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Columbus Day Celebration 2008
Four days San Francisco's Columbus Day Celebration has been a demonstration of a fictitious power, waste of money that could be used for Communities citizen's security. I am not against the Celebration but I think we could be more wise with our City Money. Lose all the annoying small buzzing flying aircrafts and have just one day of Blue Angels. That's enough. Apply the rest of the money to secure our City airspace against the Airlines Industry that violates our rights all year long with low flying aircraft. I remember this Year Supervisor Chris Daly District 6 made an attempt to reduce costs and it was putted down by an elite City of lobbyists. Four days San Francisco's Columbus Day Celebration has been a demonstration of a fictitious power, waste of money that could be u... more
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Army's life-or-death drama: To combat suicides, service introduces interactiv...
Alarmed by a record rate of suicide in its ranks, the Army yesterday unveiled a unique prevention tool -- an interactive video to be mandatory viewing Army-wide -- in which soldiers will play the role of an anguished infantryman and make virtual choices that lead the character to get help or, in the worst case, shoot himself in the head.
"This is you: Specialist Kyle Norton," a male narrator begins, putting soldiers in the boots of a 19-year-old Midwesterner after a bomb-clearing mission in Iraq.
The video, titled "Beyond the Front," leads the viewer through a detailed drama in which Norton is hit by relationship troubles, financial problems and scrapes with the law -- what Army research shows are major events that precipitate suicide. Norton is blindsided by an e-mail from his fiancee, who has become pregnant by another man. He is devastated further when one of his best friends is killed in an ambush.
Questions pop onto the screen at key moments, prompting the viewer to decide whether to get help -- by opening up with buddies, Norton's sergeant or a chaplain. Depending on the choices, Norton edges toward recovery or sinks deeper into suicidal thoughts. The goal is to immerse the viewer into Norton's life in a way that makes preventive lessons stick, say Army officials and the video's creators.
The video is one of several initiatives launched by the Army to try to stem the suicide rate among active-duty soldiers. That rate increased from 12.4 per 100,000 in 2003, when the Iraq war started, to 18.1 per 100,000 last year.
This year, 93 active-duty soldiers killed themselves through the end of August, the latest data show. A third of those cases are under investigation by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's Office. In all of 2007, 115 soldiers committed suicide. Suicide attempts by soldiers have also increased since 2003.
If the trend continues, the death rate this year is likely to exceed that of a demographically similar segment of the U.S. population -- 19.5 per 100,000, Stephens said -- which has not happened since the Vietnam War Alarmed by a record rate of suicide in its ranks, the Army yesterday unveiled a unique prevention tool -- an interactive video to be m... more -
John Lennons birthday today, Peace Tower to be lit, a letter from Yoko on IMAGINE ...
On 9 Oct 2008, John Lennon's birthday, Yoko Ono asks the people of Iceland (and the world)
to join her and many others across the rest of the world in praying for peace
and stability.
At 8pm, (today in Iceland) as the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is illuminated on the island of Viðey
she asks everyone to join together and let the power of light and prayer
become a collective expression of the desire for peace and harmony on our
planet.
Dear Friends,
Please join me not only in remembering John on October 9th but also in
spreading the message of peace. This is something that was so important to
John - the fact that we could all work together for the positive good of our
planet. He would have loved how we are all mobilizing ourselves in thought
and in action. It's time for action and the action is peace!
with love, yoko
Yoko Ono
9 Oct 2008
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Let's join our collective consciousnesses to bring energy and light to the need for World Peace. On this site, there are times to do this per your location on earth. Remember the Laws of Attraction as well, an energy that permeates the Universe, and energy that keeps it all glued together!
If you want, you can also send a wish message to be included in todays ceremony. You can find out how on the site. or at this link: http://www.imaginepeace.com/wish.html
peace and light..WPTV
ps..listen to what John says in the video. Even tho this was over 20 years ago, it still holds true On 9 Oct 2008, John Lennon's birthday, Yoko Ono asks the people of Iceland (and the world) ... more -
Comments on Comments on Media, War and Finances
I finally got the point of who drives the news here at current.
