World Turned Upside Down

Texas Gov Perry says thoughtful discussion needed on withdrawing troops in Iraq, Afghanistan

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Saturday thoughtful discussion is needed to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq as he wrapped up his first week of campaigning for the GOP’s presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, what's our antiwar President up to?

US troops may stay in Afghanistan until 2024

America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024

Yep, the world has turned upside down. The Republicans are talking about at least talking about bringing our troops home, while our great anti-war President launches one surge after another in Afghanistan and now is trying to find ways to make sure this war lasts at least 23 years. That is, when he's not starting new wars in Pakistan, Libya, Syria or whatever other place on the globe where Obama's random war darts land next week.

Not sure I believe this any more than I believed that Obama and Hillary were against the war when they were running around criticizing Bush. But still, its fascinating that most of the opposition to the wars and the ever increasing 'defense' budgets are coming from the Republican side these days.

People used to joke about how 'moderate Republican' was an endangered species. Now apparently its 'liberal Democrats' who have gone extinct. The position of the Democratic Party today is to use Herbert Hoover's economic recovery plans and to spend so much on wars and defense that even Ronald Reagan would blush, and his disciples start to talk about being prudent on defense spending and maybe even bringing some troops home.

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At Least They Believe in Recycling

Well, the good news is that US government officials believe in recycling. I was looking over the news headlines at antiwar.com and I saw a headline about Ghadafi's "last stand" that led to this article on CNN.

Libya rejects rebel claims Gadhafi seeking refuge for his family

The reports come as U.S. officials say the embattled leader may be making preparations for a last stand in Tripoli as a months-long NATO air campaign continues amid reports of rebel advances.
"We believe he could be planning for a last stand," one U.S. official said.

A second U.S. official confirmed a similar concern and said the Gadhafi plan could involve a final military offensive against civilians, launched from his last major strongholds around the Libyan capital.

That seemed awfully familiar, so I typed "Saddam" and "last stand" into Google and found ....

War-gaming Saddam's Last Stand - New York Daily News

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Saddam's last stand?

CNN.com - Stronghold of Tikrit may be Saddam's last stand - Apr. 11 ...

IRAQ'S LAST STAND; Saddam's Baghdad barricade. - Free Online Library

Saddam's last stand? Vows for defense of Baghdad should soon be ...

Well, you get the idea. Writing propgaganda for the US government is like writing scripts for pro wrestling. Why write something new when the same few old scripts have been working for ever? Just recycle, then go home in time to see the wifey and kiddies.

The officials, who have knowledge of the situation on the ground, did not want to be named because of the sensitive intelligence matters.

The sure sign its propaganda these days is the unsourced source. Surely one of the lessons to be learned from the lies that led up to the Iraq debacle is not to trust un-named sources on CNN. When Judy Miller was being given what Dick Cheney's office wanted printed in the NY Times, it always appeared as similar unsourced sources. If no one's willing to put their name on it, be very suspicious.

In fact, you should be asking why such esteemed news outlets are still using such unsourced sources after being burned by them so badly in all the lies that led up to the Iraq war. You'd think watching more than a million people die, including more than 4,000 from your own country, as well as watching your own nation waste hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars on a needless war, would at least cause some sort of internal review. I guess not.

The lies that led to the Iraq war have killed more Americans than Osama Bin Laden did on 9-11, but nothing changes.

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Obama and Clinton Call for Yet Another War.

Not satisfied with their wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen (plus a few that don't make the front pages I'm sure), SOS Clinton and President Obama today called for a war against Syria.

Obama Calls for Regime Change in Syria

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton today called for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to step down after months of bloody crackdowns on peaceful protesters that have killed as many as 2,000 people. Clinton also announced even harsher sanctions on Syria.

Wait a minute. Are you thinking you don't see the word 'war' in all of that, so it must still be ok, right?

"regime change = war"

That's the equation people need to remember. Countries used to fight little conflicts that could be resolved. They'd fight a border skirmish, then have a peace conference and agree on changing the border or some other sort of reparation for which ever side lost the little war, then they'd declare peace and move on.

The thing is, you can't declare peace when you've said that your aim is to topple the government of the other country. No negotiation is possible then, except surrender. If the other government wants to hold on to its power, and what government doesn't, then the only possible outcome is a fight to the finish until that government is toppled.

"regime change = war"

Obama and Clinton just declared war. Oh, I know, not in any fashion that Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would recognize. Not in that old fashioned sort of way when in our efforts at democracy our representatives would gather and decide that it was the will of the people that we go to war. Nah, nothing like that. This is modern war, declared by executive fiat. Obama in his greatness has declared that Assad must go. Thus we are at war.

Oh, it won't seem like it at first. Since we are still bogged down in this year's earlier executive war in Libya, it appears that 'sanctions' are the first weapon of choice. But, we didn't declare these sanctions because we stated we wanted the Syrians to be less barbaric a government toward its own people. If we had done that, then perhaps there would still be some room for a negotiated peace somewhere down the road. Nope, instead we've stated that the only solution the USA will accept is one of 'regime change' in Damascus.

So, what happens then when the sanctions don't work? We can't back down then, can we? Of course, not, then we'll be told that the 'credibility' of the United States is on the line and we can't let Assad win, so the bombers were begin to target Syria. We'll fire off some more million dollar missiles to make the defense contractors happy.

But, even then, we seem to keep refusing the lesson that goes back to Hitler and the Blitz and which seems to still be true in Libya. That is that you can't win a war just by terror bombing from the air. So, somewhere down the line, we'll be seeing the calls for 'boots on the ground' in Syria.

