May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership... Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.
It was 1967 when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. endured a hurricane of criticism when he came out publicly against the war in Vietnam and called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
Fact is, he hadn't seen anything near what we've become in that respect.
"The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. "Ye shall know the truth," says Jesus, "and the truth shall set you free." Now, I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam"
Simply replace "Vietnam" with Iraq and Afghanistan
"Let us rid ourselves of the superpower fallacy before the superpower fallacy rids us of more American lives, American influence and American credibility." --Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in a June 17, 1987 op/ed piece in The New York Times
Link to original post: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/25/opinion/opedat40-wars.html#Our-Central-American-Misadventure
Straight from Alternet.org just now--I can't say it any better myself:
Since 2005, the Watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has highlighted the most egregious violators of the public trust in its annual Most Corrupt Members of Congress report. Now, CREW has begun a list of Crooked Candidates to shine the spotlight on some of the lousy politicians vying for federal office in 2010. Here's their collection of non-incumbent candidates so far:
CREW's Crooked Candidates 2010
Roy Blunt -- Running for U.S. Senate, Missouri
Roy Blunt is a candidate in the Republican primary for the United States Senate in Missouri. For the last 14 years, Rep. Blunt has served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the state’s 7th congressional district. As a member of Congress, Rep. Blunt came under fire for a variety of issues including employing the same corrupt tactics that forced his mentor, former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, to resign. Rep. Blunt’s ethical issues were documented in CREW’s 2006 report on the most corrupt members of Congress.
In 2003, Rep. Blunt divorced his wife of 31 years to marry Philip Morris (now Altria) lobbyist Abigail Perlman. Before it was known publicly that Rep. Blunt and Ms. Perlman were dating – and only hours after Rep. Blunt assumed the role of Majority Whip – he tried to secretly insert a provision into Homeland Security legislation that would have benefitted Philip Morris, at the expense of competitors. Notably, Philip Morris/Altria and its subsidiaries contributed at least $217,000 to campaign committees connected to Rep. Blunt from 1996 to 2006.
Also in 2003, Rep. Blunt helped his son, Andrew Blunt, by inserting a provision into the $79 billion emergency appropriation for the war in Iraq to benefit U.S. shippers like United Parcel Service, Inc. and FedEx Corp. Andrew Blunt lobbied on behalf of UPS in Missouri, and UPS and FedEx contributed at least $58,000 to Rep. Blunt from 2001 to 2006.
Family connections have also helped another of Rep. Blunt’s sons, former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. Gov. Blunt received campaign contributions from nearly three dozen influential Missouri lobbyists and lawyers when he ran for governor of Missouri in 2004, half of whom had provided financial support to his father. Earlier in 2000, when Matt Blunt was running for Secretary of State, Rep. Blunt was involved in an apparent scheme, along with Rep. DeLay, to funnel money through a local party committee into Matt Blunt’s campaign committee.
Rep. Blunt and his staff had close connections to convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In June 2003, Mr. Abramoff persuaded then-Majority Leader DeLay to organize a letter, co-signed by then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, then-Whip Blunt, and then-Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, which endorsed a view of gambling law benefitting Mr. Abramoff’s client, the Louisiana Coushatta, by blocking gambling competition by another tribe. Mr. Abramoff had donated $8,500 to Rep. Blunt’s leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs.
Link to original post: http://www.alternet.org/news/147608/10_of_the_most_crooked_candidates_of_2010/
It's been a busy week for me so I hadn't seen the paper and didn't know of it.
One Juan Garcia--a promising, hard-working young student--was gunned down at his home, I understand.
And for no good reason, of course.
So tragic.
Kevin Hopkins, Jr., some months ago--and many more--too many--before and now this.
No point.
No need.
A life gone.
A beautiful young person.
And still no call for cohesion and work for solutions from the Mayor, his office, the City Council, the local churches or church or community leaders.
That makes no sense to me at all.
Calls to repair sidewalks around schools but no call to try to work against senseless shootings and murders in the city.
Link to original story:
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/06/01/1986181/family-friends-mourn-teen-slain.html
http://www.kctv5.com/news/23778070/detail.html
Or, for that matter, religion and/or the history of religion.
In his column yesterday, he declared that Bill insults common sense, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Whitlock's mom.
Hogwash.
He also picked the easiest of targets because Bill Maher gets dismissed for two reasons: he's atheist and uses profanity, simultaneously, so people don't take him seriously, usually, especially if all they do is watch his show.
To compare Bill Maher to Glenn Beck is to compare someone who knows and understands history and cultures, to someone who is unaware of and unfamiliar with both but who still manages to be outspoken and opinionated.
