Archive for the 'Politics' Category

The Union

I followed a link to this documentary on Reddit the other day. There has been a great deal of press about medical marijuana lately, with Obama ordering the DEA to stop raids on California medical marijuana clinics this past week.  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement that “his boss has told him that ending marijuana raids is now American policy” is a bold statement about the state of the drug war.

Suddenly, pursuing a war against our own people when over 20% admit using marijuana regularly, does not seem to be a popular way to spend people’s money during these tough economic times. The drug war has fed the prison industry, the law enforcement industry, and wasted trillions of dollars, thanks in large part to Richard Nixon’s paranoia about blacks, Jews, and hippies.  And we the taxpayer, are paying for it.

The DEA budget for 2009 is $2 billion, and the Federal prison system?  Oh, that’s another $5.5 billion.  On a side note ladies – The Justice Department slashed the Office of Justice Programs, COPS, Office on Violence Against Women budget by 65%, or 1.5 BILLION in 2009).

80% of the DEA’s budget is spent prosecuting the war on marijuana, quite possibly the most useful plant in the history of, well, the world.  All for hemp, a plant that can supply fuel, clothing, food, fabric, as well as cures for countless ailments, including lung cancer.

Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol.  It isn’t working now.

I know that it’s a bit long, but watch the video.  Even if you don’t smoke pot, and according to statistics, most of us don’t, watch just to see how your hard earned tax dollars are being spent, while everything else seems going to hell in a hand basket.

Change Congress beginning to make some noise

Change Congress On Strike

Lawrence Lessig, Joe Trippi, and their Change Congress movement have introduced a new way for small political donors to join forces to put pressure on congress, where it hurts them most – financially.  The Change Congress Donor Strike is underway and they are asking you to withhold financial contributions to any candidates that do not pledge to eliminate special interest money in congress.  In their words…

Right now, special interests have more influence over our political system than regular folks because of our broken campaign finance laws. These special interests pump millions of dollars into congressional campaigns each cycle, and as a result, they block real change on issue after issue.

Here at Change Congress, we believe that politicians should work for the people, not special interests. But it’s not enough to push politicians to stay out of the system of corruption—we have to reform the system itself. That’s why we support a hybrid of small-dollar donations and public financing, to keep big money out of politics.

Lawrence Lessig founded Change Congress to find innovative ways to make government more transparent, and to eliminate special interest money in politics.  Joe Trippi was Howard Dean’s campaign manager and is a pioneer in using the Internet as a tool for political activism and fundraising.  Trippi’s blog looks a lot like mine, demonstrating that we both have a minimal grasp of CSS style content sheets.  Cool.

Occupation 101

I saw this amazing documentary the other day, and was blown away.

Occupation 101 is a frighteningly unbiased view of the conflict in the Middle East as seen from the eyes of outside observers from the Red Cross, the U.N. and other groups.

What the Israeli’s have actully been doing to the Palestinians for over a hundred years is far different than what we see on television here in the United States.  What we have been told is a conflict thousands of years old, is actually a brutally violent military occupation. 

Thousands of years?  The conflict started in the early 1900’s when early Zionists laid claim to, bulldozed, and built new towns on Arab land based on centuries old religious based claims.

As one friend pointed out, 90 minutes is a big commitment for a video.  Watch the first 15 or 20 minutes and see if the rest is worth it. I think it is.

The American Dream, George Carlin Style

George Carlin inspired three generations of comedians. His political commentary, was particularly sharp.

“Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin’ place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”

R.I.P. George, we will miss your always truthful words. I leave you all with George Carlin with Keith Olbermann on Countdown last October…

For all of my Conservative friends

I voted for Ronald Reagan twice. He was the right guy at the time for me. Today’s Republicans who bear the standard of the conservatives however, do not behave like true conservatives. We only need look back at history to see true conservatism and the success it can bring.

Abraham Lincoln’s guidelines for prisoner treatment during the civil war were the framework for the Geneva Convention’s guidelines. United States army treatment of surrendering German army soldiers at the end of WWII was so humane that it led the quick surrender of millions of German soldiers who knew they would be safer with the allies then fighting a losing cause against them any longer.

This lecture by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tells this tale much better than I can.