Try and fail, try again. I'm not real familiar with the green projects or why they went wrong. I suspect there was a fair amount of sabotage from the not so green industries threatened by them. Anyway, they are the way of the future - the Union of Concerned Scientists says the planet is warming 80% faster than previously expected - and if they provided some jobs for a while that's better than nothing.

We might not need 6 trillion if we're not funding two previously unfunded wars and a military budget blown up by expenses for projects and materials that exist for no other reason than to enrich the defense contractors. The military budget is the favorite way for the REPUBLICAN GANGS to run up the deficits beyond any measure so they could force government to privatize.

Because, you know, REPUBLICANS ARE THE PARTY OF BIG SPENDING!

My main concern with safeway is how they hammer unions.

In LA they were the instigators of a prolonged strike a couple of years ago.

The Stimulus Package contained money for infrastructure projects that Republican governors refused and the president's Jobs Bill was an infrastructure bill that the House wouldn't even consider, even when he broke it up into parts and tried to pass each individually.

REPUBLICANS ARE THE PARTY THAT SPENDS trying to bankrupt government and run up deficits. Our current deficit is left to us by them, willfully created by them and, you are right, they run up a deficit of monstrous proportions because that forces government to privatize.

Anybody who is against big government should be even more against privatization as it takes government or departments of it OUT OF THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE and into the hands of one rich asshole or a small group of them making it, then, MUCH LESS ACOUNTABLE to the people and serving the people less and the small handful of profiteers more. Government and the country's esources should belong to the people, not be, effectively, the personal property of one or a small group of profiteering individuals. PRIVATIZATION IS THEFT!

This is a link to most of the school killing in China where guns are illegal. These are just for one year 2020 -2011 and are NOT all of them.

THEY ARE ALL DONE WITH AN EDGED WEAPON! Killers will Kill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China_%282010%E2%80%932012%29

Hi, I live in the UK where you may be aware, some types of guns were banned several years ago and gun owners compensated for the value of the guns handed in. As a result of what happened in the UK I would urge the USA to consider carefully whatever action it may be considering taking in the wake of the awful shootings that have recently taken place. Before you all denigrate me for being a former gun owner, please read my observations below of what happened when handguns were banned here.

I was a gun owner who obtained a licence so that I could learn to hit targets for recreation purposes. I was befriended by a gun dealer at the club I joined who spent hours teaching me about all aspects of safety, accuracy and skill and I soon became very proficient, coming third in my first competition. In order to obtain a licence in the UK someone of standing (a solicitor) had to vouch for me and checks were done to see if I had any kind of criminal record. My gun had to be kept in a locked cabinet with ammunition kept in a separate locked compartment this to be inspected by the police every year. I had to be a member of a local gun club for six months on probation before I was deemed to be suitable to hold a licence.

I bought my first, and only gun, once my licence was granted but within months the ban was brought in in the UK. I went to the police building in Manchester, designated to collect banned guns, with my gun dealer friend to hand over our guns. He knew several of the firearm officers there as many of them did clay pigeon shooting for recreation at weekends and purchased their cartridges from him. They were actually sympathetic to us and said that us law abiding gun owners who they knew about (because they inspected our guns and cabinets on a regular basis) were not the people who carried out shooting sprees on innocent people, and that no matter how many legally held guns were handed in by us, this would not stop all the underground, unlicenced or unregistered guns killing people.

The ban in the UK was brought about as a knee jerk reaction to the shooting of many innocents by a man who had legally held weapons. This was the problem, he held them whilst licenced. It however transpired that he had been refused membership at his gun club because they did not deem him a suitable person to have guns. There were also other matters that came to light that showed the gun laws we already had in the UK were good enough to have stopped him and, had they been followed properly by the police, would have resulted in the man having his guns confiscated before that awful day.

There are still unlicenced guns causing havoc in parts of the UK even though us law abiding gun owners handed ours in, at a cost I might add, of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Lots of target shooting sportspeople had their hobby taken away at a stroke and it made difficulties for our very good Olympic team as ways were explored, when the legislation first came in, whereby they could still practice and compete.

Guns will always have the potential to kill in the wrong hands, but then so do cars, baseball bats, samurai swords and lots of other things Once man invented any of these it is unlikely, even if it is desirable, he will ever go back to a time without them. Banning guns would not stop the blackmarket sale of them so there is no easy answer to the dilemma of how to make your nation safer from the likes of the young man who carried out the recent atrocity.

