Accountability for American Torture?

This week Human Right Watch (link) published a study severely criticizing torture and enhanced interrogation methods (being now?) used by agents and officials of the United States of America.

Despite substantial pressure, American public outcry, and worldwide condemnation, U.S. Government torture and the perpetrators have largely evaded the criminal justice system. Lack of accountability may be the biggest crime.

Each branch of the U.S. Government, in both former & present administrations, thus share guilt for repeated and severe human rights violations extending to murder. The Bush gang, and the Obama crowd, each pose before a US flag smeared with blood; each tramples on his or her solemn oath to uphold the law.

Read the report:

Human Rights Watch (2015) No More Excuses: A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture. (1 Dec 2015)

Government torture is Wrong! Speak out against torturers!

Radical Religious Rightists

Jen Sorensen (link) highlights America's inflation of crazy incidents:

Reacting to the attack on Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs

US Military? Wasted Money?

The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction published a shocking quarterly report (30 Oct., link) on American operations in distant Afghanistan.

My main sense of shock comes from:
1) amazement the USA is still entrenched in Afghanistan & elsewhere, wasting lives & money
2) as if uncertain capitalists, the auditors claim surprise & doubt: do contractors cheat Uncle Sam?

US Special Inspector General John Sopko, seems almost to parrot Louis Renault - the opportunist officer of film Casablanca - when interviewed by the BBC:
"It's an outrageous waste of money that raises suspicions that there is something more there than just stupidity. There may be fraud. There may be corruption"

Similar suggestions of corruption arose against Halliburton in Iraq (link). But the company's still going strong. Militarism is Big Business!

Are regular Americans fleeced like sheep? Sure. Already in 2011 a government audit found US contractor fraud in Afghanistan & Iraq cost US$31 billion up to to perhaps $60 billion (report p.68; news comment here). But overt fraud is only part of our wasted spending. I'm happy to argue all spending was not only wasted, but worse: counterproductive. We arrogantly waste money building hatred & continuing enmity, in which untold thousands of innocents are killed or maimed: their people, our people, most are simply people.

Japan ink ?

Perhaps Japan's greatest tourist attractions are the many hot springs, especially open-air baths in the mountains, beautiful countryside, or overlooking the ocean.

Sadly, for many visitors the public baths & hot springs are forbidden. Not because the Japanese officially dislike foreigners, but because hot spring spas, public bathing facilities and even beaches are often off-limits to anyone tattooed.

This means U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy cannot try these delights (with a butterfly tattoo on her right arm). Japan can't use their onsen for international summit meetings, as Canada's new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with his Haida raven tattoo will be excluded (along with British PM David Cameron's wife Samantha and her dolphin)

Many Olympic sports stars will disappointingly be shut-out from using hot springs if Japan is allowed to host the 2020 Olympics. (Hosting remains in doubt due to public opposition, lax construction, and atomic radiation hazards).

Some say tattoos are criminal symbols, but often criminals have no tattoo, while many non-criminals are inked. More to blame is Japan's forced homogeneity, prohibiting variation. Why else would supposedly populist Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto victimize all tattooed municipal employees? (link) Hashimoto sought to push such people from public sector work - perhaps over a tiny sea turtle. By condemning slight differences, Japanese authorities create both irrational fears and a non-innovative society raised solely to labor and die.

Horray Europe

Europe is supposedly facing a migrant crisis.

But much better this than the Total War brought upon us by belligerent chauvinistic nationalism and the global arms industry.

Since the EU lowered our internal borders, we've saved many millions of hours from national border administrative procedures and associated corruption. We've cut defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, while the engines of the USA are still (poorly) propelled by defense expenditures, military employment, etc.

American overseas warfare in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria generated much of this refugee crisis.

Europe has accomplished much, richly deserving the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

Heroic Dissent

Corporate media (& manipulative politicos) trumpet about Dissidents from Russia, the Soviet Union, China, etc. We learn heroism from Solzhenitsyn, while our dissidents (Assange, Manning, Snowden, etc.) are labeled scumbag criminals.

