Peace & Social Justice

Have you had enough? New Party on the horizon

2011-11-01T20:55:00.000-05:00

Rocky Anderson

418 Douglas Street

Salt Lake City, UTAH 84102

E-mail: rockyandersonrocky@yahoo.com

Press Release - October 21, 2011

Have you had enough?

New Party on the horizon

The former Mayor of Salt Lake City and Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights, Rocky Anderson, calls for the formation of a new political party and a sustained movement committed to the public interest.

Two months ago, Anderson “divorced himself” from what he referred to as “the spineless, gutless Democratic Party.” Responding to an email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which showed as the subject, “Standing strong,” Anderson wrote: “How dare you send an email with the subject line ‘Standing strong.’ You didn’t do it on Iraq, you didn’t do it on torture, you didn’t do it on signing statements, you haven’t done it onAfghanistan, you haven’t done it on defense spending, you haven’t done it on real health care reform, you haven’t done it on the debt ceiling fiasco.”

(Rolly: Rocky Anderson says adieu to the Democratic Party,” The Salt Lake Tribune, August 12, 2011.)

Anderson continued: “I’m done with the Democratic Party… I think the answer is a new political party that actually will advocate for and promote the interests of the public rather than the narrow interests of the wealthy who bought and paid for not only Congress but the White House… The Constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party.”

(Romboy, “Former S.L. mayor Rocky Anderson divorces himself from ‘gutless’ Democratic Party,” Deseret News, August 13, 2011.)

This country needs a new, powerful party that can win elections, according to Anderson. “The pensions and other savings accounts of the middle class in this country have been decimated. The only way out is another party. I would call it, frankly, a second party that actually represents the interests of the American people. There isn’t a real opposition force in Washington, D.C., any more, and we the people have the capacity to change that -- and we must if our republic is going to survive. I consider myself an Independent, but I would be very pleased to work with others to form not just a political party to run another campaign, but to launch a sustained movement for major change in this country.”

(“Rocky: Not a Democrat,” (Interview with Rocky Anderson by Lexie Levitt), City Weekly,September 26, 2011.)

Anderson said that people are fed up with the Democratic and Republican parties, Congress, and the Obama administration to the point of being ready to support a new party that rejects the corporatism and militarism of the two “Wall Street lap-dog” major parties.

The polls support Anderson’s view that the people of the United States are desirous of a new party, and bold, new leadership, like never before. Patrick Caddell and Douglas Shoen have written:

“The United States is in the midst of what we would both call a pre-Revolutionary moment, and there is widespread support for fundamental change in the system. An increasing number of Americans are now searching beyond the two parties for bold and effective leadership.”

(Caddell and Schoen, “Expect a Third-Party Candidate in 2012,” The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2011.)

"Have you had enough?" asks Anderson. “Would you support the formation of a new party that will commit to:

affordable universal health care;
an end to the wars;
a significant reduction in the military budget and an end to the military-industrial-congressional complex;
investigation of illegal conduct, including war crimes, by executive officials during the current and prior administrations;
investigation of the events on 9/11 to answer significant questions that have been raised;
prosecution for illegal conduct leading to the economic melt-down;
disincentives for U.S. companies to send jobs overseas;
employee and environmental safeguards in trade agreements;
implementation of major domestic jobs and infrastructure programs;
an end to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy;
campaign finance reform to end the corrupting influence of money in politics;
treat substance abuse within a public health framework rather than as a criminal matter;
repeal the PATRIOT Act;
compassionate and rational immigration reform;
marriage equality;
an end to subsidies for oil and gas companies;
a ban on a Canada-to-Mexico tar sands pipeline;
air quality protection, including stricter ozone limits; and
aggressive action and leadership on the climate crisis and the environment?”

Rocky Anderson has been in the process of contacting some of America’s leading social, environmental and political activists with the goal of creating a powerful, broad-based political alternative to the increasingly unpopular Republican and Democratic Parties. He intends that the new party will have candidates in local, state, and federal races throughout the nation.

Anderson plans on hosting a meeting soon between leaders in various sectors of the country in order to draft a new platform and a long-term strategy capable of attracting a majority of voters, including millions of dissatisfied Democrats and Republicans who, until now, had nowhere else to go.

Anderson has stated his intention to do what is possible to get on the ballots in all 50 states and to campaign for candidates aggressively in all states. "The Democratic and Republican Parties have acted as if voters have no other real options. The people of this country will demonstrate that we, indeed, have another option - a party that will work in the public interest, rather than for the defense contractors, the health insurance companies, and the rapacious financial institutions that have caused such economic havoc in our nation and the world."

Anderson anticipates a broad-based coalition, similar to the one built by the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP), which won impressive political gains in the Canadian federal elections last May. The NDP is the political party that brought universal health care to the Canadian people.

Press info: Mackenzie Scott - Tel. 801-520-0491

Rocky Anderson - Tel. 801-557-9007

E-mail: rockyandersonrocky@yahoo.com

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Bill Hilty: The nation's wars are a heavy burden on the state

2011-07-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Bill Hilty: The nation's wars are a heavy burden on the state

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune---

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Bill Hilty: The nation's wars are a heavy burden on the state

Article by: JACK NELSON-PALLMEYER and BILL HILTY
Updated: July 25, 2011 - 7:02 PM

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/126142923.html

Budget gap could have been easily closed with the money we send away.

Citizens in Minnesota are being encouraged to see scarcity as the new normal. If you are an elected official at any level of government, your job has been reduced to managing austerity.

It doesn't have to be this way -- if we address the elephant lurking in the budget deficit hall. That would be the high costs of militarization and war.

Technically, the military budget is a federal issue, distinct from state, county and city budgets. However, we can no longer maintain the fiction that distorted federal spending that prioritizes war and militarism is disconnected from state and local budget crises and is eroding living standards.

According to the nonpartisan National Priorities Project, Congress devotes 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending to war-related purposes. To better understand the impact on Minnesota of privileging military spending priorities, consider this: We have just experienced a painful government shutdown over how to deal with a two-year $5 billion shortfall. Yet Minnesota taxpayers over the same two-year period will spend $8.4 billion just for our share of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

This will bring Minnesotans' total contribution to those wars to about $36 billion. Additionally over the next two years, Minnesotans will pay $26 billion for our share of the nation's base military budget, a budget that has doubled since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Every Minnesota citizen and every layer of government is impacted negatively by current war-related priorities. Faced with pressing local needs, taxpayers in Fergus Falls will pay $17 million for their share of counterproductive Iraq/Afghan wars over the next two years; Minneapolis taxpayers will contribute $255 million.

We believe it is time for Minnesotans to communicate clearly to our members of Congress and to President Obama that federal funding priorities must shift from unnecessary wars to meeting essential needs. A new citizen-driven effort, the Minnesota Arms Spending Alternatives Project (MNasap), is a vehicle for doing so.

We have crafted a simple resolution that can be adapted and enacted by individuals, community groups, library boards, city councils and other elected bodies throughout the state. It reads in part: "Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation ... Therefore [we] call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all."

The state government shutdown has ended, but the pain will be ongoing for many Minnesotans. As a recent Star Tribune editorial ("New budget rests on shaky structure," July 20) states, borrowing against future state revenues and delaying school payments will have serious consequences, and the budget "inflicts too much pain. The hurt will be felt most keenly on college campuses and among those who serve low-income disabled and elderly people."

Imagine what we can accomplish if we stop squandering wealth and talents on militarization and counterproductive wars. Schools could reduce class sizes and have adequate supplies. Bridges could be repaired. Food shelves could be adequately stocked but rarely needed. We could take steps to make homelessness rare and temporary. Cities and states could adequately provide essential services, including meeting their authentic security needs. Critical investments could be made in infrastructure and green technologies. Public libraries could expand hours and programming. Urban and national rail systems could be built. The country could address climate change and end child poverty. All Americans could have access to quality, affordable health care.

This sounds like a fantasy only because current choices keep us on the dead-end road of militarization. It is a realistic possibility once we demilitarize priorities, realistically assess security needs and refocus governing on serving the common good.

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is associate professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas. Bill Hilty, DFL-Finlayson, is a member of the Minnesota House. For information on the resolution campaign, contact MinnesotaASAP@gmail.com

Previously Pallmeyer and Hilty authored this resolution:

Resolution Calling for Re-ordering Priorities

Resolution Calling for Re-ordering PrioritiesResolution Calling for Re-ordering of Priorities:

Whereas Minnesota is faced with a $5.028 billion budget shortfall; and,

Whereas past budget cuts have resulted in painful reductions in essential services and future cuts would further erode the quality of life for and, in fact, endanger the lives of many citizens; and,

Whereas many cities and communities in Minnesota are laying off police, firefighters, teachers and other essential employees; and,

Whereas past budgets have been balanced by cutting social services, under investment in essential infrastructure, and other measures that push the crisis onto local governments and the poor; and,

Whereas Minnesota taxpayers even during these times of economic crisis and fiscal austerity are poised to pay the equivalent of the entire state biennial budget, more than $35 billion over the next two years, for their share of the Defense Budget of the Federal government; and,

Whereas Minnesota taxpayers alone have already spent more than $27.5 billion, and will spend $8.4 billion more over the next two years for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and,

Whereas 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending is devoted to military purposes; and,

Whereas military spending priorities at the national level negatively impact budgets and quality of life at all levels of government and society; and,

Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation;

Therefore be it resolved that we, the Legislature of the State of Minnesota call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as Congressional leadership and President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all.

Approved [date]

Drafted by Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Representative Bill Hilty.

A more comprehensive alternative I put together based on talks with people across the Great Lakes Region:

A program for real change...

* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.

* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.

* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.

* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.

* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.

* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.

* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.

* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage

* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.

* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.

* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.

* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.

* Wall Street is our enemy.

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.

Obviously the resolutions by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer and Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Representative Bill Hilty will never be realized as government policy while we are stuck in this "two-party trap" because militarism and wars are an integral and primary component of Wall Street's imperialist agenda.

