Keep the Veteran's Administration Public. Service not Profits

AFGE Demo demanding more VA funding in Washington Fem 2018

Chicago:

This Saturday from 4-5p,  I will be on America’s Heroes Group Radio Talk Show (WVON1690AM) for the purpose of introducing and discussing the Right To Heal Campaign.  If you are free, would you please listen or share with anyone who may be interested?

We must get the word out about the dismantling of the VA! Please help and spread the word.

In Unity,

Anne Lindgren

President

American Federation of Government Employees

Local 0789 – Jesse Brown VA Medical Center

820 S Damen Ave

Chicago , IL 60612

312-569-5597

 Ann.Lindgren@va.gov

From a VA Nurse, Chicago.

One thing the Veterans Administration and the United States Postal Service have in common is that the private sector would like to get its grubby little hands on them. Both these public institutions, despite their weaknesses and faults, are among the most best organized efficient organizations in the country. Every major study has made it clear that despite its problems, the VA provides good quality health care and when I talk to 60 year and 80 year old veterans they all agree with this and they receive health care no private institution could match despite the problems.

A major problem is the VA upper management who won’t listen; won’t listen to the Veterans, or the doctors and medical staff and won’t listen to the unions. Out of a workforce of 360,000 there are presently 49,000 open positions. What person who works in the public sector does not recognize this trick? Don’t fill positions, public services suffer, demonize publicly run services as inefficient and a failure and promote the market and privatization as the answer.

In response to the scandals and complaints about VA services and the wait times in particular, Barack Obama and John McCain pushed for and a law was passed to inject $11billion in to the VA through what was called the Choice Act. It was the first step in pushing the treatment of veterans out of the public sphere and in to arms of private doctors. This made matters worse as private doctors were unprepared for the deluge and VA doctors were overwhelmed with paperwork from them about their new patients.

Things got even worse when Trump fired Veterans Affairs secretary David J Shulkin (fired him by tweet of course). By law, when the number one guy is fired, the number two automatically takes over but Trump put in his man, Ronny L. Jackson. Like many of Trumps friends and associates, Jackson was a bit of a shady character and failed the nomination process which was then followed by an avalanche of resignations as often happens when the US Predator in Chief makes an appearance.

The damage the private sector and Trump have inflicted on a public agency whose job it is to care for physically and mentally damaged veterans is confirmation of the real worth of working class men and women to the ruling class in US society. The flag waving, the jets flying over sports venues, the hands over the hearts and the singing of the national anthem is all propaganda. They don’t care about veterans in the last analysis.

The intent is to destroy the VA in real terms and in the mind of the public. In this way it will be easier to hand it over to the private sector and profiteers.

Suicide rate among veterans climbs again.

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

As the billionaires in Hollywood get $300 million in tax breaks to encourage them to shoot their crappy films in California, the US taxpayer is being asked to pony up more cash to fight the former friends of the CIA in ISIS.  As often happens, people that the CIA uses to advance the interests of US corporations have an agenda of their own when they are no longer useful to the Pentagon folks.

Politicians like Biden, Obama, Kerry have all expressed their horror at their former allies beheading of two US journalists. They are so outraged they will spend more of our money and will most likely call on the US workers to yet again go fight for “freedom”.

The predatory wars US capitalism is waging around the world, the hundreds of bases it is building attempting to surround China and contain both that nation and Russia, is costing us dearly, not simply in monetary terms but also through cuts in domestic spending, education, services, jobs and other public services.  These wars are not popular despite all the fear mongering and lies about the motives for the wars, that they are about defending our freedom. “Our” freedom doesn’t mean US workers and the middle class. “Our” in this sense means the folks that gather at Jackson Hole Wyoming or Doha and such places. It means the likes of the young kid that runs Facebook, or warren Buffet. These people don’t fit in the category “Ours” when it comes to the working class.

The burden of fighting these battles falls on a small section of American families.  Some of the young people who they send to these places have been two or three times.  This has a tragic effect on these families.  So far two and a half million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the VA, about 20%of them come home with PST. As with all countries, the phony patriotism and flag waving and bull about freedom is somewhat absent when those damaged physically and psychologically by these ventures, those who do the actual fighting, return home. I remember one young veteran who run afoul of the law when he returned from Iraq saying that the that the first time he was approached by an institution of the state was when he got in trouble for domestic abuse.  He described what he had to do or witnessed in Iraq and then said he’s supposed to come home and head down the mall with the wife and kids as if nothing had changed.

Improved body armor has meant that soldiers that would normally have been killed survive but with terrible injuries. I wrote some time ago of the massive increase in multiple amputations due to soldiers being blown in half after stepping on explosive devices. I was reading that in Harris County Texas, 400 veterans are locked up every month.  What a disgrace.  The suicide rate among veterans is also up over the last year, 15% for the army and 28% for the Marines.

Where’s the outrage from these politicians of Wall Street about this?   Nearly 1,900 Veterans Committed Suicide In Just 2014 Alone  . This is a social catastrophe and we should not simply consider the suicides but what this means to families and relatives and friends.  These wars are not like Hollywood portrays wars, they're real. Stillone, Schwarzenegger and John Wayne, people like that are a disgrace; propagandists for the corporations, they are like the pied piper of Hamelin as they get rich encouraging young people to violence and then, like Schwarzenegger, throwing them in jail and preaching how bad it is when they commit it. They portray the act of killing a human being as some macho event but for a normal human being to kill another it is an extremely traumatic and psychological harmful affair.

The politicians of the 1% care not about beheadings, their profession is violence and they ensure their kin are out of harms way. One of the biggest psychological conflicts I reckon is that it becomes clear to anyone with a brain that while all humans defend themselves when in a situation that forces it upon us, when a combatant realizes that they are not fighting to defend our freedoms and the lie is exposed this makes a huge difference in how we perceive things. The collapse of morale in the US army played a major role in the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam.

The only freedom capital and its representatives in the political sphere care about is the freedom of capital to go anywhere any time free of obstacles like regulation, unions and the like.  Freedom to exploit labor power and extract surplus value through the labor process that’s the only freedom that matters to them.

Austerity hits troops as rations are cut

The organizers of this blog have explained that US capitalism cannot afford to keep its massive military machine working at its present level without driving its working class at home into poverty. This latter is happening all around us as we see wages and benefits being slashed and services in city after city being reduced or removed altogether. Now we see the reduction of the living standards of the military in the field.  Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan are now about to lose a daily meal, causing some to fore go a hot breakfast and others to work without cooked food for six plus hours.

