Extra

The Pentagon Admits It Kills Children

Here's the latest addition to my collection of "Letters the Chronicle Didn't Print."

[Professor and former dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate school of Journalism] Edward Wasserman makes a good case ("Whistleblower reveals deadly truth," Sept. 22) for freeing whistleblower Daniel Hale, imprisoned for revealing how the Pentagno's "killer drone" program has murdered hundreds of innocent civilians.

Hale's release would be especially welcome in light of the recent drone strike that killed Afghan aid worker Zemari Ahmad and nine members of his family—including 7 children.

CENTCOM commander General Ken McKenzie has publicly taken responsibility, stating: “It was a mistake…and I am fully responsible for this strike and tragic outcome.”

That is not enough, general. 

With the whole world watching, it's time to man-up and step down. 

Without McKenzie's resignation — or his firing — his apology is meaningless. 

As former Army Col. Ann Wright recently noted: "At least ten US military in the chain-of-command are culpable for the deaths of ten innocent civilians. They should be charged with manslaughter. If they are not, then the US military will continue to murder innocent civilians with impunity." 

The Pentagon's "killer drones" — a cowardly weapon haunted by a long and growing record of civilian victims — should be grounded, permanently. The message is a simple one: 

It's time to stop firing missiles and start firing generals. 

No Homeland for the Homeless? 

The long-established tent camp that used to line the front of the Mangalam Centers building on Addison next to the Berkeley Main Post Office, is no more. 

Suddenly, the colorful and orderly collection of shelters and belongings is gone, replaced by a series of large cement containers housing identical clumps of colorful flowers. 

Where have the familiar denizens of this tent community gone? Have they relocated to a better location with City support? No public notices were posted to explain what has occurred. The only message that remains is the one that was painted on the sidewalk in slowly-fading colors: "Homeless Lives Matter." 

Fashion Plates 

The local owner of a red Ford Ranger is clearly happy with his wheels. How can you tell? His license plate reads: FUN RNGR. (I'm now on the lookout for a happy Honda owner with a plate reading: FAB 4STR.) 

Also spotted: a red Honda Civic sashaying about town with a plate that reads: REDANCR. And the owner of an electric Chevy Bolt with a Danish anti-nuke sticker on the rear (Atomkraft? Nej Tak!) isn't shy about taking a public bow. The Bolt's plates read: M11THAL. 

I tip my hat to you, Emma Leventhal. 

When Good Streets Go Bad 

There's a large sign on the road where Spuce Street crosses Eunice that announces a "Road Rehabilitation" project lies ahead. 

It's not surprising that Road Rehabs are needed. Just look at what the road crews have to deal with: Bad roads. Dirty roads. Wrong-way streets. Dead-end streets. Two-way streets. Back alleys. Divided highways. 

On the plus side, we've got Superhighways and Freeways. 

Speaking of Divided Highways 

There are two places where Shattuck Avenue has an identity problem. A split-personality situation prevails in the Downtown where Shattuck subdivides between Center and University, creating two parallel Shattucks. One continues to be called Shattuck. The two-block diversion to the east is called Kala Bagai Way (named in honor of an Indian immigrant and activist—the first city street to honor an Asian-American woman). 

The second Shattuck break-up occurs just north of Vine Street where something quite strange happens. Shattuck Avenue becomes the enclosed one-lane commercial parking zone that fronts Saul's Delicatessen and runs to Rose. The larger open street to the West is unnamed on Google Maps. The south-bound single lane to the west is called Shattuck Avenue—until it runs into a stretch of road that identifies as "Shattuck Place." Place doesn't become Avenue until the two north and south lanes merge as a single street. And, at this magical moment—due west from Books Inc.—there are three different Shattuck Avenues running side-by-side. In the block just south of Rose, Shattuck Place turns into Henry. 

But we're not done! 

At Rose Street, the eastern-most of the three parallel Shattuck Avenues ends abruptly while the middle Shattuck Ave takes a quick hop to the west and rejoins the remaining Shattuck Avenue on the other side of Rose to become a single Shattuck that continues merrily in the direction of Live Oak Park. 

Meanwhile, Henry Street is not finished either. Instead of disappearing into the two advancing Shattuck Avenues, Henry negotiates a half-block hop to the west, where it resumes business as usual and continues unmolested through north Berkeley until it collides with Cedar Street and vanishes into oblivion. 

A Twisted Tale Behind a Twisted Tale 

I recently re-watched Roman Polanski's classic, Chinatown, and got tangled in the dark and twisted tale of intrigue, political gamesmanship and familial philandering. This is a story where everyone encountered by private eye J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is driven by hidden motives. Example, the woman who Faye Dunaway's character claims as her younger sister actually turns out to be her daughter, thanks to Noah Cross, her incestuous father. 

Looking for some clarity to decipher Robert Towne's screenplay, I perused up a copy of Ronald Brownstein's Rock Me On the Water. 1974: The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics. In the section of the book that detailed the gestation of Polanski's wicked tale, I found the following factoid:
"Jack Nicholson wasn't planning a career in show business when he arrived in LA in September 1954 to live with the woman he believed was his older sister, June." 

There was a footnote to this sentence, and it read: "In a baroque twist, Nicholson learned in 1974 that June was, in fact, his mother, who had giving birth to him out of wedlock. Ethel May Nicholson, who raised Jack as his mother, was in fact his grandmother. Lorraine, whom he believed was his sister, was, in fact, his aunt." 

In this case, truth turned out to be just as creepy as fiction. 

Two Political Slogans that Don't Exist 

• In the 1970s, did anyone ever refer to well-heeled, swell-wheeled Republicans as "the Party of Lincoln Continentals"? (Apparently not, according to Google.) 

• Here's a slogan for the Trumpified wing of the GOP that wants to take America back to Take America Backwards: "Make America Retrograde Again." 

