Two Cheeks of the Same Derriere

The two cheeks of same derriere
August 31, 2004

Americans are spouting gaga over their upcoming presidential election and pouring millions of dollars for “the dog and phony shows” in Boston and New York City, as if there has been any difference in policies, domestic or foreign, between the Republican and Democratic Parties: they are dumb enough to argue over a difference between tweedledum and tweedledee.

Two parties are actually One Big Party representing an imperial corporate America that has been on a warpath since the America-Spanish War to expand its territorial and colonial policies around the globe.
On an Iraqi quagmire, Bush and Kerry are on the same boat: Bush lied to dumb Americans and Americans followed him like a pack of lemmings.
Kerry goes further than Bush to mislead Americans: he said he will go to war and send more troops to Iraq even if he knew Iraq had no WMD and no relation to Osama.

Few Americans realize that they have been fighting a proxy war in the Middle East for half a century for the benefit of a tiny state of Israel…Jews got George’s balls tight with a gaggle of the Jewish neocon apparatchiks in every corner of his Administration who dictate and execute the pro-Israeli war in the region.
Kerry has sent his brother to Israel to assure Sharon (the butcher of Lebanon) that he will support the Jewish Apartheid Wall to confine millions of Palestinians in the biggest jail on earth. (His brother whose wife is a Jew converted to Judaism)

On the domestic side, the basic American consensus has been a proposition that government must do for people what people can not do for themselves, in which both parties abandoned since Reagan and Clinton Administration and replaced it with a winner-take-all “free market” virtue, resulting in 45 million Americans with no healthcare, 43millions under the poverty line, and two millions in jail, while the elite upper class (2 percent) enjoy billions of tax-cuts and largesse from the Government subsidies.

So which one should Americans pick between two Siamese twins joined by the corporate rumps, Bush or Kerry?
One school of thought insists: a defeat for a warmonger Bush is necessary to show the world that Americans care for the global peace, and with limited option, a vote for Kerry is an answer.
But, would Americans care for world peace that impedes their prosperity via imperial colonialism and territorial exploitation?
The answer is a resoundingly negative if you look at the US history…the destruction of American Indians, the exploitation of African slavery, the conspiracy to expand the territory in the US-Spanish War, the Vietnam War, etc.

By the way, are there anyone out there to explain an enigma that I can not resolve to understand?
It is a publicly well-known fact that Bush works only for the two percent of top-rung rich people to make them much more richer, and he still enjoys at least 46 percent of popularity among Americans.
Why, then, does the forty-four percent of Americans still support Bush for president although they do not benefit from Bush presidency? Are they so dumb not to know Bush only stands for the rich? Or are they so mesmerized by Bush’s lies that they do not know they are not represented by him?

Take a Test

Take a test before crying wolf
January 1, 2003

All of a sudden, North Korea, a pariah nation, with which world has hardly paid much attention for some time because of an impending U.S attack on Iraq, occupies the current front pages of the mainstream media, like The New York Times, et al, with the screaming headlines: “ An axis of evil holds the Atomic Bombs”, “A pariah nation threatens the U.S. national security”, “A-bombs may reach the California shore.”

Americans appear to be extremely agitated, annoyed and embarrassed being kicked on their sheen by an urchin under the watchful eyes of the lesser mortals around the world, and Rummy, the warlord, obligingly growled that his military might, if necessary, has enough potency to engage in two wars at the same time without resorting to the nightmarish military draft.—he was talking about the pre-emptive air strike with thermo-nuclear weapons, eliminating totally the North’s retaliatory attacks on the US occupation forces stationed in South Korea.

To add an insult to injury, South Koreans were out en mass in the street days and nights to protest against the State of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and screaming “Yankee Go Home” at the candlelight demonstrations in memory of two teen-age girls killed by the U.S. GIs.
Americans, especially stationed in the region, are really pissed off and nonplused by the insolent and ungrateful South Koreans, because they have become the frontal targets for the anti-US movement.

In every forum and bulletin board, Americans scream foul languages against the Koreans as if they are the most gracious, lovable, innocent, sagacious, moral, altruistic, well-intentioned, all-knowing, and all-powerful supermen on the earth.
Sadly enough, they do not know how they look like, because they do not have the historical mirror at home that they may reflect themselves before embarking on the world tour of conquests.
Therefore, they are in a deep fog of historical amnesia that makes them puzzled, when some one hates, hurts, or attacks them.

The following is a pop quiz that may prove or disprove your historical knowledge about Korea
I bet my ass very few Americans score the Grade D in this pop quiz, because they hold notoriously very short memory span on their history. (Many still believe Columbus discovered the America before American Indians.
If you make the Grade B or C in the quiz and you still do not know why Koreans hate you, then you would better to start your academic career again at the kindergarten.
It’s worth to be humble once in a while, Mr. Superman.

Pop quiz on the history of Korean-American relations
January 1, 2003
Gary Leupp

Gary Leupp is an associate professor, Department of History, Tuft University and coordinator, Asian Studies Program

Choose the best answer. Three points each. Answers at the end.

1. In 1866, the U.S. merchant ship General Sherman defied the laws of Korea (then pursuing a policy of strict isolation) by entering Korean waters, and sailing up the Taedong River towards Pyongyang to demand trade. What happened to the ship?

a. It was attacked by local people and soldiers, burned, and sunk, with the loss of its entire crews.
b. Its crew was politely informed that since Korea was a satrap of China, and that all negotiations concerning commerce had to take place via Beijing.
c. It was welcomed, and Korean officials began discussing with the Americans a Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

2. In 1882, the Korean government signed a treaty with the U.S. I t is usually considered an ‘unequal treaty’ like those signed with China and Japan. Its provisions included:

a. Extraterritoriality (exempting U.S. citizens from Korean law and courts); U.S. rights to export opium to Korea; and the establishment of a U.S. legation.
b. Leasing of land for a legation; a most favored nation clause (assuring that no other foreign country would receive better treaty conditions than the U.S.); and the Korean renunciation of Chinese suzerainty.
c. Extraterritoriality; relatively low tariffs on imported U.S. goods; and a most favored nation clause.

3. After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, Japan acquired control over Korea, annexing it formally in 1910. In 1905, Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Taro met secretly with U.S. Secretary of War William Howard Taft, producing the Taft-Katsura Agreement in which the U.S. recognized Japan’s interests in Korea. What did the U.S. receive in return?

a. Japanese agreement to limit emigration to the U.S.
b. Japanese recognition of U.S. colonial rule over the Philippines.
c. Japan’s renunciation to all claims to the Hawaiian Islands.

4. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, U.S. President Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin discussed the postwar future of Korea. Stalin advocated independence as soon as possible. Roosevelt

a. agreed to immediate independence.
b. Advocated a trusteeship of 20-30 years, citing the positive example of U.S. rule in the Philippines.
c. Suggested Korea remains a part of the Japanese Empire, to be occupied by Allied forces.

5. In accordance with a wartime agreement that the USSR would enter the war with Japan following the German surrender, Soviet forces invaded Korea in August, advancing to the 38th parallel by August 10. They could easily have occupied the whole peninsula. What did they do?

a. they accepted the Japanese surrender, provided arms to local communist forces led by Kim Il-sung, and with drew within the year.
b. they consulted with their American allies, who requested that they stop their advance at the 38th parallel, so that U.S. forces could in the next month occupy the rest of Korea. The Soviets agreed to the U.S. proposal.
c. They proclaimed the Korean Soviet Republic and made plans for permanent incorporation into the USSR.

6. In August 1945, defeated Japanese forces formally turned over authority in Korea to the broad-based Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence, led by Lyuh Woon-hyung, which in September proclaimed the Korean People’s Republic (KPR). When U.S. forces under Gen. Reed Hodge arrived in Inchon to accept the Japanese surrender, they

a. ordered all Japanese officials to remain in their posts, refused to recognize Lyuh as national leader, and soon banned all public reference to the KPR.
b. recognized Lyuh as the legitimate head of state.
c. negotiated with Lyuh to facilitate swift attainment of independence of a united Korea.

