|
|
I wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and beginning of the holiday season until the break of the New Year!
I´ve been away too long and now I am back, so here´s to all- Happy Thanksgiving!  
The cost of the Iraq War is a grave issue. At Brave New Films, we are committed to spreading awareness about the devastating financial toll the war is taking on each and every one of us, let alone our economy.
$3 trillion. That is what Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war will cost our country. Make no mistake, this $3 trillion bill is crippling our economy and causing our Iraq recession. To put this colossal amount of cash into perspective, we've designed a game to help people really understand what $3 trillion dollars can buy. Get ready to go on a 3 Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree!
When the war was already hurting our economy two years ago, President Bush announced that Americans should go shopping-a brilliant plan to remedy our ailing economy. So follow the President's advice in this virtual shopping bonanza and rack up a $3 trillion tab like he has in real life. All you have to do is stroll down through our online store, add items to your cart for yourself or friends, and check out. It's just that easy!
Whether you buy serious gifts like health care for all Americans or frivolous ones like building the world's tallest building, we hope you'll begin to see just how far $3 trillion could go and help others understand the cost of this war.
This "game" is designed to build further awareness, and we need your help to make that happen, just as you have done on previous successful campaigns from FOX Attacks to the War on Greed to Hurricane Katrina recovery. Please buy gifts for your all your friends and loved ones, and send them e-mails to let them know you've found better ways to spend our nation's money than the President. We need to help Americans understand the war's economic toll.
Yours in shopping,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Spenders
P.S. And don't miss your chance to Invest in America's Future. True Majority has events scheduled all across the country tomorrow, Tax Day, which are geared toward finding better ways of spending our money than on the war.
|
|
|
Congratulations, you have been given a gift certificate by Robert Greenwald in the value of:
to be spent immediately at 3trillion.org, the web site that gives you 3 trillion dollars - the money American tax-payers are projected to spend on the Iraq war - and use it in a virtual shopping spree for your friends and family. Lets go shopping! |
---
Brave New Films is located at 10510 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. You can get our latest videos on email, iTunes, RSS, Facebook, and YouTube here. To stop receiving the latest videos from us, click here.
|
Is an International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?
By Richard C. Cook
|
|
|
|
"They make a desolation and call it peace." -Tacitus
Was Alan Greenspan really as dumb as he looks in creating the late housing bubble that threatens to bring the entire Western debt-based economy crashing down?
Was something as easy to foresee as this really the trigger for a meltdown that could destroy the world’s financial system? Or was it done, perhaps, "accidentally on purpose"?
And if so, why?
Let’s turn to the U.S. personage that conspiracy theorists most often mention as being at the epicenter of whatever elite plan is reputed to exist. This would be David Rockefeller, the 92-year-old multibillionaire godfather of the world’s financial elite.
The lengthy Wikipedia article on Rockefeller provides the following version of a celebrated statement he allegedly made in an opening speech at the Bilderberg conference in Baden-Baden, Germany, in June 1991:
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries."
This speech was made 17 years ago. It came at the beginning in the U.S. of the Bill Clinton administration. Rockefeller speaks of an "us." This "us," he says, has been having meetings for almost 40 years. If you add the 17 years since he gave the speech it was 57 years ago—two full generations.
Not only has "us" developed a "plan for the world," but the attempt to "develop" the plan has evidently been successful, at least in Rockefeller’s mind. The ultimate goal of "us" is to create "the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers." This will lead, he says, toward a "world government which will never again know war."
Just as an intellectual exercise, let’s assume that David Rockefeller is as important and powerful a person as he seems to think he is. Let’s give the man some credit and assume that he and "us" have in fact succeeded to a degree. This would mean that the major decisions and events since Rockefeller gave the speech in 1991 have probably also been part of the plan or that they have at least represented its features and intent.
David Rockefeller at Harvard in 2006
Therefore by examining these decisions and events we can determine whether in fact Rockefeller is being truthful in his assessment that the Utopia he has in mind is on its way or has at least come closer to being realized. In no particular order, some of these decisions and events are as follows:
The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations has led to the elimination of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs as well as the destruction of U.S. family farming in favor of global agribusiness.
Similar free trade agreements, including those under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, have led to export of millions of additional manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere.
Average family income in the U.S. has steadily eroded while the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest income brackets has soared. Some Wall Street hedge fund managers are making $1 billion a year while the number of homeless, including war veterans, pushes a million.
The housing bubble has led to a huge inflation of real estate prices in the U.S. Millions of homes are falling into the hands of the bankers through foreclosure. The cost of land and rentals has further decimated family agriculture as well as small business. Rising property taxes based on inflated land assessments have forced millions of lower-and middle-income people and elderly out of their homes.
