Tag Archives: antiwar

If Dr. Martin Luther King Was Alive Today….

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The great civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said we should not judge people by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

If he were alive today, he would be very disappointed with the Obama administration’s policies. Dr. King was one of the greatest critics of the US government’s war mongering ways. He was called a traitor by the media by for speaking against the Vietnam War. The Washington Post denounced Dr. King saying “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.” He was sharply criticized by the so called “black leaders” of his time and the NAACP. But Dr. King was not deterred nor did he compromise his integrity. He was a true leader.

If you have been following the new US administration and its policies – you will by now know that President Obama’s policies are really no different than those of his predecessor – President George W. Bush when it comes to torture, war, bailouts for bankers, civil liberties, Israel, an increase in military spending, to name a few. Same policies – just bigger bigger amounts.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” Dr. King said. During that time President Lyndon Johnson was spending billions of dollars to destroy Vietnamese villages, towns and homes. Listen to or read the entire “Beyond Vietnam” speech of Dr. King.

Nearly 5,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and over a million Iraqis, and tens of thousands of Afghans slaughtered. War will cost us trillions of dollars that should have been invested in our schools, health care, etc. Trillions of dollars are being stolen from us as taxes and cannot be used by Americans to build better factories and bring about new businesses and new jobs. Trillions more of our taxes will be handed to bailout Maserati driving bankers who made bad investments. Nationalization of American banks is also illogical. How can we taxpayers pay for the losses of these banks but not get any of their profits? Nationalization of banks will be an utter failure – Even Tanzania realized that was wrong and gave it up in 1991. President Obama’s public works programs will only help people get jobs to fill pot holes on streets not create engineers, inventors or scientists.

When U.S. bombs drop on Afghan and Iraqi villages and towns, they also explode in American cities as well – East LA, South Central LA, Chicago’s South Side, and Harlem – because these trillions of dollars are taken away from America’s biggest future investment – its people.

This is definitely not the great dream that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had in his famous “I have a dream” speech.

If he were alive today – Dr. King would demand that Congress use its constitutional authority and halt all spending on military presence of U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan and Iraq now.

If Dr. King were alive today – he would most likely ask President Obama “Where is the change and hope that Americans were promised?”

This is what he said in April 1967 – these words ring true even more today.

“I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted … I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”

In the spirit of Dr. King, Americans must strand up and speak out against our government’s unjust policies and immoral wars carried out in our name.

turkey-in-afghanistan2
“America’s Most Wanted Cartoonist” – www.bendib.com
The pen is funnier than the sword. Cartoons that speak truth to power.

Wake Up America! The Hidden Truth

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It is time to call your elected officials again, to write to them and to protest your taxes being given to Israel for mass murder and ethnic cleansing.

Write to your Congressperson and Senators as well as President Obama.

Tell them that military aid to Israel is illegal and immoral. It’s illegal because Israel uses this military aid in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act to commit human rights violations of Palestinians through its brutal military occupation and siege of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.

It’s immoral because it is American weapons that are helping commit Israeli war crimes, massacres of women and children, carpet bombing of civilian areas and the occupation of Palestinians. All those war crimes are causing great humanitarian crises.

As a American taxpayer you refuse to be an accessory to Israel’s mass murder and war crimes. As an American you want your taxes to be spent on America and not go to fund Israeli genocide.

Call/write your reps today by clicking here.

Find your Senators contact by clicking here.

Contact President Obama at 202-456-1111 or send him an email by clicking here.

Obama Is Wrong on Afghanistan

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America has an addiction to war. Like a crack cocaine addict who becomes psychotic if he doesn’t get his fix. He will do anything – beg, steal, kill even sell his soul, to get it – so will Uncle Sam. Many crack addicts are so dependent on crack cocaine that they ultimately die of a fatal overdose. History shows that many war addicted empires have crumbled in a similar overdose of war and this is what can happen to America if its addiction is not treated.

Over extended and bankrupt, this year my home state California – the Golden State – will send out IOUs instead of State Tax Refund checks. Yet the government has money to bomb Afghans.

President Obama made promises during his campaign to increase the military, reduce troops in Iraq and send the rest into another mindless war in Afghanistan and in his first week is already preparing to move troops into Afghanistan. Over a million Iraqis have died due to the US invasion we will spend over $3 trillion in Iraq, according to the country’s top Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, and now another escalation with the war in Afghanistan is looming on the horizon.

