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SUNDAY
2.15.04 / 9:23 /
LINK
Taxes are
bad. Bankrupt government is even worse, at least for those not
at the top. --Common
Dreams, 2/15/04
 "The lack of tax revenues means record
national debt, states unable to pay their bills, impoverished
public education, high unemployment, entrenched poverty, collapsing
medical systems, a threatened Social Security system. The rich
have multimillion-dollar rebates to buy private versions of all
of these. As the poor get poorer, you don't have to pay them
as much for personal services, the one sector of the working-class
economy where there are still jobs.
"Ordinary people are competing
against one another in impossible situations in order that a
very few can win monetary rewards. In the world of Reality TV,
that's called 'Survivor'. Turn off the television and it's called
'America'."
TOP
2.15.04 / 6:35 / LINK
The incorporeal
George Bush
It's getting very magical
and metaphysical around here lately. People have been plumbing
their recollections back thirty years, trying to remember
if they'd ever run into George Bush in the Air National Guard.
For instance, Wayne
Rambo (honest, and no relation to Sylvester Stallone) said,
"I don't remember seeing him. (But) that does not mean
he was not there," Wayne was a first lieutenant with
the 187th Supply Squadron at the time in question.
No Wayne, it doesn't. But it
doesn't mean he was there either.
I was in the Navy forty years ago. And I remember, quite clearly,
most of the sailors I sailed with. I remember their names, their
personalities, and could probably describe their twenty-something
selves pretty accurately too. And if one of them had become president,
I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed.
"Wally Nottleman, president! No shit?"
But maybe I just have a better memory than the president and
those he served with.
Regardless --as further evidence of a national outbreak of magical
thinking let's turn to the dental records released by the White
House which were intended to support President George W. Bush's
account of his
Air National Guard service in Alabama. Great, but according
to The Guardian, the AP contacted more than a dozen former
members of the unit on Wednesday, and none could recall ever
running into Mr Bush. Nor does the dentist recall treating Bush.
But all of them told The Associated Press that doesn't mean
he wasn't there.
Again, we have a group of otherwise mentally competent people,
all of whom report never having experienced a very sepcific event:
namely seeing George Bush in their midst when they were
supposed to have been serving together in the Air National Guard.
What they suggest instead is that the pre-presidential flyboy
might have had some sort of supernatural ability to manage an
incorporeal presence while they themselves actually showed up
for duty...with their bodies.
As these negative witnesses imply, "Just because we never
saw him around when he says he was here doesn't mean he never
was here. It just means he was George W. Bush (a well-placed
scion) and, therefore, capable of being any
place he needed to be as his whims required." You may
attribute this to good luck, better breeding, or having the same
teacher as Kung Fu master David Carradine's "Grasshopper"--whatever.
But it'll all come down to money and influence soon enough.
The best eye witness account of airman George's supernatural
abilities to disappear in plain sight is that of retired Lt.
Col. John (Bill) Calhoun, who, in a NY Daily news story, insists
he saw Bush report for weekend duty in Alabama.
In his first accounting Calhoun said he saw Bush report for Guard
duty "eight to 10 times for roughly eight hours at a time
from May to October 1972." He later ammended that saying
he saw Bush at drill on "...four
to six occasions". This week in an interview with the
Daily News Lt. Col. Calhoun whittled that down "...to at
least four drills".
It's clear that we're lucky to have found someone who actually
caught the nascent president in the act of disappearing from
duty, yet showing up in spirit. Given Calhoun's trend, we would
not be surprised that in his next interview the Col. reported
that he never saw Bush, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there.
But George Bush's disappearing act really doesn't matter in it's
particulars. The basic issue is that anyone with a shred of honesty
--even Republican's-- would have to admit there
is ever the slightest possibility George Bush enjoyed favored
treatment in those dangerous years. It was no accident he wound
up in the Air National Guard rather than slogging through
some Vietnam jungle with working-class soldiers from East Podunk
or the Bronx in the flower power years of that politically
trumped-up war.
In fact in his book, "My American Journey," we have
none other than the president's Secretary of State speaking to
the issue of who served, and how. In that 1995 autobiography
Colin Powell said, "I am angry that so many of the sons
of the powerful and well placed ... managed to wangle slots in
Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam,
this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging
to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal
allegiance to their country."
For some, though, class discrimination is as natural as falling
into the presidency. This is what should matter to a nation stuck
with the silver-spooned George W. The particulars of his story
are important only as they reveal that while the probable Democratic
nominee chose to lay his life on the line, George was busy forming
an essential and enduring part of his character: enjoying the
perks of influence while testing the meaning and value of connections
and learning to smirk about it.
Related Articles
George's
War - The Guardian, 2/12/04
Doubts
about his Vietnam record dog Bush - The Guardian, 2/13/04
TOP
2.15.94 / 5:22 AM / LINK
Keep your eyeballs open for character
assassins
Keep your eyes pealed for stuff
like this. It'll be out there all over the place as the right
wing launches it's character assassination of John Kerry.
TOP
2.15.94
/ 5:02 AM / LINK
In the area of certainty
god is often no help
Despite the lock-down minds of
the fundamentally faithful the Lord is an expert at throwing
annoying curves. If biblical clarity was the rule, we wouldn't
have so many religions. And if nature was cut and dry there'd
be no such thing as trans-gendered individuals.
An article
at Pacific News Service
by William
Beeman brings natural ambiguity into the same-sex marriage
debate, and makes some excellent points.
The "save-marriage" people want to write laws or put
in place constitutional restrictions that define who may marry.
They want to establish that marriage shall be between a man and
a woman, period. But, not so fast. What is man after all? And
what is woman?
Shall we base gender on secondary characteristics such as facial
hair or the developement of breasts? Then what about millions
of moustachioed women
or the gynecomastia
guys I encounter now and then who rival even the well-cantilevered
Dolly?
Then there's the problem of babies born with gender
ambiguity. These have to be assigned a gender by doctors
before it's too late. But sometimes doctors, not being as tuned
in to God's plan as the slews of bible-thumpers weighing in on
the issue, guess wrong.
Ok, if we can't count on physical attributes, let's plumb the
mind. Oh boy, now there's a can of worms we've been opening for
eons with great success!
Psychologists tell us there's a condition known as gender
dysphoria. This is when a person wakes up to find they're
in the wrong body. These things happen. Ask Gregor
Samsa. Those with gender dysphoria are the people we commonly
call "trans-gendered".
According to the PNS piece, "...experts estimate as many
as 1.2 million Americans are transgendered."
And finally, what about the "berdache"
or the hijra
of India?
To learn more about these, and the other problems inherent in
the argument for traditional marriage between a "man"
and a "woman" read Beeman's
article here.
There was a time conservatives wanted to keep government off
our backs. Now they want us on our backs and government
in the missionary position. Or, they want government at our
backs, whichever gives them the greatest pleasure...if you catch
my meaning.
TOP
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The way he talked
about jobs in his interview with Tim Russert its obvious he doesn't
live on earth ...especially in the United States. Maybe George
isn't as dumb as they say, but it's possible he has some loose
components rattling around somewhere.