December 15, 2006

  • Ego or Savvy Business Plan?

    Old Theologian Dan has finally lost his mind, I think.  Not content with having five or six of his posts simultaneously on Featured Content, he has come up with a more grandiose plan.  Here's the message I just received from him, as one of his Xanga Friends:

    ***I am going to beat youtube. I want to beat their "Most viewed" for the
    day page. I need people to send me videos to use. If you would like to
    help or have some experience in dealing with youtube, let me know.***

    Of course, some day we may find out that it wasn't just ego.  We may read in USA Today that Dan has sold his Xanga page to Google for 7.8 billion dollars.  And then we'll all say to ourselves, "Damn, why didn't _I_ think of that??!"

December 11, 2006

  • New Entry

    It's been a long time since my last entry, it seems.  I wish I had something worthwhile to say.  I could always post another political diatribe/informative piece of some sort, but I think my readers get a little sick of those.

    This is always a tough time of year for me, and this year has been a particularly rough one.  I've suffered way too many betrayals of my friendship this year...a phenomenon that is not unusual in my life for some reason, but  incomprehensible to me every time it happens.  I have a tendency to give way too much, expect simply fidelity in return, and rarely get it.  It may be that I'm giving the wrong things, but if so I can't seem to figure out what the right things are.

    There have been a couple of bright spots this year - you know who you are - and those sparks in the darkness keep me going, but just barely.  I'm at a point - for about the third time in my life - where I've run out of gas in the community I'm in, and need to go someplace else and make a fresh start but have no idea where that might be or what the fresh start might consist of.  So I just sleep most of the day, trying to avoid "reality" as much as I can.

    I yearn for a world where love is more prevalent than cruelty and/or indifference - one is never too old to yearn for that - but I don't seem to be able to find such a world even in microcosm, or (apparently) to be able to set a particularly consistent example.  In this brave new "information society" we speak endless words to one another, yet somehow no one understands anyone else or seems to have much of an interest in doing so.  In America, this land of rugged individualism and rampant consumerism, we all seem to be just ships passing in the night.  But then, I speak from the perspective of having no family.  Some of you no doubt have a far different experience.

    Well, I'm just rambling, and feeling sorry for myself a bit.  No point in saying more, I guess.  But I just wanted to let you all know I'm still here. 

    I'll leave comments on your sites from time to time.  Don't know when I'll post again.  For months now I've been wanting to write about the life of a firefighter - what's it's "really" like - but somehow I never seem to find the energy.

    Love to you all.


December 2, 2006

  • World Trade Organization Offers Humanitarian Plan for Africa

    There's never a shortage of interesting things to post about.  I was going to post something else, until the press release below "came across my desk" shortly before Thanksgiving and seemed to take priority.  You'll have to decide for yourself whether the proposed initiative is "real" or not, but there seems to be ample documentation.

    One has to ask oneself....how could we ever doubt the sufficiency of "free-market" capitalism to solve global problems, when its logic is so unassailable and its motives so obviously pure?

    There's also no small degree of irony contained right in the WTO's press release itself, and you don't even have to dig to find it.  "....World Trade
    Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO
    initiative for 'full private stewardry of labor' for the parts of Africa that
    have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the
    West."  So....the solution for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West?  Yes, of course!  MORE "free trade" with the West!  I'm sure THIS time the West has only the best interests of Africa at heart.

    Have you ever wondered just exactly what the World Trade Organization is and what it does, who controls it, what it's for?

    Vox clamantis in deserto,

    John

    EDIT: The first web site listed below, supposedly the official WTO web site, has a disclaimer that reads as follows:
       Important Note: Many visitors from all over the political spectrum have read this
    release and believed it to mean that the WTO is officially in favor of
    slavery.

       
    In actual fact, we at the WTO would never, ever wish to suggest that
    the modern version of the West's free trade with Africa is tantamount
    to its older form, slavery, or even worse than its other older form,
    colonialism. That would fly in the face of everything that we stand
    for.

