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A Speech for Endless War
Hours later, the New York Times front page offered a credulous gloss for the end of "the seven-year American combat mission in Iraq." The first sentence of the coverage described the speech as saying "that it is now time to turn to pressing problems at home." The story went on to assert that Obama "used the moment to emphasize that he sees his primary job as addressing the weak economy and other domestic issues -- and to make clear that he intends to begin disengaging from the war in Afghanistan next summer."
But the speech gave no real indication of a shift in priorities from making war to creating jobs. And the oratory "made clear" only the repetition of vague vows to "begin" disengaging from the Afghanistan war next summer. In fact, top administration officials have been signaling that only token military withdrawals are apt to occur in mid-2011, and Obama said nothing to the contrary.
While now trumpeting the nobility of an Iraq war effort that he'd initially disparaged as "dumb," Barack Obama is polishing a halo over the Afghanistan war, which he touts as very smart. In the process, the Oval Office speech declared that every U.S. war -- no matter how mendacious or horrific -- is worthy of veneration.
Obama closed the speech with a tribute to "an unbroken line of heroes" stretching "from Khe Sanh to Kandahar -- Americans who have fought to see that the lives of our children are better than our own." His reference to the famous U.S. military outpost in South Vietnam was a chilling expression of affinity for another march of folly.
With his commitment to war in Afghanistan, President Obama is not only on the wrong side of history. He is also now propagating an exculpatory view of any and all U.S. war efforts -- as if the immoral can become the magnificent by virtue of patriotic alchemy.
A century ago, William Dean Howells wrote: "What a thing it is to have a country that can't be wrong, but if it is, is right, anyway!"
During the presidency of George W. Bush, "the war on terror" served as a rationale for establishing warfare as a perennial necessity. The Obama administration may have shelved the phrase, but the basic underlying rationales are firmly in place. With American troop levels in Afghanistan near 100,000, top U.S. officials are ramping up rhetoric about "taking the fight to" the evildoers.
The day before the Oval Office speech, presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs talked to reporters about "what this drawdown means to our national security efforts in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia and around the world as we take the fight to Al Qaeda."
The next morning, Obama declared at Fort Bliss: "A lot of families are now being touched in Afghanistan. We've seen casualties go up because we're taking the fight to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their allies." And, for good measure, Obama added that "now, under the command of General Petraeus, we have the troops who are there in a position to start taking the fight to the terrorists."
If, nine years after 9/11, we are supposed to believe that U.S. forces can now "start" taking the fight to "the terrorists," this is truly war without end. And that's the idea.
Nearly eight years ago, in November 2002, retired U.S. Army Gen. William Odom appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" program and told viewers: "Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic. It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on terrorism."
With his Aug. 31 speech, Obama became explicit about the relationship between reduced troop levels in Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. "We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists," he said. "And because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense." This is the approach of endless war.
While Obama was declaring that "our most urgent task is to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work," I went to a National Priorities Project webpage and looked at cost-of-war counters spinning like odometers in manic overdrive. The figures for the "Cost of War in Afghanistan" -- already above $329 billion -- are now spinning much faster than the ones for war in Iraq.
One day in March 1969, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist spoke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Our government has become preoccupied with death," George Wald said, "with the business of killing and being killed." More than four decades later, how much has really changed?
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Show AllOur MIC has become a cancer in our country. Our immune system is designed to search out cancer cells and destroy them, but with leukemia the immune system becomes the cancer and destroys the body it was supposed to save. Our elite have become our society's cancer.
Although "Its now time to turn to the pressing problems at home" may be one of the few accurate statements to emanate from politicians and the mainstream media in a long time, I doubt there is any sincerety among politicians (Obama included)to follow through.
To date Obama has exacerbated "the pressing problems at home" by following the Rove/Dubya model of rewarding the perpetrators of those "pressing problems" and condemning and blaming the victims.
Well, here was one of the most INACCURATE statements Obama made in the speech:
..... "an unbroken line of heroes" stretching "from Khe Sanh to Kandahar -- Americans who have fought to see that the lives of our children are better than our own."
Oh, reeeeeeally???!!
Our military activities since the day of 9/11 have done nothing but cause more "blowback", the loss of many of our protected rights outlined in the Constitution with the blind passage of the U.S. Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, the un-Constitutional FISA legislation and on and on.