The midnight ration service — known there as “midrats" — supplies breakfast to Marines on midnight-to-noon shifts and dinner to Marines who are ending noon-to-midnight work periods. It's described as one of the few times the Marines at Leatherneck can be together in one place.
The base, which is located in Afghanistan’s southwestern Helmand Province, flanked by Iran and Pakistan, also will remove its 24-hour sandwich bar. While no Marine at Camp Leatherneck agreed to speak on the record, many are privately angry about the hit on base morale.

"This boils my skin. One of my entire shifts will go 6.5 hours without a meal. If we need to cut back on money I could come up with 100 other places,” one Leatherneck-based Marine wrote in an email this week to his wife and shared with NBC News. (The Marine declined to speak on the record.) “Instead, we will target the biggest contributor to morale. I must be losing my mind. What is our senior leadership thinking? I just got back from flying my ass off and in a few days, I will not have a meal to replenish me after being away for over 9 hours.”

“The fact is our force in Afghanistan is shrinking fast and all the creature comforts and services deployed military-members have grown accustomed to over the past decade are going to be reduced," A leading officer Gilmore wrote in an email to NBC News.

Back home, spouses and friends of the troops in Afghanistan are criticizing the loss of hot meals as a poor logistical choice that will impact the service members' overall nutrition, energy and spirits.

This same officer Officer Gilmore described cooked-meal reduction as part of a larger effort to “become increasingly austere” as the force shrinks, but he said the base members will not face an unhealthy calorie shortage. “The Marines here at Leatherneck may have to endure the monotony of a limited menu but they will not suffer from malnutrition unless they choose not to eat,” Gilmore callously said. At home, some military family members nonetheless called the change a mistake. The squeeze is tightening on US imperialism. This cutting of hot meals for its military who are fighting abroad for the US corporations is bringing closer the day when the US working class and the ranks of the US military will step up and fight for their own independent interests not the interests of the these profit addicted corporations.

David Petraeus caught with his pants down.

What are all those little mini bumper stickers and bars about?

So David Petraeus has resigned as the director of the CIA for getting a little nooky on the side.  This is so common but we are supposed to think it's just a matter of "poor judgement". They all do it but it's supposed to be something that is rare and a sin of all things. He's a smart guy though, Petraeus. When he was at West Point he ended up marrying the daughter of the general who was superintendent of the academy.  I wonder if that helped his career.

Petraeus was in charge of the "surge" that the US claims pacified Iraq and also was their man in Afghanistan, before becoming head of the CIA.  All these people are connected through a web of marriages, links, business connections and favor trading.

Obama said of Petraeus' resignations that he is,  "Completely confident that the CIA will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission, and I have the utmost confidence in Acting Director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe,"

But the work of the CIA has nothing to do with keeping us safe, and everything to do with keeping US corporations' profits safe. It has been involved in assassinations and murders throughout the world helping to suppress any and all resistance to the plunder of a nations resources by US capitalism.  It has protected the interests of oil companies in Iran by overthrowing the democratic government of Mosssadegh there in 1953 and the democratically elected leader of Guatemala in 1954. 

The murder of Lumumba of The Congo,  Rene Schneider and Allende in Chile, and other Latin American leaders unwilling to open their country's resources to US multinationals are all part of the CIA's handiwork. Walter Rodney, the Guyanese  politician and Socialist who was assassinated in 1980 is undoubtedly another victim. The first operatives in Vietnam and other countries where the US needs to destabilize the state are CIA.  It's not a nice organization and you have to be a trusted tool of the US bourgeois to head it.

California Senator, Dianne Feinstein heaped praise on Petraeus, "I very much regret the resignation of David Petraeus. This is an enormous loss for our nation's intelligence community and for our country." And so she should, Feinstein's billionaire husband Richard Blum, is an investment banker with his grubby little hands in numerous global pies.  Feinstein is one of the richest women in the US, her net worth went from $26 million in 2003 to between $43 and $99 million in2005 according to Wikipedia. That's not bad for two years and as a lot of that comes from ripping off workers in the former colonial world the CIA is an important security blanket for them.

When I look at that picture of him above with all those ridiculous tributes stuck on him it reminds me of those birds that steal little trinkets and hide them in their nests.  Revolutionists never look like that, adorn themselves with all that stuff.  The American revolutionists, the Russian and Spanish and other revolutionists don't need it, the cause is enough.  All that color and pomp comes with being a ruling elite, he reminds me of Brezhnev or Pinochet.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghani civilians have been killed by US capitalism's predatory wars against these people.  Prior to that, more than 500,000 Iraqis died due to the US imposed sanctions against their old chum, Saddam Hussein.  The US has yet to apologize for killing three million Vietnamese and pouring dioxin on them and their own troops, 67,000 of whom died in that war against a people who had never threatened or harmed the US. 

The brunt of these post Vietnam excursions on behalf of US corporations is being borne buy a small section of American families.  Not the Obama's, or Bush's or Cheney's or Rumsfeld's, but those families who have much fewer options than these people; don't have their money or connections.  Yet when they are seen on TV or in public they hold their hands over their hearts and talk about the patriotism and bravery and courage of the fallen. What hypocrites they are, hypocrites and liars. These wars, the death and destruction that Petraeus and his buddies wreak on societies including young American lives is something they avoid but get colorful little pins stuck all over their clothes in recognition of their sacrifice.

Those few US families that are bearing the brunt of these excursions are losing more and more of their family members to suicide which is an epidemic in the military. We will not know the level of demoralization among the troops until it breaks out more in to the open.  It was severe in Vietnam, it's not like Hollywood. Killing another human for most of us, even when we have to do so to save our own lives, has severe psychological consequences.  A whole generation of human beings here and abroad are the sad victims of US capitalism's ruthless wars.  Bus as long as the profits keep rolling in, it's worth it.


That what the medals are for.

