Re: Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn .....

This is the first I have heard about these despicable acts;  but something rings suspicious about this story.....I cannot help but think that this is kids, hoodlums no less, and it doesn't justify what happened, but this hardly sounds like Neo-Nazis or "KKK".  (Like I am some kind of expert of what Neo-Nazis or KKK does;  but this seems more like it was done for the notoriety, and just downright meanness.

 

  

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Bruce Majors <majors.bruce@gmail.com> wrote:

--- Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn .....
To:


 

6. Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn 
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 
Anti-Semitic vandals went on a rampage in Brooklyn before dawn Friday, burning Jewish-owned cars and scrawling swastikas in a Jewish area.

The latest hate attacks followed by only several hours an announcement by police that they caught one man who was responsible for hate attacks earlier this week on two libraries and a synagogue.


A Jaguar, BMW and Lexus were set n fire on Friday, and "KKK"  -- Ku Klux Klan – was written on a red van in addition to hate slogans and swastikas scrawled on benches.

"The violence – I'm calling it violence when you blow up three cars – adds a sickening dimension to this type of anti-Semitism," said New York state delegate and area resident Dov Hikind.

"We walk down Ocean Parkway every single week" on the way to synagogue," he told New York media. "All I could think about was my mother sitting on a bench with a swastika scrawled on it. She survived Auschwitz."

The Midwood area, where the arson took place, and Borough Park, are populated by one of the largest number of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel.

"The fact that this most recent attack came on the heels of the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht may or may not be a coincidence," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said. "The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is actively investigating the twisted person or people who attacked cars, benches, and a sidewalk on a block of Ocean Parkway early this morning."

Earlier on Friday, police had said they arrested a man who painted swastikas on two libraries, a church and synagogue.

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Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn .....

--- Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn .....
To:


 

6. Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn 
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 
Anti-Semitic vandals went on a rampage in Brooklyn before dawn Friday, burning Jewish-owned cars and scrawling swastikas in a Jewish area.

The latest hate attacks followed by only several hours an announcement by police that they caught one man who was responsible for hate attacks earlier this week on two libraries and a synagogue.


A Jaguar, BMW and Lexus were set n fire on Friday, and "KKK"  -- Ku Klux Klan – was written on a red van in addition to hate slogans and swastikas scrawled on benches.

"The violence – I'm calling it violence when you blow up three cars – adds a sickening dimension to this type of anti-Semitism," said New York state delegate and area resident Dov Hikind.

"We walk down Ocean Parkway every single week" on the way to synagogue," he told New York media. "All I could think about was my mother sitting on a bench with a swastika scrawled on it. She survived Auschwitz."

The Midwood area, where the arson took place, and Borough Park, are populated by one of the largest number of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel.

"The fact that this most recent attack came on the heels of the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht may or may not be a coincidence," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said. "The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is actively investigating the twisted person or people who attacked cars, benches, and a sidewalk on a block of Ocean Parkway early this morning."

Earlier on Friday, police had said they arrested a man who painted swastikas on two libraries, a church and synagogue.

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Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn .....

--- Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn .....
To:


 

6. Cars Burned in Anti-Jewish Rampage in Brooklyn 
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 
Anti-Semitic vandals went on a rampage in Brooklyn before dawn Friday, burning Jewish-owned cars and scrawling swastikas in a Jewish area.

The latest hate attacks followed by only several hours an announcement by police that they caught one man who was responsible for hate attacks earlier this week on two libraries and a synagogue.


A Jaguar, BMW and Lexus were set n fire on Friday, and "KKK"  -- Ku Klux Klan – was written on a red van in addition to hate slogans and swastikas scrawled on benches.

"The violence – I'm calling it violence when you blow up three cars – adds a sickening dimension to this type of anti-Semitism," said New York state delegate and area resident Dov Hikind.

"We walk down Ocean Parkway every single week" on the way to synagogue," he told New York media. "All I could think about was my mother sitting on a bench with a swastika scrawled on it. She survived Auschwitz."

The Midwood area, where the arson took place, and Borough Park, are populated by one of the largest number of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel.

"The fact that this most recent attack came on the heels of the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht may or may not be a coincidence," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said. "The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is actively investigating the twisted person or people who attacked cars, benches, and a sidewalk on a block of Ocean Parkway early this morning."

Earlier on Friday, police had said they arrested a man who painted swastikas on two libraries, a church and synagogue.

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] Mr President, it’s time to panic - FT.com

-------


 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/38816d7c-0c5e-11e1-8ac6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1ddP8dgRk

Mr President, it's time to panic

<http://im.media.ft.com/content/images/04c2e79a-0e07-11e1-91e5-00144feabdc0.img>

A few weeks ago, James Carville, the legendary manager of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, had a choice word of advice for Barack Obama: "panic". The president was heading to disaster in 2012 with the same crew of advisers that had led him up this blind alley. "Mr President, your hinge of fate must turn," Mr Carville said. "This may be news to you but things are not going well." Thus, Mr Obama should "fire a lot of people" and set a new course.

Such is the counsel given to every American president at one time or another. And many of them follow it. Both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, America's two most successful recent presidents, acquired the habit of ejecting close friends when something better was on offer. Even George W. Bush forced himself to break the Cosa Nostra when he finally sidelined Karl Rove, his electoral "boy wonder", six years into his presidency.

In his reluctance to change his kitchen cabinet, Mr Obama is an exception – indeed, his campaign inner circle is actually strengthening its grip on the White House. The group, which most prominently includes Valerie Jarrett, the longstanding Chicago friend and mentor to the Obamas; David Plouffe, the 2008 campaign manager; and David Axelrod, who is now shepherding Mr Obama's re-election campaign from Chicago, last week clipped the wings of Bill Daley, the president's hapless chief of staff.

The White House said that Mr Daley would share his duties with Peter Rouse, an Obama old-timer. At a time when Europe is teetering on the brink, the move looked like one of those over-caffeinated events that sets Washington speculating but leaves everyone else nonplussed. Yet it also sent a troubling message that the president remains unable to create a properly functioning White House. Much of governing is about managing. No one, so far, has been given the authority to restrain Mr Obama's inner circle. The effects have been sorely in evidence over the past 12 months.

Ever hopeful that the president will reclaim what they see as his true liberal mantle, disillusioned supporters put a different gloss on last week's reshuffle – as the welcome conclusion to a year of fruitless attempts at bipartisanship. A former executive at JPMorgan, Mr Daley was appointed in the wake of the Democratic party's "shellacking" in last year's congressional elections – the heaviest midterm defeat in 70 years. His job was to build bridges with the newly victorious Republicans and to mollify an alienated business community. Neither has gone well.

The president's deepest humiliation came in the wake of the debt ceiling debacle in September, when Republicans forced him to reschedule an address to the joint houses of Congress. Mr Obama, who was to set out his plans to revive the flagging US economy, had to shift the date after Republicans said it clashed with a presidential debate. Worse, he then had to bring forward his speech to the earlier time of 7pm so it did not overlap with a college football game. It marked a new low in an ever-shrinking presidency.

