Scum Sucking Liberal

When We Become the Enemy

2008-07-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

"When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." -- Friedrich Neitzsche

I will confess that the night we began the invasion of Iraq, I was driving my car. When I heard it on the radio, I began to cry, and I looked for a church where I could pray. I went to a monastery purported to be open 24 hours, but it wasn't. So finally I just pulled over to the side of the road and cried, and prayed for my country, and cried some more. I have never been so disappointed in my country in my entire life.

Many people called me unpatriotic. It is thought in this country that we must be sheep, agreeing with our leaders, "supporting our troops," in order to be a patriot. How is this possible? This is a country of dissenters, was based on dissent. Our ancestors came in protest of taxes, in search of freedom, religious and otherwise.

For some, it seems impossible to understand that, to the world, the U.S. can look evil. We can look evil, and powerful, and greedy; in fact, we can do more than just look that way. We can be that way. We still imagine ourselves as the little guy, the fighter, but what we really are is the big bully.

I've spent the last seven years worrying that the U.S. will become the new Soviet Union, the new China, the new [write name of oppressive country here]. It is so easy to forget, after all, that those countries aren't full of evil, snarling Nazi's or rampant, control-hungry Communists, but of people. They're full of people -- children, mothers, aunties and uncles, businessmen and women -- just people. And we must always tread carefully, or our "Republic" will become just as Machiavellian as any other in history.

Today I read that the interrogation methods used in Guantanamo Bay were those used by Chinese communists. They were the methods used against our own soldiers; the methods we've demonized the past 50 years and called "torture" are now called "interrogation techniques." The only difference in the training materials was the title, changed from "Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance" to "Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape." Originally a training program to get our men used to possible illegal and unethical torture practices, it became a handbook for use in Guantanamo.

So this is what we've come to: U.S., the "new" China. We buy their products, ignore their human rights offenses, and then we use their handbook to train our men and women to commit those same offenses.

I was sad the day we invaded Afghanistan. I was even sadder the day we invaded Iraq on what was clearly a ridiculous premise. Today, I am conflicted; is it possible to be more disappointed? Or should I just become numb to the loss of greatness I see in my own country, which I love?

Tough choice.

China inspired interrogations at Guantanamo
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.(Click here for full article)

Immigration -- the human cost

2007-11-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

Ahh, only in America...

2007-10-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Members of one Ku Klux Klan group are staging a protest against another group for their "unchristian values."

"We are opposed to the ignorance and stupidity as displayed by the individuals that thumbed their nose at the area churches by continuing to use racial slurs, threats and avoided Christian deportment," said Ken Mier, investigator of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. They are protesting the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

I personally like my racists with good Christian values. But honestly, could this happen anywhere but America?

Members of one Klan group plan to protest another in Cullman

CULLMAN, Ala. -- Members of one Ku Klux Klan organization say they will assemble at the courthouse Nov. 10 to show their opposition to another Klan group that plans an anti-immigration rally there that day.

Ken Mier, who described himself as an investigator for the Alabama Ku Klux Klan and the national office of the Ku Klux Klan LLC, said in an e-mail to The Cullman Times that his group is against the tactics of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which held an anti-immigration protest last month in Athens.

Republicans Lose Evangelical Christianity

2007-10-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

For a long, long time, the christian "right" has been associated with the Republican Party -- an assertion that I have long had a problem with. For one, politics and religion are separate, and more than a few patriots died so that we would not become a theocracy but a democracy. It irked me to have my church try to push politics on me; I moved from a conservative church to a liberal one, only to have the same thing done. Same deal, different candidates.

The marriage of politics to a religious group is just one more way to try to assert control. My in-laws got me the magazine "World" and I was abhorred to read that campaign finance reform was ungodly. I mean, campaign finance reform? It was just a way to convince people to vote against it, like having skinny people eat a candy bar on a commercial to show how yummy it is (oh, and it doesn't make you fat. No, really). This was nothing more than brainwash.

My worry is this: that Democrats will step in and take over the job of government morality police. Not that the Republicans ever actually did anything -- ten years in power, six with a Republican president, and they can't do anything about abortion? Prayer in schools? Flag burning? Sounds like the Republican Party was a failure for the Christian right. I could hope for a time of separation between religion and politics, but this America, and making everything political is just one of those "things that cannot be changed," after all.

You can read the entire (10 pages!) of the article here.

The backlash on the right against Bush and the war has emboldened some previously circumspect evangelical leaders to criticize the leadership of the Christian conservative political movement. “The quickness to arms, the quickness to invade, I think that caused a kind of desertion of what has been known as the Christian right,” Hybels, whose Willow Creek Association now includes 12,000 churches, told me over the summer. “People who might be called progressive evangelicals or centrist evangelicals are one stirring away from a real awakening.”

The generational and theological shifts in the evangelical world are turning the next election into a credibility test for the conservative Christian establishment. The current Republican front-runner in national polls, Rudolph W. Giuliani, could hardly be less like their kind of guy: twice divorced, thrice married, estranged from his children and church and a supporter of legalized abortion and gay rights. Alarmed at the continued strength of his candidacy, Dobson and a group of about 50 evangelical Christians leaders agreed last month to back a third party if Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee. But polls show that Giuliani is the most popular candidate among white evangelical voters. He has the support, so far, of a plurality if not a majority of conservative Christians. If Giuliani captures the nomination despite the threat of an evangelical revolt, it will be a long time before Republican strategists pay attention to the demands of conservative Christian leaders again. And if the Democrats capitalize on the current demoralization to capture a larger share of evangelical votes, the credibility damage could be just as severe.

“There was a time when evangelical churches were becoming largely and almost exclusively the Republican Party at prayer,” said Marvin Olasky, the editor of the evangelical magazine World and an informal adviser to George W. Bush when he was governor. “To some extent — we have to see how much — the Republicans have blown it. That opportunity to lock up that constituency has vanished. The ball now really is in the Democrats’ court.”

Alternatives

2007-10-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of practicality; one reason I love the Nature Conservancy is that they include humans in their conservation plans. It is common for the super-educated to look at humanity from a broad perspective and declare us "parasites." We do fit the description; we have overrun our host (the planet) and are killing it. There is even a movement to cause humanity to die out, with all members pledging to sterilize themselves and to convince others to do the same.

While I understand this reasoning, I think it is too linear. I think humanity has a place on the planet and that it is our home. We've lived here for millions of years without destroying it, and I believe that by thinking and working together we can fix the damage we've caused. Perhaps I am too optimistic, but that is my perspective.

So, I was delighted to find this plan by the New-York based Wildlife Conservation Society. Essentially, rather than punishing poachers in Zambia, they are examining why people poach endangered animals, and the answer is because they are starving and it is a quick way to get money. So, by installing a program that trains people in a skill and rewards them with good behavior along with keeping punishments for poaching, they hope to truly lower poaching incidents.

Here's hoping that it works.

A cheaper plan to stop poachers: Give them real jobs

Mfuwe, Zambia - Jimmy Mbewe spent six-and-a-half years in prison after he was caught illegally killing an elephant outside South Luangwa National Park here in eastern Zambia.

