Michael Moore announces new documentary "Where to Invade Next" about America's need for infinite war.

Here's the 6-min video from the Periscope I just did regarding my new film, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT. #W2IN #TIFF15 https://t.co/lKhLhTPUpn

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) July 28, 2015

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Michael Moore’s new film, Where to Invade Next, explores how the US government maintains a state of “infinite war”, according to the Oscar-winning documentary film-maker. 

He said Where to Invade Next, which was filmed across three continents, was “epic in nature”, but made quietly with a small crew. “There’s usually someone chasing us,” he said. It seems the film, which premieres at the Toronto film festival in September, will cover some of the same ground as his Palme d’Or-winning Fahrenheit 9/11, a critique of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” detailing the various dictatorships that have been supported by the US administration in the interests of maintaining conflicts that profited America. Fahrenheit 9/11 is the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking close to $120m (£75m) at the US box office. 

“The issue of the United States at infinite war is something that has concerned me for quite some time, and provides the necessary satire for this film,” said Moore in the Periscope broadcast. 

“[There’s] this constant need it seems to always have an enemy – where’s the next enemy so we can keep this whole military industrial complex alive, and keep the companies that make a lot of money from this in business. I’ve always been a little bothered by that, so that’s where the comedy comes from.”

Sounds like a very timely film.

Gee I wonder how the Right Wing will respond to it?

Oh yeah, we already know that don't we?

Question of the day: Does President Obama REALLY want to take military action in Syria, and is he setting it up so he doesn't have to?

Okay so the above question occurred to me a few times in the last week or so, but I was unable to reconcile that feeling with some of what John Kerry and the President were saying.

Then I stumbled across this article: 

After agonizing over this question (Whether Obama really intends to attack Syria) over and over I began to realize there is only one logical explanation. He does not. Only a month ago the GOP was accusing Obama of being weak for not acting when the “red line” was crossed. There was pressure for him not only from the US but from the world as well. The reputation of the great American defender was on the line. Still it was obvious at the time Obama did not want to rush into another quagmire, bogging down the rest of his tenure as our nation’s leader. But the evidence kept rolling in. He had to do something not only for his reputation as a world leader but for the United States as well. 

Cue the British Parliament to provide Obama with the perfect out. Just days after Britain’s governing body eliminated any joint action with the US to participate in a coalition to strike the Assad regime, Obama made a surprising and decisive move. Against the advice of all his advisors, he put any US participation in the hands of our do-nothing Congress with no chance they would give him the approval he needed. Not because it isn’t the right thing to do but because Obama was asking for it. The outcome is a given if you just take a step back and look at the situation rationally. And there is no way Obama is going to launch this attack once Congress says no. It would be political suicide. Bush may have gotten away with it but America is not going to let it happen again. The fallout would signal the end of any and all effectiveness the Obama administration for the remaining years of his presidency. And history would place him with the likes of war criminals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Let me repeat this. Obama is not that stupid! 

So why then does our president appear to be beating the drums of war? The simple answer is he is now regarded as a hawkish leader before the US and the world. And he does so without having to fire a shot. He appears wholeheartedly in favor of a strike and is playing the part well. The hawk stands upon his perch without lifting a talon as Congress now takes any and all responsibility for lack of action on the part of the US. And during this entire debacle, he even manages to make republicans come out as anti-war; something even no one thought possible only a month ago. 

If this sounds like an improbable scenario I ask that you to ponder for a moment the potential outcome: 

No war 
Obama and America look strong and world leaders should not doubt Obama’s willingness to take action 
Congress was made to do their job 
Congress will take the responsibility of inaction 
Republicans have to pretend they are anti-war 
Americans comes out against any further wars thereby providing the beginning of the end to our perpetual war 
Puts pressure on the UN to take other action 
Suddenly the UN is eager to accept other harsh non-military actions against Syria 

And there is even the added bonus that the GOP weakening the push to shut down the government over the debt ceiling will not proceed with the intense battle anticipated. Next week Congress returns for only nine days. Nine days to act on the Syrian War, the debt ceiling, immigration, the Voting Rights Acts and many other important issues.

Many of the statements above make sense, and it WOULD fall in line with some of the other incredible chess moves this President has played in the past.

