Politics After 50

Republicans Need Lithium

2012-04-09T15:18:00.000+02:00

See Cartoon Details Below.

For a long time I've been watching the intransigence between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, listening to the blame game about which party is full of the most recalcitrant, non-compromising bad guys and reading "Can't we just get along?" punditry, all the time knowing, from personal experience, that there are certain situations in life where it is impossible to compromise because one of the two warring sides is completely nuts.

Personal experience case in point: A good friend of mine here in France has a certifiably insane and increasingly dangerous ex who, while living off of his 4th girlfriend (who had just birthed his 4th child) and harassing my friend with daily threatening and insulting emails, phone calls, voicemails and texts (while still managing to play numerous World of Warcraft sessions), stalked and won the adoration of a female Parisian lawyer famous for defending abused women. As soon as he hooked up with this famous attorney, he dumped his girlfriend along with their 12-month old child and soon convinced his new attorney girlfriend that my friend had psychologically abused him and their child. (Child #3 of 4 total - I know, this is complicated.) His fearless defender of women, horrified by his invented tales of abuse, kidnapped his and my friend's child and then managed to put my friend into the Goute d'Or jail (not the best of Paris neighborhoods) for two days and then in the Medieval prison under the Palais de Justice (where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned before being executed on the guillotine) for 2 more days of garde à vue (detention), where my friend was interrogated as well as sent to two psychiatric hospitals for evaluation. My friend was jailed because her crazy ex and his now wife (he didn't waste any time getting this woman to marry him) filed a criminal case against her for psychological abuse (a new law in France that was designed and promoted by... drum roll... the crazy ex's new lawyer wife).

Now... even though my friend had proof that her ex had been treated for bipolarity and alcoholism, had attempted to jump out of her 6th-floor apartment window because the Aliens were talking to him through his dental fillings, had successfully jumped off his parents' apartment balcony and broke both of his feet, had been picked up by the cops during a psychotic event where he stripped down naked in a park to play in the kiddie sandbox... the court-appointed psychiatrists and social workers said to my friend, "If you and your ex could just learn to communicate better with each other..." Can't we all just get along?

I always think of this story when I read all the ad nauseum discussions about bipartisanship. And I can't help equating the Republican party with my friend's crazy ex. By my armchair shrink definition, bipolarity has become a Republican disease. They are so obsessed with getting that uppity black guy, his wife and their picaninny children out of the sacred White-only House, that they will forfeit the American economy and the American people to do so, even to the extent that they will stop supporting issues and legislation (i.e. healthcare mandates) that they previously supported, if our Muslim Kenyan Socialist Marxist president decides to support those issues too. It's like all of them are creatures of an up-is-down Bizarro World, recent transplants from another planet called Htrae. Religious fanatics, legislating against marriage equality, hire rent boys, wear diapers while they pay prostitutes for sex, make unwanted sexual advances on Congressional boy pages, etc. Religious/small government fanatics declare they want the government out of their healthcare but create legislation where the government requires women, against their will, to have a vaginal probe and to look at their babies on the probe screen before having an abortion. Small government fanatics claim Obama is the biggest spendthrift in the entire Bizarro World but it was George W. Bush, their hero, who spent like a drunken sailor and left Obama with gazillions in debt to clean up. Religious fanatics claim that same-sex marriage will destroy 'traditional' marriage but they rally behind a 3-time-marriage-loser like Newt Gingrich.

Like I said, they're fucking nuts.

Then this morning I read a Dailykos article that quoted a John Cole article (bold emphasis mine):

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

How do you succeed when the other party is insane? In my friend's case, after about $30,000 of donated money and more than a full year of not being able to work while she fought her criminal case, she finally won (the criminal case against her was dropped due to lack of evidence and her ex and his lawyer wife were given suspended sentences for kidnapping her child for 3 months), but she's still fighting to get the courts to grant her request for supervised child visitation to protect her child from this crazy guy. (Yes, even after kidnapping his child, the French courts still allow him to have his child every other weekend and during school holidays.) Luckily, just two weeks ago, the ex placed himself into a mental institution. But I'm sure it's not over yet. He's only in there for another week and he probably did it just so he could accuse my friend of making him insane. Time will tell. But hopefully something will be done to stop him before this happens. (That guy is in prison for killing his 3rd wife and his 2nd wife died when her car went over a cliff, out of which he miraculously was able to jump. Disclosure: my sister is the attorney in the custody battle for those poor kids' maternal grandfather).

Unfortunately, we can't commit the entire Republican party to a mental institution. And if you're hoping that a younger generation of Republicans will rise to replace the Old White Guys now in charge and bring the Grand Old Party back to its previous Grandness, just take a look at the douche bag to the left and you'll lose all that hopey-changey stuff real quick. But maybe a permanent Lithium fog, piped into the right side of the aisle of the hallowed halls of Congress, is in order.

Puck cartoon image courtesy of the Library of Congress. Details: Puck massaging the scalp of a deranged-looking Richard Olney who is sitting on a bench in a padded cell in the "Hopeless ward for incurables" and holding a rattle of William Jennings Bryan as a jester. On the floor are loose papers, one labeled "Olney's letter indorsing [sic] Bryan." And from the William Jennings Bryan Wiki: "The sheer volume of political propaganda cartoons featuring Bryan is a testament to the amusement and fear he caused among conservatives. ... As Keen puts it, 'The art of propaganda is to create a portrait that incarnates the idea of what we wish to destroy so we will react rather than think, and automatically focus our free-floating hostility, indistinct frustrations, and unnamed fears.' Bryan embodied these fears of the Republican Party of the time, which is clearly evident in the lengths they went to deface his character in these cartoons. ... Other cartoons can analyze overall judgments of Bryan’s continuous failure to win the Presidential Election and Bryan can be seen as some sort of puppet or smaller figure in comparison to other presidential elect opponents."

The GOP Primary From a Muslin Point of View

2012-03-07T09:34:00.000+01:00

Muslin Voodoo Doll***

I'm an American who's been living in Paris for five years, so you can assume that I'm a socialist (at least that's what my parents from the leftist state of Arizona call me). I also live in a neighborhood full of Islamic humans, but I haven't checked under their jalabiyas to see if they're socialists too, since that's probably haraam and there'd be a fatwā out on my ass before you can say Barack Hussein Obama.

The other day, on my way to meet my Egyptian friend Apet* for coffee in my neighborhood, I passed by my favorite terrorist pizza joint (the swarthy beardy owner waved at me as I went by) and a couple of halal meat shops (the butchers waved their flesh-stabbing bloody knives in greeting). I'd picked a French-style bistro for our rendezvous, so that Apet could give me a top-secret document (her wedding invitation) and we could finalize our plans for the Islamification of America (since we'd already achieved our goals in ~~France~~ my neighborhood).

At first blush, visiting Americans from Iowa would be thinking that my neighborhood Muslins (as one of my Republican friends spells them) were surely plotting their deaths, but little do the Iowans know, it’s The French who really want to kill them. Don't fucking show up at a Paris restaurant looking for dinner at 7:30 or you will be atomized by a piercing Gallic stare and your body will be riddled with meany French words. If you're looking for an early-bird special at 4:30, you might as well just snort some Anthrax right now and be done with it. (Or stay in Iowa and go to Luby's.)

Since it was around 4:30, the French bartendrette eyed us warily as we entered the bistro and only loosened up after we ordered two coffees. But soon we were passing out from the ammonia fumes she was using to clean the bar mats, so we walked across the street to another bistro, hoping they wouldn't try to kill us too.

I ordered a Perrier, even though I really wanted a giant Caipirinha. But it’s about respect, you see. I didn't want Apet to know I'm an alcoholic infidel. Being an infidel is excusable, but an alcoholic one is a bit much. She had the Obaman Audacity to order a coffee and a croque-monsieur (without unhalalified ham, s'il vous plaît). I sat quivering, waiting for the waiter to pull the pin on his apron grenade, but he only arched one of his eyebrows (which can maim you, but not quite kill you). That's ok, he got back at her. She got ham in her croque anyway.

So while Apet daintily pulled the ham out of her sammich, she and I got to talking about how Obama had really, really filled everybody in the Middle East with hope way back in 2008, but now those same people are really, really pissed off at him. If The Muslins knew who Sarah Palin is (or more accurately was), they’d be answering “!!ليس جيدا”** to her “How's that hopey changey stuff workin' out for ya?”

What's the crux of The Muslin World's disappointment, according to Apet?

Apet: “The way Obama kisses Israel's ass is horrible.”

Me: “Yeah, I know. But right now in the GOP primary, the Republicans are accusing him of hating Israel.”

Apet: “WHAT? That's crazy! Do Americans really believe that?”

Me: “Do you mind if I order a Caipirinha? This might take a while.”

*Apet is a nom de guerre. It also means The Hippo Goddess.

** Goggle (As a Republican friend likes to spell it) translation (so I’m SURE it’s correct) of “Not very well!!”
***Little Muslin Voodoo Doll made by jazzy1453 & available on deviantart.com. I would check out all of jazzy's dolls if I were you.

The No-Bullshit Guys in Politics

2011-11-19T09:34:00.001+01:00

I talked with my brother on Skype the other day and he asked what was going on politically/economically in France right now. I gave him a run-down - not much detail because I don't pay as much attention to French politics as American. But we shared a chuckle at the Sarkozy/Obama open mic gaffe where they trashed Netanyahu and my brother said, "I always liked Netanyahu. He's a no-bullshit guy."

Well, I had to disagree, since I'm hating on all the pro war-with-Iran, pro Likud, pro settlements, anti-Palestinian crap that the GOP dishes out (and up until recently, what Dennis Ross and the great American-Israel lobby AIPAC has been advising Obama) and the fact that the crazy religious right in America think that they have to be "Israel's friend" so they can be guaranteed a seat when Jesus makes his second coming and hands Israel back to the Christians. Grrrrrrr. And all the bullshit about "poor Israel... such a tiny country, surrounded by a giant Arab world that wants to completely destroy them... They need our help and weapons and lots of foreign aid!" makes my head explode. Israel is probably sitting on enough nuclear warheads, murderous white phosphorous (that we sold them) and other weapons to completely destroy the Middle East. They also require ALL Israeli adult citizens (men and women) to serve in the military, so they have a ready-made army.

Poor Israel, my ass. (Enter anti-Semitic accusations, stage, er, right)

But what got me thinking was my brother's comment, "no-bullshit guy." This is an American trope, an image of a straight talkin' guy who's direct, succinct, tells it like it is, says what he means and means what he says, doesn't waste your time or his on frivolous conversation, speaks no platitudes, never sugar coats anything, doesn't see gray - just black and white, etc. This kind of guy is revered, he's refreshing. I get it. My brother owns a metals fabrication and construction company. I grew up in the construction industry. It's full of no-bullshit guys. Shit either fits or it doesn't. Buildings either stand or they don't.

Then I thought of Dick Cheney, the ultimate no-bullshit guy. It was his no-bullshit delivery of his neoconservative stance that made me curious about him. I wanted to know why he thought his world view was the only world view. He said it with such force, he must be right. Right?

I thought of another neoconservative, John Bolton. He was openly hating on the UN while he was the US's UN appointee. These guys don't hide themselves. You can go to the PNAC website (Project for A New American Century) and read all about why they wanted to take down Saddam Hussein way back when Clinton was president and why they believe that America must control the Middle East to secure our gas/oil resources. And in line with those beliefs, they all want war with Iran now. Because, of course, Iraq was such a great success.

I like no-bullshit guys too. But no-bullshit guys can be mistaken. Just because somebody can speak clearly and state their position intelligently and with extreme conviction doesn't mean they're right. A good example is my friend Sandee, a former Republican politician, who has always had the knack for making statements with such conviction that you have a tendency to believe her. But one time, after having some cocktails, we walked out to our cars and I noticed that she had mistakenly picked up my car keys off the bar table so I picked up hers and didn't say anything. We arrived at our cars, jabbering away as always, and she started to try to open her car door using my keys. I interrupted her and said, "Sandee, those are my car keys." "No they're not." she said, as she continued to talk and fail at opening her door. "Yes, they are." "No they're not." "Yes they are." "Oh, they aren't my keys. Oh. Ha!"

The many times that she categorically denied the fact that she was trying to use my keys to open her car door made me want to believe her, even though I was standing there holding her keys.

Neocons are no-bullshit guys. They firmly believed that we had to attack Iraq and they still believe that Iraq was a success. They firmly believe we have to attack Iran too. They're eloquent. They have high-level degrees from prestigious universities. They speak with conviction. It's not propaganda to sway the ignorant masses. They don't give a shit about the ignorant masses. They have an agenda and they are going to implement it. Period.

But they're fucking wrong. Don't be misled. They are holding your keys, remember that.

P.S. - The ideal no-bullshit woman doesn't exist. Because women, and their positions, are supposed to be less-than. They are supposed to start every sentence with a qualifier, "I don't know everything there is to know about this, but...". If women are direct and succinct, they're ball busters. Oh, and they're probably gay.

It's Who and What You Know That Makes a Difference

2011-11-16T11:24:00.001+01:00

Yes, my friends, I'm still alive. I haven't written in a while. So sorry. But I'm back from a summer spent in the states and am again enjoying Paris and loving my students.

What do I think about politics these days? More philosophical than disgruntled. I went from angry to disgusted to apathetic. I couldn't write a damn thing. It was all too ugly and so predictable. Corporations run America. I already knew that. They've now run it into the ground. I predicted that. Too many old white men are in politics and have zero connection to their constituents until they need campaign money and votes. After that, fuck you. Politics is about power - the getting of it and the holding of it. And business is about greed. The United States managed to fuck the entire world with useless wars, unapologetic torture and rendition and financial gambling run amok. Dazzled by the sparkly, shiny U. S. of A., other old white men in different countries followed our jack boots into financial and moral crises that would have shocked fiddling Romans, pre-burn. And religion. Ho, religion. Fanatical Christianists want religion (and only THEIR religion) to trump the state and although they consider abortion to be child murder, the moment a child is born it's on its own. As a matter of fact, if that newborn baby doesn't have a job, healthcare or food, too fucking bad. They also have no concerns with killing Iraqis, Muslims or anybody else they decide they should hate. No wonder my previous post was about escaping to an island.

But, what the hell. I'm still here. Might as well make the best of it.

So, the best thing I could do was to look at our current global mess from the standpoint of a Buddhist sage. (I know there's one inside me. I know there is!) Like what the ancient Japanese monk at a Zen Buddhist monastery in Tempe Arizona said when he first heard the news of 9/11: "Through conflict, we get to know one another." Well, now Americans know all about Muslims, or so they think.

