One Utah

The Bush administration’s myriad failures are connected to long term trends in social organizing and the loss of social capital.  In adopting a “go it alone” policy, the Bush administration and its neo-con theorists have taken an ideology of radical individualism and applied it at the level of national policy.

Radical individualism -beloved by Americans - holds that a person acting alone can change the course of history.  The idea that America alone could bring about a change through main force is perhaps the most crucial conceit of the neo-con theorists. It’s the hero theory writ large - the hero through virtue and strength vanquishes the bad guy and makes life safe for one and all. The Bush administration’s stage managed “Mission Accomplished” moment was rooted in the ideology that once the bad guy was vanquished, good would flourish. It’s a cartoon/comic theory of society, but one taken seriously by a great many people. In this myth, there is one bad guy, you kill him and all the frightened townsfolk come and go about their innocuous business. of course that image of the world is wrong, but when you have foreign based on it, based on the notion that a larger than life hero will save you, there’s no other expected outcome - you capture/kill Saddam and everything should be fine. It makes sense if you accept without question our cultural myths of individualism.

Robert Putnams excellent book Bowling Alone explores the complex way in which the last three decades have exhausted America’s Supply of social capital.  Putnam argues that America of the 1950s and 1960s had a rich and growing supply of social capital - widespread community involvement through churches, schools, clubs, and fraternal organizations.  Social capital isn’t just seen through involvement, however, it is demonstrated through diffused community knowledge - knowing how to join and belong to organizations, knowing how to be a good member, what you have to do as a member to sustain the organization.  You see this in the generation of people now in their 70s and beyond - they seem to just instinctively know how to be good members.  They give money and time readily - you ask them once and they start writing checks and giving time. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, nine members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) testified about the dehumanization of the Iraqi people, the abuse of detainees, the changing rules of engagement and the killing of innocent civilians before members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Unless you watched C-SPAN 3, you probably didn’t hear about it (my Comcast cable package doesn’t even have C-SPAN 3).

The Congressional Progressive Caucus isn’t even a formal committee. Yet the members of Congress in the Caucus were the first, five years after the invasion of Iraq, to hear testimony from “average boots-on-the-ground soldiers.”

Spencer Ackerman was there. Here are some excerpts from his report:

Jason Lemieux, a Marine sergeant who served three Iraq tours from 2003 to 2006, spoke of deliberate falsification of statistics during his service in Anbar Province. Investigating a 2006 incident in which Marines returned fire in a town called Tamim, Lemieux said he found that only four rounds of “poorly aimed enemy fire” resulted in thousands of rounds of artillery, machine gun and grenade fire into “an area of Tamim known to be owned and occupied by local civilians.”

Scott Ewing was an Army scout who served with the 3rd Armored Combat Brigade in the northern town of Tall Afar from 2005 to 2006.

Ewing told a story about coming upon middle-aged Iraqi women “covered in blood” after an Apache attack helicopter opened fire on their front lawn. While his fellow soldiers attempted to apply battlefield medicine, some were badly wounded. He gave no indication that the women had done anything wrong. “Anytime a suicide bomber kills civilians it is highly publicized,” Ewing said. “But from my personal experience in Tall Afar, the number of Iraqis killed or injured by our forces far outnumbered those killed by insurgents or suicide bombers.”

Read the rest of this entry »

It is well known and, quite frankly, self-evident that one’s vicinity to a gun increases the likely hood that one will be shot.

Fact: In homes with guns, a member of the household is almost three times as likely to be the victim of a homicide compared to gun-free homes.

So. I can’t figure out how this works.

If you love your family, or course, you want to protect them. Statistically speaking, keeping a gun in the home will triple the chances one of your family will be shot.

And since the chances of ever needing a gun to protect your life (unless you live in a war zone) are infinitesimal, the only other justification is to protect property.

Doesn’t that mean gun owners are putting protection of personal property ahead of the lives of family, friends and neighbors?

Lets be honest. In the face of these simple facts, you’ve got to be dangerously uninformed or paranoid to keep a hand gun in your home.

I’ve posted some more thoroughly documented facts below for consideration.

Self Defense

For every time a gun in the home is used in a self-defense homicide, a gun will be used in—

• 1.3 unintentional deaths
• 4.6 criminal homicides
• 37 suicides

In 1997 there were 15,690 homicides.

