Gimme Three Steps

I've been thinking about this post by Digby a lot since he posted it, and every time I think about it I feel sad and a little frustrated. I've lived in Atlanta for more than twelve years, and I understand southerners about as much now as I did when I first moved here. I know more about its history and culture than when I first arrived, but I think I'd need ten lifetimes to understand the thought processes behind what goes on down here.

That doesn't mean to say, of course, that I think all southerners are toothless, inbred yokels. For the record, I happen to dislike that stereotype almost as much as southerners do. And there are some southerners who I greatly admire. I remember when I worked for NBC during the Olympics, the insults I heard from NBC employees made even me feel the need to defend my home town. And because most of the entertainment in this country comes from either New York or Los Angeles, and is made by people who have never been down here, I can understand the resentment southerners feel towards how they're treated.

But understanding the resentment they feel, in my mind, doesn't justify the phoniness and the hypocrisy that's seemingly built in to the culture, and their unwillingness to recognize that there are other people in the country, and to appreciate the things that northern liberals did for them. Like bringing them electricity. The only way the south's climate is even bearable is because of air conditioning, and if it weren't for the Tennessee Valley Authority and Rural Electrification, I'll wager that many parts of the south would still be without power, and would have less than half the people they have now. That's not the only example, but it's probably the biggest one, and I think you get the picture.

It also doesn't justify the harsher divisions of race and class that we see down here: it's not that racism, sexism, and homophobia doesn't exist in other parts of the country, but nowhere else is it so open as it is down here. Atlanta is the biggest, most important city in the entire region: it's the New York of the south, the city that's too busy to hate. It has the biggest population of any other southern city and some of the biggest corporations in the world, including Coca-Cola, are headquartered here. But its public transportation system (MARTA) is the worst in the country for any city of its size, and the fact that many whites refer to it as "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta" shows where their sentiments lie. The outer counties refused to participate in MARTA and eventually developed their own public transport, but frankly it all sucks down here if you don't have a car. That's something you should expect when living way out in the boonies, not in a city as large as Atlanta. And again, that's not the only example, but it's a pretty big one.

Digby uses the song Politically Uncorrect by Gretchen Wilson and Merle Haggard to exemplify the sense of exceptionalism and specialness of southern culture:

I'm for the low man on the totem pole
And I'm for the underdog God bless his soul
And I'm for the guys still pulling third shift
And the single mom raisin' her kids
I'm for the preachers who stay on their knees
And I'm for the sinner who finally believes
And I'm for the farmer with dirt on his hands
And the soldiers who fight for this land

And I'm for the Bible and I'm for the flag
And I'm for the working man, me and ol' hag
I'm just one of many
Who can't get no respect
Politically uncorrect

I guess my opinion is all out of style
Aw, but don't get me started cause I can get riled
And I'll make a fight for the forefathers plan
And the world already knows where I stand

Nothing wrong with the Bible, nothing wrong with the flag
Nothing wrong with the working man me & ol' hag
We're just some of many who can't get no respect
Politically uncorrect

It all sounds nice and homey, but like so much else down here, it's all built on a foundation of lies. Southerners crow about how much they're for the guys still pulling third shift (which implies of course that the rest of us are against them somehow), but the truth is that they work harder down here, and for less money, than any other place in the country, and fight every law and every politician who tries to make things a little better for them. Many would get rid of minimum wage or overtime or any kind of worker protection altogether if the federal government didn't put a gun to their heads and enforce it. Of course, southerners have no problems with government when it helps the rich and big businesses. How many times does "trickle down" economics have to prove how big a failure it is before people get a clue? If we let the southerners decide it, I guess we'll never find out.

They say they're for the underdog but all I see is them putting more roadblocks in their way: look at how they treated Bob Riley, the conservative Republican governor of Alabama, when he had the nerve to say that maybe the government ought to tax the well off and corporations a little more so as to give "the underdog" a break. The "good people" of Alabama voted his proposal down, even though it would have meant tax cuts for them. It makes me want to start banging my head against the wall. What the hell were they thinking?

They say they're all for the flag and the forefathers plan (again, implying that no one else is), yet they don't seem to understand that you can, in fact, be born in someplace like New York City and still be an American. They love all the symbols of our country, yet they don't seem to understand exactly what this democracy thing is all about. They joined the Union in the first place to take advantage of the opportunities for trade, yet as the years passed and the call to end slavery (which made a mockery of the words all men are created equal) grew, they instigated a fight, threw a hissy fit and tried to secede after Lincoln was elected, fired the first shot and to this day refer to it as The War Of Northern aggression. This despite the fact that Lincoln had no intention of freeing the slaves, and that the argument wasn't even about freeing the slaves in the slave states, but whether slavery would extend to the newer states. And then, a century later, threw another hissy fit when the federal government demanded that black people be given equal access to schools and jobs, and be allowed to vote.

Again, this isn't to say that working people weren't being exploited in other parts of the country, but when push came to shove, the workers of the north pushed back because they wanted a better life for themselves. When disasters like the Triangle Waistshirt fire happened, they made laws to protect workers from exploitation. Even today, there's an indifference to worker safety among many southerners: the recent deaths of mine workers and the popularity of the politicians who want to deregulate because it's "good for business" shows that all that talk about being for the working man is just that, talk.

They say there's nothing wrong with the Bible, but all I see is them using the Bible to justify all the miserable, rottten things they want to do to others. When unions tried to organize down here, it was the churches who fought against them. And for years here I've heard people deride any kind of cooperation among workers, even as businesses cooperated with themselves. They bragged that they lured businesses down here with the promise of lower taxes, wages, and regulations, but now those same companies are packing up and moving to places where there are even lower taxes and wages and a freer hand to do whatever they like. And then they turn around and hand over their money to con artists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the naive hope that these two crooks have a say in who goes where in the after-life.

I can go on and on, but again I think you get the picture. Unfortunately, Digby is right: that's their cultural ID, and it's a very, very hard thing to overcome. It's a medieval, agrarian attitude that looks to the past more than it looks to the future, a society whose background tells them that this is the way things are and this is the way things always will be. And as I have always said, if the things they believe and the things they did affected only them, then I'll be more than happy to let them suffer. But they're dragging the rest of us down with them.

There are times when I get fed up with all this idiocy, times when I say, maybe we ought to just take away everything liberalism has done for them. Let's tear up the highways built by liberal policies, let's take away the electricity that liberals fought for southerners to have, let's get rid of all the annoying laws that protect their rights, and finally let's stop subsidizing them, because that's what the industrial north has been doing all these years. Paying more taxes so they can pay less. There's a part of me that would be happy to do that and let the south rot in its own ignorance.

