Whateveh!
VVAW: Vietnam Veterans Against the War
VVAW Home
About VVAW
Contact Us
Membership
Commentary
Press Releases
Image Gallery
Upcoming Events
Vet Resources
VVAW Store
THE VETERAN
FAQ
Donate

THE VETERAN

Page 20
<< 19. VVAW 1970 21. Home from the War >>
'Hanoi Jane' and 'Thanh Phong Bob'
By Joe Bangert

[Printer-Friendly Version]

Why does The Cape Cod Times see fit to stir up the Viet quagmire by giving "Attaboys" to nutso misogynistic veterans, obsessed with harassing Jane Fonda? In one recent editorial (CCT April 10, 2001), the Cape Cod Times piled on top of the pillory Jane Fonda gang. It editorialized yet another futile campaign in which "the veterans network kicked in, calling for a cancellation and a picket line" of a Texas event in which Jane Fonda was a guest speaker for a truly noble cause - teenage pregnancy prevention. Such brave men you join!

Next comes the issue of "Thanh Phong Bob" Kerrey and the killing of women and children back in 1969. In this instance the CCT editorial (May 5th) mentions its "profound exhaustion of emotional turmoil of the Vietnam experience." What cheek! Maybe your fingers got tired typing your vituperative venom against an Academy award winning actress who emotionally and correctly spoke out against the insanity of the U.S. war against Vietnam and all its people, north, central and south. She traveled under its falling bombs carrying letters and packages to the POWs in Hanoi back in 1972, don't forget.

I remember back in 1969 the attitude of many of the half million plus of us initially was: "Kill them all now and sort it out later." Fonda was not alone as she protested the late ugly war; there were, in fact, veterans by her side as well as many active duty GIs, other famous actors and actresses, many women, youth and workers. Indeed more then half the nation favored giving peace a chance.

For the record, it was the American Nazi Party that first demonstrated against Jane Fonda during the Republican National Convention. I was there, too, when the Nazis attempted to interrupt Miss Fonda's speech to the thousands gathered at Flamingo Park, Florida. Jane's goose-stepping enemies were routed by both VVAW and old Jewish retirees who lived nearby as Nixon prepared to receive his second nomination in 1972. The uniformed stormtroopers attempted to interrupt her powerful speech, I recall, but were thwarted by a grand coalition of hirsute combat Vietnam vets and old folks throwing hot chicken soup on these fascists bent on silencing Miss Fonda, including yours truly. Nixon had begun to bomb the dike system of the Red River Delta.

She was a heroine to visit Vietnam under B-52 bombardment in July, 1972, and this needs to be said aloud. It was during this vicious bitter period that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI ran the counterintelligence program codenamed COINTELPRO which sought to demonize anti-war activists. It was this program that first uttered and connected the words traitor and Hanoi to Miss Fonda's name. And hey, how is it that this same FBI can be home to the biggest spies of the century and only release now what they knew all the time, from their own surveillance files of the KKK mad bombers of children?

The Times seems not to have carried the Fonda flap to its own attic yet. The Times exculpated "Kerrey's Raiders" of atrocity in a spot called Thanh Phong by mentioning gunfire in a "fetid foreign world where no one spoke the language." How fucking arrogant. Did any of your editorial writers ever step foot into a Vietnamese village during the late war? I think not. Had they done so, then they would know that some of us were trained to speak the language; chung toi co the noi tieng Viet (we could speak Vietnamese).

The Times also referred to Kerrey's age of 24 as being a kid. He was the commanding officer, and assumed "command responsibility," period. What he admits to doing was clearly in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Justice demands further investigation.

The Times called the slaughter at Thanh Phong "one mistake" when sixteen to twenty bodies were left behind. That is an interesting choice of words. Glad you don't count my pay. And you state there is silence at the heart of this matter. You are the one who is letting Kerrey off easy. Your stretch for amnesiac exculpatory relief for Kerrey's Raiders is transparent.

I have yet to see one member of any organized religion speak out in print on this issue. They have remained silent, just as they did for many years during the beginning of our war in Vietnam.

I personally turned against the war while still in uniform in 1969. As my vessel, the USS Bexar, entered San Diego harbor, I proudly displayed a hastily painted peace sign off the starboard side along with hundreds of cheering Marines and sailors flashing peace signs. Within a year, Lieutenant "Rusty" Calley was charged and court-martialled for the My Lai (Pinkville) Massacre. The Pentagon at the time said that My Lai was "an isolated incident of aberrant behavior." We knew better. So some of us returned home and in disgust of what we witnessed, saw, smelled, felt, heard and did in Vietnam. War . . . what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! went the lyrics of a song at the time. I couldn't wait to get home to bear witness to my own truth about Vietnam.

After sailing home on the Pacific, I was warmly welcomed home to Philadelphia, and my family even had flags and bunting around our windows and doors. I was never spit on, nor do I believe many other Vietnam veterans were. I admit that I was one of the "few good men" who volunteered testimony in the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit in 1971 about atrocities I personally witnessed in Vietnam. In fact, during Operation Dewey Canyon III I turned myself in along with two other vets from Philadelphia to make a report and even face possible arrest at the front gate of the Pentagon. The military intelligence types in civilian suits took us inside and recorded our statements in a room not far from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rules are rules! Was Moses not commanded by God in the Sinai that all of the children of Abraham were to abide by ten good rules? Number Five being Thou shall not kill ! It doesn't say that this rule can be suspended when it is in our "national interest" to do so, or even when it would be tactically more convenient to slit innocent throats of Vietnamese to escape detection during a clandestine SEAL or SOG (special operations group) mission. The Geneva conventions on land warfare was taught to most of us in boot camp.

My Memorial Day memories pour out of being in the same world as all of you, but just on the other side of it, in Quang Tri, where all the bombs and firepower exacted against little Vietnam fell. Machine gunning from the air gives one a unique perspective on the war and so did medevacing the dead and wounded; the smells of gas and hydraulic fluid mixing with the ear-piercing thwacking of the rotors and the movement of liquid human viscera at my feet while under enemy fire can never leave me; seeing and hearing "Puff, the Magic Dragon" spew its deadly automatic free-fire-zone saturation bulleting and covering the area of a football field at home in one minute; hearing the battleship USS New Jersey salute the Viet Cong and Pathet Lao and anyone in between with 16-inch rounds over our heads, all the while being shaken by the TPQs of B-52s conducting carpet bombings near or very near our base camp areas and landing zones in 1969.

