Image: The Heading new
Image: Cd
Many are the friends of The Rhondda;
20,000 people say a prayer for The Rhondda every day:
All love a way of life that, some would have us believe,
has come to an end.
Yet, when the collieries closed, all that was lost, was organisation.
...... Today:
Modern technology allows anyone to operate a radio,
or even a TV, station on the INTERNET.
In Holland, a region called Friesland has its own TV station.
Why not The Rhondda?
....... THE CRITICAL ISSUE IS.....
Who can unite good men and women of ALL parties in Wales?
We can...
with your help.
Image: The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Disaster
WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE BP OIL DISASTER?
The Bush-Cheney Gulf Coast Oil Spill of 2010
by Rodrigue Tremblay
“If ever a time should come, when vain and
aspiring men shall possess the highest seats
in Government, our country will be in need of
its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
Samuel Adams (1722-1803), statesman, political
philosopher, & one of the US' Founding Fathers
“America is addicted to oil.”
President George W. Bush, State of
the Union address, 2006
“Let me be clear: BP is responsible for
this leak; BP will be paying the bill.”
President Barack Obama, May 2, 2010
More often than not, the consequences of public
policies, good or bad, are felt many years after
they have been taken. The 2010 BP oil spill in
the Gulf of Mexico is a good example. This
disaster is, to a large extent, a consequence
of the Bush-Cheney energy policy of 2001 & later.
After being ushered into power by a one-vote-
majority Supreme Court decision, one of the
first decisions made by the new Republican
administration was to establish an Energy Task Force
(the National Energy Policy Development Group)
under the authority of oil-man Dick Cheney,
former CEO of Halliburton (1995-2000).
As some have asserted, chief deregulator Dick Cheney
was not only a vice president but a genuine co-
president in the split Bush-Cheney administration.
After some 106 days of mainly secret consultations
& deliberations with the executives and interest
groups representing the US electricity, coal,
natural gas and nuclear industries, with a
pledge to keep secret the names of participating
individuals, the Task Force's 163-page final
report was sent to President George W. Bush
on May the 16th, 2001.
The report focused on how to open up new domestic
petroleum sources and on the need to expand and
control the all-important Middle East oil
production. A parallel report to the official
Cheney report (Strategic Energy Policy Challenges
for the 21st Century) even stated that “Iraq has
become a key 'swing' producer, posing a difficult
situation for the US government”, ...a harbinger
of things to come. This is all well documented
in my book “The New American Empire”.
Soon after the secretive Cheney's Task Force
report came out, things began rolling for the
US petroleum industry. The regulatory rulebooks
for energy development on public property were
rewritten with the idea of making the world
environment safe for oil business companies.
It was going to be “Drill, baby, drill”,
including for deep-ocean drilling with minimal
precautions, and damn the consequences!
Regulations and clean energy budgets began to fall.
On April 9 2002, President George W. Bush
announced deep cuts in public clean energy
research and development.
In 2001-02, the Bush-Cheney administration's
energy policy goals were incorporated into
an energy bill (H.R. 4) titled the Securing
America's Future Energy Act (SAFE) that included
$33.5 billion in tax breaks and other incentives
for oil companies and that lifted the oil
drilling ban on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. In May 2002
the Democrat-controlled Senate narrowly rejected the bill.
On August 8, 2005, however, President George W.
Bush signed into law the new approach & enacted
a new sweeping pro-oil bill, the “Energy Policy
Act of 2005”. The bill followed closely in the
footsteps of Vice President Cheney’s 2001 energy
report and provided $27 billion to coal, oil and
gas, and nuclear industries, and $6.4 billion
for renewable energy.
Then, also in 2005, the Bush-Cheney administration
allowed the US oil and gas industry to regulate
itself. The federal agency responsible for
managing oil & gas resources and for collecting
royalties from companies, the Interior Department's
Minerals Management Service (MMS), decided, on
August 30, 2005, that oil companies, rather than
the government, were in the best position for
determining their operations’ environmental
impacts. In effect, MMS decided on that date to
de facto merge its services with those of the
oil companies, even to the point of letting the
oil industry fill out MMS's inspection reports.
MMS officials also had other cozy relations with
the companies they were supposed to regulate.
Then again, on July 14, 2008, just months before
leaving office, President George W. Bush signed
an executive order to lift the moratorium on
offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico
and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Such a
moratorium had been put in place in 1990 by
President George H.W. Bush.
There is also some confusion concerning the scope
of responsibility that oil companies have in the
event of an environment catastrophe. Since 1986,
there already was on federal books an Oil Spill
Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF) that set a cap on
losses that a business could suffer from an oil
spill. That liability cap was set at $75 million
by the George H. Bush administration, as part of
the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, after the Alaska
Exxon Valdez spill of March 1989. Only proven
negligence can render that liability cap
inoperative. Since the puny $75 m. cap has not
been increased in twenty years, that may explain
why some analysts still recommend to their clients
to buy BP stock. BP is a worldwide oil company
that makes in excess of $25 billion a year.
