FOCUS: 88-Year-Old Survivor of Japanese Sex-Slave Camp Rejects Agreement With Japan
Thursday, 07 January 2016 13:59
Bernstein writes: "Grandma Lee denounced the current agreement as soon as she was informed of the details. 'This agreement seems to have been made without having the victims in mind. I dismiss it in its entirety,' she said, and she rejected the Korean foreign minister as an outright traitor."
'Grandma' Lee Yong-Soo, who was forced into sexual slavery serving Japan's war-time imperial army. (photo: YouTube)
88-Year-Old Survivor of Japanese Sex-Slave Camp Rejects Agreement With Japan
By Dennis J. Bernstein, Reader Supported News
07 January 16
n the waning days of December, foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea announced with great fanfare a “resolution” to the so-called “comfort women” issue. According to historical documents and extensive testimony, some 200,000 people, mostly Asian women and girls from Japanese colonies, some as young as 10, were captured or lured with false promises of factory work or other types of employment. They were then sent to brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. There they were held captive as sexual slaves and raped dozens of times a day. Some were held captive for many months or even years; the majority did not survive their enslavement.
This atrocity was first revealed publicly in 1991, when a Korean survivor of the rape camps, Kim Hak Sun, disclosed her experience. The Japanese government denied it at first, then offered a weak apology and donated a pittance as hush money, filtered to South Korea through private sources. The majority of “comfort women” refused both the apology and the bribe.
The current agreement was hailed globally as a major breakthrough in relations between the governments of Japan and South Korea and is expected to pave the way for a new century of cooperation between the two countries. In the US, major news outlets reported the agreement as a victory for the women and their supporters, who have been protesting non-stop since 1991.
The report in USA Today is typical of what made it into the US corporate press: “Japan and South Korea reached a landmark agreement Monday to end a long-running dispute over Korean women used as sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II. The issue disrupted relations between the two key U.S. allies for decades and hindered U.S. diplomatic and security goals in the region. Under the agreement, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will issue a formal apology to the women – known as “comfort women” – who were recruited or coerced into providing sex for Japanese soldiers. Tokyo will also provide about 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) to a compensation fund that will support the remaining victims.”
In October of 2015, I spoke with 88-year-old “Grandma” Yong Soo Lee, a former comfort woman and unrelenting activist, who had traveled to San Francisco to testify before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She came in support of a memorial to the extreme violence suffered by hundreds of thousands of women who were kidnapped and abused during the Japanese Empire. (“Grandma” is an honorary title given to these women; most were never able to have children due to the psychological and physical abuse they suffered.)
Grandma Lee denounced the current agreement as soon as she was informed of the details. “This agreement seems to have been made without having the victims in mind. I dismiss it in its entirety,” she said, and she rejected the Korean foreign minister as an outright traitor.
When we spoke in Oakland in October, the 88-year-old honorary Grandmother was strong, forthright, and unrelenting in her demands for real justice for the women who were so terribly abused. In her own case, Yong Soo Lee had been lured out of her family’s arms, taken by the Japanese, and forced into sexual slavery. She has spent most of the past 23 years trying to convince the Japanese government to admit guilt and render an official apology. At one point, Grandma Lee attempted to take her own life, during a protest in front of the Japanese Embassy in South Korea to call attention to plight of the women. She told me she is compelled to do this work, to “speak out” for all the women who did not survive their ordeal. In fact, some 75% of all the women forced into sexual slavery died during their enslavement, a higher rate of death than frontline combat troops. Grandma Lee told me it was still, after so many years, difficult to tell her story.
“When I tell my story to people,” she said, “it’s like I am talking to my mom about what happened to me, so it makes me cry. For 23 years we have been demonstrating in front of the Japanese Embassy, rain or snow. I sometimes feel like why do we have to keep doing this? We are human beings. We are not animals roaming around the streets. When we started, I was still young. Now I am old,” she said, “and it makes me wonder why I keep doing this. The reason is that it was the difficult times our people went through, because of the war Japan started. Why were Korea’s daughters taken away and abused?” she asks.
Grandma Soo says she doesn’t feel comfortable using the phrase “comfort women,” because it’s a deceptive misnomer and a way of mitigating the level of violence perpetrated on thousands of mothers and sisters and daughters, a name imposed on these victims of mass state-sponsored rape. “When I go to Japan, I tell them I am not a comfort woman. I am Yong Soo Lee. That is the name my parents gave me. I tell them it was you, the Japanese, who took us away, took away our names, and made us into the comfort women, so you have to take responsibility for it,” she said. “When they call us the comfort women, it means we volunteered to go and give comfort to the soldiers. But Japanese authorities have already confessed that it was the Japanese government that created the system of comfort stations. Because it was you, Japan, that made us the comfort women, you must be responsible and officially apologize and make legal reparations. Be responsible. That is what I am saying.”
After the agreement was signed Seoul in December, the South Korean Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sung-Nam Lim, met with Grandma Yong Soo Lee and several other survivors. Captured on video tape, the confrontation seems to catch the vice minister off guard, as Grandma Yong Soo Lee refuses to sit down and instead opens up with a barrage of angry questions.