As for Mr Daley's charm offensive with business leaders, he did not even succeed with his friend Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan on whose board he had served. Mr Dimon, a former backer of Mr Obama who had been alienated by his Wall Street reform bill, recently had a private dinner in New York with Mitt Romney, Mr Obama's likely opponent. Mr Dimon even attended a fundraising event for the former Massachusetts governor. All of which may be good reasons to sideline Mr Daley.

Yet they are secondary. Mr Obama's campaign team has rejected every transplant he has tried – even ones from Chicago, such as Mr Daley and Rahm Emanuel, his predecessor. Contrast their experience with that of James Baker, whom Ronald Reagan hired in preference to his friends to be his first chief of staff. Mr Baker had run the election campaign of George H.W. Bush, his Republican rival. Seen by many as the best ever chief of staff, Mr Baker set out terms of which an Obama appointee could only dream. This included "hiring and firing authority over all elements of the White House" and control of every piece of paper that went in and out of the Oval Office.

On his way out, Rahm Emanuel warned Mr Daley that he would be just one among four de facto chiefs of staff, each with independent access to Mr Obama. That has proved accurate. Effective presidents rely on powerful managers, who are not obliged to compete with election consultants for the president's ear. At a time when there is "low visibility" in the US economy, and when volatility holds the whip hand over American politics, there is greater need than ever for a leader who can focus on the bigger horizon.

It has been almost three years, and frustrated allies say that Mr Obama shows few signs of finding a learning curve. He still fails to consult widely and dislikes "reaching out" when he has to. Many Democrats have given up trying. "He doesn't want to listen," said one senator. "I don't think the leopard is going to change his spots." The plain fact is that Mr Obama prefers to campaign than govern. With the entrenched inner circle that he has, no one should be surprised by this. Whether or not Mr Obama can eke out a victory next year, it would be optimistic to expect things to change radically in a second term.

edward.luce@ft.com

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Fwd: [DailyKos] *? 2 ALL: GUITARIST PLAYS OCCUPY WALL STREET SONG AT OBAMA-ATTENDED HAWAII GALA - WHAT ARE YOUR COMMENTS?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Greg Dempsey
Date: Sunday, November 13, 2011
Subject: [DailyKos] *? 2 ALL: GUITARIST PLAYS OCCUPY WALL STREET SONG AT OBAMA-ATTENDED HAWAII GALA - WHAT ARE YOUR COMMENTS?
To: Greg dempsey <gregdempsey@sti.net>


 

 

</mail/u/0/s/?view=att&th=1339fb5c367efeeb&attid=0.1&disp=emb&zw>

"'We'll occupy the streets, we'll occupy the courts, we'll occupy the offices of you,
till you do the bidding of the many, not the few,' (Makana) sang at the Wakiki event.
'The time has come for us to voice our rage.'

Video at http://tinyurl.com/75w7p9b

Hi Team!

*? 2 ALL:

GUITARIST PLAYS OCCUPY WALL STREET SONG AT OBAMA-ATTENDED HAWAII GALA -

</mail/u/0/s/?view=att&th=1339fb5c367efeeb&attid=0.2&disp=emb&zw>

(AFP/File, Richard A. Brooks)

Alan Horowitz reports on the Huffington Post:

"A musician took a stand at last night's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gala, which was attended President Obama and a slew of world leaders.

"Hawaiian guitarist Makana, who has performed at the White House, wore a shirt that read 'Occupy With Aloha' and played a song inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests.

"The tune, 'We Are the Many', ran for 45 minutes long.

</mail/u/0/s/?view=att&th=1339fb5c367efeeb&attid=0.3&disp=emb&zw>

(above):  Anti-APEC protesters march down Kalakaua Ave.

towards Waikiki, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011 in Honolulu.

The APEC Summit is being held in Oahu this weekend.

A few hundred protesters marched in the demonstration.

- Boston.com (AP Photo/ Marco Garcia)

"Hawaii locals joined the national movement last month, gathering in Honolulu's financial district. When the protesters tried to make camp, several were arrested.

"The event occurred just days after a federal agent shot a local man. The agent has since been charged with second-degree murder."

</mail/u/0/s/?view=att&th=1339fb5c367efeeb&attid=0.4&disp=emb&zw>

Guitarist plays Occupy Wall Street song at Obama-attended Hawaii  gala - what are your comments?

Greg Dempsey
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SECULARHUMANIST/
Voice of the People

 

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Re: The GOP's Dream World of Empire

Geesh, what a total misrepresentation of contemporary history and partisan hogwash.

 

 

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 7:38 PM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

The GOP's Dream World of Empire
Posted by Christopher Manion on November 13, 2011 02:11 PM

Revisited and embraced by the debating dwarfs, rejected by Ron Paul, and recounted (for those who need a refresher course) by Tom Engelhardt.

xxx

An All-American Nightmare
From TomDispatch: This is what defeat looks like
By Tom Engelhardt | November 8, 2011

How about a moment of silence for the passing of the American Dream? M.R.I.C. (May it rest in carnage.)

No, I'm not talking about the old dream of opportunity that involved homeownership, a better job than your parents had, a decent pension, and all the rest of the package that's so yesterday, so underwater, so OWS. I'm talking about a far more recent dream, a truly audacious one that's similarly gone with the wind.

I'm talking about George W. Bush's American Dream. If people here remember the invasion of Iraq -- and most Americans would undoubtedly prefer to forget it -- what's recalled is kited intelligence, Saddam Hussein's nonexistent nuclear arsenal, dumb and even dumber decisions, a bloody civil war, dead Americans, crony corporations, a trillion or more taxpayer dollars flushed down the toilet… well, you know the story. What few care to remember was that original dream ­ call it The Dream -- and boy, was it a beaut!


An American Dream

It went something like this: Back in early 2003, the top officials of the Bush administration had no doubt that Saddam Hussein's Iraq, drained by years of war, no-fly zones, and sanctions, would be a pushover; that the U.S. military, which they idolized and romanticized, would waltz to Baghdad. (The word one of their supporters used in the Washington Post for the onrushing invasion was a "cakewalk.") Nor did they doubt that those troops would be greeted as liberators, even saviors, by throngs of adoring, previously suppressed Shiites strewing flowers in their path. (No kidding, no exaggeration.)

How easy it would be then to install a "democratic" government in Baghdad -- which meant their autocratic candidate Ahmad Chalabi -- set up four or five strategically situated military mega-bases, exceedingly well-armed American small towns already on the drawing boards before the invasion began, and so dominate the oil heartlands of the planet in ways even the Brits, at the height of their empire, wouldn't have dreamed possible. (Yes, the neocons were then bragging that we would outdo the Roman and British empires rolled into one!)

As there would be no real resistance, the American invasion force could begin withdrawing as early as the fall of 2003, leaving perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 troops, the U.S. Air Force, and various spooks and private contractors behind to garrison a grateful country ad infinitum (on what was then called "the South Korean model"). Iraq's state-run economy would be privatized and its oil resources thrown open to giant global energy companies, especially American ones, which would rebuild the industry and begin pumping millions of barrels of that country's vast reserves, thus undermining the OPEC cartel's control over the oil market.

And mind you, it would hardly cost a cent. Well, at its unlikely worst, maybe $100 billion to $200 billion, but as Iraq, in the phrase of then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, "floats on a sea of oil," most of it could undoubtedly be covered, in the end, by the Iraqis themselves.

Now, doesn't going down memory lane just take your breath away? And yet, Iraq was a bare beginning for Bush's dreamers, who clearly felt like so many proverbial kids in a candy shop (even if they acted like bulls in a china shop).  Syria, caught in a strategic pincer between Israel and American Iraq, would naturally bow down; the Iranians, caught similarly between American Iraq and American Afghanistan, would go down big time, too ­ or simply be taken down Iraqi-style, and who would complain? (As the neocon quip of the moment went: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad.  Real men want to go to Tehran.")

And that wasn't all. Bush's top officials had been fervent Cold Warriors in the days before the U.S. became "the sole superpower," and they saw the new Russia stepping into those old Soviet boots. Having taken down the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, they were already building a network of bases there, too. (Let a thousand Korean models bloom!) Next on the agenda would be rolling the Russians right out of their "near abroad," the former Soviet Socialist Republics, now independent states, of Central Asia.

What glory! Thanks to the unparalleled power of the U.S. military, Washington would control the Greater Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Chinese border and would be beholden to no one when victory came. Great powers, phooey! They were talking about a Pax Americana on which the sun could never set. Meanwhile, there were so many other handy perks: the White House would be loosed from its constitutional bounds via a "unitary executive" and, success breeding success, a Pax Republicana would be established in the U.S. for eons to come (with the Democratic ­ or as they said sneeringly, the "Democrat" ­ Party playing the role of Iran and going down in a similar fashion).


An American Nightmare

When you wake up in a cold sweat, your heart pounding, from a dream that's turned truly sour, sometimes it's worth trying to remember it before it evaporates, leaving only a feeling of devastation behind.

So hold Bush's American Dream in your head for a few moments longer and consider the devastation that followed. Of Iraq, that multi-trillion-dollar war, what's left? An American expeditionary force, still 30,000-odd troops who were supposed to hunker down there forever, are instead packing their gear and heading "over the horizon." Those giant American towns ­ with their massive PXs, fast-food restaurants, gift shops, fire stations, and everything else ­ are soon to be ghost towns, likely as not looted and stripped by Iraqis.

Multi-billions of taxpayer dollars were, of course, sunk into those American ziggurats. Now, assumedly, they are goners except for the monster embassy-cum-citadel the Bush administration built in Baghdad for three-quarters of a billion dollars. It's to house part of a 17,000-person State Department "mission" to Iraq, including 5,000 armed mercenaries, all of whom are assumedly there to ensure that American folly is not utterly absent from that country even after "withdrawal."

Put any spin you want on that withdrawal, but this still represents a defeat of the first order, humiliation on a scale and in a time frame that would have been unimaginable in the invasion year of 2003. After all, the U.S. military was ejected from Iraq by… well, whom exactly?

Then, of course, there's Afghanistan, where the ultimate, inevitable departure has yet to happen, where another trillion-dollar war is still going strong as if there were no holes in American pockets. The U.S. is still taking casualties, still building up its massive base structure, still training an Afghan security force of perhaps 400,000 men in a county too poor to pay for a tenth of that (which means it's ours to fund forever and a day).

Washington still has its stimulus program in Kabul. Its diplomats and military officials shuttle in and out of Afghanistan and Pakistan in search of "reconciliation" with the Taliban, even as CIA drones pound the enemy across the Afghan border and anyone else in the vicinity. As once upon a time in Iraq, the military and the Pentagon still talk about progress being made, even while Washington's unease grows about a war that everyone is now officially willing to call "unwinnable."

In fact, it's remarkable how consistently things that are officially going so well are actuallygoing so badly. Just the other day, for instance, despite the fact that the U.S. is training up a storm, Major General Peter Fuller, running the training program for Afghan forces, was dismissed by war commander General John Allen for dissing Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his generals. He called them "isolated from reality."

Isolated from reality? Here's the U.S. record on the subject: it's costing Washington (and so the American taxpayer) $11.6 billion this year alone to train those security forces and yet, after years of such training, "not a single Afghan army battalion can operate without assistance from U.S. or allied units."

You don't have to be a seer to know that this, too, represents a form of defeat, even if the enemy, as in Iraq, is an underwhelming set of ragtag minority insurgencies. Still, it's more or less a given that any American dreams for Afghanistan, like Britain's and Russia's before it, will be buried someday in the rubble of a devastated but resistant land, no matter what resources Washington choses to continue to squander on the task.

This, simply put, is part of a larger landscape of imperial defeat.


Cold Sweats at Dawn

Yes, we've lost in Iraq and yes, we're losing in Afghanistan, but if you want a little geopolitical turn of the screw that captures the zeitgeist of the moment, check out one of the first statements of Almazbek Atambayev after his recent election as president of Kyrgyzstan, a country you've probably never spent a second thinking about.

Keep in mind that Bushian urge to roll back the Russians to the outskirts of Moscow. Kyrgyzstan is, of course, one of the former Central Asian SSRs of the Soviet Union, and under cover of the Afghan War, the U.S. moved in, renting out a major air base at Manas airport near Bishtek, the capital.  It became a significant resupply station for the war, but also an American military foothold in the region.

Now Atambayev has announced that the U.S. will have to leave Manas when its lease is up in 2014. The last time a Kyrgyz president made such a threat, he was trying to extort an extra $40 million in rent from the globe's richest power. This time, though, Atambayev has evidently weighed regional realities, taken a good hard look at his resurgent neighbor and the waning influence of Washington, and placed his bet -- on the Russians. Consider it a telling little gauge of who is now being rolled back where.

Isolated from reality? How about the Obama administration and its generals?  Of course, Washington officials prefer not to take all this in. They're willing to opt for isolation over reality.  They prefer to talk about withdrawing troops from Iraq, but only to bolster the already powerful American garrisons throughout the Persian Gulf and so free the region, as our secretary of state put it, "from outside interference" by alien Iran. (Why, one wonders, is it even called the Persian Gulf, instead of the American Gulf?)

They prefer to talk about strengthening U.S. power and bolstering its bases in the Pacific so as to save Asia from… America's largest creditor, the Chinese. They prefer to suggest that the U.S. will be a greater, not a lesser, power in the years to come. They prefer to "reassure allies" and talk big -- or big enough anyway.

Not too big, of course, not now that those American dreamers -- or mad visionaries, if you prefer -- are off making up to $150,000 a pop giving inspirational speeches and raking inmillions for churning out their memoirs. In their place, the Obama administration is stocked with dreamless managers who inherited an expanded imperial presidency, an American-garrisoned globe, and an emptying treasury. And they then chose, on each score, to play a recognizable version of the same game, though without the soaring confidence, deep faith in armed American exceptionalism or the military solutions that went with it (which they nonetheless continue to pursue doggedly), or even the vision of global energy flows that animated their predecessors. In a rapidly changing situation, they have proven incapable of asking any questions that would take them beyond what might be called the usual tactics (drones vs. counterinsurgency, say).

In this way, Washington, though visibly diminished, remains an airless and eerily familiar place.  No one there could afford to ask, for instance, what a Middle East, being transformed before our eyes, might be like without its American shadow, without the bases and fleets and drones and all the operatives that go with them.

As a result, they simply keep on keeping on, especially with Bush's global war on terror and with the protection in financial tough times of the Pentagon (and so of the militarization of this country).

