CIVILIANISM PODCAST

Sami Rasouli

Sami Rasouli, a well known Iraqi-American peace activist, traveled to central Minnesota last week and gave us an update on Iraq.   Iraqis need our help, and a lot of things need a lot of work in Iraq. They also need peace building and better relations with American citizens. He drops a couple of mostly unknown bits of info too, like that most of the scientists in Iraq were deliberately killed by Israeli intelligence (Mossad) during the war.

Shockingly, he said that Iraqis learned from John Wayne movies, not George Bush Sr., that America is a culture of force and violence. We have to reverse this perception. Learn more in this episode of Civilianism, which you can download here or subscribe to on the right.

There are two articles related to the topics in this podcast. One is “Oil Billions and Weapons of Mass Deception in Iraq” which you can read here, and the other is “Huge Rise in Birth Defects in Falluja” which you can read here.

The organizations that Sami Rasouli hopes you will check out and become involved in are found here:

The Iraq and American Reconciliation Project (IARP)  and the Muslim Peacemaker Team.

You can get involved as easily as helping to buy water sanitation equipment in Iraq, which is very much needed.

Wondering what President Obama is busy doing to promote peace in the Middle East? He started with returning the US to the “moral high ground” by ending torture and signing an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He then continued on Thursday at the State Department with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East.

But, why are we still bombing Pakistan? These and other mysteries will be covered in episodes to come.

Played: Clips from Obama at the State Department and former senator, now Middle East special envoy, George Mitchell from last October.

Something on your mind? Send me news, tips, and music for the podcast by using the form here (Contact tab on the top), or email me with news and comments.

You can also call my Skype comment line 24/7 at : 320-300-4273.

The shorter episodes will continue for now, but Civilianism in its more in-depth format (i.e., really long form) will return at some point later on.

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It’s a New Year with all of the Old Problems, and then some.

The slaughter of innocent people in the Gaza strip continues with the blessing of the United States, while Dick Cheney and George Bush go on their media Fairy Tale Hour speaking tours. Both have admitted torture and are trying to avoid being prosecuted for war crimes by kissing up to the Obama administration and the media.

We get 30 seconds of news given to the war in Gaza, which we are helping to fund and supply with weapons, in our mainstream media’s nightly news. No wonder Americans are in favor of whatever it is that Israel is doing.

There were no Hamas rockets during the ceasefire of mid-June through November 4th, when Israel broke the ceasefire by attacking and kiling 6 Palestinians. Now, the propaganda wars are waging as fiercely as the bombing and shooting war in Gaza. As the death toll has gone over 1,000 with most of the dead being civilians, it’s hard to imagine why our Congress has endorsed this brutality, unless you reach the conclusion that the U.S. government is somewhat, ah, . . . . . . corrupt.

Pardon me, did I say that out loud?

Join me in my search for Happiness. I think I have found it.

Here is Froomkin’s little summary of the Bush legacy, ‘The Bush Verdict is In”. World Freedom ‘Retreats for Third Year‘

Livestation TV – watch foreign media in good quality. This episode contains news from Wednesday night from Al Jazeera. Max Blumenthal’s video about the pro-Israel rally he did for Alternet.org is here.

I wish everyone a happy and peaceful 2009.

Podcast artwork by Rami Abbas, for Palestine.

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End Song: Michael Heart, We will not go down (Song for Gaza)
Middle song: Tom Chartier, Death Don’t Have No Mercy

Details of the auto bailout are coming to light. GM might even dump the Cadillac! Cars really do need to evolve, for the good of the economy, the climate, the end of resource wars, and jobs. The auto industry is tied to all of these things, so solving its problems, not just putting a little bandage on it, would help everything.

Why does the U.S. need so much energy? Part of it is our temperature-moderated and leaky buildings, but even more of it is our cars. So along comes the $15 billion auto bailout, promises from the remaining auto makers to modernize, and 3 million jobs are saved. Or are they? It remains to be seen. What we do know is that this is NOT the fault of unions. The auto makers’ failures are the results of their own short-sightedness and lack of vision. We should have 75 mpg cars by now and millions of electric cars on the roads! That last part is exactly the vision of Shai Agassi, the founder and CEO of Better Place.

