l:30 PM THE STORY ABOUT THE GOP “MEMO” IS BOGUS,,,,,SEE KEERECTION BELOW

THEIR REPUBLICAN GUARD AND OURS

BUSH LAWYER QUITS, BLAMES MEDIA

JOURNALISTS HARRASSED IN NAJAV

A year and a half ago, we kept hearing about that fanatical and feared Republican Guard as the force that Saddam was relying on to save his regime. He didn’t have just one Republican Guard, the “Butcher of Baghdad” had two — a SPECIAL Republican Guard. Remember? Now, here in America another Republican Guard is trying to save the Bush Regime. And it is not so special. Iraq’s RG crumbled in the face of superior force. How will ours do in the week ahead?

Cry don’t laugh. There are striking similarities. Both Guards relied on deception, manipulation of information and brute force, including torture. The Bathists crushed protests; the Bushists do the same but stealthfully behind the scenes with FBI intimidation and the refusal to allow demonstrators to assemble in a park that has long been a rallying ground. New York’s Republican Guard mayor toadies up to the party hierarchy.

SAVE THE GRASS

In Britain and around the world this is front page news — a peace rally banned in New York. The BBC reported it that way: "Organizers say the ban is a violation of their constitutional rights of assembly and free speech. A judge at New York’s state Supreme Court has ruled that the rally, which was expected to attract a quarter of a million demonstrators, cannot be held in Central Park because of the damage which may be caused to the grass.”

Save the grass and kill the constitution seems to be the order of the day. What is one likely result: "?organizers have warned that in the absence of a place to gather legally, demonstrators may move on Central Park afterwards and that could bring the possibility of provoking clashes with the police."

A PROVOCATION?

Increasingly this seems to be a planned provocation. The GOP knows how hostile this city is to them, how furious and enraged. They know how easy it is to get the kids fighting the cops — and voila we have a modern day Reichstag fire without the fire, a scene of just the kind of chaos that can be twisted and used to win support for strengthening the Patriot Act and keeping the gang in power in power.

Bush is planning to Nixon on this — to demagogue about the need for order and a strong America. If there is violence, as is probable given the hard-headed attitude of the city, the consequences are unpredictable. It is all escalating with few calm heads to cool things down. Another Vietnam parallel is threatening in the streets.

BUSH OPERERATIVE CAUGHT IN THE ACT, QUITS

Maybe that’s why all the talk of the NAM is so timely and relevant. AP reports that: “One of President Bush’s top lawyers resigned from his campaign Wednesday, a day after disclosing that he had given legal advice to a veterans group airing TV ads challenging Democrat John Kerry’s Vietnam War service. Benjamin Ginsberg, who also represented Bush in the 2000 Florida recount that made the Republican president, told Bush in a letter that he felt his legal work for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had become a distraction for the re-election campaign."

Another distraction was swatted away like a fly from the same wire story: "In Texas, Democrat Max Cleland was rebuffed when he tried to deliver a letter protesting the attack ad at Bush’s ranch. The former Georgia senator, a triple amputee from his service in Vietnam, carried a letter from several Senate Democrats who wrote Bush that “you owe a special duty” to condemn the attacks on Kerry’s military service."

Ginsberg blamed the media for hounding him from his job. Of course.

NOT SO SWIFT

Meanwhile, that Swift Boat flap is still with us even thought most if not all of the charges against John Kerry have been demonstrated as bogus. (I for one don’t trust military sources on Vietnam period!)

Why let the facts get in the way of a good smear? Todd Gitlin writes on Salon:

William Faulkner got it right: The past is not dead, it is not even past. In a rancid and ghostly way, the Vietnam War churns on. So does the White House slime machine, though that runs more smoothly today — George W. Bush’s plumbers don’t operate out of a Nixonian Committee to Re-elect the President.

Today’s stench of lies about John Kerry is a stale remnant of the old lies about the war Kerry fought in. As the nation fights another botched war, today’s purveyors of war lies are ghastly descendants of the last generation’s unpunished deceivers. Indeed, John O’Neill of the outrageously named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (and every TV talk show within reach) is the very same — the young man recruited by Charles Colson to do Richard Nixon’s dirty work against the young Kerry in 1971.

