I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a Self-Knowing Healthy Builder

Less that 11 hours until the new year starts here in the west coast. Thought I would return to the blog, see if I remembered my username and password, and consider doing something here in 2009.

For those on the other side of the planet, Happy New Year!

Well, it's a new election year and I'm considering cranking out some rants. We'll see.

I could start with a free association post. (As in this is what is spilling from from brain through my fingertips). Maybe that is much of what this blog will become.

I suppose I could start off lightly...

I'm in my kitchen sitting on a rug on the floor watching my bunny...oh, that's right...it's Easter...our own Easter Bunny!

My thoughts on Easter and religion...that's another post.

I'll eventually talk about how we adopted a schizoaffective cat and a house bunny left in the brush.

In the past I highly personalized and polarized certain attitudes and political leanings. I've since realized I put off some people I care about and will occasionally really need at crucial times in my life, such as when I lost my dad a couple of years ago. Although his and my brother's leanings were definitely away from the current administration (I really enjoyed ranting on the phone with Dad)...maybe even a bit left...most of the rest of his my extended family is strongly footed in the other direction...and at his funeral were nearly all of his siblings and their kids who traveled 200-300 miles to be at the little service. As I lived closer to most of them and saw them more after I finished my undergrad and a year of of grad studies, it felt good to see them there and for my siblings to reconnect with them. My mental note of the time: Don't burn bridges ... inadvertently or not.

Could people possibly be more stupid?

Perhaps the only comfort I have in casting my votes today is knowing I'm surrounded by like minded people...as in my home county and a half dozen or so counties adjacent to it. I'll continue to write the women representing me in Congress and attending MeetUps for Dean. Asa & I will continue to exchange rants about Dubya, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rove, and now Governator Ah-nold and anyone else involved in the highjacking of democracy, the Constitution, civil rights and/or anything good we've got going.

Screw the dumb bastards. They're the ones who have kids who will have to grow old and raise their own families in the sewers being made of the planet.

What should I care?

Cost of War

At what cost is the invasion and occupation of Iraq? What is it costing your community? What is it costing your children? What is the cost in health, education, housing? Someone took these questions and made the answers easily viewable at Cost of War.

See how the cost is escalating based on estimates and announced costs. See the cost to your city. See how many teachers could have been hired for this amount or how many college scholarships could be provided. Find out how many children could be provided with health care for a year where you live.

Good thing we have something to show for it: Casualties.

Rats jumping a s(t)inking ship?

After news Monday of Ari Fleischer's plan to leave his White House post in July, it was reported the same day that Tony Blair's press spokesman is also resigning.

Today the AP, Reuters, the UPI, CNN & Bloomberg report that Christine Todd Whitman has decided to leave as head of the EPA. She cites spending more time with family as her motivation, stating in her resignation letter, "...it is time to return to my home and husband in New Jersey, which I love...." Although Whitman didn't achieve much (if anything) she was probably the best hope the environment had under the current administration as she clashed with the Bush White House over environmental issues. Sierra Club spokesman David Willett told UPI, "We think she did her best at the EPA but the administration wouldn't let her do her job." It will be interesting to see who else bails before the 2004 re-(s)election campaign really gets rolling.

A nice way to start the week

The New York Times reports this morning that White House press secretary Ari Fleischer will resign in July. I hope it's a sign of things to come.

I love this piece in the Statesman regarding the Texas House Escapees, uh, I mean Texas House Dems.

Now, as part of the testpattern team, I don't have to feel guilty about my infrequent posts.

From alternet.org: War on Iraq

This is fucked:

U.S. soldiers fire on van carrying women and children - Mar. 31, 2003

Thanks to my friend, John, for sending the ditty below:

Sing along to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it,
clap your hands"...C'mon, everybody sing...


If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think someone has dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

It's "pre-emptive non-aggression", bomb Iraq.
Let's prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's good enough for me
'Cos it's all the proof I need
Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he tried to kill your dad),
Bomb Iraq.

If your corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.

Read Joe Conason's Journal for January 16, 2003:

The president opposes affirmative action. So how does he defend the institutional favoritism that got him into Yale? Plus: More on bad "legacies."


"(According to Cecil Adams, who writes the Straight Dope column, Bush's score was almost 200 points lower than the average for Yale freshmen circa 1970.) Bush's middling SAT score, incidentally, is roughly the same as that for most of the black students admitted to selective schools in a major Mellon Foundation study that began in 1976."

I have to share this satirical little response from pal, Russell Mangum (I am a Republican by Joel S. in a January 1, 2003 reader commentary seen on Buzzflash) when I sent him "And the State of the Union Is ... None of Your Business" (along with his own preface and postscript*):

Deanna,

Thank you for sending me more of your left-wing pinkoid dribble. I have never understood why you lefties insist on trying to blame everything that has happened in the past 2 years on Bush when the rest of us know full well that everything is Clinton's fault. Well, unless it's good of course, then it's either Bush's or Reagan's doing. Don't you know that questioning authority is treasonous? It is only my love for you as a friend that prevents me from turning you in to John Poindexter. (An intellectual West Coaster like you is worth BIG points in the revised TIPS point scale).

Oh, I'm sorry. Is all this shocking to you? Didn't you know all along that I was a Republican? Here, let me explain:

I am a Republican.

I am pro-life, as long as it's in the womb. I could care less about it the second it's out of the womb, which is also why I'm pro-death penalty, and anti-welfare. I believe in an ideal world, and people shouldn't be having sex. Especially if they can't deal with the consequences.

I support the Second Amendment. I don't care if we have already have a number of well-regulated militias. I don't want the government to tell me what type of weapon I can have. I need armor-piercing rounds in the event that I need to defend myself against some of those pesky armor-wearing law enforcement types. I should be able to buy a Howitzer if I can afford one. I don't want the government to check my background - they might find something that would prevent me from owning a gun.

I believe in the War on Drugs. I think a silly slogan - "Just say no" - goes a long way in preventing kids from using drugs. It doesn't matter to me that the War makes the drugs thousands of times more profitable, and provides that much more incentive to dealers and gangs. Forget rehabilitation; you reap what you sow. As I said before, I am an idealist.

I am pro-welfare. As long as it goes to Corporations that don't need it. If it goes to lazy individuals who got laid off, then I'm against it. There are too many people taking advantage of the system. No, not in the Corporations, I mean the welfare people. I don't care if you are lazy and rich. I only care if you are lazy and poor. I don't care if the crime rate will go up if people do not have options. I have a gun.

I believe that freedom of religion is one of the things that make this country great. That is why I believe it should be crammed down everyone's throats all the time. I believe it is my duty to save your soul. Even if this interferes with your religious freedom. While I care so much for your soul - I could care less about any other part of you. I don't want my tax dollars going to help the disadvantaged, but I don’t mind if they are used in public institutions to help "educate" the masses. I don't care if Jesus wanted to help the poor and the meek. I only look at the parts of the Bible that benefit me personally.

I don't care about the environment. I will disregard the scientific evidence, because it is only a "theory." Besides, I will be dead before the consequences affect me. My children are good Republicans, survival of the fittest, you know. Even though I don't believe in evolution, I believe they will adapt. It doesn't matter to me that the only reason not to regulate companies involved in environmental abuse is only a matter of their bottom line.

I believe that tax cuts will stimulate the economy. I believe that assisting corporations and wealthy individuals is good for job growth. It doesn't bother me that CEO's will cut jobs before they cut their salary. They earned it. I don't believe that the wealthy typically accumulate wealth through continuous investment, and rarely spend the way the middle class does. This holding of assets creates jobs and is good for the economy, right? The wealth disparity in this country doesn't bother me. We all have the same opportunities, right?

I am tired of immigrants coming to this country and taking our jobs. I know a lot of hard-working American lettuce pickers. It doesn't bother me that our corporations are shipping our jobs to other countries for cheaper labor and to avoid labor regulations. I can also sympathize with corporations who profit in this country but operate assets offshore to avoid paying taxes.

I'm tired of minorities whining. They have the same opportunities as every one else. I don't want more educated minorities to have more opportunities. I don't care if they underwent, or still undergo a variety of racial prejudices and injustices. That was in the past; get over it.

I don't want to hear any more pinko-socialist garbage. It doesn't matter to me that the military is provided to me by the contributions of all taxpayers, and defends me as it defends all. I don't care if the Interstate Highway System was built in this manner as well. Or law enforcement. Or any other number of public institutions. I could care less about Social Security, even if I neglect to realize that it will be there for me whether I need it or not. Hopefully.

I believe in a strong military. I believe in our right to pre-emptively defend ourselves, even if that is an oxymoron. Except when the country proves to be a real threat, like North Korea. I believe that this military should be composed exclusively of volunteer minorities and rural poor whites. I believe dying for oil is a noble cause for our brave minority and poor soldiers. I don't care if our leaders were able to obtain deferments in past wars, and children of affluence will be able to do the same for the next war. Clinton was a draft-dodger and wagged the dog in Iraq. President Bush served in the Air National Guard heroically protecting the bars of Abilene, Texas. Nor can it be proved that he went AWOL, even though he wasn't there his last year. And he is not wagging the dog in regards to the Iraq situation for political or financial profit for his associates in the energy industry. Or the defense industry. Speaking of which, I do not care if a missile shield has proven unreliable. We need it to defend ourselves against terrorists, whether it works or not.

I believe that our moral decay, and almost all of today's problems, can be traced back to one man - Bill Clinton. It doesn't matter to me that he was elected: twice. It doesn't matter to me that 50% of our nation's marriages end up in divorce, a high percentage due to infidelity. It doesn't matter that almost all politicians lie to various degrees. They shouldn't be lying about their personal lives. Keep the lying in the realm of policy and issues, thank you very much. I will credit the Republican Congress and former Republican Presidents for various achievements when it is convenient. The Democrats hold the blame for everything. Especially Clinton.

I am a Republican, and have forgotten what it means to be an American.




*I forgot to add the conclusion - "God Bless America - and Fuck Everyone Else!"

These are awesome and much overdue: The SUV Ads



Script for Ad #1:


"Talking Head/Parody": 30


"I helped hijack an airplane."
"I helped blow up a nightclub."
"So what if it gets 11 miles to the gallon."
"I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country."
"It makes me feel safe."
"I helped our enemies develop weapons of mass destruction."
"What if I need to go off-road?"
"Everyone has one."
"I helped teach kids around the world to hate America."
"I like to sit up high."
"I sent our soldiers off to war."
"Everyone has one."
"My life, my SUV."
"I don't even know how many miles it gets to the gallon."


WHAT IS YOUR SUV DOING TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY?
DETROIT, AMERICA NEEDS HYBRID CARS NOW.


www.thedetroitproject.com


Paid for by The Detroit Project




Script for Ad #2:


"George/Parody" : 30


"This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV. This is the oil company executive that sold the gas that George bought for his SUV. These are the countries where the executive bought the oil, that made the gas that George bought for his SUV. And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV."


OIL MONEY SUPPORTS SOME TERRIBLE THINGS. WHAT KIND OF MILAGE DOES YOUR SUV GET?


www.thedetroitproject.com


Paid for by The Detroit Project



Now, go and think about that big terrorist donation you're driving!

Frodo has failed.

Here's the article I read that got me back to the blog. That...and a good friend responded to my frustration with a note that included questions to several friends and colleagues,

"Hey Paul, still think you can be a disinterested centrist?

Hey Neal, what is your definition of fascism?

Hey Quinton, I still forgive you.

Hey Dan, why did Bush's grandfather have his assets seized during WWII?..."

...and , of course, my favorite...

"Hey Deanna, hang in there. We're smarter than they are."
...Thanks, Russell.





2002: The Good, The Bad, The Worst



By Don Hazen, AlterNet

December 19, 2002



As years go, they don't get much worse than 2002. The year's main saving grace - that we haven't yet invaded Iraq - suggests that, believe it or not, 2003 could be even worse.




A year that came on the heels of 9/11 was probably doomed from the start. Yet the ongoing War on Terrorism that most characterizes our times has cast a muddy shadow on public life that hints of the paranoia and knee-jerk nationalism of the 1950s.




Although we have experienced no acts of domestic terrorism in the 15 months since the Sept. 11 attacks, our country is becoming increasingly unrecognizable - constricted by fear, hysteria, xenophobic intolerance and a whole new set of laws and government intrusions that most of us couldn't have imagined in the relatively rosy days of pre-9/11.




One of the year's biggest blows was the loss of Senator Paul Wellstone, killed with his wife and daughter in a plane crash on Oct. 25. Wellstone was a role model whose integrity and conscience showed us what American politics could really be like.




Looking back, it is impossible to list the myriad events, scares and arrests that dominated the constant media flow in '02. And our immediate future is teeming with unknowns: Will we invade or will we wait? How draconian are the Patriot Act and the new Homeland Security Department? How intrusive will Total Information Awareness be? We are faced with a new, strikingly conservative reality, and let's face it: Life in the USA is a whole lot less fun than it used to be.




While it's a stretch to try to find the silver lining in these dark clouds, all is not yet lost. Artists, writers, politicians, union workers, activists and countless others are using all means available to speak up - be it through the Internet, a newspaper column, the judicial system, or just good old-fashioned grassroots organizing.




Listed below are 10 threatening themes we have identified from the right-wing quagmire, followed by 10 genuine reasons for hope and celebration. Weak as the rays of hope may seem in contrast to the darkness, they are the brightest spots on the progressive horizon.




The Dark Side




1) The Conservatives' 50-Year March to Victory




The conservatives are in the middle of a successful half-century effort to transform the nation. Many credit arch-conservative Grover Norquist for bringing together fellow right-wingers along with big buck funders to create think tanks and market the plan. Their modus operandi has been consistent and deadly: Discredit the service side of government, deregulate industry, undermine trade unions, erode liberties and democratic values and trash long-standing principles of foreign policy. As U.C. Berkeley cognitive scientist George Lakoff points out, the sum of their plan is far greater than the parts: "This isn't just about taxes, or social programs, or prescription drugs, or the Iraq war. It is an attempt to take over the American mind."




2) The Politics of Fear




A majority of Americans disagree with conservative Republicans on most issues. Yet the climate of fear promoted by the Bush Administration is having wide effect. Without a clear alternative message from the Democrats, the GOP won big in the midterm elections. The constant use of scare tactics and the demonizing of Saddam Hussein dominate the public discourse at the expense of many other important issues. As Herb Chao Gunther, head of the Public Media Center notes, anxious people "have a tendency to look for the 'tough cop on the beat' to take care of them." In a recent political address to fellow Dems, Bill Clinton echoed his analysis: "When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody, who's weak and right."




3) Let's Call It the Conservative Corporate Media




Whack Them Lefties, once the occasional pastime of bitter conservatives, became a televised national sport in 2002 with the help of Rupert Murdoch and his Fox "news" channel. Bill O'Reilly, the Mike Tyson of liberal-bashing, used progressive ideas and commentators as handy straw men, pounding them into a bloody pulp in rigged debates that bore an uncanny resemblance to WWF programming. This cult-like phenomenon unfortunately gained journalistic legitimacy thanks to the mainstream media, which mindlessly echoed every frivolous right-wing theory or allegation under the guise of news reporting. The U.S. media today resembles a funhouse hall of mirrors, reflecting a distorted reality that serves corporate rather than public interest.




4) The Return of the Living Dead




Who said there are no second acts in American politics? We naively believed that congressional hearings drove a stake through the heart of the Reagan-era Iran/Contragate scandal. But 15 years later, a zombie-like gallery of rogues have arisen from the dead to haunt our political landscape. Elliot Abrams, John Poindexter, John Negroponte and Otto Reich, all key Contragate players, now all occupy high positions in the White House. Fortunately, the resignation of Henry Kissinger as head of the 9/11 investigation committee signals the return of at least one zombie to the crypt. True to form, Kissinger departed not because of his shoddy track record of human rights violations, abuse of power or clandestine warfare, but because he was unwilling to reveal the client list of his precious consulting firm.