The question we need to keep asking...

2011-06-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

As liberal, progressive and left working class activists we should strive to make sure the entire politics of this country begins to revolve around how the American people answer this one basic and fundamental question:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

- Ask this question in letters to the editor.

- Post it on your refrigerator, on bulletin boards at work, in churches and community centers.

- Use it on protest signs at vigils and demonstrations.

Most people will tell you that this economy is not working very well for them. After finding out why it isn't working very well for them we can begin to put together a program to turn this country around in creating the kind of country we really want.

This is such a basic and fundamental question as we approach the 2012 Elections that it is dishonest to be engaged in politics not asking this question of the American people.

--

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell: 651-587-5541

Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com

Blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Greetings from Walkerville

2011-06-09T21:02:00.001-05:00

Greetings from Walkerville

Phil Neuenfeldt, Wisconsin State AFL-CIOpresident, < http://www.wisaflcio.org/ > sends an update on the actions around Wisconsin’s Walkerville.

Day six of the Walkerville tent city protest has seen overwhelming support from Wisconsin workers, students and community members. Over the course of the week, thousands of Wisconsinites have gathered on the cement blocks lining the Capitol Square in order to call attention to Gov. Walker and his legislative allies’ destructive budget proposals—proposals which will cripple Wisconsin’s schools, health care system and communities.

Many have said that they are surrounding the Capitol to bear witness to their elected officials’ decisions and to let their Representatives know that the people of Wisconsin are preparing to take back their government back this summer.

“Walkerville is a way to focus the spotlight on Gov. Walker and Sen. Alberta Darling’s budget that will devastate higher education, public education and Wisconsin as we know it,” explained Michael Rosen, President of AFT Local 212, and professor at the Milwaukee Area Technical College. Rosen traveled to Walkerville on Wednesday to spend the night.

About 150 tents have sprung up around the Capitol since Saturday June 4, when the Walkerville tent city was erected.

Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, brought her son, Nicholas to Walkerville. “We are here to tell Scott Walker that his attack on Wisconsin’s unions, middle class, and communities will not stand.

The people are coming together here in Walkerville to fight for a just budget and for an economy that works for all.”

Each day in Walkerville has had a theme, complete with educational programs to inform citizens on the budget and how it will impact their everyday life. Public services, health care, education and higher education have all been a theme of the day. Many local musicians have taken to the stage on State Street to show their support for the protestors and entertain the family-friendly crowd.

“As Wisconsinites, we cannot standby in silence while our friends, family and neighbors suffer at the hand of Governor Walker’s bad choices for our state,” explained Dian Palmer, President of SEIU Health Care Wisconsin and a public health nurse from Milwaukee who has been spending multiple nights in Walkerville. “I am here because what I have heard from Governor Walker does not represent the Wisconsin that I believe in or that my fellow Wisconsinites believe in. And I am here to bear witness and ensure that our leaders do right by education, healthcare and programs for senior citizens.”

Walkerville Events

On Health Care Day, nurses and home care patients took on a mock Scott Walker in the fight for quality health care in a play boxing match. Candice Owley, President of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, took to the ring in order to ensure quality care for all of Wisconsin.

On Public Services day, state and county employees held a mock town-hall listening session

< http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/wisconsin-state-afl-cio-blog/2011/06/walkerville-mock-listening-session-.htmlwith > characters of Gov. Walker, David Koch, Sen. Glen Grothman and Sarah Palin. On Sunday, Wisconsin teachers held a citizen speak-out:

< http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/wisconsin-state-afl-cio-blog/2011/06/teachers-rally-walkerville.html >

Last Monday, fire fighters, farmers and cops lead a march of thousands to call for a fair and just budget. Read more about it here:

< http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/wisconsin-state-afl-cio-blog/2011/06/fair-budget-march-walkerville.html >

As the winds blew in last night Walkerville residence took refuge by patronizing local businesses as they waited out the storm. After the storm, Walkerville citizens returned to their tents, tucked-in for the night and continued to raise awareness of Gov. Walker’s bad budget choices.

More information on Walkerville

For pictures of Walkerville click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisaflcio/

For Walkerville stories click here: http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/

To donate to help the Walkerville, tent city run click here:

http://wi.aflcio.org/statefed/index.cfm?action=article&articleID=8853d778-e839-4967-982e-c4ca49b2d26c

For live updates from Walkerville visit the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wisaflcio

Twitterpages: http://twitter.com/#!/wisaflcio

Press Clips From Walkerville

Wisconsin Protesters Erect ‘Walkerville’ Tent City To Protest Scott Walker’s Budget Cuts, Hufftington Post.

In Wisconsin, Legislative Urgency as Recall Threat Looms, New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/us/politics/08wisconsin.html?_r=3

Friendly Spirit Prevails in Walkerville, Wisconsin State Journal:

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_75c648fa-8f6e-11e0-a928-001cc4c03286.html

CNN in Walkerville:

http://www.criticalmention.com/ctv3-1/landing_email.php?type=email&video=true&random_string=67b2d92dedfb1f74df9b4c7a1e8950f9

Check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

The War Prayer

2010-11-18T08:59:00.002-06:00

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
a.k.a. Samuel Clemens
(1835-1910)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came-next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams-visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender!-then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation -- "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever--merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory -

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting.
With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,"Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said

"I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import-that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of-except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this-keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer-the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it-that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory-must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it-for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause)

"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Peace = health care + child care + over 15,000,000 new jobs

2010-11-07T00:48:00.002-05:00

Neither Paul Krugman nor Evan Bayh place the questions about the economy correctly by asking this very important and fundamental question:

How is Obama's war economy working for you?

One has to ask how it can possibly be that neither Krugman the economist nor Bayh the politician don't even mention these extremely costly dirty wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in either of their op/ed pieces when putting an end to this massive waste is what is required if we our going to solve our many problems.

In fact, Bayh talks about Obama making a mistake about putting health care reform before creating jobs while Krugman turns around and says that Bayh is wrong.

Well, the fact is both Krugman and Bayh are wrong because Obama and the Democrats could have killed three birds with one stone by ending these dirty wars and using the money saved to finance a National Public Health Care System providing the American people with free health care through a national network of 30,000 public health care centers which would have created around ten-million new decent good-paying jobs.

Peace = health care + jobs

There would have been enough money left to create a National Public Child Care System, too; thus solving another major problem for most working class families while creating over 5 million new jobs.

Peace = health care + child care + over 15,000,000 new jobs

Why is it so hard for these economists and politicians to figure out the most jobs are created by putting people to work solving the problems of working people while creating a more just and humane society?

If additional funding is needed you simply tax the hell out of the rich who have been stashing away their profits for four or five generations so what we need to do is take their money to redistribute this massive wealth that working people created and Wall Street coupon clippers socked away.

If need be a tax similar to the Social Security tax could be implemented to pay for national public health care and national public child care... no one would or could object since they would be getting something of real value instead of the bloody mess that comes with wars that cost way more than health care or child care ever would cost.

Paul Krugman says he wants to hear answers so this is my answer to him and the politicians.

I don't get it; how can any reasonably intelligent person not understand that by implementing both National Public Health Care and National Public Child Care programs you create jobs at the same time?

Chances are, like the wars, which the majority of the American people want to end... the majority of the American people would favor creating both a National Public Health Care System and a National Public Child Care System when given the facts.

Would anyone care to venture how it is an economist the stature of the award-winning Paul Krugman and a long-time serving U.S. Senator like Evan Bayh could not come up with any of this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/opinion/05krugman.html?src=me&ref=general

November 4, 2010
The Focus Hocus-Pocus
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Democrats, declared Evan Bayh in an Op-Ed article on Wednesday in The Times, “overreached by focusing on health care rather than job creation during a severe recession.” Many others have been saying the same thing: the notion that the Obama administration erred by not focusing on the economy is hardening into conventional wisdom.

But I have no idea what, if anything, people mean when they say that. The whole focus on “focus” is, as I see it, an act of intellectual cowardice — a way to criticize President Obama’s record without explaining what you would have done differently.

After all, are people who say that Mr. Obama should have focused on the economy saying that he should have pursued a bigger stimulus package? Are they saying that he should have taken a tougher line with the banks? If not, what are they saying? That he should have walked around with furrowed brow muttering, “I’m focused, I’m focused”?

Mr. Obama’s problem wasn’t lack of focus; it was lack of audacity. At the start of his administration he settled for an economic plan that was far too weak. He compounded this original sin both by pretending that everything was on track and by adopting the rhetoric of his enemies.

The aftermath of major financial crises is almost always terrible: severe crises are typically followed by multiple years of very high unemployment. And when Mr. Obama took office, America had just suffered its worst financial crisis since the 1930s. What the nation needed, given this grim prospect, was a really ambitious recovery plan.

Could Mr. Obama actually have offered such a plan? He might not have been able to get a big plan through Congress, or at least not without using extraordinary political tactics. Still, he could have chosen to be bold — to make Plan A the passage of a truly adequate economic plan, with Plan B being to place blame for the economy’s troubles on Republicans if they succeeded in blocking such a plan.

But he chose a seemingly safer course: a medium-size stimulus package that was clearly not up to the task. And that’s not 20/20 hindsight. In early 2009, many economists, yours truly included, were more or less frantically warning that the administration’s proposals were nowhere near bold enough.

Worse, there was no Plan B. By late 2009, it was already obvious that the worriers had been right, that the program was much too small. Mr. Obama could have gone to the nation and said, “My predecessor left the economy in even worse shape than we realized, and we need further action.” But he didn’t. Instead, he and his officials continued to claim that their original plan was just right, damaging their credibility even further as the economy continued to fall short.

Meanwhile, the administration’s bank-friendly policies and rhetoric — dictated by fear of hurting financial confidence — ended up fueling populist anger, to the benefit of even more bank-friendly Republicans. Mr. Obama added to his problems by effectively conceding the argument over the role of government in a depressed economy.