The point is, Obama and Clinton have declared war in such a way that there can be no peace. There can be no negotiation. Regime change is our war goal, as stated by executive decree.

"regime change = war"

Of course, it won't ever be called a war. Not this one. Not after Libya and not this close to the elections. Nope. But make no mistake, Obama and Clinton just launched the USA into yet another war.

Aren't we all so happy we elected the 'anti-war' candidates in the last election?

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How to know when you are losing a war?

How can you know when you are losing a war? You can't count on the tele to tell you about it. Civilian morale on the home front is always regarded as important, and the information you are given is first weighed against massive secrecy and claims that no one can know. Then when something is finally reported, you can count on the editors and the publishers having long conversations about how to report what must be reported in such a way that people are not 'alarmed'. Face it, if they won't tell you the nuclear reactor upwind of you is melting down, you can't count on them telling you that your nation is losing their grand patriotic war.

So, you learn to read beneath the lines. Like with this news story from the AP.

US ambassador urged restraint on Afghan visas

Taki is one of about 2,300 Afghans who have applied to a special program that awards U.S. visas to Afghans who have worked for the U.S. government for at least a year and are in danger because of this work.

But since the Afghan Allies program began in 2009, not a single visa has been handed out.

A document obtained by The Associated Press suggests the delays may not be a matter of bureaucracy, but reflect a worry among U.S. officials over holding on to hard-to-replace employees.

Thousands of Afghanis who have been valuable 'staff' to the American occupation want to get the heck out of Dodge because they feel their lives are in danger. But the US embassy is blocking their departure, even though they meet the criteria for a program that was set up precisely for them, because the US doesn't want to lose the very Afghanis that have been helping them.

So, what does this tell us?

The people who've been working for us feel unprotected and at risk. Does this sound like we are winning a war? Does this sound like we are mopping up the last pockets of resistence towards the end of our victorious, decade-long campaign? Hardly. If we can't protect the people on our side, then we are not doing well.

There's another, even less positive, way of reading this, which is that the smart Afghanis who have been working for us see that the end of this war is near and that they've picked the wrong side, and that its high time to move to America like the Americans promised them they would allow.

It also tells you that there are so few Afghanis who are both useful to the American administration and loyal, that they can't afford to let even a single one of them come to America even though we've promised them exactly that. Not a good sign either. Kinda seems to say that most of the smart Afghanis who value a future in their own country don't really want to be seen collaborating with the foreign invaders. And that they believe that the foreign invaders are not the future.

Its just one bit of inference from between the lines, but the feeling one gets from this official news story on the AP is that we are not winning this war. That in the end, we are not going to win this war. And if that's the case, why are we throwing more money and more lives down the sinkhole of a war we are going to lose anyways. We will leave Afghanistan someday. The Afghanis know it, and appear to believe that it will happen soon enough that they need to be making other plans.

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Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War

Recently, I've taken over managing the website for the Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War. That doesn't mean that I won't write here, as I certainly will express my views on other issues here, and even probably still some of my nuclear views when they seem more personal than that of the coalition.

But, that's why the usual set of posts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki from this once-upon-a-time nuclear engineer haven't been appearing on this website. I've been busy with those sorts of posts on the Colorado Coalition website.

In Japan, a group of university and secondary school students and teachers have created a pair of Google Earth sites. These sites overlay the archive images and maps, as well as videos from survivors, over the Google Earth 3d maps of the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

And Dr. Gar Alperovitz has an excellent piece up on Counterpunch.org about the decision to nuke Hiroshima that does an excellent job of puncturing the myths with which this event is usually presented to Americans in denial of the fact that our nation committed two of the greatest atrocities in human history by killing something like 200,000 people, almost all of them civilians.

Links to all of this can be found on the Colorado Coalition's website.

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List of largest peaceful gatherings in history

List of largest peaceful gatherings in history from wikipedia

One of the myths that we are told is that police and military are all necessary because as human beings we can not gather together without violence breaking out. According to the police and the military, if we gather together in numbers, then we must have them providing 'security' and 'keeping the peace'.

As an old hippie, one sees the fallacy of this. As at times you are around tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of peaceful people having a good time and getting along just fine with each other without a cop 'keeping the peace' anywhere in sight. Which is why this wikipedia article caught my eye.

This is a list of the largest historic peaceful gatherings of people in one place for a single event. For brevity, only gatherings in excess of 1 million are recorded.

Over fifty million

An estimated 73 million people had gathered in Shanghai, China for the World Expo 2010, which started in May, 2010 and ran until the end of October.[1]
An estimated 60 to 70 million people gathered over 45 days in Allahabad, India for the Kumbh Mela, the world's largest gathering in January 2007.[2][3][3]
An estimated 50 million people gathered over 104 days in Haridwar, India for the Maha Kumbh Mela between January and April 2010. More than 16 million people together took the ritualistic bath on the bathing ghats on April 14, 2010.[4][5]
[edit]Over ten million

Pilgrimage to Sabarimala Hindu temple in Kerala, India is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world with an estimated 45–50 million devotees visiting every year.[6][7][8]
An estimated 40 million people gathered over 41 days in Sabarimala, India between 15 November and 26 December 2008.[9]
An estimated 34 million people gathered over 11 days in Rajahmundry, India for Godavari pushkaram between 31 july and 10 august 2003.[citation needed]
An estimated 15 million people attended the funeral of C. N. Annadurai in Tamil Nadu, India in 1969.[10]
An estimated 10 to 14 million people visited the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq during Arba'een in 2009.[11][12]
An estimated 10 to 14 million people visited the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq during Arba'een in 2010.[13][14][15][16][17]
[18][19]
An estimated 9 million people visited the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq during Arba'een in 2008.[20]
An estimated 8 million people attended the annual feast of the Black Nazarene in Manila, Philippines on January 2011
An estimated 7 million people attended the 25th anniversary of El Shaddai Manila, Philippines.[citation needed]
An estimated 5 million people gathered in Sabarimala, India on 14 January 2007.[21]
Over 5 million people attended a World Youth Day Rally in Manila, The Philippines in 1995 to see Pope John Paul II.[22

