End the Iraq War Now!!'s topics - tribe.net

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan

steveargue2 — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:37:11 GMT

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate [oil pipeline] interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama and McCain are proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO THE BIPARTISAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN!!!!

NO TO OBAMA and MCCAIN'S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

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Obama, the prince of bait-and-switch: Afghanistan

steveargue2 — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:42:49 GMT

Obama, the prince of bait-and-switch
John Pilger

http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2008/07/pilger-obama-afghanistan-news

Published 24 July 2008

74 comments Print version Listen RSS I interviewed a woman who had lost eight members of her family, including six children to a US bomb - but mass murder in Afghanistan isn't news

On 12 July, the Times devoted two pages to Afghanistan. It was mostly a complaint about the heat. The reporter, Magnus Linklater, described in detail his discomfort and how he had needed to be sprayed with iced water. He also described the "high drama" and "meticulously practised routine" of evacuating another overheated journalist. For her US Marine rescuers, wrote Linklater, "saving a life took precedence over [their] security". Alongside this was a report whose final paragraph offered the only mention that "47 civilians, most of them women and children, were killed when a US aircraft bombed a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday".

Slaughters on this scale are common, and mostly unknown to the British public. I interviewed a woman who had lost eight members of her family, including six children. A 500lb US Mk82 bomb was dropped on her mud, stone and straw house. There was no "enemy" nearby. I interviewed a headmaster whose house disappeared in a fireball caused by another "precision" bomb. Inside were nine people - his wife, his four sons, his brother and his wife, and his sister and her husband. Neither of these mass murders was news. As Harold Pinter wrote of such crimes: "Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

A total of 64 civilians were bombed to death while the Times man was discomforted. Most were guests at a wedding party. Wedding parties are a "coalition" speciality. At least four of them have been obliterated - at Mazar and in Khost, Uruzgan and Nangarhar provinces. Many of the details, including the names of victims, have been compiled by a New Hampshire professor, Marc Herold, whose Afghan Victim Memorial Project is a meticulous work of journalism that shames those who are paid to keep the record straight and report almost everything about the Afghan War through the public relations facilities of the British and American military.

The US and its allies are dropping record numbers of bombs on Afghanistan. This is not news. In the first half of this year, 1,853 bombs were dropped: more than all the bombs of 2006 and most of 2007. "The most frequently used bombs," the Air Force Times reports, "are the 500lb and 2,000lb satellite-guided . . ." Without this one-sided onslaught, the resurgence of the Taliban, it is clear, might not have happened. Even Hamid Karzai, America's and Britain's puppet, has said so. The presence and the aggression of foreigners have all but united a resistance that now includes former warlords once on the CIA's payroll.

The scandal of this would be headline news, were it not for what George W Bush's former spokesman Scott McClellan has called "complicit enablers" - journalists who serve as little more than official amplifiers. Having declared Afghanistan a "good war", the complicit enablers are now anointing Barack Obama as he tours the bloodfests in Afghanistan and Iraq. What they never say is that Obama is a bomber.

In the New York Times on 14 July, in an article spun to appear as if he is ending the war in Iraq, Obama demanded more war in Afghan istan and, in effect, an invasion of Pakistan. He wants more combat troops, more helicopters, more bombs. Bush may be on his way out, but the Republicans have built an ideological machine that transcends the loss of electoral power - because their collaborators are, as the American writer Mike Whitney put it succinctly, "bait-and-switch" Democrats, of whom Obama is the prince.

Those who write of Obama that "when it comes to international affairs, he will be a huge improvement on Bush" demonstrate the same wilful naivety that backed the bait-and-switch of Bill Clinton - and Tony Blair. Of Blair, wrote the late Hugo Young in 1997, "ideology has surrendered entirely to 'values' . . . there are no sacred cows [and] no fossilised limits to the ground over which the mind might range in search of a better Britain . . ."

Eleven years and five wars later, at least a million people lie dead. Barack Obama is the American Blair. That he is a smooth operator and a black man is irrelevant. He is of an enduring, rampant system whose drum majors and cheer squads never see, or want to see, the consequences of 500lb bombs dropped unerringly on mud, stone and straw houses.

Also see:

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War
by Steven Argue
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/07/14/18516240.php

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Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

steveargue2 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:12:16 GMT

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

By Steven Argue

In a July 14, 2008 New York Times Op Ed, Barack Obama says:

"As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."

In other words, he does not plan to get all of the troops out of Iraq and he will only get most of the troops out in two years. And what does he explain he will do with these troops? Redeploy them. Redeployed where? His rhetoric has been clear: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

Obama goes on to call for a surge in Afghanistan as well as war in Pakistan:

"Ending the war [in Iraq] is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan [...] As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters [...]"

U.S. intervention has also been very bad for the people of Pakistan. It is US intervention that has kept a long series of dictators in power there. The US has no right to intervene against those fighting that dictatorship that it labels "terrorists". Likewise, it is US intervention in support of a long series of Pakistani dictators that is the cause of Bhutto's death, brutal repression against the majority, exploitation, and poverty, all of which has resulted in rebellion against the Pakistani government. The US has already harmed the Pakistani people enough with massive aid to dictators and would do more harm by sending in troops.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROPOSED MILITARY INTERVENTION IN PAKISTAN!

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama is proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO OBAMA”S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

In addition, at AIPAC, Obama’s speech laid the groundwork for war with Iran:

“The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. [...] The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

A war on a major oil producing nation under the imperialist excuse of weapons of mass destruction. Sound familiar? Bush would have a good case for a charge of plagiarism against Obama.

And what will the Iranians think of more imperialist intervention?

In 1953 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and put the brutal dictatorship of the Shah in power. Mossadegh had plans to nationalize the Iranian oil fields, a plan that would have taken a good chunk of the oil profits out of the private control of major international oil companies. Such nationalizations have greatly helped people in other countries, such as Venezuela, where oil wealth is used to better the conditions of the poor and provide needed programs like healthcare.

The CIA sponsored overthrow of the Mossadegh government paved the way for 26 years of dictatorship under the U.S. backed Shah. Freedom of speech did not exist under the Shah, and the CIA participated in the torture of political opponents to the Shah. Meanwhile, U.S. oil corporations made massive profits from Iranian oil while the vast majority of the Iranian people lived in extreme poverty and did not benefit from the oil wealth.

The Iranian people rightly saw the Shah as a puppet of U.S. imperialism, and finally overthrew his dictatorship in 1979. Unfortunately, repression was so bad under the Shah that the only place that people could organize opposition was in the Mosques. This gave the Mullahs a tremendous advantage in taking control of the revolution. The Islamic nature of the revolution led to a deterioration of women's rights and socialists, many of whom had naively supported the Islamic Revolution, were executed by the clerical fascist state.

Despite the brutal nature of the new Iranian government, in that respect the same as the old regime the U.S. had supported, the U.S. was not satisfied. The new regime nationalized the Iranian oil fields under government control. In addition, the new government was full of anti-imperialist rhetoric and took American hostages; a natural result of 26 years of U.S. imposed dictatorship and exploitation. The U.S. government hated the Iranian revolution most for nationalizing the oil, and they feared that the Iranian Revolution may become an influence for similar anti-imperialist revolutions in the region.

As a result, the U.S. encouraged then ally, Saddam Hussein, to send Iraqi troops to invade Iran. During the war, the U.S. armed both sides, but most armed Iraq and provided Iraq with military intelligence. The Iraqi invasion of Iran began on September 22, 1980 and the war continued until 1988. As a result of the war, between half million and a million and a half people died. This U.S. support to Iraq also helped enable Iraq to murder between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign of 1988. At the time, the U.S. corporate media was silent about this crime, and only exposed it later when U.S. alliances changed.

So U.S. intervention against Iran imposed decades of dictatorship, repression, war, exploitation, poverty, and, just in the Iran-Iraq war alone, the deaths of around a million Iranian people. Like Iraq, U.S. troops on the ground in Iran will not be treated as liberators.

The Iranian working class has many scores to settle with their Iranian rulers, but as bad as the current regime in Iran is, Iranians need only look across the border into Iraq to see that U.S. occupation will be much worse. War, a puppet capitalist regime, a million dead, torture, millions of refugees, and an occupier mainly interested in privatization to loot resources. As Iraq shows, there is no liberation at the hands of U.S. occupation. And as the CIA’s Shah showed; there is no liberation under a U.S. imposed puppet. Only anti-imperialist socialist revolution can begin to solve the problems faced by women, ethnic minorities, and the working class of Iran.

NO TO OBAMA’S THREATS AGAINST IRAN!

U.S. HANDS OFF IRAN!

