The Armchair Stonellectual

Click Fascism

2005-06-26T09:48:00.000-05:00

I realize that I sometimes have a tendency toward hyperbole, but whatever. Sometimes that's all people will listen to:

http://bushflash.com/14.html

The Price of Wealth

2005-05-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

Americans are known for many things, some of them nobler than others. But one thing that has long been associated with the United States is Americans' propensity for relentless hard work and efficient mass production on a larger scale than most other industrialized nations. We Americans work more hours per week than Europeans, and get less vacation time and social services provided by our government. Where the average American worker spends 40 hours a week in the office, with many working even more than that, both France and Italy have a standard 35 hour work week. Americans generally get a standard two weeks of vacation per year, whereas many European workers are given an average of five weeks of vacation each year. In addition, where millions of Americans live without healthcare and face the ever-increasing price of sending their children to college, these things are standard services in many parts of Europe. In America, the heart of the capitalist West, we are working harder and producing more, but getting less.

And what do Americans have to show for their agonizing hard work? Well, overlooking America's current multi-billion dollar deficit, we are the richest nation in the world. Of course, most Americans don't end up getting filthy rich from their hard work, despite the Horatio Alger fantasy of the American Dream that most of us harbor somewhere deep inside us. In truth, it is a very small percentage of Americans who attain great wealth, while most of us fall safely into the middle class, or below. Many Americans, despite working more than one job, still struggle just to make ends meet. For hourly-wage workers, their increased production makes the company owner wealthier, while they are not likely to make any more than minimum wage, no matter how much they manage to produce. In short, a great many Americans work harder to make a very few Americans richer.

Recently, the Washington Monthly reported that the United States leads the world in almost every type of mental illness, with a higher percentage of its population suffering from some form of clinically diagnosed mental disorder than any other country. According to their statistics, 26.4% of the United States' population suffers from some kind of mental disorder. The Ukraine comes in at a relatively distant second with 20.5% of its population suffering. Especially notable is America's 18.2% suffering from anxiety. The next highest in this category is France at only 12%. And these statistics are not so hard to believe; all you have to do is watch television for half an hour. Anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants are advertised regularly on prime time TV to a country that apparently needs them. These numbers don't tell us whether America's high capacity for mental disorder is related to their overworking, but it is an interesting correlation to consider. Is it possible that we are working ourselves into a state of national depression?

Aldous Huxley, in a series of essays collected in his book Brave New World Revisited, warned us about our tendency to place more importance on making money than on taking care of the individual. He saw it as "efficiency at the cost of humanity," with so many people giving themselves to a lifetime of endless, unfulfilling work, with little to show for it. Why do we need to be the richest country in the world? Why do we need to produce so much more than we ourselves can use? Huxley argued that if we worked enough simply to produce what we needed without worrying about surplus, that we would have plenty of time for those things which are not work, but are simply the things that we enjoy doing. True, we would be less wealthy, have less luxury, but on an individual level we would be taken care of, and just maybe, we might even be happier.

Words of the Wise

2005-02-06T16:23:00.000-05:00

"A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead."
~Leo C. Rosten

If At First You Don't Succeed

2005-01-25T14:55:00.000-05:00

You're probably doing something wrong ...

The evidence that VP Dick Cheney thinks the American people are gullible fools keeps piling up as he pushes with less and less subtlety the prospect of a necessary intervention in Iran. The question that remains is, are we the gullible fools he takes us for? He's basically using the same spiel he made in regard to Iraq, claiming that Iran has "robust nuclear programs" and "sponsors terrorism." We've heard this speech before. Remember how well that's worked out?

We believed him the first time, when he said it about Iraq, but now that so much has come out to prove that there were no WMDs in Iraq, and that they had no connection to the terrorism of 9/11, can he really get away with pulling the same joke twice?

Repeat it with me: "We are at war with Eastasia. We've always been at war with Eastasia ..."

If he tries the line about being greeted as libertors, can we all just agree to put him out of his misery? He's pumping a dry well at this point.

Another big issue that may crop into discussion here is how military intervention in Iran would affect the possibility of a draft. With it generally agreed that there are not enough troops in Iraq to stabalize the country, and no signs of that quagmire clearing up any time soon, how could we possibly have enough troops to take on a whole other country without imposing a draft? And will the world really let us just keep making the same mistake again and again? And will we really let ourselves keep making the same mistake again and again?

Unceasing Amazement

2005-01-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

Possible HIV/AIDS Vaccine Advances In Tests

The company working on this is the same company responsible for Vioxx, a drug that was over-prescribed and later recalled for making people prone to heart attacks. While an AIDS vaccine is a major technological advancement that would help millions around the world, just imagine what we could find out about it 10 years down the line. Still, this is pretty incredible news.

What do you want to bet the religious right (and therefore the government) won't approve? "What? How is God going to punish people for being gay now?" This could revolutionalize human sexual relations more than anything since the pill or, well, AIDS ...

"I dunno how much AIDS scares y'all, but I got a theory: the day they come out with a cure for AIDS, a guaranteed one-shot cure, on that day there's gonna be fucking in the streets, man."
-the late, great Bill Hicks

"I can respect that he takes really weird polar sides sometimes, like Barry Goldwater did in his senility."

2005-01-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

Maybe senility suits him. Sometimes, only by losing their minds do people truly become sane. Or insanity is just being a minority of one. Or, well, Pat Buchanan making sense, you try to make sense of it ...

More really weird, yet surprisingly logical - liberal even - polar sides from Pat Buchanan over at Media Matters:

BUCHANAN: Well, listen, the reason the terrorists are over here is because we are over there.

And Joe Scarborough actually had the nerve to tell Mr. Buchanan that he sounded like Susan Sontag, like that was a bad thing.

Now I kind of respect Pat Buchanan. And the world shifts on its axis ...

"One day you can't smoke in a bar, the next day the Rosenbergs who live around the corner? Gone."

2005-01-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

Should Anti-Bush Journalists Be Tried As Spies?

Tony Blankley, editorial page editor at the Washington Times, thinks so:

Blankley suggests, in all seriousness, that [Seymour Hersh] – who compiled an impressive track record with a recent string of scoops regarding Abu Ghraib and related outrages – should be arraigned, and face possible execution, as an enemy spy.

By "anti-Bush journalists" do they mean any journalist who dares to question, second-guess or make public any unpleasant truths about the President? In short, any journalists who actually do the job that the media was meant to do, protecting the public by keeping an objective, critical eye on the government to make sure there is no abuse of power and that the constitution remains intact.

So any journalist who dares to do their job is in danger of being executed? Guess that means Robert Novak is more than safe ...

It's only a matter of time before we have someone telling us, in absolute seriousness, that the creation of a real-life Thought Police is not only justified, but absolutely necessary, in these troubled and dangerous times. For the record, no amount of war and/or terror will EVER justify torture, execution or an abridement to either our inalienable Freedom of Speech or our Right to Know.

Voting No On Torture

2005-01-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

The Senate Judiciary Committee's vote about Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney General is on Wednesday.

As we all know, Gonzalez condoned the use of torture at Abu Ghraib, called the Geneva Conventions "quaint," was insufficiently vague on answering the senate's questions on his stand on the use of torture, and allegedly lied about helping to excuse Bush from disclosing a DUI. And Dubya wants to make him Attorney General, highest ranking law enforcement agent in the United States.

