By Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal and CJO’s Avenger 212.
Pakistan remains in a state of emergency. The emergency declared by Musharraf on November 3, 2007 in response to terrorism - purportedly. However it seems more like a full out effort to retain power.
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By Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal and CJO’s Avenger 212.
Starting tomorrow Portland, Oregon (and Phoenix AZ, and Guam) will be the site of a “simulated” terrorist attack with a “dirty bomb.” A radioactive substance is scheduled to be released so that live tracking of the plume can be observed and integrated into the exercise. According to a source I have who is in the exercise, the supposed release in the Pearl District is inaccurate. Where the release will occur is “top secret.” When I pressed, my source stated that “some things have not been made public, and he wasn’t going to leak the information.”
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By Rowan Wolf
I am fed up and more than ticked off by most of the Congress and by the Democratic Presidential candidates. Remember the expansion of the Bush’s illegal wiretapping? Remember the temporary expansion of the FISA extension than Representative Harman was passed based on hyped security threats? WHY are the Democrats passing these attacks on civil liberties and Constitutional protections?
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By Rowan Wolf
What do you do with an administration that refuses to follow the law? Apparently not a damn thing. We have a situation where the Constitutional balance of powers have been disrupted, and where the opposition party cannot even rally all of its own members - much less a majority - to institute its responsibility of checks and balances. Instead, we have an administration which has challenged constraints since its first day in office, which now blatantly states that it will not recognize any constraints on its actions. What country is this?
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Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal and CJO’s Avenger
It seems that the militarization of police forces in the United States is taking giant leaps forward with military robots and spy satellites on the newest toy list. While the militarization is not new - it has been going on since the “war on drugs” started - the use of more sophisticated military technology is new.
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By: Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal and Cyrano’s Journal Online
Michael Hayden, current head of the CIA, has decided to declassify a CIA report on its “indiscretions” … that was completed in 1973. It is a big deal that this administration is going to release any information - such a big deal that one might ask “Why?”.
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By: Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal and Cyrano’s Journal Online
While I doubt that the United States was ever quite the “Light on the Hill” as romanticized, we did once stand for some things that were worth being proud of. There were times when - even in war - we held ourselves to an ethical standard that was respected. During World War II, German soldiers had no fear of surrendering to U.S. troops, because they knew they would be well treated. How did the U.S. turn into some version of Mordor with the “light” now the “eye of Sauron?”
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“Revolution is the Solution”
Joel Hirschhorn interviewed by Jason Miller
3/15/07
For several days I had been bedeviled by the recurring memory of a jingle from an out-dated television commercial. My recollection of the product they were promoting lay tantalizingly close to the edge of my consciousness, but remained stubbornly out of my reach.
So my “mind’s ear” was left listening to, “It’s time for a new beginning…” ad nauseam with no tangible context. (If I had had that, I would at least have known which company to despise for etching such an inane little tune into my brain).
“Beautifully harmonized” by a group of sickeningly enthusiastic twenty somethings accompanied by music undoubtedly composed during the “Age of Aquarius”, this little ditty molested my mind with more frequency than I care to recall.
At last I had an epiphany. Sometimes frustrated subconscious minds of Gen-Xers recovering from television addiction transmit their contents into our consciousness in markedly bizarre ways during our waking hours. Or to put it another way, if we ignore our dreams long enough, bad television forces its way into your unsuspecting brains. My hat goes off to Madison Avenue, Viacom, Fox, and the rest of the masters of the agitprop universe for their immense success in embedding their tripe deep within the human psyches of many of us.
2007-03-15 | Give the author Feedback | Digg This!
Legal Training, Legal Mind
When I was in law school, professors always extolled the virtues of “thinking like a lawyer.” What they meant by that, in the abstract, was that one could argue either side of an issue. As part of a mere academic exercise, designed to prepare one to operate in an adversarial system, supposedly we need people who know the rules of evidence, law, and so forth, who can act as advocates for others without this special (esoteric) legal knowledge. But in a practical and real world sense, the idea of “thinking like a lawyer” is usually about dogma and unthinking – sheer obedience.
A brilliant legal mind is not one of rigor – instead it is one fully trained in double-think. A Double-think is not just some fantasy of Orwell, but a process that occurs everyday within the Kafka-like world of American courts. Like any alter boy who can tell you that God changed his mind about eating meat on Fridays, or the command that priests be celibate, or a Mormon who knows that God has seen the light so NOW those children of Cain (you know, they have that dark skin so they can be more easily identified as children of the first murderer), may enter the temple in Salt Lake – but they still cannot head the church, a good law student, and consequently the best federal judges, tolerate and ignore contradictions that do not serve the master (either the professor, the President or Congress).
Joys and Ills of Dogma
By: Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal
Over the last six years we have become very accustomed to the loss of our Constitutional protections and civil liberties. So there seems little reaction when we find out that both the Pentagon and the CIA are spying inside the United States. It is somehow comforting to know that the ACLU is putting up a fuss. The U.S. corporate media doesn’t seem alarmed.
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