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DISSIDENT VOICE
www.dissidentvoice.org

Challenging the Lies and Distortions of Press & State

in the Struggle for Peace and Social Justice

December 3, 2005
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Links to the Latest Articles on Dissident Voice

Mission Accomplished:
Big Oil’s Occupation of Iraq
by Heather Wokusch

The Bush administration’s covert plan to help energy companies steal Iraq’s oil could be just weeks away from fruition, and the implications are staggering: continued price-gouging by Big Oil, increased subjugation of the Iraqi people, more US troops in Iraq, and a greater likelihood for a US invasion of Iran. That’s just for starters. The administration’s challenge has been how to transfer Iraq’s oil assets to private companies under the cloak of legitimacy, yet simultaneously keep prices inflated. But Bush & Co. and their Big Oil cronies might have found a simple yet devious solution: production sharing agreements (PSAs)....( full article)



“To All Who Wear the Uniform”
Messianic Militarism Versus Democracy in Imperial America
by Paul Street

It's getting hard not to notice that most of president Bush's major speeches are being delivered in military forums -- at bases, war colleges, naval academies, and the like. It makes sense. A rising percentage of the U.S. citizenry -- 62 percent in a November AP-Ipsos poll -- disapproves of Bush's Iraq policy. Thanks largely to that policy, the president's approval ratings are at an all-time low. He's being openly mocked on dominant entertainment media and challenged in the halls of Congress. Earlier this week, General Electric Television (NBC) gave the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh a couple minutes on the happy morning Today Show to pitch an article that starkly depicts the militaristic madness of boy-king George. Hersh quotes a number of current and former military, intelligence, and administration officials to reveal an increasingly detached and messianic president who is "impervious to political pressure even from fellow Republicans." According to insiders, Bush believes "God put me here" to occupy Iraq. A "Pentagon adviser" told Hersh that Bush is "not going to back off" the occupation" because the president sees his illegal and immoral Iraq policy as "bigger than domestic politics." By Hersh's informants' account, "bigger" means "divinely inspired.".... (full article)



Just Think of Me as Your New Guidance Counselor . . . Or Just Think
by Susan Van Haitsma

The message printed beneath the image of the stern drill sergeant on the US Marine Corps recruitment poster reads, "Just Think of Me as Your New Guidance Counselor." The poster is displayed in the administrative area of my neighborhood high school on the office door of the two police officers assigned to the school. The police officer who put it there says that it is not a recruitment poster and that, because he is a Marine, he uses it as motivational for himself. Just down the hall are the school's actual guidance counselors, and one of them expresses another view about the poster. Studying the image, she says quietly, "He doesn't look like a guidance counselor. His eyes are steely. He doesn't look like someone who would listen." Drill instructors are looking toward ever-younger audiences. Among those marching in Austin's recent Veterans Day parade, I noticed a group of Junior ROTC students who appeared to be child soldiers. I spoke later with one of them, a 6th grader who is enrolled in the program at his public middle school. I asked him what he learns in his JROTC class. "We learn how to march, and, well, we learn everything," he said. "Everything?" I asked. "We learn how to be in the army," he replied. Like the strange, contrary slogan, "An Army of One," the guidance being given to this youngster pretends to offer a world of possibility, but it boils down to one direction....( full article)



Selective De-Occupation: The Next Political Task?
by Manuel Garcia, Jr.

A political observer from Planet Tralfamadore would probably conclude that for much of Planet Earth the purpose of government is to insulate capital from popular democracy. This extra-terrestrial would likely see the US political elite as today's equivalent to Pharaonic scribes and priests, those maintained for the purpose of devising the necessary illusions for the management of the public mind. Since John Murtha's call on 17 November from the floor of the House of Representatives for a de-occupation of Iraq by US troops, it has been obvious to all that the illusions needed to proceed with the Iraq War have completely evaporated. Now, the political elite is very nervous because it has the delicate task of devising a new illusion that moves the public mind through an unavoidable policy transition in a controlled way. In doing this our elite politicians risk inadvertently jolting the public mind into an inconveniently clear awareness of other little-noticed mechanisms of political and economic control, and they also risk undoing their own political careers....( full article)



Blood Feast: The Celebration of Ritual Murder in America
by Mike Whitney

Two days ago, Kenneth Boyd became the 1,000th prisoner to be put to death in the US since the death penalty was reinstated 30 years ago. His final words were, “God bless everyone in here.” Thus, Boyd’s death becomes little more than a grim milestone of America’s commitment to savagery over justice....( full article)



Crony in the Bird Flu Seat:
Will the Public's Health be "Brownied" by Stewart Simonson?
by Bill Berkowitz

...Skeptics might argue that the President's warning sounds suspiciously like those post 9/11 anthrax scares, and are aimed at taking the public's attention away from the many failures bedeviling his administration. Others may argue that whether the threat is real or not, it is guaranteed to be a boon for the already profit-stuffed pharmaceutical industry. Some may take the president's forewarning of potential disaster at face value. Whatever your take, a pandemic of the kind currently discussed by public health officials could overwhelm an unprepared health care system, cost billions of dollars and cause an untold number of deaths. Having performed so wretchedly during the run-up to, and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one might expect that Team Bush would seek out someone fully versed in public health matters to head up the team charged with responding to as huge a potential public health threat as Avian Bird Flu. Who is in charge of handling significant health care and threats of bioterrorism? (full article)



The Mark Twain Doctrine Trumps Evolution and Intelligent Design
by Tony Zurlo

Teachers today they find themselves in a conundrum, unable to resolve the latest Catch 22 in American education. Teachers who teach evolution in the science classroom are attacked by the Intelligent Designers as atheists and anti-American. Teachers who attempt to introduce intelligent design into the science classroom are ridiculed for weakening our young people’s ability to think and analyze objectively. No matter which side educators choose, opponents accuse them of triggering the decline and fall of Western Civilization. If teachers introduce a unit that requires students to consider both explanations for the origins of life, administrators threaten to exterminate their contracts for veering from the sanctioned curricula. Teachers are being steered into the land of Western Oz where the one remaining Wicked Witch reigns....( full article)



Canada’s Prince of Darkness, Michael Ignatieff . . .
Or Thomas Friedman in Stripped Trousers, Silk Stockings and Garters
by John Chuckman

If Michael Ignatieff is anything, it's connected, and I do not mean just to the relatively small establishment of Canada, I mean connected to the shadowy godfathers of world empire. Ignatieff has a rich career in America where truly loyal service, whether by natural or adopted sons, is always handsomely rewarded. Another Canadian, David Frum, made it all the way to the White House with his custom-tailored scribbling. So too such a genuinely dangerous American as Pat Buchanan. How does a man like Thomas Friedman pick up prizes writing advertising copy for the Pentagon? As I said, loyalty is handsomely rewarded. David Frum and Pat Buchanan both fell from grace, but there is little danger of Ignatieff's doing so. He almost perceptibly pants and gasps when he applies words to the imperial splendor of which he stands in awe....
(full article)


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