Tag Archives: Legislators

Get a job you dirty hippie! Unhelpful advice which activists take personally.

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Occupy Wall Street composed a chant to rebut the ageless heckle hurled at protesters: GET A JOB YOU DIRTY HIPPIE! After Zuccotti Park was razed and Occupiers regrouped, they offerd this rejoinder. Remember it?
    “Got a JOB. Took a SHOWER.
    We’re still occupying, speaking truth to power!”
Of course it wasn’t true, or at least whether we did or not was as irrelevant as the original misconception. But street activists come up against misguided advice much more pernicious than the crudely insulting. Consider the constructive advice from journeymen activists who’ve been at this for a long time and know how it’s done. You know the ones, who preach nonviolence or you’ll never get anywhere, as if they have a record of success or fount of experience more illustrative than the old grindstone. False history has even robbed them of the authentic lessons to glean from Gandhi and MLK. Yet even the best-intentioned of our peers caution that movements will never take hold without blablabla. This sacred cow, for instance: community outreach.

A colleague of mine recently asked about my ideas to better reach out to the African American community vis-a-vis the protests which Occupy Denver has been spearheading to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter uprisings in Baltimore and Ferguson. At face value it’s a reasonable question as Occupy franchizes across the country have been predominantly white. At base however, the distinction is academic and the implication insulting.

In Denver, as probably in many multicultural urban centers since Ferguson, authorities have succeeded in working with community leaders to redirect street protest into the usual back channels. In Denver the spiritual leaders have kept their flocks locked in their churches. When Denver high schoolers began to stage walk-outs, school administrators put the schools on lockdown. Traditional social justice groups fell victim to academics and their identity politics diatribes. White priviledge must “make space”, in effect, step back, whether or not alternative leaders were knocking. In Denver the most significant protest entity impervious to scholatisc impotence or the wiles of religious submission was Occupy Denver. Since 2011 this ad hoc collection of protest-hardened activists could mobilize at the flick of a switch, usually through social media. By definition, Occupy refused to bind themselves to everybody else’s longstanding arrangements of detente.

Of course this persistence is not static and there are ceaseless internal pressures to conform and play for crumbs. Table scraps are sustenance after all, and all mature decisions are compromises. Adults choose lesser evils, safety nets, the bird in the hand, wisdom over altruism. Can dreamers even be sure the burning stove isn’t an adage meant to waylay us from our childish intuition about freedom? From the frying pan into the fire is more probably the forbidden roadmap to revolution.

You want to know the sage advice that burns me up the most? Comrades telling me the struggle will be a long haul. A marathon. Are you kidding me? Revolution is a sprint! We’ve got to light a fire under your ass!

In any case. Community outreach. What’s the problem? My first thought was of the criticism protesters still face everyday: “GET A JOB!” Everyone seems to have their own idea about what other activists are supposed to be doing.

On the subject of Occupy and “outreach” I offer six points:

1. Did Occupy Wall Street reach out to the community of brokers and bankers on Wall Street? It did not. Occupy was about disruption, gathering on the street and uniting activists. Community organizing was another sort of activism. Occupy was not voting, or going around trying to get out the vote, or lobbying legislators, or gathering petition signatures, or fundraising, or taking in cats, or walking in people’s shoes. All of these are perfectly constructive things, but they’re fundamental to what Occupy was not. I know it sounds mature to talk about building community and helping out and being less disruptive but those are tasks that keep conventional social justice groups too busy to occupy.

2. I am reminded of a lesson learned as occupiers coordinated their efforts. If you feel there is a task going undone, you probably should step up to do it. Others have their hands full with what they are doing. If you feel there is a deficiency and it’s important to you, fill it.

3. That said, there is an imperative not to dillute the fundamental mission. If tangential efforts drain the human resources needed for the goal that brought everyone together, then somebody is winning and it’s not Occupy.

4. Denver’s African American community already has their leaders, most of them undisposed to street activism. Occupy Denver’s community is with activists of all colors. We reach them through the message, our actions, and our unending persistance. None of these are based on color lines.

5. Occupy has many black activist allies. On the street we support them EVERY TIME regardless of whether they support us. Even if it’s “their” issue. If they are not able to rally as frequently as we can, it’s not their fault. (That is White middle class privilege.)

6. If you think the African American community is central to addressing the probem of racism, that’s a problem. It should be up to the WHITE AMERICAN COMMUNITY to shout “BLACK LIVES MATTER” the loudest of all.

Springs Democrats hope democracy loses to State Senator John Morse

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COLORADO SPRINGS, CO- International news headlines read “G-20 Summit Overshadowed by Syrian Crisis” but not in Colorado Springs! Here every politically active Democrat was working to defeat a recall of state senate leader John Morse, a democrat though barely. Morse is a duly elected, if unlikely, representative of conservative El Paso County, being assailed by a mutinous GOP majority angered by his stewarding of gun control legislation. The NRA has backed a blitzkrieg recall campaign, aided by local Republican officials and judges who connived election parameters designed to coax a recall victory. But who’s on the side of right, presumably with the people?

Democrats are crying foul. They’re cursing corporate money and lobbyist-villain NRA, complaining that recalls shouldn’t be motivated by ideological reasons. Really? Are recalls only for impropriety? I’d prefer corruption be answered with criminal charges, and scandal should produce resignations. I’d say ideology would be the most appropriate reason for a recall, especially if it’s about a difference of opinion about the idea of representational government.

Ironically, the underdog’s usual complaint is that incumbents are always impossible to unseat, even when they act in total defiance of their constituents. Don’t you hate that? The irony is compounded because no one will deny that the overwhelming majority in these neighborhoods oppose any abridgement of the Second Amendment right to wave guns. Senator Morse acted in defiance of that interest. Undemocratic, is what he was, as his critics accuse.

We like to vilify the NRA as the worst of special interest lobbies, but one can’t accuse them of being corporate, they’re famously supported by members! The NRA is probably the single MOST democratic of lobbying outfits. The fact that the corporate media loves to demonize the NRA should give one pause about who’s looking after who.

What’s very odd is that the NRA-backed Republicans are targeting a term-limited Democrat who has only a year left in office. What’s that about? Pundits speculate that an NRA win would be symbolic, so it’s worth the money they’re spending. Maybe. It certainly will reinforce the corporate narrative that legislators daren’t cross the NRA. How convenient.

But the recall campaign, a national story now, is not so mysterious if you think about the Kabuki nature of our two party theater. The defense campaign contrived for Senator Morse is a disquietingly artificial shade for grassroots. Against “People Against Morse” the Democrats countered with: “A Whole Lot of People For Morse”, which is certainly a catchy slogan for a politician looking to highten his visibility for a run at a next office, but for locals it lacks the ring of authenticity. What viewers outside the area don’t know is that John Morse has been a superlatively minor functionary, with a reputation for backstabbing more than leading, and certainly no one to bother defending or applauding, even if his name came up, which it rarely did.

Before this recall, people hadn’t cared enough to even think about John Morse, except to spout the usual lesser of evils rap, when there is consensus, it’s that Morse isn’t the creepiest person they knew, depending on who you asked. Now the louse has “a whole lot of people” behind him, how odd. That’s a whole lot of people who don’t care that Morse misrepresented his district, who don’t care that he’s been a war-monger right-of-center pro-industry shill. Because he’s of their party, Democrats want to propel Morse upward. And this is how malignant anti-democratic corporate bureaucrats roll into power.

