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Anti-War Activists Losing Patience with Obama
Abby Tomlinson voted for President Barack Obama, hoping that he would help end the war in Iraq quickly.
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan leads a demonstration against President George W. Bush’s Iraq policy in 2005. Now she plans to set up an anti-war camp near the Washington Monument to get President Barack Obama’s attention. AP ARCHIVES But
the Lubbock woman said she's disappointed in what the "peace" candidate
has accomplished along those lines, nearly a year after taking office.
Two wars continue. The Iraqi war may soon wind down but the Afghanistan war is escalating, with Obama's recent decision to send in 30,000 more troops.
"One of the major platforms of the Obama campaign was the move to end the war in Iraq. Many voters chose him because of that fact alone," said Tomlinson, who works in communications and marketing at Texas Tech University's College of Outreach and Distance Education. "He ran, whether he meant to or not, on a platform of peace.
"I guess we probably did put too much hope in him. I know that I did. I feel disappointed and a bit betrayed by Obama's choice to send more troops anywhere overseas. I feel like he has turned his back to those that voted him into office."
Now anti-war protesters - who have been somewhat subdued since Obama took office - are ramping up protests, bluntly reminding Obama that they expect him to fulfill his campaign promises.
They are sending letters, holding marches, even planning to set up an anti-war camp on the lawn of the Washington Monument.
"Our goal is to remind people that we still have two wars going on," said Joshua Mayer of Denton, a member of the Campus Anti-War Network at the University of North Texas. "Perhaps the anti-war movement maybe thought they could rest with Obama getting elected. A lot of people thought a Democrat would be the answer.
"But it's more important than ever to keep the movement going."
Troop status
Obama signed off on a controversial decision to send about 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, raising the total to about 100,000.
Government officials say those troops, who will increase efforts against al Qaeda militants and the Taliban, should be in place by next summer.
Obama said the troops "will increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans." Defense Secretary Robert Gates is among those defending Obama's strategy.
"What the president has announced is the beginning of a process, not the end of a process," Gates said. "And it is clear that this will be a gradual process and, as he said . . . based on conditions on the ground."
In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 51 percent of respondents support Obama's troop surge and 55 percent say it's not a good idea to set a date to remove troops. Almost 60 percent say they don't want these troops to stay there for more than two years, and just over 30 percent say troops should come home within a year.
"Up through his public statements [this month], people wanted to believe, they wanted to be hopeful, that he would not escalate the war in Afghanistan," said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, and director of the Dallas Peace Center. "Peace activists are going to become increasingly critical of Obama now."
'Dismayed, disheartened'
Mayer didn't vote for Obama, but he said he did have hope that Obama would bring about change.
"He didn't start those wars," he said. "But he is responsible for ending them."
Some anti-war advocates say they never let up - not when President George W. Bush was in the White House and not now that Obama is there. They have been lobbying, e-mailing and visiting legislators, said Desiree Fairooz, 53, who left her family and home in Arlington in 2007 to dedicate herself to the cause in Washington, D.C.
Fairooz, a member of the anti-war group Code Pink, which formed ahead of the war in Iraq, said she voted for Obama and is disappointed in what he has done.
"We're dismayed, disheartened and disappointed," Fairooz said. "We don't feel he is doing too much different than Bush. He didn't start these wars, but he's continuing them."
Texas-size protests
Cindy Sheehan has long been a larger-than-life anti-war protester, first with Bush and now with Obama.
The California mother drew national attention in recent years with protests near Bush's Crawford ranch as she demanded to speak to him about her son's death in Baghdad. She continued, marching with protesters this year outside Bush's Dallas home, calling on the former president and his administration to be investigated and prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Now she's planning to set up the anti-war camp near the Washington Monument to get Obama's attention.
"My protests have always been against the policies," Sheehan told the Star-Telegram in an e-mail. "At first I believed that the Republicans were the war party, but it became increasingly clear to me that it doesn't matter what party a president is - the policies of war continue on."
Sheehan said she thinks the war situation would be worse if Sen. John McCain were president. But now is the time for Obama to take clear action, she said.
