State Dept. planning to spend $115 million to 'upgrade' $700 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad --Troops have withdrawn from Iraq, but U.S. money hasn't 27 Jun 2012 The State Department is planning to spend up to $115 million to upgrade the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, already its biggest and most expensive in the world, according to pre-solicitation notices published this month. Remember, it has been 3 1/2 years since American diplomats moved into the 104-acre, $700 million facility. According to a June 14 pre-solicitation, the estimated construction cost is put at between $60 million and $80 million and is expected to take two years to complete... The United States has spent about $100 million on the Police College facility, having built living quarters, a dining facility, an office building, a new gymnasium and a helicopter landing site. On June 17, the grand opening of the $15 million Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies "with funding from the U.S. embassy," was announced in an embassy news release. [But we can't get single-payer healthcare, a teacher hired or a bridge fixed. This is bullsh*t. Start reading.]  (see below)

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Arming the Left: Is the time now? By Charles Southwell*

I hope you didn't open this page to read what we already know: that this is the most rightwing government we have ever had in the US, even far right of Bush I, that our rights are being eroded daily, and that our democratic process is all but gone, if it isn't already gone.

I hope you came here to read about tactics for action that will finally have some consequence. I hope you agree that our protests, petitions, letters, and on and on, have been utterly ignored. The fascistas that run our country laugh at us. They believe they can do anything and that we haven't got the guts to revolt, but only to wage a war of words. I have seen the Bush cavalcades, as they drive away, his aids sneering and jeering and laughing and mocking our protests. They think we are a JOKE. Tens of millions of Americans protested the war, but because we posed no REAL THREAT to their power, we were UTTERLY IGNORED.

As long as we pose no REAL threat to the powers-that-be, to what is shaping up into a dictatorship, we will continue to be ignored. Right now, we are ignored because we present no organized power to fight this onslaught of anti-democratic, totalitarian government that we are up against.

It will take time, but it's time to get more left-leaning liberals and outright leftists to at least POSE a threat, by getting organized and getting ARMED. It's time to get well past this liberal phobia and taboo about weapons and force. After all, our liberalism was won with a REVOLUTIONARY WAR! they used real guns in that war. The French Revolution was also a WAR and they used real weapons there too.

Perhaps people believe that since the US federal government has the fire power to blow up the world X times over, that we have no chance, and that the 2nd amendment is therefore moot. I used to think the same thing. In fact, this was the major if not the only lasting upshot of the Cold War! the Cold war wasn't about one opposing ideology against the other; it wasn't about the East vs. the West. In the end, it was about the respective governments against their own peoples. The Cold War resulted in the repression of the peoples in those countries, and likewise, of peoples around the world.

But, it is still a myth that the US citizens are powerless against their government, a government that has become tyrannical and has usurped our democratic rights. We are not powerless against it. If we get organized and armed, and form a force of hundreds of thousands, we can overcome this government, or pose enough of a threat to have power. The government cannot drop a nuclear bomb on DC. It cannot risk the lives of whole cities, without revealing its own contradictions that is. Further, there is no guarantee that the military will remain loyal to a government that continually reveals itself as imperialistic and ruthless and having no real concern for its own personnel. The Iraqi occupation is teaching many of them that hard lesson. They are realizing that not Hussein, but the Bush regime, is their real enemy.

So I ask you, isn't it time that left-leaning liberals and leftists exercised their 2nd amendment rights and got organized and prepared? Isn't it time, before it's too late? Isn't it time, before another Bush coup and the following four years of increased repression and economic ruin?

We should remain committed to the absolute condemnation of individual acts of violence or terrorism. Read Trotsky's essay on terrorism, in the political education section of this website. Our reference to Trotsky does not mean that we are Marxists. I am merely referring to a good argument for any real revolutionaries against terrorism. We want a democratic government, which is not predicated on a Marxist state. In fact, we leave that to the future of the new movement for democracy, given that the future should be democratic and in a democracy, the people will decide. But, our goal is to make a future wherein the people CAN and WILL decide!!!!!!

21 October 2003

Also see CLG's Political Education page

http://www.legitgov.org/State-Dept-planning-spend-115-million-upgrade-700-million-US-Embassy-Baghdad

http://www.legitgov.org/essay_southwell_arming_the_left_is_the_time_now_102203.html