On Iraq, Obama has never promised to fully withdraw. In a debate in September 2007, when asked if he would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013 Barack Obama said "I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out." ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07).

The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal.

In addition, Obama has directly supported the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq by voting in the Senate to fund it. If it were not for the Democrat votes in congress, the recent $162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have never passed.

This most recent New York Times Op Ed from Obama continues on with a pro-war position. Obama is clear. He wants a gradual redeployment of the majority of troops to fight other wars while calling for continuing to keep some troops fighting in Iraq.

On Blackwater mercenaries fighting in Iraq, Obama also refuses to support a ban, and promised to continue to use Blackwater when he becomes president (Democracy Now!, June 2, 2008).

The US government has no right to be in Iraq murdering, torturing, and humiliating their people while making massive profits for the military industry and other contractors. The U.S. is attempting to privatize Iraqi oil to eliminate Iraqi control over this most important resource and give U.S. and British oil companies control over the oil. The puppet government the US has set up is a death squad government that should not be protected by U.S. troops. Continued occupation of Iraq is a continued attempt to subvert the national will of the Iraqi people and it must end immediately, yet Obama's plan is to only leave, partially, after a couple years, and this, assuredly, only after the oil law has been passed and oil ownership handed over to the multi-nationals. This, as Obama's own use of the term "redeployment" indicates, will free U.S. troops up for other oil wars.

NO TO OBAMA’S “PHASED REDEPLOYMENT”!

U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!

U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD!

Another major cause for war in the Middle East is U.S. military support to the racist regime in Israel. Obama promises to continue this practice. At AIPAC Obama promised:

“Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO.”

This despite Israel’s recent war of aggression against Lebanon, a war that, if it were not for the heroic resistance of Hezbollah fighters, would have ended in another Israeli occupation like Israel’s brutal occupation of Lebanon that took place in the 1980’s. That occupation included crimes against humanity committed by Israeli and allied Christian Phalangists when they massacred thousands of Palestinians in cold-blood at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps.

In addition, Obama’s speech made no reference to the suffering faced by the Palestinian people as a result of the creation and continuation of the Jewish state. Israel is a state that created a homeland for one people, through force and violence, by denying the homeland of Palestine’s original inhabitants. Also missing from Obama’s speech was the brutal blockade currently being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza. Obama expressed zero sympathy for the Palestinians and other Arabs, only promises to supply Israel with the weapons to kill more Arabs.

Massive U.S. military aid helps keep the repressive governments of Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in power. Instead of promising more U.S. military aid, that aid should be cut off to better allow the people of the Middle East to decide their own future.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROMISE OF BILLIONS TO ISRAEL!

Another indicator of where Obama stands on imperialist war is how he sees the past wars of the United States. Of H. W. Bush and his war on Iraq Obama recently stated, "I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm." (Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008)

Leading up to that war, Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi Ramaila oil fields. Iraq saw this as theft. In addition, the Kuwaiti monarchy went against OPEC quotas and increased oil production by 40%, bringing down the price of oil on the world market, something Saddam Hussein called economic warfare.

Before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was, at that time an ally of the United States in the wars against Iran and the Kurds. He had received massive U.S. military backing in those wars. When he assembled troops on the Kuwaiti border, US ambassador April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein and told him, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

Saddam Hussein saw this as a green light from his powerful U.S. ally to invade Kuwait. Soon after, he did.

But Saddam Hussein was set up by the United States because the U.S. wanted a war. The reason for this was to prop up the profits of the military industrial complex. The Soviet Union had just fallen, and the military industries needed an excuse to keep spending billions of dollars of our tax dollars on the military.

Saddam Hussein was the perfect boogie-man to meet their needs. The U.S. corporate media pointed out that he had murdered tens of thousands of Kurds, never mentioning why they were silent when the operations were taking place with weapons supplied by the United States.

The U.S. corporate media also claimed that premature babies in Kuwait had been taken out of incubators and left to die so that the incubators could be shipped back to Baghdad. The whole story was a complete fabrication, and the corporate media even admitted it after the war, but the lie served its purpose in swaying many people who otherwise questioned going to war for the repressive Kuwaiti monarchy.

In addition, President H.W. Bush claimed as reason for war, "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression." This was based on supposed Pentagon satellite photos. Yet, from commercial satellite photos acquired by the St. Petersburg Times, this was proven to be a lie, the desert Bush senior and the Pentagon referred to was nothing but empty desert.

While playing up false stories of baby killers and the new Hitler that was going to march across the Middle East, the U.S. corporate media ignored Kuwait’s theft of Iraqi oil as well the historic claim of Iraq to Kuwait, with Kuwait being a construct of British imperialism to divide the territory and limit Iraqi access to the sea.

In addition, the U.S. corporate media completely ignored the repressive nature of the Kuwaiti monarchy that U.S. troops were sent to fight and die for. The vast majority of those living in Kuwait were denied the right to vote and other more basic rights. This included women and people labeled foreigners, many of whom had been in Kuwait for generations. Some who had ancestors in Kuwait prior to 1920 were even denied Kuwaiti citizenship. Palestinian workers built modern Kuwait, but they were kept in second class status. This situation was so bad that many Palestinians aided the Iraqi troops and saw them as a liberation army. After the U.S. re-installed the monarchy, most Kuwaiti Palestinians were driven out of Kuwait.

For women in Kuwait the Iraqi invasion also brought hope. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Under Saddam Hussein, over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They were allowed to drive. Iraqi women could even freely criticize men. In addition, Iraqi women had the right to work and control their own funds. This was in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive monarchy of Kuwait where women had / have no rights what-so-ever.

In carrying out the war to defend the Kuwaiti monarchy the U.S. used depleted uranium (DU) weapons that have contaminated Iraqi water, soil, and food with radiation. This radiation has caused large numbers of birth defects and other diseases for the Iraqi people. In addition, U.S. soldiers were not given protection and, as a result, became ill in massive numbers with the symptoms of radiation poisoning. Like Agent Orange poisoning in Vietnam, the military brass pretended they had no clue to the cause of this illness that became dubbed “Persian Gulf War Syndrome”. Yet this was later exposed as a lie when reports were made public warning the military brass of the health risks of DU weapons before the war.

Government demographer Beth Osborn Duponte lost her job when she estimated the civilian loss of life in Iraq to be around 83,000, 13,000 directly from U.S. bombing and another 70,000 civilians dead as a result of U.S. targeting of civilian necessities such as water treatment facilities, medical facilities and supplies, and the electric power grid.

In addition, Duponte estimated deaths of Iraqi troops to be around 40,000. Many of the Iraqi troops killed were buried alive. In defense of U.S. actions Col. Lon Maggart said, "People somehow have the notion that burying guys alive is nastier than blowing them up with hand grenades or sticking them in gut with bayonets, well it's not."

So Obama has no problems with Bush targeting civilians, irradiating U.S. troops and the Iraqi people, burying people alive, lying to the American people, and re-installing a repressive monarchy in Kuwait. In addition, Obama wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan, send troops into Pakistan, is already threatening Iran with war, will never fully pull out of Iraq and only promises to pull out most troops in two years after an extended gradual re-deployment of troops to other wars, will continue to use murderous Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq, and promises billions in military aid to Israel. Enough said.

Obama will be nominated the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party on August 24-28 at the Democrat Party National Convention (DNC). In opposition to the DNC convention, protests are being organized, with organizers stating:

"On August 24-28, the ruling elite and their defenders will converge in Denver Colorado, in an attempt to recuperate the gains of global social movements and produce another myth of progress. Lip service to global warming, the economic crisis and the war will endow them with the magic to spread amnesia across the hearts and minds of North America... Outside those doors, however, so many will exclaim, smash and sing a harmonious ‘no.’...”

In addition, there will be protests at the equally pro-war Republican National convention being held September 1-4 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Although virtually ignored by the corporate press, there are other presidential candidates who are running in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans who are for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. These include Cynthia McKinney running on the Green Party ticket, Brian Moore of the Socialist Party, Gloria La Riva on the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket, and Róger Calero on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Corporate controlled elections and media assure that these authentic anti-war candidates will not get elected, but these candidacies do help expose people to positions of politicians not controlled by corporate interests and the pro-war Democrat Party machine. In addition, through some of these campaigns, more people become exposed to socialist ideas and the ideas of class struggle methods to bring about change.

A vote for Obama or McCain is a vote for war! So that's what, in active terms, you're really voting for when you vote Democrat or Republican. Those of us voting for third parties in order to try to help build the kinds of parties and ideas that would really bring change, and those of us refusing to vote in order to not participate in such a blatantly rigged system, neither will change the country through these up-coming elections either, but at least we won’t be dumb enough to vote for own oppressors and exploiters that are waging imperialist war. And we will not be drawn into making apologies for imperialist war politicians like Obama. Instead, we will have the sense to be working for something different.

