Everyone who is paid to talk or paid to write is talking about or writing about the war in Iraq. But other than from those folks, you won't hear talk about the most dishonest, deadly, and costly boondoggle in America's history being discussed around the water cooler or at holiday social gatherings.
After nearly four years of the fiasco in Iraq, the Bush extravaganza of death, destruction, and world-class ineptitude starring America's children, yet another holiday season has rolled around and local malls are again full of shoppers but the Mall in Washington remains strangely quiet. Curious.
More's the pity for Sgt. Tony S. who is on tour No. 3 in this "war on terror," a.k.a. this war of terror as Tony's mother calls it. Tony S. is stationed in the Sunni Triangle, and he's not told his mother his exact whereabouts so she won't worry as much. The few who know where he really is are worried sick. His mother just knows he's somewhere in Iraq, and when his family didn't hear from him for several weeks, those in the know wanted to puke every time the phone rang.
When he finally did contact home, he had lost five of his men since his last call. You undoubtedly didn't hear about it on the news. The Iraq Study Group found significant underreporting of the violence there, by as much as 1000 percent. The lives of Sgt. Tony's five men must have fallen into this intentional institutional information abyss.
Sgt. Tony is a career military man, if you can consider a twenty-something as having a "career." He's there because "he wants to be." Isn't that the argument used by the war-instigators, who have only started battles--never served in them, for why it's OK that he's there at all? How could someone ever know they didn't want a career in the Sunni Triangle until they'd had one?
Absent a general military draft, the holiday season for non-military families is not affected at all by this war of terror. Sure, some will make a trip or two to the post office with a few holiday cards and packages, but they will not be troubled by the forms and procedure required to send Christmas packages to an overseas FOB.
They will not worry nights that their packages won't arrive intact to a beloved family member, a son or a daughter, because there's an ever-present possibility that someone will shoot down the vessel carrying these precious missives of love and home, and they'll never reach their destination. They'll also never toss or turn all night worrying that the package makes it but the recipient doesn't.
The general population of America will mindlessly circulate at holiday parties this season exhibiting the usual amount of social anxiety. They will drink too much to cover it over and eat too much to cover that over. Thoughts of Sgt. Tony and his five dead men will probably not pass through even one besotted memory cell.
Christmas Day, Hanukkah, Kwanza, whatever one observes, will come and go with its individually-traditional melee while Sgt. Tony and his remaining men spend yet another holiday season in Hell on Earth, brought to you by America's military-industrial complex and sponsored by some of the same folks who messed up Vietnam.
Sgt. Tony's mother reported that when she finally received his call, he sounded "awful." And then she cried and cried until she ran out of tears. While she is ignorant of his exact location, the ignorance does not provide her with one shred of holiday bliss. She and her family struggle mightily just to feebly carry on with the holiday season. Everyone is jumpy, on-edge, and buying too much in an attempt to purchase a normality that cannot be found in the mall.
After four years, one would tend to think that Baby Boomers, with the winds of Vietnam blowing at the backs of their choir robes and Harley jackets alike, would finally rediscover their inner hippie and take to the streets to protest this dishonest and disastrous war before any more Sgt. Tony's or their men must sacrifice their lives to appease the whims of the Frat Brat-in-Chief. Apparently the most effective way to neutralize civil disobedience is for the government to have their corporate friends keep sending credit card offers to potential disobedients. That way they stay in their own malls and away from the government's Mall.
It seems to be working. The same people who thirty years ago thought nothing of sleeping stoned with someone they didn't know on a dirty matteress at someone's "pad," somewhere along the way morphed into the adults who would scream into school parking lots in large and shiny SUVs and enter the building looking to draw blood on the someone that gave their child a C on his science project. They became the parents who would mortgage all they own to see to it that their senior cheerleader got her rightful senior gift.
But this must be the outer limits of general Hippie/Yuppie concern for "America's" children. While some of them will march in the streets to make sure other people's babies aren't aborted, apparently concern for what happens to these children, or anyone else's children, once they arrive is a nonstarter.
So, Sgt. Tony is stuck in Iraq for another holiday season, but he says to tell everyone back home Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays (from the Sunni Triangle. Ssshhh). He's a pretty selfless guy, and just because he's over there he wouldn't want anyone here to not enjoy themselves this Season.
Who has the heart to tell him he doesn't need to worry about that? From the looks of things, Americans are doing their best to accommodate his wishes.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
There's a Big Difference Between Hanging in There . . . and Hanging
Some years ago I lived in a community that had been in existence a long time, turned out to be utterly inbred, and was quite set in its ways--even if its ways led to disaster. I didn't know all this of course as I, as a fresh-faced newbie, set about getting involved in helping the local school district with various projects like PTA fundraisers and passing levies.
This devotion to education eventually led to my holding a seat on a citizens' advisory committe, followed by my being selected to fill a vacancy on the school board--a spot left open by a member who, unbeknownst to me at the time, had finally had enough and decided to get out of Dodge.
Looking back on it now, I guess I can pat myself on the back that I made it as far up the closed pecking order as I did before I, too, realized I was wasting my young life trying to garner a team to move the immoveable forward. The district, the community, liked things as they were, as they had always been.
That the illogical "principles" upon which their actions or inactions were predicated did little or nothing to advance the district or the community was of no concern to them. It was status quo all the way. The district's employee roster was so chockablock with friends and relatives, and friends of relatives, and relatives of relatives, and friends of friends that nothing, save the set-in-stone, ever got accomplished. And the set-in-stone had all the excitement, energy, and effectiveness of a mud brick.
Though this community sat squarely on a state route adjacent to a big city, an outsider living there could come to believe she had somehow stumbled into a mountain holler at the turn of the 20th century. All that was needed from central casting were some Hatfields, McCoys, and a still, and I've never been sure there weren't some of all three around somewhere.
My increasingly frustrated efforts in this esteemed position on the board of education finally included a decision to step on some toes to see if there was any life in the feet. I found life in the feet alright in the form of a resulting swift kick to my head if I dared to disturb someone's long-held domain. It was like trying to maneuver around a den full of hibernating bears who would not fully rouse if disturbed but would take a swipe at your vitals, claws extended, while rolling over to continue the nap.
No, nothing ever changed. . . except me. I slowly but surely morphed into a different person after months of turning over every rock and peeking under every foundation in search of a workable, modern idea that would fly and not cause someone's Cousin Roger to loudly proclaim his nose out of joint.
It all sounds harmlessly stagnant, but I learned from holding this position that if you attempt to operate honestly enough, word will get around. Eventually you will find yourself up to your neck in Deep Throats, all who would like to see things improve but can't risk openly exposing that Aunt Tilley might be pocketing some of the money from the football tickets she sells or that best friend from high school, Bill, never took any actual bids for the new furnace at the high school.
Ahhh, the dark side of public service. Which got a lot darker, black actually, when I learned through one of these self-styled 007's that the defunct landfill in the middle of the district was tainting the water at three of our schools. Where my children attended. Houston, we have a big, hairy, major problem.
Attempts to get involved, rile the community to action, wore me out physically, mentally, emotionally, and not only produced little result, but actually placed me and the few who would join me in a very precarious and, dare I say, dangerous position. Months passed. There were veiled threats made. And there were whispers of brain tumors and odd cancers in the allotment closest the landfill.
The people living in the district knew they had a water problem and either years ago knuckled under to pressure to stay quiet or chose to live with it by ignoring it. After all, if you know you have a problem, you're expected to do something about it. And that was not the modus operandi of the community fathers. I would wonder later if there was an organic connection between the water quality and this line of thinking.
So my husband and I did the only sensible thing we could. We cut and run. It's a decision we have never regretted. As a matter of fact, it's one of the best decisions we have made together in over a quarter century as a couple.
We followed my predecessor on the board and beat it out of Dodge, realizing as we turned out the lights it had been a mistake to settle there in the first place. All the red flags had been out, waving in our faces. We had only seen what we wanted to see. True, we had all our resources and thirteen years of our lives invested there.
I probably could have withdrawn from public life and the two of us could have continued on as we were, but it wasn't worth risking the health of our children. Enough was enough. Greener pastures existed elsewhere. Chalk it up to lessons learned, dust ourselves off, and choose a new location with more care and wisdom than we had chosen the old.
Yes, there is a big difference between hanging in there and just hanging. Especially when it's your children swinging from the noose.
This devotion to education eventually led to my holding a seat on a citizens' advisory committe, followed by my being selected to fill a vacancy on the school board--a spot left open by a member who, unbeknownst to me at the time, had finally had enough and decided to get out of Dodge.
Looking back on it now, I guess I can pat myself on the back that I made it as far up the closed pecking order as I did before I, too, realized I was wasting my young life trying to garner a team to move the immoveable forward. The district, the community, liked things as they were, as they had always been.
That the illogical "principles" upon which their actions or inactions were predicated did little or nothing to advance the district or the community was of no concern to them. It was status quo all the way. The district's employee roster was so chockablock with friends and relatives, and friends of relatives, and relatives of relatives, and friends of friends that nothing, save the set-in-stone, ever got accomplished. And the set-in-stone had all the excitement, energy, and effectiveness of a mud brick.
Though this community sat squarely on a state route adjacent to a big city, an outsider living there could come to believe she had somehow stumbled into a mountain holler at the turn of the 20th century. All that was needed from central casting were some Hatfields, McCoys, and a still, and I've never been sure there weren't some of all three around somewhere.
