eye opening to be sure...Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos ..A MUST SEE!

Anna Baltzer presents...

Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos

This was an eye-opening 59 minutes to be sure and then the hour after with a handful of folks who showed up was very helpful. My question to this moment is “what is the end game?” so far, all I can come up with is it’s a natural resource grab by a group who is dominating some of the people who have been living and using the resources of the region also. Palestinians have been designated “the other” in the same way other groups of indigenous peoples have many times in the past. As I have explored more at Anna Baltzer’s site, I have seen a movement that I can really stand with. Oh and I really recommended the 2 clips from her quest appearance on Jon Stewart that are linked from her home page.

As a human community I believe we have to constantly recognize each other and stand with those who stand for the common human values we share. It is my belief that humans everywhere want the same things. We all want to live on planet earth with enough water, food, shelter, safety and our communities are the ways we can work together for that life for all humans.

I was very touched by a Jewish woman visitor from New York who attended. She was very knowledgeable and she introduced the word “genocide” and said that she rarely did that because it immediately took on a life of its own and ended any discussion. It’s hard not to ask the question when you witness the living conditions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. I put myself in their place and I can’t even imagine getting through one day. I travel freely at any time I choose. Just having to wonder if it will take 30 minutes or 8 hours to work 25 miles away seems unimaginable and this is a daily fact for many Palestinians. Not knowing if me or my family would be able to reach a hospital if we had an emergency, because it was on the other side of a checkpoint (aka roadblock, in my world), is chilling.

I am horrified that my tax money is going to support a country continuing to violate human rights and my country continues to block UN efforts to hold Israel accountable. Occupations are not won, occupations are ended.
I will be exploring what ways I can be part of the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement. It is the nonviolent organized movement that makes sense and gives hope for our human future.
Thank you Code Pink Rebekah for bring this to us.

this issue of Newsweek explains alot to me......we are not getting the facts about what is happening there.

hope is fading.....

This “health care reform” (without the public option and medicare buy-in and with the mandate) is just a big sloppy wet kiss to the gangster profiteers who have been stealing from us all along. This Bill Moyer’s journal speaks to how this is happening. His 2 guests agree and come to opposite conclusions about voting for this sorry bill. Matt Taibbi has it right. If this bill passes, it will load this gang of robbers with even more money to prevent the people from ever getting our hands on our own health care. We need to entirely remove the profiteering middle men and this bill will keep them firmly in place. We don't need the middlemen. We the people can hire good people, our fellow citizens, accountable to us, to administer payment to good people, our fellow citizens, accountable to us, to provide our healthcare. There is a system set up now, running at 3% (max) administrative cost- Medicare. And if there are people who don't wish to buy in to Medicare part E-verybody, they can opt out and purchase insurance from the private profiteers, whose administrative costs run upward to 30%. It costs alot of money to pay huge CEO compensations, with stock options added, and pay stockholders to sit by the pool and wait for the dividend checks. It isn’t even about whether the bill has got any "good qualities." "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." (ad nauseum) It’s about filling the trough for these pigs to continue bilking us. The losers will be the people....AGAIN. We are held hostage by these greedy selfish corporatists and there is no end in sight. And there is no hope in sight. So much for “hope” “yes, we can” and empty slogans.

December 18, 2009

Amidst fading hopes for real reform on issues ranging from high finance to health care, economist Robert Kuttner and journalist Matt Taibbi join Bill Moyers to discuss Wall Street's power over the federal government.

watch this episode of Bill Moyer's Journal here

sign firedoglake "kill the bill" petition here


addendum....*if a good enough bill is reconciled in conference committee and the House of Representatives and the Senate to vote on it and they pass it to President Obama and he signs it, you will hear me cheering and giving credit.

real hope for the future

Evan so eloquently put into words much of what I am feeling these days and he gives me hope for the generations to come. I remember listening in horror to Obama's Afghanistan speech, screaming at the radio practically the whole time. And then, when I talked to fellow Democrats, many supported his position and praised the good speech. Now I hear from Evan that many young folks are not falling for this war mentality and it gives me the hope I felt was lost. Thank you Evan for being the wonderful human you are and for continuing on. You bring a very important perspective at a time when corporate marketing seems to rule the day.

here is Evan's piece published at Common Dreams.....

The Betrayal of Generation Hope
by Evan Knappenberger
Published on Sunday, December 13, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

As I sit here preparing for my final college exams, I can't help but think back on the ups and downs of the past two years. Ups: the defeat of the Republican Party in 2008, my own graduation from college, and the formation of progressive student and veteran movements; and downs: suffering through a war and hospitalization due to post-traumatic stress, watching my friends die in foreign countries, and now, the betrayal of my generation by a President who we put our utmost faith in.

full article

and here is a summary of the 7 day tower vigil by Evan back in june of 2007 where he educated many folks about stop loss, myself included.

