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Advice on Afghanistan
Dear President Obama,
You are nearing the day of decision as to whether you order the dispatch of more soldiers to Afghanistan.
Some of your advisors have urged up to 50,000 more soldiers, including several thousand called trainers of the Afghan army.
Other advisors have urged more caution, notably the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and former general, Karl W. Eikenberry, who opposes more soldiers so long as the Afghan government remains grossly dysfunctional.
Beside your own military and civilian advisors, you are receiving disparate counsel from an anemic Congress and your allies abroad.
But are you soliciting advise from stateside civic groups of experience and repute that represent many Americans? Or from genuine experts on that country such as Ashraf Ghani-a former American professor and later respected member of the Karzai government before his departure to other positions in that country?
George W. Bush, in the duplicitous run-up to the invasion of Iraq, insulated himself, closed his mind and refused to meet with civic associations in his own land. Like an autocrat bent on plunging a country into war and occupation, knowingly on false pretenses, he deliberately deprived himself of the information that might have restrained his disastrous, messianic militarism. Disastrous, not to him and Dick Cheney, but to our country, soldiers, and economy, and to the devastated Iraqi people and their ravaged nation.
In the months before the March 20, 2003, undeclared criminal war of aggression that violated our Constitution, statutes, and treaties, a dozen organizations each formally requested a meeting with him.
These organizations represented tens of millions of Americans. They came from the clergy, labor, environmentalists, businesses, students, peace groups, womens' groups, city councils, consumer, veteran, teachers groups, and international security experts. Many also came with first hand experience in Iraq and the Middle East.
They wanted to meet with their president. He never even answered their letters. The letters are available at nader.org.
Who would have thought last year that on assuming the presidency, that you would consider plunging deeper in to this quagmire without an exit strategy? The deeper you plunge, the greater your rejection of the history of occupations fueling insurgencies in that region. The more you insulate yourself from contrary judgments to those you have been receiving from your inner councils. Our country, its people and innocent Afghan people will pay the price.
A recent resignation by Matthew P. Hoh, a former marine combat captain in Iraq and highly regarded foreign service officer in Afghanistan, provides an independent analysis of the grievances afflicting the 42 million Pashtuns. In his words:
The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.Mr. Hoh proceeds to list these persistent failings and adds his articulate doubts about the strategic purposes of your Administration's military presence in Afghanistan. He ask, "Why and to what end?" His letter of conscience and protest concludes by noting the limitless effects on our foreign and military policy, and on our country and its economy.The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. The Afghan government's failings, particularly when weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and collars, appear legion and metastatic.
Your staff estimates each U.S. soldier is costing $1 million a year, in addition to the horrific toll on these soldiers and the Afghan people. You owe the American people an un-Bush-like explanation. Why are you not receiving these groups of American from varied backgrounds and experience at the White House on this pending Afghan decision?
They may wonder, by contrast, why you have so many White House meetings with major corporate CEOs from Wall Street, from the health insurance companies and the drug companies. Is not the White House the peoples' House? Along with many other citizens in our country, I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
- Posted in
93 Comments so far
Show AllThank you Mr. Nader.
Your last two paragraphs are so very disturbing because they point out that real change on the war in Afghanistan is not on the table.
I wish that Obama would do what Mikhail Gorbachev did with regard to Afghanistan.
Does the $1 million cost per soldier factor in the costs of their drug addictions, physical and mental diabilities that will be costing taxpayers and the soldiers' families lots of money for many decades ???
"Why are you not receiving these groups of American from varied backgrounds and experience at the White House on this pending Afghan decision?"
Because the political/social/economic hierarchy must be preserved at any/all cost while AIPAC occupies the top rung.
The fact that peace groups are considered "low level terrorists" by the Pentagon tells you everything you need to know about the dark age our country is enmeshed in.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/06/pentagon-rebrands-
protest-as-low-level-terrorism/
Good point. I've said for years that a "terrorist", defined by the US military/ political classes, is any person or group that resists the military/political will of the American imperial agenda. That's what they really mean by terrorism. Bush and Cheney established this ruling guideline. You are a terrorist if you openly object to what the US is doing in the Middle East. The fact that this is completely backwards, that the US military and its politicians in Washington are the true terrorists stalking the world, only conforms to our Orwellian age. Those organizing for peace are terrorists. Those committing war crimes, torturing in the name of "freedom," lying, murdering, thieving and conniving to increase their illegitimate power are given Nobel Prizes for Peace. The language is thereby prostituted in service of Lies, so there is no way to expect anything else from our "leaders."
