God Dem!

Baby? What Baby?

2006-01-26T18:30:00.000-08:00

Mention religion these days at your peril. We are bombarded by images of Dominion takeover, court stacking, zealotry and the unsupportable Intelligent Design from one side, and belief of persecution, attack by secular hedonism and being the only party of faith by the other. We’ve been handed our positions by the dividers, not uniters; it’s time we lost the blinders.

It is no more true that all Republicans think Pat Robertson makes sense that it is that all Democrats are athiests.

Unquestioning acceptance of religious stereotypes according to party affiliation is a dangerous path. Entrenchment along these lines leaves little room for acceptance and growth, both as a nation and as individuals undertaking journeys of faith.

Jews are encouraged to constantly question their faith. Christians know that to rail against God is beginning of learning. Seeking, questioning, arguing and acceptance are part of every major faith on this planet. Most of those faiths are at home and welcome in their quest, here, in America.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them choose.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God. — Peter Ferrara, George Mason University School of Law

What I fear, and what motivates many faith based groups nationwide, is the potential backlash against religion caused by this insane manipulation of faiths for political gain; thowing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. When we see Intelligent Design stuck down in the courts, we need to maintain objectivity. This attempt to teach unsupportable theory should not be in the classroom; striking it down sent a great message. The message, incidently, is NOT religion is bad, go back and hide in your hole, you nut-jobs!

So what is the message? It’s simply that the steps towards faith need to be sought, questioned, argued and accepted elsewhere. School is not the venue. There is a place for religion in school, however, and its place in the curriculum is critical.

Human history is inexorably intertwined with the journeys, by billions, towards faith. The incredible gains in human interaction, the sorrowing loss of millions of lives due to religious manipulation and persecution, and the ability to grasp and understand inferences in literature and nuances in socialization cannot be understood fully unless some working knowledge of religious history is part of the student’s filter.

We need to be careful that in an effort to quash things like Intelligent Design, we lose site of the value of insightful coursework like “The Bible and Its Influence“.

Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center, says the textbook, which is promoted as an examination of the Bible’s influence on
literature, art, history and culture, successfully keeps religion out of public schools. The center is a non-profit institute that promotes constitutional freedoms covered by the First Amendment.

“If you’re considering a Bible elective, look at this textbook,” says Haynes, who helped review a draft of the book with 41 other scholars, including Christians, Jews and agnostics. “They’ve done a Herculean effort to make it as constitutional as they could.” — USA Today

I happen to know quite a bit about this project, as a family member of mine did a large chunk of editing on it. The effort to keep a historical, verifiable perspective was paramount. I have a great deal of respect for this work; I hope my kids have an opportunity to tackle this coursework and the inevitable questions it will raise. I’m not afraid of questions. They’re part of the quest for knowledge. They are also a crucial part of testing and building faith.

The correct position to take with religion in schools is not to look at how to bend facts to conform to religion, but rather to study religion’s far reaching impact on the continual development of the human race. It’s in our art, our music, and our literature, it affects our perceptions, our decision making and the stucture of our society. God is, literally, everywhere.

Regardless of our personal stance on spirituality, we cannot deny the influence of religion on the development of individual and societal humanity. Thanks to the efforts of dedicated, intelligent and frequently faithful scholars such as those involved in “The Bible and Its Influence“, we can keep the growing baby and lose the stagnant bathwater.

Crossposted at Bring It On!

In my Heart

2006-01-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile

If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile -- Warren Zevon

I used to think everybody has a person in their life that causes their mind to stretch into a new realm. I know now that people like that are unusual and considerable gifts. You get them for short time, and that time is your measure of what you can absorb and develop into something new.

I am a person of faith. I am also a skeptic of organized religion. To me, this makes perfect sense.

Organized religion doesn't reach me. The sermons do not hold my attention, nor do they dictate my behavior. Yet, I felt that both those things were the ultimate goals.

Reading about the intentions of Christ on this earth speaks volumes to me. I feel in my core that this is the measure in which the evolution of humanity is hinged. We will plateau unless we reach a level of love for each other that mirrors the love Christ enacted towards the least fortunate.

Gertie showed me through the way she went about her daily life that public and private piety were not exclusive. Her example, which began with the day and ended when she laid her head down, was a true example of taking the teachings of Christ, be they humility, kindness, selflessness or love, and simply living them. In pain for nearly 50 years, she endured. When she stumbled, she tried harder, when she saw need, she filled, when she saw hurt, she loved. In all things, she laughed, loved, and lived with lively interest.

Her faith was a strength, and her goal was to just be more like Christ -- more loving, more accepting, more humble, more appreciative. These qualities helped raise 10 amazing children, and they in turn marked the starting point for yet more loving families as grandchildren grew up and flew away into the world.

A tiny woman of sheer strength, self possession and determination won my heart and admiration. Losing her leaves me once again with a book in my hand, questions in my heart and a jaded eye.

It also leaves me with a flesh and blood example of why the journey is worth it.

It's the Money, Stupid

2006-01-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Abramoff Week has been interesting, to say the least. It's quite a feat to span the country with your crime spree, which leads me to believe Jacko has more staying power than, say, the Downing Street Memos. While equally damning, there's something about buying a company without any real cash, pilfering it with abandon, then starring at the ceiling whistling while the guy you bought it from gets snuffed, that has all the guilty appeal of good trashy novel. Mickey Spillane, anyone?

When Jacko went to Washington, however, is when the sex scene hit. Who need rules in today's Washington, anyhow? Jest goin' wid da flow, kid. This Washington iz open fer da bidness, doncha know. I gots me some gen-u-wyne goods here, and all I needs is a little grease. Bend over, baby, it's votin' time!

Quite the page turner, eh?

If there is anyone out there who doesn't get how completely Jacko is about to screw Washington, here's a primer:

Since 1998, the amount of money spent on lobbying has doubled.

Lobbying in 2004 ran to 3 billion. That's about twice what we spent on campaign finance. Herring, anyone?

"Our report reveals that each year since 1998 the amount spent to influence federal lawmakers is double the amount of money spent to elect them." -- Roberta Baskin, Center for Public Integrity

Approximately 250 former agency heads and members of congress are lobbyists. It pays, apparently, quite well.

And the paperwork? Oy Vey. Nearly 14,000 documents that should have been filed are missing; nearly 300 individuals, companies or associations lobbied without first registering; more than 2,000 initial registrations were filed after the allowable time frame; 210 out of 250 top lobbying firms failed to file one or more required document; and in more than 2,000 instances, lobbyists never filed the required termination documents at all. -- Center for Public Integrity, Lobby Watch

The fourth estate is cottoning nicely to their role of enablers. It's almost sickening. We saw 10 stories on campaign finance for every one about lobbying. Makes you wonder if the press is dining and hitting the links, too. Thank God for blogs.

Lobbyists spend a lot of time on the hill, with 17,300 companies lobbying the House, and a mere 17,200 lobbying the Senate. By comparison, a measly 2,000 companies lobby the Whitehouse. Must be why George has time for so many vacations. What a relief. I thought it was a question of attention span.

During the day, I spend my time keeping books. You keep books long enough, and accounting patterns emerge. Corporations develop their own cultures. Some are very above board, others put the payment amount in tiny type and the payment plus the penalty in big type. I always assume bottom line projections reflect the profit center resulting from holding all the money of the customers who don't pay attention. I feel pretty confident in that culture, it'd be up to the customer to notice they paid too much.

What's happening in Washington is a culture, too. We've got legislators who can influence direction, and corporations who want a variety of things that will enable them to make more money. Regrettably, these things often pollute, adversely effect the economic prosperity of workers or the prosperity of a country dependant on a robust middle class. Are all corporations bad? Hardly. But for some (Lockheed Martin, Altria Group, AT&T, Verizon, PhRMA), there's a definite culture at work, and in the last six years they've lobbied their asses off. (Can you hear me NOW?) I'll repeat it: Since Clinton, the amount of money lobbyists spend to influence votes in Washington had doubled. Doubled.

Things grow in a receptive environment. When something doubles in size rapidly, the culture must be conducive for it to do so.

Rapid, unchecked growth burns out. Maintaining the pace forever is just too much; the organism can't support it. Washington has been in a free-for-all state for too long; it's gotten sloppy. The real gift here is that so many lobbyists are former politicians; this group knows how to cut a deal.

Hellooo, Jacko. Wanna do lunch?

When the party busts up, we'll have a finite window to fix it. Sitting politicians will make the former politicians turned lobbyists out as the bad guys, but I think that's, in the vernacular, a load of hooey. So should you. When you pull a piece of meat out the fridge and it's green, do you assume the rot is just on the surface, or do you throw the whole mess away as a bad risk?

We're dealing with green meat, and the green money that drives it. As long as the next election is the whipping post every politician is tied too, the will of corporations will take precedence over the will of the people.

So, here's my two-cent solution. One Term and Out. President, 6 years. Senator, 8 years. Rep, 4 years. One shot at the money. No re-election campaigns, no need to raise insane amounts of money, no need to cut deals today for war chest cash tomorrow. Stagger elections so the congress is populated with new and experienced people, but no lifers. The original concept of Civil Service was to attract smart, patriotic people to "serve" a term for the country and then get back to their business. Coupled with campaign finance reform (that doesn't attempt to muzzle blogs while letting bought and paid for corporation-style news opine unmolested), One Term and Out could literally change the way Washington does business. Perhaps even put the trust of the American people back into the equation. Make our governance accountable to the people, for the people.

It's not a democracy if your representation is, literally, out to lunch.

Stepping Up

2006-01-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. -- Gilda Radner

I must take a week or two to be 1000% with my family. I will be back, and we'll tackle more stuff, but for now, that is where I need to pour my efforts.

If you pray, ask God to watch over Gertie. She's very special. He'll know who she is.

Milestones

2005-12-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

Milestones are like little gifts. You're handed the opportunity to reflect; how travels the path you've chosen, or didn't? What lies ahead? Are you ready? Are you scared?

Sometimes people don't recognize milestones. There's always something still out of reach, a goal or desire required for ultimate happiness. Other times, milestones are of the in your face variety. A decision is required. A door must open or close in your life. Relationships, jobs, death... all stones of a sort, to be endured or enjoyed, but undeniably, to be recognized and pondered.

God Dem! is one year old.

Re-reading my first post was interesting, to say the least. Like lots of left leaning bloggers, the Presidential Election was a turning point that bloated discontent to the breaking point and belched it into the blogoshpere. I was a belchee. Anger, an emotion I'd never felt in connection to the American political scene, was in my driver's seat. I'd lived in a reddish state, surrounded by people who ate, breathed and slept Rush Limbaugh, patiently waiting for sensibility to take over. Surely a blow job was not this encompassing.

But it was.

If so, certainly we could move past a "mis" leader after four years? The administration that scared me with nonexistant nukes, yellow cake, and WMD's should be accountable for their words, right? The President who was a divider, not a uniter, would publicly scrutinized for his actions?

What we saw was the nastiest election ever. Florida was too close to call. The last three weeks of the campaign left me nauseated. Truly, I saw American idealism decimated for profit and power. My country was not great, it was not honest, it was not civil or gracious. She was the hot, easy chick who asked for it. America is a nation that is comprised by millions. Our "being", as it were, is personified by the leaders we choose to implement the course we believe best. When the bullies took the keys from Diebold, they changed the look of the country.

They raped idealism.

Overnight, we became citizens too scared and stupid to know what was best for us. We allowed aggression to become our footprint, without viewing aggression through Honor's looking glass. Afghanistan lies on the bed, forgotten, while Cheney humps for oil. We've shit on our veterans, exist in racial denial, and denigrated our poor.

A year later, I look at the body of essays that is God Dem!, and I'm proud of the work. This blog started in anger has grown, and grown up. Through it, we've pondered the role of liberals in our world, the schism of the Democratic Party and religion, in three parts (1, 2, 3), the power of prayer, and the fall of an administration built on a tissue of lies. I've met some amazing minds, and learned how to defend with grace and pith.

Coming into another election year, we will undoubtedly be nauseated again. This time, though, the number of blog voices has grown in both ability and desire. We understand very well that nothing less than citizen involvement will do. There will be no more waiting for sanity to prevail.

Lock and load.

The Piper

2005-12-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

We are a country in love with clichés, figures of speech, maxims, you name it. In America, things come home to roost. If you build it, they will come. What goes around, comes around. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. We don’t do the crime if we can’t do the time

In the case of the Iraq war, it’s time to pay the piper.

Comparisons of Iraq to the Vietnam War are increasing. I’ve seen several remakes of Nixon’s “Vietnamization” speech of 1969, and it’s a bit eerie. Dems in Washington smell blood, and some of the more professional fence sitters (Hi, Hillary!) are sliding off the pickets. Personally, I think this country runs best when the congress and the Whitehouse are controlled by different parties. After this last fiasco, I’d like to see a fiscal conservative of any stripe replace the theo-wags in the House (Yes, Mr. Santorum, I’m talking to YOU, and no, I’m not Satan), and a Dem with vision at the helm. Gore would do nicely.

But, we were talking about maxims, weren’t we? Specifically, piper paying, I believe.

This is where any similarity to the Vietnam War ends. We have summarily created growing enemy combatant forces, training grounds and funding in Iraq where there were none. (See the things come home to roost thing, above. You see, we built it. Now, they are coming.) In Vietnam, we schlepped some fancy names on it, and finally, years too late, we pulled our troops out.

Confronted by a demoralized army on the battlefield and by growing opposition at home, in 1969 the Nixon administration started withdrawing most of its troops in order to facilitate what it called the "Vietnamization" of the country. The rest of America's forces were pulled out after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated a "peace settlement" with Hanoi. As the troops withdrew, they left most of their equipment to the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam — which just two years later, after the fall of Saigon, lost all of it to the communists. – Martin Van Creveld, The Forward

It’s VERY expensive to move gear out of an arena. That’s why we left all that stuff in Vietnam. That, and because in order to conduct a classic withdrawal, moving piles of equipment over hundreds of miles, we put our military personnel at extreme risk. Factor in a country guaranteed to sink into an all-out civil war, whose love of America is thin, and whose population is growing daily with our true enemy, Al Qaida, and you have a horrific scenario of our own making. What goes around comes around.

Why do it?

Well, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Our 1960’s version of the military was vastly different than the one we field today. The technological advances in weaponry which enabled us to mass greater firepower and effectiveness with less personnel (not to mention the huge cost of these weapons), means we don’t exactly have that many of them. It’s critical to our national defense that we keep them, and that means we have to move them with our troops. Hence we are already committed to an expensive and deadly classic withdrawal strategy.

Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will happen in Iraq.
Not only are American forces perhaps 30 times larger, but so is the country they have to traverse. A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not. – Martin Van Creveld, The Forward

Once we’ve paid for all that, we still have to maintain a presence in order to keep the dogs at bay. Iran, complete with impending nuclear capability, will sniff around that door immediately, and this war that wasn’t about oil but really was about oil is going to require us to stay in a security capacity. The value of the region is too high.

The cost of this war for lies, ego and profit sickens me.

Tough nuts. The piper is at the door and he doesn’t take checks.

Impeach Bush.

Sandbox Ettiquette

2005-12-01T16:18:00.000-08:00

Kids have a way of peeling back gentility. When needs are immediate, and generally self orientated, the niceties of cooperation are basically just in the way. After all, we’re talking things of value, here; who wants the red truck when the blue one rocks?

Not getting your way happens. It’s how you handle it that’s interesting.

Grabbing works, sometimes. Just march your happy self across the box and TAKE that toy. This works best for the littlest or the biggest kid. Little kids get away with grabbing because they’re too little to know better. Uh huh. Big kids get away with it because they’re scary. Oh boy.

Once a toy is commandeered, there are choices. Adults would ask for it back in a reasonable tone. In the sandbox world? I don’t think so. Depends on the variables. How big is the kid? Is your Mom looking? What would make you happiest? Grabbing it back, throwing sand, or just whacking the kid upside the head with the yucky truck?

See, you were having a good time with the blue truck. You made roads and built a big pile of sand. Things were great. Then, three kids grabbed your truck, stomped your pile flat and dug a big hole where your extra sand used to be.

Everything is messed up. You not only got no sand, you owe huge amounts of sand. You may never get that hole filled. Plus, they stole your truck!

Sometimes, being the nice kid in the sandbox sucks.

So you check out the three kids. Kid number one talks pretty tough, but you think he’s bluffing. He’s got the truck. He’s also got two kids to back him up. Kid number two is big. And scary. He looks like he’d eat live baby rabbits. He keeps digging that hole, deeper and deeper. Kid three is a weirdo. He keeps standing behind one and two, whispering in their ears. He’s creeping you out.

Big Time.

What’s the best way? Who do you tackle first? You can’t walk away because you really love that truck. After scoping out the status of the ruined sandbox, it’s obvious your truck needs you too.

Sometimes, problems are just too big for one kid to solve alone. A kid needs reinforcements. A kid needs numbers. A kid needs….you.

Allleealllee all in free!

Georgie swiped our truck. Little Dick’s digging for oil and smearing dirt to cover his tracks, and that weird kid Karl just took a crap in the sandbox.

There's a lot more of us now than there used to be. It's time to get our truck back.

Go!

The Real Deal

2005-11-08T05:38:00.000-08:00

Democrats stand accused of lacking vision. Not just by Republicans, either. Moderate stances are berated by the far left as selling out, and extreme left stances looked at skeptically as unattainable by the middle. While hanging on to this bucking bronco is a challenge, Dems revel in the significant change brought about when they stayed on the horse together.

We count things like the civil rights movement, the race for the moon, and The New Deal, complete with its progressive policies such as Social Security, laws to protect labor and the GI Bill in our win column. Big stuff. Changed the face of America. The basis for progressive American equality.

Hardly. Until we understand what went wrong, we haven’t got the true chance to be the party for positive change. Here’s why.

Between 1945 and 1955, the federal government transferred more than $100 billion to support retirement programs and fashion opportunities for job skills, education, homeownership and small-business formation. Together, these domestic programs dramatically reshaped the country's social structure by creating a modern, well-schooled, homeowning middle class. At no other time in American history had so much money and so many resources been targeted at the generation completing its education, entering the workforce and forming families.

But most blacks were left out of all this. Southern members of Congress used occupational exclusions and took advantage of American federalism to ensure that national policies would not disturb their region's racial order. Farmworkers and maids, the jobs held by most blacks in the South, were denied Social Security pensions and access to labor unions. Benefits for veterans were administered locally. The GI Bill adapted to "the southern way of life" by accommodating itself to segregation in higher education, to the job ceilings that local officials imposed on returning black soldiers and to a general unwillingness to offer loans to blacks even when such loans were insured by the federal government. Of the 3,229 GI Bill-guaranteed loans for homes, businesses and farms made in 1947 in Mississippi, for example, only two were offered to black veterans. -- Ira Katznelson

Two, for God’s sake. This is not a case of the naughty south erecting borders for racism. These were federal level programs, kids. The inherent issue here is that compromise, to get these programs in place, required racism to be accepted by every member who voted to enact them. The results were devastating to African Americans. These programs legislated astonishing growth and education for whites in this country and cemented the economic racial divide. Our country gained immense power and influence in the global arena. We weren’t setting the bar. We WERE the bar. Well, some of us were.

Do we really think we don’t need 30 percent of our brainpower?

The New Deal screwed America by reducing our growth ability. It limited us to only some of our brains and talents. It fostered a festering unrest that costs billions in everything from lost potential to poverty costs. I want you to conceptualize what YOUR neighborhood would be like today if The New Deal had been set up for every American. Think about abandoned stereotypes, think about actually UNITED states, think about the staggering potential in every area. Think about less poverty, less crime, less despair.

Now think about New Orleans.

We’re big on blaming Bush for being an insensitive and inept leader. He is. That said, Katrina’s shame belongs to the entire nation. We all own a piece of this despair.

This is where Dems need to stand. All of us. We need to create A Real Deal. We need to be candid and without guile. We need to rescind racism from the language of our legislation. We need to open our American mouths, start talking about and stop buying into racial scare tactics and stereotypes. We need to hold the vision of an America firing on all cylinders as the ONLY reason we are running. No more half-assed reaching out to Black America. No more half-baked promises for change. We need every damned brain in this country. We do NOT need outsourced people untrained and earning below their potential. We do NOT need drop out and pregnancy rates through the roof in schools located in impoverished neighborhoods. We do NOT need skewed rents to consolidate neighborhoods by race. We can NOT accept dehumanizing people based on skin color.

The Real Deal is unfettered opportunity. Dems, willingly embracing this as a number one priority and running candidates capable of bringing it to fruition, will be unstoppable. We all saw, as they drowned and struggled and cursed -- the folly of The New Deal, three generations in. Understand this; none of this is going away. We need to deal with it, together, now.

It’s time to get REAL.

Don't Waste Me

2005-10-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

I received this comment in response to a post I wrote about the continued attrition of money for veteran’s benefits over at Bring It On! I believe what he has to say will resonate with many. Our country needs to accept the responsibility of the lives who wield our weapons. Citizens need to protect our warriors from a political moral abyss that spends their lives or discards their bodies. It's the least we can do. His service means a great deal to me, and all the Bring It On writers, some of who are veterans themselves. Thank you, Liberal Jarhead, for being there for us.

Your nephew and friends are in my prayers. I hope they come home healthy in body and mind.

I'm a retired Marine, and my two brothers (also Marines) and I are all disabled vets. Although there are a lot of wonderful people working for the VA, experience convinces me that the bureaucracy doesn't give a damn about veterans.

I had some epiphanies about the military during my 20 years in, starting when I was 18, and I quickly learned to trust the people to my right and left, and often my immediate leaders, but not the system. We were ready to die doing our jobs if we had to, but we wanted to be valued - you could sum it up as, "I'm trusting you with my life - spend me if you have to, but for God's sake do it for something worth it. Don't waste me."

Now I see the same pattern between this administration and the people in the military, and the people of America.

Most people are pretty decent and solid, but this government doesn't care about ordinary people. They've spent the lives of 2000 young patriots now - for what? Halliburton. Similarly, starting with Nixon and Reagan, they've enacted policies that have directly and indirectly led to the suffering and deaths of many more thousands of Americans through cuts in needed services. While Reagan was in office, a homeless veteran froze to death in the park across the street from the White House. They knew he was there; they just didn't care. If the so-called Great Communicator had had a trace of compassion that could never have happened. I work with the mentally ill, and the way our government treats them (or doesn't) is a disgrace.

We the people are willing to sacrifice for our country, our society - look at the stats showing that Americans keep giving more time and money to help others every year; the kids in high school now are doing more volunteer work than any generation in history. Most of us are willing to pay taxes to help protect our people and help each other - we just ask, "Don't waste our sacrifices."

These people are basically corporate raiders who've pulled off a hostile takeover and are gutting the organization they've hijacked for the benefit of themselves and their friends. Once they've sucked it dry, they'll throw it away and move on. Except for the ones who want to impose a pseudo-Christian theocracy (for anyone who wants a look at what that would be like, read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.) The only way we can stop this process is to get active. Don't just forward e-mails! Write letters to legislators and newspapers. Organize discussion groups. Find candidates you can believe in and volunteer to help their campaigns.

These are sacrifices of time and energy, but they're worth it.

We Don't Want Your Kind 'Round Here

2005-10-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

Tell me again why Republicans are considered to be more supportive of troops?

Capt James Yee’s book will turn your stomach. Yee was accused and thrown into Guantanemo. Here are his words:

“It was my turn to be humiliated every time I was taken to have a shower. Naked, I had to run my hands through my hair to show that I was not concealing a weapon in it. Then mouth open, tongue up, down, nothing inside. Right arm up, nothing in my armpit. Left arm up. Lift the right testicle, nothing hidden. Lift the left. Turn around, bend over, spread your buttocks, knowing a camera was displaying my naked image as male and female guards watched.

“It didn’t matter that I was an army captain, a graduate of West Point, the elite US
military academy. It didn’t matter that my religious beliefs prohibited me from being fully naked in front of strangers. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been charged with a crime. It didn’t matter that my wife and daughter had no idea where I was. And it certainly didn’t matter that I was a loyal American citizen and, above all, innocent.”

What is truly awful is what happened to Yee after his charges were found baseless and dismissed. The pentagon has developed a nasty habit of character assassination of people who speak against it. The favored ploy is accusing them of sexual misconduct. This is not an accusation of abusive or non-consensual sex as a layperson would interpret the term, but rather this:

But the favored technique clearly lies in bringing charges of improper sexual conduct, invariably involving consensual sexual relations. These charges are easily brought. The number of eunuchs and sexual abstainers among the uniformed military is low and sociological research has long shown that the vast majority of the population has sexual relations outside of wedlock at some point. That means that these charges can be brought against virtually anyone. If the rules were enforced uniformly and aggressively, we would not be able to maintain a volunteer army. But the current highly selective application may achieve the same result. Two important bar organizations have already looked at the situation and concluded that the application of sexual misconduct rules by the uniformed services suggests highly uneven application. Both urged reforms. The Pentagon refuses to budge. The tool is too powerful, and too readily abused. Therein lies its attraction. – Balkinization

Here’s some stuff to chew on:

Maj Gen Thomas J Fiscus, Judge Advocate General of the Air Force – known to have criticized rules on treatment of detainees – accused of sexual misconduct

Lt Gen John Riggs – questioned the level of troop commitments to the Iraq campaign – accused of sexual misconduct and technical contract infractions

Gen Kevin Byrnes – responsible for incorporating changes in doctrine on interrogation and treatment of detainees, rumored to have had reservations about changes hammered through by Rumsfeld – accused of sexual misconduct

This is not about dedication to United States of America. This is about silencing dedicated soldiers who understand that the putrid smell of greed is despoiling the country they’ve sworn to protect. America sent these people out, ill-equiped and under manned, and when they tell the American people the truth, America repays them with by defaming their characters and destroying their careers.

Anybody who believes this is acceptable sucks.

Hat tip to Balkinization for opening my eyes so thoroughly.

Everyday People

2005-10-06T03:44:00.000-07:00

We're raising three children. There's nothing like hearing yourself parroted back by a three year old; it gives you an absolute time definition of when you morphed into your oh so tragically un-hip parents. Holding children's constant, absorbing gaze forces you to set up a filter for your imperfections. Screen out the cussing and bawdy entendres, and there you are, stuck inside your parents, wondering just what in the hell happened.

One of the benefits (why, half full, funny you should ask) of this self imposed screen is that it provides a ready made opportunity for self improvement. Instead of muttering "Murphy doesn't know shit", you can regale yourself with "Murphy exhibited his usual infantile cognitive powers of assessment on this one." See, your vocabulary is improving already.

We use this internal screen because we love our children. Most of us hated the "do as I say, not as I do" style of parenting, having rebelled so successfully against it in the 60's and 70's. I know I am determined that I not be a pushover, but that I will be honest and accessible to my children. I want them to have the best base possible to build on. Their lives and choices are theirs. It's my hope that they will land farther and stronger from me than I landed from my parents.

Part of the reason this is so important to me is because of race. Growing up, I lived with a parent who was a card carrying member of the NAACP in the early 1960's, in the SOUTH, and a parent who basically thought that was a load of crap. The interesting thing was, though, that seeing the world through the eyes of the civil rights activist gave me the opportunity to understand seeing it through the eyes of racist. It's hollow, you know. What's interesting is how deliberately they play it. Bennett's remarks last week are a perfect example.

This country has a long history of defining abilities by race. We love our stereotypes. We invoke everything from brains to penis size in our idiotic endeavor to quantify the abilities of the human mind by the packaging that surrounds it. We persist in "normalizing" these labels in an effort to bind cohesiveness through hate. If each decision is defended by assumptions that "everybody" understands, perhaps it's the sense of inclusion, of being more than you really are, that appeals.

I won't be joining the club.

When we abandon our filters, the necessary mechanism we create as adults to force us to better ourselves, the potential for improvement wanes. Until we strive, unified in the belief each life and mind is valuable, our country can NEVER reach it's potential.

Accepting the value of each life gives us the opportunity, for the first time in the history of this country, to cease to divide ourselves. If we choose not to impede the progress of some in order to grease the wheels for a few, we stand uniquely posed to capitalize of the massive gains America made in the 20th century.

Katrina is our wake up call. If we embrace what we want our individual selves to become, the better person we filter to, then this is the moment to right racial wrongs and set the course for the best damn country in the world.

