How To Get Your Music Into Movies.
Help Indie musicians make money by getting their music into film and tv. How To Get Your music Into movies. -
In last weekend’s edition of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn updates the ongoing persecution of Sami Al-Arian by federal prosecutors. Al-Arian was a Florida university professor of computer science who was ensnared by the Bush Regime’s need to produce “terrorists” in order to keep Americans fearful and, thereby, amenable to the Bush Regime’s assault on US civil liberties. The charges against Al-Arian were rejected by a jury, but the Bush Regime could not accept the obvious defeat. If Al-Arian was not a terrorist, then other of the Bush Regime’s fabricated cases might fall apart, too. In open view, the US Department of Justice (sic) proceeded to trash every known ethical rule of prosecution. I don’t need to repeat the facts, as they are covered by Cockburn’s articles and in The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Instead, I want to point out another meaning of the Al-Arian case. The Justice (sic) Department itself knows that it is persecuting a totally innocent person for reasons of a political agenda - the need to convince gullible Americans of an ongoing terrorist threat. The existence of this threat is used to justify the Bush Regime’s adoption of police state measures, such as spying on Americans without warrants, arresting them without charges, and refusing to let go of them when they are cleared by juries. Sami Al-Arian is a fabricated terrorist created by federal prosecutors and judges in behalf of an undeclared agenda. The Al-Arian case proves that terrorists are in short supply and that the Bush Regime has had to create them out of total innocents. The “War on Terror” is a hoax used to justify war crimes and the overthrow of America’s civil liberties. The anthrax scare is one more example of the Bush Regime’s use of disinformation to advance an undeclared political agenda. As Glenn Greenwald reminded us last week in Salon, the Bush Regime used Brian Ross at ABC News to spread the lie far and wide that US government tests proved that the anthrax mailed to various Americans, including prominent US Senators, was made in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. This lie was essential for scaring Congress into passing the Bush Regime’s Gestapo laws, such as the PATRIOT Act, and for overcoming opposition to invading Iraq. When it leaked out that the anthrax actually came from a US government lab, the Bush Regime tried to frame a US scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, but failed. On June 28th, the Los Angeles Times reported that Hatfill, “The former Army scientist who was the prime suspect in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings agreed Friday to take $5.82 million from the government to settle his claim that the Justice Department and the FBI invaded his privacy and ruined his career.” Indeed, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton allowed Hatfill’s attorneys two years to review all news reports and FBI evidence. Judge Walton stated: “there is not a scintilla of evidence that would indicate that Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with this.” [U.S. settles with anthrax mailings subject Steven Hatfill for $5.82 million] The anthrax matter was again news last week when another US government scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, “committed suicide.” Instantly, the deceased Ivins was fingered as the culprit. Overnight a man, liked and respected by his colleagues, who had worked on American biological warfare weapons for years, became a deranged homicidal maniac who decided to murder Americans at random in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 by sending them letters containing anthrax. I don’t believe a word of it. But assume that it is true. Blaming the anthrax letters on Ivins does not resolve the issue of why the Bush Regime lied to Brian Ross and used ABC to put the blame on Saddam Hussein in order to invade an innocent country. Wouldn’t a government that would lie about something this serious lie about other serious matters? The Bush Regime stands against the truth. That is why it pretends to have the power to prevent executive branch officials wanted for questioning by Congress from appearing before the people’s representatives. Nothing could make clearer the contempt that the Bush Regime has for the American people and their elected representatives than its arrogant claim that it is unanswerable to them. Obviously, neither the President nor the Vice President respect their oaths of office. If they will betray such a serious oath, won’t they lie about everything, even 9/11 itself? According to the discredited 9/11 Commission Report, a few Muslims hatched a multi-year plot that went undetected by the vast security agencies of the United States and its allies, and within one hour on one morning at four different locations defeated airport security, NORAD, the US Air Force, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, the Pentagon’s defenses and crashed three hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers and the heart