A Drug Against War

April 25th is ANZAC day

2013-04-25T23:04:00.003-04:00

On April 19, 1915 combined British and French forces attempted to open a passage through the Turkish controlled straits known as the Dardanelles. Subsequently, on April 25, 1915, allied forces conducted an amphibious assault - the largest ever attempted at the time - along several beachheads of the Gallipoli peninsula.The goal was to capture the western side of the straits by land and neutralize the Turkish defenses preventing the navies advance. The larger purpose was to capture Constantinople and thereby open a sea route to the Entente's beleaguered third member, Russia. The resulting operations would become known as one of the greatest disasters in British military history. Ironically, it would also become a defining moment for the young nations of Australia and New Zealand, whose forces, collectively know as ANZAC's, would feature prominently in the ensuing months of trench warfare along the coast of Gallipoli.

On Democracy

2013-04-25T15:03:00.000-04:00

Perikles on Athenian Democracy

Perikles ( Περικλῆς "surrounded by glory"; c. 495 – 429 BCE)

Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
- Perikles' Eulogy for the Athenian Dead of the 1st year of the Peloponnesian War as quoted by Thucydides (2.37)

Goebbels' secretary, 100, breaks her silence about the cold and distant monster who made Germans hate Jews | Mail Online

2011-09-01T12:16:00.000-04:00

Goebbels' secretary, 100, breaks her silence about the cold and distant monster who made Germans hate Jews | Mail Online:

'via Blog this'

The Secret Government with Bill Moyers

2011-07-18T02:33:00.001-04:00

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

2011-07-14T19:51:00.002-04:00

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen from the Constitution of Year I (1793)

Source: Frank Maloy Anderson, ed., The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France 17891901 (Minneapolis: H. W. Wilson, 1904), 17074. Reprinted in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, Jack R. Censer and Lynn Hunt, eds. (American Social History Productions, 2001)

The French people, convinced that forgetfulness and contempts of the natural rights of man are the sole causes of the miseries of the world, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration these sacred and inalienable rights, in order that all the citizens, being able to compare unceasingly the acts of the government with the aim of every social institution, may never allow themselves to be oppressed and debased by tyranny; and in order that the people may always have before their eyes the foundations of their liberty and their welfare, the magistrate the rule of his duties, the legislator the purpose of his commission.
In consequence, it proclaims in the presence of the supreme being the following declaration of the rights of man and citizen.