Never mind our economy being blown down a corrupt Wall Street rat hole and our treasures being consumed by endless wars and occupations. Throw in the rotten corporate give-away in the form of a "health care" bill and the mild slap on the wrist given to the Wall Street Bankster Boyz for good measure....
Just who does he think he is kidding??!
I look into the eyes of my infant grand-daughter and CRINGE at the thought of what we will be leaving her.
me too Abby. grandsons are not quite infant anymore, but it's the same thing. you bet i cringe.
the legacy of obomber's wars- and they are his wars now- is all around us already and what an ugly sight it is. no need to elaborate right?
but i will anyway. i think this country over the last 10 years has become first willing, and now it would seem, eager to kill people in other countries far away. And to have also acquired an appetite for violence in every form. the worst part is that there is no relief in sight. it's not just my own grandsons either. every time i walk down the street and see little babies i feel like i owe them an apology.
My neighbor last night told me that unions have no place in Amerika today. He obviously thinks he is part of the ruling class.. The capacity of the Amerikan to believe bull sh-t is beyond my belief system. The Amerikan dream seems to be just a dream and to be happy in that dream until a reality hits, like a bad disease hitting home and the reality of the Amerikan dream hits you between the eyes.
The reality of the Amerikan dream is all to real to the poor bastards living under the guns of the young amerikan bullies in the middle east.
That's why the Chinese want no part of American democracy and voting. The majority of people can be too easily made to vote anyway the powerful money interests want them top vote.
19% of the American public thinks that they are in the top 1% of income, and another 20% think that they are going to be. (From a survey reported in the N.Y. Times a few years ago). That's 39% of the population who not only identify with the super rich but who think they are a part of them.
The "American Dream" is composed of fantasy and ignorance. And of social isolation. The average American spends much more time (4 1/2 hours a day) watching TV than talking to other humans; and therefore derives her or his sense of social reality from corporations rather than from real humans. (20 minutes a day is spent talking to a spouse.) Like Alice in Wonderland, therefore, we (they?) "can believe 6 impossible things before breakfast." The US, in its incomparable compassion, for example, spends 20% of the national budget on foreign aid. Yes, that is what is believed.
What does all this magnificent ignorance mean to progressive activists? My slogan is: "Unless we first have a society in which people TALK to each other. our politics are irrelevant." No matter what our specialty: peace, economy, ecology - our job is not so much to spout facts and opinions as it is to draw people into community; a community at least as compelling as the congregation of a fundamentalist church. Community is the Red Pill that can draw us out of our collective fantasy, because it allows us to see ourselves in each other. We are not going to stop war or any other kind of nightmare until we learn how to create progressive extended families.
Right. Solomon is one of a long list of commentators, supposedly on the left, who do a reasonable job diagnosing the problem. Their solution? Continue to vote for the Democrats.
They are like old time doctors. When their prescrptions weren't working their solution was More Leeches!
Every time we voted for the lesser of two evils, both evils became more evil.
Eh. There's no longer "greater" or "lesser" evil.
Just evil, displayed in two colours on election-year TV graphics.
Those of you who have know of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and his monsters from another dimension, will appreciate this bumper sticker.
"Vote for Cthulu. Why settle for the LESSER evil?"
Ardent, THANKS!!!!
2012???
How about the all important "mid-terms"?
I'm not sure if there is a Green Party candidate running against Barbara Boxer for the Senate here in Cali. this November, but if there is he/she will get my vote.
Boxer gave a speech to The Commonwealth Club and she tried to act like she's going to "give Obama hell over Afghanistan".
What a crock.
Agreed! Solomon is a creep. I don't take the guy seriously. Like most liberals, they flock to power and then when power centers reject them and their illusions about democracy, the write crap articles like this, pretending that they are now the critic.
I was disgusted reading this guys excuses all throughout 2008 urging people to vote for Obama, and Solomon was even a delegate to this corporate fuck house of a party.
Solomon, I hope you read this: please stop your pathetic attempts to portray your politics as anything other than an enabler of war and empire. You are either naive or dishonest. Either way, you are an opportunist that will be forgotten in the dust bin of history.
stop complaining about Norm. he's all right. find the part in this piece where he is "enabling war and empire"
i knew it- cuz it isn't there. what is there is an eloquent put down of obomber's pathetic attempts to rebrand Vietnam and Iraq as "heroic"
good job Norm. hope ya read this too
my attitude is a result of years of Norman's excuses for Obama, his attacks against radicals, and the last year of acting like the perpetual critic of Obama.
as i said, Solomon urged people to vote for Obama, when it was perfectly clear he was going to expand the imperial project and serve the interests of Wall Street. Solomon also joined the Dems as a delegate. I think all of this qualifies as someone that enables war and empire. If you believe the Dems are not pro-empire/pro-corporate, then we have a fundamental disagreement.
there is no grey area here. you either support imperialists or you don't. you are either anti-war or you are not. Solomon urged us to vote Obama, indeed ridiculed those of us that challenged him.
