Since our world is becoming smaller with ever more increasing contact between peoples of the world, it is important to remember that we are all human, we all breathe the same air, we all love our children, and we all are mortal.  As Jimmy Carter said in his recent acceptance speech for his Nobel Peace Prize “We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”  The Dalai Lama pointed out in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, that “the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences, whether between individuals or nations, is through dialogue.”  And 25 years before that, Martin Luther King accepted his Nobel Peace Prize based upon his profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of his time—the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.  Farm activist Cesar Chavez told us “Nonviolence is not non-action.  It is hard work.  It takes patience to win.”   

We believe that all humans yearn for freedom, equality and dignity with respect for human rights.  Whatever our differences we must always remember that we are bound together as members of the human family. 

To find resolution to conflict the advice is clear from John Kennedy’s inaugural address:  We must first explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.  Never fear to negotiate.  Let all peoples share in the wonders of science instead of being affected by its terrors.  And as to governments remember that the strong must be just and the weak secure.   

The key to creating a better and more peaceful world is the development of love and compassion for others.  This naturally means we must develop concern for our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate than we are.  It is a tragedy that in so many parts of the world there is no shortage of guns and bullets, but a severe lack of food.  In order to co-exist, we must begin to resolve clashes of interests using new techniques.  It can no longer be thought that war will win the debate.  It is not weakness that drives continued discussion.  It is willingness to evolve toward a higher humanity that will allow patience in discussions to eventually become solutions. 

Let us, as humankind, work as one community to solve the grave problems of our time.  Terrorism, overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, environmental issues all threaten our very existence on this planet.  Human rights, environmental protection and great social and economic equality are all interrelated.  Peace will prevail on earth as soon as we understand old lessons, and start sharing this planet as a human family.   

In this age where security is not assured the only way to find peace daily is to work with all peoples toward disarmament, and embark on a path toward love and compassion for ourselves and our brothers and sisters.  Compassion is, by nature, peaceful and gentle, but it is also very powerful.   

Ultimately, humanity is one and this small planet is our only home.  

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http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2007/10/01/20071001_gravel28.mp3

Listen to Mike Gravel’s interview on NPR… Just amazing.

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‘Tempo’ host Stan Bohrman interviews then-Senator Mike Gravel in 1971 on White House aspirations.

Senator Gravel also discusses Direct Democracy, and the current political process of the day.

www.gravel2008.us

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As we mark the six anniversary of the 9/11 attack, it is time for Americans to face the real lessons of that horrible morning. Until we dispel the myths which the Bush administration and a compliant media have been feeding us, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes and suffer similar consequences.

Lesson 1: They Do Not Hate Us Because ‘We are Free.’

For decades the U.S Government has committed horrible acts around the world, often in secret but always in the name of the American people. In every region on earth, our government has overthrown or undermined democracies, aided brutal dictatorships, and funded guerrilla wars under the guise of fighting for freedom. Until the American people grapple with this fact, our government will continue to engage in activities that destabilize the world community and bring pain and suffering to millions, including our own citizens.

Lesson 2: Anyone Could Have Imagined the 9/11 Attack

Our government failed to protect us on 9/11 not because such an attack was unimaginable but because bureaucratic turf wars and incompetence at the highest levels impeded our counter-terrorist efforts. The CIA tracked one of the hijackers into the United States but refused to pass that fact along to the FBI. FBI field agents repeatedly warned their bosses about suspected terrorists taking flight lessons but no investigation followed. The president was explicitly warned about an impending attack with airplanes but did nothing. Why not? We still don’t know. The 9/11 Commission was a whitewash designed to protect the reputations of incompetent, bloated bureaucracies and a distracted White House.

Lesson 3: Our Leaders Displayed Cowardice in the Face of Terror

After the attacks, our local and national leaders refused to question the administration’s contention that the air at ground zero was safe. Why was no alarm sounded by all the politicians who visited ground zero and smelled the foul, poisonous fumes? Leaders in both parties also surrendered our constitutional liberties and protections because they feared being called unpatriotic. They allowed Bush to ignore the Geneva Accords and engage in torture and extraordinary rendition. They allotted Homeland Security funds based on politics, not genuine threat assessments. And some politicians now seem unbothered by our failure to kill Bin Laden. Let’s be clear, Bin Laden is not just a symbol — his hands drip with the blood of thousands of Americans who must be avenged. When our leaders abandoned their responsibility to protect our lives and our ideals, they gave a great victory to the terrorists. Nothing could be more cowardly.

Lesson 4: The World is Not Divided between Good vs. Evil.

