Col. Ann Wright interviewed on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Listen to what she says about the US State Department if they do not help out in case of an attack, abduction or arrest by the IDF:



Col. Wright was seen in a video from 5-31-10 under Israeli guard. At least we know she is uninjured.

Remember them, don't martyr them

by Ross Caputi

Memorial Day is a day for us to remember the men and women who died in military service. It is also a day when most veterans feel especially proud; however, I am a veteran and for me the opposite is true. I feel like we have gotten away from what Memorial Day is supposed to be about, and instead of it being a day to remember the dead and learn something from their death, it has become a day to wave the flag and not question why they died. On Memorial Day I am treated like a hero, even though I have not done anything heroic, and instead of feeling proud or remembering my friends that never made it back, I think about Iraq and the role I played in the battle of Fallujah. Every handshake and thank you that I receive for my service feels tainted with hypocrisy, because I know that most Americans do not understand what they are thanking me for, and I know that this misunderstanding is facilitating the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In November of 2004, 300,000 people living in the city of Fallujah were forced to flee their homes as we came to “liberate” them. I remember seeing families fleeing into the desert as we staged for the attack outside their city, and I remember going house-to-house, in their houses, and seeing the lives that we forced them to leave behind. We went house-to-house for nearly two weeks as we searched for “terrorists”, and in each house there was a trace of the family that had lived there until recently. There was still food in their refrigerators and clothes in their dresser drawers, but we ate their food and we took anything we wanted out of the houses as souvenirs.
Their pictures no longer hung on the walls, because the previous week of bombing had shook them loose and they lay on the ground in broken frames and shattered glass, but I picked them up and looked at them, pictures of families and weddings, and I caught a glimpse of the lives that I had helped ruin. I found a few photo albums lying amongst the broken glass and rubble, and as I flipped through the pages I came to know a few families intimately. Through their photos I watched children grow from infants, to teenagers, to young men and women, and I saw photos of family parties, celebrations, and graduation days.
As the battle continued the situation worsened, and after we started taking casualties everything began to spiral out of control. We became increasingly vindictive for every friend that we lost, and we believed in our alleged reasons for being there that much more. We convinced ourselves that democracy and freedom rested on everything that we were doing, and that our friends lost their lives in the pursuit of a noble end. Our rage became entangled with a moral crusade, and the results were disastrous. We began bulldozing houses, rather than risking our lives by going inside them. We flattened whole neighborhoods like this. In one house there were two resisters and a young boy bunkered inside. We fired so many grenades into that house that the roof caved in on top of them. The boy was about ten years old. We reduced Fallujah to a pile of rubble, and we left the 300,000 that used to live there with practically nothing to return to. To this day, many of us who were there still maintain the illusion that we had somehow done this for them, for their freedom and liberty – which is precisely what we took away from them.
My friends Travis and Brad were shot and killed in Fallujah. Their deaths were not necessary, nor were they for a noble cause. They died for the sins of our government, like so many Iraqis have, and the worst thing that we could do for their memory is to drape a flag on them and enshrine them in heroism. To remember them in this way would turn them into martyrs, and that is not be what Memorial Day should be about. Furthermore, we would be perpetuating a lie that might encourage others to go to war, and then their deaths truly would be for nothing. The truth is that they were good people who died too young, and that we did not make America a safer place or help Iraqis. The truth is that we participated in something terrible, and telling the truth about what we did does not dishonor the memory of the dead.
I feel like a hypocrite on Memorial Day, not because of the way America chooses to remember the men and women who were killed or because of the way America chooses to forget the pain and suffering that we have caused abroad, but because many veterans including myself have allowed this to happen. By choosing to accept praise rather than talking about the suffering we have caused, we are endangering the next generation of service men and women, because we have not given them a realistic portrayal of what they are getting involved in. I feel like a hypocrite because on past Memorial Days I have not lived up to my responsibilities as a veteran, and I have not done enough to make sure other Americans do not meet the same end as my friends Travis and Brad did.

The above came from War Crimes Times.

The enemy is at home speech

24 dead in international waters, bringing aid to Gaza

Al Jazeera's report on board the Mavi Marmara before communications were cut
CORRECTION: reports say 16 to 20 were killed

In honor of the Fleet of Freedom going to Gaza today

Obama answers Helen Thomas on Afghanistan

Helen asks a direct question - when are we going to get out of Afghanistan - and gets the run around from President Obama.

