Not My President's topics - tribe.net

Kucinich's July 4th message

2008-07-05T21:02:21Z

Kucinich's July 4th message

Friday July 4, 2008

"Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has been at the forefront of the attempt to push for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and last month presented 35 articles of impeachment to Congress.

Now Kucinich has released an Independence Day message which invokes the words of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to urge support for impeachment and the restoration of the rule of law.

"Some Democratic leaders say impeachment's off the table," Kucinich begins. "So let's set a new table for our nation, upon which we place the Constitution, and where we demand that all those who've taken an oath to defend it keep their promise and protect our nation from the threat within. Please go to kucinich.us now and sign the petition which calls for impeachment. This is the one petition that will make a difference because I will be personally delivering it to your member of Congress."

"Two hundred thirty two years ago, our nation was 'conceived in liberty,' continues Kucinich, quoting Lincoln's famous phrase. "We have once again reached a moment of truth, one that Lincoln recognized at Gettysburg, as to 'whether this nation, or any nation so conceived or so dedicated, can long endure.'"

"Through the ashes of the Civil War," he goes on, "Lincoln prayed 'that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.' This 4th of July 2008, we face a different kind of war, one which is trying our souls, a war based on lies."

"With the power of truth, the power of the people," Kucinich concludes, "we can achieve a new birth of freedom." As the strains of "America the Beautiful" swell in the background, he urges, "Be the answer to Lincoln's prayer. Please pledge your support now for restoring the rule of law in America. As we once again celebrate Independence Day, let us celebrate freedom from fear and pledge that this government of the people will survive in this land that we love."

Meanwhile, President Bush delivered a July 4th address before a naturalization ceremony for new citizens at Thomas Jefferson's home of Monticello that was repeatedly interrupted by protesters. According to news accounts, "shouts from protesters were heard during Bush's remarks," while a transcript notes repeated occurrences all through the speech of "Audience disturbance," "Audience interruption," and "Audience interruption continues."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Kucinich_calls_for_new_birth_of_0704.html

posted in Not My President - 2 replies

Bush Gets Approval to Bury Detainees Alive

2008-07-04T15:16:43Z

Yoo Won't Answer Whether President Can Bury Detainees Alive

On June 26, the authors of the Bush administration's torture policies, David Addington and John Yoo, testified before the House Judiciary Committee. When Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) asked Yoo whether the president could bury a detainee alive, Yoo stonewalled and ultimately refused to answer the question. He also refused to say if there was any torture tactic the president was prohibited from using.

Go here to watch the CSPAN clip (1): http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/26/yoo-burry-alive/

Lee's note:
The context of this is that Chairman Conyers was questioning Yoo whether he would rule out anything as off limits in interrogating a suspect, and Yoo wouldn't answer. I think Conyers initially asked this question as an extreme example Yoo could easily say no to, but Yoo surprised him.

posted in Not My President - 3 replies

Obama Support For 'Faith-Based' Program Is Disappointing, Says Americans United

2008-07-04T06:02:56Z

Obama Support For 'Faith-Based' Program Is Disappointing, Says Americans United

But Watchdog Group Says Candidate’s Opposition To Religious Discrimination In Hiring And Publicly Funded Proselytism Are Steps In Right Direction

"Rather than try to correct the defects of the Bush “faith-based” initiative, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would do better to shut it down, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Obama today announced a proposal to expand faith-based funding during a speech in Zanesville, Ohio.

“I am disappointed,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “This initiative has been a failure on all counts, and it ought to be shut down, not expanded.”

However, Lynn said he was pleased to hear Obama express support for church-state separation and say that he would bar government-funded proselytism and religious discrimination in hiring when tax dollars are involved.

“It is imperative that public funds not pay for proselytizing or subsidize discrimination in hiring,” said Lynn. “Obama has promised that he will not support publicly funded proselytism or discrimination in hiring, and that’s an important commitment.”

The Bush administration has repeatedly insisted that religious charities can discriminate on religious grounds in hiring staff when running publicly funded programs.

Lynn said he is concerned that the Obama plan apparently would allow direct tax funding of houses of worship to run social service programs. That, said Lynn, raises serious issues of entanglement between religion and government.

Americans United has led opposition to the Bush faith-based initiative since it was unveiled in 2001."

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=9927&JServSessionIdr009=oibugz9xz3.app13a

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posted in Not My President - 2 replies

Iran redux

2008-06-26T23:07:45Z

ZNet ZNet

United States and Israel against Iran

Flashpoints Interview

June, 26 2008

By Gareth Porter
and Dennis Bernstein

Source: Flashpoints

Gareth Porter's ZSpace Page
Join ZSpace

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 Not My President - 0 replies

Message From Iraqi Resistance

2008-06-26T21:08:39Z

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 Not My President - 0 replies

Michelle Obama on The View

2008-06-24T04:00:26Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59twO1fJwtQ

I think it would be best if Michelle were President then we wouldnt all have to hate the Prez. She's cool. I like her. : )

Actually Whoopi could be Prez too. Tha would be awesome!!! lol

posted in Not My President - 1 reply

Shouldnt this tribe me for Mccain now?

2008-06-23T20:01:17Z

I think its time to have this be the not my president tribe of Mcbush. Thoughts?

posted in Not My President - 5 replies

Mission Accomplished!

2008-06-19T22:21:46Z

Western oil giants planning their return to Iraq

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

The New York Times

BAGHDAD — As oil prices soar, four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein consolidated his power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Co. that was tossed out of the country by Saddam — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil-company officials and a U.S. diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced June 30, lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the U.S. invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract.

The Bush administration has said the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq's Oil Ministry.

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record-high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.

Modern technology

For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world's dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.

While enriched by escalating prices, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world's oil patch becomes off-limits.

Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.

The Iraqi government's stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both.

The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenue it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency.

For the U.S. government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign-policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stopgap measure to bring modern skills into the fields.

It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.

A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. "We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization," said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. "The contents of the proposal are confidential."

Promise of a bigger prize

While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies.

"The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields," said Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. The current contracts, she said, are a "foothold" in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.

At today's oil prices, there is no shortage of companies coveting a contract in Iraq, despite the poor state of the country's facilities and continued instability. It is not only one of the few countries where oil reserves are up for grabs, but also one of the few that is viewed within the industry as having considerable potential to rapidly increase production.

David Fyfe, a Middle East analyst at the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group that monitors oil production for the developed countries, said he believes Iraq's output could increase from its current 2.5 million barrels a day to about 3 million, though it would probably take longer than the six months the Oil Ministry estimated.

