Dear President Obama:
I am a citizen of the United States. I am one of your constituents. Since you have billed yourself as a public servant, one who is honored and even grateful for the chance to be "Leader of the Free World", you owe me. Yes, that's exactly what I said - "You." "Owe." "Me." That might seem a bit, well, cheeky, I guess, but I stand by my demand.
First, I want you to know right up front that I did not vote for you. I did not vote for your opponent(s) either. I proudly withheld my vote because there was no presidential candidate on the ballot in my state whom I believed represented my best interests as a citizen of this country or the best interests of the nation as a whole. My vote is a valuable commodity. I wasn't about to waste it by casting it against someone or for a "lesser of two evils". Evil is evil. I won't vote for it.
I didn't vote for you, sir, because, with all due respect, I didn't buy the hype. I experienced your campaign as a finely-tuned, extremely well-run exercise in creative vagueness and media manipulation. You were too disingenuous for me: "hope" doesn't feed the bulldog; "change" happens, like it or not - try to stop it. In fact, did you not declare finally that the "change" wasyou? I find that insulting. In a democracy, sir, the change is the people. You represent us, you do not rule us. Governing and ruling are not the same thing.
So, here, Mr President, is what you owe me - owe all of us in America and the world: truth and justice. Simple.
Here is the truth . . .
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What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles.
George Wilhelm Hegel
I would like to stipulate for this essay that Barack Obama is honorable and really wants to do the right thing for this country and this world.
But I also want to go back in that so easily manipulated concept called "history." Barack Obama glorified the Vietnam debacle by honoring two war criminals, John McCain and Colin Powell during the coronation ceremonies in DC and he honored those who fought "for us" at Khe Sahn…so are we now officially re-writing history that Vietnam was an honorable war and that it was justified or moral in any way? That the 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese who were killed were killed for a "noble cause?" No war is honorable or noble, no matter if it is "legal or justified," but our religion of state is WAR and the robber class's god is PROFIT and if Obama was the stipulated honorable man of this essay he would reject it, not glorify it.
I realize how seductive the mantra of "looking forward" is and how tempting it would be to want to forget the history of the last eight years and move on from the horror, but we cannot move on when we are smack dab in the middle of the horror that has in no way alleviated, nor will, if we continue to put blinders on and not face reality to avert pending disaster.
President Obama was asked about the possibility of a truth commission to investigate the crimes of the Bush criminal regime and he said: "no one is above the law…but it is my general orientation to get it right moving forward." As Constitution Law Professor, Jonathan Turley said in an interview on MSNBC's Countdown about this: "if President Obama believes that no one is above the law then he cannot block a war crimes' investigation…this is not a principled position. If we fail to prosecute then Bush's crimes become our crimes and Bush's shame becomes our shame."
We cannot ignore the history of felonious behavior being perpetrated in the highest office in our country. We must not ignore that presidents have been allowed to commit the most detestable war crimes and crimes against humanity from the comfort of the Oval Office and then be allowed to build libraries and lead luxurious lives with stolen money when their sentence is up. Then when the president dies we are told to mourn a "great statesmen" instead of facing the reality that he was most probably a villain. If we continue to allow this, then we also become the war criminals.
We are living in apocalyptic (uncovering, revealing, or widespread disaster) times and certainly the American Dream, if not dead, is on life support and to millions of people in this country and millions more around the world, the Dream has turned into (or has always been) a living Nightmare.
We cannot put this country back together if we continuously ignore the malignant cancer of "poverty, racism and militarism" (Martin Luther King, Jr in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech) that is killing us and if Barack Obama stupidly turns his back on the disease by only trying to treat the symptoms, like Professor Turley says, he is no different or better than his predecessor. There can be no prosperity, equality, or peace without justice. The bloodied souls of millions of people around the world are crying out for this justice. The law is already there, it has been created to punish the Hitlers and Husseins of the world and to try and prevent the Bushes and Cheneys. We must use it on Bush and Cheney to really prevent evil in the future.
Philosopher George Santayana also famously said this: Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
This is the history that we have been doomed, or cursed, to repeat throughout the relatively brief life of the USA:
"War, economic panic, war, economic panic, war…rinse, repeat." Ad nauseum…We have a unique opportunity to break this cycle, but only if we the people work together to cure the cancer once and for all.
Another meaning of "apocalypse" is when "good triumphs over evil."
