Monthly Archive for September, 2005

WWJD?

Published on September 28, 2005 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Politics, Religion and The Ill-Literates. 6 Comments

In their ever vigilant battle to protect the American citizens from the outdated foundations of our constitution and to appease those who’s brainwashing techniques have proved so valuable to them, the Bush administration, with the prodding of FEMA and the Red Cross, are going to use our tax dollars to pay back churches who helped in the aftermath of flooding. Washington Post.

This is yet another unprecedented violation of the silly above mentioned document that was created by the men who were the foundation of our government, and who strove desperately to keep religion out of it. But hey we know the guys on Team America are outside the box thinkers who don’t get all bogged down in stuff like Geneva Conventions, International Law, or bedrocks of democracy. So it’s no surprise that Republican lawmakers led by human atrocity and fundementalist friend Tom Delay, himself a great case for keeping abortion legal, or perhaps thinking outside the box and making it retroactive, has been pushing FEMA to provide reimbursements for some of the newly rankled faithful. Said the stain on human progress, “There are tons of questions about what is reimbursable, what is not reimbursable,” the monkey-man added that Houston alone had, “500 or 600 churches that took in evacuees, and they would get no reimbursement.”

Well as far as reimbursible stuff goes, I’m no theologian but aren’t religious groups running a charity and isnt charity generally thought of as, and I mean morally as well as legally, kind of not something you’d normally be thinking about payback for? I mean where’s the part in the bible where Jesus starts pounding on healed lepers doors demanding a little appreciation for the effort? Oh that’s right we’re not supposed to mention that he was a Communist since we went and adopted him as the official team mascot for Capitalism, the economic system clearly used in heaven.

But Christianity has always been a malleable opiate, so much so that the doped up infrastructure coordinator for FEMA in Louisiana said, “The need was so overwhelming that the faith-based groups stepped up, and we’re trying to find a way to help them shoulder some of the burden for doing the right thing.” And that’s the thing about doing the right thing isn’t it? Getting something for it. Does the Faith and Hope part have as many caveats as the Charity? Way to make my choice to not donate to faith based groups meaningless. This is precisely one of the reasons I would not donate to these spiritual junkies when this happened and posted on alternatives to send our money to. But in the end I’m giving to them anyway since my tax dollars will be used to pay these generous souls back for supposedly answering god’s calling.

But I mainly argued at the time and in my much talked about and controversial “Of Miracles, Saints, And Charity” post that their charity and assistance is offered with one hand while their other pushes a bible in your face. In that vain this story gives us this:

The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Save America, an antiabortion group formerly known as Operation Rescue, said, “Separation of church and state means nothing in a time of disaster; you see immediately what a farce it is…” Benham said that his group has been dispensing food and clothing and that “Bibles and tracts go out with everything we put out.” In Mendenhall, Miss., he said, he preached to evacuees while the mayor directed traffic and the sheriff put inmates from the county jail to work handing out supplies.

These charlatans are all like, “Hey destitute , desperate homeless starving sick folk you better take our faith along with this charity or else something bad will happen to you.” Thank Whoever that I wasn’t a flood victim, but to be an evacuee and have all those people working to help while this guy preaches would have been too much. It would have taken a whole load of mythological beings to keep me from stoning, flaying, or inflicting any other real gory horrorshow biblical nastiness on this guy.

But he does have a good side and some sense of morality unlike those of his brethren taking payment for charity. Benham said he would never accept a dime from the federal government. Said Reverend Flip, “The people have been so generous to give that for us to ask for reimbursement would be like gouging for gas,” he said. “That would be a crime against heaven.”

Ding Ding. Hallelujah! Some internal consistency from a religious figure. Miracles do happen! And it’s not only him. Along with the normal Civil liberties groups opposed to this violation of our laws and rights there are some church leaders besides the Flipster seeing how slightly wrong this is.

Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer,” said the Rev. Robert E. Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board. “We would never ask the government to pay for it.”

From a Reverend who’s a leader of a group dedicated to seperating church and state:

What really frosts me about all this is, here is an administration that didn’t do its job and now is trying to dig itself out by making right-wing groups happy,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State…”The good news is that this work is being done now, but I don’t think a lot of people realize that a lot of these organizations are actively working to obtain federal funds. That’s a strange definition of charity,” he said.

Coolness. But of course most church leaders are rushing right in to feed out of the federal trough their usually so adamantly aligned with conservatives to limit. They want our money from everything to electricity costs to worn carpets. As for the Flipsters remarks about the seperation of church and state being a farce in a disaster, perhaps the disaster would have been mitigated and the need for the overwhelming costs cut if more of a seperation existed and we didn’t have an administration that in the disasters first hours urged people to give to faith based charities before committing our own government fully. Faith based disaster relief huh? Who needs a coordinated government response to protect the citizens who give it its power when you’ve got prayer and superheroes in cassocks.

Faith based relief sucks. Price is too big. your life and your soul. It just sucks no matter how much bigger your god is than mine. Faith based anything has pretty much always proven to be inferior to equivalent services based on secular and clinical foundations. See my Sex, Lies, And Civil Liberties post that has Peabody buzz around it, and maybe even 2 views, for more on that.

You want to trust god and his constituents to keep levys intact or you want to stop developers from tearing up wetlands and put money in infrastructure that was taken away to pay for a religio-economic crusade in Iraq? If we made more coherent decisions and didn’t get so damned bogged down in ideologies that cause lines like those between government’s traditionally and neccessarily secular institutions and those of bedtime stories meant to console scared people, blurred so much, odds are churches never need to get involved in this whole thing, we don’t get jipped paying them back, and they keep on helping small town alcoholics, battered women, adulterers, pathological liars, and incestual families, bury their pain under layers of self protective and artificial superiority. The normal stuff churches have always done.

