Abu Ghraib Prison Abuses Reported By Whistleblower, Joseph Darby ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ January 13

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Abu Ghraib Prison Abuses Reported By Whistleblower, Joseph Darby
by Davis Fleetwood

Are you obedient?

Good morning scholars. The answer you give to the question for today will most likely be a lie, but the year is long, and our experiment only beginning.

Before talking about Joseph Darby, the U.S. soldier at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, who reported U.S. abuses of Iraqi prisoners to the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division immortalizing those horrific photos, we should consider the work of Stanley Milgram.

A Yale professor, now deceased, who is most famous for his study measuring the willingness of participants to perform acts as instructed by an authority figure when those acts went against their conscience. With a vanity commonly accepted in the scientific community, this landmark study was called the Milgram experiment.

You remember this from school, yes? Participants were told they were taking part in a study about learning. When a subject got a question wrong, a man in a white lab coat and brandishing a clipboard (played by an actor) would instruct the subject (who was told he was the “teacher” in this experiment on learning) to electrocute the “learner” (also played by an actor). 37 out of 40 “teachers”  (subjects of the experiment, obediently delivered what they believed to be electric shocks of up to 450 volts to their unseen (but often heard, screaming victim). Some subjects paused at 135 volts, but when assured that they would not be held responsible, they continued on.

They obeyed the authority figure. The man in the white lab coat.

Joseph Darby, a U.S. Army specialist punching a clock at a low risk prison- that is a prison in Iraq, that, according to the internal US ARMY investigation reports admittedly did not contain any terror suspects, asked a colleague for some photos of Iraq to email home. The college gave him a CD of photos, perhaps forgetting that on that CD, along with Iraq sunsets and tourist attractions, there existed photos depicting US servicemen and women torturing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners.

If Darby were in the 37 out of 40, he would have done nothing. Everything he was trained for, and according to the Milgram study, everything in human nature itself was working against what Darby did next.

On this day in the USA, January 13, 2004 slipped the CD in an envelope with an anonymous note to the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division.

Soon thereafter, as the photos went public, Darby was having lunch in the mess hall, watching Donald Rumsfeld testify before Congress about Abu Ghraib, when Rumsfeld said:  “And we should mention that as well, 1st Specialist Joseph Darby, who alerted the appropriate authorities that abuses were occurring.”

Rumsfeld, living in a world where Milgram’s findings were the rule, was well aware that outing Darby equated putting Darby’s life in danger, and keep others from coming forward. In other words, Rumsfeld was just doing his job.

Anonymous no more, Darby’s family was moved into Federal protective housing, a prudent measure given the velocity and frequency of the death threats they were receiving.

Darby was given a JFK Profile in Courage award from Caroline and Ted Kennedy.

But they killed Kennedy.

Scholars, if today’s lesson proves anything, perhaps it is this:

Trying to change the world “one person at a time” is time wasted.

What we need to do is replace the man in the white lab coat.

I’m Davis Fleetwood reminding you that history is based on actual events.

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The Eisenhower Doctrine ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ Jan 5

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The Eisenhower Doctrine ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ Jan 5
by Davis Fleetwood

Good morning scholars.

Questions for discussion today: How long has the United States been meddling in the Middle East? What is the difference between Pre-emptive and proactive? And what exactly are the limits the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law?

On this day in the USA, Jan 5 1957 the President implemented The Eisenhower doctrine. This was not the eloquent Dwight D Eisenhower many of us know from his most daring Presidential farewell address warning our dear ears about the military industrial complex, this was four years earlier, when Dwight D was addressing Congress. And he didn’t say preventive or pre-emptive, okay? He said proactive. Perhaps a westerner experiencing the proxy violence implanted under these various doctrines through the sterilized opinion pages of The New York Times could split those rhetorical hairs for us, but I’m not so sure a resident of Lebanon or the Gaza strip or Iraq or Pakistan could.

Here is how Dwight explained it: To meet the “increased danger from International Communism” new U.S. sponsored programs of economic and military cooperation that would “secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of friendly nations.” Soon thereafter, some 15 thousand U.S. troops were sent into Lebanon, and we have been there, in one form or another, ever since. Just to help. We are here to help. Be not afraid, says Uncle Sam, (sing it with me now:) We come before you always. Come follow me, and I will give you rest.

Truth is, we must have been meddling in the Middle East even longer than that, no?