This a test for the Dems, a big, huge, will-they-take-a-fucking-stand-already test. They need us to help give them a push in the right direction, to tell them to vote NO on Gonzalez, because we want them to take a discernible stand against torture.

Let them know that this is extremely important. We do not want to be a party that capitulates on torture, because then, there is no anti-torture party, and that doesn't help anyone.

Words of the Wise

2005-01-22T09:48:00.000-05:00

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
~Mario Savio

A Bevy of Beauty, A Frenzy of Freedom

2005-01-21T13:47:00.000-05:00

Looking past all of the important stuff that Bush said yesterday during his inaugural address, such as the implication that we won't be stopping with Iraq when it comes to bringing/forcing freedom and democracy to the entire world, he also made this statement:

"Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations."

And as we nurture those seeds with the benevolent water of superior firepower, and the nutrients of armored vehicles, soon it will take root in the soil of democracy and grow into a giant redwood, towering above those formerly fascist nations. But not just one redwood, more like a whole forest, a giant freedom forest of grateful forceably democratic nations raining down leaves of freedom whenever the winds of terror blow. And the people who will live under these freedom trees, will rake up those leaves, into great big piles of liberty, and jump into the piles of liberty like children playing in ... leaves. Leaves of liberty! Which will then be collected and disposed of in controlled burns, because that's how you contain liberty and ensure that it doesn't build up and rot and then impede the growth of the grass underneath. The grass of ... of ... Freedom! Liberty! Environmental ... stuff ...

Ah. This is why no one reads this thing, isn't it?

And the Unfair and the Unbalanced

2005-01-21T10:35:00.000-05:00

This is either hilarious, or ... well, mostly hilarious. It's either satire, or just completely ridiculously sincere in that way that makes you wish it was satire.

Read this Letter to the Editor at Atrios.

Why does The Daily Independent print the degenerate views of poisonous Liberals who hate freedom?

I don't know, but that sounds almost like a Greg Proops quote in reverse! Although I get a little confused with this next part. Who is hating freedom exactly? Or maybe it's the freedom to not be allowed to express opposing views? Freedom is slavery? I'm not sure ...

I don't want to read any more letters from Liberals suggesting non-believers should be allowed to express their superstitions just because we Christians can express ours.

Of course not. We've been overlooking the fine print all these years--the First Amendment only applies to Christians. By the way, Jesus was a sword-fighting conservative, that whole Prince of Peace thing - total misnomer.

Sometimes we laugh in order that we do not cry.

The Fair and the Balanced

2005-01-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's inauguration was interesting in many ways. Protesters coming from near and far. Bush's motorcade speeding up when they passed the demonstrations. Bush's Freedom (27 times) and Liberty (15 times) address. Another interesting way to view the inauguration is from a standpoint of the event's media coverage. As far as straight inauguration coverage, Media Matters has compiled some stats showing the ratio of conservative to progressive/liberal commentators on three leading news channels. Fox News unsurprisingly favored conservative commentators 17-6. More surprising perhaps to those who maintain that there is a liberal media bias, was the 10-1 ratio on CNN and the 13-2 ratio on MSNBC.

Another point of interest was the lack of coverage on the counter-inaugural protests going on all day. Someone noted that many media outlets said that they would cover the protests another night, since that night belonged to Bush. Fair and balanced indeed. A collection of links to protest-centric news and blog stories was posted here yesterday. Seems a bit paltry in comparison to the relentless pro-Bush coverage ...

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

2005-01-20T18:51:00.000-05:00

George W. Bush * Inauguration Day * January 20, 2005

Keeping track of what went down in DC today:

DC IndyMedia
Thousands Protests Bush's Inauguration
Anti-Bush Protests Lead To Scuffles
Police Use Pepper Spray at Bush Inauguration
Hundreds Mark Inauguration With Protests
Audio Testimony
Video Testimony
Protesters Jeer Bush In Washington
Anti-War Protesters Mourn Those Killed In Iraq
A Quick Post From the Inaugural Protests
Mock Cofins and Anti-War Chants as Bush Sworn In
Protesters Line Parade Route
Protesting the Protesters
War Protesters Are Seen and Heard
Counter Inaugural Coverage on IndyMedia
Counter-Inaugural.org
Blogging Live From the Protest Zone
Unwelcome and Unfazed, Protesters Push Messages
Demonstrators Make It Loud and Clear
Cohesion Missing From Anti-War Movement (FOX)

And from the rest of the country:
Protests in San Francisco
Protests in Washington State

"The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing."

2005-01-20T13:45:00.000-05:00

Then we, the people of these United States, make up the wisest country in the world. We can't even decide whether we're indecisive or not ...

From Salon: "We have more numbers to ponder on this morning of the inauguration -- more polls showing just how divided, mixed -- schizo, if you will -- the American people are heading into George W. Bush's second term. First off, there's the almost comical split on whether we are split or will be even more split in the near future."

Conservatives: Never Losing Sight of What's Really Important

2005-01-20T13:37:00.000-05:00

This, my friends, is the true enemy, the one that we should really be fighting. Not terrorists, who want to kill us, not those seeking to take from us our freedoms, but Spongebob. Yes, Spongebob. Absorbent and yellow and completely fucking evil is he.

Take a good, hard look:

This is the face of evil. Learn it, know it, and then, prepare to destroy it.

I suppose this kind of nullifies my bid to make him Person of the Year. Had I but known ...

Do Not Look Directly At the Bush

2005-01-20T11:50:00.000-05:00

Temporary blindness may occur. The shining beacon of democracy and freedom may be just too much for you to bear. Also, you might get shot. Obviously we don't want people looking at The Bush because, if they did, they might see through him. And that would be dangerous for, you know, liberty and ... stuff. We know how tenuous all that stuff really is.

"Other instructions given performers include a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements."

Dont worry. We don't want to to look at him anyway.

"Go out and make your mark ...

2005-01-20T09:33:00.000-05:00

... put on your boots and march"

Join The Other 49% in making a statement against Bush today as he gets sworn in to another four years of war, terror, the destruction of civil liberties, war, fear-based manipulation, a dangerous radical neo-con agenda, war, the degradation of 9/11 to promote dispicable policies at home and abroad, sheer, unapologetic idiocy and war, endless, unwinnable war.

The administration claims the inauguration is a message of hope, but it's hope amidst false claims of crisis, the endorsement of torture and the disturbing habit of lying to the American people whenever it suits their needs. Show Bush and the GOP that we won't stand for that, for his dragging America down to the depths of the unrespectable and intolerable. That we support the hope of peace in this world, the hope of inalienable rights, the hope of freedom from lies, manipulation and injustice, the hope of a better world through diplomacy, nonviolence, cooperation and respect for all human life, both ours and theirs.

So go out and join the Counter-Inaugural Rally and March in DC and then turn your back on Bush, the way he's turned his back on us, the people.

Show him, even if its just for a single day, that his mandate is nothing more than fantasy, and that nearly half the country, and far more than half of the rest of the world, abjectly opposes what he's doing, both here and abroad. Oh, and don't forget not to spend one damn dime today.

Hit them where it will hurt the most: their soul-less, capitalist wallets.

