Saturday, November 19, 2005
Outrage in France
I am absolutely outraged by the response of the French government to the rebellion that is occurring in France at this time. The state of emergency that the French state has called gives them the power to restrict the movement of people of Arab and African descent at their whim, to search homes at random and at any given time, to censor publications, and to impose two month prison sentences for violation of the imposed curfew. The French government, and especially Villepan and Chirac, should be called upon to stop their doublespeak and to seriously pay attention and address the grievances of those who are rioting.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Idiocy
Now, I never knew that Michael Moore was a member of the Democratic Party. As a matter of fact I thought he was a socialist. The Republican Party seems to be a bit out of it these days.
Community groups in New York and Boston are accepting Hugo Chavez's and the country of Venezuela's generosity in accepting the cheap oil that Chavez has pledged to help the American poor due to the ill-effects of rising gas prices. Long Live Chavez!
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Something to Think About: An Eastland Connection in the Kennedy Assassination
from Susan Klopfer
(PRWEB) November 17, 2005 -- Who killed JFK?
While conspiracy theorists keep the debate alive, few mention Mississippi's links to the murder of a U. S. president 42 years ago this week, says the author of two civil rights books that focus on the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.
Susan Klopfer became intrigued with the Mississippi connection to JFK's assassination when she came across information linking a Delta icon to several others often associated with the tragic Dallas event, including a private detective from Vicksburg.
Seven years before John F. Kennedy's murder, the magnolia state's U. S. Sen. James O. Eastland met for the first time with Guy Banister, a controversial CIA operative and retired FBI agent in charge of the Chicago bureau, according to Klopfer.
"Banister was later linked to Lee Harvey Oswald and Mississippi's senator through involvement with Eastland's Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS (sometimes called "SISSY")," writes the author of "Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited" and "The Emmett Till Book."
"The New Orleans Times-Picayune on March 23, 1956, reported that Robert Morrison, a former chief counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy's House UnAmerican Activities Committee or HUAC, and Banister traveled to Greenwood, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, to confer personally with Senator Eastland for more than three hours," Klopfer said.
Describing the conference as "completely satisfactory," Morrison told the New Orleans reporter that "Mr. Banister has complete liaison with the committee's staff which was the main object of our trip."
Known as a notorious political extremist who was later described as the impetus for James Garrison’s 1967-1970 Kennedy assassination probe, Banister earlier became a brief focus of Mississippi's secret spy agency, the Sovereignty Commission, when it was suggested Banister should be hired to set up an "even tighter" domestic spying system throughout the state. Klopfer said she found this report in the state's Sovereignty Commission records.
A second Eastland operative, private investigator John D. Sullivan of Vicksburg, made this suggestion to the commission just months after the JFK assassination, also reported in released Sovereignty Commission records, Klopfer said.
"Former FBI agent Sullivan had worked for Banister (both inside the FBI and privately) and as a private self-employed investigator for the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission; the private white Citizens Councils, of which he was an active member; and for SISS, as had Banister and Lee Harvey Oswald.
"When Sullivan reportedly committed suicide soon after the Kennedy assassination, Sovereignty Commission investigators tried to acquire his library and files, but most of his confidential files were either reportedly burned by his widow or they had been lent out, and she 'could not remember' who had them, Sovereignty Commission files disclose."
Some twenty-nine years later, in testimony before the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board during a Dallas hearing on November 18, 1994, the late Senator Eastland was directly implicated in the president’s assassination by one of the author/theorists invited to testify, Klopfer said.
"Lee Harvey Oswald was quite possibly an agent of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and he was doing the bidding of [Sen. Thomas J. Dodd and Eastland and Morrison, author John McLaughlin swore."
Klopfer said that documentation that could support or even discredit such assertions could be present in the Eastland archives at the University of Mississippi, "but no objective scholar has been allowed to search these archives since the day they arrived on campus.
"Instead, Eastland's records were managed for years by a former associate and devotee who followed the papers from Washington, D.C. to Oxford," she said.
Eastland, a cotton planter from Doddsville, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, was the consumate racist. "He often blocked money from coming into the Delta to feed and employ the poorest of Mississippians. Yet he was quite adept at collecting hundreds of thousands dollars of federal farming subsidies for himself," Klopfer said.
"There has been very little written about Eastland; his family and friends seem to be protecting what information is allowed to the public."
Eastland died in 1986 at the age of 82.
After an unsuccessful Freedom of Information Act or FOIA request to the University of Mississippi's law school by Klopfer, a historian was finally hired to organize the archives based in the James O. Eastland School of Law.