Poverty drove the father of nine to wander the bush evading wildlife scouts to shoot buffalo and elephant and sell the meat to local traders. "I'm not educated, so I chose my profession as hunting," he says.

Out of prison now, his movements are monitored by a local antipoaching team.

But Mr. Mbewe says he has no intention of going back behind bars. He's now busy learning carpentry skills with other former poachers under the Community Markets for Conservation program.

Mbewe is also learning to farm and work as a beekeeper. As long as he refrains from poaching, COMACO buys his honey at a price higher than the local market average, processes it, packages it, and sends it on to local markets.

The program goes beyond teaching former poachers new ways to earn a living; it is creating a sophisticated network of markets that makes money for locals while reducing poaching, improving land use, and supporting conservation.

"The challenge is you can't demand support for conservation if conservation is a cost," says Dale Lewis, an American conservationist who moved to Zambia 28 years ago as a college research assistant, and has spearheaded the project.

If Only I Could Vote For This Guy...

2007-10-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

In a heated Congressional debate over expanding health insurance for America's uninsured children, a bit of truth accidentally slipped out:

Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, told Republicans: “You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.”

Nice! Of course, there was negative response from Republicans, but at least we know somebody in Congress is paying attention to the fact that innocent people - not terrorists, but innocent civilians - are dying each and every day we occupy Iraq. If only more would admit what is clearly the case here... (read the entire article here.)

Quote of the Week

2007-10-17T13:45:00.001-07:00

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”. -Sinclair Lewis, 1885-1951

Baghdad Burning

2007-10-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

The author of the blog Baghdad Burning has finally fled Baghdad and become a refugee. May you find peace and safety, and healing from all you have endured. May we as Americans find forgiveness for the decisions of our elected leaders.

From "The Rape of Sabrine"
...She’s just one of tens, possibly hundreds, of Iraqi women who are violated in their own homes and in Iraqi prisons. She looks like cousins I have. She looks like friends. She looks like a neighbor I sometimes used to pause to gossip with in the street. Every Iraqi who looks at her will see a cousin, a friend, a sister, a mother, an aunt…

Humanitarian organizations are warning that three Iraqi women are to be executed next month. The women are Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Omar Muhammad. They are being accused of 'terrorism', i.e. having ties to the Iraqi resistance. It could mean they are relatives of people suspected of being in the resistance. Or it could mean they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of them gave birth in the prison. I wonder what kind of torture they've endured. Let no one say Iraqi women didn't get at least SOME equality under the American occupation- we are now equally as likely to get executed.

And yet, as the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

Jimmy Carter blasts VP Cheney

2007-10-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

This article (see below) reminds me of the fact that I heard Vice President Cheney speak while we were in Washington, D.C. at the Arlington Cemetery. We were simply there for something else and suddenly everyone said, "The Vice President is here! He's going to give a speech!" I looked around and realized people had been waiting in the cold for this. How interesting. I looked up and there he was. I don't remember what he said, but I remember saying to Marti afterward, "I just got to witness pure evil." He just laughed. Apparently I'm not the only one who thought so...

Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a "disaster" for U.S
(read the entire article here)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a "disaster" for the country and a "militant" who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.

Cheney has been on the wrong side of the debate on many issues, including an internal White House discussion over Syria in which the vice president is thought to be pushing a tough approach, Carter said.

"He's a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world," Carter told the BBC World News America in an interview to air later on Wednesday.

"You know he's been a disaster for our country," Carter said. "I think he's been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he's prevailed."

From Texas to the Amazon

2007-09-27T17:34:00.001-07:00

Today we got some burgers at Burger King, and, because I am inherently a guilt-obsessed person, I got online to see where, exactly, Burger King got its beef.

I recently saw an article in National Geographic about the Brazilian rainforest and how its decimation hasn't really been slowed by environmental groups the past ten years. And holding a fast-food burger in my hand, I wondered if the beef came from a cow that stood where a rainforest used to be.

Well, I didn't get a satisfying answer to that question, meaning the answer probably is "yes." However, I did find this pretty amazing website about a Texas cowboy who decided to save the rainforest himself.

Can cattle ranchers and soy farmers save the Amazon?

The reasons for land-clearing in the Amazon are compelling: cheap land, low labor costs, and booming demand for commodities driven by a surging China and growing interest in biofuels. These factors have helped Brazil become an agricultural superpower – the world’s largest exporter of beef, cotton, and sugar, among other products – in less than a generation. Amazon landowners have seen their land values double every 4-5 years in areas that just a decade ago were pristine rainforests. The market is driving deforestation.

Given this landscape, John Cain Carter believes the only way to save the Amazon is through the market. Carter is a Texas rancher who moved to the heart of the Amazon 11 years ago with his Brazilian wife, Kika, and founded what is perhaps the most innovative organization working in the Amazon, Aliança da Terra. Carter says that by giving producers incentives to reduce their impact on the forest, the market can succeed where conservation efforts have failed.

While deforestation rates in the Amazon have accelerated, the problem is not a lack of laws, but rather a legal system where enforcement is so slow and so corrupt that it renders the laws effectively useless. On paper, cattle ranching in the Amazon may be the most restricted in the world, with landowners required to keep 80 percent of their land forested – a limitation no rancher in Texas faces. Carter wants to see farmers in Brazil benefit in following the law, by turning this restriction into a marketing advantage. However in order to do so, Amazon producers have to ensure that consumers ( i.e., buyers of commodities like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Cargill) can confidently say that agricultural products are produced legally and even more sustainably than stipulated by the law. The incentive for producers is market access: Aliança da Terra helps Brazilian farmers and ranchers get the best price for their products, but only if they follow the rules. While producers get higher prices for their goods, buyers like Burger King and Archer-Daniels Midland can say they are using legally and responsibly produced beef. Meanwhile more rainforest is left standing, ecosystem services preserved, and biodiversity conserved. Everybody wins. (Read the rest of the article here.)

Get a bumper sticker

2007-09-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Abortion is just about the worst political issue out there. It killed the feminist movement -- feminism is now associated with abortion issues, rather than what it should be, which is more opportunities for women to realize their dreams (whatever those dreams are). I am so, so sick of seeing abortion used as a political and religious tool, that the thought of it being on a license plate...frankly, makes me nauseous. Worried about free speech? Get a bumper sticker. Or, as one commenter on the article put it, "Freedom of church and plate." :)

Abortion foes taking license-plate battle to U.S. appellate court

By Howard Fischer

Capitol Media Services

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.17.2007

PHOENIX — A coalition of anti-abortion groups wants a federal appeals court to force the state to produce special license plates with the message "choose life."

The Arizona Life Coalition charges in legal papers that a state commission that reviews requests for special plates acted illegally in rejecting its application. The lawsuit asks the three-judge panel to order the members of the Arizona License Plate Commission to approve the plate.

