Cpl. D.C.'s note to self

2011-12-21T14:48:00.000-08:00

Don't Ask Don't Tell
That you or ..."I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."

Don't Ask Don't Tell
That you or ..."We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge--and more." .....

..."And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country."

Don't Ask Don't Tell
That ..."In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Don't Ask Don't Tell
That you or ..."I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Absolute Power - Absolutely Corrupts

2011-03-06T20:54:00.000-08:00

Lt. Gen. Caldwell

While in the Marine Corps I always wondered about my strengths and weaknesses. I focused on developing coping mechanisms for my weaknesses while reinforcing my strengths. Yet I knew that when the time came I will have to make a decision. What will that decision be? Would it be the right one? Would I execute it effectively?

Apparently Lt. Gen. Caldwell had order the use of PsyOps assets to execute PsyOps on US politicians, and hence violating Federal Law. Well did he? After all he is part of the chain of command? Who order such operation? Is he covering up for the upper echelon of the chain of command up to the president of the United States? Or did he just had a brain fart and unilaterally decided to order such operation?

Who benefits from this?

The General, the US, the Military Industrial complex, the media, whom, where, why?

Bastards

Let's build a better world - Let's Win the Future : )

2011-01-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

2011-01-26T02:52:00.000-08:00

:

My fellow Americans: Let's win the Future !!!!!!!!!!!!! Hhuuuuuuurrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!

"don’t be evil" vs "A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price."

2010-10-20T05:57:00.000-07:00

Who will win ........

Steve Jobs = Mini Gates

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.

http://www.androidcentral.com/apples-steve-jobs-calls-bs-googles-dont-be-evil-motto

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"

2010-10-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

Oh my F%^&^@#&^ god.
Please don't tell me we are going to elect this people again?

O'Donnell questions separation of church, state

(AP) – 2 hours ago

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion.

The exchange came in a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, as O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons' position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.

Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that "religious doctrine doesn't belong in our public schools."

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"

Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience.

"You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp," Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O'Donnell's grasp of the Constitution.

Erin Daly, a Widener professor who specializes in constitutional law, said that while there are questions about what counts as government promotion of religion, there is little debate over whether the First Amendment prohibits the federal government from making laws establishing religion.

"She seemed genuinely surprised that the principle of separation of church and state derives from the First Amendment, and I think to many of us in the law school that was a surprise," Daly said. "It's one thing to not know the 17th Amendment or some of the others, but most Americans do know the basics of the First Amendment."

O'Donnell didn't respond to reporters who asked her to clarify her views after the debate.

During the exchange, she said Coons' views on creationism showed that he believes in big-government mandates.

"Talk about imposing your beliefs on the local schools," she said. "You've just proved how little you know not just about constitutional law but about the theory of evolution."

Coons said her comments show a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the Constitution.

The debate, their third in the past week, was more testy than earlier ones.

O'Donnell began by defending herself for not being able to name a recent Supreme Court decision with which she disagrees at a debate last week. She said she was stumped because she largely agrees with the court's recent decisions under conservative chief justices John Roberts and William Rehnquist.

"I would say this court is on the right track," she said.

The two candidates repeatedly talked over each other, with O'Donnell accusing Coons of caving at one point when he asked the moderator to move on to a new question after a lengthy argument.

"I guess he can't handle it," she said.

O'Donnell, a tea party favorite who stunned the state by winning the GOP primary last month in her third Senate bid in five years, called Coons a liberal "addicted to a culture of waste, fraud and abuse."

Coons, who has held a double-digit lead in recent polls, urged voters to support him as the candidate of substance, with a track record over six years as executive of the state's most populous county. He said O'Donnell's only experience is in "sharpening the partisan divide but not at bridging it."

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gZ1QQxkvUw15IjhGIveoszz67aIA?docId=612ea91debdb4492bfb5af83baa68cc0

F@ck no one is perfect looks like this pilot is going to be in the world of hurt

2010-04-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hope he can find help before is too late. As far as Bush and Chaney ... god forgive them for we need to put them behind bars.

As for the innocent civilians and journalists killed. They are the real heroes in all this. There is no sorrow or apology but the promise to not let it happen ever again.....not on my watch.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war ...." Plato

Tea Party = Timothy James McVeigh

2010-03-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

AND THE ANTI-AMERICAN TERRORISTS KEEP ON COMING.

Message to the ANTI-AMERICAN SENATOR

2010-03-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

1.- HEALTH CARE, One Down many to go

2.- CLEAN ENERGY and CLIMATE LEGISLATION With or without you we go next. AMERICA first. You and your Bosses step aside.

The I's have it...................

2010-03-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

So last night I spend most of the "shot eye" watching cspan.........
I am so cynical....
I smell rotten fish at the sight of a deal with the pharmaceutical mongers....
SO OBAMA U R MY HERO ....
Let's rock the boat. Let's change the world shall we.......

some day

A brave new Film "Death Before slavery"

2010-02-15T06:37:00.000-08:00

A brave new Film "Death Before slavery"

http://deathbeforeslavery.blogspot.com/

"Death before Slavery" brings to life, in vivid focus, the current situation in Bolivia, with the rising indigenous opposition to foreign corporations that exploit resources and leave the local populations chronically impoverished.Take this documentary and share it."Amy Goodman, Host and Executive Producer, Democracy Now!

“I thought it made its points very strongly, with excellent images and interviews. It is very timely and fills a real gap, with Bolivia entering center stage just now and with very little out there on it. And it focuses in clearly and convincingly on the issue of control of natural resources, and explains it very accessibly.” Avi Chomsky, Ph.D. Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies, Salem State College

“By capturing the voices of everyday Bolivians as well as those involved in grassroots movements, Death Before Slavery provides a window into an authentic democracy in action. And the keen understanding of international politics and economics as articulated in these interviews makes clear that this popular movement is rooted in both local and global knowledge.” David Carey Jr., Ph.D. Professor of History University of Southern Maine

Count Down

2009-12-18T06:06:00.000-08:00

Our species Santa list ....

Bring the best scientist, engineers, and technicians of the world to implement the biggest most expensive, aggressive, and advanced sustainable energy production and consumption project to the world poorest, most populated, and currently vulnerable area of the plant.

Transform the poorest and most devastated populations in the world into the new scientist and engineers that will transfer the learning's from the first project into a global effort for transformation.

Back like a Mac from way back

2009-12-18T05:57:00.001-08:00

Copenhagen Climate Summit:
I heard
Reduction in carbon emissions to 2 degrees Celsius
$100 billion a year
Transfer of green technologies to vulnerable and poor countries
That means Jack ….

I also I heard that
The US proposal includes things like privatization of water in nations that sign an agreement.
Well that makes more sense… the good old boys doing their thing … bastards

The reality as I see it is that
There is evidence of a global planet climate shift that we quite don’t understand.
That is going to cause drastic changes which we don’t quite understand.
That translates into mass population extinctions due to the effects of the climate shift.

As a species we have 2 main tasks.
Increase our knowledge of the phenomena
Save as much of our species as we can

This is not going to get done by maximizing profits or
Ignoring the issue hopping we are in the right place at the right time to survive

This will take a global change in our species behaviors.
That will take an imagination worthy of a child and a leader ship worthy of survival.

This is Cpl DC so far one of the survivor of this cargo ship called planet earth.

Thanksgiving again - For S.C.and G.A.

2008-11-27T05:46:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving again,

Let me remember again the millions of peoples that died in the genocide following the “discovery” of this land.

Let me remember again all those who stood up and fought against abuse and injustice in this land one day like today in the past and will fight again against abuse and injustice one day like today in the future.

Let me remember today Thanksgiving day those who are fighting against abuse and injustice today not only on this land “discovered” land but in all lands discovered or not.

CPL DC

The end of the infamous Trickle-down economics lie

2008-11-02T04:45:00.001-08:00

Is it the end of the infamous Trickle-down economics theory?
First is not a theory is a lie. Entrepreneurs come up with ideas. Financiers provide the capital. All good but, what the entrepreneurs and financier cannot do ever, is create wealth. That is only the power of the work force. Yes, you and me. A CEO and the bank cannot function, by function I mean create revenue, without the dedication and knowledge that employees put day in and day out at great personal cost. Yet, compensation for the generation of wealth is skewed for favor the CEO and the bank.
The Trickle-down economics lie is based on the theory that an elite can control the wealth generated by the many for their own self-interest not the public interest while making the many believe that is only the elite that creates wealth and there for the wealth and the power to control it belongs to the elite.
The lie states that in a free market opportunity is created for people like you and me to create wealth and then after you and I create it, as entrepreneurs of course, we will trickle this wealth down to our employees as salary increases and benefits.
Why is this concept a lie?
Because evidently in the year 2008 two days from Election Day we find ourselves with a country where approximately 1% of the population owns 90% of the wealth and 99% of the population has to fight each other for 10% of the wealth. That is if the US had a population of 100 people and a wealth equivalent to $10 dollars, one person will have $9 dollars while 99 people will have to distribute among themselves or fight for $1 dollar.
A lie because the elite that created trickle-down economics have been in power unchecked and give themselves all the free market opportunity that they need to implement their creation and yet today November 2nd 2008 that 1% elite owns 90% of the wealth. Think as I tell you while I do as I please.
Is All Good:
So for some reason this elite need to accumulate the wealth and power they have accumulated. More power to them.
Most be world peace? No we are fighting multiple wars in multiple theaters.
Most be end world hunger? No there are more starving people in the planet now then ever.
Most be the end of slavery? No human trafficking and slavery has become global and more sophisticated.
Most be the end of poverty? No the poor are poorer and the rich are richer globally.
Most be the end of disease then for sure? Well not either, now we use wars justifies the systematic spread of disease by biochemical weapons.
Is a matter of fact, war, starvation, slavery, poverty and disease along with misinformation are instruments that have been used by the elites to arrive to their current state of wealth and power.
Well so what is it for then?
Perhaps there is no reason. It is just a distorted instinct, greed.
So be it.
Lots of people died and still dying and we still here, I think we can change this state of affairs. Perhaps we will get a chance next week.

one of those nites

2008-10-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

It was 9-29,9-29 back street big city.
The sun was going down,there was music all around
It felt so right.

