The Woodbury Democrat

Springtime!

2010-03-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood! The sun is out, the birds (the few that are here already) are happily twitching in the trees... Granted, it's supposed to snow tomorrow, but for the moment it's 51 degrees and sunny!

Congratulations and good luck to all the Woodbury County democrats who have stepped forward to run for office. We have a fantastic slate of people on the ballot for the June primaries. Also, a quick "Thank You" to Roger Wendt, Wes Whitead and Steve Warnstadt for all the years of service you've put in at the Statehouse on our behalf. We here in Woodbury County appreciate it!

Stimulus Bill Will Help Small Business

2009-03-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing people complain that the stimulus package approved by Congress won't help small businesses. In fact, some people claim small business owners will be punished by higher taxes.

These critics need to take a deep breath and let their brains catch up to their mouths.

When 70 percent of our economy is consumer spending, we need a stimulus bill that will get money to those hurting the most as quickly as possible. Why? Because these people will spend that money. Small businesses will benefit. And that's what this package does.

It also includes $730 million for the Small Business Administration. This will allow the SBA to guarantee loans up to 90 percent from 75 percent. A new program will provide loans to small businesses owners who need them to cover current loan payments. The funding should help make sure credit is available during the economic crunch.

In addition, it's helpful to note that when the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010 the highest rate will be 39 percent -- far below the maximum rate of 70 percent in the 1960s. Also, there are worse problems than having to pay taxes. You only pay them when you have income. And would you rather pay a slightly higher rate on income that is more robust from a recovering economy or a lower rate on income deflated by the lingering recession?

Another Democratic Friend Passes

2009-01-01T12:12:00.000-08:00

A great Democratic friend of ours passed away this morning. Earle Grueskin slipped away in the early hours of the new year, after a long-fought battle with brain cancer. Earle was a businessman who was first elected to the Sioux City council in 1962 and served with distinction on the council and as Mayor of Sioux City, later elected to the Woodbury County Supervisors for several terms. Earle later worked for a wholesale food distributor, and was one of the earliest employees at Gateway 2000.

A staunch liberal with a wicked sense of humor and sharp intellect, he and his wife Joanne moved to Carlsbad, California after his retirement at Gateway.

Family memorial services will be held in California, and a memorial service will be held in Sioux City at a later date.

In defense of U.S. automakers

2008-12-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

It’s easy to blame the U.S. automakers for their financial turbulence. Clearly, the leaders of these companies were enthralled with short-term gains and not worried about long-term ramifications.

But other culprits exist too, like all of us, who love our SUVs and trucks, which coincidentally are the vehicles automakers make the most profit from. The federal government made automakers create smaller, more efficient cars and guess what? We didn’t buy them. Even when they closed the gap in quality with Japanese automakers.

You might also be interested to know that Japan purposely keeps its currency, the yen, weak in comparison to the dollar. This gives Japanese automakers a $4,000 advantage over U.S. automakers per vehicle!

Go ahead and whack wages and benefits. But U.S. automakers will still face an enormous competitive disadvantage thanks to the weak yen.

One commentator said he believed the U.S. focused on winning the Cold War and did not pay attention to what Japan was doing, allowing it to win the industrial war. I fear we are about to lose another major battle in that war.

It's government spending, stupid

2008-12-09T13:37:00.001-08:00

Conservatives like to deride FDR's New Deal for not bringing the Great Depression to an end. They say most economists believe the economy didn't start growing again until America was drawn into World War II. But even if that's true we need to think for a second about what that means.

Why did the depression finally end with the start of America's role in World War II? Because we massively ramped up production of weapons and war material. And that, my friends, happened only because of a truly staggering boost of government spending.

"And let's remember just how vast that public-works program was. In 1940, the last year before the U.S. entered the war, the federal budget was $9.5 billion. Five years later, it had increased almost tenfold, to $92.7 billion," Paul Waldman writes on the American Prospect Web site. "Over those five years, the country's economy doubled in size. Federal spending in both 1944 and 1945 amounted to 43.6 percent of gross domestic product, a figure seen neither before nor since."

Government is Back

It's a New Day

2008-11-05T09:29:00.000-08:00

When it was announced last night that Barack Obama had won the presidency, I thought of the scene at the end of the first Star Wars movie:

The death star explodes, Darth Vader spins off into space, and our heroes have saved the universe.

Last night was the beginning of the end of the long, bitter reign of Bush and Cheney. At long last we can end the torture of prisoners, the dismantling of our constitution, and begin to put right America's place in the world.

Have no illusions: President Obama does not have a magic formula for making everything better, and we will have years of struggle to repair the damages done by republican rule of the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court and the White House. Yet we can be certain that we finally have a good and decent man at the helm who does not make rash judgments or use fear to get his way.

It is a new day for America and our world.

Business sense

2008-10-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

We're all drowning in propaganda from the McCain campaign about Joe The Plumber and what Barack Obama's economic plan would mean for job creation. Obama proposes a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans and an increase for those making $250,000 or more. This is supposedly going to cause great economic chaos.

Well, here are some words of wisdom on the topic from Victor Hammel, a Republican and CEO of a pest-control company based in Reading, Pa. Hammel told USA Today: "I would rather pay a little higher tax on a higher profit than a lower tax rate on lower profits."

Click here for USA Today article on why many Republicans back Obama

Who's worse? Bachmann or King?

2008-10-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Michelle Bachmann exposed herself last Friday on "Hardball." Her inane comments have caused a flood of donations to her Democratic challenger. Isn't it time Steve King's hateful, ignorant, malicious comments cause people to donate in droves to Rob Hubler's campaign?

This online diary on the Daily Kos reviews the lowest of the lows of King's Congressional career. Read it, donate and alert a friend.

Michelle Bachmann and Steve King, Worst Persons

Donate now to Rob Hubler's campaign

We REALLY Can Beat Steve King

2008-10-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

This poll really makes me smile. It was taken by SurveyUSA on October 8 & 9 of voters in Iowa. Of course, we know that Obama is projected to beat McCain in Iowa by a large margin, but here's the happy part: the poll breaks out western Iowa.

Northwest Iowa: Obama 49% McCain 45%

Southwest Iowa: Obama 51% McCain 42%

You will remember that the 5th District is the western side of Iowa, and that means a SOLID win for Obama in the 5th District. Now consider the voters who will vote for Barack Obama -- how many of them do you suppose will vote for Steve King? And how many McCain voters in the 5th are disgusted enough by Steve King to vote for our Democrat, Rob Hubler?

Rob Hubler has run an aggressive and smart campaign, raising well over $200,000 - that is light-years better than we have done in the last decade. And he happens to be a great guy who will make us proud.

Here's a link to Hubler's new mailer that is going out this week: http://www.hublercongress.com/images/voters_guide.pdf

And, of course, here's information on our incumbent, the inimitable Steve King: www.kingwatch.org

None of this matters if WE don't make it happen. We have the power in our hands and feet to knock the doors, walk the neighborhoods, make the calls and do all the things we know how to do to win an election.

If you don't show up THIS WEEK and help Rob Hubler, then just when are you going to? Don't just sit back and feel sorry that we are stuck with Steve King for another term. Make this happen: we can do it.

This is our campaign. This is our election. Now get busy.

Bailing on the bailout

2008-09-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

The proposed Bush Administration bailout is insane. Completely, hopelessly insane.

We should save these Wall Street big shots by using government money to buy debt no private investors want? Well, it will help the economy because no one has any money to lend because of the crushing debt. Remove the debt and lending will flourish again.

Okay.

So let’s buy that argument. Literally. Then why don’t we, as the government, get an equity stake in the banks holding the debt we are buying? That’s what Warren Buffett will receive for his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs. The government should just step in and borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to buy bad debt. With limited upside. Riiight.

We’re also told that we can’t clutter the legislation with more regulations. Some argue that these derivative products are so complex that regulators couldn’t spot a problem anyway. So we should allow financial products that no one understands to remain legal? Can’t we at least insist that banks boost their reserves so they don’t get so overextended? Can’t we at least increase the budget for regulators to enforce the laws on the books? Can’t we at least insist that executives who ruined these banks not walk away with millions of dollars?

Naturally, the establishment also says we should only worry about Wall Street at this moment. Help for homeowners struggling with mortgages can wait. But most economic experts cite declining housing prices as one of the major factors in the economic meltdown. So why can’t this bill include a provision to help people continue to pay their mortgage. One idea – reduce the mortgage to 80 percent but place a lien on it so if the home owner sells it later and recoups the original price that 20 percent is returned to the government. Keep people in their homes.
Reduce the inventory on the market. Let supply and demand go to work and possibly at least stabilize home values.

These steps seem pretty simple. The Democratic leadership needs to stand up for the people. To steal from the movie "As Good As It Gets," let Bush, Paulson and Bernanke go sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up.

Yet ANOTHER bill to pay!

2008-09-24T00:54:00.000-07:00

We're never gonna get ahead...

Now we just got whapped with another bill -- this one nearly $5,000! Where in the world are we gonna get the money to pay THIS? We've had so many medical expenses, lost work, stubborn city workers telling us we need a new $4,000 sewer, now ANOTHER $5,000 bill.

We just ain't got the money. I don't know how we're gonna pay it. That's a tenth of our annual income.

That's what it's gonna cost us to bail out the irresponsible millionaires who caused the bank failures. It's gonna be $2,333 for every man, woman and child in the United States. That's what the Bush administration wants us to pay -- to GIVE -- to greedy millionaires who have a proven track record of failure.

How did this mess come about? Deregulation. The Republicans in power have constantly thumped the "regulations get in the way of a free market" drum for years. The result? The Sago Mine disaster. Bank failures. Record high gas prices and record high profits for the oil industry. One of the leaders of deregulation? Arizona Senator John McCain.

The rules were there for a reason, dammit! Now my wife and I will be $4,666 poorer as a DIRECT consequence of ultra-rich businessmen's greed.

Flash From Frostbite Falls

2008-09-08T07:14:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Bryan Site.

Republican supports Obama

2008-09-07T08:14:00.001-07:00

During a canvass yesterday on Sioux City's north side, I encountered a Republican out on his lawn. Eric wasn't on my list, but we ended up in a conversation anyway.

He said he's been a Republican for decades, but, put simply, he's had enough. His biggest complaint: Corporations. He can't quite believe we give tax breaks to corporations that turn around and ship jobs overseas. He said corporations used to put the country first and helping them would in turn help the rest of us. But he isn't buying that proposition anymore.

He's ready for a change. And his candidate is Barack Obama.

You can help change America by volunteering! Just contact the local office at (712) 277-0167.

Hope for Hubler

2008-09-03T06:52:00.001-07:00

An internal poll by the Rob Hubler campaign indicates that 38 percent of voters in the Fifth Congressional District favor a generic Republican candidate, 36 percent prefer a Democrat and 26 percent are undecided. This shows that Hubler has a solid shot at winning this district.

The poll also indicates that Steve King's verbal hand grenade tactics have worn thin. 45 percent of those polled had a negative view of him. That's only 9 points less than President Bush's off the chart unfavorable rating. It shows voters in the district desperately want a change.

But the poll also shows that only 31 percent know of Hubler. That's why any financial contribution you can make to his campaign is more critical than ever. With enough resources, Rob can get the word out about himself and his campaign to take back the district.

Hubler for Congress - Click to donate!

Bush endorses McCain

2008-09-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

This just in: President Bush has endorsed Sen. John McCain. "The man we need is John McCain," Bush told delegates at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul tonight.

Four more years.

We rest our case.

Republicans diss Palin

2008-08-31T09:24:00.001-07:00

It's never good when the people who know you best don't think you are ready to be vice president. But that's the case with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Here's what the Anchorage Daily News reports:

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to give her the news.

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

Green, who has feuded with Palin repeatedly over the past two years, brought up the big oil tax increase Palin pushed through last year. She also pointed to the award of a $500 million state subsidy to a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline that is far from guaranteed.

Democrats helped give Palin her victories on oil taxes and the natural gas pipeline deal, over the opposition of many of Palin's fellow Republicans in the Legislature.

But Anchorage Democratic state Sen. Hollis French said it's a huge mistake by McCain and "reflects very, very badly on his judgment."

I think Sen. French has this right. Make Palin's complete lack of experience the issue to show that McCain's judgment is faulty. This is the biggest decision so far of his presidential campaign and he makes this choice? Another tactic would be to highlight Palin's anti-environmental stances, opposition to stem cell research and other extreme views to show McCain/Palin is not a maverick ticket.

Complete article from the Anchorage Daily News

A Moment for Obama and Us

2008-08-30T14:34:00.001-07:00

I just got back from the Democratic National Convention. A friend and I decided to drive out earlier this summer for the fun surrounding the convention even though we were not delegates.

Last week, we received some great news. We received passes to Barack Obama's nomination speech at Invesco Field, I suspect, on the strength of my friend's support for Obama during the Caucus. She was a precinct captain. So we drove out West.

We had the time of our lives. What a great way to get fired up for the fall election!

Tim Bottaro managed to get us in the Pepsi Center for a brief visit to the floor on Wednesday. Melissa Etheridge was performing during my five minutes of floor time and the place was rockin'. I can't begin to describe the energy in the arena.

Hillary Clinton and President Clinton deserve great praise for their grace in supporting Barack Obama. After Wednesday night, I didn't talk to one Hillary supporter who was not on board with Obama, and that was even before his electrifying speech.

Many pundits thought Obama had given too much time to the Clintons. I hate to admit I thought he might have made a mistake on this account as well, making himself look weak. But in the end, he emerged stronger than ever.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told Charlie Rose that Obama did what Lincoln had done. He gave his rival, who is imminently qualified to be president, a moment on the stage. He gave the Clintons and their supporters a chance to note her historic campaign. They did. And the party healed. Lincoln assembled his team of rivals into his cabinet, another act of a secure leader. Both Lincoln and Obama had the confidence to know that in the end they would emerge. Obama did that Thursday night. His speech, his moment, his call for all of us to take back our country will resonate for the ages.

Report from Denver

2008-08-27T04:09:00.000-07:00

Sioux City's Tim Bottaro is an Obama delegate, and his daughter Anne is serving as a page for the Iowa delegation. Tim just emailed his experiences from the Democratic National Convention in Denver:

Sunday we attended an Italian-American Democratic Leadership Party and met Nancy Pelosi. We told her we were from Sioux City and that we were working to defeat Steve King. She said Please Do!!!

Also on Sunday, we sat down and met a wonderful woman from American Samoa (the smallest delegation). Her plane ticket cost $1,300.00 and it was a 12-hour flight. American Samoans can not vote for President but she is here to help elect Barack Obama.

We also met an African American woman from California who kissed and hugged us when she found out we were from Iowa. She said that we would never know what we did for African Americans when Obama won the caucuses. She told us that her father told her that never in her or his life time would we see an African American President and that he called her on caucus night crying. She told us that she will always love the people of Iowa.

On the first evening of the Convention we spoke with Richard Gephardt, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and former Vice President Walter Mondale. We went to a great party on the executive cars of the Union Pacific Railroad just for the Iowa delegation. We are averaging 4 to 5 parties a day.

We also heard some great speeches from Nancy Pelosi, Craig Robinson, Jesse Jackson Jr., Tom Harkin, Claire McCaskill, Ted Kennedy, and of course Michelle Obama, along with many others.

Luke Russert has been hanging around the Iowa delegation. We told him how much we thought of his father. Today our own Gov Culver spoke at the convention as well as Hillary Clinton and Mark Warner. Gov. Culver told us that he had a great time at the Woodbury County event. His aide told us that the Governor said that he wanted all of his future events to be like Sioux City’s.

It has been an unbelievable time and we have yet to meet anyone that had been supporting Hillary that is not going to vote for Barack. We are coming together as a party to end the awful Bush-Cheney-McCain policies.

House McCain

2008-08-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

You think THIS guy's gonna be good for the economy?

Senator John McCain, Republican presidential candidate, recently said that if you make $4.9 million per year, you're middle-class. You're not rich unless you earn over $5 million a year, in McCain's mind.

Boy, I can't wait to be middle-class!

If Republican Senator McCain didn't seem to be out of touch with THAT remark, how's this... In the economy today many people are having trouble making their house payments. Foreclosures are happening all over the place. Things Are Not Good. Hard-working, honest people are losing their homes. (I almost said, "middle-class," but I guess I'm not sure what that means any more.) In the midst of all this, McCain (R) was asked how many homes he owns.

Turns out he owns so many houses even HE doesn't know!

I have nothing against rich people being rich, but if you're rich AND in power, you'd best quit voting to deny benefits to veterans, don't tell people that in your world $4.9 million a year is middle-class, and don't forget how many houses you own! Especially when they look like this:

I've worked hard all my life, went to college, got a degree, served in the Guard and was fortunate enough to find a house I could afford ($40,000). I hate to say it, but John McCain will never understand my situation, my point of view. He's too insulated from us average people. And by "average" I mean those of us making less than $5,000,000 a year. Sure, the "Country Club economy" is working for him. Is it working for you?

Not First Draft Talk From McCain

2008-08-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Many journalists are scoffing at the notion that John McCain embraced bringing back the draft at a town hall meeting yesterday. They say McCain was agreeing with a woman's comments before she said a draft might be needed to hunt down Osama bin Laden. But McCain said he supported everything she said. "I don't disagree," McCain replied to the woman's comments.

To be fair, the woman rambled a bit and addressed a number of issues in her statement. But McCain could have easily agreed with only part of her statement. So did he have trouble hearing her? Did he tune her out at the end? Is he used to saying whatever someone wants to hear without being called on it? Or does he really favor bringing back the draft?

I'm sure the media won't stop until we know the answer. Riiight.

But people should consider this is not the first time McCain has raised the prospect of a draft.

According to Democracy now, McCain said during a campaign event in New Hampshire last September: “One, this is the best military we’ve ever had, and it’s just not big enough. Two, there has never been a draft that I have ever heard of since World War II that was fair. What we’ve done is we find rich people find a way out and lower income people are the ones that serve. So the thing—if you could design—I might consider it. I don’t think it’s necessary. I might consider it, if you could design a draft where everybody equally would serve.”

No matter what his explanation this isn't good stuff for McCain. Eventually, he will be revealed for his shameless pandering.

My Phone Call from Newt

2008-08-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

I received a call this morning at my office from "Newt Gingrich." Of course, it was a fundraiser for Gingrich who asked if I would listen to a very short message from Newt. I agreed, and heard him tell me that "China is getting ready to drill for oil off the coast of Florida," and that he was forming a committee called "Drill Here Now, Pay Less." He wanted to spend a few hundred thousand dollars to get the word out NOW.

Then the fundraiser came back on the line, and gave me a spiel. She said that "China is getting set to drill for oil 50 miles off the coast of Florida," and asked for $500 - said it could be in two payments or be paid with corporate funds. I declined. She then asked for $200. I declined. She asked for $100. I declined. Then she asked if they could use my name on their petition to Nancy Pelosi. I declined.

Keeping her on the line and saying NO four times made my day.

How long will they get away with the BIG LIE that "China is getting ready to drill for oil off the coast of Florida"?

Click for cash for Hubler

2008-08-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

Here's an easy way to help raise money for Rob Hubler in his race against Steve King for the U.S. House. Click on the link below and vote for Rob! The link takes you to the Progressive Patriots Fund web page. The group is dedicated to helping advance a progressive agenda for the United States. Senator Russ Feingold is the honorary chair. If Rob receives the most votes, he'll receive a $5,000 contribution from the fund!

Click here to go to Progressive Patriots Fund website

Vote early and often! Okay, that's not allowed. But you can email all of your friends and tell them to vote for Rob!

Enthusiasm for Obama High

2008-08-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

A friend and I canvassed for Barack Obama and Rob Hubler votes in the near-northside of Sioux City yesterday afternoon. Undoubtedly, this is a very Democratic district. But the enthusiasm for Obama was very high. We talked with mostly young and middle-aged voters and about 90 percent of them were eager to sign up for an absentee ballot. Some of them had to fill out a voter registration card first.

It was obvious that most of these people are not regular voters. One even asked if she could legally vote because she moved recently. These are exactly the voters the Democratic Party needs to reach through personal contact. We need to talk with them, encourage them to vote, explain the process, answer all of their questions and address all of their concerns. If you can commit a few hours each week to walking through these Democratic areas, you will help lock up votes that we might not otherwise harvest. And that's ballot box gold.

Iowans Attemtp 'Citizens Arrest' of Karl Rove

2008-07-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

SECOND ARREST ATTEMPT ON KARL ROVE IN IOWA LEADS TO 4 ARRESTS

Four Iowans were arrested today while attempting to make a Citizens' Arrest of Karl Rove in Des Moines, Iowa. Citing Iowa Code provisions for making Citizen's Arrests as well as citing Federal Statute violations they claimed Rove had violated, the four were stopped at the gate of the Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines where Rove was scheduled to speak at a Republican Fundraiser.

The four arrested were retired Methodist minister and Peace and Justice Advocate, Rev. Chet Guinn, 80, as well as three Des Moines Catholic Workers, Edward Bloomer, 61, Kirk Brown, 25, and Mona Shaw, 57. All four were cited for trespassing and released.

The four maintained that they were acting within the guidelines of Iowa Code that obligate private citizens to make such an arrest if they believe a felony has been committed and turn Rove over to police officials to bring Rove before a judge for formal indictment. By law, a federal judge should consider the charges and determine if an indictment should be made.

Brown and Shaw made a similar attempt last March when Rove spoke at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Brown and Shaw were arrested and released without charges following that attempt. Deaths in the Middle East since the March attempt number in the thousands including, 151 more US troops have been killed in Iraq, and 284 killed in Afghanistan as well as far more citizens of those two nations.

Rove remains unindicted and recently refused to cooperate with a Congressional subpoena in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. Despite mounting evidence of Rove's wrongdoing concerning leading the U.S. to war as well as other actions, Congress and the U.S. judicial system remain reluctant to bring charges against either Rove or the Bush administration. Recent evidence includes Articles of Impeachment that will again be presented by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich tomorrow. Vincent Bugliosi's new book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" carefully lays out a case against Bush and his administration for war crimes and felony murder. Bugliosi was prosecutor for the Charles Manson Family murders and author of the book "Helter Skelter," which dealt with that crime.

To date there have been 4125 US Military deaths in Iraq, 896 in Afghanistan, 66,775 casualties (wounded as well as those removed for other injuries and illnesses), and more than 200,000 Iraqi and Afghani citizens killed and many, many more wounded.

Contacts:
Mona Shaw MonaShaw@aol.com
Kirk Brown kbmw36@yahoo.com
Chet Guinn CLGuinn@mchsi.com
Frank Cordaro frank.cordaro@gmail.com
Phillip Berrigan Catholic Worker House
713 Indiana Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50314
515-282-4781
www.DesMoinesCatholicWorker.org

Presidents Do Matter on Economic Affairs

2008-07-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Some people would have you believe the president has very little to do with the economy. The titans of private industry make all of the key decisions, they argue. This aligns well with John McCain’s self-professed ignorance of the economy. But there’s one major difficulty with this contention: It’s wildly and dangerously off base.

