Town Hall Meeting

I think this song is apropos to the State of the Union from George Bush last night. Check it out.

http://mikewest.net/clips/Capitol_Hill.mp3

Thanks G for the link!

If you are concerned about all the illegal actions taken by the Bush Administration, and would like to see them held accountable, Congressman John Conyers is there to help. He has a website made for getting organized to investigate the President and to censure Bush and Cheney.

These are his words from the website:

“I have taken steps to begin the inquiry into possible impeachable offenses by the Bush Administration, and have called for censure of the President and the Vice President. Now I am asking for your help to stand with me in fighting for accountability.”

This web site makes it simple to find places in your community that are looking for volunteers. Just enter your zip code and you will get a list of organizations looking for people near you. www.volunteermatch.org.

Organizers in Massachusetts are sending out petitions to get on the November 2006 ballot an initiative to withdraw state national guard from Iraq. Their goal is “to prevent the [Massachusetts] Governor from sending any more National Guard troops to Iraq, and…are actively exploring similar initiatives in other states.” If you live in Massachusetts or know someone who does, go to http://www.homefromiraqnow.org.

What an outstanding turnout today in Los Angeles. The turnout was announced at 50,000 people. That same number was announced in San Francisco, and an amazing 300,000 announced at the main event in Washington, DC! It was invigorating to see such non-violent support for peace and justice. All of my pictures have been posted here. I’ve already seen the national press say things like “thousands of protestors showed up across the country” and “pro-Bush protestors were there as well.” I have given up on the mainstream media long ago: CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN (I don’t even count Fox since they are in a whole other league). I was there, you can see my pictures. Real reporting would include things like “hundreds of thousands protested across America today” and “people are fed up with militarism and occupations.” Thankfully we still have news programs like Democracy Now!.

Apparently our site was hacked and thus shutdown last week. I believe I have cleansed the site of all malicious software, but time will tell. Hopefully I didn’t miss something. We must be on the right track if we scared folks enough to want to hack our site. :)

Remember to march/demonstrate/protest for peace this Saturday, September 24, 2005.

Peace and Love.

September 24, 2005 – mark your calendars! It’s a great opportunity to protest the illegal war on Iraq, the illegal occupation of Haiti, the attempted and failed coup on Venezuela’s president, and any of the other U.S. foreign or domestic policy horrors you can think of. The main protest will be in Washington, D.C. There will also be major ones in at least Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. Go to our demonstrations page for links to more information.

and D students:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4074922.stm

-Thanks G for the post

If you haven’t heard about this model before, read about it here. It is so important to understand that the people who wrote this plan are in charge of the American government right now. After reading that, go to their website www.newamericancentury.org to see the sunshine version. Check out their statement of principles and who signed it at the bottom, such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush.

Whether you read it straight from their website, or anywhere else, PNAC is about global dominance by America through military means. September 11 was an opportunity for the military part of PNAC’s strategy to really be fulfilled. In their definitive 2000 white paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century,” they explain that America’s military spending should be, at a minimum, 3.8% of GDP. By 2004, it was 3.9%, up from 3.0% in 2001 (check my references here and here).

I just watched the documentary called The Persuaders at the PBS website. It exposes the advertising industry for what they are: corporations willing to do anything to get consumers to buy stuff. Advertising is an integral part of political campaigns. Today, politicians are just trying to “out-market” each other. One day, I hope, a politician will come along who wants to be the one with the best policies. As long as advertising rules all, it won’t happen. I have written this quote before from Naomi Klein, “The only thing that can defeat expert marketing is authenticity. Then the marketing candidate will be exposed for all their lies and his campaign will fall apart.”

Advertising is also the main reason for the pathetic news media in America. This great documentary explains all of this with interesting and intelligent analysis. The Persuaders will also help you save money since it will teach you the game of consumerism.

Why won’t the U.S. media ask tough questions? This video really makes you wonder what happened on September 11, 2001 at the Pentagon. It made me realize that I have never heard a detailed review of what actually happened that day at the American military headquarters. Even if this isn’t true, I think its important for us all to go outside the boundaries of mainstream thinking and analyze events independently.

