land of the greed, and the home of the slave

Robert Greenwald keeps finding new reasons for being my hero...



Please visit War on Greed

This, unfortunately, is the new America. Even more unfortunately, it's just the tip of the iceberg. And once again, not too many of us seem to care...

(By the way, the Ebay suggestion toward the end was my personal favorite.)

children of the grave

I usually stick something that Chris Floyd has written on this site at least a couple times a month. As much as I love him - what he stands for, what he does and how he does it - his only flaw is that he can, on occasion, throw out a few adjectives here and there that are a bit...strong, over the top, shrill. Every once in a while, one of his statements can get derailed by the fact that it sounds like something Kim Jong Il - or Saddam in his heyday - would release to the press.

But, with that in mind, I invite you all to read the following. And I challenge you all to find something - anything - worthy of dispute...

Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead

Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone.

So now what...?

a good pal, indeed

The fantabulous Cindy Chaffin decided to slum it a bit and asked me to write a little something about my experience at the recent Dallas Observer Music Awards. I'm just glad she was as amused by my technological retardation as I was...

Thanks for the ticket, Cindy. And your support of whatever the heck it is I do is very, very much appreciated and more than a little inspiring. You remain, as the kids say, the shit.

nobody does it better...

Well, a few people might on occasion. But it doesn't seem to matter as no one pays any attention, anyway. But here's a great post for those of us of the anti-party persuasion...

Danse Macabre: An Apology to Democrats

God bless Chris Floyd. I don't know how independent journalists and/or bloggers do it anymore. If they have day jobs for the likes of my employers, anyway...

money changes everything

More evidence of this administration’s integrity…

Condi Snoozed While Chevron Paid Off Saddam

…Near the end of (Condoleeza Rice’s) decade on Chevron's board (she joined it in 1991 while a professor at Stanford University), the corporation cooked up the very responsible-sounding "The Chevron Way to a Strong Board." As chairman of the "Public Policy Committee," she should have been tuned in to the open secret of kickbacks being paid to Saddam starting in June 2000…

While she left the board to head the National Security Council seven months later, there was plenty of time to keep Chevron from buying millions of barrels of crude from Iraq and sending around $20 million to Saddam's private accounts and "pet projects" like aiding Russian whacko bigot, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Chevron will pay around $25 million to settle the charges - an amount the company will recoup hundreds of times over if the Iraq oil law goes forward with Production Sharing Agreements in the legislation.

The commentary above is referencing this article right hyah…

Chevron seen settling case on Iraq oil

Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.

The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public.

The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the United States in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal.

The $64 billion program was set up in 1996 by the Security Council to help ease the effects of United Nations sanctions on Iraqi civilians after the first Gulf war. Until the American invasion in 2003, the program allowed Saddam's government to export oil to pay for food, medicine and humanitarian goods.

Using an elaborate system of secret surcharges and extra fees, however, the Iraqi regime received at least $1.8 billion in kickbacks from companies in the program, according to an investigation completed in 2005 by Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

A report released in 2004 by an investigator at the Central Intelligence Agency listed five American companies that bought oil through the program: the Coastal Corporation, a subsidiary of El Paso; Chevron; Texaco; BayOil; and Mobil, now part of Exxon Mobil. The companies have denied any wrongdoing and said they were cooperating with the investigations.

As part of the deal under negotiation, Chevron, which now owns Texaco, is not expected to admit to violating the United Nations sanctions. But Chevron is expected to acknowledge that it should have been aware that illegal kickbacks were being paid to Iraq on the oil, the investigators said.

The fine is connected to the payment of about $20 million in surcharges on tens of millions of barrels of Iraqi oil bought by Chevron from 2000 to 2002, investigators said.

These payments were made by small oil traders that sold oil to Chevron. But records found by United Nations, American and Italian officials showed that they were financed by Chevron.

The negotiations, which might take several weeks to conclude, follow an agreement reached in February by El Paso, the largest operator of American natural gas pipelines, to pay the United States government $7.73 million to settle allegations that it was involved in illegal payments under the oil-for-food program.

Thus far, only former United Nations officials, individual traders and relatively small oil companies have come under scrutiny in the United States.

According to the Volcker report, surcharges on Iraqi oil exports were introduced in August 2000 by the Iraqi state oil company, the State Oil Marketing Organization. At the time, Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, was a member of Chevron's board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.

In sworn statements last year to an Italian prosecutor, an Italian businessman, Fabrizio Loioli, said he sold Iraqi oil to many companies, including Chevron, and all were aware of the Iraqi request for payment of a surcharge. "In fact, each final beneficiary involved used to add this amount to the official price to disguise it as a premium to be paid to the intermediary," Loioli said in his statement. "In reality, they were perfectly aware that only a part of that would go to the intermediary, while the remaining part was to be paid to the Iraqis."

It just shocks me to no end that people in the U.S. actually believe the bullshit fed to them by the Bush Administration. This has nothing to do with Republican versus Democrat…it’s just plain old greed and dishonesty for the sake of greed. Democrats are just as capable (the Kennedys, Gores and Clintons didn’t get where they are based on hard work).

Are conservatives just afraid to call out the folks they elected for their lack of ethics and hypocrisy? Or is it just a case of being steadfastly stubborn about admitting you were wrong about – or fooled by – someone you once supported?

I cannot wrap my head around the allegiances Americans have to the two parties.

great minds

If you have a computer that's halfway decent, I highly encourage you watch this terrific interview of Jon Stewart by Bill Moyers. If you can't, though, there's a transcript directly below the clip. My personal favorite moment is when Stewart compares the secrecy surrounding Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes versus our government's disturbing secrecy with virtually every issue. Wonderful stuff...

Moyers interviews Stewart

I know famous people

The Amazing Fred gets some pretty decent pub…








The Coolest Kid In Town

Attaboy...! Fred and Bill (and Jill) kick ass. It was totally cool to see this post by the wee demon (who looked quite smashing Friday night with her new 'do, I must say).

Figures...he really is a damn good photographer as well. Little bastard. I bought one of his pieces at the show Friday and am looking very forward to finding a good place for it at home. (I bought the one called "stairs" not only because it's a cool image, but because one of the few reocurring dreams I have features stairways - or escalators or other steep inclines - quite prominently. So there's some nifty added symbolism that seems nicely appropriate on a few different levels.)

Also, most of us who know Fred know how photogenic he is and how comfortable he tends to feel on the other side of a camera. Oddly, not only did he inspire the first kinda cool picture I've ever taken with my camera phone (second image at left), he also appears to be a bit uneasy standing in front of the photos he had on display at Space. I'll have to ask him what he was thinking some time...

And on Thursday, my partner-in-blog got some attention herself. Unfortunately, my plans to attend the inaugural Boca Tinta Barbecue And Music Shindig Thingy have gone into the crapper (along with my plans to see Pleasant Grove - already paid for, dammit - tonight) thanks to some really stupid car issues that, long story short, require me to spend the rest of the weekend at my folks' house and miss a chunk of work on Monday. What makes it extra sucky is that whenever Amanda has a show at Dada that Valerie can't attend - such as tomorrow's - she has taken it upon herself, Miss America runner-up style, to fulfill Val's duties as Door Rackage / Greeter / Perv Magnet (see third image for proof). And I'm sure tomorrow would have been a lovely sight in that regard. Double fuck.

killing in the name of...

More news from the “war on terror” that – aside from the international media – only the great Chris Floyd seems willing to report. If there’s any hope of salvaging a free press in this country, it’s people like him, Bill Moyers, and the greatness of TomDispatch.com…

Bush-Backed Liberation of Somalia: "Most of the dead are poor people"

In the new Terror War front opened by the Bush Administration and its proxy armies – the brutal "regime change" invasion of Somalia, led by the American-trained troops of the Ethiopian dictatorship – conditions for innocent civilians are worsening by the day. The BBC reports that the Ethiopians and their Somali warlord allies have essentially sealed off large quadrants of the capital, Mogadishu, and are shelling the residential areas to root out "insurgents" – forces loyal to the Islamic Courts government overthrown by the invasion, tribal groups on the outs with the ascendant warlords, and ordinary Somalis defending their country from foreign attack.

More than 300,000 people have fled the carnage in Mogadishu, some heading for the Kenyan border – where many have been captured with the help of U.S. Special Forces and intelligence agents and "rendered" to Ethiopia's notorious torture-chamber prisons – while many other refugees have been forced to simply camp out in the open, prey to extreme hunger and exposure, and the spread of disease. Some have become so desperate that they have had to return to the rubble of their homes in Mogadishu, and are now trapped in the ring of fire that the American-backed invaders are drawing around the city.

