Tag Archives: Surge

Clinton’s Colombian death squads are now seen as the American-fed bad boys they are

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While Monica was sucking on Slick’s dick, all seemed to be going well for Clinton’s war against the Colombian people. Americans were lapping up the official US governmental rhetoric that the US was engaged in a war against drugs and not a counter insurgency operation against the poorest of the poor. Lies, lies, lies, and these lies helped set the stage for yet more lies about other countries and US terror operations there. Drugs and WOMD. Death Squad Scandal Circles Closer to Colombia’s President

Let’s hope it also circles closer to the US presidency, too, since it certainly should. And further, too, that the scandal eventually circles to the House and Senate that authorized these US crimes still largely hidden away from the American public.

More on the St Patricks Day parade

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Why did a group of people with the non-confrontational message of “PEACE” deserve to be kicked out of a local parade and then blamed for the disruption?

We were gathering with the same green shirts, some peace flags and a few banners for an hour before the parade began. Parade organizers had time to advise us if we were not welcome. We—thought a peace message would—fit well with the “child-like mentality” of the event, and the message did receive support from onlookers.

There was no intention to be disorderly, or children would not have been involved as they were last year. We were shocked by the police’s rude actions and lack of prior notice.

Much has happened since Bookman’s “Let there be PEACE on earth” message in last year’s Old Colorado City parade:

America’s continued escalation (surges) in Iraq against the advice of many military experts while other nations were pulling out of that country’s civil war.

Our country was seen by the rest of the world as at least indirectly supporting Israeli incursion into—Lebanon and—Israel’s taking of Palestinian land on the West Bank.

The November election was a loud and clear message from U.S. citizens to end the Middle East conflicts, which have been strengthening the terrorists’ resolve.

Wouldn’t an inquiring mind find one of those reasons alone enough to support a banner suggesting getting out of an endless war?

Members of the local Justice and Peace Commission have been in this area for years trying to raise local consciousness about dangers of greed leading to injustices and war, and how peace will only come if it begins within ourselves.

(Printed in Letters to the Editor, The Independent, April 12)

Investigate this

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While the CSPD investigates reports that its officers employed excessive force at The 2007 John O’Donnell St. Patrick’s Day Parade, you can check out this collection of news segments which feature the St Patrick’s police surge on home-video footage. (Courtesy of Mark Lewis)
Fast forward to these select items:
At the 5:27 mark, Frank Cordero in an illegal choke hold,
At 5:04, Molly Eaves being held by the throat,
At 3:30, Elizabeth Fineron knocked down by two police officers, and
At 3:14, dragged swifty across the pavement.

A nasty little thought…

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The Army is calling up 13,000 National Guard soldiers to Iraq.

I thought the “surge’ was supposed to be 20,000? Somebody’s not doing his math, or maybe the BigPigs are just LYING to us…

but that’s not the nasty little thought, although it swims around the edges of the Nasty Little Thought…

The National Guard, don’t the States have to pay for a significant part of their expenses, and the Federal Government therefore doesn’t pay all?

Wouldn’t that kind of “shoot skates under” the cap on war spending in Congress?

Because even though the individual states are required to pay for it, the Guard is ultimately under the command of the President….
_________________

Green Zone goes way of Baghdad

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Senator McCain ventured to a market five minutes outside the Green Zone, accompanied by a company of (100) soldiers in Humvees, and five helicopters, to be able to say it was safe for an American to walk about Baghdad. When asked incredulously if he was kidding about a neighborhood in Baghdad being improved by the troop surge, McCain replied “I’ve just come from one.”

While Iraqi merchants later could express only disbelief at McCain’s misrepresentation of their worsening plight, he told stories about the market sellers being so “grateful” they wouldn’t accept payment for the trinkets the military souvenir shoppers had sought. Can you think of an opposite reason they might not want to take money from Americans, or been seen taking the money? One merchant recounted US General Patraeus buying a one dollar item with a twenty dollar bill, telling the seller to “keep the change.”

Are things getting better in Iraq, or specifically Baghdad, where the increased US presence has pushed the resistance operations into the countryside? The car bombs may be fewer, but they’re bigger.

The real answer came last week, buried on Friday and repeated nowhere. Last Friday an American soldier together with a private mercenary contractor were killed INSIDE THE GREEN ZONE. Several others were wounded. The Green Zone’s been subjected to increased rocket attacks, but last week’s deaths mark the first. Where the Green Zone used to be the safe-haven Twilight Zone operating in virtual isolation, even disregard, for the mayhem in Baghdad, its occupiers now have to adopt battle stations. Everyone is mandated to wear their armor, even crossing to the cafeteria. No one’s allowed to congregate outside in groups any longer and the much photographed palace pool is now well off limits.

Has Baghdad become safer, as Senator McCain contends? Not even the Green Zone.

The price of militarism on the militarists

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What is the price of militarism on the militarists themselves? In the case of Pat Tillman it was death instead of wealth, yet others live and still pay a price. In ‘Torturers Toll‘, another Tony other than myself tells the story of how his torturing of innocent people in Iraq, has essentially destroyed his entire self respect for the duration of his life. How can he ever forgive himself for the cruelty he dealt others, all dictated by picking a ‘career’ inside the US military? He can’t, and many other Americans are also in his shoes, too.