My increasingly frustrated efforts in this esteemed position on the board of education finally included a decision to step on some toes to see if there was any life in the feet. I found life in the feet alright in the form of a resulting swift kick to my head if I dared to disturb someone's long-held domain. It was like trying to maneuver around a den full of hibernating bears who would not fully rouse if disturbed but would take a swipe at your vitals, claws extended, while rolling over to continue the nap.
No, nothing ever changed. . . except me. I slowly but surely morphed into a different person after months of turning over every rock and peeking under every foundation in search of a workable, modern idea that would fly and not cause someone's Cousin Roger to loudly proclaim his nose out of joint.
It all sounds harmlessly stagnant, but I learned from holding this position that if you attempt to operate honestly enough, word will get around. Eventually you will find yourself up to your neck in Deep Throats, all who would like to see things improve but can't risk openly exposing that Aunt Tilley might be pocketing some of the money from the football tickets she sells or that best friend from high school, Bill, never took any actual bids for the new furnace at the high school.
Ahhh, the dark side of public service. Which got a lot darker, black actually, when I learned through one of these self-styled 007's that the defunct landfill in the middle of the district was tainting the water at three of our schools. Where my children attended. Houston, we have a big, hairy, major problem.
Attempts to get involved, rile the community to action, wore me out physically, mentally, emotionally, and not only produced little result, but actually placed me and the few who would join me in a very precarious and, dare I say, dangerous position. Months passed. There were veiled threats made. And there were whispers of brain tumors and odd cancers in the allotment closest the landfill.
The people living in the district knew they had a water problem and either years ago knuckled under to pressure to stay quiet or chose to live with it by ignoring it. After all, if you know you have a problem, you're expected to do something about it. And that was not the modus operandi of the community fathers. I would wonder later if there was an organic connection between the water quality and this line of thinking.
So my husband and I did the only sensible thing we could. We cut and run. It's a decision we have never regretted. As a matter of fact, it's one of the best decisions we have made together in over a quarter century as a couple.
We followed my predecessor on the board and beat it out of Dodge, realizing as we turned out the lights it had been a mistake to settle there in the first place. All the red flags had been out, waving in our faces. We had only seen what we wanted to see. True, we had all our resources and thirteen years of our lives invested there.
I probably could have withdrawn from public life and the two of us could have continued on as we were, but it wasn't worth risking the health of our children. Enough was enough. Greener pastures existed elsewhere. Chalk it up to lessons learned, dust ourselves off, and choose a new location with more care and wisdom than we had chosen the old.
Yes, there is a big difference between hanging in there and just hanging. Especially when it's your children swinging from the noose.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Dear Democratic Congress, Don't Screw This Up
Dear Democratic Congress,
Once all the meet-and-greet socials and orientations, the lottery for office space, the class-officer elections, and the oath taking in January have concluded, and the newbies are snugly installed in their congressional cubicles staring at the walls and breathlessly reminding themselves, "Wow! I'm really in Congress!" it's time to get down to business. And we out here in reality hope it's not another round of monkey business. We've had enough of that in the last six years to keep us chin-deep in monkeys for the rest of our lives.
We know we've only given you two short years to locate any crevass, no matter how small, through which to lead us to safety from Iraq and a hard place where John and Jane Q. Public have been dwelling, wedged in rigor-mortis-like stiffness for the past six years, unable to draw a full breath. It would be nice to be able to breathe deeply again. In fact, it's becoming direly mandatory.
Election pundits exhausted their jaws all summer and fall whispering, whistling, whispering, saying, saying some more, and finally shouting from the rooftops that the November election result was all about Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. And those pundits were right, wrong, and wrong again. It is about Iraq. And it's not about Iraq. It's more about truthfulness versus truthiness and whether or not John and Jane Q. Public want their world shaped entirely by the monkey-loving military-industrial complex. For the record, we don't. And no one can hold it against us that we thought for a while that we did because we weren't ever told the truth about anything. And as this is a vast nation, it took about three years for the truth to make the rounds the old-fashioned way. Once it did, we knew we didn't. That's America for you.
So, Democratic Congress, where does that leave us and you? Well, it leaves us waiting for leadership. And it leaves you needing to supply us with some. The real and honest kind. The kind we haven't seen . . . well, maybe ever. But America is thirsty for it--as thirsty for it as a lost and hallucinating desert nomad drinking the sand. We've only been able to find sand and we are sick of it. It doesn't get the job done. We want out of the quagmire of Iraq, true. But we also want fresh water and clean air and healthcare and to be treated fairly by corporate America. We want our budget balanced and an end to no-bid contracts and earmarks and lobbyists and $50 toilet seats. We want grandma to get her social security check because it's all she has to live on. And we want her doctor to get his Medicare raise so he doesn't drop her like a stone. We want a fair-trade balance and we want our tax dollars to be spent on honorable endeavors. Here, mostly.
Basically, Dem Congress, we know we are asking a lot out of you in two short years. We are asking you to right all the wrongs that have been foisted upon the Public family in the last six years. We know it's a big job, and it's probably an unfair job at this point in the game. But it is the most important job. The most important job ever. It is far and away more important than politicizing the year 2008. And if you get this right, that particular year will largely take care of itself.
So, Dear Democratic Congress, when 2007 evolves into a political game of Red Rover, as it will, play nice with each other and be very careful who you call over, who you let through the lines and who you don't. Then be honest with us about your choices. This may be your one shot at taking the Red Rover title. So, on behalf of John and Jane Q. Publics everywhere in America, we respectfully request, for god's sake don't screw this up!!
Once all the meet-and-greet socials and orientations, the lottery for office space, the class-officer elections, and the oath taking in January have concluded, and the newbies are snugly installed in their congressional cubicles staring at the walls and breathlessly reminding themselves, "Wow! I'm really in Congress!" it's time to get down to business. And we out here in reality hope it's not another round of monkey business. We've had enough of that in the last six years to keep us chin-deep in monkeys for the rest of our lives.
We know we've only given you two short years to locate any crevass, no matter how small, through which to lead us to safety from Iraq and a hard place where John and Jane Q. Public have been dwelling, wedged in rigor-mortis-like stiffness for the past six years, unable to draw a full breath. It would be nice to be able to breathe deeply again. In fact, it's becoming direly mandatory.
Election pundits exhausted their jaws all summer and fall whispering, whistling, whispering, saying, saying some more, and finally shouting from the rooftops that the November election result was all about Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. And those pundits were right, wrong, and wrong again. It is about Iraq. And it's not about Iraq. It's more about truthfulness versus truthiness and whether or not John and Jane Q. Public want their world shaped entirely by the monkey-loving military-industrial complex. For the record, we don't. And no one can hold it against us that we thought for a while that we did because we weren't ever told the truth about anything. And as this is a vast nation, it took about three years for the truth to make the rounds the old-fashioned way. Once it did, we knew we didn't. That's America for you.
So, Democratic Congress, where does that leave us and you? Well, it leaves us waiting for leadership. And it leaves you needing to supply us with some. The real and honest kind. The kind we haven't seen . . . well, maybe ever. But America is thirsty for it--as thirsty for it as a lost and hallucinating desert nomad drinking the sand. We've only been able to find sand and we are sick of it. It doesn't get the job done. We want out of the quagmire of Iraq, true. But we also want fresh water and clean air and healthcare and to be treated fairly by corporate America. We want our budget balanced and an end to no-bid contracts and earmarks and lobbyists and $50 toilet seats. We want grandma to get her social security check because it's all she has to live on. And we want her doctor to get his Medicare raise so he doesn't drop her like a stone. We want a fair-trade balance and we want our tax dollars to be spent on honorable endeavors. Here, mostly.
Basically, Dem Congress, we know we are asking a lot out of you in two short years. We are asking you to right all the wrongs that have been foisted upon the Public family in the last six years. We know it's a big job, and it's probably an unfair job at this point in the game. But it is the most important job. The most important job ever. It is far and away more important than politicizing the year 2008. And if you get this right, that particular year will largely take care of itself.
So, Dear Democratic Congress, when 2007 evolves into a political game of Red Rover, as it will, play nice with each other and be very careful who you call over, who you let through the lines and who you don't. Then be honest with us about your choices. This may be your one shot at taking the Red Rover title. So, on behalf of John and Jane Q. Publics everywhere in America, we respectfully request, for god's sake don't screw this up!!
Monday, November 06, 2006
Voting Democratic Tomorrow is the Most Important Thing You Will Do for the Next Two Years
It doesn't matter if your daddy and your momma always voted Republican. My daddy and my momma always voted Republican, too. But they weren't voting for the George W. Bush Junior brand of Republicanism that exists in Washington today.
The George W. Bush brand of Republicanism is akin to being the biggest, baddest boar in the barn. It's the porcine bullying of everyone sharing the sty. It's the hogging of the show, the clearing away of all competition at the trough so that all the feed is theirs alone. It's their using the cloven hoof to hold down in the mud the necks of any and all challengers.
Bush II Republicans don't care if you have the medicine you need, if there are carcinogens in your water, if the wooded property on which you placed your dream home is now devoid of trees. They don't care if your son or daughter, who joined the military to pay for school or to find a living-wage job, has been slaughtered in the name of more war profits for General Halliburton. These people are the richest of the rich, the most well-connected of the networked, and they don't care about you. They don't have to.
