Inane Ramblings

30 November 2004

Dear Red States of America...

Source Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1386853


I am writing this letter to the people in the red states in the middleof the country -- the people who voted for George W. Bush.

I am writing this letter because I don't think we know each other.

So I'll make an introduction. I am a New Yorker who voted for John Kerry. I used to live in California, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. I used to live in Washington, DC, and if I still lived there, I would vote for Kerry. Kerry won in all three of those regions.

Maybe you want to know more about me. Or maybe not; maybe you think you know me already. You think I am some anti-American anarchist because I dislike George W. Bush. You think that I am immoral and anti-family, because I support women's reproductive freedom and gay rights. You think that I am dangerous, and even evil, because I do not abide by your religious beliefs.

Maybe you are content to think that, to write me off as a “liberal” - - the dreaded “L” word - - and rejoice that your candidate has triumphed over evil, immoral, anti-American, anti-family people like me. But maybe you are still curious. So here goes: this is who I am.

I am a New Yorker. I was here, in my apartment downtown, on September 11th. I watched the Towers burn from the roof of my building. I went inside so that I couldn't see them when they fell. I had friends who were inside. I have a friend who still has nightmares about watching people jump and fall from the Towers. He will never be the same. How many people like him do you know? People that can't sit in a restaurant without plotting an escape route, in case it blows up?

I am a worker. I work across the street from the Citigroup Center, which the government told us is a “target” of terrorism. Later, we found out they were relaying very old information, but it was already too late. They had given me bad dreams again. The subway stop near my office was crowded with bomb-sniffing dogs, policemen in heavy protective gear, soldiers. Now, every time I enter or exit my office, all of my possessions are X-rayed to make sure I don't have any weapons. How often are you stopped by a soldier with a bomb-sniffing dog outside your office?

I am a neighbor. I have a neighbor who is a 9/11 widow. She has two children. My husband does odd jobs for her now, like building bookshelves. Things her husband should do. He uses her husband's tools, and the two little girls tell him, “Those are our daddy's tools.” How many 9/11 widows and orphans do you know? How often do you fill in for their dead loved ones?

I am a taxpayer. I worked my butt off to get where I did, and so did my parents. My parents saved and borrowed and sent me to college. I worked my way through graduate school. I won a full tuition scholarship to law school. All for the privilege of working 2,600 hours last year. That works out to a 50 hour week, every week, without any vacation days at all. I get to work by 9 am and rarely leave before 9 p.m. I eat dinner at my office much more often than I eat dinner at home. My husband and I paid over $70,000 in federal income tax last year. At some point in the future, we will have to pay much more - - once this country faces its deficit and the impossible burden of Social Security. In fact, the areas of the country that supported Kerry - - New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts - - they are the financial centers of the nation. They are the tax base of this country. How much did you pay, Kansas? How much did you contribute to this government you support, Alabama? How much of this war in Iraq did you pay for?

I am a liberal. The funny part is, liberals have this reputation for living in Never-Neverland, being idealists, not being sensible. But let me tell you how I see the world: I see America as one nation in a world of nations. Therefore, I think we should try to get along with other nations. I see that gay people exist. Therefore, I think they should be allowed to exist, and be treated the same as other people. I see ways in which women are not allowed to control their own bodies. Therefore, I think we should give women more control over their bodies. I see that people have awful diseases.

Therefore, I think we should enable scientists to try to cure them. I see that we have a Constitution. Therefore, I think it should be upheld. I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me. It seems so pragmatic to me. How do you see the world? Do you really think voting against gay marriage will keep people from being gay? Would you really prefer that people continue to die from Parkinson's disease? Do you really not care about the Constitutional rights of political detainees? Would you really have supported the war if you knew the truth, or would you have wanted to spend more of our money on health care, job training, terrorism preparedness?

