Tag Archives: warmaking

If Syria could defend itself I bet you’d see American colors run like mad crap!

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HAND OFF SYRIASo there’s a little good news as the ambush of Syria gains momentum. It’s unlikely to be true, but let’s indulge ourselves for a mo. It’s being reported that Russia will jump to Syria’s defense by attacking the Saudis, and that Iran would retaliate against Israel. Both developments deserved and overdue, but who’s going to take the primary culprits, the Western colonial powers, to task? If anyone should bear the “consequences” of an illegal bombardment of Syria, the US surely has it coming. Would the US strike Syria if the Syrians could hit back? How our colors would run if, for once –it hasn’t happened since 1812– the warmaking reached our shores. Our patriot palor would blanche to ashen, I’m guessing into a full streak of yellow in no time. Must it take a Hannibal to march on the “Home Front” before Americans care enough to curb their dogs of war?
 
Imagine it, the cretinous feudal House of Saud decapitated. They oversee Mecca, impose a repressive Islamic code on their populace, while engorging their family wealth and flesh like medieval popes. And Israel, that last colony of white settlers bulldozing over Palestinian land and lives, dismissing them like Native Americans falling before their Euro Middleast Manifest Destiny. Could a Syrian debacle spell the end for the feral Arab warlordships and for Palestine’s Jewish exceptionalist Apartheid? It might be worth it. Especially as we won’t be paying for it with OUR lives.
 
“International consequences.” I like the sound of that precedent.

David Gilbert took an axe, gave US war effort forty wacks, SDS, WUO, BLA…

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If you watched the 2003 documentary about the 1960s radical antiwar anti-imperialist anti- racist activists turned 1970s nonviolent bombers The Weather Underground, you’re going to be thrilled to know David Gilbert, lone Weatherman behind bars yet irrepressible idealist, finally WROTE A BOOK!
 
I’ll begin with insight prompted by Gilbert’s recollections. In the 1970s, bombings were inseparable from bomb scares, and I remember thinking, who’d plant a bomb but divulge it beforehand with an anonymous phone call? Was it a change of heart, a betrayal, an informer? Eventually phoning in bomb scares was itself made illegal. That seemed imprudent. It turns out the expression “bomb scare” was a misrepresentation. The call wasn’t made to scare anyone, but to evacuate the building. If a bomb failed to detonate, as sometimes happened, the authorities could characterize the then-false warning as a “scare”. It didn’t make sense, until the behind the scenes accounts come to light from voices such as Bill Ayres and now Gilbert. The WUO bombings of government facilities and landmarks associated with America’s warmaking apparatus were not intended to kill people, and they didn’t, because the bombers always gave forewarning of when the timer was set to go off. (TO BE CONTINUED..)

Wikileaks has crippled US warmaking, now, what you can do for Wikileaks

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Wikileaks has blood on its hands, says the US military, red-handed. No kidding. Wikileaks killed the war in Afghanistan is what it did, and all those who informed on the resistance or might have been thinking to collaborate with the US/NATO occupiers. 15,000 of the records were held back pending redaction, but Wikileaks informs us that even their full content will eventually be unveiled at a later, less sensitive date. In France there’s still contention about identifying those who betrayed the resistance during WWII. Wikileaks has struck a mortal blow to US war-making, as much as the media are trying to drum against it. Here’s what you can do to INSURE this great equalizing tool alive.

Wikileaks creator Julian Assange has stashed a “if anything should happen to me” file to be opened in the event of US obstruction. Not even Senator Lieberman’s effort to impose online Marshal Law will preempt the “insurance” this file offers, because things work differently on the interwebs. The file’s already out there, encrypted. You can grab a copy for yourself. If anything untoward befalls Assange, Wikileaks releases the key. Your taking a piece of the action assures that the number of copies out there will defy containment.

Right now you can go to wikileaks.org and download the insurance.aes256 file directly, or you can use P2P with a torrent link, in the process helping to disseminate the file. Next simply burn the file to a DVD and stash it away.

By the way, Assange has prefaced the mysterious contents of the file thus: it’s less about insuring his safety, than insuring that historical records aren’t usurped from mankind’s shared legacy.

The Barack Plan to re-brand and re-market US occupation of Iraq

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toys-r-usObama Doesn’t Plan to End the Iraq Occupation There in the title to his commentary, Jeremy Scahill puts it quite simple for people to understand. Of course, there are plenty of people who simply do not want to understand The Barack Plan at all, because those people invested a lot of themselves in justifying their vote for Barack Obama. They prefer to be pretend ‘counsellors’ for the President instead of actually admitting what his true plan for Iraq actually is, a re-marketing of the occupation of that country to the American people.

This re-branding and re-marketing of the war has already been done time and time again. It is the Republican agenda, too. Barack Obama and his Democratic Party war machine hope that with this rebranding of war for the more liberal minded out there in the American community, that the war and occupation of Iraq PLUS all the other warmaking of the Pentagon can simply continue on track.

John O’Donnell mistaken for Democrat

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What does it mean to be a progressive Democrat in Colorado Springs? I’ll tell you, it means shit. No matter how progressive you are, or how democratic. You’re judged by the company you keep and Democrats stick themselves with lousy company.

Take for example obstruction du jour, parade organizer John O’Donnell. I don’t bear a grudge for how he excluded peace marchers from the St Patrick’s Day parade, I bear a grudge for what he said afterward: that he’d do it again. Violence, trampled rights, brutalized elders, and O’Donnell says in hindsight he’d acted correctly. Though his assistants may have mistook a KIDS NOT BOMBS sign for BUSH KILLS BABIES signs, O’Donnell insists it was right to keep the peace message out of the St Patrick Loves Warmaking parade. Is that the kind of dim-sighted power-tripper “progressive democrats” call an ally?

O’Donnell’s a good guy I hear. A life long liberal. A progressive it’s said. A solid party fundraiser. I saw his name myself on a Governor Ritter dinner invite. I’ve even heard it said that you can’t get elected as a Democrat in this town without the support of John O’Donnell. Well that would be a damn shame.

I’ve also heard it said that it is impossible for a Democrat to win in this city. Small pockets are about all you can get. El Paso County Democrats count as victories elections in which they fared better than they hoped. The latest senatorial loss for example, which delivered the embarrassing Doug “Pigmy” Lamborn to office was hailed as a victory!

Now, on a losing team, exactly how valuable are your leading players? On a losing team?

On a consistently losing team, doesn’t the leadership need to go? The players who’ve delivered the losses and kept new blood from revitalizing the team, they too would need to get the axe. For the Democratic Party this was obvious in the 2000 election, and all the more so in 2004. Why pass the ball, up from the grass roots, to players who know only how to lose?

I ask you, what kind of Democrat can look at the 2006 election and think the public didn’t vote for peace? Democrats can support the military as staunchly as the next guy, the military is not anathema to peace, it keeps the peace. But a Democrat to subvert the call for peace? That’s someone running the ball for the other team. That’s a Goddamn traitor Son of a Bitch.

Nice guy? John O’Donnell should be, he’s in the business of PR. But John O’Donnell is a goon and I’m glad he’s unmasked. He should never again hobble another Democrat with his counter-productive piss-ant power-brokering playing for the other side. Throw the lout out.

Today at the vigil- Darfur

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Today at the noon vigil on Nevada Street, I held a sign that said ‘Hands Off Iran’ and was talking with my Mennonite friend who was holding a sign that said ‘PEACE’. Lo’ and Behold if my favorite Right Wing bicyclist came by once again.

He always has a sour look on his face, not just when he sees us, but in general I rather do believe. In short, he is the Sour Right Wing Bicyclist of the Colorado Springs barrio I live in, and he always passes by with a nasty and arrogant look on his face. He flies by so rapidly, that he usually just has a one word or two that he let’s fly when he sees us on the street corner with our signs. Today it was, ‘DARFUR’.

So just what was his word of wisdom to us miscreants supposed to mean, I thought? Why did he say what he did, at this time? Was it simply a message for us to have a sign calling for peace in Darfur, or was it more than just that? Would he get off his bike and protest in common cause with us if we had included mention of Darfur amongst our signs? I rather think not.

In fact, this particular Right Winger has shown his opposition to our vigil more than a few times before. When he shouted out ‘Darfur”, he was counterposing that cause to ours. This is bullshit, because we would like peace to come to the Darfur regions of Sudan and Chad, too. Who can be for a continuation of the slaughter that has been occurring there? Only a lunatic, I think.

How sad it is, though, that so many have deluded themselves into believing that an end to conflict anywhere, though, is to send in the Pentagon! That’s where we part company with those who campaign around the issue of Darfur. And in the case of this one sour pus neighborhood bicyclist, he was counterposing campaiging for military intervention from the US government and its allies into Sudan, against campaigning to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan by US troops, plus probable future extension of US warmaking into Iran. Somalia alone shows that the US is no peacemaker force anywhere. Not to mention the example of Haiti.

Economic aid to Africa, including Sudan. Not military. If I could put all this on a sign I would. But I doubt that that would satisfy my favorite Right Wing Bicyclist. He’s not all that concerned about Darfur at all, except as an excuse to support the Pentagon. I’d like to think otherwise, but his past behavior regarding our vigil is not a good reason to do so.

America’s rolling invasion of Somalia

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The US invasion and occupation of Somalia is like that of Haiti, nobody is paying much attention. And like the current occupation of Haiti, it ‘rolls’. What do I mean by describing this as a ‘rolling invasion’, for it is a term I think that describes the now prototypical US intervention into the affairs of other nations? Lebanon, too, is being violated by an American rolling invasion as yet another example. So let’s take a quick look at Somalia then, to get a glimpse of the US strategy everywhere for its misnamed ‘war on terrorism’.

In Somalia, the US first arranged an invasion of that country using Ethiopian troops. Then it followed by bombing the country from US ships. Just several weeks after the initial assault using another country’s military, that of Ethiopia, the US is switching them out, and moving a contingent of another country’s military in, 1,500 Kenyans troops. In turn, the US is pressuring Uganda, Rwanda, and South Africa amongst other countries, to follow. And without any interest at home what-so-ever, the US bombed Somalia once again just yesterday!

Imagine how the Somalians feel? As a Muslim country they finally get some semblance of government after 15 years of chaos, but then the US returns once again to topple the cart yet one more time. The US sponsored troops? Thousands of Christian Ethiopians! And to follow up this humiliation using a traditional enemy of one nation, the US brings in yet a second nation’s troops. See the roll? Like rolling waves of a heavy surf on the beach. This will then be followed by an eclectic assortment of other nations, none of which have anything in common with the natives, except for their racial coloring perhaps. And that of being sponsored by George W. Bush!

We could go to Iraq or Afghanistan to see the same nonsensical outsourcing of imperialism once again. But let’s look at Lebanon first. US invasion launched using Israeli troops first. Less than successful, so the Jewish forces pull partially back out. The US then has an unwanted UN move into the country as so-called ‘peacekeepers’. The US then threatens Hezbollah. The US then has France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, and others to cajole the country with being given possible funds to rebuild itself some. The US threatens Syria and Iran. What will Bush roll in with next? US troops? Or maybe Polish troops? Don’t joke, they are already in Iraq and Afghanistan in large numbers. How about Japanese? Don’t joke, they are in Iraq! At the end of 2006, Yugoslavia had its area of Kosovo occupied by troops from 30 nations! Talk about a Tower of Babel!

OK, enough of Lebanon. More rolling imperialism, the grand daddy of idiotic imperialism, Haiti! US invades, deposes the legitimate president, and then partially removes itself, bringing in Canadians (some speak French) and Brazilians (many are Black)! Haitians in the streets improve their language skills in French and Portuguese. But wait! Troops arrive on behalf of Dubya from China, Chile, Argentina, France,Nepal, Jordan, Peru, Sri Lanka!, and Guatemala! (80 of them). I especially think the Haitians are impressed with Sri Lanka and Guatemala coming to visit. Those 2 militaries have such great reputations! And Haitians love a circus!

Isn’t all this rolling imperialism reminiscent of the Romans? They would send in all sorts of barbarians from one end of the Empire into the next. Can we even begin to imagine our own reaction if we were ever to be disrespected with such occupations and warmaking against us, as the US uses against so many others? Imagine if the former Soviet Union had won the Cold Ware, and followed it by occupying our country with troops speaking 20 different languages, 30 different cultures, etc.? That certainly would have gotten us into an enduring peace, for sure! lol.

Where will the US invasion of Somalia roll off to? What new group of heathens to trample on? Will any American ever really give a damn about these smaller societies that get run roughshod over by their government? Liberals are too busy trying ot get the US to send troops to Chad and Darfur to notice much where the troops are actually at. Some have yet to figure out that there is a war going on in Afghanistan, for example. Though it is encouraging to see that the latest poll finally finds over 1/2 of Americans are for withdrawal from that country at last. No thanks to the Democratic Party, I might add. Afghanistan is a dirty word for them to mention.

These rolling invasions create nothing but chaos and misery.

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?

PPJPC condemns US bombing of Somalia

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Instead of admitting that the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are immoral violations of international law, the US government has extended their war into more and more regions of the world. The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission opposes the most recent US bombing strikes in Somalia. These bombings are acts of war that have not been discussed or voted upon by anyone in the US congress. Further, they follow US government approval and encouragement of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, in itself a violation of international law.

The American people are asked to believe that only ‘terrorists’ are being killed and injured when the US conducts bombing raids in countries such as Somalia and Pakistan. In fact, the US is killing many innocent civilians and those casualties are being considered acceptable collateral damage by the Pentagon and the Bush Adminstration. We do not agree.

There is no way to pinpoint targets without unacceptable civilian bloodshed, especially when American forces do not even speak the local language, as is most often the case. We must not sit by and passively accept the resulting carnage without raising our voices in protest and condemnation. Essentially, the American people are being asked by their government to condone a policy of political assassinations that convicts others without trial or jury, and also maims and kills scores of innocent bystanders.

We at Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission reject these illegal acts of war and call on all our elected representatives to help stop this continual warmaking. We encourage everybody to do what they can to actively oppose the US military intervention in the Horn of Africa. Stop the bloodshed, do not feed into it. Do not encourage regional and ethnic conflict.

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US regionalizes Iraq Conflict, as antiwar movement snores

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Is the US antiwar community asleep? It seems like all the citizenry are completely hypnotized by our phoney elections coming up, where we will get a the ‘choice’ of voting for one of the two corporate pro-war parties, and their candidates. Many of our more delusional participants in the ‘peace movement’ are expecting big things afterwards, even as both US corporate parties have been engaging in slowly building up support for regionalizing the Iraq conflict. They call that regionalized war ‘The War on Terror’, and both the DP and RP are big fans of fighting it! For eternity! And it comes following the already regionalized, so-called “War on Drugs’. Of course we haven’t heard much on that front recently, as drug production from Afghanistan is now quite on the rise. Question- Could Sparta have ever been so addicted to warfare as America’s ruling elite is? Win or lose, must sell equipment and weaponry to government. Support the Troops.

The signs of the regionalization of this conflict are coming hard and fast, yet the ‘peace’ pacifists snore. It’s all Iraq, Iraq, Iraq! Things are not being done competently there. But surprise, Bush and Cheney are outflanking you guys, even as you pray. The war is now, Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan. With Syria and Iran on the way! It’s a war not against just Arabs anymore, it’s a block party! How complicated. Hey liberal Democrats, you said you wanted to go kill Osama? We going to do it, even if we have to bomb Antartica, too. Blow up any penguins at their Madrasa we will. Just keep talking about Iraq, and we’ll get you your damn timetable.

And how sweet the press is to not interrupt the US citizenry as it snores. NATO does the killing in Afghanistan, so no need to highlight it for the sleeping giant, the American public. And Bush supported, Dictator Musharraf of Pakistan just did the last killing in that country, so we can sleep here, too. No need to examine the US involvement on that one. Duh! Everybody knows that Pakistan is a sovereign country, rolling on floor giggling. And shhhh….. Bush couldn’t possibly attack Syria and Iran. Not with the Democratic Party on guard! Giggling gets more intense. Stop tickling us, please. Let’s make the whole Middle East like we made SE Asia and Central America! Another success story for US governmental terrorism.

Yet the Democratic Party voting, Christian ‘peace’ people just snore on, firm in that their personal peacefulness is example enough. Please don’t so violently shake them. They’ll never wake up. Let them dream their pacifist dreams. But the rest of us need to stop ceding the organizing of a movement to stop US warmaking to these sweet Christian folk. That is if we want to save the penguins?

Is activism a waste of time?

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One of the most frustating things about our society to me, is the cynical belief by most everyone in America that activism is a complete waste of time. Meanwhile, people drive mindlessly for hours on end, in essentially circles. They spend hours upon hours watching brain dead programs on TV. They waste much of their off work hours on mindless shopping for mindless products. Yet, if it comes to giving 15 minutes to some form of activism, then that’s out! How bizarre is that, to think that independent activism is a wasteful use of energy?

It’s not that people are totally inactive. They aren’t. Many spend hours at work ordered by others down to the most minute details, and are forced to follow orders or lose their paycheck. It seems that when people are off work, if they do donate their time, then they feel it is only valid if, here too, they follow orders inside well defined parameters. For example, many people will come to something like a ‘Run Against Cancer’ and volunteer a whole day for that. Why? Simply because it is an activity structured much like work, where some authority tells you what to do, and that to do it like a sheep ON THE JOB is good. You simply show up and do the job laid out for you by others. Just like at work paid by the hour.

But independent activism is different. It is uncoordinated and there is no central authority much of the time. Often, too much time is spent trying to coordinate where there is no coordination easily found. Authority is missing. It is frustrating to us Americans, since most of our ‘work’ is spent following orders. Contrary to our national ideology that we are supposedly an indivualistic society, it turns out really, that we are a nation of sheep following orders. So when the herd dog cannot be found, then we American sheep begin to panic. We get angry at the sheep next to us, and blame them for not following orders good enough. That’s even when the reality is that the sheep dog that normally drives us is drooling at the mouth and unable to stand up at all, due to being quite rabid.

So there are in reality very few people willing to do independent activism, simply because nobody amongst our companions tells us that it is a worthwhile activity. The authorities offer us no pay, and often offer us hostility instead. One of the most common things shouted out against activists if you protest against the warmaking, is “Go Get a Job!”. It infuriates other sheep when somebody is actually not doing something inside carefully prescribed parameters, like they would only do.

But it is not just those that are outright hostile, but the sea of cynicism amongst us ourselves that is even worse. Each and everyone of us is an activist of some sort, and has their own ideas of what would work. But it is almost always met by apathy, doubt, and cynicism when one tries to coordinate that particular activity with fellow supporters of the cause the activism is trying to promote. Always, it seems, there is the turn away as the others say, “No, that is just impractical. No, it accomplishes nothing.” And their counterproposals are always to follow some REAL authority figure’s orders. Just like at work. So even in circles that seemingly support independent activism, we find the same tendency to following orders that everybody has to have to survive on the job. It is usually that we are met with demands to follow some strategy that ‘liberal’ churches, or one of the offical political parties(Democratic Party), is animating.

Truth is, we have a society that uses mainly money to reward or bash us with. All activity outside ‘getting paid’ is seemingly inconsequential, and it is considered that only a fool does anything without getting paid. And by paid, I mean in emotions, too. Get the dollar, get the love. And the opposite also applies, too. Just have the authorities withhold the dollar, and you then begin to get the disdain. Keep it up too long, then you become homeless. We like to think that we are free, but in fact we are not. So that is why I try to do independent activism even as we receive the almost constant contempt for doing so. It is merely the contempt of my fellow slaves, because they don’t believe much in themselves, but rather only believe in following orders. What a shame, but trying to radically change our society before it destroys us all is worthwhile, even if at times we make mistakes in best how to do it. We have to at least make the effort to stop ‘the authorities’ from heading us down such a destructive road.

Eyes Wide Open Minus 279

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Why don’t we reflect on the 279 US soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan, too? I think it simply because the AFSC/ Quakers almost universally vote Democratic Party. They don’t want the public to ‘reflect on the true costs of the Afghan war’ while most liberal Democratic Party voters continue to support such. And because of that, the Eyes Wide Open has its eyes sewed wide shut regarding Afghanistan. The AFSC, it seems, will have us only reflect on US troops who died in Iraq.

I have not been much of a backer of this top down AFSC bringing of Eyes Wide Open to Denver and Colorado Springs anyway. How top down? I would say that the main impetus for bringing this exibition to Colorado came from outside the state, and not from within. Discussion was very limited and completely shut off once the honchos had their thing going.

PLUS,this fetishist AFSC focus on the boots of US GIs is a reflection of the constant US nationalist fetishism that focuses on ‘supporting our troops’. They are not OUR troops and we should not be just focusing on the dead GIs’ boots and tags while relegating to the minimalist side the consideration of the deaths of the victims of these US troops. These troops were paid for by our taxes stolen and misused by the government, but they are not my troops. Nor yours, for that matter. So why do we memorialize them as if they were something so very much more special than their victims? Why, AFSC?

And this controlling top down organizing by the Quakers has me peeved. Who do they think they are to try to limit other points of view other than their own pacifist ones at these Fall antiwar events? If the Afghans and Iraqis try to kick the US out of their countries using armed force, then so be it. One gets a little tired of the constant US pacifist Christian messaging, pontificating to other people to non-violently resist their own US government’s violence. These sanctimonious people would have had the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto turning the other cheek to the Nazis even! Defintiely, nobody should feel obligated to not bring their own materials and posters to Eyes Wide Open just because the AFSC tells them not to. They have some damn nerve trying to censor off views other than those parallel with their own. Yes they do.

As an atheist, I will help set up this nominally antiwar exhibit. At least, it will be seen by the press as such. But we sure need a more secular antiwar movement in the future, with the ability to reach out to more than just the liberal church goers. The thing about liberal Christian pacifists, is that they demand that others not just reject the US warmaking but that they do it only for the same reasons that liberal pacifists do. They keep the antiwar movement small, by excluding the majority of people that actually might want to oppose US militarism for reasons other than religiosity.

Anyway, I remember the 279 US troops who have lost their lives in Afghanista. And what’s more, I remember the country of Afghanistan we have torn to shreds. Reflect on that, AFSC.

An Inconvenient Truth; Al Gore in the Balance

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This last Friday I headed over to see a herd of well-fed liberals that rodeoed themselves into the Unitarian Church for a free showing of the film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. The corral was packed and after we were informed that a pastor was on the way from Denver to moralize to us later, the film began to roll. Another showing of ‘Al Gore, the Intellectual Politican’ was under way. Hey, it kinda of reminded me of the repeated US`showing of ‘Jimmy Carter, Born Again Liberal Christian’, too. Holy Mackeral. Why buy a used car from the other guys, when we got such a sincere team over at Slick’s Used Cars Emporium?

My daughter was one of about 5 church-like kids dragged into the Unitarian Church that evening. And she lasted only 30 minutes, and then I had to go. She had to go that is, since I actually kind of wanted to stay. The film had a ‘Don’t Feed the Bears’ ambience to it, that made me feel like I was watching a Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo Bear rerun from my youth. Plus, it had that feel of those professional ‘Why You Need to Join Your Local Union’ stuff the AFL-CIO occasionally puts out. But my daughter was demanding that I rent her some obscure foreign film from over at Toons Video instead of staying and watching more of the freebee.

So how the Hell can I review a film when I watched only 30 minutes of it? Easily. I have been watching Al Gore for much longer than just the 90 minutes the film lasts. Here is Mr Environmental Guru as I have seen him over the years.

1) Supported Poppy Bush’s so-called Desert Strom that resulted in the deployment of Depleted Uranium radioctivity across the region. It also led to further environmental catastrophe as Hussein retaliated by incinerating the oil refineries of Kuwait.

2) As VP, he later went on to head up an Adminstration that deliberately targeted Yugoslavia’s civilian infrastructure through a US bombing campaign. As a result, the Danube was totally polluted with highly toxic waste. He also supported 8 years more of continued bombing of Iraq during that time, which certainly did not improve the ecology already destroyed by US warmaking he had supported even when a Republican had been directing the effort.

3) He supported the invasion of Afghanistan, which has left entire regions there decimated by so-called ‘bunker busting’ weaponry. Hardly a major ‘green’ effort on the part of Gore.

4) Gore has sat quiet as Israel bombed a civilian installation in Lebanon, which is a country invaded with total Bush support and complicity. Result?… a tidal wave of petro pollution that is the worst spill ever experienced in the Eastern Meidterranean. It will take decades to repair the damage, yet ‘Green’ Al Gore is silent.

5) Al Gore holds large number of shares in Occidental Oil, the company that polluted the Love Canal in New York State. It is also a company heavily invested in Colombia where Gore has helped have tons of isecticide dropped onto rural areas under the guise of waging a Clinton made ‘drug war’. The company sold off its holdings from the area after their drilling in U’wa tribal lands came up negative. Despite U’wa protests against this drilling, the Gore family held its shares in the company. Too bad the U’wa’s note to Gore was not part of the movie.

We could go on, but why should anyone believe Al Gore is doing anything other than image restructuring for himself, and the Democratic Party? If you are depending on him to be pro-environmental, then I got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. If you are depending on the Democratic Party to stop the Pentagon (which is the main danger to global environments), then you should have your head examined.