Global

Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. U.S. Constitution Amendment I

An old cliché says that anyone who has herself for a lawyer has a fool for a client. Nevertheless, going to trial in Washington, D.C., this past June 14, I and twenty-three other defendants prepared a pro se defense. Acting as our own lawyers in court, we aimed to defend a population that finds little voice in our society at all, and to bring a sort of prosecution against their persecutors.

"If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular," a senior adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal says in a recent Rolling Stone magazine article called “The Runaway General.”

The article quotes Gen. McChrystal and his staff criticizing President Obama and disparaging civilian leadership, revealing deep divides within the National Security Council. It has resulted in the general’s removal as Commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. But dismissing Gen. McChrystal addresses the symptom, not the disease. A change in command won’t end the war only a change in strategy will, and that starts with the President.

Take action now.

Call your Representative and tell them that you support an exit strategy for Afghanistan. Ask them to co-sponsor the McGovern exit strategy bill, H.R. 5015, and to urge other Representatives to co-sponsor the bill.

Wage peace!

Call Patrick 'Pat' J. Tiberi (202) 225-5355 now. Tell them you want an exit strategy for Afghanistan.

There are lots of ways to change Congress that falsely appear easy, that would alter the rules and patterns of behavior if only Congress were already fixed and willing to make the changes, or if we owned the television networks, or if people could suddenly hear what they're paid good money never to hear. But I've got a way to change Congress that is actually easy.

Congress lacks leadership. There is a progressive caucus, but it has never fought for anything. It doesn't fund its members' campaigns. It doesn't withhold votes needed for passing bills. It just does rhetoric. There are committees, but they don't subpoena, they don't send the police to pick up witnesses, they don't fine witnesses who refuse to answer questions. Congress thinks oversight was an oversight. If asked to put future generations into debt to fund wars, Congress asks "Would you like a side of drones with that?" Congress doesn't want power.

President Obama must fire General Stanley McChrystal and get out of Afghanistan....for starters.

There is much more at stake here than meets the eye.

History is full of generals with deep contempt for democracy.

General McChrystal has a very particular significance. Last year, as Obama weighed the Afghan situation, McChrystal circumvented him entirely. In an act of profound public contempt, the general went directly to the world media with a high-profile campaign that was entirely inappropriate to a civilian democracy.

He should have been fired right then and there.

But McChrystal used the brass on his chest to sell the nation a bill of goods---that the war in Afghanistan could be "won." It would be "difficult," of course, requiring "sacrifice."

But exactly what "victory" meant, and how that would make the United States safer, more just and prosperous, was never clear.

What WAS clear was who would die and who would pay.

But with the corporate media lapping up his every word, McChrystal upstaged the numerous political, strategic, financial and military experts who disagreed with him.

Sea turtles can live to be 80 years old or more. They've been around for millions of years. They even outlived the dinosaurs.

But today, every single sea turtle species is listed as endangered or threatened thanks to humans. It's not too late.

Take action to help make sure sea turtles don't disappear forever.

We can save sea turtles by protecting their nesting beaches. Fisherman can make use nets and hooks that kill fewer turtles.

Governments can help by cracking down on the black market in illegal turtle eggs and meat. The U.S. can lead the way.

Take action and urge President Obama to protect the sea turtles

Effective activism’s a long-haul process, not “save the earth in 30 days, ask me how.” But there are some principles that seem to reoccur for people addressing every kind of challenge from the Gulf Oil spill to inadequate funding for urban schools to how to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq. When I was updating Soul of a Citizen, an activist rabbi who was teaching the book at Florida Gulf Coast University suggested I gather together the Ten Commandments for effective citizen engagement. Calling them Commandments seemed a bit presumptuous, but I did draw together ten suggestions that can make engagement more fruitful. Some I’ve already explored in various Soul of a Citizen excerpts. I’ll explore others in coming weeks, but pulling them together in one place seemed useful.

Suggestion #1: Start where you are. You don’t need to know everything, and you certainly don’t need to be perfect.

Suggestion #2: Take things step by step. You set the pace of your engagement. Don’t worry about being swallowed up, because you’ll determine how much you get involved.

“Salt remnants of ancient oceans flow through our veins . . .”
Now, along with endangered species, the Gulf spill has given us a new category: endangered oceans.

The challenges presented by the disaster lay before us in their incomprehensible enormity. To what extent have the hundreds of thousands of gallons of the highly toxic dispersant Corexit 9500 that BP has poured into the Gulf aggravated the ecological horror? How will hurricane season complicate the cleanup? Will the flow of crude continue till Christmas? How many cleanup workers have gotten sick, and why? Might the “relief well” also blow?

We can’t solve our problems, as Einstein said, with the same kind of thinking we used to create them. This sums up the situation for me as well as anything — and pushes my despair up against the door of possibility. We’re at the far edge of the industrial age: the age of fossil fuels. How do we proceed beyond it?

Remarks at the Rutherford Institute, June 16, 2010

I want to save most of the time we have for your questions, so I'll be brief and I'll start with a couple of questions for you. And then I want you to think of questions for me, because otherwise I'll just go on and on about what I want to talk about.

Who can tell me who said this and where they said it? "I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation." -- President Barack Obama, asserting the illegal and unconstitutional power to make war, in a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway.

What about this one -- who and where?