I am an American. I have an American flag flying outside my home. I love my home more than anything. I love that I grew up right outside New York City. I first went to the Statue of Liberty with my 5th grade class, and my mom and dad took me to the Empire State Building when I was 8. I love taking the subway to Yankee Stadium. I loved living in Washington DC and going on dates to the Lincoln Memorial. It is because I love this country so much that I argue with my political opponents as much I do.

I am not safe. I never feel safe. My in-laws live in a small town in Ohio, and that town has received more federal funding, per capita, for terrorism preparedness than New York City has. I take subways and buses every day. I work in a skyscraper across the street from a “target.” I have emergency supplies and a spare pair of sneakers in my desk, in case something happens while I'm at work. Do you? How many times a month do you worry that your subway is going to blow up? When you hear sirens on the street, do you run to the window to make sure everything is okay? When you hear an airplane, do you flinch? Do you dread beautiful, blue-skied September days? I don't know a single New Yorker who doesn't spend the month of September on tip-toes, superstitiously praying for rain so we don't have to relive that beautiful, blue-skied day.

I am lonely. I feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies. I feel unprotected. Most of all I feel alienated from my fellow citizens, because I don't understand what you are thinking. You voted for a man who started a war in Iraq for no reason, against the wishes of the entire world. You voted for a man whose lack of foresight and inability to plan has led to massive insurgencies in Iraq, where weapons are disappearing into the hands of terrorists. You voted for a man who let Osama Bin Laden escape into the hills of Afghanistan so that he could start that war in Iraq. You voted for a man who doesn't want to let people love who they want to love; doesn't want to let doctors cure their patients; doesn't want to let women rule their destinies. I don't understand why you voted for this man. For me, it is not enough that he is personable; it is not enough that he seems like one of the guys. Why did you vote for him? Why did you elect a man that lied to us in order to persuade us to go to war? (Ten years ago you were incensed when our president lied about his sex life; you thought it was an impeachable offense.) Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation? Why did you elect a man who did nothing except run away and hide on September 11?

Most of all, I am terrified. I mean daily, I am afraid that I will not survive this. I am afraid that I will lose my husband, that I will never have children, that I will never grow old and watch the sunset in a backyard of my own. I am afraid that my career -- which should end with a triumphant and good-natured roast at a retirement party in 2035 -- will be cut short by an attack on me and my colleagues, as we sit sending emails and making phone calls one ordinary afternoon. Is your life at stake? Are you terrified?

I don't think you are. I don't think you realize what you have done. And if anything happens to me or the people I love, I blame you. I wanted you to know that.

29 November 2004

The 14 characteristics of Fascism

The 14 characteristics of Fascism

by Lawrence Britt
Spring 2003
Free Inquiry magazine

1.Powerful and Continuing Nationalism Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2.Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3.Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4.Supremacy of the Military Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5.Rampant Sexism The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6.Controlled Mass Media Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7.Obsession with National Security Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8.Religion and Government are Intertwined Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9.Corporate Power is Protected The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10.Labor Power is Suppressed Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

11.Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12.Obsession with Crime and Punishment Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13.Rampant Cronyism and Corruption Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14.Fraudulent Elections Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.


This is the United States of America under George Bush.

24 November 2004

Got Republican relatives coming for Thanksgiving?

We all know that a discussion at the Thanksgiving table can too easily turn into a war between red family members and blue family members. So while we recommend avoiding violence, we understand if you feel the need to rip into your drunk republican uncle from Texas.

That’s why today’s Talking Point is – three ways to defend yourself against your republican relatives.

Number 1:
If they try to force you to sit next to your evangelizing born-again nephew, ask if he could be reseated at the Unborn Children’s Table.

Number 2:
Remind them that the first Thanksgiving convened in the gay marriage capital of the United States, the bluest of all blue states – Massachusetts.

and Number 3:
Remind them that Bush was re-elected with the narrowest margin of any wartime President in US history. Tell them you look forward to gloating over their losses after the 2006 midterm elections.

The best revenge of course, is to volunteer to drive them to the airport, and make sure the radio is stuck on Air America the whole way there.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!!

