"A Farewell Address" to George W. Bush

by Norman Markowitz

I thought I would say a very long overdue Goodbye, although we will be living with the consequences of your administration for a long time. I saw your "farewell address" and you ended I thought as you began-- something of a befuddled fool.

At least you didn't have to resign to keep from being impeached and going to jail like Nixon, even though most historians believe you are now well ahead of him on the shortlist of worst presidents.You seemed to know that you weren't too popular anymore, but you didn't care much. You talked about making "tough decisions" and about spreading freedom and democracy with a confused look on your face.

But I don't think you ever made a tough decision of any kind. In fact I don't think you made too many decisions of any kind. Cheney, Rummy, and the gang hung around you, fed you false information which you didn't pay much attention to anyway, worked up policies that fit in with your prejudices, and then took off with your blessings. Let's look at some of your moves.

First you stole or had your handlers steal the election of 2000 in a way that no one except Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 ever stole an election and, even with his betrayal of Reconstruction, you clearly surpassed him on the list of very bad presidents.Even though you lost the popular vote and with the help of a five Republican Supreme Court Justices stole the electoral vote, you acted as if you had a mandate, pushing from the beginning for an aggressive militarist foreign policy and a revival of the worst of Reagan's pro corporate anti working class domestic policies. From the beginning, your administration was run by people who regarded your father as too far to the left (a point that historians with a psychoanalytic orientation will probably explore in the future). But you weren't getting too far until the 9/11 attacks which gave you the opportunity to fan the flames of fear to get from a pliant Congress pretty much what you wanted.

Here there were opportunities that other presidents, a Republican like Eisenhower for example , would have grasped. The chance to rally the international community against Al Qaeda and international terrorism at a time when sympathy for the U.S. as a nation was very great. A time to strengthen alliances and the U.S. world position. But you didn't really have a clue. Instead you pushed through the Patriot Act to strike at generations of civil liberties protections; created a new agency, "Homeland Security," which began to overlap with existing agencies and waste billions in political pork barrel projects to Republican districts in places like Idaho and Tennessee, prime Al Qaeda targets.

I mentioned Eisenhower, who is not one of my favorite presidents, but was a smart military man. He would have realized that "terrorist groups" are largely a police matter, not a military one, and that the use of conventional military options like invading countries makes little sense against terrorist groups and is the last, not the first resort, in all cases Although he played golf with big businessmen and defended their interests, I can't see him giving bin Laden's relatives safe passage out of the U.S. without seriously interrogating them while poor Muslim Americans were being arrested and held without warrants for attending the wrong Mosque at the wrong time. I can't see him rewarding the Saudi feudal monarchy and the Pakistani military dictatorship while he wrapped himself in the flag and declared a war against terrorism. He certainly supported these regimes duriing his administration, both to defend the U.S. Aramco oil interests and to fight left and neutralist forces in India and the Middle East. But he would have looked at their involvement in the events of 9/11 and taken actions to disengage the U.S. from them, while calming the American people by explaining to them that when terrorists make their targets afraid and hysterical, they score a major victory. You did the opposite, in so far as you understood or understand what you were doing.

Eisenhower had a mixed record to say the least on foreign policy questions from my perspective but he ended his administration as a fiscal conservative opposing increased military spending and in his farewell address warned the nation of the existing of a "Military Industrial Complex," an decision more important, as I see it, than any that he took as president. Although you probably could not define the Military Industrial Complex in an identification test in a U.S. History class, you gave it more money than any president in U.S. history after the 9/11 attacks. And then you outdid your political role model, Ronald Reagan, in launching a "perfect war" for the military industrial complex, the transnational oil companies, the new "private contractors" who sell overpriced everything to the military and even provide expensive private security forces in war zones.

You invaded Iraq, which you accused of being allied to Al Qaeda, even though all rational analysts new that its secular dictatorship was a fierce enemy of Al Queda. You then developed a propaganda term, "weapons of mass destruction," chemical, meteorological and nuclear(but not all sorts of "conventional bombs and artillery weapons with napalm and other things) and invented "evidence" that Iraq had such weapons, even through many years of UN inspection showed that was not verifiable and, in the first Gulf War, when they had chemical weapons, they had not used them against the coalition forces for fear of retaliation. Then you threw in some rhetoric about advancing Democracy and launched the invasion with British but no other support, against a nation which had half the military capacity that it had in the first Gulf War, easily won the invasion part, and announced somewhat prematurely, "mission accomplished."

But wait a minute. Then came the occupation, the most disastrous ever carried out anywhere by the U.S., unless you were a war profiteer. First, your administration made sure to protect the oil, but for some reason forgot to secure the arms arsenals, which were looted along with the historical treasures of millenia(the latter didn't matter much to you, but the former would provide large quantities of weapons to insurgents).

Then you demobilized the Iraqi army, but really did little to provide jobs for the former soldiers (after all, you don't believe in any welfare state) In the name of "freedom" and "democracy" you fumbled around looking for political servants among the locals while you treated the whole country the way 19th century U.S, governments treated Indian Reservations--as territories to make quick profits from settlers and businesses allied to corrupt "Indian agents" while the natives looked on in in sullen anger. Instead of settlers and Indian agents, you had tens of thousands of foreigner making high wages while Iraqis were unemployed, companies like Halliburton and Blackwater, making super profits by selling respectively consumer products to the military and private security forces for both U.S. civilian contractors and the U.S. government. But a country is a lot bigger than a reservation. You couldn't easily keep the Iraqis who opposed your policies pacified and "on the reservation." Your Iraqi servants often joined your corporate friends in stealing billions of U.S. taxpayer funds as thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed and wounded in the ensuing carnage. You could send in a modern cavalry in the form of the "surge" to dampen things down for publicity purposes But a country is still not a reservation and you had made legions of enemies rather
than friends and when the U.S. eventually leaves your enemies, now our enemies, will be stronger, especially the Iranians, who now have the allegiance of many of your former servants.

You probably don't understand any of that George, and wouldn't care if you did Since it is getting late, let me list a few more of your accomplishments. You were the first president to fight a war and cut taxes, excluding Ronald Reagan's Grenada phony war. While you didn't beat Reagan in increasing the deficit in percentage terms, you went a few trillion ahead of him in dollars not adjusted for inflation. The more than ten trillion deficit you rolled up before the present economic crisis will be a big part of your legacy. In your Farewell Address, you might have read out yours and your business associates credit card numbers to the general population to offer than some solace.