“Who are you? Who are you? What do you do? Are you the person who settled this?” Grandma Yong Soo Lee asks. “You’re here to report to us that you have this settled now? What are you doing? Why are you trying to kill us twice? For what? Are you going to live this life for me?”
The minister repeatedly urges Yong Soo Lee to take a seat, but she refuses to be placated or polite in the face of what she considers the total abandonment of the women she represents. “Please take a seat,” says the Minister. Yong Soo Lee refuses and continues standing, her outrage clear even without a translation. “Shouldn’t you have met with the victims first before you agreed on a settlement? Isn’t it only right that you should tell us what you’re agreeing to? Did you exclude us because we’re not educated, because I’m too old? Because you think I don’t know anything? What have you done? Which country’s foreign ministry are you part of?”
“Of course I’m from the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” replies the Minister.
Yong Soo Lee continues to press him: “What does the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs do? Is that a Japanese entity? Are you their collaborator? Shouldn’t you have told us first? We suffered because we had no country, our country was too weak to protect us. We suffered as part of the nation’s suffering. Why are you killing us twice? For what? Are you going to live this life for me? You should have told us first. How could you do this, when we are alive as witnesses and evidence of history? What kind of work have you done? Do you not have parents? I am a rightful citizen of Korea. I am the daughter of this country. Why are you not trying to understand us? You do not care about us at all?”
In our interview in October, the 88-year-old survivor of mass rape and torture elaborated on her global mission to attain justice for the women, many of whom have already passed on without an apology or acknowledgement for their suffering.
“The victims have been shouting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul for 23 years. I did that as a living witness to this history. We kept shouting, for 23 years, and all we were demanding was an official apology and legal reparations. If you said the same thing for 23 years, you would have heard, even if you were deaf. You would have seen, even if you were blind. I started out as a victim,” she said, “but now, as an activist for women’s human rights, I decided to go around the world and talk to the people in order to resolve this problem. I came to San Francisco because I heard that good people are trying to build a memorial. I also heard that Japan is paying lobbyists in order to block the effort. That doesn’t make sense, so I came here to express my love and respect for the people of San Francisco, and to plead with the people of San Francisco to please, please, erect the memorial, as an activist who works for women’s rights around the world.”
Grandma Yong Soo Lee said it is crucial for her to communicate with young people about what happened in order to prevent it from happening again. “I always emphasize my story to the students, and especially the younger people, because they are our future and are going to protect the country and society. That’s why I believe the younger people are so important,” she said.
She is outraged at how much money the Japanese government has spent to undermine the truth of the comfort women. It’s been reported that the Japanese government has created a budget of $500,000,000 to whitewash this history. At the SF City Hall meeting where Yong Soo Lee testified in October, there were hecklers accusing her and others of being willing prostitutes, in it for the money. “The Japanese government is spending so much money to sabotage the plans to establish memorials in the US,” she said. “That is very low, very bad behavior. They must be straightforward and accept responsibility. That is the only way they will regain their honor. I want them to stop harassing the good, respectful people in San Francisco and cooperate with their plan to erect the memorial. More importantly, to teach and tell the young people in their own country, as well as the young people here in California, that what they did was wrong and they should work together to resolve this.”
Activists working on the issue have expressed outrage at the agreement. They have been quick to condemn it as nothing more than a political sell-out to bolster the US “Pacific Pivot.” The “Pivot to Asia” refers specifically to the professed US policy to deploy 60% of all military forces to Asia and the Pacific Rim. The policy is meant to counter the rising influence of China. It also involves cyber-warfare, information & cultural warfare, legal warfare, as well as a plan to isolate China economically through the Trans Pacific Partnership, the twelve-nation “trade” deal that excludes China. The lynchpin of the pivot is the building of multilateral military alliances with all of China’s regional neighbors and the projection of military force to threaten and coerce China. South Korea and Japan are the key players in this clearly delineated US policy.
Phyllis Kim is the director of the Korean American Forum of California, which sponsored Grandma Yong Soo Lee’s visit to San Francisco in October. In a recent radio interview, Kim told me the group rejects the agreement out of hand. “We denounced the agreement that came out yesterday from a meeting between the Korean and Japanese foreign ministers,” she said. “The victims also immediately rejected the agreement. If the two governments wanted to actually resolve the issue they should have listened to the victims. These victims didn’t just sit and wait around for some kind of magic to happen. They have been active for the past 25 years, actively demanding an official government apology and legal reparations from the government of Japan, which they did not get,” Kim said. She said the victims’ voices should have been included in any negotiations, “but that did not happen.”
In addition, Kim said, “There were victims from eleven different countries. South Korea is just one of the eleven countries. Some estimate that as many as 400,000 women were victimized by the institutionalized system of sexual slavery from 1932 until the end of WWII. These victims are scattered among these eleven countries, including South and North Korea, China, Taiwan and Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, some Dutch women, Philippines, Vietnam and East Timor. These victims also deserve to be part of any kind of negotiation or settlement made with the Japanese government, but these women outside South Korea were completely excluded from these negotiations.
