9/11/12 Ushers In Phase II Of Endless War On Terror

Children harmed by drone strikes, from "'Lesser-evil' politics demoralize and demobilize progressives: reviewing the failed strategy of the pragmatics" in Liberation News

So the CIA wants more drones, because terror is breaking out all over the place. But maybe the Pentagon will get them instead. So reports the servile Washington Post, with bland reference to death wishes:

"...bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots, officials said."

When the names associated as "deciders" with these agencies change in merry-go-round fashion, with Panetta leaving the CIA to head up "defense" while Petraeus switches over from directing the Afghan war to heading up the CIA drone program, does it matter to the average struggling taxpayer which of these powerful, bloated weapon aggregators gets the next shipment of flying killer robots?

The justification for ramping up U.S. bombing of people all over this Earth is, conveniently, the so-called "war on terror." Anyone older than a high school kid remembers how it was launched post 9/11/01, and how not only a whole lot of military hardware got deployed, and people got killed and their lives ruined, but a whole lot of civil liberties supposedly sacrosanct to our form of government got erased, too. Habeus corpus and  the right to not have your phone conversations monitored without a warrant are two that spring to mind.

Democracy Now! coverage of the arrest of Green party candidates trying to enter the debates.

Now, 11 years down that road, how to characterize the binding with plastic of third party candidates for president and vice president Stein and Honkala when they tried to enter a debate held  at a university? FOR 8 HOURS!!!! I guess indefinite detention about covers it.

How is it that self-proclaimed liberals can still support a regime that does shit like that?

Because they are drinking the pap of manufactured news, on a daily basis. The outbreak of violent demonstrations at U.S. embassies thousands of miles apart (London to Indonesia, and a whole lot of places in between) which included the slaying of an actual ambassador and his staff who had mysteriously traveled to an unsecured "consulate" compound in Benghazi, away from the more secure embassy compound in the Libyan capital, is the new 9/11.

Call it 9/11/12. It's a violent and dangerous world. The president has no choice but to bomb people all over the place. It's to keep you safe.

So is giving drones to law enforcement agencies. Because they are so very good at keeping people safe!

How will the government pay for all of it? I did hear that the president announced that Social Security will get an overhaul if he gets re-elected. Maybe some of the money will come from there. Also from Medicare. And cuts to education, social services, and infrastructure repair.

The president and his Democratic allies say that Republicans have put at risk the nation’s defenses. | AP Photo

Just don't cut the weapons manufacturing industry! On that, the false dichotomy of Republicrats and Dempublicans agree.

Austerity, here we come.

#PowerofWe = You + Me Standing Up For All Of Us

Hey, Bibi, where's the red line on ethnic cleansing? Theft of water rights? Israel's nuclear weapons program?

I am a day late joining in National Blog Action Day which is about right considering I have a full time job, I spent the entire weekend in action with CODEPINK Greater Boston helping to Expose AIPAC at their national summit, and I lost my cell phone one week ago today.

Exposing AIPAC consisted of different actions in solidarity with Palestinian activists in the Boston area, including a teach-in plus distributing cleverly designed faux brochures from the American Israeli Program for Ethnic Cleansing aka AIPEC.

Outside action on Sunday included some of the Occupy participants renting bicycles and circling the Seaport Hotel after a score of state police, Homeland Security guys and Boston PD officers kicked us off the sidewalk because it is "private property, owned by Massport." Probably illegal, but eight people were allowed to continue protesting at the doors while the rest of us were chased off around the block.

At the teach-in with Kristin Szremski of American Muslims for Palestine.

I had a lot of fun helping organizer Ridgely Fuller make posters featuring Mass. Senator Scott Brown posing in the buff for Cosmopolitan because he was one of many politicos coming to the AIPAC summit to pay homage to the big bucks AIPAC pours into campaign coffers.

Back in March when Obama spoke at AIPAC's conference in Washington DC he told them the U.S. relationship with Israel is "sacrosanct." Wow. I guess that means war with Iran, since AIPAC has been beating that drum and stirring up alarm at Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program in recent months. One of the best signs in Boston (which unfortunately covered me with still wet paint before I realized it) was AIPAC: If you liked Iraq, you will love Iran. That's a reference to the lobbying that led Congress to authorize war against Saddam Hussein and his non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

The #PowerofWe was on display as writers, musicians, academics, journalists, occupiers, protesters, along with Codepink women from Maine and western Massachusetts, joined forces to bring some truth to light. Mainstream media? Absent. But together we, the people, can share energy and real information to effect change.

We are unstoppable, another world is possible!

Photo from March, 2012 in Washington DC Occupy AIPAC.