Can’t we get back to them just doing that until small towns are all gone, and everybody lives in a metropolitan area where the stupid and weak will die off and access to more information and experience will take the churches down with them?

I have a dream.
I have an awesome dream.

And I also have a request.

Angry B and I were talking earlier and he made a good point. Why should the churches get their money back and not me? I donated to Mercycorp and I should not be discriminated against just because I don’t have the rich imagination and shared “condition,” of the devout. So I’m calling for reimbursement of the $35 I donated to relief efforts. I propose that the money be taken from the taxes of those who sit at the literal and economic middleground of America. I know the poor aren’t good for it and the rich don’t pay taxes because all their excess funds are tied up in political bribes, so I want $1 from 35 people who sit right at the national mean for salary and who live in the middle most part of the country, which I guess is somewhere around Illinois or Missouri or one of those fabled areas i only really care about when the Mets go on road trips.

I mean for god’s sake people if our churches aren’t running a charity I certainly can’t afford to do so. With that in mind I’d like to see all of you use the comment section to start a petition to send up to Congress to get me my $35 back. Come to think of it I’d like the $35 I sent for Tsunami relief as well. If I get my funding back I will be able to continue my work and buy only as many DVD’s, CD’s, books, clothes, and other cool stuff that don’t stop me from making futher contributions to the relief efforts of the next act of destruction from the Christian’s god. I’ll also continue to do the other cool things I’ve been doing for most of my life to be able to afford those donations. Like working some O.T., eating out only a couple of times a week, not dating, driving a car that’s ok on gas, having a dial up connection, not seeing the lousy movies Brandonicus wants me to see, dropping out of school, being just miserable and heartsick enough to not eat as much as I could, and anything else that allows me to have a few extra dollars to appease my conscience, and like so many of the faithful, allow myself to believe that these charitable works make up for all the stupid, wasteful, and unkind things I’ve done.

I am also accepting new members to my “group.” If you’d like to become one send me your picture along with interests, hobbies, favorite reads, movies, bands, and places to hang out. Here at The Dude Inc members generally love trips in to Manhattan, are able to tolerate an occasional Mets or Rangers game, are not aligned with any of the more traditional churches or their belief systems, think I rock, are low maintenance, down to earth, light drinkers, non smokers, and believe in evolution. Oh and no game players. And please only women applicants at this time. I’m not running a charity here people.

Poker Faced Bastards And The Losers Who Call Them

Published on September 22, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

The playwright David Mamet wrote a great piece in the L.A. Times last week using poker as a metaphor for our current political reality viz a vis the Democrat-Republican relationship.

Fold means keep the money, I’m out of the hand; call means to match your opponents’ bet. That leaves raise, which is the only way to win at poker. The raiser puts his opponent on the defensive, seizing the initiative. Initiative is only important if one wants to win.

The Republicans are aggessive players who seize and create initiative with that aggression. They have courage. Democrats are pussies who just sit at the table and call or fold time after time so that when they do have that huge hand that could turn the table to their favor they are in no position to use it.

For example, take a player who has never acted with initiative — he has never raised, merely called. Now, at the end of the evening, he is dealt a royal flush. The hand, per se, is unbeatable, but the passive player has never acted aggressively; his current bet (on the sure thing) will signal to the other players that his hand is unbeatable, and they will fold.

Democrats have stood passively by watching their opposition steal an election in 2000, make up a war, lower taxes for the rich, send borderline felons and genocide enablers up for confirmations, cut social programs in favor of faith based ones, try and turn science into a joke, and use underhanded tactics to discredit their opposition. But Bush’s approval rating has been lower than a proven crook who had to resign the post 32 years ago. The administrations getting killed on the Katrina fallout. Even the media is starting to be less obedient. And what are the Democrats doing about it?

Well for one their giving the administration a free pass on a Supreme Court Justice nominee even as the White House has refused to release crucial documents pertaining to Roberts background and evidence exists that he engaged in unethical acitivity while being interviewed for the job. But instead of raising at the table and blocking a guy who just might be a misogynist, racist, free market hack based on many of his past rulings, recommendations, and writings, we get a divided Democratic Judiciary Committee that includes the important confirming vote of Senator Patrick (he’s dead to me now) Leahy of Vermont, who decided to approve Roberts. “I take him at his word that he will steer the court to serve as an appropriate check on potential abuses of presidential power.” CNN

He takes him at his word? The Republicans continue to be bold poker players and are apparently playing against wooses who have never heard of the concept of bluffing.

I mean for god’s sake even Republicans are turning on Bush. Their is massive congressional outcry over his budget proposals for fixing N.O.

The pushback on Katrina aid, which the White House is also confronting among House Republicans, represents the loudest and most widespread dissent Bush has faced from his own party since it took full control of Congress in 2002. As polls show the president’s approval numbers falling, there is growing concern among lawmakers that GOP margins in Congress could shrink next year, and even rank-and-file Republicans are complaining that Bush is shirking the difficult budget decisions that must accompany the rebuilding bonanza. Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) said he and other fiscal conservatives are feeling “genuine concern [which] could easily turn into frustration and anger.”

Washington Post.

This guy is so faltering right now. Why not seize the intiiative and raise the stakes by taking Roberts down with him instead of sitting around hoping capitulation here will make things go better on the next round when these absolute idiots seem to think they’ll be able to stop the nominee for O’Connor’s seat and instead get Atticus Finch sent their way.