But James Morrow, an assistant state attorney general, said the commission did nothing wrong in rejecting the plates because the message was controversial, and the state should not allow its license plates to be turned "into a billboard for one side of a hotly contested issue."

Finally -- someone who isn't in the lap of big oil

2007-09-17T14:16:00.001-07:00

Kudos to Governor Napolitano for taking action on this issue. Emission standards have not been raised since the 1980s, and national legislature is too afraid of cutting off oil interests and vehicle manufacturing firms to act. Napolitano took the back door on this and did the right thing. The whole "more expensive car" business is nothing more than a tactic to anger people. A thousand dollars difference in initial price is made up in three years if the car is only 3 mpg more efficient. People don't even realize...she's saving them money now, and all of us money in the long run.

Napolitano Defends Emissions Order

PHOENIX — Gov. Janet Napolitano is defending her decision to bypass the Legislature and instead order imposition of new carbon-dioxide-emission standards for vehicles sold in Arizona.

Napolitano said Friday the changes she wants certainly could go to the Legislature. But she said state law also backs her power to simply direct Steve Owens, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, to adopt a rule doing the same thing.

"I'm very respectful of the Legislature," she said.

"But we can also do it by rule,'' Napolitano continued. "We can do it now. We can do it more quickly."

Rep. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, acknowledged action by executive order and rule may be quicker than amending state law. But Barnes, who chairs the House Environment Committee, said he doubts Napolitano actually has legal authority to impose new standards absent legislative blessing.

The ADEQ says state laws let it regulate various air contaminants in motor-vehicle exhaust, including smoke, vapors, sulfuric acid mists and radioactive materials. That list also includes gases and "carbon," which the agency contends covers carbon dioxide even though that chemically distinct compound is not listed in statutes as a pollutant.

Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, said even if the law allows the governor to do what she wants, such a major change in state policy — one that will result in more expensive cars and trucks — should be debated and reviewed by the elected representatives of Arizona voters.

How is this legal?

2007-08-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

In this article, a Hispanic trucker has to fork over his life savings to DEA officers and then prove it wasn't drug money -- when there was no evidence he was a smuggler and drug-sniffing dogs found nothing? This is hard to believe. There is nothing that would keep DEA from simply taking people's cash if this is the case, but apparently, it really is the case. I plan to forward this article to my senator at the very least. Unbelievable!

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A trucker has sued the Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking to get back nearly $24,000 seized by DEA agents earlier this month at a weigh station on U.S. 54 in New Mexico north of El Paso, Texas.

Anastasio Prieto of El Paso gave a state police officer at the weigh station permission to search the truck to see if it contained "needles or cash in excess of $10,000," according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the federal lawsuit Thursday.

Prieto told the officer he didn't have any needles but did have $23,700.

Officers took the money and turned it over to the DEA. DEA agents photographed and fingerprinted Prieto over his objections, then released him without charging him with anything.

Border Patrol agents searched his truck with drug-sniffing dogs, but found no evidence of illegal substances, the ACLU said.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants violated Prieto's right to be free of unlawful search and seizure by taking his money without probable cause and by fingerprinting and photographing him.

"Mere possession of approximately $23,700 does not establish probable cause for a search or seizure," the lawsuit said.

It said Prieto pulled into the weigh station about 10:30 a.m. Aug. 8 and was let go about 4 p.m.

DEA agents told Prieto he would receive a notice of federal proceedings to permanently forfeit the money within 30 days and that to get it back, he'd have to prove it was his and did not come from illegal drug sales.

They told him the process probably would take a year, the ACLU said.

The ACLU's New Mexico executive director, Peter Simonson, said Prieto needs his money now to pay bills and maintain his truck. The lawsuit said Prieto does not like banks and customarily carries his savings as cash.

"The government took Mr. Prieto's money as surely as if he had been robbed on a street corner at night," Simonson said. "In fact, being robbed might have been better. At least then the police would have treated him as the victim of a crime instead of as a perpetrator."

The Death of Traditional Journalism

2007-08-01T08:34:00.001-07:00

When I started college, I had the idea in my head that I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. I loved writing and had dominated the Journalism department in my high school, even running the small town paper when times got hard, and my dream was to be the next Woodward and Bernstein, exposing corruption, educating the public...

Well, fast forward to the summer after my sophomore year. I started working for a small, local paper as a cub reporter and I had a nose for scandal. I found out that some business had come in and bought out all the buildings on Main Street and was causing each business to close, one by one, by raising rents ridiculously high (Two and three hundred percent). But...I wasn't allowed to report it.

I found out the local factory had an asbestos problem and was exposing their workers. One man had gotten in to take photos of the asbestos piled and floating in the air, and had been promptly fired. But...I wasn't allowed to report it.

Why? Advertising dollars. Relationships with owners. Big business. Money.

I quickly realized that, in most cases, reporters' hands are tied. The editor's hands are also tied. The real decisions are made in the boardroom by the owners. And becoming the owner of a media company wasn't the subject I was studying.

That was practically an innocent time. I could not have looked 12 years into the future to see how the media would consolidate...and consolidate...and consolidate. But now the content of our news is in the hands of a few extremely powerful people. Seeing yet another consolidation -- the Wall Street Journal in the hands of the man who created Fox News -- makes me glad that bloggers are out there. We are part of the last bastion of free speech available -- we and a dwindling number of small, radical local papers, a few online news' sources, podcasters. My skepticism of traditional media mounts and more and more I read the experiences of bloggers as my news (Baghdad Burning in Iraq, for example). I may have dropped Journalism in school...but I still feel wishful about the concept.

May bloggers live long and bring down more politicians!

From Murdoch Prevails by Forbes

News Corp.'s acquisition of Dow Jones will represent a coronation of sorts for Murdoch. With a prosperous TV network, a market-leading cable news channel, a soon-to-be-launched business news channel, a major film studio, big Internet assets like social-networking giant MySpace, and now The Wall Street Journal, Murdoch has arguably become the King of All Media.

This extraordinary concentration of power in the hands of one man will trouble critics of the media industry's continuing consolidation and those who disagree with Murdoch's conservative politics.

Regardless of what one thinks of his media empire, it's clear that where he leads News Corp. from here will in many ways be the story of where the media industry itself is headed. What does the future hold for newspapers, television, the film industry and the Internet? Keep an eye on News Corp. to find out.

Zero energy bill, Zero emissions

2007-03-15T16:23:00.000-07:00

Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates.

It sounds promising, even utopian: homemade, storable energy that doesn't contribute to global warming. But does Strizki's method – converting electricity generated from renewable sources into hydrogen – make sense for widespread adoption?

I found this article while perusing my favorite personal finances blogs and although it does relate to finance, I decided to post it here for a few reasons. First, I think it's a great article and I love the fact that some guy just decided to make his home and vehicle completely free of greenhouse gas emissions. I think this embodies the true American spirit, and I find it ironic that he has gotten so much criticism for doing what nobody thinks can be done simple because...it cost him a lot of money. I mean, if the U.S. government had done the same research for half a mil, we'd be praising that lab to the stars. But some guy does it and suddenly everyone breaks out the "not practical" phrases. Whatever.