I don't see Olympic Games on the list. That was probably the largest peaceful crowd I'd ever been around. Was there a million people in Atlanta for the '96 games? Or, I guess someone could claim it wasn't peaceful, since a white, right-wing, anti-abortion terrorist blew up a bomb at a concert that week. But, I'd argue that this was violence that came from the outside. It didn't come from the people who were there for the games, but instead came from a crazy, right-wing nutter who treated the peaceful, fun-loving crowds as a target for their own expressions of hate and violence.

Anyways, as humans, we can gather in great numbers, and do so in a spirit of peace and respect for those around us. Don't ever let the police or military types tell you differently.

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Sometimes you have to get away from it all

Ya know, sometimes you have to just get away from this stuff. Sometimes you have the energy to feel and express outrage and concern about what's going on in the world. Sometimes, you don't. Sometimes, you just need to get away from it for awhile.

If there's anyone really reading this blog, then sorry for not posting as regularly as I normally do during this summer. But for me, its been one of those times I just need to get away from it.

Part of it is frustration with the current political situation. There is nothing at all that seems to be coming from the left in the way of any sort of challenge to the status quo. The Democrats have fully embraced wars and wall street and in their typical fashion don't want to even tolerate a discussion of this in the form of a primary challenge to president Obama. One would think Dennis Kucinich would continue his quixotic journey, but as usual he seems to have fallen in line with what the powers in the party want and isn't mounting a primary challenge this time.

This is pretty typical for Kucinich, as this is the year where he could really have an impact. He was easy to marginalize as one of seven or nine or how every many candidates there have been in the past. But this year, it would be a one on one challenge with Obama. As such, the every dissatisfied Democrat would seem to flock to his campaign if he launched it. Kucinich would probably start with 20% or more support the day after he announced such a challenge. But, in typical Kucinich fashion, he refuses to do the things that could indeed really make an impact. DK is good at the meaningless gesture, but seems to always back away when he could really make a difference.

There doesn't seem to be much happening on the left outside the Democrats either. The Greens are doing their excellent imitation of a dead parrot nailed to its perch. They seem to have successfully driven away the more prominent politicians who were willing to hoist their banner with their continual bickering and in-fighting, and this year seem to be choosing between a bunch of nobodies to pick one to run an entirely symbolic and meaningless campaign.

The only real action appears to be on the right. Since the Republicans are out of power, this is where the groundswell of opposition to the wars and corporate rule appear to be coalescing. The party out of power always talks thus about the party in power. Of course, most of it is as fake as Obama's campaign pretensions to be against the wars and against giving all our money and power to wall street. But, this fake rhetoric seems to open up at least some space for voices for real change to join in. When the Republicans were in power, this happened in the Democrats. Now that the Democrats are in power and all the previous faux-rebels are clicking their heels and saluting their great leader, we are seeing the same sort of disturbance on the right. Candidates like Ron Paul seem to be the only real challenge to power on the ballot this year. Or at least that's what it looks like now.

And, its more too late for such a challenge than too early. Any strong challenge to the power of money in this country has to be based on grassroots power of organized citizens. This takes longer to organize than a money-based campaign. And, remember, by this time in 2007, the money-based campaigns of both Hillary and Obama were already in full swing.

Someday, the people in this country might wake up and realize that the idea that power lies with the people was not just rhetoric by our founding fathers, but the real fact that they as revolutionaries knew well and which they had just used to throw off the shackles of the world dominating empire of their day. We the people hold the power in this country. Its just that apparently we refuse to use it. Majorities oppose the war. Majorities oppose this Hoover/Reagan economic recovery plan. But, no one seems to want to do anything about it.

So, I think I'll go back to fishing and playing in the mountains where its cooler. I doubt I'll be gone too long. At some point, some events will start to happen again, or some movement will start to develop again that will get my blood boiling and my fingers typing away at new posts. And I'm sure I'll drop in the occasional post along the way between now and then. :)

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The End is Nigh

Apocalypse Nigh? by Alexander Cockburn.

As usual with Mr. Cockburn, I like some of what he says, and dislike other things. All usually in the same piece. The part where I thought he was quite persepctive begins with this....

On August 3 the lights might start to go out: the US government is scheduled to send out $23 billion in social security checks to 56 million people. If the checks don’t arrive, within a couple of days America’s old folk are going without food and can’t make the rent. US Treasuries will lose their top rating and the entire credit structure of the planet starts] to come unglued. Goldbugs will be crazed with triumph as the precious metal soars to $3,000 an ounce and hyperinflation roars into life. Next thing you know, greenbacks are being tossed in the trash and we’re heading back to a barter economy.

America is in love with Apocalypse. It always has been. Every couple of years someone says the End is Nigh. When I came to America’s shores in 1972 Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth had just been published and sold 30 million copies over the next 20 years. Lindsey wrote, rather presciently, that Antichrist would rule over a ten-nation European Community through the 1970s until the Rapture – scheduled for the 1980s – and the Second Coming.

Except, these days, the book to reference about this stuff is Naomi Klien's "The Shock Doctrine". In that book, Ms. Klien lays out how some very greedy people learned how to manipulate a crisis to rip us off. At first it was exploitation of an existing crisis. But then they learned how to create a crisis to provide the excuse to rip us off.

