Here’s a video that gives a pretty good idea of how America is currently viewed in much of the world. It may have an unfamiliar flavor to an American audience, but it’s worth watching the whole song. The imagery is striking.
(Thanks to JR)
Don’t miss an American video response.
Stop New Pollution and Global Security Threats from Nuclear Waste
The US has a serious nuclear waste problem, and like the rest of the world, we have found no solution. Nonetheless, the White House is proposing a giant program to import and reprocess foreign spent fuel. In his current budget, the Bush Administration proposed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) which would make major changes to U.S. policies regarding the global management of spent nuclear fuel. Under GNEP, “supplier” countries would reprocess other countries’ commercial irradiated fuel and provide fresh fuel for “user” countries that agree not to enrich uranium or reprocess fuel domestically. Reprocessing other countries’ spent fuel would increase the amount of highly radioactive waste that the U.S. would have to permanently store. What this will do is cause more pollution, create an enormous security threat, and be dangerous to communities and neighborhoods.
Demand that your Senators vote no on Bush budget’s initiative on nuclear reprocessing.
(Public Citizen/The Petition Site/Care2)
The America I Believe In
The America I Believe In doesn’t torture people or use cruel, inhumane treatment. . . doesn’t hold people without charge, without fair trials, without hope, and without end. . .doesn’t kidnap people off the street and ship them to nations known for their brutality. . .doesn’t condone prisoner abuse and excuse high-ranking government officials from responsibility for that abuse. . .doesn’t justify the use of secret prisons. . .and does not rob people of their basic dignity.
Amnesty International has launched a new campaign that will fight to restore our traditional American values of justice, rule of law, and human dignity. In the coming weeks and months, we will as a nation either end some of the worst human rights abuses of the Bush administration or continue down this destructive path. Amnesty is fighting for the America we believe in, the America that leads the world on human rights. Be part of this campaign. Shape the outcome. Join with Amnesty International to restore “The America I Believe In.” This campaign is mobilizing people of conscience all across America to speak out. Please join us. We won’t stop until we turn America around on human rights.
Sign The America I Believe In Pledge
(Amnesty International)
CARE 60th Anniversary action
The United Nations member states have made a promise to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. On their 60th Anniversary, CARE is urging world leaders to follow through on this commitment by investing substantial resources in women and girls in the developing world.
Add your voice to CARE’s 60th anniversary Women CARE declaration
(CARE, thanks to Elainna)
LCV’s Environmental Scorecard
Since 1970, the League of Conservation Voters’ Scorecard has tracked your Congress members’ voting records. LCV’s Scorecard is based on crucial environmental votes, including energy and oil drilling, environmental health standards, and protecting wild places. Nothing more starkly illustrates how your representatives in Congress have helped or harmed the environment. How did your elected officials score?
The good news is that the next Congress can do a whole lot better. They will have new opportunities to debate and vote on legislation to tackle global warming and promote a cleaner, safer, and cheaper energy future.
Sign the New Energy Now! Petition to help push America’s next Congress to improve its National Environmental Scorecard score by promoting clean energy, protecting the environment, and reinvigorating the economy.
(League of Conservation Voters)
Send a Message of Support to Heroes of Justice and Freedom
Standing up for something you believe in takes great personal courage. That is especially true for the brave individuals who have stood up to government abuses carried out in the name of the ‘war on terror.’ Every time you hear about a lawsuit challenging government spying, protecting someone’s right to criticize the government or suing over mistreatment and abuse, behind the headlines there is a brave individual or group taking a stand for all of our rights.
That is why the ACLU is asking liberty-loving people across America to join them in thanking a remarkable group of clients who joined them in challenging government abuses since September 11, 2001. These amazing people come from diverse backgrounds and from a range of occupations. They are librarians, religious leaders, business people, students, pacifists. They represent many faiths, communities, cultures and political viewpoints. But they share one thing in common. Each has had the courage to stand up and fight for the core American values of freedom and fairness. It only takes a minute to let these courageous people know that they are not alone and that there are many Americans who appreciate and support what they are doing.
Send a message of support to this extraordinary group of ACLU clients.
