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Gravel’s Lament: Fighting Another Dumb War
I have spent enough time inside the American military to have tasted its dark brutality, frequent incompetence and profligate ability to waste human lives and taxpayer dollars. The deviousness and stupidity of generals, the absurdity of most war plans and the pathological addiction to violence—which is the only language most who command our armed forces are able to understand—make the American military the gravest threat to our anemic democracy, especially as we head toward economic collapse.
Barack Obama, who is as mesmerized by the red, white and blue bunting draped around our vast killing machine as the press, the two main political parties and our entertainment industry, will not halt our doomed imperial projects or renege on the $1 trillion in defense-related spending that is hollowing out the country from the inside. A plague of unchecked militarism has seeped outward from the Pentagon since the end of World War II and is now sucking our marrow dry. It is a familiar disease in imperial empires. We are in the terminal stage. We spend more on our military—half of all discretionary spending—than all of the other countries on Earth combined, although we face no explicit threat.
Mike Gravel, the former two-term senator from Alaska and 2008 presidential candidate, sat Saturday on a park bench in Lafayette Park facing the White House. Gravel and I were in the park, along with Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and other anti-war activists, to denounce the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at a sparsely attended rally. [Click here for video clips of speeches by Kucinich, Hedges and Nader.] Few voices in American politics have been as consistent, as reasoned and as moral as his, which is why Gravel, on a chilly December morning, is in front of the White House, not inside it.
“I suspect that from the get-go he had an inferiority complex with respect to the military,” Gravel, who was a first lieutenant in the Army, said of the president. “It is the same problem [Bill] Clinton had by not serving in the military, by not having an actual experience. You don’t have to go into combat, you just have to get into the military and recognize at the lower reaches how incompetent the military can be. So not having that experience, and only dealing with generals, who of course learn to be charming—it’s the sergeants who inflict the pain—he has this aura about the military. We have acculturated the nation to a military culture. This is the sadness of it all because that sustains the military-industrial complex.”
“Obama comes on the scene,” he added. “He is endorsed in the course of the campaign by some 19 generals and admirals. These people had no confidence in [George W.] Bush. They recognized that Bush’s unilateralism and cavalier approach to torture was injurious to the American military. They gravitated towards Obama. It turned his head. He thought he could be commander in chief and he could, he has the intelligence, but he does not have fortitude. He lacks courage.”
Time is rapidly running out. The massive bailouts, stimulus packages, giveaways and short-term debt, along with imperial wars we can no longer afford, will leave the country struggling to finance nearly $5 trillion in debt by 2010. This will require the United States to auction off about $96 billion in debt a week. Once China and the oil-rich states walk away from our debt, which is inevitable, the Federal Reserve will become the buyer of last resort. The Fed has printed perhaps as much as 2 trillion new dollars in the last two years, and buying this much new debt will see it print trillions more. This is when inflation, and most likely hyperinflation, will turn the dollar into junk. A backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually and psychologically for collapse, will tear apart the social fabric, unleash chaos and violence, and strengthen the calls for more draconian measures by our security apparatus and military.
Obama uses the veneer of intellectualism to promote the dirty politics of Bush. The president spoke in Oslo, when he accepted the Nobel Prize, of “just war” theory, although the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan do not meet the criteria laid down by Thomas Aquinas or traditional Catholic just-war doctrine. He spoke of battling evil, dividing human reality into binary poles of black and white as Bush did, without examining the evil of pre-emptive war, sustained military occupation and imperialism. He compared al-Qaida to Hitler, ignoring the difference between a protean group of terrorists and a nation-state with the capacity to overwhelm its neighbors with conventional military force. “The instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace,” Obama insisted in Oslo. The U.S., he said, has the right to “act unilaterally if necessary” and to launch wars whose purpose “extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor.” Obama’s policies, despite the high-blown rhetoric, are as morally bankrupt as those of his predecessor.