Healthcare rally... the time for action is now!!

Health Care Reform Rally

a call to action!!




citizens from all over the county gathered to (joined by citizens in nine Washington cities to hold Health Reform Rallies) ask that we move to healthcare reform that brings healthcare to all citizens.


it was a cold, clear day and the energy of a community coming together

for our common good was palpable.
thanks once again to the tireless amazing folks who never give up working for healthcare for all of us.
and thanks to all of us who showed up......amazing!

killing by the numbers

this, over at Air America by Megan Capentier, is enough to kill the holiday spirit.

is this who we are???

Is The Military Fudging Civilian Casualties To Avoid Pentagon Oversight? Thursday December 10, 2009 6:19 p.m

Sar Bland, an Afghan man who was injured in Monday's rocket attack in Tagab, lies on bed at a hospital at the U.S. base at Bagram, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009. An official said the deaths of 14 civilians in the rocket attack on Monday presumably aimed at military officials and local leaders underscores the inability of NATO to successfully defeat the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

By Megan Carpentier
On Monday, the anonymous blogger Security Crank noticed something interesting: all the U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan seemingly kill exactly 30 people every time. How can that be?

Security Crank documented no less than 12 occasions in which news reports, relying on field commanders' estimates, noted that exactly 30 suspected Taliban were killed in airstrikes and, occasionally, artillery attacks. He said:

But the much more important point remains: how could we possibly have any idea how the war is going, here or anywhere else, when the bad guys seem only to die in groups of 30? The sheer ubiquity of that number in fatality and casualty counts is astounding, to the point where I don’t even pay attention to a story anymore when they use that magic number 30. It is an indicator either of ignorance or deliberate spin… but no matter the case, whenever you see the number 30 used in reference to the Taliban, you should probably close the tab and move onto something else, because you just won’t get a good sense of what happened there.

So, why is it always 30? Do thirty casualties seem like enough to justify a military attack, or few enough to not attract too much attention to an incident?

Another blogger, Joshua Foust of the Central Asia blog Registan, seemingly stumbled upon the answer. In a tweet, he noted:

In 2003, an air strike killing 30 civilians could be launched w/o issues. 31 dead civilians and Rummy had to approve.

Foust then linked to an LA Times article from last July by Nicholas Goldberg that documented what field commanders were told.

full article

stop the reappointment of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

here are a couple of places to sign petitions in support of Senator Sanders hold on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's reappointment.

huh...scooby do moment with Dana Perino

really Dana? no terrorist attack during bush's administration...and sean, didn't you catch that lie???? (stupid or mouthpiece????) wow!!!! history is revised in plain sight......
our symptoms are showing.... what a profoundly sad time we live in....



and then this....huh....what??..keep your enemies close ????? wow

November 19, 2009, 8:53 pm Obama Has a Job for Dana Perino. Really.
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
From the Department of Unlikely Events: George W. Bush’s press secretary has been asked to serve in the Obama administration.

Well, sort of.

Dana M. Perino, Mr. Bush’s fourth and final press secretary, was nominated Thursday by President Obama to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent agency responsible for overseeing the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other non-military broadcasts sponsored by the federal government.
full article

wake up america!!

Congressman Larsen visits 42nd LD Democrats

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The 42nd LD Democrats had its regular monthly meeting Saturday and Congressman Larsen dropped in to give us an update on what's going on in D.C..

thank you Joe Sustek !!

A great big tip o' the hat to Joe Sustek today for getting the back of the Justice Dept Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama Administration as the do they right thing today. As a great American, who truly understands what, in my opinion, the county stands for, he will make a great Senator. (as he makes a great Representative now)

....and thanks to Randi Rhodes for having Rep. Joe Sustek on in the second hour of your program (could still be heard on AM 1090 after the 7pm top of the hour)

Atty Gen Holder: 9/11 Mastermind, Others To Face New York Justice
12:06 pm
November 13, 2009
By Frank James

Attorney General Eric Holder made official Friday morning what was reported by the media for hours beforehand, the Obama Administration's intention to bring the alleged 9/11 conspirators who've been held at Guantanamo for years to trial in New York.

At a press conference Friday, Holder, a former federal judge and prosecutor, expressed faith in the federal judiciary, prosecutors and New York City officials to manage a high-profile trial of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammad and other suspected terrorist detainees.

full article

Unduly Burdened By B.I.A. Bullshit

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I ran across an article written by Bill Quehrn - Executive Officer, Building Industry Association of Whatcom County. The title of the article is "Those Unduly Burdened, Rise and Fight!". The article lays out some inaccurate and misleading arguments about "takings" and then concludes, "However, recent actions by county government strongly suggest that it is time individual citizens … and even our county’s small towns and other municipal jurisdictions … start reminding Whatcom County’s elected and appointed officials that they will not be “taking” this kind of burdensome abuse or disregard of our Home Rule Charter any longer. It’s time to rise up and fight! CAPR’s time certainly seems to have come!"

I was going to write something to expose just how dishonest and deceptive the Executive Officer of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County was being, but then I realized someone else had laid out the way developers and large real estate speculators have heightened fears and exacerbate problems to recruit the very rural people they'd like to displace by suburbanizing all of our rural areas.

Fourteen years ago, Jay Tabor wrote a report, "Wise Use in Northern Puget Sound" that covers what BIAWC, CAPR and the developers and large real estate speculators behind them are trying to do... AGAIN!

... Movements are defined by the shared values of followers. These values are not the normative values of society but rather the values of a loosely linked sector of society in opposition to an establishment. The most commonly shared value of the Wise Use groups is their determination overturn or weaken environmental laws and open up public and private lands for unrestricted development and exploitation.

The Wise Use Movement is riddled with contradictions. The different levels of the movement have goals directly in conflict with each other. For example, many of the people that are attracted to the property rights and county secession groups in the western Cascade foothills are drawn by slogans such as "Protect Our Rural Heritage" and "Lower Taxes." The middle level organizers of these groups are mostly developers and large real estate speculators who want to suburbanize these areas. Not only will this remove the rural character, but the added long term infrastructure costs will inevitably raise property tax assessments and revenue budgets. Likewise, out on the Olympic Peninsula, the large timber corporations exporting raw logs played a far greater role in closing the small mills than environmental regulations.

It is the hallmark of Wise Use to play on these tensions, heighten the fears and exacerbate the problems. The aggressive scapegoating of regulations and targeting of environmental activists for hostility serves to provide a distraction from the contradictions. In full cry, the Wise Use activists often succeed in suppressing or intimidating any opposition, thereby preventing the open discussion that would lead to the exposure of their hollow program. ...

(http://www.publicgood.org/reports/wuinps/preface.htm)

Not just the property rights movement is a rerun, the mis-use of "takings" claims as a tactic is being trotted out AGAIN.

Appendix I:
The Growth Management Act and "takings" claims

One of the major thrusts of the Growth Management Act was the imposition of "impact fees" that would make developers directly responsible for the infrastructure
costs of new construction. A major tax subsidy for development and land speculation was threatened. If developers couldn't buy cheap land, put up large projects that counties hadn't included in the long-term budget forecasts, and then stick the taxpayers with the tab, a whole industry would have to restructure itself around the real cost of doing business. Suddenly, Wise Use in Washington discovered the "property-rights" movement.

It was a marriage made in hell, but the happy couple of rural people and city-based developers were willing to overlook that. It was also a godsend to Gottlieb's faction of
the Wise Use Movement. Gottlieb and Arnold had failed to cash in on the big bucks now flowing from timber, mining and other industries to Wise Use operations like People For the West!, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, Putting People First, and Alliance for America. The Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise was handed a literally golden opportunity with the advent of land-use planning laws like the Growth Management Act.

The key to the development industry's agenda and a mainstay issue for many of the property rights groups that the industry created is the issue of "takings." The phrase has all sorts of resonances, since it implies expropriation. Many of the Wise Use participants share the right-wing belief that rights are a dispensation granted by the
powerful. This is most clearly seen in the oft-repeated catch-phrase, "they are taking our rights." The takings issue was first set forth by economist Richard Epstein. The use of the work "taking" comes from the Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which states in part, "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." Epstein argues that most regulatory actions are a "taking" and thus require compensation.

The notion of easy money from the government has great appeal. Chuck Cushman frequently leads crowds in chanting, "Compensation. Compensation. Compensation." The phrase "property rights" has become a codeword for the takings issue. The issues that property rights groups put forward often revolve around the issue of paying compensation to anyone who complies with a regulation under protest. The alternative to payment is to waive the regulation. This is actually the agenda for industry; they have found an argument by which the government must either pay the cost of regulatory compliance or forgo the regulation. In law, the practice is usually called extortion.

(http://www.publicgood.org/reports/wuinps/append1.htm)

So... while Querhn has been writing fear-mongering articles about "takings", he has also been, quite cynically, telling the Bellingham Herald: “The first thing I would ask them is to find anywhere in the public record where the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County has made any kind of suggestion that paving the county would be the appropriate thing to do,” he said. “You ain’t gonna find it.”

Well gee Bill... just because we "ain’t gonna find it" "in the public record" doesn't mean we ain't on to you.

Wise Words from Digby

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Wise words and penetrating analysis from Digby: "... the Republicans have managed to rebrand themselves from an epic screw-up party to a batshit crazy party ..."

Whatcom County Election - Mayors Endorsement?!?

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I was surprised that the small city mayors joined together to endorsed the (Republican recruited) conservative candidates.

So I decided to look a little deeper into the endorsement.

What my sources told me, was that the small city (Blaine, Ferndale, Lynden, Everson, Nooksack & Sumas) Mayors are mad about the Urban Growth Area (UGA) update process and decided to "send a message". The Mayors aren't so much in favor of the conservative county council candidates as they are angry at Carl Weimer, Laurie Caskey-Schreiber and Ken Mann.

I can appreciate that the small city Mayors have, what they see as, their city's interests to look out for, but as one of Whatcom County's rural residents who has no local government other than the County Government, I really don't appreciate them trying to swing the County Council race just because they didn't get their way on one issue.

The small city Mayors did not meet as a group and interview the conservative candidates. I was also told that the conservative candidates weren't seen as being up to speed on local issues. As a matter of fact, one of the Mayors admitted to having met only one of the conservative candidates, briefly, and not having been impressed, that candidate was described as "well meaning, but..."

Net Neutrality Could Be In Danger

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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has introduced something called the “Internet Freedom Act.” The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from enacting Net Neutrality rules to making sure that Internet service providers don’t create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications.

Telecoms largely support blocking net neutrality rules, and McCain is a long-time friend of these businesses. McCain was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the telecom industry, taking in $894,379 in the past two years.

"Whenever there's a fight on the Internet, it's always good to side with the geeks who built the Internet, rather than the fat-cat telecom lobbyists."

Rachel Maddow has the details:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Public Option Is The Compromise

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Darcy Burner on ABC News Now's TopLine: "If [Obama] wants the bill to pass, it's going to have to include a public option.

Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (http://boldprogressives.org/home.html)

Rethink Afghanistan

I just saw the film Rethink Afghanistan with a small group of other humans. There is absolutely nothing to be accomplished there with more military engagement. I am unclear what our military occupation has ever been about. Only a humanitarian mission could improve anything for the humans in Afghanistan. I guess you could make a case for an international law enforcement mission if it was the instigator of 911 you wanted. Hard to make that case in light of the fact that Osama was offered and our government refused him.

We should immediately cease funding the military industrial complex. I was horrified at the inhumanity we are visiting on the humans in this part of the world. Only when begin to show concern for the humans who live where earth’s natural resources and the routes to bring them to us are located, will we give the humans everywhere a chance to continue life on earth. This is the legacy I hope to leave for those who come after. If we don’t learn how to life within our means, no one, including our children and grandchildren, will enjoy life on earth. Considering that we are 4% of the world’s population, using 25% of the planet’s resources, we have an opportunity to really make a difference.

If we stop using earth’s dwindling resources to fight over earth’s dwindling resources and build infrastructure we can pass on the legacy of a good life on earth. The humans in Afghanistan want the same things as we do. They love their families just like we do. The images in this movie are heartbreaking. And the fact that my tax money is funding this congressional military industrial complex adventure is abhorrent.

thank you, Rebekah, our Bellingham Code Pink , for showing this film.

sign to demand civilian solutions for Afghanistan here


I include this 10 minute segment from the film that addresses the plight of women in Afghanistan. If you watched corporate media during our occupation you would believe the myth that freedom is on the march and women are enjoying their lives as never before.

Bombs will kill women in Afghanistan
Posted by robertgreenwald on July 8th, 2009
Self immolation is a method of suicide by lighting oneself on fire. According to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, self immolation has never been such an epidemic in Afghanistan as it is today. This is one fact that leads people to the sobering reality that our efforts in Afghanistan have done nothing for the vast majority of women there.




full post here

Vote Yes - Whatcom library proposition 1

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Some details about the Whatcom Library levy on the November 2009 ballot. For more info please visit www.yeslibraries.com

Whatcom County Elections - Have You Noticed - #2

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Have you noticed the Letters To The Editor, supporting the "conservative" candidates, from people in the land development business who want to "take back our county"?

I didn't know the county belonged to the Realtors & Building Industry associations, did you?

Whatcom County Elections - Have You Noticed - #1

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Have you noticed that all the "conservative" candidates yard signs seem to be planted on the public right-of-way in front of vacant property?

Sanders Unfiltered

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Senator Sanders makes a lot of sense... and every time he talks, you can hear the ditto-heads exploding in the background.

Senator Sanders and Michael Moore

Get weekly Sanders Unfiltered delivered to you on Facebook, email, Twitter, or podcast. Go to SandersUnfiltered.com http://sandersunfiltered.com/ And, be part of Senator Sanders weekly show. Submit your video question using YouTube, then post it as a video response!

"We need Democrats with guts."

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Rep. Alan Grayson discusses the Republican health care plan and GOP charges about him with Ed Schultz on Oct 1, 2009.

If you're impressed with his guts, throw in a few bucks to support Alan Grayson's campaign for re-election in 2010. It's a good way to let him and other Congressional Democrats know that standing up for progressive values pays off.