Are they going to sit by and watch as Republicans propose to help pay for rebuilding by cutting yet more of their prized soldiers benefits? That’s right. The small p who managed to bluff his way through Yale, various oil business failures, a squalid Baseball franchise just now getting respectabiblity after his incompetent ownership, now is refusing to help pay for this mess by freezing and rescinding his tax cuts for the rich but instead wants to send up a plan

that includes trimming military quality-of-life programs, including health care.
Possible sources of funding cuts to free up money for Katrina relief include reduced health benefits, consolidation of the three military exchange systems and the closure of the military’s stateside school system.

Navy Times

Seriously there’s a special place in Hell for these fuckers. But this isn’t a world of Hell’s or Heaven’s and they know it. It’s a world where the race goes to the fittest and most aggressive. As Mamet put it in his above linked column: “The Republicans, like the perpetual raiser at the poker table, became increasingly bold as the Democrats signaled their absolute reluctance to seize the initiative.”

But you get your Roberts’s and Bolton’s and your estates tax cuts, and Karl Rove’s put in charge of rebuilding N.O. when you help set precedence at the poker table with shit like this, also from Mamet:

John Kerry lost the 2004 election combating an indictment of his Vietnam War record. A decorated war hero muddled himself in merely “calling” the attacks of a man with, curiously, a vanishing record of military attendance. Even if the Democrats and Kerry had prevailed (that is, succeeded in nullifying the Republicans arguably absurd accusations), they would have been back only where they started before the accusations began.
Control of the initiative is control of the battle. In the alley, at the poker table or in politics. One must raise. The American public chose Bush over Kerry in 2004. How, the undecided electorate rightly wondered, could one believe that Kerry would stand up for America when he could not stand up to Bush? A possible response to the Swift boat veterans would have been: “I served. He didn’t. I didn’t bring up the subject, but, if all George Bush has to show for his time in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter.”
This would have been a raise. Here the initiative has been seized, and the opponent must now fume and bluster and scream unfair. In combat, in politics, in poker, there is no certainty; there is only likelihood, and the likelihood is that aggression will prevail.

Mamet is right on. That’s why I loved Howard Dean. He was a goddamn player not afraid to be bold and play gritty style. The only calling he’d do is on them for all their lies and tactics. At the table he’d raise the stakes and put them on the defensive as they should be. But the losers still haven’t learned and continue to betray their core constituency by sitting passively though a tremendous oportunity to seize the advantage and dictate the means and content of debate has been dropped into their gutless laps.

Hopefully Dean can have an effect as Chairman of the DNC, and those like Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein who are putting up resistance to Roberts and others such as Henry Waxman and Nanci Pelosi who do so in other corridors, can as well. But clearly there is a big problem and a lack of a true opposition party in this country. It’s borderline conspiritorial how Dem’s have aided and abetted these perps over the past few years right down to that total idiot Kerry who continues to send me friggin e mails to encourage the kind of activism and opposition this guy showed so little of it when it really mattered. This imbecile is like some loser teaching people how to play poker because he couldn’t handle the heat of the table and wasn’t up to the cool brutal stares of the real men who stared his pansy ass down and left him to clean up the room afterwards with a nice tip and pat on his head.

October Hell 2005

Published on September 21, 2005 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Sports and The Ill-Literates. 5 Comments

Ok here we are again. Another October where us Mets fans get to watch Altanta getting ready for the playoffs. This is like 15 years in damn row. Most of those years they’ve owned us. One heartbreaking, back breaking, spirit crushing bad loss after another. And they don’t do anything in October. i’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. I guess it’s better, but the continued mindless tomahawk chopping their idiot fans are still doing after over a decade of playoff nothingness somehow adds to the ignominity of being perpetually inferior to these redneck slobs who can’t sell out playoff games. And guys with names like Chipper keep killing us. Bigots like John Rocker own us despite us knowing we’re better then him and that every one who rides the #7 has more class in their ethnic and homosexual pinkies than he does behind his entire sloped forehead. It doesn’t matter the cast of characters its just a baseball axiom. The Braves will beat us.

I know this is not my usual identity on this site. Here I’m mainly politically passionate and thoughtful movie-culture analysis guy. But if you want to know me you should know this: the Mets and me go way friggin back and our connection is as deep and dysfunctional as many families and relationships. It exists on the level of metaphor as well as the prosaic. Baseball itself is the subject of a library of literature as well as most of the best sports movies ever. It is so because it runs deep and those who know it and grew up with its measured cadences and arythmic perturbances know how it reflects life. We know how truly American this game once was even if America is now being characterized better by X Games and Arena Football.

I think only people on Mets boards like the one where i post and find the most knowledgeable fans anywhere at NYFans Only via Scout.com can truly understand the spirtual emtiness and colossal weight that I feel every October as the Braves prepare for yet another playoff appearance. It makes me want to hate the game. Give it up for good. It makes me feel like god is a lunatic or that the baseball part of my reality is being played out in one of Dante’s nine circles. I just want it to end. Every year I hope and see valid reasons and yet know they’ll be there. And they are. And it goes on and on and on and on…

06 will be no different. They’ll be there again. you know it, I know it, they know it, and the Mets know it. Some night after another brutal sweep at their horrid little stadium I can easily imagine Rod Sterling stepping out of the bullpen as the lights dim and doing a monologue for both sets of fans that kind of explains our collective pain that is simultaneously never ending and yet so dichotomous as we suffer their greatness in comparison to us and they in turn see how meaningless it is every October as they fall meekly.

And if they should somehow make it to the Series and upset this delicate Twilight Zone balance that keeps both our realities so precariously intact, well I don’t even want to think of the consequences. it’s just too much to even…no forget it, I shouldn’t have even… I mean, oh nothing I just love the Fall so much. So Tired.

All That You Can Be?