7. As of 1945, most Koreans associated the majority of Korean big landowners and businessmen with the Japanese colonial regime. How did U.S. occupation forces deal with this stratum?

a. they subjected it to a thoroughgoing purge.
b. They relied upon it for support.
c. They remained neutral as the numerous ‘people’s committees’ loyal to the PRK organized against it.

8. In August 1948, the U.S.-occupied zone of Korea became the Republic of Korea. The next month, the KPR operating in the north became the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Around this time, there were many revolts against the U.S.-backed authorities in the south led by supporters of the original KPR. Where was the biggest one?

a. On Cheju Island, off the south coast of South Korea, where there was minimal Soviet or North Korean influence.
b. Along the North Korean border, organized by communist operatives.
c. In Seoul, led by communist agitators.

9. in June 1950, North Korean forces attacked the South and by September controlled all by the southeastern region around Pusan. What was the reaction of South Koreans?

a. Stiff resistance, in support of the popular U.S.-backed Syngman Rhee regime.
b. Little resistance, and initially much cooperation.
c. General apathy.

10. The United Nations Security Council approved a U.S. proposal for war on North Korea. Why, when both the USSR and China were on the UNSC, was the proposal passed?

a. At the time, both China and the USSR continued to maintain their World War II-era alliances with the U.S.
b. UN rules did not require UNSC unanimity but only a majority vote to commit the body to war.
c. China’s seat was held by the pro-US Guomindang regime headquartered on Taiwan, and the Soviet delegate was absent when the vote was taken.

11. How many people, military plus civilians, died in the Korea War?

a. 500,000-1 million.
b. 1 million-2 million.
c. About 4 million.

12. how many American soldiers died (officially) in the Korean War?

a. 25,513.
b. 54,246.
c. 41,739.

13. between 1954 and 1960, how much of South Korean’s government budget came from foreign, especially U.S., aid?

a. About half.
b. About one-third.
c. 20 percent.

14. Park Chung-hee, who had served in the Japanese army during the Second World War, participated in a coup in 1961, and then became president in 1963. His rule, to 1979, was characterized by

a. economic growth and political liberalization.
b. a “sunshine policy’ towards North Korea.
c. economic growth, martial law, censorship, political repression, and torture of political prisoners.

15. The KCIA abducted dissident Kim Dae-jung from a Tokyo hotel in August 1973, intending to drown him. Following a conversation between U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Philip Habib and Park Chung-hee, the U.S. CIA sent a helicopter to the Korean spy ship on which he was confined. The CIA

a. demanded his immediate release.
b. demanded that he not be killed.
c. requested an explanation.

16. Park’s political career ended in 1979 when

a. the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) assassinated him.
b. student protests toppled him.
c. his constitutional term as president expired.

17. In May 1980, after the proclamation of martial law, there was a massive uprising in the South Korean City of Kwangju involving tens of thousands. By official estimate, about 200 civilian pro-democracy protesters were killed by military forces; Kwangju residents claim about 2000. Which of the following best describes U.S. behavior during this incident?

a. The Carter administration gave prior approval to South Korean contingency plans to use military units against the protesters.
b. The U.S. cautioned against violence against peaceful demonstrators.
c. The U.S. remained scrupulously neutral during the event.

18. Which of the following South Korean presidents have been convicted of the crimes of corruption, participation in the 1979 coup, and involvement in the Kwangju Massacre?

a. Roh Tae-woo (1987-93)
b. Chun Doo-hwan (1980-87)
c. Both of the above.

19. Early in his presidency, Jimmy Carter announced plans to withdraw all U.S. troops from South Korea. What happened to this plan?

a. After meeting Park Chung-hee in Seoul in June 1979, Carter announced that U.S. troops would remain, and that the U.S. would expand its security relationship with South Korea.
b. It was abandoned when Carter left office.
c. It was implemented, but troops were returned during Reagan’s presidency.

20. After meeting with Chun Doo-hwan in 1985, President Ronald Reagan

a. praised Chun for his government’s ‘considerable progress’ in ‘ promoting freedom and democracy’.
b. mistakenly referred to him publicly as “President Marcos”.
c. doubled U.S. aid to South Korea.

21. Like many nations, the DPRK sought in the past to acquire nuclear weapons. It may have produced two as of 1992, during the first Bush administration. The Clinton administration negotiated a deal in 1994 whereby Pyongyang suspended its nuclear program in exchange for oil and the foreign-sponsored construction of two cool-water reactors. What happened to the agreement?

a. It was scrupulously followed by both sides until recently.
b. Construction of the reactors did not take place; the Bush administration rejected the Clinton policy and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s “sunshine policy” towards the North; and at some point North Korea resumed its nuclear weapons program.
c. Bush explicitly repudiated the agreement in his 2002 “State of the Union” speech.

22. In 1997, Kim Dae-jung was elected South Korean president and initiated the “sunshine policy” of rapprochement with North Korea. This led to his meeting in Pyongyang in June 2000 with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in which both leaders agreed to seek reunification without foreign interference. When Kim met with President Bush the following year in Washington, Bush

a. declined to support the “sunshine policy” and demanded that North Korea provide more verification of the suspension of its missile program, and withdraw conventional artillery and armor from the border with South Korea.
b. enthusiastically supported Kim’s policy and the 1994 Agreed Framework.
c. offered proof to journalists that North Korea was not complying with the 1994 agreement.

23. South Korea has been counted among the “Four Tigers” because of its strong economic growth since the 1970s. but in 1997, the won lost half its value and the economy collapsed. Unemployment rose from 2 to 7 percent. Thereafter, the economy has rebounded due to:

a. An IMF agreement raising the percentage of a Korean company’s stock that could be owned by foreigners from 26 to 50 percent, insuring greater foreign control over the economy.
b. A $55 billion loan package.
c. Both of the above.

24. In his State of the Union address (January 29 2002) President Bush referred to North Korea as

a. a “rogue state”
b. part of an “axis of evil”
c. an “evil empire”

25. What percentage of South Koreans polled after Bush’s speech disagreed with his characterization of North Korea?

a. 60 %
b. 50 %
c. 35 %

26. Which, among the following, has most benefited from the acquisition of North Korean missile technology?

a. Iraq
b. Iran
c. Pakistan

27. Currently deployed North Korean missiles might possibly reach what part of U.S. territory?

a. California
b. Texas
c. The Aleutian Islands

28. How many U.S. troops are currently stationed in South Korea?

a. about 16,000
b. about 22,000
c. about 37,000

29. How many foreign troops are stationed in North Korea?

a. none
b. 5-10,000
c. 10-20,000

30. According to official South Korean government figures, how many U.S. soldiers in South Korea between 1967 and 1998 committed “overt criminal offenses”?

a. over 40,000
b. over 20,000
c. over 10,000

31. How many “registered” prostitutes service U.S. GI’s in South Korea?

a. about 12,000
b. about 18,000
c. none; there is no registration process.

32. U.S. arms sales to South Korea during the Clinton administration were in excess of

a. $10 billion
b. $ 6 billion
c. $ 2 billion

33. There is some evidence that North Korea may possess one or two nuclear weapons. What nation is known to have deployed about 100 tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula between 1958 and 1991?

a. South Korea
b. Russia
c. U.S.