I felt a sense of despair during Mr. Obama’s first State of the Union address, in which he declared that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.” Not only was this bad economics — right now the government must spend, because the private sector can’t or won’t — it was almost a verbatim repeat of what John Boehner, the soon-to-be House speaker, said when attacking the original stimulus. If the president won’t speak up for his own economic philosophy, who will?

So where, in this story, does “focus” come in? Lack of nerve? Yes. Lack of courage in one’s own convictions? Definitely. Lack of focus? No.

And why would failing to tackle health care have produced a better outcome? The focus people never explain.

Of course, there’s a subtext to the whole line that health reform was a mistake: namely, that Democrats should stop acting like Democrats and go back to being Republicans-lite. Parse what people like Mr. Bayh are saying, and it amounts to demanding that Mr. Obama spend the next two years cringing and admitting that conservatives were right.

There is an alternative: Mr. Obama can take a stand.

For one thing, he still has the ability to engineer significant relief to homeowners, one area where his administration completely dropped the ball during its first two years. Beyond that, Plan B is still available. He can propose real measures to create jobs and aid the unemployed and put Republicans on the spot for standing in the way of the help Americans need.

Would taking such a stand be politically risky? Yes, of course. But Mr. Obama’s economic policy ended up being a political disaster precisely because he tried to play it safe. It’s time for him to try something different.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/opinion/03bayh.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Where Do Democrats Go Next?

Brian Stauffer
By EVAN BAYH
Published: November 2, 2010

DEMOCRATS can recover from the disappointments of this election and set the stage for success in 2012. But to do so we must learn from Tuesday’s results.

Many of our problems were foreseeable. A public unhappy about the economy will take it out on the party in power, even if the problems began under previous management. What’s more, when one party controls everything — the House, the Senate, the White House — disgruntled voters have only one target for their ire. And the president’s party almost always loses seats in midterm elections.

Nonetheless, recurring patterns of history, broad economic forces and the laws of politics don’t entirely account for the Democrats’ predicament. To a degree we are authors of our own misfortune, and we must chart a better path forward.

It is clear that Democrats over-interpreted our mandate. Talk of a “political realignment” and a “new progressive era” proved wishful thinking. Exit polls in 2008 showed that 22 percent of voters identified themselves as liberals, 32 percent as conservatives and 44 percent as moderates. An electorate that is 76 percent moderate to conservative was not crying out for a move to the left.

We also overreached by focusing on health care rather than job creation during a severe recession. It was a noble aspiration, but $1 trillion in new spending and a major entitlement expansion are best attempted when the Treasury is flush and the economy strong, hardly our situation today.

And we were too deferential to our most zealous supporters. During election season, Congress sought to placate those on the extreme left and motivate the base — but that meant that our final efforts before the election focused on trying to allow gays in the military, change our immigration system and repeal the George W. Bush-era tax cuts. These are legitimate issues but unlikely to resonate with moderate swing voters in a season of economic discontent.

With these lessons in mind, Democrats can begin to rebuild. Where to start?

First, we have more than a communications problem — the public heard us but disagreed with our approach. Democrats need not reassess our goals for America, but we need to seriously rethink how to reach them.

Second, don’t blame the voters. They aren’t stupid or addled by fear. They are skeptical about government efficacy, worried about the deficit and angry that Democrats placed other priorities above their main concern: economic growth.

So, in the near term, every policy must be viewed through a single prism: does it help the economy grow?

A good place to start would be tax reform. Get rates down to make American businesses globally competitive. Reward savings and investment. Simplify the code to reduce compliance costs and broaden the base. In 1986, this approach attracted bipartisan support and fostered growth.

The stereotype of Democrats as wild-eyed spenders and taxers has been resurrected. To regain our political footing, we must prove to moderates that Democrats can make tough choices. Democrats should ban earmarks until the budget is balanced. The amount saved would be modest — but with ordinary Americans sacrificing so much, the symbolic power of politicians cutting their own perks is huge.

Democrats should support a freeze on federal hiring and pay increases. Government isn’t a privileged class and cannot be immune to the times.

The most important area for spending restraint is entitlement reform. Democrats should offer changes to the system that would save hundreds of billions of dollars while preserving the safety net for our neediest. For instance, we could introduce “progressive indexation,” which would provide lower cost-of-living increases for more affluent Social Security recipients, or devise a more accurate measure of inflation’s effects on all recipients’ income.

Democrats should also improve legislation already enacted. Health care reform, financial regulation and other initiatives were first attempts at solving complex problems, not holy writ. The administration’s grant of sensible exemptions to the health care bill, permitting some employers to offer only basic coverage, is an example of common-sense, results-oriented fine-tuning.

If President Obama and Congressional Democrats were to take these and other moderate steps on tax reform, deficit reduction and energy security, they would confront Republicans with a quandary: cooperate to make America more prosperous and financially stable, running the risk that the president would likely receive the credit, or obstruct what voters perceive as sensible solutions.

Having seen so many moderates go down to defeat in this year’s primaries, few Republicans in Congress will be likely to collaborate. And as the Republicans — including the party’s 2012 presidential candidates — genuflect before the Tea Party and other elements of the newly empowered right wing, President Obama can seize the center.

I’m betting the president and his advisers understand much of this. If so, assuming the economy recovers, President Obama can win re-election; Democrats can set the stage for historic achievements in a second term. The extremes of both parties will be disappointed. But the vast center yearning for progress will applaud, and the country will benefit.

Evan Bayh, a Democratic senator from Indiana, is retiring from the Senate in January.

Chile Remains An Area Of Concern And Interest

2010-03-18T02:00:00.002-05:00

Brian McAfee

2838 Mason Blvd.

Muskegon Heights, MI 49444

(231)737-8726

brimac6@hotmail.com

Chile Remains An Area Of Concern And Interest

by Brian McAfee

The massive earthquake that struck Chile February 27 continues to have a heavy impact on the Chilean people. The 8.8 magnitude earthquake and the subsequent tsunami has killed at least 497 people while about 500 remain missing. Considering the numbers injured and rendered homeless from the Initial earthquake and the numerous aftershocks Chileans will continue to need assistance. Numerous countries and aid organizations have offered and given assistance.

Given the not that distant history in Chile of the Pinochet Dictatorship the aid and assistance that has come in from Cuba, Russia and Bolivia are particularly interesting. Cuba flew in a team of doctors and a field hospital, Russia flew in rescue workers and humanitarian aid, in Bolivia, president Evo Morales and his vice president Alvaro Garcia are donating half their March salaries to earthquake victims in both Chile and Haiti, this in itself is not hugely significant but but if other political leaders did the same they would be showing a degree of decency often in short supply among politicians.

Some aid organizations that are working with the ongoing relief effort in Chile are SOS Children's Village which has been active in Chile since 1965,

www.childrensvillage.org,

OXFAM has been helping with the earthquake relief since the guake struck February 27, www.oxfamamerica.org, and Red Cross,

www.redcross.org. When contacting these agencies please specify that it is for Chilean earthquake relief.

Brian McAfee- brimac6@hotmail.com

The World is in Crisis with Dark Clouds Ahead

2010-02-21T18:52:00.000-06:00

This statement should be widely distributed. For what these wars and militarism is costing the American people we could have a world-class public healthcare system.

The World is in Crisis with Dark Clouds Ahead

Written by Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council

Remarks of Al Marder, President, US Peace Council, to the World Peace Council Secretariat meeting at Katmandu, Nepal.

Comrades and Friends:

I wish to thank the Nepal Peace and Solidarity Council for providing the opportunity to come together to exchange ideas and proposals at this critical period for united action against the continuing and accelerated drive of imperialism that threatens world peace. We must seize this occasion to fulfill our historic responsibility to seek to unite the global peace movement in common struggle for peace. We recognize that our brothers and sisters in countries throughout the world, in many forms and many organizations, are struggling for national independence, for sovereignty, for the right to determine their own destiny, for peace. The World Peace Council, founded in the cauldron of anti-imperialism and internationalism, must reach out as never before, to seek common ground with all those forces, to forge a “superpower,” a global people’s movement for peace and justice.

In the last few days, further ominous steps have been taken by the Obama Administration intensifying the dangers to peace. The Polish Government announced the agreement to station a US Missile base 60 kilometers from the Russian border of Kaliningrad in the city of Modrag, Poland, stationing 100 US soldiers. The Polish Defense Minister boasted that this site would be combat-ready! The newspapers reported that a leading Russian General questioned the justification that the northern flank of NATO had to be strengthened. He said, “NATO has manifold superiority over Russian conventional arms, as it is.”

That issue, dear friends, is stalling an agreement on the START talks between the US and Russia on the reduction of nuclear weapons. Putin and Medvedev have stated that the negotiations must include missile bases before Russia will seriously negotiate on the reduction of nuclear weapons, let alone on their abolition.

Further, Rumania has announced an agreement with the US to station a missile base. Together, with a base already in Bulgaria, new military bases will be erected, costing $110 million dollars. They will house 4, 000 US troops.

We celebrated the heroic actions of the Czech people against stationing bases in their country. The Obama Administration has now announced they will arm all US warships in the Mediterranean and Middle East waters with these missiles.

Washington has increased the drone attacks in Pakistan and now there are calls for drone attacks on Yemen against the so-called terrorists. The recent attack on a vehicle in Pakistan revealed American soldiers in Pakistan dress from head to toe. The press reported that they dress the American soldiers this way in order to hide the fact from the Pakistan people that American troops are actually in Pakistan. The wars of invasion for imperialist domination have expanded: Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US has moved into Haiti again, using the horrible natural catastrophe as the excuse. French, Cuban, Venezuelan planes, bringing humanitarian supplies and assistance, were forbidden to land in the Porto-Prince airport. The French Minister of Defense has said it bluntly; the aim is to assist not occupy.

The Obama administration signed an agreement with Colombia for ten years for seven new bases. Colombia receives billions in US aid, third, after Israel and Egypt. 1,400 US troops will be dispatched to Colombia to man the new bases in Colombia. Why the need for bases and soldiers in Colombia?

