Blase's Blog

Pacifica Commentary For November 21, 2007

2007-11-23T22:48:00.000-08:00

FINAL COMMENTARY

It has been a privilege to speak to you during the Evening News for many years. However, KPFK has a new policy stating that programmers with an existing program will not also have a scheduled commentary.

While I do not want to interfere with your church attendance on Sundays, I do want you to know that my program, WORLD FOCUS, will continue to air every Sunday morning from 10:00 to 11:00 AM. This Sunday I am privileged to have Jeremy Scahill author of best selling, Blackwater: the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." Jeremy is a Polk Award-winning investigative journalist.

My second guest will be Dahr Jamail, an unembedded independent journalist who reports from Iraq and who is also the author of a new book, Beyond the Green Zone. Stephen Kinzer of the New York Times calls this book, "International journalism at its best."

My commentaries for Pacifica Radio are now published in two books. The first book is called Guerrillas of Peace on the Air. These are Pacifica radio commentaries and my personal reports on International Direct Action for Justice and Peace. This book begins with commentaries from January of 1996 through April of 1998.

My second book of Pacifica commentaries is called Common Sense for the Twenty-First Century. This book includes commentaries from November of 2001 to April of 2004 and it also includes my Pacifica interviews with Chalmers Johnson, Reverend James Lawson, and Jonathan Schell.

These books are available at the Office of the Americas which has produced these Pacifica Commentaries by way of KPFK. You can reach us at 323/852-9808.

These books of Pacifica commentaries are also available at Amazon.com. My third book of Pacifica commentaries will be published in the spring of 2008. It will be titled, Civilization is Possible and will also include interviews with Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast, and Peter Laufer.

These commentaries, while recorded during the dates mentioned, deal with topics which are truly timeless.

So, my friends, I want to thank you for listening to these commentaries during the KPFK news for these many years and ask you to tune in on Sundays at 10:00 AM to listen to my program, WORLD FOCUS.

This is Blase Bonpane.

Pacifica Commentary For November 14, 2007

2007-11-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

In a new era of planetary consciousness, nut case fanatics in and out of government must receive the same indictment for plotting the bombing of Tehran as they would receive for plotting the bombing of Chicago. We in the United States don't have any more of a right to live than anyone else on the planet.

And at this moment of crisis who are the people closest to the trigger of a nuclear holocaust?

According to Michael Weinstein, the founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the highest levels of the Air Force, Air Force Academy as well as other branches of the military's highest brass are riddled with cult-like members of a warped, exclusionist and ersatz Christianity which Chris Hedges identifies in his book "AMERICAN FASCISTS, THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE WAR ON AMERICA."

Cadets are clearly and officially pressured into a mind set based on sheer fiction. When you think of it, how else can they be prepared to abolish millions of innocent lives unless such repulsive action can be sanctified as a Godly act?

In this very wide spread and illegally authorized cult the United Nations is deemed to be the Anti-Christ.

Sadly, the President and many of his cronies are in this same loop of nationalistic and fundamentalist religiosity. The very same style of demonization that hypnotized the Germans to accept the holocaust is now being directed to the world of Islam.

It remains our task to accept and understand the Anthropology which has given us a plethora of religions on this earth and to realize that the name of one's religion tells us little or nothing about their integrity.

How then can there be any planetary unity with such a wide variety of religions?

Actually it is entirely possible. We know people by the fruits of their lives, not by the name of their religion.

Rather than trying to convert others to rigid sectarian views, we must accept their non-theism, their atheism, agnosticism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or Animism. And within their enlightened consciousness they can begin to understand a universal and nonsectarian approach which is based on a conversion to peace, justice, joy, courage, endurance, love, compassion and repentance.

The conversion to these universally accepted virtues can unite the planet into one family of admirable diversity.

And this was the basis for the establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1945.

Friends, it is clear that we are the realists and that our current political leadership is lost in a hopeless miasma of delusion.

And please listen to WORLD FOCUS at 10:00 AM on Sunday. My guest will be Colonel Ann Wright.

Pacifica Commentary For November 7, 2007

2007-11-12T18:20:00.000-08:00

Much of the work of the Office of the Americas over the past twenty-four years has been trying to stop our government from killing people. The focus of our work is on the foreign policy of the United States. We have found that policy to be dictatorial and counterproductive. The daily outrages of the current administration have reached a state of intolerability.

We firmly believe that our nation must go through an exercise of international repentance. Over a space of time we have been responsible for far more unnecessary deaths than the Third Reich. But Germany has gone through a long and effective period of national repentance. The horrors of The Fuehrer's rule are now forbidden by law.

We must follow the example of Germany's repentance. The list of terror tactics developed by the presidential imposter George Bush must be codified as federal offenses. Yes, this includes so-called preventative war, rendition, torture and most certainly one of its ugliest forms called water boarding. Any aspiring public servant who cannot identify water boarding as torture is unqualified for office and most especially for the office of Attorney General...thank you for your interest Judge Michael Mukasey, you are incompetent and morally challenged.

And in a new era of repentance, a list of required Federal Crimes will be forthcoming. Any plot of citizens or office holders to bomb another nation should be taken as seriously as a plot to attack our own country.

All people intending to go into public service should be required to take a course in Civics 101. This would help them to understand that they are seeking to become a servant of the people, not a Godfather of organized crime.

The current brood of nut case neo-cons conspiring to attack Iran should all be arrested for their intent to foster terror against civilians.

We at the Office of the Americas, together with a massive and like-minded international movement for justice and peace, are dedicated to confronting the daily outrages in which we live. You are the people who make this critical work possible.

We look ahead to a new era of planetary justice and peace. Join us on Sunday, November 11, at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica as the Office of the Americas honors Peace Activist Frank Dorrel, Academy Award winner Paul Haggis and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh. KPFK is a media sponsor of this event.

Pacifica Commentary For October 31, 2007

2007-11-07T22:31:00.000-08:00

A Call to the Supreme Court

We had hoped that the new Democratic Congress would help us to end the war in Iraq. They have not. They have even seemed unmoved and frequently supportive of a planned suicide mission on Iran. In view of this impasse we are turning to what we consider the most powerful branch of government, the Supreme Court. Here is a letter coming from the Office of the Americas to that court:

We are writing with a sense of urgency on behalf of the people of the United States and the sovereign state of Iran.

Our President and Vice President appear to be in the process of conspiring to commit an illegal war against the people of Iran. Such aggression would mean the likelihood that innocent millions will die and possibly result in attacks on the United States. An overwhelming majority of our citizens do not support the current occupation of Iraq and most certainly would not support an attack on Iran.

The plan seems to include the following:

The United States and Israel will strike at Iran. Iran will respond immediately with strikes on Israel, and Iraq. In the wake of such a disaster there is a real possibility of Israel and the United States resorting to nuclear weapons. China and Russia will come to the aid of Iran. The President has recently made reference to World War III. His plans for Iran could actually give us World War III.

The President stated our need, "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."

But Europe does not share his concern.

Mr. Fareed Zakaria, former editor of Foreign Affairs concluded, "the American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality."

As we review Article III, section 2 of the Constitution we can see the broad powers of the Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court regarding:

Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; --to Controversies between two or more States;...or between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States.

This imminent crisis requires a full exercise of the power of Judicial Review regarding the conduct of the President and Vice President at this critical moment in history. Indeed the legacy of this Supreme Court will be determined by its action on this matter of utmost importance. The lives of our citizens and citizens of the international community are in the balance. We are urgently asking for your cooperation.

Friends, we are also asking that willing individuals file at the Supreme Court for an injunction against military action. This is the legal remedy to stop an action before something terrible and irrevocable happens.

Pacifica Commentary For October 24, 2007

2007-10-24T23:30:00.001-07:00

Put Out the Fire

One dinky DC-10 is available to attempt to put out fires on the West Coast of the United States. Hundreds of manned and unmanned aircraft are ready for a mass murder of Iranian citizens.

It seems we have a problem of values here. We are completely unprepared for disasters here at home while we create endless and unnecessary disasters overseas.

Apparently we have a toxic group of individuals who are happy with the flames in Iraq and anxious to see Iran on fire. The profundity of racism we see in this group seems to prefer the destruction of the cradle of civilization over the saving of thousands of homes in the Southland. We could easily have a fleet of fire dousing DC-10s that could have saved thousands of homes in a few hours if we simply put aside our global warring.

The stench of neo-Nazi racism arrives this week at the University of Southern California. It is called Islamo-fascism Awareness Week. The program is dedicated to hate and fear as it perfectly mirrors the tone of Germany in the 30's. One of the distinguished guests at the university for Islamo-fascism awareness Week is Ann Coulter who says we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

Indeed we are fortunate that Islamo-fascism Awareness Week came at a time when Southern California is burning. Let this remind the racist perpetrators of Islamo-fascist Week that their position as represented by our corporate designed foreign policy has made Iraq into a hell on earth as they now are drooling to do the same in Iran. The corporate mind, not being human, has no concern for any human values.

On the side of humanity, however, we congratulate Ted Glick who organized a convergence on the U.S. Capitol Building this week to protest the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The theme was, "No War, No Warming." Ted and 60 other patriots were arrested in acts of non-violent civil disobedience.

And now it is our turn to come out on this Saturday, October 27. We will meet at noon at Olympic and Broadway and March to the Federal Building. Our troops must come home from Iraq and Afghanistan now and there must be no war in Iran and then we can begin a program of disaster preparedness in the United States.

Pacifica Commentary For October 17, 2007

2007-10-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

God Made Me Do It

Have you ever wondered how people can adjust to genocide? Our citizens have made such adjustments on numerous occasions. There was a spirit of Manifest Destiny as we conducted genocide against the indigenous people of this hemisphere in the 18th and 19th centuries. We declared ourselves called by God to rule from sea to sea.

Then there was the terrible swift sword of the civil war which gloried in the death of 600,000 Americans among the small population of our country in the 1860's. We never have lost so many citizens as in the Civil War.

In the Spanish American War, President McKinley informed us that we were going to Christianize the enemy. He seemed to have forgotten that the enemy was already Christian.

Oh yes, World War One was the war to end all wars. As that mindless slaughter concluded, some intelligent people formed a League of Nations. But our warfare state Senate destroyed the League by 1920 and opened the way for a Second World War, the most calamitous event in the history of the world. Had there been a functional League of Nations there would have been no World War II. The intelligent people came back again once again after World War II and established a United Nations to end the scourge of war forever. But with our power as victors in World War II we decided to use the UN as a weapon for conquest and we manipulated a war with Korea as a United Nations Action. Our citizens were carefully propagandized to translate the word communist as, "OK to Kill."

The OK to kill definition was so successful that we used it to conduct genocide in Indo China and Latin America. As the Soviet Union collapsed, a new word was coined, "terrorist." Starting with Ronald Reagan this word became the battle cry for new wars in Central America. And when we were actually struck by terrorists in 2001 we immediately attacked a nation that had never attacked us, Afghanistan. This error was compounded by an attack on Iraq which our head of state has attempted to blame for the 9/11 tragedy. In one of his recent speeches we heard the word Al Qaeda mentioned ninety-five times. Bush clearly had purposely tried to confuse our people by calling the Iraqi resistance, Al Qaeda.

And as our long standing addiction to war continues, the women and men in the armed services are discovering the criminality of this administration. Washington Post reporter Dana Priest recently said in an interview that she believed the US military would revolt and refuse to fly missions against Iran if the White House issued such orders. A score of Generals have spoken against this endless war. General William Odom former director of the NSA said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.

With plans for war with Iran on the table, we must organize mightily that the ancient myth of Manifest Destiny will die on the sands of Iraq.

Pacifica Commentary For October 10, 2007

2007-10-12T00:41:00.000-07:00

Who Do We Call?

Would anyone have the 911 number to call? Criminality is rampant in the current administration of the United States.

The Chief Executive is lying through his teeth about no torture as we routinely practice horrendous forms of torture. It's true the Congress can and should impeach. But the Congress has passed away and is effectively not in session. The Supreme Court is on an early "long winter's nap".

Well then, do we contact the Attorney General to report such crimes? Should we call the FBI? The local police? The CIA?

Certainly many public officials have been arrested while in office; Governors, Mayors, members of Congress and state assemblies. There is no problem with such arrests.

But here we have the Chief Executive and his cronies clearly out of control. Are they to be exempt as they wantonly break national and international laws?

Millions of people are saying no, they are not exempt, as we observe thousands of daily vigils throughout the United States as well as dozens of major mass mobilizations.

But the criminality goes on as if there were some divine right of kings in our land. And now the justice and peace movement in the United States has taken a creative approach; leading Americans are asking our military to refuse orders to attack Iran.

This is an effort to create a kind of coalition that makes history.

Soldiers know the horrors of war, death, severed limbs, blindness and mental illness. They have seen the genocide in Iraq and they are not apt to romanticize about its repetition in Iran. A Pentagon consultant told Seymour Hersh, "There is a war about the war going on inside the building."

So while mindless thugs are doing everything possible to create an illegal war with Iran, elements within our military establishment are in opposition to another armed disaster.

We are not asking the Pentagon for a military coup in the United States. On the contrary, we are asking them to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They do not need to show any loyalty to international crime.

Pacifica Commentary For October 4, 2007

2007-10-05T00:43:00.000-07:00

An Appeal To Our Troops
I was very impressed with a letter sent by Jonah House which is a center of heroic resistance to war. The letter is addressed to men and women in the military. Here is the text:

Brothers and sisters in the military: "Refuse to fight! Refuse to kill!

You are being ordered to war in the footsteps of veterans, who, more than ten years ago, were sent to fight the first Gulf War. Many of those vets returned with severe and unacknowledged illnesses. Many gave birth to severely deformed children and most were abandoned by the Veterans Administration.

You are being ordered to war by the most powerful nation on earth. You are being ordered to war by a nation with the most destructive weapons ever conceived, developed, deployed or used. You are being ordered to war by a nation whose self-acknowledged posture is that of world domination, mastery, and control. This nation has no moral justification for war.

We, the undersigned, are convinced that war is the greatest evil on earth. We believe that humankind must end war, or war will end humankind, and in fact, all of creation. Our convictions have driven us time and again to the Pentagon, White House and Congress in acts of civil resistance to war.

Now, we bring our plea to you, sisters and brothers, in the armed forces.

* Refuse to kill.
* Refuse the order to go to war.
* Leave the military before it is too late.

We know your resistance to war will be difficult and require great courage. But please reflect:
* Is it more difficult than fighting in war?
* Is it more difficult than being a pawn of corporate greed?
* Is it more difficult than living with a violated conscience?
* Is it more difficult than living with the poisons of war in your body and spirit?

Do what your heart says is right.

We plead with you, as Bishop Oscar Romero pleaded with Salvadoran troops saying: "No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God.

In the name of God, in the name of our tormented people who have suffered so much and whose laments cry out to heaven, I beseech you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God, stop the repression!"

If you choose to leave the military, please know that our hearts and homes are open to you.
<www.officeoftheamericas.org>
And please listen to WORLD FOCUS this Sunday at 10:00 AM.

Pacifica Commentary For September 26, 2007

2007-10-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Monks Did It!

The Monks of Myanmar have given a course on resistance to the rest of the world. This course must be a required one for every Bishop, Mullah, Rabbi and any other type of religious leader in the United States.

Even George Bush can hear the message for the people of Myanmar. It would be nice if he could make the transition to people in his own country.

Just as China blocks the international community regarding Myanmar so Bush blocks the international community in Iraq and Palestine. Both of these great powers must recognize their stupidity. The militarists of Myanmar also declare themselves as Buddhists and the Bushites in the United states also declare themselves as Christians.

Both attempts are oxymoronic. Bushite Christians are a contradiction in terms just as Myanmar Buddhist Militarists are a contradiction in terms. The Buddhist Monks have a simple message, "We do not worship strange gods and the state is the strangest god of all!"

And we must not forget the message of these Buddhists for the international justice and peace movement.

They project the power of presence and power of spiritual conviction. They refuse to let their lives be ruled by fear.

And as we proceed as US citizens to understand that a general strike may be required to stop the Republican and Democratic Party militarists, let us reflect on the power of not working which is called a strike, and the power of not buying which is called a boycott.

Oh yes, we know the barbaric military of Myanmar killed it own people when they marched in 1988. And perhaps that is why Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was weeping when the Monks walked by her home in Yangon. We also know that the ongoing lie which is militarism will lead the Myanmar Generals to dress up agent provocateurs as Monks and have these phonies initiate an armed attack leading to a brutal response. Well Dr. Martin Luther King solemnly reminded us that there are casualties in the peace movement but these casualties would never equal the slaughter of imperial war.

We must follow the endurance and courage of the Myanmar Buddhists. Imitation is the highest form of praise.

Pacifica Commentary For September 12, 2007

2007-09-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

What Happened On September 11, 2001

A growing number of experts are calling for a serious investigation of what happened on September 11, 2001. This week Dr. Lynn Margulis, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and world renowned scientist called the official story of 9/11 a fraud. She is joined by a host of structural engineers. Dr. James Quintiere, former chief of the National Institute of Standards and Technology has joined his voice with this host of scientific professionals.

A new investigation of 9/11 is also called for by Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Citizens have a right to know.

The FBI states that Osama Bin Laden is not on the most wanted list because they have no evidence he had anything to do with 9/11.

The art of revolution is the art of uniting forces so it is our task to integrate the events of 9/11 into the wider movement for justice and peace.

As we do this we must remain in sync with the experts who have rejected the official story.

But we become our own enemy if we confuse fact with opinion. Many people in the movement for justice and peace are turned off by those who do not make this distinction.

The 9/11 issue reminds me of the hundreds of books and articles written about who killed John Kennedy, who killed Robert Kennedy and who killed Martin Luther King.

Many of us said, "Of course these were inside jobs but we have a war to stop in Vietnam." And we will not be at all surprised if 9/11 is proven to be an inside job.

We must see 9/11 in the context of 1200 targets identified by the Pentagon to be obliterated in Iran. This simply means more and more massacred children together with their innocent parents.

We must see 9/11 in the context of oil companies which have already divided up Iraq for the privatization of petroleum. We must see 9/11 in the context of corporations which have no loyalty to the people of the United States or anywhere else. They are not opposed to the obliteration of the cradle of civilization in Mesopotamia nor to murder at home.

The criminals who attacked our country on 9/11 will be identified. The criminals who have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan have already been identified.

So stay together, the art of revolution is the art of uniting forces.

Pacifica Commentary For September 5, 2007

2007-09-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and served as Middle East Bureau chief for the New York Times. He frequently reported on Iran. Here are his thoughts on the upcoming war of aggression which the Cheney/Bush Administration has planned against Iran. It was exactly this kind of premeditated murder that was clearly identified as the "Supreme International Crime" at Nuremberg.

The Pentagon has reportedly drawn up plans for a series of airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran. The air attacks are designed to cripple the Iranians’ military capability in three days. (Why not say thirty years?)

This outrage will be accomplished by U.S. and Israeli warplanes.

But then what? We don’t have the troops to invade. And we don’t have anyone minding the helm who knows the slightest thing about Persian culture or the Middle East. There is no one in power in Washington with the empathy to get it. We will lurch blindly into a catastrophe of our own creation.

It is not hard to imagine what will happen. Missiles which cannot reach the United States, will be launched at Israel, as well as American military bases and the Green Zone in Baghdad. We can expect massive American casualties, especially in Iraq, where Iranian agents and their Iraqi allies will be able to call in precise coordinates. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, will be shut down. Chinese-supplied anti-shipping missiles, mines and coastal artillery will target U.S. shipping, along with Saudi oil production and oil export centers. Oil prices will skyrocket. The dollar will tumble against the euro.

Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, interpreting the war as an attack on all Shiites, will fire rockets into northern Israel. Israel, already struck by missiles from Tehran, will begin retaliatory raids on Lebanon and Iran. Pakistan, with a huge Shiite minority, will reach greater levels of instability. The unrest could result in the overthrow of the weakened American ally President Pervez Musharraf and usher into power Islamic radicals. Pakistan could become the first radical Islamic state to possess a nuclear weapon. The neat little war with Iran, which few Democrats oppose, has the potential to ignite a regional inferno.

Hundreds of demonstrations are taking place now and throughout the months ahead. The international organized crime syndicate in Washington can either listen to the voices for sanity in the streets of our nation or we can all perish together.

Pacifica Commentary For August 29, 2007

2007-08-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

There are many people out there who understand that we do not live in a monarchy. We are citizens, not subjects of the king.

So here is the message of The Voices for Creative Non-Violence. The project is called SODaPOP which stand for Seasons of Discontent: A Presidential Occupation Project.

The project begins this fall and will continue through January.

The offices of all Presidential Candidates who do not comply with the following demands of these citizens will be occupied in protest:

* A complete halt to all ground, air and naval military actions against Iraq and Iran.

* Full funding for the reconstruction of Iraq to repair the devastation caused by 17 years of warfare by the U.S. and its allies.

* Full funding for the Common Good in the United States to: rebuild our public education system; to promote a living wage, to provide a universal single payer health care system; to rebuild our country's deteriorating infrastructure and to reorganize the entire public sector of our society which has been devastated by an ideology of privatization.

Friends, we are not interested in seeing and hearing multibillion dollar advertising campaigns with meaningless political babble, especially from so-called liberals like Hillary and Obama. Just think, they are going to give us better wars, more effective wars, more funds for the military/industrial/prison/congressional and pharmaceutical lobbies. And, oh yes, they want nuclear weapons to remain on the table as a threat to the human race.

Voices for Creative Non-Violence in their Seasons of Discontent does not accept the double talk platforms of political power seekers. Voices is quite simply saying, here is a platform that expresses the hopes and desires of our people. We are tired of having our intelligence insulted on a daily basis by a corrupt and failed administration.

We deserve better than that. And if you can't offer something beneficial to the common good of our people, we will occupy your campaign offices to make our point.

Any candidate who wants to be elected in 2008 must affirm a dedication to the Constitution of the United States, all existing International Law, and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For more information on this project call: 773-878-3815 or email

And please listen to WORLD FOCUS, Sundays at 10:00 AM.

Pacifica Commentary For August 22, 2007

2007-08-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

THE PEACE MOVEMENT

People who are confined to commercial media are simply not in touch with the actual history of 2007. Among these unfortunates are those who say, "Where is the peace movement?" or "The peace movement is dead."

Much of the media and especially TV is delivered in a timeless bubble with no past and no future. The current movement of resistance in the United States is simply censored out of the equation.

* In the Southern California area there are more than fifty peace vigils each week.

* The Occupation Project has sat in the offices of 39 Representative and Senators demanding an end to the Iraq disaster. 320 of their members have been arrested. <www.vcnv.org>

* From September 14-21 the Declaration of Peace will coordinate a week of nonviolent actions in every Congressional District in the United States to defund the war. <www.declarationofpeace.org>

* September 15th There will be a National March on Washington to END THE WAR NOW and to impeach George Bush. <www.answercoalition.org>

* September 21 and every third Friday of every month, the Iraq Moratorium Campaign will conduct an escalating series of actions demanding an end to the war.

* October 21-23 NO WAR NO WARMING will have a massive intervention in Washington, D.C. <www.nowarnowarming.org>

* October 27 there is a coordinated plan for ten huge demonstrations across the United States. <www.unitedforpeace.org>

* Currently citizens are walking and biking across the country to end this war now.

* Then there is the giant annual manifestation by School of the Americas Watch at Ft. Benning, Georgia scheduled for November 16-18.

All of the aforementioned plans are accompanied by the actions of our troops who have shown the courage to resist an illegal war. Thousands have left their units and many have gone public. Sadly, scores of troops have committed suicide. Veterans have established memorials all over the country, including Arlington West at Santa Monica Beach, to call attention to the ongoing bloodbath that is sustained by an unconscious and spineless Congress.

And all of this is just a sampling of what the movement for justice and peace is doing throughout the United States.

Pacifica Commentary For August 8, 2007

2007-08-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

The current condition of our government is one of absolute chaos. Strangely, it seems that everyone outside of government knows that we have descended into a morass.

The inability of government to extricate itself from this mess is based on a failure to learn the lessons of history. Here are some of the fatal errors:
*Triumphalsm: we are always right and God is on our side.
*Imperialism: the world belongs to us because we have the most bombs.
*Denial: we have always intended to do the right thing but we might have madea tragic mistake.
*Pretension: we care about the Iraqi people, if we leave there might be violence.

