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POPSMassive Anti-War Protest*** March 10, 2010*** Plan to attend or organize your own in solidarity. Individual protests are fine, but when we come together and walk our talk, we force authority to pay attention. If we maintain our focus and momentum, together we can bring OUR government to heel Will there be threats and resistance and backlash from the Military-Industrial Complex Machine? You betcherass there will. So. Be prepared. Make sure your friends and relatives support and watch out for you in case of arrest. People cannot be disappeared when they have support from their community. Are you willing, but don't have the bucks? Get your friends and neighbors to chip in and send you as their representative. Solidarity, remember? Maybe your community can send a group to represent them, as an investment in taking back our voice in the government. It's time, people!
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POPS US Refuses To Allow Monitoring Of WMD “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” – Martin Luther King in his speech: Beyond Vietnam: A time to break silence
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POPSA Suggested Survival List This is a good read..if you have not thought along these lines it is high time..no...really! You don't have to be a conspiracy nut to do what is smart..one never knows when there will be a natural disaster or man made for that matter. So read and take care of your family!~
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POPSThe Bunch of "Fat-Cats"- A Big Fat F, "Me"- A Good Solid B+ "They're still puzzled why is it that people are mad at the banks. Well, let's see," he said. "You guys are drawing down $10, $20 million bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it's gone through in -- in decades, and you guys caused the problem. And we've got 10% unemployment." Relations between the banking industry and the White House were frosty from the start and have deteriorated in recent weeks, with large banks lobbying against portions of legislation that would toughen financial-market regulations and administration officials angered by some banks' continued payment of high bonuses and their reluctance to lend. Mr. Obama is scheduled on Monday morning to meet with bankers to exchange ideas on ways to increase lending; to review the financial-industry regulatory bill moving through Congress; and to discuss bankers' compensation, the White House and industry representatives said.
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POPS 30,000 The president seemed in sticker shock, watching his domestic agenda vanishing in front of him. “This is a 10-year, trillion-dollar effort and does not match up with our interests,” he said . Looking around, I haven’t found any reports that say McChrystal was looking for a 10-year, 100,000-plus total troop commitment. I recall he said he needed two years to make a decisive impact, in the counterinsurgency campaign and building up the Afghan military, and that the war could be won or lost in that time. So where’s the explanation of how we get from a 40,000-troop escalation to a 30,000-troop surge, from “10 years” to 18 months? (If the OMB meant that just 2 years at 40,000 on top of the rest of the effort drives the overall cost to $1 trillion, then cutting out six months and 10,000 doesn’t change that substantially.) “If people are having trouble swallowing 40, let’s see if we can make this smaller and easier to swallow and still give the commander what he needs, "
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POPSThe Obama Escalation, Too Sad To Watch.
When I saw President Obama give his speech last night on why he is sending more to die in this Godforsaken Bush/Cheney war in Afghanistan. I felt like I was Yogi Berrer uttering, "This is like deja vu all over again."... But this time is wasn’t War Monger Dubya speaking, it was the "Change You Can Believe In” and the, “Every time I speak about my hope for America, the cynics in Washington roll their eyes.”, Barack Obama. The man who once asked before his election, “I ask you to believe-not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington. I'm asking you to believe in yours.” ... YEAH RIGHT Mr. President, and may I ask… “WHAT HAPPENED TO DIPLOMACY TO END THIS WAR? I now realize that was never really in the cards was it?” I believe, Our President wants us to brace ourselves for this war in Afghanistan becoming another Vietnam! thinkingblue “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” - Jeannette Rankin Also - http://www.thethinkingblue.com/escalate.html
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POPSThe Scandal of Hunger in America
Tax dollars are wrongly spent on all level of government. For example, in Los Angeles, the lion share of the city budget is spent on the police department. State wide the amount of money spent on the prison system is astronomical. Instead of hiring more cops and incarcerating more people, it would be a wise and durable investment to invest in good and free public education. Federally, the waste of our tax dollars and resources is just as absurd. President Obama will try to justify his escalation of the war in Afghanistan. By sending more troops to Afghanistan, the astronomical defense budget will keep going up and is likely to reach 700 billion in 2010. 1 billion people suffer from chronic hunger. It is Thanksgiving, and while the executives of Goldman Sachs, which are getting ready to pay themselves 21 billion in bonuses, have too much to be thankful for, the 49 million Americans going hungry every day should be resentful of a system that has let them down.
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POPSObama Stands Up to the Military Despite recent months of Pentagon "leaks," and lobbying the White House is not rolling over to military demands. This action is almost unprecedented, taking great courage and political determination. Our military is suppose to be controlled and led by civilian, political leaders; not by generals. If Obama didn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize award before (and he did); he certainly deserves it now.
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POPSObama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace
At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon's "Long War": "A War without Borders" in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might. Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons. Since the very outset of the Obama presidency, this global military project has become increasin
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POPS500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan Congress should immediately convene hearings to discuss alternatives to General McChrystal's proposal for such a massive escalation of the war in Afghanistan. It is time for the administration and Congress to demilitarize U.S. policy in Afghanistan and strike out in a new, sustainable, direction.
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POPSThe Neoconservative Resurgency With Obama--Neoconservativism 2.0 Well documented article worth reading entirely. Then there is this article too : That must be the meaning of change. The goal was not to restore the rule of law and constitutional legitimacy, but to transcend the Bush administration's cowboy unilateralism and tactfully reassert a neo-conservative normalcy in America's foreign policy. And this more recent article: ‘No change from Bush to Obama', say Neocons and Liberals 16 Sep 2009 American foreign policy under Barack Obama has not changed course after the Bush years, according to a group of prominent commentators from both sides of the political divide. (except for the breaking missile shield policy)...from a UK media source. Yet the U.S. Media are absolutely silent.