1. There a part of the people that are students
2. There a part that are employees at Current
3. Then there are people that are really aware of what is going on and that is not that many
4. Then there are the kids...
5. And the other part is... well
Let see if you can guess, throw me a bone! Because I already figure that out. I finally got the point of who drives the news here at current. 1. There a part of the people that are students ... more -
Massive US military budget passed
Chalmers Johnson: US wrong to believe it can maintain both a military and civilian economy. Part 1
While debate over the Paulson bailout package dominated the headlines, the US Congress quietly passed a landmark $615 Billion defense spending bill. One of the few people to comment on the measure was Chalmers Johnson, in his article "We have the money". Chalmers explains to Real News Senior Editor Paul Jay how the military-industrial complex is a driving force behind the current financial crisis and a determinant of much of what happens in Washington. He also criticizes the omission of the military-industrial complex from the political discourse determined by the two major parties and the media.
Chalmers Johnson taught from 1962 to 1992 at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California. From 1968 until 1972 he was a consultant to the Office of National Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency. He has written 17 books. His most recent releases are “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire” (Metropolitan Books, 2000) and “The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic” (Metropolitan, 2004) and his newest book, “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic" (Metropolitan, 2007). Chalmers has been a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, the London Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, and The Nation among others, he appears in the 2005 prize-winning documentary film "Why We Fight".
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89373406_last_days_of_the_amer...
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89378191_the_encirclement_of_r... Chalmers Johnson: US wrong to believe it can maintain both a military and civilian economy. Part 1 ... more -
Blueprint For Global Enslavement: The New World Order is Here
Alex Jones' brand new documentary Endgame charts the history of the elite blueprint for social domination and control, outlining the ultimate plans that those who consider themselves the anointed have for our planet.
The first section of the film documents the rise of the banking cartels, who since 1800 have funded both sides of almost every war. Endgame charts the usurpation of the British economy by the Rothchild family who went on to bankroll all factions during the first world war providing armaments companies through banks in France, Austria, Germany and England.
Endgame then documents the fallout of the great war and the attempts to form a controlling League of Nations, which was ultimately blocked by Congress. Such frustration on the part of the elite led to the rise of two factions, fascists and Fabian socialists. Endgame documents how bankers again funded both sides during WW2 which ultimately led to the creation of the UN and the beginning of the movement to implement three power blocs via incremental globalism.
The second section of the film covers the Bilderberg group and Alex's documentation of the elite group at the 2006 meeting in Ottawa. It covers Alex's detention on the Canadian border at the behest of Bilderberg insiders themselves. Alex and his crew describe how they were interrogated for nearly twelve hours before finally being allowed entry into the country.
Featuring extensive interviews with Jim Tucker and Daniel Estulin, veteran reporters who have been covering the meetings for 27 and 15 years respectively, Alex reveals how it is an offence for any member of the federal or state government to meet with foreign power brokers without the express authority of the president or Congress.
Endgame then shifts focus to the impending movement towards a North American Union, presenting reports and documentation relating to the efforts toward regional harmonization between the US Mexico and Canada at the secretive Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summits, which refer to an "evolution by stealth" agenda.
--------------more at the link, or just watch the whole movie here, for free! Alex Jones' brand new documentary Endgame charts the history of the elite blueprint for social domination and control, outlining ... more -
The US is still at war: a reminder
With the economy going downhill a lot of attention is being diverted from important issues ... like the war we are still actively participating in. With the economy going downhill a lot of attention is being diverted from important issues ... like the war we are still actively part... more
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McCain, Obama debate Iraq strategy
Speaking at the first presidential debate, McCain said the war had been badly managed at the beginning but that the United States was now winning, thanks to a "great general and a strategy that succeeded."
"Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq," McCain said of his Democratic opponent.
Sen. Barack Obama responded: "That's not true, that's not true."
He blasted McCain as having been wrong about the war at the start, saying McCain had failed to anticipate the uprising against U.S. forces and violence between rival religious groups in the country.
Before moving into foreign policy, the candidates focused on the economy.
McCain said he would consider a spending freeze on everything but defense, veterans affairs and entitlement programs in order to cut back on government spending.
Obama disagreed, saying, "The problem is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.
"There are some programs that are very important that are currently underfunded," Obama said.
He agreed that the government needs to cut spending in some areas, but he said other areas, such as early childhood education, need more funding.