“The first time I met him I felt there was arrogance with a touch of cynicism,” Gravel said of the president. “Now the cynicism and the arrogance have overwhelmed his intelligence. Like Clinton, he is into power.”
Gravel’s shining moment as a politician occurred in 1971 when Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst, handed the secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. The newspaper published portions of the document, which painted a picture of a failing war at odds with official pronouncements. The Justice Department swiftly blocked further publication and moved to punish newspaper publishers who revealed its contents. Gravel responded by reading large portions of the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. His courageous public release of the papers made it possible for the publication to resume. Gravel also launched in 1971 a one-man five-month filibuster to end the peacetime military draft, forcing the Nixon administration to cut a deal that allowed the draft to expire in 1973. He was a feisty and blunt candidate in 2008 who lambasted the Democratic Party and its major candidates for being in the service of corporations, especially the arms industry. His outspokenness saw him banned by the Democratic leadership from later primary debates.
“Obama has wasted an opportunity to be a great president,” Gravel lamented. “More than 50 percent of the American people do not buy into this war. He could have stood up and said ‘we are getting out.’ Forget the Congress. Forget the Republicans. Forget the hawks. Forget mainstream media, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, which are hawks. He would have weathered that storm because he would have had the American people on his side. And what did he do? He caved in to the leadership of [David] Petraeus and [Stanley A.] McChrystal and adopted a scenario that is a total loser.”
“When he hugs his children at night, when he puts them to bed, he has got to begin to think there are little girls like this in Afghanistan who are being killed and maimed,” Gravel told me. “If he can’t have that kind of a thought then his arrogance knows no boundaries. I saw this in the Senate during the Vietnam War. People detach themselves from the immediacy of the crime. They vote for the money. They vote for the policy. The picture of people dying is distant. My God, if you are sitting next to me and a bomb explodes and your arm is ripped off that is not distant. It is immediate. I saw the film by Robert Greenwald, “Rethink Afghanistan.” It rips your heart out. And America under the leadership of Obama is a party to this crime. Close your eyes. Listen to the media. Listen to the pundits. Listen to the rhetoric. It is Vietnam all over again. What is the difference between our vital interests and the domino theory? We could leave Afghanistan and it would be as significant as when we left Vietnam.”
“Don’t be hoodwinked by Obama going to Dover [Air Force Base] to watch the caskets or going to Arlington to salute the graves, with his snappy salute,” Gravel says. “Adolf Hitler lionized soldiers dying. This is the old idea that it is honorable to die. It is not honorable to die in vain. People died in vain in Vietnam. They are dying in vain in Iraq and Afghanistan. And more people will die in vain because of the leadership of Barack Obama.”
“They don’t hate us because we are free,” Gravel said of the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. “They hate us because we are killing them.”
- Posted in
90 Comments so far
Show AllYes, Virginia, there really is a Bushy Man (at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue).
I wanted to vote for John McCain because I hate America but after looking at Sarah Palin I decided that I didn't hate America that much! America had a choice in 2008: Goiter-Face or Prune-Face. So the end result: Bush Without The Ranch.
If you had looked at your ballot more carefully you would have seen several to a half dozen more choices (depending on your State).
The problem with some pithy remarks is that they are bullshit.
Yours is one of them.
We are addicted to war. Like all addicts, we deny our addiction and get angry an anyone pointing it out. Like all addicts, we need more and more, ever bigger doses of war, to have the effect of numbing ourselves so that we cannot see what we are. Like all addicts, we waste our few remaining dollars, we impoverish our families, we break the law, in order to have our wars. It is time to see ourselves for what we are, addicts with a habit that is destroying us and everyone around us. Our only hope is stop making war. To just say "No".
I don't know how many here caught NOW this week. We are expanding our base big time on Guam at a cost of $10 billion. I watched this last night and felt sick. And, of course, I felt for the people of Guam who, being a U.S. territory, have no say in the matter -- no vote, no voice.
