Iraq War Spending Bill Castrates Antiwar Democrats

When the news came down that the rank and file Democrats decided to grant George Bush his wish to receive a war spending without a timeline, the move suddenly put representatives Dennis Kucinich, Barbra Boxer and Bernie Sanders and several other Democrats along with some moderate Republicans in a position of having to decide their next move in 2008. The fact is that many now are starting to wonder how far an anti-war voice can go with the Democratic Party. While they were pushing for a timeline for a withdraw of US troops from, only to cave in the end, it seems odd that the Congress should feel pressure to pass any bill that does not fit their liking considering that that they have both the majority in Congress and for the most part, the political momentum, depending on the outcome of this ill conceived bill. Further more one must wonder why the Democrats just cut the purse strings to the war if they are serious about ending the
Iraq war.   

The bill is also going to have long effecting on how our Government is run. One of the worst fears of our forefathers is that the one branch of government would gain more power then the other branches. And this is exactly what has happened. Perhaps the most critical part of this bill is that it lets George Bush know that all he has to do is wait the Democrats out and he will get what he wants. Further more the size of the spending bill which doubles the rate of spending in the wars both in Iraq and
Afghanistan, will give funding well beyond September which is the marked month when the Congress and the Bush White house is suppose to re-examine the issue of further of spending. So now the Democrats give Bush the upper hand once again, to allow him to out wait them once again. What is even more troubling is that is that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed, along with others in, Congress have fallen in the trap of adopting the language right wing. Those who supported the bill said they did so because they “support the troops.” Of course there was no examination of what that really means. That is to say, they are supporting the death of US troops in a war that has no legitimacy in the eyes of most the world, including the
US outside of the walls of the fortune 500.   Another far reaching aspect about this bill is that it cuts off any voice of the anti-war Democrats that also support the impeachment. Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders along with Maria Cantwell have been some of most outspoken propionates of removing both Bush and Cheney from the White house. Going back to our forefather’s fear of a president without restraint, we are seeing exactly that, a so called president with no oversight what so ever. And even though they are back in power, they rolled over on their backs once again and allowed Bush trip away yet another piece of relevance of the other branches Government. In fact, when we take a look at the crimes of the White house, one most wonder why there was even any dialogue about funding over seas in the first place. In fact, many are now saying that the energy that they put into staring down Bush should have been into a push to pass an article of impeachment both in the House and Senate. Instead, white house walks around with cavalier air that one would not expect from a leader with a 28% approval rating. So the final question is where we go from here. For the first time, there really is no answer. Until next time. http://groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1180561833174.wmv

The Death Of Jerry Falwell

 

One of the architects that set the blue print of the Neo cons died this Month. Jerry Falwell is best known for his construction of the term, “The Moral Majority,” which played on Richard Nixon’s Silent Majority. For more than forty years he has worked with his friend and founder of the CBN, Pat Robertson, pushing the idea that only the real Americans who are Jesus fearing Christians will be saved in what has been painted as the final battle between good and evil.  He was also one of those ethnologists that came out of the Barry Goldwater Campaign in 1964 and gradually infiltrated the GOP which claimed secular leanings. And he was one of the main players that convinced American’s to vote for Ronald Reagan.

 

Even though he is now gone, his reach and influence will be long lasting. During the 2000 campaign of George W Bush, Bush himself often spoke of his faith in God and that used the term “Lord O Mighty.” This was of coarse was no accident. The religious right wing implanted themselves into the GOP’s backside during the Reagan administration and heavily funded Christian candidates that spoke out against a slew of issues on “moral” grounds. This includes abortion, civil rights, workers rights and so on. By the 199s we saw a clear paradigm that arose within the party that came straight out of HL Hunt book of American politics. That is, to connect the image of Christ with capitalism and the military industrial complex. Further more, we see saw during that decade the reverberation of Goldwater message that was widely ignored in the 1964 presidential race. From this political muck, we saw the rise of Newt Gingrich and a decade earlier Pat Buchanan who himself ran for president. Even former Klansman and representatives of Louisiana David Duke even felt empowered to run for president at the time Democrat Bill Clinton ran for a second term.