"Bread and roses, bread and roses"

This brings back memories of singing this song with my friend Els. I knew her when I lived in Canada, and she passed on to that unknown shore in 1995. She was a great dancer, a great seamstress, and a very good person. And yes, the women of this world need bread (education, jobs) as wall as roses (art, beauty, dance).

My Name is Baghdad

Quote from MLK

"The difference between social service and social justice" is that social service "works to alleviate hardship" while social justice "aims to eradicate the root causes of that hardship." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Afghan youths ask 'why not love?'

Statement from an Iraqi journalist

I Heard the First Ring of My Death
 

By Sardasht (Saro) Osman
translated in to Endlish: Kirmanj Ahmed

In the last few days they told me: you don’t have much longer to live, or as they told me “you are no longer allowed to breathe in this city”. I don’t fear death or pain. I am waiting for the end of the allotted time to meet my killers. I pray that they will give me a tragic death the same as my tragic life. The reason I write this is so everyone knows the youth in this country are Homo Sacer* and that death is the simplest choice they have. I want them to know that what scares us is the continuation of this condition for future generations, not our death. My duty is to fulfill satisfaction for my little brothers, not my self.

What bothers me about these threats is that there so many issues to discuss and it can’t be left like that. It is unfortunate that this State is apathetic towards the death of its people.

Yesterday, I informed the Dean of our college that last night they threatened to kill me. He told me this was a case for the police. I don’t know if there is another country where a college student gets a death threat and his University takes shameful inaction. The Dean or the University should have sponsored my case as their own, as I am a part of this school. But this did not shock me. I knew for a long time that this country’s universities are not havens of tranquility.

Later, I contacted the head of Police General, Abdul Khaliq, who told me, “This mobile phone number may be from abroad, or it may be a private issue, and it may happen again. But [Erbil] is safe and nothing like that can happen here.”

With a whimsical smile, I thought of the Director’s reply; it may have been Sarkozy who threatened me. How can I be sure my life is safe if only few days ago, a friend of mine was beaten and forced to leave this city because of his writing?

Whatever happens, I will not leave this city and will wait for my death. I know this is the first ring of my death knell and is ultimately a ring for all the youth in this country. This time, I will not press any charges nor will I inform the authorities. This a path I choose and I will bear the consequences. From now on, I will think of every word that I write as my last. So I will try to be truthful as Jesus. I am happy that I have something to write about, but there are people who don’t want to listen. Whenever we whisper, their ears become restless. We should talk as long as we are alive. When my life ends, let my friend mark a period, start another sentence and continue where I left off.”

*a citizen status in Roman law where individuals are stripped of the right to life and all civil rights and liberties.

This Iraqi journalist was murdered recently. 

True News

I do not agree with everything this guy says, but the premise of his remarks in the beginning of this video are totally spot on correct.  

The government that jails the innocent, tortures the meek and sells your children does NOT care about your frackin otters! The fascistic reality behind modern corporations.

Mad World

Economic news

May 21, 2010

Bernie Sanders:

“As a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street, this country was plunged into a horrendous recession. While this bill does not go as far as I would like, it is a strong beginning in the effort to reregulate huge financial institutions and to bring transparency to their often nefarious activities. 

“I am especially proud that in this bill there is a major provision I authored which, for the first time, will lift the veil of secrecy at the Federal Reserve and give the American people an understanding of where trillions of their tax dollars went in the Wall Street bailout.

“I am disappointed that we could not garner the necessary votes to lower interest rates on credit cards or to begin the process of breaking up the largest financial institutions in this country which are the cause of so many of our problems. I intend to continue that effort until we succeed.”

The above came from Danny Schechter's blog.

And this from CNN:

Yet there's no reason to believe the reforms will address the casino mentality that has prevailed throughout this decade -- and no reason to expect bankers to stop digging up new ways to trade their way to giant bonuses. Indeed, few expect the derivatives provision to make it into the final bill in its current form.

Risky trading by banks lives on, and how.


And meanwhile:

One in Ten Mortgage Borrowers Will Lose Their Home To The Bank

New Observations is forecasting that a minimum of one in ten homes with a mortgage today will be lost to foreclosure in the next two years and that this loss represents a staggering five-million-unit addition to inventory-for-sale.

A record high 4.63% of mortgages were in foreclosure at the end of March The Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday. Much worse, a mammoth 9.54% of mortgages are 90-days or more past due.

