Samstag, 23. Juni 2007

Negroponte behind Samarra blast

Negroponte behind Samarra blast
Sun, 17 Jun 2007 14:25:52

The US Deputy Secretary of State reportedly planned the attack on the holy Shia shrines in Samarra to help topple the Iraqi government.

According to an informed source John Negroponte plotted the attack during an unannounced trip to Iraq on June 12 in order to fuel insecurity and sectarian violence in the country.

Negroponte's motive was to overthrow Iraq's legitimate government, the same source added.

Negroponte, who was a staunch supporter of right-wing death squads in Central America during the 1980s, held several informal meetings with Iraqi officials prior to the June 13 terrorist attack on the revered Shia shrines in Samarra, the source said.

During his meetings, Negroponte reportedly strongly cautioned that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must change.

Negroponte also asked several Iraqi officials, including Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, to resign- a move the source said was aimed at paving the way for al-Maliki's government to eventually 'topple'.

The source said Negroponte made “empty promises” to the Iraqi officials, saying they would be appointed to key governmental posts.

But the US still wants to return the Baathists, the loyalists of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, to power.

The blast in Samarra which destroyed the minarets of the sacred shrines of the Shia Imams was performed with the assistance of the former Saddam regime's security agents, the source added.

As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte played a key role in US aid to the Contra death squads in Nicaragua and in shoring up the brutal military dictatorship of General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez in Honduras.

During his term as ambassador there, diplomats alleged that the embassy's annual human rights reports made Honduras sound more like 'Norway than Argentina.'

However, according to a four-part series in the Baltimore Sun, in 1982 alone the Honduran press ran 318 stories of murders and kidnappings by the Honduran military.
http://tinyurl.com/23w7ux

Telling Jokes in Iran

Telling Jokes in Iran
The elites mock the president as a religious extremist with a lousy approval rating. Iran may be more like America than you think.
Web-exclusive Diary
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 6:39 p.m. ET June 20, 2007

June 20, 2007 - If you think Jay Leno is hard on George W. Bush, you should hear some of the jokes going around Tehran these days about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—often passed around by cell-phone text message. “He has constipation of the brain, but diarrhea of the mouth,” goes one of the latest jibes. A common theme is to compare the Iranian president with the equally despised Bush. “Mr. Bush is your Ahmadinejad,” cracked Mohamed Atrianfar, head of the editorial board of the quasi-independent Hammihan newspaper, as we sat in his spacious top-floor office the other day. In one edition of his magazine, Today’s Citizen—which Atrianfar began putting out when his newspaper was briefly banned—he laid out pictures of Bush and Ahmadinejad side by side and compared their alleged faults: simple-mindedness, arrogance, a tendency to wisecrack and use common language unbecoming of a president and a habit of pandering to their conservative political bases while shrugging off what the world thinks of them.

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Above all, many Iranians—especially those from upscale North Tehran, where contempt of the populist Ahmadinejad runs deep—believe that both men cynically use religious fervor for political ends. Hence another joke heard around town: “Well, we finally managed to export our revolution—to the U.S.!” That’s a reference to Bush’s regular invocation of the Almighty to justify his policies (“Freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to mankind” used to be one of his favorite phrases). To Iranian ears, this sounds very similar to the kind of rhetoric they hear from the mullahs about Iran’s role in spreading the word about Allah. Bush and Ahmadinejad are simply seen as two extremists ranting at each other, with ordinary Iranians (and Americans) “caught in the line of fire,” as Mohammadreza Behzadian, head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, puts it.

In case you’re wondering how Iranians get away with this in a country that supposedly puts dissenters in jail, the truth is a bit more complicated than that. As long as no one crosses certain known “red lines”—like openly criticizing the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—the mullah state doesn’t ruthlessly crush political opponents. Instead, the government seeks to intimidate offenders, or play cat-and-mouse with them. If your newspaper goes a bit over the line—which usually means questioning the clerics—the authorities will ban it for a few months. If the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Intelligence thinks Iranian public figures are lining up against Ahmadinejad or his policies, they’ll simply disqualify them from running for office. You won’t be arrested in the dead of night and taken to a secret prison; your application will just be mysteriously denied. But when it comes to Ahmadinejad personally, Iranians are surprisingly free with their opinions. “The press today can criticize the government in the harshest terms,” insists Atrianfar, a handsome, graying man with a ski-slope nose. Recently he took on Ahmadinejad’s oafishly offensive comments about the Holocaust and Israel with a cover story picturing the president over the headline WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST, WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? The piece, which ran for 20 pages, featured many photographs of Nazi atrocities.

