Change

On election night, every time I turned on the TV, what I heard were Democrats coming up with one excuse after another for their election defeat. I heard about 'enthusiasm gaps'. I heard about how historically the party in power loses mid-term elections. I heard long discussions about why the Democrats 'get-out-the-vote' efforts didn't seem to work.


But there was one word conspicuously absent from these discussions. "Change". You remember that word, don't you? Two years ago, Mr. Obama always spoke from a podium with the word "Change" plastered onto the front. Mr. Obama stood underneath giant banners that read "Change". Mr. Obama's speechwriters seemed to have the competitions on how many times they could put the word "Change" into his speeches.


And, if you want to know why the Democrats just went down in defeat, the word "Change" is the answer. Mr. Obama and the Democrats ran for office promising "Change", and they failed to deliver. Even worse, Mr. Obama and the Democrats failed to even try to deliver.

The sad thing is that the best politics for Mr. Obama and the Democrats would have been to be very aggressive in trying to deliver "Change". With that strategy, if the Republicans were to try to block this popular President, then that would have set the Republicans up as being the party going down to an historic defeat in these elections.

Instead, the Democrats adopted the same Republican policies that had ruled the country since Mr. Obama's favorite President, Ronald Reagan. This combined with a massive spin effort to try to fool their base into believing that they really had delivered "Change". But with the bizarre notion that somehow everyone had missed this fact.

The Democrats apparently based this campaign on the assumption that the American people are stupid. I heard one Democrat analyst talking about how Mr. Obama and the Democrats had cut everyone's taxes but weren't getting credit for it. This assumes the American voters are stupid. Does he think that no one notices how much they pay in taxes when they file every April? If our taxes had gone down by any significant amount, does he think we are all too stupid to have noticed? Somewhere down in the decimal points, he's probably factually correct. Maybe our taxes did go down. But not so much that anyone could notice without pulling out last year's tax return and getting out a magnify glass to see the "Change".

Meanwhile, an antiwar majority in America has tried in two straight elections to end the wars by voting Democrat. Anti-war America elected a Democrat majority in Congress to end the wars in 2006. Then they sent Mr. Obama and even more congressional Democrats to Washington in 2008 for the same purpose, to end these wars. Instead, what they got was first the Democratic congress serving to guarantee Mr. Bush's war funding. Then they got Mr. Obama expansions of these wars in Afghanistan and into Pakistan. Then just before the election, they got raids on antiwar activists, and talk just before the election of sending 'hunter-killer teams' into Yemen. In other words, "No Change."

Americans had been telling pollsters for years that their biggest issue was health care. The Democrats had always twisted this into trying to insure a few more of the uninsured. A worthy cause, but only a fraction of the health care concerns that Americans have had. This redirecting of the issue ignores all the problems with insurance companies denying care and coverage. And it ignored for-profit hospitals charging $3 for an aspirin or $20 for a bag of salt water.

What the Democrats did once they were in Washington was to immediately take any real health care reform off the table. Instead, the Democrats made it very clear that protecting the profits of some of the most hated corporations in America was their top priority. After all, Obama alone had gotten $30 million from big health corporations in the last election. So, the CEO's of those companies were getting private meetings to plan health care 'reform' in Mr. Obama's oval office, while advocates of single-payer were being led out of the Democrat's congressional hearing rooms in handcuffs.

What we got handed to us as 'health care reform' was instead a plan to help corporate profits at the expense of the health and wallets of Americans. The Democrats passed a four year ban on any reform of health insurance. That's just the opposite of what the "Change" the voters were asking for. The American voters were not asking for the Democrats to prevent any health care reform for four years. And American voters were certainly not asking to be forced into becoming mandated customers of the very corporations from which they were crying for help and protection.

Last night, the Democrats were on the television talking about how they aren't getting any credit for their reforms. I'd say the Democrats were getting exactly the credit they deserved.

Meanwhile, another fact that the American voters keep telling pollsters is that they think corporations and Wall Street have too much power in America. Again, the Democrats did just the opposite. The first week in power in January 2009, the Democrats ran around telling everyone that we had to pass bailouts of hundreds of billions of dollars for Wall Street. Remember how that just had to be passed on a Tuesday, because if we waited until Thursday to open our treasury to the Wall Street robber barons then we would all be doomed?

Then we saw the Democrats pass a 'Wall Street reform' bill that was so loophole ridden and useless that Wall Street cheered when it passed.

And in this election, where voters were telling the pollsters the obvious fact that in the middle of the biggest "downturn" since the Great Depression that their biggest concerns were the economy and jobs. The Democrats responded to this by giving Americans the economic policies of Mr. Obama's favorite President, Ronald Reagan. The Democrats gave hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars to Wall Street in the hopes that some of this might trickle down to the rest of us. Then, when Americans asked for some real stimulus or job creation programs, Mr. Obama told us that all the money was gone, that we had a big deficit, and that ordinary Americans were going to have to be responsible for their own recovery.

Given all of that, is it any surprise that the American voters rejected this bunch of Democrats yesterday?

None of this was coming from the mouths of the Democrat spin machine on the television last night. We heard of all sorts of reasons why the Democrats lost. But the one thing that they would not say is that the Democrats had lost because they had failed to deliver the "Change" they'd promised.

Overall, I feel that last night was a major victory for the progressive movement and the left in general. It may not seem like it with the Republicans in charge of the House, but look at it this way. The Democrats will certainly run on "Change" again. In a country where a majority of the voters have been telling pollsters that they think the country is moving in the wrong direction for decades now, its become standard operating procedure for politicians to run on "Change". We even get the strange sight of incumbents running on "Change" because the idea is so popular with the voters.

So maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep within the bowels of the corporate Democrat political machine, maybe a smart analyst is thinking the thought that maybe the next time the Democrats get power, that they should actually deliver some real "Change".

That's the good news. In the long run, last night the American voters took a positive step forward towards actually getting some "Change" by defeating the politicians who had failed to deliver what they had promised. We were not getting any "Change" today no matter who won last night's elections. But, with this defeat of the politicians who had failed to deliver, we sent a powerful message that tells future politicians that they had better plan on delivering the "Change" that they so easily promise in every election.

Which Party Supports You.

In American politics, usually the question is what party do you support. But, in a representative democracy, the question should be, which party supports you and supports what you believe?

Remember, if you vote Democrat or Republican and they win, you get exactly what they promised you. Which is more war and a government that serves corporate America a whole lot more than it serves you.

