More from the Center for Cooperative Research report....

It's not that I don't trust you to read it....It's just that it's a long report and the last two paragraphs summarize so well why it's important:

It's doubtful that the Independent Commission investigation will look critically at what Bush did on 9/11 and why he did it. Despite the contradictory reports, no one in the mainstream media has yet demanded clarification of the many obvious inconsistencies and problems of the official version. Anyone even asking questions has been quickly insulted as anti-American, accused of bashing the president in a time of war, or branded a conspiracy nut. Only a few relatives of the 9/11 attacks have been able to raise these issues publicly. For instance, Kristen Breitweister told Phil Donahue: "It was clear that we were under attack. Why didn't the Secret Service whisk [Bush] out of that school? ... [H]e is the commander-in-chief of the United States of America, our country was clearly under attack, it was after the second building was hit. I want to know why he sat there for 25 minutes." [Donahue, 8/13/02] But so far, few have listened to their concerns.

Because the media has failed in its role to ask these questions, much less attempt to answer them, it is now the responsibility of ordinary Americans - of you, of me, and the people we know - to gather the information, look for answers, and sound the alarm.

Once again, full report here.

Is this a bad joke...?

Read the Center for Cooperative Research piece first, then imagine Bush winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian parliamentarian nominated President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday, praising them for winning the war in Iraq.

'Sometimes it's necessary to use a small and effective war to prevent a much more dangerous war in the future,' Jan Simonsen, a right-wing independent in Norway's parliament, told Reuters.

I guess it proves that anybody can be nominiated.

Full story here.

Why aren't we impeaching this guy...?


Not only did Bush and his NeoCon cronies lie about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to bin Laden (remember him?) resulting in a war that has slain thousands, maimed tens of thousands and cost billions of dollars and counting.

They also lied about alleged threats on 9/11 to the White House and Air Force One--giving Bush an excuse to hide out in Louisiana and Nebraska all day and avoid D.C. until 10 hours after the WTC and Pentagon attacks.

In fact, according to this report posted yesterday on the Center for Cooperative Research website, the numerous media and official accounts of Bush's actions on 9/11 are riddled with disinformation, omitted details, fudged timing and more. Obvious attempts to rewrite the story, making Bush look better, continue to this day.

And here's one $64 million question...

If high-placed U.S. government officials knew by 8:48 a.m. on 9/11 that:

...three commercial airplanes had been hijacked. They knew that one plane had been flown deliberately into the World Trade Center's North Tower; a second plane was wildly off course and also heading toward Manhattan; and a third plane had abruptly turned around over Ohio and was flying back toward Washington, DC.

So why, at 9:03 a.m. - fifteen minutes after it was clear the United States was under terrorist attack - did President Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo op? No one knows the answer to that question. In fact, no one has even asked Bush about it.

The entire piece provides a detailed timetable of the president's actions immediately before and after the 9/11 attacks, and is a MUST READ. Seriously, if you read only one thing this blog points to, read this one.

And much thanks to This Modern World for being first blog to point out the article.

Graham update II....

NPR numbers for attendees at the last 2 nights of Billy Graham's religious revival at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium:

First night, capacity crowd. That would be 70,000, according to Qualcomm's website.

Last night, 46,000.

That's 24,000 below capacity...and it was a Friday night.

Does it mean anything?

There are still 2 nights to go....

S.D. Union Tribune astroturfed...!

I am a bit surprised the editors of our local mouthpiece for the Republican Party failed to catch that this letter (scroll down: it's by Steven Zasueta) is a verbatim suggested email from the GOP Team Leaders Action Center website. In other words, all Zasueta had to do was click a mouse button--the GOP Team Leaders site even provides relevant editors' names and email addresses.

You'd think, loyal party members that they are, the editors would be up on these things.

Thanks to This Modern World, the UT editors are now the laughingstock of blogdom. As well they should be. On May 5, Tom Tomorrow posted the letter here --and alerted readers to be on the lookout. That's 3 days before the UT published Zasueta's letter.

Too bad the UT editors don't read This Modern World.

I've fired off a letter to the editors--that I composed myself. Let's see if they even acknowledge it....

Yeah, Bush really cares about the troops....

That's why he slept like a baby while keeping the crew of the Abraham Lincoln at sea an extra 18 hours.

Pentagon officials said yesterday that an aircraft carrier waited within sight of San Diego last week while President Bush slept aboard, instead of heading straight to port after 10 months at sea.