And then you brought religion into government in a way that no one, not even Reagan ever had. You intimidated scientists in your administration who supported stem cell research (something that not even many rightwing Republicans who want to extend their lives would do). You treated the science of global warming with even more disrespect than you did Darwinian evolution. You funded "faith-based" organizations as a dime store substitute for serious social policies. With all your self-praise about fighting the war against terrorism, your administration showed itself for what it really was when Hurricane Katrina struck. A policy of benign neglect in flood control beforethe disaster was then augmented by a FEMA administration led by an inexperienced incompetent, with FEMA itself an important agency buried under the PR and pork barrel Homeland Security Agency, an agency more interested in its image than in policy. What followed was tens of thousands of New Orleans people living through horror without the serious help of their own government, forced to become internal refugees as New Orleans, one of the greatest cities of the U.S., experienced a kind of underwater gentrification.

As for small things like the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention stipulating government policies in wartime, your administration practiced and defended torture against proscribed people and used warrantless searches and seizures and preventive detention against U.S. citizens who were caught in the dragnets of the "war against terrorism"
for reasons often unknown to both them and their captors. It seemed like your administration never heard of habeas corpus, but then again you were always an English only man with no interest in Latin.

I could go on George but why do it. During your administration a series of popular novels from a fundamentalist Christian perspective saw the righteous being raptured up to heaven and the secular faithless being "left behind"(the name of the series)to deal with the disasters the world faced because of sin and evil. Your administration put the overwhelming majority of Americans in that "left behind" category, even substantial numbers of people who voted for you and went along with your policies until the present economic crisis scared a lot of them sane.

Farewell George. You have already cost me a great deal of money from my pension fund (along with tens of millions of Americans) and probably postponed mine and their retirement for years as you retire from the presidency. Any thing is possible, but I really doubt we will see a "revisionist school" of history seeking to rehabilitate your administration in the future, not on this planet anyway.

P.S. I revise my previous judgment in a PA article in 2007, contending that you were the second worst president in U.S. history, behind James Buchanan, but still had time to catch up. With the Autumn 2008 economic crisis, you did catch up and are now in my opinion the worst president in U.S. history.

The Weather Makers (4)

THE WEATHER MAKERS: HOW MAN IS CHANGING THE CLIMATE AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR LIFE ON EARTH by Tim Flannery

Reviewed by Thomas Riggins

Part 4

The most dramatic first results of global warming are to be seen at the poles. More specifically at the edges of the Arctic and Antarctic regions were most life is found. In southern Alaska, Flannery reports that since the 1970s the winters have become 4 to 5 degrees F warmer. This can result in more than the dramatic pictures of retreating glaciers that we see.

There is small insect named "the spruce bark beetle." The temperature increase has allowed more of its eggs to hatch and its grubs to mature and they are spreading and have now "killed some 40 million trees in southern Alaska, more than any other insect in North America's recorded history."

The Arctic proper is already treeless as it is a vast tundra. On this vast tundra lives DICROSTONYX HUDSONIUS. A tough little rodent better known as the lemming. It makes a meager living, but the tundra is its home. The tundra is also the nesting place of hundreds of millions of migrating birds.

Flannery says the ARCTIC CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENT (2004, published jointly by the countries bordering the region) reports the higher temperatures are likely to result in a loss of 50% of bird nesting areas due to the destruction of the tundra by the invasion of forests that can now spread to the region. As for the lemming: "the species will be extinct before the end of this century."

The lives of the Inuit (Alaska, Canada, Greenland) and of the Saami people of Finland [Laplanders] will also be affected. They depend on caribou (reindeer) as part of their domestic economy. As the temperature rises it appears that "the Arctic will no longer be a suitable habitat for caribou."

We already know the polar bear is facing extinction. But so are the many other species that depend on the bear. The bear kills a seal for food but leaves a mess behind. That mess feeds the arctic fox, several species of gull and the raven, among others. Bears are not getting enough food to build up their fat supplies for hibernation. This is because less sea ice means less opportunity to find and catch a seal. Nevertheless they hibernate and simply die instead of waking up. The loss of the polar bear "may mark the beginning of the collapse of the entire Arctic ecosystem." And what is true for the polar bear is also true for the walrus and the narwhal.

After the poles, other areas of the world that show damage from greenhouse gases are ocean reefs. The reefs are actually getting a double whammy-- climate change and ocean pollution. Flannery quotes Alfred Russel Wallace (1857) on the coral reef he saw while sailing into Ambon Habour, Indonesia. He saw one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen-- a great coral reef covered with life: a forest of animals: "It was a sight to gaze at for hours, and no description can do justice to its surpassing beauty and interest."

Flannery went there in the 1990s but saw no beautiful forest of animals or beautiful corals. "Instead , the opaque water stank and was thick with effluent and garbage. As I neared the town , it got worse, until I was greeted with rafts of feces, plastic bags, and the intestines of butchered goats." So much for the wonders of nature.

Climate change is raising the temperature of the oceans. Coral is sensitive to warmer H2O and after a few months, if the temperature does not go down, the coral dies and we have a "bleached" reef-- a big dead spot. Prior to the 1930s bleaching was little known, and was so up to the 1970s when it began to be more noticeable. After 1998 a global coral dying was "triggered."

Lets just look at the Great Barrier Reef as example. In 1998 42% of it bleached. It recovered a bit but 18% was dead for good. In 2002 60% of the reef was affected by bleaching. A study the next year showed on 50% of the reef living coral had been reduced to 10%. A big loss!. The reef is being killed by "spiraling CO2 emissions."

Flannery points out that per capita Australia emits more CO2 than any other country. The government says it wants to save the reef-- one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. However, in 2004 its new energy policy "enshrined coal at the center of the nation's energy generation system." [Coal powered plants are the global enemy of life on Earth].

Note this was in 2004. Meanwhile back in 2002 global scientists had warned in the magazine Science that "projected increases in CO2 and temperatures over the next fifty years exceed the conditions under which coral reefs have flourished over the past half-million years." So we are posed to wipe out in 50 years what it took nature 500,000 years to produce. Hello! Meanwhile we will see zillions of ads on TV from American coal companies about "clean coal" and how we can become energy independent with coal fired power plants. The coal industry is just like the cigarette industry. They know they are killing us but will testify that their product is harmless, etc. All capitalists act this way.

More good news coming up.

Film Review: Revolutionary Road; Winslet and DiCaprio

Film Review: Revolutionary Road
Winslet and DiCaprio Under Mendes

by Eric Green

I haven't read Richard Yates book, but I would be surprised, had he lived to see this British film version, that he would have been profoundly disappointed. Why? Well you have the great British actress, Kate Winslet, playing the major female role, April Wheeler. And, I guess, for Hollywood sake, Leonardo DiCaprio plays her husband, John. The accomplished US actor, Kathy Bates was casted to play a key-supporting role. She is usually a very strong character role. And, the story line is a popular one.

All the right roles were put forward. The newly married, then unhappy couple at the start of the beginning of the US living style supremacy. The film was set in the early 1950s. This was the image of the "streets being lined with gold" in the past WWII period. Big car, a Buick Roadmaster, and a large split level home. Two young kids, who, for some reason disappear for most of the film. Clean, suburban living with white-collar jobs. DiCaprio is the angry dissatisfied corporate link in the chain of producing nothing important. And, Winslet is the unhappy, dissatisfied wife. Yes, all the ingredients that we saw in the Ice Palace 11 years ago.