19 November 2004

Poem for Reconciliation

The election is over, the results are now known.
The will of the people has clearly been shown.
We should show by our thoughts, our words and our deeds
That unity is just what our country now needs.
Let's all get together. Let bitterness pass.
I'll hug your elephant
You kiss my ass.

12 November 2004

Why I'm a Progressive and a Democrat

Hi there. Short post today. Buried in all the Red vs Blue state madness of the past 10 days is this little tidbit. Take a look at the map at this link to see the true division of the United States.

While you're pondering the map, think about all the challenges and dirty tricks the Republicans used to disenfranchise minority voters in the South, and Pennsylvania and Ohio, too.


http://img106.exs.cx/img106/9550/RealRepugMap.jpg

08 November 2004

What is a *REAL* conservative?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/11/7/225210/807


Real conservatives value fiscal insolvency, including irresponsible tax cuts, corporate giveaways, massive spending increases, huge undisclosed pork-barrel spending projects hammered out during congressional conference, rather than actual budget legislation on the Congressional floor that is open to the public and recorded in the public record. You know that conservatives value these things, because these are the things the vast majority of self-proclaimed conservatives do.

Real conservatives do not value your personal liberties. They like disenfranchising voters, challenging voters, and making it more difficult to vote. They like it when the government is in your bedroom. They want to be able to spy on your personal files. They do not respect your right to privacy. They like to tell you who you can and cannot love, and what you can and cannot do to your own body. You know these are conservative values, because conservatives regularly pass laws of this nature.

Real conservatives like to recklessly use the military. They love war, and regularly resort to it as one of their first choices. They have no respect for the lives their policies destroy, as long as they have more bases overseas. They derive their values from violence, and detest peace. They will come up with any excuse possible, and cynically invent several more, to use force whenever possible, wherever possible. You know these are conservative values, because these are the actions conservatives take.

Real conservatives are bloodthirsty, reckless with our tax money, and want to tell you how to live your life. They are intolerant, warmongering and irresponsible. You know these are real conservatives values, because you can find anyone's beliefs in what they do, not what they say.

Was the Election Stolen?

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge – even to ourselves – that we've been so credulous: Carl Sagan

I want to know the truth and I'm not afraid to acknowledge that it appears that we have been bamboozled again in this election. There is too much evidence and I'm throwing a red flag on the field. Let's take a timeout, have an instant replay and review the evidence from all angles and then make an informed decision. The stakes are too high. Here's what makes me very uncomfortable;

1. WASHINGTON – November 4 – Teresa Fedor, [via Greg Lestini]Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor said today: "There was trouble with our elections in Ohio at every stage. It's been a battle getting people registered to vote, getting to the ballot on voting day and getting that vote to count. There is a pattern of voter suppression; that's why I called for [Ohio Secretary of State] Blackwell's resignation more than a month ago. Blackwell, while claiming to run an unbiased elections process, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio. Additionally, he was the spokesperson for the anti-business, anti-family constitutional amendment "Issue 1," and a failed initiative to repeal a crucial sales-tax revenue source for the state. Blackwell learned his moves from the Katherine Harris playbook of Florida 2000, and we won't stand for it."

2. Susan Truitt, Co-founder of the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, Truitt said today: "Seven counties in Ohio have electronic voting machines and none of them have paper trails. That alone raises issues of accuracy and integrity as to how we can verify the count. A recount without a paper trail is meaningless; you just get a regurgitation of the data. Last year, Blackwell tried to get the entire state to buy new machines without a paper trail. The exit polls, virtually the only check we have against tampering with a vote without a paper trail, had shown Kerry with a lead. ... A poll worker told me this morning that there were no tapes of the results posted on some machines; on other machines the posted count was zero, which obviously shouldn't be the case."

