Condoleezza
Rice has told California Republicans she is "very much open"
to running for Governor of the state in 2006. The California GOP
had been wooing Rice to challenge Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer
but, according to unidentified sources quoted by the San
Francisco Chronicle, "She's said no on the Senate race,
but is very much open on '06."
If true, the Republican primary race might pit Rice against actor
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has muscled himself into contention.
Like Rice, the Austrian-born actor has never been elected to office.
Rice
was born in Birmingham, Alabama but served as Provost of Stanford
University, where she was "discovered" by President Bush
Senior. She has also fantasized about becoming Commissioner of the
National Football League.
Hard
Right Republicans love Rice in much the same way that they are fiercely
defensive of Clarence Thomas. Fans of the National Security Advisor
publish online Condoleezza
for President sites and hawk Condoleezza presidential
campaign fashion gear. Last year, New California Media reported
that "Europeans" were all abuzz about a Rice run for Vice
President in 2004. "According to European observers,"
said the news service, "Rice is the quintessential product
of the American Dream, and of the African-American civil rights
movement."
MLK:
a legion of assassins
The
law of uneven development that governs societies, forcing us to
confront emergent phenomenon while unfinished business still entangles
our feet, was dramatically at work in 
Mississippi,
last week. It took only a few hours for a federal jury to convict
a 72-year-old former Klansmen of blowing the top of a Black field
hand's head off so that the body could be used as bait to lure Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. to Klan country, in 1966. The three assailants,
two of whom have died, hoped to assassinate King on their own, bloody
turf.
It
was the first federal murder trial for a Sixties racial killing;
previous federal homicide prosecutions had been based on denial
of the victim's civil rights. The three Klansmen won a mistrial
in Mississippi state court in 1967. However, federal prosecutors
discovered a witness to testify that the body of the victim, Ben
Chester White, was found on federal land, opening the way for new
charges under a different jurisdiction.
Much
philosophizing accompanied the verdict, concerning the "old"
Mississippi and the "new" version. Jesse White, the 65-year-old
son of the murdered man, told the Washington
Post, "It proves that our American justice system is very
much alive and well. It shows the world."
Substitute
schoolteacher Sawandi Olugbala looked back over his 49 years in
Mississippi and concluded differently. Of the stroke-crippled Klansman,
Olugbala said: "That man has one foot in the grave and the
other on a banana peel. If somebody commits a murder, or a crime,
and gets away with it for almost 40 years... that's not justice."
DC
attempts jump to front
The
majority Black city-state District of Columbia will be the first
venue of the upcoming primary season, unless the courts or the national
Democratic apparatus thwarts the will of the City Council, the Mayor,
and the local Democratic and Republican parties. The City Council
unanimously passed a bill to hold Washington's primary on Tuesday,
January 13, in hopes of snatching national attention from overwhelmingly
white New Hampshire's contest, the next week.
"The
reason DC is going first in the Presidential primary season is because
DC lacks voting rights in the House and the Senate," said Councilman
Jack Evans, who introduced the legislation. "DC labors under
second class citizenship."
The
"First in the Nation" campaign is spearheaded by the DC
Democracy Fund. Executive Director Sean Tenner made the case for
the early primary in his February 6 
commentary, "... And
the Last Shall Be First."
Tenner
called the Council action "one of the boldest steps the DC
Council has ever taken to dramatize our lack of voting rights and
autonomy. In the face of huge pressure from some party operatives,
the Council stuck to their guns and did the right thing for the
people of Washington, DC and the nation."
The
corporate style of war
The
U.S. rush to "Shock and Awe" confronts a world of rising
resistance and crumbling "Coalitions
of the Coerced," the shorthand title of an Institute for
Policy Studies (IPS) report on American efforts to sign up camp
followers. Most of these "partners," says the IPS, "were
recruited through coercion, bullying, and bribery."
It
is difficult to imagine the temptations placed before the elites
of the African members of the United Nations Security Council: Guinea,
Angola and Cameroon. So long neglected save for relentless exploitation,
they are now feted and wooed by the power that has, in Angola's
case, destroyed their nation many times over through dollar-financed
insurgency. Guinea assumes the rotating presidency of the Security
Council, this week. What American devilment must be afoot in the
hotel lobbies of Conakry and restaurants of Manhattan!