All of these claims that the end is nigh are used to push a political agenda that otherwise would not be popular in a democracy. Every 'pundit' screams about how horrible the situation is, and that measures must be taken to address this immediately. There is lots of screaming and yelling about how we are in dire straights. Then we, the people, get screwed.

We saw this play out at the very beginning of the Obama administration. There was a huge amount of yelling about how we needed a wall street bailout. To the point where when at one point it was delayed by just a day or two, this was regarded as a catastrophe. In the end, wall street got our money, the wall street bonus checks went out as planned, and suddenly the world wasn't ending any more now that wall street had our money.

This time, all the yelling and screaming is apparently to get the people to accept that their benefits have to be cut, the retirements of their children put at risk, and health care denied to the elderly all so we can keep paying for our foreign wars and of course shell out money to wall street whenever they need it.

We've had huge expenditures in these areas. You don't have to be a nuclear engineer to know that having two surges in Afghanistan while starting a new war in Libya while buying the military and the spy agencies every toy they want while also paying for every homeland security pork project while the economy was otherwise crashing into the worst downturn since the Great Depression would raise the debt. Now, we are told that none of this can be cut, be we all have to 'sacrifice' to pay for all of this.

As far as I'm concerned, I know exactly where they can stick that. We need a whole new Congress in 2012. It can happen. We can change this country as quickly as the people of Egypt changed theirs. And we have the benefit of a scheduled election by which we can do it. If enough people have had enough, and have figured out that both Democrats and Republicans are out to screw them, then we can have a whole new Congress meeting in the winter of 2013.

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They are lying.

New study proves falsity of John Brennan's drone claims

Apparently an Obama administration official has been running around saying we haven't killed a single innocent person in all of our drone missile strikes in Pakistan this year.

"in the last year, 'there hasn't been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we've been able to develop." He added: "if there are terrorists who are within an area where there are women and children or others, you know, we do not take such action that might put those innocent men, women and children in danger."

A London-based group called the Bureau of Investigative Journalism investigated this and other similar claims from Obama administration officials.

Contrary to Brennan's public assertions, "a detailed examination by the Bureau of 116 CIA 'secret' drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2010 has uncovered at least 10 individual attacks in which 45 or more civilians appear to have died."

and ...

A British photojournalist providing on-the-scene reporting of the aftermath of drone strikes in Waziristan documented this week that "far more civilians are being injured or dying than the Americans and Pakistanis admit" and "for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant." To describe Brennan's claims as merely "inaccurate" or "untrue" is to be unduly generous.

To say we aren't killing anyone when a very conservative investigation methodology finds "45 or more" deaths in drone attacks is not just mis-speaking. That's more a deliberate lie to the American people. This is a direct attack on democracy, as citizens can only act on information they know. When their government deliberately lies to them, then the government is subverting democracy and preventing the people from acting in a democracy. When a journalist on the ground says we are killing 10 to 15 people for every 'bad guy' we get, to have government officials stand up and say there are no such deaths is just a blatant lie. Your government does not want you to know what they are doing, and they are willing to lie to your face to keep you from knowing.

In an honest democracy, John Brennan would resign or be removed from his post for such a deception of the citizens of this country. Don't hold your breath.

There is one piece of good news in all of this. The government that is killing 10 to 15 people for every bad guy in Pakistan believes that they have to lie about this. This means they believe that people will not accept this if they know about it, and the only way for them to be able to keep killing is to lie to the citizens about this. That's good news, because I hope they are right. That means the American people won't stand for this when they know about it. And eventually, the truth always does come out. If they are telling such lies to keep this going, then it can not go on forever.

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Collateral Damage

'Collateral Damage'. One of the ugly euphemisms of this post-Orwellian age. Usually used to wave away any protests at the killing of innocent civilians. Under today's post-Orwell logic, its a humanitarian act to bomb and kill innocent civilians as long as there was a target who was a bad guy. As long as there is a bad guy as a target, then it doesn't matter how many other innocent people get killed along with them. They are dismissed as collateral damage.

This article (Killer Drones Taking the Place of War by Doug Noble)about the drone wars in Pakistan and elsewhere contained this striking mention.

The targeted killing of al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud, for example, took 16 missile strikes over 14 months, with well over 200 mistaken deaths.

That's sourced to an article in the New Yorker.

We killed 200 people to get the one bad guy we were trying to kill. And, it didn't happen in one madly mistaken attack. Nope, it happened over a campaign of one attack after another spread out over 14 months.

The "collateral damage" of the deaths and maimings of innocent civilians is explained away as this un-foreseeable result of a legitimate attack to try to take out a bad guy. But, we've been hearing this for at least a decade now. At what point are these deaths really un-forseeable? If attack after attack kills innocent civilians and more innocent civilians, isn't there some point at which these deaths and maimings become a forseeable consequence of the attacks? If there had been attempted drone strikes against this Al-Qaeda leader, and strike after strike was killing innocent civilians, then isn't there a point where the killing of innocent civilians is a known and foreseeable outcome of more such strikes?

Doesn't the equation change if the killing of innocent civilians is known outcome of the actions? At that point, doesn't this 'collateral damage' just become the blatant cold blooded killing of innocent civilians? Surely by now, the people who launch these strikes know that innocent people are going to die. And thus, by taking the decision to launch yet another drone strike to kill some Al-Qaeda leader, they are deliberately taking the decision to murder and maime innocent civilians? Doesn't the morality of the act change at that point?