Veterans rally in support of Bradley Manning

Iraq Veterans Against the War to demonstrate at Fort Meade Nov. 1st

Government to argue speedy trial doesn’t apply to Bradley, veterans rally in support As Army Private First Class Bradley Manning nears 900 days in jail without trial, his lawyer moves to dismiss all charges for lack of a speedy trial. Beginning Tuesday, October 30, the government’s witnesses will try to explain away the prosecution’s extensive delays. Meanwhile, over 14,000 supporters of Bradley Manning have now donated to his defense fund—over the last three weeks alone raising $50,000 during a matching grant challenge by the Brightwater Fund. On Thursday, November 1, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War will lead a rally and speak-out for Bradley at Fort Meade, Maryland. Bradley’s lawyer, David Coombs, will argue his most recent motion to dismiss charges with prejudice for lack of a speedy trial, which denounces and seeks accountability for the government’s inaction, unjustifiable delays, and sheer disregard for PFC Manning’s constitutional rights (1). RCM 707 affords 120 days from arrest to arraignment, but Bradley was arraigned nearly two years after his arrest in May 2010. UCMJ Article 10 compels the prosecution to act diligently and expediently, yet the government was inactive or needlessly slow for months prior to Bradley’s first pretrial hearing. Read more... Last chance to buy tickets for the Graham Nash fundraising event for Bradley Manning Limited number of half-price tickets available for Support Network participants--use "brad50" discount code (that's a zero at the end). Limited number of half price tickets available. Use discount code: "brad50" Friday, October 26. Santa Monica. The Bradley Manning Support Network is proud to present an evening in support of Bradley Manning featuring an intimate performance by legendary singer-songwriter Graham Nash in Santa Monica, California. Graham Nash will be accompanied by additional members of "Crosby, Stills & Nash" James Raymond and Shane Fontayne. Campaign organizer Emma Cape will give a brief update as well. Event hosted by, and a benefit for, the Bradley Manning Support Network, with the support of Courage to Resist, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, Veterans for Peace-LA Chapter, Iraq Veterans Against the War - Los Angeles, and KPFK Radio 90.7FM Los Angeles. Buy tickets at savebradley.bpt.me Donate now to the Bradley Manning defense fund. For more information about the defense fund click here.

"Trolling for votes": Obama and Romney's phony caring for veterans

Vote for me, vote for me

There is a joke, or variations of  it, being circulated in the big business press in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the global capitalist crisis that has undermined and discredited the Chicago School of economists and their neo-liberal, small government policies.  The joke goes like this:

Q: "How many Chicago School economists does it take to change a light bulb?"

A: "None, if the bulb needed changing the market would have done it already"

From the prisons of Chile to the picket lines of the British miner's strike, the consequences of this economic philosophy have been violence and destruction, war and poverty; economic terrorism at its best.

The "small government" philosophy, preached from pulpits and pundits, talk show hosts like Limbaugh and Savage and academics like the horrible Richard Becker who I followed in Business Week, works its magic when it comes to US veterans also. The number of physically damaged veterans is staggering particularly given the improvements in war armor and military technology like unmanned drones which means fewer deaths. The protection means fewer US deaths but troops survive with debilitating injuries like dual amputations. To subjugate a nation's people you have to have troops on the ground and that means injuries.

Last year there were 1.3 million disability cases filed with the US dept of Veterans Affairs, an increase of 48% since 2008. There are presently 905,000 cases "awaiting action", according to Bloomberg Business Week with one case cited taking 8 years. Can this be so? Surely, if there were so many injured and damaged people wouldn't the "market have taken care of it by now"?

I remember during the presidential debates in 2008 when a young Iraq veteran got up and asked a question.  Obama and the others all get this solemn look on their faces and put their hands over their hearts and all this hypocritical nonsense.  They talk about how the working class men and women they send out to kill and be killed defending global capitalism and US capitalism in particular are defending "our" freedoms and we need to be thankful.

The freedom of those that own Chevron to do what they do has nothing to do with the freedom's that working people hold dear other than misguided or backward types who enjoy listening to Rush Limbaugh all day and support ideas that conflict with their own interests.

It's sickening to watch the politicians of the Wall Street parties, Obama and Romney and their phony expressions of caring.  They have to appeal to working people's support for our children that fight their wars for them though.  Most workers, regardless of the conflict, understand this I reckon as it is overwhelmingly our children, not having the options that those of the middle and upper classes do, that are drawn in to their military. We have an economic draft in this country.

"We are united as one nation in our gratitude to our country's heroes." says Romney

Not to be outdone, Obama says on Memorial Day:

"As long as I'm president, we will make sure you and your loved ones will receive the benefits you've earned and the respect you deserve."

Not so I'm afraid. What's revealing about the serious journals of capitalism (those they publish for themselves like the WSJ etc.) is they are very open about their motivations and how they really see the world. In sharing these comments from Romney and Obama BW states, "Like most politicians trolling for votes Barack Obama and Mitt Romney rarely miss an opportunity to praise America's veterans." My added emphasis. Yes, they're just "trolling for votes".   One of the reasons the voter participation is so low in the US is most workers know that, know they're insincere, liars, that they cry crocodile tears and once the votes are counted things will return to normal.  What workers don't understand clearly, due to the failure of the heads of organized Labor or any other significant social force to explain it, is that Obama and Romney and all these politicans do what they do because the parties they are in represent the interests of capital, not Labor and these interests are opposing interests. Sure they're liars and rotten etc.  But it's predominantly a political/class question.

We only have to check the homeless population to see what sort of respect most veterans get from the market and its proponents.  The closest advisers to Obama's 2012 election campaign by the way are people like Steven Spielberg, Eric Schmidt of Google and other billionaires who do quite well out of the war making industry.

Patriotism, a nonsense philosophy really, is for when the troops are leaving these shores, not when they come back.  It's true of all countries really, but US capitalism is the guy with the big stick (at the moment) and is in a life and death struggle for control over the world's resources, markets and profits with increasingly aggressive and efficient rivals; the US is in a pemanent state of war.

Hector Esparza is an Iraq veteran who has brain damage he suffered when a rocket blew up his Humvee.  Esparza cannot work due to the effects of this damage yet the VA designates him as only 60% disabled says BW.  Hell, in Arizona or Texas where he lives he might well be designated an "illegal alien" if he get's stopped by the wrong cop these days. Esparza lives with his wife and 6 year old on $1200 a month.  He was confident that "I was going to be taken care of and my family was going to be taken care of", he tells BW adding that this hasn't happened and he feels "lied to". I have news for you brother Esparza, you were lied to. Not only that, taking care of you is a form of "welfare" in the eyes of the powers that be in this country and they believe you should chin up, get out there, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps like the imbecile Bush did and make the best of it. Look how successful Sylvester Stillone and Arnold Schwarzenegger are and weren't they war heroes? *

"Trolling for votes" in Minnesota earlier this month Obama waxed eloquent on veterans telling his audience "You know, standing up for our veterans, this is not a Democratic responsibility, it's not as Republican responsibility; it's an American responsibility.....it's an obligation of every citizen who enjoys the freedom that these heroes defended".