Secondly, I don't really know if anyone reads my PF blog and I don't actually care. It is more there for me to track my own finances and as a neutral place for Marti and I to communicate. So, since I want my readers to actually see the the article, I am posting it here.

Also, it's been an age since I posted, and I apologize; my world has been a bit crazy. But I should be back on track soon. Stay tuned.

A 50-cent soda

2007-02-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

When I was in highschool, my maths teacher used to give us extra credit problems -- hard problems, problems we hadn't gone over in class -- and he would give a Coke to the person who solved the problem first (never mind that he favored the boys in the class; that's another issue altogether). He was fond of saying that whenever you wanted something to happen, you got a lot of smart guys (notice the gender) in a room and offered them a million dollars for finding a solution, and that's how a lot of the best inventions happened. I don't know if he was right, but lunch hour was right after math class and I would see my fellow classmates furtively working on the problem in corners, trying to get the answer first so they could get that fifty cent soda. It's amazing what people will do. I won't even tell you about the time he offered a six-pack of Coke for a college-level problem (okay, I'll tell you -- I solved it but he wouldn't believe me, so I got a male classmate to present it and we split the winnings).

I guess Mr. Baumann must now be in charge of the world, because I saw this headline yesterday and it piqued my interest: Scientists to Vie for $25M Climate Prize. I'm glad that we are finally facing what has been pretty obvious for a while now; the earth is getting warmer, and we are part of the problem. I'm glad, too, because I think Mr. Baumann was right. If a group of 16-year-olds would work through lunch for a 50-cent soda, what would smart guys (and gals) do for $25 million? A lot, I hope. Because we need it.

On Building Big

2007-01-30T13:05:00.000-08:00

You know, this article really hit me. I have a 1300 square foot home that often seems huge to me (and difficult to clean) and I sometimes wish we had a smaller home. I mean, all of us generally use the one master bath. We only use 2 of the three bedrooms. And yet, I know my home is considered "modest." A friend refused to consider any home less than 1500 square feet for her family. 1500 square feet? That's 200 more square feet to clean and to worry about. I personally like small houses with big yards but that ideal seems to be going as builders realize they charge "per square foot" and that's for the home, not the lot. You can read this poignant article here.

I was driving to Boston and saw this house set above the others, all pomp and puffery, just a blink away from a city where the working poor live in flats, and it struck me -- as it hasn't in a long, long time, because I am inured, because I see what I want to see -- that we are going in the wrong direction in this country; that the gap between the rich and the poor is a great divide and it is not pretty, no matter what your political beliefs.

More Nukes

2007-01-14T07:42:00.002-08:00

While I am not one to march outside of Davis-Monthan or anything, I have been a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) for several years now. Most of the time I think some of the members have had a tad too much sugar, or perhaps smoked a leetle too much weed in the 60s. I mean, they would love to have civil disobedience every third day of the week, and nothing pisses them off more than a living, breathing Republican. I attended the meetings for a little while and then discovered that 1. Mentioning that Marti used to be in the Marine Corps brought silence to a room, and 2. I was the youngest person there by 40 years. At least. Also? I tend to be very moderate, at least in comparison, although by some of my family members standards I am a screaming liberal. And I don't like marching around nuclear testing sites, it's very bad for my complexion (and my ovaries)

Nevertheless, I was rather shocked when I stumbled across this article in the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 — The Bush administration is expected to announce next week a major step forward in the building of the country’s first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades. It will propose combining elements of competing designs from two weapons laboratories in an approach that some experts argue is untested and risky.

The new weapon would not add to but replace the nation’s existing arsenal of aging warheads, with a new generation meant to be sturdier, more reliable, safer from accidental detonation and more secure from theft by terrorists.

The article goes on to say that the government wants two competing labs to make a hybrid which MAY OR MAY NOT be safe, because if not one weapons lab will go out of business. I'm sorry? I thought we all agreed only to pour money into one failing business *cough - Amtrak - cough* ? What is up with this? I like to call it Republican charity, because those poor weapons laboratories, they are starving, and we wouldn't want them on the streets.

*sigh*

I suppose there is something to be said about not pissing off the guys who build the bombs. Nevertheless, am I the only one who thinks its a tiny bit hypocritical to be "renewing" our nuclear warheads at a time when we are fighting two wars and sanctioning or threatening sanctions to several other countries for... developing nuclear warheads? I know some redneck would say, "But we need to be number one, superior, keep our world power status, blah blah blah" but honestly -- developing more nuclear weapons? Will keep us safer? Come on. We already have Paris Hilton. Do we really need another weapon more deadly than that?

Some kudos to Republicans

2007-01-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

While I generally think of conservatives as evil, power-hungry businessmen who love to use God to convince people to take money from the poor, I did appreciate this speech from new Minority House Speaker John Boehner:

And as Mr. Boehner rose to speak and to hand the gavel over to Mrs. Pelosi, he mentioned the historic nature of her rise to the speakership:

“But today marks an occasion I think the Founding Fathers would view approvingly. My fellow Americans: whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent, this is a cause for celebration.”

And in a rather humble tone, he said:

“There were some great achievements during the 12 years that followed, but there were also some profound disappointments. If there is one lesson that stands out from our party’s time in the majority, it is this: a congressional majority is simply a means to an end. The value of a majority lies not in the chance to wield great power, but in the chance to use limited power to do great things.

“We refer to the gavel I’m holding as the Speaker’s gavel. But like everything else in this chamber, it really belongs to the people. It’s on loan from the real owners. This is the people’s House. This is the people’s Congress. And most of the people don’t care which party controls it; what they want is a government that is limited, honest, accountable, and responsive to their needs. The moment a majority forgets this lesson, it begins writing itself a ticket to minority status.”

Pelosi makes history

2007-01-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

I had hoped it would be Cheryl, but oh well...perhaps the Senate?

Nancy Pelosi, possibly one of my father's most hated politicians, made U.S. History today with her election as House Speaker. In her speech, she quoted one of my favorite saints, St. Francis of Assisi.

Quoting St. Francis of Assisi, San Francisco's patron saint, Pelosi said, "Lord, make me a channel of thy peace; where there is darkness may we bring light, where there is hatred, may we bring love, and where there is despair, may we bring hope."

Pelosi, 66, married for 43 years with five grown children and six grandchildren, thanked her family for giving her "the confidence they gave me to go from the kitchen to the Congress."

Pelosi, wearing her trademark pearls and a purple suit, was elected by a 233-to-202 vote on party lines that became a foregone conclusion after Democrats rolled to victory in last November's midterm congressional election that swept aside 12 years of Republican control in the House.

I pulled this excerpt from a news article I now cannot find but the link goes to her speech as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Although the title of this blog is "Yellow-Dog Democrat," in reality I am skeptical of politics. People's motives can change, as the old adage says - "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." If we carry the logic further, "Partial power corrupts partially," and it is for this reason I doubt politics. After all, what did the Democrat say when s/he walked into the graveyard?