We hate terrorists precisely because they are willing to kill innocent people to reach their desired political ends. That's what makes a terrorist 'evil'. Yet, at what point do we become the same as the terrorists? If we deliberately kill 200 people, and maime who knows how many others, in order to take out one person that we've declared a 'bad guy', then how are we any different from the 'bad guy' who's bad precisely because he is willing to kill innocent civlians himself/herself?

Sometimes it helps our clarity of vision to turn something around and look at it from the other direction. If Osama Bin Laden had declared one person in the World Trade Center to be a 'bad guy' in his mind, say perhaps one of John Perkins' "economic hitmen", would we have accepted as okay OBL's then further claim that the killing of the rest of the 3000 people who died on 9-11 to be just 'collateral damage' to this attack?

Hardly. We'd have dismissed that as the psychotic ravings of a dangerous madman. What makes a terrorist evil in our minds is the very notion that they might at any time be willing to kill tens or hundreds or thousands of us in order to reach their goal. But, who are we if we are also willing to kill tens or hundreds or thousands of innocent people as 'collateral damage' to achieve our goal?

The question all of this leads to is "how do we expect this to end?" Do we expect that somehow we can kill every 'bad guy' in the world, and thus magically achieve some sort of peace? That seems a dangerous fantasy. Especially when every killing of a bad guy takes out tens or hundreds or more of innocent people around him. Innocent people who have mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who love them and who feel loss and anger at their deaths and who are then willing to become 'bad guys' themselves in order to seek revenge on the people who killed their loved ones.

We've used the deaths of the 3000 people on 9-11 as an excuse to kill thousands if not millions of people in country's spread around the world. That's our anger and our fear over being attacked. We vow retribution for our dead, and we want to end the fear of another attack. And yet, if every action we take leaves tens or hundreds of innocent people dead and maimed, isn't it likely that the relatives and countrypeople of our innocent dead will vow retribution upon us? That they will then act in such a way to try to end the fear that they now legitimately have that their world will again explode tomorrow as a missile from an unseen drone explodes on their street or in their house.

It seems quite possible that in taking out this one Al-Qaeda terrorist, that we have instead created more than one new terrorist from the relatives and countrypeople of the two hundred people we killed along the way. If that is true, then we are further away from peace, we are further away from living without fear of another terrorist attack, than we were when we launched this drone campaign.

How does this end? At some point, there must be peace. Or, do we truly believe that we can bomb and missile strike around the rest of the world for ever and ever? I'm sure the people who sell the drones and missiles want that to be the result. But, do we the people want this war to continue and continue and continue? Do we want to bequeath to our children and grand-children this world of murder and fear where they have to always live in fear of another terrorist attack? Do we want our children and grandchildren to some day stand in fear and shock and dismay at the news of some new terror attack against us?

If the goal is to someday live without fear, then the current war appears to be the wrong solution. If we kill so many people to get one terrorist, then it seems likely that we are creating more terrorists than we kill.

How does this end? It seems that if we want peace, then we have to put an end to this. Perhaps there are bad people out there who we need to capture or kill for our own safety. But, if that's the case, then it also seems that we need a way to do this that doesn't create more new terrorists because of the death and destruction and maimings and fear that must result from such drone strikes.

If we want this to end, then we can not act like the terrorists. We have to stop this sort of killing. Its not leading towards peace. Instead this just creates more hatred and more killing and more and more people who'd like to see Americans experience the same horror that they experienced when their neighborhood suddenly exploded from a missile from an unseen drone.

How do we want this to end? To me, any 'good' ending requires that we do as little damage as possible along the way.

Its fascinating to hear that we have to avoid putting our soldiers and pilots at risk in order to do the killing that we say is neccessary for our safety. But, isn't that their job? Isn't that what they signed up to do? Anyone who joins the military is making a deliberate decision to put themselves at risk to protect the rest of us. That's what is so honorable about military service. Yet, we are following strategies that while keeping our soldiers and pilots safe, we create greater danger for the rest of us. That's the opposite of what the military is supposed to be doing. Instead of taking risks themselves to keep the rest of us safe, they are keeping themselves safe while increasing the risks that the rest of us might some day face another dangerous terrorist attack.

Then of course we are told that we have to give our national treasure as well as our hard-earned constitutional rights and liberties away because of the threat of future terror attacks.

How do we expect this to end? Shouldn't our actions today be based on that outcome that we want? Do we want peace? Or do we really want perpetual and never ending war, and the future of never ending terror attacks on our civilians that this implies? I don't think so. Poll after poll suggests the American people want peace. They want the wars to end. If so, then we need to start acting in such a way that we can someday reach the peace we want. If that's the case, then the killing of 200 people to get one Al-Qaeda leader is a defeat for us and our hopes and dreams. That just means that there will be more war that goes on and on and on and on like the little pink bunny that advertises batteries.

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We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident

(from the Declaration of Independence)
"-- that all persons are created equal,
-- that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
-- that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among persons, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
-- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that humankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Now, what made this different from other political writings?

"we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Its the last line that really created America. A willingness to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of Liberty.

Enjoy the fireworks!

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Independence Day

That's the name of the holiday.

INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Its not called 'the Fourth of July', although that's what you see in many corporate sources.

Every winter, we get to hear one corporate news channel talk about the war on Christmas. But,no one dares to change the name of Christmas to the "Twenty Fifth of December". Can you imagine how Bill O'Reilly would howl about that? Yet, its frequent to hear the name of our national birthday changed to the square of an otherwise meaningless box on a calendar.

Independence Day is the name of the holiday. Independence Day is the day we celebrate our Independence. Or, at least the fact that somewhere around these parts about 235 years ago, some people pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to throwing off the rules and armies and taxes and police of a tyrant, and decided to live free or die.

Happy Independence Day!!!!!!!!