GAIN

Iraq feels more and more like Vietnam every day with more bombing in Najav and Fallujah. Kill the enemy, kill. And alienate all the Shia in the process. And destroy a city. Al Jazeera reports: "As US AC-130s and artillery units continued their sixth day of bombing al-Mahdi Army positions in Najaf, Grand Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani has issued a call for Iraqis to march to the city to “save it from destruction.”

F-ING THE PRESS

To control coverage of this ongoing atrocity, the Iraqi police are moving on the press. 60 journalists were threatened with violence. The Guardian reports: "The police officer who burst into the Guardian’s room, wearing a balaclava and pointing a Kalashnikov, said in Arabic: ‘We’re going to fuck the lot of you.”

Al Jazeera has this story: "Iraqi policemen rounded up dozens of journalists at gunpoint in a Najaf hotel and took them to police headquarters before later releasing them. Firing their guns in the air, the dozen odd policemen, some masked, stormed into the rooms of journalists in the Najaf Sea hotel and forced them into vans and a truck."

ATTACKS ON THE MEDIA CONTINUE

Another journo in trouble. Reporters Without Frontiers reports: "Enzo Baldoni, 56, of the independent weekly Diario, was abducted by an armed group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq. According to a video broadcast on 24 August on the Arab-language al-Jazeera television networt, the film that also carried an ultimatum demanding withdrawal of Italian forces from Iraq within 48 hours. The footage was shown in Italy on the Canale 5 channel. In the al-Jazeera video, said to come from Baldoni’s kidnappers who described themselves as members of the Islamic Army in Iraqi, the journalist briefly identifies himself, his passport and journalist’s professional identity card are seen."

And in Israel, being naﶥ in the eyes of authorities can get you tossed. The Guardian reports: "A British journalist, Ewa Jasiewicz, was ordered to be deported from Israel yesterday after a court ruled that her ‘naivety’ could be exploited by Palestinian militants. Jasiewicz, 26, a freelance journalist who writes for the leftwing monthly Red Pepper, went to court after being refused entry to the country on August 11. She has been detained at Ben Gurion airport.”

THE REPUBLIC OF TORTURE

As John Kerry calls again for Rumsfeld to step down, a military report finds 57 intelligence officials implicated in that torture in the gulags of Iraq. A top journalist Dr. Muthana al-Dhari, editor-in-chief of al-Basaer newspaper and media officer of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), shares his experience in detention with Al Jazeera. I will quote this at length because Americans are rarely informed about the experience of Iraqis:

They handcuffed us and blindfolded us and put us in a military vehicle. I could not see anything, but being a son of Baghdad, I could figure out that we were heading to the airport area, which was proved right the next morning.

What were conditions like in the detention centre?

I spent the first hours until the morning sitting on a chair. Then they took us to a prison cell where they did an initial interrogation. Then a doctor checked us, and said everything is OK. But his diagnosis was wrong, because the next morning an Egyptian doctor came and gave us another checkup, and found my blood pressure was high, while my colleague had breathing difficulties.

LUELESS

And then he described the interrogation he went through

They asked me, why we hate them? I told them that we do not hate the American people, they are welcomed as tourists, traders?etc., but not as occupiers. An interrogator blamed the Israeli-Arab conflict for the hostility between Arabs and Americans, and if Israel removes the settlements everything would be alright. I did not agree with him, and reminded him of Jerusalem, and how it is occupied. I let him know that Muslims do not mind Jews and Christians living with them in Jerusalem, but they must ask for permission not come by force.”

What was your conclusion?

I got the impression that US interrogators and CIA officers have not a clue about what they are doing. Their questions were shallow and indicated serious ignorance of the Iraqi scene. I also noticed they are so keen to mock, ridicule, and insult us. Some of them are good people, and are very angry at [President] George Bush, one of them told me if he (Bush) loves Iraq so much, why does he not bring his family and live here? But interestingly, some of them (US soldiers) are just thieves. They stole my agenda and wrist watch in front of my eyes.

APARTHEID CRITIC CRITICIZES ISRAEL

Aluf Benn writes in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz: "South African law professor John Dugard, the special rapporteur for the United Nations on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, has written in a report to the UN General Assembly that there is ‘an apartheid regime’ in the territories ‘worse than the one that existed in South Africa.’ As an example, Dugard points to the roads only open to settlers, from which Palestinians are banned. In his report, presented early this month, Dugard is highly critical of Israel for its ‘continuing violations of human rights in the territories.’ He said Israel is blatantly violating the International Court of Justice’s ruling on the separation fence, and has declared it will not obey it."