This is why no one party should hold all the cards--ever. However, it must be said that it took the Democrats 40 years of holding most of the cards to do what this breed of Republicans have managed in 12--become corrupt enough to warrant being bounced out of Washington on their ears and perhaps jailed. In 12 short years, these Republicans have returned us to the 50's in all the ways that negatively affect life in the United States for John Q. Public, while they have not ventured from their "Leave-it-to-Beaver bubble long enough to realize that the rest of America has 21st-century needs. Like a job. And affordable healthcare. And after Katrina, maybe a house.
These Republicans are blatant hogs and they refuse to share. They don't have to and they won't unless they are made to. Hogs are the most stubborn creatures in the barn. They are opportunists and uproot the bounty of the land for their own gain, leaving in their wake a ruined landscape. To keep them penned, electric fence must be applied or no efforts at corralling them will be effective enough.
On November 7 these porcine Republicans don't deserve your votes. Not one of them. Democrats might not be your cup of tea, but they do own the wire and the transformer needed to restore order to the farm. So for once, forget what momma and daddy always did. They faced different times, and now so do you. This is the barnyard where you live. It needs some balance and fast.
Jane and John Q. , you have the power tomorrow to tell all the Porkies in Washington, "Tha...tha... That's All Folks." For your own good, you'd better do it.
The George W. Bush brand of Republicanism is akin to being the biggest, baddest boar in the barn. It's the porcine bullying of everyone sharing the sty. It's the hogging of the show, the clearing away of all competition at the trough so that all the feed is theirs alone. It's their using the cloven hoof to hold down in the mud the necks of any and all challengers.
Bush II Republicans don't care if you have the medicine you need, if there are carcinogens in your water, if the wooded property on which you placed your dream home is now devoid of trees. They don't care if your son or daughter, who joined the military to pay for school or to find a living-wage job, has been slaughtered in the name of more war profits for General Halliburton. These people are the richest of the rich, the most well-connected of the networked, and they don't care about you. They don't have to.
This is why no one party should hold all the cards--ever. However, it must be said that it took the Democrats 40 years of holding most of the cards to do what this breed of Republicans have managed in 12--become corrupt enough to warrant being bounced out of Washington on their ears and perhaps jailed. In 12 short years, these Republicans have returned us to the 50's in all the ways that negatively affect life in the United States for John Q. Public, while they have not ventured from their "Leave-it-to-Beaver bubble long enough to realize that the rest of America has 21st-century needs. Like a job. And affordable healthcare. And after Katrina, maybe a house.
These Republicans are blatant hogs and they refuse to share. They don't have to and they won't unless they are made to. Hogs are the most stubborn creatures in the barn. They are opportunists and uproot the bounty of the land for their own gain, leaving in their wake a ruined landscape. To keep them penned, electric fence must be applied or no efforts at corralling them will be effective enough.
On November 7 these porcine Republicans don't deserve your votes. Not one of them. Democrats might not be your cup of tea, but they do own the wire and the transformer needed to restore order to the farm. So for once, forget what momma and daddy always did. They faced different times, and now so do you. This is the barnyard where you live. It needs some balance and fast.
Jane and John Q. , you have the power tomorrow to tell all the Porkies in Washington, "Tha...tha... That's All Folks." For your own good, you'd better do it.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
America Will Display Her Soul to the World on November 7
Certain things have the capacity to speak to our individual souls. A tale of triumph, a particular movie, a style of decorating, a color, an odor. Each has the ability to cut through the layers of self-denial we pile on top of our deepest selves in order to make it through a day. A kind word, a compassionate act, a stirring piece of music, and suddenly our soul is laid bare. Time stands still and we are transported from the rat race and into a special place where the world is kind, and we remember what's truly a priority. We envision ourselves and others as products of the better nature of man. Dreams, for that brief moment under the spell of existing in a soul place, seem likely to come true. We dwell briefly in a second of ultimate truth.
While it is not practical or even possible to exist 24 hours a day floating on a dream cloud, and the often harsh, expedience-greedy, goal-oriented pace of modern life prevents all but the most masochistic from trying to move through the day with their souls hanging out, there are water-shed moments where it is necessary to tap into our deepest and better selves and send that message out into the universe. Things can be better than they are right now. Things can be made more fair, more just, more righteous. Perhaps our founding fathers knew this.
The founding fathers also understood the flip side of the coin, how absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, that greed and avarice can destroy the goodness of a soul and the soul of a society. So they built into our system of government a means for citizens to express the depths of their soul priorities and alert their leaders to disdain for the actions of government should they find those leaders to be or to have become soulless.
One week from Tuesday will be such a water-shed moment. It is election day. It is the day when Americans will be given the opportunity to dig deep in their souls and identify those true priorities that are seldom obvious at the water-cooler, in the boardroom, or on the street corner, but which reside in the deepest recesses of our spiritual make-up and matter the most to our quality of life and the quality of life for those we love. It's again about truth. Truth to self and truth to others. It's about sending a message of truth out into the universe and letting it return to American society bringing back with it great benefit for all.
America will be showing it's true soul to the world on Tuesday, November 7. What depth of soul will the world see? Will it see the boardroom soul or the soul that allows grandmother to afford food and medicine? Will the world witness the layered-over soul used for joking at the water-cooler or the soul that understands the helpless feeling of unemployment? Will it see the cowboy soul of NFL entertainment or the one that knows torturing another human being is wrong? Will the world see the cocky superficial soul of flag-waving self-delusion or the one that holds sacred the genuine freedom afforded by the principle of habeous corpus?
America will be displaying her soul to the world on November 7. We will know soon enough the caliber of American soul the world will observe. And from that observation, the souls of the world will deduce a message. On the quality of that message, which will be broadcast into the universe, hinges the future message America will receive from the world in return.
While it is not practical or even possible to exist 24 hours a day floating on a dream cloud, and the often harsh, expedience-greedy, goal-oriented pace of modern life prevents all but the most masochistic from trying to move through the day with their souls hanging out, there are water-shed moments where it is necessary to tap into our deepest and better selves and send that message out into the universe. Things can be better than they are right now. Things can be made more fair, more just, more righteous. Perhaps our founding fathers knew this.
The founding fathers also understood the flip side of the coin, how absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, that greed and avarice can destroy the goodness of a soul and the soul of a society. So they built into our system of government a means for citizens to express the depths of their soul priorities and alert their leaders to disdain for the actions of government should they find those leaders to be or to have become soulless.
One week from Tuesday will be such a water-shed moment. It is election day. It is the day when Americans will be given the opportunity to dig deep in their souls and identify those true priorities that are seldom obvious at the water-cooler, in the boardroom, or on the street corner, but which reside in the deepest recesses of our spiritual make-up and matter the most to our quality of life and the quality of life for those we love. It's again about truth. Truth to self and truth to others. It's about sending a message of truth out into the universe and letting it return to American society bringing back with it great benefit for all.
America will be showing it's true soul to the world on Tuesday, November 7. What depth of soul will the world see? Will it see the boardroom soul or the soul that allows grandmother to afford food and medicine? Will the world witness the layered-over soul used for joking at the water-cooler or the soul that understands the helpless feeling of unemployment? Will it see the cowboy soul of NFL entertainment or the one that knows torturing another human being is wrong? Will the world see the cocky superficial soul of flag-waving self-delusion or the one that holds sacred the genuine freedom afforded by the principle of habeous corpus?
America will be displaying her soul to the world on November 7. We will know soon enough the caliber of American soul the world will observe. And from that observation, the souls of the world will deduce a message. On the quality of that message, which will be broadcast into the universe, hinges the future message America will receive from the world in return.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
What's Wrong with Closet Compromise?
The compromise to which I am referring is the one made by Senators Warner, Graham, and McCain to the change of language in Common Article III of the Geneva Convention requested by GWB. Combine that with the recently passed additions to the Patriot Act, and our president seems to be holding all the cards. It wasn't much of a compromise, was it?
This issue is very clear cut. And the "compromise" more closely resembled the self-serving, ass-saving, slimy political maneuvering we have come to expect from our representatives. So why are there so many who can't see it? Don't get it? Won't get it? Why is this even an issue when as recently as two weeks ago, Americans could lay their heads on their pillows at night without giving it much of a thought? Because Constitutional freedoms have never been brought into question to this extent before, that's why.
Even when McCarthy was looking under the bed for communists, the Constitution and the Geneva Convention were left intact. Our historically shared and common belief in the limits of governmental power was, we thought, so tightly woven into the fabric of America, into being American, that it would hold forever like medieval chainmail.
Two hundred plus years beyond 1789 and we as a nation have forgotten that the thread of freedom was spun of delicate silk. It must be handled properly and periodically checked for moths. I think around 1980 we threw that silk in the back of the closet believing it would be just fine in there with the other consumer goods we just had to have and then grew bored with, discarded, and haven't looked at since.
Under the cover of closet darkness, Bush got his way with the extended Patriot Act and the rewritten Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, and thereby, he assumed total control over the rights of individuals. He not only broke the silken thread of freedom, he stuffed it in his pocket and walked away virtually unchallenged with the whole cloth. Now, you, or I, can be picked out of a crowd, labeled an enemy combatant, and waterboarded. One, two, three.
But like couch potatos who desperately needed to get out of the recliner long ago and hold a garage sale, I guess Americans grew so comfortable, complacent, and trusting that the closet was a safe place for what we hold dear that after years of protected freedoms, there are those among us who refuse to believe that the game has changed. This is, indeed, a sad day for America because there will be no hue and cry until a wealthy WASP or a popular middle-class citizen is plucked off the street for simply engaging in routine politics.