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Back again

Sorry, been off doing other stuff for awhile. :)

Meanwhile, the nuclear plants in NE haven't melted down, although I still suspect the situation was more dangerous than the US media was telling anyone. The US Army still has its occupation troops in Germany, Japan, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. And probably lots of other places that I don't think of off the top of my head. For that matter, I grew up in the South, and there are a lot of permanent military bases there a 150 years after that war ended.

Meanwhile, the tour de chemists is beginning in France. There's a strange situation where last year's winner, who as per TDF tradition of late failed a drug test during the race, being allowed to race in this year's race while he appeals the decision stripping him of last year's title and suspending him from the sport. The question is, who are the chemists backing this year. If you do a quick google search, you'll find the 2007 winner, Floyd Landis was stripped of his title as well. As did 2006 winner Jan Ulrich. Every year, more cyclists are banned from the sport for failing drug tests. And of course, the most famous American cyclist, Lance Armstrong has been accused of taking banned drugs as well. Most notably by another top level American cyclist, Tyler Hamilton, who failed is own drug tests in his day. Alberto Contador in just the latest in the long, long line of people who decide that riding bycycles up the alps isn't a normal thing to do and that they need some help to accomplish these super-human feets.

So, anyone want to start a pool? Who will be banned for failed drug tests this year? Or, maybe just pick a date on the calendar when this year's super human is caught doing the things that make him super-human?

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Slow withdrawals

Think the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan are going slow? 69 years after invading Okinawa, the Obama administration still can't meet a deadline for shifting out of one of our permanent bases there.

Okinawa row: Japan and US drop Futenma airbase deadline

Japan and the US have agreed to drop a 2014 deadline to move a controversial US airbase on the island of Okinawa.

Officials from both nations said the Futenma airbase, near the provincial capital of Naha, would be moved "at the earliest possible date after 2014".

But they did not specify a date for the relocation.

Based on this set of data, we'll still be seeing whoever's president in 2072 telling us that they still can't get the troops out of Iraq, and can't give a date for when it will occur.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters that the relocation of Futenma airbase was still critical to US policy in the region.

"Doing so will reduce the impact of our presence on local residents in Okinawa while allowing us to maintain capabilities critical to the alliance in Japan," he said.

What on earth is so dang critical to Americans that we have to be paying for all these troops and planes to be in Japan 70 years after the end of the war? Bring the troops home!

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Close Americas' Fukushimas

In the United States, there are 23 operating reactors of the same GE boiling water reactor design that was built at Fukushima.  Beyond Nuclear has a petition to the NRC to suspend operations at these reactors pending reviews.

I don't know how much good it will do, but I certainly agree with the petition and thus I was happy to sign it.  I'd encourage others to do so as well.

Cooper - Mon. 6-20-11

One of these American Fukushima's is the Cooper nuclear power plant in Nebraska.  Cooper is one of two reactors threatened by high flood waters on the Missouri River.  And its probably the more dangerous of the two. Not only because its the same design as Fukushima, but because its up and operating while the other reactor, Ft. Calhoun, has been shut down for refueling since early April.

If the flood waters take out the connection to the electric grid that normally provides power to the cooling pumps, and at the same time takes out the emergency backup generators, then we could very well have an American Fukushima in the heart of our country.  Nuclear reactors are of course incredibly hot.  And, they don't shut down that heat at the flip of a switch like you can with a steam boiler. The radioactive decay products from the nuclear reaction continue to generate heat in the core long after the control rods are lowered into the reactor to slow down and stop the fission chain reaction.

Ft. Calhoun - Mon 6-20-11

Fukushima's fission chain reactions were successfully shut down within seconds of the detection of the very first waves of the offshore earthquake.  But, that didn't prevent disaster from occurring.  The problem is this very hot reactor core that requires cooling for a long time after the reaction is stopped.  Fukushima lost its connection to the electric grid in the earthquake. Then Fukushima lost its backup generators to the tsunami.  They had battery power for a few hours, but when that failed, the pumps could no longer pump cooling water and disaster followed very quickly.  We are now finally being informed officially that the cores at Fukushima 1, 2 and 3 were all melting within hours of losing the last battery power to the cooling pumps.

So, if those flood waters breach sandbag walls, and take out the main power line to the plant as well as the backup diesel generators, we'd be only hours from having nuclear reactor cores doing meltdowns in America's heartland.

Pray to whatever gods you got that those sandbag walls hold. If those sandbags don't hold, a lot of America will be wishing the NRC had done what Beyond Nuclear is petitioning for. That is closing Cooper nuclear power plant, and the other's that share the GE design built at Fukushima, pending a rigorous safety review.

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Japan's new anti-nuclear resistance

Japan's new anti-nuclear resistance by Chirs Kim of Socialist Worker.

http://www.nnistar.com/gmap/fukushima.html

These protests also marked the arrival of a new generation of organizers largely new to political activism. According to Labornet Japan, "Nearly 90 percent of participants were young people in their 20s and 30s, and most of them were taking part in this kind of action for the first time and found out the mobilization through the Internet...The participation of such a large number of young people is a groundbreaking moment in the history of Japan's social movements."

Thus, in the midst of tragedy, something positive was emerging. Organizer Hajime Matsumoto expressed the enthusiasm that many shared at the sight of this new wave of protest. "Something has begun," said Matsumoto. "Otherwise, Japan will collapse."

What's more, the disarray within the Japanese ruling class was becoming increasingly stark. On April 8, Masayoshi Yoshino, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (similar to the Republican Party in the U.S.) and a member of parliament from the Fukushima prefecture, held a news conference to declare:

"As a person who has had a pro-nuclear stance, I'm totally at a loss at the moment as to whether we should continue to promote Japan's nuclear energy sector...I know in my head that I should make a decision only when we have a thorough investigation into what happened. But my instinct tells me, "No more nuclear plants.""