5) Big Brother on Steroids




You'd think people would have figured it out by now: Huge government bureaucracy simply doesn't work, no matter what the ideology behind it. But the current occupants of the White House are determined to repeat grievous errors of the past. During this year, they have created gargantuan institutions whose size and powers are unprecedented in U.S. history. The Homeland Security Act consolidates 22 wildly divergent agencies, 170,000 civil servants and $37 billion worth of goods and services, making it the largest non-military department in the government. From the USA PATRIOT Act, to the Homeland Security Act and Total Information Awareness (complete with the official logo of an unblinking eye), security has never sounded so scary, or to use the "F" word, fascist.




6) Bush's Reign of Eco-Terror




From day one of his administration, it was clear the environment was high on the President's "Things to Destroy" list. His appointments for Energy Secretary, Secretary of the Interior, heads of the EPA and the USDA, not to mention the man himself and his titular second-in-command, are all buried deep in the muck of the oil, logging, mining and chemical industries. Bush repeatedly refuted global warming, but when his own EPA released a report saying that it was most definitely a real threat, he admitted its existence, but dismissed the report as a work of bureaucracy and urged Americans to adapt to changes rather than give up their SUVs. Bush has gutted the Clean Air Act, loosened restrictions on drilling, mining or logging on public lands and pushed to open many of our National Parks to his friends in private industry. Now he plans to offer 9.6 million acres of pristine Alaskan coastline for drilling in 2004.




7) The Corporate Reform That Wasn't




Corporate accountability crashed and burned in 2002, sending an already flailing economy spiraling downward. The Enrons, WorldComs and Tycos of the world destroyed $175 billion in retirement savings. But the march to war in Iraq has pushed plans of corporate reform into virtual obscurity, though it remains high on most Americans' list of priorities. In response, Democrats have made economic recovery a party priority, but in the post-November elections era, the Dems are outnumbered (and perhaps outwitted) by the Republicans. As columnist Robert Scheer warns: "We ought to wake up to the reality that business greed is subverting the American way of life - and hurting the image of American capitalism and democracy - more effectively than the ploys of any foreign enemy."




8) The Body Politic




2002 may well be remembered as the year when medical science was turned on its ear. Over the last 12 months, many of our long-held health and dietary views were refuted or reversed. Hormone replacement therapy was convincingly proven to harm as much as it helped; arthroscopic knee surgeries, which generate over a billion dollars per year in medical revenue, were shown to be less effective in curing knee problems than are placebo operations; and the low-fat diet that is the darling of the medical establishment was targeted as a primary cause of the obesity epidemic. E. coli, salmonella and listeria outbreaks around the country were traced back to poor conditions at meat-packing plants and factory farms, causing many to question the safety of American agriculture.




9) Racism Goes Mainstream




One of the big winners this year was racism with a capital R. Along with other social scourges like Kissinger et al., racial profiling made a stellar comeback in the name of national security. Scarves, turbans and beards lost favor, but mocking, abusing, or sometimes physically attacking anyone with the wrong name or skin color gained in popularity. Xenophobia became a respectable middle-class virtue this year - with cheery blonde-haired soccer moms talking freely about the need to keep America safe from "those people." No wonder Trent Lott is feeling nostalgic.




10) Foreign Policy Goes Back to the Future




If the Homeland Security agency sparked fears of an Orwellian future, U.S. foreign policy turned retro - returning to long-discarded policies of the past. The Bush administration's "war on terror" heralded the return of Cold War chic. In 2002, assassinating "enemies" (a list that includes American citizens), nuclear warfare, Star Wars programs, staggering defense budgets and cozying up to a new crop of bloodthirsty tyrants became cool again. But this is just the beginning of an unprecedented new paradigm in post-WWII U.S. foreign policy that is driven by dangerous visions of imperial power. Cheney, Rumsfeld and their various protégés plan to take us back a lot further in history - all the way back to the golden age of the British Empire. Hail to the King!




The Silver Lining




1) The Rapid-Response Peace Movement




One of the most encouraging signs of the year was the lightning-quick organization of a deep-rooted, nation-wide peace movement. On Oct. 26, hundreds of thousands congregated in San Francisco, Washington D.C. and other cities to protest Bush's proposed war for oil. And most heartening, the fledgling movement is made up of a coalition of unlikely allies. Teachers, Teamsters, healthcare unions and countless other labor organizations are working together. Veterans were among the first to speak out: From current enlisted soldiers in all of the Armed Forces to those who witnessed the realities of the first War on Iraq, military voices eloquently reminded the nation of the horrors of war. The movement also includes African-American and Latino organizations, hundreds of campus antiwar groups, religious groups, celebrities (including Sean Penn, who traveled to Baghdad) and scores of Just Plain Folks who never attended a protest in their lives.




2) Michael Moore: The People's Filmmaker




Radical filmmaker Michael Moore's star soared to new heights this year with "Bowling For Columbine," a funny, courageous, bittersweet documentary on gun violence in America. The film, currently in the widest-ever national release of a documentary, is enjoying both critical acclaim and popular success. Moore is arguably the only artist in America asking the big question: Why is America so violent? Moore's book "Stupid White Men" is in its ninth month on the NYT bestseller list and was 2002's biggest selling nonfiction book. Eric Demby writes in the Village Voice that Moore's popularity "has extended beyond the liberal fringe and represents the fruits of a grassroots movement that corporate America and potentially the government can no longer ignore." Go get 'em, Mike!




3) The Power of the Web




When the web bubble burst, dotcom businesses went belly-up, but the Internet didn't go away. It's still here, and just as useful as ever. In 2002, activists took to the web to mobilize in the largest numbers ever. Web sites like UnitedforPeace.org, VeteransforCommonSense.org and AntiWar.com all became resources and organizing centers for the peace movement, while WorkingForChange.com and True Majority.org helped connect people with their elected representatives. It took MoveOn.org mere days to collect more than 175,000 signatures and over $300,000 in donations to buy antiwar advertisements in national media outlets. MoveOn's success shows how much power is created when we connect like-minded people online - a power we've just begun to tap.




4) Writing Truth to Power




No journalist puts a bee in Dubya's bonnet quite like Paul Krugman, the Princeton economics professor who writes a twice-weekly column in The New York Times. Of all our major pundits, Krugman most forcefully illuminates what Nicholas Confessore in the Washington Monthly called "the seamless melding of corporate, class, and political party interests at which the Bush administration excels." He is a fearless and brilliant critic who has persistently pointed out the administration's deceptive economic policies, most memorably the Bush tax cut. Krugman and other left-leaning political columnists like William Greider, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Farai Chideya and Arianna Huffington have become the truthtellers of progressive America. They are all, in Confessore's words, "essential reading for the Age of Bush."




5) Leading the Charge




Luckily, there is no shortage of inspirational leaders fighting the good fight. Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, is helping to raise the visibility of rights abuses across the land and educating Americans on what the Patriot Act and the new Homeland Security department could do to our basic constitutional rights. Fifty thousand Americans joined the ACLU after 9/11, bringing the organization's membership to a whopping 330,000. Other leaders aggressively and effectively bucking the conservative trend include Greenpeace head John Passacantando; Van Jones of the Books Not Bars campaign; Martha Honey, who runs the highly influential Foreign Policy in Focus; Billy Wimsatt, who organizes "young rich kids" for social change; SEIU organizer Jane McAlevey, leading union organizing across the country for quality public health care; and far too many others to list. Those who stand out include philanthropist Rob McKay, who invested millions in a major campaign to expand voter participation with Prop. 52, Election Day Voter Registration in California; and Paul Hawken, whose anti-corporate speech at the Bioneers conference this fall rocked the 3,000-strong audience with power and passion.