• Of these, 8,503 (one half) were committed with handguns.
• Among handgun homicides, only 193 (2.3 percent) were classified as justifiable homicides by civilians.

For every time in 1997 that a civilian used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 43 people lost their lives in handgun homicides alone (FBI Supplementary Homicide Report data, 1997)

The Second Amendment

No gun control law has ever been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on Second Amendment grounds. Such laws include federal bans on machine guns and semiautomatic assault weapons as well as local community bans on the sale and possession of handguns.

Every federal Court of Appeals that has considered the meaning of the Second Amendment has held that it protects the right of states to maintain a militia, not an individual right to own a gun.

• In 1981 the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals stated that “possession of a handgun by individuals is not part of the right to keep and bear arms.”
• In 1976 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals noted “the erroneous supposition that the Second Amendment is concerned with the rights of individuals rather than those of the states.”²⁹

It gets worse.

There is still no end in sight after seven weeks of fighting Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Sadr City, reports Bill Roggio on The Long War Journal. U.S. Army units building a three-mile-long wall through Sadr City continue to meet heavy resistance.

The attacks occurred during construction on the barrier along Qods Street, the main thoroughfare that divides the southern third of Sadr City from the northern neighborhoods. The US military used air weapons teams armed with Hellfire missiles, Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and infantry to beat back the attacks.

What is the fighting about? Sadr’s followers accuse their rivals, especially the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), a powerful Shiite party led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, of using the U.S. military and Iraqi security forces in an attempt to alter the balance of political power before provincial elections scheduled for October. The combination of ISCI and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party is known as the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).

It remains to be seen if the Sadrists have been weakened or if they have actually gained support among Iraqis by holding ground against a determined offensive by eight U.S. battalions and various units loyal to the Maliki government.

Smoke rises from a building hit by a U.S. Hellfire missile in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 12, 2008. The building that was used by insurgent snipers was just north of the 12-foot concrete barrier that is being built along a main street dividing southern Sadr city from north, where Mahdi Army fighters are concentrated. U.S. commanders hope the wall will effectively cut off insurgents ability to move freely around Baghdad and hamper their ability to fire rockets at the Green Zone. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

One indisputable result of the fighting: hundreds of noncombatant casualties, widespread destruction by air strikes and artillery, and thousands made homeless. Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post offers a glimpse of the plight of civilians displaced by the Sadr City offensive.

[T]wo women clad in head-to-toe black abayas walked in clutching two photos of a car riddled with bullet holes, its body crushed. They said U.S. troops had shot at the car, then driven over it with a tank.

“My husband was killed,” one of the women said. “I have six kids, and my husband used to be a taxi driver. So what can I do?”

A couple of dozen families have found refuge in a soccer stadium that was set up as a temporary camp a week ago by the Maliki government. Most have stayed away because they distrust the regime.

“We wish we could go back today to our house,” Sabah said. “But the American soldiers are standing across the street from our house. Once you step out of the house, you will be shot by the snipers.”

A widely-heralded May 12 cease-fire agreement between the Sadrists and the UIA has yet to end the fighting, because the U.S. government was not a party to the agreement. In fact, the deal omits any mention of Americans except to warn that “foreign forces” are to have no role in providing security in Sadr City. Aside from a promise to halt the mortar and rocket bombardments of the Green Zone, the Mahdi Army did not commit to stop fighting. They agreed to allow Iraqi units to peacefully enter the city if unaccompanied.

For their part, the U.S. military seems determined to continue the offensive for the time being rather than leave Sadr City under the control of an anti-occupation Shiite militia.

Previous One Utah post: U.S. Ignoring Sadr City Cease Fire (May 11, 2008)

UPDATE: Sadr City conditions worsen, according to a reporter who “asked to remain anonymous because of security concerns.”

UPDATE: Michael Gordon of the New York Times reports on the “daily battle of attrition” as the Sadr City wall nears completion.

The formal truce that was announced in the Green Zone with great fanfare on Monday has meant nothing here. Shiite militias have been trying to blast gaps in the wall, firing at the American troops who are completing it and maneuvering to pick off the Iraqi soldiers who have been charged with keeping an eye on the partition.

