Veterans and allies arrested in New York as Afghanistan war enters year 12
Twenty-five people, most of them U.S. military veterans, were arrested while laying flowers at a war memorial in New York City Oct. 7. They were engaged in a peaceful vigil to honor those killed and wounded in war and to oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan as it entered its 12th year.
The vigil was held at Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in lower Manhattan and began with a program of music and speakers including Vietnam veteran Bishop George Packard, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges, and Iraq combat veteran Jenny Pacanowski. At 8:30, the protesters began reading the names of the New York soldiers killed in Vietnam who are commemorated at the plaza and the military dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At 10:15 pm, the police informed the group that the park was officially closed and that if they remained they would be arrested. Many chose to continue reading names and laying flowers until they were handcuffed and taken away. One of the arrestees was Word War II Army combat veteran, Jay Wenk, 85, from Woodstock, NY.
The veterans had four aims:
Demand an end to the 11-year war in Afghanistan
The vigil was held at Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in lower Manhattan and began with a program of music and speakers including Vietnam veteran Bishop George Packard, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges, and Iraq combat veteran Jenny Pacanowski. At 8:30, the protesters began reading the names of the New York soldiers killed in Vietnam who are commemorated at the plaza and the military dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At 10:15 pm, the police informed the group that the park was officially closed and that if they remained they would be arrested. Many chose to continue reading names and laying flowers until they were handcuffed and taken away. One of the arrestees was Word War II Army combat veteran, Jay Wenk, 85, from Woodstock, NY.
The veterans had four aims:
Demand an end to the 11-year war in Afghanistan
The Coddling of the Corporate Rich and the Big Corporations
Romney would like to deal with the jobs’ problem by rewarding the corporate rich, often way up there in the top of the 1 percent of income and wealth distributions, with further tax cuts for themselves and others like them and for their corporations, coupled with corporate-friendly regulation, and government spending that favors the interests of their corporations. The Romney/Republican approach to jobs is based on a trickle-down, neoliberal, free market economics that assume that only the rich, particularly the corporate rich, can bring the U.S. prosperity and robust economic growth that will make everything just fine for the majority of Americans.
War, Vets, and Moral Injury
It’s not just suicide. It’s also drug overdose, car crash — quasi- or secret suicide, carried out in fearful isolation.
Young Iraq and Afghanistan vets are dying in increasing numbers by their own hands in “a largely unseen pattern of early deaths that federal authorities are failing to adequately track and have been slow to respond to,” according to a recent story in the Austin American-Statesman based on a six-month investigation of the causes of death of 266 Texas veterans, out of the 345 known to the Veterans Administration to have died since their return from duty. At least 142 of those deaths were self-inflicted in one way or another.
These are the forgotten dead. Their autopsy reports, the American-Statesman story tells us, “paint a mosaic of pain, desperation and hopelessness among a significant number of Texas veterans.” And of course it goes beyond Texas. Similar numbers, similar stories, similar wreckage, can be found in every state.
Young Iraq and Afghanistan vets are dying in increasing numbers by their own hands in “a largely unseen pattern of early deaths that federal authorities are failing to adequately track and have been slow to respond to,” according to a recent story in the Austin American-Statesman based on a six-month investigation of the causes of death of 266 Texas veterans, out of the 345 known to the Veterans Administration to have died since their return from duty. At least 142 of those deaths were self-inflicted in one way or another.
These are the forgotten dead. Their autopsy reports, the American-Statesman story tells us, “paint a mosaic of pain, desperation and hopelessness among a significant number of Texas veterans.” And of course it goes beyond Texas. Similar numbers, similar stories, similar wreckage, can be found in every state.
Ignore debate zingers, focus on issues
As Wednesday’s presidential debate approached, the political junkies were gearing up for a shoot-out. Much attention was paid to the political horse race. Much debate commentary was about technique: Was President Barack Obama crisp? Did Mitt Romney use the zingers he has reportedly practiced? Did he get under the president’s skin?
This is all cute but irrelevant. The debate should focus on the future. And it should pay attention to stark realities that have largely gone unmentioned in the campaigns.
† The candidates need to be asked what they plan to do to put people back to work and how they plan to create an economy that works for working people. Romney argues that austerity — harsh cuts in spending — is what is needed. But Europe has given us a case study about what happens when austerity is applied to a weak economy: rising misery, spreading poverty and growing despair. Why would we want to repeat that here?
This is all cute but irrelevant. The debate should focus on the future. And it should pay attention to stark realities that have largely gone unmentioned in the campaigns.
† The candidates need to be asked what they plan to do to put people back to work and how they plan to create an economy that works for working people. Romney argues that austerity — harsh cuts in spending — is what is needed. But Europe has given us a case study about what happens when austerity is applied to a weak economy: rising misery, spreading poverty and growing despair. Why would we want to repeat that here?
Mountains of evidence on election tampering documented in book on election integrity movement
CICJ Books has just released "Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols: The Election Integrity Movement's Rise and Nonstop Battle to Win Back the People's Vote, 2000-2008" by Marta Steele.
Marta Steele has done yeoman work for the election integrity movement. She has plowed through more websites and blogs than one can even imagine. She set out with the nearly impossible task of writing the definitive historical narrative of the folly of electronic voting in the United States between 1988 and 2008. More shockingly, she accomplished that task.
Electronic voting machines are perfectly designed to steal elections. That's their principle purpose. Ireland has just gotten rid of them altogether. Germany, Japan, Canada, Switzerland all use paper ballots. Why? Because you can actually count them in public, and then count them again.
Marta Steele has done yeoman work for the election integrity movement. She has plowed through more websites and blogs than one can even imagine. She set out with the nearly impossible task of writing the definitive historical narrative of the folly of electronic voting in the United States between 1988 and 2008. More shockingly, she accomplished that task.
Electronic voting machines are perfectly designed to steal elections. That's their principle purpose. Ireland has just gotten rid of them altogether. Germany, Japan, Canada, Switzerland all use paper ballots. Why? Because you can actually count them in public, and then count them again.
US Army reports sharp rise in suicides
WASHINGTON — Suicides among US Army soldiers more than doubled in July compared to June, the Pentagon said, the latest evidence of a worrisome trend that has vexed military leaders.
Among active-duty troops, 26 soldiers killed themselves last month, compared to 12 in June, according to an army statement.
The July toll was the highest for any single month since the Army began documenting suicides by month in 2009, officials said.
The army, which has borne the brunt of more than ten years of protracted ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has suffered the highest suicide rates among all the US armed services.
Commanders have struggled to stem the problem, funding a myriad of programs and research to try to understand what is driving so many soldiers to take their lives.
"Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army," said General Lloyd Austin, the US Army's vice chief of staff.
Among active-duty troops, 26 soldiers killed themselves last month, compared to 12 in June, according to an army statement.
The July toll was the highest for any single month since the Army began documenting suicides by month in 2009, officials said.
The army, which has borne the brunt of more than ten years of protracted ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has suffered the highest suicide rates among all the US armed services.
Commanders have struggled to stem the problem, funding a myriad of programs and research to try to understand what is driving so many soldiers to take their lives.
"Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army," said General Lloyd Austin, the US Army's vice chief of staff.
Book Review: A Must Read for All U.S. Citizens
A review of While We Still Have Time: The Perils Of Electronic Voting Machines And Democracy's Solution: Publicly Observed, Secure Hand-Counted Paper Ballots (HCPB) Elections, by Sheila Parks, Ed.D.
In While We Still Have Time: The Perils Of Electronic Voting Machines And Democracy's Solution: Publicly Observed, Secure Hand-Counted Paper Ballots (HCPB) Elections, Dr. Sheila Parks makes a very compelling (but scary) argument, backed up with lots of convincing evidence, showing that ALL electronic voting machines are susceptible to fraud and demonstrating that many have in fact been tampered with in recent elections.
This book is an absolute MUST READ for all citizens who are concerned that ALL votes are counted as cast. Dr. Parks shows that it is impossible to prove that electronic voting machines used in elections have NOT been tampered with. Her book is a chilling reminder that all ordinary citizens must continue to be actively involved in the political process if we want to avoid the demise of our democracy. The most precious right we have as citizens is the right to vote and have each vote be counted as intended.
In While We Still Have Time: The Perils Of Electronic Voting Machines And Democracy's Solution: Publicly Observed, Secure Hand-Counted Paper Ballots (HCPB) Elections, Dr. Sheila Parks makes a very compelling (but scary) argument, backed up with lots of convincing evidence, showing that ALL electronic voting machines are susceptible to fraud and demonstrating that many have in fact been tampered with in recent elections.
This book is an absolute MUST READ for all citizens who are concerned that ALL votes are counted as cast. Dr. Parks shows that it is impossible to prove that electronic voting machines used in elections have NOT been tampered with. Her book is a chilling reminder that all ordinary citizens must continue to be actively involved in the political process if we want to avoid the demise of our democracy. The most precious right we have as citizens is the right to vote and have each vote be counted as intended.
The Buzzing Wasps
Somewhere between predatory self-interest and insanity lies the drone.
The war on terror, the testing ground for drone technology, may be no more than the threshold of a brand new, barely imagined form of human hell: hell that buzzes like a wasp. How long before the technology comes home to our own neighborhoods?
An exhaustive new study released this week — “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From U.S. Drone Practices in Pakistan,” a collaborative research effort by the New York University and Stanford schools of law — rebuts pretty much every argument drone proponents, including the Obama administration and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, have made for their continued and extensive use. They kill lots of civilians and very few “high-level targets,” stir continuous animosity against the United States and thus guarantee steady recruitment by “violent non-state armed groups.” They don’t keep us safe. They prolong the war.
The war on terror, the testing ground for drone technology, may be no more than the threshold of a brand new, barely imagined form of human hell: hell that buzzes like a wasp. How long before the technology comes home to our own neighborhoods?
An exhaustive new study released this week — “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From U.S. Drone Practices in Pakistan,” a collaborative research effort by the New York University and Stanford schools of law — rebuts pretty much every argument drone proponents, including the Obama administration and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, have made for their continued and extensive use. They kill lots of civilians and very few “high-level targets,” stir continuous animosity against the United States and thus guarantee steady recruitment by “violent non-state armed groups.” They don’t keep us safe. They prolong the war.
Vote counting company tied to Romney
Several Tanker trucks full of political ink have been spilled on Mitt Romney's tenure as a vulture capitalist at Bain Capital. A more important story, however, is the fact that Bain alumni, now raising big money as Romney bundlers are also in the electronic voting machine business. This appears to be a repeat of the the infamous former CEO of Diebold Wally O’Dell, who raised money for Bush while his company supplied voting machines and election management software in the 2004 election.
In all 234 counties of Texas, the entire states of Hawaii and Oklahoma, half of Washington and Colorado, and certain counties in swing state Ohio, votes will be cast on eSlate and ePollbook machines made by Hart Intercivic. Hart Intercivic machines have famously failed in Tarrant County (Ft. Worth), adding 10,000 non-existent votes. The EVEREST study, commissioned by the Ohio secretary of state in 2007, found serious security flaws with Hart Intercivic products.
In all 234 counties of Texas, the entire states of Hawaii and Oklahoma, half of Washington and Colorado, and certain counties in swing state Ohio, votes will be cast on eSlate and ePollbook machines made by Hart Intercivic. Hart Intercivic machines have famously failed in Tarrant County (Ft. Worth), adding 10,000 non-existent votes. The EVEREST study, commissioned by the Ohio secretary of state in 2007, found serious security flaws with Hart Intercivic products.