I went back to Arizona for the summer because my mother had just been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, metastasized to her bones. She's 87. My dad is 89 and has probably had most kinds of cancer and is tottering around with a walker, festering lesions of skin cancer dribbling blood, and very, very grumpy about how the dishwasher needs to be loaded. My parents and I always had a difficult relationship and hadn't spoken in two years. When my brother asked if I could come and help him care for them this summer, I wrote a mile-long diatribe about how I couldn't put myself in such a toxic environment and then the next morning, while he was still sleeping, I sent another email saying, "Never mind!"

Here's the deal. I have this mouthy angry leftyness and my parents (and all of my brothers and sisters) are various shades of Republican. There was never any intelligent discourse between us - a mirror of the ridiculous, reactionary, sensationalized, ignorant talk-show punditocracy that America has become. How could I survive four months in such a cesspit? I mean, here are the books on my parents' coffee table:

And with Faux News on 24/7, it's enough to make a lefty like me jump off the nearest mountain.

But, I lived to tell the tale. And I affirmed a few things too. My brother must have told my parents to STFU about politics and religion while I was there. So my mom was super cool and my dad eventually got there, after I figured out a way to get him to take dementia drugs so that he wouldn't yell at me anymore about how I put the milk in the refrigerator (or call Obama "that nigger in the White House").

The thing that really was affirmed for me during this stay was my belief, developed early on while slaving in Corporate America, that customers are won, and kept, one relationship at a time. And in the same way, the world will evolve and get better, one relationship at a time. It's really who and what you know that colors your outlook.

For instance, my mother knows several people of the gay persuasion - her hairdressers, friends of my sister, an artist friend of mine. And because she knows them, she can't relate to the Republican Christianist obsession with banning gay marriage and adoption. "Leave those poor people alone! Let them live their lives the way they want to!" Amen, mom.

I daintily tiptoed into a discussion about my fear of the Christianist right's hijacking of the Republican party and their agenda for making America an exclusively Christian nation. I showed her the whacko people behind Rick Perry's campaign and Prayer Day (Including Robert Jeffress who says the Catholic Church is a pagan satan cult), and to my surprise, my mother said, "I'm Catholic. And we don't proselytize. I don't give a damn if you worship your left toenail, as long as you don't tell me what I should believe in or how I should practice religion. Religion has no place in campaigns or in government." Now this is the woman who hated John F. Kennedy but she also hated how his Catholicism became an issue during his campaign.

My mom told me that if it wasn't for the fact that she thought it was important to vote in the primaries, she'd register as an independent. That's how sick of the Republican party she is. She looks at the current lineup of presidential hopefuls with disgust. It's just as much a circus for her as it is for me. She won't watch "those damn debates" and instead listens to commentary the next day. On Faux News, of course, but oh well.

She also agreed with me that Bush Jr. "spent like a drunken sailor" and that we just need to "bring our troops home from those stupid wars." Ahem.

So, all is not lost. My parents still think that the left hates capitalism and that all they want to do is rob from the rich in order to pay those lazy slackers, the poor. My parents suffer from a strange psychological dissonance that most of the right suffers from - the belief that the rich are cool and some day, they (all the blue collar workers and middle class Americans) will some day be rich too, if they just bootstrap their way up to the mythological "American Dream." And when they are rich, they don't want to be burdened by all those damn regulations that ensure the quality and safety of our food, air and water, nor do they want to pay those terrible taxes that somehow more than 250 of the biggest, most profitable corporations in America don't pay at all.

But even with that, there's still hope. They have a granddaughter who's a teacher who recently said to my sister (her mom), "Sorry mom, if you are a teacher in America, you can't be a Republican." If my parents meet other real-life people, good, honest working Americans who have lost their homes or jobs due to no fault of their own, their opinions may not completely change, but they will be nuanced. Reality won't be so black and white anymore.

I realized through this experience that it's unrealistic for me to think I can carry the burden of the maligned, murdered, tortured and abused people of this earth. I will go crazy (and almost did) looking at the way the world is operating and think that I somehow must change it all. I can only make a difference one person, one discussion, one charitable act at a time. I can have reasonable discourse about issues. I can influence my MBA students to be ethical in their work, to seek careers they are passionate about and that caring about others is not a weakness, but a strength. I can influence the evolution of the world, one friend, one student, one stranger, one parent, at a time.

In Search of an Island

2011-03-10T09:52:00.003+01:00

When my ex boyfriend and I first came to France, we stayed in a friend's apartment who was out of town on tour with his band. We dragged all our suitcases up five floors of stairs and I unwittingly carried a suitcase with kitty litter in it, not knowing that the suitcase was open. There was a trail of kitty litter following me and my boyfriend, exhausted from our long flight, cleaned it up as best as he could before we went to bed.

The next morning, on our way out to grocery shop, we ran into the building busybody and self-appointed concierge. He was furious and yelling at us. My French was pretty limited at the time, but I figured out that he was angry about the kitty litter because it has salt in it and can ruin the wood floors and that he had gotten it on his shoes and tracked it into his apartment. He said he spent the morning mopping the stairs and cleaning his apartment. All I could do was say how sorry I was and listen to his diatribe. He finally calmed down and asked where we were from and I told him the United States. His face changed. Suddenly he was all friendly-like. Thank God. We were able to escape him that morning and from time to time would run into him. He was always friendly, but also strange.

One day, when it was very cold outside, I noticed that all the windows in the stairwell were wide open, on every floor. So, I closed them on my way down the stairs. Of course, he caught me doing it. "No no no!" He cried, as he went back and reopened them all. I tried to remain smiling so as to escape him quickly, but he needed to explain to me why we must keep all the windows open. "It's because those foreigners have moved in," he said with a sneer, "and we have to get rid of their smell." He was talking about a North African family who lived across from him on the third floor. George Bush was still president at that time, so I imagine that Mr. busybody thought that because I was American, I must hate those dark people as much as he did.

It was also the time of the French presidential elections. France has an interesting system where a multitude of candidates can run for president and there is a first election where the two front runners are determined by popular vote. Then a second election takes place a couple of weeks later to decide between those two. The third runner-up holds quite a bit of power, as he decides which of the two will get his party's vote. Sarkozy and socialist Ségolène Royal were the two front runners. Third place was occupied by Jean-Marie Le Pen, an extreme-right conservative and nationalist. Of course, when you hear nationalist, you can just assume that he's anti-immigrant. And of course, you know he threw his votes towards Sarkozy, as a socialist in the presidential seat was unthinkable to Le Pen. Sarkozy, probably driven by his own beliefs and also pandering to the extreme right to maintain their vote, proceeded to cancel social programs intended to calm the troubles in Paris immigrant neighborhoods through partnership and education, and decided to use threats and force to "manage the problems." He promoted police thuggery versus police and public cooperation. Using the fear of the outsider, this time Muslims, to stir up support from the extreme-right's base, he's now instituted a burqa ban. This should please the nationalists.

At the front door of my friend's apartment building a few years ago, after my lesson on the need for open windows and the evils of the darker side of humanity, Mr. Building Busybody started rambling on and on about the elections. It was a natural segue from his hatred of the outsiders (oh and by the way, he was Czechoslovakian or something) to his love for Le Pen. What a big surprise.

Today, as the Republican party in my own country throw candidates like pasta against the wall to see which one will stick, I fear for the 2012 election outcome. With this morning's news about the Wisconsin Republicans jamming through their union busting bill and NPR's chief stepping down because of another "sting" by that snide little bastard O'Keefe, my stomach is turning. But these stomach problems aren't new for me. They started with my disappointment with Obama and the Democrats squandering their 2-year majority and now the cramping sets in as I watch with horror as the religious right and corporate kings take over America and mean-spirited buffoons like Limbaugh, Palin and Beck dominate the media and lead the nation's discourse.

I thought I escaped this horror story by moving to France. But I was sorely mistaken. No matter how much the stereotype of France as a socialist country is accepted by the ignorant and misinformed, the extreme right is on the rise in this country and according to public opinion polls, Le Pen's daughter, Marine, could beat Sarkozy in the upcoming election. Just like Democrats in the US, the socialist party here in France can't get their collective (pun intended) shit together, so I don't see any hope of a candidate of value coming from them. No matter who the candidates are, I've discovered recently, as my French improves and as I am helping an American friend of mine build her legal defense to fight both the kidnapping of her child by its French father and a fraudulent criminal case filed against her by the same person, that the outsider, and not only of the North African variety, is disliked here. This hatred lies in the hearts of the French people and is easily stoked by candidates to win votes.

I met a young girl in her twenties the other day. She's obviously brilliant, speaks several languages - English, French and Chinese - is passionate about soldiers and the making of war and is an avowed neoconservative. We argued about war. I said, "But what about the millions of people displaced and the hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead from the Iraq war?" And she replied that people die all the time from many things, so what's the big deal? She also said that there are far too few of her type of people around. I replied, "No, there are far too many of you." I also met a young girl of the same age who told me that she had lived for a year on an island, just below Thailand, that is dedicated to people living a life of "voluntary simplicity." I hadn't heard that term before. She explained that it's like a societal version of Burning Man. It's an alternative to Capitalism and these people are dedicated to a life that's founded on collaboration rather than competition.

I think I may need to find that island.

Death Panels and End-of-Life Planning

2011-01-06T21:10:00.001+01:00

I was living in California when my grandmother, Elsie McIntyre Mitchell, was hospitalized for the last time. My family called me and said that she wouldn't last very long, so I took a week off from work and flew to Arizona to sit next to Elsie in her hospital bed. It was hard to look at her, puffed up from years of Prednizone, osteoporosis making her bones crumble each time she moved. She had been a looker, with shapely legs ending in sling-back toe-less heels, dancing with a harmonica in her mouth as she played Irish ditties. I can still see her eyes get wide and then crinkle into a smile as she watched me watch her bend the notes. I think she was buried in her favorite dress. It was white with little green 4-leaf clovers all over it. She believed in the luck o' the Irish (even though she was British/Scottish) and used to send us out into the fields of her Canadian farmhouse to find 4-leaf clovers and report back with any leprechaun sightings.

After Elsie died, when we went through her books, we found hundreds of dried 4-leaf clovers pressed between the pages.

One day in the hospital, she turned to me and said, "I can't wait to see who you marry." I always used to think that what she said was prophetic, that I would find someone to marry who she would have loved. So far, I haven't been that lucky. Perhaps, while looking for some 4-leaf clovers, I will meet somebody out in a field.

The other thing that she said to me in the hospital, over and over again, was that she wanted to go home. She knew she was dieing and she was miserable in that hospital. She wanted to die in familiar surroundings, in the bed she'd shared with her husband for an amazing number of years. With the smells of every apple pie she'd ever made, still lingering in her kitchen. I felt helpless when she told me this. I wanted to grant her this last wish. But neither me nor my family really knew if it was even possible. Based on what I know now, I would have made it happen.

If Elsie's doctor had taken the time to sit down with her a few months earlier and bring up the difficult subject of how she wanted her doctor and her family to handle the end of her life, she could have made her wishes clear to all of us and perhaps could have spent a few more moments of happiness before she passed on.

It's THIS type of End-of-Life Planning that was a part of the recent health reform bill and it's THIS that became one of the biggest and cruelest Republican lies. Betsy McCaughey, the champion of anti-death panelators, tried to push her bullshit on the Daily Show, of all places, pandering to the audience with flirty little glances and never answering Jon Stewart's questions. She was just adorable. And a big fat liar. She, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and the rest of Fux No-News entertainers called the funding of end-of-life planning "death panels" a million times so that the Republican base became thoroughly convinced that my grandmother, instead of receiving vital information that would have eased her mind through her final days, would have been taken off of the monitors, taken off of the drugs, kicked out of the hospital and denied care "because she was too old to spend money on."

For a while, I've wondered why this had to be in the bill at all. Didn't doctors just do this counseling anyway? Elsie's doctor didn't. He was a good doctor too. But we rarely saw him. Maybe he just didn't have time, like most doctors these days who, because of insurance companies, have to shove as many 15-minute patient appointments as possible into one day, in order to make any money. But it's the government that Republicans said they didn't want in between them and their doctor. I guess they prefer those nice insurance companies.

Then today I watched Atul Gawande, a cancer doctor, interviewed on The Rachel Maddow Show and then again on The Colbert Report (I'm kind of uncomfortable with the fact that he's on a book tour but is called in as an opinionator on Maddow and the guy interviewing him pushed his book too. Should that bother me? I dunno.) and I finally understood why this had to be part of a bill.

By legislating that doctors need to be paid for the time they take to help people plan for their end-of-life care, insurance companies would be required to cover expenses for the doctor's time. This would work as an incentive for doctors to a) get educated on end-of-life planning and b) offer this service to their patients. Patients wouldn't be forced to do anything. The doctor would just advise them that there were a few things about dieing that they might want to know, some things they could do that could ease the pain for themselves and their loved ones.

My grandmother suffered in that cold hospital room for a few weeks longer. She was well cared for. But at night, all of us got to go home and she was left all alone. This is a terrible thing, I think. If she had been in her own bed, in her own home, she could have been comforted by our presence and the scent of her familiar life around her. Instead, she finally lapsed into unconsciousness and my mother had to make the decision to turn off the life support and essentially, end her mother's life. My mother has never forgotten this.

End-of-life planning could have helped my grandmother and could have prepared my mother for what she had to do. There are many grandparents who are still alive today, who would benefit from this type of counsel. It's unforgivable that Republicans have purposely lied about and blocked this section of health care reform. Unforgivable. Look at my grandmother's face. Wouldn't you have wanted to help her go home too?

Rest in peace, Elsie Mitchell. I miss you, but I hold the many beautiful things you taught me, close to my heart. There are still as many "damn fools" in the world now as there were when you were here. I don't think any of them know how rare and magical 4-leaf clovers are and there's not a leprechaun in the bunch. But I promise, if anyone ever asks me to marry them, I will make sure they are not just worthy of me, but also worthy of you.

Looking for JIM HIGHTOWER's List

2010-11-03T09:12:00.000+01:00

Early in my Liberal Indoctrination Period (LIP - as my parents used to threaten, "Don't give me any LIP, young lady!"), I read Jim Hightower's book, Thieves In High Places. If you're familiar with Hightower, you'll remember that when he first made an entrance on the Internets, he wrote only in CAPITAL LETTERS. It's as if he had to shout because he is so short. When I went to his website just now, I noticed he's STILL writing in caps, but somebody must have had a sit-down with him because thankfully, the entire website isn't written in caps, just 40% of it. But, he's OLD, so we must give him a break.

