Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army

I was just in Fayetteville on the way to and fro Camp Democracy. It's the best time I've ever spent with strangers...........

Why I Will March to Support the Troops and End the War
By Ann Wright


I am returning to Fayetteville, North Carolina, on March 17 for the first time in over twenty years. I spent three years on active duty at [nearby] Fort Bragg as an instructor at the Special Warfare Center and as executive officer of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, Special Operations Command. During my time at Fort Bragg, I deployed to Grenada on the 18th Airborne Corps international law team and was a member of the US Army claims commission in Grenada. I stayed for four months, helping to re-establish governmental functions and assisting with economic development programs.

I ended up being in the US Army and Army Reserves for 29 years and retired as a Colonel. I then joined the US diplomatic corps and served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Mongolia and Afghanistan. I was on the first State Department team to reopen the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001 after the CIA and US military pushed the Taliban out of Kabul and had al-Qaeda heading for the Tora Bora mountains.

Ironically, after serving in eight presidential administrations, either in the US military or in the US diplomatic corps, I am returning to Fayetteville to participate in a rally and march to end the war on Iraq.

Why would a 29-year retired US Army colonel be marching to end the war? Well, in March 2003, four years ago, as the war in Iraq began, I resigned from the US diplomatic corps in opposition to the war. I was one of three US government employees who resigned. That's why I am marching to end the war - I gave up my career over the war.

The rally and march in Fayetteville, the home of one of the largest military bases in the United States, is not a march against the men and women in our military services. If it were, I would not participate.

Instead, the march is to call for an end of the administration's policy that placed our military in Iraq in the first place, and secondly to demand that our servicemen and women be provided with proper care when they return.

On March 5th I attended the Congressional hearing in the auditorium at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, concerning conditions at Walter Reed for our wounded military and how the transition from active-duty medical care to Veterans Administration care can be done much, much more effectively.

While some may disagree with our view that the war in Iraq must end, we will be in the streets of Fayetteville in solidarity with our active-duty colleagues, demanding better care for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That we all can agree on.

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Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army (13 years on active duty and 16 years in the Army Reserves) and retired as a colonel. She also worked for 16 years as a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She was awarded the State Department's Award for Heroism for her actions in the evacuation of 2,500 members of the international community and Sierra Leone government during the invasion of rebels into the capital city of Freetown in May 1997. She resigned from the US diplomatic corps in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq.

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Bush and Cheney IMPLICATED in Libby Plame Case

Saturday, March 10, 2007
Bush and Cheney Implicated in Libby Plame Case
I urge the press to do the right thing, stop their snow-job of the American public, and cover this. It is crucial:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/19416



Waxman Asks Fitzgerald to Testify Before Congress

Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday he wants Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify before his committee about his investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson's identity. Plame-Wilson, Waxman's office said, has agreed to testify before Congress on March 16.
...
"
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/19416


-- Mark Frankenberg

HEAR the MUSIC
get a FREE "Just Say NO to Fascism" Bumper Sticker
http://www.AmericanWisdom.org
posted by Mark Frankenberg # 10.3.07 (0) comments

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Thanks to Mark Frankenberg and to David Swanson ... I think this hearing is already scheduled but be bugging your media contacts for COVERAGE !!!!


EXCERPT FROM AFTER DOWNING STREET: You really NEED to read it all:

"I think that the Congress must hold hearings, bring Karl Rove in, put him under oath, and let him explain the situation from his point of view," Waxman said during an interview with Democracy Now in July 2005. (ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO !!!!!) "Let him tell us what happened. It's ridiculous that Congress should stay out of all of this and not hold hearings." Of course we had a Republican dominated Congress then.

At the time of Waxman's comments, it was unknown how involved Cheney was in the matter. But two weeks ago, during closing arguments, Cheney was implicated in the leak. It was the first time Fitzgerald acknowledged that Cheney was intimately involved in the scandal and may have told Libby to leak Plame's status to the media. Fitzgerald told jurors that his investigation into the true nature of the vice president's involvement was impeded because Libby obstructed justice.

The Sun Shines and People Forget ...

........ what happens to Dissenters....