We should never negotiate with terrorists and we must hunt down Bin Laden and anyone else who attacks us. But we should not arbitrarily label governments ‘evil’ or ‘terrorist regimes’ and then wage covert or overt war against them. Look at the effects of Bush’s belligerence toward the so-called Axis of Evil. In Iraq, we could have avoided 3700 American dead and the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents if we respected international law and allowed the UN weapons inspections to continue. By spurning direct talks with North Korea and threatening them, Bush forced Kim Jong-ill to create and test a plutonium bomb. Fortunately South Korea took a conciliatory diplomatic approach that now promises a peaceful resolution. We need to once again work with Iran on issues of mutual concern (Iraq, arms proliferation, and regional peace). Opening diplomatic negotiation with Iran is not naïve, shameful or irresponsible. In fact the tough talk we hear from Bush, Cheney and many presidential candidates simply feeds influence of Iranian extremists. The United States must stop all covert activities against Iran and begin good faith negotiations that will secure a lasting peace.

Long before 9/11, Iran fought a war against the Taliban and Wahabi terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda. The Iranians funded the Northern Alliance and in the fall of 2001 they provided the U.S. with key intelligence about Afghanistan. However, Bush and the neocons ignored the advice of the State Dept. and the CIA and spurned further cooperation. Once Bush dropped the ‘Axis of Evil’ line in January 2002, there was no turning back. We missed a great opportunity to learn from the Iranians and to build ties between our intelligence communities that might have helped us find Bin Laden.

Lesson 5: We Must Fight Them Over There Before They Attack Us Over Here.

Invading Iraq was a terrible mistake and now we are trying the fix the mistake with more violence. The surge is not working despite what General Petraeus says. In the last year the civilian death toll has risen along with the number of refugees. Our occupation of Iraq has fed anti-American resentment worldwide. We need to admit we made a terrible mistake, begin a troop withdrawal immediately and work with regional powers, including Iran, to stabilize the country and the region. Once we stabilize Iraq, we need to settle the Palestinian issue once and for all. The cycle of violence will not be broken with more violence. We will live in peace only after fair-handed, good-faith negotiation.

Lesson 6: We Need a Real 9/11 Investigation

This September 11th I am going to give a speech at the UN calling for a new, truly independent 9//11 Commission. This commission would investigate unanswered questions including the historical causes of the attack and the manifold failures of our government before and after the event. Unlike the first investigation, this commission should be granted subpoena power and full access to all governmental files and personnel. George Bush should be forced to testify ALONE.

I do not believe 9/11 was a governmental conspiracy. But I know that our government was partly at fault by engaging in polices that inspired it, failing to take aggressive steps to stop it, and sacrificing the liberty and safety of our citizens after it. It’s time we find out why and do something about it.

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WHY DO WE LET IT HAPPEN?

We the People can do something about change, but we let it happen. 

They say money buys the elections.

They are right but only because We the People let it happen.

What can we do about it?

Get behind a platform issue. 

For example…

I have found a solution to the problem with funding social security… reduce the 6.7% tax to a 2% flat tax and there will be much more money in the pool than the present collection method which caps the tax receipts to less than the first one hundred thousand in income. 

2% flat tax will tax Mayor Bloomberg and other high income Americans on their full incomes.  We must also tax trust income, dividends, stock options, tax deferred income, capital gains, barter… any income any way, no cap, just a straight 2%.   This sharing of the public good will cause much less pain at 2% than it does to the sufferers in the present system at 6.7%. 

There are others issues

We, the People, as consumers, can purchase efficient lighting.  That will change our use of energy to the extent of changing the present direction toward irreversible global warming. 

We, the People, can elect officials who want to work for us, and not those that work for big corporations or big lobby groups or to help the rich at the expense of the poor.  But that is who we are electing, because We don’t stick together.  So let us form a union.  If you earn less than one million dollars then let us all discuss who we will vote for and if we do that We the People will have the power to help Us the People. 

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New York Magazine has a great article written by John Heilemann and my take on it…

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/36114/

Fighting Rove’s Last War
Yes, he was a great tactician. But for Democrats, his tactics are a trap.
By John Heilemann

Unlike his soon-to-be-ex-boss, Karl Rove has never claimed to be “a uniter, not a divider.” But with his announcement last week that he would depart the White House at the end of this month, Rove provoked an outpouring of political obituaries that were striking in their degree of essential agreement. All gave props to his tactical prowess and ruthless brilliance. All credited him with three successive, and increasingly improbable, Republican electoral triumphs in 2000, 2002, and 2004. And all concluded that he had failed utterly to achieve his ultimate goal: an enduring national political realignment in favor of his party. Indeed, the consensus view, even among conservatives, is that the GOP is far weaker at the end of the reign of Rove than it was at the beginning.

