MJ has been busy lately, but can't let much more time pass without posting a tribute to a flawed yet genuine hero, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Here is President Barack Obama's eulogy to, arguably, the most effective lawmaker of our era.
Click here.
RIP, Ted. -- MJ
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
From Joe's Vault: 'Great' American Health Care System Isn't Cutting It On Life Span
By Manifesto Joe
Since health stats seem to be a hot topic now, it looks like a good time to dredge up a post from a couple of years ago. This was published on this blog Aug. 12, 2007.
This just in -- the U.S. is now ranked 42nd among the world's nations in life span. How can this be happening in a country that spends so much on medicine, the most worldwide per capita? It's a paradox: When it comes to insurance, less isn't more; but when it comes to medication, less can indeed be more. And, we need news media that will actually report on the problem rather than essentially shill for the medical/drug establishment.
To get the stats out of the way, this is from the Associated Press report:
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands. ...
A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Andorra, a tiny country ... between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years ... It was followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore. ...
Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say.
OK, so far, so good. At least someone is observing that the number of uninsured Americans may have a lot to do with this. But wait, there's more. This Mainstream Media report lapses into whitewash and absurdity.
But "it's not as simple as saying we don't have national health insurance," said Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal. "It's not that easy."
Among the other factors:
• Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
"The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy," said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. "We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times."
• Racial disparities. Black Americans have an average life expectancy of 73.3 years, five years shorter than white Americans.
Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years, slightly longer than the averages for Iran and Syria and slightly shorter than in Nicaragua and Morocco.
• A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before their first birthday, compared with other industrialized nations.
Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia.
"It really reflects the social conditions in which African American women grow up and have children," said Dr. Marie C. McCormick, professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We haven't done anything to eliminate those disparities."
Most of the above displays an astonishing lack of critical thinking by this MSM reporter, or perhaps by editors who got hold of the piece later. The story attempts to drive some wedge between the absence of universal coverage in the U.S. and (1) racial disparities, and (2) infant mortality. A national health insurance system would do a vast amount to address these two problems. Our current system is the precise reason why many minorities do not or cannot get adequate care, when they are either old or newborn. It's the lack of insurance, stupid.
The passage points out that Cuba and most European countries have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. Guess what those countries have that we don't.
Obesity is certainly a problem in America, and one for which individuals can largely be blamed. Or can they? As decades of my life have passed, I have witnessed a socially irresponsible advertising culture that graduated from making people into two-pack-a-day cigarette addicts into junk-food junkies who wash it all down with sugary soft drinks. If one ate a steady diet of what one sees every day on TV ads, billboards, and in the urban sprawl of any given U.S. city, it's the superhighway to diabetes and heart disease.
A thing I find quite revealing and disturbing is that although the Japanese smoke twice as much as Americans -- they light up the way we did in the '60s, back when my childhood senses were ablaze with TV cigarette commercials -- they don't have nearly as much heart disease as we do, and they're living longer than us. A simple observation is that they don't have quite the same advertising culture as we do, and so they're more likely to eat fish, tofu and veggies than a bacon cheeseburger. A decent diet can actually compensate some for other kinds of vices.
Something else to consider is that, for the poor in America, a good diet is actually hard to afford. It's cheap for our poor and working class to consume a lot of starch and sugar. Even the simplest staple items like rice and pasta -- not good for diabetics -- are much cheaper than the more healthful choices. We've had a reversal of roles between rich and poor in modern America: In the bad old days, the poor were skinny because they went hungry, and the rich were plump because they had all they could eat. Now the poor eat, but it's the wrong foods, sold cheap. The rich can afford the sauteed vegetables and the catch of the day.
But, I'm recalling that Emory University professor's remarks about Americans being so soft, not having a tough lifestyle imposed on them by adversity. This seems like an absurd contradiction as well. During hard times, people have trouble eating -- at all. Good food, or bad. And life spans were much shorter then. Something tells me the professor hasn't missed many meals.
Now for an unintended consequence of living in an "affluent" society -- affluent for some, anyway. The U.S. is the most overmedicated nation ever. Our "health care system" is largely driven by the pharmaceutical companies' greed, and they are hooking people on meds every day with the same foresight and scruples as the corner dope dealer.
Statin drugs are being pushed as though half the adult population should be on them. They may do a lot for people with severe cholesterol problems, but they can have very serious side effects. I have known a number of people who have given them up, despite warnings, because they complained that they always felt like they had the flu. My mother passed out and had to be hospitalized after three days on Zocor. I took Lipitor for three days, and I think my supervisor at work suspected that I was drunk.
I have been hospitalized twice in recent years after having adverse reactions to medications. Doctors who aren't into this dope craze describe patients coming to them looking pale and wan. And wait, there's more, from a site called Health and DNA:
ADRs are the fourth to sixth greatest killer in US with more than 100,000 deaths per year; and 2.2 million serious adverse reactions per year according to a 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association report. (JAMA 279:1200 1998) This study is a meta analysis of 39 research reports published from 1966 to 1996.
21.3% of the 548 most recently FDA approved medications were subsequently withdrawn from the market or given a black box warning. JAMA 287:2215 2002
The GAO reports that 51% of new drugs have serious, undetected adverse effects at the time of approval.
Of the best selling prescription drugs, 148 can cause depression, 133 hallucinations or psychoses, 105 constipation, 76 dementia, 27 insomnia and 36 parkinsonism. "Worst Pills Best Pills: A Consumers Guide to Avoiding Drug-Induced Death or Illness," third edition, 1999.
I know from the experience of being overmedicated that it's hard some days just to get out of bed under those conditions, let alone get one's regular exercise for general health and weight control.
I have yet to see Michael Moore's Sicko, but I anticipate seeing it this week. It shouldn't be hard for him to win me over. This "health care system," coupled with a predatory advertising culture, looks likely to make either my generation or the next one the first to have a lower life expectancy than our parents had. As my fellow baby boomers age and become more dependent on this broken system to get decent and well-considered care, this is clearly one of the crucial battles that Americans must win.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Since health stats seem to be a hot topic now, it looks like a good time to dredge up a post from a couple of years ago. This was published on this blog Aug. 12, 2007.
This just in -- the U.S. is now ranked 42nd among the world's nations in life span. How can this be happening in a country that spends so much on medicine, the most worldwide per capita? It's a paradox: When it comes to insurance, less isn't more; but when it comes to medication, less can indeed be more. And, we need news media that will actually report on the problem rather than essentially shill for the medical/drug establishment.
To get the stats out of the way, this is from the Associated Press report:
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands. ...
A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Andorra, a tiny country ... between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years ... It was followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore. ...
Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say.
OK, so far, so good. At least someone is observing that the number of uninsured Americans may have a lot to do with this. But wait, there's more. This Mainstream Media report lapses into whitewash and absurdity.
But "it's not as simple as saying we don't have national health insurance," said Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal. "It's not that easy."
Among the other factors:
• Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
"The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy," said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. "We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times."
• Racial disparities. Black Americans have an average life expectancy of 73.3 years, five years shorter than white Americans.
Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years, slightly longer than the averages for Iran and Syria and slightly shorter than in Nicaragua and Morocco.
• A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before their first birthday, compared with other industrialized nations.
Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia.
"It really reflects the social conditions in which African American women grow up and have children," said Dr. Marie C. McCormick, professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We haven't done anything to eliminate those disparities."
Most of the above displays an astonishing lack of critical thinking by this MSM reporter, or perhaps by editors who got hold of the piece later. The story attempts to drive some wedge between the absence of universal coverage in the U.S. and (1) racial disparities, and (2) infant mortality. A national health insurance system would do a vast amount to address these two problems. Our current system is the precise reason why many minorities do not or cannot get adequate care, when they are either old or newborn. It's the lack of insurance, stupid.
The passage points out that Cuba and most European countries have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. Guess what those countries have that we don't.
Obesity is certainly a problem in America, and one for which individuals can largely be blamed. Or can they? As decades of my life have passed, I have witnessed a socially irresponsible advertising culture that graduated from making people into two-pack-a-day cigarette addicts into junk-food junkies who wash it all down with sugary soft drinks. If one ate a steady diet of what one sees every day on TV ads, billboards, and in the urban sprawl of any given U.S. city, it's the superhighway to diabetes and heart disease.
A thing I find quite revealing and disturbing is that although the Japanese smoke twice as much as Americans -- they light up the way we did in the '60s, back when my childhood senses were ablaze with TV cigarette commercials -- they don't have nearly as much heart disease as we do, and they're living longer than us. A simple observation is that they don't have quite the same advertising culture as we do, and so they're more likely to eat fish, tofu and veggies than a bacon cheeseburger. A decent diet can actually compensate some for other kinds of vices.
Something else to consider is that, for the poor in America, a good diet is actually hard to afford. It's cheap for our poor and working class to consume a lot of starch and sugar. Even the simplest staple items like rice and pasta -- not good for diabetics -- are much cheaper than the more healthful choices. We've had a reversal of roles between rich and poor in modern America: In the bad old days, the poor were skinny because they went hungry, and the rich were plump because they had all they could eat. Now the poor eat, but it's the wrong foods, sold cheap. The rich can afford the sauteed vegetables and the catch of the day.
But, I'm recalling that Emory University professor's remarks about Americans being so soft, not having a tough lifestyle imposed on them by adversity. This seems like an absurd contradiction as well. During hard times, people have trouble eating -- at all. Good food, or bad. And life spans were much shorter then. Something tells me the professor hasn't missed many meals.
Now for an unintended consequence of living in an "affluent" society -- affluent for some, anyway. The U.S. is the most overmedicated nation ever. Our "health care system" is largely driven by the pharmaceutical companies' greed, and they are hooking people on meds every day with the same foresight and scruples as the corner dope dealer.
Statin drugs are being pushed as though half the adult population should be on them. They may do a lot for people with severe cholesterol problems, but they can have very serious side effects. I have known a number of people who have given them up, despite warnings, because they complained that they always felt like they had the flu. My mother passed out and had to be hospitalized after three days on Zocor. I took Lipitor for three days, and I think my supervisor at work suspected that I was drunk.
I have been hospitalized twice in recent years after having adverse reactions to medications. Doctors who aren't into this dope craze describe patients coming to them looking pale and wan. And wait, there's more, from a site called Health and DNA:
ADRs are the fourth to sixth greatest killer in US with more than 100,000 deaths per year; and 2.2 million serious adverse reactions per year according to a 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association report. (JAMA 279:1200 1998) This study is a meta analysis of 39 research reports published from 1966 to 1996.
21.3% of the 548 most recently FDA approved medications were subsequently withdrawn from the market or given a black box warning. JAMA 287:2215 2002
The GAO reports that 51% of new drugs have serious, undetected adverse effects at the time of approval.
