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3/29/2005

The Religious Reich and the Wrong-Wing are after the universities in their attempt to create a totalitarian state in which they alone rule supreme. Their target this week: Florida universities.

Rationalizing their ongoing political coup with cries of "academic freedom", the Florida state legislature has passed a law that students who feel that their delicate sensibilities are being trampled upon by "leftist totalitarianism" by "dictator professors" who dare (gasp!) to teach.

The wackos in the wrong-wing - you know the ones, they tend to believe that the moon landing was a hoax (pffft, like NASA should get that much credit), the easter bunny is real, evolution is "only a theory", Santa Claus is real, Harry Potter is satanist, Lord of the Rings is a wonderful tale about Jesus and the Passion of the Christ is a documentary filmed on site and Yes! Mel Gibson was there to witness the real deal 2000 years ago! By the way, the Grand Canyon wasn't made by erosion, but God put it, and dinosaur bones, there (or satan, depending on which wacko you're talking to) to test your faith! - yes, those wackos, want all of those pinko commie pesky liberal professors to stop discriminating against poor little Johnny or Jane because they believe all of the above, and then some.

In short, the wrong-wing wants little Johnny or Jane to be able to sue professors who "discriminate" against them by making them support their beliefs in class.

That's right, according to the wrong-wing, it's "discrimination" to dare to try to make little Johnny and Jane THINK FOR THEMSELVES AND SUPPORT THEIR CRAZY IDEAS.

Shhh...if you listen closely, that's not the sound of the neighbor's weedeater, that's the sound of our founding fathers rolling in their graves over this pernicious attempt at suppression of academic freedom. This law has absolutely nothing to do with academic freedom, and everything to do with controlling the populace.

Control information, and you control the people. Simple concept, and every dictator and totalitarian regime that ever existed would tell you that is the prime lesson.

Is it time to rise up and throw off this burgeoning mantle of control that the wrong-wing is wrapping about us like a strait-jacket, or do we need to wait until the damage is complete?

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Today’s Washington Post contains an article by Rob Stein about how wrong-wing pharmacists are trying to find a way around their Hippocratic oath by claiming conscientious objector status when it comes to dispensing prescriptions for the morning-after pill and prescription birth control to women because it would violate the pharmacist’s religious beliefs to do so.

Abortion has been under attack since Roe v. Wade was passed and it was legalized. Women, however, have been under attack since the dawn of homosapien, and it looks like things haven’t changed that much since women’s rights finally gained a little ground with ERA and Roe. Now, we’re getting slapped in the face again with someone else’s petty religious beliefs.

The article quotes Steven H. Aden of the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom as saying ”This is a very big issue that’s just beginning to surface…more and more pharmacists are becoming aware of their right to conscientiously refuse to pass objectionable medications across the counter.”

Right? Their “rights” end when they cause possibly irreparable damage to their customers. Job? Their JOB is to dispense prescriptions, not vapid lectures on the pharmacists personal and twisted version of “morality.”

Stein relays the story of Kathleen Pulz, who went to a pharmacy in the middle of the night with an emergency prescription from a doctor for the morning-after pill. The condom broke, the couple are in their forties, have four other children already, and were trying to be responsible parents. The pharmacist refused to fill the prescription, knowing full well that the morning-after pill must be taken within 72 hours of a ‘mishap’ in order to be effective, and I suspect also knowing full well that Mrs. Pulz would have a hard time getting another prescription before Monday morning. Mrs. Pulz missed her deadline because it was Friday night when the condom broke. Fortunately, she wasn’t pregnant.

To add insult to injury, pharmacists are also refusing to transfer prescriptions to another pharmacy to be filled, rationalizing their bigotry with religious rhetoric such as ”That’s like saying ‘I don’t kill people myself but let me tell you about the guy down the street who does…it’s the same thing.’”

No, it’s not the same thing. By the way, how many Viagra prescriptions did you fill that day? How about Celebrex and other drugs known to really kill?

