Category: current events

What do you do when you can’t trust your government? Not that this is a new problem. Maybe I’m just paying more attention, or listening to All Things Considered more. This report angers me to no end. To sum up, the Administration and Congress have decided that some civil liberties are OK to destroy and others, like the right to buy automatic weapons and provide terrorist organizations with all the firepower they need is OK. Why is it OK? Because they’ve all sold their souls to Charlton Heston and the gun freaks in the NRA. They’ve tightened airport security, can hold people without trial or even a hearing, can do all kinds of things they shouldn’t – and still, you don’t have to go through a background check to buy a gun, and can ship 900 automatic weapons to Columbian Guerillas without telling anyone, and that’s fine.

I just don’t get it. Is it the money? Is it power? Is it the fact that the NRA provides a certain amount of votes for those folks every time they’re up for re-election? The people who like guns really can have it both ways. I don’t see the problem with registering a gun. You have to do several registrations, tests and inspections to drive a car, why not to own a firearm? It makes no sense. We can have logical and responsible gun control. Why don’t we? Who do we have to get out of office to get it? Who do I have to vote for?

Zeldman’s latest My Glamorous Life tells a story I could never write myself, and expresses things I will never have the talent to say. It’s beautiful to say the least.

It’s time to talk about Tuesday’s election. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and this has been boiling under the surface for a while. I’ve not been able to actually put it into words until (hopefully) now. Less than 40% of the country turned out to vote on Tuesday. That 40% changed the balance of power in this country, leading the way for a far-right President and his friends in Congress to implement their programs with little to no real resistance from the woefully disorganized Democrats.

Why do we stand for this? Why don’t more people get involved? I don’t know for sure because I haven’t talked to everyone about it. I think it may be that no one thinks they can make a difference. It’s because nothing said by the candidates or elected officials in our country speaks to them and motivates them to make their voice heard. The fact that less than half of those eligible use their one real voice is a disgrace.

The fact that we reelected the vast majority of representatives in both houses who since the last election voted against Congressional term limits and gave themselves a pay raise just amazes me.

Instead of blaming people, our culture, our politicians, I’m going to try and find a way to fix it. How do we get more people involved in the political process? How we get those eligible voters who feel they’re either not represented or don’t see the connection between who represents them and the effects of the votes those representatives make on their daily lives. How? We start a revolution. Ok, put down your pitchforks and torches. I don’t mean that kind of revolution. Ever since the 2000 presidential election, I’ve been thinking about the possibility of a viable third party in American politics. I think it’s time.

What would this party be called? I don’t really care. What would it stand for? I’m not sure, but it should be centrist/left, supporting things like rational gun control, the absolute separation of church and state (if you want to pray while you’re at school, peachy keen, go right ahead, but we don’t need a moment of silence before class. if you need to pray during school, fine, set up a special room for those who need it, but no more ‘prayer in school’ laws), a logical and fact-based discussion of our nation’s drug, foreign and welfare policies, support public schools and advocate honest dealing with foreign nations. Yeah, it’s a tall order and everything’s up for discussion.

I’m not really going to start a political party. I’m not charismatic or enthusiastic enough. I hope someone else does. I’d support it because I’m disgusted with the two parties I have to choose from. The Republicans prey on the God-fearing and crazy, leading them on with the promise to overturn Roe v Wade, keep the liberal freaks who want to take their guns away and create some law that will bring God back into school in order to keep getting elected and keep feeding the bank accounts of themselves and their big business patrons. The Democrats have lost the middle and their message and are an incoherent mess. They’ve decided that they can’t fight the President and are still so shocked they lost the 2000 Election and now the Senate, it may be decades before they recover.

See, it really is time for a third party. Who wants to start it?

Did we learn anything new from the President’s speech tonight? Not really. If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you’ve heard/read it all before. I still have serious concerns about the motivations behind this sudden drive for armed conflict in Iraq, but the evidence is compelling. I’ve read some of the evidence against Iraq, and am ashamed that my own country knew about the chemical attacks on his own people and in some cases even supplied the chemical agents to Iraq during that country’s war with Iran (another case of the U.S. supporting the lesser of two evils).

What really bothers me is that this is yet another case of a regime we supported with money, arms, and an unknown quantity of “other” things coming back to become a threat. I understand the need for backdoor diplomacy. I know we need intelligence and espionage, but I would be much more comfortable with the President’s case if our rapsheet were much shorter, and there were fewer members of the Administration involved with Interests that could benefit from a new regime.

What would make me feel better? I don’t know. I think I’m past the point of arguing against the use of force in Iraq. I just want my government to stop supporting the enemy of our enemy, even though the regime we’re supporting is only slightly less evil than our enemy. If our government (including our politicians) were more trustworthy and honest. If the motivation behind policies were more transparent, and Dick Cheney had his “Energy Task Force” meetings in public where we could all witness what happensed.

My real problem? I don’t trust George W. Bush. I don’t trust Dick Cheney. I don’t trust Congress. I don’t have faith that the CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF or any other acronymed agency can stop a determined maniac from killing me. Has it always been this way? Was Abraham Lincoln trustworthy? Was FDR? Harry Truman? What happened? If it was never the way it should have been, what can we do to make it that way?

This poll from CNN disturbs me. I had a big long post about why, but I couldn’t get out what I really want to say, so you look at it and tell me what you think.

I’ve been thinking about the drunk morons at the Redskins game that I wrote about yesterday. It brings to mind these conversations I used to have with my friend Jim about pot, and how he couldn’t believe it wasn’t legalized. This may sound blasphemous for an guy who lives on the East Coast to say, but you have to remember I’m from Arizona, the state crazy enough to legalize medical marijuana along with California. Why isn’t pot legal?

I don’t smoke pot. I never have. I don’t drink. I never have. I don’t smoke cigarettes. I never have. I have never taken narcotics that weren’t prescribed to me. I personally don’t get the attraction to making myself dumber than I am. That said, why is pot illegal and alchohol and tobacco aren’t? The long term effects of pot are equivalent to the other two. The personality changes in a pot smoker are a lot less radical than someone who’s drunk. I’d much rather go to a football game with a bunch of stoners than a bunch of drunks. Drunks fight. They’re obnoxious and have a habit of vomitting on themselves. They get belligerent and hostile, or weepy, or overly friendly. They lost inhibitions (which leads to the rest of the stuff already listed). I don’t think anyone ever got married or an unfortunate tatoo after smoking a joint.

I don’t understand the hypocrisy. The critics point to pot as a gateway drug. I don’t agree with their logic. Pot’s status as an illegal substance is what I think merits its gateway status. It’s a gateway drug because people who use it often have to deal with folks who are into or deal stronger and more illicit substances. Alchohol is a gateway to chee-tos and pizza because it’s sold in grocery stores, bars, quick stops and gas stations. Alchohol and tobacco kill far more people than pot ever will, and cost this country billions in healthcare.

So, let’s make the hard choice, either people are adult enough to control themselves with pot, tobacco and alchohol, or all of them should be illegal. They’re all addictive to a degree, all cause health problems, and are all pretty much equal in their damage. Pick… I’ll be happy either way. If there were no more drunk jackasses at sporting events, I might go to more of them. If I didn’t have to worry about second hand smoke in bars, I might go see more live music. People will die in car accidents for reasons other than intoxicated drivers. If people could buy pot in stores, the dosage of THC were regulated and we could charge taxes, I doubt we’d have a budget deficit. We could afford to keep school music, art and physical education. I just don’t get it. Am I missing something? Am I wrong?

For everyone who bought one of those durable vinyl car flags, there were those who thought we deserved it. And, as strong as my reaction is to both of those extremes, I know I’ve spent at least a second at each one of them, and at many places in between. That said, there’s some stuff in Salon’s Forbidden thoughts about 9/11 that turns my stomach. Throughout, I kept thinking how we would never be allowed to read this kind of thing, the purely uncensored thoughts of our countrymen, in some other countries. I may hate them for saying it. I may hate them for even thinking some of those things, but they have every right to think whatever they want, and pretty much say what they want in whatever forum they can gain access to. Long live free speech, and my right to be offended and challenged by the free speech of my countrymen whether I like it or not.

A domain name so offensive I have to link to it. It’s actually an intelligent blog with an interesting point of view. Just don’t go telling your friends about it. Hell, I can’t even type it out. Just go see for yourself.

With all this talk about going to war with Iraq, it makes me wonder, “Aren’t we already there?” We’ve been flying over Iraq dropping bombs on things for eleven years, enforcing the no-fly zones. They’ve been under U.N. economic sanctions for over a decade. Another way to state the question, “Did the Gulf War actually end, or are we just in a lull?”

It seems that either we should do it and get Saddam out of power, or leave. If we have proof that he has weapons of mass destruction, and proof that he plans to use them, then we should make our case to the world, get a coalition and fire the machinery of war up and go do it.

Or, we shut up about going to war, stop playing bully in the schoolyard under the banner of “The War of Terror”, and we let the U.N. and the rest of the world figure out what to do with Saddam. We play the Pontius Pilate role and wash our hands of him. The world didn’t want to take care of it, ok. It’s on the rest of the world when Saddam does something crazy them.

There you go, a Friday afternoon rant with no facts to back me up. I belong on talk radio.

I’m going home now.

I’m not sure where the author’s loyalties lie, but this article doesn’t paint the same doom and gloom picture of AOL as the Post did.