Better Place is an electric car and electric car powering station plan that is already in development. Cars are being designed, power stations are being put in place, and countries and states are being signed up to get on board. Already signed up are Israel, Japan, Denmark, parts of California, and the state of Hawaii. That means they are going totally green and emissions free with their transportation in these areas. You can read about this great plan here. My podcast includes a good audio recording of Shai Agassi describing his vision of our car future.

The Better Place car

This episode also includes the peak oil/economic collapse story of Dmitri Orlov. He witnessed the transformation of the former Soviet Union to current day Russia through economic collapse, and he describes what he thinks will happen here in the U.S.A. the reasons why. His blog Club Orlov, contains links to his famous “Five Steps to Collapse” presentation.
The Five Steps of collapse, explained in detail. And Introducing the Light-hearted Moment!

DOWNLOAD THIS EPISODE here or subscribe on the right.

Here are the links to things I read and mentioned in this episode: The Short History of the Electric Car

Thomas Friedman: While Detroit Slept

Saving US Autos the American Way by Brent Budowsky

The Encyclopedia of Country Living
How to live if the bottom falls out! Practical, not violent, survival guide.

Music: Japanese Car by Gideon Freudmann and Unsustainable by Eliza Gilkyson
(and she’s actually from TX)

Which direction will the U.S. take in the next four years? Will we do the right thing and leave these wars behind and do what’s good for America, or continue to sink money and blood into foolish military campaigns?
This podcast discusses Iraq, Afghanistan, militarism, climate, congressman Waxman’s new job, and more. Audio clips of Cindy Sheehan, mystic Caroline Myss, Michael T. Klare and even Jerry Springer are played.

The U.S. obsession with tasers is spreading to England, which is a terrible idea!
Antiwar.com has Iraq war news.
Read about H.Res. 1531 here, introduced by Congressman Nadler:

Introduced on 11/20/08 — This is the first resolution urging President Bush not to pardon senior administration officials for crimes the President authorized. It urges Congress to investigate those crimes and any pardons relating to those crimes, and urges the Attorney General (current or future) to appoint an Independent Counsel to prosecute those crimes.

The Interview with American author and mystic, Caroline Myss, from New Dimensions, which has podcasts here.
Cindy Sheehan’s interview is from the Jeff Farias show.
Safe Climate or Endless War? It’s a choice we will have to make soon, because we can’t fight climate change smartly and terrorism militarily at the same time.

The Radio Ecoshock show with the Michael T. Klare (author of new book “Rising Powers, Shrinking World”) can be found here.
For a very irritating pro-war attitude, see James Cartwright: Perpetual war speech last week at the MOAA

The AccoLade, a Saudi “girl band” website is a on Myspace here.

Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

Music played: In this Moment: Beautiful Tragedy (from the Podsafe Music Network) and Hero’s Song by Brendan James from the music of Body of War.

I have a couple of interviews coming up for Civilianism that should be quite interesting. In the meantime, I have created a new Civilianism photo gallery, and the first photos in it are those of the March on the RNC and my next day there. You can find it here

Basically, I dumped about 80% of all my photos in it with minimal to no editing so the images are big and they take awhile to load. Also, there are probably many repeats and even a couple of boring ones. Everyone is free to use them for whatever you want, if you find any of them interesting.

I also have a new anti-war art gallery here. If you know of any anti-war artists or artwork that should/could be in it, let me know. I just started these galleries and I would really like to promote the anti-war art gallery and get more artwork in it. I’m also looking for photos to add to it.

My experience in attending the March on the RNC and the next day taught me that there is no doubt the U.S. is headed towards militarization of the police and “security situations”. We are turning into a police state faster than anyone can imagine if the police presence at the RNC is to be the norm for future events.

