Roberts Confirmed.

Yippie.

 

NOT!  Well, no surprises and at least it's a right wing religiod replacing a right wing curmudgeon.  So - it's no real change to the balance.  It's just what happens with O'Connor that's a concern.  We can't afford to lose a centrist seat to a right wing neo-con religious flat earther.

 

 

Vatican is at it again

On the BBC I just saw this wonderful article: Vatican to Ban New Gay Priests.
I don't know how to react to this one.

On the one hand the rc church has a boner for vilifying homosexuals, and it's not surprising that they would do some more discrimination. And I see that they're going to overreact due to the abuse stuff, they want to come off as reacting to the terrible child abuse situation. But to blame it on homosexuality like that.

I mean, really, when straight guys are sent to prison, many resort to gay sex, 'cause they don't have access to women. Why doesn't the rc church examine some of their policies, and dogma?

Hey, here's a wacko theory...
Why so many old rc priests molesting boys? Because they're gay? Because they've been suppressing their natural impulses? Who knows. What about this - if you are born gay, and you are raised rc christian, then you will hate yourself. You will feel terrible, and ashamed. So, you look about and realize you can't get married, you have no desire in women, so - join the priesthood and get off the hook. Fast Forward 20, 30 years, you're 50 yrs old, horny, haven't had any of your needs satisfied and you snap, do something that's by all regards and rightly so considered heinous.

Seems like there could be a causal relationship there.

Check out this netizen's Blog... and cross your fingers that there aren't many more like him out there

... though I fear there are.

I am posting my response here because based on the writings I've read, I'm sure the comments I posted on his site will not be allowed to remain.

http://wheresyourbrain.blogspot.com/
Friday, 9/23 "Christians Do Have Rights!"
Covers this person's fear and hatred of the ACLU, and a paranoid delusion that people who are not religious and how are for personal liberty and freedom and those things this nation was founded on are monsters out to take away other people's ability to worship as they please, and that socialism and communism are terrible terrible things.

My response:
you scare me. people like you scare me. so much hate, so much intolerance. christians and muslims (the fundamentalist/intolerant/ hatefilled/prejudiced ones like you at least) all scare me.
not that I support any religions or magic hocus pocus of course, but the other religions out there don't seem to be so violent, so "out-to-get" people and hurt infidels so much as the christian and muslim fundamentalists. i guess it makes sense, judism, christianity and islam are all basicly the same religion, just a couple of the later prophets are different so they are really like different sects of the same violent, war-like, intolerant belief stucture. but maybe in that there is hope because judeism is the oldest flavor of that three prong religion and other than the israeli jews and their genocide of muslim palestinians, the jews seem to be less destructive. so maybe you christian and muslim fundamentalists will mature and become less hate filled... if humanity can survive this "adolecent" phase your two religions are going thru.


Wednesday, 9/21/05 - "Bring Me a Beer Eddie"
An attack on Ed Kennedy, one of the few guys who's got a record of actually caring about his constituents (though admittedly a guy with a lot of personal issues and skeletons in his closet), for questioning the wisdom of appointing Roberts to supreme court.

My Response:
no one needs roberts to answer questions asked of him in his confirmation hearings to know he's a right wing plant and an uber conservative just waiting to use the power of the supreme court to restrict american liberty and freedom some more. we'll be hamstrung up by more religious heavy handedness and regardless of what faith one is or if one believes in mystical mumbo jumbo, or not, all americans will have to march to the same beat or risk theocratic governmental punishment. where is the freedom there, where is the liberty? why is that that religiods claim to want religious freedom but only as defined by the freedom for them to practice their rituals. shouldn't religious freedom mean that the rest of us don't have to be subjected to that abuse, and suffering?
strict constructionism overlooks several key elements, first and foremost being the 200 years of scientific and social advancement. remember that today we consider descrimination to be bad, we consider slavery to be a terrible crime. these things are social beliefs that have evolved (for the better) over time. also, the framers of the constitution were diests and opposed to any type of formalized connection between govt and spirituality, let alone religion. the constitution would not have been ratified at all if it wasn't for the caveats that it could be amended and that it was an interpretive document. so to throw up a right wing neo-con with strong religious convictions to the point of restricting liberty and squelching scientific progress and personal freedom is an abomination against all the framers believe in.

Katrina Photo Gallery - 5 days in New Orleans by someone who lived thru it.

It's poignant, and moving.  Also eye opening.

 

http://www.kodakgallery.com/alvaromoralesimages/five_days_with_katrina

True Majority Photo Petition for Peace

In support of the Anti-War march on DC this weekend, True Majority is having a Photo Petition for Peace, for those of us who can't be in DC for the march.

