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10.11.11

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Military Resistance 9J8

The Civilians Got It Right:

The War In Afghanistan Is No Longer The War Most Americans Agree We Should Fight
[Thanks to Sandy Kelson, Veteran & Military Resistance Organization, who sent this in.] Oct. 10, 2011 Charlotte Observer [Excerpt] The war in Afghanistan is no longer the war most Americans agree we should fight. A CBS News poll released last Monday found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans say the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan, a reversal of opinion from two years ago when a majority supported the U.S. mission there.

The single largest failure of the anti-war movement at this point is the lack of outreach to the troops. Tim Goodrich, Iraq Veterans Against The War

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Adrian Mills, 23: Soldier With Big Heart, Passion To Serve

Spc. Adrian G. Mills October 8, 2011 By David Ibata, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Every evening for the past week, family members and friends have come to light candles at a memorial on the front lawn of the house where Adrian Mills grew up in Newnan. I just cant tell you how kind the people are from Coweta County. They are still lighting candles a vigil will be every evening at dusk until Sunday, said Jeff Blehschmidt, stepfather of Adrian Mills. That candlelight vigil theyre doing here is being done around the globe every night in his memory. Army Spc. Adrian Glyn A.J. Mills, 23, died Sept. 29 in Kirkuk, Iraq, from wounds sustained when his unit came under insurgent mortar fire, the Army said. Spc. Mills was assigned to the 272nd Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 1st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Polk. The soldiers body has been flown home, and visitation is set for 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday in McKoon Funeral Home, Newnan. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel of the funeral home. McKoon is handling arrangements. Mr. Blehschmidt set up the memorial to his son, a series of full-size American flags and dozens of smaller ones. Visitors have added candles, flowers and other items to the display. As a teen, Spc. Mills served in the Civil Air Patrol and Northgate High Schools Air Force Junior ROTC. That kid wanted to go in and help his country since he was in 7th grade, Mr. Blehschmidt said. But instead of joining the Air Force after graduating from Northgate in 2007, Spc. Mills joined the Army.

He wanted more action than I think the Air Force would give him and the Air Force couldnt give him a guaranteed job as a military policeman, and thats what he wanted to do, Mr. Blehschmidt said. Air Force Master Sgt. Ron Wolfe, who oversees Northgates Junior ROTC program, said the young mans leadership abilities were readily apparent. He was a quiet leader. He wasnt demanding. He led by a positive example, Master Sgt. Wolfe said. A student when Northgates ROTC was being started, Spc. Mills was the first to be involved in the schools color guard and its Saber Team special events squad. We didnt even have uniforms yet nothing more than an Air Force T-shirt and he was doing our first color guards at football games, Master Sgt. Wolfe said. Cassie McDonald, who grew up a few doors down from her friend and served with him in Northgates ROTC program, said, When it came to organizing different events to help the community, A.J. was one of the first ones to jump in, which illustrated how big his heart was. For example, after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Spc. Mills helped lead a schoolwide drive to gather items desperately needed by the survivors more than 15,000 pounds of clothing, toys, diapers, wipes, water, anything and everything, Master Sgt. Wolfe said. Spc. Mills also is survived by his mother, Marie Elaine Blehschmidt, his wife, Sandra, who he met while stationed in Germany, and his sister, Maegon Mills of Houston. The military has flown Sandras parents, Franz and Doris Abel, to the United States from Heidelberg to attend the funeral. The young soldier will be buried at Georgia National Cemetery, Canton, next to his friend Army Pvt. 2nd Colman Joseph Meadows III, who died in Afghanistan in December 2008. A.J., Ms. McDonald said, wanted everybody to remember what their freedom is worth and that life is short, so live it with no regrets.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

JBLM Specialist Killed In Afghanistan

Oct 10, 2011 Army Times A Washington-based soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, the Defense Department announced Sunday. Spc. Ricardo Cerros Jr., 24, of Salinas, Calif., died Saturday in Logar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire.

He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, at Joint Base LewisMcChord, Wash.

