April 30, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IMPEACHMENT AN ACT OF POLITICAL WILL
The Constitution uses the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" to describe the offenses that can be used to impeach a federal official. That phrase covers a wide range. Can there be any doubt that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have committed so many offenses that any one of those individual offenses justify impeachment and removal from office? When you consider the magnitude of their crimes you have to wonder why we aren't already taking steps in the Congress to impeach them. In this article Paul Worden points out the legal basis for impeachment and suggests that what we need now is the political will. The article is at www.commondreams.org:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who served as the chief prosecutor of the major Nazi war criminals, called starting a war without cause the “supreme war crime” because all other war crimes flow from it. Under the United Nations Charter, which is a binding international treaty ratified by the United States, it is illegal to attack another nation except: 1) when authorized by the Security Council; or 2) when necessary for self-defense and then only for as long as necessary to get the matter to the Security Council.
The Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441 that found Iraq in material breach of prior resolutions and warned of “severe consequences” if Iraq didn’t conform. But that resolution also explicitly stated that the Security Council remained seized of the issue and the United States assured the other members that Resolution 1441 did not authorize it to attack Iraq; the U.S. would have to return to the Security Council for another resolution before it could attack Iraq. In early 2003, the United States did return to the Security Council with a resolution authorizing an attack on Iraq. When it became clear that the proposed resolution could not muster a majority, the United States withdrew the resolution and attacked Iraq anyway. There is no crime more serious than illegally starting a war.
In garnering support for his invasion of Iraq, President Bush selectively cherry-picked the advice and intelligence that supported the end result he wanted to achieve. Many career officers at the CIA and the Pentagon quit when their reservations about the war were ignored. President Bush misled Congress when he pretended he had solid intelligence that Iraq had the ability and desire to attack America.
EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL DARWINISM NOT THE SAME
After publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species a guy named Herbert Spencer thought it would be a great idea to apply the idea of evolution to society. People at the top, according to Spencer, were there because they were the "fittest." There was nothing unfair about the system; it was just evolution being evolution. But Darwin's theory is about biological processes. It has nothing to do with the ordering of human society or economies. Right-wingers conveniently believe in creationism except when it comes to economics. Then they happily embrace the idea of survival of the fittest. This editorial by Don Agin is at www.scienceweek.com:
David Brooks, Op-Ed columnist at the NEW YORK TIMES, persistently promotes the idea that not only the grand schemes but also the details of human behavior are derived from Darwinian natural selection.
You can find the latest statement of his ideas in a column called "The Age of Darwin", NEW YORK TIMES, April 15, 2007.
In brief, these words from that column seem to summarize his views:
"Human beings, like all other creatures, are machines for passing along genetic code... The logic of evolution explains why people vie for status, form groups, fall in love and cherish their young. It holds that most everything that exists does so for a purpose..."
The politically conservative line of Brooks and others is that if you oppose these ideas you must be anti-biology, anti-evolution, and a Creationist. Well, I'm a professional neuroscientist, biophysicist, and psychologist, and I'm pro-biology, pro-evolutionary biology, and definitely not a Creationist -- and I think these ideas of David Brooks and his crowd are dangerous poppycock and need to be argued against and countered with science and reason any time the public is exposed to them.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
April 29, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
REAGAN'S ATTACKS ON THE MIDDLE CLASS
Ronald Reagan has been an idol of the far right in this country. There is a great deal of mythology attached to Reagan. Right-wingers will claim that Reagan "won the Cold War." They will claim, falsely, that his budget-busting tax giveaways to the rich stimulated the economy to unprecedented levels and created all kinds of good jobs. In fact, Reagan's agenda was a bellicose foreign policy toward the Soviet Union, massive military spending, and massive redistribution of wealth to the richest Americans. Dean Baker takes a look at the real history in this article at www.alternet.org:
U.S. politics took a sharp turn to the right in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan as president. Domestically, Reagan touted an agenda that would lead to a sharp upward redistribution of income. Internationally, Reagan explicitly rejected the "détente" framework for engaging the Soviet Union that had been accepted by the leadership of both major parties since the beginning of the Cold War. In its place, Reagan put forward a doctrine of U.S. unilateralism in which the United States basically claimed the right to do whatever it wanted, unconstrained by allies or international institutions.
The welfare state in the United States was always weaker than in West Europe, but in 1980 it was reasonable to believe that West Europe presented a model that the United States would follow. Medicare and Medicaid were still relatively new programs, having been established just 14 years earlier. Having recently seen a massive expansion of publicly provided healthcare coverage, many people believed that it would not be long before healthcare coverage was extended to the entire population. Other features of European welfare states, such as long vacations, short work weeks, and paid parental leave (generally maternity leave at the time), also seemed feasible political goals.
GILDED AGE THE SEQUEL
A few years ago there was a guy I call Bad Talk Show Host, who hosted a show on KFRE Radio before it changed format. Bad Talk Show Host had a problem with programs like unemployment insurance ("a paid vacation") and other social programs. I once sent him a fiery fax that he apparently wanted to go back to those good old days before the New Deal. He made some snarky on the air comment about "not being around" back in those days. To hear right-wingers tell it, though, those were great times. It was the time when unregulated capitalism reigned. The latter part of the 19th century was called the Gilded Age and exemplified a huge gap between the rich and everyone else in the country. Looking at it now, people like John D. Rockefeller were minor leaguers compared to the people at the top of the ladder now. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
One of the distinctive features of the modern American right has been nostalgia for the late 19th century, with its minimal taxation, absence of regulation and reliance on faith-based charity rather than government social programs. Conservatives from Milton Friedman to Grover Norquist have portrayed the Gilded Age as a golden age, dismissing talk of the era’s injustice and cruelty as a left-wing myth.
Well, in at least one respect, everything old is new again. Income inequality — which began rising at the same time that modern conservatism began gaining political power — is now fully back to Gilded Age levels.
Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
REAGAN'S ATTACKS ON THE MIDDLE CLASS
Ronald Reagan has been an idol of the far right in this country. There is a great deal of mythology attached to Reagan. Right-wingers will claim that Reagan "won the Cold War." They will claim, falsely, that his budget-busting tax giveaways to the rich stimulated the economy to unprecedented levels and created all kinds of good jobs. In fact, Reagan's agenda was a bellicose foreign policy toward the Soviet Union, massive military spending, and massive redistribution of wealth to the richest Americans. Dean Baker takes a look at the real history in this article at www.alternet.org:
U.S. politics took a sharp turn to the right in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan as president. Domestically, Reagan touted an agenda that would lead to a sharp upward redistribution of income. Internationally, Reagan explicitly rejected the "détente" framework for engaging the Soviet Union that had been accepted by the leadership of both major parties since the beginning of the Cold War. In its place, Reagan put forward a doctrine of U.S. unilateralism in which the United States basically claimed the right to do whatever it wanted, unconstrained by allies or international institutions.
The welfare state in the United States was always weaker than in West Europe, but in 1980 it was reasonable to believe that West Europe presented a model that the United States would follow. Medicare and Medicaid were still relatively new programs, having been established just 14 years earlier. Having recently seen a massive expansion of publicly provided healthcare coverage, many people believed that it would not be long before healthcare coverage was extended to the entire population. Other features of European welfare states, such as long vacations, short work weeks, and paid parental leave (generally maternity leave at the time), also seemed feasible political goals.
GILDED AGE THE SEQUEL
A few years ago there was a guy I call Bad Talk Show Host, who hosted a show on KFRE Radio before it changed format. Bad Talk Show Host had a problem with programs like unemployment insurance ("a paid vacation") and other social programs. I once sent him a fiery fax that he apparently wanted to go back to those good old days before the New Deal. He made some snarky on the air comment about "not being around" back in those days. To hear right-wingers tell it, though, those were great times. It was the time when unregulated capitalism reigned. The latter part of the 19th century was called the Gilded Age and exemplified a huge gap between the rich and everyone else in the country. Looking at it now, people like John D. Rockefeller were minor leaguers compared to the people at the top of the ladder now. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
One of the distinctive features of the modern American right has been nostalgia for the late 19th century, with its minimal taxation, absence of regulation and reliance on faith-based charity rather than government social programs. Conservatives from Milton Friedman to Grover Norquist have portrayed the Gilded Age as a golden age, dismissing talk of the era’s injustice and cruelty as a left-wing myth.
Well, in at least one respect, everything old is new again. Income inequality — which began rising at the same time that modern conservatism began gaining political power — is now fully back to Gilded Age levels.
Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
April 28, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
TENET BOOK BLASTS ADMINISTRATION
Former CIA Director George Tenet joins other former administration insiders like Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke in showing how the Bush administration rushed pell mell into the Iraq war regardless of the consequences. We've heard a variety of rationales for starting this war. Initially, it was the big lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or was going to acquire weapons. Then there were phony claims of connections between Hussein and terrorists. We also heard the claim about "bad intelligence." We haven't heard the real explanation: arrogance and the desire to control the region. This article by Scott Lindlaw is at www.chicagotribune.com:
The CIA warned the Bush White House seven months before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the United States could face a thicket of bad consequences, starting with "anarchy and the territorial breakup" of the country, former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book.
Agency analysts wrote the warning at the start of August 2002 and inserted it into a briefing book distributed at an early September meeting of President Bush's national security team at Camp David, Tenet writes.
The CIA analysis painted what Tenet calls additional "worst-case" scenarios: "a surge of global terrorism against U.S. interests fueled by deepening Islamic antipathy toward the United States"; "regime-threatening instability in key Arab states"; and "major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic alliance."
THE CORROSIVE ACID OF CONSERVATISM
The last few years have been a lesson in Conservative Government 101. Just when you think things can't get worse they do. Conservative politics is mostly about a big military and big inequality. They like to cut and cut taxes for the rich and dump the expense of running the country on the middle class. That's going to become more difficult, of course, because they're destroying the middle class. They deregulate industries, leaving us to the dog-eat-dog antics of the free market. You got tainted food and got sick or died? Tough! That's the free market. You got shafted on your mortgage deal? It's your own fault! You make lousy wages because investors get all the goodies and the workers get nothing? Too bad! The "risk takers" deserve all the goodies. You're worried about pollution and global warming? Don't you know global warming is just a myth, or if it's not a myth it's a conspiracy to destroy the U. S. economy! These people should never be in power. In this article Rick Perlstein looks at some items in USA Today and the corrosive impact of conservative government across the nation. The article is at www.tompaine.com:
OK. So we know what conservative government has destroyed—a nation in which we can count on our reservoirs holding and our streets not swallowing up our cars, one where budgeting is based on something other than fantasies about the magic of tax cuts for the rich. But what has it built?
Come with me, dear reader, to Vermont, where USA Today's "Across the USA" page for April 25 takes us to the state's flagship college campus:
VERMONT: Burlington - A dozen University of Vermont students are staging a hunger strike to seek higher wages for the university's lowest paid employees. Based on year-old figures, 256 UVM employees were paid less than $12.28 an hour, the amount considered a livable wage in Burlington. The students, who began the hunger strike Monday, are promising to consume only water and fruit juices. UVM President Dan Fogel says the school offers some of the best wages and benefits in Vermont.
Don't you just love the flacking? Some people at the university get good wages, so that negates the fact that others receive so little they can't survive. It's hard to write about how badly conservative governance has degraded us as a nation because, well, it has so degraded us as a nation: They have managed to make us forget once-sturdy pillars of our national morality. University presidents used to be high-minded civic leaders. Now they've become flacks like everyone else, all in service to a fatter bottom line.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
TENET BOOK BLASTS ADMINISTRATION
Former CIA Director George Tenet joins other former administration insiders like Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke in showing how the Bush administration rushed pell mell into the Iraq war regardless of the consequences. We've heard a variety of rationales for starting this war. Initially, it was the big lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or was going to acquire weapons. Then there were phony claims of connections between Hussein and terrorists. We also heard the claim about "bad intelligence." We haven't heard the real explanation: arrogance and the desire to control the region. This article by Scott Lindlaw is at www.chicagotribune.com:
The CIA warned the Bush White House seven months before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the United States could face a thicket of bad consequences, starting with "anarchy and the territorial breakup" of the country, former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book.
Agency analysts wrote the warning at the start of August 2002 and inserted it into a briefing book distributed at an early September meeting of President Bush's national security team at Camp David, Tenet writes.
The CIA analysis painted what Tenet calls additional "worst-case" scenarios: "a surge of global terrorism against U.S. interests fueled by deepening Islamic antipathy toward the United States"; "regime-threatening instability in key Arab states"; and "major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic alliance."
THE CORROSIVE ACID OF CONSERVATISM
The last few years have been a lesson in Conservative Government 101. Just when you think things can't get worse they do. Conservative politics is mostly about a big military and big inequality. They like to cut and cut taxes for the rich and dump the expense of running the country on the middle class. That's going to become more difficult, of course, because they're destroying the middle class. They deregulate industries, leaving us to the dog-eat-dog antics of the free market. You got tainted food and got sick or died? Tough! That's the free market. You got shafted on your mortgage deal? It's your own fault! You make lousy wages because investors get all the goodies and the workers get nothing? Too bad! The "risk takers" deserve all the goodies. You're worried about pollution and global warming? Don't you know global warming is just a myth, or if it's not a myth it's a conspiracy to destroy the U. S. economy! These people should never be in power. In this article Rick Perlstein looks at some items in USA Today and the corrosive impact of conservative government across the nation. The article is at www.tompaine.com:
OK. So we know what conservative government has destroyed—a nation in which we can count on our reservoirs holding and our streets not swallowing up our cars, one where budgeting is based on something other than fantasies about the magic of tax cuts for the rich. But what has it built?
Come with me, dear reader, to Vermont, where USA Today's "Across the USA" page for April 25 takes us to the state's flagship college campus:
VERMONT: Burlington - A dozen University of Vermont students are staging a hunger strike to seek higher wages for the university's lowest paid employees. Based on year-old figures, 256 UVM employees were paid less than $12.28 an hour, the amount considered a livable wage in Burlington. The students, who began the hunger strike Monday, are promising to consume only water and fruit juices. UVM President Dan Fogel says the school offers some of the best wages and benefits in Vermont.