Of the best selling prescription drugs, 148 can cause depression, 133 hallucinations or psychoses, 105 constipation, 76 dementia, 27 insomnia and 36 parkinsonism. "Worst Pills Best Pills: A Consumers Guide to Avoiding Drug-Induced Death or Illness," third edition, 1999.
I know from the experience of being overmedicated that it's hard some days just to get out of bed under those conditions, let alone get one's regular exercise for general health and weight control.
I have yet to see Michael Moore's Sicko, but I anticipate seeing it this week. It shouldn't be hard for him to win me over. This "health care system," coupled with a predatory advertising culture, looks likely to make either my generation or the next one the first to have a lower life expectancy than our parents had. As my fellow baby boomers age and become more dependent on this broken system to get decent and well-considered care, this is clearly one of the crucial battles that Americans must win.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Health Care And Infant Mortality: When It Comes To A Population's Health, Statistics Don't Lie
By Manifesto Joe
A commenter on my previous post brought up something often raised in defense of America's indefensible health care status quo. That is the alleged wait time for specialists in Canada. The commenter mentioned, in particular, OB-GYN wait times alleged to be 10 to 12 months.
I rather doubt that as something typical, although I have heard from less biased sources that wait times for Canadian specialists can be up to six months. But regarding OB-GYN wait times, statistics about infant mortality should be revealing. Here are some, courtesy of the United Nations World Populations Prospect report revision of 2006:
Countries with "socialized" medicine:
Japan: 3.2 per 1,000 live births
Sweden: 3.2 per 1,000 live births
Norway: 3.3 """
France: 4.2
Germany: 4.3
Denmark: 4.4
Australia: 4.4
U.K.: 4.8
Canada: 4.8
Cuba: (Those godless commies!) 5.1
And then we have:
United States: 6.3
The U.S. ranks below Brunei (5.5), Cyprus (5.9), and New Caledonia (6.1).
I guess now we know why so many long-suffering Canadians, and so many other people in countries with "socialized" medicine, are clamoring to trade in their government-run systems for the private U.S. monopoly/oligopoly model. Ours is clearly so superior.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
A commenter on my previous post brought up something often raised in defense of America's indefensible health care status quo. That is the alleged wait time for specialists in Canada. The commenter mentioned, in particular, OB-GYN wait times alleged to be 10 to 12 months.
I rather doubt that as something typical, although I have heard from less biased sources that wait times for Canadian specialists can be up to six months. But regarding OB-GYN wait times, statistics about infant mortality should be revealing. Here are some, courtesy of the United Nations World Populations Prospect report revision of 2006:
Countries with "socialized" medicine:
Japan: 3.2 per 1,000 live births
Sweden: 3.2 per 1,000 live births
Norway: 3.3 """
France: 4.2
Germany: 4.3
Denmark: 4.4
Australia: 4.4
U.K.: 4.8
Canada: 4.8
Cuba: (Those godless commies!) 5.1
And then we have:
United States: 6.3
The U.S. ranks below Brunei (5.5), Cyprus (5.9), and New Caledonia (6.1).
I guess now we know why so many long-suffering Canadians, and so many other people in countries with "socialized" medicine, are clamoring to trade in their government-run systems for the private U.S. monopoly/oligopoly model. Ours is clearly so superior.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Health Care: When Americans Voted For Obama And Democrats, What Were They Voting For?
By Manifesto Joe
A recent (Aug. 3-6) nationwide telephone poll by the Marist Institute of Public Opinion found that 45 percent of Americans disapprove of President Obama's handling of health care reform, while 43 percent approved. Here's a link.
Obama won the popular vote last year with 53 percent. This begs the question: What did the "swing" voters, the independents, think they were voting for when they cast ballots for Obama and other Democrats?
And, as for those who are wavering on the issue, did they not expect yet another disinformation barrage, perhaps even worse that the "Harry and Louise" campaign of 1993-94? There are many interest groups -- insurers, pharmaceutical companies, stockholders, doctors and other health care "professionals" -- who have a big stake in the status quo and fear they will lose money if a public option comes to pass. Wasn't a propaganda flood, financed by the vested interests, expected?
My disapproval of Obama's handling of this would be purely idealistic: I favor a single-payer model similar to the ones in Canada and Germany. Even the English, whose National Health Service is often vilified here, are getting highly pissed and coming to the defense of the NHS. Here's another link. No less than renowned scientist Stephen Hawking has asserted that, contrary to U.S. right-wing demagoguery, the NHS saved his life from the longtime ravages of ALS. (Yet another link.)
The idealist in me says, if "socialism" is what they have in Norway and Sweden, where do I sign up? They live longer than Americans do; their babies don't die nearly as often; and their middle class doesn't have to live in fear of bankruptcy if someone comes down with a catastrophic illness.
You don't even have to look at Scandinavian countries with hyperactive welfare states. Australia, perhaps the closest nation to the U.S. ideologically, has something resembling "socialized" medicine.
Among other developed countries in the world, you don't see any of them battling to trade in their government-run programs for the U.S. "Land of the Fee" model, do you?
Their way looks much more like the right path to me.
But -- living in America, and especially in Texas, made me stop being an idealist long ago. It's clear by now that Obama and his "allies" are going to have a hard time just putting over a public option, so single-payer will have to wait, probably until after I'm dead.
Back to the American public -- that 45 percent who disapprove. I'd wager that few of them ever had to actually USE their underperforming health insurance to battle a chronic illness. I have allergies so severe that I depend on multiple medications just to live, and the co-payments and deductibles eat up much of my income. This was not something I did to myself; I was born with allergies.
Let's talk about "death panels." I have the impression that among that 45 percent, their answer for me would be, "Just die and get out of the way." Such people protest loudly at being called Nazilike, but it sounds a lot like eugenics to me.
That 45 percent probably never had to battle cancer, as my wife did in 1992, on one of those swell 80-20 private insurance plans, with a deductible. That experience hurled us into debt that we've never gotten out of to this day. Bankruptcy was actually on the table for us a couple of years ago -- fortunately, we found an alternative.
But we are like many other middle-class Americans in that, even with both of us insured, another major illness could very well plunge us into so much debt that bankruptcy would be certain. And, the insurance companies would have the complete prerogative to drop either or both of us.
That 45 percent: I shudder to think that there are so many profoundly misguided Americans. One can go back to relatively recent history and witness the fickleness of the electorate. In 1992, Clinton pulled off a plurality win, and the Democrats took both houses of Congress solidly. Two years later, the Republicans and their "Contract With America" turned the tables utterly, though not for long.
Back a bit further, in 1974 the Republican Party seemed repudiated and in tatters after Watergate. It only took six years for the Reagan right wing to turn that completely around.
I hope that Obama can stand his ground, and that the electorate doesn't prove to be that fickle in 2010. If my insurance company decides to kick me to the curb, I'd like that public option, or at least something that keeps me from going broke.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Postscript: CNN reports that at 1:03 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, at a presidential event in Phoenix, a reporter saw a man in the anti-Obama camp carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. (Arizona has an open-carry law.) Are those mean-spirited lib'ruls gonna call him a Nazi?
A recent (Aug. 3-6) nationwide telephone poll by the Marist Institute of Public Opinion found that 45 percent of Americans disapprove of President Obama's handling of health care reform, while 43 percent approved. Here's a link.
Obama won the popular vote last year with 53 percent. This begs the question: What did the "swing" voters, the independents, think they were voting for when they cast ballots for Obama and other Democrats?
And, as for those who are wavering on the issue, did they not expect yet another disinformation barrage, perhaps even worse that the "Harry and Louise" campaign of 1993-94? There are many interest groups -- insurers, pharmaceutical companies, stockholders, doctors and other health care "professionals" -- who have a big stake in the status quo and fear they will lose money if a public option comes to pass. Wasn't a propaganda flood, financed by the vested interests, expected?
My disapproval of Obama's handling of this would be purely idealistic: I favor a single-payer model similar to the ones in Canada and Germany. Even the English, whose National Health Service is often vilified here, are getting highly pissed and coming to the defense of the NHS. Here's another link. No less than renowned scientist Stephen Hawking has asserted that, contrary to U.S. right-wing demagoguery, the NHS saved his life from the longtime ravages of ALS. (Yet another link.)
The idealist in me says, if "socialism" is what they have in Norway and Sweden, where do I sign up? They live longer than Americans do; their babies don't die nearly as often; and their middle class doesn't have to live in fear of bankruptcy if someone comes down with a catastrophic illness.
You don't even have to look at Scandinavian countries with hyperactive welfare states. Australia, perhaps the closest nation to the U.S. ideologically, has something resembling "socialized" medicine.
Among other developed countries in the world, you don't see any of them battling to trade in their government-run programs for the U.S. "Land of the Fee" model, do you?
Their way looks much more like the right path to me.
But -- living in America, and especially in Texas, made me stop being an idealist long ago. It's clear by now that Obama and his "allies" are going to have a hard time just putting over a public option, so single-payer will have to wait, probably until after I'm dead.
Back to the American public -- that 45 percent who disapprove. I'd wager that few of them ever had to actually USE their underperforming health insurance to battle a chronic illness. I have allergies so severe that I depend on multiple medications just to live, and the co-payments and deductibles eat up much of my income. This was not something I did to myself; I was born with allergies.
Let's talk about "death panels." I have the impression that among that 45 percent, their answer for me would be, "Just die and get out of the way." Such people protest loudly at being called Nazilike, but it sounds a lot like eugenics to me.
That 45 percent probably never had to battle cancer, as my wife did in 1992, on one of those swell 80-20 private insurance plans, with a deductible. That experience hurled us into debt that we've never gotten out of to this day. Bankruptcy was actually on the table for us a couple of years ago -- fortunately, we found an alternative.
But we are like many other middle-class Americans in that, even with both of us insured, another major illness could very well plunge us into so much debt that bankruptcy would be certain. And, the insurance companies would have the complete prerogative to drop either or both of us.
That 45 percent: I shudder to think that there are so many profoundly misguided Americans. One can go back to relatively recent history and witness the fickleness of the electorate. In 1992, Clinton pulled off a plurality win, and the Democrats took both houses of Congress solidly. Two years later, the Republicans and their "Contract With America" turned the tables utterly, though not for long.
Back a bit further, in 1974 the Republican Party seemed repudiated and in tatters after Watergate. It only took six years for the Reagan right wing to turn that completely around.
