Free Julian Assange

Dividing Assange from journalism by calling him "politically motivated" put the U.S. government in the position to shut down anything it doesn't deem as "politically neutral," which covers anything from Fox News to Mother Jones magazine. It makes my organization's independently-published newspaper vulnerable to scrutiny and suppression. And it continues to expand the notion that the government has secrets, that the democracy has insiders, that a (supposedly) democratically-run country can pick and choose what it releases to the public about its own action, that only itself can hold itself accountable to the people, that it is essentially an independently bodied entity wherein lies "politics" and that is ITS jurisdiction, where the will of the governed is unsubstantial in fact. A truly democratic country would be transparent, sharing its decisions and results and discourse with every citizen, so that every elected official acting our behalf would be accountable and recallable to us. The breakneck pace of events in this day and age means a need for an IMMEDIATELY accountable government that can respond to collective discourse.

In short: make the U.S. government's business the people's business. Institute rules for a recall of all public officials, elected or appointed. Free Julian Assange.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/12/journalists_and_political_obje.php#more

NATO In Afghanistan: Its All Over Except For The Dying

" You know, when the puppet starts talking back to the puppeteer, the puppeteer's in bad shape." - Malcom X
Face it, American capitalists- your bid to wring any sort of profit from Afghanistan is over. Just a few days after you guys announced to the rest of us that Afghanistan is a mineral treasure house ( which was discovered by the United States Geological Survey in 2007- why the big hoopla now?) your handpicked puppet Hamid Karzai cut his strings and gave you the finger. The Japanese looters will get first crack at Afghanistan's wealth.
Karzai waxed eloquent on how Afghanistan will become the " Saudi Arabia of lithium" but given the fact that he is little more than an Central Asian mob boss I doubt that the average Afghan citizen will be cashing in on this bonanza. Nigeria and Brazil are examples of how corrupt elites " share" the wealth of their respective nation's natural resources- by dumping toxic waste on their people and brutally suppressing the smallest act of dissent.
In the meantime, Karzai has finally climbed down from his fence and decided that the Taliban are going to win this fight. After blustering about Pakistani interference in Afghan affairs through the ISI's support of the Taliban last year, he is now embracing them. He is openly talking of negotiating with the Taliban.
As Drez pointed out , there is a silver lining in Afghanistan's dark cloud of torment. The wealth of lithium and the other minerals discovered under her soil has the potential to transform a country broken by war to one that has an industrial base again. Even if that wealth is controlled by a tiny group of elites, it will slowly have a positive effect on the Afghan economy.
But to make even that tiny progressive step, the Afghan people need peace. A stable regime, even a corrupt Islamic republic ( which is basically what they have now courtesy of the American ruling class), is preferable to the bloody chaos occurring at the present.
Time for our American plutocrats to give up on this bloody imperial cluster fuck. Your chance to outdo the British Empire has come and gone. The people of Afghanistan want us out, the Pakistanis want us out, hell, most Americans want us out. Why the fuck are we spending so much blood and treasure over there still? To protect Japanese mining interests? To prop up Karzai's Islamic Opiate State? So the American Empire can save face?
None of these are good reasons to drop one more bomb, shoot one more bullet, or shed one more drop of blood. This useless war needs to end NOW.