Bush World is Thriving in VA --Part 1

This all started with a Cobalt6 post titled Why Can't Republicans Tell the Truth? The author was expressing his frustration with the antics og Virginia's right wing blogosphere. I decided to check out the Yankee Phillip blog post Truth-teller referred to in his post.

Sure enough, Truth-teller attempted to hold YP accountable for spreading one of those ridiculous falsehoods that Virginia's right wing blogosphere is known for. He asked YP to cite his source (the source of his statement about the banning of teaching about the Holocaust in UK schools). Truth-teller responsibly cited a BBC source which reported that YP's claim was had no merit.

Interestingly enough YP did not make a single comment. But as often happens in Virginia's right wing blogosphere some other right wingers started in on Anonymous and attempted to stir things up. As often happens this is when the gaming and spinning begins It seems that the right wing believes if you can muddy the waters enough accountability can be avoided and they won't have to admit that they have no legitimate sources to work with.

I decided to have a little fun and join the fray. I began my comment:

First....Anonymous hit the nail on the head with the simple, truthful statement, "It's not like you folks have any credibility to squander anyway." There's no way to have a serious discussion with folks who refuse to cite sources, prefer to spread "false information and rumors," and play petty games to try to come out a "winner." I still have no idea what these folks think they are winning....

I continued with my assessment of how no intelligent person would see them as serious, legitimate bloggers with the way they behave.

Swac Girl then replied directly to my post and her reply was just so typical that I would be negligent not to post it here:

Swac Girl said...

Anonymous and Mosquito:

Here are a few of the sources of story about UK suspending Holocaust history in schools:

UK Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770

This Is London: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391188-details/Teachers+drop+the+Holocaust+to+avoid+offending+Muslims/article.do

Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071208050900AA7BJyG

Free Liberal: http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/002705.html

Geek Log: http://www.jdl.org/geeklog//article.php?story=20070405120848921

Real Clear Politics: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/britain_was_once_great_britain.html

Google it and you will find plenty more.

Buzz buzz SPLAT!

I decided to give Swac Girl a surprise. I don't think she's accustomed to being taken seriously by anyone. I decided to take the time to see if she had indeed found sources to back up YP's ridiculous claim. Upon review the sources Swac Girl cited led me to believe that maybe she hadn't even bothered to read the sources she was citing....most had nothing to do with the topic and NONE of them offered any proof to legitimize YP's claim.

By this time it was easy to conclude that Swac Girl had not taken her own advice seriously. There's no way she googled this. But I took her advice and googled the YP claim: United Kingdom bans Holocaust teaching from schools--and google gave me the following info:

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Holocaust Teaching Ban in the UK · K-12 Education

Holocaust Teaching Ban. Claim: Schools in the UK no longer teach about the Holocaust for fear of offending Muslim students. Status: Multiple: ... www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust.asp - Similar pages

Holocaust Ban in UK Schools Chain Email

Holocaust Ban in UK Schools Chain Email. Summary: ... The UK government has not banned the teaching of the Holocaust in schools, nor is it planning to do so ... www.hoax-slayer.com/uk-holocaust-removal.shtml - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Holocaust 'ban' e-mail confusion

E-mails are circulating, falsely claiming the UK has banned schools from teaching pupils about the Holocaust. The suggestion is that this was done by the ... news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6563429.stm - 44k - Cached - Similar pages

No serious blogger would have been so sloppy with their research. But then when did research matter in Bush World--where reality and facts are not allowed to tread.

Swac Girl continues to live up to the reputation that she has gained with her antics and behavior. (A historical note: Swac Girl has quite a history in Virginia's blogosphere. Many remember when Swac Girl and her pack disrupted Virginia's blogosphere with their infamous "Let's attack Waldo Jacquith" campaign. I'd love to provide links to Swac Girl's site so you could see for yourself how low she stooped but unfortunately she no longer makes her blog archives available to her readers. It's more difficult to hold one accountable if you can't refer to their archives. One of Swac Girl's pack actually broke Virginia law and "impersonated a lawyer" and preceded to threaten Waldo with a lawsuit. The culprit turned out to be an adolescent boy, and the bloggers on Virginia's left are "compassionate" he was never reported to Virginia's legal system to face any consequences. He continues to roam the internet as one of Swac Girl's staunch allies. But enough of history let's return to the current modus operandi.)

However, there may be some serious play going on in Virginia's historically notorious right wing blogosphere. Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series.

Folk Music--Featuring Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger has to be the greatest songwriter/artist of all time in the folk genre. "Folk" is the music of the people. Enjoy...

Fascism Replaces Democracy in New Orleans

This right wing version of American Democracy that is being practiced in New Orleans is fascist and extremely disturbing. Corporate Media refuses to report on atrocities such as this...Corporate Media is working to keep us distracted so that these fascist actions can thwart the will of the American people.

Are there any principled journalists left in corporate media who will insist on reporting this information?

Check this out.

Wanted: Artists

H/T to Mac for this recent “talking about artists” thread….Tracy Chapman is one of my all time favorites….Our public airwaves should be sending us visionary voices to inspire us with hopeful energy....not the fearful, destructive hopelessness they are pushing down our throats hoping a large enough minority will remain willing to exchange freedom and choice so some rich white "Decider Daddy" can continue the current campaign of destruction and plunder. Colonized minds given limited parameters don't question (and therefore don't resist atrocities.)

I hope that Tracy Chapman will have some new songs for us soon. It will be “interesting” to see what she’ll have to say, “in these times….” But you will have to actively search for the visionary voices because the corporate media is promoting a different agenda. The corporate powers prefer to spread messages of fear, insecurity, and lies…..so it will be up to “US” to support the works of our artists….BTW, if you’ve never seen Tracy Chapman in concert try to make her next appearance here. The woman is FABULOUS!!!

I hope the organizers of the next big march in Washington will ask Pink and the Indigo Girls to come and sing Dear Mr. President….hopefully a bunch of people will be inspired to bring the words and sing this song as we march in D.C. We need to create our songs and utilize our own voices in these times.

Here’s another Chapman "oldie" but goodie:

The MYTH of the Liberal Media with corrected links

IF you believe the corporate controlled media (and government) in this country is "liberal" then you should reassess this belief. Check out this Pink interview.

WHY won't U.S. media (radio and tv) play Pink's best work--Dear Mr. President? If some "so called" patriotic white boy country singer writes a song saying the USA is "red white and blue" wonderful for invading Iraq and killing a million people he gets to sing his "lousy" song everywhere...tv and radio....and the songs of artists are hidden from us.

Jimmy Kimmel has earned my respect for inviting Pink to be on his show, sing this powerful song, andthen interviewing her to expose how the corporate media has shut her greatest song and her message out of the public arena. So much for freedom and the public airways that are supposed to be "owned" by us. The FCC white boys are paid by the US taxpayer but they work for the corporate media.

In crucial times such as this we need more artists and fewer "entertainers." I don't want to be "entertained." In these times, Americans need to recognize the atrocities and war crimes that George Bush is using our tax dollars to pay for.....

Thanks Mac for bringing back one of my fave tunes. Thanks Star for sharing this ...I did not know that the Indigo Girls played and sang with Pink on the recording of Dear Mr. President.

And just b/c the corporate media won't play this stuff it's up to "US" the people to support the artists (start ignoring the entertainers) and promote them every chance we get.