Finally, Kim questioned the sincerity of Japan’s recent apology. “The apology offered by Prime Minister Abe sounds sincere on paper,” she said, “but the reasons the victims were not able to accept the previous apology was because the Japanese government has been relentlessly working to downplay, whitewash, and eradicate any responsibility the government of Japan bears for these war crimes. Even in the US, there was an attempt to lobby against passage of House Resolution 1021 urging Japan to make amends in 2007. There were numerous attempts and lobbies against installation of comfort women memorials in the US,” said Kim. “Japanese diplomats raised objections against McGraw Hill, the textbook publisher, for including a passage about comfort women in its history textbook.” And she was quick to add, “If the Japanese government is sincere about its will to resolve this issue once and for all, there needs to be an official government apology, which means the apology needs to be approved by the Japanese cabinet, which never happened.”
Dennis J. Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
FOCUS: The New Year's Resolutions America Needs to Make
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=33264"><span class="small">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME</span></a>
Thursday, 07 January 2016 12:12
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "We can take steps to fulfill the promises that this country has laid out in our Constitution. Toward that end, here are a few of the resolutions that I think will make America better in 2016."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (photo: Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty)
The New Year's Resolutions America Needs to Make
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME
07 January 16
From voting to gun control to hoverboards, our country can do better
aking New Year’s resolutions is such an optimistic gesture that it inspires hope in humanity, even in a year filled with such atrocious inhumanity. Acknowledging our flaws and seeking solutions to become better human beings is an admirable act of personal humility. Jotting down these vows is a celebration of the human spirit striving to reach its greatest potential. Just like individuals promising to be kinder, more compassionate and thinner, countries can also resolve to be better. We can take steps to fulfill the promises that this country has laid out in our Constitution. Toward that end, here are a few of the resolutions that I think will make America better in 2016.
1. Stop Lying.
It’s time for voters to stop indulging in personal agendas and to start thinking about what’s best for the country. That starts with demanding that our candidates and politicians speak both truthfully and logically—and when they don’t, to dump them and move on to someone who does. Allowing anything less is demeaning to the people who continue to support them and destructive to the country’s democratic process. When did we become convinced that lying and duplicity were acceptable character traits in our representatives?
We can start by either reforming or ignoring the presidential debates because they are harming the people’s search for the best candidate. As they now stand, the debates have no practical purpose. Anyone who will be persuaded to support a candidate based on the debates does not understand the president’s job, which never involves public debates, but does involve thoughtful analysis of information. It’s like judging a chef by how well they describe a dish rather than how well they cook it. It’s a lazy way for voters to choose based on all the wrong criteria, as if they were picking the Best Performer in a Daytime Drama.
If we are going to continue having debates, they need to be severely reformed. Professional logicians should be on the panel of journalists to call the candidates out when they make logical fallacies. In addition, every statement made by a candidate should immediately be fact-checked for accuracy and the candidates should be forced to explain when they misrepresent facts. Do not move on to another question until they explain or admit the lie. We should not let them get away with making false statements that only a fraction of viewers hear about a day or two later. That’s their strategy because they know that most viewers won’t bother to read the fact-checking sites that detail their lies.
For example, a super PAC supporting Republican candidate Jeb Bush is running anti-Trump ads using a quote from Bush in the fifth Republican debate: “Two months ago, Donald Trump said that ISIS was not our fight.” However, that quote is taken out of context. Trump only suggested the U.S. avoid fighting ISIS in Syria but supported us fighting them in Iraq. It was a lie then, and it’s a lie in the ad because it deliberately distorts the truth for personal gain.
Trump’s lies have earned him the top spot in the Republican field. Not as president but as “King of the Whopper,” as FactCheck.org crowned him due to the extensive list of outright, unequivocal lies. The fact-checking project PolitiFact also named Trump’s campaign the “lie of the year” after concluding that only one of 77 statements was true while three-quarters were categorized as “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants on fire.”
Sadly, those are only a few examples from dozens from almost all the candidates. How do they get away with it? We let them by not withholding our support or forcing them out of office when they lie. So let’s take responsibility ourselves and demand better candidates worthy of the great responsibility we are giving them.
2. Make Black Lives Matter Matter More.
Black Lives Matter’s website states that it is “working to (re)build the Black liberation movement.” From what I’ve seen so far, the movement is a necessary and welcomed evolution of the black movements of the past decades. Its members are richer and broader in their scope and much more inclusive in the people they represent. According to the website, “Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.” This is a 21st century political movement that has learned from the past with a sharp eye on how to improve the future.
As with all grassroots movements, anyone can claim to represent Black Lives Matter simply by carrying a sign or wearing a t-shirt while carrying out whatever form of protest they deem important. This is both a strength and a weakness for the group. It’s a strength in that it empowers everyone to have a voice, encouraging all people to join the fight. It’s a weakness in that some acts can misrepresent, dilute or distort a unified voice. This is a common problem in all political movements. Without a unified voice and clearly stated, specific, achievable goals, a movement can lose its power to effect real change. That’s what made Occupy Wall Street ultimately ineffective.
