My Letter To The CAP
I sent the following letter to the newly-formed Center For American Progress (CAP) on behalf of myself and all the other bloggers. I urge all of you to please read it and send a similar email of your own, urging them not to neglect those of us who have been working for the cause without any organized support. It's imperative that these think-tanks be made aware of the great resources and energy that we have, and that we could use a little help from the people who supposedly believe the same things we do.

Let's force the issue and see if they will put their money where their mouths are.

Sirs:
First of all, please forgive the length of this letter. I realize that you don't always have the time to read every e-mail, but I am urging you to read this in its entire.

Before I begin in earnest, however, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joe Vecchio, and I have been a member of the so-called "blogosphere" for the last six months or so. I'm not as well known or well-read as someone like Atrios, but if you look around you'll see my writings here and there. I also do twice-weekly internet-based radio show where I talk about assorted issues. I am writing to you because I think that we all have a lot of work ahead of us, and I wanted to share with you a quote from UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff, a linguist who has been studying the use of language by the right and how it helps them:

Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, "Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do." And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that.

Meanwhile, [liberals say], 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.

This needs to change.

Look at the blogosphere. Look at all the talent we have, the well-written commentaries by those who are considered to be rank amateurs, that is going to waste because these people (myself included) are denied a greater organ with which to get their message out, or are shackled by poverty from doing even more and better work. I cannot speak for all of them, but I speak for myself: help us. Find ways to put as to work, as researchers, as journalists, as columnists. Gather us up, train us, give us a sense of focus, and most of all, get us on a payroll. There is no reason we should be expected to starve to death while the right wing makes sure their people are paid enough to be able to focus like a laser beam on the issues they think are important.

This is not a case of "becoming like the enemy." We don't have to stoop to their level, but we have to match their energy with our own, and we have to make sure that we are all working together. The national media are against us, but in the growing world of the Internet, they are becoming increasingly irrelevant: people with no formal education and training are scooping traditional journalists. Look at the recent incident where Russ Click, editor of The Memory Hole, managed, using simple techniques, un-edited a DOJ report on employee diversity within the department from it's website. The NY Times covered the fact that the file was un-edited, but why didn't they have someone do that themselves? How on Earth did an under-funded website manage to scoop them?

I'm telling you, there's a treasure chest of untapped resources out there. And you know, we'll work for a lot less money than our counterparts on the right. Hell, I've never made more than $23,500 a year, yet I find that I'm writing better columns than some people who get paid in six figures. I'll be happy to write twice-weekly articles and do a daily radio show for a lot less than that. I don't need a damn BMW, I just want to pay the rent and buy food and fight for the cause, and there are literally hundreds out there who feel just the same way I do. And I want to feel like there are people out there who are willing to back me up and provide me with the focus and training that I'll need.

The choice is yours. You can tap these resources or ignore them. No doubt many of us will continue to do our blogs and our radio shows because we feel compelled to, but in the end we will wither on the vine because sooner or later "real life" will intrude on us and we will have to stop because we'll have to choose between writing and paying the rent. This should not be allowed to happen.

We are the foot soldiers you will need to defeat the right and to create a better country and a better world.

Let us fight.

Let us help.

-Joe

Let's make this a massive letter-writing campaign. Send this letter out to everyone you know, spread the word about it, and let's let these people know we're here and we're ready to fight with them and for them, and that we should not be ignored. The blogosphere is already beginning to prove how much it can accomplish, let's take it to the next level!

Mixed Blessing
The good news is that my letter (scroll down, look for Vecchio) got printed.

The bad news is that it's still only the AJC, and they still suck.

For those of you too lazy to click the link, here's the text:

Reinstate the draft; here are some names
The only people surprised at events in Iraq are those who ignore both history and reality. If events continue, it will take considerably longer than 18 months to two years to clean up in Iraq, and if we want to maintain any kind of security, we will have to reinstate the draft.

Therefore, in accordance with the doctrine of "personal responsibility," I propose that the first to get drafted are the children of the politicians who favored the war, those who called anyone opposing it traitors and the journalists who failed to point out the incredibly obvious.

Open Thread: Show Eight
If you haven't already listened to the show, listen here and leave your comments below. Do it, or you'll get rabies!

Ink From The Squid
The League Of Liberals has changed its rules slightly, it is no longer a requirement of membership to vote for a new site on the Ecosystem. However, since I value my membership in the League, (and more i,mportantly the traffic they bring to the site) I will continue to vote for the new blog of the week.

This week, I am casting my vote for a blog called Ink From The Squid, a very nice blog that greeted me with a post about how the British government is setting up a trust fund for British children, which is a very good idea. Read the link for more details.

Dear Donald Luskin:
I read with derisive pleasure and no small amount of scorn the letter sent to Atrios by Jeffrey J. Upton on behalf of the firm of Hanify & King P.C. asking him to remove the post entitled “Diary of a Stalker” on the grounds that it is accusing you of being a stalker.

It should be noted that you yourself used the term in the article "We Stalked. He Balked", so it is, at best, disingenuous for you to accuse "Atrios" of using the same words to denounce your behavior towards NY Times columnist Paul Krugman.

Those of us who are considered to be "on the left" in what is becoming known as the "blogosphere" are quite familiar with these tactics, because we know all too well that those on the right are little more than a bunch of whiney, hypocritical crybabies whose impulse is to hide behind these frivolous lawsuits even as they espouse the "rugged individualist" philosophy.

To be fair, sir, I admit I lack the formal education you have, so it is very difficult for me to express myself in terms you would consider to be equal to your own, seeing as how you are very well-paid to write the drivel you do. So keeping that in mind, allow me to phrase things in a manner much more suited to one of my low standing:

Go fuck your mother, you obnoxious cocksucker.

Thank you for your time.

Dear NY Times:
Putin's Old-Style K.G.B. Tactics
To The Editors:
Is there any way we could get Kenneth Lay to emigrate to Russia?

Framing The Message
In an article in The UC Berkely News, linguist George Lakoff talks about how conservatives are winning because

Conservatives understand what unites them, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas...
...In Arnold Schwarzenegger's acceptance speech, he said, "When the people win, politics as usual loses." What's that about? Well, he knows that he's going to face a Democratic legislature, so what he has done is frame himself and also Republican politicians as the people, while framing Democratic politicians as politics as usual — in advance. The Democratic legislators won't know what hit them. They're automatically framed as enemies of the people.

I like to think I'm a pretty decent writer, but I'm no linguist, and all too often I wind up just rambling on, sounding like a gloomy gus about how bad things are going and feeling rather depressed about the whole thing. And mostly what gets me depressed is the miserable state of my finances: after all I have spent twelve of the last thirteen months unemployed, though this may change as soon as this week, but the lack of money takes away my ability to plan for the future, to do even the simplest things I need to do to make me feel more secure and more comfortable. There are plenty of you out there who know who I am, who know how good a writer I am, but they can't do anything because they're generally in the same position that I'm in. Why is that? Because, as Mr. Laskin points out, there is more of a willingness by the right to spend money to build institutions and hire people who are willng to work for their cause...

Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that.

Meanwhile, liberals...say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.'

There's no real reason for those of us in the blogosphere to remain poor and powerless: there are a few left-wing think tanks, not as many as the right-wing tanks, but they are there nontheless, and there are plenty of rich people on the left who are perfectly capable of funding these existing institutions and creating similar ones, but it seems that they expect us to do it all for nothing, or next to nothing. This anathema towards using wealth is killing us.

This isn't a fundraising pitch, folks. I'm not asking for a donation. But we need to start working together to find out how to lobby these few left-wing institutions so that they can take advantage of our energies and our skills, and do it so that we don't have to choose between fighting for the cause and paying the rent. I was this close to living in a shelter, and there's no reason someone with my desire to fight and writing skills should have to suffer like this.

The League of Liberals was founded so that we can share ideas, let's learn to share our resources as well: let's help each other out by working together to contact these organizations, or pool together to create our own...I have a few ideas that might work very well, and I can even put together a business plan. But I can't do it alone. Let's work together and build something that's greater than all of us put together. email me or post a comment, or write a letter on the LoL mailing list. Let's roll...

Pissing Contest
My old friend and former radio co-host Joey, aka the Right Wing Slayer is taking me to task for my comments on Gov. Dean (whom I support) vs. Gen Clark (who he supports), and frankly I don't understand why. Nothing in my article attacked him for supporting Gen. Clark, neither did I say anything damaging about Gen. Clark, I just wanted to make the point that we all ought to work hard to unseat George W. Bush and to dismantle the right-wing hate machine, regardless of who we support for President.

But Joey is an attack dog, and he railed against Dean (and, by extension, myself) in his latest update. Knowing him, it may be that he's just doing so in order to increase his own ratings, but if he wanted to let people know what I was saying about him he could have at least linked my comments to his site. As for whether Dean would support Clark if Clark got the nod, let me quote him from CNN:

Dean said that he would not launch an independent campaign for president should one of the other Democrats get the nod at next year's convention.

"I will support the nominee," he said. "It is essential that George Bush not be re-elected for the future of this country. It is essential for our economy. It's essential, so we can regain the respect we had around the world."

"Any one of (the Democratic candidates) would be better than the president they have now," he said. "But what our party really has to have is some backbone."