But, what Ang Lee was able to put together in the Ice Palace, in 1997, and drawing major awards; Sam Mendes, in this film, failed miserably. But, its not that Mendes can't handle the film version of angst and alienation in the US white, middle strata population. His American Beauty, in 1997, with Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening more than accomplished that mission.

But, Hollywood was demanding a repeat performance between DiCaprio and Winslet that they had in the Titanic in 1997. What may have worked then, as two young, energetic interesting characters didn't at all click in this suburban film. It is hard to discern if the problem was that Mendes directed them to be distant and lacking in any real loving way; and, went too far. Or, that these older versions of the same two actors just didn't click.

And, it wasn't, I think, because of the topic. It was also in the dialogue. At some points the interchange between the two seemed more like just reading lines, monologues, than a cold, dispassionate attacks. Justin Haythe was the screenwriter.

Another point is that there was a totally unnecessary focus on the angst of the male actor, DiCaprio, and not the similar anguish of the female role, Winslet. This became ridiculously apparent with the final scenes where Winslet was clearly going through difficult life experiences and all you see as DiCaprio's problems in dealing with the events. This over focus on DiCaprio, I guess, was supposed to show his acting abilities and move him toward an Oscar; it did the opposite. His overacting and bursts of anger were never believable.

Mendes, and I assume Yates, used a mentally ill patient to point out the unstated, but deeply felt troubles that the Wheelers were facing. Michael Shannon played the role of John Givings. He was good, but under better direction, he could have been far more effective.

The dragging out of the end of the film was totally unnecessary. The last two scenes were again, unnecessary.

The final disappointment of this film was its music score. The saccharine themes were relentless replayed to a point I was looking for the "mute" button.

How did this film gain Golden Globe Awards is beyond me. Hollywood seems to get more of what it wants in the GG Awards than, let's hope, the Oscars.

And, to even compare Winslet as Hanna Schmitz and then as April Wheeler is more than apples and oranges. In this film Winslet was totally wasted; while in The Reader she was at the top of her game.

A Note: For those of us following the discussion of abortions in the film industry, this film did not contribute to an even discussion. While the option was utilized, the end result could make those opposed happy. But, on the other had, had abortion been legal, with medical help, then, a better outcome could have taken place. But, that was left to the viewers to determine.

Obama Reaffirms Promise to Renegotiate NAFTA

By Laura Carlsen

The courtesy call between President-elect Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon turned out to be a little more revealing than anticipated. The statement from incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a pretty clear, if vague, picture of where Obama plans to take the bilateral relationship. On renegotiating NAFTA, he stood his ground as Calderon lobbied heavily not to re-open the North American Free Trade Agreement.

From ZNet; read the whole story...

Looks like phosphorous, smells like phosphorous...

Why We Have to Look Back

Why We Have to Look Back
Washington Post
By John Conyers Jr.
Friday, January 16, 2009; A19

This week, I released "Reining in the Imperial Presidency," a 486-page report detailing the abuses and excesses of the Bush administration and recommending steps to address them. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. popularized the term "imperial presidency" in the 1970s to describe an executive who had assumed more power than the Constitution allows and circumvented the checks and balances fundamental to our three-branch system of government. Until recently, the Nixon administration seemed to represent a singular embodiment of the idea. Unfortunately, it is clear that the threat of the imperial presidency lives on and, indeed, reached new heights under George W. Bush.

As this report documents, there was the administration's contrived drive to a needless war of aggression with Iraq, based on manipulated intelligence and facts that were "fixed around the policy." There was its politicization of the Justice Department; unconscionable and possibly illegal policies on detention, interrogation and extraordinary rendition; warrantless wiretaps of American citizens; the ravaging of our regulatory system and the use of signing statements to override the laws of the land; and the intimidation and silencing of critics and whistle-blowers who dared to tell fellow citizens what was being done in their name. And all of this was hidden behind an unprecedented veil of secrecy and outlandish claims of privilege.

I understand that many feel we should just move on. They worry that addressing these actions by the Bush administration will divert precious energy from the serious challenges facing our nation. I understand the power of that impulse. Indeed, I want to move on as well -- there are so many things that I would rather work on than further review of Bush's presidency. But in my view it would not be responsible to start our journey forward without first knowing exactly where we are.

We cannot rebuild the appropriate balance between the branches of government without fully understanding how that relationship has been distorted. Likewise, we cannot set an appropriate baseline for future presidential conduct without documenting and correcting the presidential excesses that have just occurred. After the Nixon imperial presidency, critical reviews such as the Church and Pike committees led to fundamental reforms that have served our nation well. Comparable steps are needed to begin the process of reining in the legacy of the Bush imperial presidency. I consider these three points crucial:

First, Congress should continue to pursue its document requests and subpoenas that were stonewalled under President Bush. Doing so will make clear that no executive can forever hide its misdeeds from the public.

Second, Congress should create an independent blue-ribbon panel or similar body to investigate a host of previously unreviewable activities of the Bush administration, including its detention, interrogation and surveillance programs. Only by chronicling and confronting the past in a comprehensive, bipartisan fashion can we reclaim our moral authority and establish a credible path forward to meet the complex challenges of a post-Sept. 11 world.

Third, the new administration should conduct an independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities. Just this week, in the pages of this newspaper, a Guantanamo Bay official acknowledged that a suspect there had been "tortured" -- her exact word -- in apparent violation of the law. The law is the law, and, if criminal conduct occurred, those responsible -- particularly those who ordered and approved the violations -- must be held accountable.

Some day, there is bound to be another national security crisis in America. A future president will face the same fear and uncertainty that we did after Sept. 11, 2001, and will feel the same temptation to believe that the ends justify the means -- temptation that drew our nation over to the "dark side" under the leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. If those temptations are to be resisted -- if we are to face new threats in a manner that keeps faith with our values and strengthens rather than diminishes our authority around the world -- we must fully learn the lessons of our recent past.

The writer, a Democrat, represents Michigan's 14th District in the U.S. House and is chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

A Way Out of Gaza?

Editorial
A Way Out of Gaza?
New York Times
Published: January 15, 2009

We agree that Israel had to defend itself against Hamas’s rocket attacks. But we fear the assault on Gaza has passed the point of diminishing returns. It is time for a cease-fire with Hamas and a return to the peace negotiations that are the only real hope for guaranteeing Israel’s long-term security.

We are encouraged that a cease-fire finally seems to be gaining traction. Although not much detail is known, reports have focused on an Egyptian proposal for a phased-in truce, followed by a pullout of Israeli forces and the reopening of border crossings to ease the economic blockade of Gaza.