American forces have answered with tank rounds, helicopter rocket strikes and even satellite-guided bombs to try to silence the militia fire. On some stretches, the urban landscape has been transformed as the Americans have leveled buildings militia fighters have used as perches to mount their attacks.

The Bush administration’s plan for rigged 9/11 terrorist show trials to coincide with the 2008 presidential election has run into legal difficulties.

Charges have been dropped against the “20th hijacker,” Mohamed al-Qahtani. He allegedly came to the United States to take part in the September 11, 2001 attacks, but he was denied entry to the U.S. by an immigration agent at Orlando International Airport. Captured on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, al-Qahtani has been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps since January of 2002.

At Guantanamo, al-Qahtani was apparently subjected to every form of torture and abuse that the young, mostly inexperienced, military intelligence personnel could think up. It was all approved at the highest levels. Al-Qahtani has denied the allegations against him and stated that they are all based on confessions coerced from him during the months when he was being subjected to torture.

In November 2006, senior investigators with the Defense Department’s Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) told MSNBC.com that they were told by military prosecutors that al-Qahtani would be “unprosecutable” because of what was done to him during interrogation. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights:

Mr. al Qahtani never made a single statement that was not extracted through torture or the threat of torture. The unconscionable techniques used on him are well-documented and were authorized directly by the White House. His torture log is a shameful window onto the depravity of this administration and the depths to which they have been willing to sink.

Legal proceeding continue against five other defendants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of 9/11 attacks, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who admits to being Osama bin Laden’s $200-a-month personal driver and bodyguard, and Ramzi Binalshibh, who is alleged to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaeda leaders. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for all of them.

Previous One Utah post: ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals’

Updates to this story after the break…
Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I saw this post  Leading America Into the Wildnerness, at Kos:

Whether it’s finance or science, health care or education, America isn’t leading the way — it’s not even pointing the direction.  Instead, we’re on the sidelines, trying to squeeze the grip of our still considerable military leadership ever tighter, only to have more and more of our influence slip away.

There are directional changes that could have been made to make America a moral and intellectual leader in this new structure, but instead we’ve been running on bluster and bombs.  Now, for the most part, America is simply being ignored.

It coincides with some other things I’ve read lately that, in essence, say under Bush the US has pursued exactly the opposite policies we should have pursued for the world’s emerging balance of powers and influences.  Read the rest of this entry »

Map of Sadr City and vicinity: Green lines indicate completed sections of wall, red is uncompleted wall. Blue diamonds are joint security stations (forts). Yellow symbols are checkpoints sealing off the area of operations, where more than two million people live.

From Bill Roggio on The Long War Journal:

US and Iraqi forces continue to strike at the Mahdi Army in Baghdad despite the agreement reached between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army late Friday. Seventeen Mahdi Army fighters were killed in northeastern Baghdad over the past 24 hours.

In a briefing today, Brigadier General James Milano, the Deputy Commanding General for Multinational Division Baghdad, said that the American-built wall dividing Sadr City is now 80 percent complete (see map).

In the tentative cease-fire agreement, brokered by the Iranian government, political party representatives acting on behalf of Iraq’s Green Zone Government (GZG) headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accepted 14 points laid out by Moqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist movement. Under the agreement, al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia would allow Iraqi (but not American) forces into Sadr City, and promised to halt indirect fire attacks on the Green Zone. Mahdi Army fighters would not disband, and would also be allowed to keep their weapons.

The day after the cease-fire was announced, U.S. attack helicopters conducted what was described as a “heavy bombardment” of Mahdi Army positions in Sadr City.

On Sunday, a GZG armored column tried to enter Sadr City but immediately ran into a Mahdi Army ambush. Three improvised explosive devices wounded several soldiers, including a battalion commander. If the cease-fire takes effect, the GZG hopes to deliver aid and food to the besieged residents.

Previous One Utah posts:
Helen Thomas on Sadr City: ‘Why are we bombing these people?’ (May 7, 2008)
Sadr City and The Folly of Fixed Fortifications (May 5, 2008)
Sadr City: Why are we doing this? (April 30, 2008)
Winning Hearts and Minds in Iraq - Not! (April 27, 2008)
Al-Sadr: ‘I Am Giving The Last Warning’ April 19, 2008)
Iraq: Staring Into the Abyss (March 27, 2008)
Mahdi Army Cease Fire Expires Saturday (February 20, 2008)
The Walls of Baghdad: ‘We feel like prisoners in our own country’ (December 11, 2007)

[NOTE: I check the Utah Bloghive daily, and it’s been almost a month since any of the right-leaning blogs have posted anything at all about Iraq or Afghanistan.]

