JandP

European press on GOP candidates

2012-02-04T09:55:00.000-08:00

These quotes come from The Week:

THE GERMAN PRESS

The Republican presidential contest in America is a “freak show,” said Marc Pitzke in the German Der Spiegel. The candidates vie with one another to spew the most outrageous hard-right positions, denying evolution while endorsing torture and joking about electrocuting illegal immigrants. How did a major party in the world’s sole superpower become a “club of liars, debtors, betrayers, adulterers, exaggerators, hypocrites, and ignoramuses?” These know-nothings are enabled by a U.S. press that has been “neutered by the demands of political correctness” so that it can’t say what’s obvious: These people are daft! Instead, it “proclaims one clown after the next to be the new front-runner.” The current favorite, Newt Gingrich, is actually considered an intellectual merely because he can create sentences with multiple clauses. Scarcely a one has even the most basic grasp of foreign policy. One said Africa is a country, another that the Taliban rule in Libya. Collectively, “they expose a political, economic, geographic, and historical ignorance that makes George W. Bush look like a scholar.”

THE FRENCH PRESS

That’s the scariest part, said Lorraine Millot in the ParisLiberation. The only GOP candidate who knows a thing about diplomacy, Jon Huntsman, is dead last in most polls. The others “careen to extreme positions that include starting new wars and abandoning old allies.” And that’s when they even have a position. Herman Cain, now thankfully out of the race, was the front-runner even though he couldn’t find a single coherent word to say about President Obama’s policy on Libya. He even boasted of knowing little about foreign countries. And yet it was his adultery, not his astounding ignorance that brought him down.

THE ENGLISH PRESS

There’s a simple explanation for this bizarre phenomenon, said Max Hastings in the LondonDaily Mail. In the “lunatic, gun-toting badlands of America’s Hicks-ville, Tea Party country,” it’s considered suspiciously elitist to show any interest in modern science or the world beyond America’s borders. “Say what you like about British politics, no MP of any party would dare to offer themselves as town dog-catcher while knowing as little about the world as the Republican presidential candidates.” We take public service seriously. Yet we in Britain, and everyone in the rest of the world, will suffer if “one of the lunatics” vying for the nomination makes it to the White House. “The American political system has seldom, if ever, looked so inadequate.”
Don’t worry, said Matthew Norman in the LondonIndependent. The fact that Gingrich is the latest threat to Mitt Romney’s inevitability just “confirms how inevitable” Romney’s nomination is. The thrice-married, ethically challenged Gingrich is unlikable in the extreme. Which means the nominee will be Romney, “the slimiest, phoniest opportunist to run for president since...well, ever.” So sit back and enjoy this circus passing for a presidential election. It can’t possibly end in a GOP victory. Can it?

Jan Brewer's Finger

2012-01-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

Probably everyone reading this has already seen the photo below. Governor Brewer met President Obama at the Phoenix airport with a letter in hand for him. He questioned what she had written in her book "Scorpions For Breakfast" about their White House meeting last June. (Immediately after that meeting, she said twice that it was cordial. Later she wrote in "Scorpions" that the President had been "patronizing" and "condescending.") Then she literally got in Obama's face. Later she said that she had felt threatened by him.

This is not the first time that Jan Brewer has been disgusting. Her whole history around Arizona's racial-profiling 1070 legislation has been disgusting -- and a lot worse. I have been convinced for a long time that she is a racist.

By the way, Brewer reminds me of Newt The Bookseller. After the finger-in-your-face incident, sales of her Scorpion book went up 1,350,000% in just 24 hours.

But wait! There's more new stuff here in our state! Our recently-recalled state senator Russell Pearce is about to become head of the anti-immigrant group Ban Amnesty Now. That bunch is so bad that Sheriff Joe Arpaio (!!!) quit them in 2010.

And yet more! Prominent (and heavily armed) Neo-Nazi militiaman J.T. Ready is gathering signatures to run for sheriff of Pinal County (which sits between Tucson and Phoenix.)

Welcome to Arizona, the whacko state.

Saving American Democracy

2012-01-15T23:21:00.000-08:00

The constitutional amendment Saving American Democracy was introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to overturn the disastrous Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United. The amendment states that:

* Corporations do not have the same constitutional rights as human beings.

* The people have the right to regulate corporations.

* Corporations are prohibited from making campaign contributions.

* Congress and states shall have the power to set reasonable limits on election spending.

Now, will enough voters wake up and stop the transformation of our democracy into a total plutocracy?

Hopes for compassion in the new year

2011-12-31T10:12:00.000-08:00

Last June, the hopes of undocumented folks on the verge of being separated from family, friends and livelihood went way up . John Morton, President Obama's director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sent out a memo to his officials across the country asking them to use discretion and concentrate on deporting convicted criminals. Clearly this was meant to put the brakes on deportations that separate families.

That directive is surely making a difference at some times and in some places. But it is being widely overlooked. The buses that regularly take convicted felons to the border continue to also deport great numbers of the very people the Obama administration memo was talking about. (See my December 13 blog entry.)

For now, there is a new pilot program that at least has federal immigration prosecutors going through the files in Baltimore and Denver to find low-priority cases. That program may expand to other cities in mid-January.

In the meantime, the Justice Department's immigration review office has been frozen by a hiring freeze. This means that there is presently such an extreme shortage of immigration judges that the lives almost 300,000 undocumented people are in limbo while their pending cases await a decision.

All the Tea Party-style ranting and raving is bound to increase in the political frenzy that officially begins on Tuesday in Iowa. This will be ever harder on one's ears over the next ten months. But that is nothing compared to the agony of those whose lives and families might be torn apart if they are grabbed on the street or at work by ICE.

Despite this fierce environment, let us hope that in 2012 the voices of compassion and sanity will finally prevail.

"New" translation of the Mass

2011-12-17T09:58:00.000-08:00

Since the First Sunday of Advent, I have wanted to write about the new English translation of the Mass. Eventually I will do that, but so far I have not been able to do so with any reasonable brevity. I was ordained in 1964, just four months before we began to use English, and it was a wonderful joy to experience this very first fruit of the Second Vatican Council. Now, 47 years later, in the midst of a decades-long process of "restoration" of the "good old days," the English-speaking countries are forced to use this thoroughly clunky new translation. I for one simply cannot pray with it. More commentary later, but for now, here is a fine piece written by a Catholic in Toronto, Canada:

The new Order of Mass

Where is the Abba-God who loves us, walks with us, encourages us? How much does this new Mass reflect the Jesus of the Gospels? Is my relationship with the Divine supposed to be primarily one of a sinner and an all powerful (even if merciful) male Lord-God?

If I counted right, using Eucharistic Prayer I, in this Mass the word "sin/sinner" is mentioned 16 times; my "fault" two times and "grievous fault" once. I am asking to be delivered from damnation, and am not worthy "that the Lord should enter under my roof". (During the whole liturgy, love of God is mentioned once and goodness of God twice.) In the about 60 minutes' long Mass I am being reminded twenty times of my sinfulness in one way or another; that is on the average about every three minutes (not spaced evenly).

My conclusion is that if--in our society-- anyone repeatedly kept diminishing another person, s/he could be charged with mental/emotional abuse. I don't think I can risk to submit my grandchildren to such treatment from "my church".

MC Toronto

"DO NOT SEPARATE FAMILIES"

2011-12-13T12:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the annual feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, about 200 of us gathered for an interfaith prayer service at St. Monica's church here on Tucson's south side. Then we all walked three miles through the drizzle to the federal immigration enforcement office near the airport. The theme of our service and march was quite clear on signs and buttons: DO NOT SEPARATE FAMILIES and DEPORTATION DESTROYS OUR FAMILIES. We all stood together outside the ICE office while attorney Margo Cowan delivered paperwork requesting a stay of deportation for 50 people in accord with the new approach announced by the Obama Administration a half year ago. (The 50 include parents of U.S. citizen children, spouses of U.S. citizens and six families with multiple members facing deportation,)

In the meantime, deportation buses continue to run to the border night after night, even when it is literally freezing. While three of us were documenting bus arrivals at Nogales just before midnight last Tuesday, I took this photo one block north of the Port of Entry. Within 15 minutes, another bus arrived with yet more deportees.

My number-one forward ever

2011-12-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

Over the many years that I have sent -- almost daily -- articles on social justice and peace to my lists, I have occasionally marked one as a must-read.

This morning I read an article by Chris Hedges that I immediately sent out. In the subject line, I said that I consider it my number one must-read. And I said that very deliberately.

The article is titled: "Where Were You When They Crucified My Movement?" It is only two pages in length, but it says very clearly and succinctly what many of us have tried to communicate perhaps much less succinctly in the past.

Here is a quote from Hedges' opening paragraph:

"The Occupy movement is the force that will revitalize traditional Christianity in the United States or signal its moral, social and political irrelevance. The mainstream church, battered by declining numbers and a failure to defiantly condemn the crimes and cruelty of the corporate state, as well as a refusal to vigorously attack the charlatans of the Christian right, whose misuse of the Gospel to champion unfettered capitalism, bigotry and imperialism is heretical, has become a marginal force in the life of most Americans, especially the young."

Copy and paste this link in your browser:

http://bit.ly/tq56VC

Ongoing deportation tragedy

2011-11-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

This week DHS began a review of all deportation cases that are in the immigration courts. They have started training their agents and prosecutors to stop deportation of many undocumented people who are not convicted criminals. This new policy was first revealed by the ICE director last June. It applies to undocumented folks like those with family here, young "Dream Act" students and undocumented members of the military, All of those affected will be in a sort of limbo status, but at least they will not be deported.

The initial announcement and subsequent kick-off of the new policy is full of hope. But nobody should think that the tragedy of family separation is already on hold. The deportation buses continue to roll, and parents continue to be separated from their children and other family members.

Last week I was able to make an afternoon and nighttime visit to Nogales, Sonora. We spoke, sometimes at length, with people who had just been deported. A young man who spoke perfect English talked about the only life he has known, here in the US. Another man talked about his family in California and a son who was now also facing deportation. Long after dark, while we were talking at a shelter in the midst of many deportees who had arrived during the last three days, a new group of exhausted women came to the door. (We soon learned that their original homes are about 1,500 miles south of Nogales.) The face of a young mother who had arrived earlier showed panic because she feared losing her children to a foster home.

After the thousands of migrant deaths in the US borderlands, I see nothing more devastating than the still-continuing family separations.

By the way, there seems to be a widespread belief that deportations at Nogales do not take place at night. They do. During the previous night, three deportation buses unloaded their prisoners before 5 a.m. The last report I have is that there are two or three buses every night.

From Mike Moore

2011-11-22T23:19:00.000-08:00

Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here? ...a proposal from Michael Moore

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

Friends,

This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. It was attended by 40+ people and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement's "vision statement" to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

We Envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.

The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. As one of the millions of people who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.

Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

10 Things We Want
A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street
Submitted by Michael Moore

1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).
2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.
3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.
4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.
5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.
6. Reorder our nation's spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.
7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans allof the time.
8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.
9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can't run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)
10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:
a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.
b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.
c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a "second bill of rights" as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

Let me know what you think. Occupy Wall Street enjoys the support of millions. It is a movement that cannot be stopped. Become part of it by sharing your thoughts with me or online (at OccupyWallSt.org). Get involved in (or start!) your own local Occupy movement. Make some noise. You don't have to pitch a tent in lower Manhattan to be an Occupier. You are one just by saying you are. This movement has no singular leader or spokesperson; every participant is a leader in their neighborhood, their school, their place of work. Each of you is a spokesperson to those whom you encounter. There are no dues to pay, no permission to seek in order to create an action.

We are but ten weeks old, yet we have already changed the national conversation. This is our moment, the one we've been hoping for, waiting for. If it's going to happen it has to happen now. Don't sit this one out. This is the real deal. This is it.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com

Perhaps a national awakening

2011-11-15T22:51:00.000-08:00

What a relief (and a joy) last week to see Arizona senator Russell Pearce recalled and Ohio governor John Kasich's anti-union law thrown out by voters. This just might be the beginning of a nationwide awakening...this and of course the unshakeable perseverance of the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

But what a challenge ahead. A few examples:

* There are still 13.9 million people out of work (9%). 3.3 million of them are workers between the ages of 25 and 34.

* Hard working people who have been contributing here for many years are still being deported, often causing merciless family separations.

* House Republicans remain in their endless obstruction mode, fixated on their singular goal of getting rid of Barack Obama.

* Republican presidential candidates are uttering one absurdity after another, yet they maintain their following. Example: Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann have just said that they would approve waterboarding of prisoners, a practice that has been defined as torture since the Spanish Inquisition. Romney has kept silence on the issue.

* The Guantanamo prison remains open. costing taxpayers $800,000 annually for each of the 171 captives -- more than 30 times what it would cost to keep one of those prisoners on U.S. soil.

* Representatives of our government have been lobbying countries to quietly sign a new law that allows use of those monstrocities known as cluster bombs.

* From New York City to Oakland and Berkeley, riot police have been let loose on non-violent Occupy protestors at a cost of millions of dollars. (In NYC, they cut up the tents with knives and sawed through tent poles.) In the meantime, the protestors are being demonized by the FOX propaganda machine.

It will be a tough winter road ahead. But one can feel the warmth of human solidarity and resistance.

Occupy Tucson

2011-11-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

Here is the link for Occupy Tucson's site:

http://occupytucson.org

Once there, scroll down for the link to a report and good photos of the November 3rd police raid when all the protestors made a completely peaceful move from Armory Park to Veinte de Agosto park. My Franciscan friend Jerry Zawada and I went to Armory after the El Tiradito vigil (our weekly interfaith vigil for migrants who have died in the desert) and talked with folks there till about 8:30 pm, without even a hint that the raid would take place just a couple of hours later.

America's poorest poor

2011-11-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

The UK's Guardian reports today that 20.5 million people are among America's poorest poor -- those at 50% or less of the official poverty level. That is one in 15 people, a record high.

* The US housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and reduced jobs and income.

* "Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four."

* "Broken down by states, 40 states and the District of Columbia had increases in the poorest poor since 2007, and none saw decreases. The District of Columbia ranked highest at 10.7%, followed by Mississippi and New Mexico. Nevada had the biggest jump, rising from 4.6% to 7%."

* "Extreme poverty today continues to be prevalent in the industrial midwest, including Michigan cities Detroit and Grand Rapids, and Akron, Ohio, because of a renewed decline in manufacturing. But the biggest growth in high-poverty areas is occurring in newer Sun Belt metro areas such as Las Vegas, Riverside, California, and Cape Coral, Florida, after the plummeting housing market wiped out home values and dried up construction jobs."

* "As concentrated poverty spreads to new areas, including suburbs, the residents are now more likely to be white, native-born and high school or college graduates — not the conventional image of high-school dropouts or single mothers in inner-city ghettos."

* "Just over 7% of all African-Americans nationwide now live in traditional ghettos, down from 33% in 1970.

* 2009 census estimates: 27.6% of all Hispanics living in poverty, compared with 23.4% of African Americans.

For the full article, go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/03/us-poverty-data-poorest-poor?CMP=twt_gu

Bernie Sanders reminds us

2011-10-24T00:32:00.000-07:00

* 1 % of Americans own 42% of the country's wealth.

* Corporate tax revenue in 2010 was 27% lower than 2000, even though corporate profits are up 60% over the last decade.

* Since 2000, over 12 million Americans have lost their health insurance.

* Since 2000, nearly 12 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty.

Keep occupying!

The Murdoch-FOX plague

2011-10-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

I've long wanted to write a nutshell summary of the Murdoch-FOX plague, but I could never keep it short. Then I came across this at www.Avaaz.org --

"Murdoch is a global problem. He's famous for dictating editorial positions to his papers. He corrupts and controls democracies by pushing politicians to back his extremist ideas on war, torture and a host of other planetary ills, and destroying the careers of politicians with smear campaigns unless they do his bidding. In the US, he helped elect George W. Bush and has most of the Republican presidential candidates actually on his payroll. His Fox News Network spread lies to promote the war in Iraq, pushed resentment of Muslims and immigrants and spawned the right-wing tea party. Maybe worst of all, he has helped block critical global action on climate change."

Statement from Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

This is Occupy Wall Street's first collective statement:

"As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

"We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known. They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices. They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions. They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right. They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay. They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility. They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance. They have sold our privacy as a commodity. They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

"They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce. They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil. They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit. They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

"They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt. They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas. They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

"To the people of the world, We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone. To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal. Join us and make your voices heard!"

Hope on the streets of NYC

2011-10-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

All this shouting from the GOP about "class warfare" is getting to be a lot more than tiresome.

What a pain to hear this coming from politicos who have been fabulously paid to support people and political machinery that have been waging terrible war on the poor and middle class since the last national election.

And now comes the Wall Street protest. Who could have imagined the days of journalistic neglect by most of the national media? If it were not for the cell phone cameras of folks on the street, you have to wonder if any coverage would ever have ensued. Egypt 's Tahrir Square got great media coverage right from the start.

Those growing numbers on The Street of New York are the voice of tens of millions of Americans without work, without health insurance, sometimes without hope.

Those who want to replace democracy with plutocracy constantly shouting "Class warfare"? Give me a break. Give the 180 million Americans who together have less than the 400 richest Americans a break. Give the world a break -- really, think about it.

Trickle down, my foot.

Super-rich victims, my foot.

May the Wall Street protest grow like the biblical mustard seed!

Capitalism without responsibility

2011-09-18T23:57:00.001-07:00

Quoting from an article in today's Guardian UK -- Our Capitalist System is Near Meltdown -- by Will Hutton:

"Simply put, the world has trillions upon trillions of excessive private debt financed by too many different currencies whose risk is allegedly mitigated by even more trillions of financial bets which in aggregate do not minimise the systemic risk one iota. This entire financial edifice, underwritten by tiny amounts of capital, has been created over three decades backed by the theory that markets do not make mistakes. Capitalism is best conceived and practised, runs the theory, by hunter-gatherer bankers and entrepreneurs owing no allegiance to the state or society.

"This is nonsense. Business and the state co-generate wealth in a system of complex mutual dependence. Markets are beset by mood swings and uncertainty which, if not offset by government action, lead to violent oscillations. Capitalism without responsibility or proportionality degrades into racketeering and exploitation. The prospect of limitless pay is an open invitation to bad, or even criminal, behaviour. Good capitalism cannot happen without referees to blow the whistle or robust frameworks in which markets can function; neither is reliably created by capitalism itself, hence the role of democratic government. Yet the world is trying to solve the legacy of the last 30 years as if none of this were true and, instead, that the practice and theories that created the mess are still valid."

Rate of migrant deaths continues to rise

2011-08-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

For weeks the press has been reporting that the number of undocumented people crossing the US-Mexico border has gone down significantly. This drop is a fact, brought about by a combination of the bad economy and a huge increase in Border Patrol agents, border barriers and high tech surveillance.

But the more desperate migrants, hoping they can help their families back home survive or trying to get back to their families after deportation, continue to come. They are being led by professional (often ruthless) smugglers over longer distances through more remote--and much more dangerous--areas. As a result, the rate of migrant deaths continues to rise, in spite of the fact that the number of border crossers has declined. From last October 1 through July 31. at least 140 bodies of migrants were found in the Arizona borderlands.

Tucson's Coalicion de Derechos Humanos is especially worried about the increase in reported migrant disappearances. The week before last, they received calls from family members of nine migrants missing in the desert. Early last week, three more disappearances were reported. They are presently getting almost a call a day from people looking for a lost loved one.

While the recent Obama administration move to put a hold on 300,000 non-criminal deportations is a big breakthrough, comprehensive, humane immigration reform still appears to be far off.

Roy Bourgeois will not recant

2011-08-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ray Bourgeois has been a priest of the Maryknoll order for 39 years. He entered the seminary after serving four years in the Navy and receiving the Purple Heart. He worked with the poor in Bolivia for five years, until he was thrown out of the country by dictator General Hugo Banzer. In 1980 he became a strong critic of US pollcy in El Salvador. He has spent over four years in federal prison for nonviolent protest of the training of Latin American soldiers at the School of the Americas (now named WHINSEC) at Fort Benning, GA. (The school has long been known by many as the "School Of Assassins.") In 1990 Roy founded School of The Americas Watch, which holds a yearly protest with tens of thousands of people demanding the SOA be closed.

Now Roy is on the verge of being thrown out of his order because of his support for women priests in the Catholic Church. On July 27, he was sent a final warning, ordering him to recant or face removal as a priest.

Roy wrote in response: "After much reflection, study, and prayer, I believe that our Church's teaching that excludes women from the priesthood defies both faith and reason and cannot stand up to scrutiny. This teaching has nothing to do with God, but with men, and is rooted in sexism. Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we may try to justify discrimination against women, in the end, it is not the way of God, but of men who want to hold on to their power."

Last Thursday a "Clergy for Conscience" letter supporting Roy was sent to the head of Maryknoll. It was signed by 200 of us, including my friends here in Tucson, Jerry Zawada and Gil Padilla. Here is the text:

Dear Father Dougherty,
As priests in good standing within the Roman Catholic Church, we want to make clear that we support our brother Fr. Roy Bourgeois, MM in his priesthood and his right to speak from his conscience.

Set-decorator Catholicism

2011-07-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

The following excerpt is from a two-part article by Eugene Kennedy in the National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org) published on June 30 and July 7, "Set-decorator Catholicism: clericalism thrives in a new phase of the sex abuse crisis":

American Catholicism should be preparing for 2020 when a large increase in the Catholic population, mostly Hispanic, will present Church leaders with the challenge to open rather than close new churches and schools. Instead of preparing for the future, bishops and priests now in key administrative and pastoral positions, led by Pope Benedict XVI, are dressing the set of Catholic life with props from the past in an effort to take the church back to 1920.

That era of simplistically captioned silent movies is now re-created through the awkwardly translated liturgical readings soon to be expensively imposed on what these self-styled "reformers" hope to be passive and silent parishioners. Americans are not, however, alone in experiencing this phenomenon. In May the bishops of England and Wales restored meatless Fridays year round for Catholics. In the same month a nun held up a silver reliquary carrying the blood of the newly beatified Pope John Paul II, to applause by a large crowd in St. Peter's Square. Besides alerting Pope Benedict to beware of doctors holding syringes, this reveals the Transylvanian caste of some of the clerics now decorating the set of Catholicism throughout the world.

As demanding and sometimes as narcissistic as great actors, these set-dresser clerics are tantrum ready if they pick up any symbol or practice of Vatican II in their sight lines. While the makers of "The Untouchables" knew that they had emptied a warehouse of dusty props to create a temporary illusion of Prohibition era Chicago, these "New Men," as they sometimes style themselves, believe that placing pre-Vatican II artifacts everywhere in contemporary Catholicism actually restores the high times of the hierarchical Church.

Clericalism redux energizes this spreading movement to reinstate that Neverland age of Catholicism when priests controlled the church, lay people knew their place, the Mass was in Latin, God was in His heaven and all was right with the world.

On the Murdoch Empire

2011-07-20T00:42:00.000-07:00

For years I have been convinced that the Murdoch enterprise was a genuine evil empire. As some of you know, for days now I have been posting a lot of links on Twitter to describe the growing disintegration of that empire. I also wanted to state the problem in a nutshell, but yesterday Avaaz (www.Avaaz.org) did that job for me. Here's how they put it:

"Murdoch is a global problem. He's famous for dictating editorial positions to his papers. He corrupts and controls democracies by pushing politicians to back his extremist ideas on war, torture and a host of other planetary ills, and destroying the careers of politicians with smear campaigns unless they do his bidding. In the US, he helped elect George W. Bush and has most of the Republican presidential candidates actually on his payroll. His Fox News Network spread lies to promote the war in Iraq, pushed resentment of Muslims and immigrants and spawned the right-wing tea party. Maybe worst of all, he has helped block critical global action on climate change."

Amen. Now keep your eyes on London.

A note about this blog & Twitter

2011-07-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

While I am (quite obviously and regrettably) as slow as ever with this blog, I just posted my 2000th tweet this morning. That's at:

http://twitter.com/relford

Readers especially looking for information about the US-Mexico borderlands and the wider immigration crises (yes, plural) will find a lot of tweets on those issues. In recent days, I have also done quite a bit of posting on the major cracks (finally!) in the Empire of Murdoch.

ricardo, in Tucson, where presently (10:35 a.m.) it is a cool 87, and where it will again be 104 by monday

Fanatical about the deficit and debt

2011-06-29T00:37:00.000-07:00

Dr. Ray Graap volunteers each week at our free clinic in South Tucson. Yesterday the Arizona Daily Star published this crystal-clear, no-gobbledygoop letter from him:

DEFICITS ACTUALLY DO MATTER

"Deficits don't matter" - Republican mouthpiece Dick Cheney extolled not that many years ago. This comment came after Bush No. 2 went to war and cut taxes; the deficit and associated debt subsequently ballooned.

The current crop of Republicans in Congress are now fanatical about the deficit and debt; it just took about 10 years for them to make the 180-degree swing. Of course, it is an important issue - always has been.

The Republicans now also refuse to close tax loopholes or increase taxes to increase revenue to keep this country from bottoming out. Very patriotic behavior. The McClatchy poll reported April 10 of this year showed 63 percent supported raising taxes on those with an annual income of over $250,000; only 34 percent were opposed. Even 43 percent of Republicans supported a tax increase. And overall, 80 percent opposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Conclusion: Congress no longer represents the majority of citizens in this country. The only way to change congressional members' allegiance is to cut off the river of money from special interests and vote them out.

Raymond F. Graap

Physician, Tucson

The ongoing borderlands tragedy

2011-06-15T01:19:00.001-07:00

Right now our minds here in Arizona are on the devastating fires in the east and south of the state. In the meantime, the migrant tragedy of deportation, forced family separation and death in the desert continues.

Since the federal fiscal year began on Oct. 1, the remains of 88 migrants have been found along Arizona's border with Mexico. And now we are in the fierce heat of June -- triple digits here in Tucson for at least the next seven days. The number of merciless deaths by dehydration and hyperthermia is bound to go up.

Anyone reading this who also follows me on Twitter has seen a lot of border information links that I have posted. Here is a brief update on some factors.

* 10,581 men, women and children were deported to Nogales (62 miles south of Tucson) during January and February. (Source: Mexico's National Institute of Migration) Many of those folks had been in the US for years, in some cases decades. These are the latest Nogales numbers that I have, but I see the deportations continuing relentlessly. Many deportees do not even have so much as a traffic infraction against them.

* Last month, the number of backlogged federal immigration court cases was approaching 300,000.

* President Obama could singlehandedly stop the deportation of young people eligible for the always-blocked Dream Act, but he refuses to do so. (And I don't know why.)

* The United Nations estimates that smuggling migrants across Mexico's border with the U.S. alone is a $6.6 billion business annually, compared with an estimated $10 billion to $29 billion in illegal drug running.

Yet comprehensive immigration reform is nowhere to be seen on the horizon.

Sarah Palin's latest gem

2011-06-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

Howard Dean thinks Sarah Palin could beat Barack Obama in next year's election. Could an American majority of voters really be that stupid?

Her latest gem, speaking at Boston's Old North Church:

"He who warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free."

President Palin? Egads.

Imprisoned in the USA

2011-05-27T23:56:00.001-07:00

I'm don't know why I get so behind with this blog, especially since I post on Twitter every day. Anyway, I'm back--with some words about prisons in the USA, especially in California.

Last Monday, a majority of five Supreme Court justices said that the overcrowding in California's prisons violates the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. They ordered that the state's prison population be lowered by more than 30,000 inmates. (The order can be carried out in other ways besides early release. such as transfers out of state.)

The ruling talks about cages the size of a telephone booth, inadequate medical care, and a suicide rate 80 percent higher than the national prison average. (A California prisoner needlessly dies every six or seven days.)

That is California. But California has to be seen in the context of the whole country. The USA imprisons more people than any other country in the world. Here are some numbers per 100,000, as of 2009:

USA: 743
Russia: 577
China: 120
Canada: 117

We are five percent of the world's population, but we hold 25 percent of all the inmates in the world.

About one in 32 Americans is in prison, on probation or on parole.

US taxpayers dish out $60 billion a year for prisons.

Civil rights lawyer and legal scholar Michelle Alexander reports that the USA "imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the hight of apartheid."

So what is behind this colossal mess?

Mandatory sentences. Longer sentences than anywhere else in the world. And the so-called War On Drugs.

You can add your name to the hundreds of thousands of people who want to end this useless drug war. Just paste this link into your browser:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs_c/?twi

Let's get out right now

2011-05-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

Polls show that at least two-thirds of Americans want to bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

With Osama Bin Laden out of the picture, President Obama now has a unique opportunity to end the Afghanistan fiasco, our longest war ever. Official reason given to invade that country: the Taliban -- originally supported, of course, by the US against the Soviets -- would not hand over Bin Laden to the US. (They probably would have handed him over to another Muslim country.)

If we stop focusing on the question of seeing photos of Bin Laden's body, we can face the dreadful music:

* Coalition military deaths in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 now number 4,770. 4,452 of these are US deaths.

* Coalition military deaths in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2011 now number 2,444. 1,570 of these are US deaths.

* The official number of US troops wounded in Iraq is 33,023. Antiwar.com estimates the number to be over 100,000.

* It is a daunting task to try to find out the number of US troops seriously wounded in Afghanistan, but one conservative estimate is 3,420.

* Documented Iraqi civilian deaths from violence are somewhere between 100,693 and 109,990 -- with perhaps 15,000 more from the Wikileaks' Iraq War Logs.

* There are more US mercenaries, 100,00 of them, in Afghanistan and Iraq than US troops.

* It has long been known that Afghanistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, if not the worst. Now Wikileaks has uncovered cables from the US embassy in Kabul that say the scale of Afghan government corruption is "overwhelming" with regard to bribery, money laundering and profiting from the drug trade.

* Iraq is almost as bad. In 2010, the watchdog group Transparency International listed Iraq as the fourth most corrupt country in the world, after Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar) and Somalia.

With the removal of Osama Bin Laden, this moment is one that President Obama cannot miss. History will be very hard on a failure to act now and get out.

Passover & Holy Week & Dying Migrants

2011-04-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

April 21 was the 568th Thursday that we've gathered at El Tiradito shrine in downtown Tucson to remember the migrants -- known and unknown -- who have died in the Arizona desert in their desperate search for work.

This week the vigil fell during Passover and Holy Week. Here are the two short scriptural readings we had before sharing reflections:

From the Torah at Passover

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

From the Gospel of John on Holy Thursday

Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.... (Then he said),“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:5-15)

In the year that ended last Sept. 30, the bodies of at least 253 migrants were found just on the Arizona part of the 2000-mile US-Mexico border. From Oct. 1 to Feb. 28, at least 59 more bodies were found. (We don't have the numbers from March yet.) All these gruesome deaths -- and we still have not had a triple-digit day this year. (One summer we had 99 of those in Tucson, and it is hotter than Tucson in much of the desert.)

With the never-ending ugly politics, it does not appear that we will have comprehensive immigration reform in the foreseeable future. This summer will most likely be one more borderlands massacre.

Cluster bombs in Libya

2011-04-15T23:53:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch reports that Kaddafi is now using mortar-launched cluster bombs in Misrata. This particular type of cluster bomb explodes in the air above the target and spreads 21 smaller bombs over the area. Obviously it is devastating to civilians.

Three years ago in Dublin, Ireland, the international Convention on Cluster Munitions adopted a specific convention that prohibits the use of cluster weapons because of what they do to civilians. 108 countries signed the convention. Libya did not, nor did Russia nor China nor Israel..... nor the USA.

Execution on the border

2011-04-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

On March 21, Carlos La Madrid, age 19, was shot to death by the Border Patrol as he climbed the fence separating his home town of Douglas, Arizona, from Agua Prieta, Sonora. He was going south, not trying to come into the U.S.

Carlos was a U.S. citizen. He was hit three times by Border Patrol bullets. Their response to his death was the familiar excuse: Carlos -- or somebody -- was throwing rocks. Remember, he was climbing a ladder.

Jennifer Allen, executive director of the human rights group Border Action Network, explains: “We will never know exactly what happened on March 21st because Carlos will never have his day in court. What we do know is that Border Patrol agents took the law into their own hands, acted as judge, jury and executioner and shot to kill a man who should have still been presumed to be innocent."

I do not see any way that this shooting can be called anything else but an execution.

Is all the screaming on Capitol Hill and in the state legislatures putting droves of Border Patrol agents on the border without sufficient training? The screamers say the border is unprotected. But the familiar white-and-green patrol vehicles are everywhere. Driving in these borderlands -- on both dirt and paved roads -- I see them coming one after the other, sometimes two at a time. Last Friday, when I drove past the Sonoita station late in the afternoon, there were so many Border Patrol vehicles neatly lined up in their lot that it looked like a major car dealership.

It is bad enough here in Arizona with anybody now allowed to carry a concealed weapon without training or license. If insufficiently trained law officers are being rushed to the border in the present climate of racist fear-mongering, we have reached the bottom of the pit.

We win one in Arizona

2011-03-18T23:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a rather amazing day here in Arizona. Enough Republicans joined minority Democrats to defeat Senate President Russell Pearce's bills that would have:

* denied citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants
* required hospitals to check if people coming for help had papers
* kept undocumented people from registering their vehicles
* made it a crime for an undocumented person to drive in the state
* kept anyone who could not prove citizenship or legal residency out of universities and community colleges
* made cities and towns evict all residents of any public housing unit if even one person was undocumented
* required parents to show proof of citizenship or equivalent papers to enroll their children in school

Part of the reason behind the No votes was pressure from over 60 Arizona CEOs (including those of hospitals and construction companies) and the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. (Long ago César Chavez showed us the power of the boycott. He was right then and he is right today.)

Of course the Pearce gang will not give up. They will probably take these same bills to the voters in whom they continuously instill senseless fear, and they still hope the July 28 federal court decision against the infamous, racial-profiling SB 1070 will be reversed.

In the meantime, Pearce has cut our Pima Country sheriff off from new funds to fight border crime. The senator had a fit when Sheriff Dupnik linked the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords to crazy right-wing rhetoric and called Arizona "the mecca of prejudice and bigotry."

Pearce is not going to give up. But yesterday was big.

Mind-boggling government waste

2011-03-07T18:11:00.000-08:00

Last month the National Immigration Forum published a devastating report on the federal government's record-breaking and profoundly wasteful spending on immigration enforcement. The ongoing failure of Congress on immigration is costing taxpayers an incredible amount of money. Here is a summary of the forum's findings:

* The government spends $23,000 to deport each undocumented immigrant. Last year they deported 197,000 immigrants with no criminal record. That means hitting taxpayers for more then $4.5 billion a year (while the government deports people who otherwise would be taxpayers.)

* The average yearly budget INCREASE for the Border Patrol is $300 million, despite the fact that since 2005 the number of undocumented border crossers has been going down.

* The government spends $7,500 for every apprehension at the border. That is a 500% increase since 2005.

* Keeping 1,200 National Guard troops on the border costs taxpayers $300 million per year. When they were deployed, the border crime rate was already down and many border communities were among the safest in the country. (They still are.)

* The wasteful, flawed 287(G) program (which partners state and local police to Immigration and Customs Enforcement) costs taxpayers $68 million each year.

* More and more immigrants are being held in private prisons. These companies try to influence immigration policies in order to maximize the number of prisoners sent to them by the government. (One company contracted by the federal government is the Corrections Corporation of America. It was involved in drafting Arizona's infamous SB 1070, which would greatly increase their number of prisoners. They also gave money to Arizona lawmakers who backed the legislation.)

Overall, billions of dollars appropriated by Congress are wasted each year on deeply flawed immigration enforcement. In the meantime, funds for ports of entry (where an estimated 90% of illegal drugs enter the US) have increased only 17% from 1993 to 2010, while the Border Patrol budget increased almost 1,000%.

To read the whole mind-boggling report, paste this URL into your browser:

http://immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/
2011/ImmigrationEnforcementOverview.pdf

The Arizonafication of America

2011-02-23T10:28:00.001-08:00

This week, perhaps more than ever, the majority sector of the Arizona legislature looks like a veritable madhouse.

This wild gang is of course led by Russell Pearce, the president of the state senate. He has renewed his attack on immigrants with his latest concoction, a 30-page hodge-podge of poison aimed at education at all levels, public services, licenses for drivers and vehicles -- and on and on he goes.

This is the same guy who wants legislators to be able to bring their guns to work.

It is hard to pick the most repulsive part of the never-ending barrage coming out of Phoenix, but I would say it is the attempt to make immigration officers out of hospital workers. That and the attack on birthright citizenship.

The madness of course does not stop with Arizona. Copy this URL from the Southern Poverty Law Center and read how the plague is spreading:

The Arizonification of America http://bit.ly/gKhDy6

Obama' s 2009 Cairo speech

2011-02-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

On June 4, 2009, President Obama gave a powerful speech in Cairo. Many believe it was a major inspiration for the young people of Egypt who have nonviolently brought down the Mubarak presidency. Here are some quotes from the speech:

* I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like Al-Azhar University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

* In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."

* The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace.

* Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

* Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart, and soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways.

* It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

* The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called (children) of God."

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.
-------------------
If you would like to read the whole text, paste this short URL into your browser:

http://tinyurl.com/6a8auox

Vigilante Barnett pays again

2011-02-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

(I am sorry to have been away from Blogger for the past two weeks. Time was so limited that I did not even get to Twitter for five days. But I've been back to daily tweets since February 1, and now here goes with my blog.)

* * * * *

With the ceaseless flow of terrible news about these borderlands (and the much-less-mentioned constant deportations that tear families apart), great news has come from the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision of a February 2009 federal jury was upheld by the court. Notorious "Minuteman" vigilante Roger Barnett will now have to pay $87,000 in damages for assaulting a group of 16 undocumented migrants -- five women and 11 men -- in 2004. He held the group captive and threatened them with his gun and his dog, telling them he would shoot anybody who tried to get away.

Barnett claimed he acted in self defense but even he said that nobody had threatened or attacked him.

This is the second conviction for Barnett. In 2008, the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld a November 2006 conviction for false imprisonment of a Hispanic family from Douglas (who happened to be US citizens.) He attacked them -- a family that included two little girls of 9 and 11 -- with racist language and threats that he would kill them with his gun. That court decision meant that Barnett had to pay $100,000 in damages.

The presiding judge in the 2009 trial was Judge John Roll, who was killed in the January 8 Safeway massacre that took the lives of six Tucsonans and wounded 13. A conservative judge highly respected for his fairness and patience, Roll was hounded with death threats during the case and had to have 24-hour police protection -- one more illustration for the rest of our country and the world of what is going on here in Arizona.

.

On Keith Olbermann

2011-01-22T10:21:00.000-08:00

As I posted on Twitter last night, I had thought that Keith Olbermann might be out after next week's Comcast-NBC merger. But, as most readers must already know, he very suddenly said goodbye at the end of last night's Countdown. It was a surprise even to his guests.

If you want to see Olbermann's 6-minute farewell, copy this URL into your browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esb2wcDY4c8

If you watch it, don't quit early. He ends with a great little reading from James Thurber.

It always drives me up the wall when people compare Olbermann to Beck or Limbaugh or their mirror images. The one repeatedly presents and backs up facts in frank, unmistakable and often prophetic language; the others repeatedly resort to lies, scaremongering and even racist innuendo.

Will Rachel Maddow be the next to go?

Tucson, the nation and Sarah Palin

2011-01-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

In these days when all of Tucson is in mourning and people around the world are aghast at what has happened here, there is a frightening kind of denial in the air.

Right after the devastating massacre on Saturday morning, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik spoke out on what countless people had immediately recognized: this shooting took place in the midst of an ongoing climate of vociferous hate. He was his usual blunt self, speaking about this "horrendous, horrendous, senseless, unbelievable crime." He spoke of "unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government." He had the courage to say what was clear to perceptive people across the land who have heard the rage language and seen the hate posters: "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." Saying it is time for the country to "do a little soul searching," he pointed right at the "vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business "

Today Sarah Palin called this kind of talking "blood libel" that "serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn." Her denial is foolishness. Putting the spotlight on an incessant flow of suggestive hate language is not incitement to violence. It is urgent care in the face of a national epidemic.

Palin's denial is not new. On Monday, Rush Limbaugh let fly, accusing folks like Sheriff Dupnik of trying to exploit the Tucson massacre. Sometimes the denial goes even beyond ludicrous. A Palin aide claimed that the crosshairs on the famous pre-election map (about Gabby Giffords and 19 other candidates) represented a "surveyor's symbol." Come on. That map was put out by the "reload" lady. Of course we don't know if shooter Jared Loughner ever saw the map, but it is a vivid example of the national barrage of violent imagery that has been broadcast unceasingly. (Note that Loughner's weird "currency" language found in the collected evidence comes directly out of right-wing conspiracy rants.)

Sarah Palin says,"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own." No, they do not. You cannot isolate actions from their environment.

Palin talks about "law abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment right at campaign rallies." Is it respectful to come to campaign rallies carrying guns in the shadow of violently suggestive placards?

Loughner is clearly insane. In a country devastated by cuts in health care such as the ones we are seeing here in Arizona, there is surely a multitude of Jared Loughners out there. They are not on Mars. They are seething in the midst of an unrelenting atmosphere of hate talk and conspiracy talk and reload talk.

Thank you, Sheriff Dupnik. May you have a million echoes.

Olbermann on the Tucson shooting

2011-01-09T00:14:00.000-08:00

I very highly recommend this nine-minute statement by Keith Olbermann in the wake of the horrible shooting here in Tucson:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40981503/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/

Quoting AZ sheriff Dupnik

2011-01-08T23:29:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the horrible shooting here in Tucson yesterday, our straight-talking sheriff Clarence Dupnik said it was a "very sad day for Tucson" and a "horrendous, horrendous, senseless, unbelievable crime."

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government...

"The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Dupnik said it is time for the country to "do a little soul searching" and added:"The vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business ... "

Later he added: "It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. That's the sad thing about what's going on in America: pretty soon we're not going to be able to find reasonable decent people willing to subject themselves to serve in public office."

Today's the day

2011-01-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, great. Today the Republicans take control of the House.

John ("Hell no!") Boehner takes over the leadership from Nancy Pelosi.

New members put into office by the Tea Party will be voting to please their "base" that is riddled with racists, Islamophobes, xenophobes, homophobes and Obama haters.

Tomorrow the House Republicans are going to read the US Constitution aloud in the chamber. Oops -- then they are going to try to change the Constitution in order to take citizenship away from born-in-the-US babies of undocumented mothers.

The first big order of Republican business will be to vote to repeal all of President Obama's progress on health care for millions of Americans. That has no chance in the Senate, and even if it did pass there, the president would veto it. But they are going to waste the time and the money with their posturing anyway.

Then many of them, despite decrying the predation of Wall Street banksters, will do battle against government regulations.

At the same time, we are going to witness a flood of ridiculous, costly "investigations" of Obama.

Sigh. There are extremely ugly days ahead on the Hill.

A peaceful world is possible

2010-12-25T15:14:00.000-08:00

I highly recommend this December 24th article by Stephen Scharper in The Toronto Star:

CHRISTMAS INVITES US TO MAKE PEACE ON EARTH A REALITY

Here is a quote from the article:

As cultural theorist Edward Said (1935-2003), author of the acclaimed work Orientalism (1979), suggests, taking away the ability to imagine what is possible is a form of tyranny, a tyranny of the imagination.