The sudden diplomatic activity came as Israel unleashed its heaviest shelling of Gaza neighborhoods, including a hit on a United Nations compound where hundreds of Palestinians had taken shelter.

Israeli officials acknowledge that the 20-day offensive has not permanently crippled Hamas’s military wing or ended its ability to launch rocket attacks. It is unlikely that Israel can achieve those aims militarily any time soon. The cost in human life and anti-Israeli fury would be enormous. Already more than 1,000 Palestinians have died in the densely populated Gaza Strip, where an always miserable life has become unbearable. Thirteen Israelis have died.

We also fear that the war is further weakening the palestinian [sic] president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Fatah faction — Hamas’s sworn enemy. We know Mr. Abbas’s limitations, but he believes in a two-state solution. If there is going to be a negotiated peace, he is the best hope.

As part of a cease-fire deal, Israel is right to demand a permanent halt to Hamas’s rocket fire. Israel is also right not to rely on Hamas’s promises. Hamas used the last cease-fire to restock its arsenal with weapons ferried in through tunnels dug under the Egypt-Gaza border.

The best protection would be to place monitors on the Egypt-Gaza border to stop the smuggling that is Hamas’s lifeline. The Israelis also must be ready to ease their blockade of Gaza to allow more food and normal economic activity.

The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, is expected in Washington on Friday where she will sign a hastily arranged deal to accept United States equipment and technical assistance to help monitor the Israeli-Gaza border.

American and Israeli officials say that Israel would never accept a cease-fire without that help and both are eager to heap praise on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for making it happen. But Washington could have provided that assistance years ago — just as it should have been pressing harder on every aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

President-elect Barack Obama says he will work for a peace deal from Day 1. We hope Israel picks a new leader in elections next month who is truly committed to a two-state solution. With the support of the new American president, he or she must make an early downpayment on peace by ending settlement construction, cooperating seriously with Mr. Abbas and improving the lives of all Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza.

WE MUST ADJUST OUR DISTORTED VIEW OF HAMAS

This is from the London Times

December 31, 2008
We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas
By William Sieghart


Gaza is a secular society where people listen to pop music, watch TV and many women walk the streets unveiled

Last week I was in Gaza. While I was there I met a group of 20 or so police officers who were undergoing a course in conflict management. They were eager to know whether foreigners felt safer since Hamas had taken over the Government? Indeed we did, we told them. Without doubt the past 18 months had seen a comparative calm on the streets of Gaza; no gunmen on the streets, no more kidnappings. They smiled with great pride and waved us goodbye.

Less than a week later all of these men were dead, killed by an Israeli rocket at a graduation ceremony. Were they “dangerous Hamas militant gunmen”? No, they were unarmed police officers, public servants killed not in a “militant training camp” but in the same police station in the middle of Gaza City that had been used by the British, the Israelis and Fatah during their periods of rule there.

This distinction is crucial because while the horrific scenes in Gaza and Israel play themselves out on our television screens, a war of words is being fought that is clouding our understanding of the realities on the ground.

Who or what is Hamas, the movement that Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, would like to wipe out as though it were a virus? Why did it win the Palestinian elections and why does it allow rockets to be fired into Israel? The story of Hamas over the past three years reveals how the Israeli, US and UK governments' misunderstanding of this Islamist movement has led us to the brutal and desperate situation that we are in now.

BACKGROUND
EU leaders meet to discuss Gaza violence
‘Prepare to be bombed’: the psychological war
Israel warns attack on Gaza has just begun
Enough pointless outrage about Gaza
The story begins nearly three years ago when Change and Reform - Hamas's political party - unexpectedly won the first free and fair elections in the Arab world, on a platform of ending endemic corruption and improving the almost non-existent public services in Gaza and the West Bank. Against a divided opposition this ostensibly religious party impressed the predominantly secular community to win with 42 per cent of the vote.

Palestinians did not vote for Hamas because it was dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel or because it had been responsible for waves of suicide bombings that had killed Israeli citizens. They voted for Hamas because they thought that Fatah, the party of the rejected Government, had failed them. Despite renouncing violence and recognising the state of Israel Fatah had not achieved a Palestinian state. It is crucial to know this to understand the supposed rejectionist position of Hamas. It won't recognise Israel or renounce the right to resist until it is sure of the world's commitment to a just solution to the Palestinian issue.

In the five years that I have been visiting Gaza and the West Bank, I have met hundreds of Hamas politicians and supporters. None of them has professed the goal of Islamising Palestinian society, Taleban-style. Hamas relies on secular voters too much to do that. People still listen to pop music, watch television and women still choose whether to wear the veil or not.

The political leadership of Hamas is probably the most highly qualified in the world. Boasting more than 500 PhDs in its ranks, the majority are middle-class professionals - doctors, dentists, scientists and engineers. Most of its leadership have been educated in our universities and harbour no ideological hatred towards the West. It is a grievance-based movement, dedicated to addressing the injustice done to its people. It has consistently offered a ten-year ceasefire to give breathing space to resolve a conflict that has continued for more than 60 years.

The Bush-Blair response to the Hamas victory in 2006 is the key to today's horror. Instead of accepting the democratically elected Government, they funded an attempt to remove it by force; training and arming groups of Fatah fighters to unseat Hamas militarily and impose a new, unelected government on the Palestinians. Further, 45 Hamas MPs are still being held in Israeli jails.

Six months ago the Israeli Government agreed to an Egyptian- brokered ceasefire with Hamas. In return for a ceasefire, Israel agreed to open the crossing points and allow a free flow of essential supplies in and out of Gaza. The rocket barrages ended but the crossings never fully opened, and the people of Gaza began to starve. This crippling embargo was no reward for peace.

When Westerners ask what is in the mind of Hamas leaders when they order or allow rockets to be fired at Israel they fail to understand the Palestinian position. Two months ago the Israeli Defence Forces broke the ceasefire by entering Gaza and beginning the cycle of killing again. In the Palestinian narrative each round of rocket attacks is a response to Israeli attacks. In the Israeli narrative it is the other way round.

But what does it mean when Mr Barak talks of destroying Hamas? Does it mean killing the 42 per cent of Palestinians who voted for it? Does it mean reoccupying the Gaza strip that Israel withdrew from so painfully three years ago? Or does it mean permanently separating the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, politically and geographically? And for those whose mantra is Israeli security, what sort of threat do the three quarters of a million young people growing up in Gaza with an implacable hatred of those who starve and bomb them pose?

It is said that this conflict is impossible to solve. In fact, it is very simple. The top 1,000 people who run Israel - the politicians, generals and security staff - and the top Palestinian Islamists have never met. Genuine peace will require that these two groups sit down together without preconditions. But the events of the past few days seem to have made this more unlikely than ever. That is the challenge for the new administration in Washington and for its European allies.

