Reading the news makes me angry and sad... but why can't I stop? (reprise)

Every day there's no shortage of news reports that either make me want to kick some lying butthole in a custom-tailored suit - or press a red button that will consign Homo sapiens sapiens to oblivion.

Why don't I just stop monitoring the news, I ask myself? Well, it's addictive - like cigarettes, facebook, and wanking. We all suffer from one form of addiction or another - it could be nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, adrenaline, endorphins, cannabinol, crystal amphetamine, benzedrine, or ephedrine.

Usually, the anger or amusement I experience from scanning the news quickly evaporates. Often, it's enough to just leave an incisive and witty comment by way of feedback. Remember the sad old analog days when we weren't able to ventilate our immediate reactions to whatever news was fed us? What a blessing the internet has been - at least we can strike back instantly at those who annoy us (except on certain priggish news portals like The Malaysian Insider which appears to have instructed its bots to delete my comments the instant I submit them; they must have blacklisted my IP).

Anyway, I wasn't going to rabbit on about my pet gripes. What prompted me to write a new blog was this story by Murtaza Hussain I found on AlJazeera. It made me feel like reaching for the red button and putting the human race out of its misery.

Read the whole piece yourself and then ask: why does Guantanamo still exist? Why was it even built in the first place? I'll tell you why: it's because most folks who fancy themselves educated and to a certain degree enlightened continue to bandy about stupid catchphrases like "conspiracy theory" instead of seriously investigating what 9/11 was really all about - that's why!

Guantanamo Bay detention camp opened in 2002, prompted by 9/11, to imprison and torture
"suspected terrorosts" detained without trial in the aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Chronicle of a death foretold

Two weeks ago, the Pentagon quietly released a statement that another Guantanamo detainee had died in custody, the ninth since the prison was opened in 2001. Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a 32-year-old man from Yemen who had spent eleven years incarcerated, was found dead in his cell on September 8.

The cause of his death has been recorded as unknown and may never truly be known, but Latif had long suffered from feelings of extreme depression during his time in jail, having made several suicide attempts in the previous years.

Latif had long complained of abuse by prison staff and of his deteriorating physical and mental condition during his imprisonment. Two years earlier, he had written that guards "entered my cell on a regular basis. They throw me and drag me on the floor... they strangle me and press hard behind my ears until I lose consciousness". In 2009 he slit his wrists in an attempt to end his life, writing about the incident later to his lawyer to say that his circumstances in Guantanamo "make death more desirable than living".

Latif was initially captured by Pakistani bounty hunters in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when a mixture of confusion and desire for vengeance resulted in the effective labelling of any military age Arab males found in Afghanistan and Pakistan as potential terrorists. [Read the full report here.]

"I am happy to express from this darkness and draw a true picture of the condition in which I exist. I am moving towards a dark cave and a dark life in the shadow of a dark prison. This is a prison that does not know humanity, and does not know anything except the language of power, oppression and humiliation for whoever enters it. It does not differentiate between a criminal and the innocent." ~ Guantanamo inmate Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif in a letter to his lawyer, dated December 26th, 2010

People of the world, it's time to put an end to savage misrule by evil men in dark suits who sit around boardroom tables and talk through their humanoid masks about "security" and "stability" and "dangerous anarchy."

[First posted 24 September 2012. Reposted 11 june 2014]

BUSH CHARGED WITH MURDER

About the book

In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses—a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight; and alienated many American allies in the Western world.

As a prosecutor who is dedicated to seeking justice, Bugliosi, in his inimitable style, delivers a non-partisan argument, free from party lines and instead based upon hard facts and pure objectivity. A searing indictment of the President and his administration, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder also outlines a legally credible pathway to holding our highest government officials accountable for their actions, thereby creating a framework for future occupants of the oval office.

Vincent Bugliosi calls for the United States of America to return to the great nation it once was and can be again. He believes the first step to achieving this goal is to bring those responsible for the war in Iraq to justice.

HAPPY "INTERDEPENDENCE DAY" TO ALL MY AMERICAN FRIENDS & VISITORS. WE IN MALAYSIA HAVE TO DEAL WITH OUR OWN FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD HOODLUMS-IN-GOVERNMENT TOO! NOW READ WHAT MY BUDDY SWAMI BEYONDANANDA HAS TO SAY...

How We Can Break the Soundless Barrier and Bring Down the Irony Curtain

by Steve Bhaerman (July 3, 2008)

"We no longer have a free press. We have a brainwashing machine stuck on spin."

In case you missed it, there was a front page story two weeks ago that most newspapers - like our own "liberal" San Francisco Chronicle - treated as a no-page story. While those of us in the Bay Area were offered a front page analysis of Tiger Woods' injury and the latest doings of penguins at the zoo, a former commanding general in Iraq accused the Bush Administration of war crimes.

You didn't hear about it? Well, obviously you weren't supposed to. In the preface to a report prepared by Physicians for Human Rights, Maj. General Antonio Taguba (USA-Ret.), who led the U.S. Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal, wrote: "After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

So, let's see. An American general accuses the Commander-in-Chief of committing war crimes, and it doesn't even make the news. The last time an American general accused the President of committing war crimes was ... uh ... never. In other words, something truly new happens, and it's not even "news." Our so-called "free press" is free to report freely on any story it likes, provided it doesn't rock the ship of state. I've said it before, but it - sadly - bears repeating. The main difference between the corporate media and Pravda is that the Soviet citizens knew they were being lied to.

We no longer have a free press. We have a brainwashing machine stuck on spin.

So if we're wondering why impeachment and war crimes have gotten no traction, well ... welcome to Not-See America, where the press makes it easier and easier for Americans to "not see" what should be all too obvious. Fortunately, as the "up-wising" continues, Americans across the political spectrum are waking up and wising up. Unfortunately, they are finding their voices intentionally silenced by a media monopoly that does more than "cover" the most important stories of our day - it smothers them to death. I guess that's what they mean by "blanket coverage."

However, there is one way to break the story of the most dangerous and toxic regime in American history through the "soundless barrier." It can be done without demonstrations (one of the lessons the powers in power learned in the Vietnam War is to pay no attention to them), petitions, civil disobedience, fasting, etc. It is using the two weapons we the people still have in our arsenal - the marketplace and the meeting place.

Vincent Bugliosi, the former Los Angeles County prosecutor who helped convict the Manson family and wrote a book about it, Helter Skelter (touted as the # 1 True Crime Bestseller of all time) has written a new book called The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. In it, he lays out what the book jacket describes as "a nonpartisan argument, free from party lines, based upon hard facts and pure objectivity." In other words, the very book America needs right now. Needless to say, finding a review of this book ... well, it's like finding those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

[Illustration: Abu Ghraib 37 (2005), by Fernando Botero]