(Bonus Question)

Current South Korean public opinion polls indicate that the foreign country people most fear is:

a. The U.S.
b. North Korea
c. China


ANSWERS

1 (a); 2 (c); 3 (b); 4 (b); 5 (b); 6 (a); 7 (b); 8 (a); 9 (b); 10 (c); 11 (c); 12 (b); 13 (a); 14 (c); 15 (b); 16 (a); 17 (a); 18 (c); 19 (a); 20 (a); 21 (b); 22 (a); 23 (a); 24 (b); 25 (a); 26 (c); 27 (c); 28 (c); 29 (a); 30 (a); 31 (b); 32 (a); 33 (c); bonus (a)

Racism never dies in America

The racism never dies in America
December 14, 2002

“When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We are proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”—The US Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi at the 100th birthday party for Strom Thurmond, another oldest Senator from South Carolina

Critics, pundits, talkingheads, and politicians in drove have trashed Mr. Lott over his remark, requesting he resigns from his Republican leadership, and the Senator duly apologized for his “terrible” words during his appearances at the talk shows and the press conferences but insisted to keep his job.
Even George Jr. joined the chorus of uproar and showed his discomfort on the Senator’s ill-timed and ill-conceived speech.

Who is this popular (?) centenarian Senator that the South Carolinians have sent him year after year to Washington?

The Dixiecrats Senator, Strom Thurmond was nominated in 1948 for the presidential candidate by the State Rights Party, which declared: “we stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race”, and he pledged that “ no niggers would ever swim in the same pools as white, or drink from the same fountains or eat in the same restaurant.”

When Thurmond was born, blacks in South Carolina could not vote, go to school with whites, or work at jobs reserved for whites.
And he was spending his whole legislative life trying to maintain the status quo of the slavery system and Trent Lott is an heir to his politics.

You can imagine how many more innocent blacks would have been hanged in the South, if Thurmond were succeeded to grab the US presidency, as Mr. Lott wished
However, there are many politicians who dribble the fawning accolade over him…
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah: he is not only a great man, he is done great things in his life.
Joe Lieberman, D-Conn: he is a man of iron with a heart of gold.
Chris Dodd, D-Conn: he is not just a witness to the entire 20th century, he was a full participant.

The case in point here is not what the Senator Lott has made an inadvertent slip of tongue, but how, in the world of 21st Century, he, as the leader of the Republican Party, still could have been nurturing and supporting the erstwhile Southern culture that endorsed the racial segregation and white supremacy over black people for over two hundreds years past.
Were his remarks “a mistake of the head and not a heart” as he exonerates himself as an empty-headed cracker?

It would hardly be difficult for anyone to know that his remarks were not an aberration but he still lives in a Southern Palladium where “Herrenvolk Democracy” was the theme of the American institution of slavery, if one glances over his heinous rhetoric and voting records on the racial issues, and the hand-in-glove association with the white-color KKK Group like the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC).

Mr. Trent Lott is, according to the New York Times report, an honorary member of the CCC, that embraces a range of conservative causes, including opposition to unfettered immigration and busing for school desegregation, and promotes “Southern cultural issues.”
In the keynote address to the board member of the council in 1992, the Senator said: “The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let’s take it in the right direction and our children will be the beneficiaries.”

The Senator also fought in the court to keep the racist Bob Jones University exempt from taxation, submitting the petition that “Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy.”
The university has been notorious to prohibit the inter-racial dating between white and black students on the campus.

The slavery is the most unacknowledged story in America’s history, even though no race or ethnic group has suffered as much as blacks have at the hands of white people with the complicity of the US Governments for long span of time.And Mr. Lott and many other politicians from the South are still romanticizing over the Old Confederate settings where religious bigotry, vicious lynching, and inhumane exploitation on the blacks were the basic values of the white man’s society

Rummy was once in bed with Saddam

Rummy was once in bed with Saddam
March 3 2003

Most of Americans are in the dark about the real façade of impending war on Iraq thanks to our News Media, and out the window go all bad publicity on our warlords, especially about our elfin TV comic, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The US reporters are notoriously too afraid to ask the uncomfortable questions that could kill their career.

Dan Rather, CBS Anchorman once said: “It’s an obscene comparison, but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people’s necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. It’s that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore in on the tough questions so often.”

Now here is the real news that no one wants to hear and to believe without picture.
Americans have a tendency to believe the “what ought not to be true is not true” principle, until they see themselves the picture that tells them otherwise.
The picture is worth the thousand words

According to the National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book, Rumsfeld had visited Baghdad twice, in 1983 and 1984, as a special envoy of then-President Ronald Reagan and met with Saddam Hussein, discussing regional issues of mutual interests: oil.
Rumsfeld also met with Tariq Aziz, the Foreign Minister, and both agreed that the Iraq and US shared many common interests.

In other words, Iraq was an ally that was fighting against the US enemy Iran and Saddam was our son of bitch who used the chemical and biological weapons against the Iraqi-Shiites and the Iranian soldiers under the auspices of the US Government.

There were many dictators, like Saddam, whom the US Government financed, supported, armed, and helped to oppress, torture, maim, and killed their own people: they were Manuel Noriega in Panama, Gen. Pinochet in Chile, Somoza in Nicaragua, Generals in Guatemala, Gen. Suharto in Indonesia, Marcos in the Philippines, Generals in South Vietnam, the Shah of Iran, Generals Park, Chun, and Roh in South Korea.

You can read, by checking the following web-site, the Directives from Reagan National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) that explain how the US Government helped the Saddam regime militarily and financially during the Iran-Iraq War in early 1980s.

Check with http:// www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index2.htm and you will see the picture that our Rummy was shaking hand cozily with Saddam Hussein.

The Dogs of War: Chicken-hawks

The Dogs of War: Chicken-hawks
February 28, 2003

The famous US writer, Norman Mailer once told to his audience: “President G W Bush and many neo-cons have come to the conclusion that the only way they can save America and get it off its present downslope is to become a regime with a greater military presence and drive toward empire. My fear is that Americans might lose their democracy in the process.”

Many critics on the Bush policies use Rome Empire as a metaphor to depict the future United States that the US is always attacked by evil-minded neighboring countries as Rome was. There are no corners of world some American interests are not alleged to be in danger or under the attack.
The difference between Roman Emperors and the US Presidents was that American Presidents outperformed the Romans in turning metaphors like the war on terrorism into the actual wars on targets they pick to maintain the permanent instability in other countries.

While the rumor of war is rapidly spreading around the globe, a cabal of the armchair generals, fearing to lose control of debates on war in Washington, is desperately drumming up the spurious war against Iraq.
World knows well that they want another or new Saddam Hussein in Iraq, like the one that they had before 1991, who did as he was told… that is, they want their sons-of-a-bitch, an iron-fisted exiled junta.

When these armchair warriors encounter with any dissenter who stands against their wants of war, they immediately embark on the jingoistic/childish game on patriotism that many Americans shudder to avoid as much as possible…it is un-American to refuse to fight against terrorism that Saddam is a culprit who would use, alleged by George Junior, the weapons of mass destruction against the US.
They call war an art, but it isn’t. It largely consists in outwitting people, robbing widows and orphans, and inflicting suffering on the helpless for one’s own ends—and that’s not art: that’s business.

A funny part is the fact that many of these armchair warmongers have never been at fire-fight during their prime time, but are hot to go to war later as a pack of the dogs of war…a bunch of armchair war wimps, and the worst part is that they want others fight their war and others get hurt or die for them while they sit in the cushy armchairs at the posh Washington office, whipping a war horse paid by others.
In their politics, the sissy dogs of war are always cheerleading the ignorant and jingoistic young men on to give their lives.

The following is a ballad written by the satirists on these chicken-hawks who whip others go on to give the lives while dodging their duty to serve the country.
The Masters of War was a song by Bob Dylan during the Nam War.
The dogs of war are William Bennett, Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, Newt Gingrich, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott, Bill Kristol, Carl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Will, Tom Delay, Rush Limbaugh, et al.
You wouldn’t miss any of them on media circle any day, always talking about terror, war, patriotism and duty, and they all were draft-dodgers during the Vietnam War.



