Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s Address to Congress on the War in Libya

Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s Address to Congress on the War in Libya
As Prepared for Delivery
United States House of Representatives
March 31, 2011

Mr. Speaker. The critical issue before this nation today is not Libyan democracy, it is American democracy. In the next hour I will describe the dangers facing our own democracy. The principles of world democracy are embodied in the UN Charter, conceived to end the scourge of war for all time. The hope that nations could turn their swords into plowshares reflects the timeless impulse of humanity for enduring peace and with it an enhanced opportunity to pursue happiness.

We are not naïve about the existence of forces in the world which work against peace and against human security, but it is our fervent wish that we shall never become like those whom we condemn as lawless and without scruples. For it is our duty as members of a democratic society to provide leadership by example, to not only articulate the highest standards but to walk down the path to peace and justice with those standards as our constant companions. Our moral leadership in the world depends chiefly upon the might and light of truth and not shock and awe, and ghastly glow of our 2,000 lb bombs.

Our dear nation stands at a crossroads. The direction we take will determine not what kind of nation we are but what kind of nation we will become. Will we become a nation which plots in secret to wage war? Will we become a nation that observes our Constitution only in matters of convenience? Will we become a nation which destroys the unity of the world community painstakingly pieced together from the ruins of World War II, a war which itself followed a war to end all wars?

Now, once again we stand poised at a precipice -- forced to the edge by an Administration which has thrown caution to the winds and our Constitution to the ground.

It is abundantly clear from a careful reading of our Declaration of Independence that our nation was born from nothing less than the rebellion of the human spirit against the arrogance of power.

More than 200 years ago it was the awareness of the unchecked arrogance of King George III that led our Founders to deliberately and carefully balance our constitution by articulating the rights of Congress in Article I, as the primary check by our citizens against the dangers they foresaw for our republic. Our constitution was derived from the human and political experience of our Founders who were aware of what happens when one person takes it upon himself or herself to assume rights and privileges which place them above their fellow citizens.

“But where,” asked Tom Paine in his famous tract, Common Sense, “…is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain . . . . so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

The power to declare war is firmly and explicitly vested in the Congress of the United States under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Let us make no mistake about it, dropping 2000 lb bombs and unleashing the massive firepower of our air force on the capital of a sovereign state is in fact an act of war and no amount of legal acrobatics can make it otherwise.

It is that same arrogance of power which the former Senator from Arkansas, J. William Fulbright, saw shrouded in the deceit which carried us into the abyss of the war in Vietnam. We determined we would never again see another Vietnam. It was the awareness of the unchecked power and arrogance of the executive which led Congress to pass the War Powers Act.

The Congress through the War Powers Act provided the executive with an exception to unilaterally respond only when the nation was in actual or imminent danger; to “repel sudden attacks.”

Today we are in a constitutional crisis because our chief executive has assumed for himself powers to wage war which are neither expressly defined nor implicit in the Constitution, nor permitted under the War Powers Act.

This is a challenge not just to the Administration, but to Congress itself:
The President has no right to wrest that fundamental power from Congress - and we have no right to cede it to him.

We, Members of Congress can no more absolve our president of his responsibility to obey this profound constitutional mandate then we can absolve ourselves of our failure to rise to the instant challenge that is before us today.

We violate our sacred trust to the citizens of the United States and our oath to uphold the constitution if we surrender this great responsibility and through our own inaction acquiesce in another terrible war.

We must courageously defend the oath that we took to defend the Constitution of the United States of America or we forfeit our right to participate in representative government.

How can we pretend to hold other sovereigns to fundamental legal principles through wars in foreign lands if we do not hold our own presidents to fundamental legal principles at home?

We are staring not only into the maelstrom of war in Libya, but also the code of behavior we are establishing today sets a precedent for the potential of evermore violent maelstroms ahead in Syria, Iran, and the horrifying chaos of generalized war throughout the Middle East. Our continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan makes us more vulnerable, not less vulnerable, to being engulfed in this generalized war.

In two years we have moved from President Bush’s doctrine of preventive war to President Obama’s assertion of the right to go to war without even the pretext of a threat to our nation.
 
This Administration is now asserting the right to go to war because a nation may threaten force against those who have internally taken up arms against it. Our bombs began dropping even before the UN’s International Commission of Inquiry could verify allegations of murder of non-combatant civilians by the Gaddafi regime.

The Administration deliberately avoided coming to Congress and furthermore rejects the principle that Congress has any role in this matter. Yesterday we learned that ‘The Administration would forge ahead with military action even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission.’

This is a clear and arrogant violation of our Constitution. This is war. Even a war launched for humanitarian reasons is still a war. And - only Congress can declare war.

We saw in the President’s address to the nation on March 28, 2011 how mismatched elements are being hastily stitched together into a new war doctrine:

1.  Executive privilege to wage war

2.  War based on verbal threats

3.  Humanitarian war

4.  Preemptive war

5.  Unilateral war

6.  War for regime change

7.  War against a nation whose government this Administration determines to be illegitimate

8.  War authorized through the UN Security Council

9.  War authorized through NATO and the Arab League

10. War requested by a rebel group against its despised government.

But not a word about coming to the representatives of the people in the United States Congress to make this decision. At this moment sailors and marines aboard the USS Bataan are headed to a position off the coast of Libya. The sons and daughters of our constituents put their lives on the line for this country. We owe it to them to challenge a misguided and illegal doctrine which could put their lives in great danger. For we have an obligation to protect them as they pledge to defend our nation.

The Administration’s new war doctrine will lead not to peace, but to more war. It will stretch even thinner our military. In 2007 the Center for American Progress released a report on the effects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the multiple deployments on our Armed Forces. The report cited a lack of military readiness. It cited high levels of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and suicide.

The report was released just before President Bush’s surge in Iraq. Just one year after the surge in Afghanistan and after eight years in Iraq, the President commits an all volunteer army to another war of choice. If the criteria for military intervention in another country is government-sponsored violence and instability, over commitment of our military will be virtually inevitable and our national security will be undermined.

It is clear that the Administration planned a war against Libya at least a month in advance. But why? The President cannot say that Libya is an imminent or actual threat. He cannot say that war against Libya is in our vital interest. He cannot say that Libya had the intention or capability of attacking the United States. He has not claimed Libya had weapons of mass destruction to be used against us.

We are told our nation’s role is limited, yet, at the same time, it is being expanded.

We have been told the administration does not favor military regime change, but then they tell us the war cannot end until Gaddafi is no longer the leader. Further, two weeks earlier the President signed a secret order for the CIA to assist the rebels who are trying to oust Gaddafi.

We are told that the burdens of the war in Libya would be shared by a coalition, but the United States is providing the bulk of the money, the armaments and the organizational leadership.

We are told that the President has legal authority for this war under the UN Security Council Resolution 1973. But this resolution specifically does not authorize any ground elements. Furthermore, the administration exceeded the mandate of the resolution by providing the rebels with air cover. Thus this war against Libya violated our Constitution and has even violated the very authority which the administration claimed was sufficient to take our country to war.

We are told the Gaddafi regime has been illegitimate for four decades. But we were not told that in 2003 the U.S. dropped sanctions against Libya. We were not told that Gaddafi, in an effort to ingratiate himself with the West in general and with America in particular, accepted a market-based economic program led by the very harsh structural adjustment remedies of the IMF and the World Bank. This led to the wholesale privatization of his state enterprises, contributing to unemployment in Libya rising above 20%. CNN reported on December 19, 2003 that Libya acknowledged having a nuclear program, pledged to destroy weapons of mass destruction and pledged to allow international inspections.

This was a decision which President George W. Bush has praised saying Gaddafi’s actions “made our country and our world safer.”

 We are told that Gaddafi is in breach of UN Security Council Resolutions but now our own Secretary of State is reportedly considering arming the rebels, an act which would be a breach of the UN Security Council resolution which established an arms embargo.