All of the above illusions are still in place after we have starved, bombed, tortured, imprisoned and killed the Iraqi people and their children. Violent intrusion into countless Iraqi homes has created a powerful resistance.

We have actually shown our hand by offering Iraq a plan for distribution of their oil giving the lion's share (80%) to private multinational corporation with U.S. and British dominance.

The President claims we are fighting a war against terror. Any sane observer can see that war is terror. Our misleaders have created a massive expansion of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

And now, the very same lies that gave us the Iraq disaster are being used to create a war with Iran. There is even a propaganda war identifying Islam as the problem. But any balanced observer knows that there are fanatics in every religious culture without exception.

Our nation has no authority to attack other countries based on their possession of nuclear weapons. We have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which was designed to abolish nuclear weapons. And now our administration, together with some silly Republican and Democratic candidates with all the banality of evil, say, "Sure we can nuke Iran if we feel like it."

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the markers of our descent into perpetual war. Our brutal international interventions since August 6th and 9th of 1945 have been consistently backed by nuclear threats.

Militarism remains as the final phase of each previous culture. It will be the end of our culture if the people do not create a total regime change in the United States. A malicious polity representing 4% of the world's people will only create resistance on the part of the remaining 96%.

Pacifica Commentary for July 19, 2007

2007-07-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

FEAR
Fear of the other is used to manipulate people to sustain our permanent war economy. The Communists are coming, the Russians are coming, the Chinese are coming or is it the Cubans? The actor Ronald Reagan even claimed that Nicaraguans were about to invade the United States and he declared a National Emergency to protect us from the very people we were indiscriminately killing. So our nation came under the control of militarists and militarism by way of fear. The legislators then fall into line and vote for endless war because they fear losing elections for being, "soft on defense."

And then there are the police. The reporting of crime is up 500%, not crime but the reporting of crime on television. This increases the level of fear as the police continue to punish people at will. This, in spite of the fact that police may never punish anyone. That's right, police may arrest when there is probable cause of a crime being committed, they may also defend themselves as any other person may do legally. But they may never punish anyone prior to the decision of a court. But the sordid reality of police punishment continues unobstructed as part of the culture of fear.

So the national government fears the militarists, and gives in to their whims, the local government fears the police and ignores their culture of law breaking. And governors in California only get elected if they bow before the barbaric practice of state sponsored murder. Yes, we are speaking of capital punishment, that foul example of class justice which is primarily directed to people of color and the poor. And fear of crime is manipulated to sustain this ongoing atrocity.

And then there is the fear of further terrorism within our borders. 9-11 remains in our minds as the unanswered questions about 9-11 create the stench of an untreated wound.

And before our freedom turns to ashes through the application of the existing anti-constitutional legislation or by way of even greater repressive measures, we must use our precious time to shout out the current factory of fear now at the helm in Washington.

Sadly, we are at a point where we have no reason to believe anything the president might say. All credibility was killed in action with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our message must be to impeach all the criminals in this administration including Bush and Cheney. Our good people can't wait, they want to construct a new and better world. After all, perfect love casts out fear.

Pacifica Commentary For July 5, 2007

2007-07-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago a document was written in the proper English of that time. It said:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 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.....

So friends, it is time to remove the Head Torturer and the Vice Torturer from their thrones. They began their criminality as imposters on the executive branch of government. They have become the personification of malfeasance of office.

Untold numbers of human beings have been tortured, mutilated, raped and murdered in the wake of their bloody incumbency.

The reason that Bush commuted Libby's sentence was to stop Libby from squealing by cooperating with the prosecution. This would have been Libby's path to avoid prison time if there had been no commutation. Yes, if Libby's sentence had not been commuted he would have sung out additional crimes of Cheney and Bush. We are dealing here with the highest level of organized crime.

So the time has come to impeach the Bush/Cheney Regime before these imposters totally destroy the United States of America and the lovely planet on which it resides.

This is the season to rid the world of this administration and to warn those who may follow that we have read a 231 year old document and we are prepared to carry out the mandate to alter and/or abolish any administration that has nothing but contempt for the citizens of the United States. And going beyond the goals and objectives of the founders, we wish to renounce the idol worship of nationalism which attempts to unite God and one single empire. Our allegiance is not to the cloth of flags, our allegiance is to the human race.

And please listen to WORLD FOCUS this Sunday at 10:00 AM. My guests will be Professor David Ray Griffin who has just published Debunking 9/11 Debunking and Dr. Dennis Loo, who together with Peter Phillips, wrote the book, Impeach the President, the Case Against Bush and Cheney.

Pacifica Commentary For June 14, 2007

2007-06-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

ELECTING A WINNER

As we reach bottom at the lowest point in U.S. history, it becomes clear that people want a new springtime. Yes, in the midst of the crass corruption, violence, ignorance and obscene banality of our government, there is hope.

And how is this change going to take place? The best current example of the triumph of grass roots politics can be seen in Latin America today. In past years the representatives of corporate capital including Wall Street would select Latin American candidates useful to their interests.

Some candidates would even make progressive noises for propaganda purposes. But the power of corporate capital and U.S. military interventions maintained a static status quo in Latin America.

In recent years, however, Latin American candidates representing the hopes, desires and anxieties of the Latin America people have been elected. This rapid change has been helped by the fact that the United States is hopelessly engaged in losing unnecessary wars. While the cat's away, the mice will play.

And now Democrats are faced with the same problem over which Latin America has triumphed. They can work for one of three candidates who have been approved by corporate capital and Wall Street, while accepting the religion of militarism or they can go to the grass roots and make history as Latin America is making history. Latin Americans had faith enough to believe they could change corrupt systems and they are doing it.

If Democrats have the same level of faith and grass roots action, they can elect a candidate who is not acceptable to corporate capital, who will bring us a Department of Peace, a single payer health system and the return of the public sector.

And those who say, "Oh, he doesn't have a chance," are parroting just what the lobbyists for militarism want them to say as captives of false advertising.

So let's have the same faith that Latin America has demonstrated and put someone in the White House who does not bow to the corporate lobbies which are now running the United States of America.

Pacifica Commentary For June 6, 2007

2007-06-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

Govenment By Lobby

Who do members of Congress listen to most avidly before making a decision? They listen to military corporate lobbyists and that is why the rest of us three hundred million people continue to wait for some representation.

Friends, the greatest structural obstacles to democracy are the corporate Washington lobbies. This conglomeration of profiteers have more political power than all of the people of the United States put together.

Now we can understand that when the majority of the people want a national health system administered in a fashion similar to Social Security, they can't have it because the insurance companies want 30% of those funds for profit rather than to have a system that operates as smoothly as Social Security has for eight decades while using only 2-3% of the fund for administration.

And the same lobbies function on behalf of the everlasting war system. Members of Congress sell themselves very cheaply as they become servile to the dictates of what our Republican President Eisenhower called the Military/Industrial/Congressional complex. Take note that Ike was pressured to remove and did remove the word "Congressional", but today that word is back and we can say with clarity the Military/Industrial/Prison/Gun and Congressional Lobby.

One of those lobbies is called AIPAC which represents the government of Israel and which has fostered the notion that people who oppose Israeli government policy are anti-Semites. Well, that is a cheap shot and it has been leveled at many world class intellectuals in the Jewish community like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Norman Finkelstein and Norman Solomon.

Government by corporate capital lobbies has no relationship to democracy and before our nation can function properly these lobbies must be outlawed. Make sure your Representatives know that you know who they are listening to and that you refuse to allow them to continue to sell themselves to corporate lobbyists.

And please listen to WORLD FOCUS this Sunday at 10:00 AM, my guests will be Scott Ritter and Cindy and Craig Corrie, the parents of Rachel Corrie who was killed by an Israeli military bulldozer.

Pacifica Commentary For May 23, 2007

2007-05-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

How To Start A Civil War

How is a civil war started? Actually it is quite easy. Here are the directions:
First, you must be the superior military power in the region.
Next, you must occupy the territory of a weaker polity.
Third, you must establish a puppet government in the region you have occupied.

This puppet government can be structured by way of demonstration elections, that is elections which are designed for public relations reasons and propaganda regarding democracy. Once you have developed a docile, servile, dependent government in the occupied area and you begin to favor your obedient selectees with money, homes, status and armed security, a predictable result will follow.

The people who refuse to accept the new puppet government will rightfully consider the new regime to be traitors to their nation and they will revolt.

Now the occupiers have the civil war they wanted in the first place. The occupying country then begins to crank out predictable propaganda saying, "See how violent those people are. They simply have no idea how to govern themselves. Think how fortunate they are that we can govern for them." And then the blood bath is underway.

There is one problem here. History tells us that the imperial state, that is the state with the power to begin the occupation, simply cannot hold on to its surrogate government. The government they have selected will be corrupt, inept, and will self destruct. As the empire tries desperately to maintain its chosen opportunists, the opposition gains strength every day and ultimately the empire has to leave or disintegrate.

Friends, this is what we have witnessed in India as the Brits finally backed off and compacted their empire into the British Isles. This is what we witnessed in Vietnam, and Latin America and this is what we are witnessing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and Lebanon. The occupying power can foster civil wars but they cannot endure. It is so unfortunate that those who use the logic of power and authority do not yet understand that power and authority have absolutely no value and no legitimacy in making a valid argument. The occupiers have the brutality to start a civil war. But they do not have the humanity necessary to build a peaceful future. If there is to be a peaceful future, it can only be built by humanists with a functional sense of morality and ethics.

Please listen to world focus on Sunday, May 27th at 10:00 AM. My guests will be Army Medic Agustin Aguayo who has refused to serve in Iraq and Frida Berrigan, Senior Research Associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center of the World Policy Institute.

Pacifica Commentary For May 16, 2007

2007-05-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

Luis Posada Carrilles

One of Latin America's most notorious criminals, a terrorist, continues to live freely within the United States.

In 1976 Luis Posada Carriles was charged by Venezuela with masterminding the bombing in flight of an airliner and killing all 73 passengers including 24 members of Cuba's fencing team and 11 Guyanese medical students. Prior to 9/11 this was the deadliest attack on an aircraft ever to occur in the Western Hemisphere.

Posada Carriles escaped from prison in 1985 and continued his terrorism. He was linked to the bombings of several hotels in Havana. In the year 2000 he was arrested in Panama for attempting to kill Fidel Castro and many of the audience in a school auditorium.

In 2005 Posada reentered the United States illegally and took up residence in a luxurious Miami apartment. The Department of Homeland Security failed to detain him. In May of that year Venezuela formally requested his extradition from the United States so he could be tried for 73 counts of murder in the 1976 airline bombing.

Homeland Security claimed that Posada might be tortured if he were sent to Venezuela. Apparently Homeland Security had confused Venezuela with our concentration camp in Guantanamo.

And now various Members of Congress have demanded to know why Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has never declared Posada a security threat and has not jailed him under the Patriot Act.

In the meantime Cuba had decided to assist the United States in efforts to curb terrorism. Five non-violent investigators from Cuba were in the process of researching terrorism in Miami. They are Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzales and Ramon Lebanino. Rather than praising the work of these Cuban citizens, U.S. authorities have detained all five of them, thrown them into solitary confinement and slammed them with sentences from 15 years to double life in prison.

This blatant hypocrisy is completely consistent with the behavior of our current Attorney General and the President who appointed him. It should be added that terrorism on the part of certain exiles from Cuba has been either supported or ignored by our government for five decades. The Bush/Gonzalez group, however, has brought this issue to its apex. They not only continue to harbor terrorists but they have codified torture in their failed efforts to occupy and control Iraq and Afghanistan.

The terrorist Luis Posada Carriles must be detained and tried. The five Cuban citizens who have dedicated their lives to fighting terrorism must be freed.

Please listen to WORLD FOCUS ON Sunday, May 20th at 10:00 AM. (KPFK, 90.7 fm). My guests will be students and faculty at the University of California who intend to fast until the Regents of the University stop the corruption of using academia as a research center for nuclear annihilation.

Pacifica Commentary For May 9, 2007

2007-05-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

The Pope Goes To Brazil

Major media is covering the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Brazil. The media consistently mentions the threat of liberation theology and the efforts made by the Vatican to stamp it out.

But as usual, the commercial media just does not get it.

Rumors of the demise of liberation theology are premature. Journalists should reflect on the fact that Jesus was born long before Marx and that Marx was probably influenced by Jesus. Pick up your New Testament and read the Acts of the Apostles:"The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed." Acts 2, 44

History can clarify the situation. Back in the fourth century when the Emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicaea, on the Turkish coast, and paid the way for the attending bishops, imperial theology was born. The emperor had granted an Edict of Toleration to the Christians. In return we witness the emergence of imperial theology.

The sword and the cross came together in building the empire, in the crusades, the inquisition, the conquistadors and the contemporary "Christian" war mongers who can be cheer leaders for a filthy and ongoing holocaust in Iraq. Liberation theology is simply an effort to dissolve the heretical imperial theology which has tainted Christianity for centuries. Making war in the name of Jesus is heresy.

Jesus firmly embraced a preferential option for the poor. The Church must do the same.

80,000 base communities of liberation theology will reverently listen to the Pope when he visits Brazil. They will show love, honor and respect for his role. However nothing and no one will ever stop them from practicing the democracy of the base community which is the democracy of the Acts of the Apostles.

The method of the base community is to first observe a situation, next to make a collective judgment about the situation and finally to enter in a praxis or reflective action.

It is this kind of collective wisdom together with the fact that the empire is busy destroying the cradle of civilization in Iraq that has made it possible for the people of this hemisphere to enter into a definitive arc of liberation.

As in the case of Galileo and practically every other new concept, the Vatican, in time will begin to understand what the Spirit is doing. Both our political and church leaders must learn how to follow an enlightened people.

Please be sure to listen to WORLD FOCUS at 10:00 AM on Sunday, my guests will be Dr. Dahlia Wasfi who testified at a Congressional Forum giving an account of life in Iraq and Nativo Lopez, National President of the Mexican American Political Association.

Pacifica Commentary For May 2, 2007

2007-05-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

Homeland Security

When you see millions of immigrants on the streets of the United States on May 1st, please understand that their issues are now your issues. Threats of terrorism and millions of immigrants are being used to justify new police-state measures in the United States. Coordinated mass arrests, big brother spy blimps, expanded detention centers, repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, and suspension of habeas corpus have all been recently implemented and are ready to use against anyone in the U.S..

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) flooded Mexico with cheap subsidized US agricultural products that displaced millions of Mexican farmers. Between 2000 and 2005, Mexico lost 900,000 rural jobs and 700,000 industrial jobs, resulting in deep unemployment throughout the country.

Desperate poverty has forced millions of Mexican workers north in order to feed their families.

In the wake of 9/11, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted workplace and home invasions across the country in an attempt to roundup so-called "illegal" immigrants. ICE justifies these raids under the rubric of keeping our homeland safe and preventing terrorism. However the real goal of these actions is to disrupt the immigrant work force in the US and replace it with a tightly regulated non-union guest-worker program.To accommodate the detention of tens of thousands of people, Homeland Security, in 2005, awarded Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root a $385 million contingency contract to build detention camps in the United States. The Military Commissions Act signed October of 2006 suspends habeas corpus rights for any person deemed by the President to be an enemy combatant. Persons so designated could be imprisoned indefinitely without rights to legal counsel or a trial. When you see those marchers next Tuesday, remember that the immigrants are marching for your rights as well as for their rights.

Thanks to Professor Peter Phillips of Sonoma State University for this information.

Be sure to listen to WORLD FOCUS on Sundays: 10:00 AM- 11:00 AM
KPFK, Los Angeles, 90.7 FM (Santa Barbara, 98.7 FM). My guests will be Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Gerry Condon of Project Safe Haven for troops who are resisting the war in Iraq.

Pacifica Commentary For April 25, 2007
IMMIGRATION

Commercial media would like to give you two choices. Are you for the current immigration practices or are you for a guest worker program? The correct answer is none of the above. Do not allow them to frame you into two possibilities when there are two hundred possibilities. Current immigration practices are among the most punitive, mean spirited and counterproductive in U.S. history.

Please witness the Immigration Customs Enforcement which is making militaristic raids on factories of hard working people, breaking up families and imprisoning people with the same failed tactics we have used in Iraq. This is the perfect way to make enemies and to drive substantial portions of the population underground.

What do we want? We want to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to permit parents of U.S. citizens to petition through their US citizen children under 21 years of age to avoid deportation of their parents. Corporations which are legal persons are free to move their capital throughout the world with few constraints. But people who are real and not fictitious persons are not free to move for their security and safety. Such freedom is granted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but unfortunately the United States is not complying with that international accord.

We also want to reinstate the jurisdiction of Federal Courts to review various agency decisions involving immigrants. The Federal Courts were stripped of this jurisdiction during the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

We want to support the DREAM Act, which facilitates the education of immigrant youth and legalizes a population that would be almost certain to remain residing in the US in an underground and unlawful status.

We support the CHILD CITIZEN PROTECTION ACT (HR 1176) which would allow an immigration judge to consider the well being of US citizen children before deporting the immigrant parent.

We want to ensure that all workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively and to repeal international trade agreements that simply stimulate undocumented immigration.

These are only a few of the changes necessary to make immigration laws humane.

You can view the entire proposal of the Unity Blueprint for Immigration Reform by going to Hundreds of civic and religious groups are supporting this Blueprint.

And please be sure to listen to WORLD FOCUS this Sunday at 10:00 AM on KPFK. My guests will be Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Laureate who had just been shot by the Israeli forces while at a gathering in Bilin, Palestine. Mairead was there for an international gathering on the importance of non-violence in conflict resolution. Mairead won the Nobel Peace Prize for her role in ending the violence in Northern Ireland.Gerry Condon, a Vietnam Veteran sentenced to ten years in prison for failure to serve in that war and now heading up SOLDIER SAY NO/PROJECT SAFE HAVEN.

Pacifica Commentary For April 18, 2007

2007-04-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

A Conversation With God

We know that religion is often used as a cloak for malice in the political world. Here is a Liberation Theology reflection on how we might remove religion from corrupt politics. It is in the form of a conversation with God.

Q. What religion do you belong to?
God: I don't have a religion

Q. But we humans do.
God: Of course. Religion is a human attempt to define the indefinable and to bind a certain group of people together in that effort. Religion is a fact of Anthropology.

Q. Are religions a bad thing?
God: Not necessarily, but they are bad if they separate people from human unity.

Q. What about all those people who do not believe in you?
God: That's understandable, it may be because of all of the dumb things they have been told about me. They may not believe in me, but that does not mean I don't believe in them.

Q. Are you Jewish?
God: No.

Q. Are you Catholic?
God: No.

Q. Are you Protestant, Islamic, or Hindu or Buddhist?
God: No, those are human configurations.

Q. Some people say that you are many.
God: Perhaps they see many facets and individualize those facets as many gods. That could be called "many."

Q. How do people serve, and honor you?
God: By serving, honoring and loving each other.

Q. What about all of the religious figures that have been deified over the centuries? Jesus for example?
God: Here is where language is defective. Jesus demonstrated the unity between himself, me and all of humankind. Jesus was asking everyone to share in this divinity. He did not separate himself from the human race or deny the divinity of the human race.

Q. What religion was Jesus?
God: He was Jewish.

Q. Was he sectarian?
God: No, he was universal in his approach and made it clear that everyone who lived the truth understood his message.

Q. You mean, even if they never heard of him?
God: Of course. Anyone devoted to the truth, justice and peace gets the message regardless of their religion or lack of religion.

Q. You seem to be saying that we cannot comprehend the word God.
God: That is correct. You can only speak of me in terms of analogy, you can never comprehend me.

Q. What about all the various religious liturgies, customs?
God: These are all of value if they are celebrating the good you are doing or planning to do. Think of liturgy as a party, a celebration. The liturgy will not build the house, but it can celebrate the fact that you are going to build the house or that you have built the house. The liturgy will not feed the poor. But it can be the celebration that you are about to change the very structures that create poverty.

Q. Should we pray?
God: Yes, of course. This is a way to elevate your mind from the nitty gritty of daily life and enter into the unity of creation.

Q. Did you say creation?
God: Yes, I did. There has never been any conflict between creation and evolution. Science is simply an effort to understand my work. People should revere science as an effort to know and then use science for justice and peace.

Q. Well, God, thanks very much for this reflection at a time when we celebrate Passover, Easter, Norwas and all the multiple celebrations of the Springtime resurrection.
God: You are welcome

Pacifica Commentary For March 28, 2007

2007-04-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

A Vote For Human Sacrifice

Our Democratic House of Representatives has voted to allow daily human sacrifice on the altar of the god of war until 2008.

This strange group of modern day politicians tell us that they don't support the war and therefore they will fund it. Do I hear the voice of Pontius Pilate saying, he found no guilt in the accused and then conceded to have him scourged and executed?

So our young people are marched to their death on a daily basis to embalm a lie and to serve their lobbyists, not their constituents. Would it not be better for these legislators to go on welfare, or as a Republican Senator suggested recently that they try selling shoes. Selling shoes is a legitimate livelihood, sacrificing our youth in a slow bleed policy to save the face of a criminal administration is not.

So the tsunami of funds will continue to flow to international torture centers, fragmentation bombs, death and destruction of the bodies and souls of our military to say nothing about funding the out-of-control mercenaries of Blackwater and other military corporations who have made windfall profits on murder and lies.

And what about the people who live in Iraq? Some of our war promoters are acting as if they were concerned about them. If they had any concern for the Iraqi people, they never would have imposed the death sentence on them by supporting the war in the first place.

Friends, what we are seeing here is a Congressional Declaration stating that the citizens of the United States are irrelevant.

Just as we saw profoundly ignorant and racist members of congress change their minds on the matter of segregation and later on the Vietnam War we must now follow the lead of the Occupation Project and Code Pink in occupying the offices of current incumbents to remind them of a few things:

They are to work for us, we do not work for them. We pay their salaries. It is true corporate lobbyists may contribute more than we can as individuals, but members of congress must understand that doing what lobbyists want is simply the lowest and most gross form of prostitution. Far better to sell shoes!

We demand that our troops come home now. No amount of advertising jargon is going to make the war honorable, acceptable or winnable. It began as a crime, it continues as a crime and it must end as a crime.

Be sure to listen to WORLD FOCUS on KPFK 90.7 FM, Los Angeles, 98.7 FM, Santa Barbara. The program is available 24/7 on www.kpfk.org where it can be heard internationally

Pacifica Commentary For March 21, 2007

2007-03-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

Tanya Reinhart

This week was marked by the passing of Tanya Reinhart, a leading Israeli intellectual, an outspoken critic of Israeli government policies and one of the leading advocates for Palestinian national rights. She served as a professor of linguistics and media studies at Tel Aviv University and, recently, as global distinguished professor of linguistics at New York University and columnist for Israel's largest daily paper, Yediot Ahranot. Tanya had a global following for her critical perspective on the occupation of Palestine. Her books include: Israel-Palestine, How to End the War of 1948, and The Road Map to Nowhere. Tanya last appeared on my program WORLD FOCUS on November 19, 2006.
Here are some of Tanya Reinhart's positions:

Israel's policy has changed so they are now not simply defending the occupation, they are supporting the atrocities including the daily killing of Palestinians.

The recent Palestinian elections were declared to be among the best of the sixty-two which have been monitored by the Carter Center, but Israel did not like the results of the election and Israel is protected by the might makes right policy of the United States. So the Palestinian elections are not recognized and their entire population must be punished and starved.

Friends, the brilliance and clarity of Tanya Reinhart identifies something that few people in the United States understand. Tanya states that what we see now is the U.S. and Israel deliberately inciting civil wars among their enemies. They are doing this in Palestine by supporting forces like the Dahlan in Gaza.

They are doing the same in Lebanon. They are doing this in Iraq. This is the U.S./Israeli policy.

Tanya was convinced that Israel is simply not willing to recognize the right of the Palestinians to exist as a state.

