1. Everybody knows that George W. Bush's book is plagiarism. One hundred percent plagiarism. No matter how bad and how badly written it is, we know he can't have written it. He can barely write his name.
2. Terrorists 300,000,003, US 0. That's something like the score.
What do terrorists do? They make people afraid, and thus disrupt lives. With the help of an idiotic government, today's terrorists have paralyzed the United States. Now the idiots at the Transportation Security Agent are adding more terror to our daily lives. In order to get into the "secure" area of an American airport, you have to submit a nude photo op or to being sexually molested by some goon. And once you are in the "secure" area, you get loud announcements every three minutes warning you that the scare monitor is at orange--has it ever been anything other than orange?--and if you see anybody suspicious looking you should notify the nearest law enforcement officer.
Our government has been given prize after prize by Terrorism International, for helping their cause. It is rumored that Terrorism International pays for the scanning devices, and trains the sexual molesters for free.
3. In case anybody hasn't noticed, we could use all the money spent on the anti-terrorism nonsense to feed the poor, house them, give them decent medical care, and give all American children decent schools.
4. Or we could just tax the rich, and pay off the national debt. Nobody needs more than a million dollars. Do you hear your good friends quivering? Say it again: Nobody needs more than a million dollars. And if you have two one million dollar houses, one of them should be taken away from you, and you should have to borrow money to live on in the other one.
5. This year for Christmas, let's feed the turkey, and eat the greedy.
Bert Hornback
maandag 15 november 2010
vrijdag 5 november 2010
AFTERMATH
In the aftermath of the election, and the prospect of getting nothing done in Congress, Mr. Obama has two choices: either he can accept defeat, and be a lame duck for the last two years of his one-term presidency, or he can fulfill several of the promises he made when he was campaigning and still accomplish something significant--and maybe get re-elected.
By executive order, Mr. Obama can
(1)Restore our constitutional right of habeas corpus;
(2)Close the illegal concentration camp in Guantanamo;
(3)Stop CIA kidnappings--"renditions"--all over the world;
(4)Close all the the illegal CIA prisons and torture camps;
(5)End the US invasion of Pakistan, and US attacks inside Pakistan;
(6)Quit blocking court decisions overturning the unconstitutional
"Don't Ask-Don't Tell" law.
He can do all of that in one busy day. And he can maybe save our country and his presidency.
Bert Hornback
By executive order, Mr. Obama can
(1)Restore our constitutional right of habeas corpus;
(2)Close the illegal concentration camp in Guantanamo;
(3)Stop CIA kidnappings--"renditions"--all over the world;
(4)Close all the the illegal CIA prisons and torture camps;
(5)End the US invasion of Pakistan, and US attacks inside Pakistan;
(6)Quit blocking court decisions overturning the unconstitutional
"Don't Ask-Don't Tell" law.
He can do all of that in one busy day. And he can maybe save our country and his presidency.
Bert Hornback
woensdag 27 oktober 2010
NO PERETZ HALL AFTER ALL
Concerning Martin Peretz: I have received a letter from the office of the president of Harvard University, assuring me that "the University is not naming a building after him." In a statement issued by the University, the president says that the university is "dedicated to the proposition that all people, regardless to color or creed, deserve equal opportunities, equal respect, and equal protection under the law." He continues, "The recent assertions by Dr. Peretz are therefore distressing to many members of our cummunity, and understandably so."
So no Martin Peretz Hall of Anti-Social Studies after all.
Bert Hornback
So no Martin Peretz Hall of Anti-Social Studies after all.
Bert Hornback
donderdag 21 oktober 2010
GOD BLESS AMERICA--SOMEDAY
The President of the United States says that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law is discriminatory, and unconstitutional. So he pressures the judiciary to keep that discriminatory and unconstitutional law in force.
He says that the district court judge who ruled that the law is discriminatory and unconstitutional was "moving too fast." Does the President not know that "moving too fast" is what racist America said to people like him for more than a century?
But the President doesn't move fast. He has had nearly two years now to say "Close the Concentration Camp at Guantanamo," but he hasn't said it. He has had nearly two years to restore the consitutionally guaranteed right of "Habeas Corpus"--but he hasn't done that, either.
