11/11/11/11

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month... This is the time we honor the end of "The War to End All Wars," which later became known as World War One, when the mission to end war, by war, failed.

Since that time the wars have gone on and the men and women, of all nations, have been wounded and have died in them over and over and over again. Twenty-three years ago, during the Reagan led conflicts with the Soviet Union and the illegally funded and illegally waged contra war in Nicaragua, I helped to create a recording on the subject that unfortunately still holds very much true today.

Then, the war was largely to the south of us where we claimed a sort of divine right to control the lives of those who lived in the same hemisphere as we do. Today our men and women battle over dusty ground on the other side of the world because there are those in our country who believe that the economic interests of oil companies (which actually means the economic interests of themselves and their friends) are the "vital national interests" of our government and country and people. They return home (if they return at all) to inadequate medical care, lying bureaucrats with no interest in their needs, and broken contracts over proper benefits. They also return home to fractured families and soul numbing woundedness that is left untreated and hidden away. They receive neither glory nor honor, but are largely left to fend for themselves by the very same lying thieves who sent them into harms way to begin with.

Our truly vital national interests do not reside under the sand in Iraq... or Kuwait... or Saudi Arabia; they reside in the flesh and blood, hopes and fears, soul and heart of the men and women who are sent as a sacrifice for our benefit, and the families, lovers and friends who suffer without them while they are far away, or gone forever.

Shortly, I will be getting up from my computer and walking down to the city center of Petaluma where the annual Veteran's Day Parade will soon begin. I am not going there to protest. I am not going there to proselytize for peace. I am going there to stand and witness to the heart, and the hope and the bravery of the men and women who have been asked to serve the country.

I am going there to honor their dedication, their commitment, and their service.

I am going there to pray (to whatever God, Goddess, or Flying Spaghetti Monster that is out there) that they and theirs will be kept safe and whole and that those our "leaders" claim are "the enemy" will also find safety and peace because they believe with all their heart that they are in the right as well.

I am going there to say "thank you"... and to say "no more."

"There is no way to peace... Peace IS the way." - A. J. Muste

The Pain of McCain

With the latest in attack dog politics from the pit bull in lipstick and the whisper but wave a big ass club Neanderthal proclamations of the pit bull’s running mate (“The Presidency… so easy a cave man can do it”), I can no longer stomach the soft, respectful, reverent tones used to describe John McCain as a “Great American.”

The truth is that the “Maverick” is just a self-righteous, self-inflated, permanently angry, lying, cozener who respects very little besides his wife’s money and the fantasy that he suffered “righteously” in that hell hole he was stuck in because to acknowledge its worthlessness, pointlessness, immorality and servility would be to make his suffering there, and even his entire life afterward, meaningless.

John McCain’s primary claim to fame is that he spent years in a North Vietnamese prison after being shot down while on a bombing run over civilian areas where, as part of the general Johnson/Nixon campaign to “bomb them back into the Stone Age” he obliterated the homes and lives of thousands of innocent Vietnamese people whose only crime was being on the wrong side of American Imperial interests in the South East Asian peninsula.

The truth is that John McCain should not have been in Viet Nam to begin with, because WE should not have been in Viet Nam to begin with. This fact is common knowledge, and has been common knowledge ever since Daniel Ellsberg showed the moral fortitude to apprehend and then make public The Pentagon Papers, documents which reveal in depth the illegal and immoral ways that our government violated international law, lied to the American pubic, subverted agreed upon Vietnamese elections and finally plunged head over heels into the destruction of a country and a society for the sole purpose of achieving control of the government, the people, and the natural resources (even a Republican like Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about this). It is the story of how we turned a former ally (Ho Chi Minh) into a monstrous dictator and sold him to the American people as a threat to U.S. interest and universal world peace.

Any of this sounding familiar?

Now… it is John McCain’s life goal to see that thousands of American soldiers – the people he claims to value and respect – along with hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, suffer and die in order to redeem America’s image as WINNERS, for one reason only… so that John McCain can finally lay to rest the ghosts of the Hanoi Hilton.

On the way, his campaign has recently decided to wage a vicious attack on Barack Obama for being “a friend of terrorists.” This being a reference to former founder and leader of the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers. Ayers, who is now a college professor, was never associated with Obama in his radical days (Obama was, after all a kid in Hawaii at the time). McCain, and now the Pit Bull, insist on declaring him a “terrorist who targets innocent people” while during the same period of time, John McCain was targeting a far greater number of innocent people and killing and maiming them in “Shock and Awe” of American flash and fire, because he was commanded to do so by his superior officers, and because he personally thought it was a good idea. Even after he knew that the war was both wrong, and illegal, McCain continued and continues to suggest that those innocents who died in Viet Nam (Vietnamese innocents AND American military draftees) could have been redeemed by killing and killing and killing until the war was finally WON.

Now… he insists that this is the strategy we must have in Iraq, another war set up to topple a former ally after he became inconvenient to American interests, begun under direct deception and criminal conspiracy against the Congress and the American public, and waged in a fragmented, ineffective, directionless way because there’s no other way to fight a war you should never have started in the first place.

The terrorist is NOT Bill Ayers… The terrorist is NOT Barack Obama… The terrorist is John McCain. He is willing to send the very military personnel he claims to revere into harm’s way for a war with no purpose and no direction in order to do one thing and one thing only… to redeem HIS PERSONAL SUFFERING of 40 years ago. Along the way, he is willing to sacrifice not only those young men and women who offer their trust, their dreams, their bodies, and their lives to protect us - on the assumption that they will not be asked to sacrifice themselves for no reason – but he is also willing to sacrifice any and all of the best interests of the country he claims to value, love and protect.

He’s got a lot of support on that one, because there are a lot of people in the country who have suffered with the same agony as John. They cannot accept the fact that in Viet Nam (or now in Iraq) the sacrifice they made and are making is anything but honorable. And don’t get me wrong… I believe that it IS honorable, because as someone said recently (I actually think it was Joe Biden, but I'm still trying to find the exact quote), when a soldier makes the sacrifice of their body or their life, the value of that sacrifice is inherent in their dedication; it is NOT DEPENDENT ON ANYTHING ELSE. It doesn't matter whether or not the commanders they trust and believe in were in fact trustworthy. It doesn't even matter if the cause is just. The sacrifice and service, the dedication and commitment should be honored… but NOT by sending more people to kill and die for a lie… for a scam… for a mistake.

This election… and ending this war… is not about John McCain’s 40 year old suffering. It is about US. It is about soldiers who have been lied to and asked to sacrifice for a scheme and a nightmare, as if mistakes of the past can be remedied with mistakes in the future. It is about a nation that has been fed like cheap dog food to the fevered money grubbing greedheads, and the need to snatch that nation, its history and its ideals, back from those fevered jaws that would snap it up and swallow it whole. It is about personal fortune and self-inflation and the need to stop these robbers and liars before they wreck the country completely.

