Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

Over the years, for whatever reasons, I have had the opportunity to be around many people who ultimately died, some youngish, and some older, and I would sit and listen to these people talk about life, and death, and that period in between, especially AFTER a person found out, from a doctor, that they had what was alleged to be an "incurable" disease, or cancer.

And in each case, each person was thankful for "release", in the end, my own father several years ago included!

Time to go!

A point of diminshing returns reached and exceeded!

Because they said it was!

And to a one, their ends were all quite peaceful, actually!

One older woman with cancer had to hang around, her words, for quite a time, BECAUSE her daughters just couldn't let go of her, and so, in her words, she sucked down some more pain in order to try and get them to deal with theirs, and finally, she just could do it no longer, and so, she asked me to look in on them after she was gone, to see that they finally accepted the reality THAT NONE OF US CAN BE DOWN HERE ON EARTH FOREVER, despite the GRANDIOSE IDEAS of their own power that the JEBULON BUSH's of the world might think they have to keep us on feeding tubes and breathing machines FOREVER, or until the money runs out, anyway, at which point all human life down here on this earth of ours, or at least here in OUR America, becomes worthless.

My own mother was a trained nurse, and so she knew some of medicine, and she "caught" cancer at a fairly young age, and she struggled with that cancer from the time that I was but a boy, until I was grown, and she died, AT HOME and in her own bed!

She was in the hospital, of course, for awhile, and then in disgust, she checked herself out and came home.

In her words, she was going to live the rest of her life in what SHE considered dignity, WITHOUT doctors cutting off more and more pieces of her, her words, and when she could not live any longer, then oh well!

And she did!

I just lost an aunt, an uncle and a cousin, two more to cancer and one to Parkinson's, and they all died peacefully at home, in their beds, as well, with family around, and no one from the State Police hovering around outside to SIEZE them and make them live some longer, because some governor thought he had the ULTIMATE power over them, and the days of their lives!

Naturalness!

Acceptance of death as a part of life, as radical a concept as that may be, here in this land of eternal youth that has become OUR America, or somebody's, Scrushy's, probably, for the money that can be made off of keeping us alive forever, regardless of how much a vegetable we really might be in the interim!

The other day, I listened to some PUNDIT or GURU or whatever on the radio talking about Terry Schiavo, AND HOW IT WAS TABOO IN THIS COUNTRY TO THINK OR TALK ABOUT DEATH, and I thought to myself, ESPECIALLY as a combat veteran watching this nation embroiled in a war of agression in Iraq, where impersonal delivery of death to them by us is a daily occurrence, what a crock of crapola that is!

TABOO?

It is TABOO to think or talk about death?

Okay, so then, that must banish death then, if I have this straight, EXCEPT ....

It does not do anything at all, but blind and delude us, UNLESS, of course, there are people out there who will never die, THANKS TO MODERN SCIENCE, and so, will get to keep investing in the stock market forever, thus getting richer and richer and richer, down here on earth, and more power to them, I suppose, although I am not sure for what!

As for me?

Who knows?

And certainly not JEBULON or George W. Bush!

[Abu Beacon]

WHAT IN THE HELL DO THEY THINK THEY ARE DOING HERE, and just who exactly do these Bush boys think they are - BESIDES A PAIR OF GODS, of course!

George's brother, JEBULON, was going to have his police come in and "sieze" this poor woman, Terry Schiavo, as though she were a piece of JEBULON's property?
AND
SINCE WHEN?

HOW DO THE BUSH BOYS GET THE POWER TO DETERMINE AND THEN NUMBER AND ORDAIN THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES?

Well, Livyjr, it's really all very simple.

Most things work in small increments. As time goes by, these litle bits and pieces grow and get bigger and bigger.

First you have a president that was not good, not bad, just so so.

When his term was up - shock city - he did not get re elected.

So - since he had a couple of sons, a lot of money, and a following of people with lots of money, he made a decision which he was pretty sure he could pull off.

He decided to start a dynasty.

To make sure everything went according to plan, every possible angle was put into place to keep this succession going.

Especially key people in key places.

They followed the rule that Russia's Stalin articulated which was -

" It's not the people who vote who matter. It's the people who count the votes. "

Very simple, eh?

Guess what? It worked.

Now, the next small piece.

This newly elected leader puts like minded people in positions of power.

If an event should happen, everything is in place, waiting for the right moment.

That moment arrived on Sep't 11, 2001.

The people in the nation became anxious, fearful, unsure of themselves and/or what to do, they look for a leader.

They ask ---

How could that happen here?

Oh, it was so easy to grab more power.

Just use the right slogans. Wave the flag a lot. Talk about terrists. Use the words " FREEDOM, and DEMOCRACY, AND PATRIOTISM " a lot.

Most important, find a fall guy.

That was easy. There was one running a country called Iraq and he was not a nice person anyway.

So, let's have him take the fall, and we will now own an oil rich country.

The rest is history.

Little bits at a time.

A president with much more power than he ought to have.

Citizens bought off with " tax cuts ".

Corporations who had a willing ear in the power circles. They earned it with their financial support.

All of these elements part of an overall PLAN.

The president is now a KING.

People do not dare to disagree with a KING.

As time goes by, the King promotes himself.

NOW, he is a God. A president God.

Or is it a God president.

Well, semantics.

So you see, Livyjr - that's how the Bush boys get the power to determine and then number and ordain the days of our lives, as you mentioned.

I know you knew this all the time.

But it's good to get the facts out in the open.

The clue is to have everything in place and wait for ( or cause ) the right event to start the plan moving forward.

Oh yes, one more thing. Be part of a dynasty. The Bush dynasty.

Long live the King!

Or is it more apropos to declare " We have no God but Bush. "

Either way.

A.B.

[Livyjr]

SO?

Just what is going on in here these days, then, Livyjr?

Well, based on a lot of things that are going on, here in OUR America, and out there in the candid world as well, we're having a discussion that kind of centers on exactly what really did go on back there in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Mr. Thomas Paine uttered these words above here that start off the top of the page EVERY DAY in here, about "THE CAUSE OF AMERICA IS THE CAUSE OF ALL MANKIND!"

In this day and age of the ABSOLUTE POWER of George and JEBULON Bush over seemingly everything on this earth of OURS, and this REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE that takes it upon itself to divide us as a nation, and to further accuse and denounce half or more of us as being "UN-AMERICAN", because we too are not card-carrying, goose-stepping right-wingers, WHAT REALLY IS THE "CAUSE OF ALL MANKIND", anymore?

To be a REPUBLICAN?

Or aspire to be one anyway, IF WE HAVE THE MONEY?

And/or the seeming necessary lack of integrity to stomach being one, in my own personal experience of it, anyway!

Were those really just empty words that Mr. Thomas Paine was uttering back then, OR DID THEY REALLY HAVE MEANING?

IS THE CAUSE OF OUR AMERICA TODAY, RIGHT NOW IN OUR TIMES, REALLY THAT OF ALL MANKIND, AS TOM PAINE SAYS ABOVE, or is it just the CAUSE of KARL "THE ARCHITECT" ROVE and this REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE?

Stay tuned!

[Livyjr]

Well, Livyjr, it's really all very simple.

Most things work in small increments.

Long live the King!

Or is it more apropos to declare "We have no God but Bush."

Either way.

A.B.

And these "gods" that are the BUSH BOYS trouble me, Mr. A.B. because I am in essence quite a simple person, who thinks that he has another GOD who said "DO NOT PUT FALSE GODS BEFORE ME", and so ......

A quandry, eh?

RENDER UNTO CAESAR, especially these two or three, OR ELSE A THUG WILL COME AND BUST YOUR HEAD!

It is interesting that when I first came into this FORUM, right after the election was over in November of 2004, my first posts were talking about James "Jemmy" Madison, and this "thing" of "destructive faction" here in OUR America, that he was talking about in FEDERALIST No. 10, all those long years ago, at the time of OUR nation's founding.

Almost as if he saw the BUSH BOYS coming, and so wanted to do all that he could way back then to avert the CONSTITUTIONAL crisis these BUSH BOYS would bring to OUR America today, BUT OF COURSE, he was really powerless to do anything of the sort, BECAUSE ...

OUR America is all of us, and not just a James "Jemmy" Madision, and when enough of us no longer desire LIBERTY, and the hardships that go along with it, BUT INSTEAD seek KIND MASTERS, for the apparent ease that they can SELL us, well, "AMERICA" as James Madison might have conceived it is simply gone, as if it never existed, which in many ways, it never did!

James Madison's words in FEDERALIST No. 10 are just like a tree falling in the woods when no one was around to see it fall, OR TO HEAR IT!

