March 31st is the last day to submit an original, 25 lines or less, poem for the Friends of the Arapahoe Library District 2004 Poetry Contest. Put your name, address, and phone number on the back of the poem (keep your original!) Drop your poem off at Koelbel main library, 5955 South Holly St., Centennial, CO, 80727. Contact- Padma Poleppedi at 303-220-7704 for information.

Air America the progressive radio network starts at noon tomorrow!

Check it out on the web!

A few items that I've noticed on other blogs:

From Talk Left-

"The International Court of Justicein the Hague will issue its decision Wednesday in the case of 51 Mexican nationals on death row in the U.S. The case is Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America). The suit concerns the U.S.’s failure to comply with the Vienna Convention’s guarantee of allowing foreign nationals access to consular officials prior to interrogation."

Although the ICJ has no enforcement authority it would be further evidence that BushCo is a rogue state by which it ignores international law by word and action.

From Daily Kos-

Can the 3rd CD in Ohio be competitive? I think the money situation between the two candidates- Democrat Jane Mitakides and incumbent Republican Mike Turner is closer then expected. Mitakides has about $25k versus Turner's $195k currently. As Daily Kos notes that Turner was kicked out after two terms as mayor of Dayton by a Democratic, woman challenger in 2001.

My view is that blogs can be very effective in raising money. The long term would be to see how the blogosphere matures and nurtures political activism on a personal level for literally millions of Americans through several election cycles. Those people who do feel disenfranchised can now see that their voice and pocketbook can be heard by political candidates at a level which invites real interaction with candidates and office holders. The level I'm talking about would be at the House of Representatives level.

From the Orcinus blog-

From the tortured reasons that Ms. Rice today about the need to give candid advice to the President to the history of Nixon's imperial presidency there is, to quote extensively from the Orcinus blog-

"What is noteworthy about the Bush power grab is that the administration has leveraged the "war on terror" specifically as a tool for expanding its powers. As I've explored previously, its assertion of military powers for arresting and controlling civilians suspected of abetting the "war on terror" under the guise of its "enemy combatant" status and military tribunals is based on a similar worldview -- namely, that the executive branch's powers under wartime are virtually illimitable, and not accountable to any civilian court.

Recall, if you will, Olson's logic in defending the secret court system underpinning the Bush 'war on terror', as recounted by the Washington Post, in which he described the criteria that would be applied in determining who's an "enemy combatant":

"There won't be 10 rules that trigger this or 10 rules that end this," Olson said in the interview. "There will be judgments and instincts and evaluations and implementations that have to be made by the executive that are probably going to be different from day to day, depending on the circumstances."

And what's to restrain the president? Only the prospect of losing re-election:

Administration officials, however, imply that the main check on the president’s performance in wartime is political -- that if the public perceives his approach to terrorism is excessive or ineffective, it will vote him out of office.

“At the end of the day in our constitutional system, someone will have to decide whether that [decision to designate someone an enemy combatant] is a right or just decision,” Olson said. “Who will finally decide that? Will it be a judge, or will it be the president of the United States, elected by the people, specifically to perform that function, with the capacity to have the information at his disposal with the assistance of those who work for him?”

The obdurate handling of Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission is part and parcel of this power grab: Bush, Cheney, Olson and Co. all see any concession of testimony before any other body, congressional or otherwise, a concession of its constitutional powers.

It's all about the Imperial Presidency. The principle -- just as it was for Nixon -- is the power of the president and his advisers to lie, fumble, and even break the law without consequence. Just because he's president.

The concern that Americans might have about getting to the truth of how 9/11 happened, especially in the way of preventing its recurrence, must take a back seat to such principles, evidently."

Please note in the bold text the fact that there is no objective criteria for naming a person an "enemy combatant" but only on changing circumstances by one person- the president. No standards which will pass muster under a judge in order to hold a person in this new, illegal system of "justice" that ultimately turns its back on 800 years of legal precedence of the concept of "habeas corpus".

This court ruling in Louisiana is explosive.

"Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business...The decision was made by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two dissenting judges called it the "road to Hell."

"The ruiling (sic) stems from a lawsuit filed in Denham Springs in 2000."

It takes no imagination to see that this new "tool" will be used extensively both at the local and federal levels under Ashcroft's DoJ and FBI.

Coupled with the relevant sections of the USA PATRIOT Act there will be widespread intimidation and "pre-emptive" actions by all levels of law enforcement. The utilization of "preemptively" arresting people has already occurred in such political events as the Republican National Convention 2000.