1. The aim of society is the common welfare. Government is instituted in order to guarantee to man the enjoyment of his natural and imprescriptible rights.
2. These rights are equality, liberty, security, and property.
3. All men are equal by nature and before the law.
4. Law is the free and solemn expression of the general will; it is the same for all, whether it protects or punishes; it can command only what is just and useful to society; it can forbid only what is injurious to it.
5. All citizens are equally eligible to public employments. Free peoples know no other grounds for preference in their elections than virtue and talent.
6. Liberty is the power that belongs to man to do whatever is not injurious to the rights of others; it has nature for its principle, justice for its rule, law for its defense; its moral limit is in this maxim: Do not do to another that which you do not wish should be done to you.
7. The right to express one's thoughts and opinions by means of the press or in any other manner, the right to assemble peaceably, the free pursuit of religion, cannot be forbidden.
The necessity of enunciating these rights supposes either the presence or the fresh recollection of despotism.
8. Security consists in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.
9. The law ought to protect public and personal liberty against the oppression of those who govern.
10. No one ought to be accused, arrested, or detained except in the cases determined by law and according to the forms that it has prescribed. Any citizen summoned or seized by the authority of the law, ought to obey immediately; he makes himself guilty by resistance.
11. Any act done against man outside of the cases and without the forms that the law determines is arbitrary and tyrannical; the one against whom it may be intended to be executed by violence has the right to repel it by force.
12. Those who may incite, expedite, subscribe to, execute or cause to be executed arbitrary legal instruments are guilty and ought to be punished.
13. Every man being presumed innocent until he has been pronounced guilty, if it is thought indispensable to arrest him, all severity that may not be necessary to secure his person ought to be strictly repressed by law.
14. No one ought to be tried and punished except after having been heard or legally summoned, and except in virtue of a law promulgated prior to the offense. The law which would punish offenses committed before it existed would be a tyranny: the retroactive effect given to the law would be a crime.
15. The law ought to impose only penalties that are strictly and obviously necessary: the punishments ought to be proportionate to the offense and useful to society.
16. The right of property is that which belongs to every citizen to enjoy, and to dispose at his pleasure of his goods, income, and of the fruits of his labor and his skill.
17. No kind of labor, tillage, or commerce can be forbidden to the skill of the citizens.
18. Every man can contract his services and his time, but he cannot sell himself nor be sold: his person is not an alienable property. The law knows of no such thing as the status of servant; there can exist only a contract for services and compensation between the man who works and the one who employs him.
19. No one can be deprived of the least portion of his property without his consent, unless a legally established public necessity requires it, and upon condition of a just and prior compensation.
20. No tax can be imposed except for the general advantage. All citizens have the right to participate in the establishment of taxes, to watch over the employment of them, and to cause an account of them to be rendered.
21. Public relief is a sacred debt. Society owes maintenance to unfortunate citizens, either procuring work for them or in providing the means of existence for those who are unable to labor.
22. Education is needed by all. Society ought to favor with all its power the advancement of the public reason and to put education at the door of every citizen.
23. The social guarantee consists in the action of all to secure to each the enjoyment and the maintenance of his rights: this guarantee rests upon the national sovereignty.
24. It cannot exist if the limits of public functions are not clearly determined by law and if the responsibility of all the functionaries is not secured.
25. The sovereignty resides in the people; it is one and indivisible, imprescriptible, and inalienable.
26. No portion of the people can exercise the power of the entire people, but each section of the sovereign, in assembly, ought to enjoy the right to express its will with entire freedom.
27. Let any person who may usurp the sovereignty be instantly put to death by free men.
28. A people has always the right to review, to reform, and to alter its constitution. One generation cannot subject to its law the future generations.
29. Each citizen has an equal right to participate in the formation of the law and in the selection of his mandatories or his agents.
30. Public functions are necessarily temporary; they cannot be considered as distinctions or rewards, but as duties.
31. The offenses of the representatives of the people and of its agents ought never to go unpunished. No one has the right to claim for himself more inviolability than other citizens.
32. The right to present petitions to the depositories of the public authority cannot in any case be forbidden, suspended, nor limited.
33. Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man.
34. There is oppression against the social body when a single one of its members is oppressed: there is oppression against each member when the social body is oppressed.
35. When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.

Little Big Horn: 135 years ago, today.

2011-06-25T12:34:00.000-04:00

via Wikipedia

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand and, by the Native Americans involved, the Battle of the Greasy Grass, was an armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It occurred on June 25 and June 26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory, near what is now Crow Agency, Montana.

Alleged photo of Crazy Horse in 1877

The battle was the most famous action of the Great Sioux War of 1876 (also known as the Black Hills War). It was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, led by several major war leaders, including Crazy Horse and Gall, inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake). The U.S. Seventh Cavalry, including the Custer Battalion, a force of 700 men led by George Armstrong Custer, suffered a severe defeat. Five of the Seventh's companies were annihilated; Custer was killed, as were two of his brothers, a nephew, and a brother-in-law. Total U.S. deaths were 268, including scouts, and 55 were wounded.

more here

Drones

2011-06-25T12:15:00.000-04:00

Drones via The Big Picture

All Star Dancing New Year's Eve

2011-05-15T14:23:00.000-04:00

Armed forces New Year's Radio broadcast from Dec. 31st, 1945
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B6yODJvhOW3LOWQ2YTMzOTEtM2IxNi00MzAzLTgyYjAtZTRhMzUwYjQ4MzYw&hl=en

Dealers in Death (1935)

2011-03-22T21:11:00.000-04:00

This 1935 anti-war documentary tells the story of the companies that became rich selling weapons in World War I. It also looked into the years that lay ahead.