"He should devise a plan for troop withdrawal that is as speedy as safely possible and combine economic growth and democracy building in our occupied countries with a speedy withdrawal," Sheehan said. "No occupations will save billions of dollars a month and maybe our economy could start to improve, too."
Looking ahead
As the Afghanistan war stretches out longer than World War I or World War II, anti-war activists say it's time to bring the troops home.
"If U.S. planners weren't able to get it right in eight years, what makes them think they will get it right in the next 18 months?" asked Hadi Jawad, a member of the Dallas Peace Center.
Mayer said he and others just want to call attention to the wars and ask people for their support to end them.
"There's a stigma that if you don't support the wars, you're somehow unpatriotic and un-American," he said. "I think the opposite is true.
"My greatest fear in Afghanistan . . . because it's impossible to avoid casualties . . . is that for every civilian we kill, I'm afraid it's going to breed another generation of people who hate our country."
Comments
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94 Comments so far
Show AllPlease remember that when a few of us get forcibly shoved into the media limelight as "leaders" they catch a lot of flack. Specifically, people, do what you can to support Cindy.
I lost patience with Obama months ago when he approved drone incursions and bombing in Pakistan.
Here is a "Christmas poem", compliments of writer David Sirota, that ties in to your comment:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/48582
Actually, it was David Lindorff who wrote that, rather than David Sirota.
And thank you for posting it. Loved it!
Ah, y'know...those biased, Liberal Media writers all tend to blend after a while, eh? (-:)
It's not by David Sirota, but Dave Lindorff, and because it's quite good, I'll quote the whole for immediate reading at CD.
'A Visit from St. Obama',
by Dave Lindorff (with apologies to Clement Clark Moore), Dec. 20, 2009
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/48582
QUOTE:
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land
Not a creature was stirring in Afghanistan.
The bedrooms were bunkered with piles of hard stones
To protect from attacks by the Predator drones.
The children were huddled, afraid, in their beds
While visions of night raiders danced in their heads.
Mama doffed her hijab and I doffed my hat
And we both settled down for a rest and a chat
When out in the yard their arose such a clatter,
I sprang to the door to see what was the matter.
Away to the entrance I ran ‘cross the floor,
Pulled on the handle and opened the door.
The moon hadn’t risen but up in the air
A chopper was shining a light. Such a glare!
And what to my wondering eyes did appear
But a whole gang of men, armed and dressed in black gear.
With a tall skinny guy who was wearing a pistol,
I knew in a flash: it was General McChrystal.
More rapid than eagles his raiders they rushed
And they grabbed me and trussed me and kicked, hit and pushed.
“Frisk him! Blindfold him! Remove him! Get going!
And tear up his household! See what he’s not showing!”
They frightened my wife and my kids just for kicks,
And slaughtered my goats and a half dozen chicks.
Then away they transported me up in the air
To a far-off location and I still know not where.
They duct-taped my eyes and my arms and my feet,
And left me alone in a room with no heat.
That was a Christmas some four years ago,
And I’ve been in this hellhole so long I don’t know
What my hometown still looks like. I hear it’s all rubble,
From air-raids and car bombs and other such trouble.
But yesterday morning I was told by a guard
That I’m going home soon and should not take it hard.
It was all a mistake, they just had the wrong chap, and
Since my name is Achmed, well, “These things can happen.”
Now I hear that the head of the American nation,
Obama, has ordered an Afghan escalation.
He’s sending another 34,000 men
To ramp up the effort to “help us”...again.
In the spirit of the season, he said, by the way,
That the first of these new troops will arrive Christmas Day!
This Nobel Peace Prize winner thinks it’s just great
To unleash these new killers on that special date.
He and McChrystal both claim this invasion
Is to make us all safer and to build us a nation.
But how can that be when they’re raiding our houses,
and bombing our weddings and scaring our spouses?
You attack us with drones that kill innocents daily
Send out death squads to hunt us, and lock us to jail
Leaving families to worry if we’re even living,
While you torture us, starve us and then want forgiving
When it turns out, as with me, you got the wrong guy.
And meanwhile our families were left there to die
Because no one’s around to earn money for bread.
And you wonder why people want Talibs instead?
You say you have brought us democracy? Right!