Fyfe's organization estimated that repair work on existing fields could bring Iraq's output up to roughly 4 million barrels per day within several years. After new fields are tapped, Iraq is expected to reach a plateau of about 6 million barrels per day, Fyfe said, which could suppress current world oil prices.

The companies will be paid for their work, rather than offered a license to the oil deposits. As such, they do not require the passage of an oil law setting out terms for competitive bidding. The legislation has been stalled by disputes among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties over revenue sharing and other conditions.

The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry.

They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today's prices: The ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.

"These are not actually service contracts," Benali said. "They were designed to circumvent the legislative stalemate" and bring Western companies with experience managing large projects into Iraq before the passage of the oil law.

These are not the first foreign oil contracts in Iraq, all of which have proven contentious.

The Kurdistan regional government, which in many respects functions as an independent entity in northern Iraq, has concluded a number of deals. Hunt Oil Co. of Dallas signed a production-sharing agreement with the regional government last fall, though its legality is questioned by the central Iraqi government. The technical support agreements, however, are the first commercial work by the major oil companies in Iraq.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

So there ya go, finally Bush can say the truth ~ Mission Accomplished ~

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

McKinney's Call to Action on Impeachment Against Bush

2008-06-17T06:49:01Z

Cynthia McKinney's Call to Action in Support of Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment Against Bush

(statement also posted on http://www.runcynthiarun.org, the website of Cynthia McKinney's Power to the People presidential campaign)

With great satisfaction I learned of the courageous action taken by Congressman Dennis Kucinich on Monday, June 9th. On that day, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, he rose to introduce House Resolution 1258, containing 35 Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush. The litany of documented High Crimes and constitutional abuses by the Bush administration took over five hours to recite.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank and commend Rep. Kucinich for his courage and tenacity, for the comprehensiveness of his research, and for the leadership he exhibited to press forward the democratic demands of the People for accountability and justice.

Under House Rule 9, which Rep. Kucinich invoked in introducing H.Res. 1258 -- "a question of the privileges of the House" -- the full House of Representatives was compelled within 48 hours to bring the matter to a vote. Consequently, two days later, on Wednesday, June 11th, our Congressional Representatives voted overwhelmingly (by a 251-166 margin) to refer the matter to the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Congressman John Conyers. Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment effectively lay out the case against a lawless, degenerate regime that places corporate power and profits above the good and welfare of the U.S. Citizenry. In great detail they show that Bush & Co.:

- manufactured a fraudulent case for the Iraq war, lying to Congress and the American People;

- invaded Iraq illegally for the purpose of occupying a sovereign nation indefinitely and expropriating its public oil reserves and other natural resources for their billionaire cronies of corporate America;

- negligently failed to provide protective gear to our troops;

- outsourced the functions of the U.S. military and created a no-bid, private-contractor mercenary force which killed Iraqis with impunity and looted the treasuries of both the Iraqi and U.S. governments;

- tore up the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other binding international treaties to which the U.S. is signatory;

- retaliated against government whistleblowers attempting to shine a light on corruption, malfeasance and unconstitutional abuse of power;

- began illegal detentions without trial or access to counsel of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals alike;

- countenanced kidnapping and torture;

- created secret laws;

- unconstitutionally spied on American citizens without a court order; and the list goes on and on.

Each fact exhibited in Rep. Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment is true beyond dispute, and each by itself is sufficient to demonstrate the need to remove this criminal President and his gang of thugs from the Executive Branch -- not least of all because most if not all of the crimes are still ongoing.

But, as a Black woman from the South familiar with the struggle against discrimination and racism, I am moved most profoundly, in particular, by three of the Articles of Impeachment that I think serve to point out the real sickness of this regime -- the fact that for Blacks, for Latinos, for Native Americans, for all peoples of color, and for much of the white working class, democracy has never really existed in the United States, and that today the limited gains in the direction of "a more perfect Union" that were won in struggle two generations ago are now being reversed through the deliberate, illegal policies of the gang that has taken over the government.
I'm referring to:

- Article 28 -- Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice;

- Article 29 -- Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and

- Article 31 -- Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency.
Therefore, I am hereby putting out an urgent call to all the progressive forces throughout this country -- including first and foremost the democratic forces of the Black community, together with my supporters in the Green Party, organizers of the Reconstruction Party, and most especially Katrina survivors -- to mobilize specifically around these three Articles.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, one thing we have learned through Barack Obama's success in capturing the Democratic Party nomination -- when everyone knows Hillary Clinton had been anointed by the Democratic Party apparatus -- is that the People, when they mobilize at the grassroots, can "flip the script" on the Power Structure.

This past Monday, backed up by the sustained pressure of a persistent mass movement for impeachment, Dennis Kucinich succeeded in "flipping the script" on the House Democratic leadership, and now the Articles of Impeachment are before the Judiciary Committee -- precisely the result that the impeachment movement has been fighting for over the last five years!

Today we find that the ball is back in our court. It's up to the People now to "flip the script" once again. A massive grassroots movement of the People must coalesce very quickly, which can move Chairman Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on H.Res. 1258.

I call upon all the forces of the Black movement nationwide -- whether they currently support my presidential bid or the candidacy of Senator Obama, along with all my Green and Reconstructionist supporters, Katrina survivors and their supporters, the election protection movement, and all progressive forces -- to organize a mass mobilization to push the House Judiciary Committee to move on the 35 Articles of Impeachment, with an explicit emphasis on the Black demands for fairness, equality and justice as laid out in Articles 28, 29 and 31.

I propose that all these social movements immediately combine in their local Congressional districts to organize street demonstrations, send delegations to their Congress members, and take any and all other steps necessary, including the formation of ad-hoc action committees, to publicize Articles 28, 29 and 31 and convince their representatives to co-sponsor H.Res. 1258. Time is of the essence, brothers and sisters; it's necessary that we all swing into motion now.

Such efforts must especially focus on our Black members of Congress. Most important, activists in districts represented by the Black members of the House Judiciary Committee must most energetically target their representatives: Chairman John Conyers of Detroit; Bobby Scott of Richmond, Virginia; Mel Watt of Western North Carolina; Sheila Jackson-Lee of Houston; Maxine Waters of Los Angeles; my own distinguished successor in office, Hank Johnson of Atlanta; Luis Gutiérrez of Chicago; Artur Davis of Black-Belt Alabama; and Keith Ellison of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

In the coming days and weeks, I will be announcing some concrete steps I intend to take to assist in the development of the mass movement it will take to ensure that accountability and justice are imposed upon the lawless Bush gang. Immediately, I am instructing my campaign staff to assist by setting up internet resources through my campaign website, RunCynthiaRun.org, that will be useful to local activists in conducting their organizing.

