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Rainbow Brain — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:22:51 -0400

Jason White wrote:

Ironically it is McCain that has (superficially) championed peace. The full tag line of his campaign is "Country First: Reform, Prosperity, Peace".

Looking into the mirror one all*ways sees a reflection, listening to the sound one all*ways hears a tone, and the last thing heard or seen will all*ways be the least likely to be acted upon.

"Country First: Reform, Prosperity, Peace", all true but very little of these actions will apply to The*People, and Peace is obviously last on, T-his List...

$Peaceful*Change$

Obama is definitely not

Jason White — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:24:44 -0400

Obama is definitely not anti-war in the view that the propeace community typically holds; that of the rabid, outraged dissident. However, I do think he tends toward propeace in the sense that he is an awakened, global citizen who recognizes fundamental interconnectedness. I wish that he talked about peace more. I feel that he refrains out of political necessity. I think his actions, once in office, will always be carefully considered, which is a great comfort, even if not always impeccably propeace.

Ironically it is McCain that has (superficially) championed peace. The full tag line of his campaign is "Country First: Reform, Prosperity, Peace". But his speech and manner is full of hatred, violence and militarism. He has shown that his approach to dealing with just about every situation is anything but peaceful. His use of the word peace strikes me as a convenient counterbalance to his obvious aggressive nature.

The choice in this election is a no-brainer if a propeace position ranks high in your priorities. Obama is not ideal from this perspective, but he is a huge step forward from where we currently are while McCain would increase the level of non-cooperation and violence among nations and at home.

Viable*Choice

Rainbow Brain — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:08:49 -0400

critic wrote:

Is Obama really anti-war? Or does he just oppose the Iraq war?

The choice between Obama & McCain is a no brainier to anyone who’s been paying attention, & is made simply & clearly evident in their campaign slogan’s:

“Country First” is exactly how the world got into its current situation with inward, thinking nationalistic, fundamental, doctrine driven agendas.

“Change We Need” is exactly how the world will improve the situation, by creating a global responsibility for each*ones actions and agenda.

McCain is not equipped nor prepared to do the right thing, Obama is.

No viable candidate is antiwar, Mr. Obama is as close to pro-peace as will be available in this cycle for election, and is the only viable candidate with the global credibility, recognition and acceptance to seriously begin the long process of pulling away from the abyss, toward the horizon of creating a World4Peace.

Any*One who votes other wise, is simply prolonging the decline toward an inevitable collapse, for this election is not about self centered america, nor americans it is about the global situation, health, prosperity and future of mankind and this planet.

$Peaceful*Change$

Obama no different on Afghanistan

papananook — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:56:55 -0400

Or big military budgets, a huge Pentagon, which of course pleases the defense industry.
Some Obamaniacs have tried to say he is just playin' "possum" until he's elected...Nuh-uh...I doubt that. He may have many good qualities but he won't get my vote (luckily for him I'm in a very blue state-Oregon)...I just can't vote for a guy who doesn't get it about the Military Beast and all it's subsidiaries. He won't bring Peace, methinks...but the USA is doomed anyway and will fade and fall as Empires do.

We should get rid of the Federal Reserve

critic — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:26:12 -0400

Most Definitely!

We do not need the Government Controlling Us!

L.O.V.E.

Rainbow Brain — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:55:28 -0400

Abe wrote:

Please educate yourself and read references

i*could not agree*more...

We Should, educate ourselves... as Maybe that was the meaning "Of The*People, By The*People & For The*People"...

Let-It-Be*Peace

L.esson, O.pportunity, V.ariety, E.ducation

Media*Opera

Rainbow Brain — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:21:19 -0400

Yes*Indeed it’s not a soap opera, but sadly it still is a three ring media circus, of distraction, delusion, spin cycle pollution and corrupt collusion, which perhaps by some quirk of critical mass education will lead the people to rise above and embrace a reasonable, peaceful social evolution.

((((Critical*Mass))))

Jason White — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:02:02 -0400

Quote:

if this year's Democratic convention ends up with any historical legacy beyond nominating Barack Obama, it will likely be remembered as one of many events that helped forge a contemporary progressive movement.

Read the article on alternet.org.

Wake*Up

Rainbow Brain — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:01:24 -0400

Quote:

Wake up, America. Wake up, America. Wake up, America.

Wake*Up at 3-am to find the manifestation of World*Peace has begun . . .

Bruce Larson*Moore

hypocrisy

Nathan Andover — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:07:52 -0400

The Georgia conflict seems very similar to the Kosovo conflict with all the roles and propaganda talking points reversed.

Spin*Nation

Rainbow Brain — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:31:45 -0400

nation
noun
a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory :

an independent nation country, sovereign state, state, land, realm, kingdom, republic; fatherland, motherland; people, race.

* * *
The spin cycle of fear, lies in the deception of ones humanity.

Justification by what ever means, is by no means vindication.

There is no certainty in the words of a leader, prophet nor even those of god, the certainty of all rest in their actions.

Those who lack the strength to stand with truth and peace, need only the courage to stand behind those who do not.

Bruce Larson*Moore

Al Gore agrees

Susan Livingston — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:13:48 -0400

Just in case it's cheating to blog only the people who support my views, I'll confess that I've had two dissenting opinions. But one was just an outraged reaction and the other was so ponderous that I couldn't get through it. This quick reaction comes from Dan "the man" Manweiler, another APEC colleague.

