I'm a bit saddened to notice that Cindy Sheehan hasn't been getting around much anymore. Now that we may need her more than ever!
Congressman Walter Jones: Punish Those Who Lie Us Into War, Full Article
Here's the quote that made me laugh:
"The Constitution says that the Congress shall declare war ... but the Congress has been neutered," he said. [Italics added.]
Hey Congress! "Don't forget to have your pets..." Well, you know the rest, Price is Right fans! (Hey, I couldn't resist!)
The rest of the article is serious, but that quote, lol! He could have picked something better than a statement that resembles a dressed-up colloquial expression!
EMK
To change the future, know the history.. I'm glad people like Bill Ayers got a voice now (never mind the reasons). Though Obama can't fight for them, their voice in the media by itself is a great benefit to our democracy.
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn on the Weather Underground, the McCain Campaign Attacks, President-Elect Obama and the Antiwar Movement Today - Part 1 (Nov 14 2008)
In the late stages of the presidential race, no other name was used more by the McCain-Palin campaign against Barack Obama than Bill Ayers. Ayers is a respected Chicago professor who was a member of the 1960s militant antiwar group the Weather Underground. In their first joint television interview, Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn discuss the McCain campaign attacks, President-elect Obama, the Weather Underground, the legacy of 1960s social justice movements, and more.
OneWorld:
"After almost eight years standing outside the White House with a bullhorn and screaming at someone who wouldn't listen who's totally impervious to popular opinion, I think it's going to be great having someone in there who hopefully will be interested in what we have to say," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the group CODEPINK: Women for Peace. Since the Sep. 11 attacks seven years ago, members of CODEPINK have been a regular presence on Capitol Hill -- opposing the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, decrying a proposed American attack on Iran, and pushing for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney for illegally manipulating intelligence reports to justify the Bush administration's attack on Iraq. Recently, the group has also organized demonstrations throughout Washington and the country to protest the $700 billion bailout of financial firms and demand new regulations on those companies and economic relief for families facing bankruptcy and foreclosure. ..."We certainly want to start out in a softer tone," she said, "in terms of trying to get meetings not only with members of Barack Obama's administration, [but also] trying to influence members of his team who are going to be influential in his policies in the Middle East. We know a lot of them; they're Clinton leftovers and they're going to need a lot of pushing, but they'll be a lot more willing to listen than the folks we have now." ...Longtime peace activist, politician, and writer Tom Hayden says the Obama presidency puts antiwar advocates in much the same position that the presidency of John F. Kennedy put the early civil rights movement. He also compares it to the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and those who wanted to abolish slavery. Both leaders were in favor of progressive change, Hayden says, but had to be pushed by grassroots Americans to take significant action. "The task is ours to build a social movement and create a climate that organizes the pressure that will enable [Obama] to do the right thing," explains Hayden. "I don't know of any political leaders who will go beyond what their base has made possible."
"After almost eight years standing outside the White House with a bullhorn and screaming at someone who wouldn't listen who's totally impervious to popular opinion, I think it's going to be great having someone in there who hopefully will be interested in what we have to say," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the group CODEPINK: Women for Peace.
Since the Sep. 11 attacks seven years ago, members of CODEPINK have been a regular presence on Capitol Hill -- opposing the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, decrying a proposed American attack on Iran, and pushing for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney for illegally manipulating intelligence reports to justify the Bush administration's attack on Iraq.
Recently, the group has also organized demonstrations throughout Washington and the country to protest the $700 billion bailout of financial firms and demand new regulations on those companies and economic relief for families facing bankruptcy and foreclosure. ..."We certainly want to start out in a softer tone," she said, "in terms of trying to get meetings not only with members of Barack Obama's administration, [but also] trying to influence members of his team who are going to be influential in his policies in the Middle East. We know a lot of them; they're Clinton leftovers and they're going to need a lot of pushing, but they'll be a lot more willing to listen than the folks we have now." ...Longtime peace activist, politician, and writer Tom Hayden says the Obama presidency puts antiwar advocates in much the same position that the presidency of John F. Kennedy put the early civil rights movement. He also compares it to the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and those who wanted to abolish slavery. Both leaders were in favor of progressive change, Hayden says, but had to be pushed by grassroots Americans to take significant action.
