Monthly GN video

Our Global Network social media coordinator Will Griffin does a monthly video for the organization.

Here is his latest contribution.

The link between the Pentagon and climate crisis.

A subject that does not get enough attention.

Since 2001, the US military emitted over 1.2 billion metric tons of greenshouse gases into the atmosphere. 400 million metric tons of that figure is directly related to the wars.

Sunday song

Pu'uanuhulu from Makana on Vimeo.

Signature gathering for Lisa picking up across Maine

Lisa Savage and Kelly Merrill today in Portland, along with other volunteers, gathered many signatures to get Lisa on the ballot for her U.S. Senate run.

Mary Beth and I went to nearby Bath today to gather signatures and in five hours of door-to-door work we got 17 members of the Maine Green Independent Party to give their permission for Lisa Savage to be on the ballot. It was our best personal day ever.  It takes alot of work to find people at home - once you find them they are usually quite willing to sign.  Only registered members of the Maine Green Independent Party can sign Lisa's ballot access petition.

Lisa was down in the Portland area today helping volunteers from that part of the state who were joined by several Green Party members who came up from Connecticut to help out.

In all I'm told the campaign pulled in 100 signatures which puts our total at about 600 in our quest for the 2,000 that it will take to gain ballot access in the November election.

Yesterday five of us went to the University of Maine-Orono where we spent the day talking with students and gathering signatures.  So its been a busy couple of days.

Lisa unwinding with Green party members from Connecticut who came to Maine to help

We've really got to turn up the heat in February so today was a good start for what will be an intense month of activity.

Lisa will be doing house meetings near Belfast and Norway in the coming days.  In addition Saturday, February 15 has been set as a big signature collection day in Belfast which Lisa will be attending.  We are organizing to get a sizeable group in Belfast on that day in the hope we can cover most of the doors in that town all at once.

In addition plans are underway for Lisa to visit Bowdoin College (her Alma mater), University of Maine-Orono, Unity College, University of Maine-Farmington, and University of Southern Maine to do all-day tabling and speaking to students during the coming weeks.

In addition Lisa will be hitting the streets of downtown Portland several times in the coming month during Art Walk evenings and other special times.

Lisa and her team can't be criticized for being lazy as they are working from one end of the state to the other to make this run for the U.S. Senate possible. It's a Ranked Choice Voting election against Republican Sen. Susan Collins which means there will be no 'spoiler' in the race.

We have been seeing a steady flow of disillusioned Democrats signing up as Green Independents so they can sign for Lisa.  Democrats have until February 11 to switch to Green if they want to help Lisa get on the ballot.

Anyone in Maine who wishes to support Lisa can go to her web site and sign up and the campaign will contact you about how to sign her qualifying petition.  The web site link is here.

Bruce 

Latest space issues interview

Listen to "Saying NO to the militarization of space" on Spreaker.

Karl Grossman & Bruce Gagnon's latest weekly interview on space issues on Loud & Clear.

Elections: Keep digging or try something new?

DNC Chair Tom Perez is stacking party committees to sideline Bernie Sanders and to push a corporate agenda that kills progressive ideas and campaigns.

The DNC is setting things up to make a sweep at their summer convention to ensure corporate domination of the party.

Nothing new here but consider the frustration & resignation of those who have wasted another election cycle chasing the elusive Democratic nomination.

Who comes to mind?  Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Marianne Williamson and many more.  Have they changed the party?  Made it more progressive?

Imagine how all the money poured into those campaigns could have funded a well-organized national political party that could have stood for the very issues we all support?  And attracted a new generation of voters.

Should we keep digging the same hole or try something new?

Bruce 

Russia bashing is 'good politics' in America.....

Pushback with Aaron Maté

At the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, chief Democratic prosecutor Adam Schiff has claimed that the US is arming Ukraine "so that we can fight Russia over there so we don’t have to fight Russia here" and called Russia a "wounded, dangerous animal."

During his presentation Rep. Schiff (D-CA) states that 15,000 people have been killed during the Ukrainian civil war that has largely been orchestrated by the US and NATO.  He strong infers that Russia killed those people.  In fact the vast majority of the victims are Ukrainian Russian-speaking citizens living in the Donbass (eastern Ukraine along the Russian border) who have been killed by the US supported Ukrainian army and Nazi death squads.

This is just one more glaring example of the corruption of the Democratic Party leadership.  It escapes me how so many American voters are tripping over themselves to sign up to vote for that party in the coming election.  The Democrats (especially people like Schiff) are doing more to create the possibility of nuclear war with Russia and China than I have ever seen in my life.

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, says that Schiff's rhetoric is "ignorant and debased."

