All US troops Out Of Afghanistan

Obama’s speech on “the way forward in Afghanistan” offered only years more of a dirty colonial war that both the American and the Afghan people overwhelmingly oppose.

The empty rhetorical claims that “the tide of war is receding” and “the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance” are belied by the undeniable facts of Obama’s so-called withdrawal plan.

In December 2009, when he launched his surge of 33,000 additional troops into Afghanistan, Obama told the American people that it was designed as a temporary measure, which would allow Washington to begin pulling out of Afghanistan within 18 months, that is, by July of this year.

But the plan announced from the White House will, by the end of this year, keep in Afghanistan nine out of ten of the American troops presently deployed there. By September of next year, the only forces to be withdrawn will be the 33,000 sent into the country in December 2009 on the pretext that their efforts would allow the rest of the US force to come home.

This entire withdrawal plan put forward by Obama will leave 68,000 US troops inside the impoverished, war-torn country into 2013—roughly double the number of US soldiers and Marines who were deployed there when the Democratic president took office at the beginning of 2009.

Following that, there is the vague pledge that by 2014 a “process of transition” would put Afghan puppet forces in charge of suppressing the popular resistance to the US-led occupation.

In reality, Washington is engaged in frantic negotiations with the regime of President Hamid Karzai aimed at securing a strategic partnership agreement that would grant the US access to permanent bases in Afghanistan and could well leave tens of thousands of American military personnel deployed there indefinitely.

The plan announced by Obama will spell an escalation rather than a reduction in the bloodshed in Afghanistan. The aim is to carry out a military offensive over this summer and the next in an attempt to militarily crush the popular opposition to US occupation. To the extent that the withdrawal affects firepower available to US commanders, it will inevitably lead to the use of more air strikes and drone missile attacks and, as a result, an even greater number of civilian casualties.

Among Obama’s most cynical claims is that the limited withdrawal from Afghanistan will spell greater investment in jobs and a “focus on nation building here at home.”

There is no question that the military decisions being taken in Afghanistan are driven in large part by the increasingly desperate crisis of US capitalism. The spending of $1.3 trillion or more on the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with the trillions more lavished upon the US military and intelligence complex, has played no small role in leading America into an economic shambles.

But the strategy of the US ruling elite, for whom Obama speaks, has not suddenly been transformed into peace abroad and social reforms at home. On the contrary, Washington has now launched new wars and military interventions in Libya and Yemen, and no doubt has plans for troop deployments elsewhere.

The explosive spread of militarism abroad is driven by the economic crisis. Having lost its position of unchallenged preeminence in the affairs of world capitalism, US imperialism leans ever more heavily on its residual military might to pursue its global interests and counter its capitalist rivals. This means in the first instance asserting hegemony in the energy-rich regions of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

At home, the financial oligarchy that rules America seeks to off-load the crisis of the profit system onto the backs of the working class, pursuing a ruthless offensive against jobs, living standards, social benefits and basic democratic rights.

War abroad and the assault on the working class within the US itself are two sides of the same class policy that finds its expression in Obama’s speech, which promises neither peace nor, for that matter, any peace dividend.

Within the existing political establishment and the two-party system the seething hostility to war felt by the majority of working people finds no genuine expression.

A central role in facilitating the expansion of US militarism is played by the official “antiwar” movement, dominated by a layer of the affluent middle class that supports the Democratic Party and has undergone a protracted shift to the right. Tailoring its activities to the electoral interests of the Democrats, it managed to smother the mass antiwar outpouring that was seen in 2003 on the eve of the Iraq invasion, when millions took to the streets in the US and around the world.

With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, this layer has integrated itself ever more closely into the Democratic Party’s orbit.

Their outlook finds expression in the response to Obama’s speech drafted for the Nation magazine by Tom Hayden, the former Vietnam War protester and longtime Democratic state legislator in California.

Entitled “Obama quickens Afghan withdrawal in face of pressure for peace,” Hayden’s article argues that Obama is “responding to massive public pressure for rapid troop withdrawals,” adding that “Peace advocates should feel a sense of gratification.”

He further insists that there will be a “strategic opportunity … to demand more withdrawals during the key period of Democratic and Republican conventions next year and during the presidential campaign itself.”

Once again, the aim of this layer is to subordinate opposition to the war to the Democratic Party. At the same time, Hayden provides Obama with an alibi for protracted war, writing, “There will be stages involved, because getting out of a military mess of your own making is one of the most difficult challenges.”

In addition, Hayden writes that the “peace movement” should fight to “check Obama’s executive ambitions towards Libya,” a twisted formulation that rejects opposition to the war on Libya itself, but only objects to the refusal of the White House to seek congressional authorization. In the US-NATO war on Libya, a whole layer of these ex-lefts has found its way to the open embrace of imperialism, based on the cynical slogan of “human rights”.

The popular hostility against war that has been politically suffocated by the Democrats and their ex-left defenders can find genuine expression only through the mobilization of a mass independent political movement of the working class against the Obama administration, the two-party system and capitalism, which is the root cause of militarism.

The struggle against war must be joined with the struggle for jobs and the defense of living standards and vital social services against the onslaught that has been unleashed by the profit system. This can be achieved only on the basis of the socialist and internationalist program fought for by the Socialist Equality Party.

(RED) - Do something about HIV/AIDS

In 2009, 370,000, babies were born with HIV. In 2015, that number could be ZERO. Since its launch in 2006, (RED) has generated over $170 million for the Global Fund and over 7.5 million people have been impacted by HIV and AIDS programs supported by your (RED) purchases. 

(RED) is an incredible organization, truly devoted to people. And so are these friends of (RED): One, Malaria NO MORE, Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, Friends of the Global Fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, Care, United Nations Foundation, UNAIDS. 

Facts about HIV/AIDS: 

Of the 33.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS across the world, 22.5 million are in Africa. 

More than 29.4% of people are said to be living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa, the highest number of any country in the world. 

In 2009, 1.8 million people died due to HIV/AIDS. 1.3 million lived in Africa. 

Women account for 59% of adults aged 15 and over said to be living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. 

South Africa has been hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic. One in five adults is HIV positive. 

South Africa also has one of the highest numbers of children under 15 living with HIV/AIDS in the world; estimates range from 180,000 to 280,000. 

2.5 million people in Africa receive Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), medications for the treatment of infection by retroviruses, primarily HIV. 

There are 15 million AIDS orphans living around the world, 13 million of whom are in Africa. 

HIV is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. 

(Product)RED Partners offers hundreds of products to choose from in more than 70 countries, selection varies by country. 

Each (Product)RED partner and special editon contributes a portion of their profits to the global fund to help eliminate aids in Africa. 

American Express (RED): 1% of every purchase made with the American Express (PRODUCT)RED Card, In the UK only. 

Apple (RED): The purchase of 1 (PRODUCT)RED iPod nano can provide over three weeks of lifesaving medicine to someone living with HIV in Africa. 

Bugaboo(RED): All Bugaboo items are (PRODUCT)RED and 1% of global revenue goes to the Global Fund. 

Converse(RED): 5 - 15% of the profits from Converse (PRODUCT)RED shoes, dependent upon design of shoes. 

DELL(RED): $20 from every purchase of a Dell Design Studio Laptop with (PRODUCT)RED artwork, $5 from every purchase of a (PRODUCT)RED Mini, Zino, and V51W All-In-One Printer. 

GAP(RED): 50% of the profits from each (PRODUCT)RED purchase. 

NIKE(RED): 50% of the profits from Nike (PRODUCT)RED laces go to the Global Fund and 50% go to football-based programs that Nike supports. 

Penfolds (RED): 15% of the profits of the Penfolds Koonunga Hill and Thomas Hyland wines sold during promotional periods. 

STARBUCKS(RED): 5 c / p from every transaction with a (STARBUCKS)RED Card and $1 / £3 from every purchase of a (STARBUCKS)RED Tumbler, Water Bottle, and East Africa Whole Bean Coffee. 

I understand it’s hard to trust an organization, but they are doing an amazing job throughout the world and saving lives. Be kind, be generous, be a human being, and care. 

To know more about (RED) visit: http://www.joinred.com 

Like (RED) on Facebook and help make this possibility a reality. 

The AIDS Free Generation is Due in 2015.

MTV Video Music Awards 2011

An MTV Video Music Award (commonly abbreviated as a VMA), is an award presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in music videos. Everybody's been talking about one thing: MTV VMA 2011. They have never made such a huge advertisement for it. And the announcements are on in every single channel on TV. Which is making people's expectations a lot bigger than usual. On August 28, the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards will be handed out. While MTV selects winners arbitrarily, and the irony of a network that ceased playing music videos years ago still holding an award show for them always kills us, there's simply no denying this event is always a fun, outrageous time 

Here's the full list of nominees for the 2011 MTV VMAs:

VIDEO OF THE YEAR
Adele “Rolling In The Deep”
Tyler, The Creator “Title: Yonkers”
Katy Perry “Firework”
Bruno Mars “Grenade”
Beastie Boys “Make Some Noise”

BEST FEMALE VIDEO
Adele “Rolling In The Deep”
Katy Perry “Firework”
Beyonce “Run The World (Girls)”
Nicki Minaj “Super Bass”
Lady Gaga“Born This Way”

BEST MALE VIDEO
Cee Lo Green “F*** You”
Eminem feat. Rihanna “Love The Way You Lie”
Bruno Mars “Grenade”
Kanye West feat. Rihanna & Kid Cudi “All Of The Lights”
Justin Bieber “U Smile”

BEST HIP HOP VIDEO
Lil Wayne feat. Cory Gunz “6’7’”
Kanye West feat. Rihanna & Kid Cudi “All Of The Lights”
Chris Brown feat. Lil Wayne & Busta Rhymes “Title: Look At Me Now”
Nicki Minaj “Super Bass”
Lupe Fiasco “The Show Goes On”

BEST POP VIDEO
Adele “Rolling In The Deep”
Bruno Mars “Grenade”
Pitbull feat. NE-YO, Nayer & Afrojack “Give Me Everything”
Katy Perry “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”
Britney Spears “Till The World Ends”

BEST NEW ARTIST
Foster The People “Pumped Up Kicks”
Wiz Khalifa “Title: Black and Yellow”
Tyler, The Creator “Yonkers”
Big Sean feat. Chris Brown “My Last”
Kreayshawn “Gucci Gucci”

BEST ROCK VIDEO
The Black Keys “Howlin For You”
Foo Fighters “Walk”
Foster The People “Pumped Up Kicks”
Mumford & Sons “The Cave”
Cage The Elephant “Shake Me Down”

BEST COLLABORATION
Pitbull feat. NE-YO, Nayer & Afrojack “Give Me Everything”
Chris Brown feat. Lil Wayne & Busta Rhymes “Look At Me Now”
Kanye West feat. Rihanna & Kid Cudi “All Of The Lights”
Katy Perry feat. Kanye West “E.T.”
Nicki Minaj feat. Drake “Moment 4 Life”

The VMA’s will be live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on August 28, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Norway's Tragedy

Residents in Norway are turning to God to find answers and comfort after one of Europe’s worst lone-wolf terrorist attacks in history.

"This is a national tragedy," one bishop told reporters on Saturday.

Reporters on the scene say the mood is disbelief in the aftermath of the attacks that took the lives of nearly 100 people, many of them teenagers. The mass murders have left the country in shock and dismay.

The first atrocity was the car bombing. Then, two hours later, came the attack on the island.
Hours after a bomb exploded in Oslo City center in Norway, another terror attack has taken place as scores of teenagers were gunned down at a youth camp 20 miles away.

For Helen Andreassen, a 21-year-old aspiring politician, a celebration of bright futures became something horrifyingly different when she and her friends jumped from a second-story window to escape the bullets of a man who was hunting them specifically because of their politics.

They ran for their lives, she said, tumbling down the rocky heights to the sea shore, hoping the man in the police officer’s uniform would not pursue them into the water. But he kept shooting
.
“He was standing just by the water, using his rifle, just taking his time, aiming and shooting,” Ms. Andreassen said. “It was a slaughter of young children."

For more than an hour, the gunman stalked the forests and steep, rocky shores of the island. There were no bridges to provide escape. Time was on his side.

The young people desperately silenced their cellphones and stripped off colorful clothing. But the shooter was methodical. After killing several people on one part of the island, he went to the other, and, dressed in his police uniform, calmly convinced the children huddled there that he meant to save them. When they emerged into the open, he fired again and again.

“He shot a boy in the back,” said Stine Renate Haaheim, 27, a member of Parliament who was also among those hiding. “I saw that some people were falling, and we turned around and ran. At that point I didn’t look back.”

The police have identified the suspect as Anders Behring Breivik, who in his writings has portrayed himself as a modern knight, charged with driving out Islam and immigrants and the political correctness that he said had been wrongly invited into Norway and was thriving there.

The campers at Utoya appeared to be the embodiment of his hatred.

Organized by the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party, the camp has become a kind of multicultural incubator in recent years. Many of the victims in Friday’s shooting were the children of immigrants from Africa and Asia who have begun to stake out a greater role for themselves in Norwegian society.

Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, 23, a camp member, was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Norway when she was 3. She is dark-skinned, wears a nose stud and speaks both Norwegian and English in seemingly native accents.

She described a Norway that was increasingly divided along class and ethnic lines, and said there was a growing hostility toward people who were not ethnically Norwegian, even those born in the country.

But she saw the camp on Utoya as a sanctuary, a promise of a better country. “It was for me the safest place in the world,” she said.

For her, and hundreds of others trapped with her, and generations of current and former Labor leaders, the island’s personal significance now includes a national tragedy.

Norway’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, was scheduled to speak to the campers this week. A former leader of Labor’s youth wing, he had attended the camp every summer since the 1970s. The killer “turned a paradise of my youth into hell,” Mr. Stoltenberg said Saturday when he went to the area to meet with survivors and their families, as did King Harald V and Queen Sonja.

The police are working on the assumption that Mr. Breivik, having drawn security services to central Oslo when he exploded a car bomb outside government offices, traveled to Utoya, taking one of the regular ferries that brought campers and others over from the mainland.

When he arrived, about 600 people were there, most gathered in the main assembly building for a briefing on the bombing. Many came from political families and were frantically trying to get a hold of relatives who worked at the site of the blast.

Ms. Andreassen was able to get in touch with her father, Lasse Kristiansen, a labor union worker, to determine that he was uninjured in the blast. But a short time later, he received a text message telling him to call the police.

“After that, time stood still,” Mr. Kristiansen said.

His daughter’s cellphone went silent, and it was hours before he knew that she and another daughter had saved themselves by swimming until they were picked up by a passing boat.

There was little shelter or chance for those caught back on the island. Witnesses told Norwegian news agencies that the shooter sprayed bullets into piles of dead bodies, apparently seeking those that were hiding among them. On Saturday night, the authorities knew that 85 had been killed, and still sought bodies in the water, or in an unchecked corner of Utoya.

“He seemed he was enjoying it” Magnus Stenseth, a youth leader, told the Norwegian newspaper VG. “He walked around the island as if he had absolute power.”

It took police about 40 minutes to reach the island, but once they confronted Mr. Breivik, his lethal animation seemed to melt away, they said. He surrendered without a struggle, seemingly content.

Blood - The Fluid Of Life

More physicians today are turning to bloodless surgery, also referred to as blood conservation, because it is believed to be often healthier, safer and less costly for patients than standard surgical procedures.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits ingesting blood and that Christians should therefore not accept blood transfusions or donate or store their own blood for transfusion. In order to prove that to people they show this verse from the Bible: Acts 15:29 - You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

Approximately 1 in 100 transfusions are accompanied by fever, chills, or urticaria [hives]. . . . Approximately 1 in 6,000 red cell transfusions results in a hemolytic transfusion reaction. This is a severe immunologic reaction that may occur acutely or in a delayed fashion some days after the transfusion; it may result in acute [kidney] failure, shock, intravascular coagulation, and even death.

After discussing the more well-known diseases, Techniques of Blood Transfusion (1982) addresses "other transfusion-associated infectious diseases," such as syphilis, cytomegalovirus infection, and malaria. It then says: Several other diseases have also been reported to be transmitted by blood transfusion, including herpes virus infections, infectious mononucleosis (Epstein-Barr virus), toxoplasmosis, trypanosomiasis [African sleeping sickness and Chagas' disease], leishmaniasis, brucellosis [undulant fever], typhus, filariasis, measles, salmonellosis, and Colorado tick fever.

We cannot assume that all blood is yet being tested. For example, it is reported that by the start of 1989, about 80 percent of Brazil's blood banks were not under government control, nor were they testing for AIDS.

Now with all these risks, why would you receive or donate blood? And I will tell you some the other treatments you could do instead of blood transfusion, and by the way they are cheaper than paying for a blood bag:

. Argon beam

. Cell saver

. Harmonic scalpel

. Normovolemic haemodilution

. Synthetic erythropoietin

. Antifibrinolytics

. Recombinant factor VIIa

. Advanced monitoring of hemostasis

. Intravenous iron

And many more!

After I did this research I found out that many hospitals in the U.S provide many of these treatments, in Europe pretty much all of the hospitals offer them and many people say that they are Jehovah Witnesses in order to receive one of these treatments because they know it’s better for their health. If you live on a place that you don’t know any hospitals with these treatments you should find one, and make yourself a card to put in your wallet with your information in case something happens, saying you don’t accept blood transfusion, and the hospital you would like to go to. Take care of yourself! I already have my card, do you?

Politics is the problem, not the solution

Have you ever stopped to think about all the bad things that happens in our world? And why and how they are created? I know I have. I truly believe if we all stop and think about the roots of every single problem, like: hunger, wars, terrorism, poverty, and many others, the answer will be just one: Politics.

Here are some facts:

“Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.”

“One billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).”

“Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.”

“Over 9 million people die worldwide each year because of hunger and malnutrition. 5 million are children.”

“Approximately 1.2 billion people suffer from hunger (deficiency of calories and protein).”

“In the United Kingdom, “a shocking 30-40% of all food is never eaten.”

“In the US 40-50% of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten.”

“If food reaching supermarkets, restaurants and cafeterias is added to the household figure, that wastage goes up to 27%.”

“In some parts of Africa a quarter or more of the crops go bad before they can be eaten. More generally, high losses in developing nations are mainly due to a lack of technology and infrastructure as well as insect infestations, microbial growth, damage and high temperatures and humidity.”

“All terrorist acts are motivated by two things: Social and political injustice: People choose terrorism when they are trying to right what they perceive to be a social or political or historical wrong—when they have been stripped of their land or rights, or denied these.
The belief that violence or its threat will be effective, and usher in change. Another way of saying this is: the belief that violent means justify the ends. Many terrorists in history said sincerely that they chose violence after long deliberation, because they felt they had no choice.”

Now reading all these information:

Don't you think that US and UK could donate all the food that never gets eaten to maybe Africa?
Don't you think the whole world could decrease their weapon's purchase less than 1% so all children could have an education?
Don't you think the world could create a system so people wouldn't live in absurd conditions anymore?
Don’t you think that government was supposed to provide for people, and help us as much as they possibly can?

I still believe it’s possible for humans to go back to pure and simple ways, where pride never outshines kindness, where we think with our hearts instead of the barbaric side of our minds.
I still believe it’s possible for humans to care about others the same way one care about the people closer to him or her, with no exception.
I still believe it’s possible for humans to live together with no frontiers, a place where people can go to wherever one wants as desired, no need for visa you just jump into you transportation and go.
I still believe it’s possible for humans to think more about “us” than only “me”.

I still believe it’s possible for humans to live with their differences and share the Earth equally as we were supposed to.

Our actions are bigger than it seems, it affects more people than we expect, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with this text, affect people. I want everybody to stop and think about all the marvelous things we could do if we all stick together as human beings and provide for each other. How wonderful would it be to live on Earth full of peace, love, equality and security. I believe it’s possible! Let’s stop supporting what’s wrong and fight for what is right! I want to motivate you to awake the sense of justice inside of each one of you.