Many Iranians recognize that Ahmadinejad has badly deepened their country’s international isolation. But oddly enough, most of the criticism in Tehran focuses on his mishandling of the domestic economy. According to several Iranian experts I talked to in recent days, he has strong-armed the central bank into driving down interest rates artificially, risking hyperinflation; shifted back to a command economy by slowing privatization, and misused much of the nation’s $60 billion to $70 billion windfall oil revenue. “This hurts a lot more than the international sanctions,” which are generally seen as a nuisance that merely drives up the cost of doing business, says Saeed Shirkavand, a Tehran University economist. Shirkavand was one of 59 economists who recently signed an open letter to Ahmadinejad criticizing his policies.

The upshot is that while Americans are focused on who will replace Bush in the 2008 race, Iran’s next presidential election in 2009 is equally up in the air. And Ahmadinejad, whose approval ratings dipped to near-Bush levels at 35 percent late last year (according to Iranian state TV), is facing a tough re-election fight by most accounts. In Tehran, some people I talked in the last few days think that the hostile U.S.-Iran relationship has little chance of being resolved until both men are gone from power. And that’s no joke.
http://tinyurl.com/37993b

How Google is Changing the American Political Landscape

Google the Vote: How Google is Changing the American Political Landscape
Written by Josh Catone / June 19, 2007

It's no secret that Google has influence. Being the most heavily used search engine, they in a very real sense control the distribution of information to much of the world. But Google has increasingly been peddling its influence in American politics (which, as the rest of the world is well aware, can have far reaching global consequences). And Google isn't just influencing elections with their pocket book (though they did give $288,000 to candidates in the last US election cycle in 2006), they are becoming an increasingly more important player in the 2008 American election for president.

Yesterday, Google officially unveiled its newest blog: Google Public Policy. The blog, which carries the tagline "Google's views on government, policy and politics," is different than any other Google blog in that it has nothing to with their technology. The blog will instead be an outlet for Google's views "on issues like net neutrality, censorship, innovation regulation, immigration, R&D, national security, and trade" ("just to name a few"). Google's public policy team, who author the blog, say that they hope to foster a "dialogue" with Google users about political issues in order to "do a better job of fighting for our common interests." But a new blog is just a small piece of Google's strategy for influencing government policy.

Google is fast becoming a proving ground for top-tier US presidential candidates ahead of the upcoming 2008 election cycle. "Does Google want to be the 51st state this election season?" was a question recently posed in the San Jose Mercury News.

"The company's embrace of the 2008 campaign ranges from urging candidates to post videos on YouTube and buying ads on Google to stopping in to be grilled by employees at the Googleplex and giving exclusive YouTube interviews. And next month, Google/YouTube will take another step into presidential politics, co-sponsoring a presidential debate.

As Google positions itself as a virtual election headquarters for 2008, the question becomes whether one of America's most successful companies can balance its professed civic aims with corporate profits."

Google's most noticeable splash in this year's elections is their You Choose channel on YouTube, which displays videos from American presidential candidates, and their political video blog CitizenTube. YouTube will also be co-hosting a pair of debates in July and August in partnership with cable news network CNN.

It would be easy to write off YouTube's influence on the American political spectrum (it's just a place for music videos, unauthorized South Park clips, and cats doing stupid things, right?), but the site has allowed candidates to reach a massive audience with a relatively minuscule investment, which has potentially changed the rules. Relative underdog Ron Paul has racked up far more YouTube channel views than any of his fellow Republican candidates. It is hard to imagine a more cost-effective way for a candidate who has been out-fundraised by tens of millions of dollars to get the word out to voters than by making waves on YouTube.

A number of videos have already had an effect on the 2008 primary elections, and some candidates have used YouTube to float unflattering clips of their opponents. Sen. John McCain recently used the site to post a video of competitor, Gov. Mitt Romney, that appeared to show Romney contradicting statements he had made in a magazine interview, for example. YouTube has allowed unfortunate political gaffes to become major black marks on a candidate's record over night. The potential for everything and anything you say or do to be taped and leaked out over the Internet is an unfamiliar dynamic in politics.