At least 250 people have been killed in Mogadishu in this week alone, almost all of them civilians, say relief workers and UN officials. And the innocent victims are overwhelmingly the most vulnerable people in Somali society; the poor, the sick, the crippled, the old and the very young.

The U.S. corporate media – and indeed, much of the "progressive" media as well – have largely ignored the conflict in Somalia, beyond a few brief mentions in the traditional "oh, those African savages are killing each other again" mode. But the war in Somalia is an American war. As we have reported often here – drawing on the extensive work of other researchers – the Bush Administration has armed, trained and financed the war machine of the Ethiopian dictatorship, with special attention paid to "counterinsurgency" training in preparation for the "regime change" that Washington wanted in Somalia. What's more, American warplanes assisted the invasion, launching airstrikes on fleeing civilians and natives of the border regions, ostensibly in a flailing, ham-handed attempt to kill a few suspected "al Qaeda" leaders supposedly hidden among the refugees. Many innocent people were killed – but no terrorist operatives. In addition, U.S. Special Forces troops have been operating with the invaders, and U.S. intelligence agents have been interrogating refugees and "rendering" some of them into a nightmarish journey through warlord prisons in Somalia on their way to captivity in Ethiopia. Again, all of this is going on with practically no U.S. news coverage – and absolutely no political debate in America.

The proxy conquest of Somalia is being undertaken to serve the Administration's strategic aim of dominating the oil supplies and distribution lines in the Middle East and Africa. The "justification" for this act of aggression is, as always, "terrorism." Bush and his proxies accuse the Islamic Courts government of "having ties to al Qaeda," a charge with the Courts faction has always denied, and of which there is no proof. But the accusation provides a handy excuse for attacking, arresting, rendering or killing anyone remotely associated with the overthrown government – or anyone who opposes the new Bush-imposed regime. "Al Qaeda" has become a magical incantation by which the Bush Administration can transform anyone into a "terrorist" or an "enemy combatant." As with the Islamic Courts government, no proof is necessary; the accusation itself will suffice.

Again, all of this happening – helped by American money, arms, training, planes, bombs, troops and intelligence – without the slightest debate or controversy among the American Establishment, and with no attempt whatsoever by the media to inform the American people of the situation. A whole new front in the never-ending, Constitution-shredding, death-dealing, atrocity-bearing "War on Terror" has been opened – a third "regime change" operation descending into murder and ruin – but no one pays the slightest mind. And as long as the Bush Administration can avoid another "Black Hawk Down" incident, as long as most of the dead are poor people – poor black people, those eternal non-entities in the public consciousness – then the American amnesia about the slaughter in Somalia will go on and on.

I think the thing that pisses me off the most, at least for the moment, is that there is no accountability in this administration…particularly with regard to Pentagon spending. There is no telling what kind of ghastly shit we’re financing all over the world. The media in the U.S. certainly won’t report on it. And I’m sure this is pure naiveté and/or doe-eyed ideology on my part, but shouldn’t Congress or somebody have some say in how and on what our tax dollars are spent? Our government is out of control to an obscene degree and has to answer to no one – at home or abroad. And the agenda of greed and global corporate domination without conscience or even the slightest bit of humanity – that I am paying for and you are paying for – is beyond offensive.

“Buying the War”

Record of Iraq War Lies to Air April 25 on PBS

Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq war to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. Watch PBS from 9:00 to 10:30 PM on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes will actually save you time because you'll never watch television news again - not even on PBS, which comes in for its own share of criticism.

While a great many pundits, not to mention presidents, look remarkably stupid or dishonest in the four-year-old clips included in "Buying the War," it's hard to take any spiteful pleasure in holding them to account, and not just because the killing and dying they facilitated is ongoing, but also because of what this video reveals about the mindset of members of the DC media.

It's great to see an American media outlet tell this story so well, but it leads one to ask: When will Congress tell it? While the Democrats were in the minority, they clamored for hearings and investigations, they pushed Resolutions of Inquiry into the White House Iraq Group and the Downing Street Minutes. Now in the majority, they've gone largely silent. The chief exception is the House Judiciary Committee's effort to question Condoleezza Rice…about the forged Niger documents.

But what comes out of watching this show is a powerful realization that no investigation is needed by Congress, just as no hidden information was needed for the media to get the story right in the first place. The claims that the White House made were not honest mistakes. But neither were they deceptions. They were transparent and laughably absurd falsehoods. And they were high crimes and misdemeanors.

The program opens with video of President Bush saying "Iraq is part of a war on terror. It's a country that trains terrorists. It's a country that can arm terrorists. Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country."

Was that believable or did the media play along? The next shot is of a press conference at which Bush announces that he has a script telling him which reporters to call on and in what order. Yet the reporters play along, raising their hands after each comment, pretending that they might be called on despite the script.

Video shows Richard Perle claiming that Saddam Hussein worked with al Qaeda and that Iraqis would greet American occupiers as liberators. Here are the Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, William Safire from The New York Times, Charles Krauthammer and Jim Hoagland from The Washington Post, all demanding an overthrow of Iraq's government. George Will is seen saying that Hussein "has anthrax, he loves biological weapons, he has terrorist training camps, including 747s to practice on."

But was that even plausible? Bob Simon of "60 Minutes" tells Moyers he wasn't buying it. He says he saw the idea of a connection between Hussein and al Qaeda as an absurdity: "Saddam, as most tyrants, was a total control freak. He wanted total control of his regime. Total control of the country. And to introduce a wild card like al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn't believe it for an instant."

Knight Ridder Bureau Chief John Walcott didn't buy it either. He assigned Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay to do the reporting and they found the Bush claims to be quite apparently false. For example, when the Iraqi National Congress (INC) fed The New York Times's Judith Miller a story through an Iraqi defector claiming that Hussein had chemical and biological weapons labs under his house, Landay noticed that the source was a Kurd, making it very unlikely he would have learned such secrets. But Landay also noticed that it was absurd to imagine someone putting a biological weapons lab under his house.

But absurd announcements were the order of the day. A video clip shows a Fox anchor saying, "A former top Iraqi nuclear scientist tells Congress Iraq could build three nuclear bombs by 2005." And the most fantastic stories of all were fed to David Rose at Vanity Fair Magazine. We see a clip of him saying, "The last training exercise was to blow up a full-size mock-up of a US destroyer in a lake in central Iraq."

Forged documents from Niger could not have gotten noticed in this stew of lies. Had there been some real documents honestly showing something, that might have stood out and caught more eyes. Walcott describes the way the INC would feed the same information to the vice president and secretary of defense that it fed to a reporter, and the reporter would then get the claims confirmed by calling the White House or the Pentagon. Landay adds: "And let's not forget how close these people were to this administration, which raises the question, was there coordination? I can't tell you that there was, but it sure looked like it."

Simon…tells Moyers that when the White House claimed a 9/11 hijacker had met with a representative of the Iraqi government in Prague, "60 Minutes" was easily able to make a few calls and find out that there was no evidence for the claim. "If we had combed Prague," he says, "and found out that there was absolutely no evidence for a meeting between Mohammad Atta and the Iraqi intelligence figure…if we knew that, you had to figure the administration knew it. And yet they were selling the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam."

Moyers questions a number of people about their awful work, including Dan Rather, Peter Beinart and then Chairman and CEO of CNN Walter Isaacson. And he questions Simon, who soft-pedaled the story and avoided reporting that there was no evidence.

Landay at Knight Ridder did report the facts when it counted, but not enough people paid attention. He tells Moyers that all he had to do was read the UN weapons inspectors' reports online to know that the White House was lying to us. When Cheney said that Hussein was close to acquiring nuclear weapons, Landay knew he was lying: "You need tens of thousands of machines called 'centrifuges' to produce highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. You've got to house those in a fairly big place, and you've got to provide a huge amount of power to this facility."

Simon says he knew the claims about aluminum tubes were false because "60 Minutes" called up some scientists and researchers and asked them. Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post says that skeptical stories did not get placed on the front page because they were not "definitive."

Moyers's wonderful movie is marred by a single line - the next to the last sentence - in which he says, "The number of Iraqis killed, over 35,000 last year alone, is hard to pin down." A far more accurate figure could have been found very easily.

Cannot wait to see this. And it's about goddamn time somebody in the...well, close to the mainstream media finally is calling them all out on it. Yes, we have greedy, elitist thugs - thoroughly corrupt and without the slightest bit of conscience (Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz and, probably least of all, Bush) - using propoganda Hitler would have envied to create this ongoing, racist, corporate-funded massacre. But if there's any group responsible for that agenda to proceed unchallenged, it's the American media. They have collectively forgotten their calling, if they ever had one. And they deserve as much of the blame as those dickheads in Washington. Folks like Bill Moyers are our only hope of ever regaining and independent, free press. Go, Big Bill...!

not all conservatives are ooky (I have proof!)...

