On Assault Weapons

Quote of the Day -- On the US Out of the Middle East

From this article in POLITICO

Why the Arabs don't want us in Syria

"Let’s face it; what we call the “war on terror” is really just another oil war. 

We’ve squandered $6 trillion on three wars abroad and on constructing a national security warfare state at home since oilman Dick Cheney declared the “Long War” in 2001. The only winners have been the military contractors and oil companies that have pocketed historic profits, the intelligence agencies that have grown exponentially in power and influence to the detriment of our freedoms and the jihadists who invariably used our interventions as their most effective recruiting tool. We have compromised our values, butchered our own youth, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, subverted our idealism and squandered our national treasures in fruitless and costly adventures abroad. In the process, we have helped our worst enemies and turned America, once the world’s beacon of freedom, into a national security surveillance state and an international moral pariah.

America’s founding fathers warned Americans against standing armies, foreign entanglements and, in John Quincy Adams’ words, “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Those wise men understood that imperialism abroad is incompatible with democracy and civil rights at home. The Atlantic Charter echoed their seminal American ideal that each nation should have the right to self-determination. Over the past seven decades, the Dulles brothers, the Cheney gang, the neocons and their ilk have hijacked that fundamental principle of American idealism and deployed our military and intelligence apparatus to serve the mercantile interests of large corporations and particularly, the petroleum companies and military contractors that have literally made a killing from these conflicts.

It’s time for Americans to turn America away from this new imperialism and back to the path of idealism and democracy. We should let the Arabs govern Arabia and turn our energies to the great endeavor of nation building at home. We need to begin this process, not by invading Syria, but by ending the ruinous addiction to oil that has warped U.S. foreign policy for half a century."

~ Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Congratulations, America, On Your Very Dubious 15 Year Anniversary

Today is the 15th anniversary of the U.S-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Think about that.

15 years of sending mostly young American soldiers---men and women--to a foreign country to fight and die--for....?

How is this not like the Vietnam War?  How is this not a "quagmire"?

#perpetualwar

Link:  U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan begins - Oct 07, 2001

Fifteen years on, the Afghanistan war still rumbles

Afghanistan Needs a Settlement, Not Another Troop-Withdrawal Deadline

Ending the Afghan War

Hoist By Their Own Words

Leslie H. Gelb says the U.S. military has lost its way in Afghanistan.

Forging a Four-Sided Afghan Deal

 Fifteen Years of Lessons Not Learned

With No End After 15 Years, Thoughts Turn to Who Will Inherit Afghan War

Another Scary, Right Wing Republican Candidate, Part II

There doesn't seem to be a shortage, especially this election year, of very, again, scary Right Wing Republican candidates running for office both statewide and nationally. Here, absolutely, is yet one more.


If he isn't a former military pretty boy who wants to wear--and is--his scary, nationalistic patriotism on his sleeve, then I don't breath air. He makes vague promises of "change" in his ads and that he will help us "take America back" but makes no specific policy stands whatever in all the ads of his I've seen.


Check out this headline from Mr. "I'm Going To Do Things Differently":

Eric Greitens Nabs Single Largest 

Campaign Contribution in Missouri History

And then check out this little beauty. He frequently describes himself as a government "outsider." Yeah, he's outside government, all right. Heck, he's outside Missouri.

Greitens' campaign mostly funded 

by non-Missouri donors

What's scary is that, besides being obviously handsome which, unfortunately, can get people like him votes, he's also a Rhodes Scholar, so he's clearly bright, but also, as mentioned a million times, at least, a former Navy Seal. That's one Hell of a package for an opposing candidate to go up against.

Vote blue, Missouri. Vote blue but vote.

Quote of the Day -- From Martin Luther King, Jr.

And we still do.

World Hunger Quotes

Quot

What Actually Happened in Iraq

What the government, lead largely by the Republicans and Right Wing, actually did in Iraq.

The best hour and fifteen minutes you can spend, learning about your government and our spending.



Our defense spending is what is bankrupting America. That and giving corporate welfare in the billions of dollars.

Why you don't mix the police and the military

This is what mixing the military and police gets us, along with  attacks on citizens. Oh, and deaths:

Military or Local Police?

It's difficult to tell any more.

Important, even huge, milestone too many Americans haven't noticed

And so, that they/we haven't been extremely grateful for:

Missouri, our children, high school, privacy and the military, all in one

It seems the Gestapo Right Wing just can't get enough of their "small gubmint" and their ability to reach into people's lives.

How much more ironic and hypocritical is this?

It seems the state wants more and more of our children to be automatically tested for a career in the military while they're in high school:

Missouri Program Requires High School Students To Take Military Enlistment Test

Check this from Truthout earlier today:

The Missouri School Improvement Program, which is set to take effect beginning with the 2014-15 school year, establishes five standards of accountability used to rate school performance. The third standard calls on high schools to administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Career Exploration Program (ASVAB-CEP) to determine whether students are "College and Career Ready." 

The ASVAB is the entrance exam the military gives to recruits to determine their aptitude for various occupations. The test also is used as a recruiting tool in 11,700 high schools across the country. The ASVAB is the most important component of the Pentagon's school-recruiting program because it provides information on the cognitive abilities of students, something the Department of Defense cannot purchase or find online.

Participation in the ASVAB-CEP allows high schools to take advantage of the career exploration component of the testing regime while prohibiting the release of ASVAB results for recruiting purposes. ASVAB results include three hours of test data, sensitive personal demographic information on children and Social Security numbers. There are no privacy protections built into the Missouri School Improvement Program. ASVAB results are the only student information leaving Missouri's schools without providing for parental consent.

We can't just let our children go to school, we have to automatically have them tested for the military and share that information with that same military and the government.

Weimar Germany would have loved this.

First we'll have them join the Boy Scouts and wear their little brown shirts and get ranks and badges and such, then, once in high school, we'll automatically test them for the military.

Sure, that's perfect.

America, the world's warmonger

Yessirree, Bob.

Good ol' America, the beautiful.

Right?

Isn't that who we are?

 Former leader of the Free World, for peace. Now the world's warmonger, as we have been and have become, in the last few decades. We outspend everyone, every other nation on the planet, many times over, on spending for war.

Think we're not?  Want proof?

Well, then, here you go, as posted by none other than the Iraq Veterans Against the War :

Iraq Gets $2 Billion Weapons Package from the Pentagon

Does that make sense to anyone out there?

And the only way it will change, folks, is if we, the people, stand up, organize, and demand an end to it.

All of it.



It's America. It was inevitable

A new, self-proclaimed "bullet-proof chair."

A description:

The Guardian™ Chair is a chair with a bullet resistant vest. An NIJ Level II bullet resistant vest will provide protection against regular powered 9mm handguns, up to .357 Magnums.

And the requisite, very necessary video:



Instead of having less weapons and so, less shootings and maimings and killings, let's just buy bullet-proof chairs and furniture and clothing to protect us.

Brilliant.

As the British would say, bloody brilliant.

Pun intended.

Yeehaw.  Giddyup.  Go get 'em, cowboy.

And God bless Amerikuh.

Veterans Day

Good news/bad news on Missouri's payday loans

News broke today on the Missouri payday loan petitions and the effort to get the whole mess on a ballot this Fall.

If you've been following this, there have been people in the state, trying to get an initiative voted on this Autumn so payday loan businesses would be more regulated than they are. At present, they are very loosely regulated and the interest rates they charge sometimes exceed 400%. It's shameful. What used to be looked down on in any form as usury--and there were laws against loans, period--is now virtually a lawless "Wild West" of predatory loans.

So here's some good news out today:

Supreme Court ruling clears way for payday loan and minimum wage petitions

Missouri voters may get a say in November on whether to raise tobacco taxes, increase the minimum wage and limit interest rates on payday loans after a state Supreme Court ruling Tuesday.

A variety of legal challenges were filed seeking to keep three initiative petitions addressing those topics off the Nov. 6 general election ballot. Tuesday’s ruling means the petitions are now eligible to appear on the fall ballot if the Secretary of State’s office determines supporters gathered enough valid signatures.

In its ruling Tuesday, the high court unanimously rejected six separate legal challenges that claimed ballot descriptions for the petitions were insufficient or unfair. The descriptions were prepared by the Secretary of State’s office. Four of the six challenges dealt with payday loans.

So this is some great news, really.

And for anyone who would ask why Missouri needs such a measure to vote on at all, they can look no further than a study by the Pew: Charitable Trusts, also released today, showing the 9 worst states for payday loans, with Missouri squarely in the number 2 spot:

2) Missouri
%19> Median income:
> Number of payday lending storefronts: 1,275
> Pct. below poverty line: 15.3%
> Median income: $44,301

The state of Missouri prohibits payday loans above $500 and requires loans to have a minimum term of 14 days and a maximum of 31 days. The state also prohibits lenders from charging a total of more than 75% of the principle in interest and fees on any loan. However, these policies do not protect Missourians who take out payday loans, which can legally be accompanied by an APR as high as 1,955% for a two-week $100 loan, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. Much of the industry’s profits in Missouri, 90% according to Communities Creating Opportunities (CCO), are derived from borrowers who are consistently paying off past debts to avoid default. According to Molly Fleming-Pierre, Policy Director at CCO, after Joplin, Mo., was ravaged by a tornado, payday lenders were among the fastest to arrive at the scene.

Naturally, these companies prey on the poor, which is bad enough, but they also prey on young American soldiers with storefronts right outside and nearby army and other military bases. It's disgusting.

So good for us, at least for now. People are creating petitions and getting out there and having others sign them so we can vote on this foul business. I will also mention, in case you weren't aware of it, the Catholic Church, statewide, has gotten behind this measure, too, so I'm personally very grateful for that. Hopefully more churches are also behind it.

I will say, too, as one last note, if you go to the link to the article, below, you'll see that Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas are also on the list, with Kansas at number 7.

If an end isn't put to this, at least it should be regulated, first, and curbed, second. The military and poor deserve far better than this. We owe some decency and fairness to them and to all humankind.

Links: Nine States Where Lenders Take Your Paycheck - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2012/07/27/nine-states-with-the-most-payday-lending/

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20120801/NEWS01/307310085/Supreme-Court-ruling-clears-way-payday-loan-minimum-wage-petitions?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CSpecial%20Reports%7Cs

Quote of the day

‎"All people of all countries want peace, only their government wants war." --Former President and military General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ignorant, sick, twisted, unhealthy American priorities, Part II

As the now old saying goes, wouldn't it be great if the military had to have bake sales, instead of schools? Not literally but darn near.

On the media and Perpetual War

"What is it about the military that turns normally thoughtful journalists into war pornographers?

"War lovers and war pornographers can’t offer us an objective look at a world in which more and more foreigners only run into Americans when they are wearing green and carrying weapons."

"I respect my military colleagues, at least the ones who took it all seriously enough to deserve that respect, and would not speak ill of them. Some do indeed make enormous sacrifices, including of their own lives, even if for reasons that are ambiguous at best to a majority of Americans. But in order to understand these men and women and the tasks they are set to, we need journalists who are willing to type with both hands, not just pass on their own wet dreams to a gullible public."

"Civilian control of our military is a cornerstone of our republic, and we the people need to base our decisions on something better than Sergeant Rock comic rewrites."

--Peter Van Buren, writer, author, State Department Foreign Service Officer

Link to original post:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/16

Our CIA and military became interchangeable?

Maybe I missed something but I swear our government didn't used to trade out the military folks for the Central Rreakin' Intelligence Agency so boldly and blatantly, I don't think, as they did since old Don Rumsfeld took over in the last administration.

Now, here's word out today:

Obama sending Panetta to Pentagon, Petraeus to CIA

AP

AP

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama plans to name CIA Director Leon Panetta as the next secretary of defense and move Gen. David Petraeus, now running the war in Afghanistan, into the CIA chief's job in a major shuffle of the U.S. national security leadership, senior administration officials and other sources said Wednesday. Full Story »

I mean, didn't the military used to be the military and the secret, sneaky spy guys used to be just that--the sneaky spy guys--and never the twain did meet?  Am I just naive here?

And even if I am naive on this, does anyone else see something wrong with this?  Is it just me?

Update:
Link:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/29-2

Quote of the day--on "continual warfare"

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

Finally, Washington is catching up with us

From The Huffington Post, Rep. Barney Frank and Rep. Ron Paul, just now: Why We Must Reduce Military Spending As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues to interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree. By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts. For decades, the subject of military expenditures has been glaringly absent from public debate. Yet the Pentagon budget for 2010 is $693 billion -- more than all other discretionary spending programs combined. Even subtracting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military spending still amounts to over 42% of total spending. It is irrefutably clear to us that if we do not make substantial cuts in the projected levels of Pentagon spending, we will do substantial damage to our economy and dramatically reduce our quality of life. Welcome to the party, boys. Now, make it happen.