...crystelZENmud...

Fourth Annual crystelZENmud World Peace Award 2011

2011-11-20T17:35:00.001+01:00

There comes a time on every inhabited Planet, when a developmental juncture leads in two directions; towards oppressive Fascism, or towards an reinvigorated 'Enlightenment', born of Reason, and running joyfully away -- from 'Despair'.

Our Planet Earth has passed a Century in global strife, for the economic control of primary Resources as a function of Market Domination. There is little dispute (except from the Controlling Class) as to the gains generated by the exportation of Death Toys, the domination via hegemonic wars, the fine art of Conquest Capitalism.

Fascists around the globe, sitting in Control Class positions (Central Banks, Governments, CEO-ranking Industrialists, Media CEOs and their 'faces'), assured themselves of their invincibility, inevitability, in perpetuity...

Until 2011.

In a global arising, first directed against Dictators of the Arab countries, and then against, in egalitarian spirit, the vast network of the One Percent, voices of the People echoed in strident demands. From Tunisia, Egypt, and other Arab lands, to Wisconsin and America, in Greece and Spain, Europe's States declared that they also, were loathe to continue being subjected to the whims of the Dictators (Economic) who had gambled with States' tax and revenue streams.

This small blog, as a voice of Logic and Reason, has unanimously awarded its Fourth Annual Global Peace Award 2011 to a vast contingent of disparate voices, seeking the Better World of Tomorrow, in their State, their Country, their Planet.

They are WE: the Ninety-Nine Percent, who seek to raise and educate healthy children, while working productively in an unbiased Economy, free to Associate and Voice their Opinions.

They are WE: the Ninety-Nine Percent, who recognize the failings of US-modeled Capitalism, as taught in Business Schools to US and Foreign-born students.

They are WE: who choose to stand up to Fascism in individual Protests, amassing a Common Voice and thereby Singing the Praises of our Life on Earth, shared until we die.

They are WE: and We are ALL

... and although we have not won yet, not in the USA, not in North America, not in all the Americas, not in All the Planet, WE will WIN... Tomorrow.

And the rest of this Millennium will be Good.

/°/***/°/* crystelZENmud *\°\***\°\
© 2011

STEAL THIS BLOG-post (common sense in the face of brutality)

2011-10-27T09:36:00.001+02:00

Solidarity, people!

forgive the veiled reference to
Abby Hoffman's iconic
'Steal This Book'

Disclaimer: this is hopefully 'common sense' advice: the author is not a lawyer, and arrested protesters should turn to their attorney or the NLG for professional assistance or advice!

I write to the people in our streets and occupying OUR public property of the United States, the men and woman of OUR vast land, and our brothers and sisters overseas: this post is Vital Information and should be shared, saved, disseminated bookmarked, etc.

It could mean your SURVIVAL, in Court or... in Life.

Chapter One: your Consciousness

Simply, it's hard to remember at the street, how to be 'arrested'; make sure you have the NLG (National Lawyers' Guild) local chapter number INDELIBLY printed on your skin (forearm suggested);

Remember every cop show you ever saw: the rights being read or spoken are your Miranda Rights: 'the Right to remain silent' applies even more during a protest arrest. These will be revisited below.

Chapter Two: your Evidence

Are you, or someone with you filming an out-of-control Police 'crack-down' on nonviolent protesters?

Remember: whoever is closest to the microphone, or you on your iPhone or 4-gen phone (mine is HTC), should ALWAYS - at least ONCE per two minutes announce the TIME and DATE. Something like this:

“This is zenmud productions:
it's 23h05, I'm at 15^th and Colfax, facing northwest... this is zenmud productions: it's 23h07, I'm at 14^th and Colfax, facing south... (continuously!)”

This will establish a higher threshold for the video as legal evidence of oppressive and illegal police actions.

For still photo shots, having a wristwatch with date serves if you can take every 10th (or less) photo with the time and date.

Chapter Three: your Opponent

You are (I presume) a non-violent civil disobedience disciple, and you want to both state your views and keep the peace amongst like-minded protesters. Yet you are an Unknown Crowd to your opponent.

With their Kevlar, Tasers, Sound Cannons, Batons, GUNS and 'team-work' (they are much more organized than you are!) they operate in synch, under 'color of the law' and yet... they are human, and will certainly be carrying a mindset that is, frankly, similar to your own emotive state. They react to pressure in various ways, and implement 'marching orders' with the verve of a Marine breaking out of the forest.

Know this.

Chapter Four: your Arrest

When things get out of control, 'the tie goes to the winner' (under State authority), and the zip-ties go around your wrists. Youtubes show how to get out of Ziptie handcuffs, but do you want to add the count of 'escape from capture' to the mysterious charges you are being charged with?

Are you being read your Miranda rights? Do you know when those rights come in to play? That would be 'before interrogation', not necessarily the moment you are restrained. But police become expert at 'listening' and even a tirade against them may perhaps be admissible if you can't keep quiet: do that!

Read the Miranda below, from the Court Decision that created it:

...The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he or she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says will be used against that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he or she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he or she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent her or him.

Your Fourth Amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Within the Fourth Amendment lays the 'Exclusionary Rule'; courts were (in more rational days) quite stringent in enforcement of police procedural rules under this clause for the admission of evidence.

Know this: seek any avenue to have the Police evidence excluded to the degree you want YOUR evidence to prevail.

And yet the Fifth Amendment stands above as your shield against speaking, especially when the Police have violated your First Amendment Right to free speech, may have illegally searched your person or property (leave VERY LITTLE in your tent, if you are that lucky), and could easily intimidate you through interrogation techniques shared around the world, epicenter ABU GHRAIB.

The Fifth Amendment give you the right against self-incrimination:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Know this.

Chapter Five: your Case

Arrested (by whom? If at all possible find out as soon as possible)? Going to prison, hopefully without abuse. End of story after booking, or whatever... (I move on to the abuse cases)

An arrest under color of Brutality? Did your Officer (or Officers) use excessive force, illegal actions or otherwise 'come unglued'? You may be a victim of an Officer under the influence of unauthorized Prescription drugs.

I used to write extensively about the international regulation of Anti-Doping regulations for the World of Sport: this body of transferable knowledge is available to anyone who brings comments forth. One impressive 'ally' in that world was Dr Gaffney, of Steroid World (another focused blog), and I am glad to find him interested in Police Abuse of Steroids as well. The link above goes to his blog's collection of various cases of demonstrated abuse by Police in America.

Several states have investigated this, but maybe no State has been more transparent about it, as has New Jersey...

In New Jersey, The Attorney General's Steroids Study Group published its hard-hitting report only this last July (2011), and reading it is enthralling: hundreds of Police (in one State!) using their taxpayer-paid medical care to purchase (via a certain 'Dr FeelGood': named in Report) millions of dollars' worth of drugs, taken simply to improve their musculature and not for a legitimate medical reason. In the world of Sport, Athletes require a 'TUE': a Therapeutic Use Exemption; these are issued by the Medical Officer taking legal responsibility for the issuance of a Prohibited Substance found on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

It is highly doubtful that hiring municipalities are held to a systemically wide, uniform system of employee drug testing, especially for their Police (under the 'who would think it?' theory), as is the world of sport. Yet, Police have no more right to be illegally medicated than you, I, or any Professional Cyclist, amateur or NFL players (a list in no way limited to these categories...), and...

TESTED Officers found positive and without legitimate medical 'extenuating circumstances', standing over you with a Fury in their eyes? Broken ribs, teeth, fractures or deep bruises from thrusting baton-points; sonic canyons, tear gas or flash grenades... some 'authorized' personnel may have taken their 'initiative' outside the scope of that authority.
And...

Those Officers found 'positive' for Steroids or Amphetamines, or any other 'narcotic' that they (ironically) should be prosecuting and not consuming themselves, are losing 100s of thousands of dollars in liability cases, for the Abuse they've offered victims of criminally-dangerous drug-taking Jack-booted goons (who sadly, remain the 'scabs' of the 99 percent...

It's in the report: know this.

Call the NLG (If you read Chapter One above, you should have the phone-number on your arm, in indelible ink. (Magic Marker: name and phone of 'contacts' may help if you are unconscious...!) Know these things; they are what they are because of the Country we have: for good or evil peeps...

This IS the year: I posted this elsewhere on Facebook today, on the Occupy Denver page:

"377 days until the SHIT-STORM of 2012"

people... don't waste time 'reinventing the wheel' with each idiological (intentionally misspelled) opponent who wants to WASTE your time in 'blame-games' for the sake of their egos!

They're either in 'the trenches' with you, or bringing you protest-supplies, or sharing YouTubes and articles around the world in support of 'our' efforts, or they don't realize they are WASTING precious time, not having the benefit of an 'A' in inertia-studies...

... because...

There are TWENTY-FOUR presidential elections next year, around the world!

From USA-France-India to East Timor and Russia...

don't spin your wheels peeps!

March and Occupy...!

This is THE YEAR... three-hundred and seventy-seven days"

... tick-tock ...

___________________ we've only just begun...

SNOW all day... Snow all night?

/°/***/°/* crystelZENmud *\°\***\°\
© 2011

Lost Job, Found Occupation

2011-10-14T10:21:00.004+02:00

Fall fell, little ZEN'rs...

It's been too long away from this certain keyboard, and we at ZEN Central are quite depressed... the Occupy movement, one day in advance of the massive October 15th Demonstration date, seems to have come full face into the JACKBOOTED predictions of no other than George Orwell, whose comments in 1984 are themselves prevoyant of the times in which we find ourselves...

It dawns on some of our experts, that the One Percent (who rule America with an iron-gloved fist bashing down on sane regulation with every legalized BRIBE they offer to Congresscritters on either side of the aisle...) well some of us think that those ultra-snobs, who have sent the better part of their moneys overseas to safe banks in cities where French or Schweitzerdeutsch is spoken (or the Bahamas, the Caymans, etc...)... well some of 'we' think that 'they' should go the way their fortunes went... into

EXILE...

So as you float your boat of state, as you drive to work, think about why the election we face in 2012 is the most important of all American history...

Because either We, the Ninety-Nine percent will win, OR 'they' will... the One percent who always win...

/°/***/°/* crystelZENmud *\°\***\°\
© 2011 a zen productions article

Time to re-think the Blog crystelZENmud

2011-05-22T04:53:00.002+02:00

Yessirree bob, li'l ZEN'rs...

When faced with a choice of writing here, or writing on Facebook... there's a tug away from my dear old blog, and to this sexy 'new' 'Social Network'... so trust yourself, and watch as crystelZENmud takes a small short already-in-progress hiatus, to re-emerge sometime in the next month with renewed focus, writings and hopefully, videos...

Until then, enjoy the snows of Colorado, here in the end of the third week of May...

/°/***/°/* crystelZENmud *\°\***\°\
© 2011

It takes a year, sometimes: inside the US and out

2011-03-11T05:15:00.008+01:00

Wisconsin's somehow-majority Republican Fascist anti-American War Party members fired a shot reminiscent of Adolph Hitler's first anti-union strike in 1933, today, in decoupling their fiscal responsibility Bill from their anti-union posturing, and turning same into a true fight against Labour.

So be it... yet is Wisconsin ready for a reintroduction of Hitlerian fascism?

You can read any source anywhere... and if you're reading this, welcome! What an honour to have caught your eyes for mere breaths of time, moments of life, the pulsing of bloodstreams throughout our mutual beings... yet without comments from you, gentle Readers, we at ZEN Central have no clue of your satisfaction, your inquiring mind, wanting to absorb... the nexus of momentum analysed by our trusty gnomish brains...

Something about the "Arab Street"... as Thomas Friedman used to say it, many other pundits included those words as if describing something they 'knew'. And they may by far 'know it' more than I do, but there may be a difference.

I don't want to 'understand' the "Arab Street" through any Western prism.

I'd hope to understand a small part of it, through a 'native prism'... how Libyans have found the courage, individually and 'in numbers', to affront a 'Supreme Guide qua Dictator', and forage through their own belongings to constitute the arms of a real 'Army of Liberation'... anyone who can stand up to Ca-Daffy Duck (aka Gaddafi),as this man evidently will... (photo AP) ... is worthy of governing their tribal lands, maybe even a country.

Will they be 'democratic', or some form of simple dictator (let's face reality, somewhat... it remains to be seen, in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya (if!), whether some insane Bush-dream of 'democracy' is going to 'show up' just like CNN cameras to a hurricane neighbourhood, or whether some modern alternative to both dictatorships or democracy breeds new life into Saharan countries.

Wisconsin's pressure-cooker-Legislature put that State into a clear position supporting Fascist business/government alliances that won't resolve budget problems, and also serve to provoke a strong anti-Fascist wave of discontent that is perfectly malleable as we posture ourselves this summer for the next US marathon presidential inquisition (of 'new blood').

Is Scott Martin's regurgitation of Hitler's Main Early Manoeuvres enough to pull the Wisconsin 'Arab' into the streets of Madison? A great many people question how rabid are the not-nationally-known Wisconsin Republicans, their insidiously lock-step Tea Party allies, and how far towards Berlin 1938 they could possibly move?

While Sarkozy trotted home tonight, after (mais bien sûr!) realizing his image-makers had struck a coup (he smirks, not un-Bush-like) with their suggestion that he JUMP on the Libyan-rebel bandwagon, thus allowing him to pretend that he has actually done anything substantive, the rest of the EU was prancing out of step with Napoléon Sarkozy. Tant pis, Nico!

Wisconsin? Libya? Hitler? Ca-Daffy (Duck!)? Walker?

Funny, that: Walker and his people (inside and supporters outside) are probably thinking they are the 'opposition'... but Poli Sci 101 tells us different.

Oh, for the opposites that attract... hungry Libyans long-fatigued by Ca-Daffy-ism, in a similar place with the Wisconsin pro-Labour movement, protesting the incumbent and succeeding in their principal tasks, where those go towards bettering the lives of the greater number of citizens.

This late night ramble rumbles out of this keyboard, and into your screen...

Viva Libya!
Viva 'the Street'!

/°/***/°/* crystelZENmud *\°\***\°\
© 2011

PREVIEW of TIME'S "MEN OF THE YEAR 2011" (and Women)

2011-02-14T16:50:00.003+01:00

It's OFFICIAL! TIME magazine just announced its 2011 "Person of the Year" award, which goes to the Men of Egypt (and if TIME forgot the women, we at ZEN Central did not!)!

This isn't anti-anything...

It is the opening of a new dawn: do we owe it all to the War Criminal President? Damn I hope not...

Oh! The women of Egypt also!

Time to Party Like It's 1999! Or 'Walk Like an Egyptian' (proudly, dignified)...

A satirical look at our exciting new 2011!

/°/***/°/* crystelZENmud *\°\***\°\
© 2011

... Jack CairoACK ...

2011-02-03T23:45:00.007+01:00

Hello Li'l ZENers, to the last Eleven Months of the Year 2011...

Some readers have queried ZEN Central about any new writings to appear, and this author appreciates every SMS, text msg, phone call or email contact: thank you all, Gentle Readers.

2010; the 'Year of Transition', with ol' ZENmud taking a chance on finding some guidance in a misguided fashion, by dwelling optimistically at one of America's poorest Web businesses. It shall remain nameless in this column.

We wouldn't want to offer even 'negative publicity' to a website which daily reinforces its -F- rating with the Better Business Bureau; which, to some marketing angels, apparently never exists (with the possible exceptions of "Bhopal//Dow", "Gulf of Mexico//BP", or even "Rocky Flats//Dow" (did we 'getcha' with that third one?)).

Titling this essay 'Jack CairoACK' may be preposterous;
it may be judicious.