I've also heard him say comments similar to that during the debates. Does that contradict what he said in the quote Joey used? Let's look at the entire quote, which was almost at the end a a very long, and not particularly complimentary, article written by Jamie Wolf of the LA Weekly:

When I ask Dean about Clark, his response is characteristically two-fold. He praises him with sincere fervor: “I know Wes Clark, he’s a very good human being, and he’s got an enormous amount of integrity.” At the same time, on the subject of Clark entering the race, he shows more than a glint of steel. “It’s going to be very hard to start late,” he says, “and think you’re going to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s going to be incredibly hard. I mean, we’ve already got 39,000 people working for us all around the country . . . I really do believe — and I think about this — I want to get this nomination, and if I don’t . . . these kids are not transferrable. I can’t just go out and say, ‘Okay, so I didn’t win the nomination, so go ahead and vote for the Democrats.’ They’re not going to suddenly just go away. That’s not gonna happen.”

In a greater context, he was talking off the cuff about the difficulties of coming in late to a campaign and referring to the loyalty of his volunteers. It also shows he's intense about winning the nomination (as any Presidential candidate should be) and would perhaps be a little bitter if he lost. But I bet you that if Clark should win the nomination, Dean will be there to support him and urge his supporters to do the same. I know I certainly will.

I realize that some Dean supporters are more mature than others, and there's been a few dirty tricks from all the candidates, but hey, as I said, it's all part of the game and so far no one has really crossed the line. Would it be better if the Democratic candidates went into a smoky room and made a decicion to go with one of them and support him/her no matter what? Of course it would. But since that just ain't gonna happen, let's just try to get along as much as possible until the race is decided.

Oh, and as to the issue of which is more important, local primary polls or national polls, let me use a sports analogy: Say when baseball season starts up again next year, the two favorites are the Marlins and the Yankees. And say for the sake of argument that the Marlins, being the defending champions, are favored to win should the two once again go head-to-head. But there's still an entire season to be played. Both the Marlins and the Yankees have to have good enough records to get into the playoffs to begin with, then they have to defeat the other playoff teams. It doesn't matter comparing the records of the two teams before then, because they're not playing each other, they're playing the other teams in their league. If and when they get to the point where they're once more facing off in the Series, then you can start talking head-to-head match-ups.

At this point, Dean, Clark, and the rest aren't facing Bush directly, they are facing each other. It doesn't matter how well they compare with Bush in national polls at this stage in the game. And while it's possible that how a candidate theoretically matches against Bush directly will be a consideration in the primaries, it's just as possible that the primary voters just won't even care about things like that. And since none of the candidates has any chance of winning without the support of the Party, winning the primaries is the only way to even get to the point of going one-on-one against the Mighty Wurlitzer of the GOP juggernaut.

In conclusion, Joey, let me say that I appreciate your energy and your tenacity, but let's save it for the real enemy. You're not gonna build up Clark by trashing Dean, because if Dean should win (and he has, at this point, the best chance of winning the nomination), then you would either have to support him, give up the race, or vote for (ugh) someone else. Is that what you really want?

PS: If you want to avoid the problems with blogger burps, do what I do, write it up in text format first so you have a bachup. God knows I've lost a ton of stuff that way, myself.

Invasion Of The Body Politic Snatchers
I wasn't going to post anything tonight but then I saw this shit and I just couldn't resist. It seems the Libertarian Party has decided to take over a state (in this case, New Hampshire) and use it to enact their warped ideology, no doubt to the chagrin of native New Hampshirans who are going to have to put up with their bullshit for the next decade or so before they run them out of the state on a rail.

Libertarianism is a bullshit political fantasy: a political organization whose unifying principle is that you shouldn't belong to a political organization with a unifying principle. An organization whose members wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the underlying social structure built by other people. In other words, libertarians are freeloaders whose success in life came because liberals worked hard to ensure the rights and freedoms they supposedly worship. Frankly, they have a lot of nerve driving to New Hampshire on highways built by the Federal Government, or flying on aircraft whose safety regulations are mandated and regulated by the government, or taking passenger trains run by the federal government.

And you don't have to go far to find examples of the pure, unadulterated stupidity that comes from the mouths of these people: For example, 26-yo Justin Somma, a freelance copywriter, says that public schools get too much money, which is good only "if you have to have nice school buildings and computers and all that." "Back in the day," he said, "they didn't need all that to teach kids. Back in the day, you were sitting around on rocks and listening to a guy talk." I'm sure the people of New Hampshire will be happy to know that he and his like-minded friends will be bringing these forward-looking ideas to their state.

So, to the Libertarians, I say: Hey, shitheads: Never mind New Hampshire, if you want to impress people, haul your asses up to the Moon and try your horseshit up there. My bet it that the last one there will have survived by eating the carcasses of the rest.

Seize The Day!
Well, I try to, anyway. Cooped up in the house because the weather sucks. Going to cook some baked ziti later, because I love to cook. Oh and thanks to my recent membersip in The League Of Liberals, I've gotten a lot more hits. Now if only some of you would leave a comment...

Open Thread: Show 7
Oops, forgot to do this for show 7! Click here to stream the show and add your comments below!

Confessions Of A "Bush-Hater" redux
Once again, the NY Times is trying to shove the "Bush Hater" bullshit down our throats. This time, it's James Traub hopping on the latest GOP spinwagon. To Mr. Traub I say, hey, asshole, come down here and spend a year in my shoes, having spent the last year out of work because of this piece-of-shit Bush economy. Put yourself in Kim Brathwaite's shoes, whose two children died because she was forced to choose between taking care of them or possibly losing her job.

How much money did you make last year, scumbag? What's the least amount of money you have ever earned in your working life? Do you have any fucking clue as to how the policies of the Bush administration affect us? Of course you don't, because you live in a sheltered, protected little world. What do you care that this administration is hell-bent on destroying the power of the federal government to look after the interests of people like me? Why should you be concerned about people having to choose between buying food and paying for medicine?

This isn't a game, you putz. Bush and his friends, and apologists for him (like yourself) are doing everything they can to steal my money and my rights away from me for no other reason than they're just a bunch of greedy bastards who don't know how to do anything but grab power. Bill Clinton never did a goddamn thing to the people who were his biggest enemies, they hated him for no other reason than he dared to fight back against them and he won. People like me have a reason for our anger, but the odds are you're incapable of understanding that because of the isolated world you live in.

So in conclusion, Mr. Traub, and speaking as a member of the lower classes who are sick of you and your rich friends, and as one who is obviously lacking in the quaint social graces that propel someone such as yourself into the upper stratosphere of wealth, I say to you, shove it up your ass, you pompous motherfucker.

And yes, I sent that exact letter to the NY Times.

Do I Get Fries With That?
As you can see by the links on the left, I have joined the League Of Liberals, a union of various left-wing blogs. I will be posting there from time to time, as well as here, of course, and I hope the League will provide me with a little more traffic and a little more interaction, and of course, I hope I can also get those of you who are regulars here to give League members some more traffic as well.

As a requirement of membership, I have been asked to vote for a "blog of the week", and therefore I am voting for Hell For Halliburton, a blog that looks into the criminal activities of Dick Cheney's corporation. Hey, any blog that says Richard Cheney is an evil bloodsucking black hole from which there is no escape is OK in my book!

I'm not sure if the League wants me to link all of the member sites (there are 23 so far, with more being added daily), but until I do, you can click on the link and see for yourself who's there. And if anyone has come in from the League, please feel free to comment below and say hello.

Controlling The Message
The main reason that Republicans manage to maintain their hold on power despite their racist, sexist, bigoted, anti-worker agenda is their mastery at controlling the message. They do this by buying outright as many newspapers, radio stations, and television stations as they can, and bully everyone else into accepting their propaganda under the pretense of "fairness".

Nowhere was this seen better than in their highly controlled, manipulative "reporting" of the Iraq war, with a multi-million dollar "press room" in Qatar that turned what few legitimate reporters that remain into little more than spectators for the propaganda of the American political/military/industrial complex. And that expertise is going to be on display at the Republican National Convention in NYC next year, an event that's cynically going to be held as close to the anniversary of 9/11 as possible (in fact the convention is being held so late in the election cycle that it is actually past the date set by some states for political parties to declare a candidate for the general election: some of these states have had to pass special laws to allow Mr. Bush's name on the ballot).

The convention is being coordinated by Jim Wilkinson, who was General Tommy Franks’ director of strategic communications in Iraq, and is now director of communications for the Republican National Convention.

I wonder if some creative leftists can find away to infiltrate the system and send out messages that they don't necessarily want us to see. Why not show pictures of some of the dead coming off the plane from Iraq? Or some of the soldiers languishing at places like Ft. Stewart? Or scenes of the massive protests that are being planned during the convention? At the very least, we cannot allow them to just do their thing and leave without being made aware that there are some of us out there who aren't buying the bullshit.

Confessions of a "Bush Hater"
Molly Ivins writes:

I would like to remind all the lock-step conservatives that there is a difference between hatred and anger. What you are looking at in this country is not hatred of Bush -- a perfectly affable guy -- but a growing anger.

Beware the anger of the legions left too long in Iraq without enough help; of the unemployed; of the uninsured; of those who were left without workers' comp; of those who have lost health insurance, overtime, the right to organize.

Beware the anger of those whose pensions and savings are gone because of Bush pals like "Kenny Boy" Lay. Beware the anger of middle-class investors in mutual funds; the anger of those who see the big rich take their money offshore so they won't have to pay taxes, those who watch the corporations get special tax breaks for exporting jobs abroad; the anger of those who are shunted aside while the CEOs of their companies make more than a hundred million.

You don't have to be hateful to have bad policies. You just have to be wrong.

Beware indeed.

As I have said on numerous occasions, my anger and my venom are not aimed at Mr. Bush personally, nor is it aimed at the rich in general. How much money someone has and how they have earned it is, for the most part, none of my damn business and nor should it be. But when people like Mr. Bush and his friends use that money to gain political influence in order to get even more money at my expense and at the expense of the rest of us working slobs who want nothing better than to live our lives in peace, then I start to get offended. While I might sigh and shrug at the unfairness of the world that people like him exist and that I will likely never know what it means to be financially secure for the rest of my life, I will not sit idly by while I am being systematically robbed of my ability to work, of my right to earn the wages I deserve, of my right to participate in my own government. And I am not alone.

Beware of us, indeed, Mr. Bush. Because of all the generalities people like you use about the poor, one thing is for certain: for everyone like you, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people like me. There always have been, throughout history, and it may very well be that we will always exist. For the most part, we are content to let people like you, people born into wealth and privilege and idle luxury, well enough alone. A few of us understand that the kind of money you have is almost as much of a burden as it is a benefit. So we're quite happy to let you and your friends play your little games.

But every now and then, people like you just go too far and you wind up paying a horrible price. Louis XVI paid that price, as did Czar Alexander and Nicolae Ceausescu and Benito Mussolini. It's not a fate I would want for you, Mr. Bush, nor would I want it for any of your business associates regardless of their assorted crimes. But as long as you keep forcing the issue, as long as you continue to rob us blind, I and people like myself will stand against you, because you have given us no choice but to fight you. And once that anger is released, no one knows where it will lead us. Beware.

What Voters Want
What Democrats want:

...a politician who speaks eloquently and demonstrates a piercing intellect while talking to people about their values, their fears and their dreams — at the same time suggesting new dreams to share and cherish.

What Republicans want:

Let's see, let's see...ah there it is...an (R)

Dean vs. Clark
It looks like my old partner in crime the Right Wing Slayer has taken to supporting Gen. Wesley Clark as his official candidate, and that's fine. As you all know, I am a supporter of Governor Howard Dean, but my primary goal is to not only defeat George W. Bush in 2004, but to begin the process of wiping out the right-wing hate machine that has been built up over the last thirty years.

I have good reasons for supporting the Dean campaign: first and foremost he has built up a very efficient, very dedicated campaign machine that has far out-raised anyone else, and has done so the way candidates ought to: from thousands of people giving small amounts that they can afford to give. While I believe strongly in campaign finance reform, I do believe that fund-raising ought to be a consideration when determining who to vote for. Someone who can inspire thousands or millions of people to give a hundred dollars has extraordinary appeal. Someone like Bush who raises millions from a few hundred people is only going to support their views, which of course he does. General Clark has a lot of good qualities, but he is late getting in to the race and has had some early problems within his campaign. It still needs to be shown how well he can overcome these bumps in the road and win in the primaries. Daily KOS is right: the national polls mean absolutely nothing at this stage in the game. The only polls that matter are the local primary polls. Once the nomination has been gained, then we can start paying attention to the nationals.

But it seems to me that Dean and Clark are the two front-runners. Edwards is behind them, but seems to be gaining a little momentum. Graham has already dropped out. Braun should have dropped out by now. Gephardt and Lieberman are irrelevant, and Lieberman is about dead in the water anyway. Kucinich is not far behind. Kerry, who should be the at the top, is staggering in NH, his strongest base. Sharpton should hang around if only to rail against the machine, as he does better than anyone else despite the fact that there is no way in hell he is going to win. Realistically speaking, it's Dean and Clark, and if, as I hope, they combine into a Dean/Clark or Clark/Dean campaign, that would marginalize the remainder even more.

Naturally there has been some in-fighting going on between the candidates. This is only natural, and it's part of the political process. Not all the good things we hear about Gov. Dean are entirely true, neither are all the bad things about him. The same with Clark. Dean has said straight out he would openly endorse any of the other candidates should they get the nomination. I don't think Clark has said so openly, but I have no doubt he feels the same way. Because I'm sure they understand what they're up against if they win: they will be fighting the biggest campaign juggernaut in US History.

Let's be clear about this: The Republicans are operating on a playing field overwhelmingly tilted in their favor: they dominate in terms of raising money (mostly from a few rich people donating thousands as opposed to hundreds of thousands giving smaller amounts). They have a slew of radio talk show hosts spreading their word around the airwaves without any serious opposition, and a so-called "mainstream" press that applies a hideous double-standard when it comes to news coverage. And finally, they have a faithful cadre of brainwashed followers who will vote for anything with an "R" in front of it regardless of who or what it is.

Yet, even with all of those advantages, they still feel the need to find ways of rigging the vote, and even then they have to tweak it carefully because, despite their propaganda machine, they know public opinion is split nearly down the middle. Take away the money, take away the one-sidedness of the talk on the airwaves, set up a voting system that's as accurate as possible, and the Republican Party simply goes away, because on the firld of ideas they don't have a prayer. They know it, and that's why they have to keep up the pressure.

I support Governor Dean. Right Wing Slayer supports General Clark. Both candidates have good and bad qualities. Either one is preferable to the current administration. Go support your candidate.

Good News
Which sort of ties in to why I didn't have a post yesterday: I was called by Siemens to take a pre-employment drug test and physical and I hope to be back at work some time next week. When I got home I took my wife out to a celebratory dinner at the Mellow Mushroom pizza joint in downtown Decatur.

This is a very good job, it's work in a sheet-metal factory, the kind of mindless work that lets me think a lot during the day and is just active enough to keep me busy while not straining myself lifting heavy weights. It's also very steady work, a job I can count on being there for several years, maybe even long enough to retire on. And of course it pays very well, as much as I have ever made.

And the best part is that it's unionized, part of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and you can bet your ass that I plan on getting involved in union activities.

This blog, and the radio show, are going to be the voice of the working man. I will be handling a wide assortment of issues, but the main thrust of the blog and the show will be about the problems of the working class in this country and what we can do to improve working conditions and get the pay we deserve instead of what we are told we deserve. It's time the working class began speaking up for itself and fighting back!

Some Changes
Nothing really affecting the blog itself...I have purchased the domain name http://www.cupjoe.com and as soon as things get set up technically there I will create a page exclusively for the radio show, and the blog will be essentially an addendum to that.

My problem still remains: I'm a lousy PR man. I just wanna write the blog and do the radio show, but I need someone who will do the legwork in getting people to the site as well as fund-raising. I am offering a negotiable, flat percentage of everything the site gets money-wise to anyone who can do this successfully. I realize that here are maybe only a dozen or so people who are currently reading the site regularly, in the next six months to a year I'd like to jump that up to about 3-400 regular readers, and then go from there. The emphasis will be more on the radio show than on the blog, but certainly I'd like to get a few more people interacting on the blog ie commenting.

If anyone wants to offer their services, e-mail me and we'll talk!

I have a ton of running around to do today: job-hunt related mostly. But the site will update later. Enjoy the blog, listen to the shows and COMMENT, dammit!

..And Now He's...ACHILLES!
George W. Bush, the Texas milquetoast who wouldn't get hired to manage to manage a 7-11 if it weren't for the fact that he was born into a wealthy, influentual family, has been compared to historic figures such as Winston Churchill by an American media falling over itself to hand him compliments he has never deserved, is now being compared to...get this...Achilles.

The Times Nicholas Kristof, mouth firmly placed upon Mr. Bush's genitalia, has the following to say:

...over the last few weeks, there have been a few hints of a rosy-fingered dawn, signs that President Bush may be learning from his mistakes and moderating his impulsiveness.

O pernicious joy! O wondrous glory! Forsooth, let us take up the call that hath been sounded! Mr. Bush hath grown up! And now, like Achilles, he shall riseth forth and lead us to great victory!

In the hopefully not-to-distant future, when historians look back to this era of darkness and folly, I wonder how much time they will devote to the loving phrases given to this wimp of a man who hides behind privilege and wears the skulls of his victims as a badge of honor? Probably about as much time that is given to the reporters and editors who made Pravda the bastion of journalistic integrity it is today.

Update: My response to the Times:
To The Editors:
Is Kristof kidding? Is he on drugs? Has the whole world just gone mad? Achilles? ACHILLES? Why not compare George W. to Jesus Christ himself, or better yet, God Almighty? It's not a question of partisanship, it's just outrageously immature and beneath the standards The Times supposedly sets for itself. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for printing such mindless drivel!

Disgustedly Yours,

Joe

Open Thread: Show 6
You know the routine. At least, I think you do. I don't sound too bitter, do I?

Incidentally, after this show, I will only be posting the most recent of the radio shows. I'm doing this to save server space. If anyone wants to donate some server space to keep a show archive up, or wants to help me purchase larger space, I'm all ears.

Fuckin' Idiots
What Alabama's Low-Tax Mania Can Teach the Rest of the Country

Alabama is not a wealthy state, but its bigger problem is that it is not making an effort to raise the taxes it needs. It is 48th in the nation in state and local revenue as a percentage of personal income, according to Governing magazine. And it has the nation's least equitable tax system. Alabama's income tax kicks in for families of four earning just $4,600. Its property taxes are the lowest in the nation, Governing reports, and "heavily favor farming interests."