       
    The catastrophic failure of free-trade policies in Africa may be one
    partial source of this confusion. The actual, literal slavery that
    flourishes under the auspices of free trade (in Brazil, Jordan, and elsewhere) may be another.

    Now...does that clear everything up for you?

    **********

    November 13, 2006
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    WTO ANNOUNCES FORMALIZED
    SLAVERY MARKET FOR AFRICA
    US Trade Representative to Africa, Governor of
    Nigeria Central Bank weigh in at Wharton

        Text, photos, video: http://www.gatt.org/wharton.html
        WTO Contact: Hanniford
    Schmidt (mailto:schmidt@gatt.org)
        Conference website: http://www.whartonglobal.com/africa/panels.asp#Trade
        Conference
    contacts: http://www.whartonglobal.com/africa/contact.asp

    Philadelphia
    - At a Wharton Business School conference on business in
    Africa, World Trade
    Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt
    announced the creation of a WTO
    initiative for "full private
    stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that
    have been hardest
    hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the
    West.

    The initiative will require Western companies doing business in
    some
    parts of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt recounted
    how
    private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport,
    power,
    water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The
    WTO's "full
    private stewardry" program will extend these successes to
    (re)privatize
    humans themselves.

    "Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available
    solution to
    African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market
    theory,"
    Schmidt told more than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that
    the
    stewardry program was similar in many ways to slavery, but
    explained
    that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the
    rough
    edges on labor relations in industrialized countries, full
    stewardry,
    or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to
    developing
    ones.

    The audience included Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor
    of the Central
    Bank of Nigeria), Dr. Laurie Ann Agama (Director for African
    Affairs
    at the Office of the US Trade Representative), and other
    notables.
    Agama prefaced her remarks by thanking Scmidt for his
    macroscopic
    perspective, saying that the USTR view adds details to the
    WTO's
    general approach. Nigerian Central Bank Governor Soludo
    also
    acknowledged the WTO proposal, though he did not seem to
    appreciate
    it as much as did Agama.

    A system in which corporations own
    workers is the only free-market
    solution to African poverty, Schmidt said.
    "Today, in African
    factories, the only concern a company has for the worker
    is for his
    or her productive hours, and within his or her productive years,"
    he
    said. "As soon as AIDS or pregnancy hits--out the door. Get sick,
    get
    fired. If you extend the employer's obligation to a 24/7,
    lifelong
    concern, you have an entirely different situation: get sick,
    get
    care. With each life valuable from start to finish, the AIDS
    scourge
    will be quickly contained via accords with drug manufacturers as
    a
    profitable investment in human stewardees. And educating a child
    for
    later might make more sense than working it to the bone right
    now."

    To prove that human stewardry can work, Schmidt cited a proposal by
    a
    free-market think tank to save whales by selling them. "Those who
    don't
    like whaling can purchase rights to specific whales or groups
    of whales in
    order to stop those particular whales from getting
    whaled as much," he
    explained. Similarly, the market in Third-World
    humans will "empower" caring
    First Worlders to help them, Schmidt
    said. (http://www.policynetwork.net/main/article.php?article_id=505)

    One
    conference attendee asked what incentive employers had to remain
    as stewards
    once their employees are too old to work or reproduce.
    Schmidt responded that
    a large new biotech market would answer that
    worry. He then reminded the
    audience that this was the only possible
    solution under free-market
    theory.

    There were no other questions from the audience that took issue
    with
    Schmidt's proposal.

    During his talk, Schmidt outlined the three
    phases of Africa's 500-
    year history of free trade with the West: slavery,
    colonialism, and
    post-colonial markets. Each time, he noted, the trade has
    brought
    tremendous wealth to the West but catastrophe to Africa, with
    poverty
    steadily deepening and ever more millions of dead. "So far there's
    a
    pattern: Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad
    for
    people. Good for business, bad for people. That's why we're so
    happy to
    announce this fourth phase for business between Africa and
    the West: good for
    business--GOOD for people."