These dehumanized participants in mayhem and abuse of their fellow humans reside throughout our super militarized society now. Take the most interesting case of Zbigniew Brzezinski, former cohort of our peanut farmer pastor President, Jimmy Carter. For years now, Brzenzinski used to brag about how he brought down the Soviet Union by starting the Muslim insurgency in Afghanistan that bogged the Soviet Union into ‘their own Vietnam’. The US threw $2 billion PLUS dollars into a covert war waged by puppet troops of the US led by people like Osama bin Laden. Today, Brzenzinski is singing a different tune though, and he is inow nto warning us about militarism, instead of bragging about promoting it.

The Washington Post carries his thoughts in a commentary titled, Terrorized by the ‘War on Terror’. How bizarre to see a terrorist like Jimmy’s former buddy now taking a stance against the likes of Bush and Cheney. Poor Zbigniew! Tears drop from my eyes even, in sympathy for this Donald Rumsfield of an earlier more..uh….innocent time. The man feels terrorized now by the thought that Bush’s gangsterism is undermining the economic system and imperialism that he did so much to prop up. Yes, there is a price to militarism that the militarists themselves will have to pay. Zbigniew worries about that.

For the overwhelming majority of us though, it will be the economic collapse that we will soon most suffer from. And for Brzezinski and his friends, the price to be paid will come from our anger at what unbidled capitalist corruption does to us all. Ultimately, the rich will become isolated as criminals that must be removed from the power they currently hold over us. The total price we will all pay for Iraq will be in many forms and will be seen differently by all of us American citizens. The returning troops are a first Tsunami wave that is hitting our society today. What will society look like afterwards though? Time will tell the now hidden price for turning away from solving our real problems by creating yet worse ones? The price is enormous.

The world’s top ten most polluted places

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The Blacksmith Institute’s top ten most polluted places tells an interesting story. One can’t help but note that five of the top ten worst spots are in regions of the former Soviet Union. The business community of the US and their conservative ideological supporters will certainly point the finger at ‘communism’ for this. But let’s take a closer look, too. Worldwide, what are the activities that most pollute our planet, no matter what kind of economy is involved? The answers would be; mining and war making.

Now, in the context of that information, what happened in the former Soviet Union that produced so much mining and war making? The 20th Century started out for Russia being in a war with Japan. Shortly after that war terminated, the Czarist government dragged Russia into World War 1 which led to terrible devastation and huinger, out of which came the Russian Revolution. World War 1 continued inside of Russia and in the surrounding territories, even as it ended elsewhere. The capitalist countries of the world did not want a non capitalist Russia, so they continued to supply their allies within Russia itself, continuing the bloodshed.

Even when peace finally came, it barely lasted over a decade, as capitalist and fascist Nazi Germany invaded Russia, causing a horrible devastation and destruction to that country, now called the Soviet Union. The Russians fought the foreign invaders,and eventually threw them back outside of Soviet boundaries. The Americans came in at the end and gave the knockout blow to an already knocked down Germany. Result, the Americans immediately began the misnamed Cold War against the Soviet Unon, with the powerful message delivered by 2 dropped atomic bombs.

The Soviet Union got no peace post their victory over the Nazis, but immediately began to have to defend themselves from the threat of an American instituted atomic attack. Trillions of dollars spent on this so-called Cold War later, the Soviet Union collapsed, defeated at last by its own party bureaucracy, and the imperialist capitalsit allies they began to court under the direction of Gorbachev. So what did decades of war and mining to support those wars leave behind? Part of the answer is, that it left behind 5 out of 10 of the world’s most polluted areas.

The top ten list by the Blacksmith Institute clearly shows the interconnection between war and mining, and how that makes for horrible toxic dumps. Capitalism aggravates industrial pollution by its constant surge to producing warfare for private profit. The military uses much of the chemicals and metals that contaminate our world. If you want a Green America, a Green Mother Earth, then you must work to help stop the rampant militarism that infects every facet of our current society. Until we do, the cesspool that is already made will just continue to keep getting nastier, nastier, and nastier. Until we kill ourselves.

Clarifying a few terms…

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Because some have expressed disdain at the mere thought of being considered right wing apologists… aka people who wish to accommodate and justify right wing philosophy, here are a few things to remember: Catchwords and phrases, talking points, something you might see on a bumper sticker; using these will probably get you tagged as a right wing loon. And in at least some cases the tag would fit perfectly.

examples: Love it or leave it (one recently) The Police are always right, If you have done nothing wrong why would you fear the police?, Support Our Troops, These Colors Never Run.

Recycling myths like: left wing liberals were the reason we lost in Nam… FALSE. Right Wing planners like Westmoreland, Johnson, Nixon, Al Hague, and the “Super Patriots” who supported them, were much more of a coherent and consistent reason for the loss of the VietNam War by the United States. The new crop of such losers is causing America to be drawn into yet another defeat.

Also contributing much to the American loss in VietNam was the courage and resourcefulness of the VietMinh, that’s Charley to some…

For those who don’t remember anything about it, these guys used a mix of primitive and modern technologies, small arms, improvised explosives and equipment taken from American, Australian, French and South Vietnamese soldiers, tactics which were also a mix of ancient and modern, to defeat the above named governments, even against a Shock and Awe campaign of greater magnitude than the one currently being played in Iraq.

Also like Iraq, there was never a war declared between the United States and The Democratic Republic (Hanoi).

