the bush administration has a hatred for unions everywhere, but it has a more intense hatred for them in iraq, which has been the only force in that country trying to maintain at least a survival living standard for those who have to go to work daily amid the devastation of war. it seems that unions in iraq are the main opposition to the US occupation’s economic agenda there… the privatization of iraq’s oil. an article yesterday describes how iraqi workers are striking in order to keep their oil. the following are excerpts from the article:

But one demand overshadows even these basic needs – renegotiation of the oil law that would turn the industry itself over to foreign corporations. And it is this demand that has brought out even the US fighter jets, which have circled and buzzed over the strikers’ demonstrations. In Iraq, the hostile maneuvering of military aircraft is not an idle threat to the people below. This standoff reflects a long history of actions in Iraq, by both the Iraqi government and the US occupation administration, to suppress union activity.

Together with other unions in railroads, hotels, ports, schools and factories, they’ve gone on strike, held elections, won wage increases and made democracy a living reality. Yet the Bush administration, and the Baghdad government it controls, has outlawed collective bargaining, impounded union funds and turned its back (or worse) on a wave of assassinations of Iraqi union leaders.

President Bush says he wants democracy, yet he will not accept the one political demand that unites Iraqis above all others. They want the country’s oil (and its electrical power stations, ports and other key facilities) to remain in public hands.

The occupation has always had an economic agenda. Occupation czar Paul Bremer published lists in Baghdad newspapers of the public enterprises he intended to auction off. Arab labor leader Hacene Djemam bitterly observed, “War makes privatization easy: first you destroy society; then you let the corporations rebuild it.”

The Bush administration won’t leave Iraq in part because that economic agenda is still insecure. Under Washington’s guidance, the Iraqi government wrote a new oil law in secret. The Iraq study commission, headed by oilman James Baker, called it the key to ending the occupation.

Like all Iraqi unionists, Juma’a says the occupation should end without demanding Iraq’s oil as a price. “The USA claimed that it came here as a liberator, not to control our resources,” he reminded Congress. Congressional opponents of the war can only win Iraqis’ respect if they disavow the oil law.

“If Bush were in the least bit honest he can now with the empirical knowledge base and consequent actions meet with the American and Iraqi dead and explain exactly why they died.”

it’s unbelievable that hilary clinton and barack obama are the top runners in the polls right now. will american ever wake up dammit?! these candidates are offering much of the status quo. 2008 is the tipping point for america… either we get a president into office who is truly angry about our current situation and is passionate about fixing it and our sorry excuse for foreign policy, or we get what most candidates offer who simply won’t get things done and america’s declining role and image in the world will remain.

this article is ridiculous and utter bullshit. saying that traditional marriage is beneficial to the public welfare but homosexual marriage is “destructive” is a total absurdity. additionally, wouldn’t a child be better off raised by gay parents rather than not being raised by parents at all due to abandonment, failure of adoption, or living in a third-world country? what about divorce? if we are going to amend the constituion to ban gay marriage, shouldn’t we ban divorce as well because in reality, divorce is more devastating to our social fabric and to our children than gay marriage will EVERY be!

a country that claims to support separation of church and state and equal rights for all sure is doing a piss poor job at demonstrating it. republicans are simply more concerned with falling poll numbers and using their weapons of gay marriage and abortion to drive approval ratings back up by ‘deciding’ on ‘pressing’ issues. look all throughout human history… homosexuality is not something that has just recently happened!

maybe the ideal scenario is for a child to be raised with a mother and a father. but the point is, and this is fundamental, and has been proven in historic turnarounds in the past, that the well-being of human kind does not thrive on “optimal scenarios” based on scripts and theories alone. each and every sociologic, psychologic or philosophy scientist will acknowledge this fact. my problem is that a lot of people seem to think they have the right to dictate what can and cannot be done of those who may or may not have the same lifestyle. all this is is a distraction on behalf of the republicans to distract the public away from the real fuck-ups of this entire administration. i just hope my fellow citizens do not buy such bullshit from our ‘oh so caring’ leaders. just look to europe where gay marriages are legal… has it destroyed social fabric there? why don’t we open this issue up to an actual public vote and see how the majority of the population feels rather than allows a select biased few amending the constituion for such an absurdity.

k… i think i’m done (for now).

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Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, makes a similar argument about Iran. “I think of war with Iran as the ending of America’s present role in the world,” he told me this week. “Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it’s still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we’ll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world.”

meanwhile… a good interview on NPR about some of the history of US foreign policy and its role in regime change.