JUSTICE IMAGINED

Al Gore was honored for his Nobel Prize by George Bush in the Oval Office?

OK, wouldn't you just love to see W's face if Gore had shaken W's hand and whispered in his ear, "The jig is up. I'm here for the reins to the kingdom," then just looked him in the eye, deeply, at least for, say, seven seconds - one for each year since the usurpation.

There's a YouTube moment.

Barbara Bellows TerraNova
Salt Lake City

Exiting Stage Right

The coverage by the Associated Press of Senator Trent Lott’s resignation missed the best part – Lott’s use of Ecclesiastes, the Biblical verse that starts "To everything there is a season" as his inspiration to move on to "something else."

That twice vaguely-defined "something else" is widely believed to be a job on K Street, the nefarious lobbyist alley, and the season to "turn, turn, turn" happens to be now because in January the season brings in the new lobbying reform law passed last August, which means retiring Senators get to experience “a time to wait” two – no longer one, but two – years before they can return to Congress as a lobbyist, which is the ultimate – in the Bible’s words -- “time to GET”.

Hmmm. There just may be a special place in the Inferno for using Ecclesiastes to rationalize a rush to abandon responsibility for the sake of greed.

All the more reason Trent Lott will not be missed in the People’s Senate. . .

But he’d best beware: God’s wisened angel, Pete Seeger, is still alive and kickin’!

To Honor Veterans, What Americans Should Know About Depleted Uranium

The United Nations has voted to move forward on the issue of depleted uranium weapons and their effects.

No longer facing the infamously brutish U.S. Ambassador (never confirmed, only recessed) John Bolton, on October 31st, the vote in the UN First Committee was 122 to 6 in favor of a resolution calling for studies to be done on depleted uranium and its effects by various countries, with the results to come back at the next General Assembly where it will be on the Agenda.

The United States and its ally, the United Kingdom, voted against it, along with The Netherlands, The Czech Republic, Israel, and its newest surprise friend, France.

While Americans are extraordinarily unaware, misled and deceived on this nuclear waste material that is at the core of the U.S. military's most effective weapons, the rest of the world knows the damages suffered first by Iraq, then the former European NATO troops who served in the Balkans in the late 90's, then Afghanistan and even more in Iraq again.

In addition, on November 6th, the International Coalition to Ban the Use of Uranium Weapons launched its Global Disinvestment Campaign - with their "Too Risky for Business" dossier, which provides information as to which banking institutions are investing in the weapons manufacturers that use depleted uranium.

The time has come. America needs to ask the tough questions and shine a light on the truth. Is there a candidate willing to lead us in that direction? What are their positions on this? Have any of them they even dared to face this? Do we have a responsibility to raise the subject? Yes.

Check out this list of essential facts about depleted uranium so you can understand why the world is so angry, and why Bush/Cheney's statements on Iran are so hypocritical.



Ten Essential Facts:

1. Depleted uranium, the nuclear waste of uranium enrichment, is not actually "depleted" of radiation; 99.3% of it is Uranium238, which still emits radioactive alpha particles at the rate 12,400/second, with an estimated half life of 4.5 billion years.

2. Depleted uranium is plentiful - there are 7 pounds remaining for every pound of enriched uranium - and requires expensive and often politically-contentious hazardous waste storage.

3. Depleted uranium is less of a problem for the nuclear industry when it is cheaply passed on to U.S. weapons manufacturers for warheads, penetrators, bunker-busters, missiles, armor and other ammunition used by the U.S. military in the Middle East and elsewhere, and sold to other countries and political factions.

4. Depleted uranium is "pyrophoric", which makes it uniquely effective at piercing hard targets, because upon impact, it immediately burns, vaporizing the majority of its bulk and leaving a hard, thin, sharpened tip - and large amounts of radioactive particles suspended in the atmosphere.

5. Depleted uranium weaponry was first used in the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991, under President George H. W. Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

6. Depleted uranium weaponry was later used by President Bill Clinton in the NATO "peace-keeping" bombing missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. By January 2001, as the 2nd President Bush and Dick Cheney were moving in to the White House, there was a furor in Europe over the news of an alarming increase in leukemia and other cancers amongst the NATO troops who'd served in the Balkans.