Let's be clear here--Bill Maher isn't a "bigot" against religion. Bill Maher knows religion, what it is, what it's based on and what it's done in the past and what it's capable of and then comes to the conclusion that it's a crutch, at minimum, and a weapon, too frequently, at worst.
Whitlock asks "Will Maher use his enhanced platform"--tv--"to tell me (Whitlock) my mother is "delusional?"
Well, if Mr. Whitlock pressed, I'm sure he would. Is Bill going to rush up and tell her that? No. No, Jason, he's not, don't worry.
It may have been "faith" that gave your "mother the stength to work a full shift at a factory and a second job at night so that" his "brother and" he " could live in a safe neighborhood with a good school system."
Yes, or maybe she could have just felt that obligation and dedication for and to you, if she were more enlightened.
And maybe it was Mr. Whitlock's grandmother's "belief in Christ that allowed her to move emotionally and mentally beyond the racist atrocities her family endured living in the South."
Yes, or maybe she could have just been a tough, smart woman who knew what she had to do and did it.
The thing is, what too many people simply can't accept is that we're here without any magical, mystical, anthropomorphized "creator" figure and that we should treat each other well and right because it's the right thing to do, period, without that same magical, mystical judge and "great leveler."
As a nonbeliever, Mr. Maher doesn't just "focus solely on the negative aspects of organized faith," as was in the column, not at all.
He mentions those, time and again, because people have done horrific things to other human beings in the name of religion but he also points out how simply unnecessary and superstitious--and based on superstition--religion is.
Mr. Whitlock concludes by saying religion should be viewed as a tool we can use to get through life. A lot of us agree. Only we think more along the lines of a crutch than a fork, for that tool.
And faith is, actually, too frequently "the enemy of thought," in fact. It is the enemy of evaluative, critical thought. Instead of analyzing things, faith usually asks believers to memorize pre-concluded ideas and concepts and then regurgitate them to the end of our days.
Bill Maher is smart enough and honorable enough to make distinctions. He's made the distinction between analytical thought and superstitious, comfortable, comforting, tradional memorization and repetition.
The fact is, Jason Whitlock being insulted because of Bill Maher's strong opinions on religion, based on history, education and familiarity is only a problem for him, Jason, and others like him who still cling to religion.
If he, Mr. Whitlock, chooses to be insulted, that's not Mr. Maher's fault.
And that's another of Jason's mistakes.
If you choose to be insulted, Mr. Whitlock, that's your choice and problem, no one else's.
First they proved themselves to be rabid racists, trying to disavow the annual, national Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday--and they've followed up on that a few times, anyway, in different actions--now they've outdone themselves.
Apparently the NRA runs the whole state.
Did you see this from the AP?
"The Arizona House has voted to make Arizona the third state allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit."
"The House voted 36-19 on Thursday to send the measure to Gov. Jan Brewer."
"The legislation would make it legal for most U.S. citizens 21 or older to carry a concealed weapon in Arizona without the permit now required."
"Well, yeehaw! Ain't it grayt to be an Areezonan?? Let's mozey on down to that thar saluun with our sixguns on hour hips and git us some pritty gurls!"
That does it for me and Arizona. If I go, I race into Grand Canyon, look around with all the other tourists and get the hell out.
I'm sure they'll be glad of it, sissy, educated Liberal that I am.
What a sick bunch.
Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100408/ap_on_re_us/us_concealed_weapons_arizona_1
Time for a U.S. Revolution – Fifteen Reasons, By Bill Quigley
This article appears on The Huffington Post and Common Dreams.
It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.” It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.
Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution?
Over 2.8 million people lost their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions – nearly 8000 each day – higher numbers than the last two years when millions of others also lost their homes.
At the same time, the government bailed out Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the auto industry and enacted the troubled asset (TARP) program with $1.7 trillion of our money.
Wall Street then awarded itself over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009 alone, an average bonus on top of pay of $123,000.
At the same time, over 17 million people are jobless right now. Millions more are working part-time when they want and need to be working full-time.
Yet the current system allows one single U.S. Senator to stop unemployment and Medicare benefits being paid to millions.
There are now 35 registered lobbyists in Washington DC for every single member of the Senate and House of Representatives, at last count 13,739 in 2009. There are eight lobbyists for every member of Congress working on the health care fiasco alone.
At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations now have a constitutional right to interfere with elections by pouring money into races.
The Department of Justice gave a get out of jail free card to its own lawyers who authorized illegal torture.
At the same time another department of government, the Pentagon, is prosecuting Navy SEALS for punching an Iraqi suspect.
The US is not only involved in senseless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. now maintains 700 military bases world-wide and another 6000 in the US and our territories. Young men and women join the military to protect the U.S. and to get college tuition and healthcare coverage and killed and maimed in elective wars and being the world’s police. Wonder whose assets they are protecting and serving?