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POPSIran Insists on Nuclear Rights
Last week Iran told the UN's IAEA that it has a nuclear enrichment plant under construction (with no nuclear material in it and over a year away from being operational). That's the fact. Iran telling this info was all properly done in accord with the IAEA, the NPT, and the U.N. terms it has signed onto. Note: Some nations, like Israel and India, have nukes but haven't signed these agreements...so just signing onto these agreements is the first step in "trying to do the right thing." But major Western powers and Israel have jumped all over this -- go to war with Iran are now once again the raging headlines -- just like misleading nations into the War in Iraq based on unfounded speculation now the drums of war call for a War in Iran based on unfounded speculation - fabrication - distortions - manipulation. Ah...for the good old days...when we went to war because something actually happen. (Or, at least, it was presented that way) -- tsk, tsk.) More Dying for Lies on th
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POPSThose Who Ignore History... History didn't listen to us," said Tabeyev, who's now 81. "All our efforts to restore peace in the country . . . this was a flop in the end." The fundamental problem in Afghanistan is that it isn't a country in the way the West thinks of countries, said retired Lt. Gen. Ruslan Aushev, who did two tours there and left as a regimental commander. "There has never been any real centralized state in Afghanistan. There is no such nation as Afghanistan," said Aushev, who's a former president of the Russian Caucasus republic of Ingushetia and now heads a veterans group in Moscow. "There are (ethnic groups of) Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Tajiks, and they all have different tribal policies." As a result, any occupation force will spend much of its time propping up a government that has little relevance outside Kabul and trying to corral disparate ethnic groups and tribes into a national army that's often unwilling to fight, Aushev said.
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POPSDemocrats Never Meant What They Said About Afghanistan
even when the president has declared: Al Qaeda and its allies " the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks " are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban " or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged " that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can. That's not the last president; that's the current president, an entire six months ago. Notice this only applies to the use of military force and violence overseas; as we've seen, these same folks have a very different reaction when they hear about a town-hall protester having his finger bitten off. The base of the Democratic party is fundamentally pacifist and isolationist and has extraordinary, although not complete, leverage over this White House.
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POPSWH Response to More Troop Request This incomplete and unconfirmed story, aka "leak," hints that the President may not go along with the Pentagon request for more troops in Afghanistan. Although, that's still just a "leak," right now and there has been no official request for more troops. It seems we're once again in a "battle of the leaks," -- people sending out anonymous ideas and checking out the responses. The rabid right-wing will make up lies and jump on everything to smear Obama...and there are some landmine issues that could cripple any president: 1. Backing down to the Russians....a big American no-no...and that's now claimed, plus: 2. Not supporting troops/war -- 3. Not offering special deals and blind, uncritical support for Israel. Yet, the President appears to be keeping his head straight, despite the rabid right -- defeating Al-Qaeda makes sense, at least. Nation building and long term in Afghanistan....where did that idea come from? Or War in Iraq? -- build on lies. War in Iran?
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POPSHey America, WARS ARE STILL GOING ON! A comment on a clip stated: “preventable deaths…how about Heart, lung disease, cancer, etc.?” Not sure what the clipper was getting at, citing these ills; calling them preventable? Anyway, it occurred to me… what about WAR; shouldn't that be at the top of this woeful list? The Bush admin, wanted WAR so badly, they started TWO! Of course, they could, 9/11, HAPPENED! (I’m still not convinced the attack occurred without a WINK & NOD.) Now 8 yrs later and still young people die because of that infamous day. We can’t blame Bush any longer, so who should bear the brunt of accountability for the bloodletting? Obama won the election, partly due to his stance against war and now he’s ratcheting up troop levels assuring its longevity? If he continues to act like Bush when it comes to WAR; He has not only misled us, he FUCKED us royally! And although I’m charmed by his eloquence, it can’t last… We, who despise war, won’t look the other way while he sends so many to die…& OVER WHAT?
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POPSA new Vietnam quagmire? Today, Washington’s hallucinations rival those during the Bay of Pigs fiasco—when U.S.-backed Cuban exiles were allowed to fend for themselves on the beach during their failed invasion, because President John F. Kennedy denied them the use of their own and U.S. air cover in order to keep U.S. involvement a secret. No matter that everyone in the hemisphere already knew the U.S. was training the invasion force in Central America, because the New York Times had done several stories on it. Not only is the U.S. occupation force in Afghanistan incensing Afghans, it is fueling the resurgence of the Taliban there and aggravating the rise of Islamist militancy in nuclear-armed Pakistan. In both cases, the perceived meddling of “infidels” on Muslim soil is stoking resistance.
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POPSVictory at the Cost of Sanity in Obama’s Forever War The tired old mentality of the U.S. military, actually any military, is “There is no alternative to victory.” What is considered victory, the complete subjugation of the enemy? What would be considered a victory for the U.S. in Afghanistan? If we think we are going to eradicate terrorism and hatred towards the U.S. then we are sadly mistaken. Victory comes in many different forms. At this point in time I would consider it a victory to get our troops home without any further loss of life, our troops as well as civilians at the hands of America’s war machine, accidental though they may be. It really doesn’t matter who rules Afghanistan or Iraq after we leave, assuming there are plans to ever leave. We need to get back home and divert some of the obscene amount of money being thrown at the pentagon and put it towards domestic purposes, like schools and healthcare. We can defend our borders just fine from within our borders.
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