Sept 11 – America Reaps What It Sows!

Posted on September 11, 2009 by NMT

A post-911 perspective by Black Liberation Army prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim.

U.S. International Warfare Initiates World War III Human Rights During Wartime
By Jalil A. Muntaqim

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have displayed their true colors of jingoism, a militaristic spirit of nationalism. Similarly, it was witnessed how the people of Iraq rallied in support of their President, Saddam Hussein, after the U.S. bombed to death 250,000 Iraqis, and continued devastation of that country with collateral damage of 1 million dead women and children. Hence, people rallying in support of their government and representatives is a common phenomenon when a country is attacked by an outsider. The U.S. has been foremost in the world extending foreign policy of free-market economy, to the extent of undermining other countries cultures and ideologies expressed as their way of life. Such conflicts inevitably positions the U.S. as the centerpiece, the bulls-eye for international political dissent, as indicated by demonstrations against the U.S. controlled IMF, WTO and World Bank conferences. The attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon did not occur in a vacuum. The people that carried out the attacks were not blind followers or robots with an irrational hatred of the U.S. peoples. Rather, this attack was part of an overall blowback to U.S. imperialist policy in support of zionist Israel and opposition to fundamentalist Islam.

There are essentially three primary world ideologies or world views: the capitalist free-market economy/democracy; the socialist production economy; and Islamic theocratic government, of which has been in competition for many decades. However, in the last 20 years the socialist economies has been severely subverted and co-opted by free-market economies, the ideals of American style democracy. This isolated, for the most part, Islamic theocratic ideology and system of government as the principle target of the U.S. in its quest for world hegemony. This reality of competing world views and economies is further complicated due to religious underpinning of beliefs that motivates actions, especially as they are expressed by U.S. and Western European christianity and Israel zionist judaism in opposition to Islam. From the struggles of the Crusades to the present confrontation, the struggle for ideological supremacy reigns, as the faithful continue to proselytize in the name of the Supreme Being.

When geopolitics are combined with religious fervor in the character of nationalist identity and patriotism, rational and logical thinking is shoved aside as matters of the moment takes historical precedents. It has often been said that “Truth Crush to the Earth Will Rise Again”. Since truth is relative to ones belief, can it be safely said that America has reaped what it has sowed? The American truth of capitalist christian democracy and its imperialist hegemonic aspirations has crushed both socialist and Islamic world views. It has extended its avaricious tentacles as the world police and economic harbinger of all that is beneficent, in stark denial of its history as a purveyor of genocides, slavery and colonial violence.

The U.S. was the first to use biological-germ warfare on people when it distributed blankets infected with smallpox to Native Americans; it has refused to apologize for Afrikan slavery acknowledging it engaged in a crime against humanity requiring reparations; it is the first and only country to use the atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and intern thousands of Japanese and Italians in this country; it used carpet bombing and defoliates against the peoples of Vietnam; it has initiated embargoes, coup d’etats and assassinations against those it opposes, while propping-up right-wing military dictators; as well as continued military bombing of Vieques. In essence, the U.S. governments hegemonic goals has created the ire of millions of people throughout the world. While domestically, racial profiling, police killing and mass incarceration of Black and Brown people has eroded patriotic sentiments in opposition to white supremacy.

As America weeps and laments its loss, the public find itself joining the torn ranks of those whose heartaches beat opposing U.S. greed and international profiteering. The American public acquiesce to U.S. international folly has cause them to feel the economic pains of those who live daily in poverty. Indeed, Americans should brace for years of economic uncertainty, where the American ideal of freedom and liberty will resemble plight of those who live under the right-wing dictatorships the U.S. has supported. The tyranny suffered by others in the world as a result of U.S. imperialism, has come full circle to visit this country with the wrath of the U.S. own mechanization. Since the U.S. taught and trained right-wing military dictators in the School of the Americas, including the CIA training of Osama bin Laden in the Afghanistan proxy war against the Russians, it will be this same kind of terrorist activist that will be unleashed on American soil, as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz stated after the assassination of John Kennedy, a matter of the chicken coming home to roost. Therefore, American civil liberties and human rights are being garrotted by the yoke of the right-wing in the name of national security. The legalization of U.S. fascism was initiated with the war against political dissent (Cointelpro); the war against organized crime (RICO laws); the war against illegal drugs (plethora of drug laws) and now culminating in the war against terrorism with the American Joint Anti-Terrorist Taskforce and Office of Home Security, further extending police, FBI and CIA powers to undermine domestic civil liberties and human rights.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, recently stated that the U.S. need to create a new language in defining how to combat terrorism. This Orwellian propaganda in the media espouses the U.S. is venturing in a new type of warfare to defend the American way of life. However, what this double-speak propagates as a long-term and sustained initiative against terrorism is essentially a way of embellishing and enlarging U.S. counter-insurgency activity it has been engaged in since the advent of the Green Berets, Rangers, Delta Force and Navy Seals. The U.S. has been involved in counter-insurgency activity in Afrika, Latin America and Asia for decades. But due to the September 11, 2001, attack on U.S. soil, the government has seized the opportunity to offensively pursue left-wing revolutionaries and Muslim insurgents throughout the world. This U.S. military action extends and substantiates its position as the international police.

Since the establishment of the Trilateral Commission that initiated the process for the development of one world government, the U.S. has broaden its capacity to impose and enforce its will on oppressed peoples globally. The FBI and CIA has been operating in Europe, Afrika, Asia and Latin America establishing the long arm of U.S. law and order. Its bases of operations have conducted surveillance, investigations to arrest, prosecute or neutralize left-wing revolutionaries or Muslim insurgents. As the U.S. consolidates its political and economic influence throughout the world, it will seek to protect its overall hegemonic imperialist goals. After the Gulf War, and the air (bombing) campaign in Yugoslavia, the U.S. has employed its military might to ensure its foreign policy are achieved.

Because NATO has evolved into a European military entity that Russia is seeking to join, today, the U.S. has positioned itself beyond the mission of NATO. The U.S. now concentrates its military might in opposing Islamic countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Philippines, etc.) and those the U.S. deem as rogue nations (North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.). The new military initiatives will be directed to towards Southeast Asia as the secondary target, as it continues to direct the Middle East conflict to preserve its oil investments and zionist interest. As the U.S. expand its imperialist military mission, as seen with committing military troops in Uzbekistan to also protect oil interest in the Caspian Sea, it has sought to redefine itself by targeting what it identify as the terrorist thereat wherever in the world it might exist. Hence, with the employment of conventional warfare combined with counter-insurgency tactical activities, the U.S. has pronounced itself as the military guardian of the world.

Although, the U.S. states its actions are in its self-interest, in terms of what is euphemistically defined as defending the free world, the truth of the matter is this action is a prelude to evolving one world government with the U.S. as its governing authority. Once the Peoples Republic of China becomes a full member of the WTO, and North Korea and Vietnam has been compromised, with Russia becoming an ally of NATO, the U.S. political-military influence in the world will be consolidated. The U.S. geopolitical strategy is not confined to the present crisis in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack and targeting Osama bin Laden as the world’s nemesis. Rather, the U.S. strategy is to preserve its capacity to establish one world government as originally envisioned by the Trilateral Commission.

Nonetheless, there are some serious obstacles to this hegemonic goal, of which the world of fundamentalist Islam has become the principle target. Here, it should be noted that Islam condemns suicide or the mass killings of women, children and non-combatant males. Yet, the U.S., Israel, western Europe, Russia, India and China all view Islam as the enemy. Although, there are over 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the current alliance of economic interest headed by the U.S., are united to vanquish what they consider the growing menace of fundamentalist Islam. It is with this understanding of U.S. geopolitics one is able to comprehend why the U.S. has redefine its military mission, as opposition to globalization and U.S. imperialism metamorph into a political struggle without borders or territorial imperatives.

The ideological struggle between capitalist free-market economy and Islamic theocratic determinates has exploded into an international conflagration of insurgency with the potential of initiating World War III. The Islamic fundamentalist movements throughout the world has the potential to test the U.S. military, political and economic resolve as the world’s leader and authority of an one world government. With over 1.2 billion adherents, Islam has become a formidable foe to contend with for ideological supremacy in the world’s geopolitics. Even without discussing the religious (moral and ethics) aspects that motivates the geopolitics of Islam in opposition to U.S. imperialist hegemony, the call for Jihad/Holy War against the U.S. presents a serious threat that could precipitate WW-III. Therefore, the U.S. find it necessary to redefine its military mission, develop new language to codify warfare and legitimize its international political and economic purpose. Yet, many of the world’s oppressed peoples’ have already experienced U.S. military counter-insurgency tactics (Ethiopia, Somalia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Congo, etc.), including parts of the Islamic world. No matter how or why the U.S. attempts to persuade Americans that it is entering a new type of warfare, in reality it is more of the same, only extending the military arena to further protect its authority to establish one world government.

However, the U.S. is not the homogeneous country that people are deluded into believing exist. Rather, the U.S. has been held together due its ability to exploit the world’s resources and distribute (unequally) the profits amongst its citizens with its culture of conspicuous consumption. But, the recent attack on the U.S., and its aftermath may very well lead to the untangling and unraveling of the U.S. fabric as has been witnessed with the USSR and Yugoslavia. In understanding this true history of U.S. imperialism, outside and within its borders, essentially tells a story of why U.S. imperialism has been and will continue to be attacked.

Ultimately, the U.S. will eventually find itself at war with itself, as the ideology of a free democratic society will be found to be a big lie. This is especially disconcerting as greater restrictions on civil and human rights are made into law eroding the First and Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As during the Vietnam conflict, internal contradictions of racism, poverty and inequality will be exacerbated as a result of the U.S. military campaign and domestic undermining of civil and human rights. It is expected that strife in America will eventually become violent dissolving any semblance of the illusion of America the Beautiful. In anticipation of U.S. progressive activist opposing this claimed war against terrorism, the federal government will pass new laws to severely restrict protest, demonstrations and dissent. In the ’60s, U.S. progressive activists evolved the slogan “Bring the War Home!” – the question is what will be the slogan this time, now that the war has been brought home?

Free the Land!!

Phillip Garrido wants same deal as Pfizer

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Can recidivist offender Phillip Garrido have same deal as Pfizer? In a note passed to a local media outlet, the accused abductor of Jaycee Dugard is demanding a deal similar to that announced for pharmaceutical killer Pfizer, who today agreed to pay $2.3 billion dollars to halt a civil and criminal case against it. Like Garrido, Pfizer is an unrepentant repeat offender. This is the fourth time the corporate felon escapes prosecution by paying a fee. Garrido respectfully suggests his fine should be smaller commensurate to his fewer victims. How will the serial rapist raise the funds, since donations to Pfizer or himself are unlikely to come pouring in from a sympathetic public? Garrido assures us that monies will be quickly recouped from the profits of future illegal ventures.