As a Republican congressman, Governor Riley strongly opposed tax increases. But when he took over the state government, he realized it could not run on the revenues coming in. He courageously offered up a tax package that raised the needed revenue while shifting the burden from overtaxed poor people to undertaxed business interests. But the package was defeated by a skeptical electorate, with many of the no votes coming from low-income Alabamians, whose taxes would have gone down.

Shorter NY Times
Waiting for Democrats on Iraq
Bush fucked up royally, so what are you gonna do about it? huh?

The "M" Word
Daily Kos writes:

Time I spend on Daily Kos is time I can't spend on my clients. I hate to ask, but fact is running this site takes time and money. If you haven't helped out before, please consider sending a little something now.

Not too long ago, Atrios asked for some financial help to get a new laptop, he set a goal for $2,000 and was shocked to find that not only did he exceed that figure (he got $3,400) but someone also went out and got him the laptop he needed! One of my readers suggested he may have opened up a can of worms by getting so much (and also told me to try not to sound so bitter about it, since I can't seem to raise a cent, well except for the occasional kind soul that paypals me ten bucks or so), and maybe Kos, after a suitable period, decided it was his turn to see what was out there.

Doing a blog takes time, and while most of us do this because of a sense of duty, to speak out in some fashion about the insanity that's going on all around us, and being the kind of people we are, we cringe at the very thought of asking for money. But reality is reality, and time is money, the time spent doing a blog could certainly be put towards a more profitable use. As I said, we do this because we want to, not because we want to profit from it.

One of Kos readers suggested he set a goal so that they had an idea of how much he has and how much he needs, and I think that's a good thing, too. Me, I'd like to get twenty "subscribers," that is, twenty people willing to donate $30 a month (a dollar a day!), which would allow me to pay rent and bills, and give me breathing room to look for a real job and not just take any crappy job that happens to come along. Actually it's less a goal than it is a pipe dream, since I don't think I have more than twenty readers to begin with, but hey a dream is a dream.

So if you can afford to help Atrios or Kos that's great, please do so. And if you think the Cup O' Joe site and radio show is worth it, then please "Leave A Tip" at the link to the left, or become one of the aforementioned "subscribers." I'm not too proud to admit I could sure use it.

I worked all day Sunday putting together the radio show, and then changing everything over to MP3, so I never really had the time to dedicate to the blog despite several interesting news items coming out. And of course today is Monday, so I had to go look for work and stuff, and therefore haven't had the time to put into the blog. I'll have a few things up later on, though...

Oh, and for some reason the permanent links aren't working, you always find yourself at the top of the new page rather than linking to the specific story...weird...I'll put this on the back burner...

Open Thread: Show 5
The switch to MP3 format is now complete! Thanks to "sal" in the bartcop chatroom for solving my streaming problem!

Oh and yeah, and the show's about anime. Rant about it below.

The Realities Of Rugged Individualism
Daily Choice Turned Deadly: Children Left on Their Own

Last Sunday, as her night shift neared, Kim Brathwaite faced a hard choice. Her baby sitter had not shown up, and to miss work might end her new position as assistant manager at a McDonald's in downtown Brooklyn.

So she left her two children, 9 and 1, alone, trying to stay in touch by phone.

It turned out to be a disastrous decision. Someone, it seems, deliberately set fire to her apartment. Her children died. And within hours, Ms. Brathwaite was under arrest, charged with recklessly endangering her children.

The attention of the country is diverted, more and more, by petty stories of dubious import, but every now and then a story comes along that sheds an uncomfortable light into the greedy, selfish, money-worshipping world we have created for ourselves. Some of us weren't born into this world: it has evolved slowly over the last thirty years or so, when corporate America began it's rise to power. Some of us remember a time when no workplace in the world would force a mother to make a decision between caring for her children and losing their sole means of financial support. But we remember, and we know that the world we grew up in no longer exists.

The wealthiest of us, not satisfied with owning more money and power than any human being has ever needed or morally earned, continue to grab for even more wealth and even more power, regardless of the consequences, and that attitude is now prevalent in American society: it starts at the top, with the corporate executives who push fast food franchises to maintain maximum profitability. This in turn pressures the franchise owners to demand more and more of their employees, often for far less pay than they deserve. It eddies into muddy pools to the prosecuters who want to make an example of Ms. Brathwaite to further their own careers, and in the end it trickles down to her directly, reaching her by way of the fear she must have felt as the decision loomed: Watch the kids or keep my job? These are the life-or-death decisions that the working poor are facing more and more often.

This is what I mean when I point out how worthless and empty the words of those who scream "sanctity of life" are. Because they openly support policies that force people into decisions like this. If Ms. Brathwaite were to have lost her job because she decided to stay home, her children might be alive but she would be ridiculed by the right, by worthless fat slobs like Rush Limbaugh, for leaving a good job and perhaps having to go back on welfare. She and others are placed into impossible positions, then punished for it for no other reason than they're poor and they're powerless.

I ask again, as I have asked before: is this the kind of world we want to live in? If it is, then let's not bother with stories about the deaths of 9-year old Justina and 1-year old Justin, because to the new powers that be, the ones who see the whole world in terms of the bottom line, they just don't matter.

Blogging The Watchmen
Three years too late, the so-called "professional journalists" finaly pick up the story about how the Bush family earned their money. Funny how they were decrying these stories as just "urban legends" and lies not too long ago. Of course, they'll start to ask "Will this hurt George W. Bush's chances of re-election?" as if that were the only thing that really mattered. Never mind the Plame affair. Never mind the lies about the war with Iraq. No, that's not important. Look, Ahhnold is Guvnah! Isn't that a much better story? Never mind this Nazi stuff...nothing to see here...move along, move along!

Granted, George W. Bush is not specifically responsible for the crimes of his grandfather and great-grandfather. But he is responsible for the crimes of his own administration, and since those crimes fall along the same ideological principles that drove Prescott Bush to do business with Nazis, and let me point out that this was during the war, these issues should have been raised long ago. For instance, they could have been brought up during the 2000 campaign, when it was obvious who was buttering George W. Bush's bread. Or perhaps early into his administration, when Enron collapsed and his chief donor Kenneth Lay walked off scot free after stealing tens of millions of dollars. That sort of cronyism should have set off alarms from here to Pluto, but it went ignored, just like the war protests, and now the Plame affair. The Bush administration is being allowed to get away, literally in the case of Iraq, with murder, and the professional media are co-conspirators.

It's not like the information wasn't out there. Those of us in the blogosphere knew about it for a long time, and we hardly kept this little nugget to ourselves. We picked up on this story long before the pros did, just as we knew full well there weren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq even as the administration began its push to invade it, and the mainstream press went along with it. But "professional" journalists scoffed at us, as if everything we were writing was pure fiction. "What do they know?" they jeered. "They're not journalists." Well OK maybe they didn't say that, at least not openly, in print. But that was the attitude.

You know, just because we're bloggers doesn't mean we're stupid. I agree that all too often, bloggers don't hold themselves to the same kinds of standards professional journalists are supposed to, and yes, some of us do have some sort of bias politically, and more than a few can hardly even spell or put together a rational sentence. But you know, I see a lot of the same with the so-called professionals. OK sure they can spell and have a grasp of rudimentary grammar, but that doesn't excuse their sheer laziness or unwillingness to look into important issues. It wouldn't have been that difficult for someone, somewhere, to have said, "hey, let's see if there's anything to these stories." If you really make an effort and find nothing, then you can shelve it or you can write a story saying why the "internet rumors" aren't true. They certainly did their fair share of spreading those rumors during the Clinton administration, gleefully re-telling every GOP-created lie they could in order to give the pretense of "being tough" on the President. Not so, with George W. Bush, where real crimes are either flat-out ignored, or are presented only once and left to wither away, if they're reported at all. As has been pointed out, look at the amount of serious coverage the hundred or so idiots protesting the Ten Commandments slab got compared to the sloppy and dismissive coverage given to the millions of people who stood up trying to let our government and the world know that not all Americans were buying the bullshit from this administration about Iraq.

Up until recently, no one watched the Watchmen. Researching issues and disseminating information to the public was once a timely and expensive process, available only to a few people. Now, it's open game for anyone with a computer and an internet hookup, and the number of people who have these are growing steadily. The blogosphere is watching the Watchmen, now, and if the so-called professional media aren't already scared, they should be. Because while our voice is still small, it's growing, and one day it will drown them out.

Real Audio Or MP3?
A couple of listeners have asked that I switch to an .mp3 format rather than a Real Audio format for the show. I actually have a low-level mp3 file available right click here and "save target as" in order to download it. Or, you can open up Winamp, hit Ctrl-L, and type in (or cut-and=paste) the url directly: http://www.liberalresurgent.com/COJ/COJ04.mp3.

But I'd like for it to run the same way the Real Audio files run, to have it open WinAmp or Windows Media Player and stream the file directly there. If anyone knows how I can do that, comment below and let me know. I'm still using borrowed server space to store the show, and how long I will have it I don't know, and my financial situation doesn't allow me to get server space of my own. If anyone has space they're willing to donate, e-mail me.

---

It looks like my partner in crime Joey Davis is back. I thought he'd given up the fight...

Open Thread: Show 4
Spill your guts.

The Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request
by Steve Goodman

By the shores of old Lake Michigan
Where the hawk wind blows so cold
An old Cub fan lay dying
In his midnight hour that tolled
Round his bed, his friends had all gathered
They knew his time was short
And on his head they put this bright blue cap
From his all-time favorite sport
He told them, "It's late, and its getting dark in here"
And I know its time to go
But before I leave the line-up
Boys, there's just one thing I'd like to know

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around?
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground?
When I was a boy, they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave,
The land of the free,
And the doormat of the National League

He told his friends, "You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can."
That's what it says.
"But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan"
The Cubs made me a criminal
Sent me down a wayward path
They stole my youth from me (that's the truth)
I'd forsake my teachers
To go sit in the bleachers
In flagrant truancy

And then one thing led to another
and soon I'd discovered alcohol, gambling, dope
Football, hockey, lacrosse, tennis
But what do you expect,
When you raise up a young boys hopes
And then just crush 'em like so many paper beer cups,

Year after year after year
after year, after year, after year, after year, after year
'Til those hopes are just so much popcorn
for the pigeons beneath the 'EL' tracks to eat."

He said "You know I'll never see Wrigley Field, anymore
before my eternal rest
So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready,
and I'll read you my last request."
He said, "Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field
On some sunny weekend day (no lights)
Have the organ play the National Anthem
and then a little "na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye"
Make six bullpen pitchers, carry my coffin
and six ground keepers clear my path
Have the umpires bark me out at every base
In all their holy wrath

Its a beautiful day for a funeral. Hey Ernie, lets play two!
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,
and conduct just one more interview
Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I'll be ready to die

Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats,
And toss my coffin in
Let my ashes blow in the beautiful snow
From the prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind
When my last remains go flying over the left field wall
We'll bid the bleacher bums adieu
And I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue."

The dying man's friends told him to cut it out
They said, "Stop it that's an awful shame."
He whispered, "Don't Cry, we'll meet by and by near the Heavenly Hall of Fame."
He said, "I've got season's tickets to watch the Angels now,
So that's just what I'm going to do."
He said, "But you the living, you're stuck here with the Cubs,
So its me that feels sorry for you!"

And he said, "Oh play, play that lonesome losers tune,
That's the one I like the best."
Closed his eyes, and slipped away
It was the Dying Cub Fan's Last Request
And here it is:

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around?
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground?
When I was a boy, they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave,
The land of the free,
And the doormat of the National League!

Kobe
You know, I've been going out of my way not to even think about this latest circus trial dealing with yet another media celebrity accused of a vicious crime. Thankfully it hasn't gone to OJ levels yet, but it's a pretty dominant news story.

The problem with a case like this is that there are too many things which cloud people's judgment:

• He's black, which will always make a certain number of white people think he's guilty and a certain number of black people think he's being persecuted.



• He's rich, which means that there are some people who will believe that, regardless of his actual guilt or innocence, his wealth will protect him from such charges and others who believe that his wealth should protect him.



• He's a big media star, which means that there are some powerful people who have a vested interest in keeping him out of jail so that he can make money for them. On the other hand, he plays for the Lakers, and there are a lot of people who would love to see them taken down a notch, especially after getting clobbered by San Antonio last year.

So in my eyes it's going to be damn near impossible to get a fair trial as long as this remains so much in the public eye. All of the above factors are going to make a difference in this trial, and regardless of what happens, Kobe's name will be smeared forever. Granted, I'm one of those people who can't stand the Lakers and the preferential treatment they get from the refs (that is, the NBA), but this is not how you want a team you don't like to go down.

Now, if Warren Sapp was on trial...

B-Chan On Rush
Some of you may recall my sparring partner Bruce (aka B-Chan) from Pax Liberalis: I admit I got rather rude with him (to say the least) on PaxLib and in other places, but the truth is that, in person, he's a very nice guy despite his (to my mind) warped political views (to be fair, he says the same about me). I had occasion to talk to him at Anime Weekend Atlanta a few weeks ago and we had a very nice conversation, and may even collaberate on a graphic novel together...more on this as it progresses.

He had this to say about the Rush affair on his livejournal, which is the same as a blog only it tastes great/less filling, whatever:

The man was a self-admitted entertainer, not a real political thinker; his brand of rubber-chicken, Chamber-Of-Commerce conservatism has as much to do with historic and traditional conservative thought as Coors Light has to do with real beer - they contain the same basic ingedients, true, but one is watered down for easy-drinkin’ smoothness, with no bitter intellectual aftertaste.

Rush loved to use the line about "just being an entertainer" whenever somebody really nailed him on his pseudo-populist brand of racist bullshit, and anyone who has seen him try to pull his schtick outside of the bubble he insulates himself from the rest of the world knows that he is a very insecure man, like so many of the other bullies on the right. And frankly, I would feel more inclined to sympathize with Rush if he weren't such a total asshole. I hope he gets better, and I hope he comes to terms with his disease/problem, whatever you want to call it, but I also hope he is never given a public forum again. Bruce pretty much hits the nail on the head in his post, with the worst of it geared towards his moronic, brainwashed fans. When Bruce calls you a "Trekkie," that's an insult.

Bruce, by the way, considers himself to be a real conservative, though there are others who say the same thing (and just as many on the left who argue and fight about what it means to be liberal). All I know is he's like Jekyll in person and Hyde on the net...

Well, DUH
Ex-Aide: Powell Misled Americans

I love Harry Belafonte.

Meanwhile, In The Afterlife
Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon are looking down on events in Iraq.

"If only I had just one of Bush's armored divisions," says Alexander, wistfully, "I would definitely have conquered India."

"Surely if I only had a few squadrons of Bush's air force," muses Frederick the Great, "I would have won the Seven Years War decisively in a matter of weeks."

"And if I only had that Fox News," adds Napoleon, "No one would have ever known that I lost the Russia campaign."

-submitted by my pal Alex, via Hoolinet

Two Strikes, One Cause
As if California didn't have enough problems, two different organizations are on strike: last week the grocery worker's union struck, and this week mechanics for the LA public transportation have walked off, and other unions are likewise walking off, in support, leaving half a million regular users of public transportation stranded. As someone who relies on public transportation himself, I sympathize.

The reason for the strikes? Health care costs. The grocery stores are demanding that union employees pay $5 a week ($15 for family coverage) to cover rising costs, the mechanic's union is demanding that LA's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) put more money into the health care fund (which has remained the same for ten years despite rising costs), the MTA says the union is mismanaging funds. That sounds like the typical "blame the other guy" bickering to me, but of course I'm with the union on this, there's been an anti-union sentiment in this country for years, and all working people, union or no, are suffering for it. But ever since the GOP defeated President Clinton's National Health Care plan, the for-profit medical industry has been ratcheting up prices, and naturally it's the people on the bottom that get the shaft.

"Health care coverage is critical," said LA bus driver Arlene Mills. "It's not about wages anymore, it's about health care."

The Republicans, with their "market is God" philosophy, would be just as happy keeping things the way they are: the rich can take care of themselves after all. Each of the leading Democratic contenders has his/her own vision of the future of American health care. All I know is, if I get into an accident, I'm ruined, because I have nothing. I'd love to get a full medical checkup, as well as dental care, and I only have the one pair of glasses now, if they go, I have no way of replacing them. I bet many of you are in a similar situation.

So, what do you think? What kind of health care plan would you like to see in this country? Comment below.

Your Stupid Minds! Stupid, Stupid!
You would think that the lessons of VietNam (invasion is easy, conquest is a bitch) would be plain and clear to all, but, as Reagan used to say, here we go again. The military is stretched thin, some soldiers are beginning to fold under the pressure, and while a proposal to reinstate the draft was soundly defeated in early 2003, it may have to be reinstated in order to get the number of troops they're going to need to police Iraq for the next decade or so, and even moreso if they plan to go after countries like Syria or Iran.

I wonder, how could this administration be so stupid? I mean, I'm just some schmuck with a high school diploma and even I could see that this whole thing was a recipe for disaster. These people all went to college and are skilled enough to organize a massive political machine that has managed to pretty much take over the country, did they think that somehow, after all the examples of history, they were different? That they would escape all the problems that every other attempted empire suffered? Do they really think they're that special?

Look, I got no sympathy for Saddam or Osama: as far as I'm concerned they deserve what they get if we ever manage to catch them (and as paranoid as I am, I wonder if there's a conspiracy to keep these two former CIA assets at bay intentionally to keep people scared), but as I've said before, there's a right way and a wrong way to go about this, and boy have we picked the wrong way. A smart politician would just have been more patient, been nicer to our allies in Europe, and created a true coalition to handle the problem of petty dictators like Saddam. The costs of the war could have been shared by the UN, both financially and militarily, and the Iraqi people would have been more willing to accept a UN force as opposed to a US force. The world would have been a little bit safer.

But no.

They had to be pricks. They had to bully and intimidate countries who have been our staunchest allies for over fifty years.

They had to have everything their way, all the time, because they believe that they are right every time, on every issue.

And that's just plain stupid.

Watching The Watchmen
Citizens Strike Back In Intelligence War
With the recent demise of the Bush administration's controversial Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) programme to monitor everyone in the US, citizens now have a chance to get their own back. A website to be launched later in 2003 will allow people to post information about the activities of government organisations, officials and the judiciary.

