Who to smite?

Paul Krugman on Social Security: . Sorry, but it's important.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Whoaa. Beautiful -if frightening- illustration of how just a few people control all of the news. Also a chilling portrait of DC society, and Presidential politics. Robert Parry is a journalist with integrity.

Umm... isn't this feudalism? Didn't we fix that or something?

Great. Faith-based environmental policy. Let's hope it's better than our faith-based intelligence on Iraq and North Korea.

Science news. I don't really think a device like this could 'predict the future,' but the implications of their findings are immense anyway. What do you think? Seems to threaten the notion that consciousness is isolated to our brains, doesn't it?

Georgie wargie

Excellent -excellent- speech given to the House on Wednesday. Forget that he's a republican; he's asking hard questions about our foreign policy, questions that no one else in government seems to be asking. It's about damn time!

This is hardly news, but little Georgie is lying to you again. -er, still.

Third columnist found in Bush's pocket. Perhaps Georgie's most blatant, flagrant flaunting of US law yet. And further evidence that he -and the rest of his neo-con pals- are utterly bereft of ethics and morals.

Good essay. Let's kick some ass.

Don't look. No, don't. It's not funny. Stop laughing!



And in robot news...

"Bag o' skin, comin' right up!" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/4184627.stm

Social security: divided we fall

FINALLY someone refutes the idiotic Bush rhetoric about Social Security. Thank you, Rep. Rangel.

Social Security is only threatened by privatization. Social Security is what keeps many elderly people housed and fed.

Who might benefit from "privatization" anyway? Well, we're expected to invest it all in the stock market; it will cost us to play that game. So the first to benefit will be the stock traders, who extract a portion of your invested money as fees for their services (let's call it a "privately levied tax," because it is). Stock trading is VERY restricted, a very private club. They're not interested in you, they're only interested in your money. Do you want to trust your future to someone who is only interested in your money?


But you have to have a certain amount of money to even make it worth their time to deal with you. So, if you don't have $1,000.00 or so (minimum) laying around to get started with, get started on saving that (if you work for minimum or near-minimum wage, you'll know how difficult this can be, but I don't think anyone more privileged can imagine). Once you get that saved up, it's time to look around at how best to invest.

Obviously we want to earn interest, to make sure our investment is growing faster than inflation (otherwise, we're losing money). Savings accounts don't do that. Ever. Checking accounts -even "free" ones, or ones that pay interest, cost money. Money market accounts and CDs sometimes offer higher interest, but rarely exceed the official rate of inflation, so we're still losing money on our money.

How much money does it take, to make money? Inflation right now is supposedly low -about 3-4%- but you should know that fuel and food prices are NOT included in that figure, so let's include that for our own adjusted inflation rate, which I'll estimate at about 7% (on the basis of the rising food and fuel prices I've seen, and which affect me directly). So, we want to be earning at least 7% interest on our money, just to be breaking even. To get rates like that, we would either need to a) have enough money to get a banker's or broker's personal attention (a mere grand is not enough, trust me), b) be really good at poker, or c) make some very lucky picks on the stock market. Or I suppose we could get on a game show and get really lucky, but in the end, it's all about getting lucky.

Luck. The real problem with having everybody depend on the stock market for their safety net, is that the very nature of the stock market is that someone has to lose. The whole point is "every man for himself." Every profit results from someone else's loss. Dependence on this cruel system is what got us this economic disparity in the first place.

Destroying Social Security in the name of "ownership" and "privatization," will only serve to send more money into the hands of the wealthy, and further isolate the less-fortunate in shitty minimum-wage service-sector jobs.

Divided we fall, my friends: divided, we fall.

Armstrong Williams is a whore, and George Bush is his john.

I can't believe this shit.

American politics sinks to new lows every day under the Bush administration. Ethics shmethics.

I suppose we all sell ourselves, one way or another, to make a living. Such is life in a money economy. But there are whores, and there are prostitutes: whores will sell anything, just for the sake of a buck, but prostitutes have limits. Whores sell their self-respect, their ethics, heritage, their grandmothers, for a little bling-bling. Prostitutes sell a service, to put food on the table.