Being a distant, younger literary admirer of The Original Jack Kerouac, and his Beat classic opus On The Road, with its most poignant (à moi) segment (it responds to my perpetual 'Look for America' attitude...), regarding his visit in 1949 to Sonny Lawson Field, a small baseball park located at 23rd and Welton St. in uptown Denver (being mere blocks above downtown Denver). How did America-traversing Kerouac see this wayside oasis in a more vibrant Denver (post-war)? He gave us this:

Down at 23rd and Welton a softball game was going on under floodlights which also illuminated the gas tank. A great eager crowd roared at every play. The strange young heroes of all kinds, white, colored, Mexican, pure Indian, were on the field, performing with heart-breaking earnestness....
Near me sat an old Negro who apparently watched the games every night. Next to him was an old white bum; then a Mexican family, then some girls, some boys – all humanity, the lot. Oh, the sadness of the lights that night! The young pitcher looked just like Dean. A pretty blonde in the seats looked just like Marylou. It was the Denver Night; all I did was die.

Down in Denver, down in Denver
All I did was die.

Having spent post-parental-divorce years in Denver, with (for a period of over a year) a job downtown, I spent every working morning and evening at the opposite corner, southwest: the company Van sat there, every night, in a barb-wired, chain-linked fenced-off parking lot, and I gazed over at the lights and green grass of Sonny Lawson Field. It was a demoralized, and demoralizing area when I frequented that neighborhood, hurriedly. It was my nature to walk fast to it, and retreat as quietly as possible, in those still-racially charged days.

That very year - 1976 - was when I first read On The Road, and his revelations became mine. I opened my eyes to the Soul-saturated sinews of this Dharma-Denver, now more depressed. Saying 'Five Points' in my era was rushed and hushed, yet to Kerouac it represented the 'Best Jazz between Kansas City and Los Angeles'... or was it Chi-town: Chicago? Only ghosts and phantoms of riffs gone silent, remained in the winds which wound down these concrete ribbons.

Kerouac found (in one vein) what he sought out endlessly, driven by the squeals from the stands, the 'attaboys!' from the field: America can 'play' together, sometimes, some days, even when it can't work together, or live together, or abide each other. He wrote about his Denver Night twenty-seven years before I knew he had one... nine-thousand, nine-hundred Denver Nights before.

Before the Korean War?

Before Joseph McCarthy scapegoated all of Hollywood, and J Edgar Hoover drove Charlie Chaplin into exile?

In the midst of America's return from WW II's 'racial tolerance' to our rampant, historic racism, which Jack K must certainly have experienced, the quote above points optimistically toward a too-rare tolerance in Society, to be exalted, yet Kerouac benefited from the naivété of Communist-chasing governmental players, in Congress and the FBI, in writing what assuredly would have been seen, if published some fifteen years later (for On The Road) as more subversive.

Kerouac ... CairoACK?

Across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and up-river on the Nile, Egyptians are looking à la Kerouac for the country that fulfills more realities than myths, while a mythic reality... the Mubarak-ian reality, totters.

Mubarak's universe, of course, represents autocracy repressing (or bribing) those classes of citizens in due course, to achieve some semblance of 'Egypt' that has created a stagnation (similar in fact to our US stagnation ever since Reagan breathed Oval Office oxygen), since Egypt signed its peace Treaty with Israel.

The Cairoic events of these last two weeks attracted the latest media frenzy, fed by 'Social networks' passing of first-to-second-hand information. YouTube has a video showing what may be one of the earliest feminine Cairoine's call to her countrymen for aid... for 'protection' of the women who were ready to stand for Mubarak's withdrawal from power.

Are those purported supporters, who ripped into Tuesday's and Wednesday's protesters, actually off-duty or civilian-clothed Egyptian police or military? Publicly, the Armed forces appeared to be taking a neutral stance, by saying it wouldn't strike down 'the Great People of Egypt' (thus appearing to weaken Mubarak's hold on power?). The Parisian newspaper Le Monde reports that Mubarak has 'had enough' of being President, and would gladly leave, yet fears that determination because of 'the chaos' it would leave in his parting... Yet a reader/commentator to that article (as we are all now, thanks to the Web) reminds us that NATO has spent Billions to 'support' democratic 'movements' (in Afghanistan and Iraq); are we supporting Mubarak or the 'democratization movement' in Egypt?

Thus is any CairoACK writing today, metaphorically euphorically, about the mix of Egyptians who've joined to promote redress of their economic and professional stagnation under Mubarak's near-pharonic rule? Has he found his "23rd and Welton" futbal field, where Copts, Christians and Islamic children kick their ball towards one of two goals, to the screams of parental or friendly supporters? Or is the 'street game' simpler than this supposes? Who needs a stadium of any size when Tahrir Square is serving for the manifestations? Is their game simply survival, or victoriously outlasting the Mubarak regime?

In the history of the development of the Internet, Egypt fared as well as South Africa in leading all statistics on Internet growth and density: Africa was 'wired in' from those two ends. Egypt, under former President Sadat, sought some semblance of Peace with Israel. Mubarak, who had become President upon Sadat's October, 1981 assassination, has enjoyed billions in US Aid, prime seats at 'all the right tables' in terms of geopolitical posturing, and a personal enrichment that is certainly impossible to ascertain.

While Jack Kerouac was watching baseball in North Denver, and then writing about it all, in 1949 and 1950, Hosni Mubarak was graduating ('Class of '49') from Egypt's "Egyptian Military Academy for officers ([whose] alumni include one of Mr. Sadat’s assassins)" (National Post)

Kerouac seemed to search for that 'We, the People' aspect of our American Story.

Mubarak? Pure ambition, apparently, drove him into that realm where military connections gravitate. Mubarak's fortune is estimated to be roughly 30-40 Billion dollars, and to be well-invested in the "usual Suspects' Banks". Between the US, and Switzerland, as well as Britain, much of Hosni's family nest-egg remains accessible, should any case similar to those brought against Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines be a forebearer of justice. So are Mubarak real estate holdings in London, Los Angeles, New York and Washington.

His people... (the supporters) would of course be more affluent, more travelled, more Capitalist; they would not be the type of Egyptians playing "23rd and Welton" styled futbal à la Kerouac.

The great Egyptian people may not have to go the distance many Peoples face, when seeking more-or-less pacific 'regime change'. The extent to which Mubarak's 'boys' can crack down on 'the people' (whether in or out of uniform) depends on the number of democratic demonstrators: if that grows in reaction to repression, Mubarak's Louis Vuitton luggage should be dusted off! Yet if repression chills demonstrators' numbers, resilience could be an asset for Mubarak.

A barbaric Mubarak, could bring out a hundred Ja'q CairoACKS...

... and that's a good thing ...

/°/***/°/* crystelZENmud *\°\***\°\
© 2011

Slip-Slidin' Into 2011, Slip-Slidin' Awayyyy

2010-12-22T16:36:00.004+01:00

Thanks to gorgeous friend(s), ZEN Central has been reinvigorated and is ready to welcome in a New Year in several days...

Li'l ZENers, your Humble Narrator has fully--recovered from his 'life-transplant surgery', which extracted a beautiful set of Swiss Years, and replaced them with the ever--home'ish locale of Vail, Colorado.

As a reminder of what NOT to do, during your holiday driving, the following YouTube shows a minute and a half of pure panic for one driver, three other (previously-collided) vehicle owners, and a Canton de Genève snowplow driver...

Hold on to your chair!

Did you hold on??

Or notice the car that was 'catapulted' from the bottom of the row?!

How do the Cantonal insurers for their snowplow service enjoy watching this? Evidence of 'inadequate tires'?? Hmmmmm.

Friends in Switzie have also something beautiful to await next spring or summer: the arrival of Roger Waters' "The Wall" 2011 European Tour... anyone wanting to buy me a ticket? I'll fly for that one!

Here's a taste of his first show in Canada last September:

And a website for information on dates (if not already sold out?).

A warm Pagan Solstice Holiday wish to ZENers of any Deity's denomination or wiccan, atheist or otherwise...

Hug yourself, and ZEN hugs for all!

//**** crystelZENmud ****\\
© 2010

Batten down the Hatches...

2010-06-09T18:50:00.007+02:00

Hello, li'l ZENers...

I missed you also, friends... ZEN Central has been highly mobile, gauging the waters, so to speak, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. These highly-scientific undertakings have given us new insights to 'water' in America, as a former raft guide who lived and lives in a dry, snow-dependant State (Colorado).

With the weekly photographic email-announcements received at ZEN Central, from NASA, a certain 'photo-map' haunts us, which displays the water temperatures in the two Oceans, and Gulf, from which hurricanes are born; check it out!

(photo credit: Japan’s Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer
for EOS (AMSR-E) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite)

Looks like a recipe for disaster, n'est-ce pas? Read the prediction that accompanies the photo-map above:

On May 27, 2010, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast an “active to extremely active” hurricane season for 2010. NOAA projected a 70 percent probability for 14 to 23 named storms, 8 to 14 hurricanes, and 3 to 7 major hurricanes.

Ready, Florida? Louisiana? Is this summer to be the sequel most media sources have 'predicted' since Katrina in 2005?

Years ago, we here at ZEN Central wrote a rambling piece that discussed a new way of looking at the problem of 'Global Warming', also known as 'Climate Change' OR AGW ('Anthropogenic Global Warming'). As we try often, we thought (we think we thought!) 'outside the box', and came up with a new angle, under an understandable label:

Global Humidification

See our original text here, which is not the most coherent piece this author has produced. Yet the concept remains simple: we live on a Planet that has (indubitably) a majority of its surface covered in water.

Any planet (a non-scientist would think) that is 71 percent covered in water would display the tendency, when warmed, to propel more water vapour into the atmosphere: to become more Humid.

Thus our original idea became this: is 'Global Warming' (Naysayers brushed aside for the moment, for their motivations are not shared here) the Symptom, or the Disease?

Consider a 'burn victim'; although the heat that scorched their skin was the incident, what remains is the ugly scar of the burn area. If our analogy holds, the effect (man-derived or cyclic thus normal) of 'global warming' on our Water-Planet is going to increase the overall humidity... non?

NB: when we wrote our piece, in June of 2008, there were very few 'google hits' to be found concerning 'global humidification'; however new attempts do find others, going as far back as 1991! This article, by Dr A. G. Georgiadi of the Institute of Geography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, discussed in simple terms what has become one of our central tenets:

The predicted climate warming will bring significant changes not only in the thermal regime of the Earth, but also in the regime of its atmospheric moisture cycle as well as in the zonal structure and biophysical properties of the vegetation cover. All this will lead to substantial changes in the hydrological cycle of the Earth.

"... the hydrological cycle of the Earth." (aka 'Global Humidification')... what have we seen in these nineteen years since Dr Georgiadi wrote on behalf of the Soviet scientists?

Certain alpine or mountainous zones seem to have increasingly bizarre weather/snow patterns: the Colorado Rockies experienced minimal snowfall until mid-February, and then snow began to fall which only ended at the end of May. Similar patterns were observed in the Northwestern Alps this spring, as well.

Will 'naysayers' (who tend to be 'anti-conspiracy-theorists' of the First Order: which is not to say that every topic they oppose is based in a 'conspiracy theory') persuade, through vociferous adherence to nearly-nonsensical positions, the unthinking or unknowing individual to 'scoff' at any notion of catastrophic changes? hmmm?

Behold the studies of Swiss, or global glaciers, now in retreat since the late 1880s: since the second generation of oil-users appeared on earth, and commensurate with the booming Earth population (for which one can applaud or condemn the wide transport of food via oil-burning transportation paradigms), Alpine glaciers have lost vast percentages of their surface area, and total volume. Here's what one study had to say (from the Abstract of a pay-to-view article):

A significant ice loss since the end of the 19th century was observed in the ablation area, while the changes in the accumulation area were small. We found moderate negative secular rates until the 1960s, followed by steady to positive rates for about two decades and strong ice loss starting in the 1980s which has lasted until the present. An evaluation of 19 glaciers revealed a total ice volume loss of about 13 km3 since the 1870s, of which 8.7 km3 occurred since the 1920s and 3.5 km3 since 1980. Decadal mean net balance rates for the periods 1920-60, 1960-80 and 1980-present are −0.29, −0.03 and −0.53 m a−1 w.e., respectively.
(Authors: Kääb, Andreas; Paul, Frank; Maisch, Max; Hoelzle, Martin; Haeberli, Wilfried
Source: Annals of Glaciology, Volume 34, Number 1, 1 January 2002 , pp. 362-366(5))

So, ZEN Audience, this author leaves you to ponder the long range effect of 'Global Humidification'; a profound change of the hydrological cycle on our Earth: is this a 'by-product' of AGW, or is it the real 'Disease', and 'AGW' is a symptom causing it?

Scientists? We want to hear from you, at crystelZENmud !

//**** crystelZENmud ****\\
© 2010

United Kingdom Declares Icelandic Volcano a "Terrorist Act"

2010-04-20T00:07:00.004+02:00

You heard it here first, li'l ZENers!

For the second time in two years, Gordon Brown's government has declared the eruption of Icelandic volcanoes to be 'Terrorist Acts', and found Iceland to be violating the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001!
(or read The BBC, Guardian or TIME magazine's coverage!)

Such was their misguided resort to 'solving' problems in 2008, for the greater peril of Iceland's hard-working and hardy citizenry... and this satiric post at crystelZENmud reminds you that the interrelationships between our commercial and political entities remain ever-entwined, interlaced...

You can also explore this Icelandic site, which offers commentary on the British action(s).

Private Industry reacted yesterday, to this enforced shut-down; claims of losses were for some 35 million Euros attributed to Air France, as well as SAS, which claimed a four-day loss of some 29m Euros, and British Airways, which claimed between 17 and 26m Euros from the total 'paralysis'.

Interestingly, it appears that Air France has claimed much more than airlines whose base countries are somewhat closer to the epicenter of the volcanic clouds; is anyone going to take a fine-tooth comb to their 'subscribed losses' before granting EU aid under Article 107.2, which allows aid to entities that suffered from 'natural catastrophes' in the origin of their losses. As reported in Le Monde (en français), such aid is available on a non-discriminatory basis, "and cannot act as a disguised aid towards restructuring"...

Will Brown declare Iceland's geologically-active landscape to be a 'Terrorist threat'? Maybe he learned his lesson back in October 2008... ZENers can sleep well, tonight, if Gordon Brown didn't do it already, he probably won't pursue this fallacious course of action!

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Cannes and Beaune Film Festivals: eruptions in Iceland!

2010-04-15T19:32:00.006+02:00

Behold! In mere weeks, another Cannes Film Festival begins... and you yawn?

:-)

Will this year's Mediterranean extravaganza be any different than those of past years? ZENers are inclined to think so... because the Président du Jury is no one other than Tim Burton.

Tim's long history of eccentricity between mind and market; his stunning series of films (which began long before Batman and Edward Scissorhands, through the immemorial Ed Wood, to his recently-released Alice in Wonderland) create fantasmagoric trails, through cinema's blossoming era of ever-more-complex digital effects, whilst weaving stories that draw from his actors their best presentations of the characters they portrayed.

Tim's genius is manifested in his low-key (and low decibel) directing talents; how successful will that talent be, as he brings together a Cannes Jury comprised of...

Kate Beckinsale: actress from the United Kingdom;
Giovanna Mezagiornio: Italian actress;
Alberto Barbera: Director of the Italian National Cinema Museum;
Emmanuel Carrere: French Director, author and screenwriter;
Victor Erice: Spanish Director;
Shekhar Kapur: Indian actor, Director and producer

As President of this Jury, Tim Burton will have the only 'American' viewpoint for a heavily-European jury; yet his unconventional methods will most likely be rather well-appreciated by the fellow jurors.

On the palate for films, is Ridley Scott's Robin Hood. The long métrage, which falls in the genre of 'we can do better than Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings!' (In its effects, scenes of running-through-woods bow-and-arrow battles, etc.... even to the casting), displays that aspect of the Cannes festival that its fans cherish so much: bringing in the spectacular... the omnipresent aspects of global marketing budgets...

For the first time in twelve years, ZENmud Central is not wired-in to the coverage of Cannes, offered by the French television channels, especially Canal+ (aka Canal Plus)...

And!

