Posts Tagged Bush
OWS Movement Imported From Spain But Made in America
Posted by Cliff Lyon in Activist groups, Economic Exploitation, Egypt, George W. Bush, Liberal, Occupy SLC, Occupy Wall Street, Poverty, Society, Tea Bag Party, Unemployment, utah, Utah Politics on November 10, 2011
When the Wall Street banks collapsed under the Bush/Rove/GOP, it sucked the wind out of the industrialized economies and quickly bled out to across the globe. If you watched anything other than Beck/O’Reily/Hannity et. al. you will remember the first major protests took place in Iceland.
Meanwhile back at home, a suppressed albeit deeply, cherished, American tradition called racism was reignited when Empire Murdock planted the first images of two adorable, little, chocolate-colored girls playing in the Lincoln Bedroom into the collective brains of pasty White America some of whom in turn, strapped guns to their hips and took to the streets in costumes reminiscent our racist forefathers.
God forgive us for being distracted while the rest of the world began to burn.
The OWS movement came to the western world through Spain. By early 2011, unemployment in Spain was approaching 21% (46% among youth) as the Arab Spring hit Egypt. On May 15, 2011 a series of protest, coordinated through Twitter and Facebook, unfolded in 58 Spanish cities.
By now you’ve heard of the New York City General Assembly. They began this summer as a series of meetings “on the fourth floor of 16 Beaver Street, near Wall Street. In addition to New Yorkers, there were also Egyptians, Spaniards, Japanese and Greeks. Dick Army was not among them.
Due to the lack of centralized coordination its hard to know for sure but as this writing there are an estimated 300 OWS protests in the US alone, over 3,000 arrests. So far, no sign of the tea party.
One of the several Salt Lake OWS Facebook page is approaching 9000 members. You will not find a larger Facebook group specific to Utah. Here’s the local website
The biggest camp is at Pioneer Park downtown (map). Here’s a good video Larry found.
If you can’t camp, please at least go there and take them food (there is a full time kitchen) and warm weather supplies
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Thanks George W. Bush. Your stumbling incompetence may have changed the world for the better.
BREAKING! Tim DeChristopher Indicted! Show Trial Ahead
Posted by Cliff Lyon in DeChristopher, Tim DeChristopher, utah, Utah Politics on April 1, 2009
Tim DeChristopher INDICTED! US Attorney Brett Tolman (Utah) has leveled formal charges. Tim’s response
This will be a political show trial at taxpayer expense.
Please join www.bidder70.org to support Tim’s brave action. If you are a DKOS diarist, please go there and recommend this post.
A grand jury indicted Tim DeChristopher this afternoon. He’s charged with two counts of violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Act.
Democracy Now: University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher explains how he “bought” 22,000 acres of land in an attempt to save the property from drilling. The sale had been strongly opposed by many environmental groups. Stephen Bloch of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance said: “This is the fire sale, the Bush administration’s last great gift to the oil and gas industry.”
This is about politics. US Attorney Brett Tolman (Jason Chavetz look-alike) is Orrin Hatch’s ‘boy.’ I think we may assume Tolman has given up any hope to being retained by Obama’s Justice Department and is gunning for Jim Matheson’s (D-UT) seat or the new 4th District seat.
Utah Now (full story): He’s the 27-year-old college student and environmental activist who disrupted a public land auction last month by bidding up several parcels intended for oil and gas development. Join us as we take a closer look at what some are calling a case of modern-day monkey wrenching.
Please donate to Tim’s Legal Defense
Closing the barn doors after the horses are gone
Posted by Becky Stauffer in DeChristopher, This Blog, Tim DeChristopher on March 13, 2009
You have to give him credit for trying. Utah State Rep Mike Noel of Kanab managed to get his bill through which would punish land lease bidders who have no intention of buying those leases. This, of course, is directed at the action of our local hero, Tim DeChristopher, whose spontaneous idea managed to disrupt a fraudulent auction (the lease sales from which were later canceled by the Obama administration).
The thing is this: it’s been done. No-one would attempt to do it again because clearly the parties involved will now be very alert to any such possibility. It couldn’t happen twice. It really was the perfect protest, at the right time and done in the best possible, peaceful way. I’d call it a work of art in the civil disobedience arena, and one that cannot be duplicated.