According to Stein, eleven states are considering what they call “conscience clause laws” that would allow this type of blatant discrimination against women based upon fickle and arbitrary religious beliefs. What the “conscience clause laws” don’t seem to take to “conscience,” however, is the difficulty of poor and rural women to formulate a backup plan when confronted by a lecturing and condescending pharmacist. Young women might be scared off completely, meaning that they might not get their birth control, and might very well end up with an unwanted pregnancy. Of course, when the young woman who was denied her prescription by the pharmacist who felt compelled to trump the views of the doctor and the patient ends up pregnant, she's still damned in their eyes. It's a lose lose situation for women.

According to Stein, ”Supporters of pharmacists' rights see the trend as a welcome expression of personal belief. Women's groups see it as a major threat to reproductive rights and one of the latest manifestations of the religious right's growing political reach -- this time into the neighborhood pharmacy.”

It’s not just a threat to women’s reproductive rights, however, it is a threat to women’s health and existence in general. What the Religious Reich doesn’t like is that women have sex, period. They certainly don’t have any problem with men taking Viagra, though.

This is the slippery slope: if pharmacists can refuse to dispense various drugs to women based upon their precarious “religious beliefs”, then where is the line drawn? For example, can pharmacists refuse to dispense drugs to minorities because of religious beliefs that coincide with those held by the KKK? How long before the health industry calls for laws allowing gays to be refused treatment?

Actually, the Michigan House has already passed legislation which, should this bill become law, would allow just this type of discrimination by the health care industry – gays can be legally refused medical care. The bill prohibits refusal to provide emergency care to gays, but any other doctor, dentist or what have you, can deny treatment to a homosexual without being penalized.

The segregated water fountains are on their way back, evidently, and this war on the poor, women, gays and every group that is not WASP is absolutely unacceptable.

Hey, 51%: Is this what you voted for? Are these your morals? Because if this is your idea of morality, you might want to talk your wrong-wing congressmen into repealing the bankruptcy bill. Your going to need it, because your “morals” aren’t moral, you are morally bankrupt, and your wing is, without doubt, the Wrong-Wing. You will not drag us all down into the pit of guilt-ridden despair with you. You will not drag us all back into the days of Jim Crowe and “little women.”

This woman will kick, scream and gouge eyes before being dragged back into the repression, oppression and depression of religiously rationalized dogmatic bigotry.

Note: This blog has been corrected on 3/29/2005 - the Michigan House passed legislation which would, IF it becomes law, allow legal discrimination against gays by the healthcare industry. I had originally stated that Michigan had passed the law already. Thanks to Buzzflash for the catch.

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3/24/2005

In today’s Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson opined on the state of American Welfare Junkies and completely missed the point of the lack of “honest” discussion regarding Social Security privatization.

Samuelson prattles on about Social Security amounting to welfare, and “No one wants to upset older voters. Well, if you can’t call something by its real name, you can’t discuss it honestly.”

Well, Mr. Samuelson, calling it welfare isn’t exactly discussing it honestly, either. My biggest problem with this editorial can be summed up in Samuelson’s disingenuous display of ignorance about the state of working America today.

Samuelson presents the case of Ida May Fuller, “the first retiree to receive benefits, in 1940, paid $24.75 and got almost a thousand times that ($22,888.92).” The way Samuelson puts it, you would think Fuller robbed the treasury, and didn’t deserve a penny of it. Mrs. Fuller may have only paid twenty-four bucks in, but I’m willing to bet she: 1. Collected that $22K over a period of many years. Notice that Samuelson doesn’t tell us how long she lived after retiring, and 2. So What? What was she supposed to do, starve to death in her old age because she had the misfortune of being born way too early to legitimately ‘earn’ her welfare while working all her life?

It’s this kind of backwards rationalizing on the part of the wrong-wing that keeps this discussion from even being made in the mass media. The thinking that somehow, anyone who worked themselves to death all their lives have no right to any kind of security once they’re too old to work, simply because they never struck it rich.

In his Op-Ed, Samuelson Says:

This mass deception may seem harmless. After all, most Social Security recipients have been responsible citizens and productive workers. Why accuse them of living on government handouts? The answer is that today's myths perpetuate unrealistic expectations and prevent honest debate. Americans regard "earned benefits" and "welfare" differently. The first is a right, the second a privilege. In theory, welfare should serve some public purpose and not just enrich the recipients. By admitting that Social Security and Medicare are welfare, we allow relevant questions to be raised. Do all beneficiaries "need" or "deserve" their welfare? Is the cost "unfair" to taxpayers or burdensome to the economy? Have the social and economic conditions that originally justified the welfare changed?