And thanks to the President's disregard for law or justice, he now has Bradley Manning beginning his seventh month in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Corps base. Manning hasn't been charged with a crime--and he hasn't committed one. In fact, he is in prison--in solitary confinement--because he obeyed the law.
A person who knowingly conceals information about a felony is by definition an "accessory after the fact" of the offense. "Misprision of a felony" is the other legal name for this crime. It is both a federal offense and an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Had Manning kept secret the criminal activity which he uncovered about our military, he would have become himself guilty. He did the right thing, and released the information.
Another young man in the U. S. military risked his life trying to expose the murderers in his unit in Afghanistan. When his father told military authorities about it, they told him to get lost. Now that the murders are public knowledge, the military has charged the whistle-blower with murder. And the men who murdered innocent civilians at random, for sport, and saved their victims' fingers--and one skull--as souvenirs of their crimes: they are "under investigation."
What has happened to us--to the United States? Mr. Obama was supposed to be a good man, and an intelligent man: that's why I voted for him. I can't find either the goodness or the intelligence. And I can't find any leadership or courage or honor.
My friends tell me, "Give him time, give him time." They tell me we can't go too fast in trying to undo wrongs. If the house is on fire, I shouldn't hurry to put it out. If I see a drowning man, I shouldn't rescue him too fast. If. . . .
He says that the district court judge who ruled that the law is discriminatory and unconstitutional was "moving too fast." Does the President not know that "moving too fast" is what racist America said to people like him for more than a century?
But the President doesn't move fast. He has had nearly two years now to say "Close the Concentration Camp at Guantanamo," but he hasn't said it. He has had nearly two years to restore the consitutionally guaranteed right of "Habeas Corpus"--but he hasn't done that, either.
And thanks to the President's disregard for law or justice, he now has Bradley Manning beginning his seventh month in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Corps base. Manning hasn't been charged with a crime--and he hasn't committed one. In fact, he is in prison--in solitary confinement--because he obeyed the law.
A person who knowingly conceals information about a felony is by definition an "accessory after the fact" of the offense. "Misprision of a felony" is the other legal name for this crime. It is both a federal offense and an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Had Manning kept secret the criminal activity which he uncovered about our military, he would have become himself guilty. He did the right thing, and released the information.
Another young man in the U. S. military risked his life trying to expose the murderers in his unit in Afghanistan. When his father told military authorities about it, they told him to get lost. Now that the murders are public knowledge, the military has charged the whistle-blower with murder. And the men who murdered innocent civilians at random, for sport, and saved their victims' fingers--and one skull--as souvenirs of their crimes: they are "under investigation."
What has happened to us--to the United States? Mr. Obama was supposed to be a good man, and an intelligent man: that's why I voted for him. I can't find either the goodness or the intelligence. And I can't find any leadership or courage or honor.
My friends tell me, "Give him time, give him time." They tell me we can't go too fast in trying to undo wrongs. If the house is on fire, I shouldn't hurry to put it out. If I see a drowning man, I shouldn't rescue him too fast. If. . . .
dinsdag 19 oktober 2010
JUSTICE FOR ALL
One young man about to start his seventh month in solitary confinement for obeying the law. . . .
Another charged with murder for blowing the whistle on U.S. Army murderous "game hunters" in Afghanistan, while the "game hunters" remain unindited. . . .
Bradley Manning is suspected of having leaked classified information about
U.S. war crimes. Had Manning--a twenty-one year old soldier--NOT leaked those documents he would have been committing a crime. He would have been an accessory after the fact, guilty of misprision of a felony: very serious crimes under American civil and military law.
So he is in jail: in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Corps base in Virginia. Starting his seventh month in solitary.
Manning hasn't been charged with any crime. Why not? Because if the military or Mr. Obama's government charges him with a crime, his defense will be that he was obeying the law by doing so, and that all those who have tried to keep what he uncovered secret are the guilty parties.
(Of course Manning has only been held in solitary confinement, not charged with any crime, for six months, going on seven. Mr. Obama's prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp have been held--some of them--for nine years now, not charged with any crime. That's justice, American style.)