"Thank you for your votes."

Nevertheless, I hope that a few things change. I hope that we can change our course in ~~Vietnam~~ Iraq, that we can get government spending under control, that we can start limiting presidential powers granted during the terrorist attacks, and that we can stop being so damned partisan about everything. I want some cooperation, people, and less war-mongering. I want decent schools and a stronger police force and a better America. And if I don't stop writing I'm going to sound like a politician myself.

Dave Barry Does is Again

2007-01-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

I was delighted to see that Dave Barry decided to emerge from retirement to do another 2006 Year in Review. Here's an except from the full article:

It was a momentous year, a year of events that will echo in the annals of history the way a dropped plate of calamari echoes in an Italian restaurant with a tile floor. Decades from now, our grandchildren will come to us and say, "Tell us, Grandpa (or Grandma as the case may be), what it was like to be alive in the year that Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears and Katie whatshername all had babies, although not necessarily in those combinations." And we will smile wisely and emit a streamer of drool, because we will be very old and unable to hear them.

And that will be a good thing, because there are many things about 2006 that we will not want to remember. This was the year in which the members of the United States Congress, who do not bother to read the actual bills they pass, spent weeks poring over instant messages sent by a pervert. This was the year in which the vice president of the United States shot a lawyer, which turned out to be totally legal in Texas.

Also there were many pesky problems left over from 2005 that refused to go away in 2006, including Iraq, immigration, high gas prices, terrorism, global warming, avian flu, Iran, North Korea and Paris Hilton. Future generations are going to look back at this era and ask us how we could have allowed Paris Hilton to happen, and we are not going to have a good answer.

Did anything good happen in 2006? Let me think. No. But before we move on to 2007, let's take a moment to reflect back on the historic events, real and imaginary, of this historic year"...

Long Live Dave Barry! Dave Barry for President, 2008!

Predictions for 2007: doesn't look good

2006-12-31T22:10:00.000-08:00

I remember when Bush proclaimed the Iraq war to be over. Remember the cheesy suit? The carefully staged fighter pilot wannabe setting? He took a page out of Top Gun and unbelievably enough, people swallowed it.

The Iraq war, needless to say, was nowhere close to finished that day. Friends are still going to the front lines - recently a good friend's husband of a few months went to Iraq, leaving her behind -- and war goes on. There is a proverb: It is easy to light a fire, but hard to put it out. That is the truth behind war. It seems that we never learn.

Here are Kiplinger's predictions for the war in 2007. The death of Saddam Hussein changes nothing, according to Kiplinger. It was just another act of barbarism in a senseless world, according to Yellow-Dog Democrat. A lynching, according to Baghdad Burning. Today we reached a death toll of 3,000 U.S. troops. My prayer for 2007? For peace, for an end to occupation, for an end to U.S. Imperialism and for a new beginning.

Let there be peace, and let it begin with me...

Barbarians

2006-12-30T23:23:00.000-08:00

Saddam Hussein was hung today, after a “fair trial” for the deaths of 148 Iraqis. Death toll from Iraq war to date: 52,139 (min. count). Who will hang for this? And will there be a “fair trial”? War is the stupidest thing on earth, only to be bested in its stupidity by our politicians who put our brave men and women’s lives on the line for political bullshit.

Words I Wish I'd Written Myself

2006-11-17T23:23:00.000-08:00

From Barak Obama, senator from Illinois:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Making Strides

2006-11-12T23:26:00.000-08:00

I believe in feminism; I believe in women having rights. But road signs that eliminate sexism? I don’t think this is the sort of thing to worry about. Let’s focus on something a bit more substantial; spousal abuse, perhaps?

Network Neutrality

2006-05-11T23:20:00.000-07:00

Here's an article about the current fight in Congress about keeping neutrality on the Internet. Moveon.org, of course, has a campaign going as well.

Another great post...

2006-05-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

from Baghdad Burning:

Today they [Iranian clerics] rule the country. Over the duration of three years, and through the use of vicious militias, assassinations and abductions, they’ve managed to install themselves firmly in the Green Zone. We constantly hear our new puppets rant and rave against Syria, against Saudi Arabia, against Turkey, even against the country they have to thank for their rise to power- America… But no one dares to talk about the role Iran is planning in the country…

Cowards

2006-04-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot about retired generals and their comments about both the Iraq war and Donald Rumsfeld and this is what I have to say about them.

Cowards.

Yes, I mean cowards. I find it unbelievably offensive that these men, with all their power and influence, waited three years to express their opinions. They waited until public sentiment turned against the war before they stood up to say something. They didn’t get any backlash from friends or family or the public in general for openly stating their opinions before this Vietnam-like mire of a war. Oh no. They waited three years. They retired. They waited for public opinion to turn. So, essentially, now that it is basically too late to really change anything, they are standing up to say, “Wow, this war was really poorly planned and we should never have done it, but (wait, what did Newbold say?) ‘while I don’t accept the stated rationale for invading Iraq, my view–at the moment–is that a precipitous withdrawal would be a mistake.’”

So why bother saying anything at all?

This is what I have to say to these generals:

Where were you in the fury of patriotism before the war, when any dissent would have been a death knoll to your career?

Where were you when General Shinseki risked his?

Where were you when protesters lined the streets, saying this was a bad idea?

Where were you when so many people suggested that Iraqi culture was very different from ours, and that keeping tribes and warlords and religious sects from killing each other might be more difficult than shouting “Hoowah” and bombing the heck out of the place?

Okay, so you don’t want to do anything about the war, you just want Rummy out. And your ideal replacement is — Joseph Lieberman? Are you insane? Lieberman is Jewish. Have you not noticed there is, um, a little bit of rancor between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East? Or that some saw this war as “pro-Israel” before it even started? What better way to unleash a fury from Palestine and other Arab countries, who would see that a Jewish leader was directing the Iraqi war.

Here are a few comments I received when I stated that I did not think the Iraq war was a good idea back in 2003 (and my thoughts regarding those comments):

“If you don’t like our country, go back to Japan.” Never mind that I was born here

“Stop sending me anti-American e-mails. I believe our president is a God-fearing man who prays and God is directing his actions.” Of course, thinking comes secondary to prayer.

“Please tell Missy not to send me any more unpatriotic articles. They are just upsetting.” I find 2,000 dead soldiers upsetting, too.

I have never understood why opposing a war is unpatriotic. We have learned the hard way that starting a war is easy and ending it is hard. I have always felt, and will continue to feel, that starting a war is not something to be done blindly because the lives of many, many people are at stake. If I think my country’s leaders are entering into war for the wrong reasons, or even if they choose not to justify their reasons to me, then it is my patriotic duty to oppose them.

Yes, I marched against the war in the spring of 2003. Yes, I wrote letters to my friends and family, urging them to oppose the war. Yes, I wrote to my congressman and whoever else I thought would listen, asking for them to stop, to wait, to gain support from our allies, to make sure the war was justified, and I did all of these things at cost to myself and to my reputation in the eyes of my friends and family, many of whom are military or former military. And, after the war started, I stopped protesting, because there was nothing left to be done. Nothing. And why beat a dead horse? I had my say and it was ignored, and three years later, all I could possibly do now is to say is “I told you so.” Which doesn’t mean a whole lot when people are dying over there, and thus I don’t bother saying it.