So why do we need Rep. Noel’s bill? I guess because it always makes people feel better when they prevent something that really upset and frustrated them from happening again in the future – even if there’s no possibility of that event.
Tim DeChristopher is still the champion!
Leases Canceled and Oil Companies Lie
Posted by Becky Stauffer in Barack Obama, DeChristopher, Economic Exploitation, Energy, Environment, Lying, Tim DeChristopher, utah on February 5, 2009
Cliff posted yesterday the breaking news that Obama’s new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had nullified the BLM’s illegal sale of leases to drill for gas and oil near Utah’s national parks.
The response from the oil industry was predictable:
But Kathleen Sgamma, director of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, a nonprofit association that represents independent natural gas and oil producers in the Intermountain West, said her group had “grave concerns” over the direction the new administration was taking.
“This is going to make it more difficult to develop the natural gas resources we need for our nation’s energy security,” she said. [emphasis added]
So what about this?
Drillers cutting back in Utah’s biggest gas field
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The frenzied pace of drilling in Utah’s biggest gas field, the Uinta Basin, has seen a big decline with falling petroleum prices and tight bank credit.
The number of rigs at work statewide is down to 23, half of the number as last August, according to figures the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining plans to release Wednesday.
Also, the number of gas wells completed in January was 63, down from 84 for the same month last year.
Most of Utah’s drilling activity takes place near Vernal in the Uinta Basin, where one player, Colorado-based Gasco Energy, says it called off an expensive experiment to do horizontal drilling, which can dramatically boost production.
Gasco cited declining prices for Rocky Mountain natural gas, which is hard to pipe out of the region.
You bet the oil companies want to tie up these leases, whether they develop them or not. Look at the thousands of leases for off-shore drilling they now own but have never developed. And still, they want more of those too. And they want to rip up the delicate Utah landscape for oilshale as well!
The oil companies are not interested in our security so much as their own profits. With oil prices so low, there will be no new development. The oil companies try to make themselves look like patriots in this debacle. Let’s not be deceived. It’s only about money.
Bush lied, thousands died
Posted by Becky Stauffer in 9/11, Alberto Gonzales, Biological Weapons, Bush Administration, Condolezza Rice, Crimes, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Neocons, Nuclear Weapons, Proof Bush Lied, Rumsfeld, This Blog on January 19, 2009
On the last day of the Bush presidency, let’s review the greatest shame of his regime.
It’s almost 11 minutes in length, but extremely important. We must never forget. Will these criminals ever face justice?
Readers, please add your own links and videos in the comments. There are just too many to even narrow them down to the most succinct.
Why I Disrupted A Fraudulent Auction
Posted by Tim DeChristopher in American People, Bush Administration, DeChristopher, Environment, National Politics, Republicans, Tim DeChristopher, utah, Utah Pollution on December 20, 2008
I have been an environmentalist for most of my life. I have marched, held signs, written letters and spoken to my Congressman. I have built trails and removed invasive species in National Parks. I have educated friends on climate change and donated to a dozen different groups. Countless others have done all these same things for decades in defense of our wilderness and a livable future.
It hasn’t worked. Even with a new administration, we are not on track for a livable future. This has been made clear by James Hanson, Bill McKibben, Al Gore and many others. The legitimate pathways to power have not provided us with the ability to defend the survival of our civilization. Yesterday I decided that the crisis facing us requires more critical action than has been taken in the past. When faced with the opportunity to seriously disrupt the auction of some of our most beautiful lands in Utah to oil and gas developers, I could not ethically turn my back on that opportunity. By making bids for land that was supposed to be protected for the interests of all Americans, I tried to resist the Bush administration’s attempt to defraud the American people.
At this point it appears that I was successful in my attempts to disrupt this fraudulent auction. The federal officials who took me into custody said that I cost the oil companies in the room hundreds of thousands of dollars and prevented 22,500 acres of land from being sold for fossil fuel development. I had a very open conversation with the federal agents about my motivations and values. They were friendly, respectful, and somewhat sympathetic.
What I did no doubt puts me at significant risk, including prison. But my future was already at significant risk. As we get closer and closer to the point of too late, we have less and less to lose from resisting. Accepting the true depth of the climate crisis is extremely scary, but the purpose of fear is to motivate us to action. Many of us have sat around countless times saying how much we needed someone to do something. If I am not willing to take a stand for my generation, then who will? This year I have come to terms with the idea that I might be my own best hope to defend my future. Hopefully all of us will realize that we are the ones we have been waiting for.
The Bush Interview That Was Banned in US
Posted by Cliff Lyon in George W. Bush on July 11, 2008
This interview alone should have been a career killer, but then so should have the “bring it on” statement, the “mission accomplished” in the flight suit, or anyone of a million embarrassing (for all Americans) moments brought to you by junior.
Bush has been saved maybe forever by the bigotry of low expectations. He could probably grab German Chancellor Merkel’s breasts at this point and get away with it.
This Bush interview is making another round on the Internet.
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h/t Logan at C&L and Albert O.
This 2004 interview should be required viewing for every journalism student. I admit that I had not seen this video until today, but apparently over a million people already have and I hope that millions more will watch it as well. If the American press corps and our corporate media had asked tough questions like this of President Bush and his administration during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that public support for it would have plummeted. This interview was done in ‘04, but was never aired in the U.S., and it’s quite possible that it could have affected the outcome of the presidential election that year. Imagine the outcome if a journalist dared to interview John McCain in this way today.
McNeocons; Billions of Lies Sold
Posted by Cliff Lyon in Dick Cheney, Disgrace to the Military, George W. Bush, Neocons, Proof Bush Lied on June 6, 2008
Large lies fries anyone?
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Another Bushie Gets Religion: McClellan
Posted by Cliff Lyon in Proof Bush Lied, War Crimes on June 2, 2008
While I am pleased former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has published enough “juicy” to sell a shit-load of books. But I’m not buying his justification.
On the recent C-Span appearance, explained why he did it by describing the strong public service values instilled in him by his family. Later, he said retrospectively, he wished he had spoken up earlier and resigned in protest.
That really tugged at my heart strings…until another caller accused him of being complicit to which he repeated the new McClellan party line about having not fully appreciated (figured out) what was going on until after he left.
So which is it? Did he know and not speak out, or did he really not notice that he was the head spokesman of a Soviet style propaganda machine in which lying, deception, cover up, secrecy and all kinds of crime has become the rule?
After a lifetime of solid training in the Country-First American values of truth, transparency and public service, does McClellan actually expect us to believe that somehow he missed the fact that he was fronting for a bunch of subversive traitors?
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Makes me wanna puke. Its really obvious to me, the guy figured out that if he didn’t come clean now, his career in politics would be over. We’ll see.
Unless he’s a complete buffoon, he knew about and perpetuated a whole slew of other lies too and should hang with the rest.
Oh yeah. When asked, he promised some of the proceeds from the book would go to help survivor Iraqi families destroyed by the illegal war of choice (but he had to check with his wife on the percentage).
Why Evil Lurks in Some of The Nicest People
Posted by Cliff Lyon in George W. Bush, Greatest Hits, National Politics, People Are Nuts, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on June 10, 2007
The reason so many Americans are willing to bask in blissful ignorance, practice self-destructive politics and parrot irrational arguments is clearly explained by Conservative Authoritarianism; the research that came out of trying to understand Nazi Germany. The zoological basis of Authoritarianism is tribalism.
I’ve written about this before and I’m writing about it again because it keeps coming up over and over again in conversation.
This single interview was a my epiphany in the quest to understand why so many people are so willing to accept at face value, whatever they are told by people on TV or YouTube or church and willing to vote against their self-interest. Today those same people are the ones who have been unwilling or unable to grasp the evidence and reality that Bush, the neocon movement, his administration, have been feeding us a pack of lies in the most criminal fashion.
John Dean, Republican adviser to Richard Nixon has written a deeply disturbing book about the conservative right’s growing move toward authoritarianism and blind loyalty. Its an old concept. It worked for Hitler and others. It is at work today.
This interview with Keith Olbermann gives us a frightening new perspective on the use of fear to gain and keep power.
General obedience in not always a bad thing. Blind obedience however is possibly responsible for all the most horrific acts ever perpetrated on this planet by our species. The research Dean refers to in the book is largely the life work of Robert Altemeyer who is himself writing an online book called The Authoritarians.
Dean’s book is called Conservatives Without Conscience.
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