And the young man who told his father about the kill-for-sport Army "game hunters" in Afghanistan: that young man is charged with murdering an Afghan civilian. But the Sergeant and the others who organised the murder games have not been charged with anything. Only the heroic young man who "ratted" on them. And when that young man's father tried to tell the U.S. Army what was going on, he was told to get lost.
The U.S. has given more than 200,000 young men an opportunity to become murderers. Six month tours, then more six month tours. Learn to kill. Murder is your job, boys. And now go home and be civilised. That's the American way.
In World War II, the men who fought had at least a sense--a legitimate sense--that they were fighting aggression and--in the Nazis' case--evil. When the war was over, they came home to something that could be called civilisation, having served in what could be seen as a good cause.
Since then--Korea, Vietnam, our proxy wars in Nicaragua, Angola, Bush the first's oil war, Bush the second's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Obama's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan--our cause has been greed, our principle arrogance, our creed simple murder.
In 1945 American troops came home to a mostly civilised country. Our government created the Marshall Plan, to rebuild Europe: and the Marshall plan may well be the greatest, most wonderful social undertaking in human history.
Troops who come home now from our wars have learned to be racist bigots, or to enjoy killing, or both. And they come home to a selfish country, dedicated to greed and hatred and violence. There are many more guns in the United States than in the middle east. Our returning warriors, used to killing, will really be coming "home."
It's frightening. And what is more frightening is that so many people who should care about all this--good, decent people--have stuck their heads in the sand. They don't want to hear the bad news. They think they can hide. Maybe they think things won't explode in the United States before they have a chance to die.
But what about their children?
Bradley Manning is a hero. So is the young man who was frightened by the crazy murderers he lived with.
I'm not sure that, come election day this year, we have a chance to vote for a change in America, for a change to a better, more civilised way of life. But maybe if we vote down the extremists on the right this year, we can at least keep things from getting worse. And maybe someday we will re-learn honor and decency, and will find candidates for high office worthy of our support.
I had thought that Mr. Obama was a bright and good man. He isn't. Next round, I will vote for Bradley Manning for president. And for that other young man for vice-president. Even if they aren't on the ballot.
Another charged with murder for blowing the whistle on U.S. Army murderous "game hunters" in Afghanistan, while the "game hunters" remain unindited. . . .
Bradley Manning is suspected of having leaked classified information about
U.S. war crimes. Had Manning--a twenty-one year old soldier--NOT leaked those documents he would have been committing a crime. He would have been an accessory after the fact, guilty of misprision of a felony: very serious crimes under American civil and military law.
So he is in jail: in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Corps base in Virginia. Starting his seventh month in solitary.
Manning hasn't been charged with any crime. Why not? Because if the military or Mr. Obama's government charges him with a crime, his defense will be that he was obeying the law by doing so, and that all those who have tried to keep what he uncovered secret are the guilty parties.
(Of course Manning has only been held in solitary confinement, not charged with any crime, for six months, going on seven. Mr. Obama's prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp have been held--some of them--for nine years now, not charged with any crime. That's justice, American style.)
And the young man who told his father about the kill-for-sport Army "game hunters" in Afghanistan: that young man is charged with murdering an Afghan civilian. But the Sergeant and the others who organised the murder games have not been charged with anything. Only the heroic young man who "ratted" on them. And when that young man's father tried to tell the U.S. Army what was going on, he was told to get lost.
The U.S. has given more than 200,000 young men an opportunity to become murderers. Six month tours, then more six month tours. Learn to kill. Murder is your job, boys. And now go home and be civilised. That's the American way.
In World War II, the men who fought had at least a sense--a legitimate sense--that they were fighting aggression and--in the Nazis' case--evil. When the war was over, they came home to something that could be called civilisation, having served in what could be seen as a good cause.
Since then--Korea, Vietnam, our proxy wars in Nicaragua, Angola, Bush the first's oil war, Bush the second's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Obama's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan--our cause has been greed, our principle arrogance, our creed simple murder.