It was one of those nights,one of those nights when
You feel the world stop turnin,you were standing
There,there was music in the air.i should have been
Away,but I knew Id have to stay.

Chorus

Last train to london,just headin out,
Last train to london,just leavin town.
But I really want tonight to last forever
I really wanna be with you.
Let the music play on down the line tonight.

It was one of those nights,one of those nights when
You feel the fire is burnin,everybody was there,
Everybody to share,it felt so right.

There you were on your own,lookin like you were
The only one around,i had to be with you,
Nothin else that I could do,
I should have been away,but I knew Id have to say.

Repeat chorus

Underneath a starry sky,time was still but hours
Must really have rushed by,i didnt realize
But love was in your eyes I really should have
Gone,but love went on and on...

Repeat chorus

melancoli

2008-08-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

PEACE MATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-04-16T19:30:00.001-07:00

!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-04-16T19:09:00.001-07:00

HuuuuuuuuuuRaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_16059.shtml

Under Her Umberella - Spain!!!!

2008-04-16T18:33:00.000-07:00

SO I’m back Fellowr’s

She still Love me
After All

“when the sun shine….
WE shine together…!!!!!!!

Huuuurrraaaa!

Semper Fi!!!

Time

2008-04-01T17:09:00.001-07:00

Vallejo,
The time to act is always the time to die.
Mariategui,
The time to love is always the time to live.
All,
Please send me your reports at the end of the day.

Fina Estampa

2008-04-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

PUKA YACTA

2008-04-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

PUKA YACTA

2008-04-01T16:07:00.001-07:00

Time

2008-03-31T18:20:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJpyskHMwRs

Peace Out !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

Note to self: Watch or Read this

2008-03-19T02:55:00.000-07:00

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: 'A More Perfect Union'

Philadelphia, PA | March 18, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naÃ¯ve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

-----

Connecting The Dots

2008-03-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

READ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

Suggested reading, watching and listening
BOOKS
Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, And Build a Better
World, David Solnit and Aimee Allison, Seven Stories Press, 2007.
Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, by
Dahr Jamail, Haymarket Books, 2007.
Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians, by Chris Hedges and Laila al-
Arian, Nation Books, June 2008.
Dissent: Voices of Conscience, Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Nixon, Koa Books,
2008.
Heart of War: Soldiers' Voices From the Front Lines in Iraq, by Damon DiMarco, Citadel,
2007.
Here, Bullet, (poetry), by Brian Turner, Alice James Books, 2005.
In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak Out on Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive, by
Yvonne Latty, Back Bay Books, 2007.
Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo,
by Eric Saar and Viveca Novak, Penguin Press, 2005.
Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq, by Jason Christopher Hartley,
HarperCollins, 2005.
Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq, by Peter Laufer, Chelsea Green
Publishing, 2006.
My War: Killing Time in Iraq, by Colby Buzzell, Putnam Books, 2005.
Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sargeant Mejia, by Camilo Mejia, New
Press, 2007.
Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War, by David Cortright, Haymarket
Books, 2006.
The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector, by Aidan Delgado, Beacon
Press, 2007.
The New Winter Soldiers: GI and Veterans Dissent During the Vietnam Era, by Robert Moser,
Rutgers University Press, 1996.
Warrior Writers, Iraq Veterans Against the War, 2007.
Warrior Writers: Re-Making Sense, Iraq Veterans Against the War, 2007.
What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It, by
Trish Wood, Little Brown and Company, 2006.
Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan – the Book
Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz, Haymarket Books, due out Fall, 2008
VIDEOS
Breaking Ranks www.breakingranksthefilm.com
DVD, 2006, 56mins.
The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends www.thegroundtruth.net
DVD, 2006, 78 mins.
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers www.iraqforsale.org
DVD, 2006, 90 mins.
Body of War www.bodyofwar.com
In theaters Spring, 2008
Sir! No Sir! www.sirnosir.com
DVD, 2005, 84 mins.
Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan – the Film
Displaced Films and Northern Light Productions, due out Fall, 2008
Winter Soldier, the film (1971 Winter Soldier investigations)
DVD, 2006, 90 mins. www.wintersoldierfilm.com
Soldiers of Conscience www.socfilm.com
DVD, 2007, 87 mins.
F
or more videos, please visit the Video Lending Library of the American Friends Service
Committee www.afsc.org/resources/video-film.htm.
WEBSITES
Iraq Veterans Against the War
www.ivaw.org
Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors
www.objector.org
Courage to Resist
www.couragetoresist.org
Military Families Speak Out
www.mfso.org
Not Your Soldier
www.notyoursoldier.org
Peace-Out – A Guide To Conscientious Objection
www.peace-out.com
Veterans for Peace
www.veteransforpeace.org
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
www.vvaw.org
War Resisters League
www.warresisters.org
Compilation CDs benefiting IVAW:
“Line in the Sand” (2007, Wyld Stallions Records LLC and RiotFolk Collective)
Songs by Ryan Harvey, Andrea Gibson, D_Cyphernauts, Moses Atwood, Dead Ringer, In This
Century, Jonah Matranga, Head-Roc, Attentat, The Nightwatchman, S.O.N. of Nun, Cloud Cult, Slug’s
Revenge, Brenna Sahatjian, Gregory Douglass, Witt Wisebram, Public Property, Emcee Lynx and
Brokenface
“Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq War Veteran” (2008, Warner Brothers & Reprise
Records)
Songs by Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Bright Eyes, John Lennon, Neil Young, The Nightwatchman,
Anthrax, Blow Up Hollywood, David Ford, Tori Amos, Laura Cantrell, Ben Harper, Roger Waters,
Tom Waits, Brendan James, Lupe Fiasco, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Rage Against the Machine,
Public Enemy, Serj Tankian, Bad Religion, Against Me!, Bouncing Souls, Dilated Peoples, RX Bandits,
No Use For A Name, Talib Kweli & Cornel West, Immortal Technique, System of a Down, Eddie
Vedder & Ben Harper

Winter Soldier IVAW

2008-03-16T07:31:00.000-07:00

All times below are Eastern Time. Schedule subject to change.
Thursday, March 13 Streaming video only
7:00PM-9:00PM Winter Soldier and the legacy of GI Resistance

Friday, March 14 Satellite TV, internet video, internet audio, radio
9:00AM – 10:45AM Rules of Engagement: Part One
11:00AM – 12:30PM The Crisis in Veterans' Heathcare
2:00PM - 3:30PM Corporate Pillaging and Military Contractors
4:00PM - 6:00PM Rules of Engagement: Part Two
7:00PM - 8:30PM Aims of the Global War on Terror: the Political, Legal, and Economic Context of Iraq and Afghanistan

Saturday, March 15 Satellite TV, internet video, internet audio, radio
9:00AM – 10:30AM Divide To Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the Military
11:00AM - 1:00PM Racism and War: the Dehumanization of the Enemy: Part One
2:00PM - 3:30PM Racism and War: the Dehumanization of the Enemy: Part Two
4:00PM - 6PM Civilian Testimony: The Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan
7:00PM - 8:30PM The Cost of the War at Home

Sunday, March 16 Internet video, internet audio, radio
10:00AM - 1:00PM The Breakdown of the Military
2:00PM - 3:15PM The Future of GI Resistance

Fallujah

2008-03-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

Starts and Stripes For Ever!!!!!!!

2008-03-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither."

You really need guts to Stand up for Truth Against Power

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53321

Veterans groups offer different views of conflict
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, March 15, 2008

Leo Shane III / S&S
Kelly Dougherty, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and other members of the group speak to reporters in Washington on Thursday. The group is hosting a four-day event in the capital this week which they say will focus on abuse of power by U.S. military officials and mistreatment of Iraqi civilians at the hands of U.S. troops.
Purchase reprint

Jose Vasquez, an Army reservist who was granted conscientious objector status last year, speaks with reporters in Washington on Thursday about this week’s Iraq Veterans Against the War event.

WASHINGTON — A pair of veterans groups on opposite sides of the country this week are offering drastically different views of the war in Iraq and the future of U.S. troops there.

In Washington on Thursday, Iraq Veterans Against the War launched its four-day Winter Soldier event, which organizers promise will show evidence of systemic war crimes, war profiteering and mismanaged strategy that has cost troops’ lives.

In San Diego on Friday, Vets for Freedom launched a month- long, 22-city tour to highlight stories of heroism from Iraq, and to encourage communities to continue their support of the mission overseas.

Both groups say they hope their efforts will help educate the public about the truth surrounding U.S. operations there.

IVAW, which claims about 800 veterans of operations in Iraq, named its event after the 1971 summit held by Vietnam veterans pushing for an end to that war.

Kelly Dougherty, executive director of the group, called current operations in the Middle East a similar “unjust and illegal occupation” by the United States.

“As we enter the sixth year in Iraq, the voices of veterans and servicemembers must be heard,” said Dougherty, who served as a military police officer in Iraq in 2004. “We represent a legacy of servicemembers speaking out against policies that hurt our country and our military.”

Organizers said that as part of the event they will make public photos, videos and documents of deteriorating conditions in Iraq and possible war crimes committed by U.S. troops under orders. That information has been corroborated through interviews with speakers’ fellow troops and via military documents, they said.

Jason Hurd, an Army medic who served in Iraq in 2005, said his unit was routinely instructed to fire on Iraqi cars, buses and civilians to keep them away from explosive ordnance disposal teams, even if they posed no real threat to the U.S. bomb squads.

“My unit began firing randomly at civilians who were outside our 50-meter bubble,” he said. “They’d come back bragging about how they fired into the grills of cars and watched radiator fluid explode all over the place. And that kind of behavior was encouraged.”

Organizers at Vets for Freedom, which claims 11,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as members, called the IVAW event full of lies and “propaganda for the enemy.”

They said their tour was planned because too often stories of positive work in Iraq — schools being built, neighborhoods becoming safer — aren’t well-covered.

“This is really something that hasn’t been done yet,” said Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guardsman and executive director of the group. “We want to bring these stories of sacrifice directly to the American people, and emphasize to them that their military is committed to completing the mission.”