IT MADE NO NOISE!

Or rather, IF IT DID, that fact was never registered anywhere, and so, no record of that "noise" exists.

And so WE DO have the BUSH BOYS, and these questions which we can either confront in here, or ignore, OUT THERE, which, in my experience of people up here in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE of New York where I am, IS HOW many people make it through their own days up here.

The IMMENSITY of it all has just become too much for people to assimilate anymore, and so, they just shut down, almost totally and completely!

And then a state of seeming madness and chaos takes over.

GANG WARS at the local "HOT MALL" threaten a curfew.

A mother just arrested locally for having a party for her fifteen year old daughter where she served alcohol, including Schnappes, to children down to twelve years old.

Adults hosting parties for teenagers where the parents show pornographic films.

On and on and on.

In the case of this mother, her statement was that the kids were going to get the alcohol, anyway, so better at her house than outside somewhere!

MOD-RIN MURIKA, in all of its glory, and above us all, RESPLENDENT, and RAMPANT, the FABULOUS, GLORIOUS BUSH BOYS!

James Madison, what think you of what has been wrought here in OUR America since your days?

I for one am curious!

And maybe jeffmoskin and Mr. A.B. are as well!

And so .....

[jeffmoskin]

Well, Livyjr, it's really all very simple.

Most things work in small increments. As time goes by, these litle bits and pieces grow and get bigger  and bigger.

First you have a president that was not good, not bad, just so so.

When his term was up - shock city - he did not get re elected.

So - since he had a couple of sons, a lot of money, and a following of people with lots of money, he made a decision which he was pretty sure he could pull off.

He decided to start a dynasty.

To make sure everything went according to plan, every possible angle was put into place to keep this succession going.

Especially key people in key places.

They followed the rule that Russia's Stalin articulated which was -

" It's not the people who vote who matter. It's the people who count the votes. "

Very simple, eh?

Guess what? It worked.

Now, the next small piece.

This newly elected leader puts like minded people in positions of power.

If an event should happen, everything is in place, waiting for the right moment.

That moment arrived on Sep't 11, 2001.

The people in the nation became anxious, fearful, unsure of themselves and/or what to do, they look for a leader.

They ask ---

How could that happen here?

Oh, it was so easy to grab more power.

Just use the right slogans. Wave the flag a lot. Talk about terrists. Use the words " FREEDOM, and DEMOCRACY, AND PATRIOTISM  " a lot.

Most important, find a fall guy.

That was easy. There was one running a country called Iraq and he was not a nice person anyway.

So, let's have him take the fall, and we will now own an oil rich country.

The rest is history.

Little bits at a time.

A president with much more power than he ought to have.

Citizens bought off with " tax cuts ".

Corporations who had a willing ear in the power circles. They earned it with their financial support.

All of these elements part of an overall PLAN.

The president is now a KING.

People do not dare to disagree with a KING.

As time goes by, the King promotes himself.

NOW, he is a God. A president God.

Or is it a God president.

Well, semantics.

So you see, Livyjr - that's how the Bush boys get the power to determine and then number and ordain the days of our lives, as you mentioned.

I know you knew this all the time.

But it's good to get the facts out in the open.

The clue is to have everything in place and wait for ( or cause ) the right event to start the plan moving forward.

Oh yes, one more thing. Be part of a dynasty. The Bush dynasty.

Long live the King!

Or is it more apropos to declare " We have no God but Bush. "

Either way.

A.B.

A pretty good summary of what in fact has befallen us.

But...

"When his term was up - shock city - he did not get re elected"
Let us not forget H Ross Perot, who siphoned off 20 percent of the vote, the greatest percentage of whom would have voted to re-elect Bush the Elder.

Bush the Elder tried his hardest NOT TO LET PEROT INTO THE DEBATES.

Remember?

And it was PEROT who asked all the "embarrassing questions" so that Clinton didn't have to.

And Clinton was elected president with 43 percent of the total votes cast.

[Livyjr]

A quandry, eh?

RENDER UNTO CAESAR, especially these two or three, OR ELSE A THUG WILL COME AND BUST YOUR HEAD!

"THE CAUSE OF AMERICA is in a great measure THE CAUSE OF ALL MANKIND?"

YEAH, RIGHT!

Go into God alone knows how many public establishments here in America AND MAKE THAT STATEMENT and see what happens TO YOU when the MILITARY CHANNEL is on cable TV, and what is purported to be OUR troops are barging into Iraqi homes, and scattering possessions after placing barbed wire all around the homes that they have entered BY FORCE, and you make a public comment about what are purported to be OUR troops humiliating and degrading Iraqi women, FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT, of course, FOR WE ARE after all a nation that cannot stand BOREDOM, and being jaded, we do like the violence, especially when it is on TV and so cannot spill over INTO OUR OWN VERY SACRED LIVES!

WE ARE A DIVIDED NATION TODAY, in more ways that can now be counted, and what about Iraq?

Let's take a moment to look and see IF the GOD George W. Bush is succeeding in DIVIDING that nation as successfully as he has DIVIDED OUR America:

Top Stories - Knight Ridder Newspapers

"Latest casualties in Iraq: Ethnic jokes"

Wed Mar 23, 4:12 PM ET

By Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nazar Joudi misses the days when laughter echoed through the musty alleyway where he and his friends - cobblers, goldsmiths and tailors - told vivid jokes to escape the war.

Their tales of dimwitted Shiite Muslims, unlucky Kurds and hapless Sunni Muslim tribesmen enlivened a dark corner of a Baghdad marketplace and nurtured an oral tradition found throughout the Arab world.

Puffing cheap cigarettes and slurping tiny cups of tea, the men would laugh until tears streamed down their haggard faces.

But after Iraq's Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, Joudi noticed that divisions were emerging among his old friends.

Shiites sided with Shiites, Kurdish barbs took on a sharper edge and everything offended the Sunnis.

Ethnic and religious jokes lost their humor, Joudi said with sadness, so the men stopped coming and the ritual died.

"Now if you tell a joke about a Sunni or a Kurd, you wonder whether you're hurting their feelings," said Joudi, 42, who's a Shiite.

"People are just not relaxed about that stuff anymore."

With ethnic and sectarian tensions coursing through Iraqi politics and seeping into the streets, poking fun at another Iraqi's ethnicity or beliefs is increasingly taboo.

One-liners that once were traded in public and broadcast on the radio now are whispered only among close friends or, safer still, text-messaged from cell phone to cell phone.

Few Iraqis are willing to risk starting a fight over a joke, and in a place where just about everyone is armed, offending the wrong person could be fatal.

"I don't want them to misunderstand me, thinking I'm a racist or something," said Ali Razak, 25, a Shiite college student who gave up ethnic jokes after bumping heads with classmates.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, jokes about the Sunni dictator or his tribe were forbidden, but everyone else was fair game.

Cracking on Kurds became a national pastime.

Shiites, particularly those who come from southeastern cities, were derided as "shiroogi" - a word that means "eastern" but is used pejoratively as uneducated or backward.

Sunni jokes are almost always told through one prominent tribe, the Dulaimis of Ramadi, who're stereotyped as bumbling and provincial.

Each group had its own customs and suspicions of outsiders, but they all lived under a dictatorship, and there was nothing to do but laugh at one sect's claims of superiority, said Abdul Amir al Qassab, 60, a Sunni travel agent in Baghdad.

Then Saddam's ouster created a power vacuum:

The Shiite majority wanted representation, Kurds demanded equal rights and Sunnis feared revenge from both groups.

The January elections deepened the divide, forcing an uneasy strain among communities that had intermarried and lived as neighbors for centuries.

"All our old jokes were about the Kurds, and they were just as bad about the Arabs, but it was always OK," al Qassab said.

"But now who dares to tell a joke about the Kurds?"

"There are sensitivities now, and even when we don't talk about it, we can feel it."

Those who still tell ethnic or sectarian jokes have tailored them to the new circumstances.

The new Shiite stereotype is an Iran-loving, doctrinaire believer who wants to outlaw anything that's fun.

Kurds are portrayed as demanding, wily strangers who don't really want to be part of Iraq.

And with Sunnis the backbone of the insurgency, the proverbial Dulaimi tribesman is blamed for all of Iraq's ills.

One joke tells of a Dulaimi blowing himself up in an empty field because he'd heard that the grass was imported from America.

Another popular joke concerns two Dulaimi friends who visit a Shiite mosque and hear worshipers crying for men named Hussein and Ali.

The two Sunnis don't know that the mourning is for the two most important Shiite saints, who died centuries ago.

One Dulaimi turns to the other and says, "Hey, they're looking for the people who killed these Hussein and Ali guys."

