Tuesday, December 23, 2008

On the road with Barack

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
 
IN HAWAII THIS MORNING, PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA CAME BOUNDING UP TO THESE REPORTERS EXCITEDLY.
 
"I CLEANED MYSELF LIKE A BIG BOY TODAY!"  HE SQUEALED.  "DIDN'T I, RAHM, DIDN'T I!"
 
RAHM EMMANUEL SIGHED AND EXPLAINED, "NO, YOU ARE CLEARING YOURSELF TODAY."
 
"OH," BARACK POUTED. 
 
"BUT," HE SAID GRINNING, "I'M CLEARED!  I'M CLEARED!"
 
"ACTUALLY," RAHM CORRECTED, "NOT IF ANYONE BOTHERS TO INVESTIGATE YOUR OWN FINDIGHS."
 
"OH," BARACK POUTED.
 
"BUT," HE SAID GRINNING, "I CLEANED MYSELF TODAY!"
 
"ACTUALLY," RAHM CORRECTED, "BIDEN'S WAITING FOR YOU WITH THE BABY WIPES."
 
BARACK NODDED AND TRUGED OFF.
 
BIDEN AND BARACK, PICTURED BELOW, HAVING FUN ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL.
 
'
 
Today Elisabeth Bumiller (New York Times) examines the realities of the so-called US withdrawal from Iraq and it's not a pretty sight.  Bumiller and Thom Shanker reported last week on how the 'plan' presented to president-elect Barack Obama -- the Petraeus-Odierno plan -- wouldn't allow for that campaign 'promise' of a US withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.  Friday Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times) reported that word games could allow for the impression that promises were being kept -- including what the treaty masquerading as a Status Of Forces Agreement allegedly promised. For context,  Sudarsan Raghavan and Qais Mizher (Washington Post) explained last week, "American combat troops will remain inside Iraqi cities to train and mentor Iraqi forces after next summer, despite a security agreement that calls for their withdrawal from urban areas by June 30, the top U.S. military commander said Saturday."  With all that as the backdrop, Bumiller explains today that "a semantic dance" has begun at the Pentagon over what qualifies as a combat soldier and, with regards to the treaty, "Even though the agreement with the Iraqi government calls for all American combat troops to be out of the cities by the end of June, military planners are now quietly acknowledging that many will stay behind as renamed "trainers" and "advisers" in what are effectively combat roles. In other words, they will still be engaged in combat, just called something else."  Bumiller notes that "trainers" and "advisers" will be the renaming terms for "combat troops" in order to keep them in Iraq: "In other words, they will still be engaged in combat, just called something else." Of Barack, she notes, "it has become clear that his definition of ending the war means leaving behind many thousands of American troops."
 
And that might mean the alleged 'anti-war' movement would mobilize.  Fat chance.  From Third's "Editorial: The Pathetic and Shameful UPFJ:"
 
For two years, United for Peace and Justice has done nothing to end the illegal war. If you like the faux radical fringe, you could find many of those in 'leadership' on various rag-tag Pacifica stations whoring themselves and the peace movement out as the booed and hissed at Hillary Clinton while insisting Barack Obama was a divine spread, perfect for a sacramental wafer. They all but smacked their lips into the microphones as they insisted "Heavenly delicious!"

So it was no surprise that United for Pathetic and Juvenile issued a purile statement on November 7th that was at once self-stroking and racially offensive. For the record, Barack Obama is bi-racial. We've covered that here. At the allegedly 'progressive' (no one loves that coded word moe than the multitude of political closet cases hiding out at UPFJ). For the record, Barack was never about ending the illegal war in Iraq. But UPFJ was so eager to spread like slutty cheerleaders (male and female) that they ignored that the same way they ignored their own alleged committment to ending the Afghanistan War. Yeah, Afghanistan, the war Barack campaigned on continuing.

So it was not surprising to discover United for Pathetic and Juvenile could sink even lower.

Eric Ruder and Ashley Smith (US Socialist Worker) provide a disturbing look at the recent 'strategy' sessions for UPFJ earlier this month where 'leaders' offered such 'insight' as Barack is 'our' "quarterback" and our role is to "block for him." That's so insulting on so many levels.

 
But United for Pathetic & Juvenile is so pleased with their 'work' in those December 12th through 14th 'strategy' sessions that they brag they have "adopted the 'Yes We Can' campaign".  Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait) notes that she attended the sessions and "worked with others" to demand a DC march and demonstration in March for "the sixth anniversary of the war, Saturday March 21."  But UPFJ had other plans.  Sweet observes, "Not to directly challenge Obama's escalation of the war in Afghansitan is shameful.  On the anniversay of 'Shock & Awe,' and under a new president, the anti-war movement needs to be in Washington.  And many of us WILL be there."  A.N.S.W.E.R. and other groups have already planned for a March 21st March on the Pentagon:
 
Marking the sixth anniversary of the criminal invasion of Iraq, on March 21, 2009, thousands will March on the Pentagon to say, "Bring the Troops Home NOW!" We will also demand "End Colonial Occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Everywhere" and "Fund Peoples' Needs Not Militarism and Bank Bailouts." We will insist on an end to the war threats and economic sanctions against Iran. We will say no to the illegal U.S. program of detention and torture.