Just as the Bush administration has done everything possible to recklessly endanger the people of the United States, similarly, the incredibly powerful American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is actually endangering the people of Israel by pushing for war in Iran, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Tanya Reinhart knew that the blowback from this endless war mongering could lead to the destruction of Israel. Now that she has left us it would be wise for every Israeli and every citizen of the United States to read her books and to denounce the mindless cheering sections for endless war which reside in Washington and Tel Aviv.

Pacifica Commentary For February 28, 2007

2007-03-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

Let's Start Some New Wars

Just twenty years ago, the Reagan Administration was busy illegally and secretly selling arms to the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in order to fund an out of control mercenary army of thugs who were given the mission of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua. Elliot Abrams was indicted for giving false testimony about his role in this illicit money raising and was convicted of unlawfully withholding information from Congress. Yes, this is the same Elliot Abrams who covered up atrocities committed by the military forces of U.S. backed governments in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and his own mercenary contra army which slaughtered 40,000 Nicaraguan civilians. This is the same Elliot Abrams who reported that the El Mozote Massacre in El Salvador was not credible.

According to the Observer, Elliot also planned the Coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez in 2002. Oh, yes, it was the same Elliot Abrams who flew to London under a fake name to raise more money for his beloved Contra mercenaries. He scored a heist of millions from his buddy, the Sultan of Brunei, an act specifically forbidden by the Boland Amendment.

Elliot Abrams gives the following formula for covert actions:

First. Keep Congress out of it. Do not trust any friends or allies.

Second, keep the CIA out of it.

Third, do not trust the uniformed military.

Fourth, the program must be run out of the Vice President's office.

Guess what? Elliot Abrams is now being drawn forth to help the hapless Bush Administration ignite the entire Middle East into a huge bonfire. Abrams will use the above formula once again and once again it will be a formula for total failure. The plan is for Sunni Saudi Arabia to help the Sunnis weaken the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon. Aid will now go to the Sunnis who are hostile to the U.S. and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. How did this redirection happen? The unintended strategic consequence of the Iraq war has been the empowerment of Shiite Iran. So now, Bush in his wisdom, wants to empower the Sunnis to fight the Shiites, who are currently in power in Iraq. For clarification, we want to help the minority who previously ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein and to oppose the majority who have allegedly been elected by the people of Iraq.

Friends, impeachment is the only way to stop Bush and Cheney from destroying The Middle East and creating world wide repercussions. If you find all of this confusing, please get help from the excellent journalist who is trying to help us understand it. Check out Seymour Hersh's article THE REDIRECTION in the New Yorker for March 5th, 2007.

Be sure to listen to WORLD FOCUS, 10:00 to 11:00 AM on Sundays.90.7 fm, Los Angeles, 98.7 fm, Santa Barbara. This program is alsoPod cast and available 24/7 at: www.kpfk.org click on WORLD FOCUS.

Pacifica Commentary For March 14, 2007
Torture Is Us

Nothing personifies our foreign policy more clearly than torture. Our policy is torture. Torture of the indigenous, torture of the slaves, torture of the poor, torture of working people, torture of our troops and torture of our purported enemies. A polity of torture has no right to exist.

Torture is the work of wimps. Wimps are sadists who enjoy bringing pain to their alleged enemies. Torture is the behavior of losers who continue its performance by the endless fuel of outrageous lies. The lies are declared to be true by way of military cult leaders whose objective is to control the minds of our troops. And what form of logic do military cult leaders use? They use the logic of authority. And what role does authority have in making a legitimate argument? Zero. The science of Logic declares any argument based on authority a fallacy. Oh, yes, authority can fire you, it can torture you and it can kill you. But it is never an acceptable part of sound logic or morality.

Military leadership with all the skills of cult leader Jim Jones insists on the following:

1. By torturing these suspects, you are protecting your fellow troops. This is a lie. Effective commanders of guerrilla troops have understood for years that captured enemies should be treated well. George Washington identified the Hessian mercenaries as terrorists and then instructed his guerrillas to take good care of their Hessian captives who might just come over to our side.

2. Torture can save the world from nuclear war. No, it can't. The only thing that can save us from nuclear war is the universal abolition of nuclear weapons.

3. Torture will make people tell us the truth. False, torture will make people say anything that might stop the torture. The truth has nothing to do with it.

In short, torture is the personification of evil. It is simply one of the many forms of rape.

So friends, now is the time to impeach our Head Torturer, George Bush and our Vice Torturer Dick Cheney. And now is the time to boycott the producers of such TV Programs such as 24 which have brought us to the ultimate cultural perversion by picturing the torturers as the good guys and implying that some truth has been extracted by their barbaric behavior.

Join us at Hollywood and Vine this Saturday at Noon in a demonstration to denounce the torture of war.
Be sure to listen to WORLD FOCUS with Blase Bonpane at 10:00 AM on Sundays.KPFK, 90.7 fm, Los Angeles, 98.7 fm, Santa Barbara.This program is pod cast and available 24/7 on www.kpfk.org where is heard internationally.

2007-02-21T23:22:00.000-08:00

Pacifica Commentary For February 14, 2007

Why We Lose

Why is it that we have lost the Indochina War and every conflict since that disaster. In each case we fought in opposition to the will of the vast majority of the people we attacked.

We sent an army of mercenaries to overthrow the government of Nicaragua in the 1980's killing 40,000, and who is ruling that country today? The Sandinistas. We spent billions and killed 80,000 people to stop the movement for liberation in El Salvador. And what is the most powerful movement in El Salvador today? The FMLN. That's right, the very movement we tried to destroy.

And then there is Iraq. We have definitively lost that war just as we lost the Vietnam War in January of 1968 but we remained for seven more years allowing tens of thousands more of our troops to die together with millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians.

Let us compare and contrast these situations with the Cuban Revolution. In December of 1956 Fidel Castro and his tiny invasion force landed the yacht Granma on the Cuban shore at Los Cayuelos. The Cuban Dictator Batista had 50,000 troops, an air force, a navy and a killer group of secret police. Fidel's invasion was discovered, attacked and surrounded. Few of the invaders were alive. Castro was lying flat on his back in a cane field covered with sugar cane leaves. With him was Universo Sanchez, and Dr. Faustino Perez Hernandez.

To his knowledge Casto's invasion force was now limited to the three of them. He was now Commander in Chief of exactly two rebels. Castro whispered to his two available fighters, "We are winning…Victory will be ours."

This message to his two troops was not blind bravado. Fidel knew that the people of Cuba were sick and tired of the Batista rule and that they would join his forces. His powerful faith and confidence were based in reality not fantasy.

On the contrary, our mad venture into Iraq with 140,000 troops plus the surge, plus 100,000 mercenaries has failed completely. Why? The people of Iraq don't want us there. The horrendous disaster of the mendacious Cheney and Bush is that they created a death dealing fantasy totally unrelated to reality as they march on blindly to an even more monstrous calamity in Iran. We must stop them before they kill again.

Listen to Blase's program: WORLD FOCUS, 10:00-11:00 AM Sundays, KPFK, Los Angeles, 90.7 FM (Santa Barbara, 98.7 FM).
Internationally, pod cast is available 24/7 on <www.kpfk.org>.
<www.blasesblog.blogspot.com>

Pacifica Commentary For February 7, 2007

2007-02-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

Light One Candle

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. And it remains nearly impossible to refrain from cursing as we observe the direction our elected officials are taking.

The light we see, however, is in the streets. We see it in The Voices for Creative Non-Violence as they engage in non-violent civil disobedience at the offices of our representatives and senators who continue to support the rape of Iraq. The message is quite simple; if you don't stop the funding the war, you are supporting the war. And any member of Congress who does not understand the power of that body to control the purse should not be in Congress.

The peace people even occupied the office of Obama. Why should we upset such nice people? It is sad to say, but they can have smiles on their faces, love their mother, love their children and still be responsible for crimes against humanity.

These nice people must be awakened, they must do their duty to promote justice and peace. If these Democrats are not awakened our troops and the good people of Iraq will continue to bleed and die. If these nice Democrats are not activated, they will allow a pathological attack on Iran. Once the slaughter begins, the suicide bombers responsible for such an attack on Iran will stupidly wonder why their plan backfired. Is this not what we have observed in both Iraq and Palestine?

Indeed, the voice of the spirit is now heard in the streets and in the fortitude of these unwelcome visitors to Congressional offices. These are the voices of prophesy, these are the voices that give hope to a people who have lost their government, their constitution and their courage.

The current patriots in the streets whether they be Voices for Creative Non-Violence, Code Pink, or any of the thousands of peace and justice organizations now burning bright are the contemporary legacy of the Boston Tea Party. Please join me on Sunday here at KPFK at 10:00 AM when I will interview the founder of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, Kathy Kelly.

Such leadership must not simply be observed, it must be imitated. We can do that by joining forces in the streets or by supporting those who do these courageous acts. And we can also pledge that we will not vote for any candidate who currently supports the war policies of the Bush Administration or those hopelessly confused members who claim they are against the war as they continue to fund it.

Let the impeachment process begin for Bush and Cheney. We don't have to curse the darkness, we can join hands with those who walk in the light.

Pacifica Commentary for January 31, 2007

2007-02-07T23:59:00.000-08:00

The Trial Of Lieutenant Ehren Watada

Leutenant Ehren Watada will go before a military court on next Monday, February 5th.. On Sunday, February 4th at 10:00 AM here on KPFK I will Have three of the members of THE CITIZENS HEARING ON THE LEGALITY OF THE WAR IN IRAQ. They are Professor Richard Falk, Colonel Ann Wright and David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The hearing was convened to present evidence that Lieutenant Ehren Watada intended to present at his February 5th Court Martial. But in a pretrial hearing the court refused to hear the evidence. As a result of the failure of this military court to hear the motives for Lieutenant Watada’s refusal to serve, the Citizens’ Hearing was held before a gathering of 600 people. Here are some of the points made by the legal experts who presided over the hearing:

Lieutenant Ehren Watada had not only the right to refuse to deploy to Iraq in an illegal war, but he had a duty to do so.

Watada should be recognized for his courage rather than undergoing a Court Martial.

Darrell Anderson, who received a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq spoke of orders
issued to, “Shoot everyone, regardless of whether they were civilians, including children.”

Experts on International Law made it clear that the war in Iraq was initiated illegally. It did not comply with the United Nations Charter because it was not required for immediate self defense and it was not authorized by the United Nations Security Council. It was a war of aggression violating international law and the United States Constitution. Article 6, Section 2 of the Constitution makes treaties such as the United Nations Charter part of the Supreme Law of the Land.

The panel also received testimony regarding the systematic torture of Iraqi prisoners, and indiscriminate killing of civilians.

Dennis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations described the “shock and awe” initiation of the war as terrorist act.

Law Professor Richard Falk testified that the military judge’s order preventing Ehren Watada from presenting evidence on the illegality of the war was “criminally disallowing him from obeying the law.”

The unanimous finding of the panel is that the United States committed crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq. Further, Lieutenant Watada acted legally and honorably in refusing orders to deploy to Iraq, and his actions are in accord with the oath he took to uphold the constitution of the United States. The only thing going on trial on next Monday morning is the War in Iraq. Lieutenant Watada is a victim of that war.

Pacifica Commentary for January 24, 2007

2007-02-02T11:45:00.000-08:00

State of the Union

Yesterday's State of the Union left me with questions about both the President and the Congress. I would suggest that apart from being an American Citizen and having untold millions in their campaign coffers, anyone running for President or for Congress should be required to take Civics 101 and Political Science 101 and World History 101.

1. The President is not the Commander in Chief of the citizens of the United States. We are a sovereign people and he is our servant. When he consistently acts outside of our collective will he must be removed by impeachment or by the activation of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution. At this point in history he has qualified for either or both of these legal remedies.

2. Comments he has made about Islamic people are similar to comments made about Jewish people by the leaders of the Third Reich.

3. He speaks of an ideological struggle. Just what is his ideology? Might makes right? The truth is anything I say it is? In any case his endless war program simply mirrors what he claims to be fighting.

4. According to the New York Times Magazine the death squad leadership in Iraq was imported from our death squad leaders in El Salvador.

5. The Congress has absolute authority to stop the funding and thereby to stop the war. There is simply no question about the legality of such Congressional action. And now some members of Congress are making non-binding resolutions? They are, however, fully authorized to make binding resolutions.

6. Corporate profits are at an all time high? What does this mean except that war profiteers are making obscene profits on the blood of our young. And this has been the case ever since the Civil War. Nothing has been more harmful to our democracy than the false patriotism of war mongering greed which has always been the last refuge of scoundrels.

7. Support our troops? As they die unnecessarily, as they lose their mental and physical health, as they are denied the democratic right of redress? Are we to presume for a moment they are in Iraq because they want to be there? As with most of the Bush proposals, reality is the exact opposite of what he is saying. "Support our troops," in his view is to let them die for a lie.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan Administration and also Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. He believes that the surge in Iraq is simply an attempt to deflect attention from the Bush plan to attack Iran. Roberts concludes, "Nothing can stop the Regime except immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney. This is America's last chance."

Pacifica Commentary For January 17, 2007

2007-01-18T17:43:00.000-08:00

Constitutional Crisis

Yes, we are in a constitutional crisis. The President has determined that 100 billion dollars be spent on an extremely dangerous "updating" of our nuclear arsenal. And he does this at a time when some of the nation's virulent hawks, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn issue a statement calling for the U.S. to lead the world in the abolition of nuclear weapons. See Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007.

Our universities are being turned into houses of prostitution as the Bush Administration pumps billions into academia to design new nukes together with new horrors of biological and chemical weapons in direct violation of both the Biological Weapons and Chemical Weapons conventions and U.S. domestic criminal law.

And then there is the surge of troops in Iraq. In spite of what the poorly educated journalists or elected officials might say, there is a consensus of legal scholars that Congress has absolute power to block funding for any surge of troops in Baghdad.

Oh, yes, Bush invades Somalia with a little help from Ethiopia and then tries to assassinate a few alleged members of Al Qaeda. So he sends an AC-130 and a host of attack helicopters to southern Somalia. The AC-130 is a monstrosity designed to kill every man, woman, child and beast within its orbit.

And all of this is taking place while Israel and the United States bicker over which one will be the first to strike Iran.

Friends, we currently have some options to defend the people of the United States from governmental criminality:

First. Impeachment: There are literally scores of charges that could lead to conviction.
Second. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: This Amendment is to be applied when the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The president's behavior should make his inability self-evident.

Now in both cases the Vice President is in line to take over. Clearly, similar action should be taken immediately as the Vice President becomes President because many of the high crimes and misdemeanors of the current President are directly tied to policies created by the current Vice President. This action would elevate the Speaker of the House of Representatives to the position of President.

And as we petition these actions from the new Congress, the peace movement is more engaged than ever at the street level. We are joined by veterans and current members of the armed forces. And this is where history will be made.

For detailed information on action in your immediate area go to

Pacifica Commentary For January 3, 2007

2007-01-05T11:39:00.000-08:00

What Congress Is Going To Do

The New York Times has a great headline. It says: CHAOS OVERRAN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S PLAN FOR THE IRAQ WAR IN 2006.

Now we know whom to blame. Chaos is to blame, that's who. If chaos had not appeared, Bush's plans would have been a great success. Right?

Might we ask what caused the chaos? The press likes to call it sectarian violence. But so-called sectarian violence seems to be just a cover for the fact that people who have accepted the occupation of Iraq are fighting against fellow citizens who do not accept the occupation of Iraq.

And the same might be said of Palestine. Unfortunately some Palestinians are fighting other Palestinians whom they believe are accepting Israeli occupation.

And as the Democrats come to center stage, we must remind them that chaos just might mess up their plans as well. "We will have oversight. We will not cut off funding," says incoming speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Please Nancy, don't start your new job with doubletalk. If you Democrats don't cut off spending, you are fully supporting an ongoing crime against humanity.

Speaking on behalf of the hopes, desires and anxieties of millions of Americans, we are asking you, we are demanding of you that you not only cut off funding for the Iraq disaster but that you immediately begin impeachment proceedings for the most criminal administration in the history of the United States. Let's stop the charade now.

We put you in power to stop the war and you are telling us that you will continue funding the slaughter of our troops by people who do not want their country occupied. You will continue the daily murder of innocent people in an illegal war? You will continue to make the United States the most hated and feared polity on earth? Congressman Dennis Kucinich put it well when he said that the war in and the occupation of Iraq will end when Congress eliminates funding for the war. This is the necessary program for the new congress. To be sure that cut off in funding takes place. The Occupation Project challenges Representatives and Senators to publicly declare that they will vote against any further funding for the war and occupation of Iraq. Failure to make this pledge will result in the occupation of legislator's offices in an ongoing project of civil disobedience during February and March both in Washington and in their home districts. Let's not have the Democrats also telling us that chaos has messed up their plans. Get out of Iraq now.

Pacifica Commentary For December 27, 2006

2006-12-28T10:44:00.000-08:00

Peace Plans

We are proud to be part of a movement for justice and peace which is ever more united and more effective. In spite of the propaganda of commercial media and the misinformation of government, our quest is being accepted by a majority while the administration babbles on with its irrational and extremely dangerous drivel.

The focus for January of 2007 will be Washington, D.C.. There are so many actions that it is difficult to list them all. Here are a few:

* Gold Star Families for Peace and Code Pink will have a Walk for Peace campaign in the halls of Congress on January 3rd and 4th. This citizen's lobby will also be conducted at local congressional offices throughout the country.

* United for Peace and Justice in collaboration with many other organizations will conduct a major march in Washington, D.C. on January 27th.

The Occupation Project conducted by Voices for Creative Non-Violence calls upon Representatives and Senators to publicly pledge to vote against the supplemental spending bill, which will be submitted to Congress in early 2007. Civil disobedience will begin on February 5th in the offices of legislators who do not make a public pledge to vote against the supplemental war funding bill. Civil disobedience actions will continue through the month of March.

* March 17, 2007 on the 40th anniversary of the historic 1967 march on the Pentagon and the fourth anniversary of the start of the criminal invasion of Iraq, The Answer Coalition is inviting people from all over the country to once again descend on the Pentagon demanding U.S. Out of Iraq Now.

All of these national events will have local representation.

* Arlington West Memorial. Each Sunday since February 15, 2004, a memorial is erected in the sand just north of the pier at Santa Monica Beach by the local chapter of Veterans for Peace to acknowledge the human cost and consequences of war. Similar memorials are conducted in Santa Barbara and other sites.

More complete information on these projects will be found on the website

We may have started small but currently the movement for justice and peace represents the majority of United States citizens.

May 2007 be the year of justice and peace!

Pacifica Commentary For December 20, 2006

2006-12-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

Wise Men From the East

The puppet rulers within empire know where their bread is buttered and they know exactly whom they can kill with impunity. The masters in Washington say, "OK to use cluster bombs in Lebanon and the bombs fall in Lebanon and continue to tear the heads off of children long after the initial assault." And such was the case with King Herod. Imperial Rome had made it clear to him that he could kill within his jurisdiction especially if it would increase fear which is the glue holding empire together.

So Herod entertained the Wise Men from what are now called Iraq and Iran and Syria and eagerly urged them to let him know the exact location of this anti-imperialist King who was born in Bethlehem. When Herod realized that the Wise Men were on to him and had rejected his request, he ordered that every child in Bethlehem under the age of two be massacred.

The parents of the Jesus were warned by an angel that their infant son was in extreme danger so they left Bethlehem in haste and entered Egypt without papers. And there they stayed until Herod dropped dead, which may have been the most constructive act of his life.

And today the emperor residing in the United States considers the head of state in Lebanon as an ally after authorizing a blitzkrieg on that land. And the emperor in the US is surprised that for some reason, most of the people in Lebanon are not pleased with their head of state. Such ingratitude!

And similarly Bush is not happy with his selected leader in Iraq so he is going to send in more U.S. troops to fight the Sadr Militia, which is simply another segment of the same Islamic sect which Bush has been supporting. Nothing could be more counterproductive.

It would also help if some Wise Men explained to Bush that the so-called sectarian attacks conducted by people dressed as Iraqi troops and Iraqi police were quite simply Iraqi troops and Iraqi police.

So what does this all demonstrate? That imperial leadership and its surrogate puppets quickly develop a serious political psychosis; we might call it sociopathic necrophilia.

This illness is indicated by a lack of concern for others be they friend or foe together with a fixation on killing. The only reality for these sickos is their own power and that power is limited by their own tenuous hold on life. Fear of losing their own life and their own power leads them to take life from as many others as possible.

Mr. Bush please step down before you destroy all life on the planet. Caesar did not have a nuclear button in his hand but unfortunately, you do.

Pacifica Commentary for November 29, 2006

2006-12-14T22:42:00.000-08:00

Out Now

Michael Moore helps us to understand why "Cut and Run" is the only brave thing to do.

Here are a few of his thoughts:
We have now been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II. That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad.

Let's listen to what the Iraqi people are saying, according to a recent poll conducted by the
University of Maryland:

** 71% of all Iraqis now want the U.S. out of Iraq.

** 61% of all Iraqis SUPPORT insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.

So I don't want to hear another word about sending more troops (wake up, America, John McCain is bonkers), or "redeploying" them, or waiting four months to begin the "phase-out." There is only one solution and it is this: Leave. Now. Start tonight. Get out of there as fast as we can.
If you invade and destroy a country, plunging it into a civil war, there isn't much you can do 'til the smoke settles and blood is mopped up. Then maybe you can atone for the atrocity you have committed and help the living come back to a better life.

The responsibility to end this war now falls upon the Democrats. Congress controls the purse strings. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi now hold the power to put an end to this madness. Failure to do so will bring the wrath of the voters. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans.
This is what we demand:

1. Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost.

2. Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security. We must commit to taking care of them so that they suffer as little as possible. The mentally and physically maimed must get the best care and significant financial compensation. The families of the deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of for the rest of their lives.

3. We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie, invading another country because you want what they have buried under the ground.
If you pay taxes, you have contributed to the three billion dollars a week now being spent to drive Iraq into the hellhole it's become. We can receive no redemption until we have atoned.

In closing, there is one final thing I know. We Americans are better than what has been done in our name. So we will accept the consequences of our actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness.

We demand the Democrats listen to us and get out of Iraq now.

Thanks, Michael.

Pacifica Commentary For November 22, 2006

2006-11-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Christian Zionism

Welcome to Christian Zionism. This is a unique form of idol worship. It was born from the same people who made an idol of U.S. foreign policy and who identified that policy with the will of God. Call it manifest destiny if you wish. But the first commandment of God is that we should not have weird gods before us. And this one is really weird.

Using the name of the man who said, "This is my commandment, that you love one another," and who spoke of the Spirit reaching all of humankind including the Syrians and Samaritans, on October 21st of this year, Texas pastor and evangelist John Hagee had a special rally at the Church of the Cornerstone in San Antonio. You might remember the Reverend Hagee from his 1981 approval of Israel's bombing the nuclear reactor at Osirak in Iraq. Featured speakers at this year's rally were:
Former CIA director James Woolsey, former chief of staff for the Israeli Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, and Joseph Ginat, director of the Strategic Dialogue Center at the Netanya Academic College in Israel. Woolsey in his wisdom told the congregation that the United States is hated because of its freedom. Ginat told the congregation that the west has only six to ten months to take military action against Iran and he spoke of the culture of lies in the Arab world. Yalalon expressed his belief that an ongoing war had already started between the West and radical Islam and argued that opposition to Israel has little to do with the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Brigitte Gabriel an Arab and former TV anchor for "world News" on the Middle East Television network said, "Our enemy is in the Islamic mosques throughout the United States." Messages thanking the Rev. Hagee and the congregation came from Israeli deputy prime minister Shimon Peres and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and were broadcast over two large video screens.

So here we have a nineteenth century millennial misinterpretation of the New Testament linked with the nineteenth century ideology of Zionism.

The only message I see revealed in such a gathering is the commonality of fundamentalist behavior. British historian Arnold Toynbee identified the problem over fifty years ago and warned us that once people are in an absolutist posture, they will kill. The goals of such behavior are void of any spiritual content. But the bastardization of religion is frequently rewarded by lucrative government funding.

What is obvious here is that the name of our religion has very little to do with our performance as human beings. The name of our religion, can be used to foster a humane future or an insane future. There is no authentic spirituality which can be based on hatred, racism, and perpetual war.

Thanks to Margot Patterson from San Antonio for her article on this Christian Zionist Rally.

Pacifica Commentary For November 11, 2006

2006-11-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

Appeal For Redress

Aside from the parade of troops who are defying orders and leaving the Iraq disaster on a daily basis, there is a group of one hundred active duty military personnel who have signed an appeal urging Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases from Iraq. This is called the Appeal for Redress and is endorsed and sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.

Do you think we made any friends by breaking in to 95,000 homes in Baghdad recently? Put yourself in the shoes of those who were following orders. Put yourself in the shoes of the families who live in those 95,000 homes as they are terrorized by heavily armed troops screaming at them in English.

Our Head Torturer and his Vice Torturer are directly responsible for every wound, every death, every mental illness that has resulted from this ill advised, morally bankrupt, and intellectually depraved and absolutely unnecessary military failure.

The time has come for our Supreme Court to engage in judicial review of such blatant crimes. The fact that the Court has remained nationally isolated in its jurisprudence does not mean that it must declare itself impotent in matters of foreign policy.

Here is a quote from my father, Judge Blase Bonpane's winning oration given on January 16, 1914 when he was a Freshman at Ohio Northern University:

Public opinion has enacted a law against murder; so should international public opinion demand a law against war, which is merely organized murder. Shall we execute a man for taking a single life, and glorify nations for slaughtering thousands? To protect justice, police powers are instituted in all realms. Why not go beyond the transitory interest of a nation and establish an international police power? Let the representatives of the world powers meet in one body! Let a world code be compiled!

My father gave that oration some 92 years ago.

Congratulations to young troops today who understand the urgency of a speedy departure from Iraq. And today we add to their ranks two new groups, West Point Graduates Against the War and Service Academy Graduates Against the War (U.S. Air Force Academy).

These troops are the realists in our midst. Are we to carry on this war simply to save the face of the criminals who started it?

Voices for peace and outlawing war are the voices of reason. War mongers are not realists at all, on the contrary, as Bob Woodward says, they are living in a "State of Denial."

Please show your solidarity with the troops who have designed the Appeal for Redress for the prompt withdrawal of all troops and bases from Iraq.

Pacifica Commentary For October 25, 2006

2006-10-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

Sectarian Violence

As Iraq is being torn to pieces, the commercial media has framed the phrase "sectarian violence" as if it were somehow unrelated to the occupation.

Actually, the occupation of Iraq by the United States is the primary cause of this so-called sectarian violence. Iraqis who have cooperated with the occupation are identified as the enemy by those who resist the intrusion of foreign troops.

This phenomenon is entirely predictable. France was similarly divided in the Second World War. The French people opposing occupation fought their fellow citizens who cooperated with the Third Reich. Vietnamese people who opposed our intervention in their homeland fought against Vietnamese who cooperated with the invaders.

Division of Iraq into three parts, Sunni, Shia and Kurd would only make matters worse. It would be seen as the classic imperial method of divide and conquer.

It is true that the minority Sunnis who held power during the reign of Saddam Hussein now consider themselves overwhelmed by the Shia majority. Sectarianism is not to be ignored. But to speak of sectarian violence without identifying the cause is not acceptable.

If the cause of the violence would depart from Iraq immediately we can expect the bloodshed to decline. There would certainly be residual personal and ethnic vendettas as well as common crime but the root cause of the blood bath would be removed. The Bush administration has retreated from the slogan of, "Staying the Course." The new direction in Iraq must include the following:

* Initiate diplomacy and dialogue with Iran and all other Middle East states.

* Dismantle all permanent bases in Iraq and pledge not to build any new ones.

* Begin the withdrawal of troops immediately.

And what will we call it, "A tragic mistake?" Every intervention has been at least a tragic mistake and more accurately stated, a malicious action of cold-blooded mass murder.

Friends, there is no problem-free way to leave Iraq but leave we must. Confession is good for the soul.

Let this be the last of literally hundreds of illegal interventions made by our nation.

For this to take place we must resurrect Constitutional checks and balances. For example, the 1803 decision of Marbury vs Madison made it clear that the Supreme Court had the right of judicial review over the President of the United States and could declare acts of the president to be unconstitutional. But in regard to foreign policy the Supreme Court has sat like potted plants for over two centuries. A functional Supreme Court could restrain and enjoin any war mongering administration.

Pacifica Commentary For October 18, 2006

2006-10-19T00:22:00.000-07:00

Forgiveness

Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister has a challenge for us coming from the Amish Community and its response to murder of its children. Here are some of Sister Joan's words, "In a nation steeped in violence, from its video games to its military history, in foreign policy and on its streets, the question remains: Why did this particular disaster affect us like it did? You'd think we'd be accustomed to mayhem by now. But it was not the violence suffered by the Amish Community that surprised people. Our newspapers are full of brutal and barbarian violence day after day after day, both national and personal.

"Do not think evil of this man," the Amish grandfather told his children at the mouth of one little girl's grave.
"Do not leave this area. Stay in your home here," the Amish delegation told the family of the murderer. "We forgive this man."

No, it was not the murders, not the violence, that shocked us; it was the forgiveness that followed it for which we were not prepared. It was the lack of recrimination, the dearth of vindictiveness that left us amazed. Baffled. Confounded.

(For clarification here Sister Joan might have added that the Amish were not ignoring the need of a criminal justice system, they were speaking about forgiveness of a deceased murderer.)

Sister Joan concludes her statement saying: The real problem with the whole situation is that down deep we know that we had the chance to do the same. After the fall of the twin towers we had the sympathy, the concern, the support of the entire world.

You can't help but wonder, when you see something like this, what the world would be like today, instead of using the fall of the Twin Towers as an excuse to invade a nation, we had simply gone to every Muslim country on earth and said, "Don't be afraid. We won't hurt you. We know that this is coming from only a fringe of society, and we ask your help in saving others from this same kind of violence."
"Too idealistic," you say. Maybe. But since we didn't try, we will never know, will we? Instead, we have sparked fear of violence in the rest of the world ourselves. So much so, that they are now making nuclear bombs to save themselves. From whom? From us, of course.

The record is clear. Instead of exercising more vigilance at our borders, listening to our allies and becoming more of what we say we are, we are becoming who they say we are.

Thank you, Sister Joan Chittister.

Pacifica Commentary For October 11, 2006

2006-10-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

Let's Not Cut and Run!

Let's not cut and run, O.K.? Tell that to someone who is going the wrong way on a one-way street. Stay the course, march over the cliff, surf the tsunami, picnic at an erupting Mount St. Helen's.

And, by the way, just order others to do this while you are at a safe distance from the action.

Please pay attention to your intelligence agencies. They are trying to tell you that al Qaeda is in favor of our continued occupation of Iraq. Al Qaeda believes our staying the course is essential for them to have a successful future? Our intelligence people certainly must have the statement of the al Qaeda official who said, "Prolonging the war is in our interest."

Have you listened to your intelligence agencies as they tell you that most Iraqi insurgents were never previously involved in violence? On the contrary, they say it was the occupation itself which drove the Iraqis into armed resistance. The prognosis of our intelligence agencies is that the insurgency in Iraq will grow rapidly in the years to come.

Are you not aware that the isolated "Green Zone" government of Iraq is seen by most Iraqis as completely subservient to the military of the United States?

Just think of the brilliance of our leaders as they attempt to define a reality of their own making. Our Secretary of Defense predicted that the war could last six days or six weeks. Our commercial media is equally flawed. The Latest NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE states that there have been 45,000 civilian casualties in Iraq. But Johns Hopkins University identifies over 600,000 Iraqi dead.

And we know that imitation is the highest form of praise, so now we see the Taliban in Afghanistan adopting the tactics of the Iraqi insurgents as they grow in number and influence to the point where, after visiting Afghanistan, Senator Bill Frist recommends the Taliban be accepted into the government we have created.

The policy of George Bush and the hopes of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are quite similar. Both of them want us to stay the course. Neither wants us to cut and run.

Perhaps this is a clear demonstration of how fundamentalists think. They do not take advice, they do not change their minds when they have been proven wrong. They have only their fractured truth which is a lie.

Pacifica Commentary For October 4, 2006

The Constitution Dies

Will our children living in the new police state understand that the Constitution of the United States died in 2006?

Yes, they will look to this as the year that our government determined we could be held indefinitely in a secret detention facility, that we could be put on trial based on unseen evidence and sentenced to death on hearsay statements or even testimony gleaned from torture.

Certainly the charges against Congressman Mark Foley are serious and should not be ignored. But to have such charges receive more coverage than the demise of the Constitution of the United States demands an explanation. The marriage between commercial media and the warfare state is obvious. Clinton was bombing Iraq and choking its people with a brutal embargo while Lewinsky held full time media attention.

And now it seems that the Mark Foley matter is overshadowing the loss of the document we have sworn to defend from enemies foreign and domestic.

This is simply one more reason to participate in tomorrow's National Day of Resistance to drive out the Bush Regime. Silence in the face of legalized torture is complicity.

Can you imagine that practically every picture you witnessed at the horror of Abu Ghraib Prison has now been made legal by your Congress?

Thursday, October 5th there will be a convergence at Pershing Square at Noon. This is at the corner of 5th and Olive in downtown Los Angeles. This will be followed by a rally at
the downtown Federal Building at 300 North Los Angeles Street at 5:00 PM. Speakers at the 5:00 PM rally include Edward Asner, Bob Watada (the father of Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first officer to refuse to fight in Iraq) Steve Rohde, civil rights lawyer, Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink: Women for Peace and Jesse Diaz, Jr., the co-founder of the March 25th Coalition for Immigrants Rights.

This National Day of Resistance is called by THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT, DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME. These demonstrations will take place in 170 cities of the United States. Full page ads in the New York Times and USA Today have announced this day of resistance. Tomorrow, Thursday, October 5th is set aside to protest the loss of habeas corpus, to protest the loss of the Constitution, to protest the on-going violations of the Geneva Conventions. And in the shadows of this destruction of our civil and legal rights is a nefarious plan to attack Iran.

It seems to me that some of the feigned shock expressed by our Congress regarding Mr. Foley is actually a cover for an even greater crime which the Congress itself has approved.

Pacifica Commentary For September 20, 2006

2006-09-23T23:34:00.000-07:00

If you are only in touch with commercial media, you probably won't know about the Declaration of Peace. There is a lot of money in war, so why would the commercial media want to speak of peace?

This week some 430 peace organizations throughout the United States have planned a coordinated 275 events. Here is a local example. On Monday, September 25th in Hollywood there will be a protest gathering from 10:00 AM until 1:00 PM at the military recruiting station, 7060 Hollywood Blvd. Some of the participants will engage in civil disobedience.

The Declaration of Peace was months in the planning, it was taken from the Pledge of Resistance which we used during the US wars in Central America. That pledge contributed to the United Nations conducting peace accords in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Many peace organizations are faith based. The idea was to pull together both the many progressive religious peace groups together with the secular peace organizations. The unifying spiritual and political component is fasting. The month of August has been devoted to fasting, one of the most universal ecumenical practices. Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christian, and Islamic people all have fasting as part of their culture. Fasting is seen as a spiritual quest, and a prelude to historic or to prophetic action. The rules for the fast were completely open. Some chose to fast on water only, others on liquids only, other on lighter meals. Fasting is a time to focus attention on a mission and that is what took place.

Now the time for action has arrived. We are tired of an administration that hucksters torture while it knows that torture is simply a way of forcing people to affirm what the torturers want. Torture gave us a rationale for the Iraq war. Our tortured captives would affirm that Al Qaeda was in sync with Saddam Hussein.....this was a damn lie, but that is what everyone does under torture. That torture created lie led to the death of our troops and Iraqi people. We are tired of an administration that promotes kangaroo courts and denies all of our long-standing legal protections. We are tired of an administration that does not have a clue about diplomacy, dialogue or truth telling.

So welcome to the Declaration of Peace. If you treated your dog the way the CIA treats its victims, you would be convicted of a felony.

Many of you were in the service. Do you remember what you were told to do if you were captured? You were to give your name, your rank and your serial number...nothing else. By its mentally ill focus on torture and absence of any regard for legal procedures our corrupt leaders are endangering our troops, endangering our citizens and poisoning the soul of the United States of America.

For further information on Declaration of Peace events, call: 213/489-1900.

Pacifica Commentary For September 6, 2006

2006-09-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

Absolute Failure

Just what has the Israeli Government accomplished with its endless war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza? Here is an opinion which I share together with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Eduardo Galeano, Arundhati Roy and many others.

The US-backed Israeli assault on Lebanon has left the country numb, smouldering and angry. The massacre in Qana and the loss of life is not simply "disproportionate". It is, according to existing international laws, a war crime. The deliberate and systematic destruction of Lebanon's social infrastructure by the Israeli air force was also a war crime, designed to reduce that country to the status of an Israeli-US protectorate. The attempt has backfired. In Lebanon itself, 87% of the population now support Hizbullah's resistance, including 80% of Christian and Druze and 89% of Sunni Muslims, while only 8% believe the US supports Lebanon.

It has now become clear that the assault on Lebanon to wipe out Hizbullah had been prepared long before. Israel's crimes had been given a green light by the US and its loyal British ally, despite the opposition to Blair in his own country. In short, the peace that Lebanon enjoyed has come to an end, and a paralysed country is forced to remember a past it had hoped to forget. The state terror inflicted on Lebanon is being repeated in the Gaza ghetto.

Meanwhile, the rest of Palestine is annexed and dismantled with the direct participation of the US and the tacit approval of its allies.

We offer our solidarity and support to the victims of this brutality and to those who mount a resistance against it. For our part, we will use all the means at our disposal to expose the complicity of our governments in these crimes. There will be no peace in the Middle East while the occupations of Palestine and Iraq and the temporarily "paused" bombings of Lebanon continue.

Friends, the criminal actions of the United States and Israel are eternally marked as a moral failure, a political failure, and a military failure. The massacres of Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan will be eternally remembered as the highest level of war crimes. The so called Official Story created by the United States and Israel will be remembered as a monument to disinformation and sheer militaristic war propaganda.

Pacifica Commentary for August 2, 2006

2006-08-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

Where did Hamas come from? It rose up as a response to fifty years of oppression and humiliation of the Palestinian people. Where did Hezbollah come from? It was formed as a defense against Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 which left 22,000 people dead.

Where did the Iraqi resistance come from? It was born as a result of the US occupation of Iraq.

Why don't Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iraqi resistance just sit still? Didn't Jesus say, "When someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer the other."

Well, that is good advice and certainly may apply to random insults. But Jesus did not say, "Just ignore it when your children are held and tortured by a foreign power." He did not say, "Just be quiet when your home is bulldozed." He did not say, "It is OK to allow your mother, your grandmother and your sick to be bombed to pieces."

How could any sane person not expect resistance from oppressed people? Indeed it is the pathology of militarists that they just never get it. What happened? These people are fighting back? They aren't supposed to do that...are they? Why don't they get the message. We have told them that they will comply or die. Can't they hear us?

Why don't you ask the Vietnamese? Why don't you ask the Salvadorans? The Nicaraguans? The Guatemalans? The Colombians?

The Israeli peace movement and conscious people throughout the world are crying out for an end to this massacre. Here is the Gush-Shalom statement in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz which begins with a quote from the Israeli Defense Force.

"We warned them
And called on them
To escape!"

That is disgusting
Hypocrisy.

Because we have:
Bombed the roads.
Destroyed the bridges.
Cut off the supply of gasoline.
Killed whole families on the way.

There is only one way
Of preventing such disasters,
Which turn us into monsters:
TO STOP!

There is no military solution!

Gush Shalom
P.O. Box 3322
Tel Aviv 61033

www.gush-shalom.org
For information:
info@gush-shalom.org

Published in Haaretz, August 1, 2006.

Be sure to listen to WORLD FOCUS locally on KPFK (90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara) and internationally on www.kpfk.org at 10:00 AM on Sunday mornings.

Pacifica Commentary For July 19, 2006

2006-07-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

Our Newspaper

Here begins the lead editorial in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, July 17, 2006:

(Quote) "Make no mistake about it: Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side and one side only. And that is Hezbollah..."
(Unquote).

Substantial numbers of Israelis disagree with the Los Angeles Times. They are demonstrating in Central Tel Aviv to protest Israel's attacks on Lebanon and the continued offensive of the Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip. The protesters called the Israeli Defense Force operations an unnecessary war and demanded that the Israeli government hold negotiations on an exchange of prisoners.

Contrary to the L.A. Times editorial many Israelis understand that the escalating carnage is also related to the oppression of Palestinians. For example:

There are some 9000 routinely tortured Palestinian prisoners held in Israel without trial.

There are some 400 routinely tortured Palestinian children held in Israel without trial.

Hundreds of Palestinians have had their homes destroyed without a charge or a hearing.

Targeted assassinations of Palestinians are also routine. These are cold blooded murders of suspects without evidence or trial.

Significant numbers of the elected Palestinian government have been captured and are now being held without trial. Collective punishment has been the rule. Food, medicine and funds have been withheld from Palestine.

History makes it clear that resistance can be expected from any occupied country. This is why Israeli citizens are demonstrating in Tel Aviv for peace and and this is why hundreds of Israeli Officers have refused to serve in occupied Palestine. They seem to know that the ancient and vengeful and useless axiom of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth has been replaced by, "Two thousand eyes for an eye and one thousand jaws for a tooth."

Sadly, many people select denial as a way of mindless life. So we must praise Israelis who at this moment of crisis know from long experience that war itself is the evil, war is the problem, war is the mistake and war is the enemy.

Instead of the absolutist statement about, "one side, and one side only." It would have been far better for the L.A. Times to acknowledge that the obstructionist policy of our nation has blocked literally scores of United Nations resolutions which could have brought peace to Israel and its neighbors.

Pacifica Commentary For July 12, 2006

2006-07-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

A Declaration Of Peace

Yes, it is true. Hundreds of organizations and many thousands of people have declared peace and have signed a declaration of peace.

The puppet government created by the United States in Iraq is a total loss. The Iraqi security forces are in complete disarray. Some are working for the other side, some are involved in organized crime, and according to the Los Angeles Times, the new 268,610 member Iraqi Interior Ministry has a far larger security force than all of the troops from the United States which are currently in Iraq. These Iraqi forces are clearly marked by brutality, bribery, summary execution, and rape.

There are kidnapping rings in this new Iraqi ministry. Iraqis do not trust them. Payroll fraud is rampant. Large amounts of communications equipment are missing. Female detainees are sexually assaulted.

The Ministry of the Interior is a counterproductive and broken department of the new Iraqi government imposed by our administration. Actually the Iraqi security forces in Iraq have all the characteristics of the forces that the United States paid for during the Somoza Dynasty in Nicaragua, during the Duvalier rule in Haiti, or the forces of South Vietnam during that endless war.

Respect from the rest of the world has been lost. Dedicated young service people from the United States are becoming conscious of how they have been lied to, used and discarded together with endless numbers of innocent Iraqis.

Services justly due to our citizens have been denied while billions of our hard earned taxes have been tossed helter skelter to war profiteers with zero accountability.

These are some of the reasons that the peace movement has produced The Declaration of Peace. We have signed that declaration together with hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals. We call on the Congress and the Administration to end the war.

The ancient and powerful spiritual weapon of fasting is now deployed. This is called the Troops Home Fast which thousands have already begun. Some will fast on liquids only, some will fast completely for a day, a week or as long as their conscience dictates.

Up to a September 21st deadline, we will participate in marches, vigils and lobbying for immediate withdrawal of our troops. From September 21-28 there will be direct actions in Washington, D.C. and throughout the nation. In the spirit of Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King some signers will be led by conscience to engage in non-violent civil disobedience and risk arrest to express their principled opposition to the U.S. War in Iraq. These nonviolent activities will continue until the United States withdraws from Iraq. You can sign on to this pledge by going to: www.declarationofpeace.org

Pacifica Commentary For July 5, 2006

2006-07-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Twins
The most powerful military force in the history of the world continues its fifteen year assault on a weak and devastated nation called Iraq. The methodology includes collective punishment of civilians by indiscriminate bombing, house to house massacres, imprisonment without trial and routine torture. When our forces suffer a defeat such collective punishments have led to increased premeditated killing of countless civilians.

The people of Iraq are fighting to defend themselves and they are also fighting their fellow citizens who have submitted to the rule of a foreign empire. Citizens of Iraq who are doing what our United States citizens would do if we were invaded are called terrorists. Indeed, Iraqis are frequently referred to as members of an outside force known as Al Qaeda.

We are reminded of France when it was occupied by the Third Reich and how the French Resistance fought the French who submitted to the German occupation.

A handful of our troops, generally the lowest level of enlisted personnel, are brought before military justice on charges of torture, murder and rape. Actually the entire fifteen years has been nothing but torture murder and rape.

Not far from Iraq we can observe parallel behavior as the fourth largest military in the world continues its brutal attacks on Palestine. Collective punishment is and has been the rule for decades. One Israeli prisoner leads to the shelling of civilians and the willful destruction of an entire electrical system. Palestinian civilians suffer from direct bombardment, a cut off of food, medical aid and the withholding of economic assistance.

The government elected by the Palestinians is rejected with the same charges that were leveled at previous regimes. Thousands of Palestinians have been held captive, tortured and killed. Their homes have been bulldozed and their country divided into Bantustans of separation. The wall is the message.

For decades now, the long standing exceptionalism practiced by the United States has been granted to Israel. We can have ten thousand nukes but you can't have one. We can attack you but if you resist we will massacre your people.

No one is more aware of this crisis than the Israeli people and the Israeli Press. As one visiting Israeli scholar said, "You Americans are going to fight to the last drop of Israeli blood." Our nation, with Israel in its shadow, seems suicidally determined to create an international tsunami of resistance.

Pacifica Commentary For June 14, 2006

2006-06-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

The South Central Farmers

June 13th, 2006, a day of infamy in the history of Los Angeles. Sheriffs and LAPD arrive in the middle of the night to attack peaceful people who have created a paradise in what was a trash heap. It was a quasi-military action and it was entirely unnecessary. These people were given ten minutes to get out after years of hard work and development of the area.

Exactly what threat to public safety were these peaceful urban farmers? Why were their trees cut down? Why were their plots bulldozed?

This beautiful oasis was developed 14 years ago in the wake of the uprising of 1992.Land was offered to the South Central Community by the City of Los Angeles.
The land was broken, scarred, paved over. There were abandoned refrigerators, shards of glass, old tires, piles of rags and discarded furniture. The South Central Farmers took away the trash, cut down the weeds and got rid of the rats. They turned the soil and found that it could live again and it provided food for 350 families.
What a putrid example of class justice. The poor are those selected to receive the death penalty. The poor are those selected to die in unnecessary wars. The poor are those who fill our prisons with two million inmates as part of the military, industrial, prison, gun and warfare state complex. And now the poor are evicted in an act of treachery by the City of Los Angeles.

There is only one solution and that includes restitution. First that this land be immediately set aside as the property of The South Central Farmers.

Second we must begin plans for many similar farms in the City of Los Angeles. We want these farms so that talented people will continue to grow crops that we will never see in a super-market. Precious seeds were brought in to produce crops that heal and nourish. Los Angeles will remain with a broken heart until restitution is achieved. The website for the Sounth Central Farm is: southcentralfarmers.org.

Call Mayor Villaraigosa and demand that the pledge made by the City of Los Angeles be respected. Call City Council Member Jan Perry and demand that she represent the people of her district. Call Mr. Ralph Horowitz the developer who initiated the eviction and insist that he negotiate with The Trust for Public Land and the Annenberg Foundation to make the South Central Farm a permanent symbol of the greatness of those who created it.
Mr. Ralph Horowitz' phone is : 310/440-7878.

Pacifica Commentary for June 7, 2006

2006-06-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

The Button

Certainly we have become numb to the reality of nuclear destruction. This shadow has been over the human race for 60 years and now the danger of its use is greater than ever. One single individual in Washington has the future of this planet in his hands. There are no checks and balances, there is no judicial review, there is no advice and consent of the Congress. Friends, we are living in a nuclear dictatorship. The President can eliminate hundreds of millions of people in a host of countries simply by pushing the button. This should never be the prerogative of one individual. Actually, it should never be the prerogative of any individual or of any group.

Suppose a nuclear explosion takes place in the United States. Will the president strike back at a nation that had no part in the attack as he did after 9/11? After striking the wrong nation and having deadly radiation flow into surrounding countries, should we be surprised if they retaliate? The President's button represents a suicide attack on all of us.

Even if we had the most brilliant and humane president imaginable, she or he should never have authority over such a button.

This is not a matter of brilliance of an individual, it is a matter of the future of this miracle planet. And if you don't believe it is a miracle planet, please show me one like it.

Nationalism is killing us. It is archaic, fossilized, irrelevant and destructive.
What does it take to awaken people to this reality? At this moment in history our every thought and plan must be made with the planet in mind.

Global warming is a reality but the greed for short term profit together with a failed and catastrophic war has Washington trying to divert our attention to issues that should not even be in the sphere of the Federal Government.

Unfortunately what is good for profit is very bad for the globe.

Fully electric cars were manufactured and running well in the 1920's. But they were abolished by the oil industry. If this were not the case don't you think we would have made some progress with electric vehicles in the last 86 years?

We must take the quest for profit out of the world's drivers seat. We must take the button out of the hands of the president. And how do we do that? We do it by planetary thinking, the only kind of thinking that will make life possible for our grandchildren.

And we must turn our thinking into action by with a new Declaration of Peace.
The worn out eighteenth century nationalism in which we are currently living assures us that our grandchildren will have neither life, nor liberty nor the pursuit of happiness.

Pacifica Commentary For May 31, 2006

2006-06-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

Massacre

This age will be remembered for its love of fiction. The Left Behind Series sells tens of millions of copies fostering a nineteenth century mythology about the end of days. Many readers fanatically grasp on to the myth as if it were reality. Dan Brown writes a book called the Da Vinci Code and people are saying, "See I told you so."

Both books are legitimate, that is legitimate fiction. The fascinating element is how so many people have absorbed these writings as non-fiction.

I think we can understand what is happening here. Many people are so terrorized by reality that they want to live happily in fantasy land forever.

Just think how many hard fact, heavily researched books have come out regarding
the war crimes our administration commits each day. Fear of the truth and the desire to say, "Oh, I didn't know that," seems to lead the way in this quest for fantasy.

And now Time Magazine uncovers a massacre in Iraq. We are grateful for this legitimate journalism. But we must watch for the spin. We can't let this go with a few privates and sergeants condemned as bad apples. The Haditha Massacre includes a series of flat out denials and cover-ups by the military, just as the Mai Lai Massacre in Vietnam or the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. These are not isolated incidents, on the contrary, these acts personify our policy. The atrocity was not simply Mai Lai, it was the sheer evil of killing three million people in Vietnam. The atrocity is not simply Abu Ghraib, it is the fact that torture was routine then and has continued to be routine now.

The atrocity is not simply Haditha, it is fifteen years of butchering innocent people in Iraq. The invasion of homes and massacre of civilian inhabitants is a daily occurrence in Iraq. Many of these massacres are punitive actions like the punitive attacks on the people who lived in Fallujah, Some 6,000 civilians were killed during that November 2004 assault. This was simply not news until unimbedded reporters, at great personal risk went for the facts and not the fantasy.

As we lost the war in Vietnam every massacre was declared to be an attack on insurgents. And the same is happening in Iraq. A massacre of civilians is reported by the military as an Iraqi offensive. That is why we continue to identify dead insurgents who are two and three years old.

We definitively lost in Vietnam and now our behavior in Iraq mirrors the deception, deceit and treachery that is leading to our absolute failure there. Fiction continues to be popular. But only non-fiction can make us free.

Pacifica Commentary for May 24, 2006

2006-05-24T23:36:00.000-07:00

Palestinian Anti-Terrorist Act of 2006 HR 4681

Prime Minister Golda Meir told us, "There is no such thing as Palestinians; they never existed." Then we see them thrown off their land, their homes bulldozed, their militants jailed and tortured. Then Israel refuses to recognize or negotiate with their leadership. And all of this happened long before Hamas was elected. As normal human beings, Palestinians have resisted.

The Israeli peace movement has recognized this reality for decades. The government of Israel is the aggressor. Aggressors are opposed by people all over the globe.

And this is similar to what is happening in Iraq. The US government is the aggressor. The Iraqis are fighting back. Should anyone be surprised?

And now our pathetic banana republic House of Representatives has passed House Resolution 4681. This bill restricts humanitarian aid to Palestine. It also threatens to withhold portions of the US dues to the United Nations if Palestine continues to demand Israel's compliance with existing international law.

This vile piece of legislation designates territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist sanctuary and refuses visas to members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Palestinian Mission to the United Nations. It also instructs the US Representative to the World Bank to oppose the continuation of humanitarian aid to Palestine.

Representative Betty McCollum has banned the Israeli Lobby AIPAC from her office until she receives a formal apology from this powerful "wag the dog" group for saying she is supporting terrorists.

Here is what Representative Jim McDermott of Washington State has to say about this bill:

“The World Health Organization sees a rapid decline of the public health system in Palestine. This bill will only make the already dire situation even worse. As a doctor I took an oath to heal. Allowing innocent Palestinians to go hungry, while denying them medical treatment cannot possibly correct injustice, or lead to peace."

Join Rabbi Arthur Waskow in his efforts to assist the Palestinian people as the Israeli government stops international aid, freezes Palestinian tax revenues and creates an acute shortage of medical and food aid. Palestinian children are already suffering dire physical and mental damage from this outrage. For information on how to assist in Rabbi Arthur Waskow's project call 323/852-9808.

Pacifica Commentary For May 17, 2006

2006-05-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

Divine Strake

What is a strake? A strake is a device for controlling airflow over an aircraft or the flow of water under a ship. But the Divine Strake is a 700 ton bomb made of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. This monstrosity is to be detonated in the atmosphere in lieu of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and will have a force similar to that nuclear weapon. The test is planned for June 23rd in the Nevada desert close to the sites where hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted between 1950 and 1992.

Scientists who have retained their sanity believe that the Divine Strake will stir up nuclear contamination from 42 years of nuclear bombing on the lands of the Western Shoshone. Yes,it was the Western Shoshone who had the intelligence to file a lawsuit declaring that this planned atmospheric explosion would disturb contaminants left from previous nuclear tests. The original blast date of June 2nd was pushed back because of their lawsuit.

But this is where the word divine comes in. The planners of this mega explosion seem to think they are divine, they are playing god and even the courts give way to their gods of metal.

Citizens of the city of St. George, Utah, not far from the site, identify thousands of people who are now suffering from cancer as a result of radiation released from those previous nuclear bombs.

And the cancer patients are supposed to believe it when the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency say that the detonation of Divine Strake is perfectly safe. In view of the lack of credibility of the current Administration, it seems that the people of northern Nevada and Utah should make their peace with God and prepare to die of cancer.

Those who have planned this upcoming crime should be tried and convicted. Divine Strake is an act of terrorism against the land and the people of the United States of America. Many of our citizens have taken an oath to protect this country from enemies foreign and domestic. It seems that the demise of this land will be the work of domestic enemies who think they are divine.

Rational human beings will conduct a protest to the abomination of Divine Strake on May 28th in Nevada.

Pacifica Commentary for May 10, 2006
The President Writes a Letter

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad writes a letter to President Bush. The Iranian President said many things that were in accord with his Persian culture.

But really would it not be easier to start a nuclear war rather than to do some homework on Persian culture? We are completely set up for the nuclear war but we are not set up to ask a group of Persian experts to analyze the letter and to respond in a respectful manner. But you see, intelligent letter writing is difficult and nuclear war is so easy.

All Bush needs is a button for the war. But to respond to the letter he would need an education on the matter or to ask someone who has had an education to be of assistance.

The rape of Iraq has gone on for fifteen years now. The first Bush Administration, the Clinton Administration and the Lesser Bush Administration consistently demonstrated near absolute zero understanding of the cultures of Iraq. Some dialogue, some honesty and some humanity would have avoided the Iraq disaster. But dialogue, honesty and humanity require some spiritual substance.

Regardless of the personal failings on the part of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and regardless of his pietistic approach to our pietistic President, why would we not answer the Iranian's question? "Are you pleased with the current condition of the world? Do you think present policies can continue?" These are excellent questions and could be the beginning of a substantive dialogue and a peaceful future.

Friends, we are talking about the first direct contact between an Iranian head of state and an American president since the revolution of 1979. We are talking about a risk that was taken by the Iranian president who could be called a traitor by some of his own people for even writing such a letter.

President Ahmadinejad was clearly looking for common ground for an ongoing dialogue. Our Secretary of State should be sent to Iran with a respectful response to this important letter. There is no need at all for our response to agree with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The only requirement is that the response be educated, respectful, thoughtful and dialogical. Diplomacy has been the rarest component in the Bush Adminitration. Here is an opportunity that must not be missed. Here is an opportunity for our country to give some indication that it might accept a peaceful solution to this unnecessary crisis.

Pacifica Commentary for May 3, 2006

2006-05-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

A Day Without An Immigrant

It was a joy to participate in the two Los Angeles gatherings last Monday. The early march terminated at City Hall and the later march terminated at La Brea and Wilshire. These two May Day marches were the largest in a historic national outpouring of immigrants and those in solidarity with them.

The great democratic power of the General Strike and boycott represented by the Noon March was profoundly instructive. It was organized from the base by people who believed in these powerful tools in the arsenal of non-violence. Dr. Martin Luther King had also used these tools effectively. Indeed the General Strike and Boycott can bring participatory democracy to the United States. The Noon March was conducted with joy and dignity. It represented the vanguard of immigrant power.

The Afternoon March was also successful and actually was an even larger gathering. Certainly there was tension between the two actions, but it was intelligent and peaceful tension. The Church, the Unions and the City Government were in complete support of the afternoon March. Students were urged to attend after school and employees who could not leave their jobs were encouraged to attend after work. Some observers considered this second march to be divisive.

But regardless of the intentions of the organizers, the second march gave an opportunity to those who were not ready to support a general strike and boycott.

Rather than demeaning the people who went to the second and larger march, it is important to understand that for many it was a huge step in the struggle for justice.

And it seems to me that everyone should oppose the so-called Guest Worker Program. It is simply a repetition of the old Bracero Program which divided families and exploited workers. We do not need a program that creates second class citizens.

In recent decades we have witnessed the globalization of capital. These immigrant marches help us to understand that there is a second component to this phenomenon and that is the globalization of labor. If capital can go anywhere in the world without restriction, it is only logical that those who create capital, namely workers, should also be able to travel freely. I consider the people who come to our country to be refugees, not illegal aliens. The military and economic terror that drove them here is often created by United States policy.

Pacifica Commentary for April 12, 2006

2006-04-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

Captain Ahab Has Lost It

Last week I spoke of how the British Press released material on a plot for a U.S. attack on Iran.

And now Seymour Hirsch writing in the New Yorker issue for April 17, 2006 has identified another component to this outrage. He writes that this plot is not simply an attack by conventional bombs like the mass murder weapon called BLU-28. This is a clear plan to use genocidal B61-11 nuclear bombs. And of course all of this will be directed at a nation that does not have nuclear weapons.

Has there ever been a dictator who has acted in a more unilateral fashion than George Bush? I don't think so. This person is armed and dangerous. History teaches us that it is commonplace for a failing dictator to attempt to cover his scandals by directing the population's attention to some imagined exterior foe. And George might just see this massacre as a way to divert attention from his other crimes.

The plan as described by Seymour Hirsch in this week's New Yorker is simply unacceptable by any sane person. Whether President or peon, every individual involved in such a genocidal conspiracy against Iran should be in prison.

What to do? The marches of immigrants are leading the way. They will conduct a major work stoppage on May 1st to remind our government of their essential role in the economy of the United States.

Rather than joining in the plot to murder the children of Iran I would suggest that we plan a similar work stoppage or General Strike. Such a direct action is the essence of democracy, one person, one vote. By withholding our labor we make it clear to this den of thieves that they had better start working for us. We don't work for them.

Unfortunately we do pay taxes to them. We give them our hard earned money in good faith and they use it to murder people. They have done nothing to fix Iraq and they have shown scant will to fix New Orleans or the rest of the rotting infrastructure of the United States.

A national strike or refusal to work would be a clear message to Washington that this administration must cease and desist its mindless militarism and stop being a threat to the existence of this planet.

Regardless of what Washington thinks, a nuclear attack on Iran conducted by the United States or by Israel will be considered a declaration of war on Islam and will be in fact a declaration of war on the human race.

Pacifica Commentary for April 5, 2006

2006-04-07T00:58:00.000-07:00

Veterans Speak Out

The veterans from the everlasting Iraq War have recently completed a march through Alabama, Mississippi and on to New Orleans in Louisiana.

Here are some of their comments as they marched:

"I ran over a little kid and I killed him."
"I know the war was wrong and I am sorry."
"When any explosive device went off we were told to shoot anything that moved."
"This war is not about freedom."
"We were told these are not people, they are animals."
"If you look at them as human, how can you kill them?"
"I went up to an Iraqi, hugged him and said I was sorry. He told me it was OK."
"I keep taking sleeping pills every day, I don't want to wake up."
"This is a total disregard for humanity."
"We know it was wrong and we are sorry...I mean killing civilians indiscriminately."
"These people in Washington are a greater threat than the terrorists."
"I did not fight for freedom in Iraq."

These are just some words from the Iraq Veterans as they marched to New Orleans.

Hundreds of thousands of these "uninjured" veterans are coming home to join the tens of thousands of those severely wounded physically or mentally and to reflect on the endless number of innocent victims in Iraq who are flippantly dismissed by the obscene word, "collateral damage."

From the United Kingdom we have Sean Rayment's article in The Telegraph where he speaks of secret talks by the dogs of war in a planned attack on Iran. In the absolute spiritual void and darkness of military planning, warped minds are discussing an attack on Iran with Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from US Navy ships and submarines.

Further attacks would include B-2 stealth bombers equipped with eight 4,500 pound enhanced BLU-28 satellite-guided bombs flying from the Island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The intent of this evil concept is to eliminate nuclear weapons which Iran does not have. The effect of this evil concept will be to tear thousands of children and civilians to pieces while convincing over a billion people that war has been declared on Islam. Aside from being a crime against humanity, such an attack on Iran will profoundly endanger the security of our citizens as well as the rest of this endangered planet.

Pacifica Commentary for March 29, 2006

2006-03-29T23:50:00.000-08:00

Can You Top This?

The Third Reich conducted an evil holocaust of innocent people. This was a nightmarish attempt to destroy the Jewish people while including Gypsies, gays, communists and other non-Arians.

Having learned nothing at all from history, our current administration is on the verge of starting another horrific holocaust. With no ethics and no morality Washington is plotting, planning and conspiring to commit nuclear devastation. This time the ovens will be airborne and indiscriminate. But military double speak refers to these new models of tactical nuclear weapons as if they were both harmless and helpful.

The scientific community differs with the perpetrators of this nuclear holocaust. The current models can do as much or more devastation than did the ovens that vaporized Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The King of Jordan warned this week that any such attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel will send the Middle East into flames.

But the United States has just issued a strategic doctrine paper announcing that it will use nuclear weapons in any future conflicts when and how it wishes. This doctrine has gone beyond the limits of the Third Reich in its cynical disregard for the human race.

If we considered Hitler's methods as crass examples of social psychosis, exactly how shall we categorize the current plans of the Bush Administration?

Of course, it is our duty to demand opposition to this murderous policy from the Congress that is supposed to represent us and we must do that.

But friends, at this critical moment in history, we must do something else. We must contact each and every member of the Supreme Court and remind them that the power of Judicial Review applies to foreign as well as domestic policy. That's right, the Supreme Court has the power to declare any act of the President unconstitutional. It seems to me that even a right wing batch of justices can understand that the current irrational, illegal, immoral and suicidal plans of this failed administration must be curtailed.

Demand that the Supreme Court initiate the process of denunciation of the Executive. Let the censure, impeachment and conviction begin before millions of our own citizens and our neighbors on the planet die unnecessarily in an international holocaust.

Pacifica Commentary For March 22, 2006

2006-03-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

Economics 101

To understand our economic system you must comprehend the following:
If you have money, you will be paid money for having money.
If you do not have money you must pay money to get money.

This is called interest. Our ancestors called it usury. It was known as a sin in both Islam and Christianity. Actually this system of injustice is one of the prime generators of war.

So it is not at all surprising that one of the supreme architects of the rape of Iraq is now head of the World Bank.

Now do you understand why credit card companies are begging you to borrow money? They know they can get 25% interest on the money they lend you. If you don't have money you must pay money to get it. And these friendly credit card companies are delighted to come after anything you do own if you can't find the money to pay them for not having the money you need.

This simple economic reality is one of the key reasons for international poverty. Actually, anyone making over $25,000. per year is in the top one percent of the globe's income.

The World Bank is anxious to lend money to small countries. Loans develop dependency. The loans lead to control of the small country and its assets just as your assets are in danger every time you request a loan. The problem is systemic. It can only be solved by observing the practical currents of change coming from places like Venezuela where Hugo Chavez is using income from oil for programs of social justice.

Conventional mythology will say, "But there will be no incentive if there is no profit."

Friends, some of the most effective and incentive driven people on this planet are living on fixed incomes. Consider the physicists, chemists, economists, academics and perpetrators of justice and peace who win Nobel prizes. Their incentive is not profit, it is excellence. And such is the case as well for those who do not win such prizes but are driven and sustained by the pursuit of justice and peace. Excellence can also be motivated by cooperation rather than by profit driven competition.

We will build a peace system as we abolish a system, which is based on squeezing the life out of the world's poorest people.

Pacifica Commentary for March 15, 2006

2006-03-15T22:51:00.000-08:00

Welcoming The Wounded

Last night we welcomed Alaa Khalid Hamdan and her father Khalid Handan Abd at the Venice Methodist Church. Cole Miller brought them to the United States to represent the millions of Iraqis who have suffered under sixteen years of war from Washington. Her brother and her three cousins could not attend because they are dead. This is the collateral damage described by General Tommy Franks when he said, "We don't do body counts." In other words, these people don't count.

As citizens of this country we must take immediate action to remove this criminal administration. Mr. Bush and his personal falange of organized crime must step down. How do we do that? First we take to the streets. Saturday, March 18th at Noon, we will meet at Hollywood and Vine to denounce three years of preventative war, illegal weapons, occupation, torture and summary execution.

On the following day, Sunday March 19 at 12:30 PM the peace movement will meet at the Westwood Federal Building at Wilshire and Veteran and march together with Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Aidan Delgado and Camilo Mejia to the Santa Monica Pier and the Arlington West Memorial. The veterans and their supporters will continue that march to La Paz, California, the burial place of Cesar Chavez and on to San Francisco.

In addition to the marches we recommend three legislative actions for impeachment: The State of Vermont is in process of following rule 603 for the impeachment of the president by way of state legislatures. That rule written by then Vice President Thomas Jefferson speaks of removal of the president by way of charges from the state legislatures. The rule still stands in our House of Representatives.

We must insist that our California legislators follow the good example of Vermont. There is also Congressman John Conyers' House Resolution 635 which calls for the impeachment of the President. All Citizens are invited to sign on to this one.

And in the Senate of the United States we have the Russ Feingold resolution to censure the president for breaking the law. a censure of this kind is looked upon as the first step toward impeachment.

This is not only a federal and state issue. The San Francisco City Council has just passed a resolution to impeach Bush and Cheney.

Friends, the greatest myth in our midst is that of powerlessness. We are not powerless.

Pacifica Commentary For March 8, 2006

2006-03-08T23:18:00.000-08:00

The President Goes To India

Here is a free translation of the president's comments as he returned from his triumphant trip to India and Pakistan:

My fellow Americans, I want to give great big nuclear bombs to the Indian government so India can protect itself from Pakistan. I want Pakistan to maintain its great big nuclear bombs so that Pakistan can protect itself from India.

As you know, many people in India are hungry, especially the children, so I am going to sell Martin F-16's and Boeing F-18 fighter jets to India so they can fight to feed their children.

Now, I have already forgiven Mr. Khan in Pakistan for smuggling nuclear weapons equipment to anyone in the world because we are friends with his boss, General Pervez Musharraf. Of course, we used to be friends with Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden but I am sure we will not have such problems in the future. Furthermore, Pervez Musharraf has given us permission to bomb any part of his country as long as we think we are bombing bad people, especially people who used to be our friends like the Taliban. Musharraf has been so gracious that we are also allowed to massacre people who are in the vicinity of these bombings. After all, why were they standing so close to known terrorists?

Oh, yes, we are worried about China because they are so big and they are still communists you know. So India is free now to fire nuclear warheads at China. Oh, yes, China can respond but then we can fire at China and China not knowing the origin of the nuclear attack can fire at Russia. Then Russia, not knowing the origin of the attack can fire at Britain and then France, confused by the whole issue, can fire its nukes at Israel. Then Israel can launch a nuclear attack on Iran. Then of course the United States could easily lose Chicago by accident after it destroys North Korea.

Friends, the combination of irrationality, incompetence, ignorance, arrogance and greed has reached an intolerable level. This entire administration must do us the favor of stepping down before they destroy the planet. This is why we can't wait.

Rational people have structured a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with a view to abolishing nuclear weapons entirely. But our so-called leaders have created a rogue state acting in opposition to all common sense while endangering our future, the future of our children and the future of the planet.

Pacifica Commentary for March 1, 2006

2006-03-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

What do we want? The same thing the Palestinians want, the occupation must end. This is also what 82% of all Iraqis want. And this is why 47% of all Iraqis support armed resistance to the occupation.

In the rage that followed the bombing of the Askariya shrine both Sunnis and Shi'as blamed the U.S. occupation. If we were in Basra we would have witnessed a large Sunni-Shi'a protest rally on behalf of Iraqi unity and the departure of the United States. The chant was, "No to America!"

We must call for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. and coalition troops, together with our foreign mercenaries and our military bases. And by the way, what do our troops want? The Zogby poll says that 72% of them want us to get out of Iraq.

Meanwhile the Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declares Palestine part of the axis of evil together with Syria and Iran and declares that more punitive measures will be taken by Israeli forces against the Palestinian people.

Meanwhile, according to higly credible sources, Israel and the United States are prepared to let their people die together in a nuclear holocaust. Their sights appear to be set on the use of nuclear weapons in Iran. A criminal act of such magnitude would undoubtedly lead to severe blowback in Israel and the United States. Such an Israeli/US attack on Iran would thereby become the world's largest suicide mission. Some of the fanatics involved are apparently so ignorant that they speak of using nukes against the Palestinians as well.

Indeed US foreign policy and its culture of violence is becoming a toxic brew to the entire planet. Does anyone think that increased nuclearism, ongoing wars and the ignoring of international laws are going to make the world a safer place?

So the United States and Israel both of whom have weapons of mass destruction are liable to attack Iran which has no such weapons. We have been down this filthy road before. This is the road that our government has strewn with hundreds of thousands of murdered victims in the wake of pathological lying.

As a result of lawless militarism the United States has become a failed state, a feared state and a terrorist state. As citizens we are required to resist the takeover of our government by organized crime.

Pacifica Commentary for February 8, 2006

2006-02-09T09:33:00.000-08:00

Yes People

Where do the people who surround George Bush come from? They are actually a very conventional breed. Many of these folks learned how to respect authority at an early age.

1. Give the teacher the answer the teacher wants.
2. Agree with whatever the authority figure says.
3. Consider any intelligent question to be negative, indeed, to be a threat.
4. Consider compliance with all commands to be positive.
5. Just ask where the power is and yield to that power.

At a certain age this attitude petrifies and you have the perfect company person. This person now has no identity except to the company, to the firm, or to the political administration. Unfortunately this kind of formation leaves the individual with no moral compass.

Take the Attorney General for example, after observing his conduct under questioning it seems like he had this kind of formation. I think he just might conform to any opportunity without losing his smirk. "We have no king but Caesar." And if another king comes along, we will have no king but that one.

The only variable therefore depends on who is in power. The soul then belongs wherever power resides. And such is the sadness of an unconscious life.

Exactly what place does authority have in framing a logical decision? Centuries of study in the field of Logic have given us a clear consensus. Authority has no part at all in framing a logical decision. The argument from authority has long been regarded as a classic fallacy. Authority can threaten to punish with a club; that is called an argumentum ad baculum. Yes, authority can punish and even torture, but authority is never a valid step in sound reasoning.

This is why studying the behavior of military commanders is a study in sheer madness. General Westmoreland believed that he could have marched on to victory in Vietnam if he just had 750,000 troops on the ground. This in spite of the fact that most of the Vietnamese and most of our troops knew that the war was definitively lost.

And last night we heard our Vice Commander in Chief, Dick Cheney speak of victory in Iraq. Now do we understand that military intelligence is an oxymoron?

Friends, to have a human life rather than the life of a cog in a machine we must question authority and when necessary we must defy authority. The phrase. "I'm in charge here," has never meant that I am correct.

Pacifica Commentary for February 1, 2006

Why We Can't Wait

Why were we out in the streets last night? Because the man giving the speech and the realities of 2006 had little or nothing in common. The state of the Union was a clap fest for the wealthy. It was not real.

Why can't we wait for this regime to depart? Because those of us who teach can't accept material from our students if the White House is cited as a source. Why? Because the White House is currently not a credible source.

Why can't we wait? Because the president and his cabal of ideological cronies have led our young people to the death in an unnecessary war.

He actually restarted a war begun by his father, continued by Bill Clinton and escalated once again by flat out lies. The war is now in its fifteenth year of terror on the people of Iraq.

Why can't we wait for the Bush regime to depart? Because they have approved of torture and then denied it. Torture has no place in a civilized society. We do not currently have a civilized administration. Members of the military who have tortured their victims to death now have virtual impunity from prosecution. In order to avoid embarrassment they have rendered some victims to foreign countries to be tortured.

Why can't we wait for the Bush regime to depart? Because they have disappeared people living in the United States. They have abolished the great writ of habeas corpus. What due process of law has been used for prisoners illegally held at Guantanamo?

What due process of law has been administered to the prisoners at Abu Graib? In some cases they have punished the lowest level of enlisted personnel and ignored the high ranking individuals who gave the orders, Mr. Rumsfeld for example.

Why can't we wait? Because the administration is now sending pilotless planes to bomb probable suspects in foreign countries as they randomly kill scores of innocent civilians in the process. Threats of slaughter are delivered to Iran, Syria, North Korea and Palestine.

Why can't we wait? Because the administration has approved the rampant terror of invading civilian homes, killing and torturing the civilian occupants, destroying whole cities like Falluja in illegal acts of collective punishment while using illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, white phosphorus and depleted uranium.

This out-of-control militarism has created international resistance and is recklessly endangering the people of the United States.

The man who spoke so eloquently last night apparently does not have a clue about how he has trashed our country as he trashed our purported enemies.

The most noble act of Mr. Nixon's political career was his resignation from the presidency. Mr. Bush, we respectfully ask you to follow this excellent example.

Pacifica Commentary for January 25, 2006

2006-01-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

Liberty and Justice for All

You be the judge. Here comes a Chief Warrant Officer to take charge of a prisoner, Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush. First the general is beaten for 30 minutes, then he is held down and water is poured in his face, then the general was stuffed into a sleeping bag by the Chief Warrant Officer who then wraps the bag with electrical wire and sits on his chest for 20 minutes. The general dies.

The case is heard at Fort Carson, Colorado by a military court. There is no jail time for the Warrant Officer but he must spend the next 60 days on vacation at his home, his office or his church.

Now on the same day, Daniel Burns, a non-violent protester was sentenced to six months in prison for spattering some of his blood at a military recruiting center to oppose the outset of the looming disastrous war in Iraq.

Three more of these St. Patrick's Four who poured blood at the recruiting center on March 17, 2003, will be sentenced this week. We expect them to receive the same six-month sentence.

Just what is the message here? Let our children understand. If you are a good robot, follow orders, and torture one of our enemies to death, you will receive no jail time. If, on the other hand, you face an approaching evil and attempt to identify it by classic non-violent and prophetic action, you will be declared an enemy of the state and given a severe prison sentence.

The St. Patrick Four have made a very important statement to the people of the United States. They made a necessary statement of opposition to a war that is now known to be both illegal and immoral. It is a war which represents a major moral and political defeat for the United States.

And our lying administration continues to say, "We don't torture." The same anti-intellectual and ahistorical elements that freed the warrant officer who was "just following orders" are now involved in a campaign to demonize Islam as an evil religion. Opportunists clothed as intellectuals from all over the country are quickly jumping on this lucrative bandwagon.

So now do you understand that we are really torturing the devil? Please repeat after me, "We are torturing the devil!" And if you refuse to repeat that, we have approved ways of dealing with you.

Pacifica Commentary for January 18, 2006

2006-01-19T19:05:00.000-08:00

A standardized test for aspirants to serve as justices on the Supreme Court

Here is a standardized test for anyone who would aspire to be a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. I have even answered the questions as I think Judge Alito might answer them.

1. Are you in favor of the death penalty? Yes.

2. Is the President allowed to start a war? Yes

3. Do we have liberty and justice for all in the United States? Yes.

4. Would you send an innocent person to death because of a procedural impasse? Yes.

5. The United States is a classless society? Yes.

6. Do you believe that torture is legal? Yes.

7. Do you think that the Supreme Court is less powerful than the president? Yes

8. Do you think that the power of judicial review must exclude foreign policy decisions?
Yes.

9. Regardless of your religion, do you think that less harm would be done if abortion were illegal? Yes.

10. Do you think our prison system is just? Yes

11. It is best to keep the Constitution the way it is and NOT to amend it to declare health care as a right for all. Yes.

12. It is best to keep the Constitution the way it is and NOT to amend it to declare education a right for all citizens. Yes.

13. Are the CIA and NSA structured in accord with the Constitution of the United States?
Yes.

14. Is rendition of captives for torture in foreign lands legal? Yes.

Were I the examiner, I would then say, "Thank you for your participation, Judge, but you
have failed every question. Sorry, we have no further questions. Please look for some
other employment.

It seems to me that the spiritual death process is well underway when a majority of the Supreme Court Justices can concur on the death penalty. They obviously are out of touch
with the civilized world which has denounced the death penalty. They obviously have made the war, death, gun, military industrial culture into a suicidal cult. THE SUPREME
CULT.

"Yes" men have been drafted into our administration with a vengeance. Their yes is to power, their no is to the sovereignty of the people.

Pacifica commentary for January 11, 2006

2006-01-17T19:50:00.000-08:00

Latin America Breaking Away

It is unfortunate that the only way Latin America can have relative peace is when the United States is busy with other wars. Way back in 1938 Mexico succeeded in nationalizing its oil because our country was preparing for WW II and we wanted Mexico as an ally. Fascism was very popular in Mexico and the US was afraid that Mexico would go with the Axis powers so we did not intervene when Lazaro Cardenas nationalized Mexican oil. We did intervene, however, in Iran when they insisted on nationalizing their oil.

That gave us the dictatorship of the Shah of Iran. And we did intervene when Iraq would not agree to privatize their oil. That is how the current fifteen year old war began in Iraq.

In spite of our brutal and unnecessary war in the Middle East, we are currently intervening in Colombia with both mercenary corporate troops as well as with our military. We have also kidnapped the popular president of Haiti and exiled him to South Africa leaving Haiti in shambles. But we simply can't intervene everywhere that our pathetic leadership would desire.

Currently our failed administration would like to intervene in Syria, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Actually, I think were it not for other pending wars we would certainly attempt to invade the rest of Latin America as well. Why? The Aymara and Quechua people of Bolivia have run the water and gas privatizers out of their country and have chosen an indigenous president, Evo Morales. Isn't that an affront to the Conquistadores from the north?

And what about Uruguay? There are socialists in high places. Isn't that a cause for intervention? And what about Argentina, where workers are actually taking over the management of industry? There is a good reason to intervene. And Brazil has a president from the Workers Party. Goodness, we don't even have a workers party. That must be a reason to intervene. Why don't these people love us? Could it be that for every dollar we have invested in Latin America during the past century, we have taken out three dollars of profit? And when our president recently went to Argentina for the Mar del Plata Summit, he was unable to dictate the rules of the game. The opposition to the methods of the World Trade Organization was powerful and effective.

And in Chile a fellow physician and disciple of Salvador Allende is making her way into power. Can't we dust off Henry Kissinger to locate a dictator like Augusto Pinochet to supplant her?

Friends, representative democracy was designed so that the literate few might rule the illiterate many. But times have changed. The Latin American people are demanding participatory democracy, economic democracy and substantive democracy.

Perhaps we can learn something from them.

Pacifica Commentary for December 21, 2005

Christmas

So now both businesses and individuals must be chided for saying, Happy Holidays. They are to be forced into religious correctness by zealots demanding that they say, "A Blessed Christmas." Now that is a lovely phrase and I have no opposition to it. But to impose the greeting as a proselytizing moment is really sick.

The only religion Jesus ever had was Judaism. He never converted to any other faith. Many Jews revere Jesus, but not as Messiah. In his Judaism, Jesus was a sharp and critical thinker and he directed his ire toward religious leaders like the Fallwells and Robertsons of his day. Yes, it was the gentle Jesus who called these people hypocrites, frauds, serpents, and a brood of vipers and saying, "You travel over land and over sea to make a single convert, and once that person is converted, you create a proselyte twice as wicked as yourself."

Jesus spoke with great reverence of those outside of his fold, the Samaritans, the Sidonians, the Syrians and those wise men from the east, my God, were they Arabs? It should be clear to all, the message of Jesus was not sectarian, was not parochial, was not exclusive. It was universal, and inclusive.

So if thoughtful people out of respect for those who are not sectarian Christians choose to say "Happy Holidays", we should accept that as civility and reverence for many religious and cultural traditions.

As we study Jesus' narrations about those outside his personal religion, it is clear that he was praising the compassion of the Samaritan, and the reception of God's grace by Naaman the Syrian. He was not promoting a sect, on the contrary, he was promoting humane behavior which is the electricity of authentic spirituality: justice, compassion, peace, joy, courage, endurance and love.

Can anyone picture Jesus running around buying everything in sight, sitting on Santa's lap and boycotting stores that say, Happy Holidays?

And there is another celebration in the wings, that of the New Year. While I don't want to impose it on you, I would suggest one resolution for 2006:
"I will resolve to make this the year that I will double my efforts to work for justice and peace. Authentic religion will never bless war. May peace be with us all.

HAVE A BLESSED AND JOYFUL HOLIDAY SEASON.

Pacifica Commentary for December 14, 2005

2005-12-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

TIME TO LEAVE THE BOX

Are you ready to leave the box now? If you are, you will find a whole new world waiting for you. The box is necrophilia, or love of death. The box is bound by the cardboard of fear, ignorance, moral illiteracy, vengeance, and stupidity. But the box feels comfortable.

Before we go on, please try to identify one instructive comment you might have heard from the spokespeople for the box. For example, Mr. Charles Krauthammer is playing parlor games with us about the usefulness of torture. He is in the box and it's dark in there. But well paid opportunists are going to tell us that just everyone agrees with Mr. Krauthammer.

Unconscious spokespeople are telling us that the death penalty is effective. Actually it is so effective that we now have one of the highest murder rates in the world to say nothing of the highest rates of incarceration. What is inside the box is death and a love of death generated by induced fear. The death people even say that we are winning in Iraq.

On the contrary, we are simply restructuring a torturing dictatorship similar to what we created in Nicaragua under Somoza or in Guatemala or El Salvador under a military facade of democracy. Friends, there is no life in the box. It is full of dead people's bones.

As we leave the box and do our homework, we find that an imposter is in the presidency. This individual was not elected in 2000 and was not elected again in the year 2004. The data is now in and documented in the book Censored 2006 by Peter Phillips and Project Censored, Seven Stories Press.

Yes, friends as you leave the box you will rise from the dead and join the global group of truth seekers. No more adoration of the nation state, no more acceptance of the state cult of cold blooded murder by execution and war.

Stanley "Tookie" Williams has just been murdered by the state of California, and many others await this cold blooded state homicide. They are to be killed as victims of class justice. In the box there is one system of justice for the poor, for people of color and another system for people who have substantial amounts of money. It is only out of the box that we find what redemption means, what rehabilitation means, what reform means. To deny that these things are possible is to be spiritually dead.

Come on friends, it is time to leave the box and to say as Stanley Williams might have regarding those still in darkness, "Father, forgive them for they have absolutely no idea what they are doing!"

Pacifica Commentary for December 7, 2005

2005-12-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court

The smallest and most powerful branch of our government is the Supreme Court. Citizens generally only think about the Supreme Court when a vacancy needs to be filled. But there is something much deeper at this time. The Supreme Court is simply not doing what it was designed to do. If we had a truly functional Supreme Court the nine would understand that they have the privilege of judicial review. The court would indicate by its performance that it understands the key decision supported by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803; Marbury vs. Madison. This decision established the power of judicial review, that is the power of the courts to decide whether a governmental official or institution has acted within the limits of the constitution, and if not, to declare its action null and void. This decision applies to the performance of both the president and the congress.

The court has the power to declare presidential decisions as unconstitutional. The court has the power to declare an act of congress unconstitutional. It is up to an informed citizenry to instruct the court on the proper use of its power.

A functional and conscious Supreme Court would proceed with the following decisions immediately:

1. The court would order the president to cease and desist in his war making because the president has no constitutional right to start any war.

2. Major portions of The Patriot Act would be declared null and void as unconstitutional.

3. Major portions of the No Child Left Behind legislation would be declared unconstitutional.

4. A conscious court would immediately repent of its long practice of class justice. We have one form of justice for the majority and another form of justice for the minority for people of color, for the poor. Any justice of the Supreme Court would have to be sociologically illiterate not to see this. This is known as the tyranny of the majority.

The death penalty which was unconstitutional in our country and later declared constitutional would immediately take its place with the trash of history where it belongs.

5. A conscious court would declare such various secret governments including the CIA to be unconstitutional. Their structures are foreign to United States government.

6. A Supreme Court that was alive and conscious would immediately inform Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush that their love and promotion of torture is illegal and contemptible. It is our responsibility as citizens to demand that the life long appointees on the Supreme Court protect us from the incompetence of the executive and legislative branches of government.

Pacifica Commentary for November 30, 2005

Victory

Historians will eventually reach an accurate consensus on our warfare state. I think it will go something like this:
The Korean War has never ended. There was a cease fire but no peace treaty. Some three million Koreans and Chinese were killed together with 50,000 of our citizens. Our country did not win that war and it is not over.

The War in Vietnam? Yes, this long war had an end. The United States lost the war together with some 60,000 of our finest young people while three million Vietnamese perished, mostly civilians. U.S. attacks included the carpet bombing of civilians and chemical warfare by way of dioxin (agent orange).

Then there was a war in El Salvador, where our country supported the dictatorship and spent billions on munitions and on command and control of counter-insurgency. No, we did not win in El Salvador but the very same people who trained the Salvadoran death squads are now in Iraq training death squads. And the rebels we fought in El Salvador now make up a major political party known as the FMLN.

Then there was the Contra War in Nicaragua where the United States spent billions to pay and arm mercenaries to attack exclusively civilian targets, teachers, social workers, religious people and farmers. It was sheer terrorism against Nicaraguan civilians. 40,000 Nicaraguans slaughtered. What did we win in Nicaragua? Nothing. The Sandinistas are the largest political party in the country today. When the secret war was running out of money the United States illegally sold arms to the Ayatollah Khomenieh to get funds for more mercenaries and more arms. The same aircraft from the United States that shipped arms to Nicaragua for the Contras were used to bring cocaine back to this country on the return trips. The Contra mercenaries evolved into the private military corporations who are fighting and torturing people in Iraq today and who remain exempt from the Code of Military Justice.

And what did we win in Guatemala after supporting one of the most brutal and bestial military forces on earth for four decades? After spending billions of dollars which resulted in the killing of 200,000 Guatemalans, the very rebel force we fought is now a respected political party.

Need we mention the on-going Plan Colombia which is actually a US Plan for Colombia which includes each and every one of the errors we have made in past wars.

Did our country have no victories? Well its seems we did win the war in Grenada in 1983. The island has a population the size of Santa Monica has no military and, of course
there was absolutely no reason for war.

This endless and failed militarism should help us to understand why the United States cannot deliver health care, education and a vibrant public infrastructure to our population.

To repeat the same action again and again and to expect different results is a sure sign of
insanity.

Pacifica Commentary for November 23, 2005

Government Logic

The logic of the administration is the logic of Advertising 101. If you have taken Advertising 101 you know that one of the key principles is to take the weakest point in the product and put it up front as if it were a strong point.

If the truck you are trying to sell falls apart in one year, your ad will say, "Our Trucks last longer." If your cigarette gives cancer of the lungs, it will be advertised as ..springtime.

Another example; many of our troops did not want to go to Iraq. They went to Iraq against their will. But they either went to Iraq or they had the option of going to a military prison.

And how does the government propaganda advertise this? It says, SUPPORT OUR TROOPS with the clear implication that those troops are exactly where they want to be. The full sentence would be, "Support our troops because they want to be in Iraq and they went there of their own will." And this propaganda continues as thousands of our troops have defected and many heroic veterans have come home to denounce the torture, the killing of civilians, the destruction of an entire nation.

Just think about the phrase, "We must stay in Iraq so that our troops will not have died in vain." In other words, "Let's have more young people and more Iraqis die so that no one will think that those who preceded them died in vain.

As in advertising, our leaders have shown a reckless contempt for truth. Cheney refers to people who have his number as dishonest, cowardly, reprehensible and unpatriotic.

I think he is looking in a mirror.

The tragedy is that many fine young people died cruelly and unnecessarily in Vietnam together with millions of civilians. Fine young people have died in Iraq together with yes, millions of Iraqis if we start the count in January of 1991 when the war actually began.. Yes, they died because of a mendacious government which is lost in its own hubris.

Those who seek the truth are seeking a spiritual value. Those who create the lies are adversaries of the truth. They are not free.

Let's clarify the point. These shortened lives were not in vain. These lives as all lives are an ongoing miracle. But their death was too soon and also unnecessary. Those responsible for these unnecessary deaths must be brought to justice as quickly as possible.

Let's junk Advertising 101 and all that it implies.

Pacifica Commentary for November 18, 2005

Twenty-Second Anniversary Of The Office Of The Americas

The Office of the Americas will honor Cindy Sheehan this Saturday, November 19th. Cindy has galvanized the world with her demand to know for what noble cause her son Casey died.

We will also honor Daniel Ellsberg who remains an international voice of conscience. Dan risked 115 years in prison by releasing 7,000 pages of Pentagon policy papers to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later to the New York Times.

We will honor Dolores Huerta who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union together with Cesar Chavez and is bringing to farm workers the benefits enjoyed by members of other unions. In addition to her great work with farm workers, Dolores has become a world wide spokesperson for justice and peace.

We will honor Jodie Evans who co-founded Code Pink with Medea Benjamin. Major media have been unable to ignore the courageous actions of Code Pink as these women intervene at high level government meetings to demand an end to an unnecessary war.

Speaking on behalf of these great people, I am certain they don't want us to put them on a pedestal and then to regress into admiring bystanders. On the contrary, what they have done in their way we can do in our way. Every conscious human being in our society must be mobilized to overcome the international disgrace created by our administration as it conducts an illegal and immoral war, while seeking new conflicts, threatening nuclear disaster and dedicating itself to the promotion of torture. Such behavior has led international resistance which will continue until we cease and desist from our belligerence.

We simply cannot be spectators watching life go by. We cannot leave the work of justice and peace solely to these four wonderful people. We must join with like-minded people to expand on what these honorees have done; demanding truth in government, identifying and punishing criminal behavior and denouncing the war mongering crony capitalism and greed which has infected our government.

2005-11-11T12:10:00.000-08:00

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR NOVEMBER 9, 2005

Congratulations to the People's Summit of the Americas which took place simultaneously with the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

A constant theme has come from the poor of the Americas. "The struggle itself is the victory." This is how Latin America is showing leadership and refuses to be overcome by the stench of violence, ignorance, hypocrisy, falsehood and ersatz religion in which we live.

They know that efforts to control the global economy by eight powerful nations has been a huge failure. The precious air we breathe requires international action and regulation, the oceans which are over one-third dead require international action and regulation.

But our nation has become an international factory of terror. Shock and Awe was terror. Our military policy is terror. Our domestic policy is also terror as we see essential programs for our people trashed as incompetent and apolitical cronies divide up endless billions of our tax money for their self interests.

The movement for justice and peace, however, is truly world-wide. We believe that the world is ready and eager for a major realignment. Here is what we mean:

*Among the vast majority of the globe there is virtually no opposition to accepting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This means that the world's people soundly denounce the existing warfare system.

* In the new global and interdependent community, indeed in any developed society, health care must be a right.

* In the new global and interdependent community, education must be a right.

* In the new global and interdependent community reverence for the planet will be understood. The air, the water, the soil and most of all, the people will be treated with reverence and respect.

* As we look to the decline and fall of corporate dictatorship, the bottom line of profit must never again be the bottom line.

* The new bottom line must be the felt needs of humanity. We all know what they are: adequate nutrition, housing, medical care, education and environmental sustainability. The outlay required to accomplish these things is far less than what we are spending on a corrupt warfare state.

Please don't ask others what you can do. Ask yourself what you are going to do. Ask yourself how you are going to join in with like minded people to build new organic structures which grow from the base of society.

The voice for justice and peace is now a majority. Please follow the lead of the People's Summit of the Americas and enter into the struggle which is itself a victory.

2005-10-28T14:14:00.000-07:00

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR OCTOBER 26, 2005
PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE MURDER

And now we have over 2,000 dead, tens of thousands of seriously wounded and from the actual beginning of this war in 1991, over a million Iraqi deaths, most of them civilians together with countless people traumatized for life. Mark Goldman has written a piece called Public vs. Private Murder, I would like to share some of his thoughts with you.

If one day George W. Bush had opened up a drawer to his desk and pulled out a six shooter and shot Colin Powell in the heart... presumably that would have resulted in a national scandal... Bush would have been impeached and eventually tried for murder.

But as it turns out, Bush did not pull out a gun and shoot Colin Powell dead, or anyone else. Instead he pulled out a pen and signed his name to a number of executive orders which resulted in the murder or dismemberment of many tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. In addition, his orders destroyed the infrastructure of an entire country, made hundreds of thousands of people homeless and created endless pain and sorrow. And he did all this without any legitimate authority. He simply created this disaster by using lies, deceit, bribery, trickery, secrecy, propaganda and every kind of unconscionable human behavior that he and his cronies could devise.

Every step along the way, Bush and his cabal trampled on the rule of law, corrupting the morals of an entire nation while reeking havoc beyond anyone's imagination. All of this was set in motion by the illegal and unauthorized whims of a few ideologues. But now, his crimes have become our crimes.

These are the ultimate crimes against peace and against humanity. All of his lies were not enough to gain the required authorization from the United Nations. He should have known that to break the Charter of the United Nations is to break the Constitution of the United States because treaties become part of the Constitution. But Bush went ahead anyway and no one stopped him.

How can this happen? It can happen when people are willing to compromise their integrity, are willing to lie to themselves and others for convenience, are willing to rationalize their behavior in order to conform or to gain money, power or prestige, assuage fear, or refuse to acknowledge uncomfortable truths. It can also happen when people are betrayed by those they trust.

Mass murder has been committed here and so far we are afraid to face up to it and take responsibility for it. All it takes is for citizens to ignore their responsibilities just a little bit, that's all it takes for a nation to betray itself.

We must now stir up the courage to indict, convict and punish the murderers.
Thanks Mark Goldman.
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http://www.gpln.com/citizen.htm
Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2005-10-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR OCTOBER 12, 2005

FIXING THE POOR

Well, friends, what is a hurricane for? For some the real purpose of a hurricane is to promote an irrational, selfish and unforgivable looting by the rich. Here is the drill:

1. Suspend the requirement that federal contractors have affirmative action plans and the requirement to pay locally prevailing wages.

2. Cut Medicaid and food stamp programs.

3. Reduce taxes for the wealthy. Congressman Mike Pense of Indiana says this is how you fight poverty.

So Mr. Bush suspended the Davis Bacon Act, a 1931 law that prohibits federally funded construction jobs from paying wages less than the local average.

And he also suspends rules requiring federal contractors to file affirmative action plans which his allies called cumbersome. If justice is so cumbersome perhaps they think we ought to eliminate it altogether, right?

Our majority members of the House of Representatives are suggesting a 370 billion dollar cut in domestic spending over the next five years as they push for school vouchers in New Orleans.

So friends, as New Orleans reopens, the same people are being left behind who were left behind during the hurricane. Public schools are closed, public housing is closed, access to public health care is closed, and avenues to justice are closed.

There are 28,000 people still living in shelters in Louisiana. But there are 38,000 public housing apartments in New Orleans and none have been reopened in spite of the fact that many are in good condition.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimated that 112,000 low income homes were damaged by the hurricane in New Orleans but local state and federal authorities are not committed to reopening public housing.

Public Schools enrolled 60,000 children before the hurricane. But the school board president now estimates that no schools on the city's east bank, where the majority of the people live, will reopen during this academic year.

Attorney William Quigley who is a professor of law at Loyola University in New Orleans says, "When those in power close the public schools, close public housing, fire people from their jobs, refuse to provide access to affordable public healthcare, and close off all avenues for justice, it is not necessary to erect a sign outside of New Orleans saying, 'Poor People Not Allowed to Return.' People cannot come back in these circumstances and that is exactly what is happening."

For a free copy of this commentary and the complete statement by Attorney William Quigley, please call 323/852-9808...323/852-9808.

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR OCTOBER 5, 2005

TESTIMONY OF THE GENERALS

The U.S. generals running the war in Iraq presented a new assessment of the military situation with some sworn testimony this week. They testified to the fact that 149,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are increasingly part of the problem rather than the solution.

The generals said the U.S. occupation was fueling the insurgency, making the Iraqi troops more dependent and expanding terrorism. They insisted that the withdrawal of American troops is imperative.

On the home front, there are only some 32 percent of our citizens who approve of the Iraq War. Now that the sworn testimony of the generals has been heard, just what is going on in Iraq? Moving northwest up the Euphrates River we find serial massacres that will be long remembered as war crimes. Fallouja, Ramadi, Haqianiya, Haditha and Karabilah. Suspected insurgents are being massacred. And who are the suspected insurgents? Anyone who is in the area. And for each suspected insurgent that is massacred, ten new insurgents are created. The generals gave their testimony in Washington but our tactics and strategies in Iraq have not changed. Reuters global managing editor states that the conduct of American forces toward journalists in Iraq is, "spiraling out of control." 66 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq since March of 2003.

Human Rights Watch has received testimony from members of the 82nd Airborne Division that prisoners were tortured as a form of stress relief or for sport. Aside from creating thousands more insurgents, we can expect such forms of stress relief and sport to come home.

Congratulations to Federal District Judge Alvin Hellerstein who ordered the Defense Department to release additional torture photos and videos which were provided by Sergeant Joseph Darby.

"Kill them all, let God divide them up!" seems to be the logo.

So let's get it clear. In Washington the generals tell us we are creating more insurgents by virtue of our out of control slaughter. In Iraq, however, we are continuing and expanding our out of control slaughter which absolutely and logically multiplies the resistance. A military spokesperson said that the goal of these offensives is to help the Iraqi authorities set up polling places so people can vote. But since when did bombing and strafing become the road to the ballot box?

Last week the peace movement put twice as many people in Washington as there are troops in Iraq. It seems to me that the time has come for our citizens to simply go on strike until the government starts to represent us.

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR SEPTEMBER 28, 2005

THE DEMONSTRATIONS

Congratulations to everyone who participated last Saturday in history making gatherings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Seattle and throughout the world. We were overjoyed with the international response. But please understand that we need you every day. We need you to help remove the criminals who are driving our ship of state on to the rocks. We need you to demand the restoration of the public sector of the United States. We need you to stop the looting of funds designated for the repair of the Gulf Coast as our government has become the world's largest center of organized crime. We can be soft on crime no longer. Could our criminal justice system be any worse if it had been designed by the KKK?

We need you to bring our troops home now. We need you to impeach and imprison those responsible for the deaths of our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need you to be a voice of repentance for the innocents who have been massacred in our name.

We need you to join the international quest for an authentic spiritual and moral revolution to achieve a universal common good. We need you to end divisive sectarianism and to bring that unity which is found in the struggle for justice, peace, love, joy, courage, compassion and endurance.

As we demand restitution for the crimes of this corrupt era, let the word go forth:

We will not tolerate the violation of the public trust which some voters have mistakenly placed in our president and other officials as they blatantly conduct malfeasance of office.

Pay attention: One. You don't privatize the Public Sector to funnel government funds to your corrupt cronies. Two. You don't loot funds which have been designated for widows and orphans. Three. You don't let third rate religious charlatans canonize and demonize other faiths nor ask for assassinations.

Yes, we have been entirely too soft on organized crime!

Our hard earned tax money has been used to kill millions of innocent people.

Our hard earned tax money has been looted by Halliburton and Bechtel.

Our hard earned tax money has been used to hire international thugs for mercenary warfare.

Our hard earned tax money has been used as part of an international lying machine.

Our sycophant commercial media is creating a nation of political illiterates.

Yes, we need you to help us in building an international system of peace. The nation state is too small for our total allegiance. Let us pledge allegiance to this beautiful planet with justice and peace for all.

BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW.

2005-10-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

Pacific Commentary for September 21, 2005
CONCERN FOR HUMANITY

The Defense Department has revised its program for the use of nuclear weapons.
This revision empowers military commanders to request presidential approval to engage in a preventive attack with nuclear weapons on a nation or an alleged terrorist group which might use weapons of mass destruction.
The previous policy which was stated in 1995 contained no mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively.
But the new doctrine makes it clear that nuclear weapons can be used against an enemy that is using or intending to use weapons of mass destruction. Now just consider for a moment if this had been the policy before the current war in Iraq, we could have eliminated tens of millions of Iraqi civilians by now because of the presidential lie stating that they had weapons of mass destruction. Knowing that the truth is the first casualty in any war, this new policy gives us self approval to eliminate any government, any nation, any group of people at any time. The fact that preventive war was the policy of the Third Reich and that this type of behavior has been condemned by all international law was not given any consideration in the new proposal.
What most people don't know is that the greatest weapon of mass destruction on the planet is the assault rifle. Yes, this is the weapon that kills more people each year than any other. The arms merchants are an international club. Their allegiance is to profit only. Some are U.S. citizens and some are not. They have fostered, promoted and celebrated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and are in the same club as the creators of African genocide as they sell their wares to war lords interested in diamonds and oil.
Whether we are talking about nuclear weapons of mass destruction or about assault rifles, the need for international disarmament is clear. Our unilateral approach to this policy is unsustainable and suicidal. It is our responsibility to denounce this reckless war policy and to build a future of compliance with international law.
One good way to begin the task is to join us on Saturday, September 24th as we gather at noon on the corner of Olympic and Broadway to march to the Downtown Federal Building. We are marching to end the out of control militarism which is destroying the world. We are marching to end the occupation of Iraq, Palestine, and Haiti. We are marching to get military recruiters out of our schools, we are marching to stop the bloodthirsty threats against Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea. We are marching so that our grandchildren will not be vaporized by a nuclear mistake.

Pacific Commentary for September 14, 2005
COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Well, friends, here is the collateral damage from the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. Do you remember when Dr. King said that every bomb that fell on Vietnam also fell on the United States. Do we get it now? Will we ever get it? The war in the Persian Gulf has destroyed the Gulf Coast of the United States.
Our schools have been bombed into test preparation centers in an attempt to make robotized and standardized students who are highly trained and very poorly educated.
The most common visitors to our schools are military public relations people who give candy to the students. This reminds me of the Guatemalan Military who would give candy to the children one day and burn the village to the ground on the following day.
Our students are seduced into militarism in the following ways: Would you like some money for college? It would be good for you to know that seven out of ten students can receive financial aid without going into the military. The vast majority of veterans actually receive NO educational benefits from the military, not one cent.
And now the military is invading our schools with The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) a test developed by the Department of Defense for military recruiters to determine the abilities of a student for military occupational specialties. This test is administered without parents' permission and test results are released to the military without parents’ permission.
Students who take the test often don't even know that it is a military test.
Students who appear to have an aptitude for military service are heavily recruited after the test is taken.
The Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) is currently replacing Physical Education Classes in many of our schools.
The flat out lying of recruiters has been exposed endlessly. One of the most common comments of boot camp drill sergeants is, "Forget everything the recruiters told you!"
Occasionally parents believe that military discipline will be good for their kids. But the discipline of keep your mouth shut, do what you are told and follow orders is entirely external and designed to make a thoughtless killing machine out of a human being. The only authentic discipline is self discipline which is capable of critical thinking and application of conscience.
Our militarism has destroyed New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It has also rotted out the entire infrastructure of the United States. It is also a cancer on our educational system. Indeed every bomb which has fallen in Afghanistan and Iraq has fallen on our country as well.

Pacific Commentary for September 7, 2005
NO FINGER POINTING!

Now let's not have any finger pointing!
That's what the accused says when the prosecutor presents the evidence. In this case the prosecutor is represented by the people of the world and the accused have overwhelming evidence against them.
The destruction of the great city of New Orleans together with much of the Gulf Coast is simply a part of the price of the Iraq War. Every year efforts have been made by informed people requesting more federal funding for the levies and infrastructure of that great city on the Mississippi River.
And these requests have been denied in order to pay for an unnecessary, illegal and immoral war. The denial of these necessary funds is also part of a larger ideology which has been festering for three decades. The ideology is called privatization. This ideology is based on a religion of profit for the few. As a result the entire public infrastructure of the United States is deteriorating. The public sector has been under ceaseless attack. We have only to look at the efforts to defund public utilities, social security, public schools, public parks, public highways, public sewer systems, public libraries, public universities and public hospitals. What is even more horrific is that this rigid and useless ideology of private greed has been extended internationally by way of so-called globalization or, neo-liberalism which is simply a reversion to the worst of 19th century laissez faire capitalism.
It is the public sector that has made life livable in the United States. It is the lack of public sector infrastructure, which has made New Orleans and the Gulf Coast unlivable.
Let the troops from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama be the first to return from Iraq. And may they be followed immediately by the rest of our troops to come home and save their country from the terrorism generated by privatization.
But friends let's not just point the finger, let's prosecute the malfeasance of office of those who have systematically defunded the public sector of the United States of America, let us prosecute those who have created endless unnecessary wars and who have extended our military outreach to over eight hundred foreign enclaves which the local people are begging us to leave.
And this is being done as the infrastructure of the United States rots out. New Orleans represents a clear example of privatization and unregulated capitalism. The poor stand on their roofs and beg for help while the president flies over to give them a feigned blessing while FEMA lists Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing as a serious source of legitimate aid. Add to this the fact that our corrupt leadership cares so little about poor people of color that we have just refused aid from fifty-five countries who are anxious to help.
May the thousands of dead in this unnecessary disaster be the occasion of our demanding an end to the unnecessary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And may we begin to use the tax money of the United States for the common good of the people of the United States instead of for destruction of innocent people abroad.

Pacific Commentary for August 31, 2005
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

Here is an offer that our listeners cannot refuse. The Wall Street Journal tell us that the Yellowstone Club is offering membership to the super rich for an introductory fee of only ten million dollars. Naturally there will be annual fees as well. But just think of the prestige?
Just how much of a moral justification is there for such a Club? According to the principle of distributive justice the right to such organized greed is near zero. Why? In a humane economic system we might study a graph which looks like an archery target.
The center bullseye would represent our needs for survival. Such needs would be called rights in a developed society. For example the rights to housing, food, clothing, education and medical care. There are concentric circles beyond the bull’s eye but each one represents things we have less of a right to until the needs at the center are met. As the central needs are met, a society based on the common good would permit its citizens to expand its vision to lesser rights. In any analysis of distributive justice the right to join a ten million dollar a year club would never exist until all of the homeless were housed, all of the sick cared for and all of the hungry fed. In short, our hearts could stop bleeding for people who take in millions of dollars per year.
Now the odd part of our culture is that many people who earn $30,000 per year or less might seriously object to the principle of distributive justice. Why? Because they have been socialized to dream of billions. Some would even say that such limitations would hinder the incentive for excellence. But the incentive for excellence can be easily seen in scores of Nobel Prize winners who have achieved international fame and who live on a fixed university salary. This gives the lie to the concept that we must have the potential to be billionaires or we won't strive for excellence.
The principle of distributive justice is not based on the concept that everyone should receive the same income. That is not part of the program. On the contrary, it is based on the concept that excessive wealth is the cause of poverty. This principle has not yet reached the political economy of the United States. However, it must go beyond all national borders and become part of the international political economy of the planet's people. May students in the future intelligently study the fact that ten million dollar membership clubs and the arms merchants who joined them were the reason that millions of people lived on garbage dumps in 2005.

Pacific Commentary for August 23, 2005
PAT ROBERTSON

Reverend Pat Robertson has become the personification of nationalistic pseudo-Christianity. During his television program, The 700 Club, he proposed an act of sheer terrorism in calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela.
This is the Christianity of anyone who makes an idol out of the state. This is the Christianity that was popular in the Third Reich as Adolph manipulated Catholics and Lutherans to the Nazi cause.
This is the Christianity of Christendom, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Conquistadores. This is the Christianity for which Pope John Paul II apologized. Pat Robertson previously supported the sheer terrorism of our illegal Contra War in Nicaragua which was clearly one of the greatest scandals in United States history.
And now he joins the mob that shouted, "We have no king but Caesar!" It takes a warped and putrefied conscience to call for the murder of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. And what might be the motive for this murder? The motive is that the empire does not approve of Hugo Chavez. This servant of empire represents everything that Jesus distained. Here are some words from Jesus on this matter which might be directed to Pat Robertson.
Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly prophesied: "These people honors me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is worthless; and their doctrines are mere human rules" (Matthew 15:7).
Ignore them--they are blind people leading other blind people. And when the blind lead the blind, they all will fall into a ditch (Matthew 15:4).
Woe to you religious scholars, you frauds! You travel over land and over sea to make a single convert, and once that person is converted, you create a proselyte twice as wicked as yourselves (Matthew 23:15).
Serpents, brood of vipers . . . (Matthew 23:33)
The ministry of Pat Robertson has been to betray the one he claims to serve. Remember what Jesus said of the traitor in his midst: "It would be better for him had he not been born."
There are thirty pieces of silver waiting for you, Pat.

Pacific Commentary for August 17, 2005
TRUTH TELLING

Sixty years after the greatest act of terrorism in world history we continue to engage in nuclear war. Uranium 238 should never have been called depleted. It is highly radioactive. It was used with fury in the Gulf War with Iraq which began in 1991 and its continued use has contaminated our troops and the Iraqi people ever since.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that radiation levels in downtown Baghdad are 1,900 times higher than normal. The radioactivity from our weapons using Uranium 238 has penetrated the entire area. It is in the blood of our troops who have come home sick. It is shared by their wives and children. It has also led to gross abnormalities in the children of Iraq. And now, 250,000 of the troops that served at the outset of this endless war are permanently disabled. Our troops and purported enemies in Afghanistan are equally endangered. And yes, this nuclear weapon, Uranium 238 was also used in the recent war in Yugoslavia. President Clinton is not absolved from the war crimes of nuclearism nor the terror of international sanctions.
But Uranium 238 is not the only cause of Gulf War Illness. President Clinton also signed executive order 13139, which ordered our troops to receive a variety of untested vaccines.
Isn't it ironic that the pharmaceutical industry and the war machine are so closely joined at the hip. Just think what a boon Bill Clinton's executive order was to the pharmaceutical industry. Perhaps this will help us to understand how the drug companies were able to take over television advertising with their endless drug pushing.
So what is the point?
There is no indication that a change of party will stop our run-away militarism and lawlessness. And the facade of nationalistic pseudo Christianity is not going to help us either.
The only way out of this mess is to see ourselves primarily as citizens of the planet which has only one people called the human race. The atavistic view of our sick leadership requires political illiteracy and moral unconsciousness. A moral revolution is required to end the slavery of militarism. Yes, we need the spiritual conversion that will lead to reverence for others as brothers and sisters in fact. We must look in the mirror and acknowledge that from the atom bombs to Uranium 238 we are and have been the greatest purveyor of violence on earth. Should we acknowledge our addiction and repent we will quickly find we are in far greater danger from obesity than we are from foreign terrorists.

Pacific Commentary for August 13, 2005
CINDY SHEEHAN

Cindy Sheehan has left her home in Vacaville, California to cover the nation and the world on behalf of her son, Casey, who was killed in Iraq.
She is currently near Crawford, Texas petitioning an interview with George Bush. George is, of course, too busy during his vacation to speak to her. Much commercial media is there to report on this valiant action.
Cindy plans to stay at her post in a tent near the Bush Ranch until the end of August. People interested in justice and peace are arriving to join Cindy in solidarity to end this unnecessary and immoral war.
Every possible lie, every act of hypocrisy has been used. Every journalistic hack has been recruited to throw fuel on this hellish fire. In spite of advice from our intelligence agencies warning the president that the war would result in even more attacks here at home, the president continues to recklessly endanger the people of the United States by his rampant acts of terror in Iraq.
All those responsible for this holocaust in Iraq must be brought to justice. This war began in 1991. Fifteen years of bombing, brutal sanctions and invasions have resulted in millions of civilian deaths.
There are hundreds of crosses around Cindy's tent in the Crawford countryside. These represent just some of the women and men from the United States who have died in Iraq for a lie.
It will take years to measure all the lives that have been ruined by Bush, father and son.
We must count all those who are now mentally ill from trauma. And we must begin to count the uncounted dead who have died on their way to hospitals in Germany.
It all cries to heaven for national repentance as we denounce the crimes committed in our name.
You are welcome to go to Crawford now to join Cindy or to follow her to Washington, D.C. in September as the struggle goes on. Cindy, may your brilliant action be the occasion of the mobilization of our citizens. And Casey Sheehan, may you rest in peace and may your mother be recognized as a national hero.

Pacific Commentary for July 27, 2005
HOW TO STOP TERRORISM

Have you ever noticed how careful the media is to tell us what happened in various cases of terrorism against us or our allies?
Actually the media is quite thorough on this.
One small problem, they rarely if ever get into the question of why it happened. Attempts on the part of our political leaders to explain the WHY of terrorism are the very definition of the word asinine. The entire world admires the constructive achievements of the people of the United States. But they have no admiration at all for our terrorism. Comments from our political leaders on this matter would be ludicrous if they were not so tragic.
So how do we stop terrorism? We stop terrorism by stopping our long standing terrorism. This is a good time to reflect on the terror of Hiroshima where hundreds of thousands of civilians were incinerated unnecessarily. Sorry folks but the judgment of history does not support the military propaganda that claims the bombs were necessary to stop the war. The war was over. And there is even less support for any claim that the incineration of Nagasaki was necessary some three days later. This was terror, sheer terror. And yes, it was a message to our ally, the Soviet Union that they would get no credit for ending the Second World War.
Terror and torture marked our interventions in Central America, terror and torture marked the brutal Christmas attack on Panama in 1989. And now terror and torture mark our killing of Iraqis together with our support for the terrorist occupation of Palestine. Our international terrorism has held the entire world hostage with nuclear weapons as our message clearly states that we can have as many nuclear weapons as we want but we will abolish any state that we judge should not have them. What logic!
The presence of over eight hundred military bases around the globe terrorizes people everywhere. Indeed we are addicted to terror. And as any addict we are striking out at everyone rather than acknowledging our addiction.
We will accomplish nothing until we acknowledge why people are striking at us.
And now we are ready to put an individual on the Supreme Court who does not believe that prisoners of war are entitled to hear the charges against them, to have due process of law and who supports kangaroo military tribunals. What a set-up for continued terror.
Please take note of our addictive behavior regarding the destruction of Falluja. No photos have been tolerated. The media forgot to mention that half of the Iraqi soldiers who were assigned to that mission deserted and that 20% were in open mutiny against us.
So we should look in the mirror and acknowledge our role as the world's greatest manufacturer of terror. Our ill-advised and brutal behavior will continue to create terror until we cease and desist from our terrorism. The truth hurts, doesn't it?

Pacific Commentary for July 20, 2005
LOGIC

In the study of logic, an argument based solely on authority is considered a classic fallacy. The logic of, "I'm in charge here," has absolutely no reference to the truth or validity of the argument. Oh, yes, it may be translated as, "I can fire you, I can punish you or even I can kill you," but it has absolutely no reference to the truth of what is being said.
We are taught to respect authority and that is a serious mistake. Authority must demonstrate the validity and the truth of its position in order to be respected. This problem is especially great with children, they are taught to respect their elders but they may not be warned how to recognize a child molester. And it gets worse with schooling. See how they learn to repeat what the teacher wants. The very history books they study are warped with the triumphalism of state sponsored texts. They repeat the drill not because of the validity or truth which it contains but simply because it is the drill.
Reflect on General Westmoreland. He believed that the enemy did not respect human life as much as we did. Well he learned that myth at West Point as it was handed down from the time of the Spanish American War. Did the statement have any truth? Of course not. But he learned it from authority without understanding that an argument based on authority only is a false argument. He spent his days in Vietnam begging for more troops as he presided over the massacre of three million people. They simply do not respect human life as much as we do? The value of General Westmoreland's logic was zero. But he did have authority.
And friends that is the situation with our current leadership. Our administration uses its authority to denounce the terrorism of others as it refuses to denounce its constant practice of state terrorism worldwide. Our authorities denounce torture conducted by others but they deny the torture which they practice as official policy.
Our authorities denounce the assassinations committed by others but they continue to practice assassinations.
There are two cases where this abuse should be self-evident. Israel as related to Palestine and United States as related to Iraq. In both cases the weaker state has clearly been the victim of institutionalized violence. In both cases the stronger state refuses to acknowledge its responsibility for having created the problem.
When you see that bumper sticker which simply states: QUESTION AUTHORITY please realize that the great political powers of the earth certainly have a monopoly on the violence they can create. Unfortunately their power demonstrates absolutely no claim to any truth or validity in their endless babble of propaganda. Without critical thinking and conscience we become mindless robots and automatons.
It is our moral responsibility to question authority and to rectify the evils created by mindless authority.

Pacific Commentary for July 13, 2005
IMMORALITY AND MALICE AT THE SERVICE OF IGNORANCE

Just think of the horror of sending your kids off to school and shortly thereafter finding out that they had been killed by a bomb. People throughout the world have been experiencing this terror whether they live in England, Iraq, Israel, Palestine or the United States. Our condolences to the endless number of victims and families. Such strategies are immoral and mindless. In the past fourteen years in Iraq, however, over 5,000 times the civilian casualties of the recent London bombing have occurred. Has there been the slightest expression of grief for these Iraqi civilians?
Now after receiving the equivalent of over 5,000 London bombings would it not be expected that some people might just respond in anger, in rage and in terror? We are stunned when the Blair/Bush response states that this is because they hate our way of life. But wait a minute, if our way of life includes the routine killing hundreds of thousands of people, both Blair and Bush have a point.
All rational beings on the planet can now see the futility of one nation bankrupting its people to purchase self-destructive armaments. We assert our power over weak and defenseless states, some of them respond with rage. Then we ask why they don't love us. The policy to date has been one of immorality at the service of ignorance.
Friends, the point here is that the war system is a suicide system. We are shocked by suicide bombers but we have become the international suicide bombers. Our bombings result in the death of our people as well as the intended victims.We need a realignment. By that I do not mean a change of political parties. A realignment implies an entirely new perspective on the part of a majority.
Our realignment must include a global view. There are mindless voices from highly trained and poorly educated media pundits who are saying that the Muslims of the world want to destroy us. These must be the ghosts of those who thought the Vietnamese Buddhists wanted to destroy us or the Central American Christians wanted to destroy us.
Quite simply, all we have to do is reflect on the fundamental right to self-defense while knowing that some people will respond by making their own rules.
Those who repeat the past do not respect the past. The past is marked by violence, racism and ignorance. Respect for the past implies change, realignment and wisdom.
The planet cannot be sustained by arrogant power. The planet can only be sustained by rational people building a system of justice and peace.

