Truth Is Not Treason

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Jonathan Hari, writing in the Independent shortly after the arrest of Julian Assange, sums up rather succinctly why we need to be thankful for the gargantuan testicles of the WikiLeaks founder:

“Every one of us owes a debt to Julian Assange. Thanks to him, we now know that our governments are pursuing policies that place you and your family in considerably greater danger. WikiLeaks has informed us they have secretly launched war on yet another Muslim country, sanctioned torture, kidnapped innocent people from the streets of free countries and intimidated the police into hushing it up, and covered up the killing of 15,000 civilians – five times the number killed on 9/11. Each one of these acts has increased the number of jihadis. We can only change these policies if we know about them – and Assange has given us the black-and-white proof.”

Of course, it is those testicles, or parts rather close to them, that may have gotten him arrested. There certainly exists many a precedent in history of men who have done great and noble things who have turned out to be sexual predators and/or rapists. Also worth considering, however, is the laundry list of people whom the CIA has smeared for boldly crossing a line such as WikiLeaks clearly has crossed.

What the WikiLeaks releases show, and will continue to show, is that Governments lie to their people, not in extraordinary circumstances, but that governments lie to us on such a regular basis that the entire narrative of how we view the world must be called into question.

I’ll repeat that: The entire narrative of how we view the world must be called into question.

What is possibly even more obscene is that most of you considering that previous statement are nodding in agreement. In fact, I am not telling you something you don’t already know.

And yet, for those of us lucky enough to have won the birth lottery and were born in a rich and powerful country, it can be more comfortable to occupy- in the metaphoric real estate of our mind- waterfront property near that famous river in Egypt. From this comfortable position the truth, like a shock of cleansing cold water on the unwashed bodies of the masses, is not only refreshing but a much needed jolt to wake us from the collective slumber that makes is easier for the ruling class to manipulate us.

Truth is not treason.

-Dennis Trainor, Jr

PRESIDENT PALIN

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- Davis Fleetwood
Two week ago, when John Heilemann wrote a cover story for New York Magazine outlining the perfect storm that could carry Sarah Palin to a Presidential election victory in 2012, I would have told you that Sarah was much more powerful as a king-maker and not a King.

And then she went and bragged to Barbara Walters that she can beat Obama in 2012 this.

Hah ha. Funny. In an Armageddon kind of way right? We can’t be that stupid, can we?  Well… in the immortal slogan of an era long ago: yes we can!

So I decided to re-read Hielman’s article to see if his logic held water. I think I can summarize the article in this way. 1: Palin is doing all of the little behind the scenes things you do to lay the groundwork for a run. 2: The only other major GOP contender is Mitt Romney, who both fails to inspire and has the albatross of having served as Gov of Massachusetts when that state passed a healthcare plan that looks a lot like the plan that has all of the Randian Regressives calling Obama a socialist. B: The White House is eating this up, thinking that Palin is so polarizing that she could not possibly win, but motherfucken thirdly; NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg will launch a credible, Ross Perot style independent campaign. And in these polarizing times, with populist fervor on both the left and the right and the economy showing no signs of improving, it is a crap shoot with the odds on favorite in this scenario being Palin.

“She’s a supernova,” says former Bush advisor Mark McKinnon. “The only parallel is Barack Obama. And look what happened to him.”

In this scenario, those who interpret the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 as a portent of the end of time may well be right. Because the nuclear codes will then fall into the lap of a woman who thinks the earth is only 6 thousand years old and that our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan are Gods wars, that “God” is on our side.

Now, I know that my views, and how I present them, often earn me the scorn of those who would label me an elitist liberal snob.

You know why I am snob? Why I am elitist? Because liberals – or progressives are right. You are wrong. End of story.

When conservative forces in the south were arguing for separate but equal facilities for blacks during the civil rights struggle, does any version of history look back and exonerate the apes that held onto the conservative position? No!

Twenty years from now, when you are trying to explain to children why there was so much debate over Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Gay Marriage, whose side will you be on? The Fred Phelps hate mongers and Military macho dick wavers who want to keep gays in the closet?

No. Twenty years from now, you will look back at this time and think, what was the problem? Why were we dragging our knuckles like apes?

Sarah Palin is a regressive with a growing army of grown men in Halloween Colonial Garb or crucifix clutchers or Ayn Rand disciples who will, if given the full reigns of this country, send us back to the Stone Age. Palin and her followers will disagree, of course, on the grounds that since archeologists place the Stone Age about 700,00 years ago and therefore 694 thousand years before their world began, that my conclusions are irrational and mathematically impossible.

But a serious run from the barracuda seems more and more plausible. What do you think- two years out; whom do you see winning the Presidential election in 2012?