If a corrupt drug cartel counts, then maybe you might
Have a point. But I think that Karzai and his kin
Are much closer to gangsters than they are to Abe Lincoln.
Merry Christmas America! Happy New Year!
Enjoy your days off. We’re in hell over here.
But I think you will find, as this old year is ending,
That your President’s “good” war is only beginning.
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). HIs work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
END QUOTE
"TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU WOULD LIKE THEM TO TREAT YOU"
ABOLISH DRONE WARFARE !!!
Remember those "evil atheistic communists" that were going to bomb US years ago?
Today we are in DEBT TO THE "COMMUNISTS" (China) up to our bunghole and WE ARE THE ONES DOING THE BOMBING !!!
THOU SHALL NOT KILL !!!
PERIOD.
SHAME ON AMERIKKKA !!!
"Do for others as you'd want done for yourself."
STOP the DAMN wars and all related crimes!
Why settle for only stopping the drone warfare?
The "anti-war activists" are losing patience? Golly gee! Already? Such an impetuous bunch.
One wonders what might happen if, after so many futile years (decades? centuries?), they ever reached the point where they actually lost their "patience" completely.
Can that point be enumerated in terms of the numbers of innocents maimed, tortured, incinerated, mutated and killed? Or is it strictly a matter of the so-called "U.S. interests" affected? Is there, in fact, any such point at all?
- Two wars continue. -
(sigh)
Antiwar activist - Please withdraw from Afghanistan.
Obama - But what about the terrorists? We're at war with them. Congress said so.
Antiwar activist - Withdraw from Afghanistan!
Obama - But what about the terrorists? They're also in Iraq.
Antiwar activist - Withdraw from Afghanistan! Withdraw from Iraq! End the two wars!
Obama - But how will withdrawing deal with the terrorists!
Antiwar activist - Uh, withdraw from Afghanistan!
I suggest again that Progressives use a new strategy of trying to end the one and only war, the DAFT war, started by Public Law 107-40 when our feckless Congress supinely succumbed to the lies, deceits and political blackmail of George and Dick.
This insane war to prevent future terrorism must be dealt with by law. Otherwise future insanities will occur because the mechanism that creates and drives these insanities is left untouched.
Even if troops are withdrawn from here, from there, they will end up somewhere. There are hundreds of thousands of Americans being paid to find and hunt future terrorists. To justify their paychecks future terrorists will be found.
Locust, I disagree with your naive statement that " Congress succumbed to the lies,deceits and political blackmail of George and Dick". They are not that stupid! Most of Congress is nothing but attorney's that represent the Military,Industrial,Banking complex. They were not conned; they are part of the con! The way I see it, only a strong and viable third party based on integrity is the antidote for the miasma of corruption and greed of Congress.
Conned or not, turning over their Constitutional authority to make war was un-Constitutional and officially turned the USA into a dictatorship. Our last two presidents have now killed more Americans than bin Laden [I only mention US deaths to make a point, so don't lose focus and jump on me for forgetting that dead Iraqis and Afghans are still dead] with no progress made against terrorists who may still threaten us. And this lack of progress is by their own admission, not my opinion.
I believe that because these foreign incursions were un-Constitutionally initiated, they are illegal, and that makes both Bush and Obama war criminals.
PS - To justify the paychecks of our "defense" industry future terrorists, real and imagined, will not just have to be found, but created.
Bless the peace activists who do not act alone but represent many more of us who for various reasons cannot put our bodies in the sometimes dangerous public arena.
Stay-at-home activists need to organize. En masse, we have a voice, too. There are a lot of good people in the US; our government does not represent what we believe and want for the world. We need to be heard.
Peace activists were "hoodwinked" by Obama's campaigning. He was clearly never a peace candidate, as he proposed to expand the military, the "war" in Afghanistan, and the use of drones.
The peace candidates were people like Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney.
Please look closer at a candidate's position before convincing yourself that they represent your concerns.
killing for peace makes as much sense as a husband beating his wife to make her love him more....
it's absurd.....
but then we should expect up to be down and 1+1=5 according to this double-speak perfected administration....
where war = peace: that speech by Obama for the nobel peace prize was as insulting to general intelligence as Colin Powell's obvious lies in front of the UN were...
we now have more troops in afgan and iraq than at the height of the bush insanity years....
we have to now acknowledge that the skeptics of obama on the left were correct... we got scammed!