I cut out some of the messages that really resonated with me from the petition. I blurred out the names of the individuals though all these below and more are available to anyone who signs the petition.



This is my favorite one. I'm sure that the news service in question didn't intend the meaning that we can glean from it, but it's hilarious nonetheless. Personally I think that it's 100% spot on - bush is one of the worst disasters to hit the U.S.!

Our CEO president on the ropes!

What a feeling of glee, (on the surface). Deep down, I don't trust it will last.

There have been so many much much worse, more criminal and despicable acts that this administration has had a more direct and clearly connected hand in. To say they f'd up after a major disaster - honestly, if Kerry had been in office I can't say with supreme confidence that the results would have been significantly different. Probably a faster response of military and aid, but all the corruption and misdirection and poor communication in the trenches?- I think that's inherent in the system and symptomatic of a much more deeply seated malaise affecting this country. Of course, I bet it would have been significantly different if the Gore (you remember Al Gore, the guy who actually won the 2000 election?) had been rightfully given the position. Then the wetlands protection laws would not have been repealed and that would have reduced the damage. Also, odds are that the research that was submitted to the Gore White House in 2001 would not have been ignored. (Gore is a very intelligent man, and he also has a clear record of responsible stewardship, not like our alcoholic dead beat idiot president gwbush).
So - as happy as I am for anything that cuts this administration and especially gw down, I am flabbergasted how they have managed to spin their way out of other things much more heinous. And I think this might just be the calm center of sanity at the eye of the storm, I fear they will spin out of this one too.

So - I'm cringing. I won't feel secure in my glee until bush, cheney, rummy, and the rest of the lot are behind bars, or at least expelled from their offices. I don't trust them, especially with good ole Karl Rove out there. He's too crafty and devious. He scares me. I don't understand, the BTK killer, a sick and twisted fellow, of course, only harmed a handful of people, but we got him (eventually) and locked him up and tried him etc.. Karl is much more dangerous and what he's done over the course of his career has caused more widespread suffering, affecting a broader swath of people, yet he's allowed to roam free, plaguing us all. Shouldn't all threats to the peace and well being of this nation's citizens be pursued with fervor until they are captured and placed somewhere that they can no longer harm innocent citizens?

BTW - Halliburton got another no-bid contract to fix up New Orleans, along with a bunch of other companies that are long time republican and gw supporters. So - as much as he's "on the ropes" the whole administration is still up to it's no-good tricks.

Too Much Time on Katrina

You know, there's so many reasons why gw is a terrible dangerous man and his administration is destroying this nation. Right off the bat, I'd like to just do a short endorsement of "Worse than Watergate" by John Dean. John Dean was Richard Nixon's former counsel. He lists about 15 potential scandals that can rip apart this administration, and amazingly so far, the Teflon Don el presidente has managed to side step all of them... but they are hovering, not going away.
I'm hopeful that perhaps this Katrina fiasco will begin to erode his spin shielding. Maybe Rove will go to jail over releasing the name of an active CIA operative and he'll lose his best asset for nefarious dealings.
John Dean in an interview on democracynow.org said (and he said this in his book too) contrasting a great president like Bill Clinton with an evil dictator criminal like gwbush, how Clinton had declassified about a billion documents in his tenure as president. The super secret evil cabal of the gwbush administration has put a halt on open government. They base their rule on too many lies, too much spin, to allow the free flow of information.