Don't you just love the flacking? Some people at the university get good wages, so that negates the fact that others receive so little they can't survive. It's hard to write about how badly conservative governance has degraded us as a nation because, well, it has so degraded us as a nation: They have managed to make us forget once-sturdy pillars of our national morality. University presidents used to be high-minded civic leaders. Now they've become flacks like everyone else, all in service to a fatter bottom line.
Friday, April 27, 2007
April 27, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
9/11 IN PERSPECTIVE
George W. Bush and Republicans in general have been like ghouls in using the terrorist attacks on 9/11 for their political advantage. The attacks were ghastly. They were committed by criminals. But we shouldn't let the attacks on 9/11 destroy our civil liberties or change who we are. In this column Rosa Brooks shows that there are many things that cause more deaths than terrorist attacks, but we aren't going in meltdown mode over them. This column is at www.latimes.com:
The 9/11 attacks were appalling and tragic, but they did not threaten the survival of the nation. The year 2001 aside, total deaths (not just of Americans) caused by international terrorism worldwide have never exceeded — or even approached — 2,000 a year. Sept. 11 was an outlier: On 9/11, a group of brutal, extremist Islamic thugs got very lucky. Even Osama bin Laden couldn't have imagined that the Twin Towers would collapse, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Of course, 3,000 dead is 3,000 too many. But keep it in perspective. As a nation, we have survived far worse. We lost more than 100,000 Americans in World War I, more than 400,000 in World War II, 37,000 in Korea, 58,000 in Vietnam — all without allowing our national character to turn into quivering jelly.
Every year, we also lose millions of Americans to preventable accidents and disease. We're more likely to die on the road than as a result of Al Qaeda's machinations. Annually, we lose some 43,000 people to auto accidents. For the grieving families, that's 43,000 deaths too many. But, although we surely could reduce auto fatalities if we chose to make it our top national priority, the Bush administration has yet to announce a "War on Highway Deaths."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
9/11 IN PERSPECTIVE
George W. Bush and Republicans in general have been like ghouls in using the terrorist attacks on 9/11 for their political advantage. The attacks were ghastly. They were committed by criminals. But we shouldn't let the attacks on 9/11 destroy our civil liberties or change who we are. In this column Rosa Brooks shows that there are many things that cause more deaths than terrorist attacks, but we aren't going in meltdown mode over them. This column is at www.latimes.com:
The 9/11 attacks were appalling and tragic, but they did not threaten the survival of the nation. The year 2001 aside, total deaths (not just of Americans) caused by international terrorism worldwide have never exceeded — or even approached — 2,000 a year. Sept. 11 was an outlier: On 9/11, a group of brutal, extremist Islamic thugs got very lucky. Even Osama bin Laden couldn't have imagined that the Twin Towers would collapse, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Of course, 3,000 dead is 3,000 too many. But keep it in perspective. As a nation, we have survived far worse. We lost more than 100,000 Americans in World War I, more than 400,000 in World War II, 37,000 in Korea, 58,000 in Vietnam — all without allowing our national character to turn into quivering jelly.
Every year, we also lose millions of Americans to preventable accidents and disease. We're more likely to die on the road than as a result of Al Qaeda's machinations. Annually, we lose some 43,000 people to auto accidents. For the grieving families, that's 43,000 deaths too many. But, although we surely could reduce auto fatalities if we chose to make it our top national priority, the Bush administration has yet to announce a "War on Highway Deaths."
Thursday, April 26, 2007
April 26, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
GUN DEATHS
It's really perverse that people like Newt Gingrich try to blame societal violence on liberals. I'm sure they try to claim it's the "liberal media" TV shows and movies depicting violence that inspire violence by others. It can't be the easy access to and general glorification of guns, can it? What Hollywood does, after all, is free market capitalism. Violence sells. If it didn't sell, we wouldn't see an endless parade of violent movies and television shows. The number of deaths due to gun violence are appalling. As Bob Herbert points out here, more people have died due to gun violence since 1968 than in all the combat deaths in all of our wars. The column is linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
I had coffee the other day with Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, and she mentioned that since the murders of Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, well over a million Americans have been killed by firearms in the United States. That’s more than the combined U.S. combat deaths in all the wars in all of American history.
"We’re losing eight children and teenagers a day to gun violence," she said. "As far as young people are concerned, we lose the equivalent of the massacre at Virginia Tech about every four days."
The first step in overcoming an addiction is to acknowledge it. Americans are addicted to violence, specifically gun violence. We profess to be appalled at every gruesome outbreak of mass murder (it’s no big deal when just two, three or four people are killed at a time), but there’s no evidence that we have the will to pull the guns out of circulation, or even to register the weapons and properly screen and train their owners.
IN THE REPTILE HOUSE
I don't feel the need to hear "what the other side is saying." I don't feel compelled to listen to Limbaugh or Hannity or O'Reilly or the other neofascists who love war, guns, inequality, and global warming. I can get a fair sampling just reading the letters page of The Fresno Bee. But this writer sums up what you hear when you venture in the reptile house of right-wing nut jobs. This column by Jason Rothenberg is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
If you, like me, find yourself wondering who the hell makes up this mysterious 33% of the country that still thinks Bush is doing a heckuva job, then this is the place to find your answers. It's a bit like going to the reptile house at the zoo. All those nasty little lizards and snakes behind glass. Little signs next to the tanks explaining where they live, and what harm they could do. No real danger to you. It's here, in the world wide web's very own reptile house, that you'll see the White House/Fox News/Drudge Report nexis reaching it's loyal foot soldiers. They've got it all. Global warming is bull ****. Stem cell research is murder. Tom Delay is not a crook. Cheney isn't pure evil. Bush is still the man. I'm telling you. It's genius. Looking for the "good news stories" out of Iraq that the mainstream media is ignoring. Look no further than The Corner. On The Corner, the surge is working. On The Corner, the economy is so good that you'd have to be an idiot (or a liberal) not to feel it. On The Corner, the fact that 5 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices are Catholic isn't scary, it's just a start. On The Corner, speaking out against this president's war is treasonous, but taking us to war based on a lie is not. In fact, on The Corner, it wasn't a lie. Saddam did have those damn disappearing weapons, and those damn hard to prove ties to Osama. If you believe any of those things, then get yourself on down to The Corner. You won't be sorry.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
GUN DEATHS
It's really perverse that people like Newt Gingrich try to blame societal violence on liberals. I'm sure they try to claim it's the "liberal media" TV shows and movies depicting violence that inspire violence by others. It can't be the easy access to and general glorification of guns, can it? What Hollywood does, after all, is free market capitalism. Violence sells. If it didn't sell, we wouldn't see an endless parade of violent movies and television shows. The number of deaths due to gun violence are appalling. As Bob Herbert points out here, more people have died due to gun violence since 1968 than in all the combat deaths in all of our wars. The column is linked at www.welcome-to-pottersville.com:
I had coffee the other day with Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, and she mentioned that since the murders of Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, well over a million Americans have been killed by firearms in the United States. That’s more than the combined U.S. combat deaths in all the wars in all of American history.
"We’re losing eight children and teenagers a day to gun violence," she said. "As far as young people are concerned, we lose the equivalent of the massacre at Virginia Tech about every four days."
The first step in overcoming an addiction is to acknowledge it. Americans are addicted to violence, specifically gun violence. We profess to be appalled at every gruesome outbreak of mass murder (it’s no big deal when just two, three or four people are killed at a time), but there’s no evidence that we have the will to pull the guns out of circulation, or even to register the weapons and properly screen and train their owners.
IN THE REPTILE HOUSE
I don't feel the need to hear "what the other side is saying." I don't feel compelled to listen to Limbaugh or Hannity or O'Reilly or the other neofascists who love war, guns, inequality, and global warming. I can get a fair sampling just reading the letters page of The Fresno Bee. But this writer sums up what you hear when you venture in the reptile house of right-wing nut jobs. This column by Jason Rothenberg is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
If you, like me, find yourself wondering who the hell makes up this mysterious 33% of the country that still thinks Bush is doing a heckuva job, then this is the place to find your answers. It's a bit like going to the reptile house at the zoo. All those nasty little lizards and snakes behind glass. Little signs next to the tanks explaining where they live, and what harm they could do. No real danger to you. It's here, in the world wide web's very own reptile house, that you'll see the White House/Fox News/Drudge Report nexis reaching it's loyal foot soldiers. They've got it all. Global warming is bull ****. Stem cell research is murder. Tom Delay is not a crook. Cheney isn't pure evil. Bush is still the man. I'm telling you. It's genius. Looking for the "good news stories" out of Iraq that the mainstream media is ignoring. Look no further than The Corner. On The Corner, the surge is working. On The Corner, the economy is so good that you'd have to be an idiot (or a liberal) not to feel it. On The Corner, the fact that 5 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices are Catholic isn't scary, it's just a start. On The Corner, speaking out against this president's war is treasonous, but taking us to war based on a lie is not. In fact, on The Corner, it wasn't a lie. Saddam did have those damn disappearing weapons, and those damn hard to prove ties to Osama. If you believe any of those things, then get yourself on down to The Corner. You won't be sorry.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
April 25, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BREAK OUT THE HANKIES
Laura Bush was moaning that "no one" suffers more than her and Bush for the tragedy that is Iraq. If I believed in barnyard expletives, I'd shout it right now. Her monster of a husband and his pals steered us into this debacle. They did it deliberately and maliciously so they could make big bucks and so they could control the oil in Iraq. The consistent neglect in supplying our military, in the failure to provide the necessary equipment and medical care, and in slashing military benefits shows that Bush doesn't suffer much at all at what he has done to our military. This article by Ron Brynaert is at www.rawstory.com:
According to the first lady, when it comes to Iraq, "No one suffers more than their president and I do."
During an interview on NBC's Today show Wednesday concerning Malaria Awareness Day, Laura Bush talked to Ann Curry about "other challenges her husband is facing."
"You know the American people are suffering watching --," Curry said to the first lady.
"Oh, I know that very much," Laura Bush responded. "And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this, and certainly the commander in chief, who has asked our military to go into harm's way."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BREAK OUT THE HANKIES
Laura Bush was moaning that "no one" suffers more than her and Bush for the tragedy that is Iraq. If I believed in barnyard expletives, I'd shout it right now. Her monster of a husband and his pals steered us into this debacle. They did it deliberately and maliciously so they could make big bucks and so they could control the oil in Iraq. The consistent neglect in supplying our military, in the failure to provide the necessary equipment and medical care, and in slashing military benefits shows that Bush doesn't suffer much at all at what he has done to our military. This article by Ron Brynaert is at www.rawstory.com:
According to the first lady, when it comes to Iraq, "No one suffers more than their president and I do."
During an interview on NBC's Today show Wednesday concerning Malaria Awareness Day, Laura Bush talked to Ann Curry about "other challenges her husband is facing."
"You know the American people are suffering watching --," Curry said to the first lady.
"Oh, I know that very much," Laura Bush responded. "And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this, and certainly the commander in chief, who has asked our military to go into harm's way."
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
April 24, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
LYING ABOUT TILLMAN AND LYNCH
Propaganda and war have been companions for a long time. We know about the famous image from World War II of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, for instance. We know that Sergeant York became an icon of World War I. But in an effort to support this illegal and immoral war the Bush administration may have covered up the truth about the death of ex-NFL star Pat Tillman, making it appear he was killed by the Taliban, when he was actually killed by friendly fire. Jessica Lynch's story was totally fabricated by the propagandists, although she has been very upfront about what happened. Pat Tillman is a hero, no matter how the Bush administration twisted the truth, but his family and the public have the right to know the truth. This story by Robert Collier is at www.sfgate.com:
Meanwhile, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, the last person to see Tillman alive, told a congressional hearing that a coverup began almost immediately after Tillman's death.
"Our squad leader told me basically, don't tell anyone anything at that time," said O'Neal.
The dramatic testimony came during a 4½-hour hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, tasked with determining whether there was an attempt to mislead the public about Tillman's April 22, 2004, death, and about a separate case during the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- that of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, a 21-year-old Army supply clerk who was rescued after she was captured by Saddam Hussein's defending fighters in April 2003.
The military's initial account of the incident and its claims of her heroism were subsequently shown to be false.
"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," Lynch told committee members.
THE IRRELVANCE PUSHED BY RIGHT-WINGERS
The 1988 presidential campaign between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis was one of the dirtiest on memory. The Bush campaign ran mostly on irrelevant issues like Willie Horton and the flag salute. Things have only gotten worse since then because there is the vast right-wing echo chamber on AM talk radio and on the talking head shows like Bill O'Reilly. They take some molehill and build it into a mountain. Remember the "war on Christmas"? Remember Al Gore's earth tones? One of the latest is the attack on John Edwards because Edwards supposedly gets $400 haircuts. Oh, the outrage! There was a jerk who wrote The Fresno Bee and parroted the right-wing talking points. But where is the concern and the outrage over real issues, things like poverty, the Hurricane Katrina victims, the quagmire in Iraq, global warming, genocide in the Sudan, and our crumbling infrastructure? Haircuts are more important, I guess. This commentary by Dave Johnson is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Well, this past week, we have seen clearly, that the Right Wing doesn't want to talk about these issues. Let's break them down briefly:
End the war in Iraq? No, the Right wants to continue the escalation in Iraq and potentially expand the conflict to Iran.
Fight global warming? No, the Right as best shown by Exxon-funded Media Research Center and their attacks on Laurie David and Sheryl Crow's global warming concert tour insist on putting profit before morality. They know the science as well as anyone but the scientific facts conflict with the profits of their top donors, ergo, their denial program continues.
Guarantee affordable health care to every American? Absolutely not. The cost to corporate donors makes it a necessity to stop this in its tracks. Tens of millions spent fighting and lobbying against health care reform is money well spent by those wishing to block this from becoming a right of every American.
Eliminate poverty in America? No, the programs that would facilitate this, such as the raising of the minimum wage, conflict with the goals of the Right's corporate base.