And those of us in unions should be angry that our hard earned union dues are being squandered on the Democrat Party when that money should instead be put into stronger strike funds to strengthen our ability to fight for better contracts, for socialized medicine, and for bigger strikes against the wars.

Build the Anti-War Movement! For More Strikes for Immediate Withdrawal Like the May 1st ILWU Anti-War Strike That Shut Down 29 Ports! Support Soldiers Refusing to Fight Including the 10,000 U.S. Soldiers Who Have Gone AWOL! Build the Socialist and Anti-Imperialist Movements! U.S. Hands off Iran! U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan Now!

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US longshore union leader slams Obama on Iraq

steveargue2 — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:23:15 GMT

US longshore union leader : "don't vote for Obama"

SHORT VIDEO OF JACK HEYMAN'S COMMENTS ON OBAMA AT PERMANENT REVOLUTION WEEKEND SCHOOL IN LONDON

Try either of the links below for the video

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=2202

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2202

Also from Jack Heyman, see:

Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/0de5539d-06be-406e-a4a8-e45eaef28b9f

******************************************

Distributed by Liberation News:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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Declaring Our Independence, Creating the Next Society

trancedan — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:34:59 GMT

In honor of Independence Day, I think it's appropriate to begin a thread focused on the kind of society that we, the people, would like to replace the American Empire after its inevitable collapse. Let's attempt to do our best at keeping the comments constructive, limiting the criticism to the ideas, without moving into ad hominem attacks. What kinds of Revolutionary Ideas do you propose, and can begin to implement, as we turn the corner on the end of an era?

Here, to get us started, is an interesting article I found well worth reading that explores some of the reasons and suggestions for the Next Society:

http://rinf.com/alt-news/activism/creating-the-next-society-your-revolutionary-ideas-needed-now/3988/

>>> It’s fairly obvious to anyone paying attention that the American Empire, as currently configured and operated, is simply not sustainable. Financial collapse is inevitable (and accelerating, it seems), and even mainstream America can no longer deny the obvious signs that things have gone terribly wrong: Skyrocketing fuel prices, unprecedented inflation in food prices, rampant epidemics of preventable degenerative disease, plummeting real estate prices, an increasingly-worthless national currency, disastrous war failures, rampant dishonesty in Washington, and accelerating climate changes that are causing flooding, crop failures, droughts and worse. It is becoming increasingly difficult for even the Pollyannas of the world to argue that the United States of America has a bright future. <<<

<snip>

>>>>Now, those are just my ideas. You may not agree with them all, and in fact I hope you don’t! What we need are YOUR ideas (and other people’s ideas) to be part of the conversation in creating The Next Society. It will soon be time to put the new ideas on the table, throw out the old ideas, and create a new society. Consider: What hasn’t worked? What has worked? What makes sense today that didn’t make sense in 1776? (Like internet voting, for example, which eliminates the entire need for the U.S. Congress, since the whole idea of “representatives” was based on the need for remote representation of people living in far-off places without connectivity…) Does our tax system currently work? Do you like the IRS? If not, what would work better? (The Flat Tax, perhaps?) Does voting work? Not very well. Instant Runoff Voting works much better. Why not implement that in the Next Society?<<<<

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Iran redux

Tedster — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:39:28 GMT

ZNet ZNet

United States and Israel against Iran

Flashpoints Interview

June, 26 2008

By Gareth Porter
and Dennis Bernstein

Source: Flashpoints

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Dennis Bernstein: We focus on potential war by the United States and Israel against Iran. We're watching that closely. The drums of war are beating again in the Middle East, as we say. And the war that may be brewing between Israel and the U.S. and Iran has the potential to dwarf the consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as deadly and horrific as that's been. The latest warning sign came in the New York Times reported last Friday that in early June, Israel had carried out a major military exercise. U.S. officials called it "a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities." The exercise involved more than a hundred Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters. The same week, Germany's Der Spiegel reported that Israel's leadership has concluded that diplomacy has failed to stop Iran's nuclear program and that military action is unavoidable, a warning that was earlier sounded by the German foreign minister. These ominous developments come after months of escalating threats and charges by the U.S. and Israel against Iran for its actions in Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza and for supposedly pursuing nuclear weapons despite repeated international atomic agency findings to the contrary. Top Bush officials have taken trips to the region, perhaps for military consultations. Andrew Cockburn reports that earlier this year, the Bush administration secretly authorized a sweeping covert action program against Iran, including assassinating officials. And there have been reports in The Asian Times, the Times of London, and by former CIA officer Philip Giraldi that a U.S. strike on Revolutionary Guard camps inside Iran has already been authorized. So is this all for show simply to pressure Iran or is a war really possible?

With us to examine these developments is Gareth Porter. He is the author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. He is a contributor to InterPress News Service, The American Prospect, The Nation, and Salon.com...

Gareth Porter, it is good to have you in the studio... You've done some interesting investigations in terms of what has been leading up to this, and the role that the U.S. is playing with Israel in a potential attack on Iran. In particular, you found out and wrote about how Cheney and his allies actually tried to win approval for strikes against Iran's Revolutionary Guard camps last August. Can you talk about this incident and why there was a little bit of restraint?

Gareth Porter: Right. This is, I think, very important for the simple reason that it does provide a kind of smoking gun evidence, if you will, that this whole unfolding threat to Iran has not been simply a psyops, simply an intimidation operation. We know now for a fact that Dick Cheney did, in fact, propose within the Administration that they attack Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran that were supposedly connected with supplying or training the Iraqi Shiite militiamen coming back to Iraq to fight U.S. occupation forces. And this would be done if and when they could get some kind of concrete evidence that would basically convict the Iranians of some direct involvement in the fight in Iraq.

What we now know is that the Pentagon responded to that proposal very quickly and very strongly by arguing that it's not going to be on to simply go out and launch a so-called limited strike without considering what is going to be the consequence of that in terms of escalation on the Iranian side and then what are we going to do, assuming as they did assume, that the Iranians would in fact respond by targeting probably American bases, American personnel in the Middle East and probably in Iraq. And assuming that, then what would the United States do in response and how far are we going to go up the escalatory ladder?

That was the issue that they raised, according to a former State Department official who went on the record with me: Jay Scott Carpenter. This is the first time that a former Bush administration official had actually gone on the record and said yes, there was in fact not only a Cheney proposal officially within the Administration, but a very important and very high-level debate over that. And the result of it was, in effect, that the Pentagon -- and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were supporting them on this, according to Jay Scott Carpenter. They supported the Pentagon officials who said, "No, we can't do this without figuring out how far we're going to go", and the implication being that we're not going to support an all-out war with Iran, which would -- certainly, the obvious implication that was being drawn from the Cheney proposal, that that's what he really wanted.

Dennis Bernstein: Any sense how close Cheney got to having his way?

Gareth Porter: No, you can't really find out from a single source who was obviously getting this somewhat indirectly, because he was not personally involved in the meetings themselves, just how close we might have come to that. But the impression that I got was that the response was so negative and so strong, and that it was so unanimous within the Pentagon, including the military leadership, that Cheney was really put on the defensive, that he did not have the kind of arguments that he could come back with to basically counter this very strong argument by the Pentagon against his proposal. But what I did point out in my article is that this was the second time that Cheney had been, in a way, checkmated or stopped by the National Security bureaucracy in Washington - if you will, the permanent government - from making moves toward sort of setting up a war with Iran.

The first time was in early 2007. It was in February 2007 - or January/February 2007 - when Cheney essentially ordered the military in Baghdad to put out a briefing that would essentially take the position that Iran had been manufacturing these explosively formed projectiles which were armor-penetrating explosives, which were killing American troops in Iraq. And he was arguing that Iran is really fighting a proxy war by supplying these to the Iraqi Shiite militia. Well, the Defense Department, the State Department, and the NSC all said, "We can't say that. There's no evidence for it. And we've already been through this once with Iraq. And we'll all have egg all over our faces and our credibility will be shot." And so they said no to that. And so it looked like Cheney was checkmated because it went into the interagency process and essentially they sent the briefing back to the authors and said, "Do it again and do it right so that it's consistent with the evidence." Well, this time, in February 2007, Cheney did an end-run around the bureaucracy by getting Petraeus, who was going out to become the top commander in Baghdad of the U.S. forces, to agree that as soon as he arrived, they would, in fact, give that same military briefing that gave the Cheney line that the bureaucrats said no to. And that's exactly what happened. Within 24 hours of Petraeus's arrival in Baghdad and his taking over the command of U.S. forces, that briefing was given. The State Department, I guarantee you, did not know it was coming until two days beforehand.

