Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Jeralyn Merritt’s went on TV to talk on who should run in 2008: “We also talked about Hillary and Obama. Both La Shawn and I thought Obama needs more experience and didn’t know if Hillary would run. I said I’d like to see a woman in the White House, La Shawn thought she’s too polarizing to win. Neither of us were big on Tom Vilsack. As for who we would like to see run, I said Russ Feingold and John Edwards.”

Hello! Hello! John Edwards has no experience in office except ONE SENATE TERM, a good part of which he spent not showing up and not voting. Besides his ONE SENATE TERM, Barack Obama has experience as a state senator, a constitutional law professor and community organizer. Barack Obama has more experience in policy work than John Edwards. Why does John Edwards get a pass on the experience question, but Barack Obama doesn’t? Oh, I think we all know why.

Sheldon Richman, writing in the Baltimore Chronicle, has the guts to come out and say what nobody else dares: There Is No War:

What we call terrorism is not war, but criminal action. It becomes war only if we make it so.
America is not under siege. There is no threat to its integrity as a society. No barbarians stand at the gates ready to overrun and subjugate us. What we call terrorism is not war, but criminal action. It becomes war only if we make it so. But war exacts a terrible cost on the country that prosecutes it. If you need proof, see the Military Commissions Act of 2006.”

If there is no war, there is no excuse.

There is no excuse.

Robyn Blumner is a columnist for my hometown newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times, and she always has something interesting to say. But in yesterday’s column, she shook me to the bones with her essay on the end of “The Great American Experiment in Liberty.”

E Pluribus Unum be damned. Here’s America’s new motto: If we can’t pronounce your name, we don’t care what happens to you. Now let us get back to our Happy Meals.

How was your lunch?

O, I love it. Stephen Colbert has been on that show of his encouraging people to go visit Wikipedia and make things up, like “George Washington did not own slaves.” I think this is a great idea. We should all go to Wikipedia and change something, just to make it up. That’s how George W. Bush does it. He just says something and it becomes true because he says it is. Like that he did not smoke cocaine. We should call it Bushipedia, or maybe say that Bush is the Wikipresident, or something like that. And the stupid liberals do the same thing, making up baloney like that you can really starve in America. Come back here after you are done and tell everybody what you did to change reality. Who needs reality when you have extremist politics? Let’s forget moderation and just fly completely off the handle, pretending that was isn’t real really, really is. That way, we can be completely unprepared when something outside of Wikipedia comes our way, like the Bird Flu or something. That way, all we stupid people can die off, leaving the lumberjacks to repopulate the planet.

How is it that little kids everywhere know the same implicit rules? For example:

You may sneak out of bed and hang out at the top of the stairs (or at the end of the bedroom hallway in a ranch house) to listen to your parents talk.

You may not actually make yourself known by stepping into the same room where your parents are.

You must run, pittery pattery, whispery giggly pell mell, back to bed when your parents approach the hall or the top of the stairs.

Who tells little kids this stuff? I don’t know, but it seems to happen everywhere.

Earlier today I was hanging out, reading various favorite My Space blogs of mine, when I came across this paragraph by Survivor Alli:

“If the following statement offends anyone, I am sorry my feelings have offended you. I usually do not voice my political opinion but I feel I must since our president has made the statement that stem cell research is not moral. Is it moral to even produce humans in a test tube for the reason of selfish parents to have little clones of themselves, when there is probably a reason God didn’t allow them to have children in the first place and there are children starving all over the world that could be adopted? Is it not a moral thing to use our scientific knowledge to help the millions of people who are literally suffering with severely debilitating neurological diseases, and give them relief by the use of the stem cells that are just sitting in a cooler somewhere? Obviously our president has no knowledge about this subject, and is not close to anyone in the situation that stem cell research will save their lives. It seems to me that as the president kisses his little ‘snowflake’ children on national TV he reminds me of someone else that was once in power. Hitler.”

Well, I agree with her on the matter of stem cell research — what’s up with President Bush, anyway? Hello? Clue phone, George, and it’s for you!

But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to write about this opening caveat: “If the following statement offends anyone, I am sorry my feelings have offended you.” Come on! I mean, I understand and all that people write this to keep other people from trashing them and so forth, but I really don’t think it is necessary.

And here’s why. The only way not to offend anyone is to say something completely unimportant, bland and boring. If you say anything that is at all remotely even kind of interesting, you can bet that you will offend someone out there somewhere. If you’re going to write something that is strongly felt, you should be ready for the possibility that your words will offend someone. You will be offensive if you are strong. So be strong! I mean, if you’re not going to risk being offensive, you might as well be dead, because all you’re going to do is be an acceptable mouthpiece for other people’s tastes and sensibilities.

Is anyone with me on this?

Sometimes a lot can be said in just a few words. Reuters reports today in a two-paragraph story:

A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld the government’s authority to force high-speed Internet service providers to give law enforcement authorities access for surveillance purposes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit turned down a petition aimed at overturning a decision by regulators requiring facilities-based broadband providers and those that offer Internet telephone service to comply with U.S. wiretap laws.

You read that right: the government can now require your broadband internet provider, or your internet telephone service, to spy on your activities. Even if you have broken no law, your behavior online may fall under the direct eye of government scrutiny.

It’s kind of like The Matrix, but without the kicky soundtrack or leather. And you’re not the plucky protagonist; you’re the exploited extra who gets offed as an innocent bystander in Scene 10.

If there is a God up there, watching us all, he is retching. The Los Angeles Times talked to a Marine photographer who saw the aftermath of an American massacre in Iraq:

“They ranged from little babies to adult males and females,” Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones of Hanford, Calif., told a reporter for The Times. “I’ll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood. This left something in my head and heart.” Briones said he took digital photographs of the victims that he later erased, assuming that they had been downloaded.