"Let's get out of here before they blame us!"

"In the old days, there were mutual jokes between Kurds and Dulaimis," said Mahdi al Dulaimi, a 27-year-old college student and a member of the lampooned tribe.

"Now we Dulaimis are the stars."

The change is palpable to Omar Mohammed, a portly, proud Kurd who endured 25 years of Kurdish jokes from Arab customers who bought olives and feta cheese from his deli in Baghdad.

While some of the cracks were lighthearted, Mohammed said, others left him feeling humiliated and unable to respond.

"I would just talk to the man politely to make him feel ashamed of himself."

"Or I'd just ignore him," he said.

"They looked at us and laughed and pretended it was in a good way, but in their hearts they didn't mean it."

The jokes have stopped now, he said, though the occasional customer still makes fun of his Kurdish-accented Arabic.

When he was asked what he'd do if an Arab shopper cracked an ethnic joke in front of him these days, Mohammed made sure the deli was empty and shut the door.

He looked both ways, then lowered his voice.

"One day, two Dulaimis left Ramadi for Baghdad ...," he began, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Shatha al Awsy and a reporter who isn't named for security reasons contributed to this report.

end quote

HATE!

It's just so good for business!

Ask CLEARCHANNELSWORLDWIDE!

And Rush Limbaugh!

And George W. Bush!

And Dick Cheney!

And the REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE!

They'll tell you it is just so, and has to be that way, for them!

Somebody has to succeed after all, and it might as well be them!

Which means of course, that somebody else just has to fall, to make it be so, and that would have to be us!

And them Dulamies, as well, apparently from what this story has to say anyway!

BUT ...

They are just Iraqis, and not at all like George W. Bush and HIS, so who cares?

[Livyjr]

A pretty good summary of what in fact has befallen us.

But...

Remember?

And it was PEROT who asked all the "embarrassing questions" so that Clinton didn't have to.

And Clinton was elected president with 43 percent of the total votes cast.

However that all worked out, jeffmoskin, with respect to what role Ross Perot may or may not have played in that election back then, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING to me, as an American, was that BIG BUSH was held to being just a one-term president, and so, THEN, AT LEAST, OUR nation was spared FOUR MORE YEARS of RULE by the REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE!

BUT ...

Like any predatory ORGANIZATION, they "learn", and EVOLVE, and so ......

Here we are today!

WITH A DYNASTY of BUSH's, here in OUR REPUBLIC of America!

Or is it really "THE ONCE-REPUBLIC", and now no more?

[Livyjr]

In organizations, the LEADER's role is to help ALL members find their place and direct them together into progress and fulfillment.

Even though some people may be insufficient, or unrefined, Lao Tze asks, "WHY waste them?"

An Evolved Leader is certain to provide for the necessary education of EVERYONE in the organization.

In this way, ALL members become integrated in the organization, and the leader's position is established.

To MAINTAIN THAT POSITION, Evolved Leaders DO NOT put emphasis on the material advantages and the grand appearances of leadership, for these will only serve TO SEPARATE THE WORLD OF THE LEADER FROM THE WORLD OF THE PEOPLE!

THE PEOPLE'S NEEDS CANNOT BE MET BY SUCH A LEADER!

Instead, Evolved Leaders look within to sense the direction of social evolution.

In this way, they GUIDE the people ON THE APPROPRIATE path, and THEY MAKE NO MISTAKES!

Commentaries on Tao Te Ching by R.L. Wing

[Livyjr]

And that brings us to today!

SO!

How about that?

World - AP Asia

"Rice: European Nations Must Not Arm China"

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

In Seoul, Rice conducted an unusual press conference with Korean Internet reporters.

The event, meant to highlight the freewheeling nature of computer communication in an open democracy, got off to a bad start when American security guards tackled a peace activist as he shouted to get Rice's attention.

"Miss Rice, the North Korean people are dying and they are crying for your help," yelled the activist, German physician and former aid worker Norbert Vollertsen.

He held up a poster that read "Freedom for North Korea: 50 Years Overdue," until a State Department employee ripped the poster in half.

As Rice took her seat for the news conference, security officers literally muffled Vollertsen while wrestling him to the carpeted floor.

He had talked his way into the event before Rice arrived, but a U.S. Embassy public affairs officer recognized him at the last moment and demanded he be removed.

In replies to the Korean journalists, Rice described TRUE DEMOCRACY as the ability to "say what you wish, worship as you please and educate your children, boys and girls."

In contrast to the closed society of North Korea, Rice said, "you can come here and think what you want and ask me anything — the United States secretary of state — and what a wonderful thing that is."

end quotes

So long as you do not ask about peace or whatever for North Korea, I guess, right "CON-JOB"?

Democracy?

Or DE-MOCKERY?

What exactly is it that the fabulous Bush Co.'s are out there peddling in five, seven-and-a-half and ten lb. bags all over the world?

Was that Bush Co. DE-MOCKERY in action for all the candid world to see over there in South Korea, when Connie "CON JOB's" thugs wrestled that guy to the ground, and "muffled" him so that he could not enjoy freedom of speech in a country where Connie "CON JOB" has no authority, that being the sovereign nation of South Korea, OR ...

IS Connie "CON JOB" really the "BIG BOSS" over there in what is NOT really a sovereign nation at all, but just another satellite or client state of the Bush Co.'s?

And is this following another vivid example of Bush Co. DE-MOCKERY in action over there in the Bush Co. client state of Iraq?

Let's look and see:

Middle East - AP

"Iraq Police Fire on Protesters, Kill One"

27 minutes ago

By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Security officials opened fire on a crowd of protesters Sunday, killing one, and al-Qaida's arm in Iraq posted a video purportedly showing an Iraqi Interior Ministry official being killed.

Iraq's newly elected lawmakers, meanwhile, were expected to meet Tuesday to choose a speaker and two deputies, according to a National Assembly statement released Sunday.

The lawmakers met on March 16, but have repeatedly postponed a second meeting because of negotiations over Cabinet positions; it was unclear whether they would name the country's new president on Tuesday, expected to be Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani.

Violence persisted Sunday, with bodyguards for Science and Technology Minister Rashad Mandan Omar opening fire on a crowd of protesters who had gathered in front of the ministry's offices to demand their full wages, said Hamid Balasem, an engineer at the ministry.

Balasem said about 50 ministry guards were demonstrating because they said they were paid only part of their wages.

It was unclear why the guards opened fire.

Also Sunday, insurgents hit a police patrol with a roadside bomb in the southern oil city of Basra, injuring one nearby civilian, Lt. Col. Karim Ali Al-Zaydi said.

They also damaged an oil pipeline in northern Iraq, halting exports to Turkey.

The pipeline has been targeted in the past.

Late Saturday, assailants opened fire on a cafe popular with ethnic Kurds in Kirkuk, killing one and injuring three, said Sarhat Kadre of the police force in the ethnically mixed city 180 miles north of Baghdad.

The motive in the attack was not known.

Iraq's insurgency appears to be scaling back attacks on U.S. military forces while focusing its deadly efforts on government workers, primarily targeting Iraq's fledgling security forces.

A video posted Sunday on the Internet purportedly showed an Iraqi Interior Ministry official hostage being shot dead by militants from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network.

There was no way to independently authenticate the video, which was posted on a militant Web site.

The video showed a man identifying himself as Col. Ryadh Gatie Olyway seated between two masked men wearing black.

He displayed his Interior Ministry identification card and said he was a liaison officer with the American forces.

Behind the men was the black banner of Al-Qaida in Iraq.

Olyway said he provided the U.S. military with the names "of officers of the former Iraqi army, who are Sunnis, and their addresses."

An Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonimity, said Olyway worked as a liaison officer between the Interior and Oil ministries and was kidnapped more than a month ago.

He had not seen the video, and could not confirm whether the hostage was Olyway.

The hostage, referring to alleged female Iraqi prisoners, said he had witnessed "different methods of torture and violation of their honor" at the hands of American troops.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has said many of its latest killings were in revenge for female Iraqi prisoners.

The American military has denied it is holding any Iraqi women.

Olyway was then shown blindfolded, and a third masked man appeared to shoot him once in the head.

Also Sunday, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, met with top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, but details of the meeting were not immediately released.

Congregants gathered at the Virgin Mary Church in Baghdad to celebrate Easter.

"We wish Iraqis in general and Christians in particular a happy Easter and wish them a happy year," said one parishioner, Sabah Rasam, part of a Christian community that accounts for an estimated 3 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.

"We are brothers with all Iraqis and will remain so forever."

[Livyjr]

Democracy?

Or DE-MOCKERY?