A Right to Life Rally Cites Rites to Write 

There was a pro-abortion rights rally at the Texas Capitol this week that brought out a large crowd. Some of the protesters arrived with placards that were real zingers. In a photo of the demonstration, one young woman is seen flashing a sign that reads: "If it's not your body, It's not your choice!" Another reads: "Keep your filthy laws off my silky drawers!" And my favorite proclaims: "My Body, My Choice. Get Ovary It." 

No Laughing Matter—For Ukranian Billionaires 

Former stand-up comic and current president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, isn't kidding when it comes to squelching homegrown corruption. The world leader best known in the US for being offered a political bribe by Donald Trump, has ordered a new law to reduce the political influence of oligarchs in his country. The new law, signed on September 25 and approved by a 62% margin, requires the ultra-wealthy to publically register their names, prevents them from using their wealth to lobby politicians, and bans them from "taking part in the privatization of state assets." The US could take a lesson from our friends in Kyiv. 

Massachusetts, meanwhile, has taken steps to create a "millionaires tax" to finance "transformational investments" in green infrastructure. The proposal goes up for a vote in November 2024. Let's hope more states join this Mass. movement. 

How the Biggest Part of the Budget Gets the Least Attention 

While Washington pols jockey over passage of two massive budget items—a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a reconciliation bill to Build Back Better—little attention is being paid to a third budget item that is "bigger than the other two." That would be the billions set aside to fund Washington's military operations. According to David Swanson of World BEYOND War, the war-funding budget "is 170% of Building Back Better and the Infrastructure Extravaganza combined." Yet the media pays it no mind. More attention has been paid to the part of the bill that would require every teenage girl in the US to register for the military draft. The prospect of turning young women into "cannon fodder" is usually described as "feminist progress" by America's corporate media. 

For more on Swanson's critique of the Biggest Budget Elephant in the room, click here. 

The State Reps Who Said 'No" to War 

As the Pentagon's Afghan campaign sputtered to its chaotic end, Congressmember Rashida Tlaib had a message for the nation: "We JUST ended an expensive, destructive 20-year war in Afghanistan," she wrote, "but one day after that war ended, 14 Democrats voted with Republicans in the House Armed Services Committee to drastically increase the Defense Department budget. They voted for a budget that’s $25 billion more than what President Joe Biden was seeking—which was already an increase to last year’s outrageously massive budget." 

The House went on to vote 316-to-113 to approve the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In 2001, Rep. Barbara Lee cast a historic lone vote against authorizing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that begat George W. Bush's "War on Terror." In 2021, Barbara Lee has continued to wage peace by introducing legislation to cut the Pentagon budget by $350 billion—and use the loot to fund critical domestic programs. Two other Calif. Dems have backed Lee's bill: Jared Huffman and Mark DeSaulnier. 

This year, 38 Democrats joined Rep. Lee in voting against the gargantuan Pentagon budget. Six of California's 36 Congressional Democrats voted against the Pentagon hand-out. The six resisters were: Barbara Lee, Sara Jacobs, Mark DeSaulnier, Jimmy Gomez, Ro Khanna, and Alan Lowenthal. State Democrats voting for the NDAA included Anna Eschoo, John Garamendi, Zoe Lofgren, Jared Huffman, Jackie Speier, Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. (Pelosi also reportedly pushed for a special $1 billion gift to Israel's armed forces.) 

Raytheon "Honors" Wounded Vets with a Cynical Celebration 

Arms manufacturer Raytheon thought it would be great PR to stage a "Run to Home Base" event at Boston's Fenway Park to "honor" US soldiers "recovering from the wounds of war." 

Massachusetts Peace Action wasn't buying it. MPA pointed out that this Merchant of Death has pocketed more than $310 billion in US weapons contracts since 9/11 while investing $2.5 billion on lobbying to secure legislators' votes for those very contracts—a not-too-shabby 124-fold return on investment. 

As the MPA organizers noted: "Raytheon is no friend of US soldiers as long as it's in the business of war-profiteering." 

A Soldier Ambushes Bush in California Confrontation 

Mike Prysner is an Iraq War veteran who lost a lot of fellow soldiers during his days in the combat zone. When he heard George W. Bush was headed to Beverly Hills for a paid speaking gig, Prysner scrapped together $500 for a ticket and challenged Bush in mid-speech, shouting that the former Commander-in-Chief lied about "weapons of mass destruction" and demanding that he "Apologize!" for all the resulting US and Iraqi deaths. During an online chat with members of the peace community, a California activist had only one complaint. Instead of tossing insults, he suggested Prysner "should have thrown a shoe!" 

Prynsner intended to read two long lists with names of US and Iraq victims but the names of the US troops who "served" the country were snatched from his hand and ripped to shreds by members of the pro-Bush/pro-War crowd. 

Bush's only response was to tell the former soldier to "Sit down and be quiet." 

The whole confrontation—including Prysner's post-ejection comments and his list of the names of war dead—is posted on the Environmentalists Against War webpage. 

Late Night Hosts Roast Climate Skeptics  

In an unprecedented act of solidarity, on September 22, late-night talk-show hosts on all major TV networks joined forces to focus on the threat of climate chaos. Participants in #ClimateNight included: Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, James Corden, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Trevor Noah. 

Jimmy Kimmel got things rolling with the following montage of Climate Change Deniers. (Viewer warning: You may find this chilling to watch.) 

And here's a compendium from each of the participating celebrities: 

A 9/11 Question: "What Else We Should Never Forget" 

While Americans are told to “never forget” 9/11, many have already forgotten the needless civilian casualties and high costs that came with the war in Afghanistan. The hidden message of "Never Forget" seems to be: "Never Question." Here's Trevor Noah's contribution to the debate: