Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Talk About Your Angst!

Well, here we are . . . what is it? . . about six days out from what I'm thinking is the most important election of my lifetime. Any election involving Nixon, Reagan, or either of the Bush gangster family was, of course, important, but this one - whew! After eight years of so thoroughly screwing up everything they touched, I am on pins and needles waiting to see if we get a brand new start at fixing things, or if we get something possibly worse than George Bush.

I think I need to explain something too. Although I take the position George Bush and his administration screwed up everything they touched, I think it's important to note they did exactly what they had planned to do all along. The failures were not truly failures, as they fit into the general plan. Don't think for one moment these criminals weren't working toward the dream so famously articulated by Grover Norquist when he said his goal was to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

I have no doubt that is exactly what has been going on, especially when government means services for the people, as opposed to handouts for the well-connected. We have witnessed the most massive re-distribution of national wealth, certainly in my lifetime. Now, perhaps, we can see some of that bleeding stanched.

Six more days! I am on pins and needles. We so desperately need to take this nation in another direction; to back away from the arrogant unilateralism and the move toward the so-called "unitary executive"; the use of torture and the spying on our own citizens; and the outright flaunting of the Constitution when it serves the narrow interests of the administration.

Obama has created one of the flattest campaign organizations ever, thanks in large part to his team's understanding and use of information technology. Let's see if they can translate this knowledge into a new politics of engagement and involvement . . . and - dare I say - democracy.

Cranky

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Checking out Disqus

Just associated a commenting service with my blog - Disqus; not that I expect to get many - if any - comments on my posts, but just because I wanted to sign up for the service to see what it was all about. I noticed Dion Hinchcliffe offers it as an option for signing in. Now I need to learn how to make it work and, better yet, what it does once I've ensured it's working. Hence, this rather terse entry. This is probably something I should really get used to doing.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Throw the Bastards Out!

So, here's the deal. The Republicans have all but had a lock on every branch of the government for the last close to eight years, and what have they done for us? On every level I can think of (and probably some I haven't even considered) they have made things worse. Our standing in the community of nations may have never been worse, thanks to the use of torture and extraordinary rendition, the abuse of power, the curtailing of civil rights (including wholesale spying on citizens); our economy, now besieged by the ever-growing loss of jobs, the sub-prime greedfest, and the implosion of Wall Street, is pretty much in that tank and now those of us who can least afford it - and have benefited the least from the excesses of these Republican dominated years of deregulation - are going to have to pony up the money and resources to bail out the very crooks who we were led to believe would (thanks to the "wisdom" of the market) be prudent stewards of our economy. Need I go on?

Now we have an opportunity to change the game - to vote the worst of these fools out of office and replace them with Democrats. Now, there is really no love lost between the Democrats and me. I think Ralph Nader was at least partially right when he described them as two sides of the same coin. They all, after all, will defend to the death (probably ours, not theirs) the righteousness and efficacy of Capitalism, regardless of ever-growing evidence of its predatory nature and its penchant for consolidation and monopoly.

However, given a choice between the likes of Grover Norquist (who famously said he wished to shrink government to the size where he could drown it in a bathtub) and his ilk, and the possibility of a nanny-state where bloated bureaucracy and wasteful spending runs a bit rampant, I'm inclined to think I'd prefer the latter. At the very least, more of our children would stand a chance of being well educated and we could ensure everyone in the country had health care. This may seem somewhat ridiculous to those who believe self-reliance is the paramount virtue in this life.

However, I think if one takes a systemic view of not only the nation, but also its place in the world community, making a priority of taking care of everyone; of removing some of the pain and uncertainty - and the unnecessary competition for what are not scarce resources - from the daily lives of all our people, it would go a long way toward creating greater security and that oft-referred-to domestic tranquility most of us crave. At least those of us who don't wish to live in gated communities and lock our car doors whenever we drive through the city.

