Strive to Stay Alive

Strive to stay alive
While the Robots dance
Left and Right
Down the slippery slope

Freedom of the Press...

…to back down whenever the White House cries foul.

Much has been made lately of Newsweek retracting a story about treatment of prisoners at the hands of American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, including mistreatment of the Koran. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7693014/site/newsweek

What doesn’t get talked about much is that Newsweek’s report was not the first published report of desecration of the Koran by American interrogators.
The Washington Post mentioned it on 3/26/2003: http://home.btclick.com/caab/Guantanamo.htm
The BBC mentioned it 5/2/2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4505403.stm
The New York Times mentioned it 5/1/2005: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0501-02.htm

Not to mention the fact that no one in the White House complained about the Newsweek article when it first came out. No mention of it was made by anyone at the White House for two weeks. And then only after the protests in Afghanistan embarrassed the Pentagon and the White House was any complaint made. And even then General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff said that the Newsweek article was not the cause of the troubles in Afghanistan. “He believes that the protests had stemmed from the country’s reconciliation process,” according to The Ledger: http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050517/ZNYT03/505170408

But none of that matters. Nor does it matter that much of the Newsweek article IS TRUE as are many of the other independent reports coming out of American run detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq. The fact that Americans now routinely torture people without due process or access to representation is not the issue. The fact that this torture has been described independently by numerous sources is not the issue. The White House wants to blame the media for foreign reaction to the Administration’s cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners and Newsweek is playing along. What next? Do the news agencies need to clear all their stories with the administration first? As if the Bush Administration does not distort the facts to fit their corporate agendas.

How about a little good old fashioned freedom of the press for a change?

I Like Ike

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are...Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 8, 1954

I guess things haven't changed all that much in the last 50 years.
Except that now the Texas oil millionaires and the Republicans think they can do away with Social Security and labor laws and still stay in power.

The Neo-Conservatives seem to be saying, "We will do what we want to increase our corporate fortunes, and we will keep on doing it until somebody stops us."
Well, I think the American People, just might be the ones to stop them.
We should takes Ike's advice and make sure these guys are not heard from again.

My Invisible Friend is Ruining the Party

What if I told you I had an imaginary friend?
You might say I was a little too old for such nonsense.
What if I told you that my imaginary friend was rich and powerful?
You can’t meet my friend, he is imaginary after all, but he can write you a check, a big check. And getting paid is always good. Right?
What if I told you my imaginary friend was more important and powerful than you or me or our children?
Now my imaginary friend is no longer a cute quirk of an over active imagination. Now my imaginary friend is becoming obnoxious and you don’t want to play anymore.
What if your boss told you to clean out your desk because my imaginary friend was sending your job to China? Or your elected officials changed the laws to make imaginary friends more important than real people like you and me and our children?
You pissed off yet?
I am.

People have been dreaming up these imaginary friends for a long time, they are called corporations. And in return for protecting their “real” friends from financial risk, these corporations have gained a huge amount of real world control. Most of us work for corporations. We all get our news and entertainment from corporations. And our government passes laws written by corporations for corporations. In fact, it has become a given that corporations are more powerful and have more rights than you and me.

BUT HAVE YOU EVER MET A CORPORATION?

Hello Miss, I’d like to speak to Mr. Coca-Cola please?
What? He’s not in his office. He doesn’t have an office?
Can I talk to General Motors then?
No? When do you expect them in? Never? But you work for them don’t you? Yes, but when was the last time you saw them?

Think about it.
If corporations are really just imaginary friends, then why do all us “real people” all do what they say?
That’s kind of immature don’t you think?

Somehow, we need to connect with the “real people” who own and run these imaginary corporations and get them to take control and responsibility.
Somehow, we need to get corporate money and influence out of “our government” and get the government to control the corporations.

More ranting and raving to come in the near future.
But it will be my ranting and raving, not the whispering of some invisible friend whose only reason for existing is to acquire profits.
In the mean time, watch “Orwell Rolls In His Grave” http://www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com/ which describes how a handful of invisible corporations have complet