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Waves of hope and change
Mickey Z.
It’s holiday season in Manhattan and despite the economic downturn, there seems to be no shortage of well-dressed humans cavorting, laughing, and spending freely. Walking among them, a homeless man begs for money—shaking his tattered coffee cup (adorned with images of Greek architecture) to rattle the few coins therein. A veteran of the first Gulf War, this man is no longer concerned with yellow ribbons. Right now, he’d settle for a scrap of food and a dry pair of shoes.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and nearly 400,000 experience homelessness over the course of a year. Forty-five percent of America’s homeless veterans suffer from mental illness and half have substance abuse problems. According to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients, veterans account for 23% of all homeless people in America.
Strangling Gaza to near death while pretending to be victim
Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem
No one is enthusiastic about the latest escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, except perhaps the warmongers in Tel Aviv and the American-backed Arab and Palestinian traitors who would do anything and go to any extent to please their masters in Washington, D.C.
In Israel, the Gaza Strip is becoming the central election issue in a country deeply menaced by political and religious extremism.
Israeli political leaders from right and left are already promising the Jewish public that they will destroy Gaza and murder untold thousands of poor Gazans if only they are elected in the 10 February polls.
A New Wind Blowing
Mary Pitt
The whole country is agog with the news of the Madoff Ponzi scheme and the billions he scammed from big investors, but nobody appears to realize that it is only the tip of a huge iceberg. There are other so-called legitimate institutions afloat in the private sector that are profiting from similar scams with the heartfelt approval of the raging capitalists in government as well as private individuals.
Foremost among these are the insurance companies as they have become established in America. Even the government social programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are administered by the accounting departments of insurance companies. The regulations regarding these programs were written in large part by the insurance companies and, as the result, even the very poor are not getting the services they need under their provisions.
This is an Emergency
David Spratt
A year ago I was researching what was intended to be a short submission to the Garnaut review, when events in the polar north turned the world of climate policy upside down. It was found that eight million square kilometres of sea-ice — an area the size of Australia — was melting, in the immortal words of one glaciologist, "a hundred years ahead of schedule".
Yet the international policy debate carried on as if this had not happened. Out-of-date scenarios, research and observations were being used to propose emission reduction targets that would still lead to catastrophe even if fully implemented.
And so a short submission became a long detour into how the climate debate is being constructed, and the result, with Philip Sutton, was a book we did not intend to write, "Climate Code Red".
One Leg Raised on the Bush-Cheney Legacy: Deconstructing the Spin and Propaganda
Walter Brasch
The chairman of the Republican National Committee may have begun an irreversible descent into a future as a fear-bound paranoid victim of functional amnesia, possibly caused by a hysterical post-traumatic event such as the overwhelming victory of Democrats in the 2008 election and the nation's repudiation of Republican policies.
In a two-page vitriol-loaded letter dated "Friday morning"--he apparently was unable to remember the exact date--Robert M. (Mike) Duncan, RNC chairman, told Americans that the Democrats plan to "impose their radical leftist agenda on America," and that Republicans "must work vigilantly to guard our country's freedoms from the inevitable assault [by Democrats] they will face." He didn't mention that not one of Barack Obama's proposed cabinet members nor any of the members of the current Congress is a "radical leftist."
How the GOP, Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr Betrayed, Pillaged, then Sold the U.S.
Len Hart
George W. Bush's war of naked aggression against Iraq --a war crime --has not only bankrupted the US, it has brought the entire world the brink of economic ruin. It is also an ignominious defeat and may one day be compared to Valens' loss to barbarians at Adrianople. One wonders: what sound is made by collapsing empires? Do they go boom or 'suck'?
As the most dominant empire since Roman times, America has helped to bring great wealth and prosperity to the world..
--Pat Robertson
Amid Robertson's 'celebration' of American empire, his death threats against Hugo Chavez or Americans daring to oppose his idiocy, Robertson forgot the rest of the story: Rome fell.
Wall St. sets the stage for the next Big Heist
Andrew Hughes
One could not help but notice the constant emphasis, during and since the Obama campaign, on Climate Change and Green energy programs. The world has a real need to develop more oil independent energy sources and halt the wholesale rape of Mother Earth. However, hearing these pleas from Washington to London from the highest offices in the land only demand more thorough investigation. When one remembers that these same high offices have been responsible for the Iraq War, The Afghanistan War and the destruction of the economy, taking anything at face value is a precarious enterprise.
