When I was ten years old, we spent a summer in San Antonio, Texas while my dad, 38 at the time, went through boot camp after being drafted to serve in Korea. We rented a home in a pleasant neighborhood, and one of the new friends I made was Pepe, the gardener for the home across the street. Pepe didn’t speak much English, and I don’t think he was too bright either, because I clearly remember the day he tried to take out a hornets nest by spraying it with a water hose. My brother and I thought watching him run screaming down the street with a swarm of wasps hot on his trail was funny, but then at the time we weren’t any brighter than Pepe.
It is really sad to say that I think our president is a whole lot like Pepe. Confronted with the problem of terrorism, he and his cronies have chosen to launch our tech laden military in their “war terrorism”. Like Pepe they chose the wrong weapon, but they took it one giant step further and chose to fight their fight in a place that had no relation at all to terrorism.
And what’s been going on behind their backs while they flail away at the nest they said was filled with wasps? The LA Times has compiled a report card. http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2007-11/33860990.pdf By every measure, they have exposed the world and the U.S. to much greater danger than existed five years ago. To top it off, they have arrested and illegally dealt with thousands of prisoners who have never been found guilty of anything – more water on the Al Qaida nest.
And yet, some people find ways to support this negative nonsense. The rest of us had better find a way to turn off BushCo’s water and start focusing on the real terrorists and targeted actions before the wasps figure out that all our methods are useless against them.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Political Weather
So . . . we made it to March and February won’t go away. This weather just lingers on as though the border slipped and Canada is now in Missouri. It’s as though March can’t face the facts and own up to its responsibility to bring warmth and daffodils into our lives.
It reminds me of my Republican friends – able to keep hanging on to their belief in the righteousness of their party even in the face of mountains of evidence that they’ve been had.
Of course, most of us are in the same boat. Most people still think they are well informed and free, but the fact is that our press does little more than to delude us by not printing what is actually happening in the world while they do print all the newsertainment we don’t need to know at all. The end result is that we are easily manipulated by the people we elect to national office.
We cling to the hope-filled belief that our country stands for something nobler than the accumulation of material wealth, but we ignore every fact around us to do so. The tingles the Star Spangled Banner used to give us have long faded into the smog filled, ozone depleted air we breathe these days, but hope still remains.
We look at a youthful presidential hopeful with his March-like flashing eyes and huge smile and hope against hope that his hope is real; and we look at the outgoing president, whose history is as bleak and cold as the worst February, as we sigh thankfully that we will not much longer have to watch his manipulative machinations steal away the soul of our Constitution and our own hope rises in spite of the fact that we are well aware that the system has so long been irrevocably broken that these cold dreary February skies will hang over us forever.
We maintain our hope in spite of knowing that in our two party system you and I have no representation. We have two political parties and both are wholly owned subsidiaries of the top earning 1 to 2 percent. The remaining 98 -99 percent – that’s you and me – have no representation at all. And yet, we hopefully look to the ephemeral skies of March for relief.
I support Barack Obama for president, but only for two reasons. First because he is not a Republican and so is not as obviously a lackey for the super rich as every Republican president since Eisenhower, and second – and most people seem to think this is a liability – because he is apparently naïve enough to think that he can really accomplish the things he talks about.
It may be that he is just a good enough actor to fool me into believing his exuberance, but failing that I find his naivety to be evidence that he has not yet been co-opted. That puts him in the same class as Jimmy Carter, who came into the presidency with even less Washington D. C. baggage than Obama carries and was resultantly the most truly moral president we have ever had.
Republicans hold him in disdain, but the fact is that Carter brought with him many ideas of great value to America, and the Congress – shutting him out for his independence and lack of loyalty to big money – put the brakes on his every initiative. Ultimately he was undone by the hostage crisis when a sand screen failed on a helicopter and scotched his rescue attempt. At the same time, Reagan was negotiating to have the hostages held until he was elected. They were released the day after he took office and the news media failed to investigate the connection. They had already been co-opted you see, but that situation has greatly worsened over the past twenty years with deregulation that has allowed virtual news monopoly.
Should Obama win this election, I expect that he will meet with the same kind of fate. Even if we manage to bolster the Democrats’ majority in the Congress, he will be faced with overwhelming economic and foreign policy difficulties left him by the Bush administration. He will also most likely be saddled with a Congress that, just like Carter’s bunch, will not have the gumption and foresight to support his lead. The result will be that he will be left swinging in the breeze and vulnerable to a failed attempt at a second term just as Jimmy was.
That really scares me, but what scares me more is if I’m wrong. What if Obama wins the election then gets to work hand in hand with an aggressive, forward-thinking Congress? That would put his life in great jeopardy.
The real problem, you see, isn’t just that we have had to suffer through the BushCo years. The real problem is that BushCo is just the first grossly transparent product of the Orwellian mess this country is in. The real problem is that we are living Orwell’s 1984, and 90% of the population doesn’t even know it. The real problem is that our system is already so broken that even our Congress is either so out of touch with history as to fail to understand the Constitution or so corrupt by their power and the support of that top 1% that they don’t care that people like dick Cheney and Karl Rove and W can ride roughshod over the balance of powers and the rights of the people and get away with it.