Bruce (parts reprinted from The Grayzone)

U.S. demands Iraq join war against Iran or be destroyed

by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog

U.S. officials have now made clear that if U.S. forces become removed from Iraq as Iraq’s Parliament unanimously demanded and Iraq’s Prime Minister affirmed on January 5th, then the U.S. will try to break Iraq up into separate Sunni and Shia nations, and will also definitely impose sanctions against Iraq or (if Iraq becomes successfully broken up) against the Shia-governed portion of Iraq, in order to destroy Iraq (or the Shiite regions in Iraq) totally.

The U.S. is determined to separate both Lebanon and Syria (both of which are supported by Shia Iran) from Iran so that Iran will become internationally isolated unless and until Iran again becomes controlled by the U.S. Government as it was during the period from 1953 when U.S. imposed the Shah’s dictatorship there, till 1979, when Iranians finally took back control over their country and kicked out the U.S.-and-allied foreign oil companies.

By far the best international journalism about the situation today regarding Iraq has come from the Middle East Eye, which headlined on January 23rd, “US seeking to carve out Sunni state as its influence in Iraq wanes”, and sub-headed, “With Shia parties pressuring American troops to leave, Washington wants to create an autonomous region around Anbar to maintain its presence.” Their reporter in Baghdad, Suadad al-Salhy, stated that,

Backed into a corner and influence waning, the United States has in recent weeks been promoting a plan to create an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, officials from both countries told Middle East Eye.

The US efforts, the officials say, come in response to Shia Iraqi parties’ attempts to expel American troops from their country.

Iraq represents a strategic land bridge between Iran and its allies in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.

Establishing a US-controlled Sunni buffer zone in western Iraq would deprive Iran of using land routes into Syria and prevent it from reaching the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.

For Washington, the idea of carving out a Sunni region dates back to a 2007 proposition by Joe Biden, who is now vying to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. …

“The creation of a Sunni region has always been an option for the US. The Iranians cannot be allowed to reach the Mediterranean Sea or benefit from the land bridge connecting them to Hezbollah” in Lebanon, the former US official told MEE.

“The project is American, not Sunni. The presence of the American forces has been the guarantor for the Sunnis and the Kurds, so if the US has to leave Iraq, then establishing a Sunni region in western Iraq is its plan to curb Iran and its arms in the Middle East,” he added.

“We are talking about establishing a country, not an administrative region.” …

The Arab Gulf states allied to US, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, support and finance this project, Sunni and Shia leaders and officials told MEE.

“Funding is in place, international pressure is in place, and the necessary military strength is in place to create this region,” a prominent Sunni leader familiar with the talks said.

“Neither Iran nor the Shia forces will be able to stand against the project because the US and Gulf states back it,” the leader added.

“A huge amount of money and investment offered by the Sunni states is at stake, and these will turn the Anbar desert into green oases and rebuild the destroyed areas in Mosul and Salah al-Din. Who will care about oil?”

This is a war by U.S., Saudi Arabia, the other Arab oil monarchies, and Israel, against Iran, and it will become also a U.S.-v.-Russia war unless Russia complies with America’s demand to stay out, and not to defend Iran.

Anbar Province is one of two places where the fanatical Sunni ISIS was located in Iraq, the other being the city of Mosul directly to the north of Anbar. Both areas are so heavily Sunni so that in order for Iraq’s mainly Shiite government to become able to wage an effective war against ISIS in Iraq, it first had to convince Anbar’s residents that this would be something which would benefit all of Iraq and not only Shiites in Iraq. Fallujah and Ramadi, two cities where Iraq’s Government were especially trying to defeat ISIS   in 2014, are in Anbar Province. Until 2015, Iranian General Soleimani’s forces (all of them Shiites) were virtually the only effective forces trying to exterminate ISIS; and therefore, Iraq’s Government had to emphasize that killing ISIS was a patriotic, not a sectarian, matter.

On 17 September 2016 U.S. President Obama bombed Syria’s army in the heart of Syria’s oil-producing region, the city Deir Ezzor, for Syria’s ISIS to move in and take Syria’s oil. During October through December 2016, two of Syria’s main enemies, Obama, and Turkey’s leader Erdogan, established a system to reinforce ISIS in Deir Ezzor, by supplying them ISIS fighters fleeiing from Mosul in Iraq’s north. On 11 December 2016, I headlined “Obama & Erdogan Move ISIS from Iraq to Syria, to Weaken Assad”, and reported that the U.S. and Turkey were offering a deal to fighters for ISIS in Mosul, a way to stay alive but not in Iraq. They would relocate west into Syria, so as to assist the U.S. and its allies to overthrow, or at least seize territory from, Syria’s Government. America’s war against Syria used basically three proxy-forces as boots-on-the-ground: Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Kurds — all three being Sunnis. The Sauds provided most of the funding for it, because the goal was to place Syria under the control of the Sauds. And the U.S. sticks by that goal. No matter how much the people in Syria oppose it. It’s not only Trump who is obsessed with this goal; Obama was, though he wasn’t as obsessed with destroying Iran as Trump is.