Issue Position Comparison --

Issue	Green Party	Republicans	Democrats
Invasion and Occupation of Iraq	Oppose	Support	Support
Patriot Act	Oppose	Support	Support
Invasion of Afghanistan	Oppose	Supported	Supported
Kosovo War	Opposed	Supported	Supported
Military Budget	Reduce	Increase	Increase
Israeli Occupation of West Bank and Gaza.	Oppose	Support	Support
Global Warming - Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions	Support	Oppose	Oppose and Failed to Act.
Right to Choose	Support	Oppose	Support (?)
National Health Insurance	Support single-payer national health insurance	Oppose	Oppose
Clean Water	Support	Oppose	Weak Support
Death Penalty	Oppose	Support	Support
Labor: Wages and Unions	Support	Oppose Workers	Minimal Support
(Global) Corporate Power Trade Agreements and Institutions (NAFTA, FTAA, CAFTA, WTO)	Restrict	Expand	Expand
Real Campaign Finance Reform & Publicly Financed Elections	Support	Oppose	Oppose
Electoral Reforms & Democracy	Support	Oppose	Oppose
2000 Florida Election - Congressional Investigation	Support	Oppose	Oppose
Reform the Presidential Debate Commission	Support	Oppose	Oppose
Strict Standards on GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)	Support	Oppose	Oppose
Corporate Agriculture	Oppose	Support	Support
Drug War	Oppose	Support	Support
Telecommunications Deregulation - Giveaway of public broadcast spectrum to private companies.	Opposed to Deregulation	Supported	Supported
Bank Deregulation and Banking Reform	Opposed to bank deregulation.	Supported bank deregulation.	Supported bank deregulation.
Increased Accounting Oversight	Always Supported	Oppose	Opposed until the Enron scandal broke.
Other issues on which most Republicans and most Democrats agree -- and Greens disagree	Plan Colombia The bombing of Iraqi civilians Refusal to ban landmines Privatization of prisons, other public services and resources Severe penalties for marijuana Big corporate mergers and Wall Street bail-outs Forest logging giveaways Powerful agribusiness lobbies instead of family farms Uncontrolled bio-engineering Increased wiretaps and other surveillance The Defense of Marriage Act
printable version | more details

Like most things with the Green Party, the website where this came from seems to be a bit out of date. The last 'news' article is from 2006.

Of course, most of the items still seem relevant today. You just notice that the website talks about Bill Clinton and Al Gore and John Kerry instead of Barrack Obama. The faces and the names change, but the issues don't. And, it also tells you that 4 years of Democrats in control of Congress and 2 years of Democrats having the White House as well have led to absolutely NO CHANGE in these issues.

But, it does mean that a few more should be added to the list.

• The Green Party opposed the Israeli attack on aid ships on the open sea. The Democrats and Republicans verbally attacked the humanitarians bringing aid.
  
• The Green Party supports Wikileaks and the release of the truth that the US government and military knows about our wars. The Democrats and Republicans do not and want prosecutions of those who've told American citizens the truth.
  
• The Green Party opposes having Obama's FBI kick in the doors of anti-war activists. The Democrats and Republicans order the raids and do not speak in opposition.
  

And that's just what comes from the top of my head. Feel free to add other differences in the comments section. :)

As usual, the Arabs knew

The Shaming Of America
By Robert Fisk

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.



Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who'd been tortured and you'd be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or "collateral damage", or a simple phrase: "We have nothing on that."



Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday's ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I've identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

And, as I said below, the interesting question is this .... if everyone in the Arab world knew about this, then exactly who was the Pentagon keeping this secret info from? The only answer is the American citizens. And in a system where the citizens represent the sovereign power of the nation (the constitution begins with "We the People"), that's a very undemocratic and anti-American act. Withholding information from the American people is in effect a coup that steals the rightful power of the American people by deciding what the citizens know and what the citizens don't know.

But, written in bleak militarese as it may be, here is the evidence of America's shame. This is material that can be used by lawyers in courts. If 66,081 – I loved the "81" bit – is the highest American figure available for dead civilians, then the real civilian mortality score is infinitely higher since this records only those civilians the Americans knew of. Some of them were brought to the Baghdad mortuary in my presence, and it was the senior official there who told me that the Iraqi ministry of health had banned doctors from performing any post-mortems on dead civilians brought in by American troops. Now why should that be? Because some had been tortured to death by Iraqis working for the Americans? Did this hook up with the 1,300 independent US reports of torture in Iraqi police stations?

Such freedom. The Iraqi puppet government bans any investigations into dead bodies brought in by American troops. And the US military issues orders banning any investigations into allegations of torture or killings by the Iraqi government. And by such beaurocratic measures, we created a hell in Iraq that Iraqis have always told us was far worse than anything under Saddam.

We still haven't got to the bottom of the WikiLeaks story, and I rather suspect that there are more than just a few US soldiers involved in this latest revelation. Who knows if it doesn't go close to the top? In its investigations, for example, al-Jazeera found an extract from a run-of-the-mill Pentagon press conference in November 2005. Peter Pace, the uninspiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is briefing journalists on how soldiers should react to the cruel treatment of prisoners, pointing out proudly that an American soldier's duty is to intervene if he sees evidence of torture. Then the camera moves to the far more sinister figure of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who suddenly interrupts – almost in a mutter, and to Pace's consternation – "I don't think you mean they (American soldiers) have an obligation to physically stop it. It's to report it."



The significance of this remark – cryptically sadistic in its way – was lost on the journos, of course. But the secret Frago 242 memo now makes much more sense of the press conference. Presumably sent by General Ricardo Sanchez, this is the instruction that tells soldiers: "Provided the initial report confirms US forces were not involved in the detainee abuse, no further investigation will be conducted unless directed by HHQ [Higher Headquarters]." Abu Ghraib happened under Sanchez's watch in Iraq. It was also Sanchez, by the way, who couldn't explain to me at a press conference why his troops had killed Saddam's sons in a gun battle in Mosul rather than capture them.

Or, try this .... type "Salvador option" into a search engine and see what it turns up for round about 2004. I haven't done it yet, but I remember Rumsfeld and others talking about using the "El Salvador" option in Iraq. This of course meant a repeat of the torture and death squads that the US had unleashed upon El Salvador back when Rumsfeld was serving Obama's favorite president, Ronald Reagan. I suspect there's an evil correlation between those references and the increase in torture and death squad activity we now have documented in these Iraqi war logs.