We have seen in this very election cycle how the mobilized masses, with Black America as their indispensable animating force, can "flip the script" on the Powers That Be. The time is now for us to do it again.

Keep the faith, my beautiful, powerful People!

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?

2008-06-16T03:11:24Z

Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?

By EDWARD J. MARKEY
June 10, 2008

Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?

If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right.

Last month, while the American people were becoming the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S. to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions.

Saudi Arabia has poured money into developing its vast reserves of natural gas for domestic electricity production. It continues to invest in a national gas transportation pipeline and stepped-up exploration, building a solid foundation for domestic energy production that could meet its electricity needs for many decades. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, would require enormous investments in new infrastructure by a country with zero expertise in this complex technology.

Have Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush or Saudi leaders looked skyward? The Saudi desert is under almost constant sunshine. If Mr. Bush wanted to help his friends in Riyadh diversify their energy portfolio, he should have offered solar panels, not nuclear plants.

Saudi Arabia's interest in nuclear technology can only be explained by the dangerous politics of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, a champion and kingpin of the Sunni Arab world, is deeply threatened by the rise of Shiite-ruled Iran.

The two countries watch each other warily over the waters of the Persian Gulf, buying arms and waging war by proxy in Lebanon and Iraq. An Iranian nuclear weapon would radically alter the region's balance of power, and could prove to be the match that lights the tinderbox. By signing this agreement with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is warning Iran that two can play the nuclear game.

In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." Mr. Cheney got it right about Iran. But a potential Saudi nuclear program is just as suspicious. For a country with so much oil, gas and solar potential, importing expensive and dangerous nuclear power makes no economic sense.

The Bush administration argues that Saudi Arabia can not be compared to Iran, because Riyadh said it won't develop uranium enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing, the two most dangerous nuclear technologies. At a recent hearing before my Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman shrugged off concerns about potential Saudi misuse of nuclear assistance for a weapons program, saying simply: "I presume that the president has a good deal of confidence in the King and in the leadership of Saudi Arabia."

That's not good enough. We would do well to remember that it was the U.S. who provided the original nuclear assistance to Iran under the Atoms for Peace program, before Iran's monarch was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such an uprising in Saudi Arabia today could be at least as damaging to U.S. security.

We've long known that America's addiction to oil pays for the spread of extremism. If this Bush nuclear deal moves forward, Saudi Arabia's petrodollars could flow to the dangerous expansion of nuclear technologies in the most volatile region of the world.

While the scorching Saudi Arabian sun heats sand dunes instead of powering photovoltaic panels, millions of Americans will fork over $4 a gallon without realizing that their gas tank is fueling a nascent nuclear arms race.

Rep. Markey (D., Mass.) is chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121305642257659301.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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posted in Not My President - 1 reply

Bush's Paris visit met by protests

2008-06-15T21:07:32Z

From www.presstv.ir (Tehran) Text edited]

Bush's Paris visit met by protests Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:40:23

Sarkozy's warm reception of Bush is condemned by thousands of Parisians.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy supports President Bush's message of a rebound in US-European relations, despite wide scale protests.

US-European relations have been rocky since the US-led invasion of Iraq, but even before he was elected last year, Sarkozy has been
working to mend relations with the US.

Bush arrived in Paris June 13 on his final European tour as US president and was met by thousands of Parisians, protesting Sarkozy's support for his policies.

Protesters condemned the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and expressed their support for the Palestinian and Iraqi people and
every other country that has been attacked by what they called "American and British imperialism. "

Two protesters enacted what they called a "citizens' arrest" of George W. Bush, leading a man dressed as Bush along the street in
chains accused of criminal acts....

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

McCain is WORSE Than Bush

2008-06-11T01:42:11Z

Just in case anyone out there is buying the media's rosy glasses picture of McCain, here are some facts to consider:

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."2

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."4

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.5

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.6

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."7

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."9

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10

John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be. Please help get the word out—forward this email to your personal network. And if you want us to keep you posted ..On's work to get the truth out about John McCain, sign up here:

http://pol.moveon.org/mccaintruth/

Sources:
1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html

"McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/

2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us

"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/

3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/

4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/

5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action CouncilÂ® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007

"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/

6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80

"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End ..Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home

7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022

"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/

"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251

9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/

"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-mccain-endorsement/

10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/

Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.2 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at:

http://political.moveon.org/donate/email.html

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

George's Resume

2008-06-05T17:46:14Z

George W. Bush (Dubya)
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Past Work Experience

Ran for congress and lost.

Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.

Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.

With father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.

Accomplishments in Previous Positions

Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.

Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.

Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments As President

Attacked and took over two countries.

Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.

Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.

Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.

Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.

First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.

First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.

After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.

Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.

In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.

Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.

Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.

Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.

Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.

Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.

Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.

Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.

Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.

Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.

My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.

Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).

First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.

Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.

First president in U.S. history to order a U.S. attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.

Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.

Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.

First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.

First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.

Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.

Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.

Withdrew from the World Court of Law.

Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).

All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.

My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.

First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.

First president to run and hide when the U.S. came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1).

First U.S. president to establish a secret shadow government.

Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world
(possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).

With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.

Fist U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

First U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.

Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.

Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'

Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.

In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.

Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.

In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.

Entered office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

Records and References

At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available) .

AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.

Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (they can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

Source: Kelley Kramer

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

John McCain Says He Hates “Gooks”

2008-06-05T14:16:17Z

John McCain Says He Hates “Gooks”

By STEVEN ARGUE

When asked in 2000 John McCain said, “"I hate the gooks, I will hate them as long as I live" ("McCain Criticized for Slur" SF Gate 2/18/2000).

The US War of Aggression against the people of Vietnam murdered three million people. Many of those people were murdered by the massive aerial bombing done by the United States. McCain was on his twenty third bombing raid when he was finally shot down by the Vietnamese near Hanoi. Timothy McVeigh was put to death for less, but the Vietnamese released McCain after only five years. How many people McCain murdered is impossible to know, but what is for certain, McCain is a war criminal who murdered thousands directly in Vietnam.

McCain's crimes against humanity have continued since his release, with McCain voting for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and voting for military appropriations to fund those wars. The US occupation of Iraq has now cost the lives of over one million people. The true purpose of that war is now even more obvious with US attempts to get the Oil Law passed in Iraq, a law that would turn Iraqi oil over to Exxon Mobile, British Petroleum, and other oil monopolies. Meanwhile, racist war criminal John McCain has vowed to continue the occupation.

Similarly, Obama has voted to fund the occupation of Iraq, has spoken of waging war in Pakistan and Iran, and would not commit to withdrawing troops from Iraq by 2013, opposes socialized medicine, and is not putting forward real solutions on global warming.