These steps are clearly a threat to the independence movement in Latin America. The overthrow of the Zeyala administration in Honduras is a clear warning that US Imperialism is not ignoring the historic struggle of the peoples of Latin and Central America to rid themselves of the US yoke that has been choking them for centuries. Activities, including killings, in opposition to the new people’s governments, are taking place daily with the support of US embassies. The oligarchs and the murderous paramilitary mercenaries of Latin America are actively supported by the CIA and other US agencies.

The African Command has announced increased activities on the coast of Africa beyond the counterinsurgency operations in Somalia, Uganda, Mali, and Djibouti. Who is active in the Congo and other African countries for their rich resources? The US now gets 17% of its oil from Africa. By the year of 2015, the US will get 25% of its oil from Africa. There is now a Drone base in the Seychelles.

The World Peace Council is a member of the International Network Against Foreign Bases. The struggle against foreign bases is a struggle against imperialism at the national level, capable of mobilizing the people in the name of national sovereignty and independence. The WPC must play a leading role commensurate with its mission. It must encourage all of our members to become active in this movement.

While all of the above is very serious and dangerous, the most ominous of decisions is the decision to sell $6.5 billion dollars of weapons to Taiwan. In the mix will be 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. China has rightfully denounced this dangerous situation, as direct intervention in their internal affairs. The US moves deliberately to surround China and Russia.

The Obama new missile-shield project will be extended to all of Europe integrated with NATO and will extend to the Middle East and the Caucuses. All the warships plying the oceans in Europe and the Middle East will be have Standard Missiles 3 and a new land-based version. Plans are afoot to deploy missile interceptors on the soil of European nations

The Review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is to take place on May 4 again in New York at the United Nations. This is at a critical stage in the struggle against nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have been the excuse for the invasion of Iraq; the attacks against Iran and the maneuvers against North Korea. The issue of nuclear weapons has been with us since the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It sparked the founding of the World Peace Council itself. While it is important to recall that it was the WPC that initiated the historic Stockholm Peace Pledge, it is now 60 years later. The World Peace Council is regaining its strength. We must become deeply involved in the global movement to rid the world of nuclear weapons, in collecting signatures on the global petition , in mobilizing national movements and particularly, participating in the International Conference in New York and the Demonstration on April 30, May 1, and May 2.

The duplicitous role of the former Secretaries of State and Defense, Kissinger, Schultz, Perry and Schlesinger in the United States right-wing hawks, pretending, by major articles in the world press, that they were calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, has been revealed. Honest anti-nuclear weapons proponents pointed to the apparent change in the thinking of the right-wing hawks in the United States calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. These imperialists have strong financial ties to the nuclear weapons industry. They were misleading the public, hoping, obviously, to lull the opposition to nuclear weapons. Today, prior to the NPT Review, they are calling for increased funding and manufacture of new and more deadly nuclear weapons. Obama’s budget obliges them.

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, made a forthright statement in Prague calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. He asserted that it was the moral duty of the United States, as the only nation to use nuclear weapons, to take the lead in their abolition. The global anti-nuclear weapons movement seized upon this statement to demand that the words are followed by concrete action. However, here again, an examination of the budget of the Obama administration shows that new money is being funneled into the major laboratories for new bombs, more deadly weapons, for a policy that will continue nuclear weapons as an essential party of military strategy. Manufacturers and laboratories devoted to these weapons of mass destruction are not going to give up their huge profits. President Obama’s words prove to be rhetoric not backed by deeds.

The Obama Administration is asking for almost $1 trillion dollars in military and war spending this year. This is double all the world together spends on killing machines.

All this is not a sign of strength of US imperialism. The US is a debtor nation, financed by China and Japan and other foreign investors; 28 million people are unemployed or under employed, African American and Hispanic workers are most affected: 17% to 10%; 50 million people have no health insurance; 8 million homes have been foreclosed by the banks; one out of 5 children go to bed hungry. Pensions have been either destroyed or seriously depleted. 38 million n people are now forced to get government stamps for food. Yet, the banks and corporations register huge profits as productivity per worker is up with fewer workers! The people had demanded a change. Obama talked of change. There is little change.

It was quite common to hear that war provides jobs; while it is true our sons and daughters die, the economy benefits. That is no longer the case. Our sons and daughters die and the people suffer. That is the reality.

The World Peace Council has a noble history, holding its anti-imperialist banner high during a very difficult period, resisting all attempts to change its anti-imperialist foundation. Yesterday, the world, seeking liberation from colonial rule and the horrors of fascism, looked to the World Peace Council for solidarity and internationalism.

Today 2 billion of our brothers and sisters are hungry; without clean drinking water; homeless or living in deplorable conditions. Disease is rampant. Internal conflict is encouraged by imperialism and their domestic agents so that the natural resources, their wealth, end up in foreign hands. Their countries are in deep debt, and their destiny is decided in foreign capitals.

We must find a way to reach out to these brothers and sisters, as we did before. Their struggle is our struggle. We need them in our ranks.

The world is in crisis with dark clouds ahead. The WPC is no stranger to crisis. There is a historic global peace movement today. We must assume our role in that movement. We must respond today as we have in the past. This meeting should propel us forward to meet our responsibilities.

Thank you.

February 18, 2010

Can we afford peace?

2010-01-20T13:07:00.000-06:00

By: Helen Thomas hthomas@hearstdc.com

Albany Times Union

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=890123&category=opinion

January 19, 2010

No one in the Obama administration is going to acknowledge that our foreign policy in the Middle East has alienated many Arabs.

The U.S. pro-Israel policy and our shocking neglect of the beleaguered Palestinians underlie almost every initiative or tactical tilt that comes out of Washington.

President Obama and his predecessors in the White House have scored domestic political points by embracing this world view. This is one vantage point that is truly bipartisan, to the point where no one discusses it.

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA specialist on the al-Qaida terrorists, complained on C-SPAN recently that any debate about American support for Israel is "normally squelched."

"For anyone to say our support for Israel doesn't hurt us is to just defy reality," he added.

Another former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, says the 9/11 Commission report noted that Khalid Sheikh -- the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- cited his violent disagreement with U.S. support for Israel as the motivating dynamic behind the attacks.

Obama knows enough about the Middle East that tightening airport security is not the whole answer to fighting terrorism. He should try a more even-handed policy in the region.

Grievances of the Arab man on the street include bitter criticism of the U.S. for supporting harsh authoritarian regimes in the Arab world and the failure of those U.S.-backed regimes to help the Palestinians in Gaza.

Surely after several years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can dispense with the obfuscation and evasion that flood forth from official U.S. megaphones.

Terrorism spawned in the Middle East is not the only threat we face.

As the American economy digs out from the debris of the Great Recession triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble, we should think about what could happen about another bubble that invisibly chugs through the American economy.

I refer to our bloated defense spending.

The United States spends more for its arsenal than any other 10 countries combined. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. accounts for more than 40 percent of the world's total military spending. China is in second place, at a relatively puny 5.8 percent.

If the U.S. defense spending bubble were ever to deflate, domestic job losses would be catastrophic, a stunning fact that raises the question of whether we can ever afford peace.

The American people have long shown they can handle the truth. When it comes to the Middle East and to threats to our economy, so should our leaders.

Barack Obama and the greedy Wall Street pigs he represents

2010-01-10T20:58:00.000-06:00

Who Needs Peace, Love and Understanding, Anyway? Newsweek 1/11/10

2010-01-06T23:57:00.003-06:00

This is the best letter to an editor I have ever seen--- bar none... I hope everyone receiving it gives it the widest distribution possible by passing it on in any way they can.

Can't some graphic artist be found to turn this into a cheap, small leaflet? Perhaps with a couple hundred names with people from diverse walks of life supporting it on the back?

We could all pitch in a few bucks to get it printed.

Place at the bottom on both sides: Please photocopy and distribute and post where ever you go.

Maybe something as cheap as a postcard sized format with a photo of people living in the Gaza Strip and next to this a photo of people living on a U.S. Indian reservation on one side, the letter on the other side? A good graphic artist could really do some good work with this... post cards, note cards, posters, leaflets.

It is very disturbing to think that Newsweek Magazine might not publish this letter.

If they don't publish it that fact could be included on a leaflet, etc.

A picture of Jake sitting at his computer should be part of the campaign using this letter to prove that concerned people acting in this way really do have an impact.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

-----Original Message-----

From: Jake Terpstra [mailto:jmterps@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 6:56 PM
To:
Subject: Fw: Who Needs Peace, Love and Understanding, Anyway? Newsweek 1/11/10

Friends, It never seems to change. Newsweek had a four page article about how nice life is in Israel now that violence from Palestinians has been subdued. I know they won't print this, but they need to know how we see it Jake

To: Newsweek
Sent: Wed, January 6, 2010 7:38:06 PM
Subject: Who Needs Peace, Love and Understanding, Anyway? Newsweek 1/11/10

Your January 11 article Who Needs Peace…is amazing. Americans had peace too after we killed most of the Indians and took their land, leaving a few ghettos. Now that Israel succeeded in doing that to Palestinians, you tell how wonderful it is---for Israelis.

The article continually talks about peace. Most of us believe that true peace is based on justice. That wasn’t even mentioned.

If you make even a pretense of fair or objective news, can we expect to see a comparably lengthy article soon about life in the 15% of the land that Palestinians still have.

Jake Terpstra
2111 Raybrook SE
Grand Rapids,MI 49546
616 940-4537

Article as it appeared in Newsweek:

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/228840

Who Needs Peace, Love, And Understanding, Anyway?

Why many Israelis now believe that pursuing peace with the Palestinians is passé.