In the last eight years we have witnessed the theft of two presidential elections, the bald-faced denial of the presidential responsibility to obey the laws of the land, the breakdown of the protections of the Constitution for the rights of the citizenry, the attack of another sovereign nation without cause, and the politicization of every bureaucracy within the federal government including the Justice Department and the Supreme Court.
And we voters think that we can elect an optimistic young black man then sit back and watch him turn all this around??!!
Given the chance, I will vote for Barack Obama. I will watch to see what he tries to do in his first six months in office. Then, if he really seems to be trying to make the changes he talks about, I will do everything I can to support him because I think that unless the citizens of this country get out on the streets and actively support him, we will be doomed to watch him fail (thanks to a fat cat Congress and a wholly owned media) or, worse yet, watch him be successful enough to end up being buried in yet another pompously crocodilian state funeral.
I wish I could be more optimistic, but in this kind of weather what’s the chance of that?!
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
It reminds me of my Republican friends – able to keep hanging on to their belief in the righteousness of their party even in the face of mountains of evidence that they’ve been had.
Of course, most of us are in the same boat. Most people still think they are well informed and free, but the fact is that our press does little more than to delude us by not printing what is actually happening in the world while they do print all the newsertainment we don’t need to know at all. The end result is that we are easily manipulated by the people we elect to national office.
We cling to the hope-filled belief that our country stands for something nobler than the accumulation of material wealth, but we ignore every fact around us to do so. The tingles the Star Spangled Banner used to give us have long faded into the smog filled, ozone depleted air we breathe these days, but hope still remains.
We look at a youthful presidential hopeful with his March-like flashing eyes and huge smile and hope against hope that his hope is real; and we look at the outgoing president, whose history is as bleak and cold as the worst February, as we sigh thankfully that we will not much longer have to watch his manipulative machinations steal away the soul of our Constitution and our own hope rises in spite of the fact that we are well aware that the system has so long been irrevocably broken that these cold dreary February skies will hang over us forever.
We maintain our hope in spite of knowing that in our two party system you and I have no representation. We have two political parties and both are wholly owned subsidiaries of the top earning 1 to 2 percent. The remaining 98 -99 percent – that’s you and me – have no representation at all. And yet, we hopefully look to the ephemeral skies of March for relief.
I support Barack Obama for president, but only for two reasons. First because he is not a Republican and so is not as obviously a lackey for the super rich as every Republican president since Eisenhower, and second – and most people seem to think this is a liability – because he is apparently naïve enough to think that he can really accomplish the things he talks about.
It may be that he is just a good enough actor to fool me into believing his exuberance, but failing that I find his naivety to be evidence that he has not yet been co-opted. That puts him in the same class as Jimmy Carter, who came into the presidency with even less Washington D. C. baggage than Obama carries and was resultantly the most truly moral president we have ever had.
Republicans hold him in disdain, but the fact is that Carter brought with him many ideas of great value to America, and the Congress – shutting him out for his independence and lack of loyalty to big money – put the brakes on his every initiative. Ultimately he was undone by the hostage crisis when a sand screen failed on a helicopter and scotched his rescue attempt. At the same time, Reagan was negotiating to have the hostages held until he was elected. They were released the day after he took office and the news media failed to investigate the connection. They had already been co-opted you see, but that situation has greatly worsened over the past twenty years with deregulation that has allowed virtual news monopoly.
Should Obama win this election, I expect that he will meet with the same kind of fate. Even if we manage to bolster the Democrats’ majority in the Congress, he will be faced with overwhelming economic and foreign policy difficulties left him by the Bush administration. He will also most likely be saddled with a Congress that, just like Carter’s bunch, will not have the gumption and foresight to support his lead. The result will be that he will be left swinging in the breeze and vulnerable to a failed attempt at a second term just as Jimmy was.
That really scares me, but what scares me more is if I’m wrong. What if Obama wins the election then gets to work hand in hand with an aggressive, forward-thinking Congress? That would put his life in great jeopardy.
The real problem, you see, isn’t just that we have had to suffer through the BushCo years. The real problem is that BushCo is just the first grossly transparent product of the Orwellian mess this country is in. The real problem is that we are living Orwell’s 1984, and 90% of the population doesn’t even know it. The real problem is that our system is already so broken that even our Congress is either so out of touch with history as to fail to understand the Constitution or so corrupt by their power and the support of that top 1% that they don’t care that people like dick Cheney and Karl Rove and W can ride roughshod over the balance of powers and the rights of the people and get away with it.
In the last eight years we have witnessed the theft of two presidential elections, the bald-faced denial of the presidential responsibility to obey the laws of the land, the breakdown of the protections of the Constitution for the rights of the citizenry, the attack of another sovereign nation without cause, and the politicization of every bureaucracy within the federal government including the Justice Department and the Supreme Court.
And we voters think that we can elect an optimistic young black man then sit back and watch him turn all this around??!!