I did. It was grotesque beyond belief. Based on the interview with the general(?), base commander(?) I got the impression we are now just pretending to care about peace, so we can justify war. And who would we fight from Guam? The big C? These people are crazed and dangerous and we don't seem to able to do a ** thing about it.
Thanks for reminding me, I just watched the program.
The producers brought up the issue of civilian rapes as being the reason that the base is moving to Guam. But, if they covered the issue of female troops being raped by their own colleagues, I missed it. When the young women of Guam were being sworn in as Marines, I couldn't help but wonder how many of those young women might be sexually harrassed and raped -- by their own male colleagues, especially since statistics tell us that at least 1/3 of female troops are raped by the men with whom they serve.
"I felt for the people of Guam who, being a U.S. territory, have no say in the matter -- no vote, no voice." -- samalabear
Me, too!
Sioux Rose
SERIOUS CITIZEN: Forget this WE shit. WE are not addicted to war! The war machine is addicted to war and sees its interests met by sending $ to Hollywood to drum up entertainment vehicles that anesthetize the public to the true and actual nature of violence. Sports are used to rally passionate loyalties to teams and promote the illusion of winning, an easy segue then utilized by political commentators in their parlance about who's winning/losing the war. Similar team structures and strategy. And the most ghastly of all, when religions use the false witness of their deity to suggest that conflicts serve a Holy purpose and own the approval of god's will. Then, too, there are the economic conditions that force so many into the armed forces in order to put food on their family's table.
What you term WE, if it reflects any consensus whatsoever, is the product of massive conditioning campaigns. While I will admit that self-interest factors into every individual's motives, there is usually a place for recognizing how and where self-interest can intersect with the needs of the larger community. Healthy, balanced societies make note of both trends and equalize them. Our nation pits person against person like some kind of pit bull spectacle. Violence is home grown in America... it's even in our food, and how animals come to market.
Check out "Century of the Self" on You Tube and you'll see the degree to which this nation's population has been treated like Pavlov's dogs and conditioned to accept war, you know, the ultimate banality of evil. I am not part of your "WE" equation.
So long as YOU identify yourself with the powers-that-be plutocrats in their commission of genocide against native peoples by voting and pledging allegiance to The System, thinking the same fate could never
befall YOU, YOU are maintaining a WE that IS addicted to war.
When you are ready to prioritize liberation of indigenous peoples from the colonial jackboot, and therefore liberate yourself, let us know.
Until then--if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, Spiritual Spitfire.
You can't necessarily blame people for being addicted to war. As one who has worked with DoD as a government contractor, I can tell you with a straight face the internal lobbying and slick talks that go on behind the scenes to keep the war machine oiled up and running. I'm sure we all can discuss ways we are directly or indirectly tied to the war machine but even amongst those of us who are tied to it we're trying to moderate it but gdmf-ing politicians are making it harder for us to accomplish even that so that we the people can break out of the war machine prison. Being imprisoned in the war machine is not the same as being addicted to it.
You owe Sioux an apology for unfairly calling her a "spiritual spitfire" which I guarantee you she isn't even if she does get angry from time to time. Which human being doesn't get angry from time to time anyway?
Media reform leads to Election reform leads to all other (democratic-political)reform...
Anyone interested in starting a print publication of CD in Chicago?
Sioux Rose
Max, I know we began our CD relationship with hostility and I genuinely appreciate that we can now agree to disagree, and are open to civil discourse. I do not mind when some of the very intelligent posters on CD ask me to explain (or prove) ideas that originate in more mystical realms. Personal attacks are another matter entirely, and that is one area in which MEMORIAS excels.