Diversity, Liberty, Choice, Tolerance

Continuing my Theme from the last post - this issue about prejudice, and fear/paranoia towards others who are different. This is a great tool, a superlative wedge that the powerful and elite can exert upon us, the masses. Keeping us afraid of each other, distrustful, separated from each other, minimizing exposure or sensationalizing each other's life style are all very powerful tools of manipulation.
For example, a hetero who hates gays usually has little or no exposure to gay people and it's easy to condemn the gays if they don't know them. If a hetero has even a few gay acquaintances, it's my observation that it's much more difficult to see them as "other" and to wish ill upon them.
Same with brown people. It's easy for a lot of the people to hear words like "Muslim" or "middle-easterner" and feel fear and distrust and to wish harm upon them. It's easy to support an administration that seems hell bent on killing all the brown people in the world, either by direct assault or denying them aid or preventing them from getting medical help and food supplies. They are "different", they are "brown". But isn't it more likely that they (the masses) are being led down that path, because they are afraid of the unknown, and their leaders (spiritual, religious, political, and local) encourage these feelings of fear, distrust, hatred of that which is different.
I have had the blessing of having grown up in a diverse part of the country. I know lots of brownish, yellowish, reddish, and pink hued humans, I know lots of people who are gay, lots of people who are not Christians (I was raised a Christian before I formally renounced my affiliation with any organized religion). I've also been lucky enough to travel abroad, yes, gasp, that's right, outside of the borders of this nation, and actually, zoinks, met people who were not US American Citizens. So - I have learned one basic thing - just about everyone is pretty much - well we're all weird and all have our foibles, but for the most part, all of us have the same problems, the same aspirations, and most people I have met don't really want too much trouble.
Yeah, there's always a bunch of bad apples sprinkled in the mix, but really - having met a bunch of people from around the world, having been exposed to all different colors, creeds and lifestyles, I don't fear whole groups of people who are different from me, I'm not threatened when I see two guys making out in public,... Though, I do feel pretty much the same about all PDA (public displays of affection) which is - C'mon, a romantic kiss, even lingering, can be cute and endearing, but if you're going to be making out, swapping spit, I don't care if you're two guys, a girl and a guy (or even my favorite:), 2 women making out - please, be considerate of all the people around you that are getting weirded out by all your sloppy smacking and wet popping sounds. I'm not threatened by people worshipping their deity either, as long as they don't try to make me worship their deity or try to prevent me from living my life how I want it because their deity says it's not allowed.
Listen, if I can't be in your religion club because I don't agree to follow your rules, that's FINE! If these uber conservative congresspeople, elected officials, supreme court justices, whomever, said they wanted to legislate the fact that if you, oh, I don't know, use RU-486 (morning after pill), or get an abortion that you're not allowed to go to church or be a Christian, that's fine. If the rules of being a Christian are you can't take the morning after pill or get an abortion, then fine, that's fair. It's a club and they have rules. Same with gays, if some religion or another wants to say the gays can't join their club, got to their church, then fine, again, it's a club, it's got criteria for it's members.
Now - some may say, "Well, I have a club that says I have to kill other people, do I get to kill people because that's my club's motto?" and the answer is no. Why? Simple - your liberty only go so far as it DOES NOT infringe upon other people's liberty. Killing someone is probably against that person's will, and an infringement upon their liberty. So - you can't do it. Same with abortion, telling a woman she can't get one is infringing upon her liberty, a woman getting an abortion is changing her body, it's her liberty at stake. (don't get me started on the 3 or 4 month old fetus. IT HAS NO RIGHTS, it is NOT A PERSON! A cat or dog or mouse has more consciousness, intellectual capacity, and capacity to feel, either emotionally or viscerally, than a fetus that has only 3 or 4 months of development)
Let me be perfectly clear here, I don't' think anyone should ever be allowed to force another person to get an abortion. I don't want any of the religioids out there fearing that those of us who are not anti-choice (you know the opposite of pro-choice is anti-choice, I mean, heck, I'm very pro-life. I'm against the death penalty, and war, and for social medicine and housing for the poor, and caring for the environment, so clearly I'm pro life, but I'm also very pro-choice on the abortion issue). So anyway - if you're an anti-choice person and opposed to abortions, then I don't think anyone should ever FORCE you to get an abortion.
And hey, if you are a hetero guy then I don't think anyone should force you to take it up the butt. And if you're a hetero woman, then I would never endorse having you forced to much some carpet.
And if you believe in the judeo/Christian/Muslim god (same god, different branches of the Yahweh tree), then I don't want to impose my belief structure upon you. I don't want you to not attend church because I don't attend church. If that's what makes you happy, then go for it. Just stop with the trying to make everyone live your life.

Can't blame the masses (too much)

I rec'd an email from my mom this morning talking about how some of her neighbors were making comments to the effect that maybe it wasn't so bad what happened in New Orleans, implying that it was eliminating an undesirable element in the area. She was naturally appalled. She said these were the same people who sent in donations and care boxes, and she wondered if maybe they put "for whites only" on the boxes or something like that.
Here's my response to her statement. I know there's lots of division within this nation, but I wish people wouldn't look at it as a black/white issue. It's so much more complicated than that, and so much more related to income and wealth than skin color. The whole skin color issue - that's smoke and mirrors to keep all us peasants fighting against each other instead of against those that keep us in chains.
So without further ado, my response to her statements ~~~~

