[Marxism] A fake fake

Fri Nov 14 10:27:22 MST 2008

Well, I don't know where they distributed the spoof
edition of the NYT here in Los Angeles, and no one
I know has seen it, but it certainly seems to have
had a good impact, at least in Havana, where both
of the Cuban daily papers have stories today.

Has anyone else seen the thing and can tell us 
what impact it had? The story about Bush being
indicted was really delicious, I thought, so it
is reproduced below. I'm afraid that they might
somehow be forced to take it down. I did not see
any any report on it in the "official" NYT today.
Did I miss something? The wires reported this.

If you haven't seen the whole thing, it's here:
http://www.nytimes-se.com/

Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
================================================

Here's Granma's:

GRANMA
Behind the News

AIDA CALVIAC MORA

Passing from hand to hand, more than 1.2 million copies of a fake
edition of The New York Times dated July 4, 2009, hit the streets of
Los Angeles and New York on Wednesday with a headline stating "Iraq
War Ends."

The paper had headlines reflecting many of the accumulated unsatisfied
demands of US citizens after eight years of mistakes and stupidity
from President Bush.

On the cover of the carefully elaborated 14-page edition, there was a
story stating: "Ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reassured
soldiers that the Bush administration had known well before the
invasion that Saddam Hussein lacked weapons of mass destruction."

Likewise, the bogus NYT reported an imminent nationalization of oil to
finance efforts to combat climate change and the building of a sane
economy. Another headline had Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil
company, praising the end of the Iraq war and supporting peace "as an
idea that the world could benefit from."

"We've got to make sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we
elected them to do," Bertha Suttner, identified as one of the
newspaper's writers, said in the statement. "After eight, or maybe
twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start imagining heaven," she
said alluding to President elect Barack Obama assuming the presidency
28 years after the arrival of Ronald Reagan.

Once again, behind the satire was the group The Yes Men, ridiculing
the recent version of a self-critical and repentant Bush, to go back
in history or better yet, attempt to sort it out. The Yes Men are
known for their calls for "identity corrections" which includes
replacing the authorities at the World Trade Organization and
announcing its dissolution, to acting as spokespersons for McDonald's.

=================================================================

Court Indicts Bush on High Treason Charge
By Bart Garzon 
Published: July 4th, 2009

http://www.nytimes-se.com/2009/07/04/court-indicts-bush-on-high-treason-charge/

WASHINGTON (AP) — George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United
States, was indicted Monday on charges of high treason. The charges,
filed by Attorney General Russ Feingold late in the evening, allege
that Mr. Bush, knowing full well that Iraq possessed no weapons of
mass destruction, falsified information in order to pursue the
disastrous Iraq War. (See “U.S. Knew No W.M.D.s in Iraq,” on Page
A1.)

The former President appeared perturbed by his own charges against
him. (GAVIN BELLOWS/BOSTON GLOBE)

Source: New York Times/CBS News poll

Federal District Judge Michael Ratner denied Mr. Bush’s request to
represent himself. Ratner is the former president of the Center for
Constitutional Rights.

High treason is usually defined as participation in a war against
one’s own country; attempting to overthrow its government; spying on
its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and
foreign power; or attempting to kill its head of state.

“In this case, high treason has been interpreted to include pursuing
an illegal and devastating war that has cost hundreds of billions of
dollars and the lives of over 4,000 Americans and perhaps a million
Iraqis, for essentially insane ends,” said Vincent Bugliosi, a former
federal prosecutor whom Feingold named lead special prosecutor in the
case. “In effect, the Iraq War amounted to a war against America,”
added Bugliosi, who is also the author of the book, The Prosecution
of George Bush for Murder.

Although the treason indictment came as no surprise to most
observers, what was completely unexpected was the party who brought
it.

“The case is highly unusual in a number of ways,” said Bugliosi, “not
the least of which is that the defendant is actually accusing
himself.”

In a press conference held close to midnight yesterday at his
Crawford, Texas ranch, former President Bush cited his renewed
Christian faith as the catalyst for this unprecedented action. “Last
month, I had a conversation with Jesus Christ. A new conversation.
And I’ve been very blessed to have been born again, again. This time,
for real,” Mr. Bush read in a prepared statement to half a dozen
stunned reporters.

“It’s taken a lot of soul searching, or more like deep-soul diving, I
think is the term. But now I see that it was wrong to lead our nation
to war under false pretenses. Millions have suffered for my sins, and
I see now that it is only fitting that I should suffer as well.”

Mr. Bush’s self-accusation seems largely to have been plagiarized
from years of accusations made against him in the press. It refers to
his “political propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American
people,” and describes how he and his team attempted to make the
“W.M.D. threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear certain,
whereas in fact we knew there wasn’t one at all.”

“The death and economic collapse that resulted has been completely
devastating to our nation and, most of all, to me,” read Mr. Bush’s
indictment. “I want to make amends, and it is for this reason that I
am requesting that I be indicted for high treason. I thank the court
for allowing me to right my grave wrongs. Bring it on!”

Some analysts suggest that Mr. Bush’s self-indictment is part of a
strategy to avoid the death penalty. Although treason carries a
potential death sentence, Mr. Bush and his team of attorneys are
seeking a triple life sentence without possibility of parole.

“We don’t want to be too cynical about Mr. Bush’s motives,” said a
spokesperson for AfterDowningStreet.org, one of the main groups that
had been pursuing Mr. Bush’s indictment. “But even if it doesn’t get
moved to the I.C.C., requesting his own conviction is so unusual it
could move some jurors, or even help with an insanity plea.”

A friend of Mr. Bush, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed
that Mr. Bush would attempt to move the case to the International
Criminal Court, which does not have a death penalty, and was quietly
pressing Secretary of State Naomi Klein to bring the U.S. under the
court’s jurisdiction. In 2002, then-Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld rejected the I.C.C.’s jurisdiction, saying it was
“unaccountable to the American people.”

Mr. Bush maintained his characteristically jovial manner throughout
the proceedings. “I could be executed, but what good would that do
anybody? Especially me. I think the nation would rather I spend a
good long while considering what happened — not only the tragic end
of hundreds of thousands of lives, but the end of American
capitalism, that I liked, I sincerely liked,” Mr. Bush said. (See
also “An Exclusive Interview With George W. Bush,” on Page A9.)

The treason charge does not address compensation for the hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis killed in the war. It is expected that surviving
family members of fallen American soldiers will file thousands of
civil lawsuits alleging wrongful death.

=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================