Renounce assumptions. Hold hypocrisy to the light. Don't be the first to blink.

We're all grown up now. The time for division is over.

Opportunity Knocks

2005-09-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

Back in March, I wrote a post about Ronnie Earle. I like Earle. Not much has changed there. Things today are different though, and it's an important difference.

In March, back when I put up the "Don't Delay, Indict Tom" banner on the top corner of my site, I thought I was mad as hell. Sometimes emotions are sneaky. We get so caught up in them we can't actually analyze them. My six month retrospective tells me I wasn't so much angry as brimming with frustrated disillusionment.

Folks on the right look at the overall change in America as a straightening of far left tendencies. I never saw it that way. All my life I have voted my conscience. I vote 60- 70% Democratic, but that's not a formula, it just my view of who, in any given race, can do the job. If you vote only along party lines, you're letting somebody else, and their agenda, do your thinking for you.

I happen to feel that it makes sense to be financially conservative. I dislike feeling dependent on anybody. I don't run my personal life that way; I damn sure don't want to run my country that way. Socially, I'm liberal. I accept that abler bodies and minds have a responsibility to those less fortunate. I think everybody had to try; everyone must do their best.

As a Christian, I believe that stepping into the breach and lifting is required. God doesn't ask us to drive Humvees and have the best toys, he simply wants us to see each life as valuable, even if the owner of that life acts like it isn't . Ultimately, I believe that accepting the value of each life allows us to decline the temptation of division; we can choose not to structure our society as an obstacle course, creating losers in order to make winners. Brains and abilities are already disparate. We don't need to build more division; the challenge before us is to figure out how to excel using ALL the brains and abilities, whatever their levels.

Hence the reason for the frustration. Everywhere I looked, I saw things I disagreed with. We spent a hell of a lot of money. If I ran my checkbook that way, I'd be living under an overpass. Stories kept changing. If I pulled that crap with my Mother, I'd still be eating Ivory Soap. Principles lost their transcendence. During the Clinton presidency, the lie about the sex became a metaphor for the reason the presidency must end. Clinton, to many, was an unprincipled man. Five years into this presidency, where are the principles behind this war, with its constantly changing premise? Where are the principles behind the Abu Gharib torture, when rank and file are left to hang and their superiors don't have their backs, are not demanding to be accountable for their people? Where are the principles behind the Patriot Act? Cutting the civil liberties of the taxpayer will not trap the terrorists -- only building a communicative network with other countries will do that. Sure it's easier to control the citizenry, but that doesn't make it right.

Which leads me back to Earle. Ronnie Earle is a principled man. He happens to not like people breaking the law because they've got power. Things will be said about Earle. Most will not be true. He's not partisan, (his indictment ratio of 13 Democrats to 3 Republicans supports that) but he sure as hell hates power hungry politicos who abuse the law for personal gain. He's a good guy. Lately, we seem to have a dearth of those.

People who roared about Clinton should be fervently supporting Earle. He's got the high ground here. In fact, folks in the middle and Republicans who no longer recognize this spendthrift party of cronyism as their own should back Ronnie Earle. Drawing the line in the sands of reason is the first step to regaining a healthier American political system and a recognizable Republican Party.

I miss those guys. I wish them Godspeed.

Hey Boys and Girls, Wanna Play?

2005-09-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile, I come across something that is too funny to keep to myself. Madmary sent this to me, and I'm compelled to share. Polish up the plausible deniablity kiddies, and let's play!

-- Courtesy of Salon

Hide and Sneak

2005-09-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'm pissed. AGAIN. Hypocrites are starting to wear thin on me, and those asshats sitting on both sides of the aisle are hypocritimus maximus.

What on God's green earth possess these people? We are blessed with some truly outstanding examples of humanity in our armed forces. Selfless, disciplined, dedicated, and courageous -- these folks set aside their own dreams and goals, daily joys of seeing children grow, marriages deepen and careers thrive to go around the world, live in conditions that would make most of us stroke out, and possibly get killed. The rest of us, comfy and happy, stressing over whether McDonald's or Taco Bell is the best choice tonight, looking forward to a snuggle with our spouse and some great football this weekend should feel a moral imperative to take care of our caretakers.

Rep. David Obey, D-WI thought so too. He tried an interesting experiment this week:

And so last Wednesday, Obey entered the laboratory of the subcommittee on military construction and proposed an amendment to restore $1 billion of the $1.5 billion President Bush cut from the budget for military family housing.
As Obey noted in an interview, "it's obvious that you have atrocious
barracks for the troops with families and also for the single troops." Wouldn't a Congress that passes resolutions "singing hosannas to the troops" give the same troops decent places to live?
But then the experiment kicked in: Obey proposed financing the budget increase by reducing Bush's recent tax cut, but only for the roughly 200,000 Americans who make more than $1 million a year.
Under Obey's amendment, these taxpayers would receive a cut of $83,546 this year -- more than most Americans make annually -- instead of the $88,326 they are currently scheduled to receive.
This small contribution to the troops was voted down on a party-line vote. A spokesman for Rep. Joe Knollenberg of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee, said that Obey's amendment was inappropriate -- tax matters are properly dealt with in the Ways and Means Committee, he said -- and that Knollenberg hoped "that additional money would be found" to improve housing for the troops. -- Washington Post

I find these priorities completely screwed up. If I was wealthy enough to qualify for a 88 THOUSAND dollar tax cut, I think taking $4800 less and restoring 2/3 of the cut taken from our service people would sound like an upright thing to do.

In the face of what our service people endure on our behalf, it's barely a start.

Hiding behind procedural rules cuts exactly zero crap with me. Either you care about righting this wrong, or you care about who got you elected and who might get you elected again.

Flaunting selfishness in the face of valor is abominable.

People, Get Ready

2005-09-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

We registered our house as available to offer shelter to people displaced from their homes by Katrina at two different sites. We’re not well off, but we do produce a lot of food off our little farm, and one thing we have in abundance is good eats. Knowing you have food for your family covered frees up people to concentrate on the other Katrina realities such as the labyrinth of insurance negotiation and finding work. We hope we will be contacted, but nothing so far.

Part of the problem, of course, is that displaced people have limited resources for finding us. This is an area that FEMA really needs to look at. Having a stockpile of technology ready to reconnect victims with opportunities is crucial. Not only for the people who need help, but the people who want to help are equally reliant on their technology. I’ve received emails asking that I try to locate evacuees myself, in an effort to let them know I have housing. I’m fine with that, but again, we are missing a significant puzzle piece when the gap between need and help is so wide.

One person can’t make the difference that ten, a hundred, or a thousand can.

Next time, I hope we foresee and solve the tech breakdown between helper and helpless. Since right now is where the need is, Rabbi Marc Gellman has a solution that I like very much.

Rabbi Gellman believes that it will be months if not a year before displaced families can return home. Shelters cannot function for that kind of time. Most housing offers are short term and can accommodate just a few. Resettling whole families is a big job with impact on the new communities in terms of schools and services. The Feds are going to be busy rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, so most of these individual needs are probably not going to be met by Washington (and possibly not by the overburdened states).

His solution? The Starfish Project.

Therefore, it is clear to me that the best solution to this emergency is for the houses of worship to step up to this sacred task and help resettle these families in their towns. Religious congregations are perfect because they are larger than a family and smaller than the government. They are perfect because they already exist. They are perfect because they are already spread out all over this great land, and most of all they are perfect because it is their mission to do this. The moral integrity of not just America is at stake now. The moral integrity of America’s churches and other holy communities is at stake now. – Gellman, Newsweek

This is an opportunity for People of Faith across this country, frustrated by the Republican hijacking of Christianity for un-Christian behavior, to get back to the roots of faith. I urge you to bring this idea to your communities and places of worship and get the conversation started. Hands on helping, working together to help raise up another who has stumbled, is just the tonic we need.

All I know is that we need to do this to fulfill God’s commandment and my favorite story. God’s commandment comes from the prophet Isaiah, “You are a refuge to the poor, to the needy in distress, a shelter from the storm” (Isaiah 25:4). A check to the Red Cross is good but it alone is neither refuge nor shelter. A shelter is an opening of arms wide enough to catch them. A shelter is using our blessings to ease their burdens. A shelter is bringing them close to our hearts and holding them until they are strong enough to walk on their own to the next place they will decide to live. A shelter is a group of families of
faith and hope, giving faith and hope to those who have just come up out of the waters and deserve to find more than a desert on the other side. America’s houses of worship are perfect shelters for the victims of this American storm. Some are already doing it now. More must do it tomorrow. – Gellman, Newsweek

The reckless spending of this administration is coming home to roost. We’ve spent a pile in the past five years; we’re well in bed with debt these days. It’s up to Americans to help each other. If we are what we believe ourselves to be, a caring nation with can-do spirit, we need to stop waiting for our uncaring, can’t-do government. Flexing our civic muscle, empowering our religious leaders and taking back our country from a bunch of talking points asshats on both sides of the aisle would put us a long way towards righting the rift that divides our country and allows us to be played against each other.

Religion has power in this nation. It’s just not the warped Pat Robertson “death-to-infidels” variety we’ve been beat with -- to the point that many believe that unless they pollute religion with politics, faith will fail. Faith can’t fail, people do. So get those conversations started, eh?

People get ready
There’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

People get ready
For the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
From coast to coast
Faith is the key
Open the doors and board them
There’s room for all
Among the loved the most

Let’s raise this country up … once displaced American at a time.

Time of Death...

2005-09-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

God, grant me the presence of mind not to drive to Washington and throttle George Bush.

In the face of the suffering, dying and dead, he used their horrific situation as an opportunity to get the press to take completely staged pictures of the progress in front of the breached levee that killed so many.

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government." -- Mary Landrieu

I know that You ask repeatedly for us to help the poor. I also know there's a single reference about supporting leaders in the book of Romans. I'm going to exercise my free will here and tell You that I will not support this idiot. His actions go against everything I believe is compassionate. He is selfish, short sighted, and a dumbass. He's used this country to death. I'm calling it.

Critical Mass

2005-09-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

I got the opportunity to listen to some truly ignorant opinions in the past week. Not on blogs, although I read more than I few I disagreed with, but rather from regular people, discussing the tragedy wrought upon the Gulf Coast. There's a sizeable number of people who simply think New Orleans should not be rebuilt. Period.

"It's under sea level."
"That's a stupid place to build a city."
"Only idiots would build a city that way."

So I asked them, did they think abandoning the city was truly the feasible response to Katrina? Surprisingly, this was a popular idea. It's money, of course. Nobody sees why rebuilding New Orleans is worth the money. There are, after all, other places to go party. There are other places full of historical relevance, right?

History. Ay, there's the rub.

You see, historically, New Orleans is a critical city. What is not being discussed is how, even in her battered state, this is still true.

Geographically, America is split by a biggie. It's the Mississippi River, and most of the major rivers in our country dump into it which gave us the ability to move goods from the interior to the coast. Successful farmers moved excess crops and sold them; this established the monetary base for the industrialization of this country.

The Battle of New Orleans, in 1815, was fought to ensure that New Orleans, so critical to the fledgling American economy, stayed under American control. The cherry in the Louisiana Purchase was New Orleans, the rivers, and the lands around it. If the British had kept New Orleans, and her incredible value, there would have been no Louisiana Purchase.

During WWII, the value of New Orleans, as the key to moving needed industrial minerals into America and move our agricultural wealth out was understood. It's no coincidence that there was a German U-boat campaign at the mouth of the Mississippi. New Orleans was seen as a critical target during the cold war, where destruction of the city could effectively grind the country to an economic standstill.

Today, the ports of New Orleans and South Louisiana, located north and south of the city, are just as critical. The Port of South Louisiana is the largest port America has, moving 52 million tons of exported goods, (more than half are agricultural), and bringing in 57 million tons, including crude oil, coal, concrete, chemicals, and fertilizers.

A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets. -- Stratfor

Shipping these commodities using other ways of conveyance isn't feasible. The goods shipped down the river system are heavy and inexpensive, which means they have a low value-to-weight ratio. Another reality is that the nation's businesses and transport systems were built and geared toward the developed systems of barges and ports in place on the Mississippi. What I mean is that we built the national network of railroads to complement the river system, not replace it. Attempting to move the tonnage of material via other transportation methods won't be possible. It's just way too much, it's too heavy, and doing so would add astronomically to the cost.

Aren't geopolitics fun? Rivers aren't subject to rhetoric, spin or deniability. They just flow, and that flow drives a significant portion of the American economy.

Another driver of the economy is the worker, and this is where we are about to get into trouble in New Orleans. Ports need lots of people with skills; so do oil fields and pipelines. We need the people in position to keep our economic flow going. They need homes, grocery stores, shops, auto parts, mechanics, dentists, lawyers, H&R block and McDonalds, to name a few.

We not only need to rebuild a safer New Orleans, but we need to do it quickly. If we abandon these people while we horse around over the reconstruction, they will leave to further their personal survival. You're on your own . Our government was pretty clear on that. They showed it the way they reacted to the city after the storm. It's evident in how they are talking about the survivors, blaming them for their suffering, implying time was not of the essence.

The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the
largest port in the United States. -- Stratfor

The rivers are a permanent reality in the American economic landscape. We built New Orleans for an essential purpose. Sure, it's not an optimal spot, but it is a necessary one. We would do well to heed the history, and make a serious effort to restore a livable city in support of the ports we depend on. Failure is not an option.

Cross posted at Bring It On and BlogCritics

An Open Letter to the President of the United States

2005-09-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

I found this over at Thoughts of a Minister. It sums up the feelings of betrayal and disillusionment felt by Americans these days. He's asked that other blogs cross-post or link to this letter. I'm doing both. Feel free to do the same.

Dear Mr. President,

Over the last several days I have watched the news, and the disaster that has stricken our nation. As you probably know there are a lot of complaints about your administrations leadership during this time.

You were elected under the banner of Moral Values, and I would hope that your platform of Moral Values would come into use here.

As I have watched and read about what has happened I see nothing but apparently the poor, the elderly, and the sick stranded and without help and assistance. In the Bible there is a verse in Matthew where Jesus explains that whatever you do, or don't do, to the least of these you do to me.

It is quite clear that under your leadership we did nothing for the least of these, in fact it seems only because of the extraordinary outrage in the nation that your administration even began to deal with the crisis.

You made mention that you would do whatever it takes to make the situation right.

I hope you have the fortitude to do that.

Which is why I am calling for you to respectfully resign the Office of the Presidency.

I realize that this will not be what you wish to do.

But I have come to believe that a well dealt with resignation will bolster your image in history because you have acknowledged the limitations of your leadership. Before the disaster your approval rating were below that of President Nixon at the height of Watergate. I am sure that it will be even less when the situation in the south east is calmer.

The rising gas prices and apparently coming sortage will remind people of the gas crisis of the Carter Administration, and the comparisons seem to have already begun.

And one last comparison would be to the Johnson administration, who was also from Texas, who got us into Vietnam. He properly did not seek a second term. Because you are early into your second term I believe a calm and respectful resignation would help how your administration is viewed in the future.

It also is a concern of this citizen that you do not seemed to have addressed the issue of price gauging at the gas pump, but you have stated a no tolerance policy for those who loot food stores to feed themselves and their families.

As of this moment the general appearance to most of the country is that you protect the gas and oil companies but are punishing the black and the poor.

It is because of your election under the banner of Moral Values and your Administrations performace over the last week that I believe it is your best interest, those that believe in Moral Values, and in the countries best interest that you respectfully resign the Office of the Presidency.

Respectfully yours,

blogger Matthew61 and those that have signed below.

To other bloggers, if you agree with this letter please link and or post it.

And sign your name in the comments section if you agree.

I'll have something new for you tomorrow, which I'll cross-post at Bring It On. They have a wrenching video up there today. Check it out.

Gotta Get Mine

2005-09-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

The sheer grief of death is mesmerizing. I watched a man on the news Tuesday night disintegrate. The flooding split his home, and he could no longer hand onto his wife's hands. He and the children lived;she swept and drowned.

"I've lost everything."

This was not about stuff. This was about the debilitating loss of a rock in your life.

He wept. The reporter cried. My tears fell,too. I did not know this woman, but I understood that this family had been ripped apart as simply as she'd been torn from his grip.

Looking at the sea that is New Orleans is like watching another country. Unrecognizable devastation has little face time in America. We've had spots of drama, bits of opportunities for courage and toughing it out, but these moments are nearly edifying. We like their bracing affirmation that we are hardy, we can handle it. Last year in the Florida hurricanes, I saw this often. I felt it in myself. We can absorb the hardship when we can see the end of it. We can strive to rebuild when there is some sort of recognizable path. It's kind of like giving birth. You're willing to handle the pain, because it will end. No one stays in labor forever.

In New Orleans, the city is ruined. Not damaged. Uninhabitable. The government cannot provide any viability, and anarchy is upon them. The culprit was not the eye of the storm, but the fragility of the levees that protect the city.

Fragile? Levees?

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in
the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside. -- Editor & Publisher

You see, there was a little problem. In 2003, SELA funding was cut drastically. The Army Corps of Engineer acknowledged that the funding problem was due to the war in Iraq. The Times Picayune ran nine articles stating the cost of Iraq was the reason the hurricane and flood-control dollars weren't there.

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was
needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." -- Editor & Publisher

In retrospect, I think is the case for the preservation of the city as a security issue has been made abundantly. Sure, we're not dealing with imported terrorists, but a home grown variety born of desperation, frustration and greed. There is no underlying religious justification for the terror, just the religion of "gotta get mine" that Have vs. Have-Not society nurtures. New Orleans, a city of wealth and vagrancy, is full of frightened impoverished Have-Nots at the mercy of our newly minted urban terrorists. We are quick to imply unworthiness because of race, but the real root cause is greed, and the addictive desire to tier our society for self wealth preservation.

The war in Iraq is about oil and it's control and profitability to a few select American corporations; this was confirmed by our President. I take no comfort in this magnamonious display of truth. I doubt the people of New Orleans, staring down the barrel of looted pawn shop weaponry into the eyes of our "gotta get mine" terrorists, do either.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had
Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be." -- Editor & Publisher

Congratulations, American cities. Crucial funding is being cut from all of you, but when the earth came calling, it wasn't for you. This time. Oh, and New Orleans?

Bang, bang. You're dead.

Off With His Head!

2005-08-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

The whole Pat Robertson fatwa thing left me scratching my head. This guy, who has "counseled" what, five/six different presidents, is being treated like a doddering old fool. I've read several articles which adopted a bemused tone. He's old and not to be taken seriously? Riiight.

Last I checked, this man functioned as the human link between God and the faithful for millions.His interpretation of the bible and the will of God is deemed the only way for huge chunks of American Christians. He certainly has more that a passing acquaintance with the Holy Bible.

Look, I took one minute, went to the On-line Parallel Bible (on the sidebar) and performed a simple search.

I can assure you I am completely clear on the results.

Deuteronomy 5:17 "You shall not murder.

Exodus 20:13 "You shall not murder.

Romans 13:9 For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder,"

James 2:11 For he who said, "Do not commit adultery, said also, thou shalt not kill"...

Matthew 19:18 He said to him, "Which ones?" Jesus said, "'You shall not murder...

Matthew 5:21 "You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, you shall not murder...

Exodus 23:7 "Keep far from a false charge, and don't kill...

Pat Robertson's speeches and writing both created and nurtured the Dominionist movement in this country. The man wants a theocracy. He's been stirring a dangerous pot for 25 years. I'm considerably past bemused.

Is Pat Robertson a whack job? Probably. (Heh. Whack job. Whack. Chavez. I slay myself. I'll be here all week.)

Does the fact (that he's nuts) diminish the amount of influence he wields over gullible people?

Not one whit.

Too bad the fourth estate is still bought and paid for. The price for Robertson's folly unchecked will be steep. He's not only a dangerous political animal, but he is so far gone from the teachings of Jesus Christ, and so hell bent to change the political and theological landscape of America, that I truly fear for the health and freedom of religion in this country. If he succeeds, we'll be operating under a theocratic hierarchy that will effectively end our constitution based government and the tolerance for all religions it provides. If he's crushed and the Dominion sent packing, I fear the repercussions against religion will effectively quash the good with the bad.

Jesus had some pretty good ideas about lots of stuff. The stuff Robertson spews has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus.

Time To Make the Donuts

2005-08-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

Donuts and I go back a long way. A looooooong way. As a freshly minted high school grad of barely 17, I took a job in a donut shop. My intention was to party, er, work for a year, and start the path of higher education. This was the plan I discussed with my Mother. This was not the plan I executed with my friends, all of whom felt it was idiotic to live in a state where the drinking age was 18 and not exercise that right. After my year was up, my Mother, being a woman of considerable stones, poured me into the University to dry out.

That was one hell of a year.

Donuts require a degree of time management ability. One must get up and not fall into the hot fat fryer, if you expect donuts by 5:30 a.m. I solved this problem by never going to bed. I must have worked for a truly clueless man, because I held that job, drunker than three hundred dollars, for over a year. I made a lifelong friend to boot. (Hi, Bets!) I can assure you, two loaded chicks can have a pretty good time playing with colored sprinkles at 4:30 in the morning.

Good times.

Moving south forced the introduction of many new things. I gave up Indy Racing, one of several sports I watched with my Dad, and started watching NASCAR. I developed a taste for boiled peanuts. I can bait a hook with a shrimp. I also ate my first Krispy Kreme donut.

For the Yankees, the Canucks, the West Coasters and my Mid-Western buds, Krispy Kreme is a venerable southern institution. The donuts ain't bad either.

In April of 2000, Krispy Kreme went public, and became stock market darlings with a ninefold increase over their IPO. That, folks, is a lot of sprinkles. (Trust me when I say that comments were made about the superiority of these southern gems. Blah, blah, blah, fry-cakes. It's easy to emote over a winner. I was a Green Bay Packer fan in the 80's. The only person on the entire team who could score was Chris Jacke, the kicker. When you still feel the love despite the fact your team completely sucks, we'll talk.)

Donuts, apparently, weren't the only thing being cooked at Krispy Kreme. The SEC opened an investigation and the stock dropped by 66%. Ouch.

“The Krispy Kreme story is one of a newly public company, experiencing rapid growth, that failed to meet its accounting and financial reporting obligations to its shareholders and the public,” according to the report. “While some may see the accounting errors discussed in our summary as relatively small in magnitude, they were critical in a corporate culture driven by a narrowly focused goal of exceeding projected earnings by a penny (per share) each quarter.” -- AP

You see, when an image is represented to the public by a company, the facts need to be there to back it up. If the facts are manufactured, eventually the tissue of lies collapses. The money, the profitability, the reason for the myriad of decisions made to drive the company forward, all rest on the accountability of the decision makers. If the image was a false one, the pyramid of employees, investors, vendors and customers all stand to be hurt.

Several lawsuits have been filed against Krispy Kreme, including one that alleges workers lost millions of dollars in retirement savings because executives at the company hid evidence of declining sales and profits. -- AP

Not every stumble portends disaster. In the Krispy Kreme case, the oversight structure (in the form of the SEC) caught the shenanigans in time. The Krispy Kreme board convened a special committee to determine the what, where, when and how's of the deceit. This effort at self-policing pulled no punches.

"The number, nature and timing of the accounting errors strongly suggest that they resulted from an intent to manage earnings," said a report by a special committee of the Krispy Kreme board released yesterday. -- Newsday

Krispy Kreme is on the mend. Livengood, the CEO believed to have orchestrated the false earnings, is out. New blood, with experience in salvaging companies like Boston Chicken and Krispy Kreme, now hold the reins. The flushing of the sprinkles is stayed for now. I think there's still a few donuts left to be made.

There are many good corporate citizens in this country. There are a few who behave better simply because there are avenues of prosecution against them if they don't. There are a very few who feel their size insulates them from the rules. Hmmm... kinda like our government.

When we allowed the Bush administration to shape our viewpoint of America, post 9/11, we began seeing a limited view on the direction of our country. We accepted excessive spending based on their say so. We permitted shoddy accounting to go unreported. We declined to demand accountability for decisions.

The tissue of lies is starting to crumple.

There is no board of directors for America, but there are some 200,000,000 tax-payer stock-holders. This deficit belongs to all of us. We can't stick our heads in the sand, let our ELECTED officials scare us with terrorism while our rights and financial sovereignty are undermined, and quit being Americans.

Apathy is the shame of America.

We built, in 230 years, an astonishing country. WE built. American arms, legs, backs, and minds, powered by hope, drive, passion, and belief. I want it back. I want my honor back. I want to wear my freedom on my chest like the badge of honor it used to be.

Builders, not bullies. Growth, not debt. Debate, not debasement.

Truth.

The proof may not be in the pudding, but perhaps, there's truth in the donuts.

Cuckoo Ah-choo!

2005-08-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

World War I saw weary soldiers pulling themselves out of filthy trenches in Belgium and France to head home. Unwittingly, they brought hitchhikers along. Germs, in the form of influenza, spread across this country during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Those who fought the war to end all wars wreaked viral havoc on the homeland. Between March and November of that year, 500,000 people died in the U.S. Worldwide, the Spanish influenza epidemic struck and killed nearly 20 million by 1920.

I want you to think about that. Apart from a few head-in-the-sand isolationists, most of us understand we are well into a global economy. We're connected. A contagious disease like influenza, (one that cannot be cured, only treated for the symptoms), is capable of grinding the world economy to a halt. Things will not get done if we're dropping like flies.

We, and by that I mean the people of earth, have a problem and it's in Vietnam. It's the avian flu. I know, bird flu, blah, blah, blah, YAWN. *!*

Wake up!

Across East Asia, an influenza virus known by the scientific designation H5N1 has killed at least 55 people and tens of millions of birds. As potential aggressors go, this one's about as insidious as they get — fast-moving, deadly and extremely unpredictable. Before it can mount an all-out offensive, this "bird flu" virus must change its genetic makeup so that it can jump easily from human to human. Once it has done so, the resulting germ could spread quickly, inflicting heavy casualties among a global population with no natural immunity against it.

That final shift might never happen or it could happen next week. But scientists think that roughly three times each century nature creates an influenza virus capable of global devastation, and a "pandemic" flu sweeps the world. The prospects increase when a virus long out of circulation extends its geographic range, its hold on different animal species and its contact with humans. By those measures, H5N1 is a virus on the march. -- LA Times

Remember SARS? SARS spread to five countries in 24 hours and reached 30 countries on 6 continents in just a few months.

Germs are like Chaos theory, right under our noses. Random. Everywhere, and nowhere.

It's important to understand that there will be no time for preparation if the world goes Cuckoo Ah-choo. People will start dying, and quickly. Services will be disrupted, money may not flow properly, quarantines will be effected. Last year's vaccine shortage was a serious problem. (While not for the same type of flu, a lack of vaccine significantly increases the chance of flu gaining a foothold.) Vaccine specialists are striving to produce a bird flu vaccine, although nothing is ready for human trials yet. Until the virus completely mutates and becomes capable of human to human transference, we really have no idea if the new vaccines will work.

In the real world, it would take four to six months to produce vaccines on the scale needed to tackle influenza. Some countries have taken to stockpiling vaccines against the strain of bird flu that is currently circulating, but there is no guarantee that this vaccine will convey enough protection against any human strain that might emerge. -- The Economist

We need to have enough respect for nature to accept that viral evolution is continual. Thanks to efforts by UK vaccine specialists, we may be poised to dissemble the threat of this killer. Or, we may bury our dead (much like the aftermath of the Tsunami), using our failure as a blueprint for next time.

Hypocritic Oath

2005-07-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

I've mulled it over and I decided that the primary difference between voters and elected office holders is the perception of truth.

Voters, regular Joes and Janes, can't call their banks and creditors up and lie about when they can pay their bills. They can't authorize a bill-pay and hope it doesn't hit for two days until the paycheck arrives. We live in the here and now. Our word is our bond. Our survival, and any hope we have of prospering, depends on our accountability. In the here and now, buy here pay later doesn't work. Just because something is advertised doesn't mean it makes financial sense.

If you have kids during the Christmas advertising season, this point has already been brought home.

Politics run a different gambit. The point in politics is persuasion. WHY something MIGHT be better. If ONLY. What MIGHT happen. Based on the PROJECTED anticipated whatever.

Voters are repeatedly asked to authorize who has authority to move mountains of cash that belong to all of them. Them. The voters. The taxpayers. There are 535 members of Congress. There are 295,734,134 citizens.