In 1945 American troops came home to a mostly civilised country. Our government created the Marshall Plan, to rebuild Europe: and the Marshall plan may well be the greatest, most wonderful social undertaking in human history.
Troops who come home now from our wars have learned to be racist bigots, or to enjoy killing, or both. And they come home to a selfish country, dedicated to greed and hatred and violence. There are many more guns in the United States than in the middle east. Our returning warriors, used to killing, will really be coming "home."
It's frightening. And what is more frightening is that so many people who should care about all this--good, decent people--have stuck their heads in the sand. They don't want to hear the bad news. They think they can hide. Maybe they think things won't explode in the United States before they have a chance to die.
But what about their children?
Bradley Manning is a hero. So is the young man who was frightened by the crazy murderers he lived with.
I'm not sure that, come election day this year, we have a chance to vote for a change in America, for a change to a better, more civilised way of life. But maybe if we vote down the extremists on the right this year, we can at least keep things from getting worse. And maybe someday we will re-learn honor and decency, and will find candidates for high office worthy of our support.
I had thought that Mr. Obama was a bright and good man. He isn't. Next round, I will vote for Bradley Manning for president. And for that other young man for vice-president. Even if they aren't on the ballot.
vrijdag 8 oktober 2010
THUG AMERICA
YASIR AFIFI is a twenty year old student, and an citizen of the United States. His father happens to be Egyptian. He found a tracking device on his car. The FBI admitted that it "belonged" to them. They wanted it back. And the FBI thug who was speaking to him allegedly said, "We're going to make this much more difficult for you if you don't cooperate."
A perverse United States judge says secret electronic surveillance of United States citizens is legal. But no judge can make what the FBI thug said other than criminal.
"We're going to make this much more difficult for you IF you don't cooperate": that statement is an overt threat of violence. It is attempted extortion.
An FBI thug ought to go to jail. His superiors who ordered the spying should be charged too, but the perverse judge has at least temporarily made that impossible.
Spying on citizens is legal, he says. But he hasn't made extortion or attempted extortion legal.
Is the United States a "police state"? Have we taken over from the old Soviet Union?
Since when is it a crime in the United States for a citizen to be an Arab, or a Muslim? Racial discrimination has been illegal since 1964: which means that cops can't harass or arrest black people because they are black or white people because they are white, or Jews because they are Jews, or Muslims because they are Muslims. Or Arabs or Arab-Americans because they are Arabs or Arab-Americans.
The United States has become a Discrimi-Nation again. It is sad, shameful, oppressive, threatening, frightening. And we are all scared to say anything. It seems that even our president is afraid to say anything: even though all United States citizens are his people: black people (African, African-American, etc.), white people (Indo-Europeans--both Caucasian and those from northern India--, Arabs, Berbers), yellow people(Chinese, Japanese, South-East Asian, Mongol, Eskimo), red people (native North and South Americans), Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindua, atheists of any color or race or tribe or origin.
Even women, left-handed people, albinos, the physically handicapped, old people, young people, mentally handicapped people, homosexuals, long-haired people, and people who don't belong to the NRA: all of us citizens are fully-entitled and should be fully-protected under law and by our president. By our congress, too, and by our courts. Even by law enforcement agencies, and rogue organisations like the FBI, CIA, and NSA.
What went wrong? How did we become a police state without a dictator? How did the rule of law disappear? George I. Q. 0. Bush suspended (illegally) the constitutionally guaranteed right of habeas corpus, and president Obama has not undone that arrogance of power. And it has long been true that, at lower levels, the United States is a police state.
Are you afraid of policemen and sheriffs? Yes: because SOME of them are bad, evil. Do you contribute to your local law enforcement officers' "benevolent fund"? The officer who calls says that if you donate money, you will get a decal for your car that will identify you as a "friend"--and you know what that means. Do you report that criminally extortionist call to your local district attorney? Of course not.
We have known for years that the CIA and NSA commit murder all around the world--"to preserve American liberty." And none of us ever object. None of us ever say that the United States should not murder.
Right now we have a twenty-one year soldier in solitary confinement for exposing military crimes. He has been in solitary confinement for nearly five months, while our corrupt system of justice tries to find out what crime they can charge him with. Awkwardly, both United States civil law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice make concealing knowledge of felony offenses itself a felony. Thus Bradley Manning is not a criminal; he exposed criminal acts.