But then I come to my senses and realize how pointless and cruel that would be. I prefer to take the opposite approach: let's fight for southerners to get the money they deserve for their hard work. Let's work to make all their lives better and recognize that their institutions aren't so peculiar and unique as they believe. Workers in Alabama are, after all, no different from the workers in Brazil, or Thailand, or Brooklyn, or Munich. And let's try to get southerners to understand that they have a role to play in their government, that government has a role to play in their lives, and that government doesn't only exist for the sake of a few rich people and corporations. And then lets turn around and do the same thing for working people all over the world, so that businesses won't just hop to whatever country that will guarantee the cheapest labor and the freest hand to do whatever they want.

But of course it's all falling on deaf ears, and I don't know what it will take to make enough of them listen to make a serious change. If I were to choose a song that best exemplifies what I think of the south, it's the song Gimme Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd. For those of you who haven't heard it, that's a song about a guy who's in a bar dancing with some girl he just met, when some other guy comes in with a gun and threatens to shoot him because the girl he's dancing with is "his woman". And the guy begs for his life and asks for "three steps" to give him a chance to leave with his skin.

This song, to me, represents everything I can't stand about this place: the "woman" as property is one thing: since the song doesn't specify what kind of relationship they had, it's impossible to determine what the deal was. Was she his girlfriend, fiance, or wife trying to make her husband jealous, or did he just think she was his? If it was the former, he should be angrier with her than with the stranger (though if it were a guy he knew it would be a different story), if it was the latter he had no right to tell the woman who she could and couldn't dance with. Either way, it's pretty pathetic behavior.

But the real thing that gets me is how cowardly the guy is. OK sure you don't want to do anything stupid and get your head blown off, but Christ don't be such a little whiner. You didn't do anything wrong, you only just met this girl, and in walks this asshole who wants to shoot you. I keep thinking about how someone from Brooklyn would act under that situation and they'd either do something stupid and get shot or they'd play it cool, get out of there, get their own gun and blow the other guy's fucking head off, along with the woman. At least that's how Joe Pesci would probably do it. Since I'm not about to go to a bar in the south and dance with any woman I'll probably never find out how I'd react. But even as much of a chickenshit as I am, I wouldn't act like that wussie.

Yeah yeah I know it's a lot of stuff to say about one song. But it exemplifies the attitude they have towards their whole lives: the guy with the gun is big business and you do what he says because he's got the gun. It doesn't matter who's right or wrong, and the idea of fighting back doesn't even come into their minds, you just sit back and take it. Frankly, I'd rather get my head blown off, at least the end would come quickly.

I've been living down here long enough to get sick of the whole pissant attitude I see down here. There's no decent work (and in fact two major auto factories that provided good jobs for thousands of people are folding shop and moving to Mexico, which will make the job search even harder), and the people down here are too busy living in the past to even think about where they'll be in the future. I've had enough. It's time I took my three steps and got the hell out of here. One month to go!

Meanwhile, Back In Afghanistan

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

With all the attention Iraq is getting, it's easy to forget that the first stop in the War On Terror^TM was in Afghanistan, where we knew Osama bin Laden was hanging out. For those of you who know little about Afghanistan's history, a good way to describe it would be The Land Where Empires Go To Die. Afghanistan has repelled both the British and the Soviet Union, and now we're learning what those two found out: that all the military might in the world isn't enough to tame it.

Over the weekend, as we celebrated Memorial Day, riots broke out in Afghanistan's capitol city of Kabul following a traffic accident involving U.S. military vehicles that killed five people. Afghans started throwing rocks at the vehicles, and soldiers fired either into the crowd, or up in the air, depending on who's telling the story. The accident and the aftermath started a huge protest that wound up killing eight more Afghanis and injuring a hundred.

The U.S. really only controls the city of Kabul and a few miles around it. Since most of our troops are busy in Iraq, we don't have enough in Afghanistan to even think about trying to maintain order outside that sphere. Meanwhile, the Taliban, religious fanatics who make Pat Robertson look like a reasonable person, are slowly but surely reasserting their control over the rest of the nation. It's not as spectacular a failure of neoconservative ideology as is Iraq, but it's still a perfect example of conservative's foreign policy. It's quite possible that we'll get our asses kicked out of Afghanistan, just like the Russians and the British before us. But that's to be expected from people who ignore history. And reality.

Memorial Day Show Tonight at 8 PM EST

Tonight on a special Memorial Day edition of the Cup O' Joe Radio Show, Joe joins the working crowd at Head On to talk about what the day means to him and what it should mean to all of us.

Also the usual gang of callers and bon-vivants!

That's tonight at 8 PM EST on the Head On Radio Network!

Don't forget to call in at 1-877-4 HEAD ON (1-877-443-2366) and join us in the Head On Chat Room!

Update: Well, apprently some assholes decided to hack the system and the entire schedule has been scrubbed. Whoever did it better hope we don't find him or her out. Me, I'm a lenient guy, but Agnes, well...

Why They Died

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

It's Memorial Day, the day we honor those who gave their lives in the service of their country, but sometimes I think that when we focus on the soldiers themselves, we don't look closely enough at why they had to do so. In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln laid it out clearly: we owe it to those who gave their lives to dedicate ourselves to the unfinished business of creating a more perfect union.

It's an unfortunate truth that there have been many times in our history where our cause was not so noble. All too often we mistake nationalism for patriotism, and have taken away the freedom of others so that we can enjoy greater luxuries for ourselves. If we are all, as Jefferson wrote, endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then that must be true for everyone, not only Americans.

At Gettysburg, Lincoln was speaking specifically about saving the Union, but in a greater sense he meant much more: he was talking about saving humanity. The millions who have died did not do so for the vanity and glory of any King or President. They did so to build a better world for their children, and also for the children of their former enemies. When we have failed as a nation, it is because we fail to recognize that.

Once more, we are at a crossroads in this country. We are losing confidence, not just in our government, but in our ability to rule ourselves. It is not the first such crisis we have faced, should we survive the present one there are others waiting for us. If we are to make meaningful the sacrifices of those who died, we must rededicate ourselves to being better citizens, and to understand our place as free individuals in a greater society, and as a great nation among many.

Because if we just give up our freedoms because they've become an inconvenience, if we allow our sense of loyalty and duty to our country to be exploited by small men with small minds, then we will have failed those we are honoring today. And worse, we will have failed our children, who will have to live with the results of what we do. It's a long, hard road to travel, but all it takes is one step in the right direction. So let's get on our way. For their sake. Let's get to work.

Addendum:The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Time For A Change

I came to Atlanta about twelve years ago. I arrived with a suitcase and twenty dollars and a hope that I could make a better life for myself. I've lived here longer than anywhere apart from where I was born. I've lived in many different places around the city, worked at dozens of jobs, made a lot of friends and, to the best of my knowledge, no real enemies.

And now it's time for me to leave.