If we as a nation learned anything from watching Katrina victims sift through the remnants of their lives, it should be this: If you value grandma's silken cloak of freedom, you'd better keep it on your person when the storms come because once they have passed, you can't expect to find it still safe in the back of the closet.
This issue is very clear cut. And the "compromise" more closely resembled the self-serving, ass-saving, slimy political maneuvering we have come to expect from our representatives. So why are there so many who can't see it? Don't get it? Won't get it? Why is this even an issue when as recently as two weeks ago, Americans could lay their heads on their pillows at night without giving it much of a thought? Because Constitutional freedoms have never been brought into question to this extent before, that's why.
Even when McCarthy was looking under the bed for communists, the Constitution and the Geneva Convention were left intact. Our historically shared and common belief in the limits of governmental power was, we thought, so tightly woven into the fabric of America, into being American, that it would hold forever like medieval chainmail.
Two hundred plus years beyond 1789 and we as a nation have forgotten that the thread of freedom was spun of delicate silk. It must be handled properly and periodically checked for moths. I think around 1980 we threw that silk in the back of the closet believing it would be just fine in there with the other consumer goods we just had to have and then grew bored with, discarded, and haven't looked at since.
Under the cover of closet darkness, Bush got his way with the extended Patriot Act and the rewritten Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, and thereby, he assumed total control over the rights of individuals. He not only broke the silken thread of freedom, he stuffed it in his pocket and walked away virtually unchallenged with the whole cloth. Now, you, or I, can be picked out of a crowd, labeled an enemy combatant, and waterboarded. One, two, three.
But like couch potatos who desperately needed to get out of the recliner long ago and hold a garage sale, I guess Americans grew so comfortable, complacent, and trusting that the closet was a safe place for what we hold dear that after years of protected freedoms, there are those among us who refuse to believe that the game has changed. This is, indeed, a sad day for America because there will be no hue and cry until a wealthy WASP or a popular middle-class citizen is plucked off the street for simply engaging in routine politics.
If we as a nation learned anything from watching Katrina victims sift through the remnants of their lives, it should be this: If you value grandma's silken cloak of freedom, you'd better keep it on your person when the storms come because once they have passed, you can't expect to find it still safe in the back of the closet.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
An Open Letter about Torture to Senators Graham, McCain, and Warner
Dear Senators Graham, McCain, and Warner:
I know you are busy whipping up a compromise to change Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, which may help avert our commander-in-chief from being viewed by the world as a war criminal. I hope during your busy day you, or one of your staff members, will have the chance to read the letter I sent to each of you this morning regarding the moral ambiguity involved in enacting such a change.
As I have great doubts that my letter, which came from my soul and the souls of many other Americans, will ever make it out of the bottom the your mailbag, I am posting it here. I think clothing and ideas aired in the light of day tend to smell better after some time in the sun.
Please excuse the lack of the "Sincerely yours," etc. Your comment forms aren't set up for formality.
Dear Senator
I am from Ohio and you are not one of my two Senators. Technically. However, in the spirit of representative government as intended by our forefathers, you are my Senator. Each of the one hundred members of the body of the Senate is my Senator. You speak for me, Jane Q. Public, when I am unable to speak for myself, or when I am unable to reach power with truth.
Rewriting Common Article III of the Geneva Convention to allow loopholes for the continuation of the practice of torture, to be carried out in the names of all Americans, is morally repugnant. No acceptable compromise exists to moral repugnance. First-degree murder is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for it? Knocking down an old lady and stealing her handbag is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for that?
Americans are waiting, suffering and waiting long, too long, for members of our national leadership to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. It is morally reprehensible and hypocritical for our leaders to tie themselves to fundamental Christian values for political purposes while engaging in self-serving and morally reprehensible acts or allowing them to be done in America’s name.
Common Article III, as a law against torture, already exists and has stood, uncompromised, since 1949 as a stone in the foundation of America’s moral face to the world. It is a stone that should not be rolled away or have its integrity compromised, even if that means leaving government wrong-doers exposed. Compromising the Geneva Convention depletes us as a nation. It suggests to the world that we, as a people, are morally feeble and accept and expect rogue-state behavior from our leaders.
I know you are busy whipping up a compromise to change Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, which may help avert our commander-in-chief from being viewed by the world as a war criminal. I hope during your busy day you, or one of your staff members, will have the chance to read the letter I sent to each of you this morning regarding the moral ambiguity involved in enacting such a change.
As I have great doubts that my letter, which came from my soul and the souls of many other Americans, will ever make it out of the bottom the your mailbag, I am posting it here. I think clothing and ideas aired in the light of day tend to smell better after some time in the sun.
Please excuse the lack of the "Sincerely yours," etc. Your comment forms aren't set up for formality.
Dear Senator
I am from Ohio and you are not one of my two Senators. Technically. However, in the spirit of representative government as intended by our forefathers, you are my Senator. Each of the one hundred members of the body of the Senate is my Senator. You speak for me, Jane Q. Public, when I am unable to speak for myself, or when I am unable to reach power with truth.
Rewriting Common Article III of the Geneva Convention to allow loopholes for the continuation of the practice of torture, to be carried out in the names of all Americans, is morally repugnant. No acceptable compromise exists to moral repugnance. First-degree murder is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for it? Knocking down an old lady and stealing her handbag is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for that?
Americans are waiting, suffering and waiting long, too long, for members of our national leadership to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. It is morally reprehensible and hypocritical for our leaders to tie themselves to fundamental Christian values for political purposes while engaging in self-serving and morally reprehensible acts or allowing them to be done in America’s name.
Common Article III, as a law against torture, already exists and has stood, uncompromised, since 1949 as a stone in the foundation of America’s moral face to the world. It is a stone that should not be rolled away or have its integrity compromised, even if that means leaving government wrong-doers exposed. Compromising the Geneva Convention depletes us as a nation. It suggests to the world that we, as a people, are morally feeble and accept and expect rogue-state behavior from our leaders.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
George W. Bush - The Thorn in the Nation's Rose Garden
President Bush, whom I believe bears all the traits of a total madman, threw a monumental temper tantrum yesterday in the White House Rose Garden, in front of the press and in front of America. His histrionics, unbearable to watch, demonstrated the same foot-stomping, hair-pulling sense of disbelief at being challenged that one might witness in the behavior of Saddam Hussein at his trial. And for the same reason. Each man has a tit, as grandma used to say, caught up tightly in a ringer.
As was the man he loves to hate, George W. Bush fears being accused of war crimes by virture, or the lack thereof, of his ordering or allowing the torture of enemy combatants, which is against Article III of the Geneva Convention. And some of those torturees, who have now been transferred from camps in Europe to Gitmo, are about to be interviewed by the Red Cross. Uh oh.
So, with a predictability we have come to expect from this administration when they haven't played by the rules, which is always, Bush now wants Congress to turn back the clock and make what he did yesterday legal today, which is the hallmark, if you will, of this administration's style of governance. Except that the word "hallmark" is often associated with something positive and this is nothing to be proud of. I call it the Wimpy strategy of governance, named after the character Wimpy on the Popeye cartoons. "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Let me have what I want today, and I'll twist someone's arm to compensate for it later.
In six long, seemingly endless years, George Bush has broken every principle on which America was founded, short of being caught in a ski mask with his hand in a teller drawer at Bank One. Given his bratty tirade yesterday, I'm expecting that to be next. His tantrum has presented Americans with the most important choice they have had to make since deciding to break away from England. And breaking the will of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove may prove to be as lengthy and as difficult.
The matter of Article III could be settled rather quickly and to the better nature of mankind, but it would require America's possessing a Congress that contained men and women as thoughtful and honorable as those of the Continental Congress. Thus far, the current American Congress, with the notable exception of a few--too few, has proven to have all the honor of Benedict Arnold and all the teeth of the president's lap dogs Barney and Beatrice.
Amidst the throes of Bush's Rose Garden tirade, David Gregory was effectively shushed when trying to get a straight answer to the $64,000 question in which he drew a parallel between America's torture of others and others' inevitable turn to torture us back. In essence Gregory was asking: If America allows its government to rewrite the Geneva Convention just to save the president's proverbial ass, how long, then, until another country does the same and redefines what they're allowed to do to us? I say, if military recruitment has been flailing of late, ditching Article III ought to finish it off.
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/gen/26714leg20060911.html
Gregory never got his straight answer. Instead, short of writhing on the ground, Bush snarlingly threatened the press, the Congress, and the American people by stating that if Article III was not amended to his liking, the whole program would stop. What program? What do we Americans call this program we're paying for? This administration has not been forthcoming about anything they do in the name of decent taxpaying Americans. Ever. So I say, go ahead. Stop the damned program. Maybe that will give us some breathing room to find out just what, roughly, this "program" has consisted of. Shouldn't we at least know since we will share the blame when our peerless leader gets caught at that teller drawer?
Awhile ago, when Americans failed to leave the mall and take to the streets to challenge the extended Patriot Act, we had already given our government the power to label any American an enemy combatant if it doesn't like what it hears or what it sees out of us. So this is maybe another good reason we should know more details of this damnable program--before one day they decide to use it on American citizens. Oh! Forgive my fuzzy memory. They already have.