"The peoples of many countries are being taxed to the point of poverty and starvation in order to enable governments to engage in a mad race in armament which, if permitted to continue, may well result in war. This grave menace to the peace of the world is due in no small measure to the uncontrolled activities of the manufacturers and merchants of engines of destruction, and it must be met by a concerted action of the peoples of all nations." Franklin D. Roosevelt

Egyptian Protest Guide

2011-02-02T20:28:00.000-05:00

Egyptian Protest Guide

Original here.

Mud and Rain By Siegfried Sassoon

2011-01-17T22:40:00.000-05:00

This is a poem by British Poet Siegfried Sassoon about the Battle of Paschendale.

Mud and Rain

Mud and rain and wretchedness and blood.
Why should jolly soldier-boys complain?
God made these before the roofless Flood -
Mud and rain.

Mangling cramps and bullets through the brain,
Jesus never guessed them when He died.
Jesus had a purpose for His pain,
Ay, like abject beasts we shed our blood,
Often asking if we die in vain.
Gloom conceals us in a soaking sack --
Mud and rain.

The Panama Deception

2011-01-16T01:33:00.000-05:00

On December 20th, 1989 more than 20,000 U.S. troops invaded the small Central American country of Panama. How and why did it happen? This Academy Award winning 1992 documentary attempts to answer these questions and more. Were we invading Panama to capture the rogue dictator Manuel Noriega, or were we meeting out frontier justice on a man who had the temerity to stand up to the CIA and its former director George H. W. Bush? Or could it have been something else? Why did the US military need to destroy the Panamanian Defense force if they were there to capture one man who had been accused of dealing drugs to the United States. In the year 2000 the United States was slated to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama. But Panama would also be responsible for providing for the security of the canal, something it could not easily accomplish with out capable military forces.

This film also documents the human cost to the invasion. It examines claims that US military forces indiscriminately attacked civilians and civilian residences with tanks and incendiary grenades, arrested progressive Panamanian leaders and cultural figures, interred thousands of refugees and prisoners, covered up civilian casualties with mass graves, tested experimental weapons on both civilian and military targets, executed Panamanian prisoners, and used force to intimidate and shut down media outlets critical of the invasion.

This film also suggests that military action in Panama was used as a proving ground for new tactics and systems that would soon be used in the 1991 war against Iraq.

Featuring George H. W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Oliver North, Colin Powell, and Ronald Reagan.

Directed by Barbara Trent.
Written by David Kaspar.

This film is also available on Netflix here.

Gallipoli

2011-01-15T21:17:00.000-05:00

A moving and disturbing documentary about the Gallipoli campaign of WWI. In this months long battle of attrition, British, French and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.) forces faced off against Turkish and German troops. The Turks were dug into trenches on the high ground and both sides suffered horrible casualties amidst appaling conditions. Gallipoli was the largest amphibious military operation ever attempted up to that time. It was also one of the most tragic failures experienced by the Allies during the war and was ultimately responsible for Winston Churchill losing his position as First Lord of the Admiralty.

This film was a joint Australian and Turkish production, so it does an excellent job of giving both sides of this story. This film is also available on Netflix here.

UPDATE:
The old links are broken unfortunately, but here is another Documentary about Gallipoli available on youTube (at least for now)

Bush Family Fortunes

2011-01-15T20:38:00.000-05:00

Bush Family Fortunes via Greg Palast.

Bush Family Fortunes is a documentary that will make you shake your head and want to throw something at your TV. If even half of what BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast reveals is true and you happen to be an American you may or may not be calling for a revolution depending on whether you are a democrat or a republican.

The Hottest Places in Hell

2011-01-15T20:17:00.000-05:00

Martin Luther King Jr. Speaks out against the Vietnam war:

Excerpts of a Sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967.

The full text of the speech is here.

Yet the Pentagon says MLK would support the war in Afghanistan.

Read about it here.

Ducked and Covered: A Survival Guide to the Post Apocalypse

2011-01-02T23:36:00.000-05:00

via Laughing Squid

"I am the Nightrider. I'm a fuel injected suicide machine. I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller!"

Ducked and Covered: A Survival Guide to the Post Apocalypse from Nathaniel Lindsay on Vimeo.

Rockets!

2011-01-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

Illustration from physics professor Peter Alway's 1995 book Rockets of the World. Very Cool!