Lamborn’s NO HEALTHCARE teabaggers want to hear from YOU

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Eric Verlo

According to CSAction, snively congressman Doug Lamborn has sent out 70,000 mailers, billed to the taxpayer, to disseminate the insurance biz wingnut falsehoods about health care reform. He’s hoping to reconstitute a teabagger assembly at a public meeting on Thursday evening, August 27, at the Valley Hi Golf Course on Colorado Springs’ Southeast side. Get there early with YOUR message. 5PM, Chelton and Airport. The anti-tax teabaggers hate standing next to signs that don’t represent them, so think of some slogans that do. How about: DO UNTO OTHERS, or
FAITH HOPE CHARITY, or “as you did to the least of My brethren,
you did it to Me.” -Matt 25:40

CSAction has posted talking points and updates. Here are Mark’s arguments:

Representative Doug Lamborn has just sent out an estimated 70,000 mailers “prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense” that are full of LIES and disinformation about the healthcare reform bills. It’s only estimated to be 70,000 because, when asked about the total number mailed, LAMEborn’s Communications Director Catherine Mortensen, “I have the figures, but I don’t have the authority to give them to you.”

Actually they don’t have the authority to withhold that information because it’s public record, given that this pack of LIES was “prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.”

The mailer says “114 million could lose their current health care coverage under the bill”. This is a LIE!

This absurd figure comes from “The Impact of the House Health Reform Legislation Coverage and Provider Incomes,” by the Lewin Group. The Lewin Group is a “research” and management consulting (lobbyist) firm owned entirely by the second largest health insurer in the nation, UnitedHealth Group.

Furthermore, the “research” does NOT show 114 million LOOSING healthcare but CHANGING insurers, AND an additional 9.4 million being insured that are not now. It’s a total guess as to how many would change over to the public plan, if offered. The 114 million was a figure the Lewin Group published in June, which they revised DOWN to 88.1 million in July, so it’s not even their most current LIE.

The Congressional Budget Office came to a different conclusion, saying that enrollment in the House Democrats’ proposed public plan would total 11 million to 12 million people.

The Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a wholly-owned UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied UnitedHealth and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the “reasonable and customary” doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.

In January, United Health agreed to a $350 million settlement with the AMA, and a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general, covering conduct going back as far as 1994, when they were distributing skewed information to fight President Clinton’s healthcare reforms.

Next LIE in this mailer: “4.7 million jobs that could be lost as a result of tax hikes on small businesses”.

This absurd figure comes from an op-ed piece written by House minority leader John Boehner, who admitted to distributing bribes from Big Tobacco on the floor of the House. He says got the figures according to the methodology developed by Christina Romer, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration. She NEVER said such a thing, and he obviously he doesn’t understand her methodology.

What did she really say?

“The current healthcare system does not work well for small businesses.”

“They pay about 18% more for comparable coverage than a big firm, and that puts them at a competitive disadvantage.”

“Healthcare reform is ABSOLUTELY aimed at easing those burdens.”

“The plan has a tax credit for small businesses.”

Watch her entire statement here.

Lewin Group Vice President John Sheils admits 114 million would NOT lose their employer-sponsored coverage AND they wouldn’t be forced into a government-run health plan. Rather, they would be able to choose between the government plan and other private options, through the exchange, and “they might very well be better off,” he said.

But not all of the firm’s corrupt reports see the light of day. For example, a study for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association was never released, Sheils said.

“Let’s just say, sometimes studies come out that don’t show exactly what the client wants to see. And in those instances, they have [the] option to bury the study — to not release it, rather,” Sheils said.

CSaction reminds everyone present to be peaceful in word and action and not behave like the industry stooges disrupting town halls and shouting down citizens.

We wanted Odysseus, we got Othello

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Eric Verlo

America needs an Odysseus, obviously, to outwit the Cyclops and put out his eye. Against the all-seeing American health insurance lobby, our politicians are virtually powerless. To overcome this omniscient villainy without an Odysseus, the only hope is to rush the monster all at once — and all at once, put it to the sword. Senators and congressmen may say the industry is too powerful to defy, I do not doubt it. But if all act in unison, the beast’s threats will be its last, and come to naught.

But isn’t that courageous scenario as plausible as hoping Obama could be our Odysseus? Greed is so much more persuasive than cooperation. Pitted against each other, the Senators collect huge bounties from their lobbyists. If they slay the great Insurance dragon, to the jubilant acclaim of their constituents, they gain nothing. A big, collective nothing for their pains.

But it’s a lovely fantasy. Eradicate the damn thing entirely. Exterminate it from root to tentacle. Decapitate the leaders, parade the profiteers before their angry victims, strip their families of their riches, make examples of them all. Put every last of their agents on the unemployment line. Or better, hold truth and reconciliation hearings to let the Little Eichmans face the aggrieved survivors of insurance casualties.

I’d like to see the insurance company employees squirm, in particular those attending the health care town halls, pretending to speak for common citizens, in reality trying to protect their miserable jobs. What if instead they feared for their lives? If we cannot reach their consciences, let us tickle their throats.

If the health care reform debate is going to raise mobs, it should rouse lynch mobs. Call for the blood of the 3rd party criminals, who feather their planes and yachts and mansions with the last breaths of millions.

The media are quibbling about the 46 million uninsured, belittling the number because it’s really only “everyone’s best guess.” What about the rest of us, the uninsured insured, and the under-insured insured. The health insurers take our money, but offer, when a claim must be made, only mediocre coverage, if any at all. Of course only the sick learn they have inadequate coverage.

If you worry the sick do not number enough to sway the American public, be assured the number will only grow bigger. But even if you count only the sick as victims of the insurance crisis, you must consider that the sense of security of the healthy is lost as well.

Until such time that angry Americans can storm the insurance monoliths, because their representatives in DC won’t do it, we hold out hope for a passing Odysseus. Unfortunately what we got was an Othello, against an Iago far too cunning.

Company wolves in nonpartisan clothing

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Would you believe it? Not My Tribe is “nonpartisan!” We favor neither Republican or Democrat, although current usage presumes you are of course one or the other, it’s just that you’ve agreed not to show bias. Nonpartisan is not “non-aligned.” It does not mean you are neither. Nonpartisan has become more like “nondenominational.” Which means not of a specific religious adherence, but certainly belonging to one of them. And like nondenominational, isn’t it a ruse?

Religious events billing themselves as nondenominational are casting a big net hoping to lure other believers, making the implication that they need to escape their more demarcated sect. They’re after the heathen too, but make no mistake, that doesn’t mean they adjust their platform one iota.

Nonpartisan political groups cast themselves as aligned to neither major party. Laws governing nonprofits forbid party allegiance, but regulations don’t address the socio-political aims of their missions. Just as the term “nonprofit” describes just that entity’s balance sheets. It doesn’t reflect the nonprofit’s goals, from which sponsoring organizations definitely plan to profit.

The insurance company think tanks weighing in against health care reform are all nonpartisan non-profits. You can be a fully-owned research division and because you are neither particularly Republican nor Democrat, you can label yourself not of the fray.

Fox News although shamelessly willing to pervert “fair” and “balanced,” does not have the temerity to call themselves nonpartisan. It would expose the ruse. Propagandist Bill O’Reilly instead hides behind the less inobjective “independent.”

And so Not My Tribe is more accurately independent, because we keep company with neither corporate party, the left or the right.

Obviously are Left, Left, Left, and fully partisan. More akin to namesake Partisans who resisted the Nazi onslaught. Just as the capitalist wolves are corporate partisans in nonpartisan clothing.

One good thing about Colorado Springs

Posted on August 8, 2009 by Eric Verlo

I’m going to tell you something great about Colorado Springs, because sometimes it’s pretty hard not to hate it. On odd summer afternoons, today it’s Saturday, downtown at the Southwest corner of Acacia Park, across the street actually, there assemble seven or so male gospel singers, who sit against a cement planter and sway, harmonizing to an incredible lead vocalist, through song after energetic, soothing song.

Sometimes a crowd assembles, sometimes there is clapping. Often passersby make a point to greet the line of singers, shaking hands with them before walking on. Of all Colorado Springs cultural offerings, this is my favorite.

Because isn’t it pretty hard sometimes not to hate Colorado Springs for the ignorant, artless, soul-killers who populate it? The climate may be top of the line, but the cultural atmosphere brings on endless waves of despair, thoughts of suicide, or a determination to emigrate. And it’s hard to argue against the logic of splitting. Jason Zacharias decided to seek his fortune elsewhere. To have tried to change his mind would have meant a lot of selfish reasons on our part, and telling lies about this place.

Many who chose emigration eventually return. Why? I’ll posit it’s because the region is where we have our roots. I was always sure the solution was to build the environment we prefer to inhabit. I’m no longer so sure it can be done with our too few hands.

Damn the greedy, incurious, time-theving idiots who’ve moved into our midst. Or who’ve grown like uneducated weeds between the crack of what we thought were good school systems. How do we urge them to emigrate? We might have to build a Mall-of-America-sized Walmart a half-day’s drive away, and offer that they can live in it. Imagine, McDonalds in bed, someone to greet your friends at the door. Make the parking lot big enough to accommodate all their gasoline powered vehicles.

Edmund Burke and the prevalent evil

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Everyone wants to quote Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” I just heard it evoked by NPR, raising the alarm about a rash of albino murders in Tanzania, ostensibly for body parts considered to have medicinal value. Albinism has carried a stigma for every one person among 100,000, more in some parts of Africa. I’m sure we’re agreed it must stop. And what of HIV deaths, post-colonial greed-bred strife, slavery, or the dire environmental consequences of our industrial myopia? I offer a revision: “All that is necessary for evil to prevail, is for bad men to harp on the specter of manageable evils so that you don’t face up to the prevalent one.”

National Assembly is antiwar exclusively

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Reports are emerging from July’s National Assembly, the vital effort to unite antiwar forces into a common movement. Delegates from the major peace organizations hammered out a strategy to address Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine. Missing from the consensus? Nonviolence, and good riddance. It goes without saying that humanitarian activists are peaceful. To legislate a dogma of non-confrontation plays right into the hands of the authoritarians. Here’s the official report:

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO END THE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WARS AND OCCUPATIONS

Address given by Marilyn Levin, member, National Assembly Administrative Body, and Planning Committee, Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace Coalition, to the National Antiwar Conference held July 10-12, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

July 10-12, 2009, 255 people representing diverse organizations and constituencies from all over the country came together in Pittsburgh:

1) To look at where we are today,

2) To articulate our long range goals to rejuvenate the antiwar movement towards building a massive movement capable of forcing an end to their wars and occupations, to take our money back from the war machine to meet pressing social needs, and to save our planet for our children, and

3) To develop and vote for action plans as steps to realize these objectives.

All of our major objectives were accomplished and we leave today with a comprehensive action agenda to carry us through to next spring. Everyone had a chance to speak and differences were aired without rancor or splits to achieve unity in action.

Friday night’s speakers, along with many conference participants, grappled with how to unify and broaden the movement. Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, we presented a great roster of workshops covering the major issues we face today. Saturday night’s rally was dynamic and inspiring.

There were two highlights of the conference for me. First was the international component where activist comrades joined us from Canada and courageous labor leaders of powerful mass movements in Haiti and Guadaloupe reminded us that imperialism and the struggle against it are global. There was a statement by members of the Viva Palestina aid convoy detained in Egypt. We passed motions in solidarity with the struggles of the people of Haiti, Honduras, and Palestine.

