Posted 7:59 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

boBLOG gives birth to a brand new blog

By the time you read this, my new No Force No Fraud blog will be live on City Pages' BABELOGUE.

I hope you'll all become regular readers, as I comment on current issues from a libertarian No Force No Fraud perspective. Bookmark No Force No Fraud, and spend a little time exploring the other blogs in Babelogue. You'll find that I'm not the only libertarian there!

This blog will return to being more of a "what's new on smith.mn" log.

Posted 1:34 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

NO MORE COALITION CASUALTIES!
Our administration in Iraq has found a brilliant way to eliminate the ever-rising casualty count among coalition forces.

They're just going to stop reporting them.

That may be the first time since the war began that the administration won't LIE to us about what's going on.

Posted 9:25 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

I'm sick of this

Writing about the unbelievable actions and the mass destruction our government has inflicted in Iraq is damned depressing and painful. I would much rather be writing about something (anything) positive, but... the American people MUST become aware that our government, with lots of cheering from our uninformed, blindly-trusting citizenry, has turned the word "American" to SHIT all over the globe.

They've done it in our name... our government claims to the world that the American public is behind their inhumane actions... that we support those actions. We have no "wiggle room" left... when terrorism strikes here again, people around the world will not consider it an attack against "innocent" civilians.

While the U.S. actions kill thousands of Iraqi civilians (another 576 since I wrote 3 days ago), we know that those Iraqis were subjugated by Saddam... they were in fact innocent of what their government did. Americans are not subjugated... we consider ourselves FREE, and we have no excuse when we're blamed for the actions of our government.

The death toll in Iraq is far from over... half a million children under age five are acutely malnourished or underweight. The death rate of children under 5 is 2 1/2 times greater than in 1990. Widespread shortages of basic medicines allow preventable diseases to become fatal. ALL OF THAT HAS BEEN CAUSED BY OUR GOVERNMENT... plus an estimated half-million children who died even before the "war" started... thanks to our 12-year sanctions against Iraq.

As if such destruction weren't enough, our government has placed itself among the INHUMANE... now regularly violating the Geneva Convention rules for the humane treatment of prisoners... first with the prisoners from Afghanistan, being held by the U.S. in Cuba, and now with prisoners being held in Iraq.

Our government is politically Republican right now, but I challenge all of you who voted either Republican or Democrat to smooth your consciences now. There has been almost NO opposition to this insanity from elected officials of EITHER PARTY.

To those peace-lovers who also consider themselves Democrats... I hope you're not patting yourselves on the back for not being part of the War Party, because "your" party is every bit as guilty... for doing nothing to stop it... for being mealy-mouthed and cowardly... for giving the administration the power to wage war as they choose. There is no "lesser of two evils" between the 2 Republicrat parties, and that should be damned obvious by now. There is ONLY ONE PEACE PARTY, and that's the Libertarian Party. The LP is completely opposed to agressive force, and the only party that would not have allowed our government and military to get powerful enough to even consider such outrageous action.

Posted 9:40 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

And... the "collateral damage" takes a BIG jump
Today's Iraqi civilian death toll jumped by 784 today, as the counts from the Baghdad attack finally become confirmed. That takes the total "liberated" to 4,849 minimum.

I invite all readers of this to visually "walk" through that cemetery on my home page, and, as you pass tiny white crosses, to try to realize that each of those was a PERSON, not so unlike you and I, just hoping to survive to work and play. A great many of them were children of all ages... complete innocents. Most were destroyed in their homes, in many cases, whole families have been killed. Depending on your own feelings about "quality of life", untold others have been blasted into an existence that you might consider worse than death... limbs blown off, or crippled for life, suffering immensely painful burns, not knowing whether they will ever again have anything close to a normal life.

I damn those who inflicted this war on all of us. REMEMBER THESE MEN.
They deserve nothing short of our complete, utter contempt... no ifs, and, buts, or excuses. That's not a political judgement, it's a moral condemnation. If we ever needed more proof that power corrupts, the War on Iraq is it.

Posted 9:09 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

New doublespeak definition, or "that peaked my euphemism meter"...
Wouldn't you love to be present when new phrases are created in Washington to label something to make it sound good but avoiding any negative connotations by using the truth? I'd really be surprised if some of them don't get a big guffaw before they're actually used in public, with comments like "Yeah... that's great... that'll fool 'em".... or, "If this one flies, we'll know that there's nobody out there but dummies".

Democrats, who naturally don't want to be labeled as "raising taxes" will now just be referring to "revenue raisers".

I ask you... could anyone choose to use that term with a straight face... even a politician?

Posted 2:57 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

To know, or not to know
Some people get no news save that presented on local TV News shows. Obviously you're not one of them, or you wouldn't be reading this. To seek out more news than that provided by the sanitized, smiling, feel-good evening news shows, one has to be willing to handle BAD, often terrible news... information that you really don't want to know. To search for more information can be depressing and frustrating, because what isn't presented as pablum on TV is almost all BAD news. So... on to more bad news.

Personally, I've never had a contact with the police that benefited me... it has, in every case, been a negative experience. On those rare occasions when I sought them out, their performance was disappointing. I really doubt that the experience of most people differs much.

Frequently, encounters with police are more than negative, they're disastrous. Here are just a couple of examples. I want to note that many of such experiences are usually caused first by ridiculous laws that police cannot be responsible for, but police can, and often do, take enforcement of bad law and make it far worse:

A 57-year-old Harlem woman preparing to leave for her longtime city government job died of a heart attack yesterday morning after police officers broke down her door and threw a concussion grenade into her apartment, the police commissioner said. They were acting on what appeared to be bad information about guns and drugs in the apartment.

Last summer six Houston police officers barged into Pedro Oregon Navarro's home and shot him to death. The police thought they were raiding the home of a drug dealer, but they based their raid on lies told by an arrestee trading information for release. Oregon had nothing whatever to do with the drug trade.

Episodes like these two are not uncommon, and they're happening with ever-increasing frequency.

Posted 10:14 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

just a really ugly note... to note that the (minimum) Iraqi civilian casualty count went up 295 just today... 4,065 ordinary, innocent working people, including many children... liberated from life.

Posted 11:30 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

and it goes 'round, and 'round... and I'm getting dizzy

The U.S. administration, already on it's 3rd civilian administrator in Iraq, has made two dramatic turnabouts from previous policy:

1. Baathists, who had been urged to return to their jobs, are now being banned from those jobs.

2. The plan for Iraq self-rule has now been put off indefinitely.

Personally, I have no idea how to evaluate the effect of these major policy reversals... except that it's certainly clear that the Bush administration didn't have the slightest idea how to "liberate and restore democracy" when they began this war.
I repeat what I said yesterday...
The ONLY thing the U.S. has successfully done in Iraq is DESTROY.

...and, just in case there are a few people who don't know the REAL story of Jessica, and how the U.S. has twisted all the facts to "create heros".

Posted 10:33 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Just an update
Added the latest ratings to the Alexa Ratings page, the coalition casualty count, and replaced the top quote.

Posted 7:45 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...
It seems that every day's news gets sillier, more ridiculous, and more tragic. Yes, I know it could be a lot worse, but that's just where it is going, and at a quick pace.

Just yesterday, the U.S. was pulling troops out of Iraq, now they're sending more to Iraq. We're now watching the THIRD U.S. "leader of the occupation" in a very short time. The administration doesn't consider those replaced as having "failed" (did Clinton write a whole dictionary and leave it in Washington?)

The U.S. has 142,000 troops in Iraq, and 42,000 in the Baghdad area. Try to mentally picture 142,000 troops, and their equipment. Still, there is chaos, looting, fighting, and dying. Four more coalition troops declared as casualties today, and 10 more Iraqi civilians.

How are we doing on declared goals?
1. We invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban... they're making a comeback, and control some areas.
2. We invaded Afghanistan to capture/kill Osama bin Laden... he's alive and replying with new terrorism.
3. We invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam's government... we sort of destroyed it instead, but it sounds like Saddam is alive and well and reconstructing that government.
4. We invaded Iraq to find and destroy WMD that were a threat looming over our heads... and we can't find any.

There are lots of other failures we could list, but it's becoming a "joke". The ONLY thing the U.S. has successfully done in Iraq is DESTROY.

Before I leave the war in peace... another under-reported story (in the U.S. at least) is the Depleted Uranium lying all over Iraq. It's used in U.S. anti-tank shells, and the estimate is about 75 tons. The U.S. claims that it poses no danger to anyone, BUT... our coalition troops are taking extraordinary measures to avoid it... treating it as radioactive material (which it is).

Wait... wait... one more reference to the (whatever) War. I must refer you to an excellent article Terrorism Déjà Vu in Saudi Arabia by Jacob Hornberger. Among other things, it's a great, brief synopsis of recent history.

Meanwhile, back in the states, Congress, having taken no responsibility for foreign affairs, has been having a ball buying votes for the NEXT election... using their favorite means... PORK... that pleases lobbying groups back in their home state. Having abdicated responsibility for foreign affairs and the military to the administration, they've been able to set a NEW RECORD for pork.

While everything else is going to hell, the number of pork projects has increased by 47.8 percent, and total pork-barrel spending has risen by 21.6 percent, to $22.5 BILLION. Check out the 2003 Congressional Pig Book Summary from Citizen's Against Government Waste, to read about some of the incredibly petty, silly things YOUR money is being spent on.

Posted 7:48 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

A small step into the anti-war movement
Any reader of this blog certainly knows that I'm anti-war in almost every sense. I don't usually call myself a pacifist, because I am willing to defend myself if I see no good alternative. If I had been an Iraqi native over the past few months, I would have been a resister... a fighter, a protector against invaders of my homeland. My own personal experience has taught me that fighting, at almost any level, is simply destructive. I'm a naturally stubborn person. When convinced my position is right, I can be tenacious to an extreme... but, I have also learned the "poker lesson" that "you gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em. Those decisions are never easy to make, but they must be made. I can walk away.

Last night, I attended an anti-war presentation in south Minneapolis, to hear what Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices in the Wilderness, had to say after her most recent six months in Bagdhad, prior to and during the war. I went specifically to hear her firsthand account of life on the ground in Bagdhad during the war. Kelly is a tiny wisp of a woman who wouldn't look safe on Lake Street, much less in Bagdhad. She spoke quietly, matter-of-factly, relating personal episodes about Iraqi friends and the effects on them. She made no great attempt at emotionalizing what had happened, but gave us enough narrative to allow us to try to feel (or avoid trying to feel) what it was like to be attacked with "shock and awe". Her presentation was definitely worth the little effort I spent.

As seems to be true of most men, my most "available" emotion is anger. I am angry about the destructive agression of the U.S. government, perpetually angry, and about many actions besides those in Iraq. I can, and often do, set my anger aside long enough to "feel" what is happening to individuals and groups. Sometimes that tempers my anger, but often it has the effect of strengthening it, and spurring me to more action. I suspect most men will understand when I say that, although I try to submerge my anger, at least publicly, it is what drives my political actions.

I'm not likely to attend more peace meetings. I don't need such gatherings to reinforce my beliefs, and I just don't feel comfortable with the hugging, singing, smiling, look-what-we're-doing atmosphere. I must, however, give the peace group organizers credit... they know how to get thousands of people involved, and they're great organizers.

To a libertarian, their message seems shallow; they protest against government actions, and against corporate involvement in those government actions, but they go out of their way to miss the single lesson they MUST eventually learn, unless they are content to protest forever.

That lesson is that government power will always be abused. Power does inevitably corrupt. There is no possibility of having a powerful, controlling government that does not eventually grow, like a runaway virus, to this point... the point of agressive empire-building. How many historical examples do we have to live with before they realize that yielding centralized power to government (or any other organization) will always result in unintended consequences?

That is the lesson libertarians understand that the peace movement does not. Ask your government to do "great good" things, and grant them the power needed to do them, and they will ALWAYS also do "great bad" things. Give them the power to grant favoritism, and they will always favor those who organize to seek favor. While the peace movement blames the corporations for supplying the tools of war, they overlook the power they grant to government to grant and pay for those military contracts. Centralized government power is the root cause of our problems.

