SIRATYST (Stuff I Read and Thought You Should Too) -- “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” (Calgacus, as quoted by Tacitus, Agricola 30-31)"
Picture courtesy to the Christian Science Monitor from Machsom Watch.“Imagine if we had a president [referring to Hugo Chavez] who said 'no’ to McDonald’s, 'no’ to Microsoft, 'no’ to Exxon, Haliburton and Bechtel”, Millard said. “If he said 'yes’ to people, 'yes’ to poor people, 'yes’ to homeless people ... where would that leave our society in the US? ...
“As long as the US is a military superpower, the world is going in the wrong direction. But the hope of Venezuela is that the people from the grassroots level can oppose all that. If they can do it here, then we can do it in the USA.”
Millard also talked about the way the U.S. has used and then dispensed with its veterans:A 2004 United Press International article revealed that, as of July that year, almost 28,000 Iraq veterans had sought health care from Veterans Affairs. “One out of every five was diagnosed with a mental disorder, according to the VA”, UPI reported.
“We have spent US$440 billion on a war on Iraq to brutalise and destroy our own people at the same time. They are closing down hospitals and overworking the staff, both nurses and doctors, and are denying PTSD claims”, Millard said.
"Democrats could go to town on this issue. As Paulson makes his round of Senate courtesy calls, they should press him to oppose estate-tax repeal."
"However, several Senate Democrats are wobbly on this issue. Max Baucus, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, is said to be negotiating with his Republican counterparts to enact the ``compromise."
"Baucus, from Montana, inherited an 80,000-acre sheep ranch, one of the biggest in his state. He invokes the plight of family farmers, whose inherited homesteads are supposedly threatened by estate taxes. Yet the conservative American Farm Bureau Federation could not identify a single farm that had to be sold to pay taxes, even under current rates."
"Republicans are confident that at least three other Democrats would follow Baucus's lead --Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Bill Nelson of Florida. Several other Democrats are still undecided on whether to hand the wealthiest one percent of Americans an even bigger break, at cost to fiscal solvency. The Republicans, with 55 senators, need at least five Democrats to help them get cloture on this vote."
"The other shaky Democrats include Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington state. Cantwell was a well-off high-tech executive. Murray got elected as an ordinary mom ``in tennis shoes" who spoke for the common citizen. From 2001 to 2003, she chaired the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, courting wealthy donors."
"Who exactly needs Cantwell and Murray to support another huge tax cut for the wealthiest? Their own families? Campaign contributors?"
"Three other wavering Democrats are Ken Salazar of Colorado, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. These ``red" states are conservative on social issues, but what does their average citizen gain from estate-tax repeal?"
"Where does Mary Landrieu think the money will come for Louisiana's flood defenses if Congress keeps gutting the tax code? The average Arkansan can only dream of worrying about the estate tax, but lead promoters of repeal are the Arkansas-based Walton family billionaires of
He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.
And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.
Scene of another war crime.
