"This is a revolution, damnit! We're going to have to offend somebody!
" Peter Stone

Here is a sample of the debate going on within the Michigan green Party:

I didn't intend to promote Nader or anyone else.  I am promoting the
progressive political movement.  Nader and the Greens would be a good
place to start but a broader base in needed.   The progressive movement
doesn't command enough credibility because it is fragmented and divided
among people who all have the same agenda.  The voting and resource
base needs to be consolidated in one cohesive effort.  I don't like the
idea of dumbing down the movement just to get elected.  I think the
public is looking for intelligence in politics, we already have enough
stupidity.  That's Sara Palin Schtick.  The progressive movement
suffers from EDS,( ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION SYNDROME).  We need some
political Cialis and stop taking a political bath in separate tubs.  We
need a political group shower!  This is the only way we can rein in the
excesses of the TO BIG TO FAIL Democrats and Republicans. Carl
Archambeau

Here is a group involved in IRV and election reform.
Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: The Free and Equal Elections Foundation <sean@...>
To: linneamari@...
Sent: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 4:00 pm
Subject: Tobin to help lead effort to reform CA elections


     Greetings!





Tobin to help lead effort to reform CA elections

Free & Equal Founder and Chief Executive Christina Tobin is now on the
front line of the Instant Runoff Voting movement. She, along with
Ballot Access News publisher Richard Winger, recently were appointed to
the Board of Directors of Californians for Election Reform.

Of the organization, Winger said, “It is a somewhat prestigious
organization that has been the force behind gains for Instant Runoff
Voting in California. In fact, it just had a major victory. Oakland
will start using IRV for its own city elections in 2010. San Francisco
has been using it since 2004. Berkeley also will use it soon. They are
working hard on San Jose and other cities including Los Angeles.”

With IRV, voters rank multiple candidates by preference, as opposed to
the traditional “one person-one vote” method. Click  here to see how
IRV prevents the "spoiler effect."

“Instant Runoff Voting is a significant step towards elections that are
truly free and equal,” Tobin said. "IRV can solve many of our electoral
problems and give a stronger voice to the people.

Although IRV hasn't yet taken root in the U.S. on the state level, it
is quickly gaining ground in counties and cities all over the country,
noteably some of our nation's most populated areas in California.

According to Oakland Local, “The movement to switch Oakland to IRV
elections was supported by over 60% of voters and dozens of community
organizations including the League of Women Voters, Oakland IRV
Implementation Group, Chinese American Citizens Alliance, Spanish
Speaking Citizens Foundation, East Bay Gray Panthers, East Bay
Libertarian Party, and many others.”

Read the full article  here.

One of the nation's foremost leaders of the movement for IRV and other
democratic reforms is  FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy.
Its executive director, Rob Richie, had this to say recently about
IRV's growing popularity:

“The frustrations of a two-choice, two-party system are particularly
clear this year nationally, and even more so in California -- home of
one of our most dysfunctional state governments. Two-thousand ten
presents a crossroads for the state's reform trajectory. Voters may
adopt an even more restricted general election system with the top two
primary, or may have the chance to support establishing a state
constitutional revision process that could dramatically expand choice
through proportional representation and Instant Runoff Voting. Several
more major cities could use Instant Runoff Voting for the first time,
most notably Oakland, or parochial interests may try to block reform.
It's a great year to get involved and stand up for democracy."

That about says it all.

Stand up for democracy. Support  Free & Equal elections!

Sincerely,



Micah Gamino
Media Director
Free & Equal
micah@...








Help Reform Ballot Access Laws Today!
 
The Free & Equal Elections Foundation is a non partisan, non-profit 
501 (c)4 public policy advocacy organization dedicated to eliminating
restrictive ballot access laws that target Independent and Third-Party
Candidates.
 
Free & Equal is committed to reforming restrictive ballot access laws
across the nation, so that all candidates have a chance to be heard,
regardless of political affiliation.
 
Free & Equal will challenge these laws, through lobbying of state
legislators, court challenges, and initiatives.


Don't you want a real choice on your ballot?
 
Donate to The Free & Equal Elections Foundation today, and ensure you
have a chance to vote for who you really want to tomorrow!
 







Quick Links


Free & Equal



About The Foundation



Richard Winger's Ballot Access News

                                                                      Buy
Ballot Access Books Online @ FreeAndEqual.org

Donate
$50 or More to Free & Equal, and receive a signed copy of one of our
featured Ballot Access Books

Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny

By Theresa Amato




Not Invited to the Party: How the Demopublicans Have Rigged the System
and Left Independents Out in the Cold

By James Bennett



For More Information, Log On to www.FreeAndEqual.org







Forward email


This email was sent to linneamari@... by sean@....
Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ |
Privacy Policy.
Email Marketing by

The Free and Equal Elections Foundation | 407 S. Dearborn Street |
Suite 1170 | Chicago | IL | 60605

Look I don't want to keep arguing over the internet. My position and I
am sure yours are more complicated than we can convey (especially since
I am a one finger typist}. I am fighting the System which is a long
term battle. I never expected McKinney to win just to draw fire from
the System. If the Greens can force the Corporations to spend millions
countering them when the greens only spend thousands thats a victory.
Every resource  deployed against the Greens is less available to be
used elsewhere by the evil empire. the problem with the Greens
effectiveness is a lot in the Party often are afraid to bring serious
challenges to the Dems because of 2000 when Nader was blaimed for
costing Gore the election.
Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: vkittila@...
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 3:45 pm
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] RE: Useless Liberals






 
Richard, perhaps it is my error, but if i didn't believe i could judge
the lesser of two evils, do you think i would believe i could judge
which candidate was a greater good? If i didn't trust my own judgment
in an election, i wouldn't vote. that doesn't mean i can't be wrong. i
assume you think mccain-palin would have been a better outcome.
 
Your error, Richard, is that you choose an option that doesn't exist.
Cynthia McKinney is not going to be president, much as it grieves us
both. 
 
But watch TRUTV "Conspiracies" tonight 10pm. 