William Sieghart is chairman of Forward Thinking, an independent conflict resolution agency

WHY ISRAEL CAN’T [OR WON'T] MAKE PEACE WITH HAMAS

More Disinformation from the NYT

Thomas Riggins

In a New York Times op ed [“Why Israel Can’t Make Peace With Hamas," 1-14-09] Jeffery Goldberg (ex-Israeli Army prison offcial now a reporter for the Atlantic) tries to explain why it is Fatah that must bring stability to Gaza. His article is just another piece of pro Zionist propaganda which I intend to demonstrate both from the facts and the INTERNAL inconsistencies of the article itself.

In the article Goldberg interviews some of the most extreme fundamentalist military leaders of Hamas leaving us with the impression their opinions are basically those of the whole of Hamas. During the interviews a Hamas leader resents being compared, negatively it seems, to Hezbollah. [Note: Hamas is Sunni and an outgrowth of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Hezbollah is Shia and friendly to Iran]. The leader responds that “They have excellent weapons. Hezbollah moves freely in Lebanon. We are trapped in the Israeli cage.”

Another leaders says that Hamas supports Hezbollah and one of the reasons Hezbollah is more successful is that “They get all the rockets they will ever need from Iran.” The implication here is that Israel’s blockade of Gaza not only restricts the freedom of movement of Hamas but also prevents it from getting the weapons it needs. Most of its rockets are homemade.

It is important to note that Goldberg says, “Hamas is not a monolith, and opinions inside the group differ about many things, including engagement with the Shiites of Hezbollah and Iran.” Interesting especially in the light of the widespread Zionist claim that Hamas is just a puppet of Iran. Goldberg will soon ignore this caveat.

A ceasefire will surely come, and Goldberg says we must ask if Israel [and the U.S. since it is the Great Enabler of Zionism] should interact with Hamas “in a substantive and sustained manner?” Goldberg thinks not and for reasons his own article shows are not valid. First he tells about Hamas’ relation with Hezbollah. [I guess it is a given Israel doesn't want to talk to Hezbollah.] “For Hamas,” he writes, “Hezbollah is not only a source of weapons and instruction, it is a mentor and role model.” But he has just said that Hamas is NOT a monolith. As a matter of fact there are moderate elements in the leadership that don’t consider Hezbollah their “mentor.” He has also reported that Hamas leaders complain that they DON’T have the modern weapons that Hezbollah has.

Goldberg says this attitude towards Hezbollah is one reason "Hamas felt compelled to break its cease fire with Israel last month." Goldberg must think his readers are totally reliant on the American press and don't know it was Israel and NOT Hamas that broke the cease fire. That in November Israel made a military raid into Gaza and attacked Hamas forces BEFORE the resumption of widespread rocket fire, mostly ineffectual but nevertheless unjustified. Israel, in fact broke the cease fire from day one as one of its provisions was the lifting of the blockade, a provision Israel never intended to implement, and didn't. So all this talk about Hamas starting this "war" is so much baloney to misinform American public opinion.

Goldberg also says Hezbollah is "an outright Iranian proxy." This is nonsense. Hezbollah has deep roots in Lebanon and reflects a legitimate Lebanese politico-religious tendency. Having Iranian support because they have a common enemy doesn't make them a "proxy." It makes as much sense to say Iran is "an outright Hezbollah proxy." People making such claims appear not to be interested in a lasting peaceful settlement of the issues.

Goldberg also tries to show that Hamas would never agree to a meaningful ceasefire with Israel. He does so by quoting an extremist, now deceased because Israel killed him, his wives, and many of his children in a targeted assassination, who thought Israel wouldn't be around all that long. He ignores the many reports in the foreign press, and on some American TV shows (today's Democracy Now for example), that the political leadership of Hamas is pragmatic and has offered the possibility of a long term cease fire-- up to 50 (!) years with Israel [surely long enough to work out differences if you really want to.]

Basing himself only on the intemperate views of a few former Hamas leaders in the armed, not the political wing of the movement, Goldberg writes, "Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation." This is just false. It is propagated to justify the vicious inhumane attack on the people of Gaza.

Greenberg concludes that the only way forward entails that the "moderate Arab states [the American allies he means], Europe, the United States and , mainly Israel, must help Hamas's enemy, Fatah [a classic divide and rule formula for Israel], prepare the West Bank for real freedom [i.e., freedom supervised by Israel and full of settlers], and the hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas [or were until they and their children were massacred by the Zionists] see the West Bank as an alternative vision" to the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas. In other words, real freedom the way we dish it out or, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The Weather Makers (3)

THE WEATHER MAKERS: HOW MAN IS CHANGING THE CLIMATE AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR LIFE ON EARTH by Tim Flannery

Reviewed by Thomas Riggins

Part 3

For the last 8000 years the Earth's climate has been stable and Flannery says this period of time has been the most crucial in the long history of our species. It allowed us to develop agriculture and create the industrial civilization we now have. Agriculture is older than the "long summer" but it was "during this period that we acquired most of our major crops and domestic animals...."

A few hundred years ago, after the inventions of Newcomen and Watt (Newcommen engine and improved steam engine) coal was in great demand as a cheap fuel. Flannery points out that Edison, in 1882, opened the first electric light power station in New York City and it was powered by coal. Steam engines are no loner in vogue and today coal is more or less confined to the production of electric power (there is some use of it in home heating but oil is more likely here).

Oil is a major source of energy production these days, but by 1995 it began to look like we might run out of it. Cheap oil [under $40 a barrel] was becoming a thing of the past and while we were finding new oil at about the rate of 9.6 billion barrels a year we were using about 24 billion barrels.

Flannery reports that scientists estimate it takes 100 tons of ancient plant life to yield one gallon of gas. You can imagine the vast sizes of the prehistoric forests of the Carboniferous period [286-380 million years ago] which now rest under our feet in great pools of oil. Oil is ultimately nothing more than fossil sunlight, Flannery says. How much sunlight did it take to grow 100 tons plant life in the Carboniferous period. It can be calculated. Flannery gives the figures for 1997. All the oil we consumed that year took 422 years of plant life to supply. In one year we consumed what it took 422 years "of blazing light from a Carboniferous sun" to produce.

Some of our resources are renewable and some are not. The oil in the ground is not renewable. As far as renewable resources are concerned, we are already using them up at a rate of 20% more "than the planet can sustainably provide." Flannery reminds us that in 1961 there where 3 billion of us on the planet and now we number 6 billion and growing. By 1986 we were using each year 100% of what the earth could reproduce for us in a sustainable manner. In that year we "reached Earth's carrying capacity." Every year since "we have been running the environmental equivalent of a budget deficit, which is sustained only by plundering our capital base."

Look at it this way. Our economy is tanking. Well so is the Earth. President Obama might get us out of the financial crisis-- but the crisis we are putting the Earth through, by maintaining capitalism, may finish us off. The oceans are more and more polluted, the coral reefs are dying, the fisheries are on the verge of collapse, the rain forests are being cut down, the Arctic is melting, and the Japanese still want to hunt whales.

If we don't get rid of capitalism, capitalism will get rid of us. The capitalist countries, despite all the talk about doing something, have no intention of taking meaningful action. This is all due to CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Hey hey, ho, ho, oil and coal have got to go! [And natural gas too.]

There have been two important years in the last thirty that stand out as having heralded major changes due to greenhouse gases. One is 1976. Before that date the tropical Pacific often had a surface temperature that often dipped below 66.5 degrees F. Since then the temperature rarely gets below 77 degrees F. This changes wind currents in the atmosphere and the distribution of rain. One of the biggest such disturbances happened in 1998 which dried out much of Southeast Asia which lost around 25 million acres to fire (50% was of old rain forest). Flannery says 2 million additional acres were lost on Borneo alone. The climate of the world has never been the same since.

However, climate change is slower in tropical and temperate zones. It takes longer to reveal itself. At the poles, however, Flannery reveals, "climate change is occurring now at TWICE the rate seen anywhere else." This is why, by the way, we all have been reading about the plight of polar bears and penguins and have seen on TV the glaciers falling apart and crashing into the ocean. All this drama is on its way here too. Its just a matter of time. Its already hinted at by the increase in the amount and intensity of the fires on the west coast of the U.S., the flooding in the midwest, and the number of hurricanes coming our way.

More info to come

FOCUS: WAR ON GAZA

This article is reposted from Aljazeera English. Aljazeera English is basically blacked out in the U.S. although 100 countries throughout the world are receiving it freely. Mohammed Ali works for Oxfam in Gaza City and is keeping a diary on the Israeli butchering of the civilian population. Go to aljazeera.net to get more information and coverage.

Gaza diary: Are we not human?
By Mohammed Ali in Gaza City

Many Gazans feel hopeless in the face of the Israeli bombardment.
As the death toll from Israel's war on Gaza continues to climb, Mohammed Ali, an advocacy and media researcher for Oxfam who lives in Gaza City, will be keeping a diary of his feelings and experiences.
Are we not human?
The air, the sea and the earth in Gaza City are now occupied by the Israeli military. They occupy Gazans' minds, nerves and ears too.

In a bid to stop my children twitching, jerking, trembling and waking at every sound of an attack during their few hours of sleep and their many waking hours, I put cotton wool in their ears - it has not worked.

I wonder what damage is being done to my children's tiny hearts. Theirs are not as big as mine, they can cope less with the stress that is being put on them.

We ran out of fuel for our generator, which meant that we were confined to a small room filled with eleven people, with little light for three days.

We have not had water either; our well can only pump water if it has electricity which most of the Gaza Strip has been denied since this nightmare started.
Unlike many other families, we were fortunate yesterday to find 20 litres of benzene to power our generator. No fuel has come in since the onset of this attack on Gaza so we had to pay seven times its usual price.

We have one day's worth of food left and the nappies I bought two weeks ago are nearly gone. They are not good quality as little has been able to enter this strip of land since the blockade was imposed on us 18 months ago. Bad quality nappies mean unpleasant leakages, and for the last few days the little ones have had to be bathed in freezing cold water.

My sister who was with us the last time I wrote decided to return home in spite of our protests. She feared that with food reserves running out we might have to eat one meal a day rather than the two we have been having of late. At home she has a little food left, enough to keep her and her family going for a while longer.

We are now 11, huddled together in my parents' dining room. My brother and I and our families moved there, thinking that the first floor may be the safest option.

There is a saying in Arabic which says "death in a group is a mercy". I guess if we die together maybe, just maybe, we will feel less of the pain than in doing so alone.

I have had 8 hours sleep since the beginning of this conflict; we can hear attacks almost every minute.

I think to myself, if one of us is injured or needs medical attention what will happen? Ambulances are finding it difficult to reach civilians, roads are blocked by rubble, Israeli forces in their path - you could bleed to death.

Even if they did get to us, maybe we would be bombed on our way to the hospital. If we did reach the hospital there might not be enough room to treat us - there is little medication or equipment or any electricity to fuel the life-saving equipment. We would not even be able to get out of Gaza for the life-saving treatment we needed.

Hospitals are now running on back-up generators making life even more difficult for the doctors who are trying to cope with the influx of the injured. If fuel runs out for the generators, those on life-saving equipment will perish.

I heard a woman calling into a radio station today - ambulance services could not reach her and I guess she thought the radio station might be able to do something. She was wailing down the phone "our home is on fire, my children are dying, help me". I do not know what happened to her and her children - I do not want to imagine.

I spend much of my time thinking that this could be the last hour of my existence.

As I try to fall asleep, I hear on the radio the numbers of people who have died rising by the hour. I wonder if tomorrow morning, I will be part of that body count, part of the next breaking news.

I will be just another number to all those watching the death and destruction in Gaza or maybe the fact that I work for Oxfam will mean that I will be a name and not just a number. I might be talked about for a minute and moments later forgotten, like all those other people who have had their lives taken away from them.

I am not afraid of dying - I know that one day we all must die. But not like this, not sitting idly in my home with my children in my arms waiting for our lives to be taken away. I am disgusted by this injustice.

What is the international community waiting for - to see even more dismembered people and families erased before they act? Time is ticking by and the numbers of dead and injured are increasing. What are they waiting for?

What is happening is against humanity, are we not human?

Time to Change the Federal Reserve

by Norman Markowitz

Ben Bernanke, Chair of the Federal Reserve is "warning" Congress that "fiscal stimulus packages" meaning social spending and tax policies to increase purchasing power will not be a long term solution to the "credit crisis." Rather he is suggesting that more extensive bank bailouts may be necessary.

Bernanke isn't opposing the present bailout, but it is or should be obvious that he is still thinking in terms of reviving the financial system that he inherited from Alan Greenspan, since he isn't talking about serious reregulaton or any serious connection between finance capital "bailouts" and the job and income security except "old time trickle down religion" which was good enough for Coolidge and Hoover, Reagan, Clinton, and the two Bush presidents.

It is time for Congress to write a new national banking act that makes the chair of the federal reserve directly accountable to Congress and the President and gives the President with the consent of Congress the right to appoint and remove Federal Reserve chairs. It is also time to have the Federal Reserve work in concert with the Treasury and the Federal Government as a whole as part of a national economic program.

Although the "monetarism" most associated with the late Milton Friedman and carried forward in the U.S. by Alan Greenspan on the Fed has failed completely, a point that President Elect Obama made during the campaign without specifically mentioning monetarism or Friedman, monetary policy in conjunction with fiscal policy remains important in both containing the economic crisis and developing a healthy national economy based on higher real wages, greater overall labor skill, and greater income inequality, not mountains of debt and deepening income
inequality which has characterized the last thirty years of U.S. economic policy.