This tells me that 295,734,134 people, or a goodly portion thereof, make an honest accounting of their finances. They do not lie in order to borrow, or lie in order to avoid their financial obligations.

They CAN'T.

They can't because the people directly affected by those lies will not put up with it. We have a system of responsibility in place that REQUIRES responsibility. So, in the nicest possible way, why shouldn't the Americans look to their politicians and bellow:

WTF!

Seriously, we ARE in charge. 2006 is upon us. If your representation isn't running our house the way you're running yours, you've got a vote.

Use it.

Holier Than Whom?

2005-07-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

Here's the beloved Conservative Christian in action. This is turning the other cheek, Bush style. I'm sure the press feels blessed by this compassionate conservative. As for me, I'm feeling a little bit tired of dealing with these self righteous, finger pointing, name calling, do as I say and not as I do Republican extremists. It's called hypocrisy, and it's your self inflicted mandate. The moral mandate, apparently, was too much uphill work to pull off.

Speaking of Manners...

2005-07-28T04:39:00.000-07:00

This week all the undies have been bunched over Lt. Gov. Knoll passing out her business card at Marine Staff Sgt. Joseph Goodrich's funeral. The righteous right have been indignant and twelve kinds of pious about it. (I personally felt it wasn't her finest moment either. Society has manners for a reason.)

My last post here was about the death of my beloved cat. Many of you were kind enough to be here for me. All except for one.

This comment was left:
Moonbat Lookout said...
http: // no linky love for you, loser - I deleted your link
July 27, 2005 10:36 PM

This right wing nut thinks he can come into MY house, during MY eulogy, and advertise his moronic site leaving his "business card" link to where he sits all day attacking the very people who are going to have to clean up this sorry fucking mess after the extremist republicans get the well deserved boot.

I think we all know what we need to do.

When you leave your comment, come back here and paste a copy. That way, when the chickenshit deletes them over there, we can all still laugh.

I loved my cat, you son of a bitch. And you can go to hell.

The Life of Riley

2005-07-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

I first met Riley in 1991. Specifically, he was my gift. At five weeks, he fit in my hand. Tiny and of dubious origin, Mr. Jet rescued him from a run down trailer park near our place and tucked him into my heart.

This was a serious gift. Mr. Jet did not.like.cats.

Riley may have started out small, but he dreamed big. Loving and cuddling were sissy stuff, best left to lesser cats. Life was a battle worthy of strife, mayhem and gore. To the victorious came the plunder, namely treats and admiration.

A friend of ours insisted he was part mountain lion. I gave him a band-aid and agreed.

In 1999, my warrior was laid low in battle; the hated vet advised that, with only a single kidney, the prognosis was poor.

What the hell do vets know, anyway? Living to spite the vet was Riley's MO.

When my warrior stumbled again last week, it was at the end of a full life, one worthy of song around fires, praises of strength and virtue, feats of legend and immortality.

Still, seeing the once mighty grow feeble bruises your soul.

I spent last week caring for him, and willing the impossible. Thoughts of last times flooded me.

I never realized that bath last month was the last bath. It hurt that the last lick on my cheek passed without fanfare. The last special treat eaten, before the many he turned from resignedly, was nothing more than a bit of chicken. If I'd known, it would have been better, more spectacular somehow, served with flourish.

The last wink, the last smack of the paw, the last time with the string toy all slipped by unheralded. It is so hard, knowing the lost last times, all gone like whispers into the wind.

The last time I held him will never leave me. He meowed in protest at death; I'm whispering to him that it is OK to let go, that I am there and it is OK to just let it go, just go....

So he did.

Now my days are full of firsts. First morning without him sit beside me watching the sun rise. First time brushing my teeth without him nosing water droplets off my shins. No lap time after work, no treats during dinner preparation, no body beside me on our bed. I used to lay on my back next to Mr. Jet, and Riley lay by my side. My hand fit perfectly into the curve between his front leg and his side. I never realized that it put both of us to sleep. I'm not sleeping well.

As I type this, there is no cat on my hard drive, leaning his nose off the back so the fan blows on him. I can barely believe he is gone, but everywhere I look, he is not there.

I know this will ease. But right now, in this moment, I still look around the corners. I still whisper for him.

Perhaps, across the battlefields of heaven, my mountain lion hears, and winks back.

Wally World

2005-07-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

We've all had them, and they suck.

Wal-Mart, that is.

Where I live, we're undergoing a development boom of monstrous proportions. Land that cost around $5500 an acre back when we bought our little slice of heaven, is being sold, less than a mile as the crow flies from my farm, for $100,000 an acre. While that is insane, the financial aspects of the situation do not escape me.

Momentary greed-induced delirium aside, I must make the point that money clouds judgment. Looking at all that money tends to skew your data. It's like a chocolate counter during PMS or a very short skirt when it's been too damn long; creative accounting begins at home.

Having a big pile of money for my dirt cannot replace what that dirt actually is: a safe haven of teaching, interacting and developing the minds of my children, a slice of rustic stress-be-gone for my husband and me. It's also, tied so intricately that the strings are unseen, the root-place of this little American family. This is where the tears fall, knees are skinned, children were made, and values (like tolerance, respect, and open-mindedness) are instilled.

Greed is the reason for the lies that are undoing this administration. Lies were told, and more lies to support the original lies, strictly for profit. Greed usurps the goodness in people, it overwhelms potential in the individual and replaces it with stuff. We're turning from a nation of creators into a nation of Wal-Mart shoppers.

And we're making China billions.

Bling Sting

2005-07-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

Big fun and games in Washington last week. The House Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on national security got a wonderful opportunity to see how running a government like a business really works. You see, there was a big pile of money. Then, there wasn't. Mr. Bart Simpson, Springfield, testified: "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove a thing."

It weighed 28 tons and took up as much room as 74 washing machines. It was $2.4 billion in $100 bills, and Baghdad needed it ASAP.

The initial request from U.S. officials in charge of Iraq required the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to decide whether it could open its vault on a Sunday, a day banks aren’t usually open.

"Just when you think you’ve seen it all," read one e-mail from an exasperated Fed official.

"Pocket change," said another e-mail.

Then, when the shipment date changed, officials had to scramble to
line up U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo planes to hold the money. They did, and the $2,401,600,000 was delivered to Baghdad on June 22, 2004.

It was the largest one-time cash transfer in the history of the New York Fed.

We can see Mr. Simpson's point. Swiping, er, transporting that cash would be impossible on a skateboard. Sounds to me like he had a little help. But who? Who could possibly stoop that low? Whose money was it, anyway?

The cash -- a total of 363 tons, generated mostly from oil revenues -- was Iraqi funds that had been held in trust by the Federal Reserve under the terms of a United Nations resolution.

Held in trust.... like, protecting it legally, with oversight... ah, gotcha. Kinda hard to steal it when it's being watched. This money is separate from the 18 billion Congress OK'd in October 2003 for rebuilding Iraq. 18 billion more coming in, so NOBODY will even notice this money is missing, right?

Disclosure of the frantic transfer in the final days of U.S.
control over Iraq came during a daylong hearing Tuesday that indicated growing worry from Congress over U.S. oversight of spending in Iraq.

Both Republicans and Democrats appeared taken aback by the volume of cash sent to Iraq: nearly $12 billion over the course of the U.S. occupation from March 2003 to June 2004, said a report by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), who had reviewed e-mails and documents subpoenaed from the bank.

High Carumba! So the transferred money was really Iraq money, held for the Iraqis to rebuild with. Seems like a reasonable plan. I believe it was the plan I was sold originally when this war was pitched to me with an attractive low-cost price tag. What was that, 240 billion ago? Something like that.

Previous reports by the inspector-general have faulted the
CPA for failing to implement adequate controls over 8.8 billion dollars in DFI money. The hearing before the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Government Reform was the first to focus on the DFI. Pressure to convene it has been led by the panel's Democrats, led by California's Henry Waxman, but the magnitude of the apparently mismanaged funds appeared to produce bipartisan shock.

So how did Simpson and his, ahem, oily henchmen pull it off?

The largest single recipient of Iraqi funds was Halliburton, the oil services firm once led by U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, which received 1.6 billion dollars in Iraqi oil proceeds under a contract to import fuel and repair oil fields.

According to DCAA auditors, Halliburton's overcharges under this
contract are more than 218 million dollars. A security firm, Custer Battles, received over 11 million dollars in Iraqi funds, including over 4 million in cash. The company has been barred from receiving federal contracts and faces a False Claims Act lawsuit for multiple fraudulent billings. Over 600 million dollars in cash was shipped from Baghdad to four regions in Iraq to allow commanders flexibility to fund local reconstruction projects. An audit of one of the four regions found more than 80 percent of the funds could not be properly accounted for and that over 7 million dollars in cash was missing. CPA officials gave over 8 billion dollars in cash to Iraqi ministries. The Special Inspector
General found significant funds paid to ”ghost employees” and billion-dollar discrepancies in some expenditures.

OK, I just have to interject here. Billion dollar discrepancies? Billion? How in the hell can you be off by a billion? How many businesses do you think are OK with discrepancies just in the thousands? That's simply idiotic.

Waxman said the largest single recipient of DFI funds was Halliburton. ”The company vastly overcharged to import gasoline into Iraq and to provide other oil-related services. These overcharges -- which exceed 200 million dollars -- were billed to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But U.S. officials arranged for over 80 percent of them to be paid out of the DFI.” The DFI, which was run by the United States, is the successor to the Oil-for-Food Programme, which was run by the United Nations. More than 8 billion dollars in the Oil-for-Food Programme was transferred into the DFI by the U.N. Security Council. In a separate development, Democratic legislators stepped up criticism of Halliburton for what they said was ”war profiteering,” citing Pentagon audits that question more than 1 billion dollars of the company's bills for work in Iraq. At a Democrat-sponsored forum on Tuesday, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said that estimates of excessive spending and improper billing by Halliburton are more than twice as high as those in previous official reports.

Now, about that "nobody saw me do it" part... Halliburton has some well placed friends, (Yo, Dick! How ya doin' dere?) and these friends knew how they could help their buddies finagle their windfall. All they needed were a few black markers!

One major recipient of DFI money, Halliburton Corp., was a point of contention between subcommittee members and Pentagon officials
yesterday.

Subcommittee members objected to the fact that Pentagon officials
had heavily redacted internal Defense Department audits before providing them to a U.N. board charged with monitoring the DFI program. The audits found more than $200 million in questioned charges that Halliburton had passed to the government, primarily on a no-bid contract for importing fuel.

Pentagon officials said they relied on the company's suggestions for deciding what parts of the audits to redact because they didn't want Halliburton's proprietary information made public. House members from both parties objected to that reasoning.

"Overcharges to the government are not trade secrets," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.).

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations, said the redactions "regretfully, very regretfully, make it appear DOD has something to hide. This undermines our international standing and, even more importantly, harms our efforts in Iraq."

Shays said he has repeatedly "begged" the Pentagon to provide Congress with the documents underlying its decision to black out parts of the audits. Yesterday, he threatened to seek a subpoena if the documents aren't provided by Monday.

Why, you little... If you black stuff out, nobody can read it! Brilliant and oh, so evuulll! Montgomery Burns has reportedly purchased massive amounts of Sharpie Marker stock. Business begets business, and the Pentagon is learning fast.

It was approximately three years ago the GAO (General Accounting Office) attempted to do what congress requested: an audit of the DoD/Pentagon. After a solid year, the GAO had to report back to congress that they could not complete the audit as there was no supporting documentation to account for what had happened to a little over $1.4 Trillion, yes Trillion with a capital “T” that was MISSING!

Now today we learn that even more money is missing. The GAO
(Government Accounting Office) has reported that the DoD has lost another $3.5 billion of taxpayer money—money and equipment have just disappeared and no one knows where.

HA-ha! Trillions! "What good is money if it can't inspire terror in your fellow man?"-- Montgomery Burns.

The amount of money Rumsfeld’s Department of War “loses” every few months would be more than enough to properly fund the V.A--instead veterans of this nation’s wars are being denied access on a daily basis; others wait for months to get appointments for even basic medical services; specialized care is even worse—all due primarily to under funding.

Doh!

It's like living in the U.S. of Enron!

Look. All the tax cuts and program cuts in the world mean nothing if the government is allowing a few key corporate players to rob the taxpayers blind. Companies that are competitive and smart should be the winners. Not the ones who steal the most from the national treasury, whether by fraudulent contracts or outright theft. Our VA is in a nose dive and these guys let billons walk off unaccounted for. In the real world, people would lose their jobs and go to jail for this kind of gross negligence. If we're running this country like a company, it's way past time for an impartial audit.

Stop Setting People Up To Steal From Us.
Stop Letting People Steal From Us.
(And while you're at it, buy our troops some armor and some freakin' health care, God Dem It!)

Water, Water, Everywhere...

2005-07-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

...but none of it's on my farm.

It's Florida, it's July, and it's caved in. My well, that is.

I'm looking for the half full viewpoint here, but lets face it, what I'd settle for is my well half full of water, instead of completely full of sand.

While we figure out how we're gonna handle this, we have to haul water for ourselves and the kids, two and a half cattle, (she's due in February), a full grown pig, three goats, five turkeys and 30-odd chickens.

My social calendar is full.

Rove's on the run, and there's plenty to do. Carry the torch while I carry the pails, and we'll regroup in a few days to compare stories.

And say a little prayer for those folks in North Florida. They're fixin' to get creamed. My little problem pales to insignificance in comparison.

Pardon Me While I Puke

2005-07-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

Terrorists believe they can scare people to the point they can control them. It's not about God. It's not about Allah. It's about being tired of being kicked. It's about wanting to be the boot. When dealing with crabby little power usurpers, there is no other option than holding your ground. When the U.S. went into Afghanistan, it was with the single purpose, not of kicking, but grinding into oblivion a bunch of unscrupulous bullies. It was Bar-time. They needed to pay their tab.

This may come as a shock to you, but I am convinced the war waged in Iraq is a mistake. Hmmmm? No surprise, there? So much for my gig as Woman of Mystery. Rats. I was kinda liking that title.

Iraq compromised Afghanistan, and for that reason alone, was unacceptable. We had Al-Qaeda on the run. They may have still been belligerent, but they WERE hauling ass away from us. Osama poked us with a big stick, and we were poised to strike and disable.

But, nooooooooooo. We had to pull our heroes out of there, and send them to Iraq. Osama must think the average American is a powerless little target, now that Bush is playing right into his manipulative game. Disruption, rendering families, destroying dreams, leveling infrastructure and sowing sorrow; all by the U.S., all away from the true enemy of our people, Al-Qaeda.

What happened in London today is a wake up call. We need to regain our focus. Iraq is the wrong war. To that end, this good news found at Reuters:

Iran, Iraq to sign military cooperation agreement 07 Jul 2005 08:56:44 GMT Source: Reuters

TEHRAN, July 7 (Reuters) - Former foes Iran and Iraq said on Thursday they would sign a military cooperation agreement which will include Iranian help in training Iraq's armed forces.

The agreement marks a considerable advance in relations between the two countries who fought a bitter 1980-1988 war and comes despite repeated U.S. accusations that Iran has undermined security in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"It's a new chapter in our relations with Iraq. We will start wide defence cooperations," Iranian Defence Minister Admiral Ali Shamkhani told a joint news conference with visiting Iraqi counterpart Saadoun al-Dulaimi.

If our mission in Iraq is to see them rid of Saddam and moving forward with elected governance and self policing, this is the type of help from neighbor nations that is invaluable to finishing the mission and re-directing 100% of our efforts toward eradicating murderous Al-Qaeda slime forever.

Of course, if our mission is to simply invade and plunder, directing profits to a select few, we need to take a long look in the mirror.

WASHINGTON,
July 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. military has signed on Halliburton to do nearly $5 billion in new work in Iraq under a giant logistics contract that has so far earned the Texas-based firm $9.1 billion, the Army said on Wednesday.

...Halliburton shares have rallied 13 percent since the beginning of June, bolstered by high crude oil prices.

Despite the drop in the stock price, analysts said the latest news was positive for the company and indicated "the government has no issue with Halliburton's performance," said Kurt Hallead, analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

Pardon me while I puke.

Pants on Fire

2005-07-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

I sat in on a course for crane operator safety once. (There is so much you do not know about me...). While not the most riveting class, I did learn one crucial detail: You are only as strong as your weakest link.

This was a dandy bit of information, and I apply it frequently as a litmus test. Life is unpredictable. Car trips on new tires with dirty oil may not realize the gas savings you envisioned. Letting a kid sink or swim could result in your getting wet. Cobbling something together just to get by might not get you by.

Kind of reminds me of the train of thought that got Iraq on deck.

"(Iraq) could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given." George W. Bush,Septemberr, 2002

"...you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam." George W. Bush, September, 2002.

"Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." George W. Bush, October, 2002.

"(Iraq) possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons." George W. Bush, October, 2002 (two days before an important U.N. vote).

"(Iraq) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." George W. Bush, January, 2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." George W. Bush, January, 2003

"Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents." George W. Bush, March, 2003

Ultimately, the lies are the weakest link.

When an operator tips a crane, sometimes he gets hurt. Often, he'll lose his job. The ones in real danger of being crushed are the Regular Joes on the ground. The weight of lies, the shifting of blame, the "hard work" of cleaning up the jobsite falls on their shoulders.

The crushing costs are not a year or two type burden, but an obligation spanning generations.

I understand the difference between who is responsible and what has to be done to fix it. Sometimes, people get fired. That doesn't mean the cost of cleaning the jobsite doesn't have to be borne, just that the employer will no longer tolerate shoddy work.

Georgie, here's your pink slip.

Phoenix

2005-07-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

After eight months of fervent political discourse, (or, as I've repeatedly lied to myself, a series of stringent exercises to hone my skills as an essayist), I've decided to spruce things up a bit. The template's lighter, I've re-dedicated myself to making the writing tighter, and I even put up a little caricature of my divinely bitchy self.

As the Whitehouse of cards collapses into yet another mess the Dems will patiently clean up, there's always room in this little corner for lefties, leaners, folks on the fence so long they have picket prints on their settin' cheeks, and the Eisenhower-style Republicans of yore. We need to work together to grow this country into something better than the free lunch it's become.

Independence is involving. We have to be there, and want to be there. America evolves because we the people are involved with her direction. When we sit the bench, greed has a field day.

Today I'm declaring my independence from apathy. I'm holding a place in line for you.

Rabbit Hole to Hell

2005-06-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

Karl Rove pulled our tail last Wednesday with a bold attack defining Liberals as unpatriotic. He used the imagery of 9/11 to illustrate his point. He made his statements in MANHATTAN. For the Rip Van Winkles of the world, this is the sound-bite that bunched the undies: "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said Wednesday night. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

Two key points: 1) Rove prides himself on his ability to control outcomes, and 2) Rove has not failed in a very long time.

So looking past the outrage, and there's plenty of rage, in and out of the blogosphere, the big question is why? Why waltz into an 80% Democratic stronghold, seat of the greatest act of terrorism on American soil, source of the greatest example of human fortitude in our country's history, and denounce their patriotism?

Because there is an outcome that needs to be controlled, and because he believes he can.

The story that broke only because of the will of the people, is the Downing Street Memo. The memo was cheerfully, carefully, deliberately ignored by the American mainstream media when the story broke in the London Times.

After reporting these secret memos, which revealed the dubious manoeuvrings of government, I expected the US press to react. Surely there would be a storm of anger over the way in which the American public had been deceived into going to war? But still there was no interest. Then slowly something astonishing happened. People power took over.

The Sunday Times website was inundated with ordinary US citizens wanting to read the minutes of the July meeting. Bloggers set to work passing the word. Six ordinary, patriotic citizens with no political axe to grind were so outraged to discover the truth about the path to war that they set up their own website, naming it after the minutes, which had become known as the Downing Street memo.

Another website called AfterDowningStreet followed. People got together to lobby their local newspapers and radio and television stations to demand to know why they weren’t being told about the memo. There were even T-shirts made with the slogan: “Have you read the memo?” With anger over the war growing, Washington politicians finally acted. More than 120 congressmen wrote to Bush, demanding to know whether the memo was true. They held their own hearings to try to draw attention to it. The issue was forced into the mainstream media. -- Michael Smith, The Sunday Times - Britain

Mr. Rove now had a problem. The media was, (albeit reluctantly and with weird angles such as focusing on why the story was breaking late opposed to what the story actually was), covering the Downing Street Memo. The volume of inquiry on the internet regarding the memo was skyrocketing. The networks for information dissemination were reaching more people. John Conyers held a Democratic hearing. John Kerry raised questions from the floor. Letters were being written to editors, representatives and the Whitehouse. And those wimpy Brits weren't helping.

One huge fly in the ointment for the administration was British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s early decision that it would be a fool’s errand to challenge the authenticity of the papers. Why? Because there is still a relatively free Fourth Estate in the U.K. together with patriotic whistleblowers willing to risk jail for exposing the government dishonesty. -- Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst (27-years) and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Rove attempted multi-prong damage control, using Scott McClellan to dismiss the issue, using the Durbin Nazi quote as a distraction and attempting to redefine the meaning of the word fixed.

“There are a number of people asking about ‘fixed’ and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed, as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed...the head of MI-6 has just been to Washington. He has just talked with George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq.” -- Ray McGovern

The distractions sheared off some of the heat, but Rove understood that his rabbit hole went straight to Hell. There is a point when events take on a life of their own, where enough of the regular people's opinions are engaged that damage control is much more difficult. Rove had to act. I do not think Rove feels cornered. I think he feels exhilarated. This is his kind of game. He believes he can control the flow of information by manipulating half the populace to denigrate the other half. Remember, his goal is to control the outcome.

He finds this entertaining.

His speech in Manhattan Wednesday was a very shrewd move. If the Dems don't protest, we're wimps. If we do, we aren't pursuing the DSM rabbit hole. On a personal level, Rove must really enjoy this. We must seem like malleable little children to him; easily bent to his whim. Don't like the imagery? Good. We need everybody on the same page.

Thank God for the Brits, who are considerably less impressed with the chain of events leading up to this (il)legal war.

Former British cabinet minister Clare Short is demanding a parliamentary investigation into Attorney General Peter Goldsmith's advice on war with Iraq.
...Short said in February, 2005 that Lord Goldsmith breached the ministerial code by submitting a summary of his advice to senior ministers....
"It says in the ministerial code that if any advice from the law officers is summarised when it comes to Cabinet the full advice should be attached," she told BBC Radio.

"My view is we need the House of Lords to set up a special committee,
summon the attorney, get all the papers out, look at exactly what happened," Short said....

The attorney general has hit back at critics of his Iraq war legal advice, saying it is "fantasy" to suggest the (U.S.) government leant on him to justify the invasion.

In an interview with the Telegraph, the government's senior legal adviser said: "My conclusion was that it [Iraq war] was lawful.

"I stand by my conclusion that military action was lawful. That was a
judgment I had to reach. I reached it and I stand by it."

"And I want to reject the suggestions that I was leant on, or that this somehow was not my genuine opinion. These suggestions that this was not genuinely my view - these are fantasies and they need to be seen as such." -- Daily Kos

Had to reach? Lawyers like Goldsmith live and die by the power and massageable context of words. His statement gives him some butt coverage if, er, when this keg blows. As for the "leant on" quote:

On 11 February, Goldsmith met Taft, a former US ambassador to Nato who was then chief legal adviser to the Secretary of State, Colin Powell. After a gruelling 90-minute meeting in Taft's conference room 6419, Goldsmith then met the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, followed by a formidable triumvirate including Judge Al Gonzales, Bush's chief lawyer at the White House.

Goldsmith also met William 'Jim' Haynes, who is Defence Secretary's Donald Rumsfeld's chief legal adviser, and John Bellinger, legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, then the National Security Adviser. This group of lawyers is as renowned for fearsome intellect as it is for hard-line conservative politics. Bellinger is alleged to have said: 'We had trouble with your Attorney; we got there eventually.' From copies of Goldsmith's legal advice to the Prime Minister published last week, it is clear that these meetings had a pivotal role in shaping Goldsmith's view that there was a 'reasonable case' for war. -- Daily Kos

Taft, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Haynes and Bellinger leaned. There is no doubt in my mind. They are precisely why Goldsmith used the phrase "had to reach". His premise for his sin is now part of the public record. The big, bad Americans made him do it.

This is why Rove attacked us. The Downing Street Memo is a real threat to him and the administration he built. Frankly, I'm delighted. Dems finally have a concrete issue we can pursue. I really don't care what Rove blathers about from here on out. It's sole purpose is to pull us off the truth, stop us from exposing the rabbit hole, prevent us from shining the light into the nest of lies, entangled like vipers around the throat of liberty. The amount of subterfuge involved in Bush getting his war in Iraq grows and grows. America may no longer have much of a mainstream fourth estate, but bloggers continue to find their feet as pundits and citizen reporters. Questions, on the legality of behavior and whether or not we were engaged in a covert war, keep cropping up.

The focus turned to what may ultimately be the most important part of the memo: the point where Hoon said that the US had already begun “spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime”.

Ministry of Defence figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that virtually none were used in March and April; but between May and August an average of 10 tons were dropped each month, with the RAF taking just as big a role in the “spikes of activity” as their US colleagues. Then in September the figure shot up again, with allied aircraft dropping 54.6 tons.
If this was a covert air war, both Bush and Blair may face searching questions. In America only Congress can declare war, and it did not give the US president permission to take military action against Iraq until October 11, 2002. Blair’s legal justification is said to come from UN Resolution 1441, which was not passed until November 8, 2002.

Last week one US blogger, Larisa Alexandrovna of RawStory.com, unearthed more unsettling evidence. It was an overlooked interview with Lieutenant-General T Michael Moseley, the allied air commander in Iraq, in which he appears to admit that the “spikes of activity” were part of a covert air war.

From June 2002 until March 20, when the ground war began, the allies flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq, attacking 349 carefully selected targets. The attacks, Moseley said, “laid the foundations” for the invasion, allowing allied commanders to begin the ground war. -- Michael Smith, The Sunday Times - Britain

I agree with Ray McGovern. I'd like to see the public questioning of the former intelligence chief, or even the scribe for the minutes on July 23, 2003. I'd really like to see testimony from George Tenet or any other US officials upon whose views Blair relied upon. More than either of those, I'd like to see truth orientated bloggers continue to stay the course on the Downing Street Memo. Rove's words cannot hurt us if we refuse to be swayed. He is only trying to control the situation. The more we expose, the dirtier he will play. He has not lost in a very long time. Oh, well. You gotta love those laws of averages.

Bring the truth out. Bring It On. Our words can, and must, be the beacons of truth, accountability and justice.

Time to snare a few rabbits.

Cross-posted at Bring It On!
[politics]

Rove, You're Goin' Down

2005-06-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

The bulk of this I did not write. Credit goes to Shakespeare's Sister, who rocks the house for the Big Brass Alliance. My comments are in yellow. Read it; get busy. Light those phones lines up. Who the hell is Karl Rove to think he can get away, on public media, with calling half the county unpatriotic. This man is a delusional Machiavellian.

ROAR!! Force his resignation.

Wednesday night on Hardball, guest host David Gregory asked Karl Rove about the Downing Street documents. The following is the relevant exchange:

GREGORY: As you well know, critics of this war have seized on what’s being called now the Downing Street Memo, based on meetings that Britain’s Chief of Intelligence had with American officials about the war. One issue that comes up in that memo and subsequent memos is British concerns about the fact that the White House in their view wasn’t adequately thinking about what happens after the regime falls.

ROVE: I'm glad you brought that up because I want to put that in context. First of all that is the British — a Brit making a comment about what he perceived to be U.S. policy. But remember the time frame, it is months and months and months before the balloon goes up in Iraq. And in those intervening months there was plenty of time planning for post-war efforts, vast amounts of planning. You never know exactly how a war is going to plan out. Napoleon once said, 'vast numbers of refugees enormous problems with food aid'- did not happen. Vast uprising- didn't happen. That we would see a vast uprising by hundreds of thousands of Iraqis- didn’t happen. War is ugly, but a lot went very well with this effort and in part it was because the United States government and our coalition partners used the months to plan for any eventuality.

GREGORY: But if you're talking about the number of troops necessary, the level of American casualties, the force and intensity of the insurgency…did the president mislead the American people about the cost of the war or was he just simply surprised by what happened?

