To Jerry Gerber--You have articulated my exact feelings about Prez Obama--I hope you don't mind that I posted your excellent comment verbatim on Clipmarks.com (as Papananook, not Papawhale as here)and in my page at www.http:// papananook.livejournal.com, credited of course. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, Jerry, and may Peace be with you!

WORDS

Teach thus to the young or to any who would wish that life with others be of benefit to self and others.

Reason: Is there reason in what is brought in words or deed to others of whatever clime or persuasion? To reason is one of the tenants of thinking and aids in putting word to deed .

Logic: In a world of words, spoken and written, where is truth, that it may be seen if logic and reason enter not? For truth is and to hear words and words read will not of itself intelligence breed .

Civility: War is a loss of civility and is the most vile of human endeavors . history is a great tool for the knowing of what civility and war can accomplish.When looking at old civilizations do you see what is left standing or what used to be? Which is civility and which is war ?

Dissent : In the course of humanity's desire to taste the true meaning of freedom it has been shown and proven that reason , logic and civility cannot exist without the right of dissent .Ah ! The human heart and mind , as different as the sands by the sea . To know this is to go far .

Debate : Two ears and one mouth and yet they must be equal in debate and the arbiters must be reason, logic, civility and dissent and for all this to be, the mind must be engaged so that the words used may better self and others.

Math and science give you a living but these word will give you life .
Tony 4/4/06

But, but, Norman, Obama repeatedly said in his campaign that he would focus his attention on Afghanistan, escalating the troop levels, and you were.......and now you're.......oh never mind.

Good--Norman must have read my book, "Battlebabble: Selling War in America."
Thanks.
Tom Lee

odoco
I can vividly remember sitting in an Army theatre in Ft. Sill Oklahoma in 1970 and watching several young black soldiers refuse to stand during the playing of the national anthem. Instead, they sat resolutely, holding their clenched fists high, a determined look of defiance in their eyes.

I now wish I would have had their insight, their courage, their integrity.

Norman Solomon writes:
"My father, Morris Solomon, recently had his ninetieth birthday."

"Healthcare NOT Warfare", huh? WHEN?

How nice for Solomon that his father didn't have to starve himself to death, or whatever -- as many working- and middle-class members of the "Greatest Generation" have, and will -- so that the cost of his medical care wouldn't bankrupt his children.

Without Single Payer, many of the un-rich among Solomon's OWN generational litter won't see 70.

There'll be a lot MORE elderly anti-warriors in the future if more uber-liberals will get off their high rhetorical "war" horses to give the Obaama Organization the tongue-lashing its "public plan" baloney richly deserves -- look up the Estate Benefits Recovery Act, kiddies, and see how you feel about mandatory Medicaid (crappy "care", charges which are secret until you're dead, drastic limits on treatments and medication) for the poor, the near-poor, and the about-to-be-poor.

Less blabla about Camus (who died young), and about the US soldier cult, and more exposure of Obaama's bs on ALL fronts would be welcome -- the more so since Solomon and the celebrity "left" pushed sooo uncritically for His coronation.

What is most disturbing about President Obama is that he, unlike so many of his predecessors, is a great orator. He no doubt gives a great speech that arouses all of the right emotions and the right hopes and the right ideals. His Cairo speech certainly did that for millions of people. But later, upon reflection and gathering of facts, my disappointment and anger toward him grows because it is all smoke and mirrors. The violent policies continue, probably some forms of torture are continuing, prisoners are still being held without trial and many of the crimes and abuses of the Bush years are continuing, such as the immoral privatization of war and the lies and disconnect between words and action. The government continues to act like a government of the wealthiest, for the wealthiest, by the wealthiest. Obama is putting an articulate, friendly, intelligent face on what are essentially failed and barbaric policies that continue to kill many innocent people. He, like Bush, is squandering our resources on war and violence and, no matter what his words are, his actions and policies are what matters. Unfortunately, "Yes We Can" has morphed into "But, No, We Won't".

