all terrorists are evil. That black-and-white view is obviously correct,
my only problem is who define terrorism and who decides that certain person is a terrorist?

Paul_GA—Dont count on it. Herer is what has already happened under Bush, and the Dems.

Max Ortiz / The Detroit News

Exclusive Report: Tax Cut Impact

Working poor suffer under Bush tax cuts

Cash crunch: loss of services outweighs tax gains for millions.

By Melvin Claxton, and Ronald J. Hansen / The Detroit News

About This Series

To help pay for federal tax cuts, many programs that served the working poor were reduced or eliminated as the deficit grew. This report shows that the amount of money millions of Americans now pay to cover such expenses as child care, housing and college education is greater than the amount they saved through the tax cuts.

A housing program that replaces dilapidated buildings has been cut, rent subsidies frozen and a public housing crime prevention program eliminated, leaving thousands of poor living in squalor, unsafe conditions or homeless.
Even as the country lost jobs during the past two years, $600 million was cut from job-training programs designed to provide skills for the unskilled or unemployed. Federal financial aid grants have been frozen even as tuition has spiked at U.S. colleges.

DETROIT — The Bush administration and Congress have scaled back programs that aid the poor to help pay for $600 billion in tax breaks that went primarily to those who earn more than $288,800 a year.

To offset the loss of the tax revenue, the administration has amassed record federal deficits and trimmed social spending.

The affected programs — job training, housing, higher education and an array of social services — provide safety nets for the poor. Many programs are critical elements in welfare-to-work initiatives and were already badly underfunded.

http://www.detnews.com/2004/specialreport/0409/26/a 01-284666.htm

http://us.oneworld.net/node/102922

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/11/ma_ 559_01.html

And it went here: (military spending—even higher now)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4686684.stm

Eugene says: That’s why one of the most urgent tasks for President-elect Barack Obama’s “team of rivals” foreign policy brain trust is coming up with a coherent intellectual framework—and a winning battle plan—for the globe-spanning asymmetrical conflict that George W. Bush calls the “war on terror.”

I retch.

KDelphi, I don’t see the State cutting social-service waste, whether truly waste or arbitrarily determined to be waste, because there are too many sacred cows (which, as the saying goes, make great steaks) who will easily find partisans to defend them. If they can’t cut back on the wars and rumors of wars, then que sera, sera. We’ll have to trust in God, but keep our powder dry.

Xntrk—I wouldve added Holder, if I felt better. I was lying around yesterday , not taking the antibiotic my Med. HMO gave me (as my dr said it wouldnt work for a kidney infedction), waiting for them to approve the one that would. When they said it would take another 24 hrs. I decided to “live above my means” and put the $145 antibiotic on my credit card! I guess, I shouldve just waited to die…

If you think that this doesnt affect you, think how many people probably just went ahead and took the useless antibiotic—-that you may need to fight an infection YOU have someday, but,the dr has trouble finding one that will work, because the bacteria has lerned to mutate, from overuse of overrused antibiotics for the poor, in cattle feed, etc.

I know about Holder and Chiquita—but I am having trouble getting more details. I get a newsletter about the SOA ( got the “slide show” the other day!), and went with AFSC there in the 90s. I cant believe it’s still there…

Allan—I would agree, except that, to win my sympathy for your cause, bomb the White House, a military base, etc. Dont bomb the Taj Hotel or the WTC. Killing innocent civilians by any group (I know the uS is a primary offender!) is unnacceptable.  I am not sure suicide bombers are “crazy”—I think they believe what they were raised to believe….they also hate the uS. For reasons you stated. Continuing the “war on terror” will only make things worse…

As Reagan said, “One man
‘s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter!”

Paul_GA—They will choose to bankrupt the country (we already bailed out their bad investments and Hedge Funds), or, they will cut “waste” in social services—which is “waste” if it is someone else’s welfare. Someone whom you think dosent vote…I dont think most wealthy investors have most of their investments in the US Stock mkt right now—if they did, it is now in Dubai, Beijing, or some wealthier country. Maybe they have it stored on their Blackwater protected, man-made island, off of Saudi Arabia…

If there is any change, Allan, then the worsening economy will bring it about, as I see it. Sooner or later, Obama & Co. will have to make a choice—guns (meaning funding the wars and preparation for more wars which the warmongers of both parties lust for) or butter (meaning the increasingly more expensive domestic programs the Demos are so proud of, especially Social Security and Medicare). They can’t have both, and if they try to have both, they could push this country to bankruptcy.