To judge by the press, and the surge of effort to combat the recall effort, it appears John Morse does have “a whole lot” of support. Propaganda and amnesia.

If the recall succeeds, Americans will be shown that money does influence elections and special interest groups are adversaries to be feared. Sounds like an honest lesson. If the recall succeeds, the displeasure of the gun-loving voters of Colorado Springs will have been heard. If the recall fails, you’ll have Democrats unironically cheering against what Democracy is supposed to look like. In either event, John Morse comes out looking like somebody likes him, and that’s a step in the wrong direction for those of us without a political machine.

Occupy Congress? Who is that really keeping occupied? You.

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A number of my friends want to OCCUPY CONGRESS. Jan 17 Opening Day. I suppose every day might be appropriate to read our representatives the riot act, but doesn’t such an action perpetuate the delusion that our legislators ever listen? Proponents, Dems typically, argue “well, it’s the only system we got.” They say that about elections, about incumbents, and about Capitalism. Well, ours are the only lives we have too. Why piss them away on old assumptions, which have delivered us from absolutely nothing? A corporate-trust, inherited-wealth hierarchy is designed to outpace ordinary lifespans. Occupy Congress? Who is that really keeping occupied?

Wisconsin election close, but no cigar, if there was a cigar

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The recall defeat in Wisconsin brings to mind Emma Goldman’s famous adage: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
Now we’ll never know if a Democrat majority in Madison would have behaved any different than a herd of Republicans. I doubt it. Activists are patting themselves on the back for their partial success, saying the effort was worth it, which is the usual consolation for losers, and ignores the fact that many of Wisconsin’s present Democratic Party legislators already betray their constituents. Here’s another quote, by a Japanese engineering professor I had in college who used to say in broken English: “You build bridge. It fall down. No partial credit.” Imagine what he’d have thought of a bridge to nowhere.

Tony, David Barsamian says hello

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The local Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission found a little more between the lines than they may have counted on from visiting scholar/lecturer David Barsamian. Although he preached the habitual Gandhian nonviolent civil disobedience, and putting faith in reforming electoral politics, some heresy emerged from the mix. Asked how he could cite 1984 with the authority of scripture, three times, but overlook how Orwell derided nonviolence as a tool of totalitarian control, Barsamian reminded the audience that Orwell joined the Spanish Civil War against Franco, believing that Fascist threat justified armed struggle. Barsamian then clarified that neither of the sainted NV Big 3, Gandhi, Mandela or MLK, completely eschewed violent resistance.

The PPJPC audience may be too far gone to appreciate the distinction. This was demonstrated by a rambling question/interjection by a PPJPC member luminary. Not only is the PPJPC nonviolent, it sanctions only nonviolent communication, to elaborate further, non-protest, and even non-talking about negative things. While she was thankful for David Barsamian informing his audiences, she felt what he was doing served to defeat the positive outlook necessary to float a new consciousness. There’s a growing world movement, apparently. What’s required, said she, was a concentrated focus on the positive. I paraphrase, but I lack the parochial school vocabulary.

Fortunately, Barsamian politely pooh-pooed that notion, though not with the ridicule I would have liked. Barsamian’s theme was about historical illiteracy, and while he could fault education and media for the sad state of US critical aptitude, he could offer just the usual intra-capitalism strategies of consumer boycotts and hope for turning our legislators around. For Barsamian, our task as activists is to spread understanding to the oligarchs. The corporate bosses have children too, how could they fail to recognize that the destruction of our planet will be their doom as well?

Barsamian could have found the answer in a parable he recited while illustrating another point. He asked the audience if we’d heard the story of the scorpion and the camel, a parable circulating in popular culture to vilify Islam.

The tale recounts a scorpion who asked a camel to ferry him across the river. The camel declined, certain the scorpion would sting him. After much pleading from the scorpion, the camel eventually decided to offer the benefit of the doubt, hoping his good deed would overcome the scorpion’s reputation. In the middle of the river, “Oy vay” Barsamian lampooned, the scorpion struck. Asked why he betrayed the camel, the scorpion replied “Welcome to the Middle East.”

Yes, it’s a despicable slander of the Arab, and by intentional extension, the Muslim character. Especially as you consider the original version of this tale, an ancient Sanskrit parable, which the Zionist propagandists are not foolish enough to quote in the original. When you pretend a universal truth damns an entire people, the racism is too obvious.

Originally the scorpion’s victim was a turtle, and the argument which won the turtle over was: why would the scorpion sting him in the middle of the river, were both would surely drown? After the backstabbing, the explanation given to the turtle was a moral that has enlightened mankind since ancient times, I’m certain everyone in the audience knew it. Quoth the scorpion: it is my nature.

You knew I was a scorpion when you took me on your back.

Who are the turtles today, thinking that corporations and capitalism can be turned by our altruism?

A last question came from an audience member who expressed their faltering hopefulness. In reply, Barsamian pointed to other milestones in history when dramatic relief was also more than the average person could have foreseen. 1958 in Cuba, 1788 in France and 1775 in the American Colonies. YES, thank you David Barsamian!

I’m guessing I’m going to regret not having yelled out to put the exclamation mark on where Barsamian puts his faith. Each of the events which he tenders to offer hope, was a VIOLENT REVOLUTION!

As to the cryptic title of this post. On every visit to the Springs, the indefatigable Barsamian witnesses a further disintegration of our local peace community. Not long ago, Tony caused an uproar with his boisterous complaints of the PPJPC’s misplaced piety. Perhaps David witnesses such fractures everywhere in the movement these days, the bristling tension growing between activists and the elders ascended into their delusions. Into such atmospheres Barsamian does not hold himself above the fray. To even the divisive Tony, for example he wished to convey his warmest regards.

Media reports of wingnut death threats meant to amplify fear not illuminate

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What message is the media conveying by sensationalizing threatening phone calls and letters being received by US legislators in the wake of passing the health care bill? A chief element of the story is strangely missing, namely, WHO is making them. Death threats and inciting violence are criminal acts. News reports about crime usually don’t conclude without reassurances that law enforcement is pursuing the perpetrators. In this case, the media seems satisfied to blame right wing extremists, as if such acts is unpreventable, for Democrats to dodge like flaming arrows from an enraged populace –so called. This is fearmongering by a corporate media complicit in trying to block health reform.

Healthcare reformist TR Reid visits COS to say universal coverage not possible

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The Healing of America: a Global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care.COLORADO SPRINGS– [UPDATED]
My question to TR Reid, who speaks tonight at CC’s Palmer Hall, is how can voices for health care rights get past the corporate media editors?
As Washington Post Denver bureau chief and NPR reporter, Reid’s answer will reveal his earnestness, because most clearly his editors have kept the upper hand. The Independent, which is sponsoring tonight’s event, has invited two respondents to offer rebuttals, but both represent the health care status quo, there is no one advocating for socialized medicine, automatically framing Reid’s centrism as the people’s best hope.

