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CA Democratic Party Leaders Tell Obama To Get Out Of Afghanistan

opey606 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:00:11 +0000

<< GASP !! >>

Well !! From the perspective of a new Libertarian-Progressive, and former Democrat, I say …

… maybe there’s hope for the Democratic Party …. after all!

Now … let’s see if the Democrats finally take the partisan blinders OFF COMPLETELY and recognize the dirty bankster hands in not just the U.S. military/industrial complex but also in our own country’s economic implosion as well!

There’s only ONE FIGHT worth fighting for, and that’s for the PRESERVATION on our own soil of the natural LIBERTIES of the Sovereign American Citizen as enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, for REAL, gold-backed currency, for ABOLISHING the Federal Reserve, for the REAL Free Market via ACTUAL Capitalism, and for restraint of Big Government to the limits as prescribed within the U.S. Constitution!

Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan

by Norman Solomon

Monday, November 16, 2009

(Reposted from CommonDreams.org)

This week begins with a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop making war in Afghanistan.

Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday by the California Democratic Party’s 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled “End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan.”

The resolution supports “a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel” and calls for “an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties.” Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama “to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid.”

While Obama weighs Afghanistan policy options, the California Democratic Party’s adoption of the resolution is the most tangible indicator yet that escalation of the U.S. war effort can only fuel opposition within the president’s own party — opposition that has already begun to erode his political base.

Participating in a long-haul struggle for progressive principles inside the party, I co-authored the resolution with savvy longtime activists Karen Bernal of Sacramento and Marcy Winograd of Los Angeles.

Bernal, the chair of the state party’s Progressive Caucus, said on Sunday night: “Today’s vote formalized and amplified what had been, up to now, an unspoken but profoundly understood reality — that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. What’s more, the vote signified an acceptance of what is sure to be a continued and growing culture of resistance to current administration policies on the matter within the party. This is absolutely huge. Now, there can be no disputing the fact that the overwhelming majority of California Democrats are not only saying no to escalation, but no to our continued military presence in Afghanistan, period. The California Democratic Party has spoken, and we want the rest of the country to know.”

Winograd, who is running hard as a grassroots candidate in a primary race against pro-war incumbent Rep. Jane Harman, had this to say: “We need progressives in every state Democratic Party to pass a similar resolution calling for an end to the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan. Bring the veterans to the table, bring our young into the room, and demand an end to this occupation that only destabilizes the region. There is no military solution, only a diplomatic one that requires we cease our role as occupiers if we want our voices to be heard. Yes, this is about Afghanistan — but it’s also about our role in the world at large. Do we want to be global occupiers seizing scarce resources or global partners in shared prosperity? I would argue a partnership is not only the humane choice, but also the choice that grants us the greatest security.”

Speaking to the resolutions committee of the state party on Saturday, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes movingly described his experiences as a warrior in Afghanistan that led him to question and then oppose what he now considers to be an illegitimate U.S. occupation of that country.

Another voice of disillusionment reached party delegates when Bernal distributed a copy of the recent resignation letter from senior U.S. diplomat Matthew Hoh, sent after five months of work on the ground in Afghanistan. “I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan,” he wrote. “If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons.”

Hoh’s letter added that “I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan.” And he wrote: “Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made.”

From their own vantage points, many of the California Democratic Party leaders who voted to approve the out-of-Afghanistan resolution on Nov. 15 have gone through a similar process. They’ve come to see the touted reasons for the U.S. war effort as specious, the mission as Sisyphean and the consequences as profoundly unacceptable.

Sometime in the next few days, President Obama is likely to learn that the California Democratic Party has approved an official resolution titled “End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan.” But will he really get the message?

WeThePeople Tell The Government What To Do, NOT the other way around!

Water, Water—Not Everywhere

chrisy58 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:40:04 +0000

Published on Monday, August 31, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Water, Water—Not Everywhere

by Olga Bonfiglio

Without water, nothing can live. And in the Western United States, there isn’t much of it because the region is a desert.

“Everything yearns to be alive in the desert,” says Riley Mitchell, a park ranger at Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah.

For example, short, clumpy trees grow in the cracks of rock where they find even the least bit of soil. Look a little closer and you see vegetation surviving in this land and that includes many flowering plants. Lizards scurry across your path in order to alter their body temperature, which gets too cold under a rock or too hot in the sun.

In the desert everything living screams for water, including your own body. You don’t sweat in its dry heat. Your lips crack and your skin dries as your body dehydrates. If you haven’t taken care to consume enough water you’ll know it because you’ll feel faint.