Covered from losses by the liability cap, oil
companies persuaded the Bush-Cheney
administration that expensive security measures
were not required, even for drilling in deep
oceanic waters. For example, Minerals Management
Service (MMS), decided not to require oil companies
to install a remote-control oil blowout preventer
on their deep-sea oil drilling rigs, i.e. an
acoustic blow off valve that immediately chokes
off the flow of oil in an emergency. Even though
they are expensive, (they cost $500,000 each),
most offshore oil rigs in other countries — in
Norway and in Brazil for example, but not in the
US or the UK — have such a switch installed for
cutting off the flow of oil in an emergency by
closing a valve located on the ocean floor.
No such emergency switch was available on April
20, 2010, when BP's 18,000-foot-drilling-deep
floating oil rig blew up, a catastrophe that
killed eleven workers, injured many others, and
which has spewed, so far, as much as 100 million
gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (some
2,400,000 barrels, or nearly ten oil tankers
the size of the Exxon Valdez). The British -
American BP company, seemingly, had cut corners
in order to take advantage of the lax regulatory environment.
However, contrary to the damage done by Hurricane
Katrina in 2005, a natural event, the 2010 Gulf
oil spill is a man-made disaster (just as, by
the way, the 2003 Iraq war and the 2007-08
financial crisis were also man-made disasters).
It could have been prevented if the Bush-Cheney
administration had not removed the regulations
mandating basic safety procedures in oil
drilling, especially for offshore drilling.
Of course, BP and its subcontractors (Transocean,
Halliburton, etc.) are the ones who are directly
responsible for the disaster. But the Bush-Cheney
administration must share a large part of the
blame and responsibility in preparing the
regulatory background for the disaster.
President Barack Obama also doesn't escape all
responsibility, because he was the one who
insisted on keeping so many Bush-Cheney
appointees in their high positions after he was
elected. Moreover, on March 31, 2010, only weeks
before the BP Gulf Oil Spill, his administration
also proposed to open vast expanses of American
coastlines to oil and natural gas drilling.
Americans have reasons to be confused & appalled.
Image: crisis
IF YOU'RE FUMBLING FOR A WAY...
Here's a message for UK MPs: you are LAW MAKERS.
Pass laws which control the markets, or fail !
Professor Panicos Demetriades from Leicester University,
says to the world: "Don't follow us, we're lost too"
If you're an MP waiting for the "uplift", the message
is simple - it won't come if you do nothing.
Professor Demetriades, of Leicester University:
"The invisible hand rarely works, considering that
financial capitalists are all acting in their own interests
and thus it's natural to have the banking crisis."
The professor, who urges a greater government role
in economic development, says that market economies
are good, but need proper regulation.
The crisis, he says, has forced governments in developed countries
to once again take a leading role in finance,
though reluctantly in some cases, by taking over
major banks, which has highlighted the serious
dangers of "passive financial regulation".
"My research has shown that the role of government in finance
has been pivotal from the beginning for financial systems
in Europe and Asia." Looking to the future,
for the UK, Demetriades says, "I expect that,
eventually, politicians in Europe and the U.S.
will realize that investing billions in banks
and running them at arms length will not work
and we will see a much more 'hands on' approach in future."
Individual banks, acting in their own self-interest,
will not address the current massive market failures, he says.
In a downturn, repossessions may be good for the bank
but not for the economy, as they push prices lower
and deepen the recession, Demetriades says.
A nationalized bank can be instructed to
re-structure loans in arrears instead of repossessing,
which may be less profitable in the short term
for an individual bank but it could be profitable
for the banking system as a whole in the medium term, he says.
Research suggests that nationalizing the greater part
of the banking system and running banks in the interests
of the country rather than the shareholders
may now be the only way forward, he says.
Image: Rhondda Pride
SCOTLAND GOES TOLL-FREE !
Tolls have been officially abolished
on the Forth and Tay road bridges
after years of campaigning by drivers.
Scrapping of the tolls was a major manifesto commitment
by the SNP during the 2007 Scottish elections.
Scotland is now "toll-free".
What about Wales ? Ym laen, Cymru !!!
* * *
Scotland has already addressed the issue of
LAND OWNERSHIP.
Communities now own their own land -
for the first time since the "Enclosures"!
Where is Wales?
Dragging its feet in a swamp of vested interests.
Council Napoleons.... absentee landlords....
and corrupt MPs.
Or have we forgotten ?
Once, we were NOT slaves !
Image: Peace
Rhondda Records Ltd believes in PROGRESS.
We believe in putting PEOPLE before PRIVATE GREED.
