US soldier who abandoned unit returns from Canada

He said he fled because he doesn't think the war has improved the lives of Iraqis, and he couldn't stomach the thought of killing.

"During my training, I was ordered that, if anyone came within so many feet of my vehicle, I was to shoot to kill," said Cornell, who enlisted in 2002 but never deployed to war. "I didn't join the military to kill innocents."

The Army artillery specialist made it to Canada in 2005 and soon started a new life working at a grocery store on Gabriola Island in British Columbia.

Cornell's exile ended last week when he crossed the U.S.-Canada border into Washington state. He left voluntarily to avoid deportation.

The first U.S. service member forced out of Canada after the government denied him protective status as a war objector was 25-year-old Army Pvt. Robin Long of Boise, Idaho. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison last August after pleading guilty to desertion charges at Fort Carson, Colo.

Michelle Robidoux, spokeswoman for the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign, said the group has worked with about 50 U.S. service members seeking refugee status or political asylum in Canada. The group estimates more than 200 have fled to Canada, most of them hiding out illegally.

~ more... ~

2012: Waiting for the Apocalypse (satire)

Will this wind...?



From "The Secret Policeman's Ball" 1979 benefit for Amnesty International.
http://www.amnesty.org/

'Welcome to the sane asylum' - Swami’s 2009 State of the Universe

From The Shift Has Hit the Fan: Welcome to the Sane Asylum by Swami Beyondananda

Just as the eight-year journey that took us from Whitewater to Blackwater was coming to an end, some overzealous Bush-bashers hurled footwear to give the departing regime one final boot. That was understandable, but unnecessary. Better we should keep our shoes on, and use them to stand together at a time when healing wounds is more important than wounding heels. Besides, without Bush there could have been no Obama. His alarming actions awakened more people than Buddha, and a body politic in a fear-induced coma miraculously regained consciousness.

And now there is a new President: Barack Hussein Obama. After eight years of insanity, we can proclaim to the world, “America has a President Hussein!”

So now, we must face another awesome truth: We are living in a world gone sane.

Welcome to the sane asylum.


Trickle Down Goes Belly Up


It's a good thing our political fates are on the upswing, as our economy has taken a sharp downturn. The house of credit cards economy based on trickle down has gone belly up, and we must face another, sadder truth. Individually and collectively, we've been suffering from Deficit Inattention Disorder, and since we were unable to do the math, we must now do the aftermath. It's a buy-o-logical fact. You cannot spend more than you have. Nature knows this. We can use no more energy than what we have in reserve. We cannot charge energy on our Ascended Master Card and repay it next lifetime.

So yes, the casino economy coming down, but there is an upside to the meltdown. There is a great opportunity in the crisis. Consider this. When the dollar hits zero, we can pay off our entire $10 trillion national debt and hardly feel it!

~ more... ~

Republican discloses top secret info ... via Twitter?

Republicans appear anxious to demonstrate their new-found affinity for technology, web apps, and gizmos. A recent debate between candidates for RNC chair featured an argument over who had more friends on Facebook. It's all rather silly, but the minority party wants to demonstrate their ability to embrace new mediums.

Once in a while, this goes a little too far.

A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret.

But the cat's out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.

A delegation led by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, arrived in Iraq earlier today, and because of Rep. Peter Hoekstra , R-Mich., the entire world -- or at least Twitter.com readers -- now know they're there.

"Just landed in Baghdad," messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets.

~ more... ~

Financial coup d’etat

From Catherine Austin Fitts' Blog:

In the fall of 2001 I attended a private investment conference in London to give a paper, The Myth of the Rule of Law or How the Money Works: The Destruction of Hamilton Securities Group.

The presentation documented my experience with a Washington-Wall Street partnership that had:

• Engineered a fraudulent housing and debt bubble;
• Illegally shifted vast amounts of capital out of the U.S.;
• Used “privitization” as form or piracy - a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder.

Other presenters at the conference included distinguished reporters covering privatization in Eastern Europe and Russia. As the portraits of British ancestors stared down upon us, we listened to story after story of global privatization throughout the 1990s in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

Slowly, as the pieces fit together, we shared a horrifying epiphany: the banks, corporations and investors acting in each global region were the exact same players. They were a relatively small group that reappeared again and again in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia accompanied by the same well-known accounting firms and law firms.

Clearly, there was a global financial coup d'etat underway.

~ more... ~