Google has also been inviting presidential candidates to the Google campus for interviews in front of Google employees. Yesterday they hosted unannounced candidate and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. So far they have already played host to visits from former Sen. John Edwards, Gov. Bill Richardson and Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain -- all running for president of the US in 2008. These interviews have garnered so much press, that Google is quickly becoming a required campaign stop -- the Iowa or New Hampshire of the digital world, perhaps.

This is not Google's first foray into politics, of course. Shortly before the 2006 mid-term elections in America, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Google had filed paperwork to form a political action committee called NetPAC "to support candidates who promote an open and free Internet for our users." They also hired to former Republican senators Dan Coats of Indiana and Connie Mack of Florida to work as lobbyists.

And let's not forget Google bombs. In 2003, a group of web activists made a concerted effort to cause searches for the phrase "miserable failure" to be linked with the website for US president George W. Bush. In 2004, the Democratic candidate for president, Sen. John Kerry, found his name linked with the search term "waffles." While its doubtful the these Internet pranks had much effect the polls, the story about these political Google bombs exploded across the mainstream press (no pun intended), perhaps proving just how influential Google could be in American politics.
Conclusion

Lobbying and PACs are the more traditional road for corporations to influence American politics. Google's latest approach leverages social technologies (the backbone of web 2.0?) to bypass Washington completely. By creating platforms for candidates and talking directly to the people, Google has positioned themselves as a major force in shaping American political policy (and by extension, have a far reaching global effect). At the same time, Google's political forays will likely strengthen their brand -- not just by helping them get what they want politically, but also by associating their name with yet another staple of American life: the democratic process. (And Google isn't just talking about American politics... their blog has a post on the recent French presidential elections, for example.)

What do you think of Google's influence on politics? Is this a good thing? What is the answer to the question posed by the San Jose Mercury News: can Google "balance its professed civic aims with corporate profits?" Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
http://tinyurl.com/36lwxc

Bush Met With Jewish Leaders

Bush Met With Jewish Leaders
Thursday Session Was Unannounced

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 17, 2007; A17

CRAWFORD, Tex., June 16 -- As he prepared for a visit this week from Israel's prime minister, President Bush held an unannounced meeting with the top leadership of the United States' Jewish community to discuss the dramatic events in the Middle East and other foreign policy issues.

Bush meets with smaller groups of Jewish leaders from time to time, but the gathering Thursday was the first time he had met with the entire leadership community, about 50 heads of Jewish advocacy, service and religious organizations of different political orientations.

The White House did not disclose the private session on the president's schedule, and officials asked participants to treat Bush's remarks as off the record. Present for the session were the president's most senior aides, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and political adviser Karl Rove.

Several people present provided a general outline of the session, which included Bush giving an opening statement for 10 to 15 minutes and answering questions for more than an hour. The conversation touched largely on foreign policy issues, including the situation with Iran and Syria, the fight against Islamic extremists and -- especially -- the situation in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas's seizure of power this past week has further complicated Bush's faltering efforts to help settle the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

"He has not resigned himself to saying that he gives up," said Malcolm I. Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which set up the Bush meeting. "He's wrestling with it."

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been something of a back-burner issue for Bush in the past year, despite his promise to help create a new Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. But the events of the past week are forcing the issue back on to the White House agenda, and Bush is slated to sit down with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a long-scheduled meeting in Washington on Tuesday.

Bush offered few clues to the Jewish leaders about how he plans to handle the upcoming visit, other than to praise Olmert as a strategic thinker and to say how much he respects him.

The president has not been hesitant about trying to help the beleaguered Israeli prime minister, who is perhaps even less popular at home than Bush is here. The president called Olmert in late April, something of a show of support at a time when Olmert was being harshly criticized for his decisions during last summer's war in Lebanon.

The White House appears to be grappling with how to deal with the stunning developments of the past several days, which saw Gaza being taken over by Hamas, a group dedicated to Israel's destruction, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dismissing the coalition government.

On Saturday, in apparent reprisal for Hamas's military sweep in Gaza, Fatah gunmen stormed the municipal building in the largest city in the West Bank. Men from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's armed wing, raised the party flag over the city hall in Nablus and ordered the Hamas-controlled city council and its supporters to leave.

With Abbas set to form a new government without Hamas, some Middle East analysts see an opportunity for the United States to reengage on the issue. And they expect Bush to press Olmert to release the long-held tax revenue the Israelis have been keeping from the Palestinian Authority because of the presence of Hamas in the government.