So Sanchez's message, it seems, must have had Rumsfeld's imprimatur. And so General David Petraeus – widely loved by the US press corps – was presumably responsible for the dramatic increase in US air strikes over two years; 229 bombing attacks in Iraq in 2006, but 1,447 in 2007. Interestingly enough, US air strikes in Afghanistan have risen by 172 per cent since Petraeus took over there. Which makes it all the more astonishing that the Pentagon is now bleating that WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands. The Pentagon has been covered in blood since the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, and for an institution that ordered the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 – wasn't that civilian death toll more than 66,000 by their own count, out of a total of 109,000 recorded? – to claim that WikiLeaks is culpable of homicide is preposterous.



The truth, of course, is that if this vast treasury of secret reports had proved that the body count was much lower than trumpeted by the press, that US soldiers never tolerated Iraqi police torture, rarely shot civilians at checkpoints and always brought killer mercenaries to account, US generals would be handing these files out to journalists free of charge on the steps of the Pentagon. They are furious not because secrecy has been breached, or because blood may be spilt, but because they have been caught out telling the lies we always knew they told.

We've seen the spectacle of a baseball player being charged with lying to Congress over steroid use. Well, now we have very good evidence of much more serious lies being told to Congress. Lies that have killed many human beings, including 4000 plus American soldiers killed in Iraq. Is our Congress investigating these awful lies? Or, is our Congress attacking Wikileaks for exposing these lies? If you don't like the answer you get to that question, then don't vote for an incumbent.

They are furious not because secrecy has been breached, or because blood may be spilt, but because they have been caught out telling the lies we always knew they told.

Must See TV

Today's Democracy Now! is focusing primarily on the Wikileak's posting of the Iraq War Logs. This is must see TV.

WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs Expose US-Backed Iraqi Torture, 15,000 More Civilian Deaths, and Contractors Run Amok

Early in the show, there's a fascinating interview with an Iraqi citizen on the streets of Baghdad. He says what's rather obvious, in that everyone in Iraq already knows this. That its important that there is documentation and evidence of these crimes, but that everyone in Iraq already knows this. That everyone in Iraqi has had people detained and beaten and killed.

If everyone in Iraq already knows what's in these documents, then why is is so important that they be kept secret? Because there's evidence of war crimes in these documents. The UN's chief investigator of torture is already calling on the Obama administration to seriously investigate the facts that are already in the US government's documents. And if there's justice in the world, then that's just step one towards a more serious international investigation.

These documents undermine the war here at home. Here in America, most people have basically been lied to about this war. These are the facts that the American people are not supposed to see. The American people aren't supposed to see how the US condones torture. The American people aren't supposed to see how its soldiers gun down people on the streets from helicopters. The American people aren't supposed to see the horror that we've brought to Iraq.

These documents call into question the very foundations of the Iraq war. First we were lied to and told that we had to invade Iraq to get rid of Saddam's WMDs. Then, when President Bush was doing his comedy act of looking under chairs for the WMDs, the story changed to one where we were in Iraq to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq.

Really? If we are there to defend the civil rights of Iraqis, then why does the US have an official policy of looking the other direction when they found that this happened? If we are there to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq, then why do we have an official policy to ignore reports of torture and abuse when the torture and abuse is being done by our puppet government and our puppet army?

See this show before you vote. Listen to the Obama's administration official spokesperson, and the way he attacks the people who release the truth, and defends the torturers and killers. That's the Democratic party policy. Attack anyone who reveals the truth. The Obama administration has been more aggressive than any previous president in prosecuting those who leak embarrassing facts that they want covered up. The Obama administration continues to attack Wikileaks. I guess that's the part of the FBI that isn't kicking in the doors of antiwar activists. Then the Obama administration is denying that any wrong has been done. The Obama administration is defending the torturers and the killers.

If you vote Democrat, so are you. Please don't vote Democrat. For your own soul, don't be a defender and enabler of torture. Please don't vote Democrat.

Power to the People

Democracy Now! has a fascinating interview with Daniel Ellsberg (of Pentagon Papers fame) about the latest release from Wikileaks.

Here's the part that struck me.

AMY GOODMAN: Dan Ellsberg, can you go back to the language of 793, the law that goes after whistleblowers—

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN:—and how it can go after journalists, as well?

DANIEL ELLSBERG: It actually can apply—the words are so broad, because they really were intended for espionage, for people who are secretly giving information to an enemy, so they weren’t designed to protect, let’s say, First Amendment or freedom of speech when it comes to giving information to the public. So they talk about wrongfully receiving or holding information that is not authorized for release or giving it to people who are not authorized to receive it. And the people who get it are subject to charge under that.

It often has been said that the AIPAC case, the case of the Israeli lobby here, people who were accused of receiving information, were for the first—who did not have clearances—who were being charged under this law. Barack Obama, by the way, dropped that case, which was brought under Bush. Actually, that was not the first case. In my case, my co-defendant, Anthony Russo, was in exactly the same position. He didn’t have a clearance at that time. He was just receiving the material. He held it; he didn’t return it. At least at that time they had paper he could have returned, in principle, as did the New York Times.

But the wording of the law could apply to readers of the New York Times, which I believe is coming out with this information. They’re not authorized to receive this classified information, even though they may very well have a need, as citizens, to have it. It’s being wrongfully withheld from them, but they’re not authorized to receive. Unless they return it, they are subject—now, that’s not going to happen. But the journalists, indeed, are being put on warning that they may be subject to this.

In a democracy, the people are the holders of sovereign power. The first words of the US Constitution are "We the People" to acknowledge that true power lies with the people, and that they are just loaning some of it to the government in order to have a government that protects and secures their rights.

So, ultimately, in a democracy, its the people who need to know this information. If power lies with the people, then the people have a right to the information they need to exercise that power.

In a democracy, no one could be prosecuted under such language as above, certainly not any citizen in the community with voting rights, because they all are people who have an intrinsic right in a free society to see such information.

Now, I'll concede that you can't have everything free and known. If you are fighting a war, then you can't tell your enemy what you are about to do. But, beyond what should be very strict limits around such truly national security areas, there should be as free as flow as possible about information to the people who are the holders of real power.

If you don't see that, then what you are seeing are other government officials usurping the power of the people by denying them the knowledge they need to make those decisions.

And, look closely at the information in these Wikileaks documents. Are they top secret stuff that if OBL knows it today we are all in danger? Or, are these facts that are embarrassing to the people who want to fight this war? Is is stories of civilians being killed, and documentation that we've killed many, many, many more Iraqis than Americans were killed on 9-11? Is it stories of prisoners being abused? Is it accounts of friendly fire?

Why are these documents so secret that the American people can't see them? This isn't the plans for our next great offensive in Afghanistan. This is the dirty laundry that they don't want people to know.