For anyone who still believes that Pete Townshend wasn't arrested and INTIMIDATED on false charges ....

While corporate Tampa/America was busy trying to get it's strangle-hold on me, I had Pete to keep me safe (thanks, CWM --significantly older man who turned me on to the best ol stuff....).... EVERY morning for the longest time. It fit the drive, last-minute traffic jam .... THANKS, MR. TOWNSHEND. You kept my ass safe so I could laugh ... and not forget ...

Lyrics from :

The sun shines
And people forget
The spray flies as the speedboat glides
And people forget
Forget they're hiding
The girls smile
And people forget
The snow packs as the skier tracks
And people forget
Forget they're hiding.

Behind an eminence front
Eminence front - It's a put on.

Come on join the party
Dress to kill
Won't you come and join the party
Dress to kill.

The drinks flow
People forget
That big wheel spins, the hair thins
People forget
Forget they're hiding
The news slows
People forget
The shares crash, hopes are dashed
People forget
Forget they're hiding.
Behind an eminence front
Eminence front - it's a put on
Come on join the party
Dress to
Come on join the party
Dress to
Come on join the party
Dress to
Come on join the party
Dress to kill
Dress yourself, dressed to kill.



And from a friend of mine .....






Who the FUCK are YOU??????????????

For one of my Real-Life Tampa Heroes

You have to go here ... the embedding is turned off by request. This song is for one of the Tampa Natives who has integrity bigger than anything else inside of him. And because we're gettin' ready to start making some music .... I'm taking a walk around through my heart .... (no time to waste, gotta get it right the first time)

I drag music ahead with me wherever I find it. My sweet husband was MUCH older than me (in case he reads this ... he'll know I'm trying for a laugh but it IS true and he did used to be really funny and I embraced his great taste in all musical things ...)

Anyway, I have a menagerie-ial mix of music in my head from when I was less than four (from a jack to a queen -- , all the songs my mom listened to for whatever reason (she was also married to an older man)--tobacco road, (I still make everyone hush when this comes on)
From my grandparents...
--- william tell overture, too many beautiful classics to miss that I was allowed to play on the stereo over and over, oh and my grandma taught me all the rollicking dirty french ditties she learned in canada... --- From the sister or family .... all the country, (kenny rogers egad) circle be unbroken -- sonny and cher (not my fault on these guys) bf:Spirit, Manfred Mann --- elvis --- george jones --- my first (past holding-hands-stage, ten years older (go figure I finally went younger this time) boyfriend had every record ever made, I think ... and great taste and we saw so many awesome shows ... I still love Deep Purple, James Gang, Bachman Turner OD, BRUCE (neil young) never mind, again I'm caught up in too many, it's a separate blog subject.... Anything I have ever heard stays with me --- lots of ella -- belafonte -- jon secada --- I remember studying spanish more avidly because I loved so much latin music .... I've heard part of every piece of classical music that ever found it's way to vinyl.... it goes on and on and on ---) When I was just coming out into the world on my innocent own I had all that but was trying to leave it behind apace. (you know how you do)

THEN I met my husband --- (who seriously was much older and had hung around much older people (surfer-type dude) and he got me into daltrey, pete townshend (slit skirts JEANNE NEVER WEARS THOSE SLIT SKIRTS) --- Eminence Front ..... Quicksilver Messenger Service..... (what you gonna do about meeeee) .... reminded me about Henry Paul (grew up right down the street from me and knew my older sister) The Outlaws ... Green grass and High Tides Forever ................ (still listenin to that, as well) And Metallica ....(forever TRUST in who you are ....nothing else matters ...) I like so much music I could go on forevaaaa ...

I'm still listening to those guys AND I haven't fallen behind for Green Day, FallOut Boy, Rage Against, Rise Against, lots of outspoken artists I am grateful for this day ... too many to name.... I basically like ALL music and if you come to my house (take a number and get in line behind the stalkers) you'd be able to listen to the above Bad Co. CD. Someone had given it to me years before and when my son was born I had time to listen to all of this old music and also put together the ONLY jigsaw puzzle I have ever been able to sit still for. (that was before birth, of course)


So --- even though there are a few lines that don't fit and the video aims it at a girl/guy thing .... this is the song that I held my tiny baby and danced with him to ... over and over again ... to this day, everything stops when this song comes on ....