What exactly is it that the fabulous Bush Co.'s are out there peddling in five, seven-and-a-half and ten lb. bags all over the world?

Middle East - AP

"Iraq Police Fire on Protesters, Kill One"

By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

The hostage, referring to alleged female Iraqi prisoners, said he had witnessed "different methods of torture and violation of their honor" at the hands of American troops.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has said many of its latest killings were in revenge for female Iraqi prisoners.

Within the last several weeks, I believe it was, I was at a friend's, and the Military Channel was on, and what I was watching were what were purported to be American troops going into an Iraqi village and tossing the place, after sealing it off with concertina wire.

What I saw involved Iraqi women being put into a position by these "troops" that brought back to me vivid memories of Viet Nam, and the "treatment" that women got over there at the hands of Americans.

And all the way back in the beginning, when the Bush Co.'s were touting their SHOCK AND AWE crap, it was made quite clear to me, BY THE RHETORIC of the Bush Co.'s, that they held human life, especially that of Afghanistanis and Iraqis, to be quite cheap!

And everything that they have done to date in those countries has not dispelled any of that impression!

SO!

From this above story, maybe some of the Bush Co. "chickens" are coming home to roost!

And the Bush Co. would have us believe that he is the MOST CHRISTIAN OF CHRISTIANS there ever was, is, or will be!

SO!

Go figure!

And when George W. Bush applies that word "Christian" to himself ......

[Livyjr]

Democracy?

Or DE-MOCKERY?

What exactly is it that the fabulous Bush Co.'s are out there peddling in five, seven-and-a-half and ten lb. bags all over the world?

And is this following another vivid example of Bush Co. DE-MOCKERY in action over there in the Bush Co. client state of Iraq?

Let's look and see:
 

Top Stories - USATODAY.com

"Families' lives measure pace of progress in Iraq"

Thu Mar 17, 6:14 AM ET

By John Diamond, Sabah al-Anbaki, Mohammed Hayder Sadeq and Elliot Blair Smith, USA TODAY

Until recently, it was a bad sign in the al-Taie household when the generator went silent.

It generally meant thieves had stolen the family's power source.

Lately, the silence signals something else: Electricity is flowing again to their middle-class neighborhood in Baghdad, so the generator has switched off automatically.

Two years after the U.S.-led invasion that brought down Saddam Hussein's regime, progress for typical Iraqi families is measured in small increments.

The al-Taie family has nearly continuous electricity.

For the al-Zubaidi family, lucrative jobs in the new government mean an improved lifestyle.

But the Muhaisens, a poor family, have not benefited much; they complain about the escalating prices of food and the dangerous roads, which keep them from tending to family graves in a city 100 miles away.

Some changes are apparent:

Streets in the capital are lined with fruit markets, furniture sellers, sidewalk kebab stands and neighborhood coffee shops.

The number of cars in Baghdad has more than tripled in the past two years.

U.S. troops remain a regular presence, but Iraqis increasingly regard the troops as part of the scenery.

"I like the guns I see with the American soldiers when they pass in the neighborhood," says 10-year-old Ahmed Abdullah al-Zubaidi.

The outside world has penetrated what was once a closed society.

Most homes have satellite television, which brings in Arab news stations and Western programs.

Satellite dishes were outlawed under Saddam.

Thousands of people now carry cell phones, also forbidden by the former regime.

Computers and televisions are pouring into a country starved by years of war and sanctions.

Defying the odds, about 8 million Iraqis came out to vote in national elections Jan. 30.

Wednesday, the newly elected Transitional National Assembly met for the first time.

People can now speak freely.

Some Iraqis still have not fully adjusted to freedom.

When 75-year-old Radiyah Abbas Ali, the matriarch of the al-Zubaidi family, speaks of Saddam, she lowers her voice and looks left and right, as if someone were listening in.

"The most important thing is that we got rid of Saddam," says Ali, a mother of 13.

"Deaths after deaths, this is what Saddam offered."

"He did not give us anything."

Political and economic freedom have come at a cost.

The al-Taie family can afford four cell phones.

But, worried about constant violence, they use the phones mostly to keep track of their extended family.

"Explosions are everywhere, and we need to be sure that everyone, especially the children, is safe," says Zaid al-Taie, 38, an engineer who works for a private contractor.

Insurgents continue nearly daily attacks, often with devastating suicide bombs that target Iraqi police and soldiers.

Government officials are frequently assassinated.

Oil production is struggling, hampered by both inefficiency and sabotage.

Lines at gas stations are still long.

The Baghdad airport - once named after Saddam - is closed to most commercial flights.

Saddam's reign of terror is over, but most Iraqis are still nervous, vacillating between fear and hope.

"If we surrender to fear and terror, we will lose," says Amira Ahmed, 43, the daughter of the al-Zubaidis.

Despite the dangers, Amira commutes from a middle-class neighborhood in Baghdad to teach at a school in Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum of garbage-strewn streets.

"Nowadays, my fellow teachers come to school from various and distant places with greater determination to continue despite the risk," she says firmly.

The experiences of individual Iraqis can vary dramatically based on ethnicity, location and luck.

Some members of the former ruling Baath Party have seen their families' status and income plummet.

Some families had loved ones imprisoned or executed under Saddam, losses that cannot be made up by his ouster.

There are wealthy Iraqis riding the wave of economic freedom and poor Iraqis trying to cope with rising prices and the loss of the Saddam-era safety net.

USA TODAY visited several families to gauge how Iraqis have fared in the two years since Saddam was ousted.

These are their stories.

The al-Taie family

The al-Taie household is a cluster of three generations, a common arrangement in Iraq.

The patriarch, Fadhil Abdul Ridha al-Taie, 74, is a Shiite; his wife, Khawla Assim al-Rawi, 66, is a Sunni Muslim.

They share several modest houses inside a walled compound with their three sons, all married.

There are three grandchildren and two more on the way.

The family got the land in 1965 from the government, which steered choice jobs and land to Sunnis.

Khawla is retired from a Baghdad bank where she worked as a branch manager.

The job and the connections it brought gave her access to property in the quiet al-Harthiya neighborhood.

The 9,149-square-foot lot is packed.

There is one large home flanked by two smaller ones, each two stories high.

The large house has a small garden in front.

Family meals are group affairs, and the Iraqi diet, with a few exceptions, would require no major adjustments for Westerners.

Saddam's demise has not changed mealtime for this family.

For breakfast, there are eggs, cheese, bread, jam, honey, tea and milk.

For afternoon and evening meats: grilled meats, especially chicken and lamb, along with salad, yogurt, vegetables, rice and fruit.

Various family members contribute separate dishes during meals.

They also help one another with cooking, shopping, cleaning and the family budget.

For dinner, a white tablecloth covers the wooden dining table.

The three youngsters - Ihssan, 11; Lina, 9; and Merriam, 6 - eat at a small plastic table and cheerfully ignore increasingly strident demands by the adults to be quiet.

"Stop it!" demands Ali Fadhil Abdul Ridha, 39, eldest of the three sons.

His son Ihssan teases back: "Or what?"

A beat-up 1979 Datsun is parked out front.

The father and the three sons take turns using it for shopping or visiting friends.

"We would like to change it, but we don't have enough money," Fadhil says.

There are many such cars on Baghdad's streets, though since the war there has been an influx of updated imports, including Mercedes-Benzes, a brand largely restricted to the dictator's inner circle in earlier times.

Fadhil is retired, but two of his sons work for the government and draw salaries of several hundred dollars a month.

Under Saddam, government officials earned significantly less.

Despite the abundance, there are daily reminders that all is not normal.

The extended family takes part in an informal crime watch.

They are on the lookout for burglars and also kidnappers who have been making a brisk business out of abducting people, particularly children, and holding them for ransom.

Last year a 12-year-old in the neighborhood was snatched and held for a week before being released on $30,000 ransom - several years' income for a middle-class Iraqi family.

The al-Taies have one landline telephone but have purchased four mobile phones for security's sake.

"We need to contact each other when we are out of the home," Ali says.

Ihssan, Ali's son, lives close enough to his school to walk.

But he is driven there.

"We prefer to send him by bus in order to be sure that there is always someone taking care of him," Ali says.

Ihssan's school has improved.

He is getting training on computers the school has acquired since the U.S. invasion.

"We are part of this world, and we should catch the developments out there, or at least some of them," Ihssan's grandfather says cautiously.

The extended family keeps the household going on a total of about $80 per week in expenses, which covers food, clothing and other costs.

The home is paid for.

The elder couple used to receive less than a dollar per month in pensions.

Now their combined pensions are about $215 per month, and their children's salaries add about $400 more per month.

During the Saddam era, the al-Taie family was sufficiently well off to attend various social clubs, including the Ministry of Oil club.