Much as it pisses off those who see the POWs as uncompromising heroes, (some were) and the Hanoi Hilton as a hellhole, (it was) it should also be remembered that the Hanoi Hilton is about a standard in third world jails. And since the North Vietnamese didn’t do a “show trial” followed by an execution every time they captured an American airman, the treatment they accorded the Americans was one hell of a lot better than that accorded to the VietCong prisoners by the Saigon government.

a lot of Americans will scream loudly that American soldiers didn’t torture captured Charleys. Given the readiness these same people have shown to rationalize torture at Gitmo and worse places, i tend to doubt that. Probably not widespread but not nonexistent either.

But on the other hand, the Saigon government DID torture and summarily execute captured “terrorists” “rebels” “insurgents”.

Leave us remind everybody that the Americans captured in North VietNam and Cambodia and Laos had exactly the same legal status as the captured Charleys had in the South. No more, no less.

It was a combination of supporting an openly repressive government and the determination and resourcefulness of the “enemy” that dashed the American intervention in SE Asia.

The same things that are now dragging down America in South WEST Asia.

Empires are destined to fall, usually very soon after they are declared to be Empires. Such as the one declared by George Bush Senior when he proclaimed a New World Order, which is being dishonorably carried on by his son, King George the Incredibly Stupid.

Another talking point is that VietNam and Iraq were fought for American freedom.

They were not, nor has any war in which America has been engaged since 1814. To say otherwise is to propagate a myth, if you believe that myth, if you know it is false but say it anyway it is ramped up all the way to a Deliberate Lie.

The military did not fight for our freedom, they did not give us our freedom, or our rights, we do NOT OWE them our obedience, or the willing surrender of our rights.

Especially annoying (not to mention stupid) is the repeated attempt to make us believe that Freedom means we are free to do as we are told, to say only what we are allowed to say, and that we have some moral obligation to support the wars started by people who have anointed themselves our “Leaders”.

Some of my fellow Christians are of the strong delusion that God has commanded us to obey George Bush because he is supposedly “OUR” King.
This particular myth was also used by the Tories to denounce the Continental Congress and the rebels in the army during the Revolution.

It was shouted from pulpits across the Colonies by pastors, who, like Ted Haggard and Benny Hinn and Franklin Graham and Dobson… had sold their priesthood and their souls to a tyrant.

Here’s a quick formula to remember Shock and Awe = the use of fear as a weapon = Terrorism.

The proponents of Shock and Awe, like George and his supporters, are therefore Terrorists.

You don’t like that, try beating it out of me, and all the while try to forget that that too, is Terrorism.

The Gazette and slander (libel)

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Regrettable miniature body languageWhat a completely slanderous editorial the Gazette has published, suggesting that we peace marchers planned the police beating we received!
 
A couple of innocent circumstances find themselves at odds with such a conclusion. Number one, a good number of us can guarantee we would not have brought our children if we had known what the police had in store for us; number two, we parked our cars at the end of the parade route, which turned out to be quite inconvenient when we were turned back; and number three and without doubt a trump card, none of us brought video cameras! Have you ever seen a protest where every third participant did not have a video camera to document and/or deter police brutality? We had none! We’re now having to solicit video footage from eyewitnesses in the crowd to counter the official assurances that their conduct was above board.

That’s because our St Patrick’s Day message was not one of protest, but celebration. Look even at my preparatory efforts to organize the marchers! We wanted to be seen in a different light than protestors. Even in this atmosphere of war and fear, we are optimistic that mankind’s compassion for each other will prevail over war. As some seek comfort in the image of a blow-up marine on steroids, as a symbol of ass-kicking diplomacy, so we honor and want to project the principles of non-violence and peace.

Remarks are being made that the St Patrick’s Day parade was the wrong forum for a peace message. Ignoring the obvious Irish insurgent spirit, pray tell, what are any venues available to expressions of non-conformist views? In this pro-military, conservative town, there’s not a one. Otherwise we’re at the corner of Nevada and Dale on Mondays at noon, at Academy and Austin Bluffs on Wednesdays at three, and at the Fort Carson B-Street entrance every first Tuesday at seven. Have you got another opportunity to suggest? We’ll be there.

Admittedly young cops manhandling elders in front of impressionable children opened eyes less about the war in Iraq, than to the rapidly diminishing civil rights of ordinary Americans. Now everyone’s privilege to voice their opinion appears in jeopardy. We’re fighting for what, overseas? Freedom?

We didn’t march to change your mind about the war. We marched to encourage the majority of the American public who are against the war in iraq, to come out from behind thugs like you who’ve monopolized the street and airwaves with your pro-war, pro-violence message. We’ve seen the shift already as we hold our banners every week curbside, we get far more honks of support than signs of disapproval. The parade would have been a wonderful way to elicit that sentiment in front of everyone on main street. That is perhaps why your type wouldn’t allow it.

The cause for which we marched received a lot of attention as a result of the police over-reaction. But it wasn’t due to our planning, or our preparations in full view an hour before the event began. It wasn’t due to our obstinance in response to being told our permit was revoked, or being ordered to turn away while certain among us were being brutalized. The attention the marchers have received has been entirely due to the city parade organizers’ actions to silence us and the police department’s decision to be violent.

This is how you take fascism down, by showing the politicians, businessmen, chest-beaters and their backers, that they do not have the support of the people. That the common people do not share their zealousness to beat dissenters over the head with the flag. Step aside you goons and conformists, the American People want their country back.

March for peace and the Irish Insurgents

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Saturday, March 17 marks St Patrick’s Day, and also marks the 4th anniversary of the war in Iraq. Join thousands++ worldwide who are protesting this weekend to call for an end to this endless war.

March with the Bookman Bookmobile on Saturday at NOON as we infuse the downtown parade with marchers calling for PEACE. We’ll be waving flags with peace symbols and holding banners calling for PEACE NOW and END THIS ENDLESS WAR. An estimated 40,000 people will see our message. We’ll also be inviting everyone to the PEACE FORUM later that evening at Sacred Heart and the Year-4 PEACE RALLY on Sunday at Acacia Park!

Last year’s Bookmobile peace contingent “EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO PEACE” was very warmly received and applauded. Details and pics
here.

Bring your own signs if you desire, but we’d like to keep the peace theme non-confrontational. Wear green.

If you participated last year, please wear your green peace-symbol t-shirt. We’ll have new t-shirts available for those who need them, at a cost of $10 if possible. We’ll also have peace-symbol caps and flags. Easily something for everyone!

Please join us! Help make our appeal for PEACE NOW as loud as possible!

WHERE: Assemble on east side of Tejon Street between Monument and Willamette, you won’t miss the NEON GREEN Bookmobile, gather there!

WHEN: Between 11am and Noon on Saturday, March 17. The parade begins at noon and we’re 21st in line.

THEN: Parade proceeds south along Tejon, beginning officially at Boulder and ends at Vermijo . We’ll disperse into Pioneer’s Plaza (across from the J&P!) probably around 1pm.

PARKING TIP: You might want to have parked in the J&P vicinity before the parade so that you can then drive home from there.

If you have any questions, please call ERIC at 719.460.2836 asap. Please come, we need your help! Invite as many friends as you can, and pass this announcement along to whoever you think might want to join us.

Cuban doctors vs Bush’s US floating militaristic showtime

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The bankruptcy of US foreign politcy in Latin America will become highlighted later this week when Bush deploy’s himself into Latin America with a Navy ‘floating hospital’ in tow. What the world will see is Top Gun military doctor Dubya diplomat in action, and it is assured ahead of time, to underwhelm rather than ‘shock and awe’.

The gigantic US navy war vessel accompanying the donkey is to perform surgeries at high cost to the US taxpayer, and minimal real long term medical value (if any) to the chronically malnourished and ill of Latin America.

Meanwhile, Cuban doctors quietly and with little fanfare continue to run medical clinics in country after country when allowed to do so, and Hugo Chavez continues to offer low cost fuel supplies to the not so well off, in addition. The main tool the dumbest ass neo-con gringo rulers have to provide in response, is an creased militarization everywhere in the region using the drug war as excuse. Cops, soldiers, prisons, death squads, and neo-liberal imperialist inforced privatization is DC’s way to winning ‘hearts and minds’! What a formula for success!

Eventually Washington’s war on many fronts will turn into defeat on many fronts. Nowhere is that day nearing faster than in Latin America. Imagine the ridicule that this Pentagon ‘floating hospital’ will arouse. The US is widely known as providing inadequate medical care to its own population(to children in Texas, for just one example), let alone to other nations. While the Pentagon is most noted for its constant ‘collateral damage’ to innocents, not being any angel of mercy.

Latin America will watch as Bush hobnobs with ruling elites that the mass of people despise rather than considering them as potential saviours from their economic insecurity. People need help, and America offers up a clown and a media circus. What a contrast to the Cuban doctors doing real work. US elite intellectual bankruptcy at its finest.

America government offers up capitalist corruption to replace Islam

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As most all of America sits passively waiting for the ‘surge’ to be officially declared as a new war, this time against Iran and Syria, it is a nice time to reflect on what DC is offering all these countries it ‘surges’ into? Why not look at other countries that the US has ‘surged’ against already? How about Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Somalia for example? All ‘threatened’ by Islamic extremists as US imperialist propaganda has continually sung? All needing ‘liberation’ by Christian capitalists coming from abroad, solely to rescue Muslims from Islamic thugs? Isn’t that the diet of nonsense that our idiotic media feeds us night and day?

So what do we have to offer in exchange? Real simple. Crony capitalism, where some tiny grupito of national elite is given billions to cooperate with our US/ European based international monopoly corporations. Then the paper money is thrown out into the wind, where it then trickles down into countrywide heroin production (Afghanistan), European vacations for a cabal of fascist minded Christian Lebanese political thugs, and in Somalia, trips to educations in the US, where warlords’ sons can join the Marine Corp, and then go back as possible US backed heads of state! See Son of Aideed That’s where the money is!

Can you imagine if some foreign power was to invade the US and destroy all the Christian churches here replaceing it only with crony capitalism allied with the occupying powers? We would be home growing a whole plethora of home grown Osama bin Washingtons and Osama bin Jeffersons, all crazy as hell Christian fanatics! Oily Dick and Dumb Dubya would be the far secular Left at that time. Religion will trump total ‘free market’ corruption tied to imperialism any day. It’s like the Pentagon is handing out grow your own Muslim fanatics chia kits everywhere they are being sent! All at the bargain basement price of trillions to American citizens. What a deal we’re getting!

The farce

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America’s idiotic politics has been never more pathetically framed than in the grand pseudo debate over the nonbinding resolution on whether to ‘surge’ or not. All the Democratic Party posturing done here doesn’t add up to a bean of real opposition to the Bush Administration’s constant war plans. Instead, we the public, got merely a grand show, a grand farce of pretend ‘opposition’ that is not a real opposition by any yardstick of measurement.

What delusion, what illusion, that the Democratic Party in actuality even opposes any of the torture, war, and bankruptcy being engaged in by ‘our’ Empire. The Democratic Party leadership is more delusional about Bush’s war than even the Republican Party itself is! And folk that follow behind them are as much the problem as the rabble of Republican Party nitwits themselves.

Iraq is not even the main issue, a new war against Iran is not just the issue neither. Torture and destruction of the Constitution of the US is not the issue. Destruction of the environment is not the issue. The real issue is whether the US population has anything other than total lethargy and apathy within itself to offer up for self-protection? The issue is whether the US public can ever begin to mount any campaign to rein in the fascistic minded corporate power that is sinking the whole ship? Or will it just allow itself to be pacified by nonbinding do-nothing irresolutions and pathetic babbling by a phoney play pretend opposition? The real issue is whether the public is going to ever be able to dump both of the two corporate parties, or not? They both got to be thrown out and not just one, for things to ever begin to start to change.

Nonbinding resolutions what a crock! There is no real national opposition to the war machine other than what we can put together from near total scratch. We’re staring into the possibility of Bush using nuclear weapons soon and all the Democrats can come up with are nonbinding resolutions? It’s beyond nauseating and meanwhile the public just goes on driving around in circles nonstop in their oversized and imbecilic vehicles! That’s what the real issue as our population acts more like a deer in the glare of the headlights of an oncoming truck than anything else. One out shopping…. One out to lunch.

Democracy cannot be built nor sustained on such a foundation of immobilization. We need a third party. We need a movement. Any more of this business as normal by liberals hooked into the Democratic Party is a dead end.

Belligerence leads us to war

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By now Americans have learned our government’s routine of starting with belligerence and following with war. Between the start and finish, lies are used to justify our aggression. This time the intended victims are the people of Iran, whose country President Bush’s advisers have been wanting to attack for some time. Our current hesitation seems only to be about finding excuses for starting hostilities, after which bombing will begin and chaos will follow.

Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan lie in ruins amidst the ever-increasing strife the US has caused. Everywhere US warfare has generated terrorist acts, refugees fleeing for their lives, and deaths of innocent civilians including those most vulnerable, the children. We at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission ask you to mobilize your voices in protest alongside us, not only against the planned “surge,” but against making war on yet another country, yet another people, the people of Iran.

To oppose US belligerence is to support our troops, to support our country, and to support saving our own humanity. PEACE is patriotic. Join the J&P to demand peace NOW. Think of the countless who will die if we are not successful in bringing about peace. Our current government must be stopped from spilling more blood. US national security is at stake. Together we must win.

Join us March 17 in Pioneer Park for a rally for Peace!

Success and the street action

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Rise upI find there’s some confusion as to what it means to take to the streets. It’s not just protest, it’s not just calling attention to oneself. The efficacy of street protest is not to be judged by how it influences lawmakers, or how well it mobilizes support. Taking to the streets is about establishing a beach head.
 
On the flip side of the military analogy, have you wondered in this age of high tech weapons, aircraft carriers and unmanned drones, why a military force would still need foot soldiers at all? At the same time, how is it that the Vietcong, and now the Iraqis insurgents, could resist our mighty aerial bombardments with nothing but relatively unarmed men?

These are leading questions of course because neither bombs, nor laws, nor ideology, can hold ground. Until you can run the infantry in to plant a flag, the land is not yours. And if you don’t send enough manpower, you can’t keep it.

This government isn’t going to cede its despotism if even 100% of us are making knowing remarks from the sidelines. We can laugh Bush out of the blogosphere but he and his cronies will hold the reins in Washington and Wallstreet until you and I are outside with pitchforks.

That’s what we are doing in the streets. It may be early, there may not be much of a following, but someone’s got to set the example. And one person out on the street today unafraid of the police state, is success enough. Onward Christian soldiers!

More surgery

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Well, I found out this morning that the small lump protruding from my outside right heel is in fact a screw which was used to hold the titanium shank in place while the bone calcifies around it. It seems to have unscrewed a little, so they have me scheduled for surgery next tuesday to repair it.

Doctor says “Diagnosis: you have a screw loose.”

Tres amusant.

at least it wasn’t as bad as my febrile imagination might have otherwise made it.

iraqi body count

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 http://www.iraqbodycount.org/names.php

this is an listing of the IDENTIFIED bodies. Of Civilians killed in Iraq since the invasion. Up to February 2006 meaning the list is a year old.

3,670 individuals, including a minority for whom only a PARTIAL name or Familial relationship could be established.

quote 

“In any use of these names please give due honour to the unidentified
dead not in this list whose numbers far exceed these named victims. For
every identified individual on the list there are another 9 confirmed
Iraqi civilians killed for whom we do not have identifying information.
In contrast, virtually every coalition soldier killed can be identified
by name and other biographical information.

There is no
organised effort to name all victims of the war. Only when all have
been identified and duly recorded can there be any talk of respecting
their memory.

To those who knew and loved them, and are in no need of reminding, we offer our condolences.” end quote.

By mentioning that those who are unidentified number at least 9 times as many as are identified, that once again leaves open the Question:

 How can the United States Government and The British Crown both insist that every Iraqi killed has been an Insurgent, When they can’t even identify more than 10% of them?

How would you know for sure that somebody is a radical or enemy if you don’t know who the hell he was?