I hope that Obama can stand his ground, and that the electorate doesn't prove to be that fickle in 2010. If my insurance company decides to kick me to the curb, I'd like that public option, or at least something that keeps me from going broke.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Postscript: CNN reports that at 1:03 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, at a presidential event in Phoenix, a reporter saw a man in the anti-Obama camp carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. (Arizona has an open-carry law.) Are those mean-spirited lib'ruls gonna call him a Nazi?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
A Classical Change Of Pace: The Most Magnificent Howard Hanson (1896-1981)
Mr. Hanson was one of the most underrated classical/symphonic composers of his time, mainly because he did not follow the trends of his era, between the world wars. The American concert hall was filled with much Stravinsky and Copland during that time. I have absolutely no problem with either of them. But Mr. Hanson, a Scandanavian-American from the Midwest, was a bit neglected because of his unabashed romanticism.
Some film buffs might recognize this as the piece that was played at the end of the 1979 Ridley Scott film Alien. By the way, this symphony, No. 2, "Romantic," debuted in Boston in 1930.
This one has moved me to tears. -- MJ
1993 ISSMA State Champion Carmel High School Symphony Orchestra performing Hanson's Symphony No. 2, 3rd Movement. Conducted by Thomas Dick at Valparaiso, IN.
Some film buffs might recognize this as the piece that was played at the end of the 1979 Ridley Scott film Alien. By the way, this symphony, No. 2, "Romantic," debuted in Boston in 1930.
This one has moved me to tears. -- MJ
1993 ISSMA State Champion Carmel High School Symphony Orchestra performing Hanson's Symphony No. 2, 3rd Movement. Conducted by Thomas Dick at Valparaiso, IN.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Palin Steps Up To Lead Nazilike Campaign Against Health Care Reform
By Manifesto Joe
It's a departure from historical norms, but nobody ever demonstrated that a fascist movement couldn't be led by a pretty middle-aged woman. (She's not my type, but Sarah Palin has what could be described as generic good looks.) And it's happening -- I don't think she can ever legitimately vie for high elective office again, but sundry Brown Shirt types, jackbooted thugs and brainwashed hillbillies may be lining up behind Sarah Palin.
Maybe this is why Palin resigned her Alaska governorship. It's kind of hard to lead a Nazilike movement when you've got a full-time job in Juneau.
True, she's not as articulate (or bellicose) as Limbaugh. Hell, she's not even Father Coughlin. But Klondike Hottie seems to speak for a lot of manure-headed people out there, and now I think I dig where she aims to go.
Dean Baker of Truthout is on the money when he blames what's left of our "news media" for a lot of this. Palin was given a huge pass when she publicly conjured up fictions about a "death panel" and rationing of health care while denouncing Obama administration policy plans. Traditionally, media are supposed to function as a "truth squad" and shoot down pig dung like this. Here's a link to Baker's article.
Palin apparently has enough gutter political savvy to see a movement in the making. Nazilike hooligans have been showing up at "town hall" meetings to intimidate anyone who favors health care reform, up to and including the Congress creatures themselves.
There have been some scenes that recall the fascist thuggery of Italy in the 1920s and Germany in the 1930s. On Friday, Justin Rubin of MoveOn recorded a few nuggets that show a sampling of what's been happening to members of Congress, and continues, from coast to coast:
-- Last night in Tampa, Florida, a town hall meeting erupted into violence, with the police being called to break up fist fights and shoving matches.
-- A Texas Democrat was shouted down by right-wing hecklers, many of whom admitted they didn't even live in his district.
-- One North Carolina representative announced he wouldn't be holding any town-hall meetings after his office began receiving death threats.
-- And in Maryland, protesters hung a Democratic congressman in effigy to oppose health-care reform.
The Associated Press filed a more detailed account of the right-wing marauding in a Saturday story. Here's a link to that one.
Back to Sarah Palin, I realize that Klondike Hottie has plenty of competition for leadership of the GOP's gaping primate squad. Limbaugh has been whipping them up for 20 years, and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are most decidedly in the running.
But Klondike Hottie has them beaten in one crucial area -- sex appeal. To me, her appeal is very limited -- she reminds me too much those Young Republican college women who always seemed to belong to a sorority that was called "Betas" for short.
But, Bubba apparently digs it. And he may be willing to misdirect some of his testosterone toward neo-fascist asskicking, if she gives the word. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
It's a departure from historical norms, but nobody ever demonstrated that a fascist movement couldn't be led by a pretty middle-aged woman. (She's not my type, but Sarah Palin has what could be described as generic good looks.) And it's happening -- I don't think she can ever legitimately vie for high elective office again, but sundry Brown Shirt types, jackbooted thugs and brainwashed hillbillies may be lining up behind Sarah Palin.
Maybe this is why Palin resigned her Alaska governorship. It's kind of hard to lead a Nazilike movement when you've got a full-time job in Juneau.
True, she's not as articulate (or bellicose) as Limbaugh. Hell, she's not even Father Coughlin. But Klondike Hottie seems to speak for a lot of manure-headed people out there, and now I think I dig where she aims to go.
Dean Baker of Truthout is on the money when he blames what's left of our "news media" for a lot of this. Palin was given a huge pass when she publicly conjured up fictions about a "death panel" and rationing of health care while denouncing Obama administration policy plans. Traditionally, media are supposed to function as a "truth squad" and shoot down pig dung like this. Here's a link to Baker's article.
Palin apparently has enough gutter political savvy to see a movement in the making. Nazilike hooligans have been showing up at "town hall" meetings to intimidate anyone who favors health care reform, up to and including the Congress creatures themselves.
There have been some scenes that recall the fascist thuggery of Italy in the 1920s and Germany in the 1930s. On Friday, Justin Rubin of MoveOn recorded a few nuggets that show a sampling of what's been happening to members of Congress, and continues, from coast to coast:
-- Last night in Tampa, Florida, a town hall meeting erupted into violence, with the police being called to break up fist fights and shoving matches.
-- A Texas Democrat was shouted down by right-wing hecklers, many of whom admitted they didn't even live in his district.
-- One North Carolina representative announced he wouldn't be holding any town-hall meetings after his office began receiving death threats.
-- And in Maryland, protesters hung a Democratic congressman in effigy to oppose health-care reform.
The Associated Press filed a more detailed account of the right-wing marauding in a Saturday story. Here's a link to that one.
Back to Sarah Palin, I realize that Klondike Hottie has plenty of competition for leadership of the GOP's gaping primate squad. Limbaugh has been whipping them up for 20 years, and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are most decidedly in the running.
But Klondike Hottie has them beaten in one crucial area -- sex appeal. To me, her appeal is very limited -- she reminds me too much those Young Republican college women who always seemed to belong to a sorority that was called "Betas" for short.
But, Bubba apparently digs it. And he may be willing to misdirect some of his testosterone toward neo-fascist asskicking, if she gives the word. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
"Birthers," Wingnuts Who Think Obama Was Born In Kenya, Make Me Ashamed To Be From The South
By Manifesto Joe
This has become the Whitewater of the Obama era. Despite evidence and still more evidence that Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii (a belated happy birthday to a fellow Leo, Mr. President), a large number of Americans, almost all Republicans, don't believe that he's an American citizen. And they are heavily concentrated among white Republicans in the South.
This reminds me a lot of Whitewater in the '90s and the "questions" that dogged Bill Clinton throughout his eight-year presidency. I was not quite as intolerant of right-wing kooks back then as I am now. I suffered through a litany of conspiracy theories from acquaintances.
Bill and Hillary were not only dogged by the specter of an investment in which they lost money. Bill Clinton, I was told by these crazies, was directly involved in over 100 murders back in Arkansas, during his governorship. We went through various "Troopergates," "Tailgates," and so forth. A special prosecutor was appointed, and spent over $40 million to eventually find out that Clinton apparently got a couple of blowjobs from an White House intern and lied about them. And then he wasted a lot of time and money getting Clinton impeached, and without a conviction, over the likes of that.
Now we have the same raving lunatics sizing up Barack Hussein Obama. Clinton was indeed a wheeler-dealer and a Falstaffian figure who had a hard time keeping his pants zipped. Obama admits that he sampled a few drugs while he was in his twenties, mostly pot. Now it's a big deal for him to have a beer, and there's much ado about trouble giving up his smokes. Other than that, he's a model father and husband, a regular Mr. Cleanhands.
So, the rubber-room refugees zero in on this citizenship horseshit. And they're mostly, though not exclusively, Republicans in the South. To wit, a recent column from usnews.com:
According to a new poll from Research 2000 (commissioned by Daily Kos), a majority of Southerners either believe that Barack Obama was not born in the United States (23 percent) or are not sure (30 percent). Only 47 percent of Southern respondents believe Obama was born in the USA. By contrast, 93 percent of Northeastern[er]s said yes, he was born here, 90 percent of Midwesterners did and 87 percent of Westerners.
Here's a link to the whole column.
I have been argumentive and contrarian quite often with people who characterize Southerners as stupid. Why? I have encountered my share of dumbass Jersey-talking Yankees, and my one visit to Southern California was quite an eye-opener. There, I learned that there's just a marginal difference between a philistine who sips Chardonnay and wears designer jeans and a philistine who chugs Miller High Life and got his or her jeans at Wal-Mart.
But after seeing the results of this poll, I don't know if I can muster a defense for fellow Southerners anymore. Forrest Gump was only partially right -- stupid is not merely what stupid does. It's also what it says. Words can be poison, and this notion is utterly toxic.
I stand ashamed to be a native Southerner, with deep roots in states other than Texas (Alabama, North and South Carolina, Arkansas). I hope I can consider myself an exception, but we seem to have de-evolved from the rest of Western culture.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
This has become the Whitewater of the Obama era. Despite evidence and still more evidence that Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii (a belated happy birthday to a fellow Leo, Mr. President), a large number of Americans, almost all Republicans, don't believe that he's an American citizen. And they are heavily concentrated among white Republicans in the South.
This reminds me a lot of Whitewater in the '90s and the "questions" that dogged Bill Clinton throughout his eight-year presidency. I was not quite as intolerant of right-wing kooks back then as I am now. I suffered through a litany of conspiracy theories from acquaintances.
Bill and Hillary were not only dogged by the specter of an investment in which they lost money. Bill Clinton, I was told by these crazies, was directly involved in over 100 murders back in Arkansas, during his governorship. We went through various "Troopergates," "Tailgates," and so forth. A special prosecutor was appointed, and spent over $40 million to eventually find out that Clinton apparently got a couple of blowjobs from an White House intern and lied about them. And then he wasted a lot of time and money getting Clinton impeached, and without a conviction, over the likes of that.
Now we have the same raving lunatics sizing up Barack Hussein Obama. Clinton was indeed a wheeler-dealer and a Falstaffian figure who had a hard time keeping his pants zipped. Obama admits that he sampled a few drugs while he was in his twenties, mostly pot. Now it's a big deal for him to have a beer, and there's much ado about trouble giving up his smokes. Other than that, he's a model father and husband, a regular Mr. Cleanhands.