UPDATE: Cease-Fire Fails To Pacify Sadr City

This morning’s Trib contained an op-ed from Maggie Jessop, that began with the not so provocative opening line:

So, you want to hear from the FLDS women, huh? OK, you asked for it.

Normally, “You asked for it” is followed by a good rant. Not in this case. The op-ed itself is semi-coherent - a saccharine paean to applehood and motherpie. FWIW, it’s not worth much. Ms. Jessop’s arguments rests on her status as a mother (which I’ll talk about in a moment) and her apparent lack of criminal convictions (which only means she hasn’t been caught before). It would be a laughable bit of writing if it weren’t obvious she is deadly serious and means every word she’s written. Read the rest of this entry »

One should drink with smart people.

A while back, I had the opportunity to drink with a very smart woman who said, “Hillay will have an almost impossible time dropping out of this race unless Obama actually wins enough delegates.  She is a good second wave feminist and it is her turn.  She’s waited.  She’s earned her turn to be president.”

I’ve been thinking about that this week.  For Hillary Clinton - who is smart and qualified - the nomination should have been a lock but she’s had to fight tooth and nail to lose. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night was the annual meeting of the Coalition of Religious Communities (CORC).  The Coalition represents 20+ denominations thoughout Utah.  Members of CORC work on a broad array of social justice issues, primarily issues of economic justice - although we were also one of the leading groups supporting effective hate crimes legislation.  CORC’s leadership is drawn from among pastors, lay leaders, and other group leaders.  CORC’s member communities include Quakers, Episcopalians, Unitarians, UCC, Lutherans, Methodists, Mennonites, MESJ (Mormons for Equity and Social Justice), Buddhists, Muslims, Jewish groups, and Church Women United (those are just the groups I remember from last night).  Broadly speaking, CORC members speak for well over 250,000 Utahns.

Last night’s meeting was one of my favorites.  The steering committee planned responded to requests to better understand the legislative process - from the very beginnings of “How does an idea become a bill ?” to how does a bill become a law.  So we created and planned a simulation designed to recreate the experience of the state legislature - from creating talking points in favor of your bill, to sending in notes and talking to legislators, to trying to persuade the leadership to fund a proposal.  We had two goals - first to illuminate the process by which ideas become laws and second to give people a chance to practice their lobbying skills.

The process worked better than I ever imagined it would.  Our “legislators” were every bit as passionately stuffy as the real thing, they even managed to use the arcane language known as “legislatese.”  We had amendments, we had “strike and replace.”  We had some fun debate and great conversations.

We also learned valuable things.

When talking to legislators, be prepared and organized.  Make your points quickly, succinctly and be prepared with more information.

Don’t try to fake it.  If you don’t know, say you don’t know and let them know you’ll get the information and get back with them.

Make certain you introduce yourself - name and who you represent and don’t be afraid to state up front what you want - i.e. “I’m Glen Brown and I’m a member of the Coalition of Religious Communities and I’m here today to ask you to support HB 931 - payday lender and check casher reporting requirements.”

Last but not least, don’t be intimidated by legislators.  A lot of people get intimidated and fritter around and get apologetic and never get to the point:  “Well I know that I’m not an expert on these things and I’m so glad you’re taking time to talk to me and hear what I have to say and what I’ve to say is really important because it’ll help poor people and babies and apple pie and if you vote for it you’ll do a lot of good.  So really, you taking time to talk to me is so important and I know I’m just a citizen who comes up here and my voice isn’t very important but . . .”  and ten minutes later the legislator is still baffled as to who this person and what he/she wants. 

CORC is a unique group - one that employs the religious passion for social justice to get people active and to get them united in ways they might not do on their own.  CORC’s work in the community has done a tremendous amount of good in Utah.  Our latest and biggest successes has been getting the sales tax on food reduced.  There was no action on this for years, no legislator interested in taking it on.  CORC members around the state organized and talked to legislators and created sufficient buzz in every corner of Utah that state legislators heard about it wherever they went - it’s time to remove the sales tax on food.  It’s time to remove the sales tax on food.  It’s time to remove the sales tax on food.  The sales tax on food isn’t all gone, but much of it is (basically you’re paying the city and county portion these days, not the state portion).  CORC has consistently taken the lead on this issue for years.  And it pays off, it takes time, but it pays off.  And that is the secret of success in social change.