Mass Deception - yes, but not by who Samuelson thinks. Welfare a privilege - since when? Social Security and Medicare are welfare? Since when is welfare a dirty word, anyway? Since the neocons with their “everyone could be rich if they wanted to and it’s survival of the fittest” nonsense made it so. Modern day economic eugenics in a nutshell.

Samuelson goes on to say “Most Americans can now save for their own retirement, including the cost of health insurance.” This guy obviously hasn’t been to Michigan with it’s unbelievable unemployment rates, or actually talked to anyone working in a Taco Bell any futher than to say “hold the hot sauce.” If he had, he would know that the above statement is an outright lie at best.

One of the sickening features of the wrong-wing attack on Social Security, which they’ve been slavering at the mouth at since it’s inception seven decades ago, is that it is ‘unfair’ to various segments of the population.

BushCo said it’s not fair to black men, because they have shorter life spans than whites. BushCo actually thinks that this observation is fair. He, and his little flying monkeys, don’t bother to ask the real question, which is “why is it that black men don’t live as long as white men, overall?”

According to Samuelson, the Social Security “debate ought to involve moral values and economic realities.” How about this moral value: old people deserve to live above the bare subsistence level. They put in their time, just as we younger people are putting ours in now. How’s this for economic reality: With the cost of living going up constantly, and wages not going up in compensation, not everyone, and in reality, very few, can afford to save for a used car that runs, much less retirement.

The real question isn’t one of welfare v. benefits, or moral values v. whatever they think the rest of us who work for a living subscribe to, but that not one single wrong-wing talking head seems to want to face the reality of American society and see it for what it is: a class struggle. Rich v. poor. That’s all the trite “discussion” amounts to.

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3/22/2005

I've been watching the Terri Schiavo case, along with the rest of America, for the past week. At first, I thought my outrage with this case was directed entirely at Congress and BushCo. Tonight, I realized why I'm really angry over this case.

Tonight, I was watching Larry King Live, and there was a clip of the mother saying that she and Terri "cried together, laughed together, talked together."

Enough. The mother hasn't talked WITH her daughter in 15 years - she's talked AT her daughter for 15 years. It's time for the parents to get over their delusions, let their girl go and let the son-in-law get on with what's left of his life.

The parents, Congress, and BushCo have effectively destroyed any dignity this poor woman had left, and have stigmatized her husband for the rest of his life. Forever more, in the annals of the disturbed minds that are the Religious Reich, he will be Satan incarnate.

This woman had a heart attack 15 years ago because of her bulimia. Where were her parents then, when this woman obviously needed all the help she could get?

Where were they when she really needed them?

The husband has turned down offers of money from this family and their 'helpers', and I find the offer itself to be an egregious display of a complete and utter lack of moral fortitude. How dare they think that everything everyone does is motivated by greed and money? How dare they assume this man, who has stuck by his wife for 15 years, watching her deteriorate more every day, when all he had to do was file for divorce and turn her care over to them permanently, has done anything for her out of any motivating factor but love and honor?

How dare they turn their daughter into a circus sideshow freak, and how dare Congress and the president perpetuate this nonsense? How dare they put makeup on her and let the world watch her "perform" for them on international TV?

Enough damage has been done, and it's time for them all to let it, and let Terri Schiavo, go.

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3/22/2005

It bothers me, the lack of talk, the utter silence, from circles of power about the genocide currently, as I type this, underway in the Sudan.

What bothers me even more than the silence from Congress since Colin Powell called it a genocide on television, and even more than the silence from the mainstream wrong-wing pandering media, is the silence from the rest of us.

We little people have been silent, and we pay for it with the stain of the blood of millions scarring our conscience, whether we admit it or not. To some extent, I suppose I can chalk it up to lack of tv coverage of the events unfolding in Central Africa. Most people I know, though, have heard of the genocide in the Sudan. Many more now know of the genocide in Rwanda eleven years ago this month. Everyone has heard of the Holocaust.