To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, click here. To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
 
We will be noting that action again in coming weeks but A.N.S.W.E.R. deserves credit for being the second organization to call out the lies of the treaty:
 
The idea that the U.S. is in the process of ending the criminal occupation of Iraq is a myth. Washington and its dependent Iraqi government signed a "Status of Forces" agreement, supposedly calling for the U.S. military to leave Iraqi cities by July 1, 2009, and all of Iraq by 2012. But even this outrageous extension of an illegal occupation is just one more piece of deception, as was soon made clear by top U.S. and Iraqi officials.   

The ink was hardly dry on the agreement when, on December 12, official Iraq government spokesman Ali al Dabbagh dismissed the idea that U.S. troops would leave by 2012: "We do understand that the Iraqi military is not going to get built out in the three years. We do need many more years. It might be 10 years."   

The next day, General Raymond Odierno, commander of "coalition (U.S.) forces" in Iraq, stated that thousands of U.S. troops could remain inside Iraqi cities after July 1, 2009, as part of "training and mentoring teams."  

Government propaganda aside, the reality remains that only the people can end the war and occupation in Iraq. To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, click here, and to sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
 
The other organization that has called out the lies of the treaty masquerading as a Status Of Forces Agreement is the American Freedom Campaign.
 
 
Today the US military announced: "A Multi-National Force -- West Marine died Dec. 21, as the result of wounds received in action when he was attacked by an enemy force in al-Anbar province." The announcement follows three deaths on Saturday: Jonathan W. Dean,  Coleman W. Hinkefent, and a Marine who has yet to be identified.  ICCC's count is 6 for the month of December thus far with 4213 since the start of the illegal war.
 
[. . .]
 
In other news The Women on the Web (wowOwow) have named "The 2008 wowOwow Lis of 20 Fabulous Female Firsts" which they summarize as, "Here's to Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, a four-star general and 18 other glass-ceiling-shattering women of 2008."  Sample:
 
Hillary Rodham Clinton: As if you weren't aware, Hillary Rodham Clinton's the first woman listed as a presidential candidate in every primary and caucus around the country. We're sure she'll break even more records in the years ahead!     
Sarah Palin: This self-proclaimed maverick shot straight out of Alaska's frontier this year to become the Republican Party's first female vice-presidential running mate. She didn't win, but Palin's now secured her spot as a household name.        
Jeanne Shaheen: Shaheen may have thought her political career was over when she ended her six-year tenure as New Hampshire's governor in 2003, but this fierce lawmaker simply couldn't resist a senatorial run. And her win this year makes her the state's first female senator.   
Lt. Gen. Ann Dunwoody: Ann Dunwoody joined the Army in 1975 with the intention of staying for only two years. Obviously she liked the experience, because this year she became our nation's first four-star female general. That's something we salute!
 
Click here for the full list.  Feminist Wire covers Jerry Brown (California AG) calling for Proposition 8 to be invalidated -- this is the infamous measure that attempts to overturn the equal rights of all adults to marry in California and restrict marriage to male-female combos only.
 
Independent journalist David Bacon latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) and it has created a stir. Three strong reviews of the book appear at Foreign Policy in Focus. Thursday's snapshot noted Laura Carlsen's review and I and incorrectly stated that two more reviews were at that link. My apologies. At the top of the review, you see the links for the other two reviews: "(Editor's Note: Mary Bauer also responded to Michele Wucker's review of David Bacon's book Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Immigration and Criminalizes Immigrants.) " From Bauer's piece:

What Bacon's book does better than anything I have read before is to explain the cycle of that structure and how it leads inevitably to the abuses he catalogues. He starts at the beginning of the cycle -- the forces in Mexico and other nations that drive people northward from the homes they love. Bacon often focuses on Oaxaca and the agricultural life, rich in tradition and culture, if not money, that had been possible for many before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He describes the breakdown of that life that NAFTA pushed into place, making small farming in rural Mexico impossible. After the NAFTA "reforms," longtime peasant farmers found that there was literally no market for their product, and there was thus no possibility for earning income in their home communities.
 
Bacon's latest article is "Why The Union Won At Smithfield" (American Prospect) and we'll close with the opening:
 
When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food's huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, organizer Eduardo Peña compared the impact to a "nuclear bomb."  The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant's 5,000 employees didn't show up for work.  The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs every day were motionless.
Yet on December 11, when the votes were counted in the same packing plant, 2,041 workers had voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) , while just 1,879 had voted against it.  That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tarheel, Red Springs, Santa Paula, and all the tiny working class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border.  
Relief and happiness are understandable in North Carolina, where union membership is the lowest in the country.  But Smithfield workers were not just celebrating a vote count.  They'd just defeated one of the longest, most bitter anti-union campaigns in modern U.S. labor history.  Their victory  was the product of an organizing strategy that accomplished what many have said that U.S. unions can no longer do - organize huge, privately-owned factories. 
 
 

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