I'm starting to fall behind on my issues of The Sun and National Geographic - which I never do - thanks to assigned readings from my shrink. Nevertheless, here's some additional greatness from the March issue of The Sun...an interview with Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University who has also contributed to the Weekly Standard and the National Review. He's a traditional conservative who, like an increasing (or increasingly vocal) group of Republicans, finds himself none too pleased with the hijacking of the GOP by the neocons - and the neocon ideology of global domination. While I certainly didn't agree with all of his viewpoints, it's striking - and encouraging - to hear from a sincere conservative who can separate his politics from the party that is supposed to represent his politics (and no longer does...much the way I feel about the Democratic Party). Check out the following comments from Bacevich...

...It does seem Orwellian. I am increasingly concerned about the public's habit of deferring to elites, particularly on national-security issues. We citizens don't pay enough attention to such matters, or are kept in the dark on them. Too many of us are willing to persuade ourselves that the generals will do the right thing, or that the civilians in the national-security establishment know better than we do what's good for the country. It's undemocratic. Citizens need to be engaged and informed, and they need to have a voice.

...(George) Washington...advised citizens to be wary of 'those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.'

Washington was a general and did not see military power as an evil. He held soldiers in high esteem and considered the army to be essential to our national safety. He was warning against building a powerful military for its own sake or for the sake of expanding the nation's influence.

Americans hardly needed such a warning in 1796, having so recently won their freedom from the militaristic British Empire. But today, with our illusions about war and military might as means of forcing our values on the rest of the world, we need to heed Washington's words. If we don't, we'll surely follow in the footsteps of other empires that tried to use military power to fulfill their goals. We'll go on endangering not only our own security, but the security of other nations and the values we hold dear.

I wonder how many votes Andrew J. Bacevich would get if he were running for president...not as a Republican but as a conservative...

there goes my hero...

Amanda has Keith Olbermann…I have Bill Moyers. God, how great would it be if Moyers was our president…?

Excerpts from A Time for Anger, a Call to Action (a speech given by Bill Moyers on February 7, 2007 at Occidental College in Los Angeles)

I have come across the continent to talk to you about two subjects close to my heart. I care about them as a journalist, a citizen and a grandfather who looks at the pictures next to my computer of my five young grandchildren who do not have a vote, a lobbyist in Washington, or the means to contribute to a presidential candidate. If I don't act in their behalf, who will?

One of my obsessions is democracy, and there is no campus in the country more attuned than Occidental to what it will take to save democracy. Because of your record of activism for social justice, I know we agree that democracy is more than what we were taught in high school civics - more than the two-party system, the checks-and-balances, the debate over whether the Electoral College is a good idea. Those are important matters that warrant our attention, but democracy involves something more fundamental. I want to talk about what democracy bestows on us, the revolutionary idea that democracy is not just about the means of governance but the means of dignifying people so they become fully free to claim their moral and political agency. "I believe in democracy because it releases the energies of every human being" - those are the words of our 28th president, Woodrow Wilson.

I've been spending time with Woodrow Wilson and others of his era because my colleagues and I are producing a documentary series on the momentous struggles that gripped America a century or so years ago at the birth of modern politics. Woodrow Wilson clearly understood the nature of power. In his now-forgotten political testament called The New Freedom, Wilson described his reformism in plain English no one could fail to understand: "The laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the week." He wrote: "Don't deceive yourselves for a moment as to the power of great interests which now dominate our development... There are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States. They are going to own it if they can." And he warned: "There is no salvation in the pitiful condescensions of industrial masters... prosperity guaranteed by trustees has no prospect of endurance."

Now Wilson took his stand at the center of power - the presidency itself - and from his stand came progressive income taxation, the federal estate tax, tariff reform, the challenge to great monopolies and trusts, and, most important, a resolute spirit "to deal with the new and subtle tyrannies according to their deserts."

How we need that spirit today! When Woodrow Wilson spoke of democracy releasing the energies of every human being, he was declaring that we cannot leave our destiny to politicians, elites, and experts; either we take democracy into our own hands, or others will take democracy from us.

We do not have much time. Our political system is melting down…failing to deal with basic realities. Despite Thomas Jefferson's counsel that we would need a revolution every 25 years to enable our governance to serve new generations, our structure - practically deified for 225 years - has essentially stayed the same while science and technology have raced ahead. A young writer I know, named Jan Frel, one of the most thoughtful practitioners of the emerging world of Web journalism, wrote me the other day to say: "We've gone way past ourselves. I see the unfathomable numbers in the national debt and deficit, and the way that the Federal government was physically unable to respond to Hurricane Katrina. I look at Iraq; where 50% of the question is how to get out, and the other 50% is how did so few people have the power to start the invasion in the first place. If the Republic were functioning, they would have never had that power."

Yet the inertia of the political process seems virtually unstoppable. Frel reminds me that the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee can shepherd a $2.8 trillion dollar budget through the Senate and then admit: "It's hard to understand what a trillion is. I don't know what it is." Is it fair to expect anyone to understand what a trillion is, my young friend asks, or how to behave with it in any democratic fashion?" He goes on: "But the political system and culture are forcing 535 members of Congress and a President who are often thousands of miles away from their 300 million constituents to do so. It is frightening to watch the American media culture from progressive to hard right being totally sold on the idea of one President for 300 million people, as though the Presidency is still fit to human scale. I'm at a point where the idea of a political savior in the guise of a Presidential candidate or congressional majority sounds downright scary, and at the same time, with very few exceptions, the writers and journalists across the slate are completely sold on it."

Because our system feeds on campaign contributions, the powerful and the privileged shape it to their will. Only 12% of American households had incomes over $100,000 in 2000, but they made up 95% of the substantial donors to campaigns and have been the big winners in Washington ever since.

…The oldest story in America (is) the struggle to determine whether "We, the People" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality - one nation, indivisible - or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.

For years now a small fraction of American households have been garnering a larger and larger concentration of wealth and income, while large corporations and financial institutions have obtained unprecedented power over who wins and who loses. Inequality in America is greater than it's been in 50 years. In 1960 the gap in terms of wealth between the top 20% and the bottom 20% was 30 fold. Today it's more than 75 fold.

Such concentrations of wealth would be far less of an issue if the rest of society were benefiting proportionally. But that is not the case. Throughout our industrial history incomes grew at 30% to 50% or more every quarter, and in the quarter century after WWII, gains reached more than 100% for all income categories. Since the late 1970s, only the top 1% of households increased their income by 100%.

Once upon a time…the American ideal of classless society was one in which all children have roughly equal chance of success regardless of the economic status of the family into which they were born. That's changing fast. The Economist Jeffrey Madrick writes that just a couple of decades ago, only 20% of one's future income was determined by the income of one's father. New research suggests that today 60% of a son's income is determined by the level of his father's income. In other words, children no longer have a roughly equal chance of success regardless of the economic status of the family into which they are born. Their chances of success are greatly improved if they are born on third base and their father has been tipping the umpire.

"Things have reached such a state of affairs," the journalist George Orwell once wrote, "that the first duty of every intelligent person is to pay attention to the obvious." The editors of The Economist have done just that. The pro-business magazine considered by many to be the most influential defender of capitalism on the newsstand, produced a sobering analysis of what is happening to the old notion that any American child can get to the top. A growing body of evidence - some of it I have already cited - led the editors to conclude that with "income inequality growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age and social mobility falling behind, the United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society." The editors point to an "education system increasingly stratified by social class" in which poor children "attend schools with fewer resources than those of their richer contemporaries" and great universities that are "increasingly reinforcing rather than reducing these educational inequalities." They conclude that America's great companies have made it harder than ever "for people to start at the bottom and rise up the company hierarchies by dint of hard work and self-improvement."

It is eerie to read assessments like that and then read the anthropologist Jared Diamond's book, ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail.’ He describes an America society in which elites cocoon themselves "in gated communities, guarded by private security guards, and filled with people who drink bottled water, depend on private pensions, and send their children to private schools." Gradually, they lose the motivation "to support the police force, the municipal water supply, Social Security, and public schools." Any society contains a built-in blueprint for failure, warns Jared Diamond, if elites insulate themselves from the consequences of their own actions.

[acs note: This just in…Ford CEO Paid $39.1 Million for Four Months]

This is a marked turn of events for a country whose mythology embraces "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as part of our creed. America was not supposed to be a country of "winner take all." Through our system of checks and balances we were going to maintain a healthy equilibrium in how power works - and for whom. Because equitable access to public resources is the lifeblood of any democracy, we made primary schooling free to all. Because everyone deserves a second chance, debtors, especially the relatively poor, were protected by state laws against their rich creditors. Government encouraged Americans to own their own piece of land, and even supported squatters' rights. In my time, the hope of equal opportunity became reality for millions of us. Although my parents were knocked down and almost out by the Great Depression, and were poor all their lives, my brother and I went to good public schools. The GI Bill made it possible for him to go to college. When I bought my first car with a loan of $450 I drove to a public school on a public highway and stopped to rest in a public park. America as a shared project was becoming the engine of our national experience.