Dennis Bernstein: Now you're saying then, you are suggesting - or more - that General Petraeus was an active player, that he was a willing partner in what appears to be a Cheney operation or deception

Gareth Porter: Absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind.

Dennis Bernstein: Say a little more about that.

Gareth Porter: Clearly, what happened was that Petraeus, when he got his job, it was on the condition that he would support the Bush-Cheney policy, both in Iraq and with regard to Iran. And that's exactly what happened. When he went out there, from the White House, from the Cheney wing of the White House, to have the military briefers give that briefing, which had been vetoed in Washington.

Now, that was just the first step in this. We later see Petraeus in September of 2007, after he's been out there several months, give an interview with Brit Hume of Fox News Television in which he said - I won't try to put forward the same words that he used - but he said, in effect, that we have been saying to the White House and to CENTCOM that we need to do something about the allegation or reality of Iranian interference in Iraq, implying very clearly that he was supporting the Cheney proposal to attach the Iranian bases, which are connected, supposedly, with that issue.

Dennis Bernstein: And, of course, given the short tenure that he had in Iraq, it gives one the impression that he was really an agent in this process. So he gets in, he does a few things, and then he's kicked upstairs. That was very interesting. Everybody wondered if he was so successful, so effective, The Man, then why did they take him out so fast? But maybe he had a mission.

Gareth Porter: He is not an independent actor. Petraeus is a man who has been sent to Iraq to carry out the policy of the Bush White House, and he will do the same thing on Iran. And that is why his being named to replace, in effect, Admiral Fallon as commander of CENTCOM is so important and why it sets up a situation in which Cheney and Bush can do an end-run around the opponents of war with Iran in Washington.

Dennis Bernstein: And, of course, you take out the unwilling general and you put in the willing general.

Gareth Porter: Exactly. And he's arriving - and this is very important - the timing of his arrival is late summer, early fall. It's going to be August or September. So I think that we can say that the period of maximum danger about U.S. intentions -- which I think that there is a serious possibility that they do intend to attach Iran - it will be after the arrival at CENTCOM in Tampa of General Petraeus in later summer or early fall.

Dennis Bernstein: ...We did hear - and Reese Ehrlich did some significant reporting on what was happening at the border, and the fact that the United States, with Israeli intelligence such as Mossad, were already busy going back and forth over the border. There was a great deal of counterinsurgencies. There are connections between what was going on there and this.

Gareth Porter: If you mean the connection between the Israeli role in Iraq and Iran, of course they're connected in the sense that Israel is very deeply involved in all of the Cheney -Bush policies in the Middle East. There's a very, very close working collaboration across the board, whether it's Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, or other parts of the Middle East. They are very, very closely working together on a common strategy. At least they discuss common strategies. That is not to say that everything Israel does has been planned ahead of time by the White House with the Israelis. In fact, the White House neocons, including Cheney, wanted Israel to go much farther in 2006 than they actually did. They wanted them to take down the Syrian regime instead of stopping in Lebanon. So there's not a perfect correlation, by any means.

Dennis Bernstein: Now following up right on that, that brings us to these recent exercises. The United States reported them as if they were surprises. It's like, oh, they'd better tell the New York Times that Israel did an exercise because they didn't know it was happening. Let's talk about what this exercise has to do with the relationship between the U.S. and their push toward war in Iran. What about this story?

Gareth Porter: First of all, I think we have to see that the purpose of this story -- from both Israeli and Bush Administration point of view - was to implicate the United States more deeply in the Israeli policy, to give the appearance to the world and to the American people that the Bush Administration is speaking, not on behalf of Israel, but speaking with Israel, announcing that this is taking place and giving it their interpretation, in a way that was useful to Israel.

But there's a second point here that I think you also need to keep in mind. That is that Israel is not likely to strike Iran without the direct involvement, militarily, of the United States. The United States will be involved in some way if Israel strikes Iran, whether it's sending American bombers or simply providing the intelligence and other support for an Israel strike. They have to do it with the Americans; they can't do it successfully without the Americans.
From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18006

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

KILL EVERYBODY: American soldier exposes US policy in Iraq

steveargue2 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:12:59 GMT

KILL EVERYBODY: American soldier exposes US policy in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwwMF6biCJU&feature=related

The following are insane US troops caught on tape in Iraq. Would you want this occupation army in your country?

US Marines Throw Puppy Off Cliff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6zXpgcpW5w&feature=related

US Soldier on tape admits to rape and torture in Iraq!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dvoBhevOQ&feature=related

Iraq - Soldiers shoot civilians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWE5hu4z_8Y&NR=1

Abu Ghraib - Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7UNxnOI3M&NR=1

American Soldiers attack on Terrorist sheep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQdgyEapvw&feature=related

Iraqi Kids Begging For Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnHudm5Cmk&feature=related

Apache killing Iraqi Truck drivers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbVTfrm06v8&feature=related

Winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyRPYMTICRM&feature=related

Soldiers beat teenage Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnp0C0PNZT4&feature=related

US Soldiers Shoot A Dog!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bQU89FyVw0&feature=related

US soldiers Killing a wounded Iraqi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qs71TYwoM&feature=related

American Soldiers having fun Killing Civilians in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FD1jHueZZc&feature=related

American Soldiers Taunt Thirsty Iraqi Kids
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=667SaGS-Jqg&feature=related

US / British Troops Out of Iraq!

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

Message From Iraqi Resistance

steveargue2 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:12:05 GMT

While I have disagreements with the following group, they make many good points in this video, and I agree most fundamentally with the right of Iraqis to run their country as they see fit without the US occupation.

Message From Iraqi Resistance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccMuRyBnTIs&feature=related

The following are insane US troops caught on tape in Iraq. Would you want this occupation army in your country?

US Marines Throw Puppy Off Cliff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6zXpgcpW5w&feature=related

US Soldier on tape admits to rape and torture in Iraq!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dvoBhevOQ&feature=related

Iraq - Soldiers shoot civilians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWE5hu4z_8Y&NR=1

Abu Ghraib - Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7UNxnOI3M&NR=1

American Soldiers attack on Terrorist sheep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQdgyEapvw&feature=related

Iraqi Kids Begging For Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnHudm5Cmk&feature=related

Apache killing Iraqi Truck drivers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbVTfrm06v8&feature=related

Winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyRPYMTICRM&feature=related

Soldiers beat teenage Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnp0C0PNZT4&feature=related

US Soldiers Shoot A Dog!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bQU89FyVw0&feature=related

US soldiers Killing a wounded Iraqi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qs71TYwoM&feature=related

American Soldiers having fun Killing Civilians in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FD1jHueZZc&feature=related

American Soldiers Taunt Thirsty Iraqi Kids
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=667SaGS-Jqg&feature=related

US / British Troops Out of Iraq!

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

H. CON. RES. 362

Tedster — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:54:11 GMT

Trouble ahead for US and Iran

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hc110-362

[snip]

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress--

(1) declares that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, through all appropriate economic, political, and diplomatic means, is vital to the national security interests of the United States and must be dealt with urgently;

(2) urges the President, in the strongest of terms, to immediately use his existing authority to impose sanctions on--

(A) the Central Bank of Iran and any other Iranian bank engaged in proliferation activities or the support of terrorist groups;

(B) international banks which continue to conduct financial transactions with proscribed Iranian banks;

(C) energy companies that have invested $20,000,000 or more in the Iranian petroleum or natural gas sector in any given year since the enactment of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996; and

(D) all companies which continue to do business with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps;

(3) demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program; and

(4) urges the President to lead a sustained, serious, and forceful effort at regional diplomacy to support the legitimate governments in the region against Iranian efforts to destabilize them, to reassure our friends and allies that the United States supports them in their resistance to Iranian efforts at hegemony, and to make clear to the Government of Iran that the United States will protect America's vital national security interests in the Middle East.

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 3 replies

Democrats back $162 billion more war funding

steveargue2 — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:52:50 GMT

[The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal. -Steven Argue]

Democrats back $162 billion more war funding

by Yosef M

News sources on the Web report that on Thursday, June 20, the US House of Representatives approved Iraq and Afghanistan war funding of $162 billion. The legislation was passed without any timetable for US military withdrawal from the two conflicts. The bill, supported by the US House Democratic leadership Pelosi and Hoyer, will fund US wars in the two Middle Eastern countries through the middle of 2009. House Democrats, who were sent to Washington with a single mandate from the US electorate in 2006, to extricate the US from the two wars in the Middle East, consistently support legislation to continue those very wars. The vote is instructive; it reflects the same pattern we saw in the passage of the government spying bill the next day. If the Democrats had voted as an opposition, against war funding, the bill would have failed to pass, with 188 Republicans in favor and 235 Democrats opposing. And there would have been nothing Bush could have done: he can veto what Congress passes, but no President can veto what Congress refuses to pass.