More Than Death and Dismemberment?

2005-01-19T13:25:00.000-05:00

Bush tells troops that "much more" will be asked of them:

"In Afghanistan and Iraq, the liberty that has been won at great cost now must be secured. We still face terrorist enemies who wish to harm our people, and are seeking weapons that would allow them to kill on an unprecedented scale. These enemies must be stopped, and you are the ones who will stop them."

Straight Talking

2005-01-19T10:36:00.000-05:00

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show gave us a depressingly simple truth last night:

"Democrats: a moment of resistance, a lifetime of capitulation," as John Kerry showed us once again the stalwart faith he has in the success of the progressive cause.

On the flip side, Liberal Oasis tells us how Barbara Boxer can use her raised profile as a liberal agita to effectively impact the liberal Democratic cause. Let's hope she's up to it and takes advantage of this opportunity.

Of course, as we all know, liberals have never been ones to pass up great opportunities for effective change ...

2 Bloviticus

2005-01-19T09:56:00.000-05:00

And lo, they did say unto the people, "the social security crisis is bullshit. Go forth and spread the word, so that others might know." And so they went forth and spread the word and there was much rejoicing throughout the land.

Or, to put it slightly more diplomatically, there is no crisis so just stop already.

You can still rejoice, if you wish.

You Can Never Have Too Many "Gates," After All

2005-01-18T16:29:00.000-05:00

George W. Bush: Bringing real American values back to Washington.

Accountability: Like "Mandate," Another Word W Can't Define

2005-01-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election. The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates and chose me, for which I'm grateful," said George Bush to the Washington Post.

"Ummm, actually ...," the American People replied.

We Report, You Decide

2005-01-18T14:42:00.000-05:00

How much influence on the world can the media actually have?

As Nietzsche once said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Unfortunately for us, most of the press don't believe this, and present their interpretations to us as objective fact. Maybe sometimes it is, but how do we really know?

February 15, 1898. The USS Maine was in Cuba during the country’s struggle for independence from Spain when it mysteriously exploded, killing 266 US sailors. To this day no one knows for sure what caused the explosion, though today it's thought that it was likely caused by an oil leak.

At the time, William Randolph Hearst, with his New York Journal, was itching for a story to beat his competitors. What better story than sabotage and unprovoked violence against innocent American sailors? What better way to get the United States behind a war with Spain, a long-term source of unbeatable stories for the press?

Correspondents for the newspaper, Stephen Crane and [artist] Frederick Remington, were reporting from Cuba, but found nothing really to report on.

"There is no war. Request to be recalled,” was what Remington wrote to Hearst.

"Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war,“ was what Hearst wrote back.

For several weeks after the destruction of the Maine, the Journal devoted at least 8 pages a day or more to the story, attributing the explosion to Spanish saboteurs and coining the war-cry “Remember the Maine and to hell with Spain!”

Editorials were written demanding vengeance. Soon the American citizens were behind a war with Spain, wanting to get revenge for something that had not even really happened. Shortly thereafter, the Spanish-American War began.

Never underestimate the power of the press. And just because a reputable newspaper publishes something, doesn't make it true.

Support a free and independent press:
Buzzflash
News Alternative
The Raw Story
Antiwar.com

Media Prozac

2005-01-17T13:12:00.000-05:00

The New York Times' William Safire has written an Op-Ed piece titled The Depressed Press, on why mainstream media is going to be okay, which includes this questionable point:

On the challenge from bloggers: The "platform" - print, TV, Internet, telepathy, whatever - will change, but the public hunger for reliable information will grow. Blogs will compete with op-ed columns for "views you can use," and the best will morph out of the pajama game to deliver serious analysis and fresh information, someday prospering with ads and subscriptions. The prospect of profit will bring bloggers in from the meanstream to the mainstream center of comment and local news coverage.

On national or global events, however, the news consumer needs trained reporters on the scene to transmit facts and trustworthy editors to judge significance. In crises, large media gathering-places are needed to respond to a need for national community.

However, this only works if the news consumer actually believes that those trained reporters are indeed transmitting facts, and since more and more information is coming out showing just how untrustworthy the mainstream media has proven themselves to be, will news consumers be able to just forgive and forget? Or will they increasingly turn to bloggers, who seem more able to watch the watchdogs, out the mainstream media for their failings and provide legitimate, usable information based in fact and the public's desire for full disclosure of the truth? I believe that by the next election bloggers will have only grown in their appeal and respect to the general public.

Safire also maintains that the media bias (and there definitely is one), is mostly slanted liberal in reponse to a conservative government. But believing this is to assume that most mainstream media is actually keeping a close, critical eye on the government, willing to ask the tough questions that Americans deserve to have asked of their leaders, willing to second guess even the President of the United States. One only has to tune in to Fox News to see that this is largely not the case, or any of the major networks really. Even CNN, the news network that "more Americans trust," on election night was not exactly toeing the line of objective journalism.

The New York Times itself is what we have for the liberal mainstream ... Either mainstream media will have to completely reform and go back to doing the job it was created to do, or it will perish under the weight of its own journalistic failings. Eventually people will demand to know the truth, and there will be more and more outside the mainstream, including bloggers, who are willing to give it to them.

Photo Evidence

2005-01-17T11:26:00.000-05:00

http://www.rense.com/general61/loses.htm

Words of the Wise

2005-01-15T21:47:00.000-05:00

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
~ George Orwell

The End Is Near

2005-01-14T13:07:00.000-05:00

Over at Common Dreams, David Orr gives progressives everywhere a reason to hope.

If he's right, and the Republican Party is not much longer for this world, what will that mean for liberals and Democrats?

I don't think that the "imminent demise" of the Republican Party means that Dems should just play the waiting game though. Action is key, so that if and when the republicans collapse under the weight of their own ideology and blind refutation of true American values, they don't end up taking the rest of the country with them.

The Nasty North

2005-01-14T11:05:00.000-05:00

The US is poised to resume talks with the seemingly most dangerous third of the Axis of Evil. With a stultifying, though not at all surprising, lack of any semblance of consistency regarding foreign policy toward dictators and oppressive regimes, the US is not "going it alone" this time. And that's not all that differs from our handling of Iraq.

Weldon said his delegation had reiterated Washington did not seek regime change in North Korea, nor intend to invade.

Of course not. Why would we do that? We had damn good reason to invade Iraq. North Korea: totally different.

For one, leader Kim Jong Il has an even worse record of human rights violations than did Saddam. Not only that, but where Iraq never had WMDs, North Korea actually does. Plus they hate our guts, and that's always a dangerous combination. If we did attack, they would have even better recourse than does Iraq, and considering how well we're doing there ...

My bet is that we won't invade NK. Ever. If we were consistent at all in our reasoning for starting wars, then we would have every reason to. But we have nothing tangible to gain from it. They have nothing we want. We can't even remotely link them to 9/11, that magic phrase for warmongering. They never tried to assassinate Bush's dad. That we know of ...

Fighting On

2005-01-14T10:42:00.000-05:00

The loser in Ukraine's controversial election, Yanukovich, has vowed to keep fighting against the widely disputed results and the appointment of his opponent, Viktor Yushchenko, as president.