As in all schemes brought to life by Government office, the first question that begs to be asked is Qui Bono? When a Carbon Tax or a Carbon Cap and Share program is announced the one thing that can be assumed is that it will be designed to make money for those who usually make the money all along. To believe that Washington or London have developed a more altruistic nature and suddenly want to save the world, is to deny decades of Political and economic history. The road to discovering the real truth behind the plan is to follow the money, the players and the science.
On the Change.gov website there was a news release about the Bi-partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, California. Among the attendees were Governors Rod Blagojevich (IL) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA). (The Terminator and The Auctioneer were playing their part in the birthing of the new "impending disaster" just as much as Condi Rice, Bush and Rumsfeld played their part in creating the "Mushroom Cloud" scenario with Iraq). Mr. Obama had prepared a speech to address the conference via video. From the speech:
The Times they will a'change in 2009
eileen fleming
The Times They Are a'Changin'- FREE Vanunu Mordechai! Now! Began on Face book on November 15, 2008 by an Italian with a vision for a Global V Day with his message to VMJC: Vanunu Mordechai John Crossman:
"For the little I can, [I will] try to move the conscience of the largest number of people possible, to try and break the chain of hatred that choke you and all the people of the area. Keep struggling. One day soon you will come to Rome to wipe away the ghosts of the past…" [1]
Excerpted from the Groups Description introduction by VANUNU MORDECHAI JC:
"…a man of peace, a symbol. KIDNAPPED IN ROME SEP' 30 th.1986…AFTER 18 YEARS IN ISRAEL PRISON… still a prisoner of fear and revenge. VANUNU…is waiting in East Jerusalem to leave;…be really free-to live…group objective is to help VANUNU… to enjoy in full his human right and to promote confrontation and a new mental approach toward the Palestine tragedy. Open your minds, stop hate.
Once You've Been Homeless, You Can Never Go Back
Kirsten Anderberg
I was riding the bus today, lost in thought, when the bus pulled up to a stop and I looked out the window I was leaning against to see several women, with their baggage and small children, sitting on the pavement in a parking lot, looking weary and forlorn. I was immediately overcome with a familiarity; it reminded me horribly of my mom and me, when I was a child. I immediately realized this was a pick up spot for homeless shelters. As my bus rolled on, I saw the next block was lined with women, young and old, carrying their bags, hovering around, looking agitated, anxious, hot, worn out, and desperate, waiting outside the YWCA in downtown Seattle, to see if they will have shelter tonight (as local shelters cannot accommodate all of the women who need shelter nightly). By the time we had rolled past that block, I was in tears. I looked around me on the bus. It seemed no one even noticed what was outside our windows for the full length of the previous block.
"Once you have been homeless, you can never go back," I scribbled on a piece of scrap paper in my backpack. It occurred to me that perhaps many of the people on the bus around me did not understand what was going on out there on the street around the YWCA. It occurred to me that many, if not most, of those on the bus around me, had never been homeless and thus would not recognize that snippet of street reality that just was in our windows, for the painful scene of suffering it was. The way that scene got my attention was something outside the window triggered a very strong feeling in me, a bad feeling, a feeling of discomfort and anxiety, yet a familiar feeling, and I looked out. What I saw was me as a child, and my mom, fretting in worry, as we waited to figure out where we would sleep that night. I remember that feeling so much that I am still shaken hours later after feeling it again.
The Rick Warren controversy and Barack's bad timing
Mary Shaw
One of the many big political stories of the past few days is Barack Obama's newest pastor problem.
Obama has chosen Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.
This is the same Rick Warren, of the ironically named Saddleback megachurch, who actively pushed for passage of Proposition 8, and has compared homosexuality to incest, polygamy, and child abuse.
Warren's respect for women equals his respect for gays. For instance, he recently compared reproductive choice to the Holocaust.
This guy is the king of zealous exaggeration and deceptive spin. But people follow him and absorb his every word. That makes him dangerous. And that danger led to disaster on November 4th, when his Prop 8 efforts succeeded in stripping gay couples in California of their right to marry.
This is the kind of religious political interference that we voted against when we elected Barack Obama as our next president. But now Warren will play a starring role at the inauguration of the president who promised change we can believe in. -So, naturally, Obama has come under fire in the past few days for this selection. And rightly so, in my opinion.
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