.Barack Obama

By David Swanson

Remarks at the Rutherford Institute, June 16, 2010
Video of these remarks and the following Q&A posted at
http://afterdowningstreet.org/rutherford

I want to save most of the time we have for your questions, so I'll be brief and I'll start with a couple of questions for you. And then I want you to think of questions for me, because otherwise I'll just go on and on about what I want to talk about.

Who can tell me who said this and where they said it?
"I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation." -- President Barack Obama, asserting the illegal and unconstitutional power to make war, in a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway.

What about this one -- who and where?

By David Swanson

So, we elected a president who promised a withdrawal from Iraq that he, or the generals who tell him what to do, is now further delaying. And, of course, the timetable he's now delaying was already a far cry from what he had promised as a candidate.

What are we to think? That may be sad news, but what could we have done differently? Surely it would have been worse to elect a president who did not promise to withdraw, right?

Facing reality is a tough job but somebody's got to do it. And we foretell for you the events of the future NOT because we want them to happen, but to get you to act to keep them from happening. But to do that you need an action page, so here it is.

Put The Public Option Up For A Vote: www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1038.php

And now we will explain why this action page is so critical. To understand the current political dynamic, first you must understand that the Democrats are PLANNING on losing the next couple election cycles. UNTIL you understand that, the events to unfold in the next couple years (unless you act to derail them) will make no sense to you.

By David Swanson

Add Congressman Bill Delahunt to the list of misrepresentatives who claim to oppose wars when a Republican is president but agree to support them when a Democrat moves into the White House.

When Bush was president, Delahunt sometimes voted for war funding bills and sometimes voted against them. The inclusion in the bills of lipstick measures, such as relief for hurricane victims, etc., was not a decisive factor. Delahunt appears to have voted No when the Democratic leadership was most accepting of that action. But, with all the Republicans voting Yes, there was never a chance of a No vote actually helping to block funding.

By David Swanson

Several years ago we started a community garden where I live.  We worked at it quite energetically.  We got more and more people involved.  Much of the hardest work involved digging irrigation ditches to bring water to the soil.

We made progress slowly.  We brought water to little corners of the garden.  But the work was exhausting, and some people burned out and needed to take a break.  Usually they'd be back within a year and working shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of us again.

The work was hard but extremely enjoyable.  The camaraderie of it was a benefit whether or not the garden was yet prospering.  It was very properly called a community garden.