A Pentagon official said the USS Abraham Lincoln made "lazy circles" 30 miles at sea and took 20 hours to cross a distance that could have been covered in an hour or two. But that official and others said the carrier was slowed to ensure it reached the dock at the time that had been promised, about 9 the next morning.

As usual, Democrats are trying to make political hay out of the delayed revelations behind Bush's $1 million publicity stunt, but the media-savvy Republicans are one-upping them with ease.

A Republican leadership aide on Capitol Hill said the questions being raised by Democrats were "uncomfortable," but noted that the discussion "at least means they're not talking about Medicare or the economy."

Several senior Democrats agreed that the dispute is a loser for them. "It was live on CNN for four hours," a Senate Democratic strategist said. "You can't pay enough for that. Who cares about a few stories later?"

One Democrat moaned yesterday as he watched cable news programs replay hours of footage of Bush on the carrier, with audio about Democratic complaints. "I'm watching him get high-fived and buzz the tower again," the Democrat said. "The White House should have thought of this controversy themselves."

Have you ever seen a more pathetic, ineffectual bunch of politicians than our current Democratic "leadership"? If the stakes weren't so high and the outcome so tragic for us all, it would be hilarious.

From a May 8 Washington Post story via Common Dreams.

Israel arrests & deports peace activists....

You can't see me, but I'm sitting here shaking my head in disbelief and sorrow. This story just seems to keep getting worse.

Today, Israel cracked down on the activities of foreign nationals in the Palestinian territories, targeting the group, International Solidarity Movement (ISM), to which Americans Rachel Corrie and Brian Avery, and British national, Thomas Hurndall, all belonged.

As you know, I've blogged a lot about ISM activists. They have suffered several deaths in the past two months at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). In March, Corrie was run down and killed by an IDF bulldozer. Then in April, Hurndall was shot by an IDF sniper (he remains in a coma) and Avery came under heavy machine gun fire and was seriously wounded in the face.

So far, no Israeli soldiers have been held accountable for the deaths or injuries.

Today, about 22 (!) IDF jeeps surrounded ISM's offices in the village of Beit Sahour and soldiers entered and confiscated six computers, numerous disks and other equipment and arrested three activists. One, Christine Razowsky, 28, is from Chicago; the other foreigner, an Australian woman, works for the New York-based Human Rights Watch. The third woman is Palestinian.

An article in the Israeli newspaper, HaAretz, referred to ISM as a "pro-Palestinian organization," which in Israel and elsewhere is tantamount to labeling them "terrorists." The arrested foreigners are being deported on charges of illegally entering a restricted military zone.

The Israelis are justifying their actions by saying that two British men involved in a recent suicide bombing on a Tel Aviv pub, Mike's Place, posed as ISM volunteers while in the Gaza Strip.

ISM vehemently denies this. From a recent ISM press release:

...There is no connection. They never tried to infiltrate ISM. They never contacted the ISM. They could have attended a memorial service for Rachel Corrie in Rafah that was open to anybody. As far as we know, the reports of them attending a demonstration sponsored by ISM are wrong. However, that too would have been open to the public.

As a policy, ISM requires two days of training for all of its activists. This functions as a screening in addition to training in non-violent peaceful resistance and orientation to the ISM guidelines. All of our groups function by consensus. This process discourages any individuals from acting impulsively. We know our activists, and none have engaged in or have been accused of engaging in, any aggressive, confrontational, or illegal activity.

General Yaalon of the Israeli Army gave an order on the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover to remove ISM from the West Bank and Gaza. This order long preceded the bombing in Tel Aviv. The Israeli army wants us to leave because we are providing witness to the atrocities committed by the Israeli army... [Emphasis mine.]

So, the bombing of Mike's Place gave Israelis the pretext to crack-down on ISM. On a much larger scale but in the same manner, 9/11 gave Bush his excuse to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein--an objective advanced for more than a decade by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and others at the Project for the New American Century.

Also like the American neocons to whom they have close ties, the Israelis plan further measures to militarize civic administration and stifle dissent. From an article in today's HaAretz:

In a further move to clamp down on foreign activity in the territories, the IDF is to take over control of the entry of foreign nationals into the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported Friday.

According to the report, individuals who are not Israeli or Palestinian must request personal authorization to visit Gaza from the army, which has taken over all administrative procedures relating to entry to the Strip.

In a separate measure, Israel has demanded that all foreign nationals entering the Gaza Strip sign a waiver exempting Israel from any responsibility should they be killed or injured, a move that has hitherto been restricted to Israelis.

Amnesty International on Friday condemned the demand, saying that it was "categorically opposed to any attempt to get people to sign away their rights."

[...]

The [Amnesty International] site also said that several of Amnesty delegates, who had refused to sign the waivers, were prevented from entering Gaza on Friday.

I wonder when Attorney General Ashcroft will require American anti-war demonstrators to sign waivers before being allowed to protest....

Israel's fear and loathing of suicide bombers are both real and justified. What I don't understand is how they can possibly believe that their increasingly draconian measures are going to do anything but encourage more Palestinian martyrs.

Media Manipulation 101....

Take a look at today's print copy of the N.Y. Times.

Front page, center, is a photo and below it a story about the rage of Iraqi citizens over the appointment of a senior Baath Party member to be minister of health, entitled, "Hussein Loyalists Rise Again, Enraging Iraqis." (Online here.)

In the right-hand column, traditionally reserved for the day's most important story, is a piece entitled, "New U.S. Concerns on Iran's Pursuit of Nuclear Arms." It begins:

WASHINGTON, May 7 — The Bush administration is concerned that Iran has stepped up its covert nuclear program, and the government is now seeking broad international support for an official finding that Tehran has violated its commitment not to produce nuclear weapons, officials said today.

The officials said that the United States was pressing nations that sit on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees peaceful nuclear programs, to declare that Iran has violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it has signed.

Such a finding could lead to punitive action by the United Nations, adding pressure on Iran, which is already nervous about American troops in Iraq, the officials said.... [Emphasis mine.] (Online here.)

Note, even the language employed by U.S. officials and reported in the Times mimics that which led up to our invasion of Iraq.

Not only that, the language is downright misleading. "New concerns?" What exactly is new? Bush, Rumsfeld and others have been openly gunning for Iran ever since the tide of battle turned against the outgunned, overrun Iraqis. "Seeking broad international support" from organizations like the I.A.E.A. and the U.N.? Since when? The Bush junta not only told these institutions they were irrelevant, they rolled right over them to invade Iraq.

Please. Don't parrot government press-releases and call it news.

Regarding the first story, I am not at all surprised that the Bush administration is appointing Baath Party loyalists to high positions in Iraq. Are you? Expect it to become the norm. It suits Bush's aims and besides, what's the alternative? Appoint inexperienced Shiites and sit back and wait for an Islamic revolution?

Overall, this latest development simply confirms that our invasion of Iraq was not about introducing democracy to the Middle East, freedom for Iraqis, or weapons of mass destruction. And to ensure that not too much attention is given to this somewhat embarrassing fact, we have column right. Oh no! Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction. We have to do something!

Nuclear proliferation and an impending war against Iran will distract Americans from a host of major problems on the home front. News of mass-layoffs--teachers, city employees, workers in the private sector--are buried deep, if reported at all. Decimation of social programs, the collapse of infrastructure, rising prices and falling incomes, failing health and no health-insurance. All of it receives scant, if any, attention, in this carefully cultivated hysterical climate.

And that's just fine, because it works in favor of Bush's re-election! Which--along with the wealthy making money hand-over-fist--is what it's all about.

Some good news for a change...!

From today's N.Y. Times:

...Three years after selling the Jim Henson Company and its Muppets to a German media company for $680 million, Mr. Henson's family said yesterday that it was buying it back for a fraction of that amount.

The deal, valued at $89 million in cash and assets, gives the children of Mr. Henson, who died in 1990 at age 53, control of the company behind what is perhaps the most famous troupe of puppets in history.

The purchase, from faltering EM.TV & Merchandising, of Munich, is expected to be approved by U.S. and international regulators.

Apparently, Mr. Henson's children have been sadly watching from the sidelines as EM.TV's financial decline prevented it from pursuing its originally grand plans for the Muppets. All five of the Henson siblings are to have seats on the new board overseeing the puppets.

The buyback covers Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, the Fraggles and dozens of others, but not Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert, Ernie and other famous residents of Sesame Street, who EM.TV & Merchandising sold two years ago to the nonprofit, Sesame Workshop, of New York.

Gary E. Knell, president of the Sesame Workshop, is said to be pleased by the sale, "It would have been the worst thing that could have happened had the Henson franchise ended up in the hands of people who didn't value them. It would have dumbed down the franchise...no one cares more about the future of the Muppets than the family."

Full story here.

WTC towers' strength NOT tested for fire....

This from today's New York Times:

Federal investigators studying the collapse of the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, say they now believe that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the government agency that built the towers, never performed the fundamental tests needed to determine how their innovative structures would perform in a fire. [Emphasis mine.]

The preliminary finding, if it holds up, will undermine decades of public assurances by the Port Authority that the twin towers met or exceeded the requirements of New York City's building code, and therefore would be structurally safe in a large fire....

Not only that, it could make the Port Authority decision makers guilty of criminal homicide.

Not surprisingly, people are scrambling for cover.

The Port Authority has long maintained that it is not legally obligated to comply with the city and state's building codes, but has always insisted that it nonetheless did so in all its major construction, including the trade center.

"I would stress," Mr. Trevor added, "that none of the people who were involved in the making of those decisions at that time are currently working for the Port Authority."

One of those people, Guy Tozzoli, who oversaw all major aspects of the World Trade Center for the Port Authority at the time of its construction, said that his memory was imperfect, but that he thought full-scale tests on the floors and their supports most likely had not been done.

"I don't remember that being done, to be honest with you," Mr. Tozzoli said. "I know there was testing of the fireproofing material. But you are asking a different question. Whether we built a truss and tested that? I'm inclined to say no."

Many yesterday found that startling, even unthinkable.

Indeed.

The story also reports that fireproofing was inadequate; it was being upgraded at the time the towers were attacked.

Full story here.

Scariest man in America...?

You be the judge....
Here.

Graham update....

NPR this morning said "hundreds of thousands" are expected at Qualcomm Stadium for Billy Graham's appearances over the next 4 days.

But the stadium only holds, maximum, 70,000, I thought....I wondered if I'd gotten the capacity numbers wrong.

But, no, shortly after the NPR reporter confirmed them.

So, a capacity crowd every night times 4 would be 280,000. Technically, then, "hundreds of thousands" is correct, though highly misleading. Some --many?-- of those attendees will be repeats.

It's kinda of the opposite of what the media does for peace demonstrations. Then, they'll call a quarter of a million marchers, "thousands." Here, they make sure they count every head, now and again, 4 times.

And, can you ever imagine the media adding up the numbers of peace demonstrators over a multi-day event, and announcing that as the total number to the public? In your dreams!

The driver of the shuttle I take to work everyday told a passenger this morning that someone he knew had flown into town just to see Graham. "We'll be there tonight!" he said, adding that he's taking off work for it.

Not only do I feel like I'm living in the wrong town, I'm living in the wrong universe.

Working-class Republicans....

You gotta admit, the Right knows how to organize. How to motivate activists to work--or at least, vote--against their own self-interests.

My brother, 57, is a case in point. All his working life he's busted his balls selling cars. Not the most esteemed profession, I know, but he's given it his all. And he's got a laundry list of stress-related health problems to prove it.

In fact, both he and his wife are suffering from a variety of serious health ailments. Yet the last time I checked, he still had no employer-paid health-insurance; instead, he was paying out-of-pocket for Blue Cross or some similar high-premium limited-coverage plan.

I don't think he's ever accrued in one year more than two week's paid vacation--and that's working since he was in his early 20's for the same employer. Who's done quite nicely, thank you very much, off the sweat and tears of my brother and others like him.

Nor has either of my brother's two sons earned a college-degree--at least in part due to no money to spare for college tuition.

So, does my brother support progressive politics? Does he vote for a candidate who promises healthcare reform or represents the interests of workers like him? Is he in favor of tax-reform to make corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share?

No. Not only has he been a staunch Republican since he cast his first presidential vote for Nixon, he is a devoted fan of such Right-Wing luminaries as Rush Limbaugh. He vehemently despises Bill Clinton and adores G.W. And, though we haven't dared broach the topic, I assume he's gung-ho pro-war. After all, he and his wife signed the papers for their first-born son to enlist in the Marines when he was just 17.

My nephew hasn't been the same since he was discharged--early, for some unnamed health reason. Now 33, he drifts across the country from menial job to menial job, embittered, no friends, fascinated with all sorts of war weaponry and spouting Right-Wing ideology, distorted historical points of view and reactionary Catholic dogma.

That's right, religion has long played a role in my brother's conservative stance. Doesn't it always? As I stroll the state university campus where I work, I see more religious and conservative political fliers than I ever see progressive tracts. Just now, for instance, there's a huge banner dominating the central quad advertising Billy Graham's mission to San Diego.

Graham and his entourage have reserved Qualcomm Stadium for the next 4 days. That's San Diego's football stadium--baseball, too, until construction on the controversial downtown ballpark is completed. A 166-acre, open-air amphitheater that holds between 66 and 70 thousand people.

