The deckchairs have been rearranged.

While on the surface, a Democrat win of the control of both Houses of Congress may seem like a cause for some celebration, it is already clear that for anyone who cares about repairing the tattered remains of hard-won civil rights there is nothing to celebrate. Nothing. Whatsoever. For those who believe that quagmire of bloodshed and suffering that is Iraq is more than a mere "project" that is being badly managed, there is no reason to whoop it up.

Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee Chairman, during an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart made it clear that he will not entertain calls for impeachment of G.W. Bush when he said...

"I know half the audience wants us to impeach the President and all that kind of stuff but we're not gonna do that, we're not gonna do that."

Of course, Mr Dean is simply following the lead first established by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker elect of the United States House of Representatives, when she clearly stated during an interview with "60 Minutes" (see video below) that...

"Impeachment is off the table"

and went on to say that...

"that's a pledge"

As of this moment, it seems that the Democrat effort over the next two years will be primarily concentrated on helping the President push through a mass amnesty for illegal immigrants (a move that his own party do not wholeheartedly support) and also on tinkering around with the minimum wage. Unless matters change very radically, they pose about as much threat to the neocon project as domestic cat would pose to a tiger. In other words, it will be business as usual.

There are those who seem to think that the Democrat victory is living proof that the American democracy still works. One highly respected liberal blogger, attorney Glenn Greenwald, provided a prime example of the state of denial brought on by the euphoria of a Democrat victory, when in a recent post he claims that...

"The basic mechanics of American democracy, imperfect and defective though they may be, still function."

Mr. Greenwald then goes on to berate those who are alert to the ways in which their society is being destroyed from within and who do not just shrug their shoulders when their liberties are snatched away from them...

"Chronic defeatists and conspiracy theorists — well-intentioned though they may be — need to re-evaluate their defeatism and conspiracy theories in light of this rather compelling evidence which undermines them."

Try as I might, I see no compelling evidence. The evidence, such as it is, is at best flimsy and at worst utterly specious. Glenn, I sincerely hope that you present evidence far more compelling when you are working on behalf of your clients in court, as the evidence you claim here is compelling would not pass muster in front of any half-awake judge and would be torn to shreds in moments by opposing counsel. Using emotive but trite name-calling does not lend any weight to your insubstantial argument.

The rest of the "evidence" presented by Mr Greenwald is equally fallacious....

"Karl Rove isn't all-powerful; he is a rejected loser."

True. Karl Rove is not all-powerful. However, he is just one cog in a mammoth machine.

"Republicans don't possess the power to dictate the outcome of elections with secret Diebold software."

How do you know they don't? Are you not using the absence of evidence in this one election as evidence of absence? I can say for certain that you are both getting the point and simultaneously missing it when you say "secret". The point is that the electronic voting software is secret. The source code of the software is not open to review.

In theory, anything could be going on inside these machines and you would never know. Yet you appear to be stating that you know for certain that these machines, whether made by Diebold or not, are not used to rig elections. Why? Because the Democrats won this election? Is that what passes for evidence in your neck of the woods? Perhaps you also think that the computer programmer shown giving evidence in the video below was committing perjury?

Many have voiced concerns that voter intimidation and electoral fraud reached an all-time high in this election. Is this really the triumph of democracy you so loudly trumpet?



Then Mr Greenwald goes on piling one spurious argument on top of another...

"they can't magically produce osama bin laden day before the election"

They already did. Have you forgotten the October surprise where the Osama Bin Laden appeared on a video taking responsibility for the September 11 attacks? Have you forgotten the timing of the release of that tape, and the impact it would have had on the re-election chances of George W. Bush? They simply didn't try the same stunt twice.

They don't have the power to snap their fingers and hypnotize zombified Americans by exploiting a New Jersey court ruling on civil unions, or a John Kerry comment, or moronic buzzphrases and slogans designed to hide the truth

Just because the grip of the neocons and their financial backers has not yet totally asphyxiated the wheezing remnant of the American Republic does not mean that it is not vice-like and unrelenting.

It simply isn't the case that we are doomed and destined to lose at the hands of all-powerful, evil forces.

You are right that America is not necessarily so doomed or destined. However, as the Democrats have made it abundantly clear that they will not be rocking the boat then any expectation of positive change is misguided. Given that the Democrats will not be challenging the prevailing neocon orthodoxy or the might of their financial backers, then the whole election aftermath will take on a distinct hue of "steady as she goes". Given that the Democrats are unlikely to change their stance on the unprovoked and unrelenting aggression against a defenseless and broken country that is the Iraq war, then the puppeteers behind the Bush administration can rest easy. As long as the Democrats continue to provide tacit support for the idea of American and British hegemony, then democracy the world-over remains under serious threat.

The sorry reality behind the smokescreen of the Democrat victory is that it will provide little in the way of substantive change where change is badly needed. The deckchairs have been rearranged, but the ailing ship is still ploughing headlong into more turbulent waters - instead of being brought back to a safe harbour as it should be.

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Olbermann - Bush is just making it up as he goes along

The ever eloquent Keith Olbermann delivered yet another well-argued and highly damning criticism of the Bush administration in a pre-election "Special Comment". Click on play button in the video below to watch. For a full transcript, click on the "Continue reading" link below.

TRANSCRIPT

And finally tonight, a special comment about tomorrow's elections.

We are, as every generation, inseparable from our own time. Thus is our perspective inevitably that of the explorer looking into the wrong end of the telescope.

But even accounting for our myopia, it's hard to imagine there have been many elections more important than this one. Certainly not in non-presidential years.

And so we look at the verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday and with the very phrase "October, or November, Surprise" now a part of our vernacular, and the chest-thumping coming from so many of the Republican campaigners today, each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing.

But let us give history and coincidence the benefit of the doubt — let's say it's just happened that way and for a moment not look into the wrong end of the telescope.

Let's perceive instead the bigger picture.

Saddam Hussein, found guilty in an Iraqi court.

Who can argue against that?

He is officially, what the world always knew he was - a war criminal.

Mr. Bush, was this imprimatur, worth the cost of 2,832 American lives, and thousands more American lives yet to be lost?

Is the conviction of Saddam Hussein the reason you went to war in Iraq?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda that did not exist?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to break the bonds of tyranny there, while installing the mechanisms of tyranny here?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because you felt the need to wreak vengeance against somebody... anybody?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to contain a rogue state which, months earlier, your own administration had declared had been fully contained by sanctions?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to keep gas prices down?

How startling it was, sir, to hear you introduce oil to your own stump speeches over the weekend.

Not four years removed from the most dismissive, the most condescending, the most ridiculing denials of the very hint at, as Mr. Rumsfeld put it, this "nonsense", there you were, campaigning in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Florida, in Kansas - suddenly turning this unpatriotic idea… into a platform plank.

You can imagine a world, you said, in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources. And then you can imagine them saying, "We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following..."

Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and re-written the constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you've stayed the course, having belittled us about "timelines" but instead extolled "benchmarks", you've now resorted, sir, to this? We must stay in Iraq to save the two-dollar gallon of gas?

Mr. President, there is no other conclusion we can draw as we go to the polls tomorrow.

Sir - you have been making this up as you went along.

This country was founded to prevent anybody from making it up as they went along.

Those vaunted founding fathers of ours have been so quoted-up, that they appear as marble statues, like the chiseled guards of China, or the faces on Mount Rushmore, but in fact they were practical people and the thing they obviously feared most, was a government of men and not laws. They provided the checks and balances for a reason.

No one man could run the government the way he saw fit, unless he, at the least, took into consideration what those he governed saw.

A House of Representatives would be the people's eyes. A senate would be the corrective force on that House. An executive would do the work, and hold the constitution to his chest like his child. And a Supreme Court would oversee it all.

Checks and balances.

Where did all that go, Mr. Bush? And what price did we pay because we have let it go?

Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have, and thousands more. He'll get out faster than we will.

And if nothing changes tomorrow, you, sir, will be out of the White House long before the rest of us can say we are out of Iraq.

And whose fault is this?

Not truly yours. You took advantage of those of us who were afraid, and those of us who believed unity and nation took precedence over all else. But we let you take that advantage.

And so we let you go to war in Iraq. To oust Saddam, or find non-existent weapons. or avenge 9/11, or fight terrorists who only got there after we did, or as cover to change the fabric of our constitution, or for lower prices at the Texaco. Or… ?

There are still a few hours left, before the polls open, sir, there are many rationalisations still untried.

And whatever your motives of the moment, we the people have, in true good faith and with the genuine patriotism of self-sacrifice, of which you have shown you know nothing, we have let you go on…
Making it up, as you went along.

Un-checked, and un-balanced.

Vote.