Their lifestyle then was supported largely by money generated by Khawla's sale of her gold jewelry.

These days, because of safety concerns, family members don't go out much.

They have satellite TV and keep the channel turned mainly to news stations such as Al-Iraqiya.

Satellite dishes were banned under Saddam.

Now families can choose from hundreds of channels.

"My husband doesn't like to watch movies or songs," says Khawla, the grandmother.

"This has been a problem for me since (our) engagement."

The family members seem more worried about the present than the future.

They are optimistic that the insurgency will eventually be defeated, but that doesn't mean they are casual about stepping outside.

"From time to time, we hear some shooting," Fadhil says.

"I think it is between the police and the thieves or insurgents ... nearby."

Though the family members are observant Muslims, they regard themselves as secular, and they decry what they see as creeping religious extremism in Iraq's daily life.

Suicide bombers were almost unheard of in Iraq.

Now they are attacking almost every day, egged on by insurgent leaders and radical clerics who promise the bombers paradise as martyrs.

"Those mullahs and clerics always leading people to their death, look how they are encouraging those young people to die," Khawla says.

Long suppressed by Saddam and previous Sunni-dominated governments, the majority Shiites now have political power.

Most Shiite leaders are preaching tolerance, but some secular Iraqis see growing signs of fundamentalism.

One of 6-year-old Merriam's classmates covers her head with a hijaband warns Merriam not to play with the boys because they are "devils."

Such peer pressure on Merriam angers Fadhil.

"If it ever happens again, I need to see the principal," Fadhil tells his wife.

Western-style dress for men and women is common in Baghdad, and in families that do dress conservatively, girls generally don't wear head coverings until their teens.

"Until now, no one has forced any female in this family to wear the hijab," Khawla says.

"But I am sure this day will come."

The Muhaisen family

A pair of shoes made for a young girl are nailed at the entrance to the squatter's shack in central Baghdad where Zahra Khamis Muhaisen, 53, and her family live.

Two years ago, U.S. bombs rained on the city, turning the night sky red.

But the dusty plastic shoes, considered a good-luck talisman in Iraq, served to keep the house and its occupants safe.

Zahra's neighbors fled the airstrikes, she says, but she and her family stood fast and came through unharmed.

"Do you know why I stayed?" asks Zahra, 53, her arms muscular from work and her skin dark from the sun.

"Because I believe the best place for a rock is where it lays."

It is one of many blunt assessments the hospital cleaning woman makes about life.

When American soldiers arrived here, Zahra says, her husband ordered her to lock herself and her daughters away.

"I replied: 'The Americans did not come for me.'"

"'They came for Saddam.'"

Yet Zahra says postwar Iraq is neither better nor worse than during Saddam Hussein's regime.

She is a Shiite Muslim but recognizes no difference between Sunnis and Shiites.

She says the ethnic rifts people speak of emerged only recently, as political posturing.

For that reason, she takes no great pride in the ascendancy of Shiite political and religious leaders.

And though her husband, Ali Alaibi Karim, 60, works as a caretaker at the mosque across the street, for which he receives about $20 a month in gratuities, Zahra does not believe that religion - or religious parties - will save her and her family.

Rather, she observes, as a woman she's not allowed to attend services at the mosque.

And it's her pay of about $65 a month that supports the family of eight.

"When the truth is to be spoken," she says, "I speak the truth."

Zahra has four daughters and two sons.

She recently withdrew her children from school because she cannot afford to send them.

About 15 years ago, Zahra took advantage of a government literacy campaign.

It taught a rudimentary alphabet.

"I could not stay in that program for more than one week," she says.

Today, she cannot read or write more than her name and her father's name.

The children can read and write.

She's uncertain whether they'll go back to school.

"It all depends on the money," she says.

"I don't have the money."

Zahra's family eats rice and lentils, mostly.

Seven chickens provide eggs for the family.

Zahra says the family rarely has meat.

"Forget about meat."

"It's too expensive."

Sometimes they get food donated by the mosque or neighbors.

"That is when we taste meat."

Food prices are much higher now, Zahra says.

She cites increases in the price of a single egg - to the equivalent of about 10 cents, from about 4 cents before the war - and in the price of rice, to about 20 cents a pound from 6 cents.

Zahra says that her neighborhood is safe but that she doesn't feel secure walking at night and doesn't let her daughters go out.

Her greatest fear is kidnappers.

She used to visit the graves of family members buried in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad.

Now her daughters won't let her go because of dangers on the road.

"When things went bad on the road to Najaf, the girls stopped me from going any more," she says.

The al-Zubaidi family

In 1993, Col. Abdullah Hussein al-Zubaidi, an Iraqi army physician, was abruptly fired from his job as director of Kut Military Hospital.

The charge, say his relatives, was participating in a conversation in which someone else criticized Saddam.

"They arrested him and tortured him for a crime he did not commit," says his wife, Amira Ahmed al-Zubaidi.

For Abdullah, 65, regime change has brought no relief.

Suffering from chronic depression, he remains in his room and does not join family discussions.

He is on medication.

Amira had to quit her job as a schoolteacher to take care of him.

The extended family lives in a comfortable Baghdad neighborhood.

Before 1985, when Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay started confiscating land alongside the Tigris River near here, there were few strangers seen in the largely Shiite neighborhood of Zuwaiyeh.

The word itself means "the corner," and refers to a sharp bend along this stretch of the Tigris.

Behind a metal gate in a yellow brick wall, the al-Zubaidis live among uncles, aunts and cousins.

As with the al-Taie family, this is a three-generation household.

Preteen children dart about chasing soccer balls.

Matriarch Radiyah Abbas Ali, 75, slowly shuffles out the back door to see how her pickled dates, stored in a sealed drum in the backyard, are progressing.

Radiyah lost one son, Salman, in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

The year before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, another son, Nazar, deserted from Saddam's 51st Mechanized Infantry Division, positioned in southern Iraq directly in the path of the coming invasion.

He was caught and issued a red military identity card labeling him a deserter.

It was a badge of shame in Saddam's world, one that would prevent him from getting a good job in the private sector.

Now the identification card is a badge of honor, something he shows prospective employers to prove that he was no friend of the old regime.

When coalition forces crushed his unit in Basra during the opening days of the war, Nazar, 35, shouted to his family, "I won, I won!"

He turns to his mother during a recent interview and says, "See, Ma, you did not lose me."

She replies, "Yes, I know, and may Allah and Ali keep you safe always."

Prayers and blessings from the Koran are framed in elaborate Arabic script in the entry hall, and portraits of the holiest Shiite imams hang on the living room wall.

In the small yard around the spacious but plain two-story home are orange trees laden with fruit, date palms and ficus trees; inside is an array of potted plants.

The television is tuned to soccer matches and motorcycle races that mesmerize the children while the adults talk.

As everywhere else in Baghdad, there are safety concerns.

Mortar rounds fired at the heavily fortified Green Zone across the river sometimes fall short and land in their neighborhood.

But the ouster of the dictator brought one immediate improvement.

U.S. troops kicked looters out of a large building that had been used by Saddam's bodyguards.

Now the place is a community center for the district.

It has sports facilities and computers with Internet access.

Most of the talk is not about politics but matrimony, revolving around when Nazar, the youngest son, will marry.

The women do most of the talking.

"Let us marry him off, Mother."

"What are we waiting for?" asks Amira Ahmed, one of Nazar's four older sisters, all of whom are teachers.

"Let him collect some money, daughter," Radiyah replies.

Nazar has a future bride in mind, but his first indulgence after getting his job was the purchase of a television.

Most middle-class men need to save about $1,000 before marrying, though a bride would bring a dowry to help with starting a household.

The couple would live in the family compound.

Amira taught before the invasion and got her teaching job back recently.

Now she earns $400 a month, much more than she used to make.

Post-Saddam, government jobs pay well and are highly prized.

She says she paid a kickback to an official at the Education Ministry to land the job.

Such bribes are illegal but common.

"He asked me for $400, and I accepted," she says.

"You know, that is the way things sometimes go."

end quotes

Hhhhmmmm.

Paid a bribe for a job, and that is the way it goes!

Well, starting to sound like DE-MOCKERY to me!

In fact, it's starting to sound a lot like the EMPIRE STATE, where I live, over there, too!

SO!

How about that for progress, will you?

[Livyjr]

Top Stories - USATODAY.com

"Families' lives measure pace of progress in Iraq"

Thu Mar 17, 6:14 AM ET   

By John Diamond, Sabah al-Anbaki, Mohammed Hayder Sadeq and Elliot Blair Smith, USA TODAY

Amira taught before the invasion and got her teaching job back recently.