At the end of June, I am moving to Chicago, a city I've never been to, to try and make yet another fresh start. The memories of my beloved wife are getting to be too much for me, and lately I've found myself drowning in them. Over the last three weeks or so I have been unable to do much of anything: I stay holed up in my little room here, trying my best to keep up my writing and do the show, but my depression is like a great weight holding me down, and the only way I can remove it is to remove myself from here.

I often think my life has been a failure: I move from meaningless job to meaningless job without any real sense of direction. I often feel unwanted and unloved even when I know otherwise. Only with my beloved wife Cathy have I ever felt complete, and now she's gone. But whatever failures I have had in the past, and whatever failures await me in the future, I know that I made her happy for the short time we were together, and that makes up for a lot of shortcomings and lost opportunities. She would want me to move on, and so I will.

The move will not affect the blog, nor will it have more than a small affect on the radio show, which I still hope to make into a career.

I also hope to leave Atlanta with more than just a suitcase and twenty dollars, so if anyone wants to help out, please feel free to do so.

I want to say that I will miss my good friends in Atlanta, but of course through the wonder of the Internet the lines of communication will still be open.

No Show Tonight

Scheduling conflicts at the home studio, so there will be a rerun tonight. Until then, talk among yourselves. What's your favorite food? Discuss.

Inconvenient Truths, Deadly Beliefs

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Al Gore is back in the news again, and once more he's the butt of jokes by professional pundits who think their status as "journamalist" celebrities is more important than, say, reporting the news. One thing you won't be hearing from them is that Gore's message is one people want to hear. His movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was the #11 film in the country this last week, despite being in only four theaters.

None of that seems to matter to the members of the so-called "professional" media, who did everything they could to sabotage Mr. Gore in 2000, just because people like Maureen Dowd thought he was too booring, dahling. I'm sure, Ms. Dowd, that the tens of thousands of Iraqis who died, along with over 2400 American soldiers, appreciated it when you all laughed with your pal George W. Bush about the weapons of mass destruction Iraq never had. Oh, isn't he a charmer.

Upton Sinclair wrote that it's impossible to get someone to believe something when their livelihoods depend upon them not believing it. The Bush administration, the Republican leadership, and their financial backers have spent their entire lives building a society where our lives and livelihoods depend on what they want us to believe. They aren't the first to do this: in fact you might say that the entire history of human civilization is nothing more than the struggle against that kind of imperial power. But if what Gore is saying is true, and that we have reached the point where the effect of human civilization on the environment is threatening our very existence, then they might very well be the last.

Don't Cry For Me, Enron Execs

Others are writing about this more and better than I am, but let me use the news as yet another example of how partisan our so called "professional" media is:

Kenneth Lay is more than just a close personal friend of Mr. Bush, he was George W. Bush's biggest financial supporter, and once was a serious candidate for Treasury Secretary. When Mr. Bush lied and tried to downplay his friendship with Mr. Lay when news of the company's corruption was just coming out, the supposedly "liberal" media never bothered to question it. They took Mr. Bush at his word, just as they have from the very beginning, on every issue. And Lay ran his business he way Mr. Bush and his pals have run the government: they lied, and they stole from their employers. Not that it seems to matter to the well-paid stenographers at the Times.

Of the 2,178 words in this article, George W. Bush is mentioned exactly once: on Paragraph 12, word 498. Imagine, if Mr. Lay had been a friend of the Clinton family, how often the Clinton's name would have been mentioned. The article itself is filled with platitudes towards the defendants: Mr. Lay is described as a "visionary" and Enron a "symbol of civic pride" which "revolutionized the way natural gas was bought and sold in America". It also described how, when their lies started to fall apart, "depressed" Mr. Skilling was to see the company fall apart.

It's possible that Mr Lay and Mr. Skilling, in return for stealing millions of dollars and ruining the lives of thousands of people, will serve no more than two years in a minimum security prison for their crimes. They will be free on bail until sentencing in September, and they'll have it far better than many of their former employees, who were blocked from selling their own stock while its value dropped like a rock. And once he is released, I don't doubt he will have any trouble finding lucrative work. Perhaps, if we see yet another Bush in the White House, Mr. Lay will find himself work in a cushy Cabinet position. God knows being a criminal (or being criminally incompetent) isn't a detriment to working in a Republican administration.

If the Times had devoted the kind of time and energy to this story as they have to the sex lives of the Clintons, which is their own personal business, then maybe we would have read more about Mr. Lay's ties to George W. Bush, and how this is just part of a much larger culture of greed and corruption that's commonplace among this administration, the Republican leadership, and their financial backers. And, as we have seen, the so-called "professional" media.

Of course, this won't stop some people from continuing to believe the "liberal media" bullshit, but at this point I doubt anything ever will.

Let Freedom Fry

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

George W. Bush talks a lot about freedoms. He talks about how the terrorists hate our freedoms and about how important it is for us to bring the same kind of freedom we have in the United States to as many countries as possible. And we'll do it even if we have to bomb you back into the Stone Age. You'll get your freedom whether you like it or not.

Of course, George W. Bush's concept of freedom is very different from mine, at least in the sense of who gets to be free and who doesn't. In the world according to Bush, freedom means he and his pals get to do anything they want, and if anyone doesn't like it, tough. Why bother vetoing a law, for example, when all you have to do is sign it and then write a statement saying you'll ignore it. Since no one has seriously challenged this, the end result is that the law is what George W. Bush says it is.

It's no surprise to me that Bush behaves this way, in fact I would be surprised if he acted differently. He gets away with it is because the people with the power to stop him won't act, the activists have no power, and the rest of us are more interested in who wins American Idol. Two hundred thirty years ago, Patrick Henry said Give me liberty or give me death!. Now, we have Senator Pat Roberts arguing that we have to give up our liberties in order to be safe. We don't have any civil liberties if we're dead, he says. Ben Franklin said that people who give up their liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Smart boys, those Founding Fathers. Wish we had a few like them now.

Hit Piece On Democracy

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

When a supposedly mainstream, and according to some, "liberal" news organ like the New York Times prints a smarmy gossip piece about Bill and Hillary Clinton, it makes you wonder who their target audience is. Since Republicans already hate them (and not many would read the Times anyway), and Democrats will just look on it as another unwarranted attack by a newspaper that failed to point out that pretty much every scandal involving the Clintons was made up out of thin air by Republicans, we can only guess why this column was printed.

Since we haven't seen, and I don't expect to see, any articles dealing with infidelities by right-wingers, we can only assume that the Times and other news outlets are either afraid to print them for fear of being put in jail, or they're just out to get Democrats. But as I see it, this is a small part of a larger pattern: I believe that it's an attempt to destroy the public's confidence with our political system altogether so that one day, and that day may be closer than we realize, we'll simply decide enough is enough, give up our charade of self-rule altogether and hand over power to a few people and pray they know what they're doing. That's pretty much where we are anyway, we'll just be openly admitting it.