U.S. Occupation of Iraq To Continue Indefinitely

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-Davis Fleetwood
TRANSCRIPT:

Dear Veterans: Thank you for making the ultimate sacrifice. Your willingness to die protecting our country is truly heroic. And since you have been wounded and killed and lost years of your life fighting illegal wars of aggression for the past 60 years, your country owes you much much more than an apology.

Certainly, I’m sorry, will not due for those 50,000 who still have boots on the ground in Iraq if they make it out alive to become Veterans.  Particularly since the U.S. is prepared to ditch the 2011 deadline to leave Iraq.

What a President lied to the American people about the intentions of our military? I don’t believe it the next thing you are going to tell me is that Santa Claus is not –Oh no. Don’t do that to me. Not so close to the holidays.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday-

Wait a second. Robert Gates was the Defense Secretary under Bush. And Bush is a war criminal.  Hope and change swept into Washington. Perhaps I am reading an old newspaper article as the source for my story today.

Is it possible that Barack Obama retained the same Secretary of Defense that was implementing the Bush Doctrine? The illegal wars of aggression that violate the U.S. Constitution, the UN Charter and laws of basic human decency?

This is supposed to be the mutha fucken change I can believe in?

BECK: “Domestic Terror Attack Imminent; Violent Left Wing Americans will be behind it”

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- Davis Fleetwood

Yesterday, Professor Glenn Beck informed his viewers, or should I say the scholars enrolled in his course “Obama- Will-Be-Rounding-You-Up-and-Jailing-You-Any-Day-Now -101” that a looming violent event is coming in America. Now, no prerequisites are required to enroll in Professor Beck’s class, as a matter of fact, the lower your level of education, the more likely you are to excel. Prof. Beck does not want anyone tainted with the brainwashing doled out by the liberal education system. No, the ideas of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny were taught in one room school houses like those on the Little House on the Prairie, and our education system need not instill us with any more than that.

Isn’t that so, Professor Beck?

American Empire Produces 11 Global Winners — Hint: They Aren’t the Good Guys

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written by Tom Englehardt/ Tomdispatch.com

You couldn’t turn on the TV news or pick up a paper during the election season without stumbling across the latest political poll and the pros explaining how to parse it, or some set of commentators, pundits, and reporters placing their bets on the election results.  The media, of course, loves a political horse race and, as those 2010 midterms approached, you could easily feel like you weren’t catching the news but visiting an Off-Track Betting parlor.

Fortified by rounds of new polls and all those talking heads calibrating and recalibrating prospective winners and losers, seats “leaning Democratic” and “leaning Republican,” the election season essentially became an endless handicapping session.  This is how American politics is now framed — as a months or years-long serial election for which November 2nd is a kind of hangover.  Then, only weeks after the results are in, the next set of polls will be out and election 2012, the Big Show, will be on the agenda with all the regular handicappers starting to gather at all the usual places.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd, though, that this mania for handicapping remains so parochially electoral?  After all, it could be applied to so many things, including the state of the world at large as seen from Washington.  So consider this my one-man tip sheet on what you could think of as the global midterms, focused on prospective winners and losers, as well as those “on the cusp,” including crucial countries and key personalities.

Prospective Winners

Osama bin Laden: Who woulda thunk it?  More than nine years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden and his number two compadre, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are believed to be alive, well, and living comfortably in the Pakistani borderlands with not a cave in sight, according to the best guesstimate of a “NATO official who has day-to-day responsibility for the war in Afghanistan.”  With the globe’s “sole superpower” eternally on his trail — admittedly, the Bush administration took a few years off from the “hunt” to crash and burn in Iraq — he’s a prospective global winner just for staying alive.  But before we close the books on him, he gets extra points for a singular accomplishment: with modest funds and a few thousand ragtag masked recruits, swinging on monkey bars and clambering over obstacles in “camps” in Afghanistan, he managed to lure the United States into two financially disastrous, inconclusive wars, one in its eighth year, the other in its tenth.  To give credit where it’s due, he had help from the Bush administration with its dominatrix-like global fantasies.  Still, it’s not often that someone can make his dreams your nightmares on such a scale.

Will Sanity Be Restored and Fear Be Kept Alive?

By David Swanson. this article originally appeared on Let’s try Democracy
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“It’s not meant to ridicule activism,” Jon Stewart tells NPR, speaking of his planned rally on the National Mall. But you can see where someone might have gotten that impression. In the video of Stewart’s announcement of the event, he rejects crazy right wing ideas and the idea that Bush allowed 9-11 to happen; he condemns right wing lunacy and the idea that Republicans oppose providing healthcare; he denounces lies and fascism plus daring to accuse war criminals of being war criminals. Stewart opposes activist messages and their messengers.

The problem seems to be, not so much accuracy as inappropriateness and volume. You should not shout anything or say “war criminal,” but you especially should not shout “war criminal!”