Now she earns $400 a month, much more than she used to make.

Post-Saddam, government jobs pay well and are highly prized.

She says she paid a kickback to an official at the Education Ministry to land the job.

Such bribes are illegal but common.

"He asked me for $400, and I accepted," she says.

"You know, that is the way things sometimes go."

And so it goes, over there in Iraq, and you know what?

Good for them!

It is their country after all, and they should get to do with it what they want, even to paying off bribes to get what should be theirs, by right!

Or should it, really?

What is it with this thing of bribes?

Is it cultural, perhaps?

Or can it really be?

After all, IF IT WERE MERELY CULTURAL, would we have it over here?

SO, what is it with this thing of bribes?

[Livyjr]

Top Stories - USATODAY.com

"Families' lives measure pace of progress in Iraq"

Thu Mar 17, 6:14 AM ET   

By John Diamond, Sabah al-Anbaki, Mohammed Hayder Sadeq and Elliot Blair Smith, USA TODAY

Amira taught before the invasion and got her teaching job back recently.

Now she earns $400 a month, much more than she used to make.

Post-Saddam, government jobs pay well and are highly prized.

She says she paid a kickback to an official at the Education Ministry to land the job.

Such bribes are illegal but common.

"He asked me for $400, and I accepted," she says.

"You know, that is the way things sometimes go."

end quotes

Hhhhmmmm.

Paid a bribe for a job, and that is the way it goes!

Well, starting to sound like DE-MOCKERY to me!

In fact, it's starting to sound a lot like the EMPIRE STATE, where I live, over there, too!

SO!

How about that for progress, will you?

And so it goes, over there in Iraq, and you know what?

Good for them!

It is their country after all, and they should get to do with it what they want, even to paying off bribes to get what should be theirs, by right!

Or should it, really?

What is it with this thing of bribes?

Is it cultural, perhaps?

Or can it really be?

After all, IF IT WERE MERELY CULTURAL, would we have it over here?

SO, what is it with this thing of bribes?

I guess I didn't make myself clear here, jeffmoskin!

The videotape is OF AN INTERVIEW that the county executive did on TV Channel 13, a live interview that was broadcast all over that part of God's creation that TV Channel 13 out of Menands, New York covers!

The FBI had a copy of that interview!

The Attorney General HAS a copy of that interview!

Thanks to that LIVE interview, ON TV CHANNEL 13, everybody knows about the "eighty thousand BIG ONES", as the county executive called it, in that Channel 13 interview, which was held, LIVE, in October of 1988, to justify my removal as a health officer in a corrupt county in the corrupt Empire State of New York.

The videotape is part of a public record that is actively being suppressed, right now, here in the corrupt Empire State of New York.

If I could figure out a way, I would be broadcasting that videotape on the internet myself.

Of course, IN the corrupt Empire State, where the live interview depicted on the videotape actually took place, HO HUM, what else is new?

From New York State Penal Law:

TITLE X ORGANIZED CRIME CONTROL ACT

ARTICLE 460 ENTERPRISE CORRUPTION

S 460.00 Legislative findings.

The legislature finds and determines as follows:

Organized crime in New York state involves highly sophisticated, complex and widespread forms of criminal activity.

The diversified illegal conduct engaged in by organized crime, rooted in the illegal use of force, fraud, and corruption, constitutes a major drain upon the state's economy, costs citizens and businesses of the state billions of dollars each year, and threatens the peace, security and general welfare of the people of the state.

Organized crime continues to expand its corrosive influence in the state through illegal enterprises engaged in such criminal endeavors as the theft and fencing of property, the importation and distribution of narcotics and other dangerous drugs, arson for profit, hijacking, labor racketeering, loansharking, extortion and bribery, the illegal disposal of hazardous wastes, syndicated gambling, trafficking in stolen securities, insurance and investment frauds, and other forms of economic and social exploitation.

The money and power derived by organized crime through its illegal enterprises and endeavors is increasingly being used to infiltrate and corrupt businesses, unions and other legitimate enterprises and to corrupt our democratic processes.

S 460.10 Definitions.

The following definitions are applicable to this article.

2. "Enterprise" means either an enterprise as defined in subdivision one of section 175.00 of this chapter or criminal enterprise as defined in subdivision three of this section.

ARTICLE 175 OFFENSES INVOLVING FALSE WRITTEN STATEMENTS

S 175.00 Definitions of terms.

The following definitions are applicable to this article:

1. "Enterprise" means any entity of one or more persons, corporate or otherwise, public or private, engaged in business, commercial, professional, industrial, eleemosynary, social, political or governmental activity.

BRIBE: ANY money, goods, right in action, property, thing of value, or any preferment, advantage, privilege or emolument, or any promise or undertaking to give any, asked, given, or accepted, WITH A CORRUPT INTENT to induce or influence action, vote, OR OPINION of person IN ANY PUBLIC OR OFFICIAL CAPACITY.

A gift, not necessarily of pecuniary value, bestowed TO INFLUENCE THE CONDUCT of the receiver!

SOLICITATION OF BRIBE: Asking, OR ENTICING, or requesting of another to commit crime of bribery.

BRIBERY: ANY direct or indirect action to give, promise or offer ANYTHING OF VALUE to a public official, OR WITNESS, OR AN OFFICIAL's or witness' solicitation of something of value is prohibited as a bribe or illegal gratuity.

AT COMMON LAW, the gist of the offense was the tendency to pervert justice!

The term now, however, extends to many classes of officers, and is not confined to judicial officers.

It applies BOTH TO THE ACTOR and RECEIVER, and extends to voters, legislators, sheriffs, and other classes.

ALL persons whose official conduct is connected with the administration of the government are subjects, including persons acting under color of title to office.

- Black's Law Dictionary

[jeffmoskin]

The al-Taie family


The family got the land in 1965 from the government, which steered choice jobs and land to Sunnis.

Khawla is retired from a Baghdad bank where she worked as a branch manager.

The job and the connections it brought gave her access to property in the quiet al-Harthiya neighborhood.

The 9,149-square-foot lot is packed.

There is one large home flanked by two smaller ones, each two stories high.

The large house has a small garden in front.

Family meals are group affairs, and the Iraqi diet, with a few exceptions, would require no major adjustments for Westerners.

Saddam's demise has not changed mealtime for this family.

For breakfast, there are eggs, cheese, bread, jam, honey, tea and milk.

For afternoon and evening meats: grilled meats, especially chicken and lamb, along with salad, yogurt, vegetables, rice and fruit.

Various family members contribute separate dishes during meals.

They also help one another with cooking, shopping, cleaning and the family budget.

For dinner, a white tablecloth covers the wooden dining table..

It probably should be noted, for the record, that the property the family acquired from the government in 1965 was made available after the forced eviction, or imprisonment of its former Shi'ite owner-occupants by the Ba'ath regime. One should also note how favoritism plays a role in getting jobs.

[Livyjr]

BRIBERY: ANY direct or indirect action to give, promise or offer ANYTHING OF VALUE to a public official, OR WITNESS, OR AN OFFICIAL's or witness' solicitation of something of value is prohibited as a bribe or illegal gratuity.

AT COMMON LAW, the gist of the offense was the tendency to pervert justice!

The term now, however, extends to many classes of officers, and is not confined to judicial officers.

It applies BOTH TO THE ACTOR and RECEIVER, and extends to voters, legislators, sheriffs, and other classes.

ALL persons whose official conduct is connected with the administration of the government are subjects, including persons acting under color of title to office.

- Black's Law Dictionary

I myself could write a BOOK about bribery, and in fact, in many ways, I already have!

And it is thousands of pages long, to boot, which is one of the problems with that writing!

There is just so much there that it is not readily "digestible", and hence, the "IMMENSITY" of it turns people right off, and so!

Of course, this "writing" that I am talking about IS NOT all my writing, and that is an important consideration here, as well, SINCE if it were only my own writing, it would simply be OPINION, as opposed to FACT!

And OPINION and fifty cents buys you coffee, if you are lucky enough to have both the fifty cents, and a place anymore that will actually sell you a cup of coffee for fifty cents, which is certainly not up here anymore in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE of New York, where I am presently sitting, writing these particular words that you are reading right now!

In 1983, I found myself confronted, up here in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE of New York, with a "situation" involving the apparent giving and receiving of "consideration" by various public and private individuals that was going to have what I would call a "deleterious" affect on my own health and well-being as a human being down here on this earth of OURS, and so, I decided that I was not going to do what is "comfortable", or "socially acceptable", or even "smart", at least up here, which is really the equivalent, to me, at least, of going down into your own celler, as far into it as you can get, and hiding, and not saying one single word about "WHAT YOUR NEIGHBOR IS DOING"!