Yanukovich acknowledges he has no hope of success in overturning the election, but has vowed to exhaust every opportunity to fight it.

John Kerry, on the other hand, despite losing in another widely disputed election, conceeded the day after the election. I'm not sure that many people dispute that Yushchenko was the clear victor in the second attempt at the Ukraine election, but there are many in the US who still strongly believe that there was widespread voter and election fraud during our election. Kerry had even more reason to keep fighting than does Yanukovich, and yet he rolled over in the name of keeping the peace.

As much as we want peace, I think most of us want an actual democracy more. If we had that, then peace would follow.

Bush Shows Remorse

2005-01-14T10:30:00.000-05:00

Sort of.

In one of the first real instances of George W. Bush admitting that he might possibly have been just a little bit remiss in some of his actions and/or words, Bush admitted that he regrets at least a few things that he's said regarding the war in Iraq, most notably, the phrase "bring 'em on" and his desire to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

However, when asked by Barbara Walters, if they knew then (she's assuming they weren't lying and were just duped by our "strong intelligence" like the rest of us, I guess) as they know now, that there were no WMDs, if he would still have decided to invade, Bush responded in the affirmative. I guess that admitting you said the wrong thing is a step toward someday admitting you did the wrong thing. But unless the press takes him to task about the whole non-existent WMDs that were the justification for war, that will never happen. But even that will never happen.

As The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert noted last night, we've "giving up on the search for accountability."

Government Says Government Good

2005-01-13T16:08:00.000-05:00

Armstrong Williams wasn't lying, he's not the only one. He can't be. Because this sort of thing has happened before. Its been happening since as long ago as WWI. And it's just going to keep happening until we wise up. Instead of speaking for the big business that owns it, or the government that apparently owns it too, media is supposed to be keeping an independent, watchful, critical eye on the government. Yet they are increasingly failing at their main reason for existence.

Now, who will watch the watchdogs?

Whose Freedom Are We Fighting For?

2005-01-13T09:59:00.000-05:00

"Based on what we know today, the president would have taken the same action because this is about protecting the American people," says Scott McClellan, White House press secretary.

Um ... from what exactly? There were no WMDs, remember? Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, remember? Whatever happened to liberating the Iraqi people, "freedom is on the march," etc, etc? Where is it marching exactly? Not to the Iraqis. Not to Americans either.

White Ribbons For the 20th

2005-01-13T07:40:00.000-05:00

In one week Bush will be inauguated as President of the United States for a second term. UFPJ is encouraging a major protest in DC on that day, and everyone who can make it should go, join en masse to make an inexorable statement against the administration. In August, something like half a million people turned out for the UFPJ protests at the RNC in NYC.

Make this one bigger.

"Legal Nitwittery"

2005-01-13T07:39:00.000-05:00

How exactly do you enforce a tax on an illegal substance? Because using the honor system with drug dealers can only be successful ... "Still, state officials say voluntary payment is unlikely to happen often." You think?

If they wanted to seem slightly less ridiculous, they could make it all legal, tax it just like alcohol or tobacco, and then put the proceeds toward education.

See, drugs can make you smarter.

Billionaires (Not) For Bush

2005-01-13T07:37:00.000-05:00

George Soros and a group of left-wing billionaire philanthropists have decided to commit "tens of millions" of dollars to further the progressive political cause and attempt to counter the conservative machine in the US.

Maybe they can start by teaming up with the AARP and funding a counter ad to some of this Republican bilk ...

The Cost of War

2005-01-13T07:36:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Daily Kos posted some pictures from Iraq, 4 thousand unspoken words on the high price we are paying for the war that you won't see on CNN or Fox News. It reminds me of the pictures of the flag-draped coffins of US soldiers returning from Iraq last year that were at first not allowed to be shown on US television.

But it's important that we see these photos, so that we know, in no uncertain terms, the cost in human life of our actions in Iraq. It's too easy to defend the war as some noble, romantic endeavor when you don't have to see the blood, the carnage, the death, from a human perspective. It's different when it's not just words like "freedom is on the march," but something real, something you can see.

This war has earned much in the way of comparison to Vietnam, and in this situation it's no different. In the 1960s, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, a war being fought halfway around the world was, for the first time, being pumped straight into America's living room, and Americans could see with their own eyes its devastating effects on both their own soldiers, and the Vietnamese citizens. The result was an overwhelming amount of dissent and protest against an unjust war. The anti-war faction of this conflict should bear the same comparisons.

We are not fighting for democracy, or freedom, or safety, or liberty. Our cause in Iraq isn't noble or romantic or just. Our soldiers are killing countless Iraqis and in turn, being killed themselves. Anyone who believes in the rightness of this war should take a long, unflinching look at these photos, and others like them. If you can't look at the pictures of what's going on over there, how can you honestly expect anyone else to have to see it in person, to have to live it?

Don't hide the truth of this war from us. We deserve to see it. For the sake of the soliders in Iraq, the soldiers who will go to Iraq, the ones who won't come back, and the Iraqis themselves.

"Even Saddam didn't do this to us."

2005-01-12T13:33:00.000-05:00

Remember what a torturous, human rights-violating bastard Saddam was? And how we invaded Iraq to free the Iraqi people from such horrible treatment and tyranny? And how they were going to greet us as liberators and freedom-bearing saviors? How come that didn't happen again?

No Pundit Left Behind

2005-01-12T11:27:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe just one, for now.

Now would be a good time for Sinclair Broadcasting to take a stand, to prove once and for all that they aren't just the Bush administration's jingoistic lackey. As of right now, they seem content to prove exactly the opposite.

Sinclair, you'll remember, was the conglomerate that refused to air Nightline when Ted Koppel read the names of every U.S. soldier killed in Iraq so far. They also tried, shortly before the election, to air an anti-Kerry documentary, claiming it was legitmate news, rather than partisan propaganda.

I'd like to think of the Armstrong Williams scandal as "strike three and you're out," though it seems unlikely they'll show any real remorse for their stunningly unabashed lack of journalistic integrity at this point. As for Williams himself, he has tried to rationalize his actions by saying No Child Left Behind was an initiative that he fully supported anyway, but three years ago he obviously wasn't feeling the love for it quite so hard. I guess $240,000 is enough to show you the good in almost anything.

Just Keeping Tabs

2005-01-12T09:56:00.000-05:00

So, if we've given up looking for the WMDs, as close an admission to "we made a mistake" as we're likely to get from this administration, does that mean this war is back to being about liberating the Iraqis? Or was it that Saddam had ties to al-Qaida? They're running out of legitimate reasons for war, for the most simple reason that ... there aren't any.

When the Going Gets Tough

2005-01-11T20:26:00.000-05:00

The tough get old school ... as the Pentagon considers El Salvador-style death squads. Anything to prove that we're committed to bringing peace, democracy and the American Way to Iraq, whether they like it or not.

All the Approval Money Can Buy

2005-01-11T10:34:00.000-05:00

Daring to mention the fact that conservative commentator Armstrong Williams was paid by the White House to tout Bush's No Child Left Behind, the USA Today has shattered all of our trust in conservative pundritry. The White House asks us to believe that this is an isolated incident, meanwhile Williams, in one statement most likely not bought by Bush, has claimed that he's not alone in his "bad judgment."