I was reminded off this yesterday while listening to “Talk of the Nation” on NPR. The guest was Paul Maeder, co-founder of Highland Capital. He talked about how his biggest economic concern was that he did not know where the next wave of innovation would come from in the United States.

Why is innovation important? Because it drove the three biggest booms in the history of the professional venture capital industry in the U.S. And as Maeder pointed out, the basis for those innovative periods was government spending.

The first came in the early 1980s when computers became personal thanks to the integrated circuit developed by NASA. The second came in the early 1990s in the form of biotechnology thanks to academic research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. The third came later in the same decade with the online boom thanks to the Internet which was developed at first by the military.

Maeder added that the U.S. missed a chance to fund research that could have led to the next wave in innovation in alternative energy eight years ago. He says that’s why we trail European nations in this industry.

We also have seen some major reductions in research funding since the War in Iraq cost slightly more than the Bush Administration guessed. In fact, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reports we are retreating in research funding while other countries, like China and South Korea, are boosting their support by 10 percent or more annually.

Presidents do matter to the economy. For one thing, they can start seemingly endless and massively expensive wars that drain resources for research necessary to spark the next economic boom.

McCain scary for farmers

2008-07-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

An interesting article on MinnPost.com points out that John McCain isn't playing well in rural Minnesota.

U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, is as blunt as ever. "Farmers in my state are scared to death of McCain," Peterson said. "He's never liked anything that we've done. I think he's going to have a hard time with farmers."

The article points out that McCain voted against the 2002 Farm Bill. It neglects to mention McCain's flippity floppity view of ethanol. But there's little doubt McCain's weakness in rural areas will hurt. It could be pivotal in western Iowa.

Peterson: Farmers fear McCain

Think, G.W., think.

2008-07-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

You know, de-regulation sounds all fine and dandy... until people start dying in mines and the banks start closing.

Gee, ever wonder if just maybe the regulations were there for a REASON?

King Laughs As He Blocks Iraq Testimony

2008-07-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

U.S. Rep. Steve King continues his juvenile antics in Congress. And again, he's gone too far, keeping a Congressional committee from fulfilling its obligation to investigate our misadventure in Iraq.

Yesterday, King made a mockery of a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in which testimony was to be given by Doug Feith. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank describes Feith as "the brains behind the Iraq WMD claims, torture policy and other great adventures."

King wasted as much time as possible during the hearing to save Feith from himself. But he also prevented all of us from learning critical information about how this administration has mishandled Iraq. Did King conduct his stalling tactics with the dignity one would expect from a Member of Congress? Hardly. Milbank says he was often giggling like a schoolboy during his grandstanding.

Clearly, King cares more about making a name for himself among the national right wing nuts than he does about learning the truth about Iraq. Nothing he does should shock any of us anymore. But is it really appropriate to giggle over blocking testimony about policies and propaganda that have led to the deaths of 4,000 U.S. soldiers and 151,000 Iraqis?

Dana Milbank column: Let the games begin!

Mini Editorial: Hands Up, People

2008-07-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

I love today's mini-editorial in the Sioux City Journal, written by Larry Johns of Sioux City:

"Quick show of hands. How many of you are glad you didn't let the Republicans invest your Social Security with their friends on Wall Street?"

Poll: Obama tied with McCain in South Dakota

2008-07-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

A new Rasmussen poll shows Barack Obama is statistically tied with John McCain in South Dakota. Yes, South Dakota.

This is a state that rejected native son George McGovern when he was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972. But now Obama has a shot. I have talked with several disgruntled Republicans in the state. And I really thought Obama would be wise to drop some money into the Rushmore State to advertise to see what would happen. It's not terribly expensive to advertise in the Sioux Falls and Rapid City markets. Why not go for it, I thought. And now there's evidence that he's competitive without even advertising yet.

It shows the depth of the "branding" problem the Republican Party has right now. It also shows Obama still has broad appeal even in the most rural of states.

Rasmussen Poll Details

3 Facts That Could Change This Election (If We Share Them With Enough People)

2008-07-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

From DemocraticUnderground.com:

Here are 3 Stunning facts that could not only change the outcome of this election, but with regard to the first two points, they could change the results of every election for years to come *if* we make enough people aware of them.

I want to keep this as simple and short as possible, so that the people who need to read this actually do. And again, I encourage you to share this information with as many people as you can, either by recommending and commenting on this thread, by emailing these points out and or by posting a link to this thread on the appropriate websites.

1)-Over 70% of our National Debt was created by just 3 Republican presidents.

Go ahead, get out your calculator and add up debt by president/party. Apparently the party that claims fiscally responsibility thinks it's ok to borrow massive amounts of money from foreign countries like China. Consider that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments on this debt each year. That means more and more of your hard earned money is going to make interest only payments on what is basically a Giant National Credit Card. Not to mention the fact our debt/deficits are largely behind the weakness of our dollar, which in turns makes gas more expensive and creates other serious problems.

If you want to learn more about the National Debt, check out these links:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock /
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
http://zfacts.com/p/447.html (A running clock with the cost of the war)
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/business...

2)-According to new research from Larry Bartels out of Princeton, real middle class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president compared to when a Republican is president.

"...Even more remarkable, the real incomes of working-poor families...grew six times as fast when Democrats held the White House. Only the incomes of affluent families were relatively impervious to partisan politics, growing robustly under Democrats and Republicans alike...": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27wwln-ideal...

Here is a short summary of this research: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008...

And here is a good, short audio interview with Larry Bartels: http://youngturks.wmod.llnwd.net/a591/o1/4-25-08Bartels...

3)-90% of Americans would pay less taxes under Obama's proposed tax plan compared to McCain's.

This is according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Institute as reported by CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates...

People making under $112,000 a year in individual (not household) income would pay less taxes under Obama's plan.

By contrast, John McCain's tax cuts mostly benefit the top 10% of Americans. Under McCain's plan, people making over 2.9 million dollars in individual annual income would get almost a million dollar tax break.

Conclusion: Countless millions of Americans vote Republican because they believe they'll pay less taxes and that they'll have their money spent more responsibly. As you can see, those beliefs are directly contradicted by the facts. Of course we can choose to ignore the facts and instead focus on which candidate is wearing a flag pin (you ever notice that Hillary and McCain don't wear them? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi5nbZvS9cg ) but I think we're a smarter country than that.

Steve King can be beaten

2008-07-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

The Fifth Congressional District in Iowa is not good for Democrats. Registered Republicans number 141,245. The figure for Democrats: 97,130. No Party registrations are at 126,454. These numbers at first blush appear to add up to a victory for U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Republican with one of the worst voting records in the country.

But there is hope.

A poll in February by the Des Moines Register showed that Barack Obama was leading John McCain in every Congressional district in the state. That is a shocking revelation, considering in the Fifth Congressional District George W. Bush beat John Kerry 60-39 in 2004 and Al Gore 57-40 in 2000.

This, however, is shaping up to being a horrible year for Republicans. John McCain also isn’t the best to carry the GOP banner in western Iowa. He’s too mushy on immigration for one thing. And I doubt his critique of evangelical leaders as “agents of intolerance” has been forgiven in right-wing bedrocks like Lyon and Sioux Counties.

In addition, Steve King is a crackpot. Even for the Fifth. He needs to be painted for what he is: a politician who expresses the most extreme views to garner attention so he can become a darling of the right wing nationally. He clearly isn’t interested in doing much for the district. Many Republicans are uneasy with his trail of embarrassing statements.

Let’s make some assumptions. Assume King wins only 85 percent of the Republican vote. Republican turnout also could be suppressed because of the depressed number of Republicans. Let’s also assume Rob Hubler, King’s Democratic opponent, can win 90 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents. If he does, he’ll be the next Member of Congress for western Iowa. Those targets are well within reach, if people step up and donate to Hubler’s campaign. Hubler is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He’s also served in the military and has strong ties to Iowa. He can win this race, if he has the financial resources.

Rob Hubler's Website

McCain's Flip Flops Include Ethanol

2008-07-01T18:12:00.000-07:00

A post below outlines John McCain's waffling on the issue of torture. It is still hard to fathom how a man who survived torture as a POW could flip flop on this issue. But it's not fair to question McCain's military service too much. That would mean we are ungrateful and unpatriotic.

But McCain has more flip flops to account for. Keith Olbermann listed a slew of them the other night from his position on the Confederate flag to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Olbermann forgot one pretty significant one, though: Ethanol.

In the 2000 Iowa Caucus, McCain in his best "straight talk express style," opposed federal subsidies for ethanol. Even as late as 2003 he was holding to that position, according to Money Magazine. "Ethanol is a product that would not exist if Congress didn't create an artificial market for it. No one would be willing to buy it," McCain is quoted as saying. "Yet thanks to agricultural subsidies and ethanol producer subsidies, it is now a very big business - tens of billions of dollars that have enriched a handful of corporate interests - primarily one big corporation, ADM. Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality."

But then McCain began running for president again and his express derailed. The AP quoted him embracing ethanol in a speech in Grinnell, Iowa, in August 2006. "I support ethanol and I think it is a vital, a vital alternative energy source not only because of our dependency on foreign oil but its greenhouse gas reduction effects," he said.

He said he was "a strong supporter."

That lasted until this year. Now McCain is criticizing ethanol, saying the federal mandate requiring ethanol in fuel needs to be eased.

We'll keep you posted when he changes his mind again.

Richard Cohen's Crazy Column

2008-06-30T09:15:00.001-07:00

A recent column by Richard Cohen amazed me for its shallow and idiotic arguments against Barack Obama.

Cohen wrote that McCain’s character is not an issue. He was willing to die for his principles as a POW in Vietnam. That’s all we need to know. Meanwhile, Obama has never shown that same willingness to die for his country.

What? Obama shouldn’t be president because he hasn’t had a chance to show he’s willing to die for his country?

Writes Cohen: “Obama might have a similar bottom line, core principles for which, in some sense, he is willing to die. If so, we don't know what they are. Nothing so far in his life approaches McCain's decision to refuse repatriation as a POW so as to deny his jailors a propaganda coup. In fact, there is scant evidence the Illinois senator takes positions that challenge his base or otherwise threaten him politically.”

Ah, don’t you love columnists who don’t do any research and then criticize someone because of their ignorance?

Obama passed on high-paying jobs to become a community organizer in Chicago. He worked on some tough issues in the community, winning some and losing more. But he was willing to fight for what he believed was right. What does that tell us about his character? And didn’t Obama challenge his base by embracing welfare reform in the Illinois Legislature? He reached across the aisle to Republicans on a number of issues, which isn’t always seen as a sign of strength by Democrats.

Meanwhile, McCain has violated the spirit of public finance laws by spending more than the limit. He rails against lobbyists but then has lobbyists running his campaign operation. He has flip-flopped on torture, immigration, tax cuts and more. I guess McCain does have one enduring principle. He’ll change his position on anything if it will help him win the presidency.

King of Hypocrisy

2008-06-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

Steve King continues his shameless ways.

Two of his most recent news releases on his Congressional website are directly contradictory. It would be breathtaking to anyone who doesn't know the hypocrisy of Steve King like we do in his district.

A May 22nd release touts King's endorsement by the American Conservative Union. This far-right organization gives King a 100 percent voting record for 2007. This is the group that opposes "big government." One of its leaders is Grover Norquist, who has said he wants to shrink government so much it could be drowned in a bathtub.

Really? Getting rid of Medicare, Social Security, housing programs and other government programs is a serious political proposal? I guess it is to these extremists. The ACU also wants to eliminate farm subsidies.

Hmmmm. Steve King doesn't support subsidies for farmers? Well, at least you have to admire his principled stand on this, his willingness to place conviction over convenience no matter the cost. Oops. Wait a minute.

The next release on King's website trumpets: "King votes for farm bill."

Ah, everything is right with the universe again. King is revealed as just another politician saying one thing and doing another.

McCain's Hurdle: A Barr on the White House Door

2008-06-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich recently dismissed the chances of Bob Barr being a spoiler for John McCain in the race for president. "No reasonable conservative is going to vote for anyone except John McCain," the former speaker said, dismissing the chances of his former Georgia colleague in the U.S. House.

Wow. If that's the case, the GOP must be scared out of its freakin' mind. How many "reasonable" conservatives do you know? Reasonable conservative? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

Barr is polling at 8 percent in Georgia. If Barack Obama can get more African Americans than normal to the polls and Barr holds onto his 8 percent, Obama has a real chance of picking up the state. Polling also shows Barr could cause McCain to lose Alaska and Colorado. Barr's campaign officials say he'll show up in Ohio, New Hampshire and other swing states as well.

Barr's presence also poses a problem beyond polling. McCain will need to continue to step lightly to make sure he doesn't lose any more support on the far right. He almost has to pick a right wing nut job for his vice presidential candidate, which won't help him voters in the middle. He also will continue to need to emphasize far-right positions to try to appeal to these nut jobs. Or "unreasonable conservatives," as Gingrich labels them.

Maverick McCain Flip Flops on Torture

2008-06-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

John McCain's image as a maverick and hero is being repeatedly diminished by his strange flip flops on the use of torture. He used to have a strong, quiet message to the world that torture is never acceptable and does not work. He has told of his own experiences as a prisoner of war being tortured to say anything, as an example of how using torture as an interrogation tool is terrible and useless.

So which is the most important flip flops John McCain has made so far during his bid for the White House and quite possibly his entire political career? His flip flop on torture.

Retired General Wes Clarke "….but on the other hand, he’s changed his position on torture. One point he says he was against it and now he’s in favor of it, He’s even come out against the Supreme Court decision that was made yesterday on the prisoners in Guantanamo, so you know, what does John McCain really believe? Who is he? Is he this straight talk express maverick that people thought he was in the late nineties or is he just a guy that wants to be president and he’s say what’s necessary to get the job."

The "Straight Talk Express" has run off the rails and McCain will say and do anything to pander his way to the White House.

John McCain Must Stop John McCain!

2008-06-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

From our friends at Daily Kos:

A new McCain TV ad says he stood up to President Bush five years ago.

Five years ago! What a maverick!

It's just too bad that three years ago he said this to the entire world on Meet the Press:

"The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I have been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. So, have we had some disagreements on some issues--particularly domestic issues? Yes. But I will argue my conservative record of voting with anyone's, and I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people. ... I strongly disagree with any assertion that I have been more at odds with the President of the United States than I have been in agreement."

I'm sure the McCain campaign plans to issue a statement condemning the McCain campaign for spreading such rhetoric against John McCain. If I were part of Team McCain I'd get on the air with an attack ad ASAP. John McCain should not let John McCain get away with this!

Norman Horowitz: When They Came For Me

2008-06-07T06:17:00.000-07:00

from The Huffington Post | Raw Feed by Norman Horowitz

I think about the innocents that we have arrested, imprisoned, and tortured without a trial because we suspected that they could have done SOMETHING, and we made hardly a sound.

Pastor Martin Niemotlier

When the Nazis came for the Communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a Communist.

When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a Social Democrat.

When they came for the Trade Unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Trade Unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

How could we as a nation do this stuff? Will McCain continue the same policies if elected? Will NBC, ABC, CBS or Fox ever serve the public interest by presenting documentaries about these transgressions?

I know 9/11 changed everything. Did it really?

It would not exactly be inspiring to me if it is true that John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the President's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight.

It has been reported that McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign, disavowed certain statements attributed to McCain, and for the first time cast McCain's views on warrantless wiretapping as identical to Bush's. That is just great.

Does it matter that in the recent past he has said: "I think that Presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, no matter what the situation... I don't think the President has the right to disobey any law."

Should he become President, will he avail himself the opportunity to violate other parts of our constitution? He is so inconsistently scary to me that a Bush third term might appear to be an improvement over McCain's first term, but then again, maybe not.

Sadly this administration uses "the war on terror" to excuse and explain EVERYTHING that they do.

A while ago, Tony Snow, in his daily televised briefing had been quoted as saying: "Traditionally in this country in a time of war, members of the press have acknowledged that the commander in chief, in the exercise of his powers, sometimes has to do things secretly in order to protect the public." I expect that translated loosely into English, the President can do whatever he chooses to do and can do it secretly by saying "the magic word" which at one time was "please" and now has morphed into "terror,"

George Orwell's "1984" says in part "There are nations that are in a state of perpetual war with each other. The state of war is used by each of these countries to justify the control of their populations by artificially creating fear and hate of an enemy, the actual existence of which is never made completely certain, the governments provided an excuse for their failures and enforced obedience to Big Brother "siege mentality" in which hatred of the enemy and love for the government's protection were social norms."

Sadly we are living an Orwellian nightmare wherein the threat of terrorism is with us at all times, sold to the public over and over again.

Since 9/11, our government has been "selling" America that the President is allowed to fracture major parts of the Constitution because we are "at war" with terrorists.

We need more Police, FBI, CIA or Border Patrol people to fight the criminality of terrorists and terrorism, but most certainly not to wage a war or violate our constitution in order to do what needs to be done.

I recently listened to one of our congress people imply that it was OK to use harsh interrogation techniques (aka torture) on prisoners that we SUSPECT are planning the deaths of innocent American civilians, That words "torture" and "suspect" scares my simplistic American soul.

I do understand that it is a cruel world out there, HOWEVER...

The system should once again please spare me the "... these people are terrorists and if one of them has information that will save American lives we can and should use whatever interrogation procedures that will give us the information we need."

It is time once again for me to re-read the Constitution while listening to our National anthem and contemplate the notion of America as it once was.

9/11 was a horrid "criminal" event. It should not have given this administration reason to violate our laws, our Constitution, and our standing in the World.

Norman Horowitz

Poor Little Congressman Steve King

2008-03-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Poor Little Congressman Steve King

One has to give Steve King credit … He certainly knows how to turn his own gratuitous insults into an opportunistic chance to claim personal victimization. Why, King asks, do those pesky Liberals time and again misinterpret what he says for “political purposes?” In reference to his latest incivility, King now claims he wasn’t really trying to insult Obama when he boldly claimed that the terrorists would be dancing in the streets if Obama was elected president, or that Obama’s middle name would send a welcome message to the terrorists, or even when he implicitly equated an Obama inauguration with the attacks of 9/11. No, according to our poor misunderstood Congressman, all he wanted to do was make a larger point about the need to persevere and be forceful in the fight against terrorism.

OK, then why not simply say that, Steve? Why not engage in a serious policy discussion on the Middle East? Why instead go the “extra mile” and make it personal, as always? What next? Will King criticize Hillary’s looks like he did reporter Helen Thomas’ a while back? It’s a shame Steve King apparently never learned proper manners from his parents, or thought the “Golden Rule” taught in Church worthwhile.

[Ironically, you’d be more likely to find an Al Qaida terrorist shopping at the local mall than a serious, factually-accurate policy statement on any issue on King’s official Congressional website. Go check!]

Just for the record, Obama does want us out of Iraq. But it’s not to “surrender to the terrorists” as King might think. Rather, Obama quite intelligently wants the U.S. to redirect its attentions to those areas like Afghanistan and Pakistan where the threat is more serious (and where Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaida forces who attacked us on 9/11 are hiding), and where U.S. efforts should produce greater results. As it is, the U.S. military is bogged down in Iraq, where it’s distracted by an unpopular occupation, battling sectarian strife, and susceptible to a slow war of attrition with no end in sight.

Frankly, it’s an insult to the intelligence of the American people for King to suggest that any president would so carelessly renounce his or her primary duty to preserve and protect the United States and its citizens. Moreover, it’s also supremely arrogant of King to suggest that it’s “his way or the highway” when it comes to foreign policy.

Unfortunately, as a member of Congress, Steve King’s personal attacks have given the imprimatur of social acceptability to the many religious and racial bigots who want cover for their irrational dislike of Obama (or just Democrats). Hence, we’re now suddenly being deluged with Letters to the Editor and on-line commentary curtly dismissing Obama as “scary” or “a charlatan” or a kind of “Pied Piper” leading us “sheep” to slaughter. After all, if a Congressman sets the example by saying similar things, it must be true, right?

Well, we can thank Steve King for once again contributing to a lowering of public discourse in America. And after that, let’s do ourselves a favor by voting in Rob Hubler, a college graduate who can debate an issue on its merits, rather than resort to “cheap shot” ad hominem attacks like Congressman King.

Peace!
Historian

King the Ignorant on Obama

2008-03-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

King the Ignorant on Obama

Honestly, I don’t know whether or not to be more ashamed of Representative Steve King the Ignorant, or the legion of gullible yahoos who support the guy no matter what, and who mistake King’s utter lack of civility for ‘speaking the truth.’

Seriously, I think the terrorists would be much more likely to dance in the streets should we continue to elect Representative King, who apparently prefers to launch gratuitous, ad hominem attacks and make momentous decisions concerning our nation's future based more on uninformed prejudices than on the facts. Honestly, despite the old adage, ignorance is not bliss when the times demand strong, intelligent leadership!

For a good sample analysis of King's general ignorance about such things as Islam and Al-Qaeda (which only makes it harder to fight the terrorists effectively), read Iowa State University Professor of Religious Studies Hector Avalos' informative and well-written Letter to the Editor in the March 11, 2008 Sioux City Journal. Professor Avalos, among other things, points out that pro-Al Qaeda websites have expressed no support for Obama, and in fact have suggested he might be a Shiite agent linked to Iran (it’s almost reassuring to know we Americans aren’t the only ones unfairly reading religious bigotry into Obama’s middle name). He also pointedly notes that Obama’s middle name, “Hussein,” is generally associated with Shiites, whom the rabidly Sunni members of Al Qaeda dislike and distrust.

Please Lord, lift this burden named Steve King from our political lives. Send him back home to dig holes in the ground or whatever it is he does for a real living. Please!

Thank heavens this election cycle we have a serious contender running for Congress in Rob Hubler. Rob served his nation honorably in the Navy from 1962 through 1968 during the Vietnam War (and what did gung ho Steve King do to assist his country during those same years?), before completing college, helping run a succession of political campaigns, and later becoming a Presbyterian Minister. If you haven’t already met Rob, you should!

Just imagine: we could elect Rob Hubler and take pride in having an articulate, thoughtful, service-oriented Representative for Iowa’s Fifth District … or we could continue to bow our heads in shame with more of the obnoxious bullying and ineffective representation that Steve King offers.

Peace!
Historian

Ghosts of Rwanda

2008-02-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

Ghosts of Rwanda

“Never Again!”

What do these words really signify?

I pondered this question again after viewing the 2004 Frontline documentary “Ghosts of Rwanda,” an important yet disturbing film about the horrific 1994 genocide in that African nation.