Given the chance, I will vote for Barack Obama. I will watch to see what he tries to do in his first six months in office. Then, if he really seems to be trying to make the changes he talks about, I will do everything I can to support him because I think that unless the citizens of this country get out on the streets and actively support him, we will be doomed to watch him fail (thanks to a fat cat Congress and a wholly owned media) or, worse yet, watch him be successful enough to end up being buried in yet another pompously crocodilian state funeral.
I wish I could be more optimistic, but in this kind of weather what’s the chance of that?!
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Friday, February 29, 2008
National Security Nonsense
I have written many times about the duplicity and manipulative nature of the Bush administration. Lately the head butting in Congress has been about the Protect America Act. (Following the basic tenet that the name of any bill before Congress for years has to be defined as being the exact opposite of what the name implies, this bill obviously seeks to break down protections for American citizens!)
I had been planning to address this issue in a blog, but yesterday’s post by the Center for American Progress Action Fund not only beat me to the punch, but did it with a much higher degree of research and references than I could have done. For that reason, I have copied their entire message below. I have not entered in all of the references they supplied, however, so if you want to trace it all down, please go to: www.americanprogressaction.org and check out their Progress Report for February 28, 2008.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Playing Games With National Security
At midnight on Feb. 16, the hastily-passed Protect America Act (PAA) expired after the Bush administration and its supporters refused to support a 21-day extension of the PAA. House Democrats sought the extension in order to reconcile a Senate intelligence bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who participated in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program after 9/11 with the House-approved RESTORE Act, which contains more civil liberties protections and no retroactive immunity. Angered that House Democrats didn't "blink" in the face of administration claims that "failure to pass" the Senate bill "would jeopardize the security of our citizens," President Bush and his allies in Congress have launched a daily fear-mongering campaign to pressure the House into passing the law. At the same time, congressional Republicans have refused to participate in negotiations between the House and Senate, and Bush has said that he will not compromise on the most contentious issue holding up the bill -- retroactive immunity for telecoms. Instead of negotiating, Bush plans to hammer away at Congress with misleading claims that America has "lost intelligence information" because of the law's lapse and the lack of immunity for telecoms.
'LOST INTELLIGENCE': Last Friday, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey sent a letter to House Intelligence Committee chair Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), claiming that "we have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act." Mukasey and McConnell claimed that private companies had "delayed or refused compliance" with administration "requests to initiate new surveillances of terrorist and other foreign intelligence targets." Hours after the letter was released, however, "administration officials told lawmakers that the final holdout among the companies had relented and agreed to fully participate in the surveillance program." Even so, in his radio address the next morning, Bush claimed that "the House's refusal to act is undermining our ability to get cooperation from private companies." In a Senate hearing yesterday, McConnell reluctantly admitted that White House officials were informed on "Friday night" about the developments, but Bush went ahead and aired his false attack in the radio address the next day anyway. In reality, "one lawyer in the telecommunications industry" who spoke to the New York Times said that "he had seen little practical effect on the industry's surveillance operations since the law expired."
FEAR-MONGERING ATTACK ADS: Since the expiration of the PAA, conservatives have launched a full-scale public relations battle to paint opponents of the Senate bill as a threat to national security. Last week, House Republicans launched a web ad modeled on the show 24, bellowing that "America is at risk," implying that a terrorist attack is imminent without the PAA. Last Friday, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and an affiliated 501(c)(4) group called Defense of Democracies ran ads in 15 congressional districts and 17 media markets that erroneously claim "the law that lets intelligence agencies intercept Al Qaeda communications expire[d]" while showing a picture of Osama Bin Laden. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is nominally a nonpartisan think tank, but after the disingenuous ads aired, most of the liberals on the groups board of advisers quit. In a statement explaining her resignation from the group, political consultant Donna Brazile said she joined the organization because it was "committed to defending democratic values," but "due to the influence of their funders, in the last few years, FDD has morphed into a radical right wing organization that is doing the dirty work for the Bush Administration."
IT'S THE IMMUNITY, STUPID: In a fear-mongering op-ed for Investor's Business Daily this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claims that House Democrats don't want necessary "updates" and "improvements" to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that take "take technological advances" since 1978 into account. This claim is false. In November, the House passed the RESTORE Act, which fixes the gaps in FISA, but doesn't include retroactive immunity for telecoms. As DNI McConnell admitted to NPR recently, "the real issue" is "liability protection for the private sector." But the administration is having difficulty making a compelling argument for immunity. Both the original PAA and the RESTORE Act include prospective immunity for telecommunications companies, which means companies that lawfully cooperate with the surveillance program in the future would be protected from lawsuits. In fact, even in the original FISA law, cooperation by telecoms is not optional, but required, and they have always had immunity if they obey the law. Asked last Friday to explain "the administration's argument that without this retroactive immunity, the telecoms would be reluctant in the future to cooperate" even though they have prospective immunity, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel was unable to give a straight answer. Unable to explain how retroactive immunity is necessary for ensuring future cooperation, President Bush has been reduced to arguing "it's not fair" to allow "class action lawsuits against private phone carriers and other companies that are believed to have helped us protect America."