7. The World Health Organization suppressed a November 2001 report on the health hazards of depleted uranium by Dr. Keith Baverstock, Head of the WHO's Radiation Protection Division and his team, commissioned by the United Nations. Baverstock's report, "Radiological Toxicity of Depleted Uranium", detailed the significant danger of airborne vaporized depleted uranium particles, already considerably more prevalent in Iraq than the Balkans due to the difference in military tactics, because they are taken into the body by inhaling and ingesting, and then their size and solubility determines how quickly they move through the respiratory, circulatory and gastrointestinal systems, attacking and poisoning from within as they travel, and where the damages occur. In addition, the report warns that the particles tend to settle in the soft tissue of the testes, and may cause mutations in sperm. In 2004 Dr. Baverstock, no longer at the WHO, released the report through Rob Edwards at Scotland's Sunday Herald.

8. The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration twisted the meaning of the failure of the World Health Organization to produce evidence of depleted uranium's health hazards, turning it into evidence that there was no link between exposure to depleted uranium and the increases in cancer in Europe and Iraq; instead, as presented in the January 20, 2003 report by the new Office of Global Communications, ironically titled Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda 1990 - 2003, the depleted uranium uproar was only an exploitation of fear and suffering. Two months later, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Rice began to "Shock and Awe" Baghdad by again dropping tons of depleted uranium bombs on densely populated areas.

9. On March 27, 2003, significant increases in depleted uranium particles in the atmosphere were detected by the air sampler filter systems of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at 8 different sites near Aldermaston Berkshire, Great Britain, and continued at 4-5 times the previous norm until the end of April 2003, after the Coalition forces declared the war over. This information only came to light in a report on January 6, 2006 by Dr. Chris Busby, due to his diligent fight for access to the data through Britain's Freedom of Information law.

10. The John Warner Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007, signed into law on October 20 2006, was celebrated by those concerned with depleted uranium because it contained an amendment authored by Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), calling for a study of the health effects of depleted uranium on returning soldiers, due in one year. However, George W. Bush also issued a signing statement that day which includes the right to withhold information "which could impair foreign relations". At this time, November 2007, there remains no federal program for all members of the U.S. military and National Guard returning from the Middle East to be tested and treated for the presence of depleted uranium in their bodies, and the study that was called for has not appeared.

Clearly, the story of the United States and depleted uranium is shameful and horribly irresponsible.

The international community, however, is ready to take a stand.

On October 31st, 2007, the United Nations First Committee passed the "Effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium" Resolution, by a vote of 122 to 6, with 35 abstentions, requesting that states and international bodies submit a report on depleted uranium to the UN General Assembly by next year's session. The countries voting against it were the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Israel, and the U.S.'s newest surprise friend, France.

The United States will not get away with this forever. Other countries know about the depleted uranium, and they see arrogant hypocrisy in the administration's fear-mongering about Iran as a nuclear threat.

Now, at this moment in our history, the United States needs a leader with the moral courage to face this issue.

So, what we still need to know is:

Where do the Presidential candidates stand on this issue?

Who is willing to be the leader who will stop this?

We need -- and our veterans deserve -- answers.



*****

References and Links:
There are articles and documents that span decades which shed light on Depleted Uranium and the deceptions that surround it. The evidence is plentiful, often overwhelming, but one should be aware that there are powerful interests ready to confuse the public and silence or discredit the scientists and activists.

Campaign Against Depleted Uranium. http://www.cadu.org.uk/ Founded by one of the great long-time scientist/activists, Dr. Rosalie Bertell.

International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) is probably the best of the best all-in-one place http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/.

Department of Defense description of self-sharpening depleted uranium: http://www.defenselink.mil/DODCMSShare/briefingslide/94/030314-D-9085M-022.pdf

Dr. Keith Baverstock's November 2001 report, suppressed by the World Health Organization: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Radiological-Toxicity-WHO5nov01.htm.

Rob Edwards article on Baverstock: http://www.robedwards.com/2004/02/who_suppressed_.html

Karen Parker, a Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Lawyer: http://www.webcom.com/hrin/parker.html Scroll down on the page and you'll find her documents on DU.

Representative Jim McDermott: http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/pr061020.shtml

October 17, 2006 Presidential signing statement is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/200Http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/200 61017-9.html .

January 2003 White House Report - Apparatus of Lies: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus/suffering.html

United Nations First Committee, October 31, 2007: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gadis3357.doc.htm

January 2006 Chris Busby report: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2006/DU-Europe-Contamination1jan06.htm

Note: On November 12, 2007, Dr. Janette Sherman, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and Research Associate and Lecturer with the Radiation and Public Health Project, wrote to me after reading the above, "It looks accurate to me. Good work! You may use my references too if you want."

GLORY BE on All Saints Day!!

Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com ("Brad Friedman is one of the Paul Reveres of [the Election Integrity] movement."-- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Ring of Fire, Air America Radio) reported on November 1, 2007, at 11:07 pm:

BILL TO BAN DRE (TOUCH-SCREEN) VOTING MACHINES
FINALLY INTRODUCED IN SENATE!