Published on September 20, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

On September 24th 3 days of war protest will begin in our nations capital. United For Peace And Justice. The hoedown thrown to stage what amounted to a celebration of the anniversary of 9-11 and which added to its creepiness factor be being largely ignored and populated mainly by coerced Pentagon employees and their families, was in some part meant to counter what they knew was coming on the 24th. It was a self-conscious display of the inner workings of Donald Rumsfeld’s mind filled with not only his failures in Iraq, but in its pro troops rhetoric, his own protest and denial of the fact the military is a desperate institution.

Rummy threw a jingoist propagandafest and nobody came. More and more Americans are catching on to what the world and “America hating liberals” knew years ago, and they cannot stomach the twisted and reprehensible using of 9-11 to promote the strategic maneuvers in the Middle East and perverted tendency to try and turn lack of support and non-mindless capitulation into attacks on troops. But soldiers themselves have spoken out in droves along with high ranking military officials. With support for Bush dropping it will be interesting to see how much more support and attention the anti war protest gets in comparison to the 11th. This includes the media coverage now that they’ve started to wake from their 5 year slumber and been forced by that inevitable cold hard slap of reality to to be a bit less right wing as they would like left to their own devices and the inability to forever alter reality to fit their corporately designed version.

Bush and the Pentagon have a real mess on their hands and they know it. And they need look no further than their own military. Recruiting quotas are way down and they’ve had to increase the recruiting budget $500 million in a desperate attempt to find more coercive measures to get the desperate and downtroden to enlist. Not exactly new. They’ve always used unethical tactics to get the many kids our system pushes away from the resources of the fortunate. A NY Times report a couple of years back reported how recruiters would show kids how to cheat on testing, fudge police records and make drug arrests dissapear.

They’ve done the studies. The Pentagon knows what joining the military is about for the vast majority of its recruits. They know its not patriotism. They can wax poetically about supporting those men and women fighting for democracy and America but they are armed with a full slate of research and long standing recruiting policies to match, that tells them who these kids are and why they’re there. Almost half of recruits are from the south and most of their ROTC programs run in the south or urban minority areas. About 15% of recruits come from the more educated and affluent north eastern areas and only 8% from families with professional backgrounds. The Nation

What these kids have traditionally been fighting for is an education and livelihood which their socio-economic means make them desperate enough to feel they can only get through enlisting. Blacks and the poor have always been a target. Recruiters are given training and handbooks on how to identify and coerce kids with limited options, subpar grades, struggling economic situations, and limited job options. The military has always used the Solomon Amendment which gives federal funding to collegess in return for providing recruiters access to students. A lilttle known element of No Child Left Behind also provides for access at high schools and includes the schools sharing of personal information about kids.

Schools also help mislead kids and parents into thinking that the ASVAB test is mandatory and a “career exploration program.” (See above link). In reality this is an elective test the military uses to identify potential recruits and place them in the system. Alot of these recruiters are encouraged to act, as what amounts to moles or spies. They volunteer to coach schools sports teams to get cozy and i.d. those susceptable to enlisting. They act as chaperones for school activities and find the popular leaders who they are taught probably wont enlist due to their greater opportunity coming from their standing as the team quarterback or Honor Role student etc (they call them COI’s for Centers Of Influence), but will know and be able to influence those who are not so lucky.

Increasingly now, as the above Nation link reports, they are using methods like these to target younger kids all the way down to the 6th grade. After school pre Jr ROTC programs are being instituted at grade and elementary schools and has kids marching around with wooden guns and singing things like, “I used to date a high school queen/Now I lug an M-16.” Stats show that close to half of ROTC students in the past have ended up enlisting so they are stepping up efforts to beat the burgeoning anti-military sensitivity to the punch and give these kids what they are calling, “adventure training.”

But anti-war and parent groups have started catching on to some of these tactics and are trying to educate parents and students about their rights, the military’s false promises, and other alternatives. For instance kids dont have to take the ASVAB and parents can opt out of being part of their schools giving recruiters private info on their kids. The following links are for organizations involved in counter-recruitment efforts:
youth4peace
youthandthemilitary
wagingpeace
studentpeaceaction
Unitedforpeace

I am not a complete idealist. I realize we need a military in todays world. But even many conservatives are worried about our economic future as our defense budget continues to bloat and we become the worlds outsourcing source for weapons and manpower at the expense of other areas of the economy. There is also something cyclical and reciprocal in the nature of a system that needs to have such a huge portion of its population be desperate enough to play battlefield roulette with their sign up period when joining in an attempt to salvage some kind of future. Could the fact that recruiters are taught to target freshmen on college campuses who they know tend to be on shakier ground and more prone to dropping out, lacking in clear direction, and are just finding out that they don’t have the funds to keep up, also be a motivation in escalating college costs and cuts to financial aid programs? Is it an unspoken fringe benefit of economic policies favoring the rich to continue to foster a desperation among those needed to supply the ever widening mouth of war its teeth?

Maybe lower recruitment rates will force some good old American pragmatism and invention so that our foreign policies can start to reflect a need to stay out of conflict. If such shaky notions as morality, empathy, knowledge, and humanity wont do it maybe neccessity can.

I leave you with the rap lyrics of an 18 year old named Rayniel, who has taken a Quaker produced flyer from the American Friends Service Committee and embelished its message. The flyer gives kids a warning about enlisting with its, “Ten Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment Agreement.” Points one through three advise young people to “not make a quick decision,” to “take a witness when speaking with a recruiter,” and to “talk with veterans.” Rayniel is part of a program at Manhattan’s West Side High School that gets vets involved in the debate and who’s principal, veteran Jim Murphy and Rayniel go around to NY schools recruiters have targeted, (they know to stay away from West Side), and offer an alternative point of view from a combanation of perspectives from the latters one of an inner city’s youth, to the formers as a Vietnam vet.