What happened instead is that 80 Democrats joined the Republicans to approve the funding and continue US wars of aggression against the long-suffering peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq. As has already been noted in the press, Bush's popularity has fallen to historic lows; it is also true that a majority of US residents have opposed US intervention in Iraq for many years, a fact not reflected in the US press until after the Democratic sweep of Congress in the 2006 elections. As other people have noted, there is no way the thoroughly despised lame duck Bush can hurt Congressional Democrats now. If the Democrats go on funding Bush's wars, and they are and will, it is because they want to. All of which makes it inexplicable that most of the US "left" is ga-ga over the Democrats and their candidate this election year.

Distributed by Liberation News
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 2 replies

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

Yul — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:20:08 GMT

http://www.prosecutionofbush.com

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

Obama on Blackwater-A glaring hint that he isn't going to pull out.

Tedster — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:42:40 GMT

AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about the future of Blackwater and also the bases here in the United States. But first, let me play for you a little exchange I had with Barack Obama, asking him about Blackwater. He had come to Cooper Union a few months ago to talk about the economy, and afterwards in the rope line, I asked him.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you call for a ban on the private military contractors like Blackwater?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I’ve actually—I’m the one who sponsored the bill that called for the investigation of Blackwater in [inaudible], so—

AMY GOODMAN: But would you support the Sanders one now?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Here’s the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can’t draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops. So what I want to do is draw—I want them out in the same way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops. Alright? I mean, I—

AMY GOODMAN: Not a ban?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I don’t want to replace those contractors with more US troops, because we don’t have them, alright? But this was a speech about the economy.

AMY GOODMAN: The war is costing $3 trillion, according to Stiglitz.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: That’s what—I know, which I made a speech about last week. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Barack Obama.

JEREMY SCAHILL: This is interesting. I mean, this is one of the more interesting exchanges I’ve seen with a presidential candidate on this issue. I mean, it almost never gets raised at all.

Barack Obama—this is the reality about this. Barack Obama understands this issue extremely well. His staff has been on top of this for quite some time. He—what he said to you is true. He did introduce the legislation in the Senate that has become the Democrats’ official legislation on these private security companies, and he did it eight months before Nisour Square. So, clearly, Barack Obama is someone who has been following this very closely. He understands it very intimately.

What’s interesting—and you raised this with him—is that he won’t take the step toward actually trying to ban these companies. Representative Jan Schakowsky and Senator Bernie Sanders have put forward legislation called the Stop Outsourcing Security Act in the Congress, and Barack Obama has said he’s not going to come onboard and support that legislation.

Interestingly, when I reported in The Nation that Obama would not support that legislation, which seeks to ban the use of these companies in US war zones, Hillary Clinton, five days before the Texas and Ohio primaries, the day my piece comes out, she responds by putting a statement on her website saying that she’s going to endorse Bernie Sanders’ legislation, and she becomes the single most important US political figure to come out for a ban. Now, I’m glad that Hillary Clinton did that, and I look forward to her making this one of her top legislative priorities after the primary season is over.

But on Barack Obama, he’s in a very complicated situation, because his Iraq plan actually is not a plan to end the occupation of Iraq. It’s to continue it with a different label attached to it. And so, you hear him there talking about how “I don’t want to replace contractors with US troops.” The reality is, and Barack Obama knows this very well, his Iraq plan could not be implemented if he was against the use of Blackwater or other private security forces. And the reality is, he’s probably going to have to use these companies for two to three years at a minimum, unless he makes it an aggressive point of trying to shut them down. He might even have to use Blackwater for the first year of his administration.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/2/blackwater_jeremy_scahill_on

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 6 replies

The peaceful exploration of space vs. the violence of warfare on Earth

Yul — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:49:04 GMT

'm of the mind that some people -- people who claim to be progressive and anti-war -- hate the space program so much that they would prefer 100 years of war in Iraq to the PEACEFUL exploration of the moon and Mars. I, of course, prefer the peaceful exploration of the moon and Mars to 100 years of war in Iraq. But in today's modern dystopia, I'm definitley in the minority here since the space program is extemely unpopular. And as you may know, "society" general hates any and all ideas that are unpopular.

That brings me to Barak Obama's plans for NASA. In short I think these plans are abysmal. As I recall, he wants to take $10 billion out of NASA's budget and use that money to pay for some sort of preschool education program. This will create a delay or even a cancellation of the Constellation program. "But we don't need to return to the moon. We need to solve our problems on Earth first!" That's a very simple-minded and inaccurate view of the situation. Consider this: NASA's budget (at $17.3 billion a year) is LESS THAT ONE PERCENT OF THE TOTAL U.S. FEDERAL BUDGET. Again I say that NASA's budget (at $17.3 billion a year) is LESS THAT ONE PERCENT OF THE TOTAL U.S. FEDERAL BUDGET. If Obama claims that he opposes the U.S. occupation in Iraq, then he should get the withdrawl done immediately if he becomes president. The savings acquired from withdrawing American military forces from Iraq should be enough to pay for BOTH the preschool education program AND the Constellation program. And with the U.S. military budget being as inconceivably massive as it is (at least $500 billion a year), reducing the military budge to, say, half of what it is shouldn't have a negative effect on national security (espeically if the military is used for REAL national defense and NOT to fuel the military-industrial-congressional complex). Even cut in half, the U.S. military budget would still be the largest military budget on Earth.

So why would Obama ignore such an obviously simple way to keep NASA on track without effecting social programs? Could it be that he really supports a massive military? If that's the case, then he's not all that different from John McCain. I also believe this issue is connected with Obama's obsession with pleasing everyone (or more specifically, the majority). With the space program being as unpopular as it is, he knows how popular bashing NASA is and how most of the public would support such bashing.

One of the reasons why I support space exploration is because I believe it is a viable alternative to war. If the energy channeled toward warfare and the misery and suffering that it causes were channeled toward space exploration, life on Earth might be improved in many ways. Things like spin-off technologies and access to the unlimited natural reseources of outer space are some ways the space program could improve the lives of people oin Earth. But since space exploration is very unpopular, I suspect that most people will disagree with me on this. But they wouldn't disagree if the space program were popular. Ho ve!

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

NYT: Obama admires Bush Sr.: ''no complaints about handling of Desert Storm"

steveargue2 — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:38:32 GMT

Support for Empire is support for Empire -- any way you cut it. There's a reason Corporate American bankrolled Obama's campaign
...
**************
"I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm."

Source:
- Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/opinion/16brooks.html?em&ex=1211169600&en=1577a90ae5048a04&ei=5087%0A

See:
Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
by STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

Unprofitable war

Yul — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:03:21 GMT

I often say that the main reason why war happens is because certain people want it to happen. And of course many of these people want it to happen because they're profiting from it. But if it were possible to make war unprofitable, then these individuals would very likely end their support for war and go into another more profitable line of business. It may not end war entirely, but at least it could make war less common. The question of the moment, of course, is how do you make war unprofitable? I don't know. But I do know I can do some thought experinments in this area. For example, what if there were some kind of technology that would render all weapons inoperable? If that were possible, certain people may decide to wage war with sticks and stones and hand-to-hand combat. But whatever the case, I say any reduction in war is a good thing. Therefore, finding a way to make war unprofitable should at least be attempted.

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 2 replies

On This Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

steveargue2 — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:07:18 GMT

On This Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

By STEVEN ARGUE

Thirty eight years ago, on May 4, 2008, at Ohio’s Kent State University, the National Guard opened fire on students protesting the US war in Vietnam. The students were shot from distances of 275 to 400 feet, giving lie to claims that the students posed a threat to the Guardsmen. Four students were murdered and nine were injured. Nobody ever did time for those murders.

Before May 4, 1970, an anti-war movement had been building in the United States. The American people were increasingly impatient with the war, and an active anti-war movement helped build that kind of consciousness. People wanted an end to the war and Nixon kept promising a “light at the end of the tunnel.” On April 30, 1970, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. This was the opposite of what people wanted to hear. Protests erupted on campuses that had not had them in the past, like Kent State. For many, the cold blooded murder of students at Kent State and murders of students soon after at Jackson State, were the final straw.

Immediately after the Kent State shootings 8 million students went out on strike, and some Universities, such as Berkley, were taken over by students and faculty as anti-war universities. After May 1970, the majority of those drafted were already opposed to the war before they got to Vietnam. This brought an end to the war. The US government could not win the war because they were facing fierce battles from the Vietnamese and many US soldiers were actively resisting the war. Commanding officers were winding up dead as they tried to force soldiers to kill people in a foreign land for a war they did not believe in. Nixon could not win a war with drafted soldiers who refused to fight, and this was a factor that forced the U.S. government to withdraw from Vietnam.