Certainly the first coordinated covert action against the Middle East took place long before the United States was even born. I’m talking, of course about Western born artists “ “ the image of Jesus Christ and depicting him as a white man. A footnote: Sheppard Fairy, following a tradition established by such art world luminaries like Andy Warhol and Bob Rauschenberg, the artist Sheppard Fairy “ repurposed“ an AP photo of Barack Obama to create the posterized image of candidate Obama with the single word HOPE. This work of transformed an election and was thought to be protected under fair use copyright law. If so, changing the skin tone on the cadaver hanging from the cross to strike fear and guilt into a white race, is also protected, no?

A footnote to the footnote: Sheppard Fairy, sued by the AP for the use of the Obama photograph, lost in federal court. What are the implications for artistic rendering of a white Jesus? Discuss and get back to me.

And we’re back: As the United States of America come into power, defending the Holocaust they inflicted in the name of “manifest destiny” only to have history reward them, who could blame them for extending their reach? The Eisenhower doctrine was but the next logical step.

The U.S., self defined as both a Christian nation and as a Capitalist one (and while it is redundant to note the predatory nature of capitalism, this fact is oft buried and seems pertinent here) has an interest in the Middle East because of its connection to the book of revelations and the book of trickle down economics.

I’m Davis Fleetwood reminding you that history is based on actual events.

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Sex, Love and Nancy Pelosi ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ Jan 4

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Sex, Love and Nancy Pelosi ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ Jan 4
by Davis Fleetwood

Sex, love and Nancy Pelosi. Where do they intersect? Good morning scholars, this is this day in the USA for January 4^th.

The 110^th session of Congress began on January 3^rd, 2007 with Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, wielding more power over the legislative process than an ovulating Brittany Spears in heat would wield over a 16 aspiring Eminem wanna be from Eu Claire Wisconsin if she were to show up at his home coming dance hopped up on a ecstasy-morphine-cannabis cocktail and take her curvaceous ass onto the dance floor and grind in his scrawny lap.

Now that is a lot of influence.

Some may call that sexist.

I would assert that that extended and sexually specific metaphor is necessary to illustrate the level of influence that Democrats had over the course of world events.

And on January 4^th, 2007, such female objectifying humor was rendered so 20th century as yet another glass ceiling shattered- and Nancy Pelosi become the most powerful female in US political history by becoming the first female speaker of the house and arguably the most powerful of the influence wielding Democratic party of the USA.

If only the shards from that shattered glass ceiling didn’t cause so much bleeding.

You see, my fellow scholars, the 110^th Congress was elected on a referendum against the “War on terror” and against President Bush’s War on the Constitution.

But as the civilian death toll in Iraq approached 1 million and as the constitution suffered the slings and arrows of the outrageous Bush administration, Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party chose political expediency over, well, any action at all.

Did Pelosi support a single payer healthcare system that provides healthcare for all?
Did Pelosi oppose the FISA law and the Bush policy of illegal wiretapping?
Did Pelosi support cutting the bloated, wasteful military budget?
Did Pelosi support labor by supporting a unilateral re-writing of NAFTA?
Did Pelosi support the separation of Church and State by eliminating all federal funds from going to faith based charities?
Did Pelosi lead her fellow democrats in voting against the re-authorization of the patriot act?

You can bet your the ashes from your burnt bra that no way in hell did she do any of those things.

This is a woman who famously declared on the all female talk show “THE VIEW” that she would be willing to impeach George Bush if anyone knew of any crimes that he committed.

Torture, spying, lying a nation into war and other high crimes and misdemeanors committed by former President Bush as laid out in the 35 articles of impeachment that were laid out by Dennis Kucinich and silenced by fellow democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi helped lies travel halfway around the world before the truth could even put its shoes on. Those lies killed innocent people. Those lies have unforeseen blowback attached to them.

And Nancy Pelosi, presented with an unparalleled historical opportunity, did no more to make the women’s movement proud than a coked up pop star shaking her skanky ass to sell some tabloids.

I’m Davis Fleetwood reminding you that history is based on actual events.

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What’s so funny about peace, love and Marxism? ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ Jan 3

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What’s so funny about peace, love and Marxism? ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ Jan 3
by Davis Fleetwood
Good morning scholars. Discussion topics for the day include: Who killed Kennedy and why? And what’s so funny about peace, love and Marxism?

The CIA failed in their efforts to assassinate Castro. They recruited the mob. The mob failed in killing Castro.

So, while the CIA was busy training counterrevolutionaries (including, but not limited to a puppet government that had installed in Guatemala) that would rid the world of the evil communist threat that resided in Cuba, it was on January 3, 1961 that one of the only overt actions executed by the U.S. Government against the Castro regime took place. The Dwight Eisenhower administration, with only two weeks left before the inauguration of a man won the election by promising to rid the world of the evils of Communism – John F Kennedy- terminated diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Some say Kennedy won because he was prettier than his opponent, Eisenhower VP Tricky Dick Nixon. With more and more consumers in the capitalist aspiring hegemony of the 1960s United States owning television sets, Nixon didn’t stand a chance against a player like Kennedy. Others credit those same mob connections that failed to kill Castro with rigging the election in Kennedy’s favor. Yet no true scholar denies that it was some potent combination of the Mob, the CIA and Cuba that blew the pretty face of JFK out the back of his skull and onto the trunk the infamous 1961 Lincoln Continental Convertible on a sunny fall afternoon in Dallas.

Political assassinations were so “in” in the sixties, you dig? Kennedy had pissed off so many groups with the ability to kill him that applying the “motive, means, and opportunity” criteria hardly narrows the field of suspects.

But JFK’s death is a topic for another day.
In cutting off diplomatic ties with Cuba and waging an anti communist propaganda campaign; the U.S. government successfully transformed the reputation of Cuba revolutionary figures. You see, in the early 60s, the majority of the U.S. population was still in love with the Cuban revolutionaries and their heroic struggle. Castro and Che Guevara were seen as romantic freedom fighters, beating unthinkable odds to establish freedom. They were the socio- political precursors to Rocky Balboa. But not so in the living rooms of the U.S., newly retrofitted with those plum benefits of capitalism: the Television set. General Electric, manufactures of machines that killed in a wide variety of ways, had given every God fearing Wally, Beaver Daddy knows best home the means to deliver the U.S. government’s propaganda campaign that turned U.S. workers’ opinions concerning Cuba on their head.

One would think, after 50 years in which the world has only gotten more dangerous, and the rich have only gotten richer, the poor poorer, the middle class ever shrinking that it might be time again to ask the question:

What’s so funny about peace love and Marxism?

I’m Davis Fleetwood, reminding you that history is based on actual events.

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Emancipation Proclamation ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ January 1

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Emancipation Proclamation ♦ This Day In The USA ♦ January 1
by Davis Fleetwood
(scroll down for poll)

On this day in the USA, 1994, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, went into affect. The intended effect of NAFTA on capitalism is not unlike like the effect steroids on a bodybuilder: Temporarily pretty on the outside, while you testes atrophy shrink to the size of a garbanzo bean. Metaphor loosely translated: NAFTA  increases the share of the pie that go to the richest 1% of in the world, and the rest of us get yellowish, tasteless legumes.

On January 1^st, 1892, Ellis Island opened and over the course of the next six decades welcomed some 12 million immigrants who made their way over from Europe on crammed, disease-infected ships. Irish, Italians, and a 127 Chinese heard the siren song of Lady Liberty to:

“Give me your tired, your poor, 
 Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, we are fast loosing ground in the Industrial Revolution, now that we have abolished slavery.”

So if you were male, and you could pass a physical, you got yourself a room on the lower east side and just like that, you were an American Citizen. Females, the elderly, and people with headache, stomach upset or erections lasting longer than six hours were sent packing back to the old country. The Irish and the Italians built bridges and railroads and skyscrapers, while the 127 Chinese went on to head up math and Science departments an top Universities all over the country to teach the silver spoon leeches some physics and before you can click your heels together and say “Manhattan Project” you have got yourself a handy dandy micro history of the 20^th century. A century that saw the USA win the race of world military dominance, riding the crazy train of a Conscienceless Capitalism out of control combined with a religious outlook that has not gotten a new operating system since the middle ages that is now hurtling exponentially closer to a self fulfilling prophecy of Armageddon. And before you knew what was happening, the privileged class had circumvented the abolishment of slavery, and learned to get on getting on in a post civil war America with slavery 2.0: Cheap labor shoved into slums breaking their backs to preserve the “top-hat-white-glove” crowd justifying the pornographic hoarding of wealth with some Ayn Randian philosophy.

Do you think this is what Abe Lincoln had in mind when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1^st, 1863? Of course not- Lincoln cared little about the cause of slavery- he was just trying to win the civil war by denying the Confederates free labor. Were slaves in Union States freed in 1863 by this famous proclamation?

Nigga please!

That would have alienated the privileged class of the North. Do you think it is the American way to put a man’s face on the $5 bill for loosing a war?

I’m Davis Fleetwood, reminding you that history is based on actual events.