Justice is good, injustice which is followed by non-justice is a foundational evil.
Apocalypse nigh?
George Wilhelm Hegel
I would like to stipulate for this essay that Barack Obama is honorable and really wants to do the right thing for this country and this world.
But I also want to go back in that so easily manipulated concept called "history." Barack Obama glorified the Vietnam debacle by honoring two war criminals, John McCain and Colin Powell during the coronation ceremonies in DC and he honored those who fought "for us" at Khe Sahn…so are we now officially re-writing history that Vietnam was an honorable war and that it was justified or moral in any way? That the 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese who were killed were killed for a "noble cause?" No war is honorable or noble, no matter if it is "legal or justified," but our religion of state is WAR and the robber class's god is PROFIT and if Obama was the stipulated honorable man of this essay he would reject it, not glorify it.
I realize how seductive the mantra of "looking forward" is and how tempting it would be to want to forget the history of the last eight years and move on from the horror, but we cannot move on when we are smack dab in the middle of the horror that has in no way alleviated, nor will, if we continue to put blinders on and not face reality to avert pending disaster.
President Obama was asked about the possibility of a truth commission to investigate the crimes of the Bush criminal regime and he said: "no one is above the law…but it is my general orientation to get it right moving forward." As Constitution Law Professor, Jonathan Turley said in an interview on MSNBC's Countdown about this: "if President Obama believes that no one is above the law then he cannot block a war crimes' investigation…this is not a principled position. If we fail to prosecute then Bush's crimes become our crimes and Bush's shame becomes our shame."
We cannot ignore the history of felonious behavior being perpetrated in the highest office in our country. We must not ignore that presidents have been allowed to commit the most detestable war crimes and crimes against humanity from the comfort of the Oval Office and then be allowed to build libraries and lead luxurious lives with stolen money when their sentence is up. Then when the president dies we are told to mourn a "great statesmen" instead of facing the reality that he was most probably a villain. If we continue to allow this, then we also become the war criminals.
We are living in apocalyptic (uncovering, revealing, or widespread disaster) times and certainly the American Dream, if not dead, is on life support and to millions of people in this country and millions more around the world, the Dream has turned into (or has always been) a living Nightmare.
We cannot put this country back together if we continuously ignore the malignant cancer of "poverty, racism and militarism" (Martin Luther King, Jr in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech) that is killing us and if Barack Obama stupidly turns his back on the disease by only trying to treat the symptoms, like Professor Turley says, he is no different or better than his predecessor. There can be no prosperity, equality, or peace without justice. The bloodied souls of millions of people around the world are crying out for this justice. The law is already there, it has been created to punish the Hitlers and Husseins of the world and to try and prevent the Bushes and Cheneys. We must use it on Bush and Cheney to really prevent evil in the future.
Philosopher George Santayana also famously said this: Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
This is the history that we have been doomed, or cursed, to repeat throughout the relatively brief life of the USA:
"War, economic panic, war, economic panic, war…rinse, repeat." Ad nauseum…We have a unique opportunity to break this cycle, but only if we the people work together to cure the cancer once and for all.
Another meaning of "apocalypse" is when "good triumphs over evil."
Justice is good, injustice which is followed by non-justice is a foundational evil.
Apocalypse nigh?
Obama Thanks U.K. for Concealing Evidence of U.S.-Sponsored Torture
http://tinyurl.com/b95e94
Un-plug from the ObaMatrix and Tune-in to Reality!
Cindy Sheehan
You call it hope- that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire.
Tamerlane: Edgar Allan Poe, 1827
The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. …..You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
Morpheus, The Matrix
In the brilliant movie, The Matrix, reality is not as it seems. The reality that people think they are living is only an illusion, a dream. Keanu Reeves plays the main protagonist and when he becomes unplugged from the Matrix (humans are used as organic energy to perpetuate the Matrix), he becomes the super-hero, Matrix-resister, Neo.
The American matrix is the fantasy that claims that war criminals like Colin Powell and John McCain are "war heroes." You know the matrix I am talking about---the one where leaders of the USA can literally get away with murder and live comfortable lives of peace, instead of being held accountable. Yes, this is the same matrix that is telling you that a tax evader like Timothy Geithner can effectively lead our Treasury and robber barons that contributed to the current economic collapse, like Lawrence Summers, Paul Volcker, Ben Bernanke and Robert Rubin, can cure the crisis. Where war supporters like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel can be trusted with the delicate balance of foreign relations. Where we "hope" that lobbyists (turned federal employees) for war and robbery are going to serve our interests and not the interests of the matrix. This American matrix relies on the sad fact that info-tainment passes for unbiased-hard news these days.