Black Lives Matter is having a positive impact. Last August, the Democratic National Committee endorsed a resolution supporting Black Lives Matter. More than 1,100 black professors have publicly supported the group. In December of 2015, Black Lives Matter was in the running for the Time Magazine Person of the Year. Celebrities including Serena Williams, Russell Simmons, Kanye West, Prince, Beyonce, Jay Z, Samuel L. Jackson, and Stephen Colbert have openly supported them.
This year I’d like to see more celebrities, politicians, educators, scientists and others publicly endorse Black Lives Matter to fuel them with more popular support to continue their mission of equal opportunity and treatment for all people.
3. Take Baby Steps on Gun Laws.
As I have stated in previous columns about gun violence, I collect guns from the Old West, and my father and grandfather were both police officers. But in the wake of almost daily mass shootings, it’s clear that there are some minor adjustments to the current gun laws that might make us safer without restricting our rights. One such law would be banning gun sales to those on the U.S. government’s no-fly terrorist watch list. In fact, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last month, 83% of Americans support such a ban. Yet when this measure was presented to the U.S. Senate following the December San Bernardino massacre of 14 people, it was voted down 45-54.
If a vast majority of the people want the law, and the president of the U.S. wants the law, then why is it not law? The obvious reason is that the gun lobbies pay a lot of money to prevent even the most obviously necessary law. Total contributions to candidates from the National Rifle Association PACs is 77 times larger than contributions from individuals. In 2015, gun-rights groups spent about $8.4 million. The top recipients, all Republicans, were Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Paul Rand and John Boehner.
Gun sales rise after mass shootings in part because people are afraid. What if we could pass a few laws that reduced the mass shootings and therefore decreased people’s fear? That would be bad for the gun industry’s sales, which totaled $4.1 billion in 2014. There’s a lot of money to be made by the gun industry and politicians by elevating public fear.
This week, following President Barack Obama’s announcement of his modest plan to enact sensible gun control through executive action, gunmaker Smith & Wesson’s stock reached its highest value in the company’s history. Smart money is betting that politicians and gunmakers can frighten the public into spending more on guns while cowering in a corner afraid to enact even the most reasonable restrictions. This year, let’s show them that they can’t scare us out of doing the right thing.
4. Put More Women Behind the Cameras in Hollywood.
The average person sitting in the movie theater gobbling popcorn and slurping Diet Coke may not see what the big deal is about having more women directors, editors, writers, producers and others in behind-the-camera jobs. Especially when it seems as if they are seeing more tough women role models on the screen, like Rey (Daisy Ridley) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Furiosa (Charlize Theron) in Mad Max: Fury Road. But the sad truth is that in 2014 only 17% of behind-the-camera jobs on the 250 top-grossing films were filled by women. The even sadder truth is that this is the same percentage as in 1998. Nothing has changed in 16 years.
Here’s why that’s important: First, because it’s a form of discrimination, and this country is founded on principles that abhor discrimination. We are not only preventing women from fulfilling their professional dreams, but we are also reducing their professional and financial options.
Second, by reducing female participation in one of our most influential art forms, we are decreasing the accuracy, frequency and influence of their voices. One study found that in films directed by women, 42% of the characters are female; in male-directed films, only 32% are female. By increasing the physical presence of women behind the camera, we will be increasing stories that portray their points of view, an important step in eliminating the disparity between genders currently in our culture.
5. Stop Calling Those Horizontal Scooters Hoverboards.
The hoverboard isn’t just a hoverboard. It’s a symbol of faith in American technology to solve not just the major problems of climate and disease, but also provide us with instruments that enhance our freedom. Since Marty McFly presented it to us in Back to the Future II and III, Americans have been anxiously awaiting the hoverboard’s arrival as the announcement of a new era in which we finally defy gravity on a personal level.
That’s why the current so-called Hoverboard is not only a disgrace to the concept, but the name embodies everything we loathe about American hucksterism in politics and in daily life. There’s nothing wrong with the product itself, except for the occasional bursting into flames, but to sell a two-wheeled device as a hoverboard is like calling a calculator Artificial Intelligence. It cheapens our collective dream for the future.
Obviously, there are many more resolutions Americans could make. Yet, this is a modest and manageable place to start. While about 40% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, only about 8% achieve their goals. A third don’t even last to the end of January. So the odds are against us. But Americans thrive in the face of overwhelming odds. As American political philosopher Hannah Arendt said: “The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws … the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.” In 2016, let’s work together as a nation to make a few miracles come true.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=35918"><span class="small">Michael Moore, Michael Moore's Facebook Page</span></a>
Thursday, 07 January 2016 09:38
Moore writes: "You have effectively poisoned, not just some, but apparently ALL of the children in my hometown of Flint, Michigan. And for that, you have to go to jail."
