The US Isn't Becoming A Militarized Police State?

True Believers who are still in denial about America becoming a militarized police state need to meditate on this clip from a recent Bill Maher show:

Bill Maher: "This country is becoming a police state, it is very troubling to . . .

The suspect was injured, lying down in the boat, and turned out to be unarmed . . . "contagious fire" or attempted extrajudicial execution?

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VeteransDay Revisited

For this Veteran's Day, I am just republishing the personal portion of my post on the militarization of American society and my experiences related to the Vietnam War, from MARCH 28, 2012 (with a few additions and edits):

- Ron Paul Blasts U.S. Policy in Farewell Address (Added 11/16/12)
-  Oliver Stone on the Untold U.S. History from the Atomic Age to Vietnam to Obama’s Drone Wars (Added 11/16/12)
- Veterans Day Revisited (A Description of the Slow Slide to Fascism in the U.S.)
- Warfare Culture (Added 11/14/12)
- Iris Dement & George Carlin
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Ron Paul Blasts U.S. Policy in Farewell Address

Added 11/16/12

Ron Paul farewell speech to the House of Representatives.

"Why can’t people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty? Why is there so little concern for the executive order that gives the president authority to establish a 'kill list,' including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination? Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong." -- Texas Congressman Ron Paul
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Oliver Stone on the Untold U.S. History from the Atomic Age to Vietnam to Obama’s Drone Wars
Added 11/16/12


When looking at the numbers of dead lost, from so many nations in WWII, documented by Oliver Stone in his new documentary, one wonders why it is that only the Jewish dead are presented as a "Holocaust" in the current American mythology.

OLIVER STONE: Generations of Americans have been taught that the United States reluctantly dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War II to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men poised to die in an invasion of Japan. But the story is really more complicated, more interesting, and much more disturbing. Many Americans view World War II nostalgically as the "Good" War in which the United States and its allies triumphed over German Nazis and Italian fascism and Japanese militarism. Others, not so blessed. Remember, World War II is the bloodiest war in human history. By the time it was over, 60 to 65 million people lay dead, including an estimated 27 million Soviets, between 10 and 20 million Chinese, six million Jews, over six million Germans, three million non-Jewish Poles, two-and-a-half million Japanese, and one-and-a-half million Yugoslavs. Austria, Britain, France, Italy, Hungary, Romania and the United States each counted between a quarter-million and a half-million dead.

Would we have dropped the atomic/nuclear bombs on Japan if Henry Wallace had been Vice-President, instead of Truman, under Roosevelt?  Would Wallace have fought against the effort to create a "state" of Israel on the lands of the Palestinians as Truman did?  The last question is not answered, but the documentary apparently addresses the first and explains why Truman ended up as President.

OLIVER STONE: The trailer looked pretty epic. From here to here—it’s like a Cecil B. DeMille movie, from 1940s to—it was a big job, four-and-a-half years, off and on. I did do three feature films and two documentaries during that period. But Peter was on the—we started in 2008, and it’s been four-and-a-half. 

We recently discussed Wallace and the bomb in 1997, when he was teaching at American University and I was there in one of his classes. And we talked about making a documentary of about an hour, hour and a half. He’s an expert on the atomic—on weaponry, and especially the atomic bomb. He founded the Department of Nuclear Studies in American—and Wallace is—Henry Wallace, as he can explain to you, is a key to the link: Would we have dropped the bomb? That’s the origin myths of this. Every school kid—still, my daughter in her school, in private school, in good school, is still learning this: We dropped the bomb because we had to, because the Japanese resistance was fanatic, and we would have lost many American lives taking Japan. This is one—there’s no alternative to that story. And we are beginning the process in chapter one, two and three of saying the bomb did not have to be dropped for strategic reasons and also because it was morally reprehensible. But strategically, it made no sense. 

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Kuznick, why? 

PETER KUZNICK: It made no sense because the Japanese were already defeated. They were looking for a way out of the war. United States knew they were defeated. Truman refers to the intercepted July 18th telegram as "the telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace." The United States— 

AMY GOODMAN: From the Japanese emperor asking for peace. 