Of course, the payola punditry story takes a backseat to the much more important news that 4 CBS staffers got fired for the botched memo story, proving that sometimes we do demand that sources be based in fact ...

But Inauguating Bush is Part of Securing the Homeland

2005-01-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

Just because D.C. was one of the actual terror targets, and suffered actual damage on 9/11, doesn't make its security more important than a party celebrating the re-election of George W. Bush.

D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects.

Wasn't the promise of doing everything he could to keep America safe from terrorism a major part of his election campaign? I feel safer already ...

Bush Says "We'll See ..."

2005-01-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

Number of People Dead: >156,000

Australia: $810 million

Germany: $674 million

United States (richest nation in all the world): $350 million

[To put this in perspective, the US has spent over $148 BILLION just so far on the war in Iraq, where over 100,000 people have been killed (Iraqis are people too), not by the sometimes unavoidable wrath of Mother Nature, but by the absolutely avoidable wrath of ... other people. Congress is expecting the White House to soon ask for another $100 BILLION for the war.

And just as point of reference, $10 BILLION to Florida after the hurricanes, where 116 people were killed. Maybe if Jeb was governor of Indonesia? ... ]

Sandra Bullock (star of such classics as Speed and ... Speed 2): $1 million

George W. Bush (worth about $13 million and *cough* president of our great nation): $10,000

Hmm.

I'm Pretend Caring

2005-01-10T18:15:00.000-05:00

It's nice to know that we, as a nation, have our priorities firmly intact. Between this breaking news, Janet Jackson's accidental, on purpose soul-baring halftime show last year, and the absolutely shocking baseball steroid scandal, I almost don't know how they can expect us to even care about things like Social Security or the war in Iraq ...

I, for one, just don't have that kind of time.

Words of the Wise

2005-01-09T18:13:00.000-05:00

"After each war there is a little less democracy to save."
~ Brooks Atkinson

Rewarding Incompetence

2005-01-08T15:07:00.000-05:00

Last month, Time Magazine chose, in what to them was surely a landslide decision, to name George W. Bush as their Person of the Year. To Time, the label does actually make sense, because George Bush, "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the proceeding year." But to many, including nearly half of voting Americans and the parents and family members of soldiers who have died in ill-advised wars in the Middle East, naming Bush as Person of the Year, again, is simply, as one bereaved parent wrote in an angry letter to Time, "rewarding incompetence." Though he may have been the most influential person of 2004, it doesn't make having him named Person of the Year any easier to take. And so he joins the ranks of past winners including Hitler, Stalin, Nixon and himself, who have won Person of the Year with something of a dubious distinction.

The fact that he beat out both Karl Rove and Mel Gibson for the title should speak volumes as to what exactly the magazine is honoring. Karl Rove, often noted for being the evil brains behind the Bush administration, and Mel Gibson, director of the year's most controversial film about savior flagellation, are both choices that would have drawn a fair amount of dispute and disbelief had they been chosen. And Time, in picking Bush as Person of the Year, is quite simply rewarding incompetence, choosing controversy over charity, choosing arrogance over humility. Yes, he was more influential than almost anyone, but George Bush is incompetent, arrogant and reckless, and not someone that I would choose with any kind of pride to name Person of the Year. Their criteria may be "for better or worse," but I would ask them, why can't it be "just for better," just for once? And to those on the panel who chose the winner this year, I offer them eight personalities I feel earned their recognition by doing good and would be therefore better suited to carry the title of Person of the Year for 2004.

Wangari Maathai: Wangari Maathai is the first African woman ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She is an environmentalist who won "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace." Democracy! Peace! She's ahead of George Bush right there. Her influence may not be as widespread as the President's, but she is spreading peace and helping the environment, whereas our Person of the Year has started an illegal, unprovoked war and is trying to drill the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve.

Michael Moore: Michael Moore was actually in consideration for Person of the Year in 2004. Obviously he didn't win, but perhaps he should have. Moore wrote and directed Farenheit 9/11, the highest grossing documentary film ever made. Love him or hate him, millions have seen his films and read his books. His influence on the minds of millions of Americans is profound and indisputable. He may wear a baseball cap out in public, but as far as I know he has never started an illegal war in which over 1300 Americans (and 100,000 Iraqis) have been killed.

Richard Clarke: If Time wanted controversy they could have simply named Richard Clarke as Person of the Year. His influence may not be as far-reaching, but his willingness to speak out about what he witnessed firsthand during his time with the Bush administration should have given him some edge. Because of Clarke, we know that Bush ordered his advisors to search for links between Iraq and the attacks on 9/11 even after he had been told there didn't seem to be any. Because of Clarke, we know that Rumsfeld, when told that Afganistan, not Iraq, was involved in the attacks, said "there aren't any good targets in Afganistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq."

John Kerry: Okay, so he lost what was probably the biggest, most important election in the history of the United States, but he gave millions of liberals and democrats in America a much-needed, albeit brief, shining glimpse of hope. Where the President won the highest number of votes of any candidate in election history, John Kerry won the second highest number of votes. Kudos to him for persisting in spite of the GOP's ruthless campaign tactics, and kudos to him for kicking George Bush's ass in the first debate. That was nice to see.

Kofi Annan: Kofi Annan won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. For some reason I can put more stock in winners of the Nobel Prize, who in the past have included Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, than in Time's Person of the Year, whose past winners have included Hitler, Stalin and Richard Nixon. Kofi Annan has criticized Bush's first strike foreign policy. He called the war on Iraq illegal. He's working to fight the worldwide AIDS epidemic. He's standing strong in spite of the Oil For Food scandal. He has an air of dignity and honesty about him that is lacking in most politics today; he seems trustworthy in a field nearly devoid of those you can trust.

Viktor Yushchenko: Poisoned by his empowered opposition in the recent Ukraine elections, Yushchenko had the second highest level of dioxin ever measured in a human being, and survived. Despite being made seriously ill and permanently disfigured by the poisoning, he went on to win the most votes in the country's second attempt at the election. He gives us hope, that no matter how corrupt, ruthless and deadly a government may become, good can still prevail, if only by coming out alive, to fight another day.

The Red Sox: This year the Sox broke the 86-year nonexistent curse of the Babe, beating the Yankees in a championship series, after being the first team in baseball history to come back from a three-game loss to win a seven game series, and going on to win the World Series. Who saw that coming, really? The perennial underdogs of the American League came out on top and thrilled baseball fans everywhere in one of the most exciting post-seasons in recent memory. Should they not be celebrated? Dude, they won the World Series!

Spongebob Squarepants: He may be only a cartoon, he may be slightly annoying, but I will persist in my belief that Spongebob would make a better Person of the Year than George W. Bush. Who else do you know that lives in a pineapple under the sea? And really, what's cooler than that? Relentlessly optimistic, always coming out on top and he has his own movie. Spongebob is a champion for diversity (his best friend is a starfish), and he's one of us regular working stiffs (he works as a frycook). Yellow, absorbent, and porous is he, and a perfectly acceptable and not at all polarizing Person of the Year he would make.