The second highlight was the discussion on Iran, where, in spite of strong passions stirred up by the rapidly evolving events there, we were able to illuminate the issues and debate our differences. Finally, we were able to agree on a unity position that all could embrace, as well as meeting the foremost call of the Iranians – US Hands off! No Sanctions! No interventions! Self-determination for the Iranian people! A wonderful example of a united front –- as inclusive as possible and taking principled positions that most will accept and act on.

So what is the National Assembly? What you saw this weekend explains who we are and how we function.

Democracy. All were invited and all perspectives welcomed. There was acceptance of the will of the conference even when it diverged from the proposals put forward by the leadership body. We were especially gratified that representatives from all the major antiwar coalitions came and addressed our conference.

Our willingness to struggle for unity and compromise when needed in order to move forward, as evidenced by a leadership that did not impose personal political views on others in service to unity.

An organization that admits to and learns from its mistakes and accepts its limitations when the unity we seek can’t yet be achieved.

An organization that has built a growing cadre of leaders that has developed trust, a structure that works, and a strong working relationship.

And finally, confidence, vision, and optimism. Confidence that we can provide leadership in rebooting our movement. A vision regarding how to accomplish that and an understanding of the necessity for these kinds of conferences leading to action. Optimism that masses of people will move in opposition to these horrendous policies that bring death and destruction and that they will have the power to change the world.

I’ve been asked to give an assessment of the first year since our initiation as an ongoing network with a mission, from our first conference in June, 2008 until today. Last year, we weren’t sure anyone would come and lo and behold 400 people came together in Cleveland to inaugurate a year of activities and set up a structure to maintain our work. A lot has transpired in that year and the National Assembly is well on its way as an established organization recognized throughout the movement as providing leadership and promoting a direction towards growth.

I need to start a little earlier and go back to why the National Assembly was called into existence in the first place.

What we saw, in the spring of 2008, was a movement at a low ebb – one that was shrinking rather than growing in spite of the war dragging on — this while the antiwar sentiment couldn’t be higher, and the disapproval rating for the Bush Administration couldn’t have been lower. From the high point of the largest action against the Iraq War in September, 2005 which drew 700,000 people, there was a pulling away from mass action by significant sections of the movement which supported electoral politics as the central strategy, in spite of a recurring pattern of disappointment when Democratic “antiwar” candidates voted again and again for war and war funding, and a split between the two major national coalitions, UFPJ and ANSWER, one that continues to this day. For the first time in five years, there was not enough unity or mass action perspective for any national demonstrations to take place marking the 5th year of the occupation of Iraq. Fundamentally, there was a vacuum of leadership.

Some far-sighted people like Jerry Gordon and Jeff Mackler, with experience gained from leadership in the last powerful antiwar movement that ended the Vietnam War, felt impelled to act. They began to organize a base of diverse but like-minded activists committed to building and expanding an effective antiwar movement in this country. The vehicle to accomplish this was the first national assembly, a national conference to pull activists together, to analyze the present state of the movement, to discuss where we needed to go and the actions that were needed to get us there.

We developed a unity statement with five basic principles that we hold today as the basis for where we stand:

1) Unity – all sections of the movement working together for common goals and actions;

2) Political Independence – no affiliations or support to any political party;

3) Democracy – decision-making at conferences with one person, one vote;

4) Mass Action – as the central strategy for organizing while embracing other forms of
outreach and protest; and

5) Out Now – the central demand to withdraw all military forces, contractors, and bases
from the countries where the U.S. was waging war on the people.

It seems simple but no one else saw it that way. Our conference was unique in the history of the present movement.

The organizers didn’t know what the mood and composition or strength of the conference would be, so we were cautious and minimal in the program we posed to the conference. We focused on Out Now from Iraq and modest action proposals, not being strong enough to initiate national actions on our own. The conference participants were ahead of us and ready to tackle the larger issues. Proposals were passed to add “Out Now from Afghanistan”, “End U.S. Support for the Occupation of Palestine”, and “Hands off Iran” to our set of demands, and given what has transpired in these areas, we were well prepared to take on a major role.

October 10th actions held in 20 cities were endorsed as well as a call for December actions building towards what we hoped would be unified, nationally coordinated bicoastal mass actions in the spring of 2009, the 6th year of the Iraq occupation. When Gaza was brutally assaulted, we joined with ANSWER and others to march in Washington and to demonstrate in the streets all over the country, and we’re still working under Palestinian leadership to bring justice and relief to a beleaguered population.

We made a concerted effort to find a common date for spring bi-coastal mobilizations. As you know, ANSWER chose March 21st as a day of united protests which we endorsed, while UFPJ called for a national march on Wall St. on April 4th. A number of National Assembly supporters who were also delegates to the UFPJ conference in December formed a mass action unity caucus and went to the conference with a resolution to allow delegates to vote for one or both actions but this was rejected. We’ll keep trying for 2010. The National Assembly endorsed and built both actions and marched behind our signs with our demands. The demonstrations were small (but spirited) and still of major importance.

For us, it’s quality, not quantity, as we position ourselves to be in the forefront as the pendulum swings in our direction once again.

Some take the position that mass demonstrations are not effective, unless we can pull 100,000 protestors into the streets. This is short-sighted and does not address how we get from small to large. Any successful movement for change doesn’t start with 100,000 people, and there has never been significant social change without mass actions. I remember my first anti-Vietnam war demonstration was in 1963 in Detroit and we had 15 people. In 1965, SDS called the first national march against the war in Washington. 25,000 people turned out and we thought it was huge!

Everyone talks about reaching out to the thousands of young people who mobilized to elect Obama. We agree, but we say the way to do this is by offering education and action. Action beyond calling, and emailing, and faxing the politicians they placed in office.

Why are mass demonstrations so important to building a powerful movement? It is because they accomplish so much in the process of building them. They provide:

Continuity. You can’t build anything by starting anew each time. Each action should lead to the next action or open national conference, with success building upon success. We need a continuity of leadership that builds trust and a reputation for integrity, and that learns lessons to improve. We need a continuity of organization and structure that can implement the tasks before us.

Visibility. Actions in the street give heart to the people the U.S. is attacking and occupying, letting them know that they are not alone. Mass actions create solidarity, offering support to anti-war soldiers, vets and their families, and a counter-force to the economic draft facing our youth, and they strengthen and deepen the antiwar sentiment of the people.

Inspiration. New people are brought into the movement, especially the youth, through activism. Have you ever talked to young people coming to a mass demonstration for the first time? They are inspired and thrilled to hear powerful speakers who are leaders of social justice movements and soldiers resisting the wars. They see they are not alone and get a taste of the power of large numbers of people marching together. They are energized to go home and join with others to continue to organize opposition to brutal U.S. wars and occupations. This is the way to reach out to the Obama supporters.

Explanation. An analysis of what is going on is offered along with tying together what seem at first to be disparate elements, i.e., war is tied to the economy, the war budget, bail-outs of the rich, the lack of basic needs being met, justice denied, and the impoverishment of the people.

Pressure on Government. People in this country are taught to be quiet. We’re told that our job is to elect officials whom we agree with periodically and then go home and wait while they fix things. This conveniently maintains the status quo but it sure doesn’t put pressure on them, or scare them, or force social change. Mass actions provide the most effective way to make significant change happen.

Let’s look at the present period. Obama’s election was based in large part on the hopes and aspirations of Americans for peace and a better life based on the promises and assumed promises that were made of peace, justice, and prosperity, which have not and will not be met.

Contrary to expectations, the previous administration’s policies are continued with a more handsome and articulate face. We all know that rather than winding down, wars and interventions are escalating and the rapacious greed of this immoral system knows no bounds.

Simultaneously, the economic crisis is causing terrible hardship for working people and for people who are no longer able to find work and their families. They are using this self-created financial disaster to further cut the standard of living and eliminate a secure future for older people and the young.

It was very moving and yet appalling to see this visually demonstrated when Robin Alexander of the United Electrical Workers Union asked people in the audience to stand who were unemployed, personally knew of soldier casualties, lived in communities where services were being cut, or who were otherwise negatively impacted by the wars and the failing economy. Nearly the entire room, a microcosm of the wider society, was standing by the end of that exercise.

It is inevitable that the present period of quiescence and hanging on to the hope that Obama and the new Congress will save us will come to a crashing end. People will not sit idly by forever while the world around them collapses. We are already seeing the beginnings of stirring. There is a greater willingness to go out in the streets to protest. There is more organizing taking place on campuses, more young people joining the movement. The many proposals for October actions are an indication that there is a widespread awareness of the need for actions this fall and the conviction that the movement must find common dates.

Brian Becker, National Coordinator of ANSWER, urged that we all work together to mount nationally coordinated actions next spring. Michael McPhearson, Co-Chair of UFPJ and Executive Director of Veterans for Peace, announced his support for October 17 and his willingness to do what he could to spur unified actions in the spring of 2010. We must have the faith and confidence that the people have the power to end the atrocities resulting from U.S. wars and occupations, and that they will recognize and utilize this power. As this happens, we must build a stronger antiwar movement that is able to provide leadership and the optimism to forge ahead no matter what the opposition throws at us.

The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is helping to provide that leadership and the vision that is needed. Although young and small, in one short year, we are now a force to be taken seriously and negotiated with, and by our persistent call for unity and mass action, our demonstrated ability to organize, and our coordinated strategy for revitalizing the movement, we are having an impact larger than our forces would indicate. In some ways, we too are a product of (and some say an antidote to) the 2008 election. To counter the malaise of the movement, we have quietly been building a solid core of activists and leaders around the country that understand the importance of a united front organized around principled demands and mass actions, not just calling Washington politicians when bills come up and crises happen.

At this conference, we have laid out an ambitious program of action that will take us through the spring of 2010. We are proud that we could provide the kick off for national organizing to bring a massive turnout to Pittsburgh for the G-20 protests September 25. Homeland Security is already making preparations to keep protesters hidden and stifle our right to speak out, but we won’t be silenced.

Following that, are a series of October building actions, culminating in large local and regional demonstrations on October 17 marking dates of significance related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and occupations and remembering the legacy of the anti-Vietnam war movement. Throughout the year, we will organize educational programs, support various forms of protest and organize around the inevitable emergencies caused by our government’s unholy interventions and threats to other nations.

We have initiated a Free Palestine Working Committee to ensure this work, which includes the growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns and the efforts to break the siege of Gaza, continues to be in the forefront and fully integrated in our work until justice and self-determination and return is in the hands of the Palestinians.

And lastly, we will continue to advocate for unity of the movement and once again bring thousands to Washington and the West Coast in the spring, to let our government and the world know that the U.S. movement against wars and occupations is alive and will not be quiet.

We will march and continue to march until all U.S. forces come home, bases are dismantled, and the sovereign people of the world have the right to control their own resources and determine their own futures, and the war budget becomes the peace budget.

Don’t sit on the sidelines and watch history being made. We urge all organizations to join the National Assembly and to play your part in building and shaping the powerful movement that is coming.

All out for the September 25 G-20 march in Pittsburgh! All out for the actions in early October! All out October 17!