But there was still a waiting period scheduled before any of the files could be viewed, Klopfer said.
"I was informed that the plan was to release first all press releases, according to one Ole Miss historian who also told me that many important files were probably missing -- that the files looked cleaned out."
Klopfer asserts the law school dean, when presented with a freedom of information act request or FOIA for access to Eastland archives, asked her, while laughing, if he could "just show the rejection letter written to the last person who asked for this information."
Later, Klopfer said, it came back to her that “people at Ole Miss were really angry� over the FOIA request.
Klopfer said she once spoke with historian Carol Polsgrove from Indiana University who also wanted to see the Eastland records.
"Dr. Polsgrove was interested in the white resistance to the civil rights movement, that it has not received the kind of attention from historians that the movement itself has--understandably, since there is nothing heroic about the resistance.
"She once thought about writing a biography of Eastland, who she terms the political linchpin of the resistance, and went so far as to call the University of Mississippi Law School, where his papers were kept.
"Polsgrove said she was told they were stowed in boxes in a basement--uncataloged and inaccessible. A library staffer explained to her, in hushed tones, that Senator Eastland was not quite 'politically correct'."
Klopfer notes that "Even today, Ole Miss doesn't seem to advertise the law school's identity - the James O. Eastland School of Law."
But like the Indiana professor, Klopfer said that she, too, would "really would love to go through all of Eastland's records. ALL of them."
(PRWEB) November 17, 2005 -- Who killed JFK?
While conspiracy theorists keep the debate alive, few mention Mississippi's links to the murder of a U. S. president 42 years ago this week, says the author of two civil rights books that focus on the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.
Susan Klopfer became intrigued with the Mississippi connection to JFK's assassination when she came across information linking a Delta icon to several others often associated with the tragic Dallas event, including a private detective from Vicksburg.
Seven years before John F. Kennedy's murder, the magnolia state's U. S. Sen. James O. Eastland met for the first time with Guy Banister, a controversial CIA operative and retired FBI agent in charge of the Chicago bureau, according to Klopfer.
"Banister was later linked to Lee Harvey Oswald and Mississippi's senator through involvement with Eastland's Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS (sometimes called "SISSY")," writes the author of "Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited" and "The Emmett Till Book."
"The New Orleans Times-Picayune on March 23, 1956, reported that Robert Morrison, a former chief counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy's House UnAmerican Activities Committee or HUAC, and Banister traveled to Greenwood, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, to confer personally with Senator Eastland for more than three hours," Klopfer said.
Describing the conference as "completely satisfactory," Morrison told the New Orleans reporter that "Mr. Banister has complete liaison with the committee's staff which was the main object of our trip."
Known as a notorious political extremist who was later described as the impetus for James Garrison’s 1967-1970 Kennedy assassination probe, Banister earlier became a brief focus of Mississippi's secret spy agency, the Sovereignty Commission, when it was suggested Banister should be hired to set up an "even tighter" domestic spying system throughout the state. Klopfer said she found this report in the state's Sovereignty Commission records.
A second Eastland operative, private investigator John D. Sullivan of Vicksburg, made this suggestion to the commission just months after the JFK assassination, also reported in released Sovereignty Commission records, Klopfer said.
"Former FBI agent Sullivan had worked for Banister (both inside the FBI and privately) and as a private self-employed investigator for the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission; the private white Citizens Councils, of which he was an active member; and for SISS, as had Banister and Lee Harvey Oswald.
"When Sullivan reportedly committed suicide soon after the Kennedy assassination, Sovereignty Commission investigators tried to acquire his library and files, but most of his confidential files were either reportedly burned by his widow or they had been lent out, and she 'could not remember' who had them, Sovereignty Commission files disclose."
Some twenty-nine years later, in testimony before the Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board during a Dallas hearing on November 18, 1994, the late Senator Eastland was directly implicated in the president’s assassination by one of the author/theorists invited to testify, Klopfer said.
"Lee Harvey Oswald was quite possibly an agent of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and he was doing the bidding of [Sen. Thomas J. Dodd and Eastland and Morrison, author John McLaughlin swore."
Klopfer said that documentation that could support or even discredit such assertions could be present in the Eastland archives at the University of Mississippi, "but no objective scholar has been allowed to search these archives since the day they arrived on campus.
"Instead, Eastland's records were managed for years by a former associate and devotee who followed the papers from Washington, D.C. to Oxford," she said.
Eastland, a cotton planter from Doddsville, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, was the consumate racist. "He often blocked money from coming into the Delta to feed and employ the poorest of Mississippians. Yet he was quite adept at collecting hundreds of thousands dollars of federal farming subsidies for himself," Klopfer said.