Fallen Soldier Dies Days Before Coming Home

Sep 27, 2011 By LaMar Holliday, KIII Sergeant Rafael Bigai Baez was scheduled to come home this Saturday, but he was killed on a mission in Afghanistan last Friday on his 28th birthday. Baez left behind an 8 year old daughter, a 4 year old son, and his fiancee hes been dating for more than a year, Yasiri Pablo. Pablo and her fiance, Sergeant Rafael Bigai Baez were going to put those plans of getting married and seeing the world into action when he came home on Saturday. But when Yasiri didnt get her daily phone call from him, she knew something was wrong when she heard Baezs mother screaming at the other end of a phone line. First thing I could hear is screaming and crying and Im thinking, oh my God, whats wrong, she said theyre here, theyre here, and Im like whos here, and she said the soldiers, Yasiri said. Thats when Yasiri knew the love of her life wouldnt be coming home. Baez was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol, but Yasiri was hoping this was all a dream. I thought he was going to come back injured, which I wouldnt care how he would have came back, I would have healed him, took care of him, baby him, anything, she expressed. But once the reality set in, all she could do was hold onto cherished memories. Hell get me mad just to get mad just to see my face reaction and after I get mad, hell bust out laughing like, Im just joking. Laughing, singing, and dancing, all this and their engagement photos on a makeshift memorial set up in her living room is what she has to remember her fallen soldier. They had plans to see the world and she says though hes not here physically, she still plans to carry out their dreams while hes with her in spirit. Baez will be buried in Santiago, Dominican Republic, which is where hes from. He joined the army when he moved to Puerto Rico.

Funeral arrangements havent been set, but his fiancee says it will be sometime next week. Yasiri said Baez had wanted to serve his country since he was 8 years old, and she said he died doing what he loved. Yasiri and a family member will be traveling to the Dominican Republic for the funeral. They ask for the communitys prayers as they travel.

POLITICIANS CANT BE COUNTED ON TO HALT THE BLOODSHED THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WARS

More Toast

A truck used to carry supplies for foreign military forces in Afghanistan, after it was hit by a bomb attack on the outskirts of Landikotal, northwest Pakistan October 10, 2011. A bomb exploded in the truck killing one person, local officials said. REUTERS/Shahid Shinwari

REALLY BAD PLACE TO BE: ALL HOME NOW

U.S. soldiers from Alpha Co, 2nd Battalion 35th Infantry, Task Force Cacti, patrol near Combat Outpost Penich in Khas Konar district in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan October 1, 2011. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

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Traveling Soldier is the publication of the Military Resistance Organization. Telling the truth - about the occupations or the criminals running the government in Washington - is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance to Imperial wars and all other forms of injustice inside the armed forces. Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties enlisted troops inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help organize resistance within the armed forces. We hope that youll build a network of active duty organizers.

MILITARY NEWS
NOT ANOTHER DAY NOT ANOTHER DOLLAR NOT ANOTHER LIFE

Army Pfc. Jazmare Logan of Mansfield, Ohio plays with her daughter Jazell Logan before her 82nd Airbornes Combat Aviation Brigade deploys to Afghanistan from Fort Bragg, N.C., Sept. 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Jim R. Bounds)...

American Military Deaths In Afghanistan, And The Communities From Which These Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, And Marines Came

Americans Who Have Died In Afghanistan Are Disproportionately White And Native American WorkingClass Young People With No More Than A High School Education
We Find That Nearly Half Of All Casualties Came From Large Metropolitan Core Cities And Their Surrounding Suburbs, Not From Rural Areas
Casualties came not from the poorest cities and counties but disproportionately from counties with somewhat lower than median income typical of solidly working-class communities. October 2011 By Michael Zweig, Center for Study of Working Class Life [Excerpts] Michael Zweig is professor of economics and director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. ************************************************************** On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, this study reports a detailed evaluation of every U.S. soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who died there from the start of the war in October 2001 through December 31, 2010. The study is based on information drawn from obituaries and tribute pages for all 1,446 casualties. It also reports characteristics of the communities from which the casualties came, based on county-level Census and other government data. Our findings contradict several aspects of conventional wisdom. Blacks and Latinos are underrepresented among casualties compared with their share of the population as a whole. Americans who have died in Afghanistan are disproportionately white and Native American working-class young people with no more than a high school education.