So what then would be high level terrorism? Would that be dropping DU bombs on villages from pilotless drones?
But meeting with these riff-raff might "weaken the Presidency" as spokesman Gibbs put it recently, by giving the appearance of waffling on war. Which some hawks are already accusing him of. Besides, didn't he campaign on a promise to expand the Afghan war? Can't break any campaign promises, right?
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yes, we need a new candidate, one that will run against obama in the 2012 presidential primary in new hampshire. he simply has no backbone, can't stand up to the generals, quivers before the bishops, seems drugged by big pharma, and cowers before dick cheney. it may be that obama has intuited that he has reached the pinnacle by radiating as much niceness as competency. being considered an african-american, he probably senses that when he is agressive and adamant, it raises the hackles of whites. also, when times are troubled and many are suffering, whites may, even subconsciously, find it self-demeaning to be helped by such an intelligent and successful afro-american. there is definitely a different psychology all about obama. i'm still trying to put my finger on it. he's probably a great person, one we could all be friends with. but he's got to grit his teeth, scowl, and start kicking some butt here and there. he got the same percent of the vote that the first george bush got against dukakis. everyone called that a mandate for bush's policies. it's now time for obama to exercise the power we gave him last november.
Obama is really a great leader if only ........ if only ........ if... ???????
He ate yogurt for breakfast.
"He's probably a great person" That remains to be seen. Perhaps not as evil as Uncle Dickie or Jesus W. but he is a war criminal just the same for continuing the Evil Duo's war on terra. Sure, they dropped the Bush slogan "war on terror" but retained the war. It's all marketing. Obubba is a phoney. He looked great with his shirt off on vacation in Hawaii but the schumck still smokes! I have my own flaws but I don't bullshit people and make promises that I can't keep.
Jeevee
The kindest description: severely mentally ill.
as for bush, he should be in jail. he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction, but he attacked iraq anyway. is there a shred of international law anywhere that supports what he did? remember that he was the one who told the un inspectors to leave. why? because bush knew the un inspectors would find nothing, thereby vanishing his pretext for agressive war. what leader in history ever attacked a country when he already had access to turn his opponent's country upside down looking for armaments? the un already had the power to destroy or confiscate any weapons forbidden to iraq. amazing the so-called liberal media never pointed out this obvious inference. they were too worried about losing rating points to fox news; losing rating points would mean that they would have to charge corporate advertisers at a lower per minute rate, since fewer gawkers would tune in as they chomped pizza while watching iraq burn on the boob tube.
Ralph Nader, another hard-core Zionist for peace. Doubt it? See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxPQlfZ-yB4
Ok, beyond that what gets me about this article and countless others like it is the questions ... Nader cites Hoh, a real heavyweight, who asks the probing question about the US in Afghanistan "Why and to what end?"
What's wrong with that question? Everything. Nader is a career politician, he's spent his life thinking about politics and foreign policy, and this freaking idiot has no idea why and to what end we are in Afghanistan. That is more than remarkable. He should be banished from public speaking until he gets some kind of g** d***** clue as to what is going on. Our 'opposition' is made up of clueless idiots who couldn't find their own a** with both hands !
May I volunteer to help you find your a***? Maybe three hands---or four---could accomplish this task. After solving that problem, you could give us a g**d**** clue as to what this war is about.
What is the war (in Afghanistan) about? I don't know a satisfactory answer, but I know 3 starting points ...
1. the Webster Tarpley - Zbig Brzezinski thesis ... Tarpley posits a split in the oligarchy between the Zionists and the Rockefelleristas, with the Zionists now being on the out, and the R's in, the R's lead is set by Z. Brzezinski who has a lifelong animus to Russia, and also is a big board player who recognizes that the other bigs are Russia and China and ZB does not share the Zionists obsession with Zion, so, his plan is to cozy up to Iran, and destabilize Pakistan, and pit them against Russia/China. Tarpley was saying before O was elected that Pakistan was at the top of the list if he got elected .... and he was right.
2. Pepe Escobar is all over youtube with his pipelineistan thesis, which is self-explanatory
3. The Zionists did map out plans for total domination of the ME in the Clean Break and PNAC documents, so that is another starting point. These same Zionists manifestly did direct the invasion of Iraq, and the threats to Iran, and all of this stuff plays together, so Afghanistan could be another piece on their board.
You have a point --- when elites fight there's hell to pay.