Revitalize rural America? Again, the programs that would facilitate this would cost large corporations money, no.
Restore America's moral authority in the world? The Right sees this differently. They don't mind torture, choosing war over peace and the death of civilians. It's a fundamental difference of morality.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
LYING ABOUT TILLMAN AND LYNCH
Propaganda and war have been companions for a long time. We know about the famous image from World War II of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, for instance. We know that Sergeant York became an icon of World War I. But in an effort to support this illegal and immoral war the Bush administration may have covered up the truth about the death of ex-NFL star Pat Tillman, making it appear he was killed by the Taliban, when he was actually killed by friendly fire. Jessica Lynch's story was totally fabricated by the propagandists, although she has been very upfront about what happened. Pat Tillman is a hero, no matter how the Bush administration twisted the truth, but his family and the public have the right to know the truth. This story by Robert Collier is at www.sfgate.com:
Meanwhile, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, the last person to see Tillman alive, told a congressional hearing that a coverup began almost immediately after Tillman's death.
"Our squad leader told me basically, don't tell anyone anything at that time," said O'Neal.
The dramatic testimony came during a 4½-hour hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, tasked with determining whether there was an attempt to mislead the public about Tillman's April 22, 2004, death, and about a separate case during the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- that of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, a 21-year-old Army supply clerk who was rescued after she was captured by Saddam Hussein's defending fighters in April 2003.
The military's initial account of the incident and its claims of her heroism were subsequently shown to be false.
"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," Lynch told committee members.
THE IRRELVANCE PUSHED BY RIGHT-WINGERS
The 1988 presidential campaign between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis was one of the dirtiest on memory. The Bush campaign ran mostly on irrelevant issues like Willie Horton and the flag salute. Things have only gotten worse since then because there is the vast right-wing echo chamber on AM talk radio and on the talking head shows like Bill O'Reilly. They take some molehill and build it into a mountain. Remember the "war on Christmas"? Remember Al Gore's earth tones? One of the latest is the attack on John Edwards because Edwards supposedly gets $400 haircuts. Oh, the outrage! There was a jerk who wrote The Fresno Bee and parroted the right-wing talking points. But where is the concern and the outrage over real issues, things like poverty, the Hurricane Katrina victims, the quagmire in Iraq, global warming, genocide in the Sudan, and our crumbling infrastructure? Haircuts are more important, I guess. This commentary by Dave Johnson is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Well, this past week, we have seen clearly, that the Right Wing doesn't want to talk about these issues. Let's break them down briefly:
End the war in Iraq? No, the Right wants to continue the escalation in Iraq and potentially expand the conflict to Iran.
Fight global warming? No, the Right as best shown by Exxon-funded Media Research Center and their attacks on Laurie David and Sheryl Crow's global warming concert tour insist on putting profit before morality. They know the science as well as anyone but the scientific facts conflict with the profits of their top donors, ergo, their denial program continues.
Guarantee affordable health care to every American? Absolutely not. The cost to corporate donors makes it a necessity to stop this in its tracks. Tens of millions spent fighting and lobbying against health care reform is money well spent by those wishing to block this from becoming a right of every American.
Eliminate poverty in America? No, the programs that would facilitate this, such as the raising of the minimum wage, conflict with the goals of the Right's corporate base.
Revitalize rural America? Again, the programs that would facilitate this would cost large corporations money, no.
Restore America's moral authority in the world? The Right sees this differently. They don't mind torture, choosing war over peace and the death of civilians. It's a fundamental difference of morality.
Monday, April 23, 2007
April 23, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WE'RE EXPENDABLE
Conservative politicians hate regulation. They think it just stifles the ability for businesses to make money when they have to consider little things like public health and safety. Corporations, for their part, like to do cost-benefit analyses. Will lawsuits be more expensive than cutting corners here and there? How will a few deaths affect our bottom line? We learn now that the Food and Drug Administration knew about contaminated food going into the food supply, but relied on producers to "police themselves." Yeah, that's going to happen. This story by Elizabeth Williamson is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.
Overwhelmed by huge growth in the number of food processors and imports, however, the agency took only limited steps to address the problems and relied on producers to police themselves, according to agency documents.
Congressional critics and consumer advocates said both episodes show that the agency is incapable of adequately protecting the safety of the food supply.
FDA officials conceded that the agency's system needs to be overhauled to meet today's demands, but contended that the agency could not have done anything to prevent either contamination episode.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WE'RE EXPENDABLE
Conservative politicians hate regulation. They think it just stifles the ability for businesses to make money when they have to consider little things like public health and safety. Corporations, for their part, like to do cost-benefit analyses. Will lawsuits be more expensive than cutting corners here and there? How will a few deaths affect our bottom line? We learn now that the Food and Drug Administration knew about contaminated food going into the food supply, but relied on producers to "police themselves." Yeah, that's going to happen. This story by Elizabeth Williamson is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.
Overwhelmed by huge growth in the number of food processors and imports, however, the agency took only limited steps to address the problems and relied on producers to police themselves, according to agency documents.
Congressional critics and consumer advocates said both episodes show that the agency is incapable of adequately protecting the safety of the food supply.
FDA officials conceded that the agency's system needs to be overhauled to meet today's demands, but contended that the agency could not have done anything to prevent either contamination episode.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
April 22, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
SO MUCH FOR PRO-LIFE
The anti-choice crowd got a victory when the Supreme Court made possibly one of the worst decisions in its history to make a late term abortion procedure illegal. They parade around calling themselves "pro-life," but they almost to a man (there are lots of men in this crowd) favor the death penalty and favor war, war, war. They're "pro-life" for fetuses. A lot of it is related to hating women, I think. Now we learn that since the welfare cuts and "reforms" signed into law a few years ago that infant mortality in the South is up. I know it was Bill Clinton who signed these "reforms," but they had been pushed by Republicans for years. I wonder if the "pro-life" crowd would like to take action now to prevent the mortality of living, breathing infants. Probably not. This article by Erik Eckholm is at www.nytimes.com:
For decades, Mississippi and neighboring states with large black populations and expanses of enduring poverty made steady progress in reducing infant death. But, in what health experts call an ominous portent, progress has stalled and in recent years the death rate has risen in Mississippi and several other states.
The setbacks have raised questions about the impact of cuts in welfare and Medicaid and of poor access to doctors, and, many doctors say, the growing epidemics of obesity, diabetes and hypertension among potential mothers, some of whom tip the scales here at 300 to 400 pounds.
"I don’t think the rise is a fluke, and it’s a disturbing trend, not only in Mississippi but throughout the Southeast," said Dr. Christina Glick, a neonatologist in Jackson, Miss., and past president of the National Perinatal Association.
BUSH'S TERRORIST
In Bush World you're not a terrorist if you kill people Bush doesn't like. Then you become a "freedom fighter" or some other high blown individual. The U. S. has been harboring a man strongly suspected in the downing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. The people on board had never done anything to the United States. There were several members of a fencing team, for heaven's sake. This article by Robert Parry is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
George W. Bush likes to present the "war on terror" as a clear-cut moral crusade in which evildoers who kill innocent civilians must be brought harshly to justice, along with the leaders of countries that harbor terrorists. There are no grays, only blacks and whites.
But evenhanded justice is not the true core principle of the Bush Doctrine. The real consistency is hypocrisy: violence which Bush favors – no matter how wanton the slaughter of innocents – is justifiable, while violence that goes against Bush’s interests – even an insurgency against a foreign military occupation – must be punished without remorse as "terrorism."
In other words, if Bush hates the perpetrators, they are locked up indefinitely without charge and, at his discretion, can be subjected to "alternative interrogation techniques," what most of the world considers torture. The rule of law is out the window. Wild West hangin' justice is in. Even the ancient fair trial right of habeas corpus is discarded.
However, when the killers of civilians are on Bush’s side, they get the full panoply of legal protections – and every benefit of the doubt. Under this Bush double standard, therefore, right-wing Cuban terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, though implicated in a string of murderous attacks on civilians, get the see-no-evil treatment.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
SO MUCH FOR PRO-LIFE
The anti-choice crowd got a victory when the Supreme Court made possibly one of the worst decisions in its history to make a late term abortion procedure illegal. They parade around calling themselves "pro-life," but they almost to a man (there are lots of men in this crowd) favor the death penalty and favor war, war, war. They're "pro-life" for fetuses. A lot of it is related to hating women, I think. Now we learn that since the welfare cuts and "reforms" signed into law a few years ago that infant mortality in the South is up. I know it was Bill Clinton who signed these "reforms," but they had been pushed by Republicans for years. I wonder if the "pro-life" crowd would like to take action now to prevent the mortality of living, breathing infants. Probably not. This article by Erik Eckholm is at www.nytimes.com:
For decades, Mississippi and neighboring states with large black populations and expanses of enduring poverty made steady progress in reducing infant death. But, in what health experts call an ominous portent, progress has stalled and in recent years the death rate has risen in Mississippi and several other states.
The setbacks have raised questions about the impact of cuts in welfare and Medicaid and of poor access to doctors, and, many doctors say, the growing epidemics of obesity, diabetes and hypertension among potential mothers, some of whom tip the scales here at 300 to 400 pounds.
"I don’t think the rise is a fluke, and it’s a disturbing trend, not only in Mississippi but throughout the Southeast," said Dr. Christina Glick, a neonatologist in Jackson, Miss., and past president of the National Perinatal Association.
BUSH'S TERRORIST
In Bush World you're not a terrorist if you kill people Bush doesn't like. Then you become a "freedom fighter" or some other high blown individual. The U. S. has been harboring a man strongly suspected in the downing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. The people on board had never done anything to the United States. There were several members of a fencing team, for heaven's sake. This article by Robert Parry is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
George W. Bush likes to present the "war on terror" as a clear-cut moral crusade in which evildoers who kill innocent civilians must be brought harshly to justice, along with the leaders of countries that harbor terrorists. There are no grays, only blacks and whites.
But evenhanded justice is not the true core principle of the Bush Doctrine. The real consistency is hypocrisy: violence which Bush favors – no matter how wanton the slaughter of innocents – is justifiable, while violence that goes against Bush’s interests – even an insurgency against a foreign military occupation – must be punished without remorse as "terrorism."
In other words, if Bush hates the perpetrators, they are locked up indefinitely without charge and, at his discretion, can be subjected to "alternative interrogation techniques," what most of the world considers torture. The rule of law is out the window. Wild West hangin' justice is in. Even the ancient fair trial right of habeas corpus is discarded.
However, when the killers of civilians are on Bush’s side, they get the full panoply of legal protections – and every benefit of the doubt. Under this Bush double standard, therefore, right-wing Cuban terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, though implicated in a string of murderous attacks on civilians, get the see-no-evil treatment.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
April 21, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE MOVE FOR IMPEACHMENT
Electing a Democratic Congress last November was an important first step in ending the horror of the Bush administration. We've already seen important steps taken to raise the minimum wage, to address global warming, to use diplomacy instead of war in the Middle East, to get our troops out of Iraq, and to investigate the manifold crimes of the Bush administration. But the Congressional leadership has been much too cautious in moving toward impeaching Bush and Cheney. The states are taking the lead. This article by John Nichols is at www.thenation.com:
Outside Washington, however, an "impeachment from below" movement is gathering steam. The President's troop surge into Iraq and his refusal to consider exit strategies has caused many to react like GOP Senator Chuck Hagel, who has observed, "The President says...he's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him." Hagel's remarks go to the heart of the surge in interest in impeachment: It stems from Bush's ongoing disregard for the demands of the electorate, the Congress and the Constitution. Legitimate impeachment initiatives are organic responses to the realities of a moment rather than purely legal procedures. Talk of impeachment gains traction when it becomes clear that an Administration is unwilling to respect the system of checks and balances or the rule of law. This explains why the allegation that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, apparently with White House approval, pressured US Attorneys to politicize prosecutions has added so much fuel to the fire, with activists like Vermont's Dan DeWalt now saying, "I don't have any trouble getting people to agree that impeachment is necessary."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE MOVE FOR IMPEACHMENT
Electing a Democratic Congress last November was an important first step in ending the horror of the Bush administration. We've already seen important steps taken to raise the minimum wage, to address global warming, to use diplomacy instead of war in the Middle East, to get our troops out of Iraq, and to investigate the manifold crimes of the Bush administration. But the Congressional leadership has been much too cautious in moving toward impeaching Bush and Cheney. The states are taking the lead. This article by John Nichols is at www.thenation.com:
Outside Washington, however, an "impeachment from below" movement is gathering steam. The President's troop surge into Iraq and his refusal to consider exit strategies has caused many to react like GOP Senator Chuck Hagel, who has observed, "The President says...he's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him." Hagel's remarks go to the heart of the surge in interest in impeachment: It stems from Bush's ongoing disregard for the demands of the electorate, the Congress and the Constitution. Legitimate impeachment initiatives are organic responses to the realities of a moment rather than purely legal procedures. Talk of impeachment gains traction when it becomes clear that an Administration is unwilling to respect the system of checks and balances or the rule of law. This explains why the allegation that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, apparently with White House approval, pressured US Attorneys to politicize prosecutions has added so much fuel to the fire, with activists like Vermont's Dan DeWalt now saying, "I don't have any trouble getting people to agree that impeachment is necessary."
Thursday, April 19, 2007
April 19, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
ANOTHER BLACK EYE FOR THE U.S.
The mass murder at Virginia Tech has international implications. If the United States were a person, it would be obvious it never read How to Win Friends and Influence People. We are increasingly losing respect around the world because of our violent culture. We start unnecessary wars and we have a fetish for guns. This article by Paisley Dodds is at http://www.time.com/:
The Virginia Tech shootings sparked criticism of U.S. gun control laws around the world Tuesday. Editorials lashed out at the availability of weapons, and the leader of Australia — one of America's closest allies — declared that America's gun culture was costing lives.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the government hoped Monday's shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."
While some focused blame only on the gunman, world opinion over U.S. gun laws was almost unanimous: Access to weapons increases the probability of shootings. There was no sympathy for the view that more guns would have saved lives by enabling students to shoot the assailant.