That's
a question to ask the National Security Agency (NSA), the huge American
super-surveillance organization (far larger than the CIA) that monitors
world communications. The mega-microphones and sensors are now arrayed
in a "'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations
in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favor of war against
Iraq," the London
Observer reported. The newspaper says it was fed a "leak"
from within the NSA.
The
leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened
surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon,
Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New
York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are
being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain,
and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by
France, China and Russia.
When
questioned about the Observer report, White House spokesman Ari
Fleischer blandly replied that it was against policy to comment
on intelligence gathering matters.
Turks:
"Stick it up your backside"
So
confident was Washington that Turkey would allow its territory to
serve as a staging area for the invasion of northern Iraq, the U.S
unloaded one thousand vehicles at a Turkish airport without
waiting for approval of the Turkish Parliament. In a shocking rebuff
to Washington and Turkey's ruling party, the legislature narrowly
rejected an agreement to accept around $30 billion in grants, loans
and guarantees to join the "coalition."
As
goes to press, it is still unclear if the American "fix"
can be reinserted into the Turkish body politic. The Parliament
could return for another vote. However, as the March
2 New York Times reported:
"The
relationship is spoiled," said Murat Mercan, a Member of
Parliament from the majority party. "The Americans dictated
to us. It became a business negotiation, not something between
friends. It disgusted me."
For
the Turkish man and woman in the street, the final insult arrived
in the form of American political cartoons depicting Turks as shakedown
artists, "a money-grabbing belly dancer, or a prostitute bargaining
for the price of its favors," according to a British press
report titled, "Serves
rude America right."
"I
can't tell you how awful I felt when I saw the cartoons,"
Ayse Akin, a student, said. "They were so deeply insulting.
America can stick its money and its troops up its backside."
Bush:
The Ugly American
According
to the recently released results of a European
Union poll, fewer than a third of Europeans believe that the
U.S. is a force for world peace, and only 20 percent think America
actively fights world poverty. The survey was taken last October
and November, before Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's
barrage of insults against the French, Germans and other denizens
of "old Europe."
Bush's
ideological ally, rightwing Spanish
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, told the Wall Street Journal
"we need a lot of Colin Powell and very little of Rumsfeld."
Two million Spaniards demonstrated against the U.S. and their
government, February 15, contributing to Aznar's sour attitude.
A
poll
of British citizens, last week, showed President Bush head to
head with Saddam Hussein as "the greatest threat to world peace"
- tied at 45 percent, each.
"Africa's
Right to Health"
It
comes as no surprise, then, that those who know him best - African
Americans - have little confidence in Bush's State of the Union
promises to lend decisive assistance in the fight against AIDS in
Africa. Many of the nation's most prominent Black ministers joined
Africa Action, a Washington-based advocacy group, to demand substantive
action to advance "Africa's
Right to Health."
"The
President's recently announced plan for AIDS in Africa will not
provide any significant increase in funding until 2005, despite
its promise to contribute $15 billion as a matter of 'emergency,'"
said the Africa Action statement. "Over 5 million Africans
will die of AIDS before then without access to treatment that such
funding could provide."
The
ministerial letter to Bush charged that U.S. foreign policy fosters
social disintegration and disease in Africa:
We
call upon you today to support the full cancellation of the debts
owed by African countries to the World Bank and the IMF, as a
crucial first step toward reducing the outward flow of financial
resources desperately needed within Africa. The reasons this must
be done are more than sufficient to make the case. They include
the illegitimacy of most debts incurred by unrepresentative regimes
of the past that received loans for geopolitical and not developmental
reasons during the Cold War; the liability of creditors themselves
for failures of the economic policies that they imposed; and the
fact that paying these illegitimate debts deprives Africa of investment
in health, education and physical infrastructure at a time when
the continent faces the worst health crisis in human history.
Imperial
end game
The
Pirates in charge of the U.S. machinery of state are determined
that, within weeks, all of the appeals, proposals and dreams for
a more just world order will be mooted, superceded by a global American
hegemony, born in fire. By declaring war on international structures
and rules of behavior that are largely the creation of the U.S.
and Europeans, the Bush regime has surrounded itself with enemies
of its own making.
In
the American Century envisioned by the Pirates, the U.S. will be
the arbiter of relations among nations. The scope of other nation's
sovereignty will be measured against and determined by the perceived
interests of the United States. To paraphrase the infamous Dred
Scott Decision, no nation will have sovereignty that the United
States is bound to respect.
The
major players of the European Union have gotten the whiff of what
is in store, and are arranging themselves, defensively. Donald Rumsfeld
speaks derisively of France and Germany as representing the "old"
Europe, but behind the sneer is hysteria at the prospect of the
"new" euro as an alternative world currency.
The
impending war against Iraq is an oil currency war, a preemptive
strike against the euro's potential to challenge the U.S. dollar
as the sole denominator of petroleum purchases. By seizing the Iraqi
oil fields and positioning itself to do the same in Saudi Arabia,
Iran and throughout the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea and South
Asia, the U.S. can stop the euro cold and rule as its own OPEC,
awesomely armed and dreadfully dangerous. The dollar will remain
supreme, backed by the oil reserves of the globe.
None
of the Bush men can explain why Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat
to the United States because the Iraqi dictator is not a threat.
Rather, he is welcomed as a godsend, the perfect straw man to be
knocked down on the road to hegemony.
Our
colleague Dr. Sonja Ebron's February 20 analysis, "Why
African Americans Should Oppose the War" is a brilliant
explication of the currency crisis propelling the American blitzkrieg.
Throughout the world, thinkers and planners in government, banking,
commerce, popular organizations and anti-imperialist groupings -
the universe of the Pirate's potential "subjects" - grapple
with the stark choices posed by America's grab for domination.
believes - and Dr. Ebron agrees - that the journal "Aspects
of India's Economy" has produced the most incisive and
exhaustive analysis to date of the forces driving the U.S. to make
war in the Middle East.
[I]f
other imperialist powers were able to displace US dominance in
the region, the dollar would be dealt a severe blow. The pressure
for switching to the euro would become irresistible and would
ring the death knell of dollar supremacy. On the other hand, complete
US control of oil would preserve the rule of the dollar (not only
would oil producers continue to use the dollar for their international
trade, but the dollar's international standing would rise) and
hurt the credibility of the euro....
The
thrust is clear: Once it has seized the oil wells of west Asia,
the US will determine not only which firms would bag the deals,
not only the currency in which oil trade would be denominated,
not only the price of oil on the international market, but even
the destination of the oil.
The
book length special issue, "Behind the Invasion of Iraq,"
is available online. We urge all proponents of peace and social
justice to spend time with this document, an invaluable resource
for understanding the events that have led us to the gates of Armageddon.
UN's
secret plan for Iraq
Bowing
to the inevitability of a U.S. takeover of Iraq, United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan has for the past month been at work
on a plan to pry America out of the country within three months
of the crushing of Saddam Hussein. Britain's TimesOnline
reports it has obtained a copy of the plan, which would reestablish
the world body's authority following a U.S. invasion while avoiding
total UN responsibility for Iraq.
"The
preferred option for the UN is a UN assistance mission that would
provide political facilitation, consensus-building, national reconciliation
and the promotion of democratic governance and the rule of law,"
the plan says. "Full Iraqi ownership is the desired end-state
whereby a heavy UN involvement is unnecessary. The people of Iraq,
rather than the international community, should determine national
government structures, a legal framework and governance arrangements."
TimesOnline
reports the plan "envisages the UN stepping in about three
months after a successful conquest of Iraq, and steering the country
towards self-government, as in Afghanistan." The UN would "avoid
taking direct control of Iraqi oil or becoming involved in vetting
Iraqi officials for links to the President or staging elections
under US military occupation."
France,
Germany, Russia and possibly China will seek to influence post-war
Iraq through various UN proposals.
As
at the Berlin
Conference of 1885, when colonial powers and the U.S. drew lines
on the map of not only Africa but also Europe, the carving knives
have been raised. However, Bush is determined to decide who sits
at the table - if anyone. And the feast will be a dollars-only affair.
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