Genocide. One little three syllable word that carries with it the burden of humanity – knowing that this word must exist at all.

Why are we silent in the face of such a human tragedy? Why is it that we donate millions of dollars to help countries ravaged by natural catastrophes, but we don’t give even our notice to countries ravaged by human-created catastrophe?

Perhaps it is because such human inspired catastrophe is harder to face. It’s easier to imagine the suffering caused by a natural occurrence such as a tsunami or an earthquake, because then there is no one to blame. Acts of god. Shit happens. It’s harder to believe that mere people could cause such destruction of hundreds of thousands to millions at a time.

Genocide – the bane of humanity, a word of sorrow, of unimaginable suffering. A gut-wrenching word that leaves us hollow, numb and unable to look any closer.

We must look, though. These are not just brown-skinned people in a country so removed from us that it might as well be another planet. These are people, just like us here in America. These are people who simply want to live their lives, raise their children, work, sleep, eat, in peace. These were people here in America, a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, given smallpox-infested blankets and removed from one home after another. It happened here once and it can happen again. Nazi Germany was not a simple backwater with a raging civil war, it was a powerful nation, educated, cultured and sophisticated. It happened there, it could happen here.

Raphael Lemkin, a polish jew who survived the Holocaust when most of his family did not, coined the term genocide and worked feverishly and tirelessly for the rest of his life to make the word known. He believed that if the word were known, the idea that the horrors that the word contained could be faced, and ended - would be faced, would be ended.

Lemkin’s desire was almost brought to fruition with the passage of the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention making the act an international crime to be punished by the world. He believed that the crime did indeed affect the world, by destroying our humanity a little more each time such events occurred. America did not adopt the convention until the 1980’s. Since then, our country has never once acted to stop a genocide from occurring, and even, as in the case of Rwanda, took efforts to call it anything but a genocide.

Even with the convention adopted, our country’s leaders are hesitant at best, and exhibit outright denial at worst, of genocidal situations in the world. Lemkin believed, and I believe, that to call it genocide means that action must be taken. Colin Powell, however, called it genocide in Sudan, but no action has been taken beyond a little verbal denunciation and a few paltry sanctions, mainly serving only as a conscience-salve for the Congress and the White House.

This utter disregard and lack of real action for a genocide occurring right now in this world is unconscionable.

This world will always contain suffering. That is an unfortunate fact of human life, that there will always be death and suffering. Everyone dies, and death is never pretty, never easy. Suffering exists. Most of it cannot be controlled. However, some of it can. Genocide is a suffering that can be controlled. It must be controlled. We live in a technological age where we can be aware, nearly instantaneously, of happenings in even the most remote places on earth. We must be aware. We must be willing to face what our leaders will not.

We must let our leaders know that when they pound the breast and intone “never again” in such bold and gracious language as our Presidents tend to evoke, we must hold them to it.

“Never again” must be practiced, not just preached.

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3/18/2005

I am tired of seeing Barbara Bush extolling the virtues of her precious little boy. The man is, what, pushing 55? I don't know how old he is, but I do know that he's too old to have his mommy fronting him.

Way back, it feels like light years ago, in 2000, I was watching the Today Show right before the election. I know what you will all say - "Well, Apprentice, that was your first mistake, wasn't it?"

Yes, ok, it was a mistake to watch the Today Show. It always is. But I have to admit it, I like Matt Lauer. But I digress.

Back in 2000 (you remember, just before the country went to hell) Barbara Bush was on the Today Show. This was right after the fiasco where Bush couldn't name the presidents/leaders of any other countries. Babs vehemently defended her little boy, and told us all that "he's not stupid!"

"He's not stupid" was a little hard to believe, especially coming from his mother. Mothers take up for their children. Their testimony won't be very objective, and maybe that's how it should be. If you can't count on your mother to take up for you, who can you count on?

Enough, however, is enough. Today, I read that Georgie and Jebbie have mommy taking up for them on Social Security Privatization. Babs said "I'm here because your father (President George H.W. Bush) and I have 17 grandchildren, all born after 1950. And we want to know, is someone going to do something about it (Social Security). That's the whole reason - other than seeing my boys."