What would horrify the founders of this nation would be the cavalier attitude that BushCo, his chief law enforcement officer, John Ashcroft, and the federal judiciary on matters that concern the basic rights as understood in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This ruling by the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circut should be headed for the United States Supreme Court because of the significance to utterly diminish the concepts of "unreasonable search and seizure" and the individual's "right to privacy".

Does anybody have more information on the original case?

CNN and foreign news outlets have received plenty of email about BushCo's joking about not finding WMD at a major event in Washington. Many well known bloggers have commented on the arrogance of BushCo to joke about WMD while Americans are still dying and being maimed for life.

I was thinking about it for the last couple of days, and here is a poem about the state of mind of the creature that squats in the people's house.

godsbody

he saw something
     but he still has to think before speaking
     or else he'll spew the shit from his endless river of rage
     as he realizes that he is yahweh made mortal

dreams inhabit his waking life
     as he walks he leaves no footprint
     from the past immersion in embalming alcohol
          he rejects all that was

the echoes of pumping machines
     the parchment touch of his father
     the waxen touch of his librarian wife
     the boozey sweat streaked touch of his offspring

besotted visions
     his hands manicured but still are tinged green
     in his bed he sleeps in stoney silence
     lincoln and washington knock once then pass on

upon the plain before golgotha
     in this vision that swims before his pallid eyes
     he alone carries the burden
     he feels his blood turning to wine again and again

nothing beckons to him
     he will rest upon the stone parapit surmounting the hill
     the great burden he lets fall
     his rich three piece suit now sodden with his only exertion

he starts to snore
     a bottomless darkness wells from his pores
     all light that graces this last hill vanishes
     his burden he has released upon this land

In Denver, Colorado more than 3,000 people filled the Federal Building's plaza as part of the international day of protest called "Bring the Troops Home Now!" Great job to the main organizing group, MADCOW Coalition! As one of the marshals for the march portion of events I can attest to the fact that the crowd stretched for over eight street blocks! There was a few "professional" looking signs but, unlike pro-war rallies in which the vast majority of signs are professional looking, the vast majority are hand lettered and speak of the individual's view about needless deaths of Americans and innocent civilians by the lies that Bush and his minions have bellowed since they came to power by judicial fiat.

Again and again the corporate media has downplayed the numbers but do numbers really matter? As one protester mentioned to me that it is not the quantity of people but the quality of people who participate in showing the light of reason and moral dudgeon about the facts that Mr. Bush and his compatriots seem utterly incapable of seeing.

Well the newest meme is that the Spanish voters "appeased" the terrorists by voting Aznar and his People's Party out of power from the right wing shills in America. The effect can be seen by the newspaper readers writing in to the op/ed pages. Already, writers are reflecting the meme in the Rocky Mountain News Op/Ed page on March 16.

''Are Europeans prepared to grant all of al-Qaeda's conditions in exchange for a promise of security?'' asked Kagan. ''Thoughts of Munich and 1938 come to mind''. Mr. Kagan is the co-founder of Project for New American Century.

The blindness of Mr. Kagan is that Mr. Bush has already acceded to Osama bin Laden's two major demands of 1). American troops withdrawing from Saudi Arabia and 2). The overthrow of a secular dictatorship in Iraq. So there is no "appeasement" on the part of the Spaniards nor of the the incoming Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who has vowed to make the "war on terrorists" his number one priority.

I've written a new poem a couple of days ago, during my reading of Mr. Krugman's book, "The Great Unraveling".

looters, swindlers, and traitors

bring'em on
     he says in his faux texas slang
          the pampered boy of andover and yale and a harvard legacy

the carny barkers that surround him
     in the oval office
          place him on the same level as roosevelt and chruchill during war
               but he dishonor's their names and keeps Americans in fear

the comparison is not with john kerry
     but with the constitution, the bill of rights, and
          those presidents who have acted for the common good

what has he done to this nation
     to steal from our children and grandchildren
          to kill and maim not for our nation's survival but for his own satisfaction
               as he mocked the pleas of a woman on death row in texas

letting people bet their retirement money on a shell game he plays
     as chicken bones he swallows scar his throat
          and misery cannot be beheld because it would upset his beautiful mind

while the media organs play footsie with who slept with whom
     letting his gremlins work to remove all safe guards of the people
          letting his worm tongue speak falsely without penalty
               subverted from their essential duty to this nation

chewing and grinding down our freedom
     in exchange for security
          the security of the concentration camp cell
               the silence of the wage slave is his ideology for all Americans

the eagle bound and gagged
     force fed until obscenely bloated
          fatted for the 4th of july feast
               as he smartly salutes the flag but give the finger to our constitution

what's on a piece of paper
     is never as good as the moist palmed handshake between men
          what's on a piece of paper
               except the ideals of freedom that we, not him, would die for

The outrages by BushCo and the penal system's administrators and guards with respect to suspected "terrorists" continues to make a mockery of the American criminal justice system. From The Smirking Chimp website I found this article, Robyn E. Blumner: 'For some defendants, an American gulag'. The report concerns Dr. Sami Al-Arian who is being held at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County, FL.