No more nuclear plants. We can't afford many more maps like these.

BTW, you might have missed it since Fukushima seems unmenationable now in the US media, but Japan disclosed that Fukushima had been releasing twice as much radiation as had been previously admitted to.  After all, important stuff like Weiner's weiner pictures were dominating the news then.  One thing that's not being discussed is how Fukushima is releasing far more radiation than Chernobyl did (follow link for good maps).  And, at this point, remember that nothing has been done to close off those damaged Japanese reactors. They are still open to the air and spewing radiation.

There's one thing that's been true from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl to Fukushima.  Whatever you hear from the power company and the government, its always much worse.  The scary thought is what that means for the reactor in NE that's going under the Missouri River flood waters, and about which what little media coverage there's been in the US as been very reassuring.

The best way to avoid having to worry about getting your own updated radiation maps for your neighborhood after yet another nuclear disaster is organize and not let them build or continue to operate a nuclear facility near you.

My instinct is yelling at me .... "No More Nuclear Plants".

Waging Another Unconstitutional War

Waging Another Unconstitutional War by Ralph Nader.

The expanding immunities of the Executive branch, now increasingly embracing the military contractors of the corporate state, is destroying the remaining pretensions that we are a nation under law. When he was inaugurated as President in January 2009, President Obama said he wanted his Administration to be known as one of "transparency and the rule of law." You'll recall during his 2008 campaign he trumpeted that he would obey the Constitution, inferring the the Republican regime was trampling the Rule of Law.

Indeed in 2007, then Senator Barack Obama stated that "the president does not have any power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." Vice President Biden was even more vehement on this issue. And Secretary of Defense Robert Gates originally opposed the attack on Libya before falling in line.

One thing you'll hear on the internet is that politics doesn't matter because you get this same result no matter who you elect. It now appears obvious that whether the electorate had selected Obama, McCain or Hillary, we'd still be in all our wars including our new one in Libya.

But, this ignores the fact that there were other names on the ballot in 2008 besides McCain and Obama. Read this piece by Ralph Nader, and ask whether or not US policy might be very different today if the electorate had chosen Ralph Nader to be President. Or, in the last election, I voted for Cynthia McKinney. She's another strong voice against these wars, and US policy would certainly be different if the electorate had elected her.

Nothing kept people from doing this. There's this loud message of course, that these candidates can't win. But, that's only true when the American people walk into a voting booth and select Obama or McCain over these other choices. Nothing stopped the American people from ending these wars in 2008 by electing someone like Ralph Nader as President.

At some point, when people have had enough, they need to stop voting for the same people who keep inflicting these policies they don't want upon them.

A very simple rule to follow to do this would be to stop voting for the candidates with all the money. When you see a candidate with enough money to flood television stations with their ads, people need to realize that this means that the candidate is already bought by the money that paid for those ads. Whether the party of the candidate is (D) or (R) is irrelevant. To get real change, try voting for the broke candidates who can't afford TV ads. At least you've got a chance that they might not already be bought.

Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood

Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood

The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska remains shut down due to Missouri River flooding, but the plant itself has not flooded and is expected to remain safe, the federal government said Friday.

The rising river "has certainly affected the site, but the plant itself, the actual reactor is still dry," said Scott Burnell, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.

The 478-megawatt plant north of Omaha shut April 9 to refuel, and has remained shut because of the flooding, said Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson.

When you read something like this, is it meant to inform the public. Or is it meant to reassure the pubic? Not that a news story can't do both sometimes. But, you have to wonder which way the balance tilts when push really comes to shove. This article is based entirely on sources at the power company and the NRC. The reporter certainly got lots of reassurance from these sources. But, the question remains in the back of my mind as to whether the reporter would have gotten important information the public needs to know if it wasn't reassuring? Which comes first, reassurance or informing?

There's so much reassurance in here that its actually hard to spot the important pieces of information. Here's what I see buried in this story.

1) The reactor was shut down for refueling on April 9th. That's the best news you could get about a nuclear reactor upwind of you. That it has been shut down. In this case, it means the large reservoir of heat that sits at the core of a nuclear reactor, and which needs constant cooling, has had two months to dissipate. That's probably the biggest difference between this site and Fukushima. Fukushima was running up until the moment the earthquake alarms went off, and thus was at full heat.

BTW, do you notice in this Reuters piece that the word "Fukushima" isn't even mentioned? Really? A major incident at a nuclear plant just months after Fukushima, and yet the word doesn't even make it in to this news report. You'd think at least they'd be reassuring people that it isn't another Fukushima. But, apparently that's the word that can no longer be spoken.

2) One scary fact is that they are having to do additional earth moving to provide flood protection. That's rather hidden in this story. There's a very odd paragraph that begins with a fact about the ownership of the power plant. The first time I read it, my eyes glazed over and I guess I assumed the rest of the paragraph was boring stuff like that. But, no, after that first sentence, the paragraph jumps sideways into telling you that there are people on the site building emergency dikes to keep the water away from important areas. The fact that crews are out there racing against time and rising flood waters to build dikes around the sensetive areas of a nuclear power plant is presented in such a boring fashion as to provoke yawns. Until you realize that you should be cheering the fact that this was completed before the flood waters got that high.

What I would rather have heard was that the site was originally designed to stay above these flood waters. I'm glad they got their emergency dike up in time. But, I'd rather that a site next to a river have been designed with enough prudence and forethought that such an emergency dike wasn't even needed.