The U.S. consul general in Jerusalem met with Abbas on Saturday and indicated that an international embargo on funds for the Palestinian Authority will be lifted once a new government is sworn in.

"This administration has been trying to figure out a way into this issue. The developments in Gaza have been a real opportunity for the administration to engage in a proactive way," said Larry Garber, the executive director of the New Israel Fund who formerly directed U.S. aid efforts in the Palestinian territories.

But Garber and other analysts noted the roadblocks confronting Bush, Olmert and Abbas, particularly the continuing power of Hamas to shape events on the ground. "I don't think the U.S. strategy to strengthen President Abbas even stands a chance of success," said Haim Malka, a Middle East specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
http://tinyurl.com/2mg24s

Bush's Sorry, "Skull and Bones" Legacy of Torture and Psycho-sexual Perversity

Bush's Sorry, "Skull and Bones" Legacy of Torture and Psycho-sexual Perversity
Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
Article nr. 33769 sent on 18-jun-2007 03:44 ECT

A general who investigated US troops sexually humiliating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison says Rumsfeld and other Pentagon honchos lied. Imagine that! Of course, they lied! When have they ever told the truth?

US defense chiefs denied knowledge of Abu Ghraib abuse
NEW YORK (AFP) - A general who investigated US troops sexually humiliating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison said in a report out Saturday that top Pentagon officials denied knowledge of lurid photographs of the acts.

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Army Major General Antonio Taguba said he met with then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials and described to them some of the contents of a report he had prepared on the notorious prison.

But Rumsfeld testified before Congress the following day that he had no idea of the extent of the abuse, Taguba told the New Yorker magazine in an interview.

"He's trying to acquit himself and a lot of people who are lying to protect themselves," the magazine quoted him as saying, referring to Rumsfeld's May 7, 2004 testimony.

The photographs taken by US jailers humiliating prisoners who were naked or hooded, on leashes or piled in a pyramid, rocked the world, becoming one of the few things President George W. Bush has said he regretted about the war".

It is an indication of his guilt that when Bush says "we don't torture" he has tried to make it legal after the fact. Nevermind the logical contradictions, Bush does not do nuance. The US has carried out a program of official torture at Abu Ghraib, GITMO, and throughout the "secret" Eastern European archipelago.

Every single underpinning of law that restrains the conduct of the government in dealing with detainees, they are destroying. And what are they leaving in its place? Chaos. They're looking for a way to justify torture.

-Scott Horton, a New York City bar association expert

It has never made sense to commit war crimes under the cover of "truth, justice and the American way". Under Bush, the American way, the American ideal no longer exists. Bush, his "bone" head buddies and his gang of NEOCONS are subversive, actively seeking even now to undermine the US Constitution. Many of their efforts have been illegal. The US has at least one honest journalist --Seymour Hersh --who states bluntly: "We have been taken over by a cult!"

The "President"himself is a liar, a fraud, a pervert, and a mass murderer. There is about this President a perverse and immoral stench.

It's hard to tell just how long Bush has been holding himself and his henchmen above the law. Most of those efforts involve this vast program of torture. In the year 2004, the Bush gang were at work trying to convince the nation's highest court that Bush was above the law, specifically, he could not be prosecuted for war crimes. As all other American Presidents have been so constrained, I could never figure out why Bush would want to be absolved by a law sponsored by Tom DeLay in the House of Representative. If he had not been planning to break existing laws, why would he seek absolution before the fact? Clearly --George W. Bush had planned in advance to commit war crimes and other atrocities. In other cases, Bush sought absolution ex post facto. His public denials, meanwhile, are bald-faced lies and for those alone he should be impeached and removed. Innocent folk don't have to issue decrees absolving themselves of crimes.

At the SCOTUS hearing, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg mused:

Suppose the executive says, 'Mild torture we think will help get this information.' ... Some systems do that to get information."

The answer from government lawyer, Paul Clement, was a disingenuous eye opener. Declaring that Bush would not torture, he insisted that the US would stand by its international commitments. In other words, "we" will not torture but we sure would like to have the right to do so. It had been over a year that Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers crafted, nay, conspired to get around the law, international prohibitions against torture. They have conspired with Bush to put Bush above the law.