My Comment
(slightly improved):

Once again I find myself typing out "Hallelujah" on the BradBlog site!

And a Happy All Saints Day it truly is!

The point of All Saints Day is to rise like the Phoenix out of fear, away from evils both real and imagined, into the Light of Truth, of Compassion, of Good, i.e. God.

And so it is, with the banning of DRE Touch Screen Voting Machines, we Americans truly experience this transformation this year.

For surely we have been living years of fear, because of evils both Real:
- Stolen elections protected by a corrupt Department of Justice
- Federal agencies handed over to corporate lobbyists, and (WORST OF ALL)
- The annihilation of the Iraqi and Afghan civilizations, as well as the sacrifice of American lives, all to feed the insatiable greed of the Oil, Weapons and Construction/Service industries)

And Imagined :
- The Bush/Cheney/Powell/Rice/Rumsfeld/Giuliani drumbeats, facilitated by the Mainstream Media in exchange for increased ownership and government contracts.

And we Americans have been more powerless than ever because our elections have been under attack. Voting machines have switched, lost and added votes, registered voters have been intimidated and/or turned away, and elections officials have unilaterally acted against the majority.

It is only by removing the corruptive elements attacking our elections, the basis of the Democracy Mr. Bush claims to be spreading, that we, as the citizens of the United States, can develop policies that reflect our Jefferson's belief in our Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, along with our evolved understandings about Health, Economics, and Access to Opportunity.

* * *

This Halloween, in a mood, my daughter I chose to face an artistic depection of Darkness. To this end, we went to closing night of the brilliant, haunting Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd, as performed by the Egyptian Theatre Company in Park City, Utah.

Though I know the music fairly well, and have seen it before both on the video and in a large theater, this time, in an intimate theater, with a brilliant cast, and with years now of never-ending horrific realizations discovered in my study of the Bush administration, I literally shuddered on Sweeney's final look back at the audience and door slam.

Now that we have seen Sweeney Todd and the world he inhabits, what will we do?

For there are universal truths present in the story of Sweeney Todd:

1. Justice decided by those who use their Power for selfish gain brings Ruin to Family, Individual Sanity, Society, and ultimately Itself.

2. A Society where Industry becomes Supreme is Filthy and Corrupt, and ultimately Selfdestructive (cannibalistic), where previously decent people become Heartless Profiteers.

3. The only way to burst through the degradation of such a world is for good people to pay attention, to hear each other, and to work towards Shining the Light for All to See, so we can recognize the Crimes, stop them, and hold the perpetrators accountable. Thus there is a Redemption of honest and fair Justice.

Sounds timely, eh?

So -- Now -- let's use this open window that Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have provided, and that Brad Friedman (bradblog.com) has diligently reported.

Read Brad's article.
Call/write to your Senator.
Call/write to your Congressional Representative.
Make Noise: Share what you've learned with friends and family, send letters to editors, add comments across the internet, chat -- get the Truth Out!

You can even push for banning the machines NOW! California has!

And you can learn lots more at Bradblog.

And...

...In time,

Nothing Can Harm Us...

Not If Our Votes are Counted!

Mothers Who Know Speak Out

At the recent October 2007 General Conference of the LDS Church, the Church's new Relief Society President, Julie B. Beck, spoke to the women of the Church, and her words have since spurred a world of reactions, comments and blogs as to the role of Mormon Mothers.

She praised the mothers who, on Sundays. . .

". . .bring daughters in clean and ironed dresses with hair brushed to perfection; their sons wear white shirts and ties and have missionary haircuts."

Much attention has been spent on her defining Mothers as:

". . .nurturers. This is their special assignment and role under the plan of happiness. . . Another word for nurturing is homemaking. Homemaking includes cooking, washing clothes and dishes, and keeping an orderly home. Home is where women have the most power and influence; therefore, Latter-day Saint women should be the best homemakers in the world. . . Nurturing requires organization, patience, love, and work. Helping growth occur through nurturing is truly a powerful and influential role bestowed on women."

Today, KUER's "RadioWest" brought together noted LDS women to discuss the reactions to Mrs. Beck's definitions and invited listeners to call and write in, or to enter comments at the KUER blog under the heading Mormon Women and Priorities.

I had already submitted my comment when I went to the exact text of her talk and discovered it was titled "Mothers Who Know". How funny, because my point is that Mothers need to Know More and to engage accordingly.

