161paisley

what do we know?

2007-04-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

Never before has there been such a compelling case for impeachment and removal from office of a president of this country for heinous human rights violations, breaches of trust, abuses of power injurious to the nation, war crimes, misleading Congress and the American people about threats to our nation’s security and the supposed case for war, and grave violations of treaties, the Constitution, and domestic statutory law.
Bush reasons make no sense. Oil, and profits from the war, is the reason for this war, which creates more control here. Fascism and corporatism are one and the same. Corporate and religious state is also part of it. Bush’s grandfather while an American senator was a major financier of Nazi Germany. We are perpetually at war fighting external enemies to keep us focused externally so the facts at home are ignored. If the economy tanks we need an American attention distracter which these wars certainly are.

Americans have been regularly used and lied to by our government, business, and banking. The workforce has been decimated, its standard of living shredded and its working people made financial slaves through unjust taxation, secret government practices, rules and regulations at all levels in society that would make any dictator envious. Our role as partners in governmental affairs has been reduced to a whisper that is not heard by any elected official anywhere with very, very few exceptions. Our representative government has become 535 regional dictators who live a life of luxury, self-importance and as arrogant master over the populace. The congress has carefully exempted itself from virtually all repressive laws they choose not to adhere to and have given themselves retirement pensions, health care and other perks, the rest of us can only dream of.

If America wished to fight terror it would work for actual world justice.
Only an immense propaganda machine could have convinced the uninformed American public to attack Iraq. If our adversaries are referred to as indoctrinated when they have strong beliefs opposed to ours, what are we with equally strong beliefs?
Those who don’t vote choose not to because the system is obviously broken. The first time the decider was put in office it wasn’t an election but a selection. Who has benefited? Follow the money. Where has all the billions gone that our “leaders” have spent? What have we to show for it?

republican methods displayed

2007-03-31T05:07:00.000-07:00

Republican methods on display in Iraq;
Show them who’s in charge and how important you can be.
Don’t fire your employees when their incompetence and maliciousness becomes apparent.
Don’t act to help the collapsed Iraqi economy or help put industries back on a good footing, on the grounds that the “market” would magically produce prosperity effortlessly.
Invade and destroy the Sunni city of Fallujah in November, 2004, to assist motivating the Sunnis into joining the insurgency. This also makes certain that they would boycott the January, 2005, elections, a boycott that excluded them from power and from a significant voice in crafting the new constitution, which they then rejected.
Work to install corrupt Ahmad Chalabi as the dictator of Iraq, and refuse to plan for a post-war administration of the country.
Announce that the US would “kill or capture radical” Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in spring, 2004, throwing the country into considerable turmoil for months.
Reply to guerrilla provocations with ruthless search and destroy missions that humiliate and anger ever more Iraqis, driving them to support or join the guerrilla movement.
Fire tens of thousands of mostly Sunni Arab state employees for having belonged to the Baath Party, leaving large numbers of Sunnis penniless and without hope of employment.
Dissolve the Iraqi Army in May, 2003, and send 400,000 men home, unemployed, resentful and heavily armed.
Allow widespread looting after the fall of Saddam, on the grounds that “stuff happens,” “democracy is messy,” and “how many vases can they have?” therefore signaling that there would be no serious attempt to provide law and order in American Iraq.

Very soon a new industry called “The Lessons of Iraq” will be born, as the search for the exit plan continues against the background of the theme “who lost Iraq.”

Recognize jihadist terrorism is a baby born of our policies.
Liberate America from dependence on Persian Gulf oil.
Remove our military presence in the region.
Restore principle to American foreign policy.
Our covert support for highly undemocratic regimes and manipulation of local politics, are hidden from the American people but are well known to those of the countries where we carry act. We could regain moral authority in the world by living up to our own ideals and principles.
Little thought was given to the lessons of Vietnam. Blame of others prevented judgment.
Liberal forces were seen by too many Americans as unconcerned for our security.

liberal government

2007-03-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

“The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and monied incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding over the plundered plowman and the beggar . . . I hope we shall take warning from the example of England and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies” Thomas Jefferson
Our country was founded upon the classically liberal position that government is designed to protect our life, liberty, and property. We are not created for our government. Our government was created for us.
The politicians should begin their days with a pledge to the people who “elected” them. The politicians’ only purpose, if they have any, is only to secure our rights. We would benefit from a reawakening in this country where we rediscover the principles of liberty and freedom from coercion.
We could stop relying so much on hope and start insisting on some action. The 4th sentence of the Declaration of Independence reads
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends; Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” It would be hard to find a more apt description of the US government these days, or a more appropriate remedy for this oppressive regime, increasingly hated and feared by the citizenry.
We hear how we have the best gov’t ever but how would you prove such a thing? Consider the Exxon Valdese case; twenty some years after Exxon’s carelessness destroyed the livelihood of many Alaskans they are still appealing the ruling against them. Meanwhile those affected are still without a means of earning their living as they had and the responsible party; Exxon, is still fighting against taking responsibility for their negligence.
It has become government policy to ignore the bottomless gulf that separates the poor from the wealthy. The central theory in today's corporate-governed world is that the rich people make the world go round and that is all that matters.

our selfless patriots

2007-03-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

Our immoral moralists bellow at those who oppose this war; “you cannot support our troops if you are against the war.” Those who come back wounded are almost abandoned. It's bad enough that we sent our kids to fight in an illegal war of aggression based on lies. To fail to satisfactorily tend to their physical and mental health needs is unthinkable. It is not enough to be willing to die for your country; you must be willing to become a vegetable for your country.
“The selfless patriotism of those who have died to protect our interests in Iraq” is what we hear. What are those “interests” exactly? Iraq had not attacked or threatened us. This was known to everyone with a brain before the invasion. This was a criminal war of aggression, and now, an occupation. We have murdered Iraqis, and destroyed an entire nation. If by “interests,” our ruling class means the “right” of America to world control, and then let them say so and be damned. What else explains our monstrous acts?
From the time they were recruited to their last breath our war dead were victims of a con that made them sacrifices of a criminal regime pursuing destructive goals. There were no good reasons for any soldier to die in Iraq and to argue otherwise merely adds to the numbers who will be future victims of the myth. If such recognition spreads, our rulers are in trouble for their corrupt grasp on our society depends on a steady stream of wasted lives.
One of the most important things in life is that inner doubt as to whether you're right. If you don't have that you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics. If people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they'll generally reach the right decisions. The only alternative to that belief is rule by an elite, whether it's a Communist bureaucracy or our own present-day corporate establishment.

Our occupation of Iraq has created more enemies, and so we face greater dangers now than we did four years ago. Those dangers increase every day that we remain. The costs of this war and occupation have burdened the US with a huge and growing debt for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Our economy was already distorted by the military-industrial, corporate state complex and now the damages have cracked the foundation wide open. This catastrophe without end has severely damaged our nation's military, making us more vulnerable to actual threats we might face in the future.
These individuals died in a criminal war of aggression launched to strengthen and expand American control; a goal embraced by most leading politicians, Republican and Democratic, over many decades of entirely avoidable conflict, chaos and death. With the intensity of religious maniacs, we enforce our new Puritan code, which demands that certain prohibited thoughts may never be spoken. Meanwhile, no one will stop this criminal war and occupation. And no one will do a goddamned thing to stop the next war, which could alter all our lives forever.

we have fables telling how cool we are

2007-03-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

I have seen dog owners yell at their pets with more emotion than I have seen anyone argue against the occupation of Iraq. Americans dislike the war but don’t care enough to do anything about it. Every possible good exists in this country which blinds us to many evils. We have national fables telling us how cool we are, as do most nations.
Some citizens’ say; “America is the greatest nation on the planet and the most helpful and willing to preserve peace.” This boast is self-serving propaganda that ignores actual history.
We live in a nation hated abroad and frightened here in which we can logically refer to the American Republic in the past tense; government where corruption is the norm.

American policies have successfully produced hundreds of billions of dollars of profits for the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries; those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies.
Capitalism has no moral basis and is pure greed in action.

What does climate change, the gulf between the wealthy and poor, America's obesity epidemic, and our society's dismal care for the elderly and uninsured have in common? Each has powerful special interests who insist that we need to let the market work its private magic; “let the market decide.” What they're really saying is, “Stop government from defending workers and let the corporations decide what’s best for us.” This is destructive to democracy. The market has allowed things to worsen.
Good healthcare is a privilege available for the rich.
Minimum wages must be tied to inflation as most everything else is.

We don’t have access to real news as we gave it to large corporations who give us scripted soundbites called news. We are told the press is free to print what they wish here but what about the things they don’t print.

We’re worried about terrorism but our southern border is a colander so we’re told we need national ids so our Gestapo knows who they stop.

Those who count the vote decide all and without paper ballots elections can’t be verified in any way. The machine in a recount just tells you it was correct the first time.
How about real peace, actual democracy and genuine equality for a change?

the myth of gov

2007-03-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” Ayn Rand
We have little approved national history of saying no to power. Unions and anti war organizations are routinely repressed.

There is no excuse for a once-free people to permit the conversion of their government to one of tyranny. The most powerful weapon of a state determined to enslave its people is ignorance. A close second to that weapon is the myth of government authority. And last, is the myth of government goodness and decency, which the people assume exists naturally within the state as it does within them. This last myth and belief makes it impossible for citizens to believe that their own government would plan and carry out crimes against them.
No American president in my memory has shown more contempt for the Constitution and its limits on power than bush. He claims that his “signing statements” can modify the laws passed by Congress. The outrageous claims by his attorney general that the U.S. could conduct warrantless wiretaps and that the Constitution does not guarantee the right of habeas corpus are a bare warning that freedom is in grave danger. The shrub has politicized science and intelligence and taken this country to war based on lies. He has ignored international law by using secret prisons where people are tortured and denied the most basic rights. The federal authorities can break into your home and plant surveillance devices without notifying you. It’s all done in the name of protecting us. That is the standard excuse that has been used since the earliest empires. We're only trying to make sure you're safe, they claim. Well, one should remember that there were no safer streets than Moscow under Stalin or Berlin under Hitler. Few resisted when the secret police came to get them because they were innocent. They had done nothing wrong, they were loyal, and they expected their government to realize that their arrest was a mistake. The government didn't, of course, because they were victims of paranoia.
We’re so afraid that we’re willing to trade our freedoms for this false sense of security the government is offering. If there’s dissent, we even want uniformity in dissent.

no matter how you look at it big questions present themselves

2007-03-05T03:56:00.000-08:00

Nine-eleven should have resulted in an investigation by bush. The Kean Commission wasn’t apolitical and didn’t investigate in-depth. They focused on alleged intelligence failures we were told had occurred. George refused to testify under oath to the 9/11 commission while insisting on having Darth Cheney beside him. The person in charge of witnesses and final editing was a bush insider.
If you believe the official fairy tale, incompetence alone should have warranted a complete removal of an administration that didn’t heed warnings, or follow existing procedures. Condoleezza told us the possibility of planes being used as weapons wasn’t ever considered but that was the idea of war games being held, by Cheney, on nine-eleven.
If you believe the warnings by nations regarding the attacks then Bush should have been fired. It’s possible that these warnings were insiders blowing the whistle on rogues operating from inside as well. If terrorists were expert enough to pull this off, they wouldn’t have been discovered and there would have been no red flags raised by more than a dozen foreign nations.
The most laughable argument ever is the one where they are glad W was in office on nine-eleven. They would have felt the same with any “strong man” to lean on. There wouldn’t have been attacks had someone else been in office. Bush’s supporters wrote about needing a new Pearl Harbor. Bush transferred the responsibility of protecting us from wayward aircraft from military men to political civilians like Rumsfeld; one of the New Pearl Harbor supporters.
If you believe the official story then you have to admit the incompetence and negligence of the Bush administration and you must support impeachment. If you examine the evidence, you must support criminal proceedings.
No matter what you believe about who was responsible for 9/11, and how it went down, amazing how much political capital those events have produced for this administration: A consensus on torture; an era of permanent war; detentions without trial; “no fly” lists for activists; the Bill of Rights gone, and a “professional media” willing to self-censor and suppress important information. The “America Attacked” story has distracted us from the natural outrage we should feel over illegal wiretaps, stolen elections, hundreds of billions of dollars missing at the Pentagon, war profiteering, Cheney's secret energy policy. A Zogby poll shows that over 40 percent of Americans now think there has been a “cover-up” around 9/11.

2007-02-26T05:49:00.000-08:00

We keep waiting on the world to change but it must begin with us doing different things. Citizens cannot “vote” for what they wish, but only against what they fear.
If right wing idiots find my opposition to them unpatriotic or treasonous, I take that as a complement. Bullies always attribute hostile intentions to others. They see provocation where it doesn’t exist to justify their aggressive behavior. These children act aggressively because they process information inaccurately. They can't calm themselves down. They have grown up believing that aggression is the best way to solve a problem. This breeds contempt for those who have empathy, and can interact calmly with others. Germans said of the Nazi years we didn’t like it but we went along because it was easier. Kissinger said America doesn’t have friends but it does have interests. Bullies don’t have friends either. What happens is the anger of one reduces us all to the level of bullies. If you hate those who hate you then you destroy yourself.
We tell ourselves our national lie that we are the world’s friend. America is loud in praise of the democratic ideal, but restrained in applying what it claims. It appears so to any but the true believers. In America, when we start some wacky war like Vietnam, or Iraq it's called weakness, rather than wisdom, to read the handwriting on the wall. Why’s that? Do we call someone a “defeatist” who, when he sees he's got a losing hand, folds rather than increasing his bet?
The useless bag-check wouldn't deter any bad-guy with a brain, but its conditioning children to accept searches of their personal effects without special suspicion; doing the terrorists' job for them.
Your plans for the evening have changed. You are now on federal radar, listed as a potential threat. Your name is part of the FBI's Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File. Will you go home, or to a jail cell? Protesters against the war in Iraq were placed on the list. A federal audit of VGTOF in 2005 found an error rate of 40 percent based on a small sample of records. Are you on the VGTOF list?
Working for the common good is the only sustainable way to govern. What we have experienced is the opposite. The silver lining to the bush absurdity is that it is clear display of the lies of the mythologies of American gov’t.

2007-02-23T08:42:00.000-08:00

Great presidents rallied the nation, governed brilliantly and left the republic more secure than when they entered office. Dreadful presidents such as Hoover, Nixon and now Bush have divided the nation and left us worse off. Bush is one of histories rarities: He has stumbled badly in every key area and also shown a constant loyalty to crude ideology rejecting deviation from dogma as heresy preventing any rational correction for changing realities. Bush chose partisanship over leadership. Top military advisers and members of his Cabinet who uttered any reservations or criticisms of his policies were fired, smeared by the shrub’s supporters or investigated for their suspected betrayal of national security. The “Bush Doctrine” of unprovoked, preventive warfare is based on speculative threats with claims based on wishful thinking. Bush has promoted the transformation of the Repubs into what former Republican strategist Kevin Phillips calls “the first religious party in U.S. history.” Bush came to office calling himself “a uniter, not a divider” promising to soften the hostile political tone. He has chosen to act in ways that have left the country more divided. This Administration goes through scandals faster than any previous one in our history. That’s because bush owns the problems. They are problems that go to character and so to strategy. The war in Iraq is wrong, oil companies are screwing us blue, the climate is going to hell, good-paying jobs are being replaced by low-paying jobs, our national health care system is a disgrace, and the rich are getting a lot richer while the middle class gets poorer.
One bush flaw possibly important to conservatives is his lack of accountability; he blames others. It’s how they operate. Recall that he campaigned on the promise to restore “moral integrity” and “accountability” to the White House. It’s easy to show that he failed to do this. Some people are starting to wonder if we are really on the side of Good. Turning Christianity into a State religion for control of the restless poor is a bush tool. This is a new safer America now that we have secret courts, secret jails, secret surveillance and indefinite detention. Repubs are the punisher party always accusing their opponents of being soft on the latest burning issue; immigration, crime, war and whatever other item the wish to use for their revenge.

definitions of terms being used for our understanding

2007-02-17T04:19:00.000-08:00

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” - JFK

In case you've been having trouble understanding speeches and news reports here are some explanations of the terms being used.

Alternative energy sources mean new locations to drill for gas and oil.
Bankruptcy is the tool for escaping debt available to corporations but not to poor people.
Class warfare is any attempt to raise the minimum wage.
Compassionate conservatism is concern by the Repubs for the very wealthy.
Faith is the belief that the Beatitudes include “Blessed are the rich” and “Blessed are the warmakers.”
Free markets are demonstrated by Halliburton no-bid contracts at taxpayer expense. (Or other friends of congress)
Growth is the justification for tax cuts for the rich and what happens to the national debt as a result.
Healthy forest means no tree left behind.
Honesty is bush speak for his lies told in simple declarative sentences like; Freedom is on the march.
House of Representatives is an Exclusive club; entry fee: $1 million to $5 million or the Senate where the entry fee: $10 million to $30 million.
Insanity is staying the course; Continuing to perform the same actions and expecting different results.
Laziness like when the poor aren’t working is different from leisure time like when the wealthy aren’t working.
Liberals are followers of the Antichrist.
No Child Left Behind is the government program showing there are always jobs in the military.
Ownership society is our civilization where 1 percent of the population controls 90 percent of the wealth and our political system in which all power is in the hands of the owners.
The Patriot Act was a Pre-emptive strike on American freedoms to prevent the terrorists from destroying them first and to eliminate of one of the reasons why they hate us.
Pro-life is concern for the value of human life up until birth.
Simplify is when you cut the taxes of Republican donors.
Women can be trusted to raise a child but can't be trusted to decide whether or not she wishes to have a child and must have all decisions regarding her reproductive functions made by men.
“Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” Orwell

self determination

2007-02-10T03:52:00.000-08:00

“If there is a sin superior to every other it is that of willful and offensive war...he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of Hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”
-- Thomas Paine, the American Crisis, Number V, 1778
Hitler demanded self determination for Austrians as he took over the country. The shrub makes similar demands for Iraqis, Iranians and citizens of other countries. How is it that our country travels Hitler’s road? Can we murder and bully our way as we have been accustomed to freely? What must they think when their “liberators” storm into their home and abuse or kill their families? How should we expect them to react when their self-anointed reformers impose “democracy,” and other “progress” on them? The majority of Americans and most Iraqi’s want a timetable for Americans to leave Iraq. The two publics agree, but the “leaders” ignore us and continue making the situation worse.

We invaded Iraq because it was a direct threat to us, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in nine-eleven, or got uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or needed to be liberated, or they needed to have a democracy, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. America has become a country that recommends everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

From Iraq to the negligence of the hurricane Katrina crisis, it should be obvious that the party that assisted Bush should be punished at the polls. Yet most seem to believe that only the Foley scandal has tipped public opinion definitively away from Bush's Republicans. What further evidence is needed that the tradition of democracy in America is in decline?

protecting our freedoms?

2007-02-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

We hear our multiple wars defended as protecting our freedoms. What exactly are those freedoms and be specific when you describe them giving examples you can see without using the words of public officials. Do I need to own my own congressman to have those freedoms?
The Bush has asked judges to dismiss lawsuits filed over the NSA’s domestic spying program, saying they would expose state secrets.
You know bush has no energy plan for America because he can't hide the price of gasoline. He'd make it a secret.
We hear discussions about what parts of the Constitution the president has to follow. We are told that as citizens we have a duty to serve our country. Question is how to do such a thing? Repubs and Dems are a bumbling couple arguing while the world burns. Tax cuts are seen as a reasonable political move while they spend money we don’t and won’t have. Information has no bias or political opinion. Hope is not a method.
What’s the end game with all the abortion/contraception limitations and the urge to have us breed: workers, consumers, and soldiers?
Senator Specter said he was opposed to a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and then voted for the amendment. This just happens to be an obvious example. Why would a Senator vote for something that he openly admits he opposes? There are two possibilities: 1. the senator is in a conspiracy. 2. The Senator is insane. Either way this Senator is not doing his job and isn’t acting in the interest of his people.
America is broken. It needs an overhaul. It needs a new engine, not just some replacement parts. When Janet Jackson had her shirt fall apart it took Congress 40 days to change the law. Congress hasn't done anything about providing a safer workplace for coal miners. The Republican Congress, instead of seeing to life and death issues for Americans, has been wrangling over gay marriage, official language, indecency fines and other meaningless foolishness. This continual dodging of real citizen concerns is criminal.
The media's job isn’t to decide what is fair to politicians. Their job is to report the news. Republicans have pulled a very effective switch on the press, substituting the concept of neutrality for objectivity. Whenever the press dares to report something that does not reflect well on the Repubs, it gets accused of having a bias.

dearly beloved

2007-02-03T04:51:00.000-08:00

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath” (Romans 12:19)
The hatemongers find that the American public is like a big stupid dog you can easily “sic” on whoever you like. Just tell them that a people are evil and that we need to go to war for our protection. Those of us who don't want our country drug into some fools war will be labeled “unpatriotic.” All human beings are the same. All are capable of violence. Dropping bombs on people is murder but only in reference to other nations. When America does these things, they are “liberating.” When Genghis bush decides to rain death on another country nothing can be allowed to stand in his way. Rumsfeld said that civil war would break out if we withdraw from Iraq and then he says that in case of civil war we won't interfere. What use it is to have US soldiers in Iraq if they won't be deployed in a genuine national emergency.
When bush is stumping for his war he tells us that “Democracies are peaceful”, or “Democracies don't attack one another.”
It’s foolishly inaccurate when applied to the US: The US and Britain overthrew a democratically elected government and installed the Shah of Iran in 1953; The US funded the contras as an insurgency against the democratic government of Nicaragua. The list could continue for some length.
The Pentagon’s plan commits us to promoting democracy through preemptive war. There is no peace gained by war. How are we Americans, the most violent nation in the world, qualified to bring peace to another culture we have never understood? We have turned a blind eye to the terror in our own streets, in our own neighborhoods, in our own homes to fly to another culture and add to their terror, in the name of our God. We have spent billions of dollars for this war machine, to benefit a few warmongers. What’s the evidence of our peaceful culture, of our qualification to go teach others, to wage war on mothers in another land? The Iraqi resistance to the destruction and domination of their country is regarded as “terrorism” by the invading American state. The US provides potential adversaries reason to get nukes or be attacked.

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” Abraham Lincoln

angry

2007-01-31T04:20:00.000-08:00

It seems people have lost their right to be taken seriously because they are ‘angry’ or are ‘liberal.’ What right would any citizen have to be angry?
Here is an partial list: the shredding of the constitution, illegal wiretaps, falsified intelligence, secret prisons, torture, Terry Schiavo’s fate as a political tool, war on science, denial of Global Warming, fascist secrecy of our “elected officials”, signings statements that declare bush above the law, the breakdown of the wall between church and state, the revealing of a CIA agent for partisan political gain, the corruption of lobbyists, the total sell-out of the legislative process to corporate interests, appointments of unqualified cronies at every level of government, the complete mismanagement of the created wars, the lies about the complete mismanagement of the war, the monstrous budget deficits, the weak response to hurricanes, a civil rights division dedicated to undermining civil rights, an environmental protection agency that refuses to protect the environment.
During an undeclared war bush gave tax cuts to the rich. Under “classified” information, he allowed Cheney and energy companies to form an “energy policy” that has given us three dollar oil. He gave bankers the right to draft a “bankruptcy” law. He gave big drug companies the chance to re-write a “Medicaid” law. He's destroyed the public school system via No Child Left Behind. He's ignored hundreds of laws with presidential orders. He's moved us more towards fascism with illegal wire-taps and offering big-bucks to phone companies to track every American’s phone calls. Fifty years ago Our Weekly Readers told us the Soviet Union was a wicked place where, among other things, the government constantly spied on its citizens, killing freedom in the process.
We could be angry about an arrogant President who treats the citizens as simple-minded, and a press that ignores the obvious fact that he is. If these things don’t make you angry, I have to ask; what would it take to make you angry?
What is going on in the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA and the NSA, with gasoline prices, in Iraq, in New Orleans, with lobbyists and in Congress? Bush's warrantless phone data collection may not only violate our Constitution but expend so much money and manpower that America is made less safe by diverting resources away from more practical steps like inspecting cargo and hiring translators.

single payer health insurance

2007-01-28T11:20:00.000-08:00

A significant number of Wal-Mart employees in Wisconsin wind up having to rely on the state-paid Badger Care program for their health insurance at a significant cost to the state's taxpayers. While Wal-Mart leads the list of big corporations whose workers need to take advantage of taxpayer-paid poverty programs, there are several other big firms whose workers need to do so too. About 3,000 employees and their dependents were enrolled in Badger Care from 10 huge corporations. Wal-Mart led the list with 1,252 of those 3,000. The Aurora Health Care organization near Milwaukee added 321, McDonald's 200, Manpower 181, Lands' End, a division of Sears 179, Kmart 184, Walgreens 146, APAC 139, and Target 120.
The annual cost to the taxpayers for those workers was calculated to be nearly $6.4 million. In other words, Wisconsin taxpayers are subsidizing those 10 corporations' payrolls because they see fit not to provide adequate health coverage for workers.
Taxpayers are often appalled to hear such news, but it has become a fact of life in these economic times. Big corporations are making record profits to soothe Wall Street while their workers go begging for benefits. Our political leaders look the other way, swallowing the corporate line that if they had to provide workers more, there would be fewer jobs.
All this ought to be leading the U.S. government to finally admit that taxpayers are already paying a substantial portion of America's health care costs and that we could make the system so much more fair by enacting a national single-payer health plan.
Our complicated health care system has spiraled so far out of control that it’s threatening our economy. General Motors and Ford, two of the nation's economic giants, are facing deep financial turmoil and perhaps, even insolvency because health care costs for employees and retirees are adding hundreds of dollars to the costs of their cars.
Both doctors and patients would be better off if we swept away our current maze of deductibles, provider networks, out-of-network costs, exclusions, policy riders, ER surcharges and such.

