"It is nowhere written that the American empire goes on forever."
--Eugene Jarecki
Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki's shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.
He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning "military industrial complex," foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.
As probably everyone has heard by now, the Swiss sovereign voted by about 57% of the popular vote and the assent of 22 of the 26 full and half-cantons (States) to write into our Constitution that the construction of new minarets is banned, and this despite opposition to this People's Party-supported initiative from the government, from parliament, from all parties (except the People's Party and the fringe Protestant Democratic Party), the unions, the churches, industry, banking - pretty much every establishmentarian institution.
I'm not happy about the ban - it was a pointless affront to a section of our population. Swiss zoning laws are arbitrary and byzantine enough to stop virtually anything if the local population put their mind to it, so the ban was not necessary. True, a minaret is not essential for a mosque, but it's only the conservative fringe like the Wahhabis who are actually opposed to it. The call of the muezzin is banned anyway (not consistent with noise regulations- and it would be drowned out by church bells).
The vote was in some elements misdirected, but in others it spoke to legitimate concerns. Popular votes are a rum thing, and you're only given the option of voting "yes" or "no", there is no possibility of a nuanced response. But I certainly don't think it is any "crisis of democracy", or "failure" of anything except the failure of the political elites to deal with the issues that led to the "yes" vote.
I have a Thanksgiving story for your consumption that has nothing to do with turkeys or pumpkin pie or crazy uncles.
Instead, in an effort to remind you what this holiday can really stand for, we'll meet some people who are thankful today for simply being free.
It's a short story today, but an especially touching one, so follow along and we'll take a little hop across the Atlantic for a trip you should not miss.
This will be a short diary, because it is not about what I think, but about what you think, dear Women and LGBT Americans. Really, the title and diary is also intended for Latino Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Muslim Americans, beasically anyone and everyone who is having their equal rights denied has a stake in this fight, and everyone else who considers themselves a freedom loving American should be fighting for EVERYONE'S rights, not jjust their own.
So I am asking, nay, begging that American Women, LGBT Americans and everyone else who values EQUALITY and Equal rights to RAISE HELL over the current sorry state of civil rights in America, and I'm asking you to not stop until you have gotten what our founding fathers and so many after them have fought and died for, EQUAL RIGHTS.
Yesterday, South Carolina Congressman Joe "YOU LIE" Wilson gave a speech condemning Health Care Reform as a "Greater Control" on American lives. The video can be seen here, but the main event is below the fold.
Fear mongering over health care reform is nothing new for Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC02), but the speech he gave on the House floor a few days ago that was mocked by Jon Stewart should stand in the Wingnut Hall of Fame of insane, disconnected rants that have nothing at all to do with the reality of the issues being discussed.
So much effort extended here lately writing about how to free ourselves from tyranny.
That makes me happy, because a blog where that does not happen, is a blog full of frightened people who fear to bring up the subject, especially if it comes too close.
Yell louder! indeed.
Okay, now that we've done that, for this round; here we are. I really like it that we can just do that, and then here we are. No big repercussions.
We don't get killed by yelling, we are still extant. We don't go away when we yell louder.
It makes us stronger, being able to do that. It's like engaging in calisthenics.
Well, not really. Bad simile, really. But this really is what freedom is about, being able to yell louder, without worrying that one will be taken away.
Anybody been taken away here lately?
I hope not. My plate is overfull, far as people being taken away goes.
Recently a good friend here on teh toobz was banned from public discourse in a private setting, a limitation of his personal freedom of speech in a private place. Though he was offered reinstatement, he refused it on principle. He stood by his perinciple. He defended his freedom.
Personally, I think the whole situation sucks.
But MUCH BIGGER than that was the Police State RIOT SQUADS brutal response to PROPERTY DAMAGE in Pittsburgh, PA this weekend, when protestors without Government permission to exercisize.
This is my point.
If you have to ASK PERMISSION to use your rights, you never really had that right in the first place.
We the Lobbyists of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Profit, establish Pay-to-Play, ignore domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Media, promote the general lack of Welfare, and secure the Extractions of Payments to ourselves and our Clients, do now usurp and re-establish this Constitution for the United Elites of America.
They once were terrorism suspects, but even after U.S. authorities determined the men weren't a threat to the United States, they were kept at the Guantanamo Bay prison for years because no nation would take them - until a few days ago, when Bermuda agreed to let them in as refugees.
"When we didn't have any country to accept us, when everybody was afraid of us ... Bermuda had the courage and was brave enough to accept us," said Abdulla Abdulgadir, who at 30 is the youngest of the four men who relished their first weekend of freedom in seven years.
Abdulgadir eagerly embraced his new island home. "We are not moving anywhere," he said.
We were ROBBED in Bush v Gore 2000. The Supreme Court was the Supreme Council for one ruling. We were told to stop counting and declare George W. Bush President, and so it was.
Imagine if Obama v McCain was this election and the SCOTUS robbed us again, what would you have done?
It is like that in Iran everyday, and now more than ever.
After viewing the farce that is Democracy in Iran over the past few days I think it is very important that Americans who believe in an open Democracy fully support Iranians who want the same for themselves.
Therefore, I invite you to offer your full support for the Iranians who voted for candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi and the hopes of the next generation of Iranian "Change"!
This is what winning hearts and minds is all about.
People around the world who want a more Democratic society should be fully supported by Americans no matter where they are from or what their faith is. This is even more true in cases where elections are rigged and the will of the people are suppressed by the powers of a status quo that lacks empathy for the people they wish to control.
Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!! There have been 4,603 coalition deaths -- 4,286 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 179 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians -- in the war in Iraq as of May 5 2009, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country's governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 31,230 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.
First Photos of Fallen Soldier Ends 18-Year Ban - 4.05.09
An airman stands next to the coffin containing the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers as it is lowered from a plane upon its return to the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware April 5, 2009. Myers, of Hopewell, Virginia, died April 4 near Helmand province, Afghanistan of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. For the first time since the Obama administration reversed an 18-year-old ban on news coverage of returning fallen soldiers, the military allowed media to cover to cover the arrival tonight of an airman killed in Afghanistan. Collapse
(Joshua Roberts/REUTERS)
I wish to thank the families who allowed the press photo's showing the respect the fallen receive and the real cost of war!!
Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!! There have been 4,572 coalition deaths -- 4,255 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 179 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians -- in the war in Iraq as of January 6, 2008, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country's governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 31,089 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.
Back on December 26th 2006 I put together a post, for my site and a few others, in remembrance of an anniversary of a day my fellow Vietnam Veterans made a statement to our country, a statement of a Country in Distress, Our Country!
A shoutout about not only our War of Choice but what our society was going through, Civil Rights Movement, care of the returning Vets, civil disobedience for the many failed policies, and more, the statement wasn't really taken seriously except by the minority, as is usually the case, the country itself just dug deeper into it's apathy and never came to terms with our War and Occupation and still hasn't!
December 26, 1971 Two dozen members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War "liberated" the Statue of Liberty with a sit-in to protest resumed U.S. aerial bombings in Vietnam. They flew an inverted U.S. flag from the crown as a signal of distress.
If you visit any of the lists of the KIA's or Injured in the Iraq Theater one thing you'll notice, the Only Occupation Forces numbers rising, being Killed and Maimed, are American Forces these last number of months!! I find myself wondering how many are on a first tour, or second, or third, or forth..................................., in Both Theaters!!
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!!
Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!!
December 26, 1971