-Thanks Quinn for the link

Isn’t he? In Iraq, he took a desperate war torn country and took all the state owned industries and privatized them. Now they are controlled by foreign companies (Halliburton, Bechtel, et al). Just what the World Bank is good at: taking resources from a nation’s citizens and giving them to corporations on a silver platter. This cover story from The Nation is titled “The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” The idea is to take a country that is desperate, by a natural disaster such as Aceh after the Tsunami or by imperial means such as Iraq or Yugoslavia, and open the nation 100% to foreign business-a clean slate. Maybe the title of the article should be “Unrestrained Capitalism is the Disaster.”

The DVD for the flim The Corporation is now available in the U.S. If you haven’t seen this movie, check it out. It was by far my favorite film of 2004. You can watch a preview here.

U.S. political leaders and their megaphone (also known as the corporate media) are using the Terry Schiavo case to distract Americans from issues that actually affect their lives. If they care about life so much, then how can they let a single Iraqi civilian die from their bombs? And if they believe dying means they get to go be with God, why won’t they let this woman go to heaven when it is obviously her time to go?

Sign MoveOn’s new petition to leaders of Congress to stop using a couple’s tragedy for political gain.

Sign ActForChange’s petition to prevent Congress from slashing the budget for Medicaid, which would genuinely help America’s sick.

I attended one of the protests around the world today, this one in Los Angeles. I was hoping to see 1,000 people come out, on this rainy day. By the time the march through Hollywood started, there were about 10,000 people there. It was a beautiful event, everybody was on the same wavelength-no more war, stopping the ruling elite from killing for their profit, and there is no mistake about the connection of Iraq and Palestine. This protest is just another example that if this many people are willing to march in the rain, how many more are out there that want this vicious, illegal war to end? Of course, if you watch the chicken shit American media tonight, you won’t hear a peep about these protests. 100,000 people protested in London alone today. There were protests all over the world. The people want change, and are showing strong solidarity. The mainstream media is doing everything they can to muzzle us. I have not yet seen (I know, it won’t happen) news coverage from corporate media that actually interviews the protestors or shows footage of some of the speeches. Corporations are against us, but it is very encouraging to see the mass amount of support out there today.

The U.S. government sold us binary choices, and some people are starting to buy it. They told us “You are either with us, or against us.” Aren’t there other choices?

Jill found this article about a liberal that became a neo-conservative because of September 11.

Kathy found this video defining what fascism is (about 2 minutes) and alluding to what the U.S. government has been doing that falls under the definition.

Stan Goff is a Special Forces veteran following in a long tradition of US soldiers who have seen the inside of US capitalism’s violence and rejected its moral and intellectual presuppositions through a comprehensive and active critique (see Smedley Butler for more on this tradition). Goff has produced several books (his latest focus on gender and misogyny in the US culture and the military will appear this year), many articles (read his vision of a new hegemony), and a new blog and focuses his activism on organizing for peace and radical politics within the US military. In his recent article on “Debating a Neocon” , this past master of combat arms exposes the sham of rightist ideology with a flick of the wrist and notes: “it is truly remarkable how easily KO’ed these neocons are once you step outside the tight little ring of the Republicrats. They’ve got maybe three combinations, and they are slow as a cow. Everything inside has been ritual combat, so they do very badly when someone actually intends to hit them.” HIT THIS RIGHTIST SCUM, HARD!!! Advising intelligent and vigorous resistance, “this burned-out commie vet” suggests that we “keep battering away because these people are weaker than they seem, even if they DO have state power. (I’m ready for my IRS audit, sir.) And quit accepting their premises, or you’ll never end up with anything except their conclusions.” Goff, who lived the frontlines of US imperialism, reminds us all that capitalism is inseparable from militarism and violence at the world scale, regardless of the nation-state.

Coming soon….

A place for everyone to speak their mind.