It is about finding John McCain a better way than the Presidency to relieve his personal pain.

The Other Shoe Finally Drops...

For the past several weeks I have been struggling to comprehend the silence of the main stream media, and for that matter even the Obama campaign, around the most basic connection of John McCain to the present financial crisis... The Keating Five.

My best guess regarding why nothing was ever raised regarding the collapse, in the late 80s, of Arizona's Lincoln Savings and Loan, was because most of the senators involved in the scandal were Democrats (including three of my personal senatorial heroes... just for the sake of full disclosure). In another one of his "Maverick" ways, John McCain was the only Republican to "cross the aisle" to become involved in accepting large campaign contributions, major perks, and lovely Caribbean vacations from John Keating in exchange for keeping Keating and his pack of lying pirates safe from Federal regulation until they could loot the treasury of $3.2 Billion (mid-80s dollars!).

This, of course, was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of late 80s Savings and Loan failures, something that took place after the rabid de-regulation Reagan years, and under the presidential watch of the last President Bush. Ultimately, the Savings and Loan bailout cost taxpayers $125 Billion (again that's 80's dollars of course) in a pail shadow of the last two weeks on Wall Street, K Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Despite this complete collapse of the home loan industry of the time, McCain and fellow Republicans chose to push even more de-regulation, fighting over and over for a financial industry process that not only allows for, but absolultely attracts, the same kind of intentionally deceptive thieving behavior that McCain supported in the 80s and which he continues to support despite the complete disaster of the concept as demonstrated y the last three weeks in the world of finance.

Well... FINALLY... McCain's true colors are beginning to see the light of day. Rosa Brooks, in the LA Times recently provided a detailed reminder of the Keating episode and its McCain connection to today. She does a really good job of detailing the real estate loan roots of the present crisis as well, detailing how dicey loans were repackaged and resold by those seeking to avoid liability and maximize personal profit, a tactic that worked pretty well for John Keating.

In addition, over the weekend The Seattle Times provided a revised and republished story, also from the LA Times, that details much of the McCain involvement with Keating, including a shopping mall project that Cindy McCain hooked into with both Keating and her father.

The Obama campaign has finally showed up to the party with a full website and 10 minute video documentary on the scandal, and McCain's roots deep inside it. The video is definitely worth the 10 minutes it takes to watch it (below), and the site itself provides some excellent, in depth background on the subject.

All I can say is that it's about damn time!



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I received an email about the new McCain/Keating site in the same batch that also delivered an article from a right wing friend of mine declaring that the real source of the financial crisis is Barack and The Association of Community Organizations for REform Now (ACORN). Of course we've known for several weeks what the McCain/Palin campaign thinks of community organizers, so it's not really surprising that this weird diversionary tactic should arrive at this time.

TRULY Remembering 9/11

Last night Keith Olbermann spoke (as usual) with incredible eloquence regarding the real meaning of remembering 9/11, as opposed to the Republican ad campaign that abuses the memories of those who suffered in 9/11, cynically commandeering that memory as a way to maintain, and further abuse, the power they so desperately crave.

On Nov. 4, Remember OK City

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic writes, in an op-ed in the NY Times entitled "On Nov.4, Remember 9/11" that "The next president must do one thing, and one thing only, if he is to be judged a success: He must prevent Al Qaeda, or a Qaeda imitator, from gaining control of a nuclear device and detonating it in America. " He goes on to state that "We live, seven years after 9/11, in the age of the super-empowered, eschatologically minded terrorist. He is motivated by revolutionary and theological concerns rather than by nationalist grievances, and he is adept at manipulating technology against its Western innovators."

I would suggest to the rather myopic Mr. Goldberg that the potential terrorists are much much closer, just as fanatical, and ESPECIALLY eschatological. They too have struck on our shores, and the devastation of that event is still being felt.

The posting and the listing below discusses the real threat from religious fanatics in this country.

The gretest danger on November 4 is that we could elect to the Vice Presidency, a fundamentalist megalomaniac in an A-line skirt and cute little librarian glasses. She could, quite easily, and quite rapidly, move to a position where her finger is on the trigger of our entire nuclear arsenal and her religious, God-delivered orders to start The Final Battle have already been given.

This is just scary!

[NOTE AS OF FRIDAY MORNING 9/12/08: The video below is SUPPOSED to be playing from You Tube, but instead there is an error message that comes up stating that it has been removed. I made a search for - and found - another source for this material because I believe it is VERY important that it be seen. In the meantime, please read what I have to say about it, because the perspective remains, and is in fact perhaps even MORE significant in light of this new development.

In addition, for a look at the way Google's censorship policy works in oher countries around the world, go to my story on China and watch the Tank Man movie.]


Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.

Anyone who knows me personally, or who reads this blog on any semi-regular basis (I only WRITE it on a semi-regular basis), knows that I firmly believe in the importance of the separation of church and state. At the same time, I believe in the rights of believers (all believers of all faiths) to worship as they believe is appropriate (within a certain range of human descency however... murder as a part of worship is not really something that sits well with me for example).

I am "a believer" myself, though what that actually means in my life is not what a lot of people who call themselves "believers" would accept. I have a Masters of Divinity from a Southern Baptist seminary (a degree that also has a social work major - something that no SBC seminary offers any longer), I attended Oral Roberts University my freshman year in college... I have "spoken in tongues" (no smart-ass comments please). I was "licensed to preach" by the Southern Baptists when I was 18. For three years I worked for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board at a mission in San Francisco. I am an ordained minister, and I co-pastored a small church in San Francisco for a short period of time in 1981. I directed an independent gospel music recording company from 1982 - 1991. I am presently a member of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco.

All I have to say about the above is that we need to BE CAREFUL!!! As you will see in the video (go to the links at the end for more, if you can stomach it), the election of Sarah Palin would be no less than the final ascension of the first of The American Taliban to reach high executive office. It's a plan that began with these people back right about the time I graduated from seminary (1980) and the arch-conservative factions of a number of Protestant denominations swore that they were going to take over first their denominations and then the country as a whole. I stood in an auditorium in LA while Bailey Smith, the newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, made that declaration and I went home and watched as my church (a church open to and welcoming gay people among others) was harassed and eventually thrown out of the SBC.

These people believe in it... These people want it... These people will make it happen. These people aren't your relatively benign, live and let live neighborhood Presbyterians (or Episcopalians, or even most Baptists), these people are fanatical, war-mongering, psychotics and they absolutely believe that what they do comes by direct order from God. There is no difference between the churches that Sarah Palin comes from and the deep fundamentalist Islamic mosques and schools of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia; no difference except the fact that one believes in a demented Jesus while the other believes in a demented Mohammed. BOTH are wrong, BOTH are evil, and BOTH are terrifying. They are drunk, free-wheeling maniacs commandeering Arnold Schwrzanegger's Hummer and speeding down the political freeway with God in the back seat smoking crack and yelling out orders.