Section 2441. War crimes

(a) Offense. - Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

- US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441

It was most certainly all Bush's idea to begin with. Sycophantic simps and other bureaucratic kiss-ups have been scrambling since to keep Bush's sorry ass off death row for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

Consider the chilling implications of this smirking statement to the Congress from his State of the Union Address of 2003.

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way -- they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies. (Applause.)

--George W. Bush, President Delivers "State of the Union", 2003

Was Bush referring to his campaign of torture at Abu Ghraib, GITMO, Eastern Europe? Or was he referring to his having sanctioned murder? Or both? Since that speech, Bush has sought ways to cover his ass, to make legal crimes he's already committed.

There are indications however that if the case should ever make it to the high court, Bush will lose and badly:

Although the abuses at Abu Ghraib have not come before the Supreme Court and might never come before it, [Justice] Stevens was hinting that he and his fellow justices should not be — and weren’t — ignorant of the events at the now-infamous prison.

The government has argued that Padilla is an al Qaeda soldier. In his June 9, 2002, statement justifying Padilla’s detention, Bush said he "represents a continuing, present and grave danger to the national security of the United States," such that his military detention "is necessary to prevent him from aiding al Qaeda in its efforts to attack the United States." A soldier or a subversive?

But Stevens took a quite different view: He used the term "subversive" to describe Padilla, almost implying he is akin to a political dissident or revolutionary.

Long-term detention of American citizens such as Padilla, Stevens said, cannot be justified "by the naked interest in using unlawful procedures to extract information. Incommunicado detention for months on end is such a procedure. Whether the information so procured is more or less reliable than that acquired by more extreme forms of torture is of no consequence."

Is Stevens correct in calling Padilla’s two years of being held in the Charleston, S.C., Navy brig a form of torture?

--Rulings hint at Abu Ghraib. Possibility of torture seems to weigh on some justices, Tom Curry -National affairs writer, MSNBC

Bush’s war on terrorism is a crime against the people of Afghanistan and Iraq and a hoax upon the people of the United States. Because of Bush’s war on terrorism, America, a net debtor nation thanks to Ronald Reagan and the GOP, has, at last, found some exports: brutality, perversity and torture.

If there is any good news to be found in this slimy residue it is this: a revolt against Bush may be brewing inside the CIA. Many are said to live in fear of indictments and subpoenas. What’s called "Wehrmacht group" have leaked sordid details about how the Bush administration conducted torture and perversion at Abu Ghraib and how Bush deliberately tried to skirt US and international laws with a program of "rendition", that is, flying victims to other countries for the purpose of skirting the law and fooling the US and international public.

Racking someone is bad enough but torture American-style seems especially abhorrent and sexually perverse. In US torture will be found Satanism, and various degrees of psycho-sexual morbidness that defies description and digestion. For example, Seymour Hersh says that the US has video tapes of children being raped, sodomized and tortured at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."

Seymour Hersh: Children Raped at Abu Ghraib

Reprehensible images to be found among unreleased photographs include images of rape, torture, mutilated animals, circles of candles, swastikas, and sexual activity among the torturers themselves, often in front of the detainees.

There’s much, much more. From Salon's exclusive:

"A review of all the computer media submitted to this office revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts."

It’s hard to believe that the entire torture program is anything other than an excuse by perverts to indulge in psycho-sexual and/or satanic rituals that might be more at home inside the walls of the Skull and Bones or the Nazi SS than in a legitimate program to elicit useful information in a "war on terrorism". In fact, the "war on terrorism" itself is premised upon lies and propaganda, nothing but an excuse to indulge satanic perversity not seen since the Holocaust. As one blogger put it: "…it's right out of a dark occultist's playbook." Indeed, it is.

Who but a Bonesman could be its chief architect? Who but the man who set records for executions in Texas could create its policies? Who but the man who ridiculed death row inmates would defend the perverted rationale of torture? Who but someone who got his jollies blowing up horned toads in West Texas could defend it, encourage it, and, at the same time, deny it and cover it up?

This program of torture creates terrorism where none had existed before. The US campaign of terrorism is sure to inspire another generation of terrorists. Yet, the Bush administration’s defense and active cover up of these atrocities bespeaks its complicity in heinous crimes against humanity. The only rational explanation is this: Bush needs new enemies to justify a permanent occupation.

