Blogs: Timothy Gatto

1984 in 2008

Timothy Gatto — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:31:36 -0400

An editorial in The New York Times, No Friend of the Workers, today http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/opinion/18fri2.html?ref=opinion was a scathing indictment of the Labor Department. Now I don’t want to lecture anyone about what they should be paying attention to, but this one was too hard to ignore. The editorial was spot-on in it’s reporting, and that was gratifying in itself. The New York Times has published a number of editorials that could come under the banner of “dissent”.

In the article, there were clear indictments of the Labor Department. In one paragraph of the editorial the Times stated:

“President Bush has filled top posts across his administration with people who do not agree with the missions of their organizations. His Environmental Protection Agency has failed to protect the environment; his Justice Department has promoted injustice.”

This has been apparent since the early days of the administration. It is unfathomable why so many Americans have put up with this regime for so long. The truth be known, almost every agency in the Bush administration has turned out to be an oxymoron. The Defense Department has become the Offense Department. Homeland Security has become Homeland Insecurity. The list goes on and on.

The American worker has been the target of drawbacks and benefit reductions for the last decade. On the backs of the workers, the top 10% of American families control 71% of this nation’s wealth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth. This leaves 29% of this nation’s wealth to share among the rest of the 90%. Does this make any sense? Meanwhile, while workers aren’t getting paid their last paychecks and are being paid below minimum wage, and disabled kids are being paid in cash to operate heavy machinery in clear violation of child labor laws, the Labor Department does nothing.

The Times also said this about the Department of Labor:

“The G.A.O.’s findings suggest that the government is not doing its job of going after employers who “cheat their employees out of their hard-earned wages,” said Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the committee that held this week’s hearing.”

The NY Times ended their editorial with this note:

“The first step in getting the nation’s laws enforced again will be entrusting enforcement to people who believe in them. We hope the next president will do that.”

Gee, swell, we hope so too. Hoping that an agency of the Federal government will do the job that it was created for is a travesty! This is clearly and eerily similar to George Orwell’s 1984, where the Department of Love was really the Department of Hate. The situation we have been living with only proves that the American people are compliant as well as complicit in allowing governmental abuse to continue for as long as it has.

Some well-meaning people have tried to tell me that socialism will never work in America. I’m here to tell you that rampant capitalism isn’t working either! These times have workers doing two jobs in order to stay employed after drastic “downsizing” of their workplaces. Unions are ineffective. The Department of Labor is deaf and dumb. If this is capitalism at its best, socialism, or at least portions of it, is defiantly more desirable.

Make no mistake, the Democrats and Republicans that feed out of the corporate trough will not change the plight of the American worker. I can’t believe I just wrote that, it is such a hackneyed and overused statement. Still, it is the truth. Maybe that’s why we have heard it so often.

Don't Expect the Democrats to Stop an Attack on Iran!

Timothy Gatto — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:47:21 -0400

It’s very early in the morning and I’m here writing about the possibility of my country attacking another nation in the Middle East for no real reason except to put some capitalistic fears to rest. The major reason that the United States desires to attack Iran isn’t because they believe that they will build an atomic weapon, it is the fear that Iran will switch from the dollar and embrace the Euro which will send our currency into free fall and bring about a possible recession or depression in this country as our dollar becomes worthless.

Make no mistake about why wars are fought. The central reason is almost always about resources, markets or threats to an economy. The rhetoric that precedes a war is usually never about the real reasons a nation desires to attack another. The reasons for war are veiled in talk about freedom or principles, but warring nations usually have neither. This nation, built on a system of values called capitalism or a market economy is always ready to use its armed forces as a means to force their economic needs on other nations.

The simple truth is that other nations usually allow the United States to succeed in their aim of basically influencing the world economy in their favor. The one exception to the rule if the last 50 years has come from our neighbors to the south, Latin America, the victim of American economic and military aggression has finally refused to be intimidated. Nations in Latin America are embracing aspects of socialism in their quest to raise their people’s living standards and to throw of the yoke of American Imperialism and Western Hemisphere hedgeonomy.

The first nation in Latin America to rebuke the US, Cuba, has managed to continue its Marxist doctrine despite American attempts to isolate the nation from the rest of the world. Venezuela is another country that has battled back from an aborted coup staged by the United States in 2002 and has managed to raise the standard of living of their people and institute industrial and agrarian reforms. Brazil has become the nominal head of the South American organization that is in the process of replacing the US led OAS called MERCOSUR. This organization does not accept free trade agreements (FTA’s) with the United States. Brazil as well as Venezuela are both modernizing their militaries to protect themselves from American domination. This has caused the US to revive its 4th Fleet in the wake of military modernization by Latin America. The prospect of US “gunboat diplomacy” is rearing its ugly head in the 21st Century.