of the US military. Muslims were able to achieve this fantastic feat operating out of caves in Afghanistan. We now know for a fact that the “terrorist anthrax attack” had nothing whatsoever to do with Muslim terrorists. Even the US Government now blames white American citizens, employees of the federal government, for the anthrax letters that, at the time, were blamed on the “Osama bin Laden al Qaeda plot against America.” We now know for a fact that this was intentional disinformation planted by the Bush Regime on a gullible and incompetent ABC News reporter, who is a disgrace to journalism. No one denies this. We also know for a fact that ABC News will not say who planted on ABC the lies that committed the United States to the dishonor of an illegal invasion, war crimes, and executive branch attack on the US Constitution. How can anyone anywhere in the world rely on ABC News when it serves as a disinformation agency for a criminal regime? One logical conclusion is that the anthrax attack was part of the same false flag operation that pulled off 9/11. The anthrax letters made the “terrorist attack” seem wider and more general. This increased the sense of peril and Americans’ fear and anger, thereby opening wider the door for the Bush Regime’s attack on Iraq and US civil liberty. Now that the dead Ivins can be conveniently blamed for the anthrax mailings, the Bush Regime can declare the case closed, thus protecting the false flag operation from further risk of exposure. Many Americans lack the mental and emotional strength to confront the facts. The facts are too unsettling and many are relieved when the “mainstream media” spins the facts away. Many Americans find it too appalling that any part of “their” government, even a rogue operation, could possibly have been involved in any way in the 9/11 or anthrax attacks. No evidence–not even full confessions–could convince them otherwise. Many Americans have welcomed their brainwashing by the neoconservatives: America is pure; her shining virtue causes evil men to attack her; they hate us because we are good and they are evil. For the sake of argument, let’s accept this make-believe. It does not explain why, in order to protect us from evil men, the US Constitution needs to be dismantled and civil liberties set aside. Our Founding Fathers said that dismantling the Constitution and setting aside civil liberties are precisely what would make us unsafe in the extreme. The Bush Regime has never explained how the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution interfere with any legitimate response to terrorism. The fact still remains that the Bush Regime responded to 9/11 and anthrax letters with a comprehensive assault on US civil liberty. The Bush Regime’s assault on America has been much more successful than its assault on “terrorism.” Who remembers the promise of a “six weeks war”? Americans have been mired for 6 years in two wars without end which the neoconned Bush Regime, in alliance with Israeli Zionists, seeks to expand to Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and Lebanon. The Republican candidate for president has given his commitment to a 100-year “war against terrorism.” Many Americans will vote for this candidate who wants to fight against a hoax for 100 years. In The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America, Jennifer Van Bergen explains the constitutional and legal principles on which American liberty is based and the Bush Regime’s intense assault on these principles. Part I of her book sets out the Constitutional principles that are under attack. Part II details the systematic attack on the US Constitution that is the heart and soul of the Republican neoconservative Bush Regime–and a Regime it is as it asserts that it is above the law and unanswerable to law, Congress, the federal courts, and the Constitution that it is sworn to uphold Jennifer Van Bergen likens Bush and his brownshirt supporters to Julius Caesar in motives, though not in courage. She cites the poet Lucan who in his work Pharsalia described Caesar as he flouted the law of the Roman Republic and crossed the Rubicon with his army: “When Caesar crossed and trod beneath his feet The soil of Italy’s forbidden fields, ‘Here,’ spake he, ‘peace, here broken laws be left; Farewell to treaties. Fortune, lead me on; War is our judge.’” Anyone who believes that the Bush Regime’s “war on terror” is about terrorism, oil, getting even with those who attacked us, bringing freedom and democracy to Muslims - whatever rationale makes the gratuitous war crimes committed by the Bush Regime acceptable to gullible Americans - needs to read Jennifer Van Bergen’s Bush Plan for America. Nothing less than American liberty is at stake. The hour is late. Gullible Americans are being marched off into tyranny as the promised land of safety.Technorati Tags: Al-Arian, War on Terror, Gitmo, Anthrax, Bush, Tyranny If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury’s Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile: Dos Visiones - La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello, 2000). Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate
MR. Lister Unlimited Ad Placement Platform!
