editted as I'm an idiot...


The Sanctuary for Independent media is putting out additional features from the United National Antiwar Conference. On their site, they just released a very important video that I hope people will forward to other lists. Ethan McCord was seen in the first wikileaks video of the massacre of civilians in Iraq . At the conference, he had the opportunity to speak out for the first time. The Sanctuary took pictures of Ethan's and interspersed them with his description of what happened on that day and the wikileaks video. It is a powerful indictment of the US military's occupation of Iraq . It can be found here: http://mediasanctuary.tv/crows/
"

and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqR6x0clGkI&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8920216

He is also a hero for speaking out. Christ! What are we going to do?

Worthless Obama is complicit.

change the nature of an empire. We cannot change it into something that it isn't. It has to "disappear from the pages of history" (to coin a phrase). The idea that a new Emperor would ascend the throne of capitalism and then stop doing the things he was hired to do is completely unrealistic. The best that can be hoped for, while the empire stands, is "good" Emperors. Of course "good Emperor" is a very, very relative term...

The problem is that even if an Emperor decided to actually work in the interests of the people, an army of Secret Service couldn't protect him. If he no longer served the interests of the PTB, he could drop dead of a "heart attack" while eating his breakfast. No one would be the wiser. Those in the shadows would just install a newer, more compliant version.

The technology is such that those who pull the strings don't even have to stoop to something as amateur as a "lone gunman" anymore.

a good friend of mine has called me Mary Malaprope with due cause...can't edit at DU, but reposted...what a maroon...

Thanks so much...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8923078

that rules is not "in the shadows", but out in the open. It is the capitalist system and all those who benefit from it - that is the "power". You will never get a President/Emperor who is anti-capitalist - never have and never will. You cannot change this system to "work in the interests of the people". Can't be done, period. There has never been a time in history when the government of the US functioned in the "interests of the people". It isn't set up to do that. It is set up to protect private property, wealth, and business interests - everything else is unimportant to this government, always has been. As long as the current system continues to function, it will function as it is now...

some people who are having a huge influence, but whom we have to search to find....and many with that money and influence may prefer to stay private (in more than one sense)?? OF course they are all capitalists to the nth degree...there is so little transparency; that's why the asshole threads are so important...I mean, it might be a matter of semantics here, shadow goverment, plutocracy, oligarchy, the rulers, the owners, the capitalists, I dunno, I'm a worker and a peon...and on the side of the same...

back to the corporations as people?

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/the-united-states-of-corporate-america-a-plutocracy/

that we can't "see" and they work "undetected" and all that; I don't know, I don't understand why we would approach politics and the plight of the working class on those terms. The owner class and their supporters are not hidden or secret or even nefarious. We may not know each of their names and addresses, but that doesn't mean they are hidden. They own the world, why would we try and view them as some kind of secret cult or something. Who would these rulers be hiding from, anyway? And why? I think that trying to view the owner class as somehow hidden or secret is very counter productive. If we can come to see the rulers as unknown, how does that help us develop strength against them? Doesn't it, instead, make us bend our efforts to "discover" who they are, before we can oppose them?
I don't know, I am not trying to be difficult, just really thinking out loud...

ETA: That site you linked is reformist - just sayin' :hi:

I was just thinking out loud too, or with my fingers... ;)

out in the open?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8936745

Funny story that you might appreciate..I was in the outer office of this clinic and on the book shelf was something called Lectures on Ancient Philosophy.

It turned out to be written by some crazy "mystic" from the 1920s but he wasn't so much Aleistair (sp?) Crowley as he was a peddler of Platonism. There was a lot of talk about government and how leaders needed to be idealist and not realist (which I gather was his word for materialism). It was unreal..I want to grab the guy next to me by the lapels (of his polo shirt, ha) shake him and shout "Can you believe this shit?!"