On January 24th, Middle East Eye’s Washington reporter Ali Harb headlined “At what point do US troops in Iraq become an occupation force?” and he took the most literalist approach possible to this question, in which the obvious answer should be “as soon as we invaded and occupied the country on 20 March 2003.” He got an answer from the U.S. Government, saying that “diplomatic notes, which are not public, remain the legal basis for the presence of about 5,000 American soldiers in Iraq today” and that “the letters contain a provision that gives US forces one year to withdraw after they are formally asked by Baghdad to leave.”

So: if this U.S. Government, which has become infamous for violating its contracts (such as the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris Climate Agreement), alleges that it can stay in Iraq for another year and yet still remain within the bounds of those “diplomatic notes, which are not public” — and which a supplicant Iraqi Government had allegedly consented to in 2014 — then Iraq’s Government will need to wait until 5 January 2021 before accusing the U.S. Government of violating that secret and coerced “1-year cancellation clause.” And, if Iraq’s Government is, at that time, still insisting that U.S. terminate its occupation of Iraq, then, Joe Biden’s 2007 plan will start being implemented, to break Iraq into its Shiite Arab southeast (friendly toward Iran), Sunni Kurd northeast (backed by U.S.), and Sunni Arab southwestern desert half of Iraq’s expanse (hostile toward Iran).

There would be no more land-connection between Iran to Iraq’s east and Syria to Iraq’s west. For Iran, that would be like cutting off its two arms. Furthermore, Ali Harb noted that the Obama-Trump Administrations’ Pentagon official Brett McGurk said that “If the U.S. leaves Iraq, it means NATO, 20 western partners also leave.” McGurk was suggesting that Iraq without U.S. would become then again a U.S. enemy. The U.S. regime is determined to destroy, one by one, each country that tries to block U.S.-and-allied billionaires from taking them over.

What do we really know?

Michael Bloomberg was in Portland, Maine yesterday selling his multi-billion dollar campaign.

The media were giving him free media coverage and touting him as a 'centrist' who could unite the country.

If I had to predict at this point I'd say the Democrats will 'pick' Bloomberg as their presidential candidate and they will also choose Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) as the V-P.  Klobuchar is a corporate favorite who opposes Medicare for All and who is really bad on foreign policy.

So it could look like two New York city rich guys running against each other for president.  As I like to say the 'mob' against the 'mafia'.

We've been trained since we were in the crib to respond to the prompts from the corporate mind machine that uses every possible vehicle to turn us into consumers.  Consumers of products and also consumers of politics.  The corporate agenda leads us down the primrose path and tells us which candidates are acceptable and which are not.  All the while convincing us that we live in the 'greatest democracy in world history'!

Trump got a huge jump start from the media when he ran in 2016.  They essentially made him because the idea was to have him run against Hillary to ensure that she won.  She was so disliked by the public they needed someone hated even more than her and that is how we got Trump.  But then the disillusioned Democrats in the rust belt turned on their own party and voted for Trump because the Democrats in Washington did virtually nothing for them as millions of corporate industries moved jobs overseas.

If you make a study of it you will find that the media does in fact create the inevitable.  Read the mainstream media articles and see how they constantly use language that favors one candidate over the other.  Watch how they completely omit some candidates from their coverage (no mention of them, no photo of them, etc).  Watch how the media takes an unknown guy like Pete Butta-jig (a small city mayor with no national experience or constituency) and use words like 'strong 4th place in the polls' to create an impression that he is surging.  This is all mind manipulation.

They did the same thing in 1976 when they found an unknown peanut farmer and governor of Georgia and made Jimmy Carter president.  (Another guy with no national constituency.) They needed a 'fresh face' after the Vietnam War but his campaign was orchestrated by Zbigniew Brzezinski and his Wall Street boss David Rockefeller at the Trilateral Commission.

Brzezinski also bragged years later that he discovered Barack Obama when he was a student at Columbia University at a time when they were looking for ambitious people of color to develop as candidates whom the elite would control.  We all know how that one worked out in the end.  Hope and change.....Obama's campaign won an award for its great public relations gimmickry - the highest recognition one could ever wish for from Madison Avenue.

If we dare step outside of this corporate constructed electoral 'reality' even some of our own friends and associates on 'the left' will try to sheep dog us back into the corral by saying things like 'you are trying to make the perfect the enemy of the good'.

What that means to me is accept the imposed limitations from the start.  Accept that we will have to pick someone who will be a political 'half-stepper' because this is the best we can get under the circumstances. Leave your idealism and your vision at the door and step into the 'real world' of politics.

Sadly or not, I grew up on military bases attending schools run by the US military.  I was trained to be patriotic and to swallow the 'greatest democracy' pill.  Then when I was in the Air Force during the Vietnam War one day at lunch I was in the BX (base exchange store) and found a book on the rack entitled 'The Pentagon Papers'.  Reading this book changed my life as I learned how the media, the White House, Congress and the Pentagon all lied for years about the Vietnam War. (The same kind of lies that still sell us the war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.)

My problem is that I actually believe in the idea of democracy and I believe that each of us has the right (and the obligation) as citizens to strive to bring this vision of 'we the people' into focus.

I also believe in the idea of freedom - freedom of thought, of action, and when it comes to electoral strategies, freedom to choose your own course.  If that means supporting the Green Party then OK.  If it means supporting the Democrats then OK.  If it means not voting at all because you can't stand the process (and the pre-selected candidates) then that is OK as well.

The ultimate key is what one does the rest of the time when elections are not underway (although in America these days elections never seem to end).  We can't just think that voting is all one has to do to ensure 'democracy' works.  That is a very limited interpretation of citizenship.

So yeah let's debate which candidate is the 'best' and which party should be supported.  That should always be an acceptable topic for discussion.  But let's not declare that one party (Greens for example) is not to be considered because it might limit the ability of another party (the Democrats) to win.  That is a false construct as far as I am concerned.

Bruce

Vote for Democrats? Don't waste my time......

An open letter by Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert is being circulated calling on the Green Party not to run a candidate for president this year.

An excellent response was written, which I agree with, which you can find here.

I ain't voting for no corrupt, corporate Democrat if they get the nomination - Biden, Bloomberg, Butta-jig, Klobuchar, Warren, etc...

TWO new polls released today show Tulsi Gabbard's growing strength in New Hampshire, both counting as qualifying polls for the February debate.

One of these polls was conducted by CNN. Yes, that’s correct; CNN’s OWN polling qualifies Tulsi for the debate in the same week as denying her a place in an upcoming presidential town hall — showing Tulsi 1 point behind Amy Klobuchar, tied with Andrew Yang, and 3-5 points AHEAD of Tom Steyer and Deval Patrick who were both invited instead of Tulsi.

So the Democrats are already rigging their primary races with the assistance of the corporate media.

Why? It's quite simple - Tulsi dares call out the warmongers in her own party.  That is a deadly sin in American politics thus she must be demonized as a Putin-lover, etc......

Don't tell me I have to vote for this corrupt corporate party! Don't try to blame the Greens (or anyone else) for the enormous failures of the Democrats.

I am not going to spend my entire adult life working to stop endless war$ and then turn around and vote for a political party that is complicit up to their eye-brows in approving massive military spending and promoting these wars.

If you want to vote for the ultimate 'nominee' of the Democrats you go right ahead.  But don't tell me I have to do so.  It's none of your damn business who I vote for.  I'm a free man.

I fell for Jimmy Carter's line when he said "The arms race is a disgrace to the human race" and then he went ahead and built the Trident nuclear submarine base in Kings Bay, Georgia.  The last Democrat I voted for in a presidential election was Walter Mondale because he seemed like a nice man. (What does that actually mean?)  But I later regretted that decision once I learned more about his record in the Senate.

I lived in Florida during the Al Gore loss to George W. Bush.  I voted Green that year.  I was among those blamed for Gore losing.  But if there had been no Green on the ballot I'd have written in Joe Smooski.  I saw how in Florida the black vote was dramatically suppressed and didn't hear a mumbling word out of Gore's mouth in defense of those voters.  Never a word.  But I've been blamed countless times since 2000 for his loss.

Each time a corporate Democrat loses people like me get blamed.  In 2004 John Kerry lost to Bush and I, among others, got blamed.  I'll never forget Kerry in his debate with George W. Bush saying, "If elected I will spend $100 billion more on the military than President Bush will."  I was not going to vote for Kerry!

The fact is both Kerry and Bush went to Yale and were members of the elite Skull & Bones Club.  Both parties play good cop-bad cop and ensure the corrupt oligarchies win no matter what.

If you were paying attention you'd have noticed that the vast majority of the Democrats recently joined with the Republicans in Congress to pass the 2020 NDAA that gave the Pentagon even more money ($738 billion) than they requested.  Who says they never agree on anything?

I might be dumb but I'm not stupid.  I know how this game is played.  I've seen Democrats talk a good game for years about ending war$, doing something about climate change, dealing with poverty, fighting for health care and they never do.  I owe that corporate dominated party nothing.

So don't try to tell me who I should vote for - it's none of your damn business.  Sure I will argue the merits of one candidate or party verses another but on election day it is a personal choice.  It's the one time I get to say NO THANKS to those who pretend to stand with those who suffer but at the same time take campaign money from those causing the suffering.

My prediction is that the Democrats will screw Bernie Sanders this year the same way they did in 2016.  Already the media is demonizing him daily.  They've got their convention rigged so in the 2nd ballot the 'super delegates' swing back in to ensure an 'acceptable' corporate candidate gets the nomination.

Don't ask me to vote for that hack - the choice of the very corporations I've spent my life opposing.  Don't waste my time.

Bruce

From the streets of Portland, Maine

A veteran tells his story in a poem.  Very true, real and moving.

Sunday song

People of Iraq tell U.S. to go home

 

PressTV reports:

Iraqis rallied on January 24 in Baghdad in massive numbers to call for an end to US military presence in the country following high-profile assassinations and airstrikes targeting anti-terror forces.

Sayed Sadiq al-Hashemi, the director of the Iraqi Center for Studies, said more than 2.5 million took part in the demonstrations on Friday.

Since the early hours on Friday, huge crowds of men, women and children of all ages converged on the Jadriyah neighborhood near Baghdad University.

The protesters were seen carrying banners and chanting slogans calling for the expulsion of US forces.

"Get out, get out, occupier!" some shouted, while others chanted, "Yes to sovereignty!"

Iraq's al-Ahd news network reported that Iraqis from all of the country's provinces had gathered in the city.

On January 5, the Iraqi parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution calling for the expulsion of all foreign forces after the US assassination of Iran's General Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

The massive rally came after influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on Iraqis to stage "a million-strong, peaceful, unified demonstration to condemn the American presence and its violations".

Sadr issued a statement on Friday calling for US bases to be shut down and Iraqi airspace closed to US warplanes and surveillance aircraft.

He warned that US presence in the country will be dealt with as an occupying force if Washington does not agree with Iraqi demands to withdraw for the country.

American troops kick open a door to a home in Iraq

In a message delivered through a representative at Friday prayer in the holy city of Karbala, top cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani also urged Iraqi political groups to do what is needed to the safeguard the country's sovereignty.

He called on Iraqi groups to stand united, far from any foreign influence in countering the dangers which threaten the country.

On Thursday ahead of the planned rallies, Sadr called on Iraqis to mobilize and defend the country's independence and sovereignty.

"Oh women, men and youth of the country, the time is now upon us to defend the country, its sovereignty and dependence," Sadr said in a tweet.

"Spread the word of an independent future Iraq that will be ruled by the righteous; an Iraq which will not know of corruption nor aggression" he added, calling on Iraqis to expel the "tyrants".

Various Iraqi resistance groups affiliated with the country's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have also backed the anti-American rally.

‘Zero hour in face-off with US’

Speaking to the Lebanese al-Mayadeen television channel, Jaafar al-Husseini, a spokesman for the PMU-affiliated Kata'ib Hezbollah resistance group, said "other means" will be used against the Americans if they do not leave Iraq.

The American presence, he said, has led to corruption and instability in the country.

In an interview with Iran's Tasnim news agency, Firas al-Yasser, a member of the political bureau of Iraq's Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, said Friday's rallies marked "a new chapter" in the Arab country's relations with the US.

He said Iraqi resistance groups support the stance of the country's clerical leadership, which does not tolerate Washington's “theory of dependence and humiliation" of Iraq.

"We believe we have reached the zero hour in facing off with the US," he said.

Yasser added that Iran's missile attack on the Ain al-Assad base in the western Iraqi province of Anbar earlier this month was a "prelude" to the expulsion of US forces from the country.

Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, which is part of the PMU, described Friday's rallies as a "second revolution" a century after the Great Iraqi Revolution of 1920 against British forces.

Slipping on ice and sore as hell

This is not actually a photo of me but is quite similar to the way I landed on Tuesday - except for the 10-gallon plastic bucket filled with sand that I descended on when I hit the ground.

On Tuesday I went out to knock on doors in Brunswick with Steve Carpenter who was driving/navigating our way through this cold and ice filled town.

We got two early signatures of Maine Green Independents on the petition to help put Lisa Savage on the ballot in November.  After that we hit a patch of 'not home' and addresses where people had moved.  We had four more houses to visit when I had an accident on the back side of a house along Park Row in downtown Brunswick.

In Brunswick there are many large old houses that over the years have been converted into apartments.  Along Park Row many of them have been converted into offices but one place had a couple apartments on the back side.  Steve dropped me off and I went looking for the proper door to knock on.  Once I found it I discovered the occupant was not home and I began to descend from the stairs I had climbed in order to knock on the door.

Just as I was ready to walk back down the steps (4-5 steps) a man asked if he could help me.  I told him who I was looking for and he said I was in the right place.  A bit distracted I took my first step on the ice clogged top stair and went flying like superman onto the brick landing below.  Unfortunately for me a 10-gallon bucket with sand in it was in the middle of the landing and I hit it square on - my left side rib cage taking the brunt of the impact.  The bucket remained standing the entire time.

My clipboard and petition papers went flying into the air and I sat on the ground moaning and groaning in pain for some time.  The man (who turned out to be in charge of keeping the ice covered with sand) quickly got some sand and covered the patch I had slipped on - better late than never as they say.

Finally I got up and the man strangely didn't offer a word of concern or a helping hand to me.  Instead he began to tell me that his boss had recently had a similar accident (and was severely injured) in this same spot because he had failed to put sand on top of the ice.  I'm surprised the guy still has a job.

In addition to severe pain in my mid-section I scuffed up both knees as well.  I limped back to the car where Steve was waiting and we went to four more houses on our list.  Steve went to the doors in my place but we continued with our hard luck not finding anyone home.

I told Steve I thought I should go to the emergency room.  I asked him to take me home where our car was parked - MB had taken the bus to Portland that morning instead of driving to work.  But after hearing my tale and seeing my condition Steve insisted on driving me to the VA hospital (Togus) one hour away in Augusta.

So I spent five hours at Togus, first getting an x-ray which found no broken ribs but the doctor felt I likely had cracked one or more of them.  Then after complaining of a growing stomach ache the doctor determined that I needed a CAT scan to check if I had injured my spleen.  First though I had to drink a lemonade flavored jug of dye over the course of an hour.  Then we had to wait another hour or more for the spleen condition results which happily came back negative.

By this time I had sent Steve home and MB, once returning to Brunswick on the bus from work, jumped into our car and arrived at Togus just as I was released.

The nurse who cleaned up my knees, took blood tests, and cheered me up, told me I'd likely be pretty sore for the next several days.  That turned out to be the truth.  I'm having to sleep on my back and getting up from bed or a chair, and any bending over, is quite difficult.  Deep breaths are also quite painful.

Steve and I were to go out again today to knock on more doors but last night I called him and told him I was just too sore to go.  So he told me he'd go on his own which impressed me but caused some real feelings of sadness on my part.  We've been a good team.

I am hoping that on Saturday I can go out with MB (I'll do the driving and she will do the jumping in and out of the car and knocking on doors).  We've got a long way to go to hit our goal of 2,000 signatures of Green Independents across Maine.  This accident put a real crimp in my style.

The two mainstream political parties in Maine really make it hard for 3rd parties to get on the ballot.  Collecting signatures in the middle of the winter is a tough task.  It's amazing though that determined people across the state keep going out anyway, trying to give the voters in our state the opportunity to vote for the alternative voice of Lisa Savage who won't be bought and sold by the corporate money that runs the political system in this country.

Wish us all luck and safe door-knocking.

Bruce

PS Steve got 9 signatures on Friday on his own.  Good going buddy!

Jesse supporting Lisa

I just found out about @LisaForMaine, who's running as the @GreenPartyUS candidate against @SenatorCollins. With #RankedChoiceVoting, Lisa Savage can become Maine’s next US Senator. You can help Lisa say #ByeByeSusan by donating to her ballot fund today 👇 https://t.co/2tZzZpnseU

— Jesse Ventura (@GovJVentura) January 22, 2020

Former Minnesota independent governor Jesse Ventura is supporting Lisa Savage in her attempt to get on the ballot in Maine for the November US Senate race against Susan Collins.

Ventura has a TV show on RT and has been a long time anti-war activist.  He's also one of the leading experts in the nation on the JFK assassination.

Jesse is a former Navy Seal and turned against US wars during Vietnam.

He's a very outspoken man and sets a good example for all of us.

I've read several of his books and was impressed with his positions on the key issues of our time.

One of my favorite stories about Jesse was one I saw him tell on C-SPAN TV.  He had just been elected governor of Minnesota in 1999 and got a call from the CIA.  They asked him for a meeting and he said sure, where are you?  They replied, "We are in the basement of the Minnesota capital building."

He reported that when he went into the meeting they had one question - "How did you do it?"  Meaning, how did you escape our radar and get elected by beating the two corporate mainstream political parties?

Jesse came away thinking that the CIA (which is supposed to work outside the nation, not inside it) runs the country (the Deep State) and tries to control everything.  In the case of his win in Minnesota the CIA was not pleased that they were not on top of that one.

Just goes to show how things actually work in the US of A.

Bruce

Our sacred home

Viewed from space our Mother Earth has no border lines - no boundaries between nations and the people.  From space the people are all Earthlings.

But down here on terra firma it's another story.  We are divided by nation-state borders, by language, by religion and ethnicity - even by corporate brands.  Some people think they are better than others.  We kill one another.  We are destroying our tiny satellite home.

The question of loyalty comes to mind.....who should we be loyal to?  Country (an artificial construct), a president or a region?  Should we be loyal to a religion or a pope?  Should we be loyal to a corporation that pays our salary?  Should we be loyal to a corporate dominated political party?

Maybe it's because my family moved when I was young - from Maryland to Germany (twice), England, South Dakota, California, and Florida (several times) - that I came to see the world differently.....and I came to see 'country' very differently.  I came to define loyalty quite differently as well.

What I learned was that people are basically the same everywhere you go....they love their children, they love to laugh, to share food, to marvel at the night sky, and to complain about the weather.  For me it didn't matter which country you came from....we are all the children of our Mother Earth.

Like all mothers our Earth Mother tries not to favor any of her children.  She loves all the colors, all the languages....our mother just wants us to treat each other fairly and not harm one another...nor should we do harm to our good mother ship.

So my loyalties are clear.  I've no time for those in any country who are messing up the human family or our planet home.  In my mind and heart I am fighting for the future generations....to me that is the #1 job of a human being.....make sure the future generations (human, animal, plant, water, air, soil) can live.

I am here today because of the focused determination of those who came before me and got my family line through thousands and thousands of years of famines, ice ages, droughts, wars, cataclysms and more.

I figure it would be totally arrogant and pretentious of me to forget those sacrifices and get lost in distractions like materialism, patriotism, power and religion.

Bruce

Getting to the bottom of U.S. aggression

Pompeo Says Gangland-Style Hit on Soleimani Was "Restoration of Deterrence"

By Mike Whitney

America’s “shadow president”, Mike Pompeo, has acknowledged that the assassination of Iran’s highest-ranking military general, Qassem Soleimani, was part of a broader strategy to restore “real deterrence” by eliminating presumed enemies of the United States. Pompeo’s comments at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute on January 13, put to rest earlier claims that the Iranian general had been killed to prevent “imminent attacks on U.S. targets.” Those claims have since been discredited by independent journalists and mainstream publications that have shown that the assassination was prepared months in advance. In truth, Soleimani was killed to roll back Iran’s influence in Iraq and to reverse the effects Washington’s catastrophic counterinsurgency operation that removed the mainly Sunni-Baathist party from power creating a vacuum that was filled by Iranian-backed militias. The Solemani assassination was just the latest transgression in a conflict that dates back 17 years.

Pompeo’s hand in the assassination is not really in doubt. As the New York Times noted in an article two weeks ago: “Pompeo was the loudest voice in the administration pushing President Trump to kill Iran’s most important general”. The Times also credits the blustery Pompeo as the “chief architect of the rising tensions between the United States and Iran”…”he is in the unusual role of shaping national security policy.”

Pompeo is the “chief architect” of the administration’s failed Iran policy. It was Pompeo who pushed Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and Pompeo who promoted the economic blockade that has strangled the Iranian economy. Pompeo has also been the biggest proponent of Trump’s extrajudicial assassination policy whose first notable trophy was Iran’s most decorated and revered general, Solemani. The incident has set the Middle East ablaze. Even so, Pompeo has never shown the slightest sign of remorse nor has he offered his condolences to the millions of people across the Middle East who poured out into the streets to mourn the passing of their beloved hero. Their anguish means nothing to Pompeo who believes he is carrying out “God’s work” by eliminating anyone who stands in the way US ambitions in the region.

At the Stanford confab, Pompeo announced that he intends to move ahead with his plan to reestablish “deterrence” to discourage Tehran’s “malign activity.” Regrettably, Pompeo’s grasp of deterrence bears no resemblance to the original political and military doctrine. Traditionally, deterrence is a strategy “under which one power uses the threat of reprisal effectively to preclude an attack from an adversary power.” In practice this means that Country A will build up its nuclear arsenal with the intention of “deterring” Country B from launching an attack. The strategy is aimed at preserving the peace and avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. Pompeo’s interpretation of deterrence is aimed at liquidating the enemy not deterring him. It is a form of aggression that bears no resemblance to the original military doctrine. Here’s more from Reuters:.

“President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing deterrence – real deterrence ‒ against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said. “Your adversary must understand not only that you have the capacity to impose cost but that you’re in fact willing to do so,” Pompeo added.” (“Pompeo says Soleimani killing part of new strategy to deter U.S. foes”, Reuters) 

Once again, Pompeo is twisting words to confuse his audience. Sure, it’s true that “Your adversary must understand not only that you have the capacity to impose cost but that you’re in fact willing to do so.” But it’s also true that the goal of deterrence is to deter the enemy from engaging in hostilities to begin with. That is the polar-opposite of killing the enemy. Pompeo appears to be stuck on this point.

In any event, a gangland-style hit –that is illegal under US statutes and international law– is not an example of deterrence. It’s barbarism masquerading as foreign policy doctrine. Pompeo knows that, just like he knows that targeted assassinations are powerful provocations that lead to over-reaction, tit-for-tat retaliation, and eventually a full-blown regionwide conflagration. Which seems to be the point. Pompeo wants to confront Iran in the one area in which the US excels, war. Why else would he kill Iran’s most admired leader?

