God bless the souls of these two soldiers and their families…

2 Mormon missionaries die in Romania

SALT LAKE CITY — Two missionaries serving for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Romania have died.

One of the missionaries was from Utah.

According to the Church, Elder McKay Choy Burrows, 20, of Highland and Elder Jace Davis of Logandale, Nev. passed away in their Bucharest apartment overnight from apparent accidental natural gas asphyxiation.

Church leaders have notified the families of the missionaries.

In a statement, church leaders said, “We extend our love and sympathy to the elders’ families and friends. We pray that the Spirit of the Lord will bring them peace and comfort at this difficult time.”

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=9522925

Why is the US military blocking aid to Haiti?

Why indeed?

The airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now an American military base and relief flights have been re-routed to the Dominican Republic. All flights stopped for three hours for the arrival of Hillary Clinton. Critically injured Haitians waited unaided as 800 American residents in Haiti were fed, watered and evacuated. Six days passed before the US Air Force dropped bottled water to people suffering thirst and dehydration.

The first TV reports played a critical role, giving the impression of widespread criminal mayhem. Matt Frei, the BBC reporter dispatched from Washington, seemed on the point of hyperventilation as he brayed about the “violence” and need for “security”. In spite of the demonstrable dignity of the earthquake victims, and evidence of citizens’ groups toiling unaided to rescue people, and even an American general’s assessment that the violence in Haiti was considerably less than before the earthquake, Frei claimed that “looting is the only industry” and “the dignity of Haiti’s past is long forgotten.” Thus, a history of unerring US violence and exploitation in Haiti was consigned to the victims. “There’s no doubt,” reported Frei in the aftermath of America’s bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003, “that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East … is now increasingly tied up with military power.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24519.htm

Here the Haitian Prime Minister also expresses frustration with the US military:

In an exclusive interview on Wednesday, Bellerive expressed his frustration with security decisions made by the US military that are hindering the earthquake relief effort.

“Haitians don’t care about the security, they just want the water, food and medicine to get to them … they don’t feel that there is the need for so much security,” he said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/2010129151615240430.html

Pilger hints that it has everything to do with the US pursuit of dominance over Haiti and nations like it that drives this:

When I was last in Haiti, I watched very young girls stooped in front of whirring, hissing, binding machines at the Port-au-Prince Superior Baseball Plant. Many had swollen eyes and lacerated arms. I produced a camera and was thrown out. Haiti is where America makes the equipment for its hallowed national game, for next to nothing. Haiti is where Walt Disney contractors make Mickey Mouse pjamas, for next to nothing. The US controls Haiti’s sugar, bauxite and sisal. Rice-growing was replaced by imported American rice, driving people into the cities and towns and jerry-built housing. Years after year, Haiti was invaded by US marines, infamous for atrocities that have been their specialty from the Philippines to Afghanistan.

Just give the people what they need.

Howard Zinn: 1922-2010 R.I.P.

Great guy and author.  One of my early inspirations with his classic, “A People’s History of the United States.”  A great peace activist.  Never forget how he expressed regret for dropping bombs from 15,000 feet on Dresden in WWII.  Died yesterday at the age of 87.  Rest in peace brother.

A timely comment from him on Pres. Obama:

“I’ve been searching hard for a highlight,” he wrote, adding that he wasn’t disappointed because he never expected a lot from Obama.

“I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/27/national/a160810S31.DTL

Stop the secret cominations/corporations!!!

Mormons throwing food at Haitians

I am happy to contribute to the relief effort in Haiti through my church, but I must say that I would rather that my church behave differently than is described here by Sharif Abdel Kouddous on Democracy Now:

And I just want to describe a story that I think is extremely illustrative of the problem. Yesterday, when we were in Léogâne, we were—we came to an area where a helicopter from a Mormon charity had landed. It was on the ground, and there was Haitians all around, young and old, waiting for food to be handed out. This helicopter took off, off the ground, and began throwing the food down at the Haitians. It did not distribute it when it was on the ground. They threw the food from the air. These were packets of bread that they were throwing. It ignited just fury and indignation on the ground by the people there. They began screaming. One man started crying. He said, “We are a proud people. We are not dogs for you to throw bones at.” It was a scene that I will never forget. And it really illustrates the problem with aid distribution here and the relief efforts here, that they are—they are not seen as people. As Haitians keep saying, they say, “This can happen to anybody. How would you like to be treated in this way?”

Remember, the Savior passed out the loaves and the fishes from the ground level.

http://i1.democracynow.org/2010/1/19/haiti_is_shaken_to_the_core

Corporations given unprecedented rights by US Supreme Court today.

Horrible move by the Supreme Court today which gives corporations unprecedented “free speech” rights in contributing money to political campaigns.   Treating corporations as humans in this way is a really bad idea.  Here is an article from Third World Traveler that addresses this issue.  Check it out:

It is time to rethink the notion of free speech for corporations.

Free speech guarantees are supposed to ensure vibrant civic debate, but it is corporations that dominate the public debate which should be the province of an engaged citizenry. Corporations take advantage of the speech rights which the Supreme Court says the Constitution provides to them, to dominate the campaign funding process, drown out citizen speech, contest advertising restrictions and block citizen organizing.

Corporations also now pose an increasingly serious, direct threat to citizens’ speech. Corporations intimidate citizens from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed speech rights with SLAPP suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation), which threaten activists with massive liability for speaking out against corporate wrongdoing. In SLAPPs, corporations charge activists with libel or slander or similar claims for criticizing the company. Corporations know they will lose the vast majority of SLAPPs, but they also know that time and expense involved in defending against a suit will distract the defendants and deter others from exercising their speech rights.

Now a new set of speech deterring “veggie-libel” laws- drafted by and shepherded through state legislatures by agribusiness interests-is exacerbating the problem by providing a statutory cause of action for corporations to employ against people who publicly criticize the safety of the food supply.

At the same time, corporations have evolved a new set of tools to shield from public scrutiny critical information stored in corporate records rooms. Environmental audit laws permit companies to conceal internal documents that show how the companies are damaging the environment [see "The Corporate Right to Cover Up"]. And corporations are increasingly relying on secrecy agreements in lawsuit settlements to prevent information discovered in consumer suits about dangerous products from being made public.

In sum, citizens’ effective free speech protections are being squeezed by big corporations, while big corporations arc gaining and exercising an ever-expanding panoply of speech rights, as well as the right to conceal of information of critical public interest.

Through a sort of “rights creep,” corporations over the last two decades have steadily expanded their legal entitlements. Corporations are increasingly treated in the law as if they were people, or deserving of even greater rights than people.

Corporations, however, have resources far beyond those available to real persons, and giving corporations the right to contribute to issue advertising campaigns, for example, ensures the corporate point of view will be able to overwhelm citizen perspectives. Corporations also benefit from a host of characteristics – limited liability, perpetual life, inability to be imprisoned-that advantage them over people in economic and political contests and that immunize them from many of society’s sanctions.

But the most important point is the most obvious: corporations are not, in fact, people. They are socially created institutions which were designed to, and should be made to, serve society’s interests.

Since democracy is supposed to be rule by the people, not by corporations, corporations should only receive democracy’s bedrock rights to the extent it furthers, or at least does not interfere with, civic power. They should not have a “right” to make political contributions or participate in the political process. They should not have “rights” to advertise. Their “right” to remain silent should never trump citizen interests in conveying information.

Since corporations are not people, they should never be able to bring defamation, slander or libel claims against real people, and certainly not against those who speak from non-economic motives. Injuries to a person’s reputation touch on person’s standing in the community and dignity; harms to ~ company’s goodwill are matters of economics. The idea that a corporation could sue a person for “disparaging” a food product should be laughed out of state and court houses across the United States.

And since corporations are not people, their “privacy rights” or similar privileges should, in general, be subordinate to the public’s right to know. Legal maneuvers such as secrecy agreements and environmental audit privileges should be banned. Corporations should not have the “right” to conceal information that could prevent the infliction of injury or disease.

“Rights” are the expression of a people’s or a constituency’s hard-won political gains, etched into democracy’s tablet of fundamental rules. Simultaneously, rolling back rights diminishes a constituency’s power. For the last two-and-a-half decades, corporations have won most of the important political conflicts in the United States, as well as around the world. It is time for citizens to organize and mobilize to reverse the corporate winning streak …

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/Corps_FreeSpeech.html

You can help Haiti

In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday, thousands of Americans are sending financial support — through their mobile phones.

Anyone with a mobile phone and an account with a major wireless carrier can text the phrase “Haiti” to the number 90999 and donate $10 to the Red Cross. That amount is charged to the donor’s cellphone bill.

The texted donations are being handled by a company called mGive, which started the campaign in a joint effort with the State Department and the Red Cross late Tuesday night. Thanks to a mention on the White House’s blog and lots of word of mouth on Twitter and Facebook, the campaign had raised more than $1.2 million by Tuesday evening, mGive said.

The irony of Cuba on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The irony is just too much to pass up though I haven’t posted here for quite some time now.  The US just announced that flights originating from 14 nations will face heavier security at airports in order to increase terrorist screening efforts.  I won’t mention here how obviously idiotic it is to announce what your plans are in the open so that your enemies can know how to circumvent those efforts.  My purpose is not to critique US security tactics.  However, I would like to mention that Cuba was mentioned as one of those 14 nations.

This understandably raised hackles in Havana.  Obama seems determined to carry out the same old tired policy towards Cuba that his right-wing predecessors have.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100108/ts_nm/us_cuba_usa

The irony comes from information that most US citizens don’t know and that is the fact that the US harbors self-professed anti-Cuban terrorists with impunity.  One of the most famous is Jose Luis Posada Carriles who blew up a Cuban airliner, killing 73 people including the entire Cuban national fencing team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles#Cubana_Flight_455.2C_1976

Secret combinations continue to rule the US no matter who the figure-head is.

We don’t fight against democracies do we Mr. President…

Ether 8

23 Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.

24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.

25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning.

Pentagon’s War Pitch Belied by Taliban-Qaeda Conflict by Gareth Porter — Antiwar.com

Very nice article by Gareth Porter (always solid) on the relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which is not the same relationship our Propagandist in Chief would have us believe.  Check out the article linked here:

Pentagon’s War Pitch Belied by Taliban-Qaeda Conflict by Gareth Porter — Antiwar.com.

So why are we in Afghanistan again?