Stoopid Stuff

Just Trying to Catch Up

Ok, so my life has been a little hectic since my last post, and I think I needed a break. Between the criminal thugs in Washington and the Religious idiots all over the planet, it was becoming dificult to control my blood pressure. And then there was Rev. Mykeru's saga. So, did I miss anything? Just kidding. A few thoughts to cover the barren period in my blogging career:

Alito:
OK, the man's a prejudiced neanderthal, a great example of all that was wrong with the US in the forties and fifties. Jim Crow laws, repression of women, white males with all the power and all the control. It's the world he is comfortable in, the world he can live well in, the world he wants back. I'll make two points here about Roe v. Wade. First, most Republican strategists who live in the real world will tell you (off the record, of course) that abortion is only a good issue for them as long as they are seen as struggling to right a dreadful wrong. The minute they win this fight the vast majority of Americans will cry out in outrage. With the "True Believers" getting closer to controlling the Supreme Court so that Roe can be overturned, there will start to be some real concern among the rank and file of the Republican Party. They know that the worst thing that could happen to them is to actually win this fight.

Second, remember that it's a 9-person court. There are 4 Radical Right-Wing Idealogues on the court--Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito. This means they will have to convince Kennedy of the correctness of their position. Now I'm about as far to the left as you can be, but I'm not really uncomfortable with Kennedy as a swing vote. He seems to be a reasonable man. If the court can hold on until 2008, whereupon I'm convinced this country will put a Democrat in the White House, the darkest of scenarios will have been averted.


Cartoons:
Alright, this ones just loony. Let me sum up my feelings thusly: I HATE organized religions. All of them, with equal intensity. If there is anything that causes otherwise reasonable human beings to behave like deranged, rabid, retarded chimpanzees it's this rejection of rational thought and empirical requirements of reasonableness called organized religion. I mean, come on--let me get this straight. So you believe this particular guy is the prophet, and if somebody decides to draw a picture of him they should be KILLED??? As my friends would say, WTF??? I mean, who makes these rules? It's beyond silly--It's a Saturday Night Live skit with deadly consequences.

The thing is, there is really no difference between any of the Religions and their effect on the people who worship them. The Taliban exist in Islam, in Christianity, in Judaism, in about all major religions. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it many more times, but here's what it comes down to: If you have a religious faith, any religious faith, no matter how irrational and illogical it might be, if there's some kind of ancient dogma to which you subscribe, then please, by all means, go ahead and follow the cryptic and illogical rules laid down in said dogma. Please feel free to do all the physical, mental, emotional and spititual contortions required by whatever book you believe is the infallible word of whatever mythological creature you worship. But here's the thing you MUST understand. I do not believe in your "god". I am not a part of your "faith". I completely discount your dogma as the ancient babblings of uneducated mud hut-dwelling men from centuries ago--indeed, centuries before the Renaisance. Therefore, there is NO REQUIREMENT that I follow the rules laid down in your religion. I love pork. I love sex. Occasionally, I touch myself in an impure manner. I think abortion on demand has made this a better country, and I believe evolution best describes what has been observed in the natural world. Let me put it this way: They are YOUR rules. You follow them. I don't want to, I don't have to, and you should not try to force me to. If you don't think abortion is a good thing, don't have one. And if you don't think you should draw pictures of your "Prophet", then don't. But leave the rest of us alone.


Hamas:
You know, there is a volume of accepted wisdom for ending an insurgency. When a country is under attack from internal political or sectarian groups seeking to enforce their political desires by force of arms, the goal of the existing government is to bring the insurgents into the political process. It's long been refered to as "Ballots, not Bullets". The idea is to make the disenfranchised political groups become responsible parties to the political process. By having to get elected and having to participate in the process of government, they can begin to see what parts of their political ideas and ideals have value, and which simply cannot work in the real world, whether for economic or political reasons. It worked in Ireland with Sinn Fein, it workded with Savimbi in Angola, it always works if it is given enough time and a fair shot.

So here in Palestine we have Hamas. They've been an armed resistance movement for years, struggling against Israeli occupation with bombs and guns. Over in America, you have the nutjob-in-chief bloviating about how democracy is the answer to all the worlds ills and if people would just have free elections all would be fine. So Hamas runs some candidates in the Palestinian elections. First, you have all sorts of non-democratic interference with the process from Israel, Europe and America. Then, when the elections happen, it's Hamas by a landslide. So what do these great democracies with all their respect for the democratic process have to say about this election? No, not that it was flawed or in some way unfair or rigged. Just that we won't deal with the winners. Guys, hello?? This is just like telling the Iraqis how a free nation is supposed to work while at the same time bribing their newspapers. If you're going to hold the democratic process and the rule of law up as the solution to all the world's ills, perhaps it would make sense to set some kind of example. Just sayin'.


NSA Domestic Warrantless Wiretapping:
Can you say "Impeachable Offense"? Honestly, the Administration is being so obtuse on this issue it truly does boggle the mind. First, I'm fascinated by the Bush/Cheney/Rove push for unlimited presidential power, and even moreso by the willingness of Congress to go along with it. Don't they realize that at some point there will be a Democratic president? And they have created this situation where they will not be able to control that president? I just don't get it--it's almost as if they never expected America to hold another election! Hmm. But beyond that, here's the thing. It's about abuse. There may not be anything at all wrong with this program. The laws don't exist merely as an exercise in limiting executive power for fun. There has never been an occasion where an administration exceeded it's constitutional limits just to do their job better. No, those in power ALWAYS end up abusing the power, spying on political opponents, journalists, activists, etc. It's not that we don't want the administration monitoring al quaida phone calls--we most certainly do. It's that we do not trust them to limit their wiretaps to those calls when there is no oversight, no "checks and balances". And that is the reason for the FISA law, and why it is so egregious of the Bush administration to bypass it.

posted by mikey @ 7:50 PM