In a democracy, for the people to make an informed decision on whether to continue a war or to bring the troops home, then the people need to know all the information they can about that war. Not just the shiny propaganda picture of Americans liberating the fictional city of Marjam, but the real stories of what this war really does. What happens when the US military decides to set up a check point?

Never forget this war was sold to Americans by lies. Iraq has WMDs, or so we were told. Now we know that was a lie. Saddam was a nasty man, but his capability to hurt Americans was very limited. Did we really need to fight this war? Over 4,000 Americans have died. According to these Wikileaks documents, the Pentagon accounts for 66,000 Iraqi civilians.

They don't want you to know those facts. They don't want you to know how many people have died. They want to fly the coffins home and night and ban the media from the funerals. They want to say that they don't count Iraqi civilian deaths, so don't even ask.

Now we know. Well over 4,000 Americans are dead because of this war. That's more than OBL killed on 9-11. Over 66,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because of this war. Was it worth it? Was making sure that Saddam didn't hurt us with his fictional WMDs worth over 100,000 dead bodies?

That's the questions you aren't supposed to ask. That's why they don't want you to know those numbers, so you can't ask a question like that one. Because to me, that question shows that these Wars of Terror have been a horrible mistake. And that the first step of recovering from that mistake is to end them all as soon as possible.

Logan's Dad

www.logansdad.org

Emily Guzman got onto the very end of Democracy Now! today. With just the few seconds left to give the name of this website.

Her husband has been detained by immigration officials for nearly a year. He was originally here on work visas under NACARA. But, after a very quick scan of the page, my question is, if he's married to an American citizen, then how is there any question as to whether he's allowed to be here.

The larger piece on Democracy Now was about immigration processes. ICE officials have the power to ask a judge to sign a deportation order with no hearing on the facts. Many judges sign many of these. Of course, the arrest reports of the ICE agents often have mistakes (who does perfect paperwork), and the judges who do check on these before they sign them have found cases of legitimate US citizens under threat of deportation because of mistaken ICE agents.

This is why the serfs started demanding trial by jury many, many, many moons ago under the Magna Charter. This is why the US Constitution requires a trial by jury of one's peers. Because even honest and conscientious officials make mistakes. And because not all officials are both honest and conscientious.

visit www.logansdad.org and see if you can make up your mind as to what case Ms. Guzman's husband falls under.

WikiLeaks

For the last few days, the Pentagon has been screaming trying to intimidate WikiLeaks into not publishing the material that came to them, and also trying to pressure any media that they could intimidate into not publishing the data.

Now we know why.

Guardian website on the 'war logs'
Wikileaks website on the 'war logs'

Includes stories on "How the US ignored Torture", a secret tally of Iraqi civilian deaths (something about which the Pentagon's spokespersons have always denied existence), "No Further Action" by US military to claims of abuse, the "Grim Toll at the Checkpoints", "Men Who Tried to Surrender Killed", "How Friendly Fire Became Routine", and a map of every death in Iraq.

In other words, a lot of stuff that the generals at the Pentagon have been trying to hide during this war.

Of course, the people who committed this act of freedom in letting the world see this info are under attack.  Wikileaks is under attack.  Its financial sources are under attack. Its founder had a strange on again off again rape charge suddenly filed against him.  And just before the release of this information, Wikileaks was under attack by 'very skilled' hackers.

Who is defending freedom?

Freedom is about power, and who controls it.  In a free society, the power resides with the people.  Of course, in order for that to work, the people need information.  For instance, a free society can not make an informed decision on whether to continue a war when it does not know the costs of the war.  According to these US military documents, 66,000 civilian deaths were counted by the US military.

For what?  To rid Iraq of WMD's it didn't have?  The US has killed 66,000 people in a war that the US did not need to fight to defend itself.  The people of the US were lied to in the beginning about the reason for this war when the government and the media spun their lies about WMDs.  And now, we know that the government has been covering up 66,000 civilian deaths, plus many other tales of abuse.

When the government lies to the people, when the government hides facts from the people, then the government is usurping the power that rightly belongs to the people.  That's a government and a military that are taking power from the people into their own hands by deciding what it is the people know.

When you get a chance to know what the government doesn't want you to know, you should go find out.  Follow the link above to the Guardian articles.  Or, go visit Wikileaks.  Its your duty as a free citizen to know what your government doesn't want you to know.  There's probably no act that's more American than that.

Oh, and just in case you think this is all stuff from the Bush years .....

As recently as December the Americans were passed a video apparently showing Iraqi army officers executing a prisoner in Tal Afar, northern Iraq. The log states: "The footage shows approximately 12 Iraqi army soldiers. Ten IA soldiers were talking to one another while two soldiers held the detainee. The detainee had his hands bound … The footage shows the IA soldiers moving the detainee into the street, pushing him to the ground, punching him and shooting him."

The report named at least one perpetrator and was passed to coalition forces. But the logs reveal that the coalition has a formal policy of ignoring such allegations. They record "no investigation is necessary" and simply pass reports to the same Iraqi units implicated in the violence. By contrast all allegations involving coalition forces are subject to formal inquiries. Some cases of alleged abuse by UK and US troops are also detailed in the logs.

That's on Obama's watch. SOP of US military under Obama to ignore complaints of abuse and torture if they occurred under our puppet governments military and police units.

If we weren't sure of whether Obama has committed impeachable offenses, now we know. A system of command that routinely ignores reports of war crimes and crimes against humanity is a war crime. And the highest of leaders are held responsible for such a crime. Its their job to make sure that this doesn't happen.

Supreme Court Financial Disclosure forms.

This came to me via a MoveOn mailing list concerning their Move To Amend iniative. Looks like it originated with Congressional Quarterly. Supreme Court justices are required to file financial disclosure forms. Here's the links to those.

