Sarah Palin "served" 963 days as Alaska's governor. It has now been 963 days since she left.
I'm not into numerology, but if you rearrange these numbers, you get 666 X 2.
Sure enough, Palin has sought to re-insinuate herself back into American political dialogue this past week. Possibly as a reaction to the premiere of the HBO movie, Game Change. Perhaps because she has some sort of a delusion that she retains the credibility to become a factor in a possibly brokered GOP 2012 National Convention.
From about 2006 to 2010, I had a niche at Garage Band's musical upload site. When MySpace bought Garage Band, I chose not to migrate all the files there, so my niche died.
I've had many requests to get more of my music up on the web than that represented at my YouTube channel.
I'm setting this site up as a blogspot blog. The architecture will allow me to post a few works of mine per week there, write about it, then classify the newly added piece into a niche on the right-hand side column. I've put one composition up there already - the May, 2010 Anchorage performance by the Anchorage Civic Orchestra of Hindu Kush. I'll be adding The Skies Are Weeping soon, as it is an important work. The ninth anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death is this Friday, so I hope to have it posted by then.
According to Invisible Children's official financial reports from last year over 68% of the money donated went towards film-making, merchandising, and salaries for organizers while the remaining 32% actually went to Uganda. They claim they support the direct action of the Ugandan Government, The Ugandan army, and Sudan People’s Liberation Army in the capture of Kony. Meanwhile the Ugandan army and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army are guilty of many of the same crimes Kony himself is being charged with. However Invisible Children defends their support of them, claiming the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, despite the fact that Kony left Uganda in 2006. So what exactly is Invisible Children Inc's motive here? It certainly isn't about saving the children.
Here's Obama's press secretary, participating in the psy-op:
The U.S. and other Western governments have propped one crazy central African dictator after another. For generations. If we wanted to "stabilize" instead of destabilize governments in these incredibly mineral-rich nations and areas, we might be able to. But no matter what Obama or Jake Carney says, this isn't about enslaved and degraded children, it is about unfettered access to other peoples' riches:
To cut a very long and complex story short, people like Joseph Kony (who, by the way, is no longer a real threat to the people of Uganda) and so many other African tin-pot dictators are the product of long-term US (CIA), British, Israeli and French interference in African nations.
Joseph Kony leads the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). In 2010, the LRA crossed into Darfur in Sudan and since then have been enjoying the protection of the Sudanese military, and Sudan's notorious president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been a longtime LRA patron. Al-Bashir is accused by the International Criminal Court of war crimes and genocide in Darfur. It should come as no surprise then that the CIA has long-standing and close ties with al-Bashir and Sudanese intelligence services.
So there you have it. The principal financier and protector of the Joseph Kony and the LRA is a genocidal dictator who is supported by the US government via the CIA. That's just one degree of separation between the CIA and the LRA. Yet the 'Kony 2012' people believe they can lobby the US government to do something about Kony and the LRA!
The aim of the US (and other) governments has always been to destabilize African nations in order place into power any individual that would be amenable to the theft by US corporations of the resources of African nations. This destabilization process, which includes the massive and repeated provision of weapons to the war lords and thugs, inevitably leads to the killing and maiming of thousands of civilians. And it continues to this day.
"To ask people to climb down from the soaring heights of "Kony 2012", a place where they get to feel both sanctified and superior, and truly descend into the mire of history and confusion is simply too big a task. It would be boring and difficult and it would not be about Facebook or Angelina Jolie or coloured wristbands or me. When the euphoria evaporates and the Twittersphere has dried its tears (probably by the end of this week), all that remains will be yet another powerful myth of African degradation."
In short, forget about 'Kony 2012'.
Why is Obama so interested in the area?
In 2006 large oil deposits have been discovered under and around Lake Albert in western Uganda. Drilling has been scheduled to start within the next several months. Many residents of Bugoma, Weragaza, and Buliisa are concerned about being evicted. The U.S government of course denies interest in the oil. Yeah we've heard that one before. Lets face it, the United States oil companies are looking for new prospects all the time. This is what the war on terror is really all about anyway. It is also important to note that China has also made recent advances into the region seeking oil as well. Don't let a propaganda film incite feelings to give money out to hollow organizations that exploit the suffering of children to further a corporate agenda. Look at the bigger picture and be informed about what goes on in the world, and don't throw your money to wolves disguised in sheep's clothing.