Initially, “Never Again!” was a necessary response to Adolph Hitler’s Holocaust against the Jews of Europe during WWII, in which some six million perished. Morally repulsed by what Hitler and the Nazis had done, and shamed by their own abject failure in halting that genocide, the postwar victors gathered soon after war’s end to insure such gratuitous violence would never be repeated in a civilized world.

In 1948, the United Nations adopted a “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” The first three of its nineteen articles read as follows (see www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide ):

Article 1
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

Seems clear enough, doesn’t it? And yet the world community has been strangely silent on the topic of genocide, even when confronted time and again with the evidence of its existence!
A short list of some of the better known instances of genocide in our own lifetime would include the following:

Cambodia where, between 1975 and 1979, hard-core Communists known as the Khmer Rouge killed off some 2 million people (about 25% of the population of Cambodia) in a perverse attempt to create an agricultural utopia. The killings came largely to an end only after Vietnam invaded and drove the Khmer Rouge into exile (provoked by Khmer Rouge attacks into Vietnamese territory).
East Timor where, in 1975, oil-producing and anti-communists U.S. ally Indonesia invaded this former Portuguese colony that threatened independence and killed between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians in the process.
Iraq where, in 1987, Saddam Hussein launched forty-odd chemical attacks on Kurdish villages within his country, massacring an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 civilians.
Bosnia where, following the break-up of Yugoslavia after the Cold War in 1992, Orthodox Christian Serbs sought to cleanse their new Republic of Slovenia of any non-Serbs. In particular, the Serbs targeted Bosnian Muslims, herding many into make-shift concentration camps and placing the city of Sarajevo under siege. Estimates are that 200,000 died.

None of the above cases that arguably qualify as genocide under the terms of the U.N. Convention were completely hidden or unknown at the time they occurred. In fact, details of each and every crisis appeared in the popular press at the time. And yet what was the world’s response? More particularly, in a late 20th Century largely dominated by a sole superpower, what was the United States’ response?

Not surprisingly, very little. With bitter memories of the failed war in Vietnam still fresh in the national consciousness, the United States government in 1979 refused to recognize the government that replaced the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and, in fact, fought strenuously to guarantee that the U.N. seated the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia’s legitimate government. The U.S. government even provided a Khmer Rouge-led coalition with covert aid to fight the Vietnamese-installed regime beginning in 1982. As late as 1990, the U.S. still officially refused to term what the Khmer Rouge had done in Cambodia “genocide” (See Samantha Power, A Problem From Hell, Harper Perennial 2007, pp. 149-154). Meanwhile, a strong desire to avoid embarrassing an important Cold War ally caused the U.S to look the other way when Indonesia invaded East Timor. Lingering anger over Iran’s Shiite Revolution in 1979 found the U.S. providing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with chemicals, logistical intelligence, and other aid in 1987 as part of Iraq’s long and bloody war with neighboring Iran. Finally, in the case of Bosnia, while the Clinton Administration did authorize the use of airstrikes against some Serb military targets, the U.S. adamantly refused to allow troops on the ground, citing insufficient U.S. interests in Bosnia and a purported “five hundred year-long” history of enmity between the Christians and Muslims there (as if that unsupported assertion alone negated the need to take action to save lives).

Today, the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum lists four locations of grave concern:
1. Chechneya (in Russia)
2. Darfur (in the Sudan)
3. Congo
4. South/Nuba Mountains (in the Sudan)

The USHMM also recently began monitoring the situation in Kenya, following growing ethnic conflict after a disputed presidential election there.

Rwanda, however, was easily the worst in a long line of largely ignored and forgotten genocides. In April 1994, extremists among Rwanda’s Hutu majority launched an organized extermination campaign against the country’s Tutsi minority. Within a three month period – JUST 100 DAYS! – an estimated 800,000 people were brutally murdered, and hundreds of thousands of women were forcibly raped. It was largely a low-tech slaughter, done with wooden clubs and machetes. The genocide ended only when a Tutsi-led rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, marched on the capital of Kigali and defeated the extremist government there. Meanwhile, the world ignored all reports emanating from Rwanda and stood by while the killings proceeded.

“Never again!” We return to those simple, yet commanding words …

As you watch the documentary “Ghosts of Rwanda” (and you should!), pay close attention to the various actors (both domestic and external) in the sad drama that was Rwanda in 1994. Had “Never again!” the command become “Never again?” the question, what might the various actors have said in reply?

Note in the film how uncomfortably the U.S., the U.N., and the Western world in general dodged and weaved and then danced gingerly around the use of the term genocide to describe what was happening in Rwanda, knowing that to utter the dreaded “G-word” would obligate them to respond, yet cognizant that they’d no real interests in Rwanda worth defending. Rather than pour Western troops into Rwanda, the U.S. pressured the U.N. to withdraw nearly all the lightly-armed peacekeepers already there, and ordered the relative handful remaining not to intervene. Watch President Bill Clinton callously stress the need to pursue a non-existent “political option in Rwanda” during the crisis, while refusing to call it genocide even when confronted with the evidence during a personal visit to Rwanda with Hillary after the crisis.

More laudably, note also the actions of the handful of true humanitarians who remained behind in Rwanda at great personal risk to do whatever they could to save innocent lives:

1. General Dallaire, the Canadian commander of U.N. peacekeeping troops, who warned of the coming genocide, begged his superiors to do something to stop the killings once they’d begun, and finally refused to leave so that he could bear witness to the gratuitous slaughter.
2. Captain Mbaye, a Senegalese officer with the U.N. force, who protected refugees at the abandoned international hotel later featured in the commercial film “Hotel Rwanda.”
3. Carl Wilkins, a Christian aid worker who put his family on an evacuation convoy, but stayed behind as the last American in Kigali. Amidst the massacre, Wilkins managed to single-handedly save an entire orphanage and its occupants from the slaughter.
4. Gromo Alex, a veteran U.N. aid worker who knowingly arrived in Kigali after the genocide began, hoping to keep a handful of “safe havens” supplied with food and other necessities.
5. The Red Cross, which refused to evacuate with the other foreigners and maintained its hospitals and clinics while under constant threat of violence, savings tens of thousands.

To the last, each and every one of them insists to this day that the Rwandan genocide could have been suppressed, if not avoided outright, if only the international community had intervened even minimally.

So finally, ask what “Never again!” means to you, and how, after watching a documentary on an avoidable tragedy like Rwanda’s, you can continue to ignore ongoing genocide in places like Darfur.

Peace!
Historian

Kumbaya, Baby!

2008-02-01T06:26:00.000-08:00

Can't we all just get along?

The debate at the Kodak Theater between Obama and Clinton last night provided a pleasing contrast with the previous Democratic forums and a stark contrast with the republican sneer-fest the night before. I caught myself doing a double-take several times, just at the sight of our candidates on the stage: a black guy and a woman - and they're both very good. It absolutely makes me proud to be a Democrat, especially when I compare our candidates with the Three Stooges on the republican side.

It lacked the petty sniping and one-liner soundbites of earlier events, and that was just fine with me. The format of the debate was far far more interesting and worthy of anyone's time to watch it. When we had 6 or 7 candidates on the stage in the early events you couldn't get any real information from any candidate. Those events were only good for candidates who could deliver the most memorable phrase. Last night each candidate got to speak pretty much as long as they wanted and got to put the issues in their own framework. It got pretty wonky some times, with the details of their differences. Those of us who have been closely following the campaigns for months have heard that all before. But voters who were finally paying attention before Super Tuesday got to listen to our candidates in a very good forum.

On balance, Obama won the night. He looked and sounded so damn presidential. It was pretty even up to the point when they talked about Iraq, but then Hillary had to just sit there because she didn't have anything positive she could say on her side. Both candidates did well, but Obama gained the most.

When Animals Eat Their Young

2008-01-11T13:34:00.000-08:00

When Animals Eat Their Young

Ever since I was a young child, I’ve had a perverse fascination with insects and animals that ate their own kind. What, I wondered, could drive a living creature to devour its own kith and kin? Sheer desperation, I hoped. Whatever the reason, it seemed such a sad practice to me.

Strange now how I gloat watching the Republican Party tearing itself apart in the course of the current presidential campaign.

Remember the “flip flop” charges so successfully leveled against Democrat John Kerry in 2004? Who could’ve predicted that same charge would come back to bite the current crop of Republican presidential candidates in the butt? Such great irony! Having so successfully raised ‘policy change’ to the level of heresy in 2004 (to use as a club against Kerry), the Republicans in 2008 have put themselves into a rhetorical straitjacket, wherein no allowance can be made by their own candidates for altered circumstances over time or the maturation of thought. Woe to the Republican candidate who, having announced a particular stand on a policy matter early in their career, amends it later for whatever reason! In today’s Republican Party, rigidity of thought and inflexibility of opinion are held up as desirable qualities.

Therefore, in 2008 we’re treated to the spectacle of Republican presidential candidates bickering like children in their debates, accusing each other of having said or done something two decades earlier, only to change their minds later. “Flip floppers,” one and all, and any explanatory context be damned!

A good example of this phenomenon concerns Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, while Governor of Arkansas, was compelled by court order to raise revenues to properly fund his state’s public schools. “You raised taxes!,” the rest of the field cries at every debate, as they ready the pitchforks and torches. Never mind that Huckabee has a well-demonstrated philosophical distaste for tax increases, or that Huckabee raised taxes in Arkansas only to comply with a court order and avoid breaking the law… all of which Huckabee has labored valiantly to explain. Poor man. He should have learned by now that the actual circumstances don’t matter. Objective reality counts for nothing. Change means “flip flopping,” end of story.

1984 has arrived finally in 2008. And having entered into their neo-Orwellian universe, the Republicans will likely continue to help set up their party’s eventual nominee for defeat in November by ferreting out and publicizing “inconsistencies” in each other’s political record.

I don’t know about you, but I’m taking notes. And I’ve already gone out and bought myself a cheap pair of sandals to wave at rallies should the eventual Republican presidential nominee come to town. Waffle breakfast, anyone?

Peace!
Historian

Bravo for Iowans!

2008-01-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

Bravo for Iowans!

January 3rd was a great day for Iowans and the nation! We witnessed a record turnout at both the Democratic and Republican caucuses. At my Sioux City precinct, a show of hands disclosed dozens of first time Democratic caucus-goers. Moreover, despite the unusually large number of candidates vying for supporters, the caucus experience proved a spirited yet friendly event. It was exciting and gratifying to watch Iowans so enthusiastically embrace their civic duty by taking an active role in their own governance … the very definition of democracy! And let’s not forget the great press Iowa received, or the huge economic impact campaign spending has on our economy.

Unfortunately, the Sioux City Journal reminded us in a story the next day that many shirked their responsibility, as well. I can’t really fault those who had to work that evening, or had family responsibilities that couldn’t be rescheduled. However, couldn’t bowling night have been postponed just once out of respect for a momentous, once-every-four-years, life-changing event like the Iowa Caucus? I was especially troubled by the East High math and history teachers (brothers, no less) who failed to recognize their weighty position as role models for future voters; who, rather than simply decline to be interviewed, demonstrated poor judgment by joking and publicly bragging about skipping the caucus. Do they really believe their salaries and working conditions unaffected by politics?

Thankfully, tens of thousands of Iowans were responsible and took time out of their busy schedules to fulfill their civic responsibility. Kudos to them!

Peace!
Historian

King of Kontradiction

2007-10-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

I just realized something. My representative to congress, Steve King (R-IA), wants it both ways. He wants his cake, and he wants to eat it too. Go figger.

After United States President George Walker Bush, Republican, vetoed giving poor sick children medical help, Representative King stepped forward to defend the President. This in itself is not unusual -- looking at Mr. King's voting record reveals that he votes with the President nearly every single time he casts a vote. What was unusual in this matter is that people in Sioux City gathered outside Mr. King's office in peaceful protest, waving signs with the number of children in Mr. King's district that will be denied health care due to his refusal to stand up for his constituents.

I don't remember the exact quote, but I saw Mr. King on TV saying something like, "just because a bunch of people stand on the sidewalk with signs doesn't make them right." Mr. King never did talk to the gathered crowd, from what I understand.

The very next day (yesterday) I again saw Mr. King's face on TV. This time he was participating in a demonstration, standing on a sidewalk waving an anti-choice sign. I guess he felt the best way to get his point across was to stand on a sidewalk with a sign... I doubt the irony of this crossed his mind.

But what bothers me MUCH more than his "sidewalk politics" is the overall message Mr. King is sending. He protested abortion, yet voted against health care for children. So what he's saying to women is basically, "We demand that you have that child, yet we're going to block any legislation that might actually help you raise the child."

I guess it doesn't surprise me that a politician that supports cock fighting is capable of thinking women's rights and children's health are irrelevant.

As a sidebar, I've noticed that the Republicans have avoided rational discussion of SCHIP (health care for poor, sick children) by labeling it "socialized medicine." SCHIP is not "socialized medicine," it's health care for poor sick children.

The Bush administration is against SCHIP on the theory that it may help a few children who are either wealthy or here illegally. So they're not going to help ANY children, rather than run the risk that a fraction of a percentage of the funds may be misused. Here's a question... What would Jesus think if you told him you stood by and let a child die because if you had helped the child you might have, by accident, helped another child as well? I know what my conscience tells me.

Blaming the Victim: Republican Rhetoric Redux

2007-05-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

Blaming the Victim: Republican Rhetoric Redux

Beware! The Republican Party and its apologists are reaching into their usual bag of “tried but true” tricks again.

I’ve noticed recently that when discussing the Iraq War, Republicans are now subtly trying to shift the blame for their disastrous foreign policy decisions onto the Iraqi people themselves. In line with the Bush Administration’s perverse inability to admit any mistakes or accept any blame, the Republican spin machine is washing its hands of the mess in Iraq by suggesting that the real problem was not mistaken American actions there, but instead the sad inability of the Iraqi people themselves to seize the day and take advantage of the promise of democracy offered them by the American invasion. If only the Iraqis weren’t so blinded by ancient hatreds, the Republican spin machine opines, things could have worked out for the better.

Yes, once again it’s blame the victim time in America. Not content with blaming institutionalized poverty on some supposed failings of the poor themselves, or the problems in America’s schools on underpaid, overworked teachers, or the sad state of the American economy on our increasingly-under siege unions, the Republicans have now added the hapless Iraqi people to their ever-growing list of “those who deserve the fate we dealt them.” Almost makes one feel nostalgic for the Reagan years, doesn’t it?

As with most Republican spin, of course, the one thing conspicuously absent from the rhetoric is any nod to logic. How, one might ask, could one logically expect the Iraqi people to create a functioning democracy overnight, when they’d no previous experience whatsoever with democratic rule, and in a country whose infrastructure and economy were devastated by the American invasion, and whose bureaucracy and military and police were largely disbanded by the incoming American occupation authorities? With no economy to speak of, and precious little institutional leadership left in place, chaos marked the American occupation from the start, and in times of chaos one struggles above all for survival; the niceties of civil administration understandably take second place.

Would the Iraqis welcome democracy? Perhaps. But it, or any competing form of government, would have to provide for the basic needs of the Iraqis first, which is something that’s not currently occurring. Politics in Iraq thus far has been marked instead by partisan bickering, posturing, corruption, and subservience to the American occupiers. This hasn’t made for much of an advertisement for democracy … yet.

So let’s be careful to remind the American public just where the blame for the tragedy of Iraq lies, which is squarely with the neo-conservative ideologues of the Bush Administration. These jokers played god by planning a war to remake the world, only to discover that, as the Bible itself has well noted, “pride goeth before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18)! It’s just too unfortunate that so many innocent Iraqis must suffer for the Bush Administration’s arrogance.

Peace!
Historian

Have We Lost the War?

2007-05-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

Have We Lost the War?

What an absurd question!

No, the U.S. hasn’t lost the war. In fact, we won it four years ago. We defeated Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards with relative ease, and overthrew one of the Middle East’s most legendary tyrants. End of story.

The problem is, we’re asking the wrong question. More specifically, we Americans are approaching the continuing troubles in Iraq from the wrong direction. We (meaning the citizens of the United States of America) have not, and never will, lose the war in Iraq. Why? It is not our war because it is not our country! Iraq isn’t ours to lose today, any more than China was ours to lose in 1949.

It would be better (and much more ethical) to start asking ourselves whether or not the Iraqis have lost the war. And if “losing” is based largely on quality of life issues, then it seems reasonable to conclude that the Iraqis have, in fact, lost the war. By most any measure – overall security, access to basic necessities, employment, education, law and order, etc. – the hostilities in Iraq have had the unfortunate effect of impoverishing most Iraqis!

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration obstinately continues to insist on American “victory” in Iraq. But that goal itself raises another vital question: How does the administration define “victory?” Has any clear and measurable goal or benchmark been articulated recently? I read the papers and watch the news, and I’m still as confused as ever.

The best answer I’ve been able to glean from the contradictory and vague pronouncements of Bush Administration officials is that victory in Iraq is somehow linked with victory in the overall war on terror. If so, we’re going to be in for the long haul, as the so-called “war on terror” (by the administration’s own admission) is both amorphous and indefinite. For those same reasons, I’d argue that the “war on terror” is ultimately unwinnable, at least in the traditional sense of the term. You cannot defeat an enemy that resists definition, nor fight a war whose goals are ever in flux.

As for Iraq, I’ll admit to conflicted feelings. I’m not sure what would be best for us to do, now that the U.S. has so botched the postwar occupation of that nation. However, I do know that we Americans ought to at least start asking questions whose answers will have meaning for the Iraqis themselves, and not just ourselves!

Peace!
Historian

O'Reilly Ain't So Smart

2007-04-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

O’Reilly Ain’t so Smart

For me, reading Bill O’Reilly’s weekly column is somewhat like coming across a horrendous accident while driving on the highway. Deep down I know it’s wrong to slow down and survey the damage, but I do so anyway. As for O’Reilly’s writings, the intellectual disasters created by his obvious bias and shallow analysis of any topic always leave me bewildered and angry, and yet I just can’t say no!

Today O’Reilly targeted one of his favorite liberal punching-bags: actress and talk show host Rosie O’ Donnell. In particular, O’Reilly was crowing about O’Donnell’s upcoming departure from The View, which he attributed to advertisers’ belated pressures on the network to sever O’Donnell in light of her alleged history of intemperate on-air remarks.

Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of O’Donnell’s work (save for her appearance in “The Flintstones” movie). But what really galled me about O’Reilly’s column was how he used O’Donnell’s impending departure as more “evidence” of an alleged double standard in the so-called “liberal media.” Why, O’Reilly fumed, did Imus’ recent comments about the Rutgers University Women’s basketball team spark a firestorm of controversy and his precipitous firing, while O’Donnell’s comments about Donald Trump barely registered with the mainstream media? Or so O’Reilly claims.

Since O’Reilly seems a bit simple-minded, let me try and help him out. Let me attempt to explain why it’s patently unfair to compare the Imus case with O’Donnell’s.

First, O’Donnell did not call Trump a “nappy-headed ho.” Imus’ comment was unwarranted and reprehensible, especially for its blatant racism and sexism. Rosie O’Donnell initiated her feud with Donald Trump in late December 2006 by asserting that the messily divorced and re-married Trump was not the best spokesperson for morality in America (after Trump’s defense of the reigning Miss America who faced allegations of drug and alcohol abuse). Rude, perhaps, but not entirely unfair.

More importantly, there’s the issue of what I’d like to call “competitive advantage.” Both O’Donnell and Trump are established, wealthy, influential persons in their own right, with ready access to the media as a venue through which to feud. That was decidedly NOT the case when Imus launched his tirade against the young women from Rutgers. When he criticized the athletes, Imus was a veritable institution in talk radio, a highly regarded 1989 inductee into the Radio Hall of Fame with tens of thousands of fans. What comparable venue did the Rutgers women have, at least until the media picked up their story and ran with it? Frankly, Imus probably thought he was picking on another soft target that wouldn’t, and likely couldn’t, fight back in kind.

Wouldn’t it be nice if O’Reilly showed some intellectual rigor and stopped comparing apples to oranges?

Peace!
Historian

Dangerous Indiana

2007-04-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

Dangerous Indiana

As a public service, I’d like to warn my readers to stay the heck away from Indiana this summer. The life you save may be your own!

As you might recall, a delegation of U.S. politicians, featuring Arizona Senator and Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain, recently visited Baghdad’s oldest and largest outdoor market of Shorja.

Senator McCain was accompanied during his leisurely stroll through the market by more than 100 heavily armed American troops, with armored vehicles behind them and Apache attack helicopters roaring overhead. The American VIPs themselves wore heavy armored vests the whole time.

Oh, yeah. McCain was also accompanied by some yahoo Congressman from Indiana named Mike Pence. Pence, who was characterized by The Indianapolis Star as “one of the most outspoken backers of continued U.S. involvement in Iraq” (www.indystar.com), had the audacity to claim the Shorja Market reminded him of “a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”

Initially, Pence’s remark left me speechless! Shorja has been a repeat target of the Iraqi insurgency, having been bombed at least six times in the previous few months according to the New York Times. The day following the Americans’ special “made for TV propaganda” visit, twenty-one Shia employees of the market were kidnapped and murdered in apparent reprisal. After the Americans had left, witnesses interviewed in the market reported their unease, and complained that they’d tried to convey to their VIP guests just how unsafe they felt and impress on them the need for real, sustained security in Baghdad.

My second response was one of anger. Did Pence really fail to recognize the transcendent irresponsibility of his comment? Did Pence not realize that such American bravado in the face of daily insurgent violence would likely provoke a follow-up insurgent attack on the market or its workers (as did happen)? Is Pence really so ignorant of the violence that devastates Baghdad?

Sorry, I can’t accept that. For my own sanity, I have to believe that Iowa’s own Steve King is an anomaly. There simply can’t be TWO equally irresponsible ignoramuses representing the Midwest in Congress.

I’m forced to conclude that Congressman Pence meant what he said. The analogy must hold true. Indiana and Baghdad must be very similar, because the representative from Indiana would know the truth, wouldn’t he?

Ergo, Indiana must be a very, very violent place. Washington, send in the troops now! Better yet, let’s all stay away from Indiana this summer. No tourism, no travel, no stopovers, nothing. It’s simply too dangerous. Pence knows.

For your own safety and that of your loved ones, I repeat: AVOID INDIANA THIS SUMMER!

Peace!
Historian

A National Culture of Lies

2007-04-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

You know, it seems to me our politicians have been getting progressively worse the past decade or so. There's a pervasive belief that if I, as a politician, loudly declare something to be "truth," then it IS the "truth," no matter what reality happens to be at the time. Sort of an "Emperor's New Clothing" theory run amok.

I know, I know, this isn't a new problem. It probably dates back to the caveman days. But it seems to be getting worse...

In modern times, I suppose you could say this trend started with former United States President Richard M. Nixon, who loudly declared "I am not a crook." Turns out he was.

