Memorial Day

In the last several years, I've started to spend money politically. I changed my satellite company from DirecTV to DISH, I won't spend money at Walmart or Target or Walgreen's. I've been arguing against buying from China since before my son was born 23 years ago. I recently learned J. Jill buys clothes from the horrific Tom DeLay sweatshops in the Northern Marianas, and now I can't even walk into their store.

When the Dixie Chicks were trashed for exercising their free speech rights, I bought three of their CDs. Those CDs are still unopened, and my loss I know.

So when Neil Young brought out Living With War of course I bought that one too. And it has been sitting on my kitchen counter for a while. I've heard the Shock and Awe song on Air America several times; and the anger in the music and the lyrics is compatible with my own anger and disgust with the Bush crowd and every American who has ever voted for Bush without repentence.

This morning, after I put out my flag for Memorial Day and jumped into the car for the ride to Starbucks, I popped the Living With War CD into the player.

Omigod.

The title tune is nothing like I expected, and just reading the lyrics -- wonderful though they are -- is not enough. Opening with Young's fragile, weary-sounding statement --

I'm living with war everyday
I'm living with war in my heart everyday
I'm living with war right now

When he sings "living with war in my heart" it's not a proclamation but a diagnosis. This is our national disease: we are living with war in our hearts.

And when the dawn breaks I see my fellow man
And on the flat-screen we kill and we're killed again
and when the night falls, I pray for peace
Try to remember peace

Is it mere nostalgia that makes me think this is brilliant? I do try to remember peace, but I suddenly wonder if it's in my experience to remember. Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Inflation, El Salvador, Grenada, Afghanistan, Gulf I, the War on Clinton, the 2000 election, Iraq, the "re-election" of George W Bush, Abu Gonzales and Fascism in America, the Cheney Coup.

try to remember peace

I join the multitudes
I raise my hand in peace
I never bow to the laws of the thought police

But I do bow to the laws of the thought police. Every day I try to live a normal life, pay my taxes, watch a favorite teevee show, scream at Chris Matthews, and go to bed without doing something about it, I bow to the thought police. Every day that George W Bush kills, he kills in my name.

I take a holy vow
To never to kill again
To never kill again

This is when I have to acknowledge I live in bondage. Slavery means living the will of another person. I can't take a holy vow to never kill again; George W Bush has usurped what the founding fathers called the will of the people. His will is our will, his will is my will. I am a slave to the Bush Administration which kills in my name, and I have no power.

I'm living with war in my heart
I'm living with war in my heart and my mind
I'm living with war right now

Don't take no tidal wave
Dont take no mass grave
Don't take no smokin' gun
To show how the west was won

But when the curtain falls,
I pray for peace
Try to remember peace

The song reminds me of a Lutheran hymn, sweet in its certainty that there is a god and a heaven. I'm guilty of the greatest sin: despair. I don't believe in the American People. I don't believe we will ever take the holy vow.

In the crowded streets In the big hotels
In the mosques and the doors of the old museum
I take a holy vow To never kill again
Try to remember peace

The rocket's red glare
Bombs bursting in air
Give proof through the night, That Our flag is still there
I'm living with war everyday
I'm living with war in my heart everyday
I'm living with war right now.

Ellen McCord

And now for something completely different!

Ellen McCord is an artist I know who now has a website. Her work is just fabulous -- take a look!

Jackie Speier for Governor

Okay, she's running for Lt. Governor. But one can dream . . .



I had just about decided to vote for John Garamendi for Lt. Governor just to piss off the insurance companies who are trying to blackmail him.

But I've been a fan of Jackie Speier's for over 20 years, so I decided to look again at her campaign. I've never lived in her district -- in fact I live in the foothills and she's in the Bay Area. But I've always been a political junkie, and I used to notice her name attached to what I call "good government" bills and campaigns.

She writes legislation that makes regular people's lives better. She's written (and got passed) financial privacy laws as well as medical records privacy laws (including one great bill vetoed by Governor Arnold, gah).