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." Similarly Hillary Clinton Said, “I agree with Barack” ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07).

Not only do Obama and Clinton make no promise to get out of Iraq, both have voted for war appropriations. This puts them both in the position of having directly supported the war.

In addition, Clinton voted to invade Iraq. Obama was not yet in the Senate, so he didn’t vote on that resolution. Yet on the verge of the U.S. war of Aggression against Iraq, Barack Obama repeated Bush’s lies at an anti-war rally stating, “He [Saddam Hussein] has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity” (Obama, 10/2002 Speech, Federal Plaza).

In trying to let themselves off the hook, many Democrats claim that Bush "did not fairly represent intelligence". Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren't their fault because they were lied to by Bush, when the truth that Bush was lying was readily available, not only make them look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead of war, we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they might not be in the mess they are now.

Yet for the Democrats and Republicans, Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder and occupation in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish, by force, a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats to pretend to distance themselves from the same Bush policies that they actually support.

Similarly, with Pakistan, it is US intervention that has kept in power a long series of dictators and fragile civilian governments who are overthrown by the military at the drop of a hat. While Obama says he wants to send US troops into Pakistan, the US has no right to intervene against those fighting against a US backed puppet government, labeling those who fought against the Musharraf dictatorship "terrorists". It is US intervention in support of Pakistani dictators, including Musharraf, that was the cause of Bhutto's death. The US has already harmed the Pakistani people enough and should get out now! NO TO OBAMA’S PROPOSED MILITARY INTERVENTION IN PAKISTAN!

No to the Democrats Republicans, the twin parties of war, global warming, and corporate exploitation!

In the long run, it is important for people to understand that we (the non-millionaire majority) are not represented in any way by the Democrat and Republican Parties and that we are much better off relying on our own power through mass protests, strikes, alternative media, and in building or supporting political parties to the left of those in power.

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

This is an article of Liberation News, Subscribe Free:
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posted in Not My President - 10 replies

John Pilger: "From Kennedy to Obama; Liberalism's Last Fling"

2008-06-03T15:27:09Z

ZNet
May, 31 2008

"What is Obama's attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy's. By offering a 'new', young and apparently progressive face of the Democratic Party -- with the bonus of being a member of the black elite -- he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell's role as Bush's secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US anti-war and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent." -- John Pilger
-------
From Kennedy To Obama; Liberalism's Last Fling
By John Pilger

In this season of 1968 nostalgia, one anniversary illuminates today. It is the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy, who would have been elected president of the United States had he not been assassinated in June 1968. Having travelled with Kennedy up to the moment of his shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June, I heard The Speech many times. He would "return government to the people" and bestow "dignity and justice" on the oppressed. "As Bernard Shaw once said," he would say, "'Most men look at things as they are and wonder why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why not?'" That was the signal to run back to the bus. It was fun until a hail of bullets passed over our shoulders.

Kennedy's campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name. Like Obama, he raised the expectations of young people and minorities. Like Obama, he promised to end an unpopular war, not because he opposed the war's conquest of other people's land and resources, but because it was "unwinnable".

Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism's last fling. In the United States and Britain, liberalism as a war-making, divisive ideology is once again being used to destroy liberalism as a reality. A great many people understand this, as the hatred of Blair and new Labour attest, but many are disoriented and eager for "leadership" and basic social democracy. In the US, where unrelenting propaganda about American democratic uniqueness disguises a corporate system based on extremes of wealth and privilege, liberalism as expressed through the Democratic Party has played a crucial, compliant role.

In 1968, Robert Kennedy sought to rescue the party and his own ambitions from the threat of real change that came from an alliance of the civil rights campaign and the anti-war movement then commanding the streets of the main cities, and which Martin Luther King had drawn together until he was assassinated in April that year. Kennedy had supported the war in Vietnam and continued to support it in private, but this was skillfully suppressed as he competed against the maverick Eugene McCarthy, whose surprise win in the New Hampshire primary on an anti-war ticket had forced President Lyndon Johnson to abandon the idea of another term. Using the memory of his martyred brother, Kennedy assiduously exploited the electoral power of delusion among people hungry for politics that represented them, not the rich.

"These people love you," I said to him as we left Calexico, California, where the immigrant population lived in abject poverty and people came like a great wave and swept him out of his car, his hands fastened to their lips.

"Yes, yes, sure they love me," he replied. "I love them!" I asked him how exactly he would lift them out of poverty: just what was his political philosophy?

"Philosophy? Well, it's based on a faith in this country and I believe that many Americans have lost this faith and I want to give it back to them, because we are the last and the best hope of the world, as Thomas Jefferson said."

"That's what you say in your speech. Surely the question is: How?"

"How? . . . by charting a new direction for America."

The vacuities are familiar. Obama is his echo. Like Kennedy, Obama may well "chart a new direction for America" in specious, media-honed language, but in reality he will secure, like every president, the best damned democracy money can buy.

As their contest for the White House draws closer, watch how, regardless of the inevitable personal smears, Obama and McCain draw nearer to each other. They already concur on America's divine right to control all before it. "We lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good," said Obama. "We must lead by building a 21st-century military . . . to advance the security of all people [emphasis added]." McCain agrees. Obama says in pursuing "terrorists" he would attack Pakistan. McCain wouldn't quarrel. Both candidates have paid ritual obeisance to the regime in Tel Aviv, unquestioning support for which defines all presidential ambition. In opposing a UN Security Council resolution implying criticism of Israel's starvation of the people of Gaza, Obama was ahead of both McCain and Hillary Clinton. In January, pressured by the Israel lobby, he massaged a statement that "nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people" to now read: "Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel [emphasis added]." Such is his concern for the victims of the longest, illegal military occupation of modern times. Like all the candidates, Obama has furthered Israeli/Bush fictions about Iran, whose regime, he says absurdly, "is a threat to all of us".

On the war in Iraq, Obama the dove and McCain the hawk are almost united. McCain now says he wants US troops to leave in five years (instead of "100 years", his earlier option). Obama has now "reserved the right" to change his pledge to get troops out next year. "I will listen to our commanders on the ground," he now says, echoing Bush. His adviser on Iraq, Colin Kahl, says the US should maintain up to 80,000 troops in Iraq until 2010. Like McCain, Obama has voted repeatedly in the Senate to support Bush's demands for funding of the occupation of Iraq; and he has called for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan. His senior advisers embrace McCain's proposal for an aggressive "league of democracies", led by the United States, to circumvent the United Nations.

Like McCain, he would extend the crippling embargo on Cuba.