Guns or butter? I’d gladly choose the butter.

There is no war on terrorism: there is a war against TERRORISTS. Terrorism is not a tactic as a rule, but is a STRATEGY whereby unnecessary and outlandish killing and maiming and inconveniencing is used to make some population fearful and paranoid.

In WW2 the French or Greek or Yugoslavian “resistances” probably committed terrorism as far as the Nazis were concerned, but they did so with our approval and gratitude. You see it always depends on whose ox is being gored when you try to define human behavior with one sort of all encompassing word . . .

Terrorists come in all shapes and sizes as well: they can be patriotic and clever or stupid and bold or like any other law breaker, they can be insane. I would have to suggest that any suicide bomber would have to fit the “insane” category, but then any criminal more likely than not will do so anyhow.

One thing: don’t talk to me about terrorism and bin Laden unless you have proof that he was alive on nine eleven and had contact with the hijackers or their leader. So far, no one has proved to my satisfaction that bin Laden is alive or was on nine eleven, let alone that he somehow sponsored and planned the terrorist attack. Wouldn’t it be insane if Mo Atta was crazy and hatched his plot all on his own?

NO to Janet Napolitano, NO to Gates….

Terrorism (for the umpteenth time) is a tactic used by states, not just their enemies. Nation states, like the U.S. and India for instance, and “umpteen” others, including close allies. A concept of terrorism that excludes that aspect defines nothing. “That’s why one of the most urgent tasks for President-elect Barack Obama’s Team of Rivals foreign policy brain trust is coming up with a coherent intellectual framework” that recognizes that inconveient fact. Perhaps with the help of a true team of rivals to the spurious Team of Rivals, whose only rivalry is jockeying for personal power, without ever questioning the aims of American power, merely the means, in what “George W. Bush calls the ‘war on terror.’”
  “Everyone knows what Bush is trying to say”, so political opponents can appear smugly superior poking fun of his nomenclature, while
essentially continuing the same policies (or policymakers) unchanged. That’s what it means to be a Democrat. Just tinker with the wording a little, concoct a suitably pretentious caption like “the globe-spanning asymmetrical conflict” and everything can go on as before. Obama Copacabana can now declare war on “globe-spanning asymetrical conflict” (just doesn’t have the same ring, somehow) using “flanking maneuvers or amphibious landings” or with many other new toys he’s promised the Pentagon. Best of all, it will be an inclusive, multicultural state terrorism - politically correct as well as gramatically correct. The new Obama retreads, like The Bush gang, “takes the position that all terrorism is evil” - except ours and our client states - “and that therefore all terrorists are evil” - except us and our cronies. “That black-and-white view is obviously” bipartisan “but it doesn’t take you very far toward useful policy choices.” “Being firmly opposed to rainy days” will make you awfully thirsty in the desert. “The fact that all terrorism is evil doesn’t mean that all terrorism is alike”, the state-sponsored kind is quite different from the non-state kind, and often far worse. “Obama understands this distinction” but he has to fudge “all its implications.”
“At Monday’s news conference, Obama introduced…a remarkably diverse group, including just two white males, that proved Obama’s intention to show a different American face to the world”, i.e. to show the world that they have every bit as much to fear from black and female Americans. After all, if you’re Afghan or Pakistan village is obliterated by an American airstrike, won’t you feel better knowing it was ordered by a half-black president? If your Palestinian children are starving in Gaza, won’t you feel better knowing the embargo was backed by a female Sec. of State? If your phone is secretly tapped, won’t you feel better knowing it was approved by a black Attorney General?  “Soon, though, it will be Obama’s responsibility—and that of Clinton, as the new architect of U.S. diplomacy—to find a way” to paper over these kinds of logical cul-de-sacs - and a lot more. “For Gates, who said he felt it was his duty to stay on at the Pentagon [despite the embarrassing fact that he’s a white male], winding down the occupation of Iraq might be the easy part” - for him, anyway, in his plush office, but not for Iraqis. “Obama described Afghanistan as ‘where the war on terror began and ... where it must end.’” Logical, enough since it was started by another Democrat, Carter almost 30 years ago, calling all Muslims to jihad against the Soviets. Although, everyone knows what he’s trying to say, the always eloquent Obama must be reminded (for the umpteenth time!) not to use that misconception, “war on terror”. Just another one of his many similarities with Bush. “There might be other issues that Obama and his team would like to” evade first, but “as the carnage in Mumbaireminds us” a ‘war on terrorism’ is a great pretext for further state repression at home and abroad.