PETER KUZNICK: The Japanese, yeah, but that was called—he says "the Jap emperor asking for peace," is Truman’s exact words on that. Everybody else knew that they were militarily defeated and looking for a way out. But the people who knew that the best were the Russians, because they were trying to get the Russians to intervene on their behalf to get them better surrender terms, and also because—their strategy was to welcome American invasion and then to conflict heavy damages and then force better surrender terms. But once the Russians invaded, then that undermined both their diplomatic strategy and their military strategy. So that was what really ended the war. It was not the bombing. We had already been bombing Japanese cities. We had firebombed over a hundred cities. Destruction reached 99.5 percent of the city of Toyama. From the Japanese standpoint, whether it was 200 bombs—200 planes and a thousand bombs or one plane and one bomb didn’t change the equation. But the Soviet invasion fundamentally changed it, and that’s what forced the final surrender.

So... the horrific, unbelievably inhumane bombing of Japan was not necessary, but that's who we are, and have repeatedly been, whether it be in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or  many other countries since.
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Veterans Day Revisited (A Description of the Slow Slide to Fascism in the U.S.)
I don't watch much TV. I rarely turn it on at my place, much preferring to find news and entertainment on the internet. Tuesday night, at my best and dearest friend's home, I watched PB'S' "News Hour" and two NCIS programs on CBS. The "News Hour" had an obviously propagandistic piece subtly demonizing Syria and the Assad government, ultimately insisting upon Assad stepping aside. The one and only guest on that segment was Andrew Tabler from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israeli foreign policy think-tank. WINEP is a simply another propaganda arm of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most incredibly powerful lobby in the US today for the interests of Israel (See Introduction to the Israel Lobby or the  The Israel Lobby for starters). There were no opposing guests to speak for the Syrian state, whose territory on the Golan Heights has been illegally occupied by Israel since the 1967 war (never mentioned on "News Hour"). This is typical one sided PBS and NPR fare, even though they claim to be God's gift for unbiased information to the American public.

 It would have been adequately "fair & balanced," and much more informative and interesting, if they had included someone like Eric Margolis, or any of the AntiWar.com stable of writers, on the same program as and antidote to PBS's (and NPR's) AIPAC/Neocon guest list.

 For another side of the story, see "THE DANGEROUS MESS IN SYRIA GROWS MURKIER" (or What's Left) and listen to Scott Horton's recent interview with Eric Margolis (now old) on Antiwar Radio. In the interview, Margolis states that the US, Britain, France, aligned with Israel and Saudi Arabia, along with right-wing forces in Lebanon, have been infiltrating armed fighters into northern Syria from the beginning, much like the French intelligence did to create the self-serving early Bengazi insurgency in Libya.

 The sound went out on PBS, so I switched to NCIS on CBS. The first hour was the usual, promoting the military police as a profoundly caring, justice seeking organization, just like most cop shows do for the police. The second, NCIS Los Angeles, was different. Like other police and military TV programs I have watched in the past, it ended up promoting not just killing willy-nilly, but in addition, the most egregious violations of Constitutional due process, simply because a Navy Seal Team had decided it was OK to kill a citizen because they thought he was a spy for the Taliban in Pakistan. No court order and no due process needed, because Seal Teams are all about honor and defending us. Ultimately, the powers that be in NCIS gave a wink and a knowing smile, and looked the other way, even though they knew the Seal Team members were involved in an extrajudicial killing of an American citizen on US soil without due process. I guess the message is that we need to forget the Constitution when, not just the Commander in Chief, but even teams of military commandos, decide amongst themselves that an American citizen on American soil needs to be "taken out" without formal charge or trial.

(See also The Permanent Militarization of America By AARON B. O’CONNELL)

 I thought about what a brain-washed and militarized society we have become--as TV has traveled quite a long way from the "I Love Lucy" shows of my youthful days. But hey, that's who we Americans are now--that's what we do--we kill people without regard to their Constitutional rights, or their rights as human beings. We tell only one side of the story. We threaten or make war upon nations and national groups at the command of the governing elites, Neocon think tanks and the corporate and "public" media, whenever they tell us those nations are "undemocratic," "kill their own people" (as we did in the most atrocious fashion during our own "Civil War"), and otherwise need a good thrashing. All this with no regard to the consequences for our own lives or for the lives of the people we attack. Constitutional protections of due process in a court of law, simply don't matter if the Executive Branch, the Military, or some other powerful group decides they don't. They are God.

 How the hell did we get here???? Have we always been this way? Well, sort of, but it keeps getting worse (Are we just going back to the dark ages?).

