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The most precious possession on Earth
is our own people
and for this people
and with this people
we will struggle
and we will fight
and never slacken
never tire
never falter
never doubt
long live our movement
long live our people!!!

Getting Past Vietnam-Era Condescension and Insecurity

By David Sirota
Created Jan 11 2007 - 10:53am

There seems to be a pervasive and not-so-subtle streak of anger among 50-60
something pundits who describe themselves as "liberal" and yet who
constantly attack the left for opposing the Iraq War, and then lecture the
left about how we should have learned a lesson from Vietnam - this lesson
being that progressive opposition to the war in the 1960s was terrible
because Democrats proceeded to lose the presidency in the 1980s and Congress
in the 1990s.

Iraq escalation benefits Jeb Bush

By Margie Burns
Created Jan 11 2007 - 10:35am

Iraq escalation benefits Jeb Bush

It is difficult to imagine the sane person who could imagine that supporting
the Bush escalation in Iraq will benefit John McCain politically. Even the
cleaned-up language in which the president dressed his presentation last
night (January 10, 2007) makes clear that he expects further carnage.
Chilling, and chillingly offhand, suggestions that the troops have had "too
many restrictions," that armed forces will have the "green light to enter"
neighborhoods, and that they will be "going door to door" - "to gain
trust" -- show us a Baghdad like the world of Anne Frank.

Rice Summoned To Senate Foreign Relations Committee Today

By Bob Geiger
Created Jan 11 2007 - 10:24am

In what will undoubtedly prove to be an awkward bit of timing for her,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will go before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee today, where she can expect to be grilled on George W.
Bush's speech last night, in which he announced an escalation of the Iraq
war, despite most of the country, the Congress and his top Generals in the
field disagreeing with that approach.

Rice can also expect to be quizzed on the conduct of the war so far, as well
as what she intends to do on some sort of diplomatic outreach to Syria and
Iran -- you know, given that her job is supposed to be about establishing
relationships with other countries that actually benefit the United States
and not just about waging war.

Russ Feingold (D-WI), a committee member and an outspoken critic of the
entire Iraq debacle, will certainly be chomping at the bit to ask Rice some
tough questions.

FOX News Fascist, Gretchen Carlson, Swift-boats Sen. Kennedy's Opposition to
Bush's "Surge"

By Walter C. Uhler
Created Jan 11 2007 - 9:31am

Although none of the following news nuggets were found in the speech that
President Bush delivered tonight, recently, we learned: (1) that an official
from the Bush administration admitted to NBC News that President Bush's
decision to "surge" troop levels in Iraq "is more a political decision than
a military one," (2) that General John Abazaid, commander of the U.S. forces
in the Middle East, "asked every top commander in Iraq whether more troops
would add considerably to the odds of success.they all said no," and (3)
that as many as nine Republican Senators oppose Bush's proposed "surge," as
do the majority of polled Americans.

The prepubescent mind of George W.

By P.M. Carpenter
Created Jan 11 2007 - 9:27am

I have a seven-year-old daughter, whose seven-year-old mind is a clinical
study in determined opposition to mature, sensible advice. Whatever I
suggest as a parent, she as a child is sure to treat as a conspiracy to
upset her well-ordered world, which is generally quite divorced from the
given situation's surrounding reality. Since I'm not a pediatric
neurologist, I know not what synaptic connections that form mature thought
are struggling to find their way. All I do know is that most people grow out
of such determination to battle maturity.

George hasn't. Hence mature, sensible and (some literally) parental counsel
against military involvement in Iraq was sure to be confronted with
indignant rebelliousness. Similar advice against an escalation of the mayhem
was also, for sure, to meet the same fate. No one tells George what George
should do. Any sound advice contrary to his natural inclinations is
perceived as intrusive, parental-like authority meant only to upset his
comfortable, self-defined reality. To wit ...

Onward Into the Fog

By Brian Morton
Created Jan 11 2007 - 9:17am

"Reagan taught us deficits don't matter" is the famous statement attributed
to Vice President Dick Cheney, and it seems we'll be living it down for a
long, long time. If you recall, Reagan beat Walter Mondale back in 1984 due
to the fact that Mondale wouldn't commit to not raising taxes. Or rather,
Mondale said that the difference between himself and his opponent is that
both would end up raising taxes, but Mondale wouldn't lie to you about it.
But in the Republican-designed world that we've been living in since that
debate, raising taxes is to Democrats what Social Security is to
Republicans--the "third rail" of politics. Touch it and die.

One could make the case that George W. Bush has been a political zombie
since he tried touching the rail after the 2004 elections and none of his
party would leap out there on it with him. Of course, there was also
Hurricane Katrina, and the continuing disaster in Iraq, but Bush claimed all
this political capital from the '04 elections and Social Security was what
he planned to change--and he failed.

Look! Over There!

By Ben Tripp
Created Jan 11 2007 - 9:15am

Once again, with the monotonous regularity of a color-coded terror alert
coming the day of bad news for the White House, we have a clear and present
distraction aimed at outnewsing Bush's upcoming "I will fuck this country's
military into the ground" speech: way to go, guys, we just killed a suspect
in a bombing from 1998 [1]!

KISMAYO, Somalia (CNN) -- A U.S.-led airstrike in Somalia has killed the
suspected orchestrator of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa,
Somali officials said Wednesday.

However, U.S. officials would not confirm that al Qaeda's Fazul Abdullah
Mohammed had been killed or American involvement in the airstrikes.

Backed by U.S. air support, Ethiopian and Somali government forces battled
Islamist fighters and al Qaeda operatives Wednesday in the southern town of
Dhobley near the Kenyan border, according to Col. Abdirizaq Afgadud, a
senior Somali military commander, and Abdirashid Hidig, a lawmaker."

Okay, what's wrong with this picture?