While I am at it: it's the same matrix that says killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people from the poor brown communities here in America to the poorer brown communities in Gaza, Baghdad and Kabul is "self defense," or justified by another big matrix con-game: GOD. The US has a matrix where millions of people live (barely) on the streets when millions of housing units stand vacant. This is a matrix where health care and quality education are not rights, but only readily and easily available to the robber-class. The matrix tells us: "Thou shalt not kill," then hypocritically goes about the business of committing "State Sanctioned" murder.
Since Barack Obama emerged as the candidate for the Democratic ½ of the USA's matrix of the grand delusion of democracy and choice, I have been feeling so frustrated because some of my friends and colleagues have plugged back into this matrix. Barack Obama is only the product of millions of dollars of research and slick mass marketing and he was hawked to us as a "New and Improved" version of the same crappy product. The same old soap was just put into a new box and when our clothes come out of the washing machine looking the same, we will be convinced they are brighter and have a fresh new fragrance because our TVs told us that's what we should believe. Could we have been set up, yet again?
Some of our fellow Americans are fortunate enough to be born into aware families and were never plugged into the matrix. Some people unplug themselves due to many factors, like being misused in a war for the matrix, economic hardship, or other social oppression. Some people voluntarily plug themselves in because it is easier than having to think.I think more people are rejecting the audacity of hype, though.
I cannot, as much as I would like to, take the easy way out with mass hypnosis and plug back in. On April 4th, 2004, my umbilical-like connection to the matrix was irrevocably smashed to smithereens when I fell on the floor screaming in agony over the murder, by the matrix, of my oldest child, Casey. My connection to the matrix cannot be spliced back together because there is no cord left. Casey is dead because we were plugged-in. So many others are dead, or in danger of dying, for the same reason.
I am not saying that Barack Obama is not a more articulate and intelligent matrix functionary than George Bush was, but that's exactly what the matrix desires. It wants us to foolishly plug-in and tune out.
I am confident that the Bush error has left a bad taste in almost everyone's mouth for this disordered matrix and the people who have once unplugged themselves, will find it easier to do so again when Obama finally demonstrates to them that he is also a servant of the matrix.
To those of us who are permanently detached from the matrix, there is no "giving Obama a chance" because he is "better" than George Bush. We know delay means more people will die, be impoverished or violently suppressed/oppressed.
To blindly trust any system is inherently dangerous. It is healthy to step back from the matrix and always level a critical eye and if necessary rise up in rebellion.
Thank goodness, the US matrix has always had true humanists who refused to conform and plug-in: Thomas Paine, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Sequoyah, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Eugene V. Debs, Jeannette Rankin, Dorothy Day, Emma Goldman, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Nader, and many, many other sung and unsung heroes who have stood up to the matrix not only for their own rights, but for your rights, too!
Un-plug, un-plug, un-plug!
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on April 04, 2004. She has published three books, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was an independent Candidate for Congress in San Francisco, is currently the host of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox and Grandma to Jonah.
--
"There is no such thing as Democrat or Republican. There is the Robber class and the Robbed class---that is the great divide in this country."
Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan
You call it hope- that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire.
Tamerlane: Edgar Allan Poe, 1827
The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. …..You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
Morpheus, The Matrix
In the brilliant movie, The Matrix, reality is not as it seems. The reality that people think they are living is only an illusion, a dream. Keanu Reeves plays the main protagonist and when he becomes unplugged from the Matrix (humans are used as organic energy to perpetuate the Matrix), he becomes the super-hero, Matrix-resister, Neo.
The American matrix is the fantasy that claims that war criminals like Colin Powell and John McCain are "war heroes." You know the matrix I am talking about---the one where leaders of the USA can literally get away with murder and live comfortable lives of peace, instead of being held accountable. Yes, this is the same matrix that is telling you that a tax evader like Timothy Geithner can effectively lead our Treasury and robber barons that contributed to the current economic collapse, like Lawrence Summers, Paul Volcker, Ben Bernanke and Robert Rubin, can cure the crisis. Where war supporters like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel can be trusted with the delicate balance of foreign relations. Where we "hope" that lobbyists (turned federal employees) for war and robbery are going to serve our interests and not the interests of the matrix. This American matrix relies on the sad fact that info-tainment passes for unbiased-hard news these days.