We were half a million, and when I was there we certainly knew we weren't winning any more hearts and minds. To be honest, in 1969, half of us Marines were getting loaded on marijuana every night to escape our terrible realities; those who couldn't or wouldn't get high got drunk. All we wanted to do is get home alive. And so that is why I joined up with Vietnam Veterans Against the War: to stop more My Lais and Thanh Phongs from happening. To end the slaughter on both sides.

We marched in Boston and Hyannis on the 4th of July in 1972 and in Philly and Harrisburg and Valley Forge - demanding to stop the bombing and stop the war, bring our brothers and sisters home. Are these the acts of traitors and cowards? On April 23, 1971 we marched to the foot of the Capitol, our number less than fifteen hundred. Our comrade, and today our "junior" senator of Massachusetts, John F. Kerry addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and said:

"I would like to talk about the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't realize it yet but it has created a monster in the form of thousands of men who have been taught to deal and trade in violence and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history - men who have returned with a sense of anger and betrayal that no one so far has been able to grasp. We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country.

"We are probably angriest about all that we were told about Vietnam and about the mystical war against communism. We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from. We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese, or American.

"We found that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw firsthand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search-and-destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong. We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum. We learned the meaning of free-fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals."

"That was then, and this is now, Dad," says my teenaged son. Yet this bears repeating today.

There is no doubt that the racism of "our war" in Vietnam turned me sour to its instinctual inhumanity. On this Memorial Day, 2001 - as Old Glory goes waving by - how can I ever forget a place called Quang Tri, it was there too she waved, some 13,000 miles from my native Philadelphia, and next to her flew a body count flag showing three digits!

And so I too tossed my medals over Nixon/McNamara/Laird Line - the offending wire fence blocking our access to Congress - with fresh memories of Vietnam in '68 and 1969. My veteran's burden was lightened immeasurably by that action, and I will never ever forget the camaraderie found within the exclusive fraternal VVAW compound on the Mall, not far from where the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is located. Come to think of it, who ever heard of Viet vets ever demonstrating for the war?

In Vietnam, it was often said: "Kill them all now, sort it out later." So now 2001 is later and the Cape Cod Times should not place either the burden of Kerrey in Thanh Phong or any other horrible yet-to-be-discovered hamlet horrors solely on the backs of their combatants, but on all of American society, including its editorial writers. Bob Kerrey would do well to unburden himself of his Bronze and blood-caked Star now. Been there, done that, with a terrible mighty joy.



Joe Bangert served with VMO-6 (Marine Observation Squadron 6) in Quang Tri, Vietnam, 1968-1969. Bangert joined VVAW during the summer of 1970, participated in Operation RAW, WSI and Operation Dewey Canyon III in Washington, D.C. He worked with Gator May Day and was not arrested. He was inducted into the Oglala Sioux Warrior Society at Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Reservation, in Lakota Territory in 1973. Bangert also worked in Hanoi, Vietnam from 1992 to 1997.

Put Government into the hands of The People!
The Smirking Chimp | Radio Free Chimp | ChimpsterNation | SmirkBlog

Top Stories from Radio Free Chimp

* The Guardian: CIA ran secret prisons for detainees in Europe, says inquiry — Jun 8 2007 - 9:52am (0 comments)
* Timothy Garton Ash: There's one thing the US presidential contenders all have in common: God — Jun 8 2007 - 9:47am (0 comments)
* Joseph L. Galloway: Bush mantra: Be afraid, be very afraid — Jun 8 2007 - 8:26am (0 comments)
* Is it anti-Americanism or just anti-Bushism? — Jun 7 2007 - 10:36pm (0 comments)
* Joe Conason: Rudy's scary tax tales — Jun 7 2007 - 10:14pm (0 comments)

Smirking Chimp
100 Most Recent Threads | Topics & Issues | Events | Polls | Chimp 1.0

About | Contact | Advertise | Shop | Donate
Home > blogs > Timothy Gatto's blog
We Must Stand Against This "New World Order"; The Threat is Real
by Timothy Gatto | Jun 8 2007 - 9:46am | permalink
article tools: email | print | read more Timothy Gatto