The bus tour will feature a handful of Silver and Bronze Star recipients from Iraq operations appearing with local veterans from each city in hometown TV interviews, town hall meetings and debates on college campuses.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Steve Russell, whose battalion captured Saddam Hussein in 2003, said many civilians he speaks with about Iraq are surprised to hear the positive news from his travels and contacts there.

“Ninety-nine percent of our military want to stay and want to succeed in Iraq, but people don’t always hear that,” he said.

“No one cares for the Iraqi and Afghan people like we do, because we’ve served side-by-side with them. And we see that a better future is possible for them.”

Vets for Freedom organizers hope the tour will encourage citizens to push lawmakers away from plans for a rapid drawdown of forces overseas.

IVAW is asking citizens to support an immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and reparations for Iraqi citizens harmed by the U.S. occupation.

H.R.3773 War Criminals

2008-03-14T17:27:00.001-07:00

Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boren
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Capuano
Carney
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Cooper
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Filner
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Hinchey
Hobson
Hoekstra
Holden
Hulshof
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
Lamborn
Lampson
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McDermott
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Myrick
Neugebauer
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Petri
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sali
Saxton
Schmidt
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Shuler
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Wamp
Welch (VT)
Weldon (FL)
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Young (FL)

WINTER SOLDIER II IAVA HUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-14T08:31:00.001-07:00

Winter Soldier Live http://ivaw.org/

http://ivaw.org/wintersoldier

Comming out of the Dark Side

2008-02-13T15:18:00.000-08:00

My fellow Americans, it is time to make it right.

It is not about race
It is not about gender
It is not about politics
It is not about hate
It is not about vengeance
It is not about sects
It is not about religion
It is not about faith

It is about right and wrong today, not yesterday, but today and tomorrow.

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama!!!!!!!!

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
2:43 PM PST, February 13, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The primary election defeat of two congressional veterans from Maryland -- one Democrat, one Republican -- could signal the breadth of anti-incumbent sentiment and raise warning signs for both parties.

Fog of War

2008-02-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

Don't let The Green Grass Fool ya!!!

The difference between Clinton and Obama is the difference between Lieberman and Feingold, check the votes.

Semper Fidelis

The Gulf of Tonkin incident

2008-01-11T05:34:00.001-08:00

A threat is a threat, as a former Marine I know that it is hard, hard to execute the rules of engagement. Using Cpl Tillman sacrifice for the country for advertisement, calling Senator McCain a coward after his sacrifice for the country, creating and funding an organization to misrepresent senator Kerri’s service to the country, charging combat veterans for the wounds they received while on theater of operations, distorting and selling to the enemy the life and work of intelligent assets during and after their service to the country, are examples of treason, and criminal behavior that need to be investigated and prosecuted.
Now seems like some one likes to repeat the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

What the hell is going on here? Can the real “Slim Shady” please stand up…..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident

Welcome back:

2008-01-04T05:43:00.000-08:00

We have another chance. It is another day. We are still alive.

I wakeup this morning to my $50.00 a month cable service to find one TV channel talking about the Iowa caucus. It was C-Span Public affair show. ABC, CBS, and FOX seem intensely competing for the most Brittany Spears pictures and gossip. They remind me of the National Enquirer at the register counter at the supermarket enticing me to think about aliens from out of space while I am trying to comprehend the prices I am paying for he food for m children.

All these moments lost in time like tiers in rain

2007-08-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

So finally is happening to me.
Time to grow up.
It’s no the end of the world.
It is just pain, a sign of weakness leaving the body.

Tu pierdes todo y al final de todo
Lo unico que tienes es todo lo que perdiste

Is there any body out there?

New Bedford Raids

2007-04-15T17:05:00.000-07:00

About 40 Maine residents assisted a candle vigil in support of more than 400 migrant workers imprisoned and waiting immigration proceedings in New Bedford Massachusetts. The migrant workers of New Bedford were arrested on March 6 during a raid executed by federal agents at the Michael Bianco Inc. factory. The factory is under a military contract to supply products use by US Armed force in Iraq. During the vigil a moment of silent was invoked for 14 forest migrant workers from Guatemalan and Honduran who drowned in September 2002 after the van that transported them dived into the Allagash River. The forest migrant workers where contracted by Idaho-based Evergreen Forestry Services to work in Maine.

My Maine Elections Picks for 2006

2006-10-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

GOVERNOR:
Pat LaMarche (Green Indep.) http://www.pat2006.com/

U.S. SENATORS:
Jean Hay Bright (D) http://www.jeanhaybright.us/

U.S. CONGRESS:
District 1:
Dexter Kamilewicz (Ind) http://www.dexterforcongress.org/

District 2: (Reluctantly: voting for the lesser evil here)
Mike Michaud (D) http://michaud.house.gov/

Where is the leadership of this Nation? Right Here

2006-10-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

Cindy Sheehan
Army National Guard Specialist Katherine Jashinski
Army Specialist Mark Wilkerson
Army Specialist Suzanne Swift
Army Specialist Darrell Anderson
Army Medic Agustin Aguayo
Marine Lance Corporal Christopher Scott Magaoay
Army Sergeant Ricky Clousing
Army Sergeant Kevin Benderman
Army National Guard Staff Sergeant Camilo E. Mejia
Army Lt. Ehren Watada

They have the courage to stand up and fight when every inborn instinct tells them to get up, run, and hide.

The most corrupt and immoral congress in American History: Beat that!!!

2006-10-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

The most corrupt and immoral congress in American History: Beat that!!!

Power for sale: Tom Dealay & Jack A. Abramoff Inc.
Child Predator In Charge: Mark Foley caucus on missing and exploited children
Human Trafficking Inc.: Halliburton (KBR and DynCorp), Bechtel in Iraq
High Treason: CIA officer Valerie Plame vs. Karl Rove. “Able Danger”
U.S. Constitution on Fire: Military Commissions Act, bye bye habeas corpus
Systematic Human Rights Violation: Abu Ghraib. Secret Prisons, phosphorus against civilians, Haditha, Seymour Hersh told a San Francisco audience: "what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been [video] recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling... the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking." An unpublished Unicef report is said to include statements about children that were arrested in Basra and Kerbela and routinely detained in Umm Kasr. The children are said to be without contact to their families and cannot expect a trial.

Its such a long list……

United States of Terror:

2006-09-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

United States of Terror: Kidnapping, Torture, Secrecy, Surveillance and Violence against any Descent all legal and widespread. When are they coming to knock at your door?

00259 28-Sep S. 3930 On Passage of the Bill Passed S. 3930 As Amended; Military Commissions Act of 2006

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Wisconsin man who wrote "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" on a plastic bag containing toiletries said he was detained at an airport security checkpoint for about 25 minutes before authorities concluded the statement was not a threat.
Ryan Bird, 31, said he wrote the comment about Hawley -- head of the Transportation Security Administration -- as a political statement. He said he feels the TSA is imposing unreasonable rules on passengers while ignoring bigger threats.
A TSA spokeswoman acknowledged a man was stopped, but likened the incident to cases in which people inappropriately joke about bombs. She said the man was "a little combative" and that he was detained only a few minutes.

Dude where th F-----k is my country???

2006-06-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Colorado Court Rules Girls Can Marry at 15
The US President's policy adviser said he'd support jail for doctors who performed abortions
The US President signs broadcast decency law
Fla. school board bans Cuba book
The US President wants a constitutional amendment to ban Gay Marriage
The US President bypasses the constitution, congress, the justice department and secretly sets up an NSA domestic spying program
The US abandons the geneva convention rules
The US secretly kidnaps individuals around the world and puts them in secret prisons indefinately without any charges
US Troops target and kill unarmed civilian women, children and elderly people

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060615140909990026&cid=2449
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/New_Bush_domestic_policy_adviser_said_0616.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060615/ap_en_tv/tv_indecency;_ylt=Arbf2_G2EfnO0_Ff44YllFVxFb8C;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060616/ap_on_re_us/cuban_book_ban;_ylt=Ag1qcLj1NRce0koFGjvwmNlxFb8C;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/01/D8HVQLM00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10488458
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.geneva05jun05,0,7799053.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060616/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/marines_haditha

Welcome to America

2006-06-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

Strengthening of wealthy elites at all cost
Complete brake down on government leadership
Systematic weakening of all government structures
Rapid depletion of all government resources
Extreme corruption at all government levels
Strategic campaign of deception
Institutionalize Racism
Perpetuation of Culture of Violence and Abuse

A new Era is up on US

2006-05-31T05:50:00.000-07:00

LET'S ROCK...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the Ganstas keep on comming....

2006-05-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

John Negroponte: UN Ambassador
Creator and Implementor of the Salvadorian option thru Saigon, Honduras, Mexico, Philippines

Alberto R. Gonzales: Attorney General
Torture Policy developer

Gen. Michael Hayden: CIA Director
Domestic Spaying thru NSA

CEO Henry M. Paulson Jr.: Treasury Secretary nominee
Architect of ENRONs thru Goldman Sachs

Shit, why not lets pardon Tom delay, Jack Abramoff, Jeffrey Skilling, and make them say supreme court judges or federal reserve chairman, coollllllll......

So how was your memorial day weekend, nice?

2006-05-30T04:28:00.000-07:00

HANFORD, California (AP) -- Two Marines were severely traumatized after following orders to photograph corpses...

I wonder how troumatize are the unarmed children, woman, and man who still alive not only in Haditha but Ramdi, Fallujia, Bagdad, Suddar city, Afganistan, Somalia, Panama, Bosnia, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Vietnam, Cambodia.....

My primal warrior chant for this era is James Blunt (a warrior himself) "No Bravery"

Ken Lay On Guilty Charge

2006-05-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

Ken Lay On Guilty Charge: “We Believe That God...Is In Control And...He Does Work All Things For Good For Those Who Love The Lord”...

Ironic that in the case of Ken Lay, his own theory about god seems to be working.
When will it work for Bush... I hope for the world that soon very soon.

The Real Thing

2006-05-23T05:31:00.000-07:00

I'd like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love,
Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves.
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,
I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.
[Repeat the last two lines, and in the background:]
It's the real thing, Coke is what the world wants today.

Coca-Cola buys 115 tonnes of coca leaf from Peru and 105 tonnes from Bolivia per year, with which it produces, without alkaloids, 500 million bottles of soda per day.”