No: vote for me vote for me

Vote for me----vote for me!Despite employing four thousand workers more than it did in 2008, the VA's inability to deal with the problem persists.  Can you imagine, the VA still relies on paper files only now considering moving to a computer filing system?  The VA has asked Congress for $128 million for such a move, but, as we know, times are hard, small government is the way to go and $128 mil,  two year's income for some lucky "hard working" Americans will be hard to come by.  "Shared sacrifice" is the name of the game right now. The right wingers, especially in the light of increased hiring will blame government bureaucracy and lazy public sector workers for the VA's failures just like they do for all social services including blaming teachers for the failures in public eduction. Yes, it's all our own fault not the failure of a system. They like to blame social workers with 400 case loads as they impose more cuts and when a relative abuses one of the children they are supposed to be responsible for or blame workers because the DMV is so slow. Like all forms of employment, I am convinced there many employess at the VA that are dedicated and loyal hard workers and if they've gotten an attitude that there's not much they can do, it does not stem from their personal failings but powerlessness in the workplace.

We commented on this blog on the horrific killing in Superior Wisconsin when a veteran shot his wife who was 8 months pregnant, his three year old daughter, himself and his dog.  And the crisis of suicides in the military and among veterans is well documented as a veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes or so. Then there is the crisis of finding a job and getting health care. Brother Esparza says his family are waiting for Washington to "live up" to its commitments but that he "..feels like they'd be better off without me, I'm holding them back....And even though my wife says she's happy, I know that somebody else could take better care of her financially than I could. I don't want another family going through what I went through."

My advice to brother Esparza would be to recognize that many many families are going through what his family is.  If it's not due to the wars it's due to losing their homes, their jobs, their livelihoods and with that our self esteem. The biggest danger is to blame ourselves, be angry at ourselves and buying in to the argument propagated by the 1% that we simply made the wrong choices. I hope brother Esparza doesn't consider hurting himself, there are outlets like the Iraq Veterans Against the War; we all feel stronger and more human when we fight back.  The first step in all these situations is recognizing it's not our fault.

Another important step forward is recognizing who our real enemies are.

* Neither of these two war poropagandists who are millionaires because of it have fought in wars to my knowledge,  I think Stallone worked in a girl's school inSwitzeralnd during part of the Vietnam period.

Growing opposition to US capitalism's wars among the troops: Free Bradley Manning

We can only guess at the level of discontent and degeneration among US troops fighting US capitalism's wars around the globe. We do know that the disintegration of the military was a major factor (along with the Vietnamese resistance) in the defeat of US capitalism in Vietnam. More and more veterans are seeing that they were duped by the powerful US spin machine and are fighting back. FFWP recommends that our readers watch the movie, The Tillman Story, a powerful film about a young, courageous and principled American who, in the opinion of this writer, was murdered by the US government for refusing to be their poster boy for the Pentagon's wars. Also, check out "Sir No Sir" to get a sense of the level of opposition within the US military to the Vietnam War. This report shares some of the developments within the military that neither CNN or Fox News will share with us

Chicago: US and Canadian Veterans return their medals to NATO

Veterans not getting the help they need from Uncle Sam. It's not profitable.

It doesn't come as a surprise veterans do not get the treatment they need after returning home from fighting the 1%'s predatory wars for them. Delays, long waits, being given a pill for the quick fix after going through a non-Hollywood type war experience are the norm. There are a lot of "road blocks" set up to prevent these veterans from getting what they need. Those that put up road blocks of sorts aimed at preventing working class youth from participating in these wars or telling them the truth about the reason for them, that they have nothing to do with "our" freedom but profits and the control over the world's resources are labelled as "unpatriotic" "anti-American".

A veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes or so; not too many pills will prevent that. But pills are a cheaper "quick fix". If they don't work, there's always prison or the damaged veteran can choose to join the ranks of those who take their own life to escape. The wheels of government didn't turn quite so slowly when the banks needed a bailout, bureaucracy is no obstacle to getting anything done when the 1% needs it. The flag waving and patriotic propaganda is when the wasters are sending our young people to fight for them, not when they return damaged; that's money out, not very profitable, hence, the road blocks.


 

60,000 homleess veterans. Isn't freedom swell.

Capitalism is a brutal system. Here in the US we live in the belly of the beast, in the richest economy in human history and we have the worst health system of all the advanced capitalist economies.  We receive the worst bang for the buck as far as social services are concerned.  We have two million in prison and the 1% needs to put more in there. The present crisis has thrown millions of hard working people out of their homes.  Jobs have been lost, families decimated---welcome to the free market.

US workers didn't get what we have from the most crass and violent capitalist class of all without a fight which is why the we have such a rich and militant history.  As the idea of the so-called American Dream, a product of the post WW 2 era, fades in to the history books, the US working class is beginning to stir as Sean pointed out in a previous blog.  Although it is still present among some backward workers, the selfish,  individualistic ideology of the 1% is being undermined by the change in consciousness following the Great Recession.

Nationalism, patriotism and the idea that we are all one nation, a powerful propaganda tool of the 1% is also being undermined by events and at some point there will be a major crisis in the military as the strain of this small minority fighting the 1%'s wars breaks out in to the open.  The parades and flag waving is all part of the war propaganda as they send our kids to do the fighting; in the US we have an economic draft.

I have blogged previously about the increased maiming of troops due to improved body armor, with  double amputations tripling in 2010. Suicides have skyrocketed and mentality damaged vets have wiped out their entire families.; they will see how generous the 1% is when money is needed for post war lives or care---it will not be found.  It makes me sick to hear some workers parrot the 1% propaganda that these military ventures are actually about freedom or defense, especially those who are not there themselves or have children there.

I read today that the number of homeless veterans is somewhere in the region of 60,000.  Nobody should be homeless in a civilized society, especially veterans, whether one agrees with the war in question or not; they're not our wars.  The number of homeless women veterans is also on the rise. "Housing is Scarce" the title of an AP article reads.  There is a "shortage of temporary housing specifically designed to be safe and welcoming to women or mothers with children" according to AP.