Spiritually-realized persons look for the good in others, and seek areas of common benefit, places that they can feel a connection. MEMORIAS thrills on disunity, driving a stake into the heart of those who believe in things that don't resonate with her belief system. It appears to be one entirely founded on what the white anglos owe to her people. My ancestors came to America at the turn of the 20th century and as Jews, were on the receiving end of plenty of prejudice. Very few races and nationalities have not felt suffering at the hands of others. The awakened souls understand that the way to overcome this is to seek peace for all. It's not about squeezing out the best deal for one ethnic group, or demanding reparations. Just about every land has been occupied by other than its original tribes. The best we can do to offset the horrors of yesterday is to build a just world/society today. The bickering and vicious attacks are antithetical to that goal. Some people are pragmatic by nature and others are visionaries. The Creator designed a cosmic circle wherein 12 equivalent, equal but distinctly different in terms of their endowments, human types were designed to people this world; and through their necessary interactions, a living mosaic would ensue in which the parts grew (or evolved) the whole. THAT is the template upon which history was founded in my view. This vision holds promise for peace among tribes, healing the wounds of yesterday, bringing more to our children and grandchildren than endless wars. Hard to believe anyone would wish to attack this ideal. Forgiveness is holy. To those who harbor anger and resentment for all the previous injustices, the flesh and spirit grow heavy. I believe that part of the healing process of mankind involves the embrace of more universally unifying spiritual principles. That is the teaching I bring to this forum, when the topic lends itself to that type of response.
Why should devotion to liberating the "indigenous people from the colonial jackboot" be the only form of self-liberation possible for the "white majority" in the West? Most of the "whites" who nominally benefit from imperial racism are heavily exploited as workers and intellectual collaborators in empire; many are deluded into thinking they are members of the ruling class when they are only pawns. This "mental slavery" is just as bad as the legacy of physical chains (since as a whole, indigenous people are far more aware of the material and cultural assault against them; most Americans still aren't fully aware of precisely how badly "democracy" has been degraded and the legacy of conquest it was founded on). Simply realizing and repudiating this on moral grounds naturally leads to solidarity with the other victims, but by no means should solidarity with indigenous victims be the only path for repudiation.
With all due respect, memorias . . .
Sioux has written extensively about the "liberation of indigenous peoples from the colonial jackboot" on this site, as it plays an integral part of her world view that comes from her understanding of astrology and the imbalance of the Masculine over the Feminine.
Since your screen name is new, I will chalk up your reply to simple ignorance due to not being around here much. Understandable. Stick around, and you will see some of the most eloquent and elegant posts on this site emanating from the fingers of Sioux Rose.
Peace,
John
Sioux Rose
SEVENTH SON: Thank you for the defense. MEMORIAS has posed as Native Tongue, Lucky You, McRaven (or some derivative of the name Raven) and MANY other names. She looks for every possible opportunity to attack me, projects her anger onto me for things that require universal applications as opposed to easy blame. In the past when she attacked my credentials and I defended myself by explaining the things I had published, etc. she turned that defense into yet another reason to attack me. She takes my comments out of context or applies her own meanings (erroneously) to them. I find it useless to engage her in any discussion, as she is bound and determined to find the dirt on anyone and everyone and has NO interest in unity, working towards solutions, or opening her HEART to others. It is the ego that is addicted to power and feeds off attacking others. I am not interested in that level of discourse, and have asked this poster to avoid my comments as I do not wish to further engage her. Unfortunately, she believes it is her right to continue attacking and attempting to discredit me. Changing her name gives readers of the forum the false sense that this is someone new raising potentially pertinent issues. Her anonymity is unfair to me as I have been over this road (with her) too many times before. I use my name, have requested a truce, but she thrives on conflict and is the living antithesis to the peace she claims to want for her people.
"Forget this WE shit. WE are not addicted to war!" Totally agree. I've always been a peace-lover, and when I grew up and was blessed with a bunch of sons, you can bet I vowed to contribute zero cannon fodder to the PTB. Also agree re The Century of Self which I plan to watch again. Nice comment, Siouxrose, as usual.
Sioux Rose
DUS: Thank you. The premise of "we" in a nation where leaders don't listen to citizens is entirely disingenous. Poll numbers may show more support these days for war in Afghanistan, but how much of that is due to a lying media bending "facts" to fit a preconceived case not unlike the false pretexts used as cover to rationalize the ILLEGAL invasion of Iraq? One could make the analogy that the US body politic is akin to a patient on narcotics. Thus asking that patient its opinion when under the influence is patently unfair. Until the truth is actually out there (some would argue citizens own an obligation to seek it, but many don't realize the degree to which they are being deceived by "all those news networks" and thus experience no onus to dig up said Truth), what can polling those seduced by false rhetoric actually indicate?
For Americans, War is a lot like Sports. I think that's why we have devolved so many brutal, steriod juiced, Sports entertainments; Hockey, Football, Wrestling, (Nascar?). It helps to maintain the illusion of "Us against Them", so we can always cheer for the Good Guys and hate the Bad Guys, whoever they happen to be at the time. Just like in Wrestling, the heels can quickly switch to heroes, and vice versa. So it is with other countries, allies for awhile perhaps, then mortal enemies according to the warped perceptions of the Military and the economic needs of the Corporate/Industrial Complex. As such, the genocides in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply the inevitible result of the expression of the American Way of Life.
"He would have weathered that storm because he would have had the American people on his side. And what did he do? He caved in to the leadership of [David] Petraeus and [Stanley A.] McChrystal and adopted a scenario that is a total loser.”
Ditto on health care. Two issues he had the people solidly behind him on.
Ditto also on the bailouts. That's three issues for which he had the people solidly behind him.
Especially here in Chicago, there were so so many... what I can only call "Obama-mania" supporters- uniformily loud and bouisterous, quickly to shout me down for my minority opinions (similiar to "people on the other (red) side of the spectrum".
"They" seem so quiet now.
JUST LIKE (FAIR-WEATHER) CUBS FANS!
A weak analogy I know, but it reminds me yet again that 1. most people don't seem to have convictions and 2. I can't let my convictions blind me to other opinions, beliefs, facts or perceptions.
So in this line of thinking, I ask: how do we increase Moral and Political Convictions (not just blind faith and herd instinct)?
yeah, yeah I know... I, personally, need to start my own church, newspaper, and/or bank. I'm getting on that...
“The first time I met him I felt there was arrogance with a touch of cynicism,” Gravel said of the president. “Now the cynicism and the arrogance have overwhelmed his intelligence. Like Clinton, he is into power.”
Exactly, Senator Gravel, you've reduced much of the angst about the President's "leadership" to a remarkably workable formulation. When the trappings of power trap the recipient of them, the people are indeed in deep trouble.
L'histoire se repete, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose! Clichés, but so true! Maybe the US needs a resounding military defeat within their own bordersas a way to lose some arrogance, and there's plenty of that about. But why bother, the whole system seems to be about to collapse.
We do whatever the richest 2 % want us to do. That is what American democracy means.
It is impossible to overstate the incompetence and waste in the military.
I saw it firsthand years ago in the Quartermaster Corps (wonder if that still exists, or is it now Supplies R Us Inc. or some such), and suspect that the "private contractors" who have apparently taken over much of this work, are making out like bandits beyond the dreams of the most venial old supply sargent.
Sioux Rose
WAIGUOREN: So true!
To the poster (not sure who it was) that challenged me when I said half the US budget money goes to militarism, perhaps you'll believe those statistics as they are now coming from Chris Hedges.
I am always moved by Mr. Hedges' profound insights and analyses. Usually his reports receive enormous response in this forum. One can also see that his own understanding is growing exponentially as taken from the evolving nature of his incisive reports & reporting.
Thank God there are still political animals with hearts and souls intact like Mike Gravel.
The Great Mike Gravel at an early Democratic Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OGN4FpIG54
Thank you, Senator Gravel.
If you liked Hedges' book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" you should read James Hillman's book "A Terrible Love of War."
The Constitution states very specifically that only the Congress has the power to declare War.
Congress has not, ever, declared War on Iraq or Afghanistan.
Now, we cannot have it both f**king ways - either we abide by the ENTIRE Constitution, or none of it.
Meanwhile, the ultimate propaganda word in history is WAR. War means War powers, it means all must be patriotic, it means keep your mouth shut you f**king traitor.
If We The People cease referring to Iraq and Afghanistan as WARS, and, instead, start referring to them as what they are - illegal offensive military occupations - then I guarantee you more and more millions of 'us' will start demanding an end to this wholly illegal madness.
And, don't forget, technically, no declared War, no CIC; and the War Powers Resolution had never been settled Constitutionally, which means IT IS NOT PART OF OUR CONSTITUTION yet.
Stop calling them WARS and see what happens...
Alas, your comments are SO prehistoric.
The "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" (AUMF) was a joint resolution passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 2001, authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001. The authorization granted the President the authority to use all "necessary and appropriate force" against those whom he determined "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the September 11th attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups.
Since then, we have seen the AUMF spun into justifying torture, unwarranted spying on citizens, detention without just cause or warrant, secret renditions, the betrayal of habeus corpus, and the wholesale support of Congress for providing the military with whatever funding they request.
This message has been approved of by George W Bush and Barack H Obama, and most members of Congress.
There was never a declaration of war by congress. The Iraq and Afghanistan incursions are illegal, unconstitutional and treasonous.
no declaration of war=no actual service=no commander in chief.
So why, Chris Hedges, does this article do what the corporate media also does, silence Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Nader? Puffing Mr. Gravel is fine but not at the expense of the others. I've honored him since he read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record after they were prohibited for the public. But Mr. Kucinich has been for years the only consistent and loud voice in a Capitol otherwise owned by corporate interests.
It is very, very important to support all the people with real backbones. We have to get out of our homes and into the streets to stop these wars. The Iraq war continues apace although now subordinated by the media. Torture continues, Guantanamo and Bagram are not closed. Health care for all has become a compromised bill of shreds and patches. Mr. Cheney unabashedly says he doesn't care what the American people think, war is the way.
Compromise is sometimes good. Sometimes it's just caving in so that the arguments decrease in volume. Mr. Obama's commitment to compromise is without virtue.
I don´t live in the US, so I do not legitimize The System by voting for Tweedledee or Tweedledum every 4 years,
BUT I did see a democratic party precandidates "debate" by Sat t.v. when I was somewhere--maybe in the Middle East.
The ONLY person I remember from the debate was Mike Gravel--even though the moderators tried to avoid giving him questions to answer and tried their best to focus on the Big Three--how soon sexually hypocritical gringos forgot about Edwards.
Gravel is an elder who appears to have actually learned something from his life experience--he is not a zombie kept alive by machines and so zoned out on dozens of meds that he doesn´t know if he is alive or dead but might as well be the latter.
Gravel tells it like it is--at least like it is for anyone who is not brain dead and whose head is not lost in the black hole of the end of the alimentary tunnel.
I salute him!
The article was about Gravel; and there is a link to Kucinich's speech.
The point about recognition is an important one though, and a major stumbling block as to what it's focused on and carried out. When dissent to the growing energy for escalating the war in the Middle East first started to arise in the Detroit area in 2002, the gatherings were marked and predominately consumed by the activity of which person or group was being recognized and in which order and for how long; with very little focus on the deflecting and/or deflating the growing war energy. This same type of political manuvering marked each teach-in/mass demonstration: who would talk, what order and for how long continued to be the major focus and not countering or replacing the war energy.
Recognition and giving credit where credit is due are important activities, but they shouldn't cut into the recognition of culturing peace and applying the understanding derived from the peace state -- this should be the main focus, regardless of who takes the lead during whatever moments of the dance.
This is one column by Chris Hedges. Do you think he could fit input from Gravel, Kucinich & Nader into 2 pages and do all of them justice beyond one topical soundbite for each? Chill out--this isn't some "corporate blackout"--it's a weekly column with only so much space.
I was at this rally and saw Gravel speaking with Hedges beforehand for a good half hour. Apparently they'd never met, so they had a lot to discuss.
In my opinion (for what it's worth), Gravel gave the best speech of the four former presidential candidates at the rally (Kucinich, McKinney, and Nader as well). Gravel touched on the true moral imperative and human issue at the core of war, which is so often overlooked. The others spoke well and gave many convincing numbers, but it wasn't "gut rhetoric" in the same way as Gravel's, which is why I so thoroughly enjoy his perspective.
I ran late and arrived at 12:45 - at the middle of Hedges speech, so I missed the well-knowns. They should have spread the speakers out more.
"Sparsely attended" was too kind a remark! About 150 were there when I arrived. Obama can easily conclude that the peace movement is nothing he need even give a thought about.
As was pointed out on the TruthDig site's comment thread for this article, attempting to convene a protest in D.C. was a mistake.
The suggestion that poster had was a multi-city protest with video/audio links and a screen behind the main speakers in D.C. showing the crowds elsewhere.
Attempts at large, centralized rallys in D.C. are reflections of the tactics of the past that are not applicable to this moment. They require either long-planning, large existing organizations, and unified social structures (Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial) or long-planning and huge groups of people free to roam across the country for such events ('60s anti-war college/drifter kids).
I would also argue that the time for mere "anti-war" action is passed. The focus now should be on the deeper goals of dismantling Empire, restoring the Rule of Law and the Democratic Republic, Constitutional Reform to better fit the 21st-century, and instituting a social-welfare oriented system providing for reasonable economic fairness within a free-but-regulated market.
A set of goals that comprehensive yet necessary would seem to indicate the need not just for more action, but for action organized within a Party framework.
A -perhaps temporary- Left Coalition Party consisting of Naderites, Greens, Progressive-wing Dems, and the many Citizens who would identify as "Left" but not as any of these is what I say we need.
A rally for this is something myself and many others might actually attend!
-matti.
The greater imperialist, and economic syatem is exactly what is spoken out against at these protests. Have you never attended any kind of protest?
No one has to "roam" large distances. For the third fucking time, there is a pool of 4.5 million people within a 20 mile radius of the White House, or about 70 million within a 4-5 hour drive, bus or train ride from the white house.
And these protests are held on Saturdays. Millions of poople within a four-hour drive chose instead to go to a football game, shopping, or deer hunting.
Sorry, there are NO excuses.
. . . the American military gravitated towards Obama. It turned his head. He thought he could be commander in chief and he could, he has the intelligence, but he does not have fortitude. He lacks courage.”
I see that FUBARack H. Obama grades his presidency "a solid B+". B+ for Bullshit Plus, his preferred style of governance. In reality, he charitably deserves an F-. In nearly a year he has accomplished absolutely nothing except giving us a daily display of his craven nature and kick the can of the USA's certain demise further down the road. "Obama uses the veneer of intellectualism to promote the dirty politics of Bush." That's as succinct and accurate a description of FUBARack H. Obama as anyone will ever write.
Waht to see the USA's future?
Read "The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire"
At the rate it is happening, I doubt that we'll have to read the book for I fear that it is too late.
Even better, try "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon.
Mike Gravel is an interesting senator for one who comes all the way from Alaska that is now the home of the god forsaken Sarah Palin who scared me into voting for Obama on the last minute. The only issue that hurt his candidacy was his call for a National Sales Tax but otherwise he was a remarkable senator and a candidate in 2008 who was unfairly shut off like Kucinich.
I was thinking of Mike Gravel the nominee in 2012 on the Democratic side and Sarah Palin the GOP nominee in 2012, unlikely of course but two candidates straight up from Alaska vying for the presidency like never before. AK could be a swing state with two different populists fighting tooth and nail.
Gravel is 'from' MA. He spent 30+/- years in Alaska but does not live there now. I, too, spent 30-odd years in AK and while I remember Gravel, I never met anyone like Palin (born in ID). As right-wing and messed-up as AK politics have always been, Palin is surely an anomaly.
Ever hear of a general or politician with ptsd?
PTSD
Pain, always the pain in the heart, the mind, and oh1 so much of the pain in the Soul! How is one to rid self of the one experience that will eat at a body from the inside out and leave a shell to walk around with this psychological cancer eating away at the very reason for living? To kill another for what the heart knows is not a valid justification will take the body and eat at it like a voracious animal and, yet, ask for some mercy and offer it’s suffering as penance for this unnatural deed and the Soul weeps for all who died and for the heart that killed. Post indeed; a pillar and a post to madness
Tears, how many, how many will it take for the peace, the peace that a home should bring and does not? How can a pain in the heart move the body to react with an outward danger to any that would be a friend, or lover, or helper, or any stranger? How is a war for lucre any more than a common criminal does when murder is done in the stealing of goods belonging to an other peoples or nations? The warrior and the politician will say nay, nay it is for the safety of all that others must die; weep not for the “others” for they are not worthy of any tears! The ears hear, the mind processes but the heart hurts and the body will know while the Soul weeps. Trauma is no more than a word for a spiritual death watch.
Sorrow; that sorrow which cries out! Cries out to anything, anyone that would relieve or cut out that which presses on the heart; simulating a heart attack in its total absorbs ion of this physical entity called sorrow and the mind; the mind that will try to rationalize what is happening and finds itself where there is no up or down, no logical next step to put body, mind and Soul back to a functional mode and get on with a life in a world that will be forever changed and the Soul weeps. Stress; in this context is a cover up; like telling someone who has a headache take two aspirin and call me in the morning.
Damned; is this not more appropriate, if anything is appropiate, for a human being that exists in a world that increasingly fades to grays and blacks while most around this entity have no clue of the pain, the suffering, the sorrow? Did I ever mention the guilt that is ever present and no one will ever talk about? Because then it would mean that it is wrong, so terribly wrong to have these soldiers out there killing and maiming other peoples that have no wish for their presence and are caught in a political and ideological struggle that is motivated by pure greed and the heart, the mind and the Soul that finally gets that fact will know that for all of their causes there will be effects and PTSD is one effect. Disorder; like talking about an unruly school room full of kids.
I cried writing this. Tony
Sioux Rose
TONY: I believe Moses killed a man before his spiritual calling arose. I certainly am not advocating for violence/murder, but some souls heal after such an encounter and because they learn from it, they function like the bone that is stronger having once broken. If all those who go down for the count in these modern times serve as martyrs to the cause of teaching the entire world population that war is effete, then their sacrifice (given the long-term cosmic plan that includes reincarnation) is a positive one. My point is that because you feel as deeply as you do, your soul is healed or alive enough to heal. It is in denying the emotions, the realization that all human life, indeed ALL life is connected in ways beyond what we can conceive of, that causes the resistance that breaks down the tissues, inclusive of the mind's matter. It's rather Zen isn't it... the less resistance, the more willingness to OWN the pain, embrace the compassion for self and other, then the more the being expands and in its expansion lets in the Light that would heal. Crying can be cathartic. If I were near, I'd give you a warm hug, brother.
Great line: "Obama uses the veneer of intellectualism to support the dirty politics of Bush". Obama: the consummate con man!
I really must ask what a "smart war" is in today's era. Morally, every war is unjust. In economic and geopolitical terms, I don't exactly see tangible benefits that don't become long-term costs (like the costs required to bribe people not to attack you, as in Iraq and Afghanistan or those in treating wounded soldiers and paying mercenaries).