Not now. Beginning a quarter of a century ago a movement of corporate, political, and religious fundamentalists gained ascendancy over politics and made inequality their goal. They launched a crusade to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have held private power. And they had the money to back up their ambition.

Let me read you something:

‘When powerful interests shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they often get what they want. But it is ordinary citizens and firms that pay the price and most of them never see it coming. This is what happens if you don't contribute to their campaigns or spend generously on lobbying. You pick up a disproportionate share of America's tax bill. You pay higher prices for a broad range of products from peanuts to prescriptions. You pay taxes that others in a similar situation have been excused from paying. You're compelled to abide by laws while others are granted immunity from them. You must pay debts that you incur while others do not. You're barred from writing off on your tax returns some of the money spent on necessities while others deduct the cost of their entertainment. You must run your business by one set of rules, while the government creates another set for your competitors. In contrast, the fortunate few who contribute to the right politicians and hire the right lobbyists enjoy all the benefits of their special status. Make a bad business deal; the government bails them out. If they want to hire workers at below market wages, the government provides the means to do so. If they want more time to pay their debts, the government gives them an extension. If they want immunity from certain laws, the government gives it. If they want to ignore rules their competition must comply with, the government gives its approval. If they want to kill legislation that is intended for the public, it gets killed.’

I'm not quoting from Karl Marx's Das Kapital or Mao's Little Red Book. I'm quoting Time Magazine. From the heart of America's media establishment comes the judgment that America now has ‘government for the few at the expense of the many.’

We are talking about nothing less than a class war declared a generation ago, in a powerful polemic by the wealthy right-winger, William Simon, who had been Richard Nixon's Secretary of the Treasury. In it he declared that "funds generated by business... must rush by the multimillions" to conservative causes. The trumpet was sounded for the financial and business class to take back the power and privileges they had lost as a result of the Great Depression and the New Deal. They got the message and were soon waging a well-orchestrated, lavishly-financed movement. Business Week put it bluntly: "Some people will obviously have to do with less... .It will be a bitter pill for many Americans to swallow the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more." The long-range strategy was to cut workforces and their wages, scour the globe in search of cheap labor, trash the social contract and the safety net that was supposed to protect people from hardships beyond their control, deny ordinary citizens the power to sue rich corporations for malfeasance and malpractice, and eliminate the ability of government to restrain what editorialists for the Wall Street Journal admiringly call "the animal spirits of business."

Looking backwards, it all seems so clear that we wonder how we could have ignored the warning signs at the time. What has been happening to working people is not the result of Adam Smith's invisible hand but the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious literalism opposed to any civil and human right that threaten its paternalism, and a string of political decisions favoring the interests of wealthy elites who bought the political system right out from under us.

To create the intellectual framework for this revolution in public policy, they funded conservative think tanks that churned out study after study advocating their agenda.

To put muscle behind these ideas, they created a formidable political machine. One of the few journalists to cover the issues of class, Thomas Edsall of the Washington Post, reported that "During the 1970s, business refined its ability to act as a class, submerging competitive instincts in favor of joint, cooperate action in the legislative area." Big business political action committees flooded the political arena with a deluge of dollars. And they built alliances with the religious right - Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition - who gleefully contrived a cultural holy war that became a smokescreen behind which the economic assault on the middle and working classes would occur.

From land, water, and other resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, a broad range of America's public resources have been undergoing a powerful shift toward elite control, contributing substantially to those economic pressures on ordinary Americans that "deeply affect household stability, family dynamics, social mobility, political participation and civic life."

What's to be done?

The only answer to organized money is organized people.

In a real democracy, ordinary people at every level hold their elected officials accountable for the big decisions, about whether or not to go to war and put young men and women in harm's way, about the pollution of the environment, global warming, and the health and safety of our workplaces, our communities, our food and our air and our water, the quality of our public schools, and the distribution of economic resources. It's the spirit of fighting back throughout American history that brought an end to sweatshops, won the eight-hour working day and a minimum wage, delivered suffrage to women and blacks from slavery, inspired the Gay Rights movement, the consumer and environmental movements, and more recently stopped Congress from enacting repressive legislation against immigrants.

The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said that "if there is no struggle, there is no progress." Those who profess freedom, yet fail to act - they are "men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning, they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters... power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them."

For most of our history this country's religious discourse was dominated by white male Protestants of a culturally conservative European heritage - people like me. Dissenting voices of America, alternative visions of faith, or race, of women, rarely reached the mainstream. The cartoonist Jeff McNally summed it up with two weirdoes talking in a California diner. One weirdo says to the other. "Have you ever delved into the mysteries of Eastern Religion?" And the second weirdo answers: "Yes, I was once a Methodist in Philadelphia." Once upon a time that was about the extent of our exposure to the varieties of Religious experience. No longer. Our nation is being re-created right before our eyes, with mosques and Hindu Temples, Sikh communities and Buddhist retreat centers. And we all have so much to teach each other. Buddhists can teach us about the delight of contemplation and 'the infinite within.' From Muslims we can learn about the nature of surrender; from Jews, the power of the prophetic conscience; from Hindus, the "realms of gold" hidden in the depths of our hearts," from Confucians the empathy necessary to sustain the fragile web of civilization. Nothing I take from these traditions has come at the expense of the Christian story. I respect that story - my story ?even more for having come to see that all the great religious grapple with things that matter, although each may come out at a different place; that each arises from within and experiences a lived human experience; and each and every one of them offers a unique insight into human nature. I reject the notion that faith is acquired in the same way one chooses a meal in a cafeteria, but I confess there is something liberating about no longer being quite so deaf to what others have to report from their experience.

Over the past few years as we witnessed the growing concentration of wealth and privilege in our country, prophetic religion lost its voice, drowned out by the corporate, political, and religious right who hijacked Jesus.

That's right: They hijacked Jesus. The very Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed, "The Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor" - this Jesus, hijacked by a philosophy of greed. The very Jesus who fed 5000 hungry people - and not just those in the skyboxes; the very Jesus who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast; who raised the status of women and treated even the hated tax collector as a citizen of the Kingdom. The indignant Jesus who drove the money changers from the temple - this Jesus was hijacked and turned from a friend of the dispossessed into a guardian of privilege, the ally of oil barons, banking tycoons, media moguls and weapons builders.

To you students at Occidental, let me say: I have been a journalist too long to look at the world through rose-colored glasses. I believe the only way to be in the world is to see it as it really is and then to take it on despite the frightening things you see. The Italian philosopher Gramschi spoke of the "the pessimism of the intellect and the optimism of the will." With this philosophy your generation can bring about the Third American Revolution. The first won independence from the Crown. The second won equal rights for women and for the sons and daughters of slavery. This third - the revolution of the 21st Century - will bring about a democracy that leaves no one out. The simple truth is we cannot build a political society or a nation across the vast divides that mark our country today. We must bridge that divide and make society whole, sharing the fruits of freedom and prosperity with the least among us. I have crossed the continent to tell you the Dream is not done, the work is not over, and your time has come to take it on.

getting away with it (again)...

From the great Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque...

It's clear that no nation on earth will be allowed to organize its own society as it wishes, or work out its own internal conflicts, if the American elite decides they have some financial or strategic interest in the matter.

And Gore Vidal says in two sentences what I’ve been trying to say in dozens of long-winded, soapbox-y posts…

“Although We the People of the United States are the sole source of legitimate authority in this land, we are no longer represented in Congress Assembled. Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcer, the imperial military machine..."

Read the rest about our next (current, actually) targets for regime change...the strategically important (and, not coincidentally, quite oil-rich) Somalia. The ruthlessness, secrecy, dishonesty and unconscionable greed of this administration are quite possibly without precedent in modern times.

Getting Away With It: Rendition and Regime Change in Somalia

“You’re a hyperlink!”

…as my good friend Elena (who, along with husband Robert are the funniest couple I’ve ever known) told me. I am a hyperlink, therefore I am…? Prolly not.

Anyway, this is a follow-up post to the cockfighting/Amazon brouhaha on the Dallas Observer’s Unfair Park blog about the new law in New Mexico…

One Less Cock to Fight

"cock block"

So acs (well, me) got a little pub today courtesy of the Dallas Observer. Actually, it was quite the shocker to see because I wasn't expecting to be quite so...prominently featured in the article. (And a very special thanks to a really cool guy, Jesse Hyde, for all the effort he's put into exposing the cock fighting issue lately.) Totally weird to see my name in print like that. Freaky, actually...like I was reading about another person. (I'm not an "executive" by the way, but I'm sure it works better in an article than "marketing dude.")