Yeah, but to say it's a white versus black issue is only seeing a thin
veneer of the problem. It's a sociological issue, it's a moneyed versus
poor issue. There's a very small minority of people who control the weath
of the nation, the wealth of the world. They expend considerable resources
to keep the bulk of the population brainwashed and "on their side". The
people they target to brainwash are the middle class. These people are
easy, because their lives are comfortable enough that they are not pressured to
effect change or question the status quo, even though their lives could all be
much much better if they actually woke up and saw how badly they were being
screwed... But they can't, they are kept doped up on TV entertainment, and kept
busy in make-work middle class jobs that seem to pay ok, (until you compare them
to what our grandparents used to earn.) So- day in and day out, all adults
in the middle class family are kept distracted from truth. Day in and Day
out, all children in a middle class family are kept insulated from
reality. And they are programmed to think a certain way, that poor
people are bad, that whatever segment of the population that is lower class
caused their lack of wealth, etc. So, this small small minority of rich people
keeps the bulk of the people afraid of the poor, and distrustful of their fellow
man, who really are all in the same boat. It's like the god analogy -
compared to a perfect supreme being, the difference between a saint and a
monstrous murderer is negligible. Well, compared to the super wealthy and
powerful, the difference between a well off upper middle class person earning
200k per year and a homeless person is negligible too. But the middle
class can't see that. So - forgive them, for they know not what they do, they are
too weak minded to see reality, they are too long inured in the lies and
brainwashing that those in power have used to keep us all in line, like lambs
being led to slaughter so that they may feast upon our roasted flesh.You have
heard the phrase "divide and conquer", right? Well, that's what it's all
about, create frission between the middle and lower and lowest classes of
income, create distrust among the races and social divisions, among the
religions and sexual orientations, keep it all stirred up. That way, when
someone does manage to lift their head from the muck of daily drudgery that is
leveled upon their shoulders, to ask "what's going on with the world", they can
be kept distracted from the architects of their prison. They don't see the
guards, or the walls, they just see their other fellow inmates and they are made
to fear, made to distrust, and kept - distracted. It's all about the
distraction. So - if your neighbors are parroting the neo-con line that it's for
the best that these people are suffering (be they judging them as sinners or
because they are black or whatever reason), the truth is not that they are
inherently evil, it's most likely that they are just weak minded and well
programmed.

Maybe I'm too harsh on the average middle class right winger, the neo-con stooges, the conservative, the religious fundamentalists, and all those others who are out there with this warped sense of right and wrong, this predjudice and hatred of those that are different from them, this insistence on imposing their lifestyles and beliefs upon others, their paranoia that those who have different lifestyles are implementing a diabolical agenda to eliminate their way of life. Maybe they are not weak willed and easily manipulated by powerful but small groups of people who are greedy and interested only in consolidating and insulating their power. Maybe they really are hateful, spiteful, nasty, evil people who have the urge to destroy that which is different from them. But I don't think so, because it's been my observation that people are generally more good than evil. Most people are inclined to "cut a break" to others in close proximity.
It's easy for the people in power to keep the rest of us distracted and distrustful when we are insulated and not exposed to diversity and they play on all that. They play it like a concert pianist. They fan the flames of fear, highlight the differences between us, between us and each other and between us and those nasty brown foreigners from the other side of the planet, they're all out to get us so we better strike back now.
No, I think that the blame that I level on the predjudiced and fearful, the intolerant and insular, is that they are weak and easily manipulated, but not that they are inherently evil, I don't think that that is the case at all.

Encouraging Graph

This is a very encouraging graph, the ever sinking gw approval rating. They should pass some kind of legislation that states that a President is dismissed from duty if his/her approval rating drops below 25%.
I suppose they'd need to have more reliable/accurate polling system in place, probably mandatory voting on regular polls, it could be a mess, it's true and of course, with a person like Karl Rove on the loose (why isn't that guy in chains, at the bottom of a pit, in some dank, dark, dismal dungeon for all his crimes against the people of this nation?!), you can't ever be sure a poll or a vote is every really representative.
Of all the people in the gwbush (I refuse to capitalize that man's name, I'll capitalize "the President" when referring to him as I respect the position, but I can't capitalize his name), anyway, of all the people in the gwbush regime, I fear/loathe Rove the most. Even cheney, evil, dastardly, shrewd, despicable, dangerous, vindictive, angry, dishonorable, criminal cheney - even he is not as alarmingly worrisome as the Rove.
Forget about impeaching bush or throwing cheney in jail for the rest of his days over his lies to congress, his unscrupulous business dealings (like selling his halliburton stock before it crashed, he made hundreds of millions off of that, right before becoming vp, and right before many investors lost their shirts, and nothing happened to him, but they locked up Martha Stewart over a few shares of Imclone?! ), his stonewalling of information from congress, and his joint crimes with gw over lying to congress, and using all kinds of unscrupulous ploys to start a war, but forget about him, because Rove is the guy who keeps the spin machine churning. Take him out, though of course, cheney is also quite skilled at the dark arts of manipulation, but he's old and on the ropes (in my opinion), so take rove out and guess what - we might be able to get the whole rogues gallery.
Another reason Rove scares me so much is the eventually bush and cheney will be out, but with Rove there to poison his republican master's political opponents and with Rove there to manipulate the poor ignorant masses of Americans who are kept to distracted to notice all their illegal and immoral dealings, Rove can continue to destroy our nation from within.
Osama Bin Laden, sure he's an enemy, but as far as threats to the sovereignty of this nation, Rove, bush and cheney are all much graver.