But housing is not scarce.  There are empty homes and living accomodation everywhere. Meanwhile, the shelters that do exist have been found to be unsafe and shoddy, some of them so bad, the state was forced to close them down.This has led to a situation where the "population of female veterans without permanent shelter has more than doubled in the last half-dozen years."  The capitalist state that can orchestrate wars, sending weapons and hundreds of thousands of individuals to all corners of the world, can't house a sick veteran. US capitalism can build 200 installations around the world and  build the world's largest embassy in Baghdad to protect the oil companies' profits but cannot provide health care or public education for its citizens.

People need housing and we are surrounded by empty houses; but this is the market at work, a house, or shelter, in a capitalist economy is a commodity, an investment.  The AP report describes life for one woman who was laid off from her job after returning from Iraq.  She is grappling with alcohol and substance abuse which is common as it was with the Vietnam veterans.  Real conflict is not the Hollywood conflict of John Wayne, Silvester Stillone or Arnold Scwarzenegger. For any normal human being, killing is a traumatic experience.  When you are fighting without a real cause other than to defend the markets of a corporation, it is even more mentally damaging; drugs are often the only way to get through it.

"I wasn't a loser," says our homeless vet. "Everybody who's homeless doesn't necessarily have to have something very mentally wrong with them. Some people just have bad circumstances with no resources."  Bad circumstances indeed, she was sent in to a hellhole by the 1%. who welcome the spike in unemployment  as the military becomes the only option for millions of young workers as rich kids go to Harvard or Yale. "It can't get any worse," the woman says, "cause I've already been through hell.". The politicians in the two Wall Street parties and the thugs in the Pentagon are responsible for this woman's plight and thousands like her, as well as the damage to the families. I'm leaving aside here the mass murder of millions of people in other countries.

The Obama administration wants to end veteran's homelessness by 2015; it will not do so.  US capitalism while still armed to the teeth and able to blow up the entire planet is a wounded dangerous beast but as Sean pointed out earlier it is going to have to reckon with its own working class.  The polarization between those that work and those who live off those that work has intensified and the 1% will have to deal with a war on the domestic front.

Reading about the plight of the young working class men and women, most forced by circumstances and the economic draft in to the 1%'s corporate war machine makes me angry.  It is especially hard to listen to the right wing propaganda absorbed sponge-like by some of my own co-workers ( an increasing minority thanks to capitalist crisis) about what a great democracy and wonderful society this is; the "I got mine and if you have nothing it's your own damn fault crowd".

We have a right to be angry and we should be angry.  With no political party of our own and a bankrupt leadership atop organized Labor that is about to spend $400 million getting a president in to office who represents the interests of Wall  Street, building a movement that can turn this tide is made all the harder.  But one thing history teaches us is that the working class, and the working class in the military, will rise to the occasion and defend our class interests.  The collapse of morale in the military during the Vietnam war was a significant factor in the US defeat there.*

The 1% in this country are not going to get a free ride.

*See:
Sir No Sir
The Ground Truth

The Tillman Story

Cheyney. Does he now have a heart?

I see that Cheyney, that mass murderer and war criminal has got a heart transplant. Even before he got his heart disease he never had a heart.

Not that this war criminal and mass murderer did any of the killing himself. He had other working class Americans do it for him. He got out of going to Vietnam again and again. He said he had other priorities. I am sure all of the 19 year olds who had no choice but to go had other priorities also.

Now we have the tens of thousands of US youth killed and maimed and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans killed and maimed because of the wars that Cheyney and his buddy Bush lied to launch on behalf of the oil companies and US corporate power in the Middle East and Central Asia.

They will not say whose heart Cheyney received. This could be for many reasons. Maybe he had to buy one and in doing so jump the line over others who needed a transplant. Maybe whoever gave it did so and is ashamed for his family that he did. Maybe there are racist reasons. Who knows. But there is some reason it is being kept secret. One thing for sure Cheyney jumped the line ahead of the hundreds of others waiting for a transplant. What a rotten class ridden society this is. And think about the big capitalists look after their own dogs.

Sean.

OWS and state apparatus.

I have mentioned on this blog that there were a hundred or so Iraq veterans in uniform marching in an OWS demonstration in New York City. We also had the young veteran in the Bay Area on the OWS demo who has been badly beaten and injured. We also have Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for allegedly allowing us to see the capitalists secret doings. I have referred to these as signs of the beginnings of small cracks in the state apparatus.

I now see that in the OWS demonstrations in NYC a former police commander has been taking part in his full uniform. He was arrested on November 17 th and charged. The commander's name is Ray Lewis and after retiring having done 24 years in the cops in the Philadelphia he became involved in what he calls the struggle for "social justice."

I believe that the state apparatus of capitalism cannot be taken hold of whole and used to establish socialism. History shows this is not possible. The working class must move and establish its own democratic organs of power and build upon these a new society. However we have to be careful. While the capitalist state apparatus can never be the organ to establish socialism in the process of the struggle for socialism this state apparatus can be affected and in split. Sections of it even can be won over to the side of the revolution.

The ranks of the Russian army come to mind, the Portuguese army including many officers in 1974, the ranks, especially the African American ranks, of the US military in the last years of the Vietnam war, there have been police strikes and the refusal by police to evict tenants in this country. These are all examples of where the capitalist state can be split and weakened as the working class movement moves forward.

The vicious repressive measures of the increasingly militarised US and world police forces and state apparatuses around the world have to be opposed. But as we do we have to add to our willingness to physically defend ourselves and combat the capitalist state our willingness also to raise demands and reach out to the elements in the capitalist state who themselves are coming under the attacks of the capitalist offensive. This can weaken the capitalist state and strengthen the forces of the working class as it struggles for a new society, this can change the balance of forces in our favor. It would be unwise and immature for the movement not to recognize the possibilities that exist.

Sean.

Iraq Veterans Against the War Tour

Take Action!
Find a Right to Heal Tour event near you.

IVAW

The Right to Heal Tour brings Operation Recovery to Western Cities

Our organizers have been working hard all summer on our Operation Recovery campaign to stop the deployment of traumatized troops.  Here's your chance to hear from them first-hand about the work they've been doing with soldiers down at Fort Hood, Texas.  They will present their findings so far after two months investigating the trauma epidemic at our nation's largest military installation.

Each stop on the Right to Heal Tour will feature a teach-in by members of the Fort Hood outreach team, as well as music and poetry performances.  Because events are trying to raise funds for our continued organizing, we will be passing the hat.