All of us in this country are finally starting to realize that George W. Bush and his right wing, corporate controlled, allies with their grandiose view of military dominance but not backed up by any actual military experience has brought this nation to what can only be described as the lowest point in our history. At no other time since we became an independent nation have we been so reviled by the people of the world. Americans themselves are ashamed of their own country except for the quarter of our population that believe America can do no wrong, if for no other reason than that we are America. This is the 25% that are ethno-centric, or people that don’t bother to actually read anything besides their local paper and have their televisions permanently pegged to FOX News. My country right or wrong, my country, is the mantra of these people. They can be found in China, Russia, Germany, England, Iraq, Iran …any country. Sometimes they are called patriots, sometimes extremists; it all depends on who is doing the reporting.
I am hopefully writing to the 75% of the people that understand what is happening right now. There are some among you that want nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. You people are sick of the tired promises that never seem to be fulfilled and look at politicians as people that govern for their own nefarious purposes. I sympathize with you and agree with you. There are other people that believe that the socialists or the Greens or the Libertarians are going to deliver us into the Promised Land, and with you, I also commensurate. If we lived in a perfect world the people with the most altruistic ideas would be listened to. Sadly, that is not the case.
Then there are those that believe that a great Democrat or Republican will be found among the reeds in a tiny cradle and deliver us from the satanic neo-cons and bring forth another era of good government from the people, by the people, and for the people. These people unfortunately make up today’s majority. The trouble with this view is, that unless we change the way our nation elects its leaders, it will never happen. It will never happen because every politician that wages a successful political campaign must, by the very nature of the system, have millions and millions of dollars. In order to get those millions upon millions of dollars, they need to get corporate donations. The only way to get the corporate world to fund your campaign is to support the corporations that support you. In other words, our leaders are bought and paid for before they even get to the point where they are well known enough to get donations from the common people. Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul and Mike Gravel fall into this category. Unless something extraordinary happens, they will remain tier 3 candidates because corporate donations will not come their way, and private donations will never give them the “face” time to compete with the Hillary Clintons and the Mitt Romney’s and the John Edwards and Barak Obama’s. The very best we can hope for is a “moderate corporatist” which according to Benito Mussolini’s definition of a fascist, will indeed be something of a fascist. Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger.
Meanwhile, Bush has damaged the US Constitution so badly that our basic freedoms and rights have been gutted. Habeas Corpus, State Control of the law enforcement capabilities of the National Guard have been usurped by the Federal Government by the Insurrection Acts and the bolstering of the powers of the National Guard in direct contradiction of Posse Comitatus which was expressly written to stop this very act is ignored. The President has signed a Presidential Directive that basically says in the event of another attack on our soil or a national emergency he can take direct control of all three branches of the Federal Government, setting himself up not as a virtual, but a very real dictator. We have allowed torture, eavesdropping on American citizens, kidnapping people off the streets of the world including in the United States by the CIA and delivering them to countries that have never signed the Geneva Conventions, so that they may be tortured and held indefinitely. We have started a war in another country under false pretenses and taken control of 75% of their oil wealth and given it to the gigantic Multi-national Oil Cartels. The list of egregious acts goes on and on.
The mainstream media in our country no longer reports the real news, skimming over world events but reports in detail about vague diseases and coming pandemics. Then we have the celebrity news that takes the place of the things that affect us directly. We have a “War on Drugs” a “War on Terror” that has morphed into a “Global War on Terror” that is constantly assailing our eardrums and hyping-up the fear of things beyond our control, real and imaginary to keep the population in a constant state of insecurity and worry. We have become a nation of people living in fear. The bird flu, terrorist attacks, you name it, even though in the last four years more people have died in accidents in their bathtubs than in terrorist attacks on our nation!
So what as a nation are we to do? We can’t possibly change all of the State and Federal Laws to get corporations out of picking and supporting our political candidates in the year and a half before the Presidential elections. The only thing we can do as a nation right now is to get the best person running into the White House and into the Congress and keep demonstrating until we end this War in Iraq, have Clean Elections with corporations out of the mix, repeal the Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act of 2006, The Insurrection Act, and all of the other laws limiting the peoples freedom.
Fighting amongst ourselves will get us nowhere. To drop out of the political system because it is not perfect gives your vote to those that would take your freedom. To walk away in disgust and to never look back says to the opposition that you quit, you are beaten and that the powers that be have won. This will be a reflection on who you are and what you believe. Walking away because the opposition doesn’t play fair is no excuse at all. Staying and fighting those that would take our freedom is a responsibility that comes with the citizenship you hold.
Working within the system does not necessarily mean working for the system. Supporting a politician that has a chance of winning does not mean that we actually trust that individual and accept the message that the candidate is promoting. It only means that we are supporting him or her because they can win. In doing so, we must hold that person to a higher set of standards. We must be “totally engaged”. In that I mean from our local town council, to the State Government, to the Federal Government. We must choose the pool of leaders that the future will draw from to produce leaders at the national level. If George W. Bush had never been elected at the State level, it would have been unlikely that he would have been elected at the National level.
We as Americans, have a tremendous job in front of us. This “New World Order” that has actually emerged from the shadows and proved itself to be a real and tangible threat to our system of representative Democracy comes wrapped in names like “The Project for a New American Century” and the “American Enterprise Institute” , “Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies”, , “Centre for Policy Studies” and the “American Enterprise Institute” to name a few, are the reason that the right wing can influence so many trusting citizens to their ultra right causes, while we on the progressive left usually work independently, favoring independent thought over “groupthink” dogma.
The basic principle that we must all learn to embrace is that there are shades of difference on the left and to learn to live with that difference. We must unite in a solid front and look at the larger, more important issues that are facing us. These issues, the gutting of the Constitution, pre-emptive war, the new imperialism, the class war between the haves and have-nots, the racism and the hatred of alternative lifestyles by the right, the weakening of Roe Vs. Wade, the actuality of the people in our nation with no health insurance, the turning of backs on New Orleans, these are the things we should be fighting for.
We are living in a nation that is in crisis. We cannot afford at this juncture to become side-tracked by minor differences of opinion. At this particular point the Democrats have a real chance to seize power from the right. No other party has that power at this particular moment. We all would like to find that perfect candidate that will be a true humanitarian, a person with a sense of vision, and a track record that bears that out. The trouble with this scenario is that there isn’t anyone like that who could win the nomination, or if they ran as an independent could get the monetary backing and the public support to win the Presidency. I believe that today, this is fact. It might not be fact in the future, but today it is fact.
So what are we to do to counter what has taken place in the time that the ultra right captured the White House and brought us to where we are today? The only choice we have is to support those people in Congress and in the Senate that oppose this President. In the near future, all we can do is to support the person that you believe will undo what the ultra right has done, and who can get enough support to be elected. We must also work to get those of a progressive bent into Congress as Representatives and Senators. We must rebuke all of those people that enabled the right to bring us where we are today. That doesn’t mean fighting with other progressives and liberals on minor issues, it means standing together in a united front.
As I see things, this is our only choice. This is not something we are going to achieve in two years; it will take a long time to put this nation back on track. When we have stopped this march toward corporate dictatorship, and put the nation on a firm course of real representation for all Americans, then we can argue the finer points. Until then, we must stand together and destroy the beast that the right has turned loose upon the world.

_______
Timothy V. Gatto

READ WHAT THE REPUBLICANS AR GOING TO TRY TO ELECT...!
Romney Brothers Dish on Dad
Blog by Presidential Candidate's Five Sons Reveals G-Rated Details of Former Governor's Family Life

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 9, 2007; Page A01

BOSTON -- Tagg Romney, 37, loves the Sox and has a thing for Billy Joel. Matt Romney, 35, always tunes in to "Saturday Night Live," and Josh Romney, 31, likes to surf and water-ski. Ben Romney, 29, hesitates to call his dog, Kingsley, a half yorkie and half poodle, "a yorkie-poo." And Craig Romney, 26, a Tom Brady look-alike, has 337 friends on MySpace and cites his dad, along with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as his heroes.

Wholesome does not really begin to describe the five adult children of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who for the past few weeks have been sharing such details on Five Brothers, their blog and the most popular feature on the former Massachusetts governor's campaign Web site. The blog is yet another medium to convey the image of dedicated family man that is an essential part of Romney's identity as a candidate. Earlier this week, while most of his opponents introduced themselves during the Republican presidential debate by highlighting their resumes, Romney started with, "I'm a husband, a father, a grandfather . . . ."