Coca-Cola Average annual Gross Profit (1940-2004): $5.6 billion 24% of Bolivia GDP

Coca-Cola Average annual Operating Profit (1940-2004): $3.4 billion

Coca-Cola Average annual Net Profit (1940-2004): $891.4 million

2005 profit $320.5 million

2006 forecast profit $330 million

Bolivia GDP 2005 (CIA): 23.7 billion

Peru GDP 2005 (CIA): 169.5 billion

To my paloses takitos: I love you for ever somuch

2006-05-23T04:37:00.000-07:00

I have been called many things. However, through the years I have come to believe that I am human most of all. I have come to realize that I feel better when doing the right thing what ever they may call it at different times. And I have come to realize that truth, love, and knowledge should guide my search for what the right thing to do is. Name tags are just that, tags.

your papa, ocho

New York choice

2006-05-19T04:57:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Tasini
Protecting the rights of freelance writers.
Medicare For All a central plank of his Senate campaign
He is the proud uncle of four nieces, and a lifelong baseball fan who holds Yankees' season tickets.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
"...in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I was very grateful to him" George W. Bush that is.

looks like the democrats have nothing to offer NY or the country for that matter.

Sir........

2006-05-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

Did the NSA conduct domestic surveillance of Americans without a warrant?
Has, the CIA conduct domestic covert operations?
Has the NSA or the CIA violated human rights while conducting covert overseas operations?

"Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation - nor would
I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in
fact exist, sir."

The Salvador Option at the Border: comming to your local neighborhood soon

2006-05-15T04:33:00.000-07:00

Esequiel Hernandez Memorial

Ezequiel On May 20, 1997, Esequiel Hernandez, Jr. (pictured left) was herding his family's goats 100 yards from his home on the US-Mexican border in Redford, Texas, as he did every day. Six days before, he had turned 18 years old.

Unknown to Esequiel or any of the other residents of Redford, a group of four Marines led by 22-year old Corporal Clemente Banuelos had been encamped just outside the small village along the Rio Grande River for three days. After watering his small flock of goats in the river, Esequiel started on his way back home when the Marines began stalking him from a distance of 200 yards.

The four camouflaged Marines were outfitted with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and weapons. Esequiel carried an antique .22 caliber rifle -- a pre-World War I, single shot rifle to keep wild dogs and rattlesnakes away from his goats. The autopsy showed that Esequiel was facing away from the Marines when he was shot. He probably never knew the Marines were watching him from 200 yards away.

Thus it was that a 22 year-old United States Marine shot and killed an innocent 18 year-old boy tending his family's goats. This outrageous act was the inevitable consequence of a drug prohibition policy gone mad. Esequiel Hernandez was killed not by drugs but by military officers of the United States government.

http://www.dpft.org/hernandez/gallery/

Times Select Content No Charges Against Marine in Border Killing
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK

Grand jury decides not to bring criminal charges against Clemente Banuelos, Marine corporal who shot West Texas teen-ager in anti-drug operation along Texas-Mexico border; slain youth, 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez Jr, a goat herder with no criminal record, was not suspect in drug trade; controversy over shooting prompted Pentagon to announce suspension of anti-drug military operations along border pending review; corporal's defenders called shoooting 'a tragedy but not a crime,' but Hernandez family and supporters express bitterness at grand jury decision
August 15, 1997 U.S. News
MORE ON MARINE CORPS AND: DRUG ABUSE AND TRAFFIC, HERNANDEZ, ESEQUIEL JR, TEXAS, MEXICO
August 15, 1997, Friday
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK (NYT); National Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 14, Column 1, 846 words

Democrats = Neo-con Lite

2006-05-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 7, 2006 11:52 a.m. EDT
Nancy Pelosi: We Won't Impeach Bush
Would-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi all but ruled out launching impeachment hearings against President Bush on Sunday, saying that if Democrats take over the House in November she'd make that decision and not Michigan Rep. John Conyers, who would assume control of the House Judiciary Committee.
Asked about Conyers' repeated calls for an impeachment investigation, Pelosi told NBC's "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert: "Democrats are not about impeachment - Democrats are about bringing the country together."
Reminded that Conyers would be heading up the Judiciary Committee, Pelosi shot back - "That's not where the [impeachment] decision would be made"
"I am the leader. Our caucus will decide where we're going," she declared. "I don't see us going to a place of impeachment."
In December Conyers introduced HR 635, a resolution that would create "a select committee to investigate the administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture [and] retaliating against critics."
The legislation says that the select committee should "make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment."
37 House Democrats now support Conyers' impeachment bill, according to the Progressive Democrats for America web site.
While Pelosi insisted she had no plans for an impeachment probe, she did acknowledge that she would use her newfound subpoena power to "have hearings on [the Iraq] war" - the same topic covered by HR 635.
Asked if she would take impeachment "off the table," Pelosi said: "You never know where the facts take you for any president. But that's not what we're about."

BUSH DARK the worst shiiiiit you can ever swallow

2006-05-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

Presidential Plans Found In Trash
Written By Bruce Leshan 9 News
http://www.wusatv9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=49159

How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him? Turns out, he wouldn't have had to pay a dime. All he had to do was go through the trash early Tuesday morning.

It appears to be a White House staff schedule for the President's trip to Florida Tuesday. And a sanitation worker was alarmed to find in the trash long hours before Mr. Bush left for his trip.

It's the kind of thing you would expect would be shredded or burned, not thrown in the garbage.
Randy Hopkins could not believe what he was seeing.

There on the floor next to a big trash truck was a thick sheaf of papers with nearly every detail of the President's voyage.

“I saw locations and names and places where the President was going to be. I knew it was important. And it shouldn't have been in a trash hole like this,” he said.

Hopkins works in sanitation. He's an ex-con, and he's worried about fallout from talking to us, so he's asked us not to say exactly where he's employed. But he also felt it was his civic duty to tell somebody about what he'd found.

“We're going through a war, and if it would have fell into the wrong hands at the right time, it would have been something really messy for the President's sake,” he said.

The documents details the exact arrival and departure time for Air Force One, Marine One and the back up choppers, Nighthawk 2 and Three.

It lists every passenger on board each aircraft, from the President to military attaché with nuclear football. It offers the order of vehicles in the President's motorcade.

We faxed a copy to the Secret Service, which as usual rule declined to say much, other than insisting that it was a White House staff document, not a Secret Service document.

And while it is marked official the Secret Service says it is NOT classified. But you don't have to be in Presidential security to figure out the big mistake here.

What do you think the message is that comes out of this? Shred the important papers.

The Secret Service referred us to a White House spokeswoman, who declined to comment on the record. Some of this information in the document goes out to the media before every Presidential trip. But we're always told not to publish it.

And there are a whole lot of details in it that we do NOT get.

BUSH LITE comming uppp.......

2006-05-10T05:16:00.000-07:00

after ".. 9/11, I was very grateful to him" W BUSH that is

"He is someone who has a lot of charm and charisma, and I think in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I was very grateful to him for his support for New York," Clinton said Tuesday night during a talk at the National Archives about her life in politics.

Clinton, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, said that despite their "many disagreements about many, many issues," she has always had a good personal relationship with the president.

"He's been very willing to talk. He's been affable. He's been good company," said Clinton, D-N.Y.

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Tue May 9, 10:57 PM ET

The United States of Fear: GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY

2006-05-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY!!!!!!

It was before 9 am so the 15 mph school zones lights were flashing. I drove at 15 mph. Behind me was another vehicle with a lady and her son. I could see them thru the review mirror. She honked her car’s horn and screamed. I could see her lips moving and her face turning many colors. She tailed gated my car. I pointed to the sign on the right side walk, so she can see it, 15 mph school zone. She fliped me the bird right at front of her son who was probably 8 or 9 years old. I then politely moved off the road to let her pass by. I could see the rage on her eyes as she passed. To my surprise, she turned to park right at the door of my son’s school. I turned also after her; and, parked behind her. I got out of the car to confront her with the fact that it was a school zone and the speed limit at that time is 15 mph. However, I could not get a word out. She screamed off the top of her longs, spiting right on my face. “If you are following me I will call the police, get on your car right now or I am calling the police…” She screamed several time. I disengaged her in silence and looked at her license plate for a second before walking towards the school on my way to talk to the principle about the event. As I walked, the lady screamed “GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY!!!!!!!”

I had never seen that woman before. I don’t know her. But to her I am nothing else than a “speek, wet back, tomato picker, farm worker, foreign, illegal immigrant, red skin, guk, etc.” who knows.

A Marine goes to hell and earns 2 letters of commendation, a Good Conduct metal the Foreign Service medal, The National Defense ribbon, and an honorable discharge.

I guess the color of your skin is more than ever, today, the most important part of your character.

A Marine comes back from hell… or has he?

Marines never died, we go to hell and regroup.

Marines are dark green, light green, yellow green, red green, fucking green killing machine. Huuuuraaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

The United States of America: The Evil Empire

2006-05-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

but don't take my word for it......

Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf? the Best Legal Whorehouse in Texas, the Scheme to Steal Election '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Investigations
Bibliographic Data: Compact Disc, Simon & Schuster Audio, June 2006
Author: Palast, Greg
List Price: $29.95
Status: Not Yet Published
BINC: 8308277
ISBN: 0743555821

Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth about Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High-Finance Fraudsters
Bibliographic Data: Trade Paperback, 408 Pages, Revised, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, April 2004
Author: Palast, Greg
List Price: $14.00
Status: In Print
BINC: 7504284
ISBN: 0452285674

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
Bibliographic Data: Hardcover, 400 Pages, Holt, Henry & Company, April 2006
Author: Kinzer, Stephen
List Price: $27.50
Status: In Print
BINC: 8191336
ISBN: 0805078614

The Washington Connection & Third World Facism, Political Economy of Human Rights Ser. Series #I
Bibliographic Data: Trade Paperback, 464 Pages, South End Press, January 1979
Author: Chomsky, Noam / Herman, Edward S.
List Price: $22.00
Status: In Print
BINC: 56535
ISBN: 0896080900

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Bibliographic Data: Compact Disc, 570 minutes, Blackstone Audio, Incorporated, April 2005
Author: Perkins, John
Read by: Emerson, Brian
List Price: $29.95
Status: In Print
BINC: 7913218
ISBN: 0786178957

Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, American Empire Project Ser.
Bibliographic Data: Hardcover, 304 Pages, Holt, Henry & Company, January 2006
Author: McCoy, Alfred
List Price: $25.00
Status: In Print
BINC: 8191294
ISBN: 0805080414

For God, Country and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It
Bibliographic Data: Paperback, 576 Pages, 02 Edition, Basic Books, January 2000
List Price: $19.95
Status: In Print
BINC: 6006736
ISBN: 0465054684

For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism under Fire
Bibliographic Data: Hardcover, 240 Pages, PublicAffairs, September 2005
Author: Yee, James
List Price: $24.00
Status: In Print
BINC: 8114054
ISBN: 1586483692

The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Bibliographic Data: Trade Paperback, 464 Pages, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, September 2004
Author: Elkind, Peter / McLean, Bethany
List Price: $16.00
Status: In Print
BINC: 7566230
ISBN: 1591840538

Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron
Bibliographic Data: Paperback, 440 Pages, PublicAffairs, December 2003
Author: Bryce, Robert
List Price: $18.00
Status: In Print
BINC: 7383924
ISBN: 1586482017

Bush lite: Democrats just don't have the guts to face the truth. Corruption is king

2006-05-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

Police union: Kennedy given ride, no sobriety test

Police officers were told not to give U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy a sobriety test after his traffic accident, police union officials say. Superiors told the officers instead to drive the Rhode Island Democrat home after the accident early Thursday, according to Greg Baird, acting chairman of the U.S. Capitol Police union, who called for an inquiry. Kennedy said police drove him home, but that he did not "ask for any special consideration."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/05/kennedy.accident/index.html

A Year Without 12 Millon Immigrant Workers

2006-05-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

12,000,000 immigrants workers without papers
$6.75 minimum wage
40 hours per week
48 weeks per year
$155.52 billion dollars per year

The truth is that corporate America still belives in slavery.
Is that American? oh yes very much.
slave labor made this country's economic elite.
The fight of the slaves for freedom, liberty, and rights made the core of American values.
So the elite still belives in slavery.
And the slaves still belive in fredom, liberty and rights.
The United States vs Bush
Why do we have immigrants?
Becouse this is planet earth and humans have the tendency to move arround.
Why do we have immigrants without papers?
Becouse is slave labor
Want to see a slave owner?
Look in the mirror.

I belong to Earth. Earth does not belong to me.

2006-05-01T05:50:00.000-07:00

So where does CPL DC comes from. Yes, he is Human

Digna "Dignity" Ochoa

2006-04-27T06:02:00.000-07:00

Notable Quote: "It's injustice that motivates us to do something, to take risk, knowing if we don't, things will remain the same.”

Biography in Brief

1964
Digna Ochoa is born. Her father is a union leader in a sugar factory in Veracruz, Mexico, involved in the struggle to secure drinking water, improve roads, and land rights for workers and peasants. While Ochoa is still a child, her father is imprisoned on fabricated charges for over a year, subsequently “disappeared” and tortured. Her father’s suffering “led to [her] determination to do something for those suffering injustice, because [she] saw it in [her] father’s flesh.”

Digna Ochoa, already a nun, obtains a law degree. She credits her father for inspiring her to become a lawyer, because he always said they needed more lawyers, and that they were too expensive.

Her first case involves the illegal detention and torture of several peasants by judicial police. As she pursues the case, the police harass her and send death threats. Ochoa is kidnapped and "disappeared." She endures a month of torture, escapes and hides for another month. Finally, her fellow lawyers, most of them women, file a criminal complaint on her behalf, ultimately winning her release.

Her chilling memories of that experience are recounted in an interview with Kerry Kennedy Cuomo:

“The worst was when they said they were holding my father. I knew what my father had suffered, and I didn’t want him to relive that. The strongest torture is psychological. Though they also gave me electric shocks and put mineral water up my nose, nothing compared to the psychological torture.”

For her safety and that of her family, she leaves Veracruz for Mexico City, where she studies human rights law.

December 1988
In Mexico City, she meets someone working at the newly formed Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Centre (widely known as “the PRO”) and begins working there full-time. Ochoa takes on some of Mexico's most controversial cases, including defense of alleged members of the Zapatista insurgency in Chiapas, and the defense of Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, anti-logging environmentalists in the state of Guerrero. In keeping with her father’s inspiration, she is equally devoted to smaller cases involving workers and peasants.

August 1999
After beginning work on the Montiel and Cabrera case, Digna Ochoa is kidnapped and beaten by two unidentified men before being set free with the warning that she will be killed if she draws attention to the abduction.

September 1999
Three mailed death threats are received at her office. Attached to one letter is one of Digna Ochoa's business cards that had been taken from her during her abduction.

October 1999
The offices of the PRO are ransacked and files destroyed, and the same night three men break into Ochoa’s home. They tie her to a chair, immobilize her arms and legs, lock her in the room with an open gas canister, and leave her to die. Miraculously, once again, she is able to free herself.

September 2000
Digna Ochoa receives the Enduring Spirit Award from Amnesty International
for her work.

Late 2000
After receiving further threats, Digna Ochoa moves to Washington, D.C. to work with the Center for Justice and International Law.

Early 2001
Digna Ochoa returns to Mexico City to continue her defense work.

October 19, 2001
Digna Ochoa is found shot to death in her office. She was 37 years old.

July 19, 2003
Special Prosecutor Margarita Guerra announces that she has completed her investigation into the death of renowned Mexican human rights attorney Digna Ochoa and concludes it likely was a suicide. This provokes outrage throughout the human rights world.

February 27, 2005
A Mexico City court orders the reopening of the investigations into Digna Ochoa’s death after her family sought an injunction.

http://women.amnestyusa.org/defenders/dignaochoa.asp

Who Does Bush work for?

2006-04-26T05:58:00.000-07:00

By THERESA AGOVINO, AP Business Writer Wed Apr 26, 1:48 AM ET
NEW YORK - The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28 percent in 2001 without coverage, a study released on Wednesday found. Moreover, more than half of the uninsured adults said they were having problems paying their medical bills or had incurred debt to cover their expenses, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private, health care policy foundation. The study of 4,350 adults also found that people without insurance were more likely to forgo recommended health screenings such as mammograms than those with coverage, and were less likely to have a regular doctor than their insured counterparts.

Ex-Exxon CEO's Massive Pension Draws Fire Saturday April 15, 11:03 pm ET
By Steve Quinn, AP Business Writer
Critics Question Exxon Executive Pay, Including $98M Pension Payout, $69.7M Compensation
DALLAS (AP) -- A $69.7 million compensation package and $98 million pension payout to Exxon Mobil Corp.'s former chief executive and chairman Lee R. Raymond has some shareholders and economists asking, "how much is enough?"
"Some folks will ask the question, 'Is this more evidence of big oil taking an enormous windfall and retaining all the riches?'" said Mel Fugate, assistant professor for Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business.
The Irving company has drawn criticism from politicians and economists for becoming the most profitable company in history -- at consumers' expense, they say.
Exxon benefited from high oil and natural gas prices and solid demand for refined products en route to earning $36 billion last year. The company has defended its profits, saying that other industries have larger profit margins but oil companies' bottom lines stand out because they operate on a much larger scale.

The Gap Between CEOs and America's Middle Class Widened in 2005
by John Alexander Burton and Christian E. Weller
April 13, 2006

In the fifth year of this business cycle, the fortunes of CEOs and middle-class families pulled further apart. In 2005, the typical CEO received $11.6 million in total direct compensation-salaries, bonuses, restricted stock grants, gains from stock option exercises and other long-term incentive payouts. This constituted a 24 percent increase over the 2004 average of $9.3 million. This means that in 2005, the average CEO made 279 times the average pay of a production non-supervisory worker, the vast majority of America's private sector work force. This is up from 185 times in 2003 and 229 times in 2004.

Oath of Office - "...support and defend the Constitution..."

2006-04-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

U.S. Federal and Military Oath of Office

“I, ----------, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.''

Clear & Present Danger (1994)
[On whether Jack should investigate the growing scandal]
Admiral Greer: You took an oath, if you recall, when you first came to work for me. And I don't mean to the National Security Advisor of the United States, I mean to his boss... and I don't mean the President. You gave your word to his boss: you gave your word to the people of the United States. Your word is who you are.

Who works for whom?
Who stands up for whom?

2003 Joseph Charles Wilson former United States Foreign Service diplomat published an op-ed essay on July 6, 2003, in the New York Times in which he revealed his February 2002 trip investigating whether Iraq purchased or attempted to purchase Yellowcake from Niger in the late 1990's. In his op-ed piece, published 4 months after the war began, he accused the Bush Administration of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat" in order to justify war. Shortly thereafter, while musing on the choice of Wilson for the Niger mission, columnist Robert Novak noted the fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA. For information on this, see the Plame Affair

2004 WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - The head of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service resigned today, along with his deputy, becoming the highest-level casualties of an effort by Porter J. Goss to overhaul the agency's spying operations.
Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy director for operations, and Michael Sulick, the associate deputy director, submitted their resignations at a morning staff meeting after days of clashes with advisers to Mr. Goss, the new director of central intelligence, intelligence officials said. Mr. Kappes and Mr. Sulick had been highly regarded within the C.I.A., and their departures suggest that Mr. Goss is confident of having a mandate from the White House to make sweeping changes at the agency, despite loud protests from former intelligence officials. The resignations of other senior officials within the operations directorate are expected to follow, according to former intelligence officials.

2005 According to statements by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and confirmed by four others, Able Danger had identified the September 11, 2001 attack leader Mohamed Atta, and three of the 9/11 plot's 19 hijackers, as possible members of an al Qaeda cell linked to the '93 World Trade Center Attacks.

2005 CIA informant allegedly provided data to Dana Priest of the Washington Post that reveals the existence of secret CIA prisons around the world.
A former CIA officer who was sacked after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told NEWSWEEK.

2006 Tyler Drumheller: "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy."

I'm Back....