Again, Babs isn't very believable. First of all, your family, Babs, is wealthy. VERY wealthy. Your grandkids will all have trust funds, so $800/month of social security shouldn't really matter to them, unless, of course, they piss their trust fund away on bubble gum and cocaine (insert twins joke here).

It's difficult for me to believe the financial worrying's and carryingon's of filthy rich people, and Babs is disingenous, at best. The wrong-wing truly has no shame, or they wouldn't even bother to try to relate to us bourgeoisie, because they are rich, we are not, and they have as much in common with middle-class me as I have in common with a garden shovel.

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The Washington Post reported yesterday that the War on Science Education conducted by the wrong-wing in the form of intelligent design is a legitimate and valid argument.

In particular, the WaPost article talks about the Discovery Institute, a think tank created by creationists (I know, ironic, isn't it?) to evolve creationism into Intelligent Design(even more ironic). The WaPost claims that this "think tank" pays "scientists" to work on alternative theories to evolution.

I didn't see much science in my perusal of the Discovery Institutes website, but I did see a "historian" prattling on about Hitler and Social Darwinism, a theory that was utterly and completely discredited - oh, right after WWII and the Nuremburg trials. Hitler did indeed subscribe to social darwinism, and did eugenics proponents right here in my oh-so-red state of Virginia 60 years ago when they practiced sterilization on the mentally handicapped. Hitler and the eugenecists also claimed they were doing god's work.

Either way, historians are not scientists, and neither is the Discovery Institute's paid hacks.

The Discovery Institute, which tries to present a scientific and non-partisan public image, went through several changes in its public image according to the National Center for Science Education in an article dating from 2002. The transformation was disingenous, to say the least, but reflects the burrowing mentality of the Religious Reich in its constant attempts to slither through the eye of the needle of American politics.

The Discovery Institute was further outed for it's partisan 'creationism in disguise' by Americans United, also in 2002.

Further, a 'wedge campaign' to drive a wedge in the already divisive american public over the issue of theology in the science classroom was outed by Infidels.org.

I would love to give the WaPost the benefit of the doubt and say that the reporter didn't know about Discovery Institutes lack of peer-reviewed, REAL science. I would like to believe that the reporter and editor who let this particular piece of wong-wing partisan hackery through didn't know that the Institute is a partisan wrong-wing attack dog that serves one purpose and one purpose alone: to take up where creationism failed in the court system.

Let me repeat: creationism couldn't get a foot in the door once the school board textbook cases started to be appealed past the local courts, and once it got to the state's supreme court level, it died a proper death. The Discovery Institute's one and only purpose is to find a back door through the court system to have creationism instituted as a science curricula in this country's public schools.

In other words, the creationists EVOLVED. (still ironic, isn't it?)

The WaPost goes on to quote the Religious Reichsters who claim to be persecuted by having their children forced to study real science in a public school science class. Yes, they would rather their children be ignorant in the sciences, and to never be able to compete in the scientific world. Evidently, they wish for their children, and all of our children, to be delegated to jobs in Taco Bell, because they don't want children learning science, literature, sex ed, history, or anything else, save possibly Little Golden Book versions of the Last Supper, or how to make a few million by making a really gory movie about Jesus.

Unfortunately, the WaPost simply panders to the wrong-wing who would drag us all into the depths of the despair that was once known as the Dark Ages.

For shame, WaPost! I cannot give you the benefit of the doubt, as I, a suburbanite with no journalism credentials whatsoever, found the truth about the Discovery Institute on Google within the first page of entries! WaPost, you once were a mighty paper that brought down a crooked president. Now, you are simply the pulpit of wrong-right-wing politics.

Perhaps you should simply merge with the Washington Times, give yourselves over to a cult and be done with it.

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3/13/2005

I like to surf the Religious Reich's and the Wrong Wing's websites occasionally, for a couple of reasons. First, I find it amusing to see that they can come up with even wackier conspiracy theories than I can. Second, I'm a firm believer in the power of "know thy enemy", and I feel that it is important for more of us liberals and progressives to keep tabs on them.

