August 20, 2009 archive

Oh-oh, Lady Libertine in trouble?

Comment on LL’s account…


Hubbie here, Lady MOT is out of touch due to surgery. More later, prayers please.

That’s all we know, so wing those good thoughts and prayers out posthaste, maniacs!

On Dragons Wing…

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Reality? “Obama Kidnapped by Ruling Class?”

Glen Ford, Editor of Black Agenda Report wrote this radio commentary, published in BAR on 8/12/09.  I reprint the article here with the permission of Glen Ford.

I have sensed the difficulty we/some/who knows who/liberals who hoped — have had in criticizing Barack. It is evident in many areas, blogs, MSM, many places.  We had the audacity of hope and are trying to deal with the reality of now, of seven months since the inauguration.  And we are struggling with the disparity between our hopes and what is happening.

How do we balance our very real hope and our very real sense of hearing him speak the right words, the feeling that he understands the deep underbelly of this society— how do we balance that with the Faustian reality of the deal which must be made with the power elites, the corporate massahs, if there is to be any chance of ascending in the structure to the point where some modicum of righteous benefit might accrue to the people, might just be possible.  

We the people wanted to hear the truth. We were so painfully long overdue for the truth in 2008 that we soaked up the truth Obama spoke like dry sponges.  

The Ruling class, however, the corporate elites wanted him only to speak the truth; they were not about to tolerate the truth spoken to be carried into action.  And Obama, probably in good faith, tried to do the juggling act.  But it hasn’t worked.  It is not working.  And I think it is up to us.  Either we take our democracy back now or we agree to acqiesce into decades more of injustice.  Except, this time we don’t have the time to make any more mistakes in the evolution of the human race, human consciousness and the survival of the planet.  We need to see the reality and push Obama in the direction of survival, of evolution.

Glen Ford’s “Obama Kidnapped by Ruling Class” commentary is beyond the fold. Please come along….  

Overnight Caption Contest

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August 19, 1953

It is impossible to understand modern American history, modern American foreign policy, anti-American anger throughout the Middle East and the developing nations, and the roots of anti-American terrorism, without understanding what happened on this date, in 1953. Any understanding of modern Iran has to begin with an understanding of what happened on this date, in 1953. For on August 19, 1953, the little known and not even six year old Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, installed a new prime minister of its own choosing, and restored to the throne a recently self-exiled Shah. It wouldn’t be long before the Shah seized total local control of his government and established the brutal Savak to crush all opposition.

Mohammed Mossadegh is not widely remembered in this country, but he was Time Magazine’s Man Of The Year, for 1951. The first Iranian to receive an advanced education from a European university, and a man widely renowned for his blunt honesty and impeccable integrity, Mossadegh was brilliant and disturbingly passionate, capable of verbally eviscerating opponents in political or juridical debates, and just as easily capable of breaking down crying, while giving a speech, or even passing out, while in the middle of tense negotiations. His understanding of national and international law became legendary. He often conducted official business while lying in bed.

Iran’s monarchy had had a long, turbulent history, with the corrupt and incompetent Qajar regime being forced to democratize by the 1906-1911 Constitutional Revolution, but that effectively came to an end when the Qajars were toppled in the early 1920s, by a British-backed military officer named Reza Khan. In 1925, Reza Khan became Reza Shah Pahlavi, and soon turned the Iranian parliament, or Majlis, into a rubberstamp. Most people don’t understand this, but the final Shah of Iran was heir to a dynasty that had lasted exactly two generations, himself included. Reza Khan’s rule was secular but brutal, and he often clashed with the clergy and just as often eliminated his chief political rivals. But Iran’s monarchy long had been but a compliant puppet of the British, who had controlled much of the Middle East, which had not yet become important because of oil, but was important as gateway to India, the British Empire’s Crown Jewel, which the Russian Empire long had coveted. But in the early Twentieth Century, oil had become important, and the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company controlled Iran’s oil production, creating a sprawling and horrifying slum to house the Iranian workers, with a parallel, segregated country club community for the British executives and managers. Iran was so taken for granted, and the British oil company’s profits were so staggering, that AIOC actually paid more in taxes to its home government than to Iran for the right to steal its oil. During World War II, Reza Shah wanted to remain neutral, so the old rivals Britain and Russia, now allied against Germany, invaded and occupied. In 1941, the Shah was forced to abdicate, and was replaced by his young son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Nippon Ham Fighters pro baseball team quarantined for swine flu



TOKYO (Reuters) – The entire squad of Japan’s Nippon Ham Fighters baseball team is being quarantined and tested for H1N1 influenza after three players contracted the virus.

Guess What? He’s a Terrible President

Original article, by David Michael Green, via counterpunch.com:

Warning: If you like Obama, you won’t like the article.

State Killing: Scalia Doesn’t Care Whether You’re Innocent, You Get Executed Anyway

In the middle of Justice Scalia’s dissent in Troy Davis’s case, a dissent that Clarence Thomas joined in, we have this remarkable, astonishing, shocking sentence:

“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

I cannot believe that they wrote this in a Supeme Court opinion.  And I’m not alone in thinking I would never, never, never see something like this in a published opinion.

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