Phony Sedon-y meet Social Ecology

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Marie Walden

I mentioned in my last post that I’d had a visceral negative reaction to Sedona — undeniably one of the most beautiful places on earth — which surprised and dismayed me. I had a vague sense that I was offended by the opulence and pseudo-spiritualism of the place, but that didn’t completely explain my snarky attitude which, I’ve come to understand, usually masks a deeper response to perceived injustice or dashed hopes.

I found an answer in the form of a book I happened to pull from my brother’s bookshelf: An American Child Supreme — the education of a liberation ecologist, by John Nichols. It’s a memoir of sorts, and tries to decipher how any of us — born into a culture that very nearly ensures that we become bigots, greedy consumers, warmongers, and environmental parasites — develops a social conscience.

John Nichols tells of the life-changing — often seemingly innocuous — events, people and books that transformed him from a product of a privileged upbringing and Mayflower pedigree to a liberation ecologist (as opposed to naturalist or environmentalist), a more radical superstratum of social ecology.

I won’t go into any of that, although it was fascinating to me. I’ll just write the words that I scratched frantically into my little notebook so I’d not lose them or allow myself to forget them. I wasn’t sure how they related to Sedona, but somehow they did.

Myself, I do not have the courage or the fanaticism that motivated Diana Oughton (of the Weather Underground) to build bombs, but I cannot envision the changes we need without some sort of apocalyptic reaction against the current levels of violence generated by the daily economic activities of the multinationals that feed and clothe us.

Territorial shooting wars are only a small fraction of the greater (and more horrific) violence of a world market that levels forests, pollutes the oceans, impoverishes people and toxifies topsoil in order to bring us our hamburgers, polyester golf slacks, and Marlboro cigarettes. “The human murder by poverty in Latin America is secret,” writes Eduard Galeano. “Every year, without making a sound, three Hiroshima bombs explode over communities that have become accustomed to suffering with clenched teeth. This systemic violence is not apparent but is real and constantly increasing: its holocausts are not made known in the sensational press but in Food and Agricultural Organization statistics.”

Environmental collapse is now universally caused by monopoly capital plundering earth’s biological and human resources for profit. The profit is generated by the labor of those underdogs, whose energy is thus co-opted to destroy the environment. This means that our most destructive environmental problems are tied to their inequality. . . . That inequality is causing a downward social spiral on earth and eco-devastation. Profit requires demolition. The racism that deforms our nation (and the globe) is a tool used by a capitalist society to maintain class divisions for profit-making reasons, so racism is also a main component of biosystem toxicity.

John Nichols sums up the philosophy of a liberation ecologist when he quotes Tom Athanasiou’s book Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor, whose words are directed at environmentalists:

“The time for such political innocence is over. . . .it is past time for environmentalists to face their own history, in which they have too often stood not for justice and freedom, or even for realism, but merely for the comforts and aesthetics of affluent nature lovers. They have no choice. History will judge greens by whether they stand with the world’s poor.”

That must be it. I distrusted Sedona because it quite obviously doesn’t stand with the world’s poor, nor even the nation’s middle class. It is an enclave for affluent nature lovers whose social consciences are buried in crystals and energy forces, $4 iced teas and expensive gauzy skirts.

Sedona seems to care not a whit about social or economic justice nor — I’d wager a guess — about wreaking environmental havoc in Utah and New Mexico to keep its own little slice of Eden energized and enflowered. There is no need for Sedona to worry about the larger world, neither liberation for its people nor the sustainability of its global environment. Sedona exists unto itself and its wealthy denizens — to be owned, developed and distributed and enjoyed at their directive.

Virus H1N1 Pig Pork Ham Hog Swine Flu

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Eric Verlo

MSNBC- Apparently “some importers don’t understand … you can’t catch Swine Flu from eating pork.” The perky MSNBC duo ridiculed China for banning pork from the US and Canada, but their guest expert interjected another priority: the correct term was “H1N1 virus,” not Swine Flu. Everyone agreed the distinction could quell international hysteria against the falsely accused.

Interesting that Health Officials should “STRESS THAT YOU CAN’T GET SWINE FLU FROM EATING PORK.” We need Health Officials to STRESS how to avoid Swine Flu, not where to avoid avoiding it. Leave it to the pork industry which brewed the swill, up from which Swine Flu had wafted, to clear their pork by-product for public consumption.

The Contessa Brewer & Melissa Francis Sweet Valley Twins act lets MSNBC set up contrived incredulity which consultants can confirm within the context of otherwise false assumptions. “Swine Flu has nothing to do with pigs, right? I mean, pigs don’t catch it, right?”

Neither Brewer nor Francis can be as dumb as they pretend. One graduated Magna Cum Laud, the other is a Harvard alumni. You might welcome an everywoman chattiness on a daytime news presentation, but playing to a lower denominator means that corporate spokesmen can relay their talking points without scrutiny.

On this program, the twin debs were perplexed by the apparent overreaction of Hong Kong officials, who quarantined a hotel, a vestage, it was determined, from their difficult experience with SARS. The MSNBC guest expert offered a further helpful obfuscation: medical researchers still don’t understand how SARS spread between hotel guests.

Thus, international scrutiny of hog production was greeted with an incurious derision. This has nothing to do with the pigs, right?

And you don’t get malaria from pools of standing water. Mosquitoes spread malaria and dengue fever among many tropical diseases. We can probably guess that Brewer, Francis and guest know that malaria control efforts center on mosquito breeding grounds.

But the guest kept up the ridicule of swine-focused measures. Egypt was trying to slaughter pigs which it considered vulnerable to the pandemic, how unfair. The expert wasn’t addressing the probable unfairness of the farmers targeted by the Egyptian government, the expert was speaking up for the poor hogs who would be slaughtered in vain. I may have mistaken a lament for lost pork chops, sooner than empathy for the misjudged pigs, but the latter seemed illogical. The poor hogs otherwise what future exactly, beside imminent slaughter?

Don’t be a strikebreaker!

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Tony Logan

The major grocery store chains here in Colorado are planning to attack their workers next week by forcing a strike. At issue is that they want to destroy the pensions of these workers so don’t break their strike by crossing the picket lines and into the stores to shop. All workers deserve a decent retirement!
United food and commercial workers

You can even help out on the picket line for a bit and show some solidarity with these people in their efforts to stop company cutbacks forced against them. You can also go do your own shopping for groceries at some of the ethnic grocery companies in Colorado and help save some of your own money in the meantime. Give yourself and union workers a break!

Here is what this strike will be about…

By Laura Chapin – UFCW Local 7 – For Immediate Release – 5/2/2009

The federal government has extended the deadline for the green – or fully funded – status for the major grocers’ pension fund from April 30 to June 30, giving the companies a second chance to do the right thing by their workers. The union has already agreed to the extension, so it’s up to the companies to meet the workers halfway.

Under the Worker Retiree and Employer Relief Act of 2008, trustees of a pension plans – both the union and the companies – have the option of extending their green status, or adequately funded status, for one year. If the company trustees fail to agree to extend the green status by the new deadline of June 30, the pension fund will go into a red status, meaning there will be insufficient funding to maintain the workers’ pension plan.

The union pension trustees have agreed to the one-year extension, but the company trustees have refused and instead proposed dramatic cuts to worker’s pension benefits. The benefits to be cut include eliminating the Golden Rule of 80, which raise the retirement eligibility from age 50 to age 62, eliminating the disability pension, and eliminating a $200 a month supplement between ages 60 and 62 years of age.

“We agreed to the extension because we want to give the economy time to recover,” said UFCW Associate Counsel Crisanta Duran. “Instead of meeting the workers halfway on the agreement, which would not have cost them a penny, the companies are choosing to use the under funded status as a bargaining chip and ask for almost 50% in cuts. This is not fair to the workers who are counting on the retirement they have earned.”

According to Safeway worker Arlys Carlson, “All we’re asking is that the companies take care of us the same way we’ve taken care customers all these years.”

UFCW Local #7 represents approximately 17,000 Colorado grocery workers at Safeway, King Soopers/City Market, and Albertsons. Negotiations began April 9 and will continue daily through the current contracts’ expiration on May 9.

For More Information:
Laura K. Chapin, (303) 425-0897 ext 302 ofc
(303) 885 – 1402 cell

The major companies simply want to destroy the unions with a strike. They have begun putting help wanted ads in the papers looking for scab workers to replace union workers. Sadly enough there are many who will try to grab these jobs and to Hell With Those Guys will be their attitude, since this is America, Land of the Screw the Others. Many are actually proud of themselves for being ‘smart’ when they do so. Wrong.

The beaten generation, defined in 1989

Posted on April 26, 2009 by NMT

Twenty years ago, on The The’s MIND BOMB, Matt Johnson identified the systemic knee-capping of GEN X, and thence Y, Zero and O.

THE BEAT(EN) GENERATION

When you cast your eyes upon the skylines of this …
Once proud nation,
Can you sense the fear and the hatred
Growing in the hearts of its population?

And our youth, oh youth, are being seduced
By the greedy hands of politics and half truths.

The beaten generation, the beaten generation,
Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation.
The beaten generation, the beaten generation
Open your eyes, open your imagination.

We’re being sedated by the gasoline fumes
And hypnotised by the satellites
Into believing what is good and what is right.

You may be worshipping the temples of Mammon
Or lost in the prisons of religion,
But can you still walk back to happiness
When you’ve nowhere left to run?

If they send in the special police
To deliver us from evil and keep us from peace.

Then won’t the words sit ill upon their tongues
When they tell us justice is being done
That freedom lives in the barrels of a warm gun?

The beaten generation, the beaten generation,
Reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation.
The beaten generation, the beaten generation,
Open your eyes, open your imagination.

Obama stuck with his finger locked in the damnation

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Tony Logan

obama finger It’s kind of sad reading the liberal ‘Peace’crat sites as they scream and shout about why the Democratic Party must prosecute The Republicans for the crimes of implementing torture. That can’t happen though, and there is one BIG reason why not? Can you guess why it won’t and can’t be done?

The Democrats didn’t get tricked by the Republicans at the beginning of open overt US government use of torture on prisoners, but rather were their accomplices in initiating it. There is no way in the world now that they can rush to investigate and prosecute torture use by Republican Party officials. When Bush began to use overt torture of POWs he told the Congressional Democratic Party leaders of his plan and got their OK for it. It then became an open ‘secret’ among themselves what they agreed to allow and went along with.

So why all this ‘innocence’ about this among the rank and file Democratic liberal voter set? Their leaders might have misrepresented their own desires for allowing this torture to happen, but only a tiny minority of Democratic Party voters perhaps? Support for using torture remains strong within the general US public, and that includes Democratic Party voting circles. Obama has had to deal with this Pandora’ Box because of outside (of America) pressures more than inside pressures. He’s ready to move ‘forward’ once again, and in today’s lexicon of the Demo Party bigwigs, forward means backward.

Can Obama pull his finger back out of the damnation and pretend to America and the world that it never happened? No. He is simply stuck, finger in the damn, and condemnation will continue to try to flow forth. He could go under like New Orleans did under Katrina, especially since he has his finger stuck in yet another damn, that one called the Economy.

Ludlow Massacre or unhappy incident?