Yet such a position cannot avoid the substance of the matter. Assuming that the United States, as is well documented, has been fighting illegal wars, imprisoning, torturing, and murdering, how “sane” can it be to reject any discussion of war criminals — or, for that matter, to allow Tony Blair to come on your program and tell you the United Nations authorized the invasion of Iraq?

If our government is, uniquely among wealthy countries, denying people healthcare, shouldn’t we talk about that? How “sane” can it be to always seek out the middle ground and believe whatever propositions lie halfway between advocacy for peace and justice and advocacy for glorified racist ignorance and corporatism?

Stewart rejects as insane the idea that Bush allowed 9-11 to happen, whether that idea is whispered or shouted. Yet Bush was warned of the possible attack and did nothing, after having refused to prioritize the matter and after having rejected opportunities to bring bin Laden to trial, which would not have pleased the Saudis.

Dear Jon Stewart, Sane People Protest Crazy Wars

written by Medea Benjamin.

When Jon Stewart was on Larry King’s show talking about his Rally to Restore Sanity, he likened himself to Alice in Wonderland and the rally as the Mad Hatter Tea Party. But is Jon Stewart really Alice, trying to find sanity in an upside-down world? Or is he the March Hare, the ultimate “slacktivist” who thinks it’s always teatime — time to sit back and jibberjabber?

The 10-30-10 rally on the capital’s mall is a looking more and more like a celebration of “slacktivism.” Stewart is courting people who do NOT want to open their window and yell, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” As he says in the Rally for Sanity website, he’s looking for the people who’ve been “too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs).”

So let’s get this straight: people who were so horrified when the U.S. invaded Iraq that they joined millions of others to protest are not sane? We shouldn’t speak out against Wall Street bankers whose greed led to millions of Americans losing their jobs and homes? It’s irrational to be angry when you see the Gulf of Mexico covered in oil because BP cut corners on safety? Don’t get upset when the Supreme Court rules that corporations are people and can pour unlimited funds into our elections?

Stewart often roasts the warmakers and corporate fatcats on his show, but he seems to think that his viewers should be content to take out their frustrations with a good belly laugh.

When Jon Stewart announced the Rally to Restore Sanity, he included CODEPINK among the “loud folks” getting in the way of civil discourse. He also equated progressives calling George Bush a war criminal with right-wingers calling Obama Hitler.

So we started a Facebook page asking Jon Stewart to invite us on the show to set the record straight. Beware of what you ask for. We did, indeed, get a call from the producers but it was not for a live interview with Jon Stewart. No, it was for a taped session with myself, a Tea Party organizer and a tear-gas dodging, anti-globalization anarchist “giving advice” to Daily Show’s Samantha Bee about how to organize a good rally. It was clear they wanted to portray us as the crazy folks who should NOT come to their rally for reasonableness.

I consulted with my CODEPINK colleagues. Some said, “Don’t do it. It’s a trap and will only further marginalize us.” We’d already been ridiculed several times on the show, like when we stood up to question General Petraeus at a Congressional hearing or when we organized protests at the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley. But the majority of my colleagues thought it would be crazy to decline the chance to get an anti-war message out to millions of viewers.

The producers told us to come to the New York studio “in costume.” The anarchist, Legba Carrefour, was all in black, including a black bandanna covering his face. The Tea Partier, Jeffrey Weingarten, came in patriotic red, white and blue. I decided to “go professional”, with a CODEPINK t-shirt and a gray suit. The producers were disappointed. They had wanted me to appear in one of the wild outfits we have worn in Congress — like a hand-lettered pink slip accessorized with a hot-pink boa and a glittery “no war” tiara.

But my attempt to look professional was thwarted by the fourth guest who suddenly appeared and was positioned right behind me: A huge, scary puppet head of Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

So there we were, four “crazies” being quizzed by Samantha Bee for over two hours. She started out with softballs — what did we stand for, what activities did we engage in. Then the questions and the antics got sillier and sillier. By the end we found ourselves spinning a blind-folded Samantha Bee around, then watching her swing a baseball bat at Ahmadinejad’s head to see if was really a pinata.

I’m sure that with over two hours of tape, there will be plenty of footage to turn into a four minute segment showing us as a bunch of nutcases. After all, it is a comedy show.

But it’s too bad that Jon Stewart, the liberal comedian, is putting anti-war activists, tea partiers and black bloc anarchists in the same bag. And it’s sad that he’s telling his audience — many of whom are young progressive thinkers — that activism is crazy.

An anonymous assistant on the Daily Show’s blog chastized CODEPINK on line. “Dipping hands in fake blood or screaming over everyone just makes you look crazy and then the rest of the country ignores you.” He said that we should, instead, focus on solutions.