Here is my response to her statement and the discussion I heard today:

I'm not Mormon, but I am a mother, and the advice Julie Beck gave out means something to every woman, for we all are trying to create the environment and role models that will serve our children -- and ourselves, so we can be the best, healthiest, happiest Mothers/Wives/Sisters/Daughters possible. For how can a home be nurturing if the Mother is not healthy and capable of being happy? So, I, too, must comment.

There are many areas discussed on today's RadioWest that I could agree with, disagree with, add to -- but the most important concept missing in Julie Beck's advice is our responsibility as Mothers to make sure the world we release our children into has a healthy future.

Turn off the media? No! Just learn to select carefully, to seek excellence, to become well informed. The tendency of nice, compliant women to let the men take care of the business of the world has lead us to the brink of World War III. Am I exaggerating? No. This is the threat that Mr. Bush stated last week.

Our noble Motherly "nurturing" is useless if we do not question leaders who would have our children kill others, and risk being killed -- or worse yet -- permanently mentally and physically damaged.

It is an extraordinarily sad circumstance that the home state of the LDS Church, which teaches the importance of nurturing family and living one's spiritual beliefs so thoroughly -- has the reputation of being the most "red" state in the country and has thus supported Bush and Cheney fully, as if they are these authority figures are worthy of the same kind of trust given authorities of the Church.

What a terrible mistake.

What a foolish forfeit of the future.

These two men, and those they have brought to power, have lied to us, have cheated us, have polluted our resources, have destroyed laws that protect us, have used weaponry that releases radiation in a country we are supposed to be helping as well as on our own people and then lied to avoid liability.

They have turned the United States into the ultimate bully, and they have taken the deaths of 3,000 and turned it into a most un-Christian, un-democratic retribution that has brought the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people who cannot escape the hell their world has become.

This unnecessary, costly, disastrous war they have taken us into will continue on and on, for these men also have financial ties to all the contractors, but especially the weapons makers, who arm all sides, one way or another.

That is what happens when Mothers believe it is their job to withdraw from "politics" and the busy world outside so they have time to obsess on perfect hair, ironed clothes and spotless houses for their children.

Mothers who pay attention and want to know the truth behind the propaganda do not quietly allow these things to happen -- not to their children -- not to our children -- and not to any other mothers' children.

Bush, Iran, and World War III

"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," Bush said.

Okay, Bush’s talking points have gone too far. Iran the cause of WWIII?

More of the world must think, “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interesting in preventing Bush/Cheney from having the authority necessary to start it.”

Given the information provided about the tyranny of complete executive power by such as Charlie Savage, Frontline, Bruce Fein, Jack Goldsmith, John Dean, and so many more, the only way to prevent Bush/Cheney from having that authority is to remove them from office immediately.Now is not the time to claim “too late”, “too distracting”, “dangerous for Democrats” or any other excuse.

If Bush/Cheney are in office, they will do what they want - regardless of Congress, the Constitution, the people, and especially regardless of the facts.

If they want to attack Iran – and they clearly do – they have already proven we cannot stop them.

There is only one solution.

And political partisanship must not get in the way of protecting the our children and our children's children from the unthinkable results of the U.S. attacking Iran.

It's time to stop being surprised by "unintended consequences" and to INTEND DIPLOMACY in foreign policy and INTEND ACCOUNTABILITY for Bush/Cheney.

"Would you vote for Hillary", RadioWest asks

In response to RadioWest with Carl Bernstein discussing his biography of Hillary Clinton:

“Would you vote for Hillary?”

There was a time when I would have voted for Hillary for President, beyond a doubt, and if she becomes the Democratic nominee, then I still will. Whatever her flaws, I still find her to be very intelligent, capable, compassionate and wise, with honorable motives -- all qualities that have been sorely missing in the present administration.

However, the problem lies in her husband's legacy. Will she be able to move forward and act objectively, without the need to protect and/or defend the parts of his policies that, in retrospect, have not worked or have had negative, even dangerous, unintended consequences.

Most notably, there is the use of depleted uranium in U.S. military weapons. It didn't start with Bill Clinton. On the contrary, it began with Bush/Cheney, only it was George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney as Defense Secretary, who first bombed Iraq on January 17, 1991, using penetrators made effective by the extremely hard heavy metal, which would burst into flames and sharpen on contact with its target, leaving tiny radiating particles in the air, and eventually making their way into the water and land, there in Iraq, as well as travelling upon the currents of the great dust storms that Iraq is famous for. The radiation, called "low-level", is no less intense or damaging for being "low-level" -- it just means that the range of the constantly emitting bursts is small, but once particles enter the body, by inhalation, the mouth or through an open wound, that emission range is perfect for attacking nearby cells as the particles work their way through. The kinds of cancers that occur depend on the size and solubility of the particles, and where they get stuck along the way. Doctors in Iraq and Afghanistan have seen the greatest increases in leukemia, and cancers of the liver and lungs, as well as the previously rare occurence of multiple separate cancers. With the sanctions against Iraq in the 90's, treatment was almost impossible, and losses were great.