Click here for a list of tour dates to see if the Right to Heal tour is coming to your area.

If you can't attend an event, please make a donation online to support this tour?

Aaron Huges, Sergio Kochergin, and Scott Kimball have been working in the belly of the U.S. military beast since Memorial Day.  They have been outreaching to soldiers and their families day in and day out to learn about the epidemic of post traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma, and how commanders are disregarding military regulations about treatment of soldiers.  This day to day work is part of a Iraq Veterans Against the War's longer-term stategy to stop the deployment of traumatized troops.  Come out and learn how Operation Recovery can help end the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Join them in a city near you:

Fri 7/22 - Dallas, TX
Sun 7/24 - Albuquerque, NM
Mon 7/25 - Colorado Springs, CO
Thurs 7/28 - San Francisco, CA
Fri 7/29 - Sacramento, CA
Sat 7/30 - Los Angeles, CA
Sun 7/31 - Fort Lewis, WA

Click here for a detailed schedule of events in each city.

Hope to see you there!

In Solidarity,

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Iraq Veterans Against the War is a 501(c)(3) charity,
and welcomes your tax deductible contributions

Obama lays it on thick for the youth that do the fighting for them.

Young lives are destroyed by the war profiteers

It was sickening watching CNN today having to listen to Obama talking to young military men and women about the war in Afghanistan and their role.  Obama is not alone of course, it is the role of all these corporate politicians, these representatives of the capitalist class to lie and deceive young people in to thinking the wars they send them to are just and necessary conflicts for the good of mankind.  Bush did the same but he's an idiot, Obama is a slick, consummate representative of the bourgeois.

I watched the faces of these young people as Obama spoke and wondered what they must be thinking.  Growing up near a US air base in England I remember meeting young Americans, some of them on their way to or way back from Vietnam.  Many of them were from small towns, rural people who had not great knowledge of the world.  I met some who had gone AWOL and had enough of Vietnam and war.

I wasn't simply put off by it all, but angry as well as it is my people, working class people that are the victims, those that go and those that they are sent to kill. "Within a worldview of pre-emptive war and wars of choice, the altruism and good intentions of young people become one more sentiment to be manipulated and exploited in order to further the aims of a small group of policymakers." writes Jorge Mariscal, a Vietnam Veteran who now teaches at UC San Diego.

Rambo is propaganda, Stillone never went to Vietnam

I couldn't have put it better, and that's for those genuine young people who signed up to defend what they believed was a declaration of war on the US and were there to defend us.  They were convinced by the corporate mass media that Iraqis flew planes in to the World Trade Center on 911 though we know that was a lie.  These youngsters have been conned. When he spoke to the troops today Obama said he knows that many of them joined up "because you had seen fellow Americans suffer at the hands of Osama Bin Laden"  He will never forget their sacrifice and what they do he told them, "for love of country and love of each other" powerful words if they were being spoken in earnest and not part of a propaganda campaign.

"You keep us safe each and every day"  he went on.   But he left the word "profits" out. It is "profits" that must be kept safe.  "Your Commander in Chief has your back" he told them. What difference is he from the imbecile Bush? If he cared about their backs their backs would not be in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I blogged about this hypocrisy before talking about another warmonger and ex Bechtel CEO, Casper Weinberger. He too boasted about the patriotism of workers, what great heroes American workers are, only his argument for why there were a higher percentage of minorities volunteering was that they were more patriotic than white folks.  The politicians of the billionaires have to praise the patriotism and heroism of working people to justify the fact that their kids won't be doing the fighting and dying, they'll just benefit from the profits of war.  But those that volunteer out of a sense of duty to sacrifice, to defend the country from invaders, are a minority.  Jorge Mariscal points to an Associated Press analysis showing that, “nearly three-fourths of [U.S. troops] killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.”

This does not mean that there aren't families with military tradition whose children will follow their fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts in to the military.  Pat Tillman, the principled young man who gave up a promising football career to join the military came from such a family.  He died in Afghanistan, assassinated by US government operatives I am convinced of it. * My father spent three years and nine months in a Japanese prison camp and was an army man but sensible enough to tell me to keep clear of it. And the point is that we all defend what we have, our homes, our rights, our freedoms that working people have won.  Workers don't have to be bribed to defend what is right.  That is why these wars will never be won and why the Vietnamese won that war at great sacrifice, because their way of life, their desire to control their own destiny as a nation was at stake; they were not the invaders. The Mau Mau drove the British out under the same impetus.

But what we have is an economic draft.  The destruction of public education, putting it out of reach of so many working  class youth, as well as the destruction of decent jobs with Union rates of pay and conditions will give the warmongers a larger pool of young cannon fodder. The flag waving, the pomp and ceremony, being lauded as heroes and patriots is for the journey out. No matter what country you are from, it is workers that die and fight.  The return trip is not as glorious as jobs, medical care, benefits and rights due you are not so generous as you might hope.

Even before the present attacks on education, many youth joined the military as a means of getting an eduction.  And as Jorge Mariscal points out, "For communities often marked as “foreign,” such as Latinos and Asians, there is pressure to serve in order to prove that one is “American.”
But no word of this from Obama, no mention of the way recruiters target schools in the inner cities or poor rural areas. No mention of the militarization of our children and the military's role in developing the video games they play that are full of violence; of course, he can't, he's in on it.  Like other representatives of his class they all parrot the same old lies.  How this war or that is about freedom and democracy and justice not about oil and trade and profits. And how brave and heroic the young worker is that sees the military as the only opportunity to a better life in the land of the free. They know that someone with a decent job with a decent future is not likely to give that up; they need people with limited options, and as they control the option market they can ensure they find them.

They are truly a disgusting bunch.

* See the movie The Tillman Story

Pat Tillman. McChrystal. Obama the boot licker.

Pat Tillman the former football player joined the US military and went to fight in Iraq. Gradually he became disillusioned with the war, began to speak out against it and began to move to the left. The military tops and people like Rumsfeld and Bush began to worry about him. He could have become a spear head for the anti war movement. He was shot in the forehead, assassinated, by agents in the US military at close range by three bullets. The cover up was organized from the top down. A general McChrystal was involved in this. See The Pat Tillman Story.