Things quieted down for a decade or two. Then former U.S. President Bill Clinton loudly declared that he "did not have sex with that woman." Turns out he did (though it depends on what your definition of "is" is).

But in the George W. Bush administration, this particular brand of inane braggadocio has gone to new levels. It seems a day can't go by without some top-level official making some fairly absurd claim in public, then digging his heels in and refusing to budge.

When I was a wee lad back on the farm in Iowa I was completely entranced when I saw my first speed bump in town. I was five years old. The school bus took all us farm kids to the local high school in town, where we transferred to buses that went to whatever grade school we attended (there were four in town). In the high school parking lot, right there by the bus line, were two speed bumps.

I couldn't imagine what they were for. Why were there two asphalt lumps right there in the middle of the parking lot where everyone had to drive over them? It made no sense to me whatsoever. The entire morning at kindergarten I wondered and worried over those two big bumps in the road. Maybe some trees fell there when they made the parking lot and they just left them there? Or maybe they were really tunnels under the parking lot... No, that didn't make sense.

Finally it came to me in a flash when we went past them on the way home that afternoon - they were RAMPS! They were bicycle ramps - they had to be! Boy, I could picture myself, pedaling as fast as my little five-year-old legs could take me on my little blue bicycle, then WHOOSH I'd hit that bump in the parking lot andWHEEE I'd go flying!

I dreamt about it all the way home on the bus (a good hour, almost). I bet they put those bumps there because they're gonna have some special class, probably tomorrow even, when we get to bring our bikes to school and they're gonna teach us how to do wheelies like the big kids do! I bet they even have some loop-de-loop tracks like my Hot Wheels set! We'll all learn how to do tricks just like Evel Knievel! I bet that's what the teacher was talking about today when I was staring out the window. Tomorrow we're gonna have all sorts of fun! I wonder if Mom and Dad will let me ride my bike to school (it's only 10 miles or so) or if they'll put it in the back of the station wagon and drop it off at the school...?

I thought about it all through chore-time. I dreamt about it through supper. After we ate, I went outside and practiced on my bike so I would be prepared for the big day tomorrow. This is gonna be fun! I rode around and around the house, pretending there were speed bumps there that would make me fly. Do you think it would help if I wore a Superman cape? Maybe that would give me more lift...

That night when Mom was happily tucking me into bed, she went through the traditional "what did you do at school today" question and answer period. I told her all about the upcoming event. In great detail I outlined exactly what was planned - that the school was putting on a special program for us in the high school parking lot and we all had to take our bikes and we were going to learn how to do jumps and wheelies and there wasn't going to be any dumb old regular kindergarten that day and we maybe we would even do loop-de-loops and maybe there'd be a parade... Then, halfway through describing how Mom was probably going to have to pick me up after school with the station wagon 'cause I'd be WAY too tired by then to ride the ten miles home, I realized that none of this was true. Not one stitch.

I'd made it all up. I made it up simply because it sounded fun. It was so logical to me that it just HAD to be true. But you know, maybe if I keep talking... Maybe if I make it sound SO good... Maybe Mom will believe me, and maybe it will all come true after all... So I kept on going. I kept talking. I said how the teacher was going to give us special awards if we were real good. I told how I was going to go faster than the other kids because I had a blue bike and blue bikes are faster than red bikes. But with every sentence I said, I knew to the bottom of my heart, that Mom knew I was lying. But I just couldn't stop.

When do we tell the Bush administration that sometimes a speed bump is really a speed bump?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, being the highest law enforcement officer in the United States, is ultimately responsible for what goes on in the ranks under him, but is steadfastly, willfully denying any responsibility. Mr. Gonzales attended meetings where it was decided to fire eight U.S. District Attorneys for not being "Bushy" enough for the administration's taste. Yet, Mr. Gonzales stood in front of Congress last week and said over a hundred times that he could not remember anything about the incident or the meeting. Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike are calling for Mr. Gonzales to step down due to incompetence, yet Mr. Gonzales refuses to budge, and Mr. Bush praises his "honesty."

You see, Mr. Bush and Mr. Gonzales, with the backing of advisor Karl Rove, have decided that it would be inconvenient for the unpopular president to have go through the confirmation hearings needed if Mr. Gonzales were to step aside. Mr. Bush is pretty happy with the way his old friend Mr. Gonzales interpreted the Geneva Conventions, and knows that a Democratically controlled congress wouldn't easily approve another of Mr. Bush's "old friends" to the post - they'd demand a qualified individual who doesn't have an ideological axe to grind. So, Mr. Bush, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Rove are spinning yarns. "I don't recall," was Mr. Gonzales' answer to over a hundred questions asked him by Congress. He's hoping that if he says it often enough, loud enough, it will start to become "truth" and he won't have to answer deeper questions.

It's wheelie time in the delusion.

I heard on the radio today that Social Security will run out in 2041. They cited several experts (actual trustees of the Social Security account) who all agreed. Yup, 2041 the money's all gone, and we should probably do something about it. Then they quoted President Bush, who said Social Security is doing fine and there's no problem at all, and he's not going to do anything about it. This is sheer wishful thinking on the administration's part. Mr. Bush wants to believe that there's no problem, so he states loudly that there is no problem and hopes that the lie will eventually be believed. (This worries me. I'll be 73 years old in 2041, enjoying my first year of retirement. I'm a-gonna need a bit of that cash, I'm afraid.)

Wheelie time.

Mr. Bush and his administration are currently asking Congress to give them more money to run the war in Iraq. They intimate if Congress doesn't give them the money, the Democratic members of Congress will be responsible for "losing" the war. They say this loudly and often, and they want you to believe this for good reason. They don't want you to know they're paying at least 40,000 Blackwater mercenary soldiers $30,000 per month to fight in Iraq, while simultaneously cutting back on our soldiers' military benefits. The average private in the Army makes between $1,300 and $1,500 a month. That means the Bush administration valuesBlackwater troops 20 times more than it values American troops. (Why doesn't your son have body armor? It may be because the Bush administration is paying mercenaries so well they can't afford to take care of our own troops.) Who isBlackwater USA? A private company owned by a man who reportedly donated a substantial chunk of change to the Bush campaign.

So, the Bush administration is paying mercenaries ("private contractors" in the administration's parlance) 15 to 20 times what it pays our soldiers, but is loudly blaming the Democrats for not supporting our troops?

It's wheelie time again. The administration simply cannot give Blackwater and Halliburton outlandish contracts and expect us not to notice. But they seem to think they can, if they brazen their way through.

Why do Bush and Company feel they can simply shout random statements at us and have us believe them? Well, because they've done it before, and it worked.

In the fall of 2000 presidential candidate Al Gore won the popular vote, but the Electoral College vote came down to a very few counties in Florida. The Bush campaign simply stood on a hill and hollered that they'd won, and eventually people came to believe them.

President Bush wanted to invade Iraq following the terrorist bombings of 9-11, ostensibly to bring democracy to the Middle East, so he and his administration loudly and often proclaimed that Iraq was supportingal-Queada (there turned out to be no connection), there were weapons of mass destruction aimed at Israel (there weren't), that the Iraqi people would forever praise us for liberating them from the oppressive regime that was in power (they didn't), and that the war would pay for itself in oil revenue (it didn't). The Bush administration hammered these thing into the American psyche for months and months, until they came to be believed, and we went to war.

Following the elections of 2000 and the run-up to the war in Iraq, who can blame the Bush administration for believing they can get away with lying to us?

But when I told my whopper of a lie I was promptly informed that lying is NOT tolerated. When do we hold our politicians up to the same standards I learned at the tender age of five?

(Cross-posted from my family blog.)

Things That Skitter Across My Mind

2007-04-18T18:14:00.000-07:00

It's not the pain that bothers me...

...it's the hurtiness. Pain I can handle. Hurtiness sucks. Pain is when you kick the bathtub and break your toe. Hurtiness is when you trim your toenail too short (thus causing hurtiness). Pain is when you need stitches. Hurtiness happens when you rip the band-aid off your hairy leg.

Pain is 33 people dead in Virginia. Hurtiness is three days of 24-hour news coverage. We all know what happened. Let these folks grieve in peace.

Pain is going to war and seeing widows and fatherless children and veterans missing limbs, screaming in their sleep. Hurtiness is finding out later that the government lied. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq wasn't involved with al-Queda after all, and our leaders knew it.

Pain is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales using his high office as a political battering ram, firing people for not being "true Bushies." Hurtiness is Gonzales lying about it later, and Bush politico Carl Rove ordering possible evidence destroyed. There's more illegality here than meets the eye. The Hatch Act is involved, too.

Pain is a shrinking paycheck compounded by increasing bills. Hurtiness is finding out that the rich are getting richer. Did you know Halliburton gave Vice President Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney $24 million, then moved to Dubai? Why did they move their headquarters out of the United States? How patriotic is that? On the same thought, why is the Bush family buying land in Paraguay, a South American nation that recently voted to ignore the International Criminal Court? Why would he want to move to a nation that won't extradite anyone to the United States?

Pain is Don Imus saying racist things on the radio. Hurtiness is the network firing him only after sponsors started pulling their money out. (If the network cared about morals they would have dealt with Mr. Imus promptly and not waited a week to see what "public reaction" was going to be. Did Mr. Imus deserve to be fired? Not if this was his first offense. It wasn't.)

Pain is what is happening around us. Hurtiness is the lies and misinformation we're being fed. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton lied and was held accountable and was made to squirm for his misdeed. When do we hold the current administration accountable? If President George Walker Bush and his advisor Carl Rove won't put their hand on a Bible and tell us what's going on, they must be hiding something, and I don't like that.

Coal, EPA and Keith Richards

2007-04-04T12:34:00.000-07:00

We're still doing this? Really?

I heard on the radio a day or two ago that the United States Supreme Court told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that by law they must actually do something. I guess the EPA has been dragging its heels since George Walker Bush was declared president in 2000, reluctant to take a stand on limiting greenhouse gases for some reason. This morning I read in Century of the Common Iowan that Alliant Energy is planning to build a coal plant in Marshalltown, Iowa.

The EPA hasn't been regulating us for six years? We're still building coal plants? Whaa...? In this day and age of shrinking ice caps, drowning polar bears, impending drought, increased storm activity and threat of rising sea levels we're STILL building coal plants? Aren't they, like, bad for our health?

(Position statement: I do believe the 99% of scientists who say global warming is real and is caused by human activity are right. But even if they're wrong, it's clear that the climate IS changing nonetheless, and we have the capacity to do something about it. What are the costs of rebuilding New Orleans? I dunno... But multiply that by thirteen zillion -- if sea levels rise even a small amount we'll be rebuilding Miami, New York, Boston, San Francisco... Just about every coastal city, town and village will be in trouble. There's a community in Alaska that's already relocating due to the changing climate eroding the foundations of their town into the sea. Even if humans aren't the cause of the climate change, we do have the capacity to do something about it. Is that playing God, this mucking about with nature? No. If you're going to use that argument to keep on polluting, you're barking up the wrong tree. God gave us dominion over the animals - that means even if we choose to shoot ourselves in the collective foot, we're supposed to protect the animals by saving their habitat, and He gave us the intellect to do so. To follow that argument through to it's conclusion, it's therefore a sin to pollute the environment.)

It's time to do some research on this... I need to know more. And I just read that Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards denied today that he snorted his father's ashes. That just HAS to tie into all this somehow, doesn't it...?

What's up with the EPA?

According to National Public Radio, the Bush administration's argument was that the EPA did not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, and therefore could not require automobiles to reduce emissions. Several states and environmental groups sued the EPA, saying the EPA did indeed have that power. The Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration.

It was kind of like when Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz learned she always had the power to go home. The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency does, in fact, have the authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

The ruling paves the way for individual states to regulate greenhouse emissions from automobiles on their own.

I guess the anonymous person who wrote this article for the Clovis News Journal in New Mexico doesn't like the ruling much, though:

Unfortunately, in Massachusetts et. al. v. Environmental Protection Agency et. al. a Supreme Court divided 5-4 engaged in precisely the kind of judicial activism that people on all sides of the ideological spectrum correctly deplore. In short, the popular passions around global warming carried the day, rather than calm legal precedent and thought.

The author then continues, pointing out that the Clean Air Act of 1970... "says the EPA administrator 'shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) ... standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant ... which in his judgment cause, or contribute to air pollution' coming from new cars." The author's argument being that the EPA administrator is not required by law to set standards for C02 emissions, and the Supreme Court is trying to push the administrator into making a judgment he doesn't want to make.

I disagree. I think the Supreme Court did right. The EPA now has control over it's mission once more (with congressional oversight, I'm sure), and individual states are therefore free to legislate the issue as the voters in those states see fit. It's American democracy at its finest. As was said by New Jersey State Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson, this is "good news for New Jersey and other states trying to be proactive on climate change and greenhouse-gas emission reduction." source

But what about the coal plant?

Oddly enough, the Supreme Court handed down two separate rulings on coal plants earlier this week as well as the EPA ruling. According to National Public Radio, the Supreme Court said that old coal fire power plants must install new pollution controls if they make big repairs and increase the pollution they release. The other ruling "blocked a Bush administration policy to permit coal mining companies to remove the top of mountains in Appalachia and deposit leftover rock in valley streams."

Neither of these rulings directly affects the proposed new coal power plant here in Iowa, but the indirect ramifications are apparent -- it's going to be more expensive to run a coal plant in the future because the American people are calling a stop to the ruination of our environment.

Here's a question for you. Does it make sense to build a new coal plant in a state that has no coal, but rather has an abundance of wind power available? Personally, I like clean air. And why pay another state for coal when we can hire Iowans to build wind turbines?

So what's your point?

Simple. As I alluded to earlier, it seems that the nation is finally starting to realize that we've only been given one earth and we'd better take care of it. The Bush administration has been running roughshod over environmental restrictions for the last six years in the name of big business, but the people are speaking through both the legislative and judicial branches of government, saying that it's time to stop with the pollution and time to start planning a viable future for our children. In the past few weeks, the Supreme Court has given the EPA it's teeth (and dignity) back, and put a dent in using dirty old coal as energy.

The times, they are a-changing. And so, unfortunately, is the climate.

But what about Keith Richards?

I'm still not sure what to think about that. But I do know that Keith Richards is one of only a handful of people who would actually have to deny snorting his father's ashes... There just has to be a tie-in there somewhere, I just can't find it.

Obama in Sioux City - Impressive

2007-04-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

On April 1, Senator Obama spoke at Mt. Zion Baptist church in the morning, and then went to the Sanford Center for an unadvertised “private” lunch with supporters and potential supporters. My wife and son and I were invited a few days before, and got there at Noon. We were a few minutes early and chatted with many friends, including Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. I got to know Miller on his visits to Sioux City, and when we were both delegates to the '96 Democratic convention in Chicago. He was in Sioux City to support Obama's candidacy, and was pushing hard for me to commit to the Obama campaign.

George Boykin announced that we were to have lunch (catered by Hy-Vee - and nicer than Hy-Vee’s usual fare) and that Senator Obama would be there after we were done. When Obama arrived around 1:00, he spoke for a couple of minutes and promised to go around the room and shake hands with each of the 100+ persons and talk to them. He did exactly that, and took time with each person. Lots of photos, lots of books signed. When I was chatting with him, Tom Miller came up and put his arm around my shoulder and told Obama that I wasn't on board just yet, but that I was a "big fish" that he had to land. (What?! ??) Obama was gracious and moved on, talking to my son and my wife.

Before we left, we were given "red tickets" to the Morningside College event - nicer seats close-up. The place filled up quickly and I don't think there were more than a few empty seats. Allee Gymnasium was exactly the right size for this event. City Councilman Jim Rixner started the program on time at 3:00 welcoming everyone on behalf of the City, and introduced the introducers. Senator Obama came out to a standing ovation, and spoke for about 10 minutes and then opened it up to questions. He took un-screened questions for about an hour - covered a lot of territory, and covered it with grace and aplomb. He is clearly in his element doing town hall forums - not flashy or arrogant - just relaxed and fully in charge. We were deeply impressed with just about everything he had to say, and especially impressed with the way he handled himself.

When he finished, he shook hands for a while and we moved on. Many excited and happy people were pushing to get up to the rope line to have a chance to shake his hand or get a close-up photo.

I have been extremely impressed with Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope,” and seeing him in person has strengthened my already high opinion of him. Obama is one of my “top two” candidates for president, but I am not ready to commit to his campaign at this point. Sunday’s visit left me content that if Obama is the eventual Democratic nominee, we will be in very good hands.

Bill O'Reilly Sets Me Straight

2007-04-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

Bill O’Reilly Sets Me Straight

It’s all because I hate George Bush, or so pundit-extraordinaire Bill O’Reilly informed me this morning in his column.

It can’t possibly be anything the Bush Administration has done. It apparently has nothing to do with the fact that an inept Bush Administration rushed into a disastrous war in Iraq on the basis of bogus intelligence, nor the fact that thousands of American servicemen and women have since died in Iraq, not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who’ve lost their lives as “collateral damage.” It can’t have anything to do with the reality that Iraq has been turned into a terrorists’ laboratory and recruitment center, or that the Iraqis overwhelmingly now feel that life was better under Saddam Hussein, or that much of Iraq’s educated elite have already voted with their feet and fled their homeland since 2003. That the real masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks – Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda – STILL haven’t been brought to justice shouldn’t trouble me at all, I guess. Nor should I take umbrage over the international goodwill squandered by Bush’s macho unilateralism, or the rollback of progress towards democracy worldwide that the Bush Administration has presided over.

Nope. O’Reilly knows it’s all because I hate George Bush.

I might have thought my angst had something to do with Bush domestic policy. Secret renditions of prisoners, suspension of habeas corpus, domestic spying, botched Katrina relief, a highly partisan Attorney General with selective memory … Shouldn’t be my concern, I guess.

If not for my alleged hatred of George Bush … Will O’Reilly ever find it in his heart to forgive me?

Beware that word “hatred,” folks! It’s a carefully calculated rhetorical trick to stifle dissent. It’s also been a favorite of the President and his supporters in recent years. Remember Bush’s address to the nation immediately after 9/11, when he “explained” the alleged motivation behind the attacks? Bush said simply: “[The terrorists] hate our freedoms!”

No, they don’t. They dislike our specific policies in the Middle East and elsewhere, particularly our spectacular inability to promote a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (or even any real indication we care). They’re also not terribly keen on American popular culture, but can you really blame them for having qualms about a culture that would lionize the likes of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton?

No, by branding legitimate policy disagreements as arising from simple “hatred,” one can effectively discredit those concerns as something irrational. What is irrational, of course, needs neither be confronted nor discussed. The irrational can’t really be discussed. A critic effectively loses all basis for argument.

Don’t let blowhards like O’Reilly shut down all conversation with his dismissive taunts. Let the world know what you think!

Peace!
Historian

Latham Lets American Troops Die

2007-03-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

This is another of those times that I sure am glad that Tom Latham isn't my congressman anymore. In the good old days before redistricting, I was embarrassed that Latham represented my district, and I hoped we would get another congressman. Little did I know that my wish would be granted: we now have gone from the frying pan (Latham) into the fire with Steve King -- but I digress.

This week, Tom Latham voted to send our American troops into combat, without the assurance that our brave soldiers have the basic equipment and body armor they need to survive and stay relatively safe. Latham voted to send troops to Iraq, even if they don't have the protective vests and shielded vehicles that we KNOW they need. Guess Latham believes it's better to ship our young off without basic protection than to stand up for what everyone knows is right.

At a time when parents of soldiers are forced to hold fund-raising suppers and pancake breakfasts to raise the money to buy protective gear for their children, Latham has decided that it's OK to send our national guard soldiers to rotation after rotation, naked to the bullets and shrapnel that is sure to come their way.

There is no excuse. Decency demands that Tom Latham must be replaced in 2008.

We'll Miss You, Molly

2007-02-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

We’ll Miss You, Molly

Tuesday of this week, I received my renewal form for my long-time subscription to The Progressive magazine. Frankly, there are other news magazines that I prefer to The Progressive (such as The American Prospect). However, as the letter included with my renewal form was so quick to remind me, The Progressive did hold one hugely important advantage over its competitors as being home to a regular Molly Ivins column. As the letter began: “If there’s one thing that is worth the price of your subscription … it’s Molly Ivin’s column.” Truer words were never spoken!

Sad to say, growing up in a staunchly Republican family, I discovered Molly late in life. Perhaps the only advantage lay in the fact that, once I did stumble across one of her newspaper columns, I could act like the proverbial kid in a candy store, rushing to my nearest bookstore to load up on her published books and overdose on decades’ worth of her great wisdom and biting wit. I still keep at least one of her books by my bed at any one time, re-reading a former column or two before bedtime, as a sort of reward for a long day’s hard work.

Molly Ivins will sorely be missed. She was one of the last of a noble breed of political commentators who eschewed mere name calling and simplistic tautologies for the tougher task of composing intellectually-coherent arguments. And even when she got on a rant, as she occasionally did, and turned her biting satire against a particularly inept target (such as “the Shrub”), she did so less in an angry way than in a sort of chiding fashion, as if holding out the possibility of redemption for the targets of her ire should they only “wake up” to the folly of their ways. Never once can I recall Molly rhetorically casting someone into the very pits of hell, as so many of her conservative colleagues are wont to do (just read Cal Thomas’ column on peace demonstrators that appeared the day before Molly’s death was announced).

Above all, Molly Ivins had a deft way of using humor to make one think! Like a true progressive, questioning the status quo was her passion, and resignation to the injustices of the world her bête noir. Molly’s columns typically called on the reader to cast aside complacency and do something to better the world, least of all by making one’s voice heard so as to keep our elected representatives honest and responsive.

The news that Molly Ivins passed away on Wednesday, January 31 following a long battle with breast cancer should sadden us all. We’ve lost one of our greatest voices for social justice.

Peace (with sadness)!

Historian

The Politics of Hate

2007-01-31T22:14:00.000-08:00

You know, I really don't want to hate anyone. It's not my style. I'm not much good at it. But I want to be patriotic; I love America, so they tell me I have to hate people.

If I don't hate Muslims I'm unpatriotic.

If I don't hate the Mexicans I'm anti-American.

If I don't hate homosexuals I must not care about family values.

I would like to stand up at this point and say, loudly, "BULLPUCKY!" I don't have to hate Muslims to support the fight against terrorism. I don't have to hate Mexicans to understand immigration problems. Homosexuals do not threaten me, my family, or my way of life. I don't have to hate them, either. I am NOT going to start hating my neighbors for being different. I'm just not going to do it.

Hate slithers under our door in unexpected guises, and is hard to recognize at times. Before you hit "Forward" on that joke someone e-mailed you, take another look at it. Is there an undercurrent of hate there? I'd be willing to bet there is, especially if the joke is at all political.