Since when was Obama a peace candidate? I never heard him say any such thing. He spoke of reducing the numbers in Iraq while continuing to man the new forts. Never peace. He spoke of escalation for Afghanistan the whole time. Never peace.
Now people act shocked and speak of betrayal.
Such nonsense.
Ain't it the truth? He's keeping his campaign promise to ramp up Afghanistan, no other promises about war were made.
In June, 2008 a good Liberal Dem asked me what I thought about Obama. I said "empty suit". She hasn't been able to speak to me since. You have to almost feel sorry for people who will not see.
Most of us saw the emptiness of that suit long before election day. The real problem is the way it is currently being filled out; the suit is definitely "dressed right".
How did she ever get the permit?
Our national debt is now 14 trillion dollars and growing. Why does health care have to be deficit neutral but not the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the tribal area of Pakistan and over 100 military installations around the world?
Who will pay for the debt? Will we beg the Chinese Communist party to bail us out? Will we go after downsizing social programs, e.g. social security, medicare, medicaid etc.?
I was in Skardu, Pakistan the day of the presidential debate in August of 2007 when Obama said he would "bomb Pakistan." It was front page, banner headline news in all the papers there. I was afraid someone might decide to take advance revenge against me as I was the only American around. I hadn't seen another American since Heathrow.
So Obama didn't present himself as a Peace candidate.
I don't believe the official story of 9/11, so for me the entire stated basis for the war is complete nonsense.
I started to call Obama "Big Brother" after his "War is Peace" speech to the Nobel committee.
"I don't believe the official story of 9/11, so for me the entire stated basis for the war is complete nonsense."
Well, I certainly DO believe that the 11 Sept. terrorist actions (technically not "attacks") were done by a small group of Arab Muslims with ties to Al Qaeda. As your experience in Pakistan showed, there certainly were and are serious grievances against the US throughout the Muslim world, and even a history of bombings against US targets, including the almost-successful 1993 truck-bombing of the WTC (Why are there no conspiracy theories surrounding that event?). So, the motive was there.
But the entire stated basis for attacking Afghanistan for what was an international crime, not an action by a state, was STILL utter nonsense. Did they bomb Tim McVeigh's home town of Buffalo after Oklahoma City?
You believe that official story because you haven't done your own research. Start by reading this paper, then we can talk:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
And from an anarchist analysis, I recommend this discussion, which logically shows that it is far more reasonable to assume, given occam's razor, that an inside job is far more in line with the historical record in regards to the State's behavior:
http://flag.blackened.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=75145
Was the almost-successful 1993 bomb attack on the WTC an inside job too? All the conspiracy theorists seem to accept that attack as done by Islamicists, why not the Sept. 11 ones too?
I am an anarchist too - an anarcho-syndicalist. The more appropriate anarchist analysis would see the Sept 11 attacks, like the 1993 attack, as a strike against the imperialist US state. Scratch beneath their Islamicism, and Al Qeada is, first and foremost, anti-imperialist.
wrong. again. read the link i sent from the flag.blackened.net. ambi clearly explains that the 1993 attacks were a setup from the FBI. the New York Times even confirms this.
i am an anarchist too. please, do your homework. don't believe the lies of the state on this matter so easily.
Is objective realiy itself a "lie of the state?"
Real anarchists - at least all the ones here in Pittsburgh, are not 911 kooks.
really? that is your best response? ignore the scientific data, and attack other anarchists. When your argument is shown to be full of holes and misinformation (the 1993 bombing), you result to ad hominem attacks? I consider that a sign of weakness in your beliefs myself.
BTW,your "objective" reality is far from objective seeing as how you ignore the science and fabricate history.
Anytime someone uses the phrase "real anarchists", it's so laughable as not to be credible. Your the guy who attacks everyone as a liberal in this forum for not showing up to DC protests, because of course, that's what "real anarchists" do.
pjd,
There is not much going to change your mind, I know that!
How about; quit financing the carnage.