Excellent Blog Entry

Came across this the other day, and totally loved it. Blog is "The Martian Anthropologist" and the entry that I'm sure will make me an avid follower of this blog is "Katrina:Where was God"

Jon Stewart - for President

I tell you, I hope some day Jon Stewart goes into politics. I seriously think I would move to whatever state he was running in, just to stump for him and to get to vote for him to. He's funny, smart, and he's actually got a clue.
I have been enjoying his socio/political commentary for a few years now and I'm convinced that this guy cares more about our country, more about the American people than just about any elected official I have come across.
Anyway - it seems this week they are doing a special all week on Evolution. Now there's another hot topic that really gets my goat.
Look, I can respect people who have a spiritual side, people who have a powerful faith in something ineffable, something beyond the pale of observable reality, people who have an awe of the mysterious unknowable that is our and the universe's simple existance. But please, don't take it too far, don't embarrass yourself, don't profane your faith by taking mythical tales and spiritual lessons as literal fact. That misses the whole point. Recommendation - everyone on the planet should read, "The Power of Myth" and interview of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers. ( Excerpts of "Power of Myth" , "Power of Myth" on Amazon.com )
There is something else I think should be pointed out to everyone, there are different ways of thinking, of viewing the world. More specificly, two possible ways are the ways of mythos and logos. At one time, both schools were employed equally, each had it's own baliwick. Logos was applied to matters of reason, practical implementations. A=B, B=C, Therefore A=C kind of stuff, how to plant and rotate crops, how to build bridges. Mythos was the ineffable, non-reproducable stuff. Gods, Spirits, the why we are here, how best can we live, how do we deal with death, that kind of stuff.
The problem is that Logos was so efficient at predicting things and successful at improving life, so at some point the religious started adopting the methods of Logos to sell Mythos, only - the whole point of mythos is that it's unprovable, and ineffible. But once you start saying this myth stuff is fact, you're setting it in stone, it can no longer organicly adapt to the the needs of the psyche of masses. And without the ability to adapt, it started to insulate and fortify itself against reason and rationality, because as logos (the scientific method) began to unravel the workings of the physical universe, it threatened the foundation of power amassed by the religious institutions.
Anyway - I digress, the whole point is that mythical belief structures are good for the psyche, if they help the masses cope with the fact that life is short, pointless, often involves significant random suffering and sensless tragedy, and at the end of it all, the resolution for every single person is death. Whoopie, if you need something that helps you swallow that bitter pill, then fine, go for it.
But the problem with people who believe in the literal intepretation of mythical stories is that they leave themselve no room to accept/tolerate people who have different beliefs. If you literally believe that the meaning of the universe is what your religion says, and if someone else believes equally strongly in something that's contradictory, there's not much room to accept each other.
So, on to Evolution, versus Intelligent Design. I don't even see how they are in conflict. One, Evolution, is a scientific theory that is fairly well established within the scientific community. The other is a fanciful explaination for what may have, in some people's opinions, led to evolution. Evolution is not contradicted by Intelligent design, it just says there's some creator out there that is responsible for existance, but it's not provable, it's not testible, so it can't be addressed by the scientific method, therefore it's not a scientific theory. It's just an idea that can help fill in the gaps for those people who need a mystical explanation to get connected to the wonder of existance.
So - Jon Steward was covering this whole "scopes trial part II". And it was pretty funny, especially as they lampooned some really odd creationists. Oh, sorry, they call it intelligent design now.
Funny thing is, I don't dispute some parts of the idea of intelligent design. There could be, for all we know, a separate masculine style intelligent and sentient supreme being. I doubt it, but it could be, who knows. Doesn't really matter. So - maybe this supreme being called into existance the rest of the universe. And maybe this force or whatever directed all of everything to happen. Fine, no big deal. Of course, what I do object to is where they say that all the biodiversity that exists could not have randomly developed and then they come up with all kinds of spooky math trying to prove that evolution is impossible. That's just crazy talk.
Ok, enough ranting tonight, I'm not going to be able to get up for work now.

BBC Article on Social Darwinism, Katrina's Impact, and my take on Taxation.

Good Article on the BBC web site today - "Survival of the fittest?" about the impact of Katrina on the forces of social darwinism in the US.

"Hurricane Katrina is one of those rare interludes which has upset the national
equilibrium. While 9/11 made Americans angry, the fate of New Orleans has gone
beyond that. In varying degrees the whole population is angry, ashamed, and
fearful. "

That's a quote from the article. It goes on to talk about how this disaster might galvanize people into more action, more expectations that government be run for the people. You know, you may have heard that once before, about Government for, of and by the people. That's not been true for generations, but maybe, maybe if we're lucky, some of that may resurface.