Let me posit this... Jesus taught tolerance and forgiveness. Our nation was founded on the belief that ALL of us are equal. By claiming moral superiority over another human being, don't we go against Christianity AND America? Don't we lose a little bit of our soul every time we denigrate another person, race, heritage?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not soft in the head. I know there are terrorists out there who want to kill us. But I also know there are a LOT of people out there who don't, and don't deserve our hatred.

I've heard a lot of self-righteous chest-thumping about how John Wayne wouldn't stand for being told to "press 1 for English," and there's some validity there -- but racism and hatred isn't the answer. (Where did YOUR grandparents come from? Chances are they came to America in a wave of immigrants, and chances are they were hated and feared by those who had arrived here fifty years earlier. Should immigrants learn English? Yes. Should we be compassionate while they learn? Yes. America is growing and changing -- that's a fact that makes a lot of us, myself included, a little uncomfortable. But we need to pull immigrants into our society, not push them away with hate and spite.

I'm not saying we should all gather in a circle and sing "Kum Ba Yah" at each other, but I am saying that I'm not going to hate people simply because it's politically expedient, or to go along with the crowd. It's my way of being American. Please don't hate me for it.

Thank you for your attention.

Bush on a Bender

2007-01-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Bush on a Bender

What do we have to do to get Bush drinking again?

By all accounts, Bush as a drinker was basically a very amiable and harmless mediocrity. He got along with one and all, and let his father’s wealthy friends cater to his needs with free advice and minimally-demanding jobs. Bush coasted through life, and quite serenely moved on when one after another of his business dealings failed to meet expectations. Serious he wasn’t.

Alas, ever since Bush quite suddenly gave up alcohol and re-discovered religion one day when he was forty, Bush has undergone a drastic remake. Like some other born-again Christians, Bush has embraced a strict sense of moral certitude that appears unshakable. Moreover, convinced that God has great plans for him, and likewise convinced that his presidency was sanctioned by God, Bush has overconfidently styled himself as the great “decider.” The problem, however, is that once a decision has been made, Bush finds it extremely difficult to change course later. After all, Bush sees his actions guided by God, and God by nature obviously does not make mistakes.

And so America finds itself mired still in the quagmire of the Iraq War, with no real end in sight. Despite the utter collapse of popular support for his self-indulgent war, Bush comes across like the proverbial “deer in the headlights.” Bush is paralyzed vis-à-vis foreign policy. He cannot change course in any appreciable way, for to do so would be to admit fault and call into question the very tenets of his private beliefs. That is probably why Bush so stubbornly ignored the Iraq Study Group report, despite its impressive provenance and bipartisan nature. For the same reason, Bush seems perversely impervious to the force of international public opinion, and even to the sensibilities of the Iraqis he claims to be helping. Instead, Bush continues to flail about for someone – anyone -- to offer him a “face-saving” plan that essentially promises to achieve his initial goals by only slightly altered means. Bush appears oblivious to the fact that events on the ground in Iraq have changed the situation so drastically over time that no such plan is possible anymore.

If only we could get Bush on a bender again! When Bush drank, he at least let other, wiser, more competent people take care of things for him. A sober Bush, we’ve learned, is a small-minded, overly rigid, self-righteous disaster.

Thank heavens for term limits!

Peace,
Historian

Vilsack to Visit

2007-01-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

Iowa Governor and presidential hopeful Tom Vilsack will speak in Sioux City Wednesday afternoon. I'm hoping to go see him... I've got a few questions to ask. (I don't mean for this post to sound mean-spirited or negative -- I actually like Mr. Vilsack's philosophies quite a bit, and he seems like a nice guy. But I do want some answers.)

I'm wondering how Mr. Vilsack's programs will help my neighborhood if he's elected President in 2008. I'm thinking of bringing him a few photos like this one of my neighbor's garage (which has since been painted). I envision myself asking him why he allowed this sort of poverty and decay to happen in Iowa while he was Governor, and how it'll be different when he's President. I'd like to ask him why there are so many homeless people in town. John Edwards' work to end poverty resonates very loudly in my neighborhood; what can Mr. Vilsack offer? Mr. Vilsack was elected in 1998, back when the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. Eight years later, why is minimum wage still $5.15 an hour?

I've heard people grumbling that they elected Mr. Vilsack in 2002 to be Governor of Iowa for a four-year term and have only gotten three and a half years out of him, since he's been concentrating on his presidential campaign for the past few months. I'm curious how Mr. Vilsack counters that particular bit of criticism. (If he says something akin to "It's common practice," or "It's how the game is played," I'll have to wonder if, once elected President, he'll bow to special interest groups or cater to Big Oil, as "that's how the game is played." I'm hoping that Mr. Vilsack is a man who will Do the Right Thing, regardless of what others around him do.)

I'd also like to ask him when he was in Sioux City last. Did he spend much time here? The meeting Wednesday is scheduled to start at 5:15. I noticed on his web site that he's scheduled to be in Council Bluffs, a good hour down the road, at 7:45. That means that at most he can be in Sioux City for an hour and a half... Is that enough time to find out what our needs are? This section of the state is very conservative; I'm curious why Mr. Vilsack hasn't spent more time in these parts. We need Democratic leadership to show an honest interest in us.

During much of Mr. Vilsack's tenure as Iowa Governor he was working with a hostile state government, led until the midterm elections by Sioux City's own über-conservative Chris Rants. It sure seemed to me that Mr. Rants, who was Iowa's House Majority Leader at the time, set the agenda and made the state government dance to his tune. I'd like to ask Mr. Vilsack why he didn't work harder to overcome the conservative Iowa House, and how he'd handle a similar situation if he were President.

I'd also like to ask him why the state's fleet of automobiles aren't all E85 hybrid vehicles. Mr. Vilsack is a strong proponent of alternative fuels; why isn't Iowa doing more in that area? If elected President, what would Mr. Vilsack do about our current crisis? I imagine he'll say the same things most candidates say. "We need to promote wind power. I'm all for expanding ethanol usage. We need to conserve." I'm interested in HOW he plans to do that. Will he fund it via a gas tax? But I'm even more interested in trying to find out if he's actually serious about it, or if he just gives lip service. Is he familiar with Brazil's success in that area? One indication will be in what kind of vehicle he drives away. If he gets into an SUV to drive the hundred miles to Council Bluffs I'll be disappointed.

I'd like to ask him where he was when the National Guard unit in LeMars returned from Iraq. And where he was the day they left, for that matter. It seems to me that someone who's trying to get elected Commander in Chief of our armed forces, and who has been in charge of his state's National Guard for eight years, might want to be seen rubbing elbows with soldiers from Iowa when they return from war.

I'd love to know if Mr. Vilsack is in the campaign to be President, or is he hoping to get on the ticket as someone else's Vice President. But even if I asked that question, I wouldn't trust the answer, though. Of course he'd say he was in it for all the marbles. Any other answer would be political suicide.

These questions and thoughts are all off the top of my head. Does anyone else have anything to add?

Again, I didn't mean for this post to sound negative towards Mr. Vilsack, but I do have concerns about these issues... And I know that once I get to the meeting my natural shyness will kick in and I'll stand in a corner in the back with a pocket full of photos, keeping my mouth shut, only to kick myself later for not speaking up.

The meeting is at the Elk's Club, 1001 Tri-View Avenue, at 5:15 Wednesday, January 3 if anyone wants to attend. It's open to the public as far as I know.

Bush In Wonderland

2006-12-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Bush in Wonderland

Previously, I have described Bush as incurious. In light of more recent events, I’d have to admit I was way too kind.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group issued its much-anticipated report, based on careful and deliberate consultations with innumerable experts drawn from a variety of disciplines and fields, and yet the Bush Administration can barely stifle its yawns. What gives? Finally, after three full years of war in Iraq, the administration convened an outside analysis of its war policy; but because the Study Group did not return with news agreeable to the administration, the latter dismissed the report out of hand. Worse, in a reprise of America’s post-Iraq invasion temper tantrum against the reluctant French, we’ve even got the conservative Republican spin machine labeling the members of the Iraq Study Group as “surrender monkeys!” That hardly seems fair given the group members’ collective record of public service.

Name-calling and an obstinate refusal to confront what goes against one’s preconceived notions … when will the Bush Administration grow up already?

A fascinating rhetorical trick the conservatives are playing vis-à-vis the Study Group report is to bad-mouth the term “consensus.” Conservatives have long excelled at picking the favorite terminology of their opponents and giving it a negative spin; witness what happened to such tried and true words as “liberal” and “tolerate.” And so now we have to suffer right-wing blabbermouth Rush Limbaugh mockingly comment: “To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies” (Sioux City Journal, “Left vs. Right,” 12/11/06). What, then, would be so preferable to accommodation? The supposed “principle or value” of conflict? Haven’t we already seen enough of that in Iraq!

My favorite emerging rhetorical strategy from conservatives, however, is a new riff on the old “blame the victim” dodge. More and more frequently, conservative apologists for the Bush Administration are claiming that it’s not really the Bush Administration’s policies that are at fault here. No, the apologists note (sadly and grudgingly, I’m sure), it’s really all the fault of the ungrateful Iraqi people who just can’t find it in themselves to deal with their own problems effectively. If only the Iraqis would stand up against the violent insurgents in their midst, the argument goes, then the problems of Iraq would be solved.

Dean Krenz, who, like Bush, could benefit greatly from an introductory course in logic, offered a typical example of the above in his latest column in the Sioux City Journal (12/15/06). Krenz expresses great surprise at reports that Iraqi government officials are “squirreling away billions of dollars of oil money” meant for postwar reconstruction, while the United States “spend[s] billions of dollars to protect them.”

Why does Krenz find it unusual that the Iraqis are following the lead of politically well-connected U.S. mega-firms such as Halliburton, which stand accused of over-billing the U.S. government for billions of dollars in Iraq War-related business contracts?

Moreover, one might wonder who or what Krenz thinks we’re protecting the Iraqi people against. Saddam Hussein? Iran? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Terrorists? The shadowy insurgency? Opinionated know-it-alls like Dean Krenz? There’s a civil war raging in Iraq, and the U.S. hasn’t even picked sides.

Moreover, as a study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (a study similarly consigned to the trash-heap without commentary by the Bush Administration) noted recently, nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died since the U.S. began hostilities over and above normal mortality rates for that country. Daily we read about kidnappings, beheadings, suicide bombings, and the like in Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraq’s “best and brightest” have fled or are planning to flee their chaotic homeland. How, I’d like to know, does that constitute “protection?”

We rushed into a country uninvited to save their people -- from a tyrant, admittedly. However, we also rushed in without a carefully detailed post-invasion game plan. We then proceeded to dismantle the Iraqi army, which could have served as a stabilizing force in society, and thereby plunged much of Iraq into lawless anarchy. We ignored Iraq’s ethnic and religious divisions, and its long history of religious strife. We further ignored Iraq’s complete and utter lack of a democratic tradition, as well as its stunning lack of the sort of civic institutions (an independent judiciary, a free press, etc.) conducive to growing a fledgling democracy. Saddam Hussein may be gone, but the Iraqi people in general are hardly any safer or more secure today.

From the very beginning we erred in treating Iraqis as if they were “just like us,” and yet later found, to our amazement, that Iraq is not the U.S. and Iraqis don’t automatically think or act as Americans would.

Rather than admit to our own mistakes, however, we stayed true to our own historical tradition of blaming others instead … and heaping sarcastic scorn on anyone who would dare suggest otherwise.

Remember this one thing about the anger of the Arab street: they don’t “hate us for our freedoms,” as Bush so fatuously stated right after 9/11; rather, they hate us for the concrete policy mistakes we seem to make time and again out of plain American hubris.

Peace!
Historian

Diminished Clout for NW Iowa??

2006-12-05T18:38:00.000-08:00

Oh, Lord - please save us from the Sioux City Journal!

A recent editorial in the Journal whines about the "diminished clout" that northwest Iowa and Sioux City will have in state government because Bob Vander Plaats (!) wasn't elected Lt. Governor of Iowa. Oh woe is us.

It appears to me that we were SAVED by the election of Chet Culver, and by electing Democratic majorities to the Iowa House and Senate. We have been FREED from the twisted republican-Machiavellian dealings of Christopher Rants and will now have a legislature that actually works. Rants was famous for his "my way or the highway" style of "leadership" that eliminated any voice other than his own. This perversion of leadership brought Iowa some badly thought-out legislation.

PLUS - we have TWO new Democratic members of the U.S. Congress from Iowa. If only we can be rid of Iowa's great embarrassment, Steve King, in 2008.

Positive Change in 2007
Here in Sioux City, Rep. Roger Wendt was named Chairman of the House Education committee, and Rep. Wes Whitead was named Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs committee. And as previously mentioned, Senator Steve Warnstadt is the new Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Lack of clout for NW Iowa? I'd say we've been freed from bully-boy Rants and given real leaders in the Iowa legislature. It's time for Rants to fade into the woodwork and let the Democrats show what real leaders can accomplish for Iowa.

Warnstadt New Commerce Chair

2006-12-05T13:11:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Woodbury County's own state senator Steve Warnstadt on being named the chair of the Iowa Senate Commerce Committee. Warnstadt will also serve as vice-chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee.

Steve Warnstadt is one of the "best and brightest" in the Iowa Senate. His years of experience in the Iowa House, and his years of service in the Iowa Army National Guard (where he holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and is the state's senior intelligence officer) have brought Warnstadt to hold one of the most powerful committee chairs in the Iowa legislature.

Good things happen when Democrats have a majority in the Iowa House and Senate.

What's a Democrat to Do Now?

2006-12-01T06:28:00.000-08:00

What’s a Democrat to Do Now?

You know, it’s kind of a weird feeling being on the winning side for once. Strangely, it’s not quite as satisfying as I’d hoped. That probably has much to due with the nature of the Democratic Party’s victory.

I’m sorry, but I feel we Democrats got lucky on November 7. Our not-so-loyal opposition, the Republicans, squandered their re-election chances on Bush’s ill-fated Iraq War, plus a long string of ethical and moral lapses by sitting congressmen. The Democratic Party leadership, meanwhile, offered too little in the way of a well-reasoned, coherent policy platform. To a great extent, the Democratic Party leadership mostly defined itself as “not the Republicans,” with vague promises to do things differently.

Well, it’s our time of reckoning. The electorate on November 7 spoke with a loud, clear voice: it’s time for a new direction in America, and at least for the time being partisan bickering and gridlock will not be tolerated.

So far, we Democrats have been smart to avoid gloating over our big win. Our leadership, in fact, has proven especially gracious in victory, reaching out to Republicans in Congress with promises of cooperation and compromise. That is likely for the best. As I posited above, the electorate seems a bit tired of partisan rancor and do-nothingness.

The big question yet to be answered, in my opinion, concerns whether the party will be able to act successfully on the other half of the November 7 message: that it’s time to put America on a new track. Can the party devise a set of policies for America that will present voters with a clear choice, or will we continue to limp along as the vaguely “non-Republican alternative?” Can the Democrats lead by example, setting achievable goals, targeting bread-and-butter issues such as the minimum wage, and working towards bi-partisan solutions, or will we squander the electorate’s goodwill by attempting more of the sort of same-old, same-old hyper-partisanship that so alienated voters in the first place?

As a party we have two short years to define ourselves and achieve something positive. Otherwise, we risk losing Congress to the Republicans once again. Imagine what a profound message we could send by putting the nation’s interests above personal interests! One need only read a recent post on this very blog for an idea -- an eminently doable idea concerning energy independence -- on where to begin!

Peace!
Historian

The Real Reson Frist Isn't Running for President

2006-11-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

The real reason Bill Frist is dropping out of the race for president of the United States is that he has no friends and makes poor choices. Look who he was backing in Iowa in 2006: Barbara Blanchard (bubble-hair far-right winger who ran against Steve Warnstadt and spectacularly lost the race for Iowa Senate), and the uncontrollably nasty little man Steve King.

I fear for the people of Tennessee who may need his medical attentions when Frist goes home.

Pardon Me While I Pull My Soapbox Closer...

2006-11-26T10:13:00.000-08:00

Note: I did most of this from memory. If some of my facts look wrong, please feel free to go look 'em up! I'm writing this as accurately as I can, but like I said, I'm doing it from memory...

The Government MUST Lead...

Once upon a time, way back in the 1970s, the bell-bottom-wearing people here in the United States of America elected Jimmy Carter as our president. Mr. Carter soon found himself trying to manage a nation in the midst of an energy crisis. Mr. Carter repeatedly stressed the benefits of conservation and tried his best to wean the nation from its dependence on foreign oil. As a symbolic gesture, he ordered solar panels to be put on the White House. People started driving smaller cars and were starting to be more aware of our environment.

Thankfully, due to Mr. Carter's foresight, the auto companies have had thirty years to develop electric and alternate fuel cars, solar panel technology has grown by leaps and bounds due to market demand, and, like Brazil, we're now totally free of our dependence on foreign oil. Our farmers are selling American-grown crops to Americans to use as fuel. Most new houses built in the past fifteen years are "off the grid," creating their own electricity through rooftop windmills and solar panels. Global greenhouse emissions are down. Everything's peachy indeed!

Ha! Wouldn't THAT have been nice? The truth is, we're no farther now than we were in 1978. In fact, we've dug ourselves deeper. United States republican president Ronald Reagan took the solar panels off the White House roof in the early 1980s, and since then we've been driving bigger and bigger cars and generally ignoring the problem. (I guess it's more important to start unneeded wars and argue about the morality of two women living together than it is to save our children's planet. Silly me.)

Today, nearly 30 years after Mr. Carter started the conservation ball rolling, we're facing unrest in the Middle East (where we get the bulk of our foreign oil supplies), oil prices have skyrocketed, and global warming is looming. It's estimated that some parts of northern Eurasia and Alaska are now over 11 degrees warmer than they were a century ago. Some northern bears are suffering from insomnia and are skipping their winter hibernation altogether. Glaciers are retreating. Ice caps are melting. This is happening, and it's serious. As an example of how things are changing, the other day it was 65 degrees here in Iowa -- a rarity for late November -- but it was snowing in Florida the same day. Soon this is going to affect more than polar bears (did you know that the polar bear population is now below 20,000 bears worldwide?) and will start affecting our climate. Think it doesn't affect you? Think of how we've treated Mexico lately -- building walls between our nations, snubbing them politically, etc. Now think of how they're going to react in ten or fifteen years when we're wanting to buy corn and wheat from THEM. It could happen, and if it does, be sure they're gonna charge us plenty!

What can we do about it? Lots. A little scientific background first...

The most important ingredient in the global warming problem is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a normal part of the carbon cycle, but if too much of it gets into the earth's atmosphere it causes a "greenhouse effect" - it traps the sun's warmth below it. There is a fixed amount of carbon in the world - we can't make more, and we can't destroy it. The carbon is here, and we need to deal with it. The problem is that humans have been taking carbon out of a "sink" (sinks are places in the carbon cycle where carbon is sequestered over a long period of time), namely fossil fuels, and are putting that carbon into the atmosphere.

One of the prime movers of carbon is the plant kingdom. Through photosynthesis plants remove carbon dioxide from the air during the day and release oxygen back into the environment, keeping the carbon in the plant's structure. Thus, biomass (the totality of plants) is considered a carbon sink. The carbon gets released back into the environment when the plant dies and decays or is burned (and at night plants actually "exhale" a little of the CO2 they absorbed during the day, but they do keep most if it). If the plant is buried under muck for millions of years, it turns into coal or oil -- holding the carbon until the coal or oil is released. (This is where the greenhouse effect comes into play - we've been taking carbon sequestered in the fossil fuels and dumping it ALL into the environment in one big swoop.)

So... back to the question. What can we do about global warming? The way I see it, there are two main ways to go about it. The first is to follow Mr. Carter's example and cut back on our use of fossil fuels, thus reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that gets into the environment and putting more carbon dioxide into the carbon sinks, sequestering it. The second option is to keep on using fossil fuels, but utilize some big-time brute-force engineering to lower the earth's temperature. Most of the options I list below will fall into one of those two categories.

Prevention:

There are a lot of little things that can easily be done to help the environment. They will all be painful to someone somewhere, but most things can be done with a minimum of fuss.

LIGHTS: An example is the simple light bulb. I propose that our government ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs altogether, thus forcing us to gradually replace our existing light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs are now being made that fit into existing light sockets, and they are four to six times more energy efficient than regular old incandescent bulbs. (From www.energystar.gov: "If every home in America replaced just one light bulb with a fluorescent bulb we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.")

I feel the government would need to ban the manufacture and sale of incandescent bulbs simply because the fluorescent bulbs cost about three bucks, a couple dollars more than regular old light bulbs, and most people don't wanna spend the extra dollar or two for a light bulb. What most people don't realize, however, is that in addition to saving a few pennies in fuel costs, the fluorescent bulbs last just about forever! I replaced the light bulbs in my house with the screw-in fluorescent bulbs a few years ago, and I haven't had a single bulb burn out since. I used to replace a few bulbs about every six months or so... So the extra cost was well worth it! If we ban the manufacture and sale of the regular incandescent bulb it would be painful for the company that makes 'em, but surely the overall benefits to society outweigh the discomfort of re-tooling to manufacture a different style bulb.

"But how does a light bulb create greenhouse gases?" you may ask. Simple. The bulb doesn't. But the energy used to light the bulb comes most often from a power plant that burns coal to make electricity. If we got our electricity from power plants that utilized solar, wind, tidal, nuclear or geothermal sources I guess it wouldn't matter much what kind of light bulb we use.

INSULATION: This one's simple, too. Newer houses are well-insulated, but often older existing homes aren't. Couldn't the government send a couple guys out to put weatherstripping around the doors and windows of older homes? It's a cheap thing to do, but has a big impact. We could fund this through a slightly increased gas tax if we need to, or perhaps by taxing, say, regular old incandescent light bulbs.

GOVERNMENT EXAMPLE: If I were king for a day, I'd make a law that all government vehicles (with the exemption of military vehicles of course) be hybrid at the least, preferably all-electric or hydrogen powered. The technology is in place. This can be done. Think of how much money this would save the taxpayers over the years in fuel costs alone. Mail trucks are a perfect example - they don't often have to go over 55 miles per hour, they're only used eight hours a day (leaving sixteen hours to recharge), they're used for stop-and-go driving which is perfect for electric vehicles... (I'm not saying that the government needs to immediately sell their fleet and replace it with hybrids all at once, but any new vehicles the government purchases should be hybrid.)

Put the solar panels back on the White House roof. Our government should lead by example. Years ago I read an article in a back issue of Analog (in an open letter to Mr. Carter, no less) wherein the author stated that it would be very symbolic if the government could light up the Washington Monument (and Lincoln Monument, etc.) using solar power. I feel it should be taken many steps further than that. It should be mandated that EVERY government building, monument, edifice, etc. be made energy self-sufficient to the highest degree possible. Put solar panels on the roof of the courthouse. Build a wind turbine next to the National Guard armory. Again, the technology is in place. We just need the government to lead the way and show us how to use it.