BTW, does anyone remember how Clear Channel corporate executives had to testify before Congressional hearings for blacklisting the Dixie Chicks? The Clear Channel executives apologized and then promised they wouldn't do this again....Well, Bruce Springsteens latest album is not getting any airplay on Clear Channel in spite of high volume sales.

So much for the Myth of the Liberal Media....BTW, why don't you take a moment and "think" about who promotes that Liberal Media myth so much....that's right....this "myth" was manufactured by the corporate media....

Thanks to Bluebear2 of Bluebear’s Magic Vault for the heads up on the messed up links….Buzz...Buzz...

The MYTH of the Liberal Media

IF you believe the corporate controlled media (and government) in this country is "liberal" then you need to reassess this belief. Check out this Pink interview.

WHY won't U.S. media (radio and tv) play her song, Dear Mr. President? If some "so called" patriotic white boy country singer writes a song saying the USA is wonderful for invading Iraq and killing a million people he gets to sing his "lousy" song everywhere...tv and radio....and the songs of artists are hidden from us.

Jimmy Kimmel has earned my respect for inviting Pink to be on his show, sing this powerful song, andthen interviewing her to expose how the corporate media has shut her greatest song and her message out of the public arena. So much for freedom and the public airways that are supposed to be "owned" by us. The FCC white boys are paid by the US taxpayer but they work for the corporate media.

In crucial times such as this we need more artists and fewer "entertainers." I don't want to be "entertained." In these times, Americans need to recognize the atrocities and war crimes that George Bush is using our tax dollars to pay for.....

Thanks Mac for bringing back one of my fave tunes. Thanks Star for sharing this with me...I did not know that the Indigo Girls played and sang with Pink on the recording of Dear Mr. President.

And just b/c the corporate media won't play this stuff it's up to "US" the people to support the artists (start ignoring the entertainers) and promote them every chance we get.

BTW, does anyone remember how Clear Channel corporate executives had to testify before Congressional hearings for blacklisting the Dixie Chicks? The Clear Channel executives apologized and then promised they wouldn't do this again....Well, Bruce Springsteens latest album is not getting any airplay on Clear Channel in spite of high volume sales.

So much for the Myth of the Liberal Media....BTW, why don't you take a moment and "think" about who promotes that Liberal Media myth so much....that's right....this "myth" was manufactured by the corporate media....

Buzz...Buzz...

Pink - Dear Mr President Live In Wembley - I'm Not Dead Tour

Here at Mosquito Blog, reality just keeps intruding on mythology, including the myth that George Walker Bush, the big honcho, is a kind and humane individual of superior moral and ethical character, blessed by the Lord to boot, to hear certain Evangelicals fantasize about it.

Meanwhile, the darker truth is that Mr. Bush is more akin to a modern day version of Johnny Friendly from the movie ON THE WATERFRONT. You remember Johnny don't you, the Mobster controlling the Longshoreman's Union and all the longshoremen on the docks, the superficial "great guy" who is forever doling out favors and largesse to his syncophants and musclemen while blackballing, beating up or killing anyone who stands for the truth.

So let's fantasize a bit on our own here. Let's cast Pink in the role of Edie Doyle, soft yet fiercely truthful and honest, and whose brother has recently been pushed off a roof by Friendly's men, actually calling out Johhny Friendly, played by George W. Bush, to take a sober walk with her into the pain and suffering he has caused in the world. Will he take that walk into honest self-appraisal?

Don't hold your breath. Even in the movie Friendly can't help being an ass even after being indicted and thrown in the bay by a longshoreman after the big slugout with Terry Malloy (Brando). His Karma and character are cast in bronze. The best we can hope for is that some on-the-up-and-up authorities take him for a walk to the Prison Stripe side of life, before he can do more harm.

Spain Cries Out, "Down With Santa!"

Spanish citizens and some Spanish retailers work to put the Christ back in Christmas. Spanish grafitti depicits Santa Clause as evil with slogans such as: Down With Santa, Down with the Fat Red Capitalist, Reindeers don't fly. Camels do walk. Enough already with the fraud. There is even a rap song with the line, ""anta — you think you're on the crest of the ola [wave], but you're just product placement for Coca Cola"

The gift giving tradition in Spain has gifts exchanged on January 6th on All Kings Day to celebrate the Kings taking gifts to the baby Jesus. The Spanish have a campaign, "I'm with the Kings." They want children to know that it is the Kings who brought the presents to the baby Jesus not the Fat Red Capitalist--Santa Clause. (Source)

An anti-corporate movement is spreading worldwide...Buy Nothing Day originated in Canada and is also practiced in other nations such as America....Unfortunately it is difficult for the world to separate the United States from the international corporations attempt to rule the world. It appears as if the Corporations own the American government (which rarely listens to the people but have big ears and deep pockets for the bills that corporations want)....and the rest of the world fears that the corporations plan to utilize America's military might to keep their vision of "Free Trade" alive and spreading throughout the world.

So Merry Christmas everyone...especially to my close friends and family who have chosen for years now to celebrate the "spirit" of Christmas, Solstice, and Hannakuh without spending a dime on gifts that too often end up in the landfill.

Billy Joel & Cass Dillon Performing "Christmas In Fallujah"

Stark reality interjects itself into our Christmas good cheer with this new, implicitly anti-war song recently written by Billy Joel, reminding us of the great gulf between rhetoric and reality in the United States of America, particularly amongst our rulers. But we citizens have been conditioned to this for decades through the techniques of Madison Avenue, where toxic junk can be packaged as the Mona Lisa.

While we are congratulating ourselves on being a pious Christian nation today, untold suffering is going on for the people of Iraq, nevermind all the spin about the Surge. Hundreds of thousands have been slain, many more wounded, millions displaced. Oh yes, some refugees are returning from Syria and Jordan, but that is largely because they have run out of money or been kicked out.

Worst of all is the painful reality of Fallujah, the Guernica of our times, which the American military, financed by us as taxpayers, helped decimate a month and three years ago. You have only to scroll down a few posts from this one to gauge the human carnage wrought in that assault.

So "Christmas in Fallujah" is a splash of cold water in our faces lest we grow too complacent about Iraq, inundated with endless spin doctrines obscuring the truth.

Did the CIA Impede the investigation of 911?

Our corporate media norm seems to be "YEARS" behind reporting the Big News...then when they report it we are told it's old news, it's irrelevant, etc.etc....Imagine how angry the country would have been if this had been reported in a timely manner. Makes me wonder who "sat' on this story at at who's request.....

Outlandish & Sami Yusuf "Try not to cry" 4 Children of Adam

This is a song of love, compassion and solace for all the children of the world suffering from war, occupation, oppression and indifference.

Jesus said "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me."

Hundreds of thousands of children have been slain, maimed, beaten, starved, abandoned, orphaned, sexually abused, expolited, enslaved, turned into child-soldiers, and on and on in just this year alone. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sudan, to name some of the major conflicts, have been particularly gruesome for children. What does this translate into in the light of Christ's passage above?

The murder of Christ, relentlessly, daily, ghoulishly.