It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon now. I agree that we cannot simply withdraw from Iraq — it would be too dangerous to leave an unstable country in that region. But I don’t think changing the guard is going to change anything — except perhaps salve the consciences of those who said too little, too late.

Baghdad Burning

2006-04-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

Riverbend, a nameless woman in Iraq, writes:

The thing most worrisome about the situation now, is that discrimination based on sect has become so commonplace. For the average educated Iraqi in Baghdad, there is still scorn for all the Sunni/Shia talk. Sadly though, people are being pushed into claiming to be this or that because political parties are promoting it with every speech and every newspaper- the whole ‘us’ / ‘them’. We read constantly about how ‘We Sunnis should unite with our Shia brothers…’ or how ‘We Shia should forgive our Sunni brothers…’ (note how us Sunni and Shia sisters don’t really fit into either equation at this point). Politicians and religious figures seem to forget at the end of the day that we’re all simply Iraqis…Three years after the war, and we’ve managed to move backwards in a visible way, and in a not so visible way. (From “Uncertainty” posted March 28, 2006)

Congratulations to Riverbend for her new book, which is longlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction.

Red Meat

2006-02-16T23:13:00.000-08:00

Recently Marti has introduced me to a new way of procrastinating: the McVideo game. This is a game where the player gets to learn how to succeed as a fast food restaurant. Players must raise cattle (preferably by clearcutting rainforests — it’s cheaper) add industrial waste, hormones and animal byproducts to fodder, buy off politicians and nutritionists, and market to kids and hippies. It’s actually very difficult to play — neither of us have made it much past about 12 years or so. We don’t compare to the 50 years of most fast food restaurants. This game, of course, is to illustrate how awful the industry is — mad cows must be shot, epidemics stopped, health inspectors paid off, etc. It should encourage me to stop eating red meat. It just makes me feel guilty, though, and not guilty enough to stop. After all, the 3rd world is far away now, and beef is goood.

I’ve decided that eating red meat is a lot like premarital sex. Those who abstain are smug; they are never going to get any awful, debilitating diseases as a result of their personal choices. But those who do eat meat give this response: “Mmmmmmmm!” Pretty much exactly the same for premarital sex.

I’ve been a vegetarian off and on throughout my life. I really, really want to be a vegetarian, but it’s hard to imagine the rest of my life with no turkey at Thanksgiving, no summer sausage, no medium rare rib-eye steak so tender it can be cut with a fork. It’s just not possible. I don’t eat a lot of meat, but when I do eat it…I like it to be worth the global warming.

The longest I was ever a vegetarian was my freshman and sophomore years at college. I became a vegetarian because I had anger management problems, and I honestly thought that changing my diet (no, I did not consult Tom Cruise) would help me to be a calmer person. It’s possible that it did, because it also made me very tired — one reason I’ve never been able to stick to a vegetarian diet. But I ate absolutely no meat for about 10 months. Part of this time I was in Iowa, land of pork and beef, and Iowans were traumatized by this anomaly. Honestly, people were really freaked out because I was a vegetarian (and I had a nose ring). I mean, in Seattle, I wouldn’t even have been worth noticing, not unless I had dyed my pubic hair purple, set it on fire and run through the city center. Even then I would have only gotten a blurb, probably in one of the independent papers. But we weren’t in Seattle anymore, Toto. Oh no. We were in Ames.

One good Iowan friend of mine, Seth, has never forgiven me for asking to go to a vegetarian restaurant on our first date. He was a typical Iowan — substantial, with rosy cheeks and a healthy glow, probably due to eating large amounts of meat and potatoes from a young age. He drove an old car (by old I mean vintage, antique, you know, old and expensive), kept Reeses Pieces in a bowl next to his computer in his dorm room, and forcibly reminded me of my father. I’m sure they are cut from the exact same mould. Nevertheless, I took him to this “new agey” coffee shop that featured eggplant in many of its dishes. I remember the look of horror as he stared at the menu and asked, “Isn’t there anything with, you know, meat in it?” He still reminds me of this experience from time to time, even though we are both married to other people and have only seen each other twice since 1995. It was a full meal without meat, of any kind. Not even baco-bits. He may never recover.

I, on the other hand, am a shameless hypocrite. I know that meat — particularly red meat — is bad. Poor ranching practices ruin rangeland here and elsewhere; methane-producing cows add to global warming; precious forests and rainforests are cut down so cows can graze, and valuable grains go to feed the cattle. E-coli, listeria, mad cow disease — all meat-related. All I can say to this however, is —

“Mmmmmmmmm.”

Too Good to Pass Up

2006-02-15T23:12:00.000-08:00

Here’s a link to the story about VP Dick “Dick” Cheney, who, in a rush of adrenaline from shooting captive quail released specifically for his shooting pleasure, put a bead on the birds and swung around and shot his partner, a 78-year-old Texas lawyer.

Let’s hope there isn’t a “red button” for nukes in the White House anymore, and if there is, Dick “Dick” Cheney has limited proximity.

Mark Morford and Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

It’s been interesting, watching the events of Hurricane Katrina play out in the political spectrum. After several days of saying, “Gosh, isn’t anyone going to notice that the majority of people who did not escape were poor blacks?” Yahoo! News and the Associated Press published this article: Bush Denies Racial Component to Response. Here is another scathing opinion by Mark Morford, George W. Bush Still Rocks!
Stop criticizing! The rich man’s CEO president is executing his job requirements perfectly. Actually, while there is a lot of criticism directed toward George W. Bush, in reality I think the administration as a whole and a lot of Southern politics came into play throughout this whole mess (note: to access this video clip, click on the link, click on the free pass, watch the ad, then come back and click on the “Southern politics” link again). I mean, who really believes Bush is in charge, anyway? (Just type in “failure” and see what I mean.) Mark Fiore also had something to say about it (big surprise). And as for me? *sigh* There’s not much to say anymore, is there? Just to say, thank you to the rescuers that risked their lives (and live gunmen) to get people out. Thank you to the Air Force helicopter pilots that stopped and rescued 150 people (and received a reprimand from their commanding officer because of it). Thank you to the people that extended a hand to someone else in need, whether or not it was caught on tape via news crews. And thank you to those, both overseas and at home, who have contributed to relief efforts. We are not the sum total of our government…

Saved by Carrots

2005-05-07T23:10:00.000-07:00

A story about a car bomb, rugs, and a bunch of carrots.

And From Russia...

2005-05-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

‘In a May 4 interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes,” to be broadcast on Sunday, Mr. Putin also reiterated complaints that America should not be lecturing him about rollbacks on democracy when “four years ago your presidential election was decided by the court.”‘ Interesting that somebody actually noticed … full article, primarily about Bush rubbing salt in old wounds in Eastern Europe (now why would he do such a thing — aren’t two wars enough?) here.