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO COLLEGE- CC is holding a symposium on the 1914 Ludlow Massacre. Actually, it’s only called the Ludlow Symposium. True to Colorado Springs form, several among the audience want to call it an “incidence,” instead of a “massacre.” One of the participants, author Scott Martelle, is willing to oblige, explaining that if the militia hadn’t known that women and children were taking shelter beneath the tents which they were putting to the torch, then the soldiers were guilty only of criminally negligent homicide.

(*Note 4/12/09: this article has been revised in light of helpful comments offered by symposium participants. Also: Differences of opinion aside, I am remiss if I do not praise the scholars who were very generous with their time and encyclopedic memories to enrich this symposium.
1. CC’s own Professor David Mason authored an evocative narrative of lives caught up in the 1914 events, written in verse, entitled Ludlow.
2. Journalist Scott Thomas researched the most recent definitive account to date, the 2007 Blood Passion: the Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West.
3. Thomas Andrews, Associate Professor at CU Denver, enlarged the context in 2008 with his award winning Killing For Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War.
4. Zeese Papanikolas represented his authorative Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre, written in 1984.)

Does it matter what it’s called, or with what certainty? The symposium is filled with public school system educators looking for an angle with which to approach Ludlow with their kids. One of them expresses her doubt about teaching about Mother Jones, having just heard from the panelists a probably too-nuanced assessment of the labor hero’s tactics. The political climate of our age can’t find any purchase with moral nuance.

I’m stuck thinking that in recording social history, scholars cannot avoid writing the victor’s narrative. In particular as regards the history of labor, because neither academics nor even middle class hobbyists in the symposium’s audience can look at the events from the perspective of the working class.

Even the scholar’s objectivity is middle class. The opinion was expressed by the panel that the Ludlow aftermath was one of the few occasions when the story was spun to the benefit of labor interests. But this does not account for why authors and educators find themselves having to resurrect the tale of Ludlow these many years later. When it occurred, Americans may have swallowed the hyperbole, but since that time they’ve internalized its internment, effaced by a corporate culture so as to have disappeared from even our school textbooks.

I think this may have been something of the question posed by symposium organizer Jaime Stevensen to the panel, when she asked how the authors insulated themselves from the fictions woven into their own perspectives of history. She didn’t get any takers.

The very concept that history adds up to only so much trivial pursuit, is inherently a view from the ivory tower. Do the Ludlow scholars not recognize that common people today face the same foes as did the miners of Ludlow? With the added impediment of a corporate PR system erasing its malevolent deeds. Have not American unions been maligned to the point of extinction? Yet at the same time, capitalists have thoroughly reprised their Machiavellian ways. History can be a tool, not only for statecraft, but for the common American to protect his hard-fought democratic gains.

The United Mine Workers of America having successfully spun the deaths of the striking miner families as a “massacre” may have made an unmerited impact on the public’s sympathies, but likewise, deciding to call Ludlow “not a massacre” will be falsely charged as well. Is there a valuable lesson in unlearning that unbridled corporate greed can be unthinkably inhumane?

Historians can fancy themselves objective to ambivalence, but is that a luxury their readers and in particular the schoolchildren can afford? As we witness today the gloves coming off of the globalisation taskmasters?

How I prefer the emotional truth of earlier chroniclers like Barron Beshoar, author of OUT OF THE DEPTHS, a 1942 account of Ludlow, whose preface included this gem:

“If the mine guards and detectives, the mercenaries who served as the Gestapo and the coal districts appear to be scoundrels who sold themselves and their fellowmen for a few corporation dollars, the author will consider them adequately presented.”

At Colorado College the consensus of contemporary historical synthesis, embodied by CU Denver’s Thomas Andrews‘ excellent book KILLING FOR COAL, seems to conclude about Ludlow, “we may never know exactly what happened.” This may reflect the Factual Truth, but it does so at the expense of unrecorded oral accounts, by depreciating their traditional path to us through of folklore.

Another author made pains to debunk the lyrics “Sixteen tons, and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt,” a cultural indictment of the “company store,” which was one of the grievances of the Ludlow strikers. He postulated that modern readers could be prone to let folklore color a predisposition against the company store. Perhaps a company store was in fact a convenience, derided because it was an arbitrary restriction against which human nature bucked. Trying to be helpful, another panelist suggested: “Imagine if the company store was 7-11, and you were told you could only shop there.” I believe both of these gentlemen are overlooking the much grosser complaint which the miners were protesting, that of insurmountable debt, systematically forced on them by their employers. That’s a phenomena on the rise today, if maybe not among college professors. Around the world, indentured servitude has never abated.

In our ivory tower we can debate which side, the union or the militia, fired the first shots on April 20. Who was at fault, seemed to be what that question would decide. At least panelist Anne Hyde had the presence of mind to lay some of the responsibility on the mine owners, who weren’t there of course, but whose stubborn greed played a not unsubstantial part in what the other panelists were attributing to “macho intransigence.”

That expression was in vogue to describe Cowboy presidencies. What an effete put down of militant activism. Are we to blame the striking miners for holding firm to their demands?

Thank goodness someone in the audience brought up recent efforts to deny the Sand Creek Massacre, which two panelists quickly weighed in to say “that was a real massacre,” discrediting Ludlow, obviously, and failing to grasp her point that indeed some Colorado Springs locals are rewriting Sand Creek as a battle, and not a massacre.

Another isolationist luxury has become to judge every action as it compares to a nonviolent ideal. It was noted that UMWA union leader John Lawson always recused himself from violent tactics. During the symposium’s opening reception, someone performed a song dedicated to the Ludlow martyr Louis Tikas, which lauded him for choosing to fight with words not guns, as if guns would discredit him.

I’ll play devil’s advocate and suggest that the miners fired the first shots. They saw Louis Tikas bludgeoned in the back of the head and then executed as he lay on the ground unconscious, they saw the National Guard move a machine gun into position above their tent city, and they probably began to fire at the soldiers lest a rain of bullets descend on miners’ wives and children before they had a chance to flee the camp.

The miners were asking that their union be recognized, that the Colorado eight hour work day be enforced, that the scales which determined their pay be verified, that their full hours be compensated, etc. The mine owners clung to their profits, and ordered the miners’ tent city, their only shelter and all their worldly possessions burned to the ground. Women and children were hiding in underground pits dug to escape the sniper fire which the mine guards sporadically aimed at the tents. The guards drove an armored car around the perimeter of the union camp, at all hours, for that purpose.

Ultimately this climate erupted into the violent clash on April 20, 1914, in which the miners battled with the far better equipped soldiers. The casualties were 25 to 1. I call that a massacre.

ADDENDUM: Photographs from visit to the Ludlow Memorial.

LUDLOW MEMORIAL, COLORADO- Day three of the Colorado College Ludlow Symposium featured a bus ride to the site of the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, then on to Trinidad to the grave of Union leader Louis Tikas. A reporter for Colorado Public Radio interviewed the symposium panelists at the U.M.W.A. memorial grounds.

David Mason is interviewed by a freelance reporter for Colorado Public Radio.

Scott Martelle and Thomas Andrews are interviewed above the fatal cellar.

TRINIDAD, COLORADO- Masonic Cemetary.

Zeese Papanikolas spoke about his protagonist’s gravestone and its reference to Tikas as a “Patriot.”

Take a pinch of psychedelic

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Marie Walden

Tim Thumb psychedelic poster During the kids’ Snow Break last week, we chanced to visit the Denver Art Museum’s Psychedelic Experience exhibit. Dozens of groovy rock posters from the late sixties, mostly advertising shows at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium, were on display, occasionally retro-enhanced by black light. More interesting to the kids, however, was an adjoining exhibit where ancient artifacts were displayed in a seemingly authentic sixties pad. There were LPs (how they laughed!) and record players, a giant console television, magazines from the era (first man on the moon was a big hit), shabby furniture covered in tie-dyed material, and a couple old-fashioned telephone booths with rotary phones. One by one, the kids went into the graffiti-covered booth and closed the door, sat on the bench and tried to figure out how to dial the phone. Seriously, it wasn’t obvious to them.

The terms LSD and psychedelic were ubiquitous throughout the exhibit and the kids asked me their meanings. I think I was able to explain LSD satisfactorily but had a hard time defining psychedelic, although I know psychedelic when I see it. It turns out that today is a birthday of sorts for both LSD and psychedelic, a perfect time to answer my own question!

From Today in Literature:
LSD was first synthesized on this day in 1943 by Albert Hoffman, and the psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond coined the term “psychedelic” on this day in 1956, by way of a poetic exchange with Aldous Huxley. Huxley had enthusiastically volunteered himself as a guinea pig for Osmond’s drug experiments and, after some initial reluctance, Osmond had agreed — he said he didn’t “relish the possibility, however remote, of finding a small but discreditable niche in literary history as the man who drove Aldous Huxley mad.” The two felt that a new word was needed to capture the nature of the new experience; Huxley offered his coinage in rhyme:

To make this trivial world sublime,
Take half a gramme of phanerothyme.

Osmond replied with his improvement, and entered Far Out history:

To fathom hell or soar angelic,
Just take a pinch of psychedelic.

Churchill juror Bethany Newill explains

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Marie Walden

A few interesting things about the Ward Churchill jury came to light today (a sigh of relief from Pirate Ballerina!). The jury thought — right up until the judge gave them their instructions — they were to determine whether Ward Churchill was guilty of academic misconduct. When they realized they needed only to decide only whether the 9/11 essay was a substantial motivating factor in his dismissal, they agreed very quickly that it was.

Although apparently the jury took their deliberations seriously, they didn’t want to have anything to do with the damages portion of the process. They hoped the judge would do the job for them but when they found out that wasn’t permitted, they gave it a half-hearted shot. This from Westword’s interview with juror Bethany Newill:

Once Judge Larry Naves reiterated that the jury had to tackle this task, Newill confirms that “the majority of us were in favor of giving him money,” but they didn’t know how much to award. “We were given a four-page set of rules to determine the amount, and there was also an option that we didn’t have to do it. And one of the rules said there needed to be a preponderance of the evidence to show the financial effect it had on Ward Churchill. And there was no real dollar amount other than the loss of wages.”

Ultimately, the jurors followed the lead of David Lane, Churchill’s attorney. “He said, ‘What price can you put on a reputation?'” Newill remembers. “And we all decided that there’s not a price you can put on a reputation. And even though this was protected speech, there are still consequences to your actions and your words. When Ward Churchill wrote that essay, he had to think that people would be affected by that, negatively or positively, and that he would need to reap the consequences on his reputation.” Still, she emphasizes that “it wasn’t a slap in his face or anything like that when we didn’t give him any money. It’s just that David Lane kept saying this wasn’t about the money, and in the end, we took his word for that.”

No doubt, a jury of peers! Just not Ward Churchill’s peers!

Driving Miss McIntosh

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Eric Verlo

DENVER- At first the testimony from a CU committee member who voted to dismiss Ward Churchill seemed utterly damning. Dr. Marjorie McIntosh, retired Distinguished Professor of history, gave her testimony by video because she would be lecturing in England at the time of the Churchill v CU trial. She came across like a wise elder, her scolding kind and maternal. She had me convinced that Ward should be sent to his room, but for an indelible pallor that began to infect her testimony as the retired professor grew tired under scrutiny. And like the history of 14th Century England which was her specialization, it became inescapably evident that Marjorie McIntosh was very, very white.

