I came up with the title actually Friday afternoon for this article about the halting of airlifting people in need of medical treatment out of Haiti due to disputes over who'll pay for the healthcare cost. (Ironic, huh?)
And I was gonna follow that up with this article about Fox News and Rush Limbaugh giving aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden and Al Qeada.
But I couldn't think of an explanation for the Limbaugh piece in part because I was trying to find good video of the tea tax Obama smacked down Friday afternoon. Then I got caught up listening and before I knew, I needed a break.
Then, closing down for the night, I came across this: Americans Arrested While Taking Children From Haiti.
"Ruh, roh, Shaggy!"
Showing posts with label American pride and ignorance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American pride and ignorance. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Health Insurance Whistleblower
Yeah, here's some more.
First up, Tim Wise. I thought I had already posted this clip, but I hadn't. Obviously. After him, a health insurance whistle-blower.
First up, Tim Wise. I thought I had already posted this clip, but I hadn't. Obviously. After him, a health insurance whistle-blower.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
American Extremists Aren't Allowed in the UK!
This gives me endless delight and amusement. The UK ain't allowing us to spread racism and homophobia. Bwa ha ha ha ha!
To our credit, we do allow free speech here in America. But there are some things I wish people weren't allowed to say. ~ No1KState
Anyway, h/t to Btx3 via a comment at jjp and from bloomberg.com:
U.K. Denies Entry to Islamic, Baptist Preachers, Michael Savage
By Kitty Donaldson
May 5 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. radio broadcaster Michael Savage and the pastors of a Baptist church are among those barred from entering the U.K. for allegedly stirring-up hatred and fostering extremism, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said.
Savage, whose real name is Michael Alan Weiner, has authored books such as “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and was one of 22 foreigners named by Smith as ineligible to visit Britain. She published a list of those banned between October 2008 and March 2009 for “fostering extremism or hatred.”
Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, which preaches against homosexuals, and fellow church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper (They're website is www.godhatesfags.com. You can go there if you like, but I'm not going to link it.) were also banned for “unacceptable behavior” that might stir up “inter-community violence” in the U.K.
“Coming to the U.K. is a privilege, and I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life,” Smith said in an e-mail today. “I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views. They are not welcome here.”
Britain has toughened measures to exclude so-called preachers of hate after the bombing of the London Underground and bus network in 2005. The rules also target Islamic clerics and people with links to the al-Qaeda terrorist group.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government now is banning about five people a month under the current policy, more than double the previous rate.
Preachers Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Yunis Al Astal, Safwat Hijazi and Amir Siddique were also banned, the U.K. said. Also on the list were Mike Guzovsky, the leader of a violent group, and the creator of a white supremacist Web site Stormfront, Stephen Donald Black.
Web radio broadcaster Eric Gliebe was also denied entry as was Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, who lead a gang accused of beating migrants.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: May 5, 2009 06:58 EDT
Terms of Service Privacy Policy Trademarks
To our credit, we do allow free speech here in America. But there are some things I wish people weren't allowed to say. ~ No1KState
Anyway, h/t to Btx3 via a comment at jjp and from bloomberg.com:
U.K. Denies Entry to Islamic, Baptist Preachers, Michael Savage
By Kitty Donaldson
May 5 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. radio broadcaster Michael Savage and the pastors of a Baptist church are among those barred from entering the U.K. for allegedly stirring-up hatred and fostering extremism, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said.
Savage, whose real name is Michael Alan Weiner, has authored books such as “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and was one of 22 foreigners named by Smith as ineligible to visit Britain. She published a list of those banned between October 2008 and March 2009 for “fostering extremism or hatred.”
Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, which preaches against homosexuals, and fellow church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper (They're website is www.godhatesfags.com. You can go there if you like, but I'm not going to link it.) were also banned for “unacceptable behavior” that might stir up “inter-community violence” in the U.K.
“Coming to the U.K. is a privilege, and I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life,” Smith said in an e-mail today. “I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views. They are not welcome here.”
Britain has toughened measures to exclude so-called preachers of hate after the bombing of the London Underground and bus network in 2005. The rules also target Islamic clerics and people with links to the al-Qaeda terrorist group.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government now is banning about five people a month under the current policy, more than double the previous rate.
