Archive for » December, 2011 «

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300th AmericanTribune.org Article…
30
December

AmericanTribune.org commenced publishing in May of 2010. This 300th article coincides with the end of 2011. As the Chinese curse goes, it’s been an interesting year…

The last regular military has left Iraq. The Weapons of Mass Destruction (all originally gifted from the US) were never found. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 (there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before we got there). The War for Oil was created long before 9/11, a more ubiquitous excuse than the Reichstag Fire. more…

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Christiane Amanpour, the Last Journalist…
28
December

My all-too-brief occupation as a working journalist, included covering areas of the Middle East, East Africa, and Central & South America (1969-74).

Christiane Amanpour (54)...

I started in Beirut, Lebanon, easily the most beautiful city in the world, at least that I’ve ever visited. Beirut has well-earned the title of Paris of the Middle East with over 5,000 years of Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Ottoman and French history.

Despite the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, Syria’s occupation from 1976-2005, and Israel’s occupation from 1978-2000, the city has returned as a cosmopolitan nexus of Arab and Western culture. more…

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Corporate Crime & Their Partners…
24
December

There was a time when I briefly worked for the class enemy, a detective agency for corporate insurance carriers. I recall this one complex case that I came to refer to as the “Pizza Connection.”

(Click on image to enlarge...)

A paraplegic in a wheelchair was suing a company for some $5 million. We were the last ditch effort to prove his claim as fraudulent.  I understand how cops can become caught up in the chase. more…

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Joshua Puckett & Conservative Illusions…
22
December

Josh Puckett has spent the past 16 yrs in the Michigan state prison system on a life sentence for what I call “Hi-Batry.” That’s a catch-all Southern phrase some of us employ to explain the “crime of “snatching shit from a flying goose’s ass.”  There ain’t no better way to explain it…

Joshua Puckett (34)...

Josh was the product of two Detroit-area girlfriends who, with the aid of a male donor, decided to birth and raise him. His mother later split from her partner and his bio-father got custody out in Seattle.

His father soon died of AIDS, and Joshua moved back to the Detroit area and his mother and her new partner.  The women were soon gunned down by a homophobic neighbor in a notorious hate-crime case.

Joshua’s life at 14 went downhill from there: grandparents and foster homes ill-suited to deal with such trauma, state custody and eventually the streets.

Small wonder that he “chose” to join with lumpen gangbangers at 17.  How ignorant and f***ing predictable… more…

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Praise the Warrior, Not the War…
19
December

By 1968, with more than 500,000 troops in Vietnam, many were returning home from the war.  Survivors usually served 13 months in-country, unlike the multiple deployments today. And, of course, Vietnam was the last war of involuntary conscription…unlike the “poverty draft” today.

Gallop polls back in 1967 indicated 52% of the American public was opposed to the war. With mass demonstrations growing, the American antiwar movement welcomed many Vietnam veterans into its ranks (besides, we had rock ‘n roll, dope, long hair and free love…where else were they gonna go?).

As a Vietnam era veteran of the 101st Airborne (1959-61), I co-founded the Veterans Against the War (VAW, 1967) in Detroit, Michigan. With other national vet groups, we then helped found the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). By May of 1970, there were some 50,000 members of the VVAW. more…

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Dr. Publico & Wild Wild Left Radio…
17
December

The author of this site, Nick Medvecky, gave an hour interview on Diane Gee’s Wild Wild Left Radio last night, December 16th, 2011.

Some of the unspoken facts and issues are that I consider myself a connoisseur of incarceration. I’ve had occasion to do time in over a dozen US states, Mexico, Turkey, Uganda and throughout the Middle East.

Occupy Reality...

In my case, this has included crossing paths and swords with the FBI, CIA, DEA, etc., Colombia’s DAS, Mexican Federales and their Indian Police, Idi Amin’s secret police, the French Sûreté, the Brit’s MI6, Syria’s Mukhabarat and Russia’s KGB, the Palestinian Al Assifa, Israel’s Mossad, ad nauseam. more…

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Pell Grants, Corporate Predators & Other Criminals…
09
December

I initially drafted this article around the issue of the current Pell Grants debate. The Senate is again attempting to gut the program. Pell Grants are available to those below a certain income. It’s traditionally been a means for working class youth to rise into the middle class.

For me, this lesson started back in the mid-‘90s in prison. As with the bellwether of Detroit, the American gulag was an early forecaster for what the “free-world’s” 99% is today experiencing.

In 1988, I was a Criminal Defense Investigator (CDI) in a Michigan cocaine conspiracy case. That charge against my clients ended with a dismissal by the state court. more…

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Detroit as Bellwether…
05
December

A bellwether (often misspelled bellweather) is used in language and literature to indicate a future trend. It’s derived from old English for a castrated ram (a wether) that leads a flock of sheep with a bell hung from its neck.

As a 20+ yr veteran of America’s gulag, perhaps I’m somewhat more sensitive to such indications…

For the purpose of this article, it also indicates the stalking horses of wealthy patrons, such as, Republican governors Rick Scott of Florida, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Snyder of Michigan (frustrated losers in every other area of their thwarted lives, despite corporate-media propaganda). more…

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Category: DetroitMichigan, Occupations  One Comment