"We took action to limit the availability of guns and we showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country," said Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who staked his political career on promoting tough gun laws after a gunman went on one of the world's deadliest killing sprees 11 years ago.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
ANOTHER BLACK EYE FOR THE U.S.
The mass murder at Virginia Tech has international implications. If the United States were a person, it would be obvious it never read How to Win Friends and Influence People. We are increasingly losing respect around the world because of our violent culture. We start unnecessary wars and we have a fetish for guns. This article by Paisley Dodds is at http://www.time.com/:
The Virginia Tech shootings sparked criticism of U.S. gun control laws around the world Tuesday. Editorials lashed out at the availability of weapons, and the leader of Australia — one of America's closest allies — declared that America's gun culture was costing lives.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the government hoped Monday's shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."
While some focused blame only on the gunman, world opinion over U.S. gun laws was almost unanimous: Access to weapons increases the probability of shootings. There was no sympathy for the view that more guns would have saved lives by enabling students to shoot the assailant.
"We took action to limit the availability of guns and we showed a national resolve that the gun culture that is such a negative in the United States would never become a negative in our country," said Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who staked his political career on promoting tough gun laws after a gunman went on one of the world's deadliest killing sprees 11 years ago.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
April 18, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S TOKEN VIRGINIA TECH APPEARANCE
After the devastating mass murder at Virginia Tech George W. Bush made a trip and made a speech and said essentially nothing but the usual homilies. While he was talking about the deaths and misery in Virginia, I couldn't help thinking of the death and misery he has wrought in Iraq. The murders in Virginia were senseless and tragic and the deaths of Iraqis and our military members in Iraq are senseless and tragic. This article by Timothy Gatto is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The only thing that George W. Bush will be remembered for is that he “almost” did something right. He “almost” got Bin Laden, he “almost” got elected President legitimately, he “almost” destroyed the nation, and he “almost” finished his term before he got himself impeached with a little help from Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales.
The last almost is a work in progress. I hope that he realizes that going to Virginia Tech and making that heartfelt , emotional speech wasn’t fooling anyone. This man doesn’t understand the concept of needless death. He doesn’t really understand the pain a loved one feels when they are told that they will never see their child again, for no matter what the age of a person, to their mother and father they will always be “their child”. If he truly knew the meaning of needless , wanton death under cruel circumstances, he would never have began his failed war in Iraq.
He went to Virginia State but he never went to see Cindy Sheehan camped out in his driveway. He minimizes the death that manifests itself in Iraq day after day. The government won’t allow pictures of caskets with the flag over them loaded into C-5A Galaxy’s. God forbid that our people see those caskets and understand the true meaning of war.
There was good reason to go to Virginia Tech. The parents and friends of those students senselessly gunned down by another maniac this society has produced are more important to his political standing than the parents of the soldiers that die in Iraq. The soldiers that die in Iraq in the most part didn’t come from wealthy families and could probably not pay for tuition, which was probably the biggest reason they joined the service. This is something I know a little about, for I was a recruiter when we had a more sensible government.
A TRULY TERRIBLE SUPREME COURT DECISION
Today's decision by the Supreme Court upholding a national ban on so-called "partial birth abortion" procedures may go down with other truly awful Supreme Court decisions such as allowing legal segregation or Bush v. Gore. It's a major step backward and a concession to the right-wing zealots who are "pro life" except when it really matters--for living and breathing and walking around people. This commentary is from www.motherjones.com:
Before we get into the Supreme Court decision that will allow a ban on late-term abortions, let's get one thing clear: there is no such thing as a "partial birth abortion." This term was born of the clever marketing of the anti-choice movement (or "pro-life" as they like to be called) and has no medical foundation whatsoever.
Still, today the high court ruled today that the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority opinion said that the bill's opponents "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases."
The case is the very move that choice advocates have feared since the ascendancy of a conservative court under President Bush. Of the million or so abortions that happen each year in this country, 90% happen within the first trimester and are not affected by this ruling. It's the other 10%, the women who, whether it be after moving through the hoops of waiting periods, parental notification, or the lack of clinics, who will be impacted. What will become of these vulnerable women, who have already made what's likely the hardest decision of their lives? Doctors may spurn the ruling and go ahead with the abortion anyway, but those who do face fines and jail time. For all involved, what is considered a safe procedure just got more dangerous.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S TOKEN VIRGINIA TECH APPEARANCE
After the devastating mass murder at Virginia Tech George W. Bush made a trip and made a speech and said essentially nothing but the usual homilies. While he was talking about the deaths and misery in Virginia, I couldn't help thinking of the death and misery he has wrought in Iraq. The murders in Virginia were senseless and tragic and the deaths of Iraqis and our military members in Iraq are senseless and tragic. This article by Timothy Gatto is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The only thing that George W. Bush will be remembered for is that he “almost” did something right. He “almost” got Bin Laden, he “almost” got elected President legitimately, he “almost” destroyed the nation, and he “almost” finished his term before he got himself impeached with a little help from Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales.
The last almost is a work in progress. I hope that he realizes that going to Virginia Tech and making that heartfelt , emotional speech wasn’t fooling anyone. This man doesn’t understand the concept of needless death. He doesn’t really understand the pain a loved one feels when they are told that they will never see their child again, for no matter what the age of a person, to their mother and father they will always be “their child”. If he truly knew the meaning of needless , wanton death under cruel circumstances, he would never have began his failed war in Iraq.
He went to Virginia State but he never went to see Cindy Sheehan camped out in his driveway. He minimizes the death that manifests itself in Iraq day after day. The government won’t allow pictures of caskets with the flag over them loaded into C-5A Galaxy’s. God forbid that our people see those caskets and understand the true meaning of war.
There was good reason to go to Virginia Tech. The parents and friends of those students senselessly gunned down by another maniac this society has produced are more important to his political standing than the parents of the soldiers that die in Iraq. The soldiers that die in Iraq in the most part didn’t come from wealthy families and could probably not pay for tuition, which was probably the biggest reason they joined the service. This is something I know a little about, for I was a recruiter when we had a more sensible government.
A TRULY TERRIBLE SUPREME COURT DECISION
Today's decision by the Supreme Court upholding a national ban on so-called "partial birth abortion" procedures may go down with other truly awful Supreme Court decisions such as allowing legal segregation or Bush v. Gore. It's a major step backward and a concession to the right-wing zealots who are "pro life" except when it really matters--for living and breathing and walking around people. This commentary is from www.motherjones.com:
Before we get into the Supreme Court decision that will allow a ban on late-term abortions, let's get one thing clear: there is no such thing as a "partial birth abortion." This term was born of the clever marketing of the anti-choice movement (or "pro-life" as they like to be called) and has no medical foundation whatsoever.
Still, today the high court ruled today that the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority opinion said that the bill's opponents "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases."
The case is the very move that choice advocates have feared since the ascendancy of a conservative court under President Bush. Of the million or so abortions that happen each year in this country, 90% happen within the first trimester and are not affected by this ruling. It's the other 10%, the women who, whether it be after moving through the hoops of waiting periods, parental notification, or the lack of clinics, who will be impacted. What will become of these vulnerable women, who have already made what's likely the hardest decision of their lives? Doctors may spurn the ruling and go ahead with the abortion anyway, but those who do face fines and jail time. For all involved, what is considered a safe procedure just got more dangerous.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
April 17, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
HEAT WAVES, SMOG, ILLNESS
Studies indicate that heat waves generated by global warming will create more smog and more illness. We've already had episodes of heat waves killing people. In the Central Valley asthma is a major problem, in part because of the polluted air here. This is yet another reason to reduce air pollution and contributions to global warming. This article by Jane Kay is at www.sfgate.com:
Higher temperatures over the coming decades are expected to cause more smoggy days and heat waves, contributing to a greater number of illnesses and deaths in the United States, according to international climate scientists.
Severe heat waves -- characterized by stagnant masses of warm air and consecutive nights with high minimum temperatures -- will intensify in the United States and Canada, according to the data on North America released Monday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Southern California, the Southwest and the upper Midwest are already experiencing drought. Late in the century, in Los Angeles, the number of heat wave days is projected to increase from 12 days a year to between 44 and 95 days, the report said. The number of heat wave days in Chicago is expected to increase by 25 percent.
Just how much people and ecosystems suffer in North America, scientists reported, depends on how well greenhouse gases are controlled. And, the scientists cautioned, it depends on how well they plan for and try to prevent the damage.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
HEAT WAVES, SMOG, ILLNESS
Studies indicate that heat waves generated by global warming will create more smog and more illness. We've already had episodes of heat waves killing people. In the Central Valley asthma is a major problem, in part because of the polluted air here. This is yet another reason to reduce air pollution and contributions to global warming. This article by Jane Kay is at www.sfgate.com:
Higher temperatures over the coming decades are expected to cause more smoggy days and heat waves, contributing to a greater number of illnesses and deaths in the United States, according to international climate scientists.
Severe heat waves -- characterized by stagnant masses of warm air and consecutive nights with high minimum temperatures -- will intensify in the United States and Canada, according to the data on North America released Monday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Southern California, the Southwest and the upper Midwest are already experiencing drought. Late in the century, in Los Angeles, the number of heat wave days is projected to increase from 12 days a year to between 44 and 95 days, the report said. The number of heat wave days in Chicago is expected to increase by 25 percent.
Just how much people and ecosystems suffer in North America, scientists reported, depends on how well greenhouse gases are controlled. And, the scientists cautioned, it depends on how well they plan for and try to prevent the damage.
Monday, April 16, 2007
April 16, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
GOOD CASE FOR PROGRESSIVE TAXATION
Right-wingers moan a lot about taxes and about "big government." What irks them is any kind of social program that aids people at the bottom of the economic ladder. You're "punishing the achievers" by taxing them more. As this article points out, though, the very rich are the people who benefit most from the system. They get far more from government services than the rest of us do and they should pay accordingly. This article by George Lakoff and Bruce Budner is at www.commondreams.org:
An important point often lost in this debate is an appreciation that the common wealth, which our taxes create and sustain, empowers the wealthy in myriad ways to create their wealth. We call this compound empowerment - the compounded use of the common wealth by corporations, their investors, and other wealthy individuals.
Consider Bill Gates. He started Microsoft as a college dropout and has become the world’s richest person. Though he has undoubtedly benefited from his unusual intelligence and business acumen, he could not have created or sustained his personal wealth without the common wealth. The legal system protected Microsoft’s intellectual property and contracts. The tax-supported financial infrastructure enabled him to access capital markets and trade his stock in a market in which investors have confidence. He built his company with many employees educated in public schools and universities. Tax-funded research helped develop computer science and the internet. Trade laws negotiated and enforced by the government protect his ability to sell his products abroad. These are but a few of the ways in which Mr. Gates’ accumulation of wealth was empowered by the common wealth and by taxation.
As Warren Buffet famously observed, he likely couldn’t have achieved his financial success had he been born in Bangladesh instead of the United States, because Bangladesh had no banking system and no stock market.
Ordinary people just drive on the highways; corporations send fleets of trucks. Ordinary people may get a bank loan for their mortgage; corporations borrow money to buy whole companies. Ordinary people rarely use the courts; most of the courts are used for corporate law and contract disputes. Corporations and their investors - those who have accumulated enough money beyond basic needs so they can invest - make much more use, compound use, of the empowering infrastructure provided by everybody’s tax money.
FRUITS OF THE NRA
Our culture is embraced by violence. We've had leaders assassinated, we have a horrendous number of murders, and now we have another mass shooting at Virginia Tech. This follows eight years after the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Our media glamorize violence. "Make my day," was even used jokingly by Ronald Reagan a few years ago, doing his best to sound like Dirty Harry. I don't see how banning assault weapons or putting reasonable regulations on gun ownership is an encroachment on anyone's freedom. This editorial by Katrina Vanden Heuvel is at www.thenation.com:
Perhaps Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, put it best in issuing this statement today: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the Virginia Tech University community, and to the families of the victims of what appears to be one of the worst mass shootings in American history... Eight years ago this week, the young people in Littleton, Colorado suffered a horrible attack at Columbine High School, and almost exactly six months ago, five young people were killed at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania. Since these killings, we've done nothing as a country to end gun violence in our schools and communities. If anything, we've made it easier to access powerful weapons... We have now seen another horrible tragedy that will never be forgotten. It is long overdue for us to take some common-sense actions to prevent tragedies like this from continuing to occur."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
GOOD CASE FOR PROGRESSIVE TAXATION
Right-wingers moan a lot about taxes and about "big government." What irks them is any kind of social program that aids people at the bottom of the economic ladder. You're "punishing the achievers" by taxing them more. As this article points out, though, the very rich are the people who benefit most from the system. They get far more from government services than the rest of us do and they should pay accordingly. This article by George Lakoff and Bruce Budner is at www.commondreams.org:
An important point often lost in this debate is an appreciation that the common wealth, which our taxes create and sustain, empowers the wealthy in myriad ways to create their wealth. We call this compound empowerment - the compounded use of the common wealth by corporations, their investors, and other wealthy individuals.
Consider Bill Gates. He started Microsoft as a college dropout and has become the world’s richest person. Though he has undoubtedly benefited from his unusual intelligence and business acumen, he could not have created or sustained his personal wealth without the common wealth. The legal system protected Microsoft’s intellectual property and contracts. The tax-supported financial infrastructure enabled him to access capital markets and trade his stock in a market in which investors have confidence. He built his company with many employees educated in public schools and universities. Tax-funded research helped develop computer science and the internet. Trade laws negotiated and enforced by the government protect his ability to sell his products abroad. These are but a few of the ways in which Mr. Gates’ accumulation of wealth was empowered by the common wealth and by taxation.
As Warren Buffet famously observed, he likely couldn’t have achieved his financial success had he been born in Bangladesh instead of the United States, because Bangladesh had no banking system and no stock market.
Ordinary people just drive on the highways; corporations send fleets of trucks. Ordinary people may get a bank loan for their mortgage; corporations borrow money to buy whole companies. Ordinary people rarely use the courts; most of the courts are used for corporate law and contract disputes. Corporations and their investors - those who have accumulated enough money beyond basic needs so they can invest - make much more use, compound use, of the empowering infrastructure provided by everybody’s tax money.