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Obsession: FOX News and the war for votes

Newshounds, whose tagline is "We watch FOX so you don't have to" have revealed that Faux News has rearranged its weekend line-up in order to be able to air a terror film "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West", presumably to scare the wits of out floating voters and send them to the polls - voting for the ruling junta- the GOP.

Faux News, in announcing that it will air the film, claims that it is a "frightening new documentary by filmmaker Wayne Kopping" and that "what he found, is something FOX News believes every American should know."



The documentary, far from being new, is actually a year old, and will be aired four times over the weekend in what consitutes unabashed electioneering.

Ignoring the fact that a significant proportion of the American public do not believe the official line on the events of 9/11 and that the supposed facts of what happened that day simply fail to add up, an article at the the Faux News site tries to stir up the fear factor using the tried and not so trusted line on 9/11...

"We often hear that 9/11 was a wake-up call for Americans. But have Americans really woken up to the truth of how much radical Islamists want us dead, and the lengths to which they are willing to go to fulfill their mission?"

Back in the real world, outside of the Faux News world of manufactured fear and support for state-sponsored terrorism, this piece would have to be reworded to read...

"We often hear that 9/11 was a wake-up call for Americans. But have Americans really woken up to the truth of how much the neoconservative administration have used 9/11 to turn America into a dictatorship in all but name, and the lengths to which they are willing to go to fulfill their mission?"

This so-called documentary will, of course, work its magic on less news-savvy and may well scare the living daylights out of them. What it won't do, of course, is deliver the true picture.

It won't discuss the relatively powerless nature of radical Islam when compared against the hostile and aggressive policies of the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom. It won't touch on the debate surrounding the inconsistencies of the 9/11 story, and the distinct possibility that the perpetrators are not those who have shouldered the blame so far. It will steer clear of any discussion on the idea that radical behaviour, where it exists, is an merely an effect for which the cause must be identified and dealt with. In other words, it will paint a simplistic and partisan view of affairs with the sole purpose of rallying support for the current administration and its ongoing "war on terra".

Whether or not the target audience for this electioneering blitz possesses the required attention span to sit out a documentary of this length remains to be seen - but the intention of Faux News is crystal clear - bolster the GOP vote by manufacturing fear and in doing so, manufacturing votes.

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The 'sin' of omission

In an article earlier this month, the Northwest Evening Mail reported that a retired dentist in the Lancaster area had been arrested and charged with "being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose" after "a record number of explosives" were seized. It is claimed that police found "rocket launchers, chemicals, British National Party literature and a nuclear or biological suit" in his house . This find appear came shortly after the discovery of twenty-two 'chemical components' at the house of his alleged accomplice, Robert Cottage, a former BNP election candidate, who lives in nearby Colne.

A further article, published by The Burnley Citizen, reported that local police superintendent Neil Smith had "moved to reassure residents and stressed: It is not a bomb making factory" before adding that the find was "not related to terrorism". Another local newspaper, The Nelson Leader reported on the first appearances by the two before magistrates courts.

Given the nature of the find, you would imagine that the national news media would be all over this story in no time. Wrong! Here we have a substantial haul of weaponry that would do real damage to real people, and it receives precisely ZERO coverage in the national media.

This is in stark contrast to the almost frenzied blanket coverage of the trial of Dhiren Barot, who is being tried for conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts, despite the fact that only evidence against him are some deranged scribblings he made on a notepad where he fantasised about carrying out terrorist attacks on major public buildings in the United Kingdom and United States. Never mind the fact that "The Crown could not dispute claims from the defence that no funding had been received for the projects, nor any vehicles or bomb-making materials acquired".

According to the mainstream media, Mr Barot, who has obvious mental-health problems, is the real terrorist - despite having no means whatsoever to bring his crazed ideas to fruition, and having no known connection with anyone who does. However, when presented with the largest haul of items likely to be used in terrorist acts, voices in the same mainstream media fall strangely silent.

Of course, the guilt or innocence of those arrested in Lancashire is up to a court to decide and they have a right not to be tried in the media. However, the same careful avoidance of publicly discussing matters that are sub-judice does not seem to have come into play in the case of Dihren Barot.

His guilt or innocence should be determined by a court of law, based on the evidence presented. The outcome of his trial should not depend upon or be in anyway influenced by the feverish salivating of the gutter press (or gutter TV news for that matter) , nor the selective reporting of the so-called quality media and their servile acquiescence to the relentless demonisation of selected groups. Regretably, it seems that large swathes of the mainstream media have already been happy to act as his judge, jury and executioner.

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