You don't have to be a supporter of Bill or Hillary to think there's something wrong with the way the news is covered in this country. We all know from current experience and history just what happens when those in power aren't accountable to the people under them. I always just assumed that well-paid, well-educated "journalists" would understand that. I was wrong.

Just For The Record

Recently, someone somewhere wrote the following (printed verbatim):

Da Vinci at first was ripped apart by the critics and it was poorlyrecieved by the audience upon viewing. The large ticket sales are dueto a curious public wanting to see what the entire controversy wasabout. I expect to see earnings drop off next week since it ismemorial day, kick off day for the summer movie season. With Xmen 3and other films comning out Da Vinci will probably drowned out nextweekend.

Da Vinci and F9/11 had one thing in common, both are peices of totalfiction posinf as historical fact. National Geographic, HistoryChannel and Discovery Channel have all had shows dismantling the DaVinci Code. How could Da Vinci be a Master in the Priory of Zion whenit was founded in the 20th Century? Same as the 911 Commission totallyripped apart the claims Moore made in F911. Bush won the election witha majorty.

I am also curious how Al Gore's Global Warming film is going to do.Since the public support for the enviromentalist movement and concernfor Global Warming is collapsing. Since the news ever other week putsout another conflicting story about the enviroment. Like RecentlyYahoo has a story posted that Japanese scientists stated the OzoneHole will be gone by 2050.

That enviromentalist film HOOT produced by Jimmy Buffet has barelymade 4 million this is after a wide release of 3000 Theatres.

Or the fact that the atmosphere has been cleaned up so well that ithas acclerated Global Warming by reducing Global dimming. Lesspollutants mean more heat reaches the surface of the earth. This isafter 25 years of hearing that Global Warming is caused by CO2 beingtrapped in teh upper atmosphere. OK....How can C02 which is heavierthan Air even make it into the upper atmosphere from man made sources?CFC's are heavier than air, so how can they even get up that far?

This was my response:

Maybe several years ago I would have put together a thoughtful, well-written article debunking this ridiculous post, but after five and a half years of bogus horse-shit being fed to us, and all too many suckers like you willing to believe it, all I'll say is that you're full of shit and maybe it's time you sought professional help for your corporate-induced delusions.

There's a self-destructive sickness in this country, an almost wilful desire to reject the idea that we actually DO have an effect on the environment we live in until it reaches out and bites us in the ass.

Now if it only bit YOU and your ignorant pals in the ass and left the rest of us alone, I'd be perfectly happy with it. But the laws of nature don't give a damn about public opinion: if ecological disaster comes, it will come for all of us.

In the meantime, why don't you just go fuck yourself?

Just so everyone knows how I really feel. Got it?

Today On "Meet The Prisoners"

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

You would think that a story about the United States Attorney General sayingm on national television that he believes there is a precedent for putting journalists in jail who print stories about governmental lies and crimes, would get a huge amount of coverage. But it goes to show how low we've sunk that you haven't heard a peep out of any major news outlet about this astonishing statement from an official who has the power to do exactly that.

We all know from past experience that "free speech" to the current administration and its corporate backers means you're only free to report the lies they tell you; reporting the truth, that is, the illegal activities of this government, and who benefits from them, is forbidden. It used to be that they would only threaten journalist's careers, now they're threatening them with jail time. All for telling people that their government is run by crooks and liars backed up by even bigger crooks and liars. So their behavior, while reprehensible, is at least understandable.

But no true journalist with any amount of self-respect should be willing to go along with this game. They have a serious responsibility to the public to keep us informed, and all too many have been neglecting it. And the reason, to this observer, is apparent: big name reporters make a lot of money for saying the right things, saying the wrong things could make you wind up, well, like me: broke and concerned about the future. If it were up to me, these people wouldn't be jailed, they'd be booted out of the professional journalism business. But then again, some of them never were in it in the first place.

Codes Of Faith

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Just in case you've been living under a rock for the last couple of days, the big movie this weekend was The DaVinci Code, which is based on the wildly popular work of fiction about the descendents of Jesus and the Church's attempts to cover that up. Many so-called "Christians" were up in arms over the movie and tried to convince people not to go, and for the most part they were completely ignored. But no worries: the fundamentalists have plenty of other lies to sell to their gullible and wilfully ignorant followers.

As some of you know, I'm not a particularly religious person myself. I was raised Catholic, and Catholicism tends to breed agnostics and atheists. Over time I've come to believe that, wherever our search for a greater understanding of the universe and our place in it leads us, organized religion is not the answer. Like any organization, the goal of an organized faith is to perpetuate itself, and that, in this observer's opinion, is an obstacle on the road to a greater truth.

The problem with faith is that our belief in the supernatural is shaped by our culture and our perceptions within that culture. And the problem with tradition is that, more often than not, they're based on nothing more than something someone pulled out of their butt however many years ago. The older it is, the more mysterious it sounds. The popularity of The DaVinci Code is proof that we still like to look for something extra-earthly about events, no matter how unbelievable they are. But to me, it's just exchanging one code for another, and the cycle of ignorance continues.

Tonight On The Cup O' Joe Radio Show

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Tonight on the Cup O' Joe Radio Show, Joe drags his ass out of his depression long enough to speak with Shyam Reddy, who's running for GA Secretary Of State. Joe will grill him about Diebold machines and what it's like to run for public office.

Also the usual gang of callers and bon-vivants!

That's tonight at 8 PM EST on the Head On Radio Network!

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Where The Hell Have I Been?

I was going to say I was too busy to do a report today but the truth is I'm just depressed. Yesterday I was out and about looking for work with no success and that always gets me down. Well I was down yesterday, too. Actually I've been depressed for about a couple of weeks now. I don't think it's anything specific, just a combination of a lot of things. So excuse the fact that there hasn't been a lot in the way of content lately.

Is Winning Losing?

Among all the speculation about the upcoming Congressional elections in 2006, the NY Times asks the obvious: Why Win? Yes, it's a smarmy article written by an out-of-touch "journalist", but it brings the issue to the forefront.

This is something I've discussed for a long time, and in my eyes, despite all the polls, I think the point is moot, because I don't think the Dems are going to retake the House to begin with. Too much gerrymandering, too much history (98% of incumbents retain their seats), and, if worse comes to worse, too much election fraud make current polls irrelevant. But the larger question isn't whether we will or won't win in '06, the question is whether we should. I've pointed out time and time again that political movements take time to build: even with their overwhelming advantage in money, it took the Republicans thirty years to get where they are today, we have to look on this as a long-term project leading towards a specific goal.

Never mind 2006, think about 2016. Sure, if we win back the House and get to make a few arrests, that's great. But we're not in a position to make any real changes just yet: the kind of changes that will keep these people out of power for centuries. And there's a possibility that, by winning and sending a few administration officials up the river, too may will think the fight is already won and drop out, not realizing that this is but one victory in a larger war.