Via The Washington Independent we learn that Helen Thomas went to Tuesday’s White House press briefing with Dana Perino and asked the questions few dare to ask, even of the most unpopular administration ever:

THOMAS: Yesterday, according to The New York Times, we dropped a bomb on a home in Sadr City and burned alive a pregnant woman and her children. How long is the siege of Sadr — how long are we going to keep bombing Iraqis?

PERINO: Well, I’m not aware of that particular report. I have not — I’ve not seen it.

THOMAS: Well, it was pretty buried in the story.

PERINO: Okay. Well, the operation against the militias in Sadr City will continue until they root them out. And that is expressly in order to protect people like you just mentioned.

THOMAS: Root who out, Iraqis, in their own country?

PERINO: It is Prime Minister Maliki’s government which is going after the militia, which is appropriate.

THOMAS: Why are we bombing these people?

PERINO: Any time anyone that is an innocent civilian is hurt in a conflict, we obviously regret it, and we go out of our way to make sure it doesn’t happen.

THOMAS: Thank you.

UNICEF reports that 150,000 civilians are trapped by the fighting in Sadr City, and thousands more have fled. Those unable to leave their homes face shortages of water, food and medicine. Civilian casualties so far have exceeded 1,000 people killed and 2,500 wounded.

Helen Thomas is a national treasure. Why is she the only MSM reporter asking these questions?

All the Bush administration can say is that our forces are killing these noncombatants to “protect” them.

UPDATES:
Residents flee battered Sadr City in search of safety, food
Iraq prepares for Baghdad exodus
Baghdad stadium to shelter Iraqis fleeing Sadr City danger

“I’m asking you to believe.  Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

This week’s “very special kind of stupid” award goes to Kathleen Roberson, of Dove Creek, Colorado. Her letter in the Trib has a special mix of “bumpkin” and pearl-clutching, “Get me my smellin’ salts, Vern, I’ve got the vapors” kind of stupid and moral indignation:

During a visit to Salt Lake City, just blocks from Temple Square at the Gateway Mall, I was aghast to see in the Victoria Secret’s display window a sexually positioned mannequin dressed in skimpy black underwear with garters and black stockings. I credit them for not including whips and chains, but the implication was surely there for the world to see - including small children and teenagers. A nice little Mormon family outing turned into a lesson on immorality with an explanation to my kids why they should wear their temple garments after they are endowed in the temple . . . It is sad to see that Babylon prospers so well in Zion, and that apparently no one cares enough to protest the perils of pornography. Well, I’m standing up to protect children from exposure to it.

It’s nigh on impossible to adequately mock Ms. Roberson.

How empty does your life have to be that a store mannequin causes you some sort of crisis? Are you kidding me? This - THIS! - is what gets you upset enough to write the Trib? I feel like Stewie Griffin:

“Yes Meg, this is what’s going to ruin you socially. Not your years of awkward social graces, not your grotesque appearance or the Felix Ungerish way you clear your sinuses, this is going to ruin you socially.”

Fixed fortifications are monuments to man’s stupidity.
– General George S. Patton, Jr.

U.S. Army soldiers from 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division guard construction of a concrete wall running through the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Baghdad, on Sunday, May 4, 2008.

Why is the U.S. Army building a wall in Sadr City? To separate the southern portion of this section of Baghdad from the Mahdi Army-controlled north, according to Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal. That’s right, even after the so-called “surge,” which made 2007 the bloodiest year of the war, the occupation forces still aren’t strong enough to control all of Iraq’s capital.

The main reason for the wall is tactical. The other side is beyond mortar range of the Green Zone, 7 kilometers away. But the Mahdi Army’s Iranian-made 107mm Katyusha rockets have an effective range of 9 km, and their 122mm rockets can do better than that. Also, there is very little to prevent Mahdi Army rocket and mortar teams from displacing to firing locations outside Sadr City.