    The conference took place on Saturday,
    November 11. The panel on
    which Schmidt spoke was entitled "Trade in Africa:
    Enhancing
    Relationships to Improve Net Worth." Some of the other panels in
    the
    conference were entitled "Re-Branding Africa" and "Growing
    Africa's
    Appetite." Throughout the comments by Schmidt and his
    three
    co-panelists, which lasted 75 minutes, Schmidt's stewardee,
    Thomas
    Bongani-Nkemdilim, remained standing at respectful attention off
    to
    the side.

    "This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt.
    "It's about the
    freedom to buy and sell anything--even people."

November 22, 2006

  • Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all

    I'll be taking a little Thanksgiving hiatus for a few days, which will include limited access to the internet and therefore to Xanga.  God bless each and every one of you.  May you FIND something, and hopefully multiple somethings, to be thankful for.

    If you're not American and therefore not celebrating the American Thanksgiving...well, there's something to be thankful for right there! 

    Actually, there is a short thing that I've been meaning to post.  The October 30, 2006 issue of Time Magazine featured a Special Report: America at 300 Million.  They called it "America By the Numbers", and it included a section on "What We Earn".  It demonstrates graphically (in both the literal and the figurative meanings of the term) the disparity between rich and poor in America, and between American workers and those in some of the European countries.

    So here's the question:  How long do you estimate that you have to work to earn $1,000?  To help you with your estimate, here are some figures for comparison purposes:

    Howard Stern:  24 seconds                                                 Dr. Phil:  2 minutes, 42 seconds
    Brad Pitt:  4 minutes, 48 seconds                                         Kobe Bryant:  5 minutes, 30 seconds
    Average American CEO:  2 hours, 55 minutes                     Doctor, G.P.:  13 hours, 5 minutes
    Police officer:  43 hours                                                       High school teacher:  43 hours
    Farmer:  57 hours                                                                Janitor:  103 hours

    NOW do you see how much you have to be thankful for....if you're Howard Stern?   


November 17, 2006

  • A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

    Here's Michael Moore at his most non-ironic.  It'd be nice if he had the power to actually keep some of these promises....

    **********

    A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

    November 14th, 2006

    To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,

    I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's
    election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you
    don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much
    yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I
    understand.

    Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and
    the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have
    a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you
    because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan
    to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to
    you and for you.

    Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:

    Dear Conservatives and Republicans,

    I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

    1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never,
    ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we
    encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

    2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider
    your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our
    business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

    3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to
    enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

    4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring
    your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never
    to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

    5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health
    coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise
    that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay.
    And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that
    affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to
    you and your family, too.

    6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up
    our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the
    cleaner air and drink the purer water.

    7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote
    every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice.
    Immediately. We will protect you.

    8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do
    there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age
    from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

    9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon
    or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter
    and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and
    schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children
    just as we would protect ours.

    10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees --
    that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay
    conservative women that wage, too.

    11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those
    beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most
    radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the
    peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the
    eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever
    you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We
    will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he
    blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism --
    starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the
    rest of the world.

    12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and
    paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or
    herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt
    politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on
    it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads
    the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as
    the loyal opposition.

    I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are
    every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as
    one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the
    opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow
    Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

    Signed,

    Michael Moore
    mmflint@aol.com
    (Click here to sign
    the pledge    )
    www.michaelmoore.com


November 11, 2006

  • An Interesting Paradigm

    While I don't agree with Dr. Crane that Iran is unique in the world in its practice of "compassionate justice" - some of the other Arab countries come to mind, as well as Venezuela and Brazil - it's certainly different from the American model of social Darwinism, isn't it?

    **********

    November 7, 2006
    The American Muslim

    The New Triple Threat in Iran: Compassionate Justice?
    by Dr. Robert D. Crane

    Now we may have a triple threat
    in Iran. Not only has Ahmadinejad's statement on regime change in Israel and
    America been grossly distorted, and his theoretical right to nuclear weapons as
    a deterrent to attack been denied, but we may now soon hear that his policies of
    compassionate justice are the first step in a radical socialist scheme designed
    to destroy the financial system that sustains the world.