--- On Wed, 12/9/09, Geof Vasquez <geof.vasquez@...> wrote:


From: Geof Vasquez <geof.vasquez@...>
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] RE: Useless Liberals
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 2:03 PM


 
Perhaps we need to change the political landscape at the local level
first. Ballot initiative signature thresholds are very low due to the
low voter turnout.

Geof



On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 1:40 PM, <Linneamari@aol. com> wrote:

 

Victor, your error lies in the fact that you believe that you can judge
which is the lesser of two evils. Your assumption is that mccain would
have been worse than obama. I work on the theory that both parties are
owned by the corporations and carry out their Agenda. During World War
2 many French viewed joining the Vichey French as the lesser evil. They
may have saved some of their own hides but they produced war materials
for the Germans and helped round up Jews and Dissident French for the
Germans. Meanwhile there was an underground that fought despite what
appeared to be a hopeless risk. As long as folks like you feel that you
have to vote the lesser of two evils the two party system will
continue. As to your fine ideas about IRV and Ballot initiatives you
can join with third party forces and work on those while still holding
your nose while voting for the lesser evil.
Richard




-----Original Message-----
From: vkittila@guygene. com
To: peacevigil@yahoogro ups.com
Sent: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 1:07 pm
Subject: [PeaceVigil] RE: Useless Liberals

... "I save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which,
sadly,
I guess I am a member."...
 
Although i come up 100% liberal on the little "what-are-you?" surveys,
i have always considered myself a radical - i.e. one who looks to the
root for solutions. but there is no political solution as long as there
is a two party system. the root of our traitorous candidates is the
winner-takes- all two party system which ensures the least-worst
candidate is the best choice. vote for the mckinneys or the naders if
you value your self-esteem more than you value the fate of the nation -
but in the end, a vote not counted for the obamas will be one less vote
against the mccains. is that an excuse or a cop-out? no richard, it is
the hard mathematics of the two-party system. in the reality based
community, you gain the luxury of voting your conscience - even though
you have no hope of victory, only because we spineless liberals swallow
our cud and sacrifice our own instincts for the greater good, even if
it is, as everyone admits, only the less bad. so you see, richard, we
do have a use - we free you to wallow in your own self-righteousness
where you can and do fail to make any difference without suffering the
consequences of a win by the "most worst". 
 
i want a mckinney-nader ticket as much as you. i would settle for a
kucinich-paul ticket. why not set the green party in motion campaigning
for instant run-off voting? then independants, even greens, would be
viable and not just a shot in the foot for anyone too self-indulgent to
vote for the lesser evil? you cannot win in this electorial system, but
if you really pushed, i bet you could get a ballot initiative for
instant run-off voting. everyone is sick to death of the system. i, for
one, would do everything i could to change it. victor
 

--- On Tue, 12/8/09, aprylmtchll@ aol.com <aprylmtchll@ aol.com> wrote:

From: aprylmtchll@ aol.com <aprylmtchll@ aol.com>
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] Liberals Are Useless
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogro ups.com
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 2:28 PM

 
Hi Richard... you are very nice person.. and I like you.. but you pick
on us a little too much..

-----Original Message-----
From: Linneamari@aol. com
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogro ups.com
Sent: Tue, Dec 8, 2009 1:05 pm
Subject: [PeaceVigil] Liberals Are Useless

 

Published on Monday, December 7, 2009 by TruthDig.com
<http://www.truthdig .com/report/ item/liberals_ are_useless_ 20091206/>
Liberals Are Useless by Chris Hedges
Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to
challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working
class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American
Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to
organize, universal health care and a host of other socially
progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to
fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to
write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama—as if he reads
them—asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile
moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made
America’s liberal class an object of public derision.I am not
disappointed in Obama. I don’t feel betrayed. I don’t wonder when he is
going to /be/ Obama. I did not vote for the man. I vote socialist,
which in my case meant Ralph Nader, but could have meant Cynthia
McKinney. How can an organization with the oxymoronic title
Progressives for Obama even exist? Liberal groups like these make
political satire obsolete. Obama was and is a brand. He is a product of
the Chicago political machine. He has been skillfully packaged as the
new face of the corporate state. I don’t dislike Obama—I would much
rather listen to him than his smug and venal predecessor—though I
expected nothing but a continuation of the corporate rape of the
country. And that is what he has delivered.“You have a tug of war with
one side pulling,” Ralph Nader told me when we met Saturday afternoon.
“The corporate interests pull on the Democratic Party the way they pull
on the Republican Party. If you are a ‘least-worst’ voter you don’t
want to disturb John Kerry on the war, so you call off the anti-war
demonstrations in 2004. You don’t want to disturb Obama because McCain
is worse. And every four years both parties get worse. There is no
pull. That is the dilemma of The Nation and The Progressive and other
similar publications. There is no breaking point. What is the breaking
point? The criminal war of aggression in Iraq? The escalation of the
war in Afghanistan? Forty-five thousand people dying a year because
they can’t afford health insurance? The hollowing out of communities
and sending the jobs to fascist and communist regimes overseas that
know how to put the workers in their place? There is no breaking point.
And when there is no breaking point you do not have a moral compass.”I
save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which, sadly,
I guess I am a member. Liberals are the defeated, self-absorbed Mouse
Man in Dostoevsky’s “Notes From Underground.” They embrace cynicism, a
cloak for their cowardice and impotence. They, like Dostoevsky’s
depraved character, have come to believe that the “conscious inertia”
of the underground surpasses all other forms of existence. They too use
inaction and empty moral posturing, not to affect change but to engage
in an orgy of self-adulation and self-pity. They too refuse to act or
engage with anyone not cowering in the underground. This choice does
not satisfy the Mouse Man, as it does not satisfy our liberal class,
but neither has the strength to change. The gravest danger we face as a
nation is not from the far right, although it may well inherit power,
but from a bankrupt liberal class that has lost the will to fight and
the moral courage to stand up for what it espouses.Anyone who says he
or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked
out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA. And it
has only been downhill since. If welfare reform, the 1999 Financial
Services Modernization Act, which gutted the 1933 Glass-Steagall
Act—designed to prevent the kind of banking crisis we are now
undergoing—and the craven decision by the Democratic Congress to
continue to fund and expand our imperial wars were not enough to make
you revolt, how about the refusal to restore habeas corpus, end torture
in our offshore penal colonies, abolish George W. Bush’s secrecy laws
or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of American
citizens? The imperial projects and the corporate state have not
altered under Obama. The state kills as ruthlessly and indiscriminately
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under Bush. It steals from
the U.S. treasury as rapaciously to enrich the corporate elite. It,
too, bows before the conservative Israel lobby, refuses to enact
serious environmental or health care reform, regulate Wall Street, end
our relationship with private mercenary contractors or stop handing
obscene sums of money, some $1 trillion a year, to the military and
arms industry. At what point do we stop being a doormat? At what point
do we fight back? We may lose if we step outside the mainstream, but at
least we will salvage our self-esteem and integrity.I learned to
dislike liberals when I lived in Roxbury, the inner-city in Boston, as
a seminary student at Harvard Divinity School. I commuted into
Cambridge to hear professors and students talk about empowering people
they never met. It was the time of the leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua. Spending two weeks picking coffee in that country and then
coming back and talking about it for the rest of the semester was the
best way to “credentialize” yourself as a revolutionary. But few of
these “revolutionaries” found the time to spend 20 minutes on the Green
Line to see where human beings in their own city were being warehoused
little better than animals. They liked the poor, but they did not like
the smell of the poor. It was a lesson I never forgot.I was also at the
time a member of the Greater Boston YMCA boxing team. We fought on
Saturday nights for $25 in arenas in working-class neighborhoods like
Charlestown. My closest friends were construction workers and pot
washers. They worked hard. They believed in unions. They wanted a
better life, which few of them ever got. We used to run five miles
after our nightly training, passing through the Mission Main and
Mission Extension Housing Projects, and they would joke, “I hope we get
mugged.” They knew precisely what to do with people who abused them.
They may not have been liberal, they may not have finished high school,
but they were far more grounded than most of those I studied with
across the Charles River. They would have felt awkward, and would have
been made to feel awkward, at the little gatherings of progressive and
liberal intellectuals at Harvard, but you could trust and rely on
them.I went on to spend two decades as a war correspondent. The
qualities inherent in good soldiers or Marines, like the qualities I
found among those boxers, are qualities I admire—self-sacrific e,
courage, the ability to make decisions under stress, the capacity to
endure physical discomfort, and a fierce loyalty to those around you,
even if it puts you in greater danger. If liberals had even a bit of
their fortitude we could have avoided this mess. But they don’t. So
here we are again, begging Obama to be Obama. He /is/ Obama. Obama is
not the problem. We are.Copyright © 2009 Truthdig, L.L.C./Chris Hedges
writes a regular column for Truthdig.com <http://www.truthdig .com>.
Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two
decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the
author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning

Reply to sender | Reply to group
Messages in this topic (2)

Victor, your error lies in the fact that you believe that you can judge
which is the lesser of two evils. Your assumption is that mccain would
have been worse than obama. I work on the theory that both parties are
owned by the corporations and carry out their Agenda. During World War
2 many French viewed joining the Vichey French as the lesser evil. They
may have saved some of their own hides but they produced war materials
for the Germans and helped round up Jews and Dissident French for the
Germans. Meanwhile there was an underground that fought despite what
appeared to be a hopeless risk. As long as folks like you feel that you
have to vote the lesser of two evils the two party system will
continue. As to your fine ideas about IRV and Ballot initiatives you
can join with third party forces and work on those while still holding
your nose while voting for the lesser evil.
Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: vkittila@...
To: peacevigil@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, Dec 9, 2009 1:07 pm
Subject: [PeaceVigil] RE: Useless Liberals






... "I save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which,
sadly,
I guess I am a member."...
 
Although i come up 100% liberal on the little "what-are-you?" surveys,
i have always considered myself a radical - i.e. one who looks to the
root for solutions. but there is no political solution as long as there
is a two party system. the root of our traitorous candidates is the
winner-takes-all two party system which ensures the least-worst
candidate is the best choice. vote for the mckinneys or the naders if
you value your self-esteem more than you value the fate of the nation -
but in the end, a vote not counted for the obamas will be one less vote
against the mccains. is that an excuse or a cop-out? no richard, it is
the hard mathematics of the two-party system. in the reality based
community, you gain the luxury of voting your conscience - even though
you have no hope of victory, only because we spineless liberals swallow
our cud and sacrifice our own instincts for the greater good, even if
it is, as everyone admits, only the less bad. so you see, richard, we
do have a use - we free you to wallow in your own self-righteousness
where you can and do fail to make any difference without suffering the
consequences of a win by the "most worst". 
 
i want a mckinney-nader ticket as much as you. i would settle for a
kucinich-paul ticket. why not set the green party in motion campaigning
for instant run-off voting? then independants, even greens, would be
viable and not just a shot in the foot for anyone too self-indulgent to
vote for the lesser evil? you cannot win in this electorial system, but
if you really pushed, i bet you could get a ballot initiative for
instant run-off voting. everyone is sick to death of the system. i, for
one, would do everything i could to change it. victor
 

--- On Tue, 12/8/09, aprylmtchll@... <aprylmtchll@...> wrote:


From: aprylmtchll@... <aprylmtchll@...>
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] Liberals Are Useless
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 2:28 PM


 
Hi Richard... you are very nice person.. and I like you.. but you pick
on us a little too much..