We also believe in Peace...
and that the WORLD needs
a new media devoted to Peace.
Join us !
Many studies have "shown", that prolonged exposure
to media violence does NOT lead to children and adults copying......
at least, that's what is taught in "our" universities !
(and constantly parroted by "our" media).
But... that is ONLY true, as long as the perpetrator
is NOT shown to gain advantage from their violence.
Since the Dirty Harry films of the 1960s,
a constant theme on our screens
(which children watch for hours - every week!)
is a "hero" who kills the "baddy" and thereby "wins".
We need a new way of showing our children how to behave.
Twenty years ago, there were less than 50,000 prisoners in the U.K.
NOW - RIGHT NOW - THERE ARE 80,000 ..... AND GROWING !
One of the definitions of insanity,
is "to keep doing the same thing,
and expecting different results..." (Einstein).
It doesn't take an Einstein to realise we need
a NEW way.... a NEW media.
JOIN US ! HELP US !
POET
*************************************************
HOW DARE WE ACT......... BEFORE WE KNOW !
HOW DARE WE SAY WE KNOW, & STOP LEARNING?
I'm currently ploughing through the articles
on this website - because I realised that I
didn't even know what Zionism really is....
To know your enemy well is just as intelligent
as finding out more & more about your friends,
isn't it?
http://www.mideastweb.org/strategy.html
**************************************************
Find the Truth About Bush's Wars !
By RICHARD BEHAN
When people who honestly believe a lie learn the truth,
they will either cease believing,
or they will cease being honest.
- anonymous
President Bush could have achieved his goal of
"regime change" in Iraq quickly and without the violence of war.
Saddam Hussein offered, weeks before his country
was invaded, to leave Iraq and go into exile.
President Bush withheld this offer from public view
- and refused it. Nor did the President need to
invade Afghanistan to apprehend Osama bin Laden.
On five different occasions, George Bush refused
a standing offer from the Taliban to surrender
Osama bin Laden-three times before 9/11 and twice
thereafter, again without public disclosure.
No, the military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan
are not directed against terrorism.
They are territorial in nature.
Mr. Bush intended from his first days in office
to invade the two countries: as early as late
January, 2001, his Administration was developing
the decisions and beginning the preparations
for both military incursions.
9/11 was in the distant future, so the conflicts
cannot be exercises in counter-terrorism, as the
Bush Administration frequently and dishonestly insists.
They are premeditated wars of unprovoked conquest and occupation.
If you know this, and if you continue refusing impeachment,
then you are a criminal accomplice in violating the trust
of the American people - and in violating
both U.S. and international law.
If you do not know this truth about the wars,
you must learn its details and embrace it,
and then you must seek with dispatch and justice
to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney.
When the hideous truth of these wars is finally exposed
- as it will be in the impeachment process -
you will have the vote of every honest and
patriotic member of the House of Representatives,
Democrat and Republican alike.
Why isn't the truth already widely known?
The mainstream press has become an engine
of entertaining, not informing the American people:
it is indifferent to the truth.
But the truth is always there, and it can be
discovered in foreign news outlets, in the
domestic alternate press, in book-length treatises,
and in the passion for truth and unconstrained inquiry
displayed by people posting to the Internet.
These are the sources for the exposition to follow.
If you will not impeach, then you must
refute this history, if you can.
THE WARS ARE NOT ABOUT TERRORISM
The Bush Administration's Curious Behaviour
Hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
President Bush told the world the United States
would take the fight directly to the terrorists
and the states that harbored them.
Thus the Bush Administration's "War on Terror" was born.
Less than a month later, on October 7, Mr. Bush
launched a savage aerial bombardment of Afghanistan.
He had the support of a shocked American citizenry
and a sympathetic world, all of whom expected
justice to be delivered soon to the terrorist
Osama bin Laden and the harboring state embodied in the Taliban.
The incursion into Afghanistan was sold as
the first action in the "War on Terror."
It was a brilliantly executed charade.
Flashback to October 12, 2000, a year earlier.
The USS Cole, an American Navy destroyer in
the Yemeni port of Aden, has suffered heavy
damage from a terrorist attack, perpetrated
by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
Three weeks later officials of the Clinton Administration
met with the Taliban in the Sheraton Hotel
in Hamburg, Germany. To avoid a violent
retaliation of furious bombing, the Taliban
offered the unconditional surrender of Osama bin Laden.
Before the details of the transfer were completed,
however, a Supreme Court ruling gave George W. Bush
the White House, and the message was passed:
the actual handover of bin Laden will be deferred
until the Bush Administration is sworn in.
Once in office, the new Administration asked the Taliban
to delay the handover of Osama bin Laden at least
until February. As winter faded into spring, and
spring into summer, the Administration demurred twice more.
Then Osama bin Laden struck again, on September 11, 2001.