Just where, exactly, is the line in the sand that Americans will not cross to be kept safe? Or is there one? I certainly hope, beyond all hope, that the line is here and the line is now. Torture by Americans is unacceptable. Torture of Americans is unacceptable. Rewriting the Geneva Convention to assuage the despot-in-chief's fears of legal repercussions against him and his minions is unacceptable. Congressional failure to stop this president from overturning the oaken table upon which rests the humanitarian foundations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is utterly unacceptable and opens the door even wider for the ultimate demise of a democratic America.
Just in case you've forgotten: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So when the torturers come for you or me, or for your loved one or mine, as they eventually will, we won't find ourselves sitting in a rose garden on a sunny day. And there will be no press to hear our tantrum of protest and no Bill of Rights, Constitution, or Geneva Convention on which to base it.
Today. Right now. It's time for Americans to decide what they believe is humane and moral. It's time for both red and blue Americans to decide if the laws of humanity have meaning in their lives. And if they do, then it's time for Americans to let the lawmakers, whose salaries come from their pockets, to know it, too.
As with the Patriot Act, you can skip all the worry about Geneva Article III. But you fail to act at your own future peril.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
As was the man he loves to hate, George W. Bush fears being accused of war crimes by virture, or the lack thereof, of his ordering or allowing the torture of enemy combatants, which is against Article III of the Geneva Convention. And some of those torturees, who have now been transferred from camps in Europe to Gitmo, are about to be interviewed by the Red Cross. Uh oh.
So, with a predictability we have come to expect from this administration when they haven't played by the rules, which is always, Bush now wants Congress to turn back the clock and make what he did yesterday legal today, which is the hallmark, if you will, of this administration's style of governance. Except that the word "hallmark" is often associated with something positive and this is nothing to be proud of. I call it the Wimpy strategy of governance, named after the character Wimpy on the Popeye cartoons. "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Let me have what I want today, and I'll twist someone's arm to compensate for it later.
In six long, seemingly endless years, George Bush has broken every principle on which America was founded, short of being caught in a ski mask with his hand in a teller drawer at Bank One. Given his bratty tirade yesterday, I'm expecting that to be next. His tantrum has presented Americans with the most important choice they have had to make since deciding to break away from England. And breaking the will of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove may prove to be as lengthy and as difficult.
The matter of Article III could be settled rather quickly and to the better nature of mankind, but it would require America's possessing a Congress that contained men and women as thoughtful and honorable as those of the Continental Congress. Thus far, the current American Congress, with the notable exception of a few--too few, has proven to have all the honor of Benedict Arnold and all the teeth of the president's lap dogs Barney and Beatrice.
Amidst the throes of Bush's Rose Garden tirade, David Gregory was effectively shushed when trying to get a straight answer to the $64,000 question in which he drew a parallel between America's torture of others and others' inevitable turn to torture us back. In essence Gregory was asking: If America allows its government to rewrite the Geneva Convention just to save the president's proverbial ass, how long, then, until another country does the same and redefines what they're allowed to do to us? I say, if military recruitment has been flailing of late, ditching Article III ought to finish it off.
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/gen/26714leg20060911.html
Gregory never got his straight answer. Instead, short of writhing on the ground, Bush snarlingly threatened the press, the Congress, and the American people by stating that if Article III was not amended to his liking, the whole program would stop. What program? What do we Americans call this program we're paying for? This administration has not been forthcoming about anything they do in the name of decent taxpaying Americans. Ever. So I say, go ahead. Stop the damned program. Maybe that will give us some breathing room to find out just what, roughly, this "program" has consisted of. Shouldn't we at least know since we will share the blame when our peerless leader gets caught at that teller drawer?
Awhile ago, when Americans failed to leave the mall and take to the streets to challenge the extended Patriot Act, we had already given our government the power to label any American an enemy combatant if it doesn't like what it hears or what it sees out of us. So this is maybe another good reason we should know more details of this damnable program--before one day they decide to use it on American citizens. Oh! Forgive my fuzzy memory. They already have.
Just where, exactly, is the line in the sand that Americans will not cross to be kept safe? Or is there one? I certainly hope, beyond all hope, that the line is here and the line is now. Torture by Americans is unacceptable. Torture of Americans is unacceptable. Rewriting the Geneva Convention to assuage the despot-in-chief's fears of legal repercussions against him and his minions is unacceptable. Congressional failure to stop this president from overturning the oaken table upon which rests the humanitarian foundations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is utterly unacceptable and opens the door even wider for the ultimate demise of a democratic America.
Just in case you've forgotten: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So when the torturers come for you or me, or for your loved one or mine, as they eventually will, we won't find ourselves sitting in a rose garden on a sunny day. And there will be no press to hear our tantrum of protest and no Bill of Rights, Constitution, or Geneva Convention on which to base it.
Today. Right now. It's time for Americans to decide what they believe is humane and moral. It's time for both red and blue Americans to decide if the laws of humanity have meaning in their lives. And if they do, then it's time for Americans to let the lawmakers, whose salaries come from their pockets, to know it, too.
As with the Patriot Act, you can skip all the worry about Geneva Article III. But you fail to act at your own future peril.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Of Planned Invasions and Stolen Elections
Twice within 48 hours, and from two separate soldiers stationed at bases on opposite sides of the country, I have heard the news that we are likely to invade Iran--in the very, very near future. Like, this Fall. Like, after the election, of course. (No sense in needlessly riling up the masses in November.)
Do these soldiers know what they are talking about? I can't guarantee it, but I do know enough about how slowly the military moves and how much advance prep they require for action to think that perhaps these guys may have a clue the rest of us don't.
Soldier One, a close family friend, relays to his mother that he will be begin a new deployment in early October. His mother asks, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier One responds, "No. They are talking about another country."
Soldier Two, spent the night in my home, a childhood friend of my son's. He tells me in the course of a conversation on how he's doing these days that he will be deployed again soon." I ask, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier Two responds, "No, probably Iran." He's special forces. Do you think he knows what he's talking about?
I can't guarantee that either is privvy to the last word in America's military strategy. But, based on Donald Rumsfeld's recent speech to the American Legion, I'd say Donald might be a little fuzzy on the details himself. It isn't what Rumsfeld says that matters anyway. It's all about what he and his cohorts do based on what they believe. It's also about what they're thinking of doing, and you don't honestly believe they're going to let the public in on that until they find a way to sell it or scare us into it, do you?
Bush and Co. dazzle us with terminology like Islamofascism, which according to Middle-East experts is a non-word and not remotely synonomous with the word terrorism. What are we being set up for this time? The idea, the likelihood of movement against Iran very soon is definitely on the lips of those who will be most affected. Why? Two soldiers who don't know one another and stationed on opposite sides of the country. Iran? They've gotten that idea from somebody in command.
So, assuming these soldiers are in the know, what does this say about the upcoming election? To me it smacks of cocksuredness on the part of the current Commander in Chief that today's status quo in Congress will still be the status quo in January. It would indicate that he see the November election as not even a speedbump in the road to achieving his goals. But are his goals Americans' goals?
April 6 of this year was the last time the U.S. House of Representatives took any action in committee on H.R. 550--a measure which, if made into law, would require a paper trail for electronic voting machines thus making all votes independently verifiable. I know this because I checked on our Reps progress on this matter. So, until pressured by citizens to enact some safeguards, once again the upcoming electronic election will be brought to you by that bastion of corporate Republicanism, the Diebold Corporation. I'm not feeling very comfortable about the health of our democracy right now. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/
To date, it has been very well documented what the Bush neo-conservatives who control the Republican party believe, and if you are fool enough to think it's Christian, think again. They have demonstrated their beliefs by their actions or non-actions over and over. Remember Katrina?
Now their message to the world from America, from you and me, is Our neo-conservatist fascists can kick the asses of your brand of fascists. Well, that strategy has not worked out so well in Iraq, has it? So don't expect to hear me defend the war. It's not the war on terror. It's just a war, begun by a class of people who had something to gain and access to plenty of cannon fodder. Some of that fodder I happen to personally know and love. Now it appears they arrogantly may be thinking of starting another war because, if the 2004 election is any indication, they clearly don't fear any stupid citizens getting in their way. http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
So, what do you believe, reader? I believe first and foremost in the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights. I believe citizens have a non-negotiable responsibility to find out what their candidates and leaders believe in before choosing to support them. I believe that "one citizen equals one" vote should be set like stone in the mortar of our forefathers' sacrifices and never subject to the interpretation of an individual, a government, or a political party.
When our votes stop counting, then this country stops being Ameria. I think it is way, way past time for all Americans who love this nation to come together as patriots on this one issue and demand of our representatives that they take immediate action on H.R. 550. Time is running out, and I don't think we'll find any democracy for ourselves on the road to Iran.
Do these soldiers know what they are talking about? I can't guarantee it, but I do know enough about how slowly the military moves and how much advance prep they require for action to think that perhaps these guys may have a clue the rest of us don't.
Soldier One, a close family friend, relays to his mother that he will be begin a new deployment in early October. His mother asks, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier One responds, "No. They are talking about another country."
Soldier Two, spent the night in my home, a childhood friend of my son's. He tells me in the course of a conversation on how he's doing these days that he will be deployed again soon." I ask, "Back to Iraq?" Soldier Two responds, "No, probably Iran." He's special forces. Do you think he knows what he's talking about?
I can't guarantee that either is privvy to the last word in America's military strategy. But, based on Donald Rumsfeld's recent speech to the American Legion, I'd say Donald might be a little fuzzy on the details himself. It isn't what Rumsfeld says that matters anyway. It's all about what he and his cohorts do based on what they believe. It's also about what they're thinking of doing, and you don't honestly believe they're going to let the public in on that until they find a way to sell it or scare us into it, do you?