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT NATIONAL HEALTHCARE

Myth #1: It would be too expensive
Single payer health care would actually reduce the cost of health care. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that it could save up to $14 billion annually by spreading the risk evenly over the entire population, eliminating deductibles and co-pays and making preventive medicine available to the poor and uninsured. The federal government already subsidizes private health insurance in the form of tax deductions.
Private insurance companies also spend billions on administration and overhead, advertising, and determining and inspecting patient eligibility, all while trying to make a profit.
Single payer health care would not be burdened with some of those costs, like advertising, and unlike private business, it could run at a loss and still work.
Myth #2: It would require a huge, inefficient bureaucracy
The current system is already a huge, inefficient bureaucracy. As previously mentioned, much of the unnecessary overhead and micromanaging in the system now could be eliminated if single payer were put into practice. For example, the bureaucracy and paperwork involved in determining patient eligibility would be completely unnecessary if everyone were eligible and covered. Insurance companies spend an estimated 25 cents of every dollar on administration. Canada, which already has a comprehensive single payer in place and still manages to pay 70 percent less per citizen on health care, spends about the equivalent of about 12 cents of every dollar on administration.
Myth #3: It would restrict patient choice
Single payer wouldn't directly dictate what doctor you have to see in order to get treatment and would thus enable more choice in selecting a physician than the current system would for many, if not most, Americans.
Myth #4: It would be a socialist seizure of the medical industry
It would be nothing of the sort. Socialized medicine would entail hospitals and doctors becoming employees of the state. Single payer only provides funding for people's health care, but doesn't provide the health care itself and would be no more socialist than Medicare and arguably less so than public education.
Myth #5: single payer would impede economic growth
An added benefit of single payer would be that private business would no longer have to worry about health-care benefits, and employees wouldn't have to remain in unpleasant jobs just to keep their benefits. Benefits wouldn't interfere with wage increases, and employers would have more financial mobility.

why is capitalist medicine so expensive

2007-01-21T10:14:00.000-08:00

Why is medicine so expensive in a capitalist environment? What happened to the theory of free markets creating competitive pricing? What changed to give the health care barons the power of life and death over us?
Historically doctors didn't expect to get rich. Doctors were devoted to God, mankind, and doing good works. Throughout most of history doctors could only help birth a baby or lessen the pain of the dying. They didn't have the tools or knowledge to do more. The industrial revolution changed medicine giving doctors God-like powers over us and also changed the mentality of those seeking health care as a profession. Instead of considering whether to be a minister or a doctor, now only those that can breeze through organic chemistry and have the money for medical school can be doctors. Is your doctor a healer or a health care business person just eager for the prestige, title, and the big bucks? Equality of care would have saved many times the number of lives saved by new technologies and treatments.
Corporations are finding that health insurance costs too high and so will insist that their chattel in congress create single payer health care or they will discontinue their participation.
America doesn't have the world's best health care system, just the most expensive. For those of you who worry about your health and wealth, that's bad news. The numbers are ugly. The United States spends 15.5 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, about $1.7 trillion a year. No other country comes close. Yet for all that money - equal to the entire economic output of France - 45 million Americans go without health insurance. France on a per-capita basis spends about half what we do on health care insures everyone. In fact, under France's universal health system, patients can visit doctors, even specialists, virtually any time they wish.
We're No. 22 among industrialized nations in life expectancy (77 years). Japan is No. 1 at 81 years. We're No. 25 in infant mortality rate (6.8 infant deaths per 1,000 births). Sweden leads with only 3.5 deaths per 1,000. In a study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 41 percent of uninsured adults said they were unable to see a doctor when they needed to during the previous year and 56 percent did not have a personal doctor or other health care provider. Chronically ill uninsured adults were more than four times more likely to go without medical care or prescription drugs than chronically ill insured adults. Nevertheless, more than one in five uninsured adults with chronic conditions report spending at least $2,000 out of pocket in a year for medical care. The average visit to an ER now costs over $1,000, which is a high price to pay for an asthma attack or an infant's fever.
General Motors, the nation's largest buyer of health plans lost $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2005, its largest quarterly loss in more than a decade. The company cited the cost of providing health coverage for its workers and retirees as a main culprit. The first element of the Bush administration's response to America's health care crisis has been to cut funding for coverage and offer half-baked privatization plans like Health Savings Accounts that worsen existing problems and would help only 0.3 percent of uninsured adults. In his latest “victory” bush successfully lobbied Congress to cut federal funding for Medicaid, the nation's largest insurance program for the poor. Medicaid was already facing increased costs driven by “enrollment growth due to the economic downturn” during bush's first term. In addition, Congress recently passed the White House-backed Bankruptcy Bill, which will make it harder for uninsured Americans to recover from crippling debt brought on by medical problems.
The second part of the Bush administration's response appears to involve pretending health care problems don't exist saying “many of the uninsured may remain uninsured as a matter of choice.” Others, the report offered, are probably covered but do not report it, maybe because the “survey questions are confusing.” A more recent report funded by the Department of Health and Human Services set out to prove the number of uninsured is overstated.

health care rights?

2007-01-18T04:24:00.000-08:00

What does the right to medical care mean in this country? There are lies told about the whole process. The United States spends far more on health care than other advanced countries. Yet we don't appear to receive more medical services. We have lower life-expectancy and higher infant-mortality rates than countries that spend less than half as much per person. How do we do it? It’s common to begin all discussions of American health care with a complete lie, uttered in this example by Bush: “We live in a great country that has got the best health care system in the world, and we need to keep it that way.” It does offer the very best care to some. It offers high-tech surgery and some space-age medical procedures which benefit 2 or 3 percent of the population, along with the richest citizens of other countries. Many countries around the world take better care of their people with fewer dollars. The statistics are even grimmer when life span is counted in years of healthy living. By this measure, the United States in 2002 ranked a distant 29th among the countries of the world.
America's fragmented health care system is the costliest in the world. A study conducted by Johns Hopkins University researchers’ offers evidence of the same. The United States spent $5,267 per person on health care in 2002. That's more than double, per capita, what 29 other industrialized nations spent. The total amounts to 14.6 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. The United Kingdom, by comparison, spent 7.7 percent.
The pharmaceutical companies are this era's health care robber barons. Americans pay 30% more for prescriptions than Mexicans and Canadians because their legislators aren't as corrupt as ours so Retirees’ drive to Canada to buy their prescriptions while others visit foreign Pharmacies via the Internet.
The insurance industry and HMO’s pay politicians to be their dog. Big Pharma has more lobbyists than there are members of congress and always get their way. They spend less on R&D than they make in profits. Much of the really creative R&D is done at universities and gov’t labs and then licensed to industry and paid for with our taxes. The industry then charges us big bucks. As much as 30% of their costs are for marketing.
A lot of people don't know these facts. They listen to conservative pundits who say, "Health care is a commodity, not a right." When health care is a commodity you can choose not to carry insurance. A lot of young, healthy people think they'll always be that way, and don't contribute into the national health care fund. Because of soaring premiums many employers are not inclined to offer this essential service. By law emergency rooms can't turn away sick people.
Single payer coverage would levy a state-mandated health tax on all workers with a social security number, replacing private health insurance premiums. Everyone who works contributes; everyone benefits.
The current health system divides us into 3 categories.
Medicaid is set up so only those with no money and an extreme illness get benefits. Any assets and you lose your coverage. All you're allowed to own is your house and a vehicle. To keep Medicaid you have to stay destitute and so sick you can't work.
Then there are the people that work for close to minimum wage whose employers offer no health care insurance, or offer it as a deductible option from their salary. Most employees refuse because they can barely pay the rent. These are our neighbors that take their children to the hospital ER for emergencies because they have no money for regular care. These are the 45 million Americans with no coverage.
Those with private insurance pay most of health cost either as a benefit calculated into their pay or through taxes. Most of health care costs are during the last year of life. So, you pay in your whole working life and the insurance industry pays for you to die. If you finish quickly, a severe heart attack or car accident, they make a huge profit. If you get a devastating disease, they try to restrict care so you cost them as little as possible while you die. That's capitalist medicine.
The Patient Bill of Rights would allow you to sue the HMO for when they do refuse diagnostic tests or withhold care.
The answer is simple, universal care -- a single payer system. Are we an enlightened country or not? Do we take care of our own, our poor, or not? Single payer is coming, but in very slow increments, exampled by the Patient Bill of Rights and a conservative Supreme Court upholding Massachusetts' law to set realistic price controls for prescription medications for low income citizens.
Those of you who feel universal health care is just a give away to lazy people, consider this. Social medicine has been around in the European democracies for 50 years. If the systems in those countries didn't work or there was too much abuse, they would have been repealed. During the 1980s Thatcher's Conservative Government, in the United Kingdom, had a majority in Parliament and they never considered touching health care. So are Americans less compassionate than Europeans?

democracy

2007-01-15T06:30:00.000-08:00

When has Democracy really been tried? Democracy is supposed to be rule by the majority. The ruling class would never permit such a state of affairs. Democracy is something claimed, and rarely achieved. What is called Democracy is really just one variety of velvet gloves to legitimate and mask the state's iron fist.
Democracy is supposed to be rule by the people which would mean majority vote of the assembled people propose and decides issues and what few government offices are required would filled by random selection or by election. This requires that the people must be assembled to decide issues, or regular referendums are proposed and voted on by the people. In the first case we have many examples of towns with assembled voting. We have the ideal of the New England town meeting where the people decide issues. This is not an example of rampant lawlessness. This is because the people are familiar with the issues and able to have a considered opinions, and therefore unlikely to support bad ideas. They also live in the communities affect by their policies, which give them different incentives from a DC bureaucrat making policy. On the other hand there may be many examples of oppression of minorities or seizure of property. Deliberate forays into communism, liquidation of opponents, genocide and war mongering, must be rare in the history of small town democracy and certainly as compared to the history of great nations.
It should be clear that we do not live in this type of democracy.
In our present system the state rules. It’s a group of officials separate from society. These state officials make the rules, execute policies, and pass judgment upon members of society who violate the state's rules. This benefits the ruling officials. Rulers of the present democratic states have short-term incentives to maximize the benefits of power.
We are told we have a democratic system where the majority of the people decide how the government is organized and run. In democracy people do participate by voting but do they vote on the law, policies or pass judgment? A majority may decide referendums. But we know that the state routinely disregards referendum results it doesn't like. The people of California decided that medical marijuana is ok but the state decides otherwise and has its way. It’s possible for the people to use computer and telecommunications to decide all questions. This is never pushed upon the people by the ruling class of our so-called democratic states.
Some of the people are occasionally allowed to participate as members of juries. However state officials help make sure the juries will reach the right decision, and juries are told it is not up to them to decide the justice of the various laws that may be used to condemn their fellow citizens.
People do elect representatives to act as their voice. They can therefore affect the political process. There are many examples showing how the voice of the people is continually subdued by their rulers.
Elected officials routinely violate campaign promises. They can do whatever they want for their term of office. If they support enough popular policies to ensure re-election, they support plenty of unpopular ones too that would never have passed a popular vote. In the US the ruling class does all it can to ensure that the people can only vote for one of the officially approved candidates.
Even if we accept that the elected representatives do represent the people, we have additional problems. Much of the state is made up of unelected bureaucrats. These people do the actual work of executing policy, and it is extremely difficult to remove them. History shows that elected officials, including presidents, are not able to fully control the bureaucracy.
Another important class of officials is judges, who are often appointed and routinely decide against popular decisions. They can put huge burdens on local community governments, some of whom may be democratically run, and are certainly more likely to be responsive to popular pressure. This too violates popular decision-making.
We often see attempts by the ruling class to do everything they can to suppress government by the people. After all, how can the ruling class rule if the people rule? A would-be ruling class did all they could during the American Revolution to set themselves up in power with a central government that would take power from the local communities.
Calling our system democratic serves a very important legitimating function. Without legitimacy any state would disappear, as the East German state did or the USSR dissolved into smaller states. The ruling class likes to talk about democracy because it is able to legitimize its activities, especially the evil ones, by claiming that the people think its ok for the rulers to make the call. If anyone disagrees with the rulers the rulers claim that the people have spoken. If this wasn't effective people would ignore the rulers, just as they would ignore you or I if we declared ourselves king of our town and right ruler of all that we survey. It’s effective, even though it creates especially curious results when the majorities of the people clearly disagree with a ruling official and would like to see different policy if not recall or impeach him.

The idea of majority rule must be delegitimized. Just as kings could not exercise their rule unless a majority of public opinion accepted such rule as legitimate, so will democratic rulers not last without ideological support in public opinion.
In many cases majority rule is the only legitimating function. It’s important to remove the idea of majority rule, and it’s also important that people realize that the majority isn’t, in fact, making the rules. The democratic state allows common people entry into the exploiting class. This combines with the twin fictions that majority rule legitimates anything, and that the majority does rule. Together this destroys the class-consciousness of the people that they are exploited by their rulers. Instead people believe that they are the rulers, they might be the rulers some day, or the rulers are legitimate.
In the 18th century, people understood that the state was a group for the enrichment of the rulers, usually the king and his ministers, and certainly not for the benefit of the people. It was ridiculous to say that war was for the people, or that the state should help the people by feeding, educating, employing or nursing them. If anything the subjects were to help the state. Therefore the people wished to support it as little as possible, and had no illusions that any good would come of the state. When the American and French revolutions came along, people were faced with a choice. Either dismantle the old state system, or take it over. The winning choice was to take it over, and a new set of people became the ruling class.
This new ruling class faced a problem. If the old state system created to serve the ruling class was unjust because it served the ruling class at the expense of the people, how to justify the new ruling class using the old state system? Wouldn't people assume it was still serving a new set of people at the expense of the rest of the people? The answer was to tell the people that all these evils were for their own good; this was a new state that would serve the people instead of the king. The doctrine that the people ruled, and that whatever the people ruled was just, served as the perfect way to legitimate any of the states actions and contributed to its power.
It was also essential to ensure that direct ruling by the people be minimized as much as possible. We hear that democracy, as strictly defined, is a terrible thing because it would allow the people to engage in rampant lawlessness and bad decision making.
We don't really live under a democracy. Strictly defined democracy is a fairly unimportant form of government in the modern world. In fact the ruling class rules quite firmly; though it may bend to popular pressure occasionally it is also good at creating the pressure so it can appear to bend. The progressive era in the US was partly about making voting irrelevant so experts could rule. As the saying goes, if voting could change things they'd make it illegal.
The problem with democracy is the idea that majority rule can decide what is right and wrong. This is evil. In practice the ruling class decides what is right and wrong in a so-called democracy. This is what is wrong with so-called democracy, and people are rightly outraged by unending assaults on ordinary decency and morality in the name of the people. People see in republics and constitutions a solid foundation of what is right and wrong; some things cannot be decided or changed. There is a common evil in both democracy and so-called democracy; that right and wrong can change.
Speaking against democracy does not get to the root of the problem, which is the incoherent or evil rules that people are expected to follow. The state system is inherently contradictory, as what is wrong for ordinary citizens is right for state officials. What made the countries of Europe such a mess was not the ethnic composition of their society or the forms of government, but to what degree that state was allowed to interfere with society. A regime that does not interfere in society is usually a quite pleasant place to live; one that does interfere is regularly unpleasant. In our so-called democratic regime the rulers have every incentive to interfere in society and the people are likely to allow it. When more people realize that majority rule does not legitimize everything and that they do not in fact rule, we will be farther along the road to a just world.

what fun

2007-01-11T03:38:00.000-08:00

one of the most entertaining aspects of using this blog is that it brings individuals with no name to me in the comments section with silliness reinforcing my views. they prefer to use no name which certainly indicates their level of bravery. one said with bluster, that an increase in those legal to participate as voters in the periodic charade called an election was some sort of indication of an increase in our "democracy". nameless they argue fine details of punctuation or attack small corners and then stand proud as though they had accomplished some meaningful item. their words amd methods are reinforcement for my points about what this nation has become, unfortunately.

what defending freedom really means

2007-01-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

Our rulers are hypocrites. They pretend to support freedom while they undermine it. They claim that since the democratic process, including majority rule, is legal, our freedom is not limited by their laws. Then they claim that democracy is what gives human beings their rights through its processes. Finally, they claim that democracy is freedom and freedom is democracy.
If any democratic process takes one man’s assets to give to another, this destroys freedom and is unjust. There isn’t a democracy on earth that does not destroy freedom in this way. Democracy doesn’t guarantee freedom or rights.
Rulers fill their speeches with freedom phrases to mislead the audience. We work to pay for their foolish extravagances. Since freedom means the absence of others interfering with a man’s rightful exercise of his free will, any interference by some alleged majority diminishes his freedom. Since democracies routinely violate rights, they reduce freedom. If our rulers mislead us about something as basic as freedom, we have to be very skeptical about anything they say. If some suspect deceit they will conclude that whenever politicians move their lips, it’s to lie.
Consider this statement made to combat veterans: “And you know the price of freedom, because you risked your lives, shed blood, and lost friends in freedom’s defense.” Statements like these are frequently made to veterans. They are used as pawns. America chose imperialism, and empire. It has gone in the wrong direction for a very long time. It cannot admit this. What did the veterans risk their lives for? Suppose we choose the Spanish-American War (1898) as a convenient date. Have the veterans defended freedom successfully? If that were so, we would have more freedom today than in 1898. This isn’t the case. Our government today controls a greater part of every person’s life, liberty, and property than in 1898. Yet we are told that America won its critical wars for freedom. The veterans defended freedom successfully, we are told but politicians don’t mean real freedom. They mean the American system, and the American state.
Cheney tells us “Freedom is not free.” A very high price was paid in America’s wars since 1898, but what was it paid for? The question is whether all these wars were even necessary. Many of us think they were not. Our freedom wasn’t threatened by the Spanish, by the Central Powers in World War I, the North Koreans, the Viet Cong, or Saddam Hussein. Those making the case the wars were necessary will have us believe they were for real freedom. They did the very opposite.
Our socially accepted government version of history is propaganda. Anyone who can read and chooses to do so beyond the official version will find unending aggression, murder and thievery for the benefit of a few. War is healthy for the state. Every war decreased real freedom while expanding the state. The veterans risked their lives for the American empire. And in most of the wars since 1898, it isn’t clear they defended any property of the American people as a whole.
I am sure that our rulers calculate their words and their effects. They are too deep into their own unquestioned world view to doubt their own ideas. The politicians believe their lies. They have told them so often that they no longer think much about them. Americans have heard them so often that they don’t question them either.
To take our money to pay for armed forces that are stationed all over the world is just as much a reduction of domestic freedom as to take wealth in order to subsidize farmers. American resources are taken from us and given to foreign countries limiting freedom here. For our rulers to interfere with foreign regimes is just as illegitimate as trying to overthrow the governor of a state. America can’t claim to support freedom elsewhere while denying it here and also dominating foreign peoples through the subtle techniques of diplomacy, currency manipulations, and military pressure, aid, debt, and trade pacts. To prevent Americans from traveling or exchanging goods with foreigners is an interference with freedom.
Domestic tyranny and international tyranny go hand in hand. If domestic freedom is reduced, it’s natural for rulers to interfere with the freedom of others as well. Freedom at home means ending America’s international empire. Freedom is the basic American value, and Americans have retained this value throughout our history. But America has changed from a relatively free country into a democratic atrocity. America couldn’t have been changed from a free country into a country on the edge of abandoning its last remnants of freedom without having distorted the meaning of freedom. The concept had to change to assist the political changes. Today the word freedom as used by our rulers means something closer to slavery. It means acceptance of the American system of government in its current form. Defending freedom now means little more than defending the power of the state to do as it wishes. Our rulers demand that we spill our blood for them, not for our own freedom. This is a bad bargain.

conspiracy theory?

2007-01-06T04:37:00.000-08:00

The use of the term “conspiracy theory” is an attempt to silence critics for which the labeler has no actual answer. Everyone knows the term conspiracy theory and generally agree on its meaning. The view is that a “conspiracy theorist” is crazy, and that label is usually applied by our government, and media to those question any official story. When that label is stuck on someone, it’s easy to dismiss what they say without even hearing it. The label is used to slander people who question the details of the JFK assassination. Forty years later, there aren't too many thinking people who believe the Warren commission's “lone gunman” explanation.
Which is “theory” and which is fact? Without a full confession, this can only be decided by massive evidence, and it would be silly to come to a conclusion without looking at all the evidence available. It is safe to assume someone guilty who lies about an event, or tries to manipulate evidence. A conspiracy theory is born because evidence exists to question the “official story”. There's nothing insane about questioning, unless you define sanity as believing whatever the government tells you. In light of the fact that our government lies to us regularly, I would define believing everything they tell you as absolute stupidity. “The conspiracy theory of history” is mocked by the media as the land of scaremongers, ignorant or the naïve. Anyone who has studied the history of Britain's monarchy over the last 1,000 years, will readily see that conspiracies were, and are, very much part of court life, national government and Britain's international policy. With widespread literacy, modern media and information technology, the power to corrupt facts has been raised to a more refined level.
In July, 1996, flight 800 exploded over Long Island. Shortly after
their terrorist explanation failed inspection, our government explained the event by claiming that a faulty electrical system caused a spark that ignited a fuel tank, and the people who doubted this were quickly labeled “conspiracy theorists.” More than a hundred witnesses saw a missile travel from the ground to the plane just before the explosion. They weren’t treated as witnesses but were labeled “conspiracy theorists,” and ignored. Our “investigative” media accepted and spread the official story, helped us forget the U.S. naval station nearby, and that missiles were regularly test fired there. If the Navy did accidentally blow a passenger plane out of the sky, who would have a motive to lie about it, the government or a hundred witnesses?
There were no conspiracy theories arising from the explosion of flight
103 over Lockerbie, or about the uni-bomber, so explain why millions of conspiracy theorists all decided not to theorize about those events. There was no evidence to indicate a conspiracy.
The real question isn’t why people believe in conspiracies, but why people choose to believe the government's version when it appears they're lying. One reason is that most people never see the evidence because our “news” industry hides it, and another is that the same media will quickly associate anyone who questions the government with the people who see Elvis and Bigfoot.

