Saturday, December 29, 2007

10 steps toward a closed society

I thought I saw Naomi Wolf walking down the street today and I wondered what she's been up to. Then I found this link going from Swiftspeech to the man who walks in our name. Wolf puts all the dots together and shows us why we have to act now to prosecute the criminals that are running our country.

There are too many Americans who are complacent about torture, rolling back civil rights, and Homeland Security targeting Americans, not terrorists. What the hell is Blackwater doing getting government funding? Why the hell should the President have greater power to call a national emergency now? Why are we tasering students in Florida and placing academics and Code Pink on Homeland Security lists???

If I were pregnant with a girl, I'd want to name her Naomi.

Peace.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Why the urgency in 2000?

My posts have a bit of drama in them since I've been battling the flu with myself and my two year old for going on ten days.

I woke up from a nap today lucidly thinking about how the Supreme Court intervened in 2000 and handed George Bush the Presidency. I was wondering, shouldn't we investigate that and impeach some judges (as my husband informed me was possible later in the evening)? I mean, what was the urgency? Why couldn't we wait to count the votes? What threat was there to our country that made a result so incredibly needed ASAP? We had till January! And most importantly, the court's choice was WRONG.

I think I was thinking about this because it's so easy to look at Pakistan and think, "Hey you, your government is corrupt and we don't believe you're seeking justice." Well, that slap sticks to us in spades, even without the suicide bombers to boot.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

To Life, or Death, which do you choose?

In my mind there are actions that people take that either move toward life, or move toward death. It became very obvious to me recently that there are a lot of fundamentalist religious types who are praying for death. There are thousands of people (at least) who are really looking forward to an Armageddon where Jesus, yes Jesus, returns to earth and kills millions of non-believers. The man who wrote "The Fall of the House of Bush," has said that he's stood in Israel with fundamentalists who can't wait to see the dead on fields there.

I get the same feeling from some people who hunt. Mmmm, death, how soon can I cause it and watch it, and even eat it? It's the same with the armchair soldiers. GQ has a great article this month that reveals how much we love war carnage.

So while many of us believe in a Jesus (or Christ) that worked for peace, compassion and love; there are very many Christians who believe in a militaristic Jesus who punishes and kills. The human condition is in deep peril, and we must all work hard to keep our peace loving lights lit and growing while snuffing out the fires of hell in the hearts of men on earth.

Peace.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Be scared about your children, and scare your children.

This is outrageous. All in the name of saving children from harm! It shows how a friendly stranger can lure our young children into dangerous situations. No shit. I have no idea how this video would prevent these occurrences. Do they advocate using the tactics in the video? If so, what doesn't come out in teaser for the DVD is this:

1) Fooling children teaches them to not trust US--it's the adults crying wolf and it's a foolish thing for a parent to do to a child.

2) In both of these situations, the children trusted actors who, as far as I can tell, weren't actually criminal or insane. Not to say that the criminal and insane can't be pathologically charming; but I remember being a suspicious kid who could read people pretty well. So these kids actually displayed good judgment about the PEOPLE who approached them--only to have that judgment later questioned within a humiliating "don't you listen to me about strangers?" gotcha atmosphere. Great job, parents--it's like morphing a puppy into a monster!

Let's make sure these kids are scared to ask for help from anybody when they might actually need it!

Which gets to my political point here; we are in such a culture of FEAR that we're teaching our kids that they must fear all adults. No, we can't leave our kids alone until they are a mature 16+, but that doesn't mean we have to scare the bejesus out of them, and us, until then.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Not surprising, but the Republicans are trying to change the fight

Schmog found this--he's working overtime so I get to post it! So the administration has been controlling which climate scientists talk to the media. Not a big surprise, but check out the Republican "defense" which denies nothing but attacks Democrats motives.