Three million Vietnamese were murdered as a result of the US occupation of southern Vietnam and massive U.S. bombing of the north. Over 50,000 US soldiers died. It was resistance, both by the Vietnamese people, and the resistance of the anti-war movement in the United States that brought an end to the US occupation of Vietnam. Had the working class of the United States been ready to join that strike of 8 million students in May 1970, we would have potentially had a revolution in the United States, but at that time the working class was not ready.

Today, after the lessons of Vietnam, and after decades of bi-partisan union busting, outsourcing, privatization, and declining living standards for the US working class, the U.S. working class is now stepping out and taking the lead in the struggle against the criminal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. On May 1st, 2008 10,000 U.S. port workers of the ILWU went out on strike against the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, shutting down all 29 ports on the West Coast for eight hours. Within the union, Vietnam Vets were some of the strongest advocates of the strike.

Joining the strike in solidarity with the demand of immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq were the Iraqi port workers at Umm Qasr and Khor Alzubair. They joined U.S. workers in a deeply symbolic one hour strike to end the occupation.

In going out on strike, the union ranks of the ILWU defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them not to strike. They also defied the employers of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) who declared the strike “illegal”. This is the kind of defiance the working class will need to emulate in other industries, both to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to start winning better contracts.

Today, over a million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion. In addition, the U.S. has installed a religious death squad government where women's rights have eroded, the economy has deteriorated, the environment has been seriously devastated by the radiation of US DU weapons, millions of refugees have fled the country, people are often arrested without cause and tortured, the US bombs civilians from the sky, and basic infrastructure like water and electricity have been destroyed by the US and not rebuilt by the US occupiers.

It is also a war that has cost the U.S. thousands of lives, tens of thousands of casualties, and trillions of dollars in debt. Yet, for a few extremely wealthy Americans it has meant massive profits for military contractors and other businesses with contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, multinational companies like Exxon, BP and Shell are drooling as the U.S. government tries to force an oil law down the throats of the Iraqi people that would turn ownership of Iraqi oil over to these corporations.

Meanwhile, the pro-war Democrat Party voted for the war and keeps voting to fund it. Today, the Democrats are once again pushing for $178 billion in funding for the war. Neither Clinton nor Obama would promise to withdraw all troops from Iraq by 2013 ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07). In addition, the two of them have offered differing versions of expanding these wars into Iran and Pakistan.

Whoever wins the upcoming election, it will take increased action by the working class to end these wars. ILWU member Jack Heyman is correct in saying of the May 1st strike against the war, “There's precedent for this action. In the '50s, French dockworkers refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and helped to bring that colonial war to an end.” The longshore workers’ May 1st strike does indeed show the way forward. More strikes, and bigger strikes, along with building a workers’ party independent of the Democrats and Republicans, can indeed end these wars.

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ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

steveargue2 — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:09:33 GMT

[Liberation News is in agreement with the following article of the Internationalist Group and both have also actively advocated these kinds of industrial actions.]

For Workers Strikes Against the War!

ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. In a February 22 letter to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, ILWU International president Robert McEllrath reported that at a recent coast-wide union meeting, "One of the resolutions adopted by caucus delegates called on longshore workers to stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008 to express their opposition to the war in Iraq."

This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly important that this mobilization of labor's power is to take place on May Day, the international workers day, which is not honored in the U.S. Moreover, the resolution voted by the ILWU delegates opposes not only the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, but also the war and occupation of Afghanistan (which Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want to expand). The motion to shut down the ports also demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the entire region, including the oil sheikdoms of the strategically important Persian/Arab Gulf.

The Internationalist Group has fought from the moment U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in September 2002 for American unions to strike against the war. Despite the fact that millions have marched in the streets of Europe and the United States against the war in Iraq, the war goes on. Neither of the twin war parties of U.S. imperialism - Democrats and Republicans - and none of the capitalist candidates will stop this horrendous slaughter that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The only way to stop the Pentagon killing machine is by mobilizing the power of a greater force - that of the international working class.

The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. The ILWU should be commended for courageously taking the first step, and it is up to working people everywhere to back them up. Wherever support is strong enough, on May 1 there should be mass walkouts, sick-outs, labor marches, plant-gate meetings, lunch-time rallies, teach-ins. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!

Now is the time for bold class action. Opposition to the war is even greater in the U.S. working class than in the population as a whole, more than two-thirds of which wants to stop the war but is stymied by the capitalist political system. In his letter to Sweeney, the ILWU president asked "if other AFL-CIO affiliates are planning to participate in similar events." Labor militants should make sure the answer to that question is a resounding "yes!"

There should be no illusions that this will be easy. No doubt the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) bosses will try to get the courts to rule the stop-work action illegal. The ILWU leadership could get cold feet, since this motion was passed because of overwhelming support from the delegates despite attempts to stop it or, failing that, to water it down or limit the action. And the U.S. government could try to ban it on the grounds of "national security," just as Bush & Co. slapped a Taft-Hartley injunction on the docks during contract negotiations in the fall of 2002, saying that any work stoppage was a threat to the "war effort," and threatened to occupy the ports with troops!

The answer to every attempt to sabotage or undercut this first labor action against this war, and against Washington's broader "war on terror" which is intended to terrorize the world into submission must be to redouble efforts to bring out workers' power independent of the capitalist parties and politicians. If the ILWU work stoppage is successful, it will only be a small, but very important, beginning that must be generalized and deepened. It will take industrial-strength labor action to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war on immigrants, oppressed minorities, poor and working people "at home."

ILWU in the Forefront of Labor Action Against the War

Workers strike action against imperialist war isn't new - it just hasn't happened here for a long, long time. During World War I there were huge mass strikes in Germany against the battlefield carnage, culminating in the downfall of the kaiser in November 1918. A year earlier in Russia, working-class opposition to the war led to the overthrow of the tsar and the October Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky's Bolsheviks. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call today for transport workers to "hot cargo" (refuse to handle) war shipments. In the early 1920s, Communist-led French dock workers did exactly that, boycotting ships carrying war materiel to suppress a colonial rebellion in the Rif region of Morocco, as they
also did during France's war in Indochina in the 1950s.

In the U.S., the ILWU struck in 1948 amid Cold War hysteria and in defiance of the "slave labor" Taft-Hartley Act to defend its union hiring hall against the bosses and government screaming about "reds" in the union leadership. In 1953, at the height of McCarthyite witch-hunting, the ILWU called a four-day general strike in Hawaii of sugar, pineapple and dock workers over the jailing of seven union members for being communists. During the Vietnam War, socialist historian Isaac Deutscher said that he would trade all the peace marches for a single dock strike. The ILWU was the first U.S. union to oppose the Vietnam war, but during war and especially during the 1971 strike union leader Harry Bridges refused to stop the movement of military cargo. (Ship owners made use of this by falsely labeling cargo as "military" to evade picket lines and undermine the strike.) This betrayal went hand in hand with a "mechanization and modernization" contract that slashed union jobs.

As the U.S.-led imperialist invasion of Iraq was looming, in January 2003 train drivers in Scotland refused to move a freight train carrying munitions to a NATO military base. The next month, Italian railroad unionists and antiwar activists blocked NATO war trains by occupying the rails. In the United States, ILWU dock workers were a target of "anti-terrorist" government repression, as police fired supposedly "less than lethal" munitions point blank at an antiwar protest on the Oakland, California docks, injuring six longshore workers and arresting 25 people (who eventually won their legal case against the police). And every year since the war started, the San Francisco/Oakland ILWU Local 10 has voted for motions for labor action against the war. Usually they were voted down at caucuses and conventions of the ILWU, but not this time.

Last May, Local 10 longshoremen and Local 34 ships clerks refused to cross picket lines set up by the Oakland Teachers Association and antiwar activists, defying arbitrators' orders by refusing to work ships of the notorious antiunion outfit, Stevedoring Services of America (see "Oakland Dock Workers Honor Picket, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper," The Internationalist No. 26, July 2007). In the aftermath of that action, the union issued a call for a Labor Conference to Stop the War that would "plan workplace rallies, labor
mobilizations in the streets and strike action against the war." The Call to Action stated:

"ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly warned that the so-called 'war on terror' is really a war on working people and democratic rights. Around the country, hundreds of unions and labor councils have passed motions condemning the war, but that has not stopped the war. We need to use labor's muscle to stop the war by mobilizing union power in the streets, at the plant gates and on the docks to force the immediate and total withdrawal of all U. S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq."