So, the rubber-room refugees zero in on this citizenship horseshit. And they're mostly, though not exclusively, Republicans in the South. To wit, a recent column from usnews.com:
According to a new poll from Research 2000 (commissioned by Daily Kos), a majority of Southerners either believe that Barack Obama was not born in the United States (23 percent) or are not sure (30 percent). Only 47 percent of Southern respondents believe Obama was born in the USA. By contrast, 93 percent of Northeastern[er]s said yes, he was born here, 90 percent of Midwesterners did and 87 percent of Westerners.
Here's a link to the whole column.
I have been argumentive and contrarian quite often with people who characterize Southerners as stupid. Why? I have encountered my share of dumbass Jersey-talking Yankees, and my one visit to Southern California was quite an eye-opener. There, I learned that there's just a marginal difference between a philistine who sips Chardonnay and wears designer jeans and a philistine who chugs Miller High Life and got his or her jeans at Wal-Mart.
But after seeing the results of this poll, I don't know if I can muster a defense for fellow Southerners anymore. Forrest Gump was only partially right -- stupid is not merely what stupid does. It's also what it says. Words can be poison, and this notion is utterly toxic.
I stand ashamed to be a native Southerner, with deep roots in states other than Texas (Alabama, North and South Carolina, Arkansas). I hope I can consider myself an exception, but we seem to have de-evolved from the rest of Western culture.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, July 27, 2009
While Demagoguing Health Care And Jobless Benefits, Governor Goodhair Lives Large Off Taxpayers
By Manifesto Joe
I would like to know what a man who lives in a house that rents for $9,900 a month, and has his every whim taken care of by chefs, stewards and housekeepers to the tune of $168,000 a year, knows about the travails of working people.
Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry of Texas seems to think he knows enough about the subject, since he is refusing $555 million worth of federal unemployment aid. And he says he would invoke something about states' rights in the 10th Amendment to the Constitution to keep any Obama-spawned national health care plan out of Texas.
Let's go back to the lead paragraph. This money is coming from the taxpayers of this state, even as Governor Goodhair rails against the wicked largess of the federal government.
The Houston Chronicle has run a couple of insightful pieces about the propensity of the longest-serving Texas governor (who started out as an ordinary West Texas farm boy) to live very high on the hog.
Here's a link to a March commentary, and here's another link to a report published just the other day.
In addition to this brazen hypocrisy and demagoguery, there's the matter of his response to swine flu. Perry solicited federal help to avert a pandemic, right after he all but advocated Texas secession. He taketh and does not giveth when it comes to questions of ordinary Texans' day-to-day survival. But, understand that a flu pandemic wouldn't exempt Governor Goodhair's superrich friends, or even him. That federal loot certainly comes in handy during times like that.
It's a long way to go until the Texas Republican Primary in 2010, so I expect plenty more hayseed grandstanding from Perry in the meantime. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I would like to know what a man who lives in a house that rents for $9,900 a month, and has his every whim taken care of by chefs, stewards and housekeepers to the tune of $168,000 a year, knows about the travails of working people.
Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry of Texas seems to think he knows enough about the subject, since he is refusing $555 million worth of federal unemployment aid. And he says he would invoke something about states' rights in the 10th Amendment to the Constitution to keep any Obama-spawned national health care plan out of Texas.
Let's go back to the lead paragraph. This money is coming from the taxpayers of this state, even as Governor Goodhair rails against the wicked largess of the federal government.
The Houston Chronicle has run a couple of insightful pieces about the propensity of the longest-serving Texas governor (who started out as an ordinary West Texas farm boy) to live very high on the hog.
Here's a link to a March commentary, and here's another link to a report published just the other day.
In addition to this brazen hypocrisy and demagoguery, there's the matter of his response to swine flu. Perry solicited federal help to avert a pandemic, right after he all but advocated Texas secession. He taketh and does not giveth when it comes to questions of ordinary Texans' day-to-day survival. But, understand that a flu pandemic wouldn't exempt Governor Goodhair's superrich friends, or even him. That federal loot certainly comes in handy during times like that.
It's a long way to go until the Texas Republican Primary in 2010, so I expect plenty more hayseed grandstanding from Perry in the meantime. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Just When It Seemed Safe Again To Admit That You're A Texan ...
By Manifesto Joe
... Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry takes his buffoon rube act on the road yet again. This time, he threatened to invoke the 10th Amendment, pertaining to states' rights, to keep any national health care plan that might emerge from the Obama administration out of Texas.
You know the good old conservative/libertarian ideology: It's better to starve, fester and die homeless on your feet, than to get any sort of relief check and thank God and Congress on your knees.
Being interviewed Thursday by right-wing talk show host Mark Davis of WBAP-AM Radio in Dallas (The uniquely untalented Mr. Davis used to write a pathetic wingnut op-ed column for the Fort Worth newspaper; his minuscule "talents" are decidedly geared toward AM wingnut talk radio.), Perry said the president's health care plan would be "disastrous" for Texas. By the way, Texas has a frightening number of uninsured residents, many of whom are children and women of child-bearing age. The taxpayers end up paying for their ER bills anyway, as they generally end up in charity hospitals supported with public funds.
So, Governor Goodhair is going to defend us Texans against those godless socialists with their health care plans, the same way he's been defending thousands of jobless Texans from getting extensions on their unemployment benefits with federal money. (He's been refusing it.)
It's so good to know that the governor is so concerned about the long-term interests of Texans, even as so many face foreclosures from being jobless and/or unable to afford mounting medical bills. Changes in the law during the Bush era have made bankruptcy a very unattractive proposition, but many people now have no choice but to limp down that road.
By the way, here's a link to the story about Perry's latest redneck grandstanding.
There are some people who would perversely describe Perry's recent rhetoric as "populist." That would describe it accurately if "populism" is the art of putting it to the people in the posterior and then distracting them such that they don't know where the reaming is coming from.
Texas has a long and sad history of this sort of "populism," which is ultimately a manipulative, chauvinistic anti-populism. Our officeholders have typically been servile to the rich, especially oil and gas money, while our poor have had to endure all manner of regressive taxation, such as sales taxes, and various user fees. We've rarely had real populists in control, even when our "Blue-Dog Democrats" have been in power.
Perry himself isn't shocking, because as long as I can remember, we've mostly seen the likes of him in high office in these parts. It's just disappointing that, after all these years, ol' Bubba out there still hasn't quite figured out who made his butt feel so sore the next morning. A hint: It wasn't Barack Obama.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
... Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry takes his buffoon rube act on the road yet again. This time, he threatened to invoke the 10th Amendment, pertaining to states' rights, to keep any national health care plan that might emerge from the Obama administration out of Texas.
You know the good old conservative/libertarian ideology: It's better to starve, fester and die homeless on your feet, than to get any sort of relief check and thank God and Congress on your knees.
Being interviewed Thursday by right-wing talk show host Mark Davis of WBAP-AM Radio in Dallas (The uniquely untalented Mr. Davis used to write a pathetic wingnut op-ed column for the Fort Worth newspaper; his minuscule "talents" are decidedly geared toward AM wingnut talk radio.), Perry said the president's health care plan would be "disastrous" for Texas. By the way, Texas has a frightening number of uninsured residents, many of whom are children and women of child-bearing age. The taxpayers end up paying for their ER bills anyway, as they generally end up in charity hospitals supported with public funds.
So, Governor Goodhair is going to defend us Texans against those godless socialists with their health care plans, the same way he's been defending thousands of jobless Texans from getting extensions on their unemployment benefits with federal money. (He's been refusing it.)
It's so good to know that the governor is so concerned about the long-term interests of Texans, even as so many face foreclosures from being jobless and/or unable to afford mounting medical bills. Changes in the law during the Bush era have made bankruptcy a very unattractive proposition, but many people now have no choice but to limp down that road.
By the way, here's a link to the story about Perry's latest redneck grandstanding.
There are some people who would perversely describe Perry's recent rhetoric as "populist." That would describe it accurately if "populism" is the art of putting it to the people in the posterior and then distracting them such that they don't know where the reaming is coming from.
Texas has a long and sad history of this sort of "populism," which is ultimately a manipulative, chauvinistic anti-populism. Our officeholders have typically been servile to the rich, especially oil and gas money, while our poor have had to endure all manner of regressive taxation, such as sales taxes, and various user fees. We've rarely had real populists in control, even when our "Blue-Dog Democrats" have been in power.
Perry himself isn't shocking, because as long as I can remember, we've mostly seen the likes of him in high office in these parts. It's just disappointing that, after all these years, ol' Bubba out there still hasn't quite figured out who made his butt feel so sore the next morning. A hint: It wasn't Barack Obama.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
An Independent Texas Would Be A Third-World Country
By Manifesto Joe
The jokes about Gov. Rick Perry's veiled threat of Texas secession have faded into collective memory now, but a few of us were given pause to consider the "what ifs" about this.
What if Texas legally could, and did, leave the United States?
If these figures available courtesy of Texas state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, are any barometer, we would be little more than a Third-World country.
Here are some nuggets from the senator's Web site about Texas' standing when stacked up in 2007 against the other 49 states:
Percentage of Uninsured Children
1st
Income Inequality Between the Rich and the Poor
2nd
Percentage of Population without Health Insurance
1st
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) Scores
47th
Percentage of Population over 25 with a High School Diploma
50th
Percentage of Non-Elderly Women with Health Insurance
50th
Rate of Women Aged 40+ Who Receive Mammograms
44th
Rate of Women Aged 18+ Who Receive Pap Smears
47th
Cervical Cancer Rate
5th
Women's Voter Registration
43rd
Women's Voter Turnout
49th
Percentage of Eligible Voters that Vote
44th
For more on the subject, go here.
And the coup de grase: The president of our great reborn republic would apparently be (you guessed it) Rick Perry, he of the 2.3 GPA as an animal husbandry graduate of Texas A&M.
Am I sure that a dolt like Perry would be somebody that an independent Texas would actually elect as its president? I suppose nothing in this life is truly certain, but a recent piece of evidence points to this as the case.
Perry has been governor since Il Doofus resigned in December 2000 to go on to bigger and more horrific things, and Perry is finally facing his first serious challenge for re-election, from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. Hutch is almost certain to go through with a challenge in the 2010 Republican Primary.
There's one big problem with her chances. She's regarded as a moderate (chortle) in this state, and the Texas Republican Party still wants the U.S. to unleash Chiang Kai-shek's skeletal remains on the mainland of Red China.
A poll conducted jointly by the Texas Politics Project and the University of Texas' department of government had Perry with a 12-percentage-point lead over Hutch, 38-26. Let's face it, the 'necks will go to the polls for Governor Goodhair, not for Kay Bailey H.
And although Democrats here have made a few admirable gains in recent years, they are still in a shambles when it comes to having a viable challenger for governor. The undecideds are way ahead among Democrats; but among those potential voters who have made up their minds, the poll leader is Kinky Friedman, with 12 percent.
Kinky, for those unfamiliar, is a veteran Austin singer-songwriter and humorist whose talents in those areas are considerable. But in his foray into Texas politics in 2006, he was inept as a politician, made a gaping ass of himself in debate, and ultimately split the meager progressive vote here in a year in which Perry seemed a bit vulnerable (He won re-election with 40 percent of the vote against three challengers).
Rather than talking this horseshit about seceding from the union, Texans should be damned glad of the union. It's damned near the only thing that keeps us from becoming Guatemala.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
The jokes about Gov. Rick Perry's veiled threat of Texas secession have faded into collective memory now, but a few of us were given pause to consider the "what ifs" about this.
What if Texas legally could, and did, leave the United States?
If these figures available courtesy of Texas state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, are any barometer, we would be little more than a Third-World country.
Here are some nuggets from the senator's Web site about Texas' standing when stacked up in 2007 against the other 49 states:
Percentage of Uninsured Children
1st
Income Inequality Between the Rich and the Poor
2nd
Percentage of Population without Health Insurance
1st
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) Scores
47th
Percentage of Population over 25 with a High School Diploma
50th
Percentage of Non-Elderly Women with Health Insurance
50th
Rate of Women Aged 40+ Who Receive Mammograms
44th
Rate of Women Aged 18+ Who Receive Pap Smears
47th
Cervical Cancer Rate
5th
Women's Voter Registration
43rd
Women's Voter Turnout
49th
Percentage of Eligible Voters that Vote
44th
For more on the subject, go here.
And the coup de grase: The president of our great reborn republic would apparently be (you guessed it) Rick Perry, he of the 2.3 GPA as an animal husbandry graduate of Texas A&M.
Am I sure that a dolt like Perry would be somebody that an independent Texas would actually elect as its president? I suppose nothing in this life is truly certain, but a recent piece of evidence points to this as the case.
Perry has been governor since Il Doofus resigned in December 2000 to go on to bigger and more horrific things, and Perry is finally facing his first serious challenge for re-election, from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. Hutch is almost certain to go through with a challenge in the 2010 Republican Primary.
There's one big problem with her chances. She's regarded as a moderate (chortle) in this state, and the Texas Republican Party still wants the U.S. to unleash Chiang Kai-shek's skeletal remains on the mainland of Red China.
A poll conducted jointly by the Texas Politics Project and the University of Texas' department of government had Perry with a 12-percentage-point lead over Hutch, 38-26. Let's face it, the 'necks will go to the polls for Governor Goodhair, not for Kay Bailey H.
And although Democrats here have made a few admirable gains in recent years, they are still in a shambles when it comes to having a viable challenger for governor. The undecideds are way ahead among Democrats; but among those potential voters who have made up their minds, the poll leader is Kinky Friedman, with 12 percent.
Kinky, for those unfamiliar, is a veteran Austin singer-songwriter and humorist whose talents in those areas are considerable. But in his foray into Texas politics in 2006, he was inept as a politician, made a gaping ass of himself in debate, and ultimately split the meager progressive vote here in a year in which Perry seemed a bit vulnerable (He won re-election with 40 percent of the vote against three challengers).
Rather than talking this horseshit about seceding from the union, Texans should be damned glad of the union. It's damned near the only thing that keeps us from becoming Guatemala.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
A Different Take On Independence Day
Jose Marti was a guy who truly walked the walk. He died in 1895 at the age of 42 in an abortive uprising in Cuba against the Spanish government. He was one of the most prolific and important writers of the Spanish language. He spent 12 years in exile in New York City before returning to Cuba to meet his fate.
The venerable American folk singer Peter Seeger has kept Marti's legend alive, and spread it to English-speaking audiences. Here are a couple of videos of Seeger's tributes.
And again:
Have a happy Independence Day, and be grateful that most of us don't have to die for it the way Jose Marti did. -- MJ
The venerable American folk singer Peter Seeger has kept Marti's legend alive, and spread it to English-speaking audiences. Here are a couple of videos of Seeger's tributes.
And again:
Have a happy Independence Day, and be grateful that most of us don't have to die for it the way Jose Marti did. -- MJ
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Functional Illiteracy And The Medusa
By Manifesto Joe
During Web surfing, I happened upon an ad that posed a question: "SHOULD MADONNA BE ALOUD TO ADOPT AGAIN?"
It would be just fine with me if Madonna were never allowed to do anything ALOUD ever again, certainly not music. Her songs all sound the same, anyway.
But, I found a certain appropriateness in this, an ad about "The Medusa" (as parodists have had their way with her), and the functional illiteracy of those who composed and posted this ad. I sincerely hoped that this was a joke.
Sadly, I don't think it was. Whoever did this was "computer-literate" enough to post this on a Web page, but so functionally illiterate in basic English as not to know how moronic this looked. And, there being no copy editors patrolling the Net, there was no one to correct it and get a belly laugh afterward.
I'd gauge that the spread of this public imbecility began in earnest around the time The Medusa scored her first pop-music hit. (Early '80s?) Anyway, TV had a seriously erosive effect for decades before then. But somehow, the group of Americans just about my age (I was born in '56, The Medusa in '58) was the first to put this gross ignorance on public display and somehow not feel ashamed enough to seek remedial education.
My high school was mediocre at best, but I went to a rather demanding college and discovered my educational deficiencies quickly. As a freshman I took some early beatings for one used to making A's, and then was making A's again by the time I was a college junior. But I got the impression that I was atypical. Many of the people my age just didn't care enough to address the gaps, even after they were made gapingly apparent.
Has the Internet contributed to more decadence since then? It's still a question for study, but I can't see how it has helped. Amid all the gaming, LOL and BFF horseshit, I've gotten the distinct impression that a new semiliterate culture has "evolved" around this technology. It's gone beyond the functional "TV" illiteracy that became so obvious in my generation.
Here's a link on which to ponder this question.
It's very sad that one has to do a double-take to realize that this link is a joke.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
During Web surfing, I happened upon an ad that posed a question: "SHOULD MADONNA BE ALOUD TO ADOPT AGAIN?"
It would be just fine with me if Madonna were never allowed to do anything ALOUD ever again, certainly not music. Her songs all sound the same, anyway.
But, I found a certain appropriateness in this, an ad about "The Medusa" (as parodists have had their way with her), and the functional illiteracy of those who composed and posted this ad. I sincerely hoped that this was a joke.
Sadly, I don't think it was. Whoever did this was "computer-literate" enough to post this on a Web page, but so functionally illiterate in basic English as not to know how moronic this looked. And, there being no copy editors patrolling the Net, there was no one to correct it and get a belly laugh afterward.
I'd gauge that the spread of this public imbecility began in earnest around the time The Medusa scored her first pop-music hit. (Early '80s?) Anyway, TV had a seriously erosive effect for decades before then. But somehow, the group of Americans just about my age (I was born in '56, The Medusa in '58) was the first to put this gross ignorance on public display and somehow not feel ashamed enough to seek remedial education.
My high school was mediocre at best, but I went to a rather demanding college and discovered my educational deficiencies quickly. As a freshman I took some early beatings for one used to making A's, and then was making A's again by the time I was a college junior. But I got the impression that I was atypical. Many of the people my age just didn't care enough to address the gaps, even after they were made gapingly apparent.
Has the Internet contributed to more decadence since then? It's still a question for study, but I can't see how it has helped. Amid all the gaming, LOL and BFF horseshit, I've gotten the distinct impression that a new semiliterate culture has "evolved" around this technology. It's gone beyond the functional "TV" illiteracy that became so obvious in my generation.
Here's a link on which to ponder this question.
It's very sad that one has to do a double-take to realize that this link is a joke.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Iranians Are Showing Major Juevos -- Unlike "Murkans"
By Manifesto Joe
Maybe they had it right, in a sense, when they said it can't happen here. In 2000, the U.S. had a presidential election blatantly stolen, with the 5-4 blessing of our Supreme Court. Four years later, the national election results sharply contrasted with the exit polling, and it was eventually demonstrated that the technology and means to "hack" some of the voting machines existed.
With few exceptions, almost no one raised any serious hell in the U.S., either time.
Not so right now in Iran, and richly to the credit of the people there. They are being asked to buy the idea that nearly 40 million handwritten ballots can be accurately counted and tallied in about 12 hours, and then with a clearly unpopular hard-line incumbent president winning by a huge, overwhelming landslide. Guess what -- they aren't buying it.
The unrest has become vast, with all those young Iranians taking to the streets in defiance of official repression. It makes me feel proud of the Iranians. And, it makes me feel just a bit ashamed of Americans. In words paraphrased from an old movie set in Mexico, with Federales looking for a gringo troublemaker: "Don't just stand there like burros! Haf you seen heem?"
We, my fellow "Murkans," just stood there like burros. Twice. No juevos, no cojones, either time. Nada.
The Iranians, for better or for worse, are not. Before them, recently, the Ukrainians didn't, and to good effect. Even in Mexico, many didn't "just stand there like burros" after a questionable election outcome in 2006. And in Tiananmen Square, 20 years ago, and not in any election setting, the world witnessed one of the greatest, albeit futile, exhibitions of human courage ever seen.
So, where was the outrage in America in 2000, or in 2004?
I'd say we lost it when we stopped being America, and became, as George W. "Il Doofus" Bush always mispronounced it, "Murka."
And when we became Murka, a semiliterate frat pledge master like Il Doofus could have the presidency of the whole damned country stolen for him, perhaps twice. And amazingly few people said anything.
The unrest in Iran probably won't change things at the official level, and some unfortunate souls will be killed or injured. It may be all for nothing in the short run, as was the case with Tiananmen Square. But sometimes courage means that you have to fight injustice, even when you know you're going to lose.
We haven't shown that kind of courage here since about 1970. Way back then, with the long hair, bongs, ugly tie-dye and all -- we were actually America. Not Murka.
Right now, the whole world is watching -- but they're not watching Murka. They're watching Iran, of all places.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Maybe they had it right, in a sense, when they said it can't happen here. In 2000, the U.S. had a presidential election blatantly stolen, with the 5-4 blessing of our Supreme Court. Four years later, the national election results sharply contrasted with the exit polling, and it was eventually demonstrated that the technology and means to "hack" some of the voting machines existed.
With few exceptions, almost no one raised any serious hell in the U.S., either time.
Not so right now in Iran, and richly to the credit of the people there. They are being asked to buy the idea that nearly 40 million handwritten ballots can be accurately counted and tallied in about 12 hours, and then with a clearly unpopular hard-line incumbent president winning by a huge, overwhelming landslide. Guess what -- they aren't buying it.