Enough of the D.C. Dems

2006-03-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

By Molly Ivins
March 2006 Issue
http://progressive.org/mag_ivins0306

Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good
men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don't
know about you, but I have had it with the D.C.
Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with
every calculating, equivocating, triangulating,
straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and
that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I will not be supporting Senator Clinton because: a)
she has no clear stand on the war and b) Terri Schiavo
and flag-burning are not issues where you reach out to
the other side and try to split the difference. You
want to talk about lowering abortion rates through
cooperation on sex education and contraception, fine,
but don't jack with stuff that is pure rightwing
firewater.

I can't see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold
who is even worth considering for President. The rest
of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this
system of legalized bribery they can't even see
straight.

Look at their reaction to this Abramoff scandal.
They're talking about 'a lobby reform package.' We
don't need a lobby reform package, you dimwits, we need
full public financing of campaigns, and every single
one of you who spends half your time whoring after
special interest contributions knows it. The Abramoff
scandal is a once in a lifetime gift-a perfect lesson
on what's wrong with the system being laid out for
people to see. Run with it, don't mess around with
little patches, and fix the system.

As usual, the Democrats have forty good issues on their
side and want to run on thirty-nine of them. Here are
three they should stick to:

1) Iraq is making terrorism worse; it's a breeding
ground. We need to extricate ourselves as soon as
possible. We are not helping the Iraqis by staying.

2) Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive
the moneylenders from the halls of Washington.

3) Single-payer health insurance.

Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer
gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic
performance. The party is still cringing at the thought
of being called, ooh-ooh, 'unpatriotic' by a bunch of
rightwingers.

Take 'unpatriotic' and shove it. How dare they do this
to our country? 'Unpatriotic'? These people have ruined
the American military! Not to mention the economy, the
middle class, and our reputation in the world.
Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare
prescription drugs and hurricane relief.

This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no
one; it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands
and kicks ass.

Who are these idiots talking about Warner of Virginia?
Being anodyne is not sufficient qualification for being
President. And if there's nobody in Washington and we
can't find a Democratic governor, let's run Bill
Moyers, or Oprah, or some university president with
ethics and charisma.

What happens now is not up to the has-beens in
Washington who run this party. It is up to us. So let's
get off our butts and start building a progressive
movement that can block the nomination of Hillary
Clinton or any other candidate who supposedly has 'all
the money sewed up.'

I am tired of having the party nomination decided
before the first primary vote is cast, tired of having
the party beholden to the same old Establishment money.

We can raise our own money on the Internet, and we know
it. Howard Dean raised $42 million, largely on the web,
with a late start when he was running for President,
and that ain't chicken feed. If we double it, it gives
us the lock on the nomination. So let's go find a good
candidate early and organize the shit out of our side.

[Molly Ivins writes in this space every month. Her
latest book is 'Who Let the Dogs In?']
___________________________________

IAVA PAC: Let's Rock N Roll People

2006-02-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

From Paul Hackett:

Since I left the Senate race in Ohio I have been overwhelmed by the phone calls, e-mails, and letters of support. On behalf of myself and my entire campaign, I want to thank all of you who have passed on your thoughts and encouragement.

http://www.iavapac.org

Though I am no longer a candidate for elected office, I intend to continue in the fight I began when I returned from serving with my fellow Marines in Iraq; the fight to bring our troops home as quickly and safely as possible.

This past week I announced that I've joined the Board of Advisors of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Political Action Committee (IAVA PAC). The PAC exists exclusively to help other Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans seeking to continue their service through elected office. It is the only PAC headed by a fellow Iraq war Veteran, Jon Soltz.

I've joined with IAVA PAC because of the hope other Iraq and Afghanistan Vets running for office represent. Currently, not one person in Congress debating this war has served in it. The result has been a total lack of credibility on the issue to challenge the President. The war in Iraq affects all aspects of American life - from the economy to energy policy to our readiness to handle disasters like Hurricane Katrina or, God forbid, another terrorist attack. Only by charting a course for victory in Iraq that includes metrics for success that are tied to eventual drawdowns can we begin to adequately address the multitude of other issues facing our nation. That simply won't happen until Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans serve in the halls of power.

http://www.iavapac.org

I hope that you too will stand and fight with these veterans and help them continue to serve their country. Please sign up today.

I learned in my campaign for the House and Senate that the transition from the military to politics isn't an easy one. First, you need money. A lot of it. Many of the candidates running were too busy fighting a war to set up the necessary donor base. Because these candidates have not had public careers, they are largely unknown, and must establish themselves as serious candidates against career politicians. We're going to help them do that.

We're going to help fill the gaps and here's how it's going to happen.

First, we are going help these candidates get the early institutional and financial support that they need to be viable.

http://www.iavapac.org

Second, we are going to take to the airwaves early, both nationally and in these candidate's districts to raise the profiles of the veterans running for Congress.

Third, we're going to talk about issues the right way, and we're going to go after those politicians who voted for the war but against the troops. We will actively take the fight to any politician who voted for the war, but against health care for Guardsmen and Reservists, against increased Veterans Affairs funding, or against pay raises for the military.

I learned a lot during my ten month foray in electoral politics. Rather than retreat in defeat, I am committed to taking those lessons learned and applying them in a positive way to help the others who are in the same shoes I was in. Join me in this fight, and together, we will win it.

http://www.iavapac.org

Rock on.

Paul Hackett

In your stinking face America: 'We're Doing Fine'

2006-02-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

72% US Soldiers In Iraq Think US Should Pull Within A Year...
Bush At 34% Approval, 18% Have Favorable View Of Cheney..
Week Of Attacks Kills 1,300 Iraqis...
Veterans to Suffer Major Health Care Cuts under Bush Budget...
Coast Guard Cites Terror Concerns With Dubai Port Deal...
Climate Scientists Issue Dire Warning…
Bush Policies Are Weakening National Guard, Governors Say…
Iraq's Death Squads: On the Brink of Civil War…
700-mile wall at frontier with Mexico to stem immigration…
Oil industry awash in record levels of cash…

The average American family has taken a financial tumble and millions in the country go hungry meanwhile Exxon Net income in the fourth quarter was $10.71 billion, compared with $8.42 billion a year earlier. Halliburton's 2005 profit: 'Best in our 86-year history' year-end profit of $2.4 billion

George W. Bush Says

'We're Doing Fine'

Would the real slim shady please stand up…..

2006-02-28T05:45:00.000-08:00

Recently I have received man y letters and e-mails asking for feedback on what candidate I would like for next elections.

Well here is my candidate.

A candidate that stands by the truth and for the truth no matter how many snipers are lurking, no matter how many skeletons in the closet.

A candidate who will stand for liberty, democracy, justice, and human rights even for Binladen and against his own prejudice.

A candidate who will stand for radical change for a better America for a better world in terms of corporate responsibility and accountability, natural resource sharing and responsible utilization, human rights first far all humans with respect for nature.

I find it very disturbing and comical that the Democratic party send me letters and e-mails asking me to call them in congress to support this or that, to oppose this or that. I rather they save the time and money and stand up where ever the hell they are and represent our interest.

I am sick of the alternatives we have: Republican and Republican Lite (Democrats)
F’m F’m all

Would the real slim shady please stand up…..

America Welcome To Your Third World

2006-02-27T05:58:00.000-08:00

Charles Horman, who would now be 61. Horman was dragged from his house in Santiago and executed a few days after Pinochet's Sept. 11, 1973, coup. At least three other Americans were among more than 3,000 people whom Chilean authorities now list as killed during Pinochet's 17 years in power.

Rumsfeld's Post 9/11 Orders: What a coward

2006-02-24T09:36:00.000-08:00

"Hard to get good case. Need to move swiftly," the notes say. "Near term target needs - go massive - sweep it all up, things related and not."

http://www.outragedmoderates.org/2006/02/dod-staffers-notes-from-911-obtained.html

Iraq is falling, our ports are about to fall: may day may day any one may day may day

2006-02-24T06:01:00.000-08:00

US Ambassador Says Iraq On Brink Of Civil War
The Last 24 Hours in Iraq
140 Iraqis Killed
7 US Soldiers Killed
184 Mosques Attacked Or Destroyed,
10 Clerics Killed, 15 Abducted
Gunmen Execute 47 At Fake Police Checkpoint

In your stinking face America

2006-02-24T05:40:00.000-08:00

Published on Thursday, February 23, 2006 by the Boston Globe
Medicare Numbers at Odds with US Claims
Fewer volunteers for new drug plan
by Jeffrey Krasner

Since December, the US Department of Health and Human Services has repeatedly overstated the number of enrollees in the new Medicare prescription drug plan.

Yesterday, Mike Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, said more than 25 million people were receiving benefits under the program, called Part D, and that millions more are signing up monthly.
But according to Medicare's own figures, the actual number of voluntary enrollees is much smaller, about 5 million. Some of the 20 million other participants cited by Leavitt were automatically enrolled in Part D on Jan. 1. Others are counted as Part D enrollees, even though they receive coverage from former employers, unions, or the government.

NEO-CON patriot

2006-02-23T05:32:00.000-08:00

A Patriot is that who sales his country piece by piece

Bob Dole consults for Dubai company
Deal concerns Sen. Elizabeth Dole
Barbara Barrett, Washington Correspondent
North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole's husband, former Sen. Bob Dole, has been hired by Dubai Ports World to help shepherd the company through a $6.8 billion deal to control terminals at six U.S. ports.

Despite her husband's work for Dubai, Elizabeth Dole wrote in a letter Wednesday that she is concerned about turning port operations over to a Middle Eastern company.

http://www.newsobserver.com/114/story/410502.html

Ein't that ironic

2006-02-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

Fukuyama called the Standard's editor, William Kristol, his ideological sidekick, Robert Kagan, and their neo-conservative comrades who led the drive to war in Iraq "Leninist" in their conviction that liberal democracy can be achieved through "coercive regime change" or imposed by military means.

"Published on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 by Inter Press Service"
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0222-03.htm

I have almost forgotten... history, that is so f(*&(*&ing right this bastards as Leninist

Meet the Fuckers

2006-02-22T05:24:00.000-08:00

Bushama Bin W
Patsy
Psychotic
Sociopath
IQ = -1

In your stinking face America

2006-02-21T10:18:00.000-08:00

The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.
One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose agency heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.
Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.
The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.
The ties raised more concerns about the decision to give port control to a company owned by a nation linked to the 9/11 hijackers.

