democracynow – Citizen Reporter

Evidence to Convict A Murderer

Many visitors to this site and readers of this blog are no doubt listeners or watchers of democracy now, perhaps the most important 60 min of audio one can consult in the average day. Well last friday’s show is one I had to listen to a second time.

People often fall back on slogans like, “the past is the past” and “its time to move on” whenever you bring up an uncomfortable or unresolved conflict. I hear it very often in both the mainstream media and mainstream political conversations when it comes to impeaching the president. Beyond impeachment, even the demand to arrest the current president of the United States and his inner circle on the charge of mass murder and fraud seems to have become some crazy idea, too far fetched to be worthy of discussion.

Why exactly doesn’t anyone want to talk about it? That part isn’t so clear. People are still dying everyday while carrying out his orders. An entire nation is still living under occupation while their national funds are being held hostage by that same administration. The US itself is, even as I write this, being drained of all its resources, wealth, and young minds, again for the whims of that same president. But perhaps like Eddie Izzard used to say, when one murders tens of thousands it is as if people don’t know what to do with you or how to respond.

Last friday’s democracy now featured the man who led the case against Charles Manson, the infamous American serial killer. He’s now laid out the case against George W. Bush, for the crime of murder; mass murder. To learn the details of the case itself is important and worth your time, so give it a listen.

What I found particularly eye opening was the document called “the manning memo”. This memo, written by a Tony Blair advisor, provided details of the conversations that included Bush, Blair, and Condi Rice among others. In those details it is revealed by Manning, that Bush was worried that the case for war in Iraq was too weak, and he discussed a plan to fly a US air force plane low over Iraq, painted with UN colors and insignias. In doing so it would provoke Iraq to fire, and the plane’s destruction would outrage the international community and further garuntee the desire to go to invade the country.

The evidence of the murders and fraud was already significant, but looking at the manning memo and seeing the premeditated, fraudulent, and blantent thirst for blood, this cabal needs to be arrested and kept from comitting anymore murders or other haneous acts. The world cannot wait for the next election, just as you don’t wait 6 months before picking up a serial killer til he is finished with his current job. This is not a time for moving on, or keeping the past in the past… this is the present and there is a series of criminal acts that got us here, and something must be done about it.

bmtv80 Winter Soldier, from Paris

Greetings from Paris. The following video entry was put together to direct more attention to the extremely important gathering a few weeks ago in the US called Winter Soldier. It was organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War organization and the stories you will hear… the testimony.. well.. every citizen should have to listen and relisten whenever they start to think that war is ever an option or an answer.

Video excerpt is from democracynow and ivaw

Mid August Listening

Busy work and social life welcomes me back to Amsterdam. Plus frisbee all weekend. Therefore, two recommendations is what I leave you with.

1 – Naomi Klein, one of my journalistic idols and someone I learn alot from.. speaking at some conference recently, aired on democracynow. She gets into globalization, the business of war, and looking back to how we got here.

2 – On Point episode focusing on the American Prison population. Ever growing and out of control, they get into not only who is in prison but why and what is happening to cities like Newark. An issue that deserves much more media attention then it gets.

From Portugal Remembering Newark

Greetings from Lisbon, where in theory I’ve just begun my vacation, even though I can neither take a vacation nor do I believe in taking them. There’s never a moment that Im not observing or thinking up something related to the world around us… hence.. Im never not “working”.

On the flight over and the bus ride from the airport, I’ve been listening to testimony from people remembering the rebellion of 67 in the city of my birth: Newark, NJ.

Rather than try to convey what happened and more importantly – why it happened – I refer you instead to the recent democracy now program featuring people who lived those powerful days in Newark.

In addition, PBS has also released podcast accounts, remembering Newark in 67. Amazing times, especially comparing all this to what I knew and saw growing up in and around Newark.

Resonating in my Ears

Working very very late on some upcoming podcasts, from Afghanistan, to Guinea, to Liberia.. there’s alot coming up.

But in the meantime, as I did my research for the day, which always includes almost 6 hours of podcasts daily, two in particular had me captivated and hitting rewind to hear words again.

The first was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who most people in the Netherlands would be quite tired of hearing from, but in this case she appeared on WBUR Boston’s On Point, to discuss her new book and of course… the usual condemnation of islam. I must say, I don’t agree with her on many things, but I always tune in to interviews with her.. she has an interesting style and she handles debate quite well.
But in this particular program what is striking is her descriptions of both her and her brother being forcefully circumcized back in Somalia when she was a child. Each word of her sentences made me shutter. And even more captivating are the callers from around the US that call in to either condemn her.. or mostly to praise her in very strange ways.. including reminding her of how great it is to live in the US and having Jesus watching over her. AN INSTANT CLASSIC.

The other program that Ill never forget was Monday’s democracy now, featuring an interview with one of my hero’s and citizen journalist-colleague… Josh Wolf.. on the phone from prison. You should really hear what he has to say about what has happenned to him and the country. Among other things, it reminded me of how dangerous it is for individual… independent journalists making their own media without the backing of corporate or government forces, to do what I do within the United States. As far as Im concerned it could happen to me or any other of my wonderful friends out there doing our own reporting. Josh is an inspiration and a hero…. they should be learning about him in schools everywhere!

Loose Change Leave Me Alone

I hate this goddam film.

Loose Change.

“Did you see loose change yet?”

“What about Loose Change bm?”

One more person asks me about Loose Change… I may just snap and commit myself to a Dutch looney bin.

I hate writing off arguements as “conspiracy theories”. I think conspiracies are very important and are often the cause of something, the result of one too many secrets or inconsistancies. So I’m all in favor of investigating them. Plus, I certainly don’t just swallow what the government gives me when it comes to information, so there again, I say question the answers.

But Loose Change is another creature all together. It captivates people somehow. 5 years later and somehow people seem to have just realized that there was something very un-normal and inconsistant about the way the events of that day went down. Loose Change becomes the source of their born-again skepticism. To some extent, as I stated previously, I can understand it.

But what I can’t stand is the out-of-wack priorities. The excessive focus on the film, and the details, to see who has the right film and the right photos to prove or disprove certain stories.

The fact is, regardless if the towers were purposely demolished by some unknown entity, or destroyed by planes as a result of a government that refused to heed warnings or take any extraordinary measures to prevent them, a crime of enormous proportion has still been committed. The net result, when all is said and done, is still criminal. Loose Change can argue all it wants about how it happened and how it didnt happen, but it doesn’t change much when it comes to the end result and who was ultimately responsible for preventing or being prepared for such a situation, and they certainly were not.

Do you follow me here? I’ll try and be more clear, as many have pointed out I was not successful in doing during my last podcast: Myself, I could care less about Loose Change, and the attention it gets bothers me, because I believe it is misplaced attention. A better use of time and energy would be to come up with a strategy for holding the criminally negligent responsible. It concerns me, to some extent, when figuring out conspiracies becomes the primary goal, in place of focusing on how to address the crime.

One might say, well this is only one step, so whats wrong with that. You could argue, it is necessary to first know the truth. Fine points. But what I see thus far, since this film started out last year, is that the public watches it, argues about it, and to this point… nothing comes of it. I may just be getting ahead of myself.. but I can’t take it anymore.. I am absolutely sick of Loose Change.

Listen to the Democracy Now debate which includes the writers and you might notice there is something really wrong with these guys. Besides the holes in their arguments, their refusal to admit the slightest possibility that theyre wrong, and the constant laughing and rediculing their oppenents during the debate, for me.. all signs that these boys are simply not as legitimate as many give them credit for.