Jim Jones on steroids and lugging gigantic containers of kool-aid.

John McCain is too ignorant of these folks and their beliefs to realize the deal he's made, or - and I truly believe this - he wouldn't have made it. Giving the Republican Party, and the country, to these people is literally a "Disaster of Biblical Proportions!"

While it's possible that John"... would rather lose an election than a war," he clearly IS willing to sell our country down the river to these takeover fanatics in order to win THIS election.

If you thought we were at war before... get ready for friggin' ARMAGEDDON...

Their ultimate goal is to destroy the world so they can go home to Jesus.

We Are The Ones...

Every time I see this video, or hear this song, I keep thinking that this is what this blog is about.

It isn't about my cousin... It isn't about people and principles we can't understand. What this is really about.. What LIFE is really about is BEING the ones that we have been waiting for.

If we succeed, or don't (oh please God no) succeed in seeing Obama win the presidency of the U.S., the real point is what each of us does with it (both before and after). The last couple of weeks - for both public and personal reasons - have moved me to a new place, a REnewED place.

The fact of the matter is, there's only one thing I really give a damn about.

Children, Politics, and "Family Values"

There's been a lot of talk over the last few days about how candidates' children should be "off limits" in discussions of the candidates. While I am largely in agreement with that sentiment, I have a problem with it as well. The issue of Sarah Palin's new grand-fetus may not really be relevant to the discussion of her as Veep, but her approach to the issue, her thoughts on how to help prevent teen pregnancy, and her support, or lack thereof, for services to teenage mothers not related to the Governor is HIGHLY relevant. Hence the above graphic from Salon which shows Governor Palin's use of line item veto to cut $1,100,000 of funding (more than 20%) for Covenant House, a home for teen mothers. She also slashed $25,000 from the Fairbanks Community Food Bank, but that's worth another posting.

In addition, Palin's refusal to support anything but abstinence based sex education (I'm thinkin' THAT horse has left the proverbial barn) in Alaska's schools, begs the question of not only what did Bristol hear about sex in school, but what did she hear about sex in her Pentecostal home and church?

Yeah... It seems fair to ask that Bristol and her obvious fecundity should not be a major part of the campaign discussion. At the same time it is rare indeed that a candidate so strongly advocates one set of principles, policies, and... "values" while providing such an incredibly clear example of the arguments for the other side!

For further examples of this behavior see... Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig, or David Vitter.

Happy 232nd Birthday!

Last year I wrote a blog about how much I love the U.S.A. and I included links to some of the music that is generated from my particular point of observation on what that love means.

I wrote about Springsteen's rendition of Pete Seeger's "Bring Em Home,"an anti-war song from the 60s that might be even more relevant now. I also wrote about one of my all time favorite songs, a tune about the life of this country and the way we are made up by and for everyone, "This Land Is Your Land."

For the last few days that tune has been rolling around in my head along with the thought that I need to follow up on those observations of a year ago with new thoughts on what being "an American" and being a "Patriot" and being George Washington's cousin actually means to me. It seems particularly important right now as we close in on the end of an excruciatingly long presidential campaign, as well as a presidential regime that could very possibly be the worst in history, and is certainly the worst in my lifetime (and there have been some BAD presidencies in the last 53 years!).

The questions of what it really means to be a "loyal American" have been flying fast and furious. Not a week goes by without a good friend of mine in Florida sending me some right wing diatribe (or worse... outright lies and/or complete distortions of fact) about how Obama isn't a "real American" because everyone knows he's actually a muslim, or because he rarely wears a flag pin, or because he doesn't properly salute the flag, or because the former pastor of his former church has the guts and the balls to stand up and do what preachers have been called by God to do since the first Jeremiah spoke truthfully to HIS government.

These intermittent missives almost always carry with them some sort of implied, or directly stated, inference that the the good old U.S.A. would be a better place if we'd just get rid of (deport, incarcerate, or execute) everyone of darker hue and lesser bank balance. they almost always end with some racist declaration of "what America really is..." inevitably, some version of a lily white, self-aggrandizing culture of greed, power and hubris. In other words, pretty much the very picture that most of the rest of the world already holds.

But we aren't that country and we never have been. The startlingly beautiful reality of this country is that we ARE, almost entirely, an immigrant culture. (I consider myself Irish-American, but really, I'm Irish, English, German.. AND George Washington's Cousin). A nation of half-breeds, where the amazing eclecticism of the whole world is brought together in its inevitable ugliness and difficulty, its hatred and war, and its magic, and beauty, and love. ALL of its glorious shining magic. For the most part we got this way, not because of some grand and glorious scheme but because of the darker motives of men (because it was indeed almost entirely men) who in their grasp for unimaginable wealth were in need of fodder for their farms, their factories and their transportation systems (railroad, interstate, and information superhighway). When these dreams were coupled with the hopes and dreams of those they enslaved, conscripted, and kidnapped, we wound up with this weird mix that is the U.S.A. (and no other place in the world).

This country has been built, from day one, on bad promises made to poor people. A reality that Martin Luther King Jr. called a check that has, over and over, come back "marked insufficient funds." Over and over and over again people have worked, struggled, climbed and fought their way out of the cages, jails, and holding pens they were put in... Africans, Chinese, Italians, Irish, Mexicans, Japanese... and of course the Original AMericans who were here at the beginning.

This is THEIR Land.
This is YOUR Land.
This is MY Land.
This is OUR Land.

232 years ago my cousin and a bunch of free thinking men and women (not just a bunch of Christians... no matter what the religious wrong try to tell you) got this whole thing started and damn if they didn't have a great idea!

Happy Independence Day!

That Is Where Perfection Begins

There could not be a better statement about our country, this election, what we are called, to, what our country means, what we must do, or why I began writing this blog.

Bob Cesca has taken a wonderful song and a nearly perfect speech and crafted a masterpiece.

This is why we WORK!

This is why we VOTE!

Lie down With Dogs... Get Up With Fleas

It is absolutely astonishing, though not exactly unpredictable to watch the meltdown of Hillary Clinton's campaign while at the same time watching the kind of racist, ugly diatribe being spewed out of the mouth of someone like Geraldine Ferraro, who SHOULD know better, but obviously does not.

I am not a member of the "Obama campaign" that Ferraro accuses of attacking her, and I am not a member of the African American community that she so capriciously and stupidly attacked with her ugly racist commentary on Barack Obama. I am however, and unfortunately, used to seeing this kind of thing played out over and over and I am used to hearing people make remarks like, "I am not a racist, but..."

The problem is, there is always only one response to this sort of comment and that is simply, "YES...YOU ARE."

I have been trying for the last two days to come up with some kind of reasonably thoughtful, carefully worded response to Ms. Ferraro's idiotic remark (coupled with her even more greatly benighted response), but I am unable to find words that are better than those expressed last night by Keith Olberman.