Last weekend was France's "2nd Annual International Thriller Film Festival"... the 'new kid' on the international film Festival 'block'...

While... FLASH; an Icelandic volcano eruption has paralyzed aerial traffic in the northwest regions of Europe! Airports from Geneva to Ireland are under the effect of thick dust and ash, forcing the cancellation of hundreds, if not thousands of flights... and experts on Icelandic geology are announcing that less-intense, yet nearly-continual emissions from this volcano may occur for up to a year!

How will aerial traffic be affected in the months to come, and what effects will this bring to the European tourist industry?

Hopefully, Tim and the rest of the flock of celebrity travellers to Cannes, will be able to arrive in the weeks to come! Stay inside, Euro-ZENers!

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

No news in the Health Care Reform...

2010-02-27T00:54:00.003+01:00

Evidently no one wants to be 'like the United Kingdom', when you talk about American Health Care reform.

"Why should we 'give the Government control' of this? We'll only end up paying more taxes..."

You've heard this before... from the Right or Left combined. But who knows how little that cost actually is in the UK, and! If we designed a Three-Star system (if you want to call UK's system a 'Two-Star'... not that ZEN does), could we not do so and save money in the long run?

An amazing coincidence makes studying the two systems easier... the UK is nearly exactly one-fifth of the United States' population. This makes comparing UK v USA health statistics very easy (and easier, since the summer 2008 Pound Sterling was nearly 2:1 on the Dollar (actually $1.98= £1)). Now, of course, it's different, but the sum total of statistics are still stuck in the 2008 'rut'.

Many statistics that follow are from the NHS site itself; ZEN Central takes full responsibility for any math errors derived therefrom.

REMINDER: crystelZENmud and ZENmud productions are not advocating FOR a UK-style replacement of the mixed public/private US system; we are offering a statistical comparison, to show how high USA costs are, in a trend without end for our future.

Total UK Health Care budget

The UK system, for the government-paid component, claims a 2008/9 budget that is 'more than £100Billion' (hereafter: 'B' for billion, 'T' for trillion). This link says that the total number for 2006 was £109B. Should we then deduce that the 2008/9 'stat' was an estimate? Then we can do so ourselves. Perhaps the 2008/9 number should be about £120 to 124? As a side note, it is interesting to note that, as a percentage of total spending in the UK Health system, the 'private' sector's share has dropped in recent years, from 16pc in 1997, to 12.7pc in 2006. How has that trend evolved in these last four years? Again: we do not know.

What makes writing this article to be a challenge, is the 'nose-dive' taken by the Pound Sterling, between July 2008, and February 2009: it dropped from $1.98 to a pound, to $1.42/pound by February, and then rebounded, up to a near-steady $1.64 per pound in the summer of 2009. Statistical averaging (not our forte) seems to allow a 12-month average of USD1.60=1GBP, to match (as close as we can) the offered 2008/9 UK NHS budget. Finding statistics to round up this NHS statistic, through the inclusion of private-sector care numbers, are not easily forthcoming.

So if a population one-fifth our size, spent more than £120B on health care, we could perhaps gauge the equation as this:

61M*5 ... 120B*5*1.60

And thus our population of 305M in the USA 'might have' spent (think of Obama 'subcontracting' the US HC system to the UK NHS (don't laugh too much)) 960B to offer a Universal Health System to our citizens. We can round this up to 1T (one trillion), just for fun.

But it's 'un-American' to propose UHS in the USA... and our system, at some 2.42T/year, is still admired by those who want no change. Even though Fraud exists in Medicare (theft of our taxes by criminal 'doctors, health providers 'and' patients), many people support the status quo.

In comparison, another aspect for the Capitalists to digest: our US system (which by-the-way is already running at least 46pc 'Socialist', when the term 'final payer' is used: the VA, the Native American health care system, Medicaid and Medicare... all paid by the Government, and 'are' some form of UHS within each finite sector) takes at least 17pc of our GDP to sustain itself. The chart below shows 'Selected Countries' from 2006, when the USA was running 15.3pc of GDP.

In the United Kingdom, the total (If our sources are trustworthy) is hugging the middle of this graph: they only spend 8.4pc of their economy on health care.

Where would "We, the People!" be, if our economy had an economic 'jolt' of some 5-7pc of our GDP freed from the 'evil clutches' of the Health Care Beast? Devil's advocates would mention the disruptions of employment, as floods of health care 'paper-pushers' and 'claims denial specialists' (surely NOT what they are called in their 'terms of reference' contracts) were set free from their desks... and this is valid. But would not most be finding new careers in a newly re-energized economy?

Now it seems obvious that the UK is spending much less per capita than we are, by a factor matching the GDP and budgeted numbers, nearly half.

The comments of 'nay-saying Flat-Earthers', as we've nicknamed them at ZEN Central, seem to promote 'inflexibility': are they 'conflicted' by their job, investments or status?

This is our first discourse on a long-standing national debate... maybe too late!??

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Living under ATQ

2010-01-17T23:07:00.004+01:00

We're living under ATQ: the American Terror Quotient... the tool of capitalists to serve themselves off of your media--driven FEARS of 'terrorists' or terrorism: flues are good examples, as the governments raced to sign contracts guaranteeing their citizens the dosages required (and preferred suppliers's obscene profits...)

Given the American economic model, my Fellow Amuhricans, which never has relied on truth in advertising (unless forced to do so by legislation that won over lobbyists' efforts)... You're living under ATQ!

It's an ATQ!

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Farewell Hermance... 'allo Denver!!!

2010-01-16T13:52:00.003+01:00

On y est, ... 'c'est partie!'

How do you avoid clichés, at those times when no words come but?

"End of an era..."
"A new door opening..."
"A new dawn rising..."

But truly... when a nearly-thirteen year chapter closes, the transition doesn't begin and end with packing or unpacking of suitcases... it doesn't shut off once the door closes on a new 'Temporary ZENworld HQ'...

The mysteries continue... are ZEN's en-route boxes being used for shooting practice, by a range of international Postal employees, who may think it's funny, the sound of glass shards tinkling to the bottom of the box each time they roll it over? (Actually, the first box, containing a wooden antique bookcase, arrived with a six-inch gash just at the upper corner of the wooden item... yet the 'damage' seemed no more than 'cardboard-"rug"-burns' from rubbing against its jolly container-mates... and the bevelled glass door seems intact!

ZEN's first Saturday... in America... in North America... in the USA, since he left his Wolf Sister newly-married to the Good Man she found.

This video is dedicated to 'US', WE the happy few, the ZEN family that knows where and how they walk amidst those whose primary function apparently is Feeding the Beast. (don't understand? Try reading Hesse's book Demian), and learn about the concept of avant-garde, and or the mere perceptions of that phenomenon.

Here's a magic moment, provided by the ZENeye... a ZENmud production...

(copyright 2009 ... another ZENmud productions)

Folks, the biorhythms announce 'nap two' for a late-Friday, early-Saturday bio-fried system... enjoy the music and lights from the Geneva Festival des arbres et lumières

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Bonus bonzai

2009-10-16T15:49:00.008+02:00

Banks, and billions of bonuses, baby: the uncomprehending indignation manifested by the public, towards these unique financial system employees, is justified, and yet...

Another message from the ZENmud FireWatchTower

What the public has misjudged, is the nature of the game, which allows the 'system' to reward these 'traders'... massively. Most people, who watch a story on the TV news, or read related web or press articles, are indignant to read that Goldman Sachs or another enterprise has awarded its 'traders' with billions of bonus bucks. For them, these obscene amounts represent a system (and they are not wrong to think this) that has gone amok, which siphons out of the economy gross sums to reward its players: players who may have brought great profits to their clients.

A common thread woven throughout the stories relating to these bonus–babies, recounts the positions taken by CEOs of these financial institutions (which, we recall below, have been greatly aided directly or indirectly, by infusions of State Aid to survive the Catastrophe 2008), whose uniform responses offer their variant of 'panic': “... if we don't offer bonuses, the traders will leave and go (to the competition) where they can receive such compensation...”

Most readers are then left thinking that the banking system itself is putrefied, stagnating the rest of the economy (and they are not wrong to think this) by this siphoning off of 'our capital', to line the pockets of a selected few. What is not commonly known, is the true source of the imbalance, because of the nature of that industry: clients.

The ignored implicit denominator underlining these generic responses, transmitted through the fear–mongering media (FMM) regarding bonuses, is the liaison that exists between traders (or fortune managers) and clients: accumulated personal wealth.

And thus the numerator is this, making a simple equation: if a bank doesn't pay the traders for the profits generated through the fortunes they manage, the financial manager/trader would walk from that bank with their clients. The bonus system, therefore, can be 'diagnosed' as a means of rewarding these traders for their social and professional connections, which reunite the personal fortunes of the ultra–rich into large investment consortia, who (towards their trusted bankers) are loyal beyond measure, during good times.

Clients of bankers in personal fortune management often demand a plethora of services, and whether some of these pass beyond the legal is not within the scope of this article. If someone calls, a banker could spend his or her time (or that of their staff) in chartering airplanes for cargo transfers, arranging important contacts with other clients with similar business interests, or finding a reputable yacht broker. While the purchase and sale of investment instruments (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, notes, whole companies, etc.) occupies a great amount of a banker's day, the cultivation of these relationships can also require (or offer) extensive 'vacation time' on the yachts or seashore mansions, and ski lodges of these super–rich clients.

Clients with personal fortunes are more loyal to their chosen banker, than to the bank which has engaged such professionals. Any trader that has made profits for his 'family' of clients, will have accumulated substantial financial leverage, for which the payment of the annual year–end bonus is one of the most pre–eminent liens to staying with that bank.

So, while reading about traders and bonuses, don't forget who holds the power.

A bank that diminishes traders' bonuses is going to be losing those clients, whose fortunes are shepherded through good financial times and bad, as the traders 'threaten' to vacate any bank paying under–market bonuses. Confirmation of this comes from a hard–hitting French newspaper, Le Canard Enchainé (translated as: the Enchained Duck), whose translated comment would read:

Bonuses are calculated as a function of performances, those of [the trader's] desk and bank... but especially as a function of the minimal price to which [their] boss thinks [he or she] would be able to keep [them].

Rich clients, one could say, do not trust the bank, per se... they trust he or she that comes to play on their yacht... and offers advice or follows orders, with the panache that the rich pride themselves for receiving.

If we want to add 'morals' to the 'equation', and if citizens are perturbed by the perceived injustices of 'bail–outs' and taxpayer indebtedness, then the thought du jour should be projected on to those rich clients, whose 'friends in the firms' are reaping millions in bonuses for having recommended (some) bogus investment vehicles (especially in markets such as derivatives and credit default swaps).

It should be the rich clients who are upset with the
rewards given for bad investment advice.

And how a bank justifies rewards to their über–staff, who've reduced the confidence of (and in) the market regarding their offered counselling and advice, is totally unZEN...

This is pertinent to the global situation today, after the announcement by President de la République N. Sarkozy, and his Ministre de la Finance C. Lagarde, of their concept for regulation of French banks, to which they'd given the name 'bonus–malus', requiring the retention of fifty per cent of the bonuses paid out annually, to be retained for three years, and then judged against the performance of the bank in that period.

A rational concept, in sum...

Profits from better risk assessment will allow the retained bonus to be issued to the employee at the end of the three–year period, and losses from poor risk assessment allow the bank to retain those funds held (more or less) in escrow. We watch with bated breath, to see how Sarkozy's proposal is introduced at the upcoming G8 meeting to be held near Pittsburgh. As of the weekend, Germany's government announced 'support' for the concept, without detailing the width of any base of support within the entire country.

SIDEBAR: Wouldn't it have been nice to see President Obama place last month's G8 meeting at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire? The resort lodge and town in which the world witnessed the birth of the post–World War financial system, Bretton Woods could have been a symbol of the renewal for good of the capitalist financial system(s), as it once was seen to be many years ago.

Take the Goldman Sachs bonanza of bonus–bounty to its upper staff: this is the company who 'offered' its CEO, Henry Paulson, as Secretary of the Treasury, he who negotiated a 'NO–conflict–of–interest' (sarcasm mode OFF) bail–out to AIG and the others (all but its main competitor Lehman Brothers... hmmmm). His generosity with the future tax obligations of America's children, produced the last major Act of the Bush misAdministration: AIG received over one hundred Billion dollars, while the classic excuse was produced (as for Chrysler nearly twenty years ago) of its being Too Large To Fail. With this bailout, AIG was 'covered', and in a position to handle its outstanding obligations to clients. These included Goldman Sachs, who received something near eighteen Billio dollars.

Someone probably sent a sweet little memento to Mr Paulson in return for his persuasive response to a financial crisis (from both AIG and Goldman?)... Goldman Sachs didn't tarry, in rewarding its management with some (??) Billion in bonuses, announced earlier in mid–summer.

Somehow, conflict–of–interest has lost its impact in Financial America.

We, the Bankers from the United States,
in order to screw taxpayers, for
a more perfect Bonus...

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

To a friend, our friends...

2009-10-06T12:49:00.013+02:00

(Hi, thanks for breaking my 'writer's block', you...!)

This week has turned inward and 'past-word', thinking of nine fully-remembered years in the rolling, beautifully-wooded hillsides of western New Jersey, the friends that I'd left behind, extracted from a 'volatile' household, a pressure-cooker stirred by one person's alcohol and drug(s) abuse, emotional rages and, as the French say: 'conneries' (or 'idiotic behaviour')

That's enough on the negative...

Our neighbourhoods were safe, wooded, wet and wild: deer roamed throughout our woods, riders crossed boys' and girls' excursions through wooded paths, we romped through a National Historic Park featuring Revolutionary War cabins...

And, of course, we were 'Born in the Fifties'... (Police)

So many memories, of lakes, sports... we were a group of 20 boys, who used to go to Harding Township school before SIX AM, in the lovely months of April, May and June, to play baseball for two or three hours before school started... Touch football, soccer, and cycling to the 'Girls' Lake'... Mt Kemble.

Who said once, long ago: "Home - is somewhere to which you can never return..."?

This ain't home... a short, four++ minute opportunity for 'friends' and readers to sit back and let their ears enjoy the calm images taken from the bank of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva to the English world)...

moon dock clock and WAVES

2009 (C) zenmud productions

Some of us were young rebels: this boy, 12 or so in 1969 or 70, was brought by Mom with a brother to see President Nixon leaving the local Morristown Airport... and she caught me flipping him off (a 'middle-finger' salute...): "You should respect the Office, even if you can't respect the man that holds it..."

Momma, I've tried, but some of them have made it so hard... Mr 'Evil Empire'... Mr. 'Jobs Jobs Jobs', Mr. 'Terr-wrist suiciders'... All drove me further away, once I'd left our happy hollows and gladed woods... our integrated High School, MUCH different from a 'homogenous' primary school, where our basketball team lost (nearly always), our soccer team won (nearly always), and our baseball team batted .500... (in the standings, not in the box!).

1973, the summer of Watergate Hearings and the Watkins Glen concert, to which I hitchhiked with lost friend Eric... four weeks to the day before I abandoned my parents and became a one-boy 'Liberation Army', ready to wage war against antiquated Denver High School hierarchies.

We grew up between the Bay of Pigs and Disco, or between the Deaths of John, then Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the ending loss in the Vietnam War, which fortunately ended within days/weeks/months of this writer's perilous 18th birthday...

(I can do that... :-)

Winters spent in ski trips to Pennsylvania or New York, and a yearly blessing: a Valentine Boy was the only of four brothers, who was roasted at annual birthday parties in Denver or Vail, Colorado, as our annual school vacation coincided with said birthday, and two young brothers flew 'Friendly skies' to two older brothers, emigrants from Minnesota to Denver. If I am fortunate, someone will say "I remember! You came back from your first trip Sunburned, on crutches (broken ankle) and with your thumb in a cast (broken thumb first day...), and smiling!"