Consequently, the key concern of the West is water. Patient and persistent rivers have largely carved the topography of this region over millions of years until today they are gentle streams or silvery sheens of leftover salt and gypsum lying on a dry riverbed glistening in the sun. Here a river valley is said to be any place where water might have run through it over the past 100 years.

More of these dry river valleys are appearing as the decade-long drought continues. Some people claim this drought is the worst on record–and maybe over the past 1,400 years (http://forestfire.nau.edu/drought.htm).

For example, the waterfall of Emerald Pool at Zion National Park is supposed to gush over a ledge. Today it amounts to only a trickle.

Fires that have raged through the forests are “more catastrophic” than ever before because the forests are unable to recover, according to a University of Northern Arizona website (http://forestfire.nau.edu/statistics.htm) that has tracked fires since 1916.

Last week California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles and Monterey counties after five wildfires burned 13,000 acres and more than 3,000 people were evacuated from their homes. The area has been experiencing dry hot, dry weather with temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) because in reality, California is a semi-arid place that has largely depended on irrigation and other water projects for its sustenance.

The Ogallala Aquifer, which covers 174,000 square miles (450,000 km) of the semi-arid Great Plains and yields about 30 percent of America’s ground water for irrigation, can’t replenish itself fast enough to meet the increasing demands of agriculture, industry and municipalities. If withdrawals are not abated soon, some researchers expect its depletion in 25 years (http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Ogallala-Aquifer.html).

Meanwhile, a recent study by the Nature Conservancy (http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/features/art29432.html?src=news) predicts that temperatures across the country will increase from 3 to 10 degrees by 2100 due to climate change. Hardest hit will be Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, which depend on the Ogallala Aquifer and make this region the “breadbasket of America.” Nevertheless, some senators in those states refuse to sign legislation to address this problem after having supported the “No Climate Tax Pledge” being pushed by the group, Americans for Prosperity (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/27/small-midwestern-states-t_n_270540.html).

Modern life and prosperity have put yet another strain on the West’s water supply.

“Condos are dotting the [southern Utah] landscape with 10-acre ranchettes on land that was formerly the home of coyotes, deer, and other wildlife,” said Mitchell. “Their environmental impact may have potentially a more long-term effect.”

Such development also inadvertently hurts people, she said, like when one person’s well drilling depletes someone else’s water down the line.

So what attracts people to the dry and dusty deserts?

“I’m an old newcomer after 20 years here,” said Mitchell. “We like it here because we want to live in a clean, remote, crime-free area where we don’t have to lock our doors and where community is close.”

Other newcomers have built homes in the desert, some of them second homes or retirement homes, and they want the green lawns, swimming pools, golf courses and fountains they are used to having. Unfortunately, these amenities require water.

For example, since 1990, St. George, UT, has been one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States. The city is 119 miles (192 km) northeast of Las Vegas on I-15, one of the major north-south highways of the West. It provides year-round golf, access to Nevada casinos and scenic vistas with several nearby national parks for outdoor activity. U.S. News and World Report named this area “one of the best places to retire,” which active Baby Boomers have found particularly appealing. In 2007, the area had 140,908 residents with projections of a sixfold increase by 2040, according to the St. George Chamber of Commerce (http://www.stgeorgechamber.com/EcDev/future_vision.htm).

While most newcomers have a social or economic connections to the land, others have an emotional or religious one.

The nineteenth century Mormons, a people nobody wanted, settled on land nobody wanted and turned it into a “Promised Land.” By applying their belief that stewardship required care for the land and its resources, which were put there by God, they created a sustainable life there for themselves. However, the drought has caused some in the Basin to realize that even God’s resources are finite.

Las Vegas, which lies in the southern-most tip of Nevada next door to Utah uses water with reckless abandon despite all the warning signs, according to energy resources journalist Kurt Cobb (http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49927).

Lake Mead, which provides 90 percent of the city’s water, is down 120 feet from its peak in October 1998 (http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/mead-elv.html) and it now holds only 60 percent of its capacity (http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/edits/lake_levels.shtml). The white “bathtub ring” around the lake caused by deposition of minerals on the lake floor dramatically illustrates the lake’s depletion, which is even visible from the air.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority (http://www.snwa.com/html/) (SNWA) is working hard to lay pipe for a new intake to provide 40 percent of the city’s water by 2012. However, this project illustrates the desperation officials feel in finding enough water for the city, a desperation that seriously affects the rest of the country.

