Seeing (the film) "Red): Hollywood Takes Aim at Dick Cheney

Red may just be the first in a series of films that takes aim at former Vice President Dick Cheney, though playfully done. The first layer of the plot concerns a former CIA operative, Frank Moses, who has been put on an execution list ordered by the Vice President. At a deeper level the film expresses our collective angst concerning Cheney. The film's rhizome extends into the underlying betrayal the public intuits Cheney had of the CIA. As Moses leads his former peers in a mission to "out" the VP (who allegedly engaged in atrocities in Guatemala before becoming VP), they discover the real villain behind the executions: a defense contractor. Thus, the film turns from Cheney to a second angst inspiring legacy of the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Cheney era: the rise and power of the military-industrial power, especially the recent threat of groups such as the former company called Blackwater.

The VP in the film ends up not quite so villainous as he points the finger at the defense industry. The real Dick Cheney, or so the film seems to (Lucuna) infer, remains Retired and Extremely Dangerous.

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Is the Earth Drying Up?

"Most climate models have suggested that evapotranspiration would increase with global warming...But in 1998, this significant increase in evapotranspiration - about 0.3 inches (7 millimeters) of water per year - slowed dramatically or stopped...Because the data only goes back for a few decades, the researchers say they can't be certain whether the change is part of the natural variability of climate or part of a longer-lasting global change...If that's the case, the consequences could be serious." (Learn more)

Learn more about the environment on Earth here

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Iraq Civilian Deaths tops 100,000 - Time for Repentance?

It's fairly certain that the civilian death toll in Iraq has now topped 100,000 people (here). Unfortunately, back in the US of A there isn't any sense of national mourning. Wouldn't it be the time for the nation to admit it's tragic mistake as an act of national repentance?

Learn more about current and recent Superpower wars on Earth here

The Zombie Tea Party

Not long ago Former President Clinton warned that "the Tea Party is a Corporate Front." He's probably right in the fact that it did not begin as a wild grass roots organization, sprung from the democratic soil. Instead, it started as a GMO product, spun in some dark cigar filled room as a movement designed to play on the collective White angst of a Black man as president.

Although it pretends to offer new ideas, some of it's ideological roots can be traced back to the Grinch who's been trying to steal Christmas, Newt Gingrich. Throw into the witches brew a mixture of Ayn Rand, nostalgia for Reagan, White Power, gun loving, fear of other, fundamentalist Christian (with a little Mormon thrown in) and you may come close to the brew they're serving. (Tea Party recipe for economics)

The funny thing is that they claim to be offering a new solution to the current crises facing America. In fact, it's the same old - deregulation of everything but the moral landscape.

When a company goes into Chapter 11 and stores remain open it becomes a zombie. Selling off its wares, it begins to feed on revenues from healthy stores, taking them towards bankruptcy. In the same way, the cup they are offering is bankrupt. The current global financial crises is a result of deregulation and runaway capitalist greed. Putting new clothes on a cadaver, and pumping it full of adrenaline, won't bring it back to life. It'll only turn it into a flesh eating zombie. - Beware!

Capitalism approaching a bend in the road

The BBC reports that "many governments across the 27-member bloc have imposed punishing cuts in wages, pensions and employment to deal with spiralling debts." Because of this, Europe is seeing mass protests. Learn more

Not long ago we witnessed mass uprisings of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon who were protesting oil and gas exploration of their natural homelands, resulting in the revocation of pro-corporate/anti-human land laws. "The controversial laws, passed to implement a free trade agreement with the US, were revoked by Peru's Congress by a margin of 82-12 after a five-hour debate." Learn more and click here

Coupling these two events one begins to wonder if capitalism as we have known it isn't heading towards a bend in the road? This is not to say that we are predicting a return to the old communist past. Instead, social democracy, with a strong green awareness topped by peace and justice , is most probably the next step in the planet's evolution towards global citizenship.

BTW - check out the photos comparing East Germany in 1991 and then again in 2001 (a clear demonstration of the failures of the former "communist system" and a testimony to the "Rhine" model - here

Of Israeli Settlements and Peace Flotillas

With the so-called freeze on settlements about to expire (which in fact it has been ongoing) We take our hats off to the brave individuals who are standing up to the inhumane boycott of Gaza and attempting to draw world attention to the plight by bringing in needed supplies. who will forget the 9 individuals who were killed aboard when Israeli troops attempted to commandeer their ship? (To learn more read the article "Rough Passage" about a former U.S. Marine on board the flotilla)

Today a group of Jewish activists set sail for Gaza aboard a 32 foot boat called the Irene. (Learn more) Jews for Justice for Palestinians is one of the organizers. Unfortunately, U.S. media often ignores Jewish and Palestinian peace activists and organizations. (Note: a search of both the New York Times and CNN did not bring up a story about Kenneth O'Keefe and his experiences aboard the flotilla; nor did either organization feature a news brief on the Russell Tribunal on Israel. There are a number of outlets that attempt to balance the coverage. "Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines" is one example of providing a critical slant of Israel in order to counter balance the pro-Israeli corporate media.

To begin exploring visit

Arab-Jewish Partnership (Israelis & Palestinians striving together to end the Israeli occupation and to achieve full civil equality through daily non-violent direct-action)

Learn more about Peace and Reconcilliation on Earth here

Israel and Apartheid

It shouldn't come as a shock that the Zionist state was Apartheid South Africa's biggest military supporter. A new book by Polakow-Suransky unearths much of the sordid history.

Israel's annual military exports to South Africa between 1974 and 1993 at $600 million, which made South Africa Israel's second or third largest trading partner after the United States and Britain. Military aircraft updates in the mid-1980s alone accounted for some $2 billion, according to correspondence he obtained. He puts the total military trade between the countries at well above $10 billion over the two decades. Read more here


This actually should come as no surprise. what is surprising, though, is the shock effect the book seems to be having, calling Israel's myth of a morally superior country into question. Glenn Frankel (Foreign Policy) raises the question: After all, if Israel is just another standard-issue country that conducts business with pariah states and lies about it, why should America be concerned about its fate?

In America no one would want to be caught having supported and propped up the inhumane regime. But today, because of the rampant Anti-Arabism and Islamophobia that one encounters in the West that Israel goes largely unquestioned by the mass media (and Jews and Jewish groups who question Israeli policies are ignored).