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May 042013

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Truthdig – The Last Letter

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Mar 242013

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

via Truthdig – The Last Letter.

Are Americans Too Stupid For Democracy? | Alternet

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Mar 242013

How can we rationally pursue our self-interests when we don’t know what’s going on?

Widespread ignorance of objective reality poses a genuine threat to democracy. The people of the United States have ignorance in abundance.

via Are Americans Too Stupid For Democracy? | Alternet.

Why Unions Are Going Into the Co-op Business by Amy Dean — YES! Magazine

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Mar 172013

“Too often we have seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollow out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants,” said United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard in 2009. “We need a new business model that invests in workers and invests in communities.”

via Why Unions Are Going Into the Co-op Business by Amy Dean — YES! Magazine.

How the Republican party created a battle royal economy for over thirty years – Orlando liberal | Examiner.com

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Aug 302012

The current economy is not moving along fast enough for most Americans and both political parties are pointing their finger and playing the blame game. …… To truly understand the economic problems of the country, you have to go back over thirty years.

via How the Republican party created a battle royal economy for over thirty years – Orlando liberal | Examiner.com.

What has Obama Done? Here Are 194 Accomplishments! With Citations! (The PCTC Blog )

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Aug 182012

If you’re one of those who thinks President Obama is a “disappointment,” my condolences for not getting your unicorn. And it’s time to grow up, get over it. We have four months to go before an election that will feature more political ads than you have ever seen before in your life. We’re not just having to beat Willard Romney; we also have to beat Citizens United. There will be TWO choices for president. You can either work for Obama and every other Democrat (yes, including Blue Dogs), or you can sit back and watch Willard Romney complete the job of taking apart the social fabric of the country that was begun by Ronald Reagan.

via What has Obama Done? Here Are 194 Accomplishments! With Citations! (The PCTC Blog ).

How the record industry killed legal P2P, created a generation of pirates, and laughed all the way to the graveyard – Boing Boing

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Jul 092012

TorrentFreak’s Enigmax does a great job of summarizing Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story, a remarkable scholarly paper written by Rutgers law’s Michael A. Carrier, forthcoming in Wisconsin Law Review. Carrier interviewed the 31 subjects for the paper: “CEOs, company founders, and vice-presidents from technology companies, the recording industry, and venture capital firms,” and asked them to tell the story of the P2P wars and the music industry. The result is a very good, zippy, 61 pages that’ll angry up your blood, with phrases like “Lawyers at the labels historically drove the digital agenda. There was no one there with a truly entrepreneurial spirit. Zero, zilch, zingo, nada. No one there whose entire initiative was not to hang on to the past.” and “Even more dramatically, each of the companies ‘had a VP level person called the ‘digital person’’ who was ‘the person who had a decent office and no operational responsibility whatsoever.’”

How the record industry killed legal P2P, created a generation of pirates, and laughed all the way to the graveyard – Boing Boing.

Florida’s Cover-Up of Massive Tuberculosis Outbreak | Veracity Stew

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Jul 092012

When you hear the word tuberculosis, or consumption, as it used to be referred to, you think of the Victorian Era, or pre-industrialized society, not modern-day Jacksonville, Florida in the 21st Century. Unfortunately for the Pan-Handle State, they are in the middle of a huge TB outbreak, draconian budget cuts and what appears to be a cover-up of information.

via Florida’s Cover-Up of Massive Tuberculosis Outbreak | Veracity Stew.

New FCC Rule Requires Networks to Post Information on Political Ads | Veracity Stew

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Jul 082012

We may not be able to staunch the flow of corrupt money into our political system thanks to Citizens United, but at least the Federal Communications Commission’s FCC new rule will make it easier to trace – until you run up against the super-secretive Super PACS, that is. Still, it could be helpful.

The new rule, set to take effect August 2nd, would require network broadcasters to post information online about political ads being aired on their networks.

via New FCC Rule Requires Networks to Post Information on Political Ads | Veracity Stew.