'08 Presidential Race
2008 Presidential CandidatesCheck out this guide to all the Democrats and Republicans who are running (or are likely to run) for president next year.
# Meet the Candidates
Save & Share Article What's This?
Digg
Google

del.icio.us
Yahoo!

Reddit
Facebook


ad_icon

One way to measure a blog's popularity is its unpopularity, and Five Brothers has gotten enough attention to inspire parody. A blogger mocking the brothers writes: "Tagg is 37 . . . likes . . . basketball . . . horses, travel . . . trust funds . . .."

Such carping does not seem to faze the Romneys. "It's a cynical world we live in, and my brothers are just being ourselves," says Tagg, sitting at campaign headquarters at this city's North End, where he keeps an office. Adds Matt: "Our goal is for people to get to know our dad a little more differently than they might in a 30-second TV spot. To get to know him through his family. So everyone's blogging."

The image of the Romneys as the perfectly polished all-American family has been a theme since Mitt Romney began his career in politics. During Romney's unsuccessful 1994 Senate run, his wife, Ann, known as the family's CFO (chief family officer), told the Boston Globe that she has never had a serious argument with her husband.

The comparison with other candidates is implied, and occasionally has become explicit. Asked earlier this year what distinguishes her husband from the rest of the field, his wife of 38 years replied, "He's had only one wife," a stinger that seemed to be directed at the thrice-married, twice-divorced Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), who is estranged from his two children.

There is at least some danger that if the family seems too perfect, the approach could backfire.

"Romney's family is a central part of his identity, and it's a very effective counterpunch to some of the other high-profile candidates who've had, and are having, familial woes," says Gil Troy, historian of first couples and author of "Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons." "Yet you also have to think that we're not in the age of 'The Brady Bunch' anymore. We're in the age of 'The Simpsons.' "

"Once upon a time, when you say 'family,' you think 'all American.' Now when you say 'family,' you think 'dysfunctional.' "

The presidential campaign blog dates back to March 15, 2003, the day former Vermont governor Howard Dean (D) launched Blog for America. Most of the leading candidates maintain blogs, the same way they post YouTube videos and update their MySpace profiles. But often the candidates use their blogs in a limited way, recycling press releases, sticking to talking points and failing to convey a sense of personality. Like the Romney brothers, the former senator John Edwards's (D-N.C.) family is an exception to this rule, but wife Elizabeth has not posted an entry since mid-April and daughter Cate, a first-year law student, since late December. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) keeps a very busy blog, as does Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), but their bloggers are paid staffers.

And while Giuliani asks supporters to embed widgets, the equivalent of traditional campaign buttons, on their blogs, he does not have a blog, and his children, Andrew and Caroline, are not mentioned in the former New York mayor's official bio on his Web site.

Five Brothers was launched on April 12, and the Romneys post entries, load photos and videos several times a week. The blog is edited by the campaign communications staff, and comments and questions are allowed, though answers are not guaranteed.

CONTINUED 1 2 Next >

President's role was to appear to choke o a pretzel and look like an idiot!
Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps
Stand-In for Ashcroft Alleges Interference

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 7, 2007; Page A03

Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.


Cheney allegedly disagreed with Justice officials on the legality of surveillance.
Cheney allegedly disagreed with Justice officials on the legality of surveillance. (By Lauren Victoria Burke -- Associated Press)
Special Report

View continuing Washington Post coverage of the 2006 firings of eight U.S. attorneys.

* Full Coverage
* Documents Released by DOJ and Congress

Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.

* Everyday Citizen
* appletree
* The Liberal Avenger


Full List of Blogs (103 links) >

Most Blogged About Articles
On washingtonpost.com | On the web

Save & Share Article What's This?
Digg
Google

del.icio.us
Yahoo!

Reddit
Facebook


ad_icon

Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas.

Comey said that Cheney's office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance.

The disclosures also provide further details about the role played by then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. He visited Ashcroft in his hospital room and wrote an internal memorandum on the surveillance program shortly afterward, according to Comey's responses. Gonzales is now the attorney general. He faces possible congressional votes of no-confidence because of his handling of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

"How are you, General?" Gonzales asked Ashcroft at the hospital, according to Comey.

"Not well," replied Ashcroft, who had just undergone gallbladder surgery and was battling pancreatitis.

The new details follow Comey's gripping testimony last month about the visit by Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then President Bush's chief of staff, to Ashcroft's hospital bed on the night of March 10, 2004. The two Bush aides tried to persuade Ashcroft to renew the authorization of the NSA surveillance program, after Comey and other Justice Department officials had said they would not certify the legality of the effort, according to the testimony and other officials.

Ashcroft refused, noting that Comey had been designated as acting attorney general during his illness.

The episode prompted sharp criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who questioned whether Gonzales and Card were attempting to take advantage of a sick man to get around legal objections from government lawyers. It is unclear who directed the two Bush aides to make the visit.

Democrats said yesterday that the new details from Comey raise further questions about the role of Cheney and other White House officials in the episode.

"Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a while -- that White House hands guided Justice Department business," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "The vice president's fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program, and the obvious next question is: Exactly what role did the president play?"

CONTINUED 1 2 Next >

Bush is a Homophobe! ...cavorts with known "Queens" in absolute denial...!
The Nation

Home > Blog: The Notion > Surgeon General Nominee's Gay Fascination
BLOG | Posted 06/06/2007 @ 4:11pm
Surgeon General Nominee's Gay Fascination
Richard Kim:

Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Dr. James Holsinger, has come under fire this week for his anti-gay politics (first documented by Bible Belt Blogger Frank Lockwood). By day Holsinger teaches health sciences at the University of Kentucky where he was chancellor of the Chandler Medical Center. By night, however, the good doctor is a bible-thumping Reverend with a degree in biblical studies from Asbury Theological Seminary and a seeming fascination of antipathy towards homosexuals.

Holsinger founded the Hope Springs Community Church, a "recovery ministry" that caters to alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts and those seeking to "walk out of that [homosexual] lifestyle," according to its pastor Rev. David Calhoun. When not busy endorsing ex-gay conversion therapy, Holsinger served on the highest court of the United Methodist Church where he voted to remove a lesbian pastor from her position.