At face value, Dr. McIntosh’s quiet authoritative demeanor seemed beyond reproach, expressing as she did her support for Ward Churchill’s right to speak. McIntosh described how her father was a dean at U of M who reputedly stood up to Senator McCarthy. She explained her initial reluctance to be party to a Right Wing attempt to “get” Professor Churchill. At first Ms. McIntosh seemed as earnest as your own grandmother, if your grandmother was also a well spoken distinguished academic.

But the cracks in Ms. McIntosh’s maternal concern showed themselves even before the plaintiff’s cross-examination. When Professor McIntosh described herself as “fair and impartial,” it was in contrast, she offered, to Professor Churchill for example, who she understands may not be impartial or neutral.

Partiality
Under cross-examination McIntosh went further. To paraphrase: “Professor Curchill is not a trained historian, he has an MA, he is a scholar who writes on historical subjects. He presents himself as a specialist, but he does not have that training.”

By contrast we are meant to infer, McIntosh is a Distinguished Professor, rewarded for having had a “national impact” on scholarship, and having produced work which has “directed” consequential research.

Questioned about the significance of tenure, McIntosh described the rigorous qualifications which she met. But with a smile she would not vouch for a uniformity of high standards at CU, since, obviously… She held her tongue as if too polite to say it: Ward Churchill was a glaring example of the opposite.

A second indication of Dr. McIntosh’s personal bias might be suggested by how she characterized committee chairwoman Mimi Wesson’s perceived personal agenda: Did she detect any bias on the committee, in particular with Wesson? McIntosh saw no evidence of bias, and she thought Wesson treated Professor Churchill with great respect, both in his presence and after. McIntosh was impressed by Wesson’s professionalism.

Another of McIntosh’s responses hints at a further insincerity. She and her SCRUM colleagues were tasked with investigating one allegation each made against Churchill. McIntosh was “foot soldier” for the Madan Indian Ft Clark episode. Discrepancies in Churchill’s account had been brought to the university’s attention by Arizona professor Lavall, a rival of Churchill’s in the American Indian Movement. McIntosh was asked whether she knew that Lavall’s allegations had been raised six years before being addressed by her committee. Perhaps to dodge the accusation that the timing of their inquest was more related to Churchill’s 9/11 essay, McIntosh replied that she did not know. After of course, delivering the findings of what she presented as an exhaustive review of all available evidence.

Allegation A
Allegation A held that Churchill falsified an account of the 1837 small pox outbreak in North Dakota. McIntosh was charged with verifying Churchill’s claims (1) that small pox was deliberately spread by the US Army using blankets, (2) that said blankets were dispensed from a St Louis small pox infirmary, (3) that the infected Indians were ordered to scatter, (4) that a vaccination was deliberately kept from the indians, and (5) that the dead numbered upwards 400,000.

According to Lavall and the CU committee, Churchill was held to have been negligent in citing sources. While Churchill countered that his accounts came from oral tradition, much of it commonly known, McIntosh encountered none.

While McIntosh concedes that she does shares no heritage with Native Americans, to perhaps have grown up with oral accounts, but she argues that Churchill is similarly neither from the tribal lines from which he would have heard Mandan stories.

Did you give Professor Churchill the benefit of the doubt? Dr. McIntosh was asked?

“I would say we gave him a great big benefit of the doubt” McIntosh replied. Her research found no oral tradition of small pox evidence. “We could have stopped there and found him guilty of fabrication and falsification.” Instead the committee magnanimously contacted Churchill to ask for further evidence. They were surprised when he produced conflicting sources. Most surprising, McIntosh condescended, was not getting a straight-forward answer from Professor Churchill.

McIntosh summarized the generally accepted narrative of the 1837 epidemic: Every summer a fur trading company working along the Missouri River, sent a steamship north from St Louis, to the fortified trading posts lying along the river, at their furthest, 2000 miles north. Only once a year, the “Saint Peter” steamed upriver with trading goods to exchange for furs and hides, and with “annuities” which were gifts for Indian tribes who had signed a treaty with the government. A week into the 1837 voyage, one passenger was showing signs of an illness but the captain decided against forcing a disembarkation. By two weeks, everyone on the boat had contracted what was by then undeniably a small pox outbreak. As each of these travelers got off at the trading posts, small pox spread from every stop. The Mandan Indians lived 300 miles north of Ft Union, the furthest point of the steamboat. At least 90% of their number were killed. That much is undisputed.

About involvement of US soldiers, blankets, an infirmary, a vaccination withheld, and an order to scatter, Ms. McIntosh found absolutely no proof. She conceded that some accounts hint that the outbreak was intentional, a couple of accounts mention blankets. On this point the committee agreed the thesis could have been justified. But St Louis newspaper archives reveal no trace of an infirmary nor of a small pox outbreak. There were no medical records kept at the trading posts, nor even any medical staff. Etc.

And as to Churchill’s numbers… “Churchill cites 100,000, then 125,000, then 250,00 and now as many as 400,000.” Churchill attributes the figures to “as Professor Thornton suggests.” But according to McIntosh, Thornton never gave any numbers.

Disputing the numbers, the means, the details, reminds me of another pattern of denial.

Holocaust Denial
Is this not the very basis of Holocaust Denial? A perpetrator culture, commits a genocide, then quibbles with accusers by pointing to the paucity of evidence. It’s a mobster’s strategem. Leave no witnesses and there’s no one to tie you to a crime. A massacre thoroughly executed leaves no trace. History is written by the victors. The master narrative, in Western Heritage, has always had a white master.

Do I liken McIntosh to Jessica Tandy’s role in Driving Miss Daisy? If Tandy had quietly not transformed, but instead held tenaciously to her condescending racism. I would be loath to offend those courageous souls who labor to get to the truth about recorded history, but Holocaust Denial is about repudiating mankind’s evil deeds. Where evidence is sparse, because the perpetrators covered their tracks, others come along to cast doubt on the original crime. The details matter less than the crime. Here we have white man’s genocide against the Native Americans. All the details are in dispute. Held together, they deny the whole of what we can plainly see as the truth.

Asked if she was acquainted with Critical Race Theory, McIntosh replied she wasn’t. She professed uncertainty about even the tenure process for Ethnics Studies. She feels those kind of studies are emotional and partisan. Enlish history has debate too, but less resonance in people’s current lives.

Academic disciplines
Dr. McIntosh became combative when challenged about her proficiency with history from taken from oral tradition. In her later scholarship, Ms. McIntosh worked in contemporary Ugandan women’s studies. Oral sources build African history, but not in English history, where archival history preempts oral sources. We are left to question if McIntosh can reconcile how to incorporate oral accounts not from the present.

Was she coming at this subject with a bias? No, she’d never heard of the Mandan small pox epidemic.

Did anyone put pressure on her, to arrive at her findings? “In the first place, it didn’t occur to me that anyone would put pressure on me.” In discussing her apprehension about joining committee, Mcintosh “did not think the University would be critical of me.”

“Saddam and the Third Reich”… the REAL Connection.

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Brother Jonah

Not the hype they’re promoting on the Hysteria International Channel, in an attempt to justify the violent conquest of Iraq to seize the assets of the country and turn them over to Exxon Mobil and other Corporate Partners of the CheneyBush Company.

Nope, the most solid connection is, once again, the Bush Family.

Their banking enterprises provided money laundering for both the Third Reich and for Saddam Hussein.

Since the Military Propaganda Committee are apparently going to try to drown us out, on this soon to be seventh year of the Invasion and Occupation OOOPSIE I was supposed to say “Liberation” , right?

I’ll point out once again because the Right Wing are kind of Stupid and forget easily, and I’ll type it Really Slowly because they can’t read very fast,…

The stated reasons for invading Iraq were straight up unadulterated Lies.

The Koalition of the Killing were NOT liberating Iraq, NOT even looking for the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, NOT fighting for freedom in any sense of the word.

But maybe the Uniform-Heads can repeat those lies often enough that at least they, themselves, will believe it.

Or maybe they understand that their stated reasons are Bullshit and just don’t give a damn.

In which case they and everybody who still supports the War are guilty of Murder.

Murder of Iraqi Civilians and American Soldiers and Koalition of the Killing Soldiers as well.

They have blood on their greedy claws and if they’re still proud of it, they should stop calling themselves Americans.

But they won’t and we all know it.

They’ll insist that everybody who doesn’t agree with their Conquest is somehow Anti-American.

I’d like to give them some credit, any credit I could think of, maybe that they’re drugged or brainwashed, but no, that wouldn’t be true.

They know they’re committing Evil and continue to do it, and rejoice in doing it.

They know they’re lying but continue to lie.

They know they’re baby-killing murdering coward scum, and that it violates every law of God and man, but they’ll continue doing it.

Happy Anniversary.

You have the blood of over 4700 Americans on your nasty little hands, and a literally countless number of Iraqi civilians.

Coloradans For Peace join ANSWER in DC

Posted on March 4, 2009 by Eric Verlo

UPDATE MARCH 21 MARCH ON PENTAGON: Students & Communities Mobilize to March on the Pentagon and the Corporate War Profiteers

Students and community organizations from across the country are mobilizing to be in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, March 21 to make their voices heard in the March on the Pentagon and the Corporate War Profiteers.

The PentagonMarch.org website now lists 64 departure locations in 20 states, many of them leaving from college campuses, including: University of Iowa, Georgia State University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Central Connecticut State University-New Britain, University of Connecticut-Storrs, Berkshire Community College, and more!

Visit the PentagonMarch Transportation Page to find the departure location nearest you, or to sign-up to list your campus’s or city’s travel plans!

Read more about the exciting plans for March 21st:

The March on the Pentagon on Saturday, March 21 is shaping up to be a dramatic and highly significant demonstration. Many thousands of people are coming to Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard.

March 21 will culminate in a dramatic direct action where hundreds of coffins—representing the multinational victims of militarism, Empire and corporate greed—will be carried and delivered to the headquarters of the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death.

From the Pentagon, we will march to the nearby giant corporate offices of Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin Corporation, General Dynamics and KBR (the former subsidiary of Halliburton).

The march will start close to the State Department in Washington, D.C. (assemble at 12 noon at 23rd St. and Constitution Ave. NW).

Please make an urgently needed donation today by clicking this link to donate online through our secure server, where you can also find information on how to donate by check.

All out for March 21! Jobs Not War! Schools Not War! Occupation is a Crime!

Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Marie Walden

Charlie-Chaplin-Great-Dictator This weekend the kids and I watched Charlie Chaplin’s brilliant 1940 movie The Great Dictator. The film was released before the United States’ entry into World War II when our country was still at peace with Nazi Germany. Charlie Chaplin was an outspoken critic of Nazism and fascism while most Americans were either ignorant of or complacent about European goings-on. The Great Dictator is ingenious in its inexorable skewering of Hitler and Mussolini, done with complete levity and irreverance, a task made possible by Chaplin’s lack of foresight into the coming Holocaust. He admits he likely wouldn’t have made the film had he known about Hitler’s final solution.