While I am at it: it's the same matrix that says killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people from the poor brown communities here in America to the poorer brown communities in Gaza, Baghdad and Kabul is "self defense," or justified by another big matrix con-game: GOD. The US has a matrix where millions of people live (barely) on the streets when millions of housing units stand vacant. This is a matrix where health care and quality education are not rights, but only readily and easily available to the robber-class. The matrix tells us: "Thou shalt not kill," then hypocritically goes about the business of committing "State Sanctioned" murder.
Since Barack Obama emerged as the candidate for the Democratic ½ of the USA's matrix of the grand delusion of democracy and choice, I have been feeling so frustrated because some of my friends and colleagues have plugged back into this matrix. Barack Obama is only the product of millions of dollars of research and slick mass marketing and he was hawked to us as a "New and Improved" version of the same crappy product. The same old soap was just put into a new box and when our clothes come out of the washing machine looking the same, we will be convinced they are brighter and have a fresh new fragrance because our TVs told us that's what we should believe. Could we have been set up, yet again?
Some of our fellow Americans are fortunate enough to be born into aware families and were never plugged into the matrix. Some people unplug themselves due to many factors, like being misused in a war for the matrix, economic hardship, or other social oppression. Some people voluntarily plug themselves in because it is easier than having to think.I think more people are rejecting the audacity of hype, though.
I cannot, as much as I would like to, take the easy way out with mass hypnosis and plug back in. On April 4th, 2004, my umbilical-like connection to the matrix was irrevocably smashed to smithereens when I fell on the floor screaming in agony over the murder, by the matrix, of my oldest child, Casey. My connection to the matrix cannot be spliced back together because there is no cord left. Casey is dead because we were plugged-in. So many others are dead, or in danger of dying, for the same reason.
I am not saying that Barack Obama is not a more articulate and intelligent matrix functionary than George Bush was, but that's exactly what the matrix desires. It wants us to foolishly plug-in and tune out.
I am confident that the Bush error has left a bad taste in almost everyone's mouth for this disordered matrix and the people who have once unplugged themselves, will find it easier to do so again when Obama finally demonstrates to them that he is also a servant of the matrix.
To those of us who are permanently detached from the matrix, there is no "giving Obama a chance" because he is "better" than George Bush. We know delay means more people will die, be impoverished or violently suppressed/oppressed.
To blindly trust any system is inherently dangerous. It is healthy to step back from the matrix and always level a critical eye and if necessary rise up in rebellion.
Thank goodness, the US matrix has always had true humanists who refused to conform and plug-in: Thomas Paine, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Sequoyah, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Eugene V. Debs, Jeannette Rankin, Dorothy Day, Emma Goldman, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Nader, and many, many other sung and unsung heroes who have stood up to the matrix not only for their own rights, but for your rights, too!
Un-plug, un-plug, un-plug!
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on April 04, 2004. She has published three books, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was an independent Candidate for Congress in San Francisco, is currently the host of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox and Grandma to Jonah.
--
"There is no such thing as Democrat or Republican. There is the Robber class and the Robbed class---that is the great divide in this country."
Cindy Sheehan
Will Obama End Pay-to-Play
Related
Chiquita Brands International Inc.
Justice We Can Believe In
by: David Sirota
MON DEC 15, 2008 AT 21:35
Wow - I had no idea our incoming Attorney General Eric Holder led the defense of Chiquita. Yes, that Chiquita:
"As a partner at Covington & Burling, Holder represents Chiquita International Brands in lawsuits brought by relatives of people killed by Colombian terrorists. Last year, the company paid $25 million to settle claims that it paid Colombian paramilitary groups to protect employees at one of its banana-growing plants."
Many believe that phrase "protect employees" is, ahem, euphemistic, to say the least. Many, including those bringing civil suits against the company, allege that the company deliberately "hired [the] Colombian paramilitaries to kill or intimidate union members and officials," as Time magazine reports.
Indeed,Portfolio notes that the paramilitaries whole goal was to "destroy unions."