Kill your television.

I mean it.


I'm so tired of harping about the Bush junta, that I'm not even going to touch the problem of our President, the Leader of the Free World, buying journalists.

Is it even news anymore?

Ramsey Clark, man of principle

Great interview with Ramsey Clark, defender of the defenseless

Praising Failure, or "It's all good!"

You gotta read this

Vote fraud? Enron started out as a conspiracy theory, too. As did Watergate, and Iran-Contra, and October Surprise, and election 2000 and...

Straight from the horse's mouth: a Republican spills the beans and explains how the voter fraud was perpetrated. No, really!

Ohio is the new Florida.

Vote fraud gold mine here, good stuff!

Buy blue, a nifty guide for the boycott-inclined. Details about which major corporations supported which political parties.

How does $130,000 bucks sound? It could be yours, if you can prove the World Trade Centre buildings crashed the way the Government says they did. Good luck ;)

Child prostitution... in the White House? You betcha. It gets worse, too: don't miss the very last link on the page. These are the people we're dealing with.

A viable strategy

I've said before that all of us progressives need to be reaching out to the sleepwalkers; that the closer you get, the harder it becomes to hate; that all we need to do to win is close the emotional-geographic gap and show them that their fears of us are unfounded.

That's a tactic. Here is a viable strategy. Excellent bit from an ex-conservative. We have two years.

Remember: they're sleepwalking, so rouse them gently.

Ohio and the UN

A UN for this century, not the last one. Very interesting article from the Guardian, about the place of the UN in politics. Surprising.

Things are getting hot in Ohio. Rep. John Conyers and a number of other Representatives have sent a strongly-worded letter to Ohio Sec. of State Ken Blackwell, asking that he explain a number of irregularities and incidents of apparent fraud or gross incompetence. Sweet!

Let's get small

Well, with the election mostly over, I've had time to get back to thinking. My other priorities had been sitting quietly, patiently, taking orders even, while my social conscience and consciousness held court in my effort to help defeat the impostor president. We fought the good fight, and that was our downfall: we played fair, presented evidence and empirical support, and they responded with spin, propaganda, and threats. It's apparently not over yet, and I'm glad of that, but seeing as how I'm in Kansas, and the trouble is in Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida, I came to the conclusion that this issue is pretty much out of my hands.

I started this blogthing as an email habit- I thought too much US-related news was only being covered in less-prominent international news sources, and I wanted my friends to know. As the election approached, I focused on Kerry because the mainstream US press wasn't giving him fair time, or fairly representing his record. Alas, it wasn't about facts at all. Silly me!

Damn the elections. They provide such a seductive story-line. So reassuring, so convincing, that we continue to look for storylines in the news after the big show is over, but The News is not a story in the storybook sense, so there's almost never any real resolution. Enron? 911 investigation (don't even show me the Warren Report Jr.)? Valerie Plame? Diebold? You get the idea.

"There is only one thing bigger than a very big thing, and that is a thing so very small that it can be seen and understood. " -Sinclair Lewis.

I didn't write this

Fraud?

Probably, yeah, but as they say, "if an election can be rigged, it will be." In other words, yes there was probably fraud, and yes it may have been perpetrated on a scale we've never seen before (thank you, electronic voting. What was wrong with paper? Too inexpensive? Too effective? Too ...transparent?? how ironic), but there is always election fraud. So no, this fraud du jour will probably not be the un-doing of this administration. Coz we're dealing with something more insidious still.

What we're really dealing with is racketeering. Gang tactics, Godfather style. It goes like this:

Karl Rove has connections in organized religion and business. He tells them to do what you can to help us out. You scratch our back, and we'll scratch yours, he says, and those well-placed connections call up their connections and say, hey, do what you can to help out The Cause. Those connections in turn tell the ministers and managers, editors, priests, and pundits on their payrolls to do whatever it takes, or whatever you can do; win one for the Gipper, or whatever, and pretty soon we have hackers tinkering with voting-machine code because W has values,because Bill O'Reilly said so, and people who have never cared about politics their entire lives spending the day at the polls challenging other peoples' right to vote, because my minister said God loves Bush, etc.

I have no doubt -none- that this election was tampered with. Suspicious results in Florida, Ohio and New Mexico -all states which used electronic voting tabulation, often without a paper trail- and Republican party-sponsored activities designed to spread disinformation and confusion about the issues and polling dates, are enough evidence for me to cry "foul."

I'm sure there was fraud in some places (tell us, Governor Bush: why did you refuse to allow voting technology with a paper trail?); I'm sure there was voter intimidation, active disinformation campaigns, out-and-out lies, and fear-mongering. Overall, I'm sure most people were doing what they thought was 'right,' but they got those ideas from someone else because it's all so complicated. Unfortunately, those people whose ideas they're adopting, aren't looking out for their interests.

Think for yourself. Stay vigilant. Keep informed. Reach out.

Peace.

Let's be brief:

Voter turnout was incredible, something of which we should all be proud. For a minute.

Ok, enough pride.

We (American progressives) simply didn't mobilize as well as the religious right. We got out the vote, we raised consciousness, we drove new registration numbers through the roof, but the other guy just did a little better. Did I say 'enough pride'? Yeah, and enough hand-wringing, too. Time to learn from our mistakes.

Clearly, web- and blog-activism didn't work. Further, I spent days searching the web for Democratic leadership following the election ("what now?" I wanted to know-), but only found that the Liberal/Progressive arm of American politics has too many heads to follow. We cannot depend on the internet anymore. It is a tool: nothing more, nothing less. We were seduced into thinking that it would solve our electoral problems, but instead we built a leadership hydra with a thousand heads. Surfing and blogging is not communication, it is not community; it is a path to isolation and social death. Put down your keyboard and hit the streets.

We need to organize. They won, because they go to church. They won, because the majority of their mobilized voters congregate every week, and talk about what matters to them. They won, because they have leaders -locally, regionally, and nationally- who determined for them what the important issues were. We lost, because we think for ourselves, and more importantly, to ourselves.

What to do now (pick one and ride it into the ground):

1) Religious extremists will have control of our federal government for the next two years. Our progressive representatives and Senators will need to be reminded to act as the opposition, and ideally thanked when they do. Contact them, to tell them what you think. Phone calls are most effective, they say themselves, followed by hand-written mail, petitions, and emails, in that order (I got that from a letter from Dennis Moore, I think). Call 'em every week. That's what they're there for, after all.
Who's my Representative? Who are my Senators?

2) Resist electronic voting, by whatever means possible. Demand a paper ballot! There is NO REASON whatsoever, to use electronic equipment to vote. Reasons NOT to:
1. Using a computer to vote amounts to handing your vote to someone you don't know, to deliver it by a secret route to a secret place at a secret time. While this might be acceptable in principle, the facts remain that elections are divisive and prone to corruption, and that the equipment is only as reliable as its -inevitably partisan- handlers, designers, and programmers.
2. Computers are expensive, and prone to technical problems that cost money to fix. No system is foolproof, but paper ballots offer numerous advantages, including easy verification, absolute security that the vote you cast was the one recorded, a paper trail, and no possibility of undetectable advance tampering, not to mention they don't cost much and the maintenance cost is very low. Counting paper ballots by hand could be performed by a board drawn from the voter rolls, as volunteers (or perhaps paid like jurors?). Participation of this kind would increase voter confidence in the process, and be a huge step toward rebuilding local communities, as people who might not ever cross paths, would be required to work together toward a common goal.
3. Voting is an act of participation; for many of us the only way we actually get involved in government. Electronic voting only promises to shuffle us through the system quicker, to reduce our involvement by making the process faster and more convenient. This is the last thing we need.
These are just my ideas. See www.blackboxvoting.org for more, especially constructive legal action.