Oligarchs, elites, the 1%, or "nobility" -- deliberately employ media to restrict your vision with donkey blinders.

They demand & require total transparency.
We're kept in darkness or artificial light.

Resist Secrecy Laws.
Or you & your offspring remain farm animals.

Anti-Democratic US Democrats

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is in the news for challenging the Democratic National Committee & DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). The DNC has limited & monopolized Presidential candidate contact: any debating elsewhere will be barred from all remaining of the official six debates (the Republicans have 11).

Gabbard argues to bar unsanctioned contact is ludicrous -- we must instead encourage more interaction with and among candidates, more public discussion on key issues, and more accountability. Gabbard was 'disinvited' from attending the 13 October Democratic Presidential Debate in Las Vegas.

This scandal has grown from the debacle of 15 Jan 2008 (link) disinviting candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) from a key Presidential debate (also discussed here - link). That debate eventually featured Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) & Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) -- None of these scumbags complained of antidemocratic manipulation. They jumped through the lovefest hoops, smiled, lied and colluded. Same shit today.

2008 Democracy Censored:  The Ugly Truth

Damn TPP

First corporations drafted the ideas in secret.

Now, bureaucrats have agreed the secret TPP.

Corrupt politicos and corporate media  say it's a done deal.

But in democracies, we have Voice.

Refuse the Trans Pacific Partnership -- You ain't a partner.  Why'd they keep it secret? Cause it butt-fucks everyone but insiders.  Vote against those supporting TPP.

TPP will change labeling requirements. TPP is to infiltrate your home, your body, and your mind with artificial additives and subterfuge, and TPP will shorten your life. TPP self-certification & shortcuts bypass monitoring of predatory corporations. TPP is a trojan horse for mega-corporations.

TPP is anti-democratic, rooted in corruption. TPP dooms your grandchildren to low-wage servitude. TPP will flush your community down the shitter.
 

Government Fuckups

Giving bureaucrats the budget & freedom to compile "Total Information Awareness" is stupid and shortsighted. More scandals, blackmail and corruption are ahead.

They spy around the world, and also on our own communities. Because they can never keep a huge data collection both useful and secure, we are less secure.

The Washington Post published a story highlighting this spying foolishness (29 September, link) full of unattributed comments by U.S. officials, and where "The CIA declined to comment."

>> That menacing article itself has an oddly long address:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-pulled-officers-from-beijing-after-breach-of-federal-personnel-records/2015/09/29/1f78943c-66d1-11e5-9ef3-fde182507eac_story.html

Today the story was picked up by the BBC (link): data breaches earlier this year in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) put America's spy networks at grave risk.

Details of professional intelligence officers were reportedly not kept with the stolen files of regular government employees. Seems smart, but surrendering the details of normal workers highlights who is abnormal.

Of course, the CIA may not be so dumb - in fact creating jackets with false details for essential undercover staff. To withdraw & sacrifice some personnel builds enemy complacency.

Overall, one thing's clear: the enemy's us.
Bureaucrats & politicos will reliably fuck up.
All of us depending on data are at greater risk from their foolishness.

Racist Rockefeller

Most Americans are racist, brought-up with a peon mentality.

Nobody thinks twice when rich folk of the Rockefeller clan inherit land & wealth from their grandparents or great-grandparents. Nelson & John D. Rockefeller III and many siblings weren't dispossessed for being half Aldrich and only a quarter Rockefeller. All be rich rich!

But when it's an injun, or Aleut, or Hawaiian, we've learned racist blabber of "blood quantum"

Colonist rich man hijacked our thought process.

Smearing our inheritance, Richie gobbles more.
Racist intimidation.

Judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree & it's reckoned stupid lifelong...

Ignorance & envy fuel Tribal genocide -- yes, still today.
You need not open your home to everyone. That's not racism.

Dramatic scripts by outsiders disenfranchise, divide & subjugate.

Tribal families are swindled & deprived of inheritance. 
Colonialism endures by messing with our heads.
Be Proud. 