MR. Lister Unlimited Ad Placement Platform! Here it is, finally a platform with common sense. Mr. Lister Online Classifieds provides you with unlimited ad placement every month. You can post items till the cows come home. Not onlt that!! You can include pictures and web links. http://www.mrlisteronline.com If you tired of playing games with more that one ad, here is the classifieds […]
Demagoguery Works
The presidential campaign is getting nasty in its last 100 days. Actually, that’s not a surprise. The campaigns always do. They always have, going back to the days of the early Republic. They probably always will. It is a mistake to expect intelligent discussion of the issues in a political campaign. Even if such a discussion took place, the press would probably ignore it as being too dull to bother with. People like to say they don’t approve of negative campaigning, but that’s one of those cases where words and reality don’t match. American campaigns feature demagoguery, and there is a fairly well-thought-out reason for it. Years ago, a manual for winning elections explained that modern campaigns are aimed at what is called the “apathetic middle.” The theory is that there are a certain percentage of people who will vote Democrat no matter what and a certain percentage who will vote Republican no matter who is on the ticket. Usually these hard-core partisans are not enough to constitute a majority. Each candidate therefore strives to get enough of the apathetic voters to add to his partisan base and achieve a majority. Since these people in the apathetic middle don’t really care that much about voting or politics or the issues facing the country, the candidates resort to demagoguery, which in modern times is often a collection of promises: “I will win the war, reduce the price of gasoline, balance the budget, fix Social Security and Medicare, stop global warming and see that every American has a decent job.” Couched negatively, “My opponent will lose the war, is responsible for high gasoline prices, will spend us into bankruptcy and will do nothing to fix Social Security or stop global warming.” Well, at least these days our candidates don’t have to fight duels. Andrew Jackson’s opponents conspired to get him into a duel with an expert marksman who had killed 20 or more opponents. Fortunately, Jackson survived. Alexander Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr. Both men were Revolutionary War heroes. Terrible things were said about both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson during their campaigns. So, comparatively speaking, Sen. John McCain’s claim that Barack Obama would rather shoot hoops than visit wounded troops is rather mild, though false. Another example candidates have to remember are the speeches of Brutus and Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” After Caesar’s assassination, Brutus makes a factual, well-reasoned speech. Antony demagogues the heck out of it, and the mob goes after Brutus. As injurious to the commonweal as demagoguery is, reason has a difficult time competing against it. American elections seem to be decided on the basis of emotions fueled by demagoguery, not reason. Look at the last one. George Bush, who spent the war safe in the Texas National Guard, convinced Americans that he would be a better commander in chief than John Kerry, who had earned medals for bravery in combat. Kerry’s anti-war rhetoric after he came home from Vietnam came back to haunt him. It’s quite clear that the Republican strategy for this election is to attack Obama as inexperienced, unpatriotic and possibly dangerous. It might work, provided McCain doesn’t go bonkers in public or ramble on about his grandchildren during the debates. Obama may well play Brutus to the Republicans’ Antony-like mud machine, proving once again that intellectual explanations can’t compete with snappy sound bites. I disagree with much of what Obama believes, and I’m afraid McCain might wake up grouchy one morning and start World War III. Like everyone else, though, I’m stuck with the choice our two worn-out, dysfunctional political parties have given us. Ah, well, the Earth is still a beautiful place. Let us all smell the roses while we may. No matter who wins, there’s not likely to be any great changes. Technorati Tags: Elections, Politicians, Obama, McCain, Demagogue Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years. 2008 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter
Golden Casino - Daily Rewards - Great Games