The fact that bankers now control national monetary systems in their entirety, under laws where money is introduced only through lending at interest, has resulted in a massive debt pyramid that is teetering on collapse. This "monetarist" system was pioneered by Rockefeller-family funded economists at the University of Chicago. The rub is that when the pyramid comes down and everyone goes bankrupt the banks which have been creating money "out of thin air" will then be able to seize valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, as J.P. Morgan Chase is preparing to do with the businesses owned by Carlyle Capital. Meaningful regulation of the financial industry has been abandoned by government, and any politician that stands in the way, such as Eliot Spitzer, is destroyed.
The total tax burden on Americans from federal, state, and local governments now exceeds forty percent of income and is rising. Today, with a recession starting, the Democratic-controlled Congress, while supporting the minuscule "stimulus" rebate, is hypocritically raising taxes further, even for middle-income earners. Back taxes, along with student loans, can no longer be eliminated by bankruptcy protection.
Gasoline prices are soaring even as companies like Exxon-Mobil are recording record profits. Other commodity prices are going up steadily, including food prices, with some countries starting to experience near-famine conditions. 40 million people in America are officially classified as "food insecure."
Corporate control of water and mineral resources has removed much of what is available from the public commons, and the deregulation of energy production has led to huge increases in the costs of electricity in many areas.
The destruction of family farming in the U.S. by NAFTA (along with family farming in Mexico and Canada) has been mirrored by policies toward other nations on the part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Around the world, due to pressure from the "Washington consensus," local food self-sufficiency has been replaced by raising of crops primarily for export. Migration off the land has fed the population of huge slums around the cities of underdeveloped countries.
Since the 1980s the U.S. has been fighting wars throughout the world either directly or by proxy. The former Yugoslavia was dismembered by NATO. Under cover of 9/11 and by utilizing off-the-shelf plans, the U.S. is now engaged in the military conquest and permanent military occupation of the Middle East. A worldwide encirclement of Russia and China by U.S. and NATO forces is underway, and a new push to militarize space has begun. The Western powers are clearly preparing for at least the possibility of another world war.
The expansion of the U.S. military empire abroad is mirrored by the creation of a totalitarian system of surveillance at home, whereby the activities of private citizens are spied upon and tracked by technology and systems which have been put into place under the heading of the "War on Terror." Human microchip implants for tracking purposes are starting to be used. The military-industrial complex has become the nation’s largest and most successful industry with tens of thousands of planners engaged in devising new and better ways, both overt and covert, to destroy both foreign and domestic "enemies."
Meanwhile, the U.S. has the largest prison population of any country on earth. Plus everyday life for millions of people is a crushing burden of government, insurance, and financial fees, charges, and paperwork. And the simplest business transactions are burdened by rake-offs for legions of accountants, lawyers, bureaucrats, brokers, speculators, and middlemen.
Finally, the deteriorating conditions of everyday life have given rise to an extraordinary level of stress-related disease, as well as epidemic alcohol and drug addiction. Governments themselves around the world engage in drug trafficking. Instead of working to lower stress levels, public policy is skewed in favor of an enormous prescription drug industry that grows rich off the declining level of health through treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many of these heavily-advertised medications themselves have devastating side-effects.
This list should at least give us enough to go on in order to ask a hard question. Assuming again that all these things are parts of the elitist plan which Mr. Rockefeller boasts to have been developing, isn’t it a little strange that the means which have been selected to achieve "peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity" involve so much violence, deception, oppression, exploitation, graft, and theft?
In fact it looks to me as though "our plan for the world" is one that is based on genocide, world war, police control of populations, and seizure of the world’s resources by the financial elite and their puppet politicians and military forces.
In particular, could there be a better way to accomplish all this than what appears to be a concentrated plan to remove from people everywhere in the world the ability to raise their own food? After all, genocide by starvation may be slow, but it is very effective. Especially when it can be blamed on "market forces."
And can it be that the "us" which is doing all these things, including the great David Rockefeller himself, are just criminals who have somehow taken over the seats of power? If so, they are criminals who have done everything they can to watch their backs and cover their tracks, including a chokehold over the educational system and the monopolistic mainstream media.
One thing is certain: The voters of America have never knowingly agreed to any of this.
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites. His book on monetary reform entitled We Hold These Truths: The Promise of Monetary Reform is in preparation. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, "the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years." His website is at www.richardccook.com.
|
Please support Global Research
Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.
|
This is published in oped news and the direct link is: http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=6540
Who and When Will Bring Justice to the Iraqi People?
If there was a divine or humane justice, those that have reduced a country like Iraq to absolute chaos, would be sitting in front of an international penal court answering for their crimes against humanity, life and the world. But the team that is the leader in the world power game remains with all its tranquillity working on the destruction.
Today, human life in Iraq has no value. Barbarism has cleared way as a form of survival, the majority of the infrastructures have been destroyed; to sum it up, they have assassinated a country and given the people up to the murderers and thieves. Here we have the results of the United States invasion. Decided by one man and his malicious team influenced by profound racism and religious fanaticism under which they hide and their interests covered decoratively under the name of democracy.