By Dan Ephron | NEWSWEEK

Published Jan 2, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Jan 11, 2010

For more than 15 years now, two Tel Aviv University political scientists, working with pollsters, have been asking Israelis roughly the same the two questions every month: Do you support negotiations with the Palestinians? And do you believe talks will bring about peace between the two sides in the near term? Their project, which started as the Peace Index and was rechristened in 2008 as the War and Peace Index, aimed to track Israeli opinion about a process that began with the 1993 Oslo accord. Optimism has waxed and waned over the years, peaking just after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a right-wing fanatic, when more than 60 percent of respondents felt good about the peace process, and plunging during the suicide attacks of the second Palestinian intifada.

But rarely since the start of the project have the numbers been as low—consistently low—as in recent years. Only about 40 percent of Israelis now long for a rejuvenated peace process with the Palestinians. An even smaller number, about 20 percent, believe such talks would amount to anything. That doesn't mean Israelis are warmongers, although right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu often complains his government is portrayed that way. Palestinian negotiators were outraged last week when the Israelis approved construction of another roughly 700 housing units in East Jerusalem despite a freeze on new building in West Bank settlements; they claim Netanyahu's professed desire to sit down and talk is disingenuous. Yet in the long years since the Oslo process began, each side has had its turn—several turns—as the spoiler. And in fact, more Israelis than ever (including Netanyahu, though with major provisions) now say they're willing to live alongside an independent Palestinian state.

What's changed is that more Israelis than ever also seem to feel little urgency about reaching that goal. This, as much as any reluctance on Netanyahu's part, may pose the greatest obstacle to the Obama administration's efforts to reach a peace agreement before 2012. A combination of factors in recent years—an improved security situation, a feeling that acceptance by Arabs no longer matters much, and a growing disaffection from politics generally—have for many Israelis called into question the basic calculus that has driven the peace process. Instead of pining for peace, they're now asking: who needs it?

Few Israelis would have posed that question just a few years ago, when buses and cafés were blowing up with alarming frequency. But the almost total absence of suicide attacks since 2006 has changed attitudes, in ways that were palpable to me when I visited recently for the first time in four years. In that unscientific way that a visitor takes in a national mood, I found Israelis to be more lighthearted and less angst-ridden than I had remembered—also less obsessive about what they call hamatzav, literally "the situation." The practice of turning up the radio when the hourly news bulletin comes on seems to have ebbed, a bewildering turn for anyone who has spent any amount of time in the country. Even Jerusalem, with its relentless feuding between Arabs and Jews, religious and secular, felt less tense. For an interview in the city with a top cabinet minister, I showed up 30 minutes early, recalling the rigorous security checks that precede such meetings. The guard who was supposed to frisk me couldn't get his handheld metal detector to work. Instead of fetching new batteries, he flashed a smile and said in accented English: "Just tell me we can trust you, and I'll let you in."

By the standard logic of Middle East peacemaking, this should be the perfect time to negotiate a deal. Israelis, after all, have long argued that real talks about land for peace cannot proceed until terrorism stops and some level of security is achieved. But, as so often happens in the Middle East, the standard logic no longer holds. If security was a prerequisite for peacemaking, now it's a goal unto itself. And it's been achieved, Israelis can plausibly argue, through their own hard-nosed measures.

Consider the numbers. Over a six-year period starting in September 2000, about 140 suicide bombers crossed into Israel from the West Bank, killing around 500 Israelis, a huge number for a population of 7 million (though only about one 10th the number of Palestinians killed during the same period). Since mid-2006, the year Israel completed large sections of the new fence around the West Bank (and a wall around parts of Jerusalem), not a single suicide bomber has infiltrated from the area and staged a successful attack. Built in part on Palestinian land, the barrier has generated criticism at home and abroad. But if you set aside the controversy, at least in the short run, the conclusion is clear: the barrier is working.

Gaza has similarly been subdued. In 2008, Palestinians launched around 3,000 rockets at southern Israel, an average of about 250 a month, according to an official tally. (The rockets have caused few casualties but have exacted a psychological and economic toll.) Then, a year ago, Israel waged a controversial war in Gaza. Critics of the campaign have focused, justifiably, on the high number of civilian casualties and the disproportionate use of force. But the results are indisputable: since the war, the number of rocket attacks from Gaza has dropped by 90 percent.

The stability, in turn, has helped Israel's economy. While the global recession plunged other countries into crisis in the past year, nearly all of Israel's indicators have held steady. Tourism, a good gauge of overall welfare, hit a 10-year high in 2008. Astonishingly, the IMF projected recently that Israel's GDP will grow faster in 2010 than that of most other developed countries.

In short, Israelis are enjoying a peace dividend without a peace agreement. Clearly, that can't last. Without a resolution to its conflict, Israel will always face the prospect of international isolation and challenges to its very legitimacy. But the tendency toward short-term thinking is reinforced by another somewhat skewed cost-benefit analysis that Israelis are inclined to embrace: while the absence of peace is exacting a very low price, Israeli attempts to forge a peace deal have exacted a very high one.

Most Israelis, in this analysis, associate the Oslo accords not just with the historic handshake on the White House lawn but with the first suicide attacks by Palestinians. Ask Israelis what they got in return for their offer at Camp David nearly a decade ago to hand over most of the West Bank and they'll point to the second intifada. In Israeli minds, Palestinians should have been grateful for the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza—instead they fired rockets at Israel.

Of course, that version ignores Israel's own provocations and abuses, including the continued expropriation of Palestinian land, the dramatic growth of Jewish settlements in the 1990s and the siege Israel has imposed on Gaza. But it's an account of history that Israelis across the political spectrum accept almost unquestioningly, and it translates into a deep reluctance to push forward too far, too fast. As Tamar Hermann, one of the two political scientists who run the War and Peace Index, told me recently, "In a way, Israelis are looking around and saying, 'We've achieved normalcy. We don't have bombings. The stock market's OK. Why should we launch another messy peace process that may rock the boat again?' "

Hermann concludes that Israelis have intellectually disengaged from peacemaking. Their emotional detachment may run even deeper. In the hopeful period after Oslo, Israelis coined a phrase: eating hummus in Damascus. The expression was shorthand for coexistence in the "new Middle East" that finally appeared to be materializing. But it also had a literal significance. For citizens of tiny and hemmed-in Israel, regional peace would mean they could drive their cars across international borders, shop in the souks of Arab capitals, and take road trips from Tel Aviv through Turkey and on to Europe. The national debate between left and right centered on whether that vision was attainable or delusional. But the potential benefits were obvious.
Today, hummus in Damascus has lost its appeal. This happened gradually, starting in the 1990s, when Israelis ventured into the Arab world like never before. The experience was often disappointing. The peace process failed to erase Arab animosity toward Israelis, who were often received with suspicion or even hostility.

Those Israelis who had fantasized about combining Israeli know-how with Arab capital—enabling everyone to get rich—found the bureaucracy and inefficiency of Arab countries dispiriting. Meanwhile, Israel's booming high-tech sector has bound the country more tightly to the global economy, making trade with neighbors less important. As a result, even in the good years, Israel's commerce with the Arab world never amounted to more than 1 percent of its total international trade revenue. These days, says Ori Nir, the Israeli spokesman in Washington of Americans for Peace Now, Israelis would much rather eat pasta in Rome than hummus in Damascus.

Nir says that sense of disillusionment has helped to sink Israel's pro-peace parties, which suffered their worst defeat yet in elections last March. The drubbing has led some politicians on the left to shift their priorities. Nir told me that Nitzan Horowitz, a Parliament member from the left-wing Meretz party, had sought help from friends recently to set up meetings in Washington. When the friends inquired which American peace groups he'd like to meet, Horowitz said none: he was more interested in seeing environment and gay-rights advocates. Horowitz confirmed the account when I visited him at his office in Israel, where he had a photo on the wall of himself with the Dalai Lama, and a license plate inscribed with the words CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN—OBAMA IN '08. "People want a clear agenda," he told me, explaining why Meretz had dropped from 12 seats in the 120-member Parliament in 1992 to just three seats last year. "It doesn't have to always be focused on the Arab-Israeli issue."

Of course, Israelis have turned away from politics generally in recent years, largely in response to a swell of corruption in government circles. In 2009 alone, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was indicted for bribery, former finance minister Abraham Hirschson was jailed for embezzlement, and former president Moshe Katsav went on trial for rape. At least two former cabinet ministers have been convicted of graft in the past five years, and an indictment against the current foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is expected any day.

That malfeasance, though it has nothing to do with the peace process, has contributed to the Israeli disaffection for peacemaking. According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute, one result of all the scandals is that Israelis feel their politicians can't be trusted to take their interests into account—not in small matters, and certainly not in something as significant as peace talks. "Making peace is difficult," says Tamar Hermann, who coauthored the IDI paper. "If you don't trust politicians, you don't want to jump into that water at all." Among other things, the study found that 90 percent of Israelis believe the country is tainted by corruption, and 73 percent would advise their friends and relatives to stay out of politics. Israelis are "drawing away, at times in disgust, from the political establishment," the study concluded.

On some level, the changes Israel is undergoing are part of the normal evolution of a Western democracy. It makes sense that Israelis over time would become less obsessed with politics, more cynical about their neighbors, less trusting of their leaders. But for Palestinians next door, nothing is normal. Hamas has rebounded from the Gaza war and is once again smuggling in weapons. In the West Bank, Israel's one reliable peace partner, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has vowed to resign. Farther off, a conflict with Iran looms. Many Israelis know it's just a matter of time before another bomb blows up in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. But as one Israeli put it to me: the medication has become so effective at relieving the pain, there's little incentive to actually cure the disease.

The United States has 800 military bases on foreign soil...

2009-03-23T11:38:00.001-05:00

What we need--- instead--- is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States where people can universally access, for free, all their health care needs from pre-natal care, to general health care to eye, dental and mental care right through to burial.

Instead of moving in this progressive direction, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are moving in a most reactionary direction towards establishing military bases in outer space as they seek to insure the profits of both the merchants of death and destruction and the profit-driven health care industries... talk about skewed priorities and your wacky ideas devoid of common sense.