The only person who seems to demur at the last portion of this verdict is Turd Blossom himself. In a slew of exit interviews last week, Rove argued that his tenure advanced the cause of long-term Republican dominance and that history would judge George W. Bush kindly, particularly on Iraq. Much of what he had to say, of course, was either pure fantasy or self-justifying bullshit or a toxic combination of the two. But Rove also made three points, I think, of great relevance to the election that lies ahead—points that the Democrats currently celebrating his exit would do well to take seriously.

The first is that the 2006 midterm election was “really close,” as he put it, much closer than it appeared. Despite an unpopular war, a more unpopular president, and a rash of scandals among Republican incumbents, the margin by which Democrats took control of Congress was threadbare indeed: just 3,562 votes in the Montana race that tipped the balance in the Senate, and a total of 85,000 votes in the fifteen House contests that put the lower chamber in Democratic hands. No less a partisan than James Carville describes the outcome as “predictable and well within the range of historical norms”—not, that is, a landslide endorsement of his party or its policies.

The second point of Rove’s worth considering is one he stated bluntly to Mike Allen of The Politico. “The Democrats have a problem with national security,” he said. “Too many Democratic leaders are opposing policies that will lead to America’s success in the Middle East.” To Rove’s way of thinking, the Democratic opposition to Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and the party’s increasingly ardent get-out-now posture on the war echo the party’s dovish stance on Vietnam in the early seventies—which hung the albatross of foreign-policy weakness around its collective neck for years thereafter. And they will make whomever the Democrats pick as their nominee in 2008 vulnerable, once again, to Republican charges of pusillanimity.

Rove himself seems to have little doubt that the Democratic standard-bearer will be Hillary Clinton—the third point of his deserving of note. “She’s strong and she’s got the Establishment of the Democratic Party, and she benefits from having relatively weak or inexperienced opponents,” he opined. But Rove then went on to trash her in an interview with Rush Limbaugh: “She’s going into the general election with, depending on which poll you look at, high forties on the negative side and just below that on the positive side. And there’s nobody who has ever won the presidency who started out in that kind of position.”

Many Democrats will airily dismiss such talk as spin, as a desperate bid to perpetuate the illusion that all isn’t lost for the Republicans. But coming from a mind as Machiavellian as Rove’s, it’s more likely an attempt to bolster Clinton’s prospects by inciting support for her on the left—because in fact she is the opponent he believes the GOP stands the best chance of defeating. And the truth is that, for all his deviousness, Rove isn’t simply spreading manure. Despite the deftness of her campaign so far, Hillary remains a hugely polarizing figure. Her principal rivals, meanwhile, all have ample weaknesses for Rove’s successors to exploit. And their party remains less loved than tolerated, still not entirely trusted by voters to keep them safe in an age of terror.

All of which suggests that the 2008 campaign may prove to be a more close-run thing than many Democrats now expect. To win it will require more of the party and its nominee than Rovism in reverse: more than courting the base, turning out loyalists, and maintaining iron message discipline. What the 2006 election hinted at is that the country is ready to move past the era of divisiveness and stark red-blue polarities, toward some kind of consensus-building and reconciliation. The Democrat who can plausibly offer that will not just wind up in the White House. He or she will drive a stake through whatever remains of Rove’s conception of himself as someone who changed our politics forever.

Ok, right off the bat anyone that calls Rove a “Turd Blossom” is awesome in my book… but more importantly highlights the simple fact that the Democrats are missing the golden egg.  No one has stepped up to the plate with any real experience and just because you watched from the sidelines for a couple of years (yes, I know Hillary did alot in her terms as the first lady) but do you think she was sitting in the major briefing rooms about war or terrorism? am I playing into the stereotype now?  I dont know and really I think I’ve found the point of frustration… Rove has done it again - no matter who wins in 2008 America still loses, the train has fallen off the tracks to the point of no return (am I serious? I am but I hope I am not correct) but look at it this way the economy is tanking, jobs are about to turn around again from what little rebuilding they had done in the last two years, and we have a war thats now being called/polarized as another Vietnam…

Congratulations you’re the winner - You are the President of the United States of America - the prize fix this WONDERFUL mess, while not hurting your party at the same time. 