Here is a link to a campaign ad narrated by Peter Coyote where you will learn (if you don't already know) about her horrific experience in Guyana.

These are, according to her campaign website, her Top Ten Legislative Accomplishments.

This story from the SF Gate in 2003 gives a lot of Speier's background and I think explains why she identifies with regular people and genuinely believes in good government.

I think John Garamendi is a good guy. The choice here is an oddity in elections: not between the lesser of two evils, but the greater of two goods.

I'm just a citizen, not connected with any group, but this is my endorsement. Blogolodeon will vote for Jackie Speier for Lt. Governor.

It's Official

In case you missed it, the United States of America has officially become a police state.

I blogged about how something like this can happen here and here just after the election.

Will November be too late?

The only consolation I've come across lately has been this wonderful novel, just out, by Carolyn See. She describes the anxiety, anger -- even rage I feel toward this administration and how paranoid life in America is becoming. And yet, the novel did lead me back to another truth: there is still beauty in the world. If you like to read, you must read this book. If you are a writer, note her skill, her elegant clarity, her humor in spite of everything.

See? I started out feeling funky and ended up feeling quite okay. It's a good book, eh?

I Gotcher English Right Here

Does this mean we have to start saying nappies, bonnet, and brilliant instead of diapers, hood, and great?

I'm up with that -- I already say "lovely" all the time. But what are the replacements for:

San Francisco
bungalo
coup
motto
caravan
yogurt
goulash
tundra
Chautauqua
boomerang
chignon
freight
khaki
croissant
bete noir
aloha
mensch
Seattle
quid pro quo
sofa
zero
splice
skate
albatross (oh, I would hate to lose that lovely one)
mammoth
chintz
juggernaut
kismet
amuck
tea
skunk
taboo
tattoo
opera
terrorism
pyjamas

Can we no longer speak of the zeitgeist?

Must every El Camino Boulevard now be called The Highway Boulevard?

Small Moves, Ellie

Every Wednesday, a group of citizens gathers at the corner of Sunset and Park in Rocklin, Placer County, Ca -- congressional district of the infamous John Doolittle.




This is such a red county that I would not be surprised if Doolittle were returned to Congress in November, despite everything.

And yet, these people persist. It's easy to get caught up in some grand and great swell of discontent, to join with hundreds, even thousands of fellow travelers in saying No! to evil.

But I think these are the braver people. The ones who come out in small numbers on a hot, hot day in red, red south Placer County to endure slurs and cat-calls and disdain and hold a sign and a flag and stand opposed to insanity and corruption.

And you know something? In the short time I was there to take these pictures, a surprising number of people slowed down in their cars to express their support, surprise, and gratitude.

Why Al Gore 2008

We desperately need a boy scout.

His extensive history of good government politics.

His institutional memory: He remembers what the Executive Branch was like before it was corrupted.

He seems to have actually read and understood the Constitution.

He will keep the internet free.

He has the knowledge, history, and ability necessary to reestablish good relations with the rest of the world.

We need the anti hurricane and tornado machine.

Illegal Immigration Solved

Everyone knows how to solve the problem of illegal immigration.

[Disclaimer: I speak of ILLEGAL aliens here, not legal immigrants, and certainly not my fellow citizens. It is the use of illegal workers that I object to. It drives down wages for everyone and allows for abusive, exploitative conditions for the illegal workers.]

1) Fine employers $10,000 per illegal worker hired plus four times the local minimum wage for each hour worked by illegal worker.

2. Fine landlords $10,000 for every housing unit they rent to an illegal alien.

Treat the exploiters of the workers like the despicable slavers they are. But of course, as long as these subhuman slavers are contributing to campaign coffers, it's unlikely anything will be done about it.

And Bush's speech tonight is mere diversion from the NSA bombshell.

Proof They Are Addicted to the Kool-Aid?