In my life --- theres's been changes .... but nothin ever satisfied me the way you do .....

I wish more people got that. I really wish more people could try to understand the precious gift it is when you are entrusted with a young person to teach how to navigate this world ........... and not harm others. I look around at the things that people pass to their children and sometimes I get so discouraged ... they're not LOVED -- just part of someone's chain-reaction. Please help to change that by loving EVERYONE you come across ....


FEELS LIKE I'M WALKIN ON HOLY WATER ....................

Bad Company .... I'd had the CD for awhile, someone dropped it off ---- knowing I listen to anything once ............. and here it is ........ all this time later .... you can't steal my holy water. You don't even know what it IS. And a lifetime spent watching me ain't taught you much, I'm sad to hear. I love you, anyway. I love everyone. Everyone should love everyone. And, you're kinda cute.

I saw a cute shirt at Busch Gardens yesterday .. it said: Taken but STILL looking.

And that brings me to another subject. What's UP with all this confrontational shirt front shit? Label me label me .....

When someone fucks with another person through their property, children or family -- it says alot about their character and the amt. of respect you should give them.

For those who are now wondering (and I know you are reading this) go to Merriamwebster.com and get a look at the only character you'll ever know. When you do what you are told all day long, all life long -- it might SEEM easier, but inside you know you are imprisoned.

And then you choose to imprison your own children. Now, THAT is a SIN. A crime against love and nature.

I would back off, were I you. It's at the point now where things are going south fast ... and not for me. And, I think you now understand that. Really, what good do you think that ANY of this does for you? The only thing you are achieving is that someone else is keeping score now. I'm not the only one who loves my people, you know. And he's watching ... and that's a long time to sit around wearing one pair of tennis-shoes for your boss.

Land Grab Pirates

A HUGE THANK YOU to NO LAND GRAB I'll have to keep checking to be sure but I think that Bruce Ratner is the developer -- perhaps height challenged. So many of those when short guys can be so damn sexy ... if they just embraces the toys the gods gave em ... and that whole Ratner name ... well, you can take that one away yourself ...........




HOT READS
Chicago Sun-Times, Jan 14, 2001 by Mike Mulligan


Find More Results for: "tampa city council trips to chicago "
TRIPLE-X FIVE: Tampa, long regarded as more a series of strip clubs and waffle houses than an actual city, is looking to change its image for Super Bowl XXXV.

According to a report this week, Tampa police plan to crack down on an expected surge in illegal lap dancing at the city's nude dance clubs during Super Bowl week. Since December 1999, when the Tampa City Council unanimously passed an ordinance requiring dancers to stay six feet from customers, there have been about 200 arrests for lap dancing. Convictions carry a maximum $1,000 fine and six-month jail sentence.

But some club owners have ignored the ordinance and plan to showcase the city's infamous attractions to a national audience. Many clubs are launching Super Bowl-related promotions and hiring extra dancers for an around-the-clock bump and grind.

Mons Venus, perhaps Tampa's most notorious club, will be open 24 hours a day, beginning Wednesday, the week of the Super Bowl. Owner Joe Redner says he won't comply with the ordinance. In the past, he has paid legal fees for employees and customers arrested for violating the ban.

Advertisement

Larry Wolfe, owner of the Seven Seas on Kennedy Boulevard, said the Super Bowl and strip clubs were made for each other.

"The Super Bowl is just an incredible celebration of all things American, as it should be," Wolfe said.

Police are promising multisquad raids and arrests for dancers and their customers and have issued a warning to players.

"If you're a football player, whatever, if you're going to do it, you're going to be taking a trip," Tampa police detective Bret Bartlett said.

Added Tampa Mayor Dick Greco: "Every law gets enforced all the time. What difference does it make during Super Bowl?"

