Muammar Gadaffi. Photo: James (Jim) Gordon (CC)

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney sent this report out to her email list today. It’s worth reading.

How many times must a parent bury a child?

Well, in the case of Muammar Qaddafi it’s not only twice: once for his daughter, murdered by the United States bombing on his home in 1986, and again on 30 April 2011 when his youngest son, Saif al Arab, but yet again for three young children, grandbabies of Muammar Qaddafi killed along with Saif at the family home.

Now, I watched Cindy Sheehan as she bared her soul before us in her grief; I cried when Cindy cried. Now, how must Qaddafi and his wife feel? And the people of Libya, parents of all the nation’s children gone too soon. I don’t even want to imagine.

All my mother could say in astonishment was, “They killed the babies, they killed his grandbabies.”

The news reports, however, didn’t last more than one half of a news cycle because on 1 May, at a hastily assembled press conference, President Obama announced the murder of Osama bin Laden.

Well, I haven’t forgotten my empathy for Cindy Sheehan; I haven’t forgotten my concern for the children of Iraq that Madeleine Albright said were OK to kill by U.S. sanctions if U.S. geopolitical goals were achieved. I care about the children of Palestine who throw stones at Israeli soldiers and get laser-guided bullets to their brains in return. I care about the people of North Africa and West Asia who are ready to risk their lives for freedom. In fact, I care about all of the children–from Appalachia to the Cancer Alley, from New York City to San Diego, and everywhere in-between.

On 22 May 2011, I had the opportunity to visit the residence of the Qaddafi family, bombed to smithereens by NATO. For a leader, the house seemed small in comparison, say, to the former Clinton family home in Chappaqua or the Obama family home. It was a small whitewashed suburban type house in a typical residential area in metropolitan Tripoli. It was surrounded by dozens of other family homes.

I spoke with a neighbor who described how three separate smart bombs hit the home and exploded, another one not exploding. According to the BBC, the NATO military operations chief stated that a “command and control center” had been hit. That is a lie. As anyone who visits the home can see, this home had nothing to do with NATO’s war. The strike against this home had everything to do with NATO adopting a policy of targeted assassination and extra-judicial killing–clearly illegal.

The neighbor said he found Saif Al-Arab in his bedroom underneath rubble; the three young grandchildren were in a different room and they were shredded to pieces. He told of how he picked up as many pieces as he possibly could. He told us that there are still pieces there that he could not get. He asked us to note the smell–not the putrid smell of rotting flesh, but a sweet smell. I did smell it and thought there was an air freshener nearby. It smelled to me of roses. He asked me why this was done and who was going to hold NATO accountable.

Muammar Qaddafi was at the house. But he was outside near where the animals are kept. It is a miracle that he survived. From the looks of that house and the small guest house beside it, the strike was a complete success if the goal was to totally and thoroughly demolish the structure and everything inside it.

NATO wants us to believe that toys, items and clothing, an opened Holy Koran, and a soccer board game are the appointments found in military command and control offices. I wonder if we could find such articles in NATO’s office in Brussels.

The opened Holy Koran seemed to be frozen in time. In fact, there was a clock dangling from its cord–dangling in space. And indeed, for the four young people in that house at the time of NATO’s attack, time had stopped.

The concussion fron the bombs were so great that eery tile on the walls and floors of the home had been knocked from the walls. Black burn marks scorched the walls. The force broke a marble or granite countertop. The bathtub was literally split into two parts. Shards of the bomb were everywhere. I wondered if the place was now contaminated with depleted uranium.

The Qaddafi home is a crime scene–a murder scene. The United States prisons are full of men and women who are innocent–even on death row. I wonder where the guilty who are never prosecuted go.

Now, if the International Court of Justice were really a repository of justice, it would be investigating this crime. Instead, it is looking for yet another African to prosecute. We in the United States are familiar with this: on our local news every night, we are saturated with photos of Black and Brown criminals with the implication being that White people don’t commit crime. The moment the face of someone arrested is not shown, then we know that the culprit is White. It’s the unwritten code that we people of color all live by wherever in the world we might happen to be. Global apartheid is alive and well and exists on many levels.

I left the house sick in my heart. As I was about to depart, the neighbor begged me, asked me over and over again, why had this happened? What had they done to deserve this? He seemed to not want me to leave. Honestly, I think I was his little piece of America, his little piece of President Obama and I could help him to understand why this course of action was necessary from my President’s point of view. He said NATO should just leave them alone and let them sort out their problems on their own.

