Happy 4th of July: Stars and Stripes Forever (John Philip Sousa)

New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein conducting, at the Royal Albert Hall in London (1976).

Baby Polar Bear.

Baby Sumatran Tiger Cub

U.S. War On Afghanistan: Who Is The Enemy? What Is The Goal?

The United States declared war against Afghanistan, and began bombing them, sent troops in to invade the country, destroyed much of the country, killed many people, beginning in October of 2001, almost eight years ago. Not only are we still there, but we are now escalating the war in that country, sending in more troops, conducting raids and sweeps of isolated areas and murdering anyone who is considered an "insurgent," whatever that means. It's beginning to sound like the "free-fire" zones of Vietnam, where the U.S. sent in troops with instructions that they should assume everyone is the enemy, and they should shoot anything that moves. Or, in common parlance, a slaughter.

Afghanistan is a small and very poor country which was torn apart in the 1980s when the U.S. decided to use front groups to fight against the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan. The U.S. funded, supported and armed jihadist anti-western fanatical Muslim groups to fight against the Soviet Union. Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who was also aligned with and supportive of the fanatics, came out looking like a heroic figure to the people in the region, because many believed that he and his small group of Muslim fighters had overwhelmed the mighty Soviet military on their own. That's because the U.S. lied to the world while it conducted a secret war against the Soviet Union.

Osama bin Laden remained very popular in Afghanistan, beloved by the people, and welcomed by its leaders. Because the country was devastated due to wars and a lack of assistance from the rest of the world, the uber-religious Taliban group gained power and ruled over the people's lives with an iron fist.

When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the excuse used was that bin Laden and al Queda were using Afghanistan as a training ground, and we wanted to go find bin Laden and punish him and his group, and prevent them from conducting anymore attacks.

Eight years have passed, and the U.S. has made almost no effort to find bin Laden. It appears that George W. Bush decided to let bin Laden escape when he was in danger of being caught. The motive is unclear, but nonetheless, eight years down the road, the U.S. has done almost nothing to capture or kill bin Laden. We've even heard such silly comments as well, we know where he is, in Pakistan, but "nobody" can go in there because it is the "tribal" region. Yeah. So is there a no-bombing rule for the tribal region? We have been hands-off with bin Laden and there is no reason to believe that has changed.

So why are we still in Afghanistan? There is little evidence of any al Queda stronghold within that country. The governing group which was in control before 9/11, the Taliban, was always acceptable to the U.S. government. They were even invited to Texas for the oil corporations to wine and dine them before 9/11, trying to get an agreement to let the oil corporations run and operate a pipeline across their country. In fact some people say the refusal of the Taliban to let the western oil corporations run a pipeline through Afghanistan is the real reason for this war. The story goes that the U.S. met bin Laden in July of 2001 and gave him an ultimatum: either he approved, and got the Taliban to approve the pipeline, or the U.S. was going to come in and take it by other means.

So why are we still in Afghanistan? It's not because we want to help the women. We've done nothing to help the women. Waging war is not "help."

Why is the puppet head of the country, Karzai, an oil-corporation executive himself? What does the U.S. really want from Afghanistan?

A pipeline. A pipeline to run oil. And no interference from the locals. Just like in Iraq, where the troops have vacated the cities but retreated to the military bases built near -- the oil fields. We will steal the oil from Iraq, run it through pipelines in Afghanistan. It's all so very clear.

Don't get me wrong. I don't like the Taliban. But I also don't like the U.S. military waging these never-ending wars on behalf of corporations. The expansive empire is bankrupting our country. Our people as individuals are in many cases broke: they've lost their jobs, their wages have been slashed, they can no longer afford healthcare, the public education system is being destroyed, the public treasury is exhausted with war spending and soon will no longer even provide police or fire protection, no water service. That is the cost of Empire: all the money is taken from the people and given to the Military Defense Industry, the Halliburtons, the oil corporations, Blackwater, while their owners put millions in their pockets of money stolen from the people.

The cost of empire eventually destroys the people at home. Our government devotes all its energies and resources to waging wars and expanding the Empire, and leaves the economy to be run by a criminal cartel on Wall Street which has stolen all the money from the nation. Between the Defense Industry and the Wall Street Criminals, they've picked our bones bare.

I read an article this morning about the Marines invading some isolated area of Afghanistan, with the new big-shot (General Custer?) flying overhead in a helicopter overseeing the slaughter. Of "insurgents." How do they know someone is an insurgent? I thought we were at war with al Queda. Who is an insurgent? Somebody who fights against the military from some other country that has invaded their town and is killing their people? Are we really just killing all the males, ages 14-70, just like we did in Fallujah? Is this a collective punishment situation where we will slaughter all the men as a "warning" to other areas: don't mess with the Marines. They're brutal.

What the heck happened? I thought Obama was going to end the wars. Now it looks like he's just escalating everything. Like his commitment to the oil corporations is even stronger than was that of Bush and Cheney. So when he peered closely at the Bush regime, we thought he was appalled. But maybe he was really just admiring them. What change?

********************
"Thousands Of Marines Push Into Taliban Territory"
AP, July 2, 2009 ·

"Thousands of U.S. Marines poured from helicopters and armored vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages in southern Afghanistan on Thursday in the first major operation under President Obama's strategy to stabilize the country."

"The offensive was launched shortly after 4:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the world's largest opium poppy-producing area. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.
The Marines have not suffered any serious casualties and have seen only a sporadic resistance, said Lt. Abe Sipe, a spokesman for the unit."

[QUESTION: DO THEY WANT TO DRIVE KARZAI'S OPPOSITION OUT OF THEIR TOWNS BEFORE THE ELECTION SO THEY CAN'T VOTE? THAT'S WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE. SEE BELOW: THE PENTAGON WILL PUT IN AN ADDITIONAL 21,000 TROOPS BEFORE THE ELECTION -- PRESUMABLY TO GUARANTEE THAT THE OIL CORPORATION EXECUTIVE KARZAI "WINS."]

"The enemy has chosen to withdraw rather than engage for the most part," Sipe said. "We had a couple of heat casualties, but not deemed serious in nature at this time."
....

"Officials described the offensive — dubbed Khanjar or "Strike of the Sword" — as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase and the biggest Marine offensive since one in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. It involves nearly 4,000 newly arrived Marines plus 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province."

"Where we go, we will stay. And where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement."
.....

"The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of U.S. forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008 but still half as many as are now in Iraq."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106195429

Karl Malden (3/22/1912 - 7/1/09)

Karl Malden has died at the age of 97. He was a terrific, Academy-Award winning actor with a long and distinguished career. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1951 for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire. He was nominated again in 1954 for his role as the priest in On The Waterfront.

He had starring roles in such films as A Streetcar Named Desire (he courted Blanche DuBois, played by Vivien Leigh), and played the anti-corruption crusading priest in On The Waterfront. He also had starring roles in Fear Strikes Out, Pollyanna, Birdman of Alcatraz, Gypsy, The Cincinnati Kid, and Patton. He starred in the television series "Streets of San Francisco" with then-newcomer Michael Douglas.

Michael Jackson: "Not This Time."

I've been thinking lately about how ridiculing, demeaning, criticizing and humiliating are weapons of oppression in our country. They are no longer shameful secret tactics used behind closed doors by mentally-ill parents on their helpless and vulnerable children. They now are the favorite public expressions of "the boss" or the persons in charge on most reality shows.

More and more we learn that very successful business owners, CEOs, agents, movie stars, authors, and top-level politicians have apparently achieved their success largely by ridiculing, demeaning, criticizing, and humiliating their competitors and the people over whom they have any authority. We see young ambitious people in all the professions stand up publicly and proclaim that they will enthusiastically not only cheat lie and steal to get ahead, but they volunteer their views on their competitors by openly ridiculing, demeaning, criticizing and humiliating them. "That punk, I'll kick his butt." We even saw some of this in the Max Blumenthal video about privileged young kids in Israel mouthing off demeaning comments about the President of the United States, calling him a "pussy," openly and deliberately trying to humiliate him. Behavior that once would have been unthinkable is more and more openly embraced among certain privileged segments of society

People who were abused as children often end up being abusers themselves. We understand that there is a tragic mimicking of sick behavior, a terrible destruction of lives, created by the abusive parent, destroying the lives of their children, but also creating damage for future generations.

But what about the current popularity of extolling and embracing sick abusive behavior as a part of our public persona? What used to be the hidden, shameful, secret conduct of disturbed parents, usually kept secret by the victim/child who felt ashamed that they were treated horribly, has now been incorporated into the basic training for all of our professions and other high-paid positions. What formerly was considered horrible behavior is how applauded.

Women and minorities, as individuals and as members of a group, are routinely subjected to ridiculing, demeaning, criticizing, and humiliating comments and behavior. These tactics are used by the dominant and powerful groups in our society to rationalize and reinforce the oppression of the minority and weaker groups. Every time we hear men making "jokes" about women's bodies, almost dissecting women and treating them as body parts and objects instead of as human beings, this has the effect of reinforcing the exclusion of women from opportunity in our society. It also creates terrible feelings of both fear and shame in women: fear that their body parts will be attacked or molested, shame that they are publicly humiliated in that fashion.

When I first got out of law school, I worked in a law firm in which one of the partners would invite all the male associates out to lunch once a month. I was the only female associate at the time, and I was never invited. One of the male associates who was a good friend of mine told me that the lunches were horrible, and nobody wanted to go. This partner, who was as uptight, rigid, Republican, racist and sexist as can be imagined, used to spend the whole lunch hour making vulgar comments about the waitress or other women who walked by -- vulgar comments about their breasts and other body parts. No wonder I wasn't invited. This is male-bonding behavior intended to reinforce sexist attitudes, and the exclusion of women.

Another partner in that firm actually made a watermelon joke to me about a black secretary -- behind her back, of course. The privilege felt by professional white men, the obligation almost, to perpetuate the exclusion of women and minorities by ridicule, is widespread, extremely damaging, and ultimately very effective.

I have a friend who is a white male, and in 2008, his "boss" inside a relatively successful mid-sized company had the habit and practice of circulating, at work, by e-mail, disgusting and vulgar drawings of women engaged in sexual activity, as well as horribly racist drawings of Obama. This is not history. This is current and ongoing. Criticizing, ridiculing, demeaning, humiliating women and minorities, in particular, is a weapon used to reinforce sexism and racism, to break down the individual members of the groups as well as deprive the group overall of any sense of self-esteem or dignity.

A refusal to ever praise or acknowledge the merit of anything done by members of these groups is a part of that same tactic. I used to work with an attorney who never praised, never thanked anyone for any work they did for him. It was apparently part of his effort to keep control over his employees. This is a white man born into wealth and privilege, a man whose most creative work in the past 20 years was probably writing up a grocery list for his wife. Yet he never once complemented his secretaries or thanked any of the attorneys who did sometimes remarkable work. It's a tactic. It's intentional. The intent and the effect is to undermine other people, strip them of any sense of worth to make it easier to manipulate and use them. Simply ignore people's achievements, never praise. It works to convince people that maybe their work isn't really that good, maybe they're not that good.

Not only is this true on an individual level, but on a group level as well. When we think of famous American artists, for example, few women or minorities come to mind. Men decide what art is valuable, what art has merit, and they routinely exclude women and minorities from consideration, or they judge them to be inferior. We have so few women or minorities allowed in politics, and they are kept at low levels in most professions, so it's hard to find role models, or people to be proud of in those fields. The history that is taught in our schools ignores most women and minorities, and still generally only praises and discusses the conduct of white men. The failure to praise, refusal to give credit, is itself a form of oppression, a tool intended to prevent women and minorities from every being able to feel good about "their" people.

What does this have to do with Michael Jackson?

We see some groups highly critical of Michael Jackson since his death, only discussing his alleged sexual molestation of children. There are newspaper cartoons showing him going straight to hell, for example. I don't recall ever seeing a newspaper cartoon when Nixon died showing him going straight to hell for the two million Vietnamese who died as a result of the war against Vietnam, a war which he accelerated and enthusiastically supported. I don't recall ever seeing a newspaper cartoon when Reagan died showing him going straight to hell for all the death squads he set up and funded in Central America, and all the people who were murdered because of that. And I don't recall seeing newspaper cartoons showing Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and that whole goon squad they ran with going straight to hell because of the illegal war against Iraq and the torture and murder of innocent victims.

I would never minimize sexual abuse of children. But I sometimes wonder whether our society imposes a harsher, fatal condemnation of any women or black person who allegedly violates some law or norm, in contrast with the known mass murderers who are our heads of state, whose slaughter of people in other countries is always given a pass on their death. White men who kill millions are buried with white rose wreaths and fancy limousines and church choirs, while women or minorities who allegedly harmed one person are condemned to secret burials, pine boxes, insignificant headstones. Not This Time.

I've noticed a really strong cohesive response by leaders throughout the black community in this country, all uniformly praising and supporting Michael Jackson, all using very laudatory words about his body of work, all rejecting any media discussion of the questions about Jackson being a man with severe problems. But the leaders of the black community not only are hushing up any discussion of this, they are praising Michael Jackson and mourning his death as if he was Martin Luther King, Jr., instead of just a pop-singer.

It occurred to me that this is intentional conduct by the black community. Despite the overwhelming contribution of black Americans to music, they do not yet have "their" black American popular performer who can be called, for all time, a "King" of some type.

Michael Jackson was their best bet, and they will not allow white society to take that away from them by the same old tactics of criticizing, ridiculing, demeaning, and humiliating either Michael Jackson himself, or the black community for supporting a man who was flawed in his personal life. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Spike Lee, all the young rap and R&B artists, have made an announcement to white America that they will not allow Michael Jackson to be destroyed by being criticized, demeaned, ridiculed, and humiliated. They will not allow white America to take away from the black community "their" Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, whose name will reign forever alongside the greats such as Sinatra, Elvis, and the Beatles. Not This Time.

We're Broooo-oooooke!

In the early part of this century, the Republican-owned oil and gas companies jacked up the price of oil and gas being sold to consumers in the state of California, stealing a lot of money from a lot of people. In response, the people of California threw out their Democratic Governor and replaced him with a grotesquely-inflated and contorted body builder and former B-movie Republican actor named Arnold Schwarzenegger (the "Terminator").


Today, the Terminator announced that he had completed the task that had been assigned to him by the Republican Party and the corporations that own them: destroy the state of California. Demolish it. Bankrupt it. Blow up the entire state budget, shut down the schools, let the freeways break apart and the bridges collapse, sell the off-shore drilling rights and the water and the trees and anything else in that state that is of value. Destroy the liberals, the Democratic stronghold, the source of funding and money for the Democrats. Crush them.

Consistent with Republican neoliberal and neocon views, he vows to veto any law to raise taxes on rich people (like him and his wife), and instead proposes balancing the budget by eliminating all healthcare for poor children, turning elementary classes into gymnasium-sized holding pens, and selling off anything of value in the state.

Why did people think that a freak like this would be a good person to put in charge of the largest state in the country? I have nothing against him personally, but he is a body-builder, a freak, a very bad actor, and has no qualifications whatsoever to do a civil job in the government, nevermind to be the top guy in charge.

Are Americans really so stupid that they think these silly movies are real? If so, God help us, we'll probably get Tom Cruise running the whole country one of these days. The last time people elected a very bad B-movie ex-actor, in Reagan, he bankrupt the entire country. Get it? Republicans are thieves. When they are elected, they let their friends loot the whole place.

Here's the simple truth: we need to raise taxes on rich people and businesses. There is so much money in California, so many rich people, so many successful businesses. And despite their whining, they don't pay nearly enough in taxes. But the Republican mantra seems to hold sway. So instead of raising taxes on the people and businesses who earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year, the state of California will increase the taxes paid by children when they buy a soda pop or a pack of gum.

Talk about child abuse: the whole state, all the adults, screw the kids, want them to have nothing, so the adults can keep all their money and spend it on useless crap for themselves. Republican Family Values: Screw the Children.