Think about ya life, the choices you make. Recruiters out to get you, don’t make a mistake./Is obvious, right, they target the ‘hood. Take a homeboy and write, what’s wrong and what’s good./My words are truth, heal like medicine. Don’t believe me? Man, holla at a veteran…Now do you wanna R.I.P., Rayniel from N.Y.C. telling you there’s no guarantee… J.O.B./ You have no clue. This is for the ones who keep it real in the military, you can’t be you./So think, listen and see. Is a puppet to America really “all you can be?

MotherJones Sep-Oct issue pg 26 if it can’t be linked.

Enough With The Problems Of Other Countries Already

Published on September 19, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

Getting fed up with all this genocide coverage we’ve been inundated with the past year?

I mean I guess you can’t blame the mainstream media for calling our constant attention to the fact 300,000 people have already been murdered in Darfur and that all the earmarkings of a burgeoning genocide are being instigated by Mugabe in Zimbabwe. What with all the lessons learned from Bosnia and Rwanda. All the guilt and hand wringing the West, and particularly the highly influential U.S. has done for allowing those atrocities when we so easily could have mitigated them with intervention of either a military or diplomatic nature, it’s no wonder then that NBC News featured an entire 5 minutes of coverage on the story last year! Or that CBS came close with 3. ABC News broadcast a whopping 18 minutes of Darfur coverage in its nightly newscasts! And imagine how it will go up now that New Orleans has given us a slight taste, and I mean slight, of what these displaced and tortured people live and die through regularly. CoalitionforDarfur

I guess we’ll have to just live with and except it as the price for living in a country so globally minded and unselfishly led by a media that reflects that vision for humanity and reports all the angles no matter how troubling.

Because if they weren’t so generous, or were even in cahoots with our government they wouldn’t want us to know that we and the other members of the U.N. Security Council actually called off threats of an arms embargo and asset freeze to get the Khartoum government to do something about the janjaweed militias everyone knows they fund as part of an ongoing civil war that has reached epic proportions and includes the systematic raping of girls and women, as well as the the execution of all able bodied non Muslim males that oppose the government. And surely a media with no conscience would shelve a story that includes the sordid little detail that our country sells weapons to that same government, and consequently to the militias committing these atrocities. So I guess we’re lucky to be deluged with all this information that every American must know backwards and forwards. Thank god our journalists are doing their jobs and fulfilling their public duty and sacred trust instead of pandering to baser tastes and making more of such minutiae as Tom Cruise going crazy or that runaway bride.

And it’s pretty gutsy of His Fraudulency to actually use the genocide word to describe what is going on. That’s so rare because it mandates action on the part of the party recognizing it. Geneva Convention rules and all that. That’s why other Presidents have avaded it as Clinton did with Rwanda. Bubba says he’ll have to live with that the rest of his life. But good for Bush not getting bogged down in all that regret or international standards of morality and duty. He used the word and went on to ignore the problem more than ever once he sanctioned some financial assistance in the form of humanitarian aid notorious in the region for being cut off in great numbers by the government.

And I guess no matter how annoying all this depressing mass murder talk is it’s probably healthy it’s sparked all this debate about how a probable reason the UN security council won’t even impose sanctions much less military intervention is because of the oil 4 of its 5 regular members rely on. And oh how it’s brought us back to a continuation of the lively Iraq debate and the unstable nature of middle Eastern oil supplies and a lack of investment in alternative energy sources. If I’ve heard 1 water cooler argument about how if we werent in Iraq, or so dependent on fossil fuels, we’d be better equipped with both manpower and infrastructure to save hundreds of thousands of lives, I’ve heard a thousand.

And if it weren’t for the media’s diligent committment to educating us and making sure we learn from the past we wouldn’t be able to recognize the early stages of Mugabe’s Murambatsvina program in Zimbabwe for being the blatant attempt to eliminate hundreds of thousands of his political opposition. You see Murambatsvina means Operation Drive out the Filth, and its a project that has literally bulldozed over the homes and subsequently displaced 700,000 poor people and affected about 3 million others. It’s put them in rural areas with no sewage or health care. But of course we know all that just as we know that Mugabe is bolstered by our inaction in Darfur and places like Rwanda under similar circumstances just as Hitler was bouyed by the world turning a blind eye to the Armenian genocide by the Turks.

It’s too funny how the Pol Pots and and Slobadon Milosevic’s have all at some point echoed these words said by Hitler in 1939, who himself also followed the cherished legacy of the worlds purposeful and reckless ignorance of its history and mass murderers:

“It was knowingly and lightheartedly that Genghis Khan sent thousands of women adn children to their deaths. History sees in him only the founder of a state…The aim of war is not to reach definite lines but to annihilate the enemy physicall. It is by this means that we shall obtain the vital living space that we need. Who today still speaks of the massacres of the Armenians?”

From A Problem From Hell: America In The Age Of Genocide, a book by Samantha Power. ( pg 23)

And of course we know better than to believe the rhetoric of statesmen who won’t act and who have all used variations of this excuse made by Secretary of State Warren Chistopher in regards to the Serb-Muslim-Croat conflict in Bosnia. “The hatred between these groups…it’s centuries old. That really is a problem from hell.” (Power 306). In other words it’s just primitive people being primitive and there’s no stopping them. It’s an attitude that has covered the self serving motivations of many leaders and thank goodness we have a media who calls them on it regularly!

And that media is so dedicated and on top of all this that it’s no wonder that the networks can refuse to air a t..v. commercial created by American Progress Be A Witness, calling out the news media for its perceived lack of coverage of the genocide in Darfur. And hell why should they pay even more attention? What more can they do?