ROVE: I would go back to the president’s statements over the last several years and I would defy you to find one speech which he talked about Iraq where he doesn’t say there would be difficult times ahead, that we had a long road to hope that a great deal of sacrifice was going to be called for by both the American people and by the Iraqis to achieve this goal. Look, we do not underestimate the ferocity and the anger and the viciousness of the people that we face. We are in a war. Some people may treat it as a law enforcement matter and be worried about indictments from the U.S. attorney from the southern district of New York. But we recognize this administration and the American people we are in a war and the only way you have a successful outcome in the war is to aim for a complete and total victory, which is exactly what we’re doing.

Clearly, he used questions about the Downing Street Documents to set himself up for his comments made in a speech Wednesday night.

"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said Wednesday night. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

Today, the RNC issued talking points in support of Rove’s statement, in addition to an attack ad against Dick Durbin based on his Gitmo comments.

We need to get on this big time, because this is their defensive play—deflect all interest in the Downing Street Documents by some controversy and forcing the Dems (and liberals of all stripes) to defend themselves…again.

Call this out for the subterfuge that it is. Demand Rove’s resignation. Don’t let them detract from this major issue with their usual disingenuous B.S. Draw the clear link between trying to refocus away from the Downing Street Documents. This is their last line of defense. Don’t let it work.

It's me again. Makes me think Downing Street has them scared. Don't let them us the war as a wedge. We all know we must fund and clean up our mess. We also know we do NOT have to submit to failed leadership. "We the People" is US. We need to haul these horses in before they break America's wagon. Back to Shakespeare's Sister:

Also, Cheney has responded to questions about the Downing Street Documents:

Cheney said he had not read the so-called "Downing Street memo," a document written by a British official in the fall of 2002 suggesting that President Bush had already decided to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and that U.S. officials were over hyping intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to build support for the policy.

However, the vice president said the premise of the memo -- that a decision to go to war had been made months before the March 2003 invasion -- was "wrong."

"Remember what happened after the supposed memo was written. We went to the United Nations. We got a unanimous vote out of the Security Council for a resolution calling on Saddam Hussein to come clean," he said.

This response is, of course, utter crap. Considering the Memos indicate that going to the UN and backing Saddam into a corner would help “sell” the war, this hardly passes as a defense. He's basically trying to discredit the memos by saying, "How could they be true? We did exactly what they said we were planning to do." Illogical garbage. Call him out on it.

I'm baaack. If Cheney hasn't read the memo, he's irresponsible. If he did, he's a liar. Neither are qualities befitting second in line for the Presidency. I think Washington is scrambling. They know how deep the rabbit hole goes, and it's bad. Keep pushing on them. You fight the nastiest when cornered and I believe this administration knows it's in danger of going down. Continue everything you're doing. Email the media. Call and email your representatives. Urge them to convene a hearing with both parties attending, to investigate the DSM. Demand Rove's apology and resignation.

And if you write -- WRITE!

Temptation to Fury

2005-06-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

In an instant, we walk a narrow ledge. The political blogosphere was a bubble, held aloft by it's own angst and the policy wall built between the president and the truth. Just as Watergate began with a small item in the Washington Post, the Downing Street Memo popped the bubble and released us, angry, into the world. The temptation to fury is great. The concept of got them running has appeal. The desire to pin every transgression mounts. The siren's song of righteousness beckons.

We need to be exceptionally careful. We need to know our history.

The national shame we carry into future generations from the Vietnam War is personal. We mistreated our soldiers. We did not separate them from the policy. Worse, we took the policy to them on a personal level. We are sorry, but it cannot be undone, and it still colors our actions.

I understand the difference between supporting our troop financially and supporting them emotionally. Squeezing the funding leaves them vulnerable. We can't do that. Congress has approved the money requested time and time again. Still, the condition of the equipment is deplorable. Marine Corps units fighting in some of the most dangerous terrain in Iraq don't have enough weapons, communications gear, or properly outfitted vehicles, according to an investigation by the Marine Corps' inspector general provided to Congress yesterday. This is not just an Army issue.

There is a growing number of people who question the decision making of our President. There are some gaps he is declining to fill in, such as discussing the DSM or releasing the documents requested on Bolton. I'd like to know why. I'm not alone. His public stance on the status of the war in Iraq is not shared by all, including members of his own party: "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq." -- Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-NE

However, when I look at what a soldier does, and why he/she does it, I am grateful, but troubled at the same time. You see, I believe that the oath taken when you serve is not to a man but to an ideal that was established by our founders and embodied in our Constitution. Honor of that caliber cannot be sullied by lies and manipulation.

I see the Patriot Act, which violates Amendments 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the Bill of Rights. I see false pretenses for invading Iraq. I see Osama at large. I see our judicial branch under siege by Frist. I see Veterans programs willfully set to go under the knife by Mr. Buyer, R-IN. I see war being waged on the very document our service men and women swear to serve, and the people bringing this war are American. To keep us distracted they trot out the lie machine to try to discredit what they don't want discussed. When that fails, blame the questioners of planning to spit! Spitting? Nobody I know of on the left would contemplate for a nanosecond spitting on our troops. The bruises on the national psyche after Vietnam are still tender. From where I'm watching, from congress down to the regular Joe's, the troop are spoken of respectfully.

The goal? Slander us until we shut up.

Silenced? Not this American.

So, while I agree we have to fund this mess, that does not preclude demanding truth; nor is demanding truth unpatriotic or unsupportive. The narrow ledge we walk, and MUST walk well, is how we fund, emotionally support, and understand the degrees of separation of what this war is to our people on the ground. You do not put yourself daily into a position of losing your life if you do not believe in your cause. They know, as we never will, what Iraqis say to them, how they respond to them, what the common man's actual skinny is.

The ledge is this: How do we fully support a war and bring down a lying President?

Hold history close, walk that ledge, and don't look down.

Not a Time for Silence

2005-06-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts back, I put up a press release regarding the Democratic hearing regarding the Downing Street Memo. John Conyers held the meeting under hostile circumstances last Thursday. The letter Mr. Conyers sent to the Washington Post regarding the story they ran was so eloquent, that I'll let you read it for yourselves. Truly, this is a principled leader. I'm glad he's one of ours.

This is not a time for silence. Accept the challenge to make Downing Street Memo a phrase most Americans recognize. The right is already swinging the lie machine into place to discredit it. Think about it. Why wouldn't they? In the past they have used this ruse to control the perception of John McCain, John Kerry, voting irregularities in Ohio and Florida, the Patriot Act, the Pat Tillman fiasco, WMD's, and so many others it almost hurts to think about the web of lies that are commonplace in America these days. Mainstream media seemed cowed, and misinformation carried the day. No more. Draw your line. It's time.

If you have not joined the Big Brass Alliance, I encourage you to do so. See the sidebar, you can't miss it. Another extremely important task you can take up is to regularly email mainstream media and ask about their DSM coverage or lack of it. They are starting to wake up. We need them to reach Joe and Jane Schmoe, and yank their blinders off. If we want any degree of accountability, force the media to inform the masses. Small angry voices can only carry so far. We are the tinder; it's time to fan the flames.

Here, in it's entirety, is Mr. Conyers lambaste of the Washington Post. (Link kudos to Lew Rockwell.)

Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor;
Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman;
Mr. Dana Milbank
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Sirs:

I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.

In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that "only one" member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline "Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight." Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.

The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats "pretended" a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing.

In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.
That said, to give such emphasis to 100 seconds of a 3 hour and five minute hearing that included the powerful and sad testimony (hardly mentioned by Milbank) of a woman who lost her son in the Iraq war and now feels lied to as a result of the Downing Street Minutes, is incredibly misleading. Many, many different pamphlets were being passed out at the overflow room, including pamphlets about getting out of the Iraq war and anti-Central American Free Trade Agreement, and it is puzzling why Milbank saw fit to only mention the one he did.

In a typically derisive and uninformed passage, Milbank makes much of other lawmakers calling me "Mr. Chairman" and says I liked it so much that I used "chairmanly phrases." Milbank may not know that I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee from 1988 to 1994. By protocol and tradition in the House, once you have been a Chairman you are always referred to as such. Thus, there was nothing unusual about my being referred to as Mr. Chairman.

To administer his coup-de-grace, Milbank literally makes up another cheap shot that I "was having so much fun that [I] ignored aides' entreaties to end the session." This did not occur. None of my aides offered entreaties to end the session and I have no idea where Milbank gets that information. The hearing certainly ran longer than expected, but that was because so many Members of Congress persevered under very difficult circumstances to attend, and I thought – given that – the least I could do was allow them to say their piece. That is called courtesy, not "fun."

By the way, the "Downing Street Memo" is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials – having just met with their American counterparts – describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank's article.

The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn't make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter – whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.

Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.

There is something irresistible when petty dis-information is met with factual scorn. I never tire of it.

Runnin' from the Shadows

2005-06-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

This week, I hit the wall. If you are presumptuous enough to think you are a writer, the wall is something you don't acknowledge. It's like the shadow in the room; unless you specifically look for it, it's non existent. Shadows are patient. Sometimes, we celebrate them. Film Noir showcases the shadows, the encapsulation of the ever present wall; captured for eternity, a testament to the constancy of the shadows.

When you write, if you give yourself into tunnel vision and script madly, you write well for awhile, then perhaps less well, but you are writing. The problem is that the writing becomes less honest. Tunnel vision truncates everything else, constricting to mere drips and drabs. Eventually, the writing stops.

The wall finds you.

I've spent this past week reading the news. There's been a lot going on. Mr. Conyers went to Washington, figuratively. Literally, of course, he's already there. Terri Schiavo's autopsy showed that she was never abused, and that she could never have recovered. Jeb Bush digested this news and still attempted to pin some sort of murderous intent on her husband. This is so patently not what the Governor's job is about that I should be on fire. I got nothing here. Zip, zilch, bupkas.

I read about Cindy Sheehan this week. I admire her strength. Her speech crawled into my heart and cried there. Nada.

I read my calls to action from True Majority, Downsize DC, Common Cause, Sojourners, NARAL, Democracy for America, and The Big Brass Blog Alliance. I replied to everything, pondered the efforts, admired the dedication, longed for the energy. Big fat zero.

Is it me? Am I burnt out? Is the world grinding me down? Am I that poor in character that I'm without fire?

Gah.

So, last night, I drank a couple beers. I pondered the state of my brain, my pen and my brew. Sometimes, a pity party is in order. My problem, I decided, is two-fold. First, I need to be bolder. Second, I need to be more optimistic. Oh, I write tough enough, but it's the tunnel. It's not honest enough. I'm idealistic, but depressed. I need to trade that in for optimism with a side of Mad as Hell.

So, next week I will find the fire. I accept this battle. I must win. We all must. We have the best God Dem democracy in the world riding on it.

When they lie, no more thinking they're idiots. Cold hard facts please, as loud as possible. When they twist, untwist. Subterfuge, shine the light. Slander, tell the truth.

The little boys spoiling our democracy need a spanking. It's time to channel our inner parent and set them straight.

Party's over.

Then and Now

2005-06-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

Lina Marie, from "The World and Everything In It", blew the doors off the hinges as a guest author over at "Bring It On" yesterday. The Democratic path is up for grabs. How we intend to fight and what weapons we use are crucial topics Democrats need to coalesce upon. Check out her post here. I guarantee it will make you think.

I've written quite a bit here about where the Dems have been and where I think we need to be. One problem facing the party that nobody is actively discussing (at least as far as I've been able to see) in the attrition of Black American voters from the party. It could be that the selfishness of private this and individual that has appeal, but I don't think so. This demographic has demonstrated repeatedly that they value community based initiatives. The problem is probably power oriented. The selfishness is within the party itself. A party that says it promotes tolerance and cherry picks the choice power roles is a working hypocrisy.

1976, two years after Nixon resigned, was an election year. During the Democratic National Convention these words were spoken:

We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted. This can be accomplished only by providing each citizen with every opportunity to participate in the management of the government. They must have that.

We believe that the government which represents the authority of all the people, not just one interest group, but all the people, has an obligation to actively underscore, actively seek to remove those obstacles which would block individual achievement...obstacles emanating from race, sex, economic condition. The government must seek to remove them.

We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.

We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that.

Compelling stuff. The idea of strength in numbers is a core Democratic precept. We believe that the government's role is to level the playing field so that everybody can achieve. We actually think that we can reach a point where the country can truly be a homogenous America, multicolored, multifaceted, and incredibly strong because of it. Let's fast forward 30 years:

As Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, in this new economy, “Talent is the 21st century wealth.” If you’ve got the skills, you’ve got the education, and you have the opportunity to upgrade and improve both, you’ll be able to compete and win anywhere. If not, the fall will be further and harder than it ever was before.

So what do we do about this? How does America find its way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be?

Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn’t much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on.

In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism--every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!”

But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it’s been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It’s been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability.

Achievement as an individual must be coupled with caring for the community. Democrats today, realistic ones anyway, understand that if the disparity of wealth that is being cemented by the current administration continues, the damage to the country and our ability to remain a superpower are in jeopardy. It's money, people. We spend, and spend and spend. We increase wealth unevenly. We cut programs designed to help people help themselves, thereby reducing their ability to produce at all. The conservative precepts that the world is composed of haves and have-nots is not automatic, it is engineered. It is being engineered right now. By consigning people into a permanent have-not slot we are damning our country, it's potential productivity, and our ability to thrive and lead in the new millennium.

We need to accept that we, as a nation, must embrace education in new ways for all our citizens. Skilled labor jobs are leaving, and factories are too. If we want to survive this change in our national financial landscape, adult education and retraining needs to be on the plate. We can't sit in a holding pattern for 20 years, waiting to see it the "No Child Left Behind" children can save us with their new and improved pre-college education. China won't wait for us to catch up. We need to look at cities in crisis because jobs are going away, appreciate the value of the minds there, and train those minds to their best talent level. We need to reach people of color, and show with deeds, that we can give them, through ongoing education, the tools to make their cities more prosperous, the wealth to showcase and appreciate the varied cultures of America, and the determination to see America evolve closer to the values so clearly outlined in 1976.

Furthermore, we need to showcase and appreciate the Democrats who strive for change so tirelessly and speak so eloquently of the community values we hope to achieve. People like John Conyers, D-MI, who is forcing the Downing Street Minutes into the media's face, embarrassing them with their lack of coverage, and demanding answers from the administration who, after six weeks, still has not categorically denied its contents. In my book, that means they haven't because they CAN'T. Support Rep. Conyers in any way you can.

The 1976 speech above was given by Barbara Jordan, D-TX, the first black woman elected to the Texas Senate, the first black woman elected as a U.S. Representative from Texas, and a member of the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate. Her words, which ring so true today, take on exceptional eloquence a mere 11 years after the abolition of Jim Crow laws. (link kudos to Siva)

The last quote is from the commencement address given at Knox College, Galesburg Illinois. The speaker? Barak Obama. The entire address is here, and it's a powerful one. If you think Democrats don't understand what needs to happen to force America into a leadership role for the next century, this is for you.

Personally, nothing would make me happier than a Conyers/Obama ticket in 2008. No more cherry picking; here's the pie. They are spot-on my dream of America, and they aren't afraid to roll up their sleeves and clean up the mess. Vision and strength, folks, it just comes down to vision and strength.

We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community. -- Barbara Jordan

Mr. President, We Need an Explanation

2005-06-09T19:27:00.000-07:00

This press release, from the office of Senator John Conyers, D-MI as seen on his site and on Raw Story.

For Immediate Release:
THURSDAY, JUNE 16
CONYERS TO HOLD DEMOCRATIC HEARING ON DOWNING STREET MEMO AND LEAD UP TO IRAQ WAR
WASHINGTON, D.C. - On Thursday June 16, 2005, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of House Judiciary Committee, and other Democratic Members will hold a Democratic hearing to hear testimony concerning the Downing Street Minutes and the efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.

On May 1, 2005 a Sunday London Times article disclosed the details of a classified memo, also known as the Downing Street Minutes, recounting the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair that describes an American President already committed to going to war in the summer of 2002, despite contrary assertions to the public and the Congress. The minutes also describe apparent efforts by the Administration to manipulate intelligence data to justify the war. The June 16th hearing will attempt to answer the serious constitutional questions raised by these revelations and will further investigate the Administration's actions in the lead up to war with new documents that further corroborate the Downing Street memo.

Directly following the hearing, Rep. Conyers, Members of Congress, and concerned citizens plan to hand deliver to the White House the petition and signatures of over a half million Americans that have joined Rep. Conyers in demanding that President Bush answer questions about his secret plan for the Iraq war.

WHAT: Democratic hearing on Downing Street Minutes and Pre-war intelligence
WHEN: Thursday, June 16, 2005, TIME TBD
WHERE: LOCATION TBD

While this is a Democratic hearing, the intent is to deliver it to the Whitehouse.

This is GOOD NEWS folks. I feel like shouting. In a town full of talkers, John Conyers is acting. If you have been frustrated by the lack of attention to the Downing Street Memo, act now. Momentum is with us.

Go here, and here. If you pray, say one for John Conyers.

A weight is lifting. Can I get a witness?

Modern Day Shame

2005-06-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you come across something that leaves you stunned. It happened to me on Monday. I was scheduled to post on Bring It On on Tuesday, so I wrote about it. I've decided to put it up here for a day while I finish my next post. I encourage you to follow the links. If you'd like more information, email me and I will send it to you. The next time you hear our government condemning another nation for civil rights violations, remember this shame.

In case you were wondering, this is how it works in the new millennium.

You are homeless and hungry; the offer of food, a place to stay and the chance to work are gratefully accepted. A long ride in a beat-up van brings you to the camp. Beer is placed on ice in front of you. Food is placed beside it. After you eat and drink, you find out the beers are $1.50 each, the food and bed cost as well. Your charge "account" has begun.

The next day you load up in the van and leave the isolated camp. There is no town, just one road out. You go to the grower's facility. You pick tomatoes, dig potatoes, cut cabbage, pick citrus. The day is long, the work unrelenting. You are returned to the camp. You wages are docked for every thing you ate or drank, your ride to and from the camp, your bed. Your account obligation mounts. They own your earnings to repay your subsistence.

Crack is sold for $20.00 a rock. It ensures compliance as it requires more work to pay for it, and the addiction mandates more crack be purchased.

A man leaves the camp, down the one road. He is hunted down and severely beaten. Threats to feed the next one to flee to the alligators are believed.

New workers arrive at the camp. They are unloaded from a van with Arizona plates. The camp bosses ask the new workers to pay for their passage. No one has any money. The bosses pay the drivers for the workers. These workers must "repay" the $1000 payment, in addition to their daily costs, before they can leave.

More tomatoes, more potatoes, more cabbage and grapefruit await. The laborers are not employees of the growers, they are contracted labor. They are unprotected, exploited, and completely controlled.

They are modern day slaves.

President Bush addressed the trafficking of women on July 16, 2004. While commendable, it's only part of the slavery story. The situation I described above is happening, right now, in Florida. The ownership of humans, through punitive wage garnering, is creating a substrata of workers who are systematically abused by labor contractors. The protections in place to safeguard workers who work directly for the grower cannot help them. Are the growers aware of the situation? I can't see how they can't be; to succeed, you must understand your industry. Growers need cheap labor, and using labor contractors ensures they have it. Legally, their hands are clean.

Jumping up and down and screaming about illegal aliens is not productive here. No American would ever work fourteen hours to net $7.00. President Bush's temporary worker program merits consideration. To simply ignore the work that is being accomplished and focus on the influx of illegals is akin to not reading the book because you don't like the jacket. These workers are putting food on the American table. This nation values work. We must begin there.

The temporary worker program will protect people arriving in this country from slavery abuse, and fill jobs that Americans do not want to do. (Have you tried to pick a grapefruit off a thorn-laden 20' tree, while on a ladder? How about 2000 of them?) It will also help us know who is in this country, and help us to secure our borders.

America has not healed it's slavery scars. We cannot go down this path any farther. Slavery has NO acceptable format. Every mind, every person, has value and merit. This country provides the framework to develop yourself. It's one of our most cherished philosophies. If not available to all, it's reduced to farce.

I'm not willing to see hard work and determination join honor and respect on the sidelines. Are you?

Break the Chain

2005-06-05T16:44:00.000-07:00

This meme, which I take as a blog chain letter, came courtesy of the Gun Toting Liberal. He's a blogger I often disagree with but he's honest, forthright, and never nasty. I always feel that the conversation is more interesting when he's in it. I got into a shouting match over at the Stop the ACLU blog, and GTL had my back. That's just the kind of upright guy he is. SO, I am accepting this meme, but PLEASE don't inundate me with additional ones. I prefer topic driven material. That's just the kind of woman I am.

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video: Perhaps 6 DVD's, but between 3 and 400 videos. We lost a friend a few years ago to a failed bone marrow transplant, and inherited his extensive video collection to keep our own fairly decent-sized one company. I'd trade all of it, plus the T.V., a kidney, my car, and even the cat, to have him back. (Those of you who know how much I love my car, and that mean old cat who loves only me, will appreciate that statement. I suppose I should love my kidney, but I just never really think about it. Oh well.)

2) The last film I bought: A Veggie Tale, I think it was Larry Boy and the Rumor Weed, for my kids. Dy-no-MITE!

3) The last film I watched: "Traffic". Good movie.

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me: "Fargo", "The Matrix", "Moonstruck", "Chocolat", "Tommy" I actually burned Tina Turner's "Acid Queen" last week. Still rocks the house.

5) Tag 5 people and have them put this in their journal/blog... Well, I will send it along, with the caveat that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OF ANY CONSEQUENCE WHATSOEVER WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU BLOW THIS WRETCHED THIS OFF. Ooops! Was that me shouting? Sorry about that! If you are a lucky recipient, copy this, change it and post it on your blog. I promise, you'll never see another one from this chica.

Dirty Rats

2005-06-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

My kid memories are good ones. My folks were active, a bit quirky and had a vision, early on, of what kind of life they wanted to wrap around us. We lived in northern Illinois, but my summer adventures based out of a 1920's bungalow on a clear Wisconsin lake. The "Cottage" as my Mother christened it, was three tiny bedrooms in a sea of bead board paneling, a huge screen porch, and a tiny added-on kitchen and half bath. If a shower was required, you had to go outside, "rockle" down the ancient stone steps to the basement, and brave the spiders.

Our nearest neighbor had five kids. They ranged from one year younger to 10 years older than me. Summertime threw us together, and we learned the ropes. How to hang, how to swim, that potato chips should be dipped in catsup, and the code.

The code was sacrosanct. Kids did not rat each other out. You had the back of a kid in your group. Big kids could razz the crap out of any little kid in their group, but God forbid some other kid tried it. The code was pure kid world. It was the beginning of the definition of self, sans parent.

The thing about the code is, it never leaves you.

My friends know they can count on me, and I them. I like that. Through our teens, young adulthood and mid years, choices document our lives. Children vs. childless, money, vs. struggle, party-on vs. AA or rehab, Dem vs. Rep, or divine vs. rewind; the choices are part of my friends. They get to drive their ride in peace. It's their life; they're in the driver's seat. I'm kicking back and watching kids or careers grow, big houses and small ones, three o'clock Yeeeee Haaaaaa's and O'Doul's, the like and not so like political leanings, and the decisions to seek or turn from God.

Part of being an adult is choosing how you want to live your life. Part of the code is respecting that.

HR1528 is the antithesis of everything I believed was the norm.

From Downsize DC:

The politicians want You — to be a snitch

HR 1528 has already passed through one committee, and appears likely to pass through another and come to the floor for a vote. This bill, if passed, will force you to inform on your neighbors if you have any knowledge of drug related activity. We're not making this up. First it was illegal to deal drugs, then use them, and then to be caught with them. Now, Congressman James Sensenbrenner wants to make it the law that if you do not inform on your neighbors you can be sentenced to prison! This kind of a system — neighbors informing on neighbors — was a key feature of past totalitarian regimes. Is this really what we want for America?

I cannot fathom living my life like that. If a married couple wants to smoke a bowl and make love after the kids are in bed, good for them. Under this bill, families would be destroyed, with parents going to prison. The bill is deceptive, making it sound like it's protecting children, but in actuality, it's another effort to control the American citizen in the name of controlling terrorists.

Yo, Washington. WE are not the terrorists.

How 'bout you take HR1528 and your damned Real ID card, and stick'em.

Again from Downsize DC:

This proposed new law also requires you to provide full assistance in investigating, apprehending, and prosecuting drug law offenders who are personally known to you. This could involve working undercover and wearing a wire to entrap and convict friends, family members, and neighbors.

This law, as with so many others, is constructed in such a way that it can be justified as a measure to protect children, which includes anyone under the age of majority, including many college students. It also ensnares the private activities of parents related to substances like marijuana. The government considers parents who smoke pot in the privacy of their bedroom after hours a serious threat, whereas Senators and Congresspersons who drink large amounts of alcohol in front of their children in the light of day, are not.

Examples of activities that could force you to inform or face the risk of prison time:

--You see a joint passed to a college student. Call the police immediately.

--Your child has a substance-abuse problem and begs someone else to acquire drugs. You cannot deal with this as a family matter, or in a drug-treatment setting. You must inform on both of them.

--Your hear someone say they bought Ecstasy to share with College age friends. Report this within 24 hours or risk prosecution.

--Your sister, who has kids, mentions that she bought some pot to share with her husband. Inform on your sister or risk prison time.

Downsize DC offers a link to email your rep, or I have one on the sidebar. If a Congressperson hears from 300 constituents, that small number is enough to get them to consider other opinions. I especially encourage Wisconsinites to give Mr. Sensenbrenner a call. Call early. Call often. And next election, vote that boy out. Please.

Think about what it would be like to strip all trust from the relationships in your lives. Knowing that a single choice, made in anger, could ruin the lives of an entire family has zero appeal to me. I am unwilling to concede the people in my life to an insecure government who can't find Osama, manipulates intel in order to enter a war, and is attempting to undermine the judiciary to further their personal agendas.

If they think the code means nothing, they underestimate this American. I'm getting busy here. I urge you to do the same.

My Father's America

2005-05-27T04:23:00.000-07:00

I am an American, fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense. -- US Military Code of Conduct, Article I

Give me, kind Heaven, a private station, A mind serene for contemplation: Title and profit I resign; The post of honor shall be mine. -- John Gay

These were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of the times. -- Ecclesiasticus 44:7

It wasn't the reward that mattered or the recognition you might harvest. It was your depth of commitment, your quality of service, the product of your devotion -- these were the things that counted in a life. When you gave purely, the honor came in the giving, and that was honor enough. --Scott O'Grady, USAF

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. --Leo C. Rosten

"Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never. Never -- in anything great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." -- Sir Winston Churchill

"Our own heart, and not other men's opinion, form our true honor." -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave." -- John Calvin Coolidge

"If you must choose between two paths, either of which will bring death and defeat, then choose the path wherein you die fighting for honor and justice." -- Pan Ku

"At the close of life the question will be not how much have you got, but how much have you given; nor how much have you won, but how much have you done; not how much have you saved, but how much have you sacrificed; how much have you loved and served, not how much were you honored." -- Nathan C. Schaeffer

I miss my Dad this time of year. Not because he was killed in action, but because throughout a life punctuated by achievement, trials, and personal demons, he felt his service in the USAF was where he found his best self. The clarity of ethical conduct appealed to his sense of how people need to be to and with one another. I think if he had been alive to witness this last presidential election his reaction would have been one of shame. Shame that there is no honor that cannot be shoved aside in the cause of winning. Shame that the debate of ideas is a distant second to the besmichment of character. This is not to say my Dad wasn't politically savvy, I grew up outside of Chicago, after all, but he did expect the people who earned his vote to "have some stones" when it came to making tough choices. Phrases like "civil servant" and "civic virtues" weren't lip service, they were core attitudes, as much a part of him as his size 12 1/2 feet.

During his lifetime he did not miss a single opportunity to vote. Not one. Voting, he explained, was a civilian's duty towards democracy. Not voting, in my house, was akin to capital crime. He and my Mother, both whip smart and good debaters, turned election time around our house into an unending series of congealing suppers on dinner-plates, chilling to the tune of political discourse. I can remember seeing my brother face down, asleep at the table while the pro's and con's raged, oblivious.