And as a wake up call for everyone who doesnt think there is anything wrong with the economy… The Euro is now 1.9:1 to the US Dollar and how are we doing against the neighbors to the north? Just a little time ago it was .6:1 (in 2003) and they’ve totally made up the difference .9:1 (2007) [Canadian:USD]

When does it become to time take our toys and head home before someone comes knocking on our doors and asking for our toys back (oh wait - I saw a stat that a town in Cali had a 1:26 home foreclosure rate)… We’ll deal with China’s recall and the home foreclosure market in an upcoming post I guess.

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Well fans, it is clear that the Iraqi Prime Minister is courteous.  Our government took over a country that clearly was just not ready for the democratic process envisioned by the Bush Administration (Cheney’s comments from last decade sure indicates that he knew that Iraq could not end up a democracy). 

The “democracy” created in Iraq ended up electing the present prime minister, whose job it was to create a coalition government.  A job that can not be accomplished.  So now years later and after the death of hundred’s of thousands Iraqi citizens, our government officials are saying that he is doing a sub-standard job.  I applaud him for having survived.  I applaud the Iraqi people for standing up to their conquerors.  I hope that our next president will find a very short path to an exit strategy so that the Iraqi people can find their own path to peace.  And if Iraq has trouble instilling democracy in its citizenry, that at least the government in power will have options to assist or just walk away. 

In the meantime, while we treasure our freedom of speech.  I think the more important first step in our freedom of speech is to recognize that some speech will have repercussions and therefore is not so free.  So our government officials should not be criticizing Nouri al-Maliki, we should be praising him for keeping the country of Iraq together even though Sunni’s and Shiites have generations of hatred and now they have the ability to carry out death to each other.   

So now, not only is our government’s officials rude (they invaded a country) now we see that they are crude.   Congratulatoins America, we continue to sink to new lows…

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GET OUT.  Last week I blogged about how little guys cannot win by trading the markets.  They can buy and hold and make money over time, but the strategy of winning on a day to day or month to month basis by watching and staying ahead of the market is just a fantasy.  But just as many people win at that as win in Las Vegas.  That of course does not include all those people who say they won, but really didn’t. 

I have been watching the market with all its volatility over these past weeks and have made it a point to discuss the markets with almost everyone I meet.  Experts (not brokers) agree now is the time to stand on the sidelines.  One expert told me specifically that by mid autumn sell all.  Then you will not be affected when the market tanks and then eventually you can buy back in.  The problem is he doesn’t know when it will be time to buy back in. 

His theory is simple.  We are a consumption economy.  Consumers have fueled that econonmy because of availability of mortgage money.  That will become harder to find, and consumers will stop spending.  That will lift the mask off the economy which has very little strength beyond consumer spending.  Once the spending stops, the commercial enterprises will find it tougher and tougher to meet their bottom lines and they will stop that will create a downward spiral.  Eventually the next President, the Fed and the world economy will do something that will start a positive cycle again.  I asked is that the spring of 09, and he says at earliest, and maybe that is wishful thinking.  So he says get out now. 

I spoke to brokers and analysts and they say there really isn’t a major problem at all.  The markets are all up for the year and are up even more for the last 12 months.  So while we are going through a volatile time right now, don’t worry, stay the course.    Unfortunately, liberal blogger that I am, that phrase now rings as what people say when they know something isn’t right, but they don’t want you to think about it.  So while I may stay the course with my portfolio of invested market paper, I do believe that it is time to think about hiding your assets in vehicles other than stocks.  Real Estate might be a new frontier, especially as you can vulture pick and by some foreclosures at prices substantially less than market.  The problem is when the market is declining what is less than market.  But while the thought of buying and holding makes sense, it may make more sense to sell and hold so that when you come back in to the stock market or the real estate market you will have funds available to become a vulture. 

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As I have said many times in the past, regular people should not be afeared about investing in the markets, but don’t even think that you have the potential to invest wisely in the stock market, except through buying and holding.  While Billions of Dollars were made yesterday between 3PM and 4PM, how many regular people knew it was time to buy in to end the 300 point drop and create the rush to erase that entire loss.  The people who control the market with their million dollar buys at any instant made the money and all us regular people stood by and watched the market tumble and rise.  We can’t understand why the market went down or why it went back up.  The competing analyses indicate that there is no answer.  It is just the volitility of the market because so many players are on vacation that the players in town make moves and create rises and falls.  So the smartest of them made tremendous money in that one hour yesterday and a few of the not so smart guys lost some money yesterday.  But for those of us who just buy and hold, yesterday was a wash. 
So do not fear the market, just don’t think any of us regular guys can make the killing that the big guys did. 

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