I think the main reason people choose to believe the government despite evidence to the contrary, is because it's easier, and safer. If you ignore evidence, and accept whatever ridiculous explanation the TV provides, life remains simple, and you get to watch more TV. If on the other hand you realize you've been lied to, as a citizen in a democratic society, you're responsible for doing something about it. Every citizen of the US has a civic duty to participate in their government, and keep themselves informed of its actions, or government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” isn't possible. You were warned that “eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” but you chose to believe whatever they told you, and because of this, Americans have lost their freedom.
Statistical analysts from UCLA and Rutgers believe that Kerry won the 2004 election by an estimated 1.3 million votes, and despite the fact that they are very qualified to produce this opinion; our news media dismisses this as “conspiracy theory.” Bush lost the 2000 election, and he lost the 2004 election, but he's occupying the White House, shredding our constitution, and stealing our wealth and freedom in a “war on terror” that's as fraudulent as his presidency because many Americans are too stupid to see it, too lazy to do anything about it, or both.
The government only did what can be expected of thieves. They grabbed money and power where it was easy to do. My anger is directed toward my fellow citizens, because they allowed it to happen by believing whatever they're told. Patriotism does not mean loyal, blind flag waving. You have a civic duty to question your government, hold them accountable, and not use the flag as a blindfold. The American people have been duped again, and it doesn't seem like it's difficult to do.

America's latest “conspiracy nuts” are better known as the 9-11 truth
movement. The media are doing their usual job of slandering them but there are disturbing facts regarding the events of 9/11 that every American needs to be aware of, but none of it will be on T.V.
If this were just a “crazy conspiracy theory,” I don't think people in our government would have worked so hard to destroy, and lie about the evidence. Bush tried to derail every investigation into the matter. If we had an honest government, we wouldn't have conspiracy theories. We would have honest investigations, and fair trials, but these things are disappearing from America. The Arabs don't “hate your freedom.” bush hates your freedom because it's the only thing that stands between him and unlimited power.
In 1939 Hitler had some concentration camp inmates dressed in Polish uniforms and murdered on their common border. The next day he started WW2 by invading Poland for their “aggression”. In 62 the pentagon told Kennedy they were willing to create some Cuban terrorism to give him an excuse to invade and dispose of Castro.
Bush may be doing the same.
Cheney was running a military exercise on 9/11 where the idea was several hijacked jetliners. It’s curious that there were no fighter jets scrambled on that morning, as is national policy when hijackings are in process. There were many warnings about such possibilities yet the bush regime expects us to believe it caught them unawares. They have said that no one had imagined planes crashing into buildings, but then there was Cheney’s exercise. There are many that refute that yarn such as the book by Richard Clark. It is also curious that the next day there were portrait photos of nineteen identified as the perpetrators produced so quick and so accurate if we believe the story. There are also the reports that from day one bush had been looking for an excuse to invade Iraq and so following an attack, allegedly made by Saudis, we invade Iraq.
The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, and in fact has fertilized it. These fascists, in the name of protecting us against “terror” helped create this terror by assisting our feudal corporate culture mug the world. We “stand behind our president” with our illusion of security, because no one is investigating. In America, there has only been a couple of terrorists’ outbreaks and only one that really got peoples’ attention. It doesn’t make sense. If there really were a worldwide terrorist network with hundreds or thousands of people willing to blow themselves up in order to destabilize America, you’d think they would have done something in the last three years. Terrorists are blowing themselves up in other places all the time.

tyranny

2007-01-02T04:40:00.000-08:00

America began creeping towards tyranny sometime in the late 1830s. We decided that the entire continent belonged to us, and that we were going to take those parts of Mexico we decided God intended us to have and that the Mexicans were not really using properly anyway. The authors of the Constitution never intended to create the kind of state suggested in the Declaration of Independence.
Real tyranny won’t come to this country because Marxists stage a revolution, or politically correct women studies professors form a national salvation council, or because Cheney calls out the Marines and the Army in response to an indictment, or Islamic revolutionaries march up Independence Avenue and hang the banner of Islam from the US Capitol. It will be because enough people in this society want it, wish for it, work for it and support it.
There is a darkness to our culture, a desire to conform, a fear of the outside world, and a need to punish those who fail to or refuse to conform. Our culture, while raising high the ideal of liberty and individualism, is as collectivist and authoritarian as any in the world. And is as ready to listen to dictatorship and embrace tyranny as well.
In saying that the 1830s was the era when America began its long slide from liberal society to a militarist one, Andrew Jackson is the great demon of American history for what he did, what he stood for and the social forces he represented.
Jackson represents the fearful mob that hates the stranger or anyone who doesn't fit in, deeply resents certain kinds of educated and wealthy people, doesn't know what to do with a problem it cannot shoot, and wants its money now. It represents the oppressive use of informal social power as an add-on to state power. Democrats made great use of that mob for much of the 20th century, keeping it happy with a rigged economy, a social welfare state and the occasional military adventure until Nixon invented the Culture War. Since then, Jackson's mob has mostly been a sullen and angry creature of the GOP.
Any future American tyranny, as well as our historical wandering into authoritarianism, is part of the culture in this country.
Jackson and his descendants have always been genuinely attached to democracy and the law, though with their own definitions of these terms. For most of American history our authoritarianism has been thought of in terms of defense of democracy. This translation of democracy has also involved a conviction that being American means adhering to a national cultural community, one defined by its values, and in the past by race, ethnicity and religion.
These people have had a strong sense that this community is threatened by alien and savage “others.” They also believe that they are the authentic American people with the correct national religion, social behavior and patriotism. They have come to accept people of different ethnicities, then of different races, as members of the American community, but only so long as they conform and become “part of the team.”
Americans tend to think we're different than most other people. We're better. We've never had tyranny and never will. That's other people's problems. We save them from tyranny.
But we aren't better. We did not stop being human beings just because we became, or were born, Americans. We're no different than the Germans who admired Hitler, supported his government, fought in his war and ratted out their neighbors because they thought it was the right thing to do. We're lucky, so far, we've never really had that chance. We've never lived under a regime that wanted or needed such things on a mass scale for any great length of time. We're quite capable of mass murder of our neighbors. We've done those kinds of things in the past, though mostly in far away countries against people we knew little about and respected even less. We don't, right now, have a government that wants those things. But if ordered, would enough Americans comply, do what they saw as their duty? I have no doubt they would.
Anyone who's ever been on the outside of American culture knows that this country and its people, and their social power, can be as cruel and intolerant as any government. Informal social power can be as cruel, impulsive and authoritarian as state power, but it can be fairly escaped. There are places to run to. That’s what big cities are for. But when social power is part of state power as so many believe it needs to be, where then do you hide from wretched, enraged, frightened, self-righteous, murderous and nuclear-armed neighbors? The routine price of dissent and resistance is not yet one's life. But I fear it very easily could, that despite the clear failure of the bush administration's attempts to subdue the world outside our borders by force, enough Americans would still wholeheartedly and honestly support a real military and police dictatorship with a real ideology and real ambitions of world conquest if given half the chance. One that “makes them feel good about being Americans” and keeps them in a style they are satisfied with as it murders, bludgeons and plunders its way across both our country and the entire world.

americans have some interesting ideas about democracy

2006-12-29T04:02:00.000-08:00

We Americans have some interesting ideas about tyranny and freedom. Our ideas of tyranny seem to be nations groaning under the weight of the state which rules against popular will. We imagine secret police, armies trained to fight their own people, governments of distant and uncaring elites “elected” by a small group of party faithful. We think of cellars where dissidents, rebels and other “criminals” are tortured and murdered. We think of TV and radio broadcasts boasting of the success of the state and the brilliance of its leaders, statistics boasting higher wages, more output and longer and happier lives. We also tend to think of people without food, shelter or work, of states that promise and then fail to deliver even the most basic necessities.
We believe no one would ever choose tyranny and all tyrannies are forced. We have reduced liberty to what government a people has and “can they vote for their leaders?” Is being free no more than casting a secret ballot in a “contested” election occasionally for people who claim to represent you? Are you free is really who's your leader?
Our reduction of tyranny to an external “evil” ignores its complexity. How people govern themselves is an expression of their culture, their assumption and ambition about themselves and the world. Even government imposed by an occupying power, becomes part of the culture, and as more of them become involved in that government becomes self-government. This is what the shrub is busy trying to do in Iraq; make Iraqis adopt and accept an imposed government and embrace it as their own. It's not much different than what the Soviets did in Eastern Europe.
It’s possible for governments that shoot people, imprison them in vast camps and are hell-bent on conquering the world to be popular. History is full of popular tyrants. Americans who applaud bush, his war, expansion of unchecked executive power, deployment of the US military across three-quarters of the globe, torture and indefinite detention of “suspected terrorists,” and unaccountable spending of tax dollars for all manner of “defense” projects, are hardly the kinds of people who ought to be wondering why Arabs embrace dictatorial military/police regimes that repress domestic social, political and economic liberties and invade neighbors. Arabs who say “we need to be governed by a strong hand” are the same as Americans who claim that “Bush is our commander-in-chief”. Both prove that even the destructive and murderous tyrant begins his reign with the applause of the crowd. The nation will be strong. We will be respected and important. Most people who live under tyranny don't suffer directly. That’s done by people who they don't know or don't like.
The Nazi government was the result of a “democratic” process, and continued to receive the support of most Germans long after the Nazis did away with opposition parties, became the state, and invaded its neighbors. If Germans came to see themselves as having been liberated from Nazism, it came only some time after the war, when Germany was a ruined and occupied country. From 1933 on to the end of the war, many Germans who were not initially supporters of the new regime came to accept the Nazi state and its views as legitimate, if for no other reason than they benefited from it. Hitler created a “consensual dictatorship” that was a kind of ethno-religious fundamentalism built around a popular leader.
What troubles us is not only the ease with which soldiers slaughter civilians but a state that can mobilize individual citizens in the creation of catastrophe. This wasn’t from brainwashing, which creates mindless automatons. Joy at being a superior people created their choice.
German soldiers were trained to take initiative, to think for themselves in the absence of specific orders. They functioned well because they shared a working consensus, based on ethnic pride and self-denial as well as contempt for their victims.
Germans who weren’t politically or racially suspect had considerable independence. Collaborators in racial persecution were average. Citizens of the Third Reich were shaped by a culture so convincing that even those who objected to parts of Nazism came to accept the existence of racially based human worth, the cult of the leader, and the appeal of territorial conquest. The Final Solution developed as the dark side of ethnic righteousness. To Germans believing in their high moral purpose, purification of racial aliens became a difficult but necessary duty. Culture and ideology worked together to make mass murder not just possible and morally acceptable, but a necessary duty to people, country and leader.
The state shaped the popular culture through institutions Germans trusted but a culture of people willing to obey, and replace whatever conscience they had with the loud persistent state and its leader, already existed. That culture was little different from that in any other advanced industrialized nation, and it was ready to listen, to believe, and to follow.
The most successful tyrannies come from within because the citizens want to belong to something “bigger than themselves” as our Glorious Leader said for a time after 9/11. Enough people in whole societies can, and have, desired to rule all they see, to live well off of others, to fill their emptiness with pride of race, nation and government.
To say this is unique to Germany, or Russia, or the Arab world, would ignore how much humans have in common. In the description of a Germany ready to listen to experts, to trust leaders, to believe in its importance and destiny, I see America; not just now, but for most of the late 19th and all of the 20th centuries.

2006-12-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

We have a species of flag draped lunatics in this land who are parasites. They buy the propaganda and only know what their masters tell them to believe. America firsters are like drug addicts and show their withdrawal symptoms when faced with ideas they dislike. They can learn nothing new that is in opposition with their preconceived notions as they already know all they need to. An example of their “reasoning” can be found in the Iraq situation from the eighties till now. During the Regan regime we gave assistance to Saddam when he was attacking those who had dared to disagree with the sainted American government. Saddam then attempted to control more oil in his invasion of Kuwait. This brought the bush oil dynasty to hysterics so they went public telling us it was not right that a larger country would invade a smaller one like this. The shrubs didn’t mention that two years earlier they had invaded Panama or that this country has made its living invading smaller groups and countries since our first invasions and early acts of genocide in the years after Columbus.
A lifetime of propaganda about American “justice and good acts” can sink in and take hold even for those of us who see the lies. The parasites only buy the propaganda as it gives them a good feeling about themselves and their like. A recent example is another shrub activity. In Florida it is now illegal to change the governmentally accepted version of history. This way if one of these parasites stumbles into actual history which are in opposition to their generally accepted propaganda version where they are “good guys” they can discount it and move on. Those of us in opposition to their demonstrated greed and self absorption find them funny. Unfortunately that humor has a dark side as they burn, rape and pillage their way across the world. As a well known conservative writer said; you can ignore reality but reality will not ignore you.
The mid east has been turned into a dangerous and spreading mess by the acts of the neocons and their parasite supporters. The dollar is being seen more as monopoly money by the world. Our “government” spends more of these imaginary dollars than it can print, almost, which magnifies the world view of our “money”. Most of South America and the rest of the world is now in the hands of those who recognize the foolishness of our “owners”. This empire is collapsing as all others have in the past. The “patriots” will not even see it until it is beyond their usual ability to deny reality. Today I read that several previously inhabited islands off of the coast of India are now under the waters of global warming which the parasites say doesn’t exist.

locally provided wacko entertainment

2006-12-24T03:59:00.000-08:00

this from WONKETTE - North Carolina's 8th District congressman has a winning plan for Iraq: convert all the Muslims to Christianity. In the past, only a few brave public intellectuals such as Ann Coulter have offered this only obvious solution to our 3-1/2 year bloodbath occupation of Iraq, so it is a proud moment for America that [GOP] Rep. Robin Hayes is the first politician to deal seriously with our disastrous war.
The only way to make Iraq stable enough for the U.S. to withdraw is by "spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior."1

here is a very entertaing example of our fascists is action providing more fun for us to share. its a shame that it comes at the expense of lives, treasure and what used to be our good standing in the world and for many, in this country.

the cult of total ignorance

2006-12-23T04:00:00.000-08:00

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”-- Albert Einstein
American students don’t know any geography. Most Americans (if only 51 percent it is most) don’t know much about anything. Why is that so? Watch them. They believe that cross word puzzles will increase your vocabulary. Trips to the zoo are believed to be educational. Quiz show contestants are loaded with valuable knowledge and justly rewarded. Millions of them send tens of millions of dollars to transparent phonies like Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson and their like. This is what has become of religion.
In sports a few good seasons and millions for playing a game, some of which is spent on the bench, then Joe Bob gets fat while selling low calorie beer to adoring crowds. This great, free people go to an amusement park to experience a fiberglass Europe designed by beer barons.
Americans believe they can get skinny eating chopped lettuce engulfed by “ranch” dressing. Have you been to a salad bar and seen fatties eat a liter of cubed ham? They think that that pink glop is “French” dressing.
Endless easy mix preparations and single purpose devices prevent Americans from learning to cook food created from groceries on a real stove.
The poll numbers for the shrub rise and fall with gas prices without further investigation of what he really does. He didn’t know any geography either until six years ago.
A few hundred thousand copies of a book make it a best seller; but there are almost three hundred million of us. Who reads? USA Today and the National Enquirer are our widely read newspapers. The first is a color coded upscale “weekly reader” and the second doesn’t even try to be accurate. The national cable networks spend hours and hours covering local murder mysteries while ignoring vital national and international stories.
Liberals are seen as latte sippers who don't understand Real Americans or care about stock car racing; a tiny, alien coastal minority, representing an insignificant 49% of the public.
What does it say about us that the clumsy yell a word for sex when they stub their toes?
Americans think American cars are junk. They buy an “import” made in Ohio or Pennsylvania. So there’s no geography problem because if Americans went anywhere they just stay in Holiday Inns and eat at Wendy’s so what’s the difference?

actual freedom

2006-12-17T04:28:00.000-08:00

Have you become convinced that the only way to improve the moral and/or physical status of your country is to get the State to whip everyone into line? Do the defenses of individual rights and individual freedoms leave you feeling both bored and resentful? Are you daring enough to contemplate a nation where no-one does anything except what he or she is told by government officials, and find it to your liking?

Those who truly want a democratic, decent and progressive America have to clearly differentiate themselves from both parties. There needs to be a loud third voice constantly reminding the political leeches on both sides of the real issues, the real reforms, the real problems. Now is the time for a third voice of American politics to become loud and to be constantly holding a light on a better path than is likely to follow by the new Congress. There must be a clearly visible alternative for everything the cowardly and corrupt does or refuses to do. Phrases like “universal healthcare” can not be avoided nor can the fact that those who fund both parties are destroying our planet. We must always remember that while bush and his boys lost this time we have yet to win.

Wikipedia provides a simple summary of fascism's widely accepted defining characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, as superior to the individuals or groups composing it. Relentless indoctrination by a vast corporate media complex has convinced many that the America is an exceptional nation. Charged with the sacred duty of preserving peace, the US is alleged to be the embodiment of truth, justice and liberty for all.
Powerful reactionary forces are consistently poised to suppress those who dare to challenge the tyranny of the ruling corporate elite. They have an extraordinary propaganda machine known as the mainstream media to sustain the myth that the United States is a nation governed by and for “We the People”.
Politicians lie for their own benefit and you buy it. Corporations profit from those lies and the wars they create. Civil or verbal disobedience is intended to start you thinking about those who profit from quiet acceptance.
Sprouting in the 19th Century, the legal concept of corporate personhood sank deep roots in the US. Validated by the Supreme Court and the fierce protection of the ruling elite, corporate personhood has become huge. Given many of the legal rights of a human being yet lacking human limitations such as conscience, fear, and mortality, corporations are a fortress from which greedy and malicious individuals can commit crimes. Corporations aren’t citizens and shouldn’t have more rights than citizens.
The fairness doctrine must be restored for all public media.
Government accountability including a foreign policy that emphasizes diplomacy and generosity rather than military aid and belligerence is essential.
The national debt is outrageous and a sustainable energy policy must be created.
Government priorities should be education, transportation and health care, but wealthy people buy professional teams, pay huge salaries to players and then demand government handouts.
Constitutional amendment enshrining the right to vote and meaningful election reform of the election process such as instant runoff voting establishing a national right to vote, including the right to vote on a paper ballot
Under current federal sentencing guidelines, the government can demand that the court sentence a defendant found guilty of some charges but innocent of other charges as if he had been found guilty of all of the charges. This is why they throw any charge they can think of at everyone who crosses paths with the injustice system. They’ll always manage to convict even the most innocent person of something.

We have reached the dreadful circumstance where a very powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and its riches and other privileges that yield a return. These positions are maintained virtually without taxation; they are immune to the demands made on others. The very poor, who have nothing, and the workers and the middle-class support the lot by their labor. These things happen because you accept them.

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”
George Orwell

voting?

2006-12-14T13:36:00.000-08:00

Americans went to the polls. The campaigns were brutal, with noise about sex, pedophilia, corruption, prejudice, and a desire to leave Iraq. What is this voting thing we have?
People continue playing the game, convinced it’s a game that they can win, without ever letting the truth of the thing sink in and change their actions. It is to break this pattern, and set off in a new direction. If the Republicans had won after the history of the last six years, they would have concluded, that they could get away with anything. The Democrats won but there seems little cause for celebration as they cannot promise that they will end foolishness created by those they replaced.
It is delusion to believe there are two parties which stand for different principles, when one party never repeals or revokes the acts made while the other party was in control, but leaves them standing while pursuing its own, new agenda.
The vote offers the hope that if one side wins, they may force their ideas upon others opposed to that vision. The vote is a contest in which the stakes are power over the loser. This is the vote; it has always been the vote. Division of human interaction and activities, slander, lies, deliberate misleading descriptions of the words, positions and deeds of the opposition, self-righteous indignation, and sheer delight in the downfall of others.
The core of the vote is the gaining of power over others, not the good faith determination of the relative worthiness of specific goals. If it were the latter, the vote would be planned as a vote on goals or programs, and the Congress and President could be a semi-permanent group of administrators whose job was only to implement those goals.
The contest always turns on the character of the persons who will have power, rather than goals of the candidates. Each side seeks to portray the other as bogeymen who cannot be trusted with power, who will devastate our country and end life as we know it. Because the stakes are power over others, and not a limited, narrow power but a virtually unlimited power, the natural reaction to this attempted power grab is fierce opposition.
The tactics employed in the vote don’t end, and the nature of the contest doesn’t change, after the election. The same tactics are used in promoting the adoption of new legislation or judicial appointments. Is it reasonable to suppose that such means will achieve harmony and well-being? Is this how people who work for one another’s best interests behave? Can such means result in mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation in pursuit of a common good?
We hear much said of enforcing criminal laws, of voting for just rulers, and making government “a terror to evil-doers.” There is little legal and political action under this system, which is Christian action. Equally good people are divided among all the rival political parties speaking of doing their duty to God and humanity. Either those people aren’t good, or their ideas of duty are false.
Are our wisest and best put forward as leaders? Very few moral men, who happen to get into political control, escape contamination. The nature of government, and of the continual contest among people to acquire power over one another, contradicts the stated purposes of acting for the benefit of all. Such system was well formed, however, to be hijacked by the corrupt for selfish purposes, while gaining moral legitimacy from the well-intentioned who naïvely believed that power could be used to better society. Voting is a form of gambling with moral issues that flatters the voter’s self-importance without achieving anything useful.
Civil Disobedience is necessary because government is founded on majority rule established by the vote. It is self-delusion to believe it possible to reform the government, and to establish what is right, by the vote. What is the price of an honest patriot today? They do nothing effective. They wait for others to remedy the evil.
A smart man will not leave solutions to chance, or expect it to succeed through the power of the majority. The voter acts under the delusion that he may bring about some result in the world by the expression of his opinion. This delusion flatters a person’s self-importance, and convinces him to keep his place since what he wants depends on numbers. There is only one test of what a man really esteems and believes: that which he acts upon. A man who is really concerned with a matter will not simply express an opinion on the subject, or ask for what he believes is right. He acts, without waiting for the approval of the majority. Action changes things.
Our system focuses on opinion so people stop doing actual work to achieve their goals. By offering the commoners the hope of gaining power by collecting those who share similar views, people divert their attention and effectively preserve the status quo. From the perspective of the elites who benefit from stability, this is the great strength of democracy.
You occasionally hear that, whatever fault government by majority rule has, it minimizes conflict by providing a way which the majority can pursue its goals, without resorting to actual violence and bloodshed. This is wrong because the system is founded on opinion and it costs nothing to have an opinion. It’s easy to believe a thing and never act upon it.
If the Iraq War or any of our other wars of choice depended upon only those who actually volunteered to go there and fight and those who would voluntarily pay for it, we would soon find out how popular these wars really are. A man who acts openly upon what he believes will soon experience real life consequences of his behavior. A man can hold an opinion that it costs him nothing to hold forever. Our system of majority rule makes conflict more likely, for it is too easy adopt beliefs which the person will never experience the consequence of and for which some small minority will pay the price.
It’s effective to form voluntary associations to achieve goals without the aid of politics or law. A decision to not ride public busses is not “civil disobedience” because it breaks no laws, but is a simple refusal to cooperate with or participate in one’s own repression or exploitation.
If we wish to limit our government’s adventures forget trying to build a party that can say no, and work to encourage people to not enlist in the military. Encourage people to not work for the companies that produce weapons. This can be recommended both on religious grounds, and so they do not make themselves tools of men who will use lies to take them to war. The elections are like lotteries. Many of them don't even reflect the popular vote or the general will. National elections standards, nonpartisan election officials, an Election Day holiday, and instant runoff voting would help; end of winner-take-all elections for proportional representation, reform of presidential elections, universal voter registration, public financing of elections, and free air time for candidates.
then there is the question raised by computer voting with flipped votes, missing votes and proven access to the totals by hackers creating more doubts in the accuracy of the system.