Digby and Billmon, two of the best writers in the blogosphere, highlight the debate. On the one hand, we have Digby, who says

If you have a chance to win, you win. Not because you want to do a victory lap but because you care about the country and you will do anything you can to stop the hell these crazy bastards have unleashed and start down a new path. Do you want them to continue to have free reign over the next two years while they pump up this phony threat with Iran? Do you want them to be in charge of another natural disaster like Katrina? More money thrown into the black maw of GOP contributors? What are you thinking?

This is why the establishment is becoming irrelevant. It isn't a game to us hicks out here in America. This is our lives these people are talking about.

And on the other, we have Billmon, who says

Given the size and power of the forces we face -- the GOP machine, Big Media, the national security Leviathan, the corporate bribemasters -- it seems obvious that only a major upheaval, on the order of FDR's landslide 1932 election -- has any chance of changing the country's direction in any fundamental way. I'm not even sure that kind of change is even possible any more, but I'm reasonably sure it's not going to happen just because the Dems manage to win back a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives this November. Part of me thinks it would be better to stay completely of power until there is a tidal wave of popular discontent -- even desperation -- that will wash the GOP and the authoritarian right out of power for a generation.

As much as I understand where Digby is coming from, I lean closer to Billmon. Victory in the Congressional races in '06 doesn't mean very much considering the quality (or lack thereof) of the current Democratic leadership. These people are just as much in debt to corporate America as their Republican counterparts, and make no mistake: it's corporate America, our willingness to acquiesce to its power and the psychology behind that acquiescence, that's the main cause of our problems. The politicians are just fronts, just symptoms of much bigger problems.

Yes, Digby, it's our lives people are talking about. But will they be any more improved by marginal victories? It was us, is us, after all, who allowed all this to happen ages ago, when we decided that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk had our best interests at heart, even when they clearly did not. It was, and is, us who have allowed people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to shape our ideas on religion by tossing tons of money their way, until they figured out that they could make an even bigger killing if they controlled the agency that wrote the Social Security checks instead of suckering little old ladies out of them with promises of Heavenly rewards. And it's still us, still the great bulk of the American people who are sitting back and letting them get away with it because they don't think politics matters, or because they're only focused on their immediate lives to the exclusion of all else. More people still care about who wins on American Idol than whoever sits in the White House, even if they can remember the names. As Hedley Lamarr said: They're not leaving, they're staying in droves!

Make no mistake: we not only need to defeat the Republicans, we need to crush them as a political force. Time and time again, whenever they wind up with any kind of power, and no one doubts their skill in getting it, all they know how to do with it is grab for more, until their over-reaching turns into disaster. The last time they had this kind of power, the end result was a Great Depression and two World Wars, causing millions of casualties. This time it could mean nuclear holocaust and the end of human life altogether. Crazy thinking, you say? Maybe, but I have history on my side, and frankly, I'd rather not give them the opportunity. And that opportunity isn't going to come about any time soon, I can tell you that.

For the sake of the world, we have to wipe out not just the Republicans, but conservativism. The scourge of history under any name: the false idea that says one group of people is inherently better than others because of who their father was, or because of how much money or political power they managed to accumulate. Whether you're talking about Egyptian Pharaohs, Roman Emperors, European, Arab, or Asian monarchies, laissez-faire capitalists of the Industrial Age, fascist dictators, Communist premiers, or modern-day neoconservatives, the result is always the same: A few people get a lot and everyone else fights for scraps. The entire ideology is a disease, and some diseases need to be cut out entirely.

What we need is a drastic change in the way humankind operates as a global community, and weak Democrats winning a few House seats in 2006, nice as that may sound, isn't going to amount to very much. If these were born-again New Dealers with the same zeal and political know-how of the group that got swept into office in 1932, I would feel differently. But they aren't. And until we see that fundamental change in human behavior, I'm betting on history repeating itself.

Tonight On The Cup O' Joe Show!

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

Tonight on the Cup O' Joe Radio Show, Joe talks about the sordid events of the last week with his special guest Maryscott O'Connor of My Left Wing! Listen in as she gives him his marching orders! Also the usual gang of callers and bon-vivants!

Update: Great show, my thanks to Agnes for doing such a wonderful job, to MSOC for appearing on such short notice, and of course to all the callers and listeners! The archive is up!

Hungry?

Welcome To The Jungle

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Of all the news stories over the last week, and it's been a significant week for news, the one story that stood out to this observer was the story of about 80 members of the Nukak-Makú tribe, who live in the Amazon basin near Colombia, in Central America, who have left their nomadic existence and decided to join the modern world. It was a bold and courageous decision on their part, though they probably would not have done so if their lands weren't being encroached upon by the "civilized" world.

In an editorial, the New York Times lamented that by leaving the jungle, the tribe had sundered the last barriers of our pre-civilized past. I see it differently. The ancestral ways of the Nukak tribe, and all tribes of humans like them, were doomed the day humankind began to abandon its hunting-gathering lifestyles by growing their own food and domesticating their animals. It may have taken six thousand years for that to happen, but it was inevitable.

Civilization made it possible to produce more food than we could eat and more wealth in terms of creature comforts than humankind knew before, but the distribution of that wealth has always been disproportionate: too much going to too few people, and not enough for many, many others. It also brings with it great hazards, not the least of which is the possibility of a nuclear or ecological holocaust that could not only wipe out all human life, but all life on this planet, period. That's the jungle we've created for ourselves. Maybe what the Nukaks are doing is sending us a signal that it's time we left our own jungle behind.

Declaration Of Interruption

hen in the course of blogger events, situations conspire to prevent a blogger from performing his or her blogging duties, it becomes necessary for the author to render a general explanation to his or her readership as to why this is, for posterity's sake if for no other reason. Or, to clarify, the Cup O' Joe Reports, which up until a couple of weeks ago have been steady, have not been accomplished with the type of regularity I would like.

There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that, since I have been unable to raise enough funds to purchase a new (or rebuilt) computer, I have been trying in vain to reconfigure my current one, which has taken to crashing. Apparently my version of Windows XP, coupled with an old hard drive and insufficient memory and chip speed, is corrupt and will not allow me to run certain programs. My intent is to reinstall my Windows XP onto a newer, larger hard drive, but the problem is that XP will not install on a formatted hard drive unless I can "prove I have owned a copy of Windows before", which means I need to have copy of Windows 2000 or Windows 98 to put into the hard drive. Those of you who have installed Windows before know what I mean.

This is, by the way, one of the more heinous aspects of Windows. If someone were to buy a new system, or Frankensteined a used system and wanted to install Windows XP on a new or formatted hard drive, and had spent several hundred dollars on Windows XP, they wouldn't be able to install it unless they also purchased (or otherwise attained) an older copy of Windows.

