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Obama Expands War, Slaps Peace Voters

The Obama Administration has engineered a triple setback for the U.S. peace movement and the millions of Americans who opposed the Bush Administration’s unjust, illegal, immoral wars.

In the last two weeks of February, President Barack Obama — upon whom so many peace supporters had counted to change Washington’s commitment to wars and militarism — delivered these three blows to his antiwar constituency:

1. By ordering 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan Feb. 17, President Obama is continuing and expanding George W. Bush’s war. It’s Obama’s war now, and it’s getting much bigger.

2. By declaring Feb. 27 that up to 50,000 U.S. soldiers would remain in Iraq after “combat brigades” departed, President Obama is continuing the war in a country that remains a tragic victim of the Bush Administration’s aggression and which has taken the lives of over a million Iraqi civilians and has made refugees of 4.5 million people.

3. By announcing Feb. 26 that his projected 2010 Pentagon budget was to be even higher than budgets sought by the Bush Administration, President Obama was signaling that his commitment to the U.S. bloated war machine — even at a time of serious economic recession — was not to be questioned.

Whether or not Obama’s actions will revive the peace movement is another matter. Antiwar activism during the election year was minimal. And now that a Democrat is in the White House it may be further reduced, since most peace backers voted for Obama. The movement’s strength will be tested at the demonstrations in Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities on the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war March 21.

The Special Danger from Obamamania
Dissident Voice - Santa Rosa,CA,USA
This article posted Saturday, February 28, 2009 filed under Activism, Democracy, Social Security.

Backers take Obama to task on troop surge
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, USA
Historian-activist Howard Zinn called Obama's plan to send 17000 additional troops there "disastrous. ...

Progressive Forces Push Hard for Dems to Rethink Iraq and Afghanistan
 By Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle. February 27, 2009.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/129348/?page=1    Brave New Films, MoveOn, SEIU and netroots bloggers are urging the Dems to rethink the surge in Afghanistan and Obama's exit plan for Iraq.  visit my website www.michaelmunk.com

Watch the videoWatch President Obama's video

 and share it with your friends and family:

 
http://my.barackobama.com/recoveryvideo
 
Poll Finds Faith in Obama, Mixed With Patience   By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MARJORIE CONNELLY
Americans are confident Barack Obama can turn the economy around but are prepared to give him years to do so...Times/CBS News poll.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&pop=1&ping=1&indicate=1

Our New President, Barack Hussein Obama

"We may not get there in one year or even in one term," ... "But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there"

Obama receives congratulations from world leaders (AP)

AP - President-elect Obama accepted congratulations from nine presidents and prime ministers Thursday, returning calls from world leaders who reached out after his presidential victory. The global financial crisis was among the topics Obama discussed with key U.S. allies he'll deal with during his administration.

All but one of the Photos below are  by Peter C. Little, Portland, Oregon Photographer (Shannon provided the other one)
Here are first person, backstage photos by Peter C. Little of Portland, Oregon. 
These are supplied by
 The Wordsmith Collection  
Photos from Barack Obama's visit to Portland  
http://www.slide.com/r/h9lbfhd14D-4jP9_bjunEJDd0D-teSxJ
A Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy    By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Barack Obama’s huge foreign policy team, organized like a mini State Department, is on the spot this week as the senator plans his overseas trip.
Peter DreierPeter Drier

Will Obama Inspire a New Generation of Organizers?

This article originally appeared in Dissent Magazine.   Read Post

Americans are used to voting for presidential candidates with backgrounds as lawyers, military officers, farmers, businessmen, and career politicians, but this is the first time we've been asked to vote for someone who has been a community organizer. Of course, Barack Obama has also been a lawyer, a law professor, and an elected official, but throughout this campaign he has frequently referred to the three years he spent as a community organizer in Chicago in the mid-1980s as "the best education I ever had."

This experience has influenced his presidential campaign. It may also tell us something about how, if elected, he'll govern. But, perhaps most important, there has not been a candidate since Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy who has inspired so many young people to become involved in public service and grassroots activism.

Through his constant references to his own organizing experience, and his persistent praise for organizers at every campaign stop, Obama is helping recruit a new wave of idealistic young Americans who want to bring about change.

...Whether or not he wins the race for the White House, Obama, through his own example, has already dramatically increased the visibility of grassroots organizing as a career path, as well as a way to give ordinary people a sense of their own collective power to improve their lives and bring about social change.

...After his election in 1960, President John Kennedy encouraged baby boomers to ask what they could do for their country. At the time, JFK meant joining the Peace Corps and the VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program. He could not have anticipated the wave of protest and activism--around civil rights, Vietnam, and later feminism and the environment--that animated the sixties and seventies.

President Lyndon Johnson was initially no ally of the civil rights movement. However, the willingness of activists to put their bodies on the line against fists and fire hoses, along with their efforts to register voters against overwhelming opposition, pricked Americans' conscience. LBJ recognized that the nation's mood was changing. The civil rights activism transformed Johnson from a reluctant advocate to a powerful ally. LBJ's "Great Society" program--although criticized as too tame by United Auto Workers leader Walter Reuther and other progressives--provided some community organizing positions with anti-poverty agencies, job training groups, and legal services organizations in urban and rural areas. Many of today's veteran activists got their first taste of grassroots organizing in the anti-poverty, civil rights, and farmworker movements.

Now comes Obama, a one-time organizer, who consistently reminds Americans of the importance of grassroots organizing. If he's elected president, he knows that he will have to find a balance between working inside the Beltway and encouraging Americans to organize and mobilize. He understands that his ability to reform health care, tackle global warming, and restore job security and decent wages will depend, in large measure, on whether he can use his bully pulpit to mobilize public opinion and encourage Americans to battle powerful corporate interests and members of Congress who resist change.

For example, talking about the need to forge a new energy policy, Obama explained, "I know how hard it will be to bring about change. Exxon Mobil made $11 billion this past quarter. They don't want to give up their profits easily." Another major test will be whether he can help push the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)--a significant reform of America's outdated and business-oriented labor laws--through Congress against almost unified business opposition. If passed, EFCA will help trigger a new wave of organizing that will require enlisting thousands of young organizers into the labor movement.

If Obama wins the White House, progressives within his inner circle will look for opportunities to encourage his organizing instincts to shape how he governs the nation, whom he appoints to key positions, and which policies to prioritize. Meanwhile, a new generation of volunteer activists and paid organizers will be looking to join President Obama's progressive crusade to change America. But if it appears that he is veering too far to the political center, they will--inspired in part by Obama's own example, and perhaps with his covert support--mobilize to push him (and Congress) to live up to his progressive promise.

 

Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program, at Occidental College. He is coauthor of Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century and The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City. He writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and American Prospect. From 1984-92 he served as senior policy advisor to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, and currently serves on the boards of several organizations, including the LA Alliance for a New Economy , the Liberty Hill Foundation, the National Housing Institute, and the Southern CA Assn for Nonprofit Housing.

 

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On the "Bailout"   Should we hand over 700 billion dollars, no questions asked? 
Bailout Is a Windfall to Banks, if Not to Borrowers
By MIKE McINTIRE
Most banks that received bailout money are using it to pay down debt or to make investments, not lending.