Think of it all as a form of armed denial that, in the end, is likely to drive the U.S. down. It would be salutary for the denizens of Washington to begin to mouth the word "defeat."  It's not yet, of course, a permissible part of the American vocabulary, though the more decorous "decline" -- "the relative decline of the United States as an international force" -- has crept ever more comfortably into our lives since mid-decade.  When it comes to decline, for instance, ordinary Americans are voting with the opinion poll version of their feet.  In one recent poll, 69% of them declared the U.S. to be in that state. (How they might answer a question about American defeat we don't know.)

If you are a critic of Washington, "defeat" is increasingly becoming an acceptable word, as long as you attach it to a specific war or event. But defeat outright? The full-scale thing?  Not yet.

You can, of course, say many times over that the U.S. remains, as it does, an immensely wealthy and powerful country; that it has the wherewithal to right itself and deal with the disasters of these last years, which it also undoubtedly does. But take a glance at Washington, Wall Street, and the coming 2012 elections, and tell me with a straight face that that will happen. Not likely.

If you go on a march with the folks from Occupy Wall Street, you'll hear the young chanting, "This is what democracy looks like!" It's infectious. But here's another chant, hardly less appropriate, if distinctly grimmer: "This is what defeat looks like!" Admittedly, it's not as rhythmic, but it's something that the spreading Occupy Wall Street movement, and the un- and underemployed, and those whose houses are foreclosed or "underwater," and the millions of kids getting a subprime education and graduating, on average, more than $25,000 in hock, and the increasing numbers of poor are coming to feel in their bones, even if they haven't put a name to it yet.

And events in the Greater Middle East played no small role in that. Think of it this way: if de-industrialization and financialization have, over the last decades, hollowed out the United States, so has the American way of war. It's the usually ignored third part of the triad. When our wars finally fully come home, there's no telling what the scope of this imperial defeat will prove to be like.

Bush's American Dream was a kind of apotheosis of this country's global power as well as its crowning catastrophe, thanks to a crew of mad visionaries who mistook military might for global strength and acted accordingly. What they and their neocon allies had was the magic formula for turning the slow landing of a declining but still immensely powerful imperial state into a self-inflicted rout, even if who the victors are is less than clear.

Despite our panoply of bases around the world, despite an arsenal of weaponry beyond anything ever seen (and with more on its way), despite a national security budget the size of the Ritz, it's not too early to start etching something appropriately sepulchral onto the gravestone that will someday stand over the pretensions of the leaders of this country when they thought that they might truly rule the world.

I know my own nominee. Back in 2002, journalist Ron Suskind had a meeting with a "senior advisor" to George W. Bush and what that advisor told him seems appropriate for any such gravestone or future memorial to American defeat:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality… That's not the way the world really works anymore… We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality ­ judiciously, as you will ­ we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."'

We're now, it seems, in a new era in which reality is making us.  Many Americans -- witness the Occupy Wall Street movement -- are attempting to adjust, to imagine other ways of living in the world.  Defeat has a bad rep, but sometimes it's just what the doctor ordered.

Still, reality is a bear, so if you just woke up in a cold sweat, feel free to call it a nightmare.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books), is being published this month.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/an-all-american-nightmare/

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* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

The GOP's Dream World of Empire

The GOP's Dream World of Empire
Posted by Christopher Manion on November 13, 2011 02:11 PM

Revisited and embraced by the debating dwarfs, rejected by Ron Paul, and recounted (for those who need a refresher course) by Tom Engelhardt.

xxx

An All-American Nightmare
From TomDispatch: This is what defeat looks like
By Tom Engelhardt | November 8, 2011

How about a moment of silence for the passing of the American Dream? M.R.I.C. (May it rest in carnage.)

No, I'm not talking about the old dream of opportunity that involved homeownership, a better job than your parents had, a decent pension, and all the rest of the package that's so yesterday, so underwater, so OWS. I'm talking about a far more recent dream, a truly audacious one that's similarly gone with the wind.

I'm talking about George W. Bush's American Dream. If people here remember the invasion of Iraq -- and most Americans would undoubtedly prefer to forget it -- what's recalled is kited intelligence, Saddam Hussein's nonexistent nuclear arsenal, dumb and even dumber decisions, a bloody civil war, dead Americans, crony corporations, a trillion or more taxpayer dollars flushed down the toilet… well, you know the story. What few care to remember was that original dream ­ call it The Dream -- and boy, was it a beaut!


An American Dream

It went something like this: Back in early 2003, the top officials of the Bush administration had no doubt that Saddam Hussein's Iraq, drained by years of war, no-fly zones, and sanctions, would be a pushover; that the U.S. military, which they idolized and romanticized, would waltz to Baghdad. (The word one of their supporters used in the Washington Post for the onrushing invasion was a "cakewalk.") Nor did they doubt that those troops would be greeted as liberators, even saviors, by throngs of adoring, previously suppressed Shiites strewing flowers in their path. (No kidding, no exaggeration.)

How easy it would be then to install a "democratic" government in Baghdad -- which meant their autocratic candidate Ahmad Chalabi -- set up four or five strategically situated military mega-bases, exceedingly well-armed American small towns already on the drawing boards before the invasion began, and so dominate the oil heartlands of the planet in ways even the Brits, at the height of their empire, wouldn't have dreamed possible. (Yes, the neocons were then bragging that we would outdo the Roman and British empires rolled into one!)

As there would be no real resistance, the American invasion force could begin withdrawing as early as the fall of 2003, leaving perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 troops, the U.S. Air Force, and various spooks and private contractors behind to garrison a grateful country ad infinitum (on what was then called "the South Korean model"). Iraq's state-run economy would be privatized and its oil resources thrown open to giant global energy companies, especially American ones, which would rebuild the industry and begin pumping millions of barrels of that country's vast reserves, thus undermining the OPEC cartel's control over the oil market.

And mind you, it would hardly cost a cent. Well, at its unlikely worst, maybe $100 billion to $200 billion, but as Iraq, in the phrase of then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, "floats on a sea of oil," most of it could undoubtedly be covered, in the end, by the Iraqis themselves.

Now, doesn't going down memory lane just take your breath away? And yet, Iraq was a bare beginning for Bush's dreamers, who clearly felt like so many proverbial kids in a candy shop (even if they acted like bulls in a china shop).  Syria, caught in a strategic pincer between Israel and American Iraq, would naturally bow down; the Iranians, caught similarly between American Iraq and American Afghanistan, would go down big time, too ­ or simply be taken down Iraqi-style, and who would complain? (As the neocon quip of the moment went: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad.  Real men want to go to Tehran.")

And that wasn't all. Bush's top officials had been fervent Cold Warriors in the days before the U.S. became "the sole superpower," and they saw the new Russia stepping into those old Soviet boots. Having taken down the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, they were already building a network of bases there, too. (Let a thousand Korean models bloom!) Next on the agenda would be rolling the Russians right out of their "near abroad," the former Soviet Socialist Republics, now independent states, of Central Asia.