On September 15, Taliban officials were flown in
U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft to the Pakistani
city of Quetta, where the deal was sweetened.
The standing offer of surrendering Osama bin Laden
was renewed, but now the Taliban would also oversee
the closure of bin Laden's bases and training camps.
This time the White House simply rejected the
offer out of hand. It did so again when the
offer was repeated several weeks later, and days
after that President Bush ordered the violence to begin.
The invasion of Afghanistan was something vastly
different than a quest to apprehend a terrorist..
Sources for this section:
1. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand bin Laden Over,"
Guardian Unlimited (UK), October 14, 2001.
2. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Surrender bin Laden,"
Andrew Buncombe, The Independent (UK), October 15, 2001.
3. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did
everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan,"
George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.
4. "How Bush Was Offered bin Laden and Blew It,"
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair,
CounterPunch, November 1, 2004.
5. "Did Bush try to stop bin Laden in his
first eight months in office?"
MSNBC Countdown, September 28, 2006.
The War in Afghanistan
The commitment to invade Afghanistan
was made long before 9/11.
The Bush Administration wanted to secure for
American energy companies - notably the Enron
and Unocal Corporations - the strategic pipeline
route across Afghanistan to the Caspian Basin.
But the Taliban had signed a contract in 1996
with the Bridas Corporation of Argentina,
preempting the route.
Scarcely settled in Washington in early 2001,
the Bush Administration immediately pressed the Taliban
to rescind the Bridas contract, and undertook planning
for military intervention should negotiations fail.
Administration officials and the Taliban met for
talks three times throughout the spring and summer,
in Washington D.C., Berlin, and Islamabad -
but to no avail.
At the last session, in August, 2001 the
Administration threatened a "carpet of bombs"
if the Taliban did not comply.
The Taliban would not. Soon thereafter
- still weeks before September 11 -
President Bush notified Pakistan and India
he would attack Afghanistan
"before the end of October."
Then 9/11. Then two more refusals of Osama bin Laden's head.
Then, on October 7, the Bush Administration
looses the carpet of bombs.
Since then Afghanistan has been supplied with a puppet government,
the Bridas contract is history, and the country is dotted today
with permanent U.S. military bases
in close proximity to the pipeline route.
It was a war of conquest and occupation.
Counter-terrorism is scarcely visible.
Osama bin Laden remains at large, the yield
of "terrorists" to date consists of several
hundred iconic and badly treated wretches
in Guantanamo Bay, and terrorism in the Middle
East has intensified, not diminished.
Sources for this section:
1. "Players on a rigged grand chessboard:
Bridas, Unocal, and the Afghanistan pipeline,"
Larry Chin, Online Journal, March, 2002.
2. Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies
Hijacked the War on Terrorism,
Paul Sperry, WND Books, 2003.
3. Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections,
February 23, 2003.
4. "A Timeline of Oil and Violence: Afghanistan",
see the website,
http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm
5. "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat,"
New York Times, September 24, 2006.
6. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil,"
Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.
THE WARS ARE ABOUT AMERICAN HEGEMONY - AND OIL
The War in Iraq
The template for the invasion of Iraq was crafted in 1992,
in Richard Cheney's Defense Department
during the first Bush Administration.
It was a document advocating a U.S. posture
of singular global dominance in economic,
diplomatic, and military power.
The authors were Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay
Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Their document spoke explicitly about the need
to secure "..access to vital raw materials,
primarily Persian Gulf oil,"
and Iraq was in the crosshairs.
In 1996, the Project for the New American Century
was created, touting the term "global hegemony,"
and seeking to maintain America's status as the
world's only superpower, using preemptive war if necessary.
Among the founders of the PNAC were the earlier
advocates of world dominion: Richard Cheney,
Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush were founding members as well.
In a 1998 letter to President Clinton the PNAC
people once again sought the invasion of Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay
Khalilzad, and 15 others signed the letter.
In September of 2000 the Project for the New
American Century once more advocated the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Then four months later, Richard Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad,
Lewis "Scooter" Libby - and 24 others
from the PNAC - moved into top positions
in the Bush Administration.
The commitment to invade Iraq was made
at the first meeting of President Bush's
National Security Council in January of 2001.
The rationale was ideological, apparently:
by means of a preemptive war,
to take an initial step toward global hegemony.
A more tangible objective would soon emerge.
Sources for this section:
1. "Empire Builders: Neoconservatives
and their blueprint for U.S. Power,"
Christian Science Monitor, a series appearing June, 2005.
2. The website of the Project for the New American Century.
See http://www.newamericancentury.org/
3. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the
White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill,
by Ron Suskind, Simon and Schuster, 2004.
4. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil,"
Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.
Regime Change
In December of 2002, 3 months before his country
was invaded, Saddam Hussein invited the Bush
Administration to send U.S. troops into Iraq to
search for weapons of mass destruction, and he
said he could prove Iraq was not involved in 9/11.