3) Socialize and organize. Yep, this is easy: just be yourself, all over the place. We lost because we trusted everyone to think for themselves, because the corruption and incompetence of this administration is so self-evident. "How can anyone not see this?" we wondered. And, "how can anyone be so mean?"
They can only be like this, because they don't know us. They've allowed themselves to demonize the liberals, when we all really agree on most of what's really important. Who likes abortion? No one is pro-abortion, but many of us are pro-choice, believing that Life starts with the first breath.
Organize your neighborhood, or if your social circle is more spread-out, organize your circle, and encourage them to organize too. Find an excuse to get together every week, regularly, and give yourselves time to talk about what's important to you. Reach out and bring new people into your circles, your organizations; try to reach out to people you might not think of as "your kind." We have been demonized by sleepwalking religious extremists. We need to wake them up, slowly and gently.

Go on, git!

win their hearts and minds

It is 2:30, the day after the election. I've been searching Democratic websites since 5:30 a.m., looking for intelligent analysis of the election, the process, the future. Where are our progressive leaders?

We have two short years until our next chance to gain a little electoral ground. Time's a-wasting! Stop the hand-wringing already!

This happened because the regressives are organized, and they reacted emotionally. Dividing lines are clear: the rational vote went for Kerry, the emotional vote went for Bush. Emotion will almost always win out over reason.

What's important for us to do now, is to reach out. We're all humans here, we're all wanting the same things, basically: love, security, respect. Smile at a stranger, open a door for them. Be nice to someone you don't know. We need to win their hearts and minds. The rest will follow.

dirty work

Spread this one around-- it'll be interesting to see if this gets out in the US press.

What if it's a tie?

electionanigans

Greatness. Not for the timid. John Kerry kicks ass. This man went after the Reagan and Bush41 administrations like a friggin' pit bull. Yeah, that was the Kerry commission that brought over 30 indictments against Reagan and co. for the Iran-Contra scandal, including dozens of convictions. And yeah, that was Kerry behind the investigation into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International investigation, which entailed numerous prominent members of both the Bush41 administration, and the Bush family. I repeat: John Kerry kicks ass. And I haven't even mentioned VietNam.

Just like Nintendo, only you die. hard-hitting humor.

I love this site.

Kerry rally draws almost 10,000 in Las Cruces, while Cheney draws about 1,600 in Farmington

electionanigans continue here and here

Michael Moore: "If Kerry's the biggest flip-flopper how has he maintained his No. 1 liberal ranking in the Senate?"

This is really disturbing. I used to mention disappearances like this a year or two ago, but no-one seemed particularly interested. Maybe I was just sounding like I had gone around the bend. It may not be too late yet.

good to the last...

Really good short video

is this the beginning of a positronic brain? If you haven't read the brilliant I, Robot, find it and check it out.

This just in: platypuses are weird!

Holy chao... is this for real?

"Sovereignty. S-o-v-e-r-n-t. Sovereignty."

Electionanigans already -and you thought Florida was going to be a mess...

Who do you hate enough, to make you vote for Bush? great satire from The Bean

Return of the King XE preview thanks Bran

W on sovereignty Listen close, and you can hear the crowd laughing! Too bad he's not trying to be funny.

Hunter S. Thompson is a force of nature.

Coal-mine canary 2.0 *gulp*

Wow. Very interesting approach...

Kiss my what?

Amazing. Er, I mean humiliating. Thanks out to Kensor for that link.


Kiss my what? What's that cute little thing Catholics say when you want something you can't have... oh yes- "People in Hell want ice water." Not that I care much for church politics, but this is just beyond the pale.

Wal-Mart vs History

Wal-Mart must die

It's for your own good ... Big Brother is here to help you ...

well, they promised us a new world order: This seems so much like the build-up to a cheesy James Bond flick on the really big screen. Picture this: al Qaeda -aka SPECTRE- get their mitts on some nuclear devices and threaten the world unless [insert terrorist demand here and blah blah blah] then Bush -aka Bond- comes to the rescue and doesn't play by the rules and charmingly confounds M and Q and Moneypenny et al -aka Koffe Annan, Congress, and Taxpayers- but kicks ass anyway and gets the chick and blah blah blah. Haven't we seen this movie before?

Be prepared! What will you do if:

...the election is cancelled, or 'postponed'?
...you're asked/required to use computer terminals to vote?
...and it doesn't appear to respond?
...or responds incorrectly?
...or the computer crashes?
...or the power goes out?
...you're asked for more ID than you normally carry?
...you get intimidated or harrassed going to the polling station?

...Bush wins?

Please don't forget to vote. In many places, including Douglas County, KS, you can already vote. This should help you find your local election officials for details.

How do you like your Soma?

Edwards-Cheney debate tonight. The Rude Pundit is hot.

Jimmy Carter is on fire.

Oh, the hypocrisy! Staggering.

"Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Republicans in Congress are stacking up a record of election-year folly so gross it staggers even veterans of legislative debacles. First, they let the assault weapons ban lapse, despite the fact that 70 percent of the American people want it kept in place. They had to pass a simple $5 billion corporate-tax plan because we are in violation of tariff laws. This has bogged down in a $150 billion pork-off, while American products are losing billions of dollars in retaliatory sanctions.

Even worse, Congress passed a $145 billion extension of tax cuts. To cover the resulting debt, we are borrowing money from the Bank of China, to be paid off by our children. Showing a fine sense of fiscal restraint, the R's declined to extend minimal credits for millions of children in working-poor families. Instead, they gave another $13 billion in tax cuts to the corporations."
-Molly Ivins

Holy shinola. Fascism here we come: watch for Mr. Redstone to be named head of the FCC in the next Bush administration. Mark my words. I wonder if he'll do us the favor of resigning from Viacom/CBS to accept the position?

Another prominent Republican for Kerry

CBS has now publicly abdicated the position of Journalistic Authority, as surely as FOX News or Leni Riefenstahl ever did. Dan Rather is still The Man -his only problem was that some of the evidence that supported his otherwise-rock-solid conclusion may have been forged- but Sumner Redstone (in charge at Viacom, which owns CBS) is a Bush supporter, so his news department is going to pretend that Rather was all wrong, when in fact he was quite correct in spite of one false lead. Worse yet- as a result of Sumner Redstone's desire to rim White House ass and perhaps get invited to the Inaugural coke-fest, CBS will not be running another story critical of the W because it would be "inappropriate," so close to the election.

Yes, God forbid the voters are informed.

No, the revolution will not be televised. Because that would allow each of us on our couches to see that we're not alone in our despair, that there are people actually fighting the power. But the power we're fighting would rather that each of us believe we're alone. Divided we fall.

VOTE. Vote early, vote often! Vote early; your vote counts. Voting early means you will have a paper record of your vote, in case of wierdness. Voting often means using your dollars to support people who support you and your causes. CBS does not support you or your causes, or your town, or your neighborhood, or hell, even your damn country. By bowing to political pressure, CBS has accepted the role of Pravda in this ongoing passion play. Turn it off, and tell them.

Kill your television while you still can. It's soma.

The morning after

Here's a transcript of the debate. My impression: W was pathetic. All he seemed able to do was whine, "I'm trying. It's hard." Kerry simply kicked ass. He turned his boat straight into the fire and charged. I didn't see it -I listened on the radio- but I understand W rushed off the stage afterward, broke away early from the closing handshake to quiver in the corner with his daughters while Kerry glad-handed with Teresa and Pickles and the press. Go man, go!

ground control

Would you go, if you could?

Awesome.

Important news for bicyclers!

That U-lock of yours may not do you much good anymore...

What's wrong with this picture?

Why is this a big deal? It's 2004 already. In 2001 we were told that Mark Bingham or whoever called their moms and spouses etc from airplanes-in-flight as though it was routine, so why would airlines like American (as in American Flights 11 and 77) announce in 2004 that they might be allowing their use as early as 2006?

Am I missing something?


Very good short essay: Bush's lies cause untold pain

That one was good, but this one is excellent. A collection of good interviews with American writers, about the election.

This sounds like a fun read: Colin Powell calling Dick Cheney, et al., fuckin' crazies

Gee, thanks W!

George W. Bush, a drunken liability.

He presided over the greatest security failure in the history of our country, he played politics with the investigation after trying -and failing- to prevent it, and now he's trying to milk it for votes. He failed. He froze like a deer in the headlights. Thousands died because he panicked, for seven minutes, until his advisors told him what to do.

But that's all in the past.

This guy is shafting your future, your children, to get your vote. Those neat 'tax cuts' you got? Try to remember that 'generosity' after you retire, when you're forced to choose between keeping the electricity on, or keeping your health insurance, coz Medicare ain't gonna cut it for long. Try to remember that generosity when you get laid off, and you have to choose between keeping the electricity on, or going to see the doctor about that cough.

Yeah, thank W for those 'tax cuts' when your property taxes go up (because the local government can't get the help from D.C. anymore). And thank him again when your sales taxes go up -again- and your kid has to get bussed miles to school because the school district had to 'downsize' because gosh, schools just can't seem to turn a profit gol-durnit, so they just have to close.

And thank W yet again when a TB/hepatitus/meningitis/smallpox/polio/flu epidemic fires up among the growing number of homeless, coz those 'tax cuts' could have gone toward a public health program instead of your 'insurance waiver.' So be sure to remember to thank him again, when you have to get immunized against all those lovelies.

And while we're on malaria, thank W again when it comes to your neighborhood, because it probably will. In spite of what W says, our planet is undergoing some serious climatic changes, and W's plan is to ignore it. We really have little idea what to expect, but we know that glaciers are melting at a demonstrably alarming rate, and species once relegated to the Tropics are spreading.

A vote for W is like maxing-out your credit cards at a video arcade: Immediate gratification, to be paid for ...um... later *wink.* He doesn't care about what happens after he's got his share- remember what he said about his place in history? Doesn't matter, he said: "we'll all be dead."

*blink blink*

You are being robbed.
You are being lied to.
You are being conned.

Think about this: without concern for his own safety, John Kerry asked to be sent into hell, to serve his country. Then he came back and told us all just how hellish it was, and asked that his brother soldiers be brought home safely too. Christ, how cool is that? I wish I had balls like that.

After that, he went on to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusets, and then as Senator of that state for eighteen years. Eighteen years. This guy has given his entire adult life, to serve his country. His state has re-elected him again and again, because up close, they can see that he means what he says, and he's trying to be fair.

The core of the Republican ideal is noble: that anybody can get ahead, if they work hard. The problem arises because the people who get ahead, forget about those who did not.

We are not islands, none of us. No gated community, no security system, no Department of Fatherland Defense will protect you or your loved ones, from disease or poverty.

And they'll come.

Coz the core of the Republican ideal is that anybody can get ahead. And that means others get left behind. And in a competetive social climate like that, it's dog-eat-dog, baby. You're a winner or you're a loser. But when things get tight, as they will more and more in coming years (considering environmental degradation, water and fuel shortages, hotter summers, colder winters, less predictable weather, etc), more and more people have to get left behind.

One day it's gonna be you.

Vote Democrat in November. Bring some balance back to Washington.

"Miscalculation." In other words, they didn't think it through. They didn't have a Plan B. They just didn't stop to consider that they might be wrong.

"Ohh yeah, the future! We forgot about that part. Again."

Speaking of the future, it looks wet.

Oh, the hypocrisy... it makes my head spin.

"Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric. Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are.
How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside."

--Zell Miller, 2004, "America's Most Discredited Senator"

"John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington…He fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment."

--Zell Miller, praising Kerry's voting record in a 2001 speech