Monday, January 5, 2004

This Year We Dump shrub FEATURED ARTICLES - Their Media War and Ours in 2004, by Danny Schechter - Memoirs of a 'Racketeer for Capitalism, by Ralph Nader - A Message From Peter Coyote Regarding Howard Dean QUOTE OF THE DAY "A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many... War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." - - Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, USMC KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JANUARY 5th 1987 --  "Fiscal conservative" & "Free-marketeer" President Ronald Reagan produced the nation's first trillion-dollar budget, projecting 1988 outlays of $1,024.3 billion, revenues of $916.6 billion, & a deficit of $107.8 billion. Oddly, the rich get richer & the poor get poorer. BOOK TIP:   "War is a Racket" - by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, USMC This year, with the cooperation of the Butler family, "War is a Racket" has been reissued in paperback. Feral House (P.O.Box 39910, Los Angeles, CA 90039, ( http://www.FeralHouse.com ), $9.95. For more info, see article below entitled, "Memoirs of a 'Racketeer for Capitalism" TV TIP: "Where the Spirit Lives" - On Link TV - Tuesday Night & Wednesday Morning A compelling 1989 drama about two aboriginal children kidnapped by Canadian Government officials and placed in a boarding school, an environment where they are emotionally and sometimes sexually abused. Part of the "First Peoples' TV" series made possible by DreamCatchers, a non-profit organization working to bring Native films to a wider audience. For more info, go to: Where the Spirit Lives RHINO HERE: Top of the new year to each & every one. I begin 2004 with a new schedule for Rhino's Blog. I'll be blogging regularly 3 days a week; Monday Wednesday & Friday, with periodic special edition weblogs for special occasions. While readers who've told me their morning coffee doesn't taste quite the same without Rhino's Blog, I ask for understanding as I set out in my day job on several new film projects. For those who've told me they have trouble keeping up with the info presented, I hope this helps. Here's to the year we dump the shrub gang! Today I offer pieces on 3 ongoing vital issues; the media, war profiteering, and the democratic prexy race. News Dissector Danny Schechter is the executive editor of Mediachannel.org. His most recent book is "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media Failed to cover the war in Iraq." (Prometheus) Their Media War and Ours in 2004: A Call to Educate, Organize and Mobilize by Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org, 12/31/03 ...One email I received recently asked: "What do we do when our TV and newspapers tell us lies but insist we should regard this information as truth? What do we do when the vast majority of people in our society accepts these lies as truths and ridicule us when we call these statements lies?" These are good questions but there are also some good answers. They involve hard work and real action, day to day work in the trenches -- not just sending checks to candidates in hopes that dumping Bush is a panacea. Bear in the mind that part of the mess we are in goes back to the Telecommunications "reform" Act of l996 backed by the Clinton Administration and many liberal democrats. The bill was supposed to foster competition. It led instead to a massive wave of media concentration. Notice how few candidates even focus on media concentration or slanted coverage. All fear that will lose their fifteen seconds of fame if they piss off thin-skinned media moguls. ...If you recognize, as many in the global justice movements do that real power is exercised today not by governments but by private interests, then a focus on corporate interests make sense. If that is the case, the corporate media deserves more attention... MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1231-13.htm In October of 2002, Rhino's Blog featured a collection of information on the Marine Commandant Smedley D. Butler who's leadership of US forces in the early 1900's was responsible for making Central America safe for United Fruit among many other endeavors. His classic book, "War Is A Racket" has been out of print for decades, until now. TO VIEW THAT 2002 BLOG ENTRY, CLICK THE LINK BELOW: http://radio.weblogs.com/0103207/2002/10/04.html Memoirs of a 'Racketeer for Capitalism' by Ralph Nader, CommonDreams.org , 12/30/03 Perusing through a history book as a college student, I came across a jolting declaration in a footnote by one of the most highly decorated soldier of the twentieth century. He said: "I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism." Those words and more were spoken and written by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler. At the time I wondered why more was not made in the historical accounts of the early decades of the 20th century. Well, maybe because General Butler's was too much of an eyewitness account. And he named names. Here is more of what he said: "I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interest in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Center American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interest in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." The famous journalist, Lowell Thomas, saw fit to introduce General Butler's book "War is a Racket" for a Reader's Digest condensation. The General was no pacifist when it came to defending the U.S.A. He just didn't like bullies and corporate greed sending American soldiers abroad to slaughter or be slaughtered.. MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1230-02.htm 7:16:31 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Message From Peter Coyote Regarding Howard Dean A Message From Peter Coyote Regarding Howard Dean, 1/3/04        I've received a number of e-mails recently assailing Howard Dean's integrity for "sealing his records." It sounded ominous and so I wrote to Governor Dean and asked him point blank. He called today to say, "Happy New Year" and I took the opportunity to ask him again and since his response made sense to me I pass it on to you all with a few thoughts.         Governor Dean has sealed approximately half his records. Every governor in the country has this option. The records that he has sealed have to do largely with confidentiality: people writing in, admitting they were gay, thanking him for the civil unions bill; offerring him confidential advice etc. All the opposition research on him is coming from his records that remain unsealed, so they did not seal all the sensistive stuff. Furthermore, there is a law-suit trying to force him to release his records which he is not fighting. They are putting all the material in the hands of a judge and letting him decide.         Personally, I am bothered at the acrimony and low caliber of the Democratic candidates' sniping at Dean. It is one thing to be an honorable critic of his policies, another to suggest that without foreign policy experience the ship of state will founder in his hands. (How much did foreign policy experience did Jimmy Carter have or Clinton for that matter before being elected. How many foreign policy decisions has Joe Lieberman had to make, or John Kerry for that matter?) We are electing as President a man who will supervise his subordinates (his Cabinet), take their recommendations, weigh them, and then make decisions based on what they present and what his life-experience and common-sense dictate. This is what chief executives do. We are not electing a Phd in the history of Chechnyan resistance to Russian Imperial plans. It appears to me that the Democratic professionals would rather destroy the party than see an outsider enter its sacrosanct gates. Are they forgetting that after the campaigning, after the Convention, we are going to have to unite as a party to defeat George II, and the vitriol they loose now will make reconciliation that much more difficult. (To his credit, Wesley Clark seems to be by-passing this low-road.)         This is not new. Let's remember that when Jimmy Carter was elected, he was unable to pass legislation through a Democratically controlled Congress that had basically been passed by his Republican predecessor. This is the old-boy, club mentality that we are trying to replace. Howard Dean is an able, determined, ethical man. If he shoots from the hip sometimes, so be it: so did Truman, so did Roosevelt. Edginess is not an issue which determine whether or not a leader is great. "It's about the policies, stupid", as James Carville should have said. Peter Coyote "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:24:29 AM    comment

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