His entreaty was turned aside by President Bush
and Vice President Cheney. Two months later
Hussein promised unlimited access to the FBI
to search for WMD's, support for the US position
on Israel and Palestine, and even some limited
rights to Iraq's oil. All this was rejected.
Finally, in desperation Saddam Hussein offered
personally to depart Iraq for exile in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
Once again he was refused by the White House,
and soon thereafter cruise missiles pounded Baghdad
and U.S. tanks rolled across the border from Kuwait.
Regime change was not the objective:
that could have been achieved bloodlessly
with Saddam Hussein's exile.
Combating terrorism couldn't possibly have
been the objective, either: when President
Bush invaded Iraq, there was no sign of
al Qaeda in the country at all.
There had to be some other purpose.
Sources for this section:
1. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US
did everything to avoid a peaceful solution
in Iraq and Afghanistan,"
George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.
2. "Llego el momento de deshacerse de Saddam,"
El Pais (Spain), a transcript of a conversation
between George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Jose
Maria Anzar in Crawford, Texas, February 22, 2003.
Published September 26, 2007.
Oil
Within weeks of taking office the Bush Administration
was studying maps of the Iraqi oil fields, pipelines,
refineries, tanker terminals, and undeveloped oil exploration blocks.
A National Security Council document dated February 3, 2001
spoke of "actions regarding the capture of
new and existing oil and gas fields."
Later in the year the Bush State Department
undertook the "Future of Iraq Project," in one
element of which Administration bureaucrats and
oil company representatives planned the postwar
deconstruction of Iraq's nationalized oil industry.
It would be replaced by a clever form of privatization,
hugely favoring American and British oil companies.
This planning was underway in October of 2001,
exactly a year before Congress authorized military force in Iraq.
The State Department's plan was codified in a model
"hydrocarbon law" drafted during Paul Bremer's
Coalition Provisional Authority, with direct
participation of the American and British oil companies.
The law was not translated from English into Arabic
until elections had been held;
then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet
approved the law on February 15, 2007
and submitted it to Parliament for passage.
The hydrocarbon law when passed will grant
immensely profitable access for international
oil companies to an estimated 81% of Iraq's
undeveloped crude oil reserves.
The favored companies are Exxon/Mobil,
Chevron/Texaco, Royal Dutch/Shell, and BP/Amoco.
Enactment of the hydrocarbon law was proposed as
a mandatory "benchmark" by President Bush in a
speech on January 10, 2007. The benchmark was
made statutory when the Democratic Congress
passed the Iraq Accountability Act a short time later.
The tangible objective for invading and occupying Iraq
was suspected early by the war's opponents
and it is now confirmed: to secure access to
the country's immense oil and gas resources.
Evidence of success is everywhere.
Iraq now has a puppet government and five
permanent American "mega-bases" to house
100,000 troops for 50 years.
The American embassy in Baghdad is ten times
larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world.
And in November, President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki
signed a document called The Declaration of Principles,
to assure an "enduring relationship"
between their governments.
Sources for this section:
1. For copies of the Iraqi oil field maps,
see the website of Judicial Watch, at:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/oil-field-maps
2. "Contract Sport," by Jane Mayer,
The New Yorker, Issue 23, February 16, 2004.
3. Crude Designs: the Ripoff of Iraq's Oil Wealth,
Gregg Mutitt, ed., the Platform Group, United Kingdom.
4. "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil,"
by Joshua Holland, published on
the AlterNet website, October 16, 2006.
5. "Slick Connections: U.S. Influence on Iraqi Oil,"
Erik Leaver and Greg Mutitt,
Foreign Policy in Focus, July 18, 2007.
6. "Imperial Opportunities for U.S. Builders,"
Tom Engelhardt, Asia Times, November 6, 2007.
7. "An 'Enduring' Relationship for Security
and Enduring an Occupation for Oil,"
Ann Wright, truthout website, December 5, 2007.
And so, here we are after years of fraudulence,
engaged in two wars of conquest and occupation
the Bush Administration orchestrated in defiance
of honesty, decency, morals, and law.
Half a million lives and half a trillion dollars
have been poured into the cesspool of their lies and deceit.
Truth and justice are the bedrocks of a nation.
The US and UK Administrations trampled truth.
We cannot tolerate the withholding of justice as well.
You must impeach.
Or can you refute this history?
Richard W. Behan lives and writes on Lopez Island,
off the northwest coast of Washington state.
He can be reached at rwbehan@rockisland.com
(This essay is deliberately not copyrighted:
it may be reproduced without restriction.)
Image: candle image
John Swinton on the Free Press
At a banquet in 1880, John Swinton,
a prominent New York journalist,
was the guest of honour.
A man rose and suggesteded a toast
to the "independent press".