"The task is ours to build a social movement and create a climate that organizes the pressure that will enable [Obama] to do the right thing," explains Hayden. "I don't know of any political leaders who will go beyond what their base has made possible."
Certainly my hope has been to elect somebody more receptive to our ideas, even if he's not the perfect anti-war candidate. I'm happy that our efforts using the electoral process have paid off so well and look forward to engaging the president we helped get into office.
Plenty of extra-electoral ways to apply pressure if necessary, though...
ntodd
" Yes We Cannes!" An original Reggae music video for Barack Obama to pass around to to undecided. Highlights peace versus the hawkish war lust of John McCain. Filmed in France by Americans for Obama overseas, Please watch and share! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjaaTYLXsTk. Some people might really still be undecided!
Peace, love, and Barack Obama!
Clara
If this election has had you feeling the need to laugh to keep from crying as of late then you just might enjoy this bit! I saw this video on Huff Post this morning, a song from Paul Hipp's Blog of War album... about which Arianna Huffington has said, "Outrage has never sounded so good." It seems most of his work is actually quite serious and soulful, but this one is sure to make you smile... and we could all use more of that right about now, no!?! Enjoy and take good care.
Acting Like a Dick (Video) ::: Paul Hipp
tried but couldn't embed video... here's the link, plus some:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-hipp
paulhipp.com
myspace.com/paulhipp
about Paul Hipp & BLOG OF WAR, from the website:
Actors do not usually turn in performances that gain the notice of presidents. But when Paul Newman decided to take the role of anti-war activist in the early days of the Vietnam imbroglio, he performed so ably – as an early and essential campaigner for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and prominent supporter of George McGovern – that he ranked high on then-President Richard Nixon's "enemies list." Newman's name was on the original list of enemies produced by Nixon aide Charles Colson in 1971.
Colson's notes on the memorandum with regard to the actor read: "Paul Newman, California: Radic-lib causes. Heavy McCarthy involvement '68. Used effectively in nationwide T.V. commercials. '72 involvement certain." The official purpose, according to internal memos that circulated in the Nixon White House prior to the 1972 election was to "screw" liberal politicians, labor leaders, business titans, academics, activists and an actor who might be threats to the president's reelection. "This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly--how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies," wrote White House counsel John Dean.
Newman, who died Friday at age 83, survived and thrived. He won acting's top honors and even became one of the nation's most successful entrepreneurs, marketing his own exceptionally successful "Newman's Own" brand of salad dressings and organic food. ("It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control," Newman said of the food business, which allowed him donate more generously than just about anyone in Hollywood or on Wall Street to charity.)
Newman remained political -- dedicated to civil rights, women's rights and gay rights, committed to ending the nuclear arms race and determined to elect opponents of war and militarism. Newman supported, and even wrote for, The Nation. And he was a steady campaigner for and contributor to progressive causes and candidates – mostly Democrats but also anti-war Republican Pete McCloskey when he challenged Nixon in the Republican primaries of 1972 and to Green Ralph Nader in 2000.
In 2006, the actor helped Connecticut's Ned Lamont mount a successful Democratic primary challenge to U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. (Newman got so into the Lamont campaign that he even volunteered to do calls for the campaign -- and wrote his own script.)
This year, Newman was a maxed-out contributor to the campaign of Barack Obama for president. The actor finished his life with more friends and fewer enemies than just about anyone in his chosen profession. And Newman's extensive philanthropy earned him little but praise in his final years.
Yet, Paul Newman was particularly proud to have been an "enemy." Indeed, he said to the end of his days that the place he held on Nixon's list was "the highest single honor I've ever received."
This video is dedicated to the movement that has taken place in this country. We couldn't have done it without Barack Obama and the millions of people who work for change everyday...
This year for the first time since the 1960’s many young people have become engaged in politics and now comes a new documentary film that compares today’s youth movement to the one of forty years ago.