Later this McChrystal was fired from his position by Obama for making derogatory remarks about the government. Now Obama has brought him into his regime as head of a commission. Things just get worse and worse. The system we live under shows itself to be destroying the lives of working people and the planet. The political regime we live under is utterly corrupt and dominated by the major corporations and the military industrial complex. Obama is fundamentally no difference from any of the rest of the capitalist politicians, Republican or Democrat. We support the Tillman family in their struggle for justice. We believe that capitalism has forfeited its right to exist. We stand for international democratic socialism.

Sean.

Double amputations, lost limbs and genital mutilation rise drastically for Afghan war vets

If readers haven't seen "The Ground Truth" you should see it.  You can get it off the net or from Iraq Veterans Against the War.  It is a powerful film about the young veterans of US capitalism's predatory war in Iraq. It can make you cry when you hear the stories and see the physical injuries but I know I was humbled by these young people and their courage in the face of all that has happened to them.

I read today that the number of US troops in Afghanistan receiving catastrophic injuries last year has increased drastically with the number of double amputations tripling.  A study by doctors at the German hospital where injured American troops go before they are sent home physically wrecked found that in 2010, 171 servicemen, 11% of all casualties brought to the hospital, had "undergone amputations nearly double the figure for past wars." 65 of them had lost more than one limb compared to 21 of the 75 that were treated at the hospital in 2009.

The study also found a huge increase of injuries to the genitals and urinary tract as well from 52 in 2009 to 142 in 2010. "Everybody was taken aback by the frequency of these injuries to the penis and testicles" said one army doctor adding that they were "unbelievable."  The reason for the increase, doctors claim is the Taliban's use of improvised explosive devices that go off when foot patrols step on them, but I am sure it is also due to the increased ability of military armor that means there are less soldiers killed outright.  In the past, a mine blowing up between your legs would most likely kill you, now you lose a leg, your penis and testicles. This is what real war does to people and it's not included in the adds for the Marine Corp on TV.

Last year, 499 Americans were killed in Afghanistan.  Then there are the suicides that occur in combat and when they return like the young man in Wisconsin who killed his pregnant wife of 8 months, his three year old, the dog and himself.

What horrible characters these people are

It sickens me to listen to the politicians and the neo cons who are all gung ho when it comes to sending working class youth they refuse to provide decent jobs for to fight for the corporations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.  Look at the smug draft dodger Bush in the photo left, it's enough to make you sick.

We should not forget that Reagan once likened the Taliban to the US founding fathers and up until 1999 every Taliban official was on the payroll of the US government.  The US capitalist class has no qualms about unity with any group that furthers its ability to make profit, even Bin Laden, Hussein, 7th century Mullahs.  But it is the young workers that pay the price in real terms.  What a terrible waste.  Imagine how a young man feels at 23 with no legs or genitals; and for what?

The burden of US capitalism's predatory wars around the world is being born by a small percentage of the American population.  If there was a draft it would be different.  But we do not yet know the level of despair and demoralization among the troops; this will become apparent at some point once it bursts in to the open as it did in Vietnam.

Make sure you watch The Ground Truth, and Sir No Sir, both can be found at the IVAW site.  Also, if you are solider or a veteran reading this and having second thoughts or just need help, contact IVAW or  Courage to Resist.

Afghanistan. Occupying troops killed in 2010 - 700.

Little girls wounded by occupation forces in the Afghan war.

They give the figures, 700, for the occupying forces killed in the wars and occupations in the Middle east. They do not give the figures for the local fighters killed. They do not give the figures for the civilians killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and the Yemen. But with 700 occupying troops killed in 2010 so far then overall we are talking about tens of thousands of people dead in these wars and occupations being carried out by US capitalism and its allies to seize the wealth of the area and control the territory. This is a catastrophe. US capitalism and its allies are bringing slaughter and suffering to the area. US capitalism is in a vicious conflict which they cannot win.

Just yesterday one of the coalition parties pulled out of the Pakistan government which is central to the strategy of US capitalism in its wars in the area. They are dependent on the Pakistan government to fight the Taliban in the border areas. So the Pakistan government which is already undermined from within by its own intelligence services and which US capitalism needs to fight the Taliban is further weakened. One of the reasons the party, the MQM, which represents mainly urban voters in Karachi, a port of 18 million and Pakistan's financial hub, pulled out was because the Government is trying to implement a general sales tax which will hit the working class base of this party hard. Meanwhile the large rural landowners which mainly support the PPP are exempt from an agricultural tax. US capitalism and its allies are directly associated with the attacks on the local working class and clearly seen to be so.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and millions of civilians are caught up in these wars and occupations of US capitalism. And there is no end in sight. It is in this context we have to see the information being made available by wikileaks. These young people who are in the armies of US capitalism and its allies, the local fighters and the civilians who are being bombed and shot, they have the right to know how they got into this predicament, they have the right to know about the meetings that took place where the war criminals of US capitalism, its allies, and the world's military industrial complex plotted to bring these wars about. They have the right to know about the meetings of the oil and resource companies which were involved in these and led the way in getting the youth of the allied countries to go and fight for the corporations wealth and power and to slaughter the peoples of the Middle East.

This is what wikileaks is about. It is about letting people know what is going on and especially the soldiers and people on the front line know what is going on and how they ended up in the terrible heat and conditions and the fighting of the Middle East. This information can then allow the fighters to make an informed decision. Do they want to continue making the sacrifices they are making. Do they want to end their military activity in the Middle east. This is what Bradley manning did. He said he would not longer participate in the seizing and torturing of local people in the area. If what we know is correct he then publicized this. For this he is in solitary confinement facing trial and possibly decades in prison.

We must not let this happen. We must build a movement that will be so powerful that it will force the organizers of these wars to back off and release Bradley Manning. And also to end these wars and occupations. We must link this struggle to the attacks on working class living standards in the US. US capitalism cannot afford to fight wars abroad and maintain living standards at home. It is in the common interests of working class people in the Middle East, in the US, worldwide, to end all wars and occupations and concentrate our resources in building a new society which is not ruled by the corporations and their vicious profit addicted capitalist system. We must step up the struggle for a democratic socialist world.

Don't Ask, Don't tell, ended. This is a great victory. Now for the right to marry.

The repressive don't ask don't tell policy of the US military has at last been done away with. This is a great victory. Now gay and lesbian people in the military will be able to be open about their sexual orientation. This is a great victory for all people. It strengthens our rights and freedoms. The US military is the biggest employer in the US. This gives us some idea of the shift in consciousness that will now take place.