The Ballad of the Ochre Berets(Sung to the tune of 'The Ballad Of The Green Berets')


by Jerry & Joe Long

William BennettOn TVDefines our warAnd pockets his fee

Richard PerleClaims deaths will be fewIn his think tankThat's certainly true

Gaffney GingrichLieberman LottNever fought in NamPreferred not to get shot

Today Bill KristolSays "Do Iraq"But when duty called He didn't call back

Remained in collegeTo deferA chance to serveFor a term paper
100 excuses
They'd make that dayTill their draft boards letThem run away

Rove hurt his back
Cheney was too fat
Will's eyes were poor
DeLay's feet were flat

Rush couldn't riskHyperextending a kneeIf forced to wadeA rice paddy

But put a microphoneUpon their chestAnd they'll explainWhy combat's best
Can America stayThe land of the freeAnd remain the home Of hypocrisy?







“Masters of War” a song by Bob Dylan during the Vietnam War

Come you Masters of War
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind wall
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness?
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul


Most of the current politicians and celebrities avoided to go to war during the Vietnam War, they belong to the class of rightwing warmongers who preferred to remain alive, to award the aluminum medals to the maimed veterans, to salute to a convoy of body bags, and to bleat a cry of jingoism laboriously.

As the Vietnam War was fought mostly at the expenses of poor white and Negro Americans (in Chicago region, for example, the poor white neighborhood had received three times more body bags than the affluent suburbs.), the current politicians, bureaucrats, or think-tank hawks have utilized various excuses, such as Student deferments, a doctor’s note, or the blue-blood connection, to avoid to join the combat duty.

Napoleon Bonaparte once commented that there are millions of common people who are ready to die for a mere medal of honor…history repeats that young average Joe-six-packs who watch continuously the war games at Fox and CNN TV after dinner are the one to pay with their lives and barrel-chested armchair generals who coop up in their situation room are the one to claim a victory with fanfare.
It is a pity and disgrace to see people relapse into the same pattern like zombies with neither will nor ability to resist the orders by these armchair generals.

Our Country, Right or Wrong

Our country, right or wrong
November 13, 2002

Mark Twain (1835-1910), the US author and humorist, once described war as “a wanton waste of projectiles,” and he nurtured a strong disdain for anyone who suggested that patriotism was best displayed through enthusiastic support for military adventures abroad.
He argued that the phrase “our country, right or wrong, was an insult to the nation.”

As the author of many books, like The Innocents Abroad, Tom sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (his real name) also described how Americans were frequently goaded into war by their leaders, recalling that statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and thus he will convince himself that the war is just and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

The following article was published after his death in 1910 and it succinctly depicts almost a century later how the impending US attack on Iraq in the new millenium is promoted and justified by a party of God (the GOP) in the name of a just war, as many Christian churchmen historically sought to lessen the horrors of war by means of Just War theory for centuries.

Given the assumption of a right to win, the destruction of the property and the lives of innocent enemy civilians become to weigh nothing more than the collateral damage, that is, the US never intends to harm civilians: therefore, any actual harming of civilians is unintentional, accidental, and morally forgivable.
As long as one’s heart is pure and one’s goal is democratic, one may do literally anything to defeat a proclaimed enemy society, such as Iraq.

Glory, glory, hallelujah, untruths go marching on……

The Mysterious Stranger (1910)
Author: Mark Twain

Victory of the Loud Little Handful

The loud little handful—as usual—will shout for the war.
The pulpit will—warily and cautiously—object…at first.
The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.”

Then the handful will shout louder.
A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will out-shout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men.

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them, and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

The Kamikaze Assaults

The Kamikaze assaults: a blowback to the US foreign policy
September 14, 2001

The term “blowback”, that was first invented by the CIA officials for their own internal use, refers to the unintentional consequences of the US foreign policies, in which Uncle Sam strolls leisurely around the world as if walking on its own garden, remakes the globe in its image, and resultantly pays back with costly price tags.
Kamikaze means in Chinese character “divine wind”, referring to the Japanese fighter pilots who embark on the suicide mission against the US fleet during the WWII, plunging into the enemy ship with bombs and committing suicide for the sake of Shintoism.

As King George and his hawkish gendarmes are whipping up the torrential winds of revenges with maximum forces against the Kamikaze attacks on America in September 11 2001, nine out of ten Americans, according to the ABC poll, endorse the military retaliation against the perpetrators and the institution whoever and whatever they may be, old, women, children, innocent, or invalid, and Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, or North Korea—that is, nothing is unthinkable or unimaginable in punishing terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans.

King George bleats: “Make no mistake about it. We will win”, as a gaggle of politicians, courtiers, and uniformed officers standing behind him with the ominous and macabre nods.
An anchorwoman chokes on her emotional anger and weeps: “why? Why? Why?”
People in the street blurt out: Arab bastards go to hell, and march to the Mosque and throw firebombs at the Muslim grocery stores.
Young men rush to the Army Recruiting Office to join the military.

All Americans are on the warpath, calling the terrorist assaults as an act of war, the second Pearl Harbor, without knowing that they already have been engaged in direct warfare in the Middle East in one form or another for better part of half a century.
The media quote one of the Japanese general’s saying after the Pearl Harbor attack: “the Japs woke up a sleeping giant”, implying that the US government has been a benign bystander in the world affairs and suddenly being drawn to the unprovoked terrorist attack

They all are in a frenzied mood to corral and intern all Arab-Americans into the barbwired concentration camps as they did to the Japanese-Americans during the WWII.
They only regret and grind their teeth, asking why the world’s mightiest army was humiliated with the destruction of the Pentagon, how the world’s richest nation was paralyzed with the collapses of Mammon Towers, and whether their vast webs of spooks, NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, INS, DEA, and thousands of local cops were doing catnap.

However, no one, from Dubya, Democrats, media pundits, or think tank analysts, to Joe Blow, housewife or college kid, gives a long hard look at why the US is always a target of terrorism, what the US have done to other people incurring such horrendous angers, and how the US can avoid such antagonistic behaviors by their neighbors.
Since they have been living in a house with no mirrors so long time that they do not know whether they have clothes on, stark naked, look good or do evil things.

Americans have been living in Orwellian world such a way that they only understand in terms of the American exceptionalism: any terrorist attack on Americans are totally unjustifiable and unprovoked acts of inhumane barbarism committed by envious foreigners, without admitting that their government has not been sleeping but vigorously implementing the American Way of foreign policies, of which causes the intolerable anger, frustration, and hopelessness from many recipients who eventually bet on terrorism, an obvious form of blowback, through the acts of sabotage, abduction, suicide bombing, and so on that are readily available as the poor man’s nuclear weapon.

In the aftermath of horrendous attacks on Tuesday, the US government as readily expected blamed on Osama bin-laden as the culprit without revealing any evidence backing up of their claim and the US media in unison ducktalk it accusing Taliban regime of harboring him.
However, they all neglect to inform the American people that the past Reagan-Bush Administration had armed these mullahs and Saudi terrorists to the teeth and furnished billions of dollars in order to fight the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in the 80s, spawning a monster to harm American themselves, that is, a blowback to their hegemonic policy has come home to roost.

Bin-laden was furious over the present occupation of 20,000 American servicemen in Saudi Kingdom after the Gulf War as in the same way the Soviets invaded in Afghanistan, declaring that: “For years, the US has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.”

Accordingly, bin-Ladin called for all Muslims as a duty killing the Americans and their allies, Crusader-Zionist alliance and it is in accordance with the words of Almighty God.
Carrying $5 million bounty on his head since early bomb attacks on the World Trade Center, the US Embassies in Africa and the US warship in Yemen, bin-Laden is not the only former US friend who betrays his master (US)…Saddam Hussein was a US asset in the region before the Gulf War, Manuel Noriega in Panama was an errand boy for Uncle Sam before he irked George Sr.’s anger, and even Ho Chi Minh, an admirer of Thomas Jefferson, was a friend helping the US fighting against Japan during WWII and Ho eventually has humiliated the American pride and inflicted damage heavily on the American lives.
In the West Bank town of Palestine, elated Palestinian youths who appear to be of 14 or 15 years of age cheered and showed a sign of Victory, saying that they couldn’t careless whether they die for their cause now or later because the Israelis are going to kill them all one way or another.

Terrorist organizations historically operate based on illusion that their random acts of violence would eventually bring forth the compromise or concession by their target.
Instead, the violent deaths of innocents by terror only play into the hands of warmongers, oil barons, and hackneyed politicians who seize on such pandemonium to justify for an eye-for-an-eye revenge and exploit the public sensation in pursuit of the political, economic, and military interests.

For example, the US Congress already has given Dubya $20 billions as just a down payment for fighting terrorism that fattens the pockets of the defense industry. Chevron, Exxon-Mobile, et al maximize their profit to excuse themselves from charging exorbitant oil prices to the energy-hungry sectors of the world. Dubya, in an economic hellhole, grins with a sigh of relief that he can lead a flock of disoriented and confused sheep to the panic frontier of war of revenge, salivating to rob the sacred cow of the Social Security Fund “lockbox” without much fanfare.
An array of warmongers gathers around the banks of microphones lamenting that these tragedy had been possible because America is a democracy, therefore the Bill of Rights needs to be look into it, and the FBI already raided the Texas-based Muslim websites while another band of agents installed the “Carnivore” software in the ISP in order to snoop the internet flows of information, in which ultimately gather the intelligence and data that establish the national ID card system separating American people along the line of the ethnic background.

Terrorism by Osama bin-Laden or the state-sponsored and sanctioned atrocities are fundamentally abominable, callous, and despicable acts of mass murder that must be eliminated in the name of humanity, liberty and democracy.
The point of an issue here is whether an eye for and eye or a tooth for a tooth against terrorism is an ultimate answer or another blowback to breed.
It is true that an elephant was stung by a rogue band of fire ants that are determined to die for the sake of their families, and it is also an undeniable reality that an elephant cannot kill them because they kill themselves, as if the NMD (National Missile Defense) is no match for a kamikaze bomber carrying a box-cutter.

Sadly, history tells us clearly what we expect to see in next weeks:
That there would be no more talks in dealing with terrorism because it is like a deaf (George) is talking to a deaf (bin-Laden), every killing machines rolling out from the storage, fine-tuned and programmed in high-tech fashion, and the first 21 century massacre envelopes in the multi-frontal war zones. And for a moment, American families gather around at the dinner table and taste the gushing flow of blood watching six o’clock news on CNN of the pyrotechnic fireworks by their patriotic and courageous warriors pulverizing a bunch of less worthy mortals, flat-nosed and dark-skinned bastards.

For some time, Americans would be sated with the triumph of revenge and oblivious about the fact that a blowback can lead to another blowback until they are vicious enough to kill all of terrorists, during which process of an eye for an eye, we all go blind, and of a tooth for a tooth, we all lose our teeth.
And King George promises: I am a loving guy, but I have a job to do and make no mistake about it. We, Americans, will prevail, no matter we all go blind or lose all our teeth.
And the drumbeat of war goes on and on, and terrorism is here to stay.

How to catch the terrorists?

How to catch the terrorist
October 23, 2004

The following announcement appeared in the Summer issue of Travel Naturally, a nudist magazine published in New Jersey.

As you may already know, it is a sin for a Taliban male to see any woman other than his wife naked, and he must commit suicide if he does (which could explain the rash of suicide bombers around the world).

So, in honor of National Nude Recreation Week, on Saturday, July 10, at 4 p.m. Eastern Time, all American women are asked to walk out of their houses completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists.

Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort.

All men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their houses to prove they are not Taliban and to demonstrate that they think it is okay to see nude women other than their wives, and to show support for all American women.
And since the Taliban also do not approve of alcohol, a cold six-pack at your side is further proof of your anti-Taliban sentiment.

The American government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity.
God Bless America. It is your patriotic duty to spread the word.

If Saddam has only broccoli to sell

If Saddam has only broccoli to sell…
January 23, 2003

In early 20th Century, the world went to war because a duke was assassinated in Sarajevo, and again in 1940, the world went to war because of a Nazi dictator. Now, thousands of American soldiers are sent to the Gulf region to have a "regime change” in Iraq that allegedly threatens the world peace with the weapons of mass destruction.
However, when the North Korea challenged the World Crusaders of Peace with the same weapons of mass destruction, they kissed the pigmy Kim’s ass like the British Prime Minister Chamberlain did to Hitler and offered a variety of candies for rapprochement in return for peace in the Pacific region, that is, a war wimp’s rewarding to the threats.
The only difference between Saddam and the pigmy Kim, both the members of the axis of evil, is that the former has lots of oil reserves and the latter does not even have a broccoli to sell. This difference, for Americans especially the oil barons and the Israel-Firsters in the Bush Administration, makes very much worthy of sacrificing the young American soldiers who always bear the brunt of war tragedy.

Give me oil any day, Saddam, and we let you go free right away: Donald Rumsfeld, the warlord in the Pentagon would consider not to invade Iraq if Saddam quits.

The US Department of Energy announced early this month that by 2025, US oil imports will account for perhaps 70 percent of total US domestic consumption, and US and non-OPEC oil deposits are beginning to run dry, according to the Worldwatch Institute. The bulk of future supplies will have to come from the Gulf region where Iraq has 112 billion barrels of oil reserve.

Jeremy Rifkin of the Hydrogen Economy has compiled, according to the British newspaper report:
The number of years that reserves of oil will last at current production rates in the US, where more than 60 percent of the recoverable oil has already been produced, the ratio is just 10 years; in Canada, it is 8:1. Iran, 53:1, Saudi Arabia, 55:1, United Arab Emirates 75:1, Kuwait, 116:1.

And in Iraq, it is a whopping rate of 526:1
.
Who could say that Bush Administration eyes only for weapons of mass destruction but oil?
You still are not convinced that the impending war is about oil…continue to read the following story that your media never print.

In the years of the Clinton Administration between 1997 and 1998, there was a lobby group called the Project for the New American Century that was created by the Warlords in the present Bush Administration: this group, in a 1998 letter to President Clinton, called for the removal of Saddam from power, and also in a letter to Newt Gingrich, who was then Speaker of the House, they wrote that “we should establish and maintain a strong US military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf-and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power.”

You would be surprised to know the who’s who the signatories of the letters are:
Donald Rumsfeld: the Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney: the Vice President
Paul Wolfowitz: the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Israel-Firster)
Richard Armitage: the Deputy Secretary of State (Israel-Firster)
Richard Perle: chairman of the Defense Science Board (Israel-Firster)
John Bolton: the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control
Zalmay Khalizad: a special envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the former consultant for Unocal Corporation (Oil Company cut the deal with Taliban for oil pipe-line)
Elliott Abrams: a convict in the Iran-Contra Scandal during Reagan Administration who was appointed by Bush as a special assistance and a Senior Director for Near East. (Israel-Firster)

In short, the present Warlords in the Bush Administration already have projected the Iraqi invasion years before they become the mandarins to yield the power of eunuchs in the Empire.
The looming war is not about the nuclear, chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction, but an updated versions of an American imperialism, the Manifest Destiny that these oil barons and Corporate Americans have schemed endlessly to monopolize wealth and rule the world as their birth right.
And Eureka! The September 11 has given them a godsend opportunity to achieve their dream of controlling the Iraqi oil field as a gateway to refurbish the increasingly depleting US oil reserves and to cause the eventual destruction of Oil cartel, the OPEC, even though Iraq had nothing to do with the Twin Tower tragedy.

You still don’t get why George wants a war with Iraq not with North Korea?
Then, here is a dumb and simple tale for Cattle…the pigmy Kim declared “I have A-bombs but no oil.” The UN inspectors said, “we found no smoking guns in Iraq, but lots of oil reserve”
And what did George say to the American Cattle? “We deal with the pigmy diplomatically because he has A-bombs, but Saddam has no A-bomb but oil that feeds our gas-guzzling SUVs, so we beat him to the pulp.”
Finally, the American Cattle moo in chorus: “Ditto!”
And Saddam murmurs: if we would have only broccoli to sell…

Born to Kill

Born to Kill
November 28, 2000

A. A sad story of Ms. Julia Butterfly Hill

On December 10 1999, 25-year-old environmentalist, who has lived for two years on the top of 1,000-year-old redwood tree, Luna, has made a global scene when she descended from 200-foot-tall tree and practiced walking she has not used while sitting on the perch cold and wet during her time aloft.
In an agreement with Pacific Lumber Co., Luna was saved from logging and a 3-acre buffer zone around the tree was preserved in exchange for $50,000 payment from Ms. Hill and her supporters.

Almost a year later yesterday, an environment saga took an ugly turn when she was told that the tree has suffered deadly and deep chain-saw cut, which occurred last week by someone adept at sawing large trees.
The tree suffered irreparable damage cut measured 32 inch deep and 19 feet around the base, less than half the circumference of the tree.
No one claimed responsibility and the local sheriffs are investigating the incident.

Ms. Hill began to live on the top of the 18-story high tree since December 10 1997 to protest logging and refuse to come down for two years, bathing in a bucket, hauling up food and supplies by rope and sleeping under a tarp on an eight-by-eight-foot plywood platform.
In the rainy northern California forest, she braved howling winds and damp winters, and became something of a celebrity. Television crews from Israel, Germany and England filmed her. The singers Bonnie Raitt and Joan Baez visited her.
Using her cellular phone to communicate, she gave her interviews and spoke at rallies against old growth timber logging.

On her descending from the tree, Ms. Hill said jokingly in 1999; “If anyone who wants to cut this type of trees should be mandated to stay on the top of the tree over two years like me.”
When she heard the damage on tree, she condemned the vicious attack on Luna, saying she cannot express the deep sorrow and she is committed as ever to do everything to protect Luna and the remaining ancient forests.
It is very much sickening to know that one executed a vicious attack on a defenseless tree that was preserved by selfless devotion of another who has spent two-years of precious life on windy, cold, and uncomfortable ambience.

B. A chilling story of an IDF sniper

Since mid-November, Israeli army has shifted their use of firearms against Palestinians from rubber-coated to live ammunition causing 80 percent of Palestinian casualties by live bullets.
According to the study by the international human rights organization, Israeli troops target the head and upper body rather than aiming limbs, inflicting more than 280 dead in two months and nearly 9,000 injured on Palestinians.

The Hebrew newspaper, Haaretz, featured an interview with an Israeli army sniper who described his targets of helpless Palestinian kids: Twelve and up is allowed. He is not a child any more, he is already after his bar mitzvah age.
Interviewer: Thirteen is bar mitzvah age.
Sniper: Twelve and up, you are allowed to shoot. That’s what they tell us.
Interviewer: So, according to the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), it is twelve?
Sniper: According to what the IDF says to its soldiers. I don’t know if this is what the IDF says the media.
The sniper added that high velocity bullets used by the IDF snipers break up inside the body.
When the Israeli soldiers were asked why they trained on the critical upper body part instead of legs or arms, the reporter was told that they intend to kill someone when they shoot.

A report by the Washington-based think tank that has close link with the US government recommends the Palestinian Authority that they should not hesitate to use excessive forces controlling stone-throwing people with interrogation methods that border on psychological and/or physical torture, arrests, and detention which violate the normal human rights.
The documents was posted on the Website by CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) where Joseph Lieberman, Vice President candidate for Democrat, belongs to its Middle East Task Force and written by Anthony Cordesman, a former national security assistant to failed Republican presidential candidate and Senator John McCain, and it was heavily referenced to the CIA and the State Department.

C. Human psyche
What is it in the human mentality that drives a person to such acts of violence against defenseless objects or their own species?
What kind of psyche the writer of the think tank hold in his brain when he recommends to inflict the torturous acts of atrocities against the helpless people?
The answer may be found in the US history of between late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the South where the ordinary folks like mom and pop were transformed into mindless murderers and sadistic torturers in the lynching of the niggers.

It is mind-boggling to know that the lynchings of the blacks were allowed to happen with impunity until early twentieth century as late as 1930s, and about 5,000 blacks have met their death at the hands of lynching mobs after emancipation until 1960s.
The stories of lynching became as routine affairs by the end of 19th century in some newspapers as the daily weather report and developed into a voyeuristic circus that thousands of spectators gather to eyewitness, took pictures with corpses, and collected ears, nails, hairs and body parts for souvenirs.
Returning from the scene of summary execution, a nine-year-old white youth complained to his mother: I have seen a nigger hanged and now I wish I could see one burned to death.

The utter worthlessness of blacks was an accepted norm in the Southern States where people come to think of blacks as inherently and permanently inferior beast, as less than human, as little more than animals, and it is common belief among white people that blacks are brutes, without responsibility to God, black slaughters nothing more than the killing of a dog: “Kill a mule buy another, Kill a nigger hire another.
Most of lynching mobs was a rowdy gathering of rednecks, crackers or peckerwoods, but they were tacitly approved by the prominent citizens like lawyers, judges, town clerks, and businessmen in the town.
In a nutshell, the lynching was accepted as an alternative and swift execution of the white justice against niggers, the moral character of the white community as a whole condoned the burning and torturing death of blacks, and the lynching mobs were comprised of ordinary citizens, not a bunch of rowdy drunkards.
It is a part of human history and heritage that we simply refuse to look or think about it, because it is unpleasant, ugly or unworthy of issues, burying deep in the archives of historical museum.

The vicious stories of lumberjack and sniper are thousands miles apart but essentially identical in its modus operandi embracing and executing the moral paradigm that was designed, programmed, and indoctrinated by the institutions like CSIS, academics, mainstream media, research center, or government agencies.
A lumberjack might be obsessed with his belief that there is no such thing like global warming and he got pissed off on the adamant wishes of tree-huggers that make his life become more miserable, and feared that his God-given right to life were threatened by a bunch of troublesome environmental oddballs.
A Jewish sniper holds his religious imperatives to the Jewish exclusivism to judge an Arab kid a mere swine that is unworthy of living and it is better for him to nip them in the bud.
When he returns home on furlough, the prominent citizens like rabbis and yeshiva friends in his hometown would pat him on the back and encourage him to do more shootings.

Both are born, raised, programmed, indoctrinated, groomed, lived and eventually died to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill…for nothing, as we all do the same thing and all eventually kick the bucket in a linear operation.
Born to kill is an inherently and incorrigibly “human-esque” characteristics that is being piped into his or her brain during its gestational stay in the womb.
Bon voyage to Pearly Gates, folks.

Barking up the wrong tree

Barking up the wrong tree
January 7, 2001

In John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, “a farmer, due to his default on loan, having his land taken away from him confronts the tractor driver who is knocking down his house. He aims a gun at driver, but he confused when the driver tells him that he takes his orders from a banker in Oklahoma city, who takes his orders from a banker in New York. The farmer cries out: Then Who Can I Shoot?”

In the capitalistic society, where corporations and institutions rein every spheres of human life, people become such confused, frustrated, and bewildered defining a culprit who ruins his or her life that they often bend their rages on the wrongful targets that happened to be in a wrong place at the wrong time.
Under the rule of kings and emperors, the oppressors were identifiable and targeted by the peasants, slaves, or revolutionaries, and destroyed or eliminated accordingly.
However, under the corporate bureaucracies, the enemies are nowhere in sight that the victims who seek to identify the target become more violent and sometimes go crazy to do something that normally is unthinkable thing to do.