The Bay Area’s own Arturo Perez showcases WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE? You'll journey with him as he takes you down a hilarious and emotional roller coaster as he and his two friends search for the voices of the future. WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE? premiered at the Wine Country Film Festival, and is being showcased online at www.FlowersTheMovie.com
Like Michael Moore's SLACKER UPRISING Arturo is streaming the entire film online for all to see for FREE with the hopes that even more people will become energized about voting for Obama this November!
Watch the entire film for FREE now at: www.FlowersThemovie.com
What CodePink is doing at the DNC, what a Feminist for Obama is feeling about the Obama/Biden ticket...
click here to listen...14:00 min.
While trying to remember the words to an old poem that I made a song from, I ended up dragging out a CD to listen to it again... from 1984... the height of my activism for Rivers, the environment, anti-corporatism, anti-nuclear proliferation, etc
I've forgotten how to play it, can you believe it? It's downright embarassing, but now that I have it out to remind me, I'll pick it out again.
ANYWAY, I made an mp3 of the tune for Kathleen in my Countdown group and thought maybe some of you other friends or groups might want to hear it or download it. Feel free!
I don't know how to embed video or mp3s here, so you can find it on my no bush third term blog .
See How It Runs | © 1984 D. Casey
I may make some more mp3s from some of the other river tunes on the CD if anyone wants me to...
I am very concerned about his foreign policy advisors after coming across this written by Michael Jackman:
"The first advisor I will mention is former Indiana Congressman and Democrat, Tim Roemer. He was a member of the 9/11 Commission, and a representative of the war-profiteering weapons makers Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which also happen to be the world's largest defense contractors. While in office, Roemer voted for the Iraq War and said this: "The threat from Saddam is grave and growing and it's something we're going to have to address in the not-too-distant future." That statement mirrors the rhetoric of Bush and Cheney exactly. Why would a President Obama, who spoke out against the war in 2003, be interested in someone like Roemer's advice?"
Full article continued below...
I read where McCan'ts people want him to "spruce" up his image. Apparently, they were shocked by the Portland rally. One of the things they have suggested is for him to wear designer sunglasses that reflect a more youthful image. For some strange reason, I find the concept of a "youthful McCain" to be an oxymoron.
Next, they will probably have McCan't wearing an enameled designer flag pin. Then he will criticize Obama for wearing a generic flag pin. Oops, I forgot, McCan't only wears a flag pin infrequently. Something conservative right wing talk radio seems to ignore.
If the McCan't people really want to do it up right, they need to book better lead in music. Maybe something along the lines of the Cranberries. I know the perfect Theme Song for McCan't:
Zombie
It's the same old theme since 1916In your head, in your head they're still fightin'With their tanks, and their bombsAnd their bombs, and their guns
This current administration has really outdone itself in the contest of absolute stupidity in a matter of a few days. First with George Bush's interview with Politico where he actually said that his sacrifice for the Iraq War was giving up golf. Which is the most ludicrious comment that has came out of a president's in recent memory. He gave up golf while the young men and women that protect this country were sacrificing their lives for an immoral war that was based on fabricated lies and propaganda, cleverly spun by Bush and his cronies. And on top of everything else that he mentioned in this completely ridiculous interview, he openly admitted that he was told by people that their were weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein. People. A word he did not care to properly define of which exact people gave him this faulty information that has cost the lives of over four thousand young Americans, has lowered the U.S. standing on the global level, and has produced one of the worst economies since the Great Depression began in late 1929.But yet the man is still smiling as if he will go down as one of the greatest presidents that had ever taken the oath. That somehow people fifty or a hundred years from now will look past the 2000 election, the mishandling of intelligence before 9/11 occurred. That they will not notice that the U.N. had conducted searches in Iraq and concluded that there were in fact no weapons of mass destruction. That he conducted a Vietnam-esque war for the sake of avenging his father's administration's mistakes and putting more money than one could dream inside the pockets of big business like Halliburton (a company that strangely, the Vice President was CEO for until he ran on the 2000 ticket with George W. Bush). It really does amaze me how this president can sleep at night knowing of all the things that he has done to this country in less than a decade in the highest position in the country. And then I realize that he just does not care about the people that he represents. And this is obviously conveyed in this interview. As it would turn out that he hadn't even quit the sport that he claimed he had sacrificed for the Iraq War. A blatant slap in the face to every mother who had a child die for their country. Yet the president believes that the troops in Iraq are making great strides in creating a stable democractic government that will endure for the ages. When the truth is that we are in the same position we were in May 2003 when Bush gave his Mission Accomplished (or rather Unaccomplished) speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Which is quite ironic considering that Lincoln was a protectionist and put America first before any other country. Something the current president has a hard time grasping. Anyways, it is quite evident that there is no end in sight for the war in Iraq (and for that matter the war on terror). To accurately access this situation you have to be a realist. The truth is that to create a democratic government in a region of the world where religions such as the Islamic faith has been present in that particular region for over a millenium is something that will definetely never be completed in my lifetime. And is something that doesn't necessarily have to happen. This adminstration needs to wake up from dreaming and realize that an American presence in the Middle East is just not the smartest idea right now. But unfortunately this will not occur during the final seven or so months of Bush's presidenc and will continue if McCain is elected as commander in chief. Which is something that every American that is against the Iraq War, against tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations that outsource their jobs overseas, against fearmongering politics of the past, against FISA, against the illogical conclusions that the Bush administration has put forth during these seven and a half painful years of lies and corruption. Everyone of these Americans need to stand up and speak out against this continuation that will surely transpire if John McCain is elected. So that four thousand more Americans will not lose their lives on the grounds that they were fighting a war that was ignitiated by "people" telling the president that it was the right move.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression..."Full text of Senator Obama's 2002 speech: click hereThe choice becomes more clear every day. Support the Movement to change Washington and bring integrity, common sense, and good judgement back to the Whitehouse. Show your support today!Be proud that Senator Obama is the best choice for America's future.
United States presidential campaigns are free entertainment that America gives the world. Hundreds of millions of people across dozens of lands watch each improbable step and laugh, cry and cheer.
But it is more than just a reality TV show. It matters. Only 5 per cent of the world's population lives in the United States, but the outcome will affect 100 per cent of us. We don't get to vote, but we have a stake in the presidential election nonetheless.
We know that the choice of president will influence the likelihood of the US making war.
Australia has a keen interest in America's wars. We are the only country in the world that has fought alongside the Americans in every major war of the 20th and 21st centuries. When America goes to war, so, historically, do we.
When we choose to join an American war, it has real consequences for the entire venture.
Consider this thought. One of the wise old men of American foreign policy, Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Gerald Ford and George Bush snr, believes that the US might not have gone ahead with the invasion of Iraq if not for the decisions of Britain and Australia to join in.
"I don't think the President would have done it absolutely alone," he told me. "He needed some cover, and you and the British gave it to him.
"If you and the Brits had said, 'Sorry, Mr President, we can't go along with you on that,' it wouldn't have happened."
Scowcroft, a former US Air Force general, 82, and head of a successful corporate advisory firm, the Scowcroft Group, in Washington, is one of the most respected voices in US foreign policy.
If Australia indeed has such power, it enlarges the Australian responsibility for its policy decisions. But Scowcroft also pointed out that Australia would have paid a price for defying a US request for help.
"If you had said no, it would have been a serious blow."
When I reminded him that he disagreed publicly with Bush's intention to invade Iraq in a much-remarked newspaper opinion article just before the invasion, he replied: "It was a serious blow to me - I'm still anathema to the President."
Did that cost him, though? "No. But I'm not a country." In other words, Australian decisions on American wars, whether we play to type and go along or whether we decide to stand aloof, have real consequences for ourselves, for the US and for the state of the world. We really need to pay attention.
But surely the disastrous misadventure in Iraq will deter future American commanders-in-chief from launching any new wars? Not at all. There are three points here.
First, America is a country that is comfortable with war. In the 230 years since the Declaration of Independence, the US has invaded other countries on more than 200 occasions, according to the Congressional Research Service. That is an average of one foreign incursion every 14 months in the nation's history.
Second, the end of the Cold War was supposed to mean a standing-down of the US military machine. The opposite has happened. The Pentagon's budget today, after adjusting for inflation, exceeds its Cold War average by one-eighth, though there is no longer any nation that could be called a peer competitor.
"The truth is that there no longer exists any meaningful context within which Americans might consider the question, 'How much is enough?' " writes Professor Andrew Bacevich, a historian at Boston University and former US Army colonel in his book The New American Militarism.
The total defence budget is bigger than that of all other nations combined.
"During the entire Cold War era, from 1945 through 1988, large-scale US military actions abroad totalled a scant six. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, they have become almost annual events."
Bacevich calls it "the normalisation of war". He goes on: "Policymakers have increasingly come to see coercion as a sort of all-purpose tool."
He wrote this before his son was killed while on duty in Iraq. As the US President, George Bush, has said, the lesson of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US is that "this country must go on the offence and stay on the offence".
The third point is that, while it did seem that the disaster in Iraq would deter America's political class from further military adventurism, the picture has changed.
The surge in Iraq has been successful in reducing and containing deaths. A senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Bush staff member, Michael Gerson, argued in yesterday's Washington Post that the turnaround in Iraq is "the largest political story of the year".
Three presidential candidates remain in serious contention. They are the two Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the Republican, John McCain.
One of these has consistently and stridently advocated the invasion and also the surge. That candidate is McCain, a hawk and a genuine American war hero. The recovery in Iraq helped propel him to take, in all but the formalities, the Republican nomination for the White House.
As Gerson wrote: "The issue that was supposed to dominate the campaign and destroy the Republicans has helped to elevate a strong Republican candidate."
Another of the candidates voted in support of the invasion, then later reversed course, and has struggled to explain this position since. That candidate is Clinton. Iraq, and her flip-flop on the subject, has plagued her campaign. She is neither hawk nor dove but opportunist.
Then there's Obama. From day one he opposed the invasion of Iraq. He goes further. He said last week: "I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place." One of his advisers, Susan Rice, later elaborated: "It's the mind-set that assumes that solutions to our problems are in the first instance military ones."
So one candidate is a hawk, another a dove, and the third is both and neither, flapping back and forth between the two flocks according to the political wind.
Obama would seek to restore war to its place as an instrument of last resort. McCain is a man much readier to resort to force, though he suffered dreadfully as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese and understands the human consequences of war better than almost anyone alive.
And Clinton? From what we have seen, she will follow whatever course of action is most strongly counselled by the opinion polls of the day.
Our likely involvement in any wars of the next four years is in their hands.
Peter Hartcher is the Herald's International Editor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1204/p02s02-usgn.html?page=1
Lu Gronseth listens regularly to WWTC, a conservative talk-radio station in Minneapolis, and even advertises his mortgage-loan business on the station. But when he learned that a nationally syndicated radio show host had told WWTC listeners that Muslims should be deported and made rude comments about what they could do with their religion, Mr. Gronseth pulled his ads from the station.
So have at least two other Minnesota businesses, at the urging of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., as have a handful of national companies, including OfficeMax, JCPenney, Wal-Mart, and AT&T. But the comments by host Michael Savage in October – and previous anti-Muslim speech – have not created the furor that knocked radio icon Don Imus off of MSNBC and CBS Radio after he denigrated a black women's basketball team. That leaves many Muslims-Americans – and non-Muslims like Mr. Gronseth – suspicious that Americans have a double standard when it comes to Islam.
Have you seen the news? President Bush is negotiating a deal with Iraq to keep our troops there indefinitely--it could include permanent bases and a massive military presence for years! Bush is trying to tie the hands of the next president.
Congress can stop him from setting up permanent bases in Iraq and block an indefinite occupation--but they need to hear a groundswell of pressure from us immediately and loudly so they act on this quickly.
I just signed a petition demanding that Congress stop the president from committing to a massive military presence in Iraq for decades. Can you join me?
http://pol.moveon.org/endless/?r_by=11723-5077189-Cf.Eao&rc=comment_paste
Thanks!