 

During George Bush’s earliest days in office he wanted to take social programs out of the hands of the Government and hand them over to “faith based groups.” And as the 2000s drag along we have heard the hateful speech of not only those that followed Jerry Falwell but, also from Falwell himself. For example, shortly after 9/11 he planned the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and
Washington on liberals, feminists and homosexuals. His body Pat Robertson went so far as to call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The most chilling aspect this icon of the right was his success convincing those reactionaries who once spoke out against what he spoke for.

 

Until next time.    

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Organic Hotels

After two and half years of working on my second book, Organic Hotels, it is finally ready for release. Unlike my first published work which made its debut in the summer of 2003, Organic Hotels is the first collection of work where the voice in each piece is completely mine. I don’t borrow anything from other writers in this book. I don’t pretend to have a huge love affair with New York, having seen its extreme limitations over the past few years. For those who think NYC is a raw place to live, forget it. It is just as shallow as any other big city you’ll find. The yuppies have moved in and have forced all the artists into the outer boroughs, which is why I write about being a poor writer who is forced to live in an SRO (single room occupancy.) under the reign of a hostile landlord.

The idea of war and its effect on the human psyche is also touched upon in the book as is the art of writing itself. There a few odes to some of my own heroes in the book like Hunter S Thompson and Paul Wellstone.

The book is set to be released Monday 21st. You will able able to purchase it atlulu.com or at ny major book store website.

Paper Ballots To Be Reintroduced

 

From the state that injected George W Bush into the arm of America, we now have another turn in the
Florida voting process. There is now talk that the state will turn to paper ballots after yet another botched election. The move comes seven years after the highly questionable results that gave Bush the White House and Al Gore the boot. The outcome of that race has little to do with the decision of moving back to the paper ballots. The reason for the move is more connected to the race of Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan which is still being disputed. More than 18,000 votes have some how vanished off the radar. Because of the legal rights of the machines builders, a contemplative recount was unable to be done.

 

The fact that these machines are faulty as they are should come as no surprise. Over the past seven years, botched elections have been reported nation wide, usually favoring the Republican in the race. Keep in mind that the main to producers of the machines, Diebold and ES&S technologies were the two largest supporters to the Bush campaign in 2000. In fact they were linked to several leading Republican candidates winning their races over the more popular Democrats  under mysterious circumstances. Now that Jeb Bush is out of
Tallahassee the door suddenly opened to the reform of a clearly fault ridden voting system.

 

The question is how this will fit the Help America Vote act. Governor Charlie Crist is certainly is no liberal so it will be interesting to see what deal was made that lead to the removal of systems. There is no guarantee that the machines won’t be back in the future after some minor improvements in hiding voter fraud. We’ll see.

 

Until next time.  

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If You Think Contaminated Pet Food Has Been Dumped, Think Again!

If you think that the tens of thousands of pet food products that were found to contain melamine, a chemical used in fertilizers and plastic kitchenware was disposed of, think again. A recent discovery has found that many of the recalled foods were feed to hogs and chickens on corporate farms in six states. Hundreds of pigs have tested positive for the chemical. It is unclear if any of the contaminated animals have made their way on the dinner table. The troubling problem is that the
US animal testing regulations are rather relaxed compared to most other industrial nations. The sad fact is, FDA demands on farm testing became less demanding during the mad cow disease scare according so several sources.  

The question here is how did these products get into our food supply and who allowed it?   When we take a look at the mad cow disease scare a few years ago, we can see a complete lack of oversight concerning the blood meal that had been to feed to cows. Most of the meal was made up of fellow bovine which them selves were extremely sick or suffered from neurological disease. Had it not been for the uncovering of the issue by Ophera Winfrey, the vast majority of American’s would still be eating contaminated beef. What’s even more troubling is how they now check for infected cattle less cows are tested for mcd. The FDA still hasn’t held anyone liable for cases in which American citizens had been severally injured from the tainted meat.  

. The FDA should figure out why these recalled pet foods were not dumped or incinerated. Other wise we must consider them complicit in the illegal feeding of a known dangerous toxin to the nations hog population.  

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