Twenty-three women were among the dead. They were nearly three times as likely as men to be college graduates and nearly five times as likely as men to be graduates of West Point or another of the military academies. The greatest burden of casualties in numbers fell on the south and Midwest, but the highest casualty rates were in rural and micropolitan counties in the northeast. We find that nearly half of all casualties came from large metropolitan core cities and their surrounding suburbs, not from rural areas. Rural areas and small towns have disproportionately high casualty rates (compared with the number of people living in those places), but relatively few casualties come from those communities because so few people live there. While 98 percent of core counties in metropolitan areas with more than one million people (all but one of 58) contributed at least one death to the total, only 41 percent of suburban counties in these major metropolitan areas, and just 7 percent of rural counties experienced an Afghan war death in the study period. Casualties came not from the poorest cities and counties but disproportionately from counties with somewhat lower than median income typical of solidly working-class communities. Contrary to expectations that come from the idea of an economic draft, we find that casualty counties (those from which casualties come) have unemployment and poverty rates no higher than the country as a whole. For some county types, average poverty and unemployment rates were significantly lower than the rates for all counties of that type.

MORE:

Its An Urban, Working Class Casualty List:

Over Three-Quarters Come From Cities That Have More Than 50,000 People
Almost Half Come From Cities And The Suburban Areas With More Than A Million People

October 10, 2011 Michael Zweig, Democracy Now [Excerpt] AMY GOODMAN: And the area of the country that they come from? MICHAEL ZWEIG: Well, here again, often we hear they come from rural areas where theres no real economic opportunity. It turns out to be not quite so true. As I said a minute ago, over three-quarters come from cities that have more than 50,000 people. Almost half come from cities and the suburban areas with more than a million people. The city that has the biggest casualty loss is Los Angelesor the county, Los Angeles County, with 28. We looked at five different kinds of counties. We looked at the core, urban, major metropolitan area counties, and then their suburban ring. And then we looked at counties which have cities or around cities of less than a million but more than 50,000. And those three together count for 77 percent of all the casualties.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nations ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose. Frederick Douglass, 1852

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Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you wish and well send it regularly. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the wars and economic injustice, inside the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or write to: The Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657. Phone: 888.711.2550

These Protesters Have Not Come To Work Within The System

They Have No Faith, Nor Should They, In The Political System Or The Two Major Political Parties
This Movement Is An Effort To Take Our Country Back

It Can Be Articulated In One Word REBELLION

Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street march through the Financial District in New York, on Monday, Oct. 10, 2011. The march started and finished in Zuccotti Park. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) [Thanks to Sandy Kelson, Veteran & Military Resistance Organization, who sent this in.] October 10, 2011 By Chris Hedges, TruthDig.com [Excerpts] Ketchup, a petite 22-year-old from Chicago with wavy red hair and glasses with bright red frames, arrived in Zuccotti Park in New York on Sept. 17. She had a tent, a rolling suitcase, 40 dollars worth of food, the graphic version of Howard Zinns A Peoples History of the United States and a sleeping bag. She had no return ticket, no idea what she was undertaking, and no acquaintances among the stragglers who joined her that afternoon to begin the Wall Street occupation. She decided to go to New York after reading the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which called for the occupation, although she noted that when she got to the park Adbusters had no discernable presence. The lords of finance in the looming towers surrounding the park, who toy with money and lives, who make the political class, the press and the judiciary jump at their demands, who destroy the ecosystem for profit and drain the U.S. Treasury to gamble and speculate, took little notice of Ketchup or any of the other scruffy activists on the street below them. The elites consider everyone outside their sphere marginal or invisible.

And what significance could an artist who paid her bills by working as a waitress have for the powerful? What could she and the others in Zuccotti Park do to them? What threat can the weak pose to the strong? Those who worship money believe their buckets of cash, like the $4.6 million JPMorgan Chase gave a few days ago to the New York City Police Foundation, can buy them perpetual power and security. Masters all, kneeling before the idols of the marketplace, blinded by their selfimportance, impervious to human suffering, bloated from unchecked greed and privilege, were about to be taught a lesson in the folly of hubris. The goal to people like Ketchup is very, very clear. It can be articulated in one wordREBELLION. These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. This movement is an effort to take our country back. This is a goal the power elite cannot comprehend. They cannot envision a day when they will not be in charge of our lives. The elites believe, and seek to make us believe, that globalization and unfettered capitalism are natural law, some kind of permanent and eternal dynamic that can never be altered. What the elites fail to realize is that rebellion will not stop until the corporate state is extinguished. It will not stop until there is an end to the corporate abuse of the poor, the working class, the elderly, the sick, children, those being slaughtered in our imperial wars and tortured in our black sites. It will not stop until foreclosures and bank repossessions stop. It will not stop until students no longer have to go into debt to be educated, and families no longer have to plunge into bankruptcy to pay medical bills. It will not stop until the corporate destruction of the ecosystem stops, and our relationships with each other and the planet are radically reconfigured.