Pete Seeger tells how he wrote "Turn, Turn, Turn"

Bill puts polluters before climate

In light of the growing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) abandoned the idea of introducing their new climate legislation with BP’s CEO at their side.

But the public relations decision to consign BP to the sidelines cannot hide the fact that the senators had crafted a bill that Big Oil — along with King Coal and the nuclear lobby — could endorse.

There is no doubting Kerry and Lieberman’s commitment to addressing climate change. However, while the senators negotiated with the energy industry in an attempt to address inside-the-Beltway political realities, this bill neglects climate realities — which could require a paradigmatic shift in the energy sector, not cutting deals with fossil fuel lobbyists.

The proposed legislation, at this point, looks like it would do more for corporations that pollute than the environment.

The bill has strayed so far that the climate would probably be better without it. Unacceptable levels of global warming pollution would continue if this bill were to pass in anything like its current form.

In addition, the contradictions inherent in this climate deal seem to bolster polluting industries and might make winning majority support in the Senate more difficult, not easier.

And this is surely more likely now, as BP oil gushes into the Gulf.

Ultimately, the problem of deal making with polluters is not just a matter of optics. It has led to policy proposals that undermine the effort to achieve effective pollution reductions.

For example, Kerry-Lieberman establishes a pollution reduction target for 2020 that fails to deliver on what scientists tell us is required to respond to the climate crisis.

Avoiding runaway global warming, these scientists say, requires rapidly reducing pollution in the next five to 10 years. Strong goals for 30 years out will be moot if global warming pollution does not peak by 2015.

Kerry-Lieberman also envisions a continuing dominance of dirty technologies. It even offers subsidies and gifts to coal (for carbon capture and storage), oil (expanded offshore drilling) and nuclear power (expanded taxpayer bailout guarantees for new reactors).

Each of these wastes scarce resources that could be invested in clean energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal power.

Kerry-Lieberman could also significantly undermine the Clean Air Act’s protections against climate pollution, removing the most powerful existing federal tool that can protect citizens from the effects of a destabilized climate.
Kerry-Lieberman relies on pollution trading schemes that could be fodder for Wall Street manipulation — schemes that look certain to undermine rather than advance carbon reduction efforts.

At least initially, the proposed bill gives away pollution allowances rather than auctioning them. As a result, consumers could foot the bill while electric utilities reap potential windfall profits.

The proposed legislation also relies on offset loopholes — often empty promises to “achieve” emissions reductions elsewhere.

These are the sort of promises that have led, in other cases, to international fraud and abuse.
And the proposed bill seems likely to fail to generate enough funding to fulfill Washington’s obligations to help developing countries adapt to global warming.

The absence of international finance, coupled with a weak pollution reduction target, could seriously undermine the likelihood of an international climate treaty anytime soon.

We do not expect that climate legislation can ever be perfect. But, at a minimum, it does need to take us in the right direction.

Any climate bill that moves forward must retain strong consumer protections, reflect the polluter-pays principle and respect existing federal and state tools — which remain overall more promising avenues for reducing global warming pollution.

As we face this grave challenge to the planet, the Gulf oil spill should remind us that we need serious policy changes now.

Averting devastating climate change will come not from an accommodation with the corporate purveyors of the dirty energy past but from embracing the challenge of becoming more efficient — and recalibrating the world economy to rely on clean, renewable energy.

Erich Pica is president of Friends of the Earth. Phil Radford is executive director of Greenpeace. Robert Weissman is president of Public Citizen.

The above article came from Politico.

From NO MORE VICTIMS

Dixie Chicks - Not Ready to Make Nice

Washington DC is totally corrupt

I agree with the man in this video:

The incoming tide

Institute of Marine Mammal Sciences researchers gather data before collecting a dead sea turtle on the beach in Pass Christian, Miss., Sunday, May 2, 2010. At rear are researchers (L-R) Kelly Folkedahl, Justin Main and Meagan Broadway. The researchers were collecting dead turtles and will examine them to determine the cause of death.  (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

This is just the first examples of dead animals that will number in the millions in a few short months.  The Gulf of Mexico will become the Gulf of Death..... all due to human's greed and stupidity.  In this case of these animals, they don't know for sure yet what killed them, and they don't have oil on them.  But soon they will figure it out - the oil and the dispersants for the oil caused them to die from a lack of oxygen.  

Full story here.  

This is unfucking believably sad.  It is horrific.  There are not enough cuss words in the English language to describe this.

Here is a link to the 60 Minutes story on what happened at this oil rig.