we are not a free people

2006-12-09T04:12:00.000-08:00

Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their assumed entitlements to a McHouse and an SUV. The Republican base believes they are going to get sucked up into the air by the Jesus Hoover vacuum during the Rapture. That they are literally going to be sucked up into the sky. And the liberals are the crazy ones? We need a movement that will loudly announce our refusal to go along with rightwing fantasies of time travel to the 1950s.
The republicans know that many prefer a safe police state for the illusion of safety it provides. The circumstances are ripe either for another terrorist attack because the political climate dictates a return to a tactic that's been successful for this administration in the past. We are not a free people anymore. We have become frightened and self-centered; terrified of the world we live in and the people we share it with. War has made us an ugly combination of passive and aggressive, ingratiating to superiors and cruel to inferiors, bored and impatient at the same time. Servility makes war an easy habit for the state to cultivate. The state needs compliant citizens unwilling and unable to think about the consequences of what they do. It needs them to be killers on one hand, and quiet, dutiful consumers at the same time. It also needs loyal commanders who believe in the state, who will make its means and ends their own; who will order torture and the annihilation of cities that will be considered reasonable, and will be obeyed. According to Chalmers Johnson, in his book “The Sorrows of Empire” America has more than 725 overseas bases. This incredible estimate comes from two official sources: The Department of Defense's “Base Structure Report,” and “Worldwide Manpower Distribution by Geographical Area.” Johnson claims that the figure is actually an underestimate, because many bases are “secret” or otherwise un-listed. As an example, Johnson quotes several sources who cite at least six US installations in Israel which are either operating or are under construction.
AIPAC, the Israel lobby owns Congress, with the result that US policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world. When Howard Dean called for the United States to take a more even-handed role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Senator Lieberman accused him of selling Israel down the river and said his statement was irresponsible.
Frequently writers speak of who agrees or not, as though that make a difference in deciding some actual truth; all my friends think thusly so it must be true. The term 'anti-American' is usually used to discredit its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that they will be judged before they're heard and the argument will be lost in the confusion of bruised national pride. What does anti-American mean? Does it mean you are anti-jazz? Are you opposed to free speech?
The Boston Tea Party was a protest against an imperial government that allowed no dissent; the inspiration for the concept of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Now dissent and protest are “moral crimes,” according to Genghis bush. Why does it seem that our voices are not heard by the “representatives of the people”? I think it is due to intolerance to dissent in any form.
Why aren't more politicians talking about Bush's Iraq fantasies and lies? We see that America threatens to lay waste to other nations on daily basis and considers it immoral if those countries even think of arming themselves for defense. Something essential about this nation is dribbling away without alarm or debate. We torture prisoners; it's out in the open, a done deal. We're fighting an unnecessary war that was launched on a lie, but too late now; we're in, we can't get out. Our neighbor's phone is being tapped.
We may be surrendering our power to demand that government be responsive to us as our voting machines don't work all the time and almost everyone is going along with it. In a democracy, information is power. That's why some people in government go to great lengths to keep information away from public view.

there will be little change

2006-12-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

Some things Congressional Democrats may choose to ignore:
Restoring constitutional government
Restoring civil liberties
A decent education program to replace the 'no child fiasco'
Getting out of Iraq
Ending hostilities against Muslim countries
Palestinian statehood
Ending use of torture and renditions
Population growth
Ending the war on drugs
Universal healthcare
Public campaign financing
Instant runoff voting & proportional representation
Reliable vote counting
End to robber baron capitalism
Foreign policy based on peace not war
Reduction of poverty
End of corporate personhood
Nuclear disarmament
Use of eminent domain by private developers

Consider what Republicans believe:
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals. They are the cause of our national deterioration.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush1 made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy again when Bush needed a “we can't find Bin Laden” diversion.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but
trade with China and Vietnam is a vital part of international harmony.
Women can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but
multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in
speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
The way to fight terrorism is to put down our long-time allies,
while demanding their cooperation and money.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing
health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but
creationism should be taught in schools.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable
offense, but a president lying to enlist support for an illegal war is solid defense policy. He is, after all, defending our way of life, whatever that is.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the
Constitution, like banning gay marriages and censoring the
Internet.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're
a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
“The price good men pay for their indifference to public
affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” Plato

shrubbery

2006-12-02T03:54:00.000-08:00

One thing we Americans can say with pride about George W. Bush is that we have never elected him president of the United States.
gore won in 2000 in popular vote and much evidence indicates he also won florida but for interfearance and bungling.
evidence from many sources give strong indications that voting machine fraud in ohio gave the shrub the 04 election.

electorial choice, actually

2006-11-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

“You hear about 'constitutional rights, free speech, and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, that man is a Red.... You never hear a real American talk like that.” Frank Hague, Mayor of Jersey City 1917-47
The U.S. political system has been carefully crafted to ensure that no one who questions the natural goodness of the military-industrial corporate structure will be allowed through the gates of power. We are offered an illusory choice. Whether you buy Ivory Snow or Tide, they’re both owned by Procter & Gamble. Electoral democracy has become a similar process of manipulation. If you believe our elections, other than local, constitute real choice you might be naive. The crisis of modern democracy is a deep one. Free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary, if they are, mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities on sale to the highest bidder. Radical change cannot and will not be negotiated by governments. Too many pockets would be emptied. It can be imposed by people that link hands across national borders. We have no impartial information provided for making useful decisions. We have corporate media benefiting from a closed corrupt political system. Elections have very little to do with democracy as it was practiced in ancient Greece or in the New England town meeting. Elections are more like advertising campaigns, in which candidates merely try to position themselves with the slogans that will win them favor. Candidates will say almost anything if they think it will get them elected which is why politicians are such scoundrels. A person with any integrity would be disqualified; they couldn’t lie well enough or fast enough. The talking heads have said that the 04 elections were decided on the issue of moral values. I don't believe that. It’s a moral value to provide health care. It’s a moral value to educate our young people. The community that comes from full participation in Democracy is a moral value. Honesty is a moral value. If Iraq is lucky it will get democracy before we do. Thanks to modern gerrymandering most congressional districts have been turned into Democratic or Republican monopolies. Constituencies are carefully mapped to lock in one-party supermajorities so there is little danger of the occupant being voted out. Then there is the question whether the elections are even honest with hackable computer machines. It may be that no matter who you vote for the government will always get in unless our neighbors investigate their actions more carefully and demand actual change.

elections?

2006-11-25T04:46:00.000-08:00

“The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.” H.L.Menchen
There’s no dialogue in our elections. The campaigns stir some passion, but little discussion of the effects proposed policies would have. Political campaigns aren’t dialogue but marketing. Television advertising has reduced politics to creating positive images of one candidate and negative images of another. Genuine debates have actual discussion and education. We don’t experience discussions but sound bites. Marketing wins over communication. Rather than addressing actual issues, Bush repeated: Kerry is a flip-flopper and bush will keep you safe in the face of the fear that bush encouraged. There’s a sense that there’s nothing we can do to influence the running of government. The congressional hearings and the talk shows grind on, with or without us. We'd see instant improvement if our laws prohibited paid political advertising and air time was provided free. There might be serious discussion. This could go a long way toward removing the corruption of campaign contributions as candidates' become nonstop fundraisers.
A considerable majority of Americans accept the International Criminal World Court, Kyoto treaty, and wish the UN to lead in international crises using force only if there is strong evidence that we’re about to be attacked. They reject “pre-emptive war.” Overwhelming majorities favor expanded domestic programs. There is little connection between public opinion and government practices shown in the “entertainment corporate media”.
The new voting computers eliminate proof. The software is secret. There is no independent record of the votes. Computing experts have demonstrated, many “holes” in the machines through which votes can be changed. This causes the “elections” to be as suspect as the “campaigns”; it is corrupt entertainment. When do we investigate butterfly ballots and glitching computer machines and say that this isn’t part of the democratic process? Partisans control the elections.
The right to vote becomes a privilege to vote, granted to those lucky enough to live in a state that seeks to improve, rather than suppress voter turnout. It's a privilege that can be exercised only by those citizens who can afford to take a day off of work to sit in a line until midnight, or by those who can afford to pay for a state ID.

"liberal media"?

2006-11-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

Fox News is to journalism, what the Republican Party is to ethics; the two just ain't related.
America's media has created an America it chooses to see, not the one that exists. It has denied access to its pages and channels to voices representing great percentages of Americans on key issues. It has helped us dislike each other even when on many of the critical issues that it ignores or distorts we have much in common.
Mainstream media missed, underreported or self-censored;
- Future of Free Internet Debate Ignored
- Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
- Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
- Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
- High-Tech Genocide in Congo
- Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
- US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
- Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act and EPA regulations.
- The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
- Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
- Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
These and many other issues are ignored by our “free press”. This could only change if there was large and loud demonstration of public disapproval. There hasn’t been. The only remaining grounds for termination of public office in Washington are an illegal nanny or gay sex. Washington politics is also heavily driven by cowardice, bribery, blackmail, deceit, fear, loyalty to old buddies and even older bodies, cooptation, sex, and just plain crime. Any freedom which can be given can be taken which we see happening.
Change comes thru action; there are no political heroes today.
Why does our country speak of more when we can only use so much? Could it be that there are those who profit by our pursuit of “more”?

what is after all a bill of rights but something which can be adjusted

2006-11-18T05:13:00.000-08:00

Niemoeller said, “First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

In the sprite of the preceding famous quote I identify the following adjustments which our beloved government is making.

Bill of No More Rights

They came for the tenth amendment in the name of unreserved federal powers. I didn't speak up because I am not a terrorist and I don't grow weed.
They came for the ninth amendment for unrestrained federal and state powers of law enforcement. I didn't speak up because I am not a criminal.
They came for the eighth amendment with the excuse of extracting information from terrorists by any means necessary. I didn't speak up because I am not a terrorist.
They came for the seventh amendment mumbling about binding arbitration being democratic. I didn't speak up because I don't sue people.
They came for the sixth amendment telling us it would help in protecting us from terrorists. I didn't speak up because I am not a terrorist.
They came for the Fifth Amendment to protect us from criminals and terrorists because after all we must know. I didn't speak up because I am neither a criminal not a terrorist.
They came for the fourth amendment because catching criminals and terrorists is good for all of us. I didn't speak up because I am neither a criminal nor a terrorist.
They came for the third amendment in the name of preserving order. We all like order don’t we. I didn't speak up because I am not a criminal.
They came for the second amendment for stopping gang violence in the streets. When was the last time you needed to revolt against a king? I didn't speak up because I don't need a machine gun.
They came for the first amendment in the name of supporting national unity and protecting national secrets. I didn't speak up because I no longer may.

marriage should be personal

2006-11-15T05:40:00.000-08:00

The way marriage is discussed by “conservatives” is absurd. Marriage as imagined by the “religious right” these days is neither the only nor the common form of marriage in the world, or the way marriage has always been in our own society. The Biblical marriage that religious conservatives hold up as their example and guiding principle would be almost unanimously condemned by today's Christians. Jacob, the central patriarch of the Biblical Hebrews, would be jailed as a bigamist today; the acceptance of Utah into the Union on the condition that they outlaw polygamy is demonstration enough that we view Biblical marriage norms as literally un-American. Marriage today is drastically different than it was even a century ago, even a half-century ago. A small extremist fringe group apart, few Americans would consider the marriage-as-property-arrangement attitude of the 19th century to be truly reflective of our modern notions of freedom. Who would advocate a return to the way marriage was in the 1950's, when teen pregnancy was at its peak and 1 of 3 marriages involved a pregnant bride. Would most Americans prefer marriage to be thought of as something teenagers do when they get knocked up? I think “conservatives” are right about one thing: if the institution of marriage is going to survive, it does need defending. Not because marriage is the only or best source of truly moral living, but precisely the opposite: marriage is more and more irrelevant in modern society. Without many good reasons for marriage to even exist; those who value it as a tradition are going to be more and more hard-pressed to continue it.
Marriage is important in societies where food-production is labor-intensive which means mainly agricultural societies. A man, his wife, and their children was the natural ideal for life in an industrial society when their needs; income, shopping, child-rearing, food-preparation, social involvement, and housekeeping were split up between the husband and wife, allowing the man to participate as fully as possible in the labor market. The responsibility for taking care of him so he can go back to work the next day fell to the wife. But this ideal was peaking at just over 50% of American households in the '50s and '60s and accounts for only a quarter of US households today. It depended on social, economic, and political interventions in the market that are recognized today; strong labor unions, strong government regulation of business practices, heavy government investment in education, legal limitations on divorce and adultery, government-subsidized housing development and welfare systems, and so on.

anonmyous

2006-11-13T03:43:00.000-08:00

it is entertaining to see those fascists who haven't the cajones to stand behind their words. they are an example of why those selfish and narrowminded rightwing types always lose. there are no historical examples of a lasting rightwinger type government lasting for very long other than ours and it is on its way to the dustbin of history. they lose because they don't deal with actual reality and haven't any courage.

an honest politician

2006-11-10T04:17:00.000-08:00

An honest politician is one who when he's bought stays bought.
Because of a central contradiction in capitalist democracy as capitalism actually operates in real societies, advantages belong to the wealthy. You can see it in the smaller prison terms for white collar crime. I remember when those Wall Street scandals were breaking a few years ago, and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal was debating punishments for security fraud. One of the editors insisted that just having his (he just said "his") license to trade stocks revoked would be sufficient punishment for someone who had stolen millions of dollars. He thought a prison term excessive. But in California, a poor person who committed a burglary and then stole $50 worth of merchandise on two separate occasions and got caught each time could face life imprisonment as a habitual offender.
Democracy teaches that no one should be treated differently under the law or be given or denied rights based on ascribed identities such as race, gender, religion, wealth or social status So capitalist democracy is a contradiction in terms, with the two constantly at war with one another. In a democracy, it would theoretically be possible for the people to deny special treatment to the wealthy. Or even for the people to tax the resources of the wealthy for the good of the nation. The wealthy in an authoritarian state that represents them don’t have to worry about such popular claims on their resources. But in a democracy, all the people would have to do is put socialists or advocates of a graduated income tax into the legislature, and bingo. The hierarchies and divisions make it harder or impossible for the popular classes to cooperate with one another against the greed of the wealthy. Lower middle class European-Americans in the South now vote Republican and won’t ally with lower middle class and poor African-Americans. Capitalism doesn't have to create racial or sexual or religious hierarchies. Indeed, it can work to break them down But promoting such hierarchies appeals to some on the Right as a way of justifying unequal treatment for the wealthy and of making class alliances across status groups and ethnicities more difficult.
Bush's new torture law removes the constitutional right on which Anglo-American criminal law is founded; that's the basic right of an individual to know why he or she is being apprehended and detained. Now, as in Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, or Mao's China anyone labeled an "enemy combatant" by Bush can be disappeared and never heard from again. That kind of authority, in the hands of corrupt or untruthful politicians, may or may not be an effective tool in some kind of "war on terror," but it certainly can be a useful tool when it comes to silencing their opponents.
Bush and his cowardly Congress shredded the US Constitution abolishing the right of a court review (habeas corpus) for some classes of suspect. Suspect; mind you, not proven criminal. We now have to be confident that bush is so competent, all-knowing, and inherently just that we can just trust him. If he says someone is an enemy combatant, then he or she is. No need to check with a judge about why someone is being held. And then Bush can have the suspect tortured to make him confess, and can convict him on the basis of the coerced confession, all in secret. We Americans made a revolution against such arbitrary practices of Empires. What is to stop Bush from declaring you an enemy combatant and stripping you of your citizenship then keeping you away from any civil court? Perhaps our new legislators will revoke the shrubs dictatorial powers?

freedom

2006-11-06T05:15:00.000-08:00

Much of what Teddy Roosevelt accomplished bush is trashing. Only freedom for and by all is secure. Political actions by “terrorist-loving, commie, pinkofags” who are also known as “Liberals” have provided; clean air and water acts, worker safety protections, forty hour work week, social security program, civil rights, discrimination protection, school lunch, rural electrification, child labor laws, minimum wage, freedom of information act, food and drug safety regulations. FDR said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Bush now says the only thing we have is fear.
Evangelical Christians whose priorities include outlawing abortion and legislating marriage feel Congress has not kept its promises to them. Fundamentalists believe in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible and the divine right of preachers to tell you what it means. They show no interest in the separation of church and state. The only way to cooperate with fundamentalists is to obey them. How can you demand someone live according to your standards, and have them peacefully accept it?
We continue to see the old, tired, “values” issues dragged out. The Congress continues to ignore the real crises we face; energy, health care, Katrina issues and Iraq; Genghis bush showing no respect for the law. They run out pointless, divisive legislation to “energize their base.” Terry Schiavo reruns will appear. Repubs have little choice. They can't run on national security. They can't run on ethics. They can't run on accomplishments like Medicare part D. The fear that they used to bring voters out in the last election dissolves as America slowly sees that they were fooled with Iraq.
As you sow so shall you reap? Reality doesn’t go away just because you stop believing in it. The 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush choose not to think for themselves took on thinking given by others such as; guilt, fear, resentment, and judgment. Everybody who believes in Tinkerbelle, clap your hands.

elections?

2006-11-05T05:32:00.000-08:00

Whenever civil resistance has shown signs of growing from symbolic action into anything remotely threatening, the crackdown is ruthless. We have the Patriot Act, where Freedoms are being restricted in the name of protecting freedom. Once we surrender our freedoms, to win them back will take a revolution. You can not endorse the violence of militant groups however you must first condemn the much greater violence committed by the state or you deny the people not just their basic human rights, including the right to a fair hearing. No government’s condemnation of terrorism is believable if it cannot show itself to be open to change by nonviolent dissent. Today nonviolent resistance movements are being crushed, bought off or ignored. Terror is chosen by political movements when they have no ability or authority to negotiate, and who are not included in the political process. The shrub regularly calls for fair and free elections elsewhere in the world but participates in denying such here.

Bush declared that "Power in Iran is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy." Iranians must find humor in that given the history of America's elections and the processes it has imposed elsewhere. The Iranians have a system that evaluates candidates through a religious body. We don't have a council of religious leaders here who have the constitutional right to prune candidates. We have reactionary religious groups who apply pressure on the two official parties, who share one ideology, and who ensure that any presidential candidate of those two parties believes in God and in capitalism. Any candidate with a shot at the presidency needs money to get his face in front of the masses. He needs corporate backing and advertising campaigns that sell him like a commodity. He needs a friendly relationship with a media controlled by half a dozen corporations, whose CEOs can destroy his candidacy in minutes. It's a different process than the Iranian one, but is it any more likely to bring into power the person best able to lead the country to greater freedom and happiness? if we ignore this we're putting proven methods for easily ripping off major elections in the hands of the same party that had no qualms whatsoever about lying its way into a war in Iraq. In the hands of a merely corrupt political party, a bad election or two would be no big deal. But these clowns we have in power now imagine themselves to be revolutionaries with delusions of righteousness.
For those who ignored Ohio until now, here's a very brief greatest hits of Ohio irregularities:
• As was the case in Florida, the secretary of state (Kenneth Blackwell, in Ohio), who is in charge of elections, was also the co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign.
• Blackwell initially rejected thousands of voter registrations because they were printed on paper that was, according to him, the wrong weight.
• In conservative, Bush-friendly Miami County, voter turnout was an unusual 98.55 percent.
• In Warren county, election officials locked down the administration building and prevented reporters from observing the ballot counting, citing a "terrorist threat" (described as being a "10" on a scale of 1 to 10) that had been reported to them by the FBI. The FBI made no such report. Recounts conducted during this lockdown resulted in increased votes for Bush.
• In Franklin County, 4,258 votes were cast for Bush in a precinct where there were only 800 registered voters.
And so on. There are dozens more such glitches, which taken together suggest that the exit polls in Ohio, showing Kerry the victor, were probably accurate. That Kerry was not much either and has shown himself to be so since then is irrelevant.

your chance of being killed by terrorists is thin

2006-11-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

Your chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is thin. You would more likely die from falling, drowning, or from a hernia, not to mention being shot by the law. Lack of insurance kills more than terrorists ever have.
Our government insists that any individual or groups that work to prevent its agenda are terrorists. The government's plan is not ours but some of us will be required to sacrifice our lives to help them execute their will, and all of us will be required to sacrifice our freedoms. What is it that we call our way of life and are fighting to defend? Democracy has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Another few years like this and the Republic will be finished, if it isn’t already.
There is one side of nine-eleven that has escaped inspection because most Americans don’t seem to notice. Our government says: “They hate us because we are free”. We don’t need to go far to find the reason for nine-eleven. Our government, using tax dollars forced from us, has pursued foreign policies which are contrary to Americans’ best interests and have infuriated those who are the object of the polices to the point that they are willing to sacrifice their lives to fight back.
Congress was quick to grant bush authorization to use military force against those who organized nine-eleven but Congress didn’t want to know who they were. For the longest time it resisted opening any sort of investigation into what happened that day. Why? The answer is in the core of centralized government; distant from the people it is supposed to serve; it remains absorbed in a permanent pursuit of power. When the bombs start falling here, the politicians will be the first ones out of town in armored limousines en route to fortified bunkers.

the other party is unfit to rule

2006-10-31T04:06:00.000-08:00

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right." H.l.menchen
Presidential elections are won by appealing to moderates who are willing to shift their vote and consider the issues. Nearly half of those eligible to vote for President didn’t. Why aren’t people showing up? No party has offered distinctive leadership. It wouldn't hurt to prod the Democratic Party and remind it of the values it once stood for.
Bush and condosleza going around the world lecturing other representative democracies about the state of "democracy" in their countries is hypocrisy in action.
Look at the state of representative democracy here. We are saddled with what people mechanically call a "two-party system" yet there is no critical examination as to why the Demo-Reps have been able to maintain this "system" for well over a century. Could it be an illegal functioning monopoly? The last time a third party ran for half of the seats in the U.S. House was in 1920. Doesn't that strike you as being odd in the land of the free? Why is it only about 40 to 50 seats in the U.S. House are even competitive in an election? Isn't that odd? The media barely acknowledge the existence or philosophies of other political parties. They are ignored leaving us controlled by our political monopoly.
It isn’t odd that Russia and the former communist states of Europe didn't select the “great American system” of single-member districts and winner takes all elections but instead selected proportional representation? Whatever ills these countries may now have they do enjoy greater political choice than we do. The US approach to limiting voter choice is systemic and so looks "natural," but US voters have a narrower range of practical choices in candidates than virtually any other democratic society.

We need a uniform federal ballot access law for all elective offices We need not just instant runoff, which would be an improvement, but proportional representation in legislatures. Change is Essential if representative democracy is actually going to work in our country. There are several parties, including the Greens and we need better coverage of the parties we have. If you listen to the corporate media, you would think that the country is evenly divided ideologically. We aren't as the polls show. If we continue down the path that we are presently following, we will eventually destroy ourselves as a nation.
No wonder right-wing drug addicts go on the radio and make politicians look like idiots. We, the people, have the liars, cheaters, thieves, and war-criminals on the one side; and we have their flip-flopping enablers on the other. Perhaps this is one big reason for the explosive rise of Libertarianism: True Libertarians have a policy and they stick to it. And that policy is: Anti-state, anti-war, and pro-market. It's the only policy that consistently holds up under scrutiny and analysis. There’s little difference between Democrats and Republicans.

interesting solution to several national concerns

2006-10-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801500.html

fear

2006-10-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

our new nazis, the republicants are using their favorite weapon on the stupid in our land. they wave fear in our faces again and again. now they do it for their "election". this works very well on those with no imagination, intelligence or curiosity. there are many of them. these sort prefer to remain anomyous and present themselves that way. it is a better method of keeping in formation with the rest of the fearful. if they were to read they might encoutner "1984" or "catch 22" just for starters. both books illustrate what is taking place here and now. Americans have turned denial into a form of collective genius. There is no need to burn books, if the public is too ignorant to know they exist or too numb to respond to their contents.

the shrubs personal army

2006-10-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

No one can deny that we now live in a nation in which the president has, unconstitutionally taken the power to start a war. Bush made his position clear prior to his invasion of Iraq, when he emphasized that while he welcomed the support of Congress in the event he decided to wage war on Iraq, he didn’t need its approval. His position was reconfirmed by Condoleezza Rice, who informed Congress on October 19, 2005, that bush’s position was that he did not need the consent of Congress to expand the war; this time against Syria.
As a practical matter the military serve not as a defender of our freedoms but as an obedient personal army of the president, ready and prepared to serve him and obey his commands. It is an army that stands ready to obey the president’s orders to deploy to any country in the world for any reason he deems fit and attack and kill any “terrorist” who dares to resist the U.S. invasion of his own country. It is also an army that stands ready to obey the president’s orders to take into custody any American whom the commander in chief deems a “terrorist” and to punish him accordingly.
There is only one solution to this threat to our freedom and well-being: for the American people to heed the warning of our Founding Fathers against standing armies before it is too late, and to do what should have been done at least 15 years ago: dismantle the U.S. military empire, close all overseas bases, and bring the army home. And for the American people to heed the warning of President Eisenhower against the military-industrial complex, by shutting down the Pentagon’s enormous domestic military empire.
If we did all that, how would our freedoms be protected?
Protected from what? There is no threat of a foreign invasion. Terrorism is not a threat to our freedom. dismantling the standing army would remove the primary means by which presidents have succeeded in creating so much anger and hatred against our nation that in turn have given rise to the threat of terrorism against us. The worst threat to our freedom is our own government, and by dismantling the standing army we would reduce that threat significantly.
What would happen if a foreign nation ever began constructing thousands of ships and planes and mobilizing millions of people to invade the US? The foreign nation in question would be met by a nation of free well-armed citizens who would be prepared and willing to rally and oppose any invasion. Invading a US filled with armed free citizens would be like swallowing a porcupine. We should also keep in mind the economic prosperity that would result from the dismantling of America’s enormous standing army. The economic effect would be doubly positive, and, while weakening the federal government, it would make our nation stronger.
What about foreign monsters and tyrants? The answer to that was also provided by our Founding Fathers: Our government would no longer go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, but foreigners suffering oppression and tyranny would know that there would always be at least one nation that would accept them. Rather than police the world, Americans would, once again, focus on producing the freest and most prosperous society in history.
We should also bear in mind the wicked results of the federal government’s military empire and overseas interventions. World War I brought World War II, which brought the Soviet communist occupation of Eastern Europe, which brought the Cold War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, along with an enormous standing army in our country. The Middle East interventions and meddling have brought us terrorism, the war on terrorism, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Padilla doctrine, military torture and sex abuse, and CIA kidnappings and “renditions” to foreign countries for the purpose of proxy torture.
By their fruits, you shall know them.
The vision of militarism and empire will bring America more violence, death, destruction, impoverishment, and loss of freedom. The vision of a limited-government, constitutional republic with citizen-soldiers – would put our nation back on the right road of peace, prosperity, harmony, and freedom.

largest threat to our freedom

2006-10-24T04:42:00.000-07:00

The primary threat to our freedom lies with our own government. That’s why we have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; to protect us from federal officials and their lust for power and money. If the federal government did not constitute such an enormous threat to our freedoms, there would be no reason to have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The primary means by which a government takes away the freedoms of its citizenry: its military forces. Our Founding Fathers opposed a standing, professional military force; they knew that such a force would be used to involve the nation in costly and senseless wars and also that government officials would predictably use the army to guarantee an obedient population.
James Madison: A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.
Patrick Henry: A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny.
Would the Pentagon obey presidential orders to deploy against the American people? There is no doubt; especially if the president told them that our “freedom and national security” depended on it, which he would. In the US the loyalty of the troops is to the president as their commander; not to the Constitution. Recent evidence of this point was the willingness of the troops to obey presidential orders to deploy to Iraq despite the fact that the president had failed to secure the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war.
What if the president ordered the troops to deploy across the United States and to round up “terrorists” and jail them in military camps? There can be no doubt that most of the soldiers would obey the orders, especially in the middle of a “crisis.”
Labeling Jose Padilla a “terrorist,” the president ordered the military to arrest him, deny him access to an attorney, and punish him without a trial and due process of law. The pentagon obeyed. Do you know any soldiers who have publicly protested the Padilla incarceration or who have resigned from the army in protest? How many of the military resigned in protest at the president’s orders to set up a prisoner camp at Guantanamo Bay, knowing that the reason he chose Cuba, rather than the US, was to avoid the limits of the Constitution? If the soldiers didn’t protest these crimes, what’s the chance they would protest when bush ordered them to arrest 100 other Americans, or 1,000? Soldiers are supposed to disobey unlawful orders, but most aren’t going to concern themselves with legal questions. How many soldiers involved in the torture and sex-abuse scandal refused to participate, especially since they thought that it was approved by the higher-ups? How many refused orders to deploy to Iraq without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war?
Imagine that the president issues the following announcement on prime time TV: “Our nation has come under another terrorist attack. Our freedoms and our national security are at stake. I have issued orders to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to immediately take into custody some 1,000 American terrorists who have been identified by the FBI as having conspired to commit this dastardly attack. I have also ordered the JCS to take all necessary steps to temporarily confiscate weapons in the areas where these terrorists are believed to be hiding. I am calling on all Americans to support the troops in these endeavors, just as you are supporting them in their fight against terrorism in Iraq. We will prevail. God bless America.”
How many would disobey orders under those circumstances, especially if panicked and terrified Americans and the mainstream press were endorsing his martial-law orders?
The federal government is the primary threat to our freedom and so is the pentagon: their unswerving loyalty to their commander in chief makes them the primary instrument by which the federal government is able to destroy or infringe the rights and freedoms of the citizenry.

defending our freedoms?

2006-10-21T04:59:00.000-07:00

How often do we hear the claim that American troops “defend our freedoms”? It’s even claimed to be so in many churches. It ain’t so. The military are the primary device by which our freedoms and security are threatened.
Every competent military analyst would say that the threat of a foreign invasion and conquest of America is nonexistent. No nation has the military capability of invading and conquering the US. The U.S. army, the most powerful military force in all of history, has not been able to fully conquer a small country as Iraq because of the level of resistance to our invasion. Imagine the level of military forces that would be needed to conquer and “pacify” a country as large and well-armed as the US.
There is no possibility that terrorists will conquer the US and take away our freedoms. At most, they will kill thousands of people, but they lack the forces to subjugate the entire nation or any part of it. Bush claims he is protecting us from “the terrorists.” it is the presidential policies the military have carried out that have created the terrorism which we now need soldiers to protect us.
When the Soviets withdrew from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was dismantled the Pentagon didn’t know what to do. Unexpectedly, its 50-year-old “official enemy” was gone. With the fall of the Soviet empire the obvious question arose: Why should the United States spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money to have an enormous standing army?
The Pentagon was in desperate search for job security. Then along came our old ally, Saddam Hussein, to whom we had even given WMD to use against Iran; Invading Kuwait Saddam gave the Pentagon a new official enemy. Obeying presidential orders to attack Iraq in 1991, without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, the military killed tens of thousands of Iraqis; People whose “crime” was to resist the invasion of their homeland by a foreign power. The myth of American omnipotence fell in the Iraqi desert, laid low by an agile new enemy.
Through it all, the Pentagon repeated the claims of the president; that all the death and destruction and humiliation that our government had created in the Middle East, as well as its unconditional military and financial foreign aid to the Israeli government, had not provoked any bad feelings in the Middle East against the US. Instead, bush and the Pentagon claimed, the problem was that the terrorists simply hated America for its “freedom and values.”
If the American people had dismantled the nation’s standing army when the Soviet empire was dismantled, the federal government would have lacked the military means to meddle in the Middle East. Therefore, there never would have been the terrorists attacks against the United States and a “war on terrorism” for the troops to fight, not to mention the USA PATRIOT Act, secret search warrants and secret courts, the Padilla doctrine, and other federal restriction on our rights and freedoms. Despite being the most powerful standing army in the world, the Pentagon wasn’t even able to protect us from terrorism.

green party

2006-10-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

Which American political party best reflects the views of a majority of citizens on the Iraq war, environmental issues, health care, campaign financing, population growth, and genetically modified foods?

The answer, based on various polls, is the Green Party.

Our media for all its alleged objectivity is biased towards the views of the American elite and particularly those who buy space in their papers or time on their channels.

On the environmental issue alone, the Green Party has been proven by the latest scientific data far more perceptive and sane than either of the older parties. Yet the media prefers to dismiss, discredit or disregard the Greens. But let's assume for a moment that one is not entitled to coverage simply for being right and let's adopt the childish media view that the only ideas that count are those that demonstrate sufficient strength at the polls. We're still left with all those Americans who agree with the Greens and don't know it:
- The majority of Americans think Iraq war was not worth fighting.

- Resolutions critical of the Patriot Act that have been passed in 378 communities in 43 states including six state-wide resolutions.

- The majority who find the "problems of the global environment: global warming, destruction of rainforests, destruction of species, loss of ozone layer" to be very or extremely important to their life.

- The majority of Americans who support universal health coverage as opposed to the current system.

- The majority of the public who support a version of public campaign financing used in several states.

- The majority who think population is growing too fast.

- The majority or more of Americans who believe "protecting the environment will require most of us to make major changes in the way we live," that an underlying cause of environmental problems is that "the way we live produces too much waste," that "we focus too much on getting what we want now and not enough on future generations," that "we need to treat the earth as a living system," and that "Americans should have more respect and reverence for Nature."
- The 61% of the American public who oppose arresting and jailing nonviolent marijuana smokers.

- The majority who believe that large companies have too much power.

- The majority who agree with the statement: "I regard myself as a citizen of the world as well as a citizen of the United States."

Why do we rarely see any of these folks on television, on the opinion pages of the Washington Post or the New York Times, or mentioned in political analyses? It would be interesting, for example, for a columnist to attempt to square the red vs. blue, Christian vs. secular dichotomies currently in fashion with some of the data above. Or to ask the question: do our elites want us to hate each other so we don't find out what's really on our minds? And what we have in common?

The Harris polling people report that over the past ten years 31 million Americans have had someone close to them die after the removal of life support systems, but the media would have us believe it only happened once in Florida. Here then is the real sin of America's media: It has created an America it chooses to see, not the one that exists. It has denied access to its pages and its channels to voices representing the majority or even greater percentages of Americans on key issues. And it has made us dislike each other even when on many of the critical issues that it ignores or distorts we have much in common.

comments on comments

2006-10-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

i am fully entertained by those who are offended by my views. they call me a liberal as though there were only two possibilities. there are many and that is ignored by our current issue of nazi supporters pleased by our ruling regime in dc. they call themselves conservative but conserve nothing but their quest to preserve their self absorbed lifestyle. nothing of traditional conservatism is on display with the shrubs growing dictatorship.

think about it

2006-10-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

I’m soft on terrorism; my worrying time is better spent on things likely to destroy me, such as drivers on cellphones. This political opposition is labeled as “defeatist” using tricks to undermine the will, and security of the US. Wanting to win and believing you are, is different from having the ability to do so.
The world has been turned so completely upside down so that those who are aiming our country toward catastrophe are able to brand their opposition as treasonous hounds. We would be much better off if we reject the global dominance scheme of King George.
We live under a regime with an agenda that will bring disaster and misery for the American people, and a supposedly “liberal” media that consistently provides cover for these adventures. For the neocons it’s always Munich 1938.
The left apparently thinks this problem can be solved by putting nice people into the White House. Leftists talk about bringing the empire down, but they seek to do so while at the same insisting on its absolute supremacy. The left’s plan appears to keep the federal government as powerful as it is now, but just hope it behaves responsibly.

Those of us who oppose war as a matter of principle find it easier to criticize our government. The same criticism of the opposition could be interpreted as an invitation to select sides. People have been trained that because their system is “good” and the opposition is the epitome of “evil,” there must be a “good” and a “bad” side in every war. Bush uses this in reminding his followers that an “axis of evil” threatens them. Each side is playing the same deadly game and for the same purposes: to control and increase power over their own populations. War is organized by masters of the state to manipulate through fear and self-righteous indignation their populations into a frantic effort to destroy more of “them” than of “us.” That millions will die in the bloody processes is not import to state officials or, amazingly, to the citizens who eagerly and proudly send their own children into the slaughter. Parents, who worry that a sexual predator might be prowling, express no concern for military recruiters using the same school facilities to enlist more cannon fodder for their war machine.

In criticizing Americans’ “shock and awe” crime in Iraq we must not overlook the fact that the opposing organized forces are also inflicting death, and destruction on innocent people. We need a Congress that is going to demand a plan for bringing our military home. Now it looks like the choice is a Republican policy of indefinite occupation.

Our military has expanded its presence around the world to foster “democracy” and prevail in the shrub's “War on Terror”. They appear driven to impose American dominance on large parts of the planet and to employ this presence to gain control over energy supplies. In this process they are bankrupting the nation and exposing American citizens to a higher risk of terrorist attack. Our military is being converted into a global oil-protection service.
On the same day that the U.S. House voted to lift the 25-year ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, it also rejected a measure that would have boosted the minimum average gas mileage of American cars. That's all you need to know about U.S. energy policy, and who drives it as Consumption is king; conservation, an afterthought.
Retreat from empire would force us to use oil more carefully and this would address another critical threat to security: the danger of catastrophic environmental damage caused by global climate change. Higher ocean temperatures, caused by global warming, are producing increasingly violent hurricanes. Global warming is also contributing to extreme drought. Reducing our petroleum consumption and putting our money into the development of alternatives rather than to imperial expansion around the globe can reduce our exposure to violence and to environmental catastrophe.
For any form of tyranny to succeed, there have to be people who roll up their sleeves and get the job done. Repression doesn't just happen. It has to be organized, arranged, justified and marketed to a willing populace; it takes a team.

retards

2006-10-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

“The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity and is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. “ George Orwell
Our country is slowly but surely becoming a nation of retards, a group of individuals who have become so ridiculously self-absorbed and uninterested in learning that we, as a nation, are losing touch with the reality of what is actually going on in the world. The best example is our population's general sense of ignorance in relation to world history, and especially that of our inability or unwillingness, to understand our own country's responsibility in relation to the 9/11 attacks. Such an uneven interest in our own personal concerns at the expense of an interest in the needs of others has taken our country to a kind of selfishness rarely seen in history. Our nation represents only four percent of the world's population demanding the right to consume 35% of its wealth. It’s as if Americans see themselves as having a moral right to plunder the earth and to hell with everyone else. The belief that patriotism is essential in order to be considered a decent human being, and, translated this means, "If you don't like America the way it is, then you can just get the hell out." There is a tendency for the people of our country to believe that the American way is the one best way of doing anything and everything in life, and that any that disagrees with us is simply out of step and therefore must be wrong.
People in a democracy get the representatives they deserve. Dissent and disagreement with government is the foundation of human freedom because it is the first roadblock against tyranny. This administration is now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms.
Is your pay keeping up with what you pay for food and gas? Is your health care what you wish for? Are you proud of what your pension will bring? Have you watched closely what “your gov’t” is actually doing or just watched what the “media” tell you?

deficits

2006-10-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Cheney told critics that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Maybe he's right. What about all the many other growing deficits throughout our economy? Maybe one or two aren't a problem but taken together several deficits will do more damage than any terrorist threats.
1. the result of huge trade imbalances is that foreigners now own many trillions of America and its getting worse and, the value of our currency continues dropping in the global market.
2. Out-of-control spending with the federal deficit growing at an annual rate of nine percent with the party allegedly against big government in power. Our gov’t acts like obese teenage drug addicts with stolen credit cards and nothing will be done until the crisis explodes.
3. The Medicare deform bill passed with little for seniors. Drug companies got huge benefits including an absurd no-price negotiation clause. Then bush had to admit the price tag was underestimated; it is $700 billion not $400 billion.
4. Social Security will be bankrupt by 2016 or 2046 or never, depending on which politicians are jiggling the numbers. But a one-percent change in productivity estimates and the problem disappears. Still, bush promised to privatize Social Security, which would have given Wall Street trillions of new fee-generating assets.
5. We have become an corpulent consumer nation, with little savings for the future. Few Americans can save enough to retire. Without Social Security the average person over 65 would be living in poverty. Easy credit encourages consumption and debt. Millions of Americans declare bankruptcy each year. We are a nation living beyond its means.
6. He who controls the supply and price of oil used to be Master of the Universe. So far the Iraqi war has produced the opposite result. We've driven allies away and alienated Islamic nations, many of which control oil supply and prices. More and more we see deficits in our access to oil. The price of domestic gasoline is just one consequence.
7. We are now engaged in World War III or a war on terror. It will continue indefinitely. The budget ignores these costs.
8. American credibility is near zero due to our failure to find the WMD in Iraq. Even our allies don't trust us. And a billion Muslims worldwide now see America as Christian crusaders attacking their culture.
9. We have lost whatever humility we had left. Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great wars at great cost, wasting resources, creating huge debt, and finally burning themselves out as we are.
10. Pension funds claim numbers based on projections of stock market returns that are unrealistic.
11. Inflation has made current wages worth 30% less than 15 years ago, in spite of raises. The wealthy are less affected and getting richer.
12. Lack of affordable health insurance for Americans under the Medicare age is a crime.
13. Our moral and character deficit is at the heart of all other financial deficits. Our nation has completely lost its way morally and I don’t mean the foolishness the radical right focuses on.
16. Wealthy interest groups now control "democracy" in the United States, through media concentration and the very expensive process of elections. The vast majority feels powerless and don't get involved.
17. Is there even one politician you can think of that actually inspires you with their ideas for the future? Our leaders helped us become mindless consumers blinded by the pursuit of happiness in the next meaningless possession.
When Alan Greenspan took office in 1987, the national debt stood at $2.3 trillion. It has more than tripled since then. That is a LOT of money.

2006-10-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

Let's face the facts: the believers in genuine democracy and law, all those who hope to rise above the beast within and make the disorder of existence into something meaningful have lost. The better world we thought had found its incarnation in the ideals and hopes of the American Republic is gone. It's been swallowed by darkness, greed, and by uncontrollable primitives who now hold overwhelming power.
They seized control of our government illegally in 2000 and kept that control through raging electoral corruption in 2004. The re-election of Bush was a deliberately sham process that saw massive lockouts of opposition voters; unverifiable returns compiled by easily hackable machines operated by corporate partisans of the ruling party; and vast differences between exit polls and final results; gaps much larger than those that led elections in Ukraine and Georgia to be damned as controlled frauds. Indeed, a panel of statisticians said that the odds of such a discrepancy occurring naturally were 959,000 to 1.

The record of the Bush fraud keeps growing. Recently experts using actual machines and returns from the 2004 election showed Congress how a lone hacker could skew a precinct's results by 100,000 votes without leaving a trace. More than 40 million votes in 30 states were cast on such computer systems.

Last year Congress heard sworn testimony from a Florida programmer who created vote-rigging software in 2000 at the request of a Bush Family employee. The request was to produce untraceable programs that could “control the vote” as needed. The testimony spoke of Bush plans to “suppress the black vote” with “exclusion lists.” This is exactly what happened. Tens of thousands of legitimate African-American voters were deliberately “purged” from the rolls by a private Republican-controlled corporation hired by Florida Governor Bush.

In 2002 a Florida state government inspector, took up these charges, which included other corruption allegations and an individual charged with peddling military technology to the Chinese. In June 2003, Lemme, the investigator said he had “tracked the corruption all the way to the top” and that “the story would break in a few weeks.” On July 1, 2003, Lemme was found dead in a Georgia hotel room, just across the Florida border.

Local police ruled that Lemme, a happily married man eagerly planning his daughter's wedding, had suddenly decided to slash his wrists. At first they said there were no photos of the death scene; but then the pictures turned up on the Internet and were confirmed as authentic by the shamed police. The photos clearly contradicted the original suicide report on several points, presenting evidence, for example, that Lemme had been beaten before his death. The investigation was reopened after the Congressional testimony and then abruptly shut down after local police spoke to a never-identified “someone” in the Florida state government. Nothing has been done to clarify the murk surrounding Lemme's convenient death. Nor has there been any action toward correcting the corruption of the American electoral process.

let's have no illusions about where we are. Gangsters are in charge, and nothing and no one will be allowed to challenge their dominion. They are waging aggressive war to cement their position and that of their allies: the energy barons, the arms merchants, the construction and services cartels, the investment bankers. These power blocs now command outrageous resources and bottomless profits; they can buy out, buy off or bury any force that opposes them. Meanwhile, they use the loot of the stolen Republic, blood and treasure, as fuel for their ever-expanding war machine: Bush has a “secret watch-list” of more countries ripe for military intervention, the Financial Times reported.

With more war crimes afoot, recently Bush issued an official “National Defense Strategy” that openly declares “judicial processes” as one of the enemies confronting the United States, actually equating them with terrorism, The Associated Press reported. Law is “a strategy of the weak,” says the Bush Doctrine: Might makes right. The judicial process must not be allowed to “constrain or shape” American behavior in any way, the gangsters declared. Law is now the enemy. Democracy, as we've seen above, is the enemy. This code of criminals and tyrants has become the ruling doctrine of the United States.

there are no unilateral solutions

2006-10-01T05:33:00.000-07:00

There are no one-sided solutions to today's global problems. The lack of a diplomatic link with Iran and Syria leave the US with few options. The US is aiding the Israelis in ways that could be compared to Iran's assistance to Hezbollah. Iran is no military threat to the US though US warmongers are always describing it so working for a war of choice to be fought against it. If Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be off limits to US attack, and its gov’t could lock up Iranian gas and oil for the rest of the century by making deals with China. The oil interest would explain the mystery of why Washington doesn’t care that Pakistan has the Bomb; Pakistan has nothing Washington wants. An Iranian nuke would not be an immediate threat to the US but Israel would be vulnerable to a retaliatory Iranian strike if the US took military action against Iran.
There is no way the US will be able to “defeat terrorists” militarily. Vietnam taught that lesson and if we haven't learned that, others who do remember. By continuing to rely on political bullies, military force, and negotiations only from a position of control, we will suffer a long, bloody war that will include violence here at home. A change in the basic approach of America's government could avoid more suffering and death, and increase our options. To find that path, you first have to believe in it and neither of the groups comprising our current government appears to want an option that does not lead to a grim conclusion.
I have seen video of former Nazis saying they didn’t give much thought to such things as right or wrong and assumed their actions were justified because they were following orders. I hear our military saying the same thing when faced with very questionable activities.
“Terrorists” have simplified the world for the shrub. With a war without end, you've solved the problem of the end of the Cold War, which left America without an enemy.
Some tell the American public that someone has to stop Hezbollah as they threaten us. They haven’t taken the time to warn Americans about real dangers that Americans face each day. Like, mercury and arsenic in our drinking water, Bush’s anti-environmental polices or the risks to our health posed by genetically modified foods? Why is it that the only thing that Americans are supposed to fear is Muslims?

shrubbery

2006-09-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

The American people are like a frog placed in a bowl of cool water as it’s slowly heated over a fire. At the point the frog realizes the danger it is in, it is already too weakened to get out. It is boiled alive. Americans today find themselves in water with the temperature rising. We don't learn from mistakes because we don't recognize them as such. We have mental devices all set up to protect us from the terrible truth that we regularly make mistakes. We seem to be very good at accepting feedback that we want to hear while ignoring and arguing against feedback that we don't want to hear. Learning from past mistakes is a difficult process.
Whenever the shrub has appeared on my TV screen I have instantly reached for the mute button on my remote. I simply cannot stand his arrogant voice. I know that he will not speak one word of truth nor provide even the smallest morsel of important information. he will offer nothing to inform, nothing that will come close to inspiration, so I have a firm habit of hitting the mute button whenever I see his smirking face invade my screen. Our national embarrassment avoids serious questions and plays his arrogant and foolish game.
Anxieties lives in the future and regret lives in the past. When George ran for president in 2000, one of the major pieces of imagery his team managed to successfully create was that of Bush as a man of his word who “says what he means and means what he says” like the following;

We have a firm commitment to NATO; we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe we are a part of Europe.
I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.
We're going to have the best educated American people in the world.
The future will be better tomorrow.
I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure
The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.
A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.
It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.

Bush shows by his words who he is and his abilities for being our glorious leader.

religion?