My Dad had very set ideas about behavior. There was no lying, no dissembling the truth when faced with the dark brown-eyed stare down. Honor was a mindset; trust earnest by conduct. These are all military ideals, I realize now. As a child, they were just the law. Deviations were disciplined. Conduct should never be compromised.

When I read about things like Abu Ghraib, I think about my Dad. I know what he would have thought was honorable in that situation. I know where he would have considered the line to be. Honor's qualities preclude avoidance of responsibility. My Dad, as an officer, would not have looked upon trials of service men and women favorably. The chain of command is absolute. You are responsible for your people. They don't piss without you knowing about it. Honor requires ethics, courage and responsibility. Honor earned is your strongest shield, but it is a transparent one.

My Dad was not a perfect father, but to me he embodied America. He always tried. He embraced duty, country and family with passion and commitment. You knew where you stood with my Dad. You knew where you stood with his America.

This weekend we look at ours. This is the great, untrumpeted gift of the Memorial Day holiday to our nation. It gives us an opportunity to see honor as it should be seen: quietly, in individual gratitude for the sacrifice, and with personal introspection for the enormity of that gift. As you look upon the faces of the dead, see them, but be also humble, as is befitting honor.

(The banner you see above came into being thanks to the efforts of Patcam2005 of DO NOT READ ANY OF THIS and me, and it represents only a portion of the service personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq so far this year. Peace be with them.)

Truth or Consequences

2005-05-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

The last post I put up here and on Bring It On regarding Dominionism generated a number of comments. Specifically, the figure of 35 million Dominionists was challenged. What I wanted to convey was that 35 million people are Dominion influenced, and most of them are quite fervent about their beliefs. People who are swayed to that degree are functioning as Dominionists, whether they accept the title or not.

Let's take a little quiz, shall we?

True or False:

1) A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Especially when espoused by scientists and universities.

2) People are poor because they have not been "born again".

3) Wealth is a sign that one is following the will of God.

4) Mental illness is a sign that the mind has been devoured by Satan.

5) Drug and alcohol addictions can only be cured by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

6) Believing in "the truth" means knowing anyone who believes differently is wrong and condemned to hell for eternity.

7) True believers have divine authority to subvert, by any means, the government in order to create a theocracy based on "the truth".

Did you answer true to any of these? Did you answer true to most, or all of them? Congratulations, and welcome to the 35 Million Club!

My, THAT was fun. Anybody up for another?

True of False:

The Bible says:

1) But for this very reason--adding, on your part, all earnestness-- along with your faith, manifest also a noble character: along with a noble character, knowledge;

2) Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. He who is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished.

3) For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can't carry anything out.

4) Open your mouth for the mute, in the cause of all who are left desolate

5) Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

6) For those who lead this people lead them astray; and those who are led by them are destroyed.

7) He said, "Watch out that you don't get led astray, for many will come in my name, saying,' I am he,' and,'The time is at hand.' Therefore don't follow them.

Did you answer true to any of these? Did you answer true to all of them? Congratulations, and welcome to the Rest of the Christian World. (Here's your answer key: 2 Peter 1:5, Proverbs 17:5, Timothy 6:7, Proverbs 31:8, Psalms 82:3, Isaiah 9:16, Luke 21:8)

You see, the chief problem here is that God is no longer in the discussion. When you claim to KNOW all, and all others are damned, you tend to get a little sloppy about the details. There's a power mindset that is inherently against the integrity of faith. God isn't about taking over countries or changing political landscapes. God is not going to pat you on the head for subverting a nation and creating more poor, needy and afflicted people while cementing power for yourself. God is all about honesty, humility, and self sacrifice.

God is not about HERE!

Sure, this is the arena where you get an opportunity for self discovery. But face it, people, God has zero interest in the American political landscape. He will, however, examine your motives fairly closely. Did you help the poor like he asked? Did you speak up for the afflicted? Did you give your wealth or hoard it? If you gave, did you pick and choose who would receive it, or did you care for all the needy, even the distasteful ones. (We are all sinners to God. He doesn't cherry pick the "good" sinners.) Did you use your words wisely, or did you use them to control, coerce or manipulate less intelligent people? Do you teach that the very people God entrusted into our care are, for whatever reason, not our responsibility?

The religious right of twenty-first century America is anti-American, inherently violent, and a cruel, tyrannical, punitive, force of death and destruction. In its mindset, adult human lives do not matter because the human condition itself is inherently evil resulting in eternal and everlasting punishment in hell unless its members are redeemed in a prescribed manner by the fundamentalist God/man/savior, Jesus Christ. Moreover, with an embarrassingly adolescent flamboyance, Dominionists shamelessly rape, pillage, and desecrate the earth because in the first place, their Bible has given them authority over all things human and in the second place, their “imminent” apocalyptic rapture, transporting them from the human “veil of tears” to live happily ever after in heaven, entitles them to do so. Meanwhile, we the unredeemed, the unbelievers, the poor, the feminists, the gay and lesbian, the disabled, the homeless, the mentally ill, the addicted, and those who are conscientiously following divergent spiritual paths of their choice, are suffering in the wake of Christian fundamentalism’s devastation of the economy, the earth, and the human race. But this is what we deserve for not becoming born-again devotees of their Jesus. And we deserve even worse—to burn in hell for all of eternity. Hence, we are expendable, inconsequential, and a force to be conquered, broken, imprisoned, or killed. -- Carolyn Baker

Strong words? Some might think so, but this woman grew up in a Christian fundamentalist family. Where I come from , that entitles her to speak. What she has to say is downright frightening.

Wanton power lust is not moral. 51% is not a mandate; neither are the current administration approval ratings.

Tell you what. Hit this link, and type in the word POOR in the search box. Uh huh. Now that, my friends, is a moral mandate.

The Church of Silence

2005-05-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

I need to preface this post by stating that I am not a Catholic. I'm married to a Catholic, who does not practice, and have several close family members who practice faithfully. So I do not speak as a lay person, but I do have insight.

That said, what happened on Friday to Fr. Tom Reese was wrong.

The fact that it broke on Friday, a slow news day in front of a slow news weekend, was undoubtedly an optimistic effort to shove the whole mess under the collective Vatican rug before Monday, when something fresher would be certain to capture the media's alleged attention.

Father Tom is, or rather was, the seven year editor of America magazine, a leading publication regarding Catholic thought and opinion. The degree in which his peers hold him in respect is commanding. Here's a few quotes:

“Father Tom is no loose cannon and no flaming liberal or radical, but a trusted and knowledgeable expert on a broad range of Catholic issues. In his job at America magazine he has proved himself as a moderate and extremely fair-minded editor who has taken meticulous care to balance any articles on controversial topics with perspectives from all different viewpoints. That always included a clear representation of the church’s teaching on any given issue. That, nonetheless, he is being forced out for providing that kind of forum for intelligent debate on issues of concern to American Catholics today sends a chilling message." -- Meinrad Scherer-Emunds , U.S. Catholic Magazine

Reese is an exemplary Christian, a model priest and a Jesuit in the best of that order’s tradition of robust thought and dedicated scholarship. A political scientist by training, he has written some of the most authoritative and objective studies of the hierarchy yet published. -- National Catholic Reporter, editorial

Reese, professionals across the spectrum say, is a moderate and mild man. No raging anarchist, no raving heretic. He is a thoughtful man, a fair man and a competent one. He is a scholar and writer, a person who examines a subject from multiple perspectives so that others can do the same. He provides the background ideas people need to come to clear, firm conclusions of their own. He is, in other words, a good journalist. -- Sister Joan Chittister

Over the past five years, Fr. Tom Reese oversaw articles published on some touchy subjects including condoms, gay priests, perceived foot dragging over theological discipline, pro-choice American politicians, and Dominus Iesus (a 2000 Vatican document by then-Cardinal Ratzinger that clarified the Church's position as the one true Christian Church, causing controversy among non-Catholic Christian denominations and Jews, and slowing forward progress made towards these groups). The America magazine articles opened dialogue and referred to church teachings in the discussion of these topics, many of them complex or emotionally complicated.

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the group responsible for the ultimate removal of Father Tom, after applying pressure for five years. The Congregation during that time was headed up by Cardinal Ratzinger. In 2002 the Congregation proposed a three member censor board for the magazine, a control device that was rigorously debated against by the magazine. Reese ultimately resigned May 6, 2005 when faced with the choice of leaving or accepting a censor board.

Discussion regarding Ratzinger's (now Pope Benedict XVI) involvement is ongoing, but without credible evidence I am not ready to render an opinion.

I am, however, ready to ask some questions.

What, exactly, is the Church afraid of? Is an informed laity a threat? Is it a consensus that if these issues are removed from the public forum, they will no longer be discussed? Is that really realistic? Is quashing conversation going to attract and keep young people in the Church? Do they believe a muzzle is a tool for teaching or understand it is simply for control?

I believe that asking questions of ourselves and of our beliefs is how we strip our defenses, admit our vulnerabilities and achieve humility in our individual quest for spirituality. Defining and releasing our baggage is part of finding faith. It's hard as hell to do.

Practitioners of Catholicism must do it in increasing silence. A door to faith, in the form of intellectual discovery, has slammed shut.

The Principles of Liberals

2005-05-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

On May 6, 2005 Eric Alterman wrote:

I was watching a panel on foreign policy called "Are We Making the World Safe for Democracy?" at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on C-SPAN and a questioner asked “My conservative friends can enumerate four or five basic principles of what it means to be a conservative, but what are the principles of the liberals? I would really like to find out what are the basic principles of the liberal worldview… My liberal friends are not able to elucidate them for me. I’m serious…. For my conservative friends we can rattle off four or five principles, if you could just rattle off four or five things that are basic.”

Nobody wanted to answer. David Rieff said, “I think it’s a provocation this question. If anyone could argue for the ability to rattle off, as you say, four or five principles I would take issue with the seriousness of those principles.” Reiff is right, but the political problem is real and central. Anyone want to try and answer? If you solve it, I’ll credit you in the next book, and you will have made the world a better place.

Our Response???

Dear Eric;

Key principles gauntlet has been thrown and duly picked up by the Bring It On bloggers, a group of 10 who routinely analyze all things left. While somewhat incredulous that the questioner could not get an answer to his query, (have you ever been surrounded by a group of Democrats who didn't have an opinion?) six of us felt we could step up, enlighten, and Bring It On.

6 Bloggers Respond

There is a truly unique opportunity here for our party. These crossroads offer us a chance to renew American politics. We believe in the dignity of the individual. I think 3 key principles for liberals are Tolerance, Reform and Protection. Most issues can slide under these headers, and they are humanity embracing rather than humanity regulating principles.

Tolerance implies acceptance, a lack of judgment on others who are different. This does not imply a lack of respect for the law. It does indicate a lessening of hierarchy, i.e. class, race, haves/have nots. It is the base of seeing human society growing in a constant rate of improvement due to the offering of more opportunity to more people. It does not subscribe to the theory that protecting ones personal wealth by creating barriers to others betters society.

Reform means rooting out barriers that impede opportunity so growth continues. It means changing systems that are unfair. It means accountability to the people who suffer bias, and performance on the promise of equal opportunity.

Protection means caring for all within the community, searching out the needy and not turning our backs on their needs. We do this because we understand that we cannot grow and improve if we do not nurture.

Lastly, we need look no further than our founders for inspiration. What we seek is nothing less than the restoration of our public dignity. Dignity in how we see ourselves, our civic responsibilities and the role of our elected officials. As a party, we embrace Civic Virtues: Individual rights, Liberty, The public or common good, Self government, Equality, Diversity, Openness and free inquiry, Truth, and Patriotism -- Jet

The Progressive Agenda is to improve our society in such a way to make Life worth living for everyone regardless of class, race or religion and to assure our Freedom and Liberty are protected.

When you say reform, there are several things to reform. Economic reform maybe what you mean. Conservatives would claim that they want to reform government.I think that the overarching value is to reform society - in such a way to give more people access to opportunity.In the US Democrats encompass the Green Party ideals of Environmental Protection and the Labor ideals of jobs at a fair wage as well as fundamental progressive ideals.Getting society ready for a social change is just as important as the actual change itself. Many people react to change in a negative way. Advertising the reasons that things are in need of change makes liberal look like whiners. But the complaining is needed to expose the problem and the need for reform. -- Dr. Forbush

Liberal values are more than just catch phrases and easy slogans. Liberal values are not easily summed up with snappy one liners. Defining our values takes more effort because the real world is more complex than any conservative slogan. But here is my rough cut at it.Our values are based upon the idea that everyone deserves the chance for a quality life. Not the guarantee of success, but the opportunity to succeed.

We believe a person should be judged on their ability, not their background.
That the merit of the person is worth more than the parent of the person.
That a strong America requires widespread prosperity, not the widening disparity of income we see in our society today.
That government serves the people.
That public servants are supposed to serve the interests of the public, not the serve the public to special interest.
That not all tax cuts are good, and not all tax hikes are bad because building a prosperous America means investing in the welfare and well being of all citizens.

Or in short, we believe in Liberty, Equality, Diversity, Prosperity -- The Cranky Liberal

To ask a party to sum up what they are all about is nothing more than a catch 22. No matter what broad spectrum you choose to define a party, you will always alienate someone in the long run because you can't make everyone happy. There is an underlying reason that parties flip flop on issues over the ages, and that is because both parties chase the voter with the biggest pocket book. I would say that the true sense of democracy, and the Democratic party, lies in a government for the people and by the people. By this I mean you have to look past the pocket books, the special interests, the corporate welfare, (which by the way, they need us, just as much as we need them) and look at what tools the average Joe needs to protect his/her/their family, and in the end be a contributing factor to the success of this government for the people by the people.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the opportunities offered by this great nation of ours. You can't have life without liberty and you can't have liberty without life. Most of all, you can't pursue happiness unless you have both. You see, it's not guaranteed; it's just yours to pursue. How you achieve it is up to you. The governments only job is to make sure those rights are not violated in your pursuit for life and liberty.

So without writing a novel of what defines the Democratic party and the liberal agenda I'm gonna stick with Life and Liberty. How we achieve those two things is called politics. The world is too big to lock yourself into four or five basic principles. -- The Bastard

My world view consists of tolerance and open-mindedness. One person's right to swing his fist ends at the tip of another person's nose. This doesn't provide any good buzzwords or slogans that can be used for arguments. Try rousing millions of people with hot-button phrases about tolerance and having an open mind. Conservatives have the advantage in this department. They have a slogan for every occasion. They also react instantly to slogans and hot-button issues with no thought processes whatsoever - just a jerk of the knee and a rush of adrenaline. For smooth manipulators, it's a gold mine. Just yell out "gay marriage!" or "weapons of mass destruction!" and millions of drones snap to attention.Liberal ideas don't make good buzzwords or catch phrases. But liberals have an advantage: their ideas come from thinking things through; not from mindless reflexes. I can't imagine any slogan or catch phrase that would have millions of liberals snapping to attention, ready to carry out the work of Great Leader. -- Tom Harper

People say I have liberal values. I think my values are basic human values. I try to treat everybody as I want to be treated, with respect and dignity. I'm human and I make mistakes. But I own up to them. It's impossible sometimes not to judge another person, so I bitch and scream in words that I will then delete. Sometimes I bitch to my friends. Then I'm over it.

The people I respect and like the most tend not to judge other people; I have learned from example not to judge either.

I live in a crowded city. We tend to be loud; we tend to be argumentative. We tolerate each others eccentricities, weird (to others) views, and speeches, because we know that if we're tolerant we will find commonalities and ultimately an understanding. We don't have to agree on everything or anything but we have to respect what other people think if we're going to live together.

We listen to the arguments without closed ears; we learn from others and sometimes even change our opinion. When it comes to larger issues we read, talk, listen as much as we can, and might change our view five times before coming to a final decision. We're not wishy-washy; but we know that if we don't listen to others our mind will be closed, and that's not right.

We believe in justice, and believe that the principles The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights spell out and infer, are principles worth fighting for. We're a city that has more than 41 separate ethnic groups and dialects, every skin color and religion, yet somehow we manage to live together--and smile more than scream. Though we bitch and whine, we're more likely to come together than to attack from behind.

Tolerance, respect, dignity, justice, liberty, and freedom aren't just words to us. We all know people who have come from countries where those simple basic concepts don't exist. Many new New Yorkers have come from such countries. We're proud to be American. We don't have to scream the word patriotic. More than most American civilians we have shown our patriotism.

New Yorkers are best in emergencies--and in the last three and a half years have prove twice, to the world and each other, that if we stick together we can make it through the darkest of days. -- Pia Talks

There you have it. Liberty, tolerance, and reform lead the way, but it's a matter of overall preservation of dignity that defines this party. Dignity in both the personal sense of the word, encompassing principles that build up, provide equal footing for and encourage participation of the individual. Dignity in the public sense of the word, emphasizing the civic virtues that provide it. We know why we're a different choice. Having somebody say we don't is saying something that isn't so, then saying it so many times that people think it IS so. Got half truths? Got misleading statements? Got a network to spread them?

Bring It On!

While Dr. Alterman did not publish us, I wanted to share these thoughts with you. The hearts of the Democratic Party are people just like these bloggers. Regardless of the dithering you see on the top of the party, the base is getting it together. This is precisely what we need. A house built on a solid base will stand, regardless of the wind, in spite of the hardship.

Our house is strong and that's a good thing. We have thieves at the doors.

Knockin' on Heaven's Door

2005-05-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Don't let us get sick,
Don't let us get old,
Don't let us get stupid,
Alright?

Just make us be brave,
And make us play nice,
And let us be together,
Tonight.
-- Warren Zevon

Lots of people say they don't pray, but let the boss start down cubicle row with a nasty project, and the air fills with little thoughts.

(No, no, no, not me, Smith's a jerk, make it be Smith, I hate Smith, give it to Smith, no, no, No, NO, NooOOOOO!)

What destination these thoughts? We fling them automatically. Ever been in a car wreck? Just try to keep those babies in.

(What the... watch it WATCH IT OH MY GOD! WATCH...) Uh oh.

We're hard-wired for prayer. Think about it. Wow.

I like this little song I quoted by Warren Zevon. It's a decent litany of hopes. Wellness, young spirits, Alzheimer's at bay, courage, tolerance and fellowship.

In a way, it reminds me of what I like about being a Democrat. We have the desire to see health become a priority, to see the elderly financially sustainable, to forward scientific research against crippling diseases and conditions, to use our strength and to appreciate it's value by not misusing it, to embrace, encourage and expect diversity and to shine the light on ethnic prejudice, and to be involved with our communities.

It resonates, doesn't it?

I'm one of those people who doesn't pray. A flinger of automatic thoughts? Big time. But something about actually ASKING God for something is not my cup of tea. I mean, who am I compared to God? What are my troubles compared to everyone else's? I try to be thankful and make an effort to wing appreciation out there, but so far, I haven't figured out exactly how to pray for something from God without feeling like it's not getting through. I think the problem is on my side. Too proud to ask? Maybe. Grateful I don't have to ask? Definitely.

So, since I don't have any personal troubles I consider truly threatening, no prayers (intentional ones, anyways) from me.

But I was thinking today about my last post, and the enormous amount of very scary reading I did before I wrote it. There was so much I couldn't include that opened my eyes to the political picture in this country. I'm worried. There are 6 high ranking Senators that vote 100% along dominion belief lines, and many others that vote in high percentages. We are closer to the abyss than we know.

So I decided, driving along today and listening to Zevon, that not being ready to pray for myself is OK. It's not a luxury I have for others though. So here is my prayer, for somebody I love very much and am afraid for. America.

God, I need your help.

My country has people in it who feel that they can use your name, manipulate your teachings and misrepresent facts in order to influence faithful people for their own ends.

They are bent on changing a nation. They say it is to bring the nation closer to you, but they are dividing people of faith and turning them against each other.

I can't fix this, so I have to give it to you.

Please help me write the truth, care enough to be brave, reform what I can, protect people who need it and find a way to bridge the gaps between people.

Please help us all find the strengths we need to heal our nation and root out those who would destroy her. Help us make her what she should be ... a battered but victorious symbol of the human endeavor.

Thank you for listening, and for all the good stuff in my life. Tell Warren we miss him.
Love, Jet

Be Afraid, Be Very, Very Afraid

2005-05-03T04:25:00.000-07:00

Several of you noticed that I post occasionally over at Bring It On. I'm one of ten desperados over there. I'm cross posting this here and there. I think this is a development worthy of LOTS of discussion.

I have been studying up on a new word I learned recently. The amount of information surrounding this word, and its ability to fill in some sizable gaps is amazing.

The word is Dominion.

Dominionism is frequently called “Christian Reconstructionism.” To the ordinary Christian believer such as myself, the doctrines of Dominionism are pretty scary. I imagine most Americans would think so. Frederick Clarkson wrote in 1994 that Dominionism “seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of ‘Biblical Law.’” The true motive of Dominionism is to eliminate “…labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools.”

Dominionism began getting organized and building some steam about 25 years ago. Billy Graham exhorted viewers April 29, 1985 on Pat Robertson's 700 Club that the"... time has come when evangelicals are going to have to think about getting organized corporately….I’m for evangelicals running for public office and winning if possible and getting control of the Congress, getting control of the bureaucracy, getting control of the executive branch of government. I think if we leave it to the other side we’re going to be lost. I would like to see every true believer involved in politics in some way shape or form."

A new world was coming. To help the transition along, Pat Robertson, along with other pastors, evangelists and churchmen, founded schools, universities and colleges throughout the United States to train “Christians” how to run for office, how to win, and how to manage the affairs of government after they gained office. To get an idea of how successful the plan was, Robertson’s Regent University now has a $100 million endowment. After watching the Dominionists takeover the Republican Party and observing their ruthless methods, it is indeed apparent that Machiavellian principles are the fuel running their “How to Manual.”

Starting with a class of only twelve in 1985, Robertson began his
Journalism Department at CBN University where 800 other graduate students were earning Master degrees in a fully accredited institution. Later Robertson changed the name of CBN University to “Regent University”—based on Dominionism’s teaching that the national government of America and governments of the world will be ruled by Dominionists, who will act as regents on an interim basis, that is, until the true King—Jesus Christ—will return to earth again and gratefully accept His Kingdom from the hands of His faithful regents. -- Katherine
Yurica

Approximately 35 million Americans subscribe to Dominionism. The TV evangelists and the churches have repetitiously indoctrinated the illusion of an outside enemy who is attacking Christianity very successfully, to the point these millions of member believe in an imaginary evil secular society that is part of a vast anti-Christian conspiracy.

Dominionism has roots it the Gospels, turning the concept of the invisible and spiritual “Kingdom of God” into a literal one; a political empire that could be taken by force. First stop, USA. That pesky original message of Jesus, you know, the one that said “My kingdom is not of this world,” needs not apply. These guys have a higher purpose: To boldly go (according to a Gospel designed to inspire), into the political arena and execute world domination so that Jesus could return to an earth prepared for his earthly rule by his faithful “regents.”

"What are we going to do tonight, Brain? Same thing we do every night, Jesus, TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

Thinking, nah, never happen? Think Jim Jones, who proved that the religious would follow. Way.Too.Far. That's a fact worthy of note by even the foggiest of politically minded preachers.

Let's talk courts, shall we?

Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court wrote in 2002, the Bible teaches and Christians believe “… that government …derives its moral authority from God. Government is the ‘minister of God’ with powers to ‘revenge,’ to ‘execute wrath,’ including even wrath by the sword…”

The neo-conservative created a judicial rule that requires a judge to determine the original intent of the writers of the Constitution. Scalia describes it, “The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead…It means today not what current society…thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.” Think about it. He's saying that once the original thinking is determined, the constitution becomes enforceable as a document the in bound by that particular time frame.

What is really scary here is that so-called “crimes” like adultery, rebelliousness, homosexuality, witchcraft or effeminateness are territories the Dominionists would like see covered under the death penalty. This is why the entire judicial make up is so crucial to Dominionists, and they are very close to achieving this frightening goal. All they need to do is to appoint a majority of judges who will adhere to the “dead Constitution” construction rule of Scalia. When the Dominionist’s control the judiciary—that judiciary can roll back America’s body of legal jurisprudence to a century or more ago.

All a willing Dominionist Republican controlled congress need do to extend the death penalty to those people who practice witchcraft, adultery, homosexuality, heresy, etcetera, is to find those particular death penalty laws existing as of November 3, 1791, and re-instate them. No revolution is required. That’s why the battle over Bush’s judicial appointments is so crucial to the future of the America we know and love. And that’s why the clock is running out on freedom loving Americans.

Freedom is under siege. There is only one free major political party still left in America. I know the Democrats look chaotic, unfocused and generally unsmooth and thank God, unprogramed. Make no mistake, these plain ordinary
citizens are holding the candles that together form the great torch of liberty. For all their faults, they love America and they love freedom and they love the Bill of Rights. America’s independents, its true Conservatives, its sensible Republicans, and its Libertarians must join hands together with the homely Democrats and take back America for all Americans.-- Katherine
Yurica

There's a great deal of information on this topic at Theocracy Watch, a public information project that tracks and documents the Religious Right. Regardless of your political or religious affiliation, you need to understand what is really being said and why. Please take a moment to envision how the country you love could be changed. If 35 million decide the fate of the nation with them as the exalted, we will be no better that Apartheid South Africa.

Think about the political situation of today. Think about who is where, and what they are saying.

Oh yeah. By the way, don't drink the Kool-Aid.

Past, Present and Future, Part 3

2005-04-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

Well, you all know why we're here. Thanks again to everybody who's taken the time to add their two cents. You've made me proud of being a faith based Democrat.

The Three F's

"What now?" we ask. It's not a small question. If all the previous efforts of building up structure, of cementing a middle class, and of righting social injustices are reaching fruition or becoming moot, Democrats are at the biggest crossroads in forty, quite possibly ninety, years.

The most glaring problem with the 2004 election was the spinelessness of it all. Trying to reach out to each sub-group, with each small agenda, left us looking disorganized and unsure. You know, I HATE writing that. There are so many things I believe Democrats routinely do better, and so many facets of the country best served by Dems that it is painful to admit we don't have it together. However, nasty medicine that works is better than cherry flavored failure.

We are a party of wide reach and vision. Our problem is in articulation and delivery. In a nutshell, we need to streamline and develop more focus. Whether it's racial, gender, or mobility equality, gay and lesbian issues, education, environment or worker protection, we need to stop compartmentalizing these subsets and form a single, simple platform that can be stuck to and argued effectively. They picked us off in the fringes, folks. While they did it our base, and our country, got screwed.

I think we can find our way back. We need a program. Perhaps not a 12 step program, three might be enough. Let's call it the 3 "F" program:

Take FAITH, for example.

"An enormous public misrepresentation of Christianity has taken place. . . Many people around the world now think Christian faith stands for political commitments that are almost the opposite of its true meaning. How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war and only pro-American?" -- Jim Wallis

The comments and emails I've received from this corner of the blogsphere tell me that this is NOT how Liberals define faith. They talk about looking at what Christ actually said. There is an openness to learning about faiths beyond the one they were raised with, and teaching the faith they embrace to others. This is not the stuff of Godless heathen immorality that the Dems are being portrayed as publicly. This is active spiritual growth.

In the responses, suspicion was voiced as well; some worried that the lines of church and state were being deliberately blurred as part of a political agenda. Others were concerned that their faith would become vulnerable if such lines were diminished. I think there is cause to be concerned, and to watch diligently.

During the 2004 election campaign, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson virtually said Christians could only vote for George W. Bush. Many of you, along with other Christians and people of faith, responded with letters to the editor, newspaper ads, and even bumper stickers reminding America that "God is not a
Republican...or a Democrat." Then the Republican National Committee circulated lists of "duties" to local churches, which included turning over their congregational membership lists. The RNC also sent postcards to voters in some states with images of a Bible being banned and a man putting a wedding ring on another man - warning that this was what "liberal" politicians planned to do.

Now the Religious Right is saying that supporting the president's judicial nominations is a test of orthodoxy. This is a dramatic new and serious breach in the relationship between faith and politics. -- Jim Wallis

This, to me, is a big savvy kid (read Politician), setting up the little new kid (read Religious Right), for personal payoff. When the big kid gets bored, he's not going to want to play anymore. He could care less if the little kid got a turn.

Our second "F" is a dynamo: FOUNDERS.

Thomas Jefferson believed that the people, no one else, are the sovereign in our republic. We've strayed a long way from that. In today's political world, the sovereign is those with the money. Mull that for a minute. Campaign contributors and lobbyist have way more input on our laws than the people. Think of it as transactional politics.You can get a tax cut for your vote; you can get mandatory health care for your vote. It's transactional; and frequently, there's no way to pay for it. Neither party is asking Americans to sacrifice for the good of the nation. To me, the obvious thing to ask for immediately after 9/11 was to rescind the balance of the tax cut and use the money to create and fund Homeland Security. This simple sacrifice was one most Americans would eagerly make. That gesture could have provided an opportunity to the nation for healing itself and set the tone for constructive national dialogue.

Instead, they told us to go shopping.

The big problem with transactional politics is that the people, the sovereign of our republic, remain outside the actual work. We are not actively engaged in our governance. Transactional politics puts us on the consumer side of the counter. Our representatives are, (you see where I'm going here), on the side with the cash drawer.

There is a truly unique opportunity here for our party. These crossroads offer us a chance to renew American politics. We need look no further than our founders for inspiration. What we seek is nothing less than the restoration of our public dignity. Dignity in how we see ourselves, our civic responsibilities and the role of our elected officials. We need, as a party, to embrace civic virtues:

Individual rights
Liberty
The public or common good
Self government
Equality
Diversity
Openness and free inquiry
Truth
Patriotism

It's asking a great deal, to shake down the Dems and rise again as a party of the people. Think about everything that is making you crazy about the "moral mandate", "privatization", personal this and individual that. The solution is not more of the same in terms of traditional Democratic structure, but insisting we strip down to the bare bones of dignity, of civic virtue, of serving and protecting each other and America. When we fight for accountability to ideals and principles that result in no private gain for us, we do it because of our dignity as citizens.We do it because we believe in something greater than our individual self.

The third "F" is for FOCUS.

We know we want to trim the dead wood, shed the winter weight, blow this cocoon, hit the road, take up slack, insert your euphemism here. We're all fired up. We've read a little history, ate a little crow, talked a little faith. So, what now?

The 2006 elections loom, and there will be countless theories tossed out about the direction of the Dems. Stay focused on where you believe YOUR party needs to go. Talk about faith on the left. Think about what you can do as a New Democrat. Flex your civic virtues. This is the time to encourage change to the party. Nobody is more receptive to the power of grass roots internet that DNC chair Howard Dean. Take the revolution to him. Every subgroup within the party can benefit from this simple platform.

Say it with me, people: TOLERANCE! REFORM! PROTECTION!

Feels pretty good, doesn't it?

Dem straight.

Past, Present and Future, Part 2

2005-04-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

This is the second essay about Democratic Party and the role of religion within it. I want to thank everyone who has read, commented here, or emailed me. I'm getting the impression I'm not the only one who'd like to clean this wound and start the healing. This essay discusses our present state of denial.

Where We Are Now

To truly understand where we are, it's helpful to understand how we got here. Today's Dems grew from a base of unions, structured religion, and ethnic neighborhoods. These were groups of people who banded together in order to overturn a tiered society of wealth over poverty. These weren't simple little skirmishes. This was the big stuff. Unions fought and won the battles for pensions and health care to the class of people who never had it. Churches and temples scrimped and saved, creating scholarships for kids to whom college was a unattainable dream. Catholic and Baptist men's and women's clubs set up saving and loan associations, often in their basements, to provide home ownership opportunities and move families out of apartments and into homes and flats.

Sounds pretty romantic, eh? Well, it wasn't. There were shakedowns, payoffs, denials of opportunity and coercion. In a way, it resembled a corporation. If you got in and worked within the system, you could prosper. If you didn't, you could really suffer. What this structure did provide, for millions, was the framework to move from immigrant to participant, out of poverty and uncertainty and into employment with some security. This was not a structure meant to glorify the individual. It inferred the individual had no chance; without the organization of the union or the church/temple, navigation and survival in a climate hostile to improving your station in life was impossible. Without the organization, you were vulnerable and voiceless.

What we have here is a mindset of unity. One person cannot win, but many, pulling together, can bring about great change. Sounds pretty familiar. Feels kinda good.

Only problem is, we outgrew it.

Let me toss some phrases at you:

Personally Saved by the Lord
Ownership Society
An Army of One
Personal Savings Accounts
Privatization

The common theme here is individual control, and it's resonating. Why? Because we have achieved a new base level. Many of the intense degrees of separation due to race and poverty are blurring (hallelujah!). It's not perfect by a long shot, but the basic expectation of a person born in 1975 and one born in 1945 are distinctly different. Many of the great struggles supported by the Democratic Party are bearing some fruit, and this means that the unity mindset no longer holds the attraction. Formerly oppressed people are finding greater and greater levels of attainable personal achievement. More importantly, they are looking inward for direction.

Well, it's a good thing we fired religion, isn't it?

Imagine if John Kerry had been able to counter George W. Bush by insisting that a serious religious person would never turn his back on the suffering of the poor, that the Bible’s injunction to love one’s neighbor required us to provide health care for all, and that the New Testament’s command to “turn the other cheek” should give us a predisposition against responding to violence with violence. -- Tikkun

We need to accept several things at this juncture, and none of this medicine is particularly tasty. First, what we had, what we built with our organizational structure, the middle class we struggled to create, DOESN'T NEED THE STRUCTURE ANYMORE. Second, nobody likes snobs. If we buy into the concept of Progressive elite, we have become what we originally fought against, a group who won't or is unwilling to interact with those it deems inferior. I'm not willing to go there. Third, protecting America from those who seek to make it a Christian country committed solely to the fundamentalist view of Christianity means we can't remain on the fringes. We no longer have the luxury of demanding all things spiritual or "value" orientated are off the table because we are uncomfortable with religion within our party. You can't fight the good fight against wrong values with a demand for no values, folks. Not in the current climate.

Foregoing decades of mistrust with organized religion is not going to be easy. We need to remember we once relied on organized religion, fought side by side with them. We were brothers in arms; we shared a vision. Together, we built up a middle class. We have history and common members. We share the values of tolerance, reform, and protection. Today, we also share a common threat to the ongoing free development and prosperity of our nation.

So, tell me about yourself and where you're at with religion and the party.

We need to talk.

Past, Present and Future, Part 1

2005-04-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

I plan on writing several opinion pieces about the Democratic Party and the role of religion within it. This is how I feel about it. You probably feel quite differently. I'm a Dem so I'm OK with that. I've updated Might makes Left on the sidebar. There's some good stuff there. This first essay talks about when faith went underground.

What We Were and Why

Some forty years back, we hit a fork in the road. Religious and spiritual traditions were associated with sexist, racist, homophobic and class dominated social structures; the liberal and progressive social change movements of the 1960's rejected established religions. Under siege, these groups found their moral authority questioned over their involvement in oppressive political and economic systems favoring elites and social orders, (such as Jim Crow laws and draft exemptions), that were unfair. Many activists in the liberal and progressive movements found themselves waging war against social injustice while in a climate hostile to faith.

It's not like religious and spiritual people didn't bring great things to the progressive movement. They did. Suspicions associated with established religion left progressive leaders wary though. The progressive agenda shaped itself around issues of tolerance, reform, and protection. What wasn't being accepted was the religious implications of these models.

Thus the Democrats divorced their public political persona from faith. We were the kings of the good works. We were awfully busy. Lots of us went to church. Lots of us prayed. None of us mixed the two sides of our belief system. We separated church and state in our souls, put our noses to the grindstone and carried on. Faith became a silent burden.

For those who joined the party after that fateful fork, it appeared as if there was no spiritual side at all. Oh, plenty of good works, but not much spirit. When Dems marginalized the spiritual side of their members, it weakened the movement. Obviously, we gave the Republicans an avenue to exploit. But what we really did was rob ourselves of a necessary tool to combat the results of the ongoing rush and eventual results of thirty years of materialism. self centered goals, and drift from community care and solidarity.

I lay in bed this morning and thought about the neighborhood I grew up in in the 1960's. I remember the names of all the kids on my block and nearly every one of their parents. We had a network of support for each other. In a single generation, we're losing that. People just buy what they think their kids need, or what they think they have to have in order to put some sort of harmony into their lives. In 1968, I played kick the can with neighborhood kids until it was too dark to see and the mosquitoes were thick and vicious. Our parents ate pie, had cocktails or played cards together. It was cheap. The best times often are.

These days, love your neighbor is passé. We look out for number one. Our love, friendship and business relationships are governed by a simple mantra, "What's in it for me?" When we look for the bottom line in both personal and professional relationships, we are no longer focused on tolerance, reform and protection. We need to find our higher purpose again. There's a deprivation of meaning in or lives.

People hunger for something beyond "making it" or maximizing money, power or fame. This is a spiritual crisis not addressed by liberal and progressive leaders. Why? I think it's simply that they don't recognize it as a central reality of modern American life.

A progressive politics of meaning does not require that one believe in a Supreme Being, much less the specific God that has been taught in orthodox versions of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. But it does require a recognition that many people want more from their lives than an accumulation of comforts, pleasures, and material goodies. We want more than power, more than fame, more than sexual conquest; we actually want to connect our lives to something of transcendent importance the value of which will continue beyond our own individual life.
Counter to the empiricist and scientific reductionism that sometimes gets confused with rational thought, the Politics of Meaning insists that not everything real or important can be quantified or verified through sense-data. The deepest human desires—the desires for loving connection, for transcendent meaning to life, and for justice and peace (not just for ourselves but for others)—are rooted in what we call a spiritual conception of the world. -- Tikkun

Sometimes, taking the wrong fork is a good thing. You get to see something you might otherwise have missed. Dems have a unique opportunity here, if we are ready to understand our history and accept the challenge for change. Returning to traditional Democratic precepts, AND embracing the faith base within our own party will make us stronger as a party, more fulfilled as individuals and more effective as members of our communities. Otherwise, we can look forward to seeing more party leaders standing around post election, sucking on their teeth and wondering which crucial ingredient they're missing.

Stringing the Beads

2005-04-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, my light bulb just clicked on.

Sometimes, working a puzzle can be frustrating. You have a clear idea of what your driving at, but can't find the right piece to pull two sections together or just to simply show you where you're headed. Blogging is the opposite. It's more like putting a puzzle together with all the pieces up side down, hoping it'll make sense when you flip it over. The whole story is rarely out there, especially when the story is a little stinky or when it's noisy subterfuge to cover quiet backroom tactics.

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

My intent was to blog about the conference "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith", a conference yielding gems like these:

[L]awyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that [Justice] Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, “upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law.”

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his “bottom line” for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. “He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: ‘no man, no problem,’ ” Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don’t recognize it, is “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.” -- Dana Milbank, Washington Post.

Stalin as an inspiration? Vieira stating that Kennedy's decision was based on principles drawn from foreign law and then quoting Stalin, a Soviet? Man, I could have a field day here. Then I started thinking about a couple of things. Cornyn, Frist, Delay, Cheney, Schiavo... and two other little things popped into focus: Bush, and the Constitutional Restoration Act.

CLICK. There goes my light bulb.

Let's string these beads, shall we?

HR 3799 and S 2082 are both introduced into the houses of Congress in March, 2004. The bill appears to make it illegal for higher courts to review cases by lower courts on decisions regarding things like allowing the Ten Commandments to be posted at court houses. Other parts of the bill provide for more sweeping control measures like banning judges from basing decisions on "international organizations" and "foreign states." If you were staring down the barrel of a potential illegal war, this sounds like a good way to avoid prosecution for war crimes or profiteering. Constitutional Restoration Act? More like Cover Your Backside Act.

According to C-SPAN, the plans for the "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" conference began in February.

Terri Shiavo dies amid the whipping to a frenzy of the masses. I suspect Rove and company believed they could use Terri politically to boost HR 3799. Winning the Schiavo battle would make it difficult for any Rep or Senator to oppose a bill allowing the Ten Commandments into court houses, and all that extra stuff packed in the bill would just kick back and enjoy the ride into law. Why rock the boat if Dubya and the gang had won over public opinion based on the poignancy of Terri Shiavo's battle for life. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed after Bush hightailed it out of Texas to sign "the Terri law" and public support dwindled. The Whitehouse backed away from it.

Tom Delay comes out swinging March 31st against Federal judges, commenting that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Sen. John Cornyn addressed the Senate on April 4th, claiming that violence against judges was a result of their wayward decision making rather than the fact that the people coming before them were short the perquisite number of bricks.

In an abrupt about face, on April 5th Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he thinks the judiciary is "fair and independent."

On Friday, April 8th, Vice President Dick Cheney told the New York Post he would have problems with punishing judges for their legal rulings.

Talk about an ugly necklace.

Why the back pedaling? It's clear the signal was given to back away from Delay. The average Joe is reading the news, and it's coming across that Delay is an arrogant, obsessed power maniac. All the big media has picked it up, and considering their normal docility towards the administration, it's hard not to be believe that they got the OK to run on Delay. (Sorry, journalists, but that's how I see it.)

It's possible Dubya didn't realize he had a mess here, but I'm quite certain Karl Rove did. Rove intended to USE the religious right to achieve his goal. If they got what they wanted and he got what he wanted, that's a beautiful thing. But, in Rove's world, the goal always has precedence over the means. If the thing with the religious right didn't work out, so be it.

This was NEVER about Terri Schiavo, NEVER about liberal judges, NEVER about judiciary decisions regarding abortion or gay marriage or even gay sex. NEVER.

The whole, complete and entire purpose of this 14 month fiasco was to redefine the role of the judiciary.

They are screwing with our Constitution, people.

Redefining the role of the judiciary and packing it with judges they feel they can control gives them the get out of jail free card they need, and carte blanc to conduct themselves unfettered. They justify their assault on the judicial power by scaring the religious right. They are MANIPULATING their base for their OWN purposes, not the goals of the religious right. The religious right wants specific decisions overturned. The administration wants to cement their power by destroying the third of it they can't control. Which, by the way, is precisely the role of the judiciary as defined in the Constitution. They ensure that laws are enacted and enforced within the bounds of the Constitution. They do not care and should not respond to the pressure or desires of a frenzied majority.

So, what's the game plan now? The reason they abandoned Delay was to keep us absorbed in his flame out and OFF HR 3799 and S 2082. This is the real baby, this is the one worth circling the wagons. Lots of protection, power and control are riding on this.

SO, as juicy a bit of road kill as Tom Delay may be, or as tempting as the conference "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" is, keep your eye on the prize. Talk about this Constitutional Restoration Act. Build it up and get it moving. We need this bill killed. If we don't, this bill will kill our Constitution.

This string of beads could hang us all.

Budget Vultures

2005-04-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

A hawk is a majestic bird, ruthless, predatory and successful. They possess a clean, if brutal, manner of survival. A swift accurate drop and a clean snatch; to the rest of the meadow, it's hard to see what's missing.

There are programs funded with our national budget that we all know are pork barrel pets, favorites that keep the home fires burning and professional politicos employed. Budget Hawks like to think they're clearing the meadow of excessive pork, and sometimes they do. Sometimes, it's the pork they're protecting.

What's happening to our veterans is the stuff of vultures.

Burn the name of Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN), Chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, into your mind. He thinks that he can raid the nearly bare veteran's panty and glean a few bones. In a nutshell he want to shift the focus of the VA to a core constituency of service-disabled, indigent and special-needs veterans.

Here's what Thomas P. Cadmus, national commander of the 2.7 million-member American Legion, the nation's largest wartime veterans organization has to say about that:

To further cut costs, leaders in Washington again are redefining what it means to be a veteran. They conjure up buzz-terms like "core constituency." Veterans in that group, apparently, are more likely than others to expect future access to VA clinics and hospitals. The "core constituency" is a smaller, less costly population of veterans. And it's convenient for future budget-makers. Because "core constituency" is not really defined in law, it can keep getting smaller and smaller until gone.
The official definition of a veteran can be found in Title 38, Section 101, of U.S. Code: "The term 'veteran' means a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released there from under conditions other than dishonorable.
"U.S. Code mentions no "core constituency" because a veteran may be a former infantryman who marched through the swamps of the Mekong Delta or a Parris Island drill instructor who taught him the skills to survive there. U.S. Code bonds the Black Hawk pilot who outmaneuvered daily rocket attacks and the base crew that prepped his helicopter for every mission. A veteran may be a combat cook, an Air Force fighter pilot, a Coast Guard sea marshal, corpsman, paratrooper or chaplain. Private or a general. All their roles are interwoven, all potentially fatal in times of war.
When discharged, they are veterans. It's that simple.

Sen Patty Murray (D-WA) waged a good fight to try to increase funding for the VA in mid March. She lost. Here's a list of Senators and how they voted. Only Coleman of Minnesota crossed party lines. I have a nephew from Minnesota. He's in Afghanistan.

Mr. Buyer is concerned about the $3 billion in uncollected healthcare debts for services that insurance companies have not paid to the VA. So naturally, instead of pursuing the insurance companies who donate money to campaigns, he's decided that veterans are his prey. He's concerned about the potential increase in veteran applications as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's concerned that the money budgeted to the VA will fall way short. Smart vulture, our Mr. Buyer, he's absolutely right. We have history to go with this assault.

The Independent Budget (IB), annual budget and policy analysis, published annually by AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars is now in its seventeenth year. The Administration and the Congress have never met the IB recommendations that are determined on need-based formulas and annual projections for the costs of health care services. The VA "funding shortfall" has been, and still is, a major cause of concern for all of these years. In fact, 24 year ago, in 1979, the House and Senate Committees on Veterans' Affairs, held what was then called an "unprecedented" joint hearing to decry the seriously under-funded VA health care system and the impact this was having on the veteran population. I am certain the problem, whether it was under-funding or inconsistent funding, goes farther back than most of us can remember.-- Richard Fuller, Legislative Director, Paralyzed Veterans of America

I am astounded by the short sightedness of Buyer's solution. The situation developed over decades; yet Buyer's intentions are for a quick fix with blanket disregard for the promises made to enlistees at the time they volunteered. He disrespects their sacrifices and their willingness to be sacrificed. As a Citadel graduate who was deployed in the first Gulf War, he should have a better set of guidelines. Whoops, he served as an Army reserve lawyer. My bad. Still, one would have higher hopes that as chair for the HVAC, he'd bring something beside big love for the bottom line to the table. Perhaps, be willing to scavenge something besides his brothers in arms.

People who are willing to die for an ideal are not people who whine over lost benefits. It's up to us to be there for them. We've GOT to have their backs.

Feel free to use the link on the sidebar to contact Rep. Buyer. Just indicate you are from Lafayette Indiana and use the zip 47960-1244. Let him know how -- the reduction of benefits to Vets who, although they were willing to get shot, unfortunately did not so they don't need the health benefits they were promised when they enlisted -- makes you feel.

It makes me mad as hell.

Legislative, Executive and Delay

2005-04-02T16:38:00.000-08:00

Article. III.
Section. 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

That's the beauty of our Constitution. Everybody can get it. Three separate but equal branches of government, covered under the first three articles. There are no provisions for one section to hold sway over another. Article three provides for a separate judicial branch. Period. Isn't that gorgeous?

Being the foresightful forefathers they were, the gang provided for expansion as population grew, and structure that provided stability for a fledging nation finding its feet. Our Constitution is the oldest in-force document of its kind in the world. Really. Pretty smart gang.

They put this little bit in as well.
Article. VI.
... The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Paging Mr. Delay, paging Mr. Tom Delay, there's a reality check for you on line 4.

DeLay issued a statement asserting that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." He later said in front of television cameras that he wants to "look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president." --Washington Post

He wants to LOOK AT them? Under what constitutional basis? Delay has neither the right nor the authority to restructure OUR Constitution. He had no right to attempt to force the courts to intervene in the Schiavo issue at all. The courts correctly refused to set a precedence of permitting interference. They, of all people, understand the lego theory of how our legal system builds upon previous decisions. That's legalese for slippery slopes for us lay-people.

Delay also is operating under the assumption that he can punish the male judges who don't run their decisions by him prior to passing sentencing. (He pointedly did not mention female judges, so apparently women can continue to pass judgment with impunity. Whoo-hoo!) What arrogance is this, that Delay is now self appointed judge and jury for the nation. Hang on a sec, let me check something here .... nope, Article I, Legislative, Article II, Executive, Article III, Judiciary. Whew! Article III is not Delay. I double checked. Rest easy America; for now, he's still shackled.

Delay feels comfortable giving a press conference and stating that judges who don't toe the Bush line, in effect "thumbed their nose", can expect him to pursue them. (As if he has any authority whatsoever to initiate, let alone conduct such an investigation.)

What is truly troubling to me is that the basis for this assault on the separate, constitutionally granted power of the Judiciary, is that it is being fronted as part of this wretched moral mandate. Delay is gunning for the judges because he can use this as a two edged sword. He can appear to be ardently pursuing the moral mandate to appease the extreme right fundamentalists, but what he really wants is to weaken one branch in order to empower another.

Do you believe our Constitution has run its course? Is it no longer a document that has the power to stir you? Should one or two power crazed people be able to undo the foundation of this country because it suits their purposes?

Count me out.

Democrats continued to criticize DeLay yesterday, with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) charging that the Republican might have broken a federal statute against threatening U.S. judges.

"Threats against specific federal judges are not only a serious crime, but also beneath a Member of Congress," Lautenberg wrote. "Your attempt to intimidate judges in America not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy as well." --Washington Post

Beneath a member of congress, maybe, but the only thing beneath Tom Delay isn't freezing over any time soon.

Ulterior Motives

2005-03-27T05:38:00.000-08:00

Dennis K said...

"You can have God back when you Dems give up the culture of death that you so willingly embrace."

This is a pretty amazing statement -- in several directions. First it implies complicity in the actual Swiping of God. I think Dennis K never got past the header on this blog. His comment, drive by shooting style, is simple sand-box taunting. We've got God. Nyah, nyah nyah!

My basic problem with this is HOW you got God, Dennis K.

When talk radio allows statements such as "all Dems are Godless and immoral" to be expressed and pass unchallenged (whether by disconnecting callers who disagree, or never putting them on the air to begin with), perceptions are formed. Hearing something enough times slides that perception into the realm of public belief. Discussions with friends and family blur the libel into truth. The simple fact that the majority of Dems are religious has been buried. The real issue, that the basic Democratic liberal platform promotes tolerance for all faiths and for non-believers, never gets discussed because the point is to create and promote a stereotype that is slanderous and false.

What we have is stereotyping in order to control. It's classic manipulation. Ask any person of color in this nation for clarification on just how wrong this really is. Better yet, read your bible. (You can start with Romans 13:10, Mark 12:33, Luke 10:27, Mark 12:31, Mathew 22:39, Romans 13:8, Galatians 5:14, or James 2:8; it's all about the love, dude.)

Perhaps most telling is Zechariah 8:17. "Let no one have any evil thought in his heart against his neighbor; and have no love for false oaths: for all these things are hated by me, says the Lord."

HATED by me, says the Lord. Wow. This from a God who knows his way around a proper smite, thank you very much. Pharaoh who?

You see, Dennis K, you can't work against God's conduct requirements as an endgame to achieve personal power. Gloating about it puts the whole stinking mess right over the top.

Two words: NOT MORAL.

Another problem I have with your comment is the whole "culture of death" thing. That statement implies that all Dems actively seek non life embracing solutions. Are all convicted murderers Dems? How about nursing home abusers? Neo-nazi's? Members of the NRA and their fervent support for automatic weapon access? Perhaps all the pedophiles of the world are card-carrying Dems. Let's not forget those KKK idiots, surely they must be Dems. No?

I suspect the wildly flung culture of death taunt boils down to two things flogged excessively by talk radio: Abortion and Schiavo.

It's unfortunate that the manipulation of the abortion issue is so complete. Personally, I know NO one who loves abortion; I can't think of a single person desperate to get right out to the clinic and have one done. I believe that each individual's rights over their lives and bodies is granted constitutionally. I also believe that medical records are confidential documents. Legal medical procedures are just that, legal. If you don't support abortion, please don't have one. After all, it's YOUR body.

As for Terry Schiavo, I don't like the way her life is ending. I abhor the way her life has been artificially extended. When you attempt to play God and force life to continue well beyond the body's natural abilities to sustain itself, there is no platform of piety left to stand upon and pronounce your morality on the masses. You have taken it out of God's hands. Using this woman as a political pawn says a great deal about the scruples of the people exploiting her for personal motives.

Finally, here's a list of things I "willingly embrace".

Two sided discussions. (That's why I visited your site and welcomed you to return to God Dem.)

Tolerance of differences, and excitement over the possibilities each person adds to the mix.

Peaceful solutions.

Reaching out to the poor.

Caring for the elderly.

Protecting the earth.

Scientific study and exploration.

Clear thinking.

Truth.

So there you have it. I don't need to get God BACK, Dennis K. I just have to live clean and be liberal. The bible tells me so.

Nobody OWNS God. Using manipulation, slander and pressure to split the faithful apart in order to cement power is NOT of God. When I wrote in my header that Dems feel like republicans swiped God from them, I meant that (from the Christian standpoint) what was happening within the body of believers was politically driven, against the word of God, and designed to increase power base by playing people who believe in God against each other.

I wouldn't be particularly proud of that.

My Kind of Cowboy

2005-03-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

One of the worst parts of growing older is the acquiescence over the things you no longer believe you can change. At twenty, the paths stretch before you, your energy is boundless and the world is decidedly shiny. You believe with all certainty the mantras of your childhood: you can do it, all things can happen if you do your best, you can be anything you want to be if you try.

A few decades in the workplace strips optimism layers at a time. Focuses shift; it's much less you and your ideals, saving the world pales against saving for college. Three kids in college at the same time? Responsibilities ground dreams, sometimes permanently.

I can't help feeling that while I was distracted, America went to hell.

What happened to the Lone Rangers? Where are the people who are truly upright in their approach to each day? I see regular folks in daily life, people who give back the money if they're given incorrect change, or give a little at the grocery when the guy ahead of them comes up short. For every idiot who drives as if the roads I paid for with my taxes are their personal Indy, there are nice people who let me make a left during rush hour or a quick lane change when I need to. I see kindness to older people, time given in communities, or trash recycled.

Farther up the representational ladder, there's a dearth of do-gooders. I know, I know, politics stink; this is not news. I always felt that in the morass of backroom dealings and back stabbings, there were a few people who actually believed, both in doing the right thing and American principles in general. The tone of the past political year seared belief from me, salted my sensibilities, and abandoned me. It's all corrupt. Deal with it.

The thing is, I love America. I can't stop looking for her just because she's lost. If I could find some help, a little inspiration even, I'd be mighty obliged.

In this year of sin in the name of morality, I found a hero. He may not ride a white horse, but he walks the walk of principle and decency.

Ronnie Earle is my kind of cowboy.

Because the Texas Attorney General's office does not have the authority to prosecute those suspected of committing crimes in their dealings with the state, the responsibility falls on Earle and his band of prosecutors in Travis County, home of the state capital.

It is a responsibility he has embraced, prosecuting 15 high profile cases against Republican and Democratic politicians during his 27 years in office. Many have drawn sharp criticism from both parties.

...Over the years, there have been bills to defund the controversial unit and to transfer its power to the attorney general's office. But the unit has persisted and Earle has prosecuted 12 Democrats and three Republicans - most of them successfully. -- Kris Axtman, Christian Science Monitor

Demanding deeds to suit the words....what a concept. This man must just be HATED in some circles. He's political; he served in the Texas State Legislature. Yet, he's honest. There is right and there is wrong. There is within the law, and there's breaking the law. Low-down skunks, especially political ones drunk with a power elixir that leaves them feeling immune to the rules the rest of the nation abides by, need to fear the long arm of this lawman.

Yet no case has been more important, or controversial, than the one Earle is now pursuing against a political action committee tied to House majority leader Tom DeLay (R) - one of the nation's most powerful politicians.

To Earle partisans, it's an example of his fearlessness in pursuing political malfeasance, a trait they say makes him the state's, and perhaps the country's, top ethics cop. But detractors see the investigation as a witch hunt, another case of the silver-thatched prosecutor acting out of political motivation and for personal gain.

Mr. DeLay calls the Democratic Earle "vindictive and partisan." So far, three of DeLay's associates have been indicted on charges of illegally funneling hundreds of thousands of corporate dollars to state GOP candidates in 2002. The Republican sweep that year fueled redistricting efforts in Texas that deepened Congressional control in 2004. Preparing for the possibility that DeLay might be charged, Republicans in Congress recently voted to change their rule requiring an indicted leader to relinquish his post.