However I have also heard more than one pundit make the assertion that IF Obama fails to get this vote from Congress that he will have lost a ton of political capital and essentially be a lame duck unable to move any of his policies forward in any significant manner and also negatively impact his party and the hopes for Democrats taking back the House or increasing their numbers in the Senate.

Now on that second part I am not sure I agree, but the first part seems like a reasonable assumption.

There is also the question as to why, if this is in fact the plan, that Hillary jumped on board to support a military strike in Syria? That would seem problematic for her moving forward. NOT political suicide, but still an added complication that it does not seem she would want.

Anyhow I thought I would put this out there and see what all of you might think about the possibility that Obama is manipulating the Republicans and Congress?  Feel free to weigh in, I am interested in feedback.

Ex-Special Forces veteran gives some very valuable advice to young people thinking of joining the military.

As a parent whose daughter very seriously considered enlisting. I applaud this gentleman's honesty, and hopefully this will reach other youngsters thinking of joining the military,  and will help them to understand that it does not exist to pay for their college or to make them heroes.

Sarah Palin posts insulting quote from military leader in order to prove her pro-war status.

The above graphic was posted to the Little Dopey Annie's Facebook page.

She had somebody alter the original quote which read, “When you men get home and face an anti-war protester, look him in the eyes and shake his hand. Then, wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she's dating a pussy,” to what you see above. You know, because she such a good Christian and all.

Of course a truly good Christian might have a little something called compassion.

And that compassion would likely inspire an anti-war sentiment of their own. After all the end result of war is death and human suffering. And what kind of Christian could want that?

Right?

In fact, as many of us know, many of he MOST ardent anti-war protestors are ex-military members who have been subjected to numerous deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq and who have seen first hand the death and devastation that has resulted from our presence in those places.

More than a few are also suffering debilitating injuries that have resulted from those deployments.

Are those soldiers ALSO considered "pussies?" (I'm sorry, "wussies?")

If this is yet another attempt to promote herself as the military supporting mother of a "combat veteran," then it is especially egregious in that her son Track has NEVER faced combat!

In fact numerous reports have him as far away from the fighting as possible.

One could only imagine how the Grizzled Mama's attitude might have been changed had her only natural born son been horribly disfigured, or even killed, while fighting overseas.(Though, to be honest, there is the possibility that it would not have changed her at all. After all, that takes compassion.)

However if Palin wants to know where the "wussies" actually live, she need look no further than the mirror to see a coward who hides behind ghostwriters, and fake glasses to make herwelf look smart. Or who plays the victim every single time there is even the slightest criticism.

Or if she wants to see a REAL "pussy" perhaps she should come back to Wasilla and look at her own husband. A man who preyed upon young women in order to make money by selling their bodies to business associates. Is there ANYTHING more weak and pathetic than that?

So on behalf of the war protestors let me just say, "Fuck you Sarah Palin."

Remember this guy? Well wait until you hear his incredible, and heart wrenching story.

Courtesy of some guy on Imgur:  

This is Carlos Arredondo, a 52-year-old Costa Rican immigrant. He was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday with his wife , waiting for the last of the National Guard runners. They were representing Run for the Fallen Maine, an organization established to honor Marines who have been killed since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. One of those runners had dedicated the race to Mr Arredondo's son.

Immediately after the explosion, Mr Arredondo vaulted a fence to help the wounded many of whom had lost limbs, and used his clothes and towels to stanch victims' bleeding.

Mr Arredondo (center) was seen pulling debris and fencing away from the bloody victims, clearing the way for emergency personnel to tend to their wounds.

Mr Arredondo helped one victim, now identified as Jeff Bauman Jr., who was missing both his legs and drenched in blood, into a wheelchair that race medical staff had brought and said he kept talking to the man so he wouldn't lose consciousness. 'I kept talking to him. I kept saying, "Stay with me, stay with me,"' Mr Arredondo, who is a member of the Red Cross disaster team, told Maine Today. Mr. Bauman is now in stable condition.

Believe it or not that is only a part of the heroism of this incredible man.

To read the rest please click the link at the top.

Once you have finished you might want to click here and sign the petition urging the President to give this man the Presidential Citizens Medal for the bravery he demonstrated after those terrible blasts.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty upset about my country, but with citizens like this man among us I continue to have hope for our future.

A final thought for today.