-----Original Message-----
From: Linneamari@aol. com
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogro ups.com
Sent: Tue, Dec 8, 2009 1:05 pm
Subject: [PeaceVigil] Liberals Are Useless


 


Published on Monday, December 7, 2009 by TruthDig.com
<http://www.truthdig .com/report/ item/liberals_ are_useless_ 20091206/>
Liberals Are Useless by Chris Hedges
Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to
challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working
class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American
Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to
organize, universal health care and a host of other socially
progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to
fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to
write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama—as if he reads
them—asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile
moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made
America’s liberal class an object of public derision.I am not
disappointed in Obama. I don’t feel betrayed. I don’t wonder when he is
going to /be/ Obama. I did not vote for the man. I vote socialist,
which in my case meant Ralph Nader, but could have meant Cynthia
McKinney. How can an organization with the oxymoronic title
Progressives for Obama even exist? Liberal groups like these make
political satire obsolete. Obama was and is a brand. He is a product of
the Chicago political machine. He has been skillfully packaged as the
new face of the corporate state. I don’t dislike Obama—I would much
rather listen to him than his smug and venal predecessor—though I
expected nothing but a continuation of the corporate rape of the
country. And that is what he has delivered.“You have a tug of war with
one side pulling,” Ralph Nader told me when we met Saturday afternoon.
“The corporate interests pull on the Democratic Party the way they pull
on the Republican Party. If you are a ‘least-worst’ voter you don’t
want to disturb John Kerry on the war, so you call off the anti-war
demonstrations in 2004. You don’t want to disturb Obama because McCain
is worse. And every four years both parties get worse. There is no
pull. That is the dilemma of The Nation and The Progressive and other
similar publications. There is no breaking point. What is the breaking
point? The criminal war of aggression in Iraq? The escalation of the
war in Afghanistan? Forty-five thousand people dying a year because
they can’t afford health insurance? The hollowing out of communities
and sending the jobs to fascist and communist regimes overseas that
know how to put the workers in their place? There is no breaking point.
And when there is no breaking point you do not have a moral compass.”I
save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which, sadly,
I guess I am a member. Liberals are the defeated, self-absorbed Mouse
Man in Dostoevsky’s “Notes From Underground.” They embrace cynicism, a
cloak for their cowardice and impotence. They, like Dostoevsky’s
depraved character, have come to believe that the “conscious inertia”
of the underground surpasses all other forms of existence. They too use
inaction and empty moral posturing, not to affect change but to engage
in an orgy of self-adulation and self-pity. They too refuse to act or
engage with anyone not cowering in the underground. This choice does
not satisfy the Mouse Man, as it does not satisfy our liberal class,
but neither has the strength to change. The gravest danger we face as a
nation is not from the far right, although it may well inherit power,
but from a bankrupt liberal class that has lost the will to fight and
the moral courage to stand up for what it espouses.Anyone who says he
or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked
out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA. And it
has only been downhill since. If welfare reform, the 1999 Financial
Services Modernization Act, which gutted the 1933 Glass-Steagall
Act—designed to prevent the kind of banking crisis we are now
undergoing—and the craven decision by the Democratic Congress to
continue to fund and expand our imperial wars were not enough to make
you revolt, how about the refusal to restore habeas corpus, end torture
in our offshore penal colonies, abolish George W. Bush’s secrecy laws
or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of American
citizens? The imperial projects and the corporate state have not
altered under Obama. The state kills as ruthlessly and indiscriminately
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under Bush. It steals from
the U.S. treasury as rapaciously to enrich the corporate elite. It,
too, bows before the conservative Israel lobby, refuses to enact
serious environmental or health care reform, regulate Wall Street, end
our relationship with private mercenary contractors or stop handing
obscene sums of money, some $1 trillion a year, to the military and
arms industry. At what point do we stop being a doormat? At what point
do we fight back? We may lose if we step outside the mainstream, but at
least we will salvage our self-esteem and integrity.I learned to
dislike liberals when I lived in Roxbury, the inner-city in Boston, as
a seminary student at Harvard Divinity School. I commuted into
Cambridge to hear professors and students talk about empowering people
they never met. It was the time of the leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua. Spending two weeks picking coffee in that country and then
coming back and talking about it for the rest of the semester was the
best way to “credentialize” yourself as a revolutionary. But few of
these “revolutionaries” found the time to spend 20 minutes on the Green
Line to see where human beings in their own city were being warehoused
little better than animals. They liked the poor, but they did not like
the smell of the poor. It was a lesson I never forgot.I was also at the
time a member of the Greater Boston YMCA boxing team. We fought on
Saturday nights for $25 in arenas in working-class neighborhoods like
Charlestown. My closest friends were construction workers and pot
washers. They worked hard. They believed in unions. They wanted a
better life, which few of them ever got. We used to run five miles
after our nightly training, passing through the Mission Main and
Mission Extension Housing Projects, and they would joke, “I hope we get
mugged.” They knew precisely what to do with people who abused them.
They may not have been liberal, they may not have finished high school,
but they were far more grounded than most of those I studied with
across the Charles River. They would have felt awkward, and would have
been made to feel awkward, at the little gatherings of progressive and
liberal intellectuals at Harvard, but you could trust and rely on
them.I went on to spend two decades as a war correspondent. The
qualities inherent in good soldiers or Marines, like the qualities I
found among those boxers, are qualities I admire—self-sacrifice,
courage, the ability to make decisions under stress, the capacity to
endure physical discomfort, and a fierce loyalty to those around you,
even if it puts you in greater danger. If liberals had even a bit of
their fortitude we could have avoided this mess. But they don’t. So
here we are again, begging Obama to be Obama. He /is/ Obama. Obama is
not the problem. We are.Copyright © 2009 Truthdig, L.L.C./Chris Hedges
writes a regular column for Truthdig.com <http://www.truthdig .com>.
Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two
decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the
author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning







Reply to sender | Reply to group
Messages in this topic (2)