What glory! Thanks to the unparalleled power of the U.S. military, Washington would control the Greater Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Chinese border and would be beholden to no one when victory came. Great powers, phooey! They were talking about a Pax Americana on which the sun could never set. Meanwhile, there were so many other handy perks: the White House would be loosed from its constitutional bounds via a "unitary executive" and, success breeding success, a Pax Republicana would be established in the U.S. for eons to come (with the Democratic ­ or as they said sneeringly, the "Democrat" ­ Party playing the role of Iran and going down in a similar fashion).


An American Nightmare

When you wake up in a cold sweat, your heart pounding, from a dream that's turned truly sour, sometimes it's worth trying to remember it before it evaporates, leaving only a feeling of devastation behind.

So hold Bush's American Dream in your head for a few moments longer and consider the devastation that followed. Of Iraq, that multi-trillion-dollar war, what's left? An American expeditionary force, still 30,000-odd troops who were supposed to hunker down there forever, are instead packing their gear and heading "over the horizon." Those giant American towns ­ with their massive PXs, fast-food restaurants, gift shops, fire stations, and everything else ­ are soon to be ghost towns, likely as not looted and stripped by Iraqis.

Multi-billions of taxpayer dollars were, of course, sunk into those American ziggurats. Now, assumedly, they are goners except for the monster embassy-cum-citadel the Bush administration built in Baghdad for three-quarters of a billion dollars. It's to house part of a 17,000-person State Department "mission" to Iraq, including 5,000 armed mercenaries, all of whom are assumedly there to ensure that American folly is not utterly absent from that country even after "withdrawal."

Put any spin you want on that withdrawal, but this still represents a defeat of the first order, humiliation on a scale and in a time frame that would have been unimaginable in the invasion year of 2003. After all, the U.S. military was ejected from Iraq by… well, whom exactly?

Then, of course, there's Afghanistan, where the ultimate, inevitable departure has yet to happen, where another trillion-dollar war is still going strong as if there were no holes in American pockets. The U.S. is still taking casualties, still building up its massive base structure, still training an Afghan security force of perhaps 400,000 men in a county too poor to pay for a tenth of that (which means it's ours to fund forever and a day).

Washington still has its stimulus program in Kabul. Its diplomats and military officials shuttle in and out of Afghanistan and Pakistan in search of "reconciliation" with the Taliban, even as CIA drones pound the enemy across the Afghan border and anyone else in the vicinity. As once upon a time in Iraq, the military and the Pentagon still talk about progress being made, even while Washington's unease grows about a war that everyone is now officially willing to call "unwinnable."

In fact, it's remarkable how consistently things that are officially going so well are actuallygoing so badly. Just the other day, for instance, despite the fact that the U.S. is training up a storm, Major General Peter Fuller, running the training program for Afghan forces, was dismissed by war commander General John Allen for dissing Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his generals. He called them "isolated from reality."

Isolated from reality? Here's the U.S. record on the subject: it's costing Washington (and so the American taxpayer) $11.6 billion this year alone to train those security forces and yet, after years of such training, "not a single Afghan army battalion can operate without assistance from U.S. or allied units."

You don't have to be a seer to know that this, too, represents a form of defeat, even if the enemy, as in Iraq, is an underwhelming set of ragtag minority insurgencies. Still, it's more or less a given that any American dreams for Afghanistan, like Britain's and Russia's before it, will be buried someday in the rubble of a devastated but resistant land, no matter what resources Washington choses to continue to squander on the task.

This, simply put, is part of a larger landscape of imperial defeat.


Cold Sweats at Dawn

Yes, we've lost in Iraq and yes, we're losing in Afghanistan, but if you want a little geopolitical turn of the screw that captures the zeitgeist of the moment, check out one of the first statements of Almazbek Atambayev after his recent election as president of Kyrgyzstan, a country you've probably never spent a second thinking about.

Keep in mind that Bushian urge to roll back the Russians to the outskirts of Moscow. Kyrgyzstan is, of course, one of the former Central Asian SSRs of the Soviet Union, and under cover of the Afghan War, the U.S. moved in, renting out a major air base at Manas airport near Bishtek, the capital.  It became a significant resupply station for the war, but also an American military foothold in the region.

Now Atambayev has announced that the U.S. will have to leave Manas when its lease is up in 2014. The last time a Kyrgyz president made such a threat, he was trying to extort an extra $40 million in rent from the globe's richest power. This time, though, Atambayev has evidently weighed regional realities, taken a good hard look at his resurgent neighbor and the waning influence of Washington, and placed his bet -- on the Russians. Consider it a telling little gauge of who is now being rolled back where.

Isolated from reality? How about the Obama administration and its generals?  Of course, Washington officials prefer not to take all this in. They're willing to opt for isolation over reality.  They prefer to talk about withdrawing troops from Iraq, but only to bolster the already powerful American garrisons throughout the Persian Gulf and so free the region, as our secretary of state put it, "from outside interference" by alien Iran. (Why, one wonders, is it even called the Persian Gulf, instead of the American Gulf?)

They prefer to talk about strengthening U.S. power and bolstering its bases in the Pacific so as to save Asia from… America's largest creditor, the Chinese. They prefer to suggest that the U.S. will be a greater, not a lesser, power in the years to come. They prefer to "reassure allies" and talk big -- or big enough anyway.

Not too big, of course, not now that those American dreamers -- or mad visionaries, if you prefer -- are off making up to $150,000 a pop giving inspirational speeches and raking inmillions for churning out their memoirs. In their place, the Obama administration is stocked with dreamless managers who inherited an expanded imperial presidency, an American-garrisoned globe, and an emptying treasury. And they then chose, on each score, to play a recognizable version of the same game, though without the soaring confidence, deep faith in armed American exceptionalism or the military solutions that went with it (which they nonetheless continue to pursue doggedly), or even the vision of global energy flows that animated their predecessors. In a rapidly changing situation, they have proven incapable of asking any questions that would take them beyond what might be called the usual tactics (drones vs. counterinsurgency, say).

In this way, Washington, though visibly diminished, remains an airless and eerily familiar place.  No one there could afford to ask, for instance, what a Middle East, being transformed before our eyes, might be like without its American shadow, without the bases and fleets and drones and all the operatives that go with them.

As a result, they simply keep on keeping on, especially with Bush's global war on terror and with the protection in financial tough times of the Pentagon (and so of the militarization of this country).

Think of it all as a form of armed denial that, in the end, is likely to drive the U.S. down. It would be salutary for the denizens of Washington to begin to mouth the word "defeat."  It's not yet, of course, a permissible part of the American vocabulary, though the more decorous "decline" -- "the relative decline of the United States as an international force" -- has crept ever more comfortably into our lives since mid-decade.  When it comes to decline, for instance, ordinary Americans are voting with the opinion poll version of their feet.  In one recent poll, 69% of them declared the U.S. to be in that state. (How they might answer a question about American defeat we don't know.)

If you are a critic of Washington, "defeat" is increasingly becoming an acceptable word, as long as you attach it to a specific war or event. But defeat outright? The full-scale thing?  Not yet.

You can, of course, say many times over that the U.S. remains, as it does, an immensely wealthy and powerful country; that it has the wherewithal to right itself and deal with the disasters of these last years, which it also undoubtedly does. But take a glance at Washington, Wall Street, and the coming 2012 elections, and tell me with a straight face that that will happen. Not likely.

