Some Wasted Space

One of the great musicians from the 1980’s, Colin Vearncombe, has released an album of new material for free on his website. Colin, who sometimes goes by “Black” might be best known mostly due to his 80’s hits “Wonderful Life” and “Everything Is Coming Up Roses”. He is, in my opinion, one of the most overlooked talents still producing work.

Why Colin isn’t a hugely popular music star is a mystery to me. I can only attribute his lack of commercial appeal to the dismal musical tastes of the general music listener.

The collection of new music by Colin has been gathered in an album titled, appropriately enough, “The Given”. This music can be had for free downloading but I really hope everyone who enjoys Mr. Vearncombe’s music will donate for this privilege.

The great Cuban cartoonist Tomy’s cartoon concerning the Organization Of American States vote to readmit Cuba as a member.

RAFAEL Correa, president of Ecuador, currently visiting Honduras, stated the day before the OAS meeting:

"I believe that the OAS has lost its raison d’être, maybe it never had a raison d’être."

The news, circulated by ANSA, adds that Correa

"prophesized ‘the demise’ of that organization given the many errors it has committed."

He affirmed "that the countries of the American continent, given their geographic conditions, cannot all be put ‘in the same basket.’ And for that reason Ecuador proposed some months back the creation of the Organization of Latin American States.

“It is not possible for the region’s problems to be discussed in Washington; let us construct something of our own, without countries alien to our culture, our values, and obviously including countries that were inexplicably separated from the inter-American system, and I am referring to the concrete case of Cuba… that was a tremendous shame and demonstrates the double standards that exist in international relations.”

On his arrival in Honduras, both President Zelaya and Correa stated that "The OAS must be reformed and reincorporate Cuba; if not, it will have to disappear."

Another cable from the DPA news agency affirms:

"Cuba’s reintegration in the Organization of American States (OAS) has moved from being an issue per se of the organization’s General Assembly in Honduran San Pedro Sula, to once again being turned into an excuse for a struggle of interests that goes much further than the limits of the Caribbean island and could (once again) call hemispheric relations into question."

The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, made that very clear on describing the hemispheric meeting that begins this Tuesday in Honduras in quasi military terms.

"It will be," he said, an ‘interesting battle’ in which if it is demonstrated that the OAS ‘continues being a ministry of the colonies’ that is not transformed in order ‘to subordinate itself to the will of the governments comprising it,’ it will be necessary to propose ‘leaving’ the organization and creating an alternative."

“Latin American countries are making Cuba the litmus test for the quality of the Obama administration's approach to Latin America," Julia E. Sweig, a Cuba scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Washington Post on the eve of the Honduran meeting.

In resisting the aggressions of the most powerful empire ever to have existed, our people fought for the other sister peoples of this continent. The OAS was an accomplice of all the crimes committed against Cuba.

At one moment or another, the totality of the countries of Latin America were victims of interventions and political and economic aggression. There is not one single one that can deny that.

It is ingenuous to believe that the good intentions of a president of the United States can justify the existence of that institution that opened the gates to the Trojan horse that backed the Summits Of The Americas, Neoliberalism, drug trafficking, military bases and economic crises.

Ignorance, underdevelopment, economic dependence, poverty, the forced return of those who emigrate in search of work, the brain drain, and even the sophisticated weapons of organized crime were the consequences of interventions and plundering proceeding from the North. Cuba, a little country, has demonstrated that it can resist the blockade and advance in many fields, and even cooperate with other countries.

Today’s speech by the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, at the OAS General Assembly, contains principles that could go down in history. He said admirable things of his own country. I will confine myself to what he stated on Cuba.

"…In the Assembly of the Organization of American States that begins today in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, we must initiate the process of wise rectifications of old errors committed.
We, the Latin Americans who were recently here, a couple of weeks or months ago, had a grand summit within the Rio Group in Salvador de Bahía, Brazil. There we made a commitment. The commitment, which was taken down in writing and unanimously by all of Latin America, is that in this San Pedro assembly, by majority vote or consensus, that old and worn error committed in 1962 of expelling the Cuban people from this organization would have to be amended.”

"We must not go from this assembly, my dear dignitaries, without repealing the decree of that 8th meeting which sanctioned an entire people for having proclaimed socialist ideas and principles, principles now practiced in all parts of the world, including the United States and Europe (Applause). Today, principles of seeking different development alternatives are evident precisely in the change that there has been in the United States with the election of President Barack Obama…”

"We cannot go from this assembly without making amends for that error and that infamy because, on the basis of this Organization of American States resolution, in existence for more than four decades, an unjust and useless blockade has been maintained against this sister people of Cuba, precisely because none of its aims have been achieved, but what it has demonstrated is that here, a few kilometers from our country, on a little island, there is a people prepared to resist and to make sacrifices for their independence and sovereignty.”

