By HC Jay Powell
Please do for our troops what
the British did for theirs
when they were
trapped:
get them out alive.
The only “surge” we
want now
is a rescue surge
for our brave men and women in service
with their lives on the line to their nation.
Send whoever you need to send
to bring them out [Read more…]
The image above is not a Photoshopped jpeg. It is an image massively blown up and staked into the ground to shame the American military drone pilots — and now indeed all of us — as their death from above ply the skies above Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. It is an art project named #NotABugSplat, co-opting in graphic relief the slang drone operators callously and cavalierly give their victims.
Let that sink in. Bug Splat. Our society is fond of creating colorful euphemisms that are byproducts of truly shitty and shameful public policy. “Collateral damage” is one we all know; it’s clinically distant and sounds so much nicer in print and at a press briefing than “innocent dead bystanders.” (“Medical tourism” is another cheery one that seems almost bucolic instead of being actually a pathetic and desperate consequence of our pay-to-play healthcare regime.)
But, nothing so grossly illustrates our abandonment of any pretense of moral high ground like labeling exploded human beings as bug splats. [Read more…]
By Doug Porter
Three Republican members of the San Diego City Council joined two of their Democratic colleagues to appoint Point Loma resident Ed Harris yesterday to serve out the remaining eight months of newly elected Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s term.
Harris, who heads the city’s lifeguard union, received support from council members Lorie Zapf, Mark Kersey, Scott Sherman, Sherri Lightner and David Alvarez. Democrats will now have a 6-3 majority, theoretically giving them enough votes to override any vetoes from San Diego’s Republican mayor.
The appointed councilman was sworn in immediately following the vote. Harris is prohibited by the city charter from running for election to the seat, so he must step down when his term ends in early December. [Read more…]
By Doug Porter
The US intelligence community has always counted California’s Dianne Feinstein as a strong supporter. As head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she countered attempts to rein in NSA surveillance by introducing legislation codifying many of the questionable practices.
She stepped right up to the plate within days after former contractor Edward Snowden handed out secret documents to reporters, denouncing him as a traitor.And it’s no secret that her campaigns are laden with hefty contributions from many of the companies who now do much of the heavy lifting for the military-intelligence industrial complex.
So it was kind of a big deal when she took to the floor of the Senate yesterday to accuse the CIA of obstruction and intimidation of her committee’s work on a five year old investigation into the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. [Read more…]
By Aaron Cantú / Alternet
This week, the Israeli company Elbit Systems Ltd. announced that its subsidiary won a contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection to produce and install surveillance systems along the U.S.-Mexico border. The company is famous for providing “intrusion detection systems” and other infastructure support for the Israeli West Bank barrier.
The subsidiary was awarded a $145 million contract for a project called the Integrated Fixed Tower (IFT), which is to be built on the Mexico-Arizona border over the next year. The contract also guarantees eight years of infrastructure support from Elbit Systems.
The project outlines the construction of an undisclosed number of observation towers at the border by Nogales, Arizona, a town about an hour south of Tuscon. Additional towers could be built at five other areas along the state’s border. [Read more…]
By Harvey Wasserman / Common Dreams
A stunning new report indicates the U.S. Navy knew that sailors from the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan took major radiation hits from the Fukushima atomic power plant after its meltdowns and explosions nearly three years ago.
If true, the revelations cast new light on the $1 billion lawsuit filed by the sailors against Tokyo Electric Power. Many of the sailors are already suffering devastating health impacts, but are being stonewalled by Tepco and the Navy. [Read more…]
By Will Falk
What do you see when you look out across San Diego and see the San Salvador being reconstructed?
Do you see the first wave of wave upon wave of white settlers who systematically dispossessed California’s indigenous people of their lands?
Do you see the beginnings of a process that reduced the indigenous population of California from 250,000 in 1800 to less than 20,000 in the matter of a century?