If you go on a march with the folks from Occupy Wall Street, you'll hear the young chanting, "This is what democracy looks like!" It's infectious. But here's another chant, hardly less appropriate, if distinctly grimmer: "This is what defeat looks like!" Admittedly, it's not as rhythmic, but it's something that the spreading Occupy Wall Street movement, and the un- and underemployed, and those whose houses are foreclosed or "underwater," and the millions of kids getting a subprime education and graduating, on average, more than $25,000 in hock, and the increasing numbers of poor are coming to feel in their bones, even if they haven't put a name to it yet.

And events in the Greater Middle East played no small role in that. Think of it this way: if de-industrialization and financialization have, over the last decades, hollowed out the United States, so has the American way of war. It's the usually ignored third part of the triad. When our wars finally fully come home, there's no telling what the scope of this imperial defeat will prove to be like.

Bush's American Dream was a kind of apotheosis of this country's global power as well as its crowning catastrophe, thanks to a crew of mad visionaries who mistook military might for global strength and acted accordingly. What they and their neocon allies had was the magic formula for turning the slow landing of a declining but still immensely powerful imperial state into a self-inflicted rout, even if who the victors are is less than clear.

Despite our panoply of bases around the world, despite an arsenal of weaponry beyond anything ever seen (and with more on its way), despite a national security budget the size of the Ritz, it's not too early to start etching something appropriately sepulchral onto the gravestone that will someday stand over the pretensions of the leaders of this country when they thought that they might truly rule the world.

I know my own nominee. Back in 2002, journalist Ron Suskind had a meeting with a "senior advisor" to George W. Bush and what that advisor told him seems appropriate for any such gravestone or future memorial to American defeat:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality… That's not the way the world really works anymore… We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality ­ judiciously, as you will ­ we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."'

We're now, it seems, in a new era in which reality is making us.  Many Americans -- witness the Occupy Wall Street movement -- are attempting to adjust, to imagine other ways of living in the world.  Defeat has a bad rep, but sometimes it's just what the doctor ordered.

Still, reality is a bear, so if you just woke up in a cold sweat, feel free to call it a nightmare.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books), is being published this month.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/an-all-american-nightmare/

Ron Paul's 'Foreign Policy Dossier'

Ron Paul's 'Foreign Policy Dossier'
Posted by Charles Burris on November 12, 2011 08:53 PM

Eight candidates participated in the CBS News/National Journal GOP presidential debate tonight on national security and foreign policy. Here is the National Journal website used to view that debate. Notice who was once again excluded from active participation in the debate. This person was also excluded from having a "Foreign Policy Dossier" at the site describing his background expertise in this area. Yes, it was the twelve-term Texas congressman who sits on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and who is the author of A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce and Honest Friendship, a collection of statements Congressman Ron Paul has made over the past 30 years dealing with foreign policy from the date he was first elected to Congress. This principled record comprises his "Foreign Policy Dossier," which is second to none in the entire history of the United States Congress.

UPDATE from LRC reader Larry Diffey: "Ron Paul's dossier was in fact on the site, but I had to manually change the URL to get to it. You were correct however that it was not provided. Here is the link: http://nationaljournal.com/2012-election/foreign-policy-dossier-ron-paul-20111112 . It looks like they represented his views pretty well in it though. Even though I continue to expect them to treat Ron Paul this way, it infuriates me every time it happens."

Fwd: [I-S] Nevada Health Department Raids Picnic: Orders Food Destroyed

---------


 

http://visiontoamerica.org/5467/nevada-health-department-raids-picnic-orders-food-destroyed/

 

Nevada Health Department Raids Picnic: Orders Food Destroyed

 

It is the latest case of extreme government food tyranny, and one that is sure to have you reeling in anger and disgust. Health department officials recently conducted a raid of Quail Hollow Farm, an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in southern Nevada, during its special "farm to fork" picnic dinner put on for guests — and the agent who arrived on the scene ordered that all the fresh, local produce and pasture-based meat that was intended for the meal be destroyed with bleach.

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Fwd: [PresidentBarakObama] Gay rights victory to vanish

Gay rights victory to vanish
 Lyle Denniston, Reporter
Posted Wed, November 9th, 2011 4:07 pm

One of the modern gay rights movement's most significant courtroom
victories — a California judge's ruling last year striking down the
military's ban on gays and lesbians — is about to vanish from the
federal record books, as if it had never happened.  It will do so
because the Ninth Circuit Court refused on Wednesday to reconsider a
ruling that erased the decision, and everything about it, and barred
any gay rights lawyer from ever trying to use it to help in any other
case.   The brief order by the Circuit Court, denying rehearing by a
three-judge panel, also noted that no judge eligible to vote even
called for a tally on reconsideration by the full en banc court.  This
was a final legal victory for the Obama Administration in a case that
at times had been bitterly contested.


The practical effect of the ruling is two-fold: it does not disturb
the action of Congress and the Pentagon to carry out the actual repeal
of the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy (the repeal took
effect September 20), and it eliminated as a precedent of any kind the
decision against the ban in September last year by U.S. District Judge
Virginia A. Phillips of Riverside, Calif.   The denial of further
review by the panel and by the full Circuit Court also left intact a
blistering critique by one of the three judges of any jurist who would
use a 2003 gay rights ruling by the Supreme Court — Lawrence v. Texas
— as the basis for recognizing new rights for homosexuals.  (Circuit
Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain's advice to his colleagues — a
"guidepost for responsible decision-making," he called it — was
described in this post at the time it was issued in late September.)

The case, Log Cabin Republicans v. U.S. (Circuit dockets 10-56634 and
10-56813), was under review in the Ninth Circuit when the Obama
Administration, responding to the repeal of the policy against gays
and lesbians serving openly in the military services, asked the panel
to declare the case moot and to vacate Judge Phillips' decision
against the ban.  The panel did so on September 29.  It had been told
that lawyers expected to try to build on the case as a precedent, but
the panel bluntly said neither they nor anyone else could rely upon
what Judge Phillips had done.

The panel said: "We vacate the district court's judgment, injunction,
opinions, orders, and factual findings — indeed, all of its past
rulings — to clear the path for any future litigation.  Those now-void
legal rulings and factual findings have no precedential, preclusive,
or binding effect."

Reacting, lawyers for the advocacy group, Log Cabin Republicans, in
mid-October sought panel or en banc rehearing.   First, the lawyers
contended that their case was not moot, and then argued that the panel
had acted without even considering the legal arguments the group had
made on that point.

The plea also challenged the panel's "sweeping, and unnecessary,
vacatur order," saying it "eradicates over a dozen thoughtful district
court rulings, including factual findings after a full bench trial.
It not only condemns any future servicemember who may claim injury
from an unconstitutional discharge order under [the policy] to
re-litigate the entire factual basis for this lawsuit, at an enormous
cost of judicial resources, but it calls into public question the very
validity of the proceedings below, which were held and concluded
before the Repeal Act was enacted."

When a federal court stands up to "the combined might of the other
branches," that filing contended, "it should ensure that its own
authority is at its maximum, to show that it gave this matter the
sustained attention it merits."

Among other arguments, the Log Cabin Republicans' counsel contended
that their lawsuit had prodded President Obama and Pentagon leaders to
move more rapidly to implement the repeal law.