THERE ARE NO LIMITS

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/393375p-333478c.html

Republican and Republican lite

2006-02-21T05:23:00.000-08:00

I am outrage but not surprise at the Democrats attack on Paul Hackett.
This is just a confirmation of the real problem which lurks in this country, the 2 party systems. We have a choice Republican or Republican lite.

Paul Hackett chooses to advance to the rear so he can fight another day. We need to stand up against the Republican and Republican lite system.

We have a big fight at front of us fellow vets. I think IAVA and IVAW should unite to become a new party, our party an alternative that tells it like it is, like Hackett tells it like vet will tell it not a stinking unsat politician.

The senate and the white house fuck the Republicans and Republican lites. I am voting for anyone else.

Support the Troops

2006-02-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

It’s been a long time since sending out an update. For those of you in the Denver, CO area, a possible production of The Sand Storm is in the works @ Theatre on Broadway. Some details still need to be worked out, but they plan to open April 27, 2006 in rep with Exonerated. More to come on that as it develops.

I’ve been working on several other projects recently. Most importantly is this short film/fundraiser for Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (formerly Operation Truth). As some of you may know, IAVA co-produced the Spring 2005 run of The Sand Storm in Los Angeles. This was consistent with their mission of providing veterans of this war with a voice and they are tireless in that effort. They are a not-for-profit and like most 501-c3’s they need our help. Please look over the announcement below and make a donation. If you’re in the entertainment industry and have products or services that can help with principle photography and/or post-production and you’d like to help in that way, fire me an email @ seanhuze@thesandstorm.com .

Thanks to all of you for your continued support.

Sand Storm productions presents in association with IAVA:

Homecoming
The war ends at home.
www.veteranfilms.com

Homecoming is the first in what we hope will be a series of short films related to the war in Iraq and/or the veterans’ experience upon return. Homecoming focuses on the turmoil war inflicts on its combatants and their families and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Produced by Sand Storm Productions in association with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the hope is that the film will raise both awareness and funds so that IAVA can make this veteran’s issue a part of mainstream media and conversation.

Donations are quick, simple and secure through PayPal.

In addition to donating to IAVA, you pick up a production credit on the film! Credits are tied to the amount donated as follows:

• Title credits: $5,000.00+ ; example: “Large Donor #1” presents in association with… Homecoming.
• Executive Producer (rolling credits): $500 +
• Executive Producer (flash credits): $200-499.99
• Producer: $100-199.99
• Associate Producer: $25-99.99
• Special Thanks: $1-24.99

Donations of $500.00 or more are tax deductible. To make your tax deductible donation, please contact us @ 310-990-7336 or seanhuze@veteranfilms.com . All donors will be included on the cast/crew breakdown on IMDB.

For all other donations, click here or visit www.veteranfilms.com . Either way you can make a donation using your checking account, Visa or MasterCard.

All the best,

Sean Huze
www.veteranfilms.com

If you no longer wish to receive mailings, please respond to this with “PLEASE REMOVE” in the subject line and I will remove you from the Sand Storm mailing list immediately. Thanks.

Sean Huze
http://www.dragonslayerfilm.com
http://www.thesandstorm.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1011341/

Imagination is more important than knowledge

2006-02-17T10:45:00.000-08:00

So, perceptional survivability is key to the instinctive situational awareness of an individual. By creating the environmental perception of decreasing chances of survival while at the same time suppressing and controlling situational awareness through the exploitation of universal sensory receptors, the state of psychosis is induce in the individual.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” Al

A time to stand up for the truth!

2006-02-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

Are we at a pivotal point in American History, world History?

I heard in disbelieve this morning as the author of the book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now that the Assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Dr. King, John Lennon, and other politicians and leaders were part of an orchestrated conspiracy run by his former bosses. I heard that even newly elected Evo Morales has been already threatened with death if he does not serve the bosses. Tel me some thing the Latin American people don’t know already.

The remarkable thing this time is that this is the hit man talking, an operator. Yes America there is still hope for us and the world. Operators after all can tell right from wrong and have the guts to stand up and tell the truth.

Operators of the world Unite for a better life for every one in the planet. The truth will set you free.

Operator's creed

2006-02-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

When I look in the mirror

I see no bravery

When I close my eyes

Only sadness

However, I will not crawl into a fetal position motionless

I will stand up and fight

When every inborn instinct

Tells me to hide and run

Huuuuuuurrrrrrraaaaaaa!

Semper fucking Fidelis

From 9/11 to Iraq... what tha fuck?

2006-02-15T05:34:00.000-08:00

After 9/11
We had the sympathy and support of the world
After Afghanistan
We had the sympathy and support of the world
Progressive and democratic movements around the Arab world had a momentum

After Iraq
We have turned the world against us
Progressive and democratic movements around the Arab world are shut
We have become the example of how a democracy turns into a Military Corpocracy.

Why Hamas wins: Because we give the people of Palestine no other alternative.

Dick and George, you are both are Dicks.
Get the fuck out of my government.

America look in the mirror if you want to see the face of the guilty.

Above and beyond the .... law

2006-02-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

A drunken SOB shoots some one.
The cops can not talk to him
He is shelter by our tax dollars
The tax payers are not informed

The secret service operators
The vice president’s guard
Their job is to protect the man or woman in the office
That is what they will do with their lives
They did their job

The vice presidents is responsible for being the leadership to a nation
That is integrity, loyalty, respect, devotion and dedication for the people
He or she is support to represent.

Only a spineless, coward, bastard,
Will use the brave man and woman of the secret service
As a shelter for his or her own lack of integrity.
How ever it is his or her prerogative.

This is an example of this administration’s culture of corruption and cowardness

I have one more thing to say:

Get the fuck out on my government.

Bush's Throw a Way Generation

2006-02-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

U.S. SENATE VETERANS AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
SENATOR LARRY CRAIG, CHAIRMAN
412 Russell
Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510
February 2, 2006
Media contact: Jeff Schrade (202)224-9093

CRAIG CALLS FOR "MAJOR IMPROVEMENT" IN HELPING YOUNG VETERANS FIND WORK - 20-24 year old returning vets facing 15% unemployment

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for veterans ages 20-24 was over 15 percent in July 2005, the last month for which data available, while non veterans in that same age category have an unemployment rate of just under 8 percent

(Washington, DC) With a booming national economy and the highest employment levels in six years, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs today called for an urgent and better effort to help those returning from the war on terror find work.

The comments of Chairman Larry Craig (R-Idaho) came at a hearing Thursday concerning the high unemployment rate for young veterans – those ages 20 to 24. Veterans in that age range now have an unemployment rate of over 15 percent – nearly twice the rate of their non-veteran peers.

The numbers of young unemployed veterans has grown dramatically since the start of military operations in Afghanistan, and that trend caused Craig to express frustration to the Department of Labor’s Assistant Secretary for Veterans' Employment and Training, Charles Ciccolella. His agency plans to provide $162 million in federal grants to state agencies this year to help veterans find work.

Witnesses at the hearing joined the chairman in expressing serious concerns about whether those funds will be used to help veterans most in need – particularly recently separated veterans - find jobs.

"These rising unemployment numbers for these young veterans are startling to say the least, and we are going to keep coming back at you again, and again, and again, until you either get it right or we fix it for you through legislation," said Craig.

"This trend of rising unemployment suggests to me that we – as a nation – must do more to help these young veterans succeed in the civilian job market. Much of that help must continue to come from leaders in the business community and in the public sector who recognize the distinct advantages of hiring former servicemembers."

One of Craig’s colleagues, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) pointed to The Home Depot corporation as a model which other American businesses should follow. In 2004 it hired more than 16,000 former military personnel, and it hired even more veterans in 2005.

But while some private companies are doing more, all the witnesses at the Senate hearing pointed to a wide variety of changes in government policies that might help.

"Clearly there is no one answer. It’s going to take a multipronged approach," said Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), a member of the committee.

Summary of my Anger

2006-02-08T08:32:00.000-08:00

I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Salvador
Nicaragua
Brazil
Peru
Bolivia
Chile
Uruguay
Paraguay
Argentina
Panama
Haiti
Lebanon
South Africa
Iraq
Iran
Egypt
.
.
.
.
.
how many more?

Letter to Senator Susan Collins:

2006-02-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Dear Senator

I will like to see a bill that will make a law the provision of free state of the art prosthesis for war veterans including veterans of the countries which fought along side U.S. troops in the pursue of U.S. foreign policy by means of combat operations of any scale covert or not. Included in the bill, I will like to see a provision which makes law the provision of life long without any restrictions free complete healthcare services for U.S. war veterans and their families. I will also like to see the creation of a fund for the compensation of any children and their families who have wrongly been engage by U.S. or Allied forces. To enforce this last provision, I will like to make any service member of any rank who believes children and their families have been wrongfully engage to report the incident directly to congress and be protected from retaliation by the military chain of command. I will like also a provision that specifies the mandatory implementation of the first 2 provisions before any spending is approved for the purchase, development, or research of any weapons of any kind.

To finance this program you can start by taking the money spend in military medals and ribbons and allocated to this program. You can also impose a tax to any company foreign or domestic which is awarded a military contract.

Senator I think General Dwight D. Eisenhower would at least consider taking these actions.

Regards
Cpl. D.C.

James Blunt - No Bravery, thanks mate

2006-02-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

James Blunt is a veteran of the British army, he served in the war in Kosovo.

Who's Your Daddy

2006-02-08T06:07:00.000-08:00

Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.

After all there seem to be some hope for America in Washington.

HHHuuuurrrrrrraaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

I get a hard on in a good fight
of course that is only after I am scare shitless....

Republican Who Oversees N.S.A. Calls for Wiretap Inquiry
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 8, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/
Partial reproduction

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program.
The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had "serious concerns" about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.
Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush's father, is the first Republican on either the House's Intelligence Committee or the Senate's to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

Thunder Heart

2006-02-08T05:37:00.000-08:00

An April 24, 1975 FBI memorandum reveals the use of special agents of the FBI in a paramilitary operation directed against Native American Organizations at The Pine Ridge reservation starting in 1972.