For his part, Earle says the attacks are no different from those by the 15 other politicians he's prosecuted in almost three decades as Travis County DA. All have accused him of being politically motivated. "What else are they going to say?" he asks. -- Kris Axtman, Christian Science Monitor

I know what I'm going to say. Ronnie Earle is restoring my faith in the honest political animal. It's not all corrupt; it's not all crap. It's not so complicated that the average American disengages from the process. (They CAN, but they don't have too.) Morality is part of the American political landscape. It's just not the part we're being sold on. Morality is not paying lip service to God and then seeing how many deadly sins you can commit before breakfast. Morality is in the day to day decision making, morality is in the trenches. Morality is doing the right thing when it's difficult, scary, or puts one at risk.

Ronnie Earle is carefully, methodically following the truth. He is exposing the underbelly of the moral mandate and in the process, giving this American a much needed renewal.

The paths stretch before me again, my energy is recharging and the world has a glint of shine.

Yeeeeeee Haaaaaaa!

Rock the Boat

2005-03-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

HR581 isn't the only cocked gun trained on the blogsphere. The FEC gun barrel is aimed at bloggers under the guise of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

John Samples of Reasononline offers this:

... the federal government is about to come down hard on
bloggers.
Here's why. In 2002, Congress passed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law which restricted political advertising by corporations and labor unions on television and radio. The Federal Election Commission—the agency charged with implementing McCain-Feingold—initially decided that Congress had not intended to restrict political speech on the Internet.

Last fall, a federal judge said exempting the Internet from the law's restrictions on political speech would undermine McCain-Feingold. Now the FEC is back at it trying to figure out how to restrict political speech on the Internet.

If you care about freedom of speech, there are good reasons for
concern. The FEC may conclude that allowing political advertising by campaigns and parties on websites will undermine the restrictions on ads in McCain-Feingold. Ads on the Internet would be a loophole to McCain-Feingold that
the FEC should close.

But bloggers don't necessarily work for a campaign or a political party and thus should not fall under McCain-Feingold, right?

Don't be too sure. Bloggers often endorse candidates or parties in an election. Those endorsements are of value to the candidates and may end up being treated as a campaign contribution, subject to limits and disclosure. Bloggers may also contribute to a campaign by linking to a candidate's website or republishing a candidate's press release.

Of course, The New York Times can endorse candidates for office and promote their causes, and you might think that bloggers would enjoy the same First Amendment protections. But you would be wrong. The FEC has not given news sites or bloggers what is tellingly called "the press exemption" from campaign finance laws. What bloggers say and do may well fall under federal campaign finance restrictions.

We need to rock this boat, hard, and rock it NOW.

Here's how. The Online Coalition is a bi-partisan group formed after FEC Chairman Bradley Smith gave an interview on CNET in which he suggested a "coming crackdown" on bloggers and online journalists. They have drafted a letter and petition to be given to the FEC when they release their proposed rules to govern us.

Here's the link. I've signed this petition. So have 2800 other concerned people either in our media or reading us. Thomas McCay over at AmericanEX has likened bloggers to modern minutemen, shoulder to shoulder on the bridge at Concord. We are being pushed. It's time to push back.

Please, take the time to endorse this effort and pass the word.

Ours may be small voices for truth, but it's big truth.

HR581: You have the Right to Remain Silent

2005-03-10T15:12:00.000-08:00

Wending an insidious path on capitol hill, is the legislation I've been dreading. Throughout the blogsphere, I've mentioned my fear of control of blogging, the silencing of the small voices for truth. To me, blogs represent a web of interconnected thoughts, a forum for exchange and change. Blogs are places where I look for information, like minds, and an education on the opposition.

Under the misnomer of "Free Flow of Information Act", Bloggers will be punishable. They will not be accorded any of the protections provided to Journalists. In the California courts, Apple is currently winning in their efforts to force three blogs to reveal their sources. I want to go on record here that I think leaking information against your company is extremely unethical. If that was all this is about and resolving the Apple issue would be the end of it, I wouldn't care all that much. Nobody want their ideas stolen. I don't want my writing taken without getting credit for it. Most people get that.

Unfortunately, that's NOT the end of it. Here's the scary stuff:

In the HR581 Bill:

(1) The term `covered person' means--

(A) an entity that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means AND that--

(i) publishes a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical;

(ii) operates a radio or television broadcast station (or network of such stations), cable system, or satellite carrier, or a channel or programming service for any such station, network, system, or carrier; or

(iii) operates a news agency or wire service;

(B) a parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such an entity; or

(C) an employee, contractor, or other person who gathers, edits, photographs, records, prepares, or disseminates news or information for such an entity.

(2) The term `document' means writings, recordings, and photographs, as those terms are defined by Federal Rule of Evidence 1001 (28 U.S.C. App.).

(3) The term `Federal entity' means an entity or employee of the judicial, legislative, or executive branch of the Federal Government with the power to issue a subpoena or provide other compulsory process.

(4) The term `third party' means a person other than a covered person.

The emphasis is mine. That one little AND is the fatal word. Bloggers, as individuals, have no parent company, are self published, and aren't functioning as newsletters for their employers. They publish for themselves, as provided under their right to free speech. HR581 is the initial step to begin to undermine the small voices. If passed, you can continue to blog, continue to provide access to stories the big news machine doesn't have space for, but you do so knowing that people who don't like what you do can apply some heavy pressure on you -- you have no protections. They can sue you claiming you libeled them. How many bloggers will lose their houses and cars before the silencing begins?

There's a link on the sidebar. Let your rep know how you feel. Unless, of course, you'd like to meet up here this time next year and have a recipe swap.

One Blogger who is taking the bull by the horns is Garret M. Graff. The White House said that press passes were easy to obtain. Graff tested that theory.

He made 20 phone calls and got nowhere. Bigger blogs picked up on his saga, and traffic on FishbowlDC increased tenfold, he said. But it was not until the traditional media joined in, Mr. Graff said, that the White House relented.

"USA Today started making calls on Thursday. CNN mentioned it on 'Inside Politics,' and Ron Hutcheson, president of the White House Correspondents Association, raised the issue with the White House Press Office," he said. "I think a combination of all of that made the White House pay attention and decide to let me in." -- NY Times

And guess what? Once past security, they handed him a PRESS PASS. Just like the journalists.

Blogging is an evolving media, as radio and television were in their day. Bloggers break stories and keep the heat on. They are undisciplined, opinionated and some are liars. We read blogs. We all know this. But many blogs are labors of love, well researched and determined for the truth. They can be exciting, disturbing, and beacons against the mainstream media that so many bloggers find disappointing.

But, what is important here is that we get the opportunity to refine our media niche and not be silenced before that can happen.

Preserve your voice. It is the voice of true democracy.

You have the right to remain... for now.

Just a Girl in the World....

2005-03-03T17:54:00.000-08:00

Few issues push the hot button like abortion rights, although the word Liberal is gaining ground. The zeal and funding by opponents of Roe v. Wade is creating a political power block. The atmosphere of the country is ripe with the smell of control.

Before you send me nasty e-mails, consider this from Randy Scholfield of The Wichita Eagle:

Upon taking office, Attorney General Phill Kline vowed to enforce Kansas abortion law more aggressively than his predecessor. But his recent effort to force the release of private abortion clinic records goes too far -- and raises questions of whether anti-abortion fervor is clouding his legal judgment.

As revealed by legal briefs made public this week, Mr. Kline for months has been waging a secret battle to force two abortion clinics to release the full records of some 90 patients, including girls under age 16, who had abortions.

It's just about holding adult sexual predators responsible for their crimes, he says.

But medical providers rightly argue that another principle is at stake -- the privacy of medical records, especially regarding one of the most painful and private decisions a woman can make.

What's more, the investigation smacks of a fishing expedition.

The clinics offered to give the attorney general copies with irrelevant private information blacked out. But that apparently wasn't good enough. Why not, if the purpose is to prosecute criminals, not harass women who have sought abortions?

Why focus on records of patients who had late-term abortions, after 22 weeks -- even though many underage teens presumably obtain abortions sooner -- if the intention is to punish sexual predators, not late-term abortion providers?

It's a good question.

I'm tired of seeing persecution of and disregard for the personal privacy of females. I think Kline picked what he saw as an easy target -- young girls with little life experience and education and to whom fighting a nasty lawsuit would seem an insurmountable obstacle. If he got the records, they would not sue to retrieve. The clinic's offer to provide records with irrelevant private information blacked out was reasonable. The fact that it wasn't smacks of an ulterior motive.

On February 24th, according to Ron Sylvester of The Wichita Eagle:

Kline addressed one of the two reasons that have been cited in court records for his investigation -- the sexual activity of girls.

"Rape is a serious crime, and when a 10-, 11-, or 12-year-old is
pregnant, they have been raped under Kansas law," Kline said Thursday. In Kansas, no one under the age of 16 can legally consent to sex.

"There are two things child predators want, access to children and secrecy, and as attorney general I am bound and determined to not give them either."

Then on March 3rd, AP released this:

Kline has said he needs the materials for an investigation into underage
sex and illegal late-term abortions.

Kline is seeking records of women who sought abortions at the clinics during or after their 22nd week of pregnancy. The two unnamed clinics are fighting Kline's request, citing doctor-patient confidentiality.

The records Kline wants include patient's name, medical history, birth control practices and psychological profile, and details of her sex life.

To me, this sounds more truthful. I'm glad Kline ditched the subterfuge: this is about gunning for the clinics. Dr. Tiller of the Wichita Clinic knows a thing or two about people gunning for him. In 1994 he was shot 5 times outside his clinic. Sanctity of life, indeed.

Kansas may be a red state that is roughly 60% republican, but there is uproar in the wheat fields.

On February 25th, according to The Wichita Eagle:

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and a group of female Democratic lawmakers criticized Attorney General Phill Kline on Friday for seeking medical records of women and girls who have had abortions.

In separate news conferences, Sebelius and the lawmakers said Kline's actions were an unwarranted invasion of privacy.

"I find the potential to reveal very personal health histories of women and girls extremely troubling," Sebelius said.

... Fourteen female state representatives, all Democrats, said
Kline's actions were a "fishing expedition," the same term used by lawyers for two abortion clinics fighting Kline's subpoena. The group included Reps. Judith Loganbill, Melody McCray-Miller, Geraldine Flaharty, Delia Garcia and Oletha Faust-Goudeau, all of Wichita.

This was published by The Wichita Eagle on March 1st:

"If this breach of medical privacy is allowed to go forward, no one of us, man or woman, can have confidence that our medical records can be held as private," said the Rev. Bill Ester, pastor of West Side United Methodist Church and co-chairman of the Kansas Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

... Noting Kline's long-standing opposition to abortion, members of the religious coalition said the investigation appears to be aimed directly at the clinics. Candy Krueger and others at the coalition news conference charged that Kline appears to be pursuing abortion providers for evidence of under-age sex, but not doing the same with anti-abortion groups that provide medical services and counseling to young girls.

Reverend Ester makes an excellent point. While this initial subpoena is aimed towards an anti-abortion agenda, what is really troubling is the precedent it will set in the courts for future requests. This instance can be cited as an example of why other private medical records can be taken and used. Once this Pandora's box is opened, I am afraid it will be a real bitch to close it back up.

Do you really want your personal information available to everybody? How about your child's? If you have a child with behavioral issues, do you want that public? How will that affect him or her as they grow? If you have a disability, do you want your prospective employer to hire you based on the medical records they pulled on you or your excellent work history? If you are female, do you want the number of children you have become part of whether or not you are qualified for a job? If you were hurt on a job previously, do you want that or your abilities to be the deciding factor in the hiring decision?

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of abortion, allowing unfettered access to medical records is a terrible idea.

Harvesting the Truth

2005-02-22T15:28:00.000-08:00

Here is the week's harvest, both the wheat and chaff. Lost in the gleanings was an acerbic voice for brutal honesty.

America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. -- Hunter S. Thompson

Hidden in the chaff was the usual smoke:

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table," Bush said.

Please join me in standing and performing a collective eye-roll.

Uh oh, more chaff. What's wrong with this? Click on the Disclaimer Button on the bottom of the page. Yep, that's right. Now look at this:

The Pentagon maintains that the information on the sites is true and accurate. But in a recent memo, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz insisted that the Web site contractor should only hire journalists who "will not reflect discredit on the U.S. government."

Apparently Mr. Gannon/Guckert isn't the only outlet the Whitehouse has for spreading mis-information under the guise of authentic journalism.

Now this really cranks my tractor. Honesty from a public servant? We can manipulate through fear all day long, but we can't handle the truth.

Speaking of truth, Eric Alterman received this note at The Nation regarding the State of the Union hug between the Iraqi and American women.

The Iraqi woman, identified by Bush as Safia Taleb al-Suhail, is a politician. She was a long-time Iraqi-in-exile and proponent of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, did not live in Iraq at the time of the invasion, and was appointed last year by the US-approved interim government as the Iraqi ambassador to Egypt. I don't have reason to doubt al-Suhail's personal sincerity in that SOTU moment, but nonetheless, her background makes it clear that she is not some average Iraqi whose heart and mind has been won over by the US invasion.

Man, I HATE emotional manipulation. (Unless it's starring Johnny Depp. Then, I'm willing to overlook it.)

Finally, some wheat! Ian Wrisley wrote a great piece featured on All Things Considered on NPR. It's available in audio only. I highly recommend it. Social Security isn't about saving for yourself. It's about the maturation of a society and the care it provides for its elderly. Check it out.

Also worth a look is this: How The Lefty Blogs Can Win The Blogosphere, Revive Their Party, And Save Our Country (And Why They Won't)

I'm not too proud to learn a new trick or two, even if the right thinks I can't handle it. Don't you love being accused of a permanent knee jerk reaction by the people who wrote the book? Me too.

Here's an easy link to use if you want to express yourself to your representatives. I'll be adding it to the sidebar.

Let's pack up the 'ol combine with this from an Altercation reader:

...This week Robert Novak wrote "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is rejecting ***nearly universal advice*** from financial experts that he dramatically should accelerate the decline of the dollar in order to reduce the U.S. international current-account deficit" (emphasis added). Then the New York Times reports that foreign purchases of Treasury securities plunged 75% in December. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Senate is about to fast-track the hideous bankruptcy reform bill. Supporters will tell you that all the bill does is force debtors who can pay at least $6000 of their debt over time into Chapter 13 (as opposed to the "clean break" bankruptcy of Chapter
7). What they don't tell you is that bankruptcy attorneys demand their money up-front, and that Chapter 13 bankruptcies cost more than the bargain rates you see lawyers hawking on late-night TV. One such character in Chicago advertises $500 for a Chapter 7 and $1000 for a Chapter 13 (and that tends to be the bare-bones/no-hitch price). Many debtors won't be able to afford the up-front costs. Add to this the prospect of a dollar collapse -- if the $6000 trigger level isn't tied to inflation, over time many of the debtors not intended to be barred from Chapter 7 will be.
Altercators Beware: Credit card companies have also been laying traps. You probably know that if you are late with a payment the bank that issued the card can jack-up the interest rate, even if you have a "guaranteed fix rate." But did you know that many companies have amended their user agreements so that if you are late with ANY payment (phone bill, repair man) they can do the same thing? If they haven't gotten around to you yet, they will -- they only need to give you 15 days notice. Some have gone as far as to add this language: "We reserve the right to change the terms at any time for any reason."

Live within your harvest, folks. Lean times are coming.

Bully Pulpit

2005-02-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

Becoming a parent exposed me to myself. Prior to parenthood, I had a self image that was very self involved. It was also hedonistic and regrettably superficial in some aspects. You have to start somewhere.

As my children grow, I can admit to myself that I'm not a "baby" mom. All aspects of baby parenting terrified me; the complete 24/7 litany of: it never lets up, it's never clean enough, there is no more Jet left, sleep is a mirage, towering Mt. "Wash Me", slide a paying job in there somehow, dimly register the clang of the glass ceiling, "How many children do you have? Three? Well. I see..."

Terrified of missing something, making a parental misstep, I overcompensated. Looking one direction, I could miss something else. It takes only a moment's distraction to drop the juggled balls. My kids grew up in as protected an environment as I could make. Three kids in 2 and 3/4 years is an incredible feat of navigation. I did it, but it's hard to move around in the world with three little ones. So we didn't go a lot of places. We hung out at home. A lot. I resented not even being able to get out to the grocery. Once you load up two car seats and a toddler into the cart, there's not much room for food. My husband added shopping to his list of chores, all which seemed to involve the outside world. My world was smaller and much, much stickier.

Fortunately, children grow. Babies no more, I am buoyed by my children's discoveries, prizes, transgressions and catastrophes. We bob on a sea of learning. In my "Mom Element" at last, this middle-years Mom revels, teaches and travels with ease. I look at my earlier versions-of-self fondly, but with no desire to step backwards. My future is beside me, and my legacies are unbound upon the world, determined to the quest. I cannot get my mind around what the world would be like without my husband and our kids.

Yet everyday, my country is more determined to destroy families.

There are 54 million people in Iraq. Over half of them are under the age of 15. Of the over 100,000 civilians dead in this war, then, over half of them are children. We are killing children. The children are our enemy. And we are defeating them.

"I'll tell you why I voted for George Bush," a friend of mine said. "I voted for George Bush because he had the courage to do what Al Gore and John Kerry would never have done."

I've been thinking about that one.

Osama Bin Laden is still alive. Sadam Hussein is still alive. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is still alive. Baghdad, Mosul and Fallujah are burning. But my government has the courage to kill children or their parents. And I'm supposed to be impressed.

That's an unfair assessment, of course. A lot of young soldiers have died, too. A lot of weekend soldiers are maimed for life. A lot of our kids went into the military only to get a college education and are now shattered in soul by what they had to do to other bodies.

A lot of adult civilians have been blasted out of their homes and their neighborhoods and their cars. More and more every day. According to U.N. Development Fund for Women, 15 percent of wartime casualties in World War I were civilians. In World War II, 65 percent were civilians. By the mid '90s, over 75 percent of wartime casualties were civilians.

In Iraq, for every dead U.S. soldier, there are 14 other deaths, 93 percent of them are civilian. But those things happen in war, the story says. It's all for a greater good, we have to remember. It's all to free them. It's all being done to spread "liberty."

From where I stand, the only question now is who or what will free us from the 21st century's new definition of bravery. Who will free us from the notion that killing children or their civilian parents takes courage? -- Sister Joan Chittitser

Iraq's children are front-lining their third war in 20 years. A war with Iran in the 1980's (lasting 8 years) and the Gulf War in 1991 greatly damaged Iraq's infrastructure.They also suffered greatly under 12 years of UN imposed sanctions. More children (500,000) died in Iraq during the sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima.

According to UNICEF, half the population of Iraq is under age 18. Many of these children are highly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. One in four children under five years of age is chronically malnourished. One in eight children dies before reaching their fifth birthday. Schools are marginalized. Due to fighting and structural damage, only 60% of the children have access to schools that are operational and the vaccination program is barely patched back together. The cold pipeline for transporting vaccines was destroyed and the country's vaccines were ruined.

In my little world, that would mean that three of my twins pre-school classmates would be dead. Six would be starving. Perhaps 14 out of 24 would be making it to the school, but few would be girls. Disease could lay the whole venture flat.

I understand that Saddam was a bad man. But based on our behavior, God will not see our side.

... We don't tally the children we kill for the same reason monsters don't buy mirrors: That's how they go through life thinking they're angels.

We've snuffed out innocent lives in numbers that insurgents and terrorists could only dream of. But we avert our eyes. We bury our heads in the sand and turn a blind eye to our moral cowardice, thus pulling off the amazing feat of being ostriches and chickens all at once. We owe this marvel of ornithology to the inexorable fragility of human illusions. To quote James Carroll, "we avert our eyes because the war is a moral abyss. If we dare to look, as Nietzsche said, the abyss stares back." George Bush, the philosopher, has updated Berkeley's riddle: Do Iraqi children scream when the bombs fall if there is no one in the White House to hear them? -- Bernard Chazelle

The White House's dance with Iran is following the same bull in the china shop techniques we employed prior to starting this war on Iraq and Iraq's children. North Korea has decided the best way to play with Bush is to be able to blow up some of our kids as well as some of theirs. We have rattled the bars on the cages of the "axis of evil". They have watched our war and are getting ready. When they bring it to us, our children are fair game.

I look into my children's faces and I think of the protected environment I made for them as babies to keep them safe. I can't do that for them anymore.

One thing I can do is raise my voice against the madness of this war on children.

The other is to beg God's forgiveness. President Bush doesn't seem to feel it's necessary.

A Little Joy, a Little Peace and a Whole Lotta Light

2005-02-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

Everybody has a love song. Sometimes it's an "our song". A wedding song, a first kiss song, a song that cements the fireworks. Sometimes its a song remembering lost love, missed chances, an if only lament.

My husband and I have an "our song". When we hear it, where ever we are, we dance. It's a connection of our before to our after; it holds the promise for our yet to be. It's special because of the currents, the love eddy under our surfaces.

Our song is special to us, but it's the relationship packaging that makes it so. There are wonderful songs of love and heartache out there that pass by unnoticed for the most part; our personal cosmic event didn't coincide with them. Trick of fate, perhaps.

I have a few songs though, that to me are the greatest love songs ever written. When I hear them, I have to stop and listen to them because I find them so compelling. They reach me in my core, in the place where I feel most real. They make be glad to be whole of mind and able to cherish the gift that loving somebody is.

Love,
I get so lost, sometimes days pass
and this emptiness fills my heart.
When I want to run away I drive off in my car
but whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are.

All my instincts, they return
and the grand facade,
so soon will burn without a noise,
without my pride
I reach out from the inside.

In your eyes
The light the heat
In your eyes
I am complete
In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
In your eyes
The resolution of all the fruitless searches
In your eyes
I see the light and the heat
In your eyes
Oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes.

Love,
I don't like to see so much pain.
So much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away.
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival.
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive.

And all my instincts, they return
and the grand facade,
so soon will burn without a noise,
without my pride
I reach out from the inside

In your eyes
The light the heat
In your eyes
I am complete
In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
In your eyes
The resolution of all the fruitless searches
In your eyes
I see the light and the heat
In your eyes
Oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes.

The promise of the gift of returned love, the end of looking for it, the completion of an individual puzzle. It's beautiful. Peter Gabriel crafted a masterpiece. John Hiatt's song of the finding, appreciating and aging with the love of your life is wonderful as well.

Well I never went to college, babe
I did not have the luck
Rolled out of Indiana in the back of a pickup truck
With no education higher
Than the street of my hometown
I went lookin' for a fire
Just to burn it all down

You've got a real fine love
You've got a real fine love
One I am unworthy of
You've got a real fine love, baby

I thought I had a line on something
Maybe no one else could say
And they couldn't find it in their hearts
To just get out of my way
Then out of nowhere, and from nothing
You came into my life
I'd seen an angel or two before
But I'd never asked one to be my wife

Well you can sprinkle all your teardrops
Across the evening sky
But you cannot hide the twinkle
Of starlight in your eye
Well I left my map way back there, baby
I don't know where we are
But I'm gonna pull my pony up
And hitch my wagon to your star

You've got a real fine love
You've got a real fine love
One I am unworthy of
You've got a real fine love, baby

Well now the babies are all sleeping
And the twilight's givin' in
She looks like you, he looks like her
And we all look like him
Well maybe it's just the little thing
The way I feel tonight
A little joy
A little peace
And a whole lotta light

Love one another, friends.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Just Say NO!

2005-02-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

I just read the most astonishing essay; I'm absolutely blown away.

There is so much anger amongst the Dems right now, but even worse, such a catastrophic sense of disorganization. Who do we have? How can we adapt ourselves? How can we appeal to the moral crowd? How can we get our message out in a media tipping further right as we speak? It's as if we're stumbling around in a sealed box, desperate to find the door before the gas begins.

Well, guess what? We're being played.

Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the 'new' language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.

They will tell you: Every single day. The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating. -- Mel Giles

You see, when we accepted that so called "moral mandate", we were ducking a blow. Because Dems, as liberals, embrace tolerance. This means that while we disagree with conservatives, we are tolerant of their opinion and support their right to have it. What happened to us is simple. While we were busy believing that building up everybody is the best way to achieve forward progress, they got busy building up a scary caricature of what liberals were and frightening a lot of formerly non-political people with it. They rode that horse hard.

Faith is a personal journey. At 42, I'm ready to ask questions; I'm actively seeking answers. My quest is not based on any formal religious training, nor is it based on a specific doctrine. I search as a Christian, but if I find God in Chaos Theory, I still find God.

This is why I find this whole "moral mandate" so appalling and ultimately, unacceptable. This is not moral, it's manipulation. This is not a mandate, this is greed and power lust. Politics are inherently amoral and consistently immoral.

Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned --the press corps can tell you that.) See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. (To him.) Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won't; we will never be worthy.)

And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the
other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy. -- Mel Giles

Over and over in the last election cycle, I read outraged blogs. What about the facts... they're ignoring the facts... the fact is...

It was bewildering. The situation couldn't possibly last, surely people understood what was at stake, who we were, what was real and what was smoke. The days after the election were a lesson in rage. We leached it from every pore, expressed it in creative and far flung ways. We apologized to the world.

Then we started talking about how we needed to change ourselves to fit the new mold, be more like them, more acceptable, more obedient to the moral mandate.

How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple: First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don't do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don't do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring that its over faster and hurts less if you don't resist and fight back.

Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you've learned, and that you aren't going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 57 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and the gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it's better than the abuse. -- Mel Giles

I am a Democrat. I am liberal. I accept that people are different from me. I am not threatened by their difference. I want my world to grow based on the richness of diversity. I know that the brain is an incredible instrument and we need every one of them. I accept that my planet requires my stewardship. I am responsible for the weak and the broken; I will care and raise them up. I am a Democrat. I am one of many.

And I am through ducking.

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 57 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying. Because we are trying to break free and we don't know how.

Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser. -- Mel Giles

There is nothing, NOTHING, wrong with tolerance, reform, support and protection.

Nothing.

These are the liberal acts God wishes from us. Not to slander, not to lie, not denying the poor, or denigrating the different. Tolerance, reform, support and protection for others and for my earth are mine to give. I am steadfast, and I WILL GIVE THEM.

I don't need your permission.

Don't let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he'll win, not because he's right, but because force works.) Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it fail-proof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But, we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazed, too liberal, naïve, amoral, "loose," irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.

Even if you do everything right, they'll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education. And they
don't even know they are being hit. -- Mel Giles

We must turn our backs on the bullies, and stand firm for our core beliefs. They are rock solid; they are ancient. It is right to raise up, it is right to encourage, it is right to correct wrongs, it is right to accept, protect and nurture. To do anything else is wrong on every level.

The funny thing about it? If we stand up and remain steadfast, our strength becomes ten, hundred, thousand fold. With that strength, comes respect and interest. With respect and interest, leadership grows. With leadership comes more people to the cause. More people begets more strength, and the circle of strength continues to grow.

I am a Democrat. I am one of many.

Are you with me?

Across the Great Divide

2005-02-06T07:12:00.000-08:00

I'm a transplanted mid-westerner. When I have a chance to head north, the woods are the woods of my childhood, the verbal intonations the sounds of my teens and twenties. When I get a chance to have a couple two-tree beers wit my Wisconsin friends, we have a good time fer cripes sake. Ja, dat's fer sure.

However, I've lived in Florida for 15 years now. I no longer fear the unusual spiky plants harboring enormous insects that I encounter on my farm, nor the plentiful snakes in numerous varieties. I've seen alligators cross the highway near my home, and skied the lakes where they live, hunt, and raise their young. My truce with the woods of my adulthood is one of mature, accepting unease. My children will feel as out of place in the woods of my childhood as I feel in theirs. Yet, we are one flesh, one family; we are also five diverse minds.

Writing in Wisconsin lingo brought a smile to my face. I have history to go with that slang. Florida is such a melting pot that no such definitive lingo exists, but expressions like "y'all" in place of "you guys", "good to go" replacing alright or appropriate, and "bless his heart", by which I mean there are boxes of rocks out there that have it going on over my subject, have crept into my daily speech. I have 12-year neighbors who are Tennessee transplants and the best neighbors I have ever had, friends who are Florida natives and die-hard NASCAR fans who vote Democratic, and co-workers from Mexico working here on green cards. I have friends transplanted from New York and Massachusetts, here as long or longer than myself, and a myriad of acquaintances who speak with a myriad of accents. Other than ribbing the New Yorker over the atrocity of the Bills over the years, I try to make it a point not to presume anything about any of these people. I haven't lived in their previous communities, I don't know the ins and outs.

