USA is now 'Third World'

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times / August 11, 2009

Health care in the USA today, thanks to our present capitalist/corporate system. Dozens of volunteer dentists work on participants in the Remote Area Medical expedition at the Forum in Inglewood, Los Angeles, on Tuesday. Services are provided by volunteer medical and dental personnel for the uninsured, underinsured, unemployed and those who cannot afford to pay.

Remote Area Medical was set-up to bring free health care to people who cannot afford it in Developing Countries (formerly known as Third World Countries). Now that health care has collapsed in the USA, they have come to help Americans. Without a single payer option, you may want to consider contacting them for your health care, dental care, eye care and veterinary needs:

Remote Area Medical

Fun Fact #1: Did you know the USA is the ONLY Developed Country where its citizens file bankruptcy when they run into high medical bills. Keep shouting at those town hall meetings ignorant citizens; someday it might be you or your family member.

Fun Fact #2: Profits at ten of the countries largest publicly traded insurance companies in 2007 rose 428% from 2.4 billion to 12.9 billion.

Fun Facts taken from Your Call Radio

What Happens to Bullies?

The other "kids" take their toys and go home.


From Democracy Now!

Kyrgyz Parliament Votes to Close US Air Base

In Kyrgyzstan, lawmakers have voted to close a key US air base used for the occupation of Afghanistan. Earlier today, the Kyrgyz parliament voted 78-to-1 in favor of shuttering the Manas Air Base. The base is a transit point for 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo each month. But it’s become widely unpopular amidst opposition to US foreign policy and controversy over US refusal to pay a higher fee. The US has also refused to revoke the immunity of a US soldier who fatally shot a Kyrgyz truck driver in late 2006. The move comes one day after President Obama ordered an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. The head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, praised the decision.

General David McKiernan: “I am very delighted with the President’s decision yesterday to send additional US forces to reinforce our efforts in Afghanistan. I will use most of those forces in the southern part of Afghanistan, an area where we do not have sufficient security presence.”

This from the Associated Press, where the photo comes from:

20 months ago: Activists hold banners reading "Kyrgyzstan is not a beachhead for war" during a rally at the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Saturday, June 2, 2007. Several dozen activists rallied on Saturday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan to call for the closure of a U.S. military base in the former Soviet republic. The United States maintains the military base at Manas airport outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, to support operations in Afghanistan, but Kyrgyz politicians are increasingly calling for its closure, accusing U.S. military personnel of behaving with impunity and saying the base spoils the environment.

(AP Photo/Nina Gorshkova) miting protiv prebivaniya voennoi bazi "Gansi" v Kyrgyzstan. Na photo v centre: vdova Aleksandra Ivanova, ubitogo amerikanskim soldatom. A. Ivanov bil voditelem toplivo-zapravschika. Photo: Nina Gorshkova

Will Bush be prosecuted for Torture?

The Khmer Rouge, the communist ruling political party of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, is credited with killing an estimated 1.5 million of its own people or 1/5 of the country's total population. They used waterboarding.

A form of waterboarding was used in the Spanish Inquisition, in the name of Jesus Christ.

Waterboarding in the enlightened European Middle Ages.

USA soldiers were prosecuted for waterboarding Vietcong soldiers during the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the US War).

President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee to be attorney general, Eric Holder, has declared waterboarding to be a form of torture and has vowed to shut down Guantanamo Bay. At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder also pledged to restore credibility to the Justice Department and to serve as the people’s lawyer. If confirmed, Holder will become the nation’s first African American attorney general.

Here are excerpts of the hearing, including questions from Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy; Wisconsin’s two Democratic senators, Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold. This is Eric Holder.

ERIC HOLDER: Let me try to state this as simply as I can. It simply should not be the policy or the practice of the United States of America to turn over a prisoner, a captured person, to a nation where we suspect or have reason to believe that that person will be tortured.


SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Do you agree with me that waterboarding is torture and illegal?


ERIC HOLDER: If you look at the history of the use of that technique, used by the Khmer Rouge, used in the Inquisition, used by the Japanese and prosecuted by us as war crimes—we prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam—I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, waterboarding is torture.


SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Do you believe that the President of the United States has authority to exercise a commander-in-chief override and immunize acts of torture?


ERIC HOLDER: Mr. Chairman, no one is above the law.


SEN. HERB KOHL: Mr. Holder, for decades, this country has been looked up to around the world for its unwavering commitment to human rights and the rule of law. There is a growing consensus that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay has tarnished that image. While the past two attorneys general, the current secretaries of Defense and State, and the President himself have publicly said that they would like to close Guantanamo, no steps, as yet, have been taken.


ERIC HOLDER: To responsibly close the facility, I think that we have to understand who these people are, make an independent judgment of who they are based on an examination of the records that exist down there, so that we can treat them in an inappropriate way. I think substantial numbers of those people can be sent to other countries safely. Other people can be tried in a jurisdiction and put in jail. And there are possibly going to be other people who we’re not going to be able to try for a variety of reasons, but who nevertheless are dangerous to this country, and we’re going to have to try to figure out what we do with them. But I think that review that we’ll have to go through to figure out who these people are and in what categories they fit will take an extended period of time, and I think that is the thing that will prevent us from closing Guantanamo as quickly as I think we would like, but I want to assure the American people that Guantanamo will be closed.


SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Is there anything in the FISA statute that makes you believe that the President has the ability under some other inherent power to disregard the FISA statute?


ERIC HOLDER: No, I do not see that in the FISA statute.


SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, thank you. I think that’s a very important break in favor of the rule of law that we’ve been waiting for in this country for many years, and I appreciate that answer.

from Democracy Now!

Mass Murder Update

A few facts in case your media outlet is preoccupied with Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's name for their new baby:

• Israel has killed over 1,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and wounded over 5,000 in the last twenty-one days!
• dog's are eating the burnt remains of children in the streets of Gaza
• Israel is bombing UN facilities
• Israel is using White Phosphorus against the Palestinians (can burn flesh to the bone- does this qualify these murders as a holocaust? "a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire," Merriam-Webster)
  
• nine Israeli human rights groups are calling for an investigation into whether Israel is committing war crimes
• The USA supplies Israel with weapons and more funding than any other country on the planet
  

Twenty-one days into the Israeli attack, more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,200 wounded. At least 700 civilians are among the dead, including more than 350 children. Much of Gaza is without food, water and electricity.

Facts mostly from to Democracy Now!

Is There a More Violent Bully than the USA?

Your tax dollars hard at work killing people around the world. Two stories from Democracy Now!

Report: Bush Authorized US Attacks Anywhere in the World

The New York Times has revealed the US military has waged nearly a dozen secret attacks inside Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004. The assaults were approved under a classified order signed by then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and authorized by President Bush. The order authorizes US military attacks anywhere in the world if they can be linked to targeting al-Qaeda. Last month’s US attack inside Syria appears to be the latest known instance under the policy. Syria says eight civilians were killed. The attacks have often been carried out in collaboration with the CIA.

US Admits to Killing 37 Afghans in Attack on Wedding

In Afghanistan, the US has admitted to killing thirty-seven civilians and wounding dozens more in a military attack last week. The victims were bombed as they attended a wedding party outside the city of Kandahar. The Pentagon says the US bombed the area after coming under fire from nearby militants. It was the Pentagon’s quickest admission of a mass killing of Afghan civilians to date. It took nearly two months before the US admitted killing up to ninety civilians in a similar attack in August.

What Do You Think of Our War in Pakistan

Sounds too much like Nixon going into Cambodia from our 'police actions' in Vietnam to me.

Officials: US Spy Drone Crashes in Pakistan

In Pakistan, the Pakistani military is claiming it’s recovered the wreckage of an American spy plane near the Afghan border. Pakistani officials say the drone crashed due to a malfunction, but villagers in the area say it was shot down. It’s believed to be the first time a US spy plane has crashed inside Pakistan. The news comes amidst ongoing US-Pakistani tensions over several US-led attacks inside Pakistan.

From Democracy Now!, Sept 24

US, Pakistan Trade Fire Near Afghan Border

In Pakistan, US and Pakistani troops have exchanged fire near the Afghan border. Pakistan says it opened fire after a US-Afghan force crossed the border. The US says its troops were behind the Afghan side. A series of cross-border attacks by US troops have heightened tensions between the US and Pakistan.

From Democracy Now! Sept 26

Afraid of Saddam Hussein? No, Police in the USA

North Korea? Burma? China? Iran? Sudan? Venezuela? Russia? Palestine?

No, the Republican National Convention, USA.

from Fear and Loathing: 2008 National Conventions

60-year-old Librarian Ticketed and Threatened with Arrest for Holding a Sign

A sixty year old librarian was asked to leave the sidewalk outside the city owned Denver Performing Arts Complex by four Denver police officers. She was ticketed and threatened with arrest if she did not remove her homemade sign that read McCain = Bush.

If this is city property, wasn't it funded by taxes, thus public space?

Hopefully McCain will have the decency to condemn the acts of these officers and apologize to this US citizen who was exercising her Constitutional right of free speach.

source: The Denver Post

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. - First Amendment to the United States Constitution (The United States Bill of Rights)




"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise." - Noam Chomsky

"You have the right to free speech
as long as you're not dumb enough
to actually try it." - The Clash