 Back in the last "just war," WWII, we killed hundred of thousands of civilians by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and killed many more thousands of innocent women and children, while destroying priceless European architecture, in Dresden, Germany, just to make a point. Afterwards we ignored all that and tried the Nazis for their atrocities during the war crimes tribunals, and made war crimes of the German sort, violations of international law. Since then, only weak nations have been tried for war crimes, even though it is the US and the West that violate those same international laws routinely.

Back in 1967 and '68, I faced a decision. As a poor boy of 17-18, I had fallen into an even deeper poverty than I had known previously, when growing up in a lower middle class family that became divided by separation, and then divorce. When I tried to go off on my own to escape an untenable situation, my brother helped me buy books so I could attend the local community college, during a time when my life and mind were in great turmoil (for reasons I won't go into). In the summer of 1967, a friend and I hitch-hiked to Montreal, Canada, for the world's fair, and on to Boston and New York, and I came home a changed person, even more aware of what I considered to be a dishonorable war against the people of Vietnam, a people who had every right to seek self determination and to fight their own civil war, even if one side was socialist/"communist". In late 1967, if I remember it all correctly, my roommate, another dear friend, and I protested the Vietnam war by inscribing "Hell No, we won't go" on the college lawn (a nearly meaningless and ineffective statement, I must confess). We were two of very few there who spoke out against the War, even though just months earlier we had considered going to Israel as volunteers to help the Israelis in their struggle with the Palestinians. My good friend and roommate was Jewish and at the time we had been overcome by the false pro-Israeli narrative in the popular press. Such was the change in my own personal awareness of American Empire during that brief period of 1967 and 1968.

 To make a long and very personal story short, after the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive in January, 1968, a new draft of 48,000 men was announced in February. I faced the loss of my college deferment and ended up in the Army. I could have gone to Canada, but had no support or wherewithal to do that, and did not wish to saddle my Army-Airforce father with having a son who chose not to serve. I was not, and could not truthfully claim to be, a conscientious objector to all wars in the religious sense, because I was, and still am, essentially an atheist. Atheists, after all, couldn't possibly have strongly held moral and ethical convictions--Godless people are lost souls and excluded from the possibility of morality.

 In my induction papers, I told the Army that I would not participate in any war that was not similar to World War II, and the attack on America at Pearl Harbor, which appeared at the time to be a truly defensive war. They took me anyway, but after my father's early death, just after my 20th birthday, I engaged in various forms of resistance. It was a long, difficult, problem-filled rocky road that eventually kept me out of the much more threatening and problematic Vietnam War, and which left me with an honorable discharge, thanks to military friends who favored my sentiments. My life was eventually deeply affected by my choices, especially when I faced bosses who had served willingly and had killed innocent Vietnamese as if it were the honorable thing to do. Even though I received an honorable discharge, I most often had to truthfully state the facts of my Army experience in job applications, and particularly in cases when the boss was a Vietnam vet, it did not serve me well. They had their own bitterness, and revenge to exact on those who opposed the war and who questioned the ultimate value of their service.

 In any event, the fruitless and destructive Vietnam War produced many more war crimes against innocent civilians, including the dropping of napalm on villages and the massacre at Mai Lai.

 The point of this story, is that we all face choices, and as a nation, we need to create choices with more productive outcomes. Unfortunately, if Americans choose to not willingly participate in thoughtless, often criminal, always destructive and murderous, US wars against any defenseless nation, targeted for dubious reasons by our government, there can be a heavy price to pay. Others make a different choice, and they too, will live with it the rest of their lives, even if they are economically and socially rewarded for it. The targeted nations, however, live in a hell that most of us cannot even imagine.

 Most often, in the absence of an equitable draft, now (morphed into and) referred to as the "volunteer Army," it is the poor, due to their circumstance, and other people with few options, who end up fighting these rich men's wars. Without an equitable draft, one that would not permit the purchase of college deferments by the wealthy, low income people are sucked in by what is really a "poverty draft" in order to find income producing work and the self esteem so easily bestowed upon them by the upper classses and the one percent--those who will never have to risk their lives doing the devil's work--and who can live their often successful lives as if the wars never happened.