Some of the worst murderers of Christ are countries that pretend to be Christian, such as the United States, Great Britain, Ethiopia, which are, as I write, employing artillery strikes, air strikes and military engagements that inevitably hit civilian communities or random civilian victims, including children. Moreover, war creates circumstances that traumatize, terrorize and deprive children in these war zones of hope, health, education, and even food and shelter.

But the murder of Christ in the external world is but the result of the murder of Christ in each and every one of our internal worlds. A psychiatrist explained it to me once decades ago, how society takes every very young child, each of them a beautiful child of God, and begins to imprison that child behind bars of denigration, punishment, rejection and/or conditional love, entrapping the body in a coffin of repressed emotions, as the living essence within that child growing into an adolescent is met with painful prohibitions against being itself or expressing itself, including sexually ultimately, for sexuality connects one to Nature and the Cosmos in the most fundamental way. In a word, one becomes armored, armored against one's own feelings and emotions.

Eventually one grows into a socially adjusted and rigid mannequin of the State, to lesser or greater degree, going through the motions of living while actually feeling dead or alienated on the inside, quite divorced from the divinity within, the Christ-essence within. Having lost this core essence, it is an easy step to become a mechanistic automation of the State, nowhere more manifest than in the Armed Forces of a country, where this rigidity, this armoring, is taken to its ultimate extremity both physically and psychologically, where one is now expected to blindly kill, and kill, and kill when so ordered, creating actual rigor mortis in one's victims.

The opposite of the living Christ within us is death and contraction. A nation or people that actually worships war is a culture that worships the annihilation of the life force, a death culture, in a word.

The great psychosomatic pioneer, Wilhelm Reich, actually wrote a book on this subject, entitled The Murder of Christ. Counterpunch Online Magazine actually reprinted Chapter 14 of this profound work back in 2002, the chapter entitled Gethsemane. Here is an excerpt:

Christ is Life. And Christ was manhandled just as Life was manhandled long before him and long after the crucifixion and is still manhandled today.

And all his admirers fled and forsook him while he was captured, just as they all had fallen asleep again and again before he was taken and while he went through the agony of the innocent one in supreme distress.

And even his God seemed to have abandoned him. But Life within had not abandoned him. His Life within kept acting as Life acts, up till the last breath. And this is so because God is Life within and without. God did not abandon him at all, except as an image of misled men, corresponding to no reality.

Life had known who would deliver it to its enemies. It had known it for a very long time. It saw the traitor step up to it and kiss it on the cheek as he still said, " Master! "

And this, again, is the plague.

Christ's story has moved and stirred humanity to tears and sorrow and great art because it is humanity's own tragic story. Men are Christs and victims of the plague, helpless before their own courts and fleeing disciples and sleeping admirers and Judases kissing the Master with a kiss of death, and Marys who give Christ a forbidden, godly love, and deadened bodies that seek in vain God's sweetness in their frozen limbs, but never cease to sense his presence within and without themselves. Men, basically, in spite of all armoring and sin and hate and perversion, are living beings who cannot help but feel the Force of Life within themselves and without themselves.

Christ is Life, dying innocently for many millennia at the hands of a Life that had lost and could not restore God's ways, and therefore kept guarding the ancient laws with glowing, murderous eyes, and swords ready to kill whoever has lived God's life.

Christ is the infant tied down or filled with nuisance drugs until it vomits, not knowing why all is so terribly painful, and slowly settling down into a living death, to grow into a future murderer of Christ.

Christ is the agony of a boy or girl of four lying in his bed in the darkness, desperate because God is stirring in its little body, terrified that mother or father might come and yell or hit because the hands are not above the covers.

Christ is the nightmare of a suppressed God in God-made genitals in infants and children in the first puberty, returning from suppression as terror of ghosts and robbers with knives, and bleak shadows at the windows, as multiarmed octopuses and devils with glowing forks, and a fire burning in hell to engulf the little, poor souls jammed in between God's stirring in their bodies and the parents, the representatives of God on earth, who punish for feeling God in the limbs. This is the source of all sin punished in Dante's inferno, a man-made, madman's nightmare.

And the Judases are the educators and the councils for mental hygiene and the doctors and the priests who guard the entrance to the knowledge of God with threatening words and flaming swords. Did you ever think of how many billions of small children on this earth went through the nightmare of Christ at Gethsemane and Golgatha over the millennia? Did you? You did not. You were " social" and " good to your neighbors " and " liked your enemies like yourselves " and you sent prayers up to heaven for salvation and redemption of your soul, and you knelt before altars of many kinds to obtain forgiveness of your sins. But never, never did you think of the billions of babies and children who bring the very sap of God's fresh life from your endless universe into this miserable world of yours; and you maimed and punished and frightened these children, and do to this very day, for knowing God and living the Life of Christ. And you guard well every single entrance to the houses of knowledge against intrusion of the truth about these countless Murders of Christ committed by you and your appointed ones in the name of God.

And you, defender of the honor of God in some darkened room in some village in some country, don't you think right now, hard, of how you could get at the writer of such " blasphemies " and tar him and put feathers on his skin and put fire to the tar and feathers and make him run screaming with agony through the streets, a warning to every good citizen? You are doing this this very minute. But the times are against you. Some well-guarded gates at the entrances to some of the palaces of knowledge have been broken down and we begin to get an inkling of what has been committed in the name of God for such a horribly long time on so great a number of innocent little Christs, sons of Life and God.

The knowledge of God as the love in your body, which you persecute, is breaking down your guards at the entrance to paradise, which you yourself have put up in your dreams, and your obstruction of living Life on this earth.

You kept brooding over the riddle of the Murder of Christ for centuries and it is your failure to find the answer which revealed you as the true and only murderer of Christ. You kept hiding this well and for a long time. But not much longer will hiding be possible. (http://www.counterpunch.org/reicheaster.html)

This murder of Christ, or as Reich called it, the Emotional Plague, is the halmark of the modern patriarchal, authoritarian state, where only the external symbols of Christ can be worshipped, where the stirrings of Christ within are zealously guarded against by their Fundamentalist priestcraft, the watchdogs of formality, rigidity and alienation.

BREAKING NEWS: Lakota Indian Tribe Withdraw from the United States

The descendants of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull have decided they have had it and they will withdraw from all treaties with the United States. The Lakota Indians are going to form their own country, issue their own passports and driver's licenses, and will charge no income tax. The Lakota tribe has land in five states North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.

Power to the People.... Here's the link.

Sporadic Times

Well life is what happens while we are busy making our little plans. I have more ideas and articles I want to write than I have the time for, unfortunately.

I went to the Raleigh last weekend. Unfortunately, Star's youngest beautiful Tibetan Terrier suddenly went from a perfect state of health to paralysis in her rear end within a 12 hour time period. It was touch and go and we had to return without her beloved Rishi Dakini Wind Dancer. Dance did improve on Monday so I took the time to help bring her home. Now Star has to deal with four - six weeks of keeping this active youngster in a crate so hopefully they can avoid spinal surgery.

BTW, the North Carolina Emergency Vet Clinic is fabulous. It's definitely worth the drive (and the money) if you have a seriously ill animal. Star met a gentleman from Virginia Beach who had brought his dog to the clinic.

So Star is on hiatus but since I was so helpful she will try to do an article soon on the wonderfully healthy, but unorthodox diet that she feeds her Tibetan dogs. Star never had to deal with any of those recent pet food scares but none of it surprised her. So those of you with pets that you love you might want to check out how Star is keeping her canines healthy. I must say that I'm impressed with their health, and the "training" of two of her dogs. Unfortunately I think Dance has ended up training Star.