Amusingly, both have denounced their "preachers" for speaking out. Whereas McCain's man of God praised Hitler, in the fashion of lunatic white holy-rollers, Obama's man, Jeremiah Wright, spoke an embarrassing truth. He said that the attacks of 11 September 2001 had taken place as a consequence of the violence of US power across the world. The media demanded that Obama disown Wright and swear an oath of loyalty to the Bush lie that "terrorists attacked America because they hate our freedoms". So he did. The conflict in the Middle East, said Obama, was rooted not "primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel", but in "the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam". Journalists applauded. Islamophobia is a liberal speciality.

The American media love both Obama and McCain. Reminiscent of mating calls by Guardian writers to Blair more than a decade ago, Jann Wenner, founder of the liberal Rolling Stone, wrote: "There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline . . . Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon 'the better angels of our nature'." At the liberal New Republic, Charles Lane confessed: "I know it shouldn't be happening, but it is. I'm falling for John McCain." His colleague Michael Lewis had gone further. His feelings for McCain, he wrote, were like "the war that must occur inside a 14-year-old boy who discovers he is more sexually attracted to boys than to girls".

The objects of these uncontrollable passions are as one in their support for America's true deity, its corporate oligarchs. Despite claiming that his campaign wealth comes from small individual donors, Obama is backed by the biggest Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, as well as the huge hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. "Seven of the Obama campaign's top 14 donors," wrote the investigator Pam Martens, "consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages." A report by United for a Fair Economy, a non-profit group, estimates the total loss to poor Americans of colour who took out sub-prime loans as being between $164bn and $213bn: the greatest loss of wealth ever recorded for people of colour in the United States. "Washington lobbyists haven't funded my campaign," said Obama in January, "they won't run my White House and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president." According to files held by the Centre for Responsive Politics, the top five contributors to the Obama campaign are registered corporate lobbyists.

What is Obama's attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy's. By offering a "new", young and apparently progressive face of the Democratic Party - with the bonus of being a member of the black elite - he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell's role as Bush's secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US anti-war and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent.

America's war on Iran has already begun. In December, Bush secretly authorised support for two guerrilla armies inside Iran, one of which, the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, is described by the state department as terrorist. The US is also engaged in attacks or subversion against Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bolivia and Venezuela. A new military command, Africom, is being set up to fight proxy wars for control of Africa's oil and other riches. With US missiles soon to be stationed provocatively on Russia's borders, the Cold War is back. None of these piracies and dangers has raised a whisper in the presidential campaign, not least from its great liberal hope.

Moreover, none of the candidates represents so-called mainstream America. In poll after poll, voters make clear that they want the normal decencies of jobs, proper housing and health care. They want their troops out of Iraq and the Israelis to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbours. This is a remarkable testimony, given the daily brainwashing of ordinary Americans in almost everything they watch and read.

On this side of the Atlantic, a deeply cynical electorate watches British liberalism's equivalent last fling. Most of the "philosophy" of new Labour was borrowed wholesale from the US. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were interchangeable. Both were hostile to traditionalists in their parties who might question the corporate-speak of their class-based economic policies and their relish for colonial conquests. Now the British find themselves spectators to the rise of new Tory, distinguishable from Blair's new Labour only in the personality of its leader, a former corporate public relations man who presents himself as Tonier than thou. We all deserve better.

www.johnpilger.com

posted in Not My President - 2 replies

THE GREATEST VISION EVER SEEN ~ FREEDOM

2008-05-29T17:57:34Z

I thought you might like to see the Rainbow Dream Vision of Freedom and Hope.

If you like this vision, please send it to friends.

You can get a fresh copy here to paste into emails:
http://worldgathering.net/rdvplain.html

Thanks ~~ Michael Irving ~~ Scotland UK
The Big World Gathering ~ http://worldgathering.net

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Rainbow Dream Vision of Freedom ~ 1993-2012
http://worldgathering.net/vision.html

The Rainbow Dream Vision of Hope
Intertribal Medicine Societies of Turtle Island
The Twenty Count: 1993-2012

Make copies of the Rainbow prophecy, and give or send them to people anywhere on the planet. Then let them be guided by their hearts to do the same until all planetary citizens are brought to life in the Rainbow dream, so that we may dream and work together for true peace. Love, Thunder Woman

Introduction by Aleran
Throughout the ages humanity has sought out the prophecies of the spiritually gifted to instil a clear hope and vision into life. During this time many prophecies come to us trying to lead us in many different directions.
Some prophecy points to disaster, hopelessness and the annihilation of mankind. But other prophecies create a vision of joyful transformation through quantum leaps into love and light.
As things stand now, the human race is dreaming a hell.
But as individuals and as a collective humanity it is our potential to dream of paradise and to create the kingdom of heaven on our Mother Earth.
Could it be that the pain in our hearts caused by the hell we have created will spur us on into visions and creations of a world formed in love?
It is my prayer and dream, along with a multitude of others who have taught me to dream the Rainbow dream, that each and every one of you learn to dream both while awake and sleeping, the dream of unity and love through divine transformation.
This prophecy is a dream and vision that is a potential reality for mankind. It is not an ultimatum. But it is ours to behold and to create if we only dare to dream it together.

The Rainbow Dream Vision of Turtle Island
Prophecies of The Native Americans
1993-2012

PART ONE ~
The distribution and giving back to humanity of the Twenty Count.
In the Turtle Island lore we say it is the time of finding one’s path with heart.
The time of seeking perfection, growth and development.
Most importantly the time of trust and innocence, when mythologies of the world are revealing secrets.

PART TWO ~
The critical time. The time of the animal. The time of Tuwalananie, the dark force.
The reason for this is that seeds of light have been planted and we are starting to grow and the teachings are starting to come out and all those ones who have taught partial truths, who have taught deliberate lies in history, are going to be threatened by the awakening of the Rainbow people because the Rainbow people exist in every country, in every nation, in every land.
The Dark Forces will be threatened and they will use their power and their power exists in technology. We are going to see new technology appearing which will be a tremendous threat to the survival of humanity.
We must exert our influence by gathering together and sharing our ideas and plans for alternative power and for world peace. If we put a double amount of energy with what we are for, we can change it. We can change it.

PART THREE ~
The time of human to human communication.
The time the human family finally starts to become human.
There will be more information brought out into open format than has ever been seen on this planet.
We will re-establish contact in a very knowledgeable way with our ancestors from the stars.
So mark that down because it will happen. The first contact will be with the Pleiades and will be totally acknowledged and will be known to all the world powers. The second contact will be with Sirius.