One of my favorites is Agape Press. Some of today's headlines:

Top Music Artists Push Homosexual Agenda The article tells us that a compilation CD containing songs by "today's top artists" is pushing the gay "agenda." Who are these "top artists?" Yoko Ono and Dolly Parton.

Yes, you read right. See what I mean about amusing? These people are so far behind that they still think Yoko Ono is one of today's "top artists." I love it!

The World Net Daily can be truly out there...literally, given today's headline of "Does U.S. Have Evidence of Alien Craft?" They're serious, folks.

More disturbing in the World Net Daily, however, are the articles blaming immigrants, both illegal and legal for the rise of rates of "eradicated" infectious diseases in the U.S. such as TB and leprosy and the closure of hospitals because of preemie babies. Of course, this "Docs Journal" link in the article gives me, on a mac, an auto-download of a pdf file by some who-knows-who "doctor" who goes on and on about the dangers of illegal aliens (no, not the same as those that left evidence of a "craft", evidently, but rather the illegals from South and Central America) and ends with the nationlistic opining of "saving our country" yadda yadda.

Dolly Parton and Yoko Ono "today's top artists." You gotta love that one.

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3/11/2005

It started last Saturday night, after reading for the first time about Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist who was wounded by U.S. soldiers after being released from her Iraqi captors, and Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence officer who negotiated her release.

I thought about Eason Jordan, who used to work for CNN, and how he was chastised by the press, by the Anti-Progress (formerly republicans), and just about everyone else, for daring to voice in a semi-public way, that he felt that journalists were being targeted in Iraq by the U.S. military.

Even I thought he might have gone a little too far – don’t give them too much credit.

Now I, and a lot of other people (and not just bloggers) are beginning to think he might have had something there.

I went looking through a couple of hundred pages of a google search on “American journalists hostage killed Iraq”. I came up with all kinds of hits for journalists from countries other than the U.S. who had been taken hostage and/or killed by “radical muslims.”

What I found, through Google, Pandia or Metasearch, was only a single mention of an American journalist taken hostage and/or killed in Iraq. It seems that an American journalist, Micah Garen, who worked for an independent media company in New York called Four Corners Media, was taken hostage. Note that the significance of this is: I can’t find ANY other U.S. journalists mentioned anywhere, and this one was INDEPENDENT. Garen seems innocuous, though, as he was covering looting of antiquities.

I found where Al Jazeera had to clear out of Baghdad after being bombed a couple of times by the U.S. forces.

So, here’s the deal, folks: This smells really, really bad to me. It smells like Eason Jordan might have been right. It also smells like only independent media, freelance, or foreign media journalists are being taken hostage and/or killed in Iraq by “insurgents.”

Maybe Eason Jordan only skimmed the tip of the iceberg, because it seems to me that there’s something dark and mealy hidden away in the back of everyone’s fervid paranoia that most don't seem to want to come right out and say. Fear is a tactic, a tactic designed by evolution to keep us from getting ourselves killed by lions and tigers and bears, and it is a tactic used by those in power to keep us afraid of questioning. Whether the fear is of being bombed or shot, or of being labeled a crackpot or kook and delegated to the ‘meds’ corner, it is a tactic of control.

So, I’ll ask the question: Why is it that CNN, or ABC, or NBC, or FOX, or MSNBC, or any of the big newspapers, all owned by the same 2 or 3 companies, have NOT had their journalists bombed by U.S. tanks or shot at by U.S. forces? It could be dumb luck.

It could be something much more worrisome, much more insidious, and much more difficult to wrap our heads around than dumb luck. It could be fear by design. We already know that we here in the U.S. do not see the real Iraq war on our televisions. What we see is a watered down, sanitized and even cussing-free version of a war.

Our media won’t show us what really goes on over there….but a foreign or independent journalist might.