There was a completely overdone show of force during the whole week of the RNC, and one example was at Mears Park during the Poor Peoples protest activities there. The entire week, police were decked out in riot gear with numerous weapons, yet still afraid of a few skinny “anarchists”.

Supposedly, the militarization of the police in the U.S. is the “trend” of the future, and few people care, or even notice. After all, we’re in a “War on Terror”, and when the powers that be conflate terrorists and protesters, that’s just an easy little slip down that slippery slope into a full-on militarized society.
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The police only arrested 4 at Mears Park in St. Paul on September 2nd, but they arrested hundreds more on September 1st, and on September 4th when people were herded onto a bridge and made to sit down while they waited to be arrested. See this account of the Marion Avenue Bridges arrests.
‘My first arrest followed attempts to obey police’ – Sun-Sailor editor recounts RNC experience”

In total, nearly 820 people were arrested in four days in St. Paul. They even arrested 30 journalists, and probably more if you count independent citizen media. The Republican convention continued uninterrupted, blissfully oblivious of their security’s completely overblown reaction to what was described as about 100 anarchists. The police and the FBI, et al., also confiscated possessions in their raids before the RNC even started, (See the iWitness video account of that here–
“2008 Republican National Convention Round-Up
Violence and cruel treatment directed at protesters by police; Journalists targeted for arrest, harassment, intimidation and surveillance
. . . . so maybe they thought the protesters have some type of mind control weapons. Most of us were there to protest peacefully. For the small minority that were not, nothing can explain the massive show of police force that responded, or the violent tactics they used.

This was not fighting terrorism — this was fighting U.S. citizens. See evidence in these two videos linked here: a young man on his bike, falls off, gets arrested and then allegedly abused while in jail.
The “accident” (click for video)

The press conference of torture while in jail

It’s a mirror situation to Iraq and the “War on Terror” in a way — piss people off a lot by fighting their “idealogy” with weapons, and expect them to become passive and like you because they find you so charming. I was anything but charmed by the police actions last week. I’m shocked this happened not only in my state, but in the United States.

The police state scenes I have seen on the streets of St. Paul were like those I have seen of violence in countries that we criticize for their civil rights abuses. People need to speak out against this, or it will only increase, right here in the U.S. and probably in other countries too. That’s the “trend”.

If you were there and arrested and had things confiscated by police, you should contact ColdSnapLegal.org. They are handling legal questions, providing legal help for people, and helping get peoples’ possessions back. I hope to have more stories about the violation of civil rights that occurred last week in the future, and also many interesting stories about McCain’s new sidekick, Sarah Palin.

Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

Hear Cynthia McKinneys acceptance speech excerpt in this episode. Civilianism is supporting Cynthia McKinney’s run for president because she is a real progressive. Civilianism also supports the Green Party.

Republicans lie to us about security and want to make us live trapped in a constant fear and eternal war. Action item: United for Peace and Justice, NO WAR ON IRAN (click here)

Ominous signs: the Terrorist Watch List is at one million names. Bush wants to hold “enemy combatants”, even if they are Americans, for ever, and ever.

No one gets the real energy crisis. McCain wants to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, and in ANWR, as does my crazy Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann

McCain falsely claimed Katrina and Rita did not cause significant oil spills

Elwyn Tinklenberg for Congress

Cynthia McKinney for President
Chris Hedges article for the Los Angeles Times — how FISA will cost him sources and impede his journalism
Read Stop the New FISA

Alas, it’s too late! The FISA Grand Capitulation passed the House and the Senate, and Democrats voted for it in alarmingly large numbers. This is the domestic surveilliance that even ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft, while in the hospital, would not sign off on! Read the account of James Comey’s heroic efforts for the Justice Department here. The current bunch of Democrats just threw it all away and voted for something even John Ashcroft could not endorse in 2004.

Gates and Bush seem to be moving away from war with Iran, but the Pentagon seems to be moving forward. Which will prevail? The Democrats aren’t doing much about anything, so don’t ask them. Meanwhile, Obama outlines policy of endless war.