    On October 28th,
    2006, the Iranian CEO, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, announced that government
    will be down-sized and political power will be decentralized through the
    privatization of state-owned industry, with 50% "sold" free to the poor. This is
    a good start on what Ayatollah Sistani might well advocate in Iraq. Sistani is
    only too well aware of the downside of concentrated political power in Iran and
    of the American strategy in Iraq to concentrate political power in a central
    government there in order better to orchestrate control of its natural
    resources.

    At a conference called to officially inaugurate the new
    Iranian plan to privatize industry through "justice shares" to "justice stock
    companies" Ahmadinejad emphasized that justice is not merely an individual
    responsibility but a joint responsibility of every person working together as a
    community. The Speaker of Parliament, Gholam Ali Haddad, stated at this
    conference that justice had been the driving force behind the original Iranian
    revolution, but had been side-tracked for an entire generation.

    Now the
    question arises, when will Iran start privatizing the oil industry to the
    general populace through inalienable voting shares of stock? This has been
    priority number one in position papers that I and others have been advancing
    since the first day of the Iranian revolution more than a quarter century ago as
    an essential first step in any faith-based and normative economic system? The
    possible domino effect of such a policy to broaden capital ownership might be
    perceived as the "ultimate threat to global stability." In fact, it would be the
    ultimate moral H-bomb designed to restore the universal right to private
    ownership of productive property as the essence of economic justice in a capital
    intensive world and to counter the primary source of growing global chaos,
    namely, the rapidly escalating wealth-gap both within and among
    nations.

    Iran is the only country in the world where justice is not
    considered to be a threat to stability and where justice indeed is now
    considered to be the major pillar of national security. In America, neither the
    Republican nor Democratic parties dare to even mention the word, because it
    would require fundamental reform of the entire system of money and credit to
    broaden capital ownership rather than to concentrate it. In any research on
    justice in Shi'a jurisprudence and public policy, the new Iranian policies on
    economic and social justice, as a model of both what to do and what not to do,
    might well serve as a principal case study of Jafari jurisprudence in practical
    application.

    Justice in Jafari jurisprudence is holistic, which makes it
    different from all the other legal systems in the world. This system necessarily
    addresses the importance of respecting the right to life, which has immediate
    relevance to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The leading
    ayatollahs in Iran have condemned the production and possession of nuclear
    weapons as fundamentally immoral. I agree with this, not only from the
    perspective of what Catholics call moral theology, but because such weapons are
    irrelevant to shaping the course of history. This is the area where the rubber
    hits the road, because this is where courage as a central element of
    compassionate justice will be seen.

    [Dr. Crane is Chairman of the
    newly formed Center for Understanding Islam, and Vice-Chairman of Crescent
    University. He is Associate Editor for Law and Policy of the new online
    magazine, The American Muslim. Since 1996 he has been President of the Center
    for Policy Research, which develops "grand strategy" to infuse Islamic thought
    in a systematic and professional way into the formation of current policy in
    Washington, D.C.]

    MORE at http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/1107-RDCrane.html

November 8, 2006

  • And so it goes...

    Well, although the Democrats apparently took over control of the House for the first time since 1994, and gained a few seats in the Senate, none of the candidates I voted for got elected.  Not a single one.  This is what always happens.  As usual in my neck of the woods, people vote for "experience" (i.e., the incumbent) over anything remotely resembling an original idea.

    And the two candidates for state Senate - STATE Senate, mind you - spent a total of over TWO MILLION DOLLARS on their Senate campaign.

    And so begins another two years of Business As Usual in America.  May you enjoy yours.

    EDIT:  On a more positive note (I was feeling discouraged last night), the Green Party achieved official status in the state of Illinois, which means that in the next election they will not have to get 10 times the number of petition signatures that the so-called "established" parties are required to get.  And in every community I've heard of where there were advisory referenda against the war, a substantial majority of voters called for a "rapid and orderly" withdrawal of troops  from Iraq.  Ten minutes ago, Donald Rumsfeld just announced his resignation as Secretary of Defense.