WTF? He's escalating and widening the Bush Wars from "out" of Iraq, into Afganistan, Iran, Pakistan, now Yemen to Somalia and back around again to Syria; with his smug circumlocutory speeches thrown on like so many Molotov cocktails! Obama's the Commander-in-Chief for dupes' sake; he can simply ORDER THEM home from the BushCo. Crusades TODAY, In Time for the YEAR END HOLIDAYS!! NOW THERE'S A CHRISTMAS DEADLINE TO BEAT ALL!!!
I guess this is NEWS in Texas ...
At some point during the last "campaign season", heavy-duty financial support began backing Obama. Whether that happened before or after his corporate bona fides were made clear in his vote to retroactively not prosecute ATT for spying on citizens (ATT threw him a big invitation-only bash the night after his nomination), is a matter to be looked into, but the result is the same: he would better serve [corporate] America's interests at this time, than McCain.
Think of it: All that popular support for Obama, the citizens organized and enraged for the most part at Bush-Cheney; MCain Palin would have inherited not just the wars, but all the anger and invective of a population that was beginning to see how the Cheney-Bush years had deeply damaged the nation.
We saw an unprecedented number of people active in that campaign. Sure, activated in the wrong way, perhaps, in pure "hope", but nonetheless a force to be reckoned with.
So it became obvious. If Obama were handled in the right way, if he could understand or be made to understand his place, and the imperative (and imperial designs) of the military-industrial-financial-pharmaceutical complex, this would clearly be the best way to move ahead with the Cheney "Energy Policy" (oil, pipelines, etc. under US-led multinational control) -- without public outcry or opposition.
Of course, after years of treasonous of silence on the ever-more aggressive gutting of our Constitution, and the hemming and hawing about cutting off war funds, the Democrats could hardly be seen as the "peace party" or defenders of democracy, but an ever-more pliant public, willing to suspend whatever disbelief might still lurk, were more than willing to believe ANYthing the Democrats could concoct as a narrative.
REALITY CHECK: Prosecuting the worst abuses and crimes by the Executive in the history of the United States have been labeled as "looking back" by the new administration. (isn't going after the Taliban for their supposed passive role in 911 "looking back", too?). This administration has allowed the criminals who perpetrated the systemic gutting of our national Treasury in "a time of war" (the Bailout) to determine how to handle the crisis -- using even more taxpayer dollars, while the number of foreclosures skyrocket. Spying, rendition and war surges continue. Big Pharma and insurance companies have Executive access while a national single payer health plan was deemed "not politically viable."
What more do you need to understand the Game that is being played and how our "two-party" system is part and parcel of silencing those thinking Americans who still think that WE should be part of determining what our nation does, how it does it, and with which resources.
The imperative for a third (second?) party is greater than ever!
Of COURSE, such a venture is at best uncertain (so was the Boston Tea Party); all the cards have been stacked against such a move for decades. No one said fighting these huge and brutal economic leviathans would be ease (just ask the Iraqis, Pakistanis, Hondurans, Argentineans, etc.), but ... it's time to face it ... there IS no other way. Without a total break from the "two-party" "good cop-bad-cop" game being perpetrated upon us, there will be NO SPACE ALLOWED to envision or discuss, much less ACT upon, policies desired by the majority of the people: health care, education, security, energy, labor, industrial policy, you name it. Free speech has been effectively shut down already. Only WE can restore it.
All the decades-old attempts by progressives to "take over the Democratic Party from the inside" have proved failures. What those progressives have, at least until now, refused to accept, is that that party ALREADY HAS been taken over, and not by progressives -- but rather by those pushing the current aggressive agenda. All the energy that the Democratic hopeful have bestowed upon their party, has only been channeled and used to bolster the corporate state agenda. Isn't that obvious yet? Doesn't that describe the current situation?
We find Democratic faithful saying "hush" and "patience" to progressive anti-war, single-payer or non-nuclear green energy advocates every day. They seem not to realize that they have been successfully co-opted, INcorporated into little corporate zombies, doing the dirty work FOR the multinationals, mouthing the corporate line to their free-thinking brethren. Go say "patience" to the Afghani or Pakistani family to be bombed next month.