Imagine. They're expecting that many people daily to attend Graham's religious revival....Will they come?

Judge for yourself: out of the blue yesterday, a woman who was assisting me on the phone at a local medical clinic burst out, in a whiny, nasal, 5-year-old tone, "I really wanna go!"

Not sure whom she was addressing, thinking she was wanting to leave for the day her wonderful phone-answering job as it was almost 5 p.m., I responded, "Long day, huh?"

"Ahhh, no," she said, as if on cue. "Actually, I was talking about something else...Billy Graham, you know, is going to be at Qualcomm this weekend? And I really wanna go!" (whiny voice again). She then proceeded to regale me with details of the televangelist's scheduled appearance.

Afraid to have the message to my doctor go mysteriously missing--I'd waited ten minutes on-hold already just to get a person on the line--I let her prattle on. But I was annoyed.

Among other things, I wanted to ask, "Does what you're doing here constitute witnessing for Jesus? Are you earning brownie points in heaven for making me, a captive audience, uncomfortable and irritated? And getting paid for it?"

In the end, my self-interest, namely, wanting to get my message through intact, won out. I didn't confront her.

Which brings me back to my original point. How does the Right win over so many working-class voters when they consistently, systematically and unceasingly work against workers' interests?

Conservative leaders have done everything in their power these past 20+ years to sink every social program that has ever benefited working people, while at the same time shipping almost every living-wage, blue-collar job overseas and making a fortune in the bargain. Never mind! They still own the devoted loyalty of those selfsame workers.

At the rate we're going, not my brother, the phone operator, nor the woman I work with--who is vehemently against the clerical union that represents our interests in negotiations with the Goliathan University of California system--will ever achieve the vaunted American Dream. Republicans--and, to a lesser degree, Democrats--have made sure of that.

Instead, they will labor harder and harder, chipmunks on a treadmill, probably through their dying days without pensions and social security, to hold onto whatever financial high ground they've managed to sandbag. Meanwhile, the rich will sip Martinis and look on from the safety of their gated communities as the rising waters of the Global Economy engulf and drown us all.

But, hey, you gotta admit: the Right knows how to draw a crowd.

The emperor has no clothes....

It looks like the Germans are about to get slammed for telling it like it is....

THE strained relations between Germany and the United States took a turn for the worse yesterday after a senior Berlin diplomat was reported to have told Foreign Ministry colleagues that America was turning into a “police state”.

The comments of Jürgen Chrobog, the State Secretary, reported in the German Focus magazine, threatened to disrupt intense diplomatic efforts to repair the relationship between Gerhard Schröder, the Chancellor, and President Bush.

According to the article, there have been only two (!) telephone conversations between Bush and Schroder since the Chancellor won the German election last September, and only a few sparse words have been exchanged at summits.

Way to go, Bush! You show 'em that the most powerful military force in the history of the planet is under the petulant command of a man with the emotional development of a five-year-old. (Or does that comparison slight five-year-olds?)

Complete story here in the Times/UK.

Can you believe this...?!

From The Independent, UK, via Common Dreams:

The parents of a British peace activist who was shot in the head by Israeli troops came under fire themselves as they traveled to the spot where their son was critically injured.

Anthony and Jocelyn Hurndall were in a British diplomatic convoy entering the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip when Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint fired a shot, which passed narrowly over the top of their vehicles.

The incident on Saturday afternoon took place despite the Israeli Army being given notice of the journey on at least three occasions – the last minutes before the convoy arrived. [Emphasis mine.]

If this doesn't convince you that the Israeli Defense Forces are out of control, I don't know what will.

The two British cars were identifiable by their white diplomatic plates. They were passing through the checkpoint "very, very slowly," in broad daylight. The convoy came to an immediate stop, but it was not until British Defense attaché, Colonel Tom Fitzalan-Howard, had stepped from one of the cars with his hands in the air to talk with the soldiers inside the tower, that they were able to proceed.

Remember: the Israelis shot the 21-year-old British son of these two people, downing him with a high-velocity bullet as he moved towards two frightened Palestinian children three-and-a-half weeks ago. He still lingers in a coma in an Israeli hospital.

Full story here.

SARS virus found to be robust....

This from today's L.A. Times online:

The virus that causes SARS can survive in the environment much longer than researchers had suspected, the World Health Organization said Sunday, suggesting that halting transmission of the disease may be harder than they thought.