This process of playing fast and loose with the rights of American citizens as well as with facts and fears has been stale for a long time, but the Repulsicans continue to go with it. I wish I could say that it was just Bush and his cronies, but the fact is that it is the continuation of the Gingrich policy of refusal to negotiate, compromise, or consider the well-being of the nation over the image of the party.
Deliver us from “leaders” who would kill the patient and say that cured the disease.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
I had been planning to address this issue in a blog, but yesterday’s post by the Center for American Progress Action Fund not only beat me to the punch, but did it with a much higher degree of research and references than I could have done. For that reason, I have copied their entire message below. I have not entered in all of the references they supplied, however, so if you want to trace it all down, please go to: www.americanprogressaction.org and check out their Progress Report for February 28, 2008.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Playing Games With National Security
At midnight on Feb. 16, the hastily-passed Protect America Act (PAA) expired after the Bush administration and its supporters refused to support a 21-day extension of the PAA. House Democrats sought the extension in order to reconcile a Senate intelligence bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who participated in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program after 9/11 with the House-approved RESTORE Act, which contains more civil liberties protections and no retroactive immunity. Angered that House Democrats didn't "blink" in the face of administration claims that "failure to pass" the Senate bill "would jeopardize the security of our citizens," President Bush and his allies in Congress have launched a daily fear-mongering campaign to pressure the House into passing the law. At the same time, congressional Republicans have refused to participate in negotiations between the House and Senate, and Bush has said that he will not compromise on the most contentious issue holding up the bill -- retroactive immunity for telecoms. Instead of negotiating, Bush plans to hammer away at Congress with misleading claims that America has "lost intelligence information" because of the law's lapse and the lack of immunity for telecoms.
'LOST INTELLIGENCE': Last Friday, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey sent a letter to House Intelligence Committee chair Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), claiming that "we have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act." Mukasey and McConnell claimed that private companies had "delayed or refused compliance" with administration "requests to initiate new surveillances of terrorist and other foreign intelligence targets." Hours after the letter was released, however, "administration officials told lawmakers that the final holdout among the companies had relented and agreed to fully participate in the surveillance program." Even so, in his radio address the next morning, Bush claimed that "the House's refusal to act is undermining our ability to get cooperation from private companies." In a Senate hearing yesterday, McConnell reluctantly admitted that White House officials were informed on "Friday night" about the developments, but Bush went ahead and aired his false attack in the radio address the next day anyway. In reality, "one lawyer in the telecommunications industry" who spoke to the New York Times said that "he had seen little practical effect on the industry's surveillance operations since the law expired."
FEAR-MONGERING ATTACK ADS: Since the expiration of the PAA, conservatives have launched a full-scale public relations battle to paint opponents of the Senate bill as a threat to national security. Last week, House Republicans launched a web ad modeled on the show 24, bellowing that "America is at risk," implying that a terrorist attack is imminent without the PAA. Last Friday, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and an affiliated 501(c)(4) group called Defense of Democracies ran ads in 15 congressional districts and 17 media markets that erroneously claim "the law that lets intelligence agencies intercept Al Qaeda communications expire[d]" while showing a picture of Osama Bin Laden. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is nominally a nonpartisan think tank, but after the disingenuous ads aired, most of the liberals on the groups board of advisers quit. In a statement explaining her resignation from the group, political consultant Donna Brazile said she joined the organization because it was "committed to defending democratic values," but "due to the influence of their funders, in the last few years, FDD has morphed into a radical right wing organization that is doing the dirty work for the Bush Administration."
IT'S THE IMMUNITY, STUPID: In a fear-mongering op-ed for Investor's Business Daily this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claims that House Democrats don't want necessary "updates" and "improvements" to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that take "take technological advances" since 1978 into account. This claim is false. In November, the House passed the RESTORE Act, which fixes the gaps in FISA, but doesn't include retroactive immunity for telecoms. As DNI McConnell admitted to NPR recently, "the real issue" is "liability protection for the private sector." But the administration is having difficulty making a compelling argument for immunity. Both the original PAA and the RESTORE Act include prospective immunity for telecommunications companies, which means companies that lawfully cooperate with the surveillance program in the future would be protected from lawsuits. In fact, even in the original FISA law, cooperation by telecoms is not optional, but required, and they have always had immunity if they obey the law. Asked last Friday to explain "the administration's argument that without this retroactive immunity, the telecoms would be reluctant in the future to cooperate" even though they have prospective immunity, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel was unable to give a straight answer. Unable to explain how retroactive immunity is necessary for ensuring future cooperation, President Bush has been reduced to arguing "it's not fair" to allow "class action lawsuits against private phone carriers and other companies that are believed to have helped us protect America."
This process of playing fast and loose with the rights of American citizens as well as with facts and fears has been stale for a long time, but the Repulsicans continue to go with it. I wish I could say that it was just Bush and his cronies, but the fact is that it is the continuation of the Gingrich policy of refusal to negotiate, compromise, or consider the well-being of the nation over the image of the party.
Deliver us from “leaders” who would kill the patient and say that cured the disease.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Twisted Economics
The news today is filled with reports of Ben Bernanke’s concurrent fears about inflation and recession. Many economists say that “stagflation” is a better description of our current situation.