FRUITS OF THE NRA
Our culture is embraced by violence. We've had leaders assassinated, we have a horrendous number of murders, and now we have another mass shooting at Virginia Tech. This follows eight years after the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Our media glamorize violence. "Make my day," was even used jokingly by Ronald Reagan a few years ago, doing his best to sound like Dirty Harry. I don't see how banning assault weapons or putting reasonable regulations on gun ownership is an encroachment on anyone's freedom. This editorial by Katrina Vanden Heuvel is at www.thenation.com:
Perhaps Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, put it best in issuing this statement today: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the Virginia Tech University community, and to the families of the victims of what appears to be one of the worst mass shootings in American history... Eight years ago this week, the young people in Littleton, Colorado suffered a horrible attack at Columbine High School, and almost exactly six months ago, five young people were killed at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania. Since these killings, we've done nothing as a country to end gun violence in our schools and communities. If anything, we've made it easier to access powerful weapons... We have now seen another horrible tragedy that will never be forgotten. It is long overdue for us to take some common-sense actions to prevent tragedies like this from continuing to occur."
Sunday, April 15, 2007
April 15, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE HATE TALKERS
The fall of Don Imus this past week was stunning in some ways. What Imus said about the Rutgers women's basketball team was contemptible, but he has said contemptible things before. What he said probably wasn't worse than what many pundits on the right have been saying for years. Ann Coulter has spewed out hate and venom for a long time, but continues to show up on TV. Limbaugh, the gasbag who pioneered the degenerate nature of talk radio, has been openly racist on many occasions. Bill O'Reilly is almost psychopathic and hypocritical beyond belief. This commentary by Phoenix Woman is at www.firedoglake.com:
First and foremost, we have the man who was the direct beneficiary of the overturning in 1987 of the wicked and secular-humanistic Fairness Doctrine, the father of right-wing gab radio and the spiritual ancestor of FOX News, Rush Limbaugh! The man who once told an African-American caller to "take the bone out of your nose" is still sharing his heartwarming observations on the races with us all; on a recent show in February, Mister Talent On Loan From God took issue with a Reuters report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of young blacks feel alienated from today's government" when he commented: "Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole lives." And in August of last year, he famously explained to viewers of the CBS reality show Survivor that blacks were bad swimmers and that Hispanics would do anything to win.
But of course Rush, pioneer in right-wing ethical standards-setting that he is, is not quite cutting-edge any more. For the past few years, FOX News' Bill O'Reilly has been leading the way in bringing conservative morality to America, particularly through our TV screens. Watch O'Reilly show us the wise, well-informed compassion he brings to everything he does, as he informs the female mayor of Virginia Beach, Virginia that her true career lies in baking pies. Career counseling was never so much fun — or so well grounded in bedrock Republican morality! O'Reilly also shows his expertise as a travel agent and defender of Christmas from the Jews Hollywood liberals, exhorting a Jewish caller to his show to "go to Israel" rather than remain in the US. And who could forget his expert snap diagnosis of the mental state of kidnapping victim Shawn Hornbeck?
THE RECKLESS SUB-PRIME LENDERS
If any institution in the country needs strong regulation, it's probably businesses that deal in mortgage, lending, and other financial affairs. During the Reagan years we saw a deregulation mindset take hold in the savings and loan industry. It required a massive federal bailout a few years later because predators moved into the savings and loan industry. We've seen banks and credit card companies get almost anything they want from the federal government as they come up with complicated contracts that are totally one-sided and are frequently ticking time bombs for their customers. This author points out that the sub-prime lender crisis we're seeing now is mostly the fault of the lenders, but the stigma is being applied to borrowers who "never should have gotten loans in the first place." The article by Mark Winston Griffith is at www.truthout.org:
High priced mortgages that include funky gimmicks - like adjustable rates or no verification of borrower income - have resulted in record setting foreclosures and a rush by Wall Street to divest from the sub-prime market. Sub-prime loans comprise only 13% percent of outstanding mortgages, but they contribute to over 60% percent of foreclosures.
Some analysts suggest that sub-prime lenders are being punished for giving high-risk loans to borrowers in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and communities of color, people, they say, who perhaps never should have received a loan in the first place. After all, their logic follows, not every American can handle the responsibility of credit and owning a home.
This is a convenient, yet misguided, conclusion to draw from the sub-prime mortgage debacle. In truth, sub-prime lending is just the latest example of how lenders have tarred entire segments of the population as credit unworthy through the mortgage industry's own discriminatory, irresponsible - and now reckless - behavior.
This recklessness begins with the way the sub-prime industry has built into it financial incentives that defer risk, and liability, along a long chain of sub-prime role players. This marks a sharp departure from the past, when loans were typically originated and held by a single bank that assumed any and all of the risk.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE HATE TALKERS
The fall of Don Imus this past week was stunning in some ways. What Imus said about the Rutgers women's basketball team was contemptible, but he has said contemptible things before. What he said probably wasn't worse than what many pundits on the right have been saying for years. Ann Coulter has spewed out hate and venom for a long time, but continues to show up on TV. Limbaugh, the gasbag who pioneered the degenerate nature of talk radio, has been openly racist on many occasions. Bill O'Reilly is almost psychopathic and hypocritical beyond belief. This commentary by Phoenix Woman is at www.firedoglake.com:
First and foremost, we have the man who was the direct beneficiary of the overturning in 1987 of the wicked and secular-humanistic Fairness Doctrine, the father of right-wing gab radio and the spiritual ancestor of FOX News, Rush Limbaugh! The man who once told an African-American caller to "take the bone out of your nose" is still sharing his heartwarming observations on the races with us all; on a recent show in February, Mister Talent On Loan From God took issue with a Reuters report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of young blacks feel alienated from today's government" when he commented: "Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole lives." And in August of last year, he famously explained to viewers of the CBS reality show Survivor that blacks were bad swimmers and that Hispanics would do anything to win.
But of course Rush, pioneer in right-wing ethical standards-setting that he is, is not quite cutting-edge any more. For the past few years, FOX News' Bill O'Reilly has been leading the way in bringing conservative morality to America, particularly through our TV screens. Watch O'Reilly show us the wise, well-informed compassion he brings to everything he does, as he informs the female mayor of Virginia Beach, Virginia that her true career lies in baking pies. Career counseling was never so much fun — or so well grounded in bedrock Republican morality! O'Reilly also shows his expertise as a travel agent and defender of Christmas from the Jews Hollywood liberals, exhorting a Jewish caller to his show to "go to Israel" rather than remain in the US. And who could forget his expert snap diagnosis of the mental state of kidnapping victim Shawn Hornbeck?
THE RECKLESS SUB-PRIME LENDERS
If any institution in the country needs strong regulation, it's probably businesses that deal in mortgage, lending, and other financial affairs. During the Reagan years we saw a deregulation mindset take hold in the savings and loan industry. It required a massive federal bailout a few years later because predators moved into the savings and loan industry. We've seen banks and credit card companies get almost anything they want from the federal government as they come up with complicated contracts that are totally one-sided and are frequently ticking time bombs for their customers. This author points out that the sub-prime lender crisis we're seeing now is mostly the fault of the lenders, but the stigma is being applied to borrowers who "never should have gotten loans in the first place." The article by Mark Winston Griffith is at www.truthout.org:
High priced mortgages that include funky gimmicks - like adjustable rates or no verification of borrower income - have resulted in record setting foreclosures and a rush by Wall Street to divest from the sub-prime market. Sub-prime loans comprise only 13% percent of outstanding mortgages, but they contribute to over 60% percent of foreclosures.
Some analysts suggest that sub-prime lenders are being punished for giving high-risk loans to borrowers in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and communities of color, people, they say, who perhaps never should have received a loan in the first place. After all, their logic follows, not every American can handle the responsibility of credit and owning a home.
This is a convenient, yet misguided, conclusion to draw from the sub-prime mortgage debacle. In truth, sub-prime lending is just the latest example of how lenders have tarred entire segments of the population as credit unworthy through the mortgage industry's own discriminatory, irresponsible - and now reckless - behavior.
This recklessness begins with the way the sub-prime industry has built into it financial incentives that defer risk, and liability, along a long chain of sub-prime role players. This marks a sharp departure from the past, when loans were typically originated and held by a single bank that assumed any and all of the risk.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
April 14, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
TRICKLE DOWN FRED THOMPSON
Recently, some TV talking heads have said that TV actor Fred Thompson "looks like a president." Maybe that's high praise when you consider the pathetic field of candidates offered by the Republicans so far. Apparently, being an actor isn't Thompson's only similarity to Ronald Reagan. Fred likes those trickle down economics and he won't hesitate to distort and demagogue to push those tax breaks for the rich. This commentary by P. M. Carpenter is at pmcarpenter.blogs.com:
His editorial, "Case Closed: Tax Cuts Mean Growth," is so offensive to both very recent and 20th-century American history, it stands as an instructive monument to the right's "push-pull" philosophy of politics: push misleading b.s. forcefully enough and long enough, and you'll get just enough voters to pull your lever. The others -- in fact, the great majority, since most folks neither vote or care -- can go to hell.
Both the content and attitude of Mr. Thompson's op-ed are contained in its title, and the title itself is self-evident. Supply-side economics is a proven, frolicking success, and anyone who says otherwise is a Marx-Engels-leaflet-distributing, nitwitted pinko out to destroy our rightful American Dream. Thompson's piece is, in just two words, frightening and pathetic -- laughably ahistorical but ominously effective. People actually buy this crap.
Merely a few samplings should suffice for your edification. Should you choose not to read Thompson's full piece, believe me, you're not missing much, unless you simply enjoy savoring the full flavor of demagogic falderal.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
TRICKLE DOWN FRED THOMPSON
Recently, some TV talking heads have said that TV actor Fred Thompson "looks like a president." Maybe that's high praise when you consider the pathetic field of candidates offered by the Republicans so far. Apparently, being an actor isn't Thompson's only similarity to Ronald Reagan. Fred likes those trickle down economics and he won't hesitate to distort and demagogue to push those tax breaks for the rich. This commentary by P. M. Carpenter is at pmcarpenter.blogs.com:
His editorial, "Case Closed: Tax Cuts Mean Growth," is so offensive to both very recent and 20th-century American history, it stands as an instructive monument to the right's "push-pull" philosophy of politics: push misleading b.s. forcefully enough and long enough, and you'll get just enough voters to pull your lever. The others -- in fact, the great majority, since most folks neither vote or care -- can go to hell.
Both the content and attitude of Mr. Thompson's op-ed are contained in its title, and the title itself is self-evident. Supply-side economics is a proven, frolicking success, and anyone who says otherwise is a Marx-Engels-leaflet-distributing, nitwitted pinko out to destroy our rightful American Dream. Thompson's piece is, in just two words, frightening and pathetic -- laughably ahistorical but ominously effective. People actually buy this crap.
Merely a few samplings should suffice for your edification. Should you choose not to read Thompson's full piece, believe me, you're not missing much, unless you simply enjoy savoring the full flavor of demagogic falderal.
Friday, April 13, 2007
April 13, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH: SO MANY CRIMES
George W. Bush gives corruption a bad name. Every day there is a new scandal to add to the tidal wave of scandal we've already seen. We learn now that Karl Rove and company may have broken federal law in the misuse of email accounts. Add that to torture, lying us into war, suspending habeas corpus, spying on Americans, kidnapping people for "extraordinary rendition," funneling tax money to Bush's cronies, and the failure to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. But, as this author points out, the greatest crime of all may be the failure to address global warming. In fact, the Bush administration has suppressed information about global warming and gone out of its way to lie to the American people. This article by Dave Lindorff is at www.commondreams.org:
This president has not simply denied the reality of global warming. He has actively lied to the American people about the dangers ahead, and has had his administration, through intimidation and post-hoc editing by political hacks, block the publication of government scientific reports on global warming. He has defunded projects that would help document the growing crisis, for example cutting funding for satellites that would measure the effects of climate change on the surface of the planet. He has pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Protocol–the first global effort to confront the problem and try to limit production of greenhouse gasses. He even went back on a 2000 campaign promise to limit carbon emissions from power plants, and instead has given virtual carte blanche to power companies to build the most carbon-spewing coal-powered generating stations possible, complete with gratuitous tax breaks. He has threatened countries with trade sanctions for trying to take actions that would combat global warming, and has even had the US government go to court against state governments, like California¹s and Vermont¹s, to try to block them from acting to reduce carbon emissions on their own, by for example setting mileage standards for vehicles sold in-state.
All of this has meant that for six critical years, when the U.S.–the source of 28 percent of the world¹s greenhouse gas emissions–could have been taking decisive action to start reducing the CO2 that the U.S. is spewing into the already carbon-soaked global atmosphere, America has done nothing. In fact, America¹s contribution of carbon emissions to the global atmosphere has been rising, not falling, as average miles per gallon figures for American autos have worsened, as more dirty power plants have gone on line, and as overall energy use in the US has gone up.
STEALTH RELIGION
Graduates with questionable credentials have been sent from Pat Robertson's Regent University, allegedly a law school, to do their deeds in the Bush administration. These people are driven by a religious ideology that places their version of Christianity above secular law and the Constitution. As Paul Krugman points out, many of the major scandals of this administration have a link to people connected with Regent University. The column is linked at www.truthout.org:
In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement - the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right - suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. "Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure," he wrote, "and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order."
Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.
Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university's law school. She's the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda - which is very different from simply being people of faith - is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It's also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to "dispel the myth of the separation of church and state." And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.
Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent's government school, was the federal government's chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham.) And it's clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH: SO MANY CRIMES
George W. Bush gives corruption a bad name. Every day there is a new scandal to add to the tidal wave of scandal we've already seen. We learn now that Karl Rove and company may have broken federal law in the misuse of email accounts. Add that to torture, lying us into war, suspending habeas corpus, spying on Americans, kidnapping people for "extraordinary rendition," funneling tax money to Bush's cronies, and the failure to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. But, as this author points out, the greatest crime of all may be the failure to address global warming. In fact, the Bush administration has suppressed information about global warming and gone out of its way to lie to the American people. This article by Dave Lindorff is at www.commondreams.org:
This president has not simply denied the reality of global warming. He has actively lied to the American people about the dangers ahead, and has had his administration, through intimidation and post-hoc editing by political hacks, block the publication of government scientific reports on global warming. He has defunded projects that would help document the growing crisis, for example cutting funding for satellites that would measure the effects of climate change on the surface of the planet. He has pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Protocol–the first global effort to confront the problem and try to limit production of greenhouse gasses. He even went back on a 2000 campaign promise to limit carbon emissions from power plants, and instead has given virtual carte blanche to power companies to build the most carbon-spewing coal-powered generating stations possible, complete with gratuitous tax breaks. He has threatened countries with trade sanctions for trying to take actions that would combat global warming, and has even had the US government go to court against state governments, like California¹s and Vermont¹s, to try to block them from acting to reduce carbon emissions on their own, by for example setting mileage standards for vehicles sold in-state.
All of this has meant that for six critical years, when the U.S.–the source of 28 percent of the world¹s greenhouse gas emissions–could have been taking decisive action to start reducing the CO2 that the U.S. is spewing into the already carbon-soaked global atmosphere, America has done nothing. In fact, America¹s contribution of carbon emissions to the global atmosphere has been rising, not falling, as average miles per gallon figures for American autos have worsened, as more dirty power plants have gone on line, and as overall energy use in the US has gone up.
STEALTH RELIGION
Graduates with questionable credentials have been sent from Pat Robertson's Regent University, allegedly a law school, to do their deeds in the Bush administration. These people are driven by a religious ideology that places their version of Christianity above secular law and the Constitution. As Paul Krugman points out, many of the major scandals of this administration have a link to people connected with Regent University. The column is linked at www.truthout.org:
In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement - the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right - suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. "Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure," he wrote, "and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order."
Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.
Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university's law school. She's the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda - which is very different from simply being people of faith - is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It's also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to "dispel the myth of the separation of church and state." And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.
Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent's government school, was the federal government's chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham.) And it's clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
April 12, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE STRATEGY TO DRIVE DOWN WAGES
A good website called www.conceptualguerilla.com talks about "cheap labor conservatives." Conservatives like to maximize profits for the already well to do and if that means suppressing wages so be it. These days corporations are crying "labor shortage" as an excuse to bring in cheaper labor from outside the United States. This column by David Sirota is at www.workingforchange.com:
We are expected, for instance, to ignore academic studies published recently by the National Academy of Sciences showing that, in fact, there is no shortage of high-tech engineers here in America. We are expected to ignore the data showing that companies are using the H-1B program to drive down domestic workers' wages by forcing them into competition with imported workers from impoverished countries. We are expected, in short, to believe that layoffs, wage stagnation and pension/health care cutbacks have absolutely nothing to do with corporate executives trying to line their own pockets, and everything to do with workers themselves - and we are expected to believe all this at the very same time new government data shows that the share of national income going to wages is at a record low, and the share going to corporate profits is at a record high.
Yet a few paragraphs into the Businessweek article, the real story starts to trickle out:
"A global labor crunch, already being felt by some employers, appears to have intensified in recent months. That's in spite of widely publicized layoffs, including Citigroup's plans to shed as many as 15,000 staffers... Corporations are determined to keep labor costs under control, so they're reaching deeper into their bag of tricks...Some are lowering their standards for new hires or moving operations to virgin territories other outsourcers haven't discovered... Economists, of course, will tell you there's no such thing as a labor shortage. From a worker's viewpoint, many so-called shortages could quickly be solved if employers were to offer more money. And worldwide, millions of people still can't find jobs. The strongest evidence that there's no general shortage today is that overall worker pay has barely outpaced inflation."
There, finally, is the real story - the story that corporate executives and staid political pundits don't want anyone to talk about: The Great Labor Shortage Lie (related, of course, to the Great Education Myth - the one I've debunked before that claims all of working America's problems are due to a bad education system, and that if we just fixed our education system, everything would be great for workers). There's no labor shortage - there's a cheap labor shortage, because, as the free market fundamentalists all love to say, supply and demand rules everything. And if that's the case - then there's no way you can have a real labor supply shortage at the very same time wages (the monetized manifestation of employer demand for labor) continue to stagnate.
UNBELIEVABLE
Today there is a letter in The Fresno Bee from a guy claiming that global warming is God's work and that humans shouldn't "try to control the weather." It's simply amazing how some people don't bother to think at all. I don't believe there is a God. I don't think there is much evidence there is. But if there is some supernatural being that can be called God, I would have lots of questions.
If God is in such control, we have to assume that God has allowed thousands of years of cruelty and murder to proceed without interfering. We have to believe that God stood idly by and allowed the Nazi Holocaust. We have to believe that God allows all manner of tragedies from hurricanes to earthquakes that kill thousands and deprive others of their homes and livelihoods. We have to believe that God permits the ravages of cancer and AIDS and other hideous diseases. If such a being exists, he, she, or it doesn't deserve reverence.
CHENEY THE LIAR
Dick Cheney was on gasbag Limbaugh's show the other day still trying to claim a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Those claims have been disproved over and over again. Cheney, Bush, and their cadre lied about the reasons for this war and they're lying still. It's going to take a very long time for the American government to have any credibility in the world again. This column by Carl Levin is at www.latimes.com:
It is incredible that more than four years after the invasion, the vice president is still trying to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's regime was connected to Al Qaeda and that Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was evidence of a connection.
While the vice president doesn't say directly that there was a tie between the two, his clear purpose is to blur the line between Al Qaeda — the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks — and the Iraqi dictator in order to justify the war in Iraq.
The problem is, that's simply not supported by the facts or by our intelligence community — and everyone except the vice president acknowledges it. In September, for example, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report that Hussein was "distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support." And the CIA reported a year earlier, in October 2005, that the Iraqi regime "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates." As the Intelligence Committee report noted, the Iraqi intelligence service was actually trying to capture Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad under an alias. Is the vice president willfully ignoring what the rest of the government has concluded? Or does he have access to information he hasn't shared with us? If so, he should produce it.
The vice president has a clear, documented pattern of overstating and misstating information with regard to Iraq. He also, for instance, continued to claim that 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta may have met with an Iraqi agent in Prague — long after the intelligence community believed otherwise. Again, his obvious purpose is to link Hussein's regime with Sept. 11, even though the rest of the world has concluded that no such link exists.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE STRATEGY TO DRIVE DOWN WAGES
A good website called www.conceptualguerilla.com talks about "cheap labor conservatives." Conservatives like to maximize profits for the already well to do and if that means suppressing wages so be it. These days corporations are crying "labor shortage" as an excuse to bring in cheaper labor from outside the United States. This column by David Sirota is at www.workingforchange.com:
We are expected, for instance, to ignore academic studies published recently by the National Academy of Sciences showing that, in fact, there is no shortage of high-tech engineers here in America. We are expected to ignore the data showing that companies are using the H-1B program to drive down domestic workers' wages by forcing them into competition with imported workers from impoverished countries. We are expected, in short, to believe that layoffs, wage stagnation and pension/health care cutbacks have absolutely nothing to do with corporate executives trying to line their own pockets, and everything to do with workers themselves - and we are expected to believe all this at the very same time new government data shows that the share of national income going to wages is at a record low, and the share going to corporate profits is at a record high.
Yet a few paragraphs into the Businessweek article, the real story starts to trickle out:
"A global labor crunch, already being felt by some employers, appears to have intensified in recent months. That's in spite of widely publicized layoffs, including Citigroup's plans to shed as many as 15,000 staffers... Corporations are determined to keep labor costs under control, so they're reaching deeper into their bag of tricks...Some are lowering their standards for new hires or moving operations to virgin territories other outsourcers haven't discovered... Economists, of course, will tell you there's no such thing as a labor shortage. From a worker's viewpoint, many so-called shortages could quickly be solved if employers were to offer more money. And worldwide, millions of people still can't find jobs. The strongest evidence that there's no general shortage today is that overall worker pay has barely outpaced inflation."
There, finally, is the real story - the story that corporate executives and staid political pundits don't want anyone to talk about: The Great Labor Shortage Lie (related, of course, to the Great Education Myth - the one I've debunked before that claims all of working America's problems are due to a bad education system, and that if we just fixed our education system, everything would be great for workers). There's no labor shortage - there's a cheap labor shortage, because, as the free market fundamentalists all love to say, supply and demand rules everything. And if that's the case - then there's no way you can have a real labor supply shortage at the very same time wages (the monetized manifestation of employer demand for labor) continue to stagnate.
UNBELIEVABLE
Today there is a letter in The Fresno Bee from a guy claiming that global warming is God's work and that humans shouldn't "try to control the weather." It's simply amazing how some people don't bother to think at all. I don't believe there is a God. I don't think there is much evidence there is. But if there is some supernatural being that can be called God, I would have lots of questions.
If God is in such control, we have to assume that God has allowed thousands of years of cruelty and murder to proceed without interfering. We have to believe that God stood idly by and allowed the Nazi Holocaust. We have to believe that God allows all manner of tragedies from hurricanes to earthquakes that kill thousands and deprive others of their homes and livelihoods. We have to believe that God permits the ravages of cancer and AIDS and other hideous diseases. If such a being exists, he, she, or it doesn't deserve reverence.
CHENEY THE LIAR
Dick Cheney was on gasbag Limbaugh's show the other day still trying to claim a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Those claims have been disproved over and over again. Cheney, Bush, and their cadre lied about the reasons for this war and they're lying still. It's going to take a very long time for the American government to have any credibility in the world again. This column by Carl Levin is at www.latimes.com:
It is incredible that more than four years after the invasion, the vice president is still trying to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's regime was connected to Al Qaeda and that Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was evidence of a connection.
While the vice president doesn't say directly that there was a tie between the two, his clear purpose is to blur the line between Al Qaeda — the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks — and the Iraqi dictator in order to justify the war in Iraq.
The problem is, that's simply not supported by the facts or by our intelligence community — and everyone except the vice president acknowledges it. In September, for example, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report that Hussein was "distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support." And the CIA reported a year earlier, in October 2005, that the Iraqi regime "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates." As the Intelligence Committee report noted, the Iraqi intelligence service was actually trying to capture Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad under an alias. Is the vice president willfully ignoring what the rest of the government has concluded? Or does he have access to information he hasn't shared with us? If so, he should produce it.
The vice president has a clear, documented pattern of overstating and misstating information with regard to Iraq. He also, for instance, continued to claim that 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta may have met with an Iraqi agent in Prague — long after the intelligence community believed otherwise. Again, his obvious purpose is to link Hussein's regime with Sept. 11, even though the rest of the world has concluded that no such link exists.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
April 10, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
PEEPING BUSH
They've tapped our phones, they want to open our mail, they monitor email, and they want to use "sneak and peek" warrants to barge into homes without even notifying the subject of their investigation. They're George W. Bush and his cadre of peepers. Now the new head of the National Intelligence Agency, Mike McConnell, wants to weaken FISA laws even more (not that they've paid much attention, anyway.) This is all supposed to protect us from those big bad terrorists. Never mind that civil liberties get tossed into the trash heap. This article by Katherine Shrader is at www.sfgate.com:
President Bush's spy chief is pushing to expand the government's surveillance authority at the same time the administration is under attack for stretching its domestic eavesdropping powers.
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has circulated a draft bill that would expand the government's powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, liberalizing how that law can be used.
Known as "FISA," the 1978 law was passed to allow surveillance in espionage and other foreign intelligence investigations, but still allow federal judges on a secretive panel to ensure protections for U.S. citizens — at home or abroad — and other permanent U.S. residents.
The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The court-approved surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives.
BUSH EVEN PERVERTS LIBRARIES
George W. Bush and the gang plan to spend $500,000,000 on his presidential "library." Libraries have traditionally been sources of knowledge, but we can be certain Bush's library will be a propaganda mill. Bush has been anti-knowledge and anti-progress his entire public life. He has not accepted responsibility for his host of wrong policies and misjudgments. This article by Larry Beinhart is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Do not refer to the George Bush Library as a library.
A library is a repository of records and a resource for scholarship.
The Bush institution has no intention whatsoever of being a library.
It is intended to be a propaganda mill. And it will be one.
Keep in mind that Bush has done more than any other president in history to hide records and to keep people from getting at them. Not just his own, but his father's and Reagan's. He is the enemy of libraries, of research and of scholarship. This institution will be used to keep presidential papers from real scholars, historians and researchers.
Bush's goal is to raise $500,000,000 (five hundred million) for his memorial to himself.
Where could $500,000,000 possibly go? Part of it will pay for lawyers to keep real scholars out of the records. The bulk of it will go to paid political hacks who will churn out papers and books that will rewrite reality. Just as the Bush White House has done his entire administration.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
PEEPING BUSH
They've tapped our phones, they want to open our mail, they monitor email, and they want to use "sneak and peek" warrants to barge into homes without even notifying the subject of their investigation. They're George W. Bush and his cadre of peepers. Now the new head of the National Intelligence Agency, Mike McConnell, wants to weaken FISA laws even more (not that they've paid much attention, anyway.) This is all supposed to protect us from those big bad terrorists. Never mind that civil liberties get tossed into the trash heap. This article by Katherine Shrader is at www.sfgate.com:
President Bush's spy chief is pushing to expand the government's surveillance authority at the same time the administration is under attack for stretching its domestic eavesdropping powers.
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has circulated a draft bill that would expand the government's powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, liberalizing how that law can be used.
Known as "FISA," the 1978 law was passed to allow surveillance in espionage and other foreign intelligence investigations, but still allow federal judges on a secretive panel to ensure protections for U.S. citizens — at home or abroad — and other permanent U.S. residents.
The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The court-approved surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives.