Just a day after the last Christmas, a software technician in the small town Massachusetts, who was told by his employer that his wage will be garnished by the Internal Revenue Services (IRS), randomly shot with a AK 47 semi-automatic rifle and shotgun at the staffs in Human Resource Dept, killing four women and three men. (All involved are white, middle-class in the predominantly white community)
Immediately after the massacre, the mainstream media jump on painting the culprit as loner, loser, and mentally disturbed sick man, followed by an unabated eulogy on the victims for three days.

It seems obvious that the killer barked up the wrong tree and chose “fast-food” target instead of daunting foray on the fortified office of IRS for his convenience, since he is not a dim-witted wacko to confuse his real enemy, IRS, with a bunch of personnel staffs who work on orders from IRS. He wanted to have his frustration to be resolved instantly on any circumstance and did not care whether the target is an innocent victim who steps on his toe inadvertently or haphazardly.
His selfish psychic that evolved from the naivete of Steinbeck’s farmer is indicative of the cultural isolation and desperation that the killer has experienced in his forty-year life of the corporate society.

Steinbeck’s farmer has at least displayed the wisdom of hesitation before releasing his anger on his fellow creature and sought to locate who the loan shark is. He might have a roughneck crudeness to travel on horseback to the big city wearing a ten-gallon-hat with a Colt revolver and knock the doors of the Wall Street in Manhattan, a mockery of John Wayne braggadocio.
The bottom line for both farmer and killer is the fact that they would never locate physically who their real enemy is in the corporate society…the farmer easily get lost in one of the banks of elevators in the skyscraper, while the killer with hirsute beard, long unkempt hair and a duffel bag would be caught in the suspicious eyes of ever-present security guards, lookouts, stool-pigeons, and cops hired by the establishments.

Such illusion that the real enemy can be found was also manifested in South Korea last September, when the civic leaders vowed to boycott the Ford products if the Ford Company reneges their promise to take over the bankrupt Daewoo Corp.
The South Koreans displayed their stupidity and ignorance in the global corporate structures that they think the Ford Co. only makes cars…the company has been running a huge financial institution that lends billions of dollars domestically and internationally, and some of the funds that are under the Ford’s management are already in the Seoul bourse and other investment portfolios.
Would the Korean civic leaders have the intelligent capacity to tell their people what portion of capitals running in the industrial veins of their country is a Ford product?

In recent years, the denizens of the corporate earth have been suffering from the strange weather ranging from the savage fires across drought-ridden US continent, persistent floods swept across Great Britain and Mozambique, to global warming that brings so sharp and fast with no time for adaptation.
Contrary to the widely propagated wisdom that the mass media speak on behalf of its audience, the ordinary citizen, no major news corporations dare to raise the causes of the strange weather pattern, only to spare more time for bad weather forecast, since they were owned by the corporations that deny anything to do with the climate changes.

When the funnel-shaped swell of tornado hit the Bible-belt southern Texas town that destroyed most of the buildings, Noah’s antediluvian townspeople gathered in the court of blown-out church and cried out the mercy of their Lord for help and questioned why they were the target of Lord’s anger.
The agencies of culture, namely media, school, church, and corporation, shape most of social consciousness that the weather pattern is dependent on the God’s hand, adjusted in righteous matter in near future, and nothing to worry about it because God is always right and good.

For townspeople, asking Lord’s mercy instead of locating the culprits who caused the destruction of the town appears to be more painless and dauntless to reconcile with their numbness, frustration, and bewilderment, as a software technician blasted off his anger against helpless targets through the barrels of guns.
They are utterly powerless, helpless, and sometimes stupidly ignorant to locate the bogeymen and ultimately end up barking up the wrong tree.

Today has not begun Yesterday

Today has not begun Yesterday
Myth of racism in America
January 11, 2001


Historically, the United States has never dealt with racism seriously…because it is America’s nightmare that has stamped on African Americans through inhumane slavery with a crushing legacy of poverty, crime, inequality, and exploitation.
Since people can only form opinions based on the knowledge and information to which they have been exposed, rabid racism in America has prospered through the help of the cultural agencies, like school, academia, mass media, church, and government institutions that play various roles writing the history with limited and jaundiced perspectives.

W. E. B. Du Bois, a black writer and educator who received first black Ph.D. degree from Harvard University, argued that the sense of history is crucial to the current predicament of American race relations…far too many Blacks do not have the knowledge of their bondage and struggle against the black slavery and it costs such incalculable damage on the African Americans that the notions of black inferiority are justification for centuries of black exploitation at the hands of whites.
Malcolm X said in the biography: the devil white man cut these black people off from all knowledge of their own kind, and cut them off from any knowledge of their own language, religion and past culture, until the black man in America was the earth’s only race of people who had absolutely no knowledge of his true identity.
“The Negro is an American. We know nothing of Africa,” lamented Martin Luther King Jr.

The US history began five hundred years ago with Columbus invasion of Indian continents in the Americas and Columbus was honored with a pompous parade in the Columbus Day every year.
Never before had the American students learned the atrocious history of Columbus expedition that massacred thousands of Arawak Indians, rounded up Indian men, women and infants, and took five hundreds of them for slaves shipped to Spain. (Two hundreds of them died on the way.)

When the historians raised the issues of the founding father, George Washington, who owned 316 black slaves, abused them as chattel, and willed them to his wife, Martha, upon his death, Attorney General-designate, John Ashcroft, accused the historians, in his Southern Partisan article, of revisionist nonsense, a diatribe against the values of America.
Someone said that black slavery is the most unacknowledged story in America’s history…in 1865, the US federal government let go free of four million penniless black slaves (one third of population in 1860) without rendering them of any means to survive, perpetuating them for centuries suffer under virtual slavery, lynching, exploitation, and poverty up until now.

African Americans were under the constant legislative, executive, and judicial bondages to be subordinated to the whites even after the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.
Since twenty Africans were sold as bond servants in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, 25 million blacks died in slavery, hundreds of thousands of freed blacks were lynched, burned alive, mutilated and dismembered (their teeth, fingers, ashes, clothes, and internal organs sold as keepsakes, and the photos of lynching were used in postcards mailed via US Postal Service), and blacks were not allowed to buy homes in the white neighborhood and black farmers were forbidden to get financial loans from the Federal government.
Few Americans believe that section 102 in Alabama Constitution prohibits the legislature from enacting any law to authorize or legalize any marriage between any white person and a Negro or descendent of a Negro. (30 percent of Alabama’s voters still opposed the repeal of the law.)

Here are some of untold stories at the history classrooms in the school:
1. Indian population of 10 million that lived north of Mexico when Columbus arrived was reduced less than 1 million, because Europeans decided to massacre them when they were not able to enslave them.
2. Thomas Jefferson sponsored the bill restricting the movements of slaves and requiring white women who bear mulatto children to leave the commonwealth with their children, while he sired mulatto children with his black slave.
3. Andrew Jackson, a great president in history book, was a slaveholder, land speculator and mass executioner of Indians, and he reneged the treaties with Indians and expelled 17,000 Cherokee Indians through the Trail of Tears.
4. Abraham Lincoln issued Emancipation Proclamation to save the Union not to free black slaves. It was a military maneuver, giving the South four months to stop rebelling, and threatening to free slaves if they continue to fight. He promised to leave slavery untouched if the states surrender to the Union. The proclamation declared the slaves free only in those areas fighting against the Union and said nothing about slaves behind Union lines. He also urged blacks to leave for Haiti or Liberia. Just leave and do not come back.
5. Early 1900, during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, the US government turned the blind eye on the black lynchings in the Southern States and did nothing to stop it. President Woodrow Wilson, a father of self-determination for most of Korean students, instituted federal segregation of workplaces, washrooms, and lunchrooms.
6. It seems enigmatic why Bill Clinton has become so popular among blacks, since his right-of-center domestic policies ranging from the most punitive crime bill to welfare reform bill in history reversed what Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal had brought to the poor blacks. African Americans are over-represented in every sphere of social predicaments: in prison, death row, unemployment line, homeless shelters, and soup kitchen.