Meanwhile, while nations scramble for strategic advantages over one another, especially to protect themselves from the world’s premier superpower, the American people are focused on its government’s moves towards Iran. Many American citizens are counting on the supposed “opposition” party of the Democrats to stop the right-wing Republicans from engaging in an unprovoked attack on Iranian nuclear reactors, filled with nuclear fuel. Their confidence in expecting that the Democrats in Congress will halt an attack by the Bush Administration is totally unwarranted. The Democrats have yet to stand up to Bush on anything.

Americans are realizing that the policy and substance of American foreign policy is doing great damage as far as other countries view of the American agenda. There are many Americans that would like to put an end to the cowboy diplomacy of the Bush administration but they are powerless to stop it as long as the Democrats and the Republicans are colluding with this administration in Congress. Americans are still placated by Democratic promises to return to a more benign foreign policy, and this hope is one of the fundamental causes of why the American people are not out en masse in the streets protesting the policies of the Neo-Cons.

The answer to avoiding more bloodshed and horror as missiles tear into Iranian nuclear reactors filled with nuclear fuel and contaminating large areas of Iran while getting into the atmosphere and doing environmental damage to the entire planet is up to the American people. Citizens of America can no longer accept the premise that the Democrats or any other political party will stop the future carnage in the Middle East. The time for protests and demonstrations replete with examples of civil disobedience on the scale of the protests of the early 1970’s is called for. We should understand that the professional, corporate-led politicians in Congress will do nothing to stop an attack on Iran. That’s just the way it is.

Independence for All Americans

Timothy Gatto — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:22:25 -0400

I have been wondering of late where it is on the political spectrum that I would feel comfortable? There was a time when I considered myself to be a Democrat. This wasn’t because I believed in the party’s platform; it was because I disagreed with the Republican point of view. The last seven years have reinforced my view of Republicans, but at the same time my fondness for the Democrats has also waned. The truth is that frankly, I don’t see much of a difference between the two; both the Republicans and the Democrats are financed by the same entities.

Who are the people behind the curtain, so to speak? Well, they are basically the same people and organizations that have always ruled in this country (with periodic breaks from time to time). These are the captains of industry and the bankers that back them, and lately, religious groups (that pop-up occasionally). The government claim that the people are behind the government and they are responsible for electing their government is patently untrue. The only thing that the people are responsible for is rubber-stamping the candidates that are selected for us. The two political parties, the Republicans and Democrats, seem to be the only game in town, so to speak. While it is true that this nation has other political parties, in national elections, there are basically only two parties that matter.

There is a trend that is occurring, its cause is probably frustration with the two major political parties, and that trend is that many people are now calling themselves Independent. The failure of the Democrats to initiate any real oversight of the executive branch, the failure to stop the war in Iraq, the collusion between the two parties in Congress and many more examples of political ineptness have caused many Democrats to reevaluate their political affiliation. The Republicans, many of who are embarrassed by the two terms of the Bush/Cheney regime and the scandals that have plagued the GOP, are also double-thinking their political allegiance. The mantra of “Change” that Obama is voicing seems to have struck a nerve with many people.

The problem for Obama is that unless he delivers on his promise of change, his campaign could run into serious problems. Americans are frustrated with the status quo and they are looking towards the Democrats to change the direction of this country. If his support of the FISA Bill is any indication of things to come, it appears that an Obama presidency will be more business as usual in Washington. This early in the race for the presidency has already left many of his supporters shaking their heads, bewildered by his about face on telecom immunity. It appears that a few more turns like that would seriously erode his support from the people left of center.

Changing positions and trying to appeal to the conservative voters that Senator McCain believes he has locked up isn’t all that bold on Obama’s part. The truth of the matter is that the left leaning voters in the United States really have nowhere to go if they don’t support Obama. The alternative, supporting McCain, would be much worse. So again we have the familiar “lesser of two evils” conundrum.

Alas, this is where I find myself. It seems like the stakes in this election are probably higher than any election I can remember, and it appears that we have two candidates that don’t have a clue as to what the real issues are. It’s either they don’t have a clue, or don’t want to address the real issues. I have yet to hear either McCain or Obama address the loss of our civil liberties. The two candidates have yet to comment on our imperialistic foreign policy based on securing the natural resources of other nations. The cost of maintaining our military machine has devalued the dollar and has thrown us into uncharted waters as far as the size of our national debt. They don’t mention that the United States bases its economy on the Military Industrial Complex, and that we have had this country on a war economy since 1940. The candidates also forget to mention that 10% of the wealthiest families in America control 71% of its wealth, leaving the other 90% of our people to divide the other 29% between each other.

The simple facts are that most Americans are not really aware of the real problems we face. The same old issues that are brought up every four years are being discussed now; healthcare, taxes and education. Nothing is really done about these issues and the same things will be brought up again four years from now. Most Americans have no idea that their civil liberties have been confiscated. They seem not to be bothered that the federal government has been eavesdropping on their phone calls and looking into their computers. They are oblivious to the fact that the attacks of 9/11 have not been investigated and that nobody has been charged, or that members of the governments of Japan and Germany and Italy among others have questioned the government’s 9/11 Commission findings. Americans are unaware of many things, mainly because the mainstream media does not report on them.

We have a “soft censorship” in this country. The majority of people that get their information from the major networks and newspapers are unaware that they are only given part of a story. Television is the prime offender when it comes to censorship. This censorship comes not from the government, but from the networks themselves. News that might be contrary to the views of corporate sponsors simply doesn’t air. One only has to sit through a Sunday morning watching the political talk shows to see who these sponsors are. They usually consist of Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, the coal industry, the oil companies and the pharmaceutical industries. These are industries that the owners of the networks have invested in. The conflict between who makes the news and who delivers the news has never been more apparent than it is today. It is no wonder why the majority of Americans don’t always receive the complete story when it comes to news stories. In order to be well informed one must turn to the internet and search out the real stories behind the headlines. Foreign news outlets usually tell us much more than domestic news outlets.

How do we change the situation that we find ourselves in? Well, one must realize that we didn’t get into this predicament overnight and that we won’t get out of it overnight either. The solution is to put people in government that aren’t connected to the military industrial complex. This means electing people that aren’t sponsored by the two major political parties. The only reason that the Democrats and Republicans have a “lock” on the political scene in this country is because we the people gave them that power. Americans have to believe that we can take that power that we ceded to them away. A total boycott on both major political parties is the only way we can break the lock that they have on America. When we get rid of major party politics, we go a long way to breaking the hold of lobbyists and the MIC. Another way is to pass legislation that would rid the networks of corporate interests and allow them to report the news free of corporate influence. The people of this country cannot make well-informed decisions if they are not well-informed; it’s as simple as that!

Another way to get this country back on fiscal track is to diversify the industries that bring work and capital into the US. We cannot rely on arms sales to bolster our export market. We must also broaden trade and start competing with the rest of the world. This “Empire Building” has got to stop. No empire can last. The United States was not founded on dreams of empire. The majority of Americans just want to be free to raise our families and make a decent wage while having the privilege to speak our minds.

This can be a genuine Independence Day. We can declare our independence from the two political parties that have a stranglehold on our republic. The time for party politics has come and gone. Let the party bosses do what they will, if enough people just refuse to be sucked into their corporate web that exists for the enrichment of the wealthiest in America, we can usher in a new golden age. This is one movement that could make a difference for all Americans. The two political parties that now hold all the power have abused that power. Their collusion in Congress to support this administration speaks volumes. The latest incantation of their collusion, the resolutions that give this president the power to put an embargo, an act of war, on Iran has definitely stepped over the line. Declare yourself independent of the two self-serving political parties. Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done. It can.

Obama Should Filibuster FISA Law in Senate!

Timothy Gatto — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:48:09 -0400

It seems as if we have been debating the FISA Laws forever. It isn’t a difficult task in understanding how the thing is supposed to work. The original law was fine as it was, and I believe that the President circumvented the law because of his arrogance, not because the law was too unwieldy. The intent, I believe, was to make the FISA Law that way so any Federal Agency that wanted to eavesdrop on American citizens had to go through the mechanics of justifying the act.

Apparently the Bush Administration thought that the law was outdated for this day and age, so they circumvented the FISA statutes. This is typical of this administration, if you don’t like the law, just go ahead and break it. God forbid you work to change the law, break it first and after you have done this deed, ask a compliant Congress to cover-up the crime by changing the law to suit the administration’s needs.