3. Bob Fitrakis, an attorney who monitored the election with the Election Protection Coalition, said today: "There were far fewer machines in the inner-city districts than in the suburbs. I documented at least a dozen people leaving because the lines were so long in African-American areas. Blackwell did a great deal of suppressing before the election – like attempting to refuse to process voter registration forms. The absentee ballots were misleading in Franklin County. Kerry was the third line down, but you had to punch number four to vote for him. Bush was getting both his votes as well as Kerry's."

4. John Zogby, considered to be the "gold standard" of presidential polling, predicted that John Kerry and John Edwards would win with over 300 electoral votes. Following Zogby’s prediction to the letter, the preponderance of the exit polling stated that John Kerry would carry all of the major battleground states: Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon. These exit polls were interpreted as further confirmation of Zogby’s final predictions.

5. When comparing the exit polls to the actual "official" final results, it appears that EVERY state that had electronic voting, without paper trails, had an "unexplained" advantage for Bush of about 5%.

And it appears that EVERY STATE that had paper trails on their Electronic Voting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error.

So it appears that they remotely electronically messed with the electronic voting results in every state where they could get away with it (because there was no paper trail to disprove it in those states).

Does this sound like something Karl Rove might do to guarantee a victory for Bush? Don't answer – it's a rhetorical question.

SO HOW WAS THE ELECTION TECHNICALLY STOLEN?

Roz Hill explains how easy it is to steal an election with paperless electronic voting machines.

So, here are the numbers (so far): 112,596,922 voters counted in the presidential race. Bush has been consistently polling at 45%, which SHOULD have given him 50,668,614 votes, instead of 58,073,612. This translates into 7,404,998 votes being siphoned off from Kerry votes. Now, how does that magic work???

Taxpayers get hit with a bill for $3600 (or more) for EACH of the touch-screen "voting" computers, which are nothing more than dedicated COUNTERS except that they are marketed by Republicans (who vowed to ensure Bush's victory); and the American people have not been allowed to examine or certify the software in these units.

Here is how easy it is to "make magic";

We need COUNTERS - (B) = Bush; (K) = Kerry; (V) = Vote; (T) = Tally

1. If V = B, add 1 to B
2. If T = 8, add 1 to B; Clear T; Skip 3
3. If V = K, add 1 to K; Add 1 to T

This extremely simple bit of programming would shift 12% of the vote from Kerry to Bush, it would defy exit polls, and it would make it look like Bush had a huge popular win, which is precisely what happened.

At this point, why has no one raised the spectre of criminality or a criminal conspiracy to inflate votes for Bush and deflate tallies for Kerry via hacking the computerized voting machines?

In addition, it is highly suspicious to note that the scale of Bush’s vote far exceeded the best of the pre-election polling, which could certainly be explained by this scenario.

Time out is over and you've seen the evidence.

Is it too painful to acknowledge that we have been bamboozled or are you going to demand the truth?

Allen Roland is a practicing psychotherapist who shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website. He also guest hosts a weekly national radio show on Conscious talk radio.

03 November 2004

Post Mortems

Well folks, now that it’s all had some time to sink in, I am a wee bit tired and bitter. Are we liberals that far out of touch with mainstream America? Is it wrong of me to think now that my views, and indeed the views of all the blue states, are now in the minority? What has happened to this country that things like fiscal responsibility, healthcare, job creation, civil rights, the environment, and foreign policy restraint are no longer popular? God, Guns, and Gays. That's what they ran on. And they won.

George Bush ran almost exclusively on the platform of 9/11. In the three years since, we’ve invaded two countries, alienated our allies, insulted the second largest religion in the world, and given countless radicals even more reason to hate the United States. These are not the acts of a rash man. Think about this. How many of you currently hold a US passport? Where would you feel safe traveling with that now?

Even more troubling is the fact that the Republicans now control all three branches of government. In the words of Senate Majority Leader Tom Delay, "With a bigger majority, we can do even more exciting things.” It’s no secret what these things are. President Bush has sought to extend tax cuts, promote pro-business policies and appoint anti-abortion judges and he may make another attempt to secure a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages. He’ll now be able to do these things with very little check on his power to affect us all.