I'll probably be very infrequently on line for the near future...I'm having my own ailments with a very sore neck and back....plus I'm expecting company to come in town next week....

I hope EVERYONE out there is able to spend some quality time with friends and family b/c nothing is more valuable. I sincerely doubt that anyone has ever said this on their death bed has ever said....."I wish I had spent more time working, making money and blogging."

Alan Watts - Yoga

Alan Watts, the great philosopher and teacher on the wisdom of Eastern religions speaks to the question in this lecture-excerpt of what is Yoga and what is Reality?

Jesus said my yoke is light. Was he really saying that my yoga is light, for Yoga "yokes" you to the Divine, over time, indeed, yoking you to the Divine Light.

So Yoga is Light. Was Jesus making a play on words with his simple phrase?

The Third Anniversay of the Second Attack on Fallujah: WILLY PETE DOES FALLUJAH

Willy Pete did this Fallujan woman. How much suffering might she have endured while her body carmelized? An official military morgue photo (source)



********

This November marks the third anniversay of the second of two American-led military assaults culminating in the massive destruction of most of the ancient Iraqi city of Fallujah. Consequently, I am republishing my account of this event here on Mosquito Blog, lest we forget what the Bush regime has perpetrated in our names. It was first published by the Southern ((I)) in print form, and later at OpEdNews.com, the web-link of which site you can access by clicking here.

Earlier this year I posted the first four articles in this series at Mosquito Blog. They dealt with the first assault ending in May, and the immediate aftermath. In the rest of the articles, this being the eighth and last, I have started getting into the much more brutal second assault in November, something most of us know little about, due to the moral poverty of the mainstream media.

Posting this last article right now has the benefit of being just before the last week of the Light in the Dark Peace Festival, the program of which is posted farther down on this blog. This Monday night, the 17th, Kathy Kelley, the courageous humanitarian fighter for peace and justice in Iraq, will be speaking at the Naro, and on Tuesday, the dramatic fictionalized film about crimes perpetrated by American troops in Iraq, REDACTED, will be shown. Reading this last article may perhaps motivate you to attend one or both of these events.

*********

Fallujah, the Guernica of Our Times

Part 8: Willy Pete Does Fallujah

By Mac McKinney


"I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of the rising wind. 'The horror! The horror!'

- Marlow from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness





















This used to be a human face and skull. This is what the Pentagon's exotic weapons and your tax dollars do to humans. Yes, the horror, the horror! An official military morgue photo (source)

************************

On March 3, 2005, Dr Khalid ash Shaykhli, an Iraqi health ministry official, made a shocking announcement at a Baghdad press conference, stating that his medical team had discovered that the US military had employed chemical weapons in their November, 2004 assault that all but leveled the city of Fallujah, weapons that included mustard gas, nerve gas and burning agents. The Australian Journal, Green Left Weekly, March 16, 2005 issue quoted from Al Jazeera satellite news that "Shaykhli said that during the US assault, fleeing residents described 'seeing corpses that had melted, which suggests that US troops used napalm gas, a poisonous compound of polystyrene and aircraft fuel which melts bodies'. He also said that his researchers had found evidence of the use of mustard gas and nerve gas. 'We found dozens, not to say hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds that had perished as a result of those gasses', he told the press conference, which was held in the health ministry's Baghdad building."
(source)

Although there were several prominent American media representatives there, only the Christian Scientist Monitor carried this story, and only on its website. Once again the American media was ignoring a report of a major American breach of international conventions. Even so, the Pentagon was already getting defensive as early as December of 2004, made nervous perhaps by Islamic website charges as well as GI blogs and "after-action reports" on the Internet that were touting the use of Willy Pete (white phosphorus), propane bombs and napalm against Fallujah. Official Pentagon spokesmen began claiming that white phosphorus was only used as an illumination device:

Official Denials

"In December the US Government formally denied the reports (based on insurgent claims-parentheses mine), describing them as 'widespread myths'. 'Some news accounts have claimed that US forces have used outlawed phosphorus shells in Fallujah,' the USinfo website said. 'Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. US forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes.' (Peter Popham, the Independent UK) (source)




















Another victim of Willy Pete's handiwork. An official military morgue photo (source)

But the charges persisted throughout 2005, strengthened by bloggers who had started looking back at reports issued by embedded reporters in Fallujah during the November, 2004 siege, bloggers such as Mike Whitney:

"The US also used napalm in the siege of Falluja as was reported in the UK Mirror ('Falluja Napalmed', 11-28-04) The Mirror said, '[that] President George Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet-fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun the world. Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh. Since the American assault on Falluja there have been reports of 'melted' corpses, which appeared to have napalm injuries." ("Incinerating Iraqis; The Napalm Cover Up" by Mike Whitney) (source)

Finally, the official Pentagon story-line began to unravel after several revelations surfaced toward the end of 2005, the most powerful being an Italian documentary by Sigfrido Ranucci of RAINews24 entitled "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre." (source)

To again quote from Peter Popham of The Independent UK, Tuesday, November 8, 2005 regarding this film:

"But now new information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon.

"In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, this morning, a former American soldier [Jeff Englehart] who fought at Fallujah says: 'I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete.'

'Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for.'

"Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster's 24-hours news channel, www.rainews24.it, show exactly what the former soldier means. Provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.

"A biologist in Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq, interviewed for the film, says: 'A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact.'

"The documentary, entitled 'Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre,' also provides what it claims is clinching evidence that incendiary bombs known as Mark 77, a new, improved form of napalm, was (sic) used in the attack on Fallujah, in breach of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, which only allows its use against military targets." (source)




















The carmelized head of an Iraqi burned to death by Willy Pete, unless luckily already slain before being scorched to this altered state. An official military morgue photo (source)

At the same time, corroborating evidence now surfaced about the use of Willy Pete as a weapon. To quote Chris Floyd of the Moscow Times in his article, "The White Death of Fallujah":

"A Daily Kos diarist, Stephen D., dug up one of the U.S. military's own publications, Field Artillery Magazine, which eagerly related the use of white phosphorous, which 'proved to be an effective and versatile munition,' the article said. 'We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE [High Explosives]. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out." (source)

Sophisms

The Pentagon, no longer able to deny its usage of white phosphorus against humans, was now reduced to various sophisms to justify its onerous use. Danny Mayer of ZNet Magazine explores this in his article, "Willy Peter":

"Because the U.S. is not a signatory to the 1980 Geneva Convention and has challenged the legal definition of chemical weapons, the Pentagon now claims that white phosphorus is 'not a chemical weapon' and therefore 'not outlawed or illegal.'

"For the Pentagon, at least, the 'shake and bake' missions are a 'potent psychological weapon' that will drive the enemy 'out of their holes.' The use of white phosphorus has a particularly brutal history. During the war in Vietnam, the U.S. used white phosphorous as an improved form of napalm, terrorizing enemies. Then, as now, it was touted as a psychological tool of warfare necessary to subdue enemy hamlets.

"Unlike napalm, which in Vietnam left villagers and enemies alike with massive burns all over their bodies, white phosphorus burns down to the bone.