"There has been very little written about Eastland; his family and friends seem to be protecting what information is allowed to the public."
Eastland died in 1986 at the age of 82.
After an unsuccessful Freedom of Information Act or FOIA request to the University of Mississippi's law school by Klopfer, a historian was finally hired to organize the archives based in the James O. Eastland School of Law.
But there was still a waiting period scheduled before any of the files could be viewed, Klopfer said.
"I was informed that the plan was to release first all press releases, according to one Ole Miss historian who also told me that many important files were probably missing -- that the files looked cleaned out."
Klopfer asserts the law school dean, when presented with a freedom of information act request or FOIA for access to Eastland archives, asked her, while laughing, if he could "just show the rejection letter written to the last person who asked for this information."
Later, Klopfer said, it came back to her that “people at Ole Miss were really angry� over the FOIA request.
Klopfer said she once spoke with historian Carol Polsgrove from Indiana University who also wanted to see the Eastland records.
"Dr. Polsgrove was interested in the white resistance to the civil rights movement, that it has not received the kind of attention from historians that the movement itself has--understandably, since there is nothing heroic about the resistance.
"She once thought about writing a biography of Eastland, who she terms the political linchpin of the resistance, and went so far as to call the University of Mississippi Law School, where his papers were kept.
"Polsgrove said she was told they were stowed in boxes in a basement--uncataloged and inaccessible. A library staffer explained to her, in hushed tones, that Senator Eastland was not quite 'politically correct'."
Klopfer notes that "Even today, Ole Miss doesn't seem to advertise the law school's identity - the James O. Eastland School of Law."
But like the Indiana professor, Klopfer said that she, too, would "really would love to go through all of Eastland's records. ALL of them."
Incident
I had two bumperstickers on my door--one had an American Flag on it and it said "These colors don't rule the world," and the other said "Doing my part to piss off the religious right." When maintenance came to repair my heater they tore them down.....
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
What Kind of Humanist Am I?
Handholder
You go out of your way to build bridges with people of different views and beliefs and have quite a few religious friends. You believe in the essential goodness of people , which means you’re always looking for common ground even if that entails compromises. You would defend Salman Rushdie’s right to criticise Islam but you’re sorry he attacked it so viciously, just as you feel uncomfortable with some of the more outspoken and unkind views of religion in the pages of this magazine.
You prefer the inclusive approach of writers like Zadie Smith or the radical Christian values of Edward Said.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Evolution Vs. Creationism
To the sound of slow....steady drum beats..... When it comes to the case of Evolution versus Creationism....why can't these motherfuckers just say....... I don't know......Whats so hard about that?....."I don't know....where you came from!....... Liddy Dole....is your Mammy.......I guess that makes you....Satan's spawn....."
Monday, November 14, 2005
This from Barbra's Website
The Plan To Invade Iraq Before 9/11 ...Barbra Streisand
Posted on November 14, 2005
Last week Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid shut down the Senate. Frustrated, angry and seeking answers, Reid threatened to delay legislative action until the Intelligence Committee followed through on its promised investigation of prewar Iraq intelligence failures. Democrats are demanding answers...and now, so are the American people.
But let's remember... 9/11 and faulty intelligence alone did not lead to the invasion of Iraq. This war was being planned in the minds of some for many years. George Bush's former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed in his book that at one of the very first National Security Council meetings after Bush took office in January 2001 he discussed the notion of invading Iraq and that he seemed desperate to find an excuse for pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein.
Many of Bush's inner circle are members of Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neo-conservative think-tank that promotes an ideology of total U.S. world domination through the use of force. Back in 1998, PNAC sent an open letter to President Clinton urging his administration to implement a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This letter was signed by Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Richard Perle. These men, along with fellow PNAC members Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby, were the primary architects of the Iraq war 5 years later. In 2000, PNAC produced a document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century. The plan outlined how the US should go about taking military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein is in power.
Let's remember some of our recent history with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The United States' relationship with Saddam has been vastly contradictory. In the 1980's, the U.S. heavily supported Saddam against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam was in violation of human rights laws by gassing the Kurds. However, the US turned a blind eye, instead opting to retain a friendly relationship with Saddam in order to access intelligence. The US government furnished Saddam with weapons. We even have pictures documenting Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, shaking hands with Saddam in 1983! In 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait, stating that he believed he had the silent permission to do so by then US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. However, the United States, under George H.W. Bush, responded with Operation Desert Storm to quell the invasion. The same weapons we had given to Saddam to defeat the Iranians a decade earlier, were now being used to kill US soldiers. Although the Persian Gulf War was considered a victory for the United States, ultimately Saddam was not removed from power. This was a tremendous disappointment for the conservative hawks emerging in the Republican party.