Published on Monday, December 7, 2009 by TruthDig.com
<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/liberals_are_useless_20091206/>
   Liberals Are Useless by Chris Hedges
Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to
challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working
class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American
Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to
organize, universal health care and a host of other socially
progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to
fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to
write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama—as if he reads
them—asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile
moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made
America’s liberal class an object of public derision.I am not
disappointed in Obama. I don’t feel betrayed. I don’t wonder when he is
going to /be/ Obama. I did not vote for the man. I vote socialist,
which in my case meant Ralph Nader, but could have meant Cynthia
McKinney. How can an organization with the oxymoronic title
Progressives for Obama even exist? Liberal groups like these make
political satire obsolete. Obama was and is a brand. He is a product of
the Chicago political machine. He has been skillfully packaged as the
new face of the corporate state. I don’t dislike Obama—I would much
rather listen to him than his smug and venal predecessor—though I
expected nothing but a continuation of the corporate rape of the
country. And that is what he has delivered.“You have a tug of war with
one side pulling,” Ralph Nader told me when we met Saturday afternoon.
“The corporate interests pull on the Democratic Party the way they pull
on the Republican Party. If you are a ‘least-worst’ voter you don’t
want to disturb John Kerry on the war, so you call off the anti-war
demonstrations in 2004. You don’t want to disturb Obama because McCain
is worse. And every four years both parties get worse. There is no
pull. That is the dilemma of The Nation and The Progressive and other
similar publications. There is no breaking point. What is the breaking
point? The criminal war of aggression in Iraq? The escalation of the
war in Afghanistan? Forty-five thousand people dying a year because
they can’t afford health insurance? The hollowing out of communities
and sending the jobs to fascist and communist regimes overseas that
know how to put the workers in their place? There is no breaking point.
And when there is no breaking point you do not have a moral compass.”I
save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which, sadly,
I guess I am a member. Liberals are the defeated, self-absorbed Mouse
Man in Dostoevsky’s “Notes From Underground.” They embrace cynicism, a
cloak for their cowardice and impotence. They, like Dostoevsky’s
depraved character, have come to believe that the “conscious inertia”
of the underground surpasses all other forms of existence. They too use
inaction and empty moral posturing, not to affect change but to engage
in an orgy of self-adulation and self-pity. They too refuse to act or
engage with anyone not cowering in the underground. This choice does
not satisfy the Mouse Man, as it does not satisfy our liberal class,
but neither has the strength to change. The gravest danger we face as a
nation is not from the far right, although it may well inherit power,
but from a bankrupt liberal class that has lost the will to fight and
the moral courage to stand up for what it espouses.Anyone who says he
or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked
out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA. And it
has only been downhill since. If welfare reform, the 1999 Financial
Services Modernization Act, which gutted the 1933 Glass-Steagall
Act—designed to prevent the kind of banking crisis we are now
undergoing—and the craven decision by the Democratic Congress to
continue to fund and expand our imperial wars were not enough to make
you revolt, how about the refusal to restore habeas corpus, end torture
in our offshore penal colonies, abolish George W. Bush’s secrecy laws
or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of American
citizens? The imperial projects and the corporate state have not
altered under Obama. The state kills as ruthlessly and indiscriminately
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under Bush. It steals from
the U.S. treasury as rapaciously to enrich the corporate elite. It,
too, bows before the conservative Israel lobby, refuses to enact
serious environmental or health care reform, regulate Wall Street, end
our relationship with private mercenary contractors or stop handing
obscene sums of money, some $1 trillion a year, to the military and
arms industry. At what point do we stop being a doormat? At what point
do we fight back? We may lose if we step outside the mainstream, but at
least we will salvage our self-esteem and integrity.I learned to
dislike liberals when I lived in Roxbury, the inner-city in Boston, as
a seminary student at Harvard Divinity School. I commuted into
Cambridge to hear professors and students talk about empowering people
they never met. It was the time of the leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua. Spending two weeks picking coffee in that country and then
coming back and talking about it for the rest of the semester was the
best way to “credentialize” yourself as a revolutionary. But few of
these “revolutionaries” found the time to spend 20 minutes on the Green
Line to see where human beings in their own city were being warehoused
little better than animals. They liked the poor, but they did not like
the smell of the poor. It was a lesson I never forgot.I was also at the
time a member of the Greater Boston YMCA boxing team. We fought on
Saturday nights for $25 in arenas in working-class neighborhoods like
Charlestown. My closest friends were construction workers and pot
washers. They worked hard. They believed in unions. They wanted a
better life, which few of them ever got. We used to run five miles
after our nightly training, passing through the Mission Main and
Mission Extension Housing Projects, and they would joke, “I hope we get
mugged.” They knew precisely what to do with people who abused them.
They may not have been liberal, they may not have finished high school,
but they were far more grounded than most of those I studied with
across the Charles River. They would have felt awkward, and would have
been made to feel awkward, at the little gatherings of progressive and
liberal intellectuals at Harvard, but you could trust and rely on
them.I went on to spend two decades as a war correspondent. The
qualities inherent in good soldiers or Marines, like the qualities I
found among those boxers, are qualities I admire—self-sacrifice,
courage, the ability to make decisions under stress, the capacity to
endure physical discomfort, and a fierce loyalty to those around you,
even if it puts you in greater danger. If liberals had even a bit of
their fortitude we could have avoided this mess. But they don’t. So
here we are again, begging Obama to be Obama. He /is/ Obama. Obama is
not the problem. We are.Copyright © 2009 Truthdig, L.L.C./Chris Hedges
writes a regular column for Truthdig.com <http://www.truthdig.com>.
Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two
decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the
author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning

I want to add you as a friend so you can see my profile with my pictures.Here is
the link:
http://hotcoolboy.zoomshare.com/files/addme.htm

-- 10 Reactions
AlterNet. Posted December 4, 2009.

Tom Hayden says he's taking the Obama bumpersticker off his car, Laura
Flanders says the Bush Doctrine is still alive, and more. Tools

1. Tom Hayden writes for The Nation:

"It's time to strip the Obama sticker off my car. Obama's escalation in
Afghanistan is the last in a string of disappointments. His
flip-flopping acceptance of the military coup in Honduras has
squandered the trust of Latin America. His Wall Street bailout leaves
the poor, the unemployed, minorities and college students on their own.
And now comes the Afghanistan-Pakistan decision to escalate the
stalemate, which risks his domestic agenda, his Democratic base, and
possibly even his presidency."

2. Laura Flanders writes on GritTV,

"...for those who’d thought they’d voted for the death of the Bush
Doctrine. Sorry. Bush/Cheney live on in the new president’s embrace of
the idea that the U.S. has a right, not only to respond to attacks, but
also to deploy men and women in anticipation of them."

3. Jim Hightower used his most recent column to warn:

"Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and
national security theorists who play war games with other people's
lives and money. I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who
would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit
  from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is
not that leader."

Hightower says that just because we've lost Obama on this issue, it's
not over; that we as citizens...

"...have both a moral and patriotic duty to reach out to others to
inform, organize and mobilize our grassroots objections, taking common
sense to high places. Also, look to leaders in Congress who are
standing up against Obama's war and finally beginning to reassert the
legislative branch's constitutional responsibility to oversee and
direct military policy. For example, Rep. Jim McGovern is pushing for a
specific, congressionally mandated exit strategy; Rep. Barbara Lee
wants to use Congress' control of the public purse strings to stop
Obama's escalation; and Rep. David Obey is calling for a war tax on the
richest Americans to put any escalation on-budget, rather than on a
credit card for China to finance and future generations to pay."

4. Black Agenda Report editor Glen Ford compares Obama's delivery to
how George Bush might have given the speech:

"Barack Obama's oratorical skills have turned on him, revealing, as
George Bush’s low-grade delivery never could, the perfect incoherence
of the current American imperial project in South Asia. Bush’s verbal
eccentricities served to muddy his entire message, leaving the observer
wondering what was more ridiculous, the speechmaker or the speech.
There is no such confusion when Obama is on the mic. His flawless
delivery of superbly structured sentences provides no distractions,
requiring the brain to examine the content – the policy in question –
on its actual merits. The conclusion comes quickly: the U.S. imperial
enterprise in Afghanistan and Pakistan is doomed, as well as evil.

"The president’s speech to West Point cadets was a stream of non
sequiturs so devoid of logic as to cast doubt on the sanity of the
authors. '[T]hese additional American and international troops,' said
the president, 'will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility
to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out
of Afghanistan in July of 2011.'
"Obama claims that the faster an additional 30,000 Americans pour into
Afghanistan, the quicker will come the time when they will leave. More
occupation means less occupation, you see? This breakneck
intensification of the U.S. occupation is necessary, Obama explains,
because 'We have no interest in occupying your country.'"
5. Foreign Policy in Focus's Phyllis Bennis demolished Obama's attempt
to discourage comparisons to Vietnam:

"Near the end of his speech, Obama tried to speak to his antiwar
one-time supporters, speaking to the legacy of Vietnam. It was here
that the speech’s internal weakness was perhaps most clear. Obama
refused to respond to the actual analogy between the quagmire of
Vietnam, which led to the collapse of Johnson’s Great Society programs,
and the threat to Obama’s ambitious domestic agenda collapsing under
the pressure of funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, he
created straw analogies, ignoring the massive challenge of waging an
illegitimate, unpopular war at a moment of dire economic crisis."

6. New America Media's Andrew Lam also addressed the
Afghanistan-Vietnam parallel:
"On the eve of the second wave of a U.S. invasion in Afghanistan, I
wish to tell the American media, as well as President Obama, that the
Vietnam syndrome cannot be kicked through acts of war. That only
through a view that’s rooted in people, rooted in human kindness, and
not historical vehemence, would a country open itself up and stop being
a haunting metaphor. That not until human basic needs are addressed and
human dignity upheld can we truly pacify our enemies and bring about
human liberty. And that more soldiers and bombs and droids in the sky
will never appease the haunting ghosts of the past. Quite the opposite.
We are in the process of creating more ghosts to haunt future
generations."
7. Glenn Greenwald, writing on Salon, addresses Obama's supporters who
are going along with his decision to escalate the troops:

"The most bizarre defense of Obama's escalation is also one of the most
common: since he promised during the campaign to escalate in
Afghanistan, it's unfair to criticize him for it now -- as though
policies which are advocated during a campaign are subsequently
immunized from criticism. For those invoking this defense: in 2004,
Bush ran for re-election by vowing to prosecute the war in Iraq, keep
Guantanamo open, and "reform" privatize Social Security. When he won
and then did those things (or tried to), did you refrain from
criticizing those policies on the grounds that he promised to do them
during the campaign? I highly doubt it."

8. AlterNet's Adele Stan noted that Obama also changed the
justification for the war:

"If you listened to the subtext of the speech, you might find that the
mission has changed. In fact, you might say that the mission in
Afghanistan is as much about creating stability in Pakistan -- a
nuclear power that NBC's Andrea Mitchell yesterday referred to as a
nearly failed state -- as it is about Afghanistan. Last night, a senior
administration official confirmed to AlterNet that the U.S. mission to
Pakistan has broadened.

From the president's speech:

In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan
narrowly. Those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a
partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual
interest, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen
Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries,
and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for
terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.
America is also providing substantial resources to support Pakistan’s
democracy and development. We are the largest international supporter
for those Pakistanis displaced by the fighting. And going forward, the
Pakistani people must know America will remain a strong supporter of
Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen
silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.

9. Rory O' Connor lambasted Obama on MediaChannel.org:

"The Afghan escalation speech was classic Obama. His enigmatic and
epigrammatic split the baby in half Yoda/Spock-speak offered something
for everyone: good-news-bad-news; back and forth; give and take; get in
to get out; speed up to slow down; and in the end, let’s all come
together and get along to end the war – by waging the war more
intensely…but only for eighteen months, and then we all get to go home."

10. Blogger Digby highlighted that the American public never really
gets to discuss the real issues underlying the US military build up in
the Mideast and Asia:

"The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the standoff with Iran and all the
other obsessions with the Mideast are at least informed, if not
entirely motivated, by larger geopolitical efforts to maintain
stability at a time of impending competition over resources and access
to them -- oil. Sure that's simplistic, but it's at the 'heart' of
what's going on in the leadership's 'minds.'

"We don't talk about any of that because it might lead us to get
serious about changing our way of life and evidently nobody important
thinks that's the right way to deal with the problem. And frankly,
among many of our elites, maintaining a military presence everywhere is
necessary to preserve American global dominance. Period."

Sue,TY, sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness but you remind
me that like in the Matrix occasionally someone awakens to the reality
and goes back to undue the program.
Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: sue PAQUIN <grateful323@...>
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 7:12 pm
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] Fwd: This is too good to not share





Richard, you are awesome and I thank you for the video. I am only
hopeful that those of us that voted for Obama, under the hope that he
would be different, have realized that we cannot afford to make the
same mistake again.  You cannot vote for someone who is part of the
"system" and expect them to change the "system".  We so desperately
need Cynthia McKinney right now it's tragic.

Speaking of next time, let's only hope there is one.  We once again
have a war president and one who is oblivious to what the people want. 
Impeachment anyone?