"Le The Thrung, a Vietnamese doctor studying white phosphorus burns in 1969, describes its effects on the skin: 'burning phosphorus produces 800-1,000 degrees centigrade heat. Scattered phosphorus particles go on consuming themselves and deepen burn wounds.' Next, chemical compounds 'create a chemical burn, like an acid, drawing water from the cells. This process generates great pain in the nervous system.' Finally, white phosphorus compounds oxygenate and penetrate 'the blood stream and white blood cells in the dermis, subdermis, and deeper skin layers.' This creates what he calls an 'organic toxicity [that] blocks off all blood circulation with the burn area.'.........

"This is what our military and political leaders currently define as a 'potent psychological weapon?' These are the actions that citizens of empire are to support and legitimize, even if tacitly, in the name of spreading democracy and securing our own nebulous borders?

"No, this is not about our national feelings of moral fortitude. This is about civilians and 'enemies' alike having chemicals dropped on them like rain and their skin bubbling, melting, wasting away with no way to scrape off the pain of oxidizing phosphorus and no way to cauterize the slow, painful melting into the nervous system and bloodstream. No, for those getting 'smoked out of their holes,' there is very little, if anything, psychological about Willy Peter." (source)

How many Fallujans suffered this final indignity of being chemically burned to death in the most agonizing manner imaginable? Dozens, hundreds, several thousand? It is hard to say. Partial American military DD1079 records on the RAI website list 60 bodies destined for Fallujah City Cemetery alone, as well as absolutely macabre photographs of some of the victims. We will likely never know just how many suffered this garish fate. For those readers with strong stomachs who feel compelled to see the photographic proof of the effects of Willy Pete on individual Fallujans, as well as to study the cemetery records, please see:
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/en/records.asp

This then was the final twist of the knife to Fallujah during the second assault on that hapless city during Operation Phantom Fury in November, 2004, a rain of fiery, excruciating pain and death upon civilians and combatants, ordered by well-groomed and well-educated US commanders with all the moral angst, apparently, of teenagers whacking pixel images at a video game in the Mall. But on some unconscious level at least, those GIs having to load Willy Pete artillery shells certainly knew that those on the receiving end were flesh and blood beings like themselves who were about to be caramelized. Some of them will inevitably have to deal with the ghosts rising from their subconscious in the middle of the night and hope that military or VA shrinks, booze or drugs can make them go away.




















Another surreal victim of Willy Pete. An official military morgue photo (source)

Making History

One soldier who eye-witnessed the massive destruction of Fallujah and who goes by the blogger name of hEkLe, wrote a tour de force letter in December of 2004 on what he had just experienced, from which I quote:

"We reduced Falluja to rubble. We claimed victory and told the world we held Falluja under total and complete control. Our military claimed very few civilian casualties and listed thousands of insurgents dead. CNN and Fox News harped and cheered on the television that the battle of Falluja would go down in history as a complete success, and a testament to the United States' supremacy on the modern battlefield.

"However, after the dust settled, and generals sat in cozy offices smoking their victory cigars, the front lines in Falluja exploded again with indomitable mortar, rocket, and small-arm attacks on U.S. and coalition forces." (source)

Right after Operation Phantom Fury flattened Fallujah, one of those generals that hEkLe was referring to above also invoked history:

"It ought to go down in the history books", Major General Richard Natonski of the Marines told the New York Times, proud of America's handiwork in conquering Fallujah. Indeed it will, General, right alongside the Warsaw Ghetto, Grozny and Guernica as testimonies to modern man's ongoing, savage inhumanity to his fellow man. The only thing that remains to be done is for another artist to express the story on canvas for posterity.

Postscript to This Series:

This is from a WWII article entitled "British in Africa Lack Killer Urge", by James Aldridge writing in the New York Times on June 24, 1942:

"The German Africa Corps defeated the Eighth Army because it had speed, anger, virility and toughness....They (the Germans) are practical men, taken from a most practical and hard life to fight practically: Nazis trained to kill. The German commanders are scientists, who are continually experimenting with and improving the hard, mathematical formula of killing. They are trained as mathematicians, engineers and chemists facing complicated problems....War is pure physics to them. The German soldier is trained with a psychology of a daredevil track rider. He is a professional killer, with no distractions. He believes he is the toughest man on earth....The British soldier is the most heroic on earth, but do not confuse that with military toughness. He has the toughness of determination but he has not the toughness to kill his enemy."

This article prompted these comments by Wilhelm Reich, the famous psychiatrist, sociologist and writer, in his classic work, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1942-Third Edition):

"This is the best description of mechanical militarism that I have ever read. It discloses in one blow the complete identity of mechanistic natural science, mechanical human structure, and sadistic murder. This identity found its highest and most consummate expression in the totalitarian dictatorship-ideology of German imperialism. This mechanical trinity is set in relief against the view of life that regards man not as a machine, the machine not the master of man, and militarism not as his greatest asset. This living functional view has found its last refuge in the Western democracies. It remains to be seen whether it will survive the chaos." (page 332)

Reich goes on to excoriate Aldridge for entreating the British to abandon their appreciation for human live in favor of imitating the Fascists. Again quoting Reich, "Those who attempt to beat the mechanical automations with their own methods will only jump out of the frying pan into the fire, i.e., in their efforts to become more efficient killers, they will transform themselves into mechanical automations and perpetuate the process their opponents have set in motion....

"Our conception of the anti-fascist fight is different. It is a clear, relentless recognition of the historical and biological causes that lead to such murders. The deracination of the fascist plague will come solely from such a recognition and not by imitating it. One cannot vanquish fascism by imitating and subduing it with its own methods, without becoming a fascist oneself. The way of fascism is the way of the automation, death, rigidity, hopelessness. The way of the living is fundamentally different...." (page 333)

Unfortunately, the American Establishment, with its fledgling new CIA, couldn't wait to embrace the research of captured Nazi scientists at the end of WWII and utterly failed to heed this advice. Instead, America has, over time, journeyed into the heart of darkness, succumbing to the fascist plague, and no matter how much various demagogic American politicians project this dark shadow onto those they hypocritically call "Islamo-Fascists" and countless other terms of demonization, this is but deep denial compounding brutal militarism and imperialism, with no end in sight to the ongoing carnage, unless those Americans not infected with this plague can find the will to confront and defeat them.

A Ridiculous VA Conservative Blog Statement

I was perusing VA blogs and came across this funny statement in a VA Conservative Blog:

According to one right wing blogger in the VA area "It Must Be Tuesday Al Gore says we are all gonna die." Now this writer acts as if the statement "we are all gonna die" is totally ridiculous.

But it's one of the few truths we can all count on.....each and every one of us is going to die....it's one certainty we can all count on. Isn't that what makes the time we have here on Planet Earth so precious?

Who knows what happens next....death is something we won't know about definitively until we personally experience it. In the meantime our individual beliefs....that some sort of consciousness continues, or not, are what we live with.

But what's less ridiculous is that we have polluted our planet and hopefully enough people will rise to the responsibility of righting this wrong in this small window of time that we have where we can probably reverse our damage if we all unite and do it.

Worst case scenario--what if Global warming is a fluke and we clean up the Planet....At the very least, maybe we will be able to swim (as well as drink) from rivers that are currently so dirty that it's unhealthy to eat the fish that swim in them....and maybe the asthma that strikes so many children will decline....and maybe we will all end up healthier and living longer happier lives.

It puzzles me that some folks want to advocate that a few folks should continue to pollute the air, the water (even "own" the water that is vital to all life), the environment so a small percentage of folks can get even wealthier and bear no responsibility for their actions. No wonder all the world's major religions, including Christianity, label Greed a sin.

I've read all sorts of ridiculous statements over time in the right wing blogosphere...but this one was just too funny to ignore...

Buzz....Buzz....

Challenge to Bobby Scott and Rick Boucher

Sidebar: Don't forget that Cheney is the ultimate war profiteer (as well as an oil profiteer)....in one year alone (during his vice presidency) his Haliburton stock options earned him a 3,ooo % return....If Cheney only purchased a miserly 10,000 worth (highly unlikely) his profit on that would have been 30 million dollars. I wouldn't be surprised if his profit from Halliburton that year was more like 300 million dollars.

Wexler urges hearings on Cheney trial Let's Challenge Bobby Scott and Rick Boucher to join Wexler and protect our beloved constitution.

Why won’t House Democrats Bobby Scott (VA-3^rd) and Rick Boucher (Va-9^th) follow the example set by another House Democrat—Robert Wexler (FLA-19^th)? Wexler polled his constituents and discovered that 61% favored impeaching Vice President Cheney.

Bobby Scott and Rick Boucher should poll their constituents on this matter. They might also include a part II and inquire about impeaching George Bush.

The Mosquito Blog folk believe the Democrats are IGNORING their constituents on major issues concerning impeachment, the Iraq War, civil rights, to name just a few points. The least they can do is poll us on this issue. Party politics is not what the American people want to continue in these treacherous times.

Why not borrow Wexler’s poll and insert the additional question on Bush and see what your constituents desire on this matter? This question will be coming before your committee very soon because Wexler is going to ask the Judiciary Committee to seriously look at impeaching Vice President Cheney.

Wexler believes that starting the impeachment process will increase the voice of the Democrats in other legislative matters that the Bush/Cheney Whitehouse has been blocking.

If you are a constituent of Scott or Boucher why not request that they run a poll to determine the wishes of their constituents? It’s definitely worth the effort. So take a moment this week and contact Bobby Scott or Rick Boucher. If you are particularly industrious you also might want to contact the Judiciary Committee and let them know you support the impeachment of Dick Cheney and/or George Bush.

Dear Peace People

Dear Peace People,

For the first time since I have been sending out the Tidewater Peace Alliance updates, I am going to use this list to promote someone I am bringing to Tidewater, Peace Activist Kathy Kelly.

I am not just bringing Kathy Kelly here so she can speak at the Naro on Monday, December 17 at 7:15 p.m. (reception at 5:30 p.m. at Azars). I asked Kathy to come here for the Peace Festival because I want to introduce you to someone I consider to be a hero.

In these times, we often hear people decry the lack of heroes, the lack of leaders who are willing to stand up, to show the way. Believe me, the leaders are here. Some people may not be looking in the right places.

I would love for all of you to come out and welcome a hero, honor a hero. Why is Kathy Kelly a hero to me? In a time when I was willing to turn away from the misery being created in my name by the US government, she and others were crossing the blockade to Iraq, carrying medicines to those who were hurt the most by our action: women and children, even before the war.

How many times have I heard people say, "I just can't go there!" meaning they cannot even think about what is happening in Iraq?

Kathy Kelly has gone there, many times. And has a most important message for us all, about what we can do if we are willing to be heroes too. If you would like to learn a little more about Kathy Kelly, I put together a web page on Kathy and her connection with the World Dreams Peace Bridge work with the children of Iraq at www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/kelly I hope you'll come out and welcome her.

Have you noticed that Kathy Kelly is not the only woman of conviction and courage appearing on this year's Peace Festival program? Those Catholic Worker folks (like Kathy Kelly and Steve Baggarly and Kim Williams) have such a tendency to live by their own convictions!

Tomorrow, that's Wednesday, December 12, at 7:15p.m. at the Studio for the Healing Arts, $8, the Norfolk Catholic Worker will present Sister Carol Gilbert and Sister Ardeth Platte to discuss the film Conviction, about three Dominican Sisters, affiliated with Plowshares and Johah House in Baltimore,MD, who risk all in living their lives true to their convictions of equality, peace and social justice.

Other events coming up at the Peace Festival this week, include:

Thursday, Dec 13(with discussion) at 7:30pm and Sat & Sun, Dec 15 &16

MILAREPA In the 11th century, in the Year of the Water Dragon, on a high barren plain in the shadow of Mount Tisi, a child is born. Destined to become one of the most revered figures in Tibetan history, Milarepa's epic life story ultimately moves into the realm of the mythic and legendary, inspiring millions. Nine hundred years after his death, the visionary wizard, saint, and poet (played by Jamyang Lodro as an adult) remains Tibet's greatest mystic. Yet his youthful rage and black magic brought death and destruction upon his own family. This is his story: a tale of revenge, demons, murder, and redemption. In Tibetan with subtitles. (PG, 90 mins)

The executive producer of the film, Greg Kruglak, will be in attendance on Thursday to introduce and then speak after the screening.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, Dec 14 at 5:15 and Sat & Sun, Dec 15 & 16 at 3:15

DARFUR NOW A story of hope in the midst of one of humanity's darkest hours, writer/director Ted Braun's documentary is a call to action. The struggles and achievements of six different individuals from inside Darfur and around the world bring to light the tragedy in Sudan and show how one person can make a difference to millions. The conflict is explored through the first-hand experiences of Don Cheadle, Hejewa Adam, Pablo Recalde, Ahmed Mohammed Abakar, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, and Adam Sterling. (PG, 99 mins)

For a look at the full Peace Festival schedule, go to http://imageproject.org/home.htm

Jean Campbell
(Posted with Permission)

A Canadian Tale For Americans Today

I keep hearing that this next Presidential Election is being referred to as "The Perfect Storm." I surely hope so. Out of all the Presidential candidates from both sides of the isle I can think of only three candidates who are seem as small mice....but they have grand ideas. On the Democratic side the candidate with the greatest ideas is Dennis Kucinich. The only other Democratic candidate with a decent idea for this country is John Edwards.

The Republicans have a little mouse with a few ideas--Ron Paul.

No surprise that the corporate FAT CATS who own our media do everything they can to minimize these candidates....the only candidates who have any idea what life is like for over 90% of the people in this country.

It's time to stop electing the FAT CATS who make up the top 1-2% of our nation. If the parties refuse to nominate one of these candidates my Perfect Storm will consist of a write in name for my ballot....

It appears that both parties are "owned" by corporations. I "hope" that the Democrats are able to keep fighting the temptation...they still have a decent number of representatives willing to fight for our civil liberties, our environment, and Fair Trade. If not....Hopefully, within the next ten-15 years a viable mouse party is going to emerge...I am tired of being disappointed with the parties that are currently running Washington.

Bush Cheney Lies---

Bush and Cheney continue to lie for what they want.....this time they want to take their shock and awe invasion show to Iran. Any excuse will do for those two to want to invade. Funny thing....they have both known for over one year that Iran had no nuclear weapons program but they lied about that too.

Why haven't these two lunatics been tried for treason or at the very least impeached?

The 3rd Annual Light in the Dark Peace Festival

3rd Annual
LIGHT IN THE DARK: FESTIVAL FOR PEACE

Dec 1 through Dec 23

Presented by The Tidewater Peace Alliance,
a coalition of peace and social justice organizations

Join us during the darkest part of the year to help usher in the new light. We'll present the regional premieres of 12 new movies that tell stories of both hope and terror from around the world. Cautionary tales that show how peace is destroyed by fear, poverty, and ideology. And heroic tales of peace achieved through conflict resolution, cross-cultural studies, respect for civil and human rights, and the nurturing of a just and tolerant society. Internationally known speakers, local musicians and performers complete the lineup, for the most inspiring Light in the Dark Peace Festival ever.


3rd ANNUAL LIGHT IN THE DARK: FESTIVAL FOR PEACE

FILM PREMIERES, SPEAKERS, DISCUSSIONS, SEMINARS AND PERFORMANCES


Films and events listed below held at either Naro Cinema or Studio for the Healing Arts (one block north of the Naro on the Second Floor) on Colley Avenue in Ghent, unless otherwise indicated.

Showtimes to be announced at http://www.narocinema.com or call 625-6275.


Saturday, Dec 1, 10a.m. - 10p.m.
Sunday, Dec 2, 10a.m. - 5p.m.
FAIR TRADE FESTIVAL
Downtown Farmer's Market site, on the Northwest side of
MacArthur Mall
300 Monticello Ave., Norfolk
(Note that region-famous Bear Baker will be cranking out the music from 10-10 on Saturday at the Festival.)


Also Sustainable Hampton Roads workshops at Sacred Heart Church10-4 Saturday. Shuttle Bus from Sacred Heart to the Festival.
-------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, Dec 4, 7:30 p.m., and Fri-Sun, Dec 7-9
FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO Is the chasm separating gays and lesbians and Christianity too wide to cross? Is the Bible an excuse to hate? Director Daniel Karslake's provocative and entertaining documentary brilliantly reconciles homosexuality with Biblical scripture, and in the process reveals that Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a significant (and often malicious) misinterpretation of the Bible. Through the experiences of five very normal, very Christian, very American families-including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson-we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child. (95 mins)
Equality Virginia will facilitate the discussion on Tuesday night.
---------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, Dec 5, 7:30 p.m., Studio for the Healing Arts
An Evening with Dr. Yacob Hailemariam (cosponsored by Amnesty International Hampton Roads Group)
Dr. Hailemariam served as a professor of business law at Norfolk State University for 20 years, and worked for the United Nations as a Senior Legal adviser in West Africa. In 2004 he put his career on hold to travel to his homeland of Ethiopia to run for and win a seat in parliament. But he and other reformers were soon arrested and given life sentences by the corrupt ruling party. Declared prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International, they were recently released from prison. Dr. Hailemariam has returned to his family in Hampton Roads, but intends to go back to Ethiopia in 2008.
----------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, Dec 6 (with discussion) at 7:30 p.m. and Sat & Sun, Dec 8 & 9
O JERUSALEM - The synopsis of this film proclaims that it depicts "the historic struggle surrounding the creation of the state of Israel in 1948...meticulously re-created" and "told from the alternating viewpoints of Jews, Arabs, and Brits." However, journalist Robert Fisk, in his review in the London Independent, calls the film a "deliberate distortion of history, the twisting of the narrative of events to present Jews as the victims of the Israeli war of independence (6,000 dead) when in fact they were the victors, and the Arabs of Palestine - or at least that part of Palestine that became Israel in 1948 - as the cause of this war and the apparent victors (because the Jews of East Jerusalem were forced from their homes after the ceasefire) rather than the principal victims." Fisk asserts that the film is built upon Hollywoodized cliches and sentimentality, while offering only racist stereotypes of Palestinians and Arabs and Zionist myths about the 1947-48 war which have been thoroughly discredited by both Israeli and international scholars. Based on the best-selling novel by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (Is Paris Burning?). (R, 102 mins)

Thursday night discussion will be led by Dr. Ilan Avisar, visiting professor of Jewish Studies at ODU and professor at Tel Aviv University in the Department of Film and Television. An award-winning producer and script writer, he is also the author of several books.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Friday, Dec 7 "False-Flag Day"
66th Anniversary of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
7p.m. at the Studio for the Healing Arts $5 donation
ZEITGEIST The underground cult Internet hit will have its first local audience screening. Part I: The Greatest Story Ever Told; Part II: All the World's a Stage; Part III: Don't Mind the Men Behind the Curtain. Seeing this film is to understand that "The Revolution is Now".
Hosted by Veterans for Peace, Drinking Liberally, We Are Change Virginia - VA 9/11 Truth, Gaiacircle and Meetup.com

ZEITGEIST the movie "Spirit of the Age" DVD Door Prize
-----------------------------------------------------------

Fri-Sun, Dec 7-9 at 5 p.m.
PETE SEEGER: THE POWER OF SONG Pete Seeger is now 92 years young. One of the greatest American singer-songwriters of the last century, he wrote some of folk music's best known songs, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "If I Had a Hammer." Largely misunderstood by his critics, including the U.S. government, for his views on peace, unionism, civil rights, and ecology, Seeger was targeted by the communist witch-hunt of the 1950s and, in spite of his enormous popularity, banned from American television for more than 17 years. Directed by Jim Brown (The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time) and includes appearances by Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Maines, Tom Paxton, and Peter, Paul and Mary. (93 mins)

A Live Hootenanny on Sunday, Dec 9 with film showing and performance by recording artist and local legend Bob Zentz who will tell personal stories about Pete and perform some Pete inspired music along with his daughter Skye Zentz and other guests.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday, Dec 8
7:00pm at A.R.E.(Association for Research and Enlightenment)
64th Street, Virginia Beach
WE ARE ONE PEOPLE -- A Concert
A concert to benefit the Lost Boys of Sudan in Hampton Roads and their families in Africa.
Performers include The Lost Boys Singers, B.J. Leiderman, Chris Van Cleave and others.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday, Dec 8
8p.m. Studio for the Healing Arts
SECOND SATURDAY SALON
free and open to the public

"Stories That Pick Us"
If we ask ourselves, what is our story? chances are we will come up
empty handed. But if we ask, what story has picked me? we will get a response right away from our unconscious psyche. For this salon, we'll talk about stories that pick us, about journaling to explore that story, and about
action that we can take once our attention to story and journaling
ferrets out a palpable clue to act on.

Facilitated by associate professor of English at CNU, Terry Lee, who specializes in Jungian approaches to literature, as well as narrative journalism. He is the author of A New Path at Midlife: Transformative Relationship and Story for Men" (Men's Studies Press, 2006)
_____________________________________

Tuesday, Dec 11 (with discussion) at 7:30 p.m. and Sat & Sun, Dec 15 & 16
JIMMY CARTER MAN FROM PLAINS From director Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs) comes an intimate and surprising encounter with President Jimmy Carter. Following the path of Mr. Carter's recent controversial book tour for "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid", the Academy Award-winning filmmaker reveals a complex individual who, with the gusto and determination of a youngster, crisscrosses the country to get his message across. Man From Plains explores both the private and public sides of Jimmy Carter, whose intense sense of justice compels him to pursue his lifelong and deeply spiritual vision of reconciliation and peace. (PG, 120 mins)

Christie Boyes from the Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta will be in attendance on Tuesday to introduce the film and lead discussion.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, Dec 12, 7:15 p.m., Studio for the Healing Arts
Presented by Norfolk Catholic Worker
CONVICTION Acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against the industrial military complex are not taken lightly in this country. This is the very personal story of three Dominican Sisters affiliated with the Plowshares and Jonah House in Baltimore, MD who risk all in living their lives true to their convictions of equality, peace, and social justice. (50 mins)
Two of the Dominicans, Sister Carol Gilbert and Sister Ardeth Platte will be in attendance to dialogue with the audience.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, Dec 13(with discussion) at 7:30 p.m. and Fri - Sun, Dec 14-16
MILAREPA In the 11th century, in the Year of the Water Dragon, on a high barren plain in the shadow of Mount Tisi, a child is born. Destined to become one of the most revered figures in Tibetan history, Milarepa's epic life story ultimately moves into the realm of the mythic and legendary, inspiring millions. Nine hundred years after his death, the visionary wizard, saint, and poet (played by Jamyang Lodro as an adult) remains Tibet's greatest mystic. Yet his youthful rage and black magic brought death and destruction upon his own family. This is his story: a tale of revenge, demons, murder, and redemption. In Tibetan with subtitles. (PG, 90 mins)

The executive producer of the film, Greg Kruglak, will be in attendance on Thursday to introduce and then speak after the screening.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, December 14 - CAROLING
Norfolk Court Building plaza/ 6:30 p.m.
Sponsored by The Sowers of Justice
Open to all
________________________________________

Starts Friday, Dec 14
DARFUR NOW A story of hope in the midst of one of humanity's darkest hours, writer/director Ted Braun's documentary is a call to action. The struggles and achievements of six different individuals from inside Darfur and around the world bring to light the tragedy in Sudan and show how one person can make a difference to millions. The conflict is explored through the firsthand experiences of Don Cheadle, Hejewa Adam, Pablo Recalde, Ahmed Mohammed Abakar, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, and Adam Sterling. (PG, 99 mins)
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday, Dec 17 at 7:15pm
AN EVENING WITH AUTHOR AND ACTIVIST KATHY KELLY
The founder of Voices in the Wilderness and executive director of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Kathy Kelly has traveled twenty-four times to Iraq to give aid, bear witness, and then report her findings in her book: Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison. She served three months at Pekin federal prison for crossing the line as part of the ongoing effort to close the army military training school at Fort Benning, Georgia. In summer 2006 she was in southern Lebanon during and after the Israel-Hezbollah war. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Kathy will speak and have film clips from In a Time of Siege.

Reception for Kathy Kelly at Azar's (20th & Colley Ave) at 5:30pm.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, Dec 18, 7:15 p.m.
REDACTED A fictional story inspired by true events, writer-director Brian De Palma's unique cinematic experience is centered on a small group of American soldiers stationed at a checkpoint in Iraq. Alternating points of view, this searing drama balances the experiences of these young men under duress with those of the local Iraqi people. A profound meditation on the way information is packaged, distributed and received, Redacted utilizes a variety of created source material-video diaries, produced documentary, surveillance footage, online testimonials, and news pieces-to comment on the extreme disconnect between the surface of an image and the reality of ideas and the truth, especially in times of strife. (R, 90 mins)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, Dec 20 at 7:15pm
WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY? The charismatic Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir take us on a cross-country crusade to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse! From preaching at the Mall of America, to exorcising the demons from Wal-Mart Headquarters-Reverend Billy takes his gospel to the Promised Land. Changelujah! Produced by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and directed by Rob VanAlkemade, this new doc is both very funny and profound! (93 mins)
____________________________________________

Fri, Dec 21, 7:00pm at the Studio for the Healing Arts $10
(space limited so come early, bring your drum, and bring a treat to share)

DRUM DANCE AND DREAM FOR PEACE: A SOLSTICE CELEBRATION
Join Maiyah Olivas, members of Beleza, Elizabeth Gay, and local members of The World Dreams Peace Bridge for drumming, dancing and a celebration of solstice.

This is a benefit event for the Peace Bridge work with the children of Iraq. Nobody will be turned away, but please give generously if you can.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fri & Sat, Dec 21 & 22
JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN As the front man of The Clash from 1977 onwards, Joe Strummer changed people's lives and their politics forever. Four years after his death, his influence continues to reach out around the world. In director Julien Temple's new documentary, Strummer is revealed not just as a legend or a musician, but as a true communicator of our times. Drawing on both a shared punk history and their close personal friendship, Temple's film is a celebration of Strummer before, during and after The Clash. Includes appearances by Bono, Terry Chimes, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Matt Dillon, Topper Headon, Jim Jarmusch, Mick Jones and more. (124 mins)
___________________________________________

Sunday, Dec 23 at 5:00pm at the A.R.E.
THE CONCISE DICKENS' CHRISTMAS CAROL
Performed by DD Delaney
Back for its second year, The Concise Dickens' Christmas Carol is a 50-minute, one-person mainline injection of holiday spirit for busy people, faithfully adapted from the original and brilliantly performed by multi-talented D.D. Delaney.
Opening music by harpist Elisa Dickon performing beautiful Celtic Christmas carols.

Plus, At the 40th Street Stage, 809 w. 40th Street in Norfolk
$10
Back by popular demand, poet-playwright-actor D.D. Delaney returns to the 40th Street Stage with his condensed, one hour version of the Charles Dickens Christmas classic. Utterly theatrical, this one man tour-de-force presents the beloved story with sincerity and clarity - simply the essentials and essence of this timeless story of redemption.

Opens Friday, December 14 and closes Saturday, December 22
Performances Dec 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22.
All performances at 8 pm except Sunday, Dec 16 at 2 pm

****************************

TIDEWATER PEACE ALLIANCE
Participating Organizations:

NARO Expanded Cinema http://www.narocinema.com/
Studio for the Healing Arts http://www.studioforthehealingarts.org/
The iMAGE Project http://www.imageproject.org/
The World Dreams Peace Bridge http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/
Hampton Roads Network for Nonviolence/A Season for Nonviolence http://www.hamptonroadsnetworkfornonviolence.org/
RegimeChanger.com http://www.regimechanger.com/
Crawford Peace House http://www.crawfordpeacehouse.org/
Norfolk Catholic Worker House http://www.catholicworker.org/communities/volunteers.cfm
Playback Theater
Drinking Liberally
Virginia Beach Friends, Committee for Peace and Social Justice
Gaia Circle http://www.studioforthehealingarts.org/
Hampton Roads Independent Media Coalition http://www.hrimc.org/
Wordminder Press http://www.wordminderpress.com/
Veterans for Peace http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
Iraq Veterans Against the War http://www.ivaw.net/
Jewish Voice for Peace http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace/
Hampton Roads Peace and Justice Center http://www.hrpjc.org/
Virginia Organizing Project http://www.virginia-organizing.org/
Amnesty International ( Hampton Roads Local Group #633)
Military Families Speak Out
Appeal For Redress http://www.appealforredress.org/
Tapestry, Inc. tapestrynorfolk@yahoo.com
40th Street Theater