The banter back and forth about the effects of the mortgage crisis, the high price of oil, the fall of the dollar and the stalled incomes of the people as opposed to the continuously escalating cost of living.
But through it all, they largely ignore the elephant in the bank vault – the war.
Of course the price of oil keeps climbing. We shut off a good source when we blew into Baghdad and have completely aggravated Iran, not to mention Russia and Venezuela.
Of course the mortgage crisis is crippling us. We opened that marketplace up to abuse when the Congress threw out the restraining regulations that had kept the robber barons in check since the Great Depression.
Of course the dollar is falling. We have angered every nation on the planet in the face of the growing power of the European Union. We drove Saddam Hussein out of power partially because he called for the replacement of the dollar with the Euro as the currency in which oil is valued, but international sentiment, fed up with our arrogance, has continued to move in that direction and the dollar has weakened at least partially as a consequence. The other primary cause is the growth of our debt. As our apparent inability to repay that debt grows, the value of investment in our system wanes.
And at the base of it all lies the fact that we are mired in a war that is costing us astronomical numbers of dollars ($10 billion a month) we don’t have the Gross National Product to support.
A recent AP Poll shows that the American public recognizes the problem. In that poll 68% of Americans think that pulling out of Iraq would improve our economy. It’s interesting that only 18% of Republicans think that. What is it about their government throwing away $10 billion a month that they don’t understand?
Their idea is that a tax cut is the answer.
A tax cut!!! That’s like saying that if you are in a drought, the best thing to do is to throw away whatever water you have on hand! Where do they think the government gets its operating money? Besides arms deals – which are a major form of income – and interest from investment -- which these days is going out not coming in -- tax revenue is IT.
Another argument is that the war is a major contributor to the economy. “Do you realize,” they ask, “how many people would be out of jobs if we stopped the manufacturing and retrofitting that is necessary to support this war?”
Can’t they hear themselves? We have to keep killing Iraqis and putting our own children’s lives at risk. It contributes to our coffers.
Surely there is a better way. Surely our nation could find some constructive ways to fire up its manufacturing base. Surely we would be better off if we stopped the $10 billion monthly hemorrhage on a completely false war.
What would happen to our economy if we applied $5 billion a month to domestic development? How many people could we employ in the development of energy efficient technologies? How many people could we employ in the delivery of services to our own citizens?
What if we went hog wild and cut our military weapons development budget in half? We could do so much for ourselves and the world that we might just surprise everyone by once again becoming the world’s leader instead of being its most feared paraiah.
The first step is the election of a president whose idea of a hero is closer to Ghandi than the Duke.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
The banter back and forth about the effects of the mortgage crisis, the high price of oil, the fall of the dollar and the stalled incomes of the people as opposed to the continuously escalating cost of living.
But through it all, they largely ignore the elephant in the bank vault – the war.
Of course the price of oil keeps climbing. We shut off a good source when we blew into Baghdad and have completely aggravated Iran, not to mention Russia and Venezuela.
Of course the mortgage crisis is crippling us. We opened that marketplace up to abuse when the Congress threw out the restraining regulations that had kept the robber barons in check since the Great Depression.
Of course the dollar is falling. We have angered every nation on the planet in the face of the growing power of the European Union. We drove Saddam Hussein out of power partially because he called for the replacement of the dollar with the Euro as the currency in which oil is valued, but international sentiment, fed up with our arrogance, has continued to move in that direction and the dollar has weakened at least partially as a consequence. The other primary cause is the growth of our debt. As our apparent inability to repay that debt grows, the value of investment in our system wanes.
And at the base of it all lies the fact that we are mired in a war that is costing us astronomical numbers of dollars ($10 billion a month) we don’t have the Gross National Product to support.
A recent AP Poll shows that the American public recognizes the problem. In that poll 68% of Americans think that pulling out of Iraq would improve our economy. It’s interesting that only 18% of Republicans think that. What is it about their government throwing away $10 billion a month that they don’t understand?
Their idea is that a tax cut is the answer.
A tax cut!!! That’s like saying that if you are in a drought, the best thing to do is to throw away whatever water you have on hand! Where do they think the government gets its operating money? Besides arms deals – which are a major form of income – and interest from investment -- which these days is going out not coming in -- tax revenue is IT.
Another argument is that the war is a major contributor to the economy. “Do you realize,” they ask, “how many people would be out of jobs if we stopped the manufacturing and retrofitting that is necessary to support this war?”
Can’t they hear themselves? We have to keep killing Iraqis and putting our own children’s lives at risk. It contributes to our coffers.
Surely there is a better way. Surely our nation could find some constructive ways to fire up its manufacturing base. Surely we would be better off if we stopped the $10 billion monthly hemorrhage on a completely false war.
What would happen to our economy if we applied $5 billion a month to domestic development? How many people could we employ in the development of energy efficient technologies? How many people could we employ in the delivery of services to our own citizens?
What if we went hog wild and cut our military weapons development budget in half? We could do so much for ourselves and the world that we might just surprise everyone by once again becoming the world’s leader instead of being its most feared paraiah.