Christmas Truce

2010-12-30T15:36:00.000-05:00

BBC story about the Christmas Truce of 1914, here. Featuring eyewitness accounts.

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S.

2010-12-30T14:42:00.000-05:00

"A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad...."

"The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. “America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well,” it said."

via New York Times

The Office of Special Invesigations: Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust

WWI Propaganda Posters.

2010-12-30T13:36:00.000-05:00

A really nice collection of WWI propaganda posters can be found here, along with a ton of great historical information as well!

Victory Garden!

2010-12-30T04:02:00.000-05:00

Sow the Seeds of Victory!

No War Against Iran: December Digest

2010-12-30T03:19:00.000-05:00

Yearly Price Tab for Afghan Forces: $6 Billion, Indefinitely | Danger Room | Wired.com http://ow.ly/3rmHj

If you read Wikileaks you are a felon - Boing Boing http://ow.ly/3rmqz

Top CIA spy in Pakistan pulled amid threats after public accusation over attack http://ow.ly/3r7c8

Intelligence Reports Offer Grim Outlook on Afghanistan War http://ow.ly/3q1sJ

US Air Force Blocks Internet Access To New York Times, Guardian And 23 Other Website Posting WikiLeaks Documents http://ow.ly/3pgVA

"In a society where truth becomes treason, we're in big trouble" - Ron Paul
U.S. Armored Cadillacs are Iraq Bomb Bait | Danger Room | Wired.com http://ow.ly/3p53S

US surge in Afghanistan 'not working' - Telegraph http://ow.ly/3osQs

Leaked documents reveal US and Afghan government collusion with major traffickers. http://ow.ly/3nwBr

Blasphemy trials in Pakistan reveal a broken justice system http://ow.ly/3nvQf

Pathetic.
John Pilger: Why are wars not being reported honestly? | Media | The Guardian http://ow.ly/3njKA

Gates: Afghanistan war progress has 'exceeded my expectations' http://ow.ly/3mb0N

But really, what would you expect him to say?
Iran talks end with little sign of progress http://ow.ly/3ldpM

WikiLeak: Pakistanis ‘Sabotage’ U.S. Mercs, Gear, Diplos | Danger Room | Wired.com http://ow.ly/3jcM6

Communications lay bare the corruption battle in Afghanistan http://ow.ly/3jcs7

No War Against Iran - November Digest

2010-12-30T03:17:00.000-05:00

How to Schedule a War | Mother Jones http://ow.ly/3hhaE

t r u t h o u t | Dennis Kucinich: Fake Taliban Leader, Fake Elections, Fake Deadline, Real Trouble http://ow.ly/3hh42

“The only real thing about this war is the dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, the wasted tax dollars and the mounting evidence telling us to get out.”
New Low For Afghanistan War: 47 Percent of Military Families Want Troops Brought Home « SpeakEasyhttp://ow.ly/3hh0H

Every day, more and more people are willing to state the obvious: the Afghanistan War isn’t making us safer and it’s not worth the cost. Now the president is losing a powerful constituency on his Afghanistan policy: almost half of military families say the troops should be brought home .
Pakistan Shuts the Door on Transparency: http://ow.ly/3hgv7

Half of $7.5b US aid to be funneled through gov. ministries, not aid groups.
WikiLeaks: U.S. bombs Yemen in secret - War Room - Salon.com http://ow.ly/3hgoM

US more than willing to let Yemen take the blame for killing civilians, children.
Diplomatic cables reveal the U.S. has been launching strikes in Yemen, but attacks are claimed by local government
It's Official: White House Brands Wikileaks, And All Those Associated, As Criminals | zero hedge http://ow.ly/3h77D

The US of A breaks the Soviet record - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com http://ow.ly/3g4Ds

As of tomorrow, the American occupation of Afghanistan will have lasted longer than the suicidal Soviet one
YouTube - Brzezinski on the Afghan war Pt1 http://ow.ly/3dgTu

Peak Oil: why the Pentagon is pessimistic [EXCLUSIVE] - Oil Man - Blog LeMonde.fr http://ow.ly/3c8d1

Afghanistan will be gripped by 'extreme violence' after troops leave | World news | The Guardianhttp://ow.ly/3bA3W