Between the petro-chemical giants and the industry of war there is no doubt we are living in Orwell-land...Any other determination is business as usual. Bombs are falling and it is just a way to make money to the present structure!
Obama's speech can be summed up by a dispatch from the front in World War I: "Situation hopeless but not serious." All one can do is laugh at the farce this nation has become.
If you can get people to believe absurdities, you can get them to commit atrocities.
The official conspiracy theory of 9/11 comes to mind.
It's interesting to me that the cost of our involvement in the middle east is never mentioned in the speeches we hear from Washington.
To date, the estimate of the amount spent is over three trillion dollars!!
A TRILLION DOLLARS IS EQUAL TO A MILLION, MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!
Three trillion is equal to THREE MILLION, MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!
Can you imagine the good this country could have done by spending that money wisely instead of waging war with it????
And our "leaders" in congress are telling us that the U.S. cannot afford to help the thousands of Americans who are out of work and who are losing their homes!!!
Moreover, it's "necessary" to cut back on Social Security. Our Congress is so full of B.S., I can smell it from here.
THE UNITED STATES IS COMPLETELY BROKEN AND IS TOTALLY IN THE HANDS OF THE WEALTHY AND CORPORATIONS!!! The average citizen no longer has any say whatsoever in how the U.S. spends money. It's completely decided by the Congress, half of whom are millionaires (and the same percentage comprises the Supreme Court)!!!
Do you think any of them keep a household budget??? HA!!! They don't have to - there's always enough money to do/buy whatever they please! And they decided to spend three trillion of OUR dollars on a "war" in the middle east!!!
At this point, I really can't think of anyone in Congress who is worthy of my vote! I haven't heard any of them speak for me!
OOOOPs, you forgot to mention THE 2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS Donald Rumsfeld admitted on September 10,2001, "The Department of Defense can not account for 2.3 Trillion Dollars of expenditures." Then the following year the GAO reported that The Department of Defense can not account for another 1 TRILLION Dollars of expenditures.....Excuse me, Joseph Stiglitz wrote a book in 2005 "The Three Trillion Dollar War".
Maybe if you look at our current deficit of well over 13 TRILLION DOLLARS and remember that the Clinton Adinistration left with a balanced budget and the debt at 3.2 TRILLION DOLLARS.........I would say The Invasions, Occupations, and Deep Underground Military Bases have cost The American People over 9 TRILLION DOLLARS in the past 9 Years.......And, believe me, Obama will ask for another 35 Billion Supplemental War Fund next month.......
Human life has no meaning to "The Power Elite" and Obama is nothing more than "Their Puppet".
AFGHAN WAR COST OVER 7 TIMES THE AFGHAN GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT.
If you want to talk Afghanistan to American Christians, or over the radio, try these facts.
With a hundred thousand American troops at a million dollars each, the budget for the Afghan war is a hundred billion this year. (Actually it's much higher, and doesn't include future veteran costs, but let's stick with the official figures.)
The Afghan gross domestic project in 2008 was $10 billion. (That's in dollar equivalents, not the somewhat mythical "purchasing power equivalent.)
"Global Finance" ... www.gfmag.com/gdp-data-country-reports/334-afghanistan-gdp-country-report.html
The CIA puts the 2009 figure at $14 billion.
www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html
Even granting the higher, CIA, income figure, the US is spending over 7 times more in warfare than the entire Afghanistan national income. With 2/7ths of that military money, or 28.6 billion dollars, the US could TRIPLE the income of the average Afghani, and spend the rest creating jobs in America.
Would the average Afghan really want to continue fighting against a country which had just tripled her/his income, paying huge wages for building schools, hospitals, roads and houses? Wouldn't they defend against those who wanted to disrupt such largesse?
And to the average American Christian: how is spending vastly more on killing than on economic relief compatible with: "Return good for evil," or "If someone asks for your shirt, give them your cloak as well."?
Progressive and many moderate Christians agree with us about the war. If we could bring this message to the rest of the congregations, facts and figures in hand, the eternal war might soon come to an end.