Truth Suppression

To be wrong ain't good.
Suppressing truth is much worse.

Japan's leadership is accused of actively suppressing data-collection around the Fukushima nuclear disaster (link).

Looking at official statements, it's fair to declare coverup
-- Two nuclear reactor containment buildings exploded dramatically; Japanese officials claimed, no worries!
-- Nuclear meltdowns: Official admissions years too slow

Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.
                  -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

People have busy lives, but life-and-death issues are important. Japan's nuclear industry, political leadership, and bureaucracy are criminal.

Many take hints from American bravado. Militarist Bush was reelected, and now honorably retired. Lance Armstrong brazenly defrauded the world, yet is still richly celebrated. Stupidity brings fame as funny media entertainment. We cannot allow deceit to flourish, and devious people to feel there are no consequences...

Ruled By Scumpany Ltd?

Volkswagen has admitted irregularities; their doctored automotive emissions add unknown hazards & poisons to our environment.

Don't allow secret corporate trade pacts to further corrupt our governments and poison worldwide lives for private profit.

Never accept TTP, TTIP, or TISA

Inc. Crime

This week's Volkswagen emissions scandal draws attention to dangers in the major secret trade agreements being hatched by global corporations, the USA, and foolish governments elsewhere.

Individual nations are to give-up most ability to monitor & license multinational businesses. The cases of Enron, Worldcom, Toshiba, Olympus, Volkswagen and countless others show the dangers of a corporate-managed world. Remember thalidomide babies and Chisso-Minamata mercury poisoning? Greed plus poor oversight led to many thousands of horrific injuries.

Say NO to TTIP, TTP & TISA

PS - The above scandalous stories are merely the tip of a polluted frozen block of waste, as discharged from passenger plane toilets. Corporate scum such as Lance Armstrong & Bernie Madoff ride free for many years -- most weasels never unmasked. We commoners pay!

Fair Share of Refugees

BBC reports:
"US President Barack Obama said all European states should accept their "fair share" of asylum seekers"

"Fairness" would put millions of displaced people in places that elected George W. Bush and FuckYou Dick Cheney.

Texas should get a few million Iraqi refugees thanks to Pres. Bush.

Wyoming can receive millions of Afghan refugees; thank Cheney.

Other Americans who foolishly supported imperialist aggression can partly repay error by hosting a refugee family. America's militarist "solution" crippled huge populations & now hobbles Europe.

As the asylum seekers are not European, but simply terrified displaced humans, support should come from many directions.

Japan last year accepted 11 asylum sufferers

see:

Japan: No No NO Refugees

Corporate Reamed

I like big business for economies-of-scale and efficiency. Big corporations also provide wealth & can counter public sector corruption when they choose to do so.

But there's no good reason mega-corporations should create and fine-tune major global trade agreements which will tie our hands and change our lives. Our governments are corrupted to communicate with corporations but not the citizenry.

Discussions have been kept secret from public scrutiny.

The projects should be trashed.

NO to TPP
Trans-Pacific Partnership

NO to TTIP
Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership

NO to TISA
Trade in Services Agreement
(abandoned already by Singapore & Uruguay)

More info at: Our World is Not For Sale

Japan's PM a War Criminal?

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe is being labeled a "War Criminal" (戦犯 - link) for his belligerent efforts to re-militarize Japan.

Why do local and international news reports feature one instance of disrespectful streetside graffiti from a rural Gifu parking lot?
「こいつは平成のＡ級戦犯」  (link)

Should PM Abe be lumped as a Class A War Criminal with his infamous maternal grandfather, the Monster of Manchukuo Nobusuke Kishi? (Prime Minister Abe, 安倍晋三, is no known relation to Japanese convicted war criminal Hiroshi Abe - link).

Both Kishi & Abe have ultimately served the interests of America's military -- (more than assisting Japan)?

How Many Bureaucrats Fit on Your Bike?

I feel continuing pain from Japanese bureaucracy's presumption: backed by law, it's essential we satisfy their demands. They extract huge energies... imagine swimming with a backpack heavy with regulations & administrative documents.  Or a competitive cyclist towing two administrators.