If your smart bombs are so smart that they can’t possibly kill anybody but the Bad Guys, then you would know exactly who the targets were before bombing them, wouldn’t you?

If your agencies had the intelligence as to who they were bombing while they were still alive why are only 10% of them identified, post mortem?

It would make a sick kind of perverted sense to withhold the Identities of people who you have captive, and are torturing for information, but what harm can it do to disclose the names of the Dead?

Who do you think you’re fooling? Ok so I got that last one from a song by Rhymin’ Paul Simon.

The lists are organized into 2 formats, A4 size and US letter size, .pdf files and about 3 megabytes each.

3 and a half thousand out of one estimate of half a million. That’s more like a half a percentage point. Even at the admittedly low estimate of 150 thousand that only ramps it up to just over 2%.

I am reminded of the fellow from Yahoo answers who said that the American Left were more concerned about the Iraqi civilians than “Our Troops”, and too many cameras recording the killings and somehow portraying the Evil Notion that the Iraqi people are… well… People.

and there were a couple of others who posted in the same Answers question that made the Administration talking point that we are over there to help the Iraqis.

If they are there to help the Iraqi people, shouldn’t they actually BE CONCERNED about the people they are “helping”?

That post was deleted by Yahoo!Answers. They never sent me any answer about why it was deleted.

US out to control Iran’s natural gas

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Most thinking people in the world now realize that the US invaded and occupies Iraq in order to control the oil underground there. While other oil producing countries were rapidly depleting their major oil fields of the precious natural resource that lay underground, that was not the case with Iraq. The country lagged far behind in developing their oil fields due to its disastrous war with Iran and the economic sanctions that the US later initiated against them. The oil largely stayed in the ground for about a 20 year period of time. But what about Iran? Why is the US government on the move to try to regime change there?

Iran at first seems to be not as worthy of Iraq to fall victim to a US energy grab. Their reserves of oil are in decline, and that is one reason that the government seeks to develop nuclear energy. However, there are 2 other carbon energy forms that are also of vast importance besides oil. Natural gas and coal. Iran has three and one half times the reserves of the US in natural gas, and is only behind one much larger country, Russia, in underground stocks of that commodity.

As we know, much of Europe is dependent on Russia’s natural gas to get their communities heated each Winter. This is an extremely important fuel resource even if it is not as central to the world’s growing energy crisis as oil is. And just like oil, both India and China are looking to increase their imports of natural gas, too. Being Number 2 in reserves of natural gas in the world is no small matter. And world natural gas supplies are due to peak in several decades, all the more to make Iran’s naturla gas a very important target for other’s greed.

It is true, that the American government’s political desire to destroy Iranian influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Persian Gulf is probably as large a factor to the US drive to engage in war against Iran as just the desire to commit outright theft.. But the drive to rob and control this huge reservoir of natural gas plays almost as prominent a part in the neocon ‘surge’ to fuck Iran over, as does the desire to only politically neutralize/neuter them. Excuse the bad language. But when I discuss the American mafia imperialist strategy, for some reason I begin to talk like Richard Nixon?

Natural Gas. All cause for more war profiteering.

We are weeks, and maybe just days before the US assault on Iran begins. No Blood for Oil! No blood for Natural Gas! This is not the way to begin to deal with the world’s energy crisis. A continued world wide resource war will only make the transition away from the unsustainable excessive misuse of carbon energy forms, even more painful and disastrous than it has to be.

Allgone

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Colonel Brian Allgood, West Point grad, army surgeon, Doctor Allgood, died last weekend in a helicopter crash, among a dozen unlucky American soldiers being transported across Baghdad. By all accounts he was an exemplary soldier.
 
Rest in peace. But why should he get peace, and not everybody?

Allgood worked for the Department of Defense whose chief function has been to kill people. As a doctor, Allgood’s particular role was to save people from dying, mainly of course those on our side. Allgood was a surgeon who healed battle injuries, reconditioning combat soldiers, as opposed to a doctor who ensured that subjects of interrogation did not succumb to their torturers before they fulfilled their intelligence potential. Without painting too dark a picture, we should be frank about the Hippocratic Oath in the military.

So let’s suppose for the sake of argument that Allgood’s proper name meant exactly what it said. Let’s say he wasn’t a sadist on a USDD Approved power trip, or a moral dimwit loosed on the sanctioned lawlessness of a battlefield, venting his anger with his sidearm, authorizing gunfire over video monitors, or ordering the destruction of communities for the sake of protecting US ambulance routes; say Allgood wasn’t a blind proponent of US imperialist superiority; say he wasn’t an Eichmann cog enabling the massive machinery of our military to grind its way through the bones of peoples and cultures; say he wasn’t an idealogue of convenience holding out for his honorable discharge, fearing a court-martial for disobeying orders, thinking about his family and his pension.

Say Mr. Allgood was an all-American do-gooder think-gooder. How much can that matter? Isn’t it time he would be the last?

Isn’t it time our soldier-citizens there in Iraq admit to themselves what they are seeing? Soldiers cannot blame a complicit media for keeping them from the darkness of their deeds. When can we expect these gun-ho idealists to figure out that shooting Iraqis is not the way to help them?

Allgood is dead -I wouldn’t be writing about him but for his name. Allgood was killed with a dozen maybe just as red-white-and-true soldiers. And this Blackhawk Down should take with it our national dellusion. Even America’s best are going to be pulled into the buzz-saw. Is this not the face of what will be America’s heavy price: Our innocence shattered, the same that we’ve done to the Iraqis as they look upon the senseless loss? The sacrifice of Allgoods of our own will join the sides of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi innocents.

The news

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I got my morning dose of Yahoo already, amazing seeing as how it’s after noon already.
   Senate panel votes to reject Bush war plan
   Olmert calls for Israel president to resign
   Bush shifts to domestic issues with energy pitch
   Experts warn climate change may fan terrorism

The news links above are Congress passed a non binding resolution of non support for the New and Improved stay the course war plan.
OK but they still aren’t on to pulling out, just not the surge. I guess they think baby steps are all they can do.

The President cleverly diverts attention away from his War. The reporter for AP (special correspondent) diverts attention cleverly from the clever and cunning plan to divert our attention from the War. This guy is a spin master from the darkest pits of Hell.

The Israeli Knesset demands that the Israeli president step down.
Not on the charges from the ongoing invasion of Gaza and Lebanon, mind you, but on a personal rape charge. And if I got my Israeli parliamentary structure down correctly, the Israeli president doesn’t have as much power as the Military.

John Kerry, in a big surprise move, decided not to take up the standard he dropped big time in November ’04. I really ain’t interested in hearing his spin on why he dropped the ball then nor why we should mourn for him graciously declining to bear the standard for us in ’08.

And a coalition of British scientists paired with a coalition of British Security Experts re-iterated the apparently not well enough documented idea that massive poverty caused by global warming might lead to an increase in international violence.

Now that I ain’t gonna get snotty about. It needs to be said again and again.

O no he didn’t…. o no he wouldn’t dare!

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I was reading through the trash Mr Chimp talked tonight. Stay the course = The New Way Forward… mind numbing but expected…. More at Evolve FishGoing to have voluntary programs to cut gasoline dependency by 20%, yeah right, but don’t we already HAVE those and if I remember they have been shuffled under by the R’s for decades… Social Security, starts getting a little deep…. National Health care, well, it’s still a Commie pinko thing and thennnnn…. after a $15,000 dollar deductible Health Care from work is counted as taxable income…. I stopped reading there…

Under a plan like that, and work with me here, that would include MEDICAID payments for work injuries that are not covered by Workmen’s compensation AND workman’s compensation.

In other words, you get hurt at work, can’t work, have monstrous hospital bills, one surgery alone would run 15 grand, then suddenly the health care you get because the Subsidized Corporate Welfare collecting sons of bitches who got you hurt in the first place were not maintaining their workplace standards, yeah THAT disability insurance… Now if you get laid up and have 50 grand worth of surgery bills, that puts you in a higher tax bracket…. you are being charged for getting hurt and your BOSS gets to skate away free. What in the name of OSHA cutting Free Market Corporate Welfare kind of shit is that? And if, like myself, you are left holding the bag while the Tort Reform movement has let your boss skip state and reorganize his LLC…. and the Government picks up the tab, YOU and not the irresponsible “Free Market Entrepreneur” who caused the accident get punitive damages put on you.

Perhaps our resident Provocateur Michael can explain how bankruptcy laws can make it impossible for Corporate Citizens to default on their bills, and you can’t touch any money the officers of the Corporate Citizens make after they reorganize, BUT if you try to default on your Income Taxes, the IRS can garnishee your wages, for the rest of your life, to pay off taxable income like the emergency medical services, repair surgery, therapy, and being unemployed…. how exactly is that tort “Reform”?

And remember, before you frame an answer, Der Scheisse-meister was an avid supporter of Tort Reform, and apparently, still is.

Let me summarize that: Go to work without protection of the law.
Boss doesn’t have to comply with EPA or OSHA standards because the enforcement from those agencies have been gutted by the Free Market Capitalists… Get hurt on the job… to the point of being disabled for LIFE… have surgery to save your life and/or limb… COSTLY surgery…
Boss man takes advantage of Free Market Capitalist loopholes in Tort Law, defaults on paying anything for his crime…
the Government steps in and charges you, for the rest of your life, out of your disability payments, or whatever measly work you can scrounge afterward, just by making the health care taxable income.

Bush declares war on Iran and Syria

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To all effects Bush declared war on Iran and Syria tonight in his State of the Union address. He pretty much made it clear that the so-called ‘surge’ targets these 2 countries, and has little to do with the situation in Iraq itself. His speech was an announcement that he plans to further regionalize the war. All that is left is simply to find the suitable pretext to start the bombings off, but Bush left no doubt that that would be just right around the corner.

Out of babes comes the voice of wisdom and reason. I watched this speech in the presence of several kids. One of them asked me, that “if the Democrats are against Bush, then why are they there with Bush?” Exactly. It’s not like they had to come. It’s not like they had to stay quiet and not Boo the president. It’s not like they had to stand up for him and clap throughout the speech. Why are kids smart enough to ask this reasonable question, yet American adults are too brain dead to do the same?

How nauseating to see the triangle of Bush-Cheney-Pelosi in front of us on that TV. Sure Pelosi made a face or two, but then again she clapped, shook hands, and almost engaged in sex with the president in front of the entire country. This is opposition? And the rest of the Democrats were no better other than in perhaps stage managing their facial gestures slightly better. Ed Kennedy was the grand winner in that department, as he seemed to have down pat the holding of his head as if with a horrible migraine. Utterly ridiculous.