You can see the story here, but I'm actually posting because I wasn't able to add my follow-up comments at the end...presumably, because they were too fucking long (big surprise). So instead I just posted a link to this blog in case anyone wanted to see them. And here they are...

========

Well, I’ll give you “hypocritical jackass,” because I don’t doubt that I am at times.

It’s definitely a slippery slope and I don’t presume to have all the answers. There is definitely a fundamental difference between material like this being intended for educational or entertainment purposes. Educational…I have no problem with. Entertainment…I have a HUGE problem with. But then, who am I to determine the difference between the two or even “intent” for that matter? We have judges and attorneys who fight over that shit all the time and they’re just as stupid and biased as the rest of us are. It’s a touchy subject and not one that I approach lightly; I have always thought of myself as a staunch civil-libertarian and consider the First Amendment pretty much the holy grail of U.S. history.

I keep coming back to a couple different analogies. First, why doesn’t Amazon sell snuff films? (I asked them this repeatedly and they avoided the question every time…mostly because that “response” that Jesse refers to was nothing more than an auto-response they were sending to everyone who emailed about this subject. I had plenty of friends who got the exact same response to their emails, but with different customer service names attached to them.) To my mind, this is no different. Murder, rape, torture, child pornography…all are illegal acts in this country. We can read about them for educational purposes or read and watch fictionalized accounts of such things, and those materials are perfectly legal…as well they should be. But materials that show or promote actual, real-life incidents of those same subjects are illegal. Legitimate retailers in the U.S. cannot sell materials which promote the exploitation and abuse of non-consenting victims. And while I’m not trying to get into the whole “equating humans with animals” argument, the fact is that cruelty to animals and animal fighting is illegal in this country.

The second analogy is one I’ve taken to calling The OJ Scenario. We all remember when the news came out about OJ Simpson’s “hypothetical” confession in book form, right? To me, if OJ wanted to publish a book that detailed how he killed Nicole and Ron, he should be allowed to under the First Amendment. (He shouldn’t be able to make any profit from it, but he should be able to publish it.) But what if OJ wanted to release a DVD with actual footage of the murders? There’s no way in hell that would be legal. And that’s where I think the line is drawn with regard to educational versus entertainment.

I could definitely be wrong about both analogies. I’ve had a few pretty intense disagreements about this whole thing with people I’m very close to who happen to have politics and philosophies that are pretty similar to my own.

But all my ranting and raving aside, the HSUS is suing Amazon on the grounds that it’s violating the federal Animal Welfare Act. From that standpoint, the issue looks pretty cut and dry to me. And, in fact, it’s not just Amazon that sells the stuff. I’ve found plenty of other online retailers who do too. I guess I just want someone to explain to me why it’s legal to do so…or start prosecuting those companies who sell these materials if they can’t.

When I mentioned that Amazon intentionally chooses to sell this stuff, it’s because they do. Unless I’m mistaken, there’s quite a bit of hardcore adult pornography that is legal in the U.S. Why in the world would Amazon or any other online retailer choose to sell materials that promote animal fighting but NOT sell porn? I’ve got to be overlooking some sort of legal hurdle because you can’t tell me there’s not an instant, bazillion-dollar market for porn as compared to the few remaining idiots in this country who consider dog fighting and cock fighting anything other than barbaric. (Then again, Jeff Bezos has people living in Van Horn, Texas right now working on his own private spaceship, while I in comparison may as well live in a van down by the river.)

I could go on and on (obviously). But that’s why I’m pissed. If I could figure out a way to confront Jeff Bezos and ask him face to face to justify this TINY segment of Amazon’s catalog of products, I would. (If anyone happens to have him on speed dial, I’ll buy you a beer if you’ll pass along his number.) And the only part of my morality that I’m trying to encourage other folks to recognize is that intentional cruelty to animals as a form of entertainment is illegal and should be enforced. Period.

========

Anyway, a very big thanks again to Jesse for all the work he did on what's otherwise a totally ignored issue. And to Merritt for hooking me up with him in the first place. Hopefully, it will generate some more negative publicity for Amazon and all the other online retailers who sell this shit.

acs 1, brainless chickenshit conservative 0

…in my humble estimation, of course. And many, many thanks are owed to my debating partner in crime, The Amazing Bill, who is infinitely more patient and polite than I obviously am. Bill rocks.

Anyway, here are all the comments on the ACLU / Hutto prison article on Unfair Park. To paraphrase the dumbass in question, calling someone a moron is probably the last resort put forth by someone that has no argument.

(And, yes, I know “dumbass” is the equivalent. But he started it. Or ended it, as the case may be…)

“They treat us like we’re nothing”
17 Comments

Whatever you think about illegal immigration, you understand that the people we are discussing here are coming here fleeing persecution? We are then jailing some of them, some of whom are children, right? How do I feel about that as an American, as a Christian? Well, I’m appalled. It reflects badly on our country and as us as citizens that we just look away. Shame on us. Shame.

1) Comment by bill h — March 6, 2007 @ 3:25 pm


…Which is why it’s so good that you do what you do, Bill. You kick ass. Sez me.

By the way, does anyone happen to know who runs the facility in question? Is it a private company by chance…?

2) Comment by Danny — March 6, 2007 @ 3:56 pm


According to the ACLU
“Pursuant to a contract between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America, Inc. (CCA), Hutto is a converted maximum-security prison that bills itself as a “Family Residential Facility.”
Thanks for the kind word Danny.

3) Comment by bill h — March 6, 2007 @ 4:21 pm


Thanks, Bill. You just defined where the problem lies, at least to my mind…

Somebody PLEASE tell me why we’re allowing our government to source out industries with moral (at the very least) obligations - but no legal regulations, of course - to uphold international (or American) laws regarding human rights, military intelligence, homeland security, the Geneva Conventions, immigration laws, etc., to private corporations. When you do, this is the kind of shit that happens.

Abu Graib, Guantanamo Bay, the tens of thousands of contract employees running around Iraq and Afghanistan with automatic weapons and absolute no oversight whatsoever…All this story is is what happens when unregulated privitization happens on U.S. soil. I really, sincerely hope Amnesty International is paying attention to this story also. Not that the current administration gives a shit what those folks think…

This completely sickens me.

4) Comment by Danny — March 6, 2007 @ 5:26 pm


Now I know why this country is in trouble. It’s reporters that distort the facts and the ACLU that perpetuates them.

First these people chose to bring these children to this country, they are not American citizens. The parents are resisting voluntary deportations and this facility houses them in the interim approximately 30 to 60 days at most. Do you really think they would return for their hearing? Duh…

This was an effort to keep the families together while their status was determined. The alternative is to separate into segregated facilities or go back to “Catch and Release”.

This facility is a converted minimum custody prison, but it is modern and clean. No one is abused.

If you believe everything the Observer and ACLU reports you have a real problem with reality. Next time instead of tugging at the heart strings, tug at the truth.

5) Comment by Kestrel — March 7, 2007 @ 7:48 am


Kestrel, (beautiful name, lovely falcon, often seen around town.)

It’s important to bear in mind that some of these people are Asylum applicants. They are resisting deportation, because they are claiming persecution in their country of origin. Asylum applicants are often not detained and typically do return for their hearings. I’ve personally seen that many many times.

6) Comment by bill h — March 7, 2007 @ 8:24 am


For years we had a wonderful catch and release policy on our southern border. We’ll release you just promise to show up for your hearing. How many showed up for their hearing not many. It’s time to get tough on illegal immigration, as far as I’m concerned they can all sit in detention pending their hearings

7) Comment by Tom — March 7, 2007 @ 10:56 am


Billy h,

Come now, Canada, Lithuania, Honduras, maybe Somalia if they are christian and tell everyone they love Americans, but the fact is most will not seek political asylum until they are detained for immigration violations.

The nonsense in the article about Medical care. They have a small clinic on site, although not staffed 24/7 medical care is available if needed.

They have outdoor play grounds, indoor Gym, and TV. Clothing is provided if needed plus a healthy diet, really shameful No Butler or Spa.

Billy, maybe you would be willing to open your home to these people, It’s possible they are security threats. You know Hezbollah trains their suicide bombers very young. If you are willing to expose my family to a possible threat, shouldn’t yours face the same threat.

8) Comment by Kestrel — March 7, 2007 @ 2:54 pm


I’m making a very narrow point. I’m addressing my comments primarily about Asylum seekers.