Officials are doing their jobs to gather information, data, license fees, receipts, etc., but huge bureaucracy has great cost. It's wrong when public servants stop being support staff. It's wrong when government employees become self-serving parasites forcing the public to work for them. It's dangerous when bureaucrats operate secretly, controlling the public "for our own good"... (Big players in Japan, China, and Korea learn how money can navigate the bureaucracy, which by definition invites corruption).





















Productive activities become bogged-down by bureaucratic reporting. Of course, too few officials examine officialdom cost / benefits.

日の丸蛭
Hinomaru hiru
Japanese leech

This book calls out a protest:

シロアリ公務員を駆除せよ！

Atomic Sushi

Today's heavy rain around the crippled Fukushima nuclear reactor led to drainage pump failure, leaking radioactivity into the ocean & wider environment (11-12 Sept. 2015 & ongoing: Tokyo Electric Power TEPCO; further link here).

Effect on Pacific Ocean fish & sea life is unknown...

Is TEPCO irresponsible?  Are they criminal?

Japan: No No NO Refugees

Over 5000 foreign people applied in Japan for refugee status in 2014 (link), and 11 were approved.

Evidence of institutionalized racism?

Prof. Sadako Ogata served 10 years as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (and another nine years as Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA President) doing huge good around the globe. But Prof. Ogata totally failed making much political impression at home in Japan -- where foreigners are devils.

Marginalized People

The United Nations General Assembly yesterday voted overwhelmingly to support flying the flag of Palestine at the United Nations. The State of Palestine has been a UN non-member observer State since 29 November 2012. The Vatican flag will now also be flown at the UN as the only other non-member observer State.

UN Resolution 120A/69/L.87 needed majority support to pass, with final vote 119-8; the eight nations opposed were Australia, Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu, USA.

Marginalization & demonization of Palestine, Israel, and their neighbors nonetheless continues. The people of Palestine have suffered encroachment for many decades by state-sponsored settlers from the State of Israel. This extra-territorial "settlement process" has become highly controversial. Many inside Israel don't support the long-term strategy seeking to enlarge the Israeli state, as the often violent processes have led to assorted forms of global isolation. Israeli right-wing political leaders have sought to keep state borders nebulous, though this keeps Israel's "recognized territory" in an odd status, distinct from conquered lands and annexed regions.


Remaining marginalized people include those in Taiwan. Are they properly represented at the UN by the PRC government of Beijing?

Bureaucratic Japan - Bad Hospitality

Japan's bureaucracy is very costly. It creates jobs, and survives for its self-reinforcing audit functions. But bureaucracy is typically inhospitable.

First experience of Japan for most visitors is the rat maze at Narita airport, briskly processed by dutiful officials. Arriving visitors to Japan must fill-in by hand multiple immigration and customs forms, although traveler details are already within electronic databases (in contrast, when traveling to Sweden there's no such paperwork). Travelers arriving in Japan have photo & fingerprints taken after passport scan --  for many, this is their first fingerprinting experience (uncomfortably, data is then shared among global intelligence agencies). The overall experience is bureaucratic and not welcoming!

But this is only the first affront of Japan's costly bureaucracy. Huge corruption at Olympus and Toshiba was ignored, as was criminal food mislabeling by high-end restaurants in Japan over many decades. Corrupt persons flow between sectors, so overviews are often best available from foreign sources.

Bureaucracy maintains the right to assert itself into every transaction under the rubric of either audit or security ("protecting taxpayer money" for public-funded expenses). We expect consistency, so discourage public officials from being individually imaginative; most have little time and no investigation budgets. They attack low-hanging fruit lacking defenses. Tiny operations are crucified and closed, while monsters roam free. This happens everywhere. The US Justice Department found huge big business corruption fueling the 2008 financial crisis: but failed to prosecute individual major criminals. Government levied billions of dollars in corporate penalties, but while the amounts collected seem large, the bureaucracy recruited to protect us costs more.