Here is Swinton's reply:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the
world's history, in America, as an independent press.
You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write
your honest opinions, and if you did, you know
beforehand that it would never appear in print.
I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion
out of the paper I am connected with.
Others of you are paid similar salaries for
similar things, and any of you who would be so
foolish as to write honest opinions would be
out on the streets looking for another job.
If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in
one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours
my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy
the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify,
to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his
country and his race for his daily bread.
You know it and I know it, and what folly is this
toasting an independent press?
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind
the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull
the strings and we dance. Our talents, our
possibilities and our lives are all the property
of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
Image: venus jupiter and moon too
The Role of Religion in Public Affairs.
by President Barack Obama.
Many voters still take notice of a candidate's religion
or expressions of piety - too often negatively.
A Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll in June
found 10 percent of adults unwilling to vote
for a Catholic as president;
15 percent wouldn't vote for a Jew;
21 percent would not favour an evangelical Christian;
37 percent would not vote for a Mormon;
and 54 percent ruled out voting for a Muslim.
Before this escalating piety in politics goes too far
and further polarizes society along religious lines,
we all need a new consensus on boundaries
to prevent theological warfare.
A good foundation was laid out in a
June 28th speech by (then) Sen. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois.
In it, he calls for a serious debate about how to
"reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic society."
He also calls on Democrats who cater to secular Americans
to understand that 90% of voters believe in God
and 70% are affiliated with organized religion.
"This religious tendency ... speaks to ...
a hunger that goes beyond any
particular issue or cause," Obama says.
He says Americans want a sense of purpose
to relieve a chronic loneliness and
"need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them."
Most people are dedicated to finding God's truth, he says,
and that "is not something they set apart
from the rest of their beliefs and values.
In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values."
He asks Democrats not to become preachy or express false piety,
and to acknowledge that religion solves many problems -
gang violence, teenage pregnancy, bigotry - where government often fails.
Laws are "a codification of morality,
much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition."
For religious conservatives, he reminds them that religion is protected
because government does not favour one faith over another.
But here is his most critical point:
"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated
translate their concerns into universal,
rather than religion-specific, values.
It requires that their proposals be subject to
argument, and amenable to reason."
Finding a place for religious ideals in the public square
he says, takes a delicate sense of proportion.
Image: Rowan Williams
"Modern" Western culture
eats away at the Soul".
In an interview with a Muslim lifestyle magazine
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says:
"We have only one global hegemonic power.
It is not accumulating territory:
it is trying to accumulate influence and control.
That's not working. It is one thing to take over
a territory and then pour energy and resources in
to administering it and normalising it.
Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British
Empire did - in India, for example.
"It is another thing to go in on the assumption
that a quick burst of violent action will
somehow clear the decks and that you can move on
and other people will put it back together -
Iraq, for example."
"Our modern Western definition of humanity is
clearly not working very well. There is
something about Western modernity which really
does eat away at the soul."
"A lot of the pressure around the war in Iraq was,
'We've got to do something! Then we'll feel better.'
That's very dangerous."
"Violence is a quick discharge of frustration.
It serves you. It does not serve the situation.
Whenever people turn to violence what they do
is temporarily release themselves from some kind of problem...
but they help no-one else."
Image: a child for children
THE CHILDREN's FUTURE... ACCORDING TO CUBA
Fidel Castro says the children’s future depends
on what adults of today do, above all politicians.
He notes that more than 5,000 Bolivian children
are now studying medicine in Cuba.
Javier Labrada, of Cuba’s educational mission in Bolivia,
says that almost 85% of illiterate people are
now part of the literacy instruction program,
and two-thirds of them (544,354) have learned
how to read, many of them in the Quechua and Aymara languages.
José Jimenez, a student from the programme to
train Latin American doctors, says that he has
not only learned about medicine with the Cuban
people, but that this homeland is everyone’s.
Doctor Yaima Cabrera, an ophthalmologist who
served in an internationalist mission in Bolivia,
refers to Che’s legacy for both nations and the
entire planet, and affirms that the best
birthday present for his 80th is to;
make solidarity a habit, not just a virtue, and
for socialism to be the political name for love.
Image: thinking
Let Us Be Rational
by Abdelwahab El-Affendi
The Muslim overreaction to the pope's remarks
may go to support his point about Muslim's problems with rationality.
Had Pope Benedict XVI omitted the citation of
Emperor Manuel II Paleologus's remarks about Prophet Muhammad
bringing only what is "evil and inhuman" to the world,
a quote he himself admits was "marginal" to his argument,
then he would have focused attention on his real offence
in that scholarly talk: his shoddy scholarship on Islam.
He would have also permitted a more healthy focus on his central argument,
that modern secular rationalism needs to heed the contribution of faith
to enable it to break out of the narrow confines of positivism and empiricism.