George W. Bush was inarguably the most influential person of 2004, but in giving someone a title like Person of the Year, perhaps more criteria than simply influence should be used. Perhaps things like altruism, doing good toward all of humanity, charity, philanthrophy, exceptional courage, benevolence and virtue, overcoming insurmountable odds and near-obscene levels of cheery optimism ought to count for more. Surely those who make the world a better place, in whatever way they are able, deserve recognition more than those who simply manage to most shape the world toward their own desires, "for better or worse." With all of the pain and suffering taking place across the globe, the world deserves a Person of the Year who simply makes things better, and in 2004, George W. Bush was not the one.

Words of the Wise

2004-12-09T20:15:00.000-05:00

"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do."
~ Voltaire

What's So Funny Bout Peace Love and Understanding

2004-12-02T15:54:00.000-05:00

It's been over three years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, yet we are still on an endlessly heightened terror alert. We are still fighting wars with no end in sight. We still feel that twinge of apprehension and suspicion whenever we get on a plane or ride a train. We're constantly warned about the possibility of impending attacks during this election, or that one or the inauguration or some other event. It would seem after all this time that we are still no closer to winning the war on terror than we ever were. And despite what was repeatedly said during the presidential campaigns and subsequent debates, the reason for that may be that we're approaching this war from the wrong direction, by seeking revenge rather than seeking answers.

Aside from the inherent difficulties of declaring war on a state of mind, perhaps one of the major reasons that the war on terror looks rather unwinable at this point is that in the minds of many it is a war grounded in religion rather than foreign policy. For most of the terrorists this is a religious war, a full-blown jihad aimed at destroying us, the infidels. But if we take the same approach, as Jerry Falwell's advocation to "blow them all away in the name of the Lord" frighteningly suggests, then we become no different from the radical religious ideology that we purport to disapprove of. Was it Jesus who uttered those fabled words so long ago: "Go forth and kill anyone who doesn't believe the same as you in the name of God the Father, and do so joyfully so that it will be pleasing unto the Lord"? Because Jesus wasn't into that whole "love thy neighbor" or "turn the other cheek" thing at all. Then there is the backwards logic of using religion to justify murder. Because God preached death, not peace, hate, not love, and blind agression, not understanding, or so it would seem. But by doing this we only become terrorists ourselves.

As much as I wanted John Kerry to win the election, there were still certain things about his campaign that bothered me. One was his tendency to repeat the phrase "I will hunt down and kill the terrorists" over and over and over again. Now, repetition has been proven as much by the current administration as anyone else to be an effective way of convincing people to believe almost anything, but there was something about the way he said it that left me unconvinced. Perhaps his apparent discomfort at just speaking the words out loud. Granted, John Kerry looks uncomfortable doing pretty much anything, but it seemed like it was more than that, like even as he said it he knew that it wasn't really the answer. But he also knew that it was the only answer that the American people would be willing to accept. A leader who would seek to find and eliminate the source of terrorism by taking an introspective look at U.S. foreign policy and the history of disagreement between the United States and the Middle East would be a leader weak in the war on terror. We can only commit to someone who can commit to killing our present enemies, no matter how many future ones that creates.

Why then do our enemies in this vague, ill-defined war hate Americans with such fervor? Well, not because of "our freedoms," no matter what Bush & Co. would have you believe. Certainly there is a difference in values and morality; Americans of all people should have no trouble understanding that. But more than that, it is our foriegn policy and the way that the U.S. deals with other nations, especially Islamic nations in the Middle East, and America's seeming disrespect for all things muslim. Bin Laden himself has stated his reasons for his agression toward the United States on numerous occasions, among them the perpetual presence of the U.S. in the gulf region, specifically Saudi Arabia, and at Islam's most sacred religious sites. Not long ago an American soldier shot and killed a wounded, unarmed Iraqi in a mosque. The event was shown repeatedly on television across Iraq and the gulf region, while in the United States we blindly continue to believe that they are simply jealous of our freedom.

The war on terror can be won. But not by blowing all the terrorists into little pieces. Violence only begets more violence and with what is perceived by many muslims as a war on Islam, we are perpetuating a violent cycle of hate and revenge. No matter how many terrorists we succeed in killing, there will always be more that are ready and willing to take their place. Taking out Osama bin Laden may prove to be an indelible victory, but if that happens it will only be one battle that is won, not the war. The only way to win the war on terror now is to address the problem from its source. We must realize our own mistakes and take responsibility for the things we've done, and continue to do, that breed terrorism and anti-American hatred abroad, and then work to correct those past and present grievances. We all have to live together on this planet somehow; there must be a better way to do it than by endlessly trying to blow each other up.

Don't Wait Till 2008

2004-11-11T10:55:00.000-05:00

My fellow brokenhearted liberals, disappointed democrats and freedom-loving blue voters, November 2 was a difficult day for us all. George Bush securing power for another four years, republican majorities in the House and Senate, and the virtual crumbling of America's faith in the Democratic party all paint a fairly bleak picture for the future of progressive politics in the United States. But 51% of 59% of eligible American voters does not a mandate make, and it is important, now more than ever, that we unite to make sure that our president knows this. Ronald Reagan had a mandate; George Bush has a bitterly divided nation, not all of which is ready to follow him into the bowels of radical conservatism. In light of what seems like the overwhelming redness of the United States, fear and hate-based voting and George Bush's frightening second term agenda, the friendly offers from our neighbors to the north to crash on Canada's couch for four years or so can sound extremely tempting. But running away in the face of defeat (literally or otherwise) would be the wrong choice. Rather than giving up and just handing the United States over to the radicals in charge, we must stay and fight. Our candidate may have conceded the election, but we cannot concede this country.

Now, in spite of what happened on November 2, we must assert that we will not roll over for regressive domestic policy, for endless war, for a bullying and alienating foreign policy, or for all those who seek to strip us of our rights and liberties. Maybe it is important for us to realize that we may not win. Maybe it is motivating for us to realize that they may succeed in privatizing social security. And they may succeed in abolishing income tax, effectively dramatically shifting the tax burden to the low and middle classes. They may even succeed in drilling the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve for oil, constitutionally banning gay unions, and outlawing a woman's right to choose. Already 11 states have voted against allowing gays the right to marry. Already, judges have upheld the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill women's prescriptions for birth control. And already, in some places, women seeking abortion counseling are being given government-issued pamplets falsely implying that abortion causes cancer. Is this really the country you want to live in? A United States where morality and faith are forced upon us, whether we want it or not. A United States where equality and tolerance is cast aside, and certain people are denied the right to their own private "pursuit of happiness." A United States where we have increasingly less freedom than the generations that came before us.

This country has made a lot of progress since its conception. We can make so much more. Now is not the time to start going backwards. It seems that 51% of 59% of Americans are okay with the direction this country is headed. But I will admit right now that I am terrified of what this country is poised to become. And I know that I can't live in the country that they're trying to create. Which is why I have to live here now, and do whatever I can to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I want to ask you to do the same. It may seem like we are powerless right now, but I maintain hope that this can get better. And we may lose the fight right now, but at the very least, we can be a perpetual thorn in the side of the establishment. We can make accomplishing some of the scarier, more radical things on their agenda a lot more difficult. And in the end, we may lose, but not without irritating the hell out of them first.