"… not doing so would make us accomplices of a 1962 resolution to expel a state from the Organization of American States simple because it has other ideas, other thoughts, and proclaims principles of a different democracy. And we are not going to be accomplices of that.”

"…We cannot go from this assembly without repealing what was enacted in that epoch.”

An exceptional Honduran, called in our country – and one of our national heroes – José Cecilio del Valle, the sage Valle, stated on April 17, 1826, in his famous article ‘Sovereignty and Non-Intervention’ – we had just proclaimed our independence from the Spanish kingdom –

“The nations of the world are independent and sovereign. Whatever its territorial extension or number of inhabitants might have been, a nation must treat others with the same treatment that it desires to receive from these. A nation does not have the right to intervene in the internal affairs of another nation.”

With those words of Cecilio del Valle and the mention of Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Morazán, Martí, Sandino and Bolívar, he concluded his speech.

A few minutes later, at the press conference after the opening of the Assembly, he responded to questions and reiterated principles. Then he gave the floor to Daniel Ortega, who was the author of one of the most profound and well-argued papers at the OAS Assembly. At Zelaya’s invitation, Fernando Lugo, president of Paraguay, and Rigoberto Menchú also spoke, expressing themselves in terms similar to Zelaya and Daniel.

The Assembly has been debating for hours. As I am concluding this Reflection, almost at nightfall, there is still no news of the decision. It is known that Zelaya’s speech was influential. Chávez is talking with [Venezuelan Foreign Minister] Maduro and urging him to firmly maintain that no resolution can be admitted that conditions the repeal of the unjust sanction against Cuba.

Never has such rebellion been seen. Without any doubt, the battle is a hard one. Many countries are dependent on the index finger of one hand of the government of the United States pointing at the Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank or in any other direction for punishing rebelliousness. Having waged it is already a feat in itself on the part of the most rebellious. June 2, 2009 will be recalled by future generations.

Cuba is not an enemy of peace, nor reluctant to interchange or cooperation among countries of distinct political systems, but has been and always will be intransigent in the defense of its principles.

Fidel Castro Ruz
June 2, 2009
6:56 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

In the last week, two of our most senior generals with command of our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have said they oppose the use of torture or so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques.  These same generals also confirm that the use of these techniques has damaged our international reputation while producing no actionable intelligence.
General David Petraeus – the figure lauded by conservatives and the person chosen by Bush and Cheney to sell the surge to Congress – said the following to Fox News in regards to criticisms of President Obama for taking “enhanced interrogation techniques” off the table:

Gen. Petraeus: "Well, actually what I would ask is, 'Does that not take away from our enemies a tool which again have beaten us around the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion?' When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those."

On Sunday, General Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of all coalition forces in Iraq, called for a truth commission to investigate the abuses and torture which occurred there.
General Sanchez also stated, "during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques."

Click here to support my outreach efforts.

As Bush and Cheney scramble to defend their actions, making false claims about the effectiveness of the techniques and the military’s desire to use them, we must be very clear: the most senior generals, the ones we trust with our sons and daughters lives - who literally formed the battle plan – are saying Bush and Cheney were wrong.

"If we do not find out what happened then we are doomed to repeat it,” said General Sanchez.

Exactly.
I remain a strong supporter of an independent investigation into the Bush Administration policies.  I have also introduced legislation that would establish a special select House Committee to reexamine our national security after a full investigation of the practices and policies of the Bush Administration.
Complaints about the use of torture are no longer arising only from those of us in the Democratic Party.  I congratulate these soldiers for their brave and honest words.
We trusted these men to take us to war.  We should trust them when they say we went too far.