I remember a TR Reid interview on NPR, which left me with the distinct impression of a hobbled argument. Look at the subtitle of his Frontline documentary: Sick Around the World: Can the U.S. learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health care system? They don’t say “what can the US learn” but can it. That’s the same false question the corporate media use to approach Global Warming. Though the answer is a multiplicity of affirmatives, the headline posed as a question leaves the viewer with the impression the conclusion is his to decide. The moon: is it there?

A follow-up Sick Around America was famously, in alternative media circles at least, altered to endorse insurance mandates. Reid broke away from the final product when PBS refused to mention his conclusion that health insurance should not be for profit. Reid chalked it up to a disagreement, not specifically a motive.

The book Mr. Reid will be signing is titled The Healing of America: a global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care. His own disjointed title reflects why he returned empty-handed. Can you imagine if it had read simply: a global quest for health care?

Better, cheaper and fairer are redundant qualifiers and load the theme with false perspective. “Better” assumes American care can be ranked on a scale, this book is obviously only for those getting care. “Cheaper” assumes health care must have a price — Universal health care is free. “Fairer” again assumes that our current equilibrium is in some measurable aspect fair, besides which, the concept is a fallacy. There’s unfair and fair. Moving from one toward the other, fairness is unfair until it is fair. Besides which, every schoolchild knows “fairer” is expressed as “more fair.” If Reid had been honest, he would have phrased it “less unfair.”

TR Reid applauds the health care available in other developed countries, but notes the other systems are not without their flaws. Is this some sort of psychological inducement to feed the American ego, that US reform can aim higher than the health care as a right provided elsewhere? I think it’s a loophole with which to scuttle his proposal.

It seems TR Reid is ignoring the chief obstacle to health care. It’s not reason, it’s not taxes. The chief obstacle is capitalist greed, it’s class warfare, and the social systems of our like nations are under attack as well. The shortcomings which TR Reid sees in Europe are the result of legislative meddling with systems enacted by the people.

Americans aren’t going to get health care by waiting on their legislators, or the benevolence of the corporations. The audience tonight may be impressed by TR Reid’s findings, but he’s offering nothing but placebo. Talking about health care, visualizing it, salivating at its proximity, is as much taste as TR Reid, the Washington Post and its corporate health industry advertisers will have us get.

UPDATE: TR Reid spoke to a standing room only crowd and received a standing ovation. As per usual for journalists, he provided his own disclaimer for venturing from objectivity when he posited that providing health care for all could be a moral obligation. But on the matter of The Politics of Health Care Reform, the topic of his speech, he had nothing to say.

Really, he threw the question back at the audience. Why won’t the USA provide universal coverage to its people. I’ve thought about it a lot, he told us, and I don’t have the answer.

When it came why some countries pay for Viagra, while others do not, TR Reid was humorously inquisitive. His rundown of the various medical systems throughout the world was decidedly comprehensive. But on the question of the hour, Reid was the customary incurious newspaperman which might explain his success in major media.

Not once, even at someone’s prompting, did Reid mention the for-profit worm in America’s medical system’s rotten apple. We’re told that Reid walked away from the second Frontline documentary for its whitewash of his criticism of the for-profit incentive which prevents payment systems from serving the public good. He’s excised the subject from his own presentation too. Instead, Reid focused on the millions of uninsured Americans, without a mention of the bigger population of victims, those insured who are denied care nonetheless.

Reid was pessimistic about the chances for near-term reform, based on anecdotal evidence of comments he’s received on the Frontline website. A year ago his documentary got mostly supportive comments. This year they are predominantly critical. Thus, Reid concludes, Americans do not want health care reform.

His audience tonight applauded every punchline about health care as a human right, yet Reid held that we did not want it badly enough. I hate it when the best of our spokesmen blame the audience.

Colorado reps support Israel war crimes

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All 7 of Colorado’s US representatives voted to put their congressional stamp of approval on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, joining 337 more yeas for House Resolution 867, Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the “Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.”

What are US Congressmen doing standing between Israel and every other nation (except for the US and its territories) united in wishing to enforce international law? Did you elect your representative to brownshirt for Zionism? Below are lists of the 344 yeas (179 of the Dems), and the 36 nays.

WHO VOTED TO SUPPRESS THE GOLDSTONE REPORT: To recommend that the US use its veto in the UN Security Council to reject the will of the UN General Assembly:

(At best these legislators are bowing to the tremendous pressures imposed by AIPAC and other Jewish community lobbies. At worst, they believe a state can use disproportionate force and collective punishment against a civilian population under the pretext of defending itself.)

Aderholt, Adler (NJ), Akin, Alexander, Altmire, Andrews, Arcuri, Austria, Baca, Bachus, Barrow, Bartlett, Barton (TX), Bean, Berkley, Berman, Berry, Biggert, Bilbray, Bilirakis, Bishop (GA), Bishop (NY), Bishop (UT), Blackburn, Blunt, Boccieri, Boehner, Bonner, Bono Mack, Boozman, Boren, Boswell, Boyd, Brady (TX), Braley (IA), Bright, Broun (GA), Brown (SC), Corinne Brown, Ginny Brown-Waite, Buchanan, Burgess, Burton (IN), Butterfield, Buyer, Calvert, Camp, Campbell, Cantor, Cao, Capito, Cardoza, Carnahan, Carney, Carter, Cassidy, Castle, Castor (FL), Chaffetz, Chandler, Childers, Chu, Cleaver, Clyburn, Coble, Coffman (CO), Cohen, Cole, Conaway, Connolly (VA), Costa, Costello, Courtney, Crenshaw, Crowley, Cuellar, Culberson, Cummings, Davis (CA), Davis (IL), DeGette, DeLauro, Dent, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Diaz-Balart, Dicks, Donnelly (IN), Doyle, Dreier, Driehaus, Edwards (TX), Ehlers, Ellsworth, Emerson, Engel, Etheridge, Fallin, Fattah, Flake, Fleming, Forbes, Fortenberry, Foster, Foxx, Frank (MA), Franks (AZ), Frelinghuysen, Fudge, Gallegly, Garrett (NJ), Gerlach, Giffords, Gingrey (GA), Gohmert, Gonzalez, Goodlatte, Granger, Graves, Grayson, Al Green, Gene Green, Griffith, Guthrie, Hall (TX), Halvorson, Hare, Harman, Harper, Hastings (FL), Hastings (WA), Heller, Hensarling, Herger, Herseth Sandlin, Higgins, Hill, Himes, Hinojosa, Hodes, Hoekstra, Holden, Hoyer, Hunter, Inglis, Inslee, Israel, Issa, Jackson (IL), Jackson-Lee (TX), Jenkins, Johnson (IL), Sam Johnson, Jordan (OH), Kagen, Kanjorski, Kennedy, Kildee, Kilroy, Kind, King (IA), King (NY), Kingston, Kirk, Kirkpatrick (AZ), Kissell, Klein (FL), Kline (MN), Kosmas, Kratovil, Lamborn, Lance, Langevin, Larsen (WA), Larson (CT), Latham, LaTourette, Latta, Lee (NY), Levin, Lewis (CA), Lewis (GA), Linder, Lipinski, LoBiondo, Lowey, Lucas, Luetkemeyer, Lummis, Daniel Lungren, Mack, Maffei, Maloney, Manzullo, Marchant, Markey (CO), Markey (MA), Marshall, Massa, Matheson, Matsui, McCarthy (CA), McCarthy (NY), McCaul, McClintock, McCotter, McHenry, McIntyre, McKeon, McMahon, McMorris Rodgers, McNerney, Meek (FL), Melancon, Mica, Michaud, Miller (FL), Miller (MI), Miller (NC), Gary Miller, Minnick, Mitchell, Mollohan, Moore (KS), Moore (WI), Moran (KS), Murphy (CT), Murphy (NY), Tim Murphy, Murtha, Myrick, Nadler (NY), Napolitano, Neal (MA), Neugebauer, Nye, Oberstar, Olson, Ortiz, Paulsen, Pence, Perlmutter, Perriello, Peters, Peterson, Petri, Pitts, Platts, Poe (TX), Polis (CO), Pomeroy, Posey, Putnam, Quigley, Radanovich, Rangel, Rehberg, Reichert, Reyes, Richardson, Rodriguez, Roe (TN), Rogers (AL), Rogers (KY), Rogers (MI), Rohrabacher, Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen, Roskam, Ross, Rothman (NJ), Roybal-Allard, Royce, Ruppersberger, Rush, Ryan (OH), Ryan (WI), Salazar, Loretta Sanchez, Sarbanes, Scalise, Schakowsky, Schauer, Schiff, Schmidt, Schock, Schrader, Schwartz, Scott (GA), Scott (VA), Sensenbrenner, Serrano, Sessions, Sestak, Shadegg, Shea-Porter, Sherman, Shimkus, Shuler, Shuster, Simpson, Skelton, Slaughter, Smith (NE), Smith (NJ), Smith (TX), Smith (WA), Space, Spratt, Stearns, Sullivan, Sutton, Tanner, Taylor, Teague, Terry, Thompson (CA), Thompson (MS), Thompson (PA), Thornberry, Tiahrt, Tiberi, Titus, Tonko, Tsongas, Turner, Upton, Van Hollen, Visclosky, Walden, Walz, Wasserman Schultz, Watson, Waxman, Weiner, Westmoreland, Wexler, Whitfield, Wilson (OH), Wilson (SC), Wittman, Wolf, Yarmuth, Young (AK), Young (FL)