The world will move forward with or without the United States. If the people have truly spoken (and we’re not sure about that yet) can it be that the majority of Americans prefer a government based on fear, fundamentalism, and yes, fascism?

Thomas Jefferson is surely exceeding the maximum RPMs on his sarcophagus.

01 November 2004

Last Message from the Senator

A fresh start for America
By John F. Kerry November 1, 2004

SHORTLY after Christopher Reeve passed away, his wife, Dana, stood with me on a stage in Columbus, Ohio. She wanted to talk to America about her gutsy, heroic husband and his dreams for the future. She told us, "He imagined living in a world where politics would never get in the way of hope."

Also with me that day was John Glenn, whose daring journey to explore the heavens made us hopeful again.

In the closing days of this campaign, I ask Americans to choose the vision John Glenn embodies and Christopher Reeve never abandoned.

On Tuesday, Americans face a fundamental choice: We can choose to continue the failed policies of the past four years -- or we can vote for a fresh start for America. For the past four years, George W. Bush has made the wrong choices for America. Nowhere is this more clear than in his catastrophic misjudgments in Iraq.

He took his eye off the ball -- diverting resources from destroying the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11 to rush to war against Saddam Hussein, who had no collaborative links to Al Qaeda and no links to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Bush administration now calls Iraq "a remarkable success story." Americans know better. Iraq is a mess: We see kidnappings and hostage-takings, cities too dangerous for our soldiers to enter, more than 1,100 brave American troops killed, and now the incredible failure to secure weapons and explosives -- at the Al Qaqaa complex alone, 760,000 pounds of explosives have disappeared. It took just one pound of these explosives to blow up Pan Am Flight 103.
And we see another set of Bush failures here at home. Bush has spent four years fighting for the powerful and well-connected, but his policies have squeezed our middle class and those struggling to join it.

He's let companies outsource jobs to Asia and given them tax breaks for doing so -- and he's the first president to lose jobs in 70 years. Four million more Americans have fallen into poverty on his watch -- 1.3 million of them children. He's ignored the runaway cost of college, let healthcare costs soar out of control, and driven gas prices up to $2 a gallon with an energy policy that punishes American families -- and rewards the Saudi royal family. And after raiding the Social Security trust fund, he's now vowed to privatize Social Security with a plan that will cut benefits up to 45 percent.

If the president thinks we're doing just fine, then he must believe that we shouldn't hope for something better.

It doesn't have to be this way. John Edwards and I will take this country in a new direction.
First, we'll get healthcare costs under control. That means covering all of our children and giving families access to the same private health insurance that members of Congress give themselves. It means allowing our seniors to import safe, FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada. And it means lifting the ban on federal funding for stem cell research.

Second, we'll fight to raise middle-class incomes by keeping and creating good-paying jobs in America. We'll roll back tax breaks for those who make more than $200,000 a year and give middle-class families tax credits to help pay for college, healthcare, and child care.
Third, we'll work to save Social Security. I will not privatize Social Security; I will not cut benefits; and I will not raise the retirement age.

Fourth, we'll make America independent of Mideast oil within 10 years. We'll do it by investing in technology and alternative energy sources and in cars and SUVs you only have to fill up once a month, not every week.

Finally, I will fight a smarter, tougher, and more effective war on terror. I will stop at nothing to hunt down, capture, and kill the terrorists. I will never give any nation or organization a veto over our national security. And I will always build and lead strong alliances so that America never has to go it alone.

If you join with me on Tuesday, we will both defend our country and fight for America's families. We will unite Democrats and Republicans to succeed in Iraq and restore America's leadership in the world. We will once again stand up for the middle class and all those struggling to join it. We will never again allow the politics of fear to obscure our hope for the future. And together, we will lift up this nation with the confidence that our best days are still ahead.