And today, the Human Rights Campaign released a document Holsinger authored in 1991 as a member of the United Methodist Church's Committee to Study Homosexuality. Titled Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality, Holsinger's religious tract-cum-scientific paper is a fascinating window into the perverse imagination of homophobia. In essence, Holsinger argues that male-female "reproductive systems are fully complementary" because "anatomically the vagina is designed to receive the penis." The remainder of his paper is a graphic account of the "delicate" rectum which is "incapable" of "protection" if "objects that are large, sharp, or pointed are inserted" into it. From there Holsinger continues to discuss what he imagines are the pains (and pleasures?) of anal sex, from "fist fornication" and "sphincter injuries" to "lacerations," "perforations" and "deaths seen in connection with anal eroticism."

Sharp objects! Deaths seen in connection with anal eroticism! Gadzooks! Now, I've been around the block one or ten times, and I don't know any gay men who have put scissors up their ass, much less died from it. Of course, the barely mentioned but palpably anxious context in which Holsinger connects "death" with "anal eroticism" is the AIDS epidemic. And it should come as no surprise that his paper was part of a larger, pseudo-medical, moral discourse in which gay men's mode of sex (and by extension gay men) were blamed for AIDS - the death we deserved, the sexual suicide we courted.

The flip side of Dr. Holsinger's lurid speculation is the dangerous presumption that because heterosexual sex is "natural," it is safe -- safe from HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases and the trauma and injury that Holsinger seems so feverishly eager to attribute to gay anal sex. We now know, tragically and beyond any possible doubt, that heterosexual sex is not safe unless one practices it as such. And no amount of wishing and praying by our next Surgeon General on the "complementarity of the human sexes" will make it so.

A few years after Dr. Holsinger wrote his little brief against male-male anal sex, then Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders suggested, at a UN Conference on AIDS, that masturbation might be taught to young people as a mode of reducing sexual risk. On this point she was absolutely correct, but for even daring to mention the M-word, she was lampooned by the Christian right and eventually asked to resign by a cowardly Bill Clinton who, in retrospect, might have paid more attention to Dr. Elders and spent less time inserting foreign objects into inappropriate places.

But no matter. The doctor who gave sound, clinical medical advice was fired, while the doctor who engaged in wild, graphic and unsubstantiated fantasies about gay sex will most likely assume the helm as "America's chief health educator." And you wonder why we have a health care crisis in this country.

Does this author mention "non-linear thought?" ...or recognize Vonnegut's contributions to US American Realism?
Labels: art music, engineering, feedback, science

# posted by Jack Vaughan @ 6:09 PM 0 comments links to this post
Thursday, April 12, 2007

Shoot, the Player Piano Player Dead, at 84
Kurt Vonnegut died, a few weeks after he absorbed injuries to the brain in a fall. For me he is up there with Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac and Thomas Pynchon as a great American writer of my life time. He looked something like Mark Twain and he filled the role manfully during his life here on terra firma, until he died, at 84.

You have to think a defining event for Vonnegut was the Bombing of Dresden .. a great historical event but seldom noted. As a POW, he happened to be in Dresden when the Allies firebombed it toward the end of World War II. A lot of our fathers were maimed in some way or another by the WWII experience. Like Joseph Heller, Vonnegut steadily wrote, and finally snuck up on this subject. He wrote about it most especially in Slaughter-House Five [assumedly the name of the underground meat locker he as a POW was working in making vitamin supplements for his captors when the British and the Americans deliberately created a firestorm upon the city].

He was a master of the elliptical and the fragmentary. Jumped time. Post modern before there was modern. And a guy’s guy. He considered alternative universes in prose. Brought a whole new tone to science fiction, maybe in order to make ends meet, but to important effect nonetheless. He was called a comic book philosopher. What do we need more?

He was a paperback guy. His early novels were not deemed heavy enough for hard cover. Which was perfect!

He worked in public relations [at GE] and sold cars – imports, in my parent’s adopted home of Hingham, Mass., in fact. I discovered reading his own bit, that, having three kids and hard scrabbling, he adopted his dead sister’s children [she dead of cancer one day, her husband dead in a train accident three days later]. Gotta give his wife credit too…but he was in a unique position to comment as the corpses ‘created by military science’ piled high in Vietnam.

What I had completely forgotten was Player Piano [1952], his first book which I bought at Shorecrest circa 1965. A satire on corporate life that carries echoes of Brave New World and concerns an engineer working at Ilium Works [GE] who comes to lead a band that destroys machines they think are taking over the world. [NYT]. The story of our epoch in germinal. I heard him - an old crank and beyond the pale of now what is admitted to the airwaves - on Imus show about a year or so ago [and Imus today coincidentally loses his job]. He was an artist for sure. He would start rapping on the notion of Hitler in orgasm in hell – cut to commercial!

Yes he repeated himself. Reading two of his book was enough for me. But a Passage of his stays with me forever. I think it is a great moment in literature.

I read it in Esquire before Slaughter-House. It’s oft quoted I’ve found on the Web. Ex-GI-Ex-POW Billy Pilgrim on the night of his daughters wedding watches old movie on TV. He sees it backwards. Bombers bombing. In the early days of surrealism the movie technology brought forth new visions. Still in the 60s in Vonnegut’s hands it did the same. Just play the movie backwards, moron, and describe it, if you will, and you will see anew. It’s not rocket science.

He came slightly unstuck in
time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie
about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who
flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took
off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France a few German
fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments
from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked
American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join
the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in
flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous
magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel
containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The
containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous
devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck
more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few
wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair.
Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and
everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were
taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America,
where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders,
separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly
women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in
remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground., to hide
them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.




This Passage as I said is oft quoted. In some way I have carried it with me. A great failing of the film of Slaughter-House Five that I saw on 8th St [w Valerie Perine, vavavavoom] was that it didn’t center on this [don’t even use it]. So it goes. It was great moment. Great art. And I have discovered today via this magical Internet that K.V. recorded this, and I got it off Itunes for 99 cents. Related links are below.The link below is to Amazon [$10.99] Awwhh.