Now you can e-mail the FEC

There's a chance Act Blue's small donors may not have their donations matched by Federal Funds--we can comment until Dec. 13. This will help the FEC see the light.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Hillary's oppo research

At first, I thought the Hillary/Obama argument over when Obama wanted to be President was ridiculous (well, it still is, who cares, these guys are obviously ambitious) but today I just realized HOW CREEPY it is that Hillary quoted Obama's elementary school teacher. Can you imagine someone looking through your past to that level of triviality? And is that the worst thing they can drag up about him?! It at once makes him smell like a rose and them look like rats. Republican rats, in fact, that care less about real issues and more about personal attacks. I can just hear her at the debates decrying personal attacks while she's dishing them out!

Mitt's Speech--The Pandering!

CNN Headline News

I just heard them reporting that Bush and Cheney were briefed on the NIE in August, but they didn't note that this contradicts Bush's recent speech where he said he only learned of the NIE last week. I e-mailed Headline News to try to get them to ask more questions.

The assault rifle

In what civilized world is an emotional human being allowed to own an object that will allow him to stand in one place and kill people from 100 yards?

Recently, a vigilante in Texas walked outside of his house and killed allegedly black thieves who robbed his neighbor in Texas, and a suicidal Nebraska teenager killed innocent mall employees and shoppers in Omaha.

Both events took minutes.

The 2nd Amendment does not protect this behavior, and the NRA neglects the fact that guns AND people kill people. I don't care WHERE we live (urban or rural), we need to make guns harder to get and use against people.

Anyone who argues against severe limits for guns is advocating easy, casual murder. The 2nd Amendment protects our right to own guns in our homes, it does not protect every gun, or the unlimited use of them.

LATER:
Okay, one of the reasons this kid decided to shoot a bunch of people, he said, was to become FAMOUS. Why did President Bush grant him this wish by addressing the event at a special press conference? Can't he just call the individual families himself? Let's just inspire more nuts to go shoot people--BushCo just doesn't care about the public welfare!

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Getting to know Huckabee

There are a lot of people on the left and right loving on Mike Huckabee. He's charming, he's disarming, funny, empathetic, and, frankly, nuts. I can see him winning the Republican nomination. Yet his judgment is so skewed that he believes that the physical world started with Adam and Eve, and in our time he sees rapists as sympathetic victims who need active protection from him. Or else he's just out to free rapists who have targeted women related to Bill Clinton.

I look at Huckabee and I see a role player. A man who lives a successful public life but has some kind of private darkness (I now suspect him of misogyny and severe political bias). Lots of ministers I've met live a double life (especially, I would guess, former ministers). These ministers have ambition that is not fulfilled by taking care of the ill, the dying, the needy. They need fame and glory. They need to ascend in the public eye--whether that's done by impressing and seducing women in the church, or running for political office. Is Huckabee that kind of minister? I suspect that he is.

Peace.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Where are the stories about us helping new schools in Iraq?

If we have failed to prevent the murdering of Christians in Iraq, and probably helped motivate these deaths because of our own violence, and Christians can no longer live in FREEDOM, how do we save Iraq from itself?

Where's CNN?

Making another Gore v. Bush...

Republicans were supposed to gather signatures and money by the end of November. The L.A. Times is downplaying it, probably for Republican's benefit. Let's keep our eye open for this electoral college reapportionment effort that will probably end up being challenged in the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional (not decided by our legislature)...right around Nov. 2008.

The big lies

It is absolutely 1984 that Karl Rove is falsely blaming Democrats for rushing to war in Iraq (the bigger the lie, the more it's believed, right?) and that President Bush is now calling Congress a do-nothing. If the Democrats in Congress needed in any help, Bush is now providing it because his athttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giftacks on Congress make ME want to defend "impeachment off the table" Pelosi. Thom Hartman has noted on his show that the House has actually had an ambitious agenda, that gets stalled or changed in the Senate and then gets vetoed at the top (e.g. Healthcare insurance for children).

For Bush to say Congress isn't doing anything cries out for a "then what the hell are you vetoing? Oh yeah, poor children's access to healing."

The Senate did this!!

And who needs enemies when your "friends" report the "news" like this: Feingold responds to Joe Klein

And of course, WWW III and Iran.