To the contrary, I decided that I was going to stand fast, and challenge this "situation", come what may!

And "come what may" did in fact come, and before it was over, which it is still not, to this day, where I am now deemed and listed, and in fact REGISTERED, as being "out-side of the protection of the law" up here in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE of New York, I was to learn, and document, reams and reams and reams about what can be called "corruption" up here in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE of New York, which, of course, involves, in my own case, what can only be properly called bribes, and solicitation of bribes, and extortion, and finally a COVER-OVER JOB to protect the status quo I complained about, which COVER-OVER JOB has the effect of literally crushing me, especially in the winter, when I struggle to keep the unfinished house where I reside above fifty degrees, inside.

My "writing", as I call it, includes hundreds upon hundreds of pages of sworn testimony, and various official government documents, including some interesting writings from the Office of the New York State Attorney General where one can get a real candid view of how that office views the integrity, or perhaps, lack thereof, would be a better term, of judges up here in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE, and it includes as well reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation which confirm the questionable practices that I decided, as a citizen, to stand up to, and challenge, beginning in 1983!

And in 1983, or 1986, or 1989, even, WHO WOULD EVER HAVE THOUGHT THAT SUCH A THING AS THIS INTERNET FORUM WOULD EXIST, or that I would survive to be in here talking about all of what I do talk about in here, which is LIFE in OUR America!

OR IS IT REALLY OURS?

OR mine, anyway?

IF THERE IS NOT REALLY LIBERTY, or JUSTICE, for one out of a population of 294 MILLION, IS THAT ACCEPTABLE?

When we have such a large mass of people over here as we do, DO WE REALLY NEED ONE MORE, which would be me, in this case, anyway?

IF MOST PEOPLE DO NOT REALLY CARE ABOUT LIBERTY AND JUSTICE, and would rather pay a bribe, as this Iraqi woman above here did to secure a job for herself over there in George W. Bush's client state of Iraq, then what of the individual who stands up and decries the bribes, and demands LIBERTY and JUSTICE for himself, WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY A BRIBE FOR THAT LIBERTY AND JUSTICE?

Isn't that person then a "threat" to the STATUS QUO that people have come to accept, which is really getting the "something" that you paid your bribe to get, like a subdivision approval, or sewage system construction permit that will really allow you to dump your raw sewage into a creek, despite any laws that may appear to prohibit such conduct?

IF BRIBES ARE JUST A WAY OF LIFE ANYMORE, should we all just acquiesce then, as this Iraqi woman did above?

Everybody does it, and everybody benefits?

Baksheesh?

The necessary GREASE that lubricates every transaction with what purports to be the GOVERNMENT?

And what then do we do with the intransigent ones like me who just cannot get with the program of "going along to get along", or "taking a pump, to get a jump", as the savvy politicians up here are wont to say, when asked about taking money and then "DOING FAVORS" in order to get ahead in politics, BECAUSE THAT JUST IS THE WAY IT IS!

Questions for OUR times, here in OUR America!

Stay tuned!

Show is about to begin!

And if, as the curtain begins to rise, you happen to see a tree behind it with some older looking guy nailed to it, with greyish hair and a moustache, and not much is happening in here anymore, at least with respect to Livyjr posts, then in all likelihood, that will be me nailed to the tree, and so, there will be one less question for the rest of you out there in America to have to consider, and who knows, maybe the simplicity to your own lives that "nailing to a tree" would bring might be welcome!

AND besides the "SHADOW", whoever really knows?

[Livyjr]

It probably should be noted, for the record, that the property the family acquired from the government in 1965 was made available after the forced eviction, or imprisonment of its former Shi'ite owner-occupants by the Ba'ath regime.

One should also  note how favoritism plays a role in getting jobs.

And good day to you, jeffmoskin!

AND YES, it should be noted, in both cases, one of which was then, and one now!

And here, I am going to say that I have to wonder at what might have happened over there in Iraq with respect to all these people IF people like George H. W. Bush HAD NOT PROPPED UP SADDAM HUSSEIN so that he could commit all these atrocities that still haunt these Iraqi people to this day, after all these years?

IF ONLY, eh?

[Livyjr]

And here I want to update the "happenings" in Iraq, vis-a-vis their own search for where democracy is going to take them, as a people, and as a nation:

Top Stories - AP

"Wrangling Over New Iraq Government Begins"

By CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's electoral commission certified the results of the Jan. 30 elections Thursday, clearing the way for the country's first democratic parliament in half a century.

But wrangling over who will get top posts in the Shiite-dominated government means the new National Assembly is unlikely to convene for weeks.

The two leading candidates to be the alliance's nominee for prime minister are interim Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi.

Allawi, whose secular party won 40 seats, insists he is still in the running as a compromise candidate.

Al-Jaafari said Thursday he expects the alliance to agree on a nominee within the next two days, but it wasn't clear if he expected the candidate to have the backing of the 182 lawmakers needed to win, or the support only of the alliance.

"We are having free discussions about who is going to be the prime minister and it probably will take two or three days to announce who is going to be the prime minister," al-Jaafari said following certification of the election results.

Adnan al-Kadhimi, an aide to al-Jaafari, said he expects the assembly to convene for the first time March 1.

And of course, being as how this FORUM has as its central theme above a quote that comes DIRECTLY from the days of OUR own nation's birth as a democratic Republic, and being as how we are patriots and citizens in here who are very much interested in the HEALTH of OUR own democracy, which is an eternal duty, we are therefore very much interested in this experiment in democracy that is alleged to be going on over there in Iraq, and so, we are following developments with respect to the formation of its new government over there, which brings us to this following story, where the wrangling is now about, you guessed it, OIL:

World - AFP

"New Iraq cabinet stalls over top oil job, Al-Qaeda posts execution video"

Sun Mar 27, 9:09 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi politicians fought over the oil ministry and the role of Islam in the next government, while an Al-Qaeda website posted a video of the purported execution of an Iraqi colonel.

Iraq's parliament, due to meet Tuesday, seemed far from a deal on a coalition government, as the country's ethnic and religious factions bickered nearly two months after Iraq's historic January 30 election.

Parliament, which held its inaugural session on March 16, will try to put to a vote Tuesday the crucial three-man presidency council that will appoint the prime minister even if political parties cannot agree on the rest of the government, Shiite negotiators said.

The Shiite candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, sought to put an optimistic spin on the talks, despite the apparent deadlock on cabinet posts.

"I think we are pretty much done and we will see a new government in the next few days," Jafaari told Iraqi state television.

Members of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) have made similar predictions in the past only to see their projections fall flat.

The election-winning Kurds and Shiites have been locked in talks on forming a coalition government since late February.

Their task has been made more complicated by both sides' desire to include Sunnis, who largely boycotted elections, and the Kurds' wish to temper Islamist influence in the Shiite bloc by including members of the secular alliance of outgoing prime minister Iyad Allawi.

Allawi has said clerics must stay out of politics if he is to join a new governing coalition, a top aide of the secular politician told AFP Sunday.

Allawi put his demands in a letter delivered more than 10 days ago to the Shiite and Kurdish political blocs, an official of the prime minister's Iraqi National Accord party said.

"The government must be fully independent without any control by clerics of the leaders of the government," Ibrahim al-Janabi told AFP.

So far the UIA, with 146 of the parliament's 275 seats, and the Kurds, with 77 seats, have not given him a reply, Janabi said.

The Kurds and Shiites are also feuding over the post of oil minister, which both sides see as a jewel in the government's crown.

"Kurdish negotiators requested the oil minister be appointed by them and we think the oil is important and it should be part of the (United Iraqi Alliance) coalition," said UIA member Saad Jawad.

As the sides haggled, the insurgency fired off a new salvo in its propaganda war.

Loyalists of Al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, posted a video on their website Sunday showing the execution of a man who said he was an Iraqi colonel.

The man, who identified himself as Colonel Ryad Kateh Olyway, was shown being shot in the head blindfold by a masked man after "confessing" that he had "collaborated" with US forces in Iraq.

"The religious court of the Organization of Al-Qaeda of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers has decided to implement God's order on this infidel ... to serve as a lesson to others," said the gunman before shooting his captive.

The shooter was flanked by two masked men armed with assault rifles who posed in front of a banner carrying the organization's name.

The captive was earlier shown sitting on a chair, with his hands tied behind his back, saying:

"I worked at the interior ministry to collaborate with the American forces.

Meanwhile, more than 1,200 pages of documents released by the Pentagon in response to a court order showed the US Army's abuse of detainees in Iraq went beyond Abu Ghraib prison.