...the government is now not in service to the people, but to corporations. I agree with Mr. Gore's premise in Assault on Reason - that we have lost discourse with our government and therefore are loosing the fabric of freedom. I salute Susan's efforts to dive at the heart of the issue.

Editor, propeace.net

Rethinking states' rights

Susan Livingston — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:47:58 -0400

On May 3rd, a fellow Appalachian Peace Education Center activist and grandmother with the very fortunate name of Rachael Bliss published an entry in response to this post in her blog I'm sharing a significantly shortened version of her remarks with you.

To many of us progressives, the idea of secession runs against our grain. You know, some of those southern states had to be put in their place when they kept insisting on "states' rights." How I used to HATE those words! To me, they meant segregation, white supremacy, bigotry, and rule by the "good ole boys!"

When our country was forming, there was controversy whether it would be a federalist or a confederate type of government. Less than 100 years later, states that preferred a federalist type of government prevailed in a war that cost half a million lives. Although slavery was ended with the Emancipation Act, justice for the former slaves lasted for just a few years during Reconstruction before some states initiated Jim Crow laws that denied rights to Blacks. The '50s and 60s saw a groundswell among African-Americans and their white allies, and people hoped that at last there would be equal rights for all in this country. Yet even today, we are still working for equal rights and true justice for all our citizens.

While we were fighting these internal battles among the states and between the states and the federal government, our country was growing into an empire, threatening smaller countries, enriching itself by spreading its influence throughout the world. Thus we have seen unilateral attack on Iraq, involvement in numerous civil wars in developing countries, and an ever-tightening relationship between the federal government and multi-national corporations.

Today, the USA is an imperialist empire, much like Rome and Great Britain were centuries ago. We have witnessed the breakup of the former Soviet Union; it is no longer a world power. When Great Britain shed many of its colonies, it became a much more representative government. Do you think that perhaps if China would give up Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, then it could govern the remaining people within its domain in a just manner? What does this say about the U-S-of-A? [Editor's note: Rachael, who said that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?]

Many believe that our country as it is organized today is unmanageable. Our legislators don't truly represent the people who elected them, we have a President that acts like a king, our government is spying on its own citizenry, and some states claim they get the shaft when it comes to federal monies coming back to them. In essence, our government has lost touch with its citizens, and it is mainly in partnership with powerful corporations as they use the rest of the globe to secure resources, control puppet governments, attack leaders who don't cooperate, extend their tentacles into dangerous places they don't belong, and use our children as pawns in a gigantic global chess game.

What would our 50 states be like if we became five countries: the Northeast, the Northwest, Southeast, the Midwest and the Southwest? What if we did separate into the United Red States and the United Blue States? Maybe Vermont could at last become its own country. Perhaps the 50 most vocal interest groups could each settle in one state, and thus there would no longer be the imperial empire that rules the world, but instead there would be many smaller countries representative of the hopes, dreams and even eccentric interests of the people who live there.

One concern about separating into a bunch of new nation-states is the headache of negotiating interstate environmental regulations. Interstate commerce probably wouldn't be that difficult to manage since free trade is in full force now anyway. The most positive outcome would be that no one nation-state would be strong enough to rule the world. No one country would be able to unilaterally attack another country halfway around the globe. Maybe peace would truly break out in the world.

I may have to change my mind regarding states' rights. I may even have to think beyond states' rights - think of new countries from what are now states. Maybe our grandchildren will never know what it is like to live in an empire. Instead they will be citizens of Iowa, or Michigan or Vermont with a small government and a more truly representative type of governance. Could this happen? Remember, Thomas Jefferson himself said that every generation needs a revolution. Maybe this is the time!

I'm grateful to Rachael for this view of history through the eyes of a southern liberal.

Editor, propeace.net

Three-state solution

Susan Livingston — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:19:16 -0400

I received the following comment from Powell Foster, a fellow Appalachian Peace Education Center activist, on May 3, and I want to share it with the propeace community.

Even our constitution was drafted by plutocrats, and it has been downhill ever since.

Before the war between the states, the states as a whole were referred to as "the United States are..." not "the United States is." What followed was the industrial revolution and a Supreme Court decision in the late 1800s declaring that, under the
constitution, corporations had the same rights as people. When Truman was president, the decline in the balance of powers started, with the Executive Branch gaining unequal power. And despite efforts such as POCLAD, we have become a corporate democracy - government of, by and for the plutocrats.

I often have wondered, if the War Between the States had resulted in at least three nations - the United States, the Confederate States, and the Western United States - would it have resulted in a group of nations too weak to go to war to "save" (read "use for our benefit") other nations? Would the 3+ nations have formed some alliance that might incorporate common needs such as one monetary system, open borders, free trade among the nations of the alliance, health, environmental and safety regulation? Is dissolving the union now and forming such an alliance among the individual states a practical way to meet these common needs?

Thank you, Powell. This is the question I want to address in order to reframe secession as a constitutionally-defensible act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Editor, propeace.net

YesWeWill

Rainbow Brain — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:23:52 -0500

There is only one question, one quality, one decision, one judge of merit for The*People to establish and hold themselves and their leaders to:

The foundation and might of America . . . Is doing the right*thing.

and so in their heart of hearts, they know electing Barack Obama is the right thing to do, to begin the healing of America and the world.

thus the solution is: Yes*We*Will

other*wise its - S.O.S. - change we can neither believe in nor trust.

It's time the alternative is given a chance.

BL*M