REDUCE CORPORATE CONTROL: I read recently that a farmer near here spent $40,000 to put up a wind turbine on the assumption that the power he didn't use would be sold back to the power company. His motivation wasn't to make money, he just wanted to be self-sufficient. But if he could sell the excess power for a couple bucks, why not? Well, in an exercise of corporate muscle, the local utilities company not only refused to buy electricity from him, but actually made him shut his new turbine off altogether! That story may very well be an urban legend, but the point is valid - if we're going to wean ourselves of foreign oil and reduce our greenhouse emissions, we NEED to limit corporate control. We cannot allow ourselves to be pushed around by utilities companies and big oil executives. If they're afraid of losing money, well, that's their problem. They can re-tool to provide different services easily enough if they have to. (Here in the Midwest the vast majority of people used to be directly or indirectly involved in agriculture a hundred years ago. Due to advancing technology, now only a fraction of those people are working in ag-related business. All the rest of the people learned a new trade and moved on with life. This can happen in the fossil-fuel industry too. It can be done. It's been done before. It's uncomfortable for a while, but it can be done.)

TRANSPORTATION: This is the biggie that everyone's been talking about. We burn fossil fuels in our cars, and the exhaust goes straight out our tailpipes and into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. (The other evil of this is that we're dependent on foreign oil to run our cars and trucks. If we solve the pollution problem, it's likely that we'll solve our oil dependency problem at the same time.) What can we do about it? Lots.

We're starting to see viable hybrid gas-electric vehicles on the market now. (These are cars and trucks that have both gas and electric motors. The vehicle uses a combination of the two to its best advantage to raise gas mileage.) The problem, in my mind, is that hybrids are too expensive, and at the moment they're not attractive to the mass market. We can get the "expensive" part by lowering taxes on hybrid cars to make them more affordable. Another possibility would be the government giving interest-free car loans to people who buy hybrid vehicles. A big part of the cost factor, however, could be alleviated by simple supply and demand -- force the government to use hybrid vehicles (as I mentioned above). This would force American auto manufacturers to build more hybrid cars, thus lowering the cost of production, and at the same time would eventually put a bunch of used hybrid cars on the market when the government fleet gets replaced years down the road.

I was in line at the drive-through at the bank the other day. There were six vehicles in line - three big SUV's, an H2 Hummer, an old Cadillac, and my little Geo Prism rustbucket. At times like that I always wonder why people need SUV's in the city. "But I need it to haul my two kids around..." Bullpucky. My dad hauled his three kids around just find in a station wagon. I think we need to put a limit on just how big a non-commercial vehicle can be on our city streets. (Personally, I think anyone who drives a Hummer or one of the big SUV's around is compensating for something, but that's a topic for another post.)

Our American society needs to take a good look at public transportation, too. Europe and Japan, from what I hear, have excellent public transportation systems. We can learn something from them... Sioux City does have a public bus line, but it's inefficient. I often see a full-size diesel bus belching black smoke on its way up the street, carrying only two or three passengers. I think our city would be better off by getting rid of its existing fleet of big buses, replacing them with half-sized hybrid buses, and doubling the number of routes. That would decrease considerably the amount of greenhouse gases emitted while simultaneously giving better service to more people - thus getting more people out of their cars.

People talk of hydrogen being the fuel of the future, and likely it is. The immediate problem is that the most cost-effective way to create hydrogen right now uses gasoline... So that's not gonna help anything in the near future.

Other alternative-fuel vehicles are starting to hit the market -- notably "E85" vehicles. These run on a mixture of gasoline and ethanol, which is created using renewable sources such as soybeans and corn. Brazil started down this path thirty years ago (remember Mr. Carter?) and is now fully self-sufficient; they don't import ANY foreign oil whatsoever, relying instead upon ethanol-fueled vehicles and their own oil supply. Again, we'll need our government to take the lead on this, and thus far they've failed us miserably. The government should further subsidize the purchase of E85 vehicles, and should reduce taxes on ethanol fuel in order to lure more consumers to the technology. This is already done to a small extent, but I guarantee you if there's a dollar a gallon difference between cheap ethanol and expensive gasoline, there would be a much greater demand for E85 vehicles!

WIND POWER: Wouldn't it be nice if we could develop small wind turbines that we could mount on the top of our house or garage to augment the power we get from the electric company? The technology is getting closer to making this a reality, but (as was mentioned earlier) legislation will have to be put into place to keep the utilities companies from lobbying against this technology. There are currently large "wind farms" in California and the Midwest with big huge wind turbines creating electricity - this is a great first step! We need more commercial wind farms, as well as eventually developing "personal" wind turbines. Any energy we get from non-fossil sources is good energy!

TIDAL POWER: Our government needs to look into "underwater windmills" - put a turbine with large, slow-moving blades underwater to take advantage of tidal energy. This has been tested, and it works very well. But, again, we need to legislate for this.

All of these things, and much more (such as using wave energy, and I never did talk about geothermal power), should be done to limit the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Conservation alone won't solve the problem, but it's a good first step.

Brute-Force Engineering

Remember when I said earlier that the other way we could pull ourselves out of this situation could be by brute-force engineering? Instead of lowering our greenhouse emissions, we can simply let global warming happen and cool the earth's atmosphere. (I got most of this information from the July/August 2003 edition of Analog magazine - "From Salt Foam to artificial Oysters," pages 43-51, written by Dr. Richard A. Lovett.)

ORBITING SHADES: Someone smart figured out that if we reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the earth by 1.8% we could alleviate global warming. One possibility is to put big black panels in orbit around the earth to act as giant shades. If we are clever, we could put solar panels on the back of 'em and have them do double-duty by having them beam energy to earth in the form of microwaves in addition to creating the needed 1.8% increase in shadows. Can we do this? Yes. We have the technology. It'd sure as heck be more expensive than changing a few light bulbs, but we can do it.

CLOUDS: Another smart person figured that if we put little floating "mist machines" in the oceans to put more water into the atmosphere we could increase global cloud cover by 15%, thus decreasing the amount of sunlight by the needed 1.8%. It would be a major feat, however, to create the millions of "mist machines" or atomizers needed, get them distributed equally throughout the earth's oceans, keep them from drifting around, and keep ships from hitting them.

CARBON SINKS: If you've been reading this whole thing, you'll remember that part of the carbon cycle includes carbon sinks. It's been proposed that we simply take some of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and put it in a sink, sequestering the carbon there where it can't get back into the atmosphere. One way to do this would be to simply take a whole bunch of plants (biomass) and dump 'em into the deepest, darkest spot in the bottom of the ocean and keep it there. The plants, of course, have been taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and will release that carbon when they decompose. By preventing the decomposition, we "lock" the carbon in place, keeping it from doing any harm. So, some people have proposed that we do massive reforestation, harvest the trees, and dump 'em into the Mariana Trench. The problem with this is that we'd need to put a LOT of biomass out of commission, and along with the carbon, we'd be taking a lot of nutrients absorbed by the plant material out of commission.

People have also considered taking limestone slurry (limestone absorbs CO2) and using that to collect the carbon dioxide, then dumping the slurry down a mine shaft or something. To be honest, I didn't study enough chemistry to understand this concept, but it doesn't sound all that feasible to me... In order to get enough limestone to do the trick we'd have to start strip mining again, and I don't like that much.

SCIENCE FICTION: There's always the old science fiction standby of simply moving our planet a bit farther away from the sun when it gets too warm. Or, of course, moving to another planet altogether and starting over. Needless to say, I'm not gonna hold my breath... These things are simply NOT feasible at this time.

It seems to me that prevention is more feasible than any of the "brute-force" engineering solutions.

The Conclusion...

I've noticed that one common thread through every solution I listed is government. We need to let our elected officials know that we're concerned about global warming, and that we expect them to take the lead in taking steps to alleviate the problem. The United States has, under the Bush administration, refused to sign the Kyoto accords -- thus placing America squarely in the "environmental bad guy" column. This needs to change. America needs to grab the bull by the horns and deal with this problem in a responsible manner. This can happen on a local level (some cities in the Pacific Northwest have "public bicycles" available for people to use in their downtown districts), the state level (maybe now that Iowa republican Chris Rants can't block legislation we can get our state government to require state-owned vehicle fleets to be E85 or hybrid), or the national level (tax breaks for non-fossil power plants, funding for research, signing the Kyoto accords, etc. -- if our government is uncomfortable with Kyoto's emission trading plan, well, can't we suggest something else?)

Many of the solutions simply need governmental determination to make them happen. We're currently giving a TON of money to the Saudis in exchange for oil. This doesn't make sense. Why not give a TON of money to America's farmers in exchange for soybean or corn products that will burn in modified engines just fine? The only thing stopping this from happening is Big Oil's powerful lobbying of congress.

Who Wants an Apology? I Don't Think So!

2006-11-20T07:01:00.000-08:00

Who Wants an Apology? I Don't Think So!

Next time the Republicans demand an apology from the likes of John Kerry (for an implied insult stemming from a botched joke), as Democrats let’s request a few apologies ourselves.

How about an apology from VP Cheney, who infamously demonstrated his own contempt for our military when he dismissed avoidance of service during the Vietnam War by noting he “had other priorities” (like student deferments for college) at the time? Perhaps Bush could apologize for using family connections to secure a safe posting in the Texas Air National Guard (whereas Kerry actually saw combat action in Vietnam). But hey, at least Bush finally made it to ‘Nam in 2006!

The Bush Administration should apologize for placing tens of thousands of American troops at great risk fighting in Iraq. Remember, this conflict was justified on the basis of flimsy evidence, and the administration in its arrogance planned so ineptly that fighting actually worsened after they prematurely declared victory many months ago!

And perhaps an apology to the people of Iraq for unleashing sectarian violence and turning their country into a chaotic battleground in the “war on terror” without their consent? As a recent study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Iraq’s Al Mustansiriya University (published in the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet) has suggested, an estimated 654,965 more Iraqis have died since the US initiated hostilities in 2003 than would normally have been expected under pre-war conditions. An apology, too, to the increasingly beleaguered Afghanis, whose country has once again been left to fall apart by a distracted U.S.

While we’re at it, might the Bush Administration yet see fit to apologize for burdening future generations with massive debt through big tax cuts for the rich combined with unrestrained government spending?

Finally, the Republican leadership could apologize for allowing a Republican-dominated Congress to so sully the institution through corruption and lax oversight and inattentiveness to domestic concerns that the American people, on November 7, got so disgusted that they literally threw the bums out!

There’s hope for democracy at home yet!

Peace!
Historian

Who Wants an Apology? Be Serious!

2006-11-17T11:03:00.002-08:00

Who Wants an Apology? Be Serious!

Well, I originally wrote a slightly briefer version of the following as a Letter to the Editor on the Sunday prior to election day. It did not appear, nor was it acknowedged. Go figure! As I hate to waste a good rant, I offer the following:

The next time the Republicans demand an apology from the likes of John Kerry (for an implied insult stemming from a botched joke), as a Democrat I say we request a few apologies ourselves.

How about an apology from VP Cheney, who infamously demonstrated his own contempt for our military when he dismissed avoidance of service during the Vietnam War by noting he “had other priorities” (like student deferments for college) at the time? Perhaps Bush could apologize for using family connections to secure a safe posting in the Texas Air National Guard (whereas Kerry actually saw combat action in Vietnam; but hey, at least Bush finally made it to 'Nam this week)?

The Bush Administration should apologize for placing tens of thousands of American troops at great risk fighting in Iraq. Remember, this conflict was justified on the basis of flimsy evidence, and the administration in its arrogance planned so ineptly that fighting actually worsened after they prematurely declared victory many months ago!

And perhaps an apology to the Iraqi people for unleashing sectarian violence and turning their country into a battleground in the “war on terror” without their consent? As a recent study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Iraq’s Al Mustansiriya University (published in the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet) has suggested, an estimated 654,965 more Iraqis have died since the US initiated hostilities in 2003 than would normally have been expected under pre-war conditions.

While we’re at it, might the Bush Administration yet see fit to apologize for burdening future generations with massive debt through big tax cuts for the wealthy combined with unrestrained government spending?

Finally, the Republican leadership could apologize for allowing a Republican-dominated Congress to so sully the institution through corruption and lax oversight and inattentiveness to domestic concerns that the American people, on November 7, finally got so disgusted that they literally threw the bums out!

There’s hope for democracy at home yet!

Peace!
Historian

CHANGE

2006-11-16T11:28:00.000-08:00

It seems the big theme of this election was CHANGE!! Everyone wanted change, ok or most people wanted change. That is the reason the reds lost. People are sick and tired of all the crap they had to put up with, whether it be Bush and Iraq or Foley and the pages. Let's remember that the electorate is not, let me repeat is not a society of political science nerds. All people want is to be taken care of. It doesn't matter who the politician is to them, they want a GOOD republican or democrat to step up and do a good job in their respective positions. If a candidate can prove or has proven they can take care of the electorate then that person is going to get the job in some respects. If people have heard that scandal and misleading garbage is circulating throughout the red party animal house ok White House people aren't going to put up with it and want to see the true blue Dems take charge. IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME, I just hope to God they play it safe and don't go tooo drastic. I want the Dems to succeed so bad, but we have to remember the Dems don't have that big of margin so just as fast as we got the senate and house, popularity can be snatched away that quickly. I'm sure we'll be fine, I TRUST THEM TO DO GOOD, but this early we have to play it safe and reiterate the fact to the people that CHANGE IS GOOD!!!

~demgem

Republican Chair Blasts "Christian Fascists" Within Own Party

2006-11-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

In the November 9 Sioux City Journal, Woodbury County Republican chair Steve Salem blasted a broadside through the heart of his own local party.

"You've heard of IslamaFascists -- I think we now have Christian fascists. What is the definition of a fascist? Not only do they want to beat you, but they want to destroy you in the process."

Salem said "if things keep going the way things are going locally and statewide, it is going to be more and more difficult for Republicans to recruit candidates. We have elements of the party who are moral absolutists, who take the approach that if you don't take my position every step of the way, not only will I not support you, but I will destroy you."

Salem described the conflict between the local Christian activists who were pushing the unsuccessful campaign of Barbra Blanchard and her attacks against Democratic State Senator Steve Warnstadt.

Revealing the divide in the Woobury County GOP, Salem said "real simply, we had two headquarters offices, which were doors apart from each other. The public reaction was, 'What the heck is going on?' The message that was sent is that this party is split apart."

He said the schism resulted in a group that supported only Blanchard and King, two candidates who cooperated by sharing advertising mailings with information on each on opposite sides of the same postcard.

Perhaps best of all, Iowa Republican Party chair Ray Hoffman (who lives here in Woodbury County) claimed to be unaware of any problems in his local party.

Republican Party of Iowa chairman Ray Hoffmann, a Sioux Cityan as well, said he was "surprised" by Salem's Woodbury County schism comments, and that "I don't know where the idea is coming from, I don't know where he is getting his information."

Keep spinning away, Ray! After all, it sure worked well for Bush & Rove this year.

Should Have Noticed This Omen

2006-11-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

Christopher Gives Up the Ship:

I noticed it a couple of days ago, and did not recognize it for the omen that it was. Check out the words just under "voterants.org" when the site pops up on the following link. Enjoy!

http://www.voterants.org/

Bush's Failings

2006-11-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

Bush's Failings

A recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Iraq’s Al Mustansiriya University, which was published in the October 14, 2006 edition of the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet, should put the lie once and for all to any pretensions that George Bush is a uniquely wise and moral leader.

Using well-tested and scientific methods for measuring mortality and disease in populations experiencing conflict, the researchers concluded that in Iraq “as many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions.” When confronted with these findings, a seemingly indifferent and callous President Bush sniffed that “I don’t consider it a credible report.” Then again, how would Bush really know, as the U.S. has studiously (and quite tellingly) failed to keep its own tally of Iraqi civilian deaths. Bush & Co. are just too indifferent to be bothered.

A wise and moral leader doesn’t dismiss the suffering of others so easily. A wise and moral leader doesn’t recklessly risk American troops in an unjust war based on dubious “evidence,” nor tolerates the arbitrary arrest, abuse and torture of prisoners (“hazing” in the Orwellian speech of local Congressman Steve King). A wise and moral leader doesn’t stubbornly persist in following a failed wartime strategy (“stay the course!”), when a majority of the Iraqi people now claim they feel Iraq “is headed in the wrong direction,” so much so that they’re increasingly nostalgic for Saddam’s rule (WorldPublicOpinion.org poll).

Peace!
Historian

Christopher Rants, Say it Ain't So!

2006-10-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

Christopher Rants, Say it Ain’t So!

Last time out, I admitted to a new-found respect for Council Member Brent Hoffman for having the integrity to identify the recent appointment of Marty Dougherty to city office for what it is: an exercise of political patronage!

In the past, however, I’d similarly expressed a grudging admiration for another local Republican: Christopher Rants. In particular, I’d praised him for his keen political acumen, despite the fact that we rarely see eye-to-eye on the issues.

Well, once again I find myself disappointed. In my estimation, Rants went way over the line in his comments regarding the flap over negative campaign ads in House District 94. You may recall this incident, as it convinced Republican challenger Kevin Winkus to drop his party affiliation in disgust over the unfair attack ads generated by the state Republican Party, ads that essentially accused his Democratic opponent of coddling pedophiles. As the Sioux City Journal noted, the campaign ad in question noted Representative Kurt Swaim’s paid work “as a court-appointed public defender in a lascivious acts case in which a man was convicted but served only four days in jail” (SCJ 9/18/06).

Now, anybody who still retains even a smidgen of intelligence and decency would realize the patently unfair nature of such a charge. Public defenders, unlike trial lawyers, do not generally have the luxury of picking and choosing their cases. Their clients are assigned, and they are expected to defend their clients to the extent possible. That is how the American system of justice operates; whether we like it or not everyone is guaranteed a fair trial, no matter how heinous the alleged crime.

On this occasion, great intellect and decency were shown by ex-Republican Wiskus. Meanwhile, the worst sort of political expediency was demonstrated by Representative Rants. “There’s nothing untrue in that piece and absolutely nothing misleading,” Rants whined, and so everyone should just shut up and leave things be.

Good lord, man! Talk about a Clintonesque overplaying of a semantic technicality! Has Rants stooped so low as to criticize a public servant for faithfully fulfilling his assigned duties? Or is Rants now prepared to start picking and choosing which American citizens are deserving of the protections supposedly guaranteed in the Constitution? [Couldn’t he instead leave that odious task to our feeble-minded president?]

I love a good fight as much as the next guy. A political campaign can be and often is rough and tumble. But such blatant misrepresentation of an opponent’s record is both inexcusable and unethical. That Rants aided and abetted such slander saddens me. Partisanship should never be allowed to excuse the abandonment of principles.

Peace!
Historian

Kudos to The Daily Nonpareil

2006-10-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks once again to Council Bluffs' Daily Nonpareil for taking a stand on our ridiculous congressman's outrageous comments. If Representative Steve King would protect a fellow congressman who solicits sex from children, who else would he protect? (And yes, that's a rhetorical question because we all know the answer!)

Daily Nonpareil - Thursday's Our View Putting on a good face

Patronage Sioux City-Style!

2006-10-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

Patronage Sioux City-Style!

Am I alone in feeling that Sioux City suddenly got a little bit smaller, and a whole lot more incestuous?

In a brazen show of chutzpah, the City Manager selected, and the three longest-serving city councilmen approved, former councilmember Marty Dougherty for the post of Economic Development Director. Now, a $70,000 a year job is certainly nothing to sneeze at, and one would expect at the very least that the successful applicant possessed qualifications beyond the oft-cited assertions that Mr. Dougherty served well on council, has lived in Sioux City for many years, and is “a really swell guy.” Perhaps he also had a successful career in the private sector once, although any mention of that has been conspicuously absent. But was there really nobody available with actual, practical experience in the field of economic development? C’mon, with such low expectations even I could qualify for a city job!

But seriously, Tammany Hall would be proud. Hiring your former boss within months of his leaving office, the man who helped set your working conditions and approved your pay increases, well, the sheer audacity of such a move nearly takes my breath away. But I guess by now I should be getting used to small-town politics in Sioux City.

The weirdest part of this hire-your-friend scenario for me, however, is the fact that it’s causing me to gain a newfound appreciation for Brent Hoffman. Along with Jim Rixner, Mr. Hoffman alone has stood up for principle and loudly decried the appearance of impropriety so obviously occasioned by Dougherty’s hire. And while Mr. Hoffman’s impending “2 year no hire” rule for former council members will probably be ridiculed by Sioux City’s imperious “Gang of Three” (Ferris, Berenstein and Geary), at least I have to credit Hoffman for trying to restore a measure of transparency and honesty to council proceedings. At least Hoffman and Rixner aren’t joining their colleagues in trying to insult our collective intelligence.

Perhaps it’s really all moot in the end. Why should we fear a recurrence of patronage Sioux City-style? Unless I’m mistaken, today's city council members can all boast successful careers beyond council service to which they can return some day.

Peace!
Historian

KingWatch.org Makes FOX News!

2006-09-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

It's a good day! www.kingwatch.org has made Fox News!

FOXNews.com - Iowa Lawmaker's Brashness Earns Notice - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

America's War in Iraq

2006-09-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

Since I've been AWOL for awhile (periodically, sheer depression takes over!), I offer the following lengthy diatribe...

“America’s Iraq War and the Future of the Middle East”

America’s war in Iraq is nearly four years old, and has already cost the United States some $261 billion. An April 2006 study by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a government agency, estimated the Iraq War will easily cost the U.S. more than the earlier Vietnam War. In fact, a second study by two highly respected scholars at Harvard University estimates a total price tag of $1.27 trillion dollars by war’s end! Put another way, with that much money one could spend a whopping $1 million a day every day for the next 2,737 years!!

And yet, for all the costs in both money and manpower, what has America really gained through its Iraq War?

As of the moment, America’s military forces are virtually trapped in Iraq. More than 2500 American troops have died in Iraq, and thousands more have been wounded, with no end in sight and no clear exit strategy. The U.S. government, moreover, doesn’t even keep track of Iraqi civilian war casualties.

The outpouring of worldwide sympathy for America after the 9/11 attack has virtually dried up, and America’s few remaining allies in the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” have begun to pack up and leave Iraq (Japan’s last few troops returned home to Tokyo on July 25th, for instance). International opinion polls show that overall distrust of America is on the rise worldwide, and especially in the Middle East where people increasingly view the Iraq War as an American war on Arabs and Islam.

Violence of all sorts is on the rise. Worldwide acts of terrorism have actually increased in recent years. Sectarian violence between Iraq’s many religious and ethnic groups grows as well, with the civilian death toll in Iraq easily averaging 50 to 100 deaths a day. Estimates vary, but the overall civilian death toll in Iraq stands at between 35,000 and just over 100,000 since the war began.