So . . . I say we give the Democrats a chance to fuck things up which, I have no doubt, they will almost certainly do. As I said, given the choice between the greed and corruption, and the zero-sum, no holds barred, Social Darwinism of the far right, and the pork barrel corruption and bureaucratic tendencies of the not-so-far right, I think we stand a better chance of having decent lives and a safer, more secure nation.

PS - I find it interesting people who don't believe in evolution find it so easy to apply Social Darwinism when it suits their avaricious needs.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Why I Support Obama

Many write about what Obama will or will not do. However, I think if we're really listening to his message we need to think about what we will do for, surely, what is happening must continue whether Obama becomes President our not. I think the most stunning, exciting, and wonderful thing about his campaign is the organization that supports him. His candidacy has created the largest and flattest political organization this country has ever seen. We need to learn from this, to build on it, and to ensure it develops into something that gives greater and greater representation to us, the people who power this country.

It's truly amazing that people of my generation (I'm 61) have grown from the "people our parents warned us about" to "the one's we've been waiting for." I haven't been this pumped in over thirty years.

Let's just remember, while it is well and good to revel in Barack Obama's nomination for President of the United States, he cannot single-handedly do much, especially in the aftermath of this criminal administration we've suffered for the past 7 1/2 years. We, not he, are the change we must believe in.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I'm Voting Republican (NOT!)

A little while ago I was driving home from picking up my oldest daughter at school. Ahead of us, and in the next lane, was a vehicle with a bumper sticker that read "Too Informed to Vote Republican". As I pulled up next to it at an intersection, I honked and gave the driver the thumbs up and yelled "great bumper sticker". He immediately grabbed on and handed it to me through our windows (a little tough to do, as I had to lean way over to grab it!).

At any rate, I haven't put it on my vehicle yet. I have a bumper sticker for KPFK, Pacifica Radio in the Greater Los Angeles area, but it's sufficiently non-descript as to not cause me to worry about someone breaking one of my windows or something like that. Back in the late sixties and early seventies I had lots of bumper stickers on my VW Mini-bus, but that was way back in the wayback machine, and I haven't felt comfortable with the concept of people knowing my politics while I'm driving. However, I'm beginning to think the time has just about come to put it on.

In the interim, I thought I'd post a link to this wonderful video I came across while reading the comments to an article in the Huffington Post.


Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Bugliosi Hits a "Home Run"

I have long believed and advocated that George W. Bush must be tried for war crimes as a result of his dishonest and illegal prosecution of the war in Iraq. Now, Vincent Bugliosi, best known for his prosecution of Charles Manson and other defendants in the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and the LaBiancas, has published a book on doing just that.

In 2001 he wrote "The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President", an indictment of the actions of the U.S. Supreme Court in stopping the recounts in Florida and appointing George Bush as the 43rd President of the United States.

Now he's written an even stronger, more forceful indictment of Bush himself. His latest, just published the other day, is entitled "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder". I have not, as yet, read this book, but he has a website (http://www.prosecutionofbush.com) where you can read about the book, as well as some excerpts. I commend you to it and am including one of the excerpts here in the hopes someone who might not ordinarily do so will find it.

BTW - If you can read this without being thoroughly disgusted (whether you believe him guilty of murder or not), you too may quality as a bona fide sociopath. And, yes, I know it's long, but it's worth every single moment it takes to read it.

Cranky


Bush's Reaction to War
By Vincent Bugliosi

How has George Bush reacted to the hell he created in Iraq, to the thousands of lives that have been lost in the war, and to the enormous and endless suffering that the survivors of the victims -- their loved ones -- have had to endure?

I've always felt that impressions are very important in life, and other than "first impressions," they are usually right. Why? Because impressions, we know, are formed over a period of time. They are the accumulation of many words and incidents, many or most of which one has forgotten, but which are nonetheless assimilated into the observer's subconscious and thus make their mark. In other words, you forgot the incident, but it added to the impression. "How do you feel about David? Do you feel he's an honest person?" "Yeah, I do." "Why do you say that about him? Can you give me any examples that would cause you to say he's honest?" "No, not really, at least not off the top of my head. But I've known David for over ten years, and my sense is that he's an honest person."