In contrast, there was this fascinating section of the book, hidden somewhere in the middle, that was written in the teeniest tiniest almost unreadable font - a list (pages and pages and pages) of all the sneaky legislation that the Bush administration had managed to slip past the sleeping or Nintendo-playing American voters and the completely useless (or completely useful, from BushCo's point of view) press. That list horrified me. Therefore, I've never forgotten it.

Now, let's speed-dial forward to the 2008 presidential election. For the last two years, in the back of my mind, I've been hoping that somebody, even a disgruntled Republican, would publish an equally horrifying (or completely delightful, from my point of view) list of sneaky legislation that No Drama Obama and his Marxist Minions had managed to pass, late on Friday nights, behind the collective back of the media, because by noon on Friday, they (the Media, not the Marxists) were all drooling over their whiskeys and slurrily lamenting to each other about the demise of the esteemed institution of journalism due to pajama-clad, teetotalling (or perhaps teatotalling) bloggers.

(Of course, I'm not insinuating that alcohol is behind the demise of journalism, because alcohol and journalists have been best friends for decades - those same decades where journalists actually researched and reported things and managed to write in long-form, an almost extinct style. But these days, true journalists are hard to find, and those left to do the reporting are asleep at the wheel and probably not from too much alcohol. More likely, they've drunk too much inside-beltway Kool-Aid or are very tired from chasing after Sarah Palin.)

Anyhoo! (Wow, I got a little sidetracked there.) No such list of Obama's stealth legislation, to my knowledge, has surfaced.

In 2007, while BushCo was still busy destroying the Middle East and the world's economy, Nancy Pelosi announced the 100-Hour Plan, detailing the actions her party would pursue in the 110th Congress. I got all excited, hoping that she had just Xeroxed Hightower's list and would start at the top and not sleep until all of BushCo's sneakiness was overturned. Alas, no such luck.

(But Nancy CAME THROUGH WITH HER PROMISE and passed all but one of the items on the list - recommendations of the 9/11 commission - IN 87 HOURS. I'm writing in caps not because I want to be just like Jim Hightower, but because I'm pissed off that Democrats fail so miserably at getting this positive information etched into the brains of the American people, including my own. Republicans can make "death panels" a nationwide household phrase, remaining top-o-mind to this day, even though it's a complete lie, but Democrats can't even get "Increased Minimum Wage" on a hand-written poster.)

Anyhoo! (Wow. I really got sidetracked there.) All of this blabbering is just a lengthy prelude to the current question on my mind... Now that Democrats lost their House majority, will they finally resort to sneakiness? Will they start shoving things through late at night and during recesses? Oh please please please? CAN I SEND THEM HIGHTOWER'S LIST TO USE AS A REFERENCE? (Maybe if it's in caps they might see it.) I imagine the real question isn't just will they get sneaky (as in, do they have the will), but also, can they?

Breaking My Silence on Meg Whitman

2010-11-01T12:56:00.000+01:00

I've been tracking the 2010 political race almost as much as I've tracked previous races, but with one exception: California Republican candidate for Governor, Meg Whitman. Why did I ignore her race? Because my niece is working the campaign.

I'm already walking a thin line with my family when it comes to politics. It would be a huge understatement to say that my family and I don't see eye to eye. But I love and admire my niece, so I wanted to stay out of her way. But tomorrow is D-Day and I sincerely doubt that my tiny little blog will get enough attention to sway any votes.

My niece came out of the womb smarter than all of us (even if she didn't have any hair. :-) She graduated from Santa Clara with a double major in communications and political science. She has a passion for politics that seems to be in the genetic code of the females in our family. She's been in love with the same guy, a Democrat by the way, oh, since high school or maybe earlier. But she had the maturity to pursue her dreams - first by taking a semester in London and second by going to work in Washington, DC right out of college - even though these things took her far away from her boyfriend, now husband. Obviously, I'm proud of her.

I've scratched my head a few times, wondering how she could be so smart and still be a Republican. I just figured that she was of the fiscal conservative, pro-business type and not the fringe Tea Party ignorant hater type.

I was relieved that at least she's working for a candidate that isn't a freak show. Whitman isn't a religious fanatic with the burning desire to force Christianity upon America, its government or its people. She's not an experienced politician but she's an experienced business woman - and since big business has traditionally voted Republican, this is a major asset for her campaign. Especially since California is in a fiscal crisis and Whitman has a track record for growing businesses and charitable organizations and her own wealth. To me, the pursuit of wealth isn't bad, as long as it's balanced with giving. And Whitman has done a great deal of that. She's a woman and I want to see more viable women run for office, from both sides of the aisle. She has a brain, which is refreshing, compared to O'Donnell and Palin, who are an embarrassment to all women.

Even while avoiding any news about Whitman, I couldn't avoid one of the ugly ads that played over and over again, ad nauseum, while I was watching Jon Stewart's Daily Show online. I "spoofed" my browser to make it look like I lived in the US so that I could watch the full episodes of Stewart and Colbert. With this spoofing, came the ads before, during and after the shows. The ad is about "Bobble-head Meg." It pisses me off to no end. I don't even know the content of the ad, because I can't get past somebody making a candidate into a bobble head. It's sexist. It's personal. And it distracts from real issues. These kind of attacks have plagued all women candidates. I will look forward to the day when the press and opponents of female candidates can stop making attacks related to their gender, personal appearance or clothing. O'Donnell is a joke of a candidate, but this recent stuff about her one-night stand a million years ago was disgusting. I know, she's from the religious right and so, they aren't aloud to have one-nighters in their past, supposedly. (My God, I can never run for office.)

I also don't like how Whitman's referred to as "Queen Meg" in a song by the band SCHWARZENATOR. They like to dismiss her work track record as irrelevant and imply that it can't be translated into managing "the 8th largest economy in the world." Yeah, but the action figure movie star the band honors was perfectly qualified for the same job.

So, what are the real negatives about Whitman (caveat - I haven't researched them all)? In her pre-political life, she supported environmental causes with huge funding. Unfortunately (I say this from a Democratic POV), probably in order to maintain the business vote, she changed her stance in this area.

She also may have an anger problem, at least she did have (shoving a female employee), which cost her company a six-figure settlement. But after that size of a settlement, if anybody else had a legitimate gripe or had just been nudged by her in the hallway, they would have been coming out of the woodwork with lawsuits. So, this may have been a one-time mistake that she learned from.

She also is using the unfortunate Glenn Beckish Tea Partyish "Take Back" slogan: "My bus, right there, it's called the 'Take Back Sac Express' because we're going to take back California for our children and our grandchildren." Ugh. From whom? Who is the unspoken boogieman? Could it be insinuating that she needs to take back California from the scary brown (or gay) hoard? I hope not. perhaps she means that she, a Republican, is taking California back from Schwarzenegger, a Republican? I don't get it, probably because there's nothing to get. I would bet it's just a clever way to make the "thar tekkin' arr jobs!" people feel like Meg's on their side.

Her stance on same-sex marriage? She voted for Prop 8. Terrible. But probably strategic, politically. She needs the conservative hater vote (sorry, but that's the only way to put it). I don't know how she would get around this, except to a) be a Democrat or b) take a brave, compelling, humanistic stand. Her reason for voting against prop 8? She thinks marriage is a religious term that should be between a man and a woman. As Chris Kelly translates, "Marriage is strictly a religious idea, and that's why I voted to have it written into state law." (From queerty.com) She's also under the false impression (I'll be nice & assume she's just uninformed, which is STILL no excuse), as unfortunately many voters are as well, that civil partnerships give same-sex couples all the rights they need. There's a long list of rights that come with marriage that don't come with civil unions, starting with no social security benefits can be paid to the surviving partner of a civil union and federal immigration laws do not offer the foreign civil union partner the same visa or citizen path that is available to married couples. (Many more differences here.)

I can't believe that the Christian right hasn't attacked her as a secret gay lover, though. After all, she was the one who imported the Teletubbies TV show to America. She HAD to have known that Tinky Winky, with his purple color, triangular antenna and handbag was secretly indoctrinating America's children to turn them into The Gay. Luckily for Meg, Jerry Falwell died and there was nobody to take up his Tinky Winky Torch. (And soon, all those secret gay children will be grown up and with a radar beam from Tinky Wink's triangular antenna, they will begin to vote. Mwahahaha!)

And then, of course, there's the 8-year employment of an undocumented (or false-documented) immigrant as a housekeeper. It's hard for anyone to believe that Whitman and her husband "didn't know" that their long-time employee was in the country illegally. But if she did know, she fumbled by letting the housekeeper go (how this happened is still open to speculation). She would have gained much more respect if she, knowing she was going to run for governor and that an undocumented employee was a liability, helped her employee get a work visa and made this process public. She could have preached to big business about the benefits of assisting qualified workers to gain legal status. She would have gained the respect of Latino voters, who are often dismissed as liberals or as inconsequential to the campaign. But In 2008, Latinos represented almost 22% of the registered voters and turnout in California and also in California, in 2008, Latinos represented 29% of the Democratic votes for President and 13% or 317,610 Republican votes (Stats Word File). 300K possible Latino Republican votes probably shouldn't be ignored.

The undocumented worker conundrum is problematic. Since the far right has decided to use it as an emotional rabble-rousing fear and hate football, all normal, productive solutions-oriented discussion has become impossible and any candidate is in between a rock and a hard place on this issue. Undocumented workers, whose only crime is that they want to live in a better place and make more money, are hired all the time, by people of all political persuasions, including the loudest mouths in the anti-immigrant movement. Some of the biggest mouths have been busted (Dobbs for one, but there have been more) and then crucified for their hypocrisy, as they should be. Whitman's opposition to Arizona's recent anti-immigrant law and her choice of moderate, Latino Republican Abel Maldonado as her Lt. Gov. running mate, positions her as a more sane voice in this hot potato issue, but all this was drowned out by the salacious media story of her former housekeeper.

If I were really researching this candidate, I'd dive into some of the allegations that:

Her charitable trust has supported only environmental causes that are backed by big business (but I have to say, the group she supports, the Environmental Defense Fund, has a long list of amazing accomplishments)
One of her recipient organizations was preserving meadows in Telluride, Colorado, where she and her husband own a condo and a dude ranch (I guess this could be seen both ways - because she's part of the community, she wants to help that community or she only cares about the meadows because it would infringe on her land. I'd go for the former, based on her past environmental track record.)
Her trust has been used as an off-shore (Caymans) tax haven. This doesn't surprise me, because all billionaires (and their accountants) constantly look for tax havens. I don't like it. I wish billionaires would pay their fucking taxes instead of devising ways to avoid them, but there you go.
A too-close relationship to Goldman Sachs. I don't have time to dive into this, but she has promised to eliminate any investment conflicts of interest if elected, by using a blind trust. This is a common and viable path that has been and is still used by elected officials on both sides of the aisle.

I don't live in California anymore, but if I did, I'd vote for Jerry Brown. I'm a Democrat, after all. But if I did live in California, I wouldn't be terrified and looking for an escape route, if Brown lost and Whitman were elected. It's why I'm voting (at the last minute, of course) in the Arizona race, since Governor Jan Brewer has made Arizona a pariah state and is a menace to sane Arizonans, especially those with brown skin. I have to vote, because the alternatives are frightening.

But Meg Whitman doesn't scare me. I just disagree with her. I'm sure that those in the know can add other negative issues or educate me on those issues that I've dismissed. But the bottom line - she isn't a freak show. And that's refreshing in this insane campaign.

I also really like that she once managed Mr. Potato Head. Since Meg Whitman and I are only one year apart in age, I imagine that she and I were sticking eyes, ears and noses into potatoes at around the same time. She in Long Island, me in Philly. She, like me, also graduated from high school in three years instead of four. High five!

You see, after attending Stewart and Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear (in Paris - couldn't go to DC), I'm looking for sane candidates and trying to find the common denominator on which we as individual citizens, along with our elected representatives, can begin to build trust and discover solutions. I can see me, Meg and my niece (unless she's horrified at this idea), casually chatting at Meg's conference table, playing with Mr. Potato Head. We all might be surprised at the outcome.

The Loathing of Juan William's Fear

2010-10-23T13:31:00.000+02:00

I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. My dad had guns and ammo ready for the inevitable day when The Blacks would enter our home to kill us. Years later, after we moved to Arizona where The Blacks were and are still hard to find, I helped my dad sell his guns to a hunter-cowboy (as in hunter-gatherer, since cowboy hunter could have more than one meaning). My mom feared communists more than black people (evidenced by the proud hanging of a portrait in her living room of a black New Orleans clarinetist - her appreciation of music trumped prejudice) but had a special loathing for The Black Communist, Martin Luther King.

So, I was raised in the world of fear and loathing of The Other, which I don't think was an exceptional experience in the 60s and 70s. Somehow, I knew that this fear wasn't right. But there's a difference between the visceral fear of the outsider that rises from the primitive nether regions of our being and the (hopefully) secondary impulse of reason or (hopefully not) knee-jerk, thoughtless action. Rational thought overcomes irrational fear. If we're conscious of the fact that all humans have irrational primitive fears, then we know that reasoned thought should always sit between the irrational fear and any action we choose to take.

At the age of 13 or so, I snuck out with my friends, dressed in my forbidden jeans and fringed tie-up knee-high moccasins and wandered around Philly's hip 69th street - full of record stores, head shops and, um, black people. I was fearful, but fascinated. Was I a little hipster wannabe hypocrite (admiring soul music but fearing the soulful)? Well, yes.

What I'm getting at here is that I'm guilty. Yes, I'm a liberal and a progressive and I support movements to protect "outsiders" or the disenfranchised from abuse. But, I'm still guilty of having primitive fear of The Other. Hell, I'm afraid to leave my apartment to go to the grocery store sometimes, which is irrational. But I know, after much thought, that there really is nothing to fear and because of this, I doubt I'll ever picket the grocery store or join the anti-grocery-store movement. (Just for fun, substitute New York Mosque for grocery store in the last two sentences.) I also hang on to things my ex boyfriend used to say to me about lesbians (there's a lot of unreasonable jealousy and domestic violence in lesbian relationships and lesbian hairdressers will make me look gay) and have a hidden fear of hanging out with lesbians. But I vehemently and actively support the gay marriage movement and follow gay blogs and have lots of gay friends who follow my blogs. Am I a gay-wannabe hypocrite (admiring the gay life but fearing the gayness [uh-oh!])? Well, yes.

One day this summer, while going through security at Charles de Gaulle airport on my way to Athens, I was behind a guy who refused to unzip his carry-on for the security lady. She kept demanding in French, and demonstrating with her hands, that he unzip his bag. He just kept babbling in another language and then got his phone out and turned away from the guard and nervously started dialing. She asked in French, "What language do you speak?" and he mumbled Italiano and ducked away again for some more furious dialing. I couldn't help him with the Italian, but he wasn't looking for any help from me. I just kept thinking, "This isn't rocket science, just unzip the bag like the big getting-annoyed guard is asking you to."

I moved around him and started to put all my clothes and jewelry back on and gather up my bags. My travel companion was still going through security, so I leaned against the wall next to another security guard to watch the show. By now, the guard was summoning other guards and the crazy guy was ducking and dialing and walking in ever-larger concentric circles. Finally, as he swept by me, I heard him frantically talking to someone on his phone...in Arabic. How do I know this? Because I have neighbors who speak Arabic all the time, while the three daughters (one in full burqa and the other two in tight, sexy Western clothes) translate my English or lousy French into Italian and then Arabic so their mother can get my jokes.

My travel companion came up to me and we walked towards the gate. I joked that a terrorist had been trying to get through security ahead of me. We laughed. And then I surreptitiously kept an eagle eye out for the guy for the entire time we waited for our plane to board. I didn't want him to be on my plane.

I looked for his fellow conspirators in the waiting area. What was I looking for? Young men, with or without beards, who looked like terrorists. Go ahead, you can call me Jan Brewer or Sheriff Joe Arpaio or... Juan Williams.

This nervous guy was somehow allowed to enter the boarding area. I was sure he'd be carted off to the dungeon under the airport. But there he was, still nervous. He stayed at the far end of the boarding area so I was praying to The-God-I-Don't-Believe-In that he would board another plane. I didn't jump up to board our plane first (which is what I always do). I waited until the last person boarded and then saw him coming our way. I boarded, but in the process of getting into my seat, I didn't actually see if he got onto the plane. I worried, a little, throughout the flight. I felt the fear, then used rational thought to stop me from making a fake trip to the bathroom to see if I could spot him and then heroically dive on him before he could ignite his underpants.

I do all this worrying under the guise of a perfectly calm, liberal face.

You know what else I'm guilty of (if you missed it, read above)? This: "Me? Prejudiced against lesbians and Muslims? That's impossible. Didn't you just hear me say I have lesbian and Muslim friends?"

Anyway, enough (for now) about me and my hypocrisy. Let's talk about Juan Williams. As I listened to him make his job-losing statement about his fear of people in Muslim garb, I first thought, "Yup. Me too. Thanks for being honest." Then I thought, "This could be a Shirley Sherrod moment." You know, where she was telling a story about her own prejudice and how she came to terms with it and changed her behavior. But, unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

The sin here, with Juan Williams, is not that he has such thoughts, but that he, as a respected American journalist, legitimized irrational fears in a public forum, on a network which is known for right-wing inflammatory rhetoric, to an audience that is known to be gullible, without offering a path towards redemption for having these irrational fears. He did clarify that America must protect the constitutional rights of all citizens and prevent bigotry, but, and of course there's a but, we can't forget the connection between 9/11 and Islamic radicalism. So, he rationalized his fears and gave them legitimacy. And anyway, the hate cat was already out of the bag.

What was missing in his non-apology? Oh, discussion of and outreach to non-radical Muslims.

How do we get past irrational fears of The Other? By getting to know The Other. There are two paths we can all take after 9/11. Batten down the hatches, sound the alarms, be ever watchful against this vague enemy and wait for the ever-impending doom. (This is a great way to keep Americans off balance, by the way, and distracted from what our government is really doing and also fills the coffers of the military industrial complex.) Or, we can, as a government and a nation of people, go meet every Muslim we can find and put together a plan, in partnership, where the voices and actions of sanity drown out the voices of radicalism and terror. There is huge power in partnership and positive, forward movement based on greater understanding. It is also a lot cheaper, and it causes fewer lasting wounds, to get to know The Other, than to bomb them.

Will Shirley Sherrod ever forget her prejudice against white people? I doubt it. After all, it wasn't just a slight or insult here and there. It was generations of abuse that exists in her individual consciousness and in the collective unconscious of her people. Will Jews forget The Shoa? Should Native Americans forget how we purposely killed them and forcefully moved them to reservations? Should anyone ever forget that America, in concert with Iraqis and in collusion with other nations, tortured people? No. But instead of hating the past, we eventually need to learn from it and move towards healing the future.

Will I ever evolve my irrational fears of The Other? Probably. Because I don't have a generational abuse issue in my DNA. Some Americans would disagree with me on that - the ones who pretend to be victimized (i.e. reverse discrimination, Fred Phelps and Juan Williams claiming their constitutional right to free speech has been violated, and "we want our country back!" and "thar tekkin' arr jobs!" and "that Mosque is on hallowed ground!!"), but in truth, we have no Shoa, no small pox blankets, no enslavement that could hinder our evolution from irrational prejudice to enlightened oneness with all human beings.

Just living in my ethnic neighborhood in Paris, full of Muslims, Halal shops and restaurants (especially my favorite Terrorist Pizza place) has opened up my eyes and heart. (Not quite enough yet to stop me from counting swarthy bearded men in airports and train stations - but give me time.)

I think that redemption is within me, if I choose to apply the light of reason to my darkest thoughts and reach out to The Other.

Review: Charlie Wilson's War (book)

2010-09-04T15:30:00.000+02:00

After I read three books about Afghanistan (Taliban, Stones Into Schools, Three Cups of Tea), Jayne Martin of injaynesworld, suggested that I read George Crile's 2003 book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.

So, what do I say? I've been pondering it for days. I guess I'll start by talking about what I thought and felt as I read it...

I wondered, throughout the book, about the author's political leanings. But this was as hard to discern as Charlie Wilson's (Wilson's Wiki). Wilson was a Democratic US representative from Texas (of all places) and an advocate of typically liberal issues such as utility regulation, ERA, the pro-choice movement, Medicaid and minimum wage. At the same time, he was an unapologetic and even proud womanizer, drug user and alcoholic. But he was also a fervent anti-communist with a strong dislike of the Soviets and a friend of right-wing dictators like Nicaragua's Somoza and Pakistan's Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Nobody is a purist, but this guy seemed to be all over the map. But what lured him into the plight of Afghanistan's insurgency against the Soviet occupation was his strong passion for the underdog, particularly his own. His childhood dog, that is. A politician poisoned his dog, so Charlie drove to the black neighborhoods and picked up enough voters to make the politican lose by just 16 votes. That was when Charlie first learned, at the age of 13, how to kick somebody's ass through politics.

It's interesting, my use of the words "kick somebody's ass." Ass kicking seemed to be the overriding theme of the book and such an attractive phrase in America (just look at our film industry) and yes, in my own mind. Because once, I was the underdog and was saved by a couple of ass kickers.

From 1985 to 1991 I worked for a Huntsville, Alabama engineering software and hardware firm called Intergraph. Intergraph is and was a major defense contractor and while there, I gave some electronics design demonstrations to several nameless US government or military "spooks." Intergraph was heavily involved with NASA and the space program but also involved in mapping, GIS and Patriot missile systems for the first gulf war. It was full of the swashbuckling, cowboy, no-holds-barred kind of guys - starting with the company owner. I was saved twice, by two different guys, from abuse and harassment on the job. In addition to having a kind of slavering admiration of manly men men, I was really grateful to these two for helping me.

So, when I started reading this book about Charlie Wilson, I could feel all those old feelings bubbling up inside of me. Awe. Attraction. Admiration. But I'm older now. And not so easily seduced. I now know the down side of hanging out with these types of guys and it's not pretty. After the victory and glory, they still are fallible, sometimes dangerous, human beings.

Charlie Wilson and his counterpart in the CIA, Gust Avrakotos, were portrayed as the quintessential stereotypical American cowboys: fearless, rough necks, socially crass, rule breakers, straight talkers (i.e. no bullshit), patriots and manly men. They cussed, they worked around obstacles or pushed them roughly out of the way and they crusaded fearlessly to help the underdog Afghans defeat their mutual enemy - dirty commie Soviets. Using politics, spy-novel secrecy and American money and technology (i.e. Military Industrial Complex), they dual-handedly fought and won a proxy war against the meanies by helping Afghan tribesmen shoot down Soviet jets and helicopters who were implementing a scorched-earth policy: destroy everything (people, homes, dogs, crops...) in their path, from the air.

It's a high, being a cowboy. It's like cocaine - short spurts of genius followed by longer periods of depression and neurosis, which makes us want more cocaine. It's like sex - the more perverse we get, the more we seek out bigger perversions. And war is just as addicting as cocaine and sex. It's an adrenaline rush. It's manly. We get to kick some (insert enemy here) ass! We get to rule over our sex partners. Compared to this, peace is a sad and dull replacement. It's no wonder that the peace movement is looked upon as ineffective and weak. I suppose you could get high meditating, but I've never gotten THAT high meditating.

I may be anti-war, but I have war inside myself. I don't fight with guns, just words. But words can be as harmful as bullets and my anger can sometimes be nuclear. In the face of my declared enemies (neoconservatives, Bush, Cheney, AIPAC/Zionists, fundamentalists of all types, organized religion, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Malkin, Colter, Fox News...), I don't wish them dead, but I want them to just "go away." I seek their annihilation from public discourse. I want MY world view to be THE world view and everybody who doesn't agree with me just needs to get the fuck out of my way. It's why I and the author of this book and many Americans, secretly or openly admire ass kickers. I suppose I'm tame, since I'm just an unknown blogger and not bombing buildings, but I'm not productive. I'm not getting anything done. I'm not helping people evolve towards peace.

According to the book, the unsung hero of the Afghan/Soviet war was a low-level, nerdy (meaning, not a swashbuckling, sexy cowboy) CIA desk jockey named Michael Vickers. Avrakotos was smart enough to know that Vickers was smarter than him and thus employed him in Charlie Wilson's War. Vickers was the antithesis of Wilson and Avrakotos: quiet, polite, calm, methodical, a friend of numbers, taking the time to analyze all possible facets of a situation and then defining the perfect, and I mean perfect, strategy. Then he could quietly and methodically sell that strategy, anticipating every objection and backing up all premises with facts and numbers. If it wasn't for Vickers, Wilson would have made an expensive mess of things, crashing through the world visiting weapons manufacturers, both viable and not so viable, until he found the right camel-mounted heli-killing cannon. Avrakotos, even though he pushed the CIA way beyond their hands-off approach, leaned in the direction of secrecy. Vickers was smack dab in the middle. He took big risks that were backed up with facts instead of Charlie-style emotion and he convinced CIA elite to more openly support the fight.

The book didn't really say whether Vickers joined in on all the emotional war dances inside Avrakotos' CIA war room. I don't know if he too had life-sized posters above his desk of romantic, exotic, Lawrence of Arabia-style Afghans sitting on camels toting their Stinger missiles. But, I doubt he did. The interesting thing about Vickers is that he knew the precise moment when his plan began to work and because his plan was perfect, he knew when he was finished. He also looked around at the structure and history of the CIA and knew he would never go anywhere there. He was not just a war strategist. He applied his skills to his own life. He quietly and calmly left the CIA and left Avrokotos feeling like he'd lost his right arm.

Where would the world be if somebody hadn't kicked Hitler's ass? Would the Soviets still be in power and currently running the Middle East if the Afghans and our Stinger missiles hadn't kicked their collective ass? Where would I be if my two Intergraph anti-heroes hadn't kicked some ass to save me? I don't know the answer to the first two questions. I'm not a scholar of history, international relations or war. But I do know the answer to the last question. I might not have needed to be saved, if I had developed my inner Vickers. I didn't need to kick anyone's ass or find someone to kick ass for me. I just needed to pluck the war out of my own body, set aside my emotions and calmly, like a nerd, plot my career strategy and leave that crazy place.

I don't blog much anymore. I got too emotional. I didn't feel like I was moving anything or anybody towards any kind of new world view. With a little time and some deep thought, I've achieved a broader vision. Like Charlie and his addiction to self-destructive behavior, today's world is addicted to the myth of the Charlie Wilson style warrior. Charlie Wilson and his pals unquestionably assisted in the downfall of the Soviet Union, so there is some merit in this story. But until the world evolves towards a more peaceful approach to world affairs and takes the war needle out of its arm, nothing much will change. When the mystique of the peaceful warrior becomes more powerful in the world's collective consciousness, more time and money and energy will be spent building than destroying.

Until then, I need to go inward, point my finger back at myself and replace my hidden but waning admiration for war power and my addiction to the false power behind my own war of words, with the attitudes and building blocks of peace.

As an interesting aside, when I entered keyword tags for this post, all the keywords I needed to use - war, Afghanistan - had been used before in my previous posts. Except for peace.

Wendy's: Real? Not Really.

2010-08-01T13:21:00.000+02:00

I don't watch TV very often. I don't own one. I owned one for a while when I lived in the states, but it sat like a boat anchor on my bedroom table or on a cabinet in my living room and never had cable juice coursing through its veins until two momentous occasions: 9/11 and the arrival of a new boyfriend. Both occasions temporarily got me all riled up, but now, not so much.

However, to maintain my sense of humor while sorting through the moldy cheese, rotten vegetables, wormy meat scraps and bloated fish guts of the vast rotting wasteland of American politics (Wow, even I'm impressed by that sentence), I need to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Somehow, it gives me hope that those two brilliant guys (and their brilliant writers) can still manage to make jokes - 4 days a week! - about the compost bin of American media and the mostly-pasty-white-guy world of America's corporate-owned politics.

I also like to watch Rachel Maddow. She's not as funny, but she's so smart, like genius smart, that she makes me proud to be a woman.

But, let's get back to America being corporate-owned. I'm including our illustrious media in this sweeping but true generalization, of course. So, for me living in France, that means I'm blocked from watching American TV shows online. The Comedy Central mouthpieces say it's because they don't have advertising rights in my country. Because, ya know, advertisers really dictate where these independent (hahaha!) television companies can show their ads, er, I mean, independent TV shows.

But, I'm a geek. So I found a way around those bastards. I installed an add-on for Firefox that makes me look like I live in Ohio (or maybe Wasilla, right on Sarah Palin's Russia-gazing porch). It's called "X-Forwarded-For Spoofer" or spoofing, for short. This online anarchy allows me to watch the full episodes of Stewart and Colbert, instead of having to watch tiny, edited-down segments.

It also means that now, like all patriotic American consumers, I also have to watch the ads. So, I guess there's no way to get around those bastards after all. But at least I can catch up on the audacity of corporate propaganda and actually be hip to the latest Old Spice mania. Old Spice. The cologne that Jim Gardner, my first-ever date, bathed in prior to donning his Inspector Clouseau trench coat, climbing into the back seat of his dad's Mercury, directing his dad to my house, where he didn't have to face my mother or father, but just our babysitter, Mrs. Schick. From there, his dad dropped us off at the movies, where Jim yawned in order to put his arm around me and then, before the credits rolled, escorted me out back behind the theatre so he could steal one fat, lolling tongue kiss. All I remember is how giant his tongue was and how disgusting his perfume.

But, with the power of clever and humorous advertising with a deep-voiced handsome dude named Isaiah Mustafa, Old Spice is having the revival of its life. It still smells like crap, though.

Meanwhile, Wendy's - a giant, global, fast-food restaurant - has a brand spanking new campaign with the tag line: You know when it's real. And yet again: You can't fake real.

Oh, yes you can.

Having written advertising copy most of my career, I went to Wendy's's (I couldn't resist making fun of the name they came up with that will be so "unique" in it's pain-in-the-assness, that it will surely be "memorable") website and recognized the time-honored technique: use words and phrases that suggest or imply what you want consumers to believe about your product, but never actually say anything that might be construed as a lie. Or, use all the emotional keywords you can find, in sentences that seem like they mean something, but actually mean nothing.

After all, in a country where fake is the norm, why not start an ad campaign trashing fake and implying that you, alone in the wilderness of fakedom, are the only one who is real. Brilliant. Except for the fact that Wendy's food is STILL not real. But, why dither with the details?

Because, I enjoy dithering. And because the very same people who believe Wendy's's's and other corporate bullshit also believe political propaganda and vote for snotty little ignoramuses like George W. Bush.

So, here's the run-down...

So, do they slaughter the cows behind each restaurant? Or do they contract with a slaughter house in each city where there's a Wendy's? Or, do they fly freshly slaughtered beef to each city every morning? And what do the cows eat, may I ask? Are they still injected with growth hormones? Are they force-fed and kept in pens, never to wander or graze upon the great plains of our nation? Do they eat pesticide-laden grain?

Who gives a damn if they freeze their beef if it's poison to begin with? They're just making all this shit up. People will start saying to their friends, while discussing which fast-food joint they want to visit to assuage their hangover pangs or stoner munchies, "You know, Wendy's beef is never frozen!" Like this is a startling, undeniable, life-changing fact, along the same lines as, "George Bush made America safe."

And what does "cut, chopped and prepared with the same dedication to quality" actually mean? Well, nothing. How do you chop with quality in mind? I suppose avoiding the addition of your fingertips into the tomato bits is a start. But other than that, I can't imagine. And the fact that another mega-corporation, Heinz, is the exclusive maker of Wendy's's's ketchup means what, exactly? Why is that a benefit to me? If the mother of the Wendy's day manager made the ketchup, I'd probably go there just to try it. But some big-ass corporation making the ketchup is supposed to be a selling point?

And of course, there's chicken.

I guess I should be happy to know that their chicken isn't mystery meat. But the only time that "finest quality meats" is true is when the chickens are pesticide-free, hormone-free and free-range. Oh, and notice that they don't say anything about whether their chicken is as unfrozen as their beef. And what about us poor sods who like dark meat? Even their "wings" are made from breasts. Oh, I forgot! It's America, where white is right and brown should be drowned in the Rio Grande before it can sneak across the border.

But then, there are the apples. Just say this out loud a few times and try and think about what it means: Always-In-Season Fruit. Are they saying that they only serve fruit when it's in season? No, because the apple-pecan chicken salad is on the menu year-round. They're saying that their red and green apples are "rotated seasonally." What does that mean? Are they trying to say that they use green apples when they are in season and red ones when they are in season? I can only guess that since apple season (no matter what the color) is in the Fall, that they either pick the apples and store them and use them or they buy apples from other parts of the world when they are in season there. But again, they aren't sayin' that the apples are pesticide-free, so, in-season, no matter how they slice it, is a moot point.

I DID notice that Wendy's's website says that they offer Marzetti's all-natural salad dressings but they didn't say "organic" so I'm not sure they are actually using Marzetti's line of certified organic dressings, or not. At this point, I don't trust Wendy's's's. But, I really should. After all...

The fact that a giant chain of fast-food restaurants can spend a fortune to purposely design an ad campaign that pretends they are not selling factory-raised and factory-processed animals, fruits and vegetables and that this Big Lie goes unchallenged in the media and in the minds of most American consumers, is a testament to the fact that corporate marketers and Madison Avenue advertising agencies believe that American consumers are ignorant sheep.

They're laughing at us sheep (Baaahhh!), all the way to the bank.

Send In The Clowns

2010-06-27T17:41:00.002+02:00

I've been traveling around France for the last few weeks, in the company of two lovely friends. I can't really say that there were long stretches of empty road, when the three of us had run out of funny things to say and I could drift off and contemplate life like I used to do when I drove through the silent, hot desert from Phoenix to Los Angeles. But even amidst the lovely distractions - tiny little villages and large fortified cities, châteaux and Roman ruins, delicious lunches and dinners, interesting and strange people, comfy and not-so-comfy B&B beds - I was able to separate myself from my tiny Paris apartment where I tend to hole up and hide from various bogeys - both real and imagined.

Our surroundings can free us or constrict us, but even in the most peaceful places, we can constrict ourselves - if we don't escape once in a while. I guess it's called "gaining perspective."

When it comes to American politics, I've been sorely in need of perspective. During the presidential campaign, the practical side of me resisted falling starry-eyed for the Hope & Change slogans of Obama's candidacy, while my heart wished for those very things. Hope, while derided by the right as fanciful and weak, can be a powerful force in inspiring peoples and nations towards a better society and can lead us all out of our darkest times. I wanted to hope. So much. But, I tried to maintain a healthy cynicism.

Obviously, I wasn't successful. I cried when Obama declared an end to the shameful nightmare of Guantanamo, but this week, I read headlines that the closure is no longer a priority. I've watched as my biggest fears became reality - with the mortgage-backed securities fiasco, raging unemployment, massive home foreclosures and the BP oil disaster - sad confirmation that it's the corporations who really run America, not We The People or our elected representatives.

What was I thinking, anyway? Did I imagine that a righteous administration would swoop into Washington and fend off the insidious infiltration of the religious right into every level of our government? That corporate greed would be checked by oversight and regulation? That coalition building would become the first priority and war would become the last option? That corporations would profit from the building up Iraq and Afghanistan and winning the hearts and minds of their people rather than profit from the horrible destruction of war? That the orphans and displaced families of war-torn countries would not be forgotten? That my tax dollars, instead of fueling the war industry, would go towards building real schools - for girls and boys, males and females - to outnumber radical, extremist Madrasahs? That Obama, in his unique way, would guide us all by example (like he did during his amazing Philadelphia speech about race) to rise above inflammatory, fearful, sensationalist, sound-byte histrionics and replace it with well-informed, factual, open and respectful political dialogue? That America would stop selling white phosphorous to Israel after they used it to kill and maim innocent Palestinians and destroy their homes and buildings? That America would stop sending millions of dollars in aid to Israel to support zionist neo-con agendas? That America would demand an outside inquiry into murders by Israel on the recent Gaza aid flotilla?

Yes. That's exactly what I was thinking. And more.

You must admit, as I do, that my agenda is probably impossible. It can't all be done at once. It can't all be done in four years. And it can't be done by anyone if our elected representatives must pay the powerful corporate piper in order to be elected, stay in office and get re-elected.

It was during my scenic drive through France, that I had a few profound (or perhaps not so profound) realizations. I saw Roman walls and fortresses that stood the test of time, yet Rome did not ultimately win over France. I saw war memorials in every tiny village we drove through that were honoring those who died - children who were taken to Nazi death camps, soldiers who died before and after occupation, civilians who died defending their homes. I knew then that Americans don't have this in our DNA. Other than Pearl Harbor and 9/11, we have not tasted death and destruction in every small town and large city of our country. We see war in movie theaters and play war with paint balls and in massive multiplayer electronic games. To most of us, except our soldiers who have gone to Afghanistan and Iraq and returned to be silent or silenced, it's romantic, war. And the only stains we get are from popcorn falling into our laps.

Most of all, I realized that politics, across the globe, is a charade. Every movement is choreographed, every word scripted, to please the snaggle-toothed, slavering masses. It's an intellectual, elitist game, played by people whose favorite attack is to call their opponents intellectuals and elitists. Some puppet masters own the dogs and they're running, panting, circling, nipping at the heels of all of us sheep. The only thing to do is huddle together, move in the direction they're pushing and hope for a rest before the slaughter.

Meanwhile, to keep us all so busy we can't do the research and comparisons to find a kernel of truth in the silo of fertilizer, they push consumerism through advertising, mollify us with fantasy movies and keep us just so close to the teetering edge of debt that we are afraid to break free. And if any of us become black sheep and stray from the herd, they send in the clowns - Beck, Limbaugh, Malkin, Imus, etc. - to snarl and laugh derisively at us and urge the rest of the sheep to do the same.

I don't know what the solution is. I know it's not just one president. I know it's not just making sure that the right Progressives, Democrats, Republicans or Independents get elected. It's a consciousness change. It's a movement, in the hearts and the minds of the people, towards the light. If disaster brings on consciousness, then there's plenty of that out there now. But instead of waiting for the world to change only when it gets a baseball bat up the side of the head, couldn't we get it right, right now?

One man, Barack Obama, could have and perhaps could still influence that shift in consciousness. I saw, first-hand, the hope in people's faces here in France during the election - from the little old man at my local bakery to the plump woman who owned the cafe down the street. He said to me, "You're American? Ah! George Boosh (grimace, thumb went down). Heellary Cleentone! (thumb went up, big smile)." The cafe owner said nothing. She just posted every front page of the French papers on her cafe windows when Obama won.

Obama could actually take a huge risk and say no to special interests and make decisions that build instead of destroy. He could focus on the people - human beings of his country and of the world - who, no matter how cynical we are, no matter how well informed we are or are not, deep inside of all of us, we long for truth and fairness. We long to be included in the solution more than in the problem. In a microcosm, I saw this in the best managers I had when I was working. And I saw it when Obama gathered online grassroots support from individuals during his campaign. It's why I secretly hoped. I knew that when a leader rises up and tells the truth, tells it like it is, with respect and integrity, we will follow.

But does Obama know that the power of integrity trumps political games? That getting hundreds of millions of people in the United States on your side can be more powerful than thousands of corporate lobbyists? I hope he gets it...soon. Until then, enjoy the circus.

The Mortal Sin Of Permission

2010-04-12T20:10:00.000+02:00

Since I'm a recovering Catholic, I've been following the sexual abuse scandal closely. I have to say that Andrew Sullivan has some of the best coverage out there, including the fact that history of such abuse goes back hundreds of years, that it isn't just the Catholic church and it isn't just males who have been victimized. He posted emails from readers that have ranged from fascinating historical research, psychological profiles of abusers and personal stories of victims.

The one thing I haven't heard anyone talk about is the sin of permission. Let me explain...

When someone does something wrong and gets away with it, other people see that and decide that they can do the same thing. This happens when you parent, when you teach and when you manage people. It's human nature.

When individuals and organizations try and hide things, people on the inside talk, sotto voce, to each other. They can't help it. There has to be an outlet for the craziness, so that they don't start feeling crazy themselves.

So we can safely assume, in the case of the Catholic church's sexual predators, that other priests knew and talked to each other about it. They knew about the nice place in New Mexico where the Vatican sent the bad boys for rehab. They knew that this was probably the worst thing that could happen to them, if they ever transgressed. They would never be brought before a court of law. They would never go to jail.

The Vatican's consistent inaction, or inadequate action, their now-obvious choice of maintaining the reputation of the church to the detriment and total dismissal of the victims, the many times that victims were threatened to stay quiet, not just by the predator, but by his superiors, the patriarchal attitude towards the faithful (we are the lions and you're the dumb sheep, so shut up and say another act of contrition)...all these things added up to the Vatican creating an atmosphere of permission. Ratzinger and all of his predecessors, through their actions, gave a very clear message to predator priests that they could indulge in and continue their abuse.

I'm no Catholic scholar, but I'd say this qualifies as a mortal sin.

Labels Be Gone

2010-02-04T18:50:00.004+01:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about all these labels that are being bandied about: fringe left, lunatic liberals, those darn Progressives, etc.

I, like you, am an individual and I, like you, defy all labels.

That's why I scratch my head when pundits and government representatives talk about issues as if they're only about the labeled groups behind them. As if the issues are simply liberal or Progressive and the conversation stops there. It has become a way to neatly derail debate and dismiss issues before they can be addressed. It's a tactic and it sucks.

What makes me a liberal and what makes me a Progressive? As I sit here in my apartment, with my comfy Afghan shoes and Target corduroys, with my cleanly shaved and washed body (finally!) and my Mac. Alone by choice. Straight by who knows what genetic mishap. I sit here aware of a greater force than me - within me and all around me and within all those I happen upon - that can enlighten me if I listen, yet I am also fervently against organized religions. All of these and much more define who I am. So, what am I? Simply a liberal? Simply a Progressive?

It's never that simple. But it seems like everyone keeps trying to make it that simple, so they can make it or me or my issues go away.

What I want for myself and the world is pretty simple. I want individuals of all shapes and sizes, all orientations and backgrounds, all economic levels and abilities - to have a voice and most importantly, to have rights. I want people to be able to choose their own destiny, their own future, their own lovers, their own path. I want those who've lost their way to be given a hand, whether it be my own, some other individual or organization, or the government's. I want the assault of women around the world to stop. I want children to be safe and protected. I want our governments to serve their people and at the same time, to serve the greater good of all nations and all people. I want conflict, at every level, to be resolved through words and laws and actions and concessions which have been fueled by the fire of righteousness and truth. I don't want war to be the answer, ever. I want commerce to be driven by customer needs, not the greed of the self-serving. I want even the most "evil" of criminals or prisoners to be treated with respect, be given the right to a fair defense and trial, no matter what crime they have committed or have been accused of comitting. I don't want torture or the death penalty to be practiced anywhere in the world, by anyone, at any time. There is no ticking bomb scenario that can convince me otherwise. I want government money to be spent to raise up its people, so that the country and the world will be a better place. I want countries like Haiti to be governed by people who won't rape and plunder, who won't keep the riches for themselves while their people live in squalor and ignorance. I want everyone to have the opportunity to be educated and make a life for themselves and their families and I have absolutely no problem with those who attain wealth. But I want all of us to share our wealth - of money, knowledge or experience - to make a better world.