Justices of the Supreme Court

Updated: August 2010

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: Chevy Chase, Md.
Born: Jan. 27, 1955; Buffalo, N.Y.
Religion: Roman Catholic
Family: Wife, Jane Marie Sullivan Roberts; two children
Education: Harvard U., A.B. 1976, J.D. 1979
Military Service: None
Occupation: Lawyer
Experience: D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 2003-05

Confirmation: President Bush announced July 19, 2005, that Roberts would replace retiring Justice O'Connor; however, when Chief Justice Rehnquist died on Sept. 3, 2005, the president then nominated Roberts as chief justice. Roberts was officially nominated as chief justice Sept. 6, 2005, by George W. Bush to succeed William H. Rehnquist and confirmed as chief justice Sept. 29, 2005, by a yea-nay vote of 78-22.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: New Jersey
Born: April 1, 1950; Trenton, N.J.
Religion:
Family: Wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner; two children
Education: Princeton U., A.B. 1972; Yale U., J.D. 1975
Military Service: None
Occupation: Lawyer; federal prosecutor
Experience: Assistant U.S. attorney, 1977-80; U.S. attorney, 1987-90; U.S. Court of Appeals 1990-present

Confirmation: Nominated Nov. 10, 2005 by George Bush to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor and confirmed Jan. 30, 2006, by a yea-nay vote of 58-42.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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Stephen G. Breyer

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: Cambridge, Mass.
Born: August 15, 1938; San Francisco, Calif.
Religion: Jewish
Family: Wife, Joanna Hare; three children
Education: Stanford U., A.B. 1959; Oxford U., B.A. 1961; Harvard U., LL.B. 1964
Military Service: None
Occupation: Law clerk; lawyer; professor; congressional aide
Experience: U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1981-94 (chief judge, 1990-94)

Confirmation: Nominated May 13, 1994, by Bill Clinton to succeed Harry A. Blackmun and confirmed July 29, 1994, by a yea-nay vote of 87-9.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: Washington, D.C.
Born: March 15, 1933; Brooklyn, N.Y.
Religion: Jewish
Education: Cornell U., A.B. 1954; Harvard U., 1956-58; Columbia U., LL.B.,J.D. 1959
Family: Husband, Martin Ginsburg; two children
Military Service: None
Occupation: Lawyer; law professor
Experience: U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 1980-93

Confirmation: Nominated June 14, 1993, by Bill Clinton to succeed Byron White and confirmed August 3, 1993, by a yea-nay vote of 96-3.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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Anthony M. Kennedy

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: Sacramento, Calif.
Born: July 23, 1936; Sacramento, Calif.
Religion: Roman Catholic
Family: Wife, Mary Davis; three children
Education: Stanford U., A.B. 1958; Harvard U., J.D. 1961
Military Service: National Guard, 1961
Occupation: Lawyer; professor
Experience: 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1976-88

Confirmation: Nominated Nov. 30, 1987, by Ronald Reagan to succeed Lewis F. Powell Jr., and confirmed Feb. 3, 1988, by a yea-nay vote of 97-0.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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Antonin Scalia

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: McLean, Va.
Born: March 11, 1936; Trenton, N.J.
Religion: Roman Catholic
Family: Wife, Maureen McCarthy; nine children
Education: U. of Fribourg (Switzerland); Georgetown U., A.B. 1957; Harvard U., LL.B. 1960
Military Service: None
Occupation: Lawyer; professor
Experience: Office of Telecommunications Policy general counsel, 1971-72; assistant U.S. attorney general, 1974-77; U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 1982-86

Confirmation: Nominated June 24, 1986, by Ronald Reagan to succeed William H. Rehnquist and confirmed Sept. 17, 1986, by a yea-nay vote of 98-0.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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David H. Souter

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: Weare, N.H.
Born: September 17, 1939; Melrose, Mass.
Religion: Episcopalian
Family: Single
Education: Harvard U., A.B. 1961; Oxford U., 1961-63; Harvard U., LL.B. 1966; Oxford U., A.B. 1989, M.A. 1989
Military Service: None
Occupation: Lawyer
Experience: N.H. assistant attorney general, 1968-71; N.H. deputy attorney general, 1971-76; N.H. attorney general, 1976-78; N.H. Superior Court, 1978-83; N.H. Supreme Court, 1983-90; 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1990

Confirmation: Nominated July 25, 1990, by George Bush to succeed William J. Brennan Jr., and confirmed Oct. 2, 1990, by a yea-nay vote of 90-9.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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John Paul Stevens

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: Chicago, Ill.
Born: April 20, 1920; Chicago, Ill.
Religion: Protestant
Family: Wife, Maryan Mulholland Simon; four children
Education: U. of Chicago, A.B. 1941; Northwestern U., J.D. 1947
Military Service: Naval Reserve, 1942-45
Occupation: Lawyer; law instructor
Experience: U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1970-75

Confirmation: Nominated Nov. 28, 1975, by Gerald R. Ford to succeed William O. Douglas and confirmed Dec. 17, 1975, by a yea-nay vote of 98-0.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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Clarence Thomas

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
Residence: Savannah, Ga.
Born: June 23, 1948; Savannah, Ga.
Religion: Roman Catholic
Family: Wife, Virginia Lamp; one child
Education: College of the Holy Cross, A.B. 1971; Yale U., J.D. 1974
Military Service: None.
Occupation: Congressional aide; lawyer
Experience: Mo. assistant attorney general, 1974-77; assistant secretary of Education, 1981-82 (for civil rights); Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chairman, 1982-90; U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 1990-91

Confirmation: Nominated July 1, 1991, by George Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and confirmed Oct. 15, 1991, by a yea-nay vote of 52-48.

Telephone: 202-479-3000 | Web: www.supremecourtus.gov
Supreme Court of the United States | One First St., N.E. | Washington, D.C. 20543

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Sonia Sotomayor

Financial Disclosure Forms: 2009

Skin Cancer Awareness

If its a fall Saturday, I must be watching football. And, during a rare moment when I didn't fast-forward through the commercials, I watched a skin cancer awareness ad that the Ad Council was running.

The message is that risk of skin cancer starts young, so don't let your children play outside in the sunshine without protection. And it shows a mom covering her little girl's bare skin with sun screen.

These days, that's probably good advice.

But, how did us monkeys survive until some other monkey invented sun-screen? Isn't it odd that we are now a species who's natural environment around us is threatening and harmful to us?

That doesn't appear to be a natural state of things. A species will evolve to suit its environment. A species that would all die off at young ages from skin cancer if it dared to walk out into the sunshine without inventing clothing or sun screen seems unlikely to survive for very long. And its not like we all just lost all our hair in one or two generations.

What's happened is that our environment has changed. The sun didn't use to be deadly to us monkeys. Today it is. Something has changed.

Its hard to spot such changes in every day life, as they happen so slowly. You can only spot them by noticing the slow changes over time. You spot these changes by noticing things like today everyone is supposed to wear sunscreen if they go out to check the mail, while 50 years ago everyone just took their shirt off and played and worked in the sun.

Some of that certainly is education and awareness. Probably we should have used more sunscreen back when we used to play and work shirtless all the time. There was some skin cancer around back then. But, judging from today's tv ads, we should have all ended up with a body covered by tumors by playing in the sun like we used to. There was some skin cancer around, but it wasn't so bad that we were all afraid to go out into the sunshine.