As the conference date approached, the union was the target of several police attacks, including a vicious cop assault on two black dock workers from San Francisco working in the port of Sacramento. Some 250 demonstrators from every ILWU local in Northern California rallied in their defense outside the courthouse. Their trial to be set march 18 at a hearing will encounter even larger demonstrations.

The Internationalist Group and its union supporters helped build and attended the October 20 conference, along with some 150 labor and socialist activists from the Bay Area, elsewhere in California and across the country. At the meeting, a particular focus was resistance to the Transportation Workers Identification Card (TWIC), which threatens minority workers and the union hiring hall, and which the Democratic Party in particular has been pushing in order to carry out a purge of dock workers in the name of the "war on terror."
Not long after that conference, a federal judge ordered Local 10 elections canceled and replaced by a Labor Department-run vote, on the eve of 2008 contract bargaining. Federal agents even invaded the union hall to enforce their order. This action is a threat to the independence of all unions.

This set the stage for the recent longshore-warehouse caucus, which voted a motion for a 24-hour "No Peace, No Work Holiday" against the war. The resolution was introduced in Local 10 by Jack Heyman, who also presented the motion for the 24 April 1999 coast-wide port shutdown demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and renowned radical journalist who has been on Pennsylvania's death row for the last quarter century. Although the union tops maneuvered to prevent Heyman from being elected as a delegate to the Coast Caucus, the motion passed in Local 10. At the Caucus, the delegate from Local 34 referred to the October Labor Conference to Stop the War as the origin of the motion.

At the close of the Caucus on February 8, there was a vigorous debate on the resolution. The union tops tried to stop it, to no avail. They kept asking, "are you sure you want to do this action." The delegates overwhelmingly said "yes." Even conservative trade unionists, including veterans of the Vietnam War, were getting up saying the government is lying to us, we've had it with this war, we've got to put a stop to it now. So instead the bureaucrats tried to gut the motion, which was cut down from 24 hours to 8, and changed into a "stop-work" meeting (covered by a contract clause) instead of a straight-out shutdown, thinking that this would lessen opposition from the employers. In the end there was a voice vote and only three delegates out of 100 voted against.

The efforts to undercut the motion continue, as is to be expected from a leadership which, like the rest of the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy, seeks "labor peace" with the bosses. In his letter to Sweeney, ILWU International president tried to present the action as an effort to "express support for the troops by bringing them home safely," although the motion voted by the delegates says nothing of the sort. Playing the "support our troops" game is an effort to swear loyalty to the broader aims of U.S. imperialism. It aids the warmongers, when what's needed is independent working-class action against the system that produces endless imperialist war. Yet despite the efforts to water it down and distort it, the May 1 action voted for by the ILWU delegates is a call to use labor's muscle to put an end to the war.

Mobilize Labor's Power to Defeat the Bosses' War!

For the West Coast dock workers union to shut down the ports against the war means a big step forward in the class struggle. The Internationalist Group has uniquely fought for workers strikes against the war, when all the popular-front "peace" coalitions dismissed this and even some shamefaced ex-Trotskyists refused to call for it, saying it had "no resonance" among the workers (see our October 20007 Special Supplement to The Internationalist, "Why We Fight For Workers Strikes Against the War [and the opportunists Don't]"). With signs, banners and propaganda we have sought to drive home the central lesson that it is necessary to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war "at home" by mobilizing the power of the workers movement independent of and against the capitalist parties.

That means fighting the war mobilization down the line. First and foremost, this means actively joining the struggle for immigrant rights as the government turns undocumented working people into "the enemy within." Class-conscious workers should demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Last year, San Francisco Local 10 voted to stop work and join marches for immigrant rights on May 1, but this was opposed by the employers PMA and sabotaged at the last minute by the union tops. Shamefully, Local 13 in Los Angeles, a majority Mexican American port, made no protest when police attacked immigrant rights protesters that same day. Today, as the ICE immigration police stage Gestapo-style raids across the country, organized labor should take the lead in organizing rapid response networks to come into the streets to block the raids. Despite the campaign by the capitalist media and politicians to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria, there is widespread disgust among American working people toward the jackbooted storm troopers who are terrorizing immigrant communities.

At the same time, the unions should use the power to put a halt to the attacks on civil liberties which are part of the home front of the imperialist war. Driver's licenses with biometric data, TWIC identification cards with "background checks," warrantless spying and phone tapping, setting up special military tribunals for "trials" in which defendants are denied the right of habeas corpus, to know the "evidence" or even the charges against them - all these are part of a drive that is in high gear pushing the United States toward a full-fledged police state. There have been scores, perhaps hundreds of resolutions by unions and city, county and state labor bodies against the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, showing that labor activists are well aware of the danger. But just as is the case with the countless union antiwar resolutions, there has been no labor action. It is commonplace in the labor movement to bemoan the lack of real action when Reagan broke the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers' strike, paving the way for massive union-busting, takeaways and racist attacks all down the line. Let's not let the labor bureaucrats bury the vital struggles of today.

Now is the time to turn words into deeds, to speak to the capitalist rulers in the only language they understand. The imperialist war parties must be defeated by a class mobilization of the working people at the head of all the oppressed. The ILWU motion to stop work on May Day to put a stop to the war can provide working people everywhere with the opening to turn from impotent protest to a struggle for power. For that the key is to build a class-struggle workers party fighting for a workers government, for socialist revolution here and around the world, that will put an end once and for all to the system of endless war, poverty and racism.

This is an Article of the Internationalist Group:
www.internationalist.org

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Cindy Sheehan Letter in Support of ILWU Action on May 1

steveargue2 — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:25:46 GMT

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the ILWU,

On behalf of myself and my congressional campaign, and in memory of my son Casey, I want to thank you for the principled and dignified action that you are taking on May 1st.

The exemplary resolution passed by your Longshore Caucus, and your decision to stop work on the West Coast docks on May 1, 2008 points the way for all of us who struggle to end the disastrous war and occupation of Iraq. This illegal and immoral war has been forced on us by the Republican administration, and has been funded enthusiastically by both the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress. The Democratic Party, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, continues a policy of full cooperation with and financial support for the Bush administration's war. While many Democrats will utter words that are critical of the highly unpopular war, their party simply will not use its political power to take any action to stop the carnage.

The ILWU has shown that it is an independent workers' union, morally superior to the Democratic Party in every respect. Once again, the Longshoremen of the West Coast are demonstrating that it is possible to oppose the war-mongering corporate politicians, and prevent them from dividing and conquering the movements of the workers and peoples. You Longshoremen have kept this powerful and noble tradition alive on their waterfront since the 1930s.

I want you to know that there is a congressional candidate in the Bay Area who supports you and your heroism. I thank you for refusing to load scrap iron for the Japanese invasion of China in the 30s. I thank you for your refusal to load bombs for the fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1978. I thank you for your support of the Charleston Five, the Liverpool Dockers, the Longshoremen of Australia, of Chile, and all the other workers of the world with whom you stand in solidarity.

I thank you for your heroic stop-work actions in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Black labor journalist falsely accused of killing a police officer. I thank you for honoring the US Labor Against The War picket line against SSA on the Docks of Oakland in both 2003 and 2007.

I am offended by the arrogance, the chauvinism, and the sneering spitefulness that has been shown towards you by the Pacific Maritime Association and its member companies. If these employers had any sense of honor, they would be proud to cooperate with you on May 1st, and would eagerly join in your struggle to oppose this horrific war. My sympathy goes out to any workers who must negotiate the terms of their work against such cold and heartless war profiteers as the ones you bravely face in every contract negotiation. Their willful intransigence in the face of your principles should be enough to convince every honest elected official that your employers are bitter opponent of the people, and threats to the public good.

I will stand with you on May 1st in San Francisco and Oakland, and I encourage people everywhere to take up your call to resist the war. I will be with you on the picket line. I pledge to do whatever I can to aid and assist you in your noble effort, both on May 1st and in the days and weeks that follow.

An injury to one is an injury to all, and an injury to Longshoremen is an injury to me.

In Solidarity,

Cindy Sheehan
(cindy@cindyforcongress.org)

May Day protest
WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near Fisherman's Wharf).
WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.ilwu.org/ and www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

Also see:

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/nobloodforoil/thread/f02f3fd2-9632-403e-8829-e3817def77c0

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posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

steveargue2 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:55:36 GMT

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

The Democrats and Republicans are the paid agents of the oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on global warming (the single biggest threat to the future of humanity and a healthy planet).

The Cool Earth Party is being established on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism. We call for an end to the dictatorial power of the wealthy through the nationalization of major industries and for the establishment of a planned economy run to meet human and environmental needs. This socialist society must be established within the framework of full democratic freedoms and multi-party proportional democracy. To be truly Democratic all parties running in elections will be legally guaranteed equal time in the media, big campaign spending will be outlawed, and electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections) will be eliminated.

