guillaumeb
guillaumeb's JournalThe White House Says Women Should Be Required to Register for the Military Draft
From the article:
The announcement makes Barack Obama the first president since Jimmy Carter to endorse universal registration for the Selective Service. The White House previously was pretty neutral on the subject, but in a new statement to USA Today, Ned Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council, revealed the administration had changed its stance:
http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/white-house-supports-requiring-women-to-register-for-draft.html
An attempt to normalize a permanent state of war in the US?
Edited to add:But what if people questioned why the US is constantly at war, and why politicians children and rich peoples' children rarely serve in these so-called necessary wars.
Further edited to add: If national service is such a good thing, such a necessary thing, any politicians who advocate for service should encourage their own children to volunteer and set an example. And such politicians should have previously volunteered themselves.
What if the US instead concentrated on self-defense instead of power projection and world dominance? Would a draft really be needed at all?
Why We Need a New Democratic Party
It has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.
The election of 2016 has repudiated the old Democratic Party.......
The Democratic Party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class – failing to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violate them, or help workers form unions with simple up-or-down votes...........
We need a New Democratic Party that will help Americans resist what is about to occur, and rebuild our future.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/14/why-we-need-new-democratic-party
This postmortem analysis is not, in my view, an indictment of any particular candidate as much as an indictment of a particular mindset. What is written here applies equally well to Presidents Clinton and Obama. There was no real "booming economy" in the Clinton years, there was simply a vast increase in financial speculation. And similarly, there was no real recovery in the Obama years, just more outsourcing and a slight increase in mainly service sector, non-living wage jobs.
My view.
Guns are designed specifically to kill.
When I wrote that statement in another thread I did not expect to have some gun types attempt to explain that guns are not designed to kill.
I was told by one responder that guns are designed for lawful use. Now what exactly is the lawful use that the responder referred to?
Is it self-defense? If so, can that self-defense not include killing another?
But the argument here is not about self defense, a deflection, it is about the essential function of a gun. And a gun is designed specifically to kill. Nothing else. And a gun with a high capacity magazine makes it much easier to kill multiple people.
I read the silly nonsense that people are killed with bats. Change the last word to screwdriver, or rope, or bricks, or rocks and the same nonsensical argument can be attempted, but of all the things referred to here, only guns have as their sole purpose the facilitation of killing people and animals.
So if you are a gun rights type, a Second Amendment type, or however you define your position, know that the instrument which you insist should be legal to carry is designed to kill people. Embrace that element because no amount of rationalization can eliminate that fact.
A brutal fact that apparently makes some gun rights types uncomfortable.
I am the 549th person to be blocked from a particular group.
Apparently I said something that offended someone. At a certain point, will anyone be allowed to post in that particular group?
Recently I said this in another post:
And here in Wisconsin, I want to reiterate: We've got to stand up for unions and working people who have done it before, the American middle class, and who are being attacked by ideologues, by demagogues. Yes, does Wall Street and big financial interests, along with drug companies, insurance companies, big oil, all of it, have too much influence? You're right. But if we were to stop that tomorrow, we would still have the indifference, the negligence that we saw in Flint. We would still have racism holding people back. We would still have sexism preventing women from getting equal pay. We would still have LGBT people who get married on Saturday and get fired on Monday. And we would still have governors like Scott Walker and others trying to rip out the heart of the middle class by making it impossible to organize and stand up for better wages and working conditions. So I'm going to keep talking about tearing down all the barriers that stand in the way of Americans fulfilling their potential, because I don't think our country can live up to its potential unless we give a chance to every single American to live up to theirs.
I would definitely vote for such a candidate. I would do so even knowing that this is a statement of belief, not a promise that all the problems would be solved if the candidate were elected President. What was said that night by the candidate is so far superior to anything the GOP candidates are saying that there really is no doubt that Democrats would make the right choice by voting for this candidate.
The candidate who said this was HRC. I am a Sanders supporter, but I will vote in November for the Democratic nominee because what is excerpted above should inspire any Democrat to vote. After the election, we will all have to keep pushing, calling, demonstrating, and pressuring politicians to act. Voting simply is not enough.