The Rockafeller Foundation, as I understand it, is not an oil concern but a philanthropical entity. It funds many justice projects and such. It came about because the Rockafeller Oil trust was too high and mighty so the government came after them to take some of their money away, telling them that they could either have it taken away from them or they could give it away to a good cause. They then gave it to a foundation on condition that the Rockafeller name by attached to it but the oil concern has no say how the money is spent and used or what causes the foundation supports.

Rachel Corrie is a casualty and the fight is not over. If Rachel Corrie had tried to bomb the Israeli Consulate in Seattle she would've set her cause back because she would've turned more of the public against it. Doing what she did would turned more of the public in the U.S. and internationally, to sympathy with her cause. It didn't as much as it should've because the International Solidarity Movement, that she was wiith, didn't do its media work and/or the media blackout of the Palestinan voice of the conflict in U.S. media didn't get the word out about it and, when it did, not in an fair, honest, balanced way.

Armed struggle against tyrranny can only be taken up when most of the public is with you supporting you. If it's not you are marginalized to the fringes if you take it up and are irrelevant which is why they WANT you to try it.

I onced asked an old radical, "How can you tell a police spy in your group?" and he answered, "He'll be the one wearing the most buttons and the one advocating violent action."

Quote Mark Saulys:
"You are arguing for being afraid and we must not."

Actually, Mark, I thought I was arguing to be cautious and pragmatic recommending that people not foolishly display their identity on the internet to any and all wackos and nut jobs, including those currently running this country. Would you post your bank account numbers and passwords on the internet? I sure wouldn't.

Quote Mark Saulys:
"Our resistance is non violent which is actually more courageous in many ways than armed or violent resistance. It means you sit down right in front of the tanks and refuse to move. When the violence comes all the casualties will be on your side, you will just sit there and take it. But that's how you can win because they have a monopoly on violence so they want you to try to fight them violently."

That didn't seem to work for Rachel Corey...that bulldozer just ran right over her...and Israel is still stealing Palestinian land and building Israeli settlements on it.

I do, however, think what the Occupy movement is doing is very brave and a very American thing to do ... .but so is armed rebellion against tyranny. Our forefathers didn't sit around singing cumbayah letting the British bash us over the heads or spray us with tear gas. In fact, if they all had acted like Gandhi this wouldn't have become a great nation independent of the British. The only reason why it may have worked in India was because of a unified massive Satyagraha (strikes, boycotts, and obstructionism is what it amounted to if you remove all of the obfuscations of peace, love, and brotherhood window dressing). It was massive obstructionism by the masses of Indian people and not by just small groups camped out on the streets or parks. They wore the British out but not without massacres by the British first. The massacres also tended to detract from the grandiose propaganda the British used to hide the fact that they were there to exploit rather than save the Indians from themselves (ie: acting as a police force..the same kind of propaganda the U.S. might use, as well, today). Gandhi's dandy but what voters are you going to influence that will vote outside of the corrupt two-party system? They'll still vote Republican or Democrat no matter how many of you Occupy people get abused. We don't want any Rachel Corey repeats here in the US..nor Kent States (Vietnam war went on another 5 years after... only coming to an end because the Vietnamese kicked our butts out)...it didn't help the Palestinians much and it most likely won't help us here in the US either.

Mark you are kidding right

That's what I mean. They can't even want to rise up. They have no concentration span from watching commercial TV. They can't even comprehend what's happening.

I lived in West Germany in the '70s and all TV and radio there was state/public owned, it was all like PBS or NPR in the U.S.. There were two hours a day set aside for commercial advertisement so there were no commercials at any other time, interrupting programming or what. That was true about all European countries. Consequently, the consumerism was miniscule by comparison to that of the U.S..

You are arguing for being afraid and we must not. Our society is not yet at the stage where we must rettreat to the hills to organize armed resistance. The resistance necessarry is calling them out and calling their bluff, open defiance. They are not yet in a position where they can begin arresting and jailing dissidents openly.

We had the same discussion at Occupy. Our resistance is non violent which is actually more courageous in many ways than armed or violent resistance. It means you sit down right in front of the tanks and refuse to move. When the violence comes all the casualties will be on your side, you will just sit there and take it. But that's how you can win because they have a monopoly on violence so they want you to try to fight them violently.

At Occupy we had a total transparency, no need for "security culture". It was our strength because we were open to everybody, we could build a movement. There was no need for security culture because we did nothing wrong. We were only trying to defend basic human rights. If we were arrested for doing nothing wrong that was part of the resistance, part of the theater. If we engaged in civil disobedience we accepted the consequences.

It requires courage. You can't do anything without it.

Anyway, if Thom's not afraid why are you?