Global

The US backed AlSabaah newspaper published in Baghdad reported on the Medical Drugs situation in Iraq. In its article "Medical centers suffers a decline in the number of patients" published 6 June 2005 it draws a very gloomy picture of the medical services in Iraq more than 2 years after the occupation.

The article states that "A team of experts recently assessed the medical drugs situation and found out an alarming (fearful) shortage of certain drugs". The report stated that out of 900 basic drugs needed 401 (45%) of them are totally unavailable while another 350 (39%) drugs are in a very short supply and what is available would last for only "few week". The report did not mention the stock situation of the other 149 (17%).The report quoting the Ministry of Health as saying that the ministry could not provide 26 (81%) drugs out of 32 drugs used for the treatment of patients with chronic illness. Those are patients with illness like diabetes, hypertension, cardiac diseases that must be maintained for a long time on medications.

As Mark Felt, one of the main responsible FBI officers overseeing illegal counterintelligence programs targeting the American Indian Movement and other groups in the 60s and 70’s, is hailed as a hero for catalyzing the toppling of the Nixon administration, Leonard Peltier approaches his fourth decade of unjust imprisonment.

Today, from the perspective of the U.S. government, everything is excusable in the war theatre, even as the world questions U.S. policies and actions that point unequivocally to human rights abuses. A puppet government, people murdered and terrorized, that was the climate in the Pine Ridge reservation in 1975 when two FBI agents were killed in a shootout. Leonard Peltier and fellow warriors responded to the call for protection from the Oglala Lakota people, but he was blamed for the deaths of the agents and is serving two consecutive life terms for that.

As the Senate votes in Bush's long-filibustered nominees, the nuclear option compromise is looking more rancid than reasonable. The seven Democrats who helped broker the compromise pledged not to filibuster except in the most extraordinary circumstances. But given the track record of Priscilla Owens, Janice Rogers Brown, and William Pryor, I wonder how extreme a candidate has to be before these Democrats and their seven Republican colleagues would reject them.

Would a prospective nominee have to be caught wearing white Klan robes to Sunday church? Having public sex with a live animal? Receiving videotaped bribes from Don Corleone? I suppose these actions might meet the "extraordinary circumstances" standard, but running roughshod over legal precedents to favor the wealthy and powerful clearly doesn't.

Because the participating Democrats agreed not to filibuster Owens, Brown, and Pryor, the public barely heard the stories of why their nominations crossed an unacceptable line. We heard mostly the inside baseball of legal abstractions. But their history is pretty drastic:

"I guess my vote don't matter anymore."

The shiv to the gut of democracy that occurred last Nov. 2 can be found in reams of data and volumes of eyewitness testimony, but first it's in those words or it's nowhere at all, and if we hear them and don't feel our outrage rise maybe we never will.

For those who want to learn the truth, much of the testimony is contained in two recently released publications, "What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election" (Academy Chicago Publishers) and the phonebook-sized "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election: Essential Documents" (CICJ Books). There are also ongoing conferences about vote fraud. I just got back from Cleveland, where one was held over the weekend, sponsored by the grassroots political group Ohio Vigilance. It was there that I talked to singer/activist Victoria Parks of Columbus, a city newly notorious for the long lines at its inner-city polling places and other dirty tricks that added up to disenfranchisement for thousands of voters.

Voters across the country are concerned about electronic touch-screen voting machines.  At last count, citizens in almost every state have formed more than seventy non-partisan grassroots organizations to ensure that a voter-verified, manually auditable paper record of every vote is required at both the state and federal levels.  More than 200 of these electronic voting reform activists, representing 25 states,  are meeting in Washington DC on June 9 and 10 to lobby for the passage of H.R. 550 The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act Introduced by Rep. Holt of New Jersey. 

Matthew 7:5, the King James Version, states: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye”. Change “Thou hypocrite” to “George W. Bush”, and you have the best advice anyone could offer to this American President.

For the president of our country to condemn the human rights abuses of any other sovereign nation, while sanctioning the American torture practices of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and any number of covert CIA detention centers around the world- not to mention what happens to the victims of our extreme rendition policy-is beyond hypocritical. Imagine Ted Bundy criticizing the Green River Killer for being a barbaric killer. Wouldn’t your first reaction be, “Look who’s talking!”

That’s right, America. Look carefully at who is talking.

Vicente Fox got a well-deserved boot in the derrière for saying Mexicans come to America for taking jobs "not even Blacks want to do."

But Thomas Friedman earns plaudits and Pulitzers for his column which today announces that East Indians are taking jobs the French are too lazy to do. [See, "A Race to the Top," New York Times.] Friedman's fit of racial profiling was motivated by his pique over France's rejection of the globalizers' charter for corporate dominance known as the European Constitution.

It's not the implicit racism of Friedman's statement which is most irksome, it's his ghastly glee that, "a world of benefits they [Western Europeans] have known for 50 years is coming apart," because the French and other Europeans "are trying to preserve a 35 hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day."

He forgot to add, "and where Indian families are ready to sell their children into sexual slavery to survive." Now, THERE'S a standard to reach for.

COLUMBUS (June 8, 2005) — The Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services (OCJS) has announced several new initiatives to aid law enforcement and other criminal justice related organizations in working with Ohio’s increasing non-English speaking communities.

I Speak: Language Identification Guide: Small enough to fit in a pocket or glove compartment, this language identification guide is a tool for law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies to identify the language of individuals they encounter who do not speak English. Printed just weeks ago, requests for this guide have already been received from law enforcement and other criminal justice organizations nationwide, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The following article is an interview with Joshua Frank, the author of "Left Out! How Liberals Helped Elect George W. Bush." The book is an analysis of the 2004 presidential campaign. Frank's writings appear regularly on the Internet and he is a contributor to "Dime’s Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils." In this interview we examine what the anti-war movement can learn from the 2004 presidential election and how the movement should be approaching the 2006 election.

Kevin Zeese: First, tell me about your new book “Left Out!.” What did you learn about the 2004 campaign while writing it?