CODEPINK has been proposing solutions since the day we started. We risked our lives meeting with UN weapons inspectors in Iraq right before the U.S. invaded to see if war could be avoided. We have repeatedly traveled to Afghanistan to push for reconciliation. For the past eight years we have been posing solutions about how to deal with terrorism, how to extricate ourselves from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how to make us safer at home. Whether under Bush or Obama, our voices of sanity have been drowned out by a war machine that makes billions selling weapons and hiring mercenaries.

Meanwhile, we’ve witnessed the agony of mothers who have lost their sons in these senseless wars, the unspeakable suffering of our friends in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the lavish spending on war while our schools and hospitals are gutted.

It was because of this insanity that we began to interrupt the war criminals during their public appearances, shouting — yes, shouting — for an end to the madness. It was because of this insanity that we put fake blood on our hands to represent the hundreds of thousands of innocents who died as result of their lies. In our post-9/11-24/7 news cycle, we learned that the more audacious and outrageous the action, the more likely we were to get our anti-war message into the national conversation.

For this the Daily Show calls us crazy!

Don’t get me wrong. CODEPINK women love to laugh and we try not to take ourselves too seriously. But we do feel thatit’s the sane people who protest crazy wars, who cry out against the dangers of global warming, who rail against big money in politics, who implore our politicians to spend our resources rebuilding America, not bombing people overseas.

So let’s celebrate the people who walk the talk. Slacktivism did not end slavery, activism did. Slacktivism did not get women our rights. Activism did. Slacktivism won’t end war or global warming. But activism just might.

Jon Stewart says he wants to restore sanity to Washington; so do we. We’ll see you out on the mall, Jon.

******************************************

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange. CODEPINK will be organizing a Mad Hatter Tea Party at the Rally to Restore Sanity. To join, sign up at http://bit.ly/bXC96E. Her “interview” with Samantha Bee will be aired on the Daily Show on Thursday.

Rand Paul Headstomper Just the Latest Violent Right-Winger: 17 More Instances of Recent Violence by Conservatives

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written by Adam H. Shah, this article originally appeared on Media Matters for America

As media outlets have reported, a MoveOn.org worker who attempted to approach Paul at an October 26 rally in Lexington, Kentucky was attacked, apparently by Paul supporters. The woman was thrown to the ground and then stepped on, causing her head to be smashed into the pavement. According to MoveOn.org, the victim was diagnosed with a concussion at a local hospital.

The attack on the MoveOn worker was the latest in a string of violence and threats against progressives.

1. White powder and swastikas were mailed to Rep. Grijalva. On October 21, an envelope containing “a plastic bag of white powder and two pieces of paper with swastikas written on them” was reportedly mailed to Rep. Raul Grijalva’s (D-AZ) campaign office. The powder was determined to be non-toxic.

Fascist America: Is This Election The Next Turn?

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written by Sara Robinson ♦ Campaign for America’s Future

In August 2009, I wrote a piece titled Fascist America: Are We There Yet? that sparked much discussion on both the left and right ends of the blogosphere. In it, I argued that — according to the best scholarship on how fascist regimes emerge — America was on a path that was running much too close to the fail-safe point beyond which no previous democracy has ever been able to turn back from a full-on fascist state. I also noted that the then-emerging Tea Party had a lot of proto-fascist hallmarks, and that it had the potential to become a clear and present danger to the future of our democracy if it ever got enough traction to start winning elections in a big way.

On the first anniversary of that article, Jonah Goldberg — the right’s revisionist-in-chief on the subject of fascism — actually used an entire National Review column to taunt me about what he characterized as a failure of prediction. Where’s that fascist state you promised? he hooted.

It’s funny he should ask. Because this coming election may, in fact, be a critical turning point on that road.

WikiLeaks Founder Gets Support in Rebuking U.S. on Whistle-Blowers

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via the NYTIMES

Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers, defended whistleblowing on Saturday.

LONDON — Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, lashed out together on Saturday at the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, including those responsible for the release of secret documents on the Iraq war.

Mr. Assange also said that WikiLeaks, which released the trove of almost 400,000 Iraq war documents on Friday, would shortly be posting an additional 15,000 remaining secret documents on the Afghan war.

Mr. Assange, speaking at a news conference in a London hotel a stone’s throw from the headquarters of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, was joined by Mr. Ellsberg, 79, the former military analyst who leaked a 1,000-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

Mr. Ellsberg, who said he had flown overnight from California to attend, described Mr. Assange admiringly as “the most dangerous man in the world” for challenging governments, particularly the United States. He said the WikiLeaks founder had been “pursued across three continents” by Western intelligence services and compared the Obama administration’s threat to prosecute Mr. Assange to his own treatment under President Richard M. Nixon.

DEMOCRACY NOW INTERVIEW: Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Upcoming Iraq War Wikileaks Docs (October 22nd) (Part 1 of 2)

(Part 2 of 2):