BUSH EVEN PERVERTS LIBRARIES
George W. Bush and the gang plan to spend $500,000,000 on his presidential "library." Libraries have traditionally been sources of knowledge, but we can be certain Bush's library will be a propaganda mill. Bush has been anti-knowledge and anti-progress his entire public life. He has not accepted responsibility for his host of wrong policies and misjudgments. This article by Larry Beinhart is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Do not refer to the George Bush Library as a library.
A library is a repository of records and a resource for scholarship.
The Bush institution has no intention whatsoever of being a library.
It is intended to be a propaganda mill. And it will be one.
Keep in mind that Bush has done more than any other president in history to hide records and to keep people from getting at them. Not just his own, but his father's and Reagan's. He is the enemy of libraries, of research and of scholarship. This institution will be used to keep presidential papers from real scholars, historians and researchers.
Bush's goal is to raise $500,000,000 (five hundred million) for his memorial to himself.
Where could $500,000,000 possibly go? Part of it will pay for lawyers to keep real scholars out of the records. The bulk of it will go to paid political hacks who will churn out papers and books that will rewrite reality. Just as the Bush White House has done his entire administration.
Monday, April 09, 2007
April 09, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
OUR MAN IN BAGHDAD
John McCain paraded through a Baghdad market to "prove" how safe Baghdad has become since George Bush's surge. McCain wore a bulletproof vest, was protected by three Blackhawk helicopters, a hundred American soldiers, and two Apache gunships. If that's what it takes to walk in Baghdad, we can safely say it's not safe. In the meantime, the war meister, George Bush, was busily doing what he does best--lying. This column by Frank Rich is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com:
As if to confirm we’re in the last throes, President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference in the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie, a sure sign of a leader so entombed in his bunker (he couldn’t even emerge for the Washington Nationals’ ceremonial first pitch last week) that he feels he has nothing left to lose.
Incredibly, he chided his adversaries on the Hill for going on vacation just as he was heading off for his own vacation in Crawford. Then he attacked Congress for taking 57 days to “pass emergency funds for our troops” even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for “pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war,” though last year’s war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president’s own request for money for bird-flu preparation.
Mr. Bush’s claim that military equipment would be shortchanged if he couldn’t sign a spending bill by mid-April was contradicted by not one but two government agencies. A Government Accountability Office report faulted poor Pentagon planning for endemic existing equipment shortages in the National Guard. The Congressional Research Service found that the Pentagon could pay for the war until well into July. Since by that point we’ll already be on the threshold of our own commanders’ late-summer deadline for judging the surge, what’s the crisis?
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
OUR MAN IN BAGHDAD
John McCain paraded through a Baghdad market to "prove" how safe Baghdad has become since George Bush's surge. McCain wore a bulletproof vest, was protected by three Blackhawk helicopters, a hundred American soldiers, and two Apache gunships. If that's what it takes to walk in Baghdad, we can safely say it's not safe. In the meantime, the war meister, George Bush, was busily doing what he does best--lying. This column by Frank Rich is at www.welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com:
As if to confirm we’re in the last throes, President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference in the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie, a sure sign of a leader so entombed in his bunker (he couldn’t even emerge for the Washington Nationals’ ceremonial first pitch last week) that he feels he has nothing left to lose.
Incredibly, he chided his adversaries on the Hill for going on vacation just as he was heading off for his own vacation in Crawford. Then he attacked Congress for taking 57 days to “pass emergency funds for our troops” even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for “pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war,” though last year’s war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president’s own request for money for bird-flu preparation.
Mr. Bush’s claim that military equipment would be shortchanged if he couldn’t sign a spending bill by mid-April was contradicted by not one but two government agencies. A Government Accountability Office report faulted poor Pentagon planning for endemic existing equipment shortages in the National Guard. The Congressional Research Service found that the Pentagon could pay for the war until well into July. Since by that point we’ll already be on the threshold of our own commanders’ late-summer deadline for judging the surge, what’s the crisis?
Sunday, April 08, 2007
April 08, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
PARADIGM SHIFT
For several decades, beginning in about the New Deal era, the federal government took the lead in advancing progress in this country. The states, particularly in the South, wanted to hold back progress in areas like civil rights. Since right-wing dominance began at the federal level with Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, though, the states are taking the lead in moving us forward. It's in states and local communities that we've seen a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage. It's where we've seen efforts toward living wage laws. It's where we've seen movement toward civil rights for gay people. And now we're seeing an effort to move toward democracy by abolishing the Electoral College system that helped George W. Bush steal the presidency. This article by David Sirota is at www.alternet.org:
On another very basic issue - the concept of "one person, one vote" - states are moving forward with major reforms. Specifically, Maryland and Hawaii took key steps toward creating a national popular vote for president - a system that would scrap the anti-democratic electoral college that essentially writes entire states out of presidential elections. Under the proposal being pushed by National Popular Vote, Fair Vote and the Progressive States Network, states' electoral votes would automatically be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of the state's individual vote. The system, which would create a national popular election, would take effect only if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes approved such legislation. Big surprise - Beltway elites are against the idea, with the dean of the Washington press corps, David Broder, actually writing that the electoral college's anti-democratic fundamentals are a "formula for healthy politics." Such hysterical, substance-free arguments are yet more proof that states' bold moves are frightening the entrenched special interests in Washington that enjoy owning America's political process.
Finally, various states such as Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey and others are moving forward with plans to publicly finance elections - the ultimate pro-democracy step in giving candidates a way to run for office without having to shakedown special interests for cash. Earlier this year, I was in Seattle for a speech on public financing in my role as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, and I can tell you that this is an issue that an increasing segment of the population understands - and, as polls confirm, is ready to get behind.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
PARADIGM SHIFT
For several decades, beginning in about the New Deal era, the federal government took the lead in advancing progress in this country. The states, particularly in the South, wanted to hold back progress in areas like civil rights. Since right-wing dominance began at the federal level with Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, though, the states are taking the lead in moving us forward. It's in states and local communities that we've seen a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage. It's where we've seen efforts toward living wage laws. It's where we've seen movement toward civil rights for gay people. And now we're seeing an effort to move toward democracy by abolishing the Electoral College system that helped George W. Bush steal the presidency. This article by David Sirota is at www.alternet.org:
On another very basic issue - the concept of "one person, one vote" - states are moving forward with major reforms. Specifically, Maryland and Hawaii took key steps toward creating a national popular vote for president - a system that would scrap the anti-democratic electoral college that essentially writes entire states out of presidential elections. Under the proposal being pushed by National Popular Vote, Fair Vote and the Progressive States Network, states' electoral votes would automatically be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of the state's individual vote. The system, which would create a national popular election, would take effect only if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes approved such legislation. Big surprise - Beltway elites are against the idea, with the dean of the Washington press corps, David Broder, actually writing that the electoral college's anti-democratic fundamentals are a "formula for healthy politics." Such hysterical, substance-free arguments are yet more proof that states' bold moves are frightening the entrenched special interests in Washington that enjoy owning America's political process.
Finally, various states such as Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey and others are moving forward with plans to publicly finance elections - the ultimate pro-democracy step in giving candidates a way to run for office without having to shakedown special interests for cash. Earlier this year, I was in Seattle for a speech on public financing in my role as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, and I can tell you that this is an issue that an increasing segment of the population understands - and, as polls confirm, is ready to get behind.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
April 07, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MANAGING THE WAR
George W. Bush has claimed that Congressional goals of withdrawing troops from Iraq are "micromanaging" the war. Bush and his cohorts like to parade around with the "commander in chief" title, as though that gives Bush carte blanche to do anything and everything he wants. Even if this war were justified, which it clearly is not, Bush and his gang messed it up from the start. They lied to get justification for starting the war. They didn't send enough troops. They had no strategy for occupying, or leaving, Iraq. The Constitution, contrary to Bush's assertions, makes Congress a major presence in matters of war. This column by Rosa Brooks is at www.latimes.com:
Contrary to the administration's claim, the Constitution (which makes a good read for detail-oriented citizens) in no way prohibits congressional restrictions on the use of the military. On the contrary. Having had unpleasant experiences with monarchical government, the framers were determined to prevent precisely the sort of situation we now have, in which an unaccountable executive endangers the nation through a foolish and self-destructive war.
Thus, while the president's war-related powers are dealt with in a single clause ("the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy"), the Constitution outlines expansive congressional wartime powers, a view that has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Congress is expressly empowered to declare war (and, implicitly, to declare an end to a particular war). Congress also has the power to "raise and support Armies" (with the proviso that "no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years," which was intended to ensure precisely the accountability the administration seeks to evade). Congress also is given the power "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces." With its Iraq bills, Congress isn't micromanaging; it's just fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities.
It's about time, too.
ONE MAN, ONE VOTE?
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that all men are created equal. In the United States each vote is supposed to be equal, but the vast inequality in wealth has changed that dynamic. As this author points out, the richest people in the United States make 440 times the income of the average person. The rich are heavy contributors to political campaigns. It's like saying that a rich person gets 440 votes to every one from you and I. This commentary by Nicholas von Hoffman is at www.thenation.com:
You cannot successfully make public policy on the basis of fairness. The criterion must be justice, but let's leave how we decide what is just for another time and cut to one, very important form of justice: the equal distribution of power and our conviction that elections should be conducted on a one-man-one-vote basis.
You will not find many people who will defend the idea that a few people should be accorded 440 votes and the rest of the electorate only one vote each. That is an idea to be found in the original, unamended version of the Constitution in which some people (the black ones) were considered to be worth only 60 percent of a white man's vote.
Naturally the slaves did not get to cast their depreciated 60 percent vote. Their masters did. Under the modern system we are allowed to cast our own vote, which is worth about 1/440th of a rich person's vote, since money is political power in America.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MANAGING THE WAR
George W. Bush has claimed that Congressional goals of withdrawing troops from Iraq are "micromanaging" the war. Bush and his cohorts like to parade around with the "commander in chief" title, as though that gives Bush carte blanche to do anything and everything he wants. Even if this war were justified, which it clearly is not, Bush and his gang messed it up from the start. They lied to get justification for starting the war. They didn't send enough troops. They had no strategy for occupying, or leaving, Iraq. The Constitution, contrary to Bush's assertions, makes Congress a major presence in matters of war. This column by Rosa Brooks is at www.latimes.com:
Contrary to the administration's claim, the Constitution (which makes a good read for detail-oriented citizens) in no way prohibits congressional restrictions on the use of the military. On the contrary. Having had unpleasant experiences with monarchical government, the framers were determined to prevent precisely the sort of situation we now have, in which an unaccountable executive endangers the nation through a foolish and self-destructive war.
Thus, while the president's war-related powers are dealt with in a single clause ("the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy"), the Constitution outlines expansive congressional wartime powers, a view that has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Congress is expressly empowered to declare war (and, implicitly, to declare an end to a particular war). Congress also has the power to "raise and support Armies" (with the proviso that "no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years," which was intended to ensure precisely the accountability the administration seeks to evade). Congress also is given the power "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces." With its Iraq bills, Congress isn't micromanaging; it's just fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities.
It's about time, too.
ONE MAN, ONE VOTE?
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that all men are created equal. In the United States each vote is supposed to be equal, but the vast inequality in wealth has changed that dynamic. As this author points out, the richest people in the United States make 440 times the income of the average person. The rich are heavy contributors to political campaigns. It's like saying that a rich person gets 440 votes to every one from you and I. This commentary by Nicholas von Hoffman is at www.thenation.com:
You cannot successfully make public policy on the basis of fairness. The criterion must be justice, but let's leave how we decide what is just for another time and cut to one, very important form of justice: the equal distribution of power and our conviction that elections should be conducted on a one-man-one-vote basis.
You will not find many people who will defend the idea that a few people should be accorded 440 votes and the rest of the electorate only one vote each. That is an idea to be found in the original, unamended version of the Constitution in which some people (the black ones) were considered to be worth only 60 percent of a white man's vote.
Naturally the slaves did not get to cast their depreciated 60 percent vote. Their masters did. Under the modern system we are allowed to cast our own vote, which is worth about 1/440th of a rich person's vote, since money is political power in America.
Friday, April 06, 2007
April 06, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE HATEFUL RIGHT WING
Some of the most common right-wing themes the past few years have consisted of "You're with us or you're against us" type of rhetoric. Right-wingers like to equate dissent on the war in Iraq or criticism of Bush with treason. They seem to think that Bush and the United States are one and the same thing. Bush is the anti-American. He has trampled and defiled all of the things we hold dear. If we're truly loyal to the United States, we uphold and defend the Constitution. We don't sneer that it's a "piece of paper" and put out signing statements to sidestep the law. We don't talk about the marvels of democracy and then render and torture people. We don't suspend the right of habeas corpus. This column by Michael Boldin is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
I often wonder if people like Tom or the free man would run away if they opposed the government's foreign policy, or would they obediently fall in line the way they want other people to do. America: Love it or leave it; that's what this type of person says.
Does this mean that anyone who rises in opposition to any American war is a traitor and hates freedom? Or, is it just this war, or the last war, or the next one, or the one after that? Is everyone who doesn't like this massive government a communist? Is it impossible for a person to love America and dissent at the same time?
Or, are we supposed to accept that every single person under every single government ever to exist - including the victims of murderers like Stalin, Mussolini, Nero or Napoleon - hated their country because they hated the government that oppressed them?
CHENEY CAUGHT LYING AGAIN
Darth Cheney continues to flog the idea that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda had a chummy relationship. The lies about Hussein's connections to terrorists and the alleged weapons of mass destruction possessed by Iraq were the reasons given for this bloodbath. We know from the Downing Street Memos that the Bush administration was massaging intelligence to find any excuse to attack Iraq. We know that the PNAC group was advocating war against Iraq long before the attacks on 9/11. We know that the Bush administration was culpably negligent in preventing the attacks on 9/11. How much more direct could a Presidential Daily Briefing be than stating, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U. S."? This item comes from www.firedoglake.com:
On the surface it looks like just another example of Dick Cheney being in denial about the fact that there never was any operational link, alliance or cooperation between al Qaeda and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. That link had been a persistent Cheney claim, one manufactured from whole cloth by Doug Feith's rump "intelligence" factory at the Pentagon, and one of the two major pillars — along with the completely fraudulent claims that Iraq was seeking to purchase yellowcake from Niger — of the misrepresentation that the Bush/Cheney regime used to mislead the country into the Iraq invasion and occupation.