3) After Fukushima, you'd think reporters would know to at least ask the right questions? Does the plant still have off-site power to power the control rooms and cooling pumps? Apparently yes. But its very understated in this article. I'm guessing the 'switch yard' protected by the dike is a key part of this, but its hard to tell. The second question would concern the emergency diesel generators that would need to power the pumps should the off-site power be lost. Deep in a quote from an NRC spokesperson you see that extra earthworks have been completed to protect these important generators.

What they don't tell you is that this is still scary as to how close this plant can come to having a Fukushima in Missouri. If the plant had been operating, instead of being shut down for scheduled refueling, that connection to off-site power and those diesel generators are all that stands between safety and another Fukushima in America's heartland. The heat in a nuclear reactor must be dissipated away. Cooling water propelled by electric pumps provide this capacity. Diesel generators are the backup to this system. If both systems fail, then the reactor core is no longer cooled. When the reactor is no longer being cooled, the temperature rises quickly and very quickly the reactor component start to melt.

We've now been told what was already obvious. That the reactor cores at Fukushima melted within hours of the earthquake/tsunami. This is what happened. The cooling pumps failed when they lost power. The reactor quickly overheated without the cooling water, and the cores were melting within hours.

Its good news that this isn't happening right now in Missouri. The best news was that the reactor was already shut down. That's the safest state for a nuclear reactor. For the safety of all downwind, it should stay that way. If that wasn't true, then you'd better be praying hard that some hastily constructed temporary dikes and sandbags keep the flood water away from the key components which keep the reactor core from melting.

Oh, by the way, the refueling cycle of a nuclear reactor is about 18 months I believe. That means, this reactor will probably be up and running during next year's late spring flood season along the Missouri. And for a fair number of the rainy seasons to come. Hope they keep the sandbags handy. The bad news is that something only has to go wrong once.

Republicans defeat Pelosi and the pro-war Democrats

The Republican controlled US House of Representatives did something that the Democrat controlled House never did. They voted to cut off funding to a war. They passed and amendment to the Defense Dept authorization bill that banned money being "prohibit the use of funds in contravention of the War Powers Resolution."

Nancy Pelosi voted against the amendment, and thus in favor of more war in Libya. My local faux-progressive representative, Diane DeGette, also voted in favor of more war. She talks quite nicely about her opposition to war, until the chips are down back in DC and her vote is needed to help keep a war going. She never fails to deliver up her vote for longer wars and more deaths when its really needed. Jared Polis, the other supposedly 'progressive' representative from Colorado also voted for more war.

The vote did largely split party lines. 138 Republicans voted yes, and 110 Democrats. If you want to see a list of the Democrats who will support Obama straight into the hell of a continuing war, click on the link to go see the roll call for this vote. If you want the wars to end, this is a list of the 70 Democrats that would be good to vote out of the US House. A lot of these pro-war Democrats represent anti-war districts. Pelosi representing San Francisco is just one prime example.

Of course, the Democrats still control the Senate, so its a pretty fair bet that the Defense Dept authorization bill that passes the Senate won't include this provision. That means it probably goes to conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions. Eventually the pro-war Republican leadership, that is apparently a minority in its own caucus on Libya, will negotiate a deal with the Senate leadership on the final shape of this bill. My guess is this provision gets dropped then, and the majority in the House that voted against the war in Libya will be told to accept the bill without it.

This world keeps getting more surrealistic. Electing a Democrat house in 2006 just kept the wars going uninterrupted. But the Tea Party rise leads to a Republican House that finally takes the step that most Democratic voters have wanted for a decade .... a vote to cut off funds to a war. And it happens over the No votes of the Democratic leadership.

To me, the question really is, how long will anti-war voters and activists continue to support the pro-war Democrats?

The sit-down strikes

The sit-down strikes by Sharon Smith at SocialistWorker.org

The years 1936 and 1937 represented the highest point of class struggle in the U.S. to date--when a wave of sit-down strikes swept across U.S. industry. Those strikes built the Congress of Industrial Organizations and changed the face of the labor movement.

Ever watched a modern corporate manager try to handle the job of someone beneath them? Its usually pretty funny. I first worked in the restaurant industry, and there it was very common for a restaurant manager to be able to do any job in the place if needed. They could step in and cook, or tend bar, or wait tables or whatever. I found the corporate world to be very different. Most corporate managers would be able to very little of the work that the people who work from them do every day.

Wonder what they'd do if they came out of the conference rooms and found no one there?

Thus, the Flint sit-downers had daily meetings of all strikers in the plant. They organized routine clean-up rituals, defense drills, recreation and even "courts" where grievances could be raised (many, apparently, in jest, as a form of entertainment.)

Strike supporters and families organized the picket lines and food supplies, and raised money for the strikers. Solidarity networks of union activists organized unionists to come to Flint to take part in solidarity actions and mass picketing.

In short, factory occupations give workers a taste of taking real control over their own lives. That's why after the strike was over, many of the Flint sit-downers recalled their experience inside the plant with genuine affection.

As one worker, quoted in Jeremy Brecher's book Strike, put it, "We are all one happy family now. We all feel fine and have plenty to eat. We have several good banjo players and singers. We sing and cheer the Fisher boys and they return it."

According to one historian, there were 170 sit-downs in GM plants alone between March and June 1937. One GM worker later recalled, "every time a dispute came up, the fellows would have a tendency to sit down and just stop working."

The use of the sit-down made the strike wave of 1936-37, which built the CIO, the highest point of class struggle in the history of the U.S. labor movement. And the workers who were involved were changed forever by the sit-downs, in their awareness of their own power as a class.