But I don't share your analysis or apparent enthusiasm that an elite confrontation is in the works (nor that Nader is favorably disposed to any elite/Empire structure, or would ever support global elite Empire as an acceptable "End of History", to borrow Fukuyama's now self-disavowed concept).
Yes, there may be some double-dealing and possible 'blow-back' consideration going on among elite factions, but the main interest now in the quite-well-advanced Global Empire is to continue drawing attractive (and useful) nation-state-centric empires and near-empires (like U.K., Israel, China, etc) into the evolving Global Empire --- before the vast majority here and abroad unite and bring a Global People's Movement forth to confront Global Empire.
I'm certainly working toward the later People's Movement to confront Empire ---- and I'm absolutely sure that Ralph, and most other informed progressives and humanists are doing the same.
If you want to poll any pro-Global Empire elite factions about their thoughts on the subject you'll have to do some very selective polling --- since they represent less than .01% of global human population. Although you might start with mouthpiece Tom Friedman, though even he seems to realize that we're not at any "End of History" with 'neoliberal democracy' and 'free-market capitalism', and that the "World (isn't) Really Flat", but rough and bumpy with the pot-holes caused by this GD hidden Global corporate/financial Empire.
Good luck,
Alan
PS. there is no New American (empire) Century, nor a PNAC wet-dream about it. The American Century (Luce's term) is old news now --- as it WAS the 20th century (although America never publicly admitted to being an Empire, even in the post-WWII and post-Empire 2nd half of the game, when it vanquished all the players with that on their jerseys).
No, PNAC may have believed in the 'green light', but it couldn't possibly run faster, stretch out its arms further, or row on enough back against the current of history. The 21st Century was planned to be the first century of a new model car, the Global Empire Century --- but god willing it will be the first century of real people's democracy, and Ralph is one of the people who will help put the candles on the birthday cake.
I don't often respond to anyone, no matter how stupid, in this way ---- but, "What an arse-hole".
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Not Allen": Those "clueless idiots" you speak of are winning. And they'll finally run our sorry asses out just like the Vietnamese did.
We'd do the same here if a bunch of thugs moved in on our territory.
The Pentagon and Washington, with their little game of empire - at some point- are going to piss off someone for the last time and we'll pay for it with a Hiroshima of our very own.
Then that will be the end of it. End of story.
By 'opposition' I meant Nader, Hightower, Kucinich, et. al., the usual cast of Zionists for peace who pose as the opposition to the establishment.
Silly attack on all of those guys. Especially Nader, who is from a Lebanese-American family and has taken a critical stance against Israel's policies.
Joe
[Nader ..... has taken a critical stance against Israel's policies.]
They all have taken a critical stance against Israel's policies, while supporting it's right to exist as a Jewish state on Palestinian land, i.e., the source of conflict for the last 60 years and for the foreseeable future. They are shills. Part of the propaganda charade. Unwilling to call Israel the apartheid state that it is, not because of the territories, but because of the division of Palestine. Read Chomsky (also a shill) but a good analyst ... from 'How Propaganda Works in the West'
"Keeping the People Passive & Obedient
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views."
The allowed spectrum of discussion in the US is from the Likud Zionists (who want all of Palestine) like Bill Kristol to the humanitarian Zionists (who'll settle for the '67 borders) like Nader. That ain't getting it. In fact, it's just plain stupid. I'm tired of it. Wake up.
I've read enough of your posts to realize you think highly of yourself, and believe only you know the truth. That's wonderful, we need people like you.
So, please post your real name and your website where we can all send contributions to your upcoming campaign for Senator/President/whatever. If you choose not to do this, I'll assume you're just a blowhard ahole and will ignore the rest of your posts. Others I hope will do the same.
[So, please post your real name and your website where we can all send contributions ]
Please send any contributions to
Eric Hunt
PO Box 72
Archbald, PA 18403
http://erichunt.net/
Your contributions will be greatly appreciated.
Nice! Er, so who's Allan??
Ralph, buddy, he won't read it.
It will never make it to his table...errr, desk.
He is busy looking forward....
to not listening.
The suspicion is that Obama will do what he so often does and that is to compromise. Instead of granting McChrystal's request for 50,000 troops Obama may decide to split the difference and instead give him 25,000. By doing this, Obama will give the appearance of being an [alleged] peacemaker and, as usual, the progressives and Democrats will hail his efforts as being a step in the right direction. The top military brass probably gave Obama too high a number and will be happy, at least for now, to settle for a number that was less than what they requested from their commander-in-chief. And the result will be that the Democrats and the media will proclaim that Obama has practically brought, to recall a phrase from an earlier era, peace in our time while overlooking the fact that American soldiers are still remaining, unjustifiably, in two third world countries.