A truth spoken so many years ago, yet one which is still ignored by those who could take it to heart and change the world for the better by clothing the naked, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry.

How much do we spend to improve our ability to take a life in relation to how much we spend in order to save one? And recognizing that incredible disparity do we still dare to call ourselves humane? Or evolved? Or Christians?

All of us in this country should look to our past in shame and resolve to move forward in peace and brotherhood.  If not now, when? And if not us, then who?

Dear Red States.

"Dear Red States: 

We're ticked off at your Neanderthal attitudes and politics and we've decided we're leaving. "Legitimate rape." Sheesh! 

We in New York intend to form our own country and we're taking the other Blue States with us. 

In case you aren't aware that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the rest of the Northeast. 

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country of The Enlightened States of America (E.S.A). 

To sum up briefly: 

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. 

We get stem cell research and the best beaches. 

We get Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren. You get Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin. 

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand. 

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. 

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. 

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. 

You get Alabama. 

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states pay their fair share. 

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. 

Please be aware that the E.S.A. will be pro choice and anti war and we're going to want all our citizens back from Afghanistan at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. 

We wish you success in Afghanistan, and possibly Iran as well, but we're not willing to spend our resources in these sorts of pursuits. 

With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. 

With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. 

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you. 

38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. 

We're taking the good weed too. You can have that crap they grow in Mexico. 

Sincerely, Stan Singer Citizen of the Enlightened States of America" 

 I don't know where this came from originally, it just showed up in my comments yesterday.

However I did find that it had been posted here in August of this year, though apparently the blog owner is not the original author.

Well anyhow, let me just say that if this were EVER to come to pass, you can bet I would leave my beloved Alaska and move there so fast it would make your head spin. 

But don't worry I'll be sure to save you a spot.

Rep. Steve King has one of the stupidest arguments against abortion I have ever heard. And he should NEVER be allowed to share it with children!

From TPM:

I often go into a high school auditorium, or meet with people at even the K-12 level in their entirety, and I'll tell them, you'll be asked to answer one of the most profound moral questions of our age, and that is: 'Where do you stand on the abortion issue?'"

He continued: "You have to pick an instant, and there's only one instant, and that's the instant at conception."

King's gun analogy is perhaps one of the stupidest things I have ever heard to justify taking a woman's right to choose what she does with her body away from her.

My question to Rep. King would be "If EVERY life is sacred then how do you justify sending troops into Iraq and Afghanistan where thousands of innocent, and don't forget sacred, lives have been lost to wage a war that the Bush administration CHOSE to wage for no good reason?"

These are people who have actually been born into our world, and have already had the opportunity to live and love.  They have wives, and husbands, and children, and sisters, and parents, and lovers whose lives have been touched by these human beings.  Ask THEM if they would put a cluster of cells in the same category as their murdered loved ones.

And yet these same moral relativists have no problem voting on a defense budget to provide bullets and bombs to rip these sacred people into little pieces, and to leave their family members devastated by their loss.

I am by no means a fan of abortion, but I simply do not feel  I, or anybody, has the right to tell a woman that she MUST be a mother.  But I certainly do feel I have the right to tell my government to STOP killing people in our name.

I also believe I have the right to tell Congressman King to stay the fuck away from our kids. If he wants to talk about that in a church that is one thing, but he has no right to bring his own twisted sense of morality into the public school system.

Dockworkers anti-war protests close down ports along west coast.

Thousands of dockworkers at all 29 West Coast ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, took the day off work today in what their union called a protest of the war in Iraq, effectively shutting down operations at the busy complexes.

The action came two months before the contract expires between the dockworkers, represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents port operators and large shippers, many of them foreign-owned.

“We are supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq,” said union President Bob McEllrath.

McEllrath, whose comments came in a press release handed out by union officials in the Port of Los Angeles area, said rank-and-file members decided in early January to stand down on May 1.

Now these are some real Americans!

I am mightily impressed with their commitment to our troops and the fact that they have organized an event that will draw a lot of press to the anti-war movement in this country.

We need much, much more of this.

How can we confront China about its civil rights abuses when we have this happening in our country?

An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as “graphic anti-war images.” Zirkel, a deacon at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, said his shirt had the death tolls of American military personnel and Iraqis - 4,000 and 1 million - and the words “Dead” and “Enough.” The shirt also has three blotches resembling blood splatters.