PART FOUR ~
When truth seekers begin to open the veil of the crack between the worlds, we will see our memory circles.
Many of the leaders who are trying to keep us locked in the past, will not function today, will fall.
Many teachers and wise people will be seen for who they are and they will be the farmers, the labourers and the gas station attendants because the tagashala will be fully awakened.
People will begin to link up with other people in gathering together circles.
Many of these will be the so-called 'common people' and not the teachers you see up there now.

PART FIVE ~
The various winged serpent wheels will begin to turn, to dance once again and when they do the rainbow lights will be seen in dreams all over the world and these rainbow light dreams will help awaken the rest of humanity.
We will sit in a new circle of law.
All civil and social laws will have to be in conformity with natural laws or the people will not accept them and they will have the enlightenment necessary to reject those laws.
Science will once again become metaphysics. They will discover four laws that will help them jump to universal law and transcend the time-space continuum which is the limitation of the age and once again we will begin to take our power and to work with rules and laws that are cosmic laws.

PART SIX ~
We will once again see the way to continue a new dream.
We will be given the road map back to the stars and we will see the star people come out of the illusion of their two-legged form and into their actual great sleeper-dreamer form.
A powerful time approaches humanity and its really hard for me to talk about it.
I am a great dreamer but I don’t know if I dream that large.
We will see a real shift in planetary consciousness.
Many of the enemies of the humans will begin to drop away.
We will totally gain the light of the great light wheel.
There will be one humanity, one planet composed of all the different ways of dancing in complete harmony in the great gathering together circle.
All the seeds will be planted.
The Earth will have its true reality formed.
It will join the sisterhood of planets, the daughters of Copperwoman and it will create within itself all forms of all things in harmony with the everything.
We will see a whole new way of perfection.
There will be plants on this grandmother earth that will give life and sustenance as never before seen.
Starvation on the earth, all those things will be gone. There will be total balance and harmony.

PART SEVEN ~
The new race of humans will begin to design their new reality of life on this planet as they intended it to be when they first came here from the stars.
We will begin to establish this planet and use the collective consciousness to hold the power of this space in harmony with the Great Circle of Twelve and all the planets. There is a whole lot I don’t even know. There is more that I am not supposed to talk about yet.
The dream will be actualised and this planet will hold its space in the great council of planets and become a part of the universal enlightened sisterhood and brotherhood of humanity and keepers of the light circles. It's happened on many planets and it's expected to happen on a lot of other planets.
There will be a moment when the population will be 'the' Population, and something great will happen.
This planet will have its design of energy movement guided by all of humanity living here.

The Great Spirit will leave its seed and the egg of everything here on this planet and it will create itself 20 times over at the speed of light and this prophecy ends as I have been given it by the Grandmothers that I share with you now.

~~~~~~~~~

Put a double amount of energy with what we are for. We can change it.

Make copies of the Rainbow prophecy, and give or send them to people anywhere on the planet. Then let them be guided by their hearts to do the same until all planetary citizens are brought to life in the Rainbow dream, so that we may dream and work together for true peace. Love, Thunder Woman

http://worldgathering.net/vision.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Background information ~ The Greatest Vision Ever Seen

~ The Greatest Vision Ever Seen ~
~ The Rainbow Dream of Freedom ~

http://worldgathering.net/greatest.html

The Rainbow Dream Vision of Freedom ~ 1993-2012
Intertribal Medicine Societies of Turtle Island
http://worldgathering.net/vision.html

~ A powerful time approaches humanity and its really hard for me to talk about it. ~ We will see a real shift in planetary consciousness. ~ The Earth will have its true reality formed. ~ We will see a whole new way of perfection. ~ Starvation on the earth, all those things will be gone. ~

~ VISION of FREEDOM ~

I hope many people will send the Vision of Freedom to friends.

I have been involved with the Rainbow Dream Vision of Hope and Freedom since 1984. In that year, three musicians came into my one-man printing and publishing office, and said, "You really must look at this." They seemed a little (funny how life is at times) like the three wise people bringing gifts. Two days later I was distributing copies at a conference, and like me, people were amazed and astonished.

That's when my life started to be 'larger than life'.
And, in 1987, I went to visit the Hopi in Arizona, North America.

As I drove in from the west, an older man sitting by the roadside waved down my car... later, it felt to me that I was expected. He took me to meet Qwa David Monongye, and in the evening I was taken to a ceremony in the kiva. A dozen or more men descended from a ladder in the roof, and formed up in an arc of a circle.

They faced one direction, towards one of the ends of the arc, and started a slow foot-shuffling dance. Then fairly suddenly, domino-effect, turned one-by-one 180 degrees to face the other end of the arc. At that point I very nearly fell off my chair ... something had hit me. A year or more later, thinking about it, the realisation seemed to be: 'We can change the direction the world is going in. It is possible.'

I drove off, eastwards, along the Hopi mesas to find somewhere to park up, and sleep the night. In the morning I got out of the car, and was surprised to see the face of the large rock only feet from the car had a carving on it. This was the Hopi's 'Prophecy Stone', and it shows people moving in a direction, and the path splitting into two. One path goes nowhere, it fades out. But the other path goes on, and corn symbols by the path indicate that this route leads to life and prosperity.

Many other unusual and significant things occurred out there in this ancient place where it feels like time had stopped. Indeed, after visiting the oldest township on the Hopi mesas ~ a tall, sharp-ended mesa, rather like a ship of the desert ~ my watch stopped, and never worked again. There is much more that happened.

In 1986 ~ the year before my first visit to the Hopi ~ I was within sixty feet of three disc craft, for around 25 minutes. This too, was like events were coming together to inform me of something significant, something much bigger than myself. In 1993, with friends, we were very close to craft in the area of the crop patterns of mid southern England on several occasions.

Since 1993, on most days when I first step out of doors I frequently see one or more flashes in the sky, seemingly from a source fairly close, and at a lowish elevation. I have always taken the flashes to indicate the locations of disc craft which are 'parked up' and are stationary. In 2007, possibly because I was loaned a camera with an unusual infra-red setting, many craft and aerial objects started to appear in my general scenic photographs. Most images are archived here: http://worldgathering.net/scotland

(A) The Rainbow Dream Vision says: "We can change it (the direction the world is going). If we put a DOUBLE amount of effort into what we are for."

(B) The Hopi Nation has a prophecy stone which predicts the world will come to a time of choice. And if we choose the good direction, we can go on into a good life.

(C) The craft appearing all over the world, seem to be waiting and watching. To see if we can figure things out. To see if we can: 'Seize The Day'.

The writing is on the wall, and it says: 'We can change direction.'

Please send the Rainbow Dream Vision of Hope and Freedom to your friends. And let's make a stand for what we really believe in. Put a DOUBLE amount of effort and energy into what you believe is important.

Don't feel disheartened. It looks like there are some unexpected, good moves to happen yet: "There is a whole lot I don’t even know. There is more that I am not supposed to talk about yet."

Text of The Rainbow Dream Vision of Freedom:
http://worldgathering.net/vision.html

Michael Irving
World-Action and The Big World Gathering
Scotland, United Kingdom ~ http://worldgathering.net

http://worldgathering.net/greatest.html