The families and children of Asylum seekers should not, in my opinion be jailed. The following report from the Washington Post discusses one of the people incarcerated.

Kestrel, I have known alot of Asylum seekers, all of whom were free, waiting on Court Dates. they could have disappeared and did not, showing up for court dates, because they believe in our system of justice. Some, no all, of them entered the country illegally, because it was virtually impossible for them to enter legally. Somalis in particular come from a country of no infrastructure. Some of them had been tortured, jailed because of their pro-democracy activities, or for being Christian. Many of them turned themselves in to the authorities, as did some of these people. Yes, I realize that some people abuse the system. Yes, I realize that there are security risks. I am expressing my own opinion that it is a risk, I think we should take.

“The report recommended that ICE parole asylum-seekers while they await the outcome of their hearings. It also said that immigrant families not eligible for parole should be released to special shelters or other homelike settings run by nonprofit groups and be required to participate in electronic monitoring or an intensive supervision program that would use a combination of electronic ankle bracelets, home visits and telephone reporting.

The 72-page report also criticized the educational services for children; the food service and rushed feeding times for children; the health care, especially for vulnerable children and pregnant women; the therapeutic mental health care as insufficient or culturally inappropriate; and the recreation time as inadequate for children. The review said that families were being held for months in Hutto and for years in the case of the longer-established Berks facility.

The report also cited inappropriate disciplinary practices used against adults and children, including threats of separation, verbal abuse and withholding recreation or using temperature control, particularly extremely cold conditions, as punishment.

Hosen, who traveled with Mustafa on an inner tube across the Rio Grande from Mexico and insisted that a stranger in Texas call the Border Patrol so she could surrender to authorities, lived in Hutto from June 30 to Jan. 30.

Granted political asylum and now living temporarily in a home for immigrant women and children in Austin, Hosen said that she and other parents in Hutto were threatened regularly with separation from their children for minor infractions such as youngsters running inside the prison. She lost 30 pounds while detained, and her son lost weight and suffered from diarrhea. Concerned about her son’s health, Hosen asked for a multivitamin for him but was denied the request, she said.”

billy

9) Comment by bill h — March 7, 2007 @ 3:49 pm


What you are talking about is spending more Tax dollars on people that shouldn’t be here. If someone catered to my every whim I wouldn’t want to leave either.

The facility in Taylor is for temporary detention for hearings. Most have hearings within 45 days. If they are there longer it’s because they appeal the decision of the magistrate. So, if they are held for long periods it’s because they chose to stay. No They don’t cook Anjara, Sopa De Mondongo or Chicken Taquitos. There is playground equipment and soccer balls. Yes, some toys too. Again, They can leave at any time they volunteer to self deport. The Hilton it’s not Motel 8 maybe.

I don’t have the luxury to rely on journalist for perceived truths, they have an agenda the majority of the time. I do believe what I’ve seen and experienced myself. If you are relying on a report from the ACLU, you need to trash it and go see for yourself. If it were up to the ACLU we would have already lost this country to anarchism.

If we don’t protect our sovereignty as a country we won’t have a country.

10) Comment by Kestrel — March 7, 2007 @ 5:11 pm


I understand your frustration, but the issue is whether our country will continue to provide sanctuary for refugees. I think we should. You say,”What you are talking about is spending more Tax dollars on people that shouldn’t be here.” It is not true that people coming here fleeing persecution, shouldn’t be here.

I don’t think it’s coddling, to provide a non- custodial place for people to live, as they pursue their legal rights to apply for asylum. Our Country has always welcomed people fleeing persecution. For goodness sake, that’s who the Pilgrims were.

You seem to have first hand knowledge of the facility, that I don’t have. I haven’t seen it, and maybe you have. My point is that it is custodial, a prison, even a nice one, is not a place for kids and families, who are seeking refuge here. You and I will just have to agree to disagree as to what should happen while they wait for their day in court

Okay, on to something else,

blessings

billy

11) Comment by bill h — March 7, 2007 @ 7:36 pm


Most refugees of political persecution flee to adjoining countries. Somalia refugees usually go across the border to Ethiopia, much safer than trying for the United States, especially after the Battle of Ras Kamboni.

Well, anyway Homeland Security is a vital interest of mine and these are dangerous times. Compassion with weighted caution must be exercised to keep us safe.

Enjoyed the discussion.

God Bless,

KESTREL

12) Comment by Kestrel — March 7, 2007 @ 10:32 pm


I can’t decide which makes me feel more ill…the story itself or the flat-out racist, hateful and closed-minded comments from Kestrel. Kes, if your condescension in general and your indifference and hostility toward persons not lucky enough to be born in the U.S. is a reflection of ANY measurable portion of American society, then I am truly embarrassed to share this soil with you.

And I know you were addressing Bill’s comments, but the original point I was trying to make is that most of this can be traced directly to the privatization of the most sensitive and crucial industries. Our government is so consumed with making obscenely rich corporations even richer by “awarding” them the operations of functions and institutions that SHOULD BE overseen by the federal government. Human rights, military intelligence and operations, prison systems, veterans’ health care - most of which should have to uphold international laws and regulations (if not basic common sense and decency) - are all sold to the highest bidder. And usually those bidders have direct ties to the folks “awarding” the jobs. Which is very convenient, of course.

As an example (and speaking of veterans’ health care), here’s a blurb from an email I received today from Americans United for Change. Yes, I’m sure you’ll dismiss it the way you have any other information that doesn’t agree with your narrow views, but at some point doesn’t the information begin to gel into something resembling an accurate snapshot of what is going on? Or is it simply not true because you say it isn’t…?

=============

What do you get when you mix Halliburton and health care? Walter Reed.

The stories of abysmal living conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center are bad enough. But there’s more to the story.

To cut costs, the support services and facilities management at Walter Reed were outsourced to a company called IAP — which is run by a former Halliburton official and whose board consists of people like Dan Quayle. If IAP sounds familiar, that’s probably because it’s the same contractor that was asked to deliver relief services to Katrina victims but came up short.

The lack of responsibility is not a new development, nor is it an isolated incident. Stories similar to Walter Reed have cropped up all across the country, and it’s important that people know the truth behind what really happened.

The privatization of support services has proven grossly ineffective and lacks the kind of accountability that our government is founded upon. In the case of Walter Reed, it drove out skilled doctors, psychologists, and caseworkers in favor of penny-pinching government contractors.

First it was Iraq, then Katrina, and now this. The disturbing stories from Walter Reed Medical Center have unleashed huge amounts of criticism, name-calling, and finger-pointing — but little accountability. This nickel-and-dimed approach to serving those in need is par for the course in the Bush Administration.

Americans United for Change
www.americansunitedforchange.org

13) Comment by Danny — March 8, 2007 @ 10:59 am


Danny,

Racism is an argument put forth by someone that has no argument. Anyway, enforcing laws are not racist, the law is blind. I think a dose of truth might have that sickening effect on you. I’ll try not to give it to you in such a large dose.

You need not be embarrassed, you can leave the cover of the blanket of freedom; I have provided for you and cuddle close to the likes of Hugo Chavez. People like yourself makes grandiose comments on the human condition without the true experience or knowledge of it.

As for Walter Reed the civilians fall under military control and supervision, this was an absolute failure of those in command. Our warriors deserve the best and nothing less.

If you had been paying attention my argument with Billy was, being informed and not trusting everything the media and ACLU spoon feeds you. But, you wanted to jump in with personal attacks of racism. So, don’t be surprised at my response. I deal with the real world were ever it might take me, I would suggest you do the same.

14) Comment by Kestrel — March 8, 2007 @ 7:42 pm


No, “racism” is an argument put forth in response to actions or attitudes that are racist. For example, presumptuous comments like, “They don’t cook Anjara, Sopa De Mondongo or Chicken Taquitos…” One could also argue that immediately accusing someone you don’t agree with of being a commie pinko (”the likes of Hugo Chavez”) is a pretty cheap, meaningless shot. Not to mention the fact that most people stopped doing that sort of thing at least twenty years ago. Which, perhaps not coincidentally, seems to be where your ideals seem most comfortable. But if you want to remove talk of racism and Hugo Chavez from the argument, that’s certainly preferable to me.

This “truth” to which you refer…Do you have anything more specific you’d like to provide? Personally, I would never make the assumption that any of my beliefs are “truth”…merely what I believe to be true. You can certainly change my perspective by providing a bit more information. For someone to refer to anything they’re saying as “truth” is a pretty clear indication that they’ve hung the “do not disturb” sign outside the door to their mind a long time ago. Unlike the impression I get of you, I’ll gladly change my opinion when I have evidence that compels me to do so.