If I hadn't skied there four times, or if I hadn't moved to Denver at 16, I probably wouldn't have spent 13 years there, rafting in the summers, skiing in the winters, working in the evenings, dancing until the Tank-n-Tonics were sweated away each evening...

But digression is a bad habit...

Some of us were 'in the Band', at school, were this one was 'famous' for a series of 'sore lips' that prevented trumpet practice. The only song I remember that we played, was 'Exodus'... why block the rest of our repertoire? I remember the boys' Drum solos... they rocked on their individual snares.

We laughed about Laugh-in, launched over STAR TREK, and were dispersed before Saturday Night Live re-united us 'from New York'...

We were crowds who'd met to talk, boys and girls, up at the high-jump mats, or on the swings... and (should I?) were learning to kiss... or were dedicated pre-teen 'BF and GF' as skating partners, on the Silver Lake or New Vernon Pond... knitted mittens were one of two reasons I stopped playing hockey in our unprotected youth... (violent hip checks being the other...).

Banana bikes? Abbie Hoffman's 'Steal This Book' and the Whole Earth Catalogue... and Ken Kesey's fabulous LSD-driven 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'... which was so many light-years better as an Off-Broadway play, rather than a Hollywood movie that stole the plot and dropped half of the book's meaning in the editing-room trash... We were a crowd that went to the play, watching Chief Broom pushing his namesake across a non-dusty stage, while the speakers overhead 'told' us his biting pertinent thoughts...

How did the 'Machine' win? The world that began with the Summer of Love, Woodstock and the vibrant Vietnam War protest movement, died a soft and un-gentle death; Reaganism began the decade that followed deaths of Jimi, Janice and Jim, and Tommy Bolin, a fabulous Western guitarist that many never heard (but DID: His creativity dominated, for short periods of time, the music of Chick Corea, the James Gang (don't dwell on the hairstyles! heh heh) and Deep Purple, until he died shortly after producing his second solo album... after a post-concert party (fronting for Jeff Beck). As was 'heard' then, his autopsy showed 'traces' of six out of ten of the 'most popular' rec-drugs of the era.... it was evident from his music.

I first learned of him posthumously, although I'd probably not realized that I actually could have seen him many times in Denver... such is life. I found him through a close musician-friend from the Unirado of COLOVERSITY (our nickname for the Alma Mater). That was the year that I returned in a visit to my 'home'; it was hard to remember how the 'big roads' we cycled as children were actually scary narrow country lanes, the type that would make a Brit feel at home.

The exit, and the return, were painfully linked: I never really got over how the joys of 'privilege' were not strong enough to conquer the sad memories, of being a 'one-lad army' protecting Mom against a Big Man on alcohol, speed and barbiturates. A man who wouldn't hesitate to scream every filthy word on this Earth, if the garage wasn't swept, or the lawn un-mowed.

And visiting ZEN-filled friends was a most beautiful stroke to the ego, yet didn't quash the nausea that returned as I toured my 'grounds' the quite lane on which we lived, perched hillside between the Great Swamp of NJ and the tiny mountain ranges that ringed our villages: the Watchung 'Mountains' were some of those.... I only ever went 'home' once again, bringing my wife, to show her from whence I grew into the man she married (she took this shot, the year we met: that's STATE BRIDGE, the pilings of the first bridge built in Colorado over the mighty Colorado River: famous for being the railroad stop at which Teddy used to go bear hunting. Also famous are the dinosaur tracks that are 'up-river' about 7km from this location. The bridge united roads that led from Leadville or Glenwood Springs, to the north of the state, and especially Steamboat Springs. (The 'statute of limitations' is over, so I can tell you that what you cannot see in my hand is a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz for sssssssssssssssss (some text missing).

:-)

This was a big weekend, full of memories and communion with a friend far away, while on my other blog, articles flew from the fingertips as a war re-emerges, between French anti-doping Agency and lab chiefs, and the Union de Cyclisme Internationale, regarding the 2009 Tour de France.

Happily from the banks of Lac Léman,

a faithful writing friend....

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Ode to Cats and Love

2009-06-09T16:40:00.007+02:00

Some days, some feelings are very hard to describe.

How do you encapsulate eighteen years of inter-species friendship? How do you describe not being able to 'fight nature', when someone looks at you with incomprehending eyes?

It's an awesome power, to be capable of taking one in pain, in poor health, whose many happy years are behind, and be able to take that animal to a beautiful office, with a sympathetic (and pretty) veterinarian, and inject the medicine that ends all the pain, for one, and brings forth the memories, for he who remains...

Mégane came from Denver Colorado, where at eight months old she was liberated by the ZEN Central Liberation Front, whose nonviolent 'assault' on the Denver SPCA was a raging success.

Mégane we named her, the ex-wife and I, but this cat was 'mine': she wasn't 'sexy', wasn't 'glamorous' was certainly an alley-cat of the finest caliber.

What she was, was the cat who ran straight to my ankles of the ten or twenty in the room. I was one who thought a cat that found me, was better than a cat that I 'picked'.

That was true, then and always since. Mégane was the cat to whom I belonged. She was a survivor: without going into details, a friend's wife once slammed my apartment door just at the 'SECOND' in which Mégane thought that the atmosphere was rather charged: her skull was in the wrong plane at the wrong Cat-second, and for the rest of time, most tall blondes were not allowed access to Mégane's heart (with one notable exception).

She joined Montgomery, aka Gumi-boy, aka the Gumsterboy, in a period of wander lust.

From CO to NH, in a three-day truck-oriented adventure, we four went off to law school.

After the divorce, after the diploma, the Boy and Girl followed ZENmud to France, for a three month interlude that began with love, and ended with reality. They flew in the Captain's Cockpit, in a Sabena flight from Boston to Geneva, via Brussels: they really didn't like that...

From France, a border crossing to an apartment with garden, idyllic and perfect for two cats and a guy with bicycles.

Such Eden-Years were not eternal, as the Gumsterboy became deathly ill in the heatwave of 2003. His illness raged in three days, and Mégane-bébé was by his side, as sad and hopeful as one could expect.

It was my first experience with the power of the 'Death Penalty', live, in my face, my decision.

It's 'so convenient', that it can break your heart. Look at the photo-montage of Gumi's last weekend. When that upper-right photo was seen after the events, it brought so many tears: how can a cat be asking the Gods to spare her companion?

Sniff.............
Montgomery: 1991 to August 3, 2003
Mégane-bébé: 1991 to June 2, 2009

Thaaaat's all Folks....

Torture – America v. Bush–Cheney et al

2009-05-16T12:58:00.002+02:00

For three years now, crystelZENmud has been one rational voice and, most recently deeply concerned with the nature of the debate on the heinous subject of Torture within the United States. A chasm lays between the way we think about this subject, and that which one hears broadcasted by the many shrill shills who dominate the MSM media and dwindling Republican power base.

This series on the subject of Torture includes three previous posts:

Pungent pundits marked, firstly, how recent tantrums developed in Conservative pro–torture radio and TV, upon the Obama White House authorization releasing legal memoranda from selected Bush misAdministration legal staff. We secondly (Moral Clarity of Torture) brushed on the argument first posed in a Der Spiegel online article, itself addressing why Obama's current dilemma (inheriting the Bush Republican Torture regime) was comparable to the 'crises' of Vietnam and Watergate, and introduced the clear American position in the post–Nazi era; finally (Henry T King and more on Torture) we honoured Robert Jackson, Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg, and quoted Henry T King, one of the three longest surviving Prosecutors who'd worked under Jackson.

King's death on Saturday came one day after we first wrote about him.

In summary, the radical–right American radio and TV announcers that support torturing human beings, now are vehemently against Obama's potential action of investigating and perhaps prosecuting former Bush misAdministration officials for violations of US Law. Our ZENopinion came from analysis of the historical US position, when the Allied victors of World War II decided that high Nazi officials would be prosecuted in law, with a presumption of innocence. Prosecutors Jackson and King were two of many, an Associate Justice on assignment from the Supreme Court, and a rather young (King was 26 when he arrived in Nuremberg) American lawyer.

The inhumanity and lawless behaviour of the Nazis was without rival: their wanton slayings, slave labour, medical 'experiments' and gassing or shooting of millions of concentration camp Jews and other minorities (introducing the ghastly concept of 'ethnic cleansing') was to be examined under rules of evidence, due process and trials by an international panel of judges, from the USA, Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France. And remember: Stalin had proposed earlier the outright execution of some 50 to 100 thousand German officers; Roosevelt apparently 'joked' (he was actually shocked) that 'maybe 49,000 ought to be enough?'

Jackson said, in closing arguments on the trial of infamous Bormann, Hess and other Nazis, which admittedly were operating under a form of ex poste facto law:

“They have been given the kind of a Trial which they, in the days of their pomp and power, never gave to any man.”

Or to any woman, or child.

However thoughts may coalesce regarding State–sponsored torture of 'enemy nationals' (which is our own 'instant jargon'; the Bush misAdministration term is 'unlawful combatants'), any basis for doing so requires supportive foundations.

Two major points distil the essential legal components:

ONE: Only peace is lawful.

War per se denotes unlawful action, when States act as aggressor.

War rarely attains legitimacy except through self–defense, as condoned within the UN Charter, where defensive actions are undertaken as a response to aggressor State(s). In other words, any 'war' will have an illegal initiation and a legal defensive response (given the 'normal' definitions of 'war'). When one masks the waging of 'aggressive war' under the guise of 'international support', the level of ambiguity rises, but not culpability itself.

Further, legitimacy cannot be claimed when aggressive actions are taken domestically, on home–grown targets. At Nuremberg, the legal concept was introduced, denominating the '... crime of plotting and waging wars of aggression and wars in violation of (...) treaties to which Germany was a party.'

This legitimates the premise that 'Initiating War is illegal', or 'Only Peace is lawful'.

TWO: A duty to uphold international public law.

International public law (as opposed to international private law) comes from historic customary practices and agreed multi–State treaties or bilateral agreements. Violations can be addressed, currently, through application for sanctions or Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

A State that invades, occupies and thereby tragically disrupts local population(s), must undertake to uphold and assure the highest agreed and current standards of international public law throughout the invasive actions. This indivisible duty is invoked by those expressly implemented aggressive State actions. Yet International (public) law retains a singular quality: of being the only 'body of law', the application of which is not assured through an established and legitimate 'police power'. Thus the 'international community' of our time, through the United Nations is the 'posse', 'jury' and 'forum' for violations of international order and peace. NATO may be the closest that any intergovernmental organization attains, to being an 'intergovernmental police force', as a mutual–defense set–up. NATO had approved and supported the Afghanistan campaign.

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Thus in the case where a superpower such as the USA takes a position under which it claimed a 'right' to invade first Afghanistan (via NATO and a claim of 'legitimate self–defense' – the retaliatory war option was unleashed to respond to the Nine–Eleven acts (aka the Bush Terrorist Disaster)). US actions against its terrorist nemesis Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, from the Fall of 2001 to the Spring of 2003, as well as their hosts, the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, were an opportunity for US forces, under Commander–in–Chief Bush to take the already 'bombed to the Stone Age' country (who'd suffered through the late 70s and 80s with the occupation of the Soviet Union, then was to suffer under the Taliban), and 'reduce it to rubble'.

The American citizenry were suffering Post–Traumatic Stress Syndrome from the Bush Terrorist Disaster of Nine–Eleven, compounded by media acquiescence and support to the misAdministration's Patriot Act, No-Fly Lists and 'Orange Terrorism Alerts'. We, the People, were shaken out of the role that prior generations had enjoyed: the proud Moral Clarity of being the Planet's protectors of Human Rights.

SIDEBAR: In saying this, one has to address the issues of 'naïveté': certainly there were individuals, and eras, in which our public 'white hat' was not universal. The CIA, Special Operations in the military, and any number of the other ten to fifteen intelligence agencies of the USA, were not always perfect angels when acting under their Federal authorities.

After Afghanistan came Iraq, where a great majority of people globally protested what it saw as US action not within the cadre of the international laws and treaties to which it was bound. By most rationales in International law, the US appeared to have chosen to take illegitimate, if not fully illegal hostile action. Before its invasion of Iraq, the US attempted, yet failed, to persuade the UN Security Council to provide clear UN support via Security Council Resolution.

Nevertheless our country walked away from that session claiming the ambiguous language it did receive sufficed to allow full military intervention.

Earlier in 2002, the Bush White House had sought and accepted the express written legal justifications, which first classified Al Qaida captives as 'unlawful combatants', thus offering an opinion promoting a sidestepping of certain articles of the Geneva Conventions (“GC” I through IV) and other treaties, such as the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). Doing so allowed for their desired second step, the legal effect of which was to justify how these non-soldier fighters may be tortured. Once this process was achieved, under Bush and Cheney, it became a simple step to the implementation of proper Torture protocols.

The Bush misAdministration's legal memoranda on Torture, which circulated between the White House, the Defense and State Departments for approval (and perhaps shared with our British allies?), positioning these captives as unlawful combatants, or 'non–POWs', ostensibly provided the semblance of legal legitimacy. The US Government implemented them against captured Al Qaida fighters, Taliban adherents, Iraqi defenders or... simply incautious neighbors who found they'd been sold out for US bounty money.

Thus the Wars were the genesis of Bush's approval of Guantanamo as a site used for Torture.

Restating our conclusion seems legitimate: when a State takes express acts to venture abroad from its borders, and rains war down upon another State, without broad international support, it has taken the criminal act described above, an outlaw aggression, an unlawful invasion, and conscious implementation of this international incident creates, per se, a duty to protect captured POWs under the most legitimate regime possible.

Christians would call this applying the Golden Rule: 'do unto others as you would they do unto you...'

States whose military adventures fall within the scope and ambit of International law, are already bound (as signatory or ratified States of the GCs or CAT) to provide high standards of prisoner treatment: the simple fact of illegitimacy in State action should automatically trigger compensatory mitigations whenever possible. Prisoner treatment to the norms prescribed under the Geneva Convention would be evidence of such mitigation, and perhaps allow some necessary balance: “we may have acted rashly, but we grant our POWs all guarantees provided by the GCs”.

For whatever justifications unimaginable, the Bush misAdministration chose to compound their errors, 'legally' and consciously, by conjuring heretofore unknown protections covering its descent into the heinous world of Torture. The White House, State and Defense Departments are as bound to the opinions offered by their high–level Legal officers, due to their wholehearted implementation, as they were to the banner on the aircraft carrier tower, which proclaimed 'Mission Accomplished'. They are tied to their policy choices forever, and must submit to the repercussions of History.

The Government shifted into military high gear for Iraq in the summer of 2002, and would soon attain its real goal – Republican gains in Congressional seats, in the 2002 elections – and the MSM media presented the media–darling phrase 'March to War'. During the winter, 'March to War' was superseded by Shock and Awe, offering (New! Improved!) total–testosterone terminology that helped focus US citizens' Pavlovian reaction. Shock and Awe became a major performer in the US current events vocabulary.

With war diagnosed and prescribed for Iraq, while the Afghanistan campaign continued as a somewhat abated priority, both territories received a hellish rain of American or 'Coalition' military might. The Bush–Cheney White House decided upon Guantanamo, as the right location to promote its newly–approved 'enhanced interrogation techniques'. Our President accepted, with approval of 'Guantanamo', to have an 'American facility' that was neither 'in America' nor (its opinion) constituted 'territory' for habeas corpus situations, until rulings from the Bush–friendly Supreme Court overturned a good part of their desired activities.

Rumsfeld's famous comments could be evidence of the superficiality of Bush era concerns. He responded to one memo regarding torture techniques, with a written note on the margins (paraphrased from memory): “why [do we] only [force prisoners to remain standing for] four hours? I'm standing eight to twelve hours per day in my office!”

If Bush's causus belli action in Iraq (rubber–stamped pro forma by Republican majorities in Congress) had been in the context for an aggressive action that carried unequivocal UN Sec Council approval, their duty to uphold POWs' international law rights would have been penultimate and unquestioned. Failure to attain Security Council approvals cannot justify implementing lowered standards for POWs in any militarily–controlled correctional institution sequestering foreign nationals. In a country that is defending against the US military under orders from the Commander–in–Chief, its nationals deserve no lesser treatment as a result of the Aggressors' subjective decisions.