In addition to these 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil, Barack Obama and the United States Congress continue funding--- with our tax-dollars--- the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

A network of 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States would create over four-million good-paying, decent jobs--- talk about your "economic stimulus" package!

We would be planting the seeds of socialism while helping to eradicate poverty as we keep people healthy and get them well when sick.

Think about this kind of solution in relation to what Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers are offering the American people, and the peoples of the world... just what is the reason for bailing out the banks and AIG and maintaining more than 800 expensive U.S. military bases of foreign soil?

The Mt. Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers us a glimpse at what militarization and wars continue to rob us of.

The problems created by Wall Street will not be solved as long as the military-financial-industrial complex is allowed to squander human and natural resources on militarism and wars... we might just as well be dumping these resources out into the ocean... at least no one would die in wars.

These merchants of death and destruction must be stopped if humanity is to survive in a livable world.

The time has come to talk about the working class Marxist politics and economics of livelihood... capitalism has failed humanity miserably and left us a real mess.

Something for working people to think about and discuss around the dinner table... the capitalist sooth-Sayers certainly are not going to broach such solutions to the problems of working people as they hide behind the skirt of Rosy Scenario as this global capitalist economic depression intensifies.

Alan Maki

An e-mail from Brian Melendez the head of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party

2009-01-22T09:42:00.002-06:00

Mr. Melendez who is the head of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party sent me this e-mail:

Mr. Maki,

Enough already.

Give Gaza a rest. Just let us enjoy our victory in electing Barack Obama.

You take up a cause and you try to push that cause down our throats. What don't you understand? We don't care about your diatribes about Gaza.

You started out demanding justice for casino workers claiming a little smoke is harmful to their health. Let them get another job if they don't like the opportunity we have given them. With you it is always demanding. Your list of demands is never ending.

You started with your casino workers. From there you went to demanding single-payer health care and this has turned into your demand for socialized health care because we didn't give you and your casino workers single-payer as soon as you demanded it.

You harp endlessly about Iraq.

Now you have taken up the cause of Palestinians and you are bashing our best friend and ally, Israel.

No, you aren't satisfied with taking up one of your issues at a time. Now you put them all together like they are related in some way and shove then all down our throats.

We are getting fed up with you. We have a big tent. Apparently our tent is not big enough for you and all your causes. Please pack up your tent and move elsewhere. Might I suggest you take your tent to Gaza.

Just leave us alone and give President Obama a chance.

Brian Melendez,Chair, MNDFL

My response:

Mr. Melendez,

Too many "causes: for you eh?

Well, how many different promises does the Democratic Party make to voters to get elected, which you conveniently ignore once elected.

For your information, all the "causes" I am involved in are related. These problems, you call them "causes," all stem from this rotten capitalist system.

Might I suggest that you move on... perhaps find yourself a job working in one of your beloved smoke-filled casinos.

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Non-Aligned Movement condemns Israeli atrocities in Gaza

2009-01-22T02:22:00.001-06:00

Statement by the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement on the Non-Compliance by Israel with Security Council Resolution 1860 (2009) and the Escalation of the Israeli Military Aggression against the Gaza Strip New York, 12 January 2009

The Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) met at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 12 January 2009 and considered the grave situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the Gaza Strip, as a result of the massive military aggression that continues to be carried out by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian civilian population.

NAM reiterates its strong condemnation of the massive military aggression being carried out by Israel against the Palestinian civilian population in the besieged Gaza Strip.

NAM condemns in the strongest terms Israel’s blatant disregard of Security Council resolution 1860 (2009), which was adopted by the Council on 8 January 2009 and which calls, inter alia, for an immediate ceasefire, and its flagrant defiance of the repeated calls from the international community for a complete cessation of military activities.

NAM calls for the immediate implementation of Security Council resolution 1860, including in particular its call for an immediate ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from Gaza as well as for measures to address the pressing humanitarian and economic needs of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, including by the sustained and permanent opening of Gaza’s border crossings fully in accordance with the terms and provisions of resolution 1860, to ensure the free access of humanitarian aid and other essential supplies and goods and to facilitate the passage of persons to and from the Gaza Strip.

NAM reiterates that this brutal Israeli military aggression against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip constitutes a grave breach of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and is causing vast suffering among the Palestinian civilian population, fueling the cycle of violence and threatening international peace and security as well as the fragile peace process between the two sides.

NAM reiterates its deep regret at the vast loss of innocent lives and injury being caused to Palestinian civilians by this brutal Israeli military campaign as well as at the extensive destruction being caused to homes, properties and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. In this regard, NAM expresses its deepest condolences to the grieving Palestinian people as they mourn the loss of more than 900 Palestinians killed, including more than 280 children, and the more than 4,000 Palestinians injured, including more than 1,200 children, by the occupying forces in the Gaza Strip.

NAM once again expresses its grave concern at the widespread suffering and trauma being inflicted on the Palestinian civilian population and at the deepening human tragedy and humanitarian disaster unfolding in the Gaza Strip as a result of the continuing military actions by Israel, the occupying Power, against the civilian population as well as its ongoing blockade of Gaza, obstructing the movement of persons and goods, including of humanitarian personnel and vital humanitarian supplies, including of desperately-needed food, medicines, and fuel, into, out of and throughout the Gaza Strip in collective punishment of the civilian population.

In light of the continuation of this illegal and unacceptable situation, NAM thus urgently calls once again for an immediate cessation of all military activities and violence. NAM calls for all efforts to be exerted to compel Israel, the occupying Power, to cease this aggression and to scrupulously abide by all of its obligations under international law and relevant United Nations resolutions. In this regard, the Movement demands that Israel unconditionally comply with its obligations as the occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949.

Moreover, in light of the dire situation being faced by the Palestinian civilian population under Israeli occupation and aggression in the Gaza Strip, NAM reiterates its calls for the immediate provision of protection for the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip in accordance with the relevant provisions of international humanitarian law.

NAM expresses its serious concerns regarding the extensive difficulties being faced by medical and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip in evacuating and treating civilians wounded and in need of emergency medical treatment due to Israel’s continued targeting and obstruction of ambulances and rescue workers and due to severe shortages in medical supplies and the disrepair and unavailability of the necessary equipment to respond to this critical situation, which is exacerbating the suffering of the civilian population. In this regard, NAM expresses its strong condemnation regarding Israel’s targeting and killing of U.N. humanitarian personnel, including UNRWA personnel, working tirelessly to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and calls upon the occupying Power to respect international law and the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.

NAM stresses the need for intensified and coordinated efforts by the international community to bring an end to this crisis and to exert all necessary efforts to support and promote the peace process as well as to ensure respect for international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, the key to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole, as the sole means to guarantee a lasting peace in the region.

NAM expresses its support for all diplomatic and political efforts and initiatives being exerted at the international and regional levels to address this crisis, including by the United Nations system, stressing once again that there is no military solution to this crisis or to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole.

NAM supports and calls for the full implementation of Human Rights Council resolution on the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip, adopted on Monday, 12 January 2009, and the speedy dispatch of the independent international fact-finding mission called for therein to investigate violations of human rights and of international law by Israel.

The Movement will actively consider all possible actions in order to guarantee the investigation and prosecution of all those responsible for crimes against the civilian population in Gaza. In this regard, NAM stresses that Criminal Justice must take its course.

NAM also underscores that the General Assembly, the most democratic and representative body of the United Nations, has the duty to duly respond to the concerns of the international community regarding the crisis situation in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli military campaign and add its voice and weight to that of the Security Council in calling for an immediate ceasefire and for respect by the occupying Power of its obligations under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law.

In that context, NAM supports the convening of the resumed 10th emergency special session of the General Assembly at the earliest possible date and requests the President of the General Assembly to begin forthwith the process of consultations to that effect.

NAM stresses the urgency of continued efforts by the international community and relevant UN organs and specialized agencies to effectively address the many political, humanitarian, socio-economic and security ramifications of this crisis.

At this critical time, the Movement specifically calls upon the international community to make a special effort to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, including by extending emergency assistance to meet the urgent requirements of the population of Gaza. The Movement also calls upon the international community to pledge the necessary assistance to rebuild the infrastructure of Gaza at the earliest feasible juncture, and the economy of Gaza as well as the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Movement underlines that the international community must invest in the recovery and development of economic infrastructure and capacity of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which would contribute to an environment conducive for the resumption of the peace process.

The Movement reaffirms its commitment to a peaceful solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the right of the Palestinian people to exercise self-determination and sovereignty in their independent State of Palestine, on the basis of the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Pakistan As "New" Front In Terror War

2008-09-30T21:08:00.003-05:00

Brian McAfee
2838 Mason Blvd.
Muskegon Heights, MI 49444
Phone: (231)737-8726
W-mail: brimac6@hotmail.com

Pakistan As "New" Front In Terror War

by Brian McAfee

The truck bomb that exploded in front of Islamabad's Marriott hotel killing at least 53 people heralded in the latest salvo in the the U.S.'s and Mujahedin's love/hate relationship. Their relationship began in 1979 in Afghanistan and Pakistan when the U.S., starting with Jimmy Carter and his National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski hatched an idea of using the most extreme militant Islamists to first draw in the Soviets (to Afghanistan) then go to war against them. At the time the U.S. was allied closely with Pakistani dictator General Zia Ul-Haq. Zia allowed Pakistan to be the primary conduit for weapons transfers from Washington to the Mujahedin from '79 on.

Washington's ongoing support for the Mujahedin, particularly during the Reagan presidency, was an action carried out simultaneously with the U.S. arming and training of Nicaragua's Contras, who had been members of the deposed right wing dictator Anastasio Somoza's National Guard. Despite both parties antithesis towards freedom and democracy both were dubbed "freedom fighters" by Washington. The U.S.'s "freedom fighters" whether in Central America or Afghanistan had a strong penchant for killing civilians as well as raping women and girls.

The Taliban, simply the current evolution of the Mujahedin, views the U.S. in the same manner as their cohorts viewed the Soviets in the 80's.