Just a happy reminder.

If you actually want yet more on all this than our super msm outlets offer, some of my info was culled from the follwing places:
NewZimbabwe.com
coalitionforDarfur
SudanReeves.org
thinkprogress

Back To Business As Usual

Published on September 16, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

You would think after Katrina and its exposing of the tendency of this administration to appoint unqualified people based on personal patronage that they might tail back on it for a bit. Lay low for a while and do things the way preofessionals do. No not these arrogant bastards who need make no capitulation to those of us not as strong with the force of Jesus and the American Way.

2 items.

Who is the man His Fraudulency has put in charge of rebuilding New Orleans and making the racial tension as well as the infrastructure of the city right again? Karl friggin Rove! I guess it makes sense since this guy’s whole job is about political patronage and making things appear to be something other than what they are. But he’s a political operative, a strategist with a clear cut ideological agenda who is being placed in a position to, “assemble ideas from agencies, conservative think tanks, GOP lawmakers and state officials to guide the rebuilding of New Orleans and relocation of flood victims.” Washington Post

Can we expect a rebuilding effort any different than the one in Iraq which has served to make neo-cons cronies and investors happy as they deregulate their way to numerous ethical violations and misappropriating of funds? Should a guy who used the inherent racism of the South to get his boy the Primary votes over John Mcain in 2000 by having pollsters call white people in the area and ask them if they would vote for a candidate who had fathered a black child outside his marriage (knowing he had adopted) be allowed to help draw up the plan to restore a sense of racial ease to the area? Already these guys are talking about ways they can use this to usher in some long sought after gains like school vouchers, business tax incentives, cutting wages for construction workers in the rebuilding (already done), cutting them for service workers (being heavily considered), reducing regulatory obstacles for businesses and encouraging entrepeneurship in the area as opposed to reliance on government, and waiving environmental regualations.

The inspiration and influences Rove and co are turning to for help are the the same right wing think tanks like The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute that influenced all their other salient ideological choices over the past 5 years and guys like Rove’s good friend Grover Norquist the long time champion of reducing government and paying people like indentured servants.

Item 2 on the congenitally incapable of learning list:
Confirmation hearings began for head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “the agency charged with hunting down money launderers, sanctions busters and human traffickers, and which is the sole enforcer of immigration laws inside the country.” UPI. It’s a big deal now with previous entities like INS and customs all merged within in and under the Dept of Homeland Security.

Julie Myers is Bush’s choice. Immediately questions arose about her Michael “Browny” Brown-like lack of qualifications including only having served about a year in any of her previous managerial posts. These concerns cut across partisan lines as Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, expressed much concern about an agency of 20,000 employees, encompassing the second-largest investigative agency in the federal government, being run by someone who just barely gets in under the qualifying 5 years experience in management and having those years be so scattered and short lived: “I just wonder how significant those management experiences have been in terms of the length of time that she’s been in those positions,” he told UPI. “She’s had little periods where she’s had experience, but so often you really don’t get into the depth of managing until you been some place more than a couple of years.”

The Republican Senator and former Mayor and Governor added during the hearings: “I think that we ought to have a meeting with (Homeland Security Secretary) Mike Chertoff … to ask him… why he thinks you’re qualified for the job…”Because based on your resume, I don’t think you are.”

Now you may remember that one of the reasons Browny got his gig at FEMA was that he and the last head, Joe Allbough were college roomates. Well Myers used to be a chief of staff to Chertoff, and get this, is fiancé to his current chief of staff. Way to keep up the old high profile guys. Just part and parcel for for this culture of cronyism that exists now and the arrogance that lets no criticism or any amount of contradictory evidence or experience get in the way of continuing to think they know it all and can get away with whatever they want. And why not since neither of the 2 items listed here has garnered any mainstream media criticism since that entity also appear to be one that that is arrogantly incapable of seeing what is does not want to see and will only rock the boat as much as they have to.

Bush’s Plan

Published on September 16, 2005 in ..The Dude, Humor, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

From The A.P.P.

In an address to the nation tonight President George W Bush announced a 4 point plan for, “restoring and repopulating New Orleans.” After days of consulting with, “cherished advisors”, Bush declared, “a vision for New Orleans,” meant to make it, “a city on a hill,” after the famous St Augustine vision of the city of God. An outline for his plan provided to the press elaborates on this further. It involves the literal building of “large platforms built on man made hills.” The document goes on to explain that this, “will protect its inhabitant from future flooding.” “It’ll be higher up,” the President said during his speech. “Get it? Water won’t reach them up on that high ground up there. America is the land of the high ground and we need to change the topography to reflect that.”

The President plans to have the populace of this literal city on a hill to come from those inhabitants that never got out, “Engaging in the kind of fruitful multiplication the Bible encourages us to engage in.” He went on to say, “If everybody engages in this Biblical kind of intercourse, with a committed and renewed vigor and passion, we can repopulate New Orleans from within with the luxory of time to build that hill and the buildings that will go on top of it.”

As for those displaced by the flooding the President wants to employ them in “Project Noah.” This will entail these people being paid to work in rounding up two of every animal and sending them into New Orleans on boats, or arks, that will reach the growing city by the time the foundations are laid for the hill. The press release explains that considering that there are millions of species of animals there will be no shortage of work for a long time.

What’s more, the current waters of Lake Pontchartrain will be retained so that everyone on the city on the hill will have waterfront property, “thus dispelling any of this talk about inequality in the area.” Alluding to the Biblical story in which Noah’s son Ham sees his father naked and is punished for his shame by fathering the race of dark skinned people, the President joked, “Now we can, you know, make that mistake right again. I mean seeing his father naked. That was regrettable.”