The unrest has become vast, with all those young Iranians taking to the streets in defiance of official repression. It makes me feel proud of the Iranians. And, it makes me feel just a bit ashamed of Americans. In words paraphrased from an old movie set in Mexico, with Federales looking for a gringo troublemaker: "Don't just stand there like burros! Haf you seen heem?"
We, my fellow "Murkans," just stood there like burros. Twice. No juevos, no cojones, either time. Nada.
The Iranians, for better or for worse, are not. Before them, recently, the Ukrainians didn't, and to good effect. Even in Mexico, many didn't "just stand there like burros" after a questionable election outcome in 2006. And in Tiananmen Square, 20 years ago, and not in any election setting, the world witnessed one of the greatest, albeit futile, exhibitions of human courage ever seen.
So, where was the outrage in America in 2000, or in 2004?
I'd say we lost it when we stopped being America, and became, as George W. "Il Doofus" Bush always mispronounced it, "Murka."
And when we became Murka, a semiliterate frat pledge master like Il Doofus could have the presidency of the whole damned country stolen for him, perhaps twice. And amazingly few people said anything.
The unrest in Iran probably won't change things at the official level, and some unfortunate souls will be killed or injured. It may be all for nothing in the short run, as was the case with Tiananmen Square. But sometimes courage means that you have to fight injustice, even when you know you're going to lose.
We haven't shown that kind of courage here since about 1970. Way back then, with the long hair, bongs, ugly tie-dye and all -- we were actually America. Not Murka.
Right now, the whole world is watching -- but they're not watching Murka. They're watching Iran, of all places.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Death Waits For No One. Blog Posts Sometimes Have To
MJ's mom died over the weekend. My wife and I will be traveling for the funeral. Don't be strangers. I expect to be posting again in about a week. -- MJ
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
What Makes Cheney Lie?
The former vice president may be running scared. Indictments aren't out of the question.
By Manifesto Joe
I really hoped that, once repudiated at the polls, the Republican right wing would give it a rest for a while. No such luck -- they are more vociferous than ever. And one of the lead attack dogs is none other than the former "vice president." We've seen more of that sneer in recent weeks than we had to for years during the Il Doofus administration.
Much of what Dick Cheney has been saying in speeches and interviews, appearances of unprecedented frequency for an ex-VP, is not squaring with the facts. Torture, CIA memos, Richard Clarke's repeated warnings about an imminent attack -- Cheney's accounts have consistently been pig manure. He seems to be a pupil of Joseph Goebbels -- you know, if you repeat the lie over and over ... Here's a link about this.
Not that adherence to the facts has ever been important to Cheney. He told countless whoppers during the run-up to the Iraq war. And once the war was on, he kept repeating the shameless canard about Saddam Hussein being connected in some way with 9-11. This man makes Machiavelli look like the hero of a Frank Capra movie.
He's also well-versed in the "Repub" Party's practice of defaming anyone associated with the "Democrat" Party. During his speech to the National Press Corps, Cheney, who was supposed to be talking about Al-Qaeda, referred to "Obama" (bin Laden) not being in good communication with the terrorist rank and file.
What is Cheney trying to do? My theory is: preemptive strikes. You know, the best defense is a good offense. I think that, ultimately, there's probably enough there for Cheney, "Fredo" Gonzales and several others to be indicted on war crimes charges. Cheney's thinking, most likely, is that getting the first punch in with brass knuckles will rid any antagonists of such thoughts. I think he's running scared, but his strategy is to be a lying bully so as not to show it. He's made that work enough times that he expects it to work again.
I pray to whatever gods may be that we don't let it happen this time.
Postscript: It was bitterly amusing to see the right wing's reaction to President Barack Obama taking his wife out on the town in New York. Since when have right wingers been concerned about rich people setting good examples for the struggling? After all the unbridled opulence and unregulated swinishness that we witnessed during the previous two presidential terms, it's moronic pettiness to talk about Obama taking Michelle out for one night on the town. How much time did Il Doofus spend on vacation in Crawford, and how much extra security and jet fuel did all that cost?
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
By Manifesto Joe
I really hoped that, once repudiated at the polls, the Republican right wing would give it a rest for a while. No such luck -- they are more vociferous than ever. And one of the lead attack dogs is none other than the former "vice president." We've seen more of that sneer in recent weeks than we had to for years during the Il Doofus administration.
Much of what Dick Cheney has been saying in speeches and interviews, appearances of unprecedented frequency for an ex-VP, is not squaring with the facts. Torture, CIA memos, Richard Clarke's repeated warnings about an imminent attack -- Cheney's accounts have consistently been pig manure. He seems to be a pupil of Joseph Goebbels -- you know, if you repeat the lie over and over ... Here's a link about this.
Not that adherence to the facts has ever been important to Cheney. He told countless whoppers during the run-up to the Iraq war. And once the war was on, he kept repeating the shameless canard about Saddam Hussein being connected in some way with 9-11. This man makes Machiavelli look like the hero of a Frank Capra movie.
He's also well-versed in the "Repub" Party's practice of defaming anyone associated with the "Democrat" Party. During his speech to the National Press Corps, Cheney, who was supposed to be talking about Al-Qaeda, referred to "Obama" (bin Laden) not being in good communication with the terrorist rank and file.
What is Cheney trying to do? My theory is: preemptive strikes. You know, the best defense is a good offense. I think that, ultimately, there's probably enough there for Cheney, "Fredo" Gonzales and several others to be indicted on war crimes charges. Cheney's thinking, most likely, is that getting the first punch in with brass knuckles will rid any antagonists of such thoughts. I think he's running scared, but his strategy is to be a lying bully so as not to show it. He's made that work enough times that he expects it to work again.
I pray to whatever gods may be that we don't let it happen this time.
Postscript: It was bitterly amusing to see the right wing's reaction to President Barack Obama taking his wife out on the town in New York. Since when have right wingers been concerned about rich people setting good examples for the struggling? After all the unbridled opulence and unregulated swinishness that we witnessed during the previous two presidential terms, it's moronic pettiness to talk about Obama taking Michelle out for one night on the town. How much time did Il Doofus spend on vacation in Crawford, and how much extra security and jet fuel did all that cost?
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Governor Goodhair Saga Continues: Stimulus Millions To Help Fix Up Guv's Mansion
By Manifesto Joe
Lesson of the day from Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry: We mustn't accept federal stimulus money to help the unemployed -- that's godless socialism. But $11 million to help repair the Governor's Mansion in Austin -- that's civic pride. Any questions, class?
Well, to be honest, it's actually our Legislature's idea. This is from an Associated Press story that ran in papers Friday:
Top budget negotiators said Thursday that a House-Senate committee agreed on the expenditure late Wednesday.
The mansion was set on fire in June by an arsonist who has not been caught. About $10 million in state tax money will also be spent on a renovation, which is expected to cost about $20 million, officials said.
... Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle released a short statement late Thursday: "We are continuing to work with lawmakers on the budget."
... Since the mansion burned, Perry's family has been living in a rented three-story, limestone home with a heated pool, an outdoor cabana and a guest house. The state is paying about $9,900 monthly in rent.
But wait, class -- there's more. The story pointed out that Perry has "railed against federal bailouts and the free-spending, power-hungry ways of Washington."
As usual, the Republican animal talks fiscal responsibility, just so long as YOU are the chump who has to be responsible. As power-lunch partners, these types will tip light for their share and leave you to pick up the check.
Meanwhile, as taxpayer money is ponied up to repair his digs and pay his exorbitant rent, Governor Goodhair stands firm in his decision not to accept hundreds of millions in federal stimulus money to extend benefits for Texas' unemployed. As Texas' chief executive goes for a dip in his heated pool, how many Texans' homes are in the foreclosure process?
And that, class, is our lesson for today in fiscal responsibility, Republican-style.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Lesson of the day from Rick "Governor Goodhair" Perry: We mustn't accept federal stimulus money to help the unemployed -- that's godless socialism. But $11 million to help repair the Governor's Mansion in Austin -- that's civic pride. Any questions, class?
Well, to be honest, it's actually our Legislature's idea. This is from an Associated Press story that ran in papers Friday:
Top budget negotiators said Thursday that a House-Senate committee agreed on the expenditure late Wednesday.
The mansion was set on fire in June by an arsonist who has not been caught. About $10 million in state tax money will also be spent on a renovation, which is expected to cost about $20 million, officials said.
... Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle released a short statement late Thursday: "We are continuing to work with lawmakers on the budget."
... Since the mansion burned, Perry's family has been living in a rented three-story, limestone home with a heated pool, an outdoor cabana and a guest house. The state is paying about $9,900 monthly in rent.
But wait, class -- there's more. The story pointed out that Perry has "railed against federal bailouts and the free-spending, power-hungry ways of Washington."
As usual, the Republican animal talks fiscal responsibility, just so long as YOU are the chump who has to be responsible. As power-lunch partners, these types will tip light for their share and leave you to pick up the check.
Meanwhile, as taxpayer money is ponied up to repair his digs and pay his exorbitant rent, Governor Goodhair stands firm in his decision not to accept hundreds of millions in federal stimulus money to extend benefits for Texas' unemployed. As Texas' chief executive goes for a dip in his heated pool, how many Texans' homes are in the foreclosure process?
And that, class, is our lesson for today in fiscal responsibility, Republican-style.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Governor Goodhair Aide's 'Whorehouse' Remark Is Insulting To Whores
By Manifesto Joe
As Jerry Jeff Walker sang -- "When I get screwed, I like to be kissed." Following is our connection: David Carney, a consultant for Gov. "Goodhair" Rick Perry of Texas, warned against turning the Republican Party into a "whorehouse" with the aim of casting a wider tent for voters. Here's a link to an Associated Press story.
This raised the ire of proper Republican women across the Lone Star State. But another group should be equally pissed: practicing whores.
I confess that, despite macho posturing among fellow Texas men, I passed on any and all opportunities with those practicing the oldest profession, and therefore have no firsthand experience. But I have heard this on good authority: Good ones, the real pros, will kiss you first.
Not so with Republicans. And this remark by Perry's strategist is actually a bigger insult to a group seldom quoted by the mainstream media.
The Iraq war, tax breaks for the rich, overseas tax havens for corporations, Enron, the subprime mortgage debacle, abuse of credit card holders, assaults on civil rights and liberties, incentives for polluters and corporations that export jobs, neglect of returning veterans, whittling away at Medicare and Medicaid ... I never got kissed before any of those mind-boggling travesties.
So, it seems like a worse insult to those hardworking women who are, well, honest enough to be hookers out in the open. They are at least above-board, and I doubt that they would put you at risk for diseases much worse than the ones Republicans have already inflicted upon us.
The standard political response to all this, of course, is that "Governor Goodhair" is in trouble yet again, not long after his infamous secession remark. And this gives plenty of cannon fodder to U.S. Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison, a "moderate" Republican who is almost certain to be his challenger in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary.
But I'm honestly concerned about the aspersions cast herein upon the hardworking crack whores of our mean streets. They're a skanky bunch, to be sure. But, to even suggest that the current stalwarts of the Republican Party, especially in this state that spawned the likes of Il Doofus, are a lot better than them? Well, it's a "stretch." (No double-entendre intended -- really!)
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
As Jerry Jeff Walker sang -- "When I get screwed, I like to be kissed." Following is our connection: David Carney, a consultant for Gov. "Goodhair" Rick Perry of Texas, warned against turning the Republican Party into a "whorehouse" with the aim of casting a wider tent for voters. Here's a link to an Associated Press story.
This raised the ire of proper Republican women across the Lone Star State. But another group should be equally pissed: practicing whores.
I confess that, despite macho posturing among fellow Texas men, I passed on any and all opportunities with those practicing the oldest profession, and therefore have no firsthand experience. But I have heard this on good authority: Good ones, the real pros, will kiss you first.
Not so with Republicans. And this remark by Perry's strategist is actually a bigger insult to a group seldom quoted by the mainstream media.
The Iraq war, tax breaks for the rich, overseas tax havens for corporations, Enron, the subprime mortgage debacle, abuse of credit card holders, assaults on civil rights and liberties, incentives for polluters and corporations that export jobs, neglect of returning veterans, whittling away at Medicare and Medicaid ... I never got kissed before any of those mind-boggling travesties.
So, it seems like a worse insult to those hardworking women who are, well, honest enough to be hookers out in the open. They are at least above-board, and I doubt that they would put you at risk for diseases much worse than the ones Republicans have already inflicted upon us.
The standard political response to all this, of course, is that "Governor Goodhair" is in trouble yet again, not long after his infamous secession remark. And this gives plenty of cannon fodder to U.S. Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison, a "moderate" Republican who is almost certain to be his challenger in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary.
But I'm honestly concerned about the aspersions cast herein upon the hardworking crack whores of our mean streets. They're a skanky bunch, to be sure. But, to even suggest that the current stalwarts of the Republican Party, especially in this state that spawned the likes of Il Doofus, are a lot better than them? Well, it's a "stretch." (No double-entendre intended -- really!)
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Bringing The New Torquemada To Justice
By Manifesto Joe
I confess that I've been a little nonplussed about the Obama administration's lack of aggressiveness in bringing the Bush-era war criminals to justice. The man who seems to present the biggest legal target is the modern Grand Inquisitor himself, Dick "Torquemada" Cheney.
It isn't merely that Cheney is a contemptible, sneering weasel who doesn't know when to give up on his special brand of right-wing whitewash. From the available evidence, it was the "vice president" of the time who is most directly traceable to orders to carry out "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Writing for Truthout, Steve Weissman brought out a few unsavory points about the employment of torture (yeah, let's call it by its honest name):
Cheney's signature success with torture came when the CIA sent al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shayk al-Libi to Egypt, where he "confessed" that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda in chemical weapons. Al-Libi's statement, extracted under torture, was the smoking gun that Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell all used to sell their pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. So, don't tell Cheney that "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" do not work. They damned sure do if your goal is to get the propaganda you want to go to war.
Few in Congress or the mass media have pushed Cheney on this "great success." Fewer still have seen that that Bush and Cheney's illegal use of torture to sell their pre-emptive war in Iraq was probably their single greatest crime. Why the reluctance? Why do so many Americans refuse to see the obvious?
In large part because Congress, the corporate media, and even the general public were to some degree complicit in the crime. Whatever the CIA told Congressional leaders about waterboarding, sensory and sleep deprivation, stress positions, or sending captives to other counties for interrogation, only the mentally challenged had any excuse for not knowing from the public record at the time the rough outlines of how far Bush and Cheney had stepped beyond the law.
To read the entire article, go here.
The implications are far-reaching. It isn't merely a matter of Cheney, Il Doofus & Co. knowingly and deliberately violating the Geneva Conventions. They used evidence extracted from a terrorism suspect as part of the argument to drag the U.S. into one of our most needless and regrettable wars. The Iraqi loss of life has been staggering in proportion, comparable to that of the "pacification" of the Philippines over 100 years ago.
The probable waterboarding of one suspect may have led to slaughter on a mass scale, and robbed the U.S. of any moral authority it may have had, for generations. "We" weren't supposed to be doing this sort of thing -- that was the kind of thing that "we" said made the "bad guys" bad.
It's pretty obvious now that basing a war, at least in part, on the confession of one wretch who was being subjected to prolonged torture was the height of pseudo-pragmatic imbecility. I consider myself a reasonably tough person. But if you waterboarded me enough times, I would probably sign my house and car over to you and confess to the murders of Jonbenet Ramsey and the Lindbergh baby.
There's a rogue's gallery of suspects implicated in this, but the biggest cheese of all seems to be the gangsta that Il Doofus picked to be sort of a de facto president, his chief operating officer, "Torquemada" Cheney.
(An aside: One thing I am very proud of is that I never bought into any of this. I could see Bush becoming a neocon opportunist with his "Axis of Evil" State of the Union speech in January 2002, and I never believed anything the bastards said from that point on. Unfortunately, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and much of the allegedly liberal media did buy into at least some of it. As for me, I was against the Iraq misadventure from the very beginning.)
Sadly, Dick Cheney is likely to be dead of heart failure long before it would be possible for him to serve a day in jail. Obama and Eric Holder don't seem to want to push this, and if they don't change their minds, it will go down as another one of those hideous scandals that litter our history. I mentioned the "pacification" of the Philippines after the Spanish-American war. It's estimated that up to 1 million Filipinos died as a result, from fighting, hunger or disease. I learned this from independent reading as an adult. It's not often in history books. We mustn't let this episode of war crime slip into some footnote.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I confess that I've been a little nonplussed about the Obama administration's lack of aggressiveness in bringing the Bush-era war criminals to justice. The man who seems to present the biggest legal target is the modern Grand Inquisitor himself, Dick "Torquemada" Cheney.
It isn't merely that Cheney is a contemptible, sneering weasel who doesn't know when to give up on his special brand of right-wing whitewash. From the available evidence, it was the "vice president" of the time who is most directly traceable to orders to carry out "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Writing for Truthout, Steve Weissman brought out a few unsavory points about the employment of torture (yeah, let's call it by its honest name):
Cheney's signature success with torture came when the CIA sent al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shayk al-Libi to Egypt, where he "confessed" that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda in chemical weapons. Al-Libi's statement, extracted under torture, was the smoking gun that Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell all used to sell their pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. So, don't tell Cheney that "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" do not work. They damned sure do if your goal is to get the propaganda you want to go to war.
Few in Congress or the mass media have pushed Cheney on this "great success." Fewer still have seen that that Bush and Cheney's illegal use of torture to sell their pre-emptive war in Iraq was probably their single greatest crime. Why the reluctance? Why do so many Americans refuse to see the obvious?
In large part because Congress, the corporate media, and even the general public were to some degree complicit in the crime. Whatever the CIA told Congressional leaders about waterboarding, sensory and sleep deprivation, stress positions, or sending captives to other counties for interrogation, only the mentally challenged had any excuse for not knowing from the public record at the time the rough outlines of how far Bush and Cheney had stepped beyond the law.
To read the entire article, go here.
The implications are far-reaching. It isn't merely a matter of Cheney, Il Doofus & Co. knowingly and deliberately violating the Geneva Conventions. They used evidence extracted from a terrorism suspect as part of the argument to drag the U.S. into one of our most needless and regrettable wars. The Iraqi loss of life has been staggering in proportion, comparable to that of the "pacification" of the Philippines over 100 years ago.
The probable waterboarding of one suspect may have led to slaughter on a mass scale, and robbed the U.S. of any moral authority it may have had, for generations. "We" weren't supposed to be doing this sort of thing -- that was the kind of thing that "we" said made the "bad guys" bad.
It's pretty obvious now that basing a war, at least in part, on the confession of one wretch who was being subjected to prolonged torture was the height of pseudo-pragmatic imbecility. I consider myself a reasonably tough person. But if you waterboarded me enough times, I would probably sign my house and car over to you and confess to the murders of Jonbenet Ramsey and the Lindbergh baby.
There's a rogue's gallery of suspects implicated in this, but the biggest cheese of all seems to be the gangsta that Il Doofus picked to be sort of a de facto president, his chief operating officer, "Torquemada" Cheney.
(An aside: One thing I am very proud of is that I never bought into any of this. I could see Bush becoming a neocon opportunist with his "Axis of Evil" State of the Union speech in January 2002, and I never believed anything the bastards said from that point on. Unfortunately, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and much of the allegedly liberal media did buy into at least some of it. As for me, I was against the Iraq misadventure from the very beginning.)
Sadly, Dick Cheney is likely to be dead of heart failure long before it would be possible for him to serve a day in jail. Obama and Eric Holder don't seem to want to push this, and if they don't change their minds, it will go down as another one of those hideous scandals that litter our history. I mentioned the "pacification" of the Philippines after the Spanish-American war. It's estimated that up to 1 million Filipinos died as a result, from fighting, hunger or disease. I learned this from independent reading as an adult. It's not often in history books. We mustn't let this episode of war crime slip into some footnote.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
With Lubbock Vote, Neo-Prohibitionist Movement Seems To Have Finally Passed Out
By Manifesto Joe
Lubbock, Texas, is certainly the biggest "dry" city in Texas (population about 210,000) and perhaps the largest "dry" one in the U.S. If the early returns are accurate, that is about to change. The Associated Press reports that in a local election, Lubbock voters are favoring beer, wine and liquor sales in stores, by 64 percent in early counts.
The city has had a weird system for years. You could get "liquor-by-the-drink" in a bar or restaurant inside the city limits. But there were (and are) no package stores, and you couldn't get a six-pack in a convenience store. The city has the biggest university in that desolate region, Texas Tech, and the students of age there have to go to a "wet" suburb to buy a bottle of wine. (Or a case of beer -- now, doesn't that sound like a bright idea? I'll get to that irony later.)
I grew up in a "dry" town, but one that had smaller towns nearby where miscreants would sell any kind of booze to just about anybody, even 16-year-olds. I don't recall that those in-town conditions stopped anyone from drinking.
My family was religious and generally teetotaling; I recall being about 11 and taking a ride home with a Little League teammate of mine, and seeing an astonishing thing. My buddy's dad, home from his job as an offshore oil-rig roughneck, was behind the wheel and taking swigs of whiskey out of a "fifth" bottle. Little Buddy-roo and I were in the back seat, watching the spectacle of old Ken as he passed this rather large bottle to his bud in the front passenger seat. I'm not sure, but I think they were also chasing with beer.