Bush and Co. dazzle us with terminology like Islamofascism, which according to Middle-East experts is a non-word and not remotely synonomous with the word terrorism. What are we being set up for this time? The idea, the likelihood of movement against Iran very soon is definitely on the lips of those who will be most affected. Why? Two soldiers who don't know one another and stationed on opposite sides of the country. Iran? They've gotten that idea from somebody in command.
So, assuming these soldiers are in the know, what does this say about the upcoming election? To me it smacks of cocksuredness on the part of the current Commander in Chief that today's status quo in Congress will still be the status quo in January. It would indicate that he see the November election as not even a speedbump in the road to achieving his goals. But are his goals Americans' goals?
April 6 of this year was the last time the U.S. House of Representatives took any action in committee on H.R. 550--a measure which, if made into law, would require a paper trail for electronic voting machines thus making all votes independently verifiable. I know this because I checked on our Reps progress on this matter. So, until pressured by citizens to enact some safeguards, once again the upcoming electronic election will be brought to you by that bastion of corporate Republicanism, the Diebold Corporation. I'm not feeling very comfortable about the health of our democracy right now. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/
To date, it has been very well documented what the Bush neo-conservatives who control the Republican party believe, and if you are fool enough to think it's Christian, think again. They have demonstrated their beliefs by their actions or non-actions over and over. Remember Katrina?
Now their message to the world from America, from you and me, is Our neo-conservatist fascists can kick the asses of your brand of fascists. Well, that strategy has not worked out so well in Iraq, has it? So don't expect to hear me defend the war. It's not the war on terror. It's just a war, begun by a class of people who had something to gain and access to plenty of cannon fodder. Some of that fodder I happen to personally know and love. Now it appears they arrogantly may be thinking of starting another war because, if the 2004 election is any indication, they clearly don't fear any stupid citizens getting in their way. http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
So, what do you believe, reader? I believe first and foremost in the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights. I believe citizens have a non-negotiable responsibility to find out what their candidates and leaders believe in before choosing to support them. I believe that "one citizen equals one" vote should be set like stone in the mortar of our forefathers' sacrifices and never subject to the interpretation of an individual, a government, or a political party.
When our votes stop counting, then this country stops being Ameria. I think it is way, way past time for all Americans who love this nation to come together as patriots on this one issue and demand of our representatives that they take immediate action on H.R. 550. Time is running out, and I don't think we'll find any democracy for ourselves on the road to Iran.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Mom, What's A Neo-Con?
On a warm spring day when I was in the fifth grade, my mother took my friend Karen, my little brother, and me to a local park to play on the swings. It's a day I have never forgotten in almost 40 years because that was the day I showed my mother my middle finger and ask her what it meant.
Everyone on the playground at school had been flashing middle fingers for quite some time and Karen and I, who also attended Sunday school together, were clueless. We had discussed this frequently, decided it couldn't be too bad if other kids were doing it right out in the open on the playground, and we agreed this was as good an opportunity as any to ask someone who could fill us in.
This was the 60's in middle America, and I'll never forget my mother's reaction when I held up that middle finger and said, "Mom, what does this mean?" My mother dove for my hand, and it's lucky I still have that finger. "Don't ever, ever do that again!!!" she said. Her eyes were black, and when she let go, I backed up so fast I almost fell.
Now, if curiosity killed the cat, it also about got me killed that day because I couldn't let it go. I couldn't leave the park without finding out what I was missing, so I let the dust settle a moment and then blundered forward again, "Some of the kids say it means something called 'fuck'." Uh, oh. Black eyes again! "[Insert my full name here]!!!
You knew when your mom used your full name, the shit was about to get deep. "Well, if it does (she knew it did), don't you ever, ever use that word!!" Okay, I either wasn't the brightest bulb or I was the most stubborn. "But why? What does it mean?" She never did explain except to say, "Something very, very bad!"
Skip ahead to 2006. I've been a grown-up for what seems like forever. I've used the F*** word more than I care to admit. Now I know what it means and I have the children to prove it. But even adults can run across words and phrases with which they have been previously unfamiliar. Neo-conservative is just one such word.
I didn't know what it meant when I took about two looks and listens at George W. Bush prior to the 2000 election and I fled the Republican party on instinct alone. I didn't know what it meant as I followed the brouhaha over the results of that election. I still didn't know what the word meant as I watched planes slam into buildings or as I questioned what invading the country of Iraq had to do with any of it.
I didn't know what it meant as I watched a rerun of the 2000 election in 2004. I didn't know what it meant as I began to pay closer and closer attention to the homeland politics and foreign policy of the Bush administration, none of which made any sense or seemed in any way based on the values upon which Americans had built a solid and independent nation.
So I started to ask questions. I asked my mom, but for once she didn't know either. So, I started to dig around a little to see if I could determine the meaning of the word neo-conservative. I have liked what I've found about as much as mom liked my middle finger.
Here is the web address for a three-part BBC series I watched that documents the roots of the neo-conservative movement (and interestingly, also the modern fundamentalist Islam movement), and that documents how neo-conservatives have been lurking around the White House for quite a few years. You, no doubt, will recognize some names.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
A new world order, you say? Here are some prominent participants in helping to bring it all about. You may recognize some more names.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Neo-conservatives/list
Just how far are the neo-cons willing to go to bring about this "new world order"? Well now, that's debatable dependent upon how willing you are to listen open-mindedly to conspiracy theories and decide what you believe is true and what is not. But, you have to admit, these have never been your father's Republicans. So, here's a few sites to get you started:
http://www.911revisited.com/video.html
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?rurl=wc3cl.hs.gamigo.de&oid=e0ab8319e2989360&
http://www.infowars.com/sept11_archive.htm
I don't intend for this blog entry to be a clearinghouse for all websites related to neo-conservatism conspiracies. If you're reading this, you have a computer. So, send me some sites. But one final thing I found, and I sacrificed the six hours it took me to read it, may have helped me answer the burning question I could not escape. Why? What is the point to all this? Is there a point? One document always leads to another and one night I surfed right into this rocky shore:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm#PREFACE
Forty years ago, when life was simple and life was sweet, I never could have imagined I would grow up to witness the things I am witnessing in America today. Any search of the daily news leads me to believe that there is definitely a destructive agenda unfolding here and, apparently, at whatever cost to lives and nations is required to achieve it. Anything eminating from the Bush White House always dovetails so nicely into just about any conspiracy theory that is floating out there in cyberspace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ensmPJm5B5A
I have come to believe that America is not the victim of an incompetent "frat" boy who grew up to erringly become president. Rather I have come to believe that America is slowly being strangled to death by a group of elitist social philosophers whose social beliefs attract the greedy, the paranoid, the militant--and who believe they have a way to control all of society, indeed the world, and any end justifies the means.
I started this piece talking about my mother and giving an example of the affect she had on my learning to discern right from wrong. God love her. She's in her 80's now and still reads avidly and keeps up on politics and policy. We discuss the news and history and the conspiracy theories. And, unlike her unwillingness years ago to explain the meaning of the F*** word to a child, as an adult I have shared with her the definition of neo-con. Her response was both interesting and surprising.
She said neo-cons are something very, very bad, and unless Americans stop separating the forest from the trees, we may be fucked.
Everyone on the playground at school had been flashing middle fingers for quite some time and Karen and I, who also attended Sunday school together, were clueless. We had discussed this frequently, decided it couldn't be too bad if other kids were doing it right out in the open on the playground, and we agreed this was as good an opportunity as any to ask someone who could fill us in.
This was the 60's in middle America, and I'll never forget my mother's reaction when I held up that middle finger and said, "Mom, what does this mean?" My mother dove for my hand, and it's lucky I still have that finger. "Don't ever, ever do that again!!!" she said. Her eyes were black, and when she let go, I backed up so fast I almost fell.
Now, if curiosity killed the cat, it also about got me killed that day because I couldn't let it go. I couldn't leave the park without finding out what I was missing, so I let the dust settle a moment and then blundered forward again, "Some of the kids say it means something called 'fuck'." Uh, oh. Black eyes again! "[Insert my full name here]!!!
You knew when your mom used your full name, the shit was about to get deep. "Well, if it does (she knew it did), don't you ever, ever use that word!!" Okay, I either wasn't the brightest bulb or I was the most stubborn. "But why? What does it mean?" She never did explain except to say, "Something very, very bad!"
Skip ahead to 2006. I've been a grown-up for what seems like forever. I've used the F*** word more than I care to admit. Now I know what it means and I have the children to prove it. But even adults can run across words and phrases with which they have been previously unfamiliar. Neo-conservative is just one such word.
I didn't know what it meant when I took about two looks and listens at George W. Bush prior to the 2000 election and I fled the Republican party on instinct alone. I didn't know what it meant as I followed the brouhaha over the results of that election. I still didn't know what the word meant as I watched planes slam into buildings or as I questioned what invading the country of Iraq had to do with any of it.
I didn't know what it meant as I watched a rerun of the 2000 election in 2004. I didn't know what it meant as I began to pay closer and closer attention to the homeland politics and foreign policy of the Bush administration, none of which made any sense or seemed in any way based on the values upon which Americans had built a solid and independent nation.
So I started to ask questions. I asked my mom, but for once she didn't know either. So, I started to dig around a little to see if I could determine the meaning of the word neo-conservative. I have liked what I've found about as much as mom liked my middle finger.