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I am adding now that when I posted this, it was a response to all the various posts that imply that HRC is not a fit candidate because she is not Bernie Sanders. It is essential that all Democrats recognize what unites us even as we discuss, sometimes passionately, what divides us.
Why do I keep reading GOP talking points on DU?
The latest example is:
(1) Why didn't Vermont try to fund it?
(2) Why are the young invincibles participating in the ACA exchanges below expectations? By design, their role was to subsidize the sick and elderly but apparently they decided they would rather not.
(3) Why are the unions complaining about the Cadillac tax, so much so that it's getting postponed?
If even the bluest liberal blocs would rather not pay for someone else's health care, why makes you think a much more divided America would want to do so?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511028491
The answer is that everybody IS paying for it. Directly, in the form of premiums and co-pays, and indirectly by the taxes that we pay to subsidize healthcare for the poor.
Every other industrialized democracy pays for it, mainly by taxes that provide universal access. The taxes are still cheaper than paying for private insurance because there is no profit motive.
We want Portland occupation-free. (How a coalition is fighting occupation/apartheid)
CAN YOU talk about the Occupation-Free Portland Coalition and the goals of the campaign it's working on?
Maxine: Occupation-Free Portland is a coalition of all the Palestinian solidarity groups in Portland. Many of the groups had been working together as a coalition on the SodaStream boycott. But based on changes in SodaStream's situation and realizing that we were looking for a different kind of campaign--something more systemic than just de-shelving a product--we decided to take up the Occupation-Free Portland campaign.
One of the criteria of the socially responsible lens for the city is human rights violations, so it just seemed like a logical place to start to ask the city to not invest in companies profiting from human rights abuses of Palestinians and from the occupation of Palestine
The BDS movement is spreading in spite of the well funded efforts by right wingers to conflate any mention of BDS as synonymous with anti-Semitism. The BDS movement is spreading in spite of the corporate media basically ignoring the issue.
Also from the article, and of huge relevance in the US,
HRC and critical.
What is critical is to make the connections between occupation/apartheid in Palestine as practiced by the Israeli government, and that same occupation/apartheid practiced in the US and enforced by the police.
Read more:
http://socialistworker.org/2016/01/04/we-want-portland-occupation-free
La prochaine dans une serie: Ma chanson preferee pour Janvier
AMHO la meilleure version de cette chanson
The Night Before Christmas Version 2015
I went to sleep last night after watching Faux News. I should have known that was a mistake, but I did it and had the strangest dream. What follows is the dream, as best as I can remember. I hope it does not frighten anyone:
T'was the night before x-mas in right wing fantasy land,
and no same sex couples could walk hand in hand.
The airwaves were all filled with Limbaugh and Beck
No filthy rap music, no word stronger than heck.
The 60's never happened, all protest and sex
No loud rock and roll the elders to vex.
By law all must say Merry Christmas each day
No non-Christian words or customs hold sway.
No falafel or couscous, no kufta to eat
All-American hotdogs are sold on the street
No hijab, daishiki, or kufi are worn
no beards upon men, no blue jeans are torn.
All those who hunger must bow down in shame
it is their own fault, only they are to blame
the same for the homeless, the needy and poor
any who protest will be shown the door.
the news is all filled with sports, sex, and fluff
no talk about issues and boring old stuff
the movies all celebrate American might
we are the strongest, and power makes right
the papers are gone, who needs all that writing
t'was hateful old stuff, kept us all from uniting
our music is all patriotic and loud
no protest song singing for the Tea Party crowd
no anti-war songs, or soft Kumbaya
just songs about Dixie, apple pie and ma
As I sat on the porch I heard such a thump
on the radio speaking was President Trump....
at that point I woke up with a scream and realized it was just a bad dream. At least this year. And to any who feel that a President Trump is impossible, turnout decides. A divided Democratic Party could make this scenario a reality.
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Member since: Mon Jan 26, 2015, 06:15 PMNumber of posts: 42,649