A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

Torture by any other name is still torture.

Instead of asking Judge Mukasey (Bush's nominee to replace Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General) whether water boarding is or is not torture (and thereby in violation of International law and a war crime), the Senate Judiciary Committee should just ask him to DEFINE water boarding.

If he says he does not KNOW, then they should invite John McCain and other survivors of water boarding to describe for him what it felt like.

In addition, he should watch this video:



After all of the above, the Senate should demand that he describe -- without giving a legal opinion -- what he now understands about water boarding.

If he hedges and does not answer that question, the Senate should NOT confirm Mukasey.

And, after all is said and done, the Congress should immediately take up the issue and pass a law that requires that any interrogation techniques employed by any US official or agency must comply with the ban on torture as it is outlined in the US Army's Field Manual.

Contact your Representatives in Congress and tell them how you feel. Otherwise, the pro-torture minority will use their phone-bank sheeple to make sure that their views are heard.

War of the Nancy's

A bad little poem:

Little Nancy took a chance, see
to see if she could try
to explain exactly why
Bush spends more on the war
than he does on the poor.

As she disclosed
the truth was exposed:

Their failure to regulate
was not a mistake
but an intentional policy
that, as we all see
allows poison on toys
hurting little girls and boys

Excuse the poor rhyming. Spent the day and evening with the kids as they wore leaded costumes and collected candy in poison plastic pumpkins.

It was truly a fright night!

Read:

Top Democratic lawmakers demanded Tuesday the resignation of the US consumer product safety chief and unveiled plans for stiffer enforcement laws after Halloween toys became the latest tainted made-in-China goods to be recalled.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi led her colleagues from the Democratic Party in calling on Nancy Nord, the chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), to quit amid more discoveries of tainted toys.

"I call on the president of the United States to ask for the resignation," Pelosi told a news conference at Capitol Hill with other lawmakers by her side.

To drive home her message, she displayed a collection of tainted toys and particularly waved a colorful top, whose lead content was found to be 200 times higher than permitted under law.

Also Tuesday, the CPSC came under fire in a expert report for lack of staff -- it has only one full-time toy tester -- and capability in examining imported items.

Nord, an appointee of President George W. Bush, has stood firm against proposed legislation seeking to increase the agency's authority and staff, double its budget and increase the maximum penalties for safety violations.

Her stand was largely in line with the broadly deregulatory approach of the Bush administration.

Scary Thoughts

Today we are spending the day with our grandkids to celebrate Halloween -- a day, it is said, when "spirits can make contact with the physical world, and when magic is most potent."

Hopefully, the spirits of the perpetrators and victims of fascist pasts will appear tonight to warn America that we are on a very scary, un-democratic path.

Children and their parents should be frightened tonight -- like no other time in their lives:

• The climate is heating up;
• The Earth is being polluted and raped for profit;
• More and more little children are suffering from a lack of access to health care, education, untainted food and toys;
• Presious little minds are being numbed and dumbed-down with senseless and addictive television shows, movies and video games;
• Endless wars that enriches the military industrial complex threaten to overtake our children's lives as political powers vie for control over oil and other finite and dwindling natural resources.
  

As we walk with our costumed grandkids through their neighborhood, we will wonder and worry that their hopes and dreams will never be realized.

More frightening than any monster -- real or imagined -- is the reality that their future and the future of the planet will be fraught with man-made perils that our minds can barely conceive.

Science Fiction or a Glimpse at Our Fascist Future?

Yesterday, our youngest daughter Katie, called to ask us to recommend a book to read. She was looking for something compelling – no fluff.

At the top of the list was one of our favorites, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Later, Elisia and I talked at length about the themes of that book and were shocked to realize that the fictionalized portrait Atwood painted of a future America had become less like fiction and more like fact.

In retrospect, the book seems frighteningly ominous given the current state of foreign and domestic policies and politics:

• A Private Army working for one branch of the government

• Widening Wage Gap

• Environmental woes -- especially global warming

• Rise in Corporate Power and Influence

• Rise in Religious influence over Politics
  

This is especially true when you superimpose the general themes of the book onto today’s headlines:

• Is God running for president?
  

• Theocracy Now!
  

• Bush's Delusions of World War Iii Disgraceful, Banal
  

• The God Vote
  

In Atwood’s fictional country of Gilead, the country formerly known as the United States of America, a revolutionary coup has occurred and the US has become a Christian theocracy:

From Wikipedia: “Gilead is ruled through biblical fundamentalism and rigid enforcement of social roles vaguely resembling current Dominionist thinking. Most citizens have been stripped of their freedoms. The key to this suppression is the conscious elimination of literacy among the population. All religions, except the official state religion, have been suppressed.

Those who do not conform to the new norms, or who in the past became pregnant and did not immediately embrace the new ways are pressed into service as handmaids and personal servants or deported to "the colonies" (regions where pollution has reached toxic levels). All those who threaten the ideology of Gilead, and those who will not repent — political and religious dissidents, pro-choice advocates (called abortionists) and homosexuals (gender treachery) — are executed by hanging and displayed at "The Wall". The government has proclaimed martial law owing to the destabilizing effect of "hordes of guerrillas" roaming the countryside. This is reinforced by the roadblocks, sandbags, and the sounds of gun and rocket fire that are mentioned repeatedly, yet almost glossed over by the characters, who seem to regard living in a war zone as normal.”

We aren’t the only folks who are concerned that our present situation is looking more and more like a futuristic science fiction novel – or a blast from the fascist past. Just look at a few recent headlines:

• Fascist America, in 10 easy steps
  

• America is Out of Time, We Need A new Strategy
  

• The “Hitler Comparison”
  

If you haven’t already done so -- or if it’s been awhile since you read The Handmaid’s Tale, you really ought to pick it up.

Perhaps it will remind you – as it reminds us -- that, as American citizens, our primary concern should not be who is winning on American Idol but rather that we keep the fire under the feet of our elected leaders so that they will protect and defend the Constitution – that “goddamned piece of paper” that provides us with rights, protections, liberties and freedoms.

And, by the way, if you want to do something but are not sure what that something might be, please join in the General Strike on November 6, 2007.

And let the bastards know that you are not working and/or not shopping on that day for a reason!

Barack Obama Embraces IN-Tolerants

This past weekend, Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, campaigned in South Carolina -- on what was billed as his "Embrace the Change" gospel tour that included gospel singer and renowned homophobe, Donnie McClurkin.

Despite being informed about McClurkin's anti-gay rhetoric prior to his tour, Obama apparently weighed the pros and cons and determined that he needs the support of the bigots to offset Clinton's ever rising poll numbers.

In a recent Advocate article, Obama tried to justify his decision to campaign with McClurkin by first stating that he was only recently made aware of the singers homophobic sentiments and second, by claiming that he is not responsible for the comments and expressions of every celebrity who endorses him.

True 'nuff.

However, there are ways to get support for your cause without depending on those whose personal demons keep their minds and closets shut tight.

Many Christian groups and other organizations that promote Civil Rights for Black Americans and other People of Color also support rights for LGBTQ people.

But one poll shows that Obama's cowardly choice to stand on a stage with McClurkin may be strategically wise:

"...new data show that in the key Electoral College states the endorsement of gay rights groups hurts a candidate much more than it helps.

Quinnipiac University polls of voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- the big three Electoral College swing states -- found voters by large margins more likely to see the endorsement of a gay rights group as a reason to vote against, rather than for, a candidate."

Still, it would be nice to see a candidate risk it all to stand up for what he or she believes is right. Maybe -- just maybe -- that person would be rewarded for their honesty.

Or NOT.