Progressive Democrats Sonoma County

By Norman Solomon
July 9, 2009

The president has set a limit on the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. For now.

That’s how escalation works. Ceilings become floors. Gradually.

A few times since last fall, the Obama team has floated rising numbers for how many additional U.S. soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan. Now, deployment of 21,000 more is a done deal, with a new total cap of 68,000 U.S. troops in that country.

But “escalation” isn’t mere jargon. And it doesn’t just refer to what’s happening outside the United States.

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IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 2009
The unanimous Declaration of the fifty united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a gang of lawless thugs and insist on the appointment of a special prosecutor to enforce the laws of the land even against those until recently holding the reins of Power, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Prosecution.

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Published on Sunday, June 28, 2009 by Empire Report

On the evening of June 25th, 2009, noted thinker, activist, local organizer and author Norman Solomon gave a presentation to the World Affairs Council of Sonoma County. Asked what his message to young generations might be, Norman gave this answer:

Click here to watch the video

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Thursday, June 25 – 7:30 p.m., Spring Lake Village auditorium, 5555 Montgomery Dr., Santa Rosa.

From Sonoma County to Afghanistan: the Costs of War. Norman Soloman, syndicated columnist.

We often speak of “foreign policy” and “the economy,” but the separations between the two have narrowed — sometimes to the vanishing point. For instance, more than a year ago, the amount of money that taxpayers in Sonoma County have sent to the IRS for the Iraq war passed the $1 billion mark. Nationally, more than 40 percent of federal tax dollars go to military spending. What do such priorities mean for our communities, our country and the world?

By Norman Solomon
Guernica Blog
June 8, 2009

It takes at least tacit faith in massive violence to believe that after three decades of horrendous violence in Afghanistan, upping the violence there will improve the situation.

Despite the pronouncements from high Washington places that the problems of Afghanistan can’t be solved by military means, 90 percent of the spending for Afghanistan in the Obama administration’s current supplemental bill is military.

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By Russell Mokhiber
Sunday, June 14, 2009

Nick Skala was in a bit of shock.

In early June, he was invited to speak before the Progressive Caucus of the House of Representatives about single payer health care.

There are about 71 members of the House who belong to the Progressive Caucus — about a third of the Democratic Caucus.

Skala is a true believer in single payer — having spent four years with Physicians for a National Health Program.

By Norman Solomon
June 8, 2009

Take Action: Tell Congress We want Healthcare NOT Warfare

It takes at least tacit faith in massive violence to believe that after three decades of horrendous violence in Afghanistan, upping the violence there will improve the situation.

Despite the pronouncements from high Washington places that the problems of Afghanistan can’t be solved by military means, 90 percent of the spending for Afghanistan in the Obama administration’s current supplemental bill is military.

Often it seems that lofty words about war hopes are boilerplate efforts to make us feel better about an endless warfare state. Oratory and punditry laud the Pentagon’s fallen as noble victims of war, while enveloping its other victims in a haze of ambiguity or virtual nonexistence.

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SIGN THE PETITION!

by Tom Hayden
The Nation.com – May 26, 2009

The most powerful grassroots organization of the peace
movement, MoveOn, remains silent as the American wars
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan simmer or escalate.

Watch C-SPAN’s Soldiers’ Stories, coverage of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. One of those testifying, Col. Andrew Bacevich (Ret.) eloquently recalled how John Kerry, then a youthful, highly decorated military veteran, asked a famous question: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? Listen to Kerry’s poignant, passionate anti-war speech from 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the committee he now chairs.

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Norman Solomon
May 21, 2009

To understand what’s up with President Obama as he escalates the war in Afghanistan, there may be no better place to look than a book published 25 years ago. “The March of Folly,” by historian Barbara Tuchman, is a chilling assessment of how very smart people in power can do very stupid things—how a war effort, ordered from on high, goes from tic to repetition compulsion to obsession—and how we, with undue deference and lethal restraint, pay our respects to the dominant moral torpor to such an extent that mass slaughter becomes normalized in our names.

What happens among policymakers is a “process of self-hypnosis,” Tuchman writes. After recounting examples from the Trojan War to the British moves against rebellious American colonists, she devotes the closing chapters of “The March of Folly” to the long arc of the U.S. war in Vietnam. The parallels with the current escalation of the war in Afghanistan are more than uncanny; they speak of deeply rooted patterns.

By Mimi Kennedy

For activists and organizers, cyberspace often functions as the meeting place, a place of deep community. We meet—and come to know, cherish, admire, help and love one another—in this virtual realm. We learn names and written voices from e-mail; sometimes we hear each other’s physical voices on conferences calls.

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By Norman Solomon
April 22, 2009

As President Obama enters his fourth month in office, two tendencies among progressive-minded Americans seem most hazardous to the political health of the country. The gist of one approach is that Obama can’t do anything seriously wrong; the other is that he can’t do anything seriously right.

By David Swanson
April 21, 2009

We’ve pushed long and hard to put accountability, impeachment, prosecution, and the restoration of congressional power on the American table, and they’ve all just landed with a thud and splatter of gravy and cranberry dressing. So, eat up, take heart, and prepare to work harder than we have over the past several frustrating years of path breaking and pressure building.

Impeachment, specifically of torture memo author turned lifetime federal judge Jay Bybee ( http://impeachbybee.org ), is now supported by all the organizations that have backed impeachment of his bosses, plus: the New York Times, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Jerrold Nadler, Common Cause, Think Progress, and the Courage Campaign [and UPDATE: People for the American Way]. Local Democratic parties in California have passed resolutions and are urging the state party to do so this week requesting the impeachment of Bybee.

By Norman Solomon
April 9, 2009

A headline in the New York Times announced a few days ago: “Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory.” This news ran above the fold on the front page.

“Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain,” the article began. Readers quickly learned that it’s starting to happen: “Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory…”

Big deal.

American media outlets have been pulling off such feats for a long time.

By David Swanson
April 6, 2009

One member of Congress stood alone 7.5 years ago against the original authorization to attack Afghanistan. And one member of Congress, a different one, stood alone last week against funding a massive escalation of that war.

On September 14th, 2001, Congresswoman Barbara Lee spoke, in tears, on the floor of the House of Representatives. She, alone, would vote No on letting the president decide on going to war in Afghanistan. She, alone, would refuse to authorize the president to use powers the Constitution does not give him, and trust him to use those powers wisely. .....

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By Norman Solomon
The Bohemian
January 14, 2009

The mosaic of Barack Obama’s cabinet picks and top White House staff now gives us an overview of what the president-elect sees as political symmetry for his administration. While it may be too early to gauge specific policies of the Obama presidency, it’s not too soon to understand that “triangulation” is back.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton was adept at placing himself midway between the base of his own party and Republican leaders. As he triangulated from the Oval Office—often polarizing with liberal Democrats on such issues as free trade, deregulation, welfare reform and military spending—Clinton did well for himself. But not for his party.

During Clinton’s presidency, with his repeated accommodations to corporate agendas, the progressive base became frustrated and demobilized. Democrats lost majorities in the House and Senate after just two years and didn’t get them back. Along Pennsylvania Avenue, numerous liberal causes fell by the wayside, victims of a Democratic president’s too-clever-by-half triangulation.

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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Friends,

Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.

In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea. The racists were present throughout the campaign and in the voting booth. But they are no longer the majority, and we will see their flame of hate fizzle out in our lifetime.

There was another important “first” last night. Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war. I hope President-elect Obama remembers that as he considers expanding the war in Afghanistan. The faith we now have will be lost if he forgets the main issue on which he beat his fellow Dems in the primaries and then a great war hero in the general election: The people of America are tired of war. Sick and tired. And their voice was loud and clear yesterday.

It’s been an inexcusable 44 years since a Democrat running for president has received even just 51% of the vote. That’s because most Americans haven’t really liked the Democrats. They see them as rarely having the guts to get the job done or stand up for the working people they say they support. Well, here’s their chance. It has been handed to them, via the voting public, in the form of a man who is not a party hack, not a set-for-life Beltway bureaucrat. Will he now become one of them, or will he force them to be more like him? We pray for the latter.

But today we celebrate this triumph of decency over personal attack, of peace over war, of intelligence over a belief that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs just 6,000 years ago. What will it be like to have a smart president? Science, banished for eight years, will return. Imagine supporting our country’s greatest minds as they seek to cure illness, discover new forms of energy, and work to save the planet. I know, pinch me.

We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in 1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles. All week long I have been inundated with media asking me, “gee, Mike, what will you do now that Bush is gone?” Are they kidding? What will it be like to work and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want to be? Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We’ve entered a new era, and if I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is this: Anything Is Possible.

An African American has been elected President of the United States! Anything is possible! We can wrestle our economy out of the hands of the reckless rich and return it to the people. Anything is possible! Every citizen can be guaranteed health care. Anything is possible! We can stop melting the polar ice caps. Anything is possible! Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice. Anything is possible.

We really don’t have much time. There is big work to do. But this is the week for all of us to revel in this great moment. Be humble about it. Do not treat the Republicans in your life the way they have treated you the past eight years. Show them the grace and goodness that Barack Obama exuded throughout the campaign. Though called every name in the book, he refused to lower himself to the gutter and sling the mud back. Can we follow his example? I know, it will be hard.

I want to thank everyone who gave of their time and resources to make this victory happen. It’s been a long road, and huge damage has been done to this great country, not to mention to many of you who have lost your jobs, gone bankrupt from medical bills, or suffered through a loved one being shipped off to Iraq. We will now work to repair this damage, and it won’t be easy.

But what a way to start! Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Wow. Seriously, wow.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com

~ via Michael Moore’s e-mail list

by David Swanson
AfterDowningStreet.org
October 28, 2008

When a Congress member steps forward and courageously articulates a forbidden truth that is absolutely necessary for our survival and well-being (and by “our” I mean our species, not just our nation), he must be praised, rewarded, and defended at all costs, without question or hesitation. This is the situation we are in with Congressman Barney Frank having just blurted out the obvious but taboo fact that the U.S. military budget must be cut. “If we are going to get the deficit under control without slashing every domestic program, this is a necessity,” Frank said, proposing to cut military spending by 25 percent. ...

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By Norman Solomon, Co-Chair, PDA Helathcare NOT Warfare Campaign
September 24, 2008

These times provide a crash course on the corporate state:

If a company like AIG is too big to fail, the government will rescue it. Mere people—too small to matter—are expendable.

The insurance industry is too big to fail. A person’s health is too small to matter, so—when it fails due to the absence or loopholes of insurance coverage—that’s tough luck.

The Defense Department is too big to fail. The people it’s killing in Iraq and Afghanistan are too small to matter. ....

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