I did leave his presence, but that man’s face will never leave me.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

In response to my previous article, “NATO, A Feast of Blood,” I received the following quite about Buddha from Shiva Shankar who excerpted Walpola Rahula’s “What The Buddha Taught:”

“… The Buddha not only taught non-violence and peace, but he even went to the field of battle itself and intervened personally, and prevented war, as in the case of the dispute between the Sakyas and the Koliyas, who were prepared to fight over the question of the waters of the Rohini. And his words once prevented King Ajatasattu from attacking the kingdom of the Vajjis. …

… Here is a lesson for the world today. The ruler of an empire publicly turning his back on war and violence and embraced the message of peace and non-violence. There is no historical evidence to show that any neighbouring king took advantage of Asoka’s piety to attack him militarily, or that there was any revolt or rebellion within his empire during his lifetime. On the contrary there was peace throughout the land, and even countries outside his empire seem to have accepted his benign leadership. …”

Please don’t allow special interest press and war mongering gatekeepers of the left to blot out the tragedy unfolding in Libya. Please don’t allow them to take away our chance to live in peace throughout our land and with countries inside and outside our hemisphere. Congress should vote to end NATO’s action in Libya and barring that should assert its Constitutional prerogatives and require the President to come to it for authorization of this war. And then, Congress should heed the wisdom of the people of our country who are against this war and vote for peace.

Cynthia McKinney

You can count on former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to speak her mind if she thinks something isn’t right. She really doesn’t think Western intervention in Libya is right! From CNN:

A former U.S. congresswoman slammed U.S. policy on Libyan state TV late Saturday and stressed the “last thing we need to do is spend money on death, destruction and war.”

The station is fiercely loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and her interview was spliced with what appeared to be rallies in support of the embattled Libyan leader.

“I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here. And it’s important that people all over the world see the truth. And that is why I am here … to understand the truth,” former Rep. Cynthia McKinney said during a live interview.

…At one point during the interview, state TV cut to what it said were live airstrikes, hitting Gadhafi’s compound.

“Is that a bomb?” McKinney asked.

“I want to say categorically and very clearly that these policies of war … are not what the people of the United States stand for and it’s not what African-Americans stand for,” she told state TV…

[continues at CNN]

“The President-elect is coming into office at a moment when there are upheavals in many parts of the world simultaneously. . . . He can give a new impetus to American foreign policy, partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. I think his task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when really a New World Order can be created. It’s a great opportunity…”

Cynthia McKinney

To add to the discussion started by Danny Schechter’s post Does Fascism Lurk Around The Corner In The USA?, here is the beginning of Chris Hedges’ column from March of last year, Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?:

The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.

“We are ruled not by two parties but one party,” Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. “It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded.”

The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die.

The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.

Read more at Truthdig.

Interestingly the Green Party is identified as a possible terrorist threat to be watched.

Hello! As many of you know, Mike Ruppert is singularly responsible for confirming from the inside what many of us on the outside knew: that the black community didn’t have the infrastructure to import and distribute crack cocaine from which it still reels today, but the CIA did.

Mike was on it on September 11th! And explained it to us in his book, “Crossing the Rubicon.”

Mike is on it in his film CoLLapse, and explains it to us in his new book, “A Presidential Energy Policy.”

Mike has taken many bullets for us, so that we may know the truth. Now, several more have been fired at him, but we must deflect them and not allow them to (do what they want to do with all of us with targets on our foreheads and) put this warrior down. Mike needs our help.

She then pastes in a press release from Mike, as follows:

ARKANSAS PUBLISHER REFUSES TO PUBLISH RUPPERT BOOK CITING MORAL/ RELIGIOUS OBJECTIONS OVER AUTHOR’S ADVOCACY OF HEMP LEGALIZATION DAYS AFTER ANNOUNCING IT WOULD BE IN BOOKSTORES IN NOVEMBER

Please Distribute Widely

“A Presidential Energy Policy will be released November 24, 2009 from Variance Publishing.” — Ascot Media Press Release (for Variance Publishing), Oct. 13th, 2009.

October 21, 2009 – On October 19, just six days after issuing a press release announcing that “A Presidential Energy Policy: Twenty-five Points Addressing the Siamese Twins of Energy and Money” would be in bookstores on November 24th, Variance Publishing owner Tim Schulte notified me by telephone that his company was refusing to publish the book because Point Twenty-four called for legalization of the hemp plant as a partial solution to the energy and economic crises. Schulte cited moral and religious grounds for his decision. “I run a moral and ethical company. I don’t allow drug use to be advocated. I don’t allow rampant sexuality or profanity in my books”, Schulte said.

Schulte’s reversal came as headline stories around the country were reporting that President Obama had just ordered federal law enforcement agencies to stop raiding medical marijuana facilities in states where its use has been legalized. No prior objections to the point have been raised by the book’s reviewers who have all offered extensive praise for the work. Personal letters to me from many credible sources have expressed thanks for the book and welcoming it, including one from former President Jimmy Carter.

Schulte’s decision made it impossible for book buyers to go to bookstores and find the book after seeing the critically-acclaimed buzz-film CoLLapse which is scheduled for theatrical and video-on-demand release in November. (Hemp is not mentioned in the film but the film is based upon the book and says so both in the film and on its poster.)

Schulte admitted that he had read the entire book after receiving it in June, felt the hemp objection at the time, but did not object to me because “he thought that would be taken care of in editing.” He offered no explanation as to how I was expected to rewrite Point Twenty-Four and another small section of the book in the few days left before he was committed to send it to the printer. Schulte added that he was aware that I had an agreement with the book’s digital publisher New World Digital to have the same book on both ends and that for me to substantively change the book would violate my agreement with New World.