So protest, loudly and without ceasing. March. Write letters. Write songs. Make documentaries. Make phone calls. Donate money. Donate time. Email. Wear a pin with a crossed out W on it. Flash the peace sign to random passersby. Read the news, and then, read the other news. Do your own research. Think, question, and discuss. And for fuck's sake, don't vote to keep people who love each other from legally marrying! Do anything and everything that you're capable of, and start doing it immediately. Don't wait until 2008 to reclaim America. Your country needs you NOW.

Words of the Wise

2004-10-02T16:49:00.000-05:00

"Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive."

~ John F. Kennedy

A Little Rebellion Now and Then

2004-08-28T13:45:00.000-05:00

Thomas Jefferson once famously claimed that "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." Jefferson, like many other American revolutionaries, defended not only every citizen's right, but also their responsibility, to dissent. In a country where lawmakers are elected to represent the views and carry out the will of their constituents, it is not just our right to speak out when we feel that we are not being fairly represented, but also our patriotic duty. Only by speaking out against government policy will change ever be implemented. Without the impassioned and dedicated protest of its citizens, America might still be a country where women are not allowed to vote, where black Americans do not have equal rights, and where free speech is systematically repressed. The United States has been as prone to misjudgement in its history as any other country, and it has only been through the dissenting voices of its citizens that things have changed.

Those who think that any dissent against the government is un-American misunderstand both what protest is all about and what it means to be patriotic. To dissent is to be American. The result of not allowing people to speak out against what they perceive to be the wrongs of their country is Russia in the 30s or Nazi Germany. Dissent is the sole reason that America is America today and not The Fifty Colonies. The view that protest is ineffectual, and therefore a waste of time, is also grossly misguided. If the voice of the average American citizen has no power, then democracy is already dead. When people feel that their voice is no longer being heard, two things can happen. One is giving up on America as a true democracy by relinquishing the right to vote. This has already happened to some degree, with less than half of eligible Americans bothering to vote anymore. The mistake is blaming low voter turnout on apathy or laziness, which may be partly at fault, but a feeling of powerlessness is also to blame. Why vote if you know that your state is going to be swept away by the other party, or that your vote, along with thousands of others, is not even going to get counted due to voter fraud? The other thing that happens when people start to feel that their voice is being ignored is that at a certain point peaceful protest gives way to violence, committed by those who feel that nothing else can be effective. This is how we breed our own homegrown terrorists like Ted Kazinski and Timothy McVeigh, or anarchists who violently disrupt conventions, or the Weathermen, bombing their own countrymen. Martin Luther King once said that "those who make peaceful protest impossible only make violent protest inevitable." When people have exhausted other more peaceful tactics to no avail, violence can seem like their only recourse.

At the Democratic National Convention protesters were penned, free speech zones were established, and robust debate was not allowed. The world is a different place now than it was when Jefferson first drafted the US Constitution, and some precaution is necessary to avoid mass violence. But for an illusion of safety we are losing actual freedom. Penning the protesters in Boston was a more powerful statement about the state of free speech today than the protesters themselves could ever have hoped to make. Can free speech really be free if it is relegated to a cage? In New York City, permits for groups planning to hold a rally in Central Park's Great Lawn during the Republican National Convention were refused, the safety of the park's grass being cited as a primary concern. Grass can be easily replanted. Reinstating democracy and civil rights after they have been trampled on would prove to be a much more difficult task. To restrict protest is not only dangerously putting absolute, unchecked power into the hands of a select few in charge, it also effectively negates over 200 years of American history and destroys the foundations that this country was built upon in the first place.

Free speech isn't free. Its cost has been paid again and again, by the first American revolutionaries, by Martin Luther King, by the students at Berkeley in 1964, and by all those who have spoken out for change and helped to make America a better country. To disallow the continuation of this American tradition, or to attempt to discredit those who exercise their right to dissent by calling them un-American or unpatriotic, is a great disservice to all those who have fought for change since this country's beginning and to all those who continue to do so today. When we lose the right to protest, we will have truly lost America.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it is morally treasonable to the American public."
~ Theodore Roosevelt

Words of the Wise

2004-08-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it."

— Edward R. Murrow

The Truest Patriot

2004-07-28T16:57:00.000-05:00

The media's role in American culture goes as far back as colonial times, when one-sided broadsheets were used to make announcements and encourage trading. Once America officially broke away from England, a vital function of the first independent newspapers was to keep an eye on the newly created American government, to help insure that it never became too powerful or grew outside of the intended control of its citizens. Since then, American media has changed immensely in both form and function. Unfortunately for the American public, the modern media seems to be less and less like a government watchdog and more and more like the government's bitch.

But media bias is nothing new and the history of yellow journalism goes back nearly as far as journalism itself. The few people in the past who have dared to break away from shameless, obsequious government proselytizing have consistently been labelled as traitors, America-haters, or even communists. And in today's world it seems that yellow journalism is more than just the unabashed presentation of biased information as objective truth; it is also the collective fear of those we rely on for information to question anything the United States government says or does.

In the months leading up to the American Revolution and beyond, Thomas Paine published moving and incendiary pamphlets, such as Common Sense, to urge his countrymen to unite against the monarchy. His persuasive propagandizing helped to move America forward toward independence and many of his ideas were later incorporated into the Declaration of Independence. Like those who speak out today through books or films, Paine also used popular forms of media to make his opinions heard by the masses, and to obvious effect.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, the USS Maine exploded in Cuba during the country's struggle for independence from Spain. An oil leak was likely at fault, though the cause for the explosion was never officially discovered. William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal sent a reporter to Cuba to see what information they could find, but when nothing was found to report, Hearst was not deterred. In search of a story to beat his competitors, Hearst's written response to his correspondents' request for recall was "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." For the next several weeks at least 8 pages a day were devoted to the story. The explosion was attributed to Spanish saboteurs, editorials were written demanding vengeance, and the war-cry of "remember the Maine and to hell with Spain!" was coined. Soon the American public was rallying for a war with Spain over something that had probably never happened, and the Spanish-American war began not long after.

In the 1950s, at the height of McCarthyism, the Hollywood blacklist was one of America's most insidious secrets, keeping talented directors, writers and actors out of work for their political affiliations. Just last year the New York Post published a list of celebrities whose movies, shows and CDs should be boycotted because they publicly opposed the war. ABC broadcast a similar list onscreen around the same time. Tell me anything has changed in the last 50 years, and then tell me why the Dixie Chicks lost radio airplay, or why the Baseball Hall of Fame cancelled an event for the 15th anniversary of the movie Bull Durham. It can't be because Americans truly know what it means to be free.

But the New York Post isn't the only one complying to the government's every whim. Unfailing support for the war and an unwillingness to question government policy, at home or abroad, seems to be a rule of thumb in journalism today, and phrases like "fair and balanced" aren't much more than a glib assurance of something we can no longer really expect. Despite the intent of the Fairness Doctrine, media conglomerates vehemently oppose actual two-sided debate. Critically dependent upon corporations for advertising, and monopolized by an increasingly smaller number of parent organizations, US media has a disturbing tendency to overlook corporate crime (or did until Martha Stewart), and to ignore pro-labor and pro-consumer issues. Talk radio is overwhelmingly dominated by right-wing pundits, with liberals languishing at stations like Air America or Pacifica.