POSTED IN SUBMITTED BY MPARENT7777 ON MON, 2008-12-15 22:05.
Kenya deporting US author of anti-Obama book
By TOM ODULA, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago
The American author of a best-selling book attacking Barack Obama as unfit for the presidency was being deported from Kenya on Tuesday, a criminal investigations official said.
Jerome Corsi, who wrote "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," was picked up by police Tuesday for not having a work permit, said Carlos Maluta, a senior immigration official in charge of investigations.
He was briefly detained at immigration headquarters before being brought to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for deportation, said Joseph Mumira, head of criminal investigations at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
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October 5, 2008
Will a new US President mean a new foreign policy?
Gareth Porter: McCain subscribes to extreme neocon ideas, but Obama is not a break with the past Pt.5
In George W. Bush's final speech to the UN as head of state, he provided a series of reasons to view his administration's policies as having succeeded in conducting a global war on terrorism. Despite his regime's demonstrated aversion to multilateralism, Bush called on the UN and all international institutions to take a lead role in the War on Terror in the future. Investigative reporter and historian Gareth Porter tells Senior Editor Paul Jay why he believes that while Obama and McCain represent different visions of US foreign policy, neither truly represent a clean break from the legacy created by the Bush administration.
Bio
Gareth Porter is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.
* LRB
* 9 October 2008
Short Cuts
Adam Shatz
If you live in an American swing state you may have received a copy of ‘Obsession’ in your Sunday paper. ‘Obsession’ isn’t a perfume: it’s a documentary about ‘radical Islam’s war against the West’. In the last two weeks of September, 28 million copies of the film were enclosed as an advertising supplement in 74 newspapers, including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. ‘The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,’ the sleeve announces. ‘It’s our responsibility to ensure we can make an informed vote in November.’ The Clarion Fund, the supplement’s sponsor, doesn’t explicitly endorse McCain, so as not to jeopardise its tax-exempt status, but the message is clear enough, and its circulation just happened to coincide with Obama’s leap in the polls.
The Clarion Fund is a front for neoconservative and Israeli pressure groups. It has an office, or at least an address, in Manhattan at Grace Corporate Park Executive Suites, which rents out ‘virtual office identity packages’ for $75 a month. Its website, clarionfund.org, provides neither a list of staff nor a board of directors, and the group still hasn’t disclosed where it gets its money, as required by the IRS. Who paid to make ‘Obsession’ isn’t clear – it cost $400,000. According to Rabbi Raphael Shore, the film’s Canadian-Israeli producer, 80 per cent of the money came from the executive producer ‘Peter Mier’, but that’s just an alias, as is the name of the film’s production manager, ‘Brett Halperin’. Shore claims ‘Mier’ and ‘Halperin’, whoever they are, are simply taking precautions, though it isn’t clear against what. The danger (whatever it is) hasn’t stopped Shore – or the director, Wayne Kopping, a South African neocon – from going on television to promote their work.
The 60-minute film was first released in 2006 and shown during the mid-term elections on Fox News. Since then it has received top billing at ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness’ week on American campuses, at Christian-Zionist conferences and at events organised by Republican politicians in Florida. It has found a powerful backer in the real estate magnate Sheldon Adelson, who describes himself as ‘the world’s richest Jew’. The Endowment for Middle East Truth, a neoconservative think tank in Washington DC which recently hosted a series of seminars named after Adelson and his wife, arranged distribution of ‘Obsession’, at a cost in the tens of millions.
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October 02, 2008
No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates
The Obama and McCain campaigns jointly negotiated a detailed secret contract dictating the terms of all the 2008 debates. This includes who gets to participate, as well as the topics raised during the debates. We speak to Open Debates founder and executive director George Farah. [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
George Farah, executive director and founder of Open Debates. He is the author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates.
Rush Transcript
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Swift Boaters Start Your Engines
If Obama is hit with an attack ad fusillade, this secretive GOP operative will likely be behind the onslaught.
Stephanie Mencimer
October 02 - By this time in the 2004 election, John Kerry was already drowning in attack ads hurled at him from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But this year, outside groups funded by millionaires or billionaires have been relatively dormant—thus far. As Election Day approaches such outfits are gearing up, and they appear to be biding their time until the final days of the campaign, when they can inflict the most damage. One of those groups is American Issues Project (AIP), which has been funded almost entirely by a single Texas billionaire and involves many of the leading players from the Swift Boat campaign. In August, it aired an ad attempting to highlight ties between Barack Obama and William Ayers, the 1960s radical who participated in at least several domestic bombings. The ad didn't land with Swift Boat-like power, but it signaled the opening salvo of what could be a nasty conclusion to this year's campaign.