Get Out of Afghanistan? US and NATO Think They're Just Getting Started | World | AlterNet http://ow.ly/3bzPZ

Chart of the Day: Peak Oil | Mother Jones http://ow.ly/39DjY

In new memoir, Bush makes clear he approved use of waterboarding http://ow.ly/34Nja

OpEdNews - Article: JStreet Poll: American Jews Aren't Buying Iran Threat As Issue http://ow.ly/341Xa

Ex-Gitmo Detainee Helped Uncover Bomb Plot [FISHY] http://ow.ly/32V74

"In fact, Yemeni officials suspect he had been serving as a "double agent" planted in al Qaeda by the Saudis, according to the AP."
Saudi arms deal is about Iran (Rep. Ron Paul) - The Hill's Congress Blog http://ow.ly/32UED

"We are told that our increasingly aggressive policies toward Iran are justified by that country’s rigid Islamic laws and human-rights violations, while the even more repressive Islamic rule in Saudi Arabia is never mentioned."

Never mind the Hun, we want our money!

2010-12-30T01:41:00.000-05:00

Excerpts from A World Undone (G.J. Meyer)

from the Chapter: Background: Consuming the Future

In addition to being the greatest bloodbath in the history of western Europe and the greatest in eastern Europe until the Second World War, the Great War was a process by which all the great powers, victors and vanquished alike, transformed themselves from bastions of prosperity into sinkholes of poverty and debt. Financially as in so many other ways, the war was a road to ruin....

What was not foreseen was the ability of the industrialized nations to go on fighting year after year even while devouring themselves financially. As astute an economist as John Maynard Keynes was a year into the Great War before he understood that total war would not cause total financial collapse. “As long as there are goods and labor in the country the government can buy them with banknotes,” he wrote in September 1915, “and if the people try to spend the notes, an increase in their real consumption is immediately checked by a corresponding rise of prices.” The truth, he concluded, was that bankruptcy would never force the great powers to stop fighting. They could be stopped only by the exhaustion of their manpower, their physical resources, or their will to continue. The next few years showed him to be entirely right....

Great nations found themselves unable not only to pay their bills but even, in some cases, to pay the interest on what they were borrowing. By 1917 the German government’s expenditures amounted to 76 percent of net national product; they had been 18 percent just before the war. Tax revenues were covering only 8 percent of the spending. That same year Britain’s military spending was 70 percent of national output, and revenues were about a fourth of expenses. France’s military budget, thanks to heavy borrowing, was equal to or even more than total output....

The British and French were far more able than the Germans to repatriate money they had invested overseas, and because of the naval blockade only the Entente was able to buy and borrow from the United States. But gradually, inexorably, their treasuries were depleted. Questions arose in New York and Washington about their ability to make good on their debt. In November 1916 the U.S. Federal Reserve Board warned its member banks against continuing to buy foreign—which meant British and French—treasury bills. The result was a near-panic in which London retaliated by briefly ceasing to place orders in the United States and urged France to do likewise. By April 1917 the British were spending $75 million a week in the United States, were overdrawn on their American accounts by $358 million, and had only $490 million in securities and $87 million in gold to draw on to make good their debt. In short, they were only weeks away from insolvency.

But this was a crisis for the United States too. American manufacturers and farmers had become dependent on sales to the Entente, and American banks were owed immense amounts. A British and French financial collapse—never mind the outright defeat of the two nations—would have been a disaster for the U.S. economy. Thus the German submarines were not Washington’s only reason for wanting to save the Entente. In purely practical business terms, it became dangerous for the United States not to enter the war.

The following is from ZeroHedge :

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Dec. 14 projects that under current law, debt held by the public will exceed $16 trillion by 2020, reaching nearly 70% of GDP. The CBO also projects the combination of rising debt and rising interest rates to cause net interest payments to balloon to nearly $800 billion, or 3.4% of GDP, by 2020 (Fig. 2).

Visual History of Imperialism

2010-11-21T13:53:00.000-05:00

Very cool collection of maps showing who was colonizing what and when.
via WikiMedia

World empires and colonies 1898, (just before the Spanish-American War, Boxer Rebellion and Boer War).