This country suffers under an unbelievable legacy of racist horror and pain and I have lived with it and watched (from close up and from afar) for all of my life; from southern Florida, to border towns in Arizona, to liberal Northern California, to storm tossed New Orleans. Every time I think we are better... I find we are the still the same.

For me... at this time... I have had it.

There is only one choice in this election... there is only one HOPE in this time of despair.

After living through 53 years of the same old reality, I know that it is time for a CHANGE and Barack Obama is the ONLY CANDIDATE who offers that change. Beyond that we only have ugliness, power, and greed.

Y'all Know The Okie Doke?

Okay... this blog has been quiet for more than six months. I think the reason for that is that I was so completely blown away by the stupidity of the early debates that I was left speechless for quite some time. Quite frankly (per se) I also had some personal issues that arose and they have, to a certain extent, distracted me from the political and the religious issues that this blog is intended to be about.

But we're comin' down to it now, and the fact of the matter is that I am convinced that this is the most important election of my lifetime.


It is important for three reasons:

1) We are in the midst of a war that should have never been begun, and which would never have to have been begun if the very people who advocated it had not set up the son of a bitch we were fighting in the first place. That's called "blow back" and we're experiencing it in Iraq and we are about to experience it in Iran and for the same reasons.

THAT is a legacy that began the year before I was born!

2) In the midst of all of this, both John McCain and Hillary Clinton represent the same old school, status quo, corporate funded, ego driven politics that have dominated this country for my entire life.

3) There is only one man who is capable of changing things and truly making a difference in the way we operate in this country and in the world. That man is Barack Obama. Bill (who at one time I admired completely) and Hillary are doing their best to pretend like the person who can CHANGE America is Hillary... They are WRONG and they are lying.

There is one way out of this mess and the man who can lead us there is Barack Obama.

Who was that masked man?

Like bookends on a shelf, Mike Gravel on one end and Dennis Kucinich on the other, were really the only two candidates in this debate who showed the actual courage to answer questions directly, uncompromisingly, and with a clear and committed advocacy for principles.

There were some wonderful moments (some amusing and some profound) for some of the other candidates, and Hillary, with a combination of crispness, strength of focus and amusing panache, clearly showed why she is the front runner in this race.

I found myself rather soundly disappointed by both Barrack and Edwards who, previously, had been my leading candidates because of what seemed like a focus on things that matter to me. Tonight however, faced with questions from "ordinary folks" they seemed to dodge and weave and ultimately fade.

My vote.... based on tonight's responses... goes to Dennis Kucinich, the only one with a directness, and a plan, that looks to the causes of war and poverty, and environmental degredation. Second to him, for much the same reason, was Mike Gravel, a man with standards, with a history, and with a strength of purpose that has been proved over time. Unfortunately, it seems pretty unlikely that either of these guys is going to make it through the crucible to the convention and beyond.

But they should! Because they tell the truth. When Mike Gravel stood up and proclaimed with deep conviction that yes, the people who died in Viet Nam died in vain, and that people dying now in Iraq are dying in vain, he cut to the heart of the matter. When people are killing and being killed for the benefit of the elite in this country and the government is making it happen, someone needs to say something that goes beyond a joke about Hillary's coat or Dennis's wife.

Mike Gravel has the courage to say something... Dennis Kucinich has the courage to say something. Hillary has strength, personality, and Bill on her side.

As for the debate itself... Gimme a break... It was a clever bit of cross-platform marketing, but did we really learn anything?

I don't think so... at least not very much.

Blogging the Debate

I decided to participate in the craziness of the internet debate and, to the best of my ability, turn Washington's Cousin into a look at the online democratic debate.

The first question, not a terribly unusual one... is "how are you going to be different?"

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4:09pm - Dennis Kucinich, who really does feel like one of the few people who is different, claims he has a record of BEING different. That was pretty good. THe responses from Hillary and Barrack didn't really seem to go very far.

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4:11pm - Hillary is asked what it means to be a liberal.So she has decided to take on the mantel of "Modern Progressive."

Mike Gravel, who might actually be the only real Progressive on the stage (he's the only one of them who showed up for the Pride Parade in San Francisco a month ago) has just taken Barrack to task on taking PAC money.

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4:14pm - A Bi-Partisan question - What Republican would you pick for a running mate? Joe Biden answered the question (Chuck Hagel) but John Edwards is the one who is actually taking on the issue. "Take away the power" of the people who are running things now.

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4:16pm - Will from Boston asked about reparations for slavery... as he said, "Let's see how far they can get."

John Edwards said no... and skipped into the wider economic issues. Barrack followed on the same line.
Dennis Kucinich is the only one who was willing to actually say he was for reparations... As he put it, "For repairing the breach."

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4:20pm - A Katrina question... Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson got to take a shot. Both gave relatively careful and predictable answers. Their for New Orleans... but is there something they could do? Would do? Are they still paying attention?

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4:24 - A question about HIllary and Barrack not being female or black enough. The reaction chart on the CNN site slowly proceeded up from 50 to 70 while Barrack was answering (his best answer is always about catching a cab in New York as a proof of "ethnicity"). As soon as Hillary started to answer the chart line dropped precipitously, but then gradually rose.

John Edwards, on his advocacy for women, was certainly the most articulate in answering so far.

Hillary topped it with a strong proclamation... "I'm just glad we're up here asking who will be better for women!"

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4:28pm - A question from two women about marrying EACH OTHER... Dennis Kucinich, again, answers the question directly... Yes. No beating around the bush (so to speak). Chris Dodd gave a strong response about "Civil Unions" Bill Richardson makes some practical active response on Gay RIghts in general and the response chart on CNN went all the way up toward 90.

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4:31pm - A preacher, Rev. Reggie Longreier, from North Carolina asked another question about Gay Rights. It was a good question from an unexpected source. He asked why it was seen as appropriate for someone to decide the laws of the country based on [personal belief. John Edwards responded with a comment on his lack of support for Gay Marriage while not really answering the question. .. until later... Finally, when he is asked a secnd time, he does proclaim his absolute belief in not foisting his personal beliefs on the country. That's something that seems to truly differentiate most Democratc candidates from most Republican candidates.

THAT - from the perspective that this blog is about - is the kind of thing that I want to hear about.

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4:35pm Breaktime... I'm going to the kitchen for a beer.

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4:38pm - Best candidate video so far... John Edwards use of "Hair"

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4:39pm - Two folks from a refugee camp near Darfur... asking about Darfur.

Bill Richardson answers the question first. He advocates active diplomacy. What a concept... Not violence first... TALKING first. "America needs to respond with Diplomacy."

Biden, who seems to care a lot... advocates, as he always does, fighting immediately. "We can save them!" "2500 American Troops can stop the genocide now!" Hmmmmmm... doesn't seem to be working very well in Iraq.