The lie and its origins have long been discredited by reputable sources, including the 9/11 Commission and the Pentagon's own Inspector General, but Cheney and friends kept repeating it, as though the truth didn't matter. And in their world, it didn't.
Still, when you hear Cheney repeating the lie, and on the same day that the Pentagon's acting Inspector General releases the unclassified version of his own report that debunks the lie again, you have to wonder what Cheney was thinking. Does he not care about his own credibility or that of the regime he serves? Was it just coincidence or bad karma that Cheney got caught by this morning's WaPo story, a story the blogs would immediately jump on so fast that even the traditional media would realize and report the disconnect? I don't think so.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE HATEFUL RIGHT WING
Some of the most common right-wing themes the past few years have consisted of "You're with us or you're against us" type of rhetoric. Right-wingers like to equate dissent on the war in Iraq or criticism of Bush with treason. They seem to think that Bush and the United States are one and the same thing. Bush is the anti-American. He has trampled and defiled all of the things we hold dear. If we're truly loyal to the United States, we uphold and defend the Constitution. We don't sneer that it's a "piece of paper" and put out signing statements to sidestep the law. We don't talk about the marvels of democracy and then render and torture people. We don't suspend the right of habeas corpus. This column by Michael Boldin is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
I often wonder if people like Tom or the free man would run away if they opposed the government's foreign policy, or would they obediently fall in line the way they want other people to do. America: Love it or leave it; that's what this type of person says.
Does this mean that anyone who rises in opposition to any American war is a traitor and hates freedom? Or, is it just this war, or the last war, or the next one, or the one after that? Is everyone who doesn't like this massive government a communist? Is it impossible for a person to love America and dissent at the same time?
Or, are we supposed to accept that every single person under every single government ever to exist - including the victims of murderers like Stalin, Mussolini, Nero or Napoleon - hated their country because they hated the government that oppressed them?
CHENEY CAUGHT LYING AGAIN
Darth Cheney continues to flog the idea that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda had a chummy relationship. The lies about Hussein's connections to terrorists and the alleged weapons of mass destruction possessed by Iraq were the reasons given for this bloodbath. We know from the Downing Street Memos that the Bush administration was massaging intelligence to find any excuse to attack Iraq. We know that the PNAC group was advocating war against Iraq long before the attacks on 9/11. We know that the Bush administration was culpably negligent in preventing the attacks on 9/11. How much more direct could a Presidential Daily Briefing be than stating, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U. S."? This item comes from www.firedoglake.com:
On the surface it looks like just another example of Dick Cheney being in denial about the fact that there never was any operational link, alliance or cooperation between al Qaeda and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. That link had been a persistent Cheney claim, one manufactured from whole cloth by Doug Feith's rump "intelligence" factory at the Pentagon, and one of the two major pillars — along with the completely fraudulent claims that Iraq was seeking to purchase yellowcake from Niger — of the misrepresentation that the Bush/Cheney regime used to mislead the country into the Iraq invasion and occupation.
The lie and its origins have long been discredited by reputable sources, including the 9/11 Commission and the Pentagon's own Inspector General, but Cheney and friends kept repeating it, as though the truth didn't matter. And in their world, it didn't.
Still, when you hear Cheney repeating the lie, and on the same day that the Pentagon's acting Inspector General releases the unclassified version of his own report that debunks the lie again, you have to wonder what Cheney was thinking. Does he not care about his own credibility or that of the regime he serves? Was it just coincidence or bad karma that Cheney got caught by this morning's WaPo story, a story the blogs would immediately jump on so fast that even the traditional media would realize and report the disconnect? I don't think so.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
April 05, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE
One of my favorite books is Jack Kerouac's On the Road. You have the image of wide open spaces and good roads to take you wherever you want to go. Increasingly, however, U. S. infrastructure like roads and bridges and sewer systems is crumbling. Sometimes the consequences are deadly, such as the levees breaching in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Another effect of dilapidated schools and other infrastructure is an increasingly difficult time competing in the world economy. This column by Bob Herbert is at www.welcometopottersville.com:
Blackouts, school buildings in advanced states of disrepair, decrepit highway and railroad bridges — the American infrastructure is growing increasingly old and obsolete. In addition to being an invitation to tragedy, this is a problem that is putting Americans at a disadvantage in the ever more competitive global economy.
Felix Rohatyn, the investment banker who helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s, has been prominent among those trying to sound the infrastructure alarm. Along with former Senator Warren Rudman, he has been criticizing the government’s unwillingness to invest adequately in public transportation systems, water projects, dams, schools, the electrical grid, and so on.
He recently told a House committee that Congress should begin a major effort to rebuild the American infrastructure “before it is too late.”
LOOKING AT "THE SECRET"
Pop culture has been a part of U. S. life for a long time. It was things like Davy Crockett's coonskin cap or the hula hoop. It was the mood ring. It was the pet rock. These days there's a book called "The Secret," which sounds very much like the old power of positive thinking psychology. The idea is that if you think positive thoughts positive things will happen to you. As the author points out here, that doesn't hold up very well when you look at the millions of impoverished people in the world. There's a big difference between fantasy and reality. This article by Carolyn Baker is at www.onlinejournal.com:
In Sibling Society (1996), Robert Bly astutely, in my opinion, describes American culture as one of children who have never matured into adulthood and where “adults cling to self-absorbed adolescent values, television talk shows have more clout than elders, children are spiritually abandoned to fend for themselves, and in the place of community we have built shopping malls.”
I can think of no more apt description of The Secret than this, for it is first and foremost all about me and what I want.
Only children and adolescents believe that they can, as The Secret insists, have anything they want. Rhonda Byrne of Prime Time Productions, one of the principal filmmakers and author of the book The Secret, says she was inspired by reading “The Science Of Getting Rich,” a 1910 book by Wallace D. Wattles, a New Thought transcendentalist, which proclaims that one’s wealth or lack thereof is a product of one’s thought and attitudes. Positive thinking attracts good things; negative thinking attracts lack.
When I hear these concepts, I can only return to: How uniquely American! Can you imagine telling 12 year-old girls in Chinese sweatshops -- the ones who work 16 hours a day for pennies, live in squalor, may get raped at any moment, and sometimes are found dead at the ripe old age of 20 at their sewing machines from working themselves to death -- can you imagine telling them that their situation is the product of their thoughts? Examples of such ghastly human suffering are countless in a world where millions of human beings live on less than two dollars a day.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE
One of my favorite books is Jack Kerouac's On the Road. You have the image of wide open spaces and good roads to take you wherever you want to go. Increasingly, however, U. S. infrastructure like roads and bridges and sewer systems is crumbling. Sometimes the consequences are deadly, such as the levees breaching in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Another effect of dilapidated schools and other infrastructure is an increasingly difficult time competing in the world economy. This column by Bob Herbert is at www.welcometopottersville.com:
Blackouts, school buildings in advanced states of disrepair, decrepit highway and railroad bridges — the American infrastructure is growing increasingly old and obsolete. In addition to being an invitation to tragedy, this is a problem that is putting Americans at a disadvantage in the ever more competitive global economy.
Felix Rohatyn, the investment banker who helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s, has been prominent among those trying to sound the infrastructure alarm. Along with former Senator Warren Rudman, he has been criticizing the government’s unwillingness to invest adequately in public transportation systems, water projects, dams, schools, the electrical grid, and so on.
He recently told a House committee that Congress should begin a major effort to rebuild the American infrastructure “before it is too late.”
LOOKING AT "THE SECRET"
Pop culture has been a part of U. S. life for a long time. It was things like Davy Crockett's coonskin cap or the hula hoop. It was the mood ring. It was the pet rock. These days there's a book called "The Secret," which sounds very much like the old power of positive thinking psychology. The idea is that if you think positive thoughts positive things will happen to you. As the author points out here, that doesn't hold up very well when you look at the millions of impoverished people in the world. There's a big difference between fantasy and reality. This article by Carolyn Baker is at www.onlinejournal.com:
In Sibling Society (1996), Robert Bly astutely, in my opinion, describes American culture as one of children who have never matured into adulthood and where “adults cling to self-absorbed adolescent values, television talk shows have more clout than elders, children are spiritually abandoned to fend for themselves, and in the place of community we have built shopping malls.”
I can think of no more apt description of The Secret than this, for it is first and foremost all about me and what I want.
Only children and adolescents believe that they can, as The Secret insists, have anything they want. Rhonda Byrne of Prime Time Productions, one of the principal filmmakers and author of the book The Secret, says she was inspired by reading “The Science Of Getting Rich,” a 1910 book by Wallace D. Wattles, a New Thought transcendentalist, which proclaims that one’s wealth or lack thereof is a product of one’s thought and attitudes. Positive thinking attracts good things; negative thinking attracts lack.
When I hear these concepts, I can only return to: How uniquely American! Can you imagine telling 12 year-old girls in Chinese sweatshops -- the ones who work 16 hours a day for pennies, live in squalor, may get raped at any moment, and sometimes are found dead at the ripe old age of 20 at their sewing machines from working themselves to death -- can you imagine telling them that their situation is the product of their thoughts? Examples of such ghastly human suffering are countless in a world where millions of human beings live on less than two dollars a day.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
April 04, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DENYING GLOBAL WARMING
There are a few traits that define conservatives. Callousness is one of those traits. Ignorance is another. Greed may be the most observable trait of all. And greed is a large part of the reason right-wingers don't acknowledge the reality of global warming. There's profit in those hydrocarbons, at least in the short term. Something, the Deity, or technology, will bail us out in a few years. In the meantime, pollute, emit, and be merry. This column by Jon Carroll is at www.sfgate.com:
One of the stranger things to happen in recent political discourse -- and this is a crowded field -- is the morphing of global warming into a left-wing plot, a conspiracy by godless scientists to ... well, it's not clear what benefit the scientists get from spreading lies about global warming. Maybe they just want research money to study this nonexistent warming thing.
I have a pretty good idea where that meme started. If you believe that global warming is man-made, then you believe that greenhouse gases are a bad thing. If you believe they're a bad thing, you believe they should be reduced. And reducing greenhouse gases would mean using less petroleum, in all its myriad forms. And since the current administration is dedicated to the protection of petroleum companies, it is only natural that it would try to convince its base that somehow global warming is being promoted by the same people who approve of gay marriage, abortion and secular schools.
The idea that global warming is a liberal plot is a lunatic notion, but it's surprising how closely it maps with public opinion. It's an extremely successful con job, and it's bought the oil companies at least a decade of profits and indolence. It's not clear why evangelical Christians -- or that portion of them that are die-hard supporters of George Bush -- should be so interested in the financial well-being of oil companies. It's not as if they're getting anything out of it.
AUTHORITARIAN CREATIONISTS
It's probably safe to say that most religions are authoritarian, and especially fundamentalist religions. They are the people who are absolutely certain they are God's chosen few. It's their way or no way at all. We see that in issues like abortion and we see it in the creation vs. evolution debate. If you look at the evidence, there's no denying the reality of evolution. Religious doctrine, on the other hand, can quickly be shot full of holes. This commentary by Philip Slater is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
Creationists don't believe in democracy--don't believe that a complex system can arise spontaneously, without a dictator. One wonders why they are so virulently anti-communist, since they share the same deep commitment to centralized power. Creationism says order cannot evolve from interaction among equals.
The great visionary Mary Parker Follett called democracy a form of self-creating coherence, and this tendency toward spontaneous integration by living things is fundamental in nature. It's also a deeply spiritual concept for many people, but anathema to most mainstream religions, which are, at their core, deeply authoritarian.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DENYING GLOBAL WARMING
There are a few traits that define conservatives. Callousness is one of those traits. Ignorance is another. Greed may be the most observable trait of all. And greed is a large part of the reason right-wingers don't acknowledge the reality of global warming. There's profit in those hydrocarbons, at least in the short term. Something, the Deity, or technology, will bail us out in a few years. In the meantime, pollute, emit, and be merry. This column by Jon Carroll is at www.sfgate.com:
One of the stranger things to happen in recent political discourse -- and this is a crowded field -- is the morphing of global warming into a left-wing plot, a conspiracy by godless scientists to ... well, it's not clear what benefit the scientists get from spreading lies about global warming. Maybe they just want research money to study this nonexistent warming thing.
I have a pretty good idea where that meme started. If you believe that global warming is man-made, then you believe that greenhouse gases are a bad thing. If you believe they're a bad thing, you believe they should be reduced. And reducing greenhouse gases would mean using less petroleum, in all its myriad forms. And since the current administration is dedicated to the protection of petroleum companies, it is only natural that it would try to convince its base that somehow global warming is being promoted by the same people who approve of gay marriage, abortion and secular schools.
The idea that global warming is a liberal plot is a lunatic notion, but it's surprising how closely it maps with public opinion. It's an extremely successful con job, and it's bought the oil companies at least a decade of profits and indolence. It's not clear why evangelical Christians -- or that portion of them that are die-hard supporters of George Bush -- should be so interested in the financial well-being of oil companies. It's not as if they're getting anything out of it.
AUTHORITARIAN CREATIONISTS
It's probably safe to say that most religions are authoritarian, and especially fundamentalist religions. They are the people who are absolutely certain they are God's chosen few. It's their way or no way at all. We see that in issues like abortion and we see it in the creation vs. evolution debate. If you look at the evidence, there's no denying the reality of evolution. Religious doctrine, on the other hand, can quickly be shot full of holes. This commentary by Philip Slater is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
Creationists don't believe in democracy--don't believe that a complex system can arise spontaneously, without a dictator. One wonders why they are so virulently anti-communist, since they share the same deep commitment to centralized power. Creationism says order cannot evolve from interaction among equals.
The great visionary Mary Parker Follett called democracy a form of self-creating coherence, and this tendency toward spontaneous integration by living things is fundamental in nature. It's also a deeply spiritual concept for many people, but anathema to most mainstream religions, which are, at their core, deeply authoritarian.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)