The cave-in on Capitol Hill -- supplying a huge new jolt of funds for the horrific war effort in Iraq -- is surprising only to those who haven’t grasped our current circumstances.

Public opinion polls aren’t the same as political leverage. The Vietnam War went on for years after polling showed that most Americans opposed the war and even saw it as immoral.

Slick phrases about the need to bring our troops home can easily become little more than platitudes on wallpaper in media echo chambers.

No matter how many Democrats are in Congress, they won’t end this war unless an antiwar movement develops enough grassroots strength to compel them to do so.

Unfortunately -- and unnecessarily -- for years now the Internet powerhouse MoveOn.org has often functioned as a virtual appendage of the national Democratic Party. That close relationship has largely squandered MoveOn’s opportunities to help build strong deep independent activism for the long haul. And, on crucial issues of the Iraq war, MoveOn has failed to back the positions of such gutsy progressive visionaries as Reps. Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters.

I knew there was a war on against cancer and, oh yeah, drugs, illiteracy, poverty, crime and, of course, terror, and that many arenas — sports, religion, business and politics, to name a few — are often portrayed as war without the body bags. But I was still surprised to read recently in the New York Times that we’ve opened up a fat front:

“It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon,” the Gray Lady informed us, “in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity.”

Enough already! If I were an overweight kid, would I want Braveheart in my face? My impatience here reaches into the language center of the American brain, or at least the media brain. When chubby 9-year-olds are inspiring the language of Guadalcanal and 9/11, maybe as a nation it’s time to rethink our rhetorical default settings. Maybe it’s time to stop regarding every challenge, danger, obstacle, mystery and fear we encounter as a military operation, to be won or lost. We should at least be aware we have a choice in the matter.

Public, Educational and Government Access channels are under imminent threat by AT&T sponsored legislation. The Ohio House of Representatives' public utilities committee will be holding their hearing on Senate Bill SB 117 on Wednesday, May 30th at 11 a.m. We need people to attend. We will be holding a short rally at the capital at 10:40 A.M.

Ohio Senate Bill SB 117 threatens to undermine public, educational and government access television (PEG) throughout the state of Ohio. Established in the early years of cable television, public access provides the opportunity for average citizens to produce and broadcast their own TV shows, an extension of First Amendment free-speech rights. Cable access channels are a vital part of our democracy, allowing citizens to communicate directly with one another without mediation by the dominant corporate media. AT&T's bill is threatening this essential part of our democracy.

The corporate media in the United States will not allow a real peace candidate any time or substantive or respectful coverage. It will slander and mock and, above all, ignore. Then it will find people outside the media to quote as saying that they don't believe the candidate is "viable." The ideal spokespeople to make this announcement will be those perceived to agree with the peace candidate - that is, leaders of the peace movement. Then the story will be made to look like the media is reporting on who the public calls "viable," rather than determining who is viable and imposing that on the public. This is basic, fundamental electoral manufacturing of consent. And yet, every election, the peace movement plays along.

In this article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a CODE PINK activist is quoted as follows:

"'Dennis is saying all the right things, but I just worry that he isn't getting the exposure that he needs and that he is not being taken seriously,' said [Rosalie] Yelen. She hasn't settled on a candidate to support but says she likes former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' stance on poverty."

On 9/11/2001, George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Christine Todd Whitman sent a message to New York: Drop Dead.

The fallout now taints us all.

After the terror attacks, Bush and Giuliani saddled up their bullhorns and raced down to the smoldering World Trade Center to shout out a single "patriotic" demand: re-open the stock market!

And to hell with the health of the good citizens doing the clean-up. Ditto the rest of us downwind.

The public health outcome has now become visible: those brave and caring people who marched onto the site to do what needed to be done are starting to die in droves.

The New York Times says less than a third of them were wearing respirators. Giuliani is getting a long overdue bashing for letting this happen. With all his swagger, Rudy imposed a single demand above all: the financial district must re-open. That people would die doing it was known but never mentioned. Giuliani had his priorities.

Bush's Environmental Protection Agency knew full well that the airborne fallout from the smoldering the World Trade Center was absolutely lethal.