Preachers Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Yunis Al Astal, Safwat Hijazi and Amir Siddique were also banned, the U.K. said. Also on the list were Mike Guzovsky, the leader of a violent group, and the creator of a white supremacist Web site Stormfront, Stephen Donald Black.
Web radio broadcaster Eric Gliebe was also denied entry as was Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, who lead a gang accused of beating migrants.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: May 5, 2009 06:58 EDT
Terms of Service Privacy Policy Trademarks
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Audacity of Whiteness: Framing Barack Obama
Hat tip Macon D, Stuff White People Do
After you read this article via The Huffington Post, please read my post Oh, Wow! Please Read and Discuss.
The Audacity of Whiteness: Framing Barack Obama
by Jill Nelson
"This country cannot be the country we want it to be if its story is told by only one group of citizens. Our goal is to give all Americans front-door access to the truth." -- Robert C. Maynard (Maynard was one of the founders of the 30-year-old Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, which works to increase diversity in staffing, content and business operations of American media.)
I know its bad form to mention race and upset the new post-racial apple cart, the one that doesn't even have a black chauffer like the genial Hoke to drive Miss Daisy around. Nope, in this post-racial world Hoke's been laid off or taken the buy-out. (At least 300 black journalists left the print media in 2007, and there's every indication that 2008 was worse. Richard Prince's Journal-isms column at www.mije.org is an ongoing record of attrition.) In this brave new world the playing field's level, Dr. King's dream's been realized, and it's all about the meritocracy. Yet a look at the unbearably white American media reminds us that even with a black president little has changed in terms of who frames the issues. With the exception of CNN, which probably employs more black people than BET and definitely has more news coverage, for the most part media looks like a meeting of the White Citizens Council, circa 1956. As determined to retain control of the dialogue as those racists were to maintain the Southern way of life.
Why is it okay for George Will to have President Obama to dinner with conservative journalists with not a black face in the room? How many journalists attended parties in Washington during the inauguration where there were no journalists of color present? Isn't it disturbing to the journalistic establishment that the vast majority of journalists, commentators, talking heads, pundits, and experts discussing the new president and his administration are white? In 2009 can anyone seriously argue that aren't more than a handful of black, Latino, Asian, or Native Americans who fit these categories? Is this time for change we can believe in, or is it still time for black to get back?
For two years I'd managed, along with most black people, to go along with one of the unspoken shibboleths to the election of Barack Obama and kept my mouth closed about racial issues, fearing that such a discussion would be harmful to Obama. This in spite of Bill Clinton showing his ass in South Carolina; Hillary's absurd suggestion that Obama wouldn't know what to do when the phone rang at 3 AM; and John McCain's barely veiled white supremacist campaign. Yet the failure of much of the media to recognize the words of the Negro National Anthem as the first words of Reverend Joseph Lowery's benediction at the inauguration was truly pitiful. That, followed by the general incomprehension of the rhyme at the end of Lowery's remarks -- "When black will not be asked to get in back/When brown can stick around..." -- and then its erroneous attribution by a CNN employee to a civil rights song, rather than rooted in African American folk and oral tradition and the dozens -- a game of verbal insult and one-upmanship -- made it impossible to maintain silence.
It's profoundly dishonest and morally wrong that media coverage of Barack Obama and his presidency is framed by an almost exclusively white press corp. Not just the White House press corps, whose unbearable whiteness Sam Fulwood III wrote eloquently about on theRoot.com in December, 2008. Turn on the television. Most of the reporters -- the ones with shows of their own, steady jobs and influence - are white. Is there no other journalist of color in America besides Gwen Ifill of PBS' Washington Week (fabulous as she is) who could host a news show? (Sorry, CNN, the comedian D.L. Hughley doesn't count.) Apparently not, since when Ifill takes the occasional Friday off her show often becomes segregated.
The absence of African Americans is appalling in light of the plethora of white people from someplace else, especially England, getting paid to frame, spin and explain Barack Obama to Americans. I doubt that I could get a job parsing Gordon Brown to the Brits. At the "serious" magazines, the situation is dismal. Years ago, an editor at The New Yorker told me the reason there weren't more black writers at the magazine was that they didn't understand the publication's "zeitgeist."
What's really changed if the American media continues to view this new administration, and a world that is overwhelmingly populated by black, brown, and yellow people, through white eyes? In this same old world but with a new name, a Black man is president of the United States, but it takes a white man to play him on Saturday Night Live. Arrogance and privilege by another name?
