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Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010
Dec 21, 2009

Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010
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Posted: Dec 21, 2009 8:45am
Pentagon's Role in Global Catastrophe: Add Climate Havoc to War Crimes
Dec 21, 2009

By Sara Flounders


Global Research, December 19, 2009

In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen -- with more than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets -- it is important to ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or proposed restrictions?

 

By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements.

 

The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 U.S. bases around the world; its 6,000 facilities in the U.S.; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will not be counted against U.S. greenhouse gas limits or included in any count.

 

The Feb. 17, 2007, Energy Bulletin detailed the oil consumption just for the Pentagon's aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities that made it the single-largest oil consumer in the world. At the time, the U.S. Navy had 285 combat and support ships and around 4,000 operational aircraft. The U.S. Army had 28,000 armored vehicles, 140,000 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, more than 4,000 combat helicopters, several hundred fixed-wing aircraft and 187,493 fleet vehicles. Except for 80 nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, which spread radioactive pollution, all their other vehicles run on oil.

 

Even according to rankings in the 2006 CIA World Factbook, only 35 countries (out of 210 in the world) consume more oil per day than the Pentagon.

 

The U.S. military officially uses 320,000 barrels of oil a day. However, this total does not include fuel consumed by contractors or fuel consumed in leased and privatized facilities. Nor does it include the enormous energy and resources used to produce and maintain their death-dealing equipment or the bombs, grenades or missiles they fire.

 

Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, reports: "The Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007. ... The war emits more than 60 percent of all countries. ... This information is not readily available ... because military emissions abroad are exempt from national reporting requirements under U.S. law and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change." (www.naomiklein.org, Dec. 10) Most scientists blame carbon dioxide emissions for greenhouse gases and climate change.

 

Bryan Farrell in his new book, "The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism," says that "the greatest single assault on the environment, on all of us around the globe, comes from one agency ... the Armed Forces of the United States."

 

Just how did the Pentagon come to be exempt from climate agreements? At the time of the Kyoto Accords negotiations, the U.S. demanded as a provision of signing that all of its military operations worldwide and all operations it participates in with the U.N. and/or NATO be completely exempted from measurement or reductions.

 

After securing this gigantic concession, the Bush administration then refused to sign the accords.

 

In a May 18, 1998, article entitled "National security and military policy issues involved in the Kyoto treaty," Dr. Jeffrey Salmon described the Pentagon's position. He quotes then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen's 1997 annual report to Congress: "DoD strongly recommends that the United States insist on a national security provision in the climate change Protocol now being negotiated." (www.marshall.org)

 

According to Salmon, this national security provision was put forth in a draft calling for "complete military exemption from greenhouse gas emissions limits. The draft includes multilateral operations such as NATO- and U.N.-sanctioned activities, but it also includes actions related very broadly to national security, which would appear to comprehend all forms of unilateral military actions and training for such actions."

 

Salmon also quoted Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, who headed the U.S. delegation in Kyoto . Eizenstat reported that "every requirement the Defense Department and uniformed military who were at Kyoto by my side said they wanted, they got. This is self-defense, peacekeeping, humanitarian relief."

 

Although the U.S. had already received these assurances in the negotiations, the U.S. Congress passed an explicit provision guaranteeing U.S. military exemption. Inter Press Service reported on May 21, 1998: "U.S. law makers, in the latest blow to international efforts to halt global warming, today exempted U.S. military operations from the Kyoto agreement which lays out binding commitments to reduce 'greenhouse gas' emissions. The House of Representatives passed an amendment to next year's military authorization bill that 'prohibits the restriction of armed forces under the Kyoto Protocol.'"

 

Today in Copenhagen the same agreements and guidelines on greenhouse gases still hold. Yet it is extremely difficult to find even a mention of this glaring omission.

 

According to environmental journalist Johanna Peace, military activities will continue to be exempt from an executive order signed by President Barack Obama that calls for federal agencies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Peace states, "The military accounts for a full 80 percent of the federal government's energy demand." (solveclimate.com, Sept. 1)

 

The blanket exclusion of the Pentagon's global operations makes U.S. carbon dioxide emissions appear far less than they in fact are. Yet even without counting the Pentagon, the U.S. still has the world's largest carbon dioxide emissions.

 

More than Emissions

 

Besides emitting carbon dioxide, U.S. military operations release other highly toxic and radioactive materials into the air, water and soil.

 

U.S. weapons made with depleted uranium have spread tens of thousands of pounds of microparticles of radioactive and highly toxic waste throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkans.

 

The U.S. sells land mines and cluster bombs that are a major cause of delayed explosives, maiming and disabling especially peasant farmers and rural peoples in Africa, Asia and Latin America . For example, Israel dropped more than 1 million U.S.-provided cluster bombs on Lebanon during its 2006 invasion.

 

The U.S. war in Vietnam left large areas so contaminated with the Agent Orange herbicide that today, more than 35 years later, dioxin contamination is 300 to 400 times higher than "safe" levels. Severe birth defects and high rates of cancer resulting from environmental contamination are continuing into a third generation.

 

The 1991 U.S. war in Iraq , followed by 13 years of starvation sanctions, the 2003 U.S. invasion and continuing occupation, has transformed the region -- which has a 5,000-year history as a Middle East breadbasket -- into an environmental catastrophe. Iraq 's arable and fertile land has become a desert wasteland where the slightest wind whips up a dust storm. A former food exporter, Iraq now imports 80 percent of its food. The Iraqi Agriculture Ministry estimates that 90 percent of the land has severe desertification.

 

Environmental War at Home

 

Moreover, the Defense Department has routinely resisted orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up contaminated U.S. bases. ( Washington Post, June 30, 2008) Pentagon military bases top the Superfund list of the most polluted places, as contaminants seep into drinking water aquifers and soil.

 

The Pentagon has also fought EPA efforts to set new pollution standards on two toxic chemicals widely found on military sites: perchlorate, found in propellant for rockets and missiles; and trichloroethylene, a degreaser for metal parts.

 

Trichloroethylene is the most widespread water contaminant in the country, seeping into aquifers across California , New York , Texas , Florida and elsewhere. More than 1,000 military sites in the U.S. are contaminated with the chemical. The poorest communities, especially communities of color, are the most severely impacted by this poisoning.

 

U.S. testing of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Southwest and on South Pacific islands has contaminated millions of areas of land and water with radiation. Mountains of radioactive and toxic uranium tailings have been left on Indigenous land in the Southwest. More than 1,000 uranium mines have been abandoned on Navajo reservations in Arizona and New Mexico .

 

Around the world, on past and still operating bases in Puerto Rico, the Philippines , South Korea , Vietnam , Laos , Cambodia , Japan , Nicaragua , Panama and the former Yugoslavia , rusting barrels of chemicals and solvents and millions of rounds of ammunition are criminally abandoned by the Pentagon.

 

The best way to dramatically clean up the environment is to shut down the Pentagon. What is needed to combat climate change is a thoroughgoing system change.

 

Sara Flounders is Co-Director of the International Action Center

 

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Posted: Dec 21, 2009 8:41am
CODEPINK: 10 Good Things About 2009
Dec 18, 2009

10 Good Things About 2009

By Medea Benjamin


My almost annual list of ten good things about the waning year has never before posed such a tremendous challenge. In the face of this challenge, I decided to try a minimalist thought experiment, blocking out the many baneful events that colored 2009, and instead seeking out the small, yet powerfully bright notes to inspire and give us hope for the year head.

1. Tens of thousands of people from around the world took to the streets of Copenhagen to call for meaningful action to address climate change, despite continuous attempts to squelch it. Inside Copenhagen’s meeting halls, indigenous peoples from small island nations and the Himalayas spoke powerfully about their rights and their needs. 

2. Michelle Obama planted the White House’s first organic vegetable garden, a garden that provided food for her own family’s table and helped to educate the nation’s children about healthy eating.

3. According to recent polls a majority of Americans now see the war in Afghanistan as not worth fighting, and seventy-five percent say no new troops should be sent to that country. Public opinion is on our side.

4. Last year, CODEPINK launched a campaign calling upon the FBI to add Luis Posada Carilles, a ruthless terrorist who was responsible for downing a Cuban airplane in 1976, to the Most Wanted List and arrest him. On April 8, he was indicted on 11 counts. 

5. The creative use of Twitter by protesters in Iran brought thousands of people into the streets of Teheran, including students, young people and thousands of young women.  Their courageous and innovative use of social media kept the rest of the world informed of events, slipping out from under the country’s blanket of censorship.