Some in Alaska fell for the KONY 2012 propaganda film. The Mudflats had a post up on last week, called Mudflix: KONY – 2012 Share it. But if you click on the link now, the post has been removed. The Google link quotes the initial Mudflats promo of the film:
This video is 30 minutes long. Right away, many people will think that they don’t have time. There are things to do, dinners to cook, dogs to walk, kids to tuck in, meetings to attend. That’s why I usually make Mudflix 10 minutes or less. But not this time.
This one is worth 30 minutes. It will make the invisible visible. It will show you the power of our newly connected world. It will make you want to act, and it will make it easy to do so.
Please watch it. Please share it.
Now one gets an Error 404 - Not Found message at the original url of the article. I assume Jeanne Devon's commenting community let her on to the "documentary's" real goal, and decided the post had been some sort of error.
Jesse Griffin has a post up that is one of the most lame he's ever penned. It is written in a style that makes the rants and writings of Doug Feith in praise of George W. Bush seem pretty damned smart:
Now Kony apparently has been terrorizing these people with impunity for almost 25 years, largely ignored by the international community.
Recently these atrocities have been brought to the attention of the American people with the assistance of a viral video titled simply Kony 2012, put together by filmmaker Jason Russell and featuring interviews with his son Jacob reacting to information about the atrocities of Joseph Kony.
However even before this video Kony's crimes had come to the attention of our President.
In October of 2011, after hearing reports of these atrocities, President Obama, with the US military still engaged in two wars, decided to take action to help the people of central Africa.
"I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama said in letter sent Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, the president pro tempore of the Senate. Kony is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army.
One hundred soldiers is relatively nothing considering the enormity of these horrific actions against the people of central Africa, but the President had to be cautious since he was dealing with a hostile Republican party, and his every action was under intense scrutiny.
However considering the reports coming out of the area, WHO could fault the President for wanting to lend support to these people?
Who indeed?
Well - me, for one, Jesse. Maybe you should write about this, instead of fantasizing on Obama's mission for us in the mountains of Central Africa:
What does Invisible Children share in common with the Discovery Institute, the leading organization promoting “Intelligent Design”, a pseudo-scientific theory created to insinuate creationist ideas into public schools — or with The Call, whose leader Lou Engle claims homosexuals are possessed by demons, calls God an “avenger of blood” and a “terrorist”, and in May 2010 staged a rally in Kampala, Uganda, at which Engle warned of a gay menace to society and shared a stage with one of the authors of Uganda’s notorious Anti Homosexuality Bill?
990 IRS tax forms and yearly reports from Invisible Children, and 990s from its major donors, tell a story that’s jarringly at odds with the secular, airbrushed, feelgood image the nonprofit has cultivated.
Among the tens of millions of people who have watched Invisible Children’s KONY 2012 viral video, including Oprah Winfrey – a dedicated supporter of LGBT rights who also has given $2 million dollars to Invisible Children, how many were aware of IC’s extensive financial ties to far-right fundamentalism, including major funders of the mounting global war on gay rights? IC doesn’t go out of its way to advertise these things.
But Invisible Children’s first yearly report, from 2006, gives “special thanks” to the “Caster Family Foundation” and IC’s 2007 report is more specific, thanking Terry and Barbara Caster. In the lead up to the 2008 election, the California-based Caster family was identified as one of the biggest financial backers of the push for California’s anti-same sex marriage Proposition 8.
Capping the pro-Prop 8 push was a November 1, 2008 San Diego stadium rally held by The Call, whose leader Lou Engle warned that same sex marriage could unleash a “sexual insanity” that would be “more demonic than Islam” and suggested believers should carry out acts of martyrdom to stop gay marriage and legal abortion, which Engle predicts will lead to a second American civil war.
One of The Call’s major donors in 2008 also gave, that same year, over 400,000 dollars to Invisible Children. These links weren’t anomalies. They were part of a pattern.
What does Invisible Children share in common with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council (pegged by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group”), or the Fellowship Foundation — one of the nonprofit entities of the Washington-based evangelical organization also known as “The Family” (covered in two books by journalist Jeff Sharlet) whose leader Doug Coe has been captured on video celebrating the dedication inspired by Hitler, Lenin, and Mao?