And that is why the elites, and the rotted and degenerate system of corporate power they sustain, are in trouble. They dont understand what is happening. They are deaf, dumb and blind.

Yes
The business of government is to keep the government out of business that is, unless business needs government aid. -- Will Rogers What we have in this country is socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. -- Gore Vidal

How The 1% Does Their Job:

Exploitation Forms The Basis Of All The Profits Shared Among The Entire Capitalist Class
An Increasing Proportion Of The Wealth Produced By Workers Swelled The Pockets Of The Superrich, Who Did Not Compensate The Workers For Their Increased Production On The Job
Workers Ought To Inscribe On Their Banner The Revolutionary Watchword: Abolition Of The Wages System!
September 28, 2011 By Gary Lapon, Socialist Worker [Excerpts]

THE TERM exploitation often conjures up images of workers laboring in sweatshops for 12 hours or more per day, for pennies an hour, driven by a merciless overseer. This is contrasted to the ideal of a fair wage days wage for a fair days work--the supposedly normal situation under capitalism in which workers receive a decent wage, enough for a middle class standard of living, health insurance and security in their retirement. Sweatshops are horrific examples of exploitation that persist to this day. But Karl Marx had a broader and more scientific definition of exploitation: the forced appropriation of the unpaid labor of workers. Under this definition, all working-class people are exploited. Marx argued that the ultimate source of profit, the driving force behind capitalist production, is the unpaid labor of workers. So for Marx, exploitation forms the foundation of the capitalist system. All the billions in bonuses for the Wall Street bankers, every dividend paid to the shareholders of industrial corporations, every dollar collected by capitalist landlords--all of this is the result of the uncompensated labor of working-class people. And because exploitation is at the root of capitalism, it follows that the only way to do away with exploitation is to achieve an entirely different society--socialism, a society in which there is no tiny minority at the top that rules.

An Increasing Proportion Of The Wealth Produced By Workers Swelled The Pockets Of The Superrich, Who Did Not Compensate The Workers For Their Increased Production On The Job
Exploitation is not unique to capitalism. It has been a feature of all class societies, which are divided into two main classes, an exploited class that produces the wealth and an exploiter class that expropriates it. Under slavery, exploitation is naked and obvious to exploiter and exploited alike. The slave is forced by sword and lash to work for the master, who provides just enough to keep the slave alive--all the rest of the fruits of their labor are forcefully appropriated by the slaveowner. Similarly, under feudalism as it arose in its classical form in Europe, the serfs work on a plot of land that belongs to the lord. They work for part of the time for themselves, producing their means of subsistence, and the rest of the time, the product belongs to the lord. The terms of exploitation are clear to serf and lord alike--the serf labors for the lord, and receives nothing from the lord in return.

Capitalism is different among the chief forms of class societies Marx examined in that the exploitative nature of labor is hidden by the wage system. Except in cases of outright fraud, workers are hired, labor for a given amount of time and receive a wage in return. It appears on the surface that an equal exchange has taken place--but this isnt the case. Why not? The capitalist, in addition to purchasing various inputs into the productive process-machinery, raw materials, etc.--also buys what Marx called labor-power, increments of workers time during which the capitalist controls the workers creative and physical energies. Under capitalism, most needs are met, at least for those who can afford them, by commodities--commodities being goods and services produced for sale on the market. Working-class people, who dont own the means to produce and sell commodities, have one commodity they can sell: their labor-power, their ability to work. In this way, workers are forced to sell themselves to some capitalist piecemeal in order to acquire money to buy the necessities of life. Labor-power, according to Marx in writing his first volume of Capital, is the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in the physical form, the living personality, of a human being, capabilities which he sets in motion whenever he produces a usevalue of any kind. In other words, labor-power is the capacity to work, to create value, which the worker sells to the capitalists in increments for a wage. Labor, on the other hand, is the actual process of work itself. Like the buyer of any commodity, the capitalist claims the right to consume the commodity they purchase. In this case, the consumption of labor-power consists of the control of the labor process and the ownership of the products workers create during it. According to Marxs analysis, unlike machinery, raw materials and other inanimate inputs that pass on their value to the product but create no new value, labor-power is a special commodity...whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value. In other words, workers produce new value contained in the final product, which belongs to the capitalist. The distinction between labor-power and labor is the key to understanding exploitation under capitalism. When a capitalist pays a worker a wage, they are not paying for the value of a certain amount of completed labor, but for labor-power.