Here is the web address for a three-part BBC series I watched that documents the roots of the neo-conservative movement (and interestingly, also the modern fundamentalist Islam movement), and that documents how neo-conservatives have been lurking around the White House for quite a few years. You, no doubt, will recognize some names.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
A new world order, you say? Here are some prominent participants in helping to bring it all about. You may recognize some more names.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Neo-conservatives/list
Just how far are the neo-cons willing to go to bring about this "new world order"? Well now, that's debatable dependent upon how willing you are to listen open-mindedly to conspiracy theories and decide what you believe is true and what is not. But, you have to admit, these have never been your father's Republicans. So, here's a few sites to get you started:
http://www.911revisited.com/video.html
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?rurl=wc3cl.hs.gamigo.de&oid=e0ab8319e2989360&
http://www.infowars.com/sept11_archive.htm
I don't intend for this blog entry to be a clearinghouse for all websites related to neo-conservatism conspiracies. If you're reading this, you have a computer. So, send me some sites. But one final thing I found, and I sacrificed the six hours it took me to read it, may have helped me answer the burning question I could not escape. Why? What is the point to all this? Is there a point? One document always leads to another and one night I surfed right into this rocky shore:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm#PREFACE
Forty years ago, when life was simple and life was sweet, I never could have imagined I would grow up to witness the things I am witnessing in America today. Any search of the daily news leads me to believe that there is definitely a destructive agenda unfolding here and, apparently, at whatever cost to lives and nations is required to achieve it. Anything eminating from the Bush White House always dovetails so nicely into just about any conspiracy theory that is floating out there in cyberspace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ensmPJm5B5A
I have come to believe that America is not the victim of an incompetent "frat" boy who grew up to erringly become president. Rather I have come to believe that America is slowly being strangled to death by a group of elitist social philosophers whose social beliefs attract the greedy, the paranoid, the militant--and who believe they have a way to control all of society, indeed the world, and any end justifies the means.
I started this piece talking about my mother and giving an example of the affect she had on my learning to discern right from wrong. God love her. She's in her 80's now and still reads avidly and keeps up on politics and policy. We discuss the news and history and the conspiracy theories. And, unlike her unwillingness years ago to explain the meaning of the F*** word to a child, as an adult I have shared with her the definition of neo-con. Her response was both interesting and surprising.
She said neo-cons are something very, very bad, and unless Americans stop separating the forest from the trees, we may be fucked.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Public Education is Being Murdered
This is cross-posted as a diary on http://www.mydd.com
I have been laid off for two years as a public school teacher. NCLB has hit public school districts very hard financially. The poorer the district, the harder they've been hit. Hence they've had to toss teachers and programs until they are down to the "core" subjects.
Districts with a higher percentage of minority and/or poverty students were struggling to begin with in trying to overcome the environmental challenges to learning their students showed up to school with daily. That programs like business ed, art, music, and technical education should have to be tossed is not only leaving behind the students in white suburban schools, but again hitting the poorer districts the hardest. NCLB has resulted in a back-door form of socio-economic discrimination.
The NCLB mandate was unfunded and, I believe, that was no accident. In Ohio, a leading contributor to our political candidates also just happens to own a large number of charter schools.
The Bush administration does not believe in the value of public education or perhaps in any education for the public at all. It makes folks so much easier to lead off a cliff if they are ignorant. So, for now, a rich white man will make some money off his charter schools until their negative reputations finally reach the masses, which is finally beginning to happen.
It would behoove the NEA and the AFT to call for a nation-wide teachers' strike in September. I'll bet nothing would get NCLB repealed faster than a lot of parents who don't know what to do with their children seven days a week taking it out on their state and Congressional representatives.
There is not that wide a slice out of the whole societal pie who feel the calling to spend 185 days a year with 30 of their neighbors' children, and to do it for 30 years. I think it would work!
I have been laid off for two years as a public school teacher. NCLB has hit public school districts very hard financially. The poorer the district, the harder they've been hit. Hence they've had to toss teachers and programs until they are down to the "core" subjects.
Districts with a higher percentage of minority and/or poverty students were struggling to begin with in trying to overcome the environmental challenges to learning their students showed up to school with daily. That programs like business ed, art, music, and technical education should have to be tossed is not only leaving behind the students in white suburban schools, but again hitting the poorer districts the hardest. NCLB has resulted in a back-door form of socio-economic discrimination.
The NCLB mandate was unfunded and, I believe, that was no accident. In Ohio, a leading contributor to our political candidates also just happens to own a large number of charter schools.
The Bush administration does not believe in the value of public education or perhaps in any education for the public at all. It makes folks so much easier to lead off a cliff if they are ignorant. So, for now, a rich white man will make some money off his charter schools until their negative reputations finally reach the masses, which is finally beginning to happen.
It would behoove the NEA and the AFT to call for a nation-wide teachers' strike in September. I'll bet nothing would get NCLB repealed faster than a lot of parents who don't know what to do with their children seven days a week taking it out on their state and Congressional representatives.
There is not that wide a slice out of the whole societal pie who feel the calling to spend 185 days a year with 30 of their neighbors' children, and to do it for 30 years. I think it would work!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
America's Leaders Care Little for Whom the Bell Tolls
In 1775, the church bells rang from the steeple at the Old North Church in Boston to let residents know that British regulars were on the way. The bells rang again in 1776 in celebration of the Declaration of Independence.
In 1811 the New Madrid Fault zone in the middle of the country shook the ground so far eastward that it caused the bells in Boston to ring on their own. And when our founding fathers start rolling in their graves in utter despair at the mess that’s being made of their creation, no doubt, the ground will shake and the bells will ring on their own once again.
The founding fathers, in birthing this nation, wrestled with conscience and argued among themselves to hammer out agreements of civilized governing principle. They wrote and rewrote their fingers to the bone to get those agreements down on paper. They risked being hanged for treason for their efforts. And with little money they found a way to stand as one and fight to win a war against the strongest army and biggest navy on earth. They did this not only to extricate themselves from a monarchy but to go above and beyond that Herculean effort to create a government unlike anything the world had known before. They chose to live free or die trying. They sacrificed. Americans sacrificed.
Americans have never stopped wrestling with conscience, and they have never stopped sacrificing. Americans have been asked to sacrifice personal property, jobs, health, their very lives and the lives of their beloved through the years to keep America free and strong. American history bears witness to Americans always stepping up to the plate when need be to preserve the union and the principles on which it was founded.
America doesn't always get it right, but it has always lived free or died trying. America's leaders don't always get it right either, but because America's governmental doctrines were alive among its people through the shared memory of sacrifice, if the leaders got it wrong or their reach exceeded their grasp, course corrections were usually made. At least they were possible.
Today, it is unconscionable that in 5 1/2 short years, roughly one-half the time it took to officially birth this nation, 230 years of sacrifice is headed down the drain. It is unconscionable that we should find ourselves about to hold unverifiable electronic elections in November. It is unconscionable that representatives chosen to serve in the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives find so little to respect in America or her people that they would hijack entire districts through systematic gerrymandering to ensure their job security while denying it to their constituents.
It is unconscionable that we find ourselves squeezed so tightly in the grasp of consumerism and credit lending that we have created huge money and then given it a stranglehold on our representation and our ideals, our past sacrifices devoured by big eaters swallowing them in big bites. It is unconscionable that public lands and ports and debt are all for sale to the highest global bidder.
It unconscionable that greed is the watchword of the new millennium and the greed masters have bestowed favors on their own kind while slapping each others' backs, entertained, as the lions corner the common man. It is unconscionable that our leaders pick and choose which laws to enforce and then look the other way while corporations again become major trusts and jobs scramble over the border as illegal immigrants scramble in.
It is unconscionable that we would by proxy give our president and our vice-president carte blanche to make us one of the most despised nations in the world when Americans have fought and died for over 200 years to create peace and seek friendship among nations. And it is unconscionable that these same two leaders would sell our collective souls to the devil of tyranny in the name of Jesus in order to monitor everything we say and do and call it Homeland Security.
It is unconscionable that America is now poised to become a mere footnote in history--an experiment that didn't work, a commodity that was bartered, sold, frittered away in fear. Our forefathers risked everything to conceive a nation born of liberty and the inalienable rights of its citizens. It is inconceivable that now we would kick it all to the curb like a rump-sprung sofa.
If our forefathers do stir from their eternal slumber and cause the East Coast to rumble and church bells to ring in Boston, this time it won't be the work of the New Madrid Fault. It will be our own fault.
In 1811 the New Madrid Fault zone in the middle of the country shook the ground so far eastward that it caused the bells in Boston to ring on their own. And when our founding fathers start rolling in their graves in utter despair at the mess that’s being made of their creation, no doubt, the ground will shake and the bells will ring on their own once again.
The founding fathers, in birthing this nation, wrestled with conscience and argued among themselves to hammer out agreements of civilized governing principle. They wrote and rewrote their fingers to the bone to get those agreements down on paper. They risked being hanged for treason for their efforts. And with little money they found a way to stand as one and fight to win a war against the strongest army and biggest navy on earth. They did this not only to extricate themselves from a monarchy but to go above and beyond that Herculean effort to create a government unlike anything the world had known before. They chose to live free or die trying. They sacrificed. Americans sacrificed.