4:43pm - Mike Gravel responds by suggesting that "the African nations don't want us there."
Hillary suggests a no fly zone and "American ground troops don't belong in Darfur right now."

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4:45pm - Halfway into the debate and we finally get a question on Iraq.

"How do we pull out now?" - Barrack starts with his usual answer... "I opposed this war from the start." Big response on the reaction chart when Barrack spoke about the fact that the parliament went on vacation, "because it's hot in Iraq" Less response when he starts to suggesst a more detailed plan.

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4:50pm Hillary reponds to a question from a mother of a soldier, who asks why the Democrats aren't pulling us out.
Dennis - again - responds directly... This guy feels like Wally Cox, but damn if he doesn't have the right answers... every time.

Chris Dodd advocates for a specific time table and active diplomacy. Good responses... strong plan.

Bill Richardson talks about the troops... advocating the removal of ALL American troops by the end of the year.
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4:53pm - A question on dying in vain for Mike Gravel. Gravel (like Kucinich) answers directly, "There's only one thing worse than a soldier in Iraq dying in vain, and that's ANOTHER soldier dying in vain."

Barrack and John Edwards cow tow to the military monster... with comments about how no soldier doing their duty ever dies in vain.

John Edwards - "Turn up the heat on George Bush."

---

4:58pm - Selective Service question... more military triumphalism from Barrack (citing The Tuskeegee Airmen)... every Democrat saying they don't agree with the draft. Mike Gravel reminds everyone that he was fundamental in getting rid of the draft.

---

5:01pm Hilary - "Thank you for our service for our country..." I really have had it with the groveling to the military. Hillary makes a good point though in response to the challenge from the questioner who wants to know if a woman can negotiate with Arabs...

---
5:03pm - A question, answered by Barrack, on holding talks with a wide array of "hostile" nations. Another place where ANY of these people would be better than ANY of the other guys. Hillary gets to answer the question as well. She drops back and punts. "We need to get back to diplomacy..." "I will use a lot of high level presidential envoys" (would that be Bill maybe???).

She plays (as does John Edwards) to the anti-communist lobby by using Fidel and Hugo Chavez as examples of people they would be very careful not to meet with too freely.

---
5:07pm Bill Richardson is the only candidate so far who is willing to put down a clear and definitve call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Joe Biden makes a practical claim and plays the "support the troops" card.

Hillary has a "comprehensive three point plan.... a brigade a month."

Kucinich... "text 'PEACE' to Congress. "we cannot wait until the next president takes office." Again a VERY strong, very clear... and I really have to say, very "Presidential" answer from Kucinich.

I have not been particularly fond of him in the past but in this (and the previous) debate. He's impressing the hell outta me!

---

5:11pm

"We need to stop killing Americans and Iraqis..." from Mike Gravel's campaign video, a sort of rapid fire laundry list of wha the believes in. Mike Gravel has wonderful views, but he always seems scattered, a little not quite there. Kind of a liberal version of The Gipper.

---

5:14pm - more commercials... need more beer.

---
5:16pm - who was your favorite teacher and why... Good question... this was then followed by a rock and roll video asking about No Child Left Behind...

Bill Richardson answers - clearly and strongly... "I would SCRAP No Child Left Behind." $40,000/year minimum wage for teachers... Major federal program for arts in the schools... Good proposals!

Now we're back on the question for all these senators who voted for the program and now want out.

---
5:21pm - Public school or Private School for Candidates kids... People got pretty defensive over this question.

---
5:24pm - A woman from Planned Parenthood wants to know if the candidates have taught their children "appropriate" sex education. Somehow this got diverted to a discussion of child abuse... That's really not the questions folks!

---
5:26pm - Does that hurt y'alls feelings?

The introduction to the Global Warming topic.

"The Connection between Global Warring and Global Warming... " Kucinich again...WGA (Works Green Administration).

---
5:28pm - A woman in Berkeley talks about her CFLs and asks how candidates will get people to conserve.

Mike Gravel proposes changing the tax structure
Dodd - advocates a 50 mpg standard and a corporate carbon tax

Anderson Cooper asks who took a private flight to the debate... everyone reluctantly raises their hand like little sheepish junior high school debaters.

---

5:31pm - and advocate for nuclear power asks the question... Edwards say no and is as direct on that question as he can get. He also opposes liquified coal.

Barrack suggests "exploring nuclear power" because "there are no silver bullets" I really WANT to like this guy, but I'm sorry, his answers are not making me happy.

Hillary wants to spend $50 million on "what America does best..." She is "agnostic about nuclear power."

---

5:34pm Melissa from SLO (I wonder if Lia knows her) wants to know about standardized voting... She lobbies for a job in the process.

Bill Richardson wants "verified paper trails"

But the question wasn't what would you do... the question was Why?

---
5:40pm - Cecilia and Ashanti want to know about the minimum wage... specifically... would the candidates be willing to be President for the minimum wage.

John Edwards and Hillary say they would work for the minimum wage... Barrack says well, "we CAN work for the minimum wage... we're RICH!"

---
5:43pm - The Third Rail finally arrives... what would you do about Social Security

The backing and filling follows.

Next we're into a complaint about taxes... It seems like there are an awful lot of questions on this show from people who are probably Republicans. Isn't this PRIMARY season???? Shouldn't the questions be FROM Democrats?

Dennis Kucinich promises not to raise taxes, ending NAFTA and the WTO, and more overwhelming and clearly answered, questions.

---

5:47pm - A montage of you tube videos on health care.

Barrack is the first up to defend his plan for universal coverage. The debate response graphs heads for 90!

John Edwards insists that Barrack's plan doesn't provide universal coverage because Edwards believes that the only way to do it is to mandate the coverage. He tells a great story about a man who had a cleft palate for 50 years.

Good Answer... Hillary goes out on a note taking limb, thanking each person in the montage. "Uiversal Health Care is an American Value" That's her best answer of the night!

--

5:53pm - Health Care and Undocumented Workers

Chris Dodd... Falls back to previous questions, he pulls the rug out from under Anderson and insists on answering all the questions. Bill Richardson fights for a plan that will cover everyone, including undocumented workers.

---

5:55pm - Hillary is asked about a Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton dynasty. She answers well... "I thought someone else actually was elected in 2000." Good answer... funny answer... another good moment for Hillary.

Mike Gravel goes after the Clintons and the Wall Street support of the Democrats (my friend Zach will be happy with that declaration)

--

5:58pm - God...

"What do the words on a quarter... Liberty/In God We Trust... mean to you, but the only person given the chance to answer was Biden.

Steven, an atheist from LA, wants to know if he should be afraid of an overly religious administration. Didn't we already address this question about an hour ago????

---
6:01pm - Jered Townsend pulls out his AK47 and calls it his baby.

Bill Richardson says "instant background checks" is the key. I've got a problem with someone calling his gun his baby and Biden addresses it with "If that's his baby, he needs help."