The man behind AIP, Tony Feather, could become one of the most significant players in the election. Feather, a longtime Republican operative, is not a household name and he rarely talks to the media. But his specialty—mounting stealth political advocacy campaigns—has played an outsized role in the last two presidential elections. Should Obama end up confronting a Swift Boat-style fusillade in the closing weeks of this campaign, the odds are that Feather will be one of the ops responsible for the onslaught.
A former executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, Feather is known for his fierce campaign tactics on behalf of candidates like John Ashcroft and former Missouri Attorney General Bill Webster. Feather ran Webster’s 1992 campaign for governor; Webster not only lost but went to prison on charges related to misusing his office for campaign purposes. Feather is also a compatriot of Karl Rove, whom he first met in 1974. The two are close enough that Rove at one point endorsed Feather's consulting firm on its website.
--MORE--
Iraq: They Make It a Desert and Call It Peace
Whose War Will Win the Election -- McCain's or Obama's?
By Ira Chernus
In 1932, in the midst of a disastrous economic meltdown, Franklin D. Roosevelt made "the forgotten man" the centerpiece of his presidential election campaign. Far more than we suspect, this year's election may turn not on a forgotten man, but on a forgotten war in a forgotten country.
Even before the present financial meltdown hit the news, the Iraq War had slipped out of the headlines and off the political stage. Now, as investment houses totter and bailout plans fill the headlines, it will be even harder for Iraq to get major media attention. Yet the war remains just beneath the surface of the presidential campaign, and so is sure to affect the outcome in ways too complicated to fully grasp.
Think of that war not as one, but two currents, affecting the coming election all the more powerfully because they are out of sight, out of mind, and -- interacting in unpredictable ways -- out of anyone's control.
--MORE--
This is best that America can do?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
"The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.
This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will."
--MORE--
by Alan Bock
If the presidential debate Friday night told us anything, it was that whichever of these candidates is elected, we can expect more wars, or at least more conflicts that put U.S. forces or citizens in danger for dubious reasons. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama came close to questioning the "bipartisan" consensus on U.S. foreign policy, that the U.S. should be the prime mover and shaker in the world at large. They differ, and in some ways that are fairly important, on details. But on the central question of whether it is the United States' job to go out there and fix the world, there was no disagreement.
To be sure, taking candidates at their word during a debate is not necessarily advisable for one who would be so foolish as to try to predict what they will do once in office. Politicians as a breed are not noted for being especially candid on the campaign trail, of course. Furthermore, every president faces unexpected foreign-policy challenges (Truman didn't expect Korea, Carter didn't expect Iran, Dubya didn't expect 9/11, etc.). Still, the Bushlet has left some open sores out there in the rest of the world. So the next president is likely to have to deal with winding down the war in Iraq and figuring out what to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which will require reaching some kind of accommodation with Iran. Neither candidate seems to realize this, so they competed to see who could say the most childishly nasty things.
Whether it's necessary or not, the next president is likely to figure he will have to pay attention to both Iran's and Korea's nuclear ambitions and cope in some way with the Russian resurgence (not as strong as Putin wants us to believe, but notable, and showing up just now in Venezuela, which should have been predictable but seems to have caught the U.S. off-guard). They will have to do all this with very few bargaining chips, thanks mainly to the Iraq war, and in addition figure out what kind of stance to take toward a disunited Europe.
--MORE--
Leading the Endowment is Sarah Stern, a former lobbyist for the Zionist Organization of America. She takes a hard line in defense of Israel, arguing against Israeli concessions such as land withdrawals and prisoner releases. In a recent open letter to the "next president," she warned that if tough diplomatic measures against Iran fail by the time he is inaugurated, "Mr. President, you may inherit the difficult task of easing the way for a preemptive strike."
Clarion Responds, As New Details Emerge About "Radical Islam" DVD
We had a story on the air this morning about the mass distribution of an inflamatory DVD on radical Islam, which critics say is intended to help John McCain's presidential bid. The video documentary was blasted out by the Clarion Fund, an obscure New York-based charity.