The first step is the election of a president whose idea of a hero is closer to Ghandi than the Duke.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Cost in Blood
For many years I thought of myself as a Jeffersonian. I have always admired the words he left for us to read, ponder, and follow. It is hard to come up with any other name that so engenders the values on which America is founded. The Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, and the Constitution itself are written in such a way as to not only put forth, but enshrine the concepts that give this nation its great potential as a fount of humane generosity and opportunity.
But in recent years I have become less enamored of Mr. Jefferson. Yes, his words are great and beautiful, and he still inspires thoughts of national grandeur, but remembering that actions speak louder that words and looking at the way he lived leads ultimately to the conclusion that he was, more than anything, the ultimate politician. He was a man of his times who knew exactly what to say to describe the highest ideals of those times, but when it came to daily life, those ideals took a back seat to his desires. In short, he was a great man but perhaps a little too human to be a hero.
As the years have passed for me, I have become more and more an admirer of another notable early American, Ben Franklin. Less flamboyantly verbose, more pragmatic, and much more plebian than Jefferson, Franklin was no less influential in those revolutionary times and definitely more politically effective. In reading a biography of Franklin, I recently came across a statement of his that cemented my hero worship for him in stone.
“All wars are follies,” he wrote, “very expensive, and very mischievous ones. When will mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their differences by arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other.”
At another time, he brought it all down to one line, “There was never a good war, or a bad peace.” Not entirely true, of course, ala Neville Chamberlain, but 99.9% true is good enough for me.
Combine the words and actions of Jefferson and Franklin, and you have a pretty good synopsis of the core of American philosophy. Franklin was a pragmatic diplomat who, in spite of his distaste for war, spent the entirety of the American Revolution, negotiating for the recognition of the colonies as an independent entity and ultimately negotiated the peace with Britain that ended the war. At the same time he played a strong role in shaping the treaty that ended the war between France and Britain.
Franklin’s deal with Britain failed to bring Canada into the U.S., but established the western boundary of the United States at the Mississippi River. It was Jefferson who more than doubled those lands through the Louisiana Purchase which ultimately led to the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny and formed the basis of what is still today our national character – the idea that we have some god-given right to whatever we want.
The great flaw lies in our mutation into a nation of individuals each of whom seeks the maximum amount of material wealth. We one-up each other and the rest of the world to death.
We see it today in the wild promises of our presidential candidates. As the excellent lead article in today’s New-Leader Nation/World section points out, no candidate running for president today is putting forward a plan that can be achieved under our present budgetary structure.
We are all excited about having a new president with a new way of looking at things who will lead us to new heights of material wealth and personal comfort.
Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation of people who seek not to have a better house than their neighbor but to ensure that their neighbor does not have to live in a lesser house. Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation of people more concerned with relieving the poverty most of the world’s nations face than with being able to buy cheap shirts. Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation of people willing to put more money into domestic social programs than into weapons and impossible defense systems. Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation who believes that the blood of other people is as valuable as our own.
Perhaps we should consider becoming a people who remember that there is no such thing as a bad peace so long as that peace is not purchased at the cost of other people’s blood.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
But in recent years I have become less enamored of Mr. Jefferson. Yes, his words are great and beautiful, and he still inspires thoughts of national grandeur, but remembering that actions speak louder that words and looking at the way he lived leads ultimately to the conclusion that he was, more than anything, the ultimate politician. He was a man of his times who knew exactly what to say to describe the highest ideals of those times, but when it came to daily life, those ideals took a back seat to his desires. In short, he was a great man but perhaps a little too human to be a hero.
As the years have passed for me, I have become more and more an admirer of another notable early American, Ben Franklin. Less flamboyantly verbose, more pragmatic, and much more plebian than Jefferson, Franklin was no less influential in those revolutionary times and definitely more politically effective. In reading a biography of Franklin, I recently came across a statement of his that cemented my hero worship for him in stone.
“All wars are follies,” he wrote, “very expensive, and very mischievous ones. When will mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their differences by arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other.”
At another time, he brought it all down to one line, “There was never a good war, or a bad peace.” Not entirely true, of course, ala Neville Chamberlain, but 99.9% true is good enough for me.
Combine the words and actions of Jefferson and Franklin, and you have a pretty good synopsis of the core of American philosophy. Franklin was a pragmatic diplomat who, in spite of his distaste for war, spent the entirety of the American Revolution, negotiating for the recognition of the colonies as an independent entity and ultimately negotiated the peace with Britain that ended the war. At the same time he played a strong role in shaping the treaty that ended the war between France and Britain.
Franklin’s deal with Britain failed to bring Canada into the U.S., but established the western boundary of the United States at the Mississippi River. It was Jefferson who more than doubled those lands through the Louisiana Purchase which ultimately led to the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny and formed the basis of what is still today our national character – the idea that we have some god-given right to whatever we want.
The great flaw lies in our mutation into a nation of individuals each of whom seeks the maximum amount of material wealth. We one-up each other and the rest of the world to death.
We see it today in the wild promises of our presidential candidates. As the excellent lead article in today’s New-Leader Nation/World section points out, no candidate running for president today is putting forward a plan that can be achieved under our present budgetary structure.