I don't see where it's any of Microsoft's goddamn business whether you ever used Windows before or not. If they wonder why so many people despise them and their software this is a prime example. It's high time someone came out with an open source operating system that was efficient and free of spyware and didn't force you to go through hoops just to repair a damaged system. Perhaps the biggest thing in this world that pisses me off is wanting to do something but being prevented from doing it. Kind of the way I feel about politics right now. So much about the world I'd like to change, so little chance of it happening in my lifetime.

Anyway, that's why there haven't been any damn reports.

Phony Patriotism

All this nonsense about having the National Anthem sung in Spanish just reminds me yet again of American's phoney patriotism. Bush now says he doesn't think the National Anthem should be played in Spanish, though he never had a problem with it before. But since all he has left are his hardcore, racist, brainwashed base he needs to pander to them, so he's perfectly happy to dis the spics.

The late Chicago-based columnist Mike Royko once wrote an article about American hypocrisy when it comes to the National Anthem. He was shivering in the cold at Wrigley Field and stayed seated for the playing of the National Anthem. He was, naturally, stared and jeered at by the crowd. So the next game he went to, he sang it very loudly. And when it was over, he started the second verse. Then the third. And then the fourth. (How many of you, by the way, knew there were four verses? I did.) He was jeered at even more by the people around him, who told him to "sit down" and "shut up". So much for patriotism.

Americans love the symbols of the country greater than they love what the country stands for. Many are perfectly willing to destroy the freedoms this country stands for in order to protect those symbols. Flag-burning amendment, anyone? Never mind the First Amendment, it's just a goddamn piece of paper, right? The moonbats of the right would salute every flag thrown their way, but the Constitution is "commie propaganda" and perfectly all right to be tossed aside. Just like how much we lone the military and love to show "support" for the troops, yet tolerate billions of wasted dollars on toys for generals and admirals, while the soldiers have to have fire sales to buy them the equipment they need.

You don't have to believe me. See for yourself. Go to this site and download as many versions as you like. Plug 'em into your computer (set it to repeat of course), plug the computer into your stereo, put the speakers out the window, turn the volume all the way up, and play 'em 24/7. If anyone complains, call 'em all commies.

Of course, what we have here isn't patriotism, which is love of one's country, but nationalism, the idea that your country is far better than anyone else's. So much better, in fact, that we feel justified in (or at the least, unconcerned about) killing people in other countries if we're told by our "leaders" that it's in self-defense, even if those leaders have been proven time and time again to be full of shit. It's kind of like fundamentalist religion, same psychology applied to a different subject.

Addendum: Here, for your education, are the four verses of our National Anthem. The second stanza is my favorite, by the way. The fourth, with its overly religious connotations and call to "conquer" if our cause is just, is my least favorite.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

It's OK If You're A Republican

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

The sudden resignation of CIA director Porter Goss has raised more questions about how the so-called "professional" media handles news these days. While his name has never been specifically mentioned, he is apparently involved in the hookers-for-favors scandal that's just coming to light. Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory points out that sex scandals featuring Democrats were investigated very thoroughly and quite publicly during the Clinton era, yet somehow, you barely hear a peep out of the professional pundits about Republican sex scandals.

Why is that? I mean, I could understand covering sex scandals that involve both parties because hey, sex sells, you know? A can also understand not covering these stories, on the premise that it has nothing to do with the actual performance of a politician. Though in this case, since Republicans were trading rides with hookers for political favors, it kinda-sorta is about a politician's performance. I also think it's fair game to cover a politician's sex scandal if the politician in question makes a big deal about "morals" and "family values".

The only conclusion that makes any sense to this observer is that the professional media is heavily biased towards Republicans. Maybe they're on the take, maybe they just like them more, who knows? The right has screamed for ages about the "liberal media" but that was and is a total myth. Anyone who takes a good look at how the media operates these days can see the double standard pretty clearly. Whatever the real reasons for it, the one-sided reporting is dangerous, especially when you have a government run by liars and criminals.

I Hate It When I'm Right

Sometimes I think I'm just a little too paranoid for my own good, but sometimes I worry when I get things too right. This is what I wrote almost two months ago:

The Republicans in Congress are considering a bill introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming that would exempt insurance companies from state laws that require them to include contraceptives in their prescription plans. Now I don't know if this bill is going to going to become law, but it is the logical next step once you make abortions illegal; to make it as difficult as possible for people to prevent pregnancies to begin with. No abortions, no birth control, no sex education, no sex outside of marriage, no recreational sex at all.

This is what the NY Times Magazine has to say today:

Dr. Joseph B. Stanford, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002 to the F.D.A.'s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee despite (or perhaps because of) his opposition to contraception, sounded not a little like Daniel Defoe in a 1999 essay he wrote: "Sexual union in marriage ought to be a complete giving of each spouse to the other, and when fertility (or potential fertility) is deliberately excluded from that giving I am convinced that something valuable is lost. A husband will sometimes begin to see his wife as an object of sexual pleasure who should always be available for gratification."

So in other words, if you allow people to use contraceptives, and have sex purely for the enjoyment of it, the man turns into an animal who expects his wife to give in whenever he wants. Anyone who's ever been married, or who has been involved in a long-term live-in relationship knows what a crock of shit that is. It's just more straw man arguments from a bunch of people who apparently have serious issues with the idea of people actually enjoying sex.

I'd tell them to go fuck themselves but I believe they're against masturbation, too.

Tonight On The Cup O' Joe Radio Show!

Tonight, Joe welcomes his pals Amber Rhea and Rusty Tanton from the Georgia Podcast Network into Studio Al to discuss sex, Republicans, and Peter Goss! Also the usual gang of callers and bon-vivants!

That's tonight at 8 PM EST on the Head On Radio Network!

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Ignorant Are The Blessed

"Al" comments to Kevin Drum concerning CIA director Peter Goss's abrupt resignation:

A man had a job. He quit. Why does this shock the world? People.... change their jobs sometimes. Working for the government isn't that great; the payscale is absurdly low. Goss is probably going to earn more money in the free market.

OK now allow me to be as calm and rational as I can be concerning this before I go off.

This wasn't "a job". The man was head of the CIA. It's not the kind of job you walk out of abruptly, and certainly not before you give your superiors a chance to find a replacement. I don't recall anything similar happening to anyone in such a high-level position who wasn't visibly involved in a highly-publicized scandal. Yes, it's been hinted that Goss is somehow involved in the scandal with hookers at the Watergate Hotel, but he hasn't been mentioned by name.

The spin that's being played right now is that Goss was on the losing end of a "turf war" between he and convicted felon John Negroponte, but if that was the case, why has there been no mention of it until now? Surely, and as others have mentioned, a power struggle at the top levels of the CIA would be getting at least a little air play, don't ya think?