The President added at the end of his address: “We have before us an opportunity to create an Eden and in doing so need look no further for its blueprint than the book which made that glorious place seem so real.” He went on to explain why this meant that local churches would oversee the building and fund it through donations from parishioners who will in turn be paid by those churches. The Federal Government will provide the seed money tax free to these local institutions until, “Market forces kick in there and restore things to the economic order God intended.”

In closing Mr Bush said, “A new world was once created out of the ruins of a flood. It’s bad. I’m not denying that. Water is bad. When there’s too much of it. But it’s still God’s and we need to remember that god has blessed America and would not provide us with so much water unless he wanted us to use it. We will not let this opportunity to build a big hill and, you know, alot of good views and things lucky people get to do normally, boating and the like, go by without making something great of it. Lemonade. America has made alot of lemonade out of lemons, and you know, you can’t make lemonade without water and there’s lots’ of that there now.”

The Lighter Side

Published on September 14, 2005 in ..The Dude and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

I wanted to share some funny Bill Maher and Jon Stweart stuff from their shows the last couple of weeks.

Mahr on Katrina:

“Finally today convoys of troops and aid started to arrive along the Gulf Coast. Five days after the hurricane hit. Kind of makes you miss the innocent days when Bush only sat on his ass for seven minutes. It only took him four days to make a plan, but finally today he said he had a plan. Unfortunately it’s a faith-based plan that involves getting two of every animal onto a big boat.

“He could have started planning on Saturday when the radar showed that a hurricane was going to hit the city, but Bush thinks that the jury is still out on weather forecasting.”
Political Humor

On Bush’s future:

“New rule: American must recall the president. That’s what this country needs – a good old-fashioned, California-style recall election, complete with Gary Coleman, porno actresses, and action film stars. And just like Schwarzenegger’s predecessor here in California, George Bush is now so unpopular, he must now defend his job against…Russell Crowe, because at this point I want a leader who will throw a phone at somebody. In fact, let’s have only phone throwers. Naomi Campbell can be the vice president.

“Now I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can’t be fun for you anymore. There’s no more money to spend; you used up all of that. You can’t start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Yeah, listen to your mom, the cupboard’s bare, the credit card’s maxed out, and no one’s speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

“Now it’s time to do what you’ve always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It’s time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman? Now, I know what you’re saying, you’re saying that there are so many other things that you as president could involve yourself in. Please don’t. I know, there a lot left to do. There’s a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax of yachts, turning the space program over to the church and Social Security to Fannie Mae, giving embryos the vote.

“But sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You’ve performed so poor, I’m surprised you haven’t given yourself a medal. You’re a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you’re just not lucky. I’m not saying you don’t love this country, I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So yes, God does speak to you, and what he’s saying is, ‘Take a hint.’”
Political Humor

From Jon Stewart and The daily Show”
“This is inarguably a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government. Remember when Bill Clinton went out with Monica Lewinsky. That was inarguably a failure of judgment at the top. Democrats had to come out and risk losing credibility if they did not condemn Bill Clinton for his behavior. I believe Republicans are in the same position right now. And I will say this: Hurricane Katrina is George Bush’s Monica Lewinsky. The only difference is that tens of thousands of people weren’t stranded in Monica Lewinsky’s vagina. Although, this is an interesting point, her vagina at the time was also known at the Superdome…Do you prefer the Big Easy?”

“While everybody else is busy setting up commissions and finding fault, through the president’s leadership he’ll end up building a billion dollar dam in Arkansas.” –”Daily Show” correspondent Ed Helms
“Why would he build a dam in Arkansas?” –Jon Stewart
“His plan will be to fight the water there so we don’t have to fight it here.” –Ed Helms

“So no one’s going to be held accountable for this at all?” –Jon Stewart
“No. In fact, if history is any indication, they’ll be hard-pressed finding enough medals to pin on these guys. My sources tell me the head of FEMA will be dipped in bronze and turned into an award to be given to other officials.” –Ed Helms

Laughter good.

Confirmation Hearings Day 1

Published on September 13, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Are the Democrats really going to take this nomination sitting down? Are we really listening to them during the opening round of Senate Confirmation hearings talk about how cood a guy this is and how cool and important they all are?

Here’s a Slate count on some of the wackiness:

Senators acknowledging that Roberts is really, really smart: 18
Republicans ranting about judicial activists: 7
Republican senators exhorting Roberts not to answer any questions more complicated than Roberts’ choice of hair-care products: 6
Senators referring to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and whether she did or did not answer questions: I stopped counting at 6
Senators referring to God and/or angels: 5 (Three of them Democrats)
Senators offering grim estimates of John Roberts’ extraordinary life expectancy: 4 (ranging from 25 to 40 years)
Senators fretting about the constitutionality of microscopic tags that can be implanted in a person’s body to track his every movement: 1 (Joe Biden, D-Del.)
Senators referring to court decisions that limit congressional powers: 4
Senators referring to pregnancy, abortion, or choice: 5
Senators referring to the failure of federalism and Katrina: 2 (Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.)
Senators who cry: 1 (Tom Coburn, R-Okla.)
Senators referring to Roberts’ expansive views of executive authority during wartime: 1 (Dick Durbin, D-Ill.)

With 3 of the 5 god/angel shout outs being from Democrats do those who don’t think an idealogue who has proven his distaste for equal rights, civil rights, voting rights, and womens rights, have a chance?

Roberts is a guy, who when asked by Dick Durbin recently how he would handle a religious issue, said hed recuse himself. But isn’t impartialtiy and ability to not be swayed by personal beliefs one of the qualifications for a gig like this?