The soaring inequality in contemporary society illustrates this--over the past three decades of neoliberalism, the wealth that workers create has increased, but this has not been reflected in wages, which remain stagnant. Instead, an increasing proportion of the wealth produced by workers swelled the pockets of the superrich, who did not compensate the workers for their increased production on the job. It appears that the capitalist pays the worker for the value produced by their labor because workers only receive a paycheck after they have worked for a given amount of time. In reality, this amounts to an interest-free loan of labor-power by the worker to the capitalist. As Marx wrote, In all cases, therefore, the worker advances the use-value of his labor-power to the capitalist. He lets the buyer consume it before he receives payment of the price. Everywhere, the worker allows credit to the capitalist.

Exploitation Forms The Basis Of All The Profits Shared Among The Entire Capitalist Class
Capitalists purchase labor-power on the market. In general, the wage--the price of laborpower--is, like all other commodities, determined by its cost of production, which is in turn regulated by struggles between workers and capitalists over the level of wages and benefits, and by competition between workers for jobs. As Marx wrote in Wage Labor and Capital, the cost of production of labor-power is the cost required for the maintenance as the laborer...and for his education and training as a laborer. In other words, the price of labor-power is determined by the cost of food, clothing, housing and education at a given standard of living. Marx adds that the cost of production of...(labor-power) must include the cost of propagation, by means of which the race of workers is enabled to multiply itself, and to replace worn-out workers with new ones. So, wages must also include the cost of raising children, the next generation of workers. So in Marxs generalized analysis, the level of wages depends on what it takes to keep workers and their families (who represent the next generation of workers) alive and able to work--with their standard of living affected by the outcome of class struggles between workers and capitalists. The crucial point is that the cost of wages or labor-power depends on factors completely independent of the actual value produced by workers during the labor process. This difference is the source of surplus value, or profit. So lets compare the price of labor-power to the value, expressed in price, of the commodities that workers creates through their labor.

To take a simple example, lets assume that a worker is able to produce in four hours new value that is equivalent to the value of their labor-power for the day--to, say, $100 in wages. Marx called this necessary labor, because it is the amount of labor required to replace the wages paid by the capitalist, and because if the worker labored independently and not for a capitalist, it would be necessary for them to work four hours to maintain their standard of living. If it was a matter of a fair days pay for a fair days work, workers ought to be able to go home after four hours of labor. In our example, the capitalist is paying them $100 for the workday, and the worker produced $100 worth of new value in the form of products that belong to the capitalist, which they can sell on the market to recoup what they spent on wages and other costs of production. But things dont work this way under capitalism. As Marx wrote in a pamphlet called Value, Price and Profit, By buying the daily or weekly value of the laboring power of the (worker), the capitalist has, therefore, acquired the right to use or make that laboring power during the whole day or week. Hence, the worker, in order to receive a wage equivalent to the value they produce in four hours, is forced by the capitalist to work longer--a total of, in our example, eight hours. The value created during the additional four hours, embodied in the products produced by the worker during that time, is what Marx called surplus value. When this surplus product is sold, the capitalist pockets the proceeds--this, according to Marx, is the secret to the source of profits. And its not only industrial capitalists whose profits derive from surplus value, or unpaid labor. The rentier classes, such as finance capital and landlords, take their cut from the wealth extracted from the labor of workers in the form of interest on loans to the industrial capitalists and to others in society, rent for factories and homes, and so on. Exploitation forms the basis of all the profits shared among the entire capitalist class.

Instead Of The Conservative Motto A Fair Days Wages For A Fair Days Work! They Ought To Inscribe On Their Banner The Revolutionary Watchword: Abolition Of The Wages System! An understanding of the basics of Marxs theory of exploitation helps to explain the different forms of struggles between workers and capitalists. To take a few examples (although there are many more):

One of the earliest such struggles was over the length of the working day, which Marx discusses at length in the first volume of Capital. So long as everything else remains the same, capitalists can increase the amount of surplus labor over and above that needed to produce the value of wages by extending the length of the working day. This increases the rate of exploitation, as workers spend a greater portion of the working day performing unpaid labor for the capitalist. In the 1880s in the U.S., workers, led by anarchists and socialists, waged heroic struggles to limit the working day to eight hours. These workers were struggling to decrease the rate of exploitation. By fighting for a shorter working day, they were fighting to decrease the amount of unpaid labor they were forced to perform for the capitalists. Similarly, struggles over wages and benefits are struggles over the value and price of labor-power, which is an expression of workers standard of living. Capitalists seek to lower wages and slash benefits, decreasing the price of labor-power in order to increase the accumulation of surplus value, to maximize their profits. This is evident in the current wide-ranging attack on workers living standards, from public-sector workers wages, pensions and health benefits to private-sector workers such as those at Verizon. The 45,000 union workers who went on strike at Verizon and the public-sector workers and their allies who rose up in Wisconsin were fighting to defend the price of labor-power. Most importantly, Marxs theory of exploitation reveals that because the source of capitalists wealth is the unpaid labor of workers, the interests of workers and capitalists--like slave and master or serf and lord before them--are diametrically opposed and are impossible to reconcile. The two will always come into conflict since capitalists can only increase their share of the wealth at the expense of workers, and vice versa. Workers have to struggle to decrease the severity of the exploitation they face under capitalism. But as long as the capitalist system exists, workers will be exploited, and their unpaid labor will remain the source of the profits that are the lifeblood of the system. Therefore, Marx concluded that the only way for workers to control the wealth they create and use it to meet their needs was under a different system altogether. As he wrote in Value, Price and Profit, Instead of the conservative motto A fair days wages for a fair days work! they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: Abolition of the wages system!

According to Marx, only when workers control the means of production for their own benefit can exploitation be abolished--only then will the expropriators (be) expropriated.

MORE:
I should further like to beg of you to study the theory from its original sources and not at second hand. It is really much easier. Marx hardly wrote a thing to which this theory does not play a part. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is an especially remarkable example of its application -- F. Engles, to J. Bloch, Sept. 21, 1890

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

Secret Panel Puts Americans On Kill List

They Include Secret Legal Justifications And Undisclosed Intelligence Assessments
A Former Official Said One Of The Reasons For Making Senior Officials Principally Responsible For Nominating Americans For The Target List Was To Protect The President
06 October 11 By Mark Hosenball, Reuters [Excerpts] American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials. There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White Houses National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a US-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month. The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process. The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obamas toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlakis killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right. In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bushs expansive use of executive power in his war on terrorism, is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments. Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder. Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a citizen without due process. Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing. The process involves going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president, but the National Security Council does the investigation, they have lawyers, they review, they look at the situation, you have input from the military, and also, we make sure that we follow international law, Ruppersberger said. A former official said one of the reasons for making senior officials principally responsible for nominating Americans for the target list was to protect the president. Officials said Awlaki, whose fierce sermons were widely circulated on English-language militant websites, was targeted because Washington accumulated information his role in AQAP had gone from inspirational to operational. That meant that instead of just propagandizing in favor of al Qaeda objectives, Awlaki allegedly began to participate directly in plots against American targets. The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.

But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlakis hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy. For instance, one plot in which authorities have said Awlaki was involved Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound US airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underpants. There is no doubt Abdulmutallab was an admirer or follower of Awlaki, since he admitted that to US investigators. When he appeared in a Detroit courtroom earlier this week for the start of his trial on bomb-plot charges, he proclaimed, Anwar is alive. But at the time the White House was considering putting Awlaki on the US target list, intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial. Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab. Awlaki was also implicated in a case in which a British Airways employee was imprisoned for plotting to blow up a US-bound plane. E-mails retrieved by authorities from the employees computer showed what an investigator described as operational contact between Britain and Yemen. Authorities believe the contacts were mainly between the U.K.-based suspect and his brother.

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