We are told we went to war at the request of and with the support of the Arab League but the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa began asking questions immediately after the imposition of the “No Fly Zone” stating that what was happening in Libya “differs from the aim of imposing a No Fly Zone . . . . what we want is the protection of civilians and not the shelling of civilians.”

Even the Secretary General of NATO, an organization which the United States founded and generally controls, expressed concern saying “We are not in Libya to arm people but to protect people.”

Is this is truly a humanitarian intervention? What is humanitarian about providing to one side of a conflict the ability to wage war against the other side of a conflict, which will inevitably trigger a civil war turning Libya into a graveyard?

The Administration has told us they do not really know who the rebels are, but they are considering arming them nonetheless. The fact that they are even thinking about arming these rebels makes one think they know exactly who the rebels are.

While a variety of individuals and institutions may comprise the so called opposition in Libya, in fact one of the most significant organizations is the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) along with its military front, the Libyan National Army. The NFSL’s call for opposition to the Gaddafi regime in February was a catalyst of the conflict which precipitated the humanitarian crisis which is now used to justify our armed intervention.

But how spontaneous was this rebellion?

The Congressional Research Service in a 1987 analysis of the Libyan opposition wrote:

“Over twenty opposition groups exist outside Libya. The most important in 1987 was the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF) formed in October 1981….The LNSF claimed responsibility for the daring attack on Gaddafi’s headquarters at Bab al Aziziyah on May 8, 1984. Although the coup attempt failed and Gaddafi escaped unscathed, dissident groups claimed that some eighty Libyans, Cubans and East Germans perished.”

Significantly the CRS cited various “sources” as early as 1984 which claimed “. . . the United States Central Intelligence Agency trained and supported the LNSF [Libyan National Salvation Front] before and after the May 8 operation”.

By October 31, 1996, according to the BBC translation of Al-Hayat, an Arabic journal in London, a Colonel Khalifah Hiftar, who was the leader of the Libyan National Liberation Army, the armed wing of the LNSF was quoted as saying “force is the only effective method” in dealing with Gaddafi.

Move forward to March 26, 2011. The McClatchy Newspapers reported that the “new leader of Libya’s opposition military, left for Libya two weeks ago”, apparently around the same time that the President signed the covert operations order. The new leader spent the past two decades of his life in suburban Virginia where he had no visible means of support. His name: Colonel Khalifah Hiftar. One wonders when he planned his trip and who is his travel agency.

Congress needs to determine whether the United States, through previous covert support of the armed insurrection driven by the American-created NFSL, potentially helped create the humanitarian crisis was used to justify military intervention?

If we really want to understand how our constitutional prerogative for determining war and peace has been preempted by this Administration, it is important that Congress fully consider relevant events which may relate directly to the attack on Libya.

Consider this: On November 2, 2010 France and Great Britain signed a mutual defense treaty, which included joint participation in “Southern Mistral” a series of war games outlined in the bilateral agreement and surprisingly documented on a joint military web site established by France and Great Britain. Southern Mistral involved a long-range conventional air attack, called Southern Storm, against a dictatorship in a fictitious southern country called “Southland,” in response to a pretend attack on France by “Southland”. The joint military air strike was authorized by a pretend United Nations Security Council Resolution. The “Composite Air Operations” were planned for the period of March 21-25, 2011.

On March 20, 2011 the United States joined France and Great Britain in an air attack against Libya, pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

Have the scheduled war games simply been postponed, or are they actually under way after months of planning, under the name of Operation Odyssey Dawn? Were opposition forces in Libya informed by the US, the UK or France about the existence of Southern Mistral/Southern Storm, which may have encouraged them to actions leading to greater repression and a humanitarian crisis? In short was this war against Gaddafi’s Libya planned or a spontaneous response to the great suffering which Gaddafi was visiting upon his opposition? Congress has not even considered this possibility.

NATO, which has now taken over enforcement of the no-fly zone, has morphed from an organization which pledged mutual support to defend North Atlantic states from aggression in military operations reaching from Libya to the Chinese border in Afghanistan. We need to now ask what role the French Air Force General Abrial and current Supreme Allied Commander of NATO for Transformation may have played in the development of Operation Southern Storm and in discussions with the U.S. in the expansion of the UN Mandate into a NATO operation. What has been the role of the US African Command and Central Command in discussions leading up to this conflict? What did we know and when did we know it?

The United Nations Security Council process is at risk when its members are not fully informed of all the facts when they authorize a military operation.  It is at risk from NATO which is usurping its mandate without specific authorization of Security Council Resolution 1973. The United States pays 25% of the military expense of NATO and NATO may be participating in the expansion of the UN mandate.

The United Nations relies not only on its moral authority, but on the moral cooperation of its member nations. If America exceeds its legal authority and determines to redefine international law, we journey away from an international moral order and into the amorality of power politics where the rule of force trumps the rule of law.

What are the fundamental principles at stake in America today?

First and foremost is our system of checks and balances built into the Constitution to ensure that important decisions of state are developed through mutual respect and shared responsibility in order to ensure that collective knowledge, indeed the collective wisdom of the people, is brought to bear. Two former Secretaries of State, James Baker and Warren Christopher have spoken jointly to the “importance of meaningful consultation between the President and Congress before the nation is committed to war.”

Our nation has an inherent right to defend itself and a solemn obligation to defend the Constitution. From the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam to the allegations of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq we have learned from bitter experience that the determination to go to war must be based on verifiable facts carefully considered.
Finally, civilian deaths are always to be regretted. But, we must understand from our own Civil War more than 150 years ago that nations must resolve their own conflicts and shape their own destiny internally.

However horrible those internal conflicts may be, these local conflicts can become even more dreadful if armed intervention in a civil war results in the internationalization of that conflict.

The belief that war is inevitable makes of war a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The United States, in this new and complex world wracked with great movements of masses to transform their own government, must itself be open to transformation, away from intervention, away from trying to determine the leadership of other nations, away from covert operations to try to manipulate events, and towards a rendezvous with those great principles of self-determination which gave us birth.

In a world which is interconnected and interdependent. In a world which cries out for human unity, we must call upon the wisdom of our namesake and Founding Father, George Washington, to guide us in the days ahead.

“The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.”

Washington also had a wish for the future America: “My wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.”

Jeffrey Sachs on Democracy Now 4/11/2011 - Make The Rich Pay Their Due

When is President Barack Obama going to stop being a puppet for the corporate lobbyists and start doing what the American people elected him to do...to be a leader and move the country in the direction of free health care for all; affordable, quality education; clean renewable energy; raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year instead of lowering them; closing Guantanamo; getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq and not taking part in new wars; putting on those comfortable pair of shoes to march alongside the workers of America in support of "collective bargaining by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association and self-organization" as stated in The United States Code; and maintaining a government of the people, by the people and for the people, not a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

AMY GOODMAN: President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a last-minute budget deal Friday, narrowly averting a government shutdown. The deal would cut roughly $38 billion from a federal budget expected to exceed $3.7 trillion this year. Many details have yet to be worked out.

Much of the deal has not yet been made public. Known cuts include $13 billion from the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. The GOP won a stand-alone vote over barring Planned Parenthood from accessing federal funds. A vote on defunding public broadcasting was dropped, as was a ban on using Environmental Protection Agency funds to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama characterized some of the cuts as, quote, "painful."

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This agreement between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history. Like any worthwhile compromise, both sides had to make tough decisions and give ground on issues that were important to them. And I certainly did that. Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful.

AMY GOODMAN: White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe announced yesterday President Obama plans to release a long-term plan on reducing the nation’s deficit Wednesday. Speaking on Meet the Press, he said President Obama will insist the nation cannot afford to continue tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

SENIOR ADVISER DAVID PLOUFFE: Now, under the Republican congressional plan, people over $250,000 get over a trillion dollars in tax relief. So this is the important thing: you’re making a choice. You’re asking seniors, the middle class to pay more. You wouldn’t be having to do that if you weren’t giving the very, very wealthiest in this country just enormous tax relief.