Anyway, I liked the article, but in respect to full disclosure, I am not necessarily pro-big-government, I mean, I am against waste, and think that layers of beauracracy and red tape are not the answer, I want efficient government and rational stewards as our leaders and implementers of public policy, but I definately want a more involved government, socially. I am all for higher taxes. Especially on the uber rich. Look at the history, 50, 60 years ago, the taxes that one would have to pay on incomes over a few million dollars a year were puntative, 90% or so taxes if you were earning 5 mil a year or more. (that was at a time when 5 million was worth a lot more than now.
Today people argue against that, people argue against raising taxes on the super rich, the totally swallowed that bullshit "trickle down" economic theory. The thing that makes me laugh is that the people who I speak to, who are opposed to my theories on economics WILL NEVER EVER BE AS RICH AS THEY THINK, they are brainwashed but the super small minority of rich people who would be negatively affected by tax hikes of the nature I propose. The uber rich, I admire them, not for achieving their wealth, but for brainwashing all the little people into acting like human sheilds to reasonable taxation.
Here's my argument - no matter how rich you are and how you got there, you did it because of the benefits afforded to you by this country, by the people around you. Even if your idea was totally original and you financed bringing it to market yourself and you did it all yourself, then you still owe the country for becoming rich off of it.
Why?
Simple - you have the benefit of having a market to sell your idea/product to. And that market exists because of our high standard of living.
And that high standard of living comes at a price. We MUST have viable infrastructure. People must have jobs, homes, health care, clothing, food, and education. And - don't forget, if the earth cannot sustain life, then it cannot sustain the life of your customers. So - for you, no matter how rich you are, to make your money, you need living customers.
What does that mean?
That means that every dime you make, the more you make, the MORE you owe this country for allowing you to make it. Period, end of story.
So - 90% tax on all earnings above - what, say 10 million dollars a year (for the individual), SURE, go for it. And 80% tax on all earnings between 5mil and 10mil. Hell yeah.
And so on and so forth.
Plus for the middle class - they can pay more taxes too, let's compare ourselves to our peers, the Canadians, the Brits, the Australians, the French - they all pay more taxes. And you know what, I have been to these countries. These people live better than we do. I have lived in the UK, and yes, they made less numerical than we do here, due to the massive taxes (over 40% for little guys like me (and probably you)), but still, they travelled more, had better access to health care, and - here's one people don't think about much - they had much less stress. They don't fear being homeless, or worry that if they lose their job they won't be able to see a doctor. they don't worry about being able to get schooling if they want to educate themselves.
I'm not a socialist, and I'm all for a free market, (where appropriate) but not everything should be a free market. It's very easy to construct a logical model that demonstrates how some segments of a civilization's economy should not be free-market driven. Just as it's easy to construct logical models that demonstrate how some legislation is required to ensure safe and effective long term commerce.
Anything infrastructure related - anything having to do with roads, bridges, lights, energy production and distribution, transportation, shipping, medicine, education - these things should not be free market - I'd socialize all of them. The why is simple - if you ensure that your customers are alive, and healthy, and have the means to be customers, to be consumers, then that's good for a free market. And all those big boys who play in the free market - they should pay the ante. THATS RIGHT - we need to start taxing corporations. You know most corporations don't pay any taxes, they get all kinds of breaks and considerations, breaks and considerations you and I don't get... yet a corporation, legally speaking, is an entity, just like you and me, so as an entity, they should pay taxes.
They get out of it because of our republic. Our nation isn't one single nation, it's a republic of city-states that have elected a federal govt to manage things like intrastate commerce, protect our borders, and foreign affairs. That's what the fed is supposed to do. But - that was 200 years ago. Things have changed now, but we still have these loopholes, and the worst is that as a republic, each state has it's own laws and each state is technically competing against it's fellow states for economic progress. That's all well and good 200 years ago now, but the world has shrunk and the whole nation needs to work more efficiently together. Right now, a corporation can whore itself out, building factories where it gets the best graft from the local state government. The state's know this, and they know that even worse, a corporation can go outside the US to make it's goods and still be allowed to sell it here. So - the corporation gets all the money and the nation gets nothing NOTHING in return!!
What we need to do is make a universal mandate, from the fed, that corporations need to pay taxes and not let them shop around state to state for the best deal.
Well, you say, then all the corporations will go elsewhere.
NOPE, don't be silly, this nation has the strongest negotionating ammo around, we have the CUSTOMERS. What we do is get out of that WTO and we tell everyone who wants to sell to our customers - you need to 1) be in this country, and 2) pay taxes. Want to take your manufacturing elsewhere? Sure, fine, dandy, but you're going to pay super high tarrifs to sell your goods here.
There's nothing wrong with that - if we were out of the WTO. Think about it - the dvd player in china cost the manufacturer about 2 dollars to make, whereas it would cost 20 dollars to make here in the US, but in the US we make our companies pay their employees, we enforce environmental policies. those things are things that allow us americans have a decent lifestyle. And - personally, I think that those types of policies should be adopted everywhere, and then we would, as the economists predict, have a leveling of the playing field and there would not need to be trade inequalities. But - right now the trade imbalances are levelling at the lower, undesirable level, forcing quality of life in developed places to dip instead of raising quality of life in less developed areas. That's because the rich are controlling this and their quality of life is GREAT no matter what. Joe Schmoe American Millionaire does not care if his fellow americans live like 3rd world sweat shop slave wage earning peasants. And he certainly doesn't care about the actual 3rd world sweat shop slave wage earning peasants in China, India, or wherever else they're exploiting people today. As far as he is concerned all that matters is having more money than everyone else.
And fine, I don't begrudge him that, but it's not self sustaining. I'd rather have everyone fed, housed, gotten medicine, and education, and allow everyone to be able to buy Joe Schmoe's products for their whole life and for their children and children's children to do the same. Not to leave the earth as a blasted wastland, polluted, boiling, and lifeless, just so some rich guy today could have two 200 foot yaghts.

