Do something!

Thursday, October 1, 2009   |   Posted by Jim Hightower
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Also, express yourself directly to the Obama White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ or 202-456-1111.


... [read more]


The four biggest reasons for escalating war in Afghanistan--and why they're bogus

October 2009

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is America's "Man in the Stans"--Afghanistan and Pakistan, that is. Handpicked by President Obama to be special representative to what is at present the hottest of hot spots in the muddled global war on terrorists, Holbrooke is among the Washington influentials who is now urging Obama to hurl tens of thousands of additional troops and tens of billions of additional dollars into the Afghanistan war effort.

Why should America do that? What victory do we seek? In August, Holbrooke responded with a diplomatic quibble: "I don't use the word 'victory' but 'success' instead." Okay. What success will we achieve? Well, dodged the man who would commit untold numbers of people to their death in this hellish land, "success" really can't be defined. "We'll know it when we see it."

On such gossamer wings does America's Afghanistan policy fly.

This war has slogged on for nearly nine years, making it longer than America's involvement in World Wars I and II combined. We've already spent $228 billion, 826 Americans have been killed (nearly 200 so far this year), and Obama's summer surge has muscled up America's Afghan presence to 68,000 troops (plus another 42,000 from NATO). Yet the Taliban forces we're fighting are stronger than ever, and our own military commanders concede that not only is the war going badly for us, but the situation is rapidly "deteriorating."

Still, most military chieftains and Obamacan hawks say we must do more of what we are doing, only do it better so we can win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, which will require the infusion of more troops and treasure. The president has already requested $68 billion for the war in 2010 (an $8 billion increase over this year), and he is pondering a much greater escalation that would dispatch from 10,000 to 45,000 more Americans into what has now become "Obama's war." [ read more ]

What 8 years of BushCheney have done to the world

May 2008

Wow, has it really been five years since "Mission Accomplished?" It seems like only yesterday that our Glorious Leader was strutting around in a top-gun outfit, cockadoodling about American prominence in the world and wallowing in job-approval ratings of 28%. [ read more ]

DO SOMETHING!

Saturday, August 5, 2006   |   Posted by Jim Hightower
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Learn more about these issues. Check out these great groups and websites! If you don't have access to the internet, check your local library -- most have a connection you can use.

American Civil Liberties Union: www.aclu.org

Coalition of Journalists for... [read more]


Public opinion

Cowboy hat By Jim Hightower - Sat., 8/5/06
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"Let me put it to you this way. I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."
-- GEORGE W, NOVEMBER 2004

Bush quickly squandered his "capital," and his current... [read more]

WHERE'S OSAMA?

Cowboy hat By Jim Hightower - Sat., 8/5/06
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Remember Osama bin Laden? Wasn't he the guy behind the horrific 9/11 attack on America? Isn't he the poster boy of terrorism, which Bush pledged he'd "do whatever it takes" to eradicate? Wasn't he the fellow that George snarled he'd... [read more]

Where Bush's arrogance has taken us

August 2006

DURING HIS GUBERNATORIAL DAYS IN TEXAS, George W let slip a one-sentence thought that unintentionally gave us a peek into his political soul. In hindsight, it should've been loudly broadcast all across our land so people could've absorbed it, contemplated its portent...and roundly rejected the guy's bid for the presidency. On May 21, 1999, reacting to some satirical criticism of him, Bush snapped: "There ought to be limits to freedom."

Gosh, so many freedoms to limit, so little time! Inside: Check out our special editon poster, "Are you safe yet?" [ read more ]

POSTER: Are you safe yet?

Cowboy hat By Jim Hightower - Sat., 8/5/06
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Note: this is a text version of a full-sized poster that is available for download as a PDF.

BUSH LAWYERS

Cowboy hat By Jim Hightower - Tue., 7/4/06
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Early this year, Representative Maurice Hinchey asked the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to examine who in the department has actually authorized Bush's domestic spy program and why. We now know that top-ranking officials at Justice had refused the... [read more]

Who's spying on us? Rumsfeld's Pentagon takes the lead

May 2006

In 1928, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that the real threat to American freedom was not from an outside assault, but from the devious manipulations of our own misguided leaders. "The greatest dangers to liberty," he observed, "lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding."

Nearly 80 years after Brandeis's warning, the zealots have been brought in from the far-right fringe on the golden chariot of George W, and they've shown that they have no understanding of the essence of America, which includes our hard-won liberties, our rule of law and our system of checked-and-balanced governmental power.

Who's spying on us? Rumsfeld's Pentagon takes the lead

But these men of zeal -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. -- are hardly well-meaning. They are deliberately and determinedly striving to impose the AntiAmerica on our own land -- an unrecognizable America of supreme executive authority, constant surveillance of the citizenry, secret government and suppression of dissent. Their chief weapon is fear. They feverishly wave the bloody flag of 9/11, shouting that the citizenry must surrender liberties or be attacked again by The Madmen, that we mustn't question authority for this only encourages The Madmen, that all government operations must be cloaked in a dark veil of secrecy to keep The Madmen off balance, and that executive and police power must drastically expand to protect us from The Madmen.

While claiming that they must "secure" America for a post-9/11 world, the BushCheney zealots are taking us back to a pre-1776 world. They have been astonishingly successful in a remarkably short time, insidiously taking autocratic step after step, which a compliant Congress and the establishment media have mostly missed, ignored, minimalized or applauded. These two "institutions of vigilance" have failed us. So it is up to "We The People" to assert ourselves against this dangerous rise of authoritarianism in Bush's America. [ read more ]

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