The country finds itself without any form of structure. The society devastated. The religious beliefs serve as a starting point for a few. The Shiites are in power, put there by the United States of America. The Sunnis fight against them. Almost no foreign journalist ventures to this country. The kidnapping and executions of various has completed persuading any possible safe visit undercover or as said profession. There are eighteen hostages who remain in the hands of killers.
We have all seen the images of Baghdad, the historically rich history and beauty. Today it is a combat zone, as has been for the past 5 years and counting. People die without knowing why and others fight as mercenaries without knowing who benefits from their actions. These attacks themselves mainly affect women and children. Life in Iraq no longer resembles anything at all….Those that can run- do so, others exist as they can- and a few double their fierceness in an unwanted war whose necessity and end does not come far from astonishing all.
It has become an ideal stage for the mafia to prosper and do business. The fact is that it comes under the same credentials as foreign army that has invaded Iraq- “Bringing Democracy and Well-Being to the Country” These said businessmen hold tight onto their picture of a religious leader with confidence in obtaining protection. One owner of a business has confessed that he has lost his faith, he no longer believes in anything and he only confides in one day the ability to leave this Hell. But Mr. War and Company continues to puppeteer and never stops getting richer. An old story, but know too well!
In this war where religion plays the most detestable role that one could imagine, where religion divides without truce and arms one against another, the human being no longer knows which God to go to. Many Iraqi Christians have been massacred. No one has spoken of these. Those that have been able to exile are the few and lucky (they are a minority, in truth, in the mortal game). It is the hour of fanaticism and without reasoning, the fanaticism without hue or comparison.
A friend of mine, had discovered this delightful country in 1975, Sadam had not reached the presidency. He told me about a country that invested everything in its culture. He spoke of a country that was fed by artists and writers who had not suffered any censorship. There was a phenomenal university. The state retained a good portion of money from petroleum for Arts and Philosophy. It was when Baghdad inspired to be as Cairo, capital of Arab culture. It was not a western democracy, but the Baas party bet on culture and respected the creators.
Later Sadam came to power and misfortune took over the country. Actually, today, the disgrace is named Bush. Sadam began the mass destruction of Iraq; Bush took over the crowning of the task with the worst possible conditions.
So again I ask, who and when will bring justice to the people of Iraq?
| March 10, 2008
|
Happy Birthday, DHS!
|
| by Ivan Eland
|
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just turned five years old. It seems like it was born just yesterday.
The department's growing pains have made it a slow learner and a downright ugly child. Born in an atmosphere of tension and fear, and cobbled together from pieces of other government departments and agencies, the prospects for this Frankenstein offspring were always dim. Yet, as Congress frequently does in times of crisis, the legislative body, in the wake of 9/11, had to be seen as doing something – anything – to respond to the crisis, even if its actions were ineffective and even counterproductive.
And predictably, the Department of Homeland Security has been a disaster. In the wake of the federal government's failure to prevent or stop 9/11 – when the principal problem was the failure of large, slothful security agencies to coordinate against a small, agile terrorist group – the last thing the country needed was another ponderous department. Yet Congress glued together 22 disparate agencies, superimposed another layer of bureaucracy on top of them to manage the new department, astronomically increased the department's budget to $38 billion per year and its personnel from 170,000 to 208,000 employees, and oversaw the department's activities with 86 congressional committees and subcommittees. In creating more bureaucracy to coordinate, Congress never told the American people exactly how security against nimble, non-bureaucratic terrorist groups would be enhanced.
In fact, over its five years, the department has become the butt of jokes for its color-coded terror warning system, grossly incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, pork-barrel spending, intrusive and largely ineffectual airline security, and expensive security projects gone awry.
Throughout its history, the color-coded warning system seems to just toggle between the mid-levels, orange and yellow, leading to suspicion that it is designed as merely for show, to demonstrate to the American public that their government is ever vigilant against terrorists. Setting the dial at red would cause everyone to stay locked down in their homes – afraid to go to the shopping mall to buoy the faltering economy. If the government were to move the indicator to blue or green and a terrorist attack occurred, fingers would be pointed at DHS for sleeping as the threat worsened. So the indicator stays between orange and yellow, even though the department has not made clear what the public should do at any of the levels.
Most politically damaging to DHS was its abysmal and incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina. Yet many members of Congress became "disgusted" with the department's response in New Orleans at the same time they were sending DHS money elsewhere to their own states and congressional districts for useless pork-barrel projects. Much of DHS spending still spreads the pork to cities and states around the country to help the reelection chances of politicians, rather than sending money to cities that might actually have a remote chance of being hit by a terrorist attack (for example, New York and Washington).
