Global
On January 4, 1971 history was made at the Columbus Police Academy. Seven Black men would begin training at the police academy. This was highest number of Blacks to take training at this facility. Joseph (Andy) Edwards, Charles Martin, Warren Hanna, Freddie Robinson, William McDonald, Sam Allen, and I, James Moss would become the new trend in police hiring. Blacks in this class were the aftermath of the turbulent times of the 1960’s.
Riots had plagued the large cities with a great number of people losing their lives, buildings were destroyed and the inner cities looked like a war zone. Unlike, Chicago, Cleveland, Trenton, and Los Angles, Columbus was spared from the destruction of its inner city. The riot in Columbus was not large and the property damage was less than the Ohio State- Michigan Football Celebration on campus.
Riots had plagued the large cities with a great number of people losing their lives, buildings were destroyed and the inner cities looked like a war zone. Unlike, Chicago, Cleveland, Trenton, and Los Angles, Columbus was spared from the destruction of its inner city. The riot in Columbus was not large and the property damage was less than the Ohio State- Michigan Football Celebration on campus.
Columbus, OH. Close to 75 protesters gathered by 10 AM on East 17th Avenue on June 9, within the Ohio Exposition Center complex, to send a message to President Bush and the Ohio Democratic Party.
Bush’s motorcade arrived around 10:50 am and was greeted with angry shouts and signs to repeal the Patriot Act, bring our troops home from Iraq, reject electronic voting machines and to fully investigate the $215 million diverted from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation fund into Republican campaign coffers. “I think the George Bush campaign raised a lot of illegal money in Ohio,” US Rep. Sherrod Brown said. “That puts the election in some question,” as reported at http://www.ohiohonestelections.org/
Just before noon, as the motorcade of SUV limos exited the Ohio Highway Patrol Academy, and drove slowly past the demonstration, a secret service agent, riding shotgun, raised his machine gun for all to see through an open window.
Bush’s motorcade arrived around 10:50 am and was greeted with angry shouts and signs to repeal the Patriot Act, bring our troops home from Iraq, reject electronic voting machines and to fully investigate the $215 million diverted from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation fund into Republican campaign coffers. “I think the George Bush campaign raised a lot of illegal money in Ohio,” US Rep. Sherrod Brown said. “That puts the election in some question,” as reported at http://www.ohiohonestelections.org/
Just before noon, as the motorcade of SUV limos exited the Ohio Highway Patrol Academy, and drove slowly past the demonstration, a secret service agent, riding shotgun, raised his machine gun for all to see through an open window.
There was something unsettling about Donald Rumsfeld recent tough-talk speech in Singapore in which he described his concern over what he viewed as China’s alarming weapons buildup. Rumsfeld speech was the top story next day in the Los Angeles Times, my local paper. And at the nearby Starbuck’s I saw it was also the top story in the New York Times.
The specifics of Rumsfeld’s speech were not very interesting or informative. For that one needs to consult the recent issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and an article by Jeffrey Lewis, “The Ambiguous Arsenal,” which argues effectively that China’s strategic weapons buildup has not changed significantly over the last decade. Rumsfeld held one trump card however. An updated intelligence estimate on China’s defense programs is “expected to be released soon,” according to mainline media speak. But since the Iraq intelligence debacle, who is going to take that seriously? Thanks to Bush, Condi and Rumsfeld, we now live in a time when the word “intelligence” is a guaranteed laugh-getter for Jay Leno and David Letterman.
The specifics of Rumsfeld’s speech were not very interesting or informative. For that one needs to consult the recent issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and an article by Jeffrey Lewis, “The Ambiguous Arsenal,” which argues effectively that China’s strategic weapons buildup has not changed significantly over the last decade. Rumsfeld held one trump card however. An updated intelligence estimate on China’s defense programs is “expected to be released soon,” according to mainline media speak. But since the Iraq intelligence debacle, who is going to take that seriously? Thanks to Bush, Condi and Rumsfeld, we now live in a time when the word “intelligence” is a guaranteed laugh-getter for Jay Leno and David Letterman.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.