This is not an opposition, and America is not a democracy. A country that has opposing political factions does not behave like this. We need to move on past all these Democratic Party controlled MoveOn liberals and their poli gurus, and begin to build a real opposition party to these (DP-RP) shenanigans. We are going to have this war carried on, and yet almost all the country seems to be in some sort of trance of denial. So damn ready to buy more stupid lies from the venal thieves that are out there trying to destroy any possible stability within the Middle East, all to grab that oil like the imperialist vampires they most certainly really are.

I challenge the Colorado Springs radicals and liberals. We did not get it together enough to build anything in coordination with this weekend’s national demonstrations against the war. But Denver did. We need to get on over there this Saturday 12 noon at the State Capitol building, and add our numbers to this protest. It’s way too little and way too late, but much better than to do absolutely nothing.

Governor Ritter will be speaking at 9AM at the ‘Unity’ meeting in Denver, and should be challenged as to why the hell he’s not protesting this war at noon at the capitol building in person, being the grand big shot liberal that he represents himself as? It’s time to call these Democratic Party assholes-donkeyholes on the carpet just as we should do with Bush and his cronies. They’re really the same people and they’re going to sit on their butts, clap, and go along with this new barbarism being prepared for the Iranian and Syrian people by their Republican buddies.

We either get out into the streets, are we become utterly complicit with the crimes being prepared by the bipartisan corporate gang we currently have in power. They are in it together. It’s as simple as that and we need to get going. They are going to extend this war, and not close it down. That’s the state of the union.

so, as the headlines say, bush is going to have another chance to defend his iraq policy

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ANOTHER chance? Good God where have these reporting agencies had their noses (and the rest of their heads) shoved for the past 4 years?

Every day, in every way he has consistently said “I am the Leader, you MUST follow me, and Billy Graham says you are an Heretic if you don’t”

Which has been and is the same “defense” he has made since the Big Announcement of last monday. or was it the monday before last?

I’m so confused….

There was a report on DumFox, somebody post a link for it if you can find it, that  “militant insurgents” dressed as American soldiers passed through three check points, onto an American base, killed several Americans and escaped….

uuummmm… How do they know (since the killers escaped) that they were in fact insurgents, and not American insurgents?

Or American insurgents cleverly disguised as jihadi insurgents cleverly disguised as American soldiers to throw off the logic trail?

How, in fact, do we know that DumFox news was not, in fact, LYING THROUGH THEIR COLLECTIVE  ear about this?Sanity claws.

that last is a link from my canadian perspective.

But we get the Chimp’s Big Announcement, redux.

I hope this time he does dance nekkid at the podium while singing “I’m a little crackpot, hear me shout” the entertainment value would make it worth tuning in.

Made in the US- Iraq’s wave of refugees

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WalMart may be as Chinese as rice these days, but there is still one product that’s made still in the US of A. Our government still leads the world in making refugees out of people. Let’s look at Iraq alone, where 2,000,000 have fled outside the country’s, and 2,000,00 more are internal refugees at ‘home’. Iraq’s population was only about 27,000,000. One out of seven then, have been made refugees by the violence of the US invasion and occupation.

Before that, when the US gave Afghanistan the Taliban and Osama, 1/5 of the population there had already become refugees. I don’t know how they can even do a count there now? It is hopeless, after decades of US warmaking there, to even try. And US war making in South America has made about 1,000,000 Colombians internal refugees, though that number may be down at moment. And who can forget how US foreign policy has kept 4,500,000 Palestinian refugees in place, and who can forget the refugees of SE Asia? Those of Central America? So many everywhere…. US made.

From time to time there are contenders to our throne, especially form locales like the Congo and Sudan. But the US has always been a leader in Africa at refugee making, too. The US heyday was back when it was supporting the South African and Rhodesian Apartheid regimes, as they waged wars across half the continent. Millions became refugees due to that US African foreign policy, in just Angola and Mozambique alone. And the US vs Russia in the horn of Africa? Well who can count them?

One strategy of the US to stop the iraqis from fighting the theft of their oil underground? Shoot! Well why not just make ALL THE COUNTRY refugees? Totally depopulate it then! Maybe that’s what’s really behind Bush’s hidden strategy, The Surge? Like a tsunamai wave on shore, all to wash all out to sea! Brilliant! Made in America, the 21st Century refugee. How proud can we be, with the American production of this product of our Great Society? Go for Iran, too?

The next Big Lie

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As the befuddled, overly religious minions of America try to figure it all out about Muslims, terrorism, Satan, evolution, chimps, global warming, Osama, and when Jesus is returning, their next Big Lie is being prepared for them to hunker down with. Condi, Dick, Dubya, and the rest of the gang have got the ships, missiles, and soldiers in place, so they got to get the Big Lie in place, too. What will it be?

It is….
We have to threaten and attack Iran, Lebanon, and Syria, because they are assisting and arming the opposition that is fighting our troops in Iraq.

In reality, our government feels the need to attack the Shia, because they will not go along with the US government plan to steal their oil reserves. Stan Goff (ex US Special Forces officer) discusses this upcoming ‘surge’ in bloodshed where the US will attack the Shia in full force. Petraeus! Is Baghdad Burning?

It’s time to oppose what is just around the corner. What are you waiting for? It’s going to happen, simply because the Democratic Party is not going to effectively oppose Bush’s plan. In fact, the Clinton pair are calling for a ‘surge’ of troops to Afghanistan right now, even as they fail to oppose the main ‘surge’. Instead of withdrawal, the government is planning the new attacks to come.

STOP THE WAR! DEMONSTRATE