    This administration will definitely go down in history as one of the most inept, corrupt, and criminal in American history.  I'm just sorry it has taken a majority of American voters so very, very long to see it.

November 6, 2006

  • Give Love a Chance?

    Perhaps even mejicojohn might be convinced by the logic of Patch Adams?  Dare I hope for the impossible?  I'm reminded of when the erstwhile Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich suggested a Cabinet-level Department of Peace, and all the political "pragmatists" called him Senator Moonbeam as they decried his "dumb" idea.

    I'm afraid I can't go for Patch's idea of putting women "with loving instincts" in charge, though, although I'd be willing to give it a try.  You give a woman significant power and, nine times out of ten, she ends up behaving just as ignorantly as the men. 

    Personally, I'd rather put all African-Americans in charge.  I suspect they might have slightly different priorities than the Rich White Men who run things now.

    **********

    Published on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

    On November 7, Be Smart: Vote for Love
    by Patch Adams MD
    While the State Department's Alberto Fernandez felt obligated to take
    back his comments that elements of U.S. policy in Iraq have been
    arrogant and stupid, the truth is that U.S. policy post-9/11 has been
    driven by arrogance and stupidity. What could be stupider than the
    idea
    that violence could end the threat of terrorism and make us safer at
    home? Simple logic tells us that responding to terror with more
    violence will only lead to more terror and more violence. Now we have that
    logic
    confirmed by the grim facts on the ground in Iraq.

    Isn't it time for a radical change of course? There's only one thing
    more powerful than violence, and that's love. So shouldn't we be
    fighting violence with love? I don't mean relational love. I mean
    treating people with love. Feeding them. Educating them. Healing
    them.
    That kind of love.

    As a doctor - and a clown - I've seen the tremendous healing power of
    love.
    The number one factor for surviving a heart attack is having a loving
    community. A study of 4,000 women with breast cancer found that with
    a
    little love - six hour-long support sessions - their survival rate
    increased five-fold. With the situation in Iraq imploding, tensions
    increasing
    with Iran and North Korea, and our government's policies leading more
    and more people to hate Americans, it's time to take the healing
    power
    of love to the global level. It's time for a love platform.

    What's a love platform? It's a set of policies that shows compassion
    for the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless, the poor. It's a
    platform
    that treats the environment with the loving respect it deserves.

    A love platform would call for kissing, not killing. You switch two
    little letters and you get a whole new outlook on life. Kissing, not
    killing.

    A love platform would put women in charge - women with loving instincts
    who would treat the world the way my mother treated my friends when
    they came to my house. She fed them, she wiped their noses, she was
    nice.
    That's it. We'd have a policy called "Be Nice." If everyone treated
    people like my mother did, we'd put an end to violence.

    We need to create a massive global movement for loving. It would be
    like the Peace Corps times 10,000. People who have resources would go,
    en
    masse, to help those without. People with skills would teach those
    without. People who are healthy would take care of those who are
    sick.

    We'd save cabinet positions for the Amish people who embraced the
    family of the man who killed their children. We'd put in charge of
    foreign
    policy the people who lost loved ones on 9/11 but insisted that
    revenge
    was not the answer, or the women of CODEPINK who tried desperately to
    stop the war in Iraq before it even began.

    It really amazes me that we spend so many hours as a society focusing
    on love as sex or love that some consider perverse: Mark Foley
    sending
    emails to underage boys, Bill Clinton with an intern, love between
    people of the same sex. But we spend no time focusing on the big love
    that should drive our lives and our policies, i.e. love for the human
    family. We spend no time in school teaching young people how to grow
    up
    to be loving adults. The media gives us never-ending examples of
    violence and hate, but rarely gives us the uplifting examples of the
    kid who spends his lunch money on feeding the homeless. We hear about
    the
    brave soldiers who fight, but not about the people-often women-who
    force the soldiers to put down their guns.