The passage
Wash Post writer meets KV in 2005
TockTick – A recording of K.V.
Kirt Vonnegut, Novelist Who Caught the Imagination of His Age, Is Dead at 84 -NYT
NYT Kirt Vonnegut topics page [links]

Labels: art, science

# posted by Jack Vaughan @ 6:50 PM 0 comments links to this post

TENSION!
Bush ill with stomach bug at G8 summit: White House

33 minutes ago

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (Reuters) - U.S.
President George W. Bush has taken ill on the final day of a Group of Eight summit but his condition is not serious, a White House aide said on Friday.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Bush had a stomach ailment which he described as "not serious." Bush hopes to return to meetings at the summit later in the day.

Bush decided to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in his private quarters. The new French leader confirmed Bush was not in top form.

"I have just come out of a meeting with president Bush who is slightly unwell," Sarkozy told reporters. "He will join the working session when he can."

Oh, golly Gee, I feel so much safer with Homeland Security keeping me from getting home!
Government planning to ease passport rules: report

17 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is expected to announce on Friday that it will ease rules for summer travel in the Western Hemisphere amid complaints of a huge backlog of passport applications, The New York Times reported.

Under the revised procedures, travelers will only have to prove they have applied for a passport to re-enter the United States from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda through September, the Times said, citing a Bush administration official who insisted on anonymity.

"But they should expect the likelihood of additional security," the official said in a story in Friday's edition.

Passport offices around the country have been struggling with a backlog of millions of applications since the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative started in January.

The program requires air travelers for the first time to show passports on returning from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere in the hemisphere, not including U.S. territories.

The agreement, resolving differences between a beleaguered State Department and the
Homeland Security Department, follows prodding by many members of Congress whose offices have been deluged with protests from their districts, the paper said.

Constituents who applied for passports as long ago as February -- sometimes paying $60 extra for expedited service over the regular $97 -- and with air tickets in hand had not received their documents, the Times said.

Edwards takes on Giuliani in hi home turf!
Edwards takes on Giuliani over terrorism in NY

Thu Jun 7, 8:33 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate
John Edwards chose Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani's home turf of New York on Thursday to say it was not enough to talk tough on terrorism without addressing its causes.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and the 2004 Democratic nominee for the U.S. vice presidency, drew Republican ire last month when he dubbed U.S.
President George W. Bush's "war on terror" a "bumper sticker."

Former New York mayor Giuliani has focused his campaign on his image as a strong leader after the September 11 attacks destroyed the city's World Trade Center towers.

Edwards dismissed criticism of his "bumper sticker" comment as rhetoric aimed at presenting Bush critics as unpatriotic.

"If Mayor Giuliani believes that what
President Bush has done is good and wants to embrace it and run a campaign for the presidency saying 'I will give you four more years of what this president has given you,' he's allowed to do that.

"He'll never be elected president of the United States, but he's allowed to do that," he said.

"America is looking for something different. They want us to be tough ... but they expect us to be smart," he said.

Earlier at the news conference to unveil what he called a "smart" plan to both fight terrorists and undermine terrorist recruitment, Edwards said all the Republican candidates seemed intent on "trying to be a bigger, badder
George Bush.

"I think they want to become George Bush on steroids."

The Giuliani campaign dismissed Edwards' prediction that the former New York mayor would lose the election.

"We are glad to see Rudy's criticism of the Democrats not understanding the terrorists' war on us is starting to register with them," added Giuliani spokeswoman Katie Levinson.

Why shouldn't Russian technology with US enhancements protect Euro-Asian concerns? Stupid Bush!
Putin turns tables on Bush with new missile plan

By Tabassum Zakaria and Caren Bohan Thu Jun 7, 5:40 PM ET

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (Reuters) - Russian President
Vladimir Putin turned the tables on Washington on Thursday by suggesting the United States use a Russian-controlled radar instead of U.S. anti-missile hardware in central Europe.
ADVERTISEMENT

At a meeting with U.S.
President George W. Bush during a Group of Eight summit, Putin proposed that the United States and Russia jointly use a radar in Azerbaijan as part of an anti-missile shield that would protect all of Europe.

"We can do this automatically, and hence the whole system which is being built as a result will cover not only part of Europe but the entire Europe without an exception," Putin said.

"This would also ... allow us not to redirect our rockets (to targets in Europe) and, on the contrary, allow us to create conditions for joint work," he said.

Washington says it wants to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic as defense against projectiles launched by what it calls "rogue" states like
Iran.

The project has infuriated Moscow which says it will upset the global strategic balance and could be used to launch attack missiles or to spy on Russia. Washington denies this.

In his comments to reporters, Bush did not directly mention Putin's radar plan, which a White House aide said was new.

"He made some interesting suggestions," Bush said.

Putin vowed last week to target Europe if Washington pressed ahead with its central European missile shield plan. Washington has accused Russia of being uncooperative but Putin's plan would seem to undermine that criticism.

A Kremlin spokesman explained Putin's suggestion of using a Russian-operated radar in Azerbaijan would remove any need for a U.S. radar in the Czech Republic or anywhere in eastern Europe.

But it was unclear if Bush would ever consider the idea of dropping the Czech radar, a plan he vehemently defends.

Czech Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanova was quoted by Czech media as saying that Putin's proposal was a "bolt from the blue," although she welcomed the idea of Russian, U.S. and
NATO cooperation.

A senior Kremlin aide said he was certain the missile shield plan could be turned into a joint U.S.-Russian project.

Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Azeri Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov as saying Azerbaijan was ready for formal talks on the joint use of the Qabala radar.

FIRST MEETING

Yevgeny Volk, head of the Moscow office of the Heritage Foundation, a U.S. think tank, told Reuters Putin's proposal was a ruse designed to stop the United States basing elements of its anti-missile defense systems in eastern Europe.

"It looks like an attempt to divert discussion into a side street and make proposals that will hardly be acceptable to the United States."

It was the two presidents' first one-on-one meeting since Putin launched an attack on the Bush administration at a conference in February, where he accused Washington of trying to force its will on the world and become its "single master."

White House national security adviser
Stephen Hadley told reporters Putin's idea of using a Soviet-era radar system in Azerbaijan was "a bold proposal." U.S. officials would study the offer and discuss it with the Russians.

The Qabala radar, one of the biggest in the world, has operated in the north of Azerbaijan since 1985. It scans the whole of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East and most of North Africa -- and can detect missiles launched in those areas.