Here’s more from Pompeo’s speech:

“We saw, not just in Iran, but in other places, too, where American deterrence was weak. We watched Russia’s 2014 occupation of the Crimea and support for aggression against Ukraine because deterrence had been undermined. We have resumed lethal support to the Ukrainian military.
China’s island building, too, in the South China Sea, and its brazen attempts to coerce American allies undermined deterrence. The Trump administration has ramped up naval exercises in the South China Sea, alongside our allies and friends and partners throughout the region.” (“The Restoration of Deterrence: The Iranian Example”, US Embassy and Consulates) 

Now we’re getting down to brass tacks. This isn’t about Soleimani at all. It’s about the long list of foreign policy challenges the US now faces as new centers of power emerge (primarily Russia and China) putting more pressure on the post-WW2 “liberal” world order and hastening the decline of an aging hegemon who is fast losing its grip on global power. That is why Pompeo is invoking a new and more vicious foreign policy. Washington powerbrokers seem to believe that they need to take more reckless and violent measures to reverse present trends that are steadily eroding US power clearing the way for an emerging multi-polar world order. Taking these things into account, the Soleimani assassination can be seen for what it really is, a desperate attempt to turn back the clock to the early 1990’s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union when America ruled supreme and think-tank pundits proudly boasted of the “end of history” and the beginning of a glorious “American Century”, none of which has worked out according to plan.

“The importance of deterrence isn’t confined to Iran,” Pompeo said. “In all cases, we must deter foes to defend freedom. That’s the whole point of President Trump’s work to make our military the strongest it’s ever been.” (Reuters)

Pompeo wants a stronger and most costly military. He wants to use all the tools at his disposal to maintain Washington’s dominant position in the world, especially the instruments of coercion that can used to force rivals to comply with Washington’s diktats. And, he has invoked a new doctrine, The Pompeo Doctrine, to provide ideological cover for the anticipated bloody assault on foreign leaders and dignitaries. So far, no one has challenged Pompeo’s alarming policy-shift. There appears to be consensus among elites that the only way to arrest America’s relentless decline is by escalating the hostilities, intensifying the violence and widening the wars.

Pompeo’s announcement puts the country on a path to bigger and bloodier confrontations but, as yet, no one has lifted their voice in opposition.

MLK: The assassination and the real story

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., took a public and unpopular stance against the Vietnam War, declaring it an enemy of the poor in the United States.

In his 1967 speech, Beyond Vietnam, King argued that young African American men were sent “to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia or East Harlem”.

MLK was killed exactly one year after making his controversial speech opposing the war.

I highly recommend this book 'The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.' by King-family lawyer William Pepper.

William Pepper was James Earl Ray’s lawyer in the trial for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., and even after Ray’s conviction and death, Pepper continues to adamantly argue Ray’s innocence. This myth-shattering exposé is a revised, updated, and heavily expanded volume of Pepper’s original bestselling and critically acclaimed book Orders to Kill, with twenty-six years of additional research included. The result reveals dramatic new details of the night of the murder, the trial, and why Ray was chosen to take the fall for an evil conspiracy—a government-sanctioned assassination of our nation’s greatest leader. The plan, according to Pepper, was for a team of United States Army Special Forces snipers to kill King, but just as they were taking aim, a backup civilian assassin pulled the trigger.

In The Plot to Kill King, Pepper shares the evidence and testimonies that prove that Ray was a fall guy chosen by those who viewed King as a dangerous revolutionary. His findings make the book one of the most important of our time—the uncensored story of the murder of an American hero that contains disturbing revelations about the obscure inner-workings of our government and how it continues, even today, to obscure the truth.

Pepper would later represent the King-family in a 1999 civil trial in Memphis where a jury found MLK was the victim of a conspiracy, not a lone assassin, and said it is the duty of the Justice Department to look at the information presented in the Memphis case.  The Justice Department of course never acted since they were deeply involved in the cover-up. 

Sunday song

What can be done about climate crisis?

Bruce Gagnon and Lisa Savage discuss climate crisis and what can be done about it.

This show ran in August of this year - a much warmer time in Maine than the present moment.

Lisa is now running for the US Senate seat in Maine currently held by right-wing Republican Susan Collins.  Lisa is running as a member of the Maine Green Independent Party (MGIP) in what will be a first in the nation for a US Senate seat - a Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) race.  That means there will be no spoiler and that voters can rank their true preferences.

These kinds of RCV races tend to draw more people to the polls because now they feel they can for the first time vote their conscience and not fear they will 'split' the vote.

But first Lisa's team has to gather 2,000 registered Green Independent signatures between January 1 and March 15 which will be a challenge in the middle of a Maine winter.

I spent much of the day yesterday working with a friend in what might have been the coldest day of the year gathering signatures in neighborhoods throughout the southeast part of the town of Brunswick.  We got 13 signatures of Green Independent voters - like looking for a needle in a haystack.  This is our challenge in Maine.  Going back out with MB to do more of the same today.

You can learn more about Lisa here.

Bruce

Climate change report

The devastating bushfires in Australia have raged on for months, destroying 16 million acres of land and killing an estimated one billion animals.

Resident vet Dr Scott Miller is live from Australia, where he’s been lending a helping hand at the Koala Hospital in New South Wales.