I have a very distinct impression that with the exception of a vagrant tear that may have fallen if he was swept up, in the moment, at an emotional public ceremony for American soldiers who have died in the war, George Bush hasn't suffered at all over the monumental suffering, death, and horror he has caused by plunging this nation into the darkness of the Iraq war, probably never losing a wink of sleep over it. Sure, we often hear from Bush administration sources, or his family, or from Bush himself, about how much he suffers over the loss of American lives in Iraq. But that dog won't run. How do we just about know this is nonsense? Not only because the words he has uttered could never have escaped from his lips if he were suffering, but because no matter how many American soldiers have died on a given day in Iraq (averaging well over two every day), he is always seen with a big smile on his face that same day or the next, and is in good spirits. How would that be possible if he was suffering? For example, the November 3, 2003, morning New York Times front-page headline story was that the previous day in Fallouja, Iraq, insurgents "shot down an American helicopter just outside the city in a bold assault that killed 16 soldiers and wounded 20 others. It was the deadliest attack on American troops since the United States invaded Iraq in March." Yet later in that same day when Bush arrived for a fund-raiser in Birmingham, Alabama, he was smiling broadly, and Mike Allen of the Washington Post wrote that "the President appeared to be in a fabulous mood." This is merely one of hundreds of such observations made about Bush while the brutal war continued in Iraq.

And even when Bush is off camera, we have consistently heard from those who have observed him up close how much he seems to be enjoying himself. When Bush gave up his miles of running several times a week because of knee problems, he took up biking. "He's turned into a bike maniac," said Mark McKinnon in March of 2005, right in the middle of the war. McKinnon, a biking friend of Bush's who was Bush's chief media strategist in his 2004 reelection campaign, also told the New York Times's Elisabeth Bumiller about Bush: "He's as calm and relaxed and confident and happy as I've ever seen him." Happy? Under the horrible circumstances of the war, where Bush's own soldiers are dying violent deaths, how is that even possible?

In a time of war and suffering, Bush's smiles, joking, and good spirits stand in stark contrast to the demeanor of everyone of his predecessors and couldn't possibly be more inappropriate. Michael Moore, in his motion picture documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, captured this fact and the superficiality of Bush well with a snippet from a TV interview Bush gave on the golf course following a recent terrorist attack. Bush said, "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you." Then, without missing a single beat, he said in reference to a golf shot he was about to hit: "Now watch this drive."

Before I get into specific instances of Bush laughing and having fun throughout the entire period of the inferno he created in Iraq, I want to discuss a number of more indirect but revealing incidents that reflect he could not care less about the human suffering and carnage going on in Iraq, or anywhere.

1. The first inkling I got that Bush didn't care about the suffering or anyone, not just those dying in Iraq, was from an article in the September 22, 2001, New York Times just eleven days after 9/11. Though 3,000 Americans had been murdered and the nation was in agony and shock, the man who should have been leading the mourning was, behind the scenes, not affected in the tiniest way. The article, by Frank Bruni, said that "Mr. Bush's nonchalant, jocular demeanor remains the same. In private, say several Republicans close to the administration, he still slaps backs and uses baseball terminology, at one point promising that the terrorists were not 'going to steal home on me.' He is not staying up all night, or even most of the night. He is taking time to play with his dogs and his cat. He is working out most days." So right after several thousand Americans lost their lives in a horrible catastrophe, behind the scenes Bush is his same old backslapping self, and he's not letting the tragedy interfere in the slightest way with the daily regimen of his life that he enjoys.