Katrina sinking gwbush administration

Watching CNN all the time, riveted to Jon Stewart too. That's a great show and he's had some Excellent coverage of the Katrina fiasco. It's tragic, and sad what's going on there and I have been angry at the federal government for a while now (oh, say 5 years or so) but this is really taking the cake. ACTUALLY - to be honest, of all the terrible horrible, evil, despicable things that the gwbush regime has done to the world and the american people,this is something I don't think they are as directly culpable and sinisterly behind as the many other atrocities they have perpetrated against america, humanity in general, and nature. BUT - this is the one they may hang for, so it's kinda like the Untouchables to me - remember that, how they got Al Capone on a tax technicality and not all his organized crime murders and stuff. Well, that's fine. I just want to bring these evil men down, even if they get torn down over something that was only partially their fault. Well, more than partially their fault. I'm so pissed off the way the Karl Rove spin machine is working double time to lay the blame on Blanco and Nagin. I can't believe they allowed things to go the way they did, with a freaking hospital ship off the gulf coast that lay unused for 2 days. I can't believe that their administration turned down previous requests by the flood prevention and levee mgt department down there (I can't recall it's exact name) to do an in depth study of the risks a year ago. Or that the administration ignored the 2001 report on the subject of the immanent danger that region was in. I read that report and it was alarming, to the nth degree. Also- I can't believe that these money hungry despicable cretins repealed a 1990 statue that mandated reducing development of the wetlands and expanding them to prevent surges to the city - they repealed that in 2003, and since then have been allowing wetlands to be developed so their rich power elite supporters, the dastardly top 1% of the population that controls all the wealth and keeps us in the dark.
I HATE those guys. I am convinced that Karl Rove is the anti-christ. I'm not religious, I just use that term to mean the most evil and dangerous person alive today. Cheney - he's not the anti-christ, he's the friggin devil himself, beelzebub incarnate. An unholy specter reigning in blood and misery above all the mere mortals. gw- he's a a half-retarded bastard, a gun happy drunk who's dangling on a puppeteer's string. There's a corporation of super powerful, shadow puppeteers, with cheney as the ring master and Rove as the conductor, and they're playing the people of this country like a maestro conducting an evil syphony. Only their instruments are the broken bodies of their victims, the tattered rags of liberty and honor and decency that this country used to stand for, and the blasted wasteland that used to be this green beautiful earth.
There is no venom I can issue that could possibly reflect the anger and revulsion, betrayal and frustration, hatred and fear that I feel because of them. Did you ever read that white paper that cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitz, and ashcroft were a party to in the 90's, from their neo-con organization think tank they have in Washington? The one that said that we need to start a preemptive war, and fight it on two fronts simultaneously to prove to the world that we're bad ass? And that the only way that the American people would go for it is if there was a terrorist act on american soil of the magnitude of Pearl Harbor? And how the modern war theater would be all about fast tank blitzkreig type fighting? THATS WHAT THEY SAID 10 years ago. Then, ooh, lucky for them, we were surprised by the world trade center attack and they were able to fight a war... in Afghanistan and Iraq... on two fronts, because the american people were easily manipulated thru fear, thanks to a Pearl Harbor like event.
Not that the bush/cheney regime is the first time that shadowy evil cabal has been manipulating us. It goes back to daddy bush and beyond. These boils on the ass of humanity, these puss filled sacs of putrencene, these ignoble cretins have been part of a much larger and long running campaign against human liberty and decency.
Y'know, pre 60's corporations were prevented from buying and selling politicians, thanks to strict rules about how much money can change hands from a corporation to an election campaign or to an elected
official or any affiliate. One by one in the 50's and early 60's these laws were reworked state by state. So that now, there's a river of graft flowing from corporations and the very wealthy into the pockets of
the people willing to service them. Ever since then our liberties have been eroding. We had a bit of a resurgence of reason and liberty after Nixon, people were alerted to some of the crimes, some of the back room dealings, etc, and for a few presidencies we had some watchdogging going on. And - in the better times, like the Clinton years, we had a man in the White House who, while not perfect by any means, was fairly open and non secretive. Even though the neo-cons were attacking him non stop from the day he was sworn in to weeks after he stepped down as president. For Clinton's entire presidency, they worked triple time spreading lies, spewing spin until people believe the lies... like for example the lies about how the Clinton administration left the white house in shambles, with broken computers, and graffiti on the walls. Everyone heard that, but no one heard that an investigation into this showed these allegations to be lies written by Karl Rove. Or how the whitewater situation was blown up into a farce - everyone has
heard white water and shady dealings, but how many people know the Clinton's were fully exonerated of any inappropriate dealings? How many people know that while all this and Lewinsky on top was going on, that at that time, President Clinton was singing into law legislation that would make much of the inner secrets of government available to the people, an open door policy like never seen before?
How many people know that as soon as gw got into office, cheney shut those doors and has been stonewalling ever since. Do you know how many times the gw administration has been supoenaed by congress? And that's a republican congress!! And they refuse to provide information.