Upon taking power the Cool Earth Party will establish a system of socialized medicine for the United States, end all U.S. military occupations of other countries, end U.S. military aid to repressive governments, and nationalize the auto and energy industries to carry out immediate emergency measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

End the war

Mitch — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:31:21 GMT

If you want the war ended, go over and do it yourself you pansy liberal cocksmokes. Do something, dont be armchair activists. Re-up and go over.

Seriously, if you want the war to end, what are you doing about it, or are you going to hope and pray Hillary does? What are you really doing to that ends?

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 1 reply

Assata Shakur: Letter From Exile on Her 60th Birthday

steveargue2 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:06:52 GMT

Assata Shakur: Letter From Exile on Her 60th Birthday

First of all, let me say thank you, to the many people who have helped me to celebrate my 60th birthday. Thank you for your beautiful birthday cards and for your warm and eloquent messages. Thank you for your activism, your radiant energy and most of all for your love. I am sincerely grateful for your support and for your commitment to social justice, truth and freedom.

It is somehow surprising for me to realize that I have lived on this planet for 60 years. I never imagined that I would live this long. Some of those years were very hard years, other years were happier, but I have never forgotten who I am or where I came from. For as long as I can remember, I was acutely aware of my oppression and of the oppression of my people. In some ways it was easier for my generation. Racism was blatant and obvious. The "Whites Only" signs let us know clearly, what we were up against. Not much has changed, but the system of lies and tricknology is much more sophisticated. Today young people have to be highly informed and acutely analytical, or they will be swept up into a whirlpool of lies and deception.

Freedom, justice and liberty are words that are thrown around a lot in
the United States, but for most of us, it is empty rhetoric. With each
and every passing day the country becomes more repressive, the police
more viciously aggressive and the so-called constitutional guarantees
obliterated by scare tactics. The so-called 'Conservatives' are only
interested in conserving their privileges and power and helping their
rich friends to become richer. Black 'Conservatives' serve their
"masters" and are basically interested in grinning, shuffling and
'Uncle Tomming' all the way to the bank. This is the most corrupt
administration that has ever existed. They have blatantly stolen not
millions, but billions of dollars. They are actively seeking to
preserve the old colonial order with a new face, where the oppressed
people of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are expected
to suffer happily, and sing praises to imperialism to the tune of the
star spangled banner.

It is extreme arrogance to attack and occupy a country and expect its
people to rejoice and lick your feet. Not even Roman Emperors were
involved in such misguided conceit. The U.S. government has no right
whatsoever, to force its undemocratic "democracy" on the rest of the
world. I am 60 years old and I cannot remember a time when my people
ever experienced true democracy. It is still the active policy of the
U.S. government to use a wide variety of tactics to prevent poor
people and people of color from voting. And when we do get to vote,
our votes usually do not count. For the most part, there are no decent
candidates to vote for, because the U.S, government is a
"dollarocracy" where candidates have to beg and pander to the
corporate rich in order to be elected.

I am 60 years old, and I have never in my life seen such widespread
violence and cruelty. The U.S. government has more people in prison
than any other country in the world, and it is now actively involved
in creating prisons all over the world. Abu Gharib is only the tip of
the iceberg. People all over the world are being imprisoned in secret
prisons, with no formal charges being made against them. They are
imprisoned under the most inhumane conditions, and detained for
indeterminate periods of time, with no rights, no trials, and no
justice whatsoever. In short, the leaders of this country are war
criminals. All the U.S. government has to do is call them terrorists
or extremists, enemy combatants or whatever and they can do anything
they want to these people. I live in Cuba, and the Cuban people watch
horrified, as the U.S. Army illegally occupies their land in
Guantanamo and commits unspeakable acts of torture on their soil, in
the name of "freedom." The U.S. government not only destroys the lives
of people around the world, many mothers have cried because many of
our young people have had their lives destroyed as well. I believe
that this earth was meant for tenderness and not terror. The
imperialist countries not only implement terrorist policies in the
Third World, their actions also provoke terrorist activities and
internal disputes between people. I believe that when Western
governments learn to respect the sovereignty of Third world
governments, and to offer solidarity and support rather that
imperialist policies and exploitation, most of the world's problems
will be close to being solved.

Inside the belly of the beast, conditions are also disastrous. Most of
the victims of Katrina are still waiting for decent housing and public
services. Schools and hospitals around the country are either
deteriorating or closing down. Around the country social programs to
help poor and working people are mostly a thing of the past. Our young
people are being marginalized, criminalized and brutalized. It is
often an act of courage to go to school, or simply drive down the
street. The U.S. government's occupation of Afghanistan has produced a
record increase of heroin production, and the "war on drugs" continues
to be a war on poor people and people of color. The police brutality
in our communities is not a simple matter of randomly "bad" cops. This
government is more repressive than ever and more and more of a police
state. When you have a trigger happy president, a trigger happy
vice-president, a trigger happy office of homeland security, you are
bound to have an increase of trigger happy police and many of our
young people are bound to end up dead or imprisoned. The social
policies of the United States have deteriorated from so-called benign
neglect to malignant hostility or indifference.

The role the press and the media have played in all this has been
increasingly malignant. There is no such thing as a free press in the
United States. Journalists receive big salaries for telling "official"
lies. The media both knowingly and naively became the vehicle for
misinforming the people of the United States and convincing the people
that it was "necessary" to go to war. Their "reporting" was based on
outright lies. Now they "embedded" in the military, continuing to
misinform the people, and distort the truth.

I am 60 years old and I am proud to be one of those people who stood
up against the ruthless, evil, imperialist policies of the U.S.
government. In my lifetime I have opposed the war against the
Vietnamese people, the illegal contras – war in Nicaragua, the illegal
coup in Chile, the invasion of Haiti and of Grenada, and every other
illegal, immoral and genocidal war the U.S. government has ever waged.
I have never been a criminal and I never will be one. I am 60 years
old and in spite of government repression, in spite of the media's
lies and distortions, in spite of the U.S, government's COINTELPRO
Program to criminalize and demonize political opponents, I feel proud
to count myself as someone who believes in peace and believes in
freedom. I am proud to have been a member of the Black Panther Party
although the U.S. government continues try to distort history and
continues to persecute ex-members of the Black Panther Party. Just
recently, the U.S. government has indicted and arrested 8 ex-Black
Panthers in a case that was dismissed 30 years ago. The case was
dismissed some 30 years ago when it became obvious that the most
vicious forms of extreme torture were used to extract false
confessions from some of the so-called defendants.

I am 60 years and it is doubtful that I will ever live to see my
people free of oppression and repression. But I am totally convinced
that our collective dream of freedom will some day be realized. I
sincerely implore young people to develop their minds, to develop
their skills, to expand their states of consciousness, and sharpen
their abilities to analyze reality. Those Africans who conspired with
the European slave trade to sell us into slavery were seduced by
trinkets. I hope and pray that our young people will not continue to
fall into the same traps. I have always loved my people and always
loved our culture. The culture of my people has always been rich and
always been filled with the seeds of resistance. I hope that young
people hold fast to that tradition. I sincerely hope that all young
people will have the courage and the wisdom to hold on tight to their
humanity and their historical mission. Most people in the Americas,
were either indigenous people whose ancestors were victims of
genocide, or brought to this hemisphere as slaves, or came to this
continent seeking freedom. I believe that it is our collective duty to
make freedom a reality. I truly believe that it is possible to end
oppression and repression on this planet. If we all see ourselves as
citizens of this planet, and citizens of the world, it will be easier
for us to save this planet and recognize the human rights of human
beings around the world.

Much love, Much Solidarity,
May we all make freedom a reality,
Assata Shakur
July 2007

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

History — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:23:17 GMT

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies

"Tribe" Backs Anti-Palestinian Racists

steveargue2 — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:56:37 GMT

Message from "Free Palestine End Zionism" moderator:

This is being sent to you because you were a member of my tribe, Free Palestine End Zionism. I would like you to know that I was notified today by a representative of tribe.net that my tribe was "anti-semitic" and that they removed it!

I am sending this so you will know why the tribe does not exist any more and so you will bear witness to the evident censorship and lack of the freedom of speech on tribe.net, plus the fabricated excuse to silence my tribe.

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 3 replies

Business networking and Events

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:59:26 GMT

i would like to invite my Tribe network to join me on www.connectture.com - its a social business network based in Europe with a growing base of users from all over the world. Easy way of keeping track of your Business Network.

Cheers

Sarah

posted in End the Iraq War Now!! - 0 replies