What does IC have in common with the ministry of California evangelist Ed Silvoso, who works directly with leading Ugandan author and promoter of the Anti Homosexuality Bill (also called the “kill the gays bill”) Julius Oyet — who claims that “even animals are wiser than homosexuals”?
The answer? — all of these ministries – the Discovery Institute, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, The Fellowship Foundation, The Call, Ed Silvoso’s Harvest Evangelism, and Invisible Children – received at least $100,000 in 2008 from what has emerged in the last decade as the biggest funder of the hard, antigay, creationist Christian right: the National Christian Foundation:
2008 grants from National Christian Foundation, and subsidiaries
Focus on The Family: $4,268,000
Family Research Council: $2,387,000
The Fellowship Foundation (AKA “The Family” or the “International Foundation”): $515,000
Lou Engle’s The Call: $166,000
Ed Silvoso’s Harvest Evangelism: $817,000
The Discovery Institute: $702,000*
Invisible Children: $414,000*
*NCF’s 2008 990 lists $139,000 to IC; NCF subsidiary ProVision Foundation’s 2008 990 lists a $150,000 grant to IC; NCF subsidiary ProVision Trust’s 2008 990 lists a $125,000 grant to IC.
*Answers in Genesis, which directly promotes “Young Earth” creationism,received over $35,000 from the NCF in 2008.
Since it came into existence in 1982, cooked up by canny tax lawyers, the National Christian Foundation–covered in a story by journalist Michael Reynolds published in the December 2005 issue of Mother Jones (extended version of story available here)– has swollen into a financial behemoth that disperses over 1/2 a billion dollars a year to Christian charities. But not just any Christian charities.
The NCF, which counts billionaire, controversial Rick Santorum-backer Foster Friess among its donors, funds nonprofits that advance its agenda which, as stated on the NCF website, is to “enable followers of Christ to give wisely to advance His Kingdom”.
The Justice Department is defending the government's refusal to discuss—or even acknowledge the existence of—any cooperative research and development agreement between Google and the National Security Agency.
The Washington based advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center sued in federal district court here to obtain documents about any such agreement between the Internet search giant and the security agency.
The NSA responded to the suit with a so-called “Glomar” response in which the agency said it could neither confirm nor deny whether any responsive records exist. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington sided with the government last July.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear the dispute March 20.
EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request in early 2010, noting media reports at the time that the NSA and Google had agreed to a partnership following the cyber attacks in China that year against Google.
EPIC asked for, among other things, communication between the NSA and Google about Gmail and Google’s “decision to fail to routinely encrypt” messages before Jan. 13, 2010.
The NSA’s response to the request for records noted that the agency “works with a broad range of commercial partners and research associations” to ensure the availability of secure information systems. The agency, however, refused to confirm or deny any partnership with Google.
The security agency said it routinely monitors vulnerabilities in commercial technology and cryptographic products because the government relies heavily on private companies for word processing systems and e-mail software.
“If NSA determines that certain security vulnerabilities or malicious attacks pose a threat to U.S. government information systems, NSA may take action,” DOJ Civil Division lawyers Catherine Hancock and Douglas Letter said in a brief in the D.C. Circuit in January.
DOJ’s legal team said that acknowledging whether NSA and Google formed a partnership from a cyber attack would illuminate whether the government “considered the alleged attack to be of consequence for critical U.S. government information systems.”
Wasilla 4th of July 2009 - Katie Hurley Grand Marshall - image by PA
More like watching the movie near Hatcher Pass.
Saturday late evening, Judy and I went to a potluck-movie showing of Game Change held by the Mat-Su Democrats. There were enough people to keep two big screens in big rooms full of long-time progressives.
Many attending have known Palin far longer than me. I've known her for over 20 years. One of her high school teachers was there. A woman who had taught in the same school as Palin's dad. And so on.
Katie Hurley, one of the very few players in the formation of the Alaska Constitution still among us, was animated. Hurley was the first highly successful woman in Mat-Su Valley politics. The comprehensive story of her relationship with Palin hasn't been written yet. Hopefully, it will be.
Katie was LOL about fifteen times in the flick. She caught some of the inner campaign operation jokes in the movie more quickly than any of us, some a third her age.