Politics has also been involved in security for air travel. Even if the federal government had done nothing, air security would have improved dramatically after Sept. 11. Prior to 9/11, airline crewmembers and passengers had been encouraged to cooperate with any airplane hijackers. In many hijackings over the years, a familiar pattern had emerged, wherein the hijackers would at worst shoot a couple of passengers to show they meant business and order the plane to Cuba or some other remote location. The hijackers' purpose was to draw attention to their cause, and if the crew and passengers played ball, most could expect to live. That paradigm changed drastically on 9/11. On the fourth plane, apparently the passengers and crew realized that they were being forcibly recruited for a suicide mission that would end not only all of their lives, but potentially those of many more people in any building the plane would hit. Heroically, they evidently got nasty with the terrorists and foiled the hijacking attempt. Later, a similarly surly crew and passengers famously foiled an attempt by Richard Reid to set his explosive shoes on fire. With far more aggressive passengers and crew – having visions of dying in a mass suicidal bombing mission – pity (not really) the terrorists who try to take over or destroy a plane in a post-9/11 world.
If this monumental security improvement, which DHS had nothing to do with, was not enough, the department probably could have stopped once it had hardened cockpit doors. Federalizing airport security checkpoints, making passengers partially disrobe and requiring them to throw away liquid toiletries, provides only marginal security improvement but much passenger frustration. Despite such security "enhancements," repeated investigative studies have shown that alarming amounts of contraband still get through the checkpoints undetected. DHS overinvests in such checkpoint measures because many voters fly and thus are reminded that their government is taking very visible actions (however annoying) to make them safe. In contrast, less money is spent, for example, on the security of air cargo, ports, or chemical plants, because few voters visit air cargo terminals (or even the baggage compartment of their own plane), the dock where their new Toyota is being delivered, or the factories where the petrochemical ingredients of many consumer products are made. Once again, DHS' priorities are based more on politics than on actual threats.
Finally, the DHS bureaucracy has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars by blowing the development and purchase of many new high-tech security systems. Even with the excessive emphasis on air security, the department has projected that it could require $22 billion and 16 more years to deploy advanced systems for screening airline baggage, and has been inept at fielding new "puffer devices," which blow air on passengers to detect explosives, according to the Washington Post.
At the ports and borders, DHS is also struggling. Granted, the congressional demand that all inbound shipping containers be scanned is unrealistic, unnecessary, and ridiculous, but Congress was reacting to DHS' having put port security on the back burner. In addition, DHS has proven incompetent in fielding equipment to detect nuclear devices. At the borders, despite prescient warnings by outside experts, the expensive "virtual" border fence of sensors was so poorly designed that DHS had to pay the contractor to start over, and the first phase of the project may not be completed until 2011. Finally, the project to track the entry and exit of foreign visitors using photos and fingerprints has been scrapped indefinitely (on the exit side) because of its excessive cost and technological difficulties.
Thus, at the age of five, DHS has all the bureaucratic sclerosis of an octogenarian and is on the road to juvenile delinquency. |
|
|
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=12488
|
| |
|
Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article.
|
|
|
| |
Copyright 2008 Antiwar.com
OpEdNews
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ralph_lo_080123_20_years_3a_what_polit.htm
|
January 24, 2008
20 Years: What Political Prisoners Can Expect in the Future
By Ralph Lopez
The Bush administration has managed to carve out an illegal authority to pick anyone up off the street, lock us up incommunicado for at least a few years, and send us to trial knowing that, after what they did, we'd be pretty much useless in our own defense. Today's sentencing of Jose Padilla is not about Padilla. This is about you. After the next terror attack, it will be easy to include any bothersome political diarists, who keep raising inconvenient facts or whose words manage to rile people up against the gummint, when they sweep a few hundred American citizens suspected of harboring sympathies for the Taliban. If they're against the US goverment in time of war, who knows what else they did? Better lock them up.
Of course they'll be able to lie about you. You don't even have the right to see a lawyer, never mind defend yourself in the press. As long as the allegations are related to terrorism, and the gummint invokes Bush's doctrine of wartime powers in a war defined as having "no end," they can waterboard you, make you stand for days with a hood on, and all the things they might have done to Padilla.
Which we'll never know. Oh yes, by the way, you know those CIA tapes they are arguing about in the papers, with the interrogations of two Qaeda suspects? One of those suspects, al Zabayda, was the guy whose testimony linked Padilla to Al Qaeda and put Padilla away. Pretty important since even the JUDGE who sentenced Padilla said they didn't have any, like, real evidence.
This link between the lost CIA tapes and Padilla is one even the blogoshere has been remiss to make. The government said no one can prove Zabayda was tortured into linking Padilla. Guess not.
And by not making the link, we miss the real story. Not only did Bush assert the authority to make a vegetable out of you before you ever get a real trial. Not only was Padilla denied his Sixth Amendment rights for nearly four years. Now once you get your trial, it consists of a railroad job, with the charges having nothing to do with the original "dirty bomb"-type stuff.
Think it can't happen? Think of how people were looking at each other right after 9/11. On the subway no one could meet anyone else's eyes; that person could be a terrorist. We were afraid of each other. Think of the attacks on the mosques, the beatings-up of foreign-looking people reported in the newspapers every day. Not only will Americans tolerate your leftie dissident ass going off to Guantanamo. They'll cheer it.