We are all excited about having a new president with a new way of looking at things who will lead us to new heights of material wealth and personal comfort.
Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation of people who seek not to have a better house than their neighbor but to ensure that their neighbor does not have to live in a lesser house. Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation of people more concerned with relieving the poverty most of the world’s nations face than with being able to buy cheap shirts. Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation of people willing to put more money into domestic social programs than into weapons and impossible defense systems. Perhaps we should consider becoming a nation who believes that the blood of other people is as valuable as our own.
Perhaps we should consider becoming a people who remember that there is no such thing as a bad peace so long as that peace is not purchased at the cost of other people’s blood.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Friday, February 22, 2008
Energy Conservation Efforts
The City of Springfield is holding an “Ozarks New Energy Conference” today and tomorrow at the Gillioz. The registration fee is $75, and you can learn more about it at http://www.ozarksnewenergy.org.
Besides being politically oriented I have been environmentally aware all my life, but I’m not going to shell out $75 to attend this one. One of the highlights of my recent years has been my membership in the Missouri Master Naturalist program, and one of the connections that membership has led me to is the League of Conservation Voters.
LCV does a sensible job of tracking legislation related to the environment so it’s easy to keep up on what’s happening in that area just by virtue of that membership. One of the other benefits is that they track voting records of our representatives.
Below is their scorecard of the ecologically sound voting records of the representatives for my districts in Southwest Missouri. If you are fortunate enough to be represented by someone else, you can check on them by going to: (http://lcv.org/scorecard/)
************************************************************************
Vote Scorecard:
110th, 1st session Search Results Scores for Missouri Sorted by Last Name
Senate
Senator State 110th, 1st session Score
Christopher Bond (REP) MO 0%
Claire McCaskill (DEM) MO 73%
House
Representative District 110th, 1st session Score
Roy Blunt (REP) MO-7 0%
Doesn’t it just make you proud to live in Southwest Missouri? We ought to thank Claire and throw the other two out on their ears.
The notice in the paper declares that, “This weekend’s conference will focus more on the end of energy production with a twist of economic opportunities for the region.”
It burns my &^%** to know that my representatives care more about the income of their corporate boosters than the health of our state, nation and planet. The specter of global warming forces us to recognize that ideas like trading carbon credits threaten our very ability to survive, but “leaders” like Bond and Blunt continue to argue that we can’t afford to risk curbing economic growth in order to do anything about it.
You don’t have to go far to find evidence of our cultural willingness to pollute rather than spending anything to curb the problem, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Roy Blunt and Kit Bond wouldn’t take one dollar out of their cohorts’ coffers to do anything green unless it returns at least $10 to $100 to those same coffers.
There is a price attached to pollution, friends, whether our politicians recognize it or not, and resistance to sensible green measures only delays having to pay that price while it increases exponentially.
Ethanol – which I’ll bet Roy & Kit will tout today – is a huge boondoggle that ultimately adds to the problem instead of helping solve it. Our new coal fired electric plant is another great. It’s “scrubbers” amount to chimneys tall enough to push the pollution high enough into the airstream to remove it from our area – never mind that someone else will have to deal with it.
Another system being touted these days is injecting carbon dioxide deep into the earth. Sounds to me like just as valid a solution as hauling our garbage far enough out to sea that we don’t have to look at it any more. All such measures will rebound and have to be dealt with some day at much greater cost than if we were to deal with them appropriately today.
Each of us, though, can do some little things that can help. Here are some ideas:
Quit using store supplied non-degradable plastic bags. Get some tote bags and use them when you shop. Home Depot sells a wonderful nylon bag that holds about ½ bushel but folds up to nearly nothing. Has great interlocking handles, too. The price -- $1.99!! What a value, and what a boon to the environment.
Quit burning gasoline in long lines waiting for your burger. If everyone in the country turned off the engine whenever it would otherwise idle for 30 seconds, we would save a few hundred thousand gallons of fuel a day. (Automatic shutoff is one way that hybrids save on fuel.)
Don’t idle your car more than 30 seconds to warm it up and certainly don’t leave it running in the parking lot while you shop so that you won’t have to touch a cold steering wheel when you leave. I can’t believe how often I see that.
Recycle. If your trashman doesn’t facilitate that, dump him! The Moore family here in Springfield probably provides the cheapest service in town, but they enable recycling. Mrs. Moore spends her days sorting so her customers won’t have to. We do, though, and it isn’t a hassle. The only problem with the Moores is that they don’t bill often enough for their services, so I suppose some folks take advantage of them. You wouldn’t, though, so why don’t you give them a call and find out what great folks they are. Their number is 831-6119.
Going to reseed your yard? Use buffalo grass. It’s really expensive seed, but it doesn’t need much water and doesn’t have to be mowed. It won’t look like your neighbor’s fescue sod, but it will be a native grass yard. Speaking of native, use native plants in your landscaping. The Missouri Department of Conservation (895-6880) has some free info on how and what. Check with the MO Dep’t. of Agriculture, too (www.mda.gov).
Consider putting in a rain garden that will utilize the run-off from your roof. Examples are at Library Center on S. Campbell and along Meadowmere Street south of Grand in mid-town. The James River Basin Partnership can help you there.