Pacific Commentary for July 6, 2005
SUBVERSIVE LITERATURE

Just suppose you are one of the newly elected members of Iraq's new client government. Just suppose you are reading a political science book and you come across a subversive document. You hope and pray that your U.S. handlers do not discover your reading material.
The document says: "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."
You furtively read on discovering that the subversives who wrote this were speaking of a foreign head of state by the name of George. They directly confronted George with the following indictments:
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
Just picture the member of the new Iraqi client state gathering his or her colleagues together to approve of this subversive document and to pledge their allegiance to it by stating:
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Pacific Commentary for June 29, 2005
FORT BRAGG

Someone spoke to the troops at Fort Bragg last night. Whoever spoke was not in touch with recent history.
The speaker seemed to think the war in Iraq was related to the attacks on the twin towers on September 11, 2001. It was not. The war in Iraq was started to grab power in the Middle East. Those who planned it were among the most deceitful and immoral individuals who have ever served in government. Their arrogance, mediocrity and shamelessness simply mark seeking power at any price.
The speaker lied saying that Iraq had to be rebuilt because of the tyrant who previously ruled there. No, that was not true. As in the case of many tyrants, for example Mussolini, the physical conditions in Iraq under the tyrant Saddam Hussein were some of the best in the Arab world. The speaker knows very well that Iraq has to be rebuilt because 88,000 tons of bombs were dropped on that nation by the order of his father.
Last night's speaker knew and relished the fact that Iraq has been under unceasing attacks for fourteen years. It has been bombed, it has been starved out, it has been denied any medical assistance under the individual who served as president after the reign of the father of last night's speaker.
Iraq does not have to be rebuilt because of a former tyrant. It has to be rebuilt because we have destroyed it. The Shock and Awe attack simply broke the back of a country that was attempting to dig its way out of the ashes.
Someone should attempt to get across to last night's speaker that after you blow the Iraqi children to pieces with pretty cluster bombs, after you routinely torture their sons and daughters, after you abolish their sacred shrines and their sacred cities, after you define them as devils, after you poison their bodies and their soil with highly toxic radioactive dust, you might just expect them to resist. There is no ethic in the world which identifies self-defense as terrorism. All rational human beings will defend their families and their personal and spiritual integrity. Insurgency is one thing, terrorism is another.
And in the process of their rage a few people will unfortunately become terrorists. Criminals are often thought to be delusional and uninformed but they frequently know exactly what they are doing and why. Should his view of the War in Iraq remain as policy, the utter devastation of that country together with the current and rapid deterioration of the United States will continue concomitantly.
Mr. Bush, please do a favor to the world's people, please step down together with your arrogant, mediocre and war mongering cronies.

2005-10-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Pacific Commentary for June 15, 2005
THE DEVIL'S LANGUAGE
Regardless of whether you believe in devils as persons or simply as black holes of negativity, we must attempt to identify such forces. In scripture the native tongue of the devil is identified as the lie. When the devil lies it speaks its native language. Knowing the truth is one of life's constant struggles. But it is the truth that sets us free and liberates us from the power of the lie.
The lie has become institutionalized in government. The first casualty in any war is the truth. So we hear lies from the executive branch, from the Department of Defense and from the State Department. The commercial media reveres most every false statement made by these powers. Some truth speakers are crucified whether their name is Jesus or Gary Webb. If you read Webb's lucid book, The Dark Alliance, there is little or no room for doubt about how the major U.S. papers attacked his data and his integrity. The book is a must read for anyone who aspires to be a journalist. Cocaine arrived in the United States on the same planes that brought arms to Nicaragua for the illegal Contra War.
Those drugs were distributed nationally by the contras with full knowledge of our intelligence agencies. Weapons went down to Nicaragua to kill the innocent, drugs came back to addict our citizens and much of the profit was used as an illegal war chest. The truth can make us free from the tragedy of sending our youth to once again be killed for a lie. The simple truth will also spare the lives of many innocent Iraqis, Iranians and Koreans.
Like most wars, the Iraq conflict was started by a contrivance...that is by a lie. The governmental liars are responsible for every single death, for every single injury, for every single case of delayed traumatic stress syndrome and for all who have been poisoned by depleted uranium. By the way, the very name depleted uranium is a lie. It is not depleted, it is highly radioactive and toxic.
There must be no impunity for the host of criminals who have presided over the lies regarding the twin towers and the lies regarding the Downing Street Memo. Such negative powers and principalities are destroying the United States of America.
The lie is the native tongue of the forces of death.
Only the truth will liberate us.

Pacific Commentary for June 8, 2005
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

The saddest words ever spoken were, "It might have been."
There have been trials for heresy, there have been executions for heresy and there have been endless ecclesiastical denunciations of heresy.
Heresy is false doctrine and has frequently been associated with people who have deviated from official church doctrine. It is curious that heresy has rarely, if ever, been applied to conduct. It seems to me that conduct, which emanates from mutilated, manipulated and cult oriented religiosity should be identified.
Here in my opinion are a few examples of what I consider heresy.
It is heresy to believe that religion should bless war.
It is heresy to believe that nationalism has a role in religion.
It is heresy to fail to show reverence for a diversity of religious experience.
It is heresy to accept inquisition and torture as policy.
It is heresy to demonize any ethnic or racial group.
It is heresy to demonize any nation.
It is heresy to judge whole nations as worthy of destruction.
It is heresy to claim to be the voice of God for the world.
It is heresy to claim that God is on the side of any nation state.
It is heresy to practice hate.
It is heresy to lack compassion and mercy.
It is heresy to lie as personal or collective policy.
It is heresy to rob from the poor by the massive production of unnecessary and counterproductive armaments.
It is heresy to produce and conspire to use nuclear weapons.
It is heresy to fail to communicate with others through respectful exchange.
It is heresy to take innocent lives.
It is heresy to order people to kill.
It is heresy to make war instead of peace.
It is heresy to use religion as a cloak for malice.
It is heresy to use religion as a cloak for racism.
It is heresy to physically threaten individuals or groups.
It is heresy not to respect free will.
Friends, it appears we are governed by a group of heretics. We must direct them out of their errant ways.

Pacific Commentary for May 27, 2005

2005-06-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

The saddest words ever spoken were, "It might have been."

Our powerful nation might have led the world into abolishing nuclear weapons. We have all the necessary technology. We simply do not have the will. And don't let anyone say this is not realistic. The realists of the world know that nuclear weapons will either be abolished or used. There is no room for debate on this issue. It is our lack of leadership which is unrealistic. The entire world can see our duplicity in presuming that we can have tens of thousands of nukes as we point the finger at other nations who might possibly have one nuke.

Our powerful nation might have led the world in humanitarian law. With a leadership vacuum we have torture as an official policy. Torture is an international crime and the very definition of terrorism. Torture has never been a source of information; on the contrary, it is conducted to obtain false confessions, to terrorize those who have not yet been tortured or as a source of "entertainment" for psychotics. Some rebel groups in Latin America discovered the wisdom of treating their captives well. In some cases the captives not only spoke the truth but also changed sides.

Our powerful nation might have led the world in restraining the sale of weapons. On the contrary, we continue to sell arms to every possible dictatorship on the planet.

What might have been is America as a beacon to the world. On the contrary, we have become the disgust of the world by our lawless, mean spirited, violent, small minded, racist and stupid policies.

Amnesty International referred to the atrocious human rights violations of the Bush administration which diminish the moral authority of the United States and sets a global example encouraging abuse by other nations. The list of accusations which introduced Amnesty International's annual report in London mentioned crimes by the United States including: torture of detainees in Iraq, torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and rendition of prisoners to a country known to practice torture. Amnesty further stated that the United States "thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights."

Rather than what might have been a light to the world, this group of war criminals has no legitimate claim to the tax money of our hard working citizens.

We don't have to focus on what might have been. But we must focus our attention on what is going to be and that means humane leadership for a humane future.

Pacifica Commentary for May 18, 2005

2005-05-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

IMPEACHMENT

While the commercial media exploits the alleged sexual misconduct of Michael Jackson on a 24/7 basis, the criminality of our international behavior becomes commonplace.

What criminality? Let me count the ways.

The endless carnage in Iraq, the people we kill are referred to as terrorists. What a wonderful situation for the imbedded media. Who among the dead is going to prove that he or she was not a terrorist? Every dictatorship has played this game. The ones we kill are the evil ones. If they happen to be innocent, for example children, they are simply collateral damage.

Then we have the case of the Prime Minister of Haiti Yvon Neptune, jailed for ten months with no charges against him. Neptune is on a prison fast unto death seeking justice for his people. The policy that overthrew his government has been routine behavior for Washington since the days of Thomas Jefferson. To the horror of our founders, Haiti abolished slavery in 1804.

And then there is the case of the Colombian paramilitary which our country has supported for decades. This enormous death squad is holding one of the largest inventories of cocaine ever identified. These drugs are for sale in the United States and the income serves to continue the rape and plunder of the Colombian people.

Yes, it is the same pattern that took place in Nicaragua in the 1980's. Gary Webb's book, Dark Alliance explains the method in detail. Gary's good work was punished by the same media that endlessly feeds us Michael Jackson.

The Bush approval ratings are dropping but not fast enough. Every member of Congress now knows that in April of 2002, at the Crawford Ranch in Texas, George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed to wage an unprovoked and illegal war against Iraq. 89 House Democrats have expressed their outrage in a letter to the President, which says in part: "While the president of the United States was telling the citizens and the congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion."

Former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clark commented, "Impeachment now is the only way we, the American people, can promise ourselves and the world that we will not tolerate crimes against peace and humanity by our government. Knowing what we know, to wait longer is to condone what has been done and risk more."

Friends, to make this impeachment a reality, all we need is a handful of Democrats with a spine, Republicans with a conscience and people with hope and conviction. Let's make it happen.

Pacifica commentary for April 6, 2005

2005-04-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

There seems to be some differences about the place of conscience in the Catholic Church. And there ought to be. Some Catholics thought that conscience was only for Protestants and they certainly could have received this impression from various Popes.

The Vatican Council of 1962-1965 was a liberating moment for millions of Catholics. Here is the statement on conscience:

The human person sees and recognizes the demands of the divine law through conscience. All are bound to follow their conscience faithfully in every sphere of activity. Therefore the individual must not be forced to act against conscience nor be prevented from acting according to conscience, especially in religious matters.
Declaration on Religious Liberty. Second Vatican Council, 1965.

It was conscience that led me to defy a gag order from the Church regarding U.S. military intervention in Guatemala. It was conscience that led Theresa to leave her convent post in southern Chile and become a Social Worker in Los Angeles.

Thanks to this clear understanding of conscience Theresa and I have been married for thirty-five years. We would like to be the change that we desire. We are grateful for following our conscience, having children and becoming grandparents.

The removal of conscience as the ultimate norm of action is one definition of a cult. And sadly, many people have a cultish relationship to their faith. It is at this transition moment in history that we must urge people to listen to their inner voice and to remove all cultish and mindless behavior from their spiritual formation.

The key to an enlightened conscience is critical thinking. I thank my father for his instruction on this matter. As a prominent attorney and later Judge of the Superior Court his critical mind was always in gear even as he sat at Mass on Sunday and listened to the sermon. On one occasion, the priest was ranting and raving and gesticulating about some esoteric issue, Dad wrote a note on a church envelope and handed it me. I must have been ten years old at the time. His note said, "The Father has gone hopelessly insane."

I laughed but I never forgot his point. A critical mind will develop a healthy spirituality. An unquestioning mind will create a robot.

It is critical thinking and an active conscience that has led millions of people to work for the abolition of the war system together with the development of an international system of justice and peace.

Pacifica commentary for March 30, 2005

2005-04-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

THE WORDS OF CAMILO MEJIA

My words today are taken from some of the comments made by Camilo Mejia who has recently completed a year in prison for refusing to return to fight in Iraq as he sought the status of conscientious objector.

I was deployed to Iraq in April 2003 and returned home for a two-week leave in October. Going home gave me the opportunity to put my thoughts in order and to listen to what my conscience had to say. People would ask me about my war experiences and answering them took me back to all the horrors-the firefights, the ambushes, the time I saw a young Iraqi dragged by his shoulders through a pool of his own blood or an innocent man was decapitated by our machine gun fire. The time I saw a soldier broken down inside because he killed a child, or an old man on his
knees, crying with his arms raised to the sky, perhaps asking God why we had taken the life of his son.

I thought of the suffering of a people whose country was in ruins and who were further humiliated by the raids, patrols and curfews of an occupying army.

And I realized that none of the reasons we were told about why we were in Iraq turned out to be true. I couldn't find a single good reason for having been there, for having shot at people and for having been shot at.

I realized that I was part of a war that I believed was immoral and criminal, a war of aggression, a war of imperial domination. I realized that acting upon my principles became incompatible with my role in the military, and I decided that I could not return to Iraq.

By putting my weapon down, I chose to reassert myself as a human being. I have not deserted the military or been disloyal to the men and women of the military. I have not been disloyal to a country. I have only been loyal to my principles.

When I turned myself in, with all my fears and doubts, I did it not only for myself. I did it for the people of Iraq, even for those who fired upon me. They were just on the other side of a battleground where war itself was the only enemy. I did it for the Iraqi children, who are victims of mines and depleted uranium. I did it for the thousands of unknown civilians killed in war. My time in prison is a small price compared to the price Iraqis and Americans have paid with their lives.

I say that I don't believe in heroes, but I believe that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

Camilo's web site is: www.freecamilo.org

Pacifica Commentary for March 23, 2005

2005-03-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

TERRI SCHIAVO

The sheer opportunism of the president and the Congress has been made clear to the world. They have taken advantage of a
woman who has lived in a vegetative condition for fifteen years in order to promote their deadly agenda.

"It is wisest to always err on the side of life," says the president in a historic statement of hypocrisy. Did he err on the side of life by sending thousands of healthy young Americans to death, serious injury and mental illness in an unnecessary war in Iraq?

Did he err on the side of life by massacring endless thousands of healthy Iraqi children and other non-combatants?

Congress holds a special session, Bush jets back to the nation's capital. Were these acts necessary? Of course not!

DR. QUENTIN YOUNG, pnhp@aol.com, http://www.pnhp.org who chairs the Department of Medicine at Chicago's Cook County Hospital says, "It is stunning how little regard this president has for human life. His interest seems to extend to only one tragic brain-damaged woman. The U.S. is the only industrialized country to lack health care coverage for all citizens. Over 18,000 Americans perish every year because they lack health insurance. A lack of health insurance increases the chances a 55-year-old will die before they turn 64 by 40 percent. If the president wanted to save lives he would call for an emergency session to make Congress vote to extend Medicare to
every American."

Jesuit Father SIMON HARAK, amc@warresisters.org, http://www.warresisters.org says, "The more universal your ethical principles are, the more moral force they will have. I hear of Bush's flying back to D.C. to sign the Schiavo bill, and I think of him flying back from his first presidential campaign to sign the death warrants of Texas prisoners. I think of Bush signing a bill in Texas to cut off funds for life support for people who want their children to live, but can't afford it. I hear of the government's concern for this individual, tragic case, and I think of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children whom we diseased and starved to death during sanctions, and now the hundred thousand more Iraqis who have died in this invasion and occupation.”

Friends, if our minds are clear, we will acknowledge that we have witnessed this
administration conduct one great act of self condemnation. May Terri Schiavo rest in peace, and may there be reconciliation between her husband and her parents. Neither Pope nor President have authority over her future.

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR MARCH 9, 2005

2005-03-10T17:10:00.000-08:00

TORTURE

Jonathan Schell has referred to the media as the obfuscation industry. Let us cut through that obfuscation regarding the matter of torture. The president of the United States, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense have made themselves perfectly clear. They all approve torture. They support torture and they promote torture. There is absolutely no question about it. They know it goes on in our domestic prisons, they know it goes on in our military behavior. They know that through a foul process called rendition we are also sending suspects to torture and death in foreign lands without due process.

The mealy mouthed comments, the weasel words and the flat out double talk of these four officials have made their approval of torture transparent. The entire torture industry, much of which is conducted by corporate mercenaries, represents the face of evil. First and foremost, it is immorality at its lowest and most stinking level. It is wrong, unforgivable and self-condemning on the face.

Secondly torture endangers our personnel overseas. Instead of the Geneva Accords which instruct all combatants that they are to give only their name rank and serial number, they now can expect torture treatment in kind.

As the Grand Inquisitor showed him the instruments of torture, Galileo was content to say that the sun goes around the earth. No one should be expected to say anything true under torture. Torture is simply the pristine form of terrorism. It is nothing less than extreme rape.

Those who conduct torture the are living dead. They are shallow, banal, obedient zombies. It would be better for them if they had never been born.

The statements of top officials demonstrate the dictionary definition of mealy mouthed. What they say about torture amounts to either avoiding the question or flat out lies.

Torture is also unconstitutional and illegal. A functional Congress would begin impeachment proceedings immediately.

In the centuries of history of this abomination, nothing of value has been learned. Nothing but the inhumanity of the torturers. Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article Five:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Demand an end to this disgrace to the United States of America.

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR MARCH 3, 2005

2005-03-10T16:54:00.000-08:00

COALITION OF JUSTICE AND PEACE GROUPS

It was a privilege to participate in a massive gathering of some five hundred peace and justice organizations in St. Louis last month. We were struck by the maturity of the assembly and the harmony demonstrated by so many autonomous communities working together under the banner of United for Peace and Justice.

One key action, which we should all support, is coming up shortly. I am speaking of the International Day of Protest against the War in Iraq which is planned for Saturday, March19th.We ask all groups to endorse and support this day of protest in Los Angeles which is called by the ANSWER COALITION. For information call 323/464-1636.

We demand an end to the occupation of Iraq and denounce it as one of history's great war crimes.

Some thoughts on how to do it:

* Any supplemental budgetary funds granted by Congress must include expenditures for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. This means ending the occupation and removal of U.S. bases. This position is in support of Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's recent resolution.

* Support Iraqi sovereignty by giving them control over reconstruction.

* Support international agencies assisting in reconstruction.

* Provide real support for our troops by ending the "stop loss" policy, which keeps troops on active duty far beyond their contract agreements.

Provide psychological counseling, health care and benefits to returning Iraq veterans and their families.

The art of making a moral revolution is the art of uniting forces.
We look for the unification of all progressive forces in opposition to the
on-going criminality of the Iraq War. We will accomplish this by
identifying our strategic points of unity. Clearly there are many things to
be done and it is logical to have a division of labor among these hundreds
of grass roots organizations.

We will gather at Noon on Saturday, March 19th on the famous corner of Hollywood and Vine to recall the infamous day when this on-going disaster began. The Iraq War is spiritually bankrupting the United States, killing its youth and massacring innocent civilians.

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR FEBRUARY 16, 2005

2005-03-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

THE TRUE FAITH

Why is religion such an area for hatred, political conflict and war? Mahatma Gandhi dealt with this problem on a daily basis. Gandhi saw no distinction between the City of God and the City of Man. He insisted that there be a political consciousness in religion and a religious consciousness in politics. In short he saw them as the same. If spiritual people reject ahimsa or non-harm they will approve of every form of violence to attain their objectives. Saints, he thought, could be more murderous than sinners. In short, he saw the trap of fundamentalisms.

Religion must rid itself of dogmatic certainty. Shedding dogma intellectually is required in order to practice non-harm in the physical world . In a parallel to the Hippocratic oath of doctors, the religionists must agree to do no harm and thus open their minds to the validity of other faiths. The proof of faith is not doctrinal purity. That should be obvious from centuries of inquisition conducted according to Dostoevsky by people who had no faith at all. Instead of the impossible task of trying to define God, the person of faith defines a life-style of total dedication, sacrifice and love. This is the "proof of faith."

This is how Satyagraha or truth force can become the motor force of religion and politics. Satyagraha is direct action without violence. It is the true act of faith. It includes refusal to cooperate with laws that are unjust joined with the willingness to suffer the consequences. Yes, we are speaking of non-violent law-breaking. At a meeting in South Africa in 1906, 3000 Indian citizens met at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg. On the agenda was an item resolving that the members of the Indian community would go to jail rather than to submit to an ordinance requiring them to carry a residency permit under pain of deportation or prison. At first it was to be decided by majority vote. But then Gandhi suggested that each person should decide for themselves whether to take a vow before God to break this law. A vow was different from a majority vote. By taking a vow each person has an obligation to keep it. "A person who lightly pledges their word and then breaks it is a person of straw," said Gandhi. All present rose and took the vow. In the case of the Indian community in Transvaal it meant deliberate violation of a government ordinance and a commitment to fill the local jails.

Regardless of our religious or non-religious background, as we rid ourselves of dogmatic certainty, as we accept non-harm and a dedication to truth force, we will become spiritually capable of the non-cooperation which is required to end corrupt government.

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR FEBRUARY 9, 2005

2005-03-10T16:39:00.000-08:00

THE BUDGET

When you call your members of Congress today and the rest of the week, please consider the following recommendations. Remind them that there is not one cent in this new and massive budget to pay for endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore when they receive the new request for 80 billion more as a supplemental appropriation request they should:

1. Oppose any new funds: No supplemental 80 billion dollars for endless war. Any new funds should be allocated solely for troop withdrawal and interim troop protection.

2. End the occupation: Halt U.S. military actions immediately, shift U.S. troops to the borders of Iraq and leave no U.S. bases behind. Support Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's (D-CA) resolution calling on the President to begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

3. Support Iraqi sovereignty: Give Iraqis full control over reconstruction funds including Iraqi ministries, new police and security forces. Terminate contracts with U.S. companies and turn projects over to Iraqis while providing transparent accounting of all U.S. contracts.

4. Stabilize Iraq: Commit to long-term U.S. financial support for Iraqi- led reconstruction and allow the UN and other international agencies to support an Iraq democracy free from U.S. intervention.

5. Provide real support for our troops: End the "stop-loss" policies that keep troops on active duty far beyond their contracts. Provide thorough psychological counseling, health care, and benefits to returning Iraq war veterans and their families. Bring our troops home!

And while we hypocritically turn our sights on Iran accusing that country of having an incipient nuclear weapons program, US nuclear weapons spending has grown by 84% since 1995. The total cost of our nuclear forces is 40 billion anually. This includes ten thousand nuclear warheads with some 2,000 on hair-trigger alert. By what warped logic do we think we have a right to these genocidal instuments? And we are the only power that has used them.

The proposed budget is an immoral document. Anyone concerned about moral values in or out of government should simply reject it. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR FEBRUARY 3, 2005

2005-02-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR FEBRUARY 3, 2005

HUMANE ECONOMICS

Hello, this is Blase Bonpane with a comment. They call it the dismal science. But economics would no longer have to be dismal if it brought in the human equation. What makes economics dismal is the fact that the gauges it uses are outdated.

It is like having the instrument panel of a Ford Tri-motor Aircraft on a giant 757. Gauges like the gross national product are not meaningful as regards human development.

If there are two people in the society and one person has a millions dollars and the other has nothing, the average income is $500,000. In spite of this average one of the two can be living in misery.

What is to be done? Create new and meaningful gauges. The most meaningful economic gauge is the Gross Social Product. Such a gauge does not measure income averages, on the contrary it measures the quality of life.

The gross social product would graph:

What is air quality this year as compared with last year?

What is the quality of water this year as compared to last year.

And we would similarly compare the quality of public transit?

What is the health care delivery this year as compared with last year? Who is still left out? How many homeless this year?

What about dentistry? Are half of the people in the United States still unable to go to a dentist?

What is the quality of public education?

What is the level of diplomacy practiced by the nation? How well does it cooperate with international agencies? How generous are we with international disaster relief?

What have we done this year to maintain international peace?

You see those who want to privatize the state of our union only deal platitudes and flights of fancy. Without a doubt privatization will increase the Gross National Product, and war will increase the Gross National Product. The only problem is that the gross national product has nothing to do with the quality of life in our country or the planet. In short, economic growth is not the measure of quality of life. the way to measure quality of life is to install the new gauge, the Gross Social Product. This gauge will identify war as bankruptcy. This gauge will lead us to distributive justice and thereby curtail crime. This gauge will take the word "dismal" out of the science of economics and make its professionals something more than a group of hired guns trying to protect individual corporations by every form of chicanery. This gauge, the gross social product, will identify the current state of the union as an ongoing fraud against the people who live here.

This is Blase Bonpane.