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Now WE must earn Obama's Nobel

The Nobel Prize given to Barack Obama must now be earned by a grassroots movement dedicated to peace. The award was given to an American president now ignobly intent on waging war.

So the task of actually earning this honor falls to us.

Thousands of anti-war activists took to the streets in at least 100 US cities within hours after Obama officially escalated the war on Afghanistan on December 1.

With them came a least one new global internet campaign (The Peace, Justice & Environment Network, http://pjep.org/resources/detail.php?rid=2275) devoted to reversing this ghastly attack as well as to saving the environment and winning social justice.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has introduced legislation to deny the funding for this war.

All around the world a sane citizenry has made it clear that war is not peace.

Tit for tat

How to make progressive lemonade

Peace movement objects to Peace Prize

Washington, DC - On December 9th, representatives of several dozen U.S. antiwar groups posted an open letter to the Nobel Committee expressing regret that President Obama, so close upon his receipt of this honor, has opted to escalate the U.S. war in Afghanistan with the deployment of 30,000 additional troops.

The letter calls attention to statements made by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., upon receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1964, when he urged people to reject retaliatory violence. "President Obama has insisted that his troop escalation is a necessary response to dangerous instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the document states, "but we reject the notion that military action will advance the region's stability, or our own national security."

The signatories pledged "to mobilize our constituencies in the spirit of Dr. King's nonviolent and committed example. His prophetic words will guide us as we assemble in the halls of Congress, in local offices of elected representatives, and in the streets of our cities and towns, protesting every proposal that will continue funding war."

Kucinich circulating privileged resolutions to end wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Washington D.C. (December 9, 2009) – Following a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement:

"Today, I will begin circulating two privileged resolutions which will trigger debate and votes on a timely withdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States makes it Congress' responsibility to determine whether or not we go to war or stay at war. Consistent with Article 1, Section 8, the privileged resolutions will invoke the War Powers Resolution of 1973. I ask for your support of these resolutions, which will be introduced in the House in January.

"Yesterday, with the US Secretary of Defense at his side, the President of Afghanistan declared that his country's security forces will need financial and training assistance from the United States for the next 15-20 years.

"We cannot afford these wars. We cannot afford the loss of lives. We cannot afford the cost to taxpayers. We cannot afford to fail to exercise our constitutional right to end the wars.

National security state still killing John F Kennedy

On the 46th anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy, it would appear that the National Security State finds it necessary to kill the facts surrounding his death. The Discovery Channel aired three misleading shows in November, “Did the Mob Kill JFK,” “JFK: The Ruby Connection” and “Inside the Target Car.” I will focus on “Did the Mob Kill JFK.” “Did the Mob Kill JFK” is based on Lamar Waldron's book titled “Legacy of Secrecy (co-written or at least co-promoted by well respected Thom Hartmann) which concludes that the Mafia assassinated Kennedy.

Thom Hartmann tells us that the Mafia orchestrated the assassination in a way that “the National Security State would cover for them for years, maybe decades, maybe centuries.” Clearly, the National Security State is still distorting the facts of the assassination, giving me the title of this article.

Dana Lyons' Three Legged Coyote will cure your ills

If your bummed by Obama, nagged by nukes and turned totally off by your TV, here's a happy holiday homeopathic: THREE LEGGED COYOTE, the soulful, irreverent and occasionally hilarious new DC by Dana Lyons. ( Lyons Brothers Music. www.cowswithguns.com).

My brilliant singer-songwriter-activist long-time buddy has done it again.

Lyons is the singing satirist whose "Cows With Guns" has become the anthem of the vegan/vegetarian movement. The very idea of uzi-packin' bovines has become stock-in-trade for even those pacifists who would end at last the horrors of factory farming.

Dana has also rendered immortal a wide range of dam-busting, nuke-fighting, war-opposing activists. Their often lonely quest for peace, justice and the long-forgotten American way somehow finds a home in Lyons' range, which roams from the soulful to the sinful with shocking ease.

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Afghanistan: What Obama and the US Media Aren't Telling Us

If you pay attention only to the commercial and so-called "public" media in the United States, you'd get the impression that the response around the world to President Obama's proposed escalation of the decades old U.S. war on Afghanistan has ranged from tepid to positive.

Inside Afghanistan - well; when do we ever hear from anyone actually in Afghanistan? I mean the Afghans themselves? Obama claims, as the Bush administration did, that The U.S. will be heading an international peacekeeping force representing more than 40 nations in an all-out effort to, in the words of both Obama and Bush "get the job done". What job? That's a question the media, by and large seems reticent to ask.

In the few days immediately following 9-11 ( September 11th, 2001, that is) I had occasion to be in New York City. The Pacifica Radio network was in a state of crisis as self-appointed rogue national board of directors had assumed control of the 5-station network and was busy scuttling its best programs and dismantling Pacifica station by station.

Obama: Say one term is enough

Admittedly, I never was a fan of President Obama, either as a candidate or now as president. I always suspected, based on his dependence on corporate money and his lackluster career as a state and US senator that he would, ultimately, prove to be a big disappointment to the millions of Democrats, liberals, progressives and independents that fell for his slick rhetoric. He has always been too much a part of the two-party plutocracy to ever be a true reformer. Here are some of the main reasons that he should cut his ties to corporate and political elites, announce that he will not run for reelection and, instead, become the populist, reformist president the nation desperately needs:

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