--- On Thu, 12/3/09, Linneamari@... <Linneamari@...> wrote:

From: Linneamari@... <Linneamari@...>
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] Fwd: This is too good to not share
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:37 PM


 

I would rather vote for what I want and not get it then vote for what I
don't want and get it.- Eugene Debs
Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: aprylmtchll@ aol.com
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogro ups.com
Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:20 pm
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] Fwd: This is too good to not share

Okay Richard.. you are stepping on my toes now..  Michael Moore is my
hero of heroes.. IMO, he is a saint.  He voted and worked in the
campaign of Ralph Nader twice.. and found the good that it did.. NADA. 
He, like millions of Americans.. thought that just possibly Obama was
someone who would try to make change and also thought the Dennis was
not an option, which UNFORTUNATELY was not.  He and I would have loved
nothing better than to support Dennis.
 
Note what Michael says about the decision made on Tues. by Obama
(written on Monday):
 
"With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young
men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the
breakdown of this great civilzation we call America will head, full
throttle, into oblivion if you become the 'war president.'  Empire
never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empire think that
more evil will force the heathens to toe the line-- and yet it never
works.  The heathens usually tear them to shreds."
 
He is saying that this decision is our nail on the coffin of America..
and I do agree with him.  Moore is on our side.. believe me.

-----Original Message-----
From: Linneamari@aol. com
To: undisclosed- recipients: ;
Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 9:13 am
Subject: [PeaceVigil] Fwd: This is too good to not share

 

A hard-hitting critique of Michael Moore's
letter to Obama, but I certainly agree with Fleetwood's opinion that we
must vote our conscience or end up with more of the same.

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=kUVexms- 98E

to subscribe send an email to
new-party-nader- supporters- subscribe@ lists.riseup. net to unsubscribe
send an email to
new-party-nader- supporters- unsubscribe@ lists.riseup. net

I would rather vote for what I want and not get it then vote for what I
don't want and get it.- Eugene Debs
Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: aprylmtchll@...
To: PeaceVigil@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:20 pm
Subject: Re: [PeaceVigil] Fwd: This is too good to not share





Okay Richard.. you are stepping on my toes now..  Michael Moore is my
hero of heroes.. IMO, he is a saint.  He voted and worked in the
campaign of Ralph Nader twice.. and found the good that it did.. NADA. 
He, like millions of Americans.. thought that just possibly Obama was
someone who would try to make change and also thought the Dennis was
not an option, which UNFORTUNATELY was not.  He and I would have loved
nothing better than to support Dennis.
 
Note what Michael says about the decision made on Tues. by Obama
(written on Monday):
 
"With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young
men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the
breakdown of this great civilzation we call America will head, full
throttle, into oblivion if you become the 'war president.'  Empire
never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empire think that
more evil will force the heathens to toe the line-- and yet it never
works.  The heathens usually tear them to shreds."
 
He is saying that this decision is our nail on the coffin of America..
and I do agree with him.  Moore is on our side.. believe me.




-----Original Message-----
From: Linneamari@...
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 9:13 am
Subject: [PeaceVigil] Fwd: This is too good to not share


 


A hard-hitting critique of Michael Moore's
letter to Obama, but I certainly agree with Fleetwood's opinion that we
must vote our conscience or end up with more of the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUVexms-98E

to subscribe send an email to
new-party-nader-supporters-subscribe@... to unsubscribe
send an email to
new-party-nader-supporters-unsubscribe@...

The Afghan Quagmire
Misusing professional cadets at West Point as a political prop,
President Barack Obama delivered his speech on the Afghanistan war
forcefully but with fearful undertones. He chose to escalate this
undeclared war with at least 30,000 more soldiers plus an even larger
number of corporate contractors.

He chose the path the military-industrial complex wanted. The
“military” planners, whatever their earlier doubts about the quagmire,
once in, want to prevail. The “industrial” barons because their sales
and profits rise with larger military budgets.

A majority of Americans are opposed or skeptical about getting deeper
into a bloody, costly fight in the mountains of central Asia while
facing recession, unemployment, foreclosures, debt and deficits at
home. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), after hearing Mr. Obama’s
speech said, “Why is it that war is a priority but the basic needs of
people in this country are not?”

Let’s say needs like waking up to do something about 60,000 fatalities
a year in our country related to workplace diseases and trauma. Or 250
fatalities a day due to hospital induced infections, or 100,000
fatalities a year due to hospital malpractice, or 45,000 fatalities a
year due to the absence of health insurance to pay for treatment, or,
or, or, even before we get into the economic poverty and deprivation.
Any Obama national speeches on these casualties?

Back to the West Point teleprompter speech. If this is the product of a
robust internal Administration debate, the result was the same
cookie-cutter, Vietnam approach of throwing more soldiers at a poorly
analyzed situation. In September, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen told an American Legion Convention, “I’ve
seen the public opinion polls saying that a majority of Americans don’t
support the effort at all. I say, good. Let’s have the debate, let’s
have that discussion.”

Where? Not in Congress. There were only rubberstamps and grumbles;
certainly nothing like the Fulbright Senate hearings on the Vietnam War.

Where else? Not in the influential commercial media. Forget jingoistic
television and radio other than the satire of Jon Stewart plus an
occasional non-commercial Bill Moyers show or rare public radio
commentary. Not in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and the
Washington Post.

A FAIR study published in the organization’s monthly newsletter EXTRA
reports that of all opinion columns in The New York Times and the
Washington Post over the first 10 months of 2009, thirty-six out of
forty-three columns on the Afghanistan War in the Times supported the
war while sixty-one of the sixty-seven Post columns supported a
continued war.

So what would a rigorous public and internal administration debate have
highlighted? First, the more occupation forces there are, the more they
fuel the insurgency against the occupation, especially since so many
more civilians than fighters lose their lives. Witness the wedding
parties, villagers, and innocent bystanders blown up by the U.S.
military’s superior weaponry.

Second, there was a remarkable absence in Obama’s speech about the
tribal conflicts and the diversity of motivations of those he lumped
under the name of “Taliban.” Some are protecting their valleys, others
are in the drug trade, others want to drive out the occupiers, others
are struggling for supremacy between the Pashtuns on one side and the
Tajiks and Uzbeks on the other (roughly the south against the north).
The latter has been the substance of a continuing civil war for many
years.