As Nader and Hoh and others are implying, bring those troops home-now!
The "peoples' house"? Nay, the Bush Hog Sty.
Wow! Ralph said it out loud, the president attacked Iraq on false pretenses!!!
Isn't that a crime? To lie and create false evidence about going to war... isn't that a crime?
No it's not a crime. It's Christian.
Isn't that a crime? To lie and create false evidence about going to war... isn't that a crime?
It's called Waging Aggressive War. And at Nuremberg it got the Nazis (most of them) death by hanging. Bush and Cheney should receive no less.
Instead the Mass Media has us arguing "IS IT TORTURE; YES OR NO?"
If you ask only a certain inner circle of Generals, they will usually advise different variations on the theme of war. But only war. They still like to play with their toy soldiers.
We have not had a real need for war and generals since before I was born.
Joe
When a computer system is broken, people call a computer engineer.
When a political system is broken, America listens to politicians and generals.
As a political engineer, I suggest that Progressives start mentioning the DAFT law that allows and even forces the President to wield the US military in an insane and DAFT effort to reach the unattainable goal of preventing future terrorism.
-----
Mr. Obama, from May 2009:
"After 9/11...faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions...In other words, we went off course."
"Now let me be clear: we are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates."
Mr. Obama uses words like "the American people...who, despite our many differences, called for a new approach."
Progressives use the same terms and fight their losing battles in the same manner as 8 years ago.
Mr. Obama speaks of war against al-Qaeda. Progressives speak of war in Afghanistan.
And Progressives complain that they aren't listened to.
It is surprising that Common Dreams has not highlighted Obama's declaration that Mohammed will be convicted and of Attorney General's statement that "acquittal is not an option". Why even have a trial if Obama seemingly already knows that Mohammed is going to be judged guilty? It would almost appear that the fix is in regarding the outcome of that trial despite the fact that Mohammed was waterboarded over 180 times. Given that fact, one would think that the defense should file a motion to dismiss based on the fact that any testimony that Mohammed will give will be tainted because of the torture that he had endured at the hands of the Americans. Unless, that is, the judge in this case has been given the word, as Holder has stated, that the only outcome from his trial should be a guilty verdict.
This is reminiscent of the scene in the classic Western film One-Eyed Jacks when the corrupt sheriff, played by Karl Malden, tells Rio, played by Marlon Brando, who is sitting in a jail cell, that he will indeed receive a fair trial. And then he is going to hang him.
Like what so much else in the original political design of the US has come to be, these trials will constitute nothing more than a ritual, rather than a serious attempt to conform to principles of justice. Our political/legal system appears to consist more of substance-less rituals with each passing year.
Americans should be absolutely mortified to hear their leaders unashamedly admit to conducting a kangaroo court.
Then Obama tried to walk back his statement and clarified that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad would be tried by 'a prosecutor, a judge, and a jury'. He kinda forgot the defense...
You have it absolutely right, this is just like "One-Eyed Jacks." Except that at least Rio wasn't tortured by having his children tortured. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's little boys were tortured in U.S. custody and have somehow disappeared. Where are they? From Amnesty International:
http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/pakistan_chil...
Updated: 19 March 2009
In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid, then nine years-old, and Abed al-Khalid, then seven years-old, were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Reports by other detainees indicate that the boys were ill-treated while in Pakistani custody. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was apprehended in March 2003 and was subjected to over three years of enforced disappearance, and to other torture and ill-treatment, by the US authorities before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay, where he is currently held.
After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan to US custody -- allegedly for questioning about their father's activities and to be used as leverage to force their father to co-operate. A Sunday Telegraph (UK) article in March 2003 alleged that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that: "We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care." In the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Combatant Status Review Tribunal in March 2007, he indicates knowledge that his children were apprehended and abused: "They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months, they had been abused." Their whereabouts remain unknown.
What kind of a country have we become, kidnapping and torturing children? What has happened to these children, and why have they disappeared?
Bring America Back !!!!
****Along with bad boy Ralph Naders' back seat driving, I wish we could attach the article just to the left of this
on todays CD===that of an Afghan girl Malalai Joya==and her lifetime actual story on why US Troops should go home !