Jerry Gerber
San Francisco

First Memorial Day, then D-Day revisited, but weren't they too far apart, Barack? Couldn't you schedule a pro-war photo op every day of the year, or wouldn't that be enough? How about three per day?

Personally, I think nobody should be permitted to say anything about war without using the words "red snot" every time as most apt description possible of what happens to people in war.

The reward for non-compliance could be inclusion on a million rockets along with all those persons in the world who have demonstrated that they are pro-torture-- destination: The Andromeda Galaxy. Henry Hudson's crew put him adrift in Hudson's Bay, so there is a precedent.

I've never seen "Private Ryan," preferring my own father's first-hand descriptions of Normandy, although he only came in the third day. Nor have I read Tom Brokaw's paean to my father's generation, preferring as I do the shorter version "red snot" again, and I'm pretty sure I hate Tom Hanks for agreeing to make Spielberg's movie, which I'm sure I wouldn't like as much as "Sands of Iwo Jima." The fact is, most people go out of the way to glorify war, worse perhaps when they do it through indirection. (Yeah, I know, Hitler was a bad guy, but so, too, is anybody, no matter how nice they seem, who promotes war.)

And most people have never read with full understanding a single, first-rate anti-war poem and have never read any one of the following books, even half-assedly:

1) ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Erich Maria Remarque

2) THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE by Stephen Crane

3) DYING, WE LIVE by Julian Kulski (about the author's boyhood in Warsaw during the invasion and occupation of that city)

We've known that Obama would escalate the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan for how long now?

So how is it going "holding Obama's feet to the fire"?

How many times did I hear that FDR once said to activists advocating progressive policies "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it"?

Still think we can make Obama embrace progressive policies?

Still think he "agrees" with us? Still think he secretly wants to do the right thing but can't?

What is/was this fantasy based on?
Certainly not facts or evidence.

Why do people keep saying we're at war? At with who?
We haven't even declared war against Iraq, much less Afghanistan.
These are illegal occupations that were trying to disguise as "wars".
The ONLY reason we are there, and continue to occupy the regions is resource piracy.
We've already secured most of Iraq's resources through oil contracts and agreements with the puppet government there so let's take a look at the booty in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's Natural Gas capability is approximately 290 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d)
Their oil reserves are approximately 95 million barrels.
Afghanistan also has 73 million tons of coal, mining nearly 100,000 short tons of coal annually.
But we would have you believe it's for their freedom and liberation against tyranny. Don't buy that, well then it's for OUR freedom and "freedom isn't free" and all that jazz.
Obama is after the resources. Freedom is a joke.

Read Obama's speech. His speech writer borrowed heavily from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. No wonder it sounds good.

"Words focus our attention."

Then here's an idea that's been kicking around for only, oh, the past 7 years or so:

Stop using the word "war" to describe the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. No word focuses our attention like "war" - it means support the government and win at all costs and POTUS 'war powers' and dissent is treason and etc.

The USA is neither officially nor Constitutionally in a state of declared war with any nation on Earth - especially Afghanistan and Iraq, who are supposedly our newest BFFs.

Maybe - just maybe - if we Americans heard "illegal occupation" instead of "war" over and over and over again, a majority might actually have their attention focused and go, like, "WTF, dude - we're America. We ain't supposed to occupying countries and stuff!"

Straying (if only briefly) back onto the topic (War and Words), I offer in all humility (?) my headlining this morning of H. Clinton rattling the U.S. sabre at Iran a few hours after Obama had used the soft-soap words in his "Muslim speech":
SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG SECRETARY OF STATE.

http://www.sunstateactivist.org/

Sioux Rose

Someone on CD mentioned that having recently gone to the movies, four of the summer's films are about war. It takes a lot of "massaging" to get a public that sees its libraries reducing hours, its medical centers only treating the insured, its bridges falling down, its collected tax money going to bankers ... to support foreign wars.

EVERY aspect of American culture infuses the image and likeness of war (as bravery, heroism, patriotism, manliness) into the collective consciousness. Religious denominations tell too many millions that war is holy or God's will, while sports reinforce a "my" team or "other" psychic vocabulary. These factors are extremely influential and are holding minds hostage. Nor are these forms of enculturation accidental.