~~~~~~~~~
If you like this vision, please copy it and send to friends. Thanks.

posted in Not My President - 1 reply

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

2008-05-17T18:48:17Z

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 Not My President - 0 replies

Iraqi Port Workers to Join US Strike

2008-05-01T07:32:02Z

BREAKING NEWS: Members of the Port Workers Union of Iraq plan to shutdown the ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Alzubair for one hour on May Day in solidarity with the shutdown of all West Coast ports by members of ILWU in opposition to the occupation of Iraq.

The second message is a May Day greeting from a broad cross-section of union leaders from many different unions and labor federations in Iraq as an expression of their appreciation for the solidarity demonstrated by organized labor, working people and all peace-loving people of the world in support of their efforts to end the foreign occupation of Iraq and the sectarian violence that occupation has spawned.

[This statement continues to be circulated in Iraq and as additional signers become known, their names will be added to the copy posted on the USLAW website.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May Day Message

From: The General Union of Port Workers in Iraq

To: The International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States

Dear Brothers and Sisters of ILWU in California:

The courageous decision you made to carry out a strike on May Day to protest against the war and occupation of Iraq advances our struggle against occupation to bring a better future for us and for the rest of the world as well.

We are certain that a better world will only be created by the workers and what you are doing is an example and proof of what we say. The labor movement is the only element in the society that is able to change the political equations for the benefit of mankind. We in Iraq are looking up to you and support you until the victory over the US administration's barbarism is achieved.

Over the past five years the sectarian gangs who are the product of the occupation, have been trying to transfer their conflicts into our ranks. Targeting workers, including their residential and shopping areas, indiscriminately using all sorts of explosive devices, mortar shells, and random shooting, were part of a bigger scheme that was aiming to tear up the society but they miserably failed to achieve their hellish goal. We are struggling today to defeat both the occupation and sectarian militias' agenda.

The pro-occupation government has been attempting to intervene into the workers affairs by imposing a single government-certified labor union. Furthermore it has been promoting privatization and an oil and gas law to use the occupation against the interests of the workers.

We the port workers view that our interests are inseparable from the interests of workers in Iraq and the world; therefore we are determined to continue our struggle to improve the living conditions of the workers and overpower all plots of the occupation, its economic and political projects.

Let us hold hands for the victory of our struggle.

Long live the port workers in California!

Long live May Day!

Long live International solidarity!

The General Union of Port Workers in Iraq An Affiliate Union with General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI)

******************************************
May Day 2008 Statement

From: The Iraqi Labour Movement

To: The Workers and All Peace Loving People of the World

On this day of international labour solidarity we call on our fellow trade unionists and all those worldwide who have stood against war and occupation to increase support for our struggle for freedom from occupation - both the military and economic.

We call upon the governments, corporations and institutions behind the ongoing occupation of Iraq to respond to our demands for real democracy, true sovereignty and self-determination free of all foreign interference.

Five years of invasion, war and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery and suffering to our people. In the name of our "liberation," the invaders have destroyed our nation's infrastructure, bombed our neighbourhoods, broken into our homes, traumatized our children, assaulted and arrested many of our family members and neighbours, permitted the looting of our national treasures, and turned nearly twenty percent of our people into refugees.

The invaders helped to foment and then exploit sectarian divisions and terror attacks where there had been none. Our union offices have been raided. Union property has been seized and destroyed. Our bank accounts have been frozen. Our leaders have been beaten, arrested, abducted and assassinated. Our rights as workers have been routinely violated.

The Ba'athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect, enforced by Paul Bremer's post-invasion Occupation Authority and then by all subsequent Iraqi administrations. This is an attack on our rights and basic precepts of a democratic society, and is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country.

Despite the horrific conditions in our country, we continue to organise and protest against the occupation, against workplaces abuses, and for better treatment and safer conditions.

Despite the sectarian plots around us, we believe in unity and solidarity and a common aim of public service, equality, and freedom to organise without external intrusions and coercion.

Our legitimacy comes from our members. Our principles of organisation are based on transparent and internationally recognised International Labour Organisation standards.

We call upon our allies and all the world's peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.

1) We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country, and utterly reject the agreement being negotiated with the USA for long-term bases and a military presence. The continued occupation fuels the violence in Iraq rather than alleviating it. Iraq must be returned to full sovereignty.

2) We demand the passage of a labour law promised by our Constitution, which adheres to ILO principles and on which Iraqi trade unionists have been fully consulted, to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain and strike, independent of state control and interference.

3) We demand an end to meddling in our sovereign economic affairs by the International Monetary Fund, USA and UK. We demand withdrawal of all economic conditionalities attached to the IMF's agreements with Iraq, removal of US and UK economic "advisers" from the corridors of Iraqi government, and a recognition by those bodies that no major economic decisions concerning our services and resources can be made while foreign troops occupy the country.

4) We demand that the US government and others immediately cease lobbying for the oil law, which would fracture the country and hand control over our oil to multinational companies like Exxon, BP and Shell. We demand that all oil companies be prevented from entering into any long-term agreement concerning oil while Iraq remains occupied. We demand that the Iraqi government tear up the current draft of the oil law, and begin to develop a legitimate oil policy based on full and genuine consultation with the Iraqi people. Only after all occupation forces are gone should a long term plan for the development of our oil resources be adopted.

We seek your support and solidarity to help us end the military and economic occupation of our country. We ask for your solidarity for our right to organise and strike in defence of our interests as workers and of our public services and resources. Our public services are the legacy of generations before us and the inheritance of all future generations and must not be privatised.

We thank you for standing by us. We too stand with you in your own struggles for real democracy which we know you also struggle for, and against privatisation, exploitation and daily disempowerment in your workplaces and lives.

We commend those of you who have organised strikes and demonstrations to end the occupation in solidarity with us and we hope these actions will continue.

We look forward to the day when we have a world based on co-operation and solidarity. We look forward to a world free from war, sectarianism, competition and exploitation.