Japan's army of officials looks at other nations such as the USA or South Korea and judges Japan not highly unusual or demanding, but they typically misread the situation. Operations should be compared to best practices, not merely aspiring to average-level annoyance. And someone must ask if the project and data collected are truly important, rather than simply confirming data is entered in each & every question box.

Tourists have many options, and places such as Sweden & Singapore offering an excellent welcome, smooth entry & warmer hospitality understandably draw resources steadily away from Japan...

Welcome to Japan!  (島根県警察本部)

Brady's Balls

Tom Brady's opponents might describe him as "arrogant & powerful"-- but Brady's a minor punk to the mighty National Football League's dozens of megarich owners & their league bureaucracy, while all pale before the global media machine. Here's link to a great article by Robert Parry in Consortium News, "A Deflategate Slapdown of NFL and MSM"

Summary justice by media can be costly & deadly as the public is played for chumps in the same way Saddam Hussein's Iraq directly threatened the USA with (bullshit) "weapons of mass destruction"... Those who see New England Patriots football quarterback Tom Brady only as a hated competitor should recognize that big mouth right-wing Fox kangaroo courts are an American menace.

Some top excerpts from Parry:
"it's increasingly rare when a powerful institution protects an individual from unfair and abusive treatment by another powerful institution"

"Considering how much ink and time were devoted to this overblown Deflategate "scandal" there was almost no serious examination of the actual evidence. Yet, here was the NFL, an institution with arguably as much integrity as the tobacco industry in how they deal with facts. The NFL has covered up the risks of concussions much as the cigarette makers hid the cancer implications of smoking. Why would anyone trust the NFL about anything?"

"Over the years, again and again, I have seen not only large institutions lie but the media side with those powers-that-be even when the institutions have a long record of dishonesty and high-handedness."

"in this rare case – at least rare in my recent experience – Judge Berman looked at the NFL’s accusations and evidence with an objective eye – and sided with an individual against an arrogant and powerful institution."

Read Parry's full article here (link)

Refugee Pain

Refugees from the Middle East & Africa continue to leave their war-torn homelands and pour into Europe.

Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron sees refugees merely as "a swarm of people" (link) rather than war-displaced, desperate families -- rousted from their homes by his own nation's imperialist interventions and overseas military operations.

Blame arms makers & Bush, Cheney, Blair, Obama, & Netanyahu.

Militarists threaten and attack governments they don't like, seeking to "bomb them back to the Stone Age"...

Our violence doesn't work. We continue to pay for our Big Nasty Imperial military and its destabilizing aftermath and consequences. We created hugely expensive suffering. Don't forget the USA at some time was funding Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the mujaheddin and Taliban, ISIL / ISIS fighters, the Khmer Rouge, etc. We've poured money into the military-led oppression of Egypt's General el Sisi and other brutal regimes. Our meddling and our continuing military occupations destabilize nations and harm uncounted innocent people.

Military aggression causes too much human misery, and cripples the world with millions of refugees. We need investment in strategy & diplomacy. Bring our troops home now!

Radiant Seafood from Japan

Troubled nuclear operator TEPCO is planning to dump radioactive water into the sea outside Fukushima, Japan (link).

Nobody imagines this is good, but those who care most have died or been compensated; others want to believe the fable that "almost all" radioactivity will be removed before dumping.

But TEPCO & the Japanese Government are proved incompetent; they continue to poison land & sea.

The 2020 Olympics should be hosted elsewhere, not in radioactive Tokyo - hot as a furnace & promising to get much worse.

Military Industry USA

America embraces threat & use of force as means of settling international disputes. The results have been poor.

Have we only been arrogant & meddling? Or are we more deeply dangerous?

US overseas operations only serve citizen interests as we feel tough & stronger hearing military stories of USA kicking foreign butt -- we're individually poor & powerless.

America's happiest soldiers are home in the USA. Those deployed serve and risk, but is their sacrificing essential? Politicians and US industry sent more than 2.7 million Americans to serve in Vietnam; many didn't return.  For what? Why? 