Carpet bombing Afghan villages is not going to reduce terrorism. We have seen over the last 8 years of Bush wars that those missiles and bombs do not distinguish between terrorists and innocent villagers, women and children. I have mentioned in earlier posts – “War is terrorism…with a bigger budget.”

While we engage in debates over which way of killing people is more moral – it doesn’t matter to those who are killed whether the cold blooded murderer wore a suicide belt and used an MP5 machine gun (like in Mumbai) or shot million dollar missiles from a $70 million dollar F-16 jet and used white phosphorus (Gaza). Sending troops to bomb Afghanistan will only breed more terrorists – just the way it turned Iraq into a terrorist haven.

Former Democratic Candidate for President in 1972 – George McGovern is offering President Obama a great solution to keep us out of war and prevent terrorism:

Excerpt:

“So let me suggest a truly audacious hope for your administration: How about a five-year time-out on war – unless, of course, there is a genuine threat to the nation?

During that interval, we could work with the U.N. World Food Program, plus the overseas arms of the churches, synagogues, mosques and other volunteer agencies to provide a nutritious lunch every day for every school-age child in Afghanistan and other poor countries. Such a program is now underway in several countries approved by Congress and the United Nations, under the auspices of the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Act. (Forgive the self-serving title.) Although the measure remains painfully underfunded, with the help of other countries, we are reaching millions of children. We could supplement these efforts with nutritional packages for low-income pregnant and nursing mothers and their infants from birth through the age of 5, as is done here at home by WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

Is this proposal pie-in-the-sky? I don’t think so. It’s food in the stomachs of hungry kids. It would draw them to school and enable them to learn and grow into better citizens. It would cost a small fraction of warfare’s cost, but it might well be a stronger antidote to terrorism. There will always be time for another war. But hunger can’t wait.”

Read the rest of the article by clicking below:

Obama Is Wrong on Afghanistan

George McGovern is a former United States Representative, Senator, and Democratic presidential nominee. McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to incumbent Richard Nixon. As a decorated World War II combat veteran, McGovern was noted for his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was way ahead of his time. When he was opposing the Vietnam war – he was laughed off – only to be right after the USA left Vietnam humiliated. If the country had listened to him then, we would have saved many lives and our country’s resources – and maybe saved the country from the Nixon and Agnew scandals of corruption, bribery, money laundering, removal of the gold standard, Watergate scandal, etc, etc.

Reminds me of that song by Robert Palmer (modified – “war” instead of “love”):

…its closer to the truth to say you cant get enough,
you know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to war
Might as well face it, you’re addicted to war…

This is “Change We Can Believe In”?

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As President-Elect Obama selects his cabinet and appointees, we learn that there is really not going to be any change in the way this country is run. He has not even taken office yet – but disappointed many people in this country.

I wrote in my blog post, The Audacity of Dope earlier this month that based on Obama’s views, his groveling before the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, and his appointing a self proclaimed Zionist for VP, his “Blue Print for Change” – I didn’t believe anything will really change. As President-Elect Obama appoints more Zionists, war hawks, dual Israeli citizens, war criminals, NeoCons and considers keeping Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense – he seems to be proving me right.

Their loyalty does not lie with the interests of the American people. I feel sorry for the people who bought into duplicitous calls for “Hope” and “Change”. If only they had looked carefully at his views, his “blue print” and his proposals.

Sure John McCain was evil and the country would become worse if he became president – but choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil. So the struggle for people who really want change continues.

Here’s a brilliant article by award winning journalist – Jeremy Scahill. Scahill looks into the people that President-Elect Obama has surrounded himself with, is hiring and considering for top posts. Click on the link below to read the complete article.

This is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama’s White House

Scahill has only mentioned the usual suspects and did not include culprits like Indian American Sonal Shah – who was a member of the Hindu supremacy fundamentalist groups – VHP and the RSS, who are well known to spread hate and to have participated in ghastly acts of violence within India against Muslims, Christians, and oppressed castes, not to speak of spreading the general misogyny that their extremist and fascist ideology preaches. Shah also received an award from Narendra Modi – the man behind the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, or rather genocide, which slaughtered over 2,000 Muslims. This is the woman Obama chose on his advisory board. Obama apparently doesn’t seem to have sound moral judgment. You can read more about Sonal Shah here.

Jeremy Scahill’s book “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” was a NY Times bestseller and winner of many awards including the Polk Award. Blackwater was a really insightful, scary account of the war profiteering “private contractors” that are hired to fight for Bush’s “crusade”.