After nearly four years of war, the Bush Administration still cannot offer a clear exit strategy for American troops to leave Iraq. At best, the Bush Administration talks vaguely of U.S. troops leaving when the Iraqis can take care of their own security concerns. But, with the ever-rising violence and sectarian strife in Iraq, when might that be?

Worst of all, the Bush administration has sown confusion about the war at home in the U.S. by constantly and repeatedly expressing ever-changing justifications and goals. At various times, the Bush Administration has claimed that American troops were in Iraq for the following reasons: to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his regime, to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, to prevent Saddam from giving WMDs to Al Qaeda, to end Saddam’s alleged nuclear weapons program, to bring democracy to Iraq, to jump-start democratization in the Middle East, to enhance America’s security, to better protect Iraq’s oil reserves, to fight terrorism, to protect Israel, to end sectarian violence in Iraq.

Perhaps my least “favorite” justification, because it seems so morally indefensible, is one that Vice President Dick Cheney has often repeated: “We are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so that we don’t have to fight them in the streets of America.” Yes, I suppose that’s good for America, but it’s probably of very small comfort to the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians who’ve died supposedly to protect America’s streets.

As we all know, Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction in 2002. Iraq also had no nuclear weapons program. Saddam even had no concrete connection with Al Qaeda, and in fact Osama Bin Laden had no love for Saddam’s secular regime. Recently declassified pre-war intelligence reports verify these points.

Americans are no safer now than before; in fact, they are dying in greater numbers due to the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor is Israel any safer, as the recent war with Hezbollah in Lebanon proved. In fact, I would suggest that the overall security situation for both the U.S. and Israel has worsened appreciably. With America bogged down in Iraq, the Bush Administration is too distracted and overextended to deal effectively with the more serious threats of a nuclear-armed Iran or North Korea. Meanwhile, and perhaps more significantly, the Israeli-Palestinian problem is left to fester, despite the fact that it’s America’s lack of serious commitment to bringing justice to the Palestinians that most angers the Arab street!

One last point: so long as the insurgents in Iraq continue to hold out against America’s vastly superior military forces, then U.S. military supremacy is called into question.

So what went wrong? Why has America’s Middle East policy proven such a dismal failure?

It seems to me, as recent political cartoons by Doonesbury suggest, that the Bush Administration has let emotion and ideology, and not history or the facts on the ground, guide its Middle East policy.

George Bush, America’s president, really does let his religious beliefs guide his policy decisions, and nowhere is that fact more evident than in Bush’s foreign policy in Iraq and the Middle East.

For example, in George Bush’s worldview, people and nations are divided into two distinct camps: good and evil. You cannot be a little of both. You cannot sometimes be one, and sometimes the other. America and those who support America are “good,” because Bush believes America’s motives in the Middle East are good. Everyone else is “evil,” because they oppose America’s goals in the Middle East. The “terrorists” are especially evil, in Bush’s mind, and so that is why he uses the term “terrorist” to describe so many different and diverse groups, from Hamas to Hezbollah to Al Qaeda to Iran to Syria, to any and all insurgents in Iraq…well, you probably get the idea.

What Bush is decidedly NOT interested in are the historical conditions that gave rise to such groups as Hamas and Hezbollah. Nor does he care about their goals or motivations. They are simply branded as “evil,” and therefore nothing they say or do is worthy of attention. Being “evil,” they can have no justification for their actions whatsoever.

Fighting “evil,” however, provides America an excuse to ignore international law and go against international treaties when convenient. The U.S. is arguably going against the Geneva Conventions by holding detainees indefinitely and without charge at its base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One could also cite the repeated use of torture by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Conversely, America’s Allies, especially Israel, America’s number one ally in the Middle East, can do no wrong. As the so-called ‘lone democracy’ in the Middle East, Israel has been given near carte blanche by the Bush Administration to do what it feels it needs to do to its neighbors. The one catch is that Israel must frame its actions against the Palestinians or Lebanese in terms acceptable to American ears. Israel must justify its actions in terms of pursuing “security” and combating “terrorism,” for instance. For both Israel and the U.S., the ends (combating so-called “terrorists”) truly justify the means (killing great numbers of innocent civilians and reducing the remainder to miserable circumstances).

And innocent civilians are now dying by the hundreds every day in the Middle East: in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, and in Israel and Gaza, to name but the most obvious examples. Yet even as the death toll worsens, Bush still refuses to let his vision of the Middle East be clouded in any way. Why is that?

Bush, it seems, is pursuing a long-term vision for the Middle East. The 9/11 attacks made the war on terrorism the central mission of the Bush presidency. Bush is convinced the U.S. is fighting terrorism in Iraq, and ultimately preventing Iraq from becoming a haven for terrorists by turning Iraq into a democracy. The Bush Administration sees Israel doing the same, fighting terrorism, in its violent incursions into Gaza and Lebanon. Yes, there will be an unfortunate loss of innocent civilian life, but in the end there will be a better and more peaceful Middle East once the terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah have been shattered. Destroy the “evil” groups, and you destroy “evil,” and then only the good guys remain. At least that seems to be the new Bush doctrine, and Bush is holding steady to that vision, despite the fact that the rest of the world pretty unanimously would prefer an immediate ceasefire and an end to all hostilities in the Middle East.

In the long run, however, the Bush vision is likely to prove detrimental to U.S. and Israeli interests. The first problem is that it looks too much like Imperial America trying to impose its will and desires on the Middle East. Middle Easterners note repeatedly that while the U.S. claims to be acting in their best interests, the U.S. does not consult with them or listen to what THEY want. Second, there is no guarantee that superior military power will completely destroy the Iraqi insurgents or Hamas or Hezbollah. In fact, as the situation in Iraq suggests, punishing military action only produces MORE insurgents and terrorists. And let’s not forget that it was Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian fighters in Lebanon in the early 1980s that helped create the conditions for the rise of Hezbollah in the first place. Third, the peoples of the Middle East are getting absolutely sick and tired of seeing images on TV of the dead civilian casualties of American or Israeli bombs and bullets. The greater the number of dead Arabs, the more the Arab street turns its anger and frustration against America, and it questions whether Americans value Arab life as highly as any other. Finally, the fact that America is very inconsistent in promoting democratization in the Middle East breeds distrust of the sincerity of America’s motives. America, the Arab street notes, is most enthusiastic in pushing democracy on countries like Syria and Iran that it doesn’t like, while doing little to encourage greater democracy in friendly, pro-U.S. oil sheikdoms such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

What, then, of the future of the Middle East? Normally, I like to try and remain somewhat confident that things will get better some day. Right now, however, I am more depressed about the future of the Middle East than ever before.

The main problem seems to be with the U.S. and with American foreign policy in the Middle East. As the world’s lone superpower, America needs to start implementing policy in the Middle East that recognizes the region’s complex history and socio-political circumstances. The U.S. must stop reducing the Middle East to a simple stereotype of “good” versus “evil.” The U.S. must also follow through on its declarations of wanting to promote greater justice and democratization throughout the Middle East. As I said earlier, the U.S. needs to be as aggressive about pushing democratization in the pro-U.S. oil sheikdoms like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as in countries the U.S. doesn’t much like such as Syria and Iran.

Above all, the U.S. needs to win the “hearts and minds” of the Arab street! This can best be done if the U.S. finally and aggressively pursues a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian problem. This settlement must guarantee the Palestinians a measure of justice, which might best take the form of a Palestinian state with enough land and sufficient international aid to insure its viability. If the U.S. would help the Palestinians achieve justice, it would go a long way towards convincing the Arab street that the U.S. cares as much about the lives and livelihoods of Arabs/Moslems more generally.

Some Supplementary Comments:

Bush’s worldview is a key problem: it lacks complexity, nuance, practicality, or historical context; it favors simplicity, vagueness, religious symbolism and terminology, and empty platitudes. Policy-makers are NOT listening to the area experts.

Note on Iraq & Afghanistan and so-called America’s democratization project in the Middle East: In order to have a democracy, a country must first have a state! Democracy is likeliest to take hold where such important elements exist as the rule of law, transparency in government actions, a healthy civil society, high levels of literacy and education, a productive market economy, a strong middle class, limited inequality. Germany and Japan after WWII are NOT good analogies to Iraq as in both of the former cases well-established states already existed; the changes that occurred in Germany & Japan was merely in the style of government. Nations, in the final analysis, can only build themselves; they cannot be easily imposed from the outside.

NBC News on 8/3/06 reported 2800+ civilians killed in Iraq in June and July of 2006 alone!
That same day, the Prime Minister of Lebanon reported over 900 Lebanese dead and over 1 million displaced as a result of Israel’s invasion. The killing, obviously, continues unabated.

Peace!
Historian

Fearmongering

2006-09-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

It Ain't World War III, Folks

People keep tossing the phrase "World War III" around. "This could be the start of World War III," they say. Or, "The war against terror is really World War III."

Bullpucky.

We're not in World War III, at least not yet. Let's look at the numbers...

World War I:
5,565,146 Allied Military Casualties
3,157,833 Allied Civilian Casualties
3,386,200 Central Military Casualties
3,485,000 Central Civilian Casualties
The total is: 15,596,071 dead people. Say that out loud. source

World War II:
I'm not gonna break it down - it's too depressing.
The total is: 62,537,400 dead people. Say it out loud. Pronounce the number. Sixty-two million, five-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, four hundred people died. The Soviet Union alone lost 23,200,000 people. Over twenty-three million, eleven and a half million of which were civilian casualties. In Poland, over 16% of the population was killed. source

The United States lost 126,200 people in World War I, and 418,500 people in World War II. These are big numbers. Staggering. For comparison, my hometown has around 10,000 people.

It's hard to put together numbers for the War on Terror, I'm finding. Here are the numbers that are out there...

2,667 American Military Casualties in Iraq. source
234 Coalition Military Casualties in Iraq. source
333 American Military Casualties in Afghanistan. source
568 "Non-Iraqi Civilians" killed in Iraq (contractors, journalists, etc.) source
90,000 Iraqi Civilian Casualties source
2,762 Civilian Casualties in the 9/11 Attacks source

This totals up to... Give me a minute... 96,564 - 90,000 of which are Iraqi civilians. Just shy of 100,000 people are no longer here because of the war on terror.

I'm sure all the numbers I've listed here are probably wrong - they're most likely estimates - but they're probably pretty close. I'm also sure that I've forgotten some aspect of the war on terror (the bombings in Madrid and London, for instance).

The point of all this is simple. Our current situation is horrible. One wartime death is too many - ask the widow who buried her husband last week just a few miles north of here. The soldiers serving in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East deserve our utmost respect for doing what they're doing. But let's not call it World War III. One-hundred thousand casualties thus far is a sickening number, but that's a small fraction of the sixty-two million lost in World War II.

But on the Other Hand...

I recently received an e-mail from someone saying how wonderful it was that the world has gone 1,000 days without war.

Bullpucky.

We're burying people here. Kids in uniform are dying. They say we're in peacetime because "it takes two governments in conflict" to qualify as war. Hey, if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. We ARE in war. We may not be warring against another government, but we're at war. It's not World War III, but it's war, nonetheless.

But NOW What?

The sad part is that the War on Terror is not by our choosing - it was foisted upon us rather violently on 9/11 - but the vast majority of casualties are now coming from the war in Iraq, a war we started. Even President Bush now admits that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. (Anyone remember Osama bin Laden?)

I support our troops, but I do question our leaders. Do we need to defend ourselves against terrorists? You betcha! Do we need to stretch our military thin in Iraq while Iran and South Korea are rattling their sabers? Hmmm...

Let's look at it. We've got troops in Iraq, but not enough to quell the insurgency. But too many troops have been there for too long - we're running out of resources (personnel, petroleum, money). Do we do as the Republicans want and "stay the course?" That seems kind of silly to me - we've been staying the course too long already, and it doesn't seem to be doing much good (the Taliban are making a comeback in Afghanistan, you know). Or do we do as the Democrats want and bring the troops home? Well, it would destabilize the region tremendously if we pulled all our troops out at once, and there are people running amok in the Middle East who would like to do us harm. A conundrum.

Some people are saying we should set a deadline. Give people warning before we pull our troops out. That sounds good, I guess... Except that it gives the bad guys a heads up that if they lay low until the deadline they'll be free to run amok again. It's nice to think that the Iraqi military would be ready to take over by that time, but geeze, that looks kinda doubtful, doesn't it?

You know, maybe we should look at the past for ideas. The Marshall Plan worked. We managed to occupy Japan after WWII for quite some time with no insurmountable obstacles. We can find a way to do it again. We can do this.

Here's one thing I do know for certain. We absolutely, positively CANNOT cut taxes and maintain a war footing at the same time. We absolutely, positively CANNOT afford to keep giving a hefty percentage of our money to other governments in exchange for oil to keep our SUV's running. We absolutely, positively NEED a change in our leadership. A drastic change. Thankfully the elections are coming up soon!

Rewards Offered in Two Animal Abuse Cases

2006-09-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

Has anyone checked the whereabouts of Iowa congressman Steve King during either of these time frames?

Reward Offered in Muncie, Ind. Animal Abuse Case

Reward Offered in Portage, Ind. Animal Abuse Case

I mean, he could have been extremely depressed (and feeling a bit retaliatory) after H.R. 503 -- which would ban horse slaughter in the United States for human consumption -- passed the House last week despite his well-rehearsed tirade about the need to keep horses, cows, pigs, sheep, fish -- and even our PETS!) in their place and his vote AGAINST the horse slaughter ban.

Just think what one could do with that $5,000.00 ($2,500.00 for each case) reward:

1) Donate it to the Steve King Psychiatric Wellness Fund

OR

2) Donate it to a cause where there's actually HOPE for successful results: Joyce Schulte for Congress.

Iowa's Median Income DOWN

2006-09-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Detroit Free Press, we can see just how far Iowa's median income has dropped in the last 6 years. More evidence of the Bush economy in action.

Donald Rumsfeld and the Nazis

2006-09-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

The latest line from Rumsfeld/Cheney/Rove/Bush is that anyone who disagrees with them is an appeaser - just like the fools who tried to make nice with Hitler to forestall World War II. Frank Rich writes in the New York Times:

Last week the man who gave us “stuff happens” and “you go to war with the Army you have” outdid himself. In an instantly infamous address to the American Legion, he likened critics of the Iraq debacle to those who “ridiculed or ignored” the rise of the Nazis in the 1930’s and tried to appease Hitler. Such Americans, he said, suffer from a “moral or intellectual confusion” and fail to recognize the “new type of fascism” represented by terrorists. Presumably he was not only describing the usual array of “Defeatocrats” but also the first President Bush, who had already been implicitly tarred as an appeaser by Tony Snow last month for failing to knock out Saddam in 1991.

What made Mr. Rumsfeld’s speech noteworthy wasn’t its toxic effort to impugn the patriotism of administration critics by conflating dissent on Iraq with cut-and-run surrender and incipient treason. That’s old news. No, what made Mr. Rumsfeld’s performance special was the preview it offered of the ambitious propaganda campaign planned between now and Election Day. An on-the-ropes White House plans to stop at nothing when rewriting its record of defeat (not to be confused with defeatism) in a war that has now lasted longer than America’s fight against the actual Nazis in World War II.

Here's what Rummy was talking about, the British Prime Minister's 1938 meeting with Hitler, giving Hitler what he wanted:

For your consideration, here's Rumsfeld the appeaser, giving Saddam what he wanted in 1983:

Frank Rich continues:

Mr. Rumsfeld didn’t go to Baghdad in 1983 to tour the museum. Then a private citizen, he had been dispatched as an emissary by the Reagan administration, which sought to align itself with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam was already a notorious thug. Well before Mr. Rumsfeld’s trip, Amnesty International had reported the dictator’s use of torture — “beating, burning, sexual abuse and the infliction of electric shocks” — on hundreds of political prisoners. Dozens more had been summarily executed or had “disappeared.” American intelligence agencies knew that Saddam had used chemical weapons to gas both Iraqi Kurds and Iranians.

According to declassified State Department memos detailing Mr. Rumsfeld’s Baghdad meetings, the American visitor never raised the subject of these crimes with his host. (Mr. Rumsfeld has since claimed otherwise, but that is not supported by the documents, which can be viewed online at George Washington University’s National Security Archive.) Within a year of his visit, the American mission was accomplished: Iraq and the United States resumed diplomatic relations for the first time since Iraq had severed them in 1967 in protest of American backing of Israel in the Six-Day War.

In his speech last week, Mr. Rumsfeld paraphrased Winston Churchill: Appeasing tyrants is “a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.” He can quote Churchill all he wants, but if he wants to self-righteously use that argument to smear others, the record shows that Mr. Rumsfeld cozied up to the crocodile of Baghdad as smarmily as anyone. To borrow the defense secretary’s own formulation, he suffers from moral confusion about Saddam.

Let there be no doubt: Rumsfeld's inept handling of the entire Iraq mess is just one of the profound deficiencies of the Bush administration. America is much weaker because of them. A true patriot sees that and works to stop their damage.

David Yepsen Despises You

2006-08-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

In the August 31 Des Moines Register, political columnist David Yepsen applies his "wisdom" to the upcoming debates between Chet Culver and Nussle. Particularly, he uses a lot of ink to psychoanalyze Western Iowa and why we are simply not needed by the rest of the state of Iowa:

And why does western Iowa feel so slighted by the rest of the state? A sociology student could probably do a pretty good thesis on the answer. Part of it is cultural. Western Iowa is, well, more a part of the nation’s West than it is the country’s East. Western Iowa is Red Iowa. Eastern Iowa is Blue.

Eastern Iowa has Iowa City. Western Iowa has Sioux City.

Part of the isolation might occur because western Iowans spend too much time watching TV from stations in South Dakota and Nebraska. (Think the Iowa Legislature is full of yahoos? Wait till you see South Dakota’s.)

It isn’t just western Iowa. Many Iowans in the far reaches of the state feel alienated from the rest of it. That’s because 34 percent of us - one third - live in the tier of counties along our borders. Many of us have closer ties to other states than we do to Des Moines.

But frankly, western Iowa makes too much out of these supposed slights. They see snubs that just aren’t there.
For example, if western Iowans have a beef about the treatment they get from the politicians in Des Moines, they have only themselves to blame. The most powerful guy in the Iowa House is Speaker Christopher Rants. HeÃ’s from Sioux City. The most powerful guy in the Iowa Senate is Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal. He’s from Council Bluffs.

Matter of fact, if western Iowa keeps up with this boo-hooing, someone’s going to suggest we just lop off the western two tiers of counties. Give ‘em to Nebraska and South Dakota.

For sure it would give Steve King a better chance of getting elected to the U.S. Senate someday.

Oh, Dave! You have crushed our spirit and driven us to dispair -- or to Nebraska. May a kind deity have pity on your wretched soul.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.

2006-08-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

I had an opportunity to see presidential hopeful Senator Biden in person the other day. He was an interesting speaker, though I'm not sure I learned a whole lot. I did learn that the Woodbury County Democratic Headquarters is just a few blocks away from my house, and they don't have air conditioning.

Senator Biden had a wonderful plan on how to handle the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the oval office at that time, and it's five years too late to institute his plan. But his plan sounded pretty nifty and got a good round of applause.

Two things stood out in the Senator's speech... The first is that he very loudly refused to say bad things about United States President G. Walker Bush and the Bush Administration (though he did point out a number of things he'd do differently). "The President isn't as dumb as you'd think," he commented. (I'm paraphrasing - he may have used different words, but that's what he said.) Senator Biden feels that the Bush Administration truly feels they're taking the country the right direction, that they're not messing things up out of malice or stupidity, but rather misguided patriotism.

The second thing that stood out was his opinion on Iowa's economy in the ethanol age. "You're sitting on a gold mine," he said. "You're the only game in town," meaning that once E-85 and bio diesel vehicles hit the market, Iowa will be in a good position to sell more corn and soybeans. I had a LOT of questions for him about this subject, but I hadn't done my homework (and still haven't) so I refrained. I wanted to ask things like, "How will the coming economic boom in Iowa affect farm subsidies?" and "If this stuff is going to be so great for the local economies, why are the citizens of Merrill (a small town just north of here) trying to stop construction of a new ethanol plant in their area? What do they know that we don't know?" and "How does it work that if the huge agribusiness companies like Archer-Daniels-Midland get more money for their crops it'll be good for me? They're not based in Iowa..." But, like I said, I don't really know enough about the issue to ask intelligent questions, and I'm not sure I'd understand the ramifications of the answers...

All in all, though, I enjoyed listening to the Senator speak. He was very personable, intelligent, and didn't seem to be overly arrogant. He seemed knowledgeable on the issues he addressed - but, of course, HE chose the issues himself... He answered all questions well, and (contrary to most politicians) stayed on the topic the questioner chose to ask about. I didn't really hear anything new or startling, but in my opinion the Senator handled himself well.

At the end of the meeting, the Democrats, as always, said that they need everyone's help. However, as always, no one actually said what they needed help with, or how a person can help, or how to volunteer... It's a tad bit frustrating. It would have been nice if someone had said something like, "We need volunteers next Tuesday to stamp envelopes," or whatever.

Steve King Lashes Out at KingWatch.org

2006-07-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

In a story in the July 30 Council Bluffs Nonpareil, congressman Steve King's spokesperson attacked the KingWatch website -- but not for the accuracy of dozens of points the website makes about King and the terrible things he does.

Ann Trimble-Ray, King's campaign spokeswoman could only say that you shouldn't trust the facts presented on KingWatch because it's authors choose to remain anonymous. Many, many writers have chosen to remain anonymous in perilous times, just like the authors of The Federalist Papers did in post-Revolutionary War times. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote eloquently about anonymous political writing and why in unsettled times writers sometimes have to protect their livelihood and their safety when making important points.

So Steve: if you have something to say about http://www.kingwatch.org/ why not speak to the points it brings up? Could it be that King finds it hard to defend the indefensible?

Sucking The Optimism Out Of America

2006-07-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to "The Left Coaster"

Sucking The Optimism Out Of America

by Steve Soto

It only took Bush less than six years to suck the optimism out of this country.

With the congressional midterm elections less than four months away, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that candidates will be facing a public that has grown increasingly pessimistic, as nearly two-thirds don't believe life for their children's generation will be better than it has been for them, and nearly 60 percent are doubtful the Iraq war will come to a successful conclusion.

In addition, only 27 percent think the country is headed in the right direction, while just 34 percent approve of the president's handling of Iraq. Fifty-eight percent say they are less confident the Iraq war will come to a successful conclusion.

And there's more pessimism: Among those who believe that the nation is headed on the wrong track, a whopping 81 percent say it's part of a longer-term decline and that things won't get better for a while. Just 12 percent think the problems are short-term blips.

And 65 percent say they feel less confident that life for their children's generation will be better than it was for them. In December 2001, the last time this question was asked, respondents — by a 49-42 percent margin — said they were confident life would be better for their children.