You’re correct in stating the law is blind. As well it should be. Which makes it all the more imperative that we as people are not. We create the laws to govern ourselves, but we also change or overturn them when we feel the moral justification to do so. No laws exist in perpetuity. Unfortunately, a sad example of this is probably your leader Dubya and his disregard for habeas corpus. We’re seeing the ugly results of our current administration’s intentional disregard for human rights, international law, and basic human dignity…all over the world – or at least in places where we can make some money – and back here at home.

You’re also absolutely correct with regard to my tendency to make grandiose comments (in fact, I think I just did it again…oops). I’ll give you that. But I do so in the hopes that, if someone thinks I’m full of shit, they can not only tell me so, but they can also tell me WHY I’m full of shit. I’ve there’s something going on that I don’t know about (and I’m not completely naïve…I know there always is), by all means, please…fill me the fuck in. I’m here to learn, not preach. Even if I do occasionally fall into the trap of coming off as preachy…

You keep telling people to be informed, to not believe everything “the media and ACLU” tells us. I couldn’t agree more. Is the basis for your assumption that Bill and I are doing so simply the fact that we don’t agree with you? What information have you read that has allowed you to form the “truth” you so proudly possess? And what exactly is the “true experience or knowledge” you keep referring to? Please…enlighten us.

And stop fucking calling him “Billy.” His name is Bill, he’s a good man and he deserves to be spoken to with more respect than you seem willing to give anyone else.

15) Comment by Danny — March 9, 2007 @ 1:31 pm


You haven’t a clue you moron.

16) Comment by Kestrel — March 9, 2007 @ 10:22 pm


I think you just told us everything we need to know about you and your “truth”…whoever you are. Nicely done.

17) Comment by Danny — March 12, 2007 @ 9:20 am

...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility...

Speaking of the honorable E. Howard Hunt (Mike’s brother), our hero Carl Bernstein – as in “Woodward and…” – had some pretty damning comments directed at the Bush administration in an online chat at WashingtonPost.com yesterday. Among the highlights…

After a long explanation of how the American system “worked,” eventually, with Watergate, Bernstein said:

“In the case of George W. Bush, the American system has obviously failed – tragically…But imagine the difference in our worldview today, had the institutions – particularly of government – done their job to insure that a mendacious and dangerous president (as has since been proven many times over – beyond mere assertion) be restrained in a war that his killed thousands of American soldiers, brought turmoil to the lives of millions, and constrained the goodwill towards the United States in much of the world.”

Later, asked if the Nixon administration was unique in hiring disreputable characters, he replied:

“In terms of small-bore (but dangerous) characters like Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy with their schemes, I doubt that any presidency approaches the criminality of the Nixon White House. But the Watergate conspiracy to undermine the constitution and use illegal methods to hurt Nixon’s political opponents and even undermine the electoral system was supervised by those at the very top.

“In the current administration we have seen from the President down – especially Vice President Cheney, Attorney General Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld – a willingness to ignore the great constitutional history of the United States – to suspend, really, the many of the constitutional guarantees that have made us a nation apart, with real freedoms unknown elsewhere, unrestricted by short-term political objectives of our leaders.

“Then there are the Geneva conventions: Who would have dreamed that, in our lifetime, our leaders would permit their flagrant abuse, would authorize torture, ‘renditions’ to foreign-torture chambers, suspension of habeus corpus, illegal surveillance of our own citizens…

“But perhaps worst, has been the lying and mendacity of the president and his men and women – in the reasons they cited for going to war, their conduct of the war, their attempts to smear their political opponents.

“Nixon and his men lied and abused the constitution to horrible effect, but they were stopped.

“The Bush administration – especially its top officials named above and others familiar to most Americans – was not stopped, and has done far greater damage. As a (Republican) bumper-sticker of the day proclaimed, ‘Nobody died at Watergate.’ If only we could say that about the era of George W. Bush, and that our elected representatives in Congress and our judiciary had been courageous enough to do their duty and hold the President and his aides accountable.”

When asked about the CIA leak case surrounding Valerie Plame, Bernstein said it was “a truly Nixonian event, a happenstance not atypical of the take-no-prisoners politics of the Bush presidency. But it pales in comparison to the larger questions of the Constitution, of life and death, of the Geneva conventions, of he expectation that our leaders – from Condoleeza Rice to Dick Cheney, to the attorney(s) general to Paul Wolfowitz and on down and up the line speak truthfully to the American people and the Congress. They have consistently failed to do so.”

Couldn’t have said it any better, myself. And, obviously, I didn’t.

And I still adore Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

It's not nice to fool...Mother Nature...! (boom, crash, etc.)

First off, you’ll have to kinda bear with me. Since undertaking this whole blogging thing, I’ve discovered there are way more topics about which I’d like to blog than there is time to actually write the blogs. Thus, I’ve gotten really blogged down (har har) and have shit scattered everywhere. Today, I took it upon myself to try and get a little organized so I can tackle one subject at a time and, hopefully, whittle things down to the point where I’m somewhat caught up. So these next few entries might seem a little dated, but my reason for digging them up – indeed, the point of the entire blogsite itself – is to try and bring attention to these subjects or stories. Even if nobody reads them...at least I’ve put them out there for now. Plus, each story or news item is still relevant…I’ll try to provide updates to see if the situations have evolved or devolved since their original publication dates.

That said, there was an article from the June issue of The Sun that I’d like to share. Part of the article, anyway. The author is a guy named Barry Lopez, a writer from Oregon who specializes in the relationship between nature and human society, in both his fiction and non-fiction works. The article (short-story?) in question is called Waiting for Salmon. I couldn’t find any mention on his website of it being included in any of his books...otherwise, I’d include a link. Hopefully, I won’t get sued. Anyway, here’s an excerpt from this story that I really liked for a number of reasons...

“A purely biological view of humanity – sans politics, sans religion – is something we are unaccustomed to. We tend to think of humanity as exempt from nature by virtue of its technologies, its impressive eschatologies. (No, I don’t know what that word means either.) To practice our political and religious beliefs, however, we must be free to act – a freedom already compromised by our aversion to questions about our biological fate. Scientists...would inform us that we are organisms no more separate from nature than we are exempt from the consequences of the cultural design we have tried to impose on nature.

“To speak frankly and unemotionally of large-scale changes in the natural world that might be traced to human activity, however, remains anathema to people still furious with Darwin for suggesting that ‘nature’ included man. In this way some religious convictions in America directly oppose democratic process.

“Imagine a disinterested primate mammalogist or psychiatric pathologist dispassionately observing a random, urban population of Homo sapiens in North America. He or she would be justified in writing this diagnosis: Increasingly dependent on prescription drugs to elevate or suppress its emotions; living in intense, intersecting fields of electromagnetic energy; drawing its waters from aquifers laced with manufactured chemical wastes, including hormones and antibiotics whose synergistic toxicity is unknown and ignored. He or she would note that the diseases making striking inroads in this population include various forms of dementia (attention-deficit disorder and Alzheimer’s), asthma, hypertension, depression, distraction disorders, and many types of cancer. He or she would point out that while the primary cause of such diseases is often genetic predisposition, it is likely that these particular diseases are also culturally driven or stress-related to some appreciable degree. Relying solely on traditional explanations of the etiology of these impairments, the researcher would be compelled to note, would be to ignore the role of industry practice and government policy and to overlook the unwitting human disturbance of viral ecologies in recent years that has produced HIV, Ebola, Lassa fever, Marburg virus, and other unprecedented problems.

“The world, we too often forget, has no investment or interest in the triumph of Homo sapiens, an idea that many Christian fundamentalists, with their Albigensian (again...no idea) hatred of the earth, want stricken from the record of human thought.

“In a mature nation, where terrorists might be understood as part of a worldwide awakening to the specter of finite resources, and to the strategic and tactical planning required to secure ownership to fresh water, petroleum, and grain fields, it would be possible in political discussion to raise the subject of the fate of Homo sapiens. But in no country does this seem possible. As for America, its mainstream politics is uninformed by, even hostile to, biology. Further, a major segment of the American electorate apparently believes that any concern about where food and water will come from is a superstitious holdover from the time of ‘primitive’ people. Man’s destiny, his true home, they assert, is in a heaven, alongside their one-and-only God, who gave humans the earth to use for whatever it might provide in the way of comfort and material wealth, and for however it might serve their plan to convert all benighted peoples to a belief in Him. That done, the earth would be abandoned. A rapturous departure, an empty warehouse.”

I do like the fact that it takes to task the seeming majority of Americans who prefer to ignore the independently verifiable information that science has provided us over the past century and a half or so in favor of the absurdly mythological tales that organized religions – Christianity, in particular – have deemed the unquestionable truth. I still cannot wrap my head around this kind of head-in-sand “faith,” but then I’m probably the last person who should be trying to.