How’s that wall coming along? After a month, it’s only half finished according to NBC’s Richard Engel. It’s being built under fire the whole way, because the enemy always knows exactly where our soldiers are. Sometimes, the firefights are so fierce they can only put up eight wall sections in a day. The wall is creating a swath of destruction as one building after another becomes a military target.

Saw this at PZ Myers’ place and decided it was simply too weird to be true but apparently not . . .

 Land ‘O Lakes, Florida — The stories in the news about inappropriate relationships between teachers and students have been overwhelming.  There was even a substitute teacher in New Port Richey who got in trouble after investigators say she had a relationship with an underage student.

Well, another Pasco County substitute teacher’s job is on the line, but this time it’s because of a magic trick.

The charge from the school district — Wizardry!

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers.  He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue, you can’t take any more assignments you need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell and went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’  ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry.  You have to be completely totally fucking insane to actually complain about a teacher practicing “wizardry” and even more completely fucking batshit insane to take that complaint seriously.

Postcard from the Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq

The best thing about blogging is it takes no imagination, which is good because I would never be able to make this stuff up myself. Via Think Progress:

The AP reports that the Pentagon is backing a $5 billion dollar plan to “transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone” into a “centerpiece for Baghdad’s future,” resulting in “big paydays for early investors.”

An incentive for the five-year construction project, which would include hotels, resorts, a shopping mall and commercial development, appears to be lining the pockets of investors and allies rather than re-building Iraq’s economy. This comes on the heels of an already-ridiculed plan to build a Disneyland-style theme park next to the Green Zone.

While eight U.S. Army battalions are fighting in the streets of nearby Sadr City in a doomed effort to build a wall they hope will stop mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone, apparently planners are busy thinking up ways to further alienate the people of Iraq.

The sheer cluelessness of this plan is off the charts. It’s self-satirizing. As Spencer Ackerman points out, a luxury development in the Green Zone “would drain resources from a desperate population.” It’s as if the Bush administration officials living in Saddam’s old palaces “have begun to ape the habits of the old regime.”

More here:

Want to vacation in the Green Zone?
Planners Dream of Five Star Hotel for Green Zone
Pentagon Backs Plan To Build U.S. ‘Zone Of Influence’ Of Hotels And Resorts In Baghdad
Pentagon Now Implementing McCain “Hundred Years” Plan
And Then You Wonder Why They Burn Your Buildings Down

UPDATE: The “Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience” $500 million theme park is being fast-tracked by the Pentagon. In pitching his Disneyland idea to a deputy Baghdad mayor, financier Llewellyn Werner – displaying little sense for Iraqi culture – said the waterpark is “integral to the sex appeal” of the new amusement center. “I’m a businessman,” he continued. “I’m not here because I think you’re nice people. I think there’s money to be made here.”

Today the rest of this nation knows what some of us have known for seven years and counting. We have the most unpopular boob in American history running the country in the most frightening period of national history. His incompetence is legend. Let me name the ways:

First, of course, this war of choice, Bush’s war. With John McCain and Hillary Clinton and a majority of their colleagues, we went to war with a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, Iraq. And we will be in that quagmire for at least John McCain’s century, no matter which candidate wins. (Our only solace–we will be far better led by any of the three or, for that matter, by lot–throw darts at any phone book and annoint the sucker.) Our losses are already staggering. Megadeath unending, the sword, blood and fire for decades. In that century nuclear weapons will be had by many other states, by their own development and the fire-sales that surely will come. People are now starving, and anyone who thinks this can be stopped from full famine are either stupid or lying. Nuclear states will sell the store just to avoid, for a time, famine-induced panic and pandemic and, for so many poorly-led states, revolution.

Second, we’re rapidly out-sourcing our real energy producers, solar and wind power. See Thomas Friedmann’s prophetic piece in today’s Tribune. He has been wrong on the Iraq war since day one. But today’s article is right on. Solar power and wind power, though demanding heavy front-end cost, will give us the power to live without destroying the earth. Coal will continue to be used, hopefully much cleaner coal. But it will come at a huge cost to our environment. Nuclear power is in reality a dinosaur. It will tank, if we are lucky. If ever there was a prostituted word’s incarnation, it’s Energy/Solutions. Solutions it isn’t. The once - proud palace, the Salt Palace, has been had. We’re losing our position in inventing and producing wind and solar power to Asia and Europe. Never mind our sad loss in producing, once, the world’s greatest automobiles. Or our iron and steel industry. Sadly, much of this is long gone. But what should have been our future has been lost in these eight years of the worst presidency in our nation’s history, the production of solar and wind power.