GETTING DEFENSIVE: In his end-of-season retrospective news conference, Seattle's Mike Holmgren admitted the Seahawks were hurt by the free-agent losses of defensive linemen Phillip Daniels and Sam Adams, but he also said he erred in changing the roles of defensive end Michael Sinclair and

This guy (no land grab) is missing some things that are happening to me but that might be because if you read the history of Chicago, what is happening to me and others like me in Hillsborough County is part of Chicago's unique style of governing as I read on the web. Tampa that's what it IS: you act more like Chicago now and New York and other places where the citizens are used to being kicked around by gangs that are city-supported and where the gangs run the cities right out front .... Oh man, this is so cool. Tampa of yesteryear was safe but boring for some, I guess and now they got it all .....

Remembering Molly Ivins --Thank God You Can't Kill an Idea

"Every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to stop this war." -- Molly Ivins


We do not lose when our troops leave a foreign country. We lose when they leave our country for the fraudulent aims of deadly old men.

I step outside every day to promote peace and love and other things that must make some 'people' VERY angry because YET ANOTHER flat tire (same method) last evening and then some additional stalking. Could be a message.

In reply --- I realize that some people are being outright MURDERED, so --- I'm grateful to be me and I ponder this question --

Do these people FORGET that their every action is recorded on satellite and do they forget who I know? Things that make me go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Can you imagine peace, love and words making someone angry enough to send their tin soldiers out after a small woman and a little boy?? Repeatedly??



This sounds more like Colombia (according to Colombians I know) .... but actually, people are fooled by some perceptions because in Colombia they are living the "American" Dream. Some of them actually still have a retirement and some even double-dip !!

And/or they are shooting workers for organizing at Coca Cola bottling plants.


I am officially the last property-owner in my neighborhood now. So, I expect things will get so thick around me that I'll have to hand out numbers in order to let someone interview me. Most interesting.

Here's my extra step for today. Please help do something to end this illegal war and to bring these men/women/young people safely home to us.

Please help to rid us of this regime. Locally, nationally and internationally.

When you have a president 'pushing compassion' === let's see isn't compassion normally paired with 'offering'. Not today. This guy is all about PUSHING.

UPDATE: What am I, STOOOPID? Natalie Maines got death threats and attempts to ruin her career and cd burnings (such a proud moment) ... I'm just a girl who is being harassed and stolen from. Part of stealing from me is making me pay for purposely flattened tires to be repaired and also for fixing the damage done to my car. I've only talked about the house-burn-down threats and this continuous stalking. But, so much that I don't publicize is going on and being documented. I'm really not talking about it because that gives them a chance to start the lying and spinning. Nope. People have no shame. I hope they will be happy with whom they have crawled in bed.

It's way past time to pretend shock and ask 'how do they dare?' THEY DARE. They have been daring !! They don't intend to stop until all of us stand up and hold them to account.

I guess now that they feel almost firmly entrenched and all ...... but there are still those pesky images .....

Now I am the official last real property owner ....

(to purchase this tshirt, please visit:

http://www.ij.org/freedommarket/scripts/product.asp?prodID=46

And, so let the games begin ............................. I mean, let them continue and BULGE out all over the place ....


240323 tracking=stalking me last night and obviously waiting for me to turn in front of her then made two turns to lurk around my house ... 1010pm at 1014 pm dafir

this is obvious and witnessed harassment and I believe it goes in line with my research into cop and fire intimidation and burnings. Which I have been researching nationally and jointly with a friend, for the last week. Turns out that cops and firefighters involve themselves in voter and other type intimidation nation wide and at some point we will present our findings.

She was at the stoplight of w and ne and bounced her brakes several times waiting for me to pass in front of her so she could go behind me (apparently considering the very odd actions and further oddness that followed) --- then when she finally realized the light had changed she turned left on w and then turned in (right) again on the first street and then turned to follow me. I had turned right on n and then left on the first street as I sometimes do.... and there she was .... then she followed me home and lurked behind me in front of four people. I'll leave the questions out because most of the time they're not smart enough to figure them out.


Two witnesses to this behavior. And a few city/county employees and they all know each other .....

I should also add that the sheriff that swerved twice into my lane last month was back the next time I got on the Interstate and stayed in the far lane but shadowed me all the way to the exit before mine and then stayed right with me although he was on city street and I was on the highway ....