Whether the Bush misAdministration failed its duty to uphold International law, in authorizing and undertaking acts of Torture directed against captured Al Qaida operatives, as well as Afghani and Iraqi nationals requires investigation. Bush, as Commander–in–Chief, requested, inspired, received and accepted these legal arguments for Torture, then approved them for widespread implementation. Medical officers that witnessed and offered medical support surely violated their oaths as medical doctors.

It should also be noted, that there is no clear record showing which (or what percent) of the 'captives' held at American facilities, nor at the 'secret sites' that received 'rendition flight' travellers, actually were 'unlawful combatants'. One could presume that captured Iraqi Army members retain 'lawful combatant' status and thus the protections of the GC while in detention.

The outrageous nature and legitimation of unlimited monstrous acts of Torture inflames any real sense of Morality around the world. Robert Jackson, or Henry King, Jr. devoted their best years, as Americans at Nuremberg – creating through International law (the Nuremberg's London Charter is validly called the precursor to many following Human Rights documents) a new world which would vow to prevent any similar heinous inhuman acts in the future – these two Americans would likely disbelieve that it would only take some sixty–odd years for their own country to cross openly that wicked line.

Should America question how, and why former President Bush determined that his 'wars', the most expensive drain of national governmental (read: taxpayer) capital in the World's history, need not comport under International law?

– Maybe not.

Should America inquire or investigate the whys and hows of former President Bush's determination that his 'wars' necessitated redrafting all legitimate human progress in International law as to the classification and treatment of certain novel classes of prisoners (away from the Nazi era), including orders passed through the chain of command from the legal Advisers and supervisory Medical personnel, to the line officers, 'civilian interrogators' and guard staff (field doctors as well)?

– Yes.

Torturing prisoners, no matter their legal status, by Americans for America, was ideologically and politically driven, as much so as were the early Nazi actions.

It defied logic.

It defied US supreme law.

It shocked the world.

It proved itself unreliable.

Yet did it 'break' the terrorists?

We may know next week if American Torture actually had any success, or what ratio higher than 0.1 – 2pc (our estimated range, goes from one per thousand torture–sessions, to maybe two 'actionable items of intelligence' per hundred). The Obama administration appears to be debating whether to release certain other reports that may prove Dick Cheney's recent claims to be true, or simple, contrived bullshit.

Obama announced this week that thousands of horrible US–sponsored Torture photos would not be published. Given the fragile state of the Muslim world today, such a decision is sure to remain a grave disappointment to a significant portion of his supporters, and yet geopolitical or Realpolitik reactions to such disclosures must be carefully weighed: delaying release is not denying release, yet.

If the reports to which Cheney alluded on several occasions are fabricated, self–serving hogwash, what effect would their disclosure have towards elevating public ire to the boiling point? Releasing them, if they actually were to prove that Cheney was bluffing, might revitalize the outrage against the previous Republican regime's 'Teflon–style' elusiveness from accountability.

Senator Christopher Dodd's comments on the Nuremberg–Guantanamo dichotomy facing America's soul today, appearing in the article in Der Spiegel last week, offer a stark contrast. Der Spiegel analysed America's current reflective moment as to this defining stain of Torture, to the Vietnam and Watergate eras (and Robert Jackson's history prosecuting the Nazis). To return to the moral alternative, and restore our country's historic role, extinguished under Bush, may require vast investigations.

Although those two cataclysmic events in the Seventies found resolution under the Republican administrations of the time, it's certainly different for Obama. Nixon resigned due to bipartisan support building for articles of Impeachment relating to the Watergate cover–up (and lying to Congress about bombing Cambodia!), and during Ford's year–and–some presidency, the Vietnam war came to a bitter end (bitter to the proponents as well as the protesters): Carter's presidency simply renewed America's commitment to Human Rights.

For Obama to find the path leading to the end of both Bush wars is entirely another prospect. Solving the nexus between Afghanistan, Iraq and Torture requires a profound, yet relatively simple, systemic examination of the former misAdministration's actions and responsibilities.

Would further 'Torture memoranda' revelations reveal any 'incidents' that might rival that created by Nixon's claim that Rosemarie Wood's accidentally erased an '18–minute gap' in his complicated efficient taping system?

When events took Nixon down, he was still President. His resignation, then pardon, effaced Watergate from a country's injured psyche.

America has never prosecuted after leaving office, a former President, nor Vice President, nor Cabinet level Secretaries, nor their legal Advisers, in a matter with such grave implications. If investigations begin with the Bush–Cheney Legal Advisers, who are able, if radical attorneys, they will surely subpoena any superiors who had requisitioned the fruits of their legal, and ideological thinking processes, and acted upon their advice. The voices of the most rabid of Neoconservative pungent pundits, who foist off their ideological persuasion as voices of reason, are without legitimate persuasion, and hardly bear recognition, for their displayed lack of moral values.

We would hope that there exists a prosecutor who could rise to the occasion, in the face of a domestic crisis as shocking as were Vietnam, or Watergate.

In the face of continuing international moral outrage against the bellicose words, and sins of the two wars that Bush–Cheney initiated, America should provide, as Robert Jackson and Henry King once did in the name of American Democracy, Moral Clarity and the Rule of Law, by investigating and repudiating the stains of Bush's approval of torture.

Sins? From Afghanistan (legitimized by NATO and the UN, rendered outrageous by the Tortures), to Iraq (Abu Ghraib, Tortures and irresponsibility in post–invasion Occupancy), America's leaders took commercial (Oil) and political (increased electoral Republican majorities) self–interests to heart, while abandoning our national (citizens) interests.

And Bush?

He at least should be found guilty of numerous 'Crimes against the Presidency'.

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Tribute to Henry T. King and more against Torture

2009-05-13T16:17:00.008+02:00

Before returning to the continuing topic of American Democracy, Moral Clarity, and Torture, a sad yet surprising news–bite came our way this morning. Last Friday, crystelZENmud published a post entitled Moral Clarity of Torture... which contained a quotation regarding Robert H Jackson, spoken by Henry T. King, Jr. in 2003.

Mr. King died last Saturday, the following day: 9 May 2009, attaining the same beautiful age as our revered ZEN mother... 89 tours of the Sun. Now the marvelling exists, since we do not buy the International Herald Tribune (IHT) every day, nor do we always read its obituaries. But the stars are aligning themselves.

Henry T. King Jr. was one of 200 Nuremberg trial prosecutors (age 26 when he began) and eventually became a senior advisor of the Robert H. Jackson Center in New York state. The NY Times Obituary on King appeared today in Wednesday's IHT. King was (according to John Q. Barrett, professor at St. John's University): “... one of a handful of uniquely credible veterans in his field, one of the last 'voices' of Nuremberg.”

We express sincere regrets to his surviving friends and loved ones, and marvel that this tiny blog could have 'discovered' Mr. King in time to publish a discussion on torture during his last complete day of life.

King, along with former Nuremberg colleagues Whitney Harris and Benjamin Ferenez (who are both still alive) combined “forces to help shape the creation of the International Criminal Court”. As the draft of the ICC Statute progressed in Rome, it contained articles citing 'war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide'. The three surviving prosecutors of Nuremberg committed to lobbying the international array of Delegations for the inclusion of 'wars of aggression' in the Statute, which became a part of this formidable treaty against international lawlessness.

As may be remembered, the negotiated ICC Statute was not signed by President Clinton, the US Congress being against (as Republicans) it. Thus that Treaty never came before the Senate for ratification, and some have no illusions why President Bush was content to avoid committing his misAdministration to upholding long–standing international (moral) law.

In Henry King's own words:

“As I walked to the courthouse for the first time (NYT: “... [amid] the rubble of bombed out buildings and people begging for food”), I said I'm going to dedicate my life to the prevention of this.”

Evidently Mr. King, who worked so long to aid the Center named after former Associate Supreme Court Justice Jackson, was unable to persuade GW Bush, Dick Cheney and others of the need to eliminate wars of aggression and the accoutrements that pass with such heinous acts.

To this end, crystelZENmud awards Mr. King its second Global Peace Award.

Sidebar: On 12 May 2009, alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk was deported and flown to Munich Germany; perhaps the last case of a living Nazi being tried for the crimes of his youth. There exists no statute of limitations on Crimes of War, or Crimes against Humanity: he is apparently facing some Twenty Nine THOUSAND counts of homicide...

The two prior crystelZENmud posts (Pungent Pundits, and Moral Clarity of Torture) first decried to the Conservative 'voice' that alarmingly regards the revelation of official Bush–era acts (memoranda offering purported legal support for US torture procedures), when those media voices fully supported those in every way (radio personality Rush Limbaugh repeatedly compared torture to 'fraternity pranks'). Secondly, we wrote on how the USA had developed a historic voice for 'moral clarity' through the legal process developed in response to the fall of Nazi Germany, throughout 1945, which produced the London Charter, the Nuremberg Trials, and from those, the foundations of modern Human Rights law. A great portion of these were the result of one legal mind: Robert H Jackson, US Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

The continuing question is whether (or to what extent) the rationales that propagandized torture through the more agitated set of extremist, Right wing commentators provoked perceptions of an alarmingly large number of Americans to change 180° towards supporting torture? Answering the question must take into account any future investigations of these acts. They simply call into question America's perceived role as a champion of Human Rights advancement.

In simple words (adapted from the recent article in Der Spiegel online):

Have we forsaken Nuremberg for Guantanamo?

Have we replaced Nuremberg with Guantanamo?

The United States may be the only country now on Earth in which people actually smile when talking about Torture, with an alarming number of citizens who see it as a 'good thing', where most other countries' citizens are silent–to–fearful of being seen or heard discussing such a heinous, secret State issue. And certain polls show nearly fifty–percent support for the 'unholy arts', aka 'enhanced interrogation techniques'. Availing upon one's moral compass, the situation at hand seems so far away from the theories that formerly held the USA as equals, with countries such as post–war Germany, England or France, as modern–day champions of Human Rights.

In seeking guidance from notes in the archives our Twentieth Century Schizoid War Era, so many quotations appear to be designed expressly for our times, this current debate. They ring with the clarity of a just cause, and they beg for reinsertion into our modern inquest. Some are thoughts on the universal origins of conflicts, which is where we begin.

Compare George Orwell's statement...

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”

With this Nuremberg opening statement quote from American Chief Prosecutor Robert H Jackson:

“Terrorism was the chief instrument for securing the cohesion of the German people in war purposes.”

The reader might be wondering whether we have forgotten, at ZEN Central, the 'terror' that reigned down upon the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and a flight that crashed into the Pennsylvanian countryside... nothing could be further from the truth. But certainly if 'methods' were once used, insidious people can learn them, and implement them again. It remains to 'the People' to be aware, to react and renounce those methodologies.

But we are not against reminding the readers, that American planes (American, USAir and United) were hijacked by made–in–America 'hijackers' (most of the 'pilots' were trained at Florida flight schools, some with historic ties to CIA flight training programs), who had made their way through American airport security, which was designed by Americans, staffed by Americans as a least–cost model, financed by American companies in the air transport business. The ghastly events were so vividly broadcast in endless repetition in such a short span of days that they remain indelibly seared into the minds of the entirety of the American psyche, and a good portion of the Western world as well.

A stark event, producing a violent series of official reactions as a result of that strange day. Were the terrorist acts exploited (in the benign sense of the word) by an American Presidency whose remarkable commitment to aggression in that part of the world was coincidentally implemented prior to Bush's Inauguration (per Richard Clark)? Neoconservatives had advocated a 'sea–change' in American Foreign Affairs since the latter half of the 1990s, and had written that this could hardly occur without a 'Pearl Harbor' style event. They literally 'wished for' some cataclysm that would allow their ideology to take a more centrist role in America. We watched it happen.

Can we not say that Jackson's words (above) fulfil the contemporary situation? The 'American cohesion' was strongest between 2001 and 2002, while we looked for Bin Laden's 'Team Terrorism' throughout the ranges of Afghanistan: America wanted him 'Dead or Alive', in the very words of GW Bush, until coincidental failure to do so had Bush stating that he 'really wasn't concerned' (about catching ObL).

Consider the relevance from yet another Jackson quote, from his Opening Statement against the Nazi Defendants:

“Propaganda organs, on a scale never before known, stimulated the Party and Party formation with a permanent enthusiasm and abandon such as we, democratic people, can work up only for a few days before a general election.”

Whether or not readers have strong opinions regarding the current status of US mass media news as being 'balanced, and fair', it is hard to argue with the connotation that investigative journalism has changed, in the course of the last 15 years or so. 'Take it for granted' seems to be the modus operandi of today's 'newscaster': she or he rarely comes in on a political story with the kicker: '... and then we went to check the Government's statement(s) for ourselves; this is what we found'.

The timeless sense of Jackson comes through again, when thinking of our current culture's debate over torture:

“International law, natural law, German law, any law at all was to these (Nazi) men simply a propaganda device to be invoked when it helped and to be ignored when it would condemn what they wanted to do.”

From the Bush misAdministration, we know and cannot deny (if one is a supporter), that the regime argued fervently against application of the Geneva Convention against the Al Qaida/Taliban fighters, using as its basis the fact that the 'combatants' were 'unlawful', ie.: they are not the armed forces of an opposing state, but a transnational band of 'terrorist brigades' with classically–integrated cell hierarchies, thus the protections afforded to 'combatants' should not be extended.

This is the very issue facing those whose wholehearted support for the Neoconservative 'mission' precluded retention of our 'moral clarity' in the face of the overwhelming realities of a post–Nine–Eleven world.

But one aspect that was never developed in the process that implemented the 'Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib' procedures, was the aspect of reciprocity. Even the Nazis possessed enough clarity to consider the quid pro quo aspects of upholding (or appearing to...) the Geneva Conventions.

Again, from Jackson's Closing Statement:

“The Geneva Convention would have been thrown overboard openly except that Jodl objected because he wanted the benefits of Allied observance of it while it was not being allowed to hamper the Germans in any way.”

(Alfred Jodl: Chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW: the Army) Operations Division 1938-1945)

Public debates regarding the position of American POWs that could be captured and held in either Bush–era war zone was extremely limited, and certainly had no influence on the authors of the now infamous Torture Memos. Any anecdotal reports of American POWs in either war theatre, are non–existent. Whether one should trust 'unlawful combatants' or simple natives in two occupied countries, to observe the Geneva Conventions is beside the point: being that the ratio of 'civilian victims' to 'combatant victims' is too high already, bystanders who are not judged to be 'combatants' probably are not expanding their Rules of War lexicon, prefering to use their most base motivations were they to 'stumble on' or actively capture any Coalition Forces.

Our discussion centers on these primal comparisons, via the prism of History, to compare the different eras: Moral Clarity of the USA in terms of prosecuting the unthinkable crimes directed from the heights of the Nazi war machine, with the opposing situation confronting the USA of today. What future for the USA of a post–Nine–Eleven world? We do not claim that the issue is as clear–cut today, in discussing whether there should be investigations or prosecutions of the Bush regime, as when Hitler's Generals, diplomats, bankers, propagandists and industrialists were scorching the European soil in their descent into the hell of Aryan superiority.

But one more time, Jackson comes through with a statement that survives the times, and revives a sense of how we could have chosen to maintain our Moral Clarity, yet didn't do so:

“Modern civilization puts unlimited weapons of destruction in the hands of men. It cannot tolerate so vast an area of legal irresponsibility.”

Waging wars of aggression is something theoretically illegal in International Law. Pre–emptive law, under the Bush 'Doctrine', went against the grain of the UN Charter. The 'Torture Justifications' violated several modern era accords, one being the Convention Against Torture of the 1980s. They also violated US Law, and the US Army's Rules.

Is it worse for a Human Being to condone Torture, or to subsequently condemn the logical, morally clear choice to investigate and, if judged sufficiently grave, to prosecute the actors who operated under Oath, to uphold and defend the US Constitution? One could say the latter compounds the former.

Persons who act in the name of the citizenry, do so with a responsibility to simply be responsible. Changing the rules to suit contingencies, requires heightened levels of responsibility. We know this, we are, theoretically 'Civilization'.

Thus we conclude this series of thoughts, developed through their historical context, with a composited foundation provided from Jackson's Opening Statement:

The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. (...) Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance.”

At some point, the American people shall have to acknowledge that accountability, in some form, should determine the individuals' status of responsibility, from the Commander–in–Chief and Vice President through their Cabinet staff, and subordinate legal advisers, down through the entire hierarchies: to the field staff who'd actually performed the infliction of torture; from the teams that selected victims, and the Doctor(s) that supervised the ordeal(s), to the hand pouring water on a waterboarding victim's covered, immobilized face.

Once again, arguments arise that resist comparing what happened to millions of Nazi victims, to what treatment is brought against 'terrorists' currently or formerly in US custody under the novel theory of 'unlawful combatant' status. Those who argue such, seem to be missing the fundamental points, which underscore most of Jackson's points... Those thoughts are harmoniously simple:

Aren't we supposed to be better than they: the Nazis of yesteryear?

Hasn't Civilization cultivated a better world in the last sixty years?

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Moral Clarity of Torture, tribute to R H Jackson

2009-05-08T16:11:00.004+02:00

The 8th May, 2009 ... a day to recall our moral history:

The dawn of the Twenty–First Century will be indelibly tied to the revived planetary debate over torture; a topic loudly re-echoing through the Obama Administration's recent publication of several Bush regime “Torture memoranda”. One marvels at the blasé tones and assertive stances that permeate the US mainstream media (MSM) on this subject.

Media Matters provided a list of 'Republican sound–bites' recently, which emanated in four days (late April 2009), and were timely, albeit negative responses to the Bush torture memo revelations. We wrote about those previously, describing the manipulative tactics from the foul underbelly of Republicanism. Those sound–bites promote a comparison of revealing known Bush misAdministration war crimes, to the USA's turning thereupon into a 'Banana Republic'. Far be it for anyone to remind those several announcers, and their wannabe–dittohead audiences, that Bush's regime had been compared to Banana Republican leaders long before similar language hit Obama's Presidency. Moreover, the attacks on Bush came through an international press, precisely due to his deprecation of Human Rights.

Take one sound–bite example, from the former malignant 'Brain of the White House' himself – Karl Rove (April 21):

“... what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses, and what we're gonna (sic) do is prosecute systematically the previous administration or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration based on policy differences.”

'You see', implies Rove: 'torture? It's merely a 'policy difference'...'

Comparable to policy differences about tax cuts for the wealthiest 1pc of Americans? And why use the word 'systematically'? These incidents seem quite specific. A nuance lost in Rove's Republican fog...

Although some became hysterical due to these 'revelations', whether as protectionists of the 'Loud Right' or from the 'Liberally outraged Left', debates on the pros and cons become sidesteps themselves away from the truth. And sidestepping the truth becomes sticky: the issue becomes whether the USA under GW Bush had given away its sixty–four year semblance of moral authority, and if so, whether it perhaps will not be able to recuperate this for an entire generation to come?

The Iraq of today will have to evolve into the 'Vietnam as seen today', before Americans lose their intimate relationship to the acts taken under Bush, in their names. American media, being more than the 'nightly news', offers shows like “24” or “NCIS” that inundate viewers' brains, with an inculcated banality towards an abhorrent subject, through its treatment of always–vanquished fictional terrorists by the very well–scripted heroes.

Sixty–four years ago today, 8 April 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered.

The international web site of der Spiegel, one of Germany's flagship periodicals, has historic moral authority to add to the conversation regarding Torture that rages within America. In its on–line article “Torturing for America”, der Spiegel quotes Senator Christopher Dodd's poignant thought:

“... for 60 years, a single word has best captured America's moral authority and commitment to justice: Nuremberg.”

“... what we risk today is that future generations will look back at this time (...) and be able to capture the loss of America's moral authority and commitment to [battling] injustice also with a single word: Guantanamo.” (emphasis added)

Der Spiegel provides an outside–in view that is succinct, and chilling: “His [Obama's] decision puts the US to the kind of test it has not seen since Vietnam or Watergate.”

It refers to the ongoing question of 'consequences'. Consequences for ordering, consequences for justifying, for aiding, and administering heinous treatment of alleged 'terrorist' prisoners. However, neither Vietnam nor Watergate was impugned against Jimmy Carter, the Democratic President whose Bicentennial election closed most of the doors to those painful years.

Life predictably produces consequences to almost every action: some intended, some unforeseen. Unintended consequences range from innocent errors (left the milk out overnight) to stupid ones (an email reply to 'all' rather than 'sender') to the ghastly (offering legal 'authority' for torture, based on catastrophic events). Even actions that were undertaken through guise of legal justifications provided may provoke unintended consequences.

Sidebar: in how many days or weeks, and under whose authority, was the palatable media–phrase 'enhanced interrogation techniques' incubated?

Sen. Dodd's father worked with Robert Jackson, our Chief Prosecutor at the post–World War II Nuremberg trials. A Supreme Court Associate Justice since 1941, Jackson was on a Court leave of absence, by President Truman's appointment, to lead both the Allied negotiations that produced the post–Nazi Nuremberg Trial prosecution modus operandi, and the trials themselves.

Jackson waxed eloquent, regarding the morality of the Allies' prosecution against alleged Nazi war criminals (as noted by der Spiegel) from Germany's military and commercial elites: “... the speech he gave was so powerful that it reduced his audience to tears. Never before had an American spoken as beautifully as Jackson”.

(Photo credit to Roy D'Addraio, official Nuremberg War Trial pohotographer: thanks to the Robert H. Jackson Institute)

Segments of his speech(-es) include:

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

Consider:

“That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”

And:

“We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow.”

Comparing the words of Jackson to those of Dodd, is to be offered a moral balance between generations: the Greatest Generation of yesteryear's Century, versus the Greediest of today.

Or are we the most Fearful? Some afraid of 'terrorists', others afraid of what America became?

Now there is certainly a dichotomy in regarding the Nuremberg Nazi trials.

Summary: the Nazis themselves were fairly judged and harshly sentenced, and similar treatment went to the Captains of German Industry, whose trials were on grounds of using Jews as slave labour, funding the Nazi War effort, or providing its deadly materiel.

Yet, the most important Industrialists' sentences were, to a great degree, abrogated by practical political decisions. German businessmen found their ten to twenty–year sentences reduced to a light fraction: a significant group were back at their desks within two years. These special commutations were deemed vital to the reconstruction of the ravaged German economy, by American commercial partners and Establishment representatives. One such was John Jay McCloy, our High Commissioner for Occupied Germany, who oversaw the German transition from Occupied defeated State to the fledgling government of West Germany.

It seems now, that these decisions by McCloy were a repayment to Power, of the 'tribute Power [had] paid to Reason' (Jackson). Interestingly, der Spiegel reminds us that today's wheels of justice are turning in a similar–to–Nuremberg fashion:

“Lawsuits that victims of torture are now filing against the government's facilitators in private industry suggest the broad extent to which the nation is burdened with the stench of torture. Even the aircraft manufacturer Boeing has been sued for damages, because a Boeing subsidiary allegedly arranged flights to the CIA's so-called “black sites”.”

Are we surprised that Boeing's subsidiary apparently did not seek a legal opinion, internally or from an outside counsel, for risk assessments regarding potential corporate liability for 'the stench of torture', through its arranging of 'rendition' flights bringing 'terrorists' to 'black sites'?

From the heights of Nuremberg to the stench of Guantanamo; from the Rationalists Jackson and Dodd to the Neo–conservatives Rove et al, we find ourselves trapped in a moral balance, due to previously–decried amoral acts. Those Republicans who find themselves 'appreciating the excellent intelligence provided' by Bush–American torture activities, as determined merely by media sound–bites, negate their allegiance to their Greatest President, Ronald Reagan. As President in the Eighties, he himself was the American President that signed the Convention Against Torture, in the 1980s.

It provides eloquent precise statements regarding State involvement, beginning with Article Two:

Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

As to Article 2.1: the USA had all these, prior to Bush;

As to Article 2.2: the USA, with some glaring CIA–proffered

exceptions, respected these prior to Bush;

As to Article 2.3: the USA respected this, prior to Bush.

Proponents of torture appear to have adopted the multi–generational Israeli–Palestinian argument that lies at the root of those peoples' historical situation: “... but look what they did to us!”.

Proponents offer justifications (against the clear mandate of CAT Article 2.3) because these ghastly procedures were implemented through express legal authorization provided by specific US Justice Department and White House attorneys (the 'Memos'). Those acts themselves, of creating legal justifications, are probably prosecutable under applicable US laws, or under CAT Article 2.2: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency...”.

Military people currently use a phrase that has expanded into the general public: 'He's got my back'.

The American proponents of torture must remember 'who's got their back':

Iran, China, Syria, North Korea, Mexico (?), Israel and other radical or eccentric States (as well as America's fictitious “24”, “NCIS”, etc), and two or three well–known Islamic groups.

American opponents of torture may be prouder of the host of organs, States, NGOs, or IGOs that 'have their back': International Law and Treaties, the great majority of OECD States, the United Nations, American Law and Robert Jackson. If Jackson were with us today, would his eloquence wax against neo–proponents of torture? Would his words now echo these?

“How could we ever have forgotten our Nuremberg–era clarity? That the torture which we inflict on these prisoners today is the record on which history will judge us through many tomorrows? What subjugation has Power exacted from Reason?”

+ + + + + + + + +

Obama is inundated with problems that reverberate out of his predecessor's regime. He has access to information now, as President, that he may not have held in the early days of his campaign. Yet der Spiegel reminds us today, that the problems that most divided our recent, pre–Internet United States – Vietnam and Watergate – share moral grounds with the decisions regarding prosecutable offenses arising from Bush's Torture regime. One situation that preceded his entry into office, is Speaker of the House Pelosi's pronouncement that 'impeachment [of Bush] is off the table'.

At cZm, we believe that this Democratic decision was politically generated: it would have played into Republican hands during the earliest stages of the 2008 campaign. The biased MSM would have had a field–day in describing the Democratic Party's 'persecution obsessions'. Multiple 'trials' of multiple defendants would have sapped great portions of Congress's time. This analysis does not tackle how the Constitutional role of Congress, to protect the Country against Executive 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors', had been subjugated in order to 'win elections' rather than attaining a status of being the moral Constitutional Branch of Government.

Obama should assess wholeheartedly, how this Torture legacy will sap his moral clarity, more than to worry about 'opening wounds' through necessary investigations, indictments and trials. It was America's emerging moral clarity (through years of released evidence and protest) that ended the Vietnam War, nearly simultaneously with Nixon's bipartisan–forced resignation. Yet times have changed: the Bush misAdministration was supported throughout its distortion of America's normal moral clarity by the co–dependant right–wing press and radio, as well as its elected Party members in Congress.

Dick Cheney now responds with a call for the release of the 'memoranda' that outline the 'information gains' from Torture. Doing so, to him, would prove the utility of these reprehensible acts taken in the name of American people: this raises many questions. Would their authenticity be unquestionable? Would those reveal any more substantive content than did the famous 2002 Powell presentation to the UN? Would they prove that America received one accurate, beneficial, actionable item of information, for what ratio of hundred(s) of torture sessions, or victims? How many thousands of man–days have been accumulated by Guantanamo inmates, for what real end?

The saddest part of all this, is how Republicans saw value in supporting Government–authorized violence against Guantanamo prisoners as a means to support GOP re–election efforts, perhaps more so in the negative: 'candidates against torture', became vulnerable media victims to 'Soft On Terror!' attacks.

We should be thankful, perhaps, that the US Military has miraculously avoided (apparently...) any sizeable POW situations in Iraq or Afghanistan. Because no one – proponent or opponent of torture – wants to think of how 'our boys' would be treated by Sunni, Shi'ia or Al Qaida 'guards' who have cousins in Guantanamo... or in US secret prisons scattered elsewhere.

Guantanamo? Or Torture? Or Abu Ghraib? These certainly contend for places in the top–Five of single–noun legacies ascribable, purely and justifiably, to George Walker Bush. And we should pray to all gods that Jackson was wrong: “... that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

Yes, other nations torture(d); yes, other nations pursued genocides; yes, other nations have been prosecuted for war crimes.

But they aren't the United States...

If President Obama wants the preceding sentence to promote renewed esteem for America, he should resist sustaining any of Bush's legacies; doing so may morph them into his own.

Henry T. King spoke of Jackson's Nuremberg legacy at the Chautauqua Institute, in June of 2003:

“The more significant, and more dramatic, consequence of Nuremberg is personal rather than legal. The trials altered the way that individuals perceive their status.”

Are we merely to insert the word 'Guantanamo'?

Is the resulting phrase spine–chilling to You?

Commemorating Robert Jackson,

American Moral Authority, and the

Day of Nazi Surrender...

As it was it can be again.

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

TV and Radio: the Pungent Pundits

2009-04-28T16:30:00.007+02:00

Have you all read about the 'Banana Republic'–type sound-bites, that the remnants of the rabid–Right were shrieking about that all weekend?

Don't believe me? Go read the Top 10 Conservative Idiots (April 27) at Democraticunderground. (Under Point #2)

It's funny to watch how the Right treats a singular sound–bite like a caterwauling ping–pong ball, bouncing it back and forth between each other just as fast as the average brainwashing victim can absorb it... (Some ZEN questions follow the quotes...); enjoy a recent four–day spew–spree:

Starting with:

Radio host Bill Cunningham (April 21):

(NB: while producing this post, the links to Media Matters would not work; maintenance? Hacking?):

“Well, we shouldn't criminalize legal advice ... It makes us look ... like a banana republic, where each succeeding administration looks backwards.”

and same day service:

Karl Rove (naturally: also on April 21):

“... what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses, and what we're gonna do is prosecute systematically the previous administration or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration based on policy differences.”

and overnight:

Sean Hannity (April 22):

“All I hear is a bunch of mealy-mouthed complaining about how this prosecution threat is unprecedented and we don't need to investigate past administrations like they do in, you know, these Third World, you know, dictatorships...”

same–day service:

Sen. Arlen Specter (again: April 22):

“If there is evidence of criminality, then the Attorney General has the full authority and should prosecute it. But going after the prior administration sounds like something they do in Latin America in banana republics.”

by the way(side)? Or by the wave:

Radio host Mark Steyn (April 23):

“In banana republics, this week's president for life takes over, and he decides that all the fellows that supported last week's president for life are now criminals, and he prosecutes them. And that's what -- that's what the Obama administration has done.”

of course, not to forget:

TV pungent pundit Glenn Beck (April 23):

“Your principles as the president of the United States needs to be, we don't make ourselves into a banana republic.”

could you believe we're not finished (?):

Sen. Kit Bond (same day! April 23):

“This whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a banana republic than the United States of America.”

and of course, the Man himself:

Sen. John McCain (April 24):

“It adds fuel to the fire for demands for criminalizing the legal advice that the president was given. We set that kind of precedent, we're no better than a banana republic.”

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Now the questions ZEN would ask, may be quite complicated...

Here we go: Cunningham appears to be the first to mention these two 'bites' that recur throughout these quotes, whether in 'the sense of' or 'literally'...

Those bites are 'criminalize(-d, -ing) legal advice' and 'Banana Republic'... and we realize that they refer to the Obama Administration discussing the results of the disclosed 'torture memos', and their authors.

Reference is certainly towards the Obama Administration taking a look at whether these are indictable offences, against Yoo, Bybee, Feith and others (without mentioning the just provocation brought about by the Spanish Judge's discussions of whether to bring cases against the above–named personnel).