Yeah well that's all well and good, but you know, it seems to me that we need to keep an eye out on the news media as well. In fact, I'd love to see a site devoted to the behind-the-scenes shananigans that go on at our leading prnt and media news sources. If people knew what a bunch of heartless, whoring pricks these "journalists" are in real life, they'd be less inclined to take them seriously.

If I was a multimillionaire I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I'm lucky to have a roof over my head. Ah, the joys of being on the left.

Then again, there's Atrios.

Not that I'm bitching, mind you. Well, maybe a little. Buddy, can you spare a buck for a cup o' Joe?

Priceless
Bill McClellan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells us how Rush might spin it if it were Bill Clinton and not he who had the drug problem. Scary, isn't it?

Update: Looks like Atrios read the same message forum I did!

Open Thread: Show 3
Post your comments about show 3 here! Note: "You Suck!" is not constructive criticism!

Dear NY Times:
Re: Secrets Of The Scandal

To The Editors:
It's remarkable how, when Republicans create a scandal of their own for political reasons, the news media backs them up on it, yet when Republicans actively break the law, any Democrat who speaks up about it is deemed by the media to be "politicizing" it.

The Plame affair is brazen politics, and it is also a vicious crime: the President or a high-level member of his administration intentionally outed Ms. Plame in order to punish her husband, who dared to contradict the official party line, and to intimidate others who might also speak out. Asking for an independent prosecutor in this instance is hardly "politics."

-Joe Vecchio

Job
The following was asked on the bartcop forum:
Sometimes, donthca just wonder? As things get exponentially worse and as the people who are systematcially ruining this great country (and give them time) eventually the world go unpunished, don't you get the quesy feeling that God is on their side (and he aint nice.)
I mean, even if you believe there is no supreme being pulling the strings and we are all the victims of universal chaos, wouldn't at least some of these pr*cks running the show now have gotten comeupence through random chance by now? (Rush doesn't count; I predict that his pain and loss from his being outed as a druggie will be minimal..)
The Gropenator as Governor, the way the Monkey King and his handlers get away with everything, and on and on...it makes me wonder.

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, here's my response:

Sounds like what Job asked God: Why do the good suffer and the evil gain? God answered, in essence, that the universe is a far greater thing than we can know, and that it is all part of a larger tapestry.

If you can take comfort in anything, take comfort in the fact that the type of happiness these people seek cannot be accomplished through seeking wealth and power. I'm poor as dirt and have been for some time yet I will hazard to say that I have greater emotional stability than many who have far more money than they will ever need. Look at Rush...with all his money, he is still a very insecure person who has to practically imprison himself to protect him from criticism. Okay, he doesn't have to worry about where his next meal comes from, or if he's going to have a place to stay, but that's about it. And I for one am perfectly happy to let them live their lives as long as they stop screwing with mine.

Every Soldier Counts
On those rare occasions when someone bothers to ask me why I believe what I believe, and being a complex human being I happen to have opinions that cover a huge swathe of the political spectrum, one of the points I like to make has its origins in my days in the military. I have actually worked, in one way or another, for each branch of the military: I joined the Army Reserve not long after high school, I went active duty for the Air Force, and I worked for both the Navy and the Marines as a civilian contractor for a short time. I went to both Army and Air Force basic training, and it was during Army basic training that I was made to understand the concept of teamwork.

Anyone who has ever been in the military or even seen a film about basic training knows that they have this thing called an obstacle course where soldiers learn to navigate different obstacles while getting from point A to point B. Climbing, crawling, swinging over a pool of slimey water on a rope, these are some of the things you have to do to get to where you're supposed to be going. And in the Army, that's a soldier's primary job: to get to a certain place at a certain time so that you can confront the enemy. The thing that surprised me most about the whole ordeal, however, was the attitude of the drill sergeants: If your buddy's having trouble, help them out! they would scream. Their attitude was a simple one: when you're in combat, you need all the help you can get, and what it all boils down to is that every soldier counts.

I believe the same is true in life: we all face a series of obstacles and we all need help from time to time. If we were just left to ourselves, we couldn't survive as a race: human civilization itself didn't come into being until we became organized enough to support people other than the ones just growing the food. And over the years we've built larger and more complex societies, requiring individuals to rely more and more on a social infrastructure in order for them to survive. Right-wingers chafe at these social structures, believing (falsely) that anyone with enough gumption could get along without them, which is just nonsense: often all they do is take advantage of the structures, manipulating them for their own benefit, while chastising others for being either unable or unwilling to do the same thing for themselves. Rush's drug use is a prime example of that: he couldn't possibly manufacture these drugs himself, nor could he afford, even on his huge salary, to pay the scientists and researchers and build the facilities. He took advantage of a system that would exist whether he was here or not, and that's where the hypocrisy lies.

It isn't just him, of course. People like Grover Norquist and his pals at the Heritage Foundation want to destroy the entire social infrastructure, no doubt believing that he and his rich friends can survive well enough without it. But what they don't understand is that their wealth and power exists in large part because of the very social entity they are trying to destroy. In tearing it apart, they're just setting the stage for their own destruction.

In the Army, every foot soldier is backed up by a huge support system: cooks, supply, transportation, training, even bureaucrats: there are about ten support people for every soldier in the field, and guys like Rush and Norquist are so far removed from that part of it that they don't understand how important those people are. In their minds, they are the only soldiers who count, everyone else is expendable, even useless.

But they're wrong. Every soldier does count, and those who take advantage of the system better understand that, because there can be big consequences for those who endanger the troops.

Stuff
You might have noticed, by the way, that I don't have a counter or any links on the site. I removed the Buzzflash newsticker as well, because I wanted to keep the site as simple and uncluttered as possible. And the fact of the matter is that I really don't care how many people read the site. I used to obsess about that with PaxLib and get upset when the numbers stayed pretty much the same. This time around I'm just going to do what I do and not worry about who's reading the site. As for the links, I figure that everyone who reads my site is already aware of the other sites like Atrios, Bartcop or Daily KOS. Now if I notice they've linked me, that might change...

I've been trying to add a place for comments using haloscan but it hasn't been working...maybe I can get it fixed tomorrow.

The Cubs and Marlins are in extra innings as I write this, I can't stand to watch so I've tuned in to Welcome Back, Kotter on TV Land, and that'll be followed by WKRP in Cincinnati. By the way, I love Marcia Strassman (Mrs. Kotter) and Jan Smithers (Bailey Quarters) on these shows.

Uncivility
Which was more "uncivil": the French nobility who had no concern or compassion for French peasants and continued to rob them of their freedoms, money, and finally their food, or the Reign Of Terror that came afterwards?

Which was worse: the centuries of oppression faced by Russian peasants under the Czars or the equally murderous seven decades of Communism that followed?

While wantonly chopping the heads off the nobility might be considered the more violent offense, remember that, in both these cases, the latter was caused by the former. We havn't quite reached that stage yet with the American ruling class, but if they keep it up, things undoubtedly will. I don't want the heads of everyone in the Bush administration on pikes, I want them held to the same standards as everyone else, to be held accountable for their actions and policies. But by trying to downplay the issue, by trying to pretend that all this fuss about an illegal war we were lied to about is nothing more than partisan politics, by trying to warp reality, they're going to cause the very things they despise. Communism did not rise out of a vacuum, it was an extreme response to an extreme situation. If guys like Luskin can't understand this, then pikes is what they are going to get, and pikes are what they will deserve.

Thucydides understood this 2500 years ago: greed knows no bounds. Someone who wanted x amount will eventually want twice that, and twice that again. There are no limits. And because of this, they will be taken down, once more. I only hope the resulting carnage will be limited to them.

Schoolyard Tactics
What the GOP hate machine understands is that he who strikes the first blow often gets away with it: as any victim of a schoolyard bully can tell you, more often than not the authorities go after the one that retaliates rather than the one who struck the first blow. And when the tables are turned, even a little, they're the first ones to start crying about it, in an effort to distract attention from the fact that they brought the retaliation on themselves. Thus, it's perfectly all right for them to impeach President Clinton for a consensual affair, yet when we point out when one of them does the same exact thing, they start with the "can't we all just get along?" garbage. Bush telling people that he will "change the tone" in Washington is like the schoolyard bully who promises that once he's on top, the beatings will end.

As Paul Krugman says: All this fuss about the rudeness of the Bush administration's critics is an attempt to preclude serious discussion of that administration's policies. For there is no way to be both honest and polite about what has happened in these past three years. Having spent the last ten years taunting and bullying the left, the right, now beginning to face some real criticism, is whining about people being "unfair." to them. Rush gets fired from ESPN and they scream about how that's against "freedom of speech" as if Rush didn't get to yammer on for three hours a day on his own show. Bill O'Reilly steps out of his "zone" where he can cut off people's microphones and scream at them to "Shut up!" and gets slaughtered and claims he's being treated unfairly.

Perhaps they get away with it because we expect the worst of them anyway, but no matter. The truth is, they do get away with it, and will continue to get away with it, and even after things finally turn against them and they get the bitch-slapping they deserve (like they did in 1932: same tactics, different crowd), they will continue to believe that they are right and they are being persecuted. And the unfortunate truth is that sooner or later, they'll return, and the whole cycle will begin all over again.