Police said in a release last night that Zirkel was handing out anti-war pamphlets to mallgoers and that mall security told him to stop and turn his shirt inside out. Zirkel refused to turn his shirt inside out and wouldn’t leave, police said. Security placed him on “civilian arrest” and called police. When police arrived, Zirkel passively resisted attempts to bring him to a police car, the release said.

But Zirkel said he was sitting in the food court drinking coffee with his wife Marie, 77, and several others when police and mall security officers approached and demanded they remove their anti-war T-shirts.

The others complied, but Zirkel said he refused, and when he wouldn’t stand up to be removed and arrested, authorities brought over a wheelchair. “They forcibly picked me up and put me in the wheelchair,” said Zirkel, a deacon at one of the poorest Catholic parishes on Long Island, where a devastating fire recently destroyed the rectory and storage areas.

If you are offended by the truth then look away.

This is a shameful incident that is happening all to often in this country lately.

Thousands march for end to Iraq war.

Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown on Saturday, chanting and carrying signs that read: "Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die" or "Drop Tuition Not Bombs."

The streets were filled with thousands as labor union members, anti-war activists, clergy and others rallied near City Hall before marching to Dolores Park.

As part of the demonstration, protesters fell on Market Street as part of a "die in" to commemorate the thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens who have died since the conflict began in March 2003.

The protest was the largest in a series of war protests taking place in New York, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, organizers said.

No official head count was available. Organizers of the event estimated about 30,000 people participated in San Francisco. It appeared that more than 10,000 people attended the march.

"I got the sense that many people were at a demonstration for the first time," said Sarah Sloan, one of the event's organizers. "That's something that's really changed. People have realized the right thing to do is to take to the streets."

I did not realize that there was an organized peace march in Alaska yesterday. I would have liked to have been there. So now I feel bad for having missed it.

I think I am going to make an effort to touch base with more of my anti war neighbors so that I can offer some of my support in any future demonstrations or fundraisers.

Protesters stand up for those of us who hate this war, and lie down for those who have died.

Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested.

The group marched from the White House to the Capitol to demand an end to the Iraq war.

Their numbers stretched for blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they held banners and signs and chanted, "What do we want? Troops out. When do we want it? Now."

Army veteran Justin Cliburn, 25, of Lawton, Okla., was among a contingent of Iraq veterans in attendance.

"We're occupying a people who do not want us there," Cliburn said of Iraq. "We're here to show that it isn't just a bunch of old hippies from the 60s who are against this war."

Counterprotesters lined the sidewalks behind metal barricades. There were some heated shouting matches between the two sides.

The arrests came after protesters lay down on the Capitol lawn in what they called a "die in" - with signs on top of their bodies to represent soldiers killed in Iraq. When police took no action, some of the protesters started climbing over a barricade at the foot of the Capitol steps.

It sounds to me that those arrested were the counter protesters, rather then the anti-war protesters. That sounds about right.

We want peace. We are tired of our government constantly trying to frighten us to justify killing thousands of people who were never going to do us any harm.

Over 70% of the money being given to Presidential political candidates by the military is going to the anti-war candidates.

Anti-war:
Ron Paul 26.23%
Barack Obama 24.02%
Hillary Clinton 11.08%
Bill Richardson 5.59%
John Edwards 2.63%
Joe Biden 0.84%
Mike Gravel 0.16%
Dennis Kucinich 0.05%
Chris Dodd 0%

Pro-war:
John McCain 18.31%
Mitt Romney 4.05%
Rudy Giuliani 2.44%
Mike Huckabee 1.84%
Tom Tancredo 1.63%
Duncan Hunter 1.05%
Sam Brownback 0.07%
Tommy Thompson 0%
Jim Gilmore 0%
John Cox 0%

Is anybody really surprised by this?

I went to sleep in 2007 and woke up in 1967.

Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.

Look it even has Jane Fonda!

Marching with them was Jane Fonda, in what she said was her first anti-war demonstration in 34 years.

"Silence is no longer an option," Fonda said to cheers from the stage on the National Mall. The actress once derided as "Hanoi Jane" by conservatives for her stance on Vietnam said she had held back from activism so as not to be a distraction for the Iraq anti-war movement, but needed to speak out now.

Now we are talking!