That would be my question... It would seem that this guy not only shouldn't be owning a gun, perhaps he shouldn't even be able to vote!

---
6:04pm - Last question

Look to your left and tell one thing you like and don't like about the candidate.... Good question. Mike Gravel advocates "follow the money."

Bill Richardson offfers some great compliments on Joe Biden while John Edwards dislikes Hillary's jacket.

Dennis Kucinich points out that there is no one to his left and Anderson Cooper agrees.

----

On Missing Forests While Squinting at Trees...

Last night I sat down and watched CSPAN (something that I'm actually doing more and more of these days as I listen to the battles mount in Washington over this illegal, immoral, evil and stupid war). CSPAN was covering the rally that took place at Oakland's Grand Lake Theater this past Saturday, featuring Rep. Barbara Lee (the only congressional representative to say "NO" to Bush's Iraqi charade from the beginning) Sean Penn, Daniel Ellsberg, and many others. Rep. Lee has joined with Petaluma congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (frankly the best thing about Petaluma in my opinion) and LA representative Maxine Waters to form the Out of Iraq Caucus.

Instead of joining jovially with the democratic leadership to authorize funding that KEEPS our troops dying for another year and a half, the true leaders of Congress, these three women from California, voted AGAINST Nancy Pelosi's supplemental appropriations bill on Friday, not for the same reason as Republican dissenters, but because they felt the time table was not good enough. "We can't afford to spend one more dime or lose one more American or Iraqi life on this illegal and unwinnable war," REp. Lee told the crowd. She has submitted a plan to begin IMMEDIATE re-deployment of troops, acknowledging that sending more people to kill and die in a war that can't be won can, under no circumstances, be deemed SUPPORT.

The BIG news of the day was Penn's rather strangely worded attack on the Decider in Chief, "We cower as you point your fingers telling us to support our troops. You and the smarmy pundits in your pocket - those who bathe in the moisture of your soiled and blood-soaked underwear - can take that noise and shove it." Unfortunately, it's Sean's strangely surrealistic remark that's gotten most of the press (I even heard about it from a friend yesterday afternoon who had no idea about the context). Despite the fact that he's been personally on the scene, not just in Iraq, but in the middle of the turmoil in New Orleans and that he knows first hand whereof he speaks, his more important comments were largely ignored by the media.

"Let's make this crystal clear: We do support our troops, but not the exploitation of them and their families," he said. He went on, reading from his open letter to Bush, "Speaking of squandering, how about the billion and a half dollars a day our Iraq-focused military is spending, where three weeks of that kind of spending, would pay the tab on a visionary levy-building project in New Orleans and relieve the entire continent of Africa from starvation and the spread of disease. Not to mention the continued funds now necessary, to not only rebuild our education and healthcare systems, but also, to give care and aid to the veterans of this war, both American and our Iraqi allies and friends who have lost everything."

Interrupted by whistles, applauds, and cheers, Sean continued, "You say we've kept the war on terror off our shores by responding to a criminal act of terror through state sponsored unilateral aggression in a country that took no part in that initial crime. That this war would be fought in Iraq or fought here. They are not our toilet. They are a country of human beings whose lives, while once oppressed by Saddam, are now lived in Dante's inferno." With this comment, Penn nailed it. This is the heart of the matter; the real obscenity that is taking place is due to the evil propagated by Shrub and his whole collection of greedy, lying, clueless puppeteers.

It was quite an amazing event, with a collection of interesting and articulate speakers including an Oakland public high school student, and a former Marine with Iraq now behind him, who spoke eloquently and profoundly about his conviction that "supporting the troops" means getting them the hell out of the meat grinder. Emotions were high, but so was hope. The entire event was a positive assault on this administration's cynical, duplicitous, and negative perspective on world affairs, a ray of hope in this dark time.

Bruce Cockburn is right... You've got to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.

Kid... We don't like your kind.

In the ever growing list of idiotic phrases spouted by members of the Bush administration, in what seems to be an amazing example of who can look more stupid than the boss, Marine General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated Monday that he approved of the U.S. "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy on Gay and Lesbian people in the military. As if that statement (as well as the spineless, hypocritical, and antiquated policy it refers to) wasn't ridiculous enough, General Pace felt that it was necessary to expand upon his comments with a bit of militaristic theologizing.

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," General Pace told the Chicago Tribune.

This of course begs the question of whether or not homosexual acts between THREE individuals might be okay, but perhaps the General hasn’t learned to count that far yet. Or perhaps the concept of two persons of the same sex engaged in “homosexual acts” is so repulsive that to move any deeper into the concept is simply too much for the old warrior to handle. General Pace did, however, add a bit more clarification on his position by stating, "As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," he said.

I really don't know where to start with this one. First there's the basic stupidity of the policy, but that's been more or less beaten to death, so I'll leave that one alone. There is, of course, the blanket "I believe" statement that seems to, without further explanation or substantiation, simply lay forth a divine rule to be followed without question. This is much the same approach as Dubya himself took when asked if he had discussed the invasion of Iraq with his father, "I asked a higher authority" Shrub explained, in one short sentence both dismissing his father's larger experience and somewhat wiser counsel, and instantly blaming the entire Iraqi debacle on The Big Guy Upstairs.

Obviously feeling that his blanket statement needed some kind of exegetical expansion, the general went on to compare homosexuality with adultery. I suppose the idea that two people of the same sex might actually have a monogamous, committed relationship is something that the general has never contemplated either (if he reached that far, he'd probably have to vomit up his T-Bone), and so in his mind homosexuality (of whatever shape, size or color) is just the same as infidelity and it should be "prosecuted" as "immoral behavior." Of course, this really isn’t all that unusual in these days of retrograde inquisition. A really big segment of the American public, led by James Dobson and Pat Robertson, would feel very much the same way; people who believe a lot of things about what God likes and doesn’t like, feels and doesn’t feel. He also shares his perspective with a large percentage of state legislatures in this country who continue to support the antiquated sodomy laws that are still on the books in a wide range of states. No, the general is by no means alone. Homosexuality (along with adultery and no doubt a whole list of other personal sins) is immoral… case closed…. Let’s go eat.

The thing that I find most disturbing is that General Pace does not, of course, apply any of his intellectual mud wrestling and moral speculation to the various other activities engaged in by military personnel, activities like torture, robbery, or murder. For that matter, also unasked and unanswered are questions of the basic morality of invasion, assault, bombing and the inevitable side effect of the ever present “collateral damage.” These are the true questions of morality for the military, questions which cannot be asked, lest they have to be answered. As Dr. C.T. Vivien, a former associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said at a gathering I attended recently, “You can’t go reading Jesus when there’s a war on because if you start reading Jesus, then you can’t go!”