Now, "Al", and others like him, are pretty desperate to come up with any excuse to cover up for this administration and their cronies (and Goss was a typical crony, sent in to purge the CIA of the ideologically impure; that is, people who aren't blindly loyal to Bush), just as desperate as they are to find anything to accuse a Democrat of. I don't have any explanation of that kind of mentality, and it makes it hard for me to try and discover a rational explanation for what's going on when you're faced with such ridiculous arguments. I mean, I can understand why Bush and Co. spin their asses off, because, well, it's their asses on the line. But unless Al is a paid troll for the right (and I don't doubt they have a few), I don't understand why it is that he defends them so much.

It's just another example of how insane this country has gotten, and I hope I live to see the day when a little sanity is restored. I bet it would drive Al crazy.

What If?

The state of things being how they are, I was curious as to how the press would cover a particular story. Below is a purely fictional (and blatantly ridiculous) story, but for the sake of this demonstration let's say it is 100% factual:

A press conference turned ugly today as President George W. Bush gunned down a reporter in cold blood in the White House Press Room. Doug Finch, reporter for the San Francisco Bugle, was called to the podium by Mr. Bush after asking a question about an attack by Iraqi insurgents. The President, who when he entered said he wanted to "make a statement", then pulled out a revolver and shot Mr. Finch once, cleanly in the chest. He then fired two shots directly into his head as he lay on the floor. Bush then turned the podium over to Press Secretary Tony Snow, who fielded questions on Iraq and tax cuts for thirty minutes while Finch's dead body lay bleeding at the foot of the stage. Only after Snow ended the press conference were medical officials allowed to retrieve the body.

Now, those being the facts (and again I realize how ridiculous it sounds, but bear with me here), and based upon the nature of "journalism" as we know it today, let's see how it would be reported. I think the article would look something like this:

Reporter Dies During Press Conference
WASHINGTON - Doug Finch, reporter for the San Francisco Bugle, was declared dead on arrival at DC Memorial Hospital as a result of gunshot wounds. The circumstances of his death are still under investigation and administration officials refused to comment until it was concluded. Finch, who has covered Washington for the Bugle for fifteen years, was 46. He is survived by his wife and three children. Mr. Finch was known as a studious and serious, journalist who gained fame at the Bugle for a series of articles on street crime in the late 1980's. He was appointed to the Washington bureau in 1991.

There are scattered and conflicting reports as to what exactly happened. All versions agree that it had begun as a standard daily press briefing, but Mr. Bush made an unexpected appearance, saying he wanted to make a statement and would field questions. After answering a question on tax cuts from Gerald Marnes of the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Bush called on Mr. Finch, who asked about a recent raid by Iraqi insurgents that killed three US soldiers, and what this says about the state of security in Iraq.

Then, Bush apparently asked Finch to come up to the podium. As the reporter was making his way onto the stage, shots were heard and Finch fell at the foot of the stage. According to one source, who wished to remain anonymous, it was Mr. Bush himself who fired the shots. Other reports say that Mr. Finch was verbally abusive and made threatening remarks to the President, and was shot by Secret Servicemen.

Press Secretary Snow declined comment, saying only that there would be an investigation.

And so on and so on and so on. The story, despite attempts by a few to have it buried, would drag out for awhile (A week? A month?) until everyone got bored with it and they began to focus on more important things, like maybe a missing white woman somewhere. Naturally Rush, Hannity and the other gasbags would be delighted that a reporter, and one from San Francisco no less, was dead, and that if the President had done it, it was a bold move that showed his manliness. And of course Finch's name would be dragged through the dirt.

The real point I'm trying to make, of course, is not that the President would ruthlessly shoot someone, but that if he had, even after weeks and months would pass, you would never know exactly what happened. And that's the sad state of American journalism today.

Patterns Of Force

Bartcop posts a letter from"Daniel" talking about the Star Trek episode "Patterns Of Force", aka "The Nazi Planet", using it as a comparison to what's going on today.

While Star Trek had many outstanding episodes, this was not one of them. In the episode, John Gill, a history professor who was a Federation observer on a planet called Ekos, breaks the Prime Directive and interferes with Ekotian society, which was having some trouble, turning it into Nazi Germany because of its efficiency. Of course things didn't work out for Gill: all he wanted was to help the Ekotians out, but eventually someone with ambitions of his own took over.

(As an aside, this was one of three similar episodes: the Gangster planet and the Roman planet being the other two. Of the three, the Roman episode was the worst: the gangster planet and the Nazi planet, ridiculous as they were, could at least be explained by intentional or accidental influence from an outside force, the idea of a Roman society so exactly identical to Earth's developing on another planet is just plain stupid. But I digress.)

The real problem I always had with the Nazi Planet episode is that, being an American TV show, it had to have a happy ending. In the episode, Gill, who had been drugged and used as a figurehead, recovers (with the help of Kirk) long enough to prevent a war between Ekos and its neighboring planet Zeon (or Zion...get it?). After he stops the war, Gill is killed by the man who had usurped his power, who in turn was killed by an undercover Zeon agent and together the Ekotians and the Zeons walk hand in hand into a peaceful future blah blah blah.

I think a lot of us here wish for that kind of happy ending to what's going on in this country now. Something simple and relatively peaceful. But the problem is that the underlying causes of our troubles: racism, ignorance, prejudice, etc., haven't been addressed. Hitler and his thugs didn't invent hatred of Jews: the hatred was already there, they exploited and inflamed it. The Germans were a proud people who were being humiliated after WWI, Hitler gave them back a sense of importance. But when the kinds of primal forces the Nazis used to gain power are unleashed, they gain a strength of their own, and aren't easily stopped. In Germany, it didn't stop until they were in ruins. And if we had treated the Germans and the Japanese the same way we're treating the Iraqis now, we'd still be fighting with them.

Likewise, the Bush administration and the Republican Party didn't invent nationalism, racism and religious intolerance; they all existed long before we were an independent nation. Bush and his people are using them as tool to gain and hold political power. But I don't think they really understand the forces they're unleashing. There are a billion Muslims in the world, getting all of them so pissed off at us that they want to see us all killed isn't just bad for business, it's dangerous. What if we nuke Iran and other, larger countries (like, say, China) decide that they won't put up with it anymore and threaten to launch nukes at us if we don't knock it off? Or what if they and the other countries decide instead to simply bankrupt the USA and let us rot? What if someone convinces George W. that "The Rapture" is at hand and that he can get the whole thing off to a running start by just pushing that button?

Sounds crazy, I know, but given the events of the last five years, I wouldn't be surprised. If someone would have told me ten years ago what the immediate future would be like, I'd have thought they were crazy, too. I've only been politically aware of things for about six or seven years now, and my guesses on the future are based on my knowledge of history and personal observation. If I've been mostly right up until this point it's because my instincts have been good. What I do know is that this isn't a TV show, and my instincts tell me that until we address the core, emotional issues that cause the problems in the first place, all we'll see in the future is only more of the past, and that the patterns of force will continue.