With the case declared moot, the counsel contended, the Pentagon and
Congress were left with nothing to bar them from re-instituting a new
limit of military service by gays and lesbians.   Moreover, it argued,
servicemembers who had been discharged because of the policy were
continuing to suffer adverse consequences from the policy.

Their filing insisted that they were not asking the Circuit Court
panel to rule that Judge Phillips' ruling actually could be used as an
argument in future cases growing out of the policy, but rather to
leave that to federal trial judges when new cases arose.  Instead,
they argued, what the panel did was to create "the fiction that this
case never existed, that the matter was never tried, and that judgment
that DADT is unconstitutional was never entered.   It especially goes
too far in its imperious directive that neither Log Cabin, nor anyone
else, may ever in future use the district court's rulings in any
fashion whatever.  To thus sow the fields of law with salt is
unnecessary and gratuitous."

Under federal court rules, it was up to the Circuit panel to decide
whether to ask the other side — here, the Pentagon — to respond to the
rehearing request.   The panel chose not to do so, and took no action
until it issued its order Wednesday bringing the case to a complete
end.



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Have a great day,
Tommy



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Have a great day,
Tommy


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Re: "occupy Portland" beats the Mayor

Send in the HELLS ANGELS.. and tell them.

USE ANY MEAN NECESSARY TO FIND THEIR LEADERS...

YOU ARE FREE TO USE TORTURE IF THAT IS NOW NECESSARY!

---

From: Daniel Seigler <danielseigler@hotmail.com>
To: andy.carson@kptv.com; debra.gil@kptv.com; hatu <investigators@katu.com>; jeff gianola <jgianola@koin.com>; Ken boddie <kboddie@koin.com>; kelly day <kday@koin.com>; pete ferryman <pete.ferryman@kptv.com>
Cc: politicalforum@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 9:23 AM
Subject: "occupy Portland" beats the Mayor

So, Mayor Adams has decided to close the two occupied parks at midnight...but the occupying forces decided not to evacuate except into the immediate streets, at which point the police told them to get out of the street so they went back to the parks...and the news says this is NOT a victory for the occupying force?
 
And no one has mentioned, yet, that a democracy is where the majority rule is agreed upon by everyone.  But as soon as someone does something that would put a TRUER light on the evils of this occupation, the occupiers immediately pull out the "we cannot control individual actions" of republic politics.  Mind you, i am not discussing political parties, i am talking about political systems.  And no where within the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution for these states united as a country is the word democracy.  No, as a matter of fact, our founders knew the difference between democracy and republic forms.  In a democracy, the individual implies consent to the will of the majority.  In a republic, the individual must express consent to the will of the majority.  In the 'Occupy Portland', the individual implies consent (they say they are democracy) to be the will of the majority.  Therefore the 'Occupy Portland' is not a 'peaceful protest' in that there have been attacks upon private property (fires and a molotov) and one representative of the Law of Portland was injured during the clearing of the parks.   
 
Does Portland need the assistance of the State guard?  Does the Governor need to step in?  Or how about the federal government?  After all, this occupation is part of the "Occupy Wall Street" move...
 
Here is an idea on how to clear the occupiers...line the sidewalk opposite the parks in question, broadside, and start walking.  While the line walks, pick up the trash in front of you.  This includes tents, tarps, sleeping bags, etc.  After all, it is the responsibility of the city to clean the common areas.  Oh, and if some ONE is in the way, haul them away like the rest of the trash.
 
 
 
 

sign me
daniel karl seigler, born in Fort Benning, Cussetta County, Georgia, son of
Clarance Roland O'Neil Seigler, born in Ozark, Dale County, Alabama, son of
Thomas Malcolm Seigler, born somewhere in Alabama

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"occupy Portland" beats the Mayor

So, Mayor Adams has decided to close the two occupied parks at midnight...but the occupying forces decided not to evacuate except into the immediate streets, at which point the police told them to get out of the street so they went back to the parks...and the news says this is NOT a victory for the occupying force?
 
And no one has mentioned, yet, that a democracy is where the majority rule is agreed upon by everyone.  But as soon as someone does something that would put a TRUER light on the evils of this occupation, the occupiers immediately pull out the "we cannot control individual actions" of republic politics.  Mind you, i am not discussing political parties, i am talking about political systems.  And no where within the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution for these states united as a country is the word democracy.  No, as a matter of fact, our founders knew the difference between democracy and republic forms.  In a democracy, the individual implies consent to the will of the majority.  In a republic, the individual must express consent to the will of the majority.  In the 'Occupy Portland', the individual implies consent (they say they are democracy) to be the will of the majority.  Therefore the 'Occupy Portland' is not a 'peaceful protest' in that there have been attacks upon private property (fires and a molotov) and one representative of the Law of Portland was injured during the clearing of the parks.   
 
Does Portland need the assistance of the State guard?  Does the Governor need to step in?  Or how about the federal government?  After all, this occupation is part of the "Occupy Wall Street" move...
 
Here is an idea on how to clear the occupiers...line the sidewalk opposite the parks in question, broadside, and start walking.  While the line walks, pick up the trash in front of you.  This includes tents, tarps, sleeping bags, etc.  After all, it is the responsibility of the city to clean the common areas.  Oh, and if some ONE is in the way, haul them away like the rest of the trash.
 
 
 
 

sign me
daniel karl seigler, born in Fort Benning, Cussetta County, Georgia, son of
Clarance Roland O'Neil Seigler, born in Ozark, Dale County, Alabama, son of
Thomas Malcolm Seigler, born somewhere in Alabama

Re: Cain's real problem: On foreign policy he's as clueless as Bill O'Reilly

The effects of U.S. sanctions include expensive basic goods
> for Iranian citizens, and an aging and increasingly unsafe civil
> aircraft fleet. According to the Arms Control Association, the
> international arms embargo against Iran is slowly reducing Iran's
> military capabilities, largely due to its dependence on Russian and
> Chinese military assistance. The only substitute is to find
> compensatory measures requiring more time and money, and less
> effective.

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Sage2 <wisdom812@gmail.com> wrote:

On Nov 11, 11:39 pm, THE ANNOINTED ONE <markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:


         Sounds to me more like UN interference than US ? !!!!!!!




****************************************************************************************************
> UN sanctions against Iran
> United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737 - passed on 23
> December 2006. Banned the supply of nuclear-related materials and
> technology and froze the assets of key individuals and companies
> related to the program.United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747
> - passed on 24 March 2007. Imposed an arms embargo and expanded the
> freeze on Iranian assets.United Nations Security Council Resolution
> 1803 - passed on 3 March 2008. Extended the asset freezes and called
> upon states to monitor the activities of Iranian banks, inspect
> Iranian ships and aircraft, and to monitor the movement of individuals
> involved with the program through their territory.United Nations
> Security Council Resolution 1929 - passed on 9 June 2010. Banned Iran
> from participating in any activities related to ballistic missiles,
> tightened the arms embargo, travel bans on individuals involved with
> the program, froze the funds and assets of the Iranian Revolutionary
> Guard and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, and recommended
> that states inspect Iranian cargo, prohibit the servicing of Iranian
> vessels involved in prohibited activities, prevent the provision of
> financial services used for sensitive nuclear activities, closely
> watch Iranian individuals and entities when dealing with them,
> prohibit the opening of Iranian banks on their territory and prevent
> Iranian banks from entering into relationship with their banks if it
> might contribute to the nuclear program, and prevent financial
> institutions operating in their territory from opening offices and
> accounts in Iran.[edit]EU sanctions against Iran
> The European Union has imposed restrictions on cooperation with Iran
> in foreign trade, financial services, energy sectors and technologies,
> and banned the provision of insurance and reinsurance by insurers in
> member states to Iran and Iranian-owned companies.[edit]National
> sanctions against Iran
> U.S. sanctions against Iran: The United States has imposed an arms ban
> and an almost total economic embargo on Iran, which includes sanctions
> on companies doing business with Iran, a ban on all Iranian-origin
> imports, sanctions on Iranian financial institutions, and an almost
> total ban on selling aircraft or repair parts to Iranian aviation
> companies. An exception from the Treasury Department is required to do
> business with Iran.Canada imposed a ban on dealing in the property of
> designated Iranian nationals, a complete arms embargo, oil-refining
> equipment, items that could contribute to the Iranian nuclear program,
> the establishment of an Iranian financial institution, branch,
> subsidiary, or office in Canada or a Canadian one in Iran, investment
> in the Iranian oil and gas sector, relationships with Iranian banks,
> purchasing debt from the Iranian government, or providing a ship or
> services to Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, but allows the
> Foreign Minister to issue a permit to carry out a specified prohibited
> activity or transaction.[2]Australia has imposed financial sanctions
> and travel bans on individuals and entities involved in Iran's nuclear
> and missile programs or assist Iran in violating sanctions, and an
> arms embargo.[3]South Korea imposed sanctions on 126 Iranian
> individuals and companies.[4]Japan imposed a ban on transactions with
> some Iranian banks, investments with the Iranian energy sector, and
> asset freezes against individuals and entities involved with Iran's
> nuclear program.[5][dead link]Switzerland banned the sale of arms and
> dual-use items to Iran, and of products that could be used in the
> Iranian oil and gas sector, financing this sector, and restrictions on
> financial services.[6]India enacted a ban on the export of all items,
> materials, equipment, goods, and technology that could contribute to
> Iran's nuclear program.[7]Israel banned business with or unauthorized
> travel to Iran under a law banning ties with enemy states.[8] Israel
> has also enacted legislation that imposes sanctions on any companies
> that violate international sanctions.[9] Israel later extended the
> sanctions by imposing a series of administrative and regulatory
> measures to prevent Israeli companies from trading with Iran, and
> announced the establishment of a national directorate to implement the
> sanctions.[10][edit]Effects
> The sanctions have had a substantial adverse effect on the Iranian
> nuclear program by making it harder to acquire specialized materials
> and equipment needed for the program. The sanctions have also had a
> strong impact on the Iranian economy. As well as reduced access to
> products needed for the oil and energy sectors, the sanctions have
> prompted many oil companies to withdraw from Iran, and have also
> caused a decline in oil production due to reduced access to
> technologies needed to improve their efficiency. According to U.S.
> officials, Iran may lose up to $60 billion in energy investments
> annually. Many international companies have also been reluctant to do
> business with Iran for fear of losing access to larger Western
> markets. The effects of U.S. sanctions include expensive basic goods
> for Iranian citizens, and an aging and increasingly unsafe civil
> aircraft fleet. According to the Arms Control Association, the
> international arms embargo against Iran is slowly reducing Iran's
> military capabilities, largely due to its dependence on Russian and
> Chinese military assistance. The only substitute is to find
> compensatory measures requiring more time and money, and less
> effective.[11][12] According to at least one analyst (Fareed Zakaria),
> the market for imports in Iran is dominated by state enterprises and
> regime-friendly enterprises, because the way to get around the
> sanctions is smuggling, and smuggling requires strong connections with
> the regime. This has weakened Iranian civil society and strengthen the
> state.[13][edit]
> On Nov 11, 6:38 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > What is it that you think our Nation is doing that interferes with Iran,
> > internally or externally?
>
> > On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 2:50 PM, plainolamerican
> > <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > >  is the problem solely fear
> > > based??
> > > ----
> > > good observation
>
> > > those who live in fear will go to extremes to feel safe
>
> > > On Nov 11, 11:02 am, Mark <markmka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Lets see..... a foreign naval vessel in international waters.... I do not
> > > > see the problem.
>
> > > > Tell me....EXACTLY.... what is the problem?? Or is the problem solely
> > > fear
> > > > based??
>
> > > > On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com
> > > >wrote:
>
> > > > > *Iranian Navy to Patrol off U.S. Coast, What!?
> > > > > *
> > > > > Read more:
> > > > >http://defensetech.org/2011/09/28/iranian-navy-to-patrol-off-u-s-coas.
> > > ..
> > > > > Defense.org
>
> > > > > "No word on what type of ships Iran will send to establish this
> > > "powerful
> > > > > force." Keep in mind, that this light frigate<
> > >http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/jamaranmowjclassmult/>known as
> > > the Jamaran, is one of Iran's most modern and powerful ships. It
> > > > > carries four Noor class anti-ship missiles with a range of about
> > > 125-miles
> > > > > along with four SM-1 anti-aircraft missiles, light torpedoes and a 76
> > > mm
> > > > > gun. Not exactly an Aegis destroyer."
>
> > > > > Read more:
> > > > >http://defensetech.org/2011/09/28/iranian-navy-to-patrol-off-u-s-coas.
> > > ..
> > > > > Defense.org
>
> > > > > On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 9:32 AM, THE ANNOINTED ONE <
> > > markmka...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > > > >> whoop-di-whoop!!!!!! Keith....  Irans capability is 1250 miles. No
> > > > >> more of a threat to the US than one that flies 10 miles or 90 miles.
> > > > >> According to British sources (much more reliable than US sources now
> > > > >> that the Blair Gov. is gone) they have stopped trying to increase
> > > > >> distance as Israel is well within range now.
>
> > > > >> The problem is that to have a massive capability (nuke) Iran has
> > > > >> realized that hitting Israel will kill/affect more Moslims/Arab
> > > > >> nations than Jews and so have the other Moslim nations in the area.
> > > > >> the inverse is not true.
>
> > > > >> On Nov 10, 7:46 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >> > You better read up on Iran's capabilities Sarge.....You sound like a
> > > > >> > Moonbat this week.
>
> > > > >> > (Good to see ya by the way!)
>
> > > > >> > KeithInTampa
>
> > > > >> > On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 1:40 AM, SgtUSMC <devildawg...@gmail.com>
> > > > >> wrote:
> > > > >> > > Yea, well, Iraq was going to attack us with Scuds that only had a
> > > 90
> > > > >> > > mile range. Some people are clueless.
>
> > > > >> > > --
> > > > >> > > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > > > >> > > For options & help seehttp://
> > > groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > > > >> > > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> > > > >> > > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > > > >> > > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>
> > > > >> --
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>
> > > > >  --
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> > > > --
> > > > *Mark M. Kahle H.*
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
> > > > *
>
> > > --
> > > Thanks
>
> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

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