The Obama administration is hitting the ground running by focusing on the economic crisis and preparing to deal with it in its first days. This compares very favorably with Bill Clinton, who began his administration as if he had a hangover, half-heartedly and unsuccessfully advocated a modest fiscal stimulus package and then went on to one domestic policy disaster after another, seeking to win over the Republican opposition who handed him his lunch while he alienated the progressive mass constituencies of his party.

But Obama has a much taller order than just being a lot better than Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter. Large numbers of Americans, and not just older Americans, expect him to be another Franklin Roosevelt, an agent of major , progressive change , of a new age of social-economic reform that will make future generations of Americans remember Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush the way Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were remembered after WWII, as relics of a discredited period of history.

Obama, like Franklin Roosevelt, has talked about "action and action now." He should start next week, both with fiscal policies to confront the economic crisis, policies to protect workers and
homeowners and regulate the way that the banks use the billions that they are getting, and also policies that change the Federal Reserve system, so that the chair of the Federal Reserve will no longer be the second most powerful "public official" in the U.S. with no serious accountability to the elected federal government.

Tell Senate to Pass Fair Pay

From NOW.org:

Fair Pay Bills Could Come Up in the U.S. Senate THIS Week

Last Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 11) and the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 12) by a vote of 247-171 and 256-163 respectively. A good start for the 111th Congress and women's rights supporters.

Contact your senators NOW!

After the House vote on Jan. 9, the two bills were then bundled together into one bill, H.R. 11, and sent to the Senate. There could be a vote on the bundled bill or on the two Senate bills as early as THIS week.

Senators Ted Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski have introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (S. 181) and Senator Hillary Clinton has introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 182), and we need an overwhelming number of sponsors and supporters for both bills. We hope that the Senate will vote for the House bill (H.R. 11) in its entirety. Failing that, we want a Senate vote on both of the bills at the same time without fear of a filibuster for either bill. That means we need 60 votes!

Take Action NOW -- please contact both of your senators and ask them to support both of these important pay equity bills.

Ceasefire in Gaza: Keep up the pressure

From Churches for Middle East Peace:

Please take action today and ask Congress to immediately move forward on helping to achieve a cease-fire, address the pressing humanitarian situation and pursue a long-term political solution.

The Congressional Gaza resolutions, S. Res. 10 and H. Res. 34, passed unanimously in the Senate and by a vote of 390 in favor, 5 against, 22 present and 16 non-voting in the House. The resolutions expressed unwavering support for Israel and placed exclusive blame on Hamas for the current crisis, while including key positive elements in the important action-oriented "resolved" clauses: urging protection of civilians on both sides; recognizing the humanitarian needs of the residents of Gaza and calling for long-term improvement in daily living conditions; and expressing support for achieving a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The resolutions also encouragingly called for a "durable" and "sustainable" cease-fire "as soon as possible", which though falling short of urging an immediate end to hostilities, was a significant development, especially given that earlier in the week Congressional leaders had said a "cease-fire" would not be demanded at all.

New S-CHIP vote? Take Action

From FamiliesUSA.org:

The CHIP bill, twice vetoed by President Bush, was a truly bipartisan bill that would have:

* Added $35 billion to the program over the next five years to cover approximately 10 million children: 6.6 million children who are currently enrolled and 4 million who will be uninsured without this bill. The majority of the children who would gain coverage under this bill are already eligible for coverage today, but CHIP needs more money to cover them.
* Better allocated funding to states to cover uninsured children and helped avoid funding shortfalls that prevent children from receiving coverage.
* Given states new tools to reach out to eligible uninsured children and get them enrolled.
* Strengthened the CHIP benefit package by guaranteeing dental health and mental health benefits.

Now, with a new Congress, we have a chance to get this right and to make sure America's children can get the health care they need. The details of the bill are being worked out, but we expect a multi-year reauthorization and expansion of CHIP.

Tell Congress: Pass S-CHIP Now

Podcast #91: The Road to Peace

Political Affairs Podcast #91 - The Road to Peace

On this episode we discuss the Gaza Crisis with Susan Webb, associate editor of People's Weekly World. Also, the US House of Representatives passes two laws to promote equal pay for equal work.

Celebrate and agitate: Some Inaugural Events

From United for Peace and Justice:

Will you be in Washington next Tuesday?

On Inauguration Day, January 20, the Washington Peace Center - a UFPJ member group - will be hosting 'progressive central' at McPherson Square. There, progressives will join up to help enhance the presence of the peace and justice movement on a day when millions of Obama supporters will be coming to town.

Come meet the progressive community at McPherson Square, 15th St NW between I and K Street! There will be heated tents(!), lots of information, and tons of literature on ways to get involved and make the change we want to see. Many groups will be using this space as a meet-up and kick-off spot.

The WPC is printing up signs to give you the chance to demand your desired change. The signs read, 'Mr. President, I hope for …' People will be invited to write their hopes for the next four years in the blank space provided. These will then be handed out with flyers listing many ways people can get involved both locally and nationally, so this could be a true movement-building day. Stop by McPherson Square to pick up a sign and be part of this movement!

Want to be part of a street team to hand out signs and flyers to ensure that the inauguration crowds who come to be inspired leave with the resources they need to get involved? Email virginia@washingtonpeacecenter.net or call the Washington Peace Center at 202-234-2000.

Click here for a calendar of some of the events taking place in Washington, DC around the Inauguration.

Eyeless in Gaza

GAZA: The Mass Media Take from THE WEEK 1-16-2009

Thomas Riggins

While the world watches the Zionist massacre of Palestinian children as Gaza is turned into a free fire zone and the US Congress plays the role of cheerleader for barbarism, The Week (a news magazine that prints excerpts from different sources) presents some views about all this from the mass media. Here are 5 opinions two of them seem ok but three of them are outrageous. Most of the press doesn't seem to see what is going on before its nose.

From THE ECONOMIST: “the scale and ferocity of the onslaught on Gaza have been shocking.” [To say the least!] Israel’s actions are out of proportion and it had another option than mass killing. “If Israel had ended the blockade” Hamas could not have used it as a justification for firing rockets.

From the CHICAGO TRIBUNE: “What would be a proportionate response?” [Well a 100 to 1 does seem a little lopsided. The Germans were happy with a 10:1 kill ratio but they were fighting a real army or two]. The Tribune wants Israel to go all the way and wipe out Hamas not just eliminate the rocket attacks. [The plan seems to be to wipe out the people who voted for Hamas.]

From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Max Boot writes that Israel will have to take over Gaza and run it [you can’t trust Arabs to vote the right way] and “If Israel is to continue to exist, it will have to continue to wage low-intensity war [if Gaza is low intensity what is high intensity?] for a long time to come--- possibly centuries.” [There has got to be some problem with your conduct if you have to be at war with your neighbors for centuries. The U.S. has to pay for all this-- lets call the dogs back in-- who let them out?]

From SALON.COM: Gary Kamiya says “burning hatred” is what Israel’s actions produce [burning children too, now that white phosphorous is being dumped on Gaza]. Obama “must make it clear that the blank check is expired." Bush has been to uncritical. [At least he nixed Israel's plan to attack Iran.]

From THE ATLANTIC ONLINE: ROBERT D. KAPLIN informs us that Gaza is not really a territory of Sunni Arabs and a potential part of the Palestinian homeland. It is really a part of Iran. "Israel has, in effect, launched the war on the Iranian empire that President Bush can only have contemplated." It is really Iran that is being attacked. If Israel fails to win the U.S. won't be able to deal with Iran from a position of strength. We must stand up to the expansion of the Empire of Iran. "Now that Israel has launched a war [Kaplan is off message-- Hamas is supposed to have started the war], we need it to succeed." [What does that mean? Send in General Petraeus with a surge of armed settlers from Brooklyn if the IDF can't win?]

Well, that is some of what is in the bourgeois press.

Film Review: Gran Torino

Clint Eastwood Continues His Powerful Attacks on War and Racist Xenophobia

by Eric Green

When you think that Eastwood has done enough in combating the evils of war, i.e., Flags of Our Fathers; and Letter from Iwo Jima; He does it again. This time he attacks a US imperial war that never gets discussed….the Korean War. It is not a direct attack, but his point is made.

Through the eyes, mind and heart of an embittered Korean War and autoworker veteran, filmgoers are treated to an amazing performance and film direction. For the first time since his award winning film, Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood directs himself in a film. He is one of the few directors who can accomplish that feet.

Eastwood will be turning 79 years old in May of this year; and, doesn't appear to be slowing down. Quite the contrary. In his December 19, 2006 interview with PBS Charley Rose you get insight into Eastwood. To view that interview, and you should, just "google" the show and the 52 minutes can be viewed. Who of us who lived through Eastwood of the '80s, would be having these thoughts?

He continues to do what he did in the fight film, in Gran Torino, that is, attacking stereotypes in a very realistic crude and relentlessly unforgiving manner.

Walter Kowalski is watching his entire world fall apart in front of his very eyes; and, he hates it. He is proud of his Silver Star medal and flies the flag in front of his Detroit home. The whole film was produced in Detroit, Michigan, something that was proudly stated in the films credits.

The main story line, the original story came from Dave Johannson with a screenplay by Dave Schecnk, has a Vietnamese family moving into the home just beside Kowalski. His wife just died and this loss was almost too much for him to bear and now he feels invaded. Continuing racist and anti-semetic mutterings of Kowalski takes place throughout the film. I thought I was back in Western Pennsylvania where I grew up with this kind of guy.

The 16 year-old next door, Sue Loi, played by Ahney Her; and, her brother, Thao Vang Lor, played by Bee Vang, were central to the film. As very new actors, and under the direction of Eastwood, they more than fulfilled their roles. The other 10 to 15 family members of the Vietnamese family also did a more than satisfactory job. It is very realistic.

The growing extreme poverty of that Detroit area was not hidden. The rise of natiohnality based youth gangs becomes central to the film. These depictions are rather hard to watch.

While the previews of the film could get you to see Kowalski as just another Eastwood "Dirty Harry" revenge character; it is not.

Eastwood's Anti-War Sentiments Surface

Eastwood's character really comes to the fore when he finally comes to grips with the Korean War killings that he committed. In fact, in his Rose interview, Eastwood actually describes how a person like Kowalski could submerge from their combat experience. Even though the interview preceeding this film.

The film's priest, a less than 30 year old, very well played by Christopher Carley, tried to help Kowalski's guilt by saying that he was just following orders in doing the killings. But, Kowalski made it clear that it wasn't the direct orders to kill that were destroying him for over 50 years; it was the killing that were not ordered. That was a powerful statement.

The way in which Kowalski plans his revenged and to come to the aid of his new friends also seemed like a metaphor for his Korean War killings; and even the Iraq war fiasco which Eastwood totally opposed.

Another interesting aspect of the film is casting his son Scott Eastwood as an aspiring boyfriend of Sue Loi. Scott was born in Carmel, California when Clint Eastwood was mayor.

Clint Eastwood directed, produced and was the main character of the film. Lenny Neihaus the famous jazz musician, and Eastwoods life long friend, was responsibility for the music in this film. Eastwood, who clearly like to involvement himself in every aspect of filmmaking, wrote and song the lead song, Grand Torino for the film. He received a Golden Globe nomination for that song. He lost to Bruce Springsteen's Wrestler original song.

Bush to award war criminal with medal of freedom

From Latin American Working Group:

As President Bush in the waning days of his administration bestows the Presidential Medal of Freedom upon Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, we'd like to nominate as LAWG Heroes of the Year 2008 the brave and tireless Colombian human rights activists who are taking risks to end the Colombian army's killings of civilians.

We probably can't convince President Bush to keep the medals in his desk drawer--but we can do our part to draw people's attention to some of Colombia's true heroes and heroines.

Act now! Send a letter to the editors of your local newspapers and encourage your friends to do the same.

United in the Working Group on Extrajudicial Executions (Mesa de Trabajo Sobre Ejecuciones Extrajudiciales), and joined by courageous relatives of victims, these activists have painstakingly documented hundreds of cases of killings of civilians by the Colombian army.

They've denounced these abuses to the United Nations, the Colombian government, the U.S. government, and the media--to anyone who would listen--and to many who were deaf to their concerns.

They've organized visits by international observers, issued alerts, and taken case after case to the Colombian courts and to international courts.

They've endured death threats, accusations by the government, wiretapping of their phones--and some have become victims themselves.

When an international scandal broke revealing that soldiers organized killings of young civilians for profit, the Colombian government was forced to respond, dismissing a number of army officers.

But these activists are not yet satisfied, not until the full extent of the killings are admitted, investigated, and prosecuted. Not until the killings stop.

Let's take a moment to honor these Colombian heroes and heroines:

The Working Group on Extrajudicial Executions includes: The Human Rights Observatory of the Coordinacion Colombia Europa Estados Unidos; Corporacion Juridica Libertad; Colectivo de Abogados Jose Alvear Restrepo; Comision Colombiana de Juristas; Cos-pacc; Humanidad Vigente; Minga; Banco de Datos del CINEP; Comite de Derechos Humanos del Bajo Ariari; Sembrar; Comite de Solidaridad con los Presos Politicos; Fundacion Dos Mundos; Reiniciar; Paz con Dignidad Colombia; Redher; Corporacion Yira Castro; Justapaz; and Comision Intercongregacional de Justicia y Paz.