RECENT ARTICLES I FOUND TO BE OF INTEREST & INFORMATIVE

Keep People in Their Homes, the Banks Will Get Their Money as Well
Congressman Kucinich Press Release on 2/11/09
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=110820

An Excellent Discussion with Dennis Kucinich on why Congress has Trouble Carrying out the People’s Wishes and What the People can do to Change Things.
http://www.wethepeopleforpeacenow.org/pb/wp_bf1812af.html?0.8415685027545756

US Senate Passes Rescue Plan, Tough Battle Ahead
http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-02-11/US_Senate_passes_rescue_plan__tough_battle_ahead_.html

Who Will Be There for Obusha When the Floor Drops Out?
David Michael Green
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/20-4

Stimulate Peace, Not War
Anne Miller
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/19-11

Who’s Keeping Burger King Workers Below the Poverty Line?
Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
Goldman Sachs has been having it their way with Burger King workers for too long.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/127392/

War Criminals, Including Their Lawyers, Must Be Prosecuted
Marjorie Cohn
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/20-1

Demagogy and Empty Promises as Obama Signs Stimulus Bill
Patrick Martin, World Socialist website
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/feb2009/stim-f19.shtml

Investigating Bush's Crimes
Scott Horton
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/20

U.S. Intel Chief’s Shocking Warning: Wall Street’s Disaster has Spawned our Greatest Terrorist Threat
Chris Hedges, Truthdig
http://www.alternet.org/rights/127252/

Obama's Tar Sand Trap
James Hansen
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/19-14

Our Health Care System is Organized for the Wealthy – We Can Change That
Maggie Mahar, AlterNet
We are accustomed to living in a sharply tiered society, but it doesn’t have to be that way with health care.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/126669/

Obama Throws Down The Gauntlet On Afghanistan Troop Escalation- The Anti-War Movement Is Now On Notice
“American Left History” Weblog Commentary
Okay, the Obama “honeymoon” with the anti-imperialist section of the anti-war movement is officially over, or it should be. Any regular reader of this space knows that this writer had not, in any case, granted the new Commander-In-Chief any such “honeymoon” as a matter of course due the extreme distance in our respective political perspectives, but today he speaks to those who took Obama’s anti-war positions as good coin during last years run up to the presidential elections. Those who still want to give “Brother” Obama some additional 'quality' honeymoon time can wait until future events unfold on the slippery slope for those who venture in that god-forsaken part of the world.

And to those serious anti-war militants I will be short ands sweet as we have been down this road before. The news that Obama has given authorization for an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan is really old news. That Obama intended to make Afghanistan his war has been an ‘open’ secret for a while. What is interesting about this recent announcement is that the actual forces (mainly Marine and Army units) to be deployed later this year were originally scheduled to take a rotation in Iraq. Thus, by a rather nice sleigh-of- hand on his part Obama is able to draw down troops in Iraq and escalate their number in Afghanistan. Nice work. But again, if you had been paying even casual attention, this deployment was already laid out in last year’ campaign rhetoric. Here is one time at least that a bourgeois politician dose what he says he wants to do.

But that is neither here nor there for our purposes. Only a raw political neophyte would be shocked by such maneuvering. What is necessary to understand, even for those just mentioned political neophytes, is that this should be a wake up call for those who thought that Obama was going to dismantle the imperial war machine, turn swords in ploughshares or some such. You now have your notice. I will finish up by reposting a recent entry (Vote NO (With Both Hands) On The Obama Afghan War Budget):

“….. President Obama has already authorized an ‘intermediate’ troop escalation with more planned. He, moreover, has very publicly declared that Afghanistan, come hell or high water, is his signature war and has made Afghan policy a high priority. I have argued previously my belief that Obama intends to stake his administration, if not his place in history, on Afghanistan. In short, although he has proven he can raise fantastic sums of money for himself, since he is not going to pay for it personally he is coming to you looking for the loot. As the beginning of anti-war political wisdom therefore-“just say NO”. No money. Nada. I would urge every anti-war militant to sent e-mails, letters (does anyone do that anymore?) or call your representative and tell them the same thing. But here is the real anti-war ‘skinny’. Let’s get ready to, once again, go back into the streets and shout (and shout at least as loudly as we did at the unlamented Bush), Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American/Allied Troops From Afghanistan!”

Corporate America, Ground Your Jets
Barbara Ehrenreich & Chuck Collins, AlterNet
The American taxpayer, reeling from the economic meltdown, doesn’t feel like subsidizing lavish jets and bonuses any more.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/128057/

Plans to Publish Early Tolkien Adventure
Dave Itzkoff, NY Times
February 19, 2009

There will be much celebrating around the Party Tree in Hobbiton: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt said in an e-mail message that it planned to release a previously unpublished book by J. R. R. Tolkien that predates his novel “The Hobbit” and his fantasy epic “The Lord of the Rings.” The book, “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun,” was written during the 1920s and ’30s, while Tolkien held the Rawlinson and Bosworth professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. It is his English-language narrative of the Norse hero Sigurd the Volsung, whose medieval adventures were — of course — populated by magic horses, dwarfs, dragons and gods with mischievous motives. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt said that it would publish the book, with commentary from Tolkien’s son Christopher Tolkien, on May 5.

Visit The Northeast Tolkien Society at:
http://tolkiensociety.ning.com/groups/group/show?id=2748077%3AGroup%3A148

(Duchess Note: Many thanks to Carol [NYC] and Linda [TX] in contributing some of the above articles, as well as sharing insightful commentary of their own. All is greatly appreciated. The real reason for continuing the war in Afghanistan hasn't much to do with terrorism, but alot to do with oil pipelines. Again, corporate elite and oil companies are pushing the agenda on this and all for oil/land control. Civilian and soldier lives are being lost and maimed, so that the "elite" can bath in greenbacks, while the rest of us sink further into a deep recession. Let's call it what it really is ... a depression.)