Wanna shoot me?!

Accidental experiment shows that many people would shoot an innocent person (with paintballs) if kept anonymous.

In my daily scan of the internet, I was stopped cold in my tracks when I came across an article that detailed an Iraqi artist’s attempt to portray the cruelty of war in a quirky, unconventional way. This was from a man who knew the Iraq War up close and personal. He lived it from his arrest as a dissident under Suddam Hussein’s regime, to spending two years in a Saudi refugee camp, to his brother being killed by shrapnel in Najaf. He lived the war experience and wanted others to understand the fear and stress that result from it.

Read more…

Severn Cullis-Suzuki speaking at
the University of Alberta Myer
Horowitz Theatre.

A 12 year old ordering UN delegates to stop their ignorance

Severn Suzuki, an environmental activist, speaker, television host and author, spoke in front of the UN during an Earth Summit in 1992 while she was just 12 years old. This has got to be the most amazing, saddening, yet strangely empowering video of someone speaking about environmental issues. Here is what Wikipedia says about Ms. Suzuki:

“Born in 1979 to writer and former Harvard University instructor Dr. Tara Elizabeth Cullis and famed Canadian geneticist and environmental activist Dr. David Suzuki, Cullis-Suzuki received a B. Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University in 2002. She has spoken around the world about environmental issues, urging listeners to define their values, act with the future in mind, and take individual responsibility.

Read more…

Bush speaking to AIPAC.
Photo by AP.

Israeli lobbies may influence our foriegn policy more than people think.

Just like anyone else, I am reluctant to report on what I see as a too powerful Israeli lobby. All too often, any discussion about Israel, and its politics are characterized the same as Bush would characterize his Iraq War stance — “either you’re with us, or you’re against us”. So, any criticism of the Israeli lobby is usually labeled anti-Semitic and rooted out. I fully understand that this is an emotional issue for many people who have strong political fervor over the state of Israel. But, just what has happened that causes us to offer unquestioned and unconditional support for Israel no matter the consequences (US grants to Israel: 2.3 billion dollars a year paid for by U.S. taxpayers and 7.1 billion dollars of arms deliveries to Israel in the 1997-2004 period.)? And, why don’t we read in the media any objective discussions about the Israeli/Palestinian issues?

Read more…

Harith al-Dari Sunni tribal leader
killed by al Qaeda
Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/GETTY

Killed tribal leader caused locals to fight back!

You know the White House is desperately searching for reasons to spin the surge when Tony Snow states that the increase in violence is a measure of success due to the fact that whenever security tightens, violence goes up. Well, they are also declaring the surge a success in the al Anbar province where the Sunni’s apparently are turning against the al Qaeda types and running them out of town. Of course, Bush wants you to think that it’s because of our surge efforts that this is happening. But actually it has nothing to do with our increase in troop strength but instead, it has all to do with sex. Yes, you know that thing that makes the world go round. So, you may be asking what does sex have to do with war?

Read more…

Snipped from Immigration.Campustap.com.

One of my blogging friends over at Immigration Orange wrote an interesting piece about corporations and their complete lack of ethics/morals when it comes to the treatment of foreign workers, and the corporation’s ties with known terrorist organizations. This particular article is about the Chiquita Corporation. Although this company is no different than the other hundreds of companies that fund dictators and terrorist groups and enslave and exploit domestic citizens, my friend Kyle is on a mission to do something about it. He wants to help these poor Columbian citizens in their struggle with paramilitaries that govern with terror.

Read more…

We all have heard about the corporate abuses and scandals that have been occurring under our wonderful pro-business Republican leadership. They are enough to make a sane person nauseous, and an American taxpayer downright sick. As outlined by alternet.org, Filmmaker Robert Greenwald, director of Iraq for Sale: the War Profiteers, recently testified before Congress about corporate conduct in Iraq. What he detailed in excruciating detail included “price-gouging, out-and-out ripoffs, incomplete projects, giving dirty drinking water to U.S. troops in the field, charging the government for gas shipments that were never made, putting troops’ lives at risk guarding empty trucks on dangerous convoys in order to make a buck and a dozen other egregious offenses on the backs of U.S. taxpayers”. You are not going to believe what a prominent Republican Representative said in response to Greenwald’s presentation…

Read more…

It’s funny how isolated we are from the horrors of war. American citizens have never really had to get their hands dirty, especially in more recent wars where sacrifice and the raw horrors of war hasn’t touched us, but there are those who have soldiers coming home for which those horrors are coming home with them. What’s different now is the soldiers are not only coming home with mental scars permanently etched into their psyches, but oftentimes they come home with photos and videos that can be played right in the living room. If you are easily upset, you may no want to continue reading this because included in this article are graphic details of the ugly side of war that no one wants to talk about.

Read more…

While we dicker back and forth in Congress about what to do about Iraq, and while Bush is digging in with veto after veto stating that if we leave chaos will follow, it was reported onAlterNet that the Iraqi parliament, for the first time, had a majority vote on a timetable for US troop withdrawal from their country. This non-binding petition was signed by the 144 parliament members on Tuesday. “The next goal is to ‘present the petition, which is nonbinding, to the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and demand that a binding measure be put to a vote.’ ” Now isn’t it strange that we didn’t hear a peep about this? I would call this a significant development demanding some sort of news coverage. Again, if this is a sovereign country who has a democratically elected parliament, which was the alleged main reason for this war, why don’t we recognize their government’s vote? If they don’t want us there, why the hell are we staying? What’s even more scary is this is not the first time.


Read more…

Monday night, right-wing pundit Dick Morris opens his mouth on the Hannity & Colmes show and what comes out just shocked the hell out of me. Morris said that we need to keep our soldiers in Iraq “to give the terrorists the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like… so they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill [us].” He continued by saying if they can do it around the corner, it will keep them from attacking us, and convenience is a big factor when you are a terrorist. Am I the only one that is completely ashamed of living in the same country as Dick Morris? Morris is insinuating we just rename the Iraqi project to Operation Human Shield.

Read more…

For anyone who is struggling with the “right” thing to do in Iraq, I would suggest that you bone up on Middle Eastern history. This is where the answer to our daily “wringing of hands” on Iraq will be discovered. There are some very important historical underpinnings that reveal America’s true ignorance and totally incompetent strategy in knowing “what is best for Iraq”. First of all, before we even get into the history, which is fascinating reading by the way, I would like to ask this simple question…what in the hell qualifies the U.S. to know what is best for Iraq anyway? Iraq has made its own history for thousands of years in deciding their own fate. So, exactly what qualifies us to determine it now? Who are we to know what is best for Iraq, and most importantly, who are we to impose what our idea of what is best for them on them?

Read more…