Third, our nation’s economy is tanking. Mortage forclosures, unemployment, lack of affordable health care, the costs of oil and gas, cost of homes and sale of homes, all the home and hearth realities of middle America, are being lost due in large part to stupid in the pesidency. Almost a decade of a combination of no leadership and worse, leadership in the wrong direction, is truly terrrifying. Talk of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s “chickens coming home to roost”. You better believe it. Why would any sane person run for president?

My solution. Hilary, Bush-McCain, or Barak, when you win, demand a recount.

ed firmage

It’s rare, but it happens.  I watched The Golden Compass last night and I have to say I think it was a better movie than book.  Interestingly, all the kerfuffle from conservative christians about the film was a mistake - the film’s supposedly anti-Christian content is all but missing.  To be honest, I expected more.

But that connects with my thoughts on something else - I see there is another Narnia movie coming out, Prince Caspian.  To be honest, I disliked The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe precisely because it was an accurate representation of Lewis’ theology.  In that movie (and the book) Aslan is supposed to be some sort of Christ character who sacrifices himself to save the world, but his sacrifice is portrayed as random and meaningless - it is because it has to be.  There’s no aspect of choice for Aslan nor is there any real sense of sacrifice since Aslan knows he will be resurrected.  In Narnia, what matters is going through the steps and then everything is fine.  There’s no need for meaning or thought or reflection - just follow the steps and all will be well:

Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to? Poor child Edmund, to blame for everything, must bear the full weight of a guilt only Christians know how to inflict, with a twisted knife to the heart. Every one of those thorns, the nuns used to tell my mother, is hammered into Jesus’s holy head every day that you don’t eat your greens or say your prayers when you are told. So the resurrected Aslan gives Edmund a long, life-changing talking-to high up on the rocks out of our earshot. When the poor boy comes back down with the sacred lion’s breath upon him he is transformed unrecognisably into a Stepford brother, well and truly purged. Read the rest of this entry »

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Before convicted criminal, Republican congressman, Bob Ney went to prison, he pushed the “Help America Vote Act (HAVA)” through congress under the false premise that it would help standardize the way America votes and come into compliance with the Federal Supreme court decision to break precedence and overrule states rights in the 2000 election contest between Gore and Bush. What Ney’s bill actually did was to introduce something into our elections that sent the Federal court’s decision, (to stop counting the votes in Florida because there were no “uniform voting standards”), running for it’s life!

Money!

Even when it was known that congressman Ney would likely be going to prison, he showed up at the only hearings* the Republicans had held, up to that time (July 19, 2006), on the contentious matter of the new machines. Tom Delay had previously prevented any debate coming to the floor even after both parties had voted to do so. At this hearing, Ney had the audacity to request 900 million more dollars for the voting machine vendors.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from a 2006 Rolling Stone magazine editorial calling for an investigation shortly before the hearings were held:

After the Florida fiasco in 2000, Diebold saw an opportunity. To persuade Rep. Bob Ney to promote its machines in a package of election reforms he was drafting called the Help America Vote Act, the company hired two lobbyists with close ties to the Ohio congressman. Diebold paid at least $180,000 to David DiStefano, Ney’s former chief of staff. And it shelled out as much as $275,000 to the lobbying firm of the best-connected man on Capitol Hill: Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff has now been convicted of bribing Ney – but Americans will be paying for the results of Diebold’s influence for years. As part of the Help America Vote Act, every precinct in America is now required to install at least one machine accessible to disabled voters — a mandate that has already fueled the spread of touch-screen technology and cost taxpayers almost $3 billion. ”These vendors have a Halliburton-like hold on the Republican leadership,” says Rep. John Conyers.

If this is all news to you, don’t feel bad. It’s probably not known to anybody but music magazines and the most seasoned voting rights activists in America due to an intentional nationwide blackout on the issue of electronic voting problems. They only come up sporadically and then disappear for months at a time.

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Now, as to the heading of this post, Hacking Democracy, HBO is r