Filmmaker Michael Moore. (photo: Nicolas Genin)
Dear Gov. Snyder: You Have to Go to Jail
By Michael Moore, Michael Moore's Facebook Page
07 January 16
ear Governor Snyder:
Thanks to you, sir, and the premeditated actions of your administrators, you have effectively poisoned, not just some, but apparently ALL of the children in my hometown of Flint, Michigan.
And for that, you have to go to jail.
To poison all the children in an historic American city is no small feat. Even international terrorist organizations haven't figured out yet how to do something on a magnitude like this.
But you did. Your staff and others knew that the water in the Flint River was poison -- but you decided that taking over the city and "cutting costs" to "balance the budget" was more important than the people's health (not to mention their democratic rights to elect their own leaders.) So you cut off the clean, fresh glacial lake water of Lake Huron that the citizens of Flint (including myself) had been drinking for decades and, instead, made them drink water from the industrial cesspool we call the Flint River -- a body of "water" where toxins from a dozen General Motors and DuPont factories have been dumped for over a hundred years. And then you decided to put a chemical in this water to "clean" it -- which only ended up stripping the lead off of Flint's aging water pipes, placing that lead in the water and sending it straight into people's taps. Your callous -- and reckless (btw, "reckless" doesn't get you a pass; a reckless driver who kills a child, still goes to jail) -- decision to do this has now, as revealed by the city's top medical facility, caused "irreversible brain damage" in Flint's children, not to mention other bodily damage to all of Flint's adults. Here's how bad it is: Even GM won't let the auto parts they use in building cars touch the Flint water because that water "corrodes" them. This is a company that won't even fix an ignition switch after they've discovered it's already killed dozens of people. THAT's how bad the situation is. Even GM thinks you're the devil.
Maybe you don't understand the science behind this. Lead, in water -- now, bear with me, this involves a science lesson and you belong to the anti-science party, the one that believes there's not a climate problem and that Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs 6,000 years ago. Lead is toxic to the human body. There's no way to fully eliminate it once it's in your system, and children are the most damaged by it.
By taking away the city's clean drinking water in order to "cut costs," and then switching the city's water supply to Flint River water, you have allowed massively unsafe levels of pollutants and lead into the water that travels in to everyone's home. Every Flint resident is trapped by this environmental nightmare which you, Governor, have created.
Like any real criminal, when you were confronted with the truth (by the EPA and other leading water experts across America), you denied what you did. Even worse, you decided to mock your accusers and their findings. As I said, I know you don't like to believe in a lot of science (after all, you used to run Gateway Computers, and that, really, is all anyone needs to know about you), but this time the science has caught up with you -- and this time, I hope, it's going to convict you.
The facts are all there, Mr. Snyder. Every agency involved in this scheme reported directly to you. The children of Flint didn't have a choice as to whether or not they were going to get to drink clean water. But soon it will be your turn to not have that choice about which water you'll be drinking. Because by this time next year, if there is an ounce of justice left in this land, the water you'll be drinking will be served to you from a tap inside Jackson Prison.
I am calling upon my fellow Michiganders -- and seekers of justice everywhere -- to petition U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, asking her to arrest you for corruption and assault (i.e., the physical assault you committed against the children of Flint when you knowingly poisoned them).
Yesterday, the federal prosecutor in Flint, after many of us had called for months for this action, finally opened up an investigation into the matter. Now we need your arrest, prosecution and conviction.
And who will be cheering on that day when you are fitted with a bright orange jumpsuit? The poor and minority communities of Michigan who've endured your dictatorial firing of their mayors and school boards so you could place your business friends in charge of their mostly-black cities. They know you never would have done this to a wealthy white suburb.
I welcome all to look at the appalling facts of this case, which have been reported brilliantly here, here, and especially here by the great Rachel Maddow. Thank you, Rachel, for caring so deeply when the rest of the national television media didn't.
I'm asking everyone who agrees with me to sign on to this petition and call for your arrest, Governor Snyder. You are not allowed to run amok in my hometown like you have done. The children whom you have poisoned have to endure a life of pain and lower IQs from your actions. You have destroyed a generation of children -- and for that, you must pay.
It is time for you to go to prison. Out of mercy, I'll ask that you have in your cell your own personal Gateway computer.
Sincerely, Michael Moore
Flint native
Michigan resident and voter
P.S. For everyone wanting to sign on to this petition calling for the IMMEDIATE resignation of Governor Snyder AND for the FBI to arrest him, please sign the petition petition here: http://michaelmoore.com/ArrestGovSnyder
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=37790"><span class="small">Amanda Marcotte, Salon</span></a>
Thursday, 07 January 2016 09:36
Marcotte writes: "Until conservatives are willing to say who is currently being denied guns that should be allowed to have them, they don't have a leg to stand on defending this massive loophole."