6) Conscious Hip Hop Comes Home




From The Coup to Dead Prez, from Mos Def to Talib Kweli, Sarah Jones and Danny Hoch, 2002 was a powerful year for progressive hip hop. Black August, the independent hip hop benefit for political prisoners, grabs larger crowds each year. The Hip Hop Theater All Stars - a socially conscious crew including Danny Hoch, Suheir Hammad and Sarah Jones - made its way from sold-out shows on both coasts to MTV. While there have long been radical and revolutionary individual hip hop artists, 2002 saw the emergence of a conscious hip hop community keeping it real while keeping the beat.




7) Elected Officials We Can Respect




Elections often disappoint us, but electoral politics is essential to change. Though so many of our leaders failed us on the crucial Bush/Iraq war vote, there were many who didn't. Let's support our best and help bolster the courage of their convictions: Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Minority Leader in the House; Dennis Kucinich, the brilliant working class hero from Cleveland; Senators Barbara Boxer and Carl Levin; stalwarts Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, Jon Corzine and Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin; and virtually the entire Black and Hispanic caucuses. Other progressive pols who deserve props are Barbara Lee of Berkeley; Bernie Sanders in Vermont; Jerry Nadler on the Westside of Manhattan; Jan Shakowsky in Chicago; and John Conyers of Detroit.





8) Carter's Nobel Coup




If you interpreted the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to humanitarian Jimmy Carter as a direct challenge to Bush's warmongering ways, you weren't far off the mark. Bestowing the honor upon the former pres, Nobel committee chairman Gunnar Berge pulled no punches. He declared the award "should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current administration has taken. It's a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States." Carter has been an articulate and persistent critic of Bush's foreign policies, and with the prestige of the Nobel behind him, we hope his diplomatic efforts will bear even more fruit in the future.




9) Noam and Naomi




It's good to know who you can count on. In 2002, both Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein published smart books ("Manufacturing Consent" and "Fences and Windows," respectively) and continued their habit of speaking truth to power - both eloquently and often. Whether analyzing the roots of corporate excess, breaking down the motivations for U.S. military action or speaking as firm supporters of global justice protests, they are sometimes bellicose and bombastic, but always passionate and clear on who holds power and how it is being used. Noam Chomsky wins our Lifetime Achievement Award. Long may he carry the torch.




10) Leading the Union Movement




Among trade unions, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) stands out as a union investing serious resources in organizing, with the willingness to develop a broad-based ambitious campaign for national health insurance. The 1.5 million-member union is working on solutions that will ensure quality care, reduce the costs of prescription drugs, and enable families to take back control from the HMOs. Given the more than 40 million Americans who are uninsured, no issue is more important to the public today.




AlterNet staff Lakshmi Chaudhry, Tai Moses, Rachel Neumann, Omar J. Pahati, Derek Powazek and Matt Wheeland contributed to this article.

Okay, the holidays were good and fortunately we got TiVo for Christmas so we don't have to watch Shrub and hear his bullshit. Anyway, the following piece is a much more accurate reflection of the state of the union than we'll get from Duh....



And the State of the Union Is ... None of Your Business



By Charles Sheehan-Miles, AlterNet
December 30, 2002



Soon George Bush will deliver his second State of the Union address. As we all know, it's been a tough couple of years, so as we approach the President's second address, I think it's time to take a careful look at our current condition.




The U.S. economy is sliding into a double-dip recession, with possible deflation, and this isn't good. It would be intellectually dishonest to blame this only on the Bush administration: I vividly recall the week in April 2000 when my E-Trade account, heavy in high-tech and telecommunications stocks, cut its value in half overnight. However, nearly three years later the tidal waves of layoffs are still hitting companies as varied as WorldCom and McDonalds.




More worrisome is an ominous trend reported in the New York Times recently. Despite a 5-year-old HUD program designed to curb home foreclosures, national foreclosure rates are the highest in 30 years. Lenders foreclosed on 135,000 family home mortgages, or about four out of every thousand, in the second quarter alone. Is the real-estate bubble about to burst, too?




If so, hundreds of thousands of working families may find themselves upside-down on their mortgages just as companies nation-wide are laying off even more employees. This invites predatory real-estate investors and lenders who snatch up the foreclosed properties on the cheap and rent them. This creates a vicious cycle: Homeowners become renters and property values deflate sharply.




What exactly is the Bush administration doing about all this? Not a lot. After eight years of shrinking government, reduced budget deficits, and a record boom economy, the Bush administration ballooned government spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while cutting taxes for corporations and the rich. Who pays for the massive Bush debt? We all will, and our children, and their children.




Moving on from the economy, let's take a look at the new White House foreign policy. The U.S. is becoming a forward-deployed militaristic empire that makes little distinction between friends and foes. The U.S. threatens preemptive military action against anyone even slightly offensive to us.




The war drums for Iraq were beating within seconds of the new administration taking office. The tragic events of September 11 gave the hawks new impetus. The Bush administration openly says the U.S. will invade Iraq regardless of what Congress, the U.N., or the American people want.




Not much attention has been paid to other U.S. deployments, but since last year, American troops deployed all over the globe; with new military bases in the former Soviet Republics, troops deployed in Indonesia, the Philippines, South Asia and the Horn of Africa.




Despite all the military and diplomatic activity, the people who actually attacked us, al-Qeada and Osama Bin-laden, are still at large.




All over the world, many people wonder who's next on the U.S. invasion list, and how soon will they see U.S. tanks outside their doors? Soon, other countries will be asking themselves, what will appeasement (or a lack of it) to the U.S. mean?




Sober patriots among us ask: is the U.S. on the road to starting a third World War where the U.S. acts as the aggressor? Let's pray it isn't so.




On the home front, things are just as worrisome. The grossly misnamed Patriot Act codified the most severe assault on American Constitutional liberties since the dreaded McCarthy Era.




"Terrorist organizations" are redefined as any group of two or more people who have threatened to use violence for any reason. Terrorism is defined as any attempt to use coercion to influence political activity. If you give money to a local health care clinic which is also funded by a foundation which also gives money to Hamas, you are associated with terrorists.




If you go to a political rally and participate in civil disobedience where the police arrest you, the law calls you a terrorist. The new definitions are overly broad and subject to wide abuse.




Of course, in the new America, you don't have to be a terrorist to get locked up. Today, there are American citizens being held without access to attorneys, without charges, without benefit of constitutional protections, solely on the word of the attorney general. While one of those was captured on a battlefield, another was arrested in an American city. I'm not aware of any exceptions in the Constitution that say the basic fundamental rights of Americans apply only until the President says otherwise.




Here is a list of a disturbing collection of too much power concentrated in one branch of government:




-Today, right now, the government can search your home without telling you, and without a warrant.



-Today, the government can find out what you've read at the library and what you've bought at the bookstore, again without a warrant.



-The government can arrest the local librarian for telling you the government asked about your reading habits.



-The government can listen in on conversations between you and your attorney and use the information against you.




-The government can declare an emergency and forcefully vaccinate you and your family, without exception, using both approved and experimental drugs. And if you, as a civilian, get sick from the shots (as thousands of Gulf War veterans did), you won't have any legal recourse.



-The government has a new Homeland Security Department rivaling the powers of the KGB. There is little oversight. There are no labor law protections for the workers who blow the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse. Like the KGB, the work of Homeland Security will be conducted in secret, as the Freedom of Information Act was gutted last year.




Today, we have a government more concerned with secrecy than open government, more concerned with corporate rights than human rights, and more concerned with dishing out huge defense contracts to campaign contributors than assisting unemployed workers facing foreclosure.




In January of 2003, President Bush will tell you things are good, that the U.S. is standing tall. He will say the economy is good. He will say the war on terror is on track. He'll say invading and occupying Iraq, even with all the death and destruction, is good for the U.S. national interest and our need for oil.




He'll say Osama is no big deal anyway, the real perpetrator of 9/11 was Iraq, and killing Saddam Hussein is good. He will portray himself as our benevolent father figure and protector during these difficult times.




Maybe he'll tell us that War is Peace, and Freedom is Slavery.




Be very concerned. We the people need to stand up and demand accountability and stop Bush's outrages. Unless we do, by 2004 the State of the Union may be classified: Our freedom will be eroded, and the status of our foreign wars and our beleaguered economy will be a secret; it won't be any of our business.




Charles Sheehan-Miles, a Gulf War veteran and a co-founder of Veterans for Common Sense, is a former president of the National Gulf War Resource Center and the author of "Prayer at Rumayla" (XLibris, 2001).

I'm just sick. Republicans are evil, democrats have been spineless bastards, and people are STUPID. Canada is looking good. Nader must feel his point is made. At least we in California still have our crappy democratic governor. Gore is the only one looking decent and he's not in office. Whatever. Maybe I'll become one of the mindless, drooling apathtic masses (or the blissful...it is said, "ignorance is bliss"). I said that two years ago. Now I'm rather hopeless that two more senators will leave the republican party. Crap.

Right on.

A good friend sent the following recent email and I thought I would pass it on:



I'm going to the library today to see if I can find any of these books. I know the Republican game plan (handbook) came from the Nazis. Wow, what would the world be like today if Hitler hadn't come along.....




The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

William L. Shirer

The popular journalistic account; readers should also consult Joachim Fest's Hitler



Hitler: A Study in Tyranny

Alan Bullock

A solid biography; tells as much about the times as the man. "Remains the best biography of Adolf Hitler in English"--Gordon A. Craig, NY Review of Books



The Nazis; A Warning from History

Laurence Rees, Foreword by Ian Kershaw

Interviews with German and East European Nazi sympathizers that formed the basis of a BBC documentary about daily life in Nazi Germany



The Meaning of Hitler

Sebastian Haffner,Ewald (Translator) Osers,Ewald Osers (Translator)

The psychological and historical forces that shaped the mind of Hitler and made his rise possible



The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology

Fritz Richard Stern

The development of Nazi ideology, as evidenced by the writings of three German cultural critics, Paul de Lagarde, Julius Langbehn, and Moeller van den Bruck



Inside the Third Reich

Albert Speer

An insider's account of Hitler's machine, to be read with caution



The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy

Mommsen Hans,Larry E. Jones (Translator),Elborg Forster (Translator)

In this analysis of the Weimar Republic, Mommsen, professor of history at the University of the Ruhr, surveys the political, social, and economic development of Germany between the end of World War I and the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor in 1933. He argues that the rise of totalitarianism in Germany was not inevitable but was the result of a confluence of specific domestic and international forces. "Mommsen's work is now required reading for any serious student of German political history in the Weimar era"--Choice



Hitler Youth in Poland: The Nazis' Program for Evacuating Children during World War II

Jost Hermand,Margot B. Dembo (Translator)

Between 1933 and 1945, millions of German children between the ages of seven and sixteen were taken from their homes and sent to Hitler Youth paramilitary camps to be toughened up and taught how to be "German." Hermand, a critic and historian who spent much of his youth in five different camps, writes about his own experiences and offers an account of a phenomenon that affected a whole generation of Germans



Why Hitler Came into Power

Theodore Abel,Thomas Childers

"The book's main purpose is to measure, in the light of the author's unique personal data, the relative importance of each of the main factors to which [Hitler's] rise to power has hitherto been ascribed, including Hitler's own leadership, the strategy of the party tacticians, and the favorable circumstances of popular discontent. The results are highly important." -- American Political Science Review



The Rise of Fascism

Francis L. Carsten

"Professor Carsten surveys the major and minor European fascist groups which flourished between the world wars, including such movements as were active in Romania, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Britain, and Belgium. In doing so, he has produced a useful, if brief, addition to the growing number of studies on this subject." --The Historian "The best scholarly description of European Fascism available." -- American Historical Review




The Salaried Masses

Siegfried Kracauer,Quintin Hoare (Translator),Inka Mulder-Bach (Introduction)

A classic of sociological inquiry, first published in 1930. Drawing on conversations, newspapers, advertisements and personal correspondence, Kracauer looks into the nature and habits of the new, spiritually homeless class of salaried employees that had emerged in the cities of the Weimar Republic and would soon prove fundamental to Hitler's rise to power



Hitler: The Führer and the People

J. P. Peter. Stern,J. P. Stern

"War, for the Hitler regime, was not an unfortunate accident. As I try to show, it had a functional importance as a means to an end. No war today can possibly be seen in the same light, by Communism or anyone else. Nobody now subscribes to the ideology of annihilation and sacrifice: once this is recognized, at least one set of causes of a possible conflict is removed." -- J.P. Stern



The Nazi Voter: The Social Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919-1933

Thomas Childers

Statistical analysis that illuminates upper- and lower-middle-class electoral support for the Nazis



For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler

Victoria Barnett

Barnett delves into the story of the Church's resistance to Hitler. "Conveying an accurate portrait and understanding of the German church struggle under National Socialism has proven to be extraordinarily complicated...Victoria Barnett is singularly well prepared to do this. She has written an unusually accurate, sophisticated, and vivid book about the German church struggle...a genuinely absorbing and readable work"--Eberhard Bethge, author of Friendship and Resistance: Essays on Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Guilty of neglecting the blog...I've become so disgusted, frustrated, and approaching hopelessness...I fear that apathy is right around the corner. Geeze, I don't want to be part of the drooling, anesthesized, ignorant masses. I did have fantasies of seeing Laura Ingram getting bitch-slapped today when I watched Hardball, so I suppose all is not lost. Yes, I just admitted to watching (part of) Hardball. If Chris Matthews can survive malaria, I could occasionally tune in to see how he looks these days. I wish he wouldn't have ended his column, guess he has to to make time for his new weekend gig.

Re: The Chimp's relations with the world and Dummya's World Impact

The Leader of the Far Reich

Apparent valid concerns for the company kept by das neue Führer, Dummya (not just Gestapoleiter John Asscrack)

Remember what Theodore Roosevelt said in 1918:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

By what IS treason punishable?

I believe that even in the 21st century, treason remains the highest crime, punishable by the highest penalty. Hmmm, interesting concept. This would not be good for someone who is such a big supporter of capital punishment.

Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin' to do
It's up to you, yeah you

Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin'
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin' at fools like me
Who in the hell d'you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Ev'ryone come on

Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev'ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you're ev'rywhere
Come and get your share

~John Lennon

Instead of Jason or Freddy Kruger, it's Rechtsanwaltsgeneral John Asscrack in the center of my nightmares...

from the San Francisco Chronicle

EDITORIAL
Ashcroft -- above the law?

Friday, August 23, 2002

THE CHAIR of a congressional committee should not be forced to issue a subpoena to get the U.S. attorney general to respond to basic questions about the administration of justice in this country.

And Americans who worry about civil liberties should not have to file a lawsuit to determine whether their government is scanning library records or monitoring the e-mail of people who are not suspected of any crime.

But the Justice Department appears unwilling to subject itself to even the most rudimentary levels of accountability over the way it has handled the vast new powers it acquired under the so-called Patriot Act last year.

Extraordinary arrogance calls for extraordinary steps.

So, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the House Judiciary Committee chair, has threatened to subpoena Attorney General John Ashcroft if he continues to resist requests for the administration to disclose how often it has used its new investigative powers.

"I've never signed a subpoena in my 5 1/2 years as chairman," Sensenbrenner told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I guess there's a first time for everything."

It is important to note that Sensenbrenner is not asking for specifics that could endanger an investigation. He merely wants to know whether the government is using this powers. It is not only a reasonable request in an democracy. It is an essential one.

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression,

added their weight to the pressure on Ashcroft this week by filing a Freedom of Information request.

The groups are asking the Justice Department how many times it has:

-- Traced the telephone calls or e-mails of people who are not suspected of any crime.

-- Directed a library, bookstore or newspaper to produce information about materials acquired by an individual.

-- Conducted "sneak and peek" searches in which the targets were not informed until after the fact.

-- Investigated U.S. citizens and other legal residents on the basis of "activities protected by the First Amendment," such as attending a rally or writing a letter to the editor.

As Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers group, said, "When the FBI is given the power to investigate what people are reading, the American people deserve to know how that power is being used."

And Americans should not have to go to court to get an answer.

GEORGE W. BUSH HATES AMERICA
from Yahoo! News
Thu Aug 22,12:01 PM ET

By Ted Rall

Political Prisoners and the Post-9/11 Police State

NEW YORK--The United States is a nation of laws. The police arrest suspects they reasonably believe to have broken the law, not citizens who happen to disagree with the government's politics. Cops don't go after people preemptively because they might commit a crime someday. In America, people are considered innocent until they're proven guilty in a court of law. They enjoy the right to a fair trial by a jury of their peers as quickly as possible. And of course they're entitled to the counsel of an attorney.

These fundamental rights, taught in every civics class, define what it means to be American. When other countries fill their prisons with political dissidents, we wonder aloud what it must be like to live in such lawless places. When we watch films like "Midnight Express," in which an American drug smuggler rots in a Turkish prison, we shake our heads not at the sentence--after all, he's guilty--but at the lead character's railroading through the court system and the abuse he suffers at the hands of his guards.

Before September 11, no patriotic American would have disputed the last two paragraphs. Sadly, legal guarantees that every American considered a sacred birthright have been shredded virtually overnight, and many people don't seem to care. Just as a World Trade Center built over the course of five years was destroyed in under two hours, a presidential impostor has used a phony "war on terror" to systematically unraveled two centuries of basic jurisprudence in less than a year.

George W. Bush may not have read Gibbon but he possesses the morals and cunning of a gangster; in a country still stunned by last fall's attacks, that seems to be enough.

The "war on terror," we're told, requires new tactics. Law enforcement--which somehow now includes the military, CIA ( news - web sites), FBI ( news - web sites) and NSA--needs stronger tools. Terrorists are sneakier and smarter than your garden-variety mafia don. So now they're no longer "accused terrorists" but rather "enemy combatants." Who cares if these "enemy combattants" are American citizens? They can be held forever, or to be more precise, until the federal government "defeats terrorism." And while they're awaiting that distant day, Bush's "detainees"--not prisoners, since his first decisive victory has been in his jihad against the English language--don't get to see a lawyer. This works out well because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--who has anointed himself judge, jury and executioner--won't offer them a chance to prove their innocence in court.

For the Bushies, see, guilt and innocence aren't the point. The detainees aren't in prison for what they've done. They're there because of what they might do, for whom they know--for what they think. They are political prisoners.

Americans have watched with aggressive disinterest as images of 564 captured Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters squatting in their Guantánamo dog pens fill their living room screens. Human rights activists warn that these inmates, who hail from 38 countries, are being abused. At Camp Delta in July and August, three men tried to hang themselves and another slashed his wrist with a plastic razor. According to the Army, Guantánamo internees have staged hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their captivity. Others are being forcibly medicated with antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs.

Even worse than the day-to-day torture is the interminable legal limbo. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled July 31 that "the military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is outside the sovereign territory of the United States." So Guantánamo isn't the U.S., which means that the prisoners can't seek redress in American courts. But it isn't Cuba either. The POWs can go to the World Court in The Hague ( news - web sites), notes Kollar-Kotelly--but the United States routinely ignores international rulings.

Bush asserts that we're at "war" whenever he calls for increased government surveillance and tax cuts, and decreased freedom and social programs. But then he turns right around and claims that the Guantánamo captives, soldiers captured while bombs fell and bullets flew, aren't "prisoners of war" at all. Being declared a POW, after all, would entitle these schlubs to certain rights under the 1949 Geneva Conventions: freedom to refuse to answer questions, release at the end of hostilities, decent treatment, i.e., not being held in six-by-eight-foot dog pens under the blazing tropical sun. This linguistic chicanery is amusingly convenient, but it will look like madness the next time American soldiers captured overseas apply for POW status.

If you think about it--and there's been very little serious thinking since September 11--what did these guys do to deserve being imprisoned in the first place, much less indefinitely? They fought for the Taliban. In Afghanistan ( news - web sites). Against the Northern Alliance. In Afghanistan.

These prisoners--er, detainees--didn't attack the United States. They didn't even know anyone who attacked the United States. They're being held not because of who they are, but because of what they might do--and because of what they think.

This is not the American way.

The same goes for the 750 people the Justice Department ( news - web sites) picked up on visa and immigration charges since September 11. There are millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, but Bush's feds only sought out those whose ethnicity (Arab), ancestry (Muslim) and political beliefs (opposed to U.S. foreign policy) made them a target. These people aren't terrorists, or even accused terrorists--they're political prisoners, doing time for what they think and what they might do.

Not even Americans are safe from Bush's anti-constitutional assaults on law and basic decency. Remember Jose Padilla? Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) crowed in June that his men had "disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb." Now government officials admit that they've got zero evidence and that Padilla is at best a "small fish." Nevertheless, they plan to detain this American citizen indefinitely, without trial.

Similarly Yaser Esam Hamdi, the "other" American Talib captured in Afghanistan, has been held in the brig of the Norfolk Naval Station since April 5. On August 16 U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar demanded that the government, which hasn't even bothered to explain why Hamdi should be held as an enemy combatant, must do so. "This case appears to be the first in American jurisprudence where an American citizen has been held incommunicado and subjected to an indefinite detention in the continental United States without charges, without any finding by a military tribunal, and without access to a lawyer," Doumar wrote.

There are few more sickening sights than George W. Bush wearing a lapel pin bearing an image of the American flag. Bush and his creepy henchmen can wrap themselves in nationalistic symbolism all they want, but these right-wing thugs aren't patriots. They may pledge allegiance to the flag, but they despise the republic for which it stands.

A GREAT quote from Molly Ivins:

"I prefer a person who will burn the flag and wrap themselves in the constitution to a person who will burn the constitution and wrap themselves in the flag."

Greetings from the Cayman Islands...

For the Love of Money...

From the New York Daily News, commentary from Chris Matthews: "Attack Iraq? No"
Occcasionally, he does get it right:

The American people are not committed to a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Vice President Cheney's staff is. The White House speechwriting office is. The guys they're working under are.

But what about the families of those who will do the fighting? What about the country that will suffer the casualties and bitterness that are the wreckage of every war? A new Washington Post/ABC poll finds that 57% of us back a ground attack on Baghdad. But that's if there are no significant casualties. Faced with that hard-to-ignore prospect, 51% oppose it.

Is this a strong popular base from which to launch a preemptive attack on a country on the other side of the world? To send several hundred thousand servicepeople on a mission to take over a country, remove its political leadership from power and install one of our choosing?

It's time to recall the Powell doctrine of the 1980s. It's even more important to recall the two words that gave it historic resonance: Vietnam and Beirut.

With memories of those misconceived missions still fresh, then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and his chief military assistant, Gen. Colin Powell, drafted new criteria for overseas military involvement: War should be a last resort. It should be undertaken only in the presence of precise political and military goals with clear popular support from the public and Congress. There must be a clear exit strategy and an unhesitating will to deploy overwhelming force.

The great danger, Powell understood, lay in sending troops for a narrowly defined mission, only to see their role expand. The term is "mission creep."

So we drop tens of thousands of airborne into Baghdad. We lay siege to the government. We round up anyone who looks important. We face down snipers in the streets. We look for dictator Saddam Hussein. We wear gas masks to protect us from whatever chemical and biological weapons he has stockpiled. A threatened Israel mobilizes for war.

All this comes to pass against the backdrop of an Arab and Islamic world in riot.

Then comes the messy part. Our troops in Baghdad morph into a nervous constabulary force. Their mission: Guard the streets, shoot snipers, arrest the suspicious, keep order, find the Saddam loyalists, round up the members of his ruling party, root out plots, battle the terrorists.

For how long? How long were we in Beirut before that lame-brained mission ended with a barracks being blown sky-high by a suicide bomber? How long were we in Saigon before we gave up trying to decide where our mission was less popular: at home or in Vietnam?

This invasion of Iraq, if it goes off, will join the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut and Somalia in the history of U.S. military catastrophes. What will set it apart for all time is the immense - and transparent - political stupidity.

A mission to attack an isolated enemy will isolate us. A mission justified by the fight with terrorism will give birth to millions of terrorist-supporting haters.

You may have already seen this on another site, such as that of the Baltimore Chronicle, but I couldn't resist. I wish it was broadcast on all the major television networks' news where all the numbskulls are being spoonfed whatever "news" sells.

Open Letter to America from a Canadian

~W.R. McDougall

Dear America:

And so it has come to this. Your once-great nation has fallen into madness, an affliction of mass denial that brings shivers up the spines of millions outside your borders. Yours is a sick nation. But most of you carry on as though nothing at all is the matter.

Dark, evil operations run rampant in the secret corners of your government institutions. A dubiously constituted government pursues war at will anywhere on earth, discussing nuclear options that become points for cheerful chatter over lunch. Your military and intelligence agencies employ terrorist tactics around the globe even as they insist that such tactics are necessary in the fight against terrorism.

You have become a nation of monsters, America. Hypocrites. Murderers. Fools.

Your constitution is a shambles thanks to "national security" measures resulting from what might well be U.S.-government-sanctioned terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., covert provocations designed to justify a malevolent, poisonous, oil-based military economy.

Never mind that earth-friendly technology already exists to once and for all end dependence on oil, coal and nuclear energy from huge, out-of-control utilities and corporations. You would rather pay through the nose for your insecure comforts, wouldn't you America, and make others pay with their blood.

At the same time, you stand by as the Israelis' secular Zionists--whom you support through the supply of arms and money--slaughter untold numbers of innocents in the West Bank, then blame the Palestinians for bringing the terror upon themselves. (True, there are abominable Arab suicide bombers in Israel's midst. But are they not driven to madness and desperation by your infernal support of international terrorist politics?)

As I write these words, you support a nation run by a convicted murderer by the name of Ariel Sharon who with impunity is carrying out war crimes as cruel and horrendous as those of other sadistic tyrants in history. And you say, in your utter cynicism, 'When will these Palestinians bring this war to an end?'

You recklessly wage combat on other fronts, too. At home, your War on Drugs is a disastrous 30-year folly--a gigantic con game designed to benefit lethal cartels, corrupt politicians and menacing intelligence agencies across the planet.....

With your government's support, crooked multinationals like Monsanto buy up the world's water supplies, and take possession of the world's vegetation through Frankenstein technology already known to cause illness.

Does the FDA care about any of this? It does not. It has long been on the bandwagon to foist genetically altered food on the Guinea Pigs of the country--including every man, woman and child on America's increasingly toxic soil.

You are a nation of suckers, America, to be bled dry of your hard-earned pay through outrageous bank schemes, Wall Street rip-offs and fake government budget grabs. Your Pentagon cannot account for trillions in lost dollars.

Does this bother you? Not in the least.

Your whole economy is controlled by what is for the most part ravenous, international private banking interests in the form of The Federal Reserve, which with your government's consent leads you down the garden path to certain financial ruin thanks to a national debt you will never be able to repay.

How is it that private banks are responsible for issuing your currency? How is it that they are allowed to charge ridiculous interest rates on what they issue? By decree, this was supposed to be the responsibility of your government, which could create its own currency without charging interest.

Do you realize your congress could dismiss these banks in an instant if it so wished? But don't ever count on it. More important matters are pressing. The upcoming election needs investment.

These very same money men are the ones who, through unmonitored and unrepresentative world committees, are driving countries like Argentina into hopeless debt and social upheaval. These greedy overlords are creating strife and suffering on a scale too tragic for words in nation after nation. Just look at Africa.

They've got their sights on America, now, too; disrupting economic stability through so-called free trade initiatives and provisions for special favors and the endless flow of cash to corporate monstrosities like Enron.

Amid all this, where are those who are supposed to represent your interests, America? For the most part, your congressional representatives are nothing but swine gathering at the corporate troughs. Your president is a white-collar thug, a hypocrite who through his actions celebrates war, repression and greed even as he gives lip service to peace, freedom and justice.

George W. Bush deceives you daily, the war monger hiding behind a phony patriotism. He is an Enron buddy boy, a spoiled child lying in his teeth about his past and current dirty deeds.

Does he care about you America? Hardly. This is altogether obvious to those outside your borders who are politically aware and awake to the world around them.

You were never concerned about the disgraceful practices of George's ruthless father, either, a Bin-Laden cohort and friend to criminals and killers in global drug, oil and terrorist enterprises. Iran. Vietnam. El Salvador. Chile. Guatemala. Iraq. And on and on. The never-ending bully-boy story of blood, guns, drugs and money.

Does any of this matter? No, it's simply time to eat.

Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on "Cops."

Few among you are the least bit concerned that no real investigation of 911 has taken place, that no serious investigation of the anthrax attacks is moving forward, that no authentic investigation of Enron, or the murder of one of its top executives, is underway.

How many of you give the slightest damn about the totalitarian measures your government is taking to keep its secret meetings, grubby files and treasonous activities from your eyes?....

When did you stop caring, America? Was it after your own FBI and intelligence agencies plotted the murder of President John F. Kennedy? Or is this just the raving lunacy of the conspiracy nut? What does your gut tell you, America? Is something a little amiss here?

Forget about it. Have some Pepto-Bismol.

Today, in futility, your own government goes to court against itself for information you are entitled to by law. But this is hardly deemed vital news in the community. It is a fleeting reference in an electronic sea of meaningless banter. For proof, just look to all the spineless wimps who constitute your mainstream news media.

Today, you excoriate, ridicule and ostracize the brave and true among you. Your best investigative journalists are fired from their jobs and ignored. Congress's few courageous souls are laughed at and dismissed out of hand as crackpots. The most honest and conscientious political leader in the country, Ralph Nader, is a powerless, near-invisible curiosity easily side-lined by hired goons.

America, you are a goddamn shame.

What law matters now in your despicable state? What justice? What truth?

When will you wake up?

If you had your druthers, you would right now gather your courage, take to the streets and march on Washington D.C in the millions. But I know you will do no such thing. The vast majority of you are spiritually, emotionally and intellectually dead.

As I write these words, I can only imagine what additional horrors your shadow government might be planning in what will surely be an attempt to justify militarism and totalitarianism on a universal scale. A nuclear explosion in one of your cities, perhaps? A massive bio-chemical attack?

Or perhaps it will be some Arab terrorist who finally commits the terrible deed, his last thought before death being the promises you made to him before you killed his family.

A quote I read at liberalslant.com that really sums things up:


“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
~ Herman Goering (second in command to Adolph Hitler) at the Nuremberg Trial

"The Frontier Ghandhi," Abdul Ghaffar Khan, is a model for breaking stereotypes. The article below from Nick Megoran, a graduate student at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, talks about Khan's work and the biography of his life, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam by Eknath Easwaran.

Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains (2nd edition)

by Eknath Easwaran

240 pp. $24.00 (hardcover)

Nilgiri Press, 2000

As United States CIA officers continue operations against Afghan warlords in advance of this June's Loya Jirga legislative council, demagogues from Afghanistan to the United States still characterize the war for public observers as a struggle against either 'American imperialism' or 'international terrorism.' Both of these tacks, while they tend to rouse audiences, necessarily pit one side against another. In this light, a 1999 book about the life of a lesser-known peacemaker, which serves as a warning and hopeful challenge to seekers of sovereignty and to anti-terrorists, deserves a second look.


Readers accustomed to tracking the affairs of Pashtun leaders in the daily paper can get to know a remarkable Pashtun peacemaker in Easwaran Eknath's Nonviolent Soldier of Islam. The book tells the story of tribal leader Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was born in 1890 outside Peshawar and went on to work alongside Mahatma Gandhi. His journey, against the daily skirmishes and negotiations in Afghanistan, provide hope for a devastated country attempting to emerge from more than two decades of warfare.


The son of a village chief, Khan witnessed British forces' repression of an uprising in his home Northwest Frontier province in 1897. Alongside this colonial oppression, devastating cycles of violence precipitated by blood feuds scarred his Pashtun society and made a profound impression on the young Khan. Although a physically strong man with a brilliant mind, he rejected a coveted commission in an elite British Indian army unit and a place to study in England. Instead, he determined to oppose the British oppression of his fellow Afghans. But instead of using weapons of warfare, Khan fought this struggle by providing education.


He traveled throughout rural tribal areas preaching hard work, self-sacrifice and forgiveness, and led efforts to establish schools for peasant children. His work earned him the respect of fellow citizens, who gave him the honorary title 'Badshah Khan' - or Khan of Khans. The British saw him as a threat, however. They censored his schools and imprisoned Khan; in the end, he was to spend one third of his long life in prison.


Over the course of his non-violent campaign, Khan forged a close relationship with Mahatma Ghandi, even becoming known among locals as 'the Frontier Ghandi.' Khan spread Ghandi's civil disobedience movement to the Afghan frontier region, urging his people to return British medals, withdraw from British universities, and stop practicing in British courts.


Perhaps most remarkably to readers accustomed to Taliban-style religious rhetoric, Badshah Khan organized 100,000 uniformed men as the Khudai Khidmatgars, or 'Servants of God' - the world's first professional non-violent army. With regimental discipline, these men foreswore violence and dedicated themselves to education, poverty relief and raising the consciousness of the peasants. The Khudai Khidmagtars formed the key Muslim component of the popular non-violent movement that precipitated the British withdrawal from India.


But Khan's joy was short-lived, for reasons that will also resonate with current readers. A strong advocate of Indian unity, he was appalled at the fighting following independence in 1947 that led to the partition of the sub-continent into Muslim and Hindu states. Nevertheless, he maintained close ties with his Hindu friends, earning the ire of the Pakistani authorities who imprisoned him as 'pro-Indian.' He insisted to the end that Muslims and Hindus were better off together, and deplored tensions between the two states.


Abdul Ghaffar Khan died on January 20 1988, at the age of 98. His funeral led to the first visit of an Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan in three decades. It also occasioned a temporary cease-fire observed by Soviet and mujaheddin forces fighting in Afghanistan, to allow his burial near Jalalabad.


Today, with missiles landing in Jalalabad, this accessible and inspiring account of one of history's greatest peacemakers provides valuable insights to readers concerned with the plight of contemporary Afghanistan. In particular, the book offers four lessons. First, it reminds us that no nation is a slave to its past. The Pashtuns are often caricatured in Western media as a 'warlike people.' However, Badshah Khan shows us that even the most deeply ingrained cycles of violence can be broken once violence itself is disavowed. Second, it challenges the image many have, post-September 11, of Islam as a religion of violence. Badshah Khan was a devout Muslim, but his faith did not lead him to endorse militarism - even in the face of outrages committed against his own people. Rather, he believed that the Prophet Mohammad's life set an example of non-violence. He worked closely with other faith communities, strongly influenced by Ghandi's preaching of Jesus' injunction to 'love your enemy.'


The other two lessons of the book bear on understanding of American, rather than Central Asian, politics. By documenting the terror that British colonialism wrought in the cause of "progress," Eknath reminds us that wars fought in the name of abstractions like "civilization" can be the cruelest of all. Like the British a century earlier, in the past two decades Soviet, Taliban and American forces have wrought great suffering on the people of Afghanistan. Yet all fighters have been convinced they were fighting for noble causes. Finally, Badshah Khan's story teaches that hope can arise from remarkable places. It shows that courageous individuals motivated by love and determination can transform history. In an uncertain moment in the war on terrorism and the development of nations, Eknath's book deserves close reading by a wide audience.

This would make a good headline:

"US Dissidents Call for Change in Regime, White House Fears Coup D'état"

All of this talk of cleaning house of Hussein and Arrafat, how about we start talking about cleaning our own place? I suppose we just see how much more damage can be done in the next 29 months by the covetous, the ignorant, and the chickenhawks. It has to suck to be Al Gore and wake up every day seeing everything he warned us about becoming real. Nader on the other hand, must be having a ball.

Not voting for Republicans...priceless.



Money, get away
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a baseball team

Money, get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet

Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise
That they're giving none away.


"HuHuh! I was in the right!"
"Yes, absolutely in the right!"
"I certainly was in the right!"
"You was definitely in the right.
That geezer was cruising for a bruising!"
"Yeah!"
"Why does anyone do anything?"
"I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!"
"I was just telling him, he couldn't get into number 2.
He was asking why he wasn't coming up on freely,
After I was yelling and screaming and
Telling him why he wasn't coming up on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out."

------------------lyrics by Roger Waters

I'll tell you one more time. Now listen up...

The Nightmare Really is Over.

I love The Onion.

I think this article just about says it all. Scary!!!
Learning to love Big Brother
George W. Bush channels George Orwell in the San Francisco Chronicle.

One thing this piece points out is why we don't hear more of this (stating what is obvious to those of us paying attention) in mainstream media. Sometimes it's easier to look at scary things with a little humor.

Sometimes I sit and think to myself that everyone who voted for Duh (or Nader) deserve the losses they accrue due to Dummya's occupation of the White House. They do. What about the rest of us? Most of us probably won't even come out with an "I told you so" to people we tried to warn. Too bad. I'm sure most folks wouldn't hear it anyway. Between their rationalization and their projection, there probably won't even be much of a learning process for most of them (and I don't even want to think about their displacement and their reaction formation).

I've been waiting for Al Gore to really chime in. It's about time he said, "I told you so." I'm tempted to say such to a few people I warned as well.

I'm no big George Michael fan, but watch his new
"banned" video!!! That stupid laugh slays me! It shows Duh as a buffoon who needs his foreign policy explained to him by a sock puppet. Britain's Tony Blair plays Bush's little puppy dog.

I was just thinking of people who voted for Duh and qualities about those folks who led them to do such a thing. In my mind the groups must be divided by descending numbers into the following: stupid, ignorant, misdirected, presbyopic (elderly in Florida), myopic (well, I guess that actually describes all who weren't presbyopic and kind of fits in there with ignorance), and greedy (or any combination of the above). Defense mechanisms are interesting. Rationalization will be the big one for anyone still saying they'd vote for him again (for any of those who don't fall into the stupid or ignorant categories). I wish I had all the emails I sent to family and friends in 2000 telling them the potential for all that has already transpired if Bush was (s)elected (many of my worst nightmares). I'd be tempted to say, "I told you so," but that doesn't help matters.


George W. Bush...I didn't vote for you when I lived in Texas in either gubernatorial race (still can't believe you beat Ann Richards) or for your run for White House Resident in the 2000 Selection after we left Austin (where I was employed by a TX state agency for from '96 to '00 and didn't like your impact on policy there) and came to California (where I thought maybe I would be done with hearing from you). I didn't vote for your daddy either (although I saw him once at Molina's in Houston and he was rather personable to my friends & me; much more personable than your momma). I never even voted for any of your daddy's bosses.


As for the folks who voted for Nader...I believe most were well-intentioned. If I lived in a state where there was an obvious sweep for one of the others, I may have voted for him myself. But I blame some of what will happen during Duh's term on him. Nader should have taken his name out of the running in states where numbers were close. I also blame the folks in those states who didn't have enough snap or didn't care and voted for Nader anyway. Nader's crusade continues as he goes into states to support Green Party candidates who will prevent an incumbent Democrat from regaining a seat. If Nader succeeds, Duh, et al will own your ass.