Americans have never stopped wrestling with conscience, and they have never stopped sacrificing. Americans have been asked to sacrifice personal property, jobs, health, their very lives and the lives of their beloved through the years to keep America free and strong. American history bears witness to Americans always stepping up to the plate when need be to preserve the union and the principles on which it was founded.
America doesn't always get it right, but it has always lived free or died trying. America's leaders don't always get it right either, but because America's governmental doctrines were alive among its people through the shared memory of sacrifice, if the leaders got it wrong or their reach exceeded their grasp, course corrections were usually made. At least they were possible.
Today, it is unconscionable that in 5 1/2 short years, roughly one-half the time it took to officially birth this nation, 230 years of sacrifice is headed down the drain. It is unconscionable that we should find ourselves about to hold unverifiable electronic elections in November. It is unconscionable that representatives chosen to serve in the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives find so little to respect in America or her people that they would hijack entire districts through systematic gerrymandering to ensure their job security while denying it to their constituents.
It is unconscionable that we find ourselves squeezed so tightly in the grasp of consumerism and credit lending that we have created huge money and then given it a stranglehold on our representation and our ideals, our past sacrifices devoured by big eaters swallowing them in big bites. It is unconscionable that public lands and ports and debt are all for sale to the highest global bidder.
It unconscionable that greed is the watchword of the new millennium and the greed masters have bestowed favors on their own kind while slapping each others' backs, entertained, as the lions corner the common man. It is unconscionable that our leaders pick and choose which laws to enforce and then look the other way while corporations again become major trusts and jobs scramble over the border as illegal immigrants scramble in.
It is unconscionable that we would by proxy give our president and our vice-president carte blanche to make us one of the most despised nations in the world when Americans have fought and died for over 200 years to create peace and seek friendship among nations. And it is unconscionable that these same two leaders would sell our collective souls to the devil of tyranny in the name of Jesus in order to monitor everything we say and do and call it Homeland Security.
It is unconscionable that America is now poised to become a mere footnote in history--an experiment that didn't work, a commodity that was bartered, sold, frittered away in fear. Our forefathers risked everything to conceive a nation born of liberty and the inalienable rights of its citizens. It is inconceivable that now we would kick it all to the curb like a rump-sprung sofa.
If our forefathers do stir from their eternal slumber and cause the East Coast to rumble and church bells to ring in Boston, this time it won't be the work of the New Madrid Fault. It will be our own fault.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Electronic Voting Must Be More than Smoke and Mirrors
In a democracy, voting is a sacred right and responsibility of its citizens. Making sure votes are tallied accurately and honestly is a sacred trust charged to the government. Requiring citizens to cast ballots electronically without the accountability of a paper trail is a breach of that trust. It is not a democratic election if the results cannot be independently and tangibly verified.
Paperless electronic voting, as it currently exists, is vulnerable to fraud. This is as unacceptable to democratic citizens as the idea of no receipts at the ATM is to bank customers. Right now is the time for our representatives to involve themselves in fixing this new system by insuring that it becomes one of tamperproof integrity.
If our representatives wish us to believe that they, too, hold sacred a fair and honest democratic voting process, they need to co-sponsor H.R. 550--the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. Contact your representative's office and urge him or her to do so
http://www.house.gov/
Paperless electronic voting, as it currently exists, is vulnerable to fraud. This is as unacceptable to democratic citizens as the idea of no receipts at the ATM is to bank customers. Right now is the time for our representatives to involve themselves in fixing this new system by insuring that it becomes one of tamperproof integrity.
If our representatives wish us to believe that they, too, hold sacred a fair and honest democratic voting process, they need to co-sponsor H.R. 550--the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. Contact your representative's office and urge him or her to do so
http://www.house.gov/
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Are These Truths Still Self-Evident?
When in the Course of human events . . .The founders of this nation valued the concepts of freedom, equality, and representative government so much that they gave of their pens and their lives to give these concepts a permanent home in the hearts and minds of the people of the original thirteen colonies.
Did they conceptualize in 1776 that the united States of America would become 50 states, eventually cover a vast amount of North America, and its citizenry be comprised of a complexity of religions, creeds, and races? It could be that they did. Or that they hoped, because they certainly authored some Divinely-inspired documents which, if followed, leave no doubt as to their intentions for the 
nation's future.
all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accumstomed. . .
While the founding fathers could not have conceived of penicillin, moon landings, or weblogs, they did not have to because they could conceive of the nature of man and his tendency to become complacent during good times and accepting during bad. They also understood that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and in anticipation of the pains required to throw off the mantle of British tyranny, they crafted the Constitution. Three branches of government checking on and balancing out one another. No power grabs allowed.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .This 4th of July, 2006, is the 230th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This year while we boat and camp and picnic with friends and family, we should be stopping to wonder if the democratic truths we once held dear are still self-evident. Or have we grown accepting of imitation democracy? What or who are our constitutionally- provided representatives representing? Where is the tipping point that denotes the end of democracy and the beginning of something that loops us back to 1776?
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Americans might not agree on the fine points, but when we decline to agree on the major ones, it is doubtful we will long continue to be the united States of America. Newly realized truths will become self-evident, and we will wish we had stuck to the plan.
Have a Safe Holiday!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Enough Offense to Go Around
Recently the New York Times released a story in which they disclosed a bank records surveillance program the government was using to track the movement of funds going to terrorist groups. Immediately following, Vice President Dick Cheney stood before a Republican fund-raising luncheon in Chicago and stated he was offended by the actions of the NY Times.
I watched the clip of Cheney delivering these statements, and I'm positive my level of offense was higher on the meter than his. To begin with, unless you were hiding in a hole after 9/11 and not watching any news at all, you would know that pundits were freely discussing the ability of the United States to follow the money--of anyone, not only jihadists. Secondly, even drug dealers with only eighth grade educations know that the government can follow the money. That is why they generally don't sashay into the bank with a deposit slip and a fistful of it. Do not have your best garage sale ever and then walk into the bank to deposit $10,000 or more. You'll trip every trigger in the system. It's always been that way. So Mr. Cheney can stop pouting. I think that cat was already out of the bag.
Mr. Cheney also stood before his fellow diners and informed them that the release by the NY Times of this information would make it more difficult to "prevent future attacks against the American people." Maybe the NY Times is not the problem here. When this administration took office in 2001, White House insiders like Richard Clarke tried like hell to make Bush et. al. aware that an attack was imminent. Poor Mr. Clarke even cancelled the vacations of his staff to work the situation. He was eventually told to shut up and go away. I once heard poor Richard state that Mr. Bush told him he did not want to hear one more word about it. Apparently, Mr. Clarke and others complied and the Able Danger case was born.
I have taught enough public school to know all the blame games. There are many variations. As I watched Mr. Cheney make his statements on the news, I had his version pegged immediately. I'm sure it would never occur to him that the news media is watching him because of the way he is watching them, and us. Other than those who attend Republican fund-raising luncheons, where Cheney took occasion to raise this issue as his fellow Republicans sipped their Kool Aid and looked on, no one trusts the two cowboys who hold the highest office in the land. It's like Brokeback Mountain without the sex.
Sorry, Mr. Cheney. You can't start a war based on skewed intelligence where thousands of your countrymen's children will be killed or maimed, you can't give your old employer billions in no-bid contracts while your countrymen have watched their jobs disappear and their worlds collapse, you can't consistently let your reach exceed your lawful grasp and expect anyone except your fellow neo-conservatives to care if you're offended. Talk to the hand.
There's more than enough offense to go around.
I watched the clip of Cheney delivering these statements, and I'm positive my level of offense was higher on the meter than his. To begin with, unless you were hiding in a hole after 9/11 and not watching any news at all, you would know that pundits were freely discussing the ability of the United States to follow the money--of anyone, not only jihadists. Secondly, even drug dealers with only eighth grade educations know that the government can follow the money. That is why they generally don't sashay into the bank with a deposit slip and a fistful of it. Do not have your best garage sale ever and then walk into the bank to deposit $10,000 or more. You'll trip every trigger in the system. It's always been that way. So Mr. Cheney can stop pouting. I think that cat was already out of the bag.
Mr. Cheney also stood before his fellow diners and informed them that the release by the NY Times of this information would make it more difficult to "prevent future attacks against the American people." Maybe the NY Times is not the problem here. When this administration took office in 2001, White House insiders like Richard Clarke tried like hell to make Bush et. al. aware that an attack was imminent. Poor Mr. Clarke even cancelled the vacations of his staff to work the situation. He was eventually told to shut up and go away. I once heard poor Richard state that Mr. Bush told him he did not want to hear one more word about it. Apparently, Mr. Clarke and others complied and the Able Danger case was born.
I have taught enough public school to know all the blame games. There are many variations. As I watched Mr. Cheney make his statements on the news, I had his version pegged immediately. I'm sure it would never occur to him that the news media is watching him because of the way he is watching them, and us. Other than those who attend Republican fund-raising luncheons, where Cheney took occasion to raise this issue as his fellow Republicans sipped their Kool Aid and looked on, no one trusts the two cowboys who hold the highest office in the land. It's like Brokeback Mountain without the sex.
Sorry, Mr. Cheney. You can't start a war based on skewed intelligence where thousands of your countrymen's children will be killed or maimed, you can't give your old employer billions in no-bid contracts while your countrymen have watched their jobs disappear and their worlds collapse, you can't consistently let your reach exceed your lawful grasp and expect anyone except your fellow neo-conservatives to care if you're offended. Talk to the hand.
There's more than enough offense to go around.
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