These are the real moral issues for our leaders, our military, our country and ourselves, and these moral issues are not even being imagined, let alone discussed, in either the rooms of power or most of the pulpits of the church. What does it mean to go to war with the whole world? What does it mean to throw out international goodwill and cooperation in exchange for crusading across the planet in the robes of New Empire? What does it mean to kill… anyone? What does it mean to truly seek peace? If those in power and those in the church would actually begin to explore these moral questions we might wind up with a discussion that is worth having. But those kinds of questions are uncomfortable to pose, because those kinds of questions don’t allow you to stand safely off to the side and sanctimoniously point your finger at the evil doings of others. Those kind of questions bring up the perspective of Jesus, most succinctly stated at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

There are a lot of confusing realities contained in the collected stories of the Bible. At the same time, there are some things that are about as straightforward as anything ever presented in human thought. It seems to me that this is one of those rather obviously clear places.

As they say in the commercial… General Pace, what’s in YOUR wallet?

Beyond all of the possible moral, ethical, legal and political issues that this matter brings up however, there stands one enduring image, something that popped into my mind instantly, even before I heard General Pace stop talking. It was with a strange sense of Déjà vu that I ran to my iTunes to find the story of another head muckity muck, in the U.S. army, 40 years ago, in another war. He was addressing the very same issues as General Pace… What is the necessary moral character of those we hire to KILL?

The story comes from Arlo Guthrie sitting on the Group W bench…


And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said. …

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-
58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-
the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-
pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-
arresting-officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-
thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargeant, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind."

As a conclusion, and a call to action, Arlo suggested that it would be possible to stop the war by singing Alice’s Restaurant. At one point, he even proposed the very concept that would send General Pace (and Ann Coulter) into apoplexy.


And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.

So it’s my proposal that, in honor of both Arlo and General Pace that’s exactly what we should do… I am hereby calling for the Group W… no, no, no… Let’s call it The Group Q Bench this time - Alice’s Restaurant Anti- Massacre movement!

You wanna stop the war? Just click on the link and start singin’! Send it to someone... and then to someone else and get them to start singin’ too… and pretty soon the whole damn world will be singin…

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice's Restaurant

An answer to a friend...

I got an email late last week from a friend of mine who was having one of those dark night of the soul, battling with the demons of the world moments on the occasion of his birthday.

Here's the letter... unedited, and therefore bearing a few expletives as the subject warrants:


So, it is late at night, but the mind is working overtime.

The little military fucks who went to Iraq and supported Bush and Co.’s lies are now coming home and protesting vociferously about the lies that said they would be well taken care of when they got back home. What am I missing here?

I have heard, for quite some time now that the troops “had no choice”.

So, for some unknown reason their sense of judgment and morality was put in suspension?

They marched off without question to do the bidding of one of the greatest menaces to mankind?

And now they come back and are pissed off because they are not getting the medical help they need?

What a bunch of brain dead idiots.

I say, on the one hand: fuck them.

On the other, I say: we had a compact with them that we should uphold.


Whoa there saffire!!!!


Pardon me if I seem confused. I have little respect for these same-outfitted little pricks who just wish to get their $212 a week paycheck. Might be better than McDonalds or Wall Mart. Eh?

We jail thugs in the ghettos who follow their gangs. It is all they know they know of security.

When the war in Iraq started, the bastard in the Whore House said “We will not accept from Iraqi captured troops saying that they were “Just following orders””.

Of course, he expects the step-and-fetch-it compliance of his own troops to do just the same.

I have no feeling for the dead troops in Iraq. I DO have pain in my heart for the dead innocents that our fucking military killed.

So, I am sending this to the folks I think have serious thoughts on these matters. I want serious response, thoughtful response. I want to know why my tax dollars are going to this war effort and its profiteers rather than feeding the hungry and curing the ill.

Let me know. I am confused. I am having an anniversary of my birth, and I desperately wish to have someone explain why the world is better now than when I was born.

Good fucking luck.


***********************

With bait like that, I really felt like it was necessary to respond. After I sent him my response, I decided that it bore enough general interest that I should work at iit a little more and post the response here.

So here goes...


On the first point, I started out in agreement with you. One of the problems with an "all volunteer" military is that they did, in fact, VOLUNTEER!

Even the guy who was convicted of desertion last week after he ran away from his unit in Germany before going out on his second tour (he had attempted unsuccessfully to get Conscientious Objector status) stated that he JOINED to get money for college and figured he would never have to fight.... He joined in 2002!!!!! Hello!?!?!?! Was he not watching television? Did he have some hopeful positive thinking perspective like The Secret that made him believe that if he simply imagined himself stationed in Honolulu or Monterey that he would be there? At the same time, I find that it's important to pay attention to what's going on in this country. What drives people like that to join the "all volunteer" military in the first place? Even Andy Rooney had something to say about this on 60 minutes last night. His was a somewhat different focus than mine, but his point was well made.

A fabulous article I read the other day (and can't find at the moment) related the author's experience of sitting on a plane next to a young African American woman Marine. She had joined because she had no other possible options and she was hoping that she would not go to Iraq. Let's face it... she is going to Iraq. On his return trip, the author of the article sat next to a young, wealthy rich white kid in college, on his way to medical school; all the world's possibilities in his hands. When this is the story... when the opportunities for one group lead through Iraq and the opportunities of others lead through Fraternity Row, we don't have a volunteer army; we have a defacto draft of the lower classes. It's wrong - very wrong - and they deserve our support, before, during and after their forced ordeal.

Okay so here we go with what I feel about the rest... There are obviously any number of people in Iraq right now who would seem to be, at the very least, as you say, brain dead idiots. At worst they are voluntarily, and even enthusiastically, participating in some of the greatest evil of our time. BUT... as an on again off again pacifist/revolutionist currently in pacifist mode...

1) I believe that one of the things that we must seek is care, justice, and peace for ALL sides, even the warriors on our side (and the warriors on the other side) as well as the many more innocents and "collateral damage." EVEN the Decider in Chief for that matter. Respect for ALL is important. "Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them."

2) For those on our side, we do indeed have a compact (more on that later) and as tax payers (at least those who ARE tax payers) your money is supposed to be going to those places for the support and care of those people whom the country collectively (through our idiotic elected officials and not just the Resident Shrub) made a contract.

3) Even for those, like the folks I mentioned above, who went into the military on the vain hope that they could cash in on our militaristic culture without having to pay a price are VICTIMS of this militarism; people who for reasons of poverty, or militaristic cultures, or blatant lies, felt like they indeed had no other choice. Again... all of us, as common citizens of this one republic, bare a burden of responsibility for them both before and after they made their unfortunate choice.

We OWE those folks the proper attention of at least fulfilling THAT promise, even if the other promises of this country are stolen from them.

There is another side to this as well... All of the above answers are, to varying levels, altruistic and grounded in my current pacifist belief that peace is only created by seeking peace FOR ALL.

