Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Naked Man and the Hotel Maid from Guinea

Last night I happened onto a European TV newscast that described in great detail the plans the defense lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn had to discredit the immigrant maid who was the victim of his alleged sexual assault.

The most ludicrous effort, I thought, was that some people flew to her native village (which she left four years ago and had no contact with since), to dig up any dirt and gossip which would make her less credible. Another venue of attack was her immigration papers. "We will comb through every entry on every document she ever filled out, because people lie to some answers since they are desperate to be admitted to the US and that is a crime" said the comfortable, heavy bodied lawyer, lodged into a couch. "We will interview all of her co-workers, boyfriends ... I am sure there are some stories we can find and use."

It went on and on, until I had to shut it off. How disgusting and totally irrelevant to what happened in the $3000 a night hotel suite. Apparently Mr Strauss-Kahn has practiced this sort of behavior before, as we come to find out from previous victims speaking up now, so who's life needs to be examined first?

Now he absolves his "house arrest" in a 14 Million Dollar mansion awaiting court action. The poor maid is scared out of her wits in face of that much money and power. I am not holding my breath until justice is done.

Will Common Sense prevail?

Monday, May 9, 2011

What You Should Know About Drones

I am quoting from Kathy Kelly's article on www.commondreams.org because it reminded me of my own experiences in Austria during WWII walking home from school after an air raid. The bombs then were a little more "benign," if I may call it that way, and I was in the shelter when they fell. But seeing the destroyed houses and knowing that people had died in them was enough for me. Here is her story (you can read the full article at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/09-5).

"I’m reminded of an encounter I had, in May, 2010, when a journalist and a social worker from North Waziristan met with a small Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegation in Pakistan and described, in gory and graphic detail, the scenes of drone attacks which they had personally witnessed: the carbonized bodies, burned so fully they could be identified by legs and hands alone, the bystanders sent flying like dolls through the air to break, with shattered bones and sometimes-fatal brain injuries, upon walls and stone.

“Do Americans know about the drones?” the journalist asked me. I said I thought that awareness was growing on University campuses and among peace groups. “This isn’t what I’m asking,” he politely insisted. “What I want to know is if average Americans know that their country is attacking Pakistan with drones that carry bombs. Do they know this?”

"Truthfully,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

One more interesting fact: "As of now, worldwide, 49 companies make 450 different drone aircraft. Drone merchants expect that drone sales will earn $20.2 billion over the next 10 years for aerospace war manufacturers. Who knows? One day drone missiles may be aimed at us."

Good Luck, to all of us!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Does Anybody Care About Our Health?

Two stories on today's Common Dreams website raised alarm bells for me about governments caring at all about their people. First there is more and more evidence of the health risks following the oil gusher in the Gulf: Many residents along the Gulf Coast are exhibiting symptoms that clearly look like reactions to chemical exposure. Read the article and come to your own conclusions. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/20-10 Unfortunately the article also points out that there is no concerted effort (and no funds) to collect the data needed to prove what is happening.

Then there is the little story of the well water near natural gas 'fracking' activity in rural Pennsylvania that can be set on fire because it contains methane gas. One of the wells recently blew out and spilled toxic chemicals over fields, pastures and into waterways. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/20-8

Last but not least we have the situation in Japan where nobody seems to know "officially" how bad the radioactive contamination actually is and will be as the leaks keep leaking radio active water and who knows what else into the sea, air and into the soil.

What we keep hearing about these catastrophies is mostly that the Gulf is on its way to return to normal, deepwater drilling is safe and will continue, natural gas extraction is going fine with the fracking process, and atomic power plants are really safe ... very little is being said about the poor people who live, work, fish and farm in these areas. Their livelihood and their health and the health of their offspring (maybe for generations) is at risk, and the public efforts to disseminate accurate information and to organize the tracking and alleviating of the health risks are in sad shape. Any kind of public acknowledgement of the situation (other than empty words and promises)is sorely missing. Do our governments care about human beings? Not only do they kill them off by the hundreds of thousands in unjustified wars they also keep endangering them by the millions through unregulated and unsavory practices to maintain our "standard of living" - I guess that standard only goes to the (so far un-radiated)survivors. Common Sense? Where?