It seems like something has changed. During the 80's, we realized that all of the CFCs that we were releasing were doing damage to the ozone layer that helps to protect us and our skin from the sun. This was addressed by one of the rare moments of international environmental cooperation at a meeting in Montreal that led to the phase-out of these CFCs.

But, just how much damage did we do to the ozone layer that we all now have to hide beneath hats and suncreen if we want to go down to the mailbox and check the mail? You don't see any stories that document how much damage we did to our planet? You just see lots of public-service ads that tell parents to never, ever let their kids play outside without protection from the sun.

In a democracy, the people are supposed to have the information required to make good decisions. A democracy is where the people have the final say, so the people need to know the truth so they can make the decisions for their society.

We are constantly told that this path of industrialization and free markets is the only way. But, what if industrialization and free markets were responsible for doing major damage to our planet? Shouldn't we be told this clearly and plainly? Not only should we be told not to let our children play in the sunshine, but we should be told why our children can't play in the sunshine these days.

Because the answer to why lets our democracy make the appropriate choices about whether massive industrialization and unbridled free markets unhampered by regulation are really good for us. If there's a case where this led to world-wide use of CFCs which then destroyed the ozone layer so badly that our children can no longer play safely in the sunshine without protection, then that's something the people of a democracy need to know.

The information about why our children can't play in the sunshine is at least as important to a democracy as the message to parents that they should not let their children play in the sunshine. Because, if unbridled industrialization and free markets without regulation are creating a world where our children can't play in the sunshine, then we need to know about this so we can pick a better course.

Of course, that's the question for this democracy. Is it allowed to consider some very basic questions? Are unregulated free markets good for us? Has massive industrialization and growth been good for us? Is all of this creating a better world for our children? Or, are we destroying the world our children will have to inhabit?

Aren't these important questions for the free citizens of a democracy to be asking? And, if these sorts of choices have been ruled 'off-the-table' for the citizens of a democracy, doesn't that raise questions about whether we really live in a free democracy. Because, it a real democracy, the ultimate power lies with the people themselves, and nothing is 'off-the-table' unless the people put it there.

Why aren't we told why our children can't play in the sunshine without sunscreen?

From wikipedia .....
Ozone depletion

Ozone depletion describes two distinct, but related observations: a slow, steady decline of about 4 percent per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere (the ozone layer) since the late 1970s, and a much larger, but seasonal, decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions during the same period. The latter phenomenon is commonly referred to as the ozone hole. In addition to this well-known stratospheric ozone depletion, there are also tropospheric ozone depletion events, which occur near the surface in polar regions during spring.

and later down ....

Effects on humans

UVB (the higher energy UV radiation absorbed by ozone) is generally accepted to be a contributory factor to skin cancer. In addition, increased surface UV leads to increased tropospheric ozone, which is a health risk to humans.[29]

1. Basal and Squamous Cell Carcinomas — The most common forms of skin cancer in humans, basal and squamous cell carcinomas, have been strongly linked to UVB exposure. The mechanism by which UVB induces these cancers is well understood—absorption of UVB radiation causes the pyrimidine bases in the DNA molecule to form dimers, resulting in transcription errors when the DNA replicates. These cancers are relatively mild and rarely fatal, although the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma sometimes requires extensive reconstructive surgery. By combining epidemiological data with results of animal studies, scientists have estimated that a one percent decrease in stratospheric ozone would increase the incidence of these cancers by 2%.[30]

2. Malignant Melanoma — Another form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, is much less common but far more dangerous, being lethal in about 15–20% of the cases diagnosed. The relationship between malignant melanoma and ultraviolet exposure is not yet well understood, but it appears that both UVB and UVA are involved. Experiments on fish suggest that 90 to 95% of malignant melanomas may be due to UVA and visible radiation[31] whereas experiments on opossums suggest a larger role for UVB.[30] Because of this uncertainty, it is difficult to estimate the impact of ozone depletion on melanoma incidence. One study showed that a 10% increase in UVB radiation was associated with a 19% increase in melanomas for men and 16% for women.[32] A study of people in Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile, showed a 56% increase in melanoma and a 46% increase in nonmelanoma skin cancer over a period of seven years, along with decreased ozone and increased UVB levels.[33]

3. Cortical Cataracts — Studies are suggestive of an association between ocular cortical cataracts and UV-B exposure, using crude approximations of exposure and various cataract assessment techniques. A detailed assessment of ocular exposure to UV-B was carried out in a study on Chesapeake Bay Watermen, where increases in average annual ocular exposure were associated with increasing risk of cortical opacity.[34] In this highly exposed group of predominantly white males, the evidence linking cortical opacities to sunlight exposure was the strongest to date. However, subsequent data from a population-based study in Beaver Dam, WI suggested the risk may be confined to men. In the Beaver Dam study, the exposures among women were lower than exposures among men, and no association was seen.[35] Moreover, there were no data linking sunlight exposure to risk of cataract in African Americans, although other eye diseases have different prevalences among the different racial groups, and cortical opacity appears to be higher in African Americans compared with whites.[36][37]

4. Increased Tropospheric Ozone — Increased surface UV leads to increased tropospheric ozone. Ground-level ozone is generally recognized to be a health risk, as ozone is toxic due to its strong oxidant properties. At this time, ozone at ground level is produced mainly by the action of UV radiation on combustion gases from vehicle exhausts.[citation needed]

Put the numbers together. A 4% decrease in the ozone layer per decade. And a 2% increase in skin cancer for every 1% of increase in UV radiation. You can't just add them together, since the first is the decrease in volume of the ozone and that's probably not linearly related to the amount of UV radiation penetrating the ozone layer.

But still, our ozone layer took a big hit. And now, for every 1% of extra UV radiation that results, skin cancer rates go up by 2%.

When we make a mistake, there's often not much we can do but to live with the consequences. Except, that we can try to learn and not make the same mistake again. And in this case, shouldn't our democracy be asking how it was we let our industries pump so much of these gasses into our atmosphere and do this damage. Shouldn't we learn to be more careful.

In this age of propaganda against government regulations and any government interference in businesses and their making of profits, we should stop and think every single time we put sunscreen on our children whether all of this is really making a better world for our children.

Karl Rove's Political Playbook.

Remember how back in the bad old days of the Bush administration, there used to be highly exaggerated 'terror' threats that would come out just in time for the elections?

Barack Obama accused of exaggerating terror threat for political gain By Simon Tisdale and Richard Norton-Taylor for the Guardian (UK)

A US terror alert issued this week about al-Qaida plots to attack targets in western Europe was politically motivated and not based on credible new information, senior Pakistani diplomats and European intelligence officials have told the Guardian.

The non-specific US warning, which despite its vagueness led Britain, France and other countries to raise their overseas terror alert levels, was an attempt to justify a recent escalation in US drone and helicopter attacks inside Pakistan that have "set the country on fire", said Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the high commissioner to Britain.

Hasan, a veteran diplomat who is close to Pakistan's president, suggested the Obama administration was playing politics with the terror threat before next month's midterm congressional elections, in which the Republicans are expected to make big gains.

and ....

"I will not deny the fact that there may be internal political dynamics, including the forthcoming midterm American elections. If the Americans have definite information about terrorists and al-Qaida people, we should be provided [with] that and we could go after them ourselves," Hasan said.

"Such reports are a mixture of frustrations, ineptitude and lack of appreciation of ground realities. Any attempt to infringe the sovereignty of Pakistan would not bring about stability in Afghanistan, which is presumably the primary objective of the American and Nato forces."

Apparently Karl Rove forgot to burn his secret political playbook before leaving the White House. Because Obama and the Democrats are running the same 'politics of fear' that the Republicans used to run.

The Democrats are so morally bankrupt that this is all they have to offer America. They constantly scream about the 'tea-party' to scare loyal Democrats into voting for their pro-war, pro-corporate party that opposes everything their base believes in. Now they are running Bush-style 'exaggerated' terror threats the month before the election.

If you miss Karl Rove, then vote Democrat this fall.
If you wanted real change, then do not vote Democrat this fall.

Ignorance and/or Dishonesty

Currency Wars and Accounting Identities By DEAN BAKER via CounterPunch.org

When you hear 'economics on TV, you are often hearing BS. Chalmers Johnson, author of "Blowback" talks in the introduction to that book of how 'Economics' has become more religion than science. Believe in the free market. Believe in unbridled capitalism. Take it on faith that this will makes us all rich and create a utopia for all of us to live in.

For real economics, read this article by Dean Baker. Remember, he's one of the people that was writing about the housing bubble back while CNN et al were telling you how wonderful the economy was and how you should go buy your Enron stock today.

The whole piece is worth reading. Its hard not to copy it all into here. But, here's the part he ends with.

This raises the possibility that perhaps the deficit hawks don’t really give a damn about the deficit. Perhaps the deficit hawks just want to cut Social Security and Medicare and other programs that benefit the middle class and moderate-income people. Of course, it is also possible that the deficit hawks are just confused when it comes to economic policy. It’s hard to know for sure, but these days ignorance and/or dishonesty appears to be the price of admission to Washington policy debates.

Government of the ignorant and dishonest, government by the ignorant and dishonest, and government for the ignorance and dishonest shall not perish from this earth.

Certainly as not as long as we just keep voting for Democrats or Republicans. And if we even have a hint that this government is ignorant and dishonest, then voting for any incumbent seems suicidal.

Time to Kick the Donkey

FBI Raids and the Criminalization of Dissent By Amy Goodman via ZNet.

Early in the morning on Friday, Sept. 24, FBI agents in Chicago and Minnesota’s Twin Cities kicked in the doors of anti-war activists, brandishing guns, spending hours rifling through their homes. The FBI took away computers, photos, notebooks and other personal property. Residents were issued subpoenas to appear before a grand jury in Chicago. It was just the latest in the ongoing crackdown on dissent in the U.S., targeting peace organizers as supporters of “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Everyone refers to this as just the "FBI".  What's missing is that this is Obama's FBI.

At least now we know why Obama's FBI wasn't arresting the Bush era criminals who tortured and illegally spied on Americans.  And, at least now we know why Obama's FBI wasn't arresting the Wall Street crooks who cost Americans trillions of dollars of wealth by first creating a speculative bubble in the housing market that was American's primary avenue of investment, which of course was followed by the inevitable crash of that speculative bubble.  Nope, Obama has his FBI infiltrating and investigating peaceful antiwar activists.  Obviously spying on peaceful activists is more important to Obama and the Democrats than going after Bush-era torturers or Wall Street crooks.

The open question is, when will the majority of Americans, who oppose these wars and who think our children and our money should come home, when will they stop supporting Obama and the Democrats?  Not only has voting Democrat led to a never-ending war in Iraq and bigger and bigger wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but now Obama is sending his FBI to kick in the doors of people who dare to disagree.  Obama is sending his FBI to kick in the doors of people who dare to suggest that we shouldn't be getting our children killed and maimed.  Obama is sending his FBI to kick in the doors of people who dare to suggest that we shouldn't be spending hundreds of billions of dollars on these useless wars in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. 

Obama's stance is clear.  Obama has declared open war on the antiwar movement by sending his FBI to kick in these doors.  The question is, are the anti-war voters of American foolish enough to still continue to vote Democrat?

The secret no Democrat wants to mention is that the Democrats win their elections on anti-war votes.  No matter what your estimate of the strength of anti-war public opinion in this country, if the anti-war votes do not support the Democrats, the Democrats lose to any Republican with a pulse.  It doesn't matter if you picture the anti-war movement as the 60% of Americans who consistently tell pollsters that they want these wars to end, or if you picture it as 20% of committed antiwar voters on the left of the Democratic party.  Even that smaller number is far larger than the Democratic margin of victory in almost any race.

What you can destroy, you can control.  The anti-war voters of America have the power to destroy any Democratic campaign by their opposition to it.  The Democrats simply do not have the number of votes to win without the anti-war votes.  Which leads to a very simple response to these raids.

DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT in NOV.  Not even for dog-catcher.  DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT.

That may not lead to an immediate utopia of a peaceful world the second week in November, but it will send a powerful message that the Democrats will hear and which will change the future.  And I don't mean the fake change in the wrong direction that the Democrats offer, but I mean a powerful change in the direction of ending these wars.  Because, every Democratic strategist looking at 2012 will have one fact in front of them in complete clarity. The Democrats can not win without anti-war votes.  If you want to end the wars, put the professional Democratic politicians into a position where the only way they can win elections is by opposing these wars.  That leaves them only two choices.  Ending the wars, or finding a new career path in bad economic times.

Even that probably won't end the wars in 2012, as most likely we'll have to go through another loop where the Democrats lie to pretend to oppose the wars, get elected, instead expand the wars again, and again we have to kick them out.  But, as long as we stand firm in saying that we will not elect Democrats who do not oppose these wars, well, even the stubbornest donkey will sooner or later get the message if you keep kicking it.

Now is the time to kick the donkey. The donkey ain't moving.  When the donkey does want to move, it seems to want to go the wrong direction.  But, any country boy knows how to deal with that donkey and get it to head in the direction you want it to go.  A few good kicks will get it moving in the right direction.  In fact, once you teach the donkey that you will kick it, you don't have to any more.  Just raise your voice in that special manner that tells the donkey another kick is coming, and it will start to move on its own.