And speaking of recusing oneself. While being interviewed for this job he was also one of the judges presiding over the case of Guantonamo detainee Ahmed Hamdan who was challenging the military commissions at that base in Appeals Court with his appeal listing Bush as a defendent. 4 days before his winnning the interview process was announced he ruled in the administrations favor. Seem like a conflict? It’s highly unethical and if anything should lead to recusing oneself it seems like this should be a case. But he didnt even inform Hamdan’s attorney of his compromised status.

As legal ethicists Stephen Gillers, David Luban and Steven Lubet pointed out in Slate, these interviews “violated federal law on the disqualification of judges,” and the statutory principle that judges should step aside if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

I keep hoping Democrats will stand up and start acting like an opposition party. Still wanting something to happen that ruins this nomination in the next few days. But it wont. Dem’s will hint they’ll get the next guy who will be put up to fill Day O’Connor’s seat. Like suddenly they’ll win one against this administration? Maybe they could at least start practising now like they actually want to preserve some liberal values so they won’t be as rusty come the next set of hearings and whatever Judge Dread small p sends their way.

Celebrating 9-11?

Published on September 12, 2005 in ..The Dude, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

On the 4th anniversary of the day 3 thousand people died in an event subsequently used to gain support for a foreign invasion of a country wholly unconnected to that event but in which many more thousands have died, the Defense Department threw a party. A real jamboree was had including a freedom march. They played alot of music like that wholly appropriate Hunkahunka Burning Love dirge by Elvis. It was supposed to span from the Pentagon to the Lincoln Memorial and was slated to entertain 10-20 thousand folks. Big time preperations and security. Releases saying as many as 17,000 there.

Problem is only 2-3 thousand showed up and a good deal of them were Pentagon employees and their families who were subtly exhorted to attend in a memo from the Secratary Of Commerce. Washington Note. In it employees were persuaded to, “show your love of this great nation and to make your claim that freedom matters,” as the sec of comm added, “I strongly encourage you,” in his homage to the KGB and the good old days of the Cold War.

Country singer Clint Black belted out a new tune full of more irrational and childish notions of the world that went something like this: “The code of the west is black and white, the good guys and the bad. You always know who’s wrong or right, by the color of their hats.” Salon. And you thought he ran out of 2nd grade lyrics and jingoistic motivation with “Iraq & Roll.” This guy is deep people. Quagmire deep.

Rummy was there too, as Salon reports, “Black introduced Rumsfeld by saying that his own niece thinks Rumsfeld is “a hunk.” Rumsfeld took the microphone to rally the crowd to march again next year. “This is our first March for Freedom and by the size of the crowd, I suspect it will not be the last,” he said.

2-3 thousand Don? I mean this makes the million man march look like, well, a million man march. But I guess all bets are off in a community where Rummy qualifies as a hunk.

The event was at least partially designed to head off an anti war protest planned later this month and many people at this shindig went on about how important it was to honor our troops on the anniversary of 9-11. Am I missing something here? What the hell do our troops have to do with that? A DOD press release said this day was a response to citizens’ ” ‘call to action’ for a meaningful way to mark the day, and to say thanks to soldiers.”

Uh.

Marchers said the event provided a tangible way to show support for U.S. troops fighting overseas. Some said they were unaware that the Department of Defense had organized the day’s events. Others, like Jack Lynch, from Lenah, Va., said they did not care who organized the march and concert, so long as troops get the message of support. “We came out to support our troops,” said Lynch. “We support them no matter where they are at.”

Uh, excuse me.

The march was part of the Department of Defense’s “America Supports You” program, launched in November 2004. America Supports You materials say the program is designed to highlight “the overwhelming show of support and gratitude extended to the brave men and women serving in harm’s way.” President Bush mentioned the program in a speech to troops at Fort Bragg, N.C. early in the summer.

Uh. What the bollocks does any of this have to do with 9-11!

But there you have it. After 4 years of capitalizing on tragedy they take the anniversary of a day that rocked America, and particualrly N.Y. and use it to hold a pro war rally for an occupation that has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have had nothing to do with 9-11. Do you think these guys cackle in smoky rooms with their eyes lit from below when they hatch these plans? And of the people that actually came to ostensibly support the Iraq effort, do they feel no sense of unease about the event having so little to do with 9-11?

But the administration can continue to get away with using patriotism and red neck values to aid the effort due to the media aided associations equating protest with hatred of the troops. On the pro war side they use that propaganda to give those who might otherwise not approve the war a reason to defend it under the guise of supporting the troops. As if our military has ever been treated as anything but expendable lower income rubbish to use and discard if they happen to survive at all and get to come back to their cuts in veterans benefits.

And let us not forget the corporate sponsors of deceit and propaganda that help perpetuate the happy illusion of America’s unquestioned rightness and the danger from those who imply that anything need change.

Among the events sponsors according to Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were,

McDonalds. Have it our way.
The Pentagon Channel. I hear after midnight you can see Richard Pearle and Paul Wolfowitz in some asshole on asshole action.
Stars and Stripes. Duh.
Lockheed Martin. Investing in their future.
The Washington Times. Because there’s room for plenty of gods in this war and Sun Myung Moon’s one of them.
Subway Restaurants. Jared is a nazi.
America Online. We pollute the internet so why not your minds too.

I drove past Ground Zero a couple of weeks ago. The area doesn’t look the same without the Towers. When I was there a month after they came down 4 years ago it was still so real. Surreal as well. I could smell decaying flesh then. From blocks away. It was about midnight and it was flooded with searchlights and looked like an elaborate movie set. I’m not surprised at what’s been done in the name of those dead that still lay under the rumble a month later. Disappointed maybe. Not surprised. What’s more surprising is that so many people made that anniversary as empty of the Towers and their occupants as the site looked 2 weeks ago.