(ACLU)
Demand Emergency Paper Ballots
Urge your political representatives and election officals to provide Emergency Paper Ballots at every polling place, along with a well-publicized plan for action so that every election official, poll worker, and voter will be absolutely clear on the procedures for utilizing them. No legally registered voter should ever be told to “come back later,” or be forced to use a provisional ballot simply because a voting system is unavailable to them at the time they are able to vote.
Demand that an ample supply of Emergency Paper Ballots be made available at elections.
(Progressive Democrats of America)
Homework:
American Fascism Is on the Rise, Stan Goff
The precursors of fascism — militarization of culture, vigilantism, masculine fear of female power, xenophobia and economic destabilization — are ascendant in America today.
A splendid achievement, Terry Jones
(yes, that Terry Jones)
Wherein the World League of Despots recognizes President Bush’s accomplishments and formally invites him to join their membership.
Since I have banned further comments on this blog from him, the troll that has been posting nasty comments made an entry in his own blog E Pluribus Reluctor using me as a lightning rod for his hatred of liberals, feminists, intellectuals, etc. Here is his post.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005 Architect-1,Professor-0
Once again, facts and precision defeat slander and pamphlet-speak. “Heidi”, a Humanities Proffessor, stumbled on EPR, and decided to initiate a pointed debate in the comments section. I thought: ‘uh-oh…big shiny PhD…I’m in for it.” After one of her posts being deleted for profane content, she cried ‘censorship’. Yet the contents of her thinking became evident when she proclaimed with outright indignation, little gems like “we trained Bin Laden, we installed Saddam Hussein.”….later followed with “Guantanamo is a Gulag“.
Oh I forgot, this person’s profile starts off with ‘Feminist Intellectual”
Well, an intellectual, feminist or otherwise would know that we did not train Bin Laden, we did not install Saddam Hussein, nor is a government run prison in Cuba holding 520+ people anything remotely akin to the Soviet-era Gulag of the 1920’2 to 1950′s whereby arguably 13,000,000 people died. Not a single soul has perished at Gitmo. But they do recieve Qorans, prayer mats, a Muslim diet, and medical attention. These and many, many other widely known facts continue to evade Heidi all the way up to the university level. The ‘Prager Principle’ is proving truer by the minute. This sad fact that this ‘Ph.D’ is teaching impressionable youth simply adds further impetus to the already exploding home-schooling effort in the nation. When grown adults spout such nonsense, who will run this place in twenty years?
I did not, in fact, initiate anything, and there’s a little misquoting there too.
We trained Bin Laden: By 1984, Bin Laden was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar – the MAK – which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation. Those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. “It was worth it,” he said. A decision was made to provide America’s potential enemies with the arms, money – and most importantly – the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower.
We put Hussein in power – ever seen the photo of Cheney sorry – Rumsfeld shaking his hand? Ok “put in power” is possibly an exaggeration, but we did support him and helped to put him and keep him in power. US intelligence helped Saddam’s Ba`ath Party seize power for the first time in 1963. Saddam was on the CIA payroll as early as 1959, when he participated in a failed assassination attempt against Iraqi strongman Abd al-Karim Qassem. In the 1980s, the US and Britain backed Saddam in the war against Iran, giving Iraq arms, money, satellite intelligence, and even chemical & bio-weapon precursors. As many as 90 US military advisors supported Iraqi forces and helped pick targets for Iraqi air and missile attacks despite his use of chemical weapons. The Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government’s repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing. Later, we even abandoned the internal forces that were willing to fight to overthrow his regime.
Guantánamo as part of our new gulag-like system: The reason the administration located that prison in Cuba in the first place was to avoid judicial review. Although the Supreme Court ruled a year ago that Bush must give prisoners there access to US courts, none has yet had his day in court. Hardly any have even been charged with a crime. The US government has refused to allow UN human rights monitors, including the special rapporteur on torture, to visit the Guantánamo prisoners. In addition to Gitmo, there are the other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention the astoundingly high imprisonment percentages right here in the USA). See the documents related to torture obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and the Defense Department’s latest effort to block the release of materials requested by the under the Freedom of Information Act – in particular, the rest of the Abu Graib photos – by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.
As Amnesty International points out: Neither the US administration nor the US Congress has called for a full and independent investigation of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Afghanistan. The US government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Convention and to “re-define” torture. It has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques. It has sought to justify the practice of holding “ghost detainees” (people in unacknowledged incommunicado detention). It has sought to justify the “rendering” or handing over of prisoners to third countries that practise torture. Guantanamo Bay has entrenched the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process.
May 02, 2003
Guantanamo Gulag
Writes law prof. Jonathan Turley in the Los Angeles Times, “Although certainly tiny compared with Chinese or Soviet models, the facility operated by the U.S. can no longer be defined as a prison or even a military camp. It is an American gulag, holding hundreds of prisoners without trial or access to the courts. In fairness to the Soviets, it must be noted that at least their prisoners got sham trials. This makes Camp Delta an even more extreme variation on the gulag theme.”
In any case, I followed comments here under two different names “marc” and “Atkinson” back to his own blog. His comments here were not backed by a whole lot of evidence or factual content – just angry versions of the regular propaganda. He seemed to want to bully somebody, and I guess I can be a target for such ones. I put up with it for a while – a couple of the things he brought up could have led to an interesting debate. However, his posts got more derisive and he seemed to escalate. He bragged that he been kicked off the forum at Smirking Chimp – for similiar harassment, I’m guessing.
If you want a taste of what I was reading, I did leave several of his comments up in the last several posts. He seemed to think I should be using my blog in very specific ways and was distinctly displeased when I didn’t do what he projected that I should do.
I did use the “s” word in a colloquial way in the comments on his post – shocking, I know (especially to a guy whose avatar is taken from the movie Dr. Strangelove? Should have taken that as a warning in itself, perhaps). I sincerely hope that he doesn’t actually let his kids read the blog – let them have a few illusions. If he doesn’t delete more of the posts, here is the exchange at his blog. I finally had to tell him that while he might have some valid criticisms here and there, his intent was so clearly hostile that I don’t really feel it was worthwhile to continue to engage.
My inbox was promptly filled with attempted spam comments to the blog – one of which simply repeated the same question over and over again – typical stalker behavior – and it validated my decision to ban him from the blog. Tonight I got even more… including allcaps fun like “YOU DELETED MY COMMENTS OUT OF FEAR, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I SAID IS TRUE. ALL—ALL—LIBERALS ACT LIKE COWARDS, BECAUSE THEIR POSITIONS ARE INDEFENSIBLE.” This guy claims that he is an ex-liberal.
Fascinating – in a certain sort of clinical, creepy way – were his fixations on my calling myself an intellectual, a feminist, someone with a Phd – all of which are true. More of us are intellectuals than we realize – it’s a word that’s used a lot more in other countries which seem to admire thinking more than we do. No need to fear thinking – thinking is very liberating and wisdom-making and there are all kinds of thinking. I like playful rumination and disciplined interpretation best, I think, and in an alternating current. And yes, I am a liberal – it’s what our country is all about.
However, I am not a “Professor,” as “marc” or “Atkinson” assumes.
Here’s how it works. You start with the PhD – that’s only the beginning. If you are very talented and somewhat lucky you get a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professsor (or if not, a Lecturer or Adjunct or 1-year appointment), then you publish 2-3 books and a bunch of articles and give tons of conference papers, and then you might get promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and even tenure if you get through the rigorous peer review process. Eventually, with good reviews and teaching evaluations and service to the community and another extremely rigorous peer review, you might be promoted to the rank of Full Professor.
I earned my PhD one year ago. There weren’t any jobs in my field last year. The job listings are published in the fall, and it is a one-year hiring period. Assuming that there is a job offered in my field anywhere in the country this year, I would compete with other applicants for the position – sometimes hundreds of other applicants. My starting salary at such a job won’t be much to write home about and I would probably have a heavy teaching load, multiple committees to work on, and the never-ending “publish or perish” pressure. That’s the best-case scenario. No one would get a PhD in the humanities except for the love of the subject they study and a love of teaching. It requires great sacrifices (and in my case at least, will continue to do so) – and at this point I just don’t need the harassment.
I have already taught at four universities: three of them while I was in graduate school, the fourth as an adjunct paid (not much) for the whole course. I have taught courses which involved world literature, religion and society, judeo-christian traditions and various other literature/religion/philosophy/culture courses. While my expertise is interdisciplinary, no PhD is an “expert” in much outside their field. So no, I don’t know everything, and neither does any other PhD. I still disagree with a goodly percentage of what he is trying to claim – and you don’t have to have a PhD to figure out why.