President Obama. (photo: AP)
Revolting Gun Nuts Panic as Obama Takes Action
By Amanda Marcotte, Salon
07 January 16
Conservatives appear unhinged, turning to hyperbole and cheap attacks as president makes major move on gun regs
Closing the gun show loophole is sadly not that big an action. It will hopefully reduce the number of people who are banned from buying guns who use this loophole to get one anyway, but it certainly won’t do what a broader program like mandatory buybacks would do to reduce gun violence. Still, while it’s a half-measure, it’s a popular one, with around 90 percent of Americans supporting the idea that everyone who gets a shiny new gun should have to pass a background check to do so.
Despite all this, conservative pundits and politicians are acting like this is the end of liberty and perhaps life itself. “President Obama is talking about this week issuing yet another executive order trying to go after our right to keep and bear arms,” Ted Cruz bellowed on Monday, even though anyone who could pass a background check at a gun store would be able to pass the same one at a gun show.
Cruz’s campaign is currently raising money by raffling off an engraved shotgun. But, in an interesting show of hypocrisy, the campaign will require the winner to undergo a background check in order to get their free gun. If Cruz really thinks that there’s no reason to perform background checks on people who obtain guns outside of direct purchases from federally licensed gun stores, then he and his campaign should prove it by giving this gun away to some rando, no questions asked.
Jeb Bush went another direction, claiming that “the so-called gun show loophole, which was I think what he’s talking about, doesn’t exist.”
“People that want to sell randomly, you know, occasionally sell guns ought to have the right to do so without being impaired by the federal government,” he continued. Which is the gun show loophole. Which he claimed doesn’t exist. Right before explaining what it is. Considering that 40 percent of recent gun acquisitions are done through the gun show loophole, that’s a might big loophole for one that kind of sort of doesn’t exist except for that it does.
A similar nuh-uh strategy is in play when conservatives claim that there’s no need to expand the background checks to cover every gun buyer, because doing so doesn’t work anyway. “The big question is would any of the things that the president is going to do, would they have stopped any of the shootings we’ve seen in the past? So far, probably not,” Steve Doocy of Fox News smarmily declared on Monday.
Never mind that there is a huge amount of evidence that the existing background checks, inadequate as they are, do prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands. This kind of argument is self-refuting. Say that it’s true that everyone who is buying guns through the gun show loophole right now is a law-abiding citizen who would pass a background check. Then what’s the danger in making them go through one? The only reason to oppose a background check is the fear of not passing it and not getting a gun. But who is currently failing background checks that conservatives are willing to say should be getting guns? Wife beaters? Violent felons? People with mental health issues whose doctor forbids them from getting weapons? Until conservatives are willing to say who is currently being denied guns that should be allowed to have them, they don’t have a leg to stand on defending this massive loophole.
Despite this, Jeb Bush kept at it, declaring that Obama would “trample on the Second Amendment” and that this requirement that everyone pass a background check is Obama’s attempt to “advance a gun-grabbing agenda”. Clearly, society will fall apart if wife beaters and convicted felons don’t have an easy way to buy guns even though they’re legally barred from doing so.
Of course, many on the right are bypassing even these arguments and go straight to screaming about how the black-booted thugs are coming tomorrow to castrate you — I mean, take your guns.
“President Obama is plotting with his attorney general to get our guns,” Todd Starnes wrote in a typically hysterical piece at Fox News. While admitting that the likely executive decision is little more than cracking “down on small scale gun sellers,” Starnes then goes full blown in his paranoia.
“But that’s not the point,” he continues, lest you make the mistake of thinking we should worry what the law actually does rather than what it doesn’t do. “This president wants to disarm the nation.”
At no point does Starnes explain why people who can’t pass background checks at licensed gun dealers should be able to just go to a gun show and buy a gun instead. The column is an 800-word version of the “look over there!” maneuver. “So instead of declaring war on law-abiding gun owners,” he screeches, ignoring the fact that the proposed action is to make it harder for non-law-abiding people to evade background checks, “maybe the president ought to declare war on the true threat facing our nation — radical Islam.” Just so long as you don’t make any Islamic terrorist wannabes undergo a background check that might keep them from buying guns, that is.
Similarly, Rush Limbaugh was so bent out of shape over the not-yet-announced executive actions that he went straight into Alex Jones territory. “They can’t do a thing to curb gun violence,” Limbaugh said of the Obama administration. “In fact, as Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association once said back during the Clinton years, they profit from the violence. They’re comfortable with a certain level of violence because it encourages supporters of this kind of unilateral action.”
He didn’t quite go as far as to accuse the government of staging “false flag” operations in order to gin up support for gun control, but no doubt his audience knows which conspiracy theory he’s playing footsie with. Lest there’s any doubt there, he continues: “They’re talking about removing guns from the hands of innocent people, which is the only thing they’ll be able to accomplish.”
Again, the main proposal is making it harder for people who cannot pass a federal background check to go to a gun show or to some other unlicensed dealer and buying a gun anyway. If Limbaugh is so convinced these buyers are “innocent” people, make that case, instead of dancing around the issue.
All in all, it’s clear that conservatives are tripping over their own rhetoric that pits supposedly “good guys with guns” against criminals. If their only interest is making sure that good guys are armed while the bad guys are kept in check, making sure that background checks are universally applied should be a no-brainer.