It is still manned by Russian military, who lease it from the Azeris.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and Christian Lowe)

Partisan Compromises gave no-one anything worthwhile...
Senate deals major blow to immigration bill

By Donna Smith Thu Jun 7, 9:59 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A White House-backed bill to revamp immigration laws stalled in the Senate on Thursday, handing
President George W. Bush a major legislative setback.

The sharply divided Senate refused to limit debate on the fragile compromise hammered out by a bipartisan group of senators and the White House. The vote was 45-50, 15 short of the 60 votes needed to advance significant legislation in the 100-member body toward a final vote.

As a result, the bill was set aside and the Democratic-led Senate moved on to other legislation.

Any delay diminishes chances that an immigration overhaul, already an issue in advance of the November 2008 presidential election, can be enacted before Bush leaves office.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), a Nevada Democrat, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), a Kentucky Republican,

held out hope that lawmakers could return to the controversial bill at another time. "I doubt the prospects will get better with the passage of time," McConnell said. "I wouldn't wait a whole long time to do it."

The bill, which has drawn fire from both the right and the left, ties tough border security and workplace enforcement measures to a temporary worker program and a plan to legalize most of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. It also would create a new merit-based system for future immigration.

Supporters scrambled throughout the day on Thursday to patch together an agreement that would have allowed the bill to advance toward a final vote in the Senate. The delicate compromise painstakingly negotiated by senators from both parties and the White House had begun to unravel after a series of amendments that backers said upset its balance.

Although Bush has sought to make immigration reform a centerpiece of his domestic policy, senators from his Republican party sought to offer more amendments and said they would not be rushed. Most of them voted against the motion to limit debate.

"The majority is simply not going to get anywhere trying to stuff the minority and prevent the amendment process," McConnell said.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), a Massachusetts Democrat who helped negotiate the bipartisan legislation, said he would continue to push for it. "This issue is not going to go away," he said.

Conservatives say the measure would give amnesty to people who broke U.S. laws, while labor unions say the temporary worker program would create an underclass of cheap laborers.

Steve Rapp: Globe-trotting Prosecutor...when will he get to prosecute Bush and Company?
Rights Groups Welcome Trial of African Dictator

Haider Rizvi, OneWorld US Tue Jun 5, 10:46 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 5 (OneWorld) - Both the
United Nations and some of the world's leading human rights organizations are welcoming the start of the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

"This is an important day for the international community," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Marie Okabe. "This is a significant move towards peace."

Taylor is accused of committing war crimes during Sierra Leone's 11-year armed conflict. His trial started Monday in front of a UN-backed special court sitting in
The Hague, Netherlands.

Human rights groups said they hoped Taylor's trial would send a strong signal to those who considered themselves above the law.

"The trial of a former president associated with human rights abuses across West Africa represents a break from the past," said Elise Keppler, counsel with Human Rights Watch's international justice program.

Commenting on Taylor's trial, Keppler added in a statement: "All too often, there has been no justice for victims of serious human rights violations. This trial puts would-be perpetrators on notice."

Taylor is the first African head of state to be indicted on serious crimes under international law.

Taylor, who ruled Liberia from 1997 to 2003, is being tried on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone's conflict. The alleged crimes include murder of civilians, using women as sex slaves, and using children as soldiers.

The former Liberian leader is charged on the basis of his alleged role as a major supporter of the Sierra Leone rebel group, known as the Revolutionary United Front. Taylor is accused of using Liberian forces to assist the Sierra Leone rebels.

Taking note of the complexities that marked the trial of the deceased Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic, Human Rights Watch said trying former leaders is not easy.

"We have seen that trials of former presidents are difficult business," Keppler said. "The Special Court's judges must guarantee Charles Taylor a fair trial, and also conduct proceedings efficiently."

Though based in Sierra Leone's capital city of Freetown, the UN-backed special court relocated Taylor's trial to The Hague last June due to concerns over political stability in West Africa. The trial is now taking place within the premises of the International Criminal Court.

On Monday, for his part, Taylor refused to attend his trial, saying it would not be fair because he only had one defense lawyer. Judge Julia Sebutinde ordered the trial to continue without Taylor, amid intense protests from his lawyer, Karim Khan. Some reports say Taylor's counsel walked out, defying the judge's order to stay seated.

Those watching the case closely say the court proceedings are likely to last between a year and 18 months, and Britain has offered to oversee Taylor's imprisonment if he is convicted.

The Special Court trying Taylor is composed of Sierra Leonean and international judges. It does not have its own mechanism to imprison those it condemns.

The Special Court was established in 2002 by agreement between the UN and the government of Sierra Leone. The court has a mandate to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law that took place in the country since 1996.

As many as eight men associated with the warring factions during the conflict are currently being tried in Freetown by the Special Court. Most of the cases are near completion and the judges are expected to issue verdicts in the next couple of months.

Taylor fled to Nigeria, where he was granted freedom in exile, soon after the court unsealed the indictment against him in June 2003. He was surrendered for trial in March 2006, however.

Following the Special Court's request to relocate the trial, the Netherlands agreed to the trial being held in the Hague, but on the condition that Taylor leave the country after a judgment is delivered.

Eat the Rich!
UN Official Calls for No More G8 Summits

Haider Rizvi, OneWorld US 2 hours, 9 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 (OneWorld) - A prominent
United Nations representative this week joined ranks with thousands of activists gathered in Germany to protest the economic and political dominance enjoyed by the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized countries.

This year should be the "last" G8 Summit, said Jean Ziegler, the world body's special rapporteur on the right to food, at the launch of the "Alternative Summit" called by rights groups to counter the annual G8 meeting, which is currently in session in the resort town of Heiligendamm.

Ziegler reportedly said he could not see why the annual meeting of the G8 leaders, which has run since 1975 and is costing German taxpayers about $135 million this year, should continue.

Arguing that "another world is possible," he observed that globalization as pursued by the G8 leadership had lost its way and that there was a need for a new "revolution" from below.

"2.7 billion of the world's population is living below the extreme poverty line. That is nearly 40 percent," he said in a speech. "Capitalism may have conquered the world but it has left behind a rash of diseases that are purely man-made."

The UN representative insisted the G8 countries eliminate farming subsidies, a demand that the world's poorer nations have been raising for years, though they have failed to get a positive response from their wealthier counterparts.