As for the “impressionable youth” – I don’t teach elementary, middle school or high school, so I’m not sure how I would have anything to do with “home schooling” which just seems to be a way for parents to overly-insulate their children. I am a university teacher. Teaching (mostly young 18-21 year olds) adults methods of critical reading and interpretation may get some students out of their comfort zone, especially if they are unprepared for college-level work, but I think it’s worth the effort so that they can really be capable of forming their own judgments based on something other than appeal to authority.
Kinda feel sorry for those home-schooled kids, but I’m sure they will recover. Kids are very resilient.
This was originally titled 75 reasons not to hire Georgie, but I think it’s a little late for that now. I’m sure this has been circulating around for a bit, but it was still interesting. Here’s some of what we know, what is out in plain sight. Assess this resume again.
Past work experience:
1) Ran for congress and lost.
2) Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
3) Bought an oil company, but couldn’t find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after he sold all his stock.
4) Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money.
5) With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments:
6) Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America.
7) Cut taxes, and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
8) Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.
9) Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of his daddy’s appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments as president:
10) Attacked and took over two small, helpless countries. Slaughtered over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children.
11) Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
12) Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
13) Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any twelve-month period.
14) Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
15) First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
16) First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
17) First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
18) After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history (911).
19) Set the record for more campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
20) In his first two years in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
21) Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any other president in US history.
22) Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a twelve-month period.
23) Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any other president in US history.
24) Set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of television.
25) Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other president in US history.
26) Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history, and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
27) Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history, and refused to use the national reserves, as past presidents have.
28) Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
29) Set the all-time record for most people worldwide simultaneously to take to the streets to protest against him (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any one person in the history of humankind.
30) Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
31) His presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
32) Members of his cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The ‘poorest’ multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
33) First president in US history to have all 50 states simultaneously go bankrupt.
34) Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
35) First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation. Many American boys and girls were lost to his greed, and countless civilians.
36) Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States. How can he make government even bigger? Perhaps by establishing a Bureau for Acceptable Sexual Practices!
37) Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending-increases – more than any president in US history. His tax-giveaways to the very rich alone might require three million million dollars!
38) First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
39) First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
40) He removed more checks and balances, creating less Congressional oversight, than known by any presidential administration in US history. Now, no one knows his plans until they are already accomplished!
41) He took from sound programs that helped people, and gave the money to the richest people in the world.
42) Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
43) Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
44) Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war.
45) So, by default, he no longer abides by the Geneva Conventions. These have been mocked by his appointed puppet, Alberto Gonzales.
46) First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the twenty-oh-two US elections).
47) All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
48) His biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
49) Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
50) First president in US history unilaterally to attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
51) First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying that the enemy had the code to Air Force One).
52) First US president to establish a secret shadow government.
53) Took the enormous, overflowing sympathy of the whole world for the US after 911, and in less than a year, made the US the most resented and despised country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
54) With a policy of “disengagement,” created the most hostile Israeli-Palestinian relations in at least 30 years.
55) First US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view his presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
56) First US president in history to have the people of South Korea feel more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
57) Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
58) Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
59) Failed to fulfill his pledge to get Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.”
60) Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months he had no leads and zero suspects.
61) In the 18 months following the 911 attacks, he prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
62) Removed more freedoms and civil liberties from Americans than any other president in US history.
63) In a little over two years, he has created the most severely divided country, where people used to stand in unity. This is possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the Civil War.
64) He entered office with the strongest economy in US history; and, within less than two years turned every single economic indicator south.
Records and References:
65) At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available for public inspection).
66) AWOL from National Guard.
67) Deserted the military during a time of war.
68) Refused to take drug test.
69) Refused to answer any questions about drug-use.
70) All records of his tenure as governor of Texas have been mysteriously spirited away to his daddy’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
71) All records of any SEC investigations into his insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
72) All minutes of meetings for any public corporation in which he served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
73) Any records or minutes from meetings he (or his VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
74) For personal references please speak to his daddy or uncle James Baker (They can both be reached at their offices at the Carlyle Group for War-profiteering.
75. Last but not least, he has taken very important and significant steps to transform the United States into a truly fascist country.
(“Fascism” is sharing governmental power with corporations.)
Thanks Richard as always!