In fact, he himself admitted to the magazine Runners World (August 23, 2002) that after the Afghanistan war began: "I have been running with a little more intensity . . . It helps me to clear my mind." (In other words, Bush likes to clear his mind of the things he's supposed to be thinking about.) Remarkably finding time in the most important job on earth to run six days a week, Bush added: "It's interesting that my times have become faster . . . For me, the psychological benefit [in running] is enormous. You tend to forget everything that's going on in your mind and just concentrate on the time and distance." But even this obscene indulgence after 9/11 and during wartime by the man with more responsibility than anyone in the world wasn't enough for Bush. He told the magazine: "I try to go for longer runs, but it's tough around here at the White House on the outdoor track. It's sad that I can't run longer. It's one of the saddest things about the presidency." Imagine that. Among all the things that the president of the United States could be sad about during a time of war, not being able to run longer six days a week is up there near the top of the list.

A New York Times article not long after 9/11 (November 5, 2001) reported that Bush had told his friends (obviously with pride) that "his runs on the Camp David trails through the Maryland woods have produced his fastest time in a decade, three miles in 21 minutes and 6 seconds." USA Today (October 29, 2001) reported that Bush used to run 3 miles in 25 minutes and now he was "boasting to friends and staffers" about his new time, and was "now running 4 miles a day."

So with his approval rating soaring to 90 percent in the wake of 9/11 -- and with his being the main person in America whose job required that he be totally engaged every waking hour in working diligently on this nation's response to 9/11 -- Bush, remarkably, was working diligently on improving his time for the mile. I ask you, what American president in history, Republican or Democrat, would have conducted himself this way?

2. One thing about Bush. He's so dense that he makes remarks an intelligent person who was as much of a scoundrel as he would never make. They'd keep their feelings, which they would know to be very shameful, to themselves. On December 21, 2001, just a few months after 9/11 -- a tragedy that shocked the nation and the world in which 3,000 Americans were consumed by fires, some choosing to jump to their deaths out of windows eighty or more stories high -- Bush, who could only have been thinking of himself, told the media: "All in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." He said this because that is exactly the way he felt. What difference does 9/11 make? I'm president. I love it, and Laura and I are having a ball.

Indeed, on January 20, 2005, right in the midst of the hell on earth Bush created in Iraq -- when the carnage there was near its worst and American soldiers and Iraqi citizens were dying violent deaths every day -- Bush, referring to himself and his wife, told thousands of partying supporters at one of his nine inaugural balls: "We're having the time of our life." Can you even begin to imagine Roosevelt in the midst of the Second World War, Truman during the Korean War, or LBJ and Nixon during the Vietnam War, saying something like this?

3. Does it not stand to reason that if Bush were suffering over the daily killings and tragedy in Iraq, he would be working every waking hour to lessen the mounting number of casualties as well as find a way to satisfactorily end the terrible conflict? I mean, as president, that's what you'd expect of him, right? Isn't that his job? Yet we know that although Bush is still in office, he has already spent far more time on vacation than any other president in American history. For instance, by April 11, 2004 (he was inaugurated January 20, 2001), he had visited his cherished ranch in Crawford a mind-boggling thirty-three times and spent almost eight months of his presidency there.

Although the office of the presidency follows the president wherever he goes twenty-four hours a day, and at least some part of every day on vacation, no matter how small, was spent by Bush attending to his duties as president, we also know that Bush's main purpose when he goes on vacation, obviously and by definition, is to vacation, not work. CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who travels with Bush and keeps track of such things, told me that as of January 1, 2008, in Bush's less than seven years as president, he visited his ranch in Texas an unbelievable 69 times, spending, per Knoller, "all or part of 448 days on vacation there." As amazing as this is, Bush also made, Knoller says, 132 visits to Camp David during this period, spending "all or part of 421 days there," and 10 visits to his family's vacation compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, spending "all or part of 39 days there."