NIGERIA TO SHELL OIL: PAY UP

The Mail and Guardian of South Africa reports: "The Nigerian senate has ordered Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to pay $1,5-billion compensation for damages caused by nearly 60 years of exploration in the Niger Delta. The senate adopted the Bill which ordered the payment to members of the Ijaws ethnic group ‘for the severe health hazards, economic hardship, injurious affection, avoidable deaths and sundry maladies’ resulting from oil spills at Shell facilities."

PUT MEDIA ON THE AGENDA

Media scholars and activists like Peter Phillips of Project Censored are calling on both parties to address media issues if our democracy is to be renewed:

By not addressing relevant issues facing everyday Americans, the corporate media are weakening democracy in the US. More than half the eligible voters in the country do not vote in elections. Most non-voters believe their vote matters very little. Therefore, they do not make the effort to distinguish important issues between candidates nor do the corporate media do it for them. Non-voters often see little difference between the two primary political parties and tend to believe that voting is a waste of time.

The corporate media agenda of maximum profits undermines the public purpose of a free press by creating the fiscal necessity for cutting costs and increasing the entertainment content. Ratings and audience share translate to higher advertising value and higher profits. This structural arrangement of corporate media results in an electorate who perceive few personal reasons to get involved, not just as voters but as activists on political issues as well.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

This just in: "Bucking a national wave of media consolidation by large corporations, Boulder community radio station KGNU (88.5 FM) announced today that it has reached terms to buy Denver AM radio signal KJME (1390 AM), offering metro Denver listeners independent news and diverse music currently unavailable in Denver. ‘The corporate media’s failure to challenge the Administration’s case for war created a real demand for an independent broadcast news outlet in Denver,’ said KGNU’s Denver Campaign Coordinator, Kris Abrams. ‘For years, people in Denver have asked KGNU to find a way to broadcast there. But these requests reached a high-intensity pitch when the White House rolled out its pro-war PR campaign. People knew they weren’t getting the full story, and they demanded an alternative.’”

YOUR LETTERS

Dwayne Chandler writes from inside the US Army. He is one angry man, I can’t share the whole message but you get the drift:

Hope is on the way because it’s not tangible.
No leader can be held accountable for failing to provide hope; you can be criticized, but criticism can be overcome:
Hope does not feed the hungry.
Hope does not provide a home.
Hope does not provide a job.
Hope does not provide healthcare.
Hope does not provide an education.
However, a promise to help, to provide, the necessities of daily life is tangible and accountable …

PARANOIA ON THE RIGHT

Back in l968, the Chicago police issued an alert , warning that Yippies would put LSD into the water supply. Now, fast forward 36 years: Greg Palast found these warnings on a GOP site.

[I couldn’t make this up … direct from the Republican National Committee website ….]

NEXT WEEK, people who hate Republicans plan to release swarms of mice in New York City to terrorize delegates to the National Republican Convention. Republican-haters plan on dressing up as RNC volunteers, and giving false directions to little blue hair ladies from Kansas, sending them into the sectors of New York City that are unfit for human habitation. They plan on throwing pies and Lord knows what else at Republican visitors to the city. Prostitutes with AIDS plan to seduce Republican visitors, and discourage the use of condoms.

CHOPPERS OVERHEAD

I can’t top this. Its time to post before I start blinking in total disbelief at the line "tossing pies and Lord knows what else."

Praise the Lord and pass the strawberry rhubarb. Please visit Media Channel and download our cool new unofficial media guide to the RNC. Already we have had calls from major mainstream media outlets including the New York Post. They will be carrying it.

Uh-oh, my dissector hole in the ground is being buzzed by helicopters. Another day in occupied New York. Stay with us. Share your reports. Write: dissector@mediachannel.org

RED-FACED KERRECTION AS OF l:30 PM

Brad Youtz writes: ” Regarding your item on Palast’s info about the RNC web site. Those quotes were attributed to Ted Rall. See:

Blog: Uncle Horn Head

Link: http://unclehornhead.blogspot.com/2004/08/good-joke-rnc-web-site-links-to-story.html