It is even simpler than that. For 6 billion the U.S. could buy the entire poppy produce for the year. This could be made into painkillers and heroin. By paying more than the current price to the Afghans, they be better off and the middleman (Taliban) get screwed. If you also provide heroin to addicts crime goes down and the pushers are out of business, decreasing crime further. You need to be bright and honest to do these things and, sadly, it is impossible to find an honest, intelligent person in a position of power to do these things. Therefore, it will not change.Many people thought Obama was that man. They were wrong and it was evident before he was elected thay they were wrong. I got kicked off this site, before his election, for saying about Obama, WITHOUT ANY DISRESPECT INTENDED, that "This mulato will show that you can be a shitty president regardless of the color of your skin." I suspect the problem was mulato, which is not pejoritave to me, but is accurate. He isn't black. He isn't.
Hi Pink,
Buying up the opium crop is something to consider. Although it might encourage Afghan farmers to grow even more, instead of considering alternatives.
My main point, though, is that we have to find a way to talk about war and peace, not to each other, but to the average American. Talking about 'mulattos' probably won't help in that task. Let's keep trying.
Why? What is the proper term for half white and half black? Isn't it racist to have a problem with that word? How come some people have trouble saying someone is a jew?
The farmers will grow what the market can bear. If narcotics are provided to addicts and painkillers produced the black market will disappear and the price will drop, making the farmer more interested in other crops. The fall in price would eventually be at least 90%.
How about mestizo? Is that ok? I'm mestizo. I don't have a problem with that. If I was mulato that would be ok too, except for the discrimination, which happens to mestizos too. Obama was presented as black which was manipulative. He has nothing to do with american blacks except as an object of discrimination. He grew up far from the psychology of american blacks. He is a genetic and cultural mixture who does not represent the end of racism, but rather a redefinition of the acceptable black as white in deportment and demeanor.
Frank,
here's a visual of what 315 billion dollars looks like, 3 trillion dollars would be about 10 times larger than the 3d diagram.
How 315 Billion Dollars Look Like
http://www.designverb.com/2008/01/04/how-315-billion-dollars-look-like/
...peace...
Republicans and Democrats, corrupt lying scumbags ALL. But don't waste your vote on a third party candidate, fools.
'One day in March 1969, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist spoke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Our government has become preoccupied with death," George Wald said, "with the business of killing and being killed." More than four decades later, how much has really changed?'
Quite a bit has changed. We're far more dedicated to killing and being killed, and efficient in carrying out the orders for our death-dealing government. In 1969 we were still learning the ropes. Now it's settled policy. We are all about Death and destruction, and our marionette presidents serve only that purpose, especially when they win Nobel Peace Prizes and prattle about "withdrawing troops" from one of our several theaters of illegal, immoral, criminal war on countries that can barely manage to even feed their people.
Obama should be in the same docket as Bush and Cheney for war crimes against humanity, but instead he and his successors will keep us locked into WAR in perpetuity, as our domestic economy crumbles, the gap between the rich and everyone else widens, and the lies keep tumbling from the corrupt mouths of politicians owned and operated by behemoth corporations. Each election there will only be "choices" between one of the two corporate war parties, as liberals and progressives warn against voting for all third parties because that means we get Beck/Palin, and there is No Other Alternative. So we may instead get Obama 2.0, doing exactly what the 1.0 version is doing, invading Iran in a year or two, finding another "terrorist state" to target, always devoted to War as the only Peace worth talking about. If we don't overthrow this death machine, and soon, it will grind us all up into hamburger.
Ephraim, No one can accuse you of understating the case!! But,
where do you get the notion"liberals and progressives warn against voting for all third parties".....just where is that written anywhere in stone?
Moreover,Just how does one "overthrow the death machine",admittedly, a very laudable concept?
Why could'nt a first step be:
To Convince former "Spear Carriers" who have seen the light , such as Col. Andrew Bachevich and MANY such others to establish a national Green-Labor- Anti-War-ProSanity-Coffee Party-Progressive THIRD PARTY for 2012!
There is no better time than NOW.
where do you get the notion"liberals and progressives warn against voting for all third parties".....just where is that written anywhere in stone?
It's made up. The progressives and liberals never did that. Most of them voted for the viable choice. Third party supporters can be obnoxious juveniles stuck on proven loser strategies. The system doesn't let third parties win past local levels and the third party supporters do a poor job on building support for presidential elections. I'm still waiting for a proven winning strategy for third partiers in presidential elections.