2006-09-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

When I was young nobody really talked about their religion. It was something you did with your family. Religion stopped at the door of your home or House of Worship. Religion was private and personal. The “radical right” has made it a public demonstration.
Today’s “conservative Christians” don’t plainly teach what Jesus clearly taught on the subject of violence as they make way for our countries wars. Religion like anything can be abused and used for sinister purposes. Religion has been used to justify heinous acts of torture and murder. The Inquisition was not “holy” but it was political and profitable for its perpetrators. The German Christian churches had, by collaboration or silence, endorsed the Nazi’s nationalism, militarism, racism, and “legal” right to kill other children of God. Extremism results from self-serving religion married to militant politics. Basing government, its actions and judicial system on their distorted version of “religion” is the goal of the “Christian Right”. Waging war on anyone who disagrees with them is their method. Americans are being indoctrinated into an extremely politicized form of evangelical Christianity. Little ones are instructed that they should be willing to die for Christ. Sometimes they even use the word martyr, which has an echo in the Middle East. I see future suicide bombers for Jesus. Of course, the grownups would say, “Oh no, we’re not like them”, but they admit that the principal difference is simply that “We’re right.”
Radical evangelical nationalism is the form our fascist corporatism is taking here. Americans believe this to be the chosen nation both by virtue of its political system as well as chosen by God's hand, and are under attack by outside forces. The current phase of nationalist and economic adventure we are on will come to an end at some point, and will reap the whirlwind. Evangelical Christianity has become firmly allied with the State as is corporate loyalty, the ruling political party and forgetting to render unto Caesar only that which is Caesar's, as well as denying the founding principles of the United States. Over the last 25 years, American politics has abandoned the beliefs upon which this Republic was founded and maintained for 200 years.

investigating themselves?

2006-09-10T04:54:00.000-07:00

“The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.” --Thomas Jefferson.
When you hear the phrase “launching their own internal investigation” maybe it means “sweeping this one under the rug.”
Americans have been trained to accept government lies fed to them by the US Media. When covering Middle East issues news producers might wonder how to fit in the missing white women mysteries. No claim by a Bush Regime Official is too strange to be accepted. Consider the claim by Rumsfeld to the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that Iran was to blame for the instability in Iraq. Did the media remind the “informed public”: that our invasion, occupation, mass detentions, torture, slaughter of citizens, home invasions, and destruction of entire cities, might be contributing? The only person in the committee room who called Rumsfeld a liar and was hauled off by the police. Condoleezza gazes at the rubble of Lebanon, refugees being hit with Israeli cluster bombs, and squeaks happily that we are “witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East.”
Bush vetoed involving the UN in Iraq in 2003: “The UN can't manage a damn thing,” Bush said the UN personnel are “a bunch of drunks”. Can't manage anything and a bunch of drunks; Sound like anyone we know George?
Israelis have been displaced, but few of them have lost homes or suffered serious wounds, compared to the many thousands of Lebanese who have. There is not any similarity.
Americans couldn’t evacuate one city prior to a hurricane or even afterwards, yet we are told that dropping leaflets on a city was sufficient to prevent civilians from being murdered by an intentional military assault. Why is killing civilians horrible when Muslims do it, but excusable when Israelis do?
Karl Rove said; “It's odd to me that most of these critics are journalists and columnists. Perhaps they don't like sharing the field of play. Perhaps they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance.”

“The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” --Thomas Jefferson.

what will kill more people?

2006-09-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

What will kill more people: hijacked planes flying into buildings, or our “government” ignoring global warming? What will kill more people: a dirty bomb in a city, or a nation that doesn’t provide basic health care for everyone? Who really threatens the lives of the people of this nation: foreign terrorists or terrorists dressed up as government?
The root cause of terrorism is politics. People resort to terror when they are abused or injured by the policies of power but have no armies with which to defend themselves. It's the only weapon available to the weak. You can't kill your way out of terrorism because, if left unchanged, the same policies that produced the terrorists will keep on producing them. The more terrorists you kill, the more you create.
What is needed is a reassessment of our plans. For example, why are we hated by so many Palestinians? The answer is because we have been unfair to them. Whatever the Israelis wished to do to them; kill them, destroy their homes, uproot their orchards, confiscate their lands, subject them to all kinds of humiliation; has been supported by our government. If Americans don't clean house in future elections our children and grandchildren will live under the threat of terrorism because of the stupidity, greed, corruption, and cowardice of the American political establishment. Land of the Free has become the Land of the Licensed. We are “free” to do only what our rulers permit. That’s hardly what our ancestors meant by freedom.

People are sick of war, unresponsive representation, incompetence, corruption, intrusive government, spiraling debt, lobbyist/corporate owned politicians, power-hungry rulers, and of attempts to pass moralizing legislation telling us when and how we can die or reproduce. Get out of our personal lives, get out of Iraq and do your job; run the government competently, economically and fairly. People want real leadership not mean-spirited, partisan propaganda. Conservative means that someone is a loyal retainer of the ruling Republican Party state. There are ever fewer conservatives who believe in true liberty as the old school believed in it. They have been so seduced by greed and power that they have become champions of war, ghastly bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security, and government growth. The corruption of conservatism dates back to Reagan, Nixon, and even to the beginning of the Cold War, when conservatives became cheerleaders of the national security state.

dictionary definition of fascism

2006-09-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

Dictionary definition of Fascism; A system of government characterized by a ridged one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, the retention of private ownership of the means of production under centralized government control, belligerent nationalism and glorification of war. Sound familiar?
Bush has insisted that there can be no limits to the power of the commander-in-chief in time of war. Bush has claimed that laws controlling domestic spying and torture do not apply to him. The “war on terror” is more metaphor than fact; Terrorism is a method. No peace treaty can end the fight against terrorists. Those who don’t allow for other beliefs then create more reasons for terrorists to attack. The emergency powers of the president during this “war” now extend indefinitely, at his pleasure and at the cost of liberties and rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Our government has been committing and facilitating torture as official post-9/11 US policy. America voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on. This administration has been masters of diverting attention away from real issues and debating the silly. Debating what constitutes torture: Mistreatment of helpless people in your power is torture, period. You don't do it. It's an act of cowards.

You are what you believe. Do you choose war and sin and all that foolishness or do you make a more positive selection? We are engaged in a life-or-death struggle of competing ideologies with those who promote war as an American value and virtue. Pro-war hawks don’t explain what they mean when they say we need to do “whatever it takes” in Iraq. The West expects Hamas to stop strapping bombs to Palestinian children. The Western way is to strap bombs to jet bombers, and drop them from 20,000 feet which is a far more civilized method of murder.
We are smack dab in the middle of fascism. Bush and his gangsters are an abnormality. Old fashioned totalitarian brutes. The new fascism will be friendly. But according to Mussolini, fascism is corporatism managed by the state. It seems that here, now, it's the other way around. Corporate interests own Congress, and the Presidency; the churches and synagogues, right-wing academia. Corporations own the Supreme Court. Corporatism is the state. Since 1947, U.S. and the transnational corporations have used the U.S. military at will.

illusions die slowly

2006-08-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

We like to support our illusions and fight surprises.
Tom Delay’s reaction to the Columbine shootings in 1999 was:
“Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills.” He was one of the most powerful leaders of the Republican Party and was treated seriously by the media. Never forget that about the Republican Party and the press.
“The history of the United States shall be taught as genuine history and shall not follow the revisionist or postmodernist viewpoints of relative truth,” declares Florida's Education Omnibus Bill, signed by Gov. Jeb Bush. “American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed.” Ironically, the Florida law is itself revisionist history. Once upon a time, it imagines, history was based on facts. But sometime all that changed because one theory was as good as another, then nothing could be true or false. One of the biggest myths of all is that history is simply about “facts.” Americans don’t understand that all facts require interpretation and that all history is “revisionist” history.
Americans’ show no understanding that history shows war usually leads only to more trouble, and that our leaders are never criminally punished. The corporate media failed to question the shrub’s WMD claims, which were phony but took us into war. The Saddam regime faced certain destruction in 2003, but no Iraqi military unit deployed any WMD to save themselves. Not only has the Department of Defense admitted it, so has the CIA.
Remember when things were real? When you could watch or read a news story and get a few facts and not thinly disguised propaganda or spin? We erupt, as a nation, because 3000 died on 9/11 but how many die because they have no health insurance or because of our environmental habits kill many more?
Bush told the soldiers to go, but they chose to obey. When the Nazis at Nuremberg claimed they were “only obeying orders,” they received no mercy. It’s not that the U.S. forces harbor a few bad apples. The barrel itself is rotten, and even a good apple placed in it becomes foul. People need to steer clear of voluntary association with criminals, and they most certainly need to refrain from acting as their henchmen.

something will turn up isn't an intelligent strategy

2006-08-26T05:44:00.000-07:00

“Something will turn up” isn’t an intelligent strategy. This Iraq quagmire is bankrupting us, dividing our people, uniting our enemies, prompting more terrorism and distracting us from real domestic necessities. Washington journalists joined the establishment a few decades back, keeping the rest of us in line. Most of the time, it's hard to notice, as when the media was helping to shove us into Iraq. “Arrests Bolster G.O.P. Bid to Claim Security as Issue” How do we know they do? You find out when you read the story that we know they do because the G.O.P. said so. The arrests in Britain only support the GOP's claims if the media swallow Republican’ts talking points.

Polls show a double-digit public preference for change in the upcoming elections. Who will be surprised if the GOP maintains control? “What matters,” Stalin said, “is not who votes, what matters is who counts the votes.”
In America today, the Republicans, using their subsidiary corporations, count the votes, and there is overwhelming evidence that in the past three national elections the Republicans have counted the votes to their advantage ignoring the actual will of the voters. This in addition to the indisputable suppression of Democratic votes through registration purges, misdistribution of voting machines, and invalidation of ballots. The mainstream media and the Democratic Party refuse to recognize, or investigate this crime against our democracy. The evidence is there whatever may be our wishes.
Tony Blair was trying to persuade Britain that invading Iraq alongside the US was a good idea. Tanks appeared on the road around London’s airport to guard against terrorist attack. Were the tanks supposed to crush terrorists under their treads? No actual terrorists ever arrived, but it helped shape public opinion. So is it different now? With the midterm elections close they will attempt to scare Americans into re-electing Republicans or risk facing the evil enemy. Choose us and live. Choose them and die.
Governor Schwarzenegger sent National Guard to California's airports incase terrorists escape from a British prison, fly to California without blowing up the plane, and then get off and hijack the airport. To make the state's airports safe, it was necessary to fill them with armed, nervous teenagers.
Democratic nominee Lamont, who beat Sen. Lieberman in the Connecticut primary, was surprised by Lieberman and Cheney's claims that his victory could encourage terrorists. “My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how can we turn this to partisan advantage. I find that offensive,” Lamont said in an interview.

every decent citizen is ashamed of their government

2006-08-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." H. L. Mencken

Free Speech Zones in the “land of the free”? Warrantless Wiretapping; the GOP sees this issue as a plus for them?
Bush doesn’t veto laws. He prefers to invalidate laws he doesn't like with “signing statements.” Bush has issued over 700 such statements.
Touchscreen Voting Machines; despite clear, plentiful evidence that these evil contraptions are built to be tampered with, they continue to spread and dominate the voting landscape, thanks to Bush's “Help America Vote Act,” corrupt elections officials, and the public's permanent cluelessness.
The USA PATRIOT Act; who really thought this was going to be temporary? This power grab gives the government the right to sneak into your house, look through everything and not tell you about it. They can look at your medical records and library selections. They can pass along any information they find without probable cause for purposes of prosecution. They’re not going to take it back, ever.
“The Long War”; this marketing died off quickly, but it gave away what many already suspected: the War on Terror will never end, nor is it meant to end. It is designed to be perpetual. As with the War on Drugs, it outlines a goal that can never be fully attained as long as there are pissed off people and explosives. The Long War will perpetually justify what are allegedly temporary measures: suspension of civil liberties, military expansion, domestic spying, massive deficit spending and the like. This informed us to "get used to it. Things aren't going to change."

Socialist is a scare word conservatives use when they've run out of serious arguments. we live in the most polarized partisan atmosphere in decades, and yet news reports about legislation routinely refuse to add the dozen or so words it would take to tell you who voted for what. Why is that?
Republicans' quest is for material wealth and the political and military power that will provide it for them and the wealthy interests they serve. They have no genuine loyalty to any country. They use “patriotism” as a club to abduct a public, poorly informed by the media they control, into serving and dying for them - not for the country. It’s indistinguishable from fascism (defined by Mussolini as state corporatism) - all decisions are made by and for the benefit of very large corporations and those who control them.

Today, the term “patriot” is reserved by the mainstream for those who support our government unquestioningly in the face of major government actions that are morally doubtful. Today, patriots are allowed to disagree with certain government spending but not to disagree when the government decides to kill foreigners. The term “patriot” should be reserved for those who love, support, and defend their neighbors, families, and principles.

Go back to the Red Scare of the 1950s, and the words seem the same - all one has to do is substitute “terrorism” and “al-Qaida” for “communism” and “Soviet Union.”

The GOP is the “mushroom party,” Keeping us in the dark and feeding us crap. If a person entered the room proclaiming how great he was, the correct response would be to shun such an arrogant jerk. But that is just the way the USA behaves. A smaller, humbler government at home would make us a better country overall. We need to stop trying to be great and concentrate on being good.

“Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed.” Thomas Jefferson

some things don't add up

2006-08-16T04:55:00.000-07:00

How did a jet fuel fire, which burns at 1,700 degrees, collapse the Twin Towers, built of steel that melts at 2,800 degrees? The impact of airliners, made of lightweight aluminum, shouldn’t have been enough alone to cause structural failure. How could a planeload of jet fuel; most of which flared off in the initial fireball cause the South tower to collapse?
Why did building WTC-7 fall, though no aircraft struck it? Fire has never caused a steel skyscraper to collapse.
Why did all three buildings collapse into their own footprints like a controlled demolition?
Why did no U.S. military jet intercept the hijacked aircraft?
The outcome of a Zogby poll was that 45% supported calls for a new inquiry on behalf of Congress or an international tribunal and that 42% believed the 9/11 Commission was a cover-up. Exactly 24 hours later, an audio tape alleged to contain the voice of onetime CIA intelligence asset Osama bin Laden reinforced the legend that he had personally directed 19 incompetent Arabs to carry out the attack.
If you plan to attack New York and you are a poor pilot wishing to be successful without giving the Air Force the chance to follow their normal procedures and intercept your plane, why would you fly out of Boston? Why would you risk getting lost or stopped as you try to fly 190 miles to your target when you can hijack a plane from one of three airports within sight of the target? We’re told that these hijackers were such geniuses that they could deceive the most sophisticated air defense system in history. Does this make sense to you?
Terrorists don’t target the well behaved who mind their own business and help their neighbors. They mark aggressors. Once we fought against aggressors and empire but now we have become them.
Patriotism without knowledge of history and political philosophy deteriorates to nationalism which makes folks the state's fools. It is hard for the egos of the West to understand that much of the rest of the world would like a little respect and treating them as though they were a bunch of unmanageable teenagers is not a good way to go about it. It is harder to make peace than to make war and the media should occasionally talk with those who know something about it.

Governments ignore grievances about injustice and poverty so citizens resort to demonstrations or violence when they see no other way to be heard. What can we do when our “world leaders” and the people are acting like fools in attempts to solve the problems confronting us?
Used to be folks in this country could protest and express their discontent. This is what happens when dissent is forced underground. More to the point; this hearkens back to the riots France was experiencing earlier with its disenfranchised population.

Even serfs in the Dark Ages were only required to labor one day in five for their lords and masters. future citizens in the Land of the Free won't have it so easy; they will have to work up to every other day just to pay their taxes and service a debt now being created by our “leaders”. The most expensive circus staged by Genghis Bush is the War on Terror. This one is longer than our Revolution, WWI or America's involvement in WWII. We fight bush’s war now but our children will pay for it.
Terrorists are not adversaries like countries. They are referred to as outside the political process, but how would they get there if the process didn’t eject them. You hear it all the time; “they” won the “election” so “they” get to decide how others live. Once again Bush and his cronies are shouting up the fear factor in the face of upcoming elections.

our differences don't matter that much if we wish to choose survival

2006-08-12T05:56:00.000-07:00

Our differences don't matter much when we remember we are all creatures of God. The use of force is a poor solution to any problem; it is generally used only by small children and large nations.
Americans are firm nationalists, much readier to consider the use of force than Europeans. A German Marshall Fund survey in 2005 found 42% of Americans strongly agreeing that “under some conditions, war is necessary to obtain justice” compared with just 11% of Europeans. Europeans have had more personal experience with war than America. “American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran.” says an international public opinion poll.
RNC chairman Mehlman said of Lieberman; “Like the proud history of so many Democrats before him, Joe Lieberman believed in a strong national defense. And for that, he was purged from his Party.” This statement shows us that the GOP believes invading other countries, and even worse loosing, is defense. Invading Iraq and diverting our attention away from Osama isn’t being strong on national security. The most curious version of this argument came from William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. “What drives so many Democrats crazy about Lieberman is not simply his support for the Iraq war, it’s that he's unashamedly pro-American”; As if being pro American was the same as supporting gov’t actions. The RNC now sends junk mail to people that threatens them with terrorist attacks if they don't donate to the Republicans.
Darth Cheney said that the Lamont forces want to “retreat behind their oceans.” the coordinated attacks from war supporters, calling those Connecticut voters who voted for Lamont Osama supporters or all the rest of the crap we've heard because the Iraq War propaganda campaigns and failed policies are falling apart around their ears.
Democrats would be wise to attack the shrub, the incompetent and pork-obsessed Republican congress for the complete failure of Iraq and for treating true U.S. anti-terrorism needs as little more than partisan opportunities for Republican pork, oratory, or justifications for breaking the law. To declare an opposing political party representing over half of America to be a terrorist organization is a bit over the line. Maybe, you think?
“Lamont’s victory was a triumph for the left and a defeat for America because it may mean that future elections will be run between candidates of a pro-US party and nominees of an anti-US party,” said ACU chairman, David Keene. “Lamont is a nobody with money who has managed to demonstrate to the world that there is no room in the Democratic Party for candidates or office holders who disagree with the far left belief that our country is the source of all evil in the world.” Many Americans have noticed that this administration is real good at alienating and dividing people, both nationally and internationally and making outrageous charges. Take Iraq; as that nation sinks deeper into civil war; oh, sectarian tension, everyone sees that we had no business attacking it, and that the repugs WMD-fearmonger, scary saying of things was nothing but self serving lies. Nine eleven. I can also say that there are bad folks in the world, allowing the shrub to play with that color-chart thing while he makes sure you have fewer freedoms for them to hate. Maybe it ain’t freedoms they hate but our actions. What a curious idea.
When dealing with proven liars like the bush regime; liars who have used fear mongering over and over to enhance their own political standing, and liars who in this case control all of the information there are no independent agents bearing witness; just the same governments who have lied to us about “intelligence and security” issues time and again, telling us about secret plots tracked in secret by secret forces, who now hold the alleged plotters in secret.

incompetence and thievery

2006-08-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

Watching five years of Bush evade the Congressional approval process can’t be much different than watching Hitler gather his regime. It seems like every person who has ever failed our nation, violated the Constitution, lied to the public, violated human rights, cheated the taxpayer or spent time in prison for committing crimes while in government has been appointed or promoted by Bush.
We live in a nation where the good guys finish last. Our nation is controlled by the bad and the ugly. The worst of the worst continue to control every important position in our nation. There is not one Bush appointee that I can think of who does not have direct conflicts of interest with the intended purpose of their position. This is a regime of foxes guarding the hen houses. How much more will we take? How much more has to happen before the situation becomes irreversible? Will we ever recover from the damage being done to the nation, the world and the planet itself as a result of the current regime in Washington?
Bush is taking a hugely expansive interpretation of the Constitution and the president's power under the Constitution. Bush is making up his own laws and his own power as he goes along. Actually, he is destroying the Constitution because he is making it increasingly irrelevant with each transgression of the limitations of power set forth by the Constitution. He has said many times that the second amendment allows him to do whatever he decides.
Many are wondering whether Bush will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history. The History News Network surveyed 415 historians and 81 percent decided the Bush presidency is a failure. More than 50 percent of the public finds Bush both dishonest and untrustworthy. He is a war president who squandered the worlds' good will after 9/11, reinvented the doctrine of preventive war, discarded multinationalism, international law and the Geneva Convention, and brought us Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and out government kidnappings. William Buckley, considered the founder of modern conservatism, said; “One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed”. Genghis bush said; the enemy cannot defeat us on the battlefield, but what they can do is put horrible images on our TV screens. We might ask ourselves who created the images and being informed is what the first amendment is all about.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg established the model for prosecuting war crimes. Justice Robert H. Jackson ruled that military aggression constitutes the "supreme crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole"
Our rulers expect us to believe their propaganda as well as to be obedient. Others are satisfied with obedience. With out military in 170 countries we fight much of the world and spend as much as the rest of the world does to do it. Wake up and smell the butchery. George "I'm The Decider" Bush has been quoted as saying his job would be easier if he were a dictator; it's clear that he already is one.
America's children are at risk from kidnappers, pedophile priests, and horny teens; this fills the media. They are more endangered from the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat, and the chemicals that fill their homes and schools allowed by our own government.
Won’t do anything about allowing us to freeze credit reports because the banks don’t want it but do foolish stuff like flag burning and English as official language laws.

our gov't pretends to make us safe

2006-08-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

While government may be necessary, its power should be checked at every opportunity. If “conservatives” get their way, enormous new powers will be given to the federal government. If the gov’t starts prosecuting the receiver of leaks, then Americans would trust the people who make national policy to determine when the rest of us are allowed to know their mistakes. Forget the problems this poses for the First Amendment; what about the values of good government? Republicans are always harping about getting the government out of our lives while they are using government to obtain no bid contracts, make law in the corporate interest, stock the courts with pro-corporate judges, redrawing political districts and using the military to invade and occupy sovereign nations in order to privatize them. What businessmen really mean by getting government off our backs is preventing government from regulating commerce, as if there were some connection between capital, democracy, and freedom. What Bush and his kind are really talking about is absolute corporate rule; fascism.
Bush's senior aides recently received a $4,200 raise and now earn a top pay rate of $165,200. Those at the bottom of the White House staff pay scale who answer phones and such got no raise, and remain at last year's pay floor of $30,000. Those at the bottom didn't even get scraps. Who is the decider of those salaries? White House salaries and job titles are largely controlled at the discretion of the president. Anyone surprised by Republicanism in all its glory? If people acted like governments, you'd call the cops.

“Conservatives” believe that courts can't be trusted to punish businesses, but believe they can be trusted to govern the death penalty fairly. “Conservatives” believe that the ACLU is bad, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the NRA is good, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution. “Conservatives” believe that there is some miraculous quality about unregulated markets that cause businesses to operate in the public's best interests. They believe that that Jesus shares “conservative” hatred of liberals, the ACLU, feminists, environmentalists, AIDS victims, homosexuals, the Clintons and those on welfare. They say that welfare weakens people, but corporate welfare strengthens business. “Conservatives” oppose raising the minimum wage saying it will cause inflation, but giving billions of dollars to the richest Americans will boost the economy. They say it supports the military and is patriotic that Bush sends our troops into wars, yet simultaneously cuts veteran’s benefits, military hazard pay and military family services.

Conservatives want you to fear and suspect illegal immigrants so they can pretend to make you safe. Meanwhile, the simple solution to illegal immigration is deliberately ignored. That is to prevent American businesses from hiring them. Stop that, and the illegals will go away. Wonder why Congress doesn't do that? It's because the American businesses that hire illegals want it that way. If you thought Congress represents the people, you haven't been paying attention.
Republicans used to say there's nothing worse than a tax-and-spend liberal Democrat. There is something worse: It's a borrow-and-spend Republican. Republicans oppose the brotherhood of people all over the world. Their activities seem to oppose peace or the idea of cooperation unless it is under their conditions. The idea of democratic planning seems against their methods as they exclude others unless they agree with them.

american humitity

2006-07-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

A good definition of the word humility is “teachable”. It implies listening rather than talking. It requires surrender. It requires self-examination. What do citizens think about their country and their life beyond what they are told? A commuter has as much liberty rotting in a traffic jam, as does a cow in a cattle drive. Oddly, large numbers of Americans continue to see themselves as cowboys as, all the while, they allow themselves to be prodded along like cattle. Though they may see themselves as rugged individualists, riding over the expanse of the open prairie, their corporate cattle masters see them as mere commodities, consumers, on the hoof whose hides and hinds only exist for their value on the so-called open market.
We need political leaders that look no farther than our shorelines. We are neglecting our problems while trying to solve “problems” in other countries. It seems to me that the people in Washington either are so far out of touch with reality that they are ready for a rubber room or are so corrupt that they deserve to wear orange jumpsuits. A proper foreign policy does not meddle in the internal affairs of another country. It seeks only fair trade and nothing else. It avoids foreign alliances. It requires Americans to defend only themselves. It is a national disgrace that so many thousands of Americans have died in wars that had absolutely nothing to do with the safety and security of the US. The power addicts in Washington are abandoning the warning of our first president. The price of forcing your beliefs on another is that eventually the ones we force may be doing the forcing. No one has the right to impose their fantasies, illusions or fears on the rest of us but the “radical right” are doing so here.

The differences between patriotism and nationalism are vast. Our soldiers are said to be fighting for the “American way of life.” That “way of life” includes the principles of a liberal democracy: political equality, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of and from religion, the democratic process of voting in free and fair elections, and rewarding hard work and ability. Today’s “American way of life” ain't what it used to be. The traditional “American way of life” has been undermined by a radical group who are ideologically opposed to it. The right-wing ideologues that have seized control of our government are in pursuit of their own utopian fantasy of a society where corporate freedom provides the answers to all our needs. This ideology just happens to relieve the wealthiest of the tax responsibility that have traditionally subsidized the services that eased the burden on the ones they used to gain that wealth. By their actions the right seems to think there is no reason for any views to by followed other than their own and refuse to consider their sacred cows otherwise. For example, do you really believe a politician gets a multi- thousand dollar campaign contribution with no strings attached?
The FBI may soon have the right to approach any business or person and say, “Hand over whatever we want,” and a gag order would be attached. You can't challenge the subpoena. You can't talk about it. Under this bill it would be a crime in some instances for the recipient of such a subpoena to tell anyone that they had received one. Some in congress complained that such a gag order “could prevent the recipient of an FBI administrative subpoena from exercising First Amendment rights to protest government action, including by bringing abuses to the attention of members of Congress or Inspectors General.” With an administrative subpoena, an FBI agent could--without going to a court or a grand jury--demand that a person or institution hand over any record on another person or organization.

The foreign butchery in our name continues while our economy is sucked dry and the Bill of Rights mutilated by the parasites in Washington, and all that some people can worry about is whether an unholy and wholly un-American Pledge of Allegiance to the state is better or worse if it includes an idolatrous mention of God.

health insurance

2006-07-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

Polls consistently show that over two-thirds of Americans want universal tax-supported health insurance. Gallup found that 79 percent of Americans want coverage for all and 67 percent don't mind if taxes are raised to pay for it. Fully 78 percent are dissatisfied with the present system. Medicare, the one part of the system that is true national health insurance, for seniors, is overwhelmingly popular. There is no hotter political issue, nor one that strikes closer to home. So, if Americans overwhelmingly want national health insurance, why don't we get it? Insurance companies don’t want it so politicians don’t do it.
Politically, the immensely powerful private insurance industry would be displaced by national health insurance. Nearly all corporations would rather suffer with the devil that they know (escalating premiums) than the devil they hate (an expanded role for government). Ideologically, something supported by overwhelming majorities is seen as radical as was Social Security until it was enacted. A shift to national health insurance could move money from the private sector to the public sector in the form of taxes. It could also use the insurance companies. The result would be a far more efficient and reliable system. Many would see the increased taxes but not appreciate the savings in premium costs, payroll deductions, or out-of-pocket charges.

A first step would be public, universal coverage for everyone under age 25, a group relatively cheap to insure. That would be a big political step toward true national health insurance, because it would familiarize working-age Americans to the value of a universal system.
This country might have been better off if the terrorists who intended to destroy the U.S. Capitol building had caught Congress in full session. Sometimes I wish I could be as patriotic as the members of the House of Representatives, who voted to add a flag-burning amendment to the United States Constitution. The men and women of the House are great patriots. You can tell by their willingness to drop everything of substance to attend to the great symbolic issues of our day: flag desecration, school prayer, evolution and women in a persistent vegetative state. Forget Guantanamo Bay with its rumors of urine-stained Qurans. People who hate America are planning to do bad things to our flag.
Politics is a fee for service industry and doesn’t pass the straight face test. Corporations buy the right to use us and that is why we have no bottle bill, low CAFE standards and utilities poison our air or universal health insurance.
I find it strange that we live in a country which provides billions protecting our property with much needed programs for fire protection and police protection but resist required medical protection. Tying health insurance to employment distorts the economy: it systematically discourages the creation of good jobs, the type of jobs that come with good benefits. And somebody ends up paying for health care anyway.

In fact, many of the health care expenses G.M. will save by slashing employment will simply be pushed off onto taxpayers. Some former G.M. families will end up receiving Medicaid. Others will receive uncompensated care - for example, at emergency rooms - which ends up being paid for either by taxpayers or by those with insurance. G.M.'s health care costs are so high in part because of the inefficiency of America's fragmented health care system. We spend far more per person on medical care than countries with national health insurance, while getting worse results." When we allow our political parties and representatives to categorize programs as Liberal or Conservative we defeat most programs which would benefit all of us

shrub's lies fit a pattern

2006-07-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

Bush lies for attacking Iraq fit a pattern. The documents that surfaced in the British election verify bush had decided to go to war and then sought “intelligence” to sell it. Lies were also at the root of American attacks on Cuba in 1898, US entry into World War I and Vietnam. These lies are as undeniable as the fraud that dragged the US into Iraq.
In Cuba, the 1898 sinking of the battleship Maine brought the US into war with Spain. Media baron William Randolph Hearst wanted a war to sell papers. Republican President McKinley, personal hero of bush’s dirty trickster Karl Rove, sent the battleship Maine into Havana harbor. It blew up, killing some 250 American sailors. Spain was blamed, and Hearst got his war. Having just conquered and annexed the sovereign country of Hawaii, the Americans now annexed Puerto Rico and installed colonial regimes in Cuba and the Philippines. But Filipino guerillas waged a jungle resistance that dragged on for years. Angry anti-imperial movements emerged encouraged by Mark Twain’s writings.
New underwater technology has shown that the Maine actually blew up from the inside. Spaniards could not have sunk it. The explosion that brought it down most likely came from a faulty boiler. The Spanish-American War and its bloody imperial slaughter had been sold on lies.

US intervention in World War I was based on lies also. In 1915, as part of a blockade against Britain, the Germans sunk the passenger ship Lusitania. President Wilson screamed that Germany had violated international law. As Hearst had done to the Spaniards, Wilson portrayed "the Huns" as bloodthirsty barbarians. The Germans argued that the Lusitania had been carrying weapons, and that they were within their rights to sink her. A substantial majority of Americans angrily opposed US intervention, realizing only bankers would profit and that war would divert us from the real issues of unionization, poverty and Robber Baron domination of American industry.
In the face of an anti-imperial majority, Wilson withdrew troops he had sent into Mexico, and ran as a "peace candidate" in 1916 on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War". In April 1917 reviving bloody images of the Lusitania, Wilson dragged the US into the slaughter. Under cover of war, federal marshals burned and blew up offices of the Socialist Party and unions. Wilson shredded the Bill of Rights and jailed, deported or killed thousands of organizers.
Wilson did tip the military balance for Britain and France. The Allies demanded reparations which helped feed the Nazi movement and an even greater slaughter in World War II. Divers recently found the Lusitania filled with illegal armaments. As the Germans had claimed, the ship was violating international law. Like McKinley, Wilson had fooled America into war based on a "faulty intelligence."
Vietnam was also a lie from the beginning. The US had canceled elections which would have given Ho Chi Minh control of a unified Vietnam. In 1964 North Vietnamese allegedly fired on US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. While campaigning as a peace candidate, Johnson used the incident to win Congressional approval for unlimited intervention. The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened. Like the Maine and Lusitania, the guns of Tonkin were lies. Many argue that Roosevelt knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor, and that he let it happen.
We now add Bush's lies of Iraq. The war was sold as a way to destroy Saddam's WMD. The world was told Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, and was trying to get nuclear bombs.
British memos prove bush knew Saddam didn’t have WMDs, wasn’t involved in 9/11 and had no way to make atomic weapons. What happened to the perpetrators of these lies?
McKinley became the third sitting president to be assassinated. Theodore Roosevelt then dragged the Philippine slaughter to its tragic conclusion. Wilson's debilitating stroke came as he imposed the most intense attack on civil liberties in US history. Johnson's presidency descended into chaos. Nixon then took the lies of war to a whole new level.
What will happen to us and to the liars that dragged us into this latest bloody quagmire? History does not indicate a pretty outcome.

when congress is in session

2006-07-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.” will Rogers
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. We need a real anti-Washington agenda. That would require members of Congress to reject pork projects for their districts and stake the party's fortunes on fiscal discipline. In Congress courage is as rare as rabies. Congress has steadily become a place where ambition and partisanship reign supreme. Its members care little for substance and most for appearances. The effect on our national security may not yet be apparent to most Americans. Congress is not just uncertain with national security but it is trashing it. The military effectiveness American forces have shown in two wars against Iraq are not because of, but despite, Congress. U.S. armed forces are not supported at the level most Americans have been led to expect. The leadership in Congress and in the Pentagon work to pursue personal and career agendas, not national security.
There are three levels of society; the top level of politicians and military, the burocrats who control gov’t and corporate affairs and the rest of us who pay for it and suffer under it. You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. Those who can lead you to believe absurdities can lead you to commit atrocities.
Who expects the gov’t/the authorities to tell the truth? Some do and that has created two polarized groups. This polarization will logically lead to civil war unless the ability to develop consensus is relearned as one side can never successfully force another to their view. Politics, it has been said, is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy. This has contributed to our black and white views and generated friction.
Compassion has been replaced by fear in this country. This is what it must have looked like in Germany in the thirties. Most Americans focus on short term emotional stuff. We ignore the results of our actions on the future. September 11 could have been a starting point from which to better understand the world but became excuse not to understand it at all; 9/11 allows no argument or logic. When 3,000 people died on 9/11, Le Monde declared: “We are all Americans now.” Uncounted civilians have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war, yet who has declared that we have all become Iraqis, or Afghans, let alone Palestinians. This is not a competition. There are enough victims to go around; if the US continues on its present path, there will be many more.
The stated goal of the 9/11 terrorists and their leader was to “destroy” America by attacking those things that mattered most to our society. Only an idiot would think that simply meant buildings or people. Our politicians should remove their flag pin from their lapels and replace it with their first love which is a dollar sign.
In some people suffering creates genuine cruelty. The threat of suicide bombings in Israel serves as the motivation for building their “Berlin Wall” to protect Israelis from terrorist attack. The Israelis have lost more citizens than during the six-day war so no one should belittle their pain they say. Palestinians, on the other hand, have lost about three times as many people due to Israeli military aggression. Who, I wonder, needs protecting from whom or is some people’s pain more valuable than others’? Congress and the rest of our gov’t is Israeli occupied territory.
The foundation of gov’t is fear and like all irrational drives in such systems this fear cannot be overcome by total power and therefore grows into paranoia. Since ww2 we have controlled the largest military in the world yet have continually been afraid of some bogyman we have yet to find. We do however do a good job of creating enemies.

genghis bush creates our new fascism

2006-06-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Half of writing history is hiding the truth. What is “our way of life” and why is it so great? How do we know it is? We aren’t experiencing totalitarian rule where we need fear a knock at the door. No, your Supreme Court has eliminated that anxious picture. Instead, there will be no knock. No-knock police raids are dangerous with a risk of injury or death to innocent citizens. The Supreme Court ruling paves the way for more. There is a distinction between regular and “no-knock” warrants. The court has decided there should be no exclusion of evidence when police, without authorization for a no-knock raid, go ahead and do one. With no criminal penalties for recklessness by police that would land any ordinary citizen behind bars the problem is bound to increase. What happened to the movie scenes of the cops telling Mugsy that the joint is surrounded, and he better come out with his hands held high? When you remember the movies which made a distinction between the evil ones and our great democracy, police conduct was one of the points shown on the screen.
The official position of Genghis bush is that the government can lock you up anywhere in the world, torture you and tell no one about it. And if someone does find out and starts talking trash like “habeas corpus” or “Fourth Amendment,” too bad: It's true that you and I are not being grabbed on the streets and sent to a secret police torture-training camp. But your rights and mine are not supposed to be at the whim of the government. They are based in the Constitution and those we put in power to obey it even as interpreted by judges they may disagree with. The most distressing aspect of this story is the apparent attitude of our current rulers that the Constitution is an obstacle to be overcome or circumvented. Remember the good old days when the authorities had to have a reason to search you or your home? Remember when you used to sit in your living room watching German citizens being asked for their papers by the Gestapo in a movie? Remember how safe you felt as you watched the Gestapo threatening people. Do you remember the scenes of implied torture and murder at the hands of the Nazis? Remember how you felt as you watched from the safety of your home?
Well, who knows, maybe someday someone will be watching your story on TV asking thinking the exact same thing.
You place your trust in people, media and politicians you don’t know. They have motivations and resources unknown to you and gain by your support.

pledge your feality to the masters

2006-06-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

It’s strange that the Pledge of Allegiance seems to be performed only by children who are too young to understand its meaning. It is, in essence, propaganda, and politics were the source of its invention. The pledge began as a simple suggestion from the editor of a children’s magazine in 1892 who thought it would be a great thing for kids to recite. The pledge was made a requirement in the twenties as militaristic flag fever grew along with opposition to immigration. Politicians thought it was a good way to instill national loyalty. The phrase “under God” was added in 1954 during McCarthy’s infamous days in the sun.
America’s earliest settlers left England because, among other reasons, of religious persecution. Unless you were a member of the Church of England, you were not allowed to vote, teach or hold office. Our founders saw this as unfair and set upon forming a government that would be kept separate from religion. There is no reference to any God in the Constitution. Jefferson’s letters from Paris clearly and strongly insisted on an amendment to the Constitution that would create, as he put it, a wall of separation between church and state. This would ensure both freedom of, and freedom from, religion.
Children aren’t technically forced to recite the pledge; it is clearly a de facto use of force. The rote, ritual nature of it, combined with the power of the teacher and peer pressure, make it difficult for a child to do anything but go along with the crowd. I don’t see this as something our founders would have wanted for us. The founders risked all for the principle of gov’t created by ordinary people and not by divine power. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the state. The bill of rights denies the gov’t any legal opportunity to compel consent of the citizens. No official can order what shall be standard in politics, nationalism, religion or force citizens to declare by word or deed their faith in that “standard”. The government should be pledging allegiance to citizens and their rights, not the other way around.

This issue, emblematic of the “culture war,” allows both wings of the establishment to mobilize their grassroots troops, get the votes out, and keep the campaign dollars coming in. Nothing so enhances the state as distracting and endless arguments over non-fundamentals.

we suffer from those who hate

2006-06-10T04:22:00.000-07:00

Niemoeller said, "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
The hardest thing to teach a military recruit is how to summon the mental strength to kill. Creating hatred is a necessary part of getting wars up and running. Orwell's 1984 demonstrated how hatred becomes state-sponsored.
Those who hate have been at it since the world began. Anyone who is different gets the attention. Hatred keeps the controlling group focused and easy to manipulate. Lynching flourishes under such conditions. There are many levels of lynching like the swift boat boys did for Kerry. What it takes is a target and some loud mouths to motivate the unthinking into action.
These voices want their mean shortsightedness to be national policy. They blaspheme the very icon they profess to worship by their cruelty and intolerance. The media labels these bigots; “people of faith.” To a remarkable degree, the press has accepted the bitter public policies of the Christian right as worthy of respect. The Christian Nationalists attempt government compulsion to enforce “Biblical morality.” No more separation of church and state. They systematically back “Christian” politicians, who hurt the poor and middle classes. The people who were against the women's right to vote or civil rights were called “conservatives.” Many became Republicans right after Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
We have what's called a “Confirmation Bias.” We run around with people that think like us. Some Christians insist everyone be like them while complaining about people being anti Christian. Morality considers all human activity but some focus on the mating habits of their neighbors. It seems that a benefit of being religious in America these days is that you don’t have to be responsible for anything as long as you believe.
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever,” Thomas Jefferson said, of the price America would eventually pay for slavery. Slavery was justified by various bible verses. Now homosexual relationships are vilified the same way.

patriot act is continuation of government suppression

2006-06-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

A zealot is one who loves their idea of principles so well they will commit crime to maintain or obtain it. The Patriot Act contains provisions for the “war on terrorism”; it is in conflict with the civil liberties preserved in the Constitution. Many of the provisions are violations of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Patriot Act allows the government to search someone’s home or office without informing them. It allows the government to obtain an individual’s library records, medical history, and financial documents, among many other items, without any probable cause of a crime. It requires judges to approve of wiretaps without knowing who the suspect is. Citizens can be jailed for an indefinite period of time, without any requirement that the government demonstrate that they are a threat. It’s not surprising that the government is attempting to strip people of their rights and freedoms.

In the Vietnam War, Nixon used the FBI to spy on anti-war activists, and directed the IRS to harass members of the anti-war movement. After Daniel Ellsberg gave top-secret files concerning U.S. involvement in Vietnam to the press, Nixon ordered his agents to break into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist and obtain documents that could be used to embarrass him.
Congress was afraid of communism during the Korean War and passed the McCarran Act of 1950. This required organizations regarded to be communist to register with the Department of Justice, to identify their members, and to furnish their financial records. It also excluded communists from employment in defense factories. Communists were barred from immigration and any alien suspected of being a “subversive” could be deported. In 1952, Congress became more terrified so it passed the McCarran-Walter Act. It barred immigration to anyone who advocated “communism, anarchism, or opposition to organized government, or persons who have associated with Marxists or subversives.” All “subversive and undesirable aliens” were prohibited from entering America.
Roosevelt ordered the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans on the West coast but not in Hawaii. Some suspect this was a way to enable the powerful of the coast to take possession of substantial real estate. The Japanese were a minority on the mainland but more powerful in Hawaii. Between 1942 and 1944 about 120,000 Japanese-Americans were held. More than two-thirds were native-born American citizens of Japanese ancestry. The government gave families only a few days to dispose of their homes and businesses and prepare for internment. A Congressional study in 1982 estimated their total financial loss at $400 million. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled “residents having ethnic affiliations with an invading enemy may be a greater source of danger than those of different ancestry.” A year later, the Supreme Court ruled that internment was a necessity of war.
During WW I, there was intense opposition to America’s involvement. Wilson and Congress responded with a series of aggressive laws designed to squash dissent. In 1917, Congress passed the Trading with the Enemy Act, which prohibited the mailing of magazines and newspapers that were characterized as offensive to the government. One magazine was barred because of an article that argued, “This is Woodrow Wilson’s and Wall Street’s war.”
The Espionage Act followed which carried penalties of twenty-year in prison and a $10,000 fine for criticizing the war. In 1918, Congress passed the Sedition Act, which made it illegal to use “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the war, government, flag, Constitution, and the armed services. Approximately 2,100 people were prosecuted under this act. One went to jail for saying, “This is a rich man’s war.” Another served a year in prison for telling a small crowd, “The women of the United States are nothing more than brood sows, to raise children to get into the army and be made into fertilizer.” Another got three years for speaking about the economic causes of the war. The Supreme Court validated the Sedition Act, ruling that a pamphlet criticizing the war was an attempt to discourage the war effort.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously. “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.” — Thomas Paine

something mark twain was not allowed to publish

2006-05-28T04:45:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain wrote something he was prevented from publishing in 1902. I submit part of it below for your consideration. It asks a very good question.
“The Prayer” was, that an ever-merciful God of us all would watch over our noble young, soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bend them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory
“I come from the Throne, bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import, that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of, except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two, one uttered the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this and keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware, lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer, the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it. that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently prayed silently, And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us thee victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer? He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
Lord our father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle, be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. 0 Lord our God., help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
“Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

politicians and their goals

2006-05-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

Our self described leaders talk about hard work but talking ain’t working. If the rich, who control our country, spent the money they use to wage war helping the unfortunate all of us would be better off. The aggressive stupidity of the rich rulers; the fears and childish moral certainties of the mob, combine to make our society and future much less than it could be. The appearance of decency in a congressman is generally false. When politicians speak you can hear them thinking how we will make them richer. If our politicians cared about making our democracy work it would. As it is they keep their access to cash and power and so it remains broken until, one way or another, we make it different.
Our politicians demonize the media diverting attention from failed policies. The irony is that the corporate media deserve harsh criticism. They consistently fail to challenge the illegality of the war and the distortions that Bush has used to mobilize support for his adventure. We should hold the news media accountable when they fail. “Liberal media” is fantasy; from Limbaugh and Sinclair Broadcasting to Fox News, the Washington Times, and the Weekly Standard, “conservatives” dominate the media; including TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses. Count the number of times the media mentions cutting military spending as a means of balancing the budget.
When congressional debates about the Mexican-American War concluded, Jefferson Davis resigned his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and returned to his unit in the Mississippi State Militia. Taking a commission, he led them into combat on several occasions. He believed that the burdens of war should fall on those at the top. As a prominent citizen and government leader, he thought had an obligation to share the hazards alongside the common soldiers. Despite doubtful reasons for the war, Davis was willing to put his money where his mouth was. The situation in Washington has deteriorated drastically since then. How many congressional supporters of the Iraq War have resigned to join the troops in the field? How many senior members of this administration have left to fight in Afghanistan? What percentage of our ruling elite has children in the military?
If a politician makes a speech about the benefits of legislation, you can be certain it is nonsense and worse. Lying comes as natural to a politician as warts to a toad. Our rulers know enough only to seek their own gains by using the political system. One charming custom allows politicians to keep whatever money remains in their campaign chests when they retire. This makes for a perfectly legal bribery system.
The campaign for morality in government has brought us the most dishonest and the most secretive regime since Nixon’s. The party that most loudly promotes values always seems ready to elect candidates with the shadiest past.

If you support “majority rules” you must also support Hitler's rise to power. If you think Hitler's power and policies were wrong no matter how many people supported them, then you can't take a principled stance in favor of majoritarianism. If you think that democracy is a moral system, then you have to deal with the cases of Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler and decide how and why they aren't part of what you mean. Your explanation had better apply as well to the historical hard cases as it does to the present situation you have in mind. By eliminating the extremes from discussion, we make it too easy to settle our beliefs with the comfortable cases, never having to follow positions through to their logical conclusions. The question is this: are you willing to stand by your logic when applied to the extreme? If the history teaches us anything, it's that extreme cases are relevant. They do happen. They should be part of a dialogue about political principles.
We should avoid the trap of believing we are a chosen people. We are not. We are a lucky people, the beneficiaries of a bunch of bold, often criminal ancestors who seized the fattest part of the North American continent and fought off everybody who tried to take it away from them.

arab democracy

2006-05-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

“For too many years - 60 to be precise - American presidents were prepared to have a policy of exceptionalism in the Middle East concerning democracy.” These, you might be surprised to learn, are the words of Condoleezza. “We were prepared to say, well authoritarian regimes are there either because the Middle East, they don't really want freedom, or we want stability or any number of reasons that we have.” the offender has finally admitted responsibility for what he had long accused his victim of. This should end the culture-based explanations of the state of political stagnation in the Arab world, repeated by American politicians and the corporate media.

They said the whole world was endorsing democratic government, with the exception of the Islamic hemisphere, because of the “Islamic mindset”, which stubbornly clung to repressive rule. Muslims, we were told, refused to enter the promised land of democracy because their political culture was opposed to the lofty ideals of democratic governance. Islamic culture, these self-proclaimed experts never tired of repeating, is said to be a religion of violence, bloodshed and terror and the antithesis of democracy. Now we have testimony that the US has been the chief obstacle to change in the region.

The Western powers have certainly been responsible for support of totalitarianism in the region. American/British intervention overthrew Iran’s democratically elected gov’t in 53, and support many other tyrannical gov’ts. It is not widening its efforts in the propagation of freedom and democracy in the Middle East that the people of the region demand of the US; it is ceasing its murderous policy of supporting tyrants, then leaving the stage for them to do the rest.