WHO VOTED AGAINST: Hoping the UN resolution will be allowed to prompt Israel to investigate the conduct of its IDF soldiers in Gaza, or face war crimes prosecution.

Baird, Baldwin, Blumenauer, Boustany, Capps, Carson (IN), Clarke, Clay, Davis (KY), Dingell, Doggett, Edwards (MD), Ellison, Filner, Grijalva, Hinchey, EB Johnson, Kilpatrick (MI), Kucinich, Lee (CA), Lynch, McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, Miller, George, Moran (VA), Olver, Pastor (AZ), Paul, Price (NC), Rahall, Snyder, Stark, Waters, Watt, Woolsey.

Shari McHugh is a lobbyist to the California State Legislature

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NMT has been given a deadline of 5PM MST to inform our readers that California lobbyist Shari McHugh, previously implicated by the savage blogosphere to have shared improper congress with disgraced Calif. Assemblyman Michael Duvall, was wrongly identified as Duvall’s second mistress. In fact, there is no such evidence.

NOT MY TRIBE has been informed by attorney Dale Stern of the law firm of Stern, Van Vleck, and McCarron, LLC, that McHugh, of the “highly regarded Sacramento lobbying firm of McHugh and Associates” is not the “Shar” mentioned in Duvall’s infamously indiscreet bragging. Perfectly fair enough. We regret echoing the false conjecture.

To read the lengthy comment threads on newspaper blogs about the comic fall of Representative Duvall , it’s unsurprising how many readers equate lobbyists with prostitutes. NMT is satisfied then to repeat what we have now verified by the legal notice given us, McHugh is a lobbyist to the California State Legislature.

We have now to ascertain for which special interests her firm of McHugh and Associates lobbied. Consumer advocates, for example, are usually called advocates, not lobbyists. We will then be able to extrapolate how many of our fellow citizens Shari McHugh has screwed.

It’s true, Shari McHugh was tarred with the Michael Duvall scandal on the flimsiest of innuendo. But the charge of being a lobbyist sticks.

Al Franken in the house bada boom

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Al Franken has no sooner reached Washington, that he’s fulfilling his comedic promise, no small thing. At the Judge Sotomayor confirmation hearing, Franken framed his parting question thus: he too was a Perry Mason fan, could Judge Sotomayor name the lone case which the television barrister famously lost? Giggles all around.

Surprising no one, Ms. Sotomayor was stumped. She could not name the case or the episode, though she’d claimed Perry Mason as an early inspiration for her practice of law.

Probably to step on Senator Franken’s cheap stunt, Chairman Patrick Leahy threw the question back at Franken: he’ll bite, what was the famous lost case?

“I don’t know either” said Franken, “that’s why I asked.” Bada Boom.

If Franken had looked it up on Wikipedia already, he wasn’t about to pretend to know more than a Supreme Court candidate. And if the joke got a laugh, there’s nothing gained by explaining it.

What Franken really drew out of his adversary was a concession to the shallowness of the hearing’s veneer. First, because a teevee legal case was as relevant as the other scattershot issues into which Sonia Sotomayor’s detractors were trying to mire her. And second, because all the pretense of getting-to-know-you curiosity masked nothing more than trick questions. Al Franken’s colleague expected him to know the answer because legislators only asked questions to which they knew what they wanted Sotomayor to say.

Franken played Mr. Smith Goes to Washington brilliantly, he’d asked an honest question.

And he wasn’t through. When the chairman’s microphone lost its power, Franken proclaimed that his still worked, and did Senator Leahy want to switch places?

Agents of injustice

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“Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?

Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts — a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be

‘Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.’

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus,etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be “clay,” and “stop a hole to keep the wind away,” but leave that office to his dust at least:

‘I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a secondary at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.'”

–Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

What do WMDs and President Obama’s Birth Certificate have in common?

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The Rules the Idiot Squad are trying to impose on this are the same ones George Bush imposed on the people of Iraq regarding Proving that they did not in fact, possess Weapons of Mass Destruction. “We can’t prove anything, so it’s up to the Victims to prove anything”

An Army Sergeant has joined in to the Doomed campaign to have President Obama unseated, through a frivolous lawsuit alleging that his birth certificate isn’t valid.

Yep, the Idiot Squad is still at it.

Never minding the FACT that the Bush administration, who opposed the election of President Obama, had in their control the working apparati of both the Pentagon and Homeland Security.

The thought that Bush would ever refrain from using Homeland Security for political gain was dashed 7 years ago when his Former Lt. Governor, now Governor, of the State of Texas, Rick GoodHair, was allowed to use both Department of “defense” and Homeland “security” resources to track down and intimidate rebellious legislators who left the state rather than participate in his Bush-authorized Gerrymander.

So surely it would have not escaped the attention of Bush if in fact the birth certificate were in Serious Question.

Guess the Sergeant never got the memo.

Colorado Springs own cloud maker

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capitol climate action
Last week’s POWER SHIFT 09, where 12,000 student environmentalists converged on Washington, culminated with a protest of a DC power plant which still produced 40% of its electricity from coal. A threatened largest act of mass civil disobedience pushed Washington legislators to order the plant converted completely to natural gas. What a contrast to the awareness level in our own Colorado Springs, where the city wraps around a single coal power plant which consumes two coal train loads a day, its billowing stacks, local moms describe to their kids, give it the name “cloud maker.”

From a Capitol Climate Action PDF:

Ten Problems with Coal

1. Coal Fuels Global Warming
Coal is the largest single source of global warming pollution in the United States. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that global warming threatens human populations and the world’s ecosystems with intensifying heat waves, floods, drought, extreme weather, and by spreading infectious diseases. Furthermore, it is conservatively estimated that the climate crisis will place a $271 billion annual drag on the U.S. economy alone by 2025. According to the IPCC, the United States and other industrialized countries need to reduce global warming pollution by 25–40 percent by 2025 to avoid the most severe impacts of the climate crisis.

climate justice2. Coal Kills People and Causes Disease
According to the American Lung Association, pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 23,600 premature deaths, 21,850 hospital admissions, 554,000 asthma attacks, and 38,200 heart attacks every year. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 12,000 coal miners died from black lung disease between 1992 and 2002.

3. Coal Kills Jobs
The coal industry is one of the least job-intensive industries in America. Every dollar we invest in coal is a dollar we can’t spend creating jobs in the clean energy economy. In fact, the country’s wind sector now employs more workers than the coal industry. Investing in wind and solar power would create 2.8 times as many jobs as the same investment in coal; mass transit and conservation would create 3.8 times as many jobs as coal.

4. Coal Costs Billions in Taxpayer Subsidies
The U.S. government continues to subsidize coal-related projects despite its impact on health, climate and the economy.

5. Coal Destroys Mountains
Many coal companies now use mountaintop removal to extract coal. The process involves clear-cutting forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800–1000 feet of mountaintop and dumping the waste into nearby valleys and streams. Mountain-top removal has leveled more than 450 mountains across Appalachia. Mountain-top removal destroys ecosystems, stripping away topsoil, trees, and understory habitats, filling streams and valleys with rubble, poisoning water supplies, and generating massive impoundments that can cause catastrophic floods.

6. Burning Coal Emits Mercury
Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of man-made mercury pollution. Mercury can interfere with the development of babies’ brains and neurological systems. Elevated levels of mercury in Americans’ blood puts one in six babies born in the United States at elevated risk of learning disabilities, developmental delays, and problems with fine motor coordination. Already 49 U.S. states have issued fish consumption advisories due to high mercury concentrations in freshwater bodies throughout the country, largely due to coal emissions.

7. There’s No Such Thing as “Clean Coal”
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), or what the coal industry is marketing as “clean coal,” is a hypothetical technology that may one day capture carbon dioxide from power plants and store it underground. However, the scheme has never been successfully demonstrated at a commercial scale, is wildly expensive, and can’t deliver in time to help with the climate crisis. Nationwide, approximately $5.2 billion in taxpayer and ratepayer money has been invested in the technology, but a recent government report found that of 13 projects examined, eight had serious delays or financial problems, six were years behind schedule, and two were bankrupt. Even if engineers are able to overcome the chemical and geological challenges of separating and safely storing massive quantities of CO2, a study published recently shows that CCS requires so much energy that it would increase emissions by up to 40 percent of smog, soot, and other dangerous pollution.

8. Coal Kills Rivers
Last December, a billion gallons of toxic coal sludge broke through a dike at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee and flooded the Emory and Clinch Rivers, tributaries of the massive Tennessee River system. Within hours, ash laden with mercury, lead, arsenic, benzene, and other toxic chemicals had contaminated the river and fish were washing up dead on the shore. The spill, which was followed days later by another coal ash spill at a TVA facility in Alabama, soon became a national symbol of the reality of “clean coal” and led to hearings in Congress; legislation is pending to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste. The TVA recently estimated the clean-up costs from this one spill to be up to $825 million, with higher costs possible as a result of a variety of pending civil suits against the TVA.

9. Coal Plants Are Expensive
Communities considering construction of new coal-fired power plants are seeing these impacts first-hand. During a recent debate over building a new coal-fired power plant in southwest Virginia, state officials estimated that building a new plant (which would employ just 75 people permanently), would cost 1,474 jobs as businesses laid people off to pay the higher electricity costs from a new coal plant. With the United States running a huge deficit, we’ve got to make sure that whatever investments we do make pack the biggest job-creation bang for the buck.

10. Acid Rain
Acid rain, a byproduct of burning coal, destroys ecosystems, including streams and lakes, by changing their delicate pH balance. It can destroy forests, devastate plant and animal life, and eat away at man-made monuments and buildings.

Obama presidential address to Congress addressed to dueling teleprompters

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Obama addresses tele-prompters instead of Congress
I’m sorry, but I can no longer be awed by Barack Obama’s unfaltering eloquence, I’m too distracted. When our impressive speaker in chief addresses an audience, he looks from side to side, but never in between. Have you noticed that? We think he’s politely avoiding looking into the camera, but everyone sitting directly in front of him must feel like chopped liver, struck by how enamored he is of the teleprompters.

I’m beginning to wonder if Obama spoke this way from the start at the 2004 DNC, because now it seems he never doesn’t.

Press conference
Even at his first presidential press conference a couple weeks ago, Obama’s head swiveled from side to side, his eyes never panned. From other television camera angles we could see the reporters were arrayed right in front of him. Can you imagine sitting across the table from a dinner companion who can’t stop talking to his knife and fork?

A friend of mine was impressed that Obama’s answers were nine minutes long. I was starting to wonder at the inconsistency of the president choosing questions from reporters in the center, but then proceeding to mimic what I can only presume was a campaign whistle stop posture, speaking from the back of a train caboose, alternately addressing people on one side of the track, then the other.

Address to Congress
The image above, by the way, is grabbed from a network broadcast of last night’s address to Congress. This angle wasn’t shown on the White House streamed video, nor that of C-Span. Every TV director’s cut of our new president’s speech featured plenty of his DC audience, rising and clapping repeatedly, but the official version completely avoided this specific vantage point. As far as I could tell, it was the only angle they excluded.

Care to imagine why? I’m thinking it’s why I insisted on finding the sequence to illustrate this post. I caught sight of the tell-tale spectacle on an evening news recap, and then hunted until late for the footage. Throughout the address, from plenty of angles, the teleprompters were plainly evident. It’s not like the cameras avoided them. But this was the only view which showed Obama’s line of sight.

This shot makes plain what Obama was looking at, juxtaposed against the mass of legislators, cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices, at whom he wasn’t.

I’ll leave it to another time to question why the networks supplemented their coverage with this shot, three times, instead of going with the official feed.

It could owe also to the non-novelty of everything Obama is saying, but I’m just bored. Now his mechanical turning to and fro compels me to think we’re both watching a slow-motion tennis match. And instead of following the ball, our eyes linger on the players, as if the goal of this game is to compare what the players are wearing to determine whose tennis white socks were the ones bleached with Clorox and whose were not.

Teleprompters

President Obama’s gaze was bouncing back and forth between the teleprompters obviously. And what’s wrong with reading a speech anyway? That Obama was reading was obvious by the occasional false starts he made. I noted the omission of a consonant which produced an incongruous word choice, and a missed punctuation, among others. Neither would be errors made in extemporized locution or a recitation of memorized text.

We can see the smoky plexi-glass plates on stands positioned at each side of the podium. Angled at 45 degree to the floor, they reflect whatever is transcripted from projectors below, without blocking the view of the audience, and creating the illusion that the speaker is looking through the glass. The panels bookend the podium at something like 60 degrees to either side of the speaker, which means his head has an approximate 120 degree range of motion, except really only at the two extremes. The entire panorama in between, as Obama’s quick head turns suggest, remains perilously unprompted.

Does it seem to you like Obama retrieves only a solitary phrase from each side? As near as I can measure, Obama turns his head with the same frequency that George Bush used to take a pause. Bush started to make fewer gaffs when he stuck to: short phrase, breath, short phrase, breath. Now it looks like Obama could have served as Bush’s metronome. At least Obama’s delivery demonstrates a stronger lung capacity; and I think we’re all thrilled with the more sophisticated grammar. But has the new president as limited an audio-memory as our previous idiot in chief? I’m afraid to think it.

I am still impressed by President Obama’s projected confidence, and I am not about to confuse him for a moron, but that first press conference worried me. Why is it, and how is it, that Obama would be fielding questions with the aid of a teleprompter?

Remember when simpleton Dubya was stumped by an unexpected question and told the correspondent that he wished he’d received his “written question beforehand?” It’s not difficult to imagine that questions are submitted ahead of time, nor might it be so unreasonable, when the Free World hangs on a US president’s every utterance. But I did imagine that Obama was up to the task of responding with an answer. He needn’t improvise one, but you’d think he could trusted to remember it.

Are the teleprompters there to assist the president with his phrasing, or are they there to enforce that his answers, like the correspondents’ questions, stick to the script?

Murdoch puts Obama on public notice: white men licensed to kill bad monkeys

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cartoon
The page in the New York Post before this cartoon featured a photograph of President Obama signing [writing] the Stimulus Bill. Putting aside the offensive connotation, does the cartoon work on any level? Is there a joke in linking the Chimpanzee gone native in Connecticut to the Stimulus Bill? What is it?

Is the cartoonist drawing on a third association, to the big laugh line from Die Hard, when an helicopter full of FBI guys, snotty agents who didn’t want the assistance of our hero, explodes, and an LAPD regular says: “I guess they’ll have to get some more FBI guys.”

What is it? The Stimulus Bill was written by a monkey? It was argued and reshaped by a dueling phalanx of legislators. It may have become disfigured, but was it by any stretch engineered by a monkey?

Certainly the moneyed class, which Murdoch represents, objects to giving any of the treasury to middle America. It can go to banks, or CEOs, or in the form of tax cuts to the multi-billionaires, but craft an economic solution that puts jobs or financial relief in the hands of ordinary people and the corporate press is not interested. So the bill author would be a bleeding-heart, or a sentimentalist, or Rainman for that matter. But where does the analogy work as a monkey?

A chimp-faced lampoon worked for Bush, because of the resemblance, and the mental acuity, and verbal skills. The Stimulus Bill can be plenty of wrong things, was it dumb?

II.
Here’s the apology the NYPost offered for their cartoon. What they said, or left unsaid, certainly didn’t match their bad taste to argue their cartoon wasn’t about Obama, but naming the piece THAT CARTOON.

Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon – caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut – has created considerable controversy.

It shows two police officers standing over the chimp’s body: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” one officer says.

It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period.

But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon – even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.

III.
This note came in from Rita Ague:

What’s wrong with this picture?

Of course there’s racism out there, but be careful not to fall victom to spin. Rupert M. is one of the giants in the neo-con coup d’etat. The loss of a free press to military/industrial/corporate interests, and resulting news being turned into spin and hate mongering, is but one of many reasons I’ve put back on my old legal and journalist hats.

We are in such a hell of a mess, and we’re passing that mess onto and into the rest of the world. I’m not sure we can dig ourselves out. We may not see relief, and the kind of change we of good hearts and good minds so long for, come about in our lifetime.

Let’s pray constantly that some Karl Rove and Rupert Murdoch induced bigot, or a neo-con agent posing as same, does not shoot or do away with Obama. The cause of the killing will, of course, be blamed on racism. But the real reason will be the fear the neo-cons have that our new president is going to take away their power and control, and quash their currently-being-exposed incredible greed.

My fear is that Murdoch, by and through his New York Post newspaper, FOX spin and hate channel, and all the other mass media he and his Neocon cohorts own and/or control, is spinning us to believe that some forthcoming assassination, when it occurs, was inevitable and based on a rise on racism and hatred, when it was truly based on more evil, Karl Rove-like Machiavellian (the end justifies any means) manipulation.

God help and protect us all, particularly Barack Obama.

Rita followed it up with this plea to MoveOn.org:

I need your help, Marc, in getting out the warning through Move-On’s far reaching Internet connections:

BEWARE! THE GIANT (military/industrial/corporate) NEO-CON SPIN MACHINE (formerly known as the “liberal mass media”) IS CRANKING UP

OBAMA, BAR THE DOOR!!!

I’m scared, Marc. It wasn’t accidental that the Post ran the dead ape cartoon with it’s deadly caption. Nor is it an accident that we are suddenly hearing more and more about all the racism and all the ‘racist’ assassination attempts being planned and made on Obama.

My intuition/precognition will be supported if and when we hear more of this racism and hate against “The Man” jive. As the old advertising saying goes: ‘When you think they’re tired of hearing about it, that’s when they’re just beginning to catch onto what you’re trying to tell/sell.”

I could be wrong about this “IT WAS A RACIST THING THAT DID HIM IN” campaign, but just in case I’m right, shouldn’t we be safe rather than sorry, and get a Move-On Campaign and heavy duty word of mouth going through the net, that we’re onto what’s being spun in the mass media, and why it’s being spun.

For sometime now, my slogan has been UNDO THE (military/industrial/corporate) COUP! Now I think we’d better come up with a new slogan, and start spreading it, as far and as wide as we can. It could be something like:

KEEP OBAMA ALIVE AND WELL – TELL THE PRESS TO GO TO HELL!

Rod Blagojevich a Great American Hero

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Governor Rod Blogojevich Blaggo BlaggovichDeposed Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich earns my nomination for great American hero. What hyperbolic laurels would fit a loudmouth buffoon? Be fair. Blagojevich brought the media spotlight to an overlooked exploit of American political cronyism: a governor’s solitary prerogative to appoint national legislators. Alright, Blago didn’t mean to. But if the little Dutch boy had stuck his Rod Blagojevich into the dike, instead of his finger, would the little pervert be any less a hero?

Had you wondered how so many otherwise quite obviously unelectable, pasty white men of entitled bearing, each of them visibly the creepiest of crooks, become unassailable political incumbents? They sneak into office aided by other white cronies. And the governor’s appointment is the fast track.

Blagojevich wanted his share in the payola, but maybe other governors have simply been more discrete. A look at just the appointments made after the formation of Barack Obama’s cabinet, turns up odors of the most dubious of machinations. In this case, those chosen were Democrats who look more like Republicans, and certainly nothing like the kind of politician which the mostly progressive American voter would have supported in the last election.

Should legislative seats be appointed by a governor? Someone has to do it I suppose. A governor is elected after all. Maybe in this instance he’s representing his constituents in choosing a senator for them.

But a recent Obama cabinet appointment episode calls that justification into question. When Obama picked Republican Senator Judd Gregg for Commerce Secretary, a deal was struck whereby the senator would only consent to the appointment if the senator’s state governor agreed to allow a Republican replacement. Who then, can be said to have made the choice of that representative?

Whether it’s a bribe paid to a governor, fundraising shenanigans, or a favor offered by the president, it’s still crooked.

The unmitigated gall of General Motors

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networking-profits.jpg You might have missed it, but General Motors yesterday took out a full page advertisement in the National newspaper, USA Today? Today, that same newspaper’s website has this info online Bipartisan group of legislators craft auto bailout compromise So what was in the advertisement that poor little Ol’ General Motors paid for? They asked for $25 billion dollars, that’s what!

Imagine if you or I went bankrupt with the aid of The Lawyer online at Not My Tribe? Would he have taken out out an ad for us in the local Gagzette, asking for the government to give us $25,000 dollars to keep from going bankrupt and perhaps not being able to provide for our family members, give the landlord rental money, and pay the loan agency their monthly piece of pie? Just like GM, we have a lot of people depending on us, and would he run that ad for us asking for the US government to take taxpayer money and bail us out to save THE ECONOMY?

Maybe those on welfare assistance need to learn from the high paid CEOs and bless their hearts, take out a full page national ad in USA Today? Give us $25 billion now! We need it for our welfare cadillacs! Oops, they don;t actually have any of those cars, but the CEOs probably do. Big Pink ones!

Barack, what you going to do, Buster? Oops, I think we already know the answer to that. We haven’t been sleeping. All these dompanies aren’t advocating for their own brand of socialism at all. They are merely doing like the military industrial complex done always, even in the very best of financial times for them. They are merely looking for more governmental paid welfare for the super rich. What unmitigated gall they have! And they look down on the poor unemployed for asking for some scraps from time to time!

Enough of red white and proud bigots

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monkey-bigotWhen Oh When can we unleash on the professional elements in our culture who’ve been driving the basest common denominator into the mud? Mud wrestling, motor-cross, monster- trucks and other mugly indulgences clearly proven now to be anything but harmless.

When are we going to take the country singer drunkards, talk radio buffoons, TV talking-lowbrows, and hirsute airheads off to work the carnies where they belong? parking-lot-bigot Mindless amusements have produced a mindless public as bigoted and idiotic as it is vacuous. Cynical, narcissistic and post-ironic are really just terms of flattery for detached deluded know-nothings.

Have you ever seen Americans Uglier than these?

Here’s someone who attended a McCain rally with a simian effigy of Obama, another idiot who closed his parking lot to Obama supporters, and a so-called independent voter who’s defying the landslide trend and swaying toward McCain. independent-voter-for-mccain Let’s also give honorable mention to the five Alaskan Republican legislators who tried to halt the investigation into Palin’s misconduct as governor. Rep. Wes Keller, Rep. Mike Kelly, Rep. Bob Lynn, Sen. Fred Dyson, and Sen. Tom Wagoner.

And how about the October [13] surprise of a resurgent Wall Street, rallying on cue to McCain’s “soaring” speech, marking his “comeback” on the rising tide of nothing but his same old bullshit verbiage, and most of all, diverting news desks from the Palin Troopergate guilty verdict. I’m afraid the GOP is never going to go broke underestimating the American public.

Bush the unimpeachable war criminal

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HangmanRemember when Bill Clinton was “rebuked” for misleading Congress about the nature of his conduct with a White House intern? I’m sorry. I meant IMPEACHED.
 
A decade later legislators have concluded that Bush deliberately misled Congress and the American people about Iraq, al-Qaeda, et al, drawing the nation into an illegal war, resulting in untold deaths and a ruined economy. Is Bush impeached? Indicted? No, he’s REBUKED.

Greg Mortenson’s own cup of tea

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In his own words, Greg Mortenson is quite a bit more revealing about his motives in Pakistan. Pax Americana is definitely a subtlety lost on him.
 
Central Asian regions where CAI has financed constructionThis map is from the Central Asia Institute‘s own brochure. It shows the parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan where Greg Mortenson’s CAI has helped finance community building projects. I thought the shaded area formed an interesting buffer zone along the border to… CHINA! Is that region of greater interest peacewise than the war-torn borders facing Afghanistan or India?!

The current Independent features a cover story on Mortensen, to promote his Jan 15 Colorado College appearance. It turns out he’s as inarticulate as his dictation of Three Cups of Tea suggests. Here’s how Mortenson regards his unwitting Islamic accomplices:

…we bring in mullahs who support girls’ education. We have two ex-Taliban who are now teaching in our girls’ schools and have become some of our biggest proponents. It’s somewhat similar to an ex-smoker or an alcoholic who has changed and becomes very against smoking or drinking.

Here Mortenson describes how his schools convince Muslim communities to enroll their girls:

We even use good old-fashioned Western capitalism. We go and tell a mullah: If I want to marry a girl in your village, how many goats do I owe you? He might say five goats. If she has a fifth-grade education, how many goats would I then have to pay you? And the answer would probably be 15 to 20 goats. A goat is usually $30 to $40 each.

And then we tell the mullah: If all the girls are educated, just think of how much more wealth you’d have. Then you can see his eyes get bigger.

At least Mortenson is up front about the Capitalist invasion for which he plays scout. Evidently the untapped region’s girls are for sale, and once educated they’ll have value-added for mercantilism.

American society tends to glorify education for its own sake. What “education” is CAI providing to the Muslims exactly? Do CAI’s texts teach that secular culture is intent on the eradication of spiritual culture? Is the CAI curriculum simply favoring western indoctrination over an Islamist counterpart? I’ll let Mortenson show his hand:

perhaps the most controversial, is our Islamic studies for about two or three hours every week. It’s very tempered, and we include in that learning the differences between Sunni and Shia. We’ve also added what you might call religion studies, or learning about different faiths or religion.

In a monotheistic society you need that like emperor penguins need tap dancing lessons. Imagine the uproar if we tried to teach New Life Church kids that the faith of their parents was only one extreme of many! A good idea no doubt, but unlikely to provoke a peaceful reaction.

POSTSCRIPT
Our junior high student came home yesterday with three promotional pieces about Three Cups of Tea in advance of Mortenson making an appearance at her school. Do you wonder how he’s getting such press? One of the pamphlets instructs the children about how they can “Help Three Cups of Tea (3CT) surge:” (My emphasis, their slip of the forked tongue)

1. Recommend 3CT to at least one person or place: family, friend, colleague, book club, professor and teacher, student, and places of worship. It also makes a great gift! (You’ve got to be kidding me! 3CT practically screams you’re illiterate.)

2. Visit 3CT website…

3. Recommend 3CT for ‘One Book – One Read’ at http://www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/one-book.html (please don’t).

4. Recommend 3CT as a University or college-wide… read http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/articles/070607/7summer.htm (YGTBFKM)

5. Ask bookstores without 3CT to stock the book, especially airport bookstores. (?)

6. Send 3CT with a personal note to your Senators and/or Representatives (US legislators, why?)

7. Write a ‘letter editor’ [sic] to suggest 3CT and to support education and literacy… to promote peace, economic development and prosperity. (Emphasis mine. Co-opting Muslim girls for Capitalism promotes peace how?)

8. Ask magazines, newspapers, or radio station [sic] to review 3CT (they suggest sending a copy)

9. Learn about the power of girls’ education… in What Works in Girls Education (by Neocon think tank author Barbara Hertz)

10. Learn about grassroots book promotion…

11. Suggest 3CT to Oprah: http://www.oprah.com/email/reach/email_showideas.jhtml

12. Suggest 3CT to C-Span 202-737-0580.

13. Write a book review on Amazon.com, bn.com… (No need, it’s getting slammed! Too bad my Junior High principle isn’t getting a clue. Are our teachers illiterate too?)

14. Start Pennies For Peace in your school, library, or place of worship… http://www.penniesforpeace.org

Billions for war, but apparently we need only pennies for peace.

Hopefully 3CT’s proceeds are going toward peace. (Marie reports their financials say it’s “up to 7%,” so hey, they do mean single-cent figures!) Perhaps Mortenson can earmark some of the Coins for Cultural Sensitivity.

POST-POSTSCRIPT
The Amazon reviews are uproarious! But 3CT trolls are loading the funniest with bad marks where it asks Do you find this review helpful, so you’ll have to look fast. I’ll reprint a couple below.

By the way, Three Cups of Tea, One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… was originally released as Three Cups of Tea, One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations. It wasn’t selling the mission?

I’ll work up my own slipcover for Mortenson’s speaking engagement, with help from the comments below. Hopefully he’ll be good-natured enough to sign it:
Three Cups of Tedium: One Man’s Mission to be a Dhimmi
-A Condescending Westerner who attempt to “educate” Muslims.

(This is part 2 of 3 pieces: a review of the 3CT book, the promotion around the book tour, and Mortenson’s public appearance.)

Iraqi Oil for Beginners

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IRAQI OIL FOR BEGINNERS graphic novel by Jon Sack published by Voices in the Wilderness
Iraqi Oil for Beginners is artist-in-exile Jon Sack’s account of a century of Iraq history dominated by the fight over its oil. The 31-page comic can be ordered through the publisher Voices in the Wilderness UK or from Housmans.
 
Sack means his graphic novel to enlighten western readers about the real US and UK motives behind the occupation of Iraq, hopefully before Iraqi legislators are finally coerced into privatizing the oil industry and putting it all in US hands.

Military takeover of Southeast Colorado

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It was a disappointment to read about a potential betrayal of the rural folk who cherish their family farms and ranches and don’t wish to sell to the Army at Fort Carson, and again last week in Colorado Springs when only pro-military leaders and the Chamber of Commerce expounded on the need for expansion. What a terrible hoax to think anything connected with war business could be considered a “crown jewel” and “national security keystone.”

It is ironic that an area in Colorado, one of the most scenic and naturally beautiful states in the U.S., is being taken over by the military-industrial complex. Even though there was no chance to be heard last week, there are many folks, including former military, who question why a Fort Carson expansion should be considered necessary at all, much less for the health of our local and state economy.

What happened to tourism, health, fitness and agribusiness for which Colorado is a natural, and the great potential for jobs in the needed alternative-energy fields?

A moratorium on military expansion makes sense because of the growing sentiment that U.S. involvement in the Iraq war needs to end. With more taxpayers and legislators agreeing that we need to pull out of Iraq, isn’t there a possibility Fort Carson could be reduced in size, rather than enlarged? Instead of more battleground experience, we need to have people trained in renovation, rehabilitation of infrastructure and individuals, health and human services and educational endeavors.

If fear of terrorism is predominate, have you thought of telling the war-machine lobbyists in Washington that you don’t want your state to become a terrorist target by having so many of our strategic war components in such close proximity?

(Printed in Letters to the Editor in The Independent, Sept. 6)

Undercover urinal duty

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policing the bathroomWhat’s with up with Republican legislators and men’s rooms? I love that the media is complicit in trying to limit the damage: disorderly conduct, ’nuff said. Though I also loved the subversively dismissive: what happened was “he said, he said.”
 
What are so many undercover cops doing in public men’s rooms? If they are following these senators, fantastic. But I rather think they’re targeting the usual suspects, gay men.

I confess an unnatural aversion to public restrooms. So I didn’t know they are out of control. Are they absolutely plagued by lonely homosexuals? Isn’t the gay hookup in a public urinal a time-honored tradition? I’d think consensual sex is a rather victimless crime. Or do police departments get the complaint all the time that Boy George is bugging them in the boys bathroom, man can’t pee in peace?

I’ve never been solicited in a men’s room. Does that mean I have yet to encounter a homosexual, a Republican senator, or it seems more likely, a cop?

Democrat John Morse new blood but bad

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I had a chance to hear newly elected John Morse tell some of his constituents the other evening about what it’s like to be a state senator. A number of us were there to confront him on his outspoken support for a very unpopular expansion of military training grounds. Literally the whole southeast corner of the state.

Shall I tell you how he came off? Affable, likeable, so there wasn’t the chance to parse his words.

Number one, state senators are paid a quite small salary and per diem, something around $30,000/yr, meaning he’s agreed to quite a sacrifice for the time he’ll be serving at the capitol. It’s true there aren’t too many who can make this sacrifice, and perhaps I’ll leave to your judgment, would.

John Morse told us that many legislators avoid having lunch with lobbyists as a matter of principle. Our Morse feels no such compulsion. Why not, he asks? He’s found that all sides have their lobbyists and as long as he courts them all, he’ll get all sides. And when he needs to know the other side, our freshman senator tells us he bluntly asks the lobbyist in fairness, to please lay out the counter-arguments.

Morse didn’t differentiate between special interests and un-special interests, which comprise most of us, who are not represented by any lobbyist there to buy his lunch.

Democratic Party corruption sinks the heart of Cindy Sheehan

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Cindy Sheehan has been grieving a long time, and this Memorial Day after the capitulation of the Democratic Party legislators in Congress was particularly rough. But it is more than that. The pain is made even worse by how inactive so many rank and file Democratic Party voters are in opposing this war.

At street vigils we see this, too. So many liberal minded folk wave and honk their horns in support of our vigil, but then it seems that they never get out of their cars to be the protesters, and not just the driver by-ers. After a while, this becomes disheartening.

We hope that Cindy gets her spirits back up and rejoins the activist antiwar movement after some family time off. She deserves the best, and she has given America her best. Here is her last commentary about how despairing she now feels. Many feel the same alongside her.

We are sad to see it be so, but when push comes to shove, the Democratic Party is not to be relied on. Cindy Sheehan tried to push the Democratic Party into action, but the corporate controllers resisted. She is not the first, and will not be the last to fail in such a project.

Good Riddance Attention Whore
by Cindy Sheehan

I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called “Face” of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such “liberal blogs” as the Democratic Underground. Being called an “attention whore” and being told “good riddance” are some of the more milder rebukes.

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

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