For anyone who believes that these wars have ANYthing to do with US security, I have a bridge for sale ... We only create more enemies with the current policies, as noted by others here. That, too, should be more than obvious. It's about amassing Power and Control both abroad and here at home (the resources themselves are just the means to attain these two).
The only way to break out of this ... IS to break out of this! BUILD something NEW. Build a movement and party that IS NOT ONLY real OPPOSITION, but that HAS an AGENDA based in REALITY, one that empowers ordinary citizens and creates a new narrative and vision of how it is to live together successfully on this planet without destroying it and one another.
It doesn't matter so much how we get there, but get there we must.
For me, the shortest route to that goal is to grow and support a party that already exists with such an agenda: the Green Party. Swelling its ranks with those truly hopeful of a better world, will only hasten the day we can all successfully challenge the ruthless, heartless corporate state that has taken over our governing bodies, and really build a world we want.
alank ---- you
go tell it to the self-absorbed majority over at
Huffington Post. For none of the regulars here did
more then a quick look at your last sentence, saw
blind faith in paid actor politics and paid no mind.
"paid actor politics"
This is key. Service to the people should be its own reward.
I'm with you alank.
Green Party of Canada here.
I'll trade you that bridge for a piece of toast mysteriously bearing the image of Alfred Nobel!
Good comment. I'm inclined to remain party-free, but I'll support and vote for Green candidates of merit.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Servant, you say:
"I'm inclined to remain party-free, but I'll support and vote for Green candidates of merit."
Tactically speaking, you may have that backwards!
Read on, and I'll explain why your registration my be more important than your vote in terms of affecting change on both the short and long term.
============
Tell you why: "party-free" or "independent" is an acceptable part of the "2-party game." It's where you go for a time out when frustrated with with the 2 major players hypocrisies. There ( in your independent time-out zone), you cause no troubles and are still targeted for your vote when elections come around. Both factions of the corporate party vie for your attention, and often get it, using fear to allude to the awful consequences of what the "other" party will do to the Supreme Court, yadda, yadda ...(as if the Dems lifted a finger to stop Roberts or Alito -- simply handing over a democracy-proof majority to the neo-cons).
So, going "independent" works for them; it effectively "neutralizes" you. The Game still works.
What they DON'T expect, and what screws up their Game, is registering for another party, which says "I'm GONE!" NOW if they want a chance at your support, they actually have to WIN it through their program or promises.
Now, for a DOUBLE advantage, if the new party your register for (or affiliate with, depending on the state rules) has a platform and vision you actually believe in, as for example the Green Party with Single Payer, end the wars, labor and wage justice, defend the Constitution, empower citizens, etc., this acts like a VOTE for that agenda, because your registration signifies those positions. It lets other parties and the political community in general that here is one more person who wants this agenda.
No independent registration does that. It doesn't say what you want, just that you're pissed.
Your new registration gets your political ideas REGISTERED publicly (finally), something your actual vote cannot do if no candidates you believe in makes it through the primary process. So now for the first time, (and even without an immediate victory in the polls), YOUR ideas and values can be SEEN publicly, and COUNTED!. Wouldn't it be great to watch the growing support for a true progressive agenda?
Remember your new registration already IS your political vote; depending on the location and the race, your actual cast vote can be be for whomever you feel is appropriate.
Changing registration could change politics FAR MORE than any number of phone calls and email ever could. Those they can ignore. Your new registration as a Green they cannot; it shows a growing anti-war majority on its way.
You can make ANY day "election day" by "voting" with your registration. It's time to let America know how its people really think. VOTE with your registration.
The sooner you do it, the better.
The green party should be doing some serious work right now, first on organizing and focusing the message. Start running candidates in every office, state and federal level.
Second, the green party should stop thinking that their main job is to steer the democrats to a more 'progressive' position, and actually run in opposition to the democrat/republican party. There are almost no democratic candidates I would vote for, regardless who they are running against. They don't meet the minimum standard of what I expect from a candidate.
We need to start having the country run by people who are going to follow rules, laws, and procedures, even if it is not to their advantage. And officials should start holding elected officials accountable for their actions, and be willing to look back as they are moving forward.
www.NotOneMore.US
Food for thought. Thanks.
· Yr Obd't Servant
ALANK,
Those were great thoughts. Thank you for them. You have made me pause and think.
Due to my fierce independent streak, I guess I still have a bit of a hard time wanting to label and identify myself with any one, single party. But your thoughts are very valid and important to consider.
Peace,
John
John and Servant,
I'm glad to hear these ideas gave you pause. Believe me there are plenty of "independent spirits" in the GP. So independent, in fact, that there is zero tolerance for corporate donations. It's a place for citizens' voices to grow.
So, registering Green is not like putting on a traditional party label. The way I see it, it's a way of strengthening a NEW identity and narrative that sounds more like your own heart. What would come out of the Green loudspeaker would be more like your own voice.
Granted no party, organization or identity is perfect, but THIS is the one with a message for our times: justice, honesty, democracy, end corporate personhood, fair elections, save our Constitution, sustainable energy, sustainable jobs, sustainable politics of inclusion, preserve the planet, healthcare for all, a just and sane foreign policy.
Hell you don't even have to vote for Greens just because you've re registered that way (though it would be good when we can). The registration itself is already a public declaration or "vote" for values that makes people pay attention. Gives them real hope; something to join and grow.
At the same time, with a growing registration, visibility and support, there will likely be more and better Green (and other progressive) candidates as well.
Green candidates' greatest importance is how they alter the debate and engage people in discussing topics the corporate parties don't want to touch or even want you to know -- like the real reasons we are in Afghanistan. We desperately need that.
Registration numbers are like a poll of determination, not just of opinion. A growing Green registration strengthens the "political hand" and the political visibility of those fed up with the corporatocracy running and ruining our lives (and those of others) around the planet.
In fact, it's like a contemporary declaration of independence.
I agree with this. and people if they can . should register that way before these "two" oligarchy/fascistic parties even act on voting and making ILLEGAL trying to register for another party. that's something they can NOT be counted on to NOT use, u know . ..same way as they actually vote to "reform" health care by IMPRISONING people into paying the privatized "insurance" companies or , already far too obvious and repeated, voting FOR war, each and every time.
practically everything they have done as "governance" of any significance is the very opposite of what any decent society ought to be having - and by rights, should already have long been declared illegal and criminal themselves....except that it is actually the criminals MAKING the laws and crowning themselves as the protectors of "law" and society.
IMO -- saying or labeling oneself as "independent" is only one of 2 things:
1) you are merely fence-sitting and quite likely more amenable to "better circumstances" that , however, are of the RIGHTWING variety of "freedom" until the worse conditions of the overtly conservative and STILL essentially and primarily profiteering-driven platforms are "gone" or lessened. but that IS NOT going to happen..except by the destruction OF that very same kind of party and its platform - and everyone knows that IS exactly what the REPUBLICAN/DEMOCRAT party is. and that means - you have not REALLY declared real "independence" OF THEM...such as choosing to be represented by a party whose platforms are CLEARLY the OPPOSITE of what these "two" hold as well as what largely ,the s0-called "independents" have which is also itself a more "benign" looking "variety" of the same thing , minus perhaps the more egregious practices...but leavning INTACT the SAME old profiteering , what's in it for me, philosophies - thus:
"independent".
2) you are not REALLY showing what you are FOR. only what you are AGAINST. you are neither for , lets' say, "socialist" ideas - which are entirely anathema EVEN for most indepdenents who therefore mostly choose THAT because they CAN'T go beyond the barrier of thought against "socialism" ...OR you are NOT really FOR "green" or environment...but only independent "enough" to NOT have to feel obligated and responsible for the philosophies of the "two parties" while perhaps still hoping to preserve "something" of what one THINKS are the "best ideals" of EITHER party "had they been better and more faithful in their practices"...but THAT TOO is just a trap.
no -- the only way for things is an OUTRIGHT REJECTION of just about everything these two parties have stood for.
in their very DNA - right from the first days of the USA as a nation is:
EMPIRE, CONQUEST, EXPLOITATION, DESTRUCTIOn, WAR, DEHUMANIZATIOn and ENSLAVEMENT and ABUSE of the Earth and People....