In fact, the U.S. spends $700 billion directly on military per year, half the military spending of the entire world – much more than Europe, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and Venezuela - combined.
The government and private companies have dramatically increased surveillance of people through cameras on public streets and private places, airport searches, phone intercepts, access to personal computers, and compilation of records from credit card purchases, computer views of sites, and travel.
The number of people in jails and prisons in the U.S. has risen sevenfold since 1970 to over 2.3 million. The US puts a higher percentage of our people in jail than any other country in the world.
The tea party people are mad at the Republicans, who they accuse of selling them out to big businesses.
Democrats are working their way past depression to anger because their party, despite majorities in the House and Senate, has not made significant advances for immigrants, or women, or unions, or African Americans, or environmentalists, or gays and lesbians, or civil libertarians, or people dedicated to health care, or human rights, or jobs or housing or economic justice. Democrats also think their party is selling out to big business.
Forty three years ago next month, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached in Riverside Church in New York City that “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” He went on to condemn the Vietnam War and the system which created it and the other injustices clearly apparent. “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented” society to a “person oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
It is time.
Original link here: http://ccrjustice.org/time-u.s.-revolution-%E2%80%93-fifteen-reasons%2C-bill-quigley
"We cannot be content, no matter how high the general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people -- whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth -- is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed and insecure." --Franklin D. Roosevelt
And yet:
--At least 50 million people are ill-fed -- up from 37 million just a year ago -- including 17 million children. Hunger in America is now at an all-time high, and there are currently entire national geographic regions -- the very large 15-state 'South' being one of them -- where more than half of all public school students are poor and ill-fed.
--30% of the nation's 50 million homeowners own a home whose value is below its mortgage balance, and this number could rise to an almost unbelievable 50% by year-end 2011. It would cost about $745 billion, more than the size of the original 2008 bank bailout, to restore these borrowers to the point where they were breaking even, which there is no obvious political will to find right now.
--Despite the truly dismal 'real unemployment' figures with which most everyone now agrees -- a staggering 30 million workers and 19% of the labor force -- very little attention is being paid to the particularly adverse effects the recession is having on people of color, recent immigrants, and out-of school youth. And almost no one is acknowledging the sad reality that even the nation's 130 million full-time workers have had an average economic loss of 15% just since December 2007 -- an average effective work week of 34 hours rather than 40 -- which means that the number of unemployed workers, measured economically, is actually as high as 50 million. The overwhelming problem today for most workers isn't this recession, as horrible as it is -- it's the fact that for every earned income level except the top 10%, average household income hasn't changed a bit for 10 years, and that for the bottom 60% of wage earners it hasn't changed for more than 20 years. Through economic expansions and recessions -- and bull and bear markets -- alike, 90% of workers in America have been standing still earnings-wise.
--And 100 million people, fully one-third of the entire U.S. population, are at or below "200% of the federal poverty line of $21,834 for a family of four", which is a needs-measure made lame by the fact that no family of four can actually comfortably live on such a low annual income.
Let's live up to our own historical standards.
That's not much to ask of ourselves, I shouldn't think.
Or are we not "One nation..."?
Link to original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-hindery-jr/americas-dirty-little-sec_b_473026.html
"Kansas City police say the victim of Tuesday night's fatal shooting is 17-year-old Nelson E. Hopkins Jr. of Kansas City, Missouri."
"KCPD detectives believe Hopkins had left the Plaza Library and caught a bus to 54th and Troost prior to the shooting. Hopkins was shot while walking home on 54th Street."
So, I ask again--will the "Concerned Clergy Coalition" be concerned about this 105th homicide, here in Kansas City?
Or is the only thing they're concerned about is Wayne Cauthen losing his high-paid job as City Manager downtown at City Hall?
Yesterday the President signed the new "Hate Crimes" law into effect.
With him at the signing were the parents of murdered Matthew Shepard and the sister of lynched African-American James Byrd, Jr.
We've waited, as a country, for this law for so long and finally it's here.
Then, this morning, we find that that same President went, in the middle of the night last night, to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, to pay respect to 18 American soldiers who lost their lives in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
I know I covered this earlier today in another entry but adding the signing of this new law, on top of last evening's somber showing emphasizes still more what a big change and improvement this administration is over the previous one.
And it's far more that just trashing W yet again.
It's celebrating a much better trajectory and path, nationally, internally and internationally.
This just can't be emphasized enough, for me.
Some significant, good things are happening for the country and since they've come back-to-back, so to speak, it's worth just taking a moment to celebrate a couple of significant events.
Next thing you know, we'll be ending the Afghanistan War.
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