But what really jumped out at me was the bit about the objective examiner trying to translate modern American society for an audience previously ignorant of it...the “diagnosis” of our collective dependence on prescription medications and unnatural additives, the fact that we ingest these both intentionally and unintentionally, without knowing the long- (or even medium-) term effects to our human bodies and the body of our Earth. Lopez then takes his narrative to the next logical level, which is the fact that over the same basic corresponding time during which these chemicals became commonplace in our lives, there have been equally dramatic increases in both psychological disorders and flesh-and-blood disease. (Mental health experts would probably argue that I shouldn’t separate the two, though for the sake of this post I will.) “Culturally driven...unprecedented problems,” the shortest possible summary.

Leaving the rest of the issues related to religion aside for now (though the excerpt above is certainly worth reading and re-reading again, which is why I left it intact), it more or less brings us right back to the issue I brought up a post or two previous...the willful ignorance of future consequences related to the industries of “natural” products for human consumption using production methods that circumvent scientific integrity in the name of commerce.

The prescription drug industry – completely out of control now that the FDA has become a puppet organization managed by the very companies and special interests they are supposed to be overseeing; factory farming; the completely synthetic world of artificial food additives, which seems to expand with Big Bang rapidity; genetically modified agriculture and the corporations who specialize in it...these are all examples of industries which have been encouraged through government deregulation to disregard ethics and public safety for the sake of their respective shareholders. (Especially thanks to that ridiculous Clinton-era law that took it upon itself to reclassify corporations as actual citizens.)

Common sense tells us not to feed poultry products to chicken, tells us not to feed beef derivatives to cattle. Yet we act surprised when Avian Flu and Mad Cow Disease appear in our food supply.

In this age of global commerce, both corporations and governments encourage people to stop thinking and start buying. Hell, Dubya said as much after the 9/11 attacks…that the best way all of us could help the national healing process would be to start “buying again.” That’s the prevailing advice across the globe: don’t think, just buy. Doesn’t really matter what you buy, so long as money’s getting passed around.

And it’s a recipe for catastrophe. Forget evidence for a moment and just rely on common sense. How much more convincing should we need to remember – not “realize” but “remember” – that humans cannot mold the natural world for the sake of profit without provoking devastating results?

I’ve provided a couple additional links below that I think are worth reading and considering with regard to our current course. I hope they present you with information you find worthy of your time...

October 17, 2006
FDA is Set to Approve Milk, Meat from Clones

October 15, 2006 (from Michael Pollan)
The Vegetable-Industrial Complex

September 29, 2006
TFAs, the Food Industry’s ‘Trojan Horse’ on Your Table

simplicity is beautiful

The most recent issue of my beloved The Sun features a great interview with Studs Terkel. I’ve never known much about him other than that he’s a writer and a legend for various reasons. But it’s great to read some of his comments/opinions, especially considering his perspective as a ninety-three year old. He’s seen and lived through a lot, obviously, so I think his take on modern society is pretty compelling...

(You may want to skip this for now, Wendy, as I don’t want this to be a spoiler for you...)

“You wonder: How stupid are the American people? Are my books a hoax? Because the books say there’s a basic decency in the American people, and a basic honesty, and a basic intelligence. Am I wrong? No, because the cards have been stacked against the people from the beginning.

“We talk about ‘assaults’ these days. We talk about the ‘9/11 assault.’ The most egregious assault right now is on our intelligence. Public TV is a big offender – look who’s been on there the longest: (conservative commentator) Bill Buckley. And who else has been on? John McLaughlin and Robert Novak and Mort Kondracke (all conservatives).

(And meanwhile the liberal Bill Moyers…) “...was forced out of public TV. They say he’s too biased. And so you have to think the American people can be pretty stupid. Or is it that we’re suffering from a national Alzheimer’s disease? We cannot remember yesterday, let alone what happened fifty years ago…

“...Social Security – privatize it, and half my friends would be buried in potter’s field...Think about this. We are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal healthcare. We are also the only industrialized nation in the world that still has the death penalty.

“...So that tells me that we’re a dumb bunch of schmucks here, really, voting against ourselves. Or is there something else? If you’re fed banality and you’re fed trivia and you’re fed all the schlock – the sex and the crime and the overdose of food and everything else – something is bound to happen. It isn’t just people being dumb. The cards are stacked; the dice are loaded.”


On a completely different note, after discussing his “ineptitude” with regard to mechanical things – which I can certainly relate to – he talks about how he prefers to keep things as simple as possible in general...

“The other thing I like to do (when interviewing) is keep it simple: ‘What do you do? What is your day like?’ Here’s a good example: a gas-meter reader in Working. I ask, ‘What is the day of a gas-meter reader like?’ He says, ‘Well, it’s dogs and women.’ And I say, ‘Dogs and women?’ And then I realize the first is the reality, the second the fantasy. You’ve got to know that. ‘Well, let’s talk about the dogs first.’

“’I don’t care for a pit bull,’ he says. ‘I’ve got my flashlight ready. I don’t mind a wolfhound. It’s those little poodles, those Pekingese pups, I hate them. They gnaw at my legs.’

“’Now what about the women?’”

“’Oh, nothing’s happened. It’s just sometimes it’s summertime, and it’s hot, and a woman is kind of good-looking, and she’s lying there in the backyard on her stomach on the blanket, and she’s in a bikini. She’s getting the sun on her back, and she’s got the bra unfastened. So what I do is I creep up very slowly, very softly, and when I’m right near her, I holler: ‘Gas man!’ And she turns around. You know what, I’m bawled out an awful lot, but it makes the day go faster.’”

Genius.

Does anyone remember the scene at the end of the movie Dogma where Linda Fiorentino’s character, Bethany, asks God, who’s played by Alanis Morissette, “Why are we here?” God (Alanis) thinks about it for a second, looks around, then looks up at Bethany, scrunches Bethany’s nose with her finger, and says, “Wrrp...!” That’s still one of my favorite scenes in any movie I’ve ever seen because, I think, it says everything without saying anything. That is why we’re here…to play with and enjoy each other and have fun, so long as nobody’s getting hurt. Everything else is icing. Which isn’t to say I don’t still struggle with the issue about which I posted yesterday...but I absolutely believe that.

Gas man! (Wrrp...!)

The Sun, "The Temple of Reason," and some quick hits on religiosity

Have I mentioned lately how brilliant The Sun magazine is? If not, please allow me to do so now. If you consider yourself an open-minded person (you don't have to be a liberal, but it helps), please subscribe for a year and see what you think. If you find yourself unsatisfied with what you find, I will personally reimburse you for the subscription price. (This offer applies only to my actual friends, by the way. And it is sincere.)

Aside from the fact that the magazine operates solely on subscriptions and donations - thus, no worries about advertiser interference or influence - it's just a completely unique publication. Readers contribute as much as the magazine's staff...each issue is based around some sort of theme and said theme rarely feels forced while also being very relevant to the issues with which we're forced to deal at any given time...it combines fiction, non-fiction, interviews, poetry, photography, a "readers write" section, and a collection of topic-related quotes at the end of every issue. I consider it a work of art on par with National Geographic, myself. A very noble enterprise.

Since most of the contributions are from "amateurs," you do have to deal with the occasional, um, really bad and/or pretentious writing. But I've yet to finish an issue without learning something about myself and the world around me.

This month's issue deals with the subject of religion. The interview is with a man named Sam Harris, whose main mission appears to be convincing the world that institutionalized atheism is our only chance of survival in a world that is rapidly becoming more and more polarized by religious extremism coming from all points on the globe. With the exception of one comment he makes that I strongly disagree with, I have to say I'm totally on board with his goal and his motives. It's so nice to get that rare feeling of validation in the form of finding out your somewhat unorthodox opinions are shared by others.

But I'm not going to get into the interview itself. Just take me up on my subscription offer, please, and read it for yourself. The remainder of this month's issue are varying contributions that also deal with religion and/or spirituality in ways that are very personal to each author. And that's what The Sun is about. Every issue is put together with one goal in mind: enlightenment. Or at least a kick in the pants toward enlightenment. And enlightenment, obviously, is a pretty nebulous concept. Which makes each month's product all the more inspiring.

What I'd like to do, though, is quote a couple comments from the "Sunbeams" section of the magazine that really, really spoke to my feelings regarding organized religion...

"What are the seven deadly sins of Christianity? Gluttony, avarice, sloth, lust...They are urges every man feels at least once a day. How could you set yourself up as the most powerful institution on earth? You first find out what every man feels at least once a day, establish that as a sin, and set yourself up as the only institution capable of pardoning that sin." - Anton LaVey

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." - The Dalai Lama

'Nuff said, in my opinion. Not that that's gonna stop me from saying more about it again in the future...