Endorsed by:

Hassan Juma'a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)
Faleh Abood Umara, Deputy, Central Council, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)
Falah Alwan, President, Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI)
Subhi Albadri, President, General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI)
Nathim Rathi, President, Iraqi Port Workers Trade Union
Samir Almuawi, President, Engineering Professionals Trade Union
Ghzi Mushatat, President, Mechanic and Print Shop Trade Union
Waleed Alamiri, President, Electricity Trade Union
Ilham Talabani, President, Banking Services Trade Union
Abdullah Ubaid, President, Railway Trade Union Ammar Ali, President, Transportation Trade Union
Abdalzahra Abdilhassan, President, Service Employees Trade Union
Sundus Sabeeh, President, Barber Shop Workers Trade Union
Kareem Lefta Sindan, President, Lumber and Construction Trade Union, General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW)
Sabah Almusawi, President, Wasit Independent Trade Union
Shakir Hameed, President, Lumber And Construction Trade Union (GFWCUI)
Awad Ahmed, President, Teachers Federation of Salahideen Alaa
Ghazi Mushatat, President, Agricultural And Food Substance Industries Adnan
Rathi Shakir, President, Water Resources Trade Union
Nahrawan Yas, President, Woman Affairs Bureau
Sabah Alyasiri, President (GFWCUI) Babil
Ali Tahi, President (GFWCUI)
Najaf Ali Abbas, President (GFWCUI) Basra
Muhi Abdalhussien, President (GFWCUI), Wasit
Ali Hashim Abdilhussien, President (GFWCUI) Kerbala
Ali Hussien, President (GFWCUI) Anbar
Mustafa Ameen, President, Arab Workers Bureau (GFWCUI)
Thameer Mzeail, Health Services, Union Committee
Khadija Saeed Abdullah, Teachers Federation, Member
Asmahan, Khudair, Woman Affairs, Textile Trade Unions Adil
Aljabiri, Oil Workers Trade Union Executive Bureau Member
Muhi Abdalhussien, Nadia Flaih, Service Employees Trade Unions
Rawneq Mohammed, Member, Media and Print Shop Trade Union
Abdlakareem Abdalsada, Vice President (GFWCUI)
Saeed Nima, Vice President (GFWCUI)
Sabri Abdalkareem, Member, (GFWCUI) Babil
Amjad Aljawhary, Representative of GFWCUI in North America

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

This has been distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

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

Come to the May Day protest in San Francisco
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: http://www.ilwu.org/ and http://www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

Best of Free Speech TV: Beyond the Treason

2008-04-30T15:20:01Z

http://www.freespeech.org/videodb/index.php?action=detail&video_id=11085&browse=0

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

Cynthia McKinney Letter to ILWU in Support of Port Actions Against the War

2008-04-29T23:38:11Z

Cynthia McKinney Letter to ILWU in Support of Port Actions Against the War

Power to the Committee to Elect Cynthia McKinney for President
Post Office Box 311759 _ Atlanta, GA 31131-1759
Telephone 510-250-0729
www.RunCynthiaRun.org

April 2, 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the ILWU,

Your powerful Longshore Caucus resolution, "For Workers' Action to Stop the War", and your decision to stop work on the West Coast docks May 1st, inspires all of us who have taken up the struggle to end the disastrous war and occupation of Iraq, foisted on us by the Republican administration, and continually funded without substantial objection by both the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress. Sadly, the Bush-Pelosi war policy is a formula for endless global conflict, deterioration of the rule of law among nations, and growing impoverishment, indebtedness and evisceration of workers' rights and civil liberties here at home.

While many unions pass resolution after resolution while doing little to actually stop the bloodshed, for generations the ILWU has shown that we can resist the war-mongering corporate politicians, and their profiteering attempts to divide the labor movement and weaken our capacity to organize and resist their destructive actions.

Once again, your union is setting a shining example for working people everywhere-as you did in 1978, when you refused to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile; in 1984, when you refused to move South African cargo to protest the racist apartheid government; in 1996, when you honored the picket line for striking dockworkers in Liverpool, England; in 1999, when you shut down the Pacific Coast to protest the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle; in 2001, when you prepared a Coast-wide work stoppage in defense of five gallant longshoremen in Charleston, South Carolina, who were charged with felonies for walking a picket line; not to mention the numerous times that you have stopped trade on the West Coast waterfront in support of Black political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

I want you and your members to know that at least one 2008 Presidential candidate is proud to stand up publicly in full and unqualified support of your resolution to celebrate International Workers Day by protesting the war and occupation where it counts: at the point of production. My campaign, the Power to the People Campaign, will stand with you on May 1st, all along the West Coast, and anyplace where working people take up your call to resist the war. We'll be with you on the picket line.

With gratitude for the courage and principles of the women and men of the West Coast docks, I hereby offer my total support for your action. In the days leading up to May 1st, and beyond, I pledge to make backing up the ILWU a central goal of my campaign. Please contact me to discuss how we can best assist in your heroic effort.

In Solidarity,

Cynthia McKinney
Candidate for President of the United States
Power To The People Coalition

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

This has been distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

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

Come to the May Day protest in San Francisco
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: http://www.ilwu.org/ and http://www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

posted in Not My President - 0 replies

Beware of Newsmax Ads on Tribe

2008-04-29T19:00:20Z

They ask "Should Hilary Quit" or other issues about the Democratic candidates. But in reality, they are a radical right organization in Washington that is trying to put a positive spin on everything Bush... Like, it is Congress that is responsible for high gas prices not Bush. They trick you to taking their poll and then they bombard you emails full of lies and try to spin the truth. The organization is "Americans for Tax Reform." Their website address is atr.org. Check if out if you don't belive me. These people are unreal. Here are some titles of their propoganda:

Aren’t Fuel Prices High Enough!?!?

Take Action now to put the brakes on higher energy taxes!

How are we supposed to afford to take our kids to school and get to work when the liberals in Congress slap even more taxes on our fuel costs? GO »

Liberals Are Stealing Your Freedom, Crushing Your Jobs & Killing the American Economy
Don’t Allow the Left to Raise Taxes on Energy! GO »

Tell Your Congressman to Oppose the Tax Increase of the Week
Latest Tax Hike Will Force Companies Offshore GO »

House Liberals Vote Next Week to Tax Your Pension GO »

Don’t allow free speech to be silenced!

Amendment to kill the Fairness Doctrine to be voted on today! GO »

They try hard to blame the Democrats for everything Bush did and didn't do and now want to convince you.

Take a stand and let them know that they are full of s**t!. Call or fax them at 202-785-0266 off and 202-785-0261 fax
Stop whining about whats wrong and make your voice heard!!

posted in Not My President - 1 reply