Orwell Rolls in his Grave

2005-04-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

I recently caught the film, Orwell Rolls in his Grave, on cable television here. I don’t normally watch much T.V. during the day, especially with Ben gone, and I just couldn’t watch SpongeBob anymore so I flipped through to FSTV, which stands for “Free Speech Television” and was airing on AccessTucson, a local channel. The film about Orwell compares the modern day political climate with George Orwell’s novel, 1984. The narrator in the novel, Winston Smith, works in the Department of Truth to create “spin” on all decisions made by “Big Brother,” a euphemism Orwell created for the ruling elite (sadly, I haven’t read the novel, only clips from it, so I plan to pick it up for this weekend). Anyway, Robert Kane Pappas, the director of the film, equates the tightly-controlled media in the U.S. to the “Department of Truth” and illustrates how “spin” can draw support from common people while the ruling elite gather the profit. The conservative right’s ability to incorporate religious belief reminded me of something that happened during the Clinton years: despite Clinton’s sex scandals, NOW and other feminist organizations supported Clinton because his stance on certain issues was favorable to their platform. I believed this caused a real loss of faith in feminism — it certainly did for me, and I decline to support NOW even to this day. Now, the conservative right has found that it works for them, too — all they have to do is put “spin” on a bill and make it seem that it is against “people of faith,” and suddenly they have grassroots support from churches all over the country, regardless of the immorality of the legislation itself. It’s ridiculous, and I see this kind of ludicrous spin all the time in propaganda pieces like “World” magazine (sent to me courtesy of my husband’s family), which actually protested election reform — election reform! — by saying it was “unGodly.” No reason attached, just that it was “unGodly.” What, do I have jello for brains? Thus I am working on a new book called,
Taking Back Christianity: Ten Reasons Republicans think they are “God’s Party” — but aren’t. I’m sick of this kind of conservative bias everywhere. But anyway, back to “Orwell Rolls in his Grave”… what I did enjoy about the movie was the consensus that anti-trust laws need to be rewritten. I have felt, for a long time, that this is key to reform in all areas of our society. Anti-trust legislation is now a hundred years old, which means that corporations and media giants have had a hundred years to figure out how to get around it — and they have. Look at the franchise system: this is a system of corporate control that allows monopolization without, ahem, monopolization under the law. Take any fast food chain: each is privately owned, but do we ever see any kind of customization or individuality? All are under tight corporate control — almost like, gee, a corporation — without falling under anti-trust legislation, even when they dominate a market. We also see buy-ups of competitors: for example, Microsoft now owns 49% of Macintosh/Apple. They cannot hold a “controlling” share, but they can certainly influence decisions with 49% of stock. In addition to this kind of economic monopolization is polarization in the media (either liberal or conservative — what really happened to “fair and balanced”?) and a kind of ideological monopoly. For example, the same media corporation owns both the Washington Post (liberal) and the Washington Times (conservative) — I had to read both when I lived there to get a decent idea of what was really happening. Now I read the internet — and not msn.com or cnn.com, but a host of news agencies from all over, as well as individual bloggers. I really believe that anti-trust legislation is key to allowing diversity of opinion and free speech to all people, not just speech in the corporate interest. When I was a child, we used to talk about communism and fascism arising “from within” the U.S. and threatening Democracy, but I never believed I would live to see it. And yet, I have.

Ten Signs of Fascism

2005-04-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

Here’s an interesting link from my lovely and amusing co-worker T., whom I will call “Buttercup DeathFairy” for short. The link, which goes to a full explanation by Veterans for Peace, gives the ten signs of fascism. Here they are — how many do we find budding in the U.S. today?
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. Supremacy of the military.
5. Rampant Sexism.
6. Controlled Mass Media.
7. Obsession with National Security.
8. Religion and Government are intertwined.
9. Corporate Power is protected.
10. Labor Power is suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption.
14. Fraudulent Elections.

George W. Bush -- Red Communist?

2005-04-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

Recently my husband and I took a long drive: destination, Las Vegas. There we met my sister (it is a halfway point) who took our son for a brief visit. On our way home, in the accompanying silence that comes sans 3-year-old boy, we talked politics, and M., my husband, made a wild statement: George W. Bush is a communist. Now, you have to understand, M. is a Republican who has voted for W., so it wasn’t like I was settling in with Noam Chomsky (who wouldn’t consider the “C” word an insult, anyway) for a nice long talk. No, this is M., former Marine and homeschooler, saying such a wild thing. I loved it. I wanted to make it a headline. Then, when I had calmed down a bit, I said the question that is probably on everyone’s mind. “So how d’you figure that one?” Here it is, the best as I can put it, and for this special post I have turned on my comments just to chronicle the hysteria.

Social security is considered a form of “lite” socialism that is essentially a support for seniors, widows and the disabled in our country. And everyone knows that W. would like to priva— I mean, personalize social security. But what does this actually mean?
Well, it means that citizens could opt out of regular SSI accounts and put their money into personal accounts to invest in private business. Keep in mind, Social Security does not invest in private business; it is a murky system I won’t get into but primarily the money is kept in government bonds. Well, if citizens invested in private business through the government, essentially this means that the government would own parts of private businesses. Yes, the money would eventually go back to the private citizen at retirement, but for the 40+ years in between, the government would be in control of those shares. Moreover, if, as is likely, enough people invested in a company through these shares, it is possible that the government would have controlling interest in that private company.

Chilling, isn’t it? And while many would protest that this is not the aim of those in government, but that the ultimate aim is for people to have more money for retirement (or for Wall Street to have more money for retirement, depending on what side you might be on) the truth is that this would allow government an “in” that might be exploited at a later date (I do not mean to invoke slippery-slide argumentation, but simply to point out a loophole that could be exploited). It also means that, at some point, this could become a serious challenge to the sovereignty of private businesses. The fact is, as long as the government is managing those accounts, it will have control over those businesses. If the government does not manage those accounts but instead says private citizens have complete control over them, well, then we simply have the abolishment of social security payments and “encouragement” for private citizens to start more IRAs or 401Ks. If the government is forcing a private citizen to pay into an account, it is managing that money, one way or another. Which means interference in private businesses and which equals Red Communisim. No more pinko commies, now we have the real thing in our midst.

Just something to think about — the comments are on.

Nietzsche

2005-03-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

I was looking over some of the news articles by Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist who was held captive for a month by Iraqi insurgents. Interestingly enough, 35 minutes after her release she was nearly killed by U.S. troops as she was trying to exit Iraq. There are some theories that this was “accidentally on-purpose,” as she found some pretty controversial stuff — you can read about a woman who spent time in Abu Ghraib here, and there are other stories in the Il Manifesto, an Italian newspaper. This particular story about prisoner abuse brought to mind a quote from the (in)famous Nietzsche, Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Not much to add to that, and thanks to Nafisi, who put that poignant and timeless quote into her book.