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Libyan Charade

George Orwell could not have put it better ... read what Glenn Greenwald posted today on Common Dreams News. I do not want to paraphrase one word. The whole story speaks for itself. What are we to do with a government like that, a world like that? http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/16-2

Please comment - even if just very briefly!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Eight Million per Day for War in Libya

The US is spending about $8 Million per day on its war on Libya. This of course in addition to the exorbitant amounts we are paying for our other ongoing wars. "Remarking last week on the deal he struck that slashes $38.5 billion in federal spending, President Obama said the agreement “between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history.” With an untouched defense budget and no end in sight for our wars - where - what is our future? Definitely not better education, not better healthcare, still no jobs other than those making weaponry and flipping burgers. Future? Think about it. Thank you.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Profitability of Wars - even little ones like Libya

Just found a great article by Robert C. Koehler, A Vortex of Death and Wealth, published today at CommonDreams.org He makes a case of how we -and other weapons manufacturing countries - make money off killing and destruction. He writes "And Libya is small potatoes compared to — no surprise — Saudi Arabia. Last year, according to Spiegel Online, the U.S. announced the largest arms export deal in history with the Saudis. The oil-rich kingdom will buy $60 billion worth of U.S. aircraft over the next five to ten years. “Money is no object,” the article informs us, “and the Saudi air force is to receive F-15 fighter-bombers, Apache attack helicopters, missiles, radar equipment and bombs. All together, according to the Wall Street Journal, the order is large enough to guarantee 77,000 jobs at Boeing.” So maybe this is the much taunted "Job Creation Program" of our current administration - let's go to war and sell weaponry - not only use it but also destroy it so we can eventually replace it. Since the US is not producing much else, there is our future. Unending war, unending arms sales. “This” — the Libyan no fly zone — “is turning into the best shop window for competing aircraft for years. More even than in Iraq in 2003,” said Francis Tusa, editor of the UK-based newsletter Defense Analysis, quoted in a recent Reuters article by Tim Hepher. For instance, enforcement of the no fly zone pitted two European-made jet fighters, the Typhoon and the Rafale, against one another for world leaders to view, and France, Tusa pointed out, “is particularly desperate to sell the Rafale.” This is the generally unstated truth about Western intervention in the Middle East and anywhere else in the world. The headline-generating acts of murderous repression by dictators, whether we love or abhor them, are made possible by weaponry and equipment they purchased from us. And then, when the time comes, we may have to attack our former business partners with the same weaponry we sold them." Common Sense apparently has no place in this game unless you apply it to the job creation program. Good luck to all of us.

The Goldstone Report Still Stands!

We are being deceived again. Judge Goldstone's OpEd in the NYT is reported as recanting the report. None such thing if you read the fine print. The Report (on the Cast Lead War by Israel in the Gaza Strip) stands as is, minus a few semantic 'corrections'. Time and again we are fed headlines based on a tiny part of the news story, hiding the true message and/or truth. Who are these people who publish this kind of misleading copy, who are they answering to? An honest journalist - objective as s/he should be - could never stoop as low as to distort a straightforward story. Why is it left to us to dig and find out what is really behind a misleading headline? And the majority of readers will of course not do that to begin with. They will go out and believe the headline, retell it, distribute it and thereby make it much more believable. Do I want to be part of this system? NO. I will hang on to my Common Sense!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Libya - Japan - and our Readiness to "Help"

Have you counted the number of nations sending their war machines to bomb Libya? Within two days of the UN Resolution there were at least eight of them. We, the US, of course in the lead. 125 Tomahawk missiles have been launched so far, at a cost of one million dollars each, to keep Ghaddafi's forces from 'killing' civilians. So we are killing to prevent killing. Makes great sense, does it? This is not genocide, where such an intervention would make sense and where we usually keep our eyes and forces averted until it is too late.

And what about the catastrophe in Japan? How many nations, ships and planes full of food and blankets and tents for half-a-million or more freezing and starving people without shelter are on the way? And written about? Zero, from what I can see. The 125 million or so dollars that went up in fire and smoke, destroying people and goods in Libya could have been sent the other way and done some good. NO? That makes too much sense for our "freedom"(= oil)loving and oh so moral leaders.

This morning I found an article by Pablo Ouziel on my favorite news site (www.commondreams.com) where he writes "The time has come to break our silence and judge them and their allies for crimes against humanity. Only when we have wiped clean the blood spilled in the name of our false morality, by confronting the crimes committed in our name, might we find ourselves in a position from which to ethically judge the crimes of the foreign petty dictators our leaders often called friends." My sentiments exactly!

Please read the whole article and others on that site. They are all eye-opening and not always hopeful, but they tell it as it is.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Fuel Fools

I have been aware of the fact that the military is one of the biggest users -if not THE biggest user- of motor fuel, think jets, planes, tanks, trucks etc. Now I read that 80% of the cargo that the US military hauls around .. is fuel. So, we go to war to ensure the fuel for the military so they can .. umm, lug it off to the war zones? Is that it? Unfortunately, yes, that's it.

Where is the common sense?