 To the other veterans I offend: In a world of media propaganda and lies, I understand why you did what you did, and the honor you were seeking. I also understand and most honor those war veterans who came to realize the falsehoods that drove them to war, and the shame some feel for killing innocents, but mostly I understand the contempt they must feel for the officials and government who stole their lives to send them into wars based upon falsehoods, as currently is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 It is time for all, veterans and non-veterans alike, to wake up to the carnage, cultural dysfunction, and reactionary "terrorist" hatred, that we Americans are inflicting upon the world through our senseless wars. They leave us and other nations impoverished and serve no one other than the military-industrial complex, the one percent and their global war on the national self determination of others. Too often today, the "State" of Israel, which was imposed upon the Palestinians and Arabs in 1948, and which has been violating international laws and the rights of Palestinians ever since, is the ultimate beneficiary, while we pretend it is in our national interest.

 In fighting the ever widening wars on "terror," which are the logical result of our own aggressive, oppressive, and wildly destructive wars on many nations, and beyond the important issue of degrading our own ethical and moral principles, we have decimated our own Constitutional rights to privacy and due process as American citizens, thus enabling the current slide into fascism. Today, President Obama thinks nothing of killing American citizens without judicial warrant simply on the advice of questionable advisors, while allowing the killing of others in foreign lands who resist, including many civilians, with drones directed from afar. He is cheered on by even more savage and "right-wing" militaristic Christian fundamentalists, and AIPAC oriented Republicans, who would likely be even more improvident and immoral were they in the oval office.

(Good Lord, did I write this in Baker City, Oregon, the heartland of right-wing, militaristic, mindlessly patriotic, relentlessly religious, not to mention classist, American culture?  Yep.)
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Added, 11/14/12

An American Legacy: Her Deadly Warriors-in-Chief
By Gary Brumback 

Excerpt. . . .

• 3. Warfare culture. The triumvirate is adept at creating and sustaining a culture in which continuous military interventions is accepted and expected. Besides relying on spreading lies (e.g., WMDs), half truths and propaganda through corporate-controlled mainstream media, on infiltration into the educational system at all levels, and on entertainment (e.g., war movies) the triumvirate has mastered the art of what we psychologists call “operant conditioning”, continuously pairing a negative or less favorable item with a more favorable one until the former becomes more like the latter. That explains, for example, why basketball fans will without reservation watch a game played on an aircraft carrier

• 4. Upside Down Incentives. CEOs and U.S. presidents are addicted to them. An upside down incentive, as you can probably guess, is one that rewards bad behavior and/or punishes good behavior. Never having to worry about being prosecuted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court because it is an absolutely feckless entity and because the U.S. refuses to be a signatory member of it is the most egregious upside down incentive for a U.S. warrior-in-chief.

• 5. Global enticements. Globalization is the contemporary euphemism for imperialism. The globe is one giant opportunity for market expansion, resource exploitation and political manipulation. The prospect of installing or protecting dictatorships in the pretext of spreading and defending freedom is just too much of a temptation for CEOs and U.S. presidents alike to resist. The duplicitous and hypocritical Ike with his farewell address warning of the very military industrial complex over which he had presided was a supreme master of secret military operations carried out by the CIA to replace democratically elected presidents with dictators who protected corporate investments and operations and opened up for them rich resources like oil and minerals.

• 6. The powerful corpocracy. The first five circumstantial factors are all part and parcel of this sixth one, the powerful corpocracy. It took me about 10 years to study and then write a book about what the corpocracy is, what it does, and how it can be ended and democracy reclaimed. A U.S. president is a member of the corpocracy and is influenced by it, especially when it comes to making decisions about military interventions.

• See article for rest._____

Iris Dement Wasteland Of The Free

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George Carlin - It's a big club and you ain't in it

Baker City Birds--Vaux's Swift

[Edited May 25, 2012]
The Vaux's Swift

Yesterday, as I traveled west during "rush hour" on Campbell, to its intersection with Main Street, I noticed a large swarm of birds over the intersection and the beautiful old home on the south west corner, at 2419 Main. Recognizing them as Vaux's Swifts, which I normally only see in much smaller groups, most often flying over local forests, I pulled into the parking area at Bisnett Insurance to see if they were going to do their thing and fly down the chimney at the two story home to roost for the night.

Large, loose counter-clockwise swirl of swifts over a fine old home and chimney at 2419 Main Street during "rush hour." Photo includes a minor fraction of the swifts present.

I vaguely remembered that the home had been mentioned by others as a sometime roost site, and was excited by the thought that the spectacle was about to happen on such a congested corner, right here in Baker City at "rush hour." It was about 3:55 PM on a cloudy, somewhat rainy day, and as I approached the corner with an older camera that I carry for other purposes, the smell of exhaust fumes from the traffic was evident to even my somewhat insensitive nose. I wondered what the effect would be on the birds as they circled over the home and exhaust-filled intersection.

They seemed unperturbed by the traffic and exhaust fumes, as they continued to circle counter-clockwise in a large, loose, swirling swarm of swifts, approaching the chimney on the old home, but then shying off entry to join the circle once again. At about 4 pm, when I was watching from the north east corner of the intersection, some of the birds in the group dropped straight down into the chimney, while others flew back into the swirl. Within about two or three minutes, most of the birds had literally dropped into the chimney on succeeding passes.

I was able to get a few photos with a small lens on the old camera as they went in.
Swifts approach from the upper left and drop down into the chimney. Not exactly the crowded vortex seen with larger groups, but you get the idea.

Here are two more photos of the swifts dropping in to their communal roost site:
Small group of swifts dropping into chimney

The last few of another small group as they entered the chimney. You can see the wings of the last few birds of the group as they enter.

I was able to talk to the occupants of the home, Nanci Sheppard and Thommy Whitlock, and they told me that they have come to roost since April of 2005, and enter the chimney roost early if it is cloudy, like yesterday, but roost around dusk when it is sunny. They circle for about twenty minutes. Another observer told them there have been about 300 birds in recent weeks. They also said that they do not hear the birds in the chimney from within the house.

They stated that the swifts come in during the migration north in spring, late April and early May, and at least some will stay for perhaps a month and a half, and then head north and elsewhere. The birds used to also roost at a chimney in a home on Valley Avenue, but since that chimney was closed off, they come to their home. They appreciate the birds and keep the chimney open (and without a fire below) so that they have a place to roost during migration. They usually return to migratory communal roosts, such as this one, on the way south in Oregon around August. Only a relative few are around in winter.

As for spraying by County vector control of the swift's food supply, mosquitos and other flying insects within the city and surrounding environs, they "hate it," but think they understand the need for mosquito control also.

The 1940 edition of Oregon State College's Gabrielson and Jewett publication, titled "Birds of Oregon," described the communal roosting scene of a much larger group in an East Portland, Oregon, chimney:

"The sight of this company of rapidly moving birds circling about the chimney like a large whirlpool, with the birds in the vortex dropping like plummets into the chimney, excited much interest among local bird lovers who made many trips to watch the performance."

A local bird expert, perhaps it was Joanne Britton or Anne Frost, described the birds in flight to me some time ago, as "cigars with wings." In the photos above, you might also find the silhouettes of birds that are significantly larger and do not fit the description. They are likely interested avian predators, like the sharp-shinned hawk or American kestrel, and at other times even ravens or crows (R rated video below), looking for an early evening snack.

Videos:

Thousands of swifts at http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/vauxcam/video/evening_return.wvx

brutal crow cafe


The "Birds of Oregon" (1940) describes the bird as:

". . . a strong flier, its oarlike wings sending the slender body through the air at astonishing speed. Often the bird appears to work the wings alternately, and again, in orthodox fashion. Its speed far surpasses that of the swallows with which it often associates in migration, enabling the swift to dart past the swallows with no apparent effort."

Vaux's Swifts, "pronounced 'Vawks' rather than 'Voh,'" was brought to the attention of European American society by the short-lived famous American naturalist and Quaker, John Kirk Townsend (1809-1851) with a description in 1839 (He originally thought he was describing the eastern Chimney Swift.) See the new "Birds of Oregon," (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, 2006). Another local bird of sage brush and juniper, the Townsend's Solitaire, also bears his name.

These aerobic acrobats are not an uncommon sight in the forests of the Blue Mountains, including the Elkhorn and Wallowa Mountains in Baker County, but they range over much of the North and South American continents. Our bird, the northern subspecies, Chaetura vauxi vauxi, is larger than the southern subspecies, but both are smaller than their eastern cousin, the Chimney Swift. While they will roost and nest in chimneys, they are often associated with tall hollowed out snags of conifers, most especially in our region, in the commonly rotted out cores of an old grand fir.

They are somewhat dependent on old growth forests, which have been in severe decline historically, and their nests are affixed to the inner surfaces of chimneys and probably more often, to old hollow trees. Both the nest structure of twigs, and the nest connection to the inner wall, are cemented together by a "sticky saliva."

Vaux's Swift, clinging to brick wall. (Photo from the Washington Division of Wildlife Services.)

Bull and Beckwith, 1993, report that the primary diet is made up of Homoptera (Hemiptera), that is flying aphids and whiteflies, and their relatives (43%), along with prodigious quantities of Diptera (mosquitos, flies, gnats and midges--27%), along with many mayflies (18%) and other flying insects. (The sources I was able to access do not indicate whether the determination was made by weight or by numbers of insects.) In any event, their diet is a testimony to their value, from the perspective of humans hoping to be rid of mosquitos, so the effects of arial spraying of insecticides on their health and survival needs to be considered.

Conservation status in north east Oregon is uncertain. The new "Birds of Oregon," (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, 2006) states that:

"In 1990, Bull( 1991) observed about 100 swifts using a roost in a hollow tree all summer in ne. Oregon and suspected they were not nesting because nest sites were not available. In ne. Oregon, conversion of stands dominated by grand fir to an earlier seral stage dominated by ponderosa pine would probably further decrease the number of nest and roost sites because all nests and roosts located in this area were in grand fir trees (Bull 1991, Bull and Cooper 1991). Large diameter grand fir trees typically contain extensive heartwod decay which creates hollow chambers suitable for nesting; this same phenomenon rarely occurs in ponderosa pine. . . . . Additional research is warranted. . . ."

Other well known communal roosting sites in Eastern Oregon, according to the new "Birds of Oregon," (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, 2006) include:

"La Grande (4th and Adams), . . . Pendleton (318 S. Main), . . . Union (Union High School)."

5/25/12--Mary McCracken, of La Grande, reported seeing the the swifts circling the old Elgin High School in Elgin last night.

As the birders like to say--"good birding."

Odds & ends: Warming, Supreme Court Polling Negatives, Rancher Slush Fund, War in Context, etc.

Busy with Spring so just some articles of recent interest, hopefully.
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Yesterday, Jay Hanson's America 2.0 mailing list sent out an article stating that the U.S. Has Hottest 12-Month Period on Recordduring the last year. Democracy Now! also carried the story in their headlines today, albeit the last one.

The story was from the NOAA Satellite and Information Service:

"12-month period (May 2011-April 2012)
The 12-month period (May 2011-April 2012), which includes several warm periods for the country — second hottest summer, fourth warmest winter, and warmest March — was the warmest consecutive 12-month period for the contiguous United States. Twenty-two states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional 19 states were top ten warm. The 12-month running average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 55.7 degrees F, which is 2.8 degrees F above the 20th century average."

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The Pew Research Center released a poll stating that the Supreme Court Favorability Reaches New Low.

Public assessments of the Supreme Court have reached a quarter-century low. Unlike evaluations over much of the past decade, there is very little partisan divide. The court receives relatively low favorable ratings from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike.

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PEW also notes that:
Most Swing Voters Favor Afghan Troop Withdrawal
Support for U.S. Troop Presence Hits New Low

Public support for maintaining U.S. forces in Afghanistan has reached a new low. And as the general election campaign begins, swing voters, by nearly two-to-one, favor removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of voters who say they are certain to support Barack Obama in the general election favor a rapid U.S. troop withdrawal. But support for a troop pullout is nearly as extensive (59%) among swing voters — those who are either undecided in their general election preferences, lean toward a candidate or say they may still change their minds. Swing voters make up nearly a quarter (23%) of all registered voters.

Voters who express certainty about voting for Mitt Romney in the fall are divided over what to do about U.S. troops in Afghanistan: 48% favor removing them as soon as possible, while 46% support maintaining U.S. forces there until the situation has stabilized.

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On Tuesday, former labor Secretary Robert Reich offered up a critique on the economy and former President Clinton's errors:

Former Labor Sec. Robert Reich on Clinton’s Errors of Crippling Welfare to Repealing Glass-Steagall

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich critiques President Obama’s handling of the economic crisis and the Clinton administration’s repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a key deregulatory move that ended the separation of commercial and investment banking and is widely seen as having helped lead to the financial collapse. The Clinton administration also presided over a drastic transformation of U.S. welfare laws, throwing millions off of welfare rolls. "I went outside of the White House, walked back to my office along Constitution Avenue, expecting I would see signs. ... There are a lot of people who were concerned about that issue. But there was nobody on the streets. It was deafening. The silence was deafening," Reich says of the day Clinton signed the change into law. He notes this is when he realized, "if people who are concerned about the increasing concentration of wealth and power in this country are not mobilized, are not visible, then nothing progressive is going to happen." Reich is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has written 13 books, including "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future." His latest, an e-book, is just out: "Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong with Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix Them."

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From The Wildlife News via NorthEast Oregon Ecosystems:

Conservation Groups and Livestock Interests Work to Create a New $25 Million Rancher Slush Fund
The Wildlife News
May 8

Recently we were informed of a new effort by two conservation groups, a Native American tribe and livestock interests “to secure $25 million from the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill to help livestock producers reduce the risk of livestock losses to grizzly bears, wolves, black bears and mountain lions.”

This taxpayer money is meant to “reduce the impacts that carnivores can have on livestock producers” although how the funds’ effectiveness would be monitored is unclear.

There is no doubt about the need for ranchers to incorporate non-lethal, preventative livestock husbandry practices into their grazing management regimes in order to prevent conflict with wolves and other native predators.

The question that needs to be answered is who ought be responsible for the costs of needed animal husbandry ?

See: http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/05/08/conservation-groups-and-livestock-interests-work-to-create-a-new-25-million-rancher-slush-fund/

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Website Worth Reading:

War In Context

Game over for the climate
by NEWS SOURCES on MAY 10, 2012
James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, writes: warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough.. . . . .
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In preparation for war against Iran, U.S. set to give Israel largest grant of military aid ever
Posted By News Sources On May 8, 2012 @ 2:40 pm In war against Iran | 3 Comments

Following a decision by the U.S. House of Representatives Defense Appropriations Subcommittee which just approved over $948 million in funding for Israel’s anti-missile defense programs, Israel will receive a record $4 billion in military aid in 2013.

The Jewish Press reports [1]: Approximately $679 million of the funding will go to the Iron Dome, thanks in large part to legislation initiated last month by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairwoman and ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively.

The remaining $269 million will go to Israel’s other anti-missile initiatives: the short-range David’s Sling ($149.7 million), and the current long-range Arrow anti-ballistic missile system and its successor the Arrow 3 ($119.3 million). These projects, unlike the Iron Dome, are joint Israel-US projects.

While the increase in funding for the Iron Dome was expected, with the Department of Defense stating in March that it “intends to request an appropriate level of funding from Congress to support such acquisitions based on Israeli requirements and production capacity,” the funding for the other projects represents an increase of $169 million over the Obama administration’s proposed number.

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Article printed from War in Context
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Preview of "Wild Things"

Connecting the Dots on Climate Change

When you click on the link to the Connect the Dots Day, the description of the photo can be found just to the photo's upper left side.
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A note from Bill McKibben at 350.org

From: "Bill McKibben - 350.org
Subject: Amazing images.
Date: May 6, 2012 9:20:06 AM PDT

Dear Friends,

This is a thank you note, a thank you note to the whole planet.

Except for the hours when I went out to the events nearest my home in Vermont, I’ve been by the computer, transfixed by the images streaming in.

From every corner of the earth people have been doing their best to Connect the Dots on climate change. And their best has been pretty amazing — we have photos from beneath the ocean waves and from high-altitude glaciers, from the middle of big cities fighting sea level rise and remote deserts battling drought.



Click here to see the amazing photos from the day: www.climatedots.org

We’re going to need you soon to fight the political battles that will make use of these images, but for the next day or two just relax, and enjoy the feeling of solidarity that comes from knowing there are millions of people thinking the same way, harboring the same fears and, more importantly, the same hopes.

On we go together.

With such gratitude,

Bill McKibben

P.S. There's still time to submit photos for our slideshow and compilation video -- just send your best photo as an email attachment to photos@350.org. Make your city and country the subject line of the email, and put your story and description in the body. So many thanks in advance!

For more information on climate change, see 350.org

Bradley Manning show trial & May Day

Here are two pieces, both with Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, on the important "show trial" of Bradley Manning, the brave young soldier who is accused of releasing whistle blower information (“aiding the enemy” ) to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Manning allegedly is responsible for allowing the American people to understand the depth of the depravities committed by the US military in Iraq, and for releasing other information about US foreign policy shenanigans.

The first piece is Ratner's article about the Manning trial printed last week in the UK's Guardian, and the second is an interview on Scott Horton's Antiwar Radio from today, where Scott and Michael Ratner discuss the article. The interview is well worth listening to.
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Bradley Manning: a show trial of state secrecy
The US government's suppression of all accountability and transparency in prosecuting the WikiLeaks suspect is totalitarian

On 24 April, a hearing in one of the most important court martial cases in decades will take place in Fort Meade, Maryland. The accused faces life in prison for the 22 charges against him, which include "aiding the enemy" and "transmitting defense information". His status as an alleged high-profile whistleblower and the importance of the issues his case raises should all but guarantee the proceedings a prominent spot in major media, as well as in public debate.

Yet, in spite of the grave implications, not to mention the press and public's first amendment right of full and open access to criminal trials, no outside parties will have access to the evidence, the court documents, court orders or off-the-record arguments that will ultimately decide his fate. Under these circumstances, whatever the outcome of the case, the loser will be the transparency necessary for democratic government, accountable courts and faith in our justice system.

In the two years since his arrest for allegedly leaking the confidential files that exposed grand-scale military misconduct, potential war crimes and questionable diplomatic tactics, army private Bradley Manning has been subjected to an extremely secretive criminal procedure. It is a sad irony that the government's heavy-handed approach to this case only serves to underscore the motivations – some would say, the necessity – for whistleblowing like Manning's in the first place.

The most well-known of the leaked files, a 39-minute video entitled "Collateral Murder", depicts three brutal attacks on civilians by US soldiers during the course of just one day of the Iraq war.

Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq

The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

See: Bradley Manning: a show trial of state secrecy
The US government's suppression of all accountability and transparency in prosecuting the WikiLeaks suspect is totalitarian for rest of article.
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Scott Horton Interviews Michael Ratner
Scott Horton, May 02, 2012

Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, discusses his article “Bradley Manning: a show trial of state secrecy;” Manning’s quasi-public trial (which is open to observation, yet vital evidence and court documents are withheld from the media and public); why the NY Times is just as guilty of “aiding the enemy” as Manning and WikiLeaks; how President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made a fair trial impossible; and how you can support Bradley Manning in his time of need.
MP3 here. (15:33)
Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

You can support Bradley Manning by visiting the Bradley Manning Support Network.
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Yesterday there were many May Day protests in Major Cities across the US. Just Google the May Day protests, or go to Democracy Now!
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The Occupy Guitarmy with Tom Morello

State Police Confirm Death of Probable Wolf Was A Crime

The Oregon State Police just sent out this alert of local interest. Note that killing a state endangered species is not a felony (only a Class A misdemeanor) in Oregon. How serious is that? While the genetic tests for wolf confirmation have not been completed, the update does strongly suggest that the animal was an endangered wolf.

Update: Investigation Into Possible Wolf Death in Union County

Oregon State Police (OSP) Fish & Wildlife Division, with the assistance of Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW), is continuing the investigation into the death of a possible wolf found mid-March in northeast Oregon's Union County. Genetic tests to confirm if the animal is a wolf are still to be completed and the ongoing investigation confirmed the death is a crime. OSP is seeking public tips to help solve the case.

On March 16, 2012 at approximately 8:30 a.m. OSP Fish & Wildlife Senior Trooper Kris Davis received a call regarding the discovery of a possible deceased wolf on private property about 6 miles north of Cove, Oregon. Davis and Sergeant Isaac Cyr responded and contacted the property owner and person who reported finding the deceased animal to Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife that morning.

After taking possession of the 97-pound animal, OSP took it to a local veterinarian for x-rays. The initial examination didn't confirm a cause of death. A necropsy confirmed the cause of death was the result of a criminal act. The actual cause is not being released at this time but the investigation indicates the animal [an earlier update said "the wolf"] had been dead about one week.

Wolves are protected by the state Endangered Species Act throughout Oregon. Except in the defense of human life or with a special permit, it is unlawful to kill a wolf. Doing so is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine up to $6,250.

Anyone with information regarding this investigation is asked to contact Shttp://www.blogger.com/enior Trooper Kris Davis at (541) 963-7175 ext. 4673 or email kris.davis@state.or.us.

### www.oregon.gov/OSP ###

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See Also:

Oregon Wild: Oregon Wild Press Statement on Likely Wolf Poaching

Sneak Cat Blog: Oregon State Police confirm animal believed to be a wolf killed in March a “criminal act”

State police seek tips on who killed wolf in northeastern Oregon's Union County
Published: Wednesday, May 02, 2012, 10:44 AM