Just as there is an unending stream of those who insist the Holocaust never happened, or that it has been "greatly exaggerated, there is never a lack for someone, usually in the south, to insist that slavery wasn't all that bad.  In the not too distant past, a private school in Virginia or Maryland (I forget a lot of the details) was using a textbook that had the hidden benefits of slavery as a major theme.  Just a few days ago, we got Adele Fergusen, in the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal who enlightens all of us ignorant fools who consider slavery to be a hellish event that was physically, psychologically, and spiritually destructive to all involved that we're just wrong.  In fact:

The pony hidden in slavery is the fact that it was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it. A harsh life, to be sure, but many immigrants suffered hardships and indignations as indentured servants. Their descendants rose above it. You don't hear them bemoaning their forebears' life the way some blacks can't rise above the fact theirs were slaves.

Besides freedom, a job and a roof over their heads, they all sought respect. But even after all these years, too many have yet to realize that to get respect, you have to give it.

When you are facing a sea change in the world around you, it's easy to underestimate the severity of what's going on.  Don't you think that many ordinary people living in countries that underwent political revolutions managed to miss the revolution part until it was too late?

That's all just a way of introducing what sounds at first hearing like paranoia and conspiracy mongering. Paul Craig Roberts formerly served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and Contributing Editor of National Review. Last month, he wrote a piece for Counterpunch that posits the following:

Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.
...
The years of illegal spying have given the Bush administration power over the media and the opposition. Journalists and Democratic politicians don't want to have their adulterous affairs broadcast over television or to see their favorite online porn sites revealed in headlines in the local press with their names attached. Only people willing to risk such disclosures can stand up for the country.

Free press is hard to find, and you sure won't find it in Iran.  Here's a recent headline from The Tehran Times: "Opinion poll in Belgium supports Mottaki's views on cartoons"

Respondents in the poll (Moroccans living in Belgium ) were asked:

Was Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki right in criticizing in Brussels the cartoons as showing lack of respect to 1.5 billion Muslims?

The problem with the headline?  Only "Forty-five percent of the respondents said they completely agreed" with the Foreign Minister's statement.  Another 33.5% said he was exaggerating and pouring oil on the fire, while a whopping 21.5% simply had no opinion.

Yeah, that's "support" for a statement like Bush won a "mandate" in 2004.

Free press.  Wishful thinking.

You'd have to read pretty deep into the news stories to find out, but Claude Allen, the ex-Bush aide recently arrested on charges that he effectively stole some $5,000 of merchandise from retailers is the same Claude Allen that Bush had nominated to the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.  After it became clear that Bush would be unable to push the nomination through the senate, Allen "requested" that his nomination be withdrawn.

Our illustrious president has stated that he is "shocked" by the charges against Allen.  When you finish reading this, you probably won't be.

When a man who has been wrong more times than a hunch better at a fixed roulette wheel, our president inexplicably likes to voice his opinions.  Think "heck of a job, Brownie," his opinion that no one could have anticipated the breaks in the New Orleans levees, many statements about WMD, and his vociferous assurances that the Dubai ports deal would go through.  I think I would very much like to go to a race track with George W.  Every time he bet on a race, I could at least eliminate his choice a a potential winner, improving my own odds considerably.

His latest is in the AP headline "Bush Confident Iraq Will Avoid Civil War."

Senator Russ Feingold wants the Senate to censure Lord Clusterf**k, eh? Story here...

Tom Gilroy makes a pretty sick point over at huffpo, that some jokes aren't funny, or are they?

"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous"
Caesar to Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,  Act 1, Scene 2.

Nowadays, it's Casio not Cassius causing the alarm, according to an AP report dated today, which reveals that the evidence the U.S. has cited against 8 detainees at Guantanamo include the fact that they were wearing Casio digital watches when picked up.

Well, "SLITHY" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed up into one word. Humpty Dumpty, in Alice in Wonderland.

And Alberto Gonzales is all that and more, if you've followed his public appearances and his unreassuring assurances on several subjects over the last several days.  The definition of "torture" once again tortured.  The ambiguity of prior statements to the Senate clarified so as to increase the ambiguity.  Announcement by the Attorney General for what appears to be one of the most corrupt administrations in history that "One of my priorities for the Justice Department in the coming year is to better safeguard public integrity -- not solely in the area of Hurricane related fraud, but also procurement fraud and other instances of public corruption."

I couldn't resist posting this small, relatively insignificant example of the lack of ethics in international business.  A UK news site reports that a multi-national energy firm, called "E.ON UK," stuffed the electronic ballot box at a UK newspaper trying to take a poll on whether it was a good idea to  build seven 355-foot wind turbines on Denshaw Moor in Oldham, Greater Manchester, as the enrgy company was proposing to do.

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