I don't see any of this as laughable. If there are snickers and derision, then I don't know what kind of world those who snicker or deride can possibly want.

Haitians have been the victims of greedy dictators and opportunists, Gordon Gekkos of the Caribbean. I suppose there are people who think this is just fine, but now that an act of nature has leveled this already-bleeding country, these same people probably are angry that we are sending money and aid to Haiti.

If Haiti and her people had been nurtured and built up and given education, opportunity and sustenance, then when the earthquake hit, the world would not have had to come to its aid in such a massive way. We would be there, of course, yet the government of Haiti would not have hidden, cowering somewhere without communicating, without leading its people out of the darkness of destruction. The UN and President Clinton and the US Army and health care professionals and newscasters and rescue squads and cameramen and radio DJs and movie stars from all over the world wouldn't have to fall into that vacuum of leadership and figure out how to steer the way.

I'm not just a liberal, not just a Progressive, not just a woman. I'm an individual human being and I want what's best for me, my family, my friends, my enemies, all living things, my country of origin, the country I'm living in now, my planet and the universe, such as it is. I want to grow, change, evolve. I want to learn to live without fear, so that I can give more of myself.

Go ahead, label me now.

Fuck Them All

2009-11-26T06:43:00.001+01:00

I received this just now from United Progressives. My government, and its useless "representatives of the people" in Congress are nothing but corporate whores. I'm glad to be gone. Here's my favorite quote: "The current health insurance reform legislation passing through Congress amounts to a massive bailout of the profit-making health industries, which will enrich them and increase their ability to lobby and otherwise influence legislators in the future."

Fuck them all. Oh, and here's the letter...

Good Morning! I am Dr. Margaret Flowers. I am a pediatrician and the Congressional Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program. I also serve on the steering committee of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care and on the board of Healthcare-Now, a national single payer grassroots organization.

Members of Physicians for a National Health Program (known as PNHP) educate and advocate for a single payer national health system, also known as Medicare for All. PNHP performs ground breaking research on the health crisis and the need for fundamental reform and contributes scholarly articles to peer-reviewed medical journals. PNHP takes pride in providing information that can inform legislators and the public about the reasons why Medicare for All is the optimal solution to provide necessary medical treatment to everyone in a way that controls health care costs. PNHP does not take a position on how congress members should vote on the legislation that is currently proceeding through congress. We do provide information to members about whether the legislation is likely to be effective and how it compares to a national single payer health system.
We share the growing sense of desperation among patients and providers across the nation, desperation which has been heightened by the economic crisis. Like you, we are hungry for change. We believe that we should act based on the evidence of what types of health reform have been most effective in the United States. Review of the current health insurance reform legislation reveals that it resembles health reforms that have recently been tried and have failed at the state level.

It is for the reasons listed below that we ask our legislators to start from scratch in order to create health reform that addresses the fundamental problems with health care in this nation and creates a health system that is of similar quality to those in the top industrialized nations.
1. During the time that it will take for the health insurance legislation to begin (2013 in the House version and 2014 in the Senate version), tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans will die.

2. Once the insurance reform takes effect, people will still be left without health insurance. Whether it is the 17 million left out of the House version or the 24 million left out of the Senate version, we find this unacceptable. We know that the actual number of uninsured people is likely to be higher than these estimates and we know that people without insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than those who have insurance.
3. Medical bankruptcies will continue to occur as families will face out-of-pocket costs on covered services of up to $10,000 in addition to the cost of premiums and the cost of uncovered services. The average medical debt that causes insured families to become bankrupt is $18,000.
4. People who are uninsured will suffer the further indignity of being forced to pay a fine which may be as high as 2.5% of their income (House version).

5. The number of people who are underinsured will increase with this legislation. People will be required to purchase health insurance or face a penalty. There is no guarantee that premiums will be affordable even for those who qualify for federal subsidies. Health insurers have already predicted that the cost of premiums will rise because they are being required to stop the practices of excluding pre-existing conditions and rescissions. The public insurance is estimated to be more expensive than private insurance plans. A similar reform in Massachusetts has resulted in a rise of patients who forego needed care because they cannot afford the co-pays and deductibles once they have paid for their premiums.

6. People will continue to be consigned to only receiving the quality of care that they can afford. Instead of a standardized benefit plan that covers all necessary care, people will have to choose from a tiered set of plans. The least expensive plans will cover only 60% of necessary care and patients will be required to pay the balance.

7. The legislation will not control health care costs and will in fact increase the waste in health care spending. The regulation of insurance companies, which has failed to date and is predicted to fail again by industry whistleblowers, will be expensive to enforce. And the “exchanges” will have to be created from scratch. The exchange will add another level of bureaucracy which in Massachusetts has added a 4% charge to each insurance premium. Unfortunately, this legislation does nothing to reclaim the hundreds of billions of dollars that are currently wasted on administration, paperwork and marketing for the hundreds of health plans in existence.

8. The legislation transfers hundreds of billions of public dollars to private insurance companies. People will be mandated to purchase health insurance whether they can afford it or not, so the insurance companies benefit by having millions of new enrollees. In addition, between $447 and $605 billion in public dollars (depending on the senate or house version) will be given to the private insurers in the forms of subsidies to help people purchase their defective product.

9. The legislation protects the outrageous profits of the pharmaceutical corporations. The majority of Americans will not see any improvement in the costs of medications and the pharmaceutical corporations have already raised prices on brand name prescriptions by 9% this year. Biotech firms receive a windfall 12 year patent on new pharmaceuticals.

10. The legislation continues to allow discrimination based on age and immigration status. Older enrollees can be charged up to twice as much as younger enrollees. And enrollees will be required to prove citizenship in order to receive subsidies. Non-citizens will be required to bear the full cost of purchasing insurance.

The current health insurance reform legislation passing through Congress amounts to a massive bailout of the profit-making health industries, which will enrich them and increase their ability to lobby and otherwise influence legislators in the future. At the same time, patients will receive little in the way of long-lasting protection or ability to afford needed health care. The legislation is designed to fail and in the meantime, will waste billions of dollars and delay the process of creating effective health reform.

We call on Congress to start from scratch. We believe that we have the resources in the United States to create a national health system that will improve the health of the people of our nation. We believe that being ranked 37th in the world for health outcomes is unacceptable and that we, as a nation, can do much better than this. We believe that improving and expanding Medicare to all people is the simplest and quickest way to achieve our goal of universal and financially-sustainable health care.

As far as the health insurance legislation in congress goes, we support Senator Sanders’ substitution amendment which will substitute public financing for the current complicated and wasteful patchwork of financing. We urge our senators to vote “yes” on the Sanders’ amendment.

No matter what happens in Congress this year, we will continue to build the Medicare for all movement until we reach the day when all who live in the United States receive the same health security that is a right in other industrialized nations. We look forward to the day when doctors are free to focus on the needs of their patients without interference by health insurance administrators. We welcome all people who support health care reform to join with us in this movement. Together, we will succeed.

Net Neutrality (and Your Gonads) Explained

2009-10-27T15:42:00.000+01:00

I never thought I would need to write about this, because I kind of assumed that in general, people know what net neutrality means. Of course, if everybody knew everything, then I wouldn't be teaching in a university now, would I? (I'm still shocked when I watch my students write down everything I say. "Wow," I think, "you didn't know that?" I guess they didn't. Actually, what I really think is, "Wow. You think what I'm saying is important? My mother never did." But I digress.)

I just finished my routine of catching up on Jon Stewart's Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's Whatever Show. On Stewart's show, he revealed what I did not know (because I try not to listen to Republican mouth pieces if I can avoid it), and that is that Republicans are lying through their teeth AGAIN. I really should not be shocked at this, because whereever money flows into a Republican's pocket, there shall be his or her platform. And so, all the corporate media behemouths are bound and determined to block net neutrality in order to secure enough money so they can pay off more Republicans (oh, and to be fair, several Democrats, I'm sure) to make sure the media conglomerates can continue to make ludicrous amounts of money off of us.

The lies are typical - spreading enough fear to shrink the gonads of regular gullible Americans so that they run to their elected representatives and scream at them to save them from socialism, gayness, government control and terrorists against marriage, oh and tea bags too, just for good measure.

So, let me try and explain net neutrality to you, in case your gonads have climbed up into your asshole and you're busy building an underground fallout shelter just in case Obama's Socialist Secret Soldiers come knocking on your door demanding your soul and push their way into your very own living room so that they can turn your children into gays.

In a perfect world, net neutrality means that the Internet is neutral to the content that travels upon its "tubes." The Internet is just a vehicle or conduit for content. It passes no judgment nor imposes restrictions on that content. It sends your porn video bytes (Not bites folks. Settle down.) to you the same way it sends that video of Sarah Palin getting exorcised by her crazy-ass preacher. The internet doesn't look at Sarah Palin and decide to download her faster than your porn (Thank The Lourd). No. It sends both videos to you (because there are people out there that watch BOTH Sarah Palin AND porn videos, and you know who you are) at the same speed.

Here's another example. Your car is also a neutral vehicle. If you buy a Ford, you aren't restricted to buy only Exxon gas. Your Ford is neutral when it comes to the fuel it uses to get from one place to the other. Both your fuel and your car are neutral. Neither one gives a rat's ass if you drive home to your wife or across town to your Mistress. The car doesn't go any faster or slower based on which person you will be visiting. The fuel doesn't spark more or less based on where you go either. Your Ford passes no judgment on you. Only we pass judgment on you for driving one.

Your computer is mostly neutral (I say mostly because Bill Gates tried to control how you used your computer through limitations in your browser and Microsoft applications). No matter where you go, you can plug it in to an electrical socket and charge it. The electrical socket doesn't give a shit what you do on your computer. It just sends electricity to your computer to keep it running. It won't DENY electricity because you are using your computer TOO MUCH, or looking at the WRONG things.

Your computer is neutral in another way. You can get the Internet on your computer from any Internet Service Provider (ISP) out there. Your computer doesn't slow down or speed up based on which ISP you're using. You can go online via cellular, wireless, wired, satellite, cable, T1, dialup or DSL. Your computer couldn't care less which one you choose. These different providers are inherently slower (Dialup) or faster (T1) based on their physical limitations, but not based on some human deciding to fuck with you and make your internet slower.

That's what the people against net neutrality want to do. They want to fuck with you based on how you use the internet and what content you choose to access over the internet. They want to make judgments about what you do on the internet and punish your ass because of it. If you're a superuser, you get slowed down, unless you pay a premium to get faster speed. If you're a superuser AND a schlub with no money (like me), you won't be able to pay the premium, so you're stuck with slower access.

Without net neutrality, if you watch lots of video online or play massive-multi-player games online, your ISP can detect that, and slow your ass down. Or, if your ISP gets PAID by some content provider to FAVOR their content over somebody else's, then when you access the other content, it'll be as slow as molasses. If you go and pay a premium to download the favored content, it'll be faster than a speeding bullet (to the brain).

In other words, your ISP, like Comcast for instance, will have (and in the case of Comcast, already has) you by the gonads.

Here's an example of something that is NOT neutral: your cell phone. Your cell phone should be like your computer, but it isn't. You buy an iPhone from Apple and in the US they force you to use AT&T as your carrier. Apple locks the phone (that you paid a fortune for - isn't that nice?) and you can't use any other provider. In Europe, that's against the law. That's because in Europe, they are more consumer-centric, versus corporate-centric. They actually care about the consumer. So, when I bought my iPhone here, I had a choice between three carriers: Orange, SFR and Bouygues. Of course, if I go back to the states, I can't just slip a SIM card from an American carrier into my iPhone. Because Apple made sure I couldn't do that. Steve Jobs sold his soul to the devil on this one.

Your ISP, like Comcast, and their partners who wish to make more money off of you, are the ones trying to destroy net neutrality. It's THEM that you should be afraid of. It's THEM that wish to control you. It's them that want to stick their noses into your private life and regulate you and based on what you do online, punish you with higher fees. It's THEM that can be bribed by anybody to make sure that you only see THEIR content, versus the content you want to see.

It is NOT our government who wants to control your life in this situation, OK?

Yell loudly at your representatives to VOTE FOR net neutrality, or Big Brother (in the form of your ISP) actually will be looking over your shoulder, very, very soon (If they aren't already). (Your gonads should be tiny little rocks right now, but for the right reasons this time.) Learn more at wearetheweb.org and/or savetheinternet.com. And take all the actions suggested on those sites (email your representative, sign petitions, etc.). If you want to read what the guy who invented the internet thinks about net neutrality, go here.

My apologees to anyone who has only one gonad, or no gonads at all. You know who you are.

Healthcare: Listening For What's Not Being Said

2009-10-13T22:23:00.006+02:00

I haven't heard anyone say that Medicare is broke(n).

I haven't heard my mother or father bitch about "that godamned Medicare." Ever. And they call everything else godamned at least 20 times a day. My mother has Fox news on mute, all day long, so she can hear herself yell, "Oh shut your godamned mouth!" to any liberal that has the gonads to step foot upon the sacred ground of O'Reilly's Christian (and Christmas!) Vibratorlandia. She doesn't turn the sound back on to hear what the guest commie has to say. She already knows that he/she is a hippie ass and all he/she is saying is crap! and he/she needs to get his/her ass kicked.

So if my mother doesn't bitch about Medicare? That's something.

My dad figures out how to get his catheters cheaper. And conspires with his doctor's nurse to get them covered by Medicare, along with the cute little alcohol towelettes that come in boxes of 300 and something. So he's kinda sorta workin' the system. Kinda sorta like those welfare whores that he and my mother hate so much. Kinda sorta sucking off the government tit. So, why would he bitch about Medicare?

I guess because it works for him.

I haven't heard anyone say that Medicare is on the brink of running out of money. But they sure do say it all the time about the Socialist Security Program started by that New Deal bastard Roosevelt in 1935. They've been telling us that Social Security will run out of money - tomorrow! - for about 20 years, or as long as I can remember, which lately, is 5 minutes ago.