6. The Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian rights garnered the support of many groups around the world. The growing list of BDS successes is too long to enumerate here, but to choose only one: In February South African dockworkers, remembering the long history of Apartheid in their country, refused to offload an Israeli ZIM Lines ship in Durban.

7. One of Obama’s first acts in office was to lift the Global Gag Rule, which ended restrictions on U.S. funding for organizations that provide family planning services and that are often the first responders for women in the fight against HIV.

8. The Washington, DC City Council voted in mid-December to legalize same-sex marriage, making it the first jurisdiction south of the Mason-Dixon Line to do so.  Same-sex marriage is now legal in Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut and will be legal in New Hampshire on January 1st. DC Mayor Fenty signed the bill on December 18, 2009.

9. 2009 may go down as the beginning of the end of the failed “War on Drugs”. The Obama administration announced that the federal government would no longer arrest and prosecute medical marijuana patients and caregivers as long as they were following their state’s medical marijuana laws.

10. Obama’s Nobel Prize victory sparked a global debate about what it takes to be a real peacemaker. Obama will donate the 1.4 million prize to charity (undisclosed as of yet which).There is no more “wait and see.” The election of Obama signaled a national thirst for fundamental change, and a great many pinned their hopes on just one man, one President. But big events seldom seed big change, and after nearly a year, it is clear that real change still comes over time, not overnight; from the many, not the one or the few; and through persistence and pushing from the bottom, not the top.

I looked around and saw the women of CODEPINK, the impassioned environmental activists in Copenhagen, the young Israeli refuseniks, Afghan parliamentarian Malalai Joya, and all our friends and allies working for peace and social justice around this country and the world, and realized that WE are the hope and change we have been waiting for. 

Even after all the disappointments of this year, the items on this list and our own strength and persistence give me immense hope in the possibilities to come as we greet the New Year. 

So here's a toast to our power and our passion—we have our work cut out for us in 2010!
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Posted: Dec 18, 2009 12:03pm
Kucinich on Afghanistan
Dec 4, 2009

Dear Friends,

Congressman Kucinich is making a major impact in his challenge to the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. See the following:

MSNBC, The Ed Show, December 1, 2009  
FOX News, The O'Reilly Factor December 1, 2009  
CNN, AC360 - Anderson Cooper December 1, 2009  
Democracy Now - Amy Goodman December 2, 2009   Read Dennis' Quote in the Washington Post:
"Obama's Afghanistan Speech and Strategy"
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Posted: Dec 4, 2009 11:06am
Amnesty International - In 4 days, use our secret weapon!
Dec 1, 2009
Focus: Human Rights
Action Request: Write E-Mail
Location: United States
Amnesty International USA: TAKE ACTION NOW!
Writing letters may not sound like the key to freeing prisoners and saving lives, but it works!
The Global Write-a-thon begins December 5th -- pledge to write letters on behalf of people who need your help.

The Global Write-a-thon is the biggest Amnesty International event all year. It also uses one of the oldest (and most powerful) weapons of the human rights movement -- writing letters. In other words, it's a BIG deal.

We've already shattered our original goal of gathering pledges for more than 250,000 letters. We're confident that with your help, we can challenge ourselves to hit more than 300,000 letters this year! Add your letters to our list -- pledge your support for this year's Global Write-a-thon.

Last year around this time, people from more than 70 countries stood together for human rights. That overwhelming solidarity and support were key reasons why Ma Khin Khin Leh, a school teacher in Myanmar and Hana Abdi, a women's rights advocate in Iran, were both released from prison soon after Write-a-thon letters overwhelmed their respective government offices.

This year, we want you to know that incredible feeling of pride in knowing that your letters helped save lives. Join us for this year's Global Write-a-thon -- help us send 300,000 letters for human rights.

It's so simple! We've got everything you'll need to make your letters effective and your letter-writing events memorable.
Help us meet our NEW goal of 300,000 letters.

  • Get your resources: Find out more about this year's Write-a-thon cases, read sample letters, and find tips for organizing a successful event.
  • Connect with others: Check out the Write-a-thon events happening in your community.
  • Spread the word: Share your support for Write-a-thon with your friends online.

In just 4 days, you can experience a tradition that connects generations of human rights activists -- sending messages of hope.

Please join us for this special event.

In Solidarity,

Michael O'Reilly
Program Director
Individuals at Risk Campaign
Amnesty International USA
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Posted: Dec 1, 2009 4:40pm
An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore
Nov 30, 2009

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea -- "Let's invade Afghanistan!" Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There's a reason they don't call Afghanistan the "Garden State" (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan's nickname is the "Graveyard of Empires." If you don't believe it, give the British a call. I'd have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev's number though. It's + 41 22 789 1662. I'm sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you're about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. There's still time to have your voice heard. Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or email the President.
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Posted: Nov 30, 2009 6:05am
GOOD NEWS About Single-Payer Healthcare!
Nov 24, 2009


Keep up the good work!


Washington can be a very lonely place when you are fighting for progressive ideas like Medicare for All and an end to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.  It is for that reason I wanted to thank all my friends at PDA for your hard work this past week. 

Last Wednesday, I had an opportunity to meet with your national director Tim Carpenter, following his visit to the White House, and PDA’s political director Steve Cobble. They met with five other members of Congress that day in an effort to save my amendment.

Later that evening, as a result of the leadership and grassroots work of Progressive Democrats of America and its allies, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) affirmed their support for a states' right to enact single-payer healthcare in their letter to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid.  Read the letter here. 

We succeeded in putting the CPC on record supporting states like California, Pennsylvania, Ohio and others across the country to continue the fight for single-payer healthcare at the state level.  I know without PDA leading this fight we would have not won this important battle in the struggle for Medicare for All.

I also want to congratulate the California Democratic Party, which voted last week to end the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan.  I commend the authors of this resolution, especially my friend Norman Solomon, the national co-chair of PDA's Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign, and Marcy Winograd, PDA candidate for Congress.  I also commend the leadership of Karen Bernal and the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, and I applaud the work of PDA’s California chapters in helping to pass this timely resolution.

What a great week we had together! Please keep fighting to build the movement for Healthcare NOT Warfare.


In peace,

Congressman Dennis Kucinich


Progressive Democrats of America is a grassroots PAC that works both inside the Democratic Party and outside in movements for peace and justice. Our goal in 2009: Expand progressive influence in Congress as we build on our 2008 electoral successes. PDA's advisory board includes seven members of Congress and activist leaders such as Tom Hayden, Medea Benjamin, Thom Hartmann, Jim Hightower, and Lila Garrett.

Join a PDA Issue Organizing Team; learn more here.

More info | Find Chapters | Find Local Events
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Posted: Nov 24, 2009 4:35am
URGENT ACTION ON SINGLE PAYER -- DEADLINE IS 11/6!
Nov 5, 2009
Focus: Health
Action Request: Write E-Mail
Location: United States
Public Citizen

Over the past week, we've asked you to make calls to your representative and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to demand a vote on the only real health care reform that can cover all Americans: single-payer. You are being heard!

 A caduceus umbrella symbolizing health care for all Contact your rep. today! It's time for a vote on single-payer!
 We just learned that there is a strong possibility that Speaker Pelosi WILL allow a vote on single-payer. The vote may happen as early as tomorrow (Friday) morning. Whether it is offered as a stand-alone bill or as an amendment to the health care reform package, this will be the FIRST vote ever held on single-payer health care in the full House of Representatives.

Urge your representative NOW to stand with you and the American people on this historic vote. Tell your representative to vote "YES!" to Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) single-payer bill!

In the past, many members of Congress have said they would support single-payer "if it came to a vote" but that a vote just wasn't politically feasible. Now, a vote is here, and it is our job to urge lawmakers to do the right thing. They cannot miss this historic opportunity to cast their votes for real health care for all - a single-payer system.

Time is short, so please click here to send a quick email to your representative now!

Among all the reform proposals, a single-payer, Medicare-for-All system is the only "option" for health care reform that will end the domination of the insurance industry and ensure that every one of the more than 45 million uninsured will receive quality health care.

Let's not back down now. Continue to stand up for health care for all!

Thank you for all you do!

Rick, Angela and Glenn
Your advocates at Public Citizen
action@citizen.org
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Posted: Nov 5, 2009 9:35am
Take Action: End the Siege of Gaza, End Apartheid
Oct 20, 2009
Focus: Human Rights
Action Request: Various
Location: United States


Join the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and member groups CodePink and Grassroots International, for two exciting weeks of action this November!  The first week of action, Nov. 2-8, will be to end Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip and building up to the Gaza Freedom March in December/January.  The second week, Nov. 9-15, will be the 7th annual week of action against Israel's apartheid wall organized by Stop the Wall.  While Israel's policies of walls and blockading are meant to divide, we remain unified in our belief that occupation is the root problem throughout the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

Take action to end Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip

Take action to bring down Israel's apartheid wall

Take action to replant an olive tree in the West Bank

Stand with the US Campaign and the International Coalition To End the Illegal Siege of Gaza by taking action November 2-8.  Check out our website for suggestions on how to host a successful event to educate your community about Israel's illegal siege of the Gaza Strip.  Join in the national media day of action on November 5th by using our tools to write a letter to the editor or an op-ed.

This November week of action will build support for the Gaza Freedom March whose international participants will convene in Cairo on December 27th (the day that Israel began bombing the Gaza Strip last year), join their Palestinian colleagues in the Gaza Strip on December 29th, march to demand an end to collective punishment and siege on December 31st, and leave Cairo on January 2nd.  Find out how you can join the march or support it from home by clicking here.

The 7th annual week of action against Israel's apartheid wall is kicking off on November 9th, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Take action on November 9th by using this important anniversary to remind your local media that Israel's apartheid wall needs to fall too.  Israel's apartheid wall is one of the most heinous symbols of apartheid and occupation to Palestinians.  The wall confiscates Palestinian land, which is often used to build illegal Israeli-only settlements.  Use our media toolbox to tell Americans that this wall and the settlements that it supports are illegal and must be dismantled for peace to be possible.  Check out our menu of actions and resources to help you plan local events in solidarity with Palestinians and other international activists marking the 7th annual week of action against Israel's apartheid wall.

You don't need to wait until November to take action.  Even as Israel's apartheid wall prevents Palestinians from accessing their trees for this year's olive harvest, the US Campaign has partnered with Trees for Life to make next year's harvest a better one.  Click here to replant an olive tree in the West Bank.  Two weeks ago, at the beginning of the olive harvest, we set a goal of replanting 500 olive trees that have been uprooted by the Israeli military and settlers.  Today, we are three quarters of the way to our goal!  Help us reach our goal by clicking here to make a $25 tax-deductible contribution to replant one olive tree.  Donate $100 and we'll replant five olive trees. We hope to exceed our goal by the end of the olive harvest, which roughly coincides with the week of action against Israel's apartheid wall.  Click here to read more about how the wall is impacting the harvest in the West Bank village of Bil'in, one of the villages calling for the international week of action against the wall.

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
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Posted: Oct 20, 2009 1:18pm
If we want Policy instead of Speeches (By Cynthia McKinney)
Oct 13, 2009

By Cynthia McKinney

President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was not the only news yesterday. And in my opinion, it's not even the biggest news. It's not even the saddest news. But it does provide us with some critical information as we move forward. The three-part question for us, tonight however, is “What are we moving forward TO; is that the place we want to go; and if not, what do we do about it?

In other words, “What is our vision for the future and how do we define success?”

I have been and am still in deep pain over the institutional homicide of my aunt and in my grief, I've considered giving up.

But then, I wiped the tears from my eyes long enough to remember communities of people that I've been blessed enough to get to know, from Toronto, Canada to Cape Town, South Africa; from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Valdosta, Georgia, there are people struggling through their own pain, their own deep personal disappointments to reach a better place—not just for themselves, but for the global community of man. And I know deep in my own heart, as broken as it is, that I cannot give up. My brain tells me that the struggle for truth, justice, peace, and dignity is too important to lose because of heartbreak.

The one thing that probably best defines everyone in this room are our search for and activities on behalf of principles that are bigger than ourselves. We want our governments to tell us the truth; we want them to deliver justice; we want our global community to live in peace; and we want respect for the dignity of all humankind.

So if these are the ingredients of our vision, what tools do we need to produce the desired result?

Well, first of all, the desired result has to have definition.

I mentioned in one of my messages to a dear friend in response to the Nobel award to President Barack Obama that we needed to keep our eyes on the prize and then I erased it because I don't think we've sufficiently defined what the prize is.

So there must be a small, cohesive, international group of rock-solid people feverishly working to redefine for all who want to be active, and a part of our vision, just what the prize is. And this 'prize,”'our vision, must be repeated and explained often so people can differentiate our vision, from their reality.

Here is where language becomes important. If we want policy instead of speeches, then this must be repeated early and often because what I'm alarmed by is that in the absence of us providing real definition, and there are reasons for that, people are beginning to think that a speech IS policy.

But, as I said earlier, there was a lot of news yesterday. Some of it even more important than the Nobel Peace Prize Award, but the award certainly overshadowed all other stories.

And I'm always searching for context. Because, as the U.S. military puts it, 'perception management' is important. And we must understand the context of what happens and when it happens, in order to understand why.

I always say that we must see the invisible, hear the unspoken, and read the unwritten. That's what some of the organizers of Vers La Verité were professionally trained to do, before they became whistleblowers, and now our leaders.

Now, what were some of those other interesting news items?

Well, at a Native American Lodge located next to Senator John McCain's ranch, two people died and several others were hospitalized following a hazardous materials situation at the Sweat Lodge, which is like a spiritual retreat led by Native Americans. I've even been invited to participate in one upon my return to the U.S.

Now, I find this interesting and a story that should be followed up on and I will be doing that because I want to make sure there's no bigger story hidden in an important cultural ritual of the Native Americans who are victims of a genocide in North America that continues to this day.

On the day that the Nobel Prize was announced, we also learned that the U.S. bunker buster bomb will be ready in a few more months.

This is the bomb that holds over 5,000 pounds of explosives and is designed to penetrate hardened facilities, including those underground. Some brilliant people in the U.S. even want to put nuclear tips on bunker buster bombs. However, in announcing the near deployment of the project that pays McDonnell Douglas to adapt the B-2 bomber so it can deliver the Boeing-made bomb to its intended target, the Pentagon press secretary said, "The reality is that the world we live in is one in which there are people who seek to build weapons of mass destruction and they seek to do so in a clandestine fashion." The article noted that the Obama Administration had not ruled out military action against Iran.

Another story noted that hours after winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama met with his military advisors about troop levels in Afghanistan. The troop increase requested by the U.S. Commander ranged, it is reported, from 10,000 to 60,000—although the top number isn't listed in that news report. One has to go to another news item to see the true top number. At any rate, it seems that the choices confronting U.S. and European leaders is whether to increase the current 68,000 U.S. boots on the ground in Afghanistan or to merely increase the number of drone attacks. Decreasing death and destruction and bringing our young men and women home is not on the Nobel Peace Prize winner's agenda for discussion.

The last article of note is about a restaurant in west Georgia that is using the “N-word” on its marquee to describe President Obama. It reminds me of the Atlanta area restaurant that put on its marquee that I was Buckwheat with Boobs. Now, those of you who are from the U.S. will know what that means and the depth of insult that was intended. The article notes that I've made this restaurant's marquee, too. Both restaurant owners claim to not be racists and to be protected by free speech.

My point in including this particular news item is that we still have so far to go just in terms of our human relations. It is imperative that we do what we can to spread our message and our vision and reach those who can be reached.

Which brings me to who can be reached.

Those with enough discernment to know that what is being pronounced from on high is not their reality. And rather than accept or discount the contradictions, we want them to join us and struggle for a better reality for everybody.

I am saddened beyond belief that on the day of the Peace Prize award, a struggling democracy in Honduras was besieged with U.S. supplied weapons and U.S.-trained paramilitaries and snipers in support of coup leaders over the democratically-elected people's leaders. In fact, the latest dispatch from Honduras is that many of the snipers and paramilitaries—now descending on Honduras from all over Latin America—were trained in my home state of Georgia.

More and more people are experiencing cognitive dissonance and rightly so. Our leaders and respected organizations are lying to us! One friend and former Congressional Staffer of mine puts it this way: we need a democratic military instead of a militarized democracy.

The United States, with the help of its European and Asian allies maintains over 700 bases around the world. The number is increasing under President Obama.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that we must combat racism, poverty, and militarism. Our movement cannot struggle against militarism and fail to address racism. We must be comprehensive and to racism, militarism, and poverty, we must now add gaining control of a media that will allow us to communicate to a broader community and not just within our small spheres, and regaining control of education so that people are not so dumbed down that they actually believe that war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength, and lies are truth.

And if we are right, then others will join us. They will share with us their dreams and their passions and we will help to empower them.

Global resistance combined with local action, organization, vision, commitment, and resources will allow us to have significant victories in the future.

Vers La Verité understands that the foundation of all of this action, attainment of the prize, can only happen with truth as our foundation.

It's already a brave new world, let's get busy and make it ours!!!

 
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Posted: Oct 13, 2009 3:30pm

 
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