The skeleton of the pope's argument can be summed up in the following syllogism:
Islam is faith devoid of reason;
modern secularism is reason devoid of faith;
Christianity is a dynamic wedding of faith to reason.
Both faith without reason and reason without faith can be very destructive.
Ergo, both Islam and modern secularism should learn from Christianity
the art of the mutual enrichment between faith and reason.
This line of argument has as many holes in it as a chunk of Swiss cheese,
starting with the substandard scholarship on Islam,
in which the archaic, careless and insensitive quote was not the most serious lapse.
This said, however, the phenomenal overreaction of Muslim leaders
and masses around the world to the pope's remarks
may prove that we as Muslims do indeed have a problem with rationality.
Most of those who reacted have certainly not read the pope's speech in full,
and, even if they had, the proper response should not have been
demonstrations on the street and salvos fired at political rallies,
but scholarly rebuttal and calls for dialogue.
No purpose is served by stirring anger among the masses
who should have no input in such an exchange,
and who are certainly responding to what their leaders are
telling them about the remarks and what they signify.
There is no doubt that remarks made by the head of a religious community
carry more weight than remarks made by lesser mortals,
and this puts a great responsibility on leaders
to choose their words carefully.
There is also no doubt that the pope was wrong,
not only about both Muslim theology and history,
but also about modern realities.
His central point of connecting Islam and violence
appears to imply that the main problem of our time
is the presence of Muslim armies at the gates of Europe
poised to spread Islam by force.
Not even Osama bin Laden is making such claims.
The Palestinian, Lebanese or Chechen jihadists of today
are not indicating a desire to spread Islam,
but national territory.
If there are armies on the loose today claiming to spread something,
it is the Western (Christian?) armies in Iraq and Afghanistan,
claiming to spread democracy.
The pope's remarks, if they are to be relevant,
should have been directed to that endeavour,
not to presumed medieval invasions.
He happens to be wrong on the medieval part as well.
The Turks did not act to spread Islam by force
when they occupied parts of Europe.
In fact, the recurring crises in the Balkans
have their roots in the fact that the Turks
did not practice the same ruthless ethnic and religious cleansing
the pope's co-religionists had practiced during the same period
he had referred to in Sicily, Portugal and Spain.
If the pope wanted examples of forced religious conversions,
he should have cited those, or the more recent colonial expansion
which brought Christianity (and genocide)
to many parts of the world at gunpoint.
There is no record in history of forced
conversions to Islam anywhere in the world.
The pope's remarks about the banishment of reason from Islamic theology
are also mistaken and, for a former theology professor, astonishing.
The rarefied theoretical reflections of professional theologians
about whether God has the right to commit injustice and do evil things
are beside the point, referring as they do
to mere hypothetical situations.
They do not reflect on what God has actually told us he would do,
and they are certainly irrelevant to what is demanded of human beings,
who are not supposed to have God's status.
In citing the ideas ascribed to to the 11th-century Andalusian theologian Ibn Hazm,
the pope projects the false impression
that his were mainstream views within Islam.
This is done by omitting even to mention the man's full name,
Ibn Hazm al-Zahiri (the Literalist), a reference to
the "literalist" school of thought to which he belonged,
and which has no adherents among Muslims anywhere today,
and had never had a substantial following anyway.
Ibn Hazm was celebrated more as a literary figure than as a theologian.
The protection of reason is the second of the five basic principles
accepted by Muslim theologians as the central objectives of revelation,
coming after the protection of faith
and before the protection of life.
In contrast to mere speculation, the texts are quite categorical
about God's rationality, mercy and justice.
The Just, Wise, Merciful are so central to
the Muslim conception of God that they are counted among God's Holy Names.
The texts categorically make it clear
that God does not act irrationally or unjustly.
These points are not disputed even by those who speculate
that God could have indeed chosen to act otherwise.
And in any case, even those who indulge in such ruminations
do not accept that human beings are allowed
to commit evil or act irrationally.
Of more interest to Muslims and others
is the pope's spirited defence of the "European-ness" of Christianity.
It was extraordinary for the reputedly traditionalist leader of
the traditionally conservative Catholic Church
to spring to the defence of the Greek input
into Christian doctrine
(which he admits had a distorting impact on the original Christian message)
and dismiss the calls of those who want to reassert
Christ's original message through de-hellenisation.
This stance sheds important light on his defence of Europe's Christian identity,
which he had argued should exclude Turkey.
For here, we find him actually defending Europe
against any attempt to re-link it to Christianity's roots in the East.
This is as remarkable as his apparent
exclusive linking of rationality to Greek thought,
as if the rest of humanity had no access
to rationality independent of Greek texts.
It would appear here that it is European exclusivity
he is defending, rather than Christianity.
But this leaves his Holiness with a slight problem:
Most of what he describes as Greek rational thought
has originated in today's Turkey.
