Today the House of Representative will vote on supplemental funding for the Afghanistan adventure that includes a number of amendments and other pieces of candy to sweeten the deal-- for those who might-- if the Afghanistan issue were the whole bill -- get their negative vote.
I called my Congresswoman's office (D. DeGette) to find out where she stands. They "didn't know".
Right! This is the Representative who voted along with most of the Congress twice in the last year to affirm the State of Israel in the wake of its incursion into Gaza and in the face of the UN Goldstone Report finding Israel had been the major offender against human rights in that "operation". As a matter of fact the only Congressperson from Colorado to vote against the war machine (US gives Israel $3+ Billion in Military Aid so they can buy our stuff) has been Jared Polis (CO-2) and even he voted for one of the Israel resolutions. This DeGette voted for war in Afghanistan in the first place not having a clue that a huge contingent of Colorado voters had a different read on what was happening than GW Bush's DC. And has voted for every war supplemental since....
Folks--the Republicans and the Democrats in Colorado are war hawks in the same sense that word was used in 1812 for the first time in American Politics. Use the military to extend American influence and interests. (Back then they wanted Canada and to be free from the British blockade of the tyrant Napoleon so they could make dollars trading with Napoleon's Empire!
Today? Our military is the biggest jobs program run by the Congress. It has the best single payer health care plan going. It promises to pay for college. It supposedly protects our access to "their" oil. It supposedly hold at bay the "great threats" of Iran, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here. It accepts any ole Arab as collateral damage in the move to get the region to bend to American power. It fuels the one industry we still have superiority in--military hardware and software thus keeping jobs moving in all 435 Congressional Districts. It approves off shore drilling to keep our tanks and jets and satellites operational (One of BP's major markets is the US military). And it wraps itself in the bloodied flag of heroism to justify its actions.
You have no choice in Colorado in this affair regardless of how it impacts you if you stay with the Corporate Parties invested in the status quo. They will greenwash till your hands are raw but they won't require the US and indeed the whole high tech, auto based, suburban heaven modern secular culture to change-- or even be the messenger that it must change --fast.
What's a Colorado gal or guy to do? If you want to face the real world and try some damage control, get into the Green Party and help build it: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?Kinsey10&1