The national mood is so bad that the GOP pollster who does this poll with Peter Hart advises Republican candidates to start attacking Democrats now instead of waiting until after Labor Day.

Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the NBC/Journal survey with Hart, adds that GOP candidates can count on having plenty of money and a proven get-out-the-vote operation. "But they are going to have to run very aggressive campaigns at an individual level to separate themselves from the national environment."

In fact, McInturff says, Republican incumbents who wait until the fall to begin engaging their Democratic opponents will be "rolling the wrong dice." "The national mood is too set and there is not enough time."

When the GOP has nothing positive to offer or any record to run on, its always attack, smear, and fear with these guys. But this is actually a potent theme for the Democrats to campaign on this year, if they ever could get out from under their covers to speak up. Why would you want to keep a party in power whose only real accomplishment is to piss all over Reagan's "Morning in America" mindset and replace it with an empty mantra of greed and fear?

Hey Steve, Still Think Washington DC is Worse?

2006-07-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

According to the United Nations, over 6,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in May and June. Just in May and June 2006.

This is the place that Iowa congressman Steve King says would be safer for his wife than Washington DC. Yes, DC has it's problems, but Steve King never lets the facts get in the way of a good argument.

King isn't stupid - he's a dangerous demagogue who will say anything that he thinks will make him stand out from the crowd and play well with his base.

For more information about King, go to www.kingwatch.org

Two Birthdays

2006-07-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

The following is from local Democratic activist Bud Lewis:

October 22, 1966, a date that is difficult to forget…two really life changing events took place late that night and they well forever be entwine in my being.

It had been a long afternoon and evening in the hospital in that small north east South Dakota town. We were waiting for the birth of our second child and the days leading up to this day were difficult. The doctor that we had gone to was out of town for a while and his associate had recommended that we induce labor. That had not worked and when our doctor returned he was upset. “Babies vell come when they are damn good and ready!” he said. He should have known…he had delivered two brothers and a sister of mine. He was Jewish and perhaps the best doctor that I ever knew.

As a child in that town during World War II there was some question in that town about a “Jew” being there. My dad had struggled with the prejudice and hatred of that community but had persisted and protected and supported a man that was to become his life long friend. Many children were delivered, many lives were saved and many illness’ were cured buy this healer. All were done, as I recall, with the faith of a human with pride and dignity.

As I sat in the waiting room for the “event” to happen, the time sped by and the night deepened. My son was staying with friends at home while we waited. I felt the presence rather than seeing the man enter and sit near me. It was when he spoke that I looked up and saw a tall handsome man of dignity looking at me with concern on his face. He asked if some one was ill and my answer was that we were excited about the birth of the second child. He nodded knowingly and smiled. He related that he was there because his aged mother was not going to live through the night, so he wised to share the last few moments with her. I did not know what to say, but he said, in the word of a popular song of the day “there will be one child born to carry on!” “I guess that that one child will be yours.”

We talked of his parent’s life as minister and wife in the various communities of South Dakota and there were many common paths that our lives had taken. I too, had grown up in a minister’s house and they had also served churches in South Dakota. I was greatly impressed by the compassion of this man, of his background and his wisdom.

Naturally talked turned to politics. He asked me for my opinion of things and I sensed that he really listened. I proudly proclaimed “I am a conservative!” His response changed my life forever. He looked deeply into my eyes and said, without hesitation “Yes, I can see that you conserve the rights of all people, the freedoms that have been won, you conserve the dignity of all people and their right to live the way that they see fit. I see that you would fight for the rights of the poor and oppressed, and that you conserve the right of all to be successful.”

“But you are NOT a regressive conservative, resisting change, stepping on the dignity of others because they are different than you. You believe that all people are equal, not that some are more equal than others, and above all else you believe in conserving the rights and dignity of every person, regardless of circumstance.”

The nurse called then, “Senator McGovern, you should come. Your mother is asking for you. It may be the time!” I shook his hand and felt a special strength in him that I had never known in another person. The other nurse called me at that time, almost 12:00, “Bud, come and see your daughter, she is beautiful!” She was and is.

I followed the path that man took over the next twenty years and regardless of the smears and assignations on his character I never saw him lose that dignity he showed me that late night. I have never forgotten those lessons, never lost my respect for the dignity of all people, and never lost the respect and awe I felt for that man. I raged with anger as a young man when the things were said to belittle him. Yet if I saw him on TV or in person, I saw the dignity that he taught me that night so long ago.

My beautiful daughter will turn 40 this October 22, 2006. Many things have happened and many things have changed. She has given me two beautiful grandchildren, smiles that melt my heart and a hug once in a while that give me happiness.

Not so with the lessons taught by the Senator. They have shared pain and sorrow, disappointment and discouragement, frustration and sadness. But you cannot have one with out the other, you cannot understand how important that hug is unless you know the pain that others feel with they are denied the essence of America, the right to their dignity. In many ways it is worse today than back then, but there will always be the hope of better because of him.

Bud Lewis

Steve King: Baghdad is SO Much Safer than Washington DC

2006-07-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

Everyone's favorite moonbat Steve King is still pushing the line that Washington DC is more dangerous for his wife than Baghdad. Here's the latest numbers for June 2006 in Baghdad, vs. the homicides in Washington for the year.

Baghdad's central morgue received 1,595 bodies last month, the most since the bombing of a Shia shrine in February prompted a wave of sectarian killings.

Doctor Abdul Razzaq al-Obaidi, the morgue assistant manager, said on Wednesday that the tally for June compared with the 1,375 bodies the morgue received in May and 1,155 in April.

"June is the highest month in terms of receiving cases of violence since Samarra," he said.

Most of the bodies had gunshot wounds to the head, he said, a common feature of sectarian, execution-style killings.

Once again, I await Steve King's telling D.C. morgue stats. Although as an assist, it appears that as of the end of May 2006, D.C. had 62 homicides so far for the YEAR.

Thanks to Rising Hegemon

Steve King's Blind Followers

2006-06-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I am continually astonished at the blind allegiance that Steve King's followers give the man. For example, in today's mini-editorial on the front page of the Sioux City Journal, the writer attempts to deflect criticism of the really stupid things King said last week -- by making another lame joke about Helen Thomas. Boy, that's the way to show those godless liberals: make another joke about the appearance of an elderly journalist!

Earlier in the week another letter writer to the Journal made basically the same point in another defense of King. Obviously neither has seen the new Steve King website: KingWatch.org. If you want to defend King, try using facts and logic instead of smearing one of America's great journalists.

KingWatch gives you plenty of hard facts about King (as well as a few sharp opinions!) For example, did you know that King has accepted campaign money from a PAC that was formed to protect cockfighing? Or, did you know that King has said that he'd love to build the anti-Mexican wall himself, and "I'd make a ton of money doing it."

All of these facts are online for the world to see at www.kingwatch.org. Perhaps if King's blind followers read it they will realize that their "leader" is taking them over a cliff.

Immigration Debate

2006-06-20T04:08:00.000-07:00

It saddens me to see some people displaying so much hatred and rage about undocumented workers. There’s no question that there are serious issues that need to be addressed, but many people are also not acknowledging the positive impact of so many people from Mexico and Central America working in our country. Calling all of these people hard-core criminals is an appalling appeal to all of our worst fears.

Millions of undocumented workers pay income taxes. They are issued special identification numbers from the IRS. They also pay into the Social Security system. One article I read said that contributions from these workers are helping keep the Social Security system afloat in the next few decades as more and more people retire. They also pay local taxes, including sales taxes on almost everything they purchase. The vast majority work hard and contribute to our community and our economy.

Many of these workers are performing jobs that companies can’t find anyone else to do, which is why their wages increased 30 percent from 1994 to 2000. A lack of supply of workers increased demand and increased their wages. As baby boomers retire, the supply of workers in this country will only shrink, and we’ll need more workers.

It is estimated that Mexican workers in the Unites States send $20 billion back to their home country each year. This has a positive impact because it makes Mexico more stable and less likely to descend into chaos and become a haven for terrorists. In effect, the money these undocumented workers earn and send home replaces funding the government has to spend on foreign aid.

In our area, these undocumented workers are responsible for most of the population growth in the past decade. Many areas of Iowa are dying because more people are moving out than moving in. We have avoided that fate so far. With population growth comes more federal and state aid because some of it is based on how many people live here. Conversely, if all of these workers left, we would lose countless dollars in tax income and governmental aid.

What to do about this wave of undocumented workers coming to our country is not an easy question. There are issues that need to be addressed. Corporations recruiting them for cheap labor need to be held accountable. Border security is too lax. Raising the minimum wage to make work pay better for all unskilled laborers would help. Finding ways to encourage Mexico to raise labor standards and create more good jobs should be part of any solution. (A quick aside: Mexico is now creating more engineers each year than we are.)

But whatever we do, we need to remember the good side of immigration, not just the bad. And while I don’t believe everyone who wants to address these issues of immigration is racist, you don’t have to scratch too hard to unveil racist undertones, ugly stereotypes and unfathomable hatred in this discussion. Would so many people be this outraged if these immigrants were from Europe, instead of Mexico? Would we even notice?

In one bellwether Iowa county, Democrats upbeat

2006-06-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

Doug Simkin has a little extra bounce in his step as he travels around this congressional district on the eastern edge of this politically pivotal Midwestern state.

That's because like a lot of people here, including some Republicans, the 40-year-old Democrat senses a shift in the political landscape toward the Democrats heading into upcoming November congressional elections and, beyond that, the 2008 presidential contest.

Full Article

Bob Vander Plaats: Our Secret Weapon

2006-06-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

During a news conference Wednesday morning, Bob Vander Plaats exceeded our expectations.

Immediately after accusing Chet Culver of not being ready for primetime, Bob knocked over a WHO-TV microphone.

Immediately after Jim Nussle said: "I think it's important to talk about issues and not just talk about the other fella," Bob criticized Culver.

Both of these tidbits are from Radio Iowa. Good stuff. A nice start for the Nussle-Vander Plaats juggernaut.

Pay lags

2006-06-07T16:37:00.001-07:00

This article is from the Career Journal, part of the Wall Street Journal. It's not exactly known as a liberal publication....

Having a college degree doesn't guarantee a raise these days.

For the typical American worker with a bachelor's degree, surging U.S. productivity isn't showing up in his or her paycheck.The average hourly wage of workers with bachelor's degrees, but no graduate degrees, was $24.67 in 2005.

That was only 1.3% higher than in 2000, after adjusting for inflation, according to an analysis of monthly government data by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. That's not a partisan calculation: President George W. Bush's latest Economic Report of the President displays a different set of government numbers showing that average annual earnings of college-degreed workers fell 5% between 2000 and 2004, adjusted for inflation.

Perhaps this is one reason Mr. Bush gets so little credit from a U.S. economy that is growing fast enough to push down unemployment -- and one reason Republicans worry about voters turning against them in November's U.S. congressional elections. Workers who play by the rules and still don't enjoy raises would seem more likely to turn on the party in power.

That's not to say that college is a waste. Wages of workers with bachelor's degrees averaged 75% more than those of high-school grads in 2005, a reward for schooling that has grown in recent decades.And there are a few caveats: No single statistical snapshot can tell the complete story. Choosing an inflation gauge other than the Consumer Price Index to measure whether wages are beating prices can alter the picture a bit. And many employers are spending more on health benefits, leaving less money for wages. Still, there remains something of a mystery. It's easy to understand how technology, immigration and competition from abroad are eroding wages of low-skilled U.S. workers, the 40% who haven't gone beyond high school, and perhaps even the 30% who have taken some college courses but not earned a B.A.

But why aren't the 20% of workers who have finished four years of college (but not gone on to graduate school) doing better in a growing economy?One explanation boils down to "just wait." A similar lag in wages marked the "jobless recovery" of the early 1990s, but then wages picked up.

Average hourly wages of four-year grads rose just 2.5% faster than inflation from 1991 to 1996, then zoomed 15% from 1996 to 2001. Maybe that surge is just around the corner if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will keep his foot off the interest-rate brake as Alan Greenspan did in the late 1990s. Early indications from surveys by the National Association of Colleges and Employers are that starting salaries for the Class of '06 are up from last year.A second is that changing technology is making skills ever more valuable and that only some college grads have the skills in hot demand.

Surveys of starting salaries show that a Class of '05 graduate with a bachelor's in chemical engineering was offered $56,549 on average, nearly 70% more than a history major. Back in 1990, starting salaries for chemical engineers averaged 56% more than history majors.

But these factors don't explain the whole puzzle. At least two other factors are at play. Anxiety about losing one's job to India and China, once limited to factory workers, has spread to U.S. college grads, and employers are exploiting that. "Workers just don't have any bargaining power," says Frank Levy, an MIT economist. "They're very afraid of outsourcing and offshoring. If an employer offers minimal raises and readjusts benefits to your detriment, the main alternative is to get another job. But right now people are afraid to do that." It will take more than a few months of low unemployment to turn that around.

And American attitudes seem to have changed in the past quarter-century. In workplaces of all sorts, there's less pressure to share the goodies; giving the bulk of the raises to already well-paid workers, including the chief executive, is more socially acceptable. Among college grads, the bottom three-quarters haven't enjoyed raises large enough to beat inflation in the past five years, but the best-paid have, says Harvard economist Lawrence Katz.

College grads who earn $30,000 a year aren't keeping up with inflation. Those who make more than 90% of college grads, the ones earning roughly $90,000 a year, have seen an average raise of 6% after inflation.

The U.S. politics of inequality are hard to decipher. When their own fortunes are improving, Americans don't tend to be class-conscious, jealous voters. The question for this fall is how voters, particularly those who believed that earning a college diploma would put them on the up escalator, will react if they don't see economic good news showing up in paychecks.

Nussle Can't Be Trusted

2006-06-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

Published: Friday, June 2, 2006 12:09 AM CDT

Candidate Nussle runs afoul of parade officials
By JOHN SKIPPER, Of The Globe Gazette

MASON CITY — Gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle’s staff apparently knowingly violated North Iowa Band Festival rules by having a campaign sign on his car in the annual parade Saturday, a Chamber of Commerce official said Thursday.

The Band Festival allows elected officials to walk or ride in the parade but prohibits campaigning.Nussle had a car in the parade. When Band Festival officials checked the car before the parade started, it was in compliance.

When the parade started, someone had switched it for a sign that said “Jim Nussle/Governor,” according to parade volunteers.Robin Anderson, executive director of the Chamber, said Thursday she is disappointed because she personally informed Nussle’s campaign staff about the “no campaigning” rule prior to the parade.

Maria Comella, communications director for the Nussle campaign, said Thursday, “If there was confusion on our part, we certainly apologize.”

Anderson said, “Originally, ‘Iowans for Nussle’ sent in a parade entry form with a check for $80. I sent them back their check with a letter explaining that Congressman Jim Nussle was welcome to participate in the parade as an elected official but that the festival committee has a firm policy against political campaigning of all kinds.”

She explained in the letter that Nussle would be placed in the parade with other elected officials and that his car sign could only identify him as “U.S. Congressman Jim Nussle” and that there could be no “Nussle for Governor” signs anywhere.“

At the checkpoint, our volunteers verified the Nussle entry was in compliance with our rules,” said Anderson. “When the car turned the corner to begin the parade, a volunteer noticed they had placed a ‘Nussle for Governor’ sign on the car.”

Anderson said she is upset that the Nussle campaign made it appear that that the sign was approved by the Chamber.“This is exactly the reason the festival committee has voted again and again not to allow political statements in our parade. These situations always, always detract from the spirit of the festival,” she said.

Was the 2004 election stolen?

2006-06-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

It's shocking to read this. We're supposed to believe the election in Ohio was fair. Riiight. One tidbit from the article -- voters in several rural Ohio counties supposedly voted for George Bush and gay marriage. Sure. No one messed with the Kerry vote in those areas....

Click here for the Rolling Stone Article

True or False?

2006-05-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

From Paul Cummins on the Huffington Post

True or false:

1. Iraq's reconstruction -- as promised before the U.S. invasion -- has been paid for with Iraq's oil reserves...

2. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent mushroom-cloud threat to the U.S.A...

3. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was greeted by cheering Iraqis...

4. Lucrative no-competitive, no-bid contracts are a responsible way to do business...

5. Torture is an effective way to gain essential information and win international admiration...

6. Tax cuts for the affluent are an effective way to fund wartime expenses...

7. Expenses and debts can be increased indefinitely without worrying about revenue...

8. It is the responsibility of tomorrow's children to pay for the debts of today's adults...

9. The president of the U.S. should not feel constrained by the Constitution if he feels that it need not apply to certain situations that he feels warrant circumventing the Constitution...

10. To combat terrorism, the president of the U.S. has the sole and unquestionable power to seize an American citizen on U.S. soil, send him off to prison and hold him there without evidence or charge indefinitely...

11. Spending $186 million dollars a day in Iraq is a good investment for the future of the U.S.

12. Global warming is just a theory which we don't need to take seriously...

13. Increased pollution and climate changing emissions are not sufficient reasons to restrict the profits of coal-producing plants...

14. Nuclear proliferation is not a danger the U.S. needs to be very concerned about...

15. Corporate CEOs have gotten so good they warrant their current $450:1 ratio to workers pay -- up from 43.1 thirty years ago.

16. The U.S. decision to attack Iraq was justified because God told George W. Bush to do so.

How did you score? How does America?

On the Road in Sioux City

2006-05-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

Tom Curry from MSNBC covered Evan Bayh's visit to Sioux City, Osceola and Council Bluffs.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - With the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination well under way here, Evan Bayh showed off the assets that seem to be making him a top-rank competitor for Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses 18 months from now.

During a campaign swing across the state this past weekend, the Indiana senator's mellow demeanor, folksy Midwestern charm and credentials as a governor and U.S. senator gave Bayh threshold credibility with most of the rank-and-file Democrats he met.

Click Here for the entire article.

Why the Republicans Need Illegal Immigrants

2006-05-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

Why the Republicans Need Illegal Immigrants

OK. In case you were wondering what in the heck all the sudden furor was regarding the so-called “threat” of illegal immigrants, I’ve got an answer for you. It’s all a Republican conspiracy of sorts! As you know, in recent years Bush and the Republicans were successfully able to excuse almost anything – torture, spying, secret prisons, renditions, infringements on the personal liberties of Americans, tax cuts for the rich, etc. – with recourse to cries of “9/11!” As Garry Trudeau has so nicely lampooned in his popular comic strip “Doonsbury,” the Bush Administration time and again has cited 9/11 and the putative terrorist threat when justifying any and all controversial actions. For the Bush crowd, no other explanation was felt necessary. However, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have bogged down with little progress to show, and the immediate fears of repeat terrorist attacks have started to wane, the threat to the Republicans’ well-constructed smoke-and-mirrors show has grown alarmingly. People are just now beginning to ask questions, while the president’s popularity has sunk to abysmal levels.

Enter the “new” threat of illegal immigrants overwhelming our country! Blasé about terrorism and terrorists? Well, have the Republicans got another equally amorphous threat for you! Illegal immigrants make the perfect bogeymen of the new post-9/11 age; they comprise a rather mysterious and misunderstood group upon which the Republicans can refocus the diffuse frustrations and anger of the majority of Americans, while diverting our attentions from their own mistakes and blatant looting of the public purse. Security, after all, is an issue on which Republicans traditionally score better than Democrats.

Fear, we now know, sells. The more fear the better, as we’re less likely to question those in authority who claim to be protecting our interests. Fear is also very good for
American business, or at least those in America’s fast-growing military-industrial complex. Just think how much profit is to be made in building a security fence along our lengthy southern border!

Let’s face it folks, the Bush Administration and its stooges are still messing with our heads! They’re identifying so-called threats that have long been in our midst – terrorism, illegal immigrants – and suddenly re-packaging them as dire emergencies so as to better promote Republican interests. They promise action, but in unproven and overly simplistic ways (Do you know any knowledgeable security expert outside of the political arena who thinks the building of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border offers any real hope of stemming the tide of illegals? Or remember back when the Bush Administration suggested Iraq’s problems would all be solved by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, or Afghanistan’s through the defeat of the Taliban?).

If we still value our freedom, now is the time to start scrutinizing our elected officials. We must start demanding more from them than empty platitudes and simplistic worldviews. We must also cease giving in to our fears, and insist on accountability on the part of our elected political class. So long as we allow fear to distract us, the Bush Administration will continue to tap our phones, check what books we read, hold people without charge, and otherwise chip away at our remaining civil rights and freedoms.

Consenting to “Big Brother” is not a sign of a healthy democracy!

Peace!
Historian

John Edwards in Sioux City May 25

2006-05-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

John Edwards will be in Sioux City on May 25 for a fundraiser for the Woodbury County Democrats.

This event just keeps getting better: Before Edwards speaks, you can hear brief remarks from our major candidates for Governor of Iowa, and U.S. Congress.

Tickets are $20 in advance, or $30 at the door. Tickets are also available for a private reception before the main event. You can buy your E-tickets at our website online before May 25 with a major credit card. When you buy online, your name will go on the list at the door of "prepaid" ticket holders. Click Here for details.

A New Day

2006-05-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

Don't worry! Everything is dandy in Iraq... It's a New Day (again). Reminds me of all the pundits who have said since mid-2003 that we should "just give Iraq another 6 months" and Iraq will be a peaceful, democratic paradise.

A NEW DAY

The formation of a unity government in Iraq is a new day for the millions of Iraqis who want to live in freedom.

--President Bush, May 21, 2006

Today, the call of liberty is being heard in Baghdad and Basra, and other Iraqi cities, and its sound is echoing across the broader Middle East.... It means that the days of tyranny and terror are ending, and a new day of hope and freedom is dawning.

--President Bush, December 12, 2005

A long night of terror and tyranny in that region is ending, and a new day of freedom and hope and self-government is on the way.

--President Bush, December 1, 2004

The Iraqi people, themselves, are seeing a new day thanks to the brave men and women who came to liberate them.

--President Bush, August 14, 2003

As trade expands and knowledge spreads to the Middle East, as women gain a place of equality and respect, as the rule of law takes hold, all peoples of that region will see a new day of justice and a new day of prosperity.

--President Bush, May 9, 2003

Step by step Iraqi citizens are reclaiming their own country. They are identifying former official guilty of crimes and volunteering for citizen patrols to provide security. Many are reviving religious rituals long-forbidden by the old regime, and speaking their mind in public -- a sure sign that a new day has come.

--President Bush, April 25, 2003

Many Iraqis are now speaking their mind in public. That's a good sign. That means a new day has come in Iraq.

--President Bush, April 24, 2003

The fall of that statue in Baghdad marked the end of a nightmare for the Iraqi people, and it marked the start of a new day of freedom.
--President Bush, April 16, 2003

The world is also witnessing the liberation and humanitarian aid our coalition is bringing to that country as a new day begins in Iraq.

--President Bush, April 8, 2003

Nice piece of work by Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog, where you can find links to all the quotes.