Back after three weeks off. There’s way to much to talk about. I won’t get but a fraction of it. Amazingly, the story of the week actually happened last August. By now, you all have heard about what will become know as the Haditha massacre. That we didn’t begin hearing about it until nine months later is the worst disgrace ever endured by the U.S. media. The Iraqi witnesses have been telling this story from the beginning, and there are hundreds of U.S. journalists in Iraq. They knew about it, and they probably filed it a long time ago, but editorial decisions were made at home to kill it. The witnesses kept hammering, however, until the press everywhere in the world was reporting it. The New York Times finally cracked, and the story broke out big time.

If it’s true that editorial decisions were made to kill this story in the early stages, it means that the managers and sponsors of the mainstream media weren’t just incompetent, it means they were unanimously accomplices to the crimes. We hear a lot of commentary about how the media plays up trivial stuff like what trouble your favorite celebrity is having and plays down the more important news. Same thing. It means the managers and sponsors are answering to a higher power, and I don’t mean Bush and Cheney. I mean those people who have those global economy conferences which draw huge protests. My wife calls them "the real administration."

The Marines covered up Haditha first, then they lied about it, saying it was collateral damage from a bomb attack, a bomb attack in which 24 people ended up with bullet holes in their heads. When the witnesses refuted that account, the Marines settled on revenge as the motive, revenge for a roadside bombing in which a Marine was killed. I haven’t heard anyone say that the killers even thought their victims had any connection to that bombing. More about motive in a minute.

If the coverup attempts had succeeded, all the participants would have walked away without a scratch. Only after the story broke in the U.S. did the Marines begin to act. Some heads have rolled, the biggest being the commander of the unit, and there’s talk of criminal charges, but when the military tries to hide something this big, very high ranking officers, probably even the Commander in Chief knew about it, but those guys always walk away without a scratch. I’m betting the unit commander is the biggest fish to be caught in this net.

Roadside bombings in Iraq are as common as fender benders in New York City, but this would be the first time the military went on a mass murder spree in response. The revenge motive doesn’t wash any more than the bomb story. The answer is that there is no motive; there’s only the culture of war. The military breaks people down, then rebuilds them as killers. They teach them how to kill and that it’s okay to kill. Some of them miss the part about it being okay to kill in batttle, if it ever was mentioned. The war itself is the greatest tragedy of course, but on its heels, the military sends these killers home to ponder what they’ve done and live with it the rest of their lives. Some recover, but most do not. They walk among us.

We now know that the Bush gang has been spying on virtually everyone, assembling a data base which can be used to find out just about anything and everything about nearly every person in the country. You’d have to live completely primitively to stay under that radar. Want to hear something else scary? This is another story you won’t hear in the mainstream media. I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this on KVMR, but ask your Congressman to send you a copy of HR4752. This is a bill introduced in February by Charles Rangel of New York which would require every person residing in the U.S., not just citizens, between the ages of 18 and 42 to either serve two years in the military of some form of civilian service which supports the military. It also amends the Selective Service Act to include women. The bill now is with a subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Services. I used to think the Bush gang was just in town to clean out the safe, but I’m ready to sign up with those people who think they’re in Washington to empty the Constitution, too. Zeig Heil!

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Just for a little good news, a state appeals court in California has ruled that bloggers–can anyone explain how a blog differs from a web site?–anyway, the court said that bloggers enjoy the same right enjoyed by traditional journalists of protecting confidential sources. This may be a hollow victory, since the current federal government routinely ignores the First Amendment and throws reporters in jail for refusing to reveal a source. Most of these incarcerations have been supported by the courts, so it’s refreshing to hear about a court that actually favors freedom of speech. This all started when a blog called O’Grady’s Power Page revealed some information about a digital music project in development at Apple Computer. Apple sued to learn the identity of the source. Free speech advocates say the decision is huge, if it holds up. Apple, however, probably can scrape together the money to move on up in the courts.

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It’s time to start talking politics with the statewide primary in just a few days. Not enough room today, though. The governor’s race might be fun. Whoever wins the Democratic primary, we know that the next governor will be someone who grew up middle class, then worked his way into an eight digit income.

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I see that in a speech last weekend at West Point, the Bushwhacker compared himself favorably as a president with Harry Truman. I don’t think this is a fair comparison. Bush may be holding a smoking gun, but he hasn’t killed anywhere near as many people yet.