Meanwhile, a report on US interrogation tactics entitled "Human Rights Standards Applicable to the United States' Interrogation of Detainees," challenges the various rationalizations cited inexplicably in defense of an act that had been denied by Bushies. Why defend an act that had not occurred? Scott Horton, a human rights activist has since cited various "torture memoranda" to disprove Rumsfeld's position that Abu Ghraib was but the work of a few "bad apples". The reports by Seymour Hersh are consistent with Horton’s work; they tend to support the conclusion that Abu Ghraib is but one "island" in the American gulag archipelago. Torture is Bush’s policy and it will be his sorry legacy, a cancer on the American body politic, an indictment of the national morality, a final chapter in what Theodore Dreiser called "Tragic America".

When it all comes crashing down, Bush will defy the Supreme Court of the United States in a critical case, a divisive case brought about by the reckless and incompetent leadership of brinkmanship played out with innocent American and Iraqi lives.

It is the duty of those Americans, true patriots still loyal to the Constitution, to make sure Bush loses and loses decisively.

The future of the US absolutely depends upon the utter and ignominious defeat of this subversive, perverted cultist, this sociopath for whom nothing we hold dear is sacred.

This is a dangerous game on which Bush is willing to wager the farm that his weak-kneed opposition will buckle! A recent Democratic concession on war funding is not a good omen.

The stakes are too high and when the Constitution itself is at statke, there is no center to triangulate. Bush likes absolutes. Here is one he most certainly understands: if Bush wins, the people of the US lose. America will no longer have the legal recourse of removal; impeachment will be a dead issue. If impeached, Bush will not go willingly into that goodnight. There will be no jaunty salutes from a helicopter. There will be no teary farewells. I don't like to think about the worst case scenario except to say that Bush must, for the sake of legitimate government and the Constitution, lose!

Having subverted every protection afforded the people by our founders, Bush and company will have left us no choice but slavery under a dictatorship or a popular uprising and revolution. It's his modus operandi.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

—Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Nixon was called an "imperial President". Interestingly, the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were concerned with his obstruction of justice in connection with the Watergate Scandal, and various abuses of agencies to include the CIA and the IRS. Bush makes Nixon look like a boy scout.

When the final us v them showdown occurs, I wonder: will the Congress support the restoration of the US Constitution, American Democracy, Due Process of Law?
http://tinyurl.com/3ydyuq

Freemasons decry secrecy 'myths'

Freemasons decry secrecy 'myths'
Society's leaders discuss future of fraternal order in post-communist era
By Lisa Nuch Venbrux
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 13th, 2007

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Shot at 1969-12-31

From beneath the sloping roof of an ornate building in Old Town, a single eye watches Karmelitská street. Framed by a triangle on the building’s facade, the carving’s stony gaze reveals no secrets.
Yet its very presence speaks to a past forgotten by many. This symbol of an eye in a triangle adorns a building used as an 18th-century meeting place for freemasons.
Woven into the fabric of this ancient city is a Masonic history that’s still being made.
Freemasonry is defined by the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), the world administrative center of regular Freemasonry, as a “society of men concerned with moral and spiritual values,” one of the oldest fraternal orders taught precepts through “ritual dramas.”
Recently, Masonic leaders from across Europe gathered in Prague to discuss the future of Freemasonry in Central and Eastern Europe.
“It was a very important event for Prague,” says the country’s new grand master, Hynek Beran, who was initiated into the elected post the same April weekend.
Indeed, to a layperson, the European Masonic Forum’s attendance of leaders from 24 masonic “obediences,” including 14 grand masters across Europe, seems momentous. In fact, European Masonic leaders have been meeting annually since the late 1990s, John Hamill, director of communications for the UGLE, told The Prague Post.
The meetings began in 1999, when the grand masters of Germany and Austria met in Romania to discuss the new lodges of Eastern Europe, according to Hamill. Grand masters, elected annually by ballot, head Grand Lodges, of which there is usually one in a given country.
Meeting in a different place every year since, Hamill says the gatherings have “greatly helped” the Grand Lodges of Eastern Europe. “Many of the East European and Balkan Grand Lodges are small and have little money, and one of the topics discussed is how they can adapt themselves to present circumstances.”
With an unbroken tradition dating back to 1923, Czech Freemasonry is among the most well-developed in post-communist Europe. Still, with 10 lodges nationwide, “regular” freemasons number just 360, compared to several thousand in neighboring Austria, Beran says. (“Irregular” Masonic bodies, which operate outside the “regular” tradition originating in the British Isles, claim fewer than 200 adherents here.)
Now, as the organization quietly gains members and momentum, its members are seeking ways to help Freemasonry grow, and show nonmembers that world domination and eating children are not part of its repertoire.