    For those who say that a love platform is ridiculous and naive, I ask
    them to compare the results of the $300 billion we've spent on war in
    Iraq with what we would get if we had spent that money on setting up
    health clinics all over the world and feeding people who are hungry.
    I
    travel around the world and meet lots of people who fear and hate us.
    If we spent our energy and resources uplifting people in
    need-spreading
    laughter and light instead of bombs and bullets-we'd live in a world
    that was happier, healthier and safer.

    So come November 7, be smart. Vote out stupid and arrogant candidates
    who think that occupying Iraq by force or bombing Iran will make us
    safe. And vote for candidates who understand the simple notion that
    love is not only the best medicine, it's also smart policy.

    Patch Adams, M.D., is a nationally known speaker on wellness,
    laughter,
    humor and life. To support peace candidates, go to

November 5, 2006

  • Ginmar's First-person Iraq Account


    I know that most of you are already familiar with MoveOn.org, and many of you are on their mailing list.  So normally I wouldn't post anything from them on here.  But I found this letter from a reservist particularly poignant and timely, and wanted to share it.  I eliminated the parts where it asks you to call voters.  Thanks for your patience with me.

    **********

    This week, we asked our volunteers why they signed up
    to turn out voters through Call for Change. We were especially struck by
    Ginmar's story and asked her to share it with you. Ginmar (who asked us not to
    use her real name) is a reservist in the Army, but she's writing now only as a
    private citizen.

    Dear
    fellow MoveOn member,

    I believed the lie. As an Army reservist, I went to
    Iraq to protect America from weapons of mass destruction. But when I got there,
    I soon discovered there were no WMDs and no plan for us to succeed. I endured 12
    months of combat and barely made it out alive.

    We can't change the past.
    But in two days, we can change the future. This Republican Congress must be
    fired because they are still putting their own egos above the truth—and above
    human lives.

    This election is our last chance to show what happens when
    politicians use fear and lies to start a war. If they get away with it this
    time, they'll do it again. But if it costs them their power, we can send a
    message to future politicians in the only language they understand—and stop the
    next unnecessary war before it begins. The choice is ours.

    On
    the morning of September 11th, 2001, I watched the attack on the World Trade
    Center with a special horror because the people killed were all civilians
    without training, arms, or defense. I called my unit that afternoon and begged,
    "Wherever this came from, send me there."

    But that's not where they sent
    me. They sent me to Iraq.

    Around a month into my tour, my small unit was
    ambushed by hundreds of insurgent fighters at a Coalition Provisional Authority
    base. The local security force (hired by corporate mercenaries) deserted
    immediately, taking guns and radios with them.

    We were besieged for 22
    straight hours under a steady stream of small arms fire and rocket propelled
    grenades. Forces from multiple nations attempted rescues throughout the night.
    At dawn, when morning prayers created a pause in the attack, we managed to
    escape with our lives.

    I spent the next 11 months doing convoys, writing
    reports, and getting to know the real Iraq. I talked to hundreds of Iraqis; many
    became true friends. I saw the rage after Abu Ghraib. And I saw way too many
    innocent civilians die as the country slipped further and further over the
    edge.

    The troops I served with suffered from limited ammunition, armor,
    resources, and staff. While we brushed our teeth in dirty water recycled from
    the showers, Halliburton reps got rich off contracts handed to them by their
    Republican friends back in Washington.

    Reservists like me risk our lives
    when Congress says we must—and we need citizens like you to hold them
    accountable when they betray that trust.

    This Tuesday is our very last chance to do that. It's the last
    chance for Americans to stand up and say we will not forget, we will not excuse,
    and we will not let this betrayal happen again.

    For my fellow troops
    still in the field, for the thousands who have yet to put on the uniform, and
    for the hopes we all have for a peaceful world—it's time to Call for
    Change.