The newspapers and broadcast news channels today offer us little more than proof through repetition and seem unwilling to dig deeper than psuedo-comforting sound bytes from self-aggrandizing politicians. Instead, we're shown staged images of rallying Iraqis and denied access to the pictures deemed too gruesome or upsetting. Pictures of children blown into pieces by American bombs and pictures of the soldiers themselves, row after row of their coffins draped in American flags. It's little surprise that what results is something these same media outlets term propaganda: Michael Moore.

Moore, in all of his one-sided glory, picks up the slack of the mainstream media, questioning law and policy makers, and filling in the gaps where the traditional media slants, omits or completely ignores. His books and films are undeniably biased, but with most news outlets leaning in the other direction, the American public can almost find even ground. Yet even with both sides opining in our ears, how sure can we really be that we're getting any semblance of the complete picture, much less objective fact? For reliable answers, you have to do the research yourself, and the average American citizen has neither the time nor the inclination to search for the truth. Apprarently, neither does mainstream media.

After all is said and done, who can really be called the truest patriot? And if this is what patriotism means in America today, is it really even something to aspire to at all?

Words of the Wise

2004-07-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

"Naturally the common people dont want war. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. Whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. All you have to do is to tell them that they are being attacked, and to denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

~ Hermann Goering

Not Bush, Candidate Superstar

2004-07-21T06:59:00.000-05:00

The 2004 presidential election is shaping up to be a close, exciting race, and as the big day draws near I would like to bring your attention to a candidate that I feel is extremely worthy of your vote. His name is Not Bush, and as you might have guessed, he (or she) is running on the Not Republican ticket. Not Bush has the values, ideas and experience that can truly move our country forward in these troubled times.

Not Bush is a decorated war veteran, having proudly fought for the freedoms of his country in one of our many previous wars. His military records are open for your approval and scrutiny, having never been lost, misplaced, or "accidently" destroyed. Not Bush learned much from his wartime experiences, including how important it is to exhaust other, more peaceful, alternatives and to avoid war as much as possible.

Not Bush is an advocate of average people. He has big plans to repeal the current president's tax cuts for the rich and for giant corporations and to help struggling familes get back on their feet. Not Bush would not let corporate America continue to more or less run (ruin) the country. Not Bush is also a big proponent of national heathcare and vows to work so that every American has access to free or low-cost healthcare in the next several years.

Women's rights are very important to Not Bush, who understands that the concept that life begins at conception is one borne from religious beliefs and should therefore not have effect on a woman's right to choose. This is also why Not Bush wants to make it a policy not only not to ban abortion in full, but also to provide free or low cost access to family planning to all women who want or need it. Not Bush also supports stem cell research and all manner of scientific exploration for the benefit of all society. Although Not Bush is a good God-fearing Christian, he realizes that America was built on a foundation of religious freedom (and even freedom from religion) and that, for that reason, laws and governmental policies should never be tied into any religion, even the majority's.

These values have also led him to believe that same-sex marriage is an issue for states to decide and that amending the Constitution specifically to ban this type of union would be not only ridiculous, but also unnecessary. This is because Not Bush believes that the Constitution was written to give rights to Americans, not to take them away.

And speaking of taking away rights, Not Bush is completely against the Patriot Act and all that it has come to represent about the quiet destruction of American civil liberties. While Not Bush agrees that steps must be taken to ensure the safety of all Americans, he knows that the stealthy and methodical stripping away of all of our freedoms and civil rights is not the way to do it. That is why Not Bush would immediately repeal the Patriot Act and restore America to the bastion of freedom that its forefathers once envisioned.

Not Bush would also revoke the strike-first foreign policy that has so greatly damaged our reputation in the eyes of the world as well as work to restore power and actual authority, not to mention the dignity of not being rendered completely useless, back to the UN. In short (or not short, as the case may be), Not Bush would give America back to its citizens, and make it the great country we know it can be.

His (or her) name is Not Bush, and he (or she) wants to be your next president. So go out and vote Not Bush on Election Day!

PS - On the actual ballet, Not Bush's name may be listed as John Kerry. Just . . . FYI.

Words of the Wise

2004-07-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

~Abraham Lincoln

The Politics of Fear

2004-07-14T17:16:00.000-05:00

There is so much to be afraid of these days that sometimes I find it helpful to keep a list. An ongoing war in Iraq, possibilities of nuclear war, widespread terror attacks, road rage, SARS, mad cow disease, and the significant threat of allowing gays the right to marry each other are just a few of the things vying for your attention. With all that's going on, it's hard to know what should scare you more. But fear not, my fellow Americans! For you can always count on the utterly dependable Bush administration to let you know when and what you should fear the most.

For starters, there is the ever-helpful terror alert level to keep you informed on what color your fear should be as you cower in your home behind your plastic sheeting and duct tape. And if that isn't enough, President Bush is committed to making frequent public statements to reassure us all that "Americans are safer" since the United States invaded Iraq. This despite reports from the State Department that worldwide terror has actually increased since the war began. But then, George Bush has never been one to let himself be refuted by irrefutable facts.

But lest you start to feel too reassured, there's always the evening news to scare you back into submission. It is interesting to note how in this election year news that is damaging to the Bush campaign is quickly followed by an increase in the terror alert, or an announcement of al Qaeda's "almost completed" plans to attack the US . . . somewhere . . . at some time . . . in some way.

John Kerry announces Edwards as his running mate, Ken Lay is taken into custody by the FBI, and the 9/11 Panel disputes any actual link between Iraq and al Qaeda, and almost immediately we have Tom Ridge telling us of "a large-scale attack" being planned by al Qaeda, but offering no specific details and no plans to raise the terror alert level. But let us take this opportunity to remind you to vote for President Bush in four months, because he is both committed and able to keep you safe from attack. Not like that John Kerry who wants to leave you to the mercy of that . . . guy, that al Qaeda guy . . . what was his name again?

September 11th threw the country into a panic, as we realized for the first time since Pearl Harbor just how vulnerable we really are. That despite being the world's leading superpower, we are not invincible. Within months this heightened fear had brought us the Patriot Act, and with next to no opposition, the biggest setback to the Constitution in US history was put into effect. If it was ever true that the terrorists "hate our freedom," they have less and less to hate with each passing day.

Decisions made out of fear have a disturbingly ubiquitous and deleterious place in our nation's history. Sweeping, unfounded panic during the Salem witch trials, before we were even a nation to ourselves, resulted in the deaths of no less than 20 innocent people. In the 1950s Senator McCarthy used the country's intense fear of communism to persecute and, in effect, ruin the lives and careers of any number of American citizens, many times without anything as justifying as actual proof. There are times when fear is overpowering enough to make people overlook even the most atrocious and obvious violations of civil and Constitutional rights.

George Bush and his administration know this and they know that they can exploit the reasonable fears of Americans to push things like the Patriot Act or their own re-election. As Jon Stewart satirized recently on The Daily Show, "basically we want you to be afraid enough that you dont vote for John Kerry. But not so afraid as to not go out and vote for Bush." But Americans should be voting based on who they feel would better lead this country. Fear causes people to overlook important issues, and sound, informed decisions are not those made under duress. Let us take the time before this election to look into the issues, to examine everything that is at stake, and to research the candidates' voting records. Let us cast our votes out of solid, unimpeachable conviction, rather than the fear of thinking for ourselves.