The conditions that are described by the reporter are shocking but in line with other reports about the abuse and mistreatment of citizens (and alien residents) of Middle Eastern origin by various governmental organs like INS. The reporter, Robyn E. Blumner, makes a telling analogy with Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, which is about the old Soviet gulag organ.

"Al-Arian shares a 7-by-13-foot cell with co-defendant Sameeh Hammoudeh. The amount of room they have for both of them violates the American Correctional Association guidelines for a single prisoner. Here, they are warehoused for 23 hours a day, let out only for an hour of recreation five times a week. But even then they are denied daylight. Their recreation cell is a cage adjacent to the cellblock which is surrounded by a high wall and an opaque weather covering.

All done for their own safety, says the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

In a display of petty cruelty, whenever Al-Arian has a meeting with his lawyers, the guards refuse to carry his legal documents. He is forced to walk bent over, with his hands shackled behind him, balancing the paperwork on his back. "Like an animal," says Linda Moreno, one of his lawyers. After the meeting he is strip searched - sometimes with other prisoners and guards watching.

But this is actually a step up. He used to be strip searched after every non-contact visit from family, too. Finally, a federal magistrate put a stop to it."

This is what passes as "fair" treatment of the accused under the Bush administration.

"There is bias operating here. This is the same sort of mistreatment faced by hundreds of immigrants swept up into detention facilities after 9/11. The Bush administration has determined that a different set of rules should apply to anyone suspected of aiding terrorism." writes Robyn E. Blumner.

While Dr. Sami Al-Arian has been charged with 50 count indictment, including heading the American operation of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, this is not the way of showing the fairness and impartiality of the U.S. justice system. However, it does show the world how a radical in power will do everything to subvert the standards of treatment for the accused under the rubic that "9/11- Has changed everything".

Check out the new Coloradoans for Voting Integrity website. Even on a 56k line it downloads fast. They are very active in making legislators aware of the problems of electronic touchscreen voting machines. Be sure to register for their "Spring Training event" on April 27th. For More Information, Contact: Bob McGrath, Program Chair,303-460-1825 days.

What would the fallout be if Ken Salazar didn't become the Democratic Party nominee for Senate in '04?

I finished "Guderian: Panzer General" by K. MacKsey, I would highly recommend to any military history buff specializing in WWII to read it. There is new information in the book which lays out Guderian's shadowy support in the plot to kill Hitler and shows his role in saving the lives of the families Wehrmacht officers killed after the failure of Von Stauffenberg.

What I found of interest to the Bush/Hitler debate is that Guderian opposed Hilter's suggestion that Germany withdraw from the Geneva Convention for military prisoners. This was during the last days of the Third Reich and Hitler was in the Fuhrer bunker in Berlin.
Again, I find the utilization and abuse of international law by both men. Von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign minister, once boasted that the Third Reich had broken every treaty it had signed. The level of distain in the Bush administration is on the same level because of the "unsigning" by Bush of the International Criminal Court, and Mr. Bush's intransigence and overt efforts to destroy treaties that have been in the works for years like the treaty to ban chemical and biological weapons or the current prohibition to weaponize outer space.

(BTW- I feel that Guderian ranks with the great WWII generals of the likes of Patton, MacArthur, Rommel, Montgomery and Zhukov. A couple of good books for Panzer actions is "Panzer Battles" and "Panzer Leader". Other books on the subject of tank warfare would be "Patton: Ordeal and Triumph", "The Patton Papers", and "Trial of the Fox" that I've read over the years.)