So the bottom line is that of a total of approximately 2,535 days as president, most of them during a time of war, Bush spent all or a part or 908 days, an incredible 36 percent of his time, on vacation or at retreat places. Hard to believe, but true. Nine hundred and eight days is two and a half years of Bush's presidency. Two and a half years of the less than seven years of his presidency in which his main goal was to kick back and have fun. You see, the White House digs, with a pool, theater, gymnasium, etc., weren't enjoyable enough for Bush. He wanted a more enjoyable place to be during his life as president. *

My position in life is infinitely less important than Bush's, yet during the above same period of Bush's presidency, I not only worked much longer hours every day than Bush, I worked seven days a week, never took one vacation, and only took three days off to go to the desert with my wife to celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary. If it had not been for the anniversary, I wouldn't have even taken those three days off. I realize I take working to an extreme, living by the clock each day, always looking up to see how much time I have left, working from morning to morning (retiring usually around two in the morning and starting my day at ten in the morning). Still, it is striking to consider that in seven years, I took 3 days off and Bush, the president of the United States, took 908. Even Americans who lead a more normal life than I, even fat-cat corporate executives, haven't taken anywhere near the time away from their work that Bush has. Indeed, I think we can safely say that even though Bush has the most important and demanding job in this entire land, he has irresponsibly taken far more time off from his job to have fun during the past seven years than any worker or company executive in America!!! Is Bush, or is he not, a disgrace of the very first order?

*Remarkably, during his campaign for reelection in 2004 Bush very frequently spoke of the "hard work" he and his administration were engaging in. This was the first time I had ever heard an American president speak of the "hard work" involved in his job. I have heard them speak of the immense "burden" of the office of the presidency being responsible for the destiny and welfare of millions of people. But you see, for someone like Bush who was born on home plate and thought he had hit a home run, anything he does, any effort at all, he considers "hard work."

In Celebration of Jerks?

I suspect anyone with half a brain is aware that Bill O'Reilly is, perhaps, one of the biggest Assholes in the known universe. Recently, for reasons that completely escape me, he was chosen to receive the highest honor bestowed at this year's Emmy Awards, the Governors Award. A Boston TV host on Comcast's CN8 Channel in Boston, Barry Nolan, protested the award and launched an email campaign to encourage members of the New England Emmy chapter to join him in recognizing that, ". . . at least the people who had been honored in the past had pretty much followed the part of the Hippocratic oath that says, 'First, do no harm.'"



As a result of Mr. Nolan's efforts, and his temerity in pointing out what should be patently obvious to anyone interested in actual "fair and balanced" reporting, he was fired from his position. Today he posted on Think Progress and I love what he said about what constitutes free speech. He says it all got him to ". . . thinking about the myth of free speech. In today’s America, speech is only “free” when you are talking down to someone less powerful than you. Speak 'up' – and look out."

You can read the rest of his post here. You can also read more at Think Progress if you've a mind to. They cover some great stuff . . . if you're a progressive. If not, well . . . you probably don't belong here reading my blog. Go visit one of the premiere Assholes in the world - O'Reilly, Limbaugh - take your pick. There are far too many others and it's not my job to point them out to anyone.

Cranky

Monday, May 26, 2008

Payback Will Definitely be a Bitch

OK - I've built this modest blog on the premise that the world is filled with Assholes. At first, I vented a bit about the stupid people and things I encountered in my life and, for some time now, I've wished to change the tenor of my diatribes a mite. I didn't actually want to entirely shift focus, merely broaden my outlook and take into consideration some of the first-class Assholes I don't necessarily meet in my daily life but who are, nonetheless, out there in the public such that I can't miss them unless I work real hard at it.

I don't get any of my news from the MSM (Mainstream Media, for those of you who aren't familiar with the acronym - or, as some may think of it - the epithet) any longer. I've given up on any of the standard print or broadcast media to convey the truth. Hell . . . they don't even do a very good job of covering the bullshit they do; sound bites and half-truths are all they seem to be willing or capable of providing any longer. There is one valued exception with respect to the broadcast world and that's KPFK, here in the greater Los Angeles area, one of the Pacific Network's five radio stations.