The 17 Padilla was just sentenced to plus the 3 1/2 he did in military custody makes about 20. About the same is you'd get in a Gulag in communist Russia, and you'd never have half a chance to defend yourself. It's here. George Bush is still making speeches and talking happy talk about the economy, as if nothing had just happened.
The only answer: impeachment, to restore to rule of law and the Constitution. Forward this post and this newly revised website to every Republican relative or friend you know: "Impeachment is a Non-partisan Issue." Your life may depend on it.
Authors Website: http://RalphLopezWorld.com
Authors Bio: Ralph Lopez is writer based in Boston and is the author of three books: "American Dream," "The Elephant in the Room," and "The Golden Donut and Restaurant." All are available at BarnesandNoble.com He can be contacted at ralphlopez2002-at-hotmail-dot-com. He is also a founder of YaliesForImpeachment.org |
Back
Errors of this Administration- We Want Our Rights Back!
First I would like to go over a few points in mind; regarding the Constitution.
Mr. Bush has waged war without required congressional declarations. He has been spying and wiretapping in direct conflict to the 4th amendment. He has allowed and continues to permit torture and extraordinary renditions that violate the 8th amendment. He has a blatant disregard for shared government, he has no respect for separation of checks and balances that require congress to be involved in domestic and foreign- policy decision making. Congress has great authority to actively participate in foreign and military affairs. The legislative branch was the first defined branch of government to afford to it the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations”, “to define and punish…offenses against the law of nations”, “to declare war, grant letters of marquee and reprisal, make rules regarding captures of land and water”, and “and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying out execution of foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or office thereof.”
Then there are the many treaty violations, which effect environment and humanity. There are two that stick our in my mind at the moment with great importance: The Stockholm Convention on eliminating chemicals the international community has agreed upon to be extremely hazardous to human health and environment. The next being of no less importance, the Rotterdam Convention, which controls the international trade of highly toxic chemicals. They are both clear cases of significant failures not only of US leadership but responsible participation in global efforts to protect human life, health and stability. Here is a simple fact to astonish even the most deniable person: the US between 2001 and 2003 exported 28 million pounds of insecticides that are banned here at home.
There are also two vital environmental agreements that miserably stand out as non-achievements, first being the failure to ratify the Kyoto Agreement on Climate Change (source: NRDC) and secondly but nonetheless no better, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. I suppose that 4 million people a year dying is not quite important enough as the donations he has received.
Now we can also list a few of the repugnant International Law Relating to Nuclear Weapons, which he has such a fondness for in regards to other nations faults.
- International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion.
- Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
- Non Proliferation Treaty
- Geneva Convention Protocol
- UN Charter
- US Constitution (Source: IEER)
These are but just a few of the outrageous errors of this administration that need rectification and immediately. I recently read a blog that had a list resulting in over 300 major league fouls, I took the time and investigated and to my best knowledge all I could unfortunately find out was that not one was off beat or incorrect. We have withered through too many years of this ridiculous administration and now it is time to stand up, yell, scream and take our rights back. I would like to one day say to my two children that the errors made are now corrected and we are able to once again take the place we once had in the world as leaders of human rights, foreign relationships and civil rights. I would one day like to say to them, that the Unites States of America has once again joined the rest of the international community in support of no longer enforcing an illegal boycott of Cuba, that we have signed the UN agreement to curb the international flow of illicit small arms, the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Land Mine Treaty, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Culture Rights, or perhaps the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. That will be the day that I am proud again to be an American!
We are now entering a year of elections and the errors cannot be left unattended, we must find the persons who will not tarnish our names in countries throughout this vast world. We must find the persons to lead, as we the people want. We must find the persons to represent who we are, what we think and know to be correct. There shall not be anymore hidden agendas to support a minority who flaunts its wealth as the majority suffers in its consequences. Let us only hope though, at this moment, that we are able to vote and that those votes count or are counted!
|
The Freedom We Seek
By Eliseo Medina and Gerry Hudson, AlterNet
Posted on January 21, 2008, Printed on January 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/74291/
But we refuse to believe that the back of justice is bankrupt… that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation… And so let freedom ring…from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 28 August 1963
The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday is a time for those of us within the activist movements he energized to pause to reflect on Dr. King's vision of universal freedom and opportunity for all.
His dream is no less than the American dream, a dream that lives on and impels us to constantly ask ourselves the question: does freedom ring in America today?
The answer, it seems, depends on who you ask.
Ask Karl Rove or another Bush administration architect, or any of an increasing number of federal judges, and if you're lucky, they may take you aside and show you their blueprint for freedom-for how to free civic and corporate America from their obligations to our nations' senior citizens, children, the poor, and the sick.
Ask Henry Kravis or any one of the new private equity barons that make their fortunes buying up public companies, taking them private, and making huge profits at the expense of workers and all American taxpayers. They could tell you of the freedom they have won from the tax obligations that apply to nurses, firefighters, and many other American workers; from much of the S.E.C. oversight endured by their public corporate peers; and from the community accountability that would come with a business model more transparent than theirs.
Kravis and Rove and their kin embody the freedom of narrow self-interest and unfettered accumulation. But the list of those heralding this freedom is getting shorter.
Ask Paula Hall if freedom is ringing for her these days, and you'll hear what it's like to live enslaved by $250,000 of medical debt stemming from an on-the-job injury that left her husband unable to work or care for himself.
Ask the many former co-workers of Elirose Pierre-Louis who organized a union with their fellow janitors but were fired just as they thought they'd finally won real change. They'll tell you how Elirose died from a treatable illness and a lack of options.
Ask Wisly Jonatas if he heard freedom ringing when after working his late-night shift, he walked to an empty seat for the ferry ride home…and it cost him his job.
Ask Jim Longley if it's freedom he sees when he's sent in to shut off the power of families who work hard but have fallen behind on their soaring energy bills.
For Paula, Elirose, Wisly, Jim, and countless others, working hard and playing by the rules still aren't enough to guarantee freedom or economic security in the richest democracy on earth.
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny," wrote Dr. King in 1963; he preached that oppression anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. And by this measure, the freedom imposed by unrestrained capitalism and its social implications is not freedom at all, but rather an instrument of disunity and a symptom of social regress.
Dr. King's message and enduring witness remind us that we're all in this together, and that each of us has a role to play in healing what divides us, forging a new path forward, and moving freedom up the mountain. We must decide together that we will no longer wait for the wealth to trickle down, the jobs to spring forth, or the tide of discrimination to dry up.
Only if we act together, can we ensure that our children don't have to protest in the streets for the civil right to basic healthcare.
Only if workers from all sectors and income brackets speak out for fairness and balance, can we overcome inequality's costs and arrive at an economy that rewards work.
Only if those whose skin color spares them suspicious looks, interrogation, or deportation stand with those who aren't so lucky can we make sure that another mother won't be separated from her child because of a broken immigration system.
And despite the problems that endure from King's day to today, we have reason to hope. For the first time in history, a woman, a black person, and the son of a factory worker are all serious contenders for the presidency of the United States…and there's a debate about which of their universal health plans is the best. In 2007, more than a million eligible immigrants -- more than ever before-filed applications for U.S. citizenship. And Americans across the spectrum are giving back to their communities at historically high rates.
We've come a long way, but forty-five years later the fees at the bank of justice remain unacceptably high. For Dr. King's sake, for ours, and for our children's, let us work together to revive his vision of freedom rooted in solidarity; together we can throw open the great vaults of opportunity for all.
Eliseo Medina is international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) since 1996. He currently is leading SEIU’s efforts to help workers in 17 states in the Southern and Southwestern United States unite in SEIU. Gerry Hudson is international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/74291/ |
US NAVY FAKES EVIDENCE AGAINST IRAN
January 17, 2008
Sign the Statement | Donate | Volunteer | Tell a Friend
Please join the online campaign to
SAY NO! TO BUSH'S FRAUDULENT IRAN WAR-MONGERING PROVOCATION!
Your Emergency Action is Needed Now!
Don’t Let Washington Provoke Another War Based on Lies and Fraud!
In the past week, the Bush Administration has been caught red-handed manufacturing the highly publicized "provocation" off the Iranian coast on Jan. 6 when five small Iranian open-air speedboats allegedly challenged three massive U. S. guided-missile warships. The U.S. Navy has now admitted that it had spliced together the audio and video tape it presented as evidence and that the threatening voice on the video warning “you may explode” may not have belonged to any Iranian sailors.
This incident was manufactured just days before President Bush departed for an eight-day trip to the Middle East, attempting to mobilize a collection of oil-rich U.S. client states against Iran and using the video as the evidence.
We must demand a People’s Inquiry to find out who manufactured this video? Who spliced
Help build a movement to STOP another war based on lies.
In the next few days and weeks, Stop War on Iran will be organizing meetings, speakouts, and a massive grassroots campaign to expose and stop the Bush Administration's drive to war.
Stop War on Iran was the first international campaign formed to oppose Washington's agenda of war against Iran, and we have generated more than half a million petitions in the past two years. We have been a presence at every major antiwar demonstration and have organized meetings across the U.S.
But it is clear that we must do more, and we need your help to do that. Please consider making an emergency donation. You can donate online at http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
| together completely different sound and video footage? Who signed off on it? Who distributed it to all the major media?
We must hold the administration accountable, because we know that this is not the first time that a manufactured U.S. crisis has launched a war.
On Feb. 5, 2003, the Bush administration presented satellite photos to the United Nations to prove that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. This followed Bush’s assertion that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger, a statement that he knew was untrue. The Downing Street memos have revealed that the Bush administration was engaged in a deliberate attempt to falsify intelligence in order to justify a war they had been planning for years.
Before the first Gulf War in 1991 the photo images of Iraqi units supposedly massed to invade on the Saudi Arabia border also turned out to be totally fraudulent.
Manufactured evidence was also used in the famous "Gulf of Tonkin Incident," when North Vietnamese Coast Guard boats supposedly attacked two U.S. destroyers off the coast of Vietnam in August 1964. This fraud provided the justification for a Congressional resolution authorizing the escalation of the U.S. war against Vietnam.
This latest fabrication comes after a National Intelligence Estimate from 16 top U.S. spy agencies publicly reported that Iran has not had nuclear weapons program since at least 2003, nor do they have any nuclear weapons.
We must demand a People’s Inquiry
What is most ominous about this is that no major U.S. politician – no one in Congressional leadership, none of the leading Presidential candidates – has denounced it, nor have they called for an inquiry or investigation. Neither the U.S. Congress - now in session - nor any of its committees, all of them now controlled by the Democratic majority elected on an anti-war vote, took action, even when it become clear that the entire incident was fabricated.
With almost half the U.S. Navy hovering off the coast of Iran, this war provocation must be challenged and confronted. The largest and deadliest ships in world history armed and in attack mode, with targets selected, are now off the coast of Iran. We must take action now to stop an attack on Iran, and demand that the Bush administration be held accountable for its campaign of lies, provocation, and hostility.
We must demand a full investigation of this war provocation and the illegal war games that the U.S. Navy has been staging in the Persian Gulf, in order to prevent Bush and the Pentagon from using this scenario or another staged operation to launch an attack on Iran.
The Stop War On Iran Campaign also urges rank-and-file Navy personnel on U.S. ships in the Gulf and lower ranking officers to reveal what they know of U.S. war preparations, war games in the region, and the attempts to create a provocation in the Gulf in order to justify Washington’s plans to attack Iran.
We must take action now to expose the lies of the Bush administration before it moves forward with devastating military action. Please sign the statement at http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml – which will go to the White House, Congress, and the major media, to demand an inquiry into this latest incident and into the Bush administration’s drive to war.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For more News2Note please click here:
http://news2note.4t.com
Tags: evidence, fake, gulf of tonkin, iran, iraq, lies, navy, neocons, us
Simple URL: http://my.care2.com/jsmn967 ... more about Jennifer Martino » ..... 1/14 Signing petition Boycott J.Lo, choose compassion over slaughter for ...
www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?pid=855357736 - Similar pages |
Sign a Petition · Create a Petition ... Photos > Gallery: Jennifer Martino. Gallery: Jennifer Martino. powered by Care2.com ...
www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/174/855357736/ - 58k - 22 hours ago - Cached - Similar pages |
Simple URL: http://my.care2.com/jsmn967 ... more about Jennifer Martino » ..... 1/15 Signing petition Stop Wolf Killing in the Northern Rockies! ...
www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?view=contact&pid=855357736 - 187k - Cached - Similar pages |
Simple URL: http://my.care2.com/jsmn967 ... more about Jennifer Martino » ..... 1/15 Signing petition Stop Wolf Killing in the Northern Rockies! ...
www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?view=professional&pid=855357736 - 190k - 23 hours ago - Cached - Similar pages |
Jennifer Martino (135). Wednesday January 16, 2008, 3:45 am OpEdNews ... opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/603936 - 8 hours ago - Similar pages |
Cannabis Activists Of Care2 is a community of Care2.com. ... by Jennifer Martino (1 comments | 0 discussions) — This I thought interesting to share. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/group/CAofC2 - 90k - Cached - Similar pages |
Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ... opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/436847 - 53k - Cached - Similar pages |
Visibility: open Membership: open Group Email: Petition_collection@groups.care2.com .... Jennifer Martino is a member of this group and lives in Lescala. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/group/Petition_collection?show_preferences=1 - 147k - Cached - Similar pages |
Sign a Petition · Create a Petition ... powered by Care2.com ... by Jennifer Martino (1 comments | 0 discussions) — This I thought interesting to share. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/groups/moreshares/5978/member/ - 60k - Cached - Similar pages |
AUTHOR: JENNIFER MARTINO. female, age 40 married, 2 children .... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/603923 - 9 hours ago - Similar pages |
Cannabis Activists Of Care2 is a community of Care2.com. ... by Jennifer Martino (1 comments | 0 discussions) — This I thought interesting to share. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/group/CAofC2?show_preferences=1 - 89k - Cached - Similar pages |
Help Stop the Illegal Wildlife Trade in Thailand Petition visit site ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/animals?sort=noted&page=1 - 93k - Cached - Similar pages |
Jennifer Martino (135). Tuesday January 15, 2008, 8:26 am ... here are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/602826 - 55k - Cached - Similar pages |
248 days ago - care2.com. The human mind is designed to think. ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/science - 85k - Cached - Similar pages |
AUTHOR: JENNIFER MARTINO. female, age 40 married, 2 children .... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/577413 - 70k - Cached - Similar pages |
Sign a Petition · Create a Petition · My PetitionSite · Click to Donate main .... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/world?sort=noted&page=1 - 91k - Cached - Similar pages |
Jennifer Martino (135). Wednesday January 16, 2008, 3:18 am ..... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/603915 - 8 hours ago - Similar pages |
38 days ago - care2.com. Montgomery County Humane Society (MCHS) shelters ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/animals - 95k - Cached - Similar pages |
Sign a Petition · Create a Petition · My PetitionSite · Click to Donate main ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/animals?sort=submitted - 51k - Cached - Similar pages |
129 days ago - care2.com. In the battle over which substance is worse for you ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/health?sort=noted&page=1 - 91k - Cached - Similar pages |
Sign a Petition · Create a Petition · My PetitionSite · Click to Donate main ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/green?sort=submitted - 55k - Cached - Similar pages |
AUTHOR: JENNIFER MARTINO. female, age 40 married, 2 children ... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/602842 - 70k - Cached - Similar pages |
AUTHOR: JENNIFER MARTINO. female, age 40 married, 2 children ... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/603913 - 9 hours ago - Similar pages |
AUTHOR: JENNIFER MARTINO. female, age 40 married, 2 children ... are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates. ...
www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/602846 - 73k - Cached - Similar pages |
Sign a Petition · Create a Petition · My PetitionSite · Click to Donate main ... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/science?sort=submitted - 57k - Cached - Similar pages |
32 days ago - care2.com. Al Gore has come under fire for making personal gain .... Jennifer Martino. female, age 40 married, 2 children Lescala, NU, Spain ...
www.care2.com/news/member/855357736/category/environment?sort=noted&page=1 - 93k - Cached - Similar pages |
2512, 1:49 am PDT, Jul 11, Jennifer Martino, Spain, It is a given right to ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/754099600 - 28k - Cached - Similar pages |
Jan 14, 2008, Jennifer Martino , California ... Thank you for considering this & all petitions for the wellbeing of our people, whether rich or poor, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/1/i-support-universal-single-payer-health-plan-in-hr676 - 78k - Cached - Similar pages |
39, 10:14 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino ... this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, Inc, ThePetitionSite.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/957205220 - 23k - Cached - Similar pages |
333, 10:53 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, Spain ... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/960373929 - 31k - Cached - Similar pages |
30910, 7:09 am PST, Nov 10, Jennifer Martino, California, United States ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/579072231 - 30k - Cached - Similar pages |
6555, 3:18 pm PST, Dec 19, Jennifer Martino, California, United States ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/592844389 - 33k - Cached - Similar pages |
230, 10:33 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, 17130 .... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/456501425 - 28k - Cached - Similar pages |
1460, 9:10 am PDT, Jun 29, Jennifer Martino, Spain ... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/367040119 - 31k - Cached - Similar pages |
624, 3:18 am PST, Nov 8, Jennifer Martino, Dixon, California, 95620 .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/873190870 - 30k - Cached - Similar pages |
28, 2:45 pm PDT, Apr 21, Jennifer Martino, Armed Forces Americas ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/483603317 - 28k - Cached - Similar pages |
17589, 3:22 pm PST, Dec 19, Jennifer Martino, Dixon, California .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/928701473 - 37k - Cached - Similar pages |
271, 10:27 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, Spain ... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/449158283 - 29k - Cached - Similar pages |
213, 3:53 am PDT, Jul 16, Jennifer Martino .... implied endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/342863425 - 29k - Cached - Similar pages |
3, 9:25 am PDT, Jun 13, Jennifer Martino, 38, Female, L'Escala, 17130, Spain ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/238932191 - 34k - Cached - Similar pages |
1915, 7:29 am PDT, May 7, Jennifer Martino, L'Escala, Spain ... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, Inc, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/341054952 - 30k - Cached - Similar pages |
3450, 3:19 pm PST, Dec 19, Jennifer Martino, Spain .... endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/661966776 - 34k - Cached - Similar pages |
109, 10:16 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, L'Escala, Spain .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/337236706 - 50k - Cached - Similar pages |
202, 2:52 pm PDT, May 23, Jennifer Martino .... implied endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/878494250 - 29k - Cached - Similar pages |
14195, 8:16 am PST, Nov 21, Jennifer Martino, California, United States .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/962808546 - 36k - Cached - Similar pages |
114, 10:37 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, Yes, most definitely! yes, .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/769294547 - 29k - Cached - Similar pages |
41, 10:35 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, Spain, No, but my only son .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/339169707 - 33k - Cached - Similar pages |
310, 10:21 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino .... implied endorsement of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/233932107 - 35k - Cached - Similar pages |
37, 1:19 am PDT, Aug 28, Jennifer Martino, 38, Female, L'Escala, 17130, Spain .... this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/792801477 - 53k - Cached - Similar pages |
263, 10:44 am PDT, Jun 12, Jennifer Martino, L'Escala, Spain .... of this petition nor any newsletter offers (except those from Care2.com) by Care2.com, ...
www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/888410440 - 35k - Cached - Similar pages |
|
|
|
|
Tools 
Send a private message
Subscribe to RSS feed
Tell a friend
Add to My MSN
Add to your network
Sign up for alerts
