By David Swanson

I had to read a lot of books about the current war and occupation in Iraq before I found one that's laugh out-loud hilarious. It's a book about a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, a journal kept for a 10-month tour of duty by an operating room medic. The story never leaves the hospital, and it focuses in large part on the relationships among the characters working there, including pranks and hijinks aplenty. One almost inevitably thinks of MASH and its fictional Army hospital in Korea, but there are major differences.

The basic similarity between MASH and this brilliant new book, "Mass Casualties" by Michael Anthony, is disturbing to consider. These are two episodes from different corners of an empire of bases, wars, and occupations spanning multiple generations and continents. Unless the United States shuts down its empire or is forced to do so, similar accounts will be possible in endless times and places for years to come.

By Dave Lindorff

If you are sitting in class taking a test, and you’ve chosen to sit
amongst your bone-headed, slacker friends, don’t turn to them for help
when you can’t figure out of any of the answers. They may all tell you
the same thing, but they’ll all be wrong.

http://www.indiegogo.com/bush

http://www.prosecutionofbushmovie.com

Meet Vince Bugliosi at this event:

David Swanson: "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union"

Los Angeles, CA

November 23, 2009

At St. Bede's Church in Mar Vista at 7:30 p.m.

3590 Grand View Blvd., LA 90066 (Mar Vista)

Sponsored by:
CODEPINK: Women for Peace
Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles
Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains
Westside Progressives
Winograd for Congress

CONTACT THE EVENT ORGANIZERS:

Ilene Proctor
proctor at anet dot net

Marcy Winograd
Winograd4congress at gmail dot com

By David Swanson

"If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. It's that simple. We need to stand up to the business lobby and pass the Employee Free Choice Act. That's why I've been fighting for it in the Senate and that's why I'll make it the law of the land when I'm president of the United States." --Barack Obama

Nobody is making it the law of the land. Nobody is fighting for it. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has drifted down to the bottom of the AFL-CIO's website, buried beneath good economic proposals which, however, do nothing to build a labor movement. EFCA is not to be found anywhere on the front page of Change to Win's website at all. The media's not smearing EFCA with U.S. Chamber of Commerce lies anymore. Congress and the White House are silent. Any escalation of pressure on senators from union members has never materialized, the polite letter-writing campaigns having drifted away rather than ramping up into pickets or sit-ins.

By David Swanson

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the corporate "mainstream" media make quite a pair. We're hearing a very "balanced" debate over whether KSM should be tried in New York City, and whether the most insane objections to that proposal are really insane or not. But what are we not hearing?

We're not hearing that trying criminals for the crime of 9-11 ought to have been what we did years ago, rather than waging wars in response to a crime. We're not discussing the possibility that had alleged 9-11 criminals been tried years ago rather than being imprisoned and tortured together with hundreds of innocents depicted as subhuman monsters, the "war on terror" might have been replaced with simply the wars on Iraqis and Afghans and Pakistanis. What effect might that have had on Americans' willingness to surrender their Bill of Rights? We aren't hearing about that.

By Dave Lindorff

President Obama, in his visit to China, held a “town meeting” with
Chinese students in which he praised openness and lectured them on the
value of freedom of information, saying that he is a “supporter of
non-censorship” and that open access to information was a “source of
strength.”

And yet America is hardly free of censorship. Heck, the president
himself has gone to court to prevent the release of photographs of US
troops torturing captives in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo. Talk
about censorship! But it goes way beyond just such crude, totalitarian
style control over information.

C-Span's Book TV, which can be watched on cable television on C-Span 2 or online at http://www.booktv.org plans to air a book event they recorded when I was in Miami, Florida.

Here's more info.

They'd told me they would run about 90 minutes, and so that was -- I think -- about what I did, including opening remarks and questions and answers. But their website says they're showing 1 hr and 7 min, which makes me suspect that they cut something out, most likely some of the Q&A. That's unfortunate.

I expect it to be a good show, in any case, and remember it as a good event. Please tell everyone to watch, record it, spread the word. Thanks!

Here's more about the book: "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union."

By David Swanson

I have not approved of much my congressional representative has done. He votes for war funding. He votes for bailouts for both "bankers" and the sickness industry (aka health insurance "reform"). Like any member of the Democratic Party he does what the party that funds him tells him to do.

But he is 100% correct to denounce as part of a very disturbing trend the announced plans of his craziest critics to burn him in effigy. Symbolizing violence and threatening violence contribute nothing to any discussion. Instead, these tactics degrade, intimidate, anger, and coarsen our politics. They also drown out legitimate criticism, so that the only positions possible are demonization or defense of a person rather than analysis of his actions.

Here's a campaign I support that seeks to expose and discourage this trend before it goes any further: http://stopdomesticterror.com

David Swanson Book Event: "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union"

New York City - December 1, 7:00 p.m.

With Mark Crispin Miller.
AND With John Nichols, author of the Foreword to "Daybreak".

At McNally Jackson books.
52 Prince St.
(b/t Lafayette & Mulberry)
New York, NY 10012
212-274-1160

By David Swanson

The last time I was on Laura Flanders's GRIT tv I argued that the American public opposed the occupation of Afghanistan, but another guest -- some Washington, D.C., "progressive" -- argued that this had no relevance, since the American public didn't know anything about Afghanistan.

When the RAND Corporation held a forum on Afghanistan recently on Capitol Hill, Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed that it was uncontroversial that US troops had to stay in Afghanistan. I pointed him to polls of Americans, and he replied that Americans get fatigued and don't know any better.

When I spoke to a philosophy department at a university this month, a number of the professors objected to my advocacy of majority-rule on the grounds that experts often know best.

This is the latest from Bruce Gagnon's cable TV show, which is shown all across the state of Maine, and which you can ask to have shown in your part of the country.

Watch Video.

(It's way better quality than the internet requires, so please be very patient for it to start. Then ask your local cable station to play it.)

Here's the source with more information. And we expect smaller versions to be posted there soon for those of you not working at super computers.

By David Swanson

If you have an interest in grassroots organizing, international alliance building, the peace movement, the labor movement, the conversion of the U.S. economy from weapons to human needs, the preservation of life on earth (come on, admit it), the weaponization of space, or the autobiographical insights of smart and determined people, then I cannot more strongly recommend that you get a copy of "Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire," by my friend and ally Bruce Gagnon.

By David Swanson

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has 82 members, 81 in the House and 1 in the Senate, but has taken the anti-progressive onslaught of recent years lying down. The CPC can be counted on to say some pleasant things, but in the end 1 or 2 or 8 or 14 of its members will vote a progressive position. Almost never will the CPC attempt to organize its members to all take a stand. When it did organize 90 members to sign a letter to President Bush "opposing" war funding, virtually all of them turned around and voted for the funding.

By David Swanson

Mark Manning, who created the amazing film "Road to Fallujah," sent me information on a new project that should be of interest to peace activists and college students, which sadly are two groups of people without enough overlap. It involves setting up events on college campuses that will include live video-conferencing with Iraqi college students, as well as screenings of Manning's film. Find out more here:
http://www.globalaccessmedia.org

"The goal of the tour," Manning says, "is to connect the next generation of leaders of the United States and Iraq, and help them build lasting relationships into the future.

"From my time of living with the civilians of Fallujah, Iraq, I have been motivated by the desire to make a connection possible between the people from differing cultures and on opposing sides of conflict."