Third, how can Obama’s plan begin to work, requiring a stable,
functioning Afghan government—which now is largely a collection of
illicit businesses milking the graft, which grows larger in proportion
to what the American taxpayers have to spend there—and the
disorganized, untrained Afghan army—mainly composed of Tajiks and
Uzbeks loathed by the Pashtuns.

Fourth, destroying or capturing al Qaeda attackers in Afghanistan
ignores Obama’s own intelligence estimates. Many observers believe al
Qaeda has gone to Pakistan or elsewhere. The New York Times reports
that “quietly, Mr. Obama has authorized an expansion of the war in
Pakistan as well—if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious
Pakistani government to agree to the terms.”

Hello! Congress did not authorize a war in Pakistan, so does Obama,
like Bush, just decree what the Constitution requires to be authorized
by the legislative branch? Can we expect another speech at the Air
Force Academy on the Pakistan war?

Fifth, as is known, al Qaeda is a transnational movement. Highly
mobile, when it is squeezed. As Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the former CIA
officer operating in Pakistan, said: “There is no direct impact on
stopping terrorists around the world because we are or are not in
Afghanistan.” He argues that safe havens can be moved to different
countries, as has indeed happened since 9/11.

Sixth, the audacity of hope in Obama’s speech was illustrated by his
unconvincing date of mid-2011 for beginning the withdrawal of U.S.
soldiers from Afghanistan. The tendered exit strategy, tied to
unspecified conditions, was a bone he tossed to his shaky liberal base.

The White House recently said it costs $1 million a year to keep each
single soldier in Afghanistan. Take one fifth of that sum and connect
with the tribal chiefs to build public facilities in transportation,
agriculture, schools, clinics, public health, and safe drinking water.

Thus strengthened, these tribal leaders know how to establish order.
This is partly what Ashraf Ghani, the former respected Afghan finance
minister and former American anthropology professor, called concrete
“justice” as the way to undermine insurgency.

Withdraw the occupation, which now is pouring gasoline on the fire.
Bring back the saved four-fifths of that million dollars per soldier to
America and provide these and other soldiers with tuition for their
education and training.

The principal authority in Afghanistan is tribal. Provide the
assistance, based on stage-by-stage performance, and the tribal leaders
obtain a stake in stability. Blown apart by so many foreign
invaders—British, Soviet, American—and internally riven, the people in
the countryside look to tribal security as the best hope for a nation
that has not known unity for decades.

Lifting the fog of war allows other wiser policies urged by experienced
people to be considered for peace and security.

Rather than expanding a boomeranging war, this alternative has some
probability of modest success unlike the sure, mounting loss of
American and Afghani lives and resources.

A hard-hitting critique of Michael Moore's
letter to Obama, but I certainly agree with Fleetwood's opinion that we
         must vote our conscience or end up with more of the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUVexms-98E


to subscribe send an email to
new-party-nader-supporters-subscribe@...  to unsubscribe
send an email to
new-party-nader-supporters-unsubscribe@...

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Werbe <calltalkyes@...>
To: calltalkyes@...
Sent: Sat, Nov 28, 2009 3:51 pm
Subject: Nightcall & protest Obama's war escalation



Dear Radio Friend:
I'm sorry to insult anyone in the first line of one of my rare email
messages to the Nightcall list, but if you thought Barack Obama
represented change any further than a campaign slogan, you were very
naive and events have borne that out.

Certainly removing the Bush Crime Family and its would-be heirs, McCain
and Palin, was important, The new administration has brought the U.S.
government back to its traditional corporatist role away from the
trajectory of the previous Bush/Darth Veder far right-wing, corrupt,
evangelical regime that ruled America illegally for eight miserable
years. This is not to be diminished as an accomplishment that many of
us participated in, but most of us expected a lot more.

Now, Obama is about to increase the Afghanistan war with resulting
destruction, death, and expenditures that accompanied the similar
criminal misadventure in Iraq which is far from over. Obama's talk
about "finishing the job," is BushSpeak and he should be treated as the
inheritor of his policies--the enemy of peace. In our country, whose
economy is broken and may be nowhere near its final low point, the idea
of spend hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars (actually loans from
China that taxpayers repay) is pure madness. People want a universal,
single-payer health plan? There is no money to pay for it; it all has
gone to the war machine--the military/industrial complex.

The elites have ruined everything and their wreckage will continue with
us as the primary victims unless we intervene forcefully in political
affairs. The common people have made dramatic changes in this country
beyond empty campaign slogans and the time to do so is upon us again.
Please join Juline and I on Wednesday in downtown Detroit to protest
Obama's war expansion. If you're elsewhere in the country or world,
look around; something is happening near you.

PROTEST OBAMA'S AFGHAN ESCALATION!
                      @                                         4 PM on
Wednesday, Dec. 2
                     Spread the Word!
                                          The Detroit
Area Peace with Justice Network (DAPJN)
                                          calls for                    a
protest of any escalation in Afghanistan the day
                                                              after
                the president announces any escalation in
                          Afghanistan                     at West Point
on Tuesday
                                          Meet @ the
                                        Federal Building
     in downtown
    Detroit
                      (McNamara                     Bldg, 477 Michigan
Ave)
                                                              Spread the
Word! Pass                     this on! Announce at events!

For this week's program and other interesting material, go to
www.peterwerbe.com. Also, check out the holiday gift section in the
right hand column.

Talk to you on Sunday,
Peter


Peter's web site: www.peterwerbe.com Listen to Peter's phone-in talk
show, Nightcall, Sundays, 11pm-2am, on WRIF-FM 101.1; and his 6am
Sunday morning interview program on WCSX-FM 94.7 and WMGC-FM 105.1 in
Detroit, or online; details on web site. .

Podcast of Sunday night shows available at
www.wrif.com/podcast/nightcall by noon on Tuesday.

Listen to Peter play classic rock on WCSX Deep Trax, M-F, 2-7pm, on HD
radio or on line. Details at www.wcsxdeeptrax.com.


 
To join Peter's Nightcall mailing list, write calltalkyes@...
with "Add me" on the subject line.