Don’t we get it as a people? Don’t we learn anything?

And yes, I mean as a people. We are responsible. You are responsible. This is a representative government that took us to war. This is a government that took us to war with majority support. Supermajority support. I remember talking to my brother in law as the war started, and he justified the whole thing by saying “we have to go over there and kill all of them before they kill all of us.” Them. Us. Go ahead, we said. Do it. Go, go, go! I remember people selling “Bomb Iraq. Then Bomb France” stickers. Ha ha ha ha ha! What funniness! Do you remember the time? How many people thought this was just such a great idea? What a lark! Wheeeee! Let’s go to war!

And then this happens. I WILL NOT be one of the people who blames this on the marines in Iraq. OK, yes, well, I do blame those particular Marines who did it, obviously. But I guess what I mean is that I cannot come out of reading this horrific story of blowing babies’ brains out and come to the conclusion that all soldiers are culpable. I’m not going to go spit on returning soldiers and call them baby killers. Because you know what? You put me in that situation, and I can say from the comfort of my warm den in the USA that I would never do it, but you know what? I bet I would. I bet if you sent me to Iraq again and again and again and you kept those Iraqis bombing me and my friends at weird, bizarre intervals, and NOBODY could tell me when the whole shit-stained mess was going to end, I BET I WOULD END UP DOING CRAZY, HORRIBLE SHIT TOO. That’s what happens to humans when you put them to war. War is hell. We have turned Iraq into hell. All the Iraqis are living in hell. We are sending hundreds of thousands of young Americans to hell. And hell is made by what people in hell do to each other.

So if you supported this war in the first place, I not only don’t want to hear your sanctimonious cries about how superior you are to the Marines, or the Iraqis, or to some “hand-wringing liberal” — I want to see YOU take responsibility as an American for this SICK-ASS WAR that KILLS INNOCENT BABIES! THEY WERE GODDAMNED BABIES! PUT THAT IN YOUR GODDAMNED HEAD AND KEEP IT THERE!

If you supported going into Iraq, the blood of those INNOCENT BABIES is on your hands.

Dear God, I think I’m going to be sick.

Can I ask a favor? Next time some moron in the White House tries to tell you that declaring an unnecessary war is a good idea, don’t wave your little Chinese-produced American flag, alright? Shout out loud: FUCK, NO! Then IMPEACH THE BASTARD.

One of my favorite columnists, Dennis Rogers, hits it out of the park again with a few short paragraphs on prayer in school and the political sphere:

Call me cynical, but I suspect many politicians publicly pray so people (read, voters) will be impressed with how saintly they are. Either that or they think God is hard of hearing.

Wouldn’t a silent and sincere prayer from the heart cut through the heavenly chatter faster than a mini-sermon from some long-winded politician unable to keep quiet in the presence of a captive audience?

The courts agree the Constitution allows prayer at governmental meetings so long as the praying stops short of preaching. It’s when officials promote one religion over others that they get in trouble.

How ironic the American Civil Liberties Union chose Holy Week to gently remind the Chatham County Board of Commissioners that ending its opening prayers with some variation of “in Jesus’ name” promotes Christianity and is a no-no.

Prayers are allowed at public meetings, the ACLU said, but Chatham’s elected officials have crossed the constitutional line separating the business of man from the business of God.

Politicians may bluster, but they really love such controversy. They get to pose as stalwart defenders of truth, justice the American way and God, too. As if God needed their help.

There’s never been a clearer example of what such blowhards are up to than the recurring prayer-in-school spat.

Kids quietly pray in school all the time. Teachers, principals, secretaries, janitors, school bus drivers and lunch ladies quietly pray in school, too. As one wag put it, as long as there are algebra tests, there will be prayer in schools. Amen.

The catch is, you can’t force others to take part in your prayer, which is exactly what happens when you pray out loud in front of a class, a meeting or the big game on Friday night.

Want to pray in school or at work or before a session of the county zoning board? Fine. Close your eyes, bow your head and silently pray away. No one will hassle you. Ask for world peace, a date to the prom, a pay raise or that the world ends before next Friday’s geometry exam. Or just say “thank you.”

Our freedom of faith was bought and paid for by brave men and women fighting on battlefields and in courtrooms. But that’s apparently not good enough for some folks.

So to Bible-thumping politicians who feel their brand of religion trumps the freedoms for which so many have died, I offer this bit of sage advice:

Testifying at a Senate hearing last month, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at American University, said, “People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don’t put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

Pray over that, politicians.

Just do it quietly.

The Federal Election Commission has announced its long-awaited system for regulating Internet speech. A number of online writers were worried that internet speech might be lumped together with television and print advertising, making it impossible for bloggers, bulletin board frequenters and podcasters to say anything about an election as it approached. Thankfully, this did not come to pass.

The rules are pretty simple and pretty clear. If a campaign wants to spend money to put a message on a blog that makes it look good, then it has to spend the money using officially regulated funds, and it has to note the spending. This doesn’t prohibit the use of money to spread word about a campaign on the internet; it just makes it more transparent. As it is now, who’s to say whether a blog is really independent or just propped up by a candidate? It’s hard to say, it’s hard to track, and therefore it’s hard to know. Under the new rules, we’ll know, and that’s good for us all: we get to see the wizard behind the curtain pulling the levers.

For everybody else who isn’t playing some kind of insider buddy-buddy back-slapping money-for-kind-words payola game, there are no regulations. None. We get to speak our mind about the candidates, the issues, the policies, and the contests, just as we are able to do today. That’s freedom, and I love it.

I have to forcefully shove these words out of my fingers as I type them in, but it looks like our government has done something right. Whew.