The news is out this morning that the Bush Administration is using illegal wiretaps to spy on news organizations and both CNN and MSNBC are frothing at the mouth -- over a possible third Duke rapist.

Sad Brag

I called it last year -- and the latest revelation about warrantless data mining supports my supposition.

The quaintness of search warrants -- Maybe the Bushies don't care about getting warrants because they have never intended to use any of what they find out in a legal way, whether in prosecutions or not. They wouldn't want warrants, because they wouldn't want a record anywhere of what information they were/are mining. In other words, the whole program is about oppositional research. It's the Hans Gruber tactic. Make the good guys think you're after something completely unrelated, and rob the world blind under their noses.

The Emanuel/Dean Tent-stakes

The (liberal)Girl Next Door has a great post up about the right-left tension over the Democratic Party's tent-stakes.

Liberals haven’t moved, but the tent has and we’re tired of standing on the outside of the tent. And rather than join the Party in its current location, on the rocky slope to our right, we’re using our muscle to move the tent back to where it used to be, just a little to the left, in the nice green plain where we can put down roots and grow. It’s nicer over here, plus, it’s where most Americans are making their way.

I agree with the entire post. The "tent" could be pulled so far past the center and to the right that the party itself becomes no more meaningful than the Blue Team, and then we'd be like Republicans chanting my party right or wrong.

There is something I'm more afraid of than being pulled to the right, though, and that is being sucked up into corporatism. If there is anything that should be antithetical to everything the Democratic Party stands for, it is corporatism. By this, I mean fascism, but it isn't polite to use that word in a world where the GOP defines the language.

And by fascism, or corporatism, I mean the ism whereby the human being is expected to exist for the benefit of the corporate being, and the state's function is to police and enforce the terms and function of that relationship.

It is the corporatism that has crept into the warp and woof of the Democratic Party that scares me more than any rightward pull. Without the influence of corporatism, would the party have stood for -- no less championed -- the media consolidation made possible by the Communications Act signed by President Clinton? Walk away from corporatism, and Medicare for everyone becomes more possible to achieve. Turn from the corporations to the citizenry, and NAFTA, CAFTA, SHAFTA can be broken.

When we talk about right versus left, we slip onto the slope Karl Rove built.

The Democratic Party has a history of standing for the common, regular citizen, a tradition I once believed was inviolate. That's where I want my party tent pitched.

The "Raising Taxes" Charge

Okay, here is what Democrats can say when Republicans accuse them of raising taxes (after the Republicans have lowered them inappropriately):

Let's say your little children were used to going to bed at 7:00 in the evening and for some crazy reason everybody got it in their head they should stay up later. So they start going to bed at 10:00 at night. Pretty soon everyone is crabby, the kids aren't learning anything at school, and no one has a moment's peace. So the grownups set the bedtime back at 7. Everybody starts getting enough sleep again, and things work a lot better.

Republicans and taxes are like children and bedtime. They want what's fun for them, not necessarily what's good for them -- and what's good for the whole family.

When Democrats Ruled the Earth

It's kind of funny (except that it isn't) to see Republicans and media whores hyperventilating over the dire consequences to ensue if Democrats take over the House or Senate after November's election. I know what the Bushies are afraid of -- and it's not jail. It's losing out on all those future Halliburton and Carlyle Group government contracts. I don't understand the media types, though, unless it's just they've all realized they really do work for General Electric, not the public interest.

Anyway, pondering this great issue, my mind wandered over to the area of "What would it be like if the Democrats were in charge again?" Thinking of the DLC and pols like Joe Lieberman and Chuck Shumer, I couldn't imagine anything much different. So I slipped backward mentally to the past, to my childhood, an ancient time When Democrats Ruled the Earth. And I remembered:

On minimum wage, you could rent an apartment and go to a state college without going into debt.

A family could support themselves on one income.

Workers did not live in fear of their jobs being shipped overseas.

You could buy toys for children, confident of their safety. Food and drugs were less likely to kill you.