Debate On TV
I tried to watch it but I was getting so angry with Judy Woodruff that I had to turn it off before I threw something at the TV. If I were one of the candidates, I would tell Judy that she's part of the problem...if she and the rest of the American media were as hard on W as they are on them, we wouldn't have soldiers getting killed in Iraq. Remarkable how quickly they become "journalists" when talking about Democrats...

Vote Shaving
My good friend Faun Otter has been meticulously researching the results from the California recall, noting in detail some, uh, rather curious anomalies in all the counties using the electronic voting machines manufactured by the Diebold company, which is run by Wally O'Dell, a major Bush fundrasier who has promised to "deliver Ohio" to Bush/Cheney.. This is of course a huge story, and of course you'll never hear a word about it in the corporate media. I have, however, taken the liberty of sending this info to Atlanta's Creative Loafing newspaper, and to the BBC, who also reported on it. Perhaps they will make an issue of it...

Part 1 of Faun Otter's research
Part 2 of Faun Otter's research

The Sanctity Of Life
I was reading an article in the Houston Chronicle about four white men beating a mentally retarded, disabled black man almost to death, when I saw this article about a Texas couple suing a hospital for the "wrongful death" of their as-yet unborn son.

The former story is about nothing more than base cruelty by a bunch of drunken thugs who took great pleasure in torturing a helpless person just because he was helpless. The article said that the FBI was trying to determine whether the crime was racially motivated, which is probably true as well, but I think the fact that he was retarded had almost as much to do with it.

The latter story is almost purely political, in the sense that this couple is intending to force the Texas courts to make a clear determination of when a fetus is a parasitical being living inside a womb and when it is a full human, deserving of all the rights we have. A law (is it a Texas law or a federal law? I'll have to get back to you all on that) considers it to be a double murder if someone murders a pregnant woman, and that of course is one of the basis of the couple's argument.

The four white men have rightly been imprisoned, but charged only with aggravated assault, which is a second-degree felony, though in my opinion they clearly intended to kill him, leaving him in a ditch at the side of a desolate road. The article doesn't give a lot of details, only that one of the accused claims to have "found him" in the ditch three hours after he was dumped there: perhaps he was trying to clear himself of charges by being the one who nobly rescued him, perhaps he had a guilty conscience, I don't know, but it seems clear to me that after the attackers had their fun, the man was left to die.

It seems to me that the beating of an adult male warrants more punishment than the loss of a fetus, especially since there was some question as to the prenatal care that the woman was giving her unborn child: apparently she gained fifty pounds during the course of the pregnancy. I asked my wife who has three children (from a previous marriage) if such a weight gain was possible, and she said yes it was, she herself gained fifty pounds during her second son's birth, but she adds that a) she didn't hit that weight until he was almost born, and b)she was underweight to begin with, she only weighed about 105 pounds before the pregnancy. The woman in the article weighed about 250 to start. To have gained 50 pounds in seven and a half months is excessive.

My wife and I occassionally fight over the abortion issue, she's adamantly against it for very personal reasons: she herself was almost aborted, and of course she uses that against me at every opportunity. My arguments are much more geared towards pragmatism. For example, it seems to me that if you could sue a hospital for "wrongful death" in this case, that it would also be possible to charge the couple for murder since, after all, the fetus was living inside the mother. And if you believe, like some people do, that a fetus is a living human from the moment of conception, then you would have to treat every miscarriage as a possible murder case. The idea of a woman forcing a miscarriage isn't that uncommon, after all. Do we have a trial? And should anyone who knows about it and doesn't do anything to stop it, or even helps, be considered an accessory? Despite what the fundamentalists want you to believe, these issues aren't so cut and dry.

I wonder if the four guys accused of beating up this black guy have wives or girlfriends, and how they would feel about them having an abortion, or being placed on trial because they miscarried? Would they feel the same exultation they felt when they were beating up this helpless man? Or is it OK to do that because the guy was a stranger, and of course, black? Some of the same people who are against abortion in all cases are the biggest cheerleaders for our campaign against Iraq, despite the questionable evidence of it's motives or it's necessity. And make no mistake: our bombs killed pregnant women and children, as well. Those kinds of deaths seem acceptable if you're talking about "higher issues" such as giving Iraqis the benefits of American culture, and of course, converting them. And from a political point of view, it's religion that's the driving force behind the anti-abortion, "life is sacred" movement.

"Life is sacred? Who says so? God? Hey, if you read history, you see that God is one of the leading causes of death!" says George Carlin in one of his routines. And he makes a powerful point: some life is more sacred than other life. I mean, even discounting the numerous things we kill because we have to eat in order to live ourselves (and don't give me this vegetarian nonsense: plants are alive just as much as animals are, just because they can't look back at you with sad eyes doesn't make them any less so), I'm talking about sentient life here, about human beings, who have placed themselves at the top of the food chain. It's apparently all right for some people (that is, people we don't know or who have different cultures than we do) to die, but horrible for others. We cheer the deaths of those we are told are enemies no matter how falsely they have been made so, we mourn the deaths of those we identify with regardless of how brutally or illegally they act. We mourn for fetuses yet casually turn our backs to the deaths caused by poverty and hopelessness, even to the point of continuing the policies that cause them, as if they were two separate things, two different classes of people who get different treatment.

But as I am so fond of saying, the human race is still in the process of "becoming," that is, we are still learning and growing, and hopefully one day we will overcome the darker side of our natures: the side that makes us want to attack helpless people for emotional rush it gives us, the side that lives in paranoid fear of an un-knowable, all-powerful God, and the side that ruthlessly kills others for no other reason than greed and lust for power. I don't think we are going to achieve this in our lifetimes, but I hope that we can survive as a race long enough to make it possible.

Good News
Well, I was surprised to find out that, even though I only worked at my last job for about a month, somehow I still qualified for unemployment, so at least I'll have some money coming in.

If you look to the left, you'll see I added an email...should have done that before, but oh well.

Oh, and the latest radio show is up! Click on the link on the left to listen in!

Poor Darrell Issa
For those of you who remember, this was the guy who was primarily responsible for getting the recall vote put into place, he put about $2 million of his own money to get the signatures to get the whole thing started. Of course, he did so because he himself wanted to be the new Governor, but when Ahnold tossed his hat in the ring, that ended that.

I don't care how many times people tell me to stop saying it, the truth is that Americans are idiots. And in the many, many examples I could exhibit as proof of this, the biggest one is how we now deal with politics and politicians. Somehow they don't seem to get the point that politics is a specific skill, and an important one at that, when you consider that they're the ones who write the laws we all have to live by. In California they made it possible for voters to pass referendums that handcuff the government and then made it easy to recall the governor despite the fact that he was powerless to make these changes.

And while there's always been a healthy distrust of politics and politicians, what we're seeing now is a complete and total rejection of anyone who spends his or her life in public service. So instead of a skilled politician who understands the system and can work to get things done, we get instead a person who is easily elected because if charisma, but has no practical working knowledge of how to run a government, unless it comes to knowing how to use it to make a few bucks for himself and his financial backers.

Make no mistake about it: Ahhnold is the perfect GOP figurehead candidate. He'll stand up there and be an action figure, spewing out one-liners and distracting attention from the fact that the financiers who catapulted him into office are about to rob Californians blind, while they ensure the state going to Bush in 2004. And Californians have willingly become the victims.

Maennergarten
I think we could do this here...have the wives drop off their hubbies on election day while they go vote...

I'm withholding comment on the California thing until we see how it all pans out.

My prediction?

You want my prediction?

Pain.

Another Day, Another Rejection
My icreasingly futile search for work continues unabated, I've damn near given up on the idea of ever finding steady work again, I just don't think anyone has any use for a forty-something like myself with no formal education and a history of intermittent employment. My sister wrote me a nasty email saying how I should "get off my ass and find work" but of course it takes two to play that game, and right now all I'm doing is pretty one-sided. No one returns my calls, no one has any work to offer me, and I just keep getting more and more depressed. I can't sleep, I can't concentrate, and I can't get motivated. And the news just adds to it: California, the Plame afair, the economy, not a whole lot of good news out there.

Sigh.

Janet Maslin of the NY Times writes a hatchet job on Michael Moore. Maslin, who was the NY Time's chief film reviewer before she switched to books, also wrote the following about Sidney Blumenthal's book The Clinton Wars:

MASLIN: Beyond his intention to set the record straight on controversies that plagued the Clinton presidency, Mr. Blumenthal has a more personal agenda. Barely mentioning others close to the Clintons, and illustrating this memoir with smiling, convivial photographs of himself in their company (though much of the book is about others, like the less lovable Kenneth W. Starr), Mr. Blumenthal sends a clear message to his administration colleagues: Mom liked me best.

I don't know if Maslin has it in for lefties or if she's just turned off by Moore's writing style (I admit he's not the greatest writer in the world), but that's (at least) two nasty reviews of important left-wing books in the last six months. Strangely enough she had a reputation for being far too kind in her reviews (here and here). Maybe she's compensating?

Update: More schizophrenia: here she gives a decent review of Al Franken's Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them. So what's the deal? Franken good. Moore bad. Blumenthal bad. I better stop before my head explodes.

NY Times: Déjà Vu Again On Special Counsel

To The Editors:

Let's see: the independent counsel was created because of Republican abuse of power, it was disbanded because the Republicans abused it when they had the chance to use it themselves, and it is being resurrected because Republicans are once more abusing power. Does anyone see a pattern here?

