Under Secretary Burns To Retire Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:00:00 -0600
Secretary Rice (Jan. 18): "Nick Burns has decided that it is time for him to retire from the Foreign Service after 26 years of service to his country...[he] has given, obviously, wise counsel to me and to the President. He is deeply respected and admired here in Washington, but also deeply respected and admired abroad.... He’s going to continue to sprint until he leaves in March. We’ve got a lot of work to do starting next week when we will go together to Berlin to have a little meeting on the way forward on Iran with the P-5+1....and I’ve asked Nick also that after he retires, that he will spend some time continuing to work on the India file, particularly because we would like to push the U.S. Civil Nuclear Agreement to conclusion." Full Text White House Statement
a friend of c.i.'s e-mailed that (to c.i., i'm in c.i.'s personal account) and wrote that this is something to watch and it will probably develop into more. because of who it is from, i would guess that it may be worth watching indeed.
i'm being kind and not saying anymore. i'm also not going to share campaign gossip (there are e-mails to c.i. from friends with hillary, barack and john's campaign - it's kind of funny reading them because all 3 campaigns have 1 idea they're planning to hit on in the coming days and no 1 seems to know the other 2 are also going to do it. that should provide laughs.)
(they have more than 1 idea in store, before any 1 thinks, 'rebecca, you just gave it away to __'s campaign!')
a number of other e-mails note jan. 22nd is the anniversary of roe v. wade. so let's take a moment to note that. that was a big step towards personhood for women. the supreme court ruled that our bodies were are own and no 1 could hijack them - not husbands, not boyfriends, not the government, etc.
back to politics, a d.c. based reporter is laughing at robert parry. i'll laugh as well. mr. big talk on reagan is ignoring barack obama's statements. the reporter worked for a.p. or newsweek when parry did and is just laughing their ass off at robert parry and his 'deep and abiding love for bambi.' i love that every 1 calls obama 'bambi.'
but robert parry has written over and over about reagan's white house years. and how awful they were, how criminal they were but it turns out to all be blah-blah-blah because when bambi praises reagan, parry doesn't rush out with yet another tutorial on reagan. instead he's writing a column (i haven't read it, i'm going on the reporter's summary) about how hillary 'squeaked by again'.
squeak? a mouse squeaks? parry acts like a mouse these days. a timid little mouse you should chase away with a broom.
he gave his heart & soul to bambi and didn't even get a t-shirt.
we're on a quick break from the iraq study group, by the way, and c.i. told ruth and i we could grab whatever in the e-mails. that included - i'm so fortunate! - c.i.'s own personal account. there are 754 e-mails to it today that are unread. (that's not counting what i've read. or what c.i. found time to read today.)
let me see what else is in there.
ooooh! delicious gossip about the nation. katrina is so lucky i'm not repeating. don't be surprised, however, if a blind item pops up here over the next few days. it's just too juicy.
or maybe i'll put it in my column for el espirito.
okay, here's something i can post because it's not a personal e-mail. this is from the feminist majority and i'm sure it went out to any 1 who donates to the foundation:
Dr. Tiller needs your help! The extremists are trying to shut him down. In what could become a "witch hunt", a grand jury has begun its investigation of Dr. George Tiller for supposed violations of Kansas abortion law.
The grand jury was convened after the extremist group Operation Rescue joined with Kansans for Life to file a citizen petition under an 1887 Kansas law. It took only 6,186 signatures to launch this latest attack in a relentless campaign to close down this vitally needed clinic.
We must do all we can to keep this clinic safe and open. Please donate today - half of your contribution will go directly to Dr. Tiller to defray legal costs and half will go to our clinic defense team working to protect this clinic as well as many other women's health clinics across the nation.
Please also show your support by sending Dr. Tiller and his staff at Women's Health Care Services a letter, letting them know how much you appreciate their continued work to protect women's health and lives in the face of continuing attacks on their clinic.
Despite over 20 years of anti-abortion harassment, intimidation, and violence, his clinic was bombed in 1986 and he was shot five times in 1993, Dr. Tiller remains steadfast in his mission to provide compassionate and quality healthcare to women seeking late term abortions because of illness or very troubled pregnancies. He is there when few other doctors will help.
The Feminist Majority Foundation's National Clinic Access Project, the oldest and largest in the country, has worked with Dr. Tiller for more than 15 years to counter the constant attacks and threats of anti-abortion activists. We must make it clear now that we will not allow a small group of zealots pervert the law to advance their extremist agenda.
1. Donate now to help Dr. Tiller and the Feminist Majority Foundation keep clinics safe, open, and free of harassment and intimidation.
2. Please send Dr. Tiller and his staff a letter of support, reminding them how many feminists stand behind them in their fight for women's lives.
For Women's Lives,
Eleanor Smeal
President
Katherine Spillar
Executive Vice President
which brings me to yesterday's post (ugly katha pollitt sticks up for her 'mommy'). i got a ton of e-mail on that. thank you for your support.
1 person wasn't supportive. she was mad at me for 'outing' betty friedan as a communist.
red-betty is dead. i have no idea why she didn't have the guts to say 'i'm a communist.' presumably she believed in communism.
i don't have a problem with communism. i don't have a problem with communists.
the point i was making is that katha pollitt white-washed friedan.
too bad.
i can remember the 1st time i was aware that red-betty had pissed off lesbians. there were women who were so upset they were crying (lesbians, bi-sexual women and straight). i might have been upset as well but i already knew she was a fake. red-betty actually tore into me once because i was standing backstage at an event waiting on c.i. and queen betty didn't think any woman she didn't know should be allowed backstage (this wasn't an event for the queen, she just thought every group speaking event was all about her). i was shocked because she was such a hateful thing. her ugly face got even uglier when she got mad. c.i. walked back and told her to f**k off. that was the 1st time i learned queen betty wasn't (a) lovely and (b) wasn't beloved.
after that, c.i. filled me in on betty friedan. (who, for some reason, my grandfather always had a sing-song about, by the way. it never made sense and i can't even say it was hostile. but i just flashed on that.) and i didn't feel so bad that i had upset the 'voice' of feminism.
once i realized what a fake she was, i never gave her a 2nd thought.
she was a hateful woman who, especially in those days, was threatened by every woman. she had a cutting remark about my breasts in our exchange. i am big breasted but i wasn't wearing a bra that day because that was the style, not to, as she accused me, to 'get attention.' i guess if i had betty's body, i'd be bitter as well.
she was just the most jealous, most hateful thing in the world.
so when she went off in 1 of her early public moments attacking lesbians and all these women were just shocked, i could see c.i. deliberate. c.i. doesn't out communists. but this was a group of women who just couldn't understand why betty was being so hateful. and c.i. just laid it out and explained that when women our age were just kids, the communist party went on a big purge of gays and lesbians. and that sort of lingered there with people nodding. then slowly, you saw people snap to it and start saying, 'she's a communist?'
betty's whole act was a lie. the pretend to be a homebody who just stumbled upon something. she was just a liar.
she's dead. i'm not outing her. but if i am, good. history needs to know the truth. it wouldn't have hurt her to come forward while she was alive.
but, unlike katha pollitt, i'm not red-betty's love slave or daughter. i don't need to lie about what the woman was.
and to repeat, she rots in hell because she was anti-woman. she didn't like women. she was rude to all of us who were younger than her and if we were a lot younger than she was, she was really rude.
heaven forbid you were attractive because, if you were, it was a direct challenge to her supremacy in her eyes.
over the years, i've met a lot of feminists that she made cry. more so in the 70s because she really didn't have anything to offer feminism after that. sure she'd do a new intro for the re-publication of that bad, bad book. but she really didn't have anything to say and no 1 read her backlash trash that she got into in the 80s.
but whenever a woman would be upset i'd share my story about how all i did was stand backstage at a women's conference, waiting for my friend (c.i.) to finish speaking and how red betty ripped into me, attacked my breasts, attacked my hair (she might have had to bleach her own to get the color but mine was natural) and just trash me at such a loud volume i feared everyone could hear her.
and this was her allegedly 'nice' period.
she probably would have ripped into me for a lot longer if c.i. hadn't told her to shut the f**k up. she hated c.i. but feared c.i. at the same time because red-betty knew damn well c.i. knew all about her and all about her little friends in the press trying to push her as the 'voice' of feminism (quickly replaced with the 'mother' of feminism - another lie) and she knew if she pissed c.i. off, c.i. would be on the phone making sure her press wasn't so kind. (i'm not joking on that. c.i. hated friedan and if friedan had ever pushed, c.i. would have been on the phone to editors asking them why their reporters were writing the pieces on betty they were? it's a question that should have been asked in real time.)
that's why i can't believe betty never outed herself while she was alive. her fear of being outed was the 1 thing that held her in check. and you'd think she would have outed herself (it wasn't a big deal by the 70s) just so she could really go to town with hatred.
but she was just walking hate.
a lot of women made excuses for her. they'd point out how ugly she was and how she attacked gloria steinem because she (friedan) was insecure.
oh, okay, that makes sense!
(it doesn't make sense.)
but she attacked all women. she would have attacked c.i. but she couldn't afford to piss off c.i. c.i. knew where her skeletons were buried and could get her ass outed in the mainstream press.
but she did have a lot of friends, especially at the new york times. they loved her at the times and her little friends there helped create the myth of housewife-betty.
i'll always remember betty friedan as a frumpy, overweight thing screeching at the top of her lungs, her mouth opened like a hawk about to snatch something from the road.
or, as c.i. once put it, 'the thing about betty is she's just so cheap. she's really just a cheap person.' and she really was.
so i'll leave the myths to katha pollitt.
and i'll take comfort in the fact that 3 women shared their own encounters with raging betty in their e-mails. i was able to laugh at the stories because i'd been there myself. i wrote all 3 back and told them, 'your real crime was probably just being younger and prettier.'
betty could and did lie about a lot of things but she could never lie herself into plain, let alone pretty.
maybe that's why katha white-washed her?
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Friday, January 17, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the illegal war keeps going (and gets extended?), John Edwards addresses the realities of Ronald Reagan, and more.
Starting with war resisters, Courage to Resist has posted a number of interviews with war resisters. Today we'll focus on their interview with Brandon Hughey who spoke of how he turned against the illegal war, advised his superior of it and finally took matters into his own hands by checking out from Fort Hood for 28 days (starting in January 2004) "to see if maybe they would boot me out. Once I go AWOL and once I show that I'm not a 'good soldier' maybe they'd just boot me out. So I came back in 28 days, instead of kicking me out of the army they said, 'We're glad to have you back. We're going to give you extra duty and dock your pay. But I suggest you pack your backs and start getting ready to go to Iraq.' So basically that idea I had backfired. I had tried to get myself booted out and even that didn't work. So at that point, I began to feel like I was trapped. There was no way out."
Courage to Resist: And none of your superiors ever informed you of Conscientious Objector status?
Brandon Hughey: No, I had never even heard of that. I didn't even know that existed until I after I came to Canada.
Courage to Resist: So you were told to get ready to ship out to Iraq after being AWOL for 28 days? What did you do then?
Brandon Hughey: Basically, I began to think of what other options I had to get out of the military. You know, I couldn't really think of anything. I tried going AWOL and coming back, at that point I just felt trapped. I had remembered that tens of thousands of people had come up -- during Vietnam -- had come up to Canada and I thought at the time, 'Maybe as a last resort option I could leave the country?" And so I kept that in the back of my mind and when I realized that, you know, there didn't seem like any other way I could get out I began to feel like, "Okay, leaving the country is an option." So, at that point, I began to make plans to go to Canada.
Courage to Resist: How did you prepare yourself to make this huge decision?
Brandon Hughey: I was just going to pack my bags and drive myself there -- try to set aside whatever money I could and hopefully have enough to get myself started in a new life and a new country. I really didn't have much a plan because I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And that was pretty much it.
Courage to Resist: And when did you actually make the move?
Brandon Hughey: I came up in March of 2004, when I arrived.
Courage to Resist: Did you make contact right away with anybody with the War Resisters Support Campaign or any other resisters.
Brandon Hughey: Well the War Resisters Support Campaign hadn't been formed yet when I arrived. But I was staying with a Quaker family for a few months when I first arrived. So the Quaker community did a lot and they, you know, they did a lot to support me. That was really my first support network when I came to Canada.
Courage to Resist's audio interviews are part of their ongoing Audio Project.
A number of war resisters have gone to Canada and attempted to be granted asylum.
November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Parliament is the solution.Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. Both War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist are calling for actions from January 24-26. The War Resisters Support Campaign has more on the action in Canada:
The War Resisters Support Campaign has called a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to ensure : 1) that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and 2) that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada. For listings of local actions, see our Events page. If you are able to organize a rally in your community, contact the Campaign -- we will list events as details come in.
Courage to Resist notes:
Join and support January 25 vigils and delegations in support of U.S. war resisters currently seeking sanctuary Canada. Actions are being planned in Washington D.C., New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Supporters will meet with officials at Canadian Consulates across the United States in order underscore that many Americans hope that the Canadian Parliament votes (possible as early as February) in favor of a provision to allow war resisters to remain. Download and distribute Jan. 25-26 action leaflet (PDF).Supporting the war resisters in Canada is a concrete way to demonstrate your support of the troops who refuse to fight. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!
Details January 25-26 actions/events in support of U.S. war resisters.
Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay!" and encourage others to sign.
Organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you .
Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Dee Knight (Workers World) notes, "IVAW wants as many people as possible to attend the event. It is planning to provide live broadcasting of the sessions for those who cannot hear the testimony firsthand. 'We have been inspired by the tremendous support the movement has shown us,' IVAW says. 'We believe the success of Winter Soldier will ultimately depend on the support of our allies and the hard work of our members'."
And the war drags on and on. Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) pieces together several press conferences to explain, "Gates and top uniformed officers sketched out a plan that runs counter to pledges by Democratic presidential contenders to bring about a rapid drawdown of the U.S. military presence in Iraq" and cites Lt. General Raymond Odierno (the number two) declaring that it "could be five to 10 years" that the US forces remain in Iraq. Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) observes, "Senior U.S. military officials projected yesterday that the Iraqi army and police will grow to an estimated 580,000 members by the end of the year but that shortages of key personnel, equipment, weaponry and logistical capabilities mean that Iraq's security forces will probably require U.S. military support for as long as a decade." Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) reminds, "Iraq's defense minister, Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim Mifarji, has said Iraqi forces will not be able to assume responsibility for internal security until 2012 or be able to defend the country's borders before 2019."
In the face of that, the alleged 'anti-war groups' cave again. They aren't anti-war groups, they aren't peace groups. They are Win Without War and all the other useless groups that do nothing to end the illegal war. Nothing the reports of the cave, PR Watch explains that "Ryan Grim reports that the biggest and best-funded organizations in the liberal peace movement, primarily MoveOn and the groups in its Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI) coalition, are no longer advocating that Congress end the war. This year "the groups instead will lower their sights and push for legislation to prevent President Bush from entering into a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could keep significant numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come. ... The groups believe this switch in strategy can draw contrasts with Republicans that will help Democrats gain ground in November." AAEI's PR spokesperson, Moira Mack of Hildebrand Tewes Consulting, called it "the perfect legislative opportunity." In other words, as Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber pointed out last March, for MoveOn and other Democrat-aligned peace groups it's not about ending the war, it's about electing Democrats. Most of the tens of millions of dollars that MoveOn and AAEI have spent lobbying and organizing for "peace" has been directed at pressuring and embarrassing pro-war Republicans, while the Democratic Congress has continued to fund the war and pro-war Democrats have generally been given a pass." All those 'groups' have to offer is silent vigils and online petitions. And we've seen serveral years before.
A rude comment on IVAW comes from a surprising online source. We're not linking to it. We're not linking to that site while it's up. (The same way all the ones lying about Gloria Steinem aren't being linked to. See The Third Estate Sunday Review for a piece tentatively titled "Hey Little Girl Are You All Alone, Did You Go and Leave Your Brain at Home" dedicated to the Mud Flap Gals and all the other useless play-feminists online who never thought they needed to educated themselves on any topic before weighing in.) IVAW is being slammed for not allowing an event that marks the anniversary of the illegal war. Buy a clue, idiots, IVAW's Winter Soldier Investigation ends before the anniversary. But apparently, the 5th anniversary of the illegal war can't be marked if it can't be done on a weekend. Apparently, we're supposed to have "5th Anniversary of the Illegal War" observed and then, during the week, the actual date?
It's too damn bad that there are some hurt feelings and people whining and carping about IVAW. IVAW isn't preventing anyone from doing anything. They have planned the Winter Soldiers' Investigation and the dates are March 13th through March 16th. You have to be really STUPID not to grasp that the 5th anniversay of the illegal war is AFTER the Winter Soldiers' Investigation. IVAW's Kelly Dougherty observes:
As we enter 2008, please stop for a moment and consider where we are now, and where we are going. In just over a year, America will have a new President. We will have endured a year of campaign commercials and attack ads. We'll have watched debates devoid of any real discussion of the withdrawal from Iraq that a growing number of Americans now call for. We'll have waited, for yet another year, for our leaders to find a way to say what we know in our hearts: we must leave Iraq.
But what will have changed in the next year that will make that happen?
We must face this fact: we run the serious risk that one year from today we'll be right where we are now, but with another year's worth of casualties, a year's worth of grieving families, a year's worth of Iraqi anger and suffering built on our occupation of a country we now know was no threat to us. Ending this war in a year is different than ending it now, just as ending it now is different than ending it a year ago, or a year before that. There is a price to pay for every day that we wait.
She's exactly right. And in 2004, we saw the peace movement shut down shop because the most important thing wasn't ending the illegal war, it was 'elections!' The peace movement can't make the same mistake in 2008. If people have hurt little feelings, too damn bad. Too much time has been wasted with the peace movement wasting their energies on the John Kerry presidential bid or the Democrats 2006 Congressional races. People in the peace movement will most likely favor a candidate on their own. That's to be expected. But the peace movement is not a get-out-the-vote movement nor should it be hijacked (willingly or not) by political parties.
IVAW is not the only thing happening in DC. March for Peace exists around it and blocks out the 13th through the 16th for IVAW. Possibly, those whining online about IVAW don't believe students matter and that's why they flaunt their ignorance of March for Peace? You can find their schedule here.
CBS and AP report that Turkey is declaring that they "bombed nearly 60 Kurdish rebel targets in an attack this week in northern Iraq." Christian Peacemaker Teams have protested noting that the bombings -- as with all ariel bombings including the ones the US is doing in Iraq -- are indiscriminate and targeting civilians.
In other reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bombing that claimed 2 lives and left four wounded, a Baquba home bombing left 2 police officers dead and two more wounded while another Baquba home bombing claimed the lives of 2 children and four adults wounded.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an armed clash in Basra that left at least two soldiers injured, three Iraqi police officers injured and an unknown number of civilians injured while Dr. Luma Salih was shot dead in a seperate incident as she left the hospital, a Wajihiyah armed clash left 2 police officers dead and three more wounded, 8 people were shot dead in Kirkuk and a Nasriyah Province clash in which 9 people were killed and at least forty wounded.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Baghdad and 3 in Diyala Province. Reuters reports 7 corpses "were found after one" US "air strike in the town of Riyadh".
In US political news, the Green Party has scheduled another presidential candidate forum for February 2nd at Busboys & Poets in DC (14th and V Streets) at ten in the morning -- Jesse Johnson and Kent Mesplay are confirmed to appear others may or may not. More info click here. They've also created a new webpage for videos with the San Francisco forum held Sunday already on it and plans for more videos to be added. The Green Party's official blog can be found here and certainly if it's happening and known Kimberly Wilder (On The Wilder Side) is probably posting about it. In Democratic presidential politics, Shailagh Murraqy (Washington Post) quotes John Edwards response to Barack Obama's praise of Ronald Reagan (see yesterday's snapshot): "When you think about what Ronald Reagan did to the American people, to the middle class to the working people. He was openly -- openly -- intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country . . . He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment. I can promise you this: thie president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change."
This MLK weekend, PBS' Bill Moyers Journal includes an essay by Moyers (who served in the Johnson White House) reflecting on history and present day -- in addition, he speaks with the New York Times David Cay Johnston about the truths regarding taxation and spending. In most markets, that airs tonight. It will stream online and provide transcripts and audio.
iraq
iraq veterans against the war
nancy a. youssefmcclatchy newspapersann scott tysonthe washington postjulian e. barnesthe los angeles times
bill moyersbill moyers journal
kimberly wilder
1/18/2008
1/17/2008
ugly katha pollitt sticks up for her 'mommy'
poor katha pollitt, her insides now look like her outsides.
katha chirps in a piece of dithering today (no link to trash):
I've written many times about sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton as an old, ugly, castrating witch-and-what-rhymes-with-it, but Gloria Steinem's New York Times op-ed in defense of her, "Women Are Never the Front-Runners," was not helpful, to put it mildly. "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life," Steinem wrote. "Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter)." Yes, black men got the vote first, although they could be lynched for using it.
poor katha, she never did have a brain.
her whole career has been built on being a flame thrower. 'career' may be too strong.
katha of course infamously decided in 2002 that she was the 1 to tell the n.a.a.c.p. what they needed to focus on - white katha.
that takes racism katha and katha's just a racist.
gloria steinem's point was lost on katha because katha lacks a brain.
gloria wrote about the gender barrier. gloria did not minimize what african-american males or jewish males or japanese-american males (to name only some of the suffering) had gone through.
but katha always sided with red-betty.
katha wrote a valentine for red-betty when friedan finally died and went to hell.
it doesn't bother me that betty was red.
it does (and did) bother me that betty friedan and her sycophants (including e.f.) lied about that fact.
red-betty was a movement writer for communist periodicals.
she didn't just stumble into a public library 1 day and realize, 'i've got a book idea.' (in fact, she ripped off simone as any 1 with a brain could have grasped. she ripped of simone and dumbed it down to make it appeal to white, middle-class women and that's what the communist party wanted).
the feminine mystique did not speak to all women, even in its 1st ten years.
it is a plodding and bad book.
and reading it, you knew there was a lie at the heart of it.
the lie was that betty was just a dull homebody who suddenly grasped there was a problem.
now when betty published, being a communist could hurt. (she was very lucky that so many intellectuals and play 1s in the mainstream press were happy to sell 1 of their own.) but by the time she was leaving now, there was no reason to lie.
but betty lied and lied.
like many communists of that period, she hated lesbians.
people have never understood that about red-betty. why did she hate lesbians so loudly and so proudly?
because she was a communist and the communist party didn't like homosexuals.
people try to think up 101 excuses for friedan's attacks on lesibans. but that's where her homophobia was rooted.
the communist party didn't like homosexuals.
so decades go by and betty friedan is still lying about who she is.
she finally kicks the bucket and heads to hell (not because of communism but because she was an evil, evil woman) and katha pollitt shows up to white-wash red-betty 1 more time.
here's the reality katha can't tell you.
there were 2 camps in the second-wave of feminism. there was the camp betty tried to lead and there was the camp gloria steinem belonged to.
gloria's camp was welcoming to all. they didn't care who you had sex with or what your political history was.
betty's camp had to work overtime purging and cleansing because there leader was in the closet about who she was (politically).
when katha's piping off about economics - months go by where she's written not 1 word about them but suddenly shows up screaming they are the issue - it's because she's got the marxist framework of betty's. (that's not calling katha a communist, she's not smart enough - and, again, there's nothing wrong with being a communist - there is something sad about lying about it.)
it's that 'economics' betty could never define in her lifetime because to do so, to really do so, would be to out herself.
so katha never grasped what was what due to her mentor.
(like most closet communists of that era, betty ended up in the republican camp and ronald reagan appointed her to a show committee.)
the gender barrier has to do with legalities.
and that's something that betty (and her little girl katha) never grasped. it was always this undefined 'economics.'
this sort of free floating - wait, we'll get to it someday, 'economics.'
what gloria was writing about was personhood.
the gender barrier is about personhood.
and it's really easy for the idiots (and put katha in that category - she did stalk a man online who left her - for a much smarter and nicer woman, you can't blame him - and that woman actually has talent) to show up and play dumb. it's easy because most people don't know the basics.
are you a person in the eyes of the law or are you a possession?
legally, slavery was outlawed following the civil war.
that didn't mean things were peachy keen for african-americans. they were threatened, they were physically attacked, they were the targets of some of the most embarrassing hatred this country has ever seen. (throw the native americans in as other victims and especially the japanese-americans who were judged 'enemies' and locked away solely for race during w.w.i.i.)
but gloria wasn't trying to create a caste-system and even says that in her column.
what she was doing was talking about legal rights.
women - of all races - have lagged behind repeatedly.
they were not seen as people in the eyes of the law. that included property rights, that included inheritance rights, that included the ability to say 'no.'
in the late 70s, marital rape finally got traction in the court and finally women had a little more personhood.
in the film bob, carol, ted and alice, you've got a wife who doesn't want to have sex. and you see everything that she has to do to stop it. it's a comedy film but dyan cannon is supposed to be the 'bitch' ('dream girl' is personified by natalie wood's character). in the end, she 'agrees' to sex.
now that's not marital rape in a violent way but if you saw that film at the time it came out and you caught the reactions then, you would have thought dyan cannon was calling for the death of all world leaders. she was seen as a huge bitch. it was 'that poor eliott gould.'
that was the attitude.
and the law saw it as okay if husbands raped their wives. it wasn't a problem, it wasn't an issue.
currently, our bodies are under attack, our right to say yes or no to pregnancy (most obviously in terms of abortion but birth control's under attack as well). the right won with roe v. wade didn't come until the 70s. yes, it was legal already in new york state but that wasn't the way it was across the country.
sexual harassment was considered office hijinks. boss copped a feel? be flattered. get another job. that was the attitude.
now before ronald reagan (whom barack obama praised today) got into office there were a number of lawsuits that would have brought us full personhood in the same way that the e.r.a. would have. they got swept away. clarence thomas was put in charge of the e.e.o.c. and suddenly women being relegated to the 'soft' departments at sears (which meant less money) was no longer an issue. by the same token, women in network news were doing class-action lawsuits.
there has been a long and ongoing struggle to break through the gender barrier that has prevented women from full legal status.
most people today aren't aware of it.
that doesn't minimize racism.
it does note, and gloria pointed this out, that sexism is still very acceptable in this society.
racism has not vanished. barack obama thinks it has judging by his crack-pot speech at the 2004 democratic convention.
but racism is very real and very ugly.
like sexism, it exists systemically to this day.
but personal racism can be called out.
but they both converge at the same point where 1 grouping is put above all others and they get to decide who enters the discussion, who gets recognition, who gets ignored.
gloria would never say racism doesn't exist. she would never say the violence of racism was a non-issue.
but that's' what she was writing about though pigs like robert parry and robert scheer distorted her on purpose.
suddenly, a woman who opened with an example of a candidate who was both a woman and a person of color, is being attacked and it only takes a nimrod like katha to spit back out the conventional wisdom.
that's because she's not a feminist writer.
she never has been.
ugly doesn't equal feminism except in stereotypical minds.
certainly katha pollitt is among the ugliest women to walk the face of the earth.
she was ugly before she got older. age has only made her more ugly.
she can't help how she looks on the outside (short of surgery) but she could have done work on the inside.
she never did. she never built up a knowledge base.
that's why she avoided writing about the gang-rape of 14-year-old abeer.
it's not an issue she tackles.
she's not a feminist.
she's an ugly woman with a loud mouth so she couldn't play genteel and some 1 decided to market her as a feminist.
but a feminist doesn't ignore abeer. a feminist doesn't do all the lame things katha's pathetic life has been about.
if you said 'gerder lerner' to katha she'd stare at you blankly.
she has no historical knowledge to speak of.
she really has no knowledge period.
but she knows how to create a scene.
so she comes along today and creates a scene.
this is the woman who never called out barack obama's homophobia.
alleged feminist, like i said. she's not a real 1.
she's an ugly woman whose 'book' didn't sell. no 1 wants to print her in the mainstream so she's going to try to hang onto her perch at the nation for as long as she can.
and she does a lot of attention-seeking, embarrassing behavior because if she doesn't get attention, she doesn't exist.
when you're a really bad writer, you need to throw those bombs to get attention.
so gloria's her target today.
she's probably also trying to make it up to 'mommy.' if there was ever a woman uglier on the outside than katha it would be betty friedan.
and katha knows damn well that betty friedan was racist and homophobic.
but she never called that out.
now she tries to tar and feather gloria when a real feminist would have been writing about the legal recognition aspect.
now katha's not interested in that. that's 'mainstream feminism.' in her opinion. but even an idiot like katha knows enough about feminism to know what branch gloria was utilizing in the column.
i don't have time tonight to address the other idiot at the nation. that'll have to wait.
but katha pollitt is ugly. she's ugly in the mirror, she's ugly in the x-rays.
she writes the same basic columns over and over. it's the holidays? time for her 10 most important charities! is it time yet to do another piece on how many female columnists the new york times publishes? but notice that she never uses her space to call out the nation for publishing 491 men in 2007 and only 149. a feminist would.
but katha pollitt's no feminist. she's just a really ugly, really loud woman.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Thursday, January 17, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the air war more deadly (and more illegal), X-Men's Rogue continues to provide laughter in the 2008 presidential race, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Today Dee Knight (Workers World) explores an upcoming event and notes war resister Camilo Mejia
Mejia spent nine months in military prison from May 2004 to February 2005 for refusing to return to Iraq after his first tour of duty there. He has been speaking and organizing since his release. He was chosen to chair the IVAW National Board at its conference last August. He told WW the organization is growing fast--from about 500 in August to more than 700 now, with members in 48 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and on numerous bases both here and overseas, including Iraq.Commenting on the recent mutiny by a platoon of soldiers in Iraq, Mejia said this type of resistance is increasingly common there. "I refused a mission once," he said. "We had watched several of our comrades be killed and wounded. I said no--as squad leader--that I would not allow my guys to be used as bait for some colonel to make general."
Camilo Mejia tells his story in Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, published last May by The New Press.
War resisters have resisted in a number of ways throughout the Iraq War. That includes the ones who went to Canada seeking asylum. November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Parliament is the solution.Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. Both War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist are calling for actions from January 24-26. The War Resisters Support Campaign has more on the action in Canada:
The War Resisters Support Campaign has called a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to ensure : 1) that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and 2) that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada. For listings of local actions, see our Events page. If you are able to organize a rally in your community, contact the Campaign -- we will list events as details come in.
Courage to Resist notes:
Join and support January 25 vigils and delegations in support of U.S. war resisters currently seeking sanctuary Canada. Actions are being planned in Washington D.C., New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Supporters will meet with officials at Canadian Consulates across the United States in order underscore that many Americans hope that the Canadian Parliament votes (possible as early as February) in favor of a provision to allow war resisters to remain. Download and distribute Jan. 25-26 action leaflet (PDF).Supporting the war resisters in Canada is a concrete way to demonstrate your support of the troops who refuse to fight. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!
Details January 25-26 actions/events in support of U.S. war resisters.
Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay!" and encourage others to sign.
Organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you .
Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Dee Knight (Workers World) notes, "IVAW wants as many people as possible to attend the event. It is planning to provide live broadcasting of the sessions for those who cannot hear the testimony firsthand. 'We have been inspired by the tremendous support the movement has shown us,' IVAW says. 'We believe the success of Winter Soldier will ultimately depend on the support of our allies and the hard work of our members'."
That's in March. Today Josh White (Washington Post) reports on the escalation of the air-war (or is that supposed to be a "'surge' in the deaths of innocents"?) that finds the US military command admitting to having conducted at least five times more air bombings in 2007 than in the previous year leading to the dropping of "1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006. . . . The greater reliance on air power has raised concerns from human rights groups, which say that 500-pound and 2,000-pound munitions threaten civilians, especially when dropped in residential neighborhoods where insurgents mix with the population." Human rights groups are far from the only ones who should be complaining. The 1899 Laws and Customs of War on Land was ratified by the US Senate in 1902 and Article XXV clearly forbids the actions described above: "The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited." Apparently unaware of those basics, the US Air Force announces many bombings in Iraq yesterday including:
* Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped guided bomb unit-31s on enemy structures in the vicinity of Baghdad
* In Khan Bani Sa'd, a house-borned IED and VBIED were destroyed by F-16s using GBU-38s.
Khan Bani Sa'd was also the location for "a show of force" as was an area outside Babi and Tall Afar. This as Reuters reports today six dead ("including two women") as a result of US forces ground and air attacks "on a building in Jalawla" which also left two women wounded. US military flack Winfield Danielson pulls spin duty today declaring, "Coalition forces deeply regrets when civilians are hurt or killed during operations to rid Iraq of terrorism." Who are the terrorists at this point? Iraqis in their own country or foreign fighters they want to leave?
Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers' Baghdad Observer) reports on reactions to the Iraq War during a recent visit to Kuwait:
But popular support for the war next door has waned. While Saddam Hussein's capture and execution were welcomed in Kuwait the deterioration of a nation caught people off guard. A Kuwaiti friend explained it to me in simple terms. "Before they had water, now they do not. Before they had electricity now they do not, before they had security now they do not," she said. "This was not liberation or democracy."
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Diyala Province bombing that claimed 12 lives (plus the life of the bomber) and left 16 wounded, a primary school blown up in Mosul, a Mosul car bombing that killed 1 police officer and wounded one woman.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the latest (known) attack on an official as Sheik Mohammed Felek was targeted in an unsuccessful assassination attempt by unknown assailants firing from two cars, in addition 1 police officer was shot dead another left wounded in Ibn al-Jawzi while last night 1 police officer was shot dead in Salahuddin.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
But worry ye not, Al Jazeera reports the International Monetary Fund is high on Iraq and, "Surging oil prices have recently boosted Iraq's oil revenues to $27 bn, $6bn higher than projected. The IMF approved a $744m credit for Iraq on December 19, just a week after the country paid off an earlier $471m loan." Interesting when you consider Richard Cowan (Reuters) reporting on how the US House has caved to Bully Boy and passed an exemption that prevents US citizens from suing the current puppet government for things done by Saddam Hussein's government. Or maybe Bully Boy just fretted that some Americans still believe the false-link he's repeated on Iraq and 9-11 and that he might be proved a liar in court? Meanwhile, Andy Rowell (The Price of Oil) noted Monday the objection by the Iraqi Parliament to the deals Iraq's northern Kurdish region had entered into with Big Oil companies and quoted Osama al-Nijifi speaking at a press conference, "There must be a formula for maintaining the unity of Iraq and the distribution of its wealth. Oil and gas are a national wealth and we are concerned about those who want to go it alone when it comes to signing deals." CBS and AP report today, "The Iraqi Oil Ministry has decided to stop cooperating with international oil companies participating in production-sharing contracts with the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq, an official said Thursday. The decision is concsidered a first step toward implementing the ministry's threats to blacklist and exclude these companies from any future deals with Baghdad if they refuse to abandon their oil deals with the self-ruling Kurdish government."
Meanwhile the Pew Research Center releases their latest findings on the Iraq War in a study of the US campaigns for president:
Public views of the situation in Iraq, which turned more positive in the fall, have again slipped. Currently, 41% of Americans say the military effort in Iraq is going very well or fairly well, while 54% say that the situation there is not going well.
In November, opinion was split over progress in the military effort; 48% said things were going well there, the highest percentage expressing this view in more than a year (47% in September 2006). Both Republicans and Democrats are less likely to say the situation in Iraq is going well; currently, 66% of Republicans express a positive opinion of the situation, down from 74% in November. This shift among Democrats has been comparable (24% now, 33% then).
While positive perceptions of the military effort have declined in the past month, they still remain higher than they were earlier this year (30% in February). But support for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as possible remains strong, despite the improved views of the situation. Currently, 54% favor bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq, which is consistent with measures for the past year.
[. . . ]
Negative views of the decision to go to take military action against Iraq are at their highest point since the war began almost five years ago. Slightly more than a third of Americans (36%) say the decision to use military force was right while 56% see it as wrong. In September 2007, 42% said the war was the right decision, compared with 50% who said it was wrong.
The above is from the sections "Iraq Views Turn More Negative" and "More See Iraq as 'Wrong Decision'." Today in DC, the US House of Representatives' House Armed Services Committee met at ten "to receive testimony on Iraqi Security Forces." Mark Kimmitt (Deputy Assistant Secreatary of Defense for the Middle East) and Lt. General James Dubik (Commanding General of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq in Baghdad) appeared before the committee chaired by Ike Skelton who noted, "Today the Armed Services Committee is holding the very first hearing of our new year." William Branigin (Washington Post) reports that Dubik and Kimmitt attempt to put foward that Iraqi forces can take responsiblity for security of Iraq in early 2009 . . . or 2012 and "the officials also said that Iraq does not expect to be able to defend itself against external threats for at least another 10 to 12 years." CBS and AP report US Rep Roscoe Bartlett pressed for concrete answers noting, "I think most Americans would like to have on their refrigerator a chart they can follow that speaks to when we can get out." Dubik responded with a non-response ("When I talk to my dad about these kind of things, my advice is to him is put no number on the refrigerator" -- ???????????) leading Bartlett to press, "Does that meanw e'll be there forever? I don't think people have any stomach for that."
Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates,stated today in a press conference of the rotations in and out of Iraq "if you haven't been there in 30 days, you're out of date." This as Gordon Lubold (Christian Science Monitor) reports that Bully Boy and David Petraeus (General and White House Boy Pal) are in conflict with Gates "over how much further US forces can be cut later this year." Lubold notes: "The tug of war is illustrated by General Petraeus's recent requests for forces. He has asked for small numbers of troops to fill gaps left by departing forces to help manage operations as the broader drawdown continues, sources say. Those requests are giving Pentagon officials pause because many forces that could go have not had adequate time at home." Asked in the press conference today about the the drawdown of the escalation, Gates replied, "Well, first of all, I -- all the evidence available to me now suggests that we will be able to complete the drawdown of the five brigade combat teams that General Petraeus recommended last September, and that that take place by the end of July. Obviously we will wait to see General Petraues' evaluation in March, in terms of what we might be able to do after July." Gates went on to describe it as "a dynamic process" and utilized many similar hedge phrases.
Who cares what I might be for real
Underneath my games
I'll let you chose from a thousand faces
And a thousand names
-- Carly Simon, "The Girl You Think You See" (Anticipation)
Yes, we are turning to US political news, where Barack Obama insults not just "Tom Hayden Democrats," but the majority of the country. In a craven display, even for Bambi, he batted those long lashes at the Renoa Gazette editorial board to gush over Ronnie Ray-Gun: "I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He-he put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and, you know, government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating." Actually, Bambi, the pre-Reagan period you're so IGNORANT of, produced the sunshine laws and open government. You're so very good as polishing the right-wing talking points and making them sound fresh (or maybe Stay Fresh?) but what you say is blah-blah-blah-blah. The Nation's Bambi groupies are going to have to work over time to justify their lover's latest statements or maybe they'll just -- as they so often do -- ignore it.
Bambi's launching an attack on the government -- which, for the record, was more than working at that point and actually had several waves of reform and accountability coming (such as the sex discrimination case against Sears that Reagan's head of the EEOC -- that would be Clarence Thomas -- would kill). Is he that uninformed of times he lived through? Or is he just eager to trash everyone? He just slammed the feminist movement, the Civil Rights movement, the peace movement, the gay rights movement, the labor movement and . . . it's honestly hard to think who Bambi didn't just spit on.
There will be the usual enablers to rush in say, "Don't you tsk-tsk at Bambi! Ignore them, Bambi, hop back on your potty chair!" But it's no longer an issue of ignorance. Bambi knows what he's saying. Tom Hayden laid it out in an open letter to Bambi in November:
On one side were armed segregationists, on the other peaceful black youth. On one side were the destroyers of Vietnam, on the other were those who refused to submit to orders. On the one side were those keeping women in inferior roles, on the other were those demanding an equal rights amendment. On one side were those injecting chemical poisons into our rivers, soils, air and blood streams, on the other were the defenders of the natural world. On one side were the perpetrators of big money politics, on the other were keepers of the plain democratic tradition. Does anyone believe those conflicts are behind us?
Barack Obama is the X-Men's Rogue, morphing and shape shifting from one moment to the next to become whatever is needed at present. Ronald Ray-Gun lashed out at MLK throughout history and only signed the MLK Day proclamation due to the fact that it had a veto proof in the support. For those remembering last week and the faux outrage ginned up, it may come as shocking that now Bambi's saying he's like Ronald Reagan.
But that is Barack Obama.
I'm not necessarily
The girl you think you see
Whoever you want is exactly who
I'm more than willing to be
I'll be a queen
A foul-mouthed marine
Your Mary Magdalene
To please you
-- Carly Simon, "The Girl You Think You See"
katha chirps in a piece of dithering today (no link to trash):
I've written many times about sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton as an old, ugly, castrating witch-and-what-rhymes-with-it, but Gloria Steinem's New York Times op-ed in defense of her, "Women Are Never the Front-Runners," was not helpful, to put it mildly. "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life," Steinem wrote. "Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter)." Yes, black men got the vote first, although they could be lynched for using it.
poor katha, she never did have a brain.
her whole career has been built on being a flame thrower. 'career' may be too strong.
katha of course infamously decided in 2002 that she was the 1 to tell the n.a.a.c.p. what they needed to focus on - white katha.
that takes racism katha and katha's just a racist.
gloria steinem's point was lost on katha because katha lacks a brain.
gloria wrote about the gender barrier. gloria did not minimize what african-american males or jewish males or japanese-american males (to name only some of the suffering) had gone through.
but katha always sided with red-betty.
katha wrote a valentine for red-betty when friedan finally died and went to hell.
it doesn't bother me that betty was red.
it does (and did) bother me that betty friedan and her sycophants (including e.f.) lied about that fact.
red-betty was a movement writer for communist periodicals.
she didn't just stumble into a public library 1 day and realize, 'i've got a book idea.' (in fact, she ripped off simone as any 1 with a brain could have grasped. she ripped of simone and dumbed it down to make it appeal to white, middle-class women and that's what the communist party wanted).
the feminine mystique did not speak to all women, even in its 1st ten years.
it is a plodding and bad book.
and reading it, you knew there was a lie at the heart of it.
the lie was that betty was just a dull homebody who suddenly grasped there was a problem.
now when betty published, being a communist could hurt. (she was very lucky that so many intellectuals and play 1s in the mainstream press were happy to sell 1 of their own.) but by the time she was leaving now, there was no reason to lie.
but betty lied and lied.
like many communists of that period, she hated lesbians.
people have never understood that about red-betty. why did she hate lesbians so loudly and so proudly?
because she was a communist and the communist party didn't like homosexuals.
people try to think up 101 excuses for friedan's attacks on lesibans. but that's where her homophobia was rooted.
the communist party didn't like homosexuals.
so decades go by and betty friedan is still lying about who she is.
she finally kicks the bucket and heads to hell (not because of communism but because she was an evil, evil woman) and katha pollitt shows up to white-wash red-betty 1 more time.
here's the reality katha can't tell you.
there were 2 camps in the second-wave of feminism. there was the camp betty tried to lead and there was the camp gloria steinem belonged to.
gloria's camp was welcoming to all. they didn't care who you had sex with or what your political history was.
betty's camp had to work overtime purging and cleansing because there leader was in the closet about who she was (politically).
when katha's piping off about economics - months go by where she's written not 1 word about them but suddenly shows up screaming they are the issue - it's because she's got the marxist framework of betty's. (that's not calling katha a communist, she's not smart enough - and, again, there's nothing wrong with being a communist - there is something sad about lying about it.)
it's that 'economics' betty could never define in her lifetime because to do so, to really do so, would be to out herself.
so katha never grasped what was what due to her mentor.
(like most closet communists of that era, betty ended up in the republican camp and ronald reagan appointed her to a show committee.)
the gender barrier has to do with legalities.
and that's something that betty (and her little girl katha) never grasped. it was always this undefined 'economics.'
this sort of free floating - wait, we'll get to it someday, 'economics.'
what gloria was writing about was personhood.
the gender barrier is about personhood.
and it's really easy for the idiots (and put katha in that category - she did stalk a man online who left her - for a much smarter and nicer woman, you can't blame him - and that woman actually has talent) to show up and play dumb. it's easy because most people don't know the basics.
are you a person in the eyes of the law or are you a possession?
legally, slavery was outlawed following the civil war.
that didn't mean things were peachy keen for african-americans. they were threatened, they were physically attacked, they were the targets of some of the most embarrassing hatred this country has ever seen. (throw the native americans in as other victims and especially the japanese-americans who were judged 'enemies' and locked away solely for race during w.w.i.i.)
but gloria wasn't trying to create a caste-system and even says that in her column.
what she was doing was talking about legal rights.
women - of all races - have lagged behind repeatedly.
they were not seen as people in the eyes of the law. that included property rights, that included inheritance rights, that included the ability to say 'no.'
in the late 70s, marital rape finally got traction in the court and finally women had a little more personhood.
in the film bob, carol, ted and alice, you've got a wife who doesn't want to have sex. and you see everything that she has to do to stop it. it's a comedy film but dyan cannon is supposed to be the 'bitch' ('dream girl' is personified by natalie wood's character). in the end, she 'agrees' to sex.
now that's not marital rape in a violent way but if you saw that film at the time it came out and you caught the reactions then, you would have thought dyan cannon was calling for the death of all world leaders. she was seen as a huge bitch. it was 'that poor eliott gould.'
that was the attitude.
and the law saw it as okay if husbands raped their wives. it wasn't a problem, it wasn't an issue.
currently, our bodies are under attack, our right to say yes or no to pregnancy (most obviously in terms of abortion but birth control's under attack as well). the right won with roe v. wade didn't come until the 70s. yes, it was legal already in new york state but that wasn't the way it was across the country.
sexual harassment was considered office hijinks. boss copped a feel? be flattered. get another job. that was the attitude.
now before ronald reagan (whom barack obama praised today) got into office there were a number of lawsuits that would have brought us full personhood in the same way that the e.r.a. would have. they got swept away. clarence thomas was put in charge of the e.e.o.c. and suddenly women being relegated to the 'soft' departments at sears (which meant less money) was no longer an issue. by the same token, women in network news were doing class-action lawsuits.
there has been a long and ongoing struggle to break through the gender barrier that has prevented women from full legal status.
most people today aren't aware of it.
that doesn't minimize racism.
it does note, and gloria pointed this out, that sexism is still very acceptable in this society.
racism has not vanished. barack obama thinks it has judging by his crack-pot speech at the 2004 democratic convention.
but racism is very real and very ugly.
like sexism, it exists systemically to this day.
but personal racism can be called out.
but they both converge at the same point where 1 grouping is put above all others and they get to decide who enters the discussion, who gets recognition, who gets ignored.
gloria would never say racism doesn't exist. she would never say the violence of racism was a non-issue.
but that's' what she was writing about though pigs like robert parry and robert scheer distorted her on purpose.
suddenly, a woman who opened with an example of a candidate who was both a woman and a person of color, is being attacked and it only takes a nimrod like katha to spit back out the conventional wisdom.
that's because she's not a feminist writer.
she never has been.
ugly doesn't equal feminism except in stereotypical minds.
certainly katha pollitt is among the ugliest women to walk the face of the earth.
she was ugly before she got older. age has only made her more ugly.
she can't help how she looks on the outside (short of surgery) but she could have done work on the inside.
she never did. she never built up a knowledge base.
that's why she avoided writing about the gang-rape of 14-year-old abeer.
it's not an issue she tackles.
she's not a feminist.
she's an ugly woman with a loud mouth so she couldn't play genteel and some 1 decided to market her as a feminist.
but a feminist doesn't ignore abeer. a feminist doesn't do all the lame things katha's pathetic life has been about.
if you said 'gerder lerner' to katha she'd stare at you blankly.
she has no historical knowledge to speak of.
she really has no knowledge period.
but she knows how to create a scene.
so she comes along today and creates a scene.
this is the woman who never called out barack obama's homophobia.
alleged feminist, like i said. she's not a real 1.
she's an ugly woman whose 'book' didn't sell. no 1 wants to print her in the mainstream so she's going to try to hang onto her perch at the nation for as long as she can.
and she does a lot of attention-seeking, embarrassing behavior because if she doesn't get attention, she doesn't exist.
when you're a really bad writer, you need to throw those bombs to get attention.
so gloria's her target today.
she's probably also trying to make it up to 'mommy.' if there was ever a woman uglier on the outside than katha it would be betty friedan.
and katha knows damn well that betty friedan was racist and homophobic.
but she never called that out.
now she tries to tar and feather gloria when a real feminist would have been writing about the legal recognition aspect.
now katha's not interested in that. that's 'mainstream feminism.' in her opinion. but even an idiot like katha knows enough about feminism to know what branch gloria was utilizing in the column.
i don't have time tonight to address the other idiot at the nation. that'll have to wait.
but katha pollitt is ugly. she's ugly in the mirror, she's ugly in the x-rays.
she writes the same basic columns over and over. it's the holidays? time for her 10 most important charities! is it time yet to do another piece on how many female columnists the new york times publishes? but notice that she never uses her space to call out the nation for publishing 491 men in 2007 and only 149. a feminist would.
but katha pollitt's no feminist. she's just a really ugly, really loud woman.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Thursday, January 17, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the air war more deadly (and more illegal), X-Men's Rogue continues to provide laughter in the 2008 presidential race, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Today Dee Knight (Workers World) explores an upcoming event and notes war resister Camilo Mejia
Mejia spent nine months in military prison from May 2004 to February 2005 for refusing to return to Iraq after his first tour of duty there. He has been speaking and organizing since his release. He was chosen to chair the IVAW National Board at its conference last August. He told WW the organization is growing fast--from about 500 in August to more than 700 now, with members in 48 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and on numerous bases both here and overseas, including Iraq.Commenting on the recent mutiny by a platoon of soldiers in Iraq, Mejia said this type of resistance is increasingly common there. "I refused a mission once," he said. "We had watched several of our comrades be killed and wounded. I said no--as squad leader--that I would not allow my guys to be used as bait for some colonel to make general."
Camilo Mejia tells his story in Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, published last May by The New Press.
War resisters have resisted in a number of ways throughout the Iraq War. That includes the ones who went to Canada seeking asylum. November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Parliament is the solution.Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. Both War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist are calling for actions from January 24-26. The War Resisters Support Campaign has more on the action in Canada:
The War Resisters Support Campaign has called a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to ensure : 1) that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and 2) that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada. For listings of local actions, see our Events page. If you are able to organize a rally in your community, contact the Campaign -- we will list events as details come in.
Courage to Resist notes:
Join and support January 25 vigils and delegations in support of U.S. war resisters currently seeking sanctuary Canada. Actions are being planned in Washington D.C., New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Supporters will meet with officials at Canadian Consulates across the United States in order underscore that many Americans hope that the Canadian Parliament votes (possible as early as February) in favor of a provision to allow war resisters to remain. Download and distribute Jan. 25-26 action leaflet (PDF).Supporting the war resisters in Canada is a concrete way to demonstrate your support of the troops who refuse to fight. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!
Details January 25-26 actions/events in support of U.S. war resisters.
Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay!" and encourage others to sign.
Organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you .
Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Dee Knight (Workers World) notes, "IVAW wants as many people as possible to attend the event. It is planning to provide live broadcasting of the sessions for those who cannot hear the testimony firsthand. 'We have been inspired by the tremendous support the movement has shown us,' IVAW says. 'We believe the success of Winter Soldier will ultimately depend on the support of our allies and the hard work of our members'."
That's in March. Today Josh White (Washington Post) reports on the escalation of the air-war (or is that supposed to be a "'surge' in the deaths of innocents"?) that finds the US military command admitting to having conducted at least five times more air bombings in 2007 than in the previous year leading to the dropping of "1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006. . . . The greater reliance on air power has raised concerns from human rights groups, which say that 500-pound and 2,000-pound munitions threaten civilians, especially when dropped in residential neighborhoods where insurgents mix with the population." Human rights groups are far from the only ones who should be complaining. The 1899 Laws and Customs of War on Land was ratified by the US Senate in 1902 and Article XXV clearly forbids the actions described above: "The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited." Apparently unaware of those basics, the US Air Force announces many bombings in Iraq yesterday including:
* Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped guided bomb unit-31s on enemy structures in the vicinity of Baghdad
* In Khan Bani Sa'd, a house-borned IED and VBIED were destroyed by F-16s using GBU-38s.
Khan Bani Sa'd was also the location for "a show of force" as was an area outside Babi and Tall Afar. This as Reuters reports today six dead ("including two women") as a result of US forces ground and air attacks "on a building in Jalawla" which also left two women wounded. US military flack Winfield Danielson pulls spin duty today declaring, "Coalition forces deeply regrets when civilians are hurt or killed during operations to rid Iraq of terrorism." Who are the terrorists at this point? Iraqis in their own country or foreign fighters they want to leave?
Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers' Baghdad Observer) reports on reactions to the Iraq War during a recent visit to Kuwait:
But popular support for the war next door has waned. While Saddam Hussein's capture and execution were welcomed in Kuwait the deterioration of a nation caught people off guard. A Kuwaiti friend explained it to me in simple terms. "Before they had water, now they do not. Before they had electricity now they do not, before they had security now they do not," she said. "This was not liberation or democracy."
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Diyala Province bombing that claimed 12 lives (plus the life of the bomber) and left 16 wounded, a primary school blown up in Mosul, a Mosul car bombing that killed 1 police officer and wounded one woman.
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the latest (known) attack on an official as Sheik Mohammed Felek was targeted in an unsuccessful assassination attempt by unknown assailants firing from two cars, in addition 1 police officer was shot dead another left wounded in Ibn al-Jawzi while last night 1 police officer was shot dead in Salahuddin.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
But worry ye not, Al Jazeera reports the International Monetary Fund is high on Iraq and, "Surging oil prices have recently boosted Iraq's oil revenues to $27 bn, $6bn higher than projected. The IMF approved a $744m credit for Iraq on December 19, just a week after the country paid off an earlier $471m loan." Interesting when you consider Richard Cowan (Reuters) reporting on how the US House has caved to Bully Boy and passed an exemption that prevents US citizens from suing the current puppet government for things done by Saddam Hussein's government. Or maybe Bully Boy just fretted that some Americans still believe the false-link he's repeated on Iraq and 9-11 and that he might be proved a liar in court? Meanwhile, Andy Rowell (The Price of Oil) noted Monday the objection by the Iraqi Parliament to the deals Iraq's northern Kurdish region had entered into with Big Oil companies and quoted Osama al-Nijifi speaking at a press conference, "There must be a formula for maintaining the unity of Iraq and the distribution of its wealth. Oil and gas are a national wealth and we are concerned about those who want to go it alone when it comes to signing deals." CBS and AP report today, "The Iraqi Oil Ministry has decided to stop cooperating with international oil companies participating in production-sharing contracts with the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq, an official said Thursday. The decision is concsidered a first step toward implementing the ministry's threats to blacklist and exclude these companies from any future deals with Baghdad if they refuse to abandon their oil deals with the self-ruling Kurdish government."
Meanwhile the Pew Research Center releases their latest findings on the Iraq War in a study of the US campaigns for president:
Public views of the situation in Iraq, which turned more positive in the fall, have again slipped. Currently, 41% of Americans say the military effort in Iraq is going very well or fairly well, while 54% say that the situation there is not going well.
In November, opinion was split over progress in the military effort; 48% said things were going well there, the highest percentage expressing this view in more than a year (47% in September 2006). Both Republicans and Democrats are less likely to say the situation in Iraq is going well; currently, 66% of Republicans express a positive opinion of the situation, down from 74% in November. This shift among Democrats has been comparable (24% now, 33% then).
While positive perceptions of the military effort have declined in the past month, they still remain higher than they were earlier this year (30% in February). But support for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as possible remains strong, despite the improved views of the situation. Currently, 54% favor bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq, which is consistent with measures for the past year.
[. . . ]
Negative views of the decision to go to take military action against Iraq are at their highest point since the war began almost five years ago. Slightly more than a third of Americans (36%) say the decision to use military force was right while 56% see it as wrong. In September 2007, 42% said the war was the right decision, compared with 50% who said it was wrong.
The above is from the sections "Iraq Views Turn More Negative" and "More See Iraq as 'Wrong Decision'." Today in DC, the US House of Representatives' House Armed Services Committee met at ten "to receive testimony on Iraqi Security Forces." Mark Kimmitt (Deputy Assistant Secreatary of Defense for the Middle East) and Lt. General James Dubik (Commanding General of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq in Baghdad) appeared before the committee chaired by Ike Skelton who noted, "Today the Armed Services Committee is holding the very first hearing of our new year." William Branigin (Washington Post) reports that Dubik and Kimmitt attempt to put foward that Iraqi forces can take responsiblity for security of Iraq in early 2009 . . . or 2012 and "the officials also said that Iraq does not expect to be able to defend itself against external threats for at least another 10 to 12 years." CBS and AP report US Rep Roscoe Bartlett pressed for concrete answers noting, "I think most Americans would like to have on their refrigerator a chart they can follow that speaks to when we can get out." Dubik responded with a non-response ("When I talk to my dad about these kind of things, my advice is to him is put no number on the refrigerator" -- ???????????) leading Bartlett to press, "Does that meanw e'll be there forever? I don't think people have any stomach for that."
Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates,stated today in a press conference of the rotations in and out of Iraq "if you haven't been there in 30 days, you're out of date." This as Gordon Lubold (Christian Science Monitor) reports that Bully Boy and David Petraeus (General and White House Boy Pal) are in conflict with Gates "over how much further US forces can be cut later this year." Lubold notes: "The tug of war is illustrated by General Petraeus's recent requests for forces. He has asked for small numbers of troops to fill gaps left by departing forces to help manage operations as the broader drawdown continues, sources say. Those requests are giving Pentagon officials pause because many forces that could go have not had adequate time at home." Asked in the press conference today about the the drawdown of the escalation, Gates replied, "Well, first of all, I -- all the evidence available to me now suggests that we will be able to complete the drawdown of the five brigade combat teams that General Petraeus recommended last September, and that that take place by the end of July. Obviously we will wait to see General Petraues' evaluation in March, in terms of what we might be able to do after July." Gates went on to describe it as "a dynamic process" and utilized many similar hedge phrases.
Who cares what I might be for real
Underneath my games
I'll let you chose from a thousand faces
And a thousand names
-- Carly Simon, "The Girl You Think You See" (Anticipation)
Yes, we are turning to US political news, where Barack Obama insults not just "Tom Hayden Democrats," but the majority of the country. In a craven display, even for Bambi, he batted those long lashes at the Renoa Gazette editorial board to gush over Ronnie Ray-Gun: "I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He-he put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and, you know, government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating." Actually, Bambi, the pre-Reagan period you're so IGNORANT of, produced the sunshine laws and open government. You're so very good as polishing the right-wing talking points and making them sound fresh (or maybe Stay Fresh?) but what you say is blah-blah-blah-blah. The Nation's Bambi groupies are going to have to work over time to justify their lover's latest statements or maybe they'll just -- as they so often do -- ignore it.
Bambi's launching an attack on the government -- which, for the record, was more than working at that point and actually had several waves of reform and accountability coming (such as the sex discrimination case against Sears that Reagan's head of the EEOC -- that would be Clarence Thomas -- would kill). Is he that uninformed of times he lived through? Or is he just eager to trash everyone? He just slammed the feminist movement, the Civil Rights movement, the peace movement, the gay rights movement, the labor movement and . . . it's honestly hard to think who Bambi didn't just spit on.
There will be the usual enablers to rush in say, "Don't you tsk-tsk at Bambi! Ignore them, Bambi, hop back on your potty chair!" But it's no longer an issue of ignorance. Bambi knows what he's saying. Tom Hayden laid it out in an open letter to Bambi in November:
On one side were armed segregationists, on the other peaceful black youth. On one side were the destroyers of Vietnam, on the other were those who refused to submit to orders. On the one side were those keeping women in inferior roles, on the other were those demanding an equal rights amendment. On one side were those injecting chemical poisons into our rivers, soils, air and blood streams, on the other were the defenders of the natural world. On one side were the perpetrators of big money politics, on the other were keepers of the plain democratic tradition. Does anyone believe those conflicts are behind us?
Barack Obama is the X-Men's Rogue, morphing and shape shifting from one moment to the next to become whatever is needed at present. Ronald Ray-Gun lashed out at MLK throughout history and only signed the MLK Day proclamation due to the fact that it had a veto proof in the support. For those remembering last week and the faux outrage ginned up, it may come as shocking that now Bambi's saying he's like Ronald Reagan.
But that is Barack Obama.
I'm not necessarily
The girl you think you see
Whoever you want is exactly who
I'm more than willing to be
I'll be a queen
A foul-mouthed marine
Your Mary Magdalene
To please you
-- Carly Simon, "The Girl You Think You See"
1/16/2008
allan nairn, frank rich
Returning to a familiar neighborhood after an absence of nearly two months it seemed that many kids were skinnier, though there were various possible explanations.
The rains were slowing, so it was hotter, there had been a run of diarrhea and bleeding fever, and the holidays were recently over so -- like everywhere -- people had blown (some of) their money, but, in this case, not on flat-screen TVs the size of ping-pong tables, but rather on consecutive days of rice with meat, and on bus and ferry-fare to reunite family.
I was staring at two white, embroidered hanging cloths that do service as a corridor door when, to my disappointment, the dead person I was thinking of did not miraculously bustle through, but instead there emerged an aunt, with harassed eyes, and the news that we needed lots more food.
The al-Kuran reciters would be coming from the mosque -- who knew how many, on a given day? -- as well as the orphans (two motorcycle taxis-full -- which is a lot; they’re fairly tiny). There would also be their two guardian clerics, assorted relatives, alley neighbors, and the budget was busted: the purchased ingredients would not suffice to feed the guests for the death anniversary.
Why not? "Rice is up! Cooking oil is up! Peppers, chicken, everything!" (The chicken price-hike might have been minor good news two years ago, given the stinking coops behind the hanging cloths, but the bird flu had put an end to that protein-source, and sometime "micro-enterprise").
It was true, and almost everywhere. Food prices are on the rise. Which means for those on the edge of the nutritional cliff, some bodies are on the fall.
the above is from allan nairn's 'Skinny Kids: Economic Indicator' (common dreams). i'm going to keep highlighting nairn when i see him. he had to suffer a lot of dangers to report the truth - faced down thugs, report with amy goodman - lots of tragies and sufferings.
i had 2 e-mails i wanted to note. the 1st is from a regular reader, high school senior, lyle who asked me to note this from frank rich's new york times column sunday:
Not only did Mrs. Clinton betray some (but not too many) hurt feelings with genuine humor, she upped the ante by flattering Barack Obama as "very likable." Which prompted the Illinois senator to match Mrs. Clinton's most human moment to date with the most inhuman of his own. To use family-newspaper language, he behaved like a jerk - or, to be more precise, like Rick Lazio, the now-forgotten adversary who cleared Mrs. Clinton's path to the Senate by boorishly waving a paper in her face during a 2000 debate.
Mr. Obama’s grudging "You're likable enough, Hillary" made him look like "an ex-husband that was turning over the alimony check," in the formulation of Paul Begala, a Clinton backer. The moment stood in stark contrast to Mr. Obama's behavior in the corresponding debate just before the Iowa caucuses. There he raised his head high to defend Joe Biden's honor when Mr. Biden was questioned about his tic of spouting racial malapropisms.
Whatever the precise impact of the incessant video replays of Mr. Obama's condescension or of Mrs. Clinton's later quasi tears, Tuesday's vote speaks for itself. In her 2.6 percentage-point, 7,500-vote victory, Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Obama among women voters by 12 percentage points only five days after he carried them by 5 points in Iowa. As we reopen the gender wars, let's not forget that it's 2008, not 1968. There are actually some men who are offended by sexist male behavior too. Or by the female misogyny exemplified by the South Carolina woman who asked John McCain in November, "How do we beat the bitch?"
i hadn't read the column. i like frank rich's writing but on sundays - after the long writing edition's for third - i don't even want to look at a paper.
lyle wanted it to be noted for the writing, for the fact that it's not just women who were offended and because he's not sure that people get how important the debate was. lyle's right that the debate was important and it was cited in exit polls.
2nd e-mail i wanted to note was from a high school junior who's been reading this site for 2 years now. we've shared a lot of e-mails. but i learned something about her this week that i didn't know. she is bi-racial. her mother is african-american and her father is korean american. she read ava and c.i.'s 'TV: The Surreal Life stages comeback!' and she wondered if i could thank them for her? i can and i will tomorrow. if i'd seen the e-mail earlier today, i would've already told them.
i don't have her permission to quote from the e-mail here. but i want to urge you to grasp that just because bi-racial barack obama wants to deny his realities, that's not true of every bi-racial or multi-racial person. his campaign has caused a lot of pain.
___ was just glad that some 1 would stick up for her. ___, ava and c.i. live in a very ethnically mixed area (bay area) and they couldn't ignore bi-racial or multi-racial people if they wanted to. but they wouldn't want to.
they have heard at home and on the road how offensive so many do find barack obama's campaign. it is hurtful and it does render people invisible.
i really loved your e-mail and you should check your inbox if you haven't when you read this.
about 15 e-mails came in on amy goodman. people are sick of her. yeah, i know that feeling. she's bored us at all with her obama-fest passed off as journalism but after monday, she hit a low even for her.
in addition, there was a question about if i was posting on monday? (mlk day observed.) i hadn't even thought about it. let me answer that here tomorrow.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, January 16, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, officials continue to be targeted and a look at the Green Party debate.
Starting with war resisters. Heather Wokusch (American Chronicle) notes war resistance in Germany. She notes Agustin Aguayo's resistance, Clifton Hicks and "John." We noted John when we noted Wokusch's article earlier. Hicks' story is told in depth in Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq. Hicks would get his CO status after serving in Iraq (twice, his unit made it to Kuwait and were then sent back in instead of heading out of the Mid East as planned). Hicks shares this story with Laufer:
We heard a lot of gunfire up ahead and you could tell it wasn't just a couple AK-47s, it was some U.S. weapon firing back. We knew somebody was in a fight up there. We race ahead down the street and there's an 82 Airborne infantry platoon and they're all parked in their Humvees -- about four Humvees packed with guys. There's a house with the lights on and people are all around the place. There's a big fuss going on.
We pull up and we say, 'What's going on? We heard some shooting up here.' And they're like, 'Yeah, we got ambushed just now.' They started clearing buildings to find out who was firing at them. They kicked in this first door and there's a wedding party going on. What they do in Baghdad, when there's a wedding, they shoot into the air. These people were up on their roof, probably a little sauced up, happy there's a wedding, and I guess Grandpa is up on the roof shooting off his rifle at the same time as this 82nd patrol drives by and is engaged by insurgents from a field. They returned fire in both directions, and I think most of them returned fire on the wedding party. They returned fire on the wedding party and they shot three people, three people at a wedding party. Because somebody was shooting into the air to celebrate, these guys wanted to kill him.
The insurgents were fine, not a scrach on them. They made it just fine. The innocent people who were partying, just trying to celebrate a wedding, three of them had been shot. One man had been shot in the arm, a girl had been shot in the leg, and one younger girl who was about six was dead -- laying on the ground, dead. She was six years old, laying on the ground, face down, palms up, in a little flowery dress. She was stone dead. Mothers and women are all bawling and crying. The men are all standing in shock. We bandaged up the one guy. The one little girl was crying, she was maybe ten, shot in the leg. Everyone is sitting around like, 'Yeah, they f**king killed some little kid.' I'm like, 'What the f**k? That's pretty sh**ty.'
The 82nd called it up to their guys and their command said, 'Charlike Mike [military parlance for 'Continue the mission'], just keep going.' They packed up and drove off. So we just hopped in our humvees and we drove off too.
And that was the end of it. They applied first aid to the people who had been shot. The girl who was dead, they just left her there on the floor. We drove off and continued the mission.
War resisters have resisted in a number of ways throughout the Iraq War. That includes the ones who went to Canada seeking asylum. November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Parliament is the solution.Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. Both War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist are calling for actions from January 24-26. The War Resisters Support Campaign has more on the action in Canada:
The War Resisters Support Campaign has called a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to ensure : 1) that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and 2) that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada. For listings of local actions, see our Events page. If you are able to organize a rally in your community, contact the Campaign -- we will list events as details come in.
Courage to Resist notes:
Join and support January 25 vigils and delegations in support of U.S. war resisters currently seeking sanctuary Canada. Actions are being planned in Washington D.C., New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Supporters will meet with officials at Canadian Consulates across the United States in order underscore that many Americans hope that the Canadian Parliament votes (possible as early as February) in favor of a provision to allow war resisters to remain. Download and distribute Jan. 25-26 action leaflet (PDF).Supporting the war resisters in Canada is a concrete way to demonstrate your support of the troops who refuse to fight. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!
Details January 25-26 actions/events in support of U.S. war resisters.
Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay!" and encourage others to sign.
Organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you .
Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.
Tomorrow (Thursday), Ann Wright (retired State Department, retired US Col.) will have an event for her new book Dissent: Voice of Conscience (Koa Books, out next week) that will benefit Courage to Resist's above campaign. She will be at Oakland's First Congressional Church on 2501 Harrison along with Daniel Ellsberg. Dissent: Voices of Conscience, written by Wright and Susan Dixon with an introduction by Ellsberg,
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
Today James Glanz (New York Times) reveals that the White House's September 'progress' report to the US Congress was 'creative' and citing the spending by the puppet government in Baghdad as a 'progress'; however, "in its report on Tuesday the accountability office said official Iraqi Finance Ministry records showed that Iraq had spent only 4.4 percent of the reconstruction budget by August 2007. It also said that the rate of spending had substantially slowed from the previous year." Reality, Congress should have had their own reports ready and been willing to say to Petraues, Crocker and anyone else the White House sent before them, "That figure it not correct."
Congress' inability to do their job is obvious regarding the September 16, 2007 slaughter of Iraqis in Baghdad by the mercenaries of Baghdad. On Sunday, Lara Jakes Jordan and Matt Apuzzo (AP) reported that the investigation into the slaughter is now complicated because Blackwater had the vehicles in their convoy "repaired and repainted . . . immediately after". Eye witness testimony says Blackwater wasn't fired on (that's the lie the mercenary corporation originally put out) and now Blackwater's actions have resulted in more road blocks. Congress should have been asking about this when they held a hearing on Blackwater -- however, if you remember, they decided to take a pass on that. It wasn't their pass to take. They had Erik Prince before them, they should have at the bare minimum asked whether evidence was secured? They didn't do their job. Today James Risen and David Johnston (New York Times) report that the immunity deals the US State Department made with Blackwater employees (without Justice Department approval) as well as the variances in the law (which falls right back onto Congress and their inaction) have created "serious legal difficulties in pursuing criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards involved in a September shooting that left at least 17 Iraqis dead. In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent prosecution."
Yesterday, Thom Shanker (New York Times) reported that Iraq's defense minister Abdul Qadir has declared that US forces will still be in Iraq as late as 2018. This followed Suleiman al-Khalidi (Reuters) reporting Saturday that Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshiyar Zebari raving over how the one-on-one agreements that didn't require UN approval: "Iraq is in need of this U.S. presence but the period will be defined in the pact." The pact? The US and their puppet government in Baghdad have made a show of getting UN approval each year. The pact by-passes the UN. The pact also by-passes the Iraqi parliament which has voiced their objection and it by-passes the US Congress which expresses outrage when it remembers to. (The Constitution bars Bully Boy from forming this pact/treaty without Congress.) Citing Shanker's article, the New York Times' editorial blog (I did not make that up, "The Board"), maintains, "Mr. Qadir and his Iraqi government colleagues should be firmly disbused of such thinking. America must quickly organize an orderly withdrawal of troops, not wait for another decade." Earlier this week, Michael Evans (Times of London) reported, "The invasion of Iraq and the occupation of the country by US led multinational forces had been 'a terrible episode for everybody', a Foreign Office minister admitted yesterday. Lord Malloch-Brown, who has acquired a reputation for making controversial remarks in public, said 'a lot of people' had been lost, and no one could feel any sense of triumphalism." He is quoted stating: "We've lost a lot of people there. This is not something that there's triumphalism on any side. This is a terrible episode for everybody."
Yesterday, Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) noted another US collaborator was shot dead ('Awakening' Council leader for Khuthair Lafta) and "American helicopter gunships injured five civilians in Baladiyat" while AP reports that a convoy carrying "Midhat al-Mahmoud, president of the Supreme Judicial minister" killed 5 children it ran into "during a chaotic gunbattle with checkpoint guards" in Baghdad yesterday. In Monday's snapshot, this was noted: "Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Judge Amir Jawdat Al-na'ib ('member of the federal appeal court') was shot dead in Baghdad along with his driver today." Yesterday, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Abeer Mohammed (New York Times) reported that he had been "in his 60s" and that, "The attack appeared to be part of a longstanding campaign by militants to kill doctors, professors, lawyers and other professionals." Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) noted, "Many Iraqi judges and lawyers have been assassinated since 2003 as armed groups have sought to destroy the country's professional classes."
Turning to some of today's violence . . .
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bombing left six people wounded, an east Baghdad bombing claimed 2 lives and left ten others wounded, an "American army base in Shaab neighborhood north Baghdad" was attacked with mortar fire today, the Green Zone was attacked with mortar fire today, three Baghdad bombings on Palestine St. left three people wounded, a Kirkuk bombing left a police officer wounded, a woman blew herself up in Diyala and also took the lives of 8 other people with seven more injured and a Mosul car bombing left five people wounded. In the continued attacks on officials, Reuters notes a Sulaiman Pek truck bombing targeting the mayor -- he and three bodyguards were injured in the attack while a Dour car bombing targted and "wounded the head of the Iraqi-U.S. Joint Coordination Centre" as well as two of his bodyguards.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "clashes between the Iraqi army and gunmen" left six bystanders wounded in Mosul.
Kidnappings?
Reuters notes a police officer was kidnapped outside Tuz Khurmato Tuesday night and that "a university student" was killed in the same apparent action.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses were discovered in Baghdad and 1 in Khurmato.
Today the US military announced: "Three Multi-National -- North Soldiers were killed by small arms fire while conducting operations in Salah ad Din province Jan. 16. Additionally, two other Soldiers were wounded and evacuated to a Coalition hospital."
In the US, the search continues for Cesar Laurean who is suspected of killing Maria Laterbach who was due to testify against him -- to testify that he raped her. Maria disappeared in mid-December. The body found behind Cesar Laurean's home (in the 'burn pit') has been identified as Maria's. R. Gregg (Raleigh Chronicle) reports, "On Tuesday, during a nationally televised press conference, Onslow County District Attorney George Dewey Hudson, Jr. announced that Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach died of 'blunt force trauma' to the head." The US military knew of the rape charges in April when Maria made them. Yesterday, they began feeding the press (and some swallowed) that it wasn't really their fault because Maria said she didn't feel she was in danger. That claim may or may not be backed up but that does not push the burden off on the victim -- the US military had a responsible to do their jobs in a timely manner. They didn't. David Schoetz (ABC News) reports that spokesperson for the Marine Corps planned "to address the rape allegations Lautherbach had made against Laurean and how that information was handled after the woman was reported missing by her family Dec. 19 and her military status was changed to 'unauthorized absence'."
Turning to US politics. The Green Party held a debate in San Francisco Sunday with Cindy Sheehan and Matt Gonzalez moderating. Appearing were Cynthia McKinney, Kat Swift, Kent Mesplay, Jesse Johnson, Jared Ball and Ralph Nader. We'll note Cindy Sheehan is not only the Peace Mom, she's also running for the US Congress from California's 8th district and she is the only candidate running for office in 2008 that I am endorsing. As the debate continued, not unlike many Democratic debates and 'debates,' Iraq wasn't even noted.
Larry Bensky: It's distressing to me that we're about an hour into this program and the issue I'm about to bring up has been mentioned only in passing and not very much. I wonder if each of you would address how, if you are the nominee of the Green Party, you would speak to the American people to raise their awareness about what is going on with our tax dollars and the blood and psyches of our military in Iraq? And what you would do to stop it?
Here are the responses to Bensky's question.
Kent Mesplay: In my opening speech I had to gloss over my, of course, obvious disapproval of the war in Iraq, that it was a mistake. Our troops didn't make the mistake, I think, support our troops, impeach the president before he finds whatever specieous reasons are necessary to start another war. And really . . . there is no simple solution other than demanding immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq.
Cynthia McKinney: I agree that we ought to demand immediate withdrawal from Iraq. I voted for that when I was in Congress. One of I think three people. But the problem is not just Iraq. The problem is the militaristic turn that our foreign policy has taken. And so I wouldn't just say "Bring the troops home from Iraq," I would say, "Bring them home period -- from all over the world." And then the second part of it is because the Congress is so powerful, we have to people who will run for Congress on a peace agenda, a peace platform. That's why it's so important that we have people like Cindy Sheehan running for Congress because she shows us the power of individuals, the power of one woman willing to take a stand. And we all have that power, we just have to recognize it and do it.
Kat Smith: Well talking to the masses about how their tax dollars can be spent is really simple, you just put out the figures and show people and once they see the numbers, they understand it. As far as -- we also need to talk about the reallocation of monies to take care of war veterans. I mean, homelessness after Vietnam spiked dramatically and we're already seeing the homelessness with Iraqi veterans starting to spike. And there are very few mental health services for veterans in this country and VA benefits are decreasing daily. And I work with homeless services and we're seeing a lot more vets come in and I'm also in San Antonio [Texas] where a lot of the hospitals are so, you know, we see a lot of this. But it's really simple to talk to the masses about how their tax dollars are spent when you show them the figures -- like Cynthia mentioned some of them -- when people see this, they're like "Well, what's going on?" and you just have to talk to them about changing it.
Jesse Johnson: We step away from this disaster capitalism that we're investing in in this nation. As I said, we dimilitarize the economy. We immediately withdrawal. Frankly, the Constitution states clearly that we're not supposed to have a standing army to begin with. We're not supposed to be traipsing around trying to police the entire world. The veterans are a huge issue. The very moment that we were marching into Baghdad this last time -- and frankly, we've been at war in Baghdad, as far as the peopl of Baghdad, for 16 years -- whether it was the first Gulf War, whether it was the embargos taking place that harmed only women, children and the elderly and the infirmed. Or this last illegal, immoral conflict
And ultimately, finally, without question, we hold the war profiteering perpetrators to task for what they have done and, as I said before in regards to what impeachment states in the Constitution, we all need to remember it and the audience participation is out there.
That's four. Nader spoke at the end and didn't take part in the debate (spoke for seven minutes). Jared Ball? Ball endorsed McKinney so presumably he dropped out. Had that not happened, we wouldn't waste our time on him in the snapshot. (A full transcript of the entire debate ran in Hilda's Mix Tuesday.) Why not? Larry Bensky asked about the Iraq War. Bell decided to name check his own organization and organizations he belonged to, decided to mention this and that and everything except the Iraq War. Bensky's question was very clear: how would you increase awareness of the costs of the illegal war and how would you stop it. I don't think there was anything confusing about that question. We don't have time for nonsense. Candidates linked to above either regularly address the Iraq War or at least note it at their website.
Note to the Green Party, you had a debate on Sunday. It is now Wednesday. You should have already issued a press release post-event. Already Grist magazine has posted their pooh-pah commentary. More will be coming. The Green Party needs to get their own opinion out there. Amanda Witherell (San Francisco Bay Guardian) points out Sunday's debate was "their only planned debate" and notes Nader has stated he hasn't decided yet whether he will run for the nominated or not but "I'll be deciding within the next months."
Links to video segments can be found here. For those who would like to hear it, KPFA has it archived. Host/MC Allison is, of course, co-author with David Solnit of Army Of None.
This Friday the Peace and Freedom Party debate will be broadcast on KPFA at noon PST.
The rains were slowing, so it was hotter, there had been a run of diarrhea and bleeding fever, and the holidays were recently over so -- like everywhere -- people had blown (some of) their money, but, in this case, not on flat-screen TVs the size of ping-pong tables, but rather on consecutive days of rice with meat, and on bus and ferry-fare to reunite family.
I was staring at two white, embroidered hanging cloths that do service as a corridor door when, to my disappointment, the dead person I was thinking of did not miraculously bustle through, but instead there emerged an aunt, with harassed eyes, and the news that we needed lots more food.
The al-Kuran reciters would be coming from the mosque -- who knew how many, on a given day? -- as well as the orphans (two motorcycle taxis-full -- which is a lot; they’re fairly tiny). There would also be their two guardian clerics, assorted relatives, alley neighbors, and the budget was busted: the purchased ingredients would not suffice to feed the guests for the death anniversary.
Why not? "Rice is up! Cooking oil is up! Peppers, chicken, everything!" (The chicken price-hike might have been minor good news two years ago, given the stinking coops behind the hanging cloths, but the bird flu had put an end to that protein-source, and sometime "micro-enterprise").
It was true, and almost everywhere. Food prices are on the rise. Which means for those on the edge of the nutritional cliff, some bodies are on the fall.
the above is from allan nairn's 'Skinny Kids: Economic Indicator' (common dreams). i'm going to keep highlighting nairn when i see him. he had to suffer a lot of dangers to report the truth - faced down thugs, report with amy goodman - lots of tragies and sufferings.
i had 2 e-mails i wanted to note. the 1st is from a regular reader, high school senior, lyle who asked me to note this from frank rich's new york times column sunday:
Not only did Mrs. Clinton betray some (but not too many) hurt feelings with genuine humor, she upped the ante by flattering Barack Obama as "very likable." Which prompted the Illinois senator to match Mrs. Clinton's most human moment to date with the most inhuman of his own. To use family-newspaper language, he behaved like a jerk - or, to be more precise, like Rick Lazio, the now-forgotten adversary who cleared Mrs. Clinton's path to the Senate by boorishly waving a paper in her face during a 2000 debate.
Mr. Obama’s grudging "You're likable enough, Hillary" made him look like "an ex-husband that was turning over the alimony check," in the formulation of Paul Begala, a Clinton backer. The moment stood in stark contrast to Mr. Obama's behavior in the corresponding debate just before the Iowa caucuses. There he raised his head high to defend Joe Biden's honor when Mr. Biden was questioned about his tic of spouting racial malapropisms.
Whatever the precise impact of the incessant video replays of Mr. Obama's condescension or of Mrs. Clinton's later quasi tears, Tuesday's vote speaks for itself. In her 2.6 percentage-point, 7,500-vote victory, Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Obama among women voters by 12 percentage points only five days after he carried them by 5 points in Iowa. As we reopen the gender wars, let's not forget that it's 2008, not 1968. There are actually some men who are offended by sexist male behavior too. Or by the female misogyny exemplified by the South Carolina woman who asked John McCain in November, "How do we beat the bitch?"
i hadn't read the column. i like frank rich's writing but on sundays - after the long writing edition's for third - i don't even want to look at a paper.
lyle wanted it to be noted for the writing, for the fact that it's not just women who were offended and because he's not sure that people get how important the debate was. lyle's right that the debate was important and it was cited in exit polls.
2nd e-mail i wanted to note was from a high school junior who's been reading this site for 2 years now. we've shared a lot of e-mails. but i learned something about her this week that i didn't know. she is bi-racial. her mother is african-american and her father is korean american. she read ava and c.i.'s 'TV: The Surreal Life stages comeback!' and she wondered if i could thank them for her? i can and i will tomorrow. if i'd seen the e-mail earlier today, i would've already told them.
i don't have her permission to quote from the e-mail here. but i want to urge you to grasp that just because bi-racial barack obama wants to deny his realities, that's not true of every bi-racial or multi-racial person. his campaign has caused a lot of pain.
___ was just glad that some 1 would stick up for her. ___, ava and c.i. live in a very ethnically mixed area (bay area) and they couldn't ignore bi-racial or multi-racial people if they wanted to. but they wouldn't want to.
they have heard at home and on the road how offensive so many do find barack obama's campaign. it is hurtful and it does render people invisible.
i really loved your e-mail and you should check your inbox if you haven't when you read this.
about 15 e-mails came in on amy goodman. people are sick of her. yeah, i know that feeling. she's bored us at all with her obama-fest passed off as journalism but after monday, she hit a low even for her.
in addition, there was a question about if i was posting on monday? (mlk day observed.) i hadn't even thought about it. let me answer that here tomorrow.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, January 16, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, officials continue to be targeted and a look at the Green Party debate.
Starting with war resisters. Heather Wokusch (American Chronicle) notes war resistance in Germany. She notes Agustin Aguayo's resistance, Clifton Hicks and "John." We noted John when we noted Wokusch's article earlier. Hicks' story is told in depth in Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq. Hicks would get his CO status after serving in Iraq (twice, his unit made it to Kuwait and were then sent back in instead of heading out of the Mid East as planned). Hicks shares this story with Laufer:
We heard a lot of gunfire up ahead and you could tell it wasn't just a couple AK-47s, it was some U.S. weapon firing back. We knew somebody was in a fight up there. We race ahead down the street and there's an 82 Airborne infantry platoon and they're all parked in their Humvees -- about four Humvees packed with guys. There's a house with the lights on and people are all around the place. There's a big fuss going on.
We pull up and we say, 'What's going on? We heard some shooting up here.' And they're like, 'Yeah, we got ambushed just now.' They started clearing buildings to find out who was firing at them. They kicked in this first door and there's a wedding party going on. What they do in Baghdad, when there's a wedding, they shoot into the air. These people were up on their roof, probably a little sauced up, happy there's a wedding, and I guess Grandpa is up on the roof shooting off his rifle at the same time as this 82nd patrol drives by and is engaged by insurgents from a field. They returned fire in both directions, and I think most of them returned fire on the wedding party. They returned fire on the wedding party and they shot three people, three people at a wedding party. Because somebody was shooting into the air to celebrate, these guys wanted to kill him.
The insurgents were fine, not a scrach on them. They made it just fine. The innocent people who were partying, just trying to celebrate a wedding, three of them had been shot. One man had been shot in the arm, a girl had been shot in the leg, and one younger girl who was about six was dead -- laying on the ground, dead. She was six years old, laying on the ground, face down, palms up, in a little flowery dress. She was stone dead. Mothers and women are all bawling and crying. The men are all standing in shock. We bandaged up the one guy. The one little girl was crying, she was maybe ten, shot in the leg. Everyone is sitting around like, 'Yeah, they f**king killed some little kid.' I'm like, 'What the f**k? That's pretty sh**ty.'