Then, under President Clinton, there was the crisis in Kosovo and Bosnia, and NATO moved in, armed with U.S. and British weapons. In January 2001, the NATO countries exploded with stories of cancers suffered by the troops who had served in the former Yugoslavia, and demanded an investigation. The United Nations sent a team from the Environmental division and the World Health Organization. Meanwhile, the Pentagon squashed scientific evidence linking DU and medical effects. It was years later that those who were still paying attention learned that Dr. Keith Baverstock of the WHO, their best expert in radiation, filed a report in 2001 acknowledging enormously harmful effects, but, under pressure from the U.S., it was shelved.

Even more horrible, then, is the fact that the U.S. military, no longer capable of pretending to be unaware of the effects, still uses depleted uranium in its missiles, penetrators, shields, tanks, and more. Yet few in Congress are courageous enough to try to introduce and support legislation to stop its use or even seek testing for every soldier who serves in the Gulf. Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Kucinich (D-OH) have been leaders in this effort. But even Democrats have been reluctant to take this on, even though the greatest use by far has been ordered by the two versions of Bush/Cheney, in 1991 and from 2003 to the present, because in between the Bushes is Bill Clinton, their most successful President since FDR.

I don't know that Senator Hillary Clinton would be willing to face these truths and stop what so many in the rest of the world recognize as the kind of long-term, boundary-less destruction that qualifies as a war crime. It is the ultimate torture -- to watch your loved ones, especially those who are most vulnerable -- your children, suffer through cancers and birth defects.

We need a leader who will end this.
And we need citizens who will demand to know what the candidates will do about it.

A Question for Carl Bernstein on KUER's RadioWest

Carl Bernstein appeared on KUER's RadioWest with Doug Fabrizio today. He is the author of the book on Hillary Clinton, A Woman in Charge.

And the question is:

Will Hillary Clinton be willing to tackle the atrocity of depleted uranium in our current weapons -- which would mean she'd have to acknowledge her husband's culpability in this? He continued what the first Bush & his Defense Secretary Dick Cheney started in 1991 in Iraq, when he bombed Kosovo & Bosnia, and Bush2/Cheney have continued to use them despite news in January 2001 that our European NATO allies were coming up with unusually high numbers of cancers, especially leukemia.

Hillary seems to be the least likely Democrat to stop the use of depleted uranium by the U.S. military.

A Question for Lynn Cheney on the Diane Rehm Show

How can U.S. citizens feel confident that our militant foreign policy is necessary to "keep us safe" when the Vice President's family has so many financial ties to Lockheed Martin -- the most easily evident being your son-in-law, Phillip Perry, who has gone back and forth over the last 7 years working inside the Bush administration and as a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, the largest arms manufacturer in the world?


(Even while his wife, your daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, was working at the State Department's Office of Iranian Affairs, stirring up the call to attack Iran...)

Two Questions for Paul Krugman on the Diane Rehm Show

1. Are you aware of the May 5, 2006 executive memo, entered into the Federal Register and reported on only by Dawn Kopecki in BusinessWeek.com, in which Mr. Bush delegated to then intelligence czar John Negroponte the usually- presidential authority to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations in the name of national security?

Apparently the same day he signed it, Porter Goss resigned.

Yet, aside from Ms. Kopecki, and an interview she had on the May 24th morning Marketplace Report, this has been ignored.

To me, it seems significant.


2. I was glad to see you as a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, but I was ultimately very frustrated because Tucker Carlson clearly has a goal of not allowing the truth to be heard. The one time you got through his wall of noise, it was great, but isn't it time to get past manners and tell someone like him, whose connections to the Neocons are familial, to stop bullying Americans into doubting reason?

From Pat Bagley. . .

"I'd like to thank Katharine Harris, Sequoia Voting, Jeb Bush, James Baker, Tom DeLay, Enron, Halliburton, and the U.S. Supreme Court. . ."

Today, the winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize are

Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr.

and

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"


Give me a P! Give me an E! Give me an A! Give me a C! Give me an E!


WHAT'S THAT SPELL? -- PEACE! (NOT WAR)

WHAT'S THAT SPELL? -- GORE! (NOT BUSH)

WHAT'S THAT SPELL? -- TRUTH! (NOT LIES)