As a matter of principle I refused to remove Point Twenty-four and also said that I would not break the agreement with New World. Schulte then announced that he was voiding the contract “because he could”. Schulte was unable to offer any other explanation as to why he had waited until the last minute to raise his objection.

In the book I clearly outlined a multitude of uses for the hemp plant as a means to stimulate local food production, for soil restoration and for the plant’s wide variety of energy-saving uses from nutritional supplements, to lamp oils, to paper, to clothing. None of this makes any sense. Variance had the book for months and had gone to the expense of cover design, layout and issuing the press release before raising the issue.

Variance’s decision came three weeks after Oregon State Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian issued a misleading and inaccurate press release (for which he later apologized) stating that I had personally been fined in an Oregon sexual harassment case which he had not read and which was filled with legal and ethical errors. I continue to maintain my complete innocence in that case which is now under appeal. I was never a named defendant in that case.

The only conclusion I can reach is that there is a concerted effort to keep the American people and readers around the world from reading this book. There is only one way to fight back.

OPTIONS – I have been involved in legal battles for five years now. In 2005-06 I fought and won a civil case in California showing that a former employee, Chris Fusco, had deliberately attempted to sabotage “From The Wilderness (FTW). From 2006 until now I have spent an estimated $45,000 proving that I did not ransack FTW offices and smash all seven computers while publishing the Pat Tillman exposé and to fight the harassment charges. I have also fought a malicious and libelous campaign by a local Oregon newspaper to smear my reputation, even after the editor was convicted of having sex with a minor and remains under ongoing investigation for racketeering and fraud. A legal action will do nothing to get the book into stores in time to benefit from CoLLapse’s success. I am broke as a result of these non-stop attacks and cannot afford a retainer for yet another lawyer. I am also personally out of energy to engage in another legal battle that cannot solve the immediate problem.

As a result of Variance’s decision, all rights to the book have reverted to me (except for digital and print-on-demand) rights which belong to New World Digital — now the only source for this vitally important book which is available from Amazon. Retail book vendors will not buy print-on-demand books because unsold copies cannot be returned for credit. I do not have an agent but will happily talk to any literary agents or publishers who step forward. My original agent was fired for a series of egregious miscommunications. Any attempt to try and secure a new publisher for this critically-acclaimed book might take months and no publisher could have the book in stores in less than six months. I have decided to focus on the movie as the only way to get around this newest unfounded attack on my life’s work – the only motive for which is to save lives. Widespread reading of “A Presidential Energy Policy“ remains the ultimate objective of all the work I put into CoLLapse. For that I will need help.

NORML – After the developments I immediately contacted the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Yesterday, I taped a radio interview with NORML’s Russ Belville on Variance’s actions. Please contact NORML as to how you can hear it. If you have contacts in any local NORML chapters please bring this to their attention immediately. This ridiculous attack cannot go unanswered.

FLOOD THE SCREENINGS! – The only way to save the book now is to promote the film. CoLLapse has been mentioned by one critic as an Oscar candidate for the 2011 Oscars. That means it will have a long shelf life. CoLLapse is scheduled for theatrical screenings in the following cities. Full details here.

NOVEMBER 6th – NEW YORK – ANGELIKA FILM CENTER
NOVEMBER 13th – LOS ANGELES – LAEMMLE SUNSET 5
DECEMBER 4th – SAN FRANCISCO – LUMIERE THEATRE
DECEMBER 4th – BERKELEY – SHATTUCK CINEMA
DECEMBER 4th – SAN DIEGO – KEN CINEMA
* MORE DATES COMING SOON!
It is all a matter of numbers. The way to see that CoLLapse gets screened in more theaters, in more cities, and stays there is to flood these screenings. In this country every vote may not be counted but every dollar always is. Long lines at screenings (which will result in some being turned away) will guarantee that additional screenings and theaters will be added. The film, once seen, will inflame public demand to see it. That is the only thing that will provide time to find another way to get the book into stores.

I will likely not see any personal income from the film until December at the earliest. Meantime I am still struggling to raise my November rent. I am incredibly gratified by the response to our pleas for donations to keep a roof over my head and to fight the Oregon appeal. Please send your donations to: either Mike Ruppert (for personal use), or the FTW Legal Defense Fund at 10736 Jefferson Blvd., PMB 618, Culver City California, 90232. For instructions on PayPal and wire transfer please see elsewhere on this blog or the FTW archival site.

RUBBING SALT INTO THE WOUND – Immediately after talking to Schulte I called Jenna Orkin who runs the blog bearing my name. In less than thirty minutes she sent me back this book excerpt from Variance’s web site:

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, turning off the car’s ignition for the third time.

Cal wasn’t used to being nervous, and he didn’t like how it felt.

“Goddamnit!” he said, slamming his hands on the wheels. “God-damn you Dan, you asshole!”

I am unable to provide a contact phone number because the only phone I have is my home phone. For media and interview requests please send an email to mcrfinaid@gmail.com. We check this on a daily basis. Questions about additional screenings of CoLLapse should be directed to collapse@bluemarkfilms.com.

Michael C. Ruppert