Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Libya - The Lessons We Won't Learn

Over the last 10 years, we should have learned that we cannot change the middle east. A decade later, we find ourselves still in Afghanistan, no closer to finding Bin Laden, no closer to ending the Taliban forever, than we were when we started. Iraq is still a mess, though better in many respects than before we invaded. But we shouldn't have invaded either.

Now, we find ourselves in Libya, bombing with the UN, the same way Iraq started. We are being told that we won't be leading this much longer, but that remains to be seen. The question is again, should we be there? What purpose are we going for? This time there is no lie about WMD's, no lies about involvement in 9/11. But under the guise of civilian lives. This is a civil war.

While I am completely with the rebels in Libya, we should support them in other ways besides military action. Why risk our lives, our blood, our treasure, for a war we have no part in starting and no place in?

Dennis Kucinich has called for Obama's impeachment for war crimes. Well this is clearly over kill as Obama has the power to do what he did, he didn't declare war. But Obama was certainly wrong in this. There is definitely a sentiment that we don't belong, and the anti-war left that helped him get in office certainly doesn't believe in another military action.

Obama is just another in a long line of war mongering presidents who seem to believe our nose belong in everyone else's business.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Land of the Rising Sun sees darkness

I am a big fan of Japan. I love their animation. I love the culture. I love the heritage and history. I find Japanese women to be exotic and stunning in beauty. So it has pained me greatly to watch events unfolding over the last week. This blog is normally reserve for political vitriol and religious expose', but not today.

After a devastating 8.9 earthquake, Japan was devastated by an epic tsunami that hit not only Japan but was large enough to take a 6 foot wave all the way to Hawaii and beyond. If that was devastating enough, it was followed by the break down of cooling in reactors 1 and 2. Then explosions in reactor 3. Then more failures at reactor 4 and another explosion. We now know that it is feared that reactors 5 and 6 will have an explosion or meltdown as well.

Yesterday, radiation levels got so high workers had to abandon one of the reactors. The radiation is high enough that it is feared the reactor is melting down. This melt down will release significantly higher amounts of radiation into the air compared to the radioactive steam being let off now due to the water boiling straight out into the air.

We can only hope that Japan is able to hold on to a thread of hope as panic begins to set in as the realization that this might be beyond their control takes hold. My thoughts, worries, and concerns rest with Japan and its people right now.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Bigotry and Union Busting

Bigotry

Republican Representative Peter King has made bigotry a past time. While American Muslims have been helping to uncover and stop 7 out of the last 10 plots, he and the far right republicans are flying off into paranoia. While most of the plots are coming from Americans these days, not foreign Muslims, he is trying to scapegoat and entire group of people.

Its time we call this POS what he and his kind are. Bigots, of the first degree. They hate what they don't understand. They fear what they deem as too different from themselves. It is ignorance that drives bigotry. We as a people need to rise up and qhite frankly give the finger to representatives likes Peter King. Further, we need to ostracize bigots in our society. Stop remaining quiet. Call bigots out when they decide to open their mouth and spew their ignorance. Perhaps if we ridicule, call out, denigrade, and demonize these bigots for what they are, publicly, and loudly, we will be able to silence the evil of bigotry once again.

Union Busting

Well the GOP did it. They effectively busted the public sector unions in Wisconsin. They said FUCK YOU to the majority who is going to attempt to recall them. And why did they do it? Was there no other way? No, there were plenty of ways to cut the budget and even work with the unions who were willing to negotiate. They did it for one reason and one reason only, to hurt Obama and the democrats. Should the 8 republicans get recalled and the governor, and democrats replace all of them, the union will no longer have the power it once had. It will no longer be the driving force for the democrats because it has been massively neutered.

Welcome to Wisconsin, where the working man gets openly, and defiantly beaten into the dirt, all for brazen political gain.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Tryanny at the Gate

Well, its been a while since I posted. But a fellow poster at www.yourdiscussionforum.com has inspired me to start blogging again. His name is ace, and you can find him in my list of people I follow. His blog is new, so check it out, give him some feed back, and click his adsense link so the man can make a bit o change!

Now, onto why I'm posting today.

Wisconsin has been the countries focus for the last couple weeks because of the Governors incessant desire to squash unions in the public sector. But he recently showed another dark part of his heart that really should show even the most ignorant republican what he is really like. He threatened to lay off 1,500 public sector employees if the democrats don't return and allow a vote which will strip them of their right to collective bargaining and the power of the peoples union will be dead.

Governor Walker has exposed the reality of what the republicans want. The destruction of your rights as a worker. In states all across the union, a similar fight is starting. They got the power in the House and are now attempting to destroy the unions with great zeal. President Obama obliged the big corporations in the auto deal and helped bust the unions for the auto companies, something no democratic president has ever done. But with the loss of the unions, we lose the middle class as well. Before unions there were no middle class workers. There were the working class and the rich. The working class was always at the bottom of the economic ladder.

So what this comes down too is nothing more than the attempted destruction of the middle class so that the rich can walk all over us again. It is class warfare at its most devious and underhanded. They get their tax breaks, they destroy unions, they get tax loop holes, and now their multimillion dollar corporations have no restrictions in political races. They can and will systematically buy up the peoples government and use it as their tool. The process has already begun. The dream of an equal social democracy is dying, being replaced by the reality of a Corporate Fascist regime in which we elect leaders supported by the likes of the uber rich like the Koch Brothers.

If we don't wake up america, we will be back in the 1920's, when people down on their luck stood in soup kitchen lines, and lived in boxes. When people worked long hard hours for little money, just barely able to get by. Charles Dickens reality is our future if we don't wake up to the tyranny at the gate.