When Giuliana Sgrena, who works for Il Manifesto, an Italian communist newspaper, was able to speak about the events that led to the shooting of herself and the killing of her negotiator, she presented a very different version of events. A version that differs markedly from U.S. military accounts in all but the time of day. One account stated that she had written about a woman held at Abu Ghraib prison, something that the U.S. always denied before when “insurgents” demanded that women be released from Abu Ghraib before they would free a hostage. When she was taken hostage, she was writing an article about refugees from Falluja trying to take refuge in a mosque.

Her captors, according to Sgrena, warned her that the U.S. didn’t want her alive as they were releasing her.

Wait-pause-rewind-replay – now, what the….?

Would we really be all that surprised to find out in 20 years, when someone in the upper echelons of our government finally starts to talk, that these “insurgents” might not be just what they appear as presented to us by our corporate media?

These reports, frankly, are worrisome , and make me wonder just what the hell is going on over there?

Someone please, please tell me that our government isn't so hell bent on keeping us ignorant that they would target journalists, because I may not sleep until the BushCo administration is over.

Note: If you are an Anti-Progress, be prepared to back that up with more than nationalistic rhetoric.

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3/8/2005

It's not bad enough that everything from shoe manufacturers to telemarketing companies are outsourcing to other countries in the eternal search for cheap sweatshop labor and higher profit margins, now the Pentagon wants to increase outsourcing of American military equipment.

"Those companies have made extraordinary investments in the U.S. defense industrial base and not investments that provide no benefit to the local communities and to the strength of our defense industrial base -- quite the contrary," said Patrick, the Pentagon industrial policy official. "I cannot see how this weakens the U.S. defense industrial base."

Really? But then, does Mr. Patrick tell us just how this foreign investment in U.S. defense industrial base benefits our local communities? No, he simply proclaims it. It's a "If I say it, it must be true" world here in the USA. Who needs evidence? Just proclaim it, and it will be true.

Wish I could get away with that in my day job.

Well, let's hope that new nuclear sub or cruise missile will be made of better quality than Converse Chucks when Nike went sweatshop in Southeast Asia.

On second thought, maybe outsourcing of the military-industrial complex would be the best thing for us. That way, when, oh, let's say, France, thinks we've gotten too big for our britches, they can just cut us off. Same with Great Britain, if they ever get rid of that Bush-sucker Blair, that is.

Brazil could cut off our supply of spy planes.

Germany can cut off our supply M-16's.

Next time an insane American President decides to go bombing indiscriminately, Europe can smack his hands, take away his WMD's, and tell him to go sit in the corner until he can be a good boy. We should have outsourced a long, long time ago.

Maybe that's the one industry we can really let go, and say with a hearty cry, "Good Riddance!"

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3/6/2005

The Anti-P's are showing us those American Christian values in the media and the blogosphere over the Supreme Court's rejection of the death penalty for children. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from the insane ward of the internet and the so-called 'liberal' media, trying to sound rational:

From Blogs for Bush:

"One thing our Constitution is notably short of is absurdity - and a ruling holding that a 17 year, 364 day old man cannot be executed but a 17 year, 365 day old man may be is patently absurd."

This wingnut claims that he is actually against the death penalty. Sure, we believe you.

From Conservative Blog, Loose Canon:

"The Supreme Court's decision that juveniles convicted of capital crimes committed before the age of eighteen cannot be executed is a giant step-backwards."

And from the Washington Post, here's a nice piece of good old American christian values:

"As a former prosecutor, I am convinced that from time to time juries find before them 16- or 17-year-old defendants who understand full well the vicious nature of their murders, and deserve -- after receiving the full panoply of due process -- to be fried, gassed, hanged, shot, injected or otherwise sent promptly to Hell."

I see, we're talking about Men if they commit a crime, but we're talking about Children if we're talking about voting age, drinking age, smoking age....I get it. The Anti-P's want to have their cake and eat it too. They want children to be children, but they also want them to pay the ultimate adult price when they commit murder.

Well, guess what, all you other 51% out there: It doesn't work that way.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration loosened industrial restrictions on how much mercury a plant can spew into the air, water and ground, and it will only cost us taxpayers $8.7 BILLION in lowered intelligence levels and various other health problems caused by mercury poisoning of fetuses in the womb.

You are all against abortion for any reason, some of you are against it even in cases of rape, incest and danger to the mother's life, but you are evidently all for mercury poisoning of the unborn, because you voted Bush back into office to continue his assault on America's children.