Jesus of Nazareth interestingly also faced a tyranny of the imagination. Born in first century Palestine, a land under the bloody heel of Roman occupation, he imagined a community where lepers, beggars, prostitutes, tax collectors and Roman centurions could all share in the fruits of creation. Amid mass political crucifixions and deep religious taboos, he bespoke a kingdom based not on armies and military superpower crackdowns, but on love, kindness, truth and justice. He confronted the political and cultural tyrants of his own time and courageously declared that a peaceful world is possible.

Here is the article link you can paste into your browser:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/911275--christmas-invites-us-to-make-peace-o?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d15d2fae27e81d6,0

A must-watch 13-minute video

2010-12-20T00:05:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, this 13-minute video of last Thursday's Veterans For Peace demonstration at the White House is a must-watch. The witness given here is very powerful.

Over a hundred of the protesters were arrested when they engaged in civil disobedience.

I still am unable to put clickable links in my blog posts, so readers will have to copy this URL and then paste it into their browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOde31QYbI0

I hope that readers will forward this video link far and wide.

ricardo

White House & Big Business

2010-12-15T23:45:00.000-08:00

In his blog yesterday, Robert Reich wrote about a super-big shot who met last week with President Obama. He is Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. And he is utterly delighted over the president's agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts. (30 more CEOs met with Obama yesterday.)

Reich points out that:

* Dimon's average compensation in the last three years was $21,991,394 a year.

* The Obama tax deal will give Dimon an extra $1,179,000 next year. ( Source: Citizens for Tax Justice)

* Dimon's bank was also the beneficiary of the Wall-Street bailout of 2007 and 2008.

So now must be the time to sit back and watch Dimon's riches trickle down to the serfs.

Trickle. Trickle. Trickle..

Oh thank you, thank you, your lordship.

Rabbi Lerner's challenge

2010-12-12T22:57:00.000-08:00

In the midst of ever-growing disappointment among progressives, Tikkun editor Rabbi Michael Lerner issued a clear and powerful challenge today. Here is how he begins:

"While making a deal to protect billionaires from $145 billion in taxes that they might otherwise have used to solve pressing domestic problems or to create over 3 million jobs at $30,000/yr., some Democrats and their advisors pointed out that the progressives who dissented from the deal Obama had worked out with the Republican leadership -- and which, despite the non-binding vote in the Democratic caucus on Thursday to oppose the deal, is likely to retain most of its giveaways to the rich -- had really no place to go in 2012 but to blindly support Obama, so why take seriously all their huffing and puffing about Obama's list of betrayals?  

"Sure, they said, Obama had led peace and justice-oriented liberal and progressive movement people to believe he would end rather than escalate middle east wars, punish rather than ignore those who had lied us into the Iraq war and those who had ordered or carried out torture, end discrimination against gays in the military and elsewhere, secure rather than undermine domestic civil liberties and human rights, fight for rather than duck serious changes in immigration and in environmental protection, and insist on at least a public option in health care and lowered prices for pharmaceuticals. But, hey -- those people who paid attention to these details were only a small minority, and they would rally around Obama no matter what, giving him no incentive to listen to them. After all, Obama was just being 'realistic' about the limitations of his power."

Lerner goes on to call for a new vision: "Lets start with the vision, a new New Deal, and call it simply this: The Caring Society -- Caring for Each Other, Caring for the Planet. To get this, America needs a New Bottom Line! Replace the ethos of selfishness, narcissism and materialism rooted in the money and power orientation of the capitalist marketplace with a new ethos of love and generosity. Lets start judging corporations, social policies, government actions, our educational system, our economic system and even our personal behavior to be 'productive, efficient or rational' to the extent that they maximize our capacities to be loving and caring for each other, generous and kind, ethically and ecologically sensitive, capable of seeing every other human being on the planet as equally precious and sacred as ourselves, and capable of responding to the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of All Being."

He then presents details of what we can do as a nation, what we really can be. I won't attempt to summarize those details here; the full article can be found on The Huffington Post, Copy and paste the following link into your browser (or if you follow me on Twitter, I have put a clickable link there.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/why-progressives-should-r_b_794927.html

Another win for the plutocrats

2010-12-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

Who is surprised, considering that the Republicans on Capitol Hill have a one-word vocabulary that consists of No? Senate Repubs have just blocked two Democratic measures to continue the Bush tax cuts for middle class folks but not for the richest 2% of the country. There were 53 Yes votes, not enough to end the debate.

House minority leader John Boehner said the Democrats' plan was "chicken crap."

Continuing the about-to-run-out Bush cuts for the super-rich will cost the nation $700 billion.

As Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said, "There are no signs that millionaires are suffering in this economy. It's everybody below that."

Chalk up one more win for the plutocrats.

Plutocracy Now

2010-11-27T00:11:00.000-08:00

The dictionary definition of PLUTOCRACY: Government by the wealthy.
• a country or society governed in this way.
• an elite or ruling class of people whose power derives from their wealth.

Are we already there?

(In reading the following facts, keep in mind the Supreme Court majority ruling known as "Citizens United," which says that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited.)

* The top 0.1 percent of income earners now make more money than the 120 million people at the bottom of the income scale.

* Since 1992, the average tax rate on the richest 400 taxpayers dropped from 26.8 percent to 16.62 percent.

* From 1979 to 2006, the richest 1 percent more than doubled their share of total US income, from 10 percent to 23 percent. The richest 1 percent have an average annual income of more than $1.3 million. For the last 25 years, over 90 percent of total growth in income has gone to the top 10 percent of earners, leaving 9 percent of all income to be shared by the bottom 90 percent.

* Today an American CEO earns about 300 times as much as an ordinary worker. In 1950, that number was only 30.

* We now have the highest number of poor people in 51 years. The official US rate is 14.3 percent or 43.6 million people in poverty. One in five children is poor; one in 19 senior citizens is poor.

* About 3..5 million people (about one third of them children) are homeless at some point in the year.

* The top Hedge Fund Manager of 2009, David Tepper, “earned” $4 billion last year. The rest of the top 10 earned: $3.3 billion, $2.5 billion, $2.3 billion, $1.4 billion, $1.3 billion (tie for sixth and seventh place), $900 million (tie for eighth and ninth place), and last place, $825 million.

* The US has the greatest inequality between rich and poor among all Western industrialized nations, and it has been getting worse for 40 years

* 11 million homeowners in the US owe the banks more than their properties are worth. Houses are on the market for $80,000 that were built for $120,000 two years ago and have never been occupied.

* No new jobs are being created on balance, because the US economy has undergone structural change. Companies are dominated by investors interested only in the kinds of quick and large profits that can be achieved by reducing the workforce. Almost six million jobs have been eliminated since 2000. Today only 9 percent of Americans work in the manufacturing industry -- half as many as in 1985.

(With thanks to Bill Quigley of Loyola University New Orleans for his research.)

I think they're gonna do it

2010-11-14T23:41:00.000-08:00

If the Democrats give that $700 billion gift to the richest 2% of the country, I'm going to scream so loud that you'll hear it, dear reader, wherever you are.

Listening to President Obama, David Axelrod, Senator Menendez, et al., I think "Yes, they're gonna give in."

Bill Quigley of Loyola University New Orleans has pointed out that:

* Income disparity in the US is now as bad as it was right before the Great Depression at the end of the 1920s.

* From 1979 to 2006, the richest 1% more than doubled their share of the total US income, from 10% to 23%. The richest 1% have an average annual income of more than $1.3 million. For the last 25 years, over 90% of the total growth in income in the US went to the top 10% earners – leaving 9% of all income to be shared by the bottom 90%.

* In 1973, the average US CEO was paid $27 for every dollar paid to a typical worker; by 2007 that ratio had grown to $275 to $1.

* Since 1992, the average tax rate on the richest 400 taxpayers in the US dropped from 26.8% to 16.62%.

* The US has the greatest inequality between rich and poor among all Western industrialized nations and it has been getting worse for 40 years.

And I think they're gonna give in.

God help us.

Will tomorrow be a national disaster?

2010-11-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow may be a disastrous day for our nation.

Where did all this Tea Party energy come from? I do not believe that anger over the economy and joblessness explains it all.

How can so many people scream "socialism" when they are benefitting from socialist programs like Social Security and Medicare?

How can so many completely dismiss the fact that Bush left Obama a colossal mess that included a $1.3 trillion budget deficit?

How can so many scoff at government regulation in the face of exceedingly abusive insurance companies and banksters ripping them off?

How can so many worship God and guns in the same sentence?

How can so many shout about violence in the Koran while saying nothing about violence in the Bible, e.g. murdering children of the enemy (Psalm137) or executing gays (Leviticus 20)?

How can so many pay attention to global warming deniers instead of to the worldwide scientific community?

How can so many grandchildren and children of immigrants demonize millions of undocumented workers who have put food on their tables and contributed hugely to their Social Security?

These are very strange times. I wonder how many voters are going to shoot themselves in the foot tomorrow.

Grijalva targeted again

2010-10-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

Our congressman Raul Grijalva has been targeted for the third time. In April he received death threats here in Tucson. In July a window of his Yuma office was shattered and a bullet was found inside.

Yesterday at his Tucson office, an envelope arrived in the mail containing two pieces of paper with swastikas and a plastic bag with white powder inside. The Tucson Fire Dept. said the powder was toxic. Today it was identified as hydroxyacetanilide. Some reports have said it is not toxic, but the FBI has not yet released its lab report. (I had no idea what hydroxyacetanilide was, so I googled it. It seems there are several kinds, at least four. I looked closely at the first kind; it had a long paragraph listing health hazards.)

How much more violence inspired by Teabaggers and Glenn Beck & Co. are we going to see around the country before election day?

Discarded Migrants

2010-10-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

Readers who would like to read my just-published article DISCARDED MIGRANTS can paste the following link into their browser:

http://cmsmtemp.trueserver.com/forum/

Or, if you follow me on Twitter, there is a direct link there from early today.

The other two articles on this CMSM forum site are related to the one I wrote. Many migrants/immigrants of course are victims of wage theft, especially in these days. The other article is especially for Catholics as it asks us how we eat in view of Catholic social teaching.

About those border walls

2010-10-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

I highly recommend a new website that opposes the border walls: www.no-border-wall.com

The home page has a striking slide show above the following commentary:

The border wall is one of the most ineffective projects that the United States has undertaken. It utterly fails to stop undocumented migrants or smugglers - an estimated 97% of people who try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border eventually succeed at entering the country. Yet, the border wall has been monumentally destructive:

* Instead of halting people at the border, walls have redirected desperate migrants toward perilous desert routes, leading to the tragic deaths of thousands of men, women, and children.

* Walls have caused environmental destruction, fragmenting crucial habitat for animals, including endangered species, funneling migrants and Border Patrol enforcement activities through fragile ecosystems, and triggering large-scale erosion.

* The border wall has already caused catastrophic flooding, and the lack of adequate studies of its safety means that it has the potential to do far greater damage to nearby communities.

* The wall has split sovereign Native American nations in two, and its construction has disturbed ancient graves and archaeological sites.

* The federal government has stripped private property out of the hands of hundreds of U.S. citizens to build the border wall and has refused to pay fair market value or guarantee access to adjacent property.

* Under the Real ID Act, 36 federal laws were waived for the border wall project, including laws that protect our air, drinking water, endangered species, parks and wilderness areas, farmland, religious freedom, and our historical and archaeological heritage.

* The financial burden to U.S. taxpayers may well exceed $49 billion for wall construction and maintenance.

NO BORDER WALL opposes the border wall because of the devastating consequences that border walls have on border communities and economies, human rights, and the environment, as well as the United States' relationship with Mexico and the rest of the world. We urge our elected representatives to reject the border wall and repeal the Secure Fence Act and the Real ID Act.

Crazy and running for Senate

2010-10-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

The political atmosphere in this last month before the Nov. 2 election makes me shudder. Ranters like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin continue to poison the airwaves, and their fans are not likely to be immune to the venom when they vote. A few quotes:

Limbaugh: “Let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do — let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.” And this: "Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream." And to an African American female caller: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

Beck: "I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words." And then: "If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop."

Michele Bachmann: "Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." To the people of Minnesota: "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country."

Sarah Palin: "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

In an angry political climate like this, our nation could actually end up with a Senator Sharron Angle and a Senator Christine O'Donnell. If you think it has been bad with Senators DeMint, McConnell, Inhofe, Coburn, Kyl and "lip-flop" McCain, just imagine a Senate with Angle and O'Donnell on board .

Sharron Angle wants to

* privatize Social Security
* privatize Medicare
* privatize the Veterans Administration.

And she doesn't even stop there. On July 12, she said this: "The Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level."

Christine O’Donnell lies like mad. Gail Collins spilled the beans Tuesday in the NY Times: O'Donnell got her BA a month ago, not in 1993. She did not go to Claremont Graduate University; she went to Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank. She was not an Oxford University student; she attended a course given by a group that rented a room there.

Here are some O'Donnell quotes, just a few selections from a veritable treasure trove:

* "We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools. Now we're having weekly shootings. We had the 60s sexual revolution, and now people are dying of AIDS."

* "America is now a socialist economy. The definition of a socialist economy is when 50% or more your economy is dependent on the federal government."

* "I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven." / "One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar."

* "American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains."

* "You know what, evolution is a myth." / "Why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?"

* "During the (2006) primary, I heard the audible voice of God. He said, 'Credibility.'"

Are you looking for similar quotes from crazies running for the House of Representatives and Governor? Sorry, but I don't think my keyboard batteries could last that long.

Good night.

Oops, I almost forgot about another whacko who is running for Senate. He is Alaska's Joe Miller, and he wants to kill unemployment benefits and the minimum wage.

Today's health care changes

2010-09-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

This week Obama and Biden have finally come out swinging the megaphone in the midst of all the din (definition: "a loud, unpleasant, and prolonged noise") relentlessly produced by the Grand Old Tea Party.

The president and vice-president have been energetically putting the spotlight on the huge changes in health care taking effect today:

* Insurance companies can no longer exclude children because of pre-existing health conditions.

* Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime limits on benefits.

* Insurance companies can no longer drop sick and costly customers after discovering technical mistakes on applications.

* Insurance companies must offer coverage to children under 26 on their parents’ policies.

* Insurance companies must cover preventive procedures (such as colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations) without co-payments.

* Insurance companies must allow customers joining new plans to keep their own doctors.

* Insurance companies must allow customers to appeal reimbursement decisions to a third party.

People with common sense need to echo this good news of change right up until election day.

And when Tea Party seniors try to diss uninsured children and muffle the good news by turning up the din volume, ask them if they are going to burn their Social Security and Medicare cards.

Arizona precursors of Gov. Brewer, Sen. Pearce & gang

2010-09-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Official racism is hardly new in Arizona. The following quotes are from Border Citizens: The Making of Indians, Mexicans, and Anglos in Arizona, by Eric V. Meeks. (University of Texas Press, Austin)

'Throughout the two-decade struggle to become a state, Anglos in Arizona honed an argument for an end to territorial status based on the ideas that the majority of residents were white, educated, and civilized and that the indigenous and ethnic Mexican populations would have little role in government. As Arizonans sat down to write a constitution, this argument manifested itself in explicit, exclusionary policies designed to relegate non-whites and those who did not speak English to second-class citizenship. In large part, then, the quest for statehood led to the development of a clearer definition of the ideal Arizona citizen in cultural, historical, and racial terms. Racial inequality was not simply an unfortunate corollary to full statehood; it was built into the very identity of Arizona from its inception ...

'Statehood proponents contended that the educated "American" population--which, it became clear, did not include the indigenous and Mexican-American populations--would dominate Arizona culturally and politically. When Congress considered a new bill to admit Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona as states in 1902, congressional delegate Mark Smith declared before the U.S. House, "The fact is, that excluding the reservation Indians, who are not and cannot become citizens, Arizona has the best generally educated population in the United States." Smith pointed out that most people in the territory had been born in the eastern part of the country--a fact that distinguished Arizona from neighboring New Mexico, which had a much larger Mexican-American population. "The large body of our people," he said, "came when fully grown from the different states of the union. They know the duties of citizenship as well as the members of this house, and they have attended to those duties with a modesty and propriety which I am justified in commending as an example for the emulation of eastern states."

'Smith's reference to Americans from eastern states served to delineate racial and cultural boundaries--a discourse that would manifest itself in a series of restrictive laws passed in the early 1900s by the territorial assembly ...

'In the years that followed, rather than directly challenge [Indiana Senator] Beveridge's characterization of Indians and ethnic Mexicans, Arizona's political and economic elite argued that if the territory were admitted separately [i.e. not joined with New Mexico as a single state, as originally proposed], these groups would have little cultural or political influence ...

'Proponents of separate statehood [for Arizona] bolstered their case by clearly defining, in cultural, racial, and historical terms, the ideal Arizona citizen. The territorial assembly told a racist and gendered story of the region's frontier history, in which manly pioneers had wrested control of the territory from its uncivilized and unmanly Indian and Mexican predecessors ...

'When a jointure bill passed the House in 1906, Arizona delegates refined their race-based argument for separate statehood and clarified who would and would not be eligible for full citizenship. In February they presented a lengthy protest to the Senate. On the front page of the document they explained that they would not accept jointure because of "the decided racial differences between the people of Arizona and the large majority of the people of New Mexico, who are not only different in race and largely in language, but have entirely different customs, laws, and ideals and would have but little prospect for amalgamation." ...

'Arizona's constitutional convention and new state legislature fulfilled implicit promises to limit political and economic rights along racial and cultural lines. During debates over the constitution, the number of Mexican immigrants in Arizona grew, driven largely by the upheavals of the Mexican Revolution and a rising labor demand. One organizer for the Western Federation of Miners complained that "the American citizen, to a large extent, had been driven out of these mining communities." Sentiments such as this fueled the rise of a new coalition, made up of craft union members, small farmers, and merchants, who led a nativist assault against Mexicans. As the delegates met to write up a constitution, they designed more policies to restrict noncitizen and nonwhite workers from the right to vote and work ...

'The new constitution also included a measure denying suffrage to Indians, more explicitly excluding them from full membership in the national polity than any other ethnic group ...

[And from earlier in the book:] Before 1924 most Arizona Indians were not citizens but had a special status as wards of the state ... Arizona's courts consistently applied this restriction to the indigenous population ... Until the Supreme court struck it down in 1948, the Arizona law enforced the notion that Indians, as long as they remained dependent on the state, were not yet ready for full and equal citizenship.'

Two notes from Ireland

2010-09-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I received the first note below from friends in Ireland. The second one came on Wednesday.

Tuesday: "All well here--we landed Saturday morning; feeling very tired until our coach drove through O'Connell St, the Main Street in Dublin. There outside a very large, very old bookstore, were about a couple of hundred protestors, with large posters of Blair, blood spattered across them, and the words, War Criminal. Blair made the incredibly stupid (well, not from a man who went to Iraq with George) error of beginning his book-tour in Ireland. I suppose he expected that as he had helped buy peace in N. Ireland, he would be warmly welcomed. Police were everywhere--almost as many as the protestors and the people lined up to have their foolishly-purchased volumes signed--but nevertheless, protestors threw eggs and shoes (the new insult of course) at Blair. One lone woman lined up for 2 hours, underwent the indignity of a full-search, as did everyone who was allowed in to see the great man, and when she got there, she told him he was a war criminal, etc. Police seized her before she could say much more, but they could not tell her what offense she had committed, as speech is still, supposedly, free. The outcome of Blair's triumphant tour was that he called off the next stop in Britain, saying he didn't want the police and state to expend the funds on protecting him. Another score for Ireland."

Wednesday: "Was glad to hear last night that not only has he canceled his book-signings in Britain,but has canceled the whole launch party! Way to go, Tony!"

7 years & 5 months later

2010-09-02T01:14:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday President Obama declared an end to the seven-year-and-five-month US combat mission in Iraq.

That lie-ridden, death-dealing adventure of Bush and Cheney (and the rest of the neo-cons) brought about the death of 4,417 US troops (as of Aug. 31.) The official number of wounded is 31,929, but the estimated number is over 100,000.

US-Iraqi government figures say that 70,000 Iraqis have died. That is way, way below the findings of other studies.

Iraqi Body Count -- which counts documented deaths, using resources like hospitals and morgues -- says that between 97,642 and 106,540 Iraqi civilians died. (They reported 501 documented civilian deaths from violence in August.)

By July 2006, the highly-respected medical journal The Lancet estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had already been killed as a result of the invasion. Justforeignpolicy.org continued this study, using Iraq Body Count to measure the rate of increase. They now put the estimated number of Iraqi deaths at 1,366,350.

The financial cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has already gone beyond a trillion dollars, much of that borrowed from other countries.

Now 49,700 U.S. troops remain in Iraq as advisers. They are looking at a political mess. Since the elections in March, there has been no permanent government. Corruption abounds. And Iran is meddling.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, what have you wrought?

Metastasis of bigotry

2010-08-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

As I just wrote on Twitter, I've never quite seen the likes of this recent national onslaught of bigotry toward Muslims. It's on radio, on TV, and perhaps worst of all on the internet. People are getting this stuff via email from their family members and friends, including devoutly religious ones.

One internet example is a text-photo combination claiming that praying Muslims are blocking NYC streets "every Friday afternoon." The photos are actually from a long-standing annual event (including a parade, a bazaar and children's programs) which is licensed by the city -- just like the St. Patrick's Day parade.

For a close-up of this bigoted foolishness and a clear and appropriate response from Snopes, copy and paste the following link into your browser. (I'm sorry links don't work here, but if you follow me on Twitter, I just put a clickable short link there.) Here is the full URL:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/changingface.asp

We just have to find more ways to offset the bigotry.

They're not all in Phoenix

2010-08-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

White supremacists love Arizona. Just about everybody has heard of the high profile, armed-to-the-teeth, neo-Nazi J.T. Ready, and there are plenty more in the Phoenix area that think like him.

But, sadly, Tucson also has its share of racist screwballs. And one of them is again running against Congressman Raul Grijalva. His name is Joseph Sweeney.

Good old Joe tells people he wants to protect them from a Mexican invasion. In fact he recently said that the number of "illegals" ready to invade could be 200 million. He added: "That's just overwhelming us with our Caucasian roots in our society," calling America a "Caucasian-oriented civilization."

Sweeney is such an embarrassment here in Baja Arizona that an independent group of conservatives is running ads against him.

Crazier by the day

2010-08-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

Loonies like Glenn Beck or Sharron Angle or Sarah Palin are bad enough But when true looniness reaches the higher echelons, well, one has to fight a lot harder against depression.

The present national craziness of course covers a very wide spectrum, but immigration is always at or near the top.

Sure, US history shows us that in past economic downturns, minorities were always blamed for just about everything by an angry and frustrated majority. Blame those coarse people who have dark skin or an accent or who eat a lot of garlic or chile.

In these weeks leading up to primaries and the November elections, it seems like every other candidate is playing the fear game. You scare people. Then you tell them you're going to protect them. Then you collect their votes.

Even Sen. John McCain, once-upon-a-time partner of Sen. Ted Kennedy in working toward comprehensive immigraton reform, is telling lies about the border and migrants. (At least he's not echoing governor Jan Brewer's claim that most undocumented folks are drug runners and people are being beheaded in Arizona.)

The blatant fearmongering is bad enough. But now there's a new red herring in the pot: the babies of undocumented mothers.

Various loudmouths have been railing about these babies for ages. But now the fumes are emanating from the top floor. Senators John McCain, John Kyl, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Sessions all want to repeal the 14th Amendment.

Which is just plain nuts.

Here are the opening words of the amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Good old boys, just calm down and leave the Constitution alone.

Federal judge enjoins AZ SB 1070

2010-07-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

Federal judge Susan Bolton has just enjoined Arizona's racial-profiling SB 1070.

Parts of the law were not enjoined, but four major provisions were enjoined. A lawyer friend sums up those four provisions as follows:

* Section 2 dealing with the verification of immigration status based on reasonable suspicion

* Section 3 dealing with creating a state crime for failure to apply for or carry registration papers

* Section 5 which creates a crime for people unlawfully in the US to solicit, apply for or perform work

* Sectiion 6 authorizing a warrantless arrest of people who have committed an offense which makes them removable

The transportation and harboring provisions remain.

---------
See my Twitter entry of about a half hour ago to click on a single link to two articles with an embedded link to the full text of Judge Bolton's ruling.

Whacko Arizona

2010-07-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

Snapshots of a state gone looney:

* Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer recently claimed that most migrants are drug runners and that there have been beheadings in the state -- everyone from academics to statisticians to the Border Patrol say that is ridiculous.

* Brewer is raising funds to defend her racial-profiling SB 1070 -- among contributors are the white supremacist groups Stromfront and American Third Position.

* State senator Russell Pearce is the main man behind Arizona's infamous SB 1070 -- he has neo-Nazi links.

* Maricopa Country Sheriff Joe Arpaio searches feverishly for undocumented workers, marches them in chains and striped suits through the streets and sends his deputies after public figures who challenge him -- all the while he sows fear of brown people in the minds of the unknowing retirees who keep voting for him.

* Sen. John McCain, once Sen. Ted Kennedy's partner in working toward comprehensive immigration reform, has done a complete flip-flop on the issue -- in the meantime he's spent $10 million trying to ensure his reelection.

* The Arizona legislature now allows people to carry concealed weapons without a permit -- including in restaurants and bars.

* This same gang has been chopping away at education, healthcare for children and parks (even our highway toilets have been closed) -- all they know is tax cutting, which they have done for 15 of the last 17 years.

* The state has banned ethnic studies programs -- they have even ruled that a teacher with an accent cannot teach students that are learning English.

* And they passed a state "birther" law -- one more whack, of course, at President Obama.

There is plenty more where all of this came from, but I believe there is enough above to bring in a verdict of Truly Whacko.

* * * * * *
July 27 addendum: On Thursday another Arizona law will take effect: schools will have to get parents' permission to teach sex education.

New stage in the immigration crisis

2010-07-08T23:50:00.001-07:00

What a joy it was to hear on Tuesday that the U.S. Dept. of Justice had filed a legal challenge to Arizona SB 1070. Now we wait for a preliminary injunction to keep the Brewer-Pearce law from taking effect on July 29.

The lawsuit is based on unconstitutionality, since immigration is the realm of the federal government. It is not about the racial profiling aspect of 1070, but five other lawsuits have been filed, and if the law somehow does take effect, the Justice Dept. will monitor its enforcement for racial profiling.

In the meantime, the crazy rhetoric is not slowing down. (I think it will slow somewhat once we get past the November elections.)

Sometimes the posturing is to be expected, for example, from the mouth of SB 1070's grandaddy, Sen. Russell Pearce, who clearly has links to neo-Nazis. And from Gov. Jan Brewer, who on June 15 made the most ridiculous statement of the year, claiming that most undocumented migrants are drug runners. But I think most folks did not expect the outright fear-mongering from Sen. John McCain, now an extraordinary flip-flopper who once had co-sponsored comprehensive immigration reform with Sen. Ted Kennedy. Lately McCain has been promoting himself as "America's last line of defense." (Give us a break, Senator!)

The message of the fear-mongers gets pounded in, day in and day out:

* They repeatedly conflate hard-working migrants with drug-running criminals. (Worst case mentioned above: Gov. Brewer.)

* They often claim that the border is wide open. But just in the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol, there are over 3,000 agents, and they are joined by backup agents from other Border Patrol sectors, county officers, federal rangers and National Guard troops.

" They claim that the flow of migrants is increasing. But the fact is that the number of undocumented people in Arizona has gone down. DHS estimates there was a drop from about 560,000 in Jan. 2008 to about 460,000 in Jan. 2009. From my first-hand observations, I believe the numbers have gone down at an even faster rate since then.

* They talk about growing violence. But violence all along the US side of the southern border has gone down in recent years, right to the present. At the same time, the number of undocumented criminals sent to prison in Arizona has decreased.

* They talk about the obvious mountain of drugs coming across the border. But they seldom if ever mention that the US war on drugs has been going on with near-zero success for 40 years (at the cost of many lives and $1 trillion.) Nor do you often hear them talking about the insatiable coast-to-coast hunger for drugs that drives the whole rotten business.

* They talk about the cost of migrants to schools and hospitals. But they don't talk about migrants'' immense contributions to the nation over decades. They seem content with the $1.7 billion spent each year on over 200 detention centers for migrants who wish they were working at their old jobs (many of which US citizens cannot or will not do.) They don't blink at the obscene profits being raked in by private prisons.

* And when do they ever talk about the family separation caused every day by deportations, or the gruesome deaths of migrants desperate for work who try to cross the desert in remote areas? More deaths along the Arizona-Mexico border have been documented so far this year than at this time last year--as of today, they number 153.

In the wake of the federal lawsuit, we need a lot more good news. We need humane, comprehensive immigration reform. Now.

BP catastrophe: Where were the regulators?

2010-06-26T01:20:00.000-07:00

According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, British Petroleum’s favorability rating now stands at 6%,

That's worse than the favorability rating of Congress, presently standing at 12%.

Here are some numbers from Daily Kos that might take that 12% figure even lower:

Since 2006, Senators have received $3.39 million from the oil industry. 97.5% of that went to Republicans. 70% of it went to Senator John McCain. Some details:

John McCain (R-AZ, $36,649 from BP and $2,428,287 from Big Oil since 2006)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA, $16,200 from BP and $329,100 from Big Oil since 2006)
Mark Begich (D-AK, $8,550 from BP and $85,958 from Big Oil since 2006)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK, $8,500 from BP and $223,326 from Big Oil since 2006)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY, $8,500 from BP and $408,400 from Big Oil since 2006)

In the House of Representatives, it's been downright crazy. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas actually apologized to BP, claiming that President Obama had subjected the company to "a $20 billion shakedown." And she-who-endlessly-talks-crazy, Rep.Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, said that the Gulf escrow fund was "extortion."

The hugely catastrophic BP spill that began on April 20, when the 11 rig workers were killed, is presently flowing at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

So where were the regulators? ABC News reviewed federal records and reported on Thursday that "despite chronic safety problems, the Minerals Management Service, or MMS, imposed paltry fines that often took years to collect. In the overwhelming majority of cases where workers were actually killed, there was no record of fines being paid. Where fines did occur, the maximum penalty was only $25,000.. In a 20-year period, MMS has only fined the oil drilling industry $21 million for hundreds of serious safety violations -- about a million dollars in fines per year for an industry that made $800 billion in profits in that timeframe."

Crazy & dangerous in Arizona

2010-06-20T01:28:00.000-07:00

Arizona's best known neo-Nazi, J.T. Ready of Phoenix, is as dangerous as he is crazy. Yesterday, according to the Arizona Daily Star, he asked people to bring "plenty of firearms and ammo" to a 24-hour operation that he was setting up in Pinal County,north of Tucson. He said he wanted a "show of force and solidarity of concerned patriots ... to stand the line near Interstate 8 to show the world that the line in the sand has been drawn." He talked about placing snipers in position.

One would think that Pinal Country Sheriff Paul Babeu (yes, the guy that did that deceptive commercial at the Nogales fence with immigration flip-flopper John McCain) would have had a fit over the Ready event. But he was wishy-washy about it. He said he discouraged this operation that would "not be helpful, " but he said he was appreciative of the offer to take up arms and patrol. He added that he did not have enough deputies to send a monitor team.

Ready also said, "Armed narco-terrorists are bringing in loads of chemical warfare into our nation. These incursions should be treated no less serious than Al-Qaeda terrorists smuggling Sarin nerve agent into our population centers."

The Star article reports that Ready is "an ex-Marine who was twice court-martialed and received a bad-conduct discharge, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was arrested in Florida in 1992 for aggravated assault with a weapon and damage to property, according to a 2006 Arizona Republic story. In 2008, three Arizona Republican legislators called for Ready's removal from a party precinct committee in Mesa's legislative District 18 because of his ties to the National Socialist Movement. Ready has regularly pitched the idea of putting minefields along the U.S.-Mexico border as a security solution."

Sigh. Just another one of those days in Arizona in 2010 that remind me of Mississippi or Alabama in the 1960s.

Cost of two ongoing wars

2010-06-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

If you date the beginning of the Vietnam War from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Afghanistan War has now lasted longer - 104 months.

* US deaths so far (in and near Afghanistan): 1,008

* The cost in dollars: approaching $300 billion

The Iraq War has now been going on for over seven years.

* The most recent US military death was on June 4

* US military deaths since war began on Mar. 19, 2003: 4,403. Since Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech on May 1, 2003: 4,264. Since Barack Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009: 175

* The official number of US wounded in Iraq: 31,844. Estimated number of US wounded: over 100,000

The estimated number of Iraqi casualties due to the US invasion (JustForeignPolicy.org): 1,366,360

As of May 30th the US had spent a total of $1 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,

Immigration Notes

2010-05-28T01:04:00.000-07:00

* For decades, undocumented migrants from Mexico were tacitly welcomed in the US.

* We have all benefitted from migrants' work--in fields and orchards, food processing plants and restaurants, child care and housekeeping, gardening and landscaping, construction and roofing and a lot more.

* Undocumented people pay taxes: sales, income, property and Social Security (from which many will never benefit.)

* About 15 years ago, federal agents began sealing the border in populated areas. As a result, migrants--who once came north to work in spring and returned home before Christmas--became true immigrants who just stayed here and sent for their families.

* Since then, migrants have had to go out into the remote desert in order to cross. And they have died there, most often a terrible death from the intense heat. Since 2000, just on the Arizona part of the border, the bodies of at least 1,954 migrants have been found. including 111 since Oct. 1. For the whole border, the number is at least, 5,700

* In this pre-primary election period, voters are repeatedly told to be afraid. Sen. John McCain once a sponsor of immigration reform with Ted Kennedy, is now telling the country that he is "America's last line of defense." He talks of growing violence, when in fact overall violence along the border has gone down.

* Many politicians conflate hard-working migrants and drug dealers. (By the way, our 40-year-old "War on Drugs" has cost $1 trillion and countless lives, but illegal drugs are still available almost everywhere. Blame the insatiable US drug appetite for that.)

* The main person behind Arizona's racist law SB 1070 is state senator Russell Pearce, who has long had connections to white supremacists. Pearce and racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio continually try to spread fear, which then gets them votes. SB 1070 was authored by Kris Kobach, lawyer for the anti-immigrant hate group FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) and a trainer of Arpaio's deputies. FAIR's head, Dan Stein, has lied on national TV about his organization, which was founded by the grandaddy of America's white supremacists, JohnTanton (who remains on FAIR's board of directors.)

* The tragedy goes far beyond Arizona. In the US, over 30,000 immigrants are being held on any given day in over 200 detention centers, costing taxpayers $1.7 billion each year. At least 104 immigrants have died in detention since 2003. Deportations constantly cause family separations, and decent immigration reform seems nowhere in sight.

More goofball legislation in AZ

2010-05-13T01:04:00.000-07:00

Let's just face it,

Arizona has been crawling with racists for a very long time. Presently our state has 21 nativist extremist groups (vigilante groups) and 19 hate groups (12 of these are in the greater Phoenix area.)

And then Sen. Russell Pearce, Gov. Jan Brewer and their comrades in retrogressive legislation gave us us SB 1070--an open invitation to racial profiling a la Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

And now Brewer has signed Tom Horne's law.

Horne is the state superintendent of education (presently running for attorney general) who has long been having conniptions over a fine Mexican-American studies program here in Tucson that teaches about ethnic history and literature and the contributions of ethnic groups. (The school district has similar classes in African-American and Native-American studies.)

This goofball law prohibits classes that

* promote the overthrow of the US government (Obviously this one is just plain nuts...)

* promote resentment toward a race or class of people (This from a state government that is facilitating the racial profiling of brown people...)

* are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group. (This is Horne's big gripe--think about it...)

* advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals (so now solidarity is a bad word, as in the Montgomery bus boycott or the Selma marches...)

That feverish lot in Phoenix is driving our state straight to hell.

Arizona's adamant racists

2010-05-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

The situation here in Arizona is beyond crazy.

The racial-profiling law SB 1070, approved by our state's Neanderthal Republican majority, is now familiar news to people all across this country and beyond.

SB 1070 was written by Kris Kobach, a lawyer from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. (By the way, Kobach is also a "birther.") FAIR was founded in 1979 by white supremacist John Tanton, who is still a member of its board of directors. (Tanton is the founder and/or funder of at least a dozen anti-immigrant organizations.) Here are some of Tanton's racist statements:

* “To govern is to populate. Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night or will there be an explosion?”

* Tanton in 1986: "Is apartheid in Southern California's future? The demographic picture in South Africa now is startlingly similar to what we'll see in California in 2030. In Southern Africa, a White minority owns the property, has the best jobs and education, has the political power, and speaks one language. A non-White majority has poor education, jobs and income, owns little property, is on its way to political power and speaks a different language."

* In this one, he used fake Latin: "Can homo contraceptivus compete with homo progenitiva if borders aren't controlled? Or is advice to limit one's family simply advice to move over and let someone else with greater reproductive powers occupy the space?"

* In 1997, he said that America would soon be overrun by immigrants coming to America "defecating and creating garbage and looking for jobs."

* That same year he compared immigrants to bacteria:: "In the bacteriology lab, we have culture plates. You put a bug in there and it starts growing and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And it grows until it finally fills the whole plate. And it crashes and dies."

The state senator who has fiercely led the charge for SB 1070 is Russell Pearce, a wildly outspoken racist who has unloaded a continuous stream of lies.

Lawsuits against SB 1070 are already flying, even one by Tucson police officer Martin Escobar. Our Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik has called the law "racist," "disgusting," "unnecessary" and "crap." On May 1, 7,000 of us marched downtown to decry it; 50,000 marched in Los Angeles. It was the same story from Seattle to Washington, D.C.

But the Phoenix xenophobes remain adamant. They won't bend until they see the money go.

The Boycott Arizona movement is already on a roll.

Arizona's madness

2010-04-26T00:21:00.000-07:00

It is a terrible time in this state.

* Arizona has lots of racists, and their most powerful patron saints are Senator Russell Pearce & Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Backed up by hatemongers on radio and TV, these two have maintained power by relentlessly engendering fear in white voters and conflating hardworking migrants and drug smugglers .

* Pearce's new law SB 1070 (yes, I have read it all) is a stew of bills that he could not get passed before. It legally binds every law officer in Arizona to question people about their status if the officer is suspicious -- read brown people.

* It makes it a crime to give shelter or a ride to undocumented people if you know they are undocumented. Even waving your hand to request yard work is a crime.

* It makes it a crime for documented immigrants to move around without their papers -- again read brown people.

* Arizona's budget deficit is over $3,000,000,000 and the state is chopping education and healthcare and even closing highway rest stops, But this insane law is going to cost millions -- and it will distract police from fighting real crime.

* Hispanics are going to be afraid to report crimes like assault, sex abuse and robbery to the police.

I urge readers across Arizona, across our country and beyond to stand against this outrageous racial-profiling law. You can help by asking your relatives and friends to join in boycotting Arizona -- as tourists, sports fans, hikers, whatever. If they work for a company that plans a convention in Arizona, they can push for cancellation and choice of another state. Anyone can complain (24 hours) to Gov. Jan Brewer who signed the bill -- at 602-542-4331.

Si, se puede -- yes we can!

Looney in America

2010-04-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

What a chorus of screwball hatemongers. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (I can never figure out which of these two is worse.) Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter. Michele Bachman and Virginia Fox. A looney-tunes choir like nothing we've seen before.

And then there is Tom Tancredo, the former congressman who is so xenophobic that he appears apoplectic.

Yesterday he outdid himself when he told a bunch of Tea Party folks in Greenville, South Carolina. that he wanted them to send President Obama "back to Kenya."

This is the same Tancredo who recently said that Obama was elected by "people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English." He went on to say that there should be a civic literacy test--which is of course a clear call to return to even more racist times.

Looney they are. And very, very dangerous.

Catching up (but I've tweeted daily)

2010-04-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

These are strange times.

On the one hand, we have elected an African-American president. A decade ago, how many of us would have guessed our country would make such progress by now?

On the other hand, we have more and more whackos coming out from under the rocks:

* "Birthers" who don't believe Barack Obama is an American

* "Deathers" who think Obama is going to kill their grandparents

* Nazifiers who think Obama is the new Hitler

* Neo-Confederates who are longing for Civil War Two

* Secessionists who want Texas to secede from the Union

* Vigilantes who carry guns and hunt Mexican migrants

* White supremacists who love to hate

* Religious fundamentalists who think Obama is the Anti-Christ

* Hypocrites who scream "Socialism!" while getting help from Social Security and Medicare

* And then there are all those sad souls who think Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh care about something other than getting rich by spewing poison

Not just strange times. Very crazy times.

Addressing the Vatican tsunami

2010-03-29T23:40:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a ton of commentary on the Vatican tsunami that seems to be intensifying every day. I've sent rather detailed articles on the subject to my lists. Many a day I find myself in the midst of discussion and debate.

In much briefer form, here is how a friend of mine describes the situation:

"The latest defense of the pope is that as archbishop of Munich he was more concerned with doctrine than with people!!

"It makes him sound like the philosopher who loved humanity, it was just that he couldn't stand people.

"It makes one ask how could the church claim to carry the gospel message. Any reading of the gospels makes it clear that Jesus' concern was with people, not doctrine."

A multitude of whackos

2010-03-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

I would rather not run long quotes on this blog, but today Shortnews.com did a very fine job of summarizing the lunacy that seems to be growing like wildfire in our country:

"Majority of Republicans Believe Obama is a Socialist Muslim

"According to a new Harris poll, 57 percent of Republicans believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and 67 percent believe him to be a socialist. This despite Obama´s relation of his Christian faith in ´The Audacity of Hope.´

"The poll also found that 45 percent of Republicans, and 1 of 4 Americans, believe Obama was not born in the United States "and so is not eligible to be president." This 'birther' claim has even been dismissed by Fox News´ Bill O´Reilly.

"38 percent of Republicans believe that Obama is 'doing many things Hitler did,' and nearly a quarter of Republicans -- 24 percent -- believe that Obama 'may be the anti-Christ.'"

I have been a whacko-watcher for years, but these numbers are simply mind-boggling. I think we just might be going to hell in a teabag.

History made tonight

2010-03-22T01:10:00.000-07:00

It has been a great night indeed.

President Franklin Roosevelt gave us Social Security in 1935, but in 1939 he could not get Congress to back national health insurance.

President Harry Truman was unsuccessful when he asked Congress for universal health care coverage in 1945.

In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson pushed Congress and got us Medicare and Medicaid.

In the 1970s President Richard Nixon could not get Congress to extend Medicare/Medicaid coverage to everyone.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton could not get Congress to back universal health care.

But tonight saw history made. After months and months of often fierce conflict (and endless shouts about Nazis and death panels and similar craziness), the House passed a strong health reform bill by a vote of 219 to 212.

Many folks (such as myself) could not figure out why President Obama went so very long without giving up on the Party of Perpetual No. But then he rekindled the fire of his campaigning days. And he has been relentless ever since.

Some think that for a time the president was almost convinced by advisors such as Rahm Emanuel to forget the big picture and just go for smaller changes. But Nancy Pelosi would not be moved. Obviously, the first woman Speaker of the House is pure determination and dogged perseverance.

So tonight begins a new era, with some changes taking place right away and some taking up to four years to implement. Despite the lack of a public option (for now), the approved bill will change the lives of millions of Americans. 32 million uninsured will be getting insurance coverage. Among the many changes: insurance companies will not be allowed to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or gender; large employers will have to provide coverage; out of pocket costs will be capped; parents will be able to keep their children on their health coverage until age 26.

The Senate must now vote on some "corrections" insisted upon by the House -- to be decided by "reconciliation" (51 votes or the vote of VP Joe Biden if there is a tie.)

Tonight's House vote was by far the biggest medical coverage decision in almost a half century.

P.S. Special thanks to Rep. Bart Stupak, who I would say redeemed himself tonight. And to hundreds of Catholic hospitals (through the Catholic Health Association) and the national coalition of nuns for backing the reform bill when the bishops would not.

Poor Mexico

2010-03-16T23:56:00.000-07:00

These days "poor Mexico" means a lot more than a Mexico suffering from poverty. The drug wars are crucifying large parts of that country.

In the past three years, over 18,000 people have been killed in the cartel wars: competing cartel gunmen, police and military personnel, journalists, civic officials and sometimes bystanders.

President Calderon has sent 11,000 soldiers and federal police to Ciudad Juarez, while great numbers of citizens and businesses have abandoned the city. 4,500 people have been killed there since January 2008, 500 of them so far this year. After a children's birthday party last Saturday, the Aztecas gang connected to the Juarez cartel murdered a U.S. consular official and her husband and a Mexican citizen in another car.

In Nogales, Sonora, just 62 miles south of Tucson, the homicide rate continues to grow: 52 killed in 2007, 126 in 2008 and 136 in 2009. By last Friday, this year's number of homicides had already reached 70.

The cartels' reign of terror is often carried out with automatic weapons and sometimes hand grenades. Many of the guns are obtained in the U.S.

Bodies are found, sometimes in the streets and sometimes in mass graves, with torture marks and sometimes beheaded.

This war particularly affects Tucson/Pima County, the Connecticut-sized Tohono O'Odham reservation just west of Tucson, and most of Arizona. 28 percent of prosecuted crimes in Pima Country are drug-related, compared to 10 percent nationally. In just 12 months, the Tucson Police Department's home-invasion unit investigated 150 home invasions, with about 80 percent of those drug-related.

(I'm not writing this blog from some ivory tower. Many a time I've heard gunshots. I recently found a wounded dealer and then worked with three friends to clean up the blood after a barrage of bullets was fired in broad daylight across the street from a school playground.)

A vast Mexican army presence on the other side of the border and a huge enforcement buildup on this side have not been able to stop the madness. The story is not complicated: the insatiable U.S. appetite for cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana means people can make such incredible amounts of money that many will torture and murder to get it.

Lest we forget

2010-03-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

Much of the world has just seen the bravery of Iraqis going out to vote despite all the threats and the deadly explosions. Apparently the turnout was well over 50%.

But behind all the media coverage of the past weekend In Iraq, the ongoing death statistics get little attention.

Since Bush and Cheney began their illegal war on Iraq almost seven years ago, the number of US troops killed there has reached 4,380. (The most recent death was on Feb. 25.)

The "official" number of Americans wounded is 31,706. The estimate, however, is over 100,000 wounded.

Here are some more death statistics from Iraq:
Contractors, 1,457
Journalists, 338
Academics, 437

The estimated total number of Iraqi deaths due to the US invasion is 1,366,350 (from Just Foreign Policy.org)

As of March 3, coalition deaths in Afghanistan have reached 1,599. (And where is this number headed?)

The song keeps echoing: "When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?"

Screams & non-screams from the GOP

2010-02-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

The Republican Party of No continues to scream about what they think would be the cost of health care reform.

But you never hear a complaining peep from them about the Bush tax cuts for the rich that cost $1.8 trillion -- which is twice the cited health reform costs.

And they don't groan, much less scream, about this kind of spending:

* The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost over $1 trillion to date. (Under Bush, they cost each American family more than $25,000.) This year will add between $200 billion and $250 billion.

* We have 16 intelligence agencies (with 200,000 employees) that eat up $75 billion.

* Half of the world's military spending is done by the Pentagon. That's 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues.

* We are paying for 750 U.S. military bases in 50 countries.

* The U.S. keeps building or contracting new prisons. About 2.3 million people are now behind bars (1 in every 99) - a larger proportion of the population than in any other nation in the world. The prison system's price tag is more than $60 billion - up from just $9 billion two decades ago

* US detention centers hold about 300,000 migrants. Here in Tucson, the feds pay $6,000 to $12,000 each day to private attorneys who supposedly represent a steady flow of chained migrants who are automatically deported anyway. Just up the road at little Eloy, migrant detention is costing taxpayers between $9 million and $11 million a month. Private prisons are raking in the money in over half the states.

* The walls on our southern border -- breached over 3,000 times -- have cost about $3.5 billion so far. A GAO report last year said it would cost $6.5 billion to maintain them over the next 20 years.

* In the last decade we have paid just one mercenary group, the thoroughly corrupt Blackwater/Xe corporation, well over $1 billion. (The Washington Post reported that "Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.")

GOP, once again the grand old party of hypocrites.

Obama: disappointment & hope

2010-02-20T23:51:00.000-08:00

I struggle with this almost every day. While the joy of Barack Obama's election remains in my heart, my mind is just not at ease. Not by a long shot.

Even before the election, I was worried about his rah-rah approach to the war in Afghanistan. Now there are 100,000 US troops on the ground. We'll just have to see if those withdrawal dates materialize.

When the president took questions from the House Republicans last month in Baltimore, he finally got tough with all their foolishness. But the GOP continues its (well-documented) barrage of lies, and there is a much stronger repartee from MSNBC than from the White House.

Then there is Obama'e ongoing waving of the bipartisan flag, even after months of the perpetual NO in Congress and a Senate that uses the filibuster more often than it uses the bathroom.

And there is Guantanamo. And the mild response to the Honduran coup. And the new US air base in Colombia. And the snail's pace of immigration reform. There are those Wall St. buddies (who after the havoc they caused are supposedly still deserving of obscene bonuses.)

Yesterday the Justice Department cleared Bush's torture lawyers. They weren't even disbarred. The only verdict: "poor judgment." (This never could have happened in Nuremberg in 1946.)

But I'm not giving up hope. The president remains a very far cry from the war criminal duo that was running the show for eight years.Maybe he has some good surprises around the corner. Maybe he will come up with some good Roosevelt-style, hard-nosed gumption and push the Senate Democrats hard enough to come up with the 51 votes that could give us the healthcare public option after all.

Hope is good.

2010-02-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

Eric Margolis, wrote Feb. 7 in the Toronto Sun: "More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion." Here is a synopsis of his article.

* This year Washington's deficit will reach $1.6 trillion, with most of it to be borrowed from China and Japan--countries the US already owes $1.5 trillion. (Margolis points out that to spend $1 trillion, you'd have to spend $1 million per day starting 2,738 years ago.)

* The military budget is almost $1 trillion--$880 billion to the Pentagon, about $70 billion for secret programs, plus military aid to other countries (especially Egypt, Israel and Pakistan), payment to contractors (including mercenaries), covering veterans' needs and $75 billion for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.

* So far, the bill for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is $1 trillion. This year, if you include hidden and indirect expenses, $200-250 billion will be added to the bill.President Obama's 30,000 troop surge will cost $33 billion more. (Margolis adds that the surge amount is more than Germany's total defence budget.)

* "There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad... Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars--funded by borrowing--cost each American family more than $25,000."

Tancredo The Racist, again.

2010-02-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

Tea Party folks keep insisting that they are all about taking on bloated government, self-serving moneymongers and various other phonies in Washington and on Wall St. So why don't we hear outrage from them when attendees riddle their gatherings with hate? Everybody knows about those signs held high by xenophobes and Nazifiers and birthers and deathers. Is there any outrage at all?

Last night I watched news footage from the Tea Party convention in Nashville. Former Congressman Tom Tancredo was delivering a not-very-surprising racist rant to the convention audience. He attacked what he calls "the cult of multiculturalism" in the USA and said that because "we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country, people who could not even spell the word 'vote,' or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House, name is Barack Hussein Obama."

The ensuing applause was as sickening as the rant.

By the way, about 600 tea-baggers paid $549 for admission to the convention. (I don't know if they charged the more than 150 reporters who showed up.) Tea-baggers who cannot afford $549 can be present for Sarah Palin's keynote tonight for only $349.

Republican regrets

2010-01-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched the video of President Obama's meeting with the House Republican caucus in Baltimore.. It was a question-and-answer session, though some of the questions sounded more like small speeches.

What a delight to see Obama get good and tough with those folks, especially when he was blamed for the disastrous baggage he inherited from George W. Bush. All in all, I would say the president took his questioners to the cleaners. Once again he showed an extremely keen intelligence and grasp of facts, and he kept his cool in the face of a lot of arrogant cynicism.

When the camera turned to the audience, you could see grimness all over the place. I'd say two of the grimmest faces were on stage; they belonged to leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor. No surprise there.

Commentators are saying that the Republicans thoroughly regret that they allowed this interchange to be televised. I don't doubt it one bit.

The Roberts & Company disaster

2010-01-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

While countless Americans continued to reach out in a thousand ways to help the millions of disaster victims in Haiti, a profoundly ugly decision was made in Washington. Yesterday the Supreme Court majority accelerated our country's ongoing falling apart at the seams in an enormous way.

The Court majority that eased George W. Bush into office has now produced a rotten decision that reminds one of the infamous Dred Scott ruling. (That Supreme Court decision--7 to 2, in 1857- ruled that blacks were not protected by the Constitution, could not be citizens and were private property. It's greatest opponent was Abraham Lincoln.)

Yesterday Chief Justice John Roberts and his four comrades on the Court gave free rein to corporations to spend all the mountains of money they want in order to put their own people in power--from congressional seats to city councils. Roberts and Company claim such unfettered corporate spending is "free speech."

What we now clearly have is an unadulterated homeland disaster.

The sixtieth vote

2010-01-20T23:14:00.000-08:00

Incredible. The Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for 47 years has been taken by Scott Brown, a climate change skeptic and advocate of torture (specifically waterboarding.) Listen to the barrage of clinks as bankers, insurance company execs and big pharma operatives raise their glasses and toast the disappearance of Senate vote #60.

Apparently this upset was brought about by independents who are fed up with everything from the high unemployment numbers to the bank bailouts. Maybe this outcome should not have been such a surprise.

When Brown's win was confirmed, the pending (and very wimpy) health care legislation was instantly pronounced dead. New approaches immediately began to pour out. The House could just accept the Senate version as is before Brown's arrival (but Obama and others have already shot that one down.) Medicare eligibility could be expanded. Health care reform could be done piecemeal .

This could all be so very uncomplicated: Just make Medicare universal.

Haiti video

2010-01-17T23:16:00.000-08:00

I hope that every one of you reading this who has not seen Sunday's "60 Minutes" piece on Haiti will copy the following link into your browser and watch it:

http://tinyurl.com/y8vj3a6

Haiti

2010-01-14T00:47:00.000-08:00

Who could have imagined last night that deaths from the Haiti earthquake might exceed 100,000. I have been watching video footage on MSNBC and it beyond heartbreaking. Bodies visible everywhere, and unknown numbers are buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings

President Obama moved quickly; this is nothing like Katrina. Rescue teams are already there and aid is on its way via air and sea. The US now has air control set up at the Port Au Prince airport, but the country has only two paved airports. The other one is way to the north, hours from the capital.

Aid from other countries is arriving as well, and in Washington Democrats and Republicans are working together. But in the midst of universal compassion and solidarity, two ugly marks stain the picture.

"Christian" preacher Pat Robertson said that God has "cursed" Haiti for selling its soul to the devil in exchange for driving out the French.

Limbaugh said that President Obama was happy about the earthquake and that his administration will "use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in the...the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for them."

Today, the two most disgusting people in America.

* * * * *

A friend in Chicago has just sent me this list of some of the reliable groups accepting money donations to provide relief to the earthquake victims:

Help Haiti Now

Red Cross

UNICEF

Oxfam America

Catholic Relief Services

Mercy Corps

Doctors Without Borders

Our neighbor Haiti

2010-01-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

As I write this- at 12:05 on Wed. morning Tucson time--nobody knows how many have died in the huge 7.0 earthquake.that hit Port au Prince at 5:30 p.m. The epicenter of this shallow quake was only a few miles west of Haiti's capital city.

Reports say that thousands sit in the streets in the rain and darkness. The BBC says at least hundreds have died, another source says maybe thousands.

How much can one poor and devastated country withstand? Especially when it is the poorest in the western hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world.

54% of the Haiti's 8.2 million people are impoverished and live on less than a dollar a day. 76% live on less than two dollars a day.

While earthquake relief is already on its way from the US, it is staggering to realize that Haiti lies only 681 miles south of our country--a country where Wall St. employees rescued by taxpayers are receiving billions of dollars in annual bonuses. On Monday, Democracy Now reported: "Wall Street firms are preparing to give out billions of dollars in annual bonuses. The average employee at Goldman Sachs is expected to receive a bonus worth nearly $600,000. Many executives will earn far more. At JPMorgan the average bonus is expected to top $450,000. But the Wall Street Journal reports many employees at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and other firms are grumbling because much of this year’s bonus will be in stock instead of cash."

Something is colossally rotten, and it's not in Denmark.

10 minutes spotlighting Arpaio

2010-01-03T17:42:00.000-08:00

Just minutes ago I received email with a link to a 10-minute video from KPHO TV in Phoenix about Maricopa County's racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio. I won't repeat here what I wrote about Arpaio (whom I believe to be a fascist) in my December 13 blog, but I highly recommend this video to everyone. (And I hope that the vast number of clueless folks in Maricopa County who consider Arpaio their hero watch it with their blinders off.)

I find that putting a clickable link into Blogger is very complicated (if it works at all), so you'll have to copy and paste this KPHO link into your browser:

http://www.kpho.com/video/21476686/index.html

By the way the "Mary Poppins" ad at the beginning lasts just a few seconds.

Go, FBI! It has taken way too long. Joe Arpaio has to be indicted ASAP.

Devastating facts

2009-12-30T00:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some devastating facts from UNICEF. In the meantime, of course, billions upon billions of dollars go toward war.

There are 2.2 billion children in the world – 1.1 billion live in poverty.

30,000 children die every single day due to poverty. “Every year, 11 million children will die quietly, in some of the poorest villages on earth.”

Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name.

More than 253 million children – as young as 5 years old – work in child labor.

1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

One-half of the world’s population – 3 billion people – live on less than $2 a day.

Senatorial Circus

2009-12-22T00:56:00.000-08:00

I think our Senate must be the laughingstock of the world. There is the weeks-long obstruction of healthcare reform by every last Republican. There is the birther senator Coburn. And the deather senator Grassley. There is the global-warming denying senator Inhofe. (Poor Oklahoma! They've got two out of three here.)

Then there are those holy, theatrical praying senators. They surface time and again. Some of their praying has gone on behind the doors of the C Street house of "The Family" But much of it is very public.

The latest senatorial holy moment took place this week in Washington, more precisely in the Senate itself. Senator Coburn, back in the spotlight again, made a call to prayer -- prayer that some Senator would not make it to the roll call for 60 votes to end the Republican filibuster on health care reform. Of course Coburn had to be referring to 92-year-old Senator Byrd -- who nevertheless did arrive in his wheelchair in the middle of the night to enthusiastically vote for cloture.

People have long said that of the two chambers of Congress, the Senate is the more dignified one. Not for quite some time.

Arpaio the Mad

2009-12-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

I once thought the saga of Maricopa County's racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio could not get much worse. What a pipe dreamer I was!

On Saturday the L.A. Times did a good job of updating the Arpaio record. Some quotes:

* "The day after the federal government told...Arpaio that he could no longer use his deputies to round up suspected illegal immigrants on the street, the combative Arizona sheriff did just that. He launched one of his notorious 'sweeps,' in which his officers descend on heavily Latino neighborhoods, arrest hundreds of people for violations as minor as a busted headlight and ask them whether they are in the country legally."

* "For two decades, he has basked in publicity over his colorful tactics, such as dressing jail inmates in pink underwear and housing them in outdoor tents during the brutal Phoenix summers."

* In recent months he has been "launching repeated investigations of those who criticize him. He recently filed a racketeering lawsuit against the entire Maricopa County power structure."

* "Last year, when Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called for a federal investigation of Arpaio's immigration enforcement, the Sheriff's Office demanded to see Gordon's e-mails, phone logs and appointment calendars."

* "A local television station (has) documented two dozen instances of the sheriff launching investigations of critics, none of which led to convictions."

* "The most notorious case involves county Supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican who has sometimes disagreed with Arpaio's immigration tactics. Last December, deputies arrested Stapley on charges of failing to disclose business interests properly on his statement of economic interest."

* "A judge in September dismissed several of the allegations against Stapley, and prosecutors dropped the case. Three days later, Arpaio's deputies arrested Stapley again after he parked his car in a downtown parking structure near his office. No charges were filed until County Atty. Andrew Thomas -- Arpaio's ally in his fights with the supervisor -- charged Stapley this week with misusing money he raised to run for president of the National Assn. of Counties."

* "Arpaio, a Republican, is highly popular in Arizona. He won reelection last year with 55% of the vote in the state's most populous county."

* "The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into Arpaio's tactics. The sheriff has refused to cooperate and has called for an investigation of the investigators."

* "Arpaio... has become embroiled in a sometimes-surreal battle with the five county supervisors who oversee his budget. Amid the recession, they have cut the sheriff's budget by 12.2%. Arpaio and Thomas filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against the county supervisors, administrators and several judges who have ruled against the two in prior cases... County officials noted that Arpaio and Thomas have sued them six times in efforts to regain power over their budgets -- and they lost every time."

* * * * *
I believe that Joe Arpaio is either a fascist or a lunatic. Or both. And what a miserable fact that his fear-mongering and xenophobic rants got him over half of the county votes in the last election.

After the Obama speech

2009-12-04T23:34:00.000-08:00

Even though I was expecting President Obama to call for more troops for Afghanistan on Tuesday night, I still felt a huge wave of disappointment and frustration when he announced he was sending 30.000 more.

I won't repeat all of what I wrote in my Nov 26 blog: I'll just ask some questions:

* What does starting to bring troops home in mid-2011 really mean? How many out of 100,000?

* President Obama says comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam is “a false reading of history." Is it really?

* How much healthcare and education could be given to Afghanistan's children with the billions of dollars that are going to warfare?

* As Nicholas Kristof asked in the NY Times on Thursday, why has there not been consultation with Afghanistan's tribal elders (the Shura) ?

* How can Afghanistan govern itself when the Karzai government is so corrupt? .

* President Obama says this escalation is about "the security of the United States and the safety of the American people." But what about the security and safety of Americans whose health care is lacking, whose homes are being repossessed, whose children are being shortchanged in school or cannot get into college, whose bridges are rickety?

I repeat: hugely disappointing, hugely frustrating.

What will President Obama announce on Tuesday?

2009-11-26T09:21:00.000-08:00

Germany's top soldier has just resigned over a coverup of the killing of Afghan civilians. (That country is number three in the war, after the US and Britain.) Resistance to the war is growing in Germany just as it is here.

So what will President Obama announce at West Point on Tuesday?

He ordered up 20,000 more troops for Afghanistan in March. The frightening rumor is that he will now send 34,000 more, eight years into the war.

As of this morning, the US military death toll is Afghanistan is 927. Other military coalition deaths now number 601.

Besides the costs in lives and injury, each troop costs $1 million a year. (That of course while Americans die every day for lack of health insurance.)

In the meantime, how many Americans know that the Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan is now 100 or less? How many know that Al Qaeda is physically operating in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Algeria--and worldwide via the internet? How many know the depth of the corruption of the Karzai government? How many know that Afghanistan's Pashtuns fiercely drove out Alexander the Great 23 centuries ago and in modern times the British and the Soviets?

President Kennedy stood up to the Pentagon on Russia in Cuba and on Vietnam. President Obama can do the same and get us out, even though it could cost him a second term. We can only hope he will be as strong as Kennedy was.

A church in reverse

2009-11-18T00:46:00.000-08:00

I will never forget the joy and hope I felt during the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965 -- I was ordained in 1964.) The first tangible results of the council were felt just before Christmas 1964 when parts of the Mass went from Latin to the people's own languages around the world.

But for decades now there has been a huge effort toward restoration of the "good old days." Many would have us return to distancing ourselves from people of other religions or opposing religious liberty or taking a fundamentalist approach to the bible. Already one US bishop is celebrating Mass in his cathedral with his back to the people.

The US bishops are about to make final decisions this week on changing the words of the Mass. Unless protesting Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., is successful in blocking the draft, some strange and antiquated language will soon land on us. Because the Vatican wants the Mass to be a strict translation from Latin (which Jesus surely did not speak), we will be celebrating Mass with archaic words and some really bad grammar. Here are some of the words: consubstantial, ineffable, incarnate, inviolate, oblation, ignominy. precursor, suffused and unvanquished. Even the simple "cup" of the Last Supper is to be called "this precious chalice."

Vatican II called on us to be a "church in the modern world," But the higher-ups who want transcendency above everythng else seem to be winning. It is a sad time.

Two congressional lunatics

2009-11-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

Last Friday the right-wingnuts of the Republican party hit rock bottom. At a so-called "press conference" organized by House Republican leaders, queen of the lunatics Michele Marie Bachman of Minnesota presided over a pathetic teabag-style rally. Right behind her ladyship stood her equally crazy lady-in-waiting, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina. Their disgusting standard, held high in the crowd, had a photo of a pile of Holocaust victims' bodies with the words "National Socialist HealthCare: Dachau, Germany - 1945."

Sadly, even Minority Leader John Boehner took part in this idiotic outrage, as did Minority Whip Eric Cantor and lots of other Republican Reps.

On Fox "News" they said 20 to 45 thousand people showed up. Someone on J. Gordon Liddy's program said 1,000,000 The local police counted 4,000.

If anyone reading this does not know who Bachman and Foxx are, read on.

Bachman has said that Barack Obama "may have anti-American views."

Another Bachman doozy: “The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax,"

And there's this: "Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle – we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay.”

Then there is Virginia Foxx.

Foxx has said that Democratic health reform would mean that seniors would be "put to death by their government."

She claims that "there are no Americans who don't have health care."

And this: Healthcare reform is a greater threat to the US than "any terrorist right now in any country."

Foxx said that Matthew Shepard's murder was a hoax. (In 1998, two young gay-haters tied Shepard to a fence in a remote area, tortured him, smashed his head with a pistol and left him hanging there to die.)

Actual members of the Congress of these United States.

Absolute rock bottom.

Afghanistan

2009-11-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

It is 12:40 Sunday morning and I just saw the breaking news on the BBC's site that Abdullah Abdullah has dropped out of the second round of the Afghan election.

President Karzai refused Abdullah's demand to get rid of the election officials in charge of the first round. There is no doubt that hundreds of thousands of votes in that round were fakes.

So now it is certain that we will have more of Hamid Karzai. He has been president of Afghanistan for the last seven years, and he stands atop a mountain of corruption. It is clear that his brother is a high level drug dealer (who also happens to be a paid employee of the CIA.)

We have got to pressure President Obama and Congress to pull back from the edge of the volcano and avoid another Vietnam.

More and more people will bring that pressure if they listen to Matthew Hoh, the senior diplomat who has quit the State Department over Afghanistan.

Hoh wrote in his resignation letter: "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan. I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

Just look at the history. Afghanistan's Pashtuns have been living on that same land for millennia. 2,300 years ago, they almost killed Alexander the Great. The British Empire was driven out. The Soviet Empire was driven out.

The Taliban already control over 50% of Afghanistan (which has 35,000 villages.) Everyone knows about the Taliban's religious fanaticism. What many don't realize is that President Karzai is willing to accommodate that fanaticism. He signed a law that the UN said legalized rape within marriage and mandated a husband's permission for his wife to leave home even to see a doctor. (He reversed himself under international pressure.)

The country is a humungous drug factory. According to the UN, its opium market is worth $65 billion. It supplies 15 million addicts and kills 100,000 of them every year.

Early this year, CBS reported that Afghan families average about $350 a year. About one third of that goes to bribes -- to get ID papers, to get by checkpoints, to get electricity, etc.

We hear that we have to send tens of thousands more troops to root out al-Qaida from Afghanistan. But President Obama's national security adviser Gen. James Jones has said that less than 100 al-Qaida remain there.

Which brings us back to Matthew Hoh. He says that sending more US troops into this civil war is only going to fuel the insurgency that is raging against the US occupation of Afghanistan. If enough people listen to Hoh and speak out, the tide of another senseless war will be turned.

Catholic letter to Anglicans

2009-10-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

The US Catholic group CALL TO ACTION has written an open letter to people in the Anglican tradition stating that they are "disappointed with the Vatican's announcement of a streamlined process for Anglican conversion to Roman Catholicism for individuals and dioceses who do not support women's and LGBT equality." The CTA director, Jim FitzGerald continues:

"We have watched and supported your struggles over the years to welcome all God's people equally to ministerial leadership. You should stand proud.

"The majority of Catholics in the United States also hope for a day when we might be able to say that we, too, have heeded the gospel call for justice within our own church leadership. Studies show that 83% of U.S. Catholics believe that it is morally wrong to discriminate against homosexuals (Contemporary Catholic Trends Survey) and 61% of U.S. Catholics believe that women should be priests (National Catholic Reporter Survey)....

"We pray for a time when our church officials will also come to know the blessings that come from living, not as a divided community, but as one people united with God."

To put it mildly, I share CTA's disappointment.

Tea-bagging in Tucson

2009-10-18T00:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit late with this commentary, but anyway.....

On October 10, Tucson had its own tea party. 6,000 tea-baggers showed up. (Tucsonans will not be surprised to learn that Bushista car dealer Jim Click was there.).

The Arizona Daily Star reported spotting some of the usual tea-bagger signs, like President Obama as Pinocchio and as The Joker.

Some of the other tea creations were new to me:

Obama as one of the Three Stooges.

A T-shirt with “Tyranny Response Team”

Obama's face on a yellow bull with the words “21st century golden calf.”

A sign with “First Black President leads U.S. into slavery.”

And the crowd booed when someone mentioned that the president had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Typical tea-bagging in a way, but apparently there weren't any of those signs portraying Obama as Hitler or as a witch doctor. And that's progress.

Obama's peace prize

2009-10-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

When I saw on the BBC this morning that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I first watched his brief (and I thought very good) message. Then I looked at the many responses already showing up from around the world. The least surprising was Michelle Malkin's hissy fit. The one I like the most came from Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency:

"There is nobody today in my view who is more deserving of that peace prize than Barack Obama. In less than a year he brought a radical change in the way we look at ourselves, in the way we look at our world. He is restoring the basic core values that every one of us should live by - dialogue, respect, democracy, due process, human rights, a security system that does not depend on nuclear weapons. His dedication to these values rekindles hope that, finally, we could have a world at peace with itself."

\

Beyond absurd on Capitol Hill

2009-09-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

There is the Absurd. Then there is the Ultra Absurd. And Ultra seems to be flourishing right now on- oh my, what an astounding surprise--Capitol Hill.

Two-thirds of us across the land believe there should be a health care public option.

But Capitol Hill is echoing with strident Republicans and, yes indeed, some Democrats who are getting on the hoarse side with cries of "No" and "Socialism!" (You wonder if they are saving any of their voice to ever talk about the $915,159,472,142 our country has spent on wars since 2001, or the $228,034,100,801 spent so far just on the Iraq war.)

While the rest of the developed world, and especially our closest allies, have some form of universal health care, a tiresome gaggle of Senate and House naysayers continue to make fools of themselves trying to block a public option.

At the peak of their hypocrisy is the fact that they do not tear down Medicare. (For sure they dare not do so in a country where not even Mickey and Minnie Mouse would walk away from Medicare coverage.) Yesterday Senator Charles Grassley looked especially ridiculous in the Senate Finance Committee as he tried to rationalize his position for Medicare and against a public option.

I would love to know how many of the naysayers are owned by United Health Care and the rest of the health insurance industry. Such soul-selling is something even beyond Ultra Absurd.

Healthcare nuttiness

2009-09-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

Ye gods. The incomprehensible health care plan now in the Senate Finance Committee has 564 amendments. A public option that would compete with the insurance industry is still being lied about and demonized in the Senate, the House and the country at large.

In the meantime, lots of Americans know that there is universal health care in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Cuba. But the list of countries with some kind of universal coverage goes on: Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Israel, Finland, Luxembourg, Iceland, Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Oman and South Korea, Plus those little places called Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

Here in the US we have that (sssh!) socialist coverage for seniors called Medicare. Instead of 564 amendments and perpetual kowtowing to the ever more voracious profiteers of the health industry, we could extend Medicare to all. But not while legislators float on a sea of lobbyists and sell themselves to corporate greed. Nor while millions allow themselves to be hypnotized by the Fox machine.

It seems we cannot even get that public option. The whole scene is just plain nuts.