You didn't have to sit through as many minutes of commercials in your television-watching hour. You didn't have to sit through ANY erectile dysfunction commercials.

People who wanted the government in charge of women's bodies were considered crackpots.

People who wanted the church making political decisions were considered crackpots.

People who wanted schools to teach that God made the world in seven days were considered crackpots.

People who thought the government should be able to spy on citizens without a warrant were considered loony bird crackpots.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency was someone who cared about protecting the environment.

The president spoke intelligently and in complete sentences on a variety of subjects.

Americans who traveled abroad were not ashamed of their country's government.

American sports teams who traveled abroad were not afraid to put the Stars and Stripes on their vehicles.

Libraries were open seven days a week.

You could eat the fish you caught without getting sick.

Sheesh, I'm so depressed, I have to stop. I hope, with all my heart, there is a strong and unfaltering basis for the freaking out of the Republicans and their cheerleaders. Because, you know what? There are still real Democrats in the world. People like Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Howard Dean. New candidates like Ned Lamont, Charlie Brown -- a whole crop of them who hold progressive, traditional Democratic ideas in their heads. There is a chance.

Will the sun come out in America in November?

Depends On What "We" means

 

Spotted at the corner of Sierra College Boulevard and Taylor Road in Loomis, Placer County, California. I don't know if it means anything, but Doolittle's campaign signs are usually closer in size to the one next to it. 

The Cluelessness of the Bright Young Things

I posted this in the comments section over at The Washington Monthly. I repost it here because I want to think about it some more.

Despite the fact that the economic impact of immigration is zero for most people and minimal even for high school dropouts?

Are you that detached from reality? Or does the "most people" in your world just not include working people? My parents raised four kids (with my mom working sporadically and part-time) on my dad's construction pay. Their best friends raised their four kids on the salaries of a grocery checker and a milk delivery man. No more. We out here in workingland never know if this afternoon we'll find out our jobs have gone to Vietnam or been turned into the kind of jobs Americans won't do (in other words, jobs that don't pay a living wage).

When I went to college I worked 40 hours a week in a restaurant bussing tables for minimum wage. I made about $4 a day in tips. My take-home pay was enough to live on -- and I didn't live with my parents. I shared a two-bedroom apartment with another girl in a decent part of town. Who could do that on the minimum wage today? My pay was 1.72 an hour and the cheeseburgers we served were 85 cents, and there were fries with that. An equivalent burger would be $8.50 today, but the minimum wage is not $17.20.

The wage situation for working people is becoming untenable. You've got outsourcing sucking the jobs out of the country, and you've got illegals dragging the wages down for the jobs that remain.

Employers love it. They're doing fine. But this paradigm will end, one way or another. I don't think it's going to end with the minimum wage raised to $17 an hour or the United Food and Commercial Workers established at WalMart, or the federal government decreeing that a federal contracts must be done with American unionized labor.

It's going to end with all the money sucked out of circulation, housing prices crashing, regular people running out of money with nowhere to turn (thanks to the new bankruptcy laws) and realizing just about all at once that there is no hope. There will be fear and loathing and despair -- and then there will be rage.

Hope After All

The death vs life without parole verdict has just come in re Zacarias Moussaoui, and I am relieved.

Sometime in the last couple of months, I had one of those click experiences where the conclusional matrix by which I understand reality shifted. I don't know what bit of minutia put me past the brink. Our president is a liar and a warmonger. Soldiers and civilians, young and old, more innocent than not, die every day. Democracy in America is dead; the corporations have replaced human beings as the active political movers. Our economy is on the verge of utter collapse. And on, and on. And so lately I've been dulled, felt separated from emotion. The unbearable heaviness of it all has destroyed my sense of citizenship in a wonderful country. That country doesn't exist anymore.

But today a jury refused to find for death to punish a man, perhaps a crazy man, for lies. That is what the prosecution wanted: a death sentence for lying. I am just relieved that a jury did not agree to it.

And because of that, I think maybe there is hope for us after all.