A new poem about what BushCo means for women. As the Lennons, John and Yoko, said, "Woman is Nigger of the World". The facts have shown that Bush is against American women having the right to control their own biological functions, against this nation's women struggle for economic justice and fairness in the workplace, and is against all women of the world in their fight to have political, economic, and legal power. Why vote for Bush who stands to keep all women walking six feet behind their masters?

a white hat and mint julip

bush
has a plantation vision-
for half the world's population-
women,
to go back
way back
to a time where women were barefoot and pregnant

ask-
what has he done for
women of this world

in afghanistan-
no change
the burqa, and
young girls to remain unlettered forever and as
chattel for warlords and strongmen

in iraq-
will women fall under
the boot heel of the patriarchal islamic fundamentalists
as mr. bush moves on to
another sideshow war

in the whole continent of africa-
there is the grand fanfare of giving a whole $15,000,000,000 USD
(but spread over ten long years)
then there is the backroom deal of charging American prices for
those drug cocktails to save the lives of mothers
(and fathers)
who are infected with hiv/aids
as mr. bush smiles upon his handsome gesture
for being the plantation savior

what has he done for the women of America?
tax cuts, tax cuts, and cutting
headstart, school lunches, healthcare-
willing to tell women that abortion is wrong for his god
and
he would be happy to revocate your right to franchise

bush and his bath boys
is knowledgeable but his knowledge is that of the crank and crackpot
is willing to bend America
to his plantation vision
is dreaming
of all Americans wrapped in the American swastika of stars-n-bars
is willing to bend American women
backwards
to a time of biological slavery

his forebearers
helped fund the nazi murder machine
understood and winked at
the ss nurseries for good german women
as baby machines for the ss homo-erotic ideal

bush is not the amiable dunce
but an enforcer
for an ideology that will resubjugate women
to being nothing more then property-
lock, stock, and barrel

Fred Kaplan in a quickie analysis of the DHS budget shows that there is a lot of sloppy accounting going on in that budget that was submitted for this FY. The reason for the sloppiness is to obscure the fact that the "supposed" 40 billion dollars is not really 40 billion but much less money being allocated, and the real percentage increase is just slightly above the rate of inflation. Mr. Kaplan shows that the actual money being spent is on the order of 30 billion dollars which is only 3% higher then last year. For the low down Homeland Security's Mystery Money and read the article to see that BushCo is actually cutting back the budgets for state first responders and other frontline agencies while whittling away at the privacy of Americans through funding more money for greater sharing of local, state and national police agencies resources (namely data sharing).

A direct slap at the BushCo concentration camp called Camp Delta the British government has freed all five of the released British citizens from that camp. "Steven Watt, a British lawyer who represented Mr Rasul and Mr Iqbal in the US, said their release was not surprising and thought they would claim compensation.

"They have spent two-and-a-half years languishing in that prison [Guantanamo] - it is a complete travesty of justice."

What is known is that there is little factual support the claims of Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld in that those men and boys held at Camp Delta are some of the most dangerous people poised to strike at Americans.

Finally, in the heart of Texas is the passage by the city council of Dallas to tell BushCo that the USA PATRIOT Act is actually against the citizens of this country. "Dallas has reaffirmed the classic American value of local governance. It has recently joined the more than 250 other American cities in passing a resolution that condemns portions of the USA Patriot Act that threaten civil liberties. The article is a good summation for why more the half of the 15 most populous cities in America have passed similiar resolutions.

Hey! Who wants to work for the Democratic Party? The Democratic Campaign Management School is the school to go to. This from the website blurb, "The Democratic Campaign Management Program gives you the experience, training, and contacts to jump start your political career. It has been established to train a new generation of highly skilled progressive political organizers.

The Program is conducted by the Strategic Consulting Group (SCG), one of the country’s leading Democratic political consulting firms."

A new website devoted to the "Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party". This reminds me of an article in "Playboy" magazine during the mid-1980's that detailed the way the religious fundamentalist movement, as then known as the "Moral Majority", under direction of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, et. al., was utilizing the tactics of "bottom up" change to affect the Republican party. If I remember correctly from the article, the religious tacticians started their movement takeover in the "Bible belt" states and Southern states.

This website should be added to any concerned citizen's reading list.

Confirmed!

M.A.D.C.O.W. Coalition and Denver Poets Guild
present
"Bring the Troops Home Now!"
Poetry Reading
Saturday, March 20, 8 p.m.
at
Oh My Goddess Coffeehouse
1526 E. Colfax Ave.
Denver, CO

Things are moving towards a large turnout of people for the March 20th national day of rallies, marches, and protests to "Bring Our Troops Home, Now" as the ad hoc MADCOW Coalition of Colorado, including Colorado Communities for Justice and Peace and dozens of other state organizations to ensure that Colorado will remain at the forefront of realizing to all Coloradoans that the twin wars on "terror" and "Iraq" are frauds and have been perpetuated on America for totally political reasons, including, his presidential campaign.

I will be hosting a poetry event in conjunction with the main events on the evening of March 20th. The location will be announced by next Monday.