We run a concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. We have been holding men prisoner there, some of them for nine years, but none of them have been charged with a crime. Guantanamo is the crime. We are the criminals. But none of us says anything.
And most likely we will say nothing about what happened to twenty year old United States citizen Yasir Afifi. We will just hope that it doesn't happen to us: which means that we--all of us, me included--are moral cowards.
Morality has nothing to do with sin, or sex. "Moral" is a word for how we live together. And when we don't live together, when each of us hides and avoids social responsibility--our responsibility to each other--then we are immoral.
Unless we defend Yasir Afifi--and Bradley Manning, and the people in our illegal camp at Guantanamo Bay, and the people somewhere in this world that the CIA or the NSA will murder tonight or tomorrow--: unless we defend them, we are immoral.
Bert Hornback
A perverse United States judge says secret electronic surveillance of United States citizens is legal. But no judge can make what the FBI thug said other than criminal.
"We're going to make this much more difficult for you IF you don't cooperate": that statement is an overt threat of violence. It is attempted extortion.
An FBI thug ought to go to jail. His superiors who ordered the spying should be charged too, but the perverse judge has at least temporarily made that impossible.
Spying on citizens is legal, he says. But he hasn't made extortion or attempted extortion legal.
Is the United States a "police state"? Have we taken over from the old Soviet Union?
Since when is it a crime in the United States for a citizen to be an Arab, or a Muslim? Racial discrimination has been illegal since 1964: which means that cops can't harass or arrest black people because they are black or white people because they are white, or Jews because they are Jews, or Muslims because they are Muslims. Or Arabs or Arab-Americans because they are Arabs or Arab-Americans.
The United States has become a Discrimi-Nation again. It is sad, shameful, oppressive, threatening, frightening. And we are all scared to say anything. It seems that even our president is afraid to say anything: even though all United States citizens are his people: black people (African, African-American, etc.), white people (Indo-Europeans--both Caucasian and those from northern India--, Arabs, Berbers), yellow people(Chinese, Japanese, South-East Asian, Mongol, Eskimo), red people (native North and South Americans), Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindua, atheists of any color or race or tribe or origin.
Even women, left-handed people, albinos, the physically handicapped, old people, young people, mentally handicapped people, homosexuals, long-haired people, and people who don't belong to the NRA: all of us citizens are fully-entitled and should be fully-protected under law and by our president. By our congress, too, and by our courts. Even by law enforcement agencies, and rogue organisations like the FBI, CIA, and NSA.
What went wrong? How did we become a police state without a dictator? How did the rule of law disappear? George I. Q. 0. Bush suspended (illegally) the constitutionally guaranteed right of habeas corpus, and president Obama has not undone that arrogance of power. And it has long been true that, at lower levels, the United States is a police state.
Are you afraid of policemen and sheriffs? Yes: because SOME of them are bad, evil. Do you contribute to your local law enforcement officers' "benevolent fund"? The officer who calls says that if you donate money, you will get a decal for your car that will identify you as a "friend"--and you know what that means. Do you report that criminally extortionist call to your local district attorney? Of course not.
We have known for years that the CIA and NSA commit murder all around the world--"to preserve American liberty." And none of us ever object. None of us ever say that the United States should not murder.
Right now we have a twenty-one year soldier in solitary confinement for exposing military crimes. He has been in solitary confinement for nearly five months, while our corrupt system of justice tries to find out what crime they can charge him with. Awkwardly, both United States civil law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice make concealing knowledge of felony offenses itself a felony. Thus Bradley Manning is not a criminal; he exposed criminal acts.
We run a concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. We have been holding men prisoner there, some of them for nine years, but none of them have been charged with a crime. Guantanamo is the crime. We are the criminals. But none of us says anything.
And most likely we will say nothing about what happened to twenty year old United States citizen Yasir Afifi. We will just hope that it doesn't happen to us: which means that we--all of us, me included--are moral cowards.