The Alternative Summit was organized by a wide range of environmental and social justice organizations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, ActionAid, Christian Aid, and Oxfam International.

Those who spoke at the Alternative Summit came from as many as 40 countries. The first day of protest this week saw more than 1,000 demonstrators wounded when police cracked down on the protests.

But organizers described their summit as a great success.

"After the demonstrations and violence it's good to see something that we have supported from the start come to fruition," said ActionAid Germany's Astrid Schwietering, adding that the event was about refocusing globalization from the perspective of the southern hemisphere.

The G8 leaders are due to continue their talks until Friday. This year, among other issues, the summit leaders focused their talks on climate change. On Thursday, the group announced it had reached a deal to seek a "substantial cut" in greenhouse gas emissions, but failed to set any mandatory targets.

In addition to the civil society protestors, a number of developing countries have also raised concerns about the way rich nations are pushing their agenda on globalization, economic development, and environmental sustainability.

On Wednesday, the UN-based largest coalition of developing nations, known as the Group of 77 and China (G77), said it was concerned about the G8's role in perpetuating inequalities between the industrial North and the largely agriculture-based economies of the global South.

Munir Akram, Pakistani envoy to the UN and chairman of the G77, said that developing countries have demonstrated a sincere commitment to fulfilling the pledges made in successive international conferences and summits during the past few years, but added "unfortunately our development partners have not reciprocated."

Akram lamented that Official Development Assistance, the international aid given by wealthier countries to support the development of poorer ones, has declined in recent years. He feared it was likely to continue to decline in the near future.

He urged the G8 members to take "bolder and innovative measures" to meet the internationally agreed upon target of putting 0.7 percent of national budgets toward development assistance for poorer countries.

Of the G8 member countries, which include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, none have yet reached that target. The United Kingdom came closest last year, allocating just over one half of one percent of its national income to development assistance. At 0.17 percent, the United States gave a lower percentage of its income than any other wealthy country except Greece.

Stressing that the aid given to poor countries should be "responsive to their national polices and free from any conditionality," Pakistan's Akram said the G77 would like to see comprehensive reforms of the international financial system and its governance architecture.

He also called on rich countries to reduce the huge subsidies provided to their agricultural sectors, which he said threatened food security for the poorest, and he urged his colleagues from wealthier nations to lift restrictions on access to technology, a vital component for any country's economic development.

Compromise Law is Crap!
Immigration bill survives major challenge

By Donna Smith 59 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the U.S. Senate headed for a showdown vote on immigration, backers of a fragile compromise thwarted what they said on Wednesday was an effort to gut a provision to legalize millions of illegal immigrants and torpedo the bill.

The Senate defeated an amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), a Texas Republican, that would have barred large numbers of illegal immigrants from taking advantage of the proposed legalization program.

The measure would have excluded anyone convicted of document fraud or identity theft, ignored deportation orders or committed felonies from gaining legal status.

Cornyn said the measure would ensure respect for U.S. laws, but opponents argued the amendment was too broad and would have gutted the legalization program and threatened the delicate compromise brokered by a bipartisan group of senators and the White House.

"This amendment would exclude hundreds of thousands from benefits in this bill and undermine the bipartisan compromise that members of this body worked so long and so hard to produce," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), a Massachusetts Democrat who help negotiate the measure.

The Senate adopted a less-sweeping alternative offered by Kennedy that expanded the types of crimes, such as drug trafficking, sex offenses and gang activity, that would exclude immigrants from the legalization program. Those whose transgressions were associated with getting a job would still be eligible for legalization.

The bill's backers also fended off an effort to greatly expand the number of family-based visas and opted for a more limited alternative that keeps the compromise intact.

CRUCIAL VOTE SET

The bill ties tough border security and workplace enforcement measures to a guest-worker program and a plan to legalize an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

It has come under attack from the right and left, with conservatives arguing it will give amnesty to people who broke U.S. laws and unions saying the temporary worker program will create an underclass of cheap laborers.

The Senate also beat back an amendment that would have dramatically altered the guest-worker program and undermined the compromise.

Backers say the bill will allow the government to get a grip on who is living in the United States and help fix the broken immigration system.

The bill's supporters are battling to hold the delicate compromise together against a storm of amendments. Dozens have been drafted, prompting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), a Nevada Democrat, to set a vote on Thursday on a motion to limit debate. The move angered Republicans who want more time to offer amendments, and they have threatened to block the motion.

"It's premature to close off debate and limit amendments," Cornyn said.

Reid said if he failed to get the 60 votes needed in the 100-member chamber to advance the legislation, the bill would be dropped and the Senate would move on to other matters.

"It would be outrageous to pull this bill," said Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), a Pennsylvania Republican.

Specter said the result would be "a lot of finger pointing" and "some toe pointing" by Republicans and Democrats trying to blame each other for failure to pass what would likely be the most significant legislative accomplishment of
President George W. Bush's final years in office.

If the bill stalls in the Senate, the House of Representatives could still move ahead with its version, but that is unclear.

"We'll have to see the effect on us," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record), a Maryland Democrat. "We are still of a mind-set of moving forward."

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)

Prehistoric european art seems to be case of monkey see monkey do...

Reuters
World's oldest adornments found, Morocco says

Wed Jun 6, 8:55 AM ET

RABAT (Reuters) - Perforated shells discovered in a limestone cave in eastern Morocco are the oldest adornments ever found and show humans used symbols in Africa 40,000 years before Europe, the kingdom's government said.

The small oval Nassarius mollusc shells, some dyed with red ochre, were probably pierced to be strung into necklaces or bracelets 82,000 years ago.

"This classes the adornments in Pigeon's Cave at Taforalt as older than those discovered previously in Algeria, South Africa and Palestine," the Culture Ministry said in a statement.

The find represents "a big step in the understanding of cultural innovations and the role they played in human history."

Morocco has yielded important prehistoric finds including one of the oldest known dinosaur skeletons but little is known of the humans that inhabited the region before Berber farmers settled over 2,000 years ago.

The shells were found and dated by a team of scientists from Morocco, Britain, France and Germany trying to find out how climate and landscape change affected human behavior between 130,000 and 13,000 years ago.

The work is part of a broader study into whether the Strait of Gibraltar dividing Morocco from Spain acted as a corridor or a barrier for early humans trying to move between Africa and Europe.