For example, the SNWA is also making plans for a $3.5 billion, 327-mile (525-km) underground pipeline to tap aquifers beneath cattle-raising valleys northeast of the city, according to Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a_b86mnWn9.w) and it has even looked into diverting floodwaters from the Mississippi River westward (http://www.snwa.com/assets/pdf/wr_plan_chapter3.pdf). Such plans incite people from the Great Lakes region to quiver over the prospect that their precious water may be tapped for a pipeline to the West.

According to Mark Reisner in Cadillac Desert, this region initially watered itself through diverted rivers and irrigation ditches. The 1930s saw the construction of huge water projects like the Hoover Dam that were largely financed with federal tax revenues. In the 1960s, long-distance pipelines were first conceived by Western-born federal officials, including those donning the environmental mantle.

Where all of this will end up is unknown but the future does not look very promising especially as a variety of adverse environmental forces are now coming together. However, the American people as a whole are unresponsive, perhaps because they are unaware of the dangers while many Westerners are clearly in denial of the problems. Perhaps a few suggestions will help.

We must come to grips with the fact that most of the United States west of the Mississippi River is arid or semi-arid and that attempting to “green it” with water projects is ultimately a losing battle with serious and expensive consequences on the entire country.
We must learn to organize our communities around regional systems like water and climate rather than only geographical political units in order to respond to regional problems.
Sustainability must be everybody’s concern. Making a profit through cheap water resources, for example, must now take a back seat to being able to live well on our planet.
Schools and colleges must promote sustainability programs both in practice and theory. The young people in these institutions are the ones who will have to live in the resource-depleted twenty-first century.
The U.S. Congress must get on board with effective and deliberate water and climate change legislation.

During the June commencement exercises at my college, one student wore a sign: “We didn’t start the fire.” I later learned that the sign referred to the 1989 Billy Joel song of the same name. The sign also alluded to the environmental problems the next generation will face.Baby Boomers have benefited the most from twentieth century industrial society, where unlimited supplies of fresh water (and other resources) were taken for granted. Hoping for technology to fix the depletion of water is no longer a strategy. The water is running out!

Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the War in Iraq. She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of food, social justice and religion. Her website is www.OlgaBonfiglio.com. Contact her at olgabonfiglio@yahoo.com.

LEGISLATORS FOR SALE!

johnlegry — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:03:28 +0000

Sly hard sells Louie.

WOW!

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann

LEGISLATORS FOR SALE by Keith Olbermann – VIDEO:

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/08/04

Thank you, Mr. Olbermann.

Thank you, CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/

CommonDreams.org is a national nonprofit, progressive, nonpartisan citizens’ organization founded in 1997 by political activists Craig Brown and his late wife, Lina Newhouser. They are a powerful online voice for change in America. With millions of monthly readers, they have become one of the top progressive websites. Check it out. Here’s a sample of their fare.

LOCALIZED MAYHEM:

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Nation

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder by Jeremy Scahill. A former Blackwater employee and an ex-Marine who worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. “The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. the former employee also alleges that Prince ‘views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destructionof Iraqi life.’”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-9

THE GREEN GREEN HILLS ARE BLACK:

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Canada.com

Carbon Credits: ‘Cure Worse Than the Disease’ by Kevin Dougherty. Quebec – Carbon credits – to package and trade offsets to greenhouse gas emissions – won’t work, says McGill University economist Christopher Green, “rejecting the argument of Premier Jean Charest who wants the Montreal Exchange to be the carbon market for all of Canada.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-6

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Inter Press Service

The Biggest Shift from North to South: ‘Time to De-Grow’ – Q&A: Claudia Ciobanu interviews economist Serge Latouche. BUCHAREST – He calls for “abandoning the objective of growth for growth’s sake, an insane objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment.” The need for a de-growth society stems from the certainty that the earth’s resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth that is the essence of capitalism and modernity.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-2

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Will a Warmer World Make Us Sicker? by Roberta Kwok. Scientists are piecing together how climate impacts disease, strange patterns are emerging: mosquito outbreaks can follow drought, shorter migrations can make butterflies sick, and more birds (not fewer) can ward off West Nile virus. From Conservation magazine, part of the Guardian Environment Network. In the late 1990s, a set of alarming maps created a stir in the scientific community. “Based on predictions by a team of Dutch and Australian researchers and initially published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the maps charted how global warming could increase the risk of malaria in seemingly unlikely locales: northern countries such as Poland, the Netherlands, and Russia.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-3

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by The Independent/UK

Warning: Oil Supplies Are Running Out Fast by Steve Connor. Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world’s top energy economist. “The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Modified Corn Seeds Sow Doubts by Martin Mittelstaedt. Next spring, farmers in Canada will be able to sow one of the most complicated genetically engineered plants ever designed, a futuristic type of corn containing eight foreign genes. “But a controversy has arisen over the new seeds, which were approved for use last month by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Health Canada hasn’t assessed their safety.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-5

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Crackdown Against ‘Environmental Criminals’ Follows Greenpeace Report by Damian Carrington and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro. Shoe Brands Get Tough on Leather Suppliers to Save Amazon Rainforest. Some of the world’s top footwear brands, including Clarks, Adidas, Nike and Timberland, have demanded an immediate moratorium on destruction of the Amazon rainforest from their leather suppliers in Brazil.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-1

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Obama’s Green Credentials Tested by Battle Against Mountaintop Mining by Suzanne Goldenberg. James Hansen and Darryl Hannah among those opposing open-cast coal extraction that destroys mountains and forests. “Like other opponents of mountaintop removal, [they] had been counting on Obama, with his election promises of a clean energy economy, to shift the power balance away from coal. But those hopes evaporated in May when the EPA signed 42 permits for mountaintop removal while turning down only six — a higher ratio even than during the latter part of the George Bush presidency. Some 170 more permits are pending, according to the Sierra Club.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-2

The pattern...the shooters are all men...the Chaos

denomshi — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:43:52 +0000

Original: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/18-8

Published on Saturday, April 18, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Denormalizing the Signs of Impending Disaster

by Michael Schwalbe

Warning signs can go unheeded because we normalize them. According to some analysts, this is what happened in the case of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. On January 28, 1986, less than two minutes after taking off, the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters exploded, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

In her book The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, sociologist Diane Vaughan asks why NASA managers decided to launch the shuttle, despite warnings from engineers that the mission should be delayed because of potential problems with the solid rocket boosters in the below-normal January cold.

Vaughan’s answer points to what was normal in the social world of NASA at that time: minor compromises in design and performance; equipment that deviated slightly from specifications; and pushing ahead with flight schedules, despite engineers’ worries over seemingly small technical anomalies.

According to Vaughan, the recommendation to delay the flight was ignored because having problems and anomalies on the shuttle were taken-for-granted aspects of NASA culture. So was the tendency for engineers to worry. Against this backdrop, Vaughan says, signals of danger appeared mixed, weak, and routine, and thus were not taken seriously enough.

So far this year, eight mass shootings have resulted in nearly 60 deaths. As at NASA in the case of the Challenger, there have been ample warning signs. But because these signs are so commonplace in our culture, we have either ignored or failed to see them.

After each shooting, the question has been asked, Why do people do this sort of thing? The experts typically consulted are psychologists, who cite depression, social isolation, anger, and shame as causes. The most often mentioned contextual factor is the easy availability of guns.

But to ask, Why do people do this sort of thing?, is already to ignore the obvious pattern. It is not people of all kinds who kill because they are depressed, isolated, despairing, angry, or feeling shame. The shooters are all men. So the question we should be asking is, Why do men do this sort of thing?

One reason this question is seldom asked is that violence and manhood in U.S. culture are thoroughly normalized. As anti-violence educator Jackson Katz documents in his film “Tough Guise,” over the past twenty years violence has come to be the defining feature of manhood in America. Violence and masculinity have become nearly synonymous.

This is not to say that all men are violent, or even that all men go around pretending to be Rambo just beneath the surface. Of course not. Yet all men are judged by a cultural standard that says a real man — one who deserves all the privileges of being a member of the dominant gender group — should have a capacity for violence and a willingness to use it when necessary.

The same cultural standard says that real men are able to exert control over the environment, over others, and over themselves. To be a victim of external forces is thus nearly the opposite of what it means to be a man in U.S. culture. It is hard to feel put upon, demeaned, or controlled by others, and still feel worthy of respect as a man.

The great contradiction, however, is that in a capitalist society most men don’t have much power. A relative handful of men control vast economic resources, make laws, control the police, and command armies. These men can indeed make decisions, backed by force, that deny most other men and nearly all women control over their own lives.

On the one hand, then, real men are expected to be able to exert control; on the other hand, they lack the resources — wealth, status, institutional authority — to do so. Under these conditions, it is not surprising that some men try to compensate for their lack of power by displaying a capacity for violence, or a lack of fear of other men’s violence.

Most of the time, most men are not overtly violent. But when a man tries to exert control and then rages against people and circumstances that frustrate these efforts, we are not necessarily alarmed. We are not alarmed because he is doing what we expect men to do.

Fortunately, such frustration does not usually lead to mass killing. Yet this is simply the logical extreme to which violent masculinity leads. When the burden of shame for failing to meet the cultural standards of manhood becomes unbearable, and a man feels there is nothing left to lose, mass killing may be a perverse attempt to restore, with irreversible finality, a sense of control.

As at NASA, the warning signs today are abundant. But they are mixed, weak, and routine.

Not all men are violent. Nor are men who occasionally commit acts of violence always violent; they can often be kind and gentle, too. And because it is possible to point to rare instances when women are violent, we can be misled into thinking there is nothing special about men that should compel our attention.

But the most serious problem is that we normalize the relationship between manhood and violence, and thus we take for granted what should be clear warnings about the potential for violence that our society instills in every man. When men learn to stake their self-worth on having power and being in control, and yet live under conditions that frustrate and humiliate them, we should not be surprised when explosions occur.

It may be strangely comforting to see the problem of mass shootings as a psychological one. If the problem stems from psychopathology, then we don’t have to look critically at our culture of manhood or at how our society concentrates power in a few hands. Certainly, men suffering from depression and excessive anger may benefit from support and therapy. But therapy will never solve our collective violence problem.

If we understand the problem in cultural terms, we can see that the dangers go beyond being the victim of a “random” shooting. The logic of violent masculinity puts the whole planet at risk. By this logic, the natural world has no value in itself, but exists mainly to provide resources for expanding one’s power. By the same logic, which is also the logic of U.S. imperialism, it is better to destroy the world than to fail to dominate it.

What we need is a cultural shift away from defining manhood and nationhood in terms of a capacity to dominate. We need to reject the worship of power and of “commanders-in-chief,” and instead make democracy the primary value by which we judge our social institutions. The warning signs are all around, writ small in every mass shooting and writ large in every war. Our survival depends on denormalizing these signs and heeding them soon.

Michael Schwalbe is a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. He can be reached at MLSchwalbe@nc.rr.com.

My Dear John Letter

Gelya — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:41:04 +0000

Dear Democratic Party,

It’s over. Sure, 2008 was a great year, we had some good times, and I will remember them fondly; however, this was just not meant to be. You’re too mainstream, too establishment. I knew it all along but overlooked it because we had such a good thing going with that guy from Chicago. Really, for much of the last year, he was the only thing holding us together.

And you know what kills me? You’re out there running around calling yourself “progressive.” As if you knew what that word meant a couple years ago. As if you would even care about changing the status quo if it wouldn’t win you elections. As if you didn’t want Hillary to win all along. As if it wasn’t you who injected the racist elements into her campaign. (And now you’re all “hey look I got the black guy elected president.”)

And it makes me sad to see so many others who worked with you last year, who actually are progressive, out there shilling for your centrist, establishment candidates. Apparently it’s petition season here in my state. This is when campaign volunteers seek signatures to get their party candidates on the ballet. This is considered activism by some, this is considered a good use of the energy and enthusiasm created by the Obama campaign.

I’ve been studying election law and recently learned about the insurmountable obstacles that third-party candidates face in getting their names of the ballot in my state. It’s virtually impossible, I won’t get into details. You love this. Just like you, one of my co-workers at Big Labor thinks this is great because most third parties are on the left and steal votes that rightfully belong to you. You still whine about Nader.

And I’ll tell you another thing. Getting one of your candidates elected is not a social movement, it is just a political campaign. Sure, I was out there knocking on doors and making phone calls for our guy, but we both know that the establishment Dems were running the show, at least in my neighborhood. Sure, I understand that there were two campaigns, one of which was grassroots and locally run, but still a political campaign.

Robert Jensen (he wrote books about white privilege and I know that scares you a little bit) wrote in Commondreams prior to the inauguration in “A Citizen’s Oath of Office for 2009” about the need for an “authentic” political movement.

“First, adding “authentic” as a modifier of “grassroots political organizations” reminds us that the campaign to elect Obama was not a movement, no matter how many times he uses that term. It was a campaign to elect a candidate from one of the country’s two major parties, both of which are committed to imperial domination and predatory capitalism. That isn’t to argue there is no difference between candidates, but to remind us that a slogan-driven electoral campaign for such a party is not a people’s movement. Authentic movements for justice do not arise out of the Republican or Democratic parties but from people coming together to challenge illegitimate authority rather than accommodate it. Strategic decisions about voting do not replace organizing.”

It bears repeating that the campaign to elect Obama was not a movement and it pains me to read about and see individuals who worked so hard on that campaign and were so passionate remaining engaged only in electoral politics (if not arguing on blogs about how to get 60 senators in 2010).

It’s been about a year since I registered as a Dem so I could vote in the primary and began knocking on doors. Now I’m declaring my independence, as I’ve done before. I’m going to look for alternatives to what you have to offer. I still like our guy and a lot of what he has done (go Hilda!). But he’s not the one who will pull the needle off the record (right Zoe). I might even be out there in 2012 again, but today I’ve printed out the form and am checking off another box.

US Foreclosure Image is 2008 World Press Photo

alexmunteanu — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:47:05 +0000

This picture by US photographer Anthony Suau, for Time won the World Press Photo of the Year 2008 aw

Greed 101, Moral Corruption for Dummies, Dereg Doesn't Work

chuckmccoy — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:50:01 +0000

Who needs caffeine for stimulation in the morning when there’s articles like this to read.

Commondreams.org has long been a favorite of mine. I think the best stories I read are the ones that get my blood boiling. Only the truly apathetic and right wing denialists will not see red here. Please read this and send a link to your friends and ask them to read it:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/23-5#comment-1062210

"I would rather stand with Obama in defeat, than stand with Clinton in victory"

Meredith - Political Mpressions — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:00:53 +0000

I don’t know if I fully agree with the above statement, from a blog by Bud McClure on CommonDreams.org, however his opinion piece expresses views I find echoing in my mind as Hillary puts on this working-class ridiculous “I’ll take care of you” front. Titled “Atonement,” the piece states,

“Hillary will get in bed with anybody. She has no internal moral compass. Her only choice is what is politically expedient. Her recent gas tax holiday proposal, an idea borrowed from fellow conservative McCain, is so stupid that I am surprised she can defend it with a straight face. Then I consider that it has no substance, it is just another means to an end for her. There are countless other examples that have made her appear harsh and arrogant, bullying in tone, threatening and menacing, pandering to our fears instead of inspiring our hopes.”

He then goes on to present a white-washed, ideal image of Obama, whom I think deserves a bit more scrutiny:

“He resists the temptation to get in the mud with Clinton when it would be the politically expedient and the expected thing to do. He resists her taunts. He does not infantilize voters. He does not pander to fear and he remains unwavering in his determination to win by the means that he believes will be necessary to govern this country.”

McClure finished by saying an election of Obama will atone for many of the political wrongs perpetrated by political leaders over the past few decades:

“But the most important reason to stand with him is that his election in the fall would give us a chance for atonement, to get back what we have lost over the past 25 years through a politics of division and hatred, where our government has been corrupted for the benefit of the very few; where the common good has been denigrated by a narcissistic worship of individualism and the wealth of our nation has been measured only in economic terms…We could talk to our enemies, find common ground, share the world’s resources, promote the general welfare, and regain our place as a country with a basic regard for the well being of all human beings.”

This may be one of those instances where “the good ol’ days” are remembered better than they actually were. While Dems and Repubs may have gone to church together and had each other over for dinner, public scrapping that go over the rails has always been an ingredient in elected leadership.

Now, I might rather lose with Nader, rather than win Clinton – but I agree with the unspoken premise that Hillary is tricking voters by presenting herself as a candidate that she is not and has never been. Rather being the candidate of the blue-collar, which she is not, she is resorting to duping and pretending and pandering. She’s telling voters what they want to hear rather than presenting appropriate solutions for problems we are facing. And it’s working.

Hva driver du med, David Rovics?

Anders — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:48:41 +0000

Jeg liker musikken til David Rovics. Der stopper det. Garantert. *** John Doraemi, Crimes of the Sta

The Hypocrisy and Danger of Anti-China Demonstrations

realbrandon — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:57:19 +0000

by Floyd Rudmin on CommonDreams on April 14, 2008

We hear that Tibetans suffer “demographic aggression” and “cultural genocide”. But we do not hear those terms applied to Spanish and French policies toward the Basque minority. We do not hear those terms applied to the US annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1898. And Diego Garcia? In 1973, not so long ago, the UK forcibly deported the entire native Chagossian population from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. People were allowed one suitcase of clothing. Nothing else. Family pets were gassed, then cremated. Complete ethnic cleansing. Complete cultural destruction. Why? In order to build a big US air base. It has been used to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, and soon maybe to bomb Iran and Pakistan. Diego Garcia, with nobody there but Brits and Americans, is also a perfect place for rendition, torture and other illegal actions.

When the Olympics come to London in 2012, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu will certainly lead the demonstrators protesting the “demographic aggression” and “cultural genocide” in Diego Garcia. The UN Secretary General, the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the new US President and the entire US Congress will certainly boycott the opening ceremonies.

The height of hypocrisy is this moral posturing about 100 dead in race riots in Lhasa, while the USA, UK and more than 40 nations in the Coalition of the Willing wage a war of aggression against Iraq. This is not “demographic aggression” but raw shock-and-awe aggression. A war crime. A war on civilians, including the intentional destruction of the water and sewage systems, and the electrical grid. More than one million Iraqis are now dead; five million made into refugees. The Western invaders may not be doing “cultural genocide” but they are doing cultural destruction on an immense scale, in the very cradle of Western Civilization. Why is the news filled with demonstrators about Tibet but not about Iraq?

And as everyone knows but few dare say, “demographic aggression” and “cultural genocide” can be applied most accurately to Israel’s settlement policies and systematic destruction of Palestinian communities. On this, the Dalai Lama seems silent. Demonstrators don’t wave flags for bulldozed homes, destroyed orchards, or dead Palestinian children.

The Chinese Context

The Chinese government is responsible for the well-being and security of one-fourth of humanity. Race riots and rebellion cannot be tolerated, not even when done by Buddhist monks.

Chinese Civilization was already old when the Egyptians began building pyramids. But the last 200 years have not gone well, what with two Opium Wars forcing China to import drugs, and Europeans seizing coastal ports as a step to complete colonial control, then the Boxer Rebellion, the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty, civil war, a brutal invasion and occupation by Japan, more civil war, then Communist consolidation and transformation of society, then Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Such events caused tens of millions of people to die. Thus, China’s recent history has good reasons why social order is a higher priority than individual rights. Race riots and rebellion cannot be tolerated.

Considering this context, China’s treatment of its minorities has been exemplary compared to what the Western world has done to its minorities. After thousands of years of Chinese dominance, there still are more than 50 minorities in China. After a few hundred years of European dominance in North and South America, the original minority cultures have been exterminated, damaged, or diminished.

Chinese currency carries five languages: Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uigur, and Zhuang. In comparison, Canadian currency carries English and French, but no Cree or Inuktitut. If the USA were as considerate of ethnic minorities as is China, then the greenback would be written in English, Spanish, Cherokee and Hawaiian.

In China, ethnic minorities begin their primary schooling in their own language, in a school administered by one of their own community. Chinese language instruction is not introduced until age 10 or later. This is in sharp contrast to a history of coerced linguistic assimilation in most Western nations. The Australian government recently apologized to the Aboriginal minority for taking children from their families, forcing them to speak English, beating them if they spoke their mother tongue. China has no need to make such apology to Tibetans or to other minorities.

China’s one-child-policy seems oppressive to Westerners, but it has not applied to minorities, only to the Han Chinese. Tibetans can have as many children as they choose. If Han people have more than one child, they are punished.

There is a similar preference given to minorities when it comes to admission to universities. For example, Tibetan students enter China’s elite Peking University with lower exam scores than Han Chinese students.

China is not a perfect nation, but on matters of minority rights, it has been better than most Western nations. And China achieved this in the historical context of restoring itself and recovering from 200 years of continual crisis and foreign invasion.

Historical Claims

National boundaries are not natural. They all arise from history, and all history is disputable. Arguments and evidence can always be found to challenge a boundary. China has long claimed Tibet as part of its territory, though that has been hard to enforce during the past 200 years. The Dalai Lama does not dispute China’s claim to Tibet. The recent race riots in Tibet and the anti-Olympics demonstrations will not cause China to shrink itself and abandon part of its territory. Rioters and demonstrators know that.

Foreign governments promoting Tibet separatism and demonstrators demanding Tibet independence should look closer to home. Canadians can campaign for Québec libre. Americans can support separatists in Puerto Rico, Vermont, Texas, California, Hawaii, Guam, and Alaska. Brits can work for a free Wales, and Scotland for the Scots. French can help free Tahitians, New Caledonians, Corsicans, and the Basques. Spaniards can also back the Basques, or the Catalonians. Italians can help Sicilian separatists or the Northern League. Danes can free the Faeroe Islands. Poles can back Cashubians. Japanese can help Okinawan separatists, and Filipinos can help the Moros. Thai can promote Patanni independence; Indonesians can promote Acehnese independence. New Zealanders can leave the islands to the Maori; Australians can vacate Papua. Sri Lankans can help Tamil separatists; Indians can help Sikh separatists.

Nearly every nation has a separatist movement of some kind. There is no need to go to Tibet, to the top of the world, to promote ethnic separatism. China is not promoting separatism in other nations and does not appreciate other nations promoting separatism in China. The people most oppressed, most needing a nation of their own, are the Palestinians. There is a worthy project to promote and to demonstrate about.

Danger of Demonstrations

These demonstrations do not serve Tibetans, but rather use Tibetans for ulterior motives. Many Tibetans, therefore, oppose these demonstrations. Many Chinese remember their history and see the riots in Lhasa and subsequent demonstrations as another attempt by foreign powers to dismember and weaken China. There is grave danger that Chinese might come to fear Tibetans as traitors, resulting in wide spread anti-Tibetan feelings in China.

Fear that an ethnic minority serves foreign forces caused Canada, during World War 1, to imprison its Ukranian minority in concentration camps. For similar reasons, the Ottomans deported their Armenian minority and killed more than a million in death marches. The German Nazis saw the Jewish minority as traitors who caused defeat in World War 1; hence deportations in the 1930s and death camps in the 1940s. During World War 2, both Canada and the USA feared that their Japanese immigrant minorities were traitorous and deported them to concentration camps. Indonesians fearing their Chinese minority, deported 100,000 in 1959 and killed thousands more in 1965. Israel similarly fears its Arab minority, resulting in deportations and oppression.

Hopefully, the Chinese government and the Chinese people will see Tibetans as victims of foreign powers rather than agents of foreign powers. However, if China reacts like other nations have in history and starts systematic severe repression of Tibetans, then today’s demonstrators should remember their role in causing that to happen.

Conclusion

The demonstrators now disparaging China serve only to distract themselves and others from seeing and correcting the current failings of their own governments. If the demonstrators will take a moment to listen, they will hear the silence of their own hypocrisy.

The consequences of these demonstrations are 1) China will stiffen its resolve to find foreign influences inciting Tibetans to riot, and 2) the governments of the USA, UK, France and other Western nations will have less domestic criticism for a few weeks. That is all. These demonstrations can come to no good end.

Floyd Rudmin can be contacted by email.

August 05, 2006 - A Rummy Deal

octobervine — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 12:54:14 +0000

It is about hearts and minds, about inspiring people, persuading them, showing them what our values at their best stand for.

—- Tony Blair

I’ve never painted a rosy picture. I’ve been very measured in my words. And you’d have a dickens of a time trying to finds instances where I’ve been excessively optimistic. I understand this is tough stuff.

—- Donald Rumsfeld

And, as we measuredly know, Stuff Happens.

————

Judith Coburn’s excellent article ‘How Not to Vietnamize Iraq’ is well worth a read –

The Air Force called it “precision” bombing back then — and still does. In guerrilla war, where fighters live among civilians, no bombing missions, no matter how carefully targeted, can avoid killing civilians. The Pentagon reports that, right now, on average on any given day, 45 American and British war planes are in the air over Iraq, plus Army, Marine and Special Forces helicopters. Most of the bombing is being done by American F-15s and F-16s from bases outside Iraq and F-14s and F/A-18s from carriers in the Persian Gulf. They mostly drop 500 pound bombs, though Hellfire-missile-armed Predator drones and other unmanned aircraft do their share of damage, and in Afghanistan both B-52s, those old Vietnam warhorses, and B-1s have been called in. In addition, as one would expect in a “Vietnamization” program, the number of air strikes has risen sharply in recent months. Last summer, air missions in Iraq averaged 25 a month; by last November, they had jumped to 120 a month and have remained at that level ever since.

Occasionally, American military commanders remark that civilian casualties, sanitized with the euphemism “collateral damage,” are regrettable; but, in areas where local residents are believed to support the guerrillas, civilian casualties may actually be the goal rather than so many mistakes. In Vietnam, the Pentagon created “free fire zones” in the countryside where any living thing was fair game. The theory was simple, if bloody-minded: If the guerrillas swam in the sea of the peasants, as Chinese Communist leader Mao Ze Dong had so famously argued, then, as American counterinsurgency experts were fond of explaining, it was necessary to “drain the sea.”

———

Another good read is -

Frida Berrigan’s equally thought-provoking ‘Seeing [Pentagon] Stars’ -

“…weapons are our most deadly and potent export; they help determine who controls key regions of the world and shape how those regions are governed; they create jobs, extinguish lives, and sometimes obliterate whole neighborhoods.

In the mountains of Turkey, Kurdish kids may not have a chance to drink Coke, listen to American rap, or play Street Fighter, but they do know two words of English, “Cobra” and “Black Hawk,” the names of the U.S.-made attack helicopters the Turks have used to strafe their villages.”

August 01, 2006 - Pome: What good is outrage

octobervine — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 04:55:51 +0000

What good is outrage when the deed is done

When my children are all dead and gone

What good is saying never again

When our lives will go cheap in the next bargain

What good are the talks of peace

When our very existences are required to cease

—–

First line from Pierre Tristam’s article ‘Massacres at Qana:When “Never Again” Needn’t Apply to Lebanon’. See link.