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Fr d ric Bastiat famously observed that the State costs us in ways we can see and ways we cannot see. Economists tend to focus on the second type because they elude public perceptions. What inventions are we denied because of regulations? What might have been done with the resources that are diverted in taxes or higher prices due to protectionism? The answers demonstrate that, because of intervention, we are worse off than we know. Sometimes, however, we should also look at the potentially seen costs of the State, if only because the State doesn’t want us to see those either. These are the direct destructions caused by some State activity, most especially war. Seeing war in photographs changes things. It causes us to observe the State’s war and what it is doing to people: us and them. This is why the State doesn’t want pictures of US wounded or dead circulating in public. The media mostly obey. Did you ever notice that? You are being shown only what the government wants you to see. The State does not want you to see dead soldiers or suffering families of those shot and killed. Instead the State wants you to believe that the Iraq War is about patriotism, 9/11, national pride, the campaign to make you safer, the administering of justice, manhood and courage, and all the rest of the cover-ups for what war really is: murder and destruction paid for by you and me and made legal solely because it is the State and not someone else doing it. Take a picture of dead soldier, or the child of a killed Iraqi family, broadcast it on your blog, and what happens? Photo journalist Zoriah Miller has found out. He was kicked out of his “embed,” which is the name for the pack of journalists permitted to travel with a group of soldiers and report what those in command want reported. Afterwards, he was prohibited from traveling in any Marine-patrolled area of Iraq. The military command worked to get him kicked out of the country altogether. Yes, it all seems very pre-modern and primitive, and contrary to all our pieties about the free flow of information, the first amendment and all that. But from the government’s point of view, it is running the war, and it should control what people know about it to the same extent it controls everything else about the war. As a result, after 4,000 dead soldiers, countless hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, millions of wounded on all sides, there are only a handful of bloody pictures to be found anywhere. Amazing isn’t it, just how effective the State can actually be when it cares intensely about something? And why does it care so much? One reason, they say, is that photos provide the enemy with information about the effectiveness of their attack and the response. In effect, that’s like claiming that anything but approved propaganda amounts to subversion and treason. In any case, we can be pretty darn sure that when the enemy makes a hit, the enemy knows about it. Another claim - and actually they have said the same thing from World War I until the present day - their main interest is in protecting the families of the dead from shock, privacy violation, and humiliation. Maybe that sounds plausible, but another way to look at it is that the State is most especially interested in continuing to foster the myth that these kids are dying for their country, and there are no more important people to convince of that than the parents of the dead. But actually, only the most na ve could possibly believe that this is what the rules are wholly about. They want to protect the rest of us from reality. The Vietnam war lost massive support at home when the military loosened up on photojournalism. The handful of pictures we have from World War II all date from a period after FDR too bowed to public pressure. At one level, it is pathetic that we need pictures to underscore what war is all about. But since the ancient world, the masses at large have proven susceptible to believing every myth about the grandeur and glory of war. We imagine that we as a people are going abroad to bring justice, truth, and liberty to some unenlightened and threatening foreign tribe. This has been the constant theme since the ancient world. Then we see the pictures. It turns out that the unenlightened tribe is a collection of individuals pretty much like us. They are made of flesh and blood, have families, worship God, and struggle with pretty much the same issues that all people everywhere have always struggled with. There is no great glory in killing them, nor in being killed by them. But the State says that sometimes war is necessary. If our masters really believe that, why hide its costs? Let us see precisely what we are getting into here. If it is justified, let us see why and how, and let us observe what we are giving up in exchange for the just war. The truth is that the State must hide not only its wars but all of its activities. It hides its inflation. It hides the effects of its taxation and its protectionism. It fears anyone who draws the cause-and-effect connection between its activities and their deleterious consequences for the rest of us. It is the most destructive force in our world. Because that truth is so momentous, the State does everything possible to hide the smallest drop of blood. The State wants us to all go on with our lives, believing it, loving it, and seeing only the pictures it wants us to see. Technorati Tags: State, Government, War, Casualties Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty. Copyright 2008 LewRockwell.com If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: Click Here for the Free Populist party Newsletter
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