Chaplin plays two characters in the film: Adenoid Hynkel (Adolf Hitler) and an obscure Jewish barber who resembles the great dictator. Chaplin undertook a meticulous study of Adolf Hitler’s manner of speaking in preparation for the film, and some of the most brilliant scenes are of Hynkel’s speeches, spoken in authentic German-sounding gibberish, delivered with all the wild-eyed passion, choking and spitting of Hitler himself. Hynkel is surrounded by cronies with amusing names: Goebbels is Herr Garbitsch (pronounced Garbage), Göring is Herr Herring, and leading the opposition is Benzino Napaloni — a portmanteau of Benito Mussolini and Napoleon Bonaparte.

In a plot twist near the end of the film, the Jewish barber is mistaken for Adenoid Hynkel and is called on to make a victory speech to thousands of Germans cheering the successful invasion of neighboring Osterlich (Austria). Bumbling to center stage completely unprepared, the imposter Herr Hynkel delivers this address to his buoyant followers:

I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor – that’s not my business – I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls – has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish…

Soldiers – don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate – only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written ” the kingdom of God is within man ” – not one man, nor a group of men – but in all men – in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers – in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting – the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings – and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow – into the light of hope – into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up.

Mark 6TH YEAR of Iraq Occupation with profiteers Boeing, Lockheed, GD and KBR

Posted on February 27, 2009 by NMT

A.N.S.W.E.R.’s March 21 MARCH ON THE PENTAGON to mark the sixth year of the War in Iraq will be directed not only at the US Department of Defense, but at the war profiteers for whom 2007 was a record year, among them Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and KBR. In Colorado Springs the merchants of death can be visited on one corner.

On March 21, 2009,
March on the Pentagon and the Corporate War Profiteers

The March on the Pentagon on Saturday, March 21 is shaping up to be a dramatic and highly significant demonstration. Many thousands of people are coming to Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard.

March 21 will culminate in a dramatic direct action where hundreds of coffins—representing the multinational victims of militarism, Empire and corporate greed—will be carried and delivered to the headquarters of the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death.

From the Pentagon, we will march to the nearby giant corporate offices of Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin Corporation, General Dynamics and KBR (the former subsidiary of Halliburton).

The march will start close to the State Department in Washington, D.C. (assemble at 12 noon at 23rd St. and Constitution Ave. NW).

Please make an urgently needed donation today by clicking this link to donate online through our secure server, where you can also find information on how to donate by check.

These are the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death. They are the vultures who profit off the death and suffering of the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, and off of the thousands of U.S. soldiers and marines who have died or been wounded in these wars of aggression. They are anti-worker and anti-union.

The march will be led by a large contingent of veterans and family members of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and from earlier conflicts.

Militarism and Corporate Capitalism
We will march on their slick-and-shiny corporate offices that are located less than a mile from the Pentagon. Their location in the very shadow of the Pentagon speaks volumes about the intimate connection between militarism and corporate capitalism.

When the Pentagon brass retire, they rotate out of their Pentagon offices and directly into the Corporate boardrooms and office suites of the Death Merchants. It is a very cozy and very profitable relationship for the elites—in and out of uniform. They make the profits, others do the bleeding.

Last year was a great year for the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death. Profits soared even as the rest of the economy neared collapse. The CEOs of the four corporations that we will be visiting on March 21 received more than $319 million in compensation in 2007 alone (and remember, that’s just for four individuals). “We the People” paid the bill for the high tech weapons that were used against occupied people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The Corporate Executives laughed all the way to the bank while grieving parents and children buried their loved ones from Baghdad to Kabul to Gaza to Detroit.

A quick examination shows that the CEOs of the Military-Industrial Complex contributed to both the Democratic and Republican Party candidates in almost equal amounts. They favor a system that ensures that politicians will come and go every four years but the military machine—that fusion of industry, banks and the Pentagon brass—will remain as is.

We Need Jobs & Schools – Not War!
The same banks that are being bailed out to the tune of trillions of dollars even while they foreclose families who can’t pay their mortgage debts are double-dipping from the national treasury by making huge profits in their investments in Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and KBR.

War is just good business for these corporate executives. Every F-16 bomber, attack helicopter, cruise missile and Drone bomber is a source of profit. If the wars stopped they would be out of business.

The people of this country are fed up with the status quo. They want decent-paying jobs, and affordable health care and housing for all. Students want to study rather than be driven out by soaring tuition rates. People want a complete—not partial—withdrawal of ALL troops from Iraq. They want the war in Afghanistan to end rather than escalate. They are increasingly opposed to sending $2.6 billion each year to Israel.

People are coming to Washington, D.C. on March 21 from college campuses, high schools, and cities and towns throughout the United States.

It is time for real change. Unless the movement for change stays in the streets, the powerful corporate and banking interests will certainly dominate the politics of this country. That is unacceptable. That is a path toward endless war and occupation abroad, and a massive transfer of wealth to the already rich at home.

All out for March 21! Jobs Not War! Schools Not War! Occupation is a Crime!

From pentagonmarch.org:

Meet the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death

W. James McNerney Jr.
CEO of Boeing.

2007 Total Compensation: $19 million. Value of Boeing Stock Owned: $25.7 million

Facts about Boeing:
Boeing currently produces numerous jets and bombers, including the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber and the F/A-22 Raptor, as well as multiple surface-to-air missiles and various bombs. Boeing also produces the bolt-on JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) that turns gravity bombs into “smart” munitions.

Boeing supplies Israel with various weapon systems, including the F-15 Eagle fighter jet and A-64 Apache attack helicopter, as well as numerous types of bombs and missiles. It was these weapons that helped to kill 1,017 Palestinians killed in the Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.

In 2008, Boeing made $2,225,947 in campaign contributions. 58 percent of these contributions were to Democrats, and 42 percent were to Republicans. In 2008, they spent $16,610,000 on lobbying.

Despite massive profits, Boeing opposed raises for plant employees, and attempted to outsource union jobs so that the company could be “more flexible.”

Robert J. Stevens
CEO of Lockheed Martin

2007 Total Compensation: $37 million. Value of Lockheed Martin Stock Owned: $33.8 million

Facts about Lockheed Martin:
Lockheed Martin currently produces the F-117 Stealth Fighter that was used in the brutal “Shock and Awe” bombings of Iraq, as well as the F/A-22 Raptor fighter jet. They also produces various missile systems, including the Hellfire and Javelin, and various nuclear weapon designs. Lockheed supplies fighter jets and other weapon systems to Israel.

Lockheed’s 2008 first-quarter revenue was $9.98 billion–an increase of $700 million from the year prior. By 2015, the F-35 program alone could represent more than $16 billion in annual revenue for the company.

Lockheed’s former vice-president, Bruce Jackson, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

In 2005, Lockheed received $65 million every single day of the year from the U.S. government. That year, Lockheed garnered $228 in federal tax money from every household in the United States.

In 2008, Lockheed made $2.6 million in political contributions—49 percent to the Democrats and 51 percent to the Republicans.

In 2004, Lockheed spent nearly $10 million on more than 100 lobbyists. From 2001-2005, only Philip Morris and GE spent more money lobbying Congress. By 2008, that number was $15.8 million.

Nicholas D. Chabraja
CEO of General Dynamics

2007 Total Compensation: $60 million. Value of GD Stock Owned: $154.2 million

Facts about General Dynamics:
General Dynamics currently produces dozens of weapon systems, which include the Stryker Armored Combat Vehicle and the M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank series, as well as other highly devastating artillery systems and the Trident Nuclear Submarine.

General Dynamics has supplied Israel with various weapon systems, including the F-16 Falcon fighter jet.

In 2008, General Dynamics made $1,682,595 in campaign contributions—58 percent to the Democrats and 42 percent to the Republicans.

Also in 2008, General Dynamics spent $8,562,439 lobbying for government contracts.

Fueled by sales of business jets and military-combat equipment, General Dynamics reported a 32 percent jump in first-quarter profits for 2008, to $573 million. The backlog of work not completed far outpaced revenues, growing by 14 percent to nearly $50 billion.

Analysts think General Dynamics and Mr. Chabraja will do even better next year, noting the “upside potential” of the combat-systems group, which is benefiting from the U.S. Army’s restocking of equipment lost, damaged or worn by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to a $12 billion backlog of orders for corporate jets.

William P. Utt
CEO of Kellogg Brown & Root.

2007 Total Compensation: $3.29 million. Value of KBR Stock Owned: $6.5 million

Facts about KBR:
There are roughly 14,000 KBR employees inside of Iraq that provide logistical support to the U.S. military. KBR has made billions off of “reconstruction” contracts within Iraq.

KBR is the largest non-union construction company in the United States. It has won many contracts with the U.S. government, including $100 million to build a U.S. embassy in Afghanistan, as well as $216 million for the construction of several base camps and training foreign troops from the Republic of Georgia.

Despite at least a dozen former employees alleging they had been raped by co-workers in Iraq and other employees saying co-workers regularly stole gold, artwork, and weapons, KBR remains in the Pentagon’s good graces. In mid-April, it received a 10-year, $150 billion contract to support the military overseas.

CEO William Utt called 2008 an “outstanding year,” saying KBR posted record profitability.

Despite many scandals and controversies, KBR reported that its first quarter net profits for 2008 more than tripled, from $28 million the previous year to $98 million.

ANSWER Coalition Responds to President Obama’s Iraq Speech of Friday, February 27

With his speech today, President Obama has essentially agreed to continue the criminal occupation of Iraq indefinitely. He announced that there will be an occupation force of 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for at least three more years. President Obama used carefully chosen words to avoid a firm commitment to remove the 50,000 occupation troops, even after 2011.

The war in Iraq was illegal. It was aggression. It was based on lies and false rationales. President Obama’s speech today made Bush’s invasion sound like a liberating act and congratulated the troops for “getting the job done.” More than a million Iraqis died and a cruel civil war was set into motion because of the foreign invasion. President Obama did not once criticize the invasion itself.

He has also requested an increase in war spending for Iraq and Afghanistan, and plans to double the number of U.S. troops sent to fight in Afghanistan.

President Obama has asked Congress to provide more than $200 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over the next two years, in addition to increasing the Pentagon budget by four percent.

Based on President Obama’s new budget, the Pentagon would rank as the world’s 17th largest economy—if it were a country. This new budget increases war spending. Total spending in 2010 would roughly equate to an average of $21,000 a second.

This is not the end of the occupation of Iraq, but rather the continuation of the occupation.

There is only one reason that tens of thousands of troops will remain in Iraq: It is because this is a colonial-type occupation of a strategically important and oil-rich country located in the Middle East where two-thirds of the world’s oil reserve can be found.

Obama’s speech was a major disappointment for anyone who was hoping that Obama would renounce the illegal occupation of Iraq. Today, the U.S. government spends $480 million per day to fund the occupation of Iraq. Even if 100,000 troops are drawn out by August 2010, that means the indefinite occupation of Iraq will cost more than $100 million each day. The continued occupation of Iraq for two years or three years or more makes a complete mockery out of the idea that the Iraqi people control their own destiny. It is a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and independence.