--MORE WITH VIDEO--
Lenni Brenner 28 September 2008 Not being a prophet, I don't predict US election winners. But, as a historian, I can say who already lost this one. Whether Barack Obama or John McCain takes it, pundits endorsing Obama, however critically, will discover that they damaged their reputations. Serious observers, for or against, left to right, now see 'Mr. Change' as 'Mr. Changeling,' willing to betray principles of importance to them. NY Times wordsmith William Safire well coined "The Audacity of Hype" out of the title of his hopeless book, and a 7/4 Times editorial, "New and Not Improved," bombarded the candidate it desperately wants to win: "Obama stirred his legions of supporters and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things.... Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election.... Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for telecommunications companies that amounts to a sanctioned cover-up of Mr. Bush's unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11.... Obama of the primary season used to brag that he would stand before interest groups and tell them tough truths. The new Mr. Obama tells evangelical Christians that he wants to expand President Bush's policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based organizations -- a policy that violates the separation of church and state and turns a government function into a charitable donation. He says he would not allow those groups to discriminate in employment, as Mr. Bush did, which is nice. But the Constitution exists to protect democracy, no matter who is president and how good his intentions may be." Times editorialists believe in church-state separation. But they also believe they have duties to the empire they serve as throne advisors. The next editorial insisted that "Given the huge sums that the United States has spent backing the Colombians' fight against the FARC, President Bush and Senators John McCain and Barack Obama should now join in congratulating Mr. Uribe - and in urging him to press for a full political victory." By now everyone knows that Jesse Jackson's hobby is orchiectomy, and attribute his proposal to surgically remove Obama's "nuts" to rage at his getting the nomination that the Rev thought his due. But he's not the only Black troubled by Obama. Almost half of the 42 House of Representatives Blacks backed Clinton, expecting her gratitude after winning the nomination. They've done little for poor Blacks since the civil rights struggle that some took part in. Now they are surpassed by someone whose done no more, but whose victory would destroy their affirmative action argument. Obama says its "a useful, if limited, tool to expand opportunity to underrepresented minorities." He calls for "America to make investments needed +to ensure that all children perform at grade level and graduate from high school." +But everyone reads that as vote-chasing rabble-babble coming from the guy who spoke with McCain on 9/11, at Columbia University, Obama's alma mater. They both support the return of the Reserve Officer Training Corps to Columbia, it having been kicked off campus in 1969 by anti-Vietnam war protesters. "McBama" +was the apt buzz word of the Columbia Daily Spectator's coverage, complete with denunciations of Obama's previous right turns. The Senate just voted 88 to 8 for $612.5 billion in military programs. Campaigners Obama, Biden and McCain didn't vote, but Obama is definitely for big bucks military equipment updates for chasing Islamic fundamentalists. How much money could he have left over to spend on poor Americans? Given such declarations, the spectrum of concerned Blacks goes beyond adulterous Revs and party hacks. Paul Robeson, Jr. is quoted in the 7/10 NY +Amsterdam News. His father was a Black liberation icon and Jr. was immensely involved in the struggle: "The apparent traditional move to the center by Obama is not only a mistake, it reverses -- in many people's mind, especially his base and Black Americans - his commitment to be a candidate of change. It was he who said that 'it's about you and not about me.' He can't take us for granted." Obama denounces fathers who abandon gal-pals and kids to ghetto poverty, crime, etc. Except that his African father abandoned ship when he was two, yet he's done OK. Couples breaking up after the gal's child is common today among young Americans of all races and educations. Most ex-boy-toys help pay for their kid's upkeep. But even where dad is a deadbeat, if mom has her act together, her kid gets educated. Dumping on poor bad-dads pleases many Christian ears, black, white, Hispanic. But cure for poor-single-mom-and-kid syndrome lies in paying all uneducated moms to go back to school until they learn enough to earn enough. "Monkey see, monkey do," so the proverb. When single monkey mom sees that putting her nose before books and computers pays off, she usually makes sure her little monkey 'gets a better start in life than I did.' OBAMA, BLACK KING & WHITE KENNEDY ALL ROLLED INTO ONE? No one was surprised when media used Obama's Denver rap on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's 1963 "I have a dream" speech to tell us that +it was a giant step in the long march towards complete racial equality. But what would Obama's victory mean for poor