I was too young to realize that these older dudes were actually risking the lives of little J.T. and me in the back seat. But there wasn't much traffic on small-town streets and semirural roads, and this seemed to be something intrinsic to the local culture. Because liquor couldn't be had just anywhere, these men (and quite a few women) would drive long distances to get it. And, in doing so, they didn't seem to think much about the consequences of driving while consuming, except to evade the local gendarmes. My recollection is that this wasn't hard to do.
Attitudes have changed for the better since 1967, even in Gothic regions like where I grew up. But this drove home a point: Prohibition actually, ironically, encourages binge drinking, and also drunken driving.
On a long-ago vacation, I remember passing through a flat, dry West Texas hamlet on the way to New Mexico. This place had a reported population of about 400; but this was Saturday night, and it looked like some kind of mini-Vegas. Looking around at the local commerce, it wasn't hard to figure out what the attraction was.
They might as well have changed the name of this little place to "Beer." For population, they might as well have put on there: Weekdays, 400. Weekends, 10,000.
A certainty is that these genuine and drugstore cowboys, who had come to town that night in their F-2000 pickup trucks, were unlikely to drive 40 or more miles back home without having had a few brewskis. And just maybe, more than a few. And maybe that was just a chaser for some hard liquor. Being a native of this region, I can tell you, there aren't very many Merlot-sipping men living outside of Highland Park.
I actually saw stranger, more opposite things in New Mexico, like package stores adjoining bars. There, a feller can git half-swacked in the bar, then finish the job by picking up a bottle for a nightcap on the way home! Again, one little blessing is that a lot of roads in this part of the world are straight and not well-traveled.
In Arizona, I saw strange, opposite things as well. You can buy hard liquor in a 7-Eleven until wee hours. It's nearly like that in Louisiana, too. And California is far more lenient than Texas, in some ways.
Then, there are the serious Puritans. I've never been to Utah, but I know someone who lived there. The Mormons are surprisingly tolerant of liquor-drinking miscreants. They just require their liquor stores to look like mini-Leavenworths. They want to make certain that their Jack Mormons feel like sleazy reprobates.
I lived in Oklahoma for a short time, and the package stores there look like low-rent warehouses, with very minimal advertising. You can't buy cold 5 percent beer anywhere in the state legally -- the real stuff has to come from a package store, and you have to chill it yourself. In 7-Eleven, they offer a relic of Prohibition, 3.2 percent beer. (They have that stuff in Colorado, too, but not with as many
other restrictions.) I recall a Lawton, Oklahoma, store clerk giving me a stern moral lecture when I was surprised that I couldn't get real beer in a corner store there -- "You gotta keep yore nose real clean up hyere, Tex ..."
And yet, living in Oklahoma, while I was jogging on residential streets, I don't remember anywhere else where I saw as many empty pint bottles of Wild Turkey littering the gutters. Obviously people were riding around in cars drinking hard liquor, then tossing their empties.
The point is that Prohibition measures, even partial ones, clearly do not work. They just make people drink furtively, and actually encourage them to drive far pieces to get it.
Similar arguments can be framed regarding marijuana, but I'll save that for another post.
Anyway, my hat's off to the folks out in Lubbock, for finally seeing reason. I don't own a real cowboy hat -- I like fedoras and a few variations -- but I'll take those off to the good folks of Lubbock. I might have gone to Texas Tech, but I went to a small Lutheran college instead. Lutherans don't have major problems with beer.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Lubbock, Texas, is certainly the biggest "dry" city in Texas (population about 210,000) and perhaps the largest "dry" one in the U.S. If the early returns are accurate, that is about to change. The Associated Press reports that in a local election, Lubbock voters are favoring beer, wine and liquor sales in stores, by 64 percent in early counts.
The city has had a weird system for years. You could get "liquor-by-the-drink" in a bar or restaurant inside the city limits. But there were (and are) no package stores, and you couldn't get a six-pack in a convenience store. The city has the biggest university in that desolate region, Texas Tech, and the students of age there have to go to a "wet" suburb to buy a bottle of wine. (Or a case of beer -- now, doesn't that sound like a bright idea? I'll get to that irony later.)
I grew up in a "dry" town, but one that had smaller towns nearby where miscreants would sell any kind of booze to just about anybody, even 16-year-olds. I don't recall that those in-town conditions stopped anyone from drinking.
My family was religious and generally teetotaling; I recall being about 11 and taking a ride home with a Little League teammate of mine, and seeing an astonishing thing. My buddy's dad, home from his job as an offshore oil-rig roughneck, was behind the wheel and taking swigs of whiskey out of a "fifth" bottle. Little Buddy-roo and I were in the back seat, watching the spectacle of old Ken as he passed this rather large bottle to his bud in the front passenger seat. I'm not sure, but I think they were also chasing with beer.
I was too young to realize that these older dudes were actually risking the lives of little J.T. and me in the back seat. But there wasn't much traffic on small-town streets and semirural roads, and this seemed to be something intrinsic to the local culture. Because liquor couldn't be had just anywhere, these men (and quite a few women) would drive long distances to get it. And, in doing so, they didn't seem to think much about the consequences of driving while consuming, except to evade the local gendarmes. My recollection is that this wasn't hard to do.
Attitudes have changed for the better since 1967, even in Gothic regions like where I grew up. But this drove home a point: Prohibition actually, ironically, encourages binge drinking, and also drunken driving.
On a long-ago vacation, I remember passing through a flat, dry West Texas hamlet on the way to New Mexico. This place had a reported population of about 400; but this was Saturday night, and it looked like some kind of mini-Vegas. Looking around at the local commerce, it wasn't hard to figure out what the attraction was.
They might as well have changed the name of this little place to "Beer." For population, they might as well have put on there: Weekdays, 400. Weekends, 10,000.
A certainty is that these genuine and drugstore cowboys, who had come to town that night in their F-2000 pickup trucks, were unlikely to drive 40 or more miles back home without having had a few brewskis. And just maybe, more than a few. And maybe that was just a chaser for some hard liquor. Being a native of this region, I can tell you, there aren't very many Merlot-sipping men living outside of Highland Park.
I actually saw stranger, more opposite things in New Mexico, like package stores adjoining bars. There, a feller can git half-swacked in the bar, then finish the job by picking up a bottle for a nightcap on the way home! Again, one little blessing is that a lot of roads in this part of the world are straight and not well-traveled.
In Arizona, I saw strange, opposite things as well. You can buy hard liquor in a 7-Eleven until wee hours. It's nearly like that in Louisiana, too. And California is far more lenient than Texas, in some ways.
Then, there are the serious Puritans. I've never been to Utah, but I know someone who lived there. The Mormons are surprisingly tolerant of liquor-drinking miscreants. They just require their liquor stores to look like mini-Leavenworths. They want to make certain that their Jack Mormons feel like sleazy reprobates.
I lived in Oklahoma for a short time, and the package stores there look like low-rent warehouses, with very minimal advertising. You can't buy cold 5 percent beer anywhere in the state legally -- the real stuff has to come from a package store, and you have to chill it yourself. In 7-Eleven, they offer a relic of Prohibition, 3.2 percent beer. (They have that stuff in Colorado, too, but not with as many
other restrictions.) I recall a Lawton, Oklahoma, store clerk giving me a stern moral lecture when I was surprised that I couldn't get real beer in a corner store there -- "You gotta keep yore nose real clean up hyere, Tex ..."
And yet, living in Oklahoma, while I was jogging on residential streets, I don't remember anywhere else where I saw as many empty pint bottles of Wild Turkey littering the gutters. Obviously people were riding around in cars drinking hard liquor, then tossing their empties.
The point is that Prohibition measures, even partial ones, clearly do not work. They just make people drink furtively, and actually encourage them to drive far pieces to get it.
Similar arguments can be framed regarding marijuana, but I'll save that for another post.
Anyway, my hat's off to the folks out in Lubbock, for finally seeing reason. I don't own a real cowboy hat -- I like fedoras and a few variations -- but I'll take those off to the good folks of Lubbock. I might have gone to Texas Tech, but I went to a small Lutheran college instead. Lutherans don't have major problems with beer.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Hey, Right-Wing Machos -- The Manassa Mauler Was A New Deal Democrat
I'm really sick of right-wingers acting like they're the ones who invented toughness. Some of the toughest people on this Earth have seen or have been in a lot of fights with hired toughs -- the kind of people they were up against don't usually have to do their own fighting, they can rent it out. Here's an example of one of the world's toughest dudes ever, who was a progressive, pro-union liberal!
On June 24, 1895, the day Jack Dempsey was born, during Grover Cleveland's second term as president, America was still discovering itself. Colorado, which had become the 38th state in 1876, lurched into an uproar of mining booms and busts, miners' strikes and mine owners' brutal and casual slaughters. Photographs survive of private armies maintained supposedly to keep order, and in practice employed to gun down union men. "Three dollars a day," the mine barons said in effect, "for ten hours or twelve. You'll live in our houses, buy in our stores, and do what you're told. If you don't like it, ten immigrants back East are ready to take your job." Touring one deep gold mine, Ulysses S. Grant said, "This is as close to hell as I ever hope to find myself."
Miners who protested for shorter hours, better pay, and safer conditions underground risked their lives up top. One typical private army, the Silver Queen Guards -- employed by the owners of the Silver Queen mines in Georgetown, thirty miles west of Denver -- was better uniformed than the U.S. infantry, and at least as formidably armed. Massacres of union men bloody the pages of history. Dempsey's later populism and passion for social programs such as Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal persisted after he became a multimillionaire. He said he never forgot, nor did he want to forget, the ferocity with which the mining barons treated working men and their wives and children.
-- From A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s, by Roger Kahn -- MJ
On June 24, 1895, the day Jack Dempsey was born, during Grover Cleveland's second term as president, America was still discovering itself. Colorado, which had become the 38th state in 1876, lurched into an uproar of mining booms and busts, miners' strikes and mine owners' brutal and casual slaughters. Photographs survive of private armies maintained supposedly to keep order, and in practice employed to gun down union men. "Three dollars a day," the mine barons said in effect, "for ten hours or twelve. You'll live in our houses, buy in our stores, and do what you're told. If you don't like it, ten immigrants back East are ready to take your job." Touring one deep gold mine, Ulysses S. Grant said, "This is as close to hell as I ever hope to find myself."
Miners who protested for shorter hours, better pay, and safer conditions underground risked their lives up top. One typical private army, the Silver Queen Guards -- employed by the owners of the Silver Queen mines in Georgetown, thirty miles west of Denver -- was better uniformed than the U.S. infantry, and at least as formidably armed. Massacres of union men bloody the pages of history. Dempsey's later populism and passion for social programs such as Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal persisted after he became a multimillionaire. He said he never forgot, nor did he want to forget, the ferocity with which the mining barons treated working men and their wives and children.
-- From A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s, by Roger Kahn -- MJ
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