If the peace movement could somehow magically waste enough time picketing Alliant and other corporations, and force them to cease supplying weapons, our government would simply place those contracts somewhere else... even with foreign suppliers if neccessary. Centralized power will always find a means to use that power, and will always use every bit of it. That is the NATURE of power. It does no good to attack those who supply the means, or even those who wield the power... they will always have the power to sidestep and continue.

As long as the peace movement continues to attack the "middlemen" of war they will simply play into the hands of those holding the power.

The only possible solution to continual war, loss of civil liberty, and the other ills of our nation and world, is REDUCING THE POWER OF GOVERNMENT... ALL GOVERNMENTS, but starting with our own.

Posted 10:07 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Bush says the War in Iraq is over. How does one square that with the fact that the civilian casualty count just increased by 1503? Iraq civilians, mostly women and children continue to die... from injuries and poor health treatment in disabled hospitals... from diahrhea, thanks to disabled water supplies, lack of food, and destroyed sanitation systems... and from thousands of cluster bomb bomblets, that look like this:



Each canister contains 202 small bomblets the size of a soft drink can. These cluster bombs scatter and spray over a large area about the size of two football fields. At least 5 per cent of the bomblets do not explode on impact, turning them into de facto anti-personnel mines as they continue to pose a threat to people, including civilians, who come into contact with them.

These are the only weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! The U.S. is pulling out their teams that were searching for Saddam's WMD... giving up. The REASON for starting this war was a DAMNED LIE, or INCREDIBLY STUPID. Thousands of humans killed - for what? Carnage that defies description... images are too terrible even for non-U.S. media to show us.

The U.S. seems to have done NOTHING right in this war, unless you count massive destruction as a worthwhile goal. Bush is once again changing administrative personnel in Iraq... perhaps because no government has been formed, humanitarian aid is still not getting through, and security is pathetic. Iraqis are taking charge and doing what our massive "invading force" has failed to do... helping hospitals, for example.

Americans must not allow our government to whitewash this war... this littany of lies and propaganda. There should be hell to pay, and it's up to each of us to hold them accountable for an invasion that was not, in any way, better than the invasions waged by Hitler on his neighbors.

Posted 6:45 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Updated the Iraqi War casualty numbers and cemetery, the Alexa Ratings page.

Posted 7:32 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Ignorance is Bliss?
I'm often in the company of people who are seriously discouraged about America... concerned that it's sliding into a socialistic police state. Like them, I can easily make a case for viewing America as moving rapidly into becoming another Soviet Union. However, I've consistently assured others that Americans are basicly good... that they still have the essential qualities that made this nation great... that they will stop this madness when it begins to affect them personally. Unfortunately, I too am becoming discouraged.

This damned war in Iraq should have been a defining moment for the American public. It has been so outrageously wrong that millions of ordinary Americans should have damned it. Many thousands have, but "public" support for the war, if we are to believe polls, is HIGH. It really appears that "the masses" have bought into the extreme, baldfaced deception presented by our administration... accepted unlikely explanations, then stupidly ignored facts that have proven that those explanations were not wrong, they were deliberate lies.

Should we then condemn the American public as warmongers... as much of the rest of the world is concluding? Citizens of other countries believe that Americans (1) have the facts about the war, and (2) support that war. That's a reasonable judgement, except for the disgusting truth that most Americans do NOT have the facts about the war. It's disgusting because Americans CAN have the truth about the war... anytime they are willing to spend a little time to investigate.

What is happening instead is that most Americans are simply trusting their government and ignoring any evidence to the contrary. That's not patriotism... it's quite the opposite. American was established as a government of the people, which demands that we pay attention, not just vote every 4 years (which many don't even do) and then hope that those we elected don't do anything wrong.

I can still contend that the vast majority of Americans have the right "gut instincts"... that, if you can get their attention briefly, they will support the positions that originally made this nation great... small government, individual freedom, anti-war... freedom to do what you want as long as you harm nobody else.

There is the rub... getting their attention briefly. The true and revealing picture the rest of the world should have of Americans is that they get their news from American TV news shows, and they believe what they see. They look no further. This despite the fact that a majority of us have access to the Internet, which provides us with news from all over the political spectrum and all over the world.

IGNORANCE THROUGH LAZINESS... is thoroughly inexcusable in a free society. Knowledge is the only means to keep our nation from becoming the oppressive totalitarian regime it's rapidly morphing into. If American men spent as much time studying political issues as they do merely studying sports, we could stop this insanity. If American women were as diligent about politics as they are about "proper" child-rearing, we wouldn't have to worry about those children becoming brainless serfs of the American Empire.

Unfortunately, that isn't what's happening... we have hordes of citizens getting all their input from TV News that is blatantly issuing the propaganda of our government. Listening to one of those citizens is an exercise in frustration... they unthinkingly repeat sound bites that were carefully crafted by the President's writers and presented through TV broadcasts. Most of them are quite bright enough to know better, but they're LAZY. They also have a desire to be on "the winning side", but that's a subject for another discussion.

As I've said before: We Americans are becoming exactly like the Germans of the 1930's. We're watching silently as our government becomes repressive and aggressive. We're watching submissively as our personal freedoms are being taken from us. We're watching quietly as our government becomes the Evil Empire of the globe. A handful of aggressive men are wielding the most powerful military in history, for destructive purposes... and we're busy following the World Series, the NBA playoffs, and shopping at Target, for things we don't even need.

Hitler knew, and evidently Bush does too... but Hitler said it aloud...
"What luck for rulers that men do not think".

Posted 8:21 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Settlin' down
Maybe because it's Sunday... maybe because it's spring... no truly outrageous news today. I updated the Alexa Ratings page this morning, and I become increasingly optimistic that the public (at least those online) is at least becoming more aware of libertarianism. ALL of the top libertarian websites continue to increase their readership. That can only result in the spread of sanity.

I'll be marching in the May Day Parade this afternoon... with the Minnesota Atheists/Humanists of Minnesota group. This parade ends in Powderhorn park, which will be filled with vendors and organizational booths, and is without a doubt the most gaudy, diverse gathering in the Twin Cities. It's one of those great opportunities to get festival-junk food, and after that very long march, it will be welcome.

I'm having trouble letting go of the note below about Jane Turner being fired by the FBI... because it's so indicative of the special privileges government agencies allow themselves that private companies and citizens may not have. If Jane Turner blew the whistle on corruption within a private company, they might fire her, but she would have legal recourse against them, and the reputation of the company would suffer. Not so with public employees. They're supposed to have "whistleblower" protection, but it's worth nothing in reality. The FBI can't effectively be sued, nor do they give a whit about their reputation. It's no different with any other federal agency... they do what they damned well please, and the rest of us lump it.

The end result is agencies that consistently thumb their noses at morality, law, the constitution, and often just common sense. Federal agencies are rapidly becoming THE GOVERNMENT... out of control, with financial resources of their own so that Congress can't even control them... and most Federal agencies have their own "armies"... armed to the teeth.

Posted 8:11 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

OUTRAGEOUS !!
Just when I thought I was becoming jaded and dulled against stupid actions by government... along comes today's news:

1. Minneapolis FBI agent Jane Turner will be FIRED for "tarnishing the image of the FBI"... for doing her job... catching looters of the World Trade Center. Her crime...that she discovered FBI folks doing the looting.

2. We find out that John Ashcroft COVERED UP the knowledge that false testimony was given in the case against Timothy McVeigh, just allowing him to be executed !

3. California textbooks (and hence those for the rest of the nation) will be PC'd to the most ridiculous levels imaginable, including removal of pictures of "unhealthy" food like hot dogs, changing "Founding Fathers" because it sounds sexist... as does "Snowman" which will become "Snowperson". I know California is nutty, but what planet do these people come from?

4. The Bush administration, in a filing to the Supreme Court, claims that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, do not promote religion. What in the hell other purpose could they have been added to do? You can agree or disagree with the words being there, but to claim that they don't promote religion is the equivalent of Clinton questioning the meaning of the word "the".