It's like that promise I used to see behind the bar in Cave Creek, Arizona - "Free beer. Tomorrow." I kept going back to that bar, every day, and for some godamned reason, it was never tomorrow.

I haven't heard anyone say that Medicare has single-handedly pushed this country down the slippery slope of socialism on the way to the Siberian gulags of communism and sooner than anyone of us dare to even think, straight into the everlasting, singeing, smoking fires of Hades. Medicare is taking us straight to hell. We will not pass go. We will not collect any insurance redemption. We certainly will have no fucking virgins. I haven't heard anyone say any of that.

I also haven't heard that Medicare will lead us to corpse fucking. I'm actually surprised at that. But the guy that was obsessing about gay marriage leading to corpse fucking on the Senate floor (well, actually, he was just talking about gay marriage leading to corpse fucking - I can't get enough of that phrase, frankly - he wasn't talking about actually DOING it on the Senate floor, he was just talking ABOUT IT on the Senate floor - phew! Glad I clarified that!) is on a government-paid healthcare plan, much like...er...Medicare. He's also conspiring with his doctor's nurse, to get free shit through his godamned socialized medicine plan, and probably asks her some pretty pointed questions about corpses while he's at it.

I HAVE heard some people say that Medicare costs less to maintain than private health insurance. Maybe once. On some late, late, late, late night blogger radio show.

So....why is a public health care option, a single payer option, something just like, um, Medicare, such a freaking problem?

I think it's always a good exercise to cut through all the hysteria and chatter and try to hear what isn't being said. It can be quite illuminating.

And, by the way, I haven't lost interest in starting our own Progressive Country. I'm just cranking out content for work right now and experimenting with creating a Facebook page for one of my classes. Once I'm done with that, I'll know how to create a page for our new country. Then maybe we can discuss whether or not people can marry corpses. Or marry more than one corpse. As the first Queen of the Progressive Lands (we'll probably have Rotating Royalty), I will decree that you can marry as many corpses as you like. That would be big-o'-me, now wouldn't it?

Let's Start A New Country

2009-10-08T10:25:00.000+02:00

I'm pretty fed up. The Republicans actually cheered when America lost the Olympics bid. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) just said that the Hate Crimes Bill Will Legalize Bestiality, Corpse-Fucking, Pedophilia, Lead To Nazism. Obama decided to continue illegal rendition. Obama continues to let the GLBT community down by not ridding us of the childishly ridiculous and shameful Don't Ask Don't Tell. That goofball dentist lawyer birther babe Orly Taitz is actually still getting press coverage. And healthcare? Don't get me started. These issues aren't just "Oh, darn, we lost that vote. Maybe next time!" These issues and events are disgusting! Ludicrous! And they are stuck in my craw and just won't go down, no matter how much Russian vodka I drink. (Thanks Anna!)

I woke up the other morning thinking that surely, surely, there's an island we can buy somewhere and start our own country? Even though it's just a fantasy, I'd rather start drafting my fantasy country's bill o' rights and constitution than continue to rant and rave at my newsfeeder about the insanity of my own country. It would be an interesting conversation, at least. Hell, I put way too much time into building my virtual farm in FarmVille on FaceBook. At least engaging with my other Progressive friends on a virtual country would be productive. Maybe we should just invent a game and stick it in FaceBook and see what ensues.

Perhaps, as Freud came to believe before he died, that humankind was just an uncontrollable mob, driven by deep-seated, unconscious evil tendencies and doomed to destruction unless they are controlled by a more intelligent elite, we might fail to get along too. But, call me Pollyanna, I just don't agree. Maybe that's why I spent all my time studying Jung and ignoring Freud.

Can we create a hierarchy-free country? I've witnessed 12-step programs working quite well all over the world, completely managed by volunteers with absolutely no hierarchy. It can be done.

How 'bout it, Arvan, Katharine, NewsWriter, Lori, Kim, Dana, Lisa - and any other interested party (I couldn't list you all, so don't feel left out) - wanna play? Should we start a FaceBook page and start drafting and voting on our own laws? Do you think we could get along better than our not-so-esteemed elected officials? At least we wouldn't have pockets full of cash from industry lobbies to distract us.

The Devolution of Mankind

2009-08-23T20:58:00.005+02:00

I don't know why I'm so disheartened.

I guess it's obvious that right-wing politicians are acting like children - making shit up (even though Sarah Palin told us not to, in support of the troops, dontcha know - and even though I have no freaking idea what the connection is between her lying ass, the press, and soldiers, but ya know, that's just Sarah!), obfuscating, obstructing just for the sake of obstructing and just plain forgetting about their constituents until they need to stir them up into salivating, gun-toting, town-hall-shouting frenzies in order to get the brain-dead main stream media aroused and off their sweltering summertime DC bar stools.

But what's new about all that?

And then these Republican bastards are joining with their Democratic bastard pals to lick the stinking buttholes of the health and insurance lobby so that the steady flow of money, and the high-end Congressional and Senatorial lifestyles, power and influence funded by such a flow, won't be interrupted.

There are no death threats from public healthcare. Just a death knell to profit-bloated insurance companies who will spend every fucking cent of your premiums to whip the slaves into a final oar push of their gold-laden pirate ships through these tumultuous waters of late. Oh, and the bell also tolls for the silent people who die every fucking day because they either are not insured or are underinsured or are insured but afraid to go to the doctor because their premiums will go up or they'll be diagnosed with a pre-existing condition and be fucked for life. These evil insurance companies will do anything, anything at all, to convince an enormously gullible and reactionary and childish American public that the very same companies who deny Americans health coverage and spend every waking hour thinking of ways to deny their claims, are their fucking SAVIORS.

Well, it's just...stunning.

And then, after 8 years of the BushCo ass-kissing press minions running images of Kalashnikov-wielding Middle Eastern "terrorists" on the front page of once-glorious and now laughable daily newspapers, and Americans looking at those pictures with sneers and horror and saying, "What a bunch of ragheads! Look at 'em! Running around with automatic weapons in the street for God's sake! BARBARIANS!" we now have people showing up at Obama's town hall meetings toting automatic weapons. But that? Why, that's just fucking dandy. We're UHMERICUH after all. Not barbarians!

And then that amped-up (was she doing coke OR WHAT?) Betsy McCaughey on Jon Stewart slapping the giant healthcare bill on Jon's desk for no reason whatsoever that I could discern, since every time she did it she said, with her own flavor of repulsive gusto, "I'll READ it to you!", then she never would fucking find the particular paragraph and read it. I kept yelling at the teevee, "Just READ the fucking thing! Will you just read it? OH MY GOD just REEEEEEEED IIIIIIT!" Then she insisted on playing to the jury (audience) as if she'd been prepped by OJ's trial lawyer, instead of actually having a reasonable discussion with Jon. She's the self-declared expert but Jon sat there calmly with all the knowledge of the bill in his head while she scrambled from page to page never finding anything she was looking for, but when he finally had to grab it from her and read it, she had to keep looking out at the jury and nodding and smiling and frowning and then back at Jon where she'd lunge into his face and point at some general point on the page. I bet you a million dollars that she was grinding her teeth at the same time. That girl snorted a big fat line right before she came on stage. She did a big-ass bump. I know she did.

Maybe McCaughey should have done what D'Amato told her to do in the first place and blown ol' Giuliani, after all.

I'm just exhausted by all the ignorance and tomfoolery. These are grown men and women, but you could have fooled me. And I think that countering all this shit, in writing or in conversation, is an enormous waste of breath. And don't fucking get me started on Obama and the Democrats who actually have allowed this three-ring circus on healthcare to devolve into pandemonium, WHEN WE HAVE A FILIBUSTER-PROOF MAJORITY! What the FUCK? What the FUCK! is all I can say.

For those of you who think this is a fun game where politicians make things up all day long because 'That's politics!" and get your rocks off on arguing and fussin' and fightin' and fueling the fire...I think, no matter what side you're on, that you need psychological help. The current state of American affairs is not amusing at all. It's a despicable and shameful part of our history that is sure to be laughed at (I hope, I hope!) by a more evolved human race 20-50 years from now, if the planet hasn't been blown up by a toothless gun-totin' anti-immigrant pro-life pro-gun gay-hatin' Krishtian fundamentalist nutcase Republican next week.

And...just after I hit the post button and shuffled back sadly to my feed reader, I got to have a big laugh at this. My mostest, mostest favorite? We Are All Nazis in the Eyes of the Lord!

Ahh, perhaps we're not so lost, after all.

Obama's Upcoming Presser Notes Leaked

2009-08-19T11:12:00.006+02:00

(Note from speech writer: President Obama, take a look at this and let me know if it works for you, so I can get it to the teleprompter guy before the presser.)

Good morning. I come to you today with good news. Last night, Jesus, Moses and Sarah Palin came to me in a dream, and I have finally seen the light. They revealed to me that my socialistic ways will lead to communism, and even though the United States likes to do business with and borrow billions of dollars from communists in China (so we can fund our wars and keep American military contractors wealthy), we don't want to BE like those commies, we just want to USE them.

So, it is my sincere hope that my actions today will finally put an end to your anger and fear (and hopefully you'll stop bringing guns and rocket launchers to my parties). Today I plan to take unilateral actions, with the executive order capability that my friend George W. Bush gave to me, in order to end all socialist programs in the United States. As of midnight tonight, all socialist programs will be discontinued, all employees of those programs will no longer have jobs and all recipients of those services will no longer be able to obtain services.

But please, don't worry. I have been assured by Jesus himself (even though he had a hard time getting a word in edgewise with Sarah Palin yapping incoherantly) that The God Of The Free Market will take care of all of you in no time at all. You can send your prayers to this God (not to be confused with that God, Jesus's dad) to your local Republican party offices, your friendly corporate insurance lobby and all of the other "grassroots" organizations who have been encouraging you to disrupt Democracy with shout-down tactics, believe all kinds of horse pucky that isn't true, and who will desert you as soon as they don't need you any more. Good luck with all that.

Here are the programs I will be stopping at midnight tonight:

Medicare
Police
Fire dept
Highways maintenance
Military
Sewers
FEMA
National Institute of Health
Your free Swine Flu shots

This list is incomplete, of course. (Writer's note: Mr. President, I'm lurking on the Distributor Cap NY blog to see if he reveals any more of those dasterdly socialist programs and will add to the list as they come in.) Because I now know that socialism lurks in the dark corners of our society in many scary ways. So, I will be spending the last years of my term finding those socialst programs everywhere, and killing them where they stand.

Oh, and don't worry about socialised medicine anymore, or even health care reform. I got the message loud and clear that health care WORKS in America. So, as my granny (whom I actually killed in a regretful fit of sinful health care reformism) used to say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" You can keep your private health insurance and let them continue to charge you outrageous premiums and fight any claims you make. If you are denied coverage from an insurer, well, just do something. I don't know what. I'm sure The God Of Free Markets will let you know.

Thank you, and God Bless America.

Blah Blah Blah Health Care Blah Blah Blah

2009-08-15T09:13:00.003+02:00

I read a post over at BayouRenaissanceMan about "socialized" health care and had so many thoughts about his post that his comment box laughed at me when I tried to publish. So....I will post my thoughts here:

I didn't read the original article or Roberta's rant yet (see bayou's post for links to both), but I wanted to make a few comments while they're in my head...

If I read Bayou's post correctly, he states that there are some people who have health issues because of their lifestyle (smokers get cancer, etc.) and not just because of chance, and he asks how much care should be given to these people and for how long? Here's what came to mind for me:

If I get sick and need care and the care provider can make a decision as to the amount or quality of care I receive based on his/her own judgment of my morals or the circumstances of my illness, then my health care turns into a crap shoot. Who knows what mood the care giver is in, or what their belief system is or what their prejudices are (we are all prejudiced to some degree, if we are honest) at what might be a critical time for me. I think it's problematic to base the availability, quality or duration of care on the subjective judgment of individual humans or institutions. Because, it inevitably ends up with somebody playing God, if the decisions can impact whether a person lives or dies or they rebound to full productivity or just drool in a chair the rest of their life.

So I think it is best if health care (whether public or private) treats the illness objectively - such-and-such symptom requires such-and-such treatment - without the invasion of moralistic or other subjective judgment criteria.

Discarding, dismissing or withholding care from people because of their waywardness is not a very, um, Christian thing to do. There are some very brave people out there who work with rapists and murderers (i.e. "bad" people) to try and help them, because these care givers or religious people have compassion for all living beings, and because they know that many victimizers were victims of violence themselves. If one of those criminals can be helped, it is a good thing. I think it's problematic to say that because so-and-so did these bad things, that they deserve less care, or no care at all. If I was a foolish American who got caught protesting the regime in Iran (or was just hiking in the wrong place or stepped over the border into North Korea) and got injured while being arrested or in jail, I wouldn't want my health care determined by the judgments of Iranian doctors or jailers as to whether or not this infidel deserves care. I know this seems like an extreme example, but we have just recently seen two reporters arrested in North Korea and hikers arrested in Iran, so this is a very real possibility.

If Mary Magdalen got syphilis and was dying, I don't know if Jesus would have patted her on the head and said, "Well Mary, now you know the consequences of your sinful whore life! I'll pray while you suffer and die, that you might be lucky enough to be forgiven by my father and allowed to enter the gates of heaven. Other than that, see ya!"

I live in France where there is a combination of public and private health care, and there is nobody making a decision about my worthiness for care. You just get sick and then you get care, whether you can afford it or not. I just read recently over at TPMCafe from another American girl who lives in France and just got diagnosed with breast cancer, that the French have a review board who will review more complex cases (long-term diabetes or cancer care) and determine if the patient receives 100% state coverage or the regular 70% that all citizens get. Most long-term care cases receive the 100% coverage. You don't have to wait for care during this review. You just pay the 30% you normally pay and if you receive the 100% coverage, it's retroactive and covers past bills.

So, I'm not sure that providing care for anyone who needs it, through objective medical decision making, versus subjective judgment about a patient's worthiness is what Bayou man would call "one size fits all" "socialized" medicine. But it's what I prefer. And I believe a public, government-funded health program (with all its inherant beurocratic bullshit) has more of a chance of delivering objective care, than a profit-motivated insurance company who WILL and constantly DOES make decisions about whether or not you qualify for coverage.

Another thought before I go - There will always be people who are not so much unfortunate as they are manipulative, cunning and who take advantage of anything and anybody. There will always be people who figure out how to "game" the system and get stuff without working for it. I believe (and have no facts to back it up) that the percentage of those types of people is low and I also believe that we can't make a decision to implement or not implement something, based on those people. We just have to figure them into the overall cost, just like restaurant owners figure in a general cost for employee theft and dishware breakage.

I've paid into the US tax and Social Security system for more than 30 years, and although I've lost several jobs during the dot bomb, I only collected unemployment once for a few weeks until I got pissed off at what a big hassle it was. I realized that if I accepted my $750 a month from unemployment, if I got three little jobs (which is what I eventually did) that added another $2000 a month to that $750, I would come closer to the $3500 per month overhead I had created when I had those high-paying corporate jobs. But I wasn't allowed to do that. I had to only accept the $750 and make no extra money, or not take the $750 at all. So I either had to game the system and collect unemployment and do the little jobs under the table, or not take the unemployment. I'm a lousy liar, so I chose to not take the unemployment, and take my chances with waitressing, driving a van for a trail riding company and babysitting an art gallery.

But the thing about unemployment is that they told me I had paid so much into the system that I had hundreds of weeks available to me. I could have just surfed on those many weeks until I used them all up. After all, It's MY money. But, I don't mind if somebody else less fortunate, whether they are gaming the system or not, gets that money instead of me. At the same time, me and my various employers have paid thousands and thousands of dollars into the coffers of private insurance companies, and I have rarely gone to the doctor and have had no major or lingering health care needs during the last 30 years of employment. It DOES piss me off that all that money went into the pockets of insurance company executives. I would MUCH RATHER know that the money I paid in for health care but didn't use, went towards helping somebody else in need.

You So Sensitive!

2009-08-13T14:25:00.006+02:00

Yesterday afternoon I was on my way back to my temporary-temporary Paris apartment from my temporary apartment (too hard to explain) and there on the sidewalk was a woman with a 4-5' tall by about 3' wide hand-made sign with "Obamanator" written on the top, above an image of Obama with the right half of his face replaced with steel robotics and his right eye painted red like a laser. Under the image, in French, the sign read, "He is terrorizing the elderly and the children." There was more shit on the sign, but after hesitating, I just kept going. The sign woman was deep in conversation with two guys, and I figured I'd let it go. As Dorothy (sans braids and ruby slippers), I was so glad to be out of fucking Kansas, but I soon realized that Kansas followed me over to Paris somehow or another.

Fuck.

I've mostly been reeling in silent horror about the bullshit I saw and heard while in America. I know people felt constrained around me, because they couldn't say all the nasty things that they think and feel about Obama and the current administration. But at the same time, some of them kind of enjoyed taunting me with their opinions, just to see if I'd react. It reminded me of the manicurist I used to go to across the street from my condo in Arizona. She'd cut my hands while filing my nails, and blood would be balling up in my cuticles. But if I said, "Ow!" or pulled my hand back from the pain, she'd look at me with feigned surprise and say, "Oh lookee you! You so sensitive!"

Well...when somebody calls Obama a nigger, or says "I hate gay people. They should all be killed." I can definitely, definitely, definitely agree with my former manicurist: Lookee me! I so sensitive!

One morning at breakfast at an American golf course, after somebody said they loved Rush Limbaugh and somebody else said, "You love Rush? That's great! I think Rush Limbaugh is a True Patriot!", some sane person at the table said, "We shouldn't talk politics at breakfast." I said, "Yes, that would be really, really nice if we didn't talk politics." Someone who I love very much, leaned in to me and quietly said very, very sweetly because I know he loves me too, "If you want to talk politics, you have to hear the other side." And he's so right. But my response was, "I'll talk policy all night long, but I won't talk personal attacks."

I don't consider any conversation about Rush Limbaugh worth having. He's a radio personality who (like his TV cohort Glenn Beck) makes money in direct proportion to how much shit he can stir up. The more nutty and over-the-top his rhetoric, the more attention he gets from the press, and the more false power (through superiority and aggression) his fans proudly claim by association. If somebody wants to repeat something specific and real that Rush said about policy, then it would be a great conversation to discuss that policy aspect, or the pros and cons of that policy. But if somebody wants to talk about Limbaugh's patriotism (or mine, for that matter), which is a completely vague concept to begin with, and something that is supercharged with irrational, nationalistic, propped-up bullshit emotion, I won't do it. Fuck patriotism and nationalism and everything that comes with it. Let's talk about what works, and doesn't work or what might work better, in existing and proposed policy.

There are many things that me and conservatives agree with politically right now. Neither of us likes the fact that Geithner gave all that money to his banking and insurance buddies so that they could reap huge profits while individual Americans and small businesses are suffering with no solution in sight. If the government had given relief to the toxic mortgage holders themselves - temporarily lowering payments or allowing an interest moratorium, etc. - then maybe the whole mortgage and real estate industry wouldn't have collapsed. People could have stayed in their homes and after the economy recovered, they could take back the slack and repay the moratoriums.

I also had a conversation with a conservative who agreed with me that the problem with health care in America is the insurance companies acting as middle men and the pharmaceutical companies robbing us blind. We both agreed that the chances of getting rid of the REAL health care problem - the corporate insurance middle men - would never happen while millions of dollars in insurance industry lobby money is flowing into Capital Hill pockets on both sides of the aisle.

My Republican politician friend made the mistake of saying in the car when we were driving from Vegas to San Diego, "Obama said he'd stop the war, but all he's done is expand it." I had seen and heard this Republican talking point before she said it, so I knew she was just thoughtlessly mouthing off the party line. I lost my voice yelling at her. I'm one of those people that want us OUT of Iraq and Afghanistan NOW. But I knew Obama wouldn't do that. I knew that before he was elected. I also know that the supposed withdrawal from Iraq that supposedly happened is bullshit. I also know Obama is going to add more troops in Afghanistan. So, her talking point is right. What fucking pissed me off until my head started spinning and green slime started spewing out of my mouth, was my Republican friend's nonchalant, wide-eyed-innocent complaint about Obama expanding the war. That took balls. After she and her Republican cohorts voted to START that motherfucking war to begin with, based on a LIE, to illegally invade a country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11. And then continue the war. And then torture people. And then disappear people. And then use illegal rendition and kidnap people. And then deny human beings habeas corpus and keep people in prison without a trial. And then set up kangaroo courts with no intention of letting anybody end up being innocent. Now, after tossing this huge Republican-created pile o' shit into the lap of the incoming president and administration, she plays innocent. What? Why are you so upset?

You hands bleed? Aw. You house blown up? Aw. You whole family die in war? Aw. You teenage brother in prison in Guantanamo? Aw. You country destroyed? Aw. Wall Street take you money? Aw. You lose you house, you job? Aw. Lookee here! You crying? Awww. You so sensitive!

Molten Bolton

2009-08-10T10:37:00.000+02:00

I'm back in Paris (Yay!) and recently caught up on a bunch of Jon Stewart's Daily Shows. One of the things I like about Stewart is that he has people on the show that I don't like, but he treats them with respect, when I would have done something different, like... not have them on the show at all. When I saw that John Bolton would be on one of the segments as the guest, I almost didn't watch it. But curiosity won out.

I've been railing against the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and all of its n'er-do-wells like Bolton, Cheney, Abrams, Yoo, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush (G must have been out getting drunk), Scooter Libby, Steve Forbes, Bill Kristol, Kagan, Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, etc. for, well, a New American Century (at least that's what it feels like). But since I'm a Z-list blogger (I stole that from some other Z-lister who is so unknown, just like me, that he'll never know I stole it), somehow my PNAC rants have never made it to MSNBC. Darn. Last night I mentioned PNAC to an Irish writer friend and I watched that "oh, you believe in that conspiracy theory" smile flash across his face. I was just stunned that he even knew who/what PNAC was. He said, "Did you know that the origin of those guys was liberal?" Yup. Bill Kristol's dad started the whole mess. And I understand how that kind of evolution happens...people's pendulums can swing from one extreme to the other. But, in this case, I think it's beside the point.

In the PNAC statement of principles, they state very, very clearly: We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership. ... Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

This isn't, "We lead through diplomacy and right thinking and cooperation and mutual respect and benefit." This is, "We lead by force. If you don't follow, we'll nuke your ass."

Hell, they urged Clinton to get rid of Saddam Hussein all the way back in 1998. And since Clinton was too busy smoking cigars and getting blow jobs, he kind of failed in that one area. We had to wait for the PNAC shadow government to prop up nincompoop GW Bush to pretend that 911 was perpetrated by Saddam so we culd invade Iraq and git 'er done! Somehow, I prefer blow jobs to bombs. I'm just sayin'.

If you read PNAC's project paper, Rebuilding America's Defenses (PDF), written in 2000, which they famously still have online, because they famously believe in it, you can see, from the final signature page, how a bunch of politicos got together with some military guys and some captains of industry (that would be the war industry), and came up with a compelling (?) analysis that supports a theory that the US has no choice but to become the bad ass of the Middle East, and subsequently, of the world. Otherwise, those rag heads will have us by our oil-consuming hairy balls and this gonad-snatching could threaten the national security of the US of A.

I guess it's the Big ~~Dick~~ Stick Theory.

There are two (or probably more, but these are the only ones I can come up with on a Monday morning) problems with this:

If we had spent some money on developing alternative energy instead of pouring billions of dollars (borrowed from China) down the toilet trying to conquer the Middle East, nobody would have us by the short hairs. (But then, the PNAC guys couldn't feel like bad asses.)
Their whole theory is based on the assumption that being scary is the only way you can control people. It discounts the huge leaps forward, in consciousness and sociopolitical evolution, that have been made by peaceful people like Mandela and Ghandi and Martin Luther King (before the right-wing mob killed him).

"Eh!" Cheney would say. "So what?"

But, I've always been curious about ivy-league-educated guys like Bolton who espouse these theories. I mean, is he a dick at home too? Or a loving husband and father who simply believes that you have to threaten and kick the shit out of people (and dogs) in order to keep them "in line." So, I watched him on the Daily Show. He wasn't a dick (well, not much of one). He was well-spoken. And... he's still full of shit. But the most telling thing he said, the thing that answered so many questions I've had for such a long time, was what he said before Jon closed the interview:

"There's not much difference between me and the people who want a world where no government has nuclear weapons...I only want one government to have nuclear weapons...You're sitting in it."

I guess he assumes that American leaders are the only ones capable, in the whole wide world, of controlling nuclear weapons and deciding who to threaten them with and when to drop them (think Sarah Palin. mmm hmmm). I can see French faces getting rouge right now. Putain!

I also guess he assumes that all the "good" countries will go, "Whew! I'm sure glad America is handling all this for us!" And all the "bad" countries will go, "UH-OH! We better be good now! Or America will nuke us off the face of the earth! Hurry up! Tell me where I can go and become a Christian. Quick! Oh, and where can I find enough K-Y to make it easier to accept Democracy as it's being shoved up my ass? (soto voce: And call North Korea and have them ship us all that nuclear shit toute suite!)"

So, forget the walk softly part, let's just make sure we super-elite Americanos are the only ones carrying the biggest stick. Talking? Diplomacy? Waste o' time. That's for pussies. Unless the talking is about how big our stick is. Then, we'll talk and talk and talk about that. Because we love our big stick. We're proud of our big stick. We want to drop our pants and show you our big stick...all the time. And by the way, we really are very nice. We'll "engage" any time. We'll play with you! As long as we always get to win. K?

Green Revolution: Power Of Love

2009-07-02T00:57:00.000+02:00

This video made me very happy, in a time when some people might give up on Iran. It's time for the rest of the world to show our support, while Iranians struggle for their vote.

Iran Revolution Needs You

2009-06-29T17:56:00.006+02:00

After the previous frivolous post, I wanted to write and say that even though the MSM is obsessed with celebrity deaths, there are some websites that are continuing their excellent coverage on Iran and I'm still tracking the uprising day and night. Not everybody has the kind of patience I have, to track through all the Twitter posts and sift the real stuff from the crap (and there's a lot of crap), but I have learned many, many things.

If you want a reputable place to go online to get the latest news, I suggest following Nico Pitney on Huffington Post, who continues to live blog. He has now started separating his posts by day, so you can click here to keep up with his Monday post.

Andrew Sullivan is also doing an excellent job keeping up with Iran developments here. And you can get great information at Anonymous Iran.

In Twitter, I've been following the #IranElection hash tag, but it can get weighed down with spam, and it's become pretty dangerous to click on links and to retweet information, unless you really, really know the source. Since I've been tracking Twitter from the beginning of the vote debacle, I know who the real insiders are and I've followed them so that I can just get their posts versus wading through #IranElection. I've noticed that they don't always add the hash tag to their posts, so it's important to follow them separately. If I know you, and you want to know who those people are and how to follow them, just leave a comment here and I will email you. If I don't know you, I won't respond.

A few of the old reliables in Iran have dissappeared from Twitter. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that they are either in hiding, arrested or dead. If they had resurfaced under a new name, I would have known. The Iranian government may have been able to obstruct or slow down access to the Internet for their citizens, but they have not been able to stop them electronically. Instead, they do some simple research based on the user's IP address and other available information, and go and arrest them. Geeks from all over the world have united in setting up proxy servers on their own machines using Tor, which allows Iranians to mask their IP addresses and appear as if they are Twittering from another country. It's easy to download Tor but I have yet to figure out how to make my laptop a server, even though the instructions online are great. The problem is, I'm staying in other people's homes and the Internet here, for instance, is way too slow for me to set up a Tor relay. Tor relays takes bandwidth away from your own usage, since you are allowing other people to hop on and use your bandwidth, so this would not be cool for me to do.

If you are interested in setting up a Tor relay, you can go here for downloads and go to Anonymous Iran's Tor page and go check out Ian's Brain for step-by-step setup instructions with graphics. Even without the Iran crisis, I use Tor when I'm outside of the US to mask my location so that I can watch US TV online, such as The Daily Show and Colbert Report, so it can be useful for you outside of this situation. If you don't want to do this yourself, then donate to AVAAZ.org's fundraiser to supply anonymous bandwidth to Iranian protesters.

In general, I believe there is no turning back because the will of the people is incredibly strong and the world knows too much now. Iran's current regime is and will continue to crack down. They have the guns and the money. But the movement has people in huge numbers, and if united, they can overcome the guns and the money. They need encouragement though, so if you can post a tweet of love and encouragement (avoid nasty comments about the regime and any encouragement towards violence) and append the #iranelection hashtag to your tweet, this is a grand gesture, believe me. It helps drown out the spam tweets, and it lets the Iranian people know that they are not alone.