Call me a retro, angry black woman -- or Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress, as Juan Williams, one of the few journalists of color white journalists deign to recognize, called Michelle Obama last weekend -- but why is it that whenever the impact of race is analyzed the role that white privilege plays is absent? In journalism, the result is always the same: white people who are granted the role of analyzing everything and everyone, including African Americans, who are as likely as not to be dismissed, overlooked, or spoken for by white expert opinion.
In reality, this post-modern, post-racial apple cart is for whites only, a dishonest and opportunistic effort to pretend race no longer matters now that Americans have elected Barack Obama president. Post racial is nothing but segregation under a kinder, gentler name, yet another effort to further enshrine white privilege and white supremacy.
What a waste, in this time of profound crisis and the possibilities Barack Obama's presidency presents, to have those possibilities identified and interpreted by whites only. Filtered through the tired lens of whiteness in a twenty-first century in which the attacks of 9/11, American failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the implosion of the markets and the collapse of capitalism are signposts along the road of the dying white culture.
In this auspicious moment, media organizations should be seeking out journalists of color and youth. Instead it's the same old white guys, many of whom seem to verge on apoplexy as they struggle to "explain" Obama. It's as if he, like Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still, fell from the sky, ahistorical, exceptionalist, and, I fear, soon to be, like Oprah or Michael Jordan, conveniently de-raced. This inability to fathom Barack Obama doesn't come as a surprise. For the most part these media heads have managed to live lives absent any serious engagement with black people or black culture. If they had, they would be familiar with the existence of the black middle class, a long-established group of overachievers whose mantra is that you have to work harder, smarter, and be better than your white counterparts to achieve the same results.
Barack Obama is neither an anomaly nor an aberration. He is simply the most successful member of this class of overachievers. His election lays to rest the myth of the meritocracy. Perhaps more amazing than the election of Barack Obama is that someone of his intellect and limitless possibility even wanted the job. Be clear: Barack Obama is part of a continuum. Now that he's broken the glass ceiling it's time for whites to step up their game. Stay tuned.
As candidate and President Obama has made clear, change we need requires sacrifice from all of us. It's not just about black kids pulling up their pants, or working harder in school, or more parental involvement. Nor is it just the overt racists and skinheads who need to get it together. The less obvious and likely more difficult change must come from the chattering class, many of them entrenched liberals and progressives to whom it has never occurred that they are the beneficiaries of white skin privilege.
There are countless black journalists and other journalists of color who can add skill, knowledge, cultural context and depth to covering America's first black president, as part of the White House press corps and in every area of journalism. They should be hired. Post-racial, bah humbug! Meritocracy, ha! I know the road to white privilege when I see it, Miss Daisy, whatever you want to call it.
After you read this article via The Huffington Post, please read my post Oh, Wow! Please Read and Discuss.
The Audacity of Whiteness: Framing Barack Obama
by Jill Nelson
"This country cannot be the country we want it to be if its story is told by only one group of citizens. Our goal is to give all Americans front-door access to the truth." -- Robert C. Maynard (Maynard was one of the founders of the 30-year-old Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, which works to increase diversity in staffing, content and business operations of American media.)
I know its bad form to mention race and upset the new post-racial apple cart, the one that doesn't even have a black chauffer like the genial Hoke to drive Miss Daisy around. Nope, in this post-racial world Hoke's been laid off or taken the buy-out. (At least 300 black journalists left the print media in 2007, and there's every indication that 2008 was worse. Richard Prince's Journal-isms column at www.mije.org is an ongoing record of attrition.) In this brave new world the playing field's level, Dr. King's dream's been realized, and it's all about the meritocracy. Yet a look at the unbearably white American media reminds us that even with a black president little has changed in terms of who frames the issues. With the exception of CNN, which probably employs more black people than BET and definitely has more news coverage, for the most part media looks like a meeting of the White Citizens Council, circa 1956. As determined to retain control of the dialogue as those racists were to maintain the Southern way of life.
Why is it okay for George Will to have President Obama to dinner with conservative journalists with not a black face in the room? How many journalists attended parties in Washington during the inauguration where there were no journalists of color present? Isn't it disturbing to the journalistic establishment that the vast majority of journalists, commentators, talking heads, pundits, and experts discussing the new president and his administration are white? In 2009 can anyone seriously argue that aren't more than a handful of black, Latino, Asian, or Native Americans who fit these categories? Is this time for change we can believe in, or is it still time for black to get back?
For two years I'd managed, along with most black people, to go along with one of the unspoken shibboleths to the election of Barack Obama and kept my mouth closed about racial issues, fearing that such a discussion would be harmful to Obama. This in spite of Bill Clinton showing his ass in South Carolina; Hillary's absurd suggestion that Obama wouldn't know what to do when the phone rang at 3 AM; and John McCain's barely veiled white supremacist campaign. Yet the failure of much of the media to recognize the words of the Negro National Anthem as the first words of Reverend Joseph Lowery's benediction at the inauguration was truly pitiful. That, followed by the general incomprehension of the rhyme at the end of Lowery's remarks -- "When black will not be asked to get in back/When brown can stick around..." -- and then its erroneous attribution by a CNN employee to a civil rights song, rather than rooted in African American folk and oral tradition and the dozens -- a game of verbal insult and one-upmanship -- made it impossible to maintain silence.
It's profoundly dishonest and morally wrong that media coverage of Barack Obama and his presidency is framed by an almost exclusively white press corp. Not just the White House press corps, whose unbearable whiteness Sam Fulwood III wrote eloquently about on theRoot.com in December, 2008. Turn on the television. Most of the reporters -- the ones with shows of their own, steady jobs and influence - are white. Is there no other journalist of color in America besides Gwen Ifill of PBS' Washington Week (fabulous as she is) who could host a news show? (Sorry, CNN, the comedian D.L. Hughley doesn't count.) Apparently not, since when Ifill takes the occasional Friday off her show often becomes segregated.
The absence of African Americans is appalling in light of the plethora of white people from someplace else, especially England, getting paid to frame, spin and explain Barack Obama to Americans. I doubt that I could get a job parsing Gordon Brown to the Brits. At the "serious" magazines, the situation is dismal. Years ago, an editor at The New Yorker told me the reason there weren't more black writers at the magazine was that they didn't understand the publication's "zeitgeist."
What's really changed if the American media continues to view this new administration, and a world that is overwhelmingly populated by black, brown, and yellow people, through white eyes? In this same old world but with a new name, a Black man is president of the United States, but it takes a white man to play him on Saturday Night Live. Arrogance and privilege by another name?
Call me a retro, angry black woman -- or Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress, as Juan Williams, one of the few journalists of color white journalists deign to recognize, called Michelle Obama last weekend -- but why is it that whenever the impact of race is analyzed the role that white privilege plays is absent? In journalism, the result is always the same: white people who are granted the role of analyzing everything and everyone, including African Americans, who are as likely as not to be dismissed, overlooked, or spoken for by white expert opinion.
In reality, this post-modern, post-racial apple cart is for whites only, a dishonest and opportunistic effort to pretend race no longer matters now that Americans have elected Barack Obama president. Post racial is nothing but segregation under a kinder, gentler name, yet another effort to further enshrine white privilege and white supremacy.
What a waste, in this time of profound crisis and the possibilities Barack Obama's presidency presents, to have those possibilities identified and interpreted by whites only. Filtered through the tired lens of whiteness in a twenty-first century in which the attacks of 9/11, American failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the implosion of the markets and the collapse of capitalism are signposts along the road of the dying white culture.
In this auspicious moment, media organizations should be seeking out journalists of color and youth. Instead it's the same old white guys, many of whom seem to verge on apoplexy as they struggle to "explain" Obama. It's as if he, like Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still, fell from the sky, ahistorical, exceptionalist, and, I fear, soon to be, like Oprah or Michael Jordan, conveniently de-raced. This inability to fathom Barack Obama doesn't come as a surprise. For the most part these media heads have managed to live lives absent any serious engagement with black people or black culture. If they had, they would be familiar with the existence of the black middle class, a long-established group of overachievers whose mantra is that you have to work harder, smarter, and be better than your white counterparts to achieve the same results.
Barack Obama is neither an anomaly nor an aberration. He is simply the most successful member of this class of overachievers. His election lays to rest the myth of the meritocracy. Perhaps more amazing than the election of Barack Obama is that someone of his intellect and limitless possibility even wanted the job. Be clear: Barack Obama is part of a continuum. Now that he's broken the glass ceiling it's time for whites to step up their game. Stay tuned.
As candidate and President Obama has made clear, change we need requires sacrifice from all of us. It's not just about black kids pulling up their pants, or working harder in school, or more parental involvement. Nor is it just the overt racists and skinheads who need to get it together. The less obvious and likely more difficult change must come from the chattering class, many of them entrenched liberals and progressives to whom it has never occurred that they are the beneficiaries of white skin privilege.
There are countless black journalists and other journalists of color who can add skill, knowledge, cultural context and depth to covering America's first black president, as part of the White House press corps and in every area of journalism. They should be hired. Post-racial, bah humbug! Meritocracy, ha! I know the road to white privilege when I see it, Miss Daisy, whatever you want to call it.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
War, Hoo!
Lauren and Jamie left earlier today before the youngest one's next dose of cold/flu medicine. The middle child turns 3 Monday. The oldest one looked at me like I was stupid when I offered to throw, as if it were a ball, some kind of Army rag doll with Lauren's picture as the face. Lauren asked the oldest, "Who's that?" "Mommy! You!"
But in other news, toddlers shouldn't be able to "talk with their eyes" the way this kid can.
As Taliban nears Kabul, shadow gov't takes hold
But in other news, toddlers shouldn't be able to "talk with their eyes" the way this kid can.
Let's not kid around here. The only people this war in Afghanistan has helped are the terrorists and poppy growers and whatever private companies are in charge of "reconstruction."
Can you even think of a war that wasn't waged because one side wanted something the other side had? Or, in our case, wanted to try some ill-conceived experiment of democracy by force. I mean, really. Democracy by force? Was there no English major to tell the neo-conservatives in BushCo that "democracy by force" is a contradiction in terms?
And what about all the chicken-hawks? Those "patriots" who completely support the military but can't join themselves because they have "other things to do." Yeah. I understand now. Nobody wants to miss the birth of their children or a child's birthday. No mother wants to leave while a child is still sick. (Even though, when I was visiting, the medicine was working, and this little person was dancing like someone auditioning for Soul Train! Well, when it comes to energy and effort if not quite yet craft.) No father wants to miss the milestones in his children's lives like the first time they use the potty. (Only the oldest of Lauren and Jamie's children is potty-trained, which means I'll only offer to baby-sit that one.) Though, you do have the ever so brazen who are perfectly happy sending others to fight the battles they want to win - the chickenhawks.
It's no secret. I have no intentions of ever joining the military. And depending on the circumstances, I'm not willing to marry anyone who did; even if he's been discharged.
But I do have a suggestion or two before our next military adventure. I propose that a change be made to the Constitution that all family members of Congresspeople who vote for pre-emptive war who are fit for battle must join the military. The same goes for the family members of the President who carries out the wishes of the Congress.
Unless we are actually hit by a country, we should never enter war. Yeah, I'm willing to risk those initial American lives. Often, we have enough intelligence to be prepared for such strikes and prevent any acts of terror. We had the intelligence before Pearl Harbor and 9/11. We should start using it and hold in distrust those politicians who don't.
See, violence begets violence. War begets war. I don't know what reasonable excuse we have for not invading Saudi Arabia when 17 of the 19 attackers on 9/11 were Saudis; the royal family doesn't practice religious much less political freedom; the version of Islam that tolerates such violence is taught in schools that receive financial support from individual Saudis, members of the royal family, and even sometimes Saudi Arabia as a nation. But I do know that my cousin and her husband are gone; Americans, Afghans, and Iraqis are dying; and, bin Laden has gotten exactly what he wanted.
"They say we're fighting to keep our freedom, but Lord knows there's got to be a better way" (Whitfield and Strong, 1969). - No1KState, 2008
UPDATE: Car bombs in Iraq kill at least 25, wound 64As Taliban nears Kabul, shadow gov't takes hold
Friday, December 12, 2008
My Two Soldiers
Blagojevich smalojevich. Barack Obama has had nothing to do with this pay-for-play scandal. Whatever Blago had in mind, it's clear he knew that bleeping Obama was only interested in giving him bleeping appreciation.
And to the US Senate Republicans: come of it! Stop hating on the UAW. The labor union isn't the problem. US auto companies haven't been making cars people want to buy. When I buy a car, I don't even have intentions of buying from the US auto industry. So, if you wanna clear out the ranks of upper-level, executive management, please do. But leave the union alone. Cause the way I see it, you're coming up against to philosophical contradictions. One is that the cost of workers in the North is too high, especially do to healthcare cost. One way to get rid of the healthcare cost burden on employers would be some sort-of "socialized medicine" via national medicaid/medicare for all, some sort-of single payer system. At the very least, we got to get rid of the system we have know: healthcare for profit. Sorry. People's lives shouldn't depend on insurance companies' bottom lines. And some form of "socialized medicine" will help cut costs for American business - and that's important to you, right?
The other contradiction you're up against is this notion of the free-market. The way I've understood it, in a free market, labor is a form of capital. Why are you so willing to help one side of the free market, business, but not the other, labor? In a truly free market, labor is allowed to make the same self-interested decisions that business is allowed to make. So, in the end, quit hating on a system you purport to support.
Now that I've expressed my feelings about that, I'm moving on. The Republicans are idiots. They're being obnoxious to block the American auto bail-out, or rather, bridge loan. And they're being especially obnoxious to demand Obama come clean about any contact and talk he or his staff or any emissary may have had with Blagojevish. I repeat: if we know nothing else, we do know that Blagojevich was angry that Obama wouldn't play game with him. Doesn't that clear Obama? Quit trying to paint him with Illinois corruption and call me when the Cubs win the Series, or the Bulls win the Finals. I have bigger fish to fry.
My cousin and her husband are due to be ship out to Afghanistan in early January. Hence, my title. And, quite frankly, I'm conflicted about the situation. I understand we need to finish the job in Afghanistan's, and I'm pissed that lame-a, er, -duck Bush didn't do so in the beginning. And the latest reports are that Afghans aren't do any better than they were before. For some, especially women, the situation has become worse. Just a few months ago, I watched part of a special about Afghan women setting themselves on fire as acts of rebellion against someone, be it an abusive husband or an abusive mother-in-law. (I don't know whether or not they had access to guns. But I do know that women aren't likely to use guns to commit suicide. And, I suppose, watching "your" woman burn to death at her decision can stick in the craw of the men who claim control of them.) I only watched part of the special because my stomach couldn't take it. Many of these women were unsuccessful at the quick suicide they intended and eventually died slow, painful deaths. They lived long enough to tell their story, so I guess that's something to support. But watching these talking faces with charred skin and lips noses burned off was more than I can take. Don't get me wrong. When it comes to the crime dramas I love so much, I can stomach stuff like that. I know it's fake. But when it's real, it causes not just my stomach to ache, but my heart as well.
So, part of me understands we may need the military to stabilize the situation enough so that, I would hope, we could send in more nonmilitary aid. But I hate that my cousin and her husband's lives are at risk. Now, I must confess, my cousin, who I'll call Lauren, and I aren't that close. I haven't really spoken to her in almost a year. But she's my cousin, and I love her. And I think she was dumb to have joined the army in the first place. I mean. First of all, I don't believe the myth that for this country is all that honorable. I mean, for me, it kinda depends on the war. I don't know. I just don't think America is worth my life. It's kind of hard to explain, so I'll leave it for a later post. Suffice it to say I think dying for America means you've died to maintain a system that cause more harm than good. And, I just can't accept the notion of dying for America in the face of having committed my life to Christ. I and anyone else who professes to be a Christian is supposed to be seeking God's kingdom and righteousness, and I just don't think America represents either one.
Plus, all the military deaths I can think of post-WWII haven't been for "freedom." They've been for oil or just maintaining control of the world. All this hype about winning the Cold War without bloodshed is just that - hype. Hundreds of thousands have died in the "Cold" War between Russia and America. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing the situation never came to a war of nuclear weapons, but really. Do you really think someone would've turned America into a communist nation against our will? If you do, it's no wonder you think Al Qeada or any other terrorist organization could turn us into a Muslim country against our will. Or that the immigrants from south of the border will suddenly turn us into a Spanish-speaking 3rd world country. You're delusional.
Did I mention I'm actually angry at Lauren for having joined the Army in the first place? That's why I'm a bit conflicted about her and her husband, who I'll call Jamie, being called to Afghanistan. That's a choice they made as much as a mess BushCo. created. Now, from what I understand, the army was a way out for him. But her? She just initially joined the National Guard for the grad school money. It's not like she couldn't have earned scholarships or my aunt and uncle couldn't have chipped in. In fact, another aunt of ours said they would've gone door to door raising money for my cousin to go to school. For generations, our family has supported education, starting with my great-grandfather who opened a school.