It is no wonder that John McCain came out to support President Obama’s announced plan on Iraq. McCain was an supporter of former President Bush’s and Vice President Cheney’s war and occupation in Iraq.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld—the architects of regime change in Iraq—never had the goal of indefinitely keeping 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. They wanted to subdue the Iraqi people and exercise control with a smaller force. The Iraqi armed resistance prolonged the stationing of 150,000 U.S. troops.

Bush’s goal was domination over Iraq and its oil supplies, and domination over the region. This continues to be the goal of the U.S. political and economic establishment, including that of the new administration.

President Obama decided not to challenge the fundamental strategic orientation. That explains why he kept the Bush team—Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Generals Petraeus and Odierno—on the job to oversee and manage the Iraq occupation. They will also manage the widening U.S. war in Afghanistan and the aerial assaults on Pakistan. There have been over 30 U.S. bombing attacks in Pakistan in the last two months.

We are marching on Saturday, March 21 because the people of this country are fed up with the status quo. They want decent-paying jobs, and affordable health care and housing for all. Students want to study rather than be driven out by soaring tuition rates. The majority of people want a complete—not partial—withdrawal of ALL troops from Iraq. They want the war in Afghanistan to end rather than escalate. They are increasingly opposed to sending $2.6 billion each year to Israel and want an end to the colonial occupation of Palestine.

Costs rise with America’s ongoing ‘Health Care’ boondoggle

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Tony Logan

acls Costs up almost 10% in 2 years? Poor delivery of care, many uncovered at all, and yet the price is almost 2 1/2 trillion per year now? This is America, Land of White Collar Run-Away Crime. This simply is not the best health care system in the world and far from that. See U.S. health care spending reaches $2.4 trillion in ’08

All this profiteering off human suffering caused not just by disease and old aging, but a human economic system that rewards greed, callousness, and sheer theft! Public health has been dismantled, and the role of poverty in making disease proliferate everywhere totally ignored. And we have a tiered system of delivery where some get superior care, and others get next to none. America is a sick country with a sick system of delivery of Medical Care. And it is not getting any better. We’ve been lying down and playing dead. We’ve been dying… PERIOD… because we have accepted this atrocity without fighting enough against it. In fact, most have gone along with it without giving it even a single thought.

No need to call EMS for this sick system. It is already dead!

From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Eric Verlo

A.N.S.W.E.R. has 7 Reasons to March on DC. We can borrow them!
– The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening.
– 350,000 U.S. troops and US-paid contractors still occupy Iraq.
– Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with backing of Washington.
– Obama’s Justice Department is continuing the policy of renditions.
– Air strikes on Pakistan are killing an increasingly number of civilians.
– The real Pentagon war budget is over $1.3 trillion annually.
– More than 20 million people are now unemployed and under-employed.

7 Reasons You Should March on the Pentagon on March 21, 2009

1
The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening. President Obama announced last week that another 17,000 troops are on their way to Afghanistan. Only 18 percent of Afghanis support this escalation and only 34 percent of the people of the United States approve of the added troops despite the president’s popularity, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll announced on February 17, 2009. This is a colonial war. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was not involved in the decision to add more occupying troops into his country. Rather, he was “informed of the deployments in a telephone call with Obama” on February 17, according to the Washington Post (February 18, 2009).

2
About 350,000 U.S. troops and U.S.-paid private contractors (mercenaries) still occupy Iraq. The Iraqi people want the occupation to end. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is insisting that only two of the 14 combat brigades in Iraq exit in 2009. The war and occupation of Iraq costs $430 million each day. If the U.S. government were to end the military occupation, any and all future Iraqi governments would return to a position of political independence from the economic and political dictates of the United States. Iraq’s anti-colonial legacy has created a political reality that prohibits the country from becoming like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia–an out-and-out dependency on U.S. imperialism. That is the real reason that the U.S. government fears a complete disengagement from Iraq and an end to its military occupation.

3
Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with the full backing of Washington. The U.S. government has continued to fund Israel’s war and blockade against the people of Gaza. The Pentagon provided the funding, and technical and logistical support for the establishment of the Israeli war machine, including its massive cluster and white phosphorous bomb arsenal, and the country’s large cache of nuclear bombs.

4
The new Justice Department has announced that it will continue the policy of renditions, meaning the CIA and Pentagon will capture and kidnap individuals anywhere in the world and transfer them to other countries. “The Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.” (LA Times, Feb. 1, 2009)

5
The new administration has stepped up the air strikes that are killing an increasingly large number of Pakistani civilians. Unmanned drone bombing attacks violate Pakistani sovereignty and are creating an ocean of resentment and anger inside of Pakistan. The U.S. government has no right to carry out these drone bombing strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The people of the United States would not accept the legitimacy of other governments ordering air attacks in the United States. We must openly and loudly reject such tactics by the government that speaks in our name and spends our tax dollars for such aggression.

6
The real Pentagon war budget is over $1.3 trillion annually. This is greater than the combined total of most of the other countries in the world, including all the NATO countries, and Russia and China. Some label this “waste spending” because it spends precious resources to build exotic and high cost weapons, a new generation of nuclear weapons, and space-based war fighting capabilities, while filling the coffers of the big investors (i.e., the biggest banks) in the war corporations. Pentagon contracting is often based on guaranteed “cost-plus” contracts that reward price gouging since corporate profit is based on a fixed percentage above their expenses. Another label for this process is “extreme corruption” and theft from the public treasury.

7
More than 20 million people are now unemployed and under-employed. Nine million families are either in foreclosure or are at risk of foreclosure this year, according to the statistics just released by the government. Forty-seven million people are without health care. College tuition hikes are soaring and millions of students are at risk of being forced out of school. The people want change. They don’t want a simple tweaking of Bush’s criminal foreign policies. They want to put people’s needs before corporate greed. They want an end to wars of aggression that are wreaking havoc, death and destruction abroad, and diverting urgently needed resources in the service of semi-colonialism and Empire.

Murdoch puts Obama on public notice: white men licensed to kill bad monkeys

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Eric Verlo

The page in the New York Post before this cartoon featured a photograph of President Obama signing [writing] the Stimulus Bill. Putting aside the offensive connotation, does the cartoon work on any level? Is there a joke in linking the Chimpanzee gone native in Connecticut to the Stimulus Bill? What is it?

Is the cartoonist drawing on a third association, to the big laugh line from Die Hard, when an helicopter full of FBI guys, snotty agents who didn’t want the assistance of our hero, explodes, and an LAPD regular says: “I guess they’ll have to get some more FBI guys.”

What is it? The Stimulus Bill was written by a monkey? It was argued and reshaped by a dueling phalanx of legislators. It may have become disfigured, but was it by any stretch engineered by a monkey?

Certainly the moneyed class, which Murdoch represents, objects to giving any of the treasury to middle America. It can go to banks, or CEOs, or in the form of tax cuts to the multi-billionaires, but craft an economic solution that puts jobs or financial relief in the hands of ordinary people and the corporate press is not interested. So the bill author would be a bleeding-heart, or a sentimentalist, or Rainman for that matter. But where does the analogy work as a monkey?

A chimp-faced lampoon worked for Bush, because of the resemblance, and the mental acuity, and verbal skills. The Stimulus Bill can be plenty of wrong things, was it dumb?

II.
Here’s the apology the NYPost offered for their cartoon. What they said, or left unsaid, certainly didn’t match their bad taste to argue their cartoon wasn’t about Obama, but naming the piece THAT CARTOON.

Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon – caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut – has created considerable controversy.

It shows two police officers standing over the chimp’s body: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” one officer says.

It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period.

But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon – even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.

III.
This note came in from Rita Ague:

What’s wrong with this picture?

Of course there’s racism out there, but be careful not to fall victom to spin. Rupert M. is one of the giants in the neo-con coup d’etat. The loss of a free press to military/industrial/corporate interests, and resulting news being turned into spin and hate mongering, is but one of many reasons I’ve put back on my old legal and journalist hats.

We are in such a hell of a mess, and we’re passing that mess onto and into the rest of the world. I’m not sure we can dig ourselves out. We may not see relief, and the kind of change we of good hearts and good minds so long for, come about in our lifetime.

Let’s pray constantly that some Karl Rove and Rupert Murdoch induced bigot, or a neo-con agent posing as same, does not shoot or do away with Obama. The cause of the killing will, of course, be blamed on racism. But the real reason will be the fear the neo-cons have that our new president is going to take away their power and control, and quash their currently-being-exposed incredible greed.

My fear is that Murdoch, by and through his New York Post newspaper, FOX spin and hate channel, and all the other mass media he and his Neocon cohorts own and/or control, is spinning us to believe that some forthcoming assassination, when it occurs, was inevitable and based on a rise on racism and hatred, when it was truly based on more evil, Karl Rove-like Machiavellian (the end justifies any means) manipulation.

God help and protect us all, particularly Barack Obama.

Rita followed it up with this plea to MoveOn.org:

I need your help, Marc, in getting out the warning through Move-On’s far reaching Internet connections:

BEWARE! THE GIANT (military/industrial/corporate) NEO-CON SPIN MACHINE (formerly known as the “liberal mass media”) IS CRANKING UP

OBAMA, BAR THE DOOR!!!

I’m scared, Marc. It wasn’t accidental that the Post ran the dead ape cartoon with it’s deadly caption. Nor is it an accident that we are suddenly hearing more and more about all the racism and all the ‘racist’ assassination attempts being planned and made on Obama.

My intuition/precognition will be supported if and when we hear more of this racism and hate against “The Man” jive. As the old advertising saying goes: ‘When you think they’re tired of hearing about it, that’s when they’re just beginning to catch onto what you’re trying to tell/sell.”

I could be wrong about this “IT WAS A RACIST THING THAT DID HIM IN” campaign, but just in case I’m right, shouldn’t we be safe rather than sorry, and get a Move-On Campaign and heavy duty word of mouth going through the net, that we’re onto what’s being spun in the mass media, and why it’s being spun.

For sometime now, my slogan has been UNDO THE (military/industrial/corporate) COUP! Now I think we’d better come up with a new slogan, and start spreading it, as far and as wide as we can. It could be something like:

KEEP OBAMA ALIVE AND WELL – TELL THE PRESS TO GO TO HELL!

Progressive Insurance clown makeup

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Eric Verlo

My favorite TV commercial has to be the Dr Pepper candy aisle parade, but next best is Progressive Insurance’s painted lady Flo. The unselfconscious checkout geek is simply a brilliant solution to a daunting PR challenge. Who does not despise their insurance company? We hate their greed and eagerness to invade our privacy, in the person of the operator trying to glean more information than you want to tell, to the adjuster intent on paying out as little as possible. How then does an ad campaign portray an insurance spokesperson who is likeable and still believable?

Make her an object of ridicule, although oblivious to judgment. Flo’s not prettier than anyone, nor smarter, nor certainly fashionable, and as a result she is completely non-threatening. Throw in an indefatigable enthusiasm and she becomes endearing beyond words. She’s an insurance rep you can’t hate because why bother?

Nothing new to the stereotype, Flo is Madge of Palmolive meets Drew Carey’s nemesis Mimi Bobeck. But they obviously threw in sex appeal, which I lack for insight to deconstruct.

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