It is likely the hotel bombing is a response to a number of attacks carried out by the United states and its allies over the past several weeks. The attacks in question took place both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The first and most notable one took place in the Herat district of Afghanistan. On August 21 a U.S. bombing killed 90 civilians, 60 of them children. The figure was confirmed by Afghan human rights groups as well as the UN. The U.S. response however was to basically call the Afghans and UN liars insisting that most of the dead were Taliban and only a small number were children. After a couple of weeks of the U.S. basically calling the Afghans and the UN liars the U.S. acknowledged the deaths but still did not accept responsibility saying it was faulty intelligence from an Afghan with a vendetta.

In South Waziristan, Pakistan on September 3 the first officially acknowledged attack by US forces on Pakistani soil killed 20 people, primarily women and children. It does appear that the U.S. is determined to make Pakistan its next front in its "war on Terror".

The reasons, goals and methods of of U.S. interactions with the rest of the World, particularly impoverished and needy areas such as Pakistan and Afghanistan should be constantly open to analysis. Because of poverty, harsh winters and the 2005 earthquake that still is impacting certain parts of Pakistan humanitarian endeavors should be paramount. Arrogance or Crass self interests vis-a-vis warfare or material acquisition through thuggery all too often has appeared to be the cornerstone of capitalism historically. A refocus towards ending hunger and poverty as well as illiteracy in the World are far more fitting goals then greed, power and materialism.

Suggested reading: The End of Poverty by Jeffrey D. Sachhs, Bamker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus, and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

Brian McAfee
2838 Mason Blvd.
Muskegon Heights, MI 49444
(231)737-8726
brimac6@hotmail.com

Blackwater protesters sentenced after judge clears courtroom

2007-12-06T14:26:00.000-06:00

Subject: Blackwater protesters sentenced after judge clears courtroom

This requires “letters to the editor” of the Virginian-Pilot from all over the country; these people who have stood up in an area where the military (Hampton Naval Yards) has a huge presence need our support. I would encourage everyone to distribute this article widely, post it on blogs and bulletin boards, make sure every peace organization is aware of this and takes appropriate solidarity actions.

Please forward this to everyone on your e-mail lists.

Please submit for publication in all newspapers and newsletters.

On-line comments can be posted here:
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=138265&ran=1278#comments

Letters to the Editor can be submitted via this link:
http://home.hamptonroads.com/feedback/submit.cfm?id=1&url=http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=138265&ran=1278

I sent the following Letter to the Editor to the Virginian-Pilot the main daily for the area:

I am outraged that a Judge in North Carolina would close a court-room to the public and the media concerning the Blackwater protest arrests. This continuing war in Iraq is not only squandering away the resources we require for things like a national single-payer universal health care system; it is destroying our democracy. Thomas Jefferson must be rolling in his grave.

A former Virginia Beach resident.

Alan L. Maki
Warroad, Minnesota

Note: original material obtained via a link from an excellent blog in the Hampton Roads area:

http://jadedprol.blogspot.com/

Blackwater protesters sentenced after judge clears courtroom

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=138265&ran=1278

By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot

© December 6, 2007 | Last updated 11:07 PM Dec. 5

CURRITUCK, N.C.

In a courtroom closed to the press and public, protesters were sentenced to jail Wednesday for re-enacting a Baghdad shooting incident at the front entrance of Blackwater .

They said they will appeal the verdicts, partly on the grounds that they were denied their constitutional right to a public trial.

Currituck County District Judge Edgar Barnes took the rare step of clearing the courtroom after trying one of the protesters, Steve Baggarly of Norfolk, in public.

The remaining six were then tried, convicted and sentenced behind closed doors.
The judge gave no reason for his action.

The seven received jail terms ranging from 10 to 45 days and were fined $100 each. They said they will not pay the fines. One was ordered to pay $450 restitution to Blackwater for damage to its property.

All were released pending their appeals.

After the trials, Baggarly speculated that the judge closed the courtroom to silence the group’s anti-war rhetoric.

“He didn’t want people influenced by our message,” Baggarly said. “There have been hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in Iraq. If we’re going to speak about that, nobody is allowed to hear it. Obviously the system feels threatened by that. It loves darkness.”

Katy Parker, legal director of the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she had never before heard of a similar action being taken by a North Carolina judge.

“It’s a clear violation of constitutional rights, not only of the defendants but the press and public,” she said. “They have a right to a public trial, so any trial that goes on behind closed doors is a farce.”

In the Oct. 20 demonstration at Blackwater’s Moyock headquarters, the protesters drove a small station wagon, covered with simulated bullet holes and smeared with red paint, onto Blackwater’s property.

They also smeared red handprints on two Blackwater signs.

The scene was intended to mimic that in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, when an Iraqi doctor and her son died in a fusillade of gunfire as their car approached a Blackwater diplomatic convoy.

They were among 17 Iraqis killed in the incident, which prompted a federal grand jury investigation and a demand from the Iraqi government that Blackwater’s security contractors be banned from the country.

The seven protesters were convicted of second-degree trespassing. Six were also convicted of resisting arrest, and one of injury to real property. Several went limp when they were arrested and had to be dragged from the scene.

During Baggarly’s trial, he was repeatedly cut short by the judge when he tried to discuss the morality of the Iraq war and Blackwater’s role in it. The only issue up for discussion was trespassing and the related charges, the judge said.

“We feel like Blackwater is trespassing in Iraq,” Baggarly told the judge. “And as for injuring property, they injure men, women and children every day.”

The others convicted were Beth Brockman of Durham, N.C.; Mark Colville of New Haven, Conn.; Peter DeMott of Ithaca, N.Y.; Mary Grace of Madison County, Va.; Laura Marks of Ayden, N.C.; and Bill Streit of Louisa County, Va.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276,

bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com

The Judge can be contacted here:

http://www.nccourts.org/County/Currituck/Staff/District.asp

The Honorable Edgar L. Barnes

159 Fearing Place North
Manteo, N. C. 27954

Phone and Fax:

(252)-331-4750
(252)-331-4814 (FAX)

An additional news report from:

The DailyAdvance

Judge finds all 7 Blackwater protesters guilty

By From Staff Reports

http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/12/05/1205Blackwater.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=7

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

CURRITUCK - A District Court judge on Wednesday found seven protesters guilty of trespassing on Blackwater USA's property in Moyock in October.

Judge Edgar Barnes, who held part of the proceedings behind closed doors, handed down jail sentences ranging from between 10 and 45 days to the seven defendants. None of the sentences were active, however. All were suspended on the condition the protesters not violate any laws for one year and pay fines ranging from $100 to $450.

None of the defendants said they planned to pay their fines. However, none were expected to go to jail - at least not immediately - because all said they planned to appeal Barnes' rulings.

Only one of the cases was heard in open court.

Barnes found Steven John Baggarly, of 1321 West 38th St., Norfolk, Va. guilty of trespassing and resisting arrest in connection with the Oct. 20 protest on Blackwater's property in Currituck County. The judge dismissed a charge of damaging property.

Barnes sentenced Baggarly to 20 days in jail, suspended on the conditions he not violate any laws for a year and pay a $100 fine. He also sentenced Baggarly to one year of supervised probation.

Following the verdict, one of Baggarly's fellow defendants, Elizabeth Velkey Brockman, 45, of 1407 Pennsylvania Ave., Durham, urged Barnes to allow the remaining defendants to be tried as a group.

The judge agreed, but after Brockman stood up and declared her opposition to the Iraq war, Barnes suddenly ordered sheriff's deputies to clear the courtroom. Everyone except the defendants, prosecutors, sheriff's witnesses and a Blackwater official were immediately barred from the courtroom.

Barnes did not give a reason for clearing the courtroom.

According to the defendants, Barnes then proceeded to try their cases. The other defendants included:

• William Mathias Streight, 53, of 16560 Louisa Road, Trevilians, Va.

• Laura Lee Marks, 40, of 4261 Norris Store Road, Ayden;

• Mark Peter Colville, 46, of 203 Rosette St., New Haven, Conn.;

• Peter Johns DeMott, 60, of 133 Sheffield Road, Ithaca, N.Y.; and

• Mary Terese Grace, 51, of P.O. Drawer 189 Wolftown, Va.

With the exception of Grace, who was charged with second-degree trespassing, all four of the other defendants were charged with second-degree trespassing, resisting arrest and destruction of property.

Prior to Wednesday's court proceedings, a group of approximately 40-50 protesters, including the defendants, stood outside the Currituck Courthouse. Many held signs protesting Blackwater USA, the Moyock-based security company.

The original demonstration outside the entrance to Blackwater's Moyock compound on Oct. 20 involved approximately 40 protesters. The demonstration, organized by the Norfolk, Va.-based Catholic Worker group and Blackwater Watch, was held to protest the shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards in Baghdad on Sept. 16.

Six of the seven demonstrators arrested were in fact re-enacting the events of the deadly shooting as a protest against Blackwater.

According to a press release from Currituck Sheriff Susan Johnson, the protesters drove a station wagon covered with simulated bullet holes and smeared with red paint onto Blackwater?s property. They then laid on the ground, as if they had been shot.

The scene was intended to mimic that in Baghdad's Nisour Square, where an Iraqi doctor and her son died in gunfire as their car approached a Blackwater diplomatic convoy.

The protesters also smeared red handprints on two Blackwater signs, illustrating blood.

"Upon arrival (of sheriff's deputies) about 40 protesters, some splashed in red paint, began painting the signs belonging to Blackwater and blocking the roadway," Johnson said.

Deputies ordered the protestors to disperse and get out of the roadway in front of Blackwater, Johnson said. When six refused, they were arrested, she said.

Defendants said following Barnes' verdicts that the judge used a YouTube video of the demonstration as evidence against the protesters.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

"Incendiary" Capitalism... some thoughts on war and peace

2007-09-12T12:30:00.001-05:00

Recent reports from Greece suggest the huge forest fires there were ignited by real
estate speculators and venture capitalists looking to make a fast buck.