Tzipi Livni, Israel foreign minister, said it really would not be that big of a deal if Iran had a nuclear weapon. You heard that right, no existential threat there.

Spying programs: Total Information Awareness, The MATRIX, the National Applications Office, TIPS, and Infragard. We live in a surveillance society that is in a state of high paranoia, even as we grow ever more distant from 9/11. What’s going on? Why are we so paranoid and full of fear? Oh yeah, there’s an election coming up, and someone’s going to lose power.

Infragard article by Matt Rothschild from Common Dreams/The Progressive magazine

Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

Green Party website and Cynthia McKinney’s acceptance speech.

The state of American corporate media is in bad shape. The state of independent media is good and getting better! I attended the National Conference on Media Reform last weekend and tell you about it in this podcast. It was fantastic, and I’m so grateful I got to go. THANKS AGAIN to everyone who contributed to help me attend! You can read more about it here, and you can find my photos here and a link to more in a blog entry below this, and find more audio and video at Freepress.net/tune-in

I play two of the speeches and panel talks I heard in this podcast, and will be playing more in the next one. Media reform is essential to our democracy as more and more of our media is being bought out by corporations that are interested in only one thing: profits.
Fortunately, we can all be a part of the media. Podcasting, blogging, making videos, writing stories, communicating information in all ways that is shared IS media. Be your own media, share what you know and get active in the media reform movement.
People from all around the country, regular people and media professionals, shared their stories and methods for creating media and supporting independent media at this conference. Independent media is the future because corporate media has lost its integrity.
I also cover some news: Iraq, Afghanistan, the treaty Bush is trying to force on the Iraqis that they don’t want that would take away their autonomy, and what is happening to an LA news magazine. Also, a man handing out RNC protest information in the form of a piece of paper was arrested on June 5th outside the very convention hall where Republicans will meet to plot in September!

But this is important: Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment. It’s now been sent to the Judiciary Commmittee. His main co-sponsor is Robert Wexler. Call his office, call the Judiciary Committee, call Nancy Pelosi and tell them to impeach George W. Bush! 202 225-3121
It’s important that everyone call Nancy Pelosi’s office and also John Conyer’s office — I just did. It’s easy. Ask for Speaker Pelosi’s comment line. You can then demand she put impeachment back on the table.

Watch the video of O’Reilly calling us crazy and fascists!

Download this podcast here or subscribe on the right.

Music played: Andy Pratt, Masters of War

[tags]podcast, liberals, media, reform NCMR2008, National Media Reform Conference, CODEPINK, Keith Ellison, Minneapolis, podcasting, progressives, impeachment, Kucinich[/tags]

I have added lots of photos to my flickr account from the conference. Feel free to look at them here.

If the link doesn’t work, let me know.

[tags]ncmr2008, media reform conference, minneapolis[/tags]

Too tired to write a real blog post, but the National Media Reform Conference is going great. This morning started out with a bang. Congressman Keith Ellison was extremely enthusiastic. Tonight I saw the movie, Body of War, with Amy Goodman and Phil Donahue and about 500 other people. Really! I think I scared Amy Goodman earlier in the day, (in any case, she sort of ran away from me.) However, I am surrounded by people who think like me and are furious about Iraq and the fact that George Bush isn’t in jail. It’s wonderful. Here are some pictures, and tomorrow is going to be just as wall-to-wall stuff happening so I won’t be writing much at all until I get home on Sunday. The first picture here is of Keith Ellison this morning, the rest of Minneapolis and inside the outside the convention center tonight.

