Income Distribution.

Say hello to ^^^Living On Less, which has a good post on the income gap. Excerpt:
Fewer than 8 million people out of 222 million who are old enough to work make $100,000 a year or more.
Only 26 million people have an income of $60,000 a year or more.
The median income [the halfway mark] is $21,934 a year.
50 million people make less than $10,000 a year.
92 million people make less than $20,000 a year.






Monday, December 15, 2003

 
It's No Fucking Wonder The American Public Is So Fucking Stupid.

From the Washington Post:
The White House said in a year-end report released yesterday that the invasion of Iraq had produced "clear evidence of Saddam's illegal weapons program" and new intelligence about his ties to terrorist organizations.

If someone read this idly or caught a clip on the news they might think that we had actually found WMD and evidence of terrorist links. But we haven't, so Bush is lying.

Funny how that people with these two misperceptions are something like 3 times more likely to support the US war in Iraq. You'd think Bush was telling these lies on purpose! Nah.

Seriously, it's called Manufacturing Consent. The expert use of propoganda to con the public into supporting a policy that they'd normally balk at. And let me tell ya: Bu$hCo could give propoganda lessons to Joseph Goebbels.





Sunday, December 14, 2003

 
Captured.

Saddam has been caught.

Sounds good to me. Unless, of course, it turns out to be one of the infamous body doubles (none of which have been found.) There was way too much hoopla over the WMD hunt for me to completely trust this report.





Saturday, December 13, 2003

 
UN Debate On Human Cloning Postponed.

Bob Park:
All member nations agree on a treaty to prohibit cloning of human beings, but the United States leads a push to extend the ban to include therapeutic cloning of stem cells. Therapeutic cloning is regarded as a promising approach to research on treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer's. The U.S. position is opposed by our most important allies and almost the entire world scientific community. It is backed by Costa Rica and the Catholic Church. At home, the Bush administration is at odds with 40 Nobel Prize winners, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, many scientific societies the AAAS.

Once again, we're [nearly] all alone trying to defend an indefensible position.




 
The Minimum Wage.

This post at Freespace drove me fucking crazy. I love Tim's Libertarian ass too death -- he's a good writer and has many intelligent posts on legal issues -- but daaaaaaamn!!!

I mean, come on, Milton Friedman is a fucking tool. How can anyone take him seriously when he says the minimum wage "[prevents workers] from offering to work for low wages as a means of inducing employers to give them on-the-job training"?

If anything, the minimum wage induces employers to train their workers because they'll get more for their money. You don't see a lot of sweatshop owners dispensing with much on-the-job training for their 30 cent an hour workforce, do ya? There's a reason for this, they don't need too. When you can pay someone slave-wages you don't need them to be skilled. Or healthy. Or safe. Or happy.

Then there's the ever maddening "[a store] will be forced to raise their prices to cover the increased costs of employing people." What a crock of shit. I've worked in a convenience store before, quite recently (and will probably be going back soon, I might add. I've also worked in skilled jobs -- telecommunications installation and engineering technician.) I had to deal with customers complaining about the fucking price hikes, but they always bought the fucking product. Stores raise their prices all the time for many different reasons, the lest of which is employee paychecks.

And Let me tell you, I was thankful that my nameless employer (big corporate fucker) was forced by law to pay me at least something close to a living wage (although I still ended up losing my apartment and having to move back into my family's house.)

See, people have to work, and employers will pay their employees as little as possible. Now, being a clerk may not be all that complicated, but you go work there for a year -- 40-60 hours a week, day in and day out, cleaning and stocking and waiting on people who think your scum for working there -- you do that and come back here and tell me you deserve no more than $15,000 a year at best. Work there your entire life and tell me that anyone who does isn't good enough for fifteen thousand dollars a year. Oh yeah, real advancement opportunities too, my manager worked for 7-11 her whole fucking life and made a couple grand more than me.

Not everyone can go to college and be lawyers and Nobel Prize winning economists. We deserve better than what we get for carrying the rest of you on our backs.

One last thing: Charities can't provide for the needy. All those charities that sprang up during the 19th century failed to do so. Failed miserably. Many people suffered. Many people died. Government welfare isn't all bread and roses, but it's better than the Starvation Army.




 
Speaking Of The "Hollywood Liberal Elite."

Where are these fuckers? If they have so much damn power, how come they don't hold powerful positions in the government? Why isn't the new Hollywood Governor of California a Liberal? Why was Actor turned President Ronald Reagan a Republican? How exactly do they excercise their power?

Now, I've read a lot of shit about the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and how it operates. Hip bone connected to the money bone connected to the propoganda bone type o' stuff. Have any conservatives documented the same kinds of structures on the left. (Well, I guess the ANSWER thing counts, but wasn't that brought out by a Liberal?) Have they shown how the "liberal elite" controls its empire? Do they have anything to back up their claims?

Just asking.




 
I Get Letters!

Sometimes, anyway.

MS writes:
I can't tell if you're one of those antiAmerican
Marxists or what--when you rant and rave the way you
do it's difficult to find the logical oppinions.
Dissention is quisententially American, but you
ranters go on and on as if your shit don't stink. It's
one thing to criticize the US, but to make assumptions
that the rest of the world is some form of utopian
playground is pure hysterical nonsense. Have you ever
asked yourself why is it the "worker" in the USA is
more patriotic and more antiSocialist than the
millioniare windbags in Hollywood? It's because the
rich run socialism way more than they run capitalism.
At least under capitalism, the "poor" have a shot at
being rich.

And my [lengthy] reply:
MS,

Thanks for the letter. It's always nice to know that I've affected someone enough to merit a letter. I'll clarify as much as I can here.

First off, I'm not a Marxist. As I say in my bio, I'm an anarcho-syndicalist. Anarchists are Libertarian Socialists -- we're opposed to the authority of the state as well as that of the capital structures (corporations and management who impose their authority over us.)

Marx was an idiot. I suggest you read Bakunin. Or try this essay from Infoshop.

That said, I am anti-American. America is just a State imposing it's will over other people. I oppose all states though, including those in the rest of the world. I have no idea where you got the impression that I think "the rest of the world is some form of utopian playground." Granted, there are some places that are better than others, and America is better than most (European imperialism -- including Russian and American -- among other things has left most of the world in ruins.)

Second, why does it matter that Hollywood is Leftist? Hollywood is a very small part of this country with very little influence in real politics (for example: the "hollywood liberal elite" came out against the Iraq war, and we both know how that turned out, don't we?) Their influence is far less than, say, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which -- to answer your question -- feeds propoganda to millions of people in this country.

(And if you don't believe me about News Corp, just check out this Knight Ridder story reporting on a PIPA study finding that Fox News viewers are, on average, dumber than everyone else.) [edit. -- This is a much better article on the "Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War" study.]

Propoganda works. (Remember the WMD's? Most people don't. It's all about "liberation" now.)

And how, exactly, does the "hollywood liberal elite" control socialism anyway? Social Security, Medicare, Labor Protections (minimum wage, health and safety standards, workers comp, overtime pay,) public education -- these are all popular programs (but probably won't be by the time Mr. Murdoch and his friends get done with our minds.) And I hate to tell ya, there may be a lot of rich people in Hollywood, but they hardly account for all of the rich people in society, just ask all of Dubya's $2,000 supporters. (By contrast, Howard Dean's -- who I do not endorse -- average campaign contribution is $77. Boy, those liberal hollywood fuckers are cheapskates!)

Finally, I hate to break it to ya, but upward mobility (when "poor" people get rich) is pretty much a fairy tale. CSM reported on this earlier this year. I quote:

"[...] on average fully 60 percent of the income gap between any two people in one generation persists into the next generation."

So, kids with rich parents tend to stay rich and kids with poor parents tend to stay poor. Yeah, that sounds fair to me. Go capitalism!

(Now, that doesn't mean a poor kid can't grow up and make a bunch of money or even make a confortable living, it just means they usually don't. Why? Could it be that rich kids have an unfair advantage over poor kids? Hmmm...)

Oh, wait, one last thing: I'm not a "rich socialist." I'm not a part of the "liberal elite." I don't live in Hollywood. I've never even been to college. I grew up poor and, surprise, I'm still poor.

Thanks again for the letter. Feel free to write again. By the way, since I spent so much time writing this I'm gonna post it -- and your letter -- on my blog.

Peace and Good Health,
C Bryan Lavigne

UPDATE! - A Reply.

MS writes:
All I can say is, if it weren't for corporations
(which are merely made up of human beings, after all)
none of us would have computer technology or the
ability to afford to buy them.

And my reply:
MS,

That is quite ridiculous.

First of all, as you pointed out, corporations are not human beings and therefore cannot invent anything for themselves. The proper sentence would be: "If it weren't for the individuals who invented the computer technology we wouldn't have computers today." It has nothing to do with capitalism or corporations.

Secondly, computers grew out of the invention of the transistor for the US military (similarly, we have the government to thank for the internet and countless other modern inventions.) Corporations and free market capitalism had nothing to do with it.

Thirdly, you need to learn the meaning of the term "anti-capitalism." Words like "buy" and "afford" are terms used to describe circumstances in a capitalist society and have no meaning otherwise. It is because of capitalism that people cannot "afford" things.

[Sig]

UPDATE 2! - Oh, yet again. MS writes:
and I just saw Elvis walking down the street with
Jesus.

And I thought I was pretty clear in my e-mail. Oh, well. Anyway, here's my oh-so witty reply:
I think they have medications for your sort of condition.

[sig]





 
Take Control Of Your Workplace!

Also via LMB (although I would have found it eventually,) we find this article from Infoshop reporting on the reconstruction of Iraqi oil facilities.... By the workers themselves!
Occupation Watch visited SOC workers in the North Rumeilla crude oil pumping station, drilling and gas company and discovered that workers had been carrying out reconstruction work independently, using their own worn tools, canibalised spare parts from old equipment and parts purchased form the local market. Ali Mohammad Jowad, an engineer working in the water injection section of the station told OW, 'We haven't seen any KBR [Haliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root] employee do any repair work whatsoever. They are not involved in any reconstruction in any way. KBR came and checked our equipment and promised to repair looted equipment but until this moment, nothing is repaired'.

Workers started autonomously reconstructing in June with cleaning and repairing what they could including water pumps and oil well safety gauges. 'During this preparing' recalls Ali Mohammad, 'We also considered that we need a place to rest and sleep so we built a place for ourselves to stay in too'. According to workers, Reconstruction is 40% of what it needs to be with regards to buildings and workers have rebuilt 50% of their equipment autonomously. 'KBR hasn't even seen our work, they've said Nothing about our repairs. All our work has been our own' says Ali Mohammad. Many of the same workers who rebuilt North Rumeilla following the devastation of the first gulf war 13 years ago also participated in reconstruction again this war-round.

Power to the people.




 
Oh! This Looks Like Fun!


RIAA Information Awareness Activism


Via LMB.




 
UK House Of Commons Debates The US Raid On The IFTU.

From the UK Parliament website (via Labour Start.)
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab): Has my right hon. Friend seen early-day motion 250,

[That this House notes with alarm the raid by the US occupying forces, using armoured cars and soldiers, on the temporary headquarters of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Baghdad on the morning of Saturday 6th December in which eight leading trade union officials were arrested; is further disturbed to hear that US soldiers ransacked and destroyed the federation's possessions, including banners and posters condemning acts of terror, and smashed windows, without reason or explanation; notes that the new independent trade union movement in Iraq opposed Saddam Hussein's regime, and opposes terrorism by remnants of that regime and others; and calls upon the British Government to make urgent representations to the US Administration to discover why this raid took place and seek a swift apology and compensation for this appalling incident.]?

The Foreign Office has always taken a progressive line on trade unions and has encouraged and facilitated their development in Iraq. On 27 November in the House, the Foreign Secretary promised to encourage the Americans to take a similar line, yet on 6 December, United States forces smashed into the offices of the trade unions and arrested eight of their officials, an act which has been condemned by bodies such as the Congress of South African Trade Unions. May we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary, saying what responses he got to representations that he made about trade unionism, and what his response is to what the Americans have done?

Mr. Hain: I agree with my hon. Friend that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office always, under a Labour Government, takes a progressive line on trade unions. We have no information about an incident at the temporary headquarters of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, although we understand that United States forces conducted a raid on the morning of 6 December in Baghdad, which resulted in the recovery of a significant quantity of arms and ammunition and the arrest of eight suspected fedayeen, two of whom now face murder charges.

As I reported earlier, all 8 men detained by the US in the raid on the IFTU were released the next day. No weapons were found. Why is Mr. Hain trying to link these incidents?

Only 20 MPs signed motion 250.












 

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