Now is the time for the left to come together and undertake a massive campaign to educate people about capitalism.

I have always understood that capitalism is bad; but, until this discussion about "fires" I never really gave much thought to just how cruel this rotten system can be.

You hear about a forest fire here and there on the news.

Other reports tell of house fires.

But, really, how often does a person ever stop to consider that anyone would use something like fire as a corporate investment in order to turn a profit?

Think about it; reading a newspaper, listening to the news on the radio, watching the news on television--- is there anything in any of these "news" stories which would lead one to believe this rotten capitalist system is responsible for any of these fires?

But wait... the U.S. military-financial-industrial complex created the "Mother Of All Bombs," and now...

The mafia-controlled capitalist government of Russia has created the "Dad of All Bombs;" both bombs are huge incendiary(fire) bombs.

Capitalism truly is a bestial system--- beginning with the exploitation of working people... but, to burn people from their homes, intentionally start forest fires, while these capitalist governments boast of having created bigger and better incendiary bombs... if there is any such thing as "insanity," this is it.

The mafia backed government of Vladimir Putin boasts that they can now do the equivalent damage with the "Dad Of All Bombs" as what previously could only be destroyed with a nuclear bomb... what kind of sick boast is this? Boasting as if a cure had been found for every dreaded sickness and disease plaguing human kind. Boasting as if they expect all humanity to stop what ever it is they are doing, stand and applaud this insanity.

The really sad part of all of this is the American left seems to have unlimited patience with it all... content to keep any discussion of the need to get rid of capitalism on the pages of periodicals and newspapers read within small circles in someones living room and within the confines of academia rather than putting the discussion out where it should be... in the public square, so to speak. It is almost as if the American left has become fearful of alienating those politicians and people in power making these insane decisions.

Something is wrong with the tactics and strategy of the American left... I don't understand it, perhaps someone can explain what is going on... in my opinion we shouldn't be worrying about offending any of the Democrats... what we should be concerned with is getting the American people out into the streets and making it impossible for the military-financial-industrial complex--- these merchants of death and destruction--- to continue dominating our lives and running the world.

The capitalists will not be satisfied with burning a forest here and there and burning people out of their homes... they have much larger fires in mind with more sinister designs as they are set on dominating the world; if this was not the case we would not be seeing an entirely new "family" of incendiary bombs having been created and hailed as if they have replaced Adam and Eve... the "Mom," and the "Dad" of all destruction--- as if we are supposed to expect a glorious new world order to be created through incendiary fires ignited by capitalists and imperialists out to generate greater corporate profits... they almost make it seem like we should welcome the outcome like new growth sprouts from the forest floor after a natural fire.

It is time to replace this barbaric and bestial "incendiary" capitalism with a cooperative socialist society before we are introduced to our new "Mom" and "Dad," which will make "original sin" seem kind of fun.

A Look at the Mounting Cost of the Iraq War

2007-07-21T07:50:00.000-05:00

I received this from a fellow blogger in Manitoba, Canada... Along with the article, he asks a very pertinent question many other people from around the world are asking:

Where are all those fiscal conservatives in the US who
scream about excessive government spending?

Cheers, Ken Hanly

Links to Ken's blogs:

Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html
Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html

A Look at the Mounting Cost of the Iraq War

By BOB DEANS
Cox News Service
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — By Friday, the Senate is expected to
authorize a record-breaking $648 billion in defense
spending for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Even adjusted for inflation, the Pentagon budget for
the coming year would be the largest tab for national
defense since the end of World War II.

Driving the increase is the continuing war in Iraq,
where more than 3,610 U.S. troops have been killed and
26,700 wounded, according to Pentagon figures.

Adding the cost of continuing the fight and long-term
costs, such as taking care of wounded and disabled
veterans and the toll exacted on the U.S. economy, the
total cost of the war could reach well beyond $2
trillion, according to a study last year by two
scholars at Harvard and Columbia universities.

By the numbers:

$567 billion – Cost of the war through 2008, according
to a June analysis by the Congressional Research
Service, which exists to provide nonpartisan advice to lawmakers and congressional committees.

$350 billion-$700 billion — Estimated lifetime care
for wounded and disabled veterans of Iraq and
Afghanistan, according to a study by Linda Blimes of
Harvard University. The numbers vary depending on the
duration of the war and the troop levels.

$100 billion — The potential additional costs through
2014 even if most combat troops come home next year.
Retaining 30,000 troops per year — about a fifth of
the current force level in Iraq — would cost about $21
billion a year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office estimates. So, if troop levels were reduced to
30,000 by 2010 — the first full year after the next
president takes office — it would cost about $100
billion to keep them there until 2014.

$22 billion — Economic value of lost lives.

Economists and government agencies value the earning
and production potential of the average American male
in his prime at roughly $6 million. Using that figure,
the economic value of the 3,613 lives lost as of July
16 is $21.7 billion.

$390,000 — Estimated cost to deploy an American
soldier to Iraq for a year, according to the
Congressional Research Service.

I also received this from Michael Munk in Portland, Oregon; Michael operates an excellent e-mail list on a variety of topics... If you would like to get on his e-mail list, he can be reached at: Michael Munk [lastmarx@comcast.net]

Analysis: Iraq (near) united in opposition

July 9, 2007

By BEN LANDO
UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON, July 9 (UPI) -- U.S. President Bush may be right: Iraq's oil law, although highly controversial, could be a "benchmark for reconciliation."

When Iraq's council of ministers last week suddenly approved the law, critics of various stripes united in opposition. Shiite and Sunni political parties alike denounced it, vowed to defeat it, even threatened to ensure Parliament can't take it up. It is seen by some as weakening the central government and giving too much to foreign companies.

Iraq depends on the sale of oil for the vast majority of its federal budget. It's infrastructure badly needs investment to boost production. A law governing the world's third largest reserves -- and a sizable amount of natural gas -- has been as elusive as security there.

In one attack alone Saturday in the northern city of Tuz Khurmato, nearly five times as many were killed than at the Virginia Tech massacre in the United States.

In the midst of a war zone of more than four years old, the Bush administration itself could be the most divisive agent. And, it's the White House's support for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration, as well as the heavy pressure on it to pass the oil law, that could draw together the fractured country.

The fate of and fight for control over Iraq's oil is the same for the country itself. At issue is to what extent the federal government, as stewards of Iraq as a whole, will decide oil policy. Local governments, especially the Kurdistan Regional Government, disapprove of strong central control; their suspicions rest on memories of Saddam's Iraq, where the central government's uneven investment hand benefited only some, and its heavy hand brutalized the rest.

Much more oil is in the ground than being pumped now, that's likely why a law governing the oil has been held up in the United States as the tool for grand compromise, leading toward the path of more hand-shaking.

President Bush himself, as well as U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in separate meetings in Washington and Baghdad are all regularly urging the passage of the law.

KRG and federal government negotiations on the oil law began last summer. Deals were reached and stalled since late February. Then Tuesday the ministers approved it.

"It has to be a package of laws in which all the Iraqis can agree, which is why it is a benchmark of national reconciliation," a State Department official told UPI in May, adding that's why revenue sharing is the main emphasis of the U.S. government. Revenue sharing would be decided in a revenue sharing law, not the oil law, two of four laws that comprise the package. The revenue sharing law is to be taken up this week by the ministerial council.

The oil law already faced opposition from Iraq oil experts -- including two of the law's three original authors -- as well as the powerful oil unions. The unions say they're willing to stop production and exports if the law gives foreign oil companies too much access to or ownership of the oil.

"The last four years have witnessed repeated attempts at dismantling the basis for any well planned resources management for the whole nation, only to replace it with market oriented destabilization and fragmentation policies that are at variance and in competition with each other and the national interest," said Tariq Shafiq, an Iraqi now living in Amman and London, tasked last spring by the Iraq oil minister to co-write the law. It was subsequently altered in negotiations and he now opposes it.

"Would this law really optimize the management of the oil and gas? Would it really unite the country?," Shafiq said. "I believe sincerely it is naive to think it would."

"It's really important to challenge the notion that the law is going to unite 'warring factions,'" said Ewa Jasiewicz of the London-based campaigner Platform. "The language in which the law is being couched and reported is incredibly sectarian and is creating de facto Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite regional power blocks in the imagination and political landscape and, in the process, the conditions for the creating of these kinds of facts on the ground."

Many political parties opposed Maliki's government before the oil law. As security in Iraq diminishes, so does the political strength of Maliki's coalition of Shiites -- many backed by Iran -- and Kurds.

The ministerial council just barely had quorum last week because of boycotts of key Shiite allies and Sunni parties. Parliament was supposed to take up the oil law Wednesday but boycotts and chronic absenteeism scrapped that.

The Sadr Movement and the Iraqi Accord Front now say they may end the boycott specifically to challenge the law. The former held mass rallies over the weekend in opposition to Maliki. IAF says it will call for a vote of no confidence in him.

The Association of Muslim Scholars issued an edict against any Parliamentarian approving the law. Off the record talk by campaigners, unionists and oil experts express the need to turn up the heat of opposition.

Last week the Iraq Freedom Congress -- whose motto is "Working for a Democratic, Secular and Progressive Alternative to both the U.S. Occupation and Political Islam in Iraq" -- teamed up with the new Anti Oil Law Frontier to rally masses against the law.

All the while a coalition in Iraq grows. It encompasses Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and secularists. Its goal is to keep Iraq together. But it also wants an end to the U.S. occupation.

"They are also strongly opposed both to the terrorist forces of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and to the growing influence of Iran in Iraq," Robert Dreyfuss wrote of the opposition in The Nation.

Despite sharing two key tenets of the war on terrorism, the United States isn't supporting the coalition.

State Department Iraq Coordinator David Satterfield, answering questions in March about what has been self-termed the "National Salvation Government," vowed support for Maliki's government. "It is not helpful to talk about alternatives," he said.

But alternatives may force themselves into the conversation, especially on the heels of the oil law.

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(e-mail: energy@upi.com)