which are EVERYTHING that "green" or "earth" or "socialIST" or "communist" stand against as ideas.
the republicans and democrats - and EVEN the independents of the USA variety - which are merely outgrowths of EITHER of these parties through their relative or alternating chances as either "more conservative or less" ...
are like DINOSAURS of politics and economics and social cohesion. they have LONG been past their time and NEVER should even have been alive.
all they have really achieved, through all these "wealth and power" is take whatever good things there are , in people and in the Earth and TWIST them and CORRUPT them and ABUSE them ...
and turn something beautiful into something very ugly. that's their very source of life and power. and that's of course why they FEAR "green" or "socialist"..whatever one's proclivities are.
but everyone knows - in the USA - GREEN is probably about as CLOSE as one can SAY "socialist" in HUMAN society terms. they'd declare that party TERRORIST as soon as they sniff people are "registering".
Never had any faith in Obama -- whom I have always seen as a servant of imperialism and the corporate predatory interests that drive the imperialist policies.
Effin brilliant foreign policy.
Invade a sovereign nation. Kill lots of people, yours & theirs, & blow the place up. The unwelcome guest stays & stays and the unwelcome guest decides when the sovereign host nation is capable of running itself.
What's wrong with this picture?
There is no alarm being sounded in the streets because mom & pop & their little darlings are not being directly threatened. In the days of the Vietnam War, all families faced "THE DRAFT." Anyone's and everyone's children were drafted. Your classmates have their names on that wall in DC.
Connect the dots folks. Invasion of sovereign nations to rape them of their natural resources to satisfy your corporate greed is WHY the 9/11 terrorists chose that date. 9-1-1 is the emergency number you called. The terrorists targeted The World Trade Center, where the financial deals were made, and the Pentagon, which serves the dispatch office of the invading thugs.
Wake the heck up!
I protested in the '60 and hoped that I would never have to do it again.
it would be interesting to see how many people could be attracted to the DC camp if everyone who regrets having been dozy enough to vote for 0 were to turn out.
Not that many will admit to this - most are still giving the creep a chance (he can believe in).
He's even got a lot of normally decent people drinking the "just war" flavor-aid with his BS apologetics in Oslo.
When it comes to ending illegal wars and halting unwarranted aggression against other nations , it should never be a matter of "Having Patience".
This is like losing "Patience" with a serial killer in your neighborhood. Do people really expect that if they just waited long enough he would stop and all would be better again?
Where were all these folks with their "patience" when Kucinich and Gravel were running for President?
Loosing patience with Obama? Try lost patience!
"My greatest fear...another generation of people who hate our country."
A peace movement based on fear is no peace movement; an anti-war movement perhaps, but no peace movement.
"I guess we probably did put too much hope in him. I know that I did. I feel disappointed and a bit betrayed by Obama..."
Obama is the quintessential politician, seeing him, like anyone, for what he is is the functional path: he didn't divorce himself from Reverend Jeremiah Wright until his 20 year Mentor/Apprentice relationship became a political liability; he didn't start making vows to killing Bin Laden until not appearing militant was unpresidential and became a political liability; his hands did not make their loudest claps for his vow to militancy during his inaugural address, it was The People in the audience.
If you want world peace: don't be anti-war, this will only help spawn the next war to be against; don't try to base your peace on fearing the outside, go within, then offer the peace from there to your neighbor -- if a critical mass follows this advise Obama and all the professional politicians will bend in the wind from the scent of those votes, and bend from the breeze of peace..."for the answer my friend is blowing in the wind...." -- look, listen, touch...the answer is there.
"don't be anti-war, this will only help spawn the next war"
How deep is such darkness, especially when followed by your
illusion that Obama controls our self-absorbed majority,
and if we can just thought control the people into giving
up their quest for wealth and pleasure, Obama will cave in
to the pressure.
Problem is, our self-absorbed upper half of society just
love no-change Obama's way of doing things, surely a paid
actor hired by them and he has absolutely no control over them.
The "peace" candidate is bombing women and children in Yemen now.
The "peace" candidate is providing impunity to torture and war criminals.
Bad is Good today. Wrong is Right today. War is Peace today.