Sincerely,
Congressman Wexler
PO Box 810669
Boca Raton, FL 33481

June 1, 2009

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

Yours,
Michael Moore

MichaelMoore.com
Join Mike's Mailing List | Join Mike's Facebook Group | Become Mike's MySpace Friend

My friend, the artist/journalist Ben Heine from Belgium, recently posted an image to his DevianArt page. According to Ben in a post to the Don Quichotte Cartoon Committee Yahoo group:

Hello DQ members, as I expected it, my illustration "God is Love - Use Condoms" (below and in attached document) has been deleted and censored by Deviant Art. So I uploaded it again with a "mature content" filter. I was deleted again!
See what Deviant Art is, it allows huge collections of images with genitals everywhere but not a little  drawing defying the Institution... I find this pitiful. It seems that political art doesn't have its place on this "Big Brother" site. How does DA dare to call itself "Deviant" then?!
Anyway, I send this mail to suggest you to not open an account on DeviantArt as something like that could happen to you too. Ok, this is a shocking cartoon, but hey, it will never be as shocking as what the Pope said in his plane to Africa...
If you support individual freedom of expression, I beg you to post this image on your site, download it in high resolution, print it, etc so that it can be seen by more people, Thanks. Ben

 (click on image for full size version-David)

It is well know to many of us who produce art in support of Palestinians that members of the DeviantArt community selectively attack such works as ‘anti-Semitic’ to have them censored and removed by the DeviantArt administration. Generally, we have been able to counter these attacks by Zionists by simply designating our works as ‘mature due to sensitive subject’ labels. This makes the removal of Ben’s work all the more baffling.

As Ben stated, he even labeled his art as ‘mature’ only to find it still removed. Shame on you DeviantArt! Simple searching of the DeviantArt site will uncover many images of male and female nudity with questionable or obvious lack of artistic merit. I’ve seen some photographs that wouldn’t even reach the level of bad pornography of the amateur kind.

Ben’s censored image is not questionable in any way by a rational mind. His statement is obvious concerning the Catholic Pope’s recent ridiculous statements about condom use in Africa. Unfortunately, the Pope has ever right to make dangerous and misleading statements but it is also an artist’s right to respond.

DevaitArt’s actions in several areas like ‘sensitivity’ to Zionist complaints and the type of blatant censorship against Ben should make us all reconsider our association with the DeviantArt site. Maybe we should leave DeviantArt to bad Goth photography and horribly amateur, anime doodlers.

* As I was preparing the hyperlinks for this post, I became aware that Ben Heine’s DeviantArt page is empty due to “This person has been banned from deviantART permanently.”

This action gives me one more reason to delete my own account. I believe it is time to create a site of my own that will showcase editorial art that terrifies the main stream media.

To be continued…

My friend, the artist/journalist Ben Heine from Belgium, recently posted an image to his DevianArt page. According to Ben in a post to the Don Quichotte Cartoon Committee Yahoo group:

Hello DQ members, as I expected it, my illustration "God is Love - Use Condoms" (below and in attached document) has been deleted and censored by Deviant Art. So I uploaded it again with a "mature content" filter. I was deleted again!
See what Deviant Art is, it allows huge collections of images with genitals everywhere but not a little  drawing defying the Institution... I find this pitiful. It seems that political art doesn't have its place on this "Big Brother" site. How does DA dare to call itself "Deviant" then?!
Anyway, I send this mail to suggest you to not open an account on DeviantArt as something like that could happen to you too. Ok, this is a shocking cartoon, but hey, it will never be as shocking as what the Pope said in his plane to Africa...
If you support individual freedom of expression, I beg you to post this image on your site, download it in high resolution, print it, etc so that it can be seen by more people, Thanks. Ben

 (click on image for full size version-David)

It is well know to many of us who produce art in support of Palestinians that members of the DeviantArt community selectively attack such works as ‘anti-Semitic’ to have them censored and removed by the DeviantArt administration. Generally, we have been able to counter these attacks by Zionists by simply designating our works as ‘mature due to sensitive subject’ labels. This makes the removal of Ben’s work all the more baffling.

As Ben stated, he even labeled his art as ‘mature’ only to find it still removed. Shame on you DeviantArt! Simple searching of the DeviantArt site will uncover many images of male and female nudity with questionable or obvious lack of artistic merit. I’ve seen some photographs that wouldn’t even reach the level of bad pornography of the amateur kind.

Ben’s censored image is not questionable in any way by a rational mind. His statement is obvious concerning the Catholic Pope’s recent ridiculous statements about condom use in Africa. Unfortunately, the Pope has ever right to make dangerous and misleading statements but it is also an artist’s right to respond.

DevaitArt’s actions in several areas like ‘sensitivity’ to Zionist complaints and the type of blatant censorship against Ben should make us all reconsider our association with the DeviantArt site. Maybe we should leave DeviantArt to bad Goth photography and horribly amateur, anime doodlers.

* As I was preparing the hyperlinks for this post, I became aware that Ben Heine’s DeviantArt page is empty due to “This person has been banned from deviantART permanently.”

This action gives me one more reason to delete my own account. I believe it is time to create a site of my own that will showcase editorial art that terrifies the main stream media.

To be continued…