And here's what really bothers me. Lauren and Jamie have three children. Three. One child should be two-years-old by now. Another turns three after Christmas. The oldest turns four in February. So, with 12-16 month tours, my cousin and her husband are going to miss the birthdays of their children, and the missing starts right away.
And what happens if Lauren and Jamie die? I know all of my family will do whatever we can to take care of the children. In fact, that's not even anything I personally have to worry about. But it's something the children will have to deal with. One memory I have of the oldest when she wasn't quite one is of her picking up telephones and remote controls and saying into them, "Elno. Doing!" as though she were expecting Lauren on the other end. And I can hear my cousin always answering the phone, "Hello? How you doing?" I'm not sure the children are old enough to understand death. In my mind, I can only imagine how long they'll expect their parents to be on the other side of a ringing phone or opening door.
Then again, what happens if Lauren and Jamie both survive? We know that post-traumatic stress disorder is under-reported and undertreated. Are they going to be the same parents the children remember?
I'm just conflicted about this whole thing.
And to top it off, cause I feel it needs to be, bin Laden has lived to see his nefarious plan come to fruition. At this point, over 4200 American soldiers have died in Iraq alone. That's more than the number of people who died in the 9/11/01 attacks. 540 Americans have died in Afghanistan. I haven't even started on the number of dead, injured, or displaced Iraqi and Afghan civilians. The total is well over 2 million. Closer to 3 million I would venture to guess. And for what? Are we really any safer? Isn't Obama still sending out messages? And last I heard, this whole Gitmo/torture/rendition method has been working against us; and, according to someone who's talked to foreign insurgents in Iraq, there's an untold number of American deaths due to US torture of so-called enemy combatants.
And now, the Mumbai attacks.
What of my cousin? What of her husband? What of their children? What of them and other families like them. Has this venture really been worth it? If you think it has, you're either delusional or evil. Maybe both.
And to the US Senate Republicans: come of it! Stop hating on the UAW. The labor union isn't the problem. US auto companies haven't been making cars people want to buy. When I buy a car, I don't even have intentions of buying from the US auto industry. So, if you wanna clear out the ranks of upper-level, executive management, please do. But leave the union alone. Cause the way I see it, you're coming up against to philosophical contradictions. One is that the cost of workers in the North is too high, especially do to healthcare cost. One way to get rid of the healthcare cost burden on employers would be some sort-of "socialized medicine" via national medicaid/medicare for all, some sort-of single payer system. At the very least, we got to get rid of the system we have know: healthcare for profit. Sorry. People's lives shouldn't depend on insurance companies' bottom lines. And some form of "socialized medicine" will help cut costs for American business - and that's important to you, right?
The other contradiction you're up against is this notion of the free-market. The way I've understood it, in a free market, labor is a form of capital. Why are you so willing to help one side of the free market, business, but not the other, labor? In a truly free market, labor is allowed to make the same self-interested decisions that business is allowed to make. So, in the end, quit hating on a system you purport to support.
Now that I've expressed my feelings about that, I'm moving on. The Republicans are idiots. They're being obnoxious to block the American auto bail-out, or rather, bridge loan. And they're being especially obnoxious to demand Obama come clean about any contact and talk he or his staff or any emissary may have had with Blagojevish. I repeat: if we know nothing else, we do know that Blagojevich was angry that Obama wouldn't play game with him. Doesn't that clear Obama? Quit trying to paint him with Illinois corruption and call me when the Cubs win the Series, or the Bulls win the Finals. I have bigger fish to fry.
My cousin and her husband are due to be ship out to Afghanistan in early January. Hence, my title. And, quite frankly, I'm conflicted about the situation. I understand we need to finish the job in Afghanistan's, and I'm pissed that lame-a, er, -duck Bush didn't do so in the beginning. And the latest reports are that Afghans aren't do any better than they were before. For some, especially women, the situation has become worse. Just a few months ago, I watched part of a special about Afghan women setting themselves on fire as acts of rebellion against someone, be it an abusive husband or an abusive mother-in-law. (I don't know whether or not they had access to guns. But I do know that women aren't likely to use guns to commit suicide. And, I suppose, watching "your" woman burn to death at her decision can stick in the craw of the men who claim control of them.) I only watched part of the special because my stomach couldn't take it. Many of these women were unsuccessful at the quick suicide they intended and eventually died slow, painful deaths. They lived long enough to tell their story, so I guess that's something to support. But watching these talking faces with charred skin and lips noses burned off was more than I can take. Don't get me wrong. When it comes to the crime dramas I love so much, I can stomach stuff like that. I know it's fake. But when it's real, it causes not just my stomach to ache, but my heart as well.