I'm getting ready to take some time off from all their intimidation because it interferes with my creative nature. And, besides, it's all being kept track of for me. Duh.

Here's something funny I found that shows this is not just in Tampa, it's a trend all around the country. Stealing peoples' homes and trying to force them out again with bad mortgages or trying to force them to rent: working towards creating a permanent lower class ...

READ: PLAN !!! It's part of George's PNAC.

A paradise of asphalt and condos

A paradise of asphalt and condos
By DIANE ROBERTS
Florida has 7,800 lakes, 320 springs, 300 species of palms, 56 species of roaches and several dozen talking cartoon animals. But Florida has only two renewable resources: avarice and craziness.

No matter how many reports warn that our coastlines are eroding from overbuilding (not to mention global warming), our fish full of mercury and our drinking water imperiled by agricultural and industrial waste, we allow Florida to be pimped out by developers who think profit is enshrined in Holy Writ. The group 1000 Friends of Florida, dedicated to responsible growth, recently presented a study projecting that the state's population will double in 50 years. Here's your Florida: a treeless, six-laned, Wal-Marted conurbation from St. Pete clear across to Daytona. Thirty-six-million people drinking, swimming and flushing in condo cities and endlessly replicating, viruslike retirement "villages." Think our stressed-out ecosystem can handle that?

Noted philosopher Robert Zimmerman once said, "Money doesn't talk, it swears." In Florida, money cusses so loud you can't hear the waves of the sea or the wind in the salt marshes. On our "Nature Coast" (try not to laugh), Secret Promise Ltd. threatens to erect a corpulent resort with high-rise hotels, shops, food courts, a helipad and 374 boat slips. The place is called Boggy Bay, but that's not terribly inviting. Secret Promise prefers "Magnolia Bay."

Not crazy enough for you? Every asphalt inch of this megalopolis lies within a Coastal High Hazard Area. The coastal wetlands filter pollutants and mitigate storm surge, but they are inconveniently located near the coast, so they will have to be drained and filled. The Gulf of Mexico is inconveniently shallow, so they will have to dig a 2-mile long, 7-foot-deep channel through the Big Bend Seagrass Aquatic Preserve.

Developer Chuck Olson, bankrolled by retired St. Petersburg surgeon J. Crayton Pruitt, wants you to understand that it's not about the fancy condos, and it's not about the 280,000 square feet of commercial space; it's not even about the yachts, though if they don't rip up 40 acres of protected seagrass flats the yachts can't get to the marina. It's about playing Robin Hood to the folks. Olson explains, "Taylor County has been robbed of its development rights."

Another area of Florida robbed of its development rights is the Everglades. You may recall that Gov. Jeb Bush cooked up a cunning plan to park the Scripps Biotech campus way out in northwestern Palm Beach County near the headwaters of the Loxahatchee River and the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area. The Mecca Farms site had no infrastructure, but never mind: The taxpayers would take care of that. Then Big Sugar could argue that if Mecca got sewers and roads, what was to stop them from building a bunch of golf course "communities" on the Everglades Agricultural Area and get a head start on luring that extra 18-million people down here?

Pesky environmentalists got Scripps moved to a more suitable venue. But just when you thought the place was safe for clean water, a couple of local nabobs put their brains together and figured out what Florida really needs: another theme park!

The chair of the Palm Beach County Commission thinks the idea's "awesome." Addie Greene says, "I wouldn't have to go all the way to Disney World." Disney is 43 miles from West Palm.

Millionaire Mark Zenobia, also the brains behind Dania's now-defunct Pirates World, a place so tawdry it made Six Gun Territory look like the Smithsonian, says his proposed "Entertainment City" will boast a 12,000-seat amphitheater, nightclubs, hotels and 45 exciting rides such as water chutes and a giant Ferris wheel. Look! I can see Lake Okeechobee dying!

Zenobia told the Palm Beach Post, "This isn't just something you can dream up overnight. It isn't a carnival."

Or, as Florida's premier land-use consultants put it: "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Diane Roberts, a former Times editorial writer, teaches English and writing at Florida State University.

[Last modified March 12, 2007, 08:30:05]