Again, to the other 51%, you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Was this what you voted for? Is allowing big corporations to spew out anything they want into OUR environment what YOU voted for? If not, that's what you got, and yes, I'll say it for every single one of us bleeding heart liberals: We told you so.

War on Terror? Looks more like a war on the poor and a war on children to me.

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3/4/2005

Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist who was held hostage in Iraq for the last month, was freed last night when the Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, negotiated with the Iraqis for her release.

As they were fleeing, American troops opened fire on their car when it allegedly failed to stop at a checkpoint. Sgrena was wounded. Her negotiator, Calipari, was killed when he threw himself across her to protect her.

It was said that the car was 'speeding', and didn't 'stop for the checkpoint.' What did they expect? The car was speeding in case Sgrena's captors changed their minds.

According to the Washington Post linked in the title, a U.S. hostage coordinator was working with the Italians.

Why weren't those soldiers manning that checkpoint warned of the potential of a hostage release going down under their noses if a U.S. hostage coordinator was involved?

Our government isn't saying anything. Scott McClellan, "white" house press secretary said "details are still unclear" and "we regret loss of life."

Well, Scotty, if you regretted loss of life, perhaps your BOSS, the unesteemed Mr. Bush, should make sure that what is evidently a poor excuse for a communications line in a WARZONE is made to actually work.

Maybe Eason Jordan was right. Maybe our government is targeting journalists.

The kick in the pants to this whole episode is that our hostages get beheaded on national TV, while the Italians manage to get some of theirs out. Why aren't we negotiating for our civilians and journalists and humanitarian workers?

"Tens of thousands" of Italians protested this damn war in Rome, but Berlusconi has kept 3000 troops in Iraq despite some awesome protest in his own country.

If he's smart, he'll think twice, about keeping them there. Our military leaders (LEADERS, not TROOPS) can't seem to wage a war to save their lives, or the lives of any civilians, evidently.

Nicola Calipari was the real hero in Iraq today. Since he had negotiated for other Italian hostages to be released, Italy lost a true asset.

Our government was foolhardy to allow this war to begin with. Our government was foolhardy in allowing such a poorly managed war to continue. 51% of this country was foolhardy to think that this war would ever end well. The rest of us pay by looking like the assholes of the universe.

51% - I'll ask you again - is this what you voted for? Is this your idea of "Security"?

I will continue to ask you that until this war, and this foolish president, are over.

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3/2/2005

The U.S. Supreme Court still seems to have some sense (or, at least 5 of them do). Yesterday, the Court struck down the death penalty for minors.

Charlotte Hayes, in her conservative blog, doesn’t agree with the Court, and says the Court took a “giant step backwards.”

I couldn’t disagree with Hayes more. In a culture where we tell minors that they are too young to vote, too young to smoke, too young to drink, too young to learn to use a condom, too young to see a rated R movie, too young to drive, too young to count, too young to matter, too young to be heard, we have no business telling them “well, you’re plenty old enough to be electrocuted.”

If anything in this country will lead to the slippery slope, it’s death penalties for minors. What is the cut-off age? 16? 15? 12? 10? 6?

I used to accept the death penalty as a “necessary evil.” I used to think of people who commit heinous crimes against another as needing to be “put down”, like a mad dog or any other dangerous animal that “turned mean.”

I’m not so ready to accept it anymore. We hear regularly about someone who has been on death row for years, and is released based upon DNA evidence showing they were innocent of that crime.

Even one innocent person put to death for a crime they didn’t do is one too many, and yes, throw that baby out with the bathwater, because it’s simply wrong. It is a wound to the spirit and humanity of the nation when one innocent dies for a crime they did not commit.

If we can't keep innocent people off of death row, then it needs to be abolished entirely. That should be reason enough.

So, kudos to the Supreme Court for managing to keep a humane perspective in a time of increasing hatred of other humans – kudos for ignoring the far right-wing, and voting correctly.

Now, let’s hope they have the fortitude to withstand the juggernaut of the evangelicals when they decide on the 10 commandments in public spaces.

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