Fifteen years into it, I do have opinions about my new(er) piece of America. Here's a list, by no means complete, of the things I love about where I live.

Fish. Really fresh ocean fish, in amazing varieties and subtlety of flavors. Also fresh seafood. You have not lived until you have grilled fresh oysters on the grill, carted them in and shucked them on your kitchen table, dressed them up in the toppings of your choice and sent them down the hatch. 'Cuse me, I'm drooling.

Manners galore. Please, Thank-you, Yes M'am, No Sir. Heavenly. Even the toll takers are nice. My friend who works in Gary, Indiana once told me of a toll taker to whom she handed the correct change for toll, and simply told her, "here's the correct change. The toll taker's response to her? "Well f**king duh!" That's just rude. Funny, but rude.

Year round boating. My husband proposed to me on our little boat, on a lake in Florida, in FEBRUARY. Beats shoveling.

Sharp wit. Regardless of origin, Americans are smart asses. You have no idea how comforting that is.

Good writing. I discovered the joys of southern writers; I am drunk with their prose.

Produce. My God in Heaven, thank you for this bounty that will excise the plethora of fried cheese I consumed in Wisconsin. It's all good, all the time. Especially the peaches. Oh, and the tomatoes and strawberries. And the jalapenos and Vidalia onions. And the peaches. Especially the peaches. Amen.

Hard work. I am surrounded by people who walk the walk. When I first arrived in Florida, in the course of trying to land my first job, I'm ashamed to say I told the interviewer I brought an outstanding mid-western work ethic to the table. She was not amused by the implications. Needless to say, I remained unemployed for a bit longer thanks to that gaffe.

I'm hardly the first "Yankee" to tear down I-75 ready to teach these ignorant southerners all about the proper way to do things. Problem is, they have things pretty well managed, are not really impressed with arrogance and lack of tact, and if you could please refrain from using the F-word in front of their Mothers, they'd really appreciate it. Where does all that assumptive superiority come from? Surely it can't simply be the Civil War. One hundred and forty odd years later, the stereotypes run deep and malignant.

I've received many e-mails denigrating southern dwellers as stupid, toothless, racist, uncultured in-breeders. I'm sad to say that most of these emails originated from old friends up north who have never lived in the south. This really bothers me. These same people would never send an email denigrating someone because of skin color. So why do the stereotypes against southerners seem acceptable?

Stereotype is not a particularly pleasant word. A stereotype is a fixed idea that people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong.

Yep, that's pretty negative stuff. Do I wish to be considered less able or intelligent because I'm female? Of course not. Are my children going to be sub-standard citizens because they are growing up in the south? Of course not. Are they going to be toothless, stupid and marry each other? Of course not.

Perpetuating the southern myth is fool hardy. What is really being wrought is worse. As long as we, as Dems, embrace this so called Red State=South / Blue State=North baloney we are allowing ourselves to be manipulated and weakened. Our nation is purple, and we need to build toward that if we want to see real change in this country. To be liberal we must practice tolerance, and here is where we need to start.

I'll leave you with this thought:

Lord, who may have a resting-place in your tent, a living-place on your holy hill? He who goes on his way uprightly, doing righteousness, and saying what is true in his heart; Whose tongue is not false, who does no evil to his friend, and does not take away the good name of his neighbor -- PSALMS 15:1-3, Basic English Bible

Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Big Brother is Peeping You

2005-01-31T16:24:00.000-08:00

One of the scariest trends in America today is the vapid acceptance of whole-hearted chucking of civil rights. Remember civil rights? Civilian rights? Youse and mine rights? Get a load of these apples:

Recently, it was disclosed that the Department of Homeland Security had deployed an x-ray van, previously used in cargo searches at America's borders, in a test run – taking X-ray pictures of parked cars in Cape May, New Jersey. While, the DHS claimed all X-ray surveillance was conducted on empty cars with their owners' consent, one wonders how long this will last. After all, American Science & Engineering Inc, the manufacturer of the Z Backscatter Van (ZBV), notes that "it maintains the outward appearance of an ordinary van," so it can stand unnoticed and peep into cars as they drive past, or with its "unique ‘drive-by' capability [it] allows one or two operators to conduct X-ray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past." Since we're all increasingly suspects (in our "suspect vehicles") in the Homeland Security State, it seems only a matter of time before at least some of us fall victim to a DHS X-ray drive-by.

But what happens after a DHS scan-van x-ray shows a dense white mass in your car (which could be any "organic material" from explosives or drugs to a puppy, a baby, or a head of lettuce)? Assuming that the DHS folks will be linked up with the Department of Transportation (DOT), soon they might be able to call on DOT's proposed Intelligent TransportationSystems' (ITS) Joint Program Office (JPO)'s "Vehicle-InfrastructureIntegration (VII)" system for help.

According to Bill Jones, the Technical Director of the ITS JPO, "The concept behind VII is that vehicle manufacturers will install a communications device on the vehicle starting at some future date, and equipment will be installed on the nation's transportation system to allow all vehicles to communicate with the infrastructure." In other words, the government and manufacturers will team up to track every new automobile (x-rayed or not) in America. "The whole idea," says Jones, "is that vehicles would transmit this data to the infrastructure. The infrastructure, in turn, would aggregate that data in some kind of a database."

Imagine it: The federal government tracking you in real time, while compiling a database with information on your speed, route, and destination; where you were when; how many times you went to a certain location; and just about anything else related to your travels in your own car. The DOT project, in
fact, sounds remarkably like a civilian update of the "Combat Zones That See" program developed by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Noah Shachtman, writing for the Village Voice, reported in 2003 that DARPA was in the process of instituting a project at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, whose aim was "to track 90 percent of all of cars within[a] target area for any given 30-minute period. The paths of 1 million vehicles [w]ould be stored and retrievable within three seconds." It gives a whole new meaning to "King of the Road." -- Tom Englehardt & Nick Turse, January 31, 2005

And that King of the Road, friends? Won't be you or me. I have to go on record that I like being obscure. I'm a law abiding, tax paying, honest person who likes her privacy. Part of the reason I live in a rural community is safety related, but I live outside the chaos of city life primarily because I like being alone. It's a good groove. The thought that the simple act of driving into Orlando to pick up a relative from the airport or to (yawn) take them to Disney would result in my privacy being not only violated, but saved for ongoing viewing bothers me.

Considerably.

Let's do the math. Precisely how many times would civil rights be violated to catch a terrorist suspect? Billions? Is that the best use of assets? Perhaps it is a wee bit darker than that. After all, one you have "permission" to gather that data, its very easy to say, "We have all this data just sitting around, we should be able to release it to other agencies for their use." Paint that bitch up as effective crime fighting, and watch the sheep populace head for the civil rights slaughter.

Concerned? Have another apple:

In the latter years of the Vietnam era, a series of exposures of official lies regarding the FBI's various COINTELPROs, a host of surveillance and dirty tricks programs aimed at American activists, and the analogous CIA program known as MHCHAOS; of domestic spying by military intelligence agents and of the Nixon administration's various Watergate surveillance and illegal break-in operations brought home to Americans at least some of the abuses committed by their military, intelligence, and security establishments. Congressional bodies like the Church Commission and the Senate Watergate Committee even helped to rein in some of the most egregious of these abuses and to reinforce the barriers between what the CIA and military could do overseas and what was permissible on the homefront.

In the 1980s and 1990s, however, oversight and constraints on illegal domestic activities by the military and intelligence community slowly began to drain away; and with the 9/11 attacks, of course, everything changed. Three years later, what was once done on the sly is increasingly public policy – and
done with pride – though much of it still flies under the mainstream media radar as the Bush administration transforms us into an unabashed Homeland Security State.

Today, freedom – to be spread abroad by force of arms – is increasingly a privilege that can be rescinded at home when anyone acts a little too free. Today, America is just another area of operations for the Pentagon; while those who say the wrong things; congregate in the wrong places; wear the wrong
t-shirts; display the wrong stickers; or just look the wrong way find themselves recast as "enemies" and put under the eye of, if not the care of, the state. -- Tom Englehardt & Nick Turse, January 31, 2005

Considering the way the Bush re-election campaign was run, with "invitation only" rallies and forcible removal of citizens of this country who attended and disagreed, I have no difficulty agreeing with this assessment.

To follow is what I consider to be a true terror list.

1) "The FBI obtained 257.5 million Passenger Name Records following 9/11, and that the Bureau has permanently incorporated the travel details of tens of millions of innocent people into its law enforcement databases."
2) Outgoing DHS chief, Tom Ridge recently called for U.S. passports to include fingerprints in the future.
3) In November 2004, California passed the "DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act" which "allows authorities to take DNA samples from anyone – adult or juvenile – convicted of a felony" and "in 2009… will expand to allow police to collect DNA samples from any suspect arrested for any felony… whether or not the person is charged or convicted.
4) The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to "use the latest in database technologies" to store information on and count the homeless which, the Electronic Privacy Information Center notes, "lay[s] the groundwork for a national homeless tracking system, placing individuals at risk of government and other privacy invasions."
5) According to a recent report in ISR Journal, "the publication of record for the global network-centric warfare community," a "high-level advisory panel recently told U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld" that the Pentagon needs ultra-high-tech tracking tools that "can identify people by unique physical characteristics – fingerprint, voice, odor, gait or even pattern of iris" and that such a system "must be merged with new means of ‘tagging' so that U.S. forces can find enemies who escape into a crowd..." -- Tom Englehardt & Nick Turse, January 31, 2005

What would our nation be like if they decided to integrate number five with any of the others? This isn't Hollywood; these are real, ongoing, quality of life changes that would impact across generations. Want this world for yourself? How about for your children? Before our lives can be turned into some kind of traceable database of material, Homeland Security planners require a critical element. The assent and support of the American people. Once given, I suspect they hope we sort of forget about it while they do their thing.

Therein lies the holy grail. They can't simply take it, we have to give and allow it to happen. Don't like what you just read? Get loud. Talk about it, stir the pot. You may take a little heat, but most of the good things liberals have made happen throughout the history of our nation got pretty hot. If freedom was uncontested, no one would be fighting for it.

Jesus went to town on the moneychangers because what they were inflicting on the community hurt it. God didn't invest humans with free will so we would chose to do nothing, nor provide us our marvelous brains so we can let others think for us.

I believe I've had my fill of this particular apple.

Talk Dirty to Me

2005-01-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

It's the ultimate, the word that transcends argument, the epitaph that settles the dust and defines the sides. Its use closes doors, alienates friends, cements stereotypes, creates mistrust, provides resentment a safe harbor, shifts focus, and blows smoke.

Language is powerful. Never believe otherwise.

Books, film, theatre, conversation, blogs, newspapers, magazines, comedy clubs, television, radio, and music tap that power. The tiny crunch of grit resounding through the cavernous library underscores it. We seek, need, crave the power of language in order to put a human fingerprint on the chaos of the universe.

What word could possibly wield that much power?

Sex?
Murder?
Betrayal?

Liberal.

I felt that reaction from here. You know exactly what I mean. I have your attention, whether praise or rebuttal are in your future. The very volatility of the word is intoxicating. We are circling the fires, flames flickering on our faces, leaning in to see the battle with hearts tensed, jaws tight.

Yet, if I asked you to define the word liberal, I wonder what you would say?

I give you, circlers of fires, the definition of liberal:

liberal
adj 1: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's opinions" [syn: broad, large-minded, tolerant] 2: having political or social views favoring reform and progress 3: tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition [ant: conservative] 4: given or giving freely; "was a big tipper"; "the bounteous goodness of God"; "bountiful compliments"; "a freehanded host"; "a handsome allowance"; "Saturday's child is loving and giving"; "a liberal backer of the arts"; "a munificent gift"; "her fond and openhanded grandfather" [syn: big, bighearted, bounteous, bountiful, freehanded, handsome, giving, openhanded] 5: not literal; "a loose interpretation of what she had been told"; "a free translation of the poem" [syn: free, loose] n 1: a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties [syn: progressive] [ant: conservative] 2: a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets. Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

Several words stand out here: tolerance, reform, giving, and protection.

Tolerance implies acceptance, a lack of judgment on others who are different. This does not imply a lack of respect for the law. It does indicate a lessening of hierarchy, i.e. class, race, haves/have nots. It is the base of seeing human society growing in a constant rate of improvement due to the offering of more opportunity to more people. It does not subscribe to the theory that protecting ones personal wealth by creating barriers to others betters society.

Reform means rooting out barriers that impede opportunity so growth continues.

Giving means searching out need and supplying it for the good of the community.

Protection means caring for all within the community. We do this because we understand that we cannot grow and improve if we do not nurture.

Conservatives hate these ideals, which don't gel with their philosophy of protecting ones own class.

Conservatives identify with "the privileged", the strong, the "ins", the "haves". Conservative whites favor their own kind and try to keep racial minorities "in their place", and out of the jobs and neighborhoods that they would like to conserve for their own kind. Conservatives who have been in America a generation or two strive to keep (newer) "immigrants" out. Conservative males strive to keep women in their place. Conservative adults strive to keep a tight grip on their children (as well as everybody else's). Conservatives heterosexuals don't want homosexuals to gain any ground to catch up with them. Conservative Christians want their religion to be as close to the "official" religion of
America as they can get away with. Healthy Conservatives don't want "their taxes" spent to pay for the health care of the sick. Conservatives who are not oppressed by "officers of the law" could care less about the criminal behavior of police and prison guards against victims powerless to defend themselves, and already presumed the guilty party in any contest between
themselves and their guards. -- Liberals Like Christ

See what I mean about language and power? That's an astonishing bit of accusatory writing. So is this:

"The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. For the vile person will speak villainy, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand." Isaiah 32:5-8

"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. Proverbs 11:25

OUCH!!

I believe we have it from a higher source than Rush Limbaugh that liberal is NOT a dirty word.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2005-01-21T13:54:00.000-08:00

I've survived another week of shepherding three young'uns through the tribulations of elementary school projects, quizzes and tests. I've saved my bosses the usual piles of money, for which I am grossly under-compensated, and my house is a mess. Friday will never be an ultimate post day; my hot damns and hallelujahs are all tapped out.

However, here are three little nuggets to mull over while I consult the restorative grape residing in my refrigerator.

The Good

You need to be reading Sister Joan. She's that good. Go on! I'll wait for you. Here's a snippet.

Try to look surprised.

The official word, according to the report of the Iraq Survey Group released last week, is that the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq is over. Why? Because, as most of the world knew at the outset of the debacle, Iraq didn't have any. So much for the satellite photo of one warehouse with a tractor trailer parked behind it on which we based our pathetic little case for so-called "pre-emptive" war -- and on international television, no less. Or, to put it another way, contrast this presentation of
materials to the photos taken from outer space during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

Forty years ago we could count every Russian missile in every
pile on Cuban soil. Now, on the brink of mass invasion of another country, there was nothing to count and nothing to see. (If you're inclined to be disappointed that, contrary to popular opinion, our photographic technology has not been getting better as time goes on, try to remember that in a case like this it can be very difficult to take pictures of what isn't there.)

See? I strive for her clarity and ability to cut the BS. Someday, perhaps.

The Bad

According to John W. Schoen, a senior producer at MSNBC, looking at the budget impact of Bush's first term is one way to determine how much new Treasury debt the government sold to make up for the deficits since he took office. In Jan. 2001, the total Treasury debt held by the public stood at $3.9 trillion. As of Wed. Jan. 19, the figure was $4,423,975,930,565.56 (or $4.4 trillion.) Whether you attribute this increase to tax cuts or war spending (or both), the U.S. government is $500 billion further in debt after Bush's first term.

The second term's outlook isn't much better. It depends on if tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the decade become permanent, and on when U.S. troops finally leave Iraq. Last June, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the final bill for the war could hit nearly $400 billion. The CBO figures the accumulated federal budget deficits will hit $2.3 trillion by the end of the decade. The White House's own estimates for the second term estimates the total Treasury debt held by the public will reach $5.5 trillion by 2008. (See Table 20, bottom of the page.) That would put the accumulated price tag for both terms at around $1.6 trillion, or a little over $200 billion a year. (That's not counting the White House plan to overhaul Social Security. Until the details of the proposal are formally unveiled, it's impossible to say what it will cost. But if some payroll taxes are diverted to individual accounts (the main idea behind the plan), Congress would have to kick in more money to pay for people who are already retired or expect to do so soon. That could easily add another $1 trillion or more to the Bush deficits.)

God Dem!

Start writing your representatives now, and make sure they understand that you do NOT support mucking about with Social Security. We are bankrupting our country just to please a few financial institutions who stand to profit through privitazation.

The Ugly

The VA is NOT authorized to recruit eligible veterans for the benefits they earned through service to our country.

A directive issued last year for the VA MidSouth Healthcare Network, which includes the Louisville hospital, said "facilities may not aggressively take steps to recruit new enrollees or new workload."

That directive followed a national VA memo issued in July 2002 that said recruiting veterans is "inappropriate" because of a tight budget and growing demand for services.

This means the service personnel out there with NO LEGS OR ARMS OR SHATTERED MINDS due to the horrific situation they volunteered to be put into in order to serve the country you and I live, drive, surf the net and eat at Olive Garden in cannot be searched out and told where and how to obtain their benefits.

That is unacceptable.

Words of encouragement come from Pope John Paul II, in his address Monday to an annual gathering of world diplomats:

"The arrogance of power must be countered with reason, force with dialogue, pointed weapons with outstretched hands, evil with good."

I've added a counter and a link to the sidebar called 10 x 10. This site pulls the 100 top words from the internet every hour and pairs them with the top 100 images. It sounds very cool, but as you drag your mouse over the images, the words are all sad.

It's hard, sometimes, to maintain perspective and humor in the face of misrepresentation and meanness. But we will, because we're Dems. And, because we are right.

The Right Thing

2005-01-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

The tough part about taking the higher road is that you really need to be following you gut and not just trying to get elected. We've all been there; political co-workers, unethical requests, or attraction to a friend's date are all slippery slopes. Choices made in these situations are pretty personal and frequently never go public. You know though, and if you're sleeping soundly, things are probably being managed well in your little section of the universe.

The implications of bearing a public moral mandate, as we've been told ad nauseam by the Republicans that they now wield, might weigh heavy in decision making. Ya think? Let's ask a Bush man, shall we?

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach weighed in on the subject of the excessive inaugural fete. To wit:

In general, there is a terrible disconnect between the 275 million American who go about their daily lives focused mostly on themselves, and the approximately 2 million Americans who are entrusted to guarantee our freedom and sacrifice their lives, if need be, to safeguard their freedoms. There is a desperate need in America to close that gap, both so that our soldiers never feel unappreciated and so that the American people never take the military's sacrifice for granted. President Bush can begin that process by making a courageous statement that now is not the time for large parties celebrating political triumphs, but rather
a time to focus on the plight of our troops and ensure their victory in Iraq.

Rabbi Boteach is a staunch Bush supporter, but there is a serious pile of complaint sandwiched into his article. Again with the good Rabbi:

... there should be humility in victory. President Bush's victory was won with morality-based voters who supported him because they trust his values. There is, therefore, a need to show that he does not gloat and embraces his victory with humility. Canceling the big inaugural celebrations sends the right messages to the American people that President Bush did not seek to whip the
Democrats or raise himself in victory, but rather to simply continue the course of spreading democracy and destroying tyranny around the globe.

I sincerely wish that that were true. Unfortunately, my middle name is Skeptic. Let's listen in a bit more:

And what about all the wealthy supporters who need to be rewarded for their support of the president with invitations to a big inaugural ball? First of all, they can all be invited to the inaugural itself, which should be a sufficient honor. But more importantly, political contributors must learn the lesson of supporting a candidate they believe in, even if it means receiving nothing in return.

Oh my, now THAT presents a bit of a snag. You see, all those horrible misleading political ads we suffered through were paid for by somebody. This swanky party is also being paid for by somebody (except for the part that they plan to stick it to the city of Washington D.C. with, but more on that later).

Let's leave Rabbi Boteach (see belief.net on the sidebar for his writings) and go visit a true non-partisan wonderland, the Center for Responsive Politics, to find the answer to the question we are all asking, "Who’s picking up the tab for the Bush bash?"

"There are a wide variety of companies that are giving; some people were former supporters,” said Larry Noble, executive director at the Center for Responsive Politics. “We’re seeing some Pioneers and Rangers -- the big fundraisers for Bush. Among the companies we are seeing are Texas companies and energy companies."

Direct corporate contributions to political campaigns are barred by law. Inaugural committee contributions, however, are one way companies can legally spend big bucks in order to make friends in high places happy.

How happy will W have to make the
oil folks in return? Based on the amount their contributions have ratcheted up in the last 10 years, I suspect hookers will need to be bought. Ones with preferential government contracts in their G-strings, probably.

How happy will W have to make the financial folks in return? Their contributions have gone from being distributed equally to both parties to a 50% increase to the Republicans in the last 10 years. I suspect nothing less than the handing over of the privitazation of social security will suffice.

How happy will W have to make the Ameriquest folks? These heavy hitters provide sub-prime mortgages in minority neighborhoods. What do they want? Just federal standards that would supersede tougher laws in several states. Man, what smells?

Here's a partial Naughty Company list for those interested:
Chevron Texaco
Exxon Mobil
Occidental Petroleum
Southern Company
Goldman Sachs
Bank of America
HSBC
Ameriquest Capital

I promised, so here's the new word on the D.C. shaft over free security. According to Jim Rice, the FBI supervisory agent for Thursday’s inauguration,

“This is probably the heaviest security we have ever had in D.C. The president is going to get out and walk down the middle of the street, and we’re at war. Security is going to be airtight.”

Hey, if you're not paying for it, why not go whole hog?

Where is the commitment to the self-monikered moral mandate?

The higher road has potholes, apparently.

2005-01-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Jet (during the Clinton years)

Tres Hombres

2005-01-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

I've got a few things burning my backside this week. Fortunately, since I'm a Dem, I understand the concept of sharing.

Numero Uno: There's a difference between being pious and being pompous, and Tom Delay really needs a refresher course. The sad part is that there is a politically active block of people out there who see nothing wrong with this. 150,000+ dead and Delay's response is an "I told you so?"

Jesus wept, indeed.

Numero Dos: Jeb Bush is an idiot. Just precisely how stupid do the Bush brothers think we are?

This is the part that slayed me:

"The fact that we take sexual harassment allegations very seriously here proves that the allegations of sexual harassment made against Lloyd have no merit," DiPietre said.

What?

Jeb Bush explains he fired one guy for sexual harassment, hired another one accused of it, then his PR flunky said that the fact that they fired the first guy proves that the second guy (their new guy) must be innocent.

A sphincter says what?

Exactly.

Numero Tres: Breaking News: this Inaugural Farce is appalling. Let's just take a moment to total up the damages, shall we?

Inauguration officials said they plan to spend $40 million on the celebration. Over the course of four days there will be fireworks, the swearing-in, a parade and nine balls. Cinderella's step-sisters must be in a swoon over the news. The costs for these items, which do not include security and other public services, are being paid for by private donors.

The city of D.C., which has always been reimbursed for expenses resulting from the inaugural hoopla, estimate that the city's costs for the inauguration will total $17.3 million, primarily for security. City officials can use an unspent $5.4 million from an annual federal fund (one that reimburses the District for costs incurred because of its status as the capital). That leaves $11.9 million not covered. On the previous inauguration, the city's tab was 8 million (less than half of this one's cost), all of which was covered through a direct appropriation. Now the city is being told to pull it from their homeland security funding.

The city with the highest risk of attack must steal from itself to pay for a party?

Hang on, it gets better.

According to the Office of Personnel Management, federal employees who work in the District, Montgomery, Prince George's, Fairfax and Arlington counties, Alexandria and Falls Church are entitled to a holiday on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. The cost of giving federal workers in the capital area a day off was about $66 million as of June 1st.

Additionally, as written in the Washington Post, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) has asked OPM chief Kay Coles James to dismiss federal employees at noon or 1 p.m. Jan. 19 to avoid gridlock. Doing the math anyone? That's $99 million dollars in paid wages for no work. Who pays? Why yes, Sir, you in the back -- Taxpayers pay for it? Give that man a sucker!

$156,013,000.00

That's a million for every Tsunami death.

Jesus isn't the only one weeping.

Demand deeds that suit the words. E-mail President Bush here.

The Rolling of Sleeves

2005-01-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

So many dead, so many missing; comprehension has left the building.

"I checked the population of towns near me," confessed one friend. "I needed to pin a size in my mind, get a fix of some sort, on the human magnitude."

The instinctual desire to help, our closet good Samaritan as it were, rises in us at times of such mental helplessness. Doing beats blathering, every time. The personal flinging of the wealth, abilities, skills and stuff of this nation has far outstripped the belated empathy and monetary pledges of our government. Donations placed through Amazon.com for the Red Cross are over 12 million. Personal donations to the Catholic Relief Services are expected to be in the 25 million range. Americans are giving, and my simple hope is that, to the world, the efforts of countless individual Americans remind the world that we are still good global citizens.

Remember folks, the initial 15 million our government pledged was less than it will cost us to host Bush's inauguration. Our second pledge of 35 million is less than we spend in 6 hours in Iraq.

We have a mandate from God to raise up the poor and helpless. Give what you can and write who you must. We won't get our country back on track without demanding deeds that suit the words.

You Are Here...

2004-12-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

Perusing headlines recently, I saw "A Return to America's Founding Principles.". My initial reaction? "I'm sure as hell not clicking that...." I was positive that it contained vapid Republican curd about how they were going to save the Righteous from the Leftovers. It took three skips across the home page at MSNBC before I bit, and I am so glad I did.

That hesitation speaks volumes. How did we let America, let ourselves as Dems, get so sold on this one way trip on the river of libel? Do you know any Democrats who fit the stereotype plastered across the talk radio airways? I don't. How did we just sit there and end up painted into the corner as Godless, unprincipled, ill-mannered, uncaring, manipulative liars? How come we can't get any momentum out of the truth in a given situation? Fabrications rule, and it seems like the truth can't even get buried on page A20 these days.

I'd dearly love to take back my government, take back my country, but mostly I'm looking for the restoration of my good name. In a party as embracing, varied and chaotic as the Democrats, is it even possible to develop the required cohesiveness to stem the slanderous tide?

I wish I felt more confident. The grass roots elements of the Kerry campaign were encouraging. Lots of little money made a pretty impressive pile, but it still wasn't enough. I think a couple of things need to happen. First, election reform which includes paper trails of every vote cast, non partisan election supervisors and enforced felony charges for election tampering. Perhaps a constitutional amendment strengthening the sanctity of elections is in order.

Second, a unilateral agreement that election advertising on television, radio, or the web can only be used to promote your candidates qualities. Any issues regarding your opponents weaknesses must be relegated to printed material mailed to voters homes. Pundits who misrepresent facts in order to persuade must publicly set records straight during the same time of day the original misrepresentation was made and the correction must last as long as the original error. Advertisers would freak. A major component of the divide in this nation can be traced directly to the 9 month bombardment of negativity we just suffered through. Enough.

Third, and probably the most elusive, is immediate countermanding of the notion that God and Democrats are mutually exclusive. This is a dialogue that needs to take place within the party, and soon. Freedom of religion is a basic tenement, yet we tiptoe around it like it's a "don't ask don't tell" policy. God is, to many, many Dems. Beyond that, we need to underscore our embrace of freedom of religion, which includes non-belief, and slam it home that God is not owned by the Republicans. We need more voices like Sister Joan Chittister pointing out the discrepancies between action and words. Implying you are favored because you have faith does not negate the impact of the deeds done.

As long as we remain in this free-fall free for all, America loses. When Gingrich presented the contract with America, while unacceptable to half the nation, it did provide a clear rallying point for the Republicans. Dems need to find a center that not only unifies our party, but breaks down these perceptions, nearly all false, that are beginning to divide us as a nation. Perhaps rebuilding based on the vision of our founders can give us not only what we want, but what our country so desperately needs, a common national ideal. Divided nearly in half, we are so much less than what we have the potential to become.

As Ben Franklin noted, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.."