McCain repeated his call to veto every bill with earmarks. Speaking at the first presidential debate, McCain said the war had been badly managed at the beginning but that the United States was ... more -
Don't believe the drilling hype!
Target: U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate
Sponsored by: The Wilderness Society
"Do something about sky-rocketing gas prices!"
That's the message members of Congress are hearing from their constituents - and understandably so. But under pressure to help consumers, many of our elected officials are wrongly giving in to the oil and gas industry's multi-million dollar lobbying campaign to open protected areas to drilling. Target: U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate Sponsored by: The Wilderness Society "Do something about sky-rocketing gas prices!" ... more -
A soldier in Iraq decided to write about his experiences. He never suspected he�...
Notes on a Scandal.
Soldiers at war rarely write magazine stories. But on July 13, 2007, a 24-year-old army private named Scott Thomas Beauchamp who had been serving in Iraq for about 10 months published a short, pseudonymous essay in the New Republic magazine that created a media firestorm.
"Shock Troops" is a grim first-person account of the dehumanizing aspects of war. In a tone vacillating between shame and detachment, Beauchamp, under the byline "Scott Thomas," recounts with squirm-inducing detail how he and his buddies were becoming so callous they openly mocked a gruesomely disfigured woman—the apparent victim of a roadside bomb—when she sat down for a meal in a military mess hall.
"I love chicks that have been intimate—with IEDs. It really turns me on—melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses...," Beauchamp quotes himself as saying, loud enough so the woman could hear. He continues: "My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing. The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall." Playfully referring to her as the Crypt Keeper, they made her a running gag.
In another passage Beauchamp describes a fellow soldier picking up a hair-clumped fragment of human skull while digging at a military base and donning it "like a crown." As the soldier "marched around with the skull on his head, people dropped shovels and sandbags, folding in half with laughter." And then there was the private "who really only enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles because it gave him the opportunity to run things over"—dogs especially. His preferred method was to "suddenly swerve and catch a leg or tail in the vehicle's tracks."
At a time when the military and the war's defenders were working hard to play up the achievements of Bush's troop surge, the New Republic's searing account of soldiers acting like sadistic teenagers was bound to raise a lot of hackles. The blowback began almost immediately.
Read the rest of this article at the link. It is NOT anti Troops. It is pro-reality. Notes on a Scandal. ... more -
A 10 minute video for all you war supporters!!
Thanks Jon. You are one of the REAL heroes. Truth to power, power through truth.
This video is graphic, and should not be viewed by children, however must be viewed by the McCainiacs before your children are sent to do these things. Thanks Jon. You are one of the REAL heroes. Truth to power, power through truth. ... more -
Study: 1 in 4 soldiers at war have hearing loss
The bombs along the Baghdad road exploded one after the other, leaving one soldier unconscious and another screaming from his wounds. Staff Sgt. Kevin Dunne's squad was under attack. Rifle and machine gun fire pinned them down. Then, shots from a sniper.
Dunne yelled orders, but he and his squad were at a disadvantage.
Dunne said he couldn't hear well enough to tell where the sniper fire was coming from.
"I had no idea," he wrote in an e-mail to USA Today.
In the four months before the April 7 attack, the chief physician at Fort Hood, Texas, had warned that Dunne's hearing was so bad that he should be removed from combat duties. Others in the Army overruled him and sent Dunne back to Iraq for his third combat tour.
Now, a member of Dunne's squad — Sgt. Richard Vaughn, 22, of San Diego — lay dead from a sniper's bullet.
"He was lying in the middle of the street motionless," Dunne wrote. "I blame myself a lot for not being able to identify the threat simply because of the way I heard the shots."
Hearing loss is one of the most common ailments that affects troops sent back to combat, according to the Pentagon and government researchers. One in four soldiers serving in Iraq or Afghanistan have damaged hearing, the Army said. In addition, a recent study from the Rand Corp. reported one in five combat veterans suffer post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. Back pain, leg injuries and other musculoskeletal problems are the top ailments of troops in the war zone, said Ellen Embrey, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for force health protection and readiness.
Dunne, who in Iraq was part of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, is now back home. Besides his hearing problems, he shows signs of PTSD and has severe back problems.
After more than five years of war marked by multiple deployments, many combat veterans are developing long-term health problems, raising the risk that ailing troops are being sent back into combat.