So are the Right's pungent pundits *coincidentally* following Rove, and simply 'regurgitating' the sound–bite du jour? OR are they doing their active duty to share in the brainwashing of their followers, that rabid but vocal minority of non–realist Rightwingers, whose basis for tainted thought are that the country is going downhill 'today' because of a President in office for less than four months? (100 days on Wednesday!)

So, would readers agree (?): we're looking at a 24/4 news–cycle (four days) in which the American people heard the Rabid Right railing against Obama, and denoting a comparison to a 'Banana Republic'.

Does anyone else see signs of latent racism in the word chosen, itself?

'Banana'... jungle? Monkeys?... (prepare yourself for the logical endpoint) ...'jungle bunnies'? ju–ju–just wonderin'...

Now moving into even more obvious things: if all the information being released now, was 'classified' during the Bush misAdministration, and it equates with illegal activities, is there some sacrosanct reason that it shouldn't be investigated? Like 'we're Republicans so we're above the law?'

Why did Rove (above) use the 'future tense', that is: a compound verb combining whatever with 'going to'?

When we began to torture in 2001 and 2002 (concurrent with the memoranda in discussion, and before), based on those memos (reportedly even prior), Bush even went on the record to say:

“The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.”

Now don't get riled up when seeing the word 'hypocritical' again, in one of my diatribes against America's 'Worst President Ever'.

Because, given any knowledge of International Public Law, once we descend to the level of a torturing–country, we enter the realms of the Banana Republics: of Latin America, Africa or Asia (Central Europe to a much lesser degree), not to mention the Middle East. So with Rove putting this comparison into a future tense, it smacks of the US Media putting out its own 'influence' to 'shape' affairs (read: American opinions) to come. Or do the millions of ZEN readers (cough...) have another idea?

Continuing:

Go back up and look at Steyn's comment... We'll wait. Here's the ZEN thought: a 'benefactor' may take over in a Developing Country, just as easily as could a 'despot'. Sometimes, as Steyn said, it's just a junta, like when Saddam Hussein took over Iraq as a Colonel in the Iraqi Army... sometimes it's a better regime coming in, whether we 'sponsored' that takeover or otherwise. So if they find evidence of criminal acts, should they not prosecute? (meaning in those DevCountries, or there in the USA?)

And on purely intellectual terms: if 'criminalizing legal advice' is different from 'providing criminal legal advice' what would one think makes it different?

IOW: If ZEN give someone 'legal advice' (which itself would be illegal per se, as I am not a Member of the Bar...) in how to rip off the State of Colorado in some land transaction, and that person acted through the 'justification' ZEN offered, do readers think the State has no right to prosecute the actor, because in fact what they did, based on our 'advice', was in fact illegal?

(Hint: that person would probably call in 'their advisor' (Zm) on a counter–claim)

Realizing that America is now over 70pc in favor of the Obama tide, the number or percentage of Americans who still place their 'faith' (certainly not their LOGIC) in any of the above Pungent Pundit losers, is perpetually shrinking. (NB: will Phil Gramm ever 'rise again'...?)

If readers still need yet another analogy, maybe we can agree on this one: the President of the USA, and his Vice President, get 'legal advice' that it's really no problem if the President takes an American Flag and drops it into a mud puddle.

The entire country is divided on the issue of whether 'flag-mudding' is illegal or not. Turns out that it is illegal. Totally illegal. Boy Scouts know this; Brownies know it; the Marines know it. But the President has 'legal advice' that the act is legal. 49pc of the Congress calls for an investigation. The Majority Party refuses (as they are the same party as the President).

Is it 'wrong' for the newly Elected President to prosecute any known crime that is not outside the 'Statute of Limitations'???

Thus: is America to be a State governed under the Rule of Law, or do minority Pungent Pundits have a supernatural force that dictates that they alone know how the country should be reacting to the evil stench of evidence regarding Torture promulgated by the RepubliCANT Party?

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Letter to the President: TWO

2009-04-17T00:28:00.011+02:00

Hello Mr. Obama,

This posted memo to your desk will be short. And fun!...

Why hasn't Elizabeth Warren been offered the Top Job at Treasury already? As strong a choice as she was for the oversight role on TARP, couldn't she do more for you, and us?

The woman who is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School can make Jon Stewart compliment her for providing 'financial chicken soup' to the nation, is certainly one who understands what's going in, and coming out, of the TARP and PPIP and general shenanigans that are creating the sour taste in the collective 'mouth of America'.

What these three segments of the Jon Stewart show... (you may want to open int a 'new window'!)...

First, Mr President, your daughters may want to come back after you send them away from watching the Intro!

Part 1:

Part 2

The woman is 'America as Apple pie, exudes confidence, understands bankruptcy, and who states 'Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell'

Hell's Bells, Mr. President, she can save our system, by reminding those who merit failing to do so! Don't wait another week: I know Tim Geithner would be just as happy to have someone further away from the sources of the problem to make the cake that needs to be baked.

Do it soon, or do it sooner?

Oh, one last comment: does the US government need a new website for every concept? I hope setting up sites like financial stability.gov isn't a three-month delay on the actual work being done...

Well, your hands are full, Mr. President, with assault weapons in Mexico, so Hasta luego!

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Defense spending

2009-03-04T16:05:00.003+01:00

fellow ZENers... howdy...

There's only one industry that is structured like the US Defense industry, and that IS the US Defense industry.

MEMO: to the US President (Obama)
SUBJECT: Reforming the US Defense industry

DATE: 4 March 2009

Mr. President, America may not be able to survive the perpetual growth machine that is the symbiotic US Defense budget and Defense industry, if present conditions prevail much longer.

Data shows that increasingly, moneys that could be spent on We, The People...

... are being squandered by snickering businessmen and colluding, procurement-deciding Generals (or Admirals) who have hidden their nefarious and conjointly conspired acts under the bleating sounds of 'patriotism'.

This short memorandum proposes that the President of the USA ask his Defense Secretary to outline how the various big-dollar projects currently 'in the pipeline' could be renegotiated. Such renegotiations could be modelled in a future DoD White Paper, analyzing how the pharmaceutical industry brings its products to market.

The parallels far outweigh the differences:

Long and costly development times;
Pre-release testing (hopefully without, in the case of the Defense industry, 'Collateral Damage' to citizens of Nevada, California, and elsewhere), and
COSTS absorbed afterwards for the development process, through exclusive (but not 'patented') sales.

Consider how procurement for new Air Force 'toys' is handled today... happy marketing reps shower junkets and bimbos on US Congresspeople and high Pentagon commanders, at off-shore resorts or in Las Vegas, while promising the sun and moon for a ridiculously-low price... and then the 'added costs' inflate the bills by 200 to 1000 percent.

The American People, who are trying to stay afloat in the economic mess that you inherited from Bush the Lesser and his punk Republicant collaborators, would see your assertive reallignment of this issue as a true systemic change: the American Way!

New Fighter project: prove it flies and we'll buy!

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

2009 Ski World Championships

2009-02-13T16:49:00.002+01:00

ZENers... It's been a gas gas gas, watching the FIS Ski World Championships.

Mainly because we are witness to a generational shifting: the young are on their way in!

From Switzerland, beautiful Lara Gut (as much for what her skis do, as her features...), and strong Carl Janka, are pushing forward into a limelight that perhaps the other racers are not yet ready to share...

Bode Miller on his way out, apparently...

(Personal photo of Miller at Wengen,
January 2009: C-right ZENmud productions)

With the two Slalom races to go, the big questions are combined: "Will France and Austria win at least one more medal each?"

Only the racers know...

Winter is 'groovy' on skis...

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Thoughts for a change...

2009-01-22T15:44:00.006+01:00

If this author were Tom Friedman of (amongst other things) the New York Times, he might have this thought on the transition, from the previous misAdministration to the incoming Obama years...

"The only thing we learned in the last eight years, is that Tanks and Garbage trucks cost more than Ambulances and Pickup trucks..."

And 'Tom' would go on to show us how the costs of destruction are one-dimensional, as we knew long ago from our oft-repeated quote from Dwight Eisenhower (stand by...). Bombs and bullets provide a one-time profit to their source contractors, get used, or stored, but they never 'create' positive consequences.

But the Ambulance that saves a life, as well as the pickup trucks of the plumber, carpenter or mason, are public or private expenses that benefit their source contractor, and their end users: patients and hard-working women and men.

Not being Tom Friedman, and being on the ZEN side of things, we reflect now on the nightmares of past propaganda, in comparison to the nightmares of present reality.

There is no single aspect of the outgoing misAdministration that deserves praise, and while Dick Cheney appears as healthy as Kim Jong-Il ...

Seriously: who believes that that true blue–blooded oilman Cheney has EVER boxed and hauled his own cartons from one sordid office to a new location? As an excuse for his situation, however, that excuse is as fine as any other.

He may be paying for the sins of his public career and we are not inclined to add to the weight he carries.

Do you know anyone who didn't sell their Halliburton stock? :-)

Looks to be a perfect economic analysis of the outgoing misAdministration, non?

As the war in Iraq intensified, and as the shadow-economy oil speculators drove the market to absurdly dis-economic cost levels, Halliburton rode the Republican wave to its natural cyclical end.

The world, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, the hot spots in Africa, Mexico, even in New Orleans: the world needs a year of ambulances. A world and year of blankets, simple food... clean water.

Guns or butter... Econ 101, in the simple true words of the last clean(er) Republican President (link goes to a previous crystelZENmud post):

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."(Dwight Eisenhower, during his Administration)

One sure thing, is that the weight of the misunderestimations presented by the spectacularly connived policy pronouncements of the outgoing misAdministration, have begun to be lifted from the shoulders of the peoples of the world. The dark dreams of empire-mongers give way to the weary charge laid upon Barrack Hussein Obama, and Congress, in spite of their badger-vicious minority Republican Party and its media allies.

Conservatives don't get it, perhaps. Yet to be a 'Conservative' in the USA requires soul-searching as to whether they follow a lost concept or their present reality. A new Republican Party may arise, but it would either have to be better, or worse, than that model run into the ground by Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh. Any Conservative reading this Progressive blog should seek out the writings of Ike Eisenhower, or study the waning years of Barry Goldwater, whose epiphany was "Why do I spend so much time HATING?..."

We, the People, however, should have stronger bases to create the sustainable future we've desired, as the world asks, waits, witnesses.

Those were 'Thoughts for a change'...

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

Bush A-Go-Go...

2009-01-20T13:10:00.003+01:00

I don't want to think about George W Bush.

I don't want to think about him ever again, in the same way I don't think about Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Al Capone or Jeffrey Dahmer.

Or Pol Pot, E Gordon Liddy or John Negroponte...

As the hours and minutes race off to a new beginning, here is a retrospective of some Bush photos created exclusively here at ZEN Central... From one of our favorite posts:

23 August 2007

Napoleon v Bush.... read the Juan COLE blog...

(you can click on photos as well, for links to the posts provided...)

Excerpt: And all the while we were thinking Bush was a second Hitler, joyfully authorizing torture, playing with the lives of innocent Iraqi children, and loyal, patriotic American troops and their families...

From another post, back in 2006:

From:

04 September 2006

Appeasement then, then and NOW?...

Excerpt: When Neville Chamberlain sought the hand of Adolph Hitler in 1938;
When Donald Rumsfeld sought the hand of Saddam Hussein in 1983
The first would symbolize the 'horrors' of appeasement, while the second would be conveniently forgotten...
by those who trumpet that word against opponents of the Second Bush Crusade...

29 January 2008

Your choice: statistics or spin...

The link (photo) goes to Bartcop, who provides so many friends with mirth...

you could find updated information somewhere near Henry Waxman's House Committee, we're guessing...

And we're proudest, and saddest, for having published this (Again at Bartcop) cartoon long before Bush started thumping his media-drum...

10 September 2007

CASE: the US Media v General Petraeus

Although Bush's third war was scuttled by all reasonable opinions, his desires were fanned by his fans... One can only presume that, even right wing taxpayers know when to stop feeding an addiction...

Last evening, on CANAL+, a French network similar to HBO, they spoofed Bush, showing him packing his office to vacate it today... His 'body guard/handlers', who look like Sly Stallone twins (this is a 'news show' with Puppets ('les Guignols': what they are doing against Sarkozy is priceless...)

... and anyway so as he was packing up his desk, one of the Sly-clones found a box with his helmet, from his ignoble flight to the flight deck of a US aircraft carrier: the famous 'mission accomplished' media-porn-travesty... and it held a brain in it! When they told him to put it on: WHAAACK!!!

The man could think and talk for the remaining seconds of that brief routine...

Maybe the Christian extremists can pray that Bush won't ignore his legacy... once a fuck-up, always a fuck-up.

And with that thought: Bush won't occupy time, here at ZEN Central.

It's OBAMA WORLD, from today forward... do your share.

Peace,

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

2009-01-05T15:10:00.004+01:00

A new year, a new format for crystelZENmud...

New ideas, new American President, new crises, need new eyes, and solutions that create harmony.

Zen is as ZEN does...

This post introduces a new concept, to be irregularly supported as time allows.

"Letters to Mr. President" (still "-elect" at this date...)

Other concepts are ongoing, and our long-term focus is still primordial.

Letter To Mr. President-elect (One):

Here's a thought for your attempt to bail out the Detroit auto industry, Mr. Obama:

Have your future Commerce Secretary re-invite the GM, Ford and Chrysler CEOs into a conference room, and invite them to bring with them, the (depending on which company) 5 to 20 auto designers, auto architects, auto engineers, at the most senior level, who have had the greatest number of 'eco-car' designs rejected by those CEOs.

Invite the designers/architects/engineers/forward (Team "D/A/E") , and invite them(D/A/E) to be the recipients of the funds, granted in the name of the corporation, and invite their input as to whether the CEOs should maintain their A) Jobs, B) Salaries, C) bonuses.

If you want the corporation to change, start with the right people: those employees whose careers have been frustrated through the Detroit macho-ignorance shown by their current SUV culture. Those whose designs sometimes make it to a car show, but die there after the glitz turns into a hangover!

That's Letter One, Mr. President-elect: welcome to Washington, DC.

Sincerely,

ZENmud Central

PS: to our loyal readers, merci for your waiting and input!

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

the FreeFall sensation

2008-11-21T12:40:00.005+01:00

Exactly forty-five years ago, tomorrow, the President of the United States was assassinated.

John F. Kennedy, and his memory, are many things to many people...

We small children in Minnesota, sitting in our first-grade classroom, were in tears: we were way too young to know how to 'hate liberals', why to 'hate republicans'. My ultra-loved, ultra liberal mother was devastated... My father was in shock, but it was tainted by his virulent violent Republicanism.

And the rest?

'History', with the biggest H, and the biggest Question mark since Humanity invented the English phrase 'conspiracy theorist'. Flash forward, to our modern times. One year ago, crystelZENmud wrote a post: 08

November 2007

Impeachment: power of We, the People...

While it didn't dwell on the basis for our pontification, we have long held the nagging thought that it was amazing what has happened to our country since Republicans began 'killing Democrats', since their gun-happy days in the 1960s when great social leaders were gunned down 'mysteriously' by a series of identically-bizarre, identically-Loner 'Social Outcasts' (Oswald, Sirhan, Ray, Bremer; shot respectively Kennedy, Kennedy, King and Wallace).

In the same vein, the assassination of John Lennon, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, and the behaviour of Osama bin Laden (known throughout time as 'USAMA', except in the US Media), all do share a mysterious pattern, even without delving into the facts of each case... Almost as if a group of people had hit on the perfect formula to turn some loser into a Manchurian Candidate, and then set them out on the street to do their evil work?

The corollary to this theory, is that it appeared to have evolved in the 1990s. As if someone, again, had decided that "soonaer or later, we're going to slip: we need to modernize our 'warfare'".

Well... the insanity is back... you can find ample stories in rightwing blogs about 'Obama's Birth Certificate', and laugh to your heart's fulfilment, as many rabid and barely-competent radically violent rightwing conspiracy junkies (nb: there's no 'nuance' between a 'theorist' and a 'junkie'... it's pretty Black-and-White).