AMY GOODMAN: Plouffe made it clear that the House Republicans’ alternative, crafted by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, was unacceptable. He said, "Ryan’s plan] might pass the House, but it’s not going to become law."

Obama is also expected to propose cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and changes to Social Security, a discussion he has largely left to Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
Well, to discuss the budget deal, we’re joined right now by leading economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University. He is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia and also president and co-founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit group aimed at ending extreme global poverty. He’s the author of numerous books and articles on development and economic policy.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Your understanding of what this agreement is?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, this is a miserable step in the wrong direction. It started last December, when Obama and the Republicans agreed to cut a trillion dollars of taxes by extending the Bush tax cuts. And now, even though the details aren’t even worked out, apparently, they’re slashing into programs for the poor. So this is all going in the wrong direction, and many of us who supported President Obama just feel that he’s abandoned the field. He’s left it to the right wing, which wants nothing more than taxes cut for the rich, whereas the American public is saying very clearly, in every opinion survey, one after another, if you want to close the deficit, go after taxes for the rich, raise them, cut military spending, cut the excess profits in the insurance industry and healthcare, do things that would really make a difference—don’t punish the poor. And yet, that’s what Obama is giving up right now. It’s absurd. And when Plouffe says, "Well, it’s unacceptable that the taxes on the rich have come down," the President not only agreed to that last December, but when they announced the compromise this weekend, he referred to that historic agreement last December. So the whole thing is a bit of a mass confusion, and I find it absurd.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the four proposals.

JEFFREY SACHS: I say that there really are four proposals on the table right now. One is the Ryan plan; that is the extreme right: just do anything, slash anything, hit the poor, in order to get the tax rates down on the rich. It’s a fraud. But they have momentum because Obama is not resisting.

Then there was Obama’s muddle, because he put forward a budget plan last month, after all, not only for fiscal year 2012, but a decade-long framework. He agreed to keep taxes so low on the rich that, in effect, his proposals, if you look at the fine print, would squeeze the so-called civilian discretionary budget, where education, where infrastructure, energy, climate would all be squeezed to an unmanageable small level.

Then there’s a new proposal that the Congressional Progressive Caucus put forward last week. Terrific. It’s called the People’s Budget. It actually responds to what the people want, and that is, raise taxes on the rich, raise taxes on the corporations that are getting away with absolute unbelievable—unbelievably abusive loopholes, cut military spending, preserve spending for the poor, for education, for investment and so forth.

Then there’s a fourth position. That’s the American public. You notice the American public isn’t asked by
Congress or the President these days, but the American public speaks clearly in opinion survey after opinion survey. It says the rich have had a free ride, the corporations have been running our country, the spending on the military is completely unjustified, and we want a public option on healthcare. All large majorities, not one of them happening. Why? Because the lobbyists are in control, both of the White House and Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you’re not just talking about in control of the White House and Congress, but what about the press? When you talk about these opinion polls that show a very progressive America, this is not reflected across the networks when you watch TV.

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, first of all, Fox News is pure propaganda. We know that. But it’s just relentless propaganda, and people respond to it. To my mind, the Tea Party is nothing but a Fox News Channel propagandistic creation. This is Roger Ailes at work. So that’s one part of it. But it gets a lot of—lot of press.
Same thing with the Wall Street Journal editorial page. That’s our leading business press, but it’s so
relentlessly phony and right wing on the editorial page that you never hear anything about the middle. It’s only about tax cuts. It’s all this drum beat to cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes.

Then the mainstream, you know, basically, the New York Times, as far as I’m concerned, it just tries to protect its inside line to the White House. So, whatever the White House says, that’s what it reports. But it doesn’t report the fact that there’s a whole public opinion out there that needs to be covered. And I find that very, very sad.

AMY GOODMAN: But even outside of Fox, these discussions, for example, raising the issue of the military, that people recognize this as a huge drain on the budget, this is not raised, rarely in discussion.

JEFFREY SACHS: It’s true. When I am on talk shows and people talk about what to do, it’s all wringing your hands: "We have to cut entitlements, we have to cut entitlements." But the public is saying, "Can we get out of Afghanistan?" What an incredibly wrongheaded policy, wasting more than $100 billion a year, achieving nothing. But you’re right, this doesn’t get discussed.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, what about healthcare? What about these costs, and what can be done about it?

JEFFREY SACHS: Basically in healthcare, the U.S. has the most expensive system for what’s delivered of all the high-income countries. Why? Because we have this huge private sector health insurance industry. It’s hugely overmanned. Salaries are enormous. They spend a tremendous amount advertising, which doesn’t happen in other healthcare systems. Our specialists are paid way out of line with what happens in other countries. And that’s because we have a system that allows these huge costs, and then the government just pays a kind of cost-plus pricing, whereas a public option would get that under control and a system, called capitation, where basically insurance—or, health providers and public sector providers are responsible for the person and the family as a whole, not operation or procedure, one after another, that they get reimbursed for, is the much more efficient, low-cost way to do things.

All of it is to say, when the public option was taken off the table last year, despite a strong support of the public—and why did Obama take it off the table? Because the lobbyists told him to take it off the table. When that was taken off the table, we lost the chance to get healthcare costs under control. This is the problem. It’s lobbyists, morning 'til night. Whether it's lobbyists for healthcare, lobbyists for the financial sector, lobbyists for the war industry, and lobbyists for the tax cuts, they’re running Washington, both the White House and the Congress. And what the public wants—actually, the broad majority of the public—doesn’t get heard.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about the People’s Budget.

JEFFREY SACHS: The People’s Budget is a proposal of the leadership of 80 members of Congress, which is called the Progressive Caucus. I was so happy—

AMY GOODMAN: The largest caucus in Congress.

JEFFREY SACHS: I was so happy to see it when I saw it for the first time last week as it was being unveiled. I said, "Thank God. Something coming from Washington that makes sense," because they, too, have been crowded out. The White House has played a game, basically. If the far right is holding the agenda, the White House says, "We’ll be one step towards the center of the far right." But that means giving concession after concession after concession. What Obama is trying to do is to look reasonable, to look a little bit more reasonable than the extreme right. But to do so, he’s just compromising, compromising on core principles.

Then, finally comes the Congressional Progressive Caucus and says, "Stop it. Let’s do what the people really want." This is the wonderful thing about America. Sometimes you feel so frustrated: "What’s going on in this country?" as if everybody’s a Tea Partier. It’s not true. The broad majority of the public has very reasonable, very mainstream and compassionate views. They say, "Don’t slash for the poor. No, let’s start making the rich pay their due." That’s what the public says, the large majority. Who’s listening? Or who’s hearing them? The media keeps them out, by and large. And the White House and the Congress are dominated by the lobbies and by the concern about raising campaign funds. After all, President Obama is trying to raise a billion dollars for his 2012 election. Where is he going to get that? On Wall Street. Are they telling him, "Raise the taxes"? Unfortunately not.

AMY GOODMAN: What about House Speaker Boehner. What role is he playing in this?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, the Republican Party is dominated by a absolutely obsessive single idea: slash anything, cut anything, as long as the taxes for our rich patrons come down. That’s the role he’s playing.

AMY GOODMAN: You talk about the different proposals as a—the taxes as a percentage of the GDP.

JEFFREY SACHS: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain.

JEFFREY SACHS: Basically, right now, we’re collecting this year only 15 or 16 percent of our gross national income, or gross domestic product, as taxes. That’s not enough to pay for even the most basics of government, for Social Security, for Medicare or Medicaid, military, interest on the debt. And then you have all the rest government is needed for to help educate our children, to help keep our children safe, to have the infrastructure for productive economy, to address climate change and so forth. There’s no money for that right now.

The only way seriously to have government do what government needs to do for the American people is to raise revenues right now. Now, in a normal economic recovery, maybe our current tax system would go back up to 17 or 18 percent. Ryan’s proposal and Obama’s proposal is to stop somewhere 19 to 20 percent. But if you look at what we really need to have a normal country, we would have to be 23, 24 percent of GNP—that’s just basic arithmetic—to cover our core costs and to be able to face the needs of the American people for education, for roads that don’t collapse, for a climate that doesn’t get wrecked, for a modern energy system, for science and technology, for our competitiveness. So, this means tax—taxes on the rich and on the companies have to go up, if we’re going to have a normal country. But the Republicans are dead set against it. And until now, Obama has just compromised, compromised, compromised.

AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to go teach a class. How do you think President Obama has most failed the American people?

JEFFREY SACHS: He hasn’t led. His job in our constitutional system is to help show a way forward and help to explain, help to say why we need to go this way, not to stand in the back and then announce how historic an agreement is to slash taxes on the rich or how historic an agreement is to cut $38.5 billion that’s going to slash programs for the poor. That’s not his job. His job is to lead. That’s why we who supported him—I was one of them—expected something very, very different. Now, Wednesday, maybe he’s going to try again. We hear from Plouffe, OK, this time it’s for real. But if he comes out and does again what he’s been doing, I just think he’s lost the core, the heart, of the political movement that basically supported him to bring him to office.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeffrey Sachs, I want to thank you very much for being with us, leading economist, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, also president and co-founder of Millennium Promise Alliance.

Animal Rights by Dennis Kucinich

from kucinich.us:

As a necessary component of the living world, we must extend compassion to one another and to every living thing. Our mission as human beings can truly be to elevate this world from a condition of suffering and cruelty to the planet's creatures, and towards a condition of compassion and inherent respect. Through elevating the cause of every creature, we elevate our own humanity.


We lift up the cause of humanity by reaching out and connecting with all things living. It is our sense of interconnection with all living things that brings us to respect the rights of animals; to understand that animals are not to be "lower than"; that animals should not have less of a claim to existence, less of a claim to the possibility of survival, less of a claim to dignity.


Every one of us knows a story of animal cruelty; every one of us knows how in one way or another official policies have sanctioned cruelty to animals. I am working to put compassion into action in our policies with respect to animals in this country and to have America set a higher standard, not only for this country, but for the world; to make sure that all of God's creatures, that all animals are given a chance to have dignity in our society and are given a chance to experience the appreciation they should have as living beings.


I would include advocacy of animal rights in the Department of Peace, which I have already proposed to Congress (first introduced July 11, 2001). This cabinet-level department would work with, and offer an alternative to, the Defense Department. There have been numerous studies that have suggested a link between animal cruelty and domestic violence. The Department of Peace would not only seek to resolve international conflicts with nonviolent means, but also seek to instill a peaceful paradigm into the hearts of all the people of the world, so that one day war will be an archaic relic of a time that has passed.


My farm policy favors independent and family-owned farms. I support a national ban on packer ownership of livestock, and numerous new incentives for farmers to convert to sustainable and organic farming and ranching techniques. The vision of the meat that we consume coming from happy and healthy free-range animals can become more of a reality, as opposed to the inhumane conditions that the often mutated chickens and cows and pigs are forced to sustain in our current system.


As a member of Congress, I have cosponsored every piece of major animal protection legislation. In addition, I hold the distinction of being the only vegan in Congress. I made this lifestyle change many years ago, because I consider all life on our Earth to be sacred. As a vegan, I choose not to eat any animals or animal products. I strive to live my life in accordance with my convictions, and any other choice of diet would defy my ideals and, in my judgment, be hypocritical.

Dennis Kucinich in Madison, Wisconsin 3/12/2011

Congressman Kucinich fires up the crowd at the Barrymore theater in Madison with an impassioned speech that reveals just how much integrity and compassion this man has. He would definitely make the cover of my Sgt. Pepper (along side Howard Zinn, Ralph Nader and Amy Goodman).



TRANSCRIPT

The Attack on Public Servants Opens the Door to a Broad-Scale Theft of the Public Domain

from Democracy Now! 4/1/2011



JUAN GONZALEZ: Congressman Kucinich, I want to ask you about the latest news from your state of Ohio. Last night, Republican Governor John Kasich signed a bill that strips collective bargaining rights for state employees and bars them from striking. And Democrats have announced plans to collect more than 230,000 signatures to block immediate implementation of the bill and place it on the November ballot. Your reaction to this action in your own state and also to this growing trend among Republican legislatures around the country to begin stripping and limiting the bargaining rights of public employees?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, there’s two things that are happening here, at least. One is the attack on public employees. But the attack on public employees really presages an attack on the entire public sphere. So what’s happening here is it’s a destructive undermining of the principle of government of the people and that people have a right to have schools they can call their own, energy systems they can call their own, public services they can call their own. The attack on public servants opens the door to a broad-scale theft of the public domain. And so, this is about privatization, writ large. It’s about attempting to create circumstances where the physical assets of the state, that were purchased through people’s tax dollars over many generations, are about to be auctioned off, you know, often to a lower bidder, in order for the private sector to profit.

And the attack on workers here is fundamentally anti-American. In a democratic society, workers have to have a right to organize, a right to collective bargaining, a right to strike, a right to decent wages and benefits, a right to a secure retirement, a right to safe workplace. These are all things that should be guaranteed in a democratic society. And Governor Kasich has unfortunately joined the ranks of other Republican governors who are involved in this broad attack on workers’ rights, which is profoundly anti-democratic.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, what about this movement for putting it on the ballot, that would require hundreds of thousands of signatures? I mean, about quarter of a million, but they’d need much more, because they’d all have to be valid. And then the issue of Ohio, such an essential state when it comes to the presidential elections in 2012, 360,000 public workers affected. The Wisconsin protests were massive, but Ohio is so significant when it comes to the union movement. It has the nation’s sixth-largest number of public sector union members, which is twice as many as Wisconsin. How are you organizing around this?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I’ve been working with labor unions across the state. I’ve met with leaders of state labor. I’ve been with the workers outside the Statehouse. I’ve been rallying with them across Ohio. I understand that this is—that we are at the threshold of a whole new world here, where workers are either going to be restored to a position of dignity in our society, or they’re going to be reduced to a second-class citizenship.

Of course, I support the attempt to create a—to repeal this bill. I believe that the unions and their supporters will gain the necessary signatures to get this on the ballot. But we have to understand the thinking that’s behind this, this Senate Bill 5. And the thinking is that there is no such thing as government of the people. This idea of government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations has actually taken hold. It’s taken hold in the Citizens United case. It’s taken hold in Buckley v. Valeo. And now it’s taken hold with Senate Bill 5.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, one of the interesting aspects—there’s quite a few in the bill that was passed—would be that union members would be—or the governments, local governments, would be prohibited from collecting the voluntary political donations of workers to the political funds of their unions. This seems to be a direct attempt to prevent unions from being able to develop a political war chest before the upcoming elections, obviously, before the upcoming presidential elections. Your response to that?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I—yeah, I would think that, you know, it’s unconstitutional. I mean, it’s actually trying to intervene in the right of association, and there are free speech implications here. But, you know, when you’re talking about corporate interests running a state, what’s a constitution among friends? You have to look at the attempt here to destroy unions. That’s exactly what it is. And at this point, unions are one of the last lines of defense against a corporate plutocracy.

And so, we really have to support the workers in Ohio, in Wisconsin, in Michigan, and everywhere across this country they’re under attack. And I believe, most strongly, that this is one of the fundamental issues of our time with respect to economic justice. This is the new civil rights movement in America: the right to restore the dignity of workers, the right to protect their social and economic—the obligation to protect their social and economic rights.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel you’re getting the support from the Obama administration, that the unions are getting the support that President Obama promised when he was a senator, saying if any collective bargaining rights were threatened, he’d have his shoes on marching with them in the streets?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, he hasn’t found those shoes yet, but I’m sure he’ll find them. I think that we have a right to expect a president who was elected with the help of working men and women not to say, "I stand behind you," but to stand at the forefront to defend workers’ rights.

One of the things that I’m concerned about with respect to this particular White House is what seems to be the extraordinary influence that Wall Street has. We could not have 15 million, 14-15 million people out of work, unless there are those who are helping to manage the engines of this economy who feel that, well, to have that level of unemployment is somehow conducive to a functioning of the economy in order to keep the cost of labor low.

We really have to demand that our president—and he is our president—step forward here and defend workers, and not just, you know, give us platitudes, but be forward with defending them, using the Justice Department, using his bully pulpit, to step forward, to join workers at state capitols, to rally people on this issue, to stand with them and support Senate Bill—the repeal of Senate Bill 5, to stand with the workers in Wisconsin and Michigan, to take a stand against this attempt to privatize wholesale the assets of state and local governments.

In some cases, you have an attempt, as in Michigan, to write laws that would even lead to the abolition of local governments and taken over by an unelected board. I mean, this is a moment where we have to decide if we have a democracy and if we have a president who’s going to defend it.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dennis Kucinich, we thank you very much for being with us, Democratic Congress member from Ohio, from Cleveland.

Motherfucking Cop Doing What Cops Do Best

How many incidences like this are NOT caught on camera? Whether it's cops bashing people's heads in with clubs, or soldiers taking sadistic pleasure in murdering civilians, this kind of behavior is not some isolated occurrence, on the contrary, it is widespread and typical.

Cops and soldiers are trained to use force and violence and relish any opportunity to employ it for whatever reason.

You notice nobody stepped in to help? They were probably all afraid. That's just what authority wants; keep the people in line through fear and intimidation...or you're next.

Ask yourself this; if that were your daughter, or sister, or wife, or girlfriend in this video, what would you do?

Support Our Troops?

A group of  US Army soldiers in Afghanistan killed innocent civilians and then posed with their bodies. On Monday, March 21, 2011, SPIEGEL published some of the photos.

How many "exceptions" like this must we tolerate? How many more scenes of dehumanizing barbarity do we have to witness before we realize that this is the norm of war?

War is always a war against civilians. When you go to war against a tyrant, who do you kill? You kill the victims of the tyrant.

War, because of what it does to human beings, cannot be justified. ~ Howard Zinn

This image shows the body of Gul Mudin, the son of a farmer, who was killed on Jan. 15, 2010. A member of the "kill team" is posing behind him.

In this image, a different soldier poses with the same corpse.

This photo of two dead men comes from the collection of one of the suspects.

If we really cared about "our troops" we would demand that they return home.

He's the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war, and without him all this killing can't go on. 

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame. His orders come from far away no more. They come from here and there and you and me, and brothers can't you see, this is not the way we put the end to war. ~ from Universal Soldier - Buffy Sainte-Marie

Daniel Ellsberg and Ralph Nader - It's Time to Raise Our Level of Informed Indignation

from Democracy Now! 3/18/2011



STOP THESE WARS

Veterans For Peace 

The War Crimes Times 

U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord speaking about the civilian massacre documented in WikiLeaks's April 2010 video disclosure of Apache helicopter footage of a New Baghdad attack that took place in 2007, allegedly released by PFC Brad Manning. McCord's story was delivered to attendees of the United National Peace Conference, which took place in Albany NY the weekend of July 23-25, 2010. Produced by the United National Peace Conference Media Project, powered by The Sanctuary for Independent Media and the Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center.



An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to The Iraqi people from Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber

Ralph Nader on Democracy Now 3/18/2011 - Nuclear Plants are Technological Insanity

The government and the industry will defend nuclear power in the U.S. until the last mutation.

Why are we playing Russian roulette with the American people for nuclear plants whose principle objective is simply to boil water and produce steam?

Phone White House comment number 202-456-1111 and demand public hearings in every area where there is a nuclear plant so people can see what the hazards are; what the risks are; how farcical the evacuation plans are (duck and cover); how costly nuclear power is.

no new licenses; shut down aging plants and earthquake risk ones; phase out entire industry; we're going to be left with radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years with no permanent repository.

The Nader Page

Democracy Now!

ACT NOW TO END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

By Dennis Kucinich - Monday, March 14, 2011

Two weeks ago, nine Afghan children between the ages of nine and fifteen were killed by a NATO strike after being mistaken for insurgents. General Petraeus issued an apology and promised to investigate the killings, but news of their deaths quickly sparked anti-U.S. protests. They were killed in the Pech Valley, an area of Afghanistan once considered vital to U.S. military strategy. But now the U.S. military will soon be withdrawing from the Pech Valley after realizing that our presence was destabilizing the area.

The reality is our presence is destabilizing more than the Pech Valley -- it's propping up a corrupt regime and fueling an insurgency, all while Afghan's see little to no improvement in their lives. And it's destabilizing Americans at home. While vital services and benefits get cut -- such as the Community Development Block Grants and the WIC program which provides low-income expecting mothers and infants with proper nutrition -- we continue to fund an expensive war with no end in sight.

Last Wednesday, joined by members of both parties including Representatives Ron Paul, Walter Jones, Pete Stark, Bob Filner, and Barbara Lee, I announced a new bill to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan by the end of this year. Our legislation invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (pursuant to section 5(c)), which, if enacted, would require the President to withdraw U.S. Armed Forces out of Afghanistan by December 31, 2011. This legislation has bi-partisan support, and, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, a majority of Americans want us out of Afghanistan by the end of the year. A vote will be held on Thursday. We could end the war this week.

There is simply no rationale for continuing American involvement with no end in sight, rising deaths for civilians and our brave soldiers, declining public sentiment, and serious economic pain at home. Continuing our involvement in Afghanistan is not affordable, it's not just, and it hurts American foreign policy interests. It's time to go.

While Congress pulls unemployment benefits from suffering Ohio families and proposes slashing health care benefits, vital children's programs, and veterans' services all because we're "broke", it continues to fund a war that has cost us more than $455 billion. We are told we should cut funding for assistance to low-income families with one hand, while with the other hand tens of billions of dollars are approved for a war that does nothing to further our national security. The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the average American family of four almost $13,000 last year.

Our priorities are simply out of sync. Desperately needed unemployment benefits were filibustered last year because the costs to provide them were not offset with spending cuts or revenue increases. But we are not required to offset the costs of war, even when the war is completely funded by borrowed money - money we have to pay back with interest on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

And we are spending all this money on a war that is a waste of time, blood, and treasure. And the situation is getting worse, not better. 2010 was the deadliest year of the entire campaign. 700 brave soldiers, mostly Americans, were killed. Civilian deaths are on the rise too -- up 15% in 2010. As we approach the one-year anniversary of the commitment of an additional 30,000 troops and over $36 billion to the surge in Afghanistan, it is clear our strategy is not working. And we cannot afford to sustain it any longer.

The American people are being asked to shoulder the costs for wars that undermine our national, moral and economic security and opposition is growing. We must ask ourselves whose nation we are building when we ask people here at home to give up benefits they have earned in order to nation-build abroad.

We must not let this continue. Please call your Congressperson now -- and ask them to support House Concurrent Resolution 28 to end the war in Afghanistan. We're expecting a vote on Thursday, so please act now.

Republican Governors - Stealing From The Poor and Middle Class To Give To The Rich

john kasich, ohio - cut funding to public schools by 25%; slash $12 million from children's hospitals, $16 million from an adoption program for children with special needs, $1 million from food banks; tax cuts for oil companies, tax cut for the rich, repeal of the estate tax

rick scott, florida - slash corporate income tax; cut medicaid and education funding by $4 billion each

larry o'neil, georgia house leader - pushed for a budget that cuts corporate taxes by 33% while increasing health care costs for state workers by 20%

tom branstad, iowa - wants corporate income tax cut and a freeze on school spending

sam brownback, kansas - eliminating corporate income tax all together, cutting $50 million to education

paul lepage, maine (tea party governor) - tax cut for maine's richest 1%, property tax hike for middle class

tom corbett, pennsylvania - corporate tax cut, freeze on teacher's salaries

nikki haley, south carolina - wants to end corporate income tax, cut physical education from schools, medicaid reductions

rick snyder, michigan - (from: michaelmoore.com - letter to my fellow michiganders) 

Gotten the House and Senate to pass bills giving him "Emergency Management" powers such as the ability to appoint a corporation or a CEO who could literally dissolve town governments or school boards, fire the elected officials, nullify any local law and run your local governmental entity. That company then would have the power to immediately declare all collective bargaining contracts null and void.

Proposed giving business a whopping 86% tax cut while raising everyone's personal taxes by 31%! And much of that tax hike he believes should be shouldered by -- I kid you not -- senior citizens and the poor! He says these two groups have not been "sharing the sacrifice" the rest of us have been burdened with. So his budget proposes a $1.8 billion tax CUT for business and a $1.75 billion tax INCREASE for the rest of us, much of it from the poor, seniors and working people -- even though the top 1% in Michigan ALREADY pay a lower state tax rate than everyone else does!

Together with the legislature, introduced over 40 anti-labor bills in just the first two months of this session! They have wasted no time and have caught most people off guard. Much of this is being rushed through right now before you have a chance to raise your voice in objection.

Dennis Kucinich (Vegan-OH) on The Ed Show Asking for Full Briefing on Nuclear Issues 3/15/11

Here is the letter Congressman Kucinich sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

Dear Chairman Jaczko:

As the situation in Japan forces us to reconsider our definition of “unlikely,” I am writing to request a detailed description of the specific actions the NRC will take to ensure measures are taken to provide a level of protection of public health and the environment for all Americans that exceeds the level of protection provided at the failing Japanese nuclear power plants like Fukushima Daiichi.  A briefing to Members of Congress in which you explain the actions should accompany the report.

Specific safety issues addressed should include, but not be limited to a history of plant operator malfeasance and/or ineptitude; the flaws in the Mark I reactor design; the risks posed by earthquakes and tsunamis, floods, power outages, fires and intentional aircraft crashes; and the specific criteria for revoking or denying a license to operate.

As the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I look forward to hearing how the NRC will act swiftly to learn important lessons from the tragedy in Japan.

Operators of nuclear power plants with demonstrated poor safety records should not be allowed to continue to put the public at risk.  Though there are several examples of companies whose past performance has shown that they should not be operating a nuclear power plant, the story of Davis-Besse, operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FirstEnergy) is instructive.

On June 9, 1985, FirstEnergy allowed a 12-minute interruption in the feedwater flow to the steam generators, which was cited as a “potential catastrophe.”  In 2002, Davis-Besse’s reactor head corroded nearly all the way through because it was “weakened by years of neglect.”  A former NRC top safety official, Harold Denton, stated in 2004 that these two incidents represent the nuclear “industry’s second and third-lowest points after Three Mile Island.”

FirstEnergy’s employees tried to conceal the truth about the 2002 incident from the NRC using “tricks, schemes, or devices . . . to deliberately mislead” the agency.  David Uhlmann, chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, said that FirstEnergy showed “brazen arrogance” and “breached the public trust” by withholding information about the reactor head incident.  Federal prosecutors described the reactor head incident “as one of the biggest cover-ups in U.S. nuclear history.”

FirstEnergy paid a record fine of $33.45 million as a result of its actions.  Of that amount, a record $28 million was the fine that First Energy paid “to avoid being criminally prosecuted for lying to the government about the dangerous condition of Davis-Besse’s old reactor head,” according to then-U.S. Attorney Greg White in 2006.

The total fine was merely 1% of FirstEnergy’s profits in 2004.  While these may have been record fines, they were a mere slap on the wrist for FirstEnergy, creating little incentive to protect the public.  This conduct is the product of an inveterate, corrupt culture of long standing deceit and corner-cutting on safety.  With such an abysmal record, they, and other nuclear power plant operating companies with poor performance records should not be allowed to continue to operate nuclear power plants.

As you know, I have repeatedly called for the denial of FirstEnergy’s application to continue to operate Davis-Besse beyond its designed life span.  Until there is adequate accountability, incentives to place profits before safety will persist.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant that is currently considered to pose the greatest threat to human health uses the General Electric Mark I reactor design.  The Mark I has been criticized by NRC staff and others for failing to perform one of its primary functions: containing radiation in the event of a problem with the reactor.

The three explosions at Daiichi reactors 1, 2 and 3 that released radioactive substances have illuminated this design flaw.  The U.S. has nuclear power plants with the Mark I design in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.  Most are operating at or past their design life and most have recently received 20-year extensions of their operating license.

The Fukushima Daiichi power plant was supposedly designed to withstand extreme events such as earthquakes and tsunamis.  It failed, and the success of efforts to prevent meltdowns at Fukushima Dainii power plant, Tokai nuclear power plant, and Onagawa power plant have yet to be determined.

The NRC must review the ability of all nuclear power plants in the U.S. to withstand multiple simultaneous events that could wipe out entire redundancy systems.  Plants on or near earthquake faults like San Onofre in Southern California and Perry on Lake Erie in Ohio are particularly vulnerable.

In the New York Times Monday, Michael W. Golay, professor of nuclear science and engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, “Utilizing cost-benefit judgments, every nation with nuclear power has set the strongest earthquake that its nuclear plants must survive intact considerably below the level of the Japanese earthquake.”  We must do better than to rely on a safety standard which has demonstrated that it would bring us to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe.

Other ongoing safety issues at nuclear power plants in the U.S. pose risks similar to those at the Japanese nuclear power plants.  Power outages or floods could cripple primary and secondary core cooling systems.  Widespread fire protection deficiencies have not been rectified.  Most nuclear power plants in the U.S. remain vulnerable to an intentional aircraft crash.  Each of these vulnerabilities merits serious scrutiny.

Bringing our nuclear power plants up to a more suitable safety standard will be expensive. The new reality created by the Japanese nuclear reactors will force us to re-imagine what is possible and, therefore, what must be done. Professor Golay summarized the false choice that exists in the prevailing attitude about nuclear power safety options:

In considering the nuclear hazards of strong earthquakes, it’s useful to note the results of a study, which I led from 2001 to 2004, for Tokyo Electric Power Company. The study addressed whether to devote resources to provide robust public protection from nuclear risks that could arise in the event of strong earthquakes or to focus such efforts and researches on the direct effects of the earthquake.

We concluded that any earthquake strong enough to damage the reactor, and thus expose the public to harmful radiation, would be much more dangerous to the public in its direct effects, and that it would be more beneficial to devote efforts and resources to general preparedness.

When the choice is between building a reactor that can survive a major earthquake and preparing the public for a major release, the latter wins.  This a false choice about ways to direct scarce resources that facilitates profit for a select few, while placing enormous risks on the rest of us.  If the citizens of the U.S. and the world cannot be adequately protected from the risks of nuclear power, then nuclear power should not continue to exist and we should turn to cleaner, safer alternatives.

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich
Member of Congress

Iowa Considers Bill to Criminalize Undercover Videos At Farms

from Democracy Now! 3/15/11

and here is an article from The Associated Press - AG Industry, lawmakers try to limit secret videos

In Iowa, lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it illegal for animal rights activists to go undercover and record video of farm animal abuse. Backed by Iowa’s agriculture industry, the bill would impose fines and prison sentences on anyone who seeks agricultural employment in order to capture footage. In recent years, undercover videos have revealed shocking conditions at a number of locations and have led to plant closures and meat recalls.

Did you see the way that "big, tough" fuckin' asshole redneck kicked the poor, innocent, defenseless calf? If you saw someone kicking a dog or a cat like that you would be outraged, but because it's a farm animal no one gives a shit about that. These animals are just as capable of feeling pain and emotions as any pet, yet people do very little to protect them. Why? Probably because most of the cruelty inflicted upon these animals is out of view or because they stupidly think that eating animals is necessary so it doesn't matter how they are treated.

Farmers in Iowa, Wisconsin and other places are supporting workers whose collective bargaining rights may be stripped away from them, but no one has any right to bitch about their ill treatment when they are enslaving, abusing and acting like bullies toward other creatures...simply because they can or because there is money to be made in it.

As long as people are allowed to get away with this kind of cruelty, we will never have a kinder, more compassionate and fairer world. I'm an atheist but I can appreciate the passage in the bible that reads:

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. ~ Matthew 25:40

If we cannot respect the rights of "the least of these my brethren" not to have harm inflicted upon them by us, then we have no business referring to ourselves as a humane and civil society.

The Ed Show 3/14/11 - Republicans Propose Cuts To Disaster Warning Services

Strict building codes and early warning systems in Japan, due to government regulations, likely saved countless lives, but house republican leader Eric Cantor defends republican proposals to slash funding to organizations such as the USGS, The National Weather Service and NOAA, which provide disaster warning and emergency services to millions of Americans.

The Ed Show 3/14/11 - Republicans & Fox News Downplay Nuclear Disaster

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) downplays risk of nuclear energy while at the same time accepting campaign contributions from Babcock & Wilcox, a company that builds nuclear reactors.

From: Nuclear Meltdown in Japan: Warned Since Many Years, Mathaba.Net

"Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good and evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." ~ Albert Einstein

He envisioned two choices - abolish all forms of nuclear power or face extinction. No one listened. The Doomsday Clock keeps ticking.

George Bush Can Barely Contain His Laughter When Reflecting Upon The Misery Caused By Hurricane Katrina

President Obama Allowing Torture of Bradley Manning to Continue

When George W. Bush was interviewed by Matt Lauer back in November of 2010, he said he allowed the continuation of using the tortuous practice of waterboarding because:

the lawyer said it was legal. He said it did not fall within the anti-torture act. I’m not a lawyer. But you gotta trust the judgment of the people around you, and I do.

Well now president Obama is also trusting the judgment of the people around him when the Pentagon told him that the conditions which Bradley Manning is forced to endure are:

appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.

In Bush's case, he was just looking for people who would tell him what he wanted to hear and then taking their advice, but Obama is trusting the judgment of the very people who are involved in the mistreatment of Manning.

When it comes to American presidents justifying the use of torture, it seems Pete Townsend was right when he wrote the words, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Senator Al Franken (D-Minn) - Where Are Our Values?

Sen. Franken's Floor Statement on Tax Cuts and Unemployment Insurance, December 3, 2010.

M. President, I was presiding this Monday when one of my friends on the other side of the aisle was speaking on the floor on a very important topic. He said, "We need to do everything to see that the deficit does not increase." Now, less than a week later, he is going to vote to increase the deficit by $700 billion. That's an impressive reversal, don't you think?

Now, many of my colleagues on the other side ran for reelection this fall saying that the deficit is a cancer.  We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to cut the deficit.  Well, congratulations.  Because one of your first votes back you're going to vote to put over $9,300 more debt on the head of every child in America.

And what is that for? To give an average tax cut of a $100,000 to Americans making over $1 million a year.
Now my friends on the other side of the aisle have been saying to us, "Haven't you learned the lesson of the election?"  I don't recall permanent tax cuts for millionaires being on any ballot.  In fact, let's take a look at the exit polls conducted by Edison Research, the exclusive provider of the National Election Exit Polls for all of the major TV networks and the Associated Press.  And in their poll, they found that roughly sixty percent of Americans wanted to end tax cuts for those making over $250,000.  And more recently, a Quinnipiac poll said that only 35 percent of Americans wanted the Bush tax cuts extended for those with incomes over $250,000.

And, of course the American people feel this way.  They know what's been happening over the last twenty years in this country.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top one percent of households.  Even more unbelievable-a third of all income growth went to just the top tenth of one percent.  The wealthy have done extremely well for themselves over the past twenty years.  Unfortunately, this is while the middle class has done decidedly worse.

When you adjust for inflation, the median household income actually declined over the last decade.  During those years, while the rich were getting richer, the rest of working America was struggling to keep up.

 We've been growing apart.  And the American people know this.  And now, working Americans are forced to listen to the Republicans as they demand "Everyone needs to share the pain.  We're all in this together."

The IRS published a study analyzing the tax returns of the wealthiest 400 Americans.  Together, in 2007, they brought in nearly $138 billion dollars.  Want to take a guess at what their average effective tax rate was?  Just over 16 and a half percent.   Is that really sharing the pain?  Are they really sharing in the pain just like everybody else?

Now frankly, I'm a little tired of being lectured by Republicans on the deficit.  We all know that Bill Clinton inherited the largest deficit in history from George H. W. Bush and then handed George W. Bush the largest surplus in history.  And George W. Bush nearly doubled the national debt.  He also handed Barack Obama the largest deficit in history.  And, of course, my friends on the other side of the aisle controlled the Congress for most of those Bush years.

Now today, we're talking about how to get our economy going and keep deficits down at the same time.  And what we're discussing right now is whether to restore the Clinton marginal tax rate on the very wealthiest of Americans.  Now I remember when he raised the tax rate on the top 2%.  Republicans said that would kill the economy.

Newt Gingrich.  Remember him?  (I'm sorry. To protect his anonymity, I'll just call him, Newt G.) On August 5, 1993, he said, "I believe this will lead to a recession next year.  This is the Democrat machine's recession, and each one of them will be held personally accountable."

Senator Phil Gramm.  Remember him?  He said, "The Clinton plan is a one-way ticket to recession.  This plan does not reduce the deficit...but it raises IT and it puts people out of work."

Governor-elect John Kasich said, "This plan will not work.  If it was to work then I'd have to become a Democrat." Congratulations, Ohio, on electing a Democratic governor.

22.7 milion jobs and a giant surplus later, George W. Bush waltzes into office and says, 'Hey, we're running a surplus.  The people deserve a tax cut.'  Now let's recall what he said about his tax cut.  He said, over and over again, and I quote, "by far the vast majority of the help goes to those at the bottom end of the economic ladder."  Wow.  That sounds like the bottom got a vast majority of the tax cuts.

They didn't.  Actually, the bottom 60 percent of Americans got just 14.7 percent of the Bush tax cuts.  And the top one percent got 29.5 percent of the tax cuts.  Exactly double.  Let me repeat that.  The top 1 percent got double of what the bottom 60 percent did.

The results of this new policy?  Massive deficits.  Only one million new jobs over the eight years of his presidency.  One million.

And now my friends in the minority want to go back to that discredited economic philosophy.

The fig leaf here is small business.  They attack us and say that not cutting taxes on the richest Americans will hurt small business.  Well, it seems that to my friends on the other side of the aisle some small businesses are more important than others.  Why did they block us for months from passing the Small Business Jobs Act, which gave tax cuts to small businesses and created a $30 billion line of credit for small businesses on Main Street?  Why did they oppose the HIRE Act that gave large tax cuts to small businesses to encourage them to hire unemployed workers?  Well, it seems that these aren't the small businesses that my friends are so concerned about.

When you and I think about a small business, we picture the mom and pop grocer down the street, or maybe a hardware store, or a small precision manufacturing operation.  We probably think of them as small businesses because they are, well, small.  They probably have a few employees, one location, and make a modest but comfortable living doing it.