Since 2003, 43,000 troops who were classified as medically unfit in the weeks prior to deployment were still sent to war, Pentagon statistics show. That number began to drop after 2003, but the trend has reversed in the last two years. Central Command, which oversees troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, is drafting rules that could make it more difficult to send unfit troops to war.
"As much as I wanted to get out there …, I'm seriously physically challenged by not being able to hear," Dunne wrote. "The guys to my left and right don't deserve anything to happen to them because of my personal pride."
'Feeling like I'm 50'
Dunne returned from Iraq in June.
"I'm now at 29, feeling like I'm 50," he wrote before leaving Baghdad.
He has fought off and on in Iraq since 2003, when his unit was profiled by USA Today. Dunne has been in occasional contact with the newspaper since then.
Meanwhile, Dunne began a series of routine medical exams and screenings to understand the war's toll on him. Doctors found:
• Hearing loss. His hearing declined dramatically during Dunne's first tour. Army audiological records show loss in various frequencies, particularly in his left ear, said Anthony Cacace, an audiologist and professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. Cacace reviewed Dunne's medical test records provided by USA Today.
The weakness leaves him struggling to hear consonant sounds, especially if there is background noise.
"He's going to have one hell of a time understanding what people say if he can't get visual cues," Cacace said, adding Dunne has the hearing of a 70-year-old in his right ear and worse than that in his left. The bombs along the Baghdad road exploded one after the other, leaving one soldier unconscious and another screaming from his wounds. ... more -
They’re Taking A Stand Against The War, One Step At A Time
Marching through small towns and big cities across Illinois and Wisconsin, a handful of war protesters are on the first leg of a 450-mile walk from Chicago to St. Paul to join demonstrators at the Republican National Convention.0729 05 1“As we come through various communities, individuals and groups join us to walk for a day or two,” Dan Pearson, 27, said by cell phone from Madison, Wis., where the group stopped Monday to attend a peace vigil at the state Capitol.
About 10 to 15 people are taking part in most of the trek, with six going the whole distance, said Pearson, co-coordinator for the Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence, which organized the “Witness Against War” walk.
The route will take them to Baraboo and LaCrosse, in Wisconsin, and on to Winona, Minn., before they reach St. Paul on Aug. 30, marching about 12 miles per day.
“We’ve been in touch with a number of peace groups in northern Illinois and Wisconsin,” he said. “[They] have put us in their homes.
Part of the symbolism of the Chicago-St. Paul march is to link the protests at the Sept. 1-4 GOP convention with the antiwar demonstrations that occurred at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
One of the marchers is Paul Melling, 27, a recent graduate of St. Cloud Technical College and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Melling said he was an Army specialist deployed to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 in the field artillery. “The war in Iraq is wrong,” he said. “It was wrong from the beginning. …What I did over there did not do anything to benefit the Untied States or the Iraqi people.”
Reaction along the route has been mostly positive, but sometimes people have been hostile, Melling said. He likes to carry a sign that says, “Support Our Troops, End the War in Iraq.”
Marchers include Kathy Kelly and Mike Miles, nationally known peace activists.
St. Paul development
In another development Monday, at a news conference in St. Paul, Meredith Aby, a leader of the Sept. 1 antiwar march in St. Paul, said her group has pledges from Los Angeles and New York protesters to come to the city with vans coming from Denver after the Democratic National Convention and buses or vans from Lincoln, Neb., Sioux Falls, S.D., and most Minnesota cities.
Jessica Sundin, another march leader, said protesters are not planning at this time to appeal a decision last week by U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, who sided with the police march route and time schedule for the Sept. 1 march. Sundin said her group instead will put pressure on St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to change the route and time. Marching through small towns and big cities across Illinois and Wisconsin, a handful of war protesters are on the first leg of a 450-m... more -
A GREAT SPEECH
This is a very inspirational speech by Howard Zinn
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Stand up for world peace now!
This video was nominated for "Most Inspirational" in the YouTube Video Awards 2007. It has also been viewed in more than 100 countries, from Afghanistan to Zambia.
We urge you to stand up for WORLD PEACE! ¡Paz de mundo! Paix dans le monde! Weltfrieden! Pace di mondo! De wereldvrede! Paz mundial! Мир во всем мире! Verdenfred!
