Stephen Lendman

Obama Year One: Betrayal and Failure (Part II)

Promising change after eight George Bush and Republican dominated years, Barack Obama won the most sweeping non-incumbent victory in over 50 years along with congressional Democrats gaining large House and Senate majorities. In addition, at 56.8%, voter turnout was the highest since Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war and his "Southern" and "law and order" strategies beat Hubert Humphrey and independent George Wallace in 1968.

On election night, the mood celebrated hope for progressive change, an end to imperial wars, and a new day for America. When word came around 10PM, expectant thousands in Chicago's Grant Park erupted with chants of "yes we can," hoping Obama would make a difference at a time of deepening economic duress.

In its November 4, 2008 editorial titled, "The Next President," The New York Times called it "one of those moments in history when it is worth pausing to reflect on the basic facts," then listed some:

-- for the first time, Americans elected a black president;

-- his triumph was "decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country, (and will change direction) to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world;"

-- he "committed to ending a bloody and pointless (Afghan) war (and) restore Americans' civil liberties and (the nation's) reputation around the world;"

-- he must now "prevent an economic collapse fed by greed and an orgy of speculation (by) impos(ing) control, coherence, transparency and fairness," in contrast to George Bush; and

-- he "now needs the support of all Americans (to help him deal with the) many other urgent problems that must be addressed."

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Thunder Horse

Have you ever wondered how animals know when a natural disaster is coming? Why don’t people take these signs into consideration throughout their lives? These are a few questions I have often wondered about. Nature has a way of communicating through its own language. It is up to us to interpret these signs and use them to our advantage. Nature always works in harmony.

When the first European people came to North America, they saw the American Indian praying to animals, plants, rivers, lakes, the sun, the moon, the wind, the lightening, the thunder, and even the birds. They called the Indians heathens and savages. For some strange reason they developed the idea that the Indian did not believe in God, although in many different tribal languages there were references to a Great Spirit, the Great Creator, the Maker, the Great Mystery, or the Great Invisible One. The truth is that not only did the American Indians worship God, but they also respected and communicated with that which God had created.

Despite the forces of assimilation, traditional American Indians and the holy men/women still understand the sacredness of nature. They see the life giving force of the Great Spirit flowering through all things in the universe. Because of ancient beliefs, teachings, and spiritual practices, they feel and maintain a direct kinship with all creations. In the traditional American Indian belief system, everything is a source of power, and as a result it should be revered. The traditional American Indian believes that each living thing in nature has a spirit of its own, in addition to being connected to and part of the Great Mystery. This is why they pray and give thanks to the sun, moon, stars, rain, wind waters, and all those that walk, crawl, fly, and swim, both seen and unseen. We realize we cannot survive or live without our relations. We also realize that they cannot live without us; that’s why there is a reciprocal relationship.

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Chris Floyd

While we were all out doing our Christmas shopping, the highest court in the land quietly put the kibosh on a few more of the remaining shards of human liberty.

It happened earlier this week, in a discreet ruling that attracted almost no notice and took little time. In fact, our most august defenders of the Constitution did not have to exert themselves in the slightest to eviscerate not merely 220 years of Constitutional jurisprudence but also centuries of agonizing effort to lift civilization a few inches out of the blood-soaked mire that is our common human legacy. They just had to write a single sentence.

Here's how the bad deal went down. After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president's fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a "suspected enemy combatant" by the president or his designated minions is no longer a "person." They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever -- save whatever modicum of process the government arbitrarily deigns to grant them from time to time, with its ever-shifting tribunals and show trials.

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Muhammad Sahimi

He was not willing to sell his soul to stay in power.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the spiritual leader of the Iran's democratic movement, and one of two top ayatollahs in Shia Islam (Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq is the other), passed away in his sleep on Saturday.

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was born in 1922 in Najafabad, a town in the province of Isfahan in central Iran. His father Ali was a farmer who also taught reading and interpretation of the Quran to the townspeople. The young Montazeri entered the seminary at Isfahan at the age of twelve. After finishing his preliminary studies in 1941, he moved to the holy city of Qom and began his theological studies. He was a student of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the future leader of the 1979 Revolution. Years after the 1979 Revolution toppled the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Ayatollah Khomeini referred to Grand Ayatollah Montazeri as "the fruit of my life."

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Rachel Roth

Over the past year, incarcerated women and their allies have achieved a remarkable string of victories against inhumane treatment. First, they persuaded the Bureau of Prisons to issue a new policy in October 2008 limiting the use of restraints on women who are in labor, giving birth or recovering after childbirth; the Marshals Service, which transports people in federal custody, followed suit. Next, they won legislation in the spring and summer of 2009 restricting the use of restraints on pregnant women in New Mexico, Texas and New York. Finally, they successfully petitioned the US Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit for a rehearing of the full court in a case from Arkansas, which resulted in a ruling in October that shackling women in labor is unconstitutional.

These developments send a strong signal to the rest of the country to stop subjecting women to this dangerous and degrading practice. But what happens to pregnant women in prison before they wind up in chains at a hospital?

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Mick Greenhough

In his presentations on global warming Al Gore likes to use a graph similar to the one below from Vostok, Antarctica, ice cores to show apparent correlations between temperature and carbon dioxide. When pressed about cause and effect, Gore says the relationship is “complex.”

The scientists working on the Vostok ice core report that temperature changes PRECEDE changes in CO2 concentration by about 800- to 1,300 years. This should not be surprising because temperature has great influence on CO2 solubility in the ocean. Notice that the temperature cycles occur in approximately 100,000 (±20,000)-year intervals. This coincides with the variation in the precession of the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun. Can you think of anything that would make CO2 cycle this way if it were the driver rather than temperature? And what would stop the rise of CO2 if it were the controlling variable?

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