Meanwhile, in Darfur

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(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Nearly half a million people have died in Darfur, in the Sudan in Africa. Millions are starving, or homeless, or both. Very little of this gets airtime here; to be very blunt, I don't think very many Americans are particularly concerned about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of niggers over in Africa. And Americans being what they are, I think more would be offended by my use of the word "nigger" than by the actual events in Darfur. It just goes to show how low we've sunk as a nation.

Obviously that's not true of all of us: there are certainly plenty of people in America and the world who are horrified by what's going on there. Unfortunately, none of them have any real authority to do anything about it. And sadly, with so much else going on, and so much of it horribly bad, it's hard to focus on any single issue. Darfur, horrible as it is, is merely a symptom of a greater problem with the human species. We are advanced technologically but we have changed very little in the six to ten thousand years since human civilization first began.

My heart goes out to the people of Darfur. I wish I had a magic wand to make it all stop. But I don't. The only way we are going to prevent these wholly man-made catastrophes is to change the very nature of human beings, and as I see it only devastation on a scale we can't even imagine, either ecological or via nuclear war, is going to do that. Of course, I hope I'm wrong. I certainly want to be wrong. But given humanity's track record, I think I have good reason to be cynical.

Save Darfur

Me Smash Toy!

Via Digby we get this bit of an essay from Michael Shaw of Bag News Notes concerning the mentality of Bush and Joe Lieberman:

Delayed moral advancement tends to go hand-in-hand with the lower rungs of emotional maturity. In kids trapped in adult bodies, you tend to see silliness substituting for wit; awkwardness in the place of poise; passion masquerading as love; aggression covering for strength; and rituals standing in for originality.

The GOP and it's supporters operate like seven-year-old bullies in a schoolyard on every conceivable issue, whether it's something trivial, like the Congressional Softball League, or something as important as going to war. And that's what seems to be going on in Iraq: here was this wonderful new toy they can send the military out to get for them, but now that it hasn't worked out as well as they want, they want to just wreck it and throw it in the trash.

None of our current problems are going to be solved incrementally, there's just too much incentive for politicians to maintain the status quo. It's time to wipe the slate clean. Get rid of the whole mess of them, all the Republicans and the current leadership of the Democrats, and start from scratch. Fix the election system so that it's accurate and who gives a goddamn if it takes a little longer to get them counted. Get it right, that's the important thing. Get the money, particularly the corporate money out of politics altogether. Stop pretending corporations deserve the same rights as human beings. Start to think in terms of a truly global society and economy, which means the same labor rules would apply to people all over the world.

So many things to do, and so little chance to see any of it happen within our lifetimes, or if it does, it will only come about after a tremendous amount of bloodshed, more than we've ever seen in human history. And if the nukes start flying, it's possible there won't be anyone left to care who was right and who was wrong. Maybe if and when the intelligent cockroaches evolve they can figure it out.

Bush and Cheney and Rove and Rumsfeld, children pretending to be adults, didn't get where they are by themselves: they have he support of millions of other little boys who either think they're big men or want to pretend they are. Me like car. Me like beat up brown people. Me hate fags. Well guess what, boys: the party's over. Especially when it comes to gas. You did everything you could do prevent us from finding ways for us to either make better use of what we have or to find some other form of energy, and now you're gonna pay the price. Gas is nearly three times as expensive as it was when Junior took over, and not only is it never, ever going to get that low again, it'll probably be twice what it is now by 2008. It doesn't matter how many brown people you kill, either. Or how many countries you invade. Or how much you try to pump yourself up.

Now you have a choice. You can choose to stop acting like seven-year-olds (and I happen to know that some of you are quite capable of that) or you can just keep on keeping on and die a slow and painful death. And I would be just fine with that, except that you're gonna wind up taking maybe a couple billion people along with you. It's a high price to pay, but I don't see how we can avoid it any more. You're just too stupid and too childish to know what it is you're doing.

The Line In The Sand

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Despite how things are going in Iraq, the warmongers are now looking to make war on Iran, for reasons even more specious than the ones that got us into Iraq to begin with. Let's be clear: there is no real reason to bomb or invade Iran, they pose no serious threat to us. Whatever the real reasons for doing so, you can be sure they have nothing to do with self-defense. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is already, as I have said before, a clear war crime. Only the political cowardice of the Democratic Party leadership, and the propaganda fed to us by the so-called "professional" media have kept this administration from facing the consequences of their actions.

Enough is enough. Should this administration order one bomb to be dropped on Iran, nuclear or otherwise, I call on all patriotic Americans to remove them from office. If Congress will not impeach, they should be removed by force. I call upon the members of the military to remember that their oath is to the Constitution and not to any one President, and to disobey any orders to attack Iran, as they are clearly illegal. And if we can't, I call upon our friends in the European Union, in Japan, and our allies in NATO, to come to our rescue, as we came to Europe's rescue more than a half-century ago.

This is the line in the sand we must draw. What's at stake here is the very survival of the human race, as war with Iran would bring us closer to nuclear destruction. As Americans and as human beings, it is not only our right, but our duty to end this.

The Motor Of The World

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Yesterday, millions of immigrants across the nation, mostly Hispanic, took to the streets to protest the resentment that's growing against them. I for one applaud their courage and stand with them. It's easy for us blame others when times are hard and you're one of those at the bottom of the pile competing for scraps. I work with a lot of black people, people who work very hard for not nearly enough money, in my opinion, and I've heard more than a few of them speak in less than kind words about "those Mexicans".

Whenever I hear someone say that, I point out that blaming the Mexicans is just wrong. The Mexicans are doing what they can, what they need to do to survive. Any one of us would do the same thing in their position. As I'm so fond of saying, in a global economy there are no immigrants. Sniping among ourselves only helps the powers that be; the ones that helped to create the mess in the first place and who have every incentive to perpetuate it.

As a capitalist, I believe that we have the right to bargain collectively to determine the value of our labor. But we can't do that effectively when we're busy pointing fingers at each other. We ought to be fighting to raise the standard of living for all of us. The American South lured businesses their way with lower standards and wages, and now those businesses are moving elsewhere to pay even less. And so on, and so on, until we have slaves, not workers. But despite what Ayn Rand says, it's the workers who are the motor of the world. Without us, no one makes money.

One More Thing

No, there's no report today...my bad entirely. Got no sleep Sunday so I worked all day in a groggy fog. I'm gonna pop this post in the oven and hit the hay soon: I'm determined to get some decent sleep tonight. I really think lack of proper sleep contributed to my illness last week so I'm gonna try some new tricks to put me under.

New report tomorrow. Be excellent to each other.

Just A Reminder

To those of you who are probably squeamish (at least) about voting Republican in '06, but still refuse to vote for Democrats because they'll "raise your taxes," etc., etc....

Remember that the same people who told you that told you:

• They'd get bin Laden


• Iraq would be a cakewalk


• Oil companies aren't gouging you

Just FYI