Let's make this video travel around the world so everyone can share our vision of world peace. I hope you will be inspired to take a stand and express yourself in a video response to this... We live in a world full of poverty, disease, corruption, and inequality. Violence is an intolerable addition to this global suffering!
We must focus our spendings and our efforts on helping to better the lives of those in need, instead of KILLING and causing more pain to fellow humans and innocent people!
This is a project in stop-motion animation that took about 1,000 separate shots to create. - PLEASE POST YOUR VIDEO RESPONSES - All you need to do, to show that you care, is literally *stand up.* Just get off your office chair or coach, stand on your feet, and film it. No one is asking for a donation, a promise, or your contact info...just a show of your support. We can create a powerful movement - eventually a compilation video. If you are in the mood for a peaceful world, then STAND UP.
Nice work Trevor did and I thought it was worth posting here. If you want, that would be cool to expand the video responses to post here on Current...the more the merrier!
peace This video was nominated for "Most Inspirational" in the YouTube Video Awards 2007. It has also been viewed in more than 100... more -
With over 4000 deaths in Iraq,only a handful of pictures
BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the American military to control graphic images from the war.
Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of marines killed in a June 26 suicide attack and posted them on his Web site, was subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the country. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the Marine commander in Iraq, is now seeking to have Mr. Miller barred from all United States military facilities throughout the world. Mr. Miller has since left Iraq.
If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.
It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.
While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.
But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans.
Journalists say it is now harder, or harder than in the earlier years, to accompany troops in Iraq on combat missions. Even memorial services for killed soldiers, once routinely open, are increasingly off limits. Detainees were widely photographed in the early years of the war, but the Department of Defense, citing prisoners’ rights, has recently stopped that practice as well.
And while publishing photos of American dead is not barred under the “embed” rules in which journalists travel with military units, the Miller case underscores what is apparently one reality of the Iraq war: that doing so, even under the rules, can result in expulsion from covering the war with the military.
“It is absolutely censorship,” Mr. Miller said. “I took pictures of something they didn’t like, and they removed me. Deciding what I can and cannot document, I don’t see a clearer definition of censorship.”
The Marine Corps denied it was trying to place limits on the news media and said Mr. Miller broke embed regulations. Security is the issue, officials said.
“Specifically, Mr. Miller provided our enemy with an after-action report on the effectiveness of their attack and on the response procedures of U.S. and Iraqi forces,” said Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, a Marine spokesman.
News organizations say that such restrictions are one factor in declining coverage of the war, along with the danger, the high cost to financially ailing media outlets and diminished interest among Americans in following the war. By a recent count, only half a dozen Western photographers were covering a war in which 150,000 American troops are engaged. "
Soldiers deserve more respect than a 20-second News spot about a car-bombing or IED explosion. Reality is the biggest influence for peace, and before we keep letting our sons and brothers become murderers in new countries, we have to confront the censorship of their lives and deaths. BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines after he posted photos on the Internet... more -
Hearing on limits of executive power: Vincent Bugliosi
Vincent Bugliosi's opening statements during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the constitutional limits of executive power. Vincent Bugliosi's opening statements during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the constitutional limits of executive powe... more
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Suicide blast kills 8 U.S.-allied forces
BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber killed at least eight people Thursday night at a checkpoint manned by U.S.-allied Sunni guards northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi police said.
The woman blew herself up near a checkpoint in central Baqouba, a police officer said.
At least eight guards were killed and 24 other people were wounded, according to the officer. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber killed at least eight people Thursday night at a checkpoint manned by U.S.-allied Sunni guards north... more -
Are We Real News or Tabloid?
Is CurrentTV Becoming the same News Tabloid TV?
I can flip 10 Th(s) of channels and see the same sensationalism and meaningless news on some TV Stations. Nothing is wrong, everything is just beyond believe. Why should I watch current TV or see the count down "n-e-w-s" happening here on the web? In the end of the day the real news gets barrier, my head is empty and I can hardly understand the real issues that affects human life happening around me. Is CurrentTV Becoming the same News Tabloid TV? ... more -
A father speaks out about the rising cost of food.
A father speaks out about the rising cost of food and the growing challenge of feeding his family.
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