Research from laboratories around the world, posted on the WHO's Web site, indicates that the SARS coronavirus can persist on public surfaces for a day or longer and in feces from infected people for as long as four days — much longer than the coronaviruses that cause the common cold. It can survive even longer at low temperatures. And one commonly used detergent does not kill the virus as readily as researchers had hoped.

"This is the first time we have had hard data on the survival of the virus," said Dr. Klaus Stohr of the WHO, which is based in Geneva. "Before, we were just speculating."

Stohr cautioned that the full meaning of the findings will not become clear until researchers learn how much virus is necessary to trigger an infection. That the virus can persist for hours on, say, handrails in a bus station may not be important if there is not enough of the virus present to produce disease.

As of Sunday, SARS has sickened more than 6,300 people worldwide and killed at least 449--none in the U.S. Cases seem to be declining in Hong Kong and China; the latter having tripled the amount of money targeted for the disease to $725 million over the weekend. But authorities are concerned about the situation in Taiwan, where the spread of the disease seems to be accelerating.

Complete story here.

Concern for women's rights in Iraq....

Remember how, prior to the invasion of Afghanistan--way back when--the Bush administration cited the Taliban's repression of women and girls as an important reason to invade the country?

Well, women's rights seem to have played no role in the Bush administration's grand designs for Iraq.

Now that we've "liberated" the country, women find themselves in a more precarious position than ever as Islamic fundamentalists of all persuasions use the ensuing power-vacuum to slug it out in a brutal power-struggle.

Iraqi women, formerly among the most liberated in the region, are watching the rise of fundamentalism with dread.

"I want to move freely, live a joyful life out in the open," said Nimo Din'Kha Skander, the owner of the salon [Nimo's]. Nimo's is small but well known; Ms. Din'Kha Skander likes to recall how Saddam Hussein's second wife had her hair done there.

"I don't want a government of religion," Ms. Din'Kha Skander continued. Religion, she said, is "a private thing."

From this and other articles, I get the distinct feeling we just pulled the rug out from under the very Iraqis--in the upper and middle classes-- who were the strongest proponents of gender equity.

The article blames, among other things, the constraints and privations of the U.N.-sponsored sanctions for creating a generation more socially and religiously conservative than their parents.

Suha Turaihi, a retired diplomat who served in India, elaborated: "For 20 years they didn't travel — they were not exposed to Western values as we were. They are children of wars and embargo."

So, while talk of "traditional values" falls on the young's more receptive ears, women in the story put their hope in Iraq's diverse cultures and religions, believing no single group could easily monopolize power. (Unless under a dictator?)

Ironically, they also count on U.S. repression.

Criticizing Americans for mismanaging the postwar occupation and being slow to restore public services, one woman says,

"We are used to having coups and revolutions. But usually people who stage them take over the country afterward."

Ah, what fertile ground for Jeffersonian democratic ideals!

Full story here.

And by the way, what ever happened to those imperiled Afghani women and girls? Especially the ones unlucky enough to reside outside the boundaries of American control in and around Kabul?

We don't hear much about them from the Bush administration anymore, do we?

This just in...!

Jennifer Miller and Circus Amok will be performing this Tuesday! May 6th, at Galapagos, in Williamsburg (Brooklyn), NY.

Miller will join actress and peace activist, Janeane Garofalo, Lee Gough, of Military Families Speak Out, and John Kim, of Veterans for Peace, and others. Music provided by The Trachtenberg Family Slide Show Players, Danny Kelly and John Dyer, with sound & visual art by April Koester and DJ Andrew.

You lucky New Yorkers! I have wanted to meet Miller since seeing her in the film, "Juggling Gender," at the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in the early 1990's. To quote a promo for the film:

...Miller [is] a lesbian performer who lives her life with a full beard. Miller works as a performance artist, circus director, clown and as the "bearded lady" in one of the only remaining sideshows in America. In public she is often mistaken for a man, an experience she handles with the wit and intelligence that characterize her stage performances. Her lifestyle suggests the impossibility of defining anyone as truly feminine or masculine...

She is truly awesome!

The event is sponsored by Peace Williamsburg to raise funds for Madre, a feminist non-profit organization dedicated to building real alternatives to war and violence through a people-to-people exchange of direct relief and understanding.

Remember: Tuesday May 6. Galapagos, in Williamsburg (Brooklyn), NY, 80 N. 6th Street. Showtime: 7:30 - 11:00p.m. $8.

Be there!

More about Circus Amok here.