The 82nd called it up to their guys and their command said, 'Charlike Mike [military parlance for 'Continue the mission'], just keep going.' They packed up and drove off. So we just hopped in our humvees and we drove off too.
And that was the end of it. They applied first aid to the people who had been shot. The girl who was dead, they just left her there on the floor. We drove off and continued the mission.
War resisters have resisted in a number of ways throughout the Iraq War. That includes the ones who went to Canada seeking asylum. November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Parliament is the solution.Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. Both War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist are calling for actions from January 24-26. The War Resisters Support Campaign has more on the action in Canada:
The War Resisters Support Campaign has called a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to ensure : 1) that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and 2) that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada. For listings of local actions, see our Events page. If you are able to organize a rally in your community, contact the Campaign -- we will list events as details come in.
Courage to Resist notes:
Join and support January 25 vigils and delegations in support of U.S. war resisters currently seeking sanctuary Canada. Actions are being planned in Washington D.C., New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Supporters will meet with officials at Canadian Consulates across the United States in order underscore that many Americans hope that the Canadian Parliament votes (possible as early as February) in favor of a provision to allow war resisters to remain. Download and distribute Jan. 25-26 action leaflet (PDF).Supporting the war resisters in Canada is a concrete way to demonstrate your support of the troops who refuse to fight. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!
Details January 25-26 actions/events in support of U.S. war resisters.
Sign the letter "Dear Canada: Let U.S. War Resisters Stay!" and encourage others to sign.
Organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you .
Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.
Tomorrow (Thursday), Ann Wright (retired State Department, retired US Col.) will have an event for her new book Dissent: Voice of Conscience (Koa Books, out next week) that will benefit Courage to Resist's above campaign. She will be at Oakland's First Congressional Church on 2501 Harrison along with Daniel Ellsberg. Dissent: Voices of Conscience, written by Wright and Susan Dixon with an introduction by Ellsberg,
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
Today James Glanz (New York Times) reveals that the White House's September 'progress' report to the US Congress was 'creative' and citing the spending by the puppet government in Baghdad as a 'progress'; however, "in its report on Tuesday the accountability office said official Iraqi Finance Ministry records showed that Iraq had spent only 4.4 percent of the reconstruction budget by August 2007. It also said that the rate of spending had substantially slowed from the previous year." Reality, Congress should have had their own reports ready and been willing to say to Petraues, Crocker and anyone else the White House sent before them, "That figure it not correct."
Congress' inability to do their job is obvious regarding the September 16, 2007 slaughter of Iraqis in Baghdad by the mercenaries of Baghdad. On Sunday, Lara Jakes Jordan and Matt Apuzzo (AP) reported that the investigation into the slaughter is now complicated because Blackwater had the vehicles in their convoy "repaired and repainted . . . immediately after". Eye witness testimony says Blackwater wasn't fired on (that's the lie the mercenary corporation originally put out) and now Blackwater's actions have resulted in more road blocks. Congress should have been asking about this when they held a hearing on Blackwater -- however, if you remember, they decided to take a pass on that. It wasn't their pass to take. They had Erik Prince before them, they should have at the bare minimum asked whether evidence was secured? They didn't do their job. Today James Risen and David Johnston (New York Times) report that the immunity deals the US State Department made with Blackwater employees (without Justice Department approval) as well as the variances in the law (which falls right back onto Congress and their inaction) have created "serious legal difficulties in pursuing criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards involved in a September shooting that left at least 17 Iraqis dead. In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent prosecution."
Yesterday, Thom Shanker (New York Times) reported that Iraq's defense minister Abdul Qadir has declared that US forces will still be in Iraq as late as 2018. This followed Suleiman al-Khalidi (Reuters) reporting Saturday that Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshiyar Zebari raving over how the one-on-one agreements that didn't require UN approval: "Iraq is in need of this U.S. presence but the period will be defined in the pact." The pact? The US and their puppet government in Baghdad have made a show of getting UN approval each year. The pact by-passes the UN. The pact also by-passes the Iraqi parliament which has voiced their objection and it by-passes the US Congress which expresses outrage when it remembers to. (The Constitution bars Bully Boy from forming this pact/treaty without Congress.) Citing Shanker's article, the New York Times' editorial blog (I did not make that up, "The Board"), maintains, "Mr. Qadir and his Iraqi government colleagues should be firmly disbused of such thinking. America must quickly organize an orderly withdrawal of troops, not wait for another decade." Earlier this week, Michael Evans (Times of London) reported, "The invasion of Iraq and the occupation of the country by US led multinational forces had been 'a terrible episode for everybody', a Foreign Office minister admitted yesterday. Lord Malloch-Brown, who has acquired a reputation for making controversial remarks in public, said 'a lot of people' had been lost, and no one could feel any sense of triumphalism." He is quoted stating: "We've lost a lot of people there. This is not something that there's triumphalism on any side. This is a terrible episode for everybody."
Yesterday, Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) noted another US collaborator was shot dead ('Awakening' Council leader for Khuthair Lafta) and "American helicopter gunships injured five civilians in Baladiyat" while AP reports that a convoy carrying "Midhat al-Mahmoud, president of the Supreme Judicial minister" killed 5 children it ran into "during a chaotic gunbattle with checkpoint guards" in Baghdad yesterday. In Monday's snapshot, this was noted: "Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Judge Amir Jawdat Al-na'ib ('member of the federal appeal court') was shot dead in Baghdad along with his driver today." Yesterday, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Abeer Mohammed (New York Times) reported that he had been "in his 60s" and that, "The attack appeared to be part of a longstanding campaign by militants to kill doctors, professors, lawyers and other professionals." Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) noted, "Many Iraqi judges and lawyers have been assassinated since 2003 as armed groups have sought to destroy the country's professional classes."
Turning to some of today's violence . . .
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bombing left six people wounded, an east Baghdad bombing claimed 2 lives and left ten others wounded, an "American army base in Shaab neighborhood north Baghdad" was attacked with mortar fire today, the Green Zone was attacked with mortar fire today, three Baghdad bombings on Palestine St. left three people wounded, a Kirkuk bombing left a police officer wounded, a woman blew herself up in Diyala and also took the lives of 8 other people with seven more injured and a Mosul car bombing left five people wounded. In the continued attacks on officials, Reuters notes a Sulaiman Pek truck bombing targeting the mayor -- he and three bodyguards were injured in the attack while a Dour car bombing targted and "wounded the head of the Iraqi-U.S. Joint Coordination Centre" as well as two of his bodyguards.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "clashes between the Iraqi army and gunmen" left six bystanders wounded in Mosul.
Kidnappings?
Reuters notes a police officer was kidnapped outside Tuz Khurmato Tuesday night and that "a university student" was killed in the same apparent action.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses were discovered in Baghdad and 1 in Khurmato.
Today the US military announced: "Three Multi-National -- North Soldiers were killed by small arms fire while conducting operations in Salah ad Din province Jan. 16. Additionally, two other Soldiers were wounded and evacuated to a Coalition hospital."
In the US, the search continues for Cesar Laurean who is suspected of killing Maria Laterbach who was due to testify against him -- to testify that he raped her. Maria disappeared in mid-December. The body found behind Cesar Laurean's home (in the 'burn pit') has been identified as Maria's. R. Gregg (Raleigh Chronicle) reports, "On Tuesday, during a nationally televised press conference, Onslow County District Attorney George Dewey Hudson, Jr. announced that Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach died of 'blunt force trauma' to the head." The US military knew of the rape charges in April when Maria made them. Yesterday, they began feeding the press (and some swallowed) that it wasn't really their fault because Maria said she didn't feel she was in danger. That claim may or may not be backed up but that does not push the burden off on the victim -- the US military had a responsible to do their jobs in a timely manner. They didn't. David Schoetz (ABC News) reports that spokesperson for the Marine Corps planned "to address the rape allegations Lautherbach had made against Laurean and how that information was handled after the woman was reported missing by her family Dec. 19 and her military status was changed to 'unauthorized absence'."
Turning to US politics. The Green Party held a debate in San Francisco Sunday with Cindy Sheehan and Matt Gonzalez moderating. Appearing were Cynthia McKinney, Kat Swift, Kent Mesplay, Jesse Johnson, Jared Ball and Ralph Nader. We'll note Cindy Sheehan is not only the Peace Mom, she's also running for the US Congress from California's 8th district and she is the only candidate running for office in 2008 that I am endorsing. As the debate continued, not unlike many Democratic debates and 'debates,' Iraq wasn't even noted.
Larry Bensky: It's distressing to me that we're about an hour into this program and the issue I'm about to bring up has been mentioned only in passing and not very much. I wonder if each of you would address how, if you are the nominee of the Green Party, you would speak to the American people to raise their awareness about what is going on with our tax dollars and the blood and psyches of our military in Iraq? And what you would do to stop it?
Here are the responses to Bensky's question.
Kent Mesplay: In my opening speech I had to gloss over my, of course, obvious disapproval of the war in Iraq, that it was a mistake. Our troops didn't make the mistake, I think, support our troops, impeach the president before he finds whatever specieous reasons are necessary to start another war. And really . . . there is no simple solution other than demanding immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq.
Cynthia McKinney: I agree that we ought to demand immediate withdrawal from Iraq. I voted for that when I was in Congress. One of I think three people. But the problem is not just Iraq. The problem is the militaristic turn that our foreign policy has taken. And so I wouldn't just say "Bring the troops home from Iraq," I would say, "Bring them home period -- from all over the world." And then the second part of it is because the Congress is so powerful, we have to people who will run for Congress on a peace agenda, a peace platform. That's why it's so important that we have people like Cindy Sheehan running for Congress because she shows us the power of individuals, the power of one woman willing to take a stand. And we all have that power, we just have to recognize it and do it.
Kat Smith: Well talking to the masses about how their tax dollars can be spent is really simple, you just put out the figures and show people and once they see the numbers, they understand it. As far as -- we also need to talk about the reallocation of monies to take care of war veterans. I mean, homelessness after Vietnam spiked dramatically and we're already seeing the homelessness with Iraqi veterans starting to spike. And there are very few mental health services for veterans in this country and VA benefits are decreasing daily. And I work with homeless services and we're seeing a lot more vets come in and I'm also in San Antonio [Texas] where a lot of the hospitals are so, you know, we see a lot of this. But it's really simple to talk to the masses about how their tax dollars are spent when you show them the figures -- like Cynthia mentioned some of them -- when people see this, they're like "Well, what's going on?" and you just have to talk to them about changing it.
Jesse Johnson: We step away from this disaster capitalism that we're investing in in this nation. As I said, we dimilitarize the economy. We immediately withdrawal. Frankly, the Constitution states clearly that we're not supposed to have a standing army to begin with. We're not supposed to be traipsing around trying to police the entire world. The veterans are a huge issue. The very moment that we were marching into Baghdad this last time -- and frankly, we've been at war in Baghdad, as far as the peopl of Baghdad, for 16 years -- whether it was the first Gulf War, whether it was the embargos taking place that harmed only women, children and the elderly and the infirmed. Or this last illegal, immoral conflict
And ultimately, finally, without question, we hold the war profiteering perpetrators to task for what they have done and, as I said before in regards to what impeachment states in the Constitution, we all need to remember it and the audience participation is out there.
That's four. Nader spoke at the end and didn't take part in the debate (spoke for seven minutes). Jared Ball? Ball endorsed McKinney so presumably he dropped out. Had that not happened, we wouldn't waste our time on him in the snapshot. (A full transcript of the entire debate ran in Hilda's Mix Tuesday.) Why not? Larry Bensky asked about the Iraq War. Bell decided to name check his own organization and organizations he belonged to, decided to mention this and that and everything except the Iraq War. Bensky's question was very clear: how would you increase awareness of the costs of the illegal war and how would you stop it. I don't think there was anything confusing about that question. We don't have time for nonsense. Candidates linked to above either regularly address the Iraq War or at least note it at their website.
Note to the Green Party, you had a debate on Sunday. It is now Wednesday. You should have already issued a press release post-event. Already Grist magazine has posted their pooh-pah commentary. More will be coming. The Green Party needs to get their own opinion out there. Amanda Witherell (San Francisco Bay Guardian) points out Sunday's debate was "their only planned debate" and notes Nader has stated he hasn't decided yet whether he will run for the nominated or not but "I'll be deciding within the next months."
Links to video segments can be found here. For those who would like to hear it, KPFA has it archived. Host/MC Allison is, of course, co-author with David Solnit of Army Of None.
This Friday the Peace and Freedom Party debate will be broadcast on KPFA at noon PST.
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