Morality has nothing to do with sin, or sex. "Moral" is a word for how we live together. And when we don't live together, when each of us hides and avoids social responsibility--our responsibility to each other--then we are immoral.
Unless we defend Yasir Afifi--and Bradley Manning, and the people in our illegal camp at Guantanamo Bay, and the people somewhere in this world that the CIA or the NSA will murder tonight or tomorrow--: unless we defend them, we are immoral.
Bert Hornback
zaterdag 2 oktober 2010
HYPOCRITUS
The U.S. government didn't manage to stop its hideous, perverse, illegal, and unethical syphilis experiments on black prisoners at Tuskegee until 1972: thirty years on--and well-hidden. Now we have news of further U.S. government sponsored syphilis "research"--again hideous, perverse, illegal and unethical--involving intentionally infecting otherwise uninfected Guatamalan men with syphilis. Why Guatamalan? Not just because they were poor? Not just because they were not "white"? (Well, we might say, at least they weren't U.S. citizens this time.)
Of, course, since the beginning of the Tuskegee experiments, the U.S. government had been spewing propaganda about medical experiments the Japanese were supposedly carrying out on prisoners. According to U.S. propaganda, this proved that the Japanese were "evil," even "sub-human," and deserved to be "exterminated." U.S. propaganda wasn't so hard on the Nazis: after all, they were only doing bad things to Jews.
Now? Well, the U.S. has its government kidnappers and murder squads all over the world, its secret "rendition" prisons and torture camps, and its illegal concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. And the U.S. president won't do anything to stop them. U.S. military courts absolved almost everybody in the torture crimes scandal in Iraq. The U.S. Army almost managed to keep anyone from knowing about the "kill-for-sport" soldiers in the Army's Stryker unit--but one brave young man and his father finally made these continuing war crimes public knowledge. And the U.S. government has had Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for more than four months now, at Quantico; he is the young U.S. Army soldier who heroically and honorably leaked videos of U.S. military's murders of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, published as "Wikilinks."
Is there anything that connects all these things? Of course there is. And there are surely more links in this chain of violence, war crimes, and constant dishonor.
The Nuremburg War Crimes trials which the U.S. ran did not punish individual Nazi soldiers. It punished leaders. Of course: and in those days U.S. President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk, "The Buck Stops Here." It's time to conduct similar trials for the U.S. leaders responsible for these recent and continuing crimes. And if the U.S. court system is compromised--contaminated--and we don't have a working democracy any more, then the World Court should do it.
Or do 10,000 nuclear weapons and a lack of any sense of honor put us above anything like law or justice?
Of, course, since the beginning of the Tuskegee experiments, the U.S. government had been spewing propaganda about medical experiments the Japanese were supposedly carrying out on prisoners. According to U.S. propaganda, this proved that the Japanese were "evil," even "sub-human," and deserved to be "exterminated." U.S. propaganda wasn't so hard on the Nazis: after all, they were only doing bad things to Jews.
Now? Well, the U.S. has its government kidnappers and murder squads all over the world, its secret "rendition" prisons and torture camps, and its illegal concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. And the U.S. president won't do anything to stop them. U.S. military courts absolved almost everybody in the torture crimes scandal in Iraq. The U.S. Army almost managed to keep anyone from knowing about the "kill-for-sport" soldiers in the Army's Stryker unit--but one brave young man and his father finally made these continuing war crimes public knowledge. And the U.S. government has had Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for more than four months now, at Quantico; he is the young U.S. Army soldier who heroically and honorably leaked videos of U.S. military's murders of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, published as "Wikilinks."
Is there anything that connects all these things? Of course there is. And there are surely more links in this chain of violence, war crimes, and constant dishonor.
The Nuremburg War Crimes trials which the U.S. ran did not punish individual Nazi soldiers. It punished leaders. Of course: and in those days U.S. President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk, "The Buck Stops Here." It's time to conduct similar trials for the U.S. leaders responsible for these recent and continuing crimes. And if the U.S. court system is compromised--contaminated--and we don't have a working democracy any more, then the World Court should do it.
Or do 10,000 nuclear weapons and a lack of any sense of honor put us above anything like law or justice?
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