But it’s clear that is not and never has actually been the issue here, a fact that’s driven home all the more by the fact that we currently have a seditious militia, all hepped up on anti-government and pro-gun rhetoric, occupying a federal building and basically hoping, out loud, that the government tries to retake it so they can justify shooting federal officials. No doubt the vast majority of conservatives would have assumed that these men were “good guys with guns”, right up until the very moment they took a federal building and started threatening to kill people.
Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to get some kind of policy passed that would reduce the real world number of gun crimes. Political winds, being what they are, will make it nearly impossible to pass comprehensive policy that dramatically reduces gun crime — much less gun accidents or gun suicides— but even so, stopping just some is a worthy goal we all need to get behind. Which also means pushing through conservative lies and hysterics, something Obama will hopefully be able to do during his Thursday town hall.
Parry writes: "Saudi Arabia likes to distinguish itself from the head-choppers of the Islamic State but the recent mass executions, including decapitating a top Shiite dissident, reveals the Saudi royals to be just better-dressed jihadists, while creating an opening for a U.S. realignment in the Mideast."
President Barack Obama, right, meets with King Salman of Saudi Arabia in the Oval Office of the White House, on Friday, Sept. 4, 2015, in Washington D.C. (photo: AP)
Saudi Game-Changing Head-Chopping
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
06 January 16
Saudi Arabia likes to distinguish itself from the head-choppers of the Islamic State but the recent mass executions, including decapitating a top Shiite dissident, reveals the Saudi royals to be just better-dressed jihadists, while creating an opening for a U.S. realignment in the Mideast, says Robert Parry.
or generations, U.S. officials have averted their eyes from Saudi Arabia’s grotesque monarchy – which oppresses women, spreads jihadism and slaughters dissidents – in a crude trade-off of Saudi oil for American weapons and U.S. security guarantees. It is a deal with the devil that may finally be coming due.
The increasingly undeniable reality is that the Saudis along with other oil sheikhs are the biggest backers of Al Qaeda and various terrorist groups – helping these killers as long as they spread their mayhem in other countries and not bother the spoiled playboys of the Persian Gulf.
President George W. Bush – and then President Barack Obama – may have suppressed the 28 pages of the congressional 9/11 report describing Saudi support for Al Qaeda and its hijackers but the cat is thoroughly out of the bag. Mealy-mouthed comments from the State Department spokesmen can no longer hide the grim truth that U.S. “allies” are really civilization’s enemies.
The big question that remains, however, is: Will Official Washington’s dominant neocon/liberal-interventionist claque continue to protect the Saudis who have built a regional alliance of convenience with Israel over their shared hatred of Iran?
Inside Official Washington’s bubble – where the neocons and liberal hawks hold sway – there is a determination to make the “designated villains,” the Iranians, the Syrian government, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Russians. This list of “villains” matches up quite well with Israeli and Saudi interests and thus endless demonization of these “villains” remains the order of the day.
But the Saudis – and indeed the Israelis – are showing what they’re really made of. Israel has removed its humanistic mask as it ruthlessly suppresses Palestinians and mounts periodic “grass mowing” operations, using high-tech munitions to slaughter thousands of nearly defenseless people in Gaza and the West Bank while no longer even pretending to want a peaceful resolution of the long-simmering conflict. Israel’s choice now seems to be apartheid or genocide.
Meanwhile, the Saudis – though long-hailed in Official Washington as “moderates” – are showing what a farcical description that has always been as the royals now supply U.S.-made TOW missiles and other sophisticated weapons to Sunni jihadists in Syria, fighting alongside Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front.
Using advanced U.S.-supplied warplanes, the Saudis also have been pulverizing poverty-stricken Yemen after exaggerating the level of Iranian support to the Houthis, who have been fighting both a Saudi-backed regime and Al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate. Amid the Saudi-inflicted humanitarian crisis, Al Qaeda’s forces have expanded their territory.
And, at the start of the New Year, the Saudi monarchy butchered 47 prisoners, including prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr for his offense of criticizing the royals, or as the Saudis like to say – without a touch of irony – supporting “terrorism.” By chopping off Nimr’s head – as well as shooting and decapitating the others – the Saudis demonstrated that there is very little qualitative difference between them and the head-choppers of the Islamic State.
The Usual Suspects
Yes, the usual suspects in Official Washington have sought to muddle the blood-soaked picture by condemning angry Iranian protesters for ransacking the Saudi embassy in Tehran before the government security forces intervened. And there will surely be an escalation of condemnations of anyone who suggests normalizing relations with Iran.
But the issue for the neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks is whether they can continue to spin obviously false narratives about the nobility of these Middle East “allies,” including Israel. Is there a limit to what they can put over on the American people? At some point, will they risk losing whatever shreds of credibility that they still have? Or perhaps the calculation will be that public credibility is irrelevant, power and control are everything.
A similar choice must be made by politicians, including those running for the White House.