I can almost achieve a vague understanding of the level of mind-fu*k that's required to believe that the corporate-American-empire is righteous in its slaughter of millions of poor defenseless brown people in order to grab all the Earth's remaining resources.

What I don't understand is how it's possible that Obama went from community organizer to neo-conservative nutball so quickly?

The only explanation is that he didn't.

They must have something really juicy on him via one of their extra-constitutional wiretaps. Or THEY must've made a helluva scary threat to him.

Obysmal's problem, as for nearly every recent president, is that there is a truth going on out there that doesn't read The New York Tombs, doesn't watch CNN and pays no attention to Robert Gibbs. The executive branch, like the MSM, repeats the lies and received wisdom so often it quickly and easily comes to believe them wholeheartedly. The "intelligence" briefings Obysmal gets could be written by the Muppets. The last great example of this was Vietnam. What Americans were told about Vietnam was all lies (unless you dug for the truth which was a lot harder then before the world wide web). Our Vietnam in the Middle East will end as the first Vietnam ended. George Wanker Bush will be sleeping off a three day drunk but Obysmal will stare at himself in the mirror and, like LBJ, wonder what happened.

Anerica under the Bush dictatorship was like a speeding train heading over a cliff. Ever try to stop a train on a dime and turn it around? People are so enamored with war and patriotism that an anti-war candidate would not stand a chance. Look at what the "conservatives" have done to our gun laws. People are either scared silly or they just love violence, but we have trouble ahead.

High explosive, which makes a fascinating flash-bang and turns people into red snot, is far more interesting on television that diplomacy, which is, unfortunately, boring stuff.

The corporations feed us interesting images of destruction (never the red snot) to indicate, somehow, that they deserve to rule the world.

I'd also, now into old age, like to know which particular pieces of dirt (countries, nations, etc.) are worth dying for. I was born here, but does that make me or my grandchildren obligated to die for it?

Remember, Kennedy had it exactly backwards: "Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what it can do for you." You're human; it's not.

It really is breathtaking to think how everyone gushes over Obama's speech addressing Muslims countries--while he widens the war slaughtering them.
The speech was for domestic consumption: See how good we are. See the change in tone --the outreach from the Bush years--meanwhile the death toll rises.

I'd rather have Norman's fading father as our president.

He sounds smarter and more courageous than our current one.

The Universal Soldier

He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.

He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.

And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.

And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.

But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.

- Buffy Sainte-Marie 1964

...peace...

Yet the beat goes on--just like before thoes other wars ended--we need to enmasse and demand that these illegal and immoral undertakings be halted NOW!
There can be no hope in the governances for peace--they only know war and power--those who choose war are never personally involved on the battlefield of thier evil actions--they are safe and secure behind some kind of wall of power--we must seek them out and hold them responsible for their death and distruction not only to our people but to the innocent people they have already destroyed. to

not that i'm from that era, but i think it was general patton (feel free to correct me, not that anyone on here is bashfull in that dept.) that said, "war is hell". he meant it as an excuse for the atrosity of the war campaign but i think it might be viewed in a broader sense, by adding "war is hell, on earth"

Soldiers = Mercenaries

War on Terror = War of Terror

Peace = War

Democracy = Corporate Dictatorship

well said norman

of course the book 1984 is a testament to "doublespeak"

the sins committed by the american government on behalf of the american coprporations will come home to roost - and probably sooner than the uninformed population might think

today george soros is warning that china is rising even faster than we thought they could

they hold trillions of our t bill debts already and i was amused by the spectacle two months ago of hillary clinton begging the chinese to "keep buying" american debt because - she argued - the two countries are economic brothers

wow - imperial america financed by chinese peasant savings

i agree with norman that words are the vehicle by which liars often function - it is the specialty of corporations and governments both

more important though is the fawning corporate media supporting their masters by disallowing any real images of the war in iraq and afghanistan to hit the airwaves

words are potent

but a picture is worth a thousand words