So, part of me understands we may need the military to stabilize the situation enough so that, I would hope, we could send in more nonmilitary aid. But I hate that my cousin and her husband's lives are at risk. Now, I must confess, my cousin, who I'll call Lauren, and I aren't that close. I haven't really spoken to her in almost a year. But she's my cousin, and I love her. And I think she was dumb to have joined the army in the first place. I mean. First of all, I don't believe the myth that for this country is all that honorable. I mean, for me, it kinda depends on the war. I don't know. I just don't think America is worth my life. It's kind of hard to explain, so I'll leave it for a later post. Suffice it to say I think dying for America means you've died to maintain a system that cause more harm than good. And, I just can't accept the notion of dying for America in the face of having committed my life to Christ. I and anyone else who professes to be a Christian is supposed to be seeking God's kingdom and righteousness, and I just don't think America represents either one.
Plus, all the military deaths I can think of post-WWII haven't been for "freedom." They've been for oil or just maintaining control of the world. All this hype about winning the Cold War without bloodshed is just that - hype. Hundreds of thousands have died in the "Cold" War between Russia and America. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing the situation never came to a war of nuclear weapons, but really. Do you really think someone would've turned America into a communist nation against our will? If you do, it's no wonder you think Al Qeada or any other terrorist organization could turn us into a Muslim country against our will. Or that the immigrants from south of the border will suddenly turn us into a Spanish-speaking 3rd world country. You're delusional.
Did I mention I'm actually angry at Lauren for having joined the Army in the first place? That's why I'm a bit conflicted about her and her husband, who I'll call Jamie, being called to Afghanistan. That's a choice they made as much as a mess BushCo. created. Now, from what I understand, the army was a way out for him. But her? She just initially joined the National Guard for the grad school money. It's not like she couldn't have earned scholarships or my aunt and uncle couldn't have chipped in. In fact, another aunt of ours said they would've gone door to door raising money for my cousin to go to school. For generations, our family has supported education, starting with my great-grandfather who opened a school.
And here's what really bothers me. Lauren and Jamie have three children. Three. One child should be two-years-old by now. Another turns three after Christmas. The oldest turns four in February. So, with 12-16 month tours, my cousin and her husband are going to miss the birthdays of their children, and the missing starts right away.
And what happens if Lauren and Jamie die? I know all of my family will do whatever we can to take care of the children. In fact, that's not even anything I personally have to worry about. But it's something the children will have to deal with. One memory I have of the oldest when she wasn't quite one is of her picking up telephones and remote controls and saying into them, "Elno. Doing!" as though she were expecting Lauren on the other end. And I can hear my cousin always answering the phone, "Hello? How you doing?" I'm not sure the children are old enough to understand death. In my mind, I can only imagine how long they'll expect their parents to be on the other side of a ringing phone or opening door.
Then again, what happens if Lauren and Jamie both survive? We know that post-traumatic stress disorder is under-reported and undertreated. Are they going to be the same parents the children remember?
I'm just conflicted about this whole thing.
And to top it off, cause I feel it needs to be, bin Laden has lived to see his nefarious plan come to fruition. At this point, over 4200 American soldiers have died in Iraq alone. That's more than the number of people who died in the 9/11/01 attacks. 540 Americans have died in Afghanistan. I haven't even started on the number of dead, injured, or displaced Iraqi and Afghan civilians. The total is well over 2 million. Closer to 3 million I would venture to guess. And for what? Are we really any safer? Isn't Obama still sending out messages? And last I heard, this whole Gitmo/torture/rendition method has been working against us; and, according to someone who's talked to foreign insurgents in Iraq, there's an untold number of American deaths due to US torture of so-called enemy combatants.
And now, the Mumbai attacks.
What of my cousin? What of her husband? What of their children? What of them and other families like them. Has this venture really been worth it? If you think it has, you're either delusional or evil. Maybe both.
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But Don't Jack My Genuis
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