Cut and Run? You Bet.

= Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else: Bill Moyers - PBS Commentator


Visit: "Aftershock"
{Working Title}
But first: Click To Play Sample Trailer


= The principal power in Washington is no longer the government of the people it represents. It is the Money Power. Under the deceptive cloak of campaign contributions, access and influence, votes and amendments are bought and sold. Money established priorities of action, holds down federal revenues, revises federal legislation, shifts income from the middle class to the very rich. Money restrains the enforcement of laws written to protect the country from abuses of wealth--laws that mandate environmental protection, antitrust laws, laws to protect the consumer against fraud, laws that safeguard the securities markets, and many more: Richard N. Goodwin - Speechwriter for John F. Kennedy


GI Special 4E2 The Republic In Danger.pdf


=“To initiate a war of aggresion…is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” - Nuremberg Tribunal


Baghdad Burning
... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
American Hostages...

As for news of the new Iraqi army, it isn’t going as smoothly as Bush and his crew portray. Today we watched footage of Iraqi soldiers in Anbar graduating. The whole ceremony was quite ordinary up until nearly the end- their commander announced they would be deployed to various areas and suddenly it was chaos. The soldiers began stripping their fatigues and throwing them around, verbally attacking their seniors and yelling and shoving. They were promised, when they signed up for the army in their areas, that they would be deployed inside of their own areas- which does make sense. There is news that they are currently on strike- refusing to be deployed outside of their own provinces.

= "The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their 'vital interests' are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the 'sanctity' of human life, or the 'conscience' of the civilized world." : James Baldwin - From chapter one of "The Devil Finds Work" (orig. pub. 1976)

Cut and Run? You Bet.

By Lt. Gen. William E. Odom
May/June 2006
Why America must get out of Iraq now.

First Paragraph

Withdraw immediately or stay the present course? That is the key question about the war in Iraq today. American public opinion is now decidedly against the war. From liberal New England, where citizens pass town-hall resolutions calling for withdrawal, to the conservative South and West, where more than half of “red state” citizens oppose the war, Americans want out. That sentiment is understandable.

Read Report To Fill In The Middle

Ending Statement

None of these prospects is possible unless we stop moving deeper into the “big sandy” of Iraq. America must withdraw now.

Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.) is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and professor at Yale University. He was director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988.
Add These Three To Above, As Must Reads:
Iraq veterans turn to VA centers to heal emotional battle scars

Number of troops needing help threatens to overwhelm Veterans Administration

Vets' mental health focus of conference




=The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day : Theodore Roosevelt


Army Seeks Blood Donations for Iraq War
FORT KNOX, Ky. (AP) - A boyish Army recruit sits quietly in a plastic chair at Fort Knox and shields a wince from the stern gaze of a drill instructor while a nurse digs with a needle for a vein in his arm.
By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press Writer


= The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them: George Orwell


If in or Near Portland OR:
The Veterans Peace Park - Portland OR, VFP Chapter 72


= Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind: George Orwell


VA Signs Research Partnership

Top officials of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) signed a partnership agreement last week with leaders of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas for research related to illnesses affecting some veterans of the Gulf War. Ailments ranging from fatigue, weakness and respiratory problems to sleep disturbances, skin rashes and persistent headaches are among those reported by veterans who took part in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm at rates significantly higher than those reported by veterans who did not serve in the combat zone.

= They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening : George Orwell