The same politicos put our military forces under threat today, in a tragic system supporting the ruthless arms dealing industry. Direct costs of US overseas forces are huge and unbearable, with inevitable blowback when poorly-chosen targets fight back, long-term care for injuries, the costs of refugees, etc.

Stop being suckered.   Say No to Militarism.

Let's invest in more peaceful solutions...

Nuclear Japan

August is when Japan and the world remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Most people now pray for peace and safety.

This August, 70 years after the end of WWII, the industrialist-supported LDP rammed through the restart of Japan's only operating nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture (川内原子力発電所) after all nuclear plants were closed in response to the Fukushima disaster.

The nuclear industry pushed unrelentingly for restart: achieved 11 Aug. 2015. The nuclear plant is as far from Tokyo as you can get on Japan's main islands -- about 1400 km (900 miles). Worryingly, this Kagoshima Sendai Nuclear Plant is only some 30 miles from highly-active Sakurajima volcano -- where today the local government issued regional evacuation warnings. Kagoshima City (pop. 600,000) sits between these two threats - exposed within minutes of eruption to the disastrous dangers of a pyroclastic flow.

Industry boffins claim there's no grounds for worry (link) -- but of course there is danger, and when trouble happens (as with Fukushima & TEPCO) the profiteers quickly run away claiming "who coulda known?" ...

If Japan suffers nuclear disaster again, the 2020 Olympics will need new hosting ... Tokyo bureaucrats can't handle the responsibility...

Warring Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush is an asshole.

Jeb claims Pres. Obama & Sec. of State Hilary Clinton pulled U.S. troops from Iraq too early. But clearly his fool brother should never have wasted American lives there.

Dubya Bush was forced to begin withdrawal from Iraq -- we were beaten by bad policy, bleeding money & lives in an impossible situation.

Jeb would waste further American life.

Dear Mr. Jeb:  "Grab a gun & go Yourself !"

Help the World + Earn €100,000

The TTIP scandal is a secret, corporate-friendly treaty being pushed by American trade negotiators. It parallels the TPP and TISA, and future generations will be shackled - unless it's stopped.

But how to argue or debate without detail? The text is kept secret and under guard.

Crowdfunding's raising money to Liberate the TTIP text.

Help Stop TTIP, TPP + TISA.
They're not your friend ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABDiHspTJww


Donate at:
http://wikileaks.org/ttip-reward
or send the TTIP text via that site and earn €100,000.
(don't give up if slow connecting - Big business seeks to sink the effort)

War No More

The wars of the past continue into the future...

Japanese premier Shinzo Abe visits occupied Okinawa and gets booed & heckled. His puppet government provides rubber-stamp authorization to US military occupation of large segments of Okinawa.  Local people are enraged by the trashing of democratic procedures, as Tokyo vetoes all, disregarding local elections. The result = kiss Yankee butt, and live with G.I. tumult destroying the living environment.

Who profits?

Meanwhile, frantic refugees from American / Israeli-supported overseas wars continue to destabilize Africa, Europe and elsewhere. American wounded warriors are loyally supported, but numbers rise, the wars continue, and too many lives go wasted. Better to keep our young folk home! Bush-Cheney-Blair lunacy of Afghanistan & Iraq are now further fueled by troubles in Syria, Libya and Egypt -- with planned war for Iran. Let local people settle their own conflicts: we should not fund or fuel the fighting.

Japan's March to War

Japanese Prime Minister Abe's government is enmeshed in a scandalous push to change national security laws, allowing far more overseas operations.

The legislation is 'supported' (link) by the USA, which still operates military bases throughout Japan.

In fact, it's clear Abe's a Yankee puppet. He's sometimes portrayed as right-wing, but Japan's true right wing wants to expel the Americans. There's never mention of such sovereign action by Abe's government.

Government deliberations are poorly attended by ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) members. They need know nothing - they'll just vote as directed on the highly unpopular legislation.

Abe's first administration upgraded the Defense Agency to Ministry level. Now in Abe's second term, Japan's Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani might rightly be renamed "Minister of War"...