James River has a great program for testing your yard and giving you all the info you need to keep it healthy, too. You can reach them at 836-4847 or visit www.jamesriverbasin.com.
Get a rainbarrel and use the roof run-off to water your plantings. Great for washing hair, too!
And while you’re at it, send a copy of the table above to Roy and Kit and tell them how disgusting their behavior is.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
Besides being politically oriented I have been environmentally aware all my life, but I’m not going to shell out $75 to attend this one. One of the highlights of my recent years has been my membership in the Missouri Master Naturalist program, and one of the connections that membership has led me to is the League of Conservation Voters.
LCV does a sensible job of tracking legislation related to the environment so it’s easy to keep up on what’s happening in that area just by virtue of that membership. One of the other benefits is that they track voting records of our representatives.
Below is their scorecard of the ecologically sound voting records of the representatives for my districts in Southwest Missouri. If you are fortunate enough to be represented by someone else, you can check on them by going to: (http://lcv.org/scorecard/)
************************************************************************
Vote Scorecard:
110th, 1st session Search Results Scores for Missouri Sorted by Last Name
Senate
Senator State 110th, 1st session Score
Christopher Bond (REP) MO 0%
Claire McCaskill (DEM) MO 73%
House
Representative District 110th, 1st session Score
Roy Blunt (REP) MO-7 0%
Doesn’t it just make you proud to live in Southwest Missouri? We ought to thank Claire and throw the other two out on their ears.
The notice in the paper declares that, “This weekend’s conference will focus more on the end of energy production with a twist of economic opportunities for the region.”
It burns my &^%** to know that my representatives care more about the income of their corporate boosters than the health of our state, nation and planet. The specter of global warming forces us to recognize that ideas like trading carbon credits threaten our very ability to survive, but “leaders” like Bond and Blunt continue to argue that we can’t afford to risk curbing economic growth in order to do anything about it.
You don’t have to go far to find evidence of our cultural willingness to pollute rather than spending anything to curb the problem, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Roy Blunt and Kit Bond wouldn’t take one dollar out of their cohorts’ coffers to do anything green unless it returns at least $10 to $100 to those same coffers.
There is a price attached to pollution, friends, whether our politicians recognize it or not, and resistance to sensible green measures only delays having to pay that price while it increases exponentially.
Ethanol – which I’ll bet Roy & Kit will tout today – is a huge boondoggle that ultimately adds to the problem instead of helping solve it. Our new coal fired electric plant is another great. It’s “scrubbers” amount to chimneys tall enough to push the pollution high enough into the airstream to remove it from our area – never mind that someone else will have to deal with it.
Another system being touted these days is injecting carbon dioxide deep into the earth. Sounds to me like just as valid a solution as hauling our garbage far enough out to sea that we don’t have to look at it any more. All such measures will rebound and have to be dealt with some day at much greater cost than if we were to deal with them appropriately today.
Each of us, though, can do some little things that can help. Here are some ideas:
Quit using store supplied non-degradable plastic bags. Get some tote bags and use them when you shop. Home Depot sells a wonderful nylon bag that holds about ½ bushel but folds up to nearly nothing. Has great interlocking handles, too. The price -- $1.99!! What a value, and what a boon to the environment.
Quit burning gasoline in long lines waiting for your burger. If everyone in the country turned off the engine whenever it would otherwise idle for 30 seconds, we would save a few hundred thousand gallons of fuel a day. (Automatic shutoff is one way that hybrids save on fuel.)
Don’t idle your car more than 30 seconds to warm it up and certainly don’t leave it running in the parking lot while you shop so that you won’t have to touch a cold steering wheel when you leave. I can’t believe how often I see that.
Recycle. If your trashman doesn’t facilitate that, dump him! The Moore family here in Springfield probably provides the cheapest service in town, but they enable recycling. Mrs. Moore spends her days sorting so her customers won’t have to. We do, though, and it isn’t a hassle. The only problem with the Moores is that they don’t bill often enough for their services, so I suppose some folks take advantage of them. You wouldn’t, though, so why don’t you give them a call and find out what great folks they are. Their number is 831-6119.
Going to reseed your yard? Use buffalo grass. It’s really expensive seed, but it doesn’t need much water and doesn’t have to be mowed. It won’t look like your neighbor’s fescue sod, but it will be a native grass yard. Speaking of native, use native plants in your landscaping. The Missouri Department of Conservation (895-6880) has some free info on how and what. Check with the MO Dep’t. of Agriculture, too (www.mda.gov).
Consider putting in a rain garden that will utilize the run-off from your roof. Examples are at Library Center on S. Campbell and along Meadowmere Street south of Grand in mid-town. The James River Basin Partnership can help you there.
James River has a great program for testing your yard and giving you all the info you need to keep it healthy, too. You can reach them at 836-4847 or visit www.jamesriverbasin.com.
Get a rainbarrel and use the roof run-off to water your plantings. Great for washing hair, too!
And while you’re at it, send a copy of the table above to Roy and Kit and tell them how disgusting their behavior is.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi
Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR
The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle
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