What I really like about KPFK is, with the exception of their news broadcasts, they cover stories in depth. Seldom do I listen to Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, or Uprising with Sonali Kolhatkar, or Beneath the Surface with Jerry Quickley without getting a least a half-hour of coverage of a story; frequently with many voices contributing to the discussion. Never vitriol, though they cover subjects the perpetrators of which deserve the scorn and opprobrium of all thoughtful citizens of not only the United States, but the world. Did I mention Explorations with Dr. Michio Kaku? OK - that's another story. Let's get back to first-class Assholes.

So . . . I do read the Huffington Post, along with a few other blogs, for my news and entertainment. Today it was pointed out that one of the pundits (note the definition states ". . . may be used in a derogatory manner as well - ahem) on Fox News actually conflated Barack Obama with Osama, suggesting it would be useful (and funny) if someone assassinated both of them. You can see for yourself below.



Somehow, I don't think this is terribly funny. Actually, the more I think about it the more I am looking forward to that day of reckoning, when Fox News, the people who have hijacked the Republican party, and this administration are called to task for what they've done to our country. This kind of crap just can't be allowed to stand and, I believe, won't for all that much longer. It is, perhaps, an aphorism (certainly the phrase has been used in numerous ways) that "the darkest hour is always before the dawn". I once thought that darkest hour was during the war in Vietnam, but I was obviously wrong, especially since we were treated to the machinations and despicable regimes of both Reagan and the first Bush after that misbegotten adventure was over. I am hopeful we have seen that darkest hour though, to be honest, I'm not sure things won't actually get a lot worse before they get better.

There are signs, most notably the campaign of Barack Obama, that the tide is turning; that we might wrest our government from the thieves who have usurped our power and used it to enrich their friends and cronies. We should keep in mind, however, that history is neither determined (nor made) by individuals. We have always been taught the "Hero" theory of history, and it is generally written about single, extraordinary humans doing extraordinary things. I don't believe such a viewpoint is accurate. Howard Zinn's book "A People's History of the United States" does a far better job than I can of making the point that history is made by the people. There may be individuals who are thrust into the limelight, but without the support of numerous (sometimes countless thousands) of others, their efforts would go all but unnoticed.

When we do get our country back, and I'll be quite happy just to see the trend reversed - to have our nation start the long slog back to being a country whose people try to do the right things; who aren't willing to send their children and their treasure around the globe, interfering in the affairs of other nations solely for the profit of a very few Americans (and others, we should point out, who are in league with them), perhaps we can start making those guilty of the crimes perpetrated in our name pay.

When that time comes, there are many who must pay the price for what they have wrought. Those who have profited from the war in Iraq; those who have supported and enabled them; those who have lied and cheated and foisted their hypocritical views of how and why we should engage in these atrocities; all of them deserve to be brought before a court of competent jurisdiction and tried for their crimes. Yes. I am presuming guilt, as it's clear as the nose on your face what they have done. Fortunately, more and more people are seeing this and - if we're lucky - it won't be long before justice is served.

Cranky
As the father of two Chinese girls, and the husband of a third-generation Japanese-American (Sansei), I am deeply affected and troubled by racism. Not that I wasn't aware of, and sympathetic to, the plight of all people of color before I met my wife; but the effects are more personal than they could have been before. Here's a short YouTube video on Asian-Americans for Obama I think is worthy of sharing.





Hope you enjoy it and give it some thought. I will have more to say about this in the future.

Cranky

Monday, January 07, 2008

Mitt Romney Jerkorama

I haven't much time to say anything here; getting ready to head out the door to work. I nevertheless had to take a moment to share a wonderful blog by Chris Kelly, on the Huffington Post. Lucky him. He gets paid to just listen to the debates and write something about them. Than again - he's forced to listen to the debates; something I find excruciatingly painful. Anyway, you owe it to yourself to check out this blog. Here 'tis.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/mitticisms-amnesty_b_80162.html

Enjoy!