The documents, released under a Freedom of Information request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, included evidence that forced physical exertions may have caused the death of at least one detainee held by the US Army in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul in late 2003.

[Livyjr]

World - AFP

"New Iraq cabinet stalls over top oil job, Al-Qaeda posts execution video"

Sun Mar 27, 9:09 AM ET   

Meanwhile, more than 1,200 pages of documents released by the Pentagon in response to a court order showed the US Army's abuse of detainees in Iraq went beyond Abu Ghraib prison.

The documents, released under a Freedom of Information request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, included evidence that forced physical exertions may have caused the death of at least one detainee held by the US Army in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul in late 2003.

And this sentence right above here about the ACLU getting more documentation on abuse by Bush Co.'s HOLY CRUSADERS gives us a SEGUE right into this next story, which probably has poor Rush Limbaugh and that crowd of mouth-runners on CLEARCHANNELSWORLDWIDE who imitate him by copying his voice and his style of rabid attack of LIB-RAWLS and intellectuals, ALL FOAMIMG AT THE MOUTH IN RAGE!

And HOORAY for that say I!

World - OneWorld.net

"Left-Right Coalition Rises to Oppose USA Patriot Act Provisions"

Thu Mar 24,11:20 AM ET

Abid Aslam, OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 24 (OneWorld) - A novel coalition of conservatives and liberals normally at each other's throats over the nature of government and free speech have made common cause to oppose key parts of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), long vilified by conservatives, has joined forces with right-wing groups the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Free Congress Foundation to spearhead the ''Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances'' coalition.

The Patriot Act's supporters have said it has kept America safe since 2001 but opponents have said the law is intrusive and threatens to let the government spy on innocent Americans.

The new coalition will lobby Congress to roll back provisions allowing law enforcement agents to look at library users' records and to conduct unannounced searches of homes and private offices.

''Checks and balances are absolutely essential, even and especially during times of threat,'' said coalition leader Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia who voted for the law in 2001.

''Our message is universal."

"Liberty is not divisible, even in the face of terrorism, and we must not allow any part of it to be sacrificed in our efforts to defeat acts of terrorism.''

Administration and Justice Department officials have said that the law contains strong civil liberties safeguards and that no civil liberties complaints have been filed against the legislation itself.

Rather, they said, many of the complaints offered by civil libertarians have nothing to do with the law's provisions.

The coalition came together to prevent politicians from branding Patriot Act opponents un-American or suggesting they are willing to help terrorists, as happened when the law first was debated, coalition members said at a news conference.

''We don't want this argument to be obscured by those who would suggest that anyone who is for more and more government power is somehow on the side of the right, and those who are against it or are skeptical of such grants are on the side of the wrong,'' said David Keene of the American Conservative Union.

''This is an important question for all Americans on the left, the right, or in the middle.''

Key Patriot Act provisions are scheduled to expire on Dec. 31.

The Senate and House Judiciary committees plan to open hearings in the next month on whether they should be renewed.

The coalition focused on three of the law's most controversial provisions, asking that the wording of each be clarified to limit its scope to fighting terrorists and to prevent law enforcement agencies from using the law to silence dissent or go on fishing expeditions.

It urged that a provision giving agencies access to library, medical, and gun purchase records be modified to require law enforcement officials to present evidence to a federal judge supporting a link with suspected terrorism before warrants are served.

It sought similar limits on a provision allowing so-called ''sneak and peek'' searches of homes, businesses, and personal property without property owners' or residents' knowledge and with warrants delivered afterwards.

And it asked that the language of a provision allowing surveillance of protests be rewritten to require a definite connection with suspected terrorism.

''The Patriot Act went too far, too fast, and now is the time to determine what freedoms have been unnecessarily lost in the name of national security,'' said the ACLU's Laura Murphy.

''Now is the time for Congress to restore those freedoms.''

Short for the ''Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001,'' the USA Patriot Act originally passed by 357-66 in the House of Representatives and 98-1 in the Senate.

President George W. Bush's administration proposed the law, shepherded it through Congress, and enacted it in the immediate aftermath of the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the U.S. Senate's evacuation because of anthrax.

The measure passed with neither chamber issuing the usual reviews of proposed legislation.

''As a result, it lacks background legislative history that often retrospectively provides necessary statutory interpretation,'' according to a detailed analysis of the law prepared by the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose powers the law has greatly expanded, have called for the act's renewal.

Gonzales has suggested that provisions expanding the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates, and financiers should be strengthened.

''Debate about government exercise of powers that might infringe upon privacy or civil liberties, I think that's an appropriate debate,'' Gonzales told a recent meeting of the National Association of Counties.

''But it's got to be a real debate, one based on facts."

"And I've yet to hear a strong argument as to why the Patriot Act should not be reauthorized.''

The coalition faces a difficult fight in making changes to the law, Barr told reporters.

The ACLU's Murphy, however, said grassroots opposition to the law is growing.

Some 375 local and state governments representing more than 56 million Americans have passed resolutions opposing the law or some of its provisions, the ACLU said.

While many of these resolutions have no practical effect, proponents have said the measures serve to notify federal policymakers and agencies of public disapproval.

Most of the resolutions called upon Congress to bring the Patriot Act back in line with the Constitution.

Foreign governments also have looked askance at the law, which gave the government new authority to collect information not only about U.S. citizens but also about visitors to the United States.

Last year, Latin American countries objected to sending census data and voter records to U.S. law enforcement agencies and Canadian officials warned that complying with the Patriot Act would violate Canadian law.

Other groups in the new coalition include the American Policy Center, Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

[Livyjr]

And this sentence right above here about the ACLU getting more documentation on abuse by Bush Co.'s HOLY CRUSADERS gives us a SEGUE right into this next story, which probably has poor Rush Limbaugh and that crowd of mouth-runners on CLEARCHANNELSWORLDWIDE who imitate him by copying his voice and his style of rabid attack of LIB-RAWLS and intellectuals, ALL FOAMIMG AT THE MOUTH IN RAGE!

And HOORAY for that say I!

World - OneWorld.net
 
"Left-Right Coalition Rises to Oppose USA Patriot Act Provisions"

Thu Mar 24,11:20 AM ET   

Abid Aslam, OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 24 (OneWorld) - A novel coalition of conservatives and liberals normally at each other's throats over the nature of government and free speech have made common cause to oppose key parts of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), long vilified by conservatives, has joined forces with right-wing groups the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Free Congress Foundation to spearhead the ''Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances'' coalition.

The Patriot Act's supporters have said it has kept America safe since 2001 but opponents have said the law is intrusive and threatens to let the government spy on innocent Americans.

The new coalition will lobby Congress to roll back provisions allowing law enforcement agents to look at library users' records and to conduct unannounced searches of homes and private offices.

''Checks and balances are absolutely essential, even and especially during times of threat,'' said coalition leader Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia who voted for the law in 2001.

''Our message is universal."

"Liberty is not divisible, even in the face of terrorism, and we must not allow any part of it to be sacrificed in our efforts to defeat acts of terrorism.''

LIBERTY IS NOT DIVISIBLE!

SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!

Pass it along!

And tell your Congressmen or women, and your members of the United States Senate AT NO COST TO YOURSELF by clicking on this URL, now:

http://www.congress.org

[Livyjr]

Top Stories - USATODAY.com

"Families' lives measure pace of progress in Iraq"

Thu Mar 17, 6:14 AM ET   

By John Diamond, Sabah al-Anbaki, Mohammed Hayder Sadeq and Elliot Blair Smith, USA TODAY

Amira taught before the invasion and got her teaching job back recently.

Now she earns $400 a month, much more than she used to make.

Post-Saddam, government jobs pay well and are highly prized.

She says she paid a kickback to an official at the Education Ministry to land the job.

Such bribes are illegal but common.

"He asked me for $400, and I accepted," she says.

"You know, that is the way things sometimes go."

end quotes

Hhhhmmmm.

Paid a bribe for a job, and that is the way it goes!

Well, starting to sound like DE-MOCKERY to me!

In fact, it's starting to sound a lot like the EMPIRE STATE, where I live, over there, too!

SO!

How about that for progress, will you?

And here I got to wondering why it is that WE NEVER HEAR THE BUSH CO. decrying CORRUPTION, and obvious corruption at that, over there in his CLIENT PUPPET STATE of Iraq, when we hear him just about foaming at the mouth in apoplectic fits of pique and rage about some corruption that he says he perceives in the Palestinean Authority?

Could it be that BECAUSE the Bush Co. can't read, that he does not know about this CORRUPTION over there in HIS client puppet state of Iraq?

Is that at all a possibility here?

Or is it that he does not really care?

Could that be it?