Overall, the audience thought the movie to be fair. The portrayal of John McCain was thought to be too sympathetic. Harrelson's portrayal beat Moore's in a hand count I held in the room I was in. The inaccuracy of the accent was what did Moore in in Wasilla, by people who have had to put up with Palin's antics and statements for a long, long time.
The movie's portrayal of the Palins as a family struck me as deft. If the Palins complain about what appears to be an earnest effort to explain them, it won't surprise me, but they don't really have a case.
One of the most important late 20th century-early 21st century artists will be memorialized Saturday in Seattle.
The man who began trying to create a more rational paradigm for dealing with nuclear wastes and nuclear energy production practices; or, who - should those practices fail - sought to create a warning system for our successors to keep them away from the most toxic nuclear waste areas; who almost succeeded in suborning the best of the best among nuclear scientists away from war production and the nuclear industry at the end of the Cold War; and who hoped to create new methods to turn nuclear waste to usable industrial materials, will be honored in Seattle Saturday by many of his friends.
Time after time, sculptor James Acord warned that scenarios such as Chernobyl, and what we are now seeing unfold in Japan were not only probable, but highly likely. He was right. There will be more of them, perhaps toxic enough to either eliminate human life as we know it, or to mutate our species into something we might not recognize.
In the time scale over which we will need to deal with the wastes and dangers from nuclear systems, whether they be reactors, depleted uranium weaponry, accidental bomb explosions, rogue organizations purposefully blowing them up, or leakages into major water systems from waste storage facilities, we have had numerous fuck-ups in 65 years, which is one one-thousandth of the time scale over which what we have already created may have current or future ramifications, or unknown ones already in play.
Multiply the number of nuclear incidents we've already had by 1,000, add in the increasing chances of leakages and screw-ups from aging or forgotten systems, and the craziness of just about all the fundamentalist aspects of the major religions on our planet, and one might find it severely challenging to find realistic hope for the future of humanity.
Just one of the many examples of how fucked up our global policy is toward potential nuclear problems is the U.S. and Israeli stance on the latter country's nuclear arsenal. The Israelis have at least 200 nuclear weapons, some conventional, some thermonuclear, and - most likely - some enhanced neutron devices. Neither the U.S.A. nor the global community have been able to force the Israelis to participate in outside scrutiny of the safety levels of their programs. Anyone familiar with how fully the Israelis inspect or audit their own activities should have room for plenty of concern. And the Israeli government, year by year, is falling more and more under the sway of religious nutcases that make Palin worshippers, Muslim WMD Jihadhis and endtimers of any sort look commonplace.
Whether or not James Acord's work will be forgotten or merely serve as a minor footnote to a lost struggle to control nuclear proliferation, it was important that one person stood up against the powerful interests attempting to control the narrative of what nuclear energy is, and used the most unconventional of tools - the fine arts - to become a national and international communicator on human salvation through common sense.
Perhaps part of the reason Acord was finally ground down was his having to witness the degradation of what he and many of us had hoped an Obama administration might mean to world peace, and to a sense of balance or sanity in public policy. He had been a strong Obama supporter in the 2008 campaigns, but, from what I understand, was one of the first of us to realize in 2009 that Obama was clearly not what we had imagined him to be.
Sunday will be the anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and reactor meltdowns in Japan. I hope to carry several articles about what has happened during that passing year over the next few days.
Muckraker Greg Palast has been investigating fraud in the nuclear power industry and the Obama administration's complicity, not just in ignoring it, but covering it up and abetting it. Here's a link to his ongoing story on this. And here is a video of a presentation he gave last week:
One of the most important late 20th century-early 21st century artists will be memorialized Saturday in Seattle.
Multiply the number of nuclear incidents we've already had by 1,000, add in the increasing chances of leakages and screw-ups from aging or forgotten systems, and the craziness of just about all the fundamentalist aspects of the major religions on our planet, and one might find it severely challenging to find realistic hope for the future of humanity.
Whether or not James Acord's work will be forgotten or merely serve as a minor footnote to a lost struggle to control nuclear proliferation, it was important that one person stood up against the powerful interests attempting to control the narrative of what nuclear energy is, and used the most unconventional of tools - the fine arts - to become a national and international communicator on human salvation through common sense.