Robinson’s article, like the Dem apoligists for Obama, assume that the Wor on Terror, initiated by the Bushite counterrevolution, will continue and be consolidated under Obiden.  Obama has appointed an experienced, highpowered, and bipartisan staff to continue the War and American Imperialism.  This continuity from the Bushites, which has neocons in ecstasy and the NYTimes strongly approving, indicates that it is Business As Usual under the Dems.

It is simply necessary to reinterpret on the campaign promises of Obama.  Withdrawing from Iraq now means stationing the military there.  There are no Permanent Bases for doing so, merely Enduring Bases.  Expanding the War to Pakistan. Continuing to threaten to bomb Iran.  Supporting Israeli murder of the Palestinians.  Increasing the military.  Maining Security in the Homeland by stationing twenty thousand combat troops for use on the American population.

Emphaisizing Security in the midst of an economic crisis to divert attention from the increasing class inequality and increasing impoverishment under unregulated globalism.  Obama and his appologists support the War on Terrorism, which precludes any significant change from Bush.

I wonder if Mr. Robinson bothered to read Chris Hedges’ magnificent essay on terrorism? What States do (like bombing, invasions and attacks by armed drones) is terror, too; the difference is that States (thanks to the taxes they coerce out of their citizens and the loans they get from other States) have more power and resources to commit their atrocities. So my conclusion is that, if all terrorism is evil and all terrorists are evil, then States are also terrorists, and it follows that States are evil.

I pause for a reply.

Come on now we know EXACTLY what causes Terrorism, The oppression of the Powerless.
Why have we not attacked Saudi Arabia since their native Sons were the majority responsible for 9/11?
why do we continue to do business with oppressive tyrannical Monarchies? Oil.
How long have Americans Wanted Out of the Middle East perpetual Cluster Fuck..2, 3, 4 , 5 DECADES?
How many times have we been held captive by Oil prices and shortages. How many times has it not only effected our economy, but our International dealings?
Ho wlong has Our Public Servants Turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed against the Middle East popuations- Even provided funding and Weapons to aid them in their Crimes Agaisnt Humanity…Lest we forget what support was given to Saddam throughout the ‘80’s. Funny how quickly the Admin could claim it was Saddams Anthrax that was used in those mailings…How would they know if it were not the same as was provided to use on the Iranians (and Ultimately the Kurds & Shiites). Intersting no one mentioned the obvious connection when it was finally revealed to be from OUR supply.
Let’s get real, The Saudi are the Incubator to Terrorism…they indoctrinate their Young to Hate americans, through direct eduation and through the use of scapegoat rhetoric (blame the americans for your Daily Life Woes). But their propaganda is reinforced by the Fact the US Oil corps are in full compliance with this charade. “it’s those Greedy Americans who cause you so much pain, Not this corp or your Oil ‘royals’”
What is most teltale is the FACT that what was attacked on 9/11 were sites directly related to the Miltiary Industrial Complex. They knew exactly who they were after, and it was not the Average Aemrican Citizen- other wise they would have hit Disneyworld.
Wha tneeds to be acknowledged is the fact these Multinational Corps and their Corrupt Regimes are workng in tandum to control not only the various populations around the world, But the Entire Population of the World.
What to end Terrorism, Hang those who have been Terroriszing the World for Decades through Global economic Extortion.

Are WE-THE PEOPLE-going to insist “bullshit/chain-me” be tried for CRIMES agains HUMANITY???

When Bush/Cheney started using words like EVIL and BEHAVE in their foreign policy rhetoric, I knew the World was in trouble. I have a simplistic view of these matters. Why not try LOVE and COMPASSION? The tit for tat, if you bomb us we will bomb you mind set just seems to get more and more people killed, an endless loop. Bring the “Third Worlders” Housing, Health programs, Micro loans, Education for their children, Food programs aimed at self sufficiency, Etc., etc. Some will die,  but fewer than our current policies kill. Love=Peace>hate=war.  Love IS the answer.