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Shot at 1969-12-31

Opening doors
Grand Master Beran, a lively 45-year-old energy consultant from Prague, makes no attempts to shield his voice from other diners in a busy New Town café. He speaks enthusiastically about his hopes for Czech Freemasonry, revived in 1990 after more than 40 years of dormancy under communist rule.
“We do not want to be secret,” Beran says plainly. “We have a philosophy that should be offered to normal people.”
Though Beran, who was one of the first initiates into the newly reconstituted Czech lodges, would like to see Freemasonry develop here, this does not necessarily mean rapid growth in membership. Rather, he seeks to “build a positive image,” and to attract those interested in “real Freemasonry.”
This involves following three great principles — brotherly love, relief (or charity) and truth — articulated by the Grand Lodge of England after its founding nearly 290 years ago, June 24, 1717. (The origins of Freemasonry, though not specifically known, may date to the Knights Templar centuries before.)
Tolerance and equality are also part of the Freemason creed, according to Armand Muno, treasurer of the Czech Grand Lodge and recently installed worshipful master (or director) of the English-speaking Hiram Lodge in Prague.
“We’re not looking for the elites,” nor for anyone of a particular religion or ethnicity, says Muno, 47. Regular Freemasonry requires a belief in a supreme being, but not necessarily one from the Christian tradition, as well as a commitment to keep religion and politics out of the lodges. Consequently, Czech membership lists include people from several continents as well as from minority groups in the Czech Republic.
They also span the spectrum of religious belief, given some qualifications. “There are Buddhists, Hindus … scientists who don’t believe in any god but nature,” Beran says. According to Muno, religion disqualifies a candidate only when beliefs clash with the principles of masonry, as is the case with Muslims who follow Sharia law. “Muslims who do not abide by Sharia are welcome.”
Closed history
Friendly professionals in pressed slacks contradict popular images of Masons as cannibalistic conspirators. Negative associations and suspicion, however, constitute a natural reaction to something little understood, says widely published Masonic scholar Robert Gilbert. “People are afraid of something they don’t understand,” he says. Still, Freemasonry “has to retain some mystique, or it has no appeal for people.”
This mystique is nowhere stronger than in places where totalitarian regimes have squashed organizations such as the Freemasons. Though Czech Freemasonry swung in and out of royal favor after its birth in Bohemia in the late 1730s, 20th-century regimes dealt dire blows to the order.
“Because Freemasonry embraces such principles as equality, fraternity and freedom of thought, it is not liked by dictators, of the right or left,” the UGLE’s Hamill explains.
During World War II, Freemasons were rounded up through membership lists and sent to concentration camps. Incriminating records from that time, Beran says, were burned by Masons themselves. Some Czechoslovak Freemasons managed to escape to France and finally England, where they set up an independent lodge in exile. “Comenius in exile is the only occasion in which England has recognized a Grand Lodge or lodge in exile,” Hamill says.
The communists adopted a different control strategy.
Čestmír Bárta became a Mason in December 1949, not long after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. His father, who was a Freemason, had been sent to Auschwitz. When the communist regime instituted a policy requiring government agents to attend lodge meetings, the Grand Lodge chose to go into dormancy rather than submit.
“It was obvious that there was no way of preventing infiltration, wiretapping and abuse of the information obtained by these means,” Bárta says. “Not even initiations were taking place during that period.”
Bárta was one of 28 Czech Freemasons who, through clandestine informal meetings, maintained contact with each other to eventually re-establish Freemasonry after the fall of the Iron Curtain. He later served seven years as grand master of the Czech Grand Lodge.
“Civil society had to … re-create itself again,” he says, noting the sense of importance surrounding the re-establishment of the order. “Czech Freemasons knew that creation of a normal democratic society was a question of at least one generation, and that the attitudes of Freemasons had great potential to support the process of humanization of the newly germinating civil society.”
Such lofty aims may be gaining appeal in lands now embracing democratic ideals, but Bárta admits there may be a long way to go. “People now usually don’t know what this is about, and they are not interested in it.”
Beran, meanwhile, takes a more optimistic view toward finding those drawn to this philosophy amid the chaos of modern life. “In globalization, everybody is looking for his history.”
— Naďa Černá and Hela Balínová contributed to this report.
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