Happiest Baby Elephant EVER!

Three great short videos:

The sheer joy experienced by this baby elephant is infectious! (~.~)  Guaranteed to make you feel good, too!\
http://www.reshareworthy.com/baby-elephant-in-mud-puddle/ 

And here is a sweet tale of two friends reunited after some hard times:
http://www.reshareworthy.com/goat-reunited-with-donkey-friend/

and, for more laughs:  today's Kids react to an old computer
http://www.reshareworthy.com/kids-react-to-old-computers/

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Required reading for Pennsylvanians (and the rest of us, too)

A book that all Pennsylvanians should read:  http://www.amazon.com/Fracking-Pennsylvania-Flirting-Walter-Brasch/dp/0942991168

I saw a news segment last night about fracking in Pennsylvania in the Marcellus shale -- it was not a pretty story, telling about the poisoning of ground water and wells, fracking waste water flowing into rivers, etc.  The more I read and hear about the disastrous horrors caused by fracking across our country (and in the world--Australians are experiencing the same thing), the more I realize that human life is of no importance to giant deregulated corporations run amok.  The human herd is being culled in many ways, and fracking is high on the list in reducing the population.  If, as it seems to be, that is the goal of Big Oil and Big Pharma, etc., they are definitely achieving it. The article below tells the story:

Fracking: Suicide Capitalism Poisons The Earth’s Fresh Water Supplies

by Dylan Murphy / February 11th, 2014

Lena Headley lives in in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. She and her husband bought a small farm for their semi-retirement with the mineral rights but not the oil and gas rights. Over the last seven years five gas wells and a transmission pipeline have been put on their land. The effect has been devastating: Pollution of land and air together with destruction of fruit trees and the burning of 10 acres of ground by the gas drillers. Gas wells leak and a spring 200 feet from her house is so rich with gas it can be set on fire.

Visits to the family doctor have become common. Her five year old son Adam suffers from crippling stomach pains. Lena has said that she wants her story to act as warning to ordinary people about the dangers of fracking.

In an interview in 2012 she said:  “And why? All because of an uncaring, dirty industry, driven by greed, selling their souls, leaving our health, environment, and rights behind as waste. When will this nightmare end?”

Governments across the world are triumphantly declaring that gas fracking is the solution to our rapacious energy needs. Yet as each month goes by new studies emerge in the United States of how this industry is poisoning water supplies and posing a grave threat to public health.

In December, a team of scientists from the University of Missouri published a study in the Journal of Endocrinology that revealed that over 700 different chemicals are used by the fracking industry. Their study focused upon a dozen fracking chemicals which had contaminated water supplies in Colorado, home to over 10,000 fracking gas wells. They took samples of contaminated river water from areas close to fracking sites and found that these chemicals disrupt the normal functioning of the endocrine system and can lead to cancer, infertility and birth defects.

Yet government politicians,  spokespeople for the suicide capitalists who own the big energy companies, insist that fracking is safe. Take US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s comment in November that: ”I think that there’s a lot of misinformation about fracking,” Jewell said, adding: “I think that it’s part of the industry’s job to make sure that the public understands what it is, how it’s done, and why it’s safe.”

How can drinking poisoned water be safe? Numerous scientific studies have concluded that fracking poisons the local water supply by adding carcinogens and radioactive materials. According to Dr. Sandra Stenigraber, Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Ithaca College and Science Advisor to Breast Cancer Action, there have been over 1,000 different cases of water contamination near fracking sites.

In many areas across America fracking has led to high levels of arsenic and other toxic heavy metals in ground water near drilling sites. Researchers from the University of Texas last year found levels of arsenic 18 times higher than in areas without fracking. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found elevated levels of arsenic in Wyoming and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, scientists at Duke University have found high levels of methane, propane and ethane in ground water samples near fracking sites in northern Pennsylvania.

As if that weren’t bad enough, in some areas fracking waste water is highly radioactive. A U.S. Geological Survey report found waste water from gas wells in Pennsylvania and New York state to be 3,609 times more radioactive than the federal limit for drinking water.

Meanwhile, scientists at Duke University have found levels of radium 200 times above normal or background levels in the Pennsylvania creek that flows into the Allegheny River . In New York state scientists from the Department of Environmental Conservation analysed 13 samples of waste water and found “levels of radium-226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink. ”

EPA scientists are worried about the threat to public health from the huge amounts of fracking waste water. Sewage treatment plants are incapable of removing radioactive materials from waste water which is then discharged into rivers from which drinking water is taken.

On average only 30-50% of the fracking fluid is recovered. The rest is left in the ground. In some areas waste water is left in open air pits to evaporate into the atmosphere. Harmful volatile organic compounds are released into the air creating acid rain and ground level ozone.

Numerous studies have shown how fracking chemicals can contaminate water supplies. There have been transport spills before and after gas drilling, the fracturing process itself, disposal of waste water and failure of gas well casings and seepage from abandoned gas wells. Chemical fluids from gas fracking can migrate underground to contaminate water tables.

To compound this environmental pollution there is the problem of water shortages caused by fracking. Each fracking well uses huge amounts of water requiring 2 to 4 million gallons of water. The EPA has estimated that the 35,000 fracking wells in America consume between 70 and 140 billion gallons of water each year.

A recent study by Ceres reveals that 47% of all oil and gas wells in the US are in regions with high or extremely high water stress. More than 55% of all US wells are in areas experiencing drought. Thirty six per cent of all wells are in regions experiencing ground water depletion.

The fracking industry’s reliance on huge amounts of water is placing unsustainable demands on many regions which are expected to experience 20 per cent or higher growth in population. To compound matters there has been a systematic over-exploitation of 40 major US aquifers. Major fracking activity and depleted aquifers overlap in many regions.

In many water-stressed areas such as Texas it is creating major problems for ordinary people. There is water rationing for 15 million people and 30 small towns are threatened with running out of water completely because of the insatiable demands of the fracking industry.

Besides this, the water demands of the fracking industry create yet another problem for local communities: wear and tear on roads and the air pollution caused by hundreds of trucks bringing water to the site and then taking waste water away. The average fracking well requires over 400 trucks to deliver water and take away waste water.

On top of this, is the associated rise in deaths and injuries caused by road accidents from the huge increase in traffic. For example, in Pennslyvania heavy truck crashes have increased by an average 9% a year. Some of these crashes have spilled fracking waste water into surface water.

There is, of course, an economic burden for local areas associated with this increase in truck crashes. In Pennsylvania a typical truck crash has an estimated economic cost of $216, 229 relating to deaths, injuries and property damage. This has added an estimated $28 million burden on to the overstretched budgets of heavily fracked counties.

The fracking industry in America resembles one vast ponzi scheme that is as reckless as it is criminal. Let’s take the example of Wyoming which has thousands of fracking wells. It has recently come to light how companies that once operated fracking wells have disappeared and have abandoned the wells they made huge profits from. Apparently, over 1,200 fracking wells have been abandoned in Wyoming with state officials saying there may be thousands more to come.

Many of the companies that once operated these fracking wells are seeking bankruptcy and unable to pay the cost of cleaning up the land they leased. Many farmers are complaining to state officials that their land has been left in a toxic state. Take, for example, the case of State senator John J.Hines who is seeking public money to clean up the 40 fracking wells abandoned on his land by Patriot Resource Company. It appears that Wyoming state will have to pay  the clean up costs for the 1,200 abandoned wells with potentially thousands more to come.

Max Keiser, a financial commentator, has called fracking suicide economics. As he points out, many fracking companies sign contracts with farmers to lease their land knowing full well that they won’t be spending any money to clean up the toxic mess they will have created.

Keiser calls fracking a ”12 to 36 month scam” by energy companies out to make a 5% return on their investment. Companies borrow money at zero per cent to pay for fracking rigs, make huge profits during the life of the fracking well then once it’s exhausted declare bankruptcy to avoid any clean up costs, leaving tax payers on the hook for millions. I wonder where we’ve seen that kind of scam before?

Not surprisingly, there is a growing movement of ordinary people against this form of suicide capitalism.  Over 400 counties in America have passed resolutions banning fracking operations from land in their areas. In Pennsylvania local people have delivered a 100,000 strong petition to Governor Corbett calling for a halt to fracking operations in that state. Last year 650,000 people sent messages to the Obama administration calling for a ban on fracking on public lands.

As the fracking industry spreads its destructive tentacles across the globe ordinary people must fight back against the big oil and gas companies that would poison millions of people and destroy local environments. All in the pursuit of a quick buck.

I ‘ll leave the last word to Sandra Steingraber, ”At what point does preliminary evidence of harm become definitive evidence of harm? When someone says, “We were not aware of the dangers of these chemicals back then,” whom do they mean by ‘we’?”

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Let's not forget Sarah while we're walking down right-wing memory lane

PALINISMS

"Mr. President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke." --Sarah Palin, on how President Obama should deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, CPAC speech, March 8, 2014  (Just think of what we would be faced with if she had gotten into the White House...OMG!)

"Polls are for strippers and cross-country skiers" –Sarah Palin, speaking at a Tea Party rally in Iowa, Sept. 3, 2011

"If we were really domestic terrorists, President Obama would want to be palling around with us." --Sarah Palin, on allegations that Vice President Joe Biden referred to the Tea Party as acting like "terrorists" in the debt ceiling standoff, which Biden denied, Aug. 2, 2011

"[Paul Revere] did warn the British. And in a shout-out, gotcha-type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly. And I know my American history." --Sarah Palin, defending her botched Paul Revere history lesson by taking issue with the reporter, who simply asked her "What have you seen so far today, and what are you going to take away from your visit?" (Fox News Sunday interview, June 5, 2011)

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed." --Sarah Palin, on Paul Revere's midnight ride, June 3, 2011

"I love that smell of the emissions!" --Sarah Palin, at a motorcycle rally in Washington, D.C., where she rode in on a Harley, May 29, 2011

"I haven't heard the president state that we're at war. That's why I too am not knowing -- do we use the term intervention? Do we use war? Do we use squirmish? What is it?" --Sarah Palin, on the U.S. and NATO bombing of Libya, March 29, 2011

"Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible." --Sarah Palin, defending her fiery campaign rhetoric in the wake of the Arizona shooting massacre by invoking a phrase ("blood libel") that typically refers historically to the alleged murder of Christian babies by Jews, Jan. 12, 2011

"Because of that one episode, that one episode, that would turn an issue into what it has become over the last two years. I think that's ridiculous. That's one of those things, where that issue...that I don't read, or that I'm not informed, it's one of those questions where I like to turn that around and ask the reporters, 'Why would it be that there is that perception that I don't read?'" --Sarah Palin, ABC interview with Barbara Walters, Dec. 9, 2010

"But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies." --Sarah Palin, after being asked how she would handle the current hostilities between the two Koreas, interview on Glenn Beck's radio show, Nov. 24, 2010

"I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree." --Sarah Palin, Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, Nov. 22, 2010

"Who hijacked term: 'feminist'? A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/whom they disagree on a singular issue; it's ironic (& passé)" --Sarah Palin, in a Twitter message, Aug. 18, 2010

"Dr. Laura: don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence "isn't American,not fair")" --Sarah Palin, in a Twitter message coming to the defense of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk radio host who apologized and decided to retire from her highly-rated program after using the N-word on the air 11 times in 5 minutes, Aug. 18, 2010

"As we work and sightsee on America's largest island, we'll get to view more majestic bears, so now is a good time to draw attention to the political equivalent of the species." --Sarah Palin, referring to Kodiak Island in Alaska, even though Hawaii is America's biggest island, July 19, 2010

"Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate." --a Tweet by Sarah Palin, which she quickly removed after being ridiculed for inventing the word "refudiate," July 18, 2010

"Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real." --a second Tweet by Sarah Palin, which she also removed after misusing the word "refute," July 18, 2010

"'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'" --a follow-up Tweet by Sarah Palin, proudly mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius, July 18, 2010

"[Barack and Michelle Obama] have power in their words. They could refudiate what it is that this group is saying." –Sarah Palin, on the NAACP charge of racism in the Tea Party movement, The Sean Hannity Show, Fox News, July 14, 2010

"We have a President, perhaps for the very first time since the founding of our republic, who doesn't appear to believe that America is the greatest earthly force for good the world has ever known." --Sarah Palin, Facebook note, June 30, 2010

"I would have waived the Jones Act, and some unions not might not like it, not union membership, but the union leaders, too many, who are thugs." --Sarah Palin, speaking at the Oil Palace in Tyler, Texas, June 26, 2010

"This is Reagan country (applause). Yeah! And perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and inter-linked to the Golden State." --Sarah Palin, blundering on Reagan's education while speaking at a fundraiser at California State University-Stanislaus. Eureka College is in Illinois. (June 25, 2010)

"What the federal government should have done is accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans who have had solution that they wanted presented ... The Dutch and the Norwegians, they are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills." --Sarah Palin, on solving the Gulf oil spill crisis, Fox News, June 15, 2010

"Shoot, I must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life as a normal, independent American up there in the Last Frontier, schooled with only public education and a lowly state university degree, because obviously I haven't learned enough to dismiss common sense." --Sarah Palin, on opposition to offshore oil drilling, Facebook note, June 13, 2010

"Here's an example of how it wastes some time. To be judged on or to be talked about on appearance—say chest size—it makes me wear layers, it makes me have to waste time figuring out what am I going to wear so that nobody will look in an area that I don't need them to look at." --Sarah Palin, Fox interview with Greta Van Susteren, June 12, 2010

"Unless government appropriately regulates oil developments and holds oil executives accountable, the public will not trust them to drill, baby, drill. And we must!" --Sarah Palin, Facebook note, June 8, 2010

"Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country's energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It's catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it." --Sarah Palin, blaming the Gulf oil spill disaster on "extreme environmentalists," Facebook note, June 2, 2010

"I think it's appalling and a violation of our freedom of the press." –Sarah Palin, speaking about the negative media coverage of Republican congressional candidate Vaughn Ward, Boise, Idaho, May 21, 2010

"We're all Arizonans now." --Sarah Palin, defending Arizona's new law cracking down on illegal immigration, May 15, 2010

"Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant -- they're quite clear -- that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the Ten Commandments." –-Sarah Palin, arguing that Judeo-Christian belief was the basis for American law and should continue to be used as a guiding force for creating future legislation, interview with Bill O'Reilly, May 6, 2010

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn't that ironic?" --Sarah Palin, admitting that her family used to get treatment in Canada's single-payer health care system, despite having demonized such government-run programs as socialized medicine that will lead to death-panel-like rationing, March 6, 2010

Sarah Palin, on writing notes on her hand during her Tea Party convention speech: "I didn't really have a good answer, as so often -- is me. But then somebody sent me the other day, Isaiah 49:16, and you need to go home and look it up. Before you look it up, I'll tell you what it says though. It says, hey, if it was good enough for God, scribbling on the palm of his hand, it's good enough for me, for us. He says, in that passage, 'I wrote your name on the palm of my hand to remember you,' and I'm like, 'Okay, I'm in good company.'" (March 5, 2010)

"They are kooks, so I agree with Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh was using satire ... I didn't hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with 'f-ing retards,' and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that. There is a big difference there." --Sarah Palin, attempting to rationalize why it's okay for Limbaugh to use the word "retards" but not Emanuel, FOX News Sunday interview, Feb. 7, 2010

"Who calls a shot like that? Who makes a decision like that? It's a disturbing trend." –Sarah Palin, pushing a conspiracy theory that "In God We Trust" had been moved to the edge of coins by the Obama administration (the change was made by the Bush administration in 2007 and was later reversed by Congress, before Obama took office), West Allis, Wisconsin, Nov. 6, 2009

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." –-Sarah Palin, in a message posted on Facebook about Obama's health care plan, Aug. 12, 2009

"Left Unalakleet warmth for rain in Juneau tonite. No drought threat down here, ever but consistent rain reminds us: 'No rain? No rainbow!'" --one of many Tweets by Sarah Palin that William Shatner recited as poetry on "The Tonight Show"

"I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out." --Sarah Palin, referring to a department that does not exist while attempting to explain why as president she wouldn't be subjected to the same ethics investigations that compelled her to resign as governor of Alaska, ABC News interview, July 7, 2009

"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country. And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make." --Sarah Palin, July 4, 2009

"It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: 'Sit down and shut up,' but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out." --Sarah Palin, announcing her resignation as governor, July 3, 2009

"Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naive if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN." --Sarah Palin, announcing her resignation, July 3, 2009

"Only dead fish go with the flow." --Sarah Palin, quitting, July 3, 2009

"Letterman certainly has the right to 'joke' about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction. This is all thanks to our U.S. military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America's Right to Free Speech - in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect." --Sarah Palin, misunderstanding the First Amendment, June 16, 2009

"That was fun!" --Sarah Palin, conducting an interview after pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving while other turkeys were slaughtered in the background, Nov. 20, 2008

"I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is." --Sarah Palin, on running for national office in the future, FOX News interview, Nov. 10, 2008

"John McCain and I, we love you and thank you for spending a few minutes to talk to me." --Sarah Palin, talking with Canadian radio prankster posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Nov. 1, 2008 (Read more about the prank call, watch the video and see the transcript)

"Ohh, good, thank you, yes." --Sarah Palin, after the Canadian prank caller complimented her on the documentary about her life, Hustler's "Nailin Paylin," Nov. 1, 2008

"We realize that more and more Americans are starting to see the light there and understand the contrast. And we talk a lot about, OK, we're confident that we're going to win on Tuesday, so from there, the first 100 days, how are we going to kick in the plan that will get this economy back on the right track and really shore up the strategies that we need over in Iraq and Iran to win these wars?" --Sarah Palin, suggesting we are at war with Iran, FOX News interview, Nov. 1, 2008

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To refresh our memory of "intelligent" right wing leaders

I am getting tired of right wing attempts to denigrate Obama's intelligence and leadership, both of which are FAR, FAR above the kind of leaders they chose (and continue to choose) -- but conveniently forget to quote.  We all know the Duhmbya Bush quotes showing him to be the idiot he is.  Here's a memory refresher on Rummy Rumsfeld:

Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

Memorable Quotes by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

By Daniel Kurtzman

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he [Osama Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead."

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." –on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." –on looting in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, adding "stuff happens"

"As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

"[Osama Bin Laden is] either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive."

"I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." -asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."

"Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said."

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

"If I said yes, that would then suggest that that might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone."

"There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist." -on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

"It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." -in Feb. 2003

"Well, um, you know, something's neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so, I suppose, as Shakespeare said."

"Secretary Powell and I agree on every single issue that has ever been before this administration except for those instances where Colin's still learning."

"Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often."

"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."

"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."

"I don't do quagmires."

"I don't do diplomacy."

"I don't do foreign policy."

"I don't do predictions."

"I don't do numbers."

"I don't do book reviews."

"Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here."

"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."

"Oh, Lord. I didn't mean to say anything quotable."

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Quotes about Politicians

TOO TRUE!  (sigh)

 

Apolitical Aphorisms

If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.

~Jay Leno~

 

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.

~Henry Cate, VII~

 

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office

~Aesop~

 

If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these State of the Union speeches, there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.

~Will Rogers~

 

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.

~Nikita Khrushchev~

 

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.

~Clarence Darrow~

 

Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.

~Author unknown~

 

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.

~John Quinton~

 

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

~Oscar Ameringer~

 

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.

~Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952~

 

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.

~ Tex Guinan~

 

I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

~Charles de Gaulle~

 

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

~Doug Larson~

 

There ought to be one day -- just one -- when there is open season on senators.

~Will Rogers~

 

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Let us remember our military heroes -- and how they are misused by the powerful

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/24/tillman.hearing/index.html?eref=onion

On Memorial Day, we need to remember the coverup lies told by the military under the direction of Cheney/Bush -- not only to get us into an unnecessary war, but to use the deaths and injuries of our own soldiers to propagate false heroic stories in order to justify war and to encourage more "patriotism" in America.  We will never know the full truth about Pat Tillman's death, but we know for sure the military's story about his death were lies from beginning to end.  That military reported to and received orders from Cheney and his puppet president Bush, who were hell bent on creating more and more war--and flag-waving enthusiasm for it in our country in order to control oil in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Read the article on how the coverup of Tillman's death and lies about Jessica Lynch's "heroic actions and rescue" were engineered to pump up at-home support for the wars that have ravaged Iraq and Afghanistan and horribly maimed and killed so many of our body-and-mind-damaged troops. If you saw the 60 Minutes segment last night on returning veterans' lives who have been destroyed by their service in the needless war in Iraq, you must have felt, as I did, compassion and support for them in their extreme need for help. More than 40 suicides a day are committed by veterans who cannot get the support they need from our government for their mental and emotional disabilities. 

Our troops need to be REALLY, TRULY supported -- not used for propaganda and recruitment with disgusting lies to support ever more wars.  Wars are created by the power-mad, greed-driven one percent elite who are making our country into a plutocracy where the numbers of poor are increasing and the middle class is disappearing.  Political power tends to rise to where the money is. The combination of great wealth with political power leads to greater and greater accumulations and concentrations of both — tilting the playing field in favor of the Cheneys, the Bushes, the Kochs and their ilk, and against the rest of us. Our military troops are drawn almost totally from the poor and middle class where, like chess pieces on a board, they (and we) are manipulated by the power-and-greed-hungry elite for their own purposes.

Please read the following on this day of remembrance for our brave troops, past and present.  We the people must realize the truth in Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's plea, made way back in 1933 (read his words in the first sentence of 2007 article below.  For full article, go to: http://www.alternet.org/story/62945/top_military_recruitment_lies):

War and Empire

As U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler put it in 1933, "There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket."

Racket is one term, empire is another to describe why the U.S. government spends $441 billion a year on a military of over two and a half million soldiers (2,685,713 with reserves), and why it has more than 700 military bases spread across 130 countries with another 6,000 bases in the United States and its "territories."

Understanding what military recruits are used for in the world, understanding war, and creating viable alternatives to both are essential if we want to break out of the deadlock of militarism. Since the collapse of the "other superpower," the Soviet Union, "empire" has become a common term among both critics and advocates referring to the unparalleled U.S. system of economic, political, cultural, and military domination of the world. The New York Times Magazine ran a 2003 cover story titled "The American Empire (Get Used to It.)" describing the United States as a reluctant but benevolent global empire. While Bush claimed in his 2004 State of the Union speech, "We have no ambitions of empire," months later Karl Rove snapped at a New York Times reporter: "'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Some see the start of American empire in the wake of Second World War or after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Others trace it back to the invasion and conquest of numerous indigenous nations in North America from the 17th century onward, the development of a slave economy with tentacles reaching into Africa, and the 1848 seizure of Mexico's northern half, which is now the Southwest. Another wave of aggression abroad began in the 20th century.

Smedley Butler describes the U.S. military's role in this emerging empire: "I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."

The modern-day version of "war as a racket" and gangsterism for capitalism can be seen in the occupation of Iraq. Critics call the U.S. war in Iraq a failure, but behind the scenes, it has established several permanent U.S. military bases, allowed corporations like Halliburton to make billions from unfulfilled contracts to reconstruct war-destroyed schools, hospitals, power systems and infrastructure, and is in the final process of turning control of Iraq's vast oil resources over to war profiteers such as Chevron.

The U.S. occupation's "Provisional Authority" under Paul Bremer also laid the legal groundwork for much of the Iraqi economy to be privatized and then taken over by U.S.-based corporations. Thus Butler's racket and its toll abroad. What does it cost us at home?

The price of two and a half million soldiers, aircraft carriers and military bases across the planet, and a massive array of weapons of mass destruction is high. It saps resources for healthcare, education and housing. It also requires keeping the domestic population in check through propaganda and the corrosion of civil liberties and human rights. Stifling domestic dissent, criminalizing immigrants, and torturing and illegally imprisoning citizens of other nations have all been stepped up under the guise of the so-called War on Terror.

In his book The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed , Ivan Eland writes, "Intervention overseas is not needed for security against other nation-states and only leads to blowback from the one threat that is difficult to deter -- terrorism.

In short, the U.S. empire lessens American prosperity, power, security and moral standing. It also erodes the founding principles of the American Constitution." As we write this book (late 2006) nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers and over 200 soldiers from other occupying countries have been killed in Iraq, at least 20,895 U.S. troops have been wounded, and a new Johns Hopkins report puts the number of violent Iraqi civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion at more than 600,000.

War's side effects are bleak for the environment and human society; its direct and intended effect is mass death. Down the current road of imperial dominance and warfare at will, the use of weapons of mass destruction is nearly inevitable, with apocalyptic consequences.

But there are alternatives to the expense of maintaining a military and the atrocity that is war. One that has been developed over the last 50 years is called social defense. Brian Martin, Australian scholar and author of Social Defense: Social Change , describes social defense as unarmed "community resistance to aggression as an alternative to military defense. It is based on widespread protest, persuasion, noncooperation and intervention in order to oppose military aggression or political repression. There have been numerous nonviolent actions, to be sure, some of them quite spectacular, such as the Czechoslovak resistance to the 1968 Soviet invasion, the toppling of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986, the Palestinian Intifada from 1987 to 1993 and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989."

Imagine if even a fraction of the resources put into military defense were available for the general population to organize social defense.

Replacing global empire with domestic democracy and well-being requires redefining democracy -- pursuing ways to shift decision making and power from corporations and government to "we the people." It's not enough just to oppose something.

We need to envision, educate about, and then actually organize alternatives to the system of empire and war, to corporations, and to the lack of democratic participation in decisions that shape our lives and communities. What begin as pragmatic actions, like keeping youth from joining the military, are most effective when they have as their end the transformation of the root causes of war, undemocratic governance, and injustice. Every immediate action, when understood and explained as part of a bigger picture, can be another step toward this longer-term goal of getting to the roots of our problems and building a better world.

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Let us remember our military heroes -- and how they are misused by the powerful

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/24/tillman.hearing/index.html?eref=onion

On Memorial Day, we need to remember the coverup lies told by the military under the direction of Cheney/Bush -- not only to get us into an unnecessary war, but to use the deaths and injuries of our own soldiers to propagate false heroic stories in order to justify war and to encourage more "patriotism" in America.  We will never know the full truth about Pat Tillman's death, but we know for sure the military's story about his death were lies from beginning to end.  That military reported to and received orders from Cheney and his puppet president Bush, who were hell bent on creating more and more war--and flag-waving enthusiasm for it in our country in order to control oil in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Read the article on how the coverup of Tillman's death and lies about Jessica Lynch's "heroic actions and rescue" were engineered to pump up at-home support for the wars that have ravaged Iraq and Afghanistan and horribly maimed and killed so many of our body-and-mind-damaged troops. If you saw the 60 Minutes segment last night on returning veterans' lives who have been destroyed by their service in the needless war in Iraq, you must have felt, as I did, compassion and support for them in their extreme need for help. More than 40 suicides a day are committed by veterans who cannot get the support they need from our government for their mental and emotional disabilities. 

Our troops need to be REALLY, TRULY supported -- not used for propaganda and recruitment with disgusting lies to support ever more wars.  Wars are created by the power-mad, greed-driven one percent elite who are making our country into a plutocracy where the numbers of poor are increasing and the middle class is disappearing.  Political power tends to rise to where the money is. The combination of great wealth with political power leads to greater and greater accumulations and concentrations of both — tilting the playing field in favor of the Cheneys, the Bushes, the Kochs and their ilk, and against the rest of us. Our military troops are drawn almost totally from the poor and middle class where, like chess pieces on a board, they (and we) are manipulated by the power-and-greed-hungry elite for their own purposes.

Please read the following on this day of remembrance for our brave troops, past and present.  We the people must realize the truth in Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's plea, made way back in 1933 (read his words in the first sentence of 2007 article below.  For full article, go to: http://www.alternet.org/story/62945/top_military_recruitment_lies):

War and Empire

As U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler put it in 1933, "There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket."

Racket is one term, empire is another to describe why the U.S. government spends $441 billion a year on a military of over two and a half million soldiers (2,685,713 with reserves), and why it has more than 700 military bases spread across 130 countries with another 6,000 bases in the United States and its "territories."

Understanding what military recruits are used for in the world, understanding war, and creating viable alternatives to both are essential if we want to break out of the deadlock of militarism. Since the collapse of the "other superpower," the Soviet Union, "empire" has become a common term among both critics and advocates referring to the unparalleled U.S. system of economic, political, cultural, and military domination of the world. The New York Times Magazine ran a 2003 cover story titled "The American Empire (Get Used to It.)" describing the United States as a reluctant but benevolent global empire. While Bush claimed in his 2004 State of the Union speech, "We have no ambitions of empire," months later Karl Rove snapped at a New York Times reporter: "'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Some see the start of American empire in the wake of Second World War or after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Others trace it back to the invasion and conquest of numerous indigenous nations in North America from the 17th century onward, the development of a slave economy with tentacles reaching into Africa, and the 1848 seizure of Mexico's northern half, which is now the Southwest. Another wave of aggression abroad began in the 20th century.

Smedley Butler describes the U.S. military's role in this emerging empire: "I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."

The modern-day version of "war as a racket" and gangsterism for capitalism can be seen in the occupation of Iraq. Critics call the U.S. war in Iraq a failure, but behind the scenes, it has established several permanent U.S. military bases, allowed corporations like Halliburton to make billions from unfulfilled contracts to reconstruct war-destroyed schools, hospitals, power systems and infrastructure, and is in the final process of turning control of Iraq's vast oil resources over to war profiteers such as Chevron.

The U.S. occupation's "Provisional Authority" under Paul Bremer also laid the legal groundwork for much of the Iraqi economy to be privatized and then taken over by U.S.-based corporations. Thus Butler's racket and its toll abroad. What does it cost us at home?

The price of two and a half million soldiers, aircraft carriers and military bases across the planet, and a massive array of weapons of mass destruction is high. It saps resources for healthcare, education and housing. It also requires keeping the domestic population in check through propaganda and the corrosion of civil liberties and human rights. Stifling domestic dissent, criminalizing immigrants, and torturing and illegally imprisoning citizens of other nations have all been stepped up under the guise of the so-called War on Terror.

In his book The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed , Ivan Eland writes, "Intervention overseas is not needed for security against other nation-states and only leads to blowback from the one threat that is difficult to deter -- terrorism.

In short, the U.S. empire lessens American prosperity, power, security and moral standing. It also erodes the founding principles of the American Constitution." As we write this book (late 2006) nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers and over 200 soldiers from other occupying countries have been killed in Iraq, at least 20,895 U.S. troops have been wounded, and a new Johns Hopkins report puts the number of violent Iraqi civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion at more than 600,000.

War's side effects are bleak for the environment and human society; its direct and intended effect is mass death. Down the current road of imperial dominance and warfare at will, the use of weapons of mass destruction is nearly inevitable, with apocalyptic consequences.

But there are alternatives to the expense of maintaining a military and the atrocity that is war. One that has been developed over the last 50 years is called social defense. Brian Martin, Australian scholar and author of Social Defense: Social Change , describes social defense as unarmed "community resistance to aggression as an alternative to military defense. It is based on widespread protest, persuasion, noncooperation and intervention in order to oppose military aggression or political repression. There have been numerous nonviolent actions, to be sure, some of them quite spectacular, such as the Czechoslovak resistance to the 1968 Soviet invasion, the toppling of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986, the Palestinian Intifada from 1987 to 1993 and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989."

Imagine if even a fraction of the resources put into military defense were available for the general population to organize social defense.

Replacing global empire with domestic democracy and well-being requires redefining democracy -- pursuing ways to shift decision making and power from corporations and government to "we the people." It's not enough just to oppose something.

We need to envision, educate about, and then actually organize alternatives to the system of empire and war, to corporations, and to the lack of democratic participation in decisions that shape our lives and communities. What begin as pragmatic actions, like keeping youth from joining the military, are most effective when they have as their end the transformation of the root causes of war, undemocratic governance, and injustice. Every immediate action, when understood and explained as part of a bigger picture, can be another step toward this longer-term goal of getting to the roots of our problems and building a better world.

Read More