Now is the time to kick the donkey.  It won't immediately end the wars.  But, to end the wars we need a Democratic party that's been trained to know that it can only win with anti-war votes.  Now is the time to kick the donkey to lead to a future where someday we won't have to.

Surely, if any anti-war voters hadn't noticed that the wars got bigger and bigger after they voted for the supposedly anti-war Democrats, they can't help but notice Obama's FBI kicking in the doors of peaceful antiwar activists.  If nothing else, the obvious message to any anti-war voter is that if they vote Democrat they are voting to have their own homes raided by the FBI if they dare to tell others that they oppose these wars. 

Even beyond any political grand strategy, the most obvious statement for anyone who opposes these wars is that a vote for the Democrats is a vote to have your own front door kicked in by Obama's FBI.  Surely at some point an anti-war voter has to get the message that voting Democrat does not lead to good outcomes for themselves.

I watched in amazement in 2008 as the antiwar voters of America combined to all vote for a candidate only that pretended to be antiwar while at the same time promising bigger defense budgets, a bigger military, keeping troops in Iraq and expanding the 'right war' in Afghanistan.  But surely, now, after two years of this pro-war reality, and now with Obama's FBI kicking in the doors of anti-war activists, the response of the anti-war voters of America has to be clear.

DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT.

We've got a month.  Lets all combine to deliver a response to this that the Democrats will hear loud and clear and which will send them reeling.  Spread the word as loudly and as far as you can before people start to vote in the next few weeks. 

If you oppose these wars, DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT.

And don't do it quietly. Now is not the time to sneak around and try to secretly deliver a kick to the seat of the Democrats without them noticing. Now is the time to stand right in front of the Democrats and make sure they know that you are tired of being lied to, and that you are tired of being raided, and that this swift hard kick that is coming is our response to the lies and especially to these raids.  When its time to kick the donkey, it doesn't do any good if the donkey doesn't know who's kicking it.  The anti-war movement needs to be loud and vocal for the next month in its response to these raids by refusing to support the Democrats in this election.

Donkeys aren't real good at reading their email.   But, this is a response that any donkey can understand.

The only reason for time ....

"The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen all at once"

-Albert Einstein.

+

"I need a miracle every day"

-Grateful Dead

=

"The only reason for time is so all of my miracles don't happen all at once."

What a wonderful bunch of monkeys we are.

From The Infinite Hypocrisy of the West
By Fidel Castro

Although several articles on this subject were published before and after September 1st, 2010, on that day the Mexican daily La Jornada published one of great impact entitled El holocausto gitano: ayer y hoy (The gypsies’ holocaust: yesterday and today) which reminds us of a truly tragic history. Without adding or deleting a single word from the information contained in the article, I will quote some lines referring to some events that are really touching. Neither the West nor -most of all- its colossal media apparatus have said a single word about them.

“1496: boom of humanist thinking. The Rom peoples (gypsies) from Germany are declared traitors to the Christian nations, spies paid by the Turkish, carriers of the plague, witches and warlocks, bandits and children kidnappers.

“1710: century of Enlightenment and rationale. An edict ordered that adult gypsies from Prague be hanged without any previous trial. Young persons and women were mutilated. In Bohemia their left ear were cut off; in Moravia, their right ear.

“1899: climax of modernity and progress. The police of Bavaria founded the Special Section for Gypsies’ Affairs. In 1929, the section was promoted to the category of National Central section and was moved to Munich. In 1937 it was based in Berlin. Four years later, half a million gypsies died in the concentration camps of Central and Eastern Europe.”

“In her PhD’s thesis, Eva Justin (assistant of Dr. Robert Ritter of the Racial Research Section of the Ministry of Health of Germany), asserted that gypsies’ blood was extremely harmful to the purity of the German race. Someone called Dr. Portschy sent a memorandum to Hitler suggesting that gypsies should be submitted to forced labor and mass sterilization because they jeopardized the pure blood of the German peasantry.

“The gypsies, who were labeled as inveterate criminals, started to be arrested en masse, and as from 1938 they were put into special blocks at the Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Gusen, Dautmergen, Natzweiler and Flossenburg camps.

“In a concentration camp he owned in Ravensbruck, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Gestapo (SS), created a space to sacrifice gypsy women who were submitted to medical experiments. One hundred and twenty zingari girls were sterilized. Gypsy women married to non-gypsy men were sterilized at the Dusseldorf-Lierenfeld hospital.

“Thousands of gypsies were deported from Belgium, the Netherlands and France to the Polish concentration camp of Auschwitz. In his memoirs, Rudolf Hoess (commander of Auschwitz) wrote that among the gypsies deported there were old people almost one hundred years of age, pregnant women and a large number of children.

“At the ghetto of Lodz (Poland) […] none of the 5 000 gypsies survived.”

“In Yugoslavia, gypsies and Jews were equally killed in the forest of Jajnice. Farmers still remember the cries of the gypsy children who were taken to the places of execution.”

“At the extermination camps, only the love of gypsies for music was at times a source of comfort. In Auschwitz, starving and infested with lice, they gathered together to play music and encouraged children to dance. But the courage of gypsy guerrillas who fought alongside the Polish resistance in the region of Nieswiez was also legendary.”

Music was the factor that kept them together and helped them to survive, just as much as religion was for Christians, Jews and Muslims.

--------------------
Of course, not much has changed. This history is in the news because France is deporting hundreds of Gypsies because of their apparent 'criminal nature'.

Fascinating how Hitler's and Goebbel's style of racial hatred still works today. Of course, they can't use Jews as the scapegoats anymore. But there are apparently plenty of other targets out there for whom such racial bigotry is perfectly acceptable.

One of the blessings of largely ignoring the corporate media is that I've heard remarkably little of the apparent debate of a mosque in lower Manhattan. But apparently, this sort of race baiting still works rather well with a decent sized portion of the US public, as long as the targets are 'muslims'.

If you read history, you know what a frightfully short journey it was from the age of enlightenment and reason at the end of the 19th century, to Auschwitz. And what powers that journey is this mental virus of hatred that somehow convinces some people that its perfectly fine if others are robbed, tortured and killed. Its this same racial hatred that we see today towards Gypsies and Muslims that drives that journey to a hell of war crimes and atrocities.

Of course, the truly bizarre part is that this is done in the name of Jesus Christ, who got himself hung on a cross because he got too loud about telling people not to do exactly this.