The difference between someone rationally dispising or deploring the policies of a failed President Bush, and the irrationally-driven fears mongered by rightwing hate-radio and blogs, chat-sites and more, is astounding. As someone very close said: Republicans tend to be 'wrong but strong'.

Where to take this, in an era that mirrors those exuberant days of the early Sixties, before the US of A was buried in a Vietnam war that would stain it for a generation, and the rise and fall of the Woodstock nation, which 'died' as young and undeveloped as Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison and others?

Rodney King, victim of police brutality, requested that 'we all try to get along?', after his ordeal was ended with victory against the police in LA that beat him (the first 'video bystander' whistleblower case in our times).

Racism took a deep cut with the election of Barack Hussien Obama. It hasn't been since 1988, that a President received such a strong percentage over fifty percent: Papa Bush beat Michael Dukakis, and took 53.4 percent, very close to Obama's apparent 52.8 percent.

Here at ZEN Central, we are anxious to see the transition, fearing still that the legacy of Bush will taint the next generation of Oval Office occupants. Our greatest expectation, mirrors our greatest fear: that Obama can establish a road towards peace INSIDE these United States, that puts his followers in the right position to continue cleaning up the domestic and foreign tragedies that modern Republicanism has bestowed, upon us... a verifiable fiasco that will take a generation to heal... if 'McCoys versus the Hatfields'-type of relations remain between the Two Political Parties, and between America and the cultures it has sought to destroy.

Obama is limited, one chosen representative: if he acts more as a Guide, than a Leader, there's hope for your childrens' tomorrows...

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

A Day in the Life of a RepubliCULTer...

2008-10-30T15:40:00.003+01:00

aka: Nothing to Fear but Smear Itself...

This is a <SATIRIC> column: it uses descriptive language
that form the backbone of the RepubliCULT:
the author apologizes for their crude faults

I went into a restaurant last week: independently owned, clean; the food looked great. As I sat down at a table for two (yet alone), the smiling waitress came up with a cheerful, seemingly–sincere smile, offered me a menu, described the two daily specials, and said she'd be right back.

But why did she leave? After all, I'm the client, and I'm a Republican. I studied her manner, as she briskly served drinks to the couples that entered before me. They looked like your average Joe and Jane Six–pack, hard–working blue collar types... I wondered who they would be voting for.

The waitress smiled at me again, but didn't come back for my order. I started speculating whether she was married, or single, with children, or without. Not having been in this particular spot before, I now noticed her eyes seemed a bit tired: was she a double–jobber? Tough: it's a dog–eat–dog world, isn't it? Ever since I came out of college, and after Dad helped me get a job at the Brokerage, it has been almost too easy.

Finally! Claire, her name apparently (can we believe name tags these days? It seems everyone on the news is not what they appear to be... does she date a terrorist from the Sixties?), bounced in to take my order: a chef's salad with Roquefort dressing, and a Martini. I noticed the restaurant filling up, and hoped this bimbo would bring my damn food; I had accounts to contact this afternoon, and the pressure, in this turbulent bear market, was being felt even in our own Ivory tower. I was gunning for my first SIX–digit bonus, before Jimmy Carter screwed up this bull market.

Damn it! Damn her!

How long was it taking, to make a simple chef's salad? Bitch! What an amateur this waitress was... she actually started talking politics with that other table near by. Ignoring me? How dare a floozy like her talk about that nigger candidate at work? WHO does she think she is? My stomach acid was flaring, and the Martini scorched its way through my throat like bile on its way up.

What was I doing in this devil's nest? They might as well be whores, those bitches and assholes talking about Clinton's Legacy, and 'Change we can believe in'! As she brought my salad, with one of those Kneejerk Liberal smiles that make any honest taxpayer want to puke, I thought I was going to hurl my Martini across the table. I decided to eat that fuckin' salad and get the hell out of there.

I couldn't take it any more. I noticed here and there, certain clients were wearing lapel pins, with Donkeys on them. Jesus and Mary! Don't they know we are at WAR with Terrorists? How could they so blatantly dishonor our troops? My appetite was gone, but I know (much more than the rest of these scumbags) the value of a dollar, godDAMNit, so I finished my salad, and took a long look around this 'nest of Satan' for the last time...

Then, I spotted the Chef.

Was he also the owner? He looked across the room, and I could almost feel his mind analyzing the covers, how much 'average ticket per patron' and then, WOW. He has an American flag pin on his breast!

He's one of US? A true American? Look, there's actually a GW Bush bumper–sticker on the back wall of the kitchen!

The waitress appeared puzzled as she approached, and I asked for the ticket. Was I scowling? My voice too tense? Too damn transparent: that isn't good in these times. We must stay strong, stay the course, and prevent America from giving in to Communists and Socialists like that darkie. I never understand how people can actually claim GW Bush is a Socialist, when he obviously had to save our US Banks from those godless Commies that tried to destroy our banking system.

She's probably some back–water slut from the wrong side of the tracks. And then, it dawned on me.

I had a Plan! When my check came, I figured out that a tip should be about $6.00 (well, I did have three Martinis: but I am NOT an alcoholic), and I realized that I had the power to screw this trash-waitress.

Instead of leaving the tip on the table, I went towards the kitchen door. Why should I contribute my hard–earned commissions to the Enemy: a Liberal? The money ought to go the Owner: maybe he'll get me a better table next time...

“Hey, you're the owner?”

The cook smiled at me. “Nine years next week,” wiping his hands on his apron.

“Take this, it's not much but you can put it into your 'Expansion Fund', ehh?”

“Thanks, Mac! I see by your Flag–pin that you're for the Maverick.”

“That's right... and you ought to fire that bitch–waitress: she's bad for repeat business. Could try finding a Republican to fill her place...”

He laughed... “Mac, you ever seen a Republican waitress?”

“That's the pre–Trophy Bride phase, no?”

“You crack me up...”

And we shared that laugh only Republicans can understand...

Damn it's good to be a Real American! Why tip a waitress when you can possibly get better treatment by the owner, by offering him the tip money you used to give to 'The Enemy'?

A genuine protected American SATIRE... from

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___

2008-10-16T14:43:00.004+02:00

Change of colours for the fall season?

:-)

Here at crystelZENmud, aka ZEN Central, we've often thought of renaming this blog “All that my Brother doesn't See”... But it just doesn't denote that sexy star–appeal, so we haven't.

But this column is dedicated to 'that Brother' that many of us have, a brother lost in the RepubliCULT, a brother needing to be de–programmed before he becomes, yet again, and as happens every Four Years, an angry, illogical, unrealistic Manchurian Voter.

When your family must acknowledge that it has lost one of its own, into the evil tentacles of the RepubliCULT, it is often worse than if that person was an alcoholic. Being addicted to RepubliCULT–mania, is as sickening to a person's soul as if they were an alcoholic, or tobacco addict. They show signs of 'Stockholm Syndrome', the 'thrill' of seeking protection through the very powers that are keeping them hostages, mind and soul lost from Reality. Brainwashing works its evil on them, as repeated images and spoken words trap their mind to 'evidence' that isn't, 'truth' revealed as only propaganda.

Spotting RepubliCULT–mania is rather easy, although its marked presence stains the very souls of all who must deal with these irrational beings. They are easily demasked, by the plethora of sayings that are passed through the Cult, which is structured in Cell layers similar to those of Al-Qaida. From email lists, to office water coolers, to FOX NEWS, these RepubliCULT Cells transmit the 'daily sound–bite'.

How many concerned families have heard these addicts say in the last ten days: “Obama is not a bad person...”?

With a sickening feeling, you knew that they were programmed to so act, responding in locksteps to McCain's admonishment to his lagging supply of supporters 'not to kill the opponent', and 'not to fear him', if elected president.

This example is the latest and weakest of the RepubliCULT period, and it bears repeating the evolution of cultish brainwashing utterances...

“Get over it.”

This was the first of the series, vintage year Y2K, as the RepubliCULT forbade democratic election processes from working out, by utilizing the US Supreme Court to steal Florida's Electoral College votes. Gore was trying 'to steal votes', and the entire RepubliCULT movement began.

“We don't need Kyoto”

This entered the American lexicon in 2001, as Americans watched the first president in US history to 'withdraw' the US 'signature' from an internationally–ratified Treaty. “You're destroying our competitiveness!” they said... we didn't believe them. Retrospectively, the US auto industry, now on total life support, destroyed their own competitiveness by building gigantic SUV fleets, true agents of pollution and environmental destruction. Were they as much a tool of the US oil industry, as were car buyers their own tools?

“It's Clinton's fault”

A phrase that found early and steady use, in every year of the Bush presidency, to deflect ANY criticism off of the present misAdministration. Individuals that used this phrase often were deaf to any rational Truth about Bush... they couldn't dream of taking responsibility for any acts taken by Bush the Lesser (GWB aka “Bush 43”). But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

“Bomb them back to the Stone Age”

Nearly the essence of RepubliCULTism: after the horrendous failures by the Executive Branch to protect Americans from an assault on its airports, monuments and security, after 'September Eleventh', only RepubliCULTists could be blind enough to not understand that Afghanistan was truly the incongruous country, where Stone Age and SUV collided. They didn't care, that the Taleban were a construct of US ally Pakistan, designed to bring the country into a closer relationship with Pakistan, for geopolitical reasons. Any US citizen raising their voice, in righteous concern of misapplied, overwhelming US force, that any justified US attacks were well–targeted, were confronted with the above phrase, which itself spawned off our next example:

“Collateral damage”

Although first commonly used in the Persian Gulf War, that of Bush the Greater in 1990–91, the media slaked the Americans' lusty thirst for revenge, in late 2001, in sterilizing the killing of civilian babies and siblings under this Rubric of Mass Diversion.

“Axis of Evil”

An Oscar ® –worthy (apologies to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is required) bromide that Bush's handlers hacked up for the State of the Union 2002, the first in US modern history to be based in fantastic lies and false information, solely designed to ramp up the Fear, the underlying quality that Bush's programmed cyborg–like RepubliCULT base in their automaton state. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, became the Dark Hats against which pretzel–choked Cowboy George, the 'idiot son of an asshole' President, could slake his thirst for scaremongering, as happy as when he shot rabbits as a child.

“March to War”

It became an onslaught by ABCBSNBCNNFOXMSNBC in every sense, on all our senses, when the logic of attacking Al–Qaida was not producing the necessary Rovian (for Karl Rove, the Uber–mensch director of Bush's actions) political momentum. The 'Dead or Alive' bin Laden kept eluding our Army, but that became okay, they were told, because Bush told his CULT that bin Laden 'really was irrelevant'. But did the RepubliCULT flinch, at this 180° flip–flop? No: Iraq became the leading role, and the universal Mainstream Media (MSM) became agencies of propaganda, with undeniable bias presented in 24/7 media coverage, throughout the summer and fall of 2002. The Congressional elections were the Victory Bush was seeking, not any reduction in Terrorism. He achieved that: one of Bush's party's crowning achievements was the removal of Max Cleland from his seat in Georgia.

“Mushroom Cloud”

One of George's 'Aces' up his sleeve: sending Dick Cheney, the dangerous mad Vice President, and Condaleeza Rice, his gay National Security Director, onto the Sunday TV sets with constant and controlled messages of how Saddam could destroy the Eastern US seaboard, RepubliCULTists gorged on fear, and had Cell-relayed talking points to stifle rational opposition to this second War in two years.

“Mission Accomplished”

Does anything reek worse than arrogance unleashed? Bush, ever in the quest of more 'Show–Me' photo–ops, defined arrogance with his postured landing on a US aircraft carrier, after the Rumsfeld–designed Iraqi invasion had rushed into Baghdad, in an effort to surround and protect the US Government's true objective: the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. Having achieved this, in spite of all rational predictions by a broad array of US Retired and present Command Staff, Bush's supporters achieved unanimity in quashing dissension, just as Press Secretary Ari Fleischman was warning that 'certain people should watch what they say, watch what they do.' Your brother, your RepubliCULTist sibling, started telling you (or continued to...) you were Un–American, treasonous, communist, terrorist sympathizers. All that and more, while Bush actually didn't perceive his failures, and his misAdministration's failures, to accurately plan and accomplish the 'liberation' phase, while ignoring the 'Occupation' and 'counter–insurgency'.

“The War President”

Settling in for the long–term, Bush started to show the signs of how much he really hated the United States, ignoring requests to speak to Congress about the 9–11 Commission, seeking and justifying Torture, introducing the Patriot Act. Wiretapping, ENRON, California's associated electrical cost fire–storm; these were a few of Bush's favourite stings...

“Swiftboating”

Only a RepubliCULT, and its supporting Mainstream Media, could stigmatize a true US warrior through the purchased lies of numerous US veterans, paid to lie, and whose lies were widespread and repeated incessantly through the MSM. Having prolonged the Iraq war, the hidden–Saddam cave, the Jessica Lynch fantasy rescue, 2004 was a masterstroke for the the Master Deceiver, Karl Rove's vision held for the last time, as he orchestrated a rout of Rationality, defeating the lacklustre candidate John Kerry.

“Terror Alert Level Orange”

RepubliCULTists couldn't stop spinning, as each new anti–Bush statistic or factoid was countered by the Department of Homeland Security's issuance of a new 'terror threat'... and dutiful RepubliCULTists scurried like scared rats to stores that stocked Duct tape and plastic.

“Save Social Security”

As we wondered 'why the rush?', Bush's minions put Panic Mode into effect in the late summer of 2006, decrying the fatality of Social Security being able to survive in its governmentally–operated structures. It had to be privatized, instantly, now, with no national dialogue. A bold move to shift massive amounts of money into private Wall Street Fiefdoms, Bush and Rove's last gasp attempt to force an electorate to jump through the hoops and bark at the moon, was the start of the downfall of this former Super Bowl–worthy political team. (BTW: They never wanted you to know the simple solution, the solution needed once per generation. By a modest rise in the salary–ceiling (from 96K to, say: 116K) from which SS contributions were made, the funding methodology would be updated from the last time that exercise happened, in the first Reagan administration.

And your very own RepubliCULT brother, throughout these events, reminded you, being the only one of the two whose outlook was based in Reality, in Rational Logic, that you were a 'kneejerk liberal' (often emailed as KJ, or KJL), 'un–American', 'in league with the terrorists'. You were treasonous, a 'surrender monkey', who didn't have any idea how much 'they hate us for our freedoms'.

But you know that's untrue: watch any scene from Iraq, Palestine, or elsewhere, and see how they are wearing Nikes, NY Yankees shirts, listening to US rap, watching US films (although we might concede they could be rooting for 'the bad guys'...)

How did you survive these years of insanities?

Easily: you knew that the majority of the world thought as you do, and you knew that, together, we were witnessing the first openly Outlaw misAdministration in US history: a Rogue State in essence.

This inner strength of a Liberal, is the true great tradition of the United States.

The Country can survive the Big Government Spending of the RepubliCULT War President.

The Country can survive the Massive Deficits of the RepubliCULT War President.

The Country can survive the Torture of the RepubliCULT War President.

The Country can survive the Lying of the RepubliCULT War President.

The Country can survive the Legacy of the RepubliCULT War President.

But it will not be easy to reverse the damage; especially since Deregulation was highlighted in these, the last two months (barring unforeseen irregularities or further 'illegal' actions by the War President, and his RepubliCULT). There is no assurance, that the MSM won't turn against Obama the minute his Administration starts taking strides to reduce Corporate Welfare, to create balanced Foreign Policy, to boost the true economic engine of the US economy: the working classes.

Be very proud, as the Liberal you are, to be concerned for our planet's environment, our energy independence, our children, and their children's futures.

Be very proud that your Liberal forebears were those who established the mechanisms that prevented Great Depressions for eighty years, who gave women the right to vote.

Even when they vote for the RepubliCULT.

Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do..

___çç*******/ ZENmud \*******çç___