Blacks? Readers familiar with America's civil rights movement will agree that History with a capital H walked thru my door in 1985 when Stokely Carmichael came to discuss my book, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. Stokely, then calling himself Kwame Ture, worked with me in a Coalition Against Zionism and Racism until his 1998 death. Of course we discussed the civil rights movement, agreeing on one central point. Leftists provided the movement's crucial ideologies and energy. The 1963 rally's organizer was Bayard Rustin of the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation. King relied on ex-Communist Stanley Levison for research for many speeches. King denounced Democrat Lyndon Johnson's war against Stalinist Ho Chi Minh. W. E. B. DuBois ultimately joined the Communist Party. Paul Robeson was emphatically pro-Soviet. Historian C. L. R. James passed thru Trotskyism. The Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party's youth group was organizing a tour for Malcolm X when he was assassinated. Huey Newton's Black Panthers declared +themselves part of the world revolution. And in our last discussion Kwame reaffirmed that "you can't be a Black nationalist if you aren't a socialist." But we also understood that the lefts didn't have the clarity, unity or numbers to achieve their generic goal. The destruction of Jim Crow 'legal segregation' was an enormous victory for the masses but an even bigger victory for educated Blacks. They play a growing role in administering giant corporations. Many cities have Black mayors. New York State's Governor is Black. Colin Powell and Condy Rice made the State Department into a Black preserve. But it was imperialism that was integrated. If Obama wins it will still be imperialism, not America, that is integrated. Millions of Blacks will still be de facto segregated in poor ghettoes, go to +prison or join the military and die for the rich. Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report brought this up to date in Louis Farrakhan's 9/2 Final Call: "Ruling circles in the US ... are behind Sen. Obama more so than ... the White electorate, he maintained. This has been with their financial support and contributions. 'They are the ones who want a new face on the old order .... [T]his support of Sen. Obama represents the new and improved product of +corporate marketing.'" The 9/16 Times confirmed that, "On Wall Street's Republican-friendly turf, Mr. Obama has out-raised Mr. McCain." Indeed Obama fans, from Wall Street to union hiring halls, also hail Obama's ability to 'market' himself. Then let him or them explain his using the King speech anniversary to remind us that the Democrats are "the party of Roosevelt! We are the party of Kennedy! Don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country." Roosevelt was an anti-Asian racist. He wrote a 4/30/25 guest column for Macon, Georgia's Daily Telegraph. It tells us what was in his head in 1942, +after Pearl Harbor, when he put all west coast Japanese-American citizens, toddlers to grannies, into concentration camps. "Anyone who has traveled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. Eurasians - men and women and children party of Asiatic blood and partly of +European blood.... In this question, then, of Japanese exclusion from the United States, it is necessary only to advance the true reason -- the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples." And what did it mean when Obama hailed Kennedy, a cold war President who wiretapped King's phone, looking for Communists? Put on your thinking cap. A modern demagogue, he reads polls showing most voters to be historic ignoramuses. Their Roosevelt fought Tojo and Hitler, period, end of story. For them, assassinated Kennedy was another Lincoln. No +mincing words, if they are dumb enough to still admire them, he is cunning enough praise them. But in fact isn't he truly like his heroes, determined to preserve the "military-industrial complex" Dwight Eisenhower warned against? THE RIGHT IS ALSO ONTO OBAMA'S ACT Although everyone recognizes a snake in a zoo, we rarely agree re political reptiles. Yet we all see Obama slithering along the ground. On 6/4, the Democrat went before the America Israel Public Affairs Committee to declare that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." When the world denounced this as more pro-Israel than Washington's standard 'Jerusalem's status is to be negotiated,' his tune changed: "Obviously, it is going to be up the parties to negotiate a range of these issues." He told CNN that "this was an example where we had some poor phrasing in the speech." Zionist Rick Richman exposed this in the 7/16 NY Sun: "His position on an 'undivided' Jerusalem did not result from 'poor phrasing'.... [T]he unambiguous commitment ... came at the end of a paragraph +beginning 'Let me be clear'.... [I]t was not the first time he said it.... [H]e addressed the issue in 2000.... 'Jerusalem should remain united and should be recognized as Israel's capital.'" Indeed he made an even more hard right statement re Jerusalem in January 2008, responding to an American Jewish Committee questionnaire: "Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital, and no one should want or expect it to be re-divided."
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