[tags]national media, reform conference, media, NCMR, minneapolis[/tags]

Think it is possible to keep your anti-war idealism and back a non-anti-war candidate? Maybe, maybe not (see below). Making concessions for politics is what most people end up doing but it doesn’t necessarily mean you lose your principles. We need to be goal-oriented and defeat McCain, and in this podcast I make a case for it. I think even Republicans might agree, McCain isn’t really what they want either. The most important thing is to keep Republicans far away from the White House and if that happens, real change will happen.
After admitting he approved torture, Bush has made us less safe. The torture may continue, the uncharged prisoners in Guantanamo Bay may continue to be held, but in the meantime, the ACLU has obtained important documents through the FOIA. This is from the ACLU:

“NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained previously withheld documents from the Defense Department, including internal investigations into the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody overseas. Uncensored documents released as a result of the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit shed light on the deaths of detainees in Iraq and internal disagreement within the military over harsh interrogation practices used at Guantanamo Bay.”

False Pretenses: Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Doug Feith, Architect of the Iraq War, and head of the Office of Special Plans, appeared on the Daily Show, and hear some of his cut interview.

Environmental news: The Guardian reports that we have reached levels of 367 ppm C02 in the atmosphere. This is not good news. The levels are rising to dangerous levels while our “leadership” doesn’t do nearly enough.

*MEDIA REFORM CONFERENCE info here*.

Phillipe Sands — the Green Light

TORTURE: Prisoner 063 and the Keith Olbermann Special Comment of May 13.

This podcast also contains a large part of the last Keith Olbermann Special Comment on Bush. It’s a scorcher!

You can Download Podcast #53 here.

U.S. is continuing to bomb homes Sadr City: Hospital was accidently bombed as neighborhood house was bombed, no ‘terrorists’ inside.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s crimes confessed to under waterboarding, now he’s one of five that will probably be given the death penalty, even though their “evidence” of crimes was obtained under torture. He confessed to over 30 (some outrageous) terrorists attacks, and if he was tortured (he was) none of it is admissible in court.

DON’T TAKE this to mean I won’t change my mind about the “Democrats”. I always reserve the right to change my mind about politics, politicians and election topics.

[tags]political, progressive, podcast, Civilianism, Civilianism, Countdown, Olbermann, special comment, Daily Show, Feith, interview, anti-war, anti-torture, torture, campaign 2009, election[/tags]

Looking for Donors/Sponsors so I can attend the National Media Reform Conference
June 6-8 2008, Minneapolis

Update: Amount raised so far: $ 400 — I have reached my goal — Thank you to everyone who donated!

The Civilianism podcast is back . . . . Meanwhile, I’m seeking donations/sponsors so I can attend a major media conference with the pros in Minneapolis. I’ve been podcasting and blogging about news and political issues for 2-1/2 years, yet have never gone to a media conference, mainly because they’re very expensive. Everything I do is volunteer work or freelance, so I would need to raise at least $350 in order to go to this conference. It’s very expensive and even that will not cover the cost of the conference (3 days) and hotel, but it sure would help a lot.

I will really be thrilled to meet Amy Goodman, Bill Moyers, and Naomi Klein, Laura Flanders, (maybe Helen Thomas?) and many more progressive media people, and be able to hear them speak about media — real media — and what we can do to fix it, or fix the problem, will be fantastic. Read more about it here and see who was there last year!
The donation button and link to the conference information now works.

Donors sending me there so far:

$100 from Steve T. — Thank you!

$ 50 from Darin A.. — Thank you!

$ 50 from Carlos B. — Thank you!

$ 50 from Katherine S. — Thank you!

$ 50 from Thomas S. — Thank you!

$ 40 from Jason K. — Thank you!

$ 40 from Mac B. — Thank you!

$ 10 from Alvin — Thank you!

$ 10 from John M. — Thank you!

The goal has been reached, thanks to you, and I really looking forward to going! I sincerely appreciate the help I got to attend this.

“But if American democracy is to survive, we must all participate.

Whether it’s standing in a vigil like the Ukrainians did, joining a political party, sending money to your favorite reader-supported websites and groups, or forwarding articles to friends and speaking out in our homes and workplaces, we all must all “consider the end” and “resist the beginnings.” And we must do so now, today.”

– Thom Hartmann, author and radio show host