Baghdad Burning

2005-03-10T22:59:00.000-08:00

Now that I have my new Bloglines account set up, I can get the feed for my newest favorite blog, Baghdad Burning, a blog written by an Iraqi woman about the current situation there. Since I am currently reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, an amazing book about an English Lit professor whose study of 19th century American novels was considered “revolutionary” in Iran after the ayatollahs gained power in the 1980’s, the allegations that radical Shias who came into power during the last elections may make Iraq another Iran is downright chilling. It seems counterproductive that our administration may do such a thing, but actually, what most people do not know is that, in general, women’s rights are not considered “human rights” by U.S. policymakers, which is why there was no protest regarding the Taliban regime before 9/11 (although press made it seem that saving women was one of the reasons for destroying the regime, there were other — primarily geo-political reasons — that are far more plausible). This means that, were the Iraqi clerics who came “democratically” to power to bring stability to the country, even at the expense of women’s rights, it is totally possible that the U.S. may leave it at that. I mean, who can justify staying in Iraq longer than necessary? The protesters want the U.S. out of there right now (yesterday, really), and so does everyone else who has taken a hard look at the U.S. deficit. Would there really be the political pressure to stay in Iraq for the sake of women who do not want to wear the chador or for girls who don’t wish to be married at the age of 9? Or will this be left to “the Iraqis themselves” to iron oPost Options ut what is often considered either a cultural or a religious problem? Who could justify spending billions of more dollars — or for our troops to continue getting killed on foreign soil — for human rights violations that the U.S. certainly has never cared about before?

This is what struck me about Nafisi’s novel: I am working hard to help children who have been sold into slavery and prostitution. But, in Iran, even today, men can have “temporary marriages” that are as short as ten minutes (in addition to four wives) and men can also marry a girl as young as nine years old. What I work against every day is legal there. If we turn yet another country into a duplication of that — well, this is what I think about it : And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. (Mark 9:42, The Bible)

Liberty vs. Freedom

2005-01-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

Although we don’t have cable (read: no Comedy Central) and thus are deprived of such shows as Crank Yankers and Crossballs, I have recently become enamored of Jon Stewart after his amusing and truthful confrontation on Crossfire, which is now being cancelled. His recent assessment of George Bush’s inaugural speech, and his repeated uses of the words Freedom and Liberty is here. (Note to the computer-challenged: click on the underlined words).

George Soros and the New DP

2004-08-01T22:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, I said I’d post more pictures, and I will, but I have to stand on my soapbox for a while again, if only because I haven’t had any rabid e-mails lately. I just finished reading A New York Times article about the struggles of the Democratic Party. In addition, I am reading the fabulous book Fast Food Nation (For a review by FSBA, please click here.) …I am a labor Democrat. While the Republican Party has one platform, the Democratic Party is made up of many factions, including social, fiscal, labor, and environmental Democrats. It has infuriated me for years, not only because the factional nature of the Democratic Party makes it easy for a conservative family or friend to pick one issue unrelated to me (such as abortion, or gun control) and use it to color the entire platform (or variety of platforms) of the Democrats, but also because the Republican Party’s “family values” propaganda often causes blue-collar workers to vote for the party that, well, is taking their right to fair pay, insurance, and tax breaks away from them, something I cannot convince anyone to believe, regardless of its truth. I grew up a Republican. If I had been old enough to vote, I would have voted for Ronald Reagan, something I look back upon with horror. I went to a conservative university that did not allow alcohol, banned the distribution of condoms, did not allow birth control to be given by the health center, and had strict regulations on fraternizing with the opposite sex in its dorms. Nevertheless, most people blame my change from Republican to Democrat on “that liberal university education,” which is simply not true. I majored in liberal arts, not liberal politics. The change stems from the suggestion of a friend to attend a small student group called “The Progressives.” To this day, I believe they thought I was a Republican trying to infiltrate their group, as they rarely spoke to me, and because I never joined in any of their protests or leaflet-spreading campaigns. I simply listened, and I found myself going back, again and again, to listen to what these hemp-wearing radicals had to say. And for me, a small-town girl coming from a working-class area, the message was one I could hardly believe. Immigrant workers dying from respiratory diseases because the agri-business companies that employed them sprayed pesticides while they picked vegetables and fruit? Big beef processors fixing prices, hurting small ranchers, destroying rain forests in countries I had never even heard of before? It seemed like a lot of liberal hogwash to me. Then I went home — and heard from a friend’s dad, who had been a rancher, about how he couldn’t sell his cattle anymore. Or witnessed my own father struggling to convince other workers at his factory that 5 cents an hour, or $5.00 a month, did not a pension make, regardless of what company executives said. I witnessed, just in my lifetime, the loss of more than 50% of the family farms in our area as houses were built on prime farmland. Or what about the high nitrate concentration in an area close to my childhood home because of feedlots? The land, and the underground lakes on which everyone depends for their water, was and is being poisoned. Nobody asks me why I became a Democrat, and certainly my large and very conservative extended family would not want to take the responsibility for my change of heart. But they are. When I returned to my university the last half of my junior and my senior year, I became one of the most outspoken liberals on campus, joining forces with a small but intense intensely progressive group of friends, some of whom have gone on to dedicate their lives as an important member of the Democratic Party, a missionary/human rights worker, a women’s health specialist who is also a sexual assault nurse, and a businesswoman with aspirations to run for government office. In the shadow of these people, I often feel small and insignificant, with most of my contribution toward progressive politics centering on speaking, and mostly angering, those closest to me. And, while my dream is to start a non-profit organization to help women, for two years I have been swimming in place. So, when I read an article like the one in the New York Times, speaking about a revolution in the Democratic Party, I can only applaud the change. The “liberal agenda” has focused on the special interests of a variety of factions who feel under-represented in the U.S., and the DP has been unable to unify themselves under a single banner, like the “family values” of the Republican Party. This has made even myself only a nominal member of the DP, and in many ways unwilling to campaign for the party because of the various points on which I disagree. I am a Democrat because I am, above all, NOT a Republican. To see progressive organizations like MoveOn step forward and try to emphasize standards like labor reform, fair trade and good foreign policy as well as challenging the current administration and it’s insistence that it answer to nobody except themselves, is heartening. And, reading Eric Schlosser’s compelling book, Fast Food Nation, reveals the true nature of big corporations and confirms in my mind the fact that we have come full circle in the past 100 years, in that small businesses, small towns and American workers are suffering they way they did in the 1890’s, when large “trusts” took up so much of the market that nobody could compete. And maybe you like calling me a “bleeding-heart liberal,” but in truth, I am no different from Teddy Roosevelt who ran on the Republican ticket for governor of New York in 1886. I demand, and hope our politicians will someday be brave enough to demand, the same thing Roosevelt felt was required of his America: “…the ideal that the Government should be the great arbiter of the conflicting economic forces in the Nation, especially between capital and labor, guaranteeing justice to each and dispensing favors to none.” (Biography of Theodore Roosevelt, www. http://www.whitehouse.gov/. [see previous link]) If that’s liberal hogwash, then so be it.