This said, however, the vociferous and intemperate reactions
among Muslims to the pope's remarks remain ill advised
and do more harm than good to the
already damaged image of Muslims worldwide.
In order to prove the pope wrong
(a rather difficult proposition, given that he is infallible)
Muslims should react to his remarks in a rational and measured way.
His speech should be studied by specialists
and responded to calmly on the intellectual level.
More important, it is necessary to rebuild the proper
Muslim civil institutions which could have both the capability and authority
to respond effectively and in a measured way
to challenges facing Muslims today.
Like terrorism, the spontaneous (and sometimes orchestrated)
reactions to perceived attacks on Islam
reflect the general inadequacy of the state and civil organisations,
which lack both the authority and the effectiveness
in dealing with the perceived challenges.
In less dysfunctional systems,
violence should be the monopoly of the state,
while speaking on religious issues
should be the function of competent authorities.
The fact that these issues are dealt with by people on the streets
is an indication of a very serious pathology
that needs to be remedied as a matter of urgency.
Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi is a Senior Research Fellow
and Coordinator of the Islam and Democracy Programme Centre
for the Study for Democracy, University of Westminster, London.
Image: CONFUCIUS
CONFUCIUS HE SAY...
When it comes to spiritual and philosophical guidance,
Confucius' teachings have been a source of sustenance
for UN chief Ban Ki-moon, particularly in his "agonizing"
mission to bring harmony to the world body.
He speaks of his appreciation for Confucius and how
the scholar's wisdom helps him in his public and private lives.
"During my lifetime, I have been influenced by
and taught many of the good teachings of Confucius and Mencius.
There are many great scholars and philosophers from China.
I have really been trying to learn lessons from
the Analects of Confucius. It has been a great source
of wisdom and experience, and has been a guiding force
in my public service as well as in my private life.
I am still guided by many of the good teachings of Confucius."
- Mount Tai rises from heaps of earth;
small streams converge into a mighty river -
"That means you should embrace everybody, no matter
how different their thinking, ideology or behavior might be.
This has been the guideline of my life.
I don't claim that I have practiced perfectly what Confucius said,
but I have been trying my best."
Smiling, Ban says that at 64, he belongs to the phase of "soft ear." -
"That means you should be ready to hear all the opinions,
all the ideas, but you should have your own judgment.
This is what I have been really trying to practice."
- Personalities cultivated, families regulated,
states well-governed, peace prevails in the world. -
"This means you should first bring peace and stability
in your own family, only then can you govern -
administer the country and the world -
I am personally very much agonized for not being able to
have brought harmony and peace within the UN,
because I regard all my staff as family members."
The UN chief describes himself as a "middle-of-the-road man"
who follows Confucius' doctrine of the mean.
"I don't go to extremes - far right or far left -
always in the center. This is my personal philosophy."
Here are a couple of "alternative" news sites.
VOLTAIRE NET: ALTERNATIVE NEWS SITE.
POLICE STATE: says it all, really !
Excellent co-operative site : news and articles.
Image: a helping hand
Unite Us! All You Good People Of Wales..
For it is the music
that brings our history alive
it is the music
that empowers our traditions
the music
that lightens our loads
that lifts our hearts
that fills our souls with faith
and when that music
is sung by a Rhondda tenor
it is as if an angel
sings to each and every heart
Image: A Wonderful Life
http://www.rasmusse nreports. com/public_ content/
politics /general_ politics/ just_53_say_
capitalism_ better_than_ socialism
RASMUSSEN REPORTS: Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey
finds that 20% disagree and say socialism is better.
Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.
Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided:
37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided.
Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach
with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism.
Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism,
and just 13% of those older Americans
believe socialism is better.
Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism.
As for those who do not invest,
40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism.
There is a partisan gap as well.
Republicans - by an 11-to-1 margin - favor capitalism.
Democrats are much more closely divided:
Just 39% say capitalism is better while 30% prefer socialism.
As for those not affiliated with either major political party,
48% say capitalism is best, and 21% opt for socialism.
The question posed by Rasmussen Reports
did not define either capitalism or socialism
It is interesting to compare the new results
to an earlier survey in which 70% of Americans
prefer a free-market economy. The fact that a
“free-market economy” attracts substantially more support
than “capitalism” may suggest some skepticism about
whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets.
Other survey data supports that notion. Rather
than seeing large corporations as committed to
free markets, two-out-of-three Americans believe
that big government and big business often work together
in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
Fifteen percent (15%) of Americans say they
prefer a government-managed economy, similar
to the 20% support for socialism. Just 14%
believe the federal government would do a
better job running auto companies, and even
fewer believe government would do a better job
running financial firms.
Most Americans today hold views
that can generally be defined as populist
while only seven percent (7%)
share the elitist views of the Political Class.
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