    Respectfully,

    –Ginmar, concerned citizen

  • Eyes on the Prize

    I was gonna write a letter to the editor of our local paper about why I'm voting Green again this year, but I was too tired.  So Molly Ivins will have to do.  Please go on Tuesday and vote at least a few Republicans out of office and into the "free-market" oblivion which they so richly deserve.  In my jurisdiction, we also have several "advisory" referenda on the ballot about pulling our troops out of Iraq, impeaching Bush and his crowd, etc.  This is one election where I can hardly wait to vote, which is extremely rare for me....

    Molly Ivins: Keeping Our Eyes on the Ball

    http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061101_molly_ivins_keeping_our_eyes_on_the_ball/

    Posted on Nov 1, 2006

    By Molly Ivins
    AUSTIN, Texas—I’m still worried sick. The R’s have seized the news cycle!
    Which says more about how dim American politics are than anything else I can
    think of.

    Apparently, the Michael J. Fox affair didn’t have enough meat to it, and
    even Rep. Mark Foley is out of the game, so now we have the semi-hemi-demi-gaffe
    from John Kerry, who is not in fact running for anything.
     
    If Kerry had been given as many breaks for misspeaking as George W. Bush
    has, he’d be a professor of grammar by now. And this all shows what the Bush
    regime has: attacks on Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy, Pelosi, liberals! ... but not
    any actual policies to help it.
     
    The Great Wall of Republican ads is bearing down on us—race-baiting, scare
    tactics and sleaze-mongering. (Who knew so many people had signed up to “promote
    the homosexual agenda”? I don’t even know what it is. But apparently, you don’t
    have to sign up to support—you could be part of it and not even know!) The R’s
    are throwing distorting ads, funded by endless money, all over the place. Can
    the people see that, and ignore and punish them for it?
     
    Aside from the Wall of Ads, we are also faced with Disenfranchisement of
    Democrats again. For some reason, this has come to be regarded as “one of Karl’s
    dirty tricks”—a clever ploy, a little hardball, rather to be admired.
     
    I’ve covered East Texas politics for a long time. All over East Texas—and
    elsewhere around the country—there are elderly black Americans who don’t have
    driver’s licenses because they’ve never had a car, who can’t read because they
    never got to third grade, and who are scared of The Law because for 70 years or
    better they’ve been oppressed by it. So if they see a sheriff’s car blocking the
    road to the polling place and officials checking people’s papers, they head the
    other direction.
     
    Voting isn’t hard, and believe it or not, these elderly blacks have worked
    all their lives and paid into Social Security and paid taxes, and they know a
    lot about how government affects people.
     
    With pundits in Washington, who just a few weeks ago were claiming the
    Democrats would likely take the House by a razor-thin margin, now victoriously
    claiming they all along knew it would be a wipeout, I just feel that
    overconfidence juice starting to kick in. “Maybe 20 seats, maybe 40 seats” ...
    yeah. People could think: “So that’s settled. I don’t even really have to vote.”
     
    Folks, step up and make sure there’s some control on this regime.

    May I remind you what this election is about? Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo,
    unprecedented presidential powers, unmatched incompetence, unparalleled
    corruption, unwarranted eavesdropping, Katrina, Enron, Halliburton, global
    warming, Cheney’s secret energy task force, record oil company profits, $3
    gasoline, FEMA, the Supreme Court, Diebold, Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004, Terri
    Schiavo, stem cell research, golden parachutes, shrunken pensions, unavailable
    and expensive healthcare, habeas corpus, no weapons of mass destruction,
    sacrificed soldiers and Iraqi civilians, wasted billions, Taliban resurgence,
    expiration of the assault weapons ban, North Korea, Iran, intelligent design,
    Swift boat hit squads, and on and on.
     
    This election is about that, but much more—it’s about honor, dignity and
    comity in this country. It’s about the Constitution, which gives us this great
    nation. Bush ran on a pledge of “restoring honor and integrity” to the White
    House. Instead, he brought us Tom DeLay, Roy Blunt, Katherine Harris, John
    Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, Richard Pombo, Mark Foley, Dennis Hastert, David
    Safavian, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove and an illegal and immoral war in
    Iraq. People, it’s up to you.
     
    To find out more about Molly Ivins and see works by other Creators
    Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
     
    Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc.