The Plug Nickel Times is proud to bring you website links to select opinion articles that you may not find through your local media. All links are offsite unless otherwise noted - followed links should open in another browser window. Links can become dated or otherwise fail to function, for this reason we quote the actual headline of an article. This may allow you to find an alternate copy of the article through a news index or search engine. Some sites we link to may require a registration process to view an article - this website may be useful to you in those instances. Comments, corrections and submissions are welcome - an email link is at the bottom of the page.
May 1-15, 2005
May 14, 2005
"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards."
Edward Abbey
Iraq Falls Apart - And in Washington, the center cannot hold by Justin Raimondo
"After spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a 'war on terrorism' in which no expense has been spared and no risk - including the risk of alienating the rest of the world - is considered too great; after sacrificing liberty to 'security'; after following our war-maddened president into Iraq and, perhaps, beyond - what have we got to show for it? Only the fear in the eyes of our government officials as they fled out into the street."
Mosul Diary by Patrick Cockburn
The End of America: May 10, 2005
"On Tuesday, May 10, 2005, America became a true police state. Your U.S. senators voted -- unanimously, with no discussion, and without even reading the bill -- to create a national ID card."
An Attack on Liberty, 100-0 by Harold E. Smith III
Government desperation by Claire Wolfe
No Room On the Spectrum: Why the ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ Are Only Two Wings of the Same Bird of Prey by Butler Shaffer
Lawyers, Guns and Money by Wolf DeVoon
"Prostitution has prerequisites and job qualifications. Whatever you propose to put on the street has to be just what the johns like to fuck, forgive my french. Independence, self-respect and courage automatically disqualify you from innumerable opportunities. Can't cheerfully clean toilets at Goldman Sachs if you're disloyal to The Way Things Are. Can't drive a car or ride an airplane without faking your obeisance again and again, like a slave. Can't order hillbilly and Hispanic grunts to die in combat, unless you wave Old Glory in one hand and a Bible in the other, singing a bellicose battle hymn from the teleprompter.
Look, let's cut to the chase, shall we? Whether rationally or in defiance of an uncomfortable truth, you have chosen (or are perhaps considering) a fugitive's life, perpetually on the run, an outlaw by definition as an anarchist. That's not the sort of thing one does on weekends for fun, while working 9 to 5 as a hamburger flipper for Homeland Security."
A real farmer looks at 'Medical Marijuana' by Fred Gardner
I've included this piece not simply as a plug for 'medical marijuana' - but primarily because of the farmer's insights into whole foods production.
Arthur McBride as arranged by Bob Dylan
traditional arrangement
"Hi - I'm a hippie!" by Robert Crumb and Edward Abbey
(a short excerpt from The Monkey Wrench Gang)
May 10, 2005
The unholy trinity of electronic snooping: Bolton, Negroponte and Hayden by Wayne Madsen
see article below for additional details
NSA intercepts for Bolton masked as 'training missions' by Wayne Madsen
"It was revealed by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) during Bolton's Senate Foreign Relations Committee nomination hearing that Bolton requested transcripts of 10 NSA intercepts of conversations between named U.S. government officials and foreign persons. However, NSA insiders report that Hayden approved special intercept operations on behalf of Bolton and had them masked as 'training missions' in order to get around internal NSA regulations that normally prohibit such eavesdropping on U.S. citizens."
National ID Cards Won't Stop Terrorism or Illegal Immigration by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
"Terrorism is the excuse given for virtually every new power grab by the federal government, and the national ID is no exception. But federal agencies have tried to create a national ID for years, long before the 9-11 attacks. In fact, a 1996 bill sought to do exactly what the REAL ID Act does: transform state drivers’ licenses into de facto national ID cards. At the time, Congress was flooded with calls by angry constituents and the bill ultimately died.
Proponents of the REAL ID Act continue to make the preposterous claim that the bill does not establish a national ID card. This is dangerous and insulting nonsense. Let’s get the facts straight: The REAL ID Act transforms state motor vehicle departments into agents of the federal government. Nationalizing standards for driver's licenses and birth certificates in a federal bill creates a national ID system, pure and simple. Having the name of your particular state on the ID is meaningless window dressing.
Federally imposed standards for drivers' license and birth certificates make a mockery of federalism and the 10th amendment. While states technically are not forced to accept the federal standards, any refusal to comply would mean their residents could not get a job, receive Social Security, or travel by plane. So rather than imposing a direct mandate on the states, the federal government is blackmailing them into complying with federal dictates."
Let me put it this way by Jeff Wells
"Once I knew the meaning of Kennedy's murder, it no longer mattered to me how many gunmen there were, or from where they pulled their triggers. I knew who paid for the bullets.
Once I knew the meaning of the falling towers, it no longer mattered to me how they fell. I knew who paid for that, too."
It's Just a Minor Difference In How You Define It by Harry Browne
Freedom - that is
An Historian Shills for the Warfare State by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
"In a May 4 Washington Post article entitled 'Lessons for Iraq from Gettysburg,' Post writer David Ignatius reports on how Princeton University historian James McPherson informed a 'discussion group sponsored by the secretary of defense' about 'how to rebuild societies,' drawing his lessons from the period of 'Reconstruction' in America (1866-1877). McPherson supposedly told the Defense Department bureaucrats, as they toured the Gettysburg battlefield, that there were 'intriguing parallels between postwar Iraq and the postwar South.' Like so much of what passes for 'Civil War history,' such 'parallels' are based primarily on lies, myths, and nineteenth-century Republican Party propaganda.
...
The Northern investors and businessmen who benefited so much from the plundering of the South finally 'turned their attention to the West,' said McPherson in his Gettysburg presentation. Translated into plain English, this means that the U.S. army devoted its full attention to its campaign of ethnic genocide against the Plains Indians to make way for the government-subsidized transcontinental railroads. The amount of swindling and corruption associated with this venture rivaled that of Reconstruction."
May 5, 2005
Proof Bush Fixed The Facts by Ray McGovern
"In emotionless English, Dearlove tells Blair and the others that President Bush has decided to remove Saddam Hussein by launching a war that is to be 'justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.' Period. What about the intelligence? Dearlove adds matter-of-factly, 'The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy.'"
The Glory of War by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
"The bloom on the rose of war eventually fades, leaving only the thorns. By the time this takes place, most everyone has already begun the national task of averting the eyes from the thorns, meaning the awful reality, the dashed hopes, the expense, the lame, the limbless, the widows, the orphans, the death on all sides, and the resulting instability."
Minuteman Project Is a Fraud by Sheldon Richman
"But that’s not what the Minuteman Project is about. Instead, this "citizens’ neighborhood watch along our border" looks for foreigners who, by and large, are seeking better, more-productive lives for themselves and their children. The self-appointed American border guards inform the authorities when they find any. This strikes me as most out of keeping with the heritage of a country born in revolution, devoted to individual freedom, and skeptical of political power."
What the American Civil War can inform us about Iraq by David Ignatius
"Pentagon officials gathered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, last weekend for a conference on 'Transition from Crisis.' The meeting was organized by the Highlands Forum, a discussion group sponsored by the defense secretary and the Pentagon's research arm, DARPA. Usually, the group's meetings focus on the military implications of new technologies, such as nanotechnology or computer networking robotics. But this session was about how to rebuild societies, rather than defeat them militarily."
In case you wondered whether DARPA was (still) staffed by disingenuous shitheads...
Book Review: The Loose Cannon Canon by Garry Reed
"I was noodling around on the net when I cursored upon a book about science fiction called 'Loose Canon' by Charles Platt, described as a combination HL Mencken and PJ O'Roarke. My curiosity quickly kindled since I'd teethed my adolescence on SF, I'd named my website 'Loose Cannon' and I've admired Mencken and O'Roarke. The last time I wrote book reports was junior high school, and those were based on dust jacket blurbs, Cliffs Notes (the 'Dummies' books of their day) and Classics Illustrated comics. But this isn't a book report. It's a book review. Slightly different parameters. So, I ordered the book and actually read it. Honest."
May 3, 2005
The secret Downing Street memo from July 23, 2002
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
alternate link
Jurassic Park, Psuedo-events, and Prisons: The fallout from Abu Ghraib (Part VI) by Stan Goff
Additional segments of piece here (scroll to 4/14/2005)
Iraq's hostage cabinet by Pepe Escobar
Outsourcing the occupation by Niv Gordon
"Israel is the key to understanding United States President George W. Bush's strategy in Iraq. This is not because it had any influence on the decision-making process that led to the second Gulf War, but rather because the current administration adopted the model of 'democratic occupation' - as former MK Tamar Gozansky of Hadash called it not long ago - that Israel developed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
Buried Treasure by Chris Floyd
did you know that Chris Floyd has a blog?
Want to read a recent interview with him?
National ID cards in history from Strike The Root
National ID - ease of implementation
Are you better off now than you were four years ago? by Steve Benson
National ID proposal specifics
"With enhanced tracking capabilities, the three-read system with an electronic microchip offers a higher read and retention rate as more accurate data is captured. Information can be easily read by service personnel and captured by a wand or portal at an abattoir or sales barn."