Since the Gulf War, there has been a covert but persistent mission by neo-cons to overthrow Saddam Hussein by any means necessary in order to reorganize the Middle East in the name of democracy. However democracy was not the reason Bush gave to the country when he decided to invade Iraq....it was the presence of WMDs, which UN inspectors did not find. Former US top weapons inspector David Kay testified before congress asserting this fact. And Director General of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, requested more time from the administration to investigate the weapons claims in Iraq before rushing to war. Those in the Bush inner circle had tremendous influence on his final decision to unilaterally attack Iraq in 2003 without the support of the United Nations and the rest of the world.
The notion of invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam was gaining momentum long before the terrorists attacked on September 11, 2001. Only once America was attacked did Bush and his war mongering neo-con colleagues have the perfect opportunity to utilize faulty intelligence in order to make a case for war and garner the blind support of most of the American public. However, we now know that this war, where thousands of young American soldiers have died, was years in the making. Let's hope that the frustration, anger and determination felt by Democrats and the American public continue to fuel this investigation to uncover the truth.
Posted on November 14, 2005
Last week Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid shut down the Senate. Frustrated, angry and seeking answers, Reid threatened to delay legislative action until the Intelligence Committee followed through on its promised investigation of prewar Iraq intelligence failures. Democrats are demanding answers...and now, so are the American people.
But let's remember... 9/11 and faulty intelligence alone did not lead to the invasion of Iraq. This war was being planned in the minds of some for many years. George Bush's former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed in his book that at one of the very first National Security Council meetings after Bush took office in January 2001 he discussed the notion of invading Iraq and that he seemed desperate to find an excuse for pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein.
Many of Bush's inner circle are members of Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neo-conservative think-tank that promotes an ideology of total U.S. world domination through the use of force. Back in 1998, PNAC sent an open letter to President Clinton urging his administration to implement a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This letter was signed by Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Richard Perle. These men, along with fellow PNAC members Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby, were the primary architects of the Iraq war 5 years later. In 2000, PNAC produced a document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century. The plan outlined how the US should go about taking military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein is in power.
Let's remember some of our recent history with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The United States' relationship with Saddam has been vastly contradictory. In the 1980's, the U.S. heavily supported Saddam against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam was in violation of human rights laws by gassing the Kurds. However, the US turned a blind eye, instead opting to retain a friendly relationship with Saddam in order to access intelligence. The US government furnished Saddam with weapons. We even have pictures documenting Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, shaking hands with Saddam in 1983! In 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait, stating that he believed he had the silent permission to do so by then US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. However, the United States, under George H.W. Bush, responded with Operation Desert Storm to quell the invasion. The same weapons we had given to Saddam to defeat the Iranians a decade earlier, were now being used to kill US soldiers. Although the Persian Gulf War was considered a victory for the United States, ultimately Saddam was not removed from power. This was a tremendous disappointment for the conservative hawks emerging in the Republican party.
Since the Gulf War, there has been a covert but persistent mission by neo-cons to overthrow Saddam Hussein by any means necessary in order to reorganize the Middle East in the name of democracy. However democracy was not the reason Bush gave to the country when he decided to invade Iraq....it was the presence of WMDs, which UN inspectors did not find. Former US top weapons inspector David Kay testified before congress asserting this fact. And Director General of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, requested more time from the administration to investigate the weapons claims in Iraq before rushing to war. Those in the Bush inner circle had tremendous influence on his final decision to unilaterally attack Iraq in 2003 without the support of the United Nations and the rest of the world.
The notion of invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam was gaining momentum long before the terrorists attacked on September 11, 2001. Only once America was attacked did Bush and his war mongering neo-con colleagues have the perfect opportunity to utilize faulty intelligence in order to make a case for war and garner the blind support of most of the American public. However, we now know that this war, where thousands of young American soldiers have died, was years in the making. Let's hope that the frustration, anger and determination felt by Democrats and the American public continue to fuel this investigation to uncover the truth.
Upon my second reading of Invisible Man, after many years, I must say--now that I look at the book through a political context, I don't like it--and I agree with the critics of Ellison who came out of the 60s. I think he tries to debase radical movements and he is very much caught in an unprogressive mode.
Upon Watching The Prince of Tides for the Millionth Time...
I had a new revelation. Savannah Wingo was a lesban.
Hungry Blues is doing some very important work in showcasing the law suits brought up by the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
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