****In case Obama's interested, that article is titled:
"LIBERATION WAS JUST A LIE " For the real truth, just read it
Mr President !!
He does not have to read it. OBOMBA is not that naive and he already knows liberation is a lie. Don't be conned, he knows the truth.
Dear Mr. Nader,
Will you please run for office in 2010, either for Senator or Representative? I for one feel that the American people could use someone like you writing legislation. I also think that you would inspire a lot of other people to run as Independents. Right now it is so easy to demonstrate that the two parties in control are really one party with the same deadly agenda. People will vote for independents next year, because it is only going to get worse. If they go into the voting booth and there are only R's and D's, that's what they will support. If there's an *I* beside a candidate's name it will be an asset in this next election. Please give Americans a better choice!
Sincerely, Elaine M.
Dear Ralph,
Obama don't meet with anyone who might question the global ruling-elite corporate/financial Empire --- which controls our former country by hiding behind the facade of its two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy, and for which Obama, Congress, the media, the courts, and all other hierarchical/elitist organizations work as 'front-men'.
The only solution, Ralph, as I mentioned to you in Portland, toward confronting global Empire, is a Global People's Movement (qua Revolution) --- which is now building, and would greatly benefit from your assistance.
Fortunately, Obama working for the Global Empire is our biggest gift!
The fact that Obama is so obviously in the tank for the global ruling-elite corporate/financial Empire is the greatest opportunity for the vast majority of average people to finally swear-off this Empire and join together in a Global People's Movement.
While Bill Clinton, Obama, and other false 'hopesters' existed and were partially believable, the organization and development of a truly Global People's Movement (qua Revolution) was stunted, aborted, and still-born.
Now that we all recognize that such smooth-talking con-artists and 'hope' hucksters are merely the planted 'good cops' working for the very same Global Ruling-elite corporate/financial Empire as 'bad-cops' like Reagan and Bushes, we are now free to kiss-off them and their entire corrupt and deceitful system of Empire, and to start fresh and unified in our serious business of building a Global People's Movement.
The vast majority of average, working/middle-class Americans are, as Marx predicted, going to lead the world in a Global People's Movement (qua Revolution) in rejecting not just the old, already discredited nationalist-style empires of the 18th to 20th century, but this newer, and more dangerous 21st century global ruling-elite corporate/financial Empire --- which has taken over nominal governments by hiding behind the facade of its two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy in our former country --- and is currently recruiting like-minded ruling-elites in the U.K, Israel, China, etc.
Their smoothest 'front-man', Obama, is currently trying to square the circle between America's failing image of 'democratic capitalism' (moron Bush's oxymoron) with the reality of China's 'corporate communism' (as Dylan Ratigan accurately describes the Empire here and there).
But Obama's silky smooth fabrications will not sell to people anywhere ---- starting with a sales collapse right here in River City, and continuing with the Chinese people's rejection of his proposed 'deal with the devil'; their own similar Chinese ruling-elite overlords.
The American people are already suffering the worst income inequality in the world (GINI Coefficient). They can already palpably feel it --- and it's going to get worse fast --- which is why the American people are going to be the true vanguard of a fast developing Global People's Movement (which will make the fall of the Berlin Wall look like a slow motion news reel --- news that the CIA will similarly and incredulously watch on TV).
The fantastic news is that most people in the world now recognize that we are all under the thumb of the same Global ruling-elite Empire, we're rejecting this Empire by wide margins, and the formation of a counter-balancing Global People's Movement to confront the 'Corporate Communist' Empire is now quickly spreading.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/bbcc-n12.shtml
As Pogo would say, "We have met the enemy, and he is Empire".
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
"Along with many other citizens in our country, I look forward to your response."
THE WHITE HOUSE
WARSHINGTON, D.C.
Dear Mr. Nader:
Go drink seawater!
Sincerely,
His Excellency, The Great Obama
Given Obama's overall background, I don't expect him to be any different in listening and learning where it counts. I like the letter Nader wrote to Obama but like the rest of our letters to the president, this one will fall on deaf ears provided it even reaches them on 1600. Advising Obama is about as "good" as advising Dubya.
Sometimes, I too feel that Nader should not bother advising either one of these two parties but silently make the move to run for office, be it Senator of CT 2010 or president 2012. I feel that he is being too nice to them.
"Sometimes, I too feel that Nader should not bother advising either one of these two parties ... I feel that he is being too nice to them." –(Jennifer Bedingfield)
–I agree wholeheartedly.