Well you know if the Democrats and Republicans didn't go out of their way to suppress third parties and keep our election system rigged, I'm sure they would do better on a larger scale.
But I almost forgot: what do you care? You're all for the status quo and will never contribute to any meaning social change. No wonder you're a devoted Democrat!
I want wars ended, troops brought home,
crimes investigated, and so much more.
I have no loyalty to the Dem party.
It's simply the only vehicle by which change happens.
The Dem Party can shift to the left
the same way it's shifted to the right -
by how it is pulled.
The only way change in American politics has ever happened,
is from shifting major parties.
It NEVER comes from 3rd parties.
Then get off your lazy ass and join me in pushing the party to the left. doikie ! I'll give you plenty of whoppers and beers.
The Republican party was originally a third party competing against the Democrats and Whigs, the two parties that were in power at the time.
It was founded with the goal of ending slavery.
It's good to know a bit of history before you say that things have never happened..
Re: "The Republican party was originally a third party competing against the Democrats and Whigs, the two parties that were in power at the time."
That was a short time stupid.
Re: "It's good to know a bit of history before you say that things have never happened.."
Yeah, it's also good to know a bit of history before being a third party loser. Put an L on your forehead like Shawn would say.
It's not written in stone and I never said it was, and I don't mean ALL liberals will argue against voting for 3rd parties, but we know many of them will, as they've done consistently for the past 10 or more election cycles. One of their ignoramus Democratic apologist representatives is doing just that on this very thread, as he's never ceased doing.
And best of luck "convincing" people like Bacevich to get behind "a national Green-Labor- Anti-War-ProSanity-Coffee Party-Progressive THIRD PARTY for 2012!" (That one really rolls off the tongue!) Bacevich is great when it comes to providing the recent history of our criminal wars against Arab and Muslim states, but he never gets to the economic roots of why this goes on, like clockwork, under either wing of the Business Duopoly. Bacevich remains a conservative, beneath his commendable, cogent criticisms of our ruling class's addiction to war. He wants us to stop these insane wars and return to capitalist prosperity and democratic peace, failing to understand the two cannot coexist. But by all means, convince away. I'd like to hear of your progress.
No strategy of your own to support your third party? Gotta love losing, dontcha?
Re: "The biggest pack of losers all time has got to be the DP liberal crowd."
Yeah yeah yeah, and third parties having been winning in the last 150 years. Gotta love this and laffing.
The 3rd party strategy has been tried hundreds of times over the past 150 years. It’s always lost. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Insanity is trying the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
The “alternative” you support weakens by splintering opposition voices. The status quo puppet masters love 3rd party efforts – they keep dissent out of the party. After 45 years, how do you still not see what child’s play it is for them to marginalize 3rd party efforts? What they can’t defend against is widespread opposition bubbling up from within their own ranks.
3rd party efforts appeal to a certain theatrical idealism, a certain personality type, or a faith-based belief, but evidence shows they aren’t an effective avenue for change within the US constitutional system. Effort spent on them is self-indulgence, and wasted as effective energy for change.
Aaah, but you won't and we'll have more tasty whoppers for breakfast. How's that losers' strategy of yours coming along?
EPHRAIM: Well said. I happen to think Mother Nature has her own plans for this nation, so the Obama 2.0 may not be positioned to continue the path of carnage TO the nation via a foreign policy that is designed to cannibalize (through acts of reckless disregard) all available resources that otherwise might be directed towards maintenance (if not improvement) of all forms of declining infrastructure.
"I happen to think Mother Nature has her own plans for this nation, so the Obama 2.0 may not be positioned to continue the path of carnage." (Sioux Rose)
SR,that is a fact that will become apparent very soon, and I am glad that there is someone like you here who has arrived at this realization by deep intuition. I arrived at it by the most exacting of sciences and true/false logic at very advanced levels such as Godel's Theorem; Chomsky's work on Universal Grammar, the biological language machine in the brain that has been now established empirically by observation of how infants put together an entire human language by hearing only scattered fragments for 9-15 months; and the impossibility of oberving any atomic or sub-atomic particle when it is a full fledged probability "wave" in empty space and living through all possible manifestations across the whole universe simultaneously;and the beginning of life itself, which Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize who discovered DNA and double helix in the 1950's with Watson, himself said 30 years later is impossible to produce randomly.