And Republicans are trying to scare us into believing that the grocer and hardware store owners will shutter their doors if we return the top two tax brackets to their previous levels.  But that's simply not the case.
In reality, only 3 percent of small businesses would be affected by this change.  Yet, you'll hear Republicans tout that those top 3 percent of businesses make up 50 percent of total small business income.  And that tells you one important thing-that those 3 percent of small businesses aren't really small businesses.  Only under the broadest, most arbitrary of definitions are these businesses "small."

When many of my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about small businesses, they're including anybody who uses a flow-through business entity-so an S corp or a partnership.  They're not defining a small business by its size or profits or the number of people they employ.  They're defining it on a technicality.

Under their definition, Bechtel, the fifth largest company in the U.S., is a small business.  The Koch brothers, who run a petroleum company with nearly $100 billion in annual revenue, they are considered a small business.  They're worth about $16 billion - each!  Law firm partners and Wall Street bond traders are considered small businesses.

So really, Republicans are using the mom and pop grocery store to defend the continuation of these tax cuts, but in reality, the only people they're really helping are the Bechtels and Kochs of the world, and maybe Derek Jeter, Inc. and Mel Gibson, Inc., other likely "small business" beneficiaries.

And at the same time that Republicans are demanding unpaid-for tax cuts for the Koch brothers, they're insisting that we pay for a continuation of the emergency unemployment insurance program.  They want to pay for it even though unemployment benefits have been shown to be an extremely effective stimulus - in fact, one of the most effective stimulus measures.  Why?  Because when unemployed workers gets their checks for a couple hundred dollars, they go to their local mom and pop grocery store and buy food. They spend that money, right away, in their communities. . . in real small businesses.

It's the holidays.  Can they afford to buy a small Christmas present for their kids?  I'm worried there are those among us who would say "no, no presents."

So Republicans say that these unemployment benefits are too expensive and will add to the deficit.  They demand that these unemployment benefits must be paid for.  Tax cuts for the richest people in America?  No need to pay for those.  Adding $700 billion to the deficit-or actually $830 billion when you factor in extra interest payments?  No problem.

You know, I hear my friends on the other side say, we're going to have to make some hard choices.  I agree.  The deficit is a problem, and getting it under control will take shared sacrifice.

There are a lot of Minnesotans who have to make hard choices now.  Maybe it means giving up the second car.  Maybe it means no summer camp for the kids.  Some communities in Minnesota have had to go to a four day school week, because there just isn't the money there.

Some Minnesotans have been hit even harder.  Their unemployment insurance was cut off earlier this week, because of us.  They've got a lot of hard choices right now.  Where are they going to live if they can't pay their mortgage or the rent?  Food or medicine or heat?  How do I give my kids anything resembling a Christmas?  These are people who lost their jobs and desperately want to find work.

But we can't pass unemployment insurance for them unless it's paid for.  But for the owners of Bechtel or Pricewaterhouse Coopers-yeah, they're a small business too-the sky's the limit.

You know, I'm Jewish.  So I don't know the New Testament all that well.  But I know Matthew.  "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of my brethren, you did for me."  I went to a union hall not long ago.  Building trades.  A carpenter came up to me.  Big strong guy.  Rough, calloused hands.  Tears in his eyes.  He had gotten just a little bit of work here and there in the last 18 months.  He said to me, "I never took unemployment before.  I hate it.  But if it weren't for my unemployment insurance, I wouldn't be in my house."

Making tough choices means doing one thing and not another.  And right now, we're faced with that choice.  If we can't agree to help people like that carpenter by continuing emergency unemployment benefits, how can we live with ourselves?  How can we think that we're doing our jobs?  The choice before us is clear this holiday season-lend a hand to those who simply can't get by without the help, or give $100,000 in average tax cuts to people making over a million dollars.

Where are our values?  What are we doing here?  It's almost Christmas.  We'll be leaving here to go spend time with our families.  We've got jobs, we've got great jobs.  I think this is the greatest job, trying to make people's lives better back in Minnesota.  So I ask again, what are we doing here?

The Inheritance (1964) - The History of Labor in America

"The labor movement arose from the need of the individual worker to protect his interests and promote his welfare in a competitive society. The labor union is the tool that compounds the scattered forces of the individual workers and uses their collective strength to improve their working lives and to assert their social power." ~ From The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America: A Study in Progressive Trades-Unionism by Charles Elbert Zaretz

Synopsis from Turner Classic Movies:

Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the film traces the growth of the American labor movement from immigrant arrival at Ellis Island through union participation in the civil rights struggle of the sixties. Focusing on the garment industry, the documentary exposes conditions in the sweatshops and ghettos of New York, Chicago, and Rochester, and depicts the police brutality accompanying protest. Among the labor martyrs eulogized are the strikers Charles Lazinskas, Samuel Kapper, Ida Brayman, and the ten Chicago Republic Steelworkers murdered while marching on Memorial Day, 1937. Union champions represented include Jane Addams of Hull House, Mrs. Raymond Robins of the Women's Trade Union League, Harold Ickes, Sidney Hillman, Clarence Darrow, Fiorello LaGuardia, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Inheritance AFL-CIO soundtrack album.

and from Film & History:

The Inheritance (Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1964) Fans of labor documentaries are divided into two groups: those who have seen The Inheritance more than 100 times and those who have not reached—but certainly will—this exalted status. This documentary truly deserves its reputation as a “classic,” for both its content and its production and a showing never fails to rouse the spirit of solidarity in everyone who watches it.

Produced in the mid-1960s by a union which no longer exists about traditions which have been buried by the years, The Inheritance set such a standard for labor documentaries that there have been virtually no other attempts at such a vast and comprehensive depiction of the American labor movement. At a time when labor history often deals with microscopic—and generally trivial--moments, this documentary had the ambition to try to squeeze 200 years of history into one hour.

This documentary was financially supported by the union, produced and constructed by a talented collection of blacklisted writers and musicians, with a stirring narrative by Robert Ryan (once cast, ironically, as a Communist in the movie I Married A Communist).The Inheritance tries to present the whole story of the labor movement in the United States from immigrants trudging through Ellis Island to the rise of industrial unionism. The documentary combines techniques which were, for the time, extraordinary: archival photos carefully panned and mixed with grainy movie footage, a variety of narrative voices, including expert reproduction of immigrant accents, creating an unsurpassed feeling for the workers movement.

Supporting the narration, the labor songs, supervised by Millard Lampell, a blacklisted member of The Almanac Singers, and sung by Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton and Judy Collins, are wonderful and seem, like the documentary as a whole, timeless. The strengths of this documentary are also its weakness: with its emphasis on the particular history of the ACWA, many of its figures and references—to the various strikes in the New York City needle trades, for example—may make it difficult for an audience of workers to understand. The documentary glories the ACWA’s first president, Sidney Hillman, and his dedication to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with whom he had such a close relationship that “check it with Sidney” became a common expression of the New Deal. At the same time, a documentary showing the development of a union movement among immigrant workers seems timely in the 21st century when immigrant workers and their status are so controversial.

The documentary is openly partisan and free of any hesitation: most bosses are evil, industrial unionism is good, The New Deal is good, so is World War II, but not so much World War I. The nuclear arms race presents a problem and the civil rights movement, just reaching its full strength when the documentary was released, was a momentous social movement.

There is no higher tribute to this movie than its constant use, more than 40 years after its first release. Recently, when a student in my labor studies program, working as an internal organizer for the CWA at Verizon, wanted a history of the union movement to show to a group of new stewards and mobilizers, without hesitation I gave her my copy of The Inheritance. Copies of the video (only in VHS format, I think) are still available through the Labor Heritage Foundation or the Illinois Labor History Society.

From The United States Code, Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II - National Labor Relations, Section 151:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.