-Joe Vecchio

Daily Kos prints excerpts from an LA Times article by Neal Gabler that refers to the Bush administration as having a "medievel" mindset, in the sense of disregarding facts in order to suit their ideology. I happen to agree with this assessment, and I believe I understand why that is.

You see, the bulk of not just this admiistration, but of the entire Republican leadership, are Southerners, and having lived here in the South for over a decade, and having lived previous to that in the Northeast, I've learned that the main difference between the two cultures is that Northerners (specifically New Yorkers) live in a modern industrial economy and have that mindset, and Southerners still live in a medievel agrarian economy, despite the massive growth the South has had (thanks mainly to air conditioning, which makes the South a more tolerable place to work). Southerners value heritage and tradition far more than anyone else in the country: who their parents and grandparents were is far more important than who they are and who their children will be. This clash of cultures was probably the biggest reason for the Civil War, and slavery was a big part of that.

Southerners work harder, work longer hours, and work for less money than their counterparts anywhere in the country. They have the least protection in the workplace, as well as the least security (can you say "right to work?"), and they admire the "businessmen" who conspire to keep them that way under the pretense that maybe one day they, too, can be one of them, like Stig O'Tracy admired Dinsdale Piranha. Why else do they continue to vote for Republicans, despite the fact that Republicans have done absolutely nothing for the working class? And the mind-boggling thing to me is how arrogant they are about it.

And of course, the ones on top, the ones like George W. Bush, who grew up in this neo-medievelism, think nothing of taking advantage of "the peasants" (I don't know if they actually call them that, but that's the attitude) because, to them, that's what they're there for. Their opinions only matter if they can overthrow them, and since that ain't gonna happen, they can feel free do and say whatever they want, knowing that the ones who are on the bottom are happy to stay that way.

Not all Southerners are like this, of course. In fact, some of the people I most admire in politics come from the South: Presidents Clinton, Carter and Gore, for example. But there's enough who maintain that medievel mindset so that it will continue on, perhaps even to the point where things degenerate enough and they really do become peasants, in which case they'll continue to think that "that's the way things have always been" and the way they always will be. Now maybe that's good enough for them, but it's not the kind of world I would like to live in. And maybe enough Southerners will wake up to this and realize how they are being taken advantage of, but frankly I'll believe it when I see it.

---

This is why I hate playoffs. What's the point of putting together a solid season like the Braves and Giants did so that you can lose to a team that was hot only for the last month or so? The Marlins finished nine games behind the Giants, the Cubs 13 games behind the Braves, yet it all boiled down to a best-of-five series. As much as I despise the Yankees, at least they managed to put away the Twins, but the fact that the two best teams in the National League are going to sit home and watch the two teams with the worst records in the playoffs fight for the right to go to the World Series shows how bad things have gotten in baseball. All I can say is the Cubs at least better make it to the Series...

I was watching the Red Sox/A's game Saturday night, when the Sox won in extra innings on a homer by Trot Nixon. It was all very dramatic and I was enjoying it until they interviewed Trot directly after he hit his homer. He started talking about how he had asked Jesus Christ to calm him down and how it was Jesus, and not him, who had swung the bat and hit the homer.

Uh

I have news for you, Trot: As much as you're entitled to your opinion, I doubt very much that Jesus Christ is interested, in any way shape or form, with the outcome of a baseball game. If he helps you, that means he is actively working against someone else. If he cares about the game in any way, he would care that no one got hurt and that everyone played fairly and by the rules. And just as Jesus had nothing to do with that home run, or any of the other 106 home runs you have hit in your career, he also had nothing to do with the 482 strikeouts you've had, or the 26 errors you made while in the majors.

You see this a lot in sports, Trot is one of many Christians in professional sports, and all of them seem to think that somehow God or Jesus will be an active participant in their success or failure. I'm not blaming them for being religious, but I think any rational person would plainly see that victory or defeat in a sporting event means very little in the great scheme of things. Boston hasn't won a World Series since 1918, the Cubs haven't won one since 1908, and yet, both cities are thriving metropolitan areas that millions of people live in and enjoy. Perhaps God or Jesus or Buddha might have a part to play in that (as an agnostic, I can't say for sure one way or another), but even within the context of the whole "God interferes" thing, I cannot possibly believe that they take sides in any sporting event in any fashion whatsoever.

Now, if the Cubs and the Red Sox make it to the World Series this year, that might be a sign from God.

Yes, I know, it's been a long time between posts, I haven't been in a writing mood for quite some time. Hopefully that will change when I get a regular job and can keep a regular schedule instead of the organized chaos of looking for work.

The first radio show is online, you can listen to it here. I'm happy with the quality of the audio, but I have to get more used to being a solo act. I prefer to work with someone, it's more relaxing for me that way. But I think it's a pretty good show for a first time.

I want to get away for a moment from the three big news items currently out, which are the CIA/Plame affair, the California recall, and the Rush on drugs story. These are being covered much better by guys like Atrios and Daily Kos. No, I want to talk about something else, and that's us, that is, those of us who consider ourselves to be "on the left," however vague a term that may be. I realize that, for the moment, things aren't going well for us, what with the scum of the Bush administration squatting in the White House, a national media with an obvious doube-standard and a desire to smear anyone they don't consider to be "one of them," and and the recalling of a governor in California for problems not of his own making.

I want instead to talk about a post I saw back on Sept. 25th on the bartcop forum by "mopaul," entitled "We're not angry enough yet." In this article, he writes:

..."What will it take to anger us enough to react in a concrete and effective way? Do we even remember what being angry is? And if you are not in a rage at what's going on, why not?

Look how angry the republicans were when they had Bill Clinton for 8 years. Why are we not equally as angry at buscho? Are conservatives simply angrier than liberals? The republicans organized their anger and impeached Clinton, and assassinated him politically, and shut down the government. Where the hell is OUR anger? We take outrage after outrage from these assholes and swallow it and pretend it's candy. Is there something wrong with us, that we can tolerate obscenities and simply move on? Are we herbivores, calmly grazing while carnivores kill us off? Are we truly 'sheeple'?

I suggest we get a lot angrier as liberals. I suggest also that we go ahead, and sink to their level, and play by THEIR rules. Down and dirty, blow for blow, give and take. We should stop being so tolerant of bullshit and outrages, and get righteously pissed off."

I sympathize with you, dude, but it's not that easy. Yes, I get angry myself sometimes, I have a very low tolerance for what I perceive to be obvious stupidity (like, for example, someone voting for Ahhhnold), and my first instinct is to get into the faces of people like that and scream at them. Now while that woud ge a great tension reliever for me, it wouldn't be very productive. If people are going to be idiots, there's very little you can do to dissuade them. And frankly, I'm not capable of maintaining that anger indefinitely. Despite what others may think, I'm actually a pretty rational guy, and self-aware enough to understand when I am wrong (and yes I do get things wrong from time to time). There are indeed legitimate issues raised by even the most lunatic of the right, but for the most part they're such prime examples of walking excrement it's difficult for me to take them seriously. The anger I have for them is much more personal and much less issues-oriented, because they make everything personal, and then whine and cry like little babies when someone pushes back. And unfortunately, because some of them have a lot of money, and almost no scruples, they have a lot of power right now. Combine this with an apathetic, mislead population, and you have a recipe for a major disaster, as we're seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But let me put things into better perspective. Things are bad, yes, and they'll probably get worse before they get better, but compared to the way things were a century ago in this country, we still have it pretty good. Consider the fact that in 1904 there was no such thing as labor laws (at least not on a Federal level: cities like New York were just beginning to implement labor laws), the press was controlled by a corporate oligarchy to an even greater extent than it is today, and the ability for anyone to communicate outside of the press was far more difficult, costly, and time-consuming. We have so many more advantages today, and of course even the very poor have it better than the very poor in America a hundred years ago.

That's one of the reasons we have some difficulty organizing, because most people have yet to reach the point where they realize that things are being taken from them, or at least they haven't gotten to the point where they feel the need to do something about it. Maybe they figure the hard times will just pass, maybe they just don't know any better, either way they have yet to act on their behalf, and until they do, we can expect a tough struggle ahead. But mark my words, if the right wing continues to gain power, eventually these people will start getting involved, and just like in 1932, the right will be tossed back on the sidelines where they belong, there to remain for another seventy or so years.

You have to understand that greed knows no limitations. It's not enough for them to own X percentage of everything, they want all of it, regardless of how unattainable it is. They'll go too far, because too far is the only possible place they can go. We can only hope that when they eventually get bitch-slapped, we put in place and enforce some laws that will make it tougher for them to take over next time (and there will be a next time, these people will always exist).

Of course, the big problem lies with the human race in general. We are still growing and learning as a race, and we have yet to completely overcome the darker side of our nature. We are still, as President Clinton so adroitly put it, "becoming." We haven't even begun to tap our full potential yet. And while it's possible that the dark side of us may destroy us, I think that we will survive this period and become something far greater. I'm not saying it will happen any time soon, it may take centuries for us to accomplish it, but I think it will happen.

Mopaul is right, however, in saying we should get angry, in the sense that we need to get motivated to work for thos change, because it isn't going to happen by itself, and if we work together we can make the change happen with far less suffering. Get angry, but be smart about it.