The granting of immunity to the telecom industry sets the precedent to grant the President immunity, according to some. That’s outrageous! Why should we as a nation allow this administration to break any law it chooses? Where is the “Rule of Law” in this nation? The presumed Democratic nominee took no issue with the House when they changed the law to fit the administration’s needs and with that, granted immunity to the telecom industry for breaking the law, along with the executive branch. Senator Barack Obama told the nation that he will remove the immunity provision when it gets to the Senate. What I would like to know is how can Obama insure that the immunity provision of the bill is rescinded? It would be a neat trick if he were the sitting President, but being a junior Senator, the prospect of providing a veto-proof rescission of the immunity clause is a hell of a thing to tout. If he can even stop the bill from passing through the Senate with the immunity clause intact that would be enough.

The only way that he could stop this bill from becoming law, due to the compliant House and Senate, would be to filibuster this piece of legislation. This one act of courage on the part of this Senator would insure that he gets my vote in November. The facts are that to do anything less is tantamount to letting the Executive Branch of the federal government permission to break the law at will. Senator Obama, as a constitutional scholar, should know and understand this. When the Senate votes on this bill this week, I expect to see a filibuster if it looks as if the bill will pass through the Senate intact. This is what the American people expect from a genuine leader, not vague promises of “change”, but concrete steps to return to the rule of law in this nation. He must understand that he doesn’t have to be president to make this happen; he can show his courage right where he is.

Kristol Pandering Again

Timothy Gatto — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:27:28 -0400

William Kristol must believe that he is extraordinarily sanguine and the rest of us extraordinarily stupid when he wrote his column in the New York Times today. The column entitled “Someone Else’s Alex” was in response to a Move-On.org ad that showed a mother with a one-year old baby named Alex. and saying that her son would not be available for Senator John McCain’s 100 Year War in Iraq.

According to Kristol;
“I’m not persuaded. Having slandered a distinguished general officer, MoveOn has now moved on to express contempt for all who might choose to serve their country in uniform.”

Kristol goes on to defend McCain and insists that Alex would only be 9 years old after John McCain finishes his second tour. He also defends McCain’s statements about a prolonged occupation in Iraq citing the long presence that the US has had in Japan, Germany, Korea and Kuwait.

Just yesterday I had a conversation with my brother’s nephew-in-law who asked me about the Army. He’s 20 years old and since he was asking, I remembered the Army policy of giving two thousand dollars to any retiree that was responsible for an enlistment of anyone outside the family. Since this young man was outside my family I mulled it over. You see. I’m a former Army Recruiter and this young man was not my immediate family member. I tossed the idea back and forth in my head and then looked at him.

“Did you ever hear of stop-loss?” I asked.
No, he did not. I explained to him how the Army could keep you beyond your original enlistment if it met the needs of the Army.
“Do you know that some of the guys in Iraq are spending their third or fourth tour in Iraq?”
Again, he did not, so I explained how some of the guys in the Army only spend about 12 months home before they rotate out again to a combat zone.
“What’s that doing to their families?” He asked me.
“Well it’s causing a lot of hardship and in this country about 200 veterans take their own life every week according to a story on CBS.”
“That’s cold!” He said before he walked off shaking his head.

So much for my $2,000.00 bonus, I guess he won’t enlist. Still, according to Kristol; everything is just rosy for our all-volunteer Army.

“But it is surely relevant to point out that the United States has an all-volunteer Army. Alex won’t be drafted, and his mommy can’t enlist him. He can decide when he’s an adult whether he wants to serve. And, of course, McCain supports the volunteer army.”

One must come to realize sooner or later, that some former service members, even former recruiters won’t be helping to meet the Army’s enlistment objectives anytime soon. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the Army in this day and age is not the “Deal of the Century”. They might make a young person “Army Strong”, but they could just as easily make a young person “Army Dead” too. The sad fact is that as soon as they are medi-vaced to Germany, if they die, once in the air, they are no longer counted as a fatality of the war, since they didn’t die in Iraq. We don’t want to advertise the real number of deaths, do we?

So Kristol, defend your candidate and your all-volunteer Army as much as you wish. You have your opinion and I have mine. The facts are very simple in this matter, I know what’s going on and you just don’t care. These kids are just cannon-fodder to you chicken-hawks anyway, right? I wonder how many of your offspring served in the military. Go on and attack Move-On, I don’t care for them too much anyway. I will say this though, this time they happen to be right on the money.

No Discourse for Americans

Timothy Gatto — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:51:13 -0400

There is no “Left” and “Right” in the mainstream political scene today. There are nuances of liberal thought in the Obama campaign, but that is terribly overshadowed by the “thought police” in his campaign that don’t want to give the McCain people any “talking points” that they can use against him. This particular episode in US history is very unfortunate. The fact that the Democrats must play the role of the quasi-belligerent and bellicose imperialists, in order to thwart the rhetoric of John McCain is a crime in itself. This type of behavior and rhetoric dooms the American people to a campaign that disallows the type of discourse that we so desperately need in this nation.

The articles I’ve written in the past few weeks have garnered e-mails from people that I never expected to hear from. My series on “American Complicity” have been published on many progressive sites and the response has been overwhelming. The outpouring of sentiment that this writer has received makes it very clear to me that the Mainstream Media has failed to provide the type of dialogue that the American people need to have with each other. Correspondence that I’ve received has not just come from Americans; I have received heartfelt letters from people in Israel, Mexico and Canada that decry what has happened in America in the last few decades. I wish I could write to all the people that have written me and tell them that the American people are indeed waking up from their long slumber and see what this nation is doing in the name of “The American People”, but I can’t. The dialogue between not right and left, but right and wrong, just isn’t being discussed with the public at large.

There is in this country since 9/11 a disturbing and dangerous perception in this country that it’s “us against them”. The same incident has spawned fears for some that our own government has been in some way either complicit or actually involved in the attacks. This incident and the feelings that people have about the causes and involvement of whomever was responsible are rarely talked about in public. The War in Iraq is also a subject that many Americans don’t speak about in mixed company, not wanting to lay their cards out on the table for their neighbors and co-workers to see. We discuss “polls” and articles we have read to gauge what others think. The only time we hear strong anti-war sentiment is on the internet or from speeches made at rallies and protests. The truths we hear and read stay in our minds and are very rarely brought out in public. The silence is deafening.

We have a chance at discourse and debate about where this nation is heading. Like so many others I have hoped that this Presidential election would bring out the thoughts and aspirations of Americans that want to turn this nation around and bring it back to some type of sanity. We hear phrases about “The wrong War at the wrong time”, and in the second breath we hear that “All options are on the table” in regards to Iran. Sometimes I wonder if this nation hasn’t developed a nationwide form of schizophrenia. I watch us encircle Russia with a missile defense system. Their protests go unheeded not only by our government, but the American people. I see this nation’s currency devalued day by day as the price of everything rises. Gasoline, heating fuel, electricity, commodities rise while paychecks remain stagnant and many are out of work altogether. All of this occurs while no-bid contracts to war contractors and war appropriations take their daily toll from the lives of working American’s in our attempt to “Americanize” the Middle-East continues.
There are no real debates on the merits of our foreign policy that tries to enforce a Pax Americana on the rest of the world. There are no real debates on the Mainstream Media about the 35 counts of Impeachment that Rep. Dennis Kucinich valiantly brought to the floor of Congress, unless that is, you are on the e-mail list of progressive organizations that are fighting for true justice that is being ignored by the major media outlets. That this current President has broken the law many times and lied to the American people, is being pushed to the background because it may interfere with the political aspirations of the Democrats. This in itself is a travesty of justice.

Someday the American people will indeed wake up and see what this nation has done in their name. They will see what we have done in the name of this “Global War on Terror” that was invented to keep our Military-Industrial-Complex running. We have replaced the Soviet Union with Muslim fanatics. We have replaced our own national interests with political aspirations of those inside of Washington. We have replaced commonsense with our common fear. This cannot continue forever, I can only hope that we can come to terms with what we have wrought before it is too late to recover, if it isn’t too late already.

An Open Letter to The Obama Campaign

Timothy Gatto — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:48:25 -0400

This is directed to Barack Obama and the people that make up his campaign. The rhetoric from the campaign is that Senator Obama wants to be the President of all the American people. The tone of the campaign is that he wants to be the President of all the American people that blindly accept the current status quo. When I say this I’m talking about the people that blindly accept that this nation’s economy is based on the Military Industrial Complex. Our largest industries are manufacturing airplanes, helicopters, tanks, munitions and weapons of war.

These aren’t the only things that the American people accept as the status quo. The mainstream media that is owned and operated by the corporate entities that fund the majority of politicians campaigns and only let the majority of Americans hear the news tat they want them to hear. The same mainstream media that hyped the Iraqi War and fails to tell us when the government enacts measures to curtail our civil liberties. The same mainstream media that helps to select our candidates for office and keeps them from talking about the issues that many Americans are actually concerned about.

We heard your speech at AIPIAC and we are supposed to believe that you seek to turn America back into a peace loving nation that respects International Law? We are supposed to blindly accept that Iran is major threat to Americans and support Israel like it’s our 51st State? What has Israel done for my family except to fund politicians that desire more intervention in the Middle-East? Don’t you realize that only 20% of Jewish-Americans donate to AIPAC and that the rest are predominantly Liberal Democrats? Why must you pander to the right? Is being President so important to you that you would sell your soul?

I write for the left in America. My articles have been headlined on most liberal-left websites. I am not a rich man, nor am I an influential politician. Still, more people probably read my articles that the columnists in the New York Times. I receive letters from people everyday that are sick at heart over what this nation has become. I hear about people that want a revolution to stop the excesses of America and its militaristic agenda for resources. Why are you not addressing these people? Don’t these disenfranchised people that feel that the government has usurped their authority and brought this great nation to economic ruin worth your attention? How long can we attempt to obtain Pax Americana? The majority of people in this nation do not wish empire. The majority of Americans want to rebuild our infrastructure and send our children to world-class schools so that they can compete in the 21st Century.

How can you remain silent while the current President rattles our sabers against Iran? How can you be silent while a courageous Congressman from your own party brings 35 Articles of Impeachment against the most outrageous criminal that ever sat in the Oval Office? This is a man that according to Lancet, is responsible for over one million two hundred thousand deaths of innocent Iraqi people! How can you remain silent when American Forces are operating inside Iran trying to overthrow their regime? How can you remain silent when this President authorizes the National Security Agency to wiretap every American citizen without a warrant? Where is your sense of right and wrong? You were a Constitutional scholar, where is your concern for the Constitution?
Our Constitution is in tatters. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 has been just about overturned in the Supreme Court. The Patriot Acts 1 & 2 are unjustified. The John Warner Defense Act (The re-vamped Insurrection Act) that usurps Posse Comitatus is unconscionable. The Presidential Directive 51 that is supposed to provide continuity of government in the event of a calamity is left for the President, not Congress, to decide. This, even though he won’t let Congress see it! Where is your outrage at the 1100 signing statements that lets this President ignore the laws that Congress passes?

We went to the polls in 2006 and tried to put a stop to these abuses of the Neo-Cons in our government. We installed a Democratic House and Senate and still the abuse of government continued. We understand how corporate entities provide you and your ilk with campaign funds. You may win this election by remaining in what you and your “advisors” believe is the “center”. You probably will. I would just like to make it perfectly clear to you that while you may have the hearts and minds of those that don’t think, or those that consider you “the lesser of two evils”, you are not winning the hearts and minds of those that see America going down a long dark road. Maybe you would want to consider that the next time you dream of the White House and the power of the Presidency. Think about this the next time you threaten another nation.

Supreme Court Returns Rule of Law

Timothy Gatto — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:08:40 -0400

The decision of the Supreme Court yesterday was a return to the rule of law in this country in the most basic sense. The writ of habeas corpus, one of the most fundamental precepts of American law, was upheld even though this administration pushed the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 through Congress to circumvent this basic precept. The ruling which was 5-4 in favor of the detainee’s, this was a slap in the face to the Bush Administration that had heretofore counted on the supplicant Congress to willingly follow their incessant attacks on the Constitution.

The prevailing opinion was given by Justice Kennedy, who by abiding by precepts that predated our Bill of Rights, has helped this nation return to the rule of law that citizens in this country can be proud of. The dismantling of the Constitution that this criminal administration has embarked on since it took office with voluminous “signing statements” numerous Presidential Directives and willful disregard for the rule of law have been thwarted by the highest court in the land. All Americans should celebrate this ruling and cheer for the five Justices that put the law over the wishes of this administration. You can see the text of the decision at: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-1195.pdf

The ruling which was 5-4 was an indication that the Supreme Court, on a question of fundamental law, which this case represented, was almost hijacked by the conservative Justices including Chief Justice Stevens and Justice Alito, the Bush appointees. This is a wake-up call to the American people that we must not let Senator John McCain appoint conservative judges to the court and finally render them useless in preventing abuses of the checks and balance system of the Federal Government. This has certainly become the case between the Congress and the Executive branch that have colluded with each other to render Congressional oversight meaningless. The Executive Branch has virtually ignored Congressional subpoenas for the testimony of numerous Executive Branch officials to testify on FISA Law breaking, the firing of Federal Prosecutors for political reasons and other violations of the peoples trust.

The Attorney General Michael Mucassey has consistently stonewalled the subpoena’s, claiming that the right of “Executive Privilege”, this was one of the prime reasons for President Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate scandal. What has changed since then? The only answer that I can discern is the complicity of Congress with the Executive Branch. If Congress were completely committed to the return to Constitutional checks and balances, they would file their own criminal suit in Federal Court over the objections of the Attorney General, if this is even possible, or draw up impeachment proceedings against him.

American Complicity III

Timothy Gatto — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:45:19 -0400

These are the darkest days that I’ve ever seen in this country. There are so many Americans walking around completely clueless about what is really happening in this country. I’ve been wondering why the government has released so many formerly “Secret” files on how we overturned governments around the world and how we forced “regime changes” and how many people we were responsible for helping to massacre since the end of WWII. I think I’ve figured it out. It isn’t that out government “wants to come clean”, rather it wants to inure the American people to bloodshed for economic reasons.

This way Americans can say; “Well we’ve been doing it all along, what’s the difference now?” So what if we’ve dropped white phosphorus and napalm on the city of Falluja? So what if we have dumped 350 tons of depleted uranium on Iraq, so what if Lancet reports that we have killed over one million two hundred thousand innocent Iraqi’s? Isn’t this the cost they must pay to be part of the American Empire? The hydrocarbon laws that demand 80% of the oil fields in Iraq should be part of their payment for “freeing” them. They just don’t realize that we’re just trying to bring them “democracy”. We all know that Americans are the “good guys”. Didn’t we prove that in Vietnam when we incinerated the villages with napalm and poisoned their country with Agent Orange? Didn’t we take care of our soldiers when they came back from Indochina with horrendous rashes, breathing problems and cancer? Just because it took us 25 years to do so, at least we did it, right?

So all of the “liberal” Democrats and “Progressives” are all proclaiming Barack Obama the second coming of Christ, it doesn’t bother them that he managed to garner $350 million for his campaign. Didn’t he get that money from the people that had their houses foreclosed on and the college students that are paying off student loans and the working stiffs that are working two or three jobs to keep their heads above water? That’s what he says, but we all know it’s not true. Check out www.opensecrets.org and see where his money came from. He’s been bought by the corporate kingmakers. You can all refuse to believe, but the figures don’t lie. Get ready, the Republicans will be bringing this out soon enough. Damn, screwed again!

What is wrong with us? Why do we fall for the same things over and over again? Two days ago, Dennis Kucinich brought 35 counts of impeachment against George W. Bush and the mainstream media even hardly mentioned it! I heard those scathing indictments and it made my blood boil! People claim that it won’t do any good to impeach the criminal because he’s almost out of office. How do you know that? After all the crimes this man has pulled off, what makes you think he won’t implement Presidential Directive 51 after he attacks Iran? You don’t know, do you? That’s not the only reason to impeach, why let him give out blanket pardons before he leaves office?

People say that I bring up the same things over and over. There is a reason I do this. The reason is that all of you so called “Progressives” can’t get it through your head that not only is the Executive Branch a criminal organization, but Congress is an accomplice. If you say you know all of this, than guess what? That makes all of you complicit! You all complain but do nothing. If you had a pedophile in your neighborhood that was abusing little kids and you did nothing, you would be complicit. That is exactly what the American people are doing when the United States drops napalm and white phosphorus on Iraqi cities and you do nothing. It’s no wonder that the world hates us. I hate us. I’m just a simple guy from Long Island that sees us starting wars of aggression and killing innocent civilians in the most barbaric ways. I see us trying to establish a Pax Americana at the expense of other nations. I see our country ruled by corporate interests, the oil companies, the defense industry and the investment bankers and nobody seems to care.

We can’t even guarantee the integrity of our elections! The media is run by corporate interests and the average American has absolutely no idea what the truth really is! The President wiretaps all Americans without so much as a warrant and he still gets off the hook. Where’s the outrage? Where is the sense of right and wrong? Are American’s brain dead? Whatever they are, most of them are complicit in not stopping the excesses of this government. We are as complicit as the German people that enabled Hitler to do what he managed to do. Where is this going to end? Will it end when Russia and China finally realize that enough is enough? Will it take millions dead on the deserts of the Middle-East, or worse in the Midwest? Will it take mushroom clouds on our cities to make us understand that we can not go on like this? How long do you believe that the rest of the world will let us behave like conquerors?