Some Republican candidates, most notably Sen. Marco Rubio, have gone all-in with the neocons, hoping to secure largesse from casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and other staunch supporters of Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On the other hand, real-estate magnate Donald Trump has distanced himself from neocon orthodoxy, even welcoming Russia’s entry into the Syrian conflict to fight the Islamic State, heresy in Official Washington.
On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the most closely associated with the neocons and the liberal hawks – and she has dug in on the issue of their beloved “regime change” strategy, which she insists must be applied to Syria.
She appears to have learned nothing from her misguided support for the Iraq War, nor from her participation in overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi’s secular regime in Libya, both of which created vacuums that the Islamic State and other extremists filled. (British special forces are being deployed to Libya as part of an offensive to reclaim Libyan oil fields from the Islamic State.)
A Sanders Opportunity
The Saudi decision to chop off Sheikh Nimr’s head and slaughter 46 other people in one mass execution also puts Sen. Bernie Sanders on the spot over his glib call for the Saudis “to get their hands dirty” and intervene militarily across the region.
That may have been a clever talking point, calling on the rich Saudis to put some skin in the game, but it missed the point that – even before the Nimr execution – the Saudis’ hands were very dirty, indeed covered in blood.
For Sanders to see the Saudis as part of the solution to the Mideast chaos ignores the reality that they are a big part of the problem. Not only has Saudi Arabia funded the extreme, fundamentalist Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam – building mosques and schools around the Muslim world – but Al Qaeda and many other jihadist groups are, in essence, Saudi paramilitary forces dispatched to undermine governments on Riyadh’s hit list.
That has been the case since the 1980s when the Saudis – along with the Reagan administration – invested billions of dollars in support of the brutal mujahedeen in Afghanistan with the goal of overthrowing a secular, Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
Though the “regime change” worked – the secular leader Najibullah was castrated and his body hung from a light pole in Kabul – the eventual outcome was the emergence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, led by a Saudi scion, Osama bin Laden.
Though Sanders has resisted articulating a detailed foreign policy – instead seeking to turn questions back to his preferred topic of income inequality – the latest Saudi barbarism gives him a new chance to distinguish himself from front-runner Clinton. He could show courage and call for a realignment based on reality, not propaganda.
President Obama, too, has a final chance to refashion the outdated and counter-productive U.S. alliances in the Middle East. At least he could rebalance them to allow a pragmatic relationship with Iran and Russia to stabilize Syria and neutralize the Saudi-backed jihadists.
Standing Up, Not Bowing Down
Instead of being supplicants to Saudi riches and oil, the West could apply stern measures against the Saudi royals to compel their acquiescence to a real anti-terrorist coalition. If they don’t comply immediately, their assets could be frozen and seized; they could be barred from foreign travel; they could be isolated until they agreed to behave in a civilized manner, including setting aside ancient animosities between Sunni and Shiite Islam.
It seems the European public is beginning to move in this direction, in part, because the Saudi-led destabilization of Syria has dumped millions of desperate refugees on the European Union’s doorstep. If a new course isn’t taken, the E.U. itself might split apart.
But the power of the neocon/liberal-hawk establishment in Official Washington remains strong and has prevented the American people from achieving anything close to a full understanding of what is going on in the Middle East.
The ultimate barrier to an informed U.S. public may also be the enormous power of the Israel Lobby, which operates what amounts to a blacklist against anyone who dares criticize Israeli behavior and harbors hopes of ever holding a confirmable government position or – for that matter – a prominent job in the mainstream media.
It would be a test of true political courage and patriotism for some major politician or prominent pundit to finally take on these intimidating forces. That likely won’t happen, but Saudi Arabia’s latest head-choppings have created the possibility, finally, for a game-changing realignment.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
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n the waning days of December, foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea announced with great fanfare a “resolution” to the so-called “comfort women” issue. According to historical documents and extensive testimony, some 200,000 people, mostly Asian women and girls from Japanese colonies, some as young as 10, were captured or lured with false promises of factory work or other types of employment. They were then sent to brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. There they were held captive as sexual slaves and raped dozens of times a day. Some were held captive for many months or even years; the majority did not survive their enslavement.
aking New Year’s resolutions is such an optimistic gesture that it inspires hope in humanity, even in a year filled with such atrocious inhumanity. Acknowledging our flaws and seeking solutions to become better human beings is an admirable act of personal humility. Jotting down these vows is a celebration of the human spirit striving to reach its greatest potential. Just like individuals promising to be kinder, more compassionate and thinner, countries can also resolve to be better. We can take steps to fulfill the promises that this country has laid out in our Constitution. Toward that end, here are a few of the resolutions that I think will make America better in 2016.
ear Governor Snyder:
resident Obama announced this week that he’ll be holding 
or generations, U.S. officials have averted their eyes from Saudi Arabia’s grotesque monarchy – which oppresses women, spreads jihadism and slaughters dissidents – in a crude trade-off of Saudi oil for American weapons and U.S. security guarantees. It is a deal with the devil that may finally be coming due.