For 246 years (1619-1865), blacks were enslaved by white Europeans, but are not yet totally freed from the bondage of disparity in status, wealth, and culture…since the Federal Government walked away from four million black slaves, many state governments have kept them under tight noose in the form of discriminatory statutes such as Jim Crow Laws, Peonage system, and racial segregation and discrimination.
And throughout American history, in nearly every instance in which the white Americans have been given a direct vote such as plebiscites, ballot initiatives, referendums and the like, the majority of them have rejected any measure beneficial to the interests of blacks.
In this historical perspective, it is a ludicrous assumption that black Americans would be able to compete and share a slice of pie in the dog-eat-dog capitalistic society with many institutionally favored white majority groups.

Instead of assuming responsibility for grievous injustice, the descendants of the slave-owners hold the very notion of race to justify exploitation, racial inequality and imperial conquest, even though scientific evidence shows that the denizens of the earth are all one big family.
According to the scientific journal Nature, we all descended from a single ancestral group that lived in Africa about 170,000years ago and modern humans spread across the earth from Africa in an exodus that took place around 50,000 years ago.
These revelations are uncovered by new techniques that allow molecular examination of DNA, which expands our knowledge of antiquity far more efficiently than have the traditional tools of fossil evidence.
One of the interesting findings is that some Europeans have more genes in common with Nigerians than do Nigerians with Kenyans; some Cambodians are closer genetically to Ethiopians than Ethiopians are to Angolans, and there is more genetic diversity among Africans than there is among the rest of the world’s people.

For the American racial supremacist group and Southern fundamentalist Christians who support new Bush-fils Administration, the issues of race are such deeply rooted in the country’s history and blacks were so dehumanized that they were rather more comfortable to live under the Old Testament, creation ex nihilo (made out of nothing) than to tolerate the disgrace of being lineal to black Afrikaners.
However, when these racists gather at the garden of the White House to celebrate their messenger’s ascension to power, they can not deny the historical fact that the Capitol and the White House were built mostly by slaves pro bono. (The US treasury rather paid the slave-owner $5 per slave a month.)

There are many buildings in the acknowledgement of human pain in the US capital…Holocaust Museum is funded and managed by the American taxpayer’s money although no Americans were responsible for the killings of the Jews.
A garden in memory of Japanese Americans interned during WWII is there with $20,000 recompense to each internee.
A Native American museum is coming soon and they were helped and cocooned in the reserve.
Yet in Capitol Building, not a plaque in tribute to the black slaves is there or in any books in Capitol Historical Society about the construction that mentioned about the use of slave labor.
No one would miss the reasons why blacks lag behind in every sphere of statistical measures in the mainstream society, if one does observe it with the historical perspectives.
And if the situation were reversed as white Europeans were enslaved in the same fashion as blacks suffered, chances are millions of them commit massive suicide.

The issues of racism in American can not be addressed through a continuation of marginalizing the minorities with a massive incarceration or disenfranchisement of blacks and Hispanics, building the brick wall along the Mexican border or deport non-European immigrants in an attempt to prevent the mongrelization of the populace.
Heavy influx of Latinos and Asians into the California State had reduced Caucasians to minorities joining the states of New Mexico and Hawaii.
It is more pragmatic and humanistic to acknowledge the historical wrongs and the crushing legacy of black slavery that Black Americans of today are not originated from yesterday, but the byproduct of century-old slavery.
In this historical sense, myth of racism reveals its fallacy and unravels to surrender.

We are Americans

We are Americans
May 24, 2001

Americans are lucky to have a president who habitually is on bended knees every morning asking God for guidance and believes God is always on his side.
The president’s assumption is that Americans are somewhat ordained by God to have more resources and energy to waste for their extravagant lifestyle than other lesser mortals around the world, and therefore, there is nothing wrong to maximize the consumption of every available resources on earth that is a reflection of the strength of US economy.
The way of American life is a blessed one that only 5 percent of the world population uses 24 percent of the world’s energy resulting to produce 22 percent of the world’s industrial carbon dioxide.

Vice President Dick Cheney, another wealthy oilman, has pooh-poohed the energy conservationist as a wimp who can keep it as personal virtue and ridiculed that it is not a sufficient basis for a sound comprehensive energy policy.
He went on to call for more oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy to meet the ever-growing energy demand of American people for their cellphones, laptops, pagers, walkmans, DVD, and SUVs.

A Republican Senator, who hails from the state of Alaska where the oil barons were watering their mouths for the exploitation of the Arctic National Wild Life Refuge, stated: I am a big guy, and I don’t like to get into a small car because I’m not comfortable.
Even Environmentalists who denounced new oil drillings drive around on 5,000-pound vehicles that guzzle fuel with12-mile per gallon on the highway.
The SUVs have become the all-American car, on which dashboard flashes the warning sign of empty gas tank.

For the god-fearing President, the quickest way to help people with their energy bill is tax relief and he’d like to have it in place tomorrow so that people would have money in their pockets to deal with high energy prices.
It goes without saying that he wants people to spend money at the gas pump that helps his friends in oil business making enormous profits.
Conserving, saving and recycling something are a non sequitur in the capitalistic society… Conserving something for the future generation does not stimulate the economy only leading to the recession, as savings for rainy days is not a virtue but borrowing and speculating on the future market are civic religion, a distinctively American way of success and prosperity.

Assets held by the world’s 200 wealthiest people total $1 trillion and three-quarters of them who suffer from “affluenza” live in OECD countries, 60 reside in the US, while three billion people live on $2 or less per day and one billion get by on $1 or less.
The statistics from the UN shows that the richest 20 percent of the world’s people eat 45 percent of all its fishes and meat, use 87 percent of all of its paper, and 58 percent of all the world’s energy.
According to the UN calculation, $35 billion per year is sufficient to fund the minimum conditions required for the human development worldwide that measures life expectancy, education, literacy and national wealth, and it could be financed with the proceeds of a 3.5 percent per annum levy on the assets of the world’s 200 richest people.

However, the concept of noblesse oblige is a cui bo-no for Americans and as oxymoronic as a jumbo shrimp for the compassionate conservatives.
It is a big NO to share the world resources and wealth with lesser mortals, because we, the nation of gluttons, want everything in our possession big, fast, powerful, and unlimited, and most of all, we want it a big “Now”, not tomorrow or never the day after tomorrow.
The beauty of American-ness is heavily relied upon its instancy—readymade, frozen, canned, dehydrated or freeze-dried—that provides immediate and palpable satisfaction literally and figuratively.

Politically, we are the master yielding a powerful hegemonic hammer on bootlicking serf nations around the world telling them: Do what I say, not what I do.
Economically, we are the chief custodian of the world economy under the rules of IMF and World Bank that is owned 51 percent by the US Treasury.
Militarily, we are the biggest spender in military budget of $325 billion (2002 fiscal year) on killing business over $6 billion of former enemy Russia and our military has overseas bases in 139 countries with over 200,000 service personnel.
Financially, we are flooding the world with our dollars under the rubric “petrodollar recycling” and forcing other industrial nations to buy Treasury bonds so that we maintain the unlimited wealth.
Culturally, we export and dominate entertainment industries with Hollywood movies, Broadway theaters, Television network, hiphop music, media, art, and academia that enter the brains and become apart of viewers, listeners, readers, performers, and teachers.
We even make people change their eating habit exporting fast foods like Domino pizza, Starbucks coffee, and McDonald’s hamburger that enter the body and become a part of the eater. As the old saying goes: You are what you eat.

We are Americans.
We are the only game in town.
All must play by our rules.
Get the hell out of our way, folks.
Or else we would condemn you to death.