Between 1973 and 1976, 55 Native American traditionalists belonging to the Native American Organizations targeted by the FBI as described in the April 24, 1975 FBI memorandum, were assassinated execution style in The Pine Ridge reservation.

In June 26th of 1975 at 4:30 p.m., authorities recovered the bodies of Ronald A. Williams, 27, and Jack R. Coler, 28 at their vehicle. Their fatal wounds came from 5.56 mm bullets (M16 rounds)

FBI teletype states that the firing pin of the recovered weapon did not match the shell casings proved that Peltier’s weapon was not the murder weapon

Three teenaged Native American witnesses testified that the FBI had threatened and forced them to testify against Peltier.

Leonard Peltier is considered a political prisoner by and has received support from the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights.

Leonard Peltier came from a family of 13 brothers and sisters. Peltier became involved in the American Indian Movement (AIM), eventually becoming the only person to serve a lengthy prison term for incidents arising from conflict at the Pine Ridge Reservation in the early 1970s. Peltier has been in prison since 1976.

Cool Stereotypes Test

2006-02-07T13:21:00.000-08:00

So what I know Hydrogen is the first element...... big deal

CIA politicians vs. CIA operators

2006-02-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

I just read in ABC news about the CIA Leak Probe a into leaks
Apparently Porter Goss is a little upset about agents standing up for the Constitution they were sworn to defend. He wants to know who dares defend the Constitution against his bosses, the Karl Rove Cabal

Let's check the record....

Who are the real heroes?

Representing the Bush Administration Porter Goss, Gozales ofcourse
Representing the Operators..... any Senators care to stand up?

slim shady are you there?

Will Porter Goss stand up for the oath he made to the Constitution of the United States?

Hhhmmmmm

Who is the enemy again?

Last time I check,

The attorney general of the United States is employed by the people of the US not a cabal, same with the director of the CIA.

Tough one……

Who is really sending us to war? why?

2006-02-07T08:39:00.000-08:00

Stephen Moore: " we must seize control of the next generation of wealth.

Stephen Moore October 8, 1998: “No, Bill Clinton Didn't Balance the Budget”
Stephen Moore October 12, 2004: “Dividend Payouts after the Bush Tax Cut are UP!!”

Stephen Moore is Cato Institute's director of fiscal policy studies

Wake up America

2006-02-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

One of the problems this administration has is their credibility.
Their talk is good but they do exactly the opposite.
It is increasingly clear that they have an agenda not share by most Americans.
They twist and bend words to fit their interest and lie when confronted with their actions.
This administration is a danger to democracy and liberty as well as security around the world.

One think that Gonzales, the Attorney general for the president (not for the people of America), kept repeating is the word enemy. After this administration put the live of a CIA operative working deep into the Arab world in danger just to silence her husband who happened to stand up against a lie the president presented as justification for war to the people of the United states in no less than the State of The Union Address, I am concern as what do this administration classifies as enemy. After they bomb, kill and incarcerate journalists, I am concern about who this administration calls enemy. After this administrator attack and incarcerated the mother of a fallen American soldier, I am concern about who this administration calls enemy. After this administration prosecutes, intimidates and viciously attacks intelligence and military operators who raise concerns, I am concern about who this administration calls enemy

Wake up America, Wake up fast.

We are in the dung of a new era:

2006-02-07T05:15:00.000-08:00

Who will stand and fight for America?

Bushocracy vs. Democracy: The Bush code

2006-02-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

Bushocracy: A system established in the United States after 9/11 by which the President of the United States invoked special powers coded in the Constitution of the United States. These powers were secretly embedded in the text of the Constitution for times like this. Only the President of the United States can decipher the code wich reveals these powers for knowledge of these powers is still classified eyes only. Alberto Gonzales (AKA in some veteran circles as Al-iBubba) has knowledge of this fact and is prevented by the secrecy play, I mean, act to make reference to this important fact. Recently, it has been leak to certain blogs that the structure of power described by this secret code resides deep with in Bush’s Brain which is in fact microscopic and will require extensive knowledge of particle physics to be understood.

Democracy: A system where the population of a society controls the government. It may be narrowly defined as that of nation-state government specifically or more broadly to describe a society as a whole, which can also exert political power and social power.
Democratic government aspires to serve under "the people" rather than ruling over them. This ideal is pursued by implementing some form of a voting system, usually involving indirect representation.
Liberal democracy is defined as democracy over an entire society, and implies individual liberty and individual responsibility as a citizen of that society. It extends the concept of distributed power all of the way to individual citizens in their personal domains - personal sovereignty and private property tempered by civic duty. In such a society, sovereignty originates in the people and is delegated to government rather than vice versa.

Congress did not authorize Bush’s illegal spying program:

2006-02-06T08:10:00.000-08:00

Congress did not authorize Bush’s illegal spying program

An attorney general of the United States works for the People of the United States not for the President of the United States Mr. Gonzales.

An attorney general of the United States who betrays the People of the United States has to be prosecuted for crimes against the people of the United States.

(1) Gonzales on electronic surveillance

"Some contend that even if the President has constitutional authority to engage in the surveillance of our enemy in a time of war, that authority has been constrained by Congress with the passage in 1978 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act”

"The FISA Court of Review, the special court of appeals charged with hearing appeals of decisions by the FISA court, stated in 2002 that, quote, “[w]e take for granted that the President does have that [inherent] authority” and, “assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”

"The President’s authority to take military action—including the use of communications intelligence targeted at the enemy—does not come merely from his inherent constitutional powers. It comes directly from Congress as well."

(2) Congress on electronic surveillance

[WASHINGTON, Friday, Jan. 20] – Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Friday introduced a resolution setting the record straight that Congress did not authorize President Bush’s illegal spying program when it passed a 2001 resolution governing the use of military force in the war on terror.

PS.:
Ok so Gonzales says congress authorized the president to violate the law. Congress says they did not. Who is right? with Bushes record on every thing I thing Bush violated the law and he should be arrested. Let's not even talk about who has Bush spy on what what he plans to do with that information. He is probably spying on this Blog : )

Senator Sessions (just 5 minutes ago from the hearings); “It is unfortunate that this program was made public”

I think Reichsführer-SS Eric Himmler would have felt the same way about his Nazi concentration camps. How unfortunate…...

wait Nazi concentration camps - Guantanamo, Rumsfeld - Himmler. Oh my god is this the fourth reigh?

(1) 01/24/2006 Georgetown University's law school on the NSA's international surveillance program.
(2) http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200601/012006.html

An Open Letter to Bubba: IVAW

2006-02-06T05:58:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter to Bubba
By Charlie Anderson, Iraq Veterans Against the War

I’ve seen you around. I’ve seen you driving your gas guzzling SUV with the “Support Our Troops” ribbon on the back. I’ve seen you wearing your pro-war/pro-bush t-shirts as you walk right past me in my Iraq Veterans Against the War t-shirt as if I don’t exist. And I’ve seen you at anti-war rallies and meetings where I often speak, as you wave your American flag and call me a traitor. In this country we have freedom of speech. But you owe me and every other veteran of this war the respect of listening to our experience.

Your magnet says “support our troops,” but what have you done for us? Not a penny of the proceeds go to us, instead they go to sweatshops in . You say that I am not supporting the troops when I say that they should come home. But I am, because I know that there was no threat to our nation from Saddam Hussein, I know that had no weapons of mass destruction, and I know that we were not welcomed in as liberators. I know that the war was not worth fighting. I know, because I fought there. You say I’m confused. But what do you know about ? You’ve never been there.

You have the audacity to claim that by not supporting the president, I don’t support the troops. Yet, the president chose to send over 160,000 of us to unprepared and without a defined mission. We had no body armor, no vehicle armor, and poor supplies of ammunition. Our families spent thousands of dollars that they did not have to supply us, while President Bush did nothing. In fact he didn’t even scold his Offensive Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, when he told our forward deployed troops, “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.” Moreover, the mission was originally about weapons of mass destruction, but there were none. Then it was making a democracy, but yet the “insurgency” worsens. Now the president has decided that in order to honor those who died for nothing, more must die for nothing.

At present, 2,241 of my brothers and sisters in arms have died. In some way, they may be the lucky ones. Over sixteen thousand others have been wounded in this war, thousands more than planned. The term wounded sounds sterile, bland, and inoffensive. But, in reality, many of them have been so horribly damaged that medical science had to create a new word to describe their wounds: polytrauma. These people would have died in earlier wars, but because of the gallant efforts of brave doctors and medics, they get to live. They get to live with teams of ten or more doctors just trying to get their broken, mangled bodies through another day, as their families look on in horror. They get to live in a physical and emotional hell, not able to recover and not able to voice the pain they feel or the psychological demons they face. All the while suffering with a Veterans Administration under funded by nearly three billion dollars and unable to care for them in the manner they deserve.

So which one of us supports the troops? You, who has never set foot in Iraq and wants to leave my brothers and sisters there until they complete whatever the undefined mission of the week is, or me, the veteran of this war who has seen the carnage of battle, the rampant indifference of my countrymen, and just wants to bring my brothers and sisters home alive and care for them when they get here?

Keep coming to the rallies. Maybe I’ll get through your thick skull eventually. But remember I waved my flag in Baghdad , so you can sit down, shut up, and listen to me.

Impeachiment one town at the time: Democracy in action

2006-02-06T05:38:00.000-08:00

WARNING
FOR THE 2006 ANNUAL NEWFANE TOWN MEETING AND
ANNUAL NEWFANE SCHOOL DISTRICT MEETING
NEWFANE UNION HALL
MARCH 7, 2006
The legal voters of the Town of Newfane, Vermont and the Town School District of Newfane, Vermont, are hereby notified and warned that, pursuant to Title 17 VSA, Section 2655, they are to meet at the Union Hall, in the Village of Newfane, Vermont on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 at 9:00 a.m. to act upon the following Articles, to wit:

ARTICLE 29: We the voters of Newfane would like Town Meeting, March 2006, to consider the following resolution:
Whereas George W. Bush has:
1. Misled the nation about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction;
2. Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda;
3. Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;
4. Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and
5. Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.
Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.

http://www.newfanevt.com/selectmen/warning_020706.html