They lied to get us into war -I wish that people would bother to look into that some day.. They committed so many crimes, they should be in jail, locked up, crimes - lying to congress, presneting false information to congress,
twisting or ignoring instructions set forth by congress, declaring war as a fait acompli after being told not to. All kinds of things that are terrible.
So - anyway - after all that, and like the Teflon don, they get away with it, but now, this Katrina fiasco - it's starting to break down their cloaking device shielding and maybe some light is going to shine in.
These evil men deserve to be tried for treason. They are so despicable and they represent even darker and more evil people, the puppetmasters pulling the strings. So - while the loss of life and property
that occurred with Katrina could never be said to have been "worth it" if these most evil of evil people finally get what they deserve, that could at least be a silver lining on what is a terrible day in American
history.

My friends from outside the country, they are shocked at how we responded and what happened. They have all lost respect for the US years ago, oh, I'd say around 2000, and cemented in 2003. They all fear and look
at the US with a wary eye anyway. But this, the feedback I'm getting is one of pity for the American people and a shock of almost humor, they thought we were evil and dangerous, now they think our country is
just a joke, a mismanaged fiefdom. And I don't blame them.

Katrina

I expect there will be many posts about Katrina, it's really on my mind for so many reasons. Here are a couple links I have found interesting. This link, http://homelandresponse.org/full_story.php?WID=13977 , was sent to me by a self avowed republican who's only interested in his own well being, and could give a damn about anyone else or the planet in general. This link was sent to me in response to my sending him the following link, which I found telling, vis a vis the Federal government's completely inept response to Katrina. http://thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline . Yet, try as I might, I find it difficult to see how his link in any way detracts from the horrendous atrocity that is our bloated, inept, craven, and criminal bush administration. (pls note that I go out of my way to avoid capitalizing gw's name in any way. I respect the office of the President of the United States, but I cannot bring myself afford that military and civil criminal with any level of respect).

Presidential Disasters

On John Stewart the other night they had a segment with Ed Helms where he's talking about the tragic effect this Katrina hurricane has had on the Bush administration.

Anyway - at one point he says, "As you know, Presidential disasters are named alphabetically,..." and goes on to show the following chart. I thought it was hilarious, and went online today to see if I could get a copy of it.
You can see the entire clip here:
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml
It's the clip on the 2nd row, 3rd from the right, Ed Helms - he's the guy in the 2nd row with the white shirt.

By the way, this post is being made from a Mac running Firefox, so I'm curious to see how it formats

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Inaugural Post

This is the first post in a more opinionated blog venture of mine. When I really want to rant about something that pisses me off, I want to collect it here, so that I can achieve two simultanious goals. One, I wish to be able to search back this recorded permanant record of the items and issues that have really gotten my goat the most and Two, as it's public, it would be interesting to see if the random people who surf past it are for, against, indifferent, outraged at or with me.