What about what your children are learning? Will they be good little fascists and salute the flag every morning in school as they learn that we invaded another nation for their resources? Is this the legacy you want to leave them? Is this our “American Morality”? You have to decide where you stand. We can’t vote our way out of this. The candidates are both talking aggression. Only the people can make a difference. We must voice our concerns and raise holy hell! If you choose the easy way out, whatever happens, you are complicit. This situation is wrong and each one of you with any sense knows it. This is the time to make your stand. Organize, demonstrate and agitate. This is still our country, at least it was before the corporations and the military hijacked it.

We American Spartans

Timothy Gatto — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:33:22 -0400

Progressive Americans, that’s a joke. Barack Obama promised change and one of the first things he did after clinching the Democratic nomination, was to continue the rhetoric of the Bush Administration. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel like a knife has been driven through my heart, and I didn’t even support him! The truth is what’s happened to this country? I’m no fool, I know that we have been involved in toppling unfriendly governments and have started imperialistic wars for a long time now. The difference between then and now is that America no longer looks after just it’s “interests”, it wants control of everything.

This is evident in the way that we allocate our budget. There are other nations in this world that have re-made their skylines into cities that look like futuristic panoramas out of a science fiction novel. America still looks basically the same since the 70’s. The only difference you can discern are the cookie-cutter malls with the same branded stores. We have no real mass transit that is any better than it was. There are other nations that run their trains in maglev technology. Our infrastructure is falling apart. The Middle-Class is disappearing, and our industry is being outsourced to nations that can not only make things cheaper, but better.

Oh, but we have a military machine that is the envy of the world. We have space technology that can tell you the date on a dime lying on the sidewalk from a hundred miles in space. We have infra-red viewers that can tell how many people are in an apartment building. Our government can monitor any telephone conversation it wishes. We spend 51% of our budget on the military, and Obama wants to increase that. Why?

Who is our enemy? Is Iran the big bad force to be reckoned with? Are they going to invade New York and lock us into concentration camps? We are so concerned with Israel. What have they done for us? Do they protect American citizens and keep us safe? The reality of the situation is that they pay off our politicians and it’s almost impossible to run a national campaign without the support of AIPAC. Israel can take care of itself. The reason we are in the Middle-East is not Israel, but for the oil. The truth be known, we have all the oil we need in Alaska. The real truth is that we could have reduced our military spending and started research on energy alternatives.

This is an Imperialistic country that I’m afraid is no better that Germany was in the last century. Germany never fought a war of aggression according to its government. They were always “defensive wars”. We are doing the very same thing. We interfere in every country we deem “offensive”. Is it any wonder that the world hates us? I’m beginning to hate my own country. I served almost 21 years in Army green and I’m disgusted at what I see.

We have a few rational people in our government that stand for what is right. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Rep. Ron Paul, Sen. Russ. Feingold, Rep. Robert Wexler, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Bernie Sanders and others, their voices go unheard by the majority of ill-educated or politically inept Americans. Critical thinking has all but disappeared in this nation. There are very few Americans that question authority. When Obama promised “Change” without actually telling us what that change was, many Americans rallied to his cause. This writer sees no change in Obama’s message. All I see is the same rhetoric that every imperialist in America echo’s. It seems that we have been taken for another long ride.

I don’t want to attack Iran, and I don’t believe that most people in this country want to attack Iran. Hezbollah and Hama’s don’t threaten my family. The Quds force is no concern of mine. This is a ploy to dominate the Middle-East. This is all propaganda to involve Americans in a fight that is not ours. We want to control the Middle-East. That is fact, not fiction. The best way any American could stop our criminal government from attempting to do this is to call your Congressmen and Senators and tell them to support Impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney. We must also pressure Obama to recant his recent statements to AIPAC and pressure him to return to his pre-nomination support for a withdrawal from Iraq.

This is in all our interests. We have a mind-set in Washington of war and more war. Our entire economy is built upon the Military-Industrial-Complex that Eisenhower warned us about. We manufacture weapons of war that drives our economy. We manufacture airplanes, tanks, Humvees and other weapons of war. This is our economy. We are more like Sparta than Athens. If we abruptly stopped this war industry, we would sink like a rock. We must get out of the business of war and return to a peace-time economy. I know this article will fall on deaf ears, but all I can tell myself is at least I tried. Just remember what Senator Mike Gravel said to Obama in the second Democratic debate “Who do you want to nuke Barack”!”