What further concerns them is that the quest for democratic change not be used as a pretext for greater military, economic and political interference and a convenient instrument for forcing greater concessions and forcing an Israeli agenda on the region. Their historical experience with colonialism provides the inhabitants of this stretch of the globe reason to be skeptical. Power must always justify the wars it wages. Conquerors must legitimize their grab for power. Using morality to legitimacy and masquerading as unselfishness, war is made for the sake of a mythical peace. It was for their own good, bush said of his invasion; America is the centre of civilization and it has its duty to export its civilization to a world covered in darkness.

Bush presents Iraq as a shining model of democracy to be desired elsewhere, but it’s a bottomless pit of devastation, terror, torture chambers, death and fear, rather than the awaited paradise of freedom and orderly civility.

In Egypt emergency laws continue to be implemented, dissent is censored and thousands are jailed. The Egyptian prime minister is warmly received in the US and Rice congratulates his country, along with the Gulf hosts of American military bases, for their policy of “gradual reform”. Meanwhile, Washington's client in Uzbekistan carries on boiling his critics alive undisturbed.

It’s no secret that Israel's influence on American foreign policy has reached unprecedented levels with the current administration. Those familiar with the region know that much of its misfortune originates in this inalienable fact: the US looks at the region through lenses provided by Israel. The American agenda in the Middle East, as it currently stands, is hostage to Israeli interests to the extent that to tell where one ends and the other begins has become almost impossible.

Israel views democratic change in the region as a painfully risky prospect which indicates the bush democracy plan for the region is only a smokescreen for aggression. What Israeli strategists refer to as “enlightened dictators”, are much more preferable to whatever dangerous alternative the ballot box might provide.

It is this agenda which America must turn its back on, if it is truly committed to its mission of democratizing the Arab world. This would be our only means of securing real stability, without the unspeakable misery of prisons, torture cells, death, destitution, anger and despair. Failing that, the US would only stimulate the cause of religious and political extremism and guide the world towards greater calamity, and further down the horrifying precipice of hatred, violence and war.

2006-05-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

American fascists, using the excuse of religion, are working to change our open society. They are nationalist, stressing allegiance to country, culture, and their view of life. These Fascists enjoy bush’s “folksy man of the people,” style. Fascism seeks a public-private partnership of power. Fascism is attractive to the wealthy who see it as a way to insulate their economic power.
Pre-WWII Germany has some things in common with the US now. Nazi ideology grew out of Germans’ belief that their country was exceptionally privileged. This made them an exception to the rules. The average “Proud to Be an American” bumper-sticker-buyer believes the same thing.
At the beginning of Hitler's crusade he said: “My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press -- in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of Liberal excess during the past years. God does not make cowardly nations free.”
Stormtroopers protected Hitler’s rallies from protest as happens at bush events. They abuse any opposition. Hitler made a pact with the army and wealthy giving them free rein. The rich would not be taxed by the Nazis. They poured cash into the Nazi pockets to feed a propaganda machine unmatched until today.
Hitler turned the Reichstag into a rubber stamp for his programs as has bush. He used a phony terrorist act (The SS set fire to the Reichstag Building and blamed it on the communists) to clamp down on the people, for their own security of course. Bush did the same after 9/11.
“Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of freedom of expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permitted beyond the legal limit otherwise prescribed.” that is not a quote from the PATRIOT ACT, it is from a decree “for the Protection of the People and the State” issued the day after the Reichstag fire, suspending the sections of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties. It was described as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state.”
Once the Nazis had consolidated their power, newspapers or radio stations expressing opposition were shut down. Soon, all one heard or read in Germany was the Nazi’s “fair and balanced” viewpoint. Labor unions were villainized. Churches who protested were silenced. Pensions were erased and labor laws were abolished. New ones were substituted which left the workers with no right but to do what they were told. Then the book burnings began and an attempt to erase anything that did not agree with the Nazi view of the world.
In Germany government and business were closely tied as is happening here. Foreign enemies “threatened their/our existence.” The people were/are expected to approve anything to protect them from enemies. People who protested these policies were classified as traitors or enemies. They were tried, often in secret, and executed, or vanished. Particular groups were singled out as scapegoats and persecuted. The above description is only a sketch of what happened, but you get the idea.
The result in each case was a nation whose citizens were bombarded with only one point of view until they came to believe it, who marched lock step with their leader right into the abyss. In four years, we have gone from a respected nation that worked with the world to make it a better place, to a nation hated and despised for being a bully, liar, killer, torturer and a gross polluter, raping the environment for private profit and greed.

2006-05-12T03:37:00.000-07:00

We fight in Iraq today because Bush and the radical right believed America could turn the Middle East into a land of pliable free-market, pro-Western “democracies” through use of military force. This is rather like claiming a well-placed stick of dynamite can turn a redwood forest into a neighborhood of charming Victorians.
Shortly after the Iraqi insurgency started growing, Bush asked, “What's the matter with those people; don't they know how good we are?” “We're not here to kill,” said an American sergeant, “we're just here to separate the good from the evil.” Isn’t that the kind of work only God does? Do Americans think they have nothing to fear from God so why not give him a hand? This is America's crusade to bring freedom and democracy to modern Mesopotamia. Americans themselves have become less and less free ever since the republic was founded. Exactly how much freedom is left? I don't know, but however much it is, our “leaders” are eager to share it whether the recipients want it or not.

We set ourselves up as the world’s judge, jury and executioner. However virtuous some Americans may feel in taking this role much of the rest of the world is likely to hate us for it. Our evangelizing civic nationalism seeks to remake the world in our image which amounts to saying we are always right. We trample on countries that pursue their own goals and decide they are enemies of freedom because their goals are not ours. We support dictatorial allies who share our goals but ignore human rights.
“At posts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world, our men and women in uniform are taking the fight to the terrorists overseas, so that we do not have to face the terrorists here at home.” Consider for a moment the colossal, hideous arrogance required to tell someone that we have invaded their country, killed tens of thousands of their countrymen and thrown open their borders to terrorists who are killing yet more thousands of their countrymen, “so that we do not have to face the terrorists here at home.”
Never mind the nonsensical notion that the terrorists going to Iraq for their urban warfare graduate degrees would otherwise be swarming our gates, or, that there are no terrorists who are not hypnotically drawn to the flame of Iraq: it’s the sheer depravity of it that’s damned near incomprehensible. It’s like telling your neighbor that you kicked in his door so a roving band of rapists could have at his daughter instead of yours.
To prevent terrorism end unjust military occupations: Israel needs to withdraw from the Golan Heights, which belong to Syria. The Israeli military occupation of the West Bank must be ended. The Russian scorched earth policy in Chechnya needs to stop. Some conclusion of the Kashmir issue must be attained. The US needs to conduct an orderly and complete withdrawal from Iraq. And when all these military occupations end, there is some hope for a decrease in terrorism. People need a sense of autonomy and dignity, and occupation produces helplessness and humiliation which is what causes terrorism.
One option is called “staying the course” which means continued fighting. France “stayed the course” in Algeria in the 1950s as America did in Vietnam and as the Israelis are now doing in Palestine. It has never worked anywhere. In Algeria, the French employed nearly half a million troops, to fight roughly the same number of insurgents as America is now fighting in Iraq. They lost. America had half a million soldiers in Vietnam and gave up. After forty years of warfare against the Palestinians, the Israelis have achieved neither peace nor security. Wars of national self-determination can last for generations or even centuries. Britain tried to subdue and exterminate the Irish for nearly 900 years, the French fought Algerians from 1831 until 1962; Russia has been fighting the Chechens since about 1731. There was no light at the end of those “tunnels.” The “natives” were not properly grateful for having their property invaded and their houses bombed. Our actions in the mideast are like the soviet actions in Eastern Europe where we attempt to impose our will.

political critters and their lies for war

2006-05-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Our politicians push us into conflict with their contest to be tougher in the eyes of the voters. The problem is that while the actions of bin Laden were drastically wrong, the policies that enraged and transformed him were terribly wrong as well. To admit that we bear some responsibility is unthinkable to those who equate determination with virility, but for those who wish to turn away from the current madness then it is worth examining with care rather than with spin.
Since the US is essentially a vast island its inhabitants often think that they are unconnected to the wider world. Most Americans may not believe the rest of the world exists and is only something that one occasionally sees on television. 9/11 was a reminder that even the defenses of an island can be breached. It was also a signal that our government’s routine to intervene as it liked to impose its will on others, is no longer cost-free. In a world of increasingly powerful technology, each individual is potentially much more powerful, and this was a development that al-Qaida saw and figured out how to use.
When terrorism is discussed conservatives point to institutional failures and “liberals” all the while side-stepping the issue of their personal responsibility. The “right” instantly equates any legitimate questioning with disloyalty which then cancels out any discussion or investigation. They convict their opponents with innuendo and exaggeration. It’s a tactic which Goebbels and his Nazis would be proud of in its effectiveness. It is the big lie tactic. Fascists believe taking orders and following authorities is one of their foremost duties. They focus on national interests, military and aggressive commercial policies and at the same time claim to be Christian. There is an obvious clash involved here.
This nation’s rejection of treaties and agreements on criminal courts, human rights, labor and environmental protections would make you think we are obsessed with sovereignty. Conservative politicians say we should not allow foreign values to be imposed upon us. Foreign control from trade agreements like NAFTA and the world trade organization are exempted. In this area of law our social, environmental and labor law is unaccountable to voters. When the goal is corporate it’s ok to waive sovereignty? On the human rights front bush said domestic law did not apply at Guantanamo Bay prisoners because it was a part of Cuba which must be a hilarious surprise to Castro. We need a single standard for human rights and sovereignty for the world, which include the US and is not subject to change for underhanded reasons.
President McKinley told the country the USS Maine had been sunk in Havana Harbor by the Spanish. Americans, outraged by this apparent unprovoked attack, supported the Spanish American War. The Captain of the Maine had insisted the ship was sunk by a coal bin explosion, investigations after the war proved that such had indeed been the case. There had been no mine.

Hitler used this principle of lying to his own people and told Germany that Poland had attacked. The Germans, convinced they were being threatened, followed Hitler into Poland and WW 2.
FDR claimed Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack. It wasn't. The US saw war with Japan as the means to war with Germany, which Americans opposed. Roosevelt needed Japan to strike first. Following a plan devised by the Office of Naval Intelligence, Roosevelt provoked Japan into the attack. Contrary to the official story, the Japanese didn’t maintain radio silence, but sent messages intercepted and decoded by US intercept stations. Tricked by the lie of a surprise attack, Americans marched off to war.
President Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to send Americans to fight in Vietnam. There were no torpedoes in the water in the Gulf. LBJ took advantage of an inexperienced sonar man's report to goad Congress into escalating the Vietnam.
A lot of people claiming to be Christian have killed mountains of their fellow humans for power and money. In ten months of the battle of Verdun in 1916 700,000 died.
Today that continues with more Christians killing more with the same rationalizations as before; just make sure we have the Ten Commandments posted.

genghis bush

2006-05-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

After Hitler was elected German Chancellor in 1933, the novelist Thomas Mann noted in his diary that he was witnessing a revolution “without underlying ideas, against ideas, against everything nobler, better, decent, against freedom, truth and justice.”
The crimes of King George are clear. To accomplish them he has enlisted the backing of large corporations and wealthy citizens but also what are, I hope, unwitting citizens. By talking the talk, and seemingly walking the walk, bush has convinced many that he shares their values.
Shrub spoke of a “culture of life” and how he doesn’t support using federal dollars to destroy life. He was speaking of using frozen embryos for stem cell research. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but forcing personal beliefs of a minority into national policy when those beliefs violate the rights of others is wrong.
If he believes life is so valuable, so sacred, then what about the killed and the wounded in Iraq? What about the Iraqi citizens killed and maimed every day with our federal dollars? Do they count in Bush's culture of life? Are their lives less worthy? Can any rational person justify our actions in Iraq? Are these your moral values?
Jesus wants us to use depleted uranium laser-guided munitions to incinerate crowded neighborhoods in Baghdad. He wants Fallujah and Najaf razed to the ground like a new Carthage. He rejoices in the needless death of Iraqi children because of fetid, contaminated drinking water and looted hospitals. He sneers at those who comment on the no-bid contract money changers in the Temple. Every smashed city, every young child whose life leaks out into the thirsty desert sands, every scream from the torture chambers brings joy and gladness to His heart. We know all this because Jesus said it directly to Bush.

King George said, “We can all pitch in by being better conservers of energy. I mean, people just need to recognize that the storms have caused disruption and that if they’re able to maybe not drive when they take a trip that’s not essential, that would be helpful.” Bush realized this crisscrossing the country in airforce one at $6,000 per hour for photo-ops.
Bush actually has honored his 2000 campaign pledge not to use the US military for nation-building, since nothing resembling nation-building has actually been accomplished in Iraq. The best way to “honor” those who have died in Iraq is for those who made the decision to invade to resign their positions and to apologize to the families of the dead, the nation, to the Iraqis, and to the rest of the world. Instead, we have people scrambling for political cover while they continue to speak of the “heroes” of Iraq, as though they were mere political pawns and not the sons and daughters of real people. Bush is a terrorist. He says a terrorist is somebody who kills innocent people. So, using bush's own definition, he is a terrorist, because there are almost 100,000 innocent Iraqis and Afghanis that have been killed. For too long, we have been acting like “obedient Germans.” Germans had the Holocaust. Americans had Manifest Destiny.
Perhaps there is more rotten than not. Like their counterparts in 1930s Germany, these masses are loyal, patriotic and obedient. They are the “Good Americans.” The intentionally created California electric energy crisis of Bush's first term, the MCI-WorldCom frauds, the Enron frauds, the charges against Ohio Governor Taft, the criminal trial of former Illinois Governor Ryan, the voter intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party in Ohio and elsewhere are all strong evidence that America is facing a breakdown in business ethics and political commitment to American Democracy. We have a runaway greed problem in corporate business circles that has spilled over into American politics and government. The power lust in political circles is as strong as the money lust in corporate business circles. The two have merged in the Bush Republican political machine. According to the latest polls, only 28 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, the lowest in a decade. The Nazis after all were elected and Serbs voted for Milosevic. Some elections are tragedies for a nation.

actual religious compassion

2006-04-26T05:31:00.000-07:00

Religion is built upon the foundation of helping humanity live in a peaceful compassionate condition. There are exceptions such as those who preach dying to accumulate people and possessions for eternity. These are the ones who concentrate on marginal issues such as the fine print of various translations, like women or gays, and then decide what Jesus really intended. Instead of bring people together these types draw a line between them and us. This encourages the very hatred religion is supposed to dissolve and is a defeat for the allegedly religious people. Compassion is the core of all major religion of the world and is completely opposite from hatred. How can religious leaders declare war in god’s name and use god to give a seal of approval to their opinions? They have forgotten what compassion is and its place in religious practice. It is not feeling sorry for someone but to make you one with another and understand their position. This is especially true for the effect of our actions upon another and realizing they have the same fear and pain as us.
Do not do to others as you would not have done to you and remember what troubles you will trouble another. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. Don’t worry yourself about which side of the bread the butter is on anymore than which of the various fine points your particular religion focuses on, including that you are god’s chosen, maybe.
Benefits don’t flow from God based from your following the orthodox procedures. If your faith moves mountains but lacks charity and acceptance it is worth nothing according to st. Paul. Greed and selfishness are the cause of misery. The golden rule requires us to focus on our adversaries more than ourselves. Compassion must be consistent, require effort and cannot be occasional or it is useless. To love your enemy requires actual compassion as there is no benefit to you beyond compassion and what it creates in you. If we allow our rage to fester we will hurt. Bin laden is not hurt by your hatred but you are. Indulging your rage only inflates your own feeling of being important as if you are significant. Atrocities don’t occur if you act in accord with the golden rule. If this is forgotten humanity will spiral downward. There is no final revenge that survives.

Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation

2006-04-20T05:03:00.000-07:00

“Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation."
In every society there are three groups: those who don’t think, those who believe they have the answer, and those who are always in opposition. The social order is determined by what it’s actually like, by the picture it has of itself and what it hopes to be. Vanity is what makes the world go round. Americans were lucky. Now, they’re vain. They believe that there is some magic to their economy, government, and society that makes it possible for them to be so smart that they no longer have to do the right thing. In Iraq, the American Secretary of Defense is giving elected officials advice on how to act. The man from Halliburton warns against cronyism.

We are used to being disrespected by bureaucrats. This is partially due to the fact that citizens don’t contact the authorities to celebrate. We are less aware of other ways in which government and corporations show contempt for those they “serve”. Corporations add conditions to what was once a simple transaction. We no longer buy things from a pleased firm but must “agree” to a list of conditions. This is a long way from the time when the worst corporate cop-out was that batteries were not included. Politics also overflows with contempt for the citizen, largely in the form of bribes known as campaign contributions that have made a handful of individuals considerably more important than the average voter.

The average CEO made $10 million last year. Why so much? Would $8 million motivate them less? Would they be able to quit their second job or allow their spouse to stay home if they earned $7 million? Would companies find qualified candidates for $6 million? Do you really think the majority would protect the rich minority if they had complete information? In a list of 30 prosperous nations only Russia and Mexico have more misdistribution of income than the US.

The US is 49th in the world in literacy and 28th in math literacy. The EU leads us in science and engineering graduates, and educational investment. In overall health care the U.S. was 37th and in health care fairness, we're 54th. US childhood poverty now ranks second to last, among developed nations, only Mexico scores lower and we rank 41st in infant mortality with Cuba scoring better.

2006-04-14T04:40:00.000-07:00

Does anyone, on their deathbed, wish they had spent another hour at the office? The “conservatives” think a minimum wage that provides a living wage is socialism and oppose it. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It is corporate fascism. Any attempt to regulate it more fairly, any attempt to reform capitalism is destined to fail due to the basic unchangeable nature of capitalism. Regulations and reforms may help to level out the playing field for a time, but in the long run capitalism finds a way to circumvent or deregulate any attempt to even it. Capitalism is a system of exploitation which is ultimately flawed. Capitalism is hostile to democracy. A system is democratic only to the degree that its citizens are equal in their political rights. This includes their financial opportunities and their access to the law (and lawmakers), whose equal protection must be guaranteed to everyone if the term "democracy" is to meaningfully apply. Genuine popular self- government is maintained by accurately informed citizens. Capitalism is based upon the use of power differences, and its smooth operation is maintained by a powerless uninformed or misinformed working class as we have now.
Here is the reason for the failure of democracy in the US and why our founding fathers chose a system of representative democracy. The ratification of the US Constitution was resisted by the public in its day. The framers of the constitution were rich white males worried about a popular uprising. Using the illusion of democracy, they designed a political system where decision making power was easily controlled by the rich and powerful. This gap later increased by giving protection and legal rights to corporations. As a result, almost every war the US has ever fought, every intervention the US has ever sponsored, and every bit of foreign aid the US has ever supplied was undertaken to support the right of the upper class to exploit labor and resources under the appearance of democracy.
American history is filled with resistance to public authority from its beginnings. The costs imposed on our society by big money are obvious. We pay high taxes with low wages, exorbitant drug, health care, and energy costs. Taxpayers want politicians to act in their best interests when the politicians take their money from special interests. In any other country we’d call our political system corrupt. Here we call it free speech and reelect those involved.

2006-04-11T04:35:00.000-07:00

Guess who's going to "rid the world of evil"? It's not Superman, or Batman but our very own Captain Dubya! Whether it is his religion, his politics, or his materialism, bush as world improver imagines nothing better than his own. And for all his drivel about making things better, what he really pursues is a vain effort to make his neighbors more like himself.
Bush speaks about helping people find democracy and creating ownership but it is obvious hypocrisy. His policies create no national health care where there is definite need, no minimum wage increase, no protection of labor rights. He is again trying to overthrow the democratically elected gov’t of Venezuela which shows his respect for actual democracy.
You voted for bush on abortion, gays and prayer. What you got was a symbol and no more. Republicans will never willingly give up these issues as they provide them with many tools with which to manipulate their voters. What you also got was legalized destruction of the environment which is our life support system. To save a few many will die. You have reduced birth control and education about it thereby making more babies that will be aborted or turn to crime. Abstinence is a joke showing those in favor of this have no memory of what it was like to be young, if they ever were.
The world improvers are not interested in private acts of kindness or innovation that might actually make their world better. Instead, they want to remake the world, by staging great public spectacles that flatter their own image of themselves. His ideal is a world that looks as familiar as his own house, just the way he wants it to look. If other people have other tastes and other ideas, well, they must be uneducated or evil. It is the double standard as consistently used by the “radical right”. The people in charge of Bush foreign policy are vain world improvers. And the world improvers don't appear to feel that they've done a good day's work unless they've killed someone. All the greatest world improvers have been mass murderers. Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Bush and his people are very comfortable with their beliefs and do not wish to have additional information which may cause them to question their beliefs.

2006-04-09T05:25:00.000-07:00

Every good “conservative” believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. “You are with us or against us.” This is the outlook of delusion and permits no facts or analysis as emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. “Conservatives” have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands there is no reason to fear or limit it.
We get the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof and preemptive war which permits the President to invade other countries based on unproven claims. There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative. They were ignorant, violent, delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts’ delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines. Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. It is amazing that only a short time ago the Bush administration and its supporters believed that all the US had to do was to appear in Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a greater example of delusion?
If the draft were to be reinstated, conservatives would loudly declare their pride that their family members are going to die for “our freedom.” Not one of them will be able to explain why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins is necessary for “our freedom.” This inability will not reduce their enthusiasm for the project. To protect their delusions from criticisms, they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and silenced. Because of the triumph of delusional “new conservatives” and the demise of the liberal media, this war is different from the Vietnam War. As more Americans are killed and maimed in the pointless carnage more Americans will have a powerful emotional stake that the war not be lost. Trapped in violence and unable to admit mistake, a reckless administration will escalate.

2006-04-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

Bush created legislation that protects insurance industry profits and bans punishment for the makers of dangerous drugs like Vioxx. His assault on trial lawyers is an attack on citizens' ability to sue corporations. Its part of an assault on the rights of citizens and small business owners who want corporations held responsible using the courts. Having successfully undermined or dismantled most regulation of big business, the next corporate agenda item was to strip citizens of our right to punish corporate criminals. We can find ways to curb groundless lawsuits, including disbarring lawyers found by review panels to have repeatedly filed trivial lawsuits. Genuine improvement would discourage the small fraction of suits that truly are frivolous and not protect corporations from one of our few working tools to hold them accountable. The average citizen needs the chance to bring civil suits because the gov’t has stopped protecting us and has sided with those who misuse us. Trial lawyers are our last resort for protection from rogue corporations. Poisoned air and water, shoddy products, bad drugs, bad doctors, tobacco and exploding tires are some of the many problems that the gov’t ignores at our expense. The claim that insurance costs are higher because of these suits sounds ok until you find that in the states with lawsuit caps in place they have those same high insurance premiums. The gov’t does not regulate insurance companies’ practices that create these costs. The insurance companies’ investment losses and their continuous appeals create these costs. The Exxon Valdese judgments have yet to be paid as the appeals stretch on.
What we see is a conscious, long-term effort by business and its conservative allies to weaken government protection of its citizens. Federal agencies rarely enforce the law any longer except in cases where they're pressured into it by publicity. Without fear of enforcement, respect for the rules wears away and greed takes over. “Voluntary compliance” is a useful concept, but only when companies know that it's not really voluntary, and that they'll get punished if they get caught cheating.
Corporations are properly in trouble for creating products that kill people, and Bush thinks it's unfair that victims request compensation in “junk” lawsuits. These asbestos suits have bankrupted a lot of companies, said bush, which shows the focus of his interest. It seems his concern is those impoverished corporations; not the citizens they steamroll.
Frank Monroe is one pissed-off federal bankruptcy judge. Just before Christmas, Judge Monroe was forced to deny Guillermo Sosa, an Austin, Texas, house painter, and his wife, Melba Nelly Sosa, emergency bankruptcy protection to avoid foreclosure on their mobile home. While sympathetic to the Sosas, Judge Monroe's hands were tied by the new bankruptcy law. The so-called Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) required that the Sosas receive consumer credit counseling before filing for bankruptcy. Unaware of this stipulation, they had failed to do so, making them ineligible.