This victory came about because gay and lesbian people and their supporters fought for their rights over the decades. The civil rights movement and the black revolt of the 1960's, the women's movement of the 1960's and 1970's, these gave a powerful impetus to the struggle for the rights of gay and lesbian people. But the gay and lesbian people led this struggle and have to be given the greatest of credit for doing so. We should all congratulate them and share in this moment of their victory.

But the struggle is far from over. There is plenty of bigotry lurking out there that has to be taken on. We will see this when we begin to focus more on the next step. This is the struggle for the right of gay and lesbian people to marry and have families. This is their right and the fight has to be stepped up to win this. There must be no backsliding.

This struggle has to be taken into the workplaces and unions. We cannot win in our struggles with the bosses if we are divided. Turning gay and lesbian people against straight people is just another variant on the old divide and rule tactic to keep the working class down. We have to struggle for working class unity in this fight for the rights of gay and lesbian people. And we have to see also that this divide and rule tactic is not just because of the bosses bigotry. It is also to get more cheap labor, to avoid having to pay equal pay for equal work.

The struggle against the oppression of gay and lesbian people has to also be the struggle for a decent life for all people, a guaranteed job on union wages and benefits, a $15.00 an hour minimum wage or a $5.00 an hour increase whichever is the greater, health care and education free at the point of use for all, an end to the rule of the corporations over society. This is the approach we need. One that will unite working people and within which we can build a movement which will further the aims of the gay and lesbian movement which have not yet been achieved.

Free Bradley Manning. Lies of US government and corporations to American people.

Bush: Arrogant liar to American people to start wars for oil and power. These kill American and Middle Eastern people. He walks around free. Meanwhile Bradley Manning who exposes his lies is held in prison. Free Bradley Manning. See our program for this below.

Bradley Manning the young soldier charged with giving information to wikileaks is in an American jail charged with letting us know what has really been happening behind the closed doors of US capitalist foreign policy over the past years. It is our right to know what has been done and said in our name. We owe Bradley Manning. We need to support Bradley Manning and campaign for his release and the dropping of all charges.

We need to campaign also for the release of Assange from house arrest and for the setting up of a commission of women trade unionists and activists, male and female, to give the women who are making allegations against him the chance to have their case heard. But there must be no support for trying Assange in a capitalist court. To do so would be to support a show trial and would be to put Assange away along with Manning.

Look at some of the background and context. The Bush government and the US corporations and military lied to the American people to launch the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we know and many of us knew then there was not. They said that they needed to invade Afghanistan to get Al-Qaeda when we know that most of the 9/11 people were from Saudi Arabia but of course they would not invade this country with its vast oil reserves and its ruling classes' close ties to the Bush family and the US ruling class. Plus Saudi Arabia was already securely in their hands. It was a base in Afghanistan they wanted to secure a stronger base in central Asia as a whole and to put a ring around Russia and China. So we had 9/11 and the lies to the American people.

The wikileaks cables are helping to expose this and other crimes of the American ruling class, this lying to the American people to get tens and tens of thousands of young poor Americans to go and fight and die in the Middle East and to kill tens and tens of thousands of people living at peace in their own countries. And of course as every day goes by and as every US bomb is dropped this turns more and more people in the region into enemies of the US. This is against the interests of the American people. It is only in the interests of the American corporations. If it was Bradley Manning who helped expose information in relation to these lies and crimes then he is an American hero and should be immediately released and all charges dropped.

Look at the hypocrisy of American capitalism, its bought politicians, military leaders, journalists and press. The Bush regime exposed the names of its own CIA agents to undermine their opinion that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. Yet the people who did this are walking around free in the corridors of power while Bradley Manning is in prison facing charges that could keep him there for life if we do not act and make them let him free. We need to see the cables and correspondence dealing with foreign and military policy and with economic policy. Remember when Cheyney had a meeting with oil executives in his capacity as vice President. To this day he will not say and we cannot find out who was present and what was decided. Yet he was supposedly acting in our name. Were decisions made which allowed for the spill in the gulf? We need to know these things.

Then there is 9/11. How much did the US government or elements within it know about this in advance? Maybe these cables will help. They could not hinder that is for sure. Already we have this information. Ernest Welteke, President of the German Bundesbank concluded that there must have been a bunch of "speculators who knew of the attacks in advance" and "there have been fundamental movements in the markets of the airlines and the oil price rise which are otherwise inexplicable." He said that his bank carried out a study in what it called "terrorism insider trading." Then there is the Deutsche bank. It bet in advance of 9/11 that the shares of United Airlines would fall, which of course they did. The firm that was used to make these bets was headed by a man called Buzzy Krongrad who went on to become executive director of the CIA!!!!! Well now it gets fishier and fishier. Yes we need to see all these cables and to find out what went on behind closed doors.

The contents of these cables and correspondence can shed light on the wars and invasions and deaths in the Middle East and help end these wars and so save lives. Far from endangering peoples lives as is claimed by the ruling classes in the world who want to keep their secrets the opening up of all correspondence between the various powers will save lives. They will help end the wars.

Then there are the cables of the relations between the various capitalists and corporations themselves. These will undoubtedly contain their discussions on why and how they must cut wages, jobs and conditions. These would be extremely useful in that they would show how the bosses attack the working class, their plans to step up these attacks and also their day to day tactics and how best to fight them. These cables would also show how US capitalism is as the Wall Street Journal puts "it awash with cash." How did they get to be so?. Awash with cash? Let us see that.

See our program below in which we campaign for the release of Bradley Manning, the release of Assange from house arrest. And for the freedom of information and an end to all secret diplomacy to be the basis of all relations between states, corporations and governments and the people.

Sean.

Youth too fat to fight for Wall Street

So the press reports today that a bunch of retired generals want more taxpayer money spent fighting obesity among the youth. They are concerned about a new report being released Tuesday that says more than 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military. The generals want more nutritional food in the schools and more education about healthy eating.

The reason for the concern has nothing to do with health, the generals are concerned that the working class youth they need to fight their corporate wars are, as one genral put it, "Too fat to fight."
"When over a quarter of young adults are too fat to fight, we need to take notice" said one retired Rear Admiral.

Sixty years ago the military had the same problem but in reverse, our young people they use to fight were too thin, too stunted due to poor diet and they were often rejected. The generals pushed for the school lunch program to fatten the potential fodder for the next war.
Imagine this! All the reasons why young people should eat well and the one that will get results is the military wants them fit enough to go around the world killing people and making it safe for US capitalism.

What's up with that?