Do you see the face of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo grinning maniacally back at you? Do you see the faces of him and his men joining up with Hernan Cortes in the ethnic cleansing of Mexico? [Read more…]
By John Lawrence
In 1961 President Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex (MIC). He said, “We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.” Since then spending on the military and the MIC has only skyrocketed. Taken together, they, not the rich, are the main job creators in the US. If you graduate from high school and can’t get a job, no problem.
The military will accept you with open arms, provide you with on-the-job training, even give you a signing bonus. Why stand in an unemployment line or apply for a job along with 500 other applicants? Or go into debt to attend some schlock college?
If you’re a college graduate and can’t get hired, try the MIC: the NSA, the CIA, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics – they’re the real job creators. [Read more…]
By Kathy Gilberd
The Department of Defense has just released preliminary figures showing that reported cases of sexual assaults in the military have increased by 50% in the last fiscal year — from 3,374 in 2012 to more than 5,000 in 2013. While DoD officials are still evaluating the numbers, their initial public statement claims that this does not represent an increase in the total number of sexual assaults (which they assume to be about the same as the 26,000 cases in 2012), but rather in the number of people willing to come forward and file reports after having been assaulted.
If DoD’s assessment is correct, the increase in reporting is the result of a year of public and congressional pressure on the military to treat assaults seriously, and resulting new regulations that have provided some additional protections to victims/survivors of assault. Congressional hearings and statements, lawsuits challenging the military’s handling of assaults, and diligent work by organizations such as Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) have created a climate in which servicemembers may have a little more confidence that reporting assault could lead to punishment of the offenders and, hopefully, that reporting would not lead to retaliation. [Read more…]
The findings of a major new Pew Research Center’s study confirm the importance of secularism.
By CJ Werleman / Alternet
Studies demonstrate the world is becoming less violent, and that human warfare is on the decline. There is one aspect of the human existence, however, that continues to ignite humans to commit violence and atrocities against fellow humans. A major new study published by the Pew Research Center shows that religious hostilities reached a 6-year high in 2012.
Dr. Steven Pinker, Pulitzer prize-winning author and Harvard psychology professor, writes, “Today we may be living in the most peaceful era in our species’ existence.” He acknowledges: “In a century that began with 9/11, Iraq, and Darfur, the claim that we are living in an unusually peaceful time may strike you as somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene.” Pinker points out, wars make headlines, but there are fewer conflicts today, and wars don’t kill as many people as they did in the Middle Ages, for instance. Also, global rates of violent crime have plummeted in the last few decades. Pinker notes that the reason for these advances are complex but certainly the rise of education, and a growing willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of others has played its part. [Read more…]
By Doug Porter
San Diego iMayor Todd Gloria’s call for increasing the minimum wage during the State of the City address on Wednesday is drawing sharp reaction from the local wannabe plutocracy. What Gloria proposed was putting any such proposal before the voters next November. The very idea scares the crap out of them.
You take it to the bank that these “checkbook” democracy types who see it as their duty to pay signature gatherers to spread misinformation getting their corporate vetoes of city council actions blessed at the ballot box will now act to make sure that a proposal via our elected representatives never makes it before the voters.
The same folks that have spun community planning, environmental stewardship and housing for low income people into a conspiracy to drive JOBS out of the city are busy figuring out a way to drive a stake into the heart of any minimum wage increase, even if it’s to be decided at the ballot box. [Read more…]
I recently was reminded that the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD) has been around for 35 years; 35 wonderful years I might add. I mean they’ve worked tirelessly in society’s behalf to challenge the military establishment’s overbearing intrusions in our lives.
They, with a host of other peace groups, have kept military issues in our collective consciousness via community forums, in the streets, and through youth outreach, keeping us aware of how much the military strains our economy, how much it magnifies a negative image of our country around the world, how much racism and sexism and homophobia it nurtures throughout its hierarchy.
COMD is a big part of why I continue working with the Education Not Arms Coalition (ENAC) to counter the recruitment of our children.
Without us there would still be rifle training on our campuses sponsored by the JROTC. To us, teenagers firing rifles on their school grounds made a mockery of San Diego City Schools’ Zero-Tolerance of Weapons Policy. [Read more…]