On a more pragmatic side:

4) By maintaining the justice of our contract with our military, we on the left are conveniently given another weapon (oops, not a very pacifist metaphor there) with which to bludgeon (oops again... let's just consider this my shadow side) the Bushies. By pointing out that they not only sent you off to almost certain maiming and possible death and that even when you come home they treat you just like the folks in New Orleans we are given another place to raise the flag of JUSTICE. Ultimately, we can, hopefully, make the educational lesson that this equals that and that if you'll just give it some thought soldier (or senator, or congressperson, or friend), you'll see that not only did they lie to you about THIS, they lied to you about EVERYTHING.

5) We live in the real world and while MY politics are currently of an extreme left perspective (and getting more extreme even as they become more peaceful) it is also necessary to acknowledge that if we are going to live in this society together we are going to have to accept that we don't always get our way. SO... we compromise. The current compromise is supporting those who were sent to battle, while at the same time we continue raising as much hell as possible about the evil of, and the lies in, that sending.

6) Finally... it is facilitative, particularly as advocates for peace, to, as they say in the south, "BE SWEET." It just has a way of moving things along.

As for the state of the world since your birth... I can think of several things (the absence of war not being one of them) that are better. Most particularly I am of late most taken by the obvious change in the way our world attempts to understand people who are different. This is most manifest for me in my world of New Orleans and my African American friends (when I was a kid it was a TOTALLY different reality!!!!) On my speaklo blog I wrote about being moved by Oprah's new school for girls in South Africa... 20 years ago South Africa was still under apartheid and Nelson Mandella was in jail.

And then of course... there's YOU. I didn't know you even... 10 years ago.

Happy Birthday.

Would Jesus Shop At Walmart?

In the midst of the chaos and frustration of my recent troubles with my computer and with Apple I guess I was in the mood for considering the evidence for an even more egregious business monolith... WalMart. I have always had a problem with WalMart and I have been inside a WalMart store on less than a dozen occasions in my life. One of those occasions was a few years ago on a trip from San Francisco to LA when I needed to pick up batteries in the middle of nowhere and the only place to shop was the behemoth. What I was struck by on that visit was the sense that it was truly a plantation. The people working for almost no wages and the people shopping in the store were the very same people. It was as plain as day that the people shopping there were simply sending the money they earned from WalMart, back into WalMart... because they weren't paid enough to shop anywhere else if they wanted to.

Well, last night I got home to find a movie rented by my housemate that details everything (or at least much) that is wrong with WalMart, from their use of child labor, to the way they underpay their workers and use tax payer money to subsidize their massive profit margin, to the way they simply show no concern for anyone or anything once they've snagged your cash. The film, WalMart-The High Cost of Low Price is an absolute must see for anyone who tries to maintain an excuse that WalMart is a good place to shop. It isn't, it can't be, and to shop there is simply immoral.

The Quakers have a concept that a person is not responsible for something if they don't know about it. However, to have the knowledge and to still act as if you did not have that knowledge then makes you guilty. The evidence against WalMart is out there. To see it for yourself it only requires ordering up the movie on Netflix, or dropping into your local video store (I doubt if you'll find the movie available at the local WalMart) and checking it out for yourself.

In light of this, I was surprised to get up this morning and check my email to find a link to a new campaign featuring a Baptist preacher from Kentucky asking the very poignant question, Would Jesus Shop At WalMart? The commercial is viewable here. After you see it... go get the WalMart movie and answer the question for yourself.

It's the holiday season... and justice begins right here.

Katrina - One Year Later

One year ago right at this very moment, the levees intended to protect New Orleans were broken and flooding. Hundreds of people had already been wiped out. Of course we didn't know any of this until days later. That very evening, the President Bystander (a term I stole from Bruce Springsteen) stood up in front of the country and announced that the levees had held, but the truth was that they had not held. A few days later, he would express another disingenuous false declaration when he stated, "I don't think anyone could have anticipated the breeching of the levees." A comment, almost laughable in its horrible similarity to the same type of incompetent remark four years earlier when Condi stated, "I don't think that anyone anticipated that terrorists would turn planes into bombs." In both cases it's exactly what happened, and people – many people – had indeed warned, of not only the possibility, but the liklihood, of both events. The fact was, and is, that it was a lie and not a very good one at that.

Since that day there have been many statements made by Dubya and his cronies in the Republican congress, not to mention a rather substantial collection of impossible gaffs, blunders and downright incompetence on the part of Mayor C Willy and Governor Katherine, but the lion's share of responsibility and the greatest burden of response lies with the criminally incompetent construction and maintenance of the FEDERAL levee system by the Army Corps of Engineers and the utter lack of timely, responsible and caring action on the part of FEMA and the rest of the federal government; this virulently incompetent, low lying, devious, capricious government of venal bureaucrats and self-preserving sycophants.

So, on the anniversary of our nation's greatest disaster, as he always does, Dubya has set off on another mission of public relations damage control, meandering about New Orleans and making yet another premature declaration of victory in a war that is going to last for years and whose ultimate effects will be left for others to deal with. He will no doubt roll up his sleeves and make big promises and grand statements in mangled syntax that will make some of us laugh through our tears while others just nod and shrug.

Maybe he'll give Katerhine Blanco a back rub; I imagine she could probably use one.
----
In the meantime, you can find a really excellent article on the forsaking of New Orleans in The Nation here.

Some things just don't matter... or do they?

I really wish someone could explain to me why the US Flag, as displayed on the uniforms of the Army (I don't know about the rest of the services) is displayed backwards.

According to the US Flag Code when a flag is displayed flat
"... the union should be uppermost and to the flag's own right, that is, to the observer's left." This is of course in the same material that suggests the proper way to dispose of a flag is by burning (something that a few pinheaded members of Congress encouraged by Fearless Leader and including Lady Clinton have been trying to outlaw with an incredibly ill-conceived and patently absurd Constitutional Amendment). What I want to know is what idiot designed the backward flag patch and for what reason? Is it supposed to symbolize the flag flying backwards as our forces go ever onward? Or is it just someone's basic stupidity in ignoring the clear rules laid down for respect of the symbol everybody seems to get so all fired head up about? Clearly... it was not done by anyone who was ever a Boy Scout!

And while we're on the subject... what's up with this well documented desecration of the flag by Fearless Leader his own damn self? Signing a flag with a Sharpie!?!?! Is there any way to call that anything other than desecration, and therefore a distinct violation of the flag code, not to mention an incredibly arrogant gaff for the POTUS (but probably not as big a gaff as giving the Chancellor of Germany a backrub, or "Brownie you're doing a heck of a job!").

So... does any of this matter?

It seems to me that, as has been said by many before... "God is in the details." If you are incapable of, or uninterested in, paying attention to the small things why in the hell should anyone trust you with the big stuff?

Or, as Arthur Miller put it, "Attention must be paid."

Or... as the central message of the Buddha so clearly states... "You must be present to win."