The long and short of all of this is what you said about Mother Nature. She is not a dead entity in which turkeys like us can do whatever they want and get away with it. There is REALITY in nature that we know from science that it exists but the structure of our brains in their present configuration cannot access empirically.
A wonderful example is given by a Physicist, a Nobel, from Stanford in a reasonably easy to read book (2005). Here it is:
We know that all water is made up of molecules of 2 atoms of Hydrogen and 1 atom of Oxygen, H2O. But molecules, no matter how numerous, are compact entities like grains of sand. Thus from a molecular perspective, water is simply like a huge expanse of very fine sand. Yet water has a property we call FLUID(ITY) that has a surface, waves form on it, travel through that surface medium as if travelling on a CONTINUUM and not anything granular. You can use CALCULUS for things fluid; we don't use calculus for vast expanses of sand surface. NOBODY KNOWS what the FLUID STATE is from first principles, i.e, from the molecular properties of a volume of water. It is now called an EMERGENT PROPERTY, which is moniker as bad as an "angel" or "soul".
The next 20-30 years is going to reveal a lot of emergent properties that will fundamentally change human perspective of Nature's REALITY, forcing humans to abandon anthropomorhic religions and spirituality and to adopt PROVEN, VERIFIABLE TRANSCENDENT TRUTHS in Nature as the ground of our being in the world and the wider Cosmos. A brute force civilization such as America, still sunk in christo relgious superstition, or brute force male misogynist Islamism, or equally bad fundamentalist Hinduism, will become residents of the ash heap of history. Put another way, humans will not need imaginary poetic, antropomorhic spirituality of the last 6,000 years and will embark on a journey into Nature and its poetry, beauty and mysteries as a form of Natural Divinity.
Mother Nature is alive and well,but not very pleasant to brute force humans in the current 3-d reality or in the larger realities.
Peace
War criminals...bush, cheney, obomber, no change. The change is that now IS the collapse of the fascist amerikan empire ! Hold on, it will be a tough ride down.
"We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists," he said. "And because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense."
The implication from this pathetic MIC yes man, is that a couple of hundred Al Qaeda or less (CIA director Panetta estimates 100), have had us on the defensive.
But, Obama, has the confidence to tell Al Qaeda boogey man stories, knowing that most Americans haven't even begun to question the official conspiracy theory of 9/11.
Stop voting--if the system continues to force you to choose between Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola. Just ignore the silly corporate stooges, worshipers of the ultimate Amerikkan god, the Pentagon. Common Dreams is not going to publish writers who are outside the mainstream box because CD is also inside the box. Sorry, I hope it was not so. It is so.
Odd you got flagged, cause you are right. CD is a bourgeoisie rag, nothing more.
I know this, yet I continue to post. I guess I just like to hear myself bitch.
Good Luck.
No, CD isn't all that bad. It was probably a rogue user. I get flagged too when someone doesn't like my opinion. It's ok to bitch here. I happen to like your posts and your diverse views. Trust me sir, you have a lot more support than some people try to make you think otherwise. It's just hard being in the minority.
March 1969, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist spoke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Our government has become preoccupied with death," George Wald said, "with the business of killing and being killed." More than four decades later, how much has really changed?
Nothing has changed because that is how the plutocracy wants it. There has been a systematic disemboweling of the middleclass these forty years merely because the elite thought the middleclass was acquiring too much wealth. The audacity of the mere mortals to have a rising standard of living. How they do it? Kill the labor movement. Demonize Unions, sign trade agreements that ship our jobs overseas, create inflation. Pure greed.
To keep the game going the solution was, bring on the credit baby! So for the last forty years we made up the difference of a flatline standard of living increase, with easy credit. And the sheeple bought it.
So forty years latter the game collapsed, and all we have left is the war machine and service industries. We just don’t make anything anymore except death and debt. No real jobs.
What’s the solution?
Both ruling political parties are two heads on the same monster. We have an election this November and instead of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, vote differently! NO MORE (D)’s and (R)’s. Just stop voting for them!
Here in California there is a third party candidate in almost every race. In most states I sure the case is true. Vote for them, Green, Peace & Freedom, Libertarian, and stop the merry-go-round. And stop calling it a wasted vote. Voting for (D)’s and (R)’s is the wasted vote!
My train runs on the same track as yours.....By 2012, there MUST be a National Third Party with Muscle to shake up the rigged game. The time is now...before DEATH become the only game in play!