Trading Words For Punctuation

Angelfire, Where Art Thou?

acidbrat — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:41:31 +0000

+++ stay outta this mom, it’s between me and the universe +++

Tangents:Select Artists

Some of my favorite artists…

Louisiana Congressional Candidate Honored for Commitment to Humanity Malik Rahim: 2008 Thomas Merton Award Recipient

acidbrat — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:35:47 +0000

[Pittsburg, Pennsylvania]
Thomas Merton, philosopher and noteworthy catholic author and theologian once said, ““We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.” Even though he died 40 years before last night’s award ceremony, honoring Malik Rahim for his work; one might have imagined that Thomas Merton said those words with Malik in mind.

Miles Dinnen, spokesperson for the Thomas Merton center explained the choice that they made this year when selecting their honoree. “This year, we honor longtime housing and prison activist Malik Rahim. Malik gained publicity as a community organizer in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when he stayed in New Orleans to assist the community and co-founded the Common Ground Collective.” Since then, Malik has been speaking out about racism and the failures of government exposed by the Katrina disaster.

Dinnen continues, “We honor a man who took fifty dollars and with the help of three friends worked for social justice at a time of great crisis. We find his work so valuable, and the fact that he could do this work in the wake of Hurricane Katrina really caught our attention.”

Rahim took time from his U.S. Congressional campaign to travel to Pittsburg to receive this award. With only weeks left before the special election which has been rescheduled because of Gustav, another hurricane that has challenged New Orleans and proven the flexibility of her residents. “My campaign for Congress is about promise for the future. This award was about the past we are building on: the past that has set us on a course for this future. I had to go, I needed to go and accept this award on behalf of the 20,000 volunteers who made Common Ground Relief happen.” www.votemalik.com

“I am against war, against violence, against violent revolution, for peaceful settlement of differences, for nonviolent but nevertheless radical changes. Change is needed, and violence will not really change anything: at most it will only transfer power from one set of bull-headed authorities to another.” Thomas Merton

Green Party Ethos: 2008 Redux

acidbrat — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:39:46 +0000

Every four years, liberals are given a Democrat that seems to lean a little left. Well, with a Republican that’s so far right, any moderate Democrat would seem “left.” Then they throw the “anyone but _____” trick in the mix. If we all voted… If we all voted and voted our conscience, for one, we would have a multi-party system. Secondly, there would be real debates and real candidates that represented real people. Third, the CPD and the FEC would have to be independently run entities. Convincing the populace that Democrat does not automatically mean left, liberal or progressive should be our number one priority. We need to stand out against the grain. We need to stand up for our values. We need to realize that if we don’t do it, no one else will. If you joined the Green Party revolution and are voting for Obama, we regret to inform you that your membership has been revoked. Please set your ballot on fire. Thank you for playing. And no, you don’t get a complementary home version of this game…

Tags: greenparty liberal elections cpd fec

Salt Of The Earth ~ jagger/richards

acidbrat — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:36:31 +0000

Lets drink to the hard working people
Lets drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and
Black and white
They dont look real to me
In fact, they look so strange

Raise your glass to the hard working people
Lets drink to the uncounted heads
Lets think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

And when I look in the faceless crowd
A swirling mass of grays and
Black and white
They dont look real to me
Or dont they look so strange

Lets drink to the hard working people
Lets think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Lets drink to the hard working people
Lets drink to the salt of the earth
Lets drink to the two thousand million
Lets think of the humble of birth

I Hate The Internet

acidbrat — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:55:36 +0000

There’s numerous different sites offering different features for blogs and I am completely indecisive. Let’s let the readers decide.

1. WordPress

2. Blogger

3. Metanotes

4. Ecospace

5. MySpace

Voting will end in one month. Until then, all five will have sporadic postings and usage as usual.

US ‘in need of rebellion’

acidbrat — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:11:56 +0000

Al Jazeera speaks to Howard Zinn, the author, American historian, social critic and activist, about how the Iraq war damaged attitudes towards the US and why the US “empire” is close to collapse.

Q: Where is the United States heading in terms of world power and influence?

HZ: America has been heading - for some time, and is heading right now – toward less and less world power, less and less influence.

In focus

In-depth coverage of the US election

Obviously, since the war in Iraq, the rest of the world has fallen away from the United States, and if American foreign policy continues in the way it has been - that is aggressive and violent and uncaring about the feelings and thoughts of other people – then the influence of the United States is going to decline more and more.

This is an empire which is on the one hand the most powerful empire that ever existed; on the other hand an empire that is crumbling – an empire that has no future … because the rest of the world is alienated and simply because this empire is top-heavy with military commitments, with bases around the world, with the exhaustion of its own resources at home.

[This is] leading to more and more discontent at home, so I think the American empire will go the way of other empires and I think it is on its way now.

Q: Is there any hope the US will change its approach to the rest of the world?

HZ: If there is any hope, the hope lies in the American people.

Zinn says the US needs a new
popular movement [AFP]

[It] lies in American people becoming resentful enough and indignant enough over what has happened to their country, over the loss of dignity in the world, over the starving of human resources in the United States, the starving of education and health, the takeover of the political mechanism by corporate power and the result this has on the everyday lives of the American people.

[There is also] the higher and higher food prices, the more and more insecurity, the sending of the young people to war.

I think all of this may very well build up into a movement of rebellion.

We have seen movements of rebellion in the past: The labour movement, the civil rights movement, the movement against the war in Vietnam.

I think we may well see, if the United States keeps heading in the same direction, a new popular movement. That is the only hope for the United States.

Q: How did the US get to this point?

HZ: Well, we got to this point because … I suppose the American people have allowed it to get it to this point because there were enough Americans who were satisfied with their lives, just enough.

Of course, many Americans were not, that is why half of the population doesn’t vote, they’re alienated.

But there are just enough Americans who have been satisfied, you might say getting some of the “goodies” of the empire, just some of them, just enough people satisfied to support the system, so we got this way because of the ability of the system to maintain itself by satisfying just enough of the population to keep its legitimacy.

And I think that era is coming to an end.

Q: What should the world know about the United States?

HZ: What I find many people in the rest of the world don’t know is that there is an opposition in the United States.

Zinn says “corruption” of the US
system enabled Bush to win office [EPA]

Very often, people in the rest of the world think that Bush is popular, they think ‘oh, he was elected twice’, they don’t understand the corruption of the American political system which enabled Bush to win twice.

They don’t understand the basic undemocratic nature of the American political system in which all power is concentrated within two parties which are not very far from one another and people cannot easily tell the difference.

So I think we are in a situation where we are going to need some very fundamental changes in American society if the American people are going to be finally satisfied with the kind of society we have.

Q: Do you think the US can recover from its current position?

HZ: Well, I am hoping for a recovery process. I mean, so far we haven’t seen it.

You asked about what the people of the rest of the world don’t know about the United States, and as I said, they don’t know that there is an opposition.

“We have a long history in this country of violent expansion and I think not only do most people in other countries [not] know this, most Americans don’t.”

Howard Zinn

There always has been an opposition, but the opposition has always been either crushed or quieted, kept in the shadows, marginalised so their voices are not heard.

People in the rest of the world hear the voices of the American leaders.

They do not hear the voices of the people all over this country who do not like the American leaders who want different policies.

I think also, people in the rest of the world should know that what they see in Iraq now is really a continuation of a long, long term of American imperial expansion in the world.

I think … a lot of people in the world think that this war in Iraq is an aberration, that before this the United States was a benign power.

It has never been a benign power, from the very first, from the American Revolution, from the taking-over of Indian land, from the Mexican war, the Spanish-American war.

It is embarrassing to say, but we have a long history in this country of violent expansion and I think not only do most people in other countries [not] know this, most Americans don’t know this.

Q: Is there a way for this to improve?

HZ: Well you know, whatever hope there is lies in that large number of Americans who are decent, who don’t want to go to war, who don’t want to kill other people.

It is hard to see that hope because these Americans who feel that way have been shut out of the communications system, so their voices are not heard, they are not seen on the television screen, but they exist.

I have gone through, in my life, a number of social movements and I have seen how at the very beginning of these social movements or just before these social movements develop, there didn’t seem to be any hope.

I lived in the [US] south for seven years, in the years of the civil rights movements, and it didn’t seem that there was any hope, but there was hope under the surface.

And when people organised, and when people began to act, when people began to work together, people began to take risks, people began to oppose the establishment, people began to commit civil disobedience.

Well, then that hope became manifest … it actually turned into change.

Q: Do you think there is a way out of this and for the future influence of the US on the world to be a positive one?

HZ: Well, you know for the United States to begin to be a positive influence in the world we are going to have to have a new political leadership that is sensitive to the needs of the American people, and those needs do not include war and aggression.

[It must also be] sensitive to the needs of people in other parts of the world, sensitive enough to know that American resources, instead of being devoted to war, should be devoted to helping people who are suffering.

You’ve got earthquakes and natural disasters all over the world, but the people in the United States have been in the same position as people in other countries.

The natural disasters here [also] brought little positive reaction - look at [Hurricane] Katrina.

The people in this country, the poor people especially and the people of colour especially, have been as much victims of American power as people in other countries.

Q: Can you give us an overall scope of everything we talked about – the power and influence of the United States?

“Ultimately power rests on the moral legitimacy of a system and the United States has been losing moral legitimacy.”

Howard Zinn

HZ: The power and influence of the United States has declined rapidly since the war in Iraq because American power, as it has been exercised in the world historically, has been exposed more to the rest of the world in this situation and in other situations.

So the US influence is declining, its power is declining.

However strong a military machine it is, power does not ultimately depend on a military machine. So power is declining.

Ultimately power rests on the moral legitimacy of a system and the United States has been losing moral legitimacy.

My hope is that the American people will rouse themselves and change this situation, for the benefit of themselves and for the benefit of the rest of the world.

Green Presidential Debate on 13 January, 2008

acidbrat — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:34:09 +0000

Since mainstream media won’t get stuff like this out there, it’s up to me and my ilk.

Navy exempted from sonar curbs

acidbrat — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:33:14 +0000

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush has exempted the Navy from a law restricting the use of sonar near the California coast, the White House said on Wednesday, despite concerns the technology could harm sea mammals.

But Navy officials said the order, which Bush signed on Tuesday as he traveled in the Middle East, does not allow it to proceed with anti-submarine warfare training exercises scheduled for next week.

Instead, the exemption and a separate action by the White House Council on Environmental Quality aim to support the government’s appeal of a court injunction that the Navy says has severely limited its ability to use sonar in training exercises off the California coast.

On Tuesday the Justice Department asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to throw out that injunction. It based its request partly on Bush’s conclusion that the exercises are in the “paramount interest of the United States” and “essential to national security.”

A ruling could come by Friday.

“We have to comply with court orders,” a Navy official told a press briefing held to discuss the White House actions.

“Executive action can’t unilaterally moot a court-entered injunction,” the official said. “(But) it can form the basis for the court to lift its own injunction or for a superior court to vacate or stay the injunction.”

The White House move is the latest government attempt to scuttle the lawsuit brought by environmental groups. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups say sonar used in training violates environmental laws.

They also say the Navy’s sonar injures and kills marine mammals, including whales and dolphins.

SUBMARINE-HUNTING RADAR

The district court on January 3 barred the Navy’s use of powerful submarine-hunting mid-frequency active radar within 12 miles of the coast, protecting a strip of water that is habitat for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.

The court also imposed other restrictions, including a stipulation that the Navy switch off sonar if marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards of sonar vessels.

The ruling created an “unreasonable risk that the Navy will not be able to conduct effective sonar training necessary to certify strike groups for deployment in support of world-wide operational and combat activities,” the Navy said.

To bolster the appeal, the White House freed the Navy from restrictions under two federal laws that formed the basis for the injunction.

Bush’s order exempted the Navy from sonar requirements for California contained in the Coastal Zone Management Act.

At the same time, the Council on Environmental Quality waived Navy compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act by approving alternate guidelines for sonar use along the California coast.

The actions drew sharp criticism from environmentalists involved in the legal battle, who predicted the appellate judges would rule in their favor.

“This is not a national security issue. The Navy doesn’t need to harm whales to train effectively with sonar. It simply chooses to for the sake of convenience,” said Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Bush Admits ‘Majority’ of 9/11 Hijackers Were Saudis

acidbrat — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:36:09 +0000

Jon Ponder | Jan. 16, 2008

Six years too late, George W. Bush has finally acknowledged that 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers were citizens of the U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia:From 2003 to 2007, the number of people who believed Bush’s lie dropped from 70 percent to 33 percent. Bush will never recover from the anger felt by the 37 percent of Americans who came to the realization that they had been lied to by their president.

“There’s a lot of really good people here [in Saudi Arabia]. Look, you can’t deny the fact that some, a majority, of the terrorists came from Saudi, but you should not condemn an entire society based upon the actions of a handful of killers.”

It would have been nice if the interviewer, ABC’s Terry Moran, had gotten Bush on the record about the Middle Eastern nation who citizens were not represented among these 19 mass murderers.

For the record, in addition to the 15 Saudis, one was an Egyptian, one was Lebanese and two were from the Union of Arab Emirates (UAE).

None were from Iraq.

Despite this fact — and despite the reality that Saddam Hussein was a secular despot who was despised by Osama bin Laden, a rightwing religious fanatic — according to a poll in September 2003, two years after the attacks, and six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

This was, of course, not an accident. During the run-up to the war and the early days of the occupation, Karl Rove and White House political shop carefully devised a disinformation campaign that established this idea in the public mind. The carefully parsed phrasing used to establish the connection was always as subtle as it was false:

“Before 11 September 2001, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents and lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons, and other plans – this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.” – Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union speech
“We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.” – Bush in September 2003
We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after 11 September, Saddam Hussein’s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. Some citizens wonder, after 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now? And there’s a reason. We’ve experienced the horror of 11 September. Eventually, one poll found that 70 percent of Americans had come to believe this lie.” - Former Sec. of State Colin Powell, February 2003
“We don’t know.” - Dick Cheney, September 2003, when asked whether there was a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks
“[Saddam Hussein posed a risk in] a region from which the 9/11 threat emerged.” - then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, September 2003

But if you thought the case against Saddam’s masterminding of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, has been resolved, think again. Just four months ago, in September 2007, a staggering one-third of Americans still say they believe the Iraqi government was behind the attacks.

Over the four years between these two polls, the number of people who believed Bush’s lie about Iraq dropped from 70 percent to 33 percent. The anger, betrayal and embarrassment felt by the 37 percent of Americans — roughly 111 million people — who came to the realization that they had been lied to by their president is now and will forever be the defining element of George Bush’s legacy. In our country’s short history, no disinformation campaign by our government has been costlier in American blood and treasure.

They will never forgive him, and nor should they.

Interestingly, the number of Americans who still believe the lie that Saddam caused 9/11 coincides precisely with a poll released yesterday by ABC that found that about one-third of Americans (32 percent) still approve of George Bush’s performance on the job.

Marginalize This!

acidbrat — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:06:16 +0000

Becoming a card-carrying member of the Green Party couldn’t have had worse timing. Nader isn’t running (yet) and my favorite candidate so far is Mike Gravel (D-AK). He stopped the Vietnam War, he’s for universal health care paid for by retail sales tax and he supports same-sex marriage. He’s barely a Democrat.

The current idea in my head involves Kucinich, Gravel and Paul declaring themselves independent and holding their own debates without the Presidential Debate Commission getting in the way. Maybe then C-Span would cover a real discussion about where our country should be heading.

Fox News was caught censoring AP articles recently. Grundle, a fellow RYMer, posted that last week. I’ve noticed CNN, MSNBC and ABC all leave out bits of information like so-called third tier candidates information. ABC said Giuliani wanted to get rid of the IRS while on the screen was Ron Paul. Hopefully, the mayors number will drop farther amongst his base because of that blunder.
Back to where this all started, the Green Party held their first debate this past Sunday. Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader were both there on Van Ness Avenue. Although not able to attend, the event was rebroadcast on KPFA.org last night so it wasn’t missed completely. Assuming McKinney pulls comparable numbers to Gravel or Kucinich and Ron Paul gets bullied out of the other side, she’ll get a vote from this blogger in November. Remember, a vote for Ron Paul is a vote for Obama/Edwards/Clinton!