Obama is doing the bidding of Osama

Barack Obama is doing the bidding of Osama bin Laden. It's utterly clear that this is true. Obama is doing what bin Laden desires by buying into the Neocon approach to warmongering in the Middle East. Obama has fully bought into the world view of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Consider this excerpt from an article by Alan Grayson:

Today, the war in Afghanistan becomes America's longest war. Longer than the war in Vietnam. Longer than the Korean War.It took America two years to end World War I, and bring peace to the world. World War II was a little harder; that took us 3½ years to finish off. The war in Afghanistan is over eight years old. And we're sending in more troops. We're not getting out. We getting deeper in. Would you like to know why? It's not hard to find the answers. Just read the transcript of Osama Bin Laden's 2004 speech.
Bin Laden's plan was to bankrupt America, and he's well on his way. All he had to do was press America's SELF-DESTRUCT button with a dozen men with box-cutters, and we're helpless to turn off the fearful war-mongering. Here's Grayson's solution:
And at all times, Bin Laden's essential strategy has remained the same. Not, as so many think, to launch more attacks on American soil, but rather to make us destroy ourselves: "we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy . . . ." Listen to Bin Laden summing up his strategy: "the real loser is ... you. It is the American people and their economy . . . ." How strange. It turns out that America's chief military strategist for the past decade is Osama Bin Laden himself. We've been doing exactly what he has wanted us to do: spend staggering sums on the military, until the American economy is bled dry. But it doesn't have to be that we. We are a democracy. We can choose peace. I have voted against Bin Laden's strategy to destroy America, and I will continue to do so. But I've done more than that. I have introduced a bill called The War is Making You Poor Act, HR 5353.

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We are in big trouble

Take a guess . . . what percentage of young adults from Philadelphia would be qualified to serve in the military? 92%? 45%? Now check this out:

A nonprofit group says that up to 90 percent of young Philadelphians are ineligible for military service because of criminal records, obesity or lack of education.
So you're probably thinking that the problem is with young adults in big cities, but you're an optimist:
Nationally, the Defense Department estimates that 75 percent of young adults are disqualified from military service.
Ouch. We need boot camp for everyone. We need to put a moratorium on French fries, television and the "war on drugs."

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How to change

Most of the big problems we face today are created by human beings, and they have human solutions. If only we could and would change our ways. If only we could switch to a non-fossil fuel economy, we could solve dozens of well-known environmental and political problems. If only we would "just say no" to drugs, reckless conduct, sloth, and rampant consumerism. If only we would just buckle down and be more informed and more active citizens, we could keep a better eye on our government. It goes on and on. Well designed solutions already exist for so many of our problems. If only we would change, but we can’t seem to change. We tend to be trapped in our own destructive and ignorant ways. How can we break out of this stagnant cycle? Back in 2002 at Psychology Today, in an article titled “The 10 Rules of Change,” Stan Goldberg wrote that change isn’t easy, but it is possible, and there’s more to it than just saying yes (or no). He offers ten observations and strategies for implementing change. They include the following (these are Goldberg’s ideas, as I interpret them): 1. All behaviors are complex. Therefore, break down the behavior into smaller parts and take baby steps. If you want to be a better musician, practice your scales, study your theory, practice new pieces, listen carefully to others performing, and a dozen other things. [More . . . ]

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Be an American Revolutionary – Make the Declaration of Independence Live Again

It was summer; a hot, muggy summer in Philadelphia where Virginian Thomas Jefferson presented to the Continental Congress a document which would be a shot heard ‘round the world, a Declaration of Independence. The brave men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 put their lives, liberty and sacred honor at stake for the good of what they believed should be a new nation, one conceived in liberty and where all men were created equal. How do we Americans in 2010 view the Declaration of Independence? Too often, we view the Declaration of Independence only as a part of our past, an historic document that is not relevant to us today. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is time that we declared our independence from those which would have us be satisfied with less than the complete American dream. It is time to reclaim the American Revolution for the good of our country and the good of the world. In the Declaration of Independence, the first principle to recognize in reclaiming the American Revolution is to re-affirm that America is a shared dream, a dream meant for all to share not just a few wealthy individuals or corporations. Our nation faces a fiscal crisis. We spend far more than we take in revenues. A fundamental decision must be made as to how it is we will spread the burden of supporting the American dream, if we wish the dream to endure. A frequently cited statistic by those which would advocate drastic reductions in federal spending is the percentage of debt as a percentage of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Frequently, advocates of our nation adopting more “fiscal responsibility” forget that until FY 2011, since 1980, each Republican administration has only increased the percentage of our national debt as a percentage of GDP. Since 1980, each Democratic administration had reduced the percentage of national debt as a percentage of GDP. Of far more importance in preserving the American dream is to examine the percentages of wages as a percentage of GDP. In 2006, Bill Moyers reported that the share of GDP going to wages was at its lowest point since 1947, when the government started measuring such numbers. [More . . . ]

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