If there is a problem with Nader it is that he is not 'shrill' enough and that he is not 'left' enough. He is an 'option of the system' and has become superannuated as such, because the system itself is dead. Why continue to reference oneself through a dead entity or to play a game that has all but terminated?
He has no business kowtowing to the Democratic Party in any way whatsoever; it is an exercise in self abasement that is demeaning and gratuitously insulting to his stature.
But he is old now. He has done enough. Even an electoral victory in a Senatorial campaign would be at best a symbolic, pyrrhic victory in the larger grand malaise of American electoral politics.
Of course it is 'better than nothing' but it is still nothing. This posting is not an argument against a Nader candidacy in Connecticut or elsewhere. If he can give the Democratic Party a black eye, fine! That is justification enough.
It is incumbent on those who learned from him to exacerbate things beyond the Nader legacy by articulating a programmatic agenda further to the left.
It matters little if that program abjures the game of electoral 'success.' To be sure that concept is difficult, if not impossible to fathom for Americans who have to believe in the possibility of 'winning' and the practicality of concrete 'results.' The 'winner take all' mentality is a structural given which underwrites an allegiance to the very system one criticizes, but cannot seem to ever reject outright. To change the game one must refuse to play the game.
Ralph Nader anywhere else is a centrist, if not some hybrid variant of liberal rightist. That he has always been just that 'even in America' is not a pejorative or derogatory appraisal. But it is evidence of an ideological backwardness endemic to the American political mindset.
As it is, he has in the past all but been censored and despicably marginalized, even for relatively tepid, if not totally innocuous interventions such as this one on Afghanistan.
It is only an assessment of how much further people of conscience in America need to go to the point where they actually begin to make sense.
–(Jill Bains)
The persistent statement that "Zionists" are at the root of all problems of our country is reminiscent of a time around 1933 when "the Jews" were declared to be at the root of all problems of Germany. The persistent and rabid use of "Zionist" on this website makes me wonder whether the users are actually anti-Semites who wildly exaggerate, as a well-known German once did, the power and influence of Jews to hide the basic fact that these users are wholly unable to think and analyze rationally.
God created the Hebrew race to be the most intelligent on earth as a test,
to see if they would pass their excessive wealth down to those of another
race where it belongs.
And so, with Israel now building the most expensive homes on earth,
and most of Gaza living the cold winter in tents,
obviously Israel has failed the test.
Abraham being the first Hebrew and the richest and most intelligent
man of his time.
For we are all created with a different level of intelligence as a test,
to see if we pass our excess down to those less fortunate where it belongs.
For the purpose of this world is to prove the harm in it,
and we will know exactly when harm has reached its ultimate conclusion,
when all things turn toward the good.
Maybe I'm missing the sarcasm here. How is this not racist drivel? If I said that "god created the Aryan race to be the most intelligent on earth" I know it would be racist, so...
How can a self-evident fact be "racist?"
How can my stating that Hebrews are the most
intelligent of people in anyway insult those people?
For I be a slow and careful thinking laboring man
and never do I feel hurt when people call me
dump or stupid, for surely that is exactly
what I am, namely most dumb and stupid.
Lighten up man, life is short.
Alabama john,
You offend me sir, with your simple-minded Religious tripe, because I believe that there is no god. You offend me and you offend other faiths with the assumption that we must concur with your sheltered southern-bible-thumping view of the world.
The only reason any group is "a chosen people" is because they have devolved into the pursuit of organized crime. Shear intelligence would certainly see the value of charity in Gaza, but instead we see unashamed villainy. This brings the international community to view all Jews as self-centered and cruel and not worthy of any station attained by virtue or intellect.
Is this what you want?
It's not what I want. But if IsNotReal keeps living in their own little world funded by Israeli-American bankers like AIPAC (which is funded by religious nuts via the offering plate), all good Americans are going to have to refuse to allow our government to fund their misadventures over there. We've had it.
We have to cut off Israel now; we have to investigate the TARP robberies of the US Treasury and find out where that money really went. Religious extremism is what got us into this mess; returning to an even-keeled secular government is what will get us out.
Despite the bi-polar anguish of "Not Allan" to declare a holy war